Friday, February 20, 2009
I Feel Nauseous
Each day I feel nauseous.
I've been feeling this way since early 2005.
Yes... George W. Bush "kept us safe" - if by "safe" we mean no follow-up 9/11 scale successful terrorist attacks upon American soil post 9/11/01.
We can argue Iraq, but setting aside for the moment our divergent views on whether we should have invaded Iraq in the first place and side-stepping the question of whether history has... whether history will... view the Surge as having salvaged the promise of the initial invasion... my personal break with Bush came in 2005, when following his re-election he seemed to LOSE HIS MIND...
Remember Harriet Miers? Yeah... she was Georgie's kindergarten teacher or favorite waitress at the local Waffle House or something like that. On October 3, 2005, George W. Bush announced she was his latest appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States. That was the beginning of the end for me...
Most aspects of Bush policies and actions are debatable. Support, oppose, agree, disagree... there's plenty of room for debate concerning what Bush did right, what Bush did wrong, and what Bush SHOULD have done but didn't. All that aside... when George W. Bush attempted to place Harriet Ellan Miers on the Supreme Court of the United States... that was it for me. Never again afterwards would I - or could I - give the President the benefit of the doubt I afforded him in his first term.
So, folks... this is where I'm coming from: I'm a Reaganite. To a large extent I'm a Gingrichian. The Presidents I revere are George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt and the aforemention "Gipper."
George H.W. Bush was such a disappointment to me that I left the GOP in 1992 to join the New York State Conservative Party in protest - a protest that extended to working for the Ross Perot campaign in 1992 and voting for Perot in that year's election. After Bill Clinton was elected, I gave him a chance but soon re-registered as a Republican upon seeing the Clinton presidential reality as having little connection to the Clinton presidential campaign rhetoric.
I was a Forbes man during the Republican primaries of 2000. When George W. Bush beat my man, I - though with misgivings - chose to support his candidacy against that of Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election.
Come January 2001 and George W. Bush was President of the United States. Unfortunately for the nation, by this time the political heirs to the 1994 Republican Revolution had turned on that "revolution's" most ideologically pure leaders and so instead of Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey leading a Republican House in the era of a Republican president, we had big spending wheelers and dealers more concerned with power than principle - men like Trent Lott and Tom DeLay - slowly but surely turning the Republican "brand" into the mirror image of the worst of Democratic power excesses of the pre-Gingrich era.
Come September 11th... 8:45 a.m., September 11th, 2001... everything changes.
For weeks... months... the nation came together. We were all Americans. Liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats... even the damned politicians seemed to - for a small window in time - cooperate in order to serve something bigger than themselves, larger than their ideologies or Parties... the national interest.
It didn't take long though for the "war" on terror to be used as an excuse for uncontrolled spending, for turning budget surpluses (which by the way were themselves illusionary - but that's a story for another time) into deficits, for piling debt upon debt and pushing fiscal and monetary policies - mainly in a "bipartisan" fashion" - which inevitably led to the weakening dollar... the oil spikes... inflation... the bursting of the housing bubble... the banking crisis...
I FEEL NAUSEOUS...
I am so sick to my stomach each and every day as I watch markets tumble and government pour the equivalent of an accelerant upon the economic fires threatening to burn our entire economic system to the ground.
I FEEL NAUSEOUS...
We're out of the Bush frying pan... straight into the Obama fire!
Day 32 of The Age of Obama and here's a typical news headline: BofA, Citi Shares Fall On Nationalization Fears...
NATIONALIZATION...?!?! Nationalization of the BANKS...?!?! Nationalization of the banks in AMERICA...?!?!
Folks. I was ready to give Obama a chance. Hell... anyone who followed my postings on my cyber-peer Robert A. George's website knows that Obama actually was my "favorite Democrat" running all through the primaries and that if I hadn't had the "out" of voting for Bob Barr, I would have voted for Obama over McCain!
We're in trouble, folks. Sure... Bush started all this "stimulus" nonsense (with the Dems only complaint being Bush's stimulus policies didn't add ENOUGH new debt to our and our children's and grandchildren's future unfunded liabilities) and the "bailout" nonsense too, but if Bush's policies were too wasteful, counter-productive, and frankly socialist for you... what the heck do you make of OBAMA'S POLICIES...?!?!
What's the answer? I don't know. A military coup? God help us, but if the present executive, legislative, and judicial branch movers and shakers are what result from democracy... perhaps democracy is part of the problem...
Seriously... what is the answer? We're stuck with Obama for four years. We're stuck with the present House make-up and leadership for at least the next two years; and in the Senate - thanks to RINO Senators Specter, Collins, and Snowe and others of their ilk - prospects for reining in the worst excesses of Obama/Pelosi/Reid policies are effectively nil.
I'll keep on blogging. As ill as it makes me to read, listen to, and watch the news, I'll continue to do so and persist in highlighting specifics of disasterous policies foisted upon the American People by the duly elected representatives of... er... the American People.
I don't just read; I react. And no, my reactions are not limited to spouting off here at Usually Right or grousing with likeminded friends. I call my Congressman and my Senators. I email. I attend town hall meetings and such. WE ALL NEED TO DO THESE THINGS...!!!
You folks have computers. You have phones. I'm guessing you even have pens, paper, envelopes and stamps at home and at your offices! For God's sake, when you read about or hear about something government is doing which you KNOW is asinine at least make your voice be heard by those who supposedly represent you and respresent this nation!
O.K. Rant off. Enough... for now.
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3 comments:
I felt nauseous as I read this:
Excerpting...
There's an unavoidable problem with renewable-energy technologies: From an economic standpoint, they're big losers. Renewables simply cannot produce the large volumes of useful, reliable energy that our economy needs at attractive prices, which is exactly why government subsidizes them. The subsidies involved are considerable. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in early 2008 that the government subsidizes solar energy at $24.34 per megawatt-hour (MWh) and wind power at $23.37 per MWh. Yet even with decades of these massive handouts, as well as numerous state-level mandates for utilities to use green power, wind and solar energy contribute less than 1% of our nation's electricity. Compare the subsidies to renewables with those extended to natural gas (25 cents per MWh in subsidies), coal (44 cents), hydroelectricity (67 cents), and nuclear power ($1.59). These are the energy sources (along with oil, which undergirds transportation) that do the heavy lifting in our energy economy. The alternative technologies at the heart of Mr. Obama's plan, relying on mandates and far greater handouts, will inevitably raise energy prices -- and high power prices are job killers. Industries that make physical products, whether cars or chemicals or paper cups, are energy-intensive and gravitate to low-cost-energy locales.
Oops! But, hey... why let REALITY get in the way of federal policy, huh?!
Continuing...
With some of the highest electricity prices in the country, California and New York have hemorrhaged manufacturing jobs. California-based Google houses its massive server farms in states like North Carolina and Oregon, which have lower electricity costs. Policies that drive up energy costs nationwide, as Mr. Obama intends, will inevitably drive more manufacturing jobs overseas.
"...as Mr. Obama INTENDS..."
(*SIGH*)
Continuing...
What about jobs in the traditional industries currently supplying Americans with reliable, affordable energy? The American Petroleum Institute reports that the oil and gas industry employs 1.6 million Americans. Coal mining directly and indirectly supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, according to the National Mining Association and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A radical plan to transform our energy economy will put an untold number of these men and women out of work. Digging deeper each month to pay for expensive renewable energy, consumers will have less to save or spend in other areas of the economy. Killing jobs in efficient industries to create jobs in inefficient ones is hardly a recipe for economic success. There may be legitimate arguments for taking dramatic steps to fight climate change. Boosting the economy isn't one of them.
Well... YEAH... there's that...
(*SNORT*)
We're so screwed, people...
Oh! And get this... read the full article and you'll find that while Obama CAMPAIGNED on a platform promising not to freeze out nuclear energy, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which he signed this week actually EXCLUDES nuclear power from the bill's favored renewable portfolio standards mandate.
God help us...
BILL
I felt nauseous as I read this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123535183265845013.html
Excerpting..
From the beginning, the handling of the U.S. crisis has been politicized. The partisanship is as toxic as the bad assets on bank balance sheets. Both parties are coming up with schemes to impede the process of foreclosing on homeowners who can't afford their homes, which would get those homes into the hands of new owners who can afford them. Does anyone believe that a government bad bank will squeeze homeowners? To ask the question is to answer it.
Well...??? Anyone...???
Moreover, we know how the government runs financial institutions -- consider Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Or IndyMac, whose management by the FDIC has been criticized for inflating the rescue costs through its liberal loan-modification program. A money-center bank in government hands would become a conduit for politicized lending and grants disguised as loans. That's what's happened at Fannie and Freddie. The government would never let go of its political ATM. You might as well consolidate such an institution with the Fed from the outset.
(*SHRUG*) Anyone disagree...? Anyone...???
Mr. Geithner wants a public-private partnership to buy toxic assets from banks. All that government has done thus far has only scared private money off. As bankers now realize, when you turn to the government for financial assistance you take on an untrustworthy partner. Outside money will not come in only to see its investment diluted later on when the government injects additional funds.
Just to reiterate... Geithner is a fool as well as a tax cheat.
Get it through your thick skulls, folks... if you hated Paulson and hate Bernanke... then you should hate Geithner too; he's basically following THEIR failed policy leads.
(While I expect the Market to to rebound today - based upon speculation and gamesmanship, not any fundamental positive signal - there's a REASON things have gone from bad to worse on Wall Street since Obama and Crew took over the reins of the Executive Branch.)
Rather than focusing on ways in which we can further involve the government in the financial system, we need to find ways to extricate banks from government's deadly embrace. Banks, at least the behemoths, were public-private partnerships before the crisis. Deposit insurance, access to the Fed's lending, and the implicit (now explicit) government guarantee for banks "too big to fail" all constituted a system of financial corporatism. It must be ended not extended. If a bank is too big to fail, then it is simply too big. Those institutions need to be downsized until their failure would no longer constitute a systemic risk. Then we can discuss how to untangle the government and the major banks, and create a banking system of genuinely private institutions.
AMEN!
BILL
File Under: We're So Screwed
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/House-Democrats-propose-410B-apf-14450221.html
Excerpting...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Democrats unveiled a $410 billion spending bill on Monday . . . The measure includes thousands of earmarks . . . There was no official total of the bill's earmarks . . . The legislation, which includes an increase of roughly 8 percent over spending . . .
Folks. This is on top - in addition - to the recently passed pork-fest that was the Democratic "stimulus" bill.
Democrats defended the spending increases . . . Republicans countered that the spending in the bill far outpaced inflation . . . In a letter to top Democratic leaders, the GOP leadership called for a spending freeze, a step they said would point toward a "new standard of fiscal discipline."
Folks. Bush is gone. Hastart, Frist, DeLay, Lott... they're all gone. Democrats have controlled BOTH Houses of Congress since January of 2007... Barak Obama is President of the United States.
The Republicans WERE the "bad guys" when it came to spending and deficits - financial irresponsibility; now they're (by and large) the "good guys."
If you hated the economic irresponsibility of the Bushies... or the RINOs... what Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are doing is far worse by ORDER OF MAGNATUDE!
We are so screwed...
(*SIGH*)
BILL
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