Europe Goes in to Financial Crisis

Mark Noonan9 Comments

Not a good sign – from the AP:

European bank stocks tanked Thursday as fears mounted about their exposure to the region’s debt crisis and weakening economy.

The stock prices of Britain’s Barclays and France’s Societe Generale led the way down, falling 11.5 percent and 12 percent, respectively. Germany’s Commerzbank fell 10 percent.

Analysts said the plunge was partly a reaction to evidence that European banks are being forced to pay more for the short-term loans they need to finance day-to-day operations…

That means that credit is freezing up – no one wants to loan money because no one knows what comes next and better hold on to what you’ve got.  But, meanwhile, without easy access to short term loans, the financial system goes in to acute crisis.  And this financial crisis is starting to spread to US banks.  As Mish puts it:

The global financial system is bankrupt. There is no way loans that have been made can be paid back. That statement applies to the Eurozone, the US, the UK, China, Australia, Canada, and for that matter nearly everywhere one looks.

Perhaps something will be done to loosen things up – some more money printing by the European Central Bank, or the Federal Reserve, or maybe China will dip in to its foreign reserves and bail out the European banks.  But even if they nip it here, it just delays the inevitable.  Mish is right – the global financial system is bankrupt.  Fundamentally, a crash is the only way out – it will kill of that which must economically die and let us know which banks, if any, are solvent.  Once that is done, we can start to rebuild knowing where we stand.

His Majesty, Barry I, Proclaims Amnesty

Mark Noonan11 Comments

From the New York Times:

The Homeland Security Department said Thursday it will halt deportation proceedings on a case-by-case basis against illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria such as attending school, having family in the military or are primarily responsible for other family members’ care.

The move, announced in letters to Congress, won immediate praise from Hispanic activists and Democrats who had chided President Obama for months for the pace of deportations and had argued he had authority to exempt broad swaths of illegal immigrants from deportation…

Much easier than mucking about with all that tedious law, Constitution and Congress stuff…can’t get amnesty legally?  Then just say it is so…presto, there it is.

It doesn’t matter if someone has a job or is going to school – if they are here illegally, then deportation is the only way to go unless there is a clearly enacted law which says otherwise.  As long-time readers know, I am in favor of comprehensive immigration reform which would include an amnesty provision…but that is not what our laws provide for right now, so the only thing our chief law enforcement officer can do is deport.

But that doesn’t lock down a certain segment of the latino population for 2012.  And what is more important – enforcing the law, or getting re-elected?  I tell you, there was no chance Obama would do otherwise…because like all liberals, he hasn’t the foggiest notion of what law is, nor what constitutes tyranny.

2012 can’t get here fast enough…

Out: BusHitler – In: PerryNazi

Mark Noonan39 Comments

This didn’t take very long – from Hot Air:

…That link went to this piece by Texas liberal James “Bush’s Brain” Moore, who’s suddenly the hottest ticket in cable news for his willingness to tell panicky leftists that Perry will succeed in bringing about the wingnut apocalypse that Bush only dared dream of.  Why is utterly predictable hackery running in a slot that’s normally reserved for hard news? You already know why.

“When Bush came to Austin, he held private meetings with each of the 181 state senators and representatives from both parties. He asked them what their legislative agenda included, shared what was on his radar and discussed how they might work together. An astonishing notion, cooperation, but in politics common sense often passes for genius.

Perry, though, was having none of that stinking compromise and kumbaya business. A coalition of hard-right conservatives had taken control of the Legislature, and they weren’t interested in a governor who cut deals. But they didn’t have to push Perry to the right-hand edge of their flat earth; he bravely led them…”

It was predicted when Perry announced on Saturday that the MSM/DNC would start generating stories about how nice and reasonable President Bush was…nothing like this insane, bitter-clinger Rick Perry.  Only took four days for the prediction to come true.  You just watch – even on little, old Blogs for Victory I bet our parrot-like liberals will start saying that they respected Bush, ’cause he wasn’t a complete fruitcake like Perry and the rest we’ve got in 2012.  All that Chimpy McSmirk BusHitler from 2001-09 is down the Memory Hole.

It is a bit of a twist – usually, liberals only like dead conservatives.  After Goldwater died, they suddenly loved him.  After Reagan died, they suddenly loved him.  I wasn’t figuring on seeing the “gee, Bush was a wise and reasonable conservative” for at least 30 or 40 years. Time compresses…we’re living very fast.  By the time Bachmann is sworn in, I expect liberal puff pieces telling us how they wished we knuckle-dragging Bible-thumpers had elected someone reasonable, like Sarah Palin…

Bachmann Promises $2 a Gallon Gas

Mark Noonan57 Comments

Putting herself in stark contrast to Obama’s “prices will necessarily skyrocket” proposal – from The Hill:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) vowed Tuesday that, in her presidency, gasoline prices would fall back to less than $2 per gallon.

Bachmann, speaking to a town-hall meeting in South Carolina, said she would pursue energy policies that send pump prices down to levels not seen since early 2009, at the thick of the U.S. recession.

“Under President Bachmann you will see gasoline come down below $2 per gallon again,” she said in Greenville. “That will happen.”…

The thing is, the trick can be done – and done rather easily.  All it takes is “drill, baby, drill” and a bit of extra effort in building refineries.  Just the announcement that we were abandoning Obama’s “permatorium” on offshore drilling would probably drop a barrel of oil by 10 or 20%.  Add to that the knowledge that the EPA would not try to regulate out of existence such promising new technology as “fracking”, and we could see a barrel of oil going for half or less what it is today by the end of a Bachmann first term…and that would go a long way towards lowing the price of gasoline to the $2 a gallon range.

The United States cannot become oil-independent.  We just use too much of it – but given what we know is there and with the existing and developing technology we have, we can certainly reduce our demand for foreign oil by quite a lot.  My guess is by about half (so we’d be importing about a third of our oil needs).  That kind of a slackening of demand on the global market will, in turn, drop oil prices everywhere.  It works out, in the end, to a gigantic tax cut on wealth creation…not only in the direct savings on energy costs, but on the follow-on effects of people having more money to spend on things besides energy.

If we couple such a flat-out development of our oil resources with further development of “clean coal”, nuclear and other alternative energy sources, we can get past the “oil chasm” in our economic history…reaching for a time when our overall demand for oil starts to drop year by year as new energy supplies come on line.  The additional benefit – and it is massive – is that the fewer dollars we’re sending overseas for oil means less wealth for our enemies to use against us.

This is a gigantic and easily understood advantage for the United States and whole world.  Naturally, Obama and his liberals are opposed to it – perversely, because they feel the United States needs to be punished for being so wealthy, powerful and free.  Carrying such a positive, American message is just what we need to do in 2012…as Obama keeps talking about wind and solar, we’ll be talking about what people know, and what can work today.  The rest of the GOP field can do no better than to follow Bachmann’s lead…and if it irks them to have to do so, then the suggestion is to come up with something equally bold to restore American prosperity and greatness.

 

President Obama: Insensitive Man

Mark Noonan30 Comments

Not satisfied with how going to Martha’s Vineyard will look to average Americans struggling to make ends meet, the President went for broke and also got himself a couple of massively expensive campaign buses…made in Canada!

I know, I know – it probably was the Secret Service which insisted upon a particular type of bus, and it may well be that the Canadian company is best to make them.  But a little bit of thought needs to go on here…while Americans are having trouble finding work, it just isn’t sensible for an America President to buy foreign goods.  Period.  End of story.  No, you don’t get to say “but” and come up with an explanation.  It doesn’t matter.  It simply should not have been done.  Either buy an American bus, or don’t buy one at all.

This is a stupid, self-inflicted wound.  And it doesn’t stand alone – the President’s frequent golf dates and the First Lady’s massively lavish vacations have fed in to this “let ’em eat cake” perception.  Over the past three years it has grown upon the American mind that the President doesn’t know and doesn’t care how average Americans live…this trip to the refuge of the super-rich after a short ride around “fly-over America” in a Canadian bus has set the perception in stone:  the President is callously insensitive.

Lots of things can happen between now and the election next year…but it is quite possible that even now the people have just tuned him out.  He was a mistake, not to be repeated.  And the sooner we’re rid of him, the better.

Poll: 26% Approve of Obama on Economy

Mark Noonan37 Comments

From Gallup:

A new low of 26% of Americans approve of President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy, down 11 percentage points since Gallup last measured it in mid-May and well below his previous low of 35% in November 2010.

Fully 71% disapprove.  And I would really like to meet someone who approves of Obama’s economic policies.  I guess that number is proof that some people will never shift away once they decide to back a man.

Just wait until unemployment starts to tick upwards and economic activity goes completely flat, or even negative.

Obamunism! Food Inflation Starts to Hurt

Mark Noonan51 Comments

From Zero Hedge:

Somehow even as all that deflation in home prices continues, like perfectly joined communicating vessels, countervailing inflation continues seeping into pretty much every other aspect of society. But don’t take our word for it, (or even gold’s, which is just under all time record notional highs): according to Rasmussen, “Americans nationwide continue to lose faith in the Federal Reserve Board to keep inflation under control, with the number who say they are paying more for groceries now at an all-time high.” Specifically, “93% of adults report paying more for groceries now than they did a year ago, the highest finding to date…

I still tend to agree with those who hold we are in a long-term, deflationary trend…but this doesn’t mean we can’t have short-term, inflationary spikes…like we’re having right now.  While oil prices have tumbled from their highs of the Spring, the fact remains that gasoline prices are still significantly higher than they were a year ago…and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I get sticker shock when I go grocery shopping.

All of this inflation is the result of Bernanke printing up money.  Remember, he did this so that he would have the money necessary to bail out the banksters – and all the money printing works out to picking your pocket.  The dollars you have, you see?, are now worth less…but those with things of actual value to sell simply cannot take less than fair value for their goods.  If they did, then they’d go out of business.  This means that everyone with things of real value to sell (gasoline or food, for instance) must charge more.  This isn’t price-gouging as liberal class-warfare talking points would have it…it is a logical, reasonable response to events.  In this case, the deliberate devaluing of our currency by our central bank in order that very rich people who run very large financial institutions shall not feel pain.

This is the final price of liberalism – our money being stolen by an agency of government so those most closely connected to government can be bailed out.  Bernanke bailed out the banks, Obama/Pelosi/Reid bailed out the unions…they were looking out for their own, and the rest of us got screwed in the process.  The cure is to end the relationship – and the primary means of doing that is to kill off Big Government, so that no corporation or union can, by manipulating government, gain the power to loot the people of their hard-earned wealth.

Poll: Obama Down 6 Points to “Generic” Republican

Mark Noonan9 Comments

From Rasmussen:

…The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds the generic Republican earning 48% of the vote, while the president picks up support from 42%.  Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and another seven percent (7%) are undecided…

Remember, fellow GOPers, I’m mostly linking to these kinds of posts to annoy and depress our liberals…don’t you get cocky:  we’ve got one very hard fight coming up in 2012.

Jerusalem is in Israel

Mark Noonan30 Comments

In spite of what some might want us to believe – from Jewish Journal:

Jerusalem: To be or not to be part of Israel. That’s the question that White House administrations have tiptoed around for decades.

The State Department neither recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s official capital nor views the eastern part of the city—captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed—as part of Israel. But Congress passed a law in 2002 that effectively recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Presidents have been caught in the middle, cautiously balancing their pro-Israel rhetoric against longstanding U.S. policy.

That’s exactly where the Obama administration found itself last week after news reports revealed that the White House quietly had removed all references to Jerusalem as being part of Israel from a collection of photos on its website…

It is amazingly cowardly of us to not just recognize historic and current reality – Jerusalem is the capitol of Israel.  To all intents and purposes, it always has been and always will be.  Its been 44 years since the Israelis liberated the eastern section of Jerusalem from Moslem misrule and it is high time we just bit the bullet and did the right thing.

But we can’t do that!  It would offend Islam!  Yeah, and our failure to recognize Jerusalem as part of Israel has won us just so many friend in the Moslem world, right?  Get real – there is nothing we can do to make them hate us any more than they already do, while a course of forthright action will at least instruct them that we are people of courage and not to be trifled with.  Recognize the Israeli liberation of Jerusalem..and throw in the Golan for good measure.  Time to end this silliness and start acting like we’ve got a backbone.