There is nothing more depressing than reading polls that claim Barack Obama still has a large lead among voters in the 2012 presidential election. America as we have known it is apparently gone. It is beyond sad what we have become, an anti-capitalist centrally controlled socialist welfare state that ignores the Constitution, suppresses our freedom, confiscates our wealth, polarizes our society, destroys our living standards and creates an authoritarian dictatorship of privileged cronies. America is becoming like Iran, ruled by an autocratic clique of self-righteous fanatics who dictate our behavior according to their holy principles. The only difference is that America's dictators religion is Marxism rather than Shiite Islam, and their holy principles are found in "Das Kapital" and "The Communist Manifesto" rather than The Koran.
Only morons can believe the way to sustain living standards is to encourage the unemployed to stay unemployed with generous welfare checks, food stamps and health care support, financed by either going further in debt or taking more money from the productive members of society who already provide nearly all of the resources that government consumes. Certainly every country needs a safety net for those who truly need it, but we cannot afford to maintain a parasitical lifestyle for those who just take advantage of the system.
The big government, cradle to grave social policies being forced on us by Obama and his communist cronies are the same policies that have brought Europe to its knees and California, Illinois, Michigan and other 'progressive' states to insolvency. I know the majority of black folks will vote for Obama because they think he is one of them, even if they look around the neighborhood and realize he hasn't done a damn thing for them. I am disappointed in Latinos since I thought they were more interested in improving the living standards of their families by participating in our traditional capitalist job creating economy than the polls indicate they are. But I cannot comprehend what it is that women and young people don't understand about the ultimate result of the policies that have ruined Europe and bankrupted the states controlled by the Democratic Party. Are they so uninterested in the truth that they buy into Obama's bullshit but don't see the disastrous consequences.
It is not too late to preserve what we have. It can certainly be argued that the United States is a mature country and that its period of strong growth is behind it. But the standards of living we have gained over the last century do not have to disappear. Even though we may be entering a period of more modest economic growth, life can still be pretty good. That is, if we can all realize the opportunities people have available to improve themselves that capitalism and private enterprise can still offer rather than polarizing into jealous adversaries demanding more freebies from the more affluent who already carry the load.
Unfortunately, the favorable outcome is not likely to occur with the anti-capitalist income redistributors and social polarizers now in the White House and in charge of the Senate. We can only hope that America's women and children will open their eyes, observe where we are headed and realize that Barack Obama and his propagandists in the major media networks are lying to them.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
The Blame Game
Somebody has to take the blame. When the shit hits the fan it has to be somebody's fault. When the whole country goes down the drain it has to be the president's fault. The only question is which president - the one who was in office at the time things went bad or the one who has done nothing but make things worse over the following three years. In reality, the blame game being played by both political parties about who is responsible for our dormant economy is way off the mark.
The policies that led to our current situation span several presidencies and are the product of a political system that has ceased to represent the electorate as a result of the irresponsible promises, self serving agendas and corrupt activities of politicians on both sides of the aisle. And over the last decade the inevitable collapse was intensified and accelerated due to the removal of restraints on the activities of the big Wall Street financial institutions and facilitated by their incestuous relationship with the financial authorities and regulators in Washington.
The fact is that neither George Bush nor Barack Obama caused our current economic lethargy, although they both made the situation worse with the wrong policy responses. But those policy responses were due to the advice of their economic advisers, all of whom were members in good standing of the Wall Street Banking - Ivy League Academic - Federal Financial Regulator fraternity who were the real names and faces behind the financial bubble and market collapse. These were also the same folks who survived the debacle with their fortunes intact, thanks to their self-engineered government bailout, while the rest of America lost 40% of its net worth.
Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Princeton used to produce many of the captains of commerce, industry, finance, and the legal profession who were instrumental in building America into the wealthiest nation on earth. Now they produce those who control and manipulate the financial markets to rape, pillage and loot the country. They play lucrative but dangerous games with other people's money trading highly leveraged derivatives of high risk securities, winning big when the bets work out and causing catastrophic damage to the markets when they don't. But it doesn't really matter to these folks because they are 'too big to fail', and they just call on their fellow Ivy League graduates and (former and future) business partners in Washington to bail them out when the losses mount.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. The seeds of the meltdown go farther back before the predators on Wall Street figured out how to capitalize on government programs and policies to build outrageous fortunes creating, selling and trading securities that no one understood using debt leverage that invited disaster. Actually the whole thing started in the halls and meeting rooms of Congress as a substantial number of liberal senators and representatives decided that everyone in America should own a home. Since 1992, with primarily Democratic Party Congressional support, federal housing laws have focused on using the Federal Housing Enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to expand their participation in the home loan market and make homes more affordable for those who may not otherwise qualify for mortgage loans. In response to that Congressional mandate Fannie and Freddie lowered their mortgage lending standards, or more accurately, eliminated their lending standards so that anyone could get a home loan. That is where the problem started.
The enabling legislation that allowed the high stakes financial games trading sub-prime mortgages to develop was the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, sponsored by Republicans Phil Gramm, Jim Leach, and Thomas Bliley, and signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton. This law allowed commercial banks to engage in the more speculative activities of investment banking, investment brokerage, insurance and proprietary trading. The legislation had the same effect as lighting a blowtorch in a fireworks factory. The natural ingenuity of Wall Street investment bankers resulted in the creation of not only portfolios of high risk sub-prime mortgage loans but also the use of borrowed money to increase the potential returns from those portfolios. For those who had the foresight to recognize that those securities may not be a good investment, they also created credit default swaps to profit from the default of the portfolios. Unforeseen by the overpaid geniuses was that credit default swaps would also become worthless when everyone defaulted at the same time and the underwriter could not cover the payout. The accumulation of exceedingly high risk investments and leverage was inevitably destined to end badly, and it did.
So who is responsible for our current economic predicament? Lots of people. Start with the Democrats in Congress who pushed the ludicrous idea that all Americans should own homes, encouraging Fannie and Freddie to lend money to people who had no ability to pay it back. The blame can be laid squarely on Democrats because Republicans tried to reform these insane lending policies with the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, which was unanimously rejected by Democrats. Next look at the Wall Street bankers, money managers and traders, mostly apolitical fellows who play both sides of the political aisle with emphasis on which side is in power. They set the timer on the debt bomb with the creation of high risk securities based on massively leveraged trading of mortgage debt and its derivatives. Top that off with federal financial regulators, mostly Democratic Party supporting bureaucrats at the operations level and Wall Street veterans and/or puppets at the top, who weren't regulating anything. Ironically, most of these folks are still in the same chairs playing the same games.
The question now is not whom to blame, but who and what policies will get us out of the situation. Barack Obama's answer is to pour more gasoline on the fire by just expanding the same programs that caused the conflagration in the first place. He is also forcing more rules, regulations and requirements on private sector businesses, straight-jacketing the efficient functioning of capitalism and free markets. The reported 50% of voters in this country who plan to vote for him again this fall must be brain dead.
Changes in tax policy can contribute to solving our problems, but only changes that simplify the process and eliminate loopholes. Eliminating loopholes would increase revenues and restore fairness while ending widespread avoidance and time wasted with compliance. The answer is not raising tax rates. Some people do make too much money, and I don't believe raising taxes on those making over half a million dollars a year would would hurt their lifestyle much. But the amount of revenue gained would be a drop in the barrel compared to how much revenue is needed to begin to reduce the deficit, and it would quickly result in diminishing revenues as the incentive to maximize income subject to taxation falls.
Spending cuts are the only real solution. We must eliminate unnecessary programs and rationalize those that are necessary, ban public unions and restrain public employee compensation, eliminate inefficient job duplication while demanding accountability, and reform the lobbying process by removing opportunities for corrupt legislative influence. We must also revise health care and retirement programs to establish fiscal responsibility and sustainability, and require elected offficials and their staffs to be subject to the same rules as the general public.
It shouldn't be that hard. Everyone without blinders on can see that Barack Obama is taking us down the drain. But just voting for a Republican will not turn the country around. Go along to get along Republicans are part of the problem, not the solution. Out of control government spending is a bipartisan effort, complete with the acquiescence of so-called 'conservatives' in Congress. In the first decade of the 21st Century, compromise has been defined as surrendering to the liberal agenda. That has to stop.
Republicans need to learn you cannot win a debate with ideologues who will create any lie or impossible scenario they can exploit to brainwash the public; you cannot reach a compromise with those who refuse to give any concessions; you cannot compete against dishonest charlatans and snake oil salesmen who make promises they do not intend to keep; and you cannot give concessions to assholes who will blame you anyway when the impossible promises are not kept.
The campaign dirt is beginning to fly, and each side will blame the other for the economic catastrophe we find ourselves in. There is plenty of blame to go around, but it is quite clear that Congressional Democrats were responsible for creating the sub-prime mortgage mess, apolitical bankers and traders produced the financial market bubble and meltdown, and cronyism among Wall Street and its regulators allowed it all to happen. Capitalism and free markets did not cause our current problems. Growth of big, invasive, dominating government did with the help of its friends on Wall Street. Barack Obama wants to make the government bigger, more invasive, more dominating than it already is. What we critically need is to return America to the people and let the private sector do what it has always done, create innovative new ideas, products and efficiencies that generate progress and rising living standards. Barack Obama and his 'Progressive' (a.k.a. state socialist; a.k.a. communist) posse must be defeated.
The policies that led to our current situation span several presidencies and are the product of a political system that has ceased to represent the electorate as a result of the irresponsible promises, self serving agendas and corrupt activities of politicians on both sides of the aisle. And over the last decade the inevitable collapse was intensified and accelerated due to the removal of restraints on the activities of the big Wall Street financial institutions and facilitated by their incestuous relationship with the financial authorities and regulators in Washington.
The fact is that neither George Bush nor Barack Obama caused our current economic lethargy, although they both made the situation worse with the wrong policy responses. But those policy responses were due to the advice of their economic advisers, all of whom were members in good standing of the Wall Street Banking - Ivy League Academic - Federal Financial Regulator fraternity who were the real names and faces behind the financial bubble and market collapse. These were also the same folks who survived the debacle with their fortunes intact, thanks to their self-engineered government bailout, while the rest of America lost 40% of its net worth.
Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Princeton used to produce many of the captains of commerce, industry, finance, and the legal profession who were instrumental in building America into the wealthiest nation on earth. Now they produce those who control and manipulate the financial markets to rape, pillage and loot the country. They play lucrative but dangerous games with other people's money trading highly leveraged derivatives of high risk securities, winning big when the bets work out and causing catastrophic damage to the markets when they don't. But it doesn't really matter to these folks because they are 'too big to fail', and they just call on their fellow Ivy League graduates and (former and future) business partners in Washington to bail them out when the losses mount.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. The seeds of the meltdown go farther back before the predators on Wall Street figured out how to capitalize on government programs and policies to build outrageous fortunes creating, selling and trading securities that no one understood using debt leverage that invited disaster. Actually the whole thing started in the halls and meeting rooms of Congress as a substantial number of liberal senators and representatives decided that everyone in America should own a home. Since 1992, with primarily Democratic Party Congressional support, federal housing laws have focused on using the Federal Housing Enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to expand their participation in the home loan market and make homes more affordable for those who may not otherwise qualify for mortgage loans. In response to that Congressional mandate Fannie and Freddie lowered their mortgage lending standards, or more accurately, eliminated their lending standards so that anyone could get a home loan. That is where the problem started.
The enabling legislation that allowed the high stakes financial games trading sub-prime mortgages to develop was the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, sponsored by Republicans Phil Gramm, Jim Leach, and Thomas Bliley, and signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton. This law allowed commercial banks to engage in the more speculative activities of investment banking, investment brokerage, insurance and proprietary trading. The legislation had the same effect as lighting a blowtorch in a fireworks factory. The natural ingenuity of Wall Street investment bankers resulted in the creation of not only portfolios of high risk sub-prime mortgage loans but also the use of borrowed money to increase the potential returns from those portfolios. For those who had the foresight to recognize that those securities may not be a good investment, they also created credit default swaps to profit from the default of the portfolios. Unforeseen by the overpaid geniuses was that credit default swaps would also become worthless when everyone defaulted at the same time and the underwriter could not cover the payout. The accumulation of exceedingly high risk investments and leverage was inevitably destined to end badly, and it did.
So who is responsible for our current economic predicament? Lots of people. Start with the Democrats in Congress who pushed the ludicrous idea that all Americans should own homes, encouraging Fannie and Freddie to lend money to people who had no ability to pay it back. The blame can be laid squarely on Democrats because Republicans tried to reform these insane lending policies with the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, which was unanimously rejected by Democrats. Next look at the Wall Street bankers, money managers and traders, mostly apolitical fellows who play both sides of the political aisle with emphasis on which side is in power. They set the timer on the debt bomb with the creation of high risk securities based on massively leveraged trading of mortgage debt and its derivatives. Top that off with federal financial regulators, mostly Democratic Party supporting bureaucrats at the operations level and Wall Street veterans and/or puppets at the top, who weren't regulating anything. Ironically, most of these folks are still in the same chairs playing the same games.
The question now is not whom to blame, but who and what policies will get us out of the situation. Barack Obama's answer is to pour more gasoline on the fire by just expanding the same programs that caused the conflagration in the first place. He is also forcing more rules, regulations and requirements on private sector businesses, straight-jacketing the efficient functioning of capitalism and free markets. The reported 50% of voters in this country who plan to vote for him again this fall must be brain dead.
Changes in tax policy can contribute to solving our problems, but only changes that simplify the process and eliminate loopholes. Eliminating loopholes would increase revenues and restore fairness while ending widespread avoidance and time wasted with compliance. The answer is not raising tax rates. Some people do make too much money, and I don't believe raising taxes on those making over half a million dollars a year would would hurt their lifestyle much. But the amount of revenue gained would be a drop in the barrel compared to how much revenue is needed to begin to reduce the deficit, and it would quickly result in diminishing revenues as the incentive to maximize income subject to taxation falls.
Spending cuts are the only real solution. We must eliminate unnecessary programs and rationalize those that are necessary, ban public unions and restrain public employee compensation, eliminate inefficient job duplication while demanding accountability, and reform the lobbying process by removing opportunities for corrupt legislative influence. We must also revise health care and retirement programs to establish fiscal responsibility and sustainability, and require elected offficials and their staffs to be subject to the same rules as the general public.
It shouldn't be that hard. Everyone without blinders on can see that Barack Obama is taking us down the drain. But just voting for a Republican will not turn the country around. Go along to get along Republicans are part of the problem, not the solution. Out of control government spending is a bipartisan effort, complete with the acquiescence of so-called 'conservatives' in Congress. In the first decade of the 21st Century, compromise has been defined as surrendering to the liberal agenda. That has to stop.
Republicans need to learn you cannot win a debate with ideologues who will create any lie or impossible scenario they can exploit to brainwash the public; you cannot reach a compromise with those who refuse to give any concessions; you cannot compete against dishonest charlatans and snake oil salesmen who make promises they do not intend to keep; and you cannot give concessions to assholes who will blame you anyway when the impossible promises are not kept.
The campaign dirt is beginning to fly, and each side will blame the other for the economic catastrophe we find ourselves in. There is plenty of blame to go around, but it is quite clear that Congressional Democrats were responsible for creating the sub-prime mortgage mess, apolitical bankers and traders produced the financial market bubble and meltdown, and cronyism among Wall Street and its regulators allowed it all to happen. Capitalism and free markets did not cause our current problems. Growth of big, invasive, dominating government did with the help of its friends on Wall Street. Barack Obama wants to make the government bigger, more invasive, more dominating than it already is. What we critically need is to return America to the people and let the private sector do what it has always done, create innovative new ideas, products and efficiencies that generate progress and rising living standards. Barack Obama and his 'Progressive' (a.k.a. state socialist; a.k.a. communist) posse must be defeated.
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