I wonder each day how long the devotees and acolytes of Obama will wait for the realization to sink in that he can't actually pay their mortgages or keep gasoline in the cars and I wonder what the fallout will be. Will they call him Uncle Tom because he didn't deliver on the promises that they thought their heard during the campaign? Will they turn to violence? Will it present yet another 'crisis' for the new administration to use as a cover for further steps down the path to full socialism?
Where are the true Americans today? Where is the total outrage over this unending, uncontrolled spending? It's true that the recent 'stimulus' spending bill and it's uglt twin sister omnibus spending bill won't affect most American taxpayers bottomline today but do we not care about what we have allowed to be placed on the shoulders of our children and their descendents? I was taught, by example, mind you, that as a parent, we strive to make things better and easier for our children. As the son of a son of a coal-miner, I would say that my father and his father were successful in that. But we are just blindly mortgaging the future of this country and saddling our children with the bill. Our children will likely never enjoy the lifestyles that we hoped for because Obama's policies will ensure that those that succeed will pay for those that 'need.' All in the name of 'fairness,' because it's not fair that some people work hard to succeed and others do nothing and have nothing.
True Americans would not stand for this. Our early history points why. The Jamestown Colony was nearly a failure primarily because the colony had originally been organized with community ownership of all assets. The settlers shared food, tools, products, jobs, and theoretically even the profits. In 1616, however, that experiment is terminated and all the assets are divided up among the members because the few colonists that actually worked realized that there were an awful lot of colonists who simply refused to work and still received an equal portion. The conclusion is that the first experiment in pure communism in America was a failure. Why would we think that this is the correct path now? Capitalism saved the Virginia Company and founded this nation.
This 'crisis' in our economy is not a failure of capitalism. This crisis has been brought about by socialistic policies that brought capitalism to its knees. It's no coincidence that it was the mortgage banking sector that collapsed last year. The mortgage banking sector was the one aspect of the markets that was most heavily socialized. [See link for examination of the CRA of 1977 and the subsequent Clinton-era laws that strengthen the CRA.]
This brings me to another point, another destination. Why, you might ask, did the entire mortgage sector just happen to go south right after it was apparent who the major party candidates would be in the 2008 Presidential election? It had been documented for some , at least as early as 2005, that there was a weakness, a flaw, in the mortgage sector. Could someone singlehandedly orchestrate a move to exploit this flaw or weakness?
Again, let's go in the wayback machine to September 16, 1992. The Bank of England refused to either raise its interest rates to levels comparable to those of other European Exchange Rate Mechanism countries or to float its currency. Someone sold short more than $10 billion worth of pounds and forced the Bank of England to withdraw the currency from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and to devalue the pound sterling. For this $10 billion short sell, the investor made $1.1 billion and brought the Bank of England to its knees. The investor was George Soros.
Soros believes in a financial concept called reflexivity. Reflexivity is based on three main ideas: 1) Reflexivity is best observed under special conditions where investor bias grows and spreads throughout the investment arena. Examples of factors that may give rise to this bias include (a) equity leveraging or (b) the trend-following habits of speculators, 2) Reflexivity appears intermittently since it is most likely to be revealed under certain conditions; i.e., the equilibrium process's character is best considered in terms of probabilities, 3) Investors' observation of and participation in the capital markets may at times influence valuations AND fundamental conditions or outcomes.
A current example of reflexivity in modern financial markets is that of the debt and equity of housing markets. Pushed by the government, lenders made more money available to people, particularly those that would not typically qualify, in the 90's to buy houses. That meant more people bought houses with this larger amount of money, thus inflating the prices of these houses. The balance sheets of the lenders showed that they had made more loans and that their equity backing the loans, i.e., the value of the houses, had gone up. This effect was because more money was chasing the same amount of housing. The cycle became endless because the more they lent, the better their balance looked. Prices increased rapidly, and, thanks to the CRA etal, lending standards were relaxed. The salient issue regarding reflexivity is that it explains why markets gyrate over time, and do not just stick to equilibrium. They tend to overshoot or undershoot. In this case, the market was grossly overshooting and Soros saw an opportunity to profit on two fronts.
Soros' Quantum Fund netted nearly 28% in the last quarter of 2008 when everything else was taking it in the shorts. Soros is a huge Democratic Party supporter and has for all intents and purposes gained complete control of the party. He knew that taking down the mortgage sector would not only increase his wealth but would certify that his candidate for President would win in November. He now has his puppet in the Oval Office and will use it to further his one world vision.
How did we get here? Well, ignorance for one. The average American is more interested in sports, American Idol, and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. What news we get, we typically get from scanning the local liberal-biased newspaper or tuning into the evening news before Idol comes on. Couple that with the Hollywood celebs spewing their beliefs on the small screen and you begin to see that Americans real and continuing education comes from dubious sources. History, not the revisionist drivel that is issued today, but real history, is not taught in public schools. This of course is the product of the central government dictating education policy to the states. Standardization also means that everyone gets the same indoctrination.
Second, we care too much what other countries think of us. By 1989, we were the lone superpower in the world. By 2001, thanks to endless appeasement schemes and outright selling of technological secrets to our enemies, we were relegated to a quasi-superpower alongside China, Russia, Korea, and India. The momentum that we had coming out of the 1980's and the fall of the Soviet Union was squandered by the Clinton Administration and its foreign policy. The belief was that we had to appease other countries so that they would like us. The policy was that those terrorists out there that had attacked us should be treated as criminals instead of combatants and be handled like a criminal investigation instead of an act of war. All of which brought about the loss of our stature in the world and set up the events of 9/11/01. We should have met an attack with an overwhelming response immediately afterward. There would have been no question as to America's resolve or strength. Eventually, the cowards would back off or die off, whichever came first.
Third, allowing our financial and political systems to be influenced by foreign nationals is absurd. This began in the 1990's under Clinton with the endless contributions coming from Red China through Charlie Trie and others. Remember Al Gore's visit to the Buddhist Temple? That was all part of it. Just look at how rich Bill and Hilary are today as a result of contributions and donations to the Clinton Fouindation. Most of the money comes from foreign donations and now Hilary of Secretary of State. These people are buying influence in our government right under our noses and nothing has been done. Soros has likely manipulated the markets last year and cost hundreds of thousands of Americans their jobs and homes and sealed our fate for generations. Foreign nationals should be completely barred from being able to participate or influence our government.
Last, Republicans, for the most part, have lost their way. The Republican Party has become the Democrat-Lite Party, too many centrists, moderates, or even outright liberals to provide any kind of foil to the Democrats. Conservatism is still strong in this country and putting up centrist/moderate Republicans for national office is doomed to failure. Bush 41 took a more moderate stance in 1992 and lost to Bill Clinton's moderate, middle-of-the road stance. Why? Because anybody can move to the middle and if both candidates move to the middle, what kind of contest does the election become? A popularity contest. Same thing happened in 1996 with Bob Dole - Dole was a moderate and lost to Clinton's moderate stance. Conservatives want a candidate that means what he says and says what he means, not one that thinks that the only way to win is to try to win over the other side. You will never get elected as a Republican by trying to swing Democrats to your side. Furthermore, that 20% of the population that is always undecided is not going to go your way if you move to the middle with your opponent because these undecided, 'American Idol'-voters are going to vote for the candidate that is younger, better looking, more appealing, more exciting, blah, blah, blah.
You stand to win on your principles if you don't shed them to move to the middle. You hold your ground on the right and defend your beliefs. How do you defend the middle ground if you don't believe in the middle ground? Everything on the conservative side is totally defensible so why in the world would you abandon it? This past election, McCain, who historically has been a centrist, attempted to garner the support of conservatives. It was a valiant effort on his part as I voted for him (mostly because of what Obama represented than what McCain did.) But he fell short after his rousing address at the Republican convention largely because he didn't mean it. It became more and more apparent as the election drew nearer that McCain could not expound on his new-found Conservatism because he wasn't a Conservative. Even a true Conservative like Sarah Palin being on the ticket wasn't enough to save his election. It may have been for the better anyway because it has hopefully served as a rallying call to real Conservatives to come to the rescue.
Did you know that one of the firearms industry organizations selected Barack Obama as the top firearms salesman of the year? It's true. Firearms sales, out of fear of new draconian gun control efforts, have skyrocketed to the point that firearms as an investment far outstrip anything that Wall Street has to offer. Guns that I acquired a few short months ago are fetching twice the value I paid for them. Considering that bad economic times typically lead to increases in the crimes of theft, burglary, and robbing, criminals may find that crime doesn't pay as more Americans are armed to defend against crime. Another side-effect of what I call the 'Obama-factor' is that the increased firearms sales has largely been in the sales of handguns and semi-auto rifles and shotguns. This also is out of fear of a renewed and more restrictive "Assault Weapons" ban. With the uptick in the semi-auto weapons market, the liberal gun-grabber argument that semi-auto weapons are only found on foreign battlefields and are not in common possession of average citizens is quickly becoming null and void. Black rifles are flying off the shelves faster than manufacturers can build them. But don't get too excited yet.
Obama said during the election, very emphatically, that he was not for your guns. Now, knowing his propensity for Clintonesque parsing, you could take that to mean that he is not in favor of your guns and he will take them away but he did also state that he respected the Second Amendment. I'm not naiive enough to think that Obama suddenly had an epiphany and all his past anti-gun efforts were not evidence of his true beliefs. I believe that Obama and his administration will make our firearms worthless by making it difficult or even impossible to purchase or possess ammunition. Let's face it - a pencil without lead is just a stick. You can't write with it. This becomes a defacto gun ban. And I apparently am not alone in this belief. Tried to buy ammo or reloading supplies lately? Hard to come by, aren't they? Fortunately, it's hard to come by because the manufacturers and distributers can't keep up with demand - which is a good thing I guess with so many people losing their jobs. At least one job sector seems secure. Of course, the law of supply and demand will dictate that the prices will go up. Let's hope the fear eventually dies down or our own efforts will impose a defacto gun ban of its own - ammo and reloading components will be outpriced for most people and Obama won't have to do anything.
I know the demand eventually level off. But I believe that simply stocking up for darker days is the easy way out. Vigilance on the political front is the only deterence against further infringements on our gun rights. I want these rights not just for us but for our next generation and after.
Of course, like most gun owners, I am waiting to see what the administration response will be to yesterday's shootings in Alabama. I'm willing to wager that the guy responsible for the shooting was either supposed to be on psychotropic medications or under a doctor's care. One report described the perpetrator this way: "People who had known McClendon since childhood described him as a quiet loner." We'll see what comes out as more information becomes available but I am worried that this will be labelled a 'crisis' by the 'experts' of 'crisis-management' in the Obama administration.
On to Der Sprecher Nancy Pelosi. Sprecher Pelosi is so power-drunk, so corrupt that she should be removed and charged with crimes immediately. Judicial Watch recently completed an investigation into alleged abuses of congressional power with regard to use of military aircraft by Sprecher Pelosi. Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, obtained documents from the Department of Defense (DOD) detailing Sprecher Pelosi's multiple requests for military air travel. The documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), include internal DOD email correspondence detailing attempts by DOD staff to accommodate Pelosi's numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker's last minute cancellations and changes.
In other words, the same person who had decried the abuses and expenses incurred in the Iraq War was one of the reasons the costs were incurred. Judicial Watch has posted all of the pertinent documents on it website.
By the way, speaking of corruption, why is it that Joe Biden tells us that it is patriotic to pay your taxes but he and Barack Obama can't seem to find any appointees for their cabinet who aren't tax cheats? And why are they allowed to say they're sorry, pay the taxes, and still get confirmed for their appointments? Last time I saw a tax cheat, the IRS came in under the cover of night, raided the house military-style, took the alleged tax-cheat out of his home at gunpoint and in silver bracelets, destroying his personal property and dignity in one fell swoop. How come they didn't do that to Daschle, Geithner, et al? You don't think there's a double standard do you?
Oh, and, by the way, while we're talking about corruption, did you hear that Obama's Office of the Chief Technology has been raided by the FBI for apparently taking bribes? More on that as details come forward.
More on corruption - More than 100 House members secured earmarks in a major spending bill for clients of a single lobbying firm — The PMA Group — known for its close ties to John P. Murtha , the congressman in charge of Pentagon appropriations.
More on the rise of Chicago-style corrupt politics in the Nation's Capital -
Rep. Jim Durkin: "Did you talk to any members of the governor's [Blagojevich's] staff or anyone closely related to the governor, including family members or any lobbyists connected with him, including, let me throw out some names -- John Harris, Rob Blagojevich, Doug Scofield, Bob Greenleaf, Lon Monk, John Wyman? Did you talk to anybody . . . associated with the governor about your desire to seek the appointment prior to the governor's arrest?" Burris lawyer Timothy Wright: "Give us a moment." (Wright and Burris confer.) Burris: "I talked to some friends about my desire to be appointed, yes." Durkin: "I guess the point is I was trying to ask: Did you speak to anybody who was on the governor's staff prior to the governor's arrest or anybody, any of those individuals or anybody who is closely related to the governor?" Burris: "I recall having a meeting with Lon Monk about my partner and I trying to get continued business, and I did bring it up -- it must have been in September or maybe it was in July of '08 that, you know, you're close to the governor, let him know that I am certainly interested in the seat."Roland Burris attempted to skirt the issue at hand regarding his contact with Blago and his minions but Rep. Jill Tracy pinned him down.
Tracy: "You said that you had visited friends perhaps in September of '08 or July of '08 concerning a desire to perhaps be appointed as a senator if our president-elect was elected. And could you give me the names of those friends?" Burris: "I don't think I said in July. I said they were friends that I contacted after the election, but I was talking to people, I mean I don't know who you want as my friends that I consider as persons. For example, when I handled a press conference to express my interest in the seat, was the press conference -- I did hold a press conference, and some of my friends were there, for instance." Tracy was temporarily sidetracked, then came back to the point. Tracy: "But I think I earlier heard you today testify that in September '08 or perhaps as early as July '08, you had visited with some friends about your desire to seek the seat." Burris: "No, I think I testified that that's when I began to express an interest in it. As I saw that --" Tracy: "And I just was wondering who those friends were." Burris: "One of them was my law partner." Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, the committee chairman: "Is that when you talked about your interest with Lon Monk? I think that --" Tracy: "Was it Lon Monk, was that the extent of it was Lon Monk? Burris: "That came up in our conversation when we were talking about, you know, if he has some excess clients in the lobbying business, you know, as we try to see whether or not he had conflicts somewhere with some type of a client because of his previous relationship with government. That's what we were talking about then. "And it just came up, and in fact I said, 'Now, Lon, I don't know what's going to happen, but I think I'm qualified to be appointed to the Senate seat.' And Lon said, 'Well, Roland, I think you are, too.' And that was the extent of it." Tracy: "So you don't recall that there was anybody else besides Lon Monk that you expressed an interest to at that point?" Burris: "No, I can't recall. Because people were coming to me saying, Roland, you should pursue that appointment, you're qualified, and this was --" Tracy: "Is there anybody that comes to mind in that light that you can --"Burris answered Rich Barber, a friend from New Jersey. Sen. Burris, you have been caught. See ya - wouldn't want to be ya!
Like I said, there's too much material to discuss and not enough time but I will attempt to start diligently posting again. Sorry if this post got unwieldy but I had alot to get off my chest!
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