Stamped Out

The U.S. Postal Service is poised to default on a $5.5 billion payment it owes our federal government (see: Possible Postal Service Default)  I guess the rash of recent TV ads (run by the American Postal Workers Union) that brag that our Postal Service is self-sustaining are a bunch of hooey?

But, not to worry, the U.S.'s overall financial shape is all aces ...

In Extremis

The United States has lost its AAA bond rating.  Standard and Poors has downgraded the debt of the U.S. one notch to AA+.  See  the MSNBC Article for details.  Our little Timothy Geither and you-know-who have overseen this disgrace to our nation and our flag.  This is something that I would not be proud to have on my resume.  What's next?  The U.S. scrapping its space program (see Sputnik Moment)?  Continued high structural unemployment (see: Reuter's Take)?  The abandonment of our traditioonal allies (see: To the Wolves)?  The dismantling of our energy industry (see Luddite-in-Chief)?  More hope and change?

Cash and Kerry

"Reporting for duty ..."

John Forbes Kerry (who served in Viet Nam) said in an MSNBC interview this morning:

"The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody [the Tea Party] asserts it or simply because somebody [the Tea Party] says something which everybody knows is not factual, it [the Tea Party] doesn't deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do." (see: MSNBC Interview).

Is this the man who was a few hundred thousand votes short in Ohio from being our President?  Does our Constitution mean nothing to this Mass ass?  This comes on the heels of the disclosure that Wade Sanders, a lead man in his 2004 Presidential campaign (who vouched for Kerry's "heroic" role on the Swift Boats in Viet Nam) is in jail on a child pornograpy conviction and has also lost the Silver Star for his own Viet Nam service (for undisclosed reasons not related to his current felony).  See: Wade Sanders Disgraced.

Thank you Ohio!

Afterward: Listening to talk radio here in Boston this afternoon, I am reminded that John Kerry's running mate in 2004 was John Edwards.  Ugh!  Thank you again Ohio!!

A Double X Ski Trail

Dow Jones Industrial Average -- Year-to-Date

Not to worry, global warming will solve things shortly ...

Dead Cat Bounce

I guess this morning, due to good but suspicious employment numbers, we got 15 minutes of a stock-market "dead cat bounce" (a old Wall Street term that compares market action to a dead cat falling off a roof ... "even a dead cat will bounce a bit.")

Happy Birthday, Mr. President ...

Eating birthday cake ... and collecting campaign funds ... while Rome burns (see: Advice From Abroad).

Wall Street Speaks

Dow Jones Industrial Average YTD

Recently we were told that, if the U.S. debt ceiling was not raised, the stock market would immediately crash by at least 1,000 points.  Now, the debt ceiling has indeed been raised and The Barry has inked the compromise bill ... and what has happened?  The Dow Jones Index has dropped almost 800 points over the last week ... almost 260 points of which happened today ... even after this supposed "catastrophe" has been averted.  Now, Wall Street typifies cynicism and contrary-ism, but why have buyers, in euphoric relief,  not rushed back into the stock market?  May I offer a few possible reasons for this Wall Street swoon:

- Despite the stated objectives of this deal, there is a strong likelihood that this current administration will not live up to the compromise's terms that are contain therein ... just like the Democrats did not live up to the early-on deal that they struck with Ronald Reagan wherein tax rates were cut but somehow the bigger spending cuts never occurred (see Reagan's Deal).

- This compromise did nothing to address the elephant in the room, entitlement reform.

- The debt ceiling, being raised by this deal, results in immediate (profligate) government spending whereas the "equivalent cuts" will take place over ten years.

- This next round of before-Thanksgiving budget cuts dictated by this deal will be designed by a "bipartisan committee."  If we thought that the political theater was farcical for these last sweltering weeks, just wait until this committee starts its deliberations ... quickly followed by dueling press leaks.

- This bill contains no serious path to achieve a balanced-budget amendment to our Constitution.

- This grand compromise enables The Barry to avoid another debt ceiling battle before next year's election.  This likely increases his chances of having another 4 years of waygu beef, White House festivities, and frequent family vacations.

So, those talking heads who had opined about the financial markets positive reaction to this deal (or the negative reaction to the "no-deal" alternative) were dead wrong ... perhaps because the words coming from their heads were stifled by about a yard of their bowels.

Tail Wags the Dog

The "extremists" seemed to have won ... the tail is waging the dog ... at least for the nonce.  The freshman Republicans in the House of Representatives (87 out of 435) ... mostly Tea Party Coalition members have carried the day in the recent dog fight about cutting government spending in exchange for raising our debt ceiling.  This was despite the fact that they represent a small minority in just one half of Congress.  The Senate and the Executive branch are controlled by Democrats.  This is a compelling development.  For once this band of brothers and sisters stuck together and to their guns and insisted on doing what they promised to do when they were elected last November.

And this was also despite the vicious attacks on them from the main-steam media, from many cable-TV talking heads, from almost all Democrat pols, and even from a few RINO Republicans (John McCain called them "hobbits").  To me, how they kept from folding under this onslaught indicates a level of patriotism and statesmanship that is rare in today's political theater.  And, hopefully, this passion will carry over to 2012 when this nation's electorate replicates these voting preferences in the elections for the Senate and the Presidency.  I'm not saying that only Tea Party members should be those elected next year.  What I would prefer is that there be enough moderate Republicans elected that the Tea Party might not over-reach (like the Democrats clearly did in 2009).  However, I do hope that tax reform (that broadens the U.S. tax base), entitlement reform (that insures the future solvency of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security), spending cuts (that better balance the size of the federal government with our economic metrics), and regulation reform (that clears the tracks ahead for U.S. businesses) ... all come out of the fresh-faced government we hopefully elect in 2012.  Do these things well and rigorous U.S. job growth will be resurrected

Yes, this Boehner/Reid bill is not perfect and we have learned that this administration has a way of subverting the intent of the Republican legislators (witness what happened in April of this year when $38 billion in spending cuts in the 2011 budget, in reality, morphed into only $352 million ... see 2011 Budget Bill).  I would have also preferred that this debt-limit bill incorporated movement toward a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  (I am perplexed as to what the Democrat objections to this amendment can be ... perhaps the electorate will ask them this same question a year from this fall?)  Anyhow, it now looks like the Tea Party is on a roll and those who have underrated the power and popularity this grass-roots movement might re-examine their polling results and future campaign strategies.  Just calling them names won't make them go away.

Afterward: Joe Biden just called the Tea Party "terrorists".  Have at 'em Joe!  You make my point.

Juxtaposition XXVI

Darth Vader

John Boehner

According to Nancy Pelosi ... see: Pelosi Snaps

High Noon

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists used to (and may still) have a doomsday clock that was always precariously close to midnight (or just as appropriately, high-noon).  One gets the feeling that we could apply this analogy to the current debt-ceiling situation.  The cable TV channels are wall-to-wall with speculation as to when and how this "crisis" is going to be resolved.  The Barry is Gary Cooper waiting in the dusty western street for high noon and the inevitable shoot-out with that dastardly Republican, John Boehner.

The American public has pulled their window curtains and are peeking out to see who survives this quick-draw duel. And just as Gary Cooper evinced that air of vincibility in that famous movie, so The Barry has recently been showing cracks in his bravado facade.  His recent speech, hoping to rally the American public around his cause, was full of tired cliches and fell pretty flat.  I don't know if this real-life drama is going to ape the movie and have The Barry prevail, but I do strongly suspect that if Obama doesn't win this gun-battle, he will not only be lying in the proverbial dust ... but his presidency will effectively be over.

Food Deserts

Michelle Obama now has control over $345 million of government two-year funding so that she can encourage (read "coerce") grocery chains to open stores that stock fresh produce in ghetto areas ... which are now conveniently called "food deserts." (See: Michelle's Markets and  Slush Funds) The idea here is that the FLOTUS has been educating the poor families in this country about better nutrition .. yet many of these disadvantaged people have to travel great distances to purchase such nutritional products, since there are no nearby retail purveyors.  Or, if there are such close-by grocery stores, their prices are often much higher than similar stores in upscale neighborhoods.

Now, this sounds to me like another rat hole down which our current paternalistic government plans to pour oodles of taxpayer funds.  And, much like our government's catastrophic meddling in the sub-prime mortgage market, this otherwise noble endeavor is surely going to end up badly.  (Good intentions, gone sour?)  We are supposed to be a free-market economy which means that, if there was an attractive economic opportunity to pursue such business, then it would have been already achieved.  If this hasn't happened, there must be one or more reasons for this reluctance.  Will these reasons disappear because Ms. Obama wishes them away?  I doubt it.  And I also doubt that this initiative will continue much after the current government largess disappears.

And like the sub-prime mortgage fiasco was propagated by our misguided feel-good government hacks, I fully expect that there will be a number of corporations that rise to this juicy bait and make a quick buck off of the backs of the U.S. taxpayer  (like Countrywide Finance did back then with no-documentation mortgages) ... until they no longer can.  Let's just hope that these companies will not be then "too big to fail."

The road to hell ... apparently goes through the food desert.

Naive Nuts

A couple in South Carolina has discovered an image of Jesus Christ on a receipt from Walmart's don't yah know.  (See: above image and Walmart Miracle)  Now, as much as I admire this couple faith, I still classify them as naive nuts.  I believe that, if Jesus wanted to send a message to his flock, I suspect it wouldn't be on a Walmart receipt ... perhaps in 5,000-point bold Times New Roman type in the clouds on top of a giant rainbow? 

Now, there are a number of other naive nuts that often surround such an event, viz:
- the crowd of acolytes who will pilgrimage to South Carolina to catch a glimpse of this receipt (probably for a hefty fee)
- the cable-news reporters who will, in hushed terms, probe and promote this "miracle"
- the guy who will spend $10,000 to buy this image on EBay
- the evangelist preachers who will point to this "sign" as a warning about our decaying society

Mad Rachel Maddow

MSNBC has been smartly taking advantage of the popularity of its successful Morning Joe program to promote its low-rated evening shows like Hardball with Chris Matthews and the Rachel Maddow Show.  While Morning Joe tends toward the middle of the road politically, both these evening shows are unapologetically hard left.  Two of these promos featuring Rachel Maddow are quite curious to my mind:

One has her standing in front of a wind-turbine farm extolling green energy.  However, if one looks closely, it appears that only a few wind-turbines in the foreground are running.  Most of the background wind-turbines are motionless ... which is a major drawback to this clean-energy initiative insofar as the overhead maintenance of these behemoths is quite expensive and so their up-time is often limited.  (If it weren't for government subsidies, I doubt if these uneconomic greenies would exist.)

The second promo has Ms. Maddow fronting the Hoover Dam extolling the virtues of our forebearers in how they planned and built for our future generations.  The problems here is that I seriously doubt if the environmentalists (with Rachel Maddow, an assumed champion) would tolerate any such new river-damming project like the Hoover Dam ever to be considered as a future source of electric power.  (It's the snail darters' home don't you know?)

Priorities

I've recently concocted a natural taxonomy for classifying famous people.  Here are the first five priorities that I believe each of these celebrities uses to govern his/her activities and ambitions:

The Donald -- O, J, L, N, G
Hillary Clinton -- B, H, O, A, N
Dave Letterman -- O, L, H, J, G
Jay Leno -- L. J, G, H, O
The Barry -- O, A, D, H, N
Oprah -- J, B, D, L, G
Bush 43 -- G, C, N, H, A
Mitt Romney -- G, L, C, H, N
Charlie Sheen -- O, O, O, O, L
Al Gore -- O, O, J, L, H
Bill Clinton -- O, H, A, G, N
Sarah Palin -- O, N, H, G, I

And here are what these letters mean:

A - The World
B - One's Gender
C - One's Religion
D - Ones Race
E - One's Ethnicity
F - The Environment
G - One's Nation
H - One's Political Party
I - One's Region
J - One's Company
K - One's Home City/Town
L - One's Profession
M - One's Relatives
N - One's Family
O - One's Self

Have some fun and disagree with my rankings or develop your own priority profiles for other famous people.

Plouffer Nutter

David Plouffe

The person who supposedly got The Barry elected in 2008, David Plouffe, went whistling past the graveyard last week when he said that a high unemployment rate won't sink Obama's chances in next year's election (see: Plouffe Prediction).  Now, since Plouffe is again The Barry's chief campaign strategist and manager, his words carry some import.  Even the conservative columnist, Charles Krauthammer, believes that it will not be the absolute level of unemployment that makes the difference in the upcoming election.  It will be the trend that is important.  If things seem to be getting better, then The Barry might win once again.

Color me sceptical ... both in the validity of these theories and in the outlook for our economy improving.  And the reasons I am chary about The Barry's re-election chances (other than the fact that I think he has been a horrid hack as a President) are as follows:

- The almost trillion dollar stimulus that the Democrats passed shortly after Obama was inaugurated did little other than to insure the retention of state government workers who would have otherwise been laid off (apparently the "saved jobs" that were so cleverly touted).  As The Barry himself has admitted the real intent of that stimulus was a dud, "The shovel-ready jobs weren't as shovel-ready as we thought."  Now the wave of financial crises in many states is causing them to axe many of those same state workers who should have gone packing two years ago.

- The only bright employment sector of the U.S. economy has been federal workers.  Housing prices in and around Washington, DC have been strong ... reflecting continued profligate hiring and hefty pay raises for these pampered federal employees.  If the Republicans get their way with meaningful government spending cuts in exchange for their votes to raise the government debt ceiling, then this rosy federal employment picture should dim considerably. This may be the chief reason Democrats are digging in their heels on this issue ... and would rather raise income taxes instead.  They must be saying to themselves, "These are our voters who will be in the bread lines."

- Worldwide economic malaise, particularly in the European Economic Community is not going to disappear overnight.  When Greece defaults on its debts sometime in the next twelve months (as it most probably will), the repercussions will be felt around the world ... maybe even with cascading defaults in Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and even Italy.  This clearly will not boost economic or employment prospects here in the United States.

And I don't think it is an accident that so many top Obama economic advisers are abandoning him ... maybe even to include little Timmy Geithner.  I think that they see the obit writing on the wall ... just as I think I do.

What is Success?

Woody Allen is often attributed with saying "90% of life is just showing up".  I remember it as an older movie star ... perhaps George Burns ... adding that you had to show up on time to be successful.  I, personally, have an obsession of being on time to appointments ... to the point of most often being annoyingly early.  Anyway, The Barry was scheduled to talk to the nation today at 10:35 about the precipitous drop in new employment in June (see Jobs Growth).  But our nation was again hanging on cable-TV tether hooks watching an empty podium in front of the White House.  The Barry eventually showed up at 11:05 -- a half-hour late (as is his wont).  I couldn't watch all what he said about this jobs malaise, but I'm pretty sure he blamed George Bush.

Doubt

This country appears to be having an apoplectic fit over the acquittal of Casey Anthony in the apparent homicide of her daughter, Caylee. Now, I'm not going to wade here into the swamp of controversy over this case ... other than to cringe at the miasma being emitted on talk radio and cable TV. Is Casey guilty? Most probably ... certainly of aggravated manslaughter. But that is not my point. My issue arises from a statement made by one of the jurors. She said that Casey Anthony clearly was not guilty beyond "a shadow of a doubt." Now, this is not the standard that was supposed to be applied in such a case. Our legal system should not allow some kooky possibility to be used to explain away felonious behavior.  The pet dog seldom if ever eats the homework.

Surely, the rule of reasonableness must be applied. And I don't think it was in this case. Just like it clearly wasn't in the O.J. Simpson trial. I found it more than curious that Alan Dershowitz (an O.J. dream-team lawyer) named his book about the O.J. trial, Reasonable Doubt. So, I make the following suggestion --before any serious future headline trial, I would hope that the prosecution would make inquiry of all prospective jurors and ask them to define "reasonable doubt." And any who suggest that "any doubt" applies should be rudely excused from jury duty. The problem that then will apply is ... will any jurors ever be seated?

Happy 4th of July

"What so proudly we hailed ..."

The Emperor's New Clothes

Hans Christian Andersen tried to teach us about the pomposity of high political office thusly:

The emperor walked beneath the beautiful canopy in the procession, and all the people in the street and in their windows said, "Goodness, the emperor's new clothes are incomparable! What a beautiful train on his jacket. What a perfect fit!" No one wanted it to be noticed that he could see nothing, for then it would be said that he was unfit for his position or that he was stupid. None of the emperor's clothes had ever before received such praise.

"But he doesn't have anything on!" said a small child.

"Good Lord, let us hear the voice of an innocent child!" said the father, and whispered to another what the child had said.

"A small child said that he doesn't have anything on!"

Finally everyone was saying, "He doesn't have anything on!"

In my blog yesterday I mentioned how Mark Halperin had noted that The Barry had acted like "a dick" in his press conference the previous day.  After he had blurted this out, there was universal but short-lived mirth on the set of the Morning Joe show on MSNBC.  Mark Halperin effectively was Andersen's small child calling out our Emperor President for his haughtiness and hubris ... which few others have been willing to notice.  Quickly, however everyone was running around like their hair was on fire ... trying to bury this truism like a cat in a litter box.  Even Mr. Halperin ate a large piece of humble pie when he fully realized what was about to happen to him (and, of course, it did as he was subsequently indefinitely suspended.)  He repeatedly apologized.  Mika Brzezinski apologized.  Joe Scarborough apologized.  The show's producer apologized.  The make-up lady apologized.  The grip and best-boy apologized.

However, the truth will always shine through.  The Barry really is a dick ... even regaled in his new finery.

Taxing Ideas

The Barry, in his press conference today, was sticking to his guns about the need to increase taxes in order to reduce our government's crippling deficits ... otherwise cancer research will disappear, weather forecasting would be crippled, no more food inspections, and our children won't get college scholarships.  Now he does have the bully pulpit and a nation full of fiscal dunces who are easily deluded by such demagoguery ... so such tried-and-true scare tactics are likely to work ... particularly when, in the latter part of July, many Americans start getting letters threatening to stop their Social Security checks and food stamps.

Now assuming that the Republicans will eventually have to blink and cave-in on tax increases in order to get meaningful government spending cuts (which somehow will never happen), I offer what might be acceptable (to me) "reductions in revenue spending" (the new Democrat euphemism for tax increases):

- Offer U.S. corporations a year-long opportunity to repatriate overseas profits at one-half our statutory corporate tax rate.
- Lock in the Bush tax cuts forever but then concurrently beef up the alternative minimum tax provisions in our tax code so that corporations, "millionaires and billionaires," and even ordinary taxpayers must effectively pay income taxes at no less than five percentage points below the statutory rate that would otherwise apply to their gross income.  Consequently, many of the tax loopholes (such as "It Pays to Work" and mortgage interest payments on McMansions) now utilized by such parties might lose much of their effectiveness.  And this would be the first step toward a flat tax (wherein across-the-board tax rates could then be reduced further).
- Eliminate the earned income tax credits entirely (essentially welfare payments through the tax system).
- Increase the upper ceiling on the income to which the FICA tax applies by say 20% and then have it automatically adjust upwards annually by our rate of inflation.
- Double co-pays for Medicaid and Medicare doctor visits (a backdoor tax)

I have no idea as to the amount of increased revenues that such provisions would engender, but I bet it would be substantial ... but not nearly enough to balance the budget.  Therefore, we need to talk about meaningful spending and entitlement cuts (haha) ...

Afterthought:  I was lucky enough to see Mark Halperin's original comment on Morning Joe this Thursday AM about The Barry's performance in yesterday's news conference.  After being egged on and assured that any scurrilous comment would be bleeped out (it wasn't), Halperin said that The Barry was being "a dick."  He later apologized and said he might have made a career-limiting quip.  I hope not ... he is my current left-leaning hero. 

Leading from Behind

The Barry and his handlers have coined a new political oxymoron: “leading from behind.” They have used it to excuse The Barry’s hiding under his oval-office desk regarding acknowledging our “kinetic actions” in Libya, pushing The Joe (Biden) out to negotiate our way out of the administration’s debt-ceiling impasse with Congress, tepidly defending the Pelosi/Reid health-care bill (which has been so inaptly named Obamacare) by granting multitudinous exemptions, and countless other leadership lapses.

The image that immediately comes to my mind is the picture of Michael Dukakis as a tank commander.

Elmer Fudd

In a generic poll by the Gallup organization, a Republican candidate would beat The Barry in 2012 by a 44% to 39% margin (see: Gallup Poll).  This corresponds to what Rush Limbaugh has been saying for many weeks ... that Elmer Fudd could beat Obama in the next election.  This realization has spurned a bit of franetic activity in the White House ... sending The Barry on thinly-disguised campaign trips.  One of the trips was to the Cree Corp. in Durham, North Carolina which makes LED replacement lightbulbs with the purpose to tout his green energy and job creation thrusts.  The only problem here is that Cree has relocated half of its manufacturing jobs to China.  The second trip was to Puerto Rico to pander to the Hispanic vote in the next election.  Again there was a rub in this Presidential grandstanding ... the jobless rate in Puerto Rico when The Barry took office was a little over 9% -- it is now 16.2% (see N.Y.Times).

Of course circumstances could change in the next 16 months, but, at the moment, Elmer looks like a shoe-in.

Another Mass Ass

Salvatore DiMasi, the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, has just been convicted on seven of nine felony counts of bribery and corruption (see: Another Mass Ass).  This is the third Speaker of the Massachusetts House in a row who has been convicted of a felony.  Repeat ... the third Speaker of the Massachusetts House in a row who has been convicted of a felony.  To me, this is not a surprise.  The government in this state is one-party (Democrat) politics which invites this kind of guttural behavior ... not just in our state legislature, but in many of our mayors, many of our governors, most of our representatives to the U.S. House and Senate, and even some from this state who have run for the Presidency. Most of these individuals are poltroons of the first order ... independent of how their public relations machines have (successfully) managed to paint them. 

Massachusetts has a culture of corruption that permeates to almost all corners of its political apparatus ... witness that the State House of Representatives overwhelmingly elected Sal DiMasi as its Speaker well after the particulars of his felony were in the open ... what an embarrassment!  And what is even worse is that this state is replete with intelligent, erudite voters who conveniently overlook this obvious decadence as soon as they enter the voting booth.  This I'll-scratch-your-back-etc. thinking will eventually destroy this state and may even help to destroy our nation.  What a pity that the state which produced that giant statesman who helped found this once-great nation, John Adams, has fed the metastasizing cancer that may eventually destroy it.

Grating

Obama on Weiner -- "I think he's embarrassed himself. He's acknowledged that. He's embarrassed his wife and his family. Ultimately, there's gonna be a decision for him and [h]is constituents. I can tell you that, if it was me, I would resign," (See AP Story)

Obviously the Harvard Law Review had lowered its subjunctive (and pronoun agreement) standards.

Cooking the COLA

My previous blog discussed the fact that monetary inflation seems the only way that our federal, state and local governments can dig their way out of their huge unfunded liability overhangs (see: Good News Bad News).  Now, this discussion left out one key (un)mitigating factor.  That is -- inflation cannot be used by the feds to solve these overhangs ... if cost-of-living-adjustments (COLAs) to these unfunded mandates (mainly Social Security payments) erase the discounted current-value erosion of these benefits.  But this is not happening currently for one key reason -- COLAs for the last two years have been zero, nada, zilch, the cipher (see: Social Security COLAs) and I predict they will continue being zero into the foreseeable future.  How can this be?  Certainly, large U.S. cost-of-living inflation is obvious to anyone who who goes to the grocery store or fills their gasoline tanks. 

Ah, the trick that AARP and the main-stream media have conveniently pushed to the side is that the way COLAs are calculated has been changed.  Instead of cost inflation, COLAs are now computed using wage inflation which, obviously during a severe recession, is essentially zero (or negative ... except, of course, in the public sector).  Although, this might be one way to reduce the extreme severity of this country's unfunded liability overhand, zero COLAs are not good for our senior citizens or anyone living on a fixed income.  Why no one is raising a Wisconsin-no-collective-bargaining-like hew and cry about this federal financial trickery is a little befuddling.  But then I'm generally always surprised by what raises populus passions and what doesn't in a country that gets its news from The Daily Show.

It might even be a good political move for Republicans to raise this issue a year from this September ... right before the next Presidential elections (even though it would be a bad fiscal move).

Good News, Bad News

There is an unfunded-mandate (Social Security, Medicare, etc.) overhang on our federal government of $61.6 trillion (see Unfunded Federal Mandates). This is extremely bad news.  However, I'm pretty sure that this is not the present value of this future debt.  If one assumes that the average span of this obligation is 30 years and then apply a discount rate of 4.185% (the current interest rate on 30-year government bonds), then the discounted present value of this obligation is $18.03 trillion.  Although this is not quite good news, it is a little closer to the rate of the United States' annual economic activity (now about $14.7 trillion).  What could be good news for our government would be that, if the rate on our 30-year bonds were to increase to 8% (due to greatly increased inflation), then the present value of federal obligations would be a more manageable $6.12 trillion. 

Of course, the bad news here is this almost $12 trillion difference would come right out of the hides of those to whom these mandates would be owed (mainly our children and grandchildren).  And if you think that our government would not take this easy route (runaway inflation) out of this unfunded-mandate conundrum, then you are naive enough to vote for The Barry again.

One more piece of bad news, the above $61.6 trillion figure does not include the unfunded mandates of all our states and municipalities.  UGH!

Afterthought: I think some wise-ass questioner in the Presidential debates in 2012 should ask the candidates what "discounted current value" is.  I'm certain Romney and many of the other Republican hopefuls would know the answer.  I somehow doubt if The Barry would.

Reprise

I did not have sexting with that woman ... not a single time.

A Cabal

Joe Biden

Employers added only 54,000 jobs in May, the lowest in many months  (see: Anemic Jobs Growth ).  This is obviously a right-wing conspiracy to embarrass The Barry and The Joe (our Jobs Czar) going into the 2012 elections.  Business's reticence to hire has nothing to do with Obamacare, the looming U.S. tax increases in 18 months, the inability of our feckless American politicians to deal with our debt crisis, and our growing government regulatory malevolence.  I think that The Barry needs to go on prime-time TV and tell the American public who the true culprits of this economic malaise are -- a cabal composed of our greedy oil companies, Israel, the Cambridge, MA police, FOX News, Dick Chaney, and global-warming deniers.  Then we will finally understand whom to blame.

Juxtaposition XXV



Chinese Junk





Congressional Junk

Juxtposition XXIV



Weiner



Hot Dog



A Twit Tweeting.
 
Isn't it funny ... a Republican would fall on his sword.  A Democrat calls on his lawyer.

Juxtaposition XXIII

Valarie Jarrett

Prince Valiant

The Map Tells

I have three profound problems with the push for Palestine statehood as proposed in his recent pronouncements by our president, The Barry.

If the "1967 borders with mutually-agreed-on land swaps" is the starting point of negotiations between Israel and the Hamas/Fatah cabal ... what is the end-point?  If the Israelis are, as a starter, reduced to this minimal land profile, what land do they then have left to agree mutually to swap for, say, Jerusalem or its West Bank settlements?  The answer is: Nada.  (It already has given back the Gaza Strip and the Sinai.)

If the Palestinians (according to The Barry) are to have a "contiguous" state, then the Israelis, by definition, will be left with a non-contiguous state.  Is this realistic ... or a sinister formula for Israel's annihilation?

And the most obvious oversight by The Barry is his conveniently ignoring the Palestanians' uncompromising demand for the "right to return," or the ability of persons who once lived in what is now Israel to return there ... along with their children, their grandchildren, and soon, their great-grandchildren.  If one marries this demographic nightmare with Hamas's charter's call for the destruction of Israel, then the result clearly is equivalent to tying a honey-covered missionary to a fire-ant hill ... not a very pleasant demise.

Afterthought: The Barry's two gaffs in England yesterday (toasting the queen during "God Save the Queen" and signing the guest book at Westminister Abby "24 May, 2008"  tells me (once again) that he has difficulty with the details of life and protocol.  To me, this mirrors his inattention to the details listed above in his speech on the Israeli/Palestinian peace process.

Connecting the Dots

Last Friday, a man whom I have admired greatly, George Mitchell, abruptly resigned his position as the U.S. Envoy to the Middle East (see: George Mitchell Leaves.) Now, less than a week later, President Obama makes a stilted speech on the Middle East ... the main point of which was to call for Isreal to return to its pre-1967 borders with the Arab world.  This is obviously a shock to Israel and many thinking Americans ... particularly one day before Israel's Prime Minister, Netanyahu, is planning to visit the White House.  If Netanyahu now cancels this meeting I would not be the slightest bit surprised.

But the real point of this blog post is ... is this why George Mitchell resigned?  I sure hope so.

Bonehead Moves

The Obama administration has made a few good and even gutsy decisions ... like icing Osama bin Laden and the surge in Afghanistan.  However, it has also made and continues to make far too numerous bonehead moves.  I offer the following as but a few examples:

- Abrogating our anti-missile defense agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic.
- Obamacare ... along with something more than 1,300 wavers to mostly large businesses and unions.
- This past January, the opening up of diplomatic relations with Syria ... just in time for the bloody anti-government uprisings there.
- Sending our warplanes into Libya almost two months ago while assuring the American public that this incursion would last for "days not weeks."  It is still going on.
- Trying to keep the Boeing corporation from opening a manufacturing plant (for its Dreamliner airplane) in South Carolina because it is a "right to work" state.
- Appointing of 37 executive-branch czars ... unvetted by Congress.
- Helping (along with Ben Bernanke) to destroy the value of the U.S. dollar.
- Spending almost one trillion dollars of U.S. taxpayer money on a "stimulus" bill which did nothing to create private-sector jobs.  It just briefly saved public-sector jobs in many states ... which jobs are now being cut due to continued economic malaise.
- Taking Arizona to court over its new anti-illegal-immegration laws.
- Disclosing British military secrets to the Russians as grease-on-the-skids to get them to ratify the START treaty.
- Meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt shortly after his inauguration.
- Federalizing two car companies, the student loan industry, and some financial companies (AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.)
- Demagoguing on the illegal immigration issue, the balanced budget issue, the political contributions from foreigners issue, the collective bargaining issue, the racial equality issue, the Tea Party issue, the environmental issues, the Israel/Arab issue, the oil depletion allowance issue, etc.
- The "Cash for Clunkers" program.
- Trying to bring Islamic terrorists to trial in U.S. civilian courts.
- Placing a moratorium on new oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico while, at the same time, fronting Brazil $2 billion for them to develop its own off-shore oil resources.
- Providing 85 drone aircraft to Pakistan right before we found Osama bin Laden ensconced there.
- Refusing to proffer or pass a 2011 federal budget ... and offering only a grossly irrational one fo 2012.
- The (mis)handling of the BP oil spill ... including extorting $20 billion out of BP.
- (Just in.) A call for Israel to return unilaterly to its pre-1967 borders with the Arab world.

Now, take the ratio of good decisions to bonehead moves to determine a President's worth.  Any number greater than one qualifies a President for Mount Rushmore. The Barry so far doesn't seem even to qualify for a footnote to history.

Oily Proposal

Semantics are wondrous things.  Many politicians, including some Republicans, are now calling for the elimination of oil industry "subsidies" as one small way of closing our heinous budget deficit.  These subsidies supposedly total $4.4 billion per year (see: Oil Industry Subsidies.) This is a very small amelioration (less than 0.3%) considering that our budget deficits are now running around $1.6 trillion per year.

Now, I am old enough to remember what these oil-industry "subsidies" really are.  They used to be called "oil depletion allowances."  These allowances were meant to equate to "depreciation" in other industries.  In other words, as an oil company either purchased or leased the mineral rights to a piece of land ... and then extracted the oil, there was a reduced value to this land since the oil was being extracted.  Thus oil companies were thus allowed to "depreciate" this depleted oil deposit to allow them to then go and buy or lease other land to look for more oil.

Can we thus call the ability of General Motors to depreciate the machinery (robots, machine tools, etc.) it uses to make cars an "auto-industry subsidy?"  If we did, all hell would break loose.  Now maybe the formulas used to calculate oil depletion allowances need to be reformulated given the new technology used in oil extraction.  But to eliminate these oil-industry "subsides" entirely is but another step in our tree huggers' attempt to emasculate the United States' energy-producing capabilities.  This is a little like playing Russian Roulette with five bullets in your six-shooter.

Trumping Our Lenders?

The way I understand it, Donald Trump keeps his bankers in a bit of a predicament.  He owes them so much money that they can't afford to pull the plug on him.  All his properties are supposedly mortgaged up to their hilts and, although he usually and continually makes payments on these mortgages, he, often enough, refinances them for more working capital.  And occasionally, he let's one of these puppies be euthanized  (e.g., the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City) to keep his creditors fearful.  (See: Legal Zoom and Daily News.)  He clearly has a very intimidating negotiating style based upon the leverage of his leverage.  But mostly his total indebtedness just keeps growing ... and growing ... and growing. Effectively, he seems to maintain his lavish life style off of the reverse-vigorish of these banking bets.

Does this all not sound a lot like how the United States Treasury and our Federal Reserve Bank operate?  Only, whereas The Donald does not seem to have any limit to his hubris (and borrowing), The Barry does have an increasingly skeptical Congress which thinks that maybe enough indebtedness is enough. Yesterday, the United States's debt limit was reached and Congress refused to increase it. And no matter how much gorilla dust Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke throw up about the calamity that will eventually ensue from this event, I think that the United States's bankers here and around the world may just be a little more disciplined than Mr. Trump's. (See PIMCO Selling)

Another Closing, Another Show

There is a bit of nostalgic news today that once touched my life ... that famous celebrity bistro, Elaine's, is soon closing ... after Elaine (Kaufman) herself died this past December.  See: Elaine's Closing.

Now for the nostalgia -- back when I was single in New York City, I was a bit of a regular at a bar called Tinker's at 74th Street and Second Avenue.  One evening in 1964 at around nine in the evening, a rather heavy-set Jewish woman with horn-rimmed glasses came into this bar and started chit-chatting Tinker (Ward).  They appeared to be close friends.

After a bit, both she and Tinker told most of us bar regulars that we were all invited to go to another bar further uptown ... a bar that this imposing woman was just opening.  We all piled in a few cabs and tumbled out somewhere in the high eighties.  We then previewed what appeared to be another nondescript bar that was about twice the size of Tinkers.  I say “previewed,” because, there were just a few other people in the bar arranging tables and getting ready for the real opening in a day or two.  I took no real notice of the bar’s name.  We were all treated to a few drinks ... I can’t remember who bought, Tinker or this woman ... and then filtered back to Tinker’s to finish our evenings in our usual libertine manner. 

I found out much later, after this new bar had become quite famous, that what we had previewed was “Elaine’s.”  Maybe it was my imagination, but I always felt that the few times I went into Elaine’s thereafter, Elaine would look at me sideways ... like she was trying to remember who I was.  I never told her.

The End is Near

There are three doomsday predictors now in the news.  Viz:

- This Saturday, May 21st is believed by many Evangelical Christians to be the Rapture -- or Judgement Day when good Christians will ascend directly into heaven while the rest of us will suffer, at the best, a long-lasting purgatory. See: The Rapture.  I'm hoarding lots of reading material.

- For some reason (lack of space?), the Mayan calendar ends on December 21st, 2012 (as per transposition to our calendar).  See: Mayan Terminus. This has caused additional consternation among many of the people who expect to live beyond this Saturday's Rapture.   I, myself, truly hope that this prediction only applies to Mayans.

- Many Iranians, including Ahmadinejad, expect the 12th (Shiite) Muslim Imam to emerge soon (perhaps August 22nd of this year) from a well somewhere and declare that the end of the world is at hand (what Christians call Armageddon.)  See: 12th Imam.  Does this then mean that the Iranians may have developed one or more A-bombs?

The fact that these three different apocalypse-predictor groups seem to agree that ultimate times will soon be upon us is a little disconcerting ... and don't forget, I haven't even included Al Gore's dire warnings.

Credit Blogging

Your blogger has somewhat anticipated this story -- the French Socialist head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has been accused of attempted rape of a New York City hotel chamber maid and his DNA has been collected as evidence.  See: Dominique Strauss-Kahn).  In a post here twelve days ago it was discribed how the U.S. has lent its credit cards to the IMF and the rest of the world (see: The High Cost of Linguica). Now we find out that our credit cards are being used for $3,000 per night suites at swanky New York hotels ... but apparently not for condoms.

Alligator Alley

President Obama spoke to his Latino base yesterday in El Paso, Texas and mocked the Republicans for asking for greater border security before tackling immigration reform.  In what has become a typical Obama rhetorical twist he chided his opponents by saying, "Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they'll want alligators in the moat [to stop illegal immigration]."  Now, I could be wrong (as I have occasionally been in the past), but being snide does not come across as being presidential.  Jibing your opponents may be a self-satisfying strategy when you are way ahead on the scoreboard.  But, if Obama wants to work with these same people sometime to get reasonable immigration reform accomplished, I doubt that such banal tactics will work when the game is tied.

Killing Osama

This morning on "Morning Joe" someone (I think Jonathan Alter) said that, as a result of Obama's pledge to close down our Guantanamo prison for terrorists, no new prisoners have been sent there since Obama was inaugurated ... or to any other rendition location for that matter.  And as a consequence, American forces have been killing those Islamic terrorist who have been captured ... just like that ultimate terrorist, Osama bin Laden, was recently tapped.

On one hand this decision appeals to my lust for revenge, but, just as logically, I have a problem with this apparent Obama policy.  Without capture and interrogation (even torture when necessary) of these prisoners, from whence is our future deep intelligence going to come?  And without this information, how are we eventually to win our war against Islamic extremists?  And, even more ironically, isn't "two in the hat" the ultimate enhanced interrogation technique ... so decried by this administration?

Al Qaeda Typo

My friend Dennis has pointed out a typo in the Al Qaeda manifesto.  As it turns out bin Laden was met by 72 vegans.

The High Cost of Linguica

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have agreed to bail out the Portuguese economy to the tune of some $116 billion. See: Portugal Bailout  This is after the fact that these same parties had bailed out (with almost equally large largess) Greece and Ireland last year.  Now, seeing that the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in large part back in 2008-2009, bailed out the major European banks (see Bernanke's Secret) and that the United States is a major contributor to the IMF (See: U.S and the IMF), it seems that the United States is once again handing our (over-extended) credit card to the rest of the world. 

Not only is the United States expected to pay the very high cost of defending the free world, but now, it seems, we must pick up the tab for their profligate social-engineering policies too.  Enough!

Snuff Pictures

Here is that famous picture of the President and his top advisers in the White House Situation Room watching real-time TV from the Navy Seal attack on Osama bin Laden's compound outside Islamabad in Pakistan.  Those brave soldiers each had a video camera on his helmet ... sending back virtual images of what was going on during the killing of bin Laden, his son, his wife, and as many as 19 others.

I doubt that few watching this bloody event had ever seen such drama as they were there and then experiencing.  And consequentially, I also doubt if Obama and his posse will ever again react in quite the same detached and cerebral way again to our terrorist threat.  At least, I hope not.

Update:  We are now told that the video feed from this raid was cut off for these White House viewers for at least the critical 20-25 minutes.  See: Here  (And bin Laden's wife was only shot in the leg.)  Now I know there is something called the "fog of war," but the communications out of the Obama administration about this bin Laden operation has been so sloppy and contradictory that I'm not sure now what to believe.  I am embarrassed by their ineptness.  (And why must we get this raid video factoid from the British press?)

Are We F-ing Crazy?

The United States is to supply Pakistan (the same ones who apparently were harboring Bin Laden for six years) with 85 Raven drone aircraft ... for whatever lame purpose.  See: Drones to Pakistan   We also are providing Pakistan with something over $4 billion of foreign aid per year.  See: Foreign Aid to Pakistan  What did Lenin once say ... "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."?  Only now, we are giving them the rope.

I Have an Idea

Pictured above is the compound outside the capital city of Islamabad in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was killed yesterday by Navy Seals.  I think that, in order to commemorate this great event, we should build a church (or, at the very least, a U.S. consulate) on this site.  We can call it "outreach."