Dealing With China’s Aircraft Carrier

Mark Noonan47 Comments

How Obama is dealing with it:

As China’s first aircraft carrier takes to the open seas today for its inaugural sea trials, the U.S. government directed a pointed question at the Chinese military: Why would you need a warship like that?

“We would welcome any kind of explanation that China would like to give for needing this kind of equipment,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters today. “We have had concerns for some time and we’ve been quite open with them with regard to the lack of transparency from China regarding its power projection and its lack of access and denial of capabilities.”…

Why would they want a carrier?  Uh, here’s a clue, guys – to challenge us.  You know, the only nation with a genuine navy and a substantial carrier force.

Now, there are two actual ways we can deal with this – grimly announce that we will always maintain at least three aircraft carriers for each Chinese carrier, or we can “Copenhagen” it.

Asserting that we’ll always build sufficient to be overwhelmingly powerful is essentially what Britain did in the early 20th century when challenged in battleships by Imperial Germany – after a certain point, asserting to Germany that Britain would lay two keels to one in order to maintain an overwhelmingly superior force no matter what the Germans built.  This is a fine response, but it does tend to a long-term increasing of tensions…in other words, it is an arms race.

The other way – “Copenhagen” – involves sinking the Chinese carrier.  The reason for describing it as “Copenhagen” is because in 1801 the British attacked and destroyed the Danish fleet in Copenhagen because of a concern that it might cooperate with the French against Britain.  This does have its attendant risk of full scale war, but it also is a complete solution to the problem…even if there is a war, one side then lacks a fleet to prosecute the war, so the conflict becomes rather one-sided.

I’d prefer we just sent a submarine over to Chinese waters and sank the blasted Chinese carrier.  They have no business having such weapons – the seas belong to us, won at great cost in blood and treasure and as we keep them freely open for navigation, no one has any need to challenge the United States in this area.  Unless, of course, they are envisioning a life-and-death struggle with us.  China is either just idiotically flexing muscle, or is seeking to be an existential challenge to the United States.  In neither case is it worth our while to just sit tight and let China build up a fleet.

But, you say, wouldn’t China go to war with us if we did that?  I doubt it.  Remember, the rulers of China are corrupt despots sitting atop an increasingly restive Chinese population.  Their economy is teetering on the edge of disaster and only massive exports to the United States keeps them afloat.  They don’t, at this time, have the capability of projecting power against the United States, nor our main Pacific bases.  War with us at this juncture would be entirely too costly – and so they won’t do it.  They’d complain and threaten and bluster…but at the end of the day they’d just have to take it.  And learn a valuable lesson – don’t bother putting money in to a fleet because when you put it to sea, we’re just going to sink it.

At any event, we do need a President who won’t have his staff merely ask stupid questions – anything is better than idiocy in policy.

2012 Still Makes Me Feel Fine

Mark Noonan15 Comments

From Rasmussen:

…Overall, 43% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president’s performance. That’s the lowest total approval for the president in five months. Fifty-five percent (55%) at least somewhat disapprove…

Any incumbent below 50% approval in in trouble…incumbents below 45% are in lots of trouble.  Obama can still win – in fact, we still have to give him the advantage given the amount of money he’ll raise and the immense powers of the Presidency.  But he’s on thin ice…we can beat him; and beat him very badly.

11th Circuit: ObamaCare Unconstitutional

Mark Noonan8 Comments

From Fox News:

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that the health care reform law’s requirement that nearly all Americans buy insurance is unconstitutional, a striking blow to the legislation that increases the odds that the Supreme Court will have to review the law.

The suit was brought by 26 states — nearly all led by Republican governors and attorneys general. The Department of Justice is expected to appeal…

Ultimately, the Supreme Court will decide – and I just can’t see how the Court will find the government having the power to force us to engage in commerce.  No matter how you slice it, no one has the right to force me to buy health insurance if I don’t want it…and no argument that I might wind up a public charge changes that because you don’t know if I will.  The best someone can do is write a law which says that if I don’t buy health insurance I will not have any deficiency made up at taxpayer expense.

Real health reform will have to wait, at all events, until we get a Republican President.  ObamaCare was never designed for any other purpose than destroying health insurance and thus forcing everyone to become a serf of the federal government in health care issues.  We do need deep reforms to how health care is delivered to the American people – but to get to the proper mix of free market, private charity and government support is not possible while Democrats are around trying to make it a vehicle to increase their personal power and wealth.

Europe Re-Enters Recession…US to Follow

Mark Noonan5 Comments

Mish has several articles detailing an economy on the rocks in Europe – a bit of an eye-opener is the news from Germany, Europe’s economy best until now:

German industrial production dropped by 1.1% in June. Early expectations stood on a rise of 0.1%. The rise of 1.2% that was reported for May was revised to only 0.9%. Altogether, the locomotive of the euro-zone cannot drive the train in high speed anymore…

Stocks in the US rose on a combination of BS and wishful thinking, coupled with a slight rise in consumer spending which will probably be found to be explainable as a temporary bump upwards in an otherwise downward slurge (all indicators are that things are starting to contract in the US…so a rise in consumer spending is an outlier).    Essentially, governments of the world printed and borrowed their way in to “growth” starting in the second half of 2009 and this has now sputtered to a halt in the second half of 2011.  I didn’t think it’d get this far – but, then again, I never figured Bernanke would print up quite as much as he did.

Now we’re kinda stuck…we can print and borrow the same amount of money, but it’d probably only buy us 6 to 9 months of “growth” (like heroin, fake and borrowed money to get your economy “high” always takes a larger dose the longer you do it).  Mish figures that the official data will eventually show the United States entered recession in June or July – over at Zero Hedge I recall one prognosticator figuring it would be back-dated to April or May, once all the data is in.  The bottom line here is that we either are in a recession, or so close to one as makes no matter.  The Obama boom times are over – we got as much as we could out of them.

The bad news is that because we did the Obama boom times we’ll now have a worse time of it going forward.  We’re massively more in debt, our dollar has dropped a gigantic amount of value, large swaths of American wealth-building capacity have been dismantled and the rest of the world – including China – is heading in to recession with us…there will be fewer buyers for our bonds, fewer places to export our inflation to, less ability to sell our exports.  Had we just let everything fall apart in 2008 (and so, yes, President Bush bears part of the blame), it’d all be finished by now and we’d be on the road to genuine recovery…because we bought Keynsian cure, and then elected Obama to quadruple down on it, we’re heading back in to recession, and perhaps a worse one than previous.  And looming in the background is the debt crisis – the thing which will financially kill us by 2015 or so if we don’t get our act together.  And getting it together is vastly more difficult now, thanks to Obama’s debt.

So, just how is that hopey-changey thing working out for you?

Poll: Obama Approval at 45%…in New York!

Mark Noonan6 Comments

The hits just keep on coming – from the New York Post:

President Obama might need to start taking a few more campaign trips to New York — and not just to raise cash.

A stunning new survey gives the president a negative approval rating in the Empire State for the first time, with just 45 percent approval and 49 percent disapproval among voters, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll.

That’s a sharp turnaround from June, when Obama’s New York popularity was a healthy 57-38.

In the 2008 presidential election, Obama carried New York with 63 percent of the vote…

Yes, I know Obama will win New York in 2008.  Even if it turns out to be a Reagan-Carter blow out of Obama next year, Obama is almost certain to win New York…but the fact that he’s blow 50% in a State as deep blue as New York shows that he’s going to have to work to defend his electoral base…that he can’t take any State for granted.  He’s going to have to spend time and money in places that he should have locked up before he even starts…and for the GOP comes the opportunity to spend just a little time and money in the blue States and force Obama to spend even more time and money there.

Obama can only win if he holds on to places like North Carolina, Florida and Colorado in 2012…if he’s battling it out for places like New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan, then he’s likely to be defeated next year.  The only question here is whether or not Obama increasing political weakness will impel Democrats to abandon him…not in the sense of nominating someone else (though his weakness invites a primary challenger), but in the sense of writing him off and working, instead, to prevent the GOP from winning 60 Senate seats?

Naturally, things can change – it is a long way to election day.  The trouble is, all indicators are that things will just get worse for America between now and then – and this is thanks to Obama.  Caught in a vise of his own making…

Obamunism! Consumer Confidence Worst Since 1980

Mark Noonan2 Comments

From Fund My Mutual Fund:

During this entire ‘recovery’, the consumer confidence figures have been in the ‘recessionary’ camp.  That probably reflects the fact, that for many Americans there has really been no recovery at all.  This morning’s U-M consumer confidence really took a turn for the worse plunging to 54.9 vs expectations of 63.0.  I assume some of this had to do with the political dysfunction in D.C. over the debt ceiling issue, but its truly an awful figure.  To put the figure in perspective, the lowest reading during the Great Recession was 55.3 in November 08…

…Bad times in the economy were expected by 75 percent of all consumers in early August, just below the all-time peak of 82 percent in 1980.

My view is that we never emerged from recession – we certainly have not in Las Vegas (did you know the famed Las Vegas Hilton is actually in default?  That is like an ATM being in default…).  Just this morning I was running some errands and, once again, was just stunned at the rapidly spreading “for lease” signs on business property.  We’re pretty much doomed out here…until the pinheads in Carson City start trying to encourage new businesses, we’ll have no growth, because gaming won’t come back until the country comes back and that is a long way off.

I’m sure that most of you out there have similar views of your own, local areas…to be sure, there are bright spots in the country, but the trouble is that move of them are the result of (borrowed) government spending, and thus aren’t sustainable.  Recession is here – it never left; really all we’re doing now is playing a little game where we see how long it is before the government can no longer fudge the numbers to show “growth”.

Who is Bankrupting America?

Mark Noonan21 Comments

Tino over at Super-Economy has the chart:

 

There is simply no arguing with this – Obama has massively increased spending since he took office.  It isn’t just a slight difference, it is night and day.  He’s gone on a binge of spending – and that means that if we want to get our deficit under control, the only rational thing to do is at least return it to the average.

The reason Obama and his Democrats won’t do this is because when they finally gained full control of the government in January of 2009 – for the first time since 1994 – they were determined to pump up all the spending they couldn’t get when all or part of the government was under GOP control.  They pined away for this…for years they dreamed of the day when the Treasury and the printing press would be entirely theirs and they could spend to their heart’s content.  They aren’t about to give it up.  First off because a reduction in spending would reduce their immediate power (they ability to buy votes with taxpayer money), secondly because they have vastly enriched their cronies and don’t dare take it away.

This isn’t about tossing granny over the cliff – cutting spending is about taking Democrat special interest groups and crony-capitalists off the government teat.  That is what the whole debate really comes down to – will we reduce the spending, save our economy and rebuild our nation?  Or will we continue to lavish money on Democrats and their hangers-on until America is destroyed?

The fight is on – 2012 will decide it; but as we fight it, don’t for a minute let Democrats tell you they are helping granny…they are just helping themselves and greedily and senselessly want to keep doing it no matter what happens.

US May Get Huffy About Syria’s Regime

Mark Noonan3 Comments

From Bloomberg:

The Obama administration may call on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down soon, a U.S. official said as the State Department said the Syrian government has detained more than 30,000 people, some in cages.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she wants to see more pressure on Assad to step down from Europe, India and China, including the sanctioning of Syria’s oil and gas industry, speaking in an interview with CBS News yesterday…

And if that doesn’t work we may even send a strongly worded protest.  But calmer heads in the Obama Administration are worried that such a hard line stance might cause Little Assad to go slow on his reforming zeal.  There is much worrisome talk that in a fit of anger President Obama may even decide to make himself perfectly clear about Syria.

What a freaking joke of a foreign policy team…start a half-war in Libya to “defend civilians” while we carefully think over whether or not we should even mention Assad’s massacre of civilians in Syria.  Do you hear the laughter from our enemies?  The curl of contempt on their lips as they consider our President?  Does anyone out there think that any enemy of the United States is worried about what we might do when they attack?

We’ll be a generation repairing the damage Obama and Co have done to America’s reputation around the world…and part of the price we’ll have to pay will be in blood.  This is the result of allowing ourselves to be hoodwinked by slick campaigning…we were fooled in 2008 and we’d better un-fool ourselves in 2012.

Postal Service Seeks to Cut 120,000 Jobs

Mark Noonan32 Comments

From the Washington Post:

The financially strapped U.S. Postal Service is proposing to cut its workforce by 20 percent and to withdraw from the federal health and retirement plans because it believes it could provide benefits at a lower cost.

The layoffs would be achieved in part by breaking labor agreements, a proposal that drew swift fire from postal unions. The plan would require congressional approval but, if successful, could be precedent-setting, with possible ripple effects throughout government. It would also deliver a major blow to the nation’s labor movement…

First off, I’d like to say I never knew we had 120,000 postal workers.  Whenever I go to the post office I see 10 windows and two clerks.  Where are the rest?

That aside, this proposal will be fought tooth and nail – Democrats simply do not want 120,000 dues-paying (ie Democrat-donating) union workers let go, not right in front of an election year.  Doesn’t matter that the postal service is going bankrupt…all that matters is keeping the dues (donations) flowing.  But something does have to be done – and if any Democrat thinks there is an increased postal service subsidy waiting to come out of the House, he’s got rocks in his head (or, more accurately, more rocks than usual).

How this comes out in the end remains a mystery, but get ready for one heck of a fight…bet the Democrats try to tack a postal service rescue amendment to whatever the debt committee comes up with.

When Britain Had Courage

Mark Noonan60 Comments

We got this:

Now we get a supine population being roughed up by welfare bums.

You know something, I’ve never actually owned a gun.  Always figured that enough of my fellow citizens had them to ensure a general defense against riot.  But now I’m going to buy one.  To all the barbarians out there – you go ahead and start a riot in my town, we’ll have words.

Civilization stands on the edge of destruction – the once-great nation of Britain, which used to boast that it never had and never shall lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, is dying.  This is the left wants for us, too…a disarmed, cowardly and government-dependent serfdom, while barbarians prowl unchecked.  Not for me – my America shall live, even if it requires the shedding of barbarian and patriot blood.