Thurston Howell III

David Brooks of the New York Times lifted his hind leg on Mitt Romney this morning calling him Thurston Howell Romney for his comments in Boca Raton, Florida this past May (see: Brooks Opinion Piece). Then and there Romney rightly pointed out that 47% of Americans pay no income taxes and therefore are likely automatic voters for that man who promises to keep writing their government checks. To set the op-ed stage Brooks said, "Even after adjusting for inflation, entitlement transfers to individuals have grown by more than 700 percent over the last 50 years." And yet he implied that Mitt Romney is a 1% elitist with no sympathy for our downtrodden. Somehow, I just can't square this circle (particularly after the testaments to Romney's charitable heart that were shown at the recent Republican convention.) We are a country with starving children and "food deserts," yet we also suffer from out of control obesity. I can't circle this square either ...

Yes, there a great many middle-class WASPs (like me) who receive government transfers. But I still will vote for Romney if he will reduce this fire-hose largess across the board. It's called shared sacrifice. Perhaps he should have said it that way? If we don't do this, we clearly can't survive as a nation.

Maybe David Brooks can find an equally dismissive pejorative for that 1%-er (with the great crease in his trousers) curently living in the White House?

Rahm-per Room

I have a negotiation suggestion for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (aka, the Godfather) so that he might solve his city's teachers' strike in fairly short order (scroll down):

Hand Puppets

I still vividly remember our then Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright standing in front of the White House testifying for her boss, President Bill Clinton, in his avowal of “not having sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky, not a single time.” And then there was another of our Secretaries of State, Colin Powell, at the U.N. making the case for George W. Bush’s rationale for war with Iraq … that of its amassing of weapons of mass destruction. At least our current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, had the good sense to send her underling, our U.N. Ambassador, Susan Rice, to do her dirty work by assuring the American public that the Libyans’s killing of our Ambassador there was spontaneous  ... see ABC News Story. (As John McCain has rightly pointed out, people don’t bring RPGs with them to a “demonstration.”)

So, over and over again, lower-level administrators of both parties have become hand puppets to their bosses and asked to attest to things of which they have little or no personal knowledge. Most often the result is their diminishment. (I even think this abasement has caused Colin Powell to switch political horses.) So, may I suggest, as soon as those of you in government see your bosses pull on those long, greased rubber gloves ... run, don’t walk, away for your lives and honor.

Irony

Isn't it ironic that our national print media cannot constrain themselves about showing sophomoric pictures from Abu Ghraib ... or the French and Italian newspapers splash out embarrassing topless pictures of Kate Middleton ... or the New York Times special-editions the latest Wikileaks disclosure ... or, even, the White House leaks the most intimate details of Osama bin Laden's come-uppance ... but, if some rinky-dink producer in Los Angeles dares to show the Prophet Mohammed in some compromising position, this calls out for our national apologies and a visit from the federal autorities (see: Breitbart Story)?

You tell me who is winning in the world's war on terrorism ...

Juxtaposition XXXVII




Radical Muslim Riot

 

Iwo Jima

Sugar High

Mitt Romney recently spoke to the Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, to ask him not to initiate the Fed's latest round of quantitative easing (QE3).  This request fell on deaf ears ... for the Fed is now pumping $40 billion a month into the U.S. housing market by printing money to buy mortgages ,,, and, unlike previous quantitative easings, there is no indication of when it will stop its monitary printing presses.  This, of course has inflated the stock market and deflated the dollar.

America is experiencing another financial "sugar high" ... with no Michael Bloomberg or Michelle Obama to nanny-state us down.  The Fed has now expanded its normal mandate to effect "full-employment" ... the diametric opposite of its primary mandate of "controlling inflation." (This is because our current administration has no clue on how our economy can otherwise reduce unemployment rates.)  Everyone who has a brain knows that this fire-hose monetary expansion (QE3) combined with the Fed's previous QE1 and QE2, will be inflationary ... eventually  The question is, "When?" 

Perhaps I can propose an answer to this query?  Bernanke and Co. have calmed some investor worries by claiming that they have "a plan" to [eventually] deleverage the Fed's balance sheet.  I will here and now guess what this plan might be -- at some point the Fed will open the flood gates and allow inflation to come charging back.  If the Fed has been, by then, able to substantially extend the maturities of the debt it now holds (which it has been doing with a vengeance under "Operation Twist"), then the price of this government debt will plummet and the Fed can either write it down on its balance sheet or buy it back with dimes on the dollar.  Of course, the fact that other investors of this debt (pension funds and many IRA retirement funds of our seniors ... among others) will be financially hosed seems not to be a concern of the Fed ... as it has bigger fish to fry (getting Obama re-elected).

The reasons that the United States is not experiencing run-away inflation at the moment are three-fold:
- First, the Fed is keeping interest rates artificially low (short term rates are essentially zero) with its open-market operations,
- Secondly, because of our rotten economy and high unemployment, there is virtually no wage inflation (Chicago teachers being a visible exception),
- And lastly, because one of the major drivers of inflation is housing costs (home selling prices are converted to equivalent rental rates), this area has been profoundly deflationary ... offsetting raging inflation in medical and education costs. (One can also argue that food and fuel prices have been obviously inflationary, but, since they are excluded from core inflation calculations, they don't have the impact that they otherwise might.)

Now, let me extend this Fed analysis ... the fact that QE3 is specifically directed toward the housing market through packaged mortgages purchasing leads me to suspect that the Fed's plan to deleverage its balance sheet may, in fact, already be underway.  What the Fed is doing is bound to reduce the cost of mortgages ... therefore increasing the cost of homes.  And, if that one deflationary drag (housing) is eliminated with QE3, might not that usher in real robust inflation?  So instead of suffering from diabetes from all this sugar, the U.S. economy will return to a hypoglycemic state (read out-of-control inflation).

Q.E.D.

100%

Back on this July 26th in this blog, I asked the question, "What are the chances?" (referring to the probability that Ben Bernanke would help Obama get re-elected by instituting additional quantitative easing ... see: Blog Entry).  As it turns out, the answer is 100% (see: CNBC Story).  Is this so surprising?  If you were Ben Bernanke, wouldn't you want to keep your lucrative job for four more years ... particularly in this piss-poor economy?  (Screw your grandchildren!)

Eating Their Young

Earlier this year, in order to distract the American public from President Obama's dismal job performance, the Democrat attack machine castigated Romney over his leadership at Bain Capital,  But when Cory Booker, Democrat Mayor of Newark, NJ, defended Romney's performance at Bain Capital, he was forced by the Democrat consiglieries to walk back these comments within twenty-four hours.  Ditto for the Democrat governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick ... and even ... gasp ... Bill Clinton ... all with similar u-turns.

But, when Mitt Romney, criticized the State Department's previous day's embarrassing apology in dealing with the mob attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, he has once again came under the rabid harassment of the left-wing media.  And when he suffered a brief spat of stuttering when responding to the coordinated media strikes by reporters in his later-in-the-day press conference, his trashing was intensified.  (Of course, Obama has never has never had a spat of stuttering.)  Even more disturbing, instead of rallying around their candidate, a number of Republicans found it convenient to ding Romney ... in particular John Sununu (see: American Thinker Comments).  Ditto Republicans, Peter King and Peggy Noonan.

As opposed to supporting their party and their candidate, erudite Republicans (such as George Will) often try to earn their stripes and the favor of the Washington elite by eating their young.  I suppose that they often do this because, unlike the Democrat party, Republicans slake no vengeance on those who fall out of line.  Perhaps they should learn to do so?

Do No Harm

I have been of the opinion that Condoleezza Rice was a fairly ineffectual Secretary of State ... certainly when compared to the likes of Jim Baker under George Bush, 41  Although I admire this woman greatly ... for no other reason than her profound revelation that "slavery was America's birth defect" ... I thought her tenure under George Bush, 43 was marked by little real progress in international affairs.  That is, until I see what a real bull-in-a-china-shop Secretary of State like Hillary Clinton can do.  She has clearly set back the United States's position in the world ... something on the magnitude of what our National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, did under President Carter.  Admittedly, Hillary has not done this on her own.  She has had a willing co-conspirator in her boss, The Barry.  But nevertheless, Ms. Clinton has made such a dog's breakfast of our foreign policy that I have been forced to rethink my evaluation of Ms. Rice in this role.

I have concluded that Secretaries of State should behave a lot like doctors and, at the very least, "do no harm."  And I believe that Condoleezza Rice left her post at Foggy Bottom without degrading our position in the world one iota ... no mean feat.  So, my belated hazzahs to Condi.

Shame

There is no other word for it … shame. For the United States to abandon our ally, Israel, in its time of crisis is a humiliation beyond ignominy. President Obama has refused to meet with Bibi Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, when he visits the United States at the end of September (see: Bloomberg Story). Whatever the feeble excuse, this is a clarion signal to Iran to have its way with its blood-sworn enemy. Israel is left swinging in the wind of our calculated indifference (see: CBS Story).

And this happens on the same significant day, September 11th, that the U.S. embassy in Cairo is attacked and the American flag replaced with the black flag of Islam (see: USAToday Story) … and our consulate in Libya is set on fire with one staffer being killed (see: Ahram Story). The symbolism of these three events cannot be ignored. The United States, under the crisp leadership of Obama and his aide-de-camp, Hillary Clinton, have tilted so far toward the Arab world that it is returning the favor with vengeance instead of gratitude. The “Arab Spring” has become “America’s Winter.”

And I cannot read anything else into these events other than a hidden pleasure-taking on the part of our smirking foreign-policy leadership. We are losing badly in the Middle East (and elsewhere) and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama seem indisposed and perhaps even secretly thrilled. Is this darling duo not supposed to project a U.S. foreign policy of hegemony instead of lily-liveredness? How can we take pleasure in our humiliation? Perhaps that was the plan all along … shame and degradation as recompense for our past sins, imagined and real?

Update: The U.S. Ambassador and three other staffers were killed in the aforementioned Libyan attack (see: Reuters Story).  President Obaba has condemned this radical Islamic action.

Bittersweet

Joe Biden, to commemorate the horror of 9/11, called it a "bittersweet" moment (see: Politico Story ).  Please Joe, I understand the "bitter" aspect of what happened at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, PA, but could you describe the "sweet" part?  (As I was finishing up writing this, Rush Limbaugh made exactly this same point ... but I've decided to post it anyway ... since I doubt that many of you listen to the E.I.B. Network.)

Medical Fads

When was the last time a child you know had his/her tonsils out? How about an adenoidectomy? A study in New York City in the 1930s had over 90% of its children with tonsillitis resulting in surgery or a recommendation of same. Today the equivalent statistic is below 1% (see: The Pediatric Journal).  Of late, I even can’t recall anyone I know getting his/her appendix removed. Yes, I know, the use of antibiotics may have a lot to do with the dramatic reduction in these medical procedures, but it can’t be the total reason. May I suggest that medical fads exist and that this may be one reason for our spiraling health-care costs … particularly when someone else pays for things?

What are the latest oft-expensive medical procedures that deserve to be evaluated for such faddish “crowding in?” Maybe botox injections, cellulite reductions, other vanity plastic-surgeries (Nancy Pelosi per esempio), C-sections, and maybe even some joint replacement procedures (see: Cracked Article). Yes, I know of those people where a knee replacement was a medical necessity, but I still see or hear of others where it may have been palliative or even faddish. (I, myself had been recommended for such an operation.) And, how about those ads on TV that push those fancy self-propelled wheelchairs?

Too often in the news we see of some medical quackery that operate clinics that will perform some expensive Medicare- or Medicaid-paid procedure or surgery over and over again on anyone who is willing to submit to this charlatanism. Why do these patients offer themselves up for such suffering? Often, I think, for bragging rights, borderline masochism, vanity, or even Munchausen’s syndrome.  Estimates of the “waste, fraud and abuse” in our medical system run into the tens of billion dollars per year (see: HHS Testimony), but somehow we can never seem to reduce this number significantly.

May I offer that some targeted and repeated public-service announcements, pointing out these medical fads and their consequences, might be an interesting path to follow? Escalating medical co-pays based upon the degree of faddishness involved might also be tried? These approaches do seem to be working for reducing cigarette smoking.

Afterthought:  I don't know why I didn't first suggest this solution to fix waste, fraud and abuse in the medical system ... reintroduce market forces into medical payments (Ryan's approach).

Give Us Our Daily Bread !!!

Chicago Teachers on Strike

Perhaps cake ???

Government Motors

President Obama has attacked Mitt Romney for his saying that General Motors (GM) should have gone through the normal bankruptcy process and, if this were to have happened Obama claims, this country would have lost hundreds of thousand jobs. I've got a news update for The Barry ... GM did go bankrupt (see: GM Chapter 11 Reorganization) and tens of thousand jobs were indeed lost both at the company itself and at the hundreds of GM dealerships that were disenfranchised. The difference is that this bankruptcy was not arbitrated by the courts who best know how bankruptcies work. It was the autocratic Obama administration that decided most of the terms of this bankruptcy while, at the same time, throwing 50 billion dollars into this once great (but geriatric) company. Here are the details of the bankruptcy filings from Wikipedia:

The purchase was supported by $50 billion in U.S. Treasury loans, giving the U.S. government a 60.8% stake. The Queen of Canada, in right of both Canada and Ontario, holds 11.7% and the United Auto Workers, through its health-care trust (VEBA), holds a further 17.5%. The remaining 10% is held by unsecured creditors. On July 10, 2009, GM reported 88,000 U.S. employees, and announced plans to reduce its U.S. workforce to 68,000 by the end of 2009 after filing for bankruptcy.

Now this is just part of this sad story … a great American company becoming a piglet sucking on the government’s teat. To see more of these sordid details go to: Michelle Malkin Article and Subprime Auto Loans. The totality of the General Motors reorganization is extremely complex, but suffice it to say that the shedding of something like $90 billion of liabilities from its balance sheet is bound to make its financial health look much better than in times past. Yet still, the new General Motors stock is down 30% from it offering price of $33. Clearly sophisticated investors are not taken in by the Democrat political hype. Since I am of the opinion that any company that is majority owned by the government (U.S. and Canada) and its employees (the UAW) cannot survive for an extended period, I suggest that you think twice before you buy a Government Motors auto with a long warrantee.

Unfortunately, the Democrat demagoguery that the auto bailout offers Obama probably works for him over the short term. While Romney’s critique of this reorganization process, although likely correct, does not buy him many votes in Ohio and Michigan.

A Drop

Just so you know ... the recent unemployment data dump by the Bureau of Labor Statistics which pegged the unemployment rate at 8.1%, a drop from the previous 8.3%, neglects to highlight a few key statistics, viz, the actual number of persons employed, in fact, dropped by 120,000 and the workforce dropped a suspiciously staggering 580,000.  It is the interplay of these two numbers that creates the convenient fiction that the unemployment rate is dropping.  See: CPS Tables and click on the HTML version of the A-1 table under Monthly Household Data.

Four More Years

The Economist magazine published this week an issue asking the 64 trillion dollar question, "Mr. President ... just what would you do with another four years?"  In response, Obama gave his "Paucity of Hope" acceptance speech last night to close the Democrat convention (where one wag found multiple instances of delegates who believe that corporate profits should be abolished ... see: Human Events.)  Even Politico, that apologist for the left, called Obama's lecture "Downsizing the Dream" (see: Politico Story.)

Fortunately I have a mole inside the White House who smuggled out a piece of note paper on which The Barry had been doodling.  It gives the secret desires of that man who wants to live there four more years:

- Play golf another 120 times
- Bow to 4 more heads of state
- Appoint 3 more Supreme Court justices
- Enjoy 12 more opulent vacations
- Give the finger to as many opponents as practical
- Give away billion$ more to green-energy cronies
- Appoint 18 more czars
- Nationalize the oil companies
- Give an unconditional pardon to Tony Rezko
- Accidentally release 10 years of Romney's tax returns
- Order all remaining waygu beef for the White House kitchen
- Take a crash course in macro-economics

God and Country

I'm not a religious person, but to see at least half of those delegates at the Democrat National Convention boo and jeer at the thought of putting the word "God" back into this party's Presidential platform cannot be good for Obama's re-election chances.  Ditto for their collective derision at recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.  See: Real Clear Politics.  Will this be the equivalent of Michael Dukakis in the tank turret ... or George H.W. Bush looking at his watch during the debate with Clinton ... or John Kerry riding his sailboard?  Only time will tell ... but I can hope.

A Platform Too Far

The Republican Presidential Platform was criticized for endorsing a "radical" no-exception stand on right to life (which Mitt Romney doesn't support).  However, the Democrat Platform was approved yesterday in Charlotte and it contains lots of radical (is there a stronger word?) planks that cut across the grain of American traditionalism.  It no longer mentions God.  It endorses taxpayer-funded late-term abortions.  It no longer avers that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.  It unequivocally supports gay marriage.  It endorses the Dream Act on immigration.  See: Incomplete AP Story.  Only this time I suspect Obama enthusiastically stands behind all the planks of this belly-rubbing Democrat Platform.

Top this with the speaker lineup in Charlotte -- former President Jimmy Carter, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, La Raza champion Julian Castro, turncoat Charlie Crist, "give me my birth control" Sandra Fluke and that American Indian, Elizabeth Warren.  Is it any wonder that many "moderate" Democrats are distancing themselves from this convention.  Where is Hillary?  Where is Andrew Cuomo?  Where is Erskin Bowles?  Even Rahm Emanuel has flown the coop.  And, what was supposed to be the crescendo of this convention -- Obama's acceptance speech in front of 74,000 hysterical fans -- appears to be being diminished, see: Breitbart Story.

Barney's Lead

The Internet question of the day is, "Why was Barney Frank wearing a leather collar and leash when he checked-in to his hotel in Charlotte today for the convention?"  Perhaps he had heard the Democratic dog whistle?

Why I Won’t Vote for Romney

- He didn’t pay any income taxes for ten years

- He drove hundreds of miles with his dog on the roof of his car

- He thinks the trees in Michigan are just the right size

- He has some offshore bank accounts/investments

- His great grandfather was a polygamist

- His wife rides an expensive horse

- He wears magic underwear

- He likes to fire people

- His church does not permit non-members to enter their temple

- He was worried about the preparations for the London Olympics

- He thinks that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel

- His garage in Santa Barbara has a car elevator

- His sons didn’t serve in the military

- He is a member of the 1%