Never heard of him? How soon we forget. The Alfred Nobel Peace Price ... LAST YEAR!
2008 "The prize goes to: "MARTTI AHTISAARI for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts."
2009 "The prize goes to: BARACK OBAMA for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" over nearly eleven days.
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Busy Night - On Calling People Fascist and Nazi
Busy Night, three posts.
The mainstream media and even Fox, even Bloggers like Little Green Footballs get very uptight at calling what is happening a precursor to Nazism. Even using the term Fascist raises their hackles ( whatever a hackle is). But you have to wonder what people thought in the mid-thirties.
I'll start with Fascism. Aside from the hypocrisy of forgetting that the term has been thrown as an epithet at conservatives and libertarians for decades, Incorrectly it turns out. Because conservatives and especially libertarians are anti-statist. They are against strong central government. Fascism is a system of government with private ownership of the means of production with government control of that production. It is a very straightforward definition, and one that truly describes the changes in this country in the last nine months. If anything, we have overshot fascism a little towards communism, the state owning the means of production - right, GM?
But Nazism? Perhaps that is a stretch. After all, this isn't national socialism or nationalism, this is international socialism. Or is it? There is something else. Something that makes one involuntarily think of Germany prior to the Second World War. There is the cult of personality. Barack Obama is not just President of the United States of America. This week he is presiding at the United Nations Security Council. This week he is also pontificating at the global economic summit, the G-20, in Pittsburgh. He is President of the World, maybe even President of the Universe. Small children sing his praises the same way they did for Hitler. His nomination/investment/coronation/anointment in Denver last Summer look for all the world like it was designed by Leni Riefenstahl or Albert Speer. The only thing missing now is the repeal of the 22nd amendment. Oh, wait, what about Representative Jose Serrano's (D - NY 16th District) bill H. J. Res 5? A 2/3 majority of the Senate and it is the law of the land. Obama, President for Life, like his buddies Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Kim Jong Il. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who still has to be elected, rigged-or-not, would envy him. It could never happen here. Isn't that what moderate Germans said in the thirties? Do you suppose the ones that tried to warn the others about the cult of Hitler were belittled and mocked?
Our Founding Fathers feared just this particular kind of Presidency.
The mainstream media and even Fox, even Bloggers like Little Green Footballs get very uptight at calling what is happening a precursor to Nazism. Even using the term Fascist raises their hackles ( whatever a hackle is). But you have to wonder what people thought in the mid-thirties.
I'll start with Fascism. Aside from the hypocrisy of forgetting that the term has been thrown as an epithet at conservatives and libertarians for decades, Incorrectly it turns out. Because conservatives and especially libertarians are anti-statist. They are against strong central government. Fascism is a system of government with private ownership of the means of production with government control of that production. It is a very straightforward definition, and one that truly describes the changes in this country in the last nine months. If anything, we have overshot fascism a little towards communism, the state owning the means of production - right, GM?
But Nazism? Perhaps that is a stretch. After all, this isn't national socialism or nationalism, this is international socialism. Or is it? There is something else. Something that makes one involuntarily think of Germany prior to the Second World War. There is the cult of personality. Barack Obama is not just President of the United States of America. This week he is presiding at the United Nations Security Council. This week he is also pontificating at the global economic summit, the G-20, in Pittsburgh. He is President of the World, maybe even President of the Universe. Small children sing his praises the same way they did for Hitler. His nomination/investment/coronation/anointment in Denver last Summer look for all the world like it was designed by Leni Riefenstahl or Albert Speer. The only thing missing now is the repeal of the 22nd amendment. Oh, wait, what about Representative Jose Serrano's (D - NY 16th District) bill H. J. Res 5? A 2/3 majority of the Senate and it is the law of the land. Obama, President for Life, like his buddies Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Kim Jong Il. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who still has to be elected, rigged-or-not, would envy him. It could never happen here. Isn't that what moderate Germans said in the thirties? Do you suppose the ones that tried to warn the others about the cult of Hitler were belittled and mocked?
Our Founding Fathers feared just this particular kind of Presidency.
Do Protesters Really Want Anything Other Than A Chance To Protest?
At the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania there are protesters rioting in the streets, again. There is a certain sweet irony this time. They are protesting a summit at which the left's beloved President Barak Hussein Obama is the star. And there is another irony. These people are reputed to be anarchists. At the very least, they are non-conformists. They are carrying signs that say "No Bailout" and "No Capitalism". And yet, President Obama is the most anti-capitalist president ever. What more do they want?
Their beloved President is the most authoritarian President ever, in the process of remaking a government into a totalitarian police state. It will be a world in which you can be denied health and wealth , and even life should the powers that be wish it. It will be a world that will tolerate no dissent. Not just the violent demonstrations as in Pittsburgh, but a world where even broadcast, blogged, spoken or written dissent will not be tolerated.
Their beloved President is the most authoritarian President ever, in the process of remaking a government into a totalitarian police state. It will be a world in which you can be denied health and wealth , and even life should the powers that be wish it. It will be a world that will tolerate no dissent. Not just the violent demonstrations as in Pittsburgh, but a world where even broadcast, blogged, spoken or written dissent will not be tolerated.
Friday, March 6, 2009
I'll Have a Coke, Fries, and a Share of Citibank.
"I'll Have a Coke, a Fries, and a share of Citibank."
"That'll be three dollars, please. Drive around to the next window."
Citibank, one of the two largest banks in the country drops below a dollar a share. ($0.97)
(See chart)
Since President Obama's inauguration, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped 20% and Citigroup has dropped 71%.
Citigroup 52Wk High: 27.35 52Wk Low: 0.97
Dow Jones 52Wk High: 13,191.49 52Wk Low: 6,469.95
"That'll be three dollars, please. Drive around to the next window."
Citibank, one of the two largest banks in the country drops below a dollar a share. ($0.97)
(See chart)
Since President Obama's inauguration, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped 20% and Citigroup has dropped 71%.
Citigroup 52Wk High: 27.35 52Wk Low: 0.97
Dow Jones 52Wk High: 13,191.49 52Wk Low: 6,469.95
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
On Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh is currently under assault from President Obama, the media, and, if it is to be believed, Michael Steele. They refer to him as our "leader". He is only in the sense that Bill Clinton led us. They both tell us what we want to hear. There is one minor difference... Bill Clinton had focus groups and polls to find out what resonated with his audience and then said that. Rush Limbaugh believes what we do (for the most part) and speaks from his heart; and that is what we want to hear.
Barak Obama speaks from his heart too ... sometimes. And when he does, not only is it not what we want to hear, he really doesn't care what we think. It is his country now, not ours. One country of the people, by the people, and for Barak Obama.
Barak Obama speaks from his heart too ... sometimes. And when he does, not only is it not what we want to hear, he really doesn't care what we think. It is his country now, not ours. One country of the people, by the people, and for Barak Obama.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
On the Law
The United States of America. Had a nice ring to it...
It was a unique place. It was a place where the law applied equally to all ... Or at least it was supposed to.
Those men who met in Philadelphia in 1788* made us a republic (not a democracy)where no man was above the law;
and the purpose of the Constitution was to ensure that the government serve us, and not we it.
The city/district is now occupied by people who not just believe that we are indentured to the Federal Government but truly believe that laws do not apply to themselves. They have gotten away with ignoring the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution for a long time.. They are currently trying to circumvent the First and Second Amendments. Through inadequate government schooling and illegal immigration by design - stuffing the ballot box with ignorant voters - they may well accomplish their goal. But there are other laws that will not so easily be thwarted. There are laws of nature and nature's God that are immutable. Just as the Law of Gravity, and Newton's Laws will not be violated, the Laws of Economics are observations of Nature and not creations of a committee or government.
One may think that Obama is now overturning the Laws of Economics, it is not so. He may believe it if he likes, but he is merely diverting them temporarily from which they will spring back with full equalization like a seventh grade algebra problem ... Both sides must match. In some way shape or form there must be balance. It may not be a return quid pro ante, but it will satisfy the equality.
There is precedent. I am neither a fan of Jimmy Carter (despite having been to his home before he was President) nor an enemy of Richard Nixon (my first Presidential vote). But sometimes one must call a spade a spade. Jimmy Carter gets the blame for the massive inflation of the early 1970s, but the truth is that he just had the misfortune to be holding the position when the dam burst. On March 25, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson through Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon (childhood friend of the Rockefeller boys) demonetized the Dollar; releasing it from being bound to scarce Silver starting us on the road to inflation. Nixon then compounded the error through two actions. Because Charles De Gaulle saw our Gold prices as the bargain they were and made a run on redeeming his holdings in our currency (remember, this despite still owing us a tremendous amount of war debt). Nixon reneged on our Gold Standard - Totally freeing us of any real limit on our monetary supply. And when the inevitable resulting inflation hit, he did a very Liberal and un-Conservative thing. He froze wages and prices. It was ostensibly a ninety-day action, but Nixon had other, frankly trivial**, political problems and the ninety days continued for one thousand days through the term of Gerald Ford, and into the term of poor Jimmy Carter who thought (and apparently still thinks) that good intentions are more important than rational thought. Jimmy thawed the freeze, and the rest was inevitable, as the laws of Economics rebalanced the equation. President Carter was followed by President Ronald Reagan who could truly do little but improve the situation. The tools were all there. The economic equation was rebalanced albeit with terrible interest rates. Reagan chose a Chairman of the Governors of the Federal Reserve bank, Alan Greenspan, who cautiously lowered the interest rates a little at a time over the next 18 1/2 years so as not to jar the economy again with a sudden rush of inflation. But he was aided by restraint on the part of the US Congress and/or President through that time. For most of that time, it was a stalemate with one or the other being controlled by a fiscally conservative party. In the last quarter of the George W. Bush presidency, the Congress was taken over by very liberal Democrats, and since President Bush himself was no fiscal conservative, and since both Greenspan and his tactic of reducing the interest rate to control money flow were gone, there was no check to the results of Government tampering with the Laws of Economics.
Just like Doctor Elisio Colli who treated my Penicillin reaction in the days before the allergy was widely known with another shot of Penicillin, our Government has tried to cure the economic ills of our country caused by tampering with and restraining the Free Market by tampering more with and restraining more the Free Market. They do not understand that I, and You are the Free Market.
If we are not free, we are by definition slaves.
There is a clique in Washington right now, who believe that they can comfortably ignore the Laws of Economics due to having seduced a bunch of willing slaves, many even the descendants of slaves whose ancestors cherished their newly granted freedom in the days after the Civil War. But that does not mean that Economics is moot.
It does not mean the the Law of Supply and Demand is no longer valid. It does not mean that the other Laws of Economics have been repealed. And it most assuredly does not mean that any adjustment on one side of the equation will not be met with an equal and opposite reaction on the opposite side of the equation. So, Nancy, Harry, Barack, and even you, Barney Frank, whatever yoke you put on us will not fix the Economy -- not because of anything we chose to do to thwart you. It will not work because you cannot fix freedom by control.
* Yes, it was 1788. The true Bi-Centennial was 1988, not 1976. But that was just one more political distortion from those in Washington who scorn the Constitution that they have sworn to uphold. Treason in Washington, DC is a way of life.
** Trivial in that the Watergate scandal was typical behavior of both parties prior to that time, and if the actions of Al Franken are any indication, still are. Just like the bias of the Liberal Press in the 2008 elections, the anti-Nixon bias of the 1970s Liberal Press foreswore accuracy and truth for political reasons.
John Galt, Where are you when we need you?
It was a unique place. It was a place where the law applied equally to all ... Or at least it was supposed to.
Those men who met in Philadelphia in 1788* made us a republic (not a democracy)where no man was above the law;
and the purpose of the Constitution was to ensure that the government serve us, and not we it.
The city/district is now occupied by people who not just believe that we are indentured to the Federal Government but truly believe that laws do not apply to themselves. They have gotten away with ignoring the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution for a long time.. They are currently trying to circumvent the First and Second Amendments. Through inadequate government schooling and illegal immigration by design - stuffing the ballot box with ignorant voters - they may well accomplish their goal. But there are other laws that will not so easily be thwarted. There are laws of nature and nature's God that are immutable. Just as the Law of Gravity, and Newton's Laws will not be violated, the Laws of Economics are observations of Nature and not creations of a committee or government.
One may think that Obama is now overturning the Laws of Economics, it is not so. He may believe it if he likes, but he is merely diverting them temporarily from which they will spring back with full equalization like a seventh grade algebra problem ... Both sides must match. In some way shape or form there must be balance. It may not be a return quid pro ante, but it will satisfy the equality.
There is precedent. I am neither a fan of Jimmy Carter (despite having been to his home before he was President) nor an enemy of Richard Nixon (my first Presidential vote). But sometimes one must call a spade a spade. Jimmy Carter gets the blame for the massive inflation of the early 1970s, but the truth is that he just had the misfortune to be holding the position when the dam burst. On March 25, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson through Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon (childhood friend of the Rockefeller boys) demonetized the Dollar; releasing it from being bound to scarce Silver starting us on the road to inflation. Nixon then compounded the error through two actions. Because Charles De Gaulle saw our Gold prices as the bargain they were and made a run on redeeming his holdings in our currency (remember, this despite still owing us a tremendous amount of war debt). Nixon reneged on our Gold Standard - Totally freeing us of any real limit on our monetary supply. And when the inevitable resulting inflation hit, he did a very Liberal and un-Conservative thing. He froze wages and prices. It was ostensibly a ninety-day action, but Nixon had other, frankly trivial**, political problems and the ninety days continued for one thousand days through the term of Gerald Ford, and into the term of poor Jimmy Carter who thought (and apparently still thinks) that good intentions are more important than rational thought. Jimmy thawed the freeze, and the rest was inevitable, as the laws of Economics rebalanced the equation. President Carter was followed by President Ronald Reagan who could truly do little but improve the situation. The tools were all there. The economic equation was rebalanced albeit with terrible interest rates. Reagan chose a Chairman of the Governors of the Federal Reserve bank, Alan Greenspan, who cautiously lowered the interest rates a little at a time over the next 18 1/2 years so as not to jar the economy again with a sudden rush of inflation. But he was aided by restraint on the part of the US Congress and/or President through that time. For most of that time, it was a stalemate with one or the other being controlled by a fiscally conservative party. In the last quarter of the George W. Bush presidency, the Congress was taken over by very liberal Democrats, and since President Bush himself was no fiscal conservative, and since both Greenspan and his tactic of reducing the interest rate to control money flow were gone, there was no check to the results of Government tampering with the Laws of Economics.
Just like Doctor Elisio Colli who treated my Penicillin reaction in the days before the allergy was widely known with another shot of Penicillin, our Government has tried to cure the economic ills of our country caused by tampering with and restraining the Free Market by tampering more with and restraining more the Free Market. They do not understand that I, and You are the Free Market.
If we are not free, we are by definition slaves.
There is a clique in Washington right now, who believe that they can comfortably ignore the Laws of Economics due to having seduced a bunch of willing slaves, many even the descendants of slaves whose ancestors cherished their newly granted freedom in the days after the Civil War. But that does not mean that Economics is moot.
It does not mean the the Law of Supply and Demand is no longer valid. It does not mean that the other Laws of Economics have been repealed. And it most assuredly does not mean that any adjustment on one side of the equation will not be met with an equal and opposite reaction on the opposite side of the equation. So, Nancy, Harry, Barack, and even you, Barney Frank, whatever yoke you put on us will not fix the Economy -- not because of anything we chose to do to thwart you. It will not work because you cannot fix freedom by control.
* Yes, it was 1788. The true Bi-Centennial was 1988, not 1976. But that was just one more political distortion from those in Washington who scorn the Constitution that they have sworn to uphold. Treason in Washington, DC is a way of life.
** Trivial in that the Watergate scandal was typical behavior of both parties prior to that time, and if the actions of Al Franken are any indication, still are. Just like the bias of the Liberal Press in the 2008 elections, the anti-Nixon bias of the 1970s Liberal Press foreswore accuracy and truth for political reasons.
John Galt, Where are you when we need you?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)