Redistribution

I guess I am not surprised that Obama has been revealed as favoring a redistribution of wealth. But what fazes me is that my leftie friends believe that this just means “marginal redistribution” … that is, upping the tax rate on people earning over $250,000 per year (Obama’s original target) … er, $200,000 per year (ala Obama, more recently) … er, $150,000 per year (ala Biden, yesterday). But, true redistribution of wealth would go much further … into redistribution of our citizen’s assets (remember what happened in China, Cuba, etc.?) Don’t snigger, the radical left is perfectly capable of applying this precept, particularly if they have a super majority in the Senate. Don’t forget that Obama’s church, the Trinity United Church, has required all its members (and this includes Obama) sign its manifesto which eschews “middleclasscedness.” I know that this sounds like scaremongering (as per Dennis Kucinich Noonan) but are you confident enough in Obama to say that this is not part of our future as he sees it?

What Went Wrong

Why things currently seem so bleak:
- Overleveraging (subprime mortgages, credit-default swaps, hedge funds, low interest rates)
- Lack of oversight in credit markets
- Commodity bubbles (oil, corn, natural gas, gold)
- Interlocking world credit markets
- Slowdown in Chinese infrastructure spending after the olympics
- Lack of fiscal discipline in government spending
- Competition for hegemony (Russia, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Syria, China)
- Decline in statesmanship among U.S. politicians
- U.S. Election (Democrats seeking advantage by talking down the economy)
- U.S. Elections (growing fear about the consequences of an Democrat sweep)
- Decline of objective media reporting

Thought for the Day

When times get tough the electorate blames everyone except themselves.

Yes, We Can’t

Yes, I am old and crotchety. But I still remember the can-do attitude that prevailed through most of the twentieth century. Then, the United States could do anything we put our minds to – build the Empire State building in one year; the Hoover dam in five years, the Golden Gate bridge in two years; win two World Wars; tame nuclear fission and fusion; make viewable movies; build the most massive engineering undertaking by man – our interstate highway system; put a man on the moon; and invent most of the technologies that are now manufactured in foreign lands. But this national spark seems to have faded as we limped into a new millennium. Today we are, unfortunately, a nation of can’t-dos:

- We can’t exploit our natural resources such as oil, coal and timber
- We can’t build a strategic missile-defense shield
- We can’t smoke tobacco (other herbs are OK)
- We can’t win any war into which we are drawn
- We can’t build nuclear power plants
- We can’t wear fur or perfume
- We can’t control government spending
- We can’t exercise our national hegemony
- We can’t keep unqualified people from having mortgages
- We can’t control who immigrates into our country
- We can’t execute serial or cop killers
- We can’t discipline our children
- We can’t preserve our time-honored traditions … such as marriage or Christmas
- We can’t stop killing full-term fetuses
- We can’t eat meat or animal fats
- We can’t keep uneducated students from graduating
- We can’t encourage our residents to learn English

And the sad irony is that those who mostly espouse the above taboos are the ones who are noisily chanting the mantra, “Yes, we can!”

Same Sex Marriage

Marriage is a social contract between two people of opposite genders who promise to procreate and raise the resultant children to the benefit of our future civilization. This contract is consequently rewarded by our society with certain social and financial benefits (including an ephemeral caste elevation). Now same-sex partners seek (and, in some states, have already received) these same benefits. May I suggest that same sex marriage brings with it the following problems:

- Male-male marriages cannot, by definition, procreate. Yes, they can raise adopted children but do not seem to be overly enthusiastic to do so. And those that do suffer the problem of imprinting a stigma on children of either sex that females are somehow flawed.

- Female-female marriages can, due to modern science, procreate. And they can also adopt children (those who make it past Planned Parenthood’s vacuum cleaner). However, I think that their issue (or adoptees) also suffer from the potential of making any male rug-crunchers feel that they are substandard and not deserving of intimacy.

- There is a bookshelf full of laws that have been written using the base-line assumption of male-female marriage. Changing this definition will throw many of these laws into a cocked hat ... which should take a generation to unwind. This will guarantee full-employment for lawyers for ages. (One reason why we might think about excluding lawyers from our governing bodies.)

Nose Thumbing

When George Bush put restrictions on under what circumstances the federal government would fund stem-cell research, at least two states, California and Massachusetts, stepped up to announce that they would fund such research themselves, California put aside $3 billion and Massachusetts, $1.25 billion. Effectively, they thumbed their noses at Bush and played Mother Teresa to Bush’s Ebenezer Scrooge
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Now California is running short of funds and has floated a trial balloon that it might have to ask the U.S. Treasury for a loan of $7 billion. See California Loan I predict that Massachusetts will probably be soon in the same predicament as its reputation for fiscal restraint under Deval Patrick is not stellar. See Budget Problems

May I posit that our Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, should respond to these hat-in-hand requests with the suggestion that these states first find the money in their stem-cell research kitties?

Corrosive Practices

The following are, in my opinion, popular or looming practices that are corrosive of our society and would be better left on the cutting-room floor:
- Sub-prime mortgages
- World government
- Government sponsored enterprises (GSEs)
- Motor-voter registrations
- Same-sex marriage
- Black reparations
- Credit default swaps (CDSs)
- Goth culture
- Mark-to-market accounting
- Late-term abortions
- Too-easy credit
- Dark-pool securities trading
- Government bail-outs
- Hedge funds
- Global warming hysteria
- Single-payer healthcare
- Off-balance-sheet accounting
- Onerous gun registration laws
- Islamic fundamentalism
- Grunge, rap and heavy-metal music
- Disproportionate executive pay
- Same-day voter registration
- Naked short selling