Looking forward to Obama's Second Term

Here are some things I am certain we will see in the next four years...unless Obama is defeated by some miracle

1) America's credit rating slides further: Under Barack Obama's leadership, America lost its AAA credit rating for the first time since 1917. That means our country is now more of a gamble to loan money to than Microsoft. Given that Barack Obama has shown zero inclination to get spending under control or seriously tackle entitlement reform, our rating would be practically guaranteed to drop at least another notch. In other words, this country would soon have the same S&P rating as Qatar and the Czech Republic.

2) The middle class will see massive tax increases: Congress has been at an impasse because Republicans want to cut spending and Democrats want to raise taxes. Despite all the talk you hear about the "Buffet Rule," it would produce a comparatively small amount of actual revenue because the rich are close to tapped out. The real money is in the middle class. If we're not going to cut our escalating spending, then taxes on the middle class will have to soar like an eagle fired out of a cannon.

3) Gas and energy prices will be dramatically higher: Obama once said, "Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." His Energy Secretary Steven Chu added, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." Is it any wonder that Obama won't drill ANWR, has blocked the Keystone Pipeline, and has slow-walked offshore drilling? Obama views sky high energy prices as a feature, not a bug and if he doesn't have to face the voters again, expect to see energy prices lift off like the manned space shuttles Obama permanently grounded.

4) Obamacare goes into effect: If the GOP controls the House, the Senate, and the White House, it should be able to gut Obamacare and keep it from ever going into effect. On the other hand if Obama is reelected, there's a better chance of the NAACP endorsing Mitt Romney than there is that health care reform will ever be repealed.

5) The Supreme Court moves to the left: Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 79, Antonin Scalia is 76, Anthony Kennedy is 75, and Stephen Breyer is 73. Replacing Ginsburg or Breyer with 50 year old liberals would be bad enough, but imagine Obama selecting a replacement for Scalia or Kennedy. If that happens, Obama would have five guaranteed votes on the Supreme Court for anything he wants to do. Once we get to that point, the Constitution might as well not even exist.

6) Open borders: Barack Obama has already bypassed Congress to implement the DREAM ACT by fiat, he's planning to break the law to hand out work permits to illegal aliens, he's openly proclaimed that ICE won't pick up many of the illegals detained by Arizona, and illegals are now being released by the border patrol sans proof if they claim they went to high school here. We're very close to having an open border policy right now for any illegal alien who hasn't committed a felony here and in an Obama second term, it's fair to assume that the primary qualification for citizenship would be the ability to sneak into the country.

7) Gun control: Barack Obama filled out a "questionnaire in which he called for banning 'the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns'" and he let everyone know what he thought about gun owners even before he was elected with his notorious "bitter clingers" quip. His campaign website doesn't even have a section addressing 2nd Amendment issues, perhaps because Obama would have to admit that he's already calling for a reinstatement of the Assault Weapons Ban. Without an election to keep him in check, expect Barack Obama to "evolve" on gun control the same way he did on gay marriage.

That doesn't include the open marriage act, mandated abortion and a dozen other abominations.

A tale of two young men...one a loser, one a winner

In Paul Ryan's speech he talked about young men who live in their mid 20s who are living in their parent's house in the bedroom they grew up in. The fading Obama poster is still on their wall.

I have two stories.

One is about a young man named Brian. He's a nice man. I know him. He has a masters degree in Bus Administration. He has a teaching certificate. He wants a job. He is convinced there are none out there. He is waiting right now to teach High School on a substitute basis for a hundred buck a day. He frankly is lost. Will never get out of this conundrum until he breaks lose from the idea that the world owes him a living because he went a long time to college. He is deep in debt from his college education. A hundred grand. He will NEVER see daylight. He is a victim of a sad lie told him by a college government conspiracy that will rob him of his future. It's all over for him.

The other young man is Adam. My nephew. The son of my brother and his wife. He went to work at a Shipping Company for what was not much more than minimum wage thru a temporary agency. Now he has been there two years. He has become a full time employee. He has a business degree. He has some 3ducation debt. YET. He took a crappy job to get in the door.

Two years later he is about to double his income by being excellent. He has moved up. Not because of his education, because he became an expert at what he was doing.

He will soon be in in six figures.

Brian could do this, but he needs to get out of his parents bedroom and starve until he is hungry enough to get there. Motivation is everything. Education is nothing.

I have watched this tale take place before my very eyes. It's very sad. One is a permanent loser and one a winner on the way....

Who's fault is it???

Would he Encourage the murder of his OWN Grandchild? OR did I misunderstand

This has been haunting me. I hope you won't be offended. But words mean things.

When I think of the comment about Obama's girls he made where he said, “if my daughter makes a mistake I don't want her punished with a baby”

That means that IF one of his girls gets pregnant, it makes sense to him to have his daughter murder his grandchild.

Do I have that right?

Money, Twisted: Caught in the Devil's Bargain

In this world, what isn't lacking, somewhere, though?
Sometimes it's this, or that: here what's missing's gold.
- Goethe, Faust, Part II, translated by A.S. Kline

Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column of August 24, "Galt, Gold and God," rails against an interest in the gold standard, which he attributes to Paul Ryan.  Krugman lambastes Ryan, ironically enough, for an observation the latter made paraphrasing Keynes: "'There is nothing more insidious that a country can do to its citizens,' he intoned, 'than debase its currency.'"

Rather than alluding to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, however, Krugman would do well to dig into a classic: Goethe's Faust, Part II.  Scott Minerd, chief investment officer at Guggenheim, writing in the Financial Times recently, brilliantly called contemporary monetary policy "the ultimate Faustian bargain."
 
Paper money comes straight from Mephistopheles.  The History of Money by Jack Weatherford recounts the story.

Faust and Mephistopheles visit the court of the emperor during the pre-Lentin carnival season of masquerades and tricks.  The emperor is besieged by his treasurer and stewards reporting the lack of funds and the need to pay the wages of the soldiers and servants.  His moneylenders demand payment on debts, and even the wine bill has come due. 
Mephistopheles offers the emperor a way out of his financial mess.  He has found the key to making gold, the secret that all alchemists had sought for centuries.  He obtains from the emperor permission to print paper money-"the heaven-sent leaf."
Faust comes to the emperor's carnival ball dressed appropriately as Plutus, the god of wealth, and through magic, he and Mephistopheles show the emperor the riches he can have by printing money. ... He has based the value of his money on the future mining of gold, the untapped treasures still buried in the earth. ... The new money has been unleashed to the great joy of creditors, debtors, soldiers, and other citizens.  Already people are ordering new clothes, and business booms for the butcher and baker.  Wine is flowing freely in the taverns, and even the dice roll more easily.  Priests and prostitutes scurry about their business with greater enthusiasm because of the new money, and even the moneylenders are enjoying a brisk new business.
 ...
 At first, the spread of Faust's new money brings happiness and improvement, but soon the hidden costs begin bubbling to the surface. ... Soon social unrest in the newly enriched nation leads to rebellion, and a new anti-emperor rises to challenge the old one.

The perversity?  Monetary shenanigans represent a short-term fix but the long-term cause of economic, social, and political woe.  Thus do Neo-Keynesian economists such as Krugman enlist in the Devil's Party.  "Easy money" advocates propound QEs and Twists and other weird devices to generate a brief relief for the economy.  They ignore the seeds of destruction thereby sown. 

Read More
Articles: Money, Twisted: Caught in the Devil's Bargain