159 Comments

1. proreason:

VDH is getting there but not quite yet.

The government is run by crooks, Mr. Hanson. It’s that simple. You, as a pre-eminently honorable man don’t want to admit it. But it’s the truth.

All the mysteries you see are easily explained if you just assume that everyone in higher office is after 2 things, personal wealth and power, and that they get it by using the sytem in a criminal manner…buying votes, lying, accepting bribes, selling favors.

You, like many, are tempted to also blame big business, but no business can destroy the world’s economy. They simply are not large enough. No, only government can do the kind of damage that we have seen. Businessmen are naturally greedy, but capitalism is self-correcting, unless twisted by government intervention, as it has been througout this artificial “crisis”.

But that isn’t new news. The new news is that a criminal cabal has executed a coup d’etat of the government, enabled by the brain-dead media. They now have a strangle-hold on power and are running at full-speed to implement socialist policies (i.e., stealing from you to buy ignorant people who happen to be able to vote) that they think will insure their power forever.

But they didn’t figure on one thing.

We are really really angry.

And it won’t stand.

Mar 17, 2009 - 6:42 pm 2. Gaffe Prices:

I said this on the previous thread and I’ll say it again:

I think the Admin and congress have severely miscalculated.

This is the most non partisan thing I have ever seen: Democrats, Republicans, and Independents all have their hard earned money in 401K retirement portfolios, and to see their livelihoods washed away like this, aren’t going to be able to separate what they wanted (from democrats in power, change, etc) from what they realize has been done to them for long, no matter how this discrepancy is (not) represented in any poll(s).

Mar 17, 2009 - 6:45 pm 3. vb:

Something else to ponder: Gateway Pundit is reporting that ACORN will be helping to hire census workers.

Mar 17, 2009 - 7:14 pm 4. Thrasymachus:

I’m reminded of Ayn Rand’s fundamental proposition, “A is A.” Words must mean something. When you can decide what they mean, and change it as needed, they no longer mean anything.

Mar 17, 2009 - 7:30 pm 5. Robert Winkler Burke:

Prophets Who Don’t Correct vs. Those Who Do
By Robert Winkler Burke
Of inthatdayteachings.com
Copyright 3/15/2009
Ezekiel 13

The prophets who don’t correct,
Have not enough warrior in them,
They prophesy lies direct,
And have no God dominion.

The wilderness prophet who corrects,
Earns godly-gained insight,
He faces multitudes in error,
But he speaks what is right.

Ignore the popular prophets,
Jabberwocky has made them crazed,
Hearken to wilderness correction,
Avoid mass comfort of mass graves.

It will hurt to give up,
Beloved wrong doxies of mass hysteria,
But the wilderness prophet knows best,
Right spirit and truth make heaven’s area.

So popular prophets must,
Get their future predict wrong,
Know them by their weaknesses,
Their spirits: creepy, not strong.

Wilderness prophets please God,
And annoy every carnal man,
Don’t be surprised TV stars,
Of politics are charlatan.

VDH: You are our prophet of our political religion, which is liberty.

Mar 17, 2009 - 7:50 pm 6. DougWright:

VDH: Too many topics in this wonderful essay, which sums up my feelings about many different subjects. It’s adequate to say that our elected officials are all crooks, incompetent, just plain venal or stupid; perhaps all of the above.

The reason that Obama (PBUH) was elected fail to be clear now. His Hopenchange are not a factor, there’s no hope and no change. His administration is not acting intelligently nor does it seem to have a clue about what to do about anything, especially our economy or our society. Obama does seem to have a marked dependency on his teleprompter so the claims that he’s a great speaker fall flat once we get past his marvelous sounding voice; also, too many ums, ahs, uhs, in his speech pattern. Plus, his smirk is worse than G. W. Bush’s.

The bottom line is that I believe we’re screwed until 1/20/2013, at the earliest; God willing. But, as bad as I believe it is now, pray that Biden is not elevated to the presidency; that would be a real disaster in so many ways.

Mar 17, 2009 - 8:11 pm 7. Rob Mandel:

Professor,

If I’m not mistaken, the true demise of the Roman Empire was it’s total debasement of the coin. We are experiencing the same with the wild printing of the fed. Until we return to a gold standard, there can be no limitations on government largesse and they will continue to promise more and more to more and more, and simply print their way out of it.

As the Vicomte de Mirabeau said of Prussia, “they are an army that possesses a state”. We are becoming a government workforce that possesses a nation.

Mar 17, 2009 - 8:15 pm 8. smitty1e:

Follow the URL for a hint as to the location of the loot in bullet 5.
Great post, sir. When do you next speak on the East coast?
Best wishes,
Chris

Mar 17, 2009 - 8:28 pm 9. Minerva:

We will stymie the “DMV” Nation and California until 2010 and then vote the stunned likes of Pelosi out of her Speakership.

Mar 17, 2009 - 9:30 pm 10. R Richard Schweitzer:

Mr. Davis (I attended U.Va. 60 odd years ago when only medical doctors were addresed as doctor)-

When you look at the entire set of programs and the taxation and permits proposals, derived their intended effect, do you not see the trend goes way beyond “socialism?”

This is the road to THE NEW TOTALITARIANISM.

On the “carbon tax” (allocation of permits to use and emit carbon compounds), why does no one take on the issue of the concept that Congress has the constitutional power to allocate “rights” to emissions of gases (or anything else) whether manufactured, animal, organic or human. Can no one see where this is leading? If they can do this, what else may Congress allocate that has always been part of American liberty?

Mar 17, 2009 - 9:45 pm 11. Jack Marcotte:

essential vdh

vdh so aptly describes with itemization’s a litany of problems created by BHO and his syncopates.

However none can make sense with individual itemization’s. It is diversionary and counter productive.

It implies a solution if each are answered with correctives. Not so.

Only in the totally befuddled minds of the perverted MSM do they try to make sense out of it.

Similar to a primitive man seeking answers in chicken entrails dropped into the sand. They simply bring to bear their own dreamworld.

Only the reading and thoughts of a Fredrick Hayek “The Road to Serfdom” (written before BHO was born)or other current intelligent and thinking real world (non Utopians) conservatives are we able to see the patterns of the total lack of integrated thought processes that belong to BHO and his minions.

Hayek’s and others rational thinking when reviewed does not allow the smoke of MSM words confuse, and befuddle the mind.

Men like Hayek and current conservatives have already addressed as needed the shallow roots underpinning BHO’s thinking.

All lost due to an educational system used for subversion with lies and indoctrination instead of learning. No backstop– to counter this subversion– no families.

Thinking and Utopian ideas that also belong to BHO’s wife another product of the same destructive system.

BHO is best described as an uneducated, affirmative action president brought on and created initially by Anti American communist intellectuals, and their products of indoctrination.

They have created the 40% or more now of the American population that is so unproductive in the sense that not one of them will be able to create a job for anyone else much less themselves.

Liberalism, socialism,or described more accurately as communism does not work, has not worked and is sold to now a mostly uneducated American population who could not describe the way out of a one hole outhouse much less be productive humans.

They are no more equipped to counter the Utopian pronouncements than grains of sand. Fools in other words. Free lunches. A chicken in every pot.

Now more than 40% of “Americans” are dreamers substituting dreaming for rational thought and then action. Their actions.

Look at the inner cities run by the liberal left wing anti American elite. Black and white. Every one an abject failure and destroyer of human life. Streets more dangerous than Baghdad.

Now a large proportion of the American population created over the last 60 years are more akin to robots.

Robots that need to be oiled and greased by external forces that simply use them to vote to maintain incompetent and ignorant power.

The BHO’s VP is the poster boy for this total abject ignorance along with Harry Reid and N. Pelosi.

BHO is simply a tool put into motion by a total disregard of what the founding fathers knew would be needed to maintain a democratic republic.

This new BHO road to failure and serfdom is just the beginning. It will end in failure and revolution and more failure and more revolution because we are failing to develop “real” Americans and it will get worse before it gets better.

More BHO’s we don’t need but it is now probably to late and the slide will only continue until everything of worth is destroyed.

It will be a new generation born of the hardships and unproductive scarcity of the Utopian failures that will begin to see what has to be accomplished and begin to do it. Necessity will be the rebirth of the American dream just as it was initially.

Present generations will not do it. They have been contaminated with the seeds of ideas that cannot be supported nor even justified as legitimate thought.

BHO’s thought processes along with his advisers are more like a dream world in the sleep of a man on drugs.

The ideas of control and government intervention are not only unconstitutional but we, America has lost a war that was not even fought–our fault. We lost it to a non existent failed country that failed following the same path now BHO’s path.

The ideas BHO trumpets cannot support a robust and productive human life based on individual responsibility.

They destroy life in the living and the unborn and justify it with a psychotic, robotic thought process that is so predictable it leads to a conclusion that more often than not is overlooked.

It is mindless, meandering and triangulating.

This oversight of recognition occurs daily within the MSM who try to imply intelligent thoughts to the actions of BHO and his advisers.

The gratuitous comments on his intelligence and his verbal skills by the MSM are sickening when looking at the actual results of his comments.

He is destroying whole industries simply talking and scolding like a jaybird by picking and choosing what he thinks should be happening and not happening.

The robust and productive lives that made current America what it is has let the parasites created of the last 50 years take over life in America and the now needed parasite support due to voting legal and illegal is now killing it. People no longer think they have to work for a paycheck but vote for it.

Really! Why is America now being destroyed? Because the parasites need to support themselves until the existing assets of the productive Americans are consumed.

At that point all will have to begin again or we will become primitive men again.

The Euros could be complacent and Anti American as long as the productivity of America pulled the worlds train. No longer.

They began the slide immediately when US Markets shut down due to BHO’s pronouncements. The Train no longer has a viable engine to pull the world economic growth along.

BHO does not see this or even seem to be concerned. As well a child would not be concerned inside the lions den because of his complete lack of understanding of what really is happening.

Mar 17, 2009 - 9:47 pm 12. TLM:

proreason:

Yeah, I tend to agree with you.

I’m sure many of us have had some of the same experiences as VDH when it comes to investing for retirement. At several points in the last 8 years I thought the market was all a house of cards, foisted on us by Wall Street in cahoots with government.

We learned nothing from the Tech bubble– remember the new paradigm — and the way things are going we’ll learn nothing from this recession either. The people in charge (that’s an oxymoron, I know) are re-inflating the latest bubble in hopes of returning to yesteryear. I’m not an economist, but I don’t think that’s gonna’ work.

Far as I’m concerned, they’ve all been discredited — Congress, the Street, the White house. They’re just looking out for themselves at our expense. We’d be stupid to trust any of them. Way too much money at stake, and way too many agendas at play here.

The best part: in the midst of all this turmoil, all this distrust, we get a leader with no experience in federal government, no executive or business experience, who has bona fide no question about it socialist leanings.

Obama seems clueless as to why the middle class is responding with anger to his measures to correct the “crisis”. He thinks we’re mad at the bailout bonuses, and worries that this anger will bleed over onto him. Wake up and smell the coffee Mr President. You clowns are all in bed together on this one. We’re mad at all of you. And we trust none of you!

Mar 17, 2009 - 9:52 pm 13. Liberty4usa:

This Government/AIG alliance needs to be forensically dissected (along with the Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae fiasco) down to the last detail.

“Pay to play” and “play for pay” seems to be the name of the game with all these same people now disingenuously screaming bloody murder!

How can the likes of Schumer, Dodd and Franks still be out of jail, much less acting bent out of shape?

Mar 18, 2009 - 12:05 am 14. wildernesscalling:

“God help us” is right, “0″ ain’t! Peelosi (Nancy Pelosi) ain’t! Greedy (Harry Reid) ain’t, the stock market is on another artificial bubble because of the stimulus and the Double talk out of D.C. yet companies are still laying off thousands, what was that the President of Caterpillar said just several weeks ago to the Messiah? Oh ya, won’t be laying off workers if Bail-out passes. Well we see how long that lasted, President of Caterpillar is gonna lay off thousands now (wonder how big his bonus was), look around, it ain’t just Caterpillar laying off thousands, this is absolute madness, “0″ says it is a disaster for months then over night it is proclaimed over and all is well, mean while the contractions of reality and the truth goes on, what next? Weeks from now it will all become the great depression again? What are the odds we can suffer a “great depression” then recover and then suffer another all in a one year span…? It only took seven decades last time but then again we have the “Messiah” in office now.

Mar 18, 2009 - 1:04 am 15. Pajamas Media » The ‘Depression’ For Us Idiots:

[...] Read the entire piece here. [...]

Mar 18, 2009 - 1:36 am 16. DavidN:

2. Gaffe Prices: You’re right, everyone has their money in 401ks and so forth. The thing you’re not remembering is what caused this whole mess. It was the “failed economic policies of the Bush Administration”. He’ll be blamed for anything that goes wrong, whether he caused it or not, until the next Republican president is elected. And that may be a long while.

Mar 18, 2009 - 2:03 am 17. elvis:

“At some point, someone in the media must be getting embarrassed that they are all working at the Ministry of Truth”

Ya think? The problem is they are all like giddy teen-agers drunk with power too! They are oblivious to our anger.

But your 1984 redux is a great summary for anyone to use for an argument !

Mar 18, 2009 - 2:27 am 18. TomF:

To help the confused there is an interesting little story about our financial system called “I want the Earth plus 5%”. (I don’t necessary subscribe to the views of this site, but I did found the story here.) http://federal-reserve.net/iwanttheearthplus5percent.htm

The story may be an oversimplification, but the present system is a lot of smoke and mirrors. Basically, our system is a pyramid that grows at a much slower rate (5%), than say pyramids like Enron. As long as the economy grows at this rate it can support the pyramid and not crash. If it doesn’t grow at that rate (although 5% seems like a little it is not, especially when you consider compounded interest) then it still can be maintained with smoke and mirrors and even more debt (Thank you Mr. President.) We have the debt, now its time for the smoke and mirrors. “It’s not as bad as it looks.” Well that may hold of the pyramid crash for another decade.

Mar 18, 2009 - 2:31 am 19. Jenn M.:

Regarding #4, I really have no idea what this Obama-guy is doing. And I don’t think he does, either.

Mar 18, 2009 - 3:11 am 20. The Goat:

Dr. Hanson is once again “right On”.

I am a small business owner and I’ve paid my taxes, paid my mortgage, paid my employee’s health care, paid my bills for the last 30 years. I worked long hard hours to build some personal wealth but now half of everything I’ve worked for is gone. I understand the ups and downs of the market and I have believe that the system will correct itself as long as the Government doesn’t muck it up. I’m not whining about that.

But everything Obama has done since he has been in office is the exact opposite of what I believe in and what would help my business. From Gitmo, to Cap and Trade, to taxing the rich, to bail outs, to health care, to stem cells, to card check the list goes on there is nothing in there for me or other Middle Americans.

I’ve done my own personal survey of friends, family, coworkers, business owners and found Obama’s approval rating is 0% not 60%.

Dr. Hanson is right about the unrest. There’s lots of it out here but what I don’t know is what “We The People” are going to do about it. I hear a lot of talk but no one has told me how we can “Change” anything. All the blog posting, including mine, aren’t going to do it.
The Goat

Mar 18, 2009 - 3:49 am 21. Roger Godby:

at JohnWright:

Resurrecting and old riff: “We’re just a heartbeat (or cancer stick) away from a Biden Presidency!”

If Amity Shlaes’ “The Forgotten Man” is accurate, Obama’s operating like FDR: He’s doing whatever he feels like because he’s got total control and backing from everyone that matters. Personally insulated from the pain, he nevertheless has no trouble in dishing it out to others through experiments in which he never personally pays the price.

Mar 18, 2009 - 3:53 am 22. Dave the Engineer:

The problem is a lack of ethics and an overabundance of elitism. It does not matter what form of government we have without some control over those two things only bad will result. It starts in childhood, good or bad we are the result of our upbringing. Capitalism limits the result of bad behavior. I agree with “proreason” It takes government to truly destroy the economy, and I’ll add “people”. Before this is over we will have a revolution, us against the purveyors of bad ethics and elitism. The only question is will we be brutal enough to win.

Mar 18, 2009 - 4:08 am 23. gordo 12:

The American people are angry, and in 2010 they will vote to clean up this mess.

Fat chance. It is sad to say but the American people are to busy just trying survive. Yes we are disappointed, but angry no. Our actions speak louder than words.
Tea parties are great,however they are nothing but that, parties.

America no longer has a President we have a new boss. If you don’t do what he asks you will be laid off (taxed).

Mar 18, 2009 - 4:42 am 24. arhooley:

dougwright, re the Biden presidency –

If things get so bad that Biden replaces Obama before January 2013, they will have been very bad indeed. So bad that President Biden, knowing exactly how he was bumped into the Oval Office, would not dare to cross those who drove his predecessor out.

What are the American people going to do? Simply, stay on this. Stay on it every moment without giving up. (Blog on, Goat!) Obama is so bad in so many ways that he can’t stop himself. Ultimately he’ll commit a crime or bring on so much outrage that he’ll have to cede authority to some sort of placeholder.

Mar 18, 2009 - 4:48 am 25. Carl:

God help us all…?
Better call on somebody a lot closer for help fixing this mess.

The common thread of concern in this article, indeed the entire country right now is money. Money, money, money in that once the economy starts turning around most of the people will forget about all of the small stuff that bothers them now.

It is that small stuff – like dumb voting dumber that produced and enabled a political machine that is far more dangerous to our country than the economy stupid.

Mar 18, 2009 - 4:56 am 26. Pietia:

“Yet, I have not seen signs yet (unemployment, deflation, crashing GDP, etc.) that we are in the Great Depression, or even close to the hard times that supposedly will last “for years” as warned by President Obama.”
Don’t worry – if Obama says that the hard times will last “for years” – they will. Even if he will have to work extra hard to make sure that they do…

Mar 18, 2009 - 5:06 am 27. TennesseeVolunteer:

Victor, why do we complain about the bonuses at AIG while the trail of billions given to AIG leads to foreign countries and our biggest financial institutions. Glenn Beck showed a trail of 106B going to these groups. What is even more scary to me, is he didn’t know where the rest was going.
My instinct tells me there is a global theft of our money going on, but we get the ‘bread and circuses’ of those AIG bonuses. I have thought the same thing about the Madoff money, that it really wasn’t 50B but something much less.
When we are told that “We must do something now!” or are seeing financial institutions sell products that they can’t explain and we have people in charge of our government that can’t even keep the trains running on time, A very large Crash is on its way!
Yet, I agree with you, do I pay off debt? Buy gold, guns and a Noahs Ark? I can’t Go Galt because I have kids (young adults just getting started) who need me (The only dispute I have with Ayn Rand).
We have a friend who is a very successful businessman at the highest level. He is very fearful, I fear (I know!) that the great “unconscious” of our country have no idea what is coming. Be well, my friend.

Mar 18, 2009 - 5:29 am 28. vivo:

Doom and gloom.

Where is that American fighting spirit?

Are we a nation of whiners? Remember?

Instead of fighting Government, we need to coach it. Point to the solutions.

Mar 18, 2009 - 5:50 am 29. ReformedTrombonist:

When you change the rules, you change the game. Our economy is heading into uncharted waters. Nobody knows how this is going to play out, because nobody has seen any of this before. All of our economists were trained under the “old” rules, including the biggest one: when someone makes good economic decisions, he prospers, and when someone makes bad economic decisions, he suffers. Now, it’s the other way around.

Mar 18, 2009 - 5:58 am 30. JD:

Things could get even worse. The Kremlin has mooted a potential new global currency. If the $ is ever displaced as the reserve currency of choice, then it’s game over:

http://trackacrat.com/2009/03/18/downward-spiral/

Mar 18, 2009 - 5:59 am 31. Ron Kean:

I just read a book about the US Civil War. At the end, Jefferson Davis printed a load of Confederate Dollars. Similar in Germany after WWI. Now we print checks. I wish somebody had learned from the past. No harm so far. I hope a bad inflation doesn’t happen.

The term Nazi is thrown around so much it’s dumb. G.W.Bush=Hitler, Israel=Nazi, Neo-Con=Nazi, etc. Obviously, we here know the truth. But ignorant people are getting these falsehoods constantly ingrained into their psyche, I’m concerned about mass hypnotism.

Gibbs keeps the scapegoats front page.

The two major possibilities I fear most is the new ‘Youth Corps’ who may get a grand a month to…do what? Rake leaves? Knock on your door and ask for your handgun? If they get uniforms, we’re in trouble. Also, he has a bank of cell phone numbers to text message. This has the potential to turn into calculated ‘mob rule.’

And Acorn? Do they get 2 or 4 billion? I’ve read both.

Mar 18, 2009 - 6:16 am 32. Delia:

Kind Sir Hanson,

The word/term “hoodwinked” comes to mind. :\

Thank you for another thoughtful article.

*heavy sigh*

Mar 18, 2009 - 6:20 am 33. Pops in Vienna:

Good article Doc.

I no longer have any confidence in any of our government or commercial institutions as well. I think that’s because these institutions are staffed with evil and greedy people. Perhaps I am naive, but I think if you had good, honorable, people working within a faulty institutional structure that institution would still function despite the flaws. An example would be that occassional, exceptional DMV employee that you encounter once in a blue moon.

Stupid, evil and greedy people elected our present Congress and our president. There is some justice that they’ll end up paying for their sins, even onto the 7th generation.

It’s too bad a handful of righteous folks have to suffer along with them. Life is not fair.

Mar 18, 2009 - 6:22 am 34. Meryl:

Those who have the ability to follow the money are produce the evidence are not choosing to do so for their own reasons.

Those who ARE motivated are in the 5th concentric circle out and the data they can access has already been mangled and managed to the point of incredibility.

Even conservative media is left with only the chicken entrails around the outside edge, grabbing a piece here and there, trying to reconstruct the crime scene.

That might be ok in terms of process if the new crimes weren’t exploding into the spotlight by the hour. There’s simply too much to reconstruct and it’s impossible to get focus or understanding soon enough to be relevant.

It’s like “24″ on steroids. And they’re trying to keep all of us in holding rooms of one kind or another while they consolidate their power.

Mar 18, 2009 - 6:38 am 35. Meryl:

28 vivo…I hesitate to address you because I’ve seen on various threads and sites how vicious you can be. However, I have to comment….YOU presume to be a cheerleader and coach at this point, “calming the team down”? That’s rich.

Mar 18, 2009 - 6:42 am 36. Meryl:

vivo…wrong word selection: “vacuous” not vicious….you have shown yourself to be constantly be in some other world…so now that the worm in that world is perhaps beginning to turn, please don’t start acting like you really are comfortable in the real world and now “want to help”. Sheesh.

Mar 18, 2009 - 6:54 am 37. BillJ:

VDH-The well framed commentary and closely read article as usual! I have gone from casual interest to anticipated expectation for your articles and always looking forward to the next.
This particular article has really touched a nerve with all of your responders-some of the best comments I’ve ever read, so you can take great pride in your efforts.
To add-To my almost 80 years time horizon, never have I sensed such a depressed feeling in our country-not even in the dark, bleakest days of WW11. The very framework of our country is in peril. Imagine-230 years to build, a couple of years to tear down.
In sifting thru the garbage, the only nugget I can suggest is to draft Gen/Dr. Patraeus to run for the presidency. Quite possibly he could bring some order out of this chaos much as he did in Iraq. Perhaps he could bring 400 or so of his good people with him.
Again, thank you so much for your insights.

Mar 18, 2009 - 6:56 am 38. karlstro2u:

This new Congress is lead by the corrupt and and shameless. They do not have to live in my world because they have set themselves with yearly cost of living paychecks, health for life, and retirement for life that is appalling. No ethics and no oversight for members who fail. They do NOT have a clue what we are suffering through.

Mar 18, 2009 - 7:41 am 39. fear Obama:

Barney Frank and his (freak show) are grilling AIG Libby right now.

Bonus, bonuses, who authorized the bonuses.

Cabbage Head Congressmen authorized them,
didn’t read the stimulants before they voted them into law.

Also Remember-
Barney Frank told AIG/and the world that Fantasy Mae and Freddie Slack were great investments. ** BUY MORE! **

Thank You Mr. Barney Fruit Frank for destroying my retirement.

Hope to pay you back next election!

Mar 18, 2009 - 7:44 am 40. Oldguy:

This is what happens when you pay less attention to the presidential candidate than you do to an act on American Idol.

Mar 18, 2009 - 7:48 am 41. Ken Besig:

Your last sentence really said it all!

Mar 18, 2009 - 7:50 am 42. Robert Hurley:

First of all you have NO idea if the woman in front of you desrved or did not desrve the food stamps, but you made the judgment anyway. I mentor some kids in Camden who are very poor and yet they have bigger TV screens than I do. That does not make them not poor. You also equate the poor who are on food stamps with the guy who gets a million dollar bonus despite the fact that he ran AIG into the ground. There is no moral equivalent here. Are you morally obtuse or just don’t give a damn about anyone but yourself?

Mar 18, 2009 - 8:00 am 43. John Oh:

What we are actually seeing is the transformation of a merit based economy into a politbureau based economy. The rewards are now going to the politically correct and politically powerful at the expense of the productive, of those who create wealth. The chauffered limos, grand vacation residences, staff are beginning to accrue only to the politically powerful, who are also actively taking these trappings of wealth and power away from those in the private sector.

As poorly as AIG may have been run over the past decade, does anyone believe that Chris Dodd or Barney Frank would have lasted 10 minutes at AIG? Would have made thier first quota? What would Barak Obama’s chances have been to rise to the top at GM or GE? No, the only way they get the big dacha or ski chalet is through political power because they do not have the talent to earn it through business. Think Soviet Union circa 1978. To have wealth an power from now on, one must be a party member first.

Mar 18, 2009 - 8:10 am 44. MarkD:

Had the Federal government stuck to its ennumerated powers, we wouldn’t be reading this essay.

Mar 18, 2009 - 8:27 am 45. mr. burns:

It matters what one uses as money.If the government can create as much money as they desire then they can buy/control everything .

Paper money is an evil (that is why paper money has NEVER worked). The economic theories created to justify paper money and continuous inflation are dangerous lies.

We need to return to a commodity based money. Then our monetary system will be understandable . A republic cannot survive if it’s citizens do not comprehend their own money.

Mar 18, 2009 - 8:38 am 46. J.E. Dyer:

“In an odd way, the fact that the money was simply rotating (while it gained interest in bank accounts?) may have been about what Wall Street was doing with our 401(k)s—not really earning anything, just counting on each day’s new infusion of payroll cash deductions to keep the sham up, and ensuring more got in than got out of the market.”

Well, yes. That’s how the markets work, from the standpoint of TRADING. It’s not a criminal conspiracy, it’s a way to make a buck, off the underlying value. A whole lot of people are satisfied with passively collecting marginal value off of the trade itself, the getting in and getting out. This is how speculation works — and also the reason it doesn’t, when the underlying value comes into question.

Buy-and-hold investors take a different approach. Their purpose is to hold shares in strong companies — which entails evaluating the COMPANIES, more than transient market trends — and to weather the temporary troughs, as well as to resist the urge to sell at every crest. Even a lot of the buy-and-hold investors are getting out now. Why? Because they expect Obama’s policies to run strong companies into the ground.

Government ownership or control of business guarantees that the system cannot be kept honest, in terms of rewarding investors equitably based on what they put into the project. Once government is involved, political connections outweigh everything, and your anonymous dollar is worth less than the same dollar wielded by the politically connected. Anyone who thinks that can’t be going on with the TARP bailouts hasn’t been watching the news about Congress, Treasury, the SEC, and the crony-ish relations of various officials with some financial companies for the last several years.

As between the iPod wielding user of food stamps and the AIG whiz overinvested in lousy debt paper, my anger goes to: none of the above. Congress, the voters who elected its big-spending, overregulating members, and a handful of presidents who advanced the cause of socialism, are the ones who deserve tarring and feathering. Without the intervention of government, neither the food stamp user nor the AIG whiz could get at my wallet.

Mar 18, 2009 - 8:53 am 47. tanstaafl:

Here is another “bottom line” that might serve to allay collective confusion in all of these matters (from another PJM piece)

…our fate is now in the hands of one-dimensional, small men and women without vision, knowledge of history, or the courage to act, except insofar as they are prospecting for votes.

Votes in the political sector, more personal wealth in the financial sector, each segment functioning with few scruples or principles.

Mar 18, 2009 - 9:04 am 48. Gary Ogletree:

With luck, the facts of this historical debacle will seep through the cracks to the majority of people who don’t read illuminating articles in the blogosphere. And the country will learn a basketful of hard lessons our grandparents already knew. We will no longer run our lives on maxed out credit, etc. And maybe we can finally get some serious ethics reform and house cleaning in the halls of Congress. I hear there’s a governor in Alaska who has has a lot of experience in these areas. No, too much to ask. We may not be worthy.

Mar 18, 2009 - 9:07 am 49. David W. Lincoln:

As long as politicized science, and chicanery are not taken into consideration as to why the United States has
contributed what it has to this very rough patch economically; selective vision will be a bane, if not a blight,
as to how we get from where we are to where we need to be.

Check this out from the February 20, 2009 National Post:

Copyright CanWest Interactive, Inc. Feb 20, 2009

Empirical research in what are commonly called “peer-reviewed” academic journals is often used as the basis for public policy decisions, in part because people think that “peer-review” involves checking the accuracy of the research. That might have been the case in the distant past, but times have long since changed. Academic journals rarely, if ever, check data and calculations for accuracy during the review process, nor do they claim to. Journal editors only claim that in selecting a paper for publication they think it merits examination by the research community.

But the other dirty secret of academic research is that the data and computational methods are so seldom disclosed that independent examination and replication has become nearly impossible for most published research.

In a new report we wrote for the Fraser Institute, we review a series of efforts in recent years to replicate empirical studies published in economics journals. Over a thousand papers have now been examined. In over half the cases the data were not archived. When the authors were asked for their data, the majority reported being unable or unwilling to provide it. Where data was provided, the computer code used to generate the results was almost never released, greatly complicating the task of replicating the statistical results. Overall, the vast majority of economics papers could not be independently verified, even in some cases where the authors agreed to assist the replication efforts.

A set of interlocking problems in the peer review system have become pervasive throughout academia: authors do not release their data, journals do not ask for it, thousands of papers get published each year that nobody checks for accuracy and independent replication has become so costly and difficult that it is rarely attempted.

In researching this issue we have noticed two inconsistent opinions: Some non-academics are surprised to find out that peer review does not involve checking data and calculations while academics are surprised that anyone thought it did.

Our report also explores numerous examples from other academic disciplines, such as medicine, history, environmental science and forestry, in which prominent or policy-relevant research was shielded from independent scrutiny by withholding data and/ or computer code. In some cases the research was exposed as faulty only years later, sometimes only through government intervention to force data disclosure, and sometimes after laws had already been passed based on the faulty research.

Non-disclosure of essential research materials may have deleterious scientific

consequences, but our ultimate concern is the growing negative effects on public policy formation.

One striking example in the context of the current U. S. housing meltdown concerns a 1992 study by economists at the Boston Federal Reserve, published in the prestigious American Economic Review, that purported to show statistically significant evidence of racial discrimination in U. S. mortgage lending practices. Based on this study, federal regulations were rushed into place that forced banks to loosen lending standards and threatened them with severe financial penalties for failure to correct the alleged discrimination.

It took nearly six years, and a Freedom of Information Act request, for independent economists to discover coding errors in the data that invalidated the original conclusions. But by this time the new lending rules were in place that ultimately contributed to the buildup of bad mortgage debt now ravaging the U. S. financial system.

A related feature of this problem is that when a study becomes prominent in a policy debate, academics can end up forming a protective cheering squad around it, defending it from independent scrutiny. In 2006, a U. S.-appointed expert review panel looking at a controversial global warming study noted that when the issue became politically heated, scientists working in the area formed a “self-reinforcing feedback mechanism” that made it effectively impossible for them to critically assess the work in question, while dismissing the efforts of outsiders who were trying to do so. It should not be assumed that the scientific process will reliably correct erroneous research: The sociological process within science is just as likely to protect false results from scrutiny.

Users of academic research must recognize that scientific findings in journal articles are not checked for accuracy and, unless proven otherwise, are likely not independently replicable. In our report, we spell out a simple checklist of conditions that government policymakers should be prepared to verify before basing public-policy decisions on the claims in an academic journal article. These are not complicated or contentious matters, they are things long assumed to be true: that the data described in the paper were actually used in the analysis, that the data are available for independent inspection, that the calculations described in the paper match those in the computer code, etc. If these things can’t be shown to be true, the paper should not be relied on.

Academics rightly insist on the freedom to do their research without public or political interference. But when that research influences policy, the public has a right to demand independent verification. Researchers might want to influence policy but if they plan to keep their data and computer code to themselves, they should keep their results to themselves too.

-Ross McKitrick, an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Guelph, and Bruce D. McCullough, a Professor of Decision Sciences at Drexel University in Philadelphia, are authors of “Check the Numbers: The Case for Due Diligence in Policy Formation,” published by the Fraser Institute.

Credit: Ross McKitrick And Bruce D. McCullough; Financial Post

Plus, the mixing of mortgages that are risky (thanks to they being held by people who could not afford to live there) with other financial instruments is, as Mark steyn put it a while back, akin to mixing doggie dodo with ice cream. The mixture will not taste like ice cream.

Mar 18, 2009 - 9:11 am 50. skep41:

Dont worry Professor they’ll never destroy you until you learn to love Big Obama. I feel like using the Slim Pickens line from Blazing Saddles, “Now what’ll that a**hole think of next?” The fact of the matter is that the American electorate has handed total power over to these clapped-out commie clowns and after they’re done ‘fixing’ the banking system and ‘fixing’ the health care system they are promising to ‘fix’ the weather! I find that prospect frightening. Just remember, this is the opening gambit. They’ve got a trade war with Mexico and forcing every employee in America to join and pay dues to the AFL-CIO up their sleezes and they’ve appointed an EPA administrator who is a sworn enemy of private-sector automobile ownership. It is hard to believe that these bozos have only been in office a couple of months. But dont worry Professor Hanson. A government ‘bailout’ of failing liberal newspapers will restore confidence in the government, as will government ‘regulation’ of the Unfair sector of the media and the internet. You can start a tumbleweed farm on your forty acres, label it an ethanol green-fuel production site and live off generous subsidies for the rest of your life.

Mar 18, 2009 - 9:30 am 51. Robert F:

Good article, Professor.
In response to: “Yet, I have not seen signs yet (unemployment, deflation, crashing GDP, etc.) that we are in the Great Depression, or even close to the hard times that supposedly will last “for years” as warned by President Obama.”
I am seeing signs. I personally know well placed businessmen who are connected with Washington, and who are quite concerned. I’m seeing well run and formerly profitable businesses overnight become money losers, and resorting to layoffs, etc. Add to that the regular reports I read in business news, and I need no more convincing.

Mar 18, 2009 - 9:32 am 52. bear:

We get the government we pay for, follow the money. I agree with proreason to a point. We are not governed by our best and brightest, nor are our corporate leaders the best and brightest. They are groomed for their station in life, and I sometimes wonder if our adversarial system is just for show.

Mar 18, 2009 - 9:37 am 53. Bruce:

Mr. Hurley

I will fight you tooth and nail to make sure that your vision of a socialist America is crushed. Perhaps you can mention to the parents (if there are two parents) of those kids that maybe they should work a little harder and try to better themselves so that they can take care of their children. Many people work and go to school at the same time. Perhaps you might mention to the parents to stay off the drugs and booze. Or better yet, tell their single mothers to stop having children out of wedlock and expect us all to perpetually feel sorry for them and support them. We should help those that really need help, but only for a limited amount of time.

Televisions, cars, i pods, etc. are priveliges, not rights.

Mar 18, 2009 - 10:12 am 54. cfbleachers:

VDH, we are nation of those who are into “gaming the system” and those in our information stream who are into “gaming the facts”, while those who are to “represent” us are into “gaming the process”.

That is a deadly combination. Deadly to our national “core”…what are really all about as a people. Deadly to our economy. Deadly to our cohesiveness as a society. Deadly to our moral compass.

The “them” that you witness…are the “game” being hunted. Class and racial warfare are the tools being used to drive a wedge between and among us.

And the “doublespeak” you witness, is now a familiar theme in our information stream. Orwellian “changes” to words, deeds and facts slipped into our daily “news” by our corrupt entrenched media.

This happened previously and is variously described elsewhere, most notably in Bernie Goldberg’s first book. Homelessness in a Republican administration a disaster, the first day of a Democratic dominated government is all sunshine and rose petals on our path.

We are adrift at sea as a nation, we at war with our own information stream, we are forced to live by a sword of divisiveness…(there is a complete lack of acceptance of principled dissent) and against a shield of sophistry. (there should be no thinking person of honor who accepts our “facts” or “news” in our information stream at face value)

This is a nation comprised of two ships passing in the night. There is a dense fog and all the lights are off. And the orders from each….full speed ahead.

Mar 18, 2009 - 10:38 am 55. xqqme:

John Oh bears repeating…

‘What we are actually seeing is the transformation of a merit based economy into a politbureau based economy.’

My 88 y.o. German mother told me to register as a Democrat after the election of Obama. The campaign blame-game had a familiar ring to it for her.

Mar 18, 2009 - 11:25 am 56. John Work:

The comment #49 describes in other areas what Dr. Hanson’s book “Who Killed Homer” has to say about his own academic area, the Classics. Our education system has been completely corrupted in all areas by the Left, and as other commenters here have said, this creates an almost insurmountable problem for resolving our difficulties. Even if we did the unspeakable and revolted (are the censors monitoring?), it’s doubtful that the outcome would be very satisfactory since the majority of our citizens have no clue about much. And as for peaceful solutions, most of us are rightfully skeptical about the effectiveness of diplomacy in negotiating with those of our enemies abroad who have repeatedly stated their intentions to destroy us. But still we avoid any reference to revolution (are the censors monitoring?) and speak of talking with our fellow citizens, our enemies at home, who are actively trying to destroy our country, whether in ignorance or by malice really makes no difference. The Left has no scruples in using whatever means are necessary to advance their cause – loud, vicious speech, lies, vote fraud, or violence. It is the nature of those of us who work and uphold the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to be more polite and to generally go about our business and daily life. But that nature may well be the death of us all.

“Not with a bang, but a whimper.”

Mar 18, 2009 - 11:29 am 57. Ms. Attitude:

Mr. Hurley

You are just like the flaming liberal I work with. While talking about charity with other employees she had to throw in her twisted view of how things should work. We were discussing the homeless and how we can help them. (We were on our lunch break). I told a story of giving food to a man sitting on the side of the road. He threw it back at us, he wanted money. At the time I was young, married and had two children (one with an illness that had him in and out of the hospital). We lived paycheck to paycheck and thought that giving him a McDonald’s meal would be nice (it was the same thing we had just eaten—not leftovers). She said that she would’ve thrown it back at us too because we had no right deciding what he should eat! The sad part – you would agree with her.
After my divorce I qualified for public assistance. I did NOT take it, I worked two jobs (one full-time and one part-time) and went to school full-time. My parents and my church helped me with my children. We did not have a big TV, we did not have cable or the internet; I did not have air in my car and lived in a small two-bedroom apartment. We took trips to the park for fun and my children were involved in sports and music. My children know that to succeed in life you must make sacrifices. My oldest son is an Eagle Scout and a successful young man; my youngest is in line for a college scholarship in sports. I am by no means rich but I am very thankful for what I have accomplished. I was never a victim. The only people that “deserve” food-stamps and public aid are the disabled and elderly, the rest of us should sacrifice to provide for ourselves and our children. Please don’t bring your preachy “they deserve our help” attitude around here. You can give and give and give but until you show people how to succeed you are nothing but part of the problem.

Mar 18, 2009 - 11:46 am 58. cfbleachers:

VDH, we are nation of those who are into “gaming the system” and those in our information stream who are into “gaming the facts”, while those who are to “represent” us are into “gaming the process”.

That is a deadly combination. Deadly to our national “core”…what are really all about as a people. Deadly to our economy. Deadly to our cohesiveness as a society. Deadly to our moral compass.

The “them” that you witness…are the “game” being hunted. Class and racial warfare are the tools being used to drive a wedge between and among us.

And the “doublespeak” you witness, is now a familiar theme in our information stream. Orwellian “changes” to words, deeds and facts slipped into our daily “news” by our corrupt entrenched media.

This happened previously and is variously described elsewhere, most notably in Bernie Goldberg’s first book. Homelessness in a Republican administration a disaster, the first day of a Democratic dominated government is all sunshine and rose petals on our path.

We are adrift at sea as a nation, we at war with our own information stream, we are forced to live by a sword of divisiveness…(there is a complete lack of acceptance of principled dissent) and against a shield of sophistry. (there should be no thinking person of honor who accepts our “facts” or “news” in our information stream at face value)

This is a nation comprised of two ships passing in the night. There is a dense fog and all the lights are off. And the orders from each….full speed ahead.
PS: Wanted to say great post!

Mar 18, 2009 - 11:55 am 59. Войска ПВО:

42 Robert Hurley:

“..who are very poor and yet they have bigger TV screens than I do.”

You must be very envious of them, Robert.

Mar 18, 2009 - 12:07 pm 60. AThinkingPerson:

Just when you thought President Teleprompter was done wreaking havoc with our great country, he stoops even lower….

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.5b314d8ae36e9c4164fd09da6e4fb69a.7f1&show_article=1

Mar 18, 2009 - 12:53 pm 61. Gaffe Prices:

Wo boy, Winston Smith, you got that right, although its pointless to argue whether its you or me, when we all are now.
“Gaming the process”- ditto, I think we’ve all stewed and brewed to find such words to characterize the disconnect, and the ensuing chasm between us prols, and our now ridiculous “elected” representatives- strike that (another word now extinct of meaning) and our unitary “leadership” in the land of Oz.

Mar 18, 2009 - 1:08 pm 62. Delia:

60. AThinkingPerson,

This has been coming for a while and Zero made it clear he’s going to ‘BUY’ votes with ‘ILLEGAL ImmiGRANTS’. Green card shmeen card.

Barry Soetoro the devout Anti-American wants to undermine the very underpinnings of our country.

Derailing our economy was the first step to keep us all so frazzled that we don’t notice all the other horrors he’s up to.

Yay!

NOT.

Mar 18, 2009 - 1:12 pm 63. Gaffe Prices:

Above all I sense the nihilist’s glee with which our Republican institutions of democracy are repeatedly pushed to the breaking point to fuel this new engine of greed, the government
nevermind that we speak about it in English, when they go right on talking down to us in fluent doublespeak.

Mar 18, 2009 - 1:16 pm 64. geoffgo:

proreason@1

We are really really angry.
And it won’t stand

Okay, I’m angry too. To sum up our predicament, the Left now has control over all the money, the banking, financial and automotive industries, alliances with all the unions, and the alliegiance of the local, state and Federal forces sanctioned with the use of force to maintain order, and they already funded a new internal secuirty force of 10 million political kapos.

Seems the only way we can succeed in time (2012 being way too late), without significant civil strife, is to have an ever smaller minority party win impeachment of the Pres, VP, Speaker, Senate Majority Leader, and every one of the congresscritters that passed the Porkulus without reading it; independnent of party affiliation. If what they are consciously doing does not qualify as high crimes, nothing ever will. Jail time for the leadership.

If the Republican Party cannot rally enoough support to get this impeachment done, we’ve no chance of stopping our enslavement without a bloodbath.

Mar 18, 2009 - 1:40 pm 65. geoffgo:

Carl@25

once the economy starts turning around most of the people will forget about all of the small stuff that bothers them now

Your premise only works if the economy is allowed to turn around in our lifetimes, and all those new taxes are recinded.

Mar 18, 2009 - 1:55 pm 66. Trevor:

Madoff sent out nearly 5,000 detailed statements per month. He must be the Spock of Excel to do that all himself. VDH – Nearly all assets in the fund were gone at the end; Madoff only confessed when the funds were a couple days from being depleted because of massive withdrawals.

There are two things the press is not emphasizing enough. 1) All of those early withdrawals included the full 10% annual return. Some guys had >15 years of compounding. Many people who bailed early made lots of money on this Ponzi scheme. 2) Enough time has elapsed where the press should be able to report a graph showing over time: actual value of the fund, perceived value of the fund, theft from fund.

Mar 18, 2009 - 2:21 pm 67. Marc Malone:

#36 Meryl – Cut vivo a little slack. I’ve been tracking his posts for some time, and I believe ge’s starting to come around. I notice he’s using less talking points and ad hominem attacks.

#42 Hurley – If they have a big screen tv, they are NOT POOR. If they were truly poor, they would SELL the TV. I grew up poor. We hadn’t enough food. We had no TV. We often had no power, and even occasionally, no running water. I wore my shoes until they literally fell apart. I know what poor is! Poor is not the opposite of rich, but rather the absence of the very basic necessities.

Mar 18, 2009 - 2:26 pm 68. vivo:

36. Meryl:

I guess you prefer gloom and doom. Vacuous?

Talk about vicious, your subconscious talks.

Mar 18, 2009 - 2:27 pm 69. Marc Malone:

I’m not mad at everyone. My anger is directed toward the media, without whose complicity, none of this would be possible. None of it!

Mar 18, 2009 - 2:27 pm 70. cfbleachers:

This is a nation comprised of two ships passing in the night. There is a dense fog and all the lights are off. And the orders from each….full speed ahead.

PS: Wanted to say great post!

To whomever that was, thank you for the compliment. Not sure what the “blue light special” on my repeat post is, but thanks!

Mar 18, 2009 - 2:34 pm 71. Still Bill:

Victor: Yes, there is a lot of blame to spread around out there. Wall Street rewards failure with astronomical bonuses to people who bankrupt their companies, and the American people reward failure by re-electing every two and six years the same idiots who bankrupt their country, and by electing an African-born, Marxist as their President.

Mar 18, 2009 - 2:47 pm 72. MikeD:

I too am appalled by the AIG bonuses. I am also dismayed at the amount of CEO executive compensation. But then, I am equally appalled by the FannieMae/FreddieMac bonuses (announced today), and have never understood why professional athletes were worth multi-million dollar contracts. Come to think of it, given the return on the investment, why do we pay such outlandish salary sums to members of the US House and Senate? Talk about worthless at tits on a boar hog!

Mar 18, 2009 - 3:30 pm 73. Gaffe Prices:

I’ve been reading James Michener’s memoirs, and even he concedes- “I’ve often thought back on that simpler time and concluded that it is better for a child to have strong moral and social beliefs, than none at all.”

He also points out, that adulthood is the time when, we can exhaustively hold our standards, our mistakes, our errors, our abuses, our system of addressing those misdeeds for serious re-evaluation and redress, but [Michener again] “if he/[she], [the child] has allegience to nothing, he has nothing to work on”, in that later re-evaluation

I include that with VDH’s recollection of the paradigm present, particularly in grade school to high school in his book “Mexifornia: A State of Becoming”, and contrast it to its terrifying abject absence. (What we have today)

The scrutiny and criticism necessary for any real progress by the old way, has been evicted from its land to beggar around, like some not-needed-anymore tenant farmer, finding warmth and un-molested liberty only at the campfires of its now nomadic relegation, alien in its owne birthplace.

Mar 18, 2009 - 3:54 pm 74. American Muslim:

Your unholy, corrupt society is disintegrating and still you refuse to accept reality. Everywhere you look, Islam is triumphant. Your man-made Constitution is in tatters. Soon President Obama will replace that outmoded document by Allah’s (swt) law (Sharia).

There is little time remaining to you. Renounce your false religions and man-made laws. Embrace Islam now, before it is too late, and live in peace in submission to the will of Almighty Allah (swt).

Your grandchildren will be Muslim.

Allahu akbar!

Mar 18, 2009 - 4:12 pm 75. proreason:

64. geoffgo:

I don’t agree with the impeachment route. This will probably get me flamed, but I believe the impeachment of Clinton caused a lot of the anger in politics today. If Ken Starr had been able to pin a more serious charge on Clinton, it would have been different, but a blow job? In retrospective, it was a bad move. (I can feel the flames already).

I’m assuming that the Obama man-child isn’t going to be caught doing something that is plainly illegal, even though I personally beleive that the strategy of the leftist goons is deeply corrupt and incredibly dangerous. There needs to be a smoking gun, and remember, the radicals now control the mechanisms of government and the legal system. I don’t think impeachment is viable.

The way out of this wilderness is for conservatives to remain absolutely steadfast in our principles and to be more forgiving of articulate spokesmen like Newt, Jindal and Romney in their description of the conservative approach. They can’t frame it in the stark language that we can on web-sites. I’m not advocating foresaking PRINCIPLES, just in being a bit less rigid when leaders strive to appeal to moderates.

If we can do that, and conservative spokespeople improve, and the oligarchy that is highjacking the country continue to overreach as flagrantly as they have been so far, we have a chance to get back to where we can educate non-moonbats about the sheer lunacy of the path we are on; and convince people who aren’t involved on a day-to-day basis that common sense and responsibility really is the way to get the country back on the right track.

Mar 18, 2009 - 4:22 pm 76. Still Bill:

To American Muslim: I happen to be a Christian, admittedly a Christian who has not quite reached moral perfection. As a matter of fact, I just knocked down my third Tennessee ’sippin” whiskey on the rocks during happy “hours.” I will say this to you. I have a great deal of respect for tolerant religious people throughout the world, but I will never be a member of a religion founded by a child molester.

Mar 18, 2009 - 4:43 pm 77. D Foster:

There will continue to be problems with the economy for some time. The FOMC has cut rates to almost 0% and are printing and pouring money into the economy.

Now we have Obama and his cronies are talking about Increased Tax Rates, plus CAP AND TRADE ON ENERGY.
Plus, Congress is just out of control with the trashing of Corporations and the Private Sector.Plus the growth of numerous Social Programs.

So, we will have in the near future, too many dollars chasing too few goods, That is Inflation. So, we could have a repeat of the 1970’s and Stagflation. The China Government and other buyers of U.S. Treasury Bills will not continue to purchase the U.S. Debt at low interest rates. The FOMC will be forced to raise rates 1n 2010.
If you believe Milton Friedman and his understanding of Economics.
Growth of government and increase Tax on Business, large and Small will only devalue the Dollar, and will continue to allow Energy to be overpriced.
All of these decisions coupled with a POTUS that does not consider the Private Corporation to be important to the overall success of America, and we have slow growth and Inflation. Jimmy Carter Stagflation.

Mar 18, 2009 - 4:46 pm 78. BC:

Lot’s of really, really wrong notions here:

1) Capitalism is absolutely *NOT* self-correcting, as demonstrated over and over and over again by past riots and revolutions against corrupt Pottersville-like scenarios, usually aided and abetted by corrupt government. Economists and consumers love free market competition, but business don’t, especially those run by bean counters — market share, market share, market share is what they really want, and a monopolistic position is the most desirous end result. While some business sectors, like restaurants and boutiques, have little in the way of entry barriers, others involving things like automobiles, computer operating systems, investment banking, oil drilling and such have many barriers, from start-up costs to existing, often hostile, entrenched monopolistic/oligopolistic players.

2) Businesses can indeed do damage worldwide — they just did: how many hands do you really need for counting all the financial institutions whose business practices are responsible for this now world-wide economic mess? If responsible governments don’t pay attention, that’s what happens. That whole bizarre, mind-bogglingly stupid and shortsighted behavior of AIG regarding the bonus situation is more typical than not — these are people almost entirely disconnected from anything that doesn’t affect their personal bottom line and lifestyle. Alfred E. Neumann’s for a new generation. And there is no shortage of past and current examples, from the John D. Rockefeller’s oil empire, to the Hunt brothers trying to corner the silver market, the still existing De Beer’s diamond cartel, etc.

3) If you think the government can’t be trusted to tying to fix this utterly screwed up and screwed over economy, go back and re-read points 1 and 2 again for who absolutely can’t be trusted at all…..

Mar 18, 2009 - 4:49 pm 79. Delia:

74. American Muslim,

Smart@ass. ROTFL! Allahu akbar! NOT!

bwahahahahahahahaha!

Mar 18, 2009 - 4:55 pm 80. Carrot:

Not enough are angry. Many women, and most ethnic minority voters, as well as young people, like Obama and like socialism. They do better, with, as VDH observed, Ipods, welfare food stamp credit cards, SSI, etc. It’s not going to be easy to put up a meaningful resistance. At least one thing is obvious: it’s time for Warren Buffet to retire. He’s lost it, no fool like an old fool.

Mar 18, 2009 - 6:18 pm 81. Jane:

Re: Madoff – I thought the same thing! The 50 Billion is imaginary – I would love to see an accounting of how much was actually given to Madoff. What really frustrates me is the way the media selectlively reports bits and leaves out the pieces to highten our level of distress. I just do not understand the 60% approval. I don’t get it…

Mar 18, 2009 - 6:19 pm 82. proreason:

78. BC

“Businesses can indeed do damage worldwide”

yep….like at the direction of Drooling Barney and his fellow socialists in congress.

Ever wonder in the 90’s the most conservative industry in the world (mortgage banking) woke up one morning in unison and decided that selling 3-plate-spinning mortgages was suddenly the way to go, after 50 years of requiring 20% down and 28% loan to value?

Maybe global warming addled the bankers brains…..or maybe it was Drooling Barney and the boys interfering in the private sector with a little innocent “social engineering”.

Same verse for AIG, btw. The credit swaps were both enabled and directed by the U.S. government, a) by having Fannie Mae buy the bad loans, and b) by directing private industry to “spread the risk”. AIG isn’t the culprit. Liberal morons/criminals in Congress are.

Hey, if I’ve got no risk and the government is directing me to go to Las Vegas….I’m hopping the next plane.

But don’t blame me if I run up a big debt.

Mar 18, 2009 - 6:35 pm 83. Gazzer’s Gabfest » Blog Archive » Mr Hanson writes:

[...] Whenever Victor David Hanson writes, I read and learn. Here is your opportunity to do likewise. [...]

Mar 18, 2009 - 6:35 pm 84. zanne:

#74 are you a plant? I find your same response in several sites? Get some new material. Conservatives are immune now to your religious threats. We got bigger fish to fry.

Mar 18, 2009 - 6:36 pm 85. Rob De Witt:

Comment number 1 from proreason nailed it; everything following is redundant at best.

Mar 18, 2009 - 6:54 pm 86. The Stout Republican » VDH is Awesome:

[...] The Historian hit’s the nail… 1984 Redux. I feel like Winston Smith in Oceania, confused about all the doublethink coming out of Washington. Great Depression—no Great Depression. Recession for years; its end at the end of this year. Signing statements bad; signing statements good. Fundamentals hardly strong; fundamentals really sound. Earmarks terrible; 8,000 wonderful. Bush’s $500 billion deficit reckless; Obama’s $1.7 sober and judicious; Iraq horrific and the worst whatever; Iraq suddenly quiet, democratic, and hopeful; highest ethical bar in an administration ever—Richardson, Daschle, Killefer, Solis, etc. cannot meet the lowest; Guantanamo a Stalag; Guantanamo open for a year, pending the recommendations of a “task force”; Guantanamo a torture place for unlawful combatants; Guantanamo a nice place without unlawful combatants; Obama not to be blamed for massive collapse of stock prices since November; Obama to be praised for modest gains last week. At some point, someone in the media must be getting embarrassed that they are all working at the Ministry of Truth. [...]

Mar 18, 2009 - 7:09 pm 87. Alex:

Its pretty simple; the American Taxpayer underwrites European bank risk, and has been since 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created.

The Fed is a European entity and uses American Taxpayer as an insurance pool when it issues Credit. People are up in arms over the bonuses at AIG…Who cares about a few hundred million??? AIG has been sending tens of billions to European Banks the last 6 months, and our congress waves goodbye to the money as it leaves our shores.

We dont need to be financial guru’s to understand we are being used to provide European Bank Families with Trillions in Cash Payment.

What we need to understand is why we continue to allow it.

Mar 18, 2009 - 7:18 pm 88. The Mongo Empire:

# 74 has been re-cutting and re-pasting that sameputrid, half digested (twice), impertinent bowl of gruel (that he keeps pinching) on other Pajamas Sites (until he gets [got] banned), for a long time now,
and I should know, cuz he works for me

I further recommend that he be, *ahem*, sentenced to debt, which I believe is the appropriate measure.

And have his penniless accounts (stuffed with rubles and rupees) consigned to the flames!

(You can get back to me on that, just text my blackberry)

Mar 18, 2009 - 7:28 pm 89. wayne:

Bernie Madoff? You actually think that anyone will get much of the money back from that mess??

Bwahahahahahahahahahah!!

Two words: RUSSIAN MAFIA

All of that money got funneled to Moscow and any investigation will get obliterated when it gets within 50 klicks of the ex-KGB mafia pals of Vlad – the poisoner – Putin.

Mar 18, 2009 - 7:32 pm 90. JCD:

As others have said here, don’t discount the whole depression thing. The evidence is overwhelming that one is coming, but isn’t readily apparent if all you do is listen to Washington and the network talking heads, who have all been astoundingly wrong time and time again. Sure. we’ll have a pre-summer bounce back, but keep your eyes open, it’s only temporary. In 1931 the beltway boys and talking heads were saying the same things they are now.

Mar 18, 2009 - 7:39 pm 91. TLM:

@75:

Impeaching Clinton was a distraction. Impeaching Obama would be a disaster. Remember the lessons of the OJ trial. Obama was voted in by the American people. They need to realize their mistake, and vote him out in four years.

BC:

For me 1) and 2) boil down to this: “…aided and abetted by corrupt government.” I don’t need to understand economic theory or its application, when this is the overriding factor.

If responsible governments don’t pay attention to the corrupt kickback arrangements that their elected officials — especially the ones with oversight responsibility — have with corporate financial giants, then yes, said financial giants can crash the world economy. Don’t know if that’s an indictment of capitalism or not. Might be irrelevant at this point.

It’s hard to know who to distrust more, anymore. The current breed of greedy and STUPID “capitalists” who ruined Wall Street, or the stupid and GREEDY corrupticians in Congress who they bought off. For those of us who ain’t in the know, it’s sort of an epistemological quandary, among other things.

Mar 18, 2009 - 7:54 pm 92. typos_R_us:

I’m no expert, but I did stay at Holiday Inn Express!

Constitutional Convention.
Throw ALL the bums out.

Mar 18, 2009 - 8:47 pm 93. Terry_Jim:

Regarding the “Bottom Line”,
the iPod listening woman utilizing her Government Debit Card to buy food may be 1/1000 of the AIG wizard, but there are multiple thousands of her.

The rage over the AIG bonuses would be better released on the government that would rescue mortgage payers who spent their home equity (and then some) on bass boats, Disney World vacations, or other toys at the expense of those of us who pay our mortgages.
When house flippers get caught with their levers out, so to speak, it isn’t my responsibility to bail them out.

If Putzy Schumer and Chuck Grassly ‘taxsorb’ the AIG bonuses, it would be an eye dropper in the ocean compared to the prodigal spending done by millions who recieve redistributed wealth or who will recieve it soon.
“God help us all!”
Indeed. Amen.

Mar 18, 2009 - 9:40 pm 94. Alana:

“The way out of this wilderness is for conservatives to remain absolutely steadfast in our principles and to be more forgiving of articulate spokesmen like Newt, Jindal and Romney in their description of the conservative approach. They can’t frame it in the stark language that we can on web-sites. I’m not advocating foresaking PRINCIPLES, just in being a bit less rigid when leaders strive to appeal to moderates.”

I agree with Proreason, above.

Things are too dire to do otherwise.

Mar 18, 2009 - 10:19 pm 95. Pat:

To BC at #78: We’ve never had capitalism – the system of inalienable individual rights where government is completely separated from the economy. We have what’s called a “mixed” economy – an unstable mixture of freedom and controls, which has grown ever more statist for the past century.

As to your fear of monopolies: you’re equivocating between economic power and political power. A company like Alcoa or Microsoft doesn’t force anybody to buy its products; it earns its monopoly position, and can lose it in a free market (e.g., IBM, Westinghouse, etc.).

The government, by contrast, forces every American to use its subjective Federal “Reserve” monopoly money – the value of which has been dropping every day since they first created it in 1913. In a free market, there would be no government monopoly money.

In a totally free market, there would be far fewer barriers to entry: no million-dollar fees to go public, no wasted millions spent waiting for the FDA to approve drugs, no corporate or individual income taxes, no capital gains taxes, and real, gold-backed money, the purchasing power of which would be increasing, not decreasing. No trust-busting of the successful producers to reward the inept.

In a free market, there would also be no business cycle – just near-universal progress and falling prices like we had for most of the 19th century.

If you love man and his heroic potential, advocate freedom and capitalism. If you think some people (czars, central planners, congress, the FDIC, etc.) should dictate to everyone else, then go to the USSR or Iran.

Mar 18, 2009 - 10:40 pm 96. CA Dissent:

“The truth is that the Bernanke-Geithner plan – the plan the administration keeps floating, in slightly different versions – isn’t going to fly.” If I can comment on the reason the Bernanke – Geithner plan is what it is, a trainwreck in slow motion, is because they are continuing to take their playbook right out the New York Times op-eds. The real problem with this is not only that they are following the pay and pay and pay some more plan, but that they then all look at each other dumbfounded with the results. (Is this not the scariest part of all)?

The AIG exec bonus scandal is a perfect example of the naivete of our political left. They seem to continually miss the point of Capitalism at crucial moments. Instead of dealing with an in-your-face issue like that upfront, they act like they are surprised that Execs make good on their own contracts despite the bailout!!

In your first couple of paragraphs, VDH, you point out the incongruities of the underlying Obama rhetoric with unmistakable clarity. Maybe you are right Dr., maybe us dumb social science practitioners ought to just shut up and let the highfalutin naive antics go on unabated.

You know what I would like to see? How about having Obama sans teleprompter explain to me how abating the mark to market rule on AAA mortgage back securities would ultimately lead to greater consumer confidence in the public? I mean really – wouldn’t we be in a bizarro world indeed if instead of Limbaugh having a muzzle on his mouth on the front of Newsweek saying ENOUGH! we had Emanuel (with his arm around Blago) in the same pose?

Mar 18, 2009 - 11:02 pm 97. W J A:

I see a wonderful exercise in whining and hand wringing and frustration. When you have only half of the eligible voters going to the polls, and 75% of those who do vote are swayed by image and not issues, what do you expect? Whoever creates the best slogans and sound bites wins. Add to this the pretty faces on the tube, pretending they know what’s going on, reading the material written by liberals, trained by socialist journalism professors, add to this the declining print media writers trained by the same intellects and you see the results.

H. Ross Perot was great at defining problems with many statistics and charts, but came up short on solutions. Conservatives, Capitalists, Republicans, Free Market adherents, Small Business People, Mid-Americans are all seeing problems ahead, but where is the leader? Where is the person who will take the reins and pull everyone in one direction? Will that person be allowed to survive the slings and arrows of the liberal media? Look what happened to Sarah Palin.

In order for there to be a change there has to be a change in thinking. Socialist and Totalitarian regimes do it by controlling the media by force. I would think a group of right thinking capitalists would buy out the media outlets, fire the socialists and change the mindset of the uneducated and uninformed American people who are guided by the pretty faces and edited sound bites. Remember liberals are taught what to think, not how to think.

Where is John Wayne when we need him?

Mar 18, 2009 - 11:13 pm 98. Pat:

We have elected the most useless,ignorant, shallow, vindictive individual in the history of the nation. We have had many with one or two of these traits, but this talking idiot takes all four.

Mar 18, 2009 - 11:44 pm 99. Korjack:

It occurs to me that there really is something biblical about Obama. But he’s not the new Messiah. Instead, he’s like the prodigal son who frittered away his inheritance. But the modern prodigal son is frittering away the country’s inheritance.

Mar 19, 2009 - 1:13 am 100. Bape Nerd:

so more money printed, will this make the value of US dollar fall…

how many tent cities have to show up before the depression is actually over, media already saying it will be over this year but the effects will be for a long time for the poor.

Mar 19, 2009 - 1:15 am 101. George Best:

It is amazing to regularly read the intelligent post and the great reader responses on this website. It makes you wonder how someone like Obama got elected.

The sad thing is that the intelligent people with values who typically made up of 55-60% of this nation no longer exists. It is now under 50% and dropping because we no longer produce well raised kids at a stronger rate then the stupid people do.

The outrage over AIG bonuses is laughable. 165 million is like less then one tenth of one percent that the government gave originally. That is why government needs to stay out of private enterprise.

Our focus needs to be more on the people who dont work, dont pay taxes, and whose numbers increase by the year. They are are a drain on our system and only increase in numbers. They vote for Obama and his ilk and correcting that problem is more important to the survival of this country. Adding to the problem with these bailouts is only going to speed up the collapse of this country.

Mar 19, 2009 - 7:00 am 102. K8:

Wealth cannot be legislated. These totally twisted governmental actions can benefit NO ONE! and can only be explained through incompetence. Cheers to you VDH for your concise posts.

Mar 19, 2009 - 7:22 am 103. George Baumann:

To those brave and literate contributors here who have proposed various solutions to any one (or more) of the many complex problems that Mr. Hanson has outlined here, and which are facing ALL OF US, I offer you my complimetns, even as I remind you of this single, inarguable fact: For every complex problem, there is always a simple solution — one that doesn’t work! And, when we propose to solve several such complex problems – all of which are interrelated to varying degrees, in various dynamically-changing ways – with one or several simple solutions, they are ALL surely just as bound to fail as in the simpler, “one-for-one” scenario. We need to bear this in mind as we tackle the uncertainties of the future, and we need to remain skeptical, not cynical, at all times, of those who tell us bluntly how to solve any complex problem, whether they be Presidents or bartenders. This is as true for religious zealots, whose “way” is always the “only way”, as it is for partisan political pundits who cannot see beyond their own viewpoints, or for so-called “pure capitalists”, who somehow have come to believe that NO government is better than any government, good or bad.

We are no longer living in a world where we can afford to ignore the need to address complex problems with complex solutions, for making connections between these problems as we do so, and for doing our best to honor the efforts of others who are genuinely engaged in grappling with these problems, whether for their own selfish motives, or for more altruistic ones, such as are properly embodied in the term “public service”. This “grappling” process is what philosophers call “the human condition” – a striving to make meaning where there is none, and to develop a definition of progress that is at once self-serving and socially desirable.

I offer no solutions here, but I am firm in my condemnation of the behavior of those in government, politicians and bureaucrats alike, as well as those members of the private sector who have lived, and continue to live, in the manner of the sterotypical Nazi prison guard, who says in his own defense: “I was only following orders”.

Many years ago, some attempt was made to assist subsistence-level wage earners in acquiring mortgages – a noble goal in a society that, if well-managed, should be more than able to achieve this goal. Sadly, greed and perversion among the front-line policy-makers and policy-enforcers in both public and private roles gave us undeniable proof (yet again!) that the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions. Now we live in the hell that these selfish, myopic fools created.

Predictions as to when we can expect the recession to recede are as pointless as the simple solutions, that have thus far been propsed, such as an unmonitored “stimulus package” to assist the very industry that perpetrated this disaster! Such predictions remind me of the children in the back seat, asking “Are we there yet?”, when they don’t know where they are, can’t read a map, or won’t take the time to look at a map, much less plan a route to the destination.

Our “destination” is a moving target, loosely called “economic properity” or some such thing. Insofar as there are honest and hard-working people in our society – public and private – who are making genuine efforts to correct the current situation, there will be progress – even in the face of greed and perversion. And, while I remain skeptical about our President’s plans to achieve speedy results, I will not abandon hope or make cynical jabs at him or the government that was legally voted for and elected to govern. I do not blame this government for this mess, but I demand that they do the best job possible to make straight and level flight, from which to begin an ascent that will leave something for future generations other than debt and depression.

Mar 19, 2009 - 9:25 am 104. Robert Winkler Burke:

Don’t say nothin’ bad about OBAMA!
Oh, no,
Don’t say nothin’ bad about OBAMA!
I love him so,
Don’t say nothin’ bad about OBAMA!
Oh don’t you know,
Don’t say nothin’ bad about OBAMA!

He’s God!
He’s God!
He’s God to me!
God to me!
And that’s all I care about.

Everybody says he’s a tyrant, ooh,
But not when he’s mesmerizing me,
Everybody says he’s a demagogue,
Sure he is, when he’s doing me!

Oh no,
Don’t say nothin’ bad about OBAMA!
Oh no,
(repeat until enslaved)

Mar 19, 2009 - 10:31 am 105. elvis:

As Barney Frank and his ilk keep talking…. Your piece here is more and more timely. If the media was not compliant, none of what you say would be happening!
These Tea Parties need to address the media also!!

Mar 19, 2009 - 11:15 am 106. Karen:

I think a People’s March on Washington is in order….How about July 4th, 2009?

Mar 19, 2009 - 11:24 am 107. Tom Perkins:

“We are really really angry.

And it won’t stand.”

It will stand until pushed over, and ballots don’t have the foot-pounds.

Mar 19, 2009 - 11:34 am 108. Tom Perkins:

@ Alex # 87

The europeans are getting a lot of the money because they are owed a lot of money. They bet on us and we crapped out.

Mar 19, 2009 - 11:34 am 109. Barbara Scott:

AMEN! What can we do about all this? We can complain but who’s listening? Certainly not the majority party. I’m extremely happy with my representative: Louis Gohmert. He represents East Texas and has voted against every bailout. Thank you, Mr. Gohmert!
I pray that our country will survive until the next round of elections and that voters use common sense the next time.

Mar 19, 2009 - 12:12 pm 110. Marc Malone:

#103 Baumann – You say some good things, but there are some bad assumptions as well. I’m not going to critique your whole post, but rather one specific thing.

You declared that the attempt to get subsistence-wage workers homes is a noble goal. It is not. This is the very attitude that caused this mess in the first place. This is the giant beanstalk seed. The road to hell and all that.

There is nothing noble about giving things like homes to people who have not earned them, especially at someone else’s expense. I remember the arguments when this first was proposed. I was a teenager, and even then, I knew they were nonsense. I was poor, and I grew up around other lower-classes. I saw the flaw right away.

They went something like this. Look at the meighborhoods with high home-ownership rates. Properties are better maintained. Streets are better. Crime is down. Schools are better. If we get lower-classes to own homes, their neighborhoods will improve to be like those others.

Here is the flaw. Libs always confuse cause and effect. Home-ownership does not build character. Character builds home-ownership. The reason those neighborhoods are better is that the people in them are better. They have better life skills. They have more self-discipline. They have HIGHER STANDARDS… of everything.

Owning a home is not a right. It’s a privilege; one that has to be earned. It’s SUPPOSED to be hard! It’s a worthy goal for which you must work! The process requires character. You must build your character to make it happen, and to maintain the home once you get it. Those who got them cheaply, who lacked these skills, plundered the equity. When the market fell, they walked away. Pearls before swine.

When you give someone something they don’t deserve, you spoil them. You damage their spirit. Earning things builds character, self-respect, and produces real happiness. Being given things produces rot, lack of self-respect, deep dissatisfaction, aimlessness, and a sense of entitlement.

Our society has become so prosperous that our children became spoiled. They feel entitled. These children have become so many of our adults and have little character. They value not hard work and earning. The Dems promise them “easy”, and they vote for them resultantly. Those who value hard work and earning reject “easy”.

The rejecters are the tax-producers. The others are the tax-consumers. THIS is the conflict now, and the tax-consumers are winning. This is how we must couch our position, henceforth. You are either a tax-producer or a tax-consumer. You must choose.

Mar 19, 2009 - 12:39 pm 111. ReConUSMC:

I really do wish there was ‘anyone’ on the left unlike many on the right who could talk about “honestly” , Fairly , Soundly , Openly ….. and analyze our current economic Dire situation …a real plan like lower taxes on Cos. and Individuals that puts more money into the economy instantly ………. But those on the left sadly are way to busy defending and deflecting Obama mindless , totally blind so called Economic programs which we can see with our own eyes , ears and our retirement funds have failed horribly 3.75 Trillion of new funds later … It Ain’t working in the least .
Expect far more $$$$$$$$ and soon and then watch taxes raised like crazy . There is no way the top 10 % can pay for all of our taxes . In fact according to the Governments none bias OBM .. if every single penny of income went for taxes we made … We ‘’still ” could not $$$$$ dent a hole in Obama newly created NATIONAL Debt He has dig AMERICA into .
In truth Banks , Mortgage Co. , Insurance and Credit is far worse than when Obama took office .. that should have been 99.9 % of his efforts ….. ” because” Jobs , Positive attitudes , Home Loans, Retirements and the Stock market does not come back until that happens and the dollar quiets shrinking like crazy .
But moronically Social issues , Rush Limbough ,Universal health , welfare , entitlements , EPA issues , college loans , carbon credits , small cars and Solar Paneling on Schools and getting more Unions employed ….. really did get most of his attention ?
That is like buying lots of home furniture for a Home that is burning and you don’t call the fire dept. because your too busy buying Furniture for the burning home .
You noticed when Bush did any thing wrong no matter what it was there was rarely anyone defending Bush even when he was right …. the republicans sat back and watched the Media and Liberals attack him like a wounded deer in their head lights .
About 2 % of the media is starting to ask a few questions about Obama ?? economics ?? but don’t expect any serious efforts since they never attack their beloved .

Mar 19, 2009 - 12:41 pm 112. Pat:

To Alana at #94: striving to “appeal to moderates” is precisely why the Republicans have failed to reverse the trend to statism since the Progressives got started in the late 1800s. Meanwhile, the bankrupt intellectuals have simply kept accelerating what is “moderate” toward the direction of totalitarian dictatorship.

Ask yourself who stands to gain and who stands to lose by appeasing looting and mooching?

What are you afraid of?

Are you proud of being a producer or not?

Stand up intransigently and stop letting the doctrine of appeasement destroy what you are morally entitled to – your life, your profits, your happiness.

Tell the Republicans you’re *not* voting for any more cowardly appeasers like McCain, Romney or Jindal. Remember the essential fact about Newt: despite being handed an overwhelming mandate by the American people – the first all Republican Congress in over 50 years – for his promise of a “contract with America” – he and his colleagues betrayed the individual rights of every American. A is A: he’s just another cowardly appeaser.

Read Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” speech and understand the immense power of acting consistently on principle — before it’s too late.

Mar 19, 2009 - 1:09 pm 113. Mike V:

It might just be easier to just remember that liberals(or progressives if you prefer)like Obama cannot think for themselves, not one of them has the brains to successfully comb their hair, own a business or take initiative without worrying about how they look to someone else.

Mar 19, 2009 - 1:11 pm 114. JanuaryFirst:

Oldguy:
This is what happens when you pay less attention to the presidential candidate than you do to an act on American Idol.

Mar 18, 2009 – 7:48 am
__________________________________________

Those dupes really gave us the Royal screw!

Mar 19, 2009 - 1:22 pm 115. Mary:

I agree with number 23. It would be wonderful if the American people were angry! and many of us who are informed: are very angry!
But alas, I believe the Obamanots are still under the Messiah’s spell. They just don’t get it: and we are talking alot of “theys”. One formerly thought of intelligent woman that I know from Va. told me that she is thrilled to have a brilliant, Harvard educated man in the WH. Geez.
We Conservatives have work to do. …

Mar 19, 2009 - 1:30 pm 116. TLM:

George Baumann:

Well said, but I have a problem with this — “I will not…make cynical jabs at him or the government that was legally voted for and elected to govern.”

The first part of that statement refers to Obama and his Administration. Since taking office he has shown himself to be the consummate neophyte president: partisan, unfocused and incompetent. His policies do not appear designed to address the issues at hand, particularly on the economy. Many of his Administration choices were, and are, deplorable (tax cheats, leftist ideologues etc), and are a telling indictment of his ability as a leader. His reliance on the teleprompter to feed him his words is a joke. Quite simply, President Obama is the antithesis of everything Candidate Obama promised the American people he would be. Those of us who did not vote for him have every right to be cynical.

As to the second part, the “government that was legally voted for”, that is our recklessly inept Congress. Unfortunately they are the experienced incompetents, wise in the ways of shirking their duties, adept in their ability to fund to their re-election campaigns at our expense, and outrageous in their defense of their dissembling and lying. One can’t possibly be too cynical about them.

Mar 19, 2009 - 1:37 pm 117. Don McKay:

Those of us with memories have seen this three-act play before.

The first act:, “The Rise of Russian Bolshevism”. Updated, this reads: “The Rise of Obama’s American Communism.”

Second act: “The Murderous ‘Confusions’ of Stalinism. Updated, this reads: “Confuse them with Non-speak and Doublespeak – Eventually kill them.”

Final act: “The Larcenous Politburo and the Bankrupting of the Soviet Union”. Updated, this reads: “The U.S. Congress is Crooks of another stripe working hand-in-hand with their Leader to destroy this nation.”

Mar 19, 2009 - 2:08 pm 118. Don’t miss this. « Lindy’s Blog: Where Mom is Always Right:

[...] The “Depression” for us Idiots [...]

Mar 19, 2009 - 3:06 pm 119. Tatiana:

#11 Jack Marcotte was absoultely correct. His commets were vastly better than VDH who missed. Mr Marcotte was insightful and showed enormous wisdom. I loved his comments. My fear is BHO is spiralling us down into great disaster in every area that he has no idea how to fix. We have been overtaken in the WH and congress by a romper room mentality that abhor capitalism. His background was his communist grandfather and Frank David Marshall who assualted his young mind with lies. I am angry at the cult that made this all possible with their ignorant party line vote. I fear we will be attacked very soon when our beloved Country is weak. God help us.

Mar 19, 2009 - 3:38 pm 120. Tatiana:

#106 Karen – Fed-up Americans mobilize: More than 170 tea parties by Chelsea Schilling – go to worldnetdaily and get the schedule of tea parties. They are in every state.

Mar 19, 2009 - 3:42 pm 121. danoz:

these idiots have no idea of what they are about to unleash in this country. so many people are so pissed off,and it keeps growing eveyday.
even obamas own people are turning against him.
FIGHT THE POWER !!!!!!

Mar 19, 2009 - 4:10 pm 122. KYgal:

A well writen article Mr. Hansen. Yes, may God help us.

Proreason wrote: “But that isn’t new news. The new news is that a criminal cabal has executed a coup d’etat of the government, enabled by the brain-dead media. They now have a strangle-hold on power and are running at full-speed to implement socialist policies (i.e., stealing from you to buy ignorant people who happen to be able to vote) that they think will insure their power forever.”

INDEED! And you are right as well that we are very, very angry!
ENOUGH is enough with this sophmoric display of “leadership”. Let’s hoist ‘em all up and run ‘em out of town!!

Mar 19, 2009 - 4:47 pm 123. danoz:

does anyone remember when obama said we need a 250,000 civilian security force? just as well funded,with as much power as our military? i have a strong hunch that most of that force will be made up from acorn. they already got 3.8 BILLION from the porkulus bill for neigborhood stabilization. whatever the hell that is? and what do they need with 3.8 BILLION dollars? this is most likely going to a summer with massive protests and unrest. WE WANT OUR COUNTRY BACK!!!

Mar 19, 2009 - 4:55 pm 124. Still Bill:

##106 and 120, Karen and Tatiana. Arm yourself and store up plenty of ammuntion, and be ready to use it. God Bless America.

Mar 19, 2009 - 5:22 pm 125. KYgal:

#11,Jack Marcotte’s reply is very insightful and perhaps more true than we can bare to accept.

I am active in the Tea Party Movement, which I see is gaining momentum. I just hope that we can give some legislators pause long enough to slow down Barry’s rush to sign our country into oblivion.

That hope is the only comfort I have when thinking of what is happening.

Mar 19, 2009 - 5:33 pm 126. bob hardy:

Trust begins at the beginning – the triple F’s
Family, friends, and faith.
This is a small radius but it is a beginning and that is all we need, a beginning. Thanks, I agree with you. I have lost faith in what I am presented. Bob Hardy

Mar 19, 2009 - 5:55 pm 127. Claudia:

Well said. My sentiments exactly.

I also think that keeping failing business afloat with “gifts” just delays the inevitable and the fall will be even harder when it happens. Or will it forever be “too big to fail?”

Obama is heavily reliant on support from unions which means he has a conflict of interest with regard to any bail-out funds for those businesses, i.e. the auto industry.

Mar 19, 2009 - 6:27 pm 128. Diogenes:

74. “American Muslim” is an oxymoron.

You cannot possibly–candidly–be both.

You cannot be an American and a Muslim at the same time, at least not honestly so.

An American pledges allegiance to this country, its founding principles, included in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution (with its separation of church and state).

Islam is the exact opposite. Islam is a theocracy that embraces the slavery of women. It also denies equal civil rights to “infidels.”

Therefore, please renounce your Muslim faith or simply return to your country of origin.

Mar 19, 2009 - 6:28 pm 129. Tom:

“1984″, remember? Everything is the opposite of what it implies. 5 is really 4. Big Brother is everywhere. Everyone who is successful has stolen from the poor; they are greedy. Does anything make sense anymore? Who is John Galt?

Mar 19, 2009 - 7:17 pm 130. TLM:

Anyone watching Leno tonight? (I forgot how to turn on the TV)

“The president made an off-hand remark making fun of his own bowling that was in no way intended to disparage the Special Olympics,” White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton said. “He thinks the Special Olympics is a wonderful program that gives an opportunity for people with disabilities from around the world.”

And besides, he was only making fun of the white Special Olympians with his little “joke”, so get over it.

Paging Michael Gerson. Paging Sarah Palin.

If you catch the Cad-in-Chief tonight, let me know if the audience laughed.

Mar 19, 2009 - 8:27 pm 131. The Historian:

COUNT BIG FAT FANNIE IN THE MIX
This is at least as wrong.

http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/big-fat-failed-fannie.html

Mar 19, 2009 - 9:18 pm 132. bruce:

Most accomplished people, like VDH, have extensive paper trails detailing their professional writings,accomplishments, awards, etc. Why are all of Obama’s records and papers sealed from the general public? There are no records of his transcripts available at either of the three universities he attended. What were his SAT scores and LSAT scores? What were his GPA’s in those universities? What did he write as head of the Law review at Harvard? Who provided him the funding to attend such expensive private institutions?

How in the world has he gotten away with out disclosing one iota of information about his academic life? The silence from the media is maddening in this regard.

Mar 19, 2009 - 10:45 pm 133. Lavengro:

In VDH’s Private Papers about a month ago, VDH remarked that he thought the price of gold might go to $2,000. At the time, gold was going for about $780, and I thought VDH was wildly inaccurate Gold is now approaching $1,000. Perhaps VDH knows more about economics than he’s letting on.

While most of us probably spurn the accumulation of wealth; it might be wise for us to buy a little gold. If the economy eventually collapses and the proles are searching for scraps of food in garbage cans, the voices of those of us with even a little wealth will more likely be listened to with respect because of our foresight.

In the end it is only when the proles listen to our ideas and follow our lead that we can turn this nation around.

Mar 19, 2009 - 10:57 pm 134. Deployed Teacher:

I live about 15 miles from VDH, know his area well, can’t wait to get back to the vineyards and leave the dust behind!

Our current administration and dem dim Dems’ theme song should be Alice Cooper’s (remember him?), “Welcome to My Nightmare”

“Welcome to my nightmare,
I think you’re gonna like it,
I think you’re gonna feel… you belong,
A nocturnal vacation,
Unnecessary sedation,
You want to feel at home,
cause you belong…HERE!

Mar 19, 2009 - 11:59 pm 135. Jamie:

We need to stand up in our every day lives. When you see someone using foodstamps at the convience store you need to challenge them…ask them, “Why are you spending my money on that junk?” we need to transfer the American values that we all know and love to these people. We need to say “No More!” to the waste and the entitlement. The politicians promote it and create it, sure for their own good, however it is the group of people that practice it who are the real engine for the continuation of the problem. We cannot defeat this in congress or by making phone calls or writing letters and emails. We must defeat it on the street, in the stores, and in our neighborhoods. The left has built a machine that leeches wealth from the “doers” and transfers that wealth to the “takers” trading personal liberties and freedom for a dollar. Many a willing participant we can find in a “hard” time. Live in a basement for 24 years, bear 7 children and care for them with no “healthcare” and then explain to me whilst I kneel on the floor with tears in my eyes what hard times are. Weakness…America, yes it is you to whom I speak. Weakness through which we now percipitate our future. Gone are the days one must earn his way or fail on his own terms. Go out on your street, call into question the bearer of your food stamps, your (in my state) Oregon Trail Card, beseige your store owners telling them you will no longer shop there if they continue to accept government funded assistance, for it is that or we fail together. No matter what happens now, the United States of America will rebound, our children are far too strong to be permenantly banished from freedom, even though as was before a small percentage of the population will toil to bring us back to the light with the vast majority kicking and screaming. Good wishes all and God Bless America…. -Jamie Bergold

Mar 20, 2009 - 4:46 am 136. Confused about the doublethink | Jason Hayes - Musing:

[...] Victor Davis Hanson was in fine form with yesterday’s column describing the average “idiot’s” inability to decipher the doublethink and doublespeak coming out of Washington. Our fearless leaders are so busy protecting their political power that they don’t seem to realize they’re contradicting themselves almost every time they open their mouths. I feel like Winston Smith in Oceania, confused about all the doublethink coming out of Washington. Great Depression—no Great Depression. Recession for years; its end at the end of this year. Signing statements bad; signing statements good. Fundamentals hardly strong; fundamentals really sound. Earmarks terrible; 8,000 wonderful. Bush’s $500 billion deficit reckless; Obama’s $1.7 (trillion) sober and judicious; Iraq horrific and the worst whatever; Iraq suddenly quiet, democratic, and hopeful; highest ethical bar in an administration ever—Richardson, Daschle, Killefer, Solis, etc. cannot meet the lowest; Guantanamo a Stalag; Guantanamo open for a year, pending the recommendations of a “task force”; Guantanamo a torture place for unlawful combatants; Guantanamo a nice place without unlawful combatants; Obama not to be blamed for massive collapse of stock prices since November; Obama to be praised for modest gains last week. At some point, someone in the media must be getting embarrassed that they are all working at the Ministry of Truth. [...]

Mar 20, 2009 - 6:49 am 137. Shirley:

VDH’s comment about the woman in a Selma grocery store with her ipod and a sumption cart of groceries being paid for with her
welfare credit card reminded me of when I was a kid in the late 1940’s and early ’50’s. My mother raised nine children who relied on a welfare check.
Her funds ran out after three weeks and
we ate tortillas and water the rest of the month. The welfare lady also paid surprise visits to our home to make sure we hadn’t bought something she thought we didn’t need.
Mother made sure every one of her children at least graduated from high school. Not
one of us again had to beg the government help.

Mar 20, 2009 - 9:07 am 138. TLM:

David W. Lincoln:

Ironic that the vaunted Information Age seems doomed to failure by the influence of policy makers/politicians on the research efforts of scientists/social scientists. Having suborned the scientific method, the pols ought to call it what it is, the Age of Disinformation.

Mar 20, 2009 - 9:12 am 139. James:

This is one of the best articles I’ve read so far. So true. So real.

Thanks for helping me describe what I’ve been witnessing in the last 2 months.

Kudos!

Mar 20, 2009 - 10:02 am 140. William Blake:

“Juxtapose the above with a paragraph with this stunning assesment from Victor Davis Hanson….another smart bomb nails it’s target. ”

Mar 20, 2009 - 1:17 pm 141. continentaleconomics.com Blog » Blog Archive » In deep confusion:

[...] Full text of “Depression for Us Idiots” [...]

Mar 20, 2009 - 4:53 pm 142. Red Blooded American:

So let me get this straight…VDH is equally disturbed by someone who ” with I-pod in hand, pulled out her welfare food-stamp credit card to buy quite a sumptuous cart of groceries” and an “AIG wiz” who took a million dollar plus bonus. I guess VDH objects to anyone getting food stamps and considers anyone who would do so to be a “petty con artist.” Or is it the possession of an iPod (which can be had 2nd hand for nearly nothing by the way) that turned her into a con artist? Or was it the fact that she was purchasing a “sumptuous” cart of groceries? (What should she have been purchasing then if not a sumptuous cart of groceries?)

I can respect someone who is against a social program like food stamps if they will just come right out and say it. Say that the poor are all con artists and should not be helped.

But to somehow equate a woman buying groceries who happens to own a little portable audio player, essentially worthless, with a person who has helped run a major corporation into the ground and profits unconscionably still, that is just plain thick-headed. It shows an agenda: to rationalize the bad behavior of the very rich.

I would say that both the woman with the food stamps and the AIG wiz are probably playing by the rules as they understand them. If you don’t like it, then change the rules. But if you want to find examples of doublethink, you won’t need to look any further than the next VDH opinion piece.

Mar 20, 2009 - 11:28 pm 143. Timbo:

I really do like this site – believe me. Great articles on many issues. However, on this issue, the economic disaster that is unfolding. Why is there no article on people like Peter Schiff, Jim Rodgers or heaven forbid even Ron Paul. This WAS predicted and the end game is inevitable as sure as the sun will come up and eventually go down. The extent of the meltdown is still unknown but this will require the politicians to be honest with the American people and the rest of world for that matter – do not hold your bets on that happening. The country is broke, a phony economy built on fiat money, other countries savings, stupid ‘well intentioned’ social engineering, a comsumption binge, zero savings and now a dose of “Hope ‘n’ Change” c/- Obambie. This is gonna end bad, real bad, at least have the debate and create discussion on the real issue, Schiff, Rodgers and Paul predicted this and have been proved right. They where ridiculed by the Democrates, Republicans, the media, so called experts and of course the wizards of ‘Wall Street’.

Mar 20, 2009 - 11:28 pm 144. Tom Dennen:

As far as I can make out, the west has had a depression every 50 years or so, starting in 1711. This one is the seventh.
Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a declaration of war; four times is the realization that the declaration went unheard, five times is rape and this, the sixth time is hopefully the last.
“There is a nine-year period between a commodity peak and a market crash. Add forty-six to that (the period between crashes) and you have a fifty-year-odd boom-bust cycle or once a generation we are plucked.- Tom Dennen, “A Unified Field Theory of Economics” (in progress.)
The following compilation is from ‘The Great Reckoning’ by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg, Sidgwick & Jackson published, yes, in 1993.
· First Time: Commodity prices peaked in London in 1711 (Long before America came into the economic picture). The South Sea Bubble burst nine years later in 1720. Depression followed.
· Second: Producer prices peaked in London in 1763. The London stock market crashed again in 1772 (nine years later). Depression followed.
· Third: Commodity prices peaked in London in 1816.The London stock market crashed in 1825 (nine years later). Depression followed.
· Fourth: Wholesale prices peaked in New York in 1864. A worldwide assets crash began in May 1873 (nine years later). Depression followed.
· Fifth: Then followed our beloved Great Depression in the 30s, about which much has been said, from which, little learned.

· Sixth: Commodity prices peaked some fifty years later in Tokyo, in 1980. The Tokyo stock market peaked in 1989 (again, nine years later) and crashed in 1990. The depression following that crash is now upon us.

“I call this one, ‘Grand Theft, Planet”, ibid, T.D.

From Tom Foremski in The Silicon Valley Watcher – October 16, 2008
“According to various distinguished sources including the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland — the central bankers’ central bank — the amount of outstanding derivatives worldwide as of December 2007 crossed USD 1.144 Quadrillion, ie, USD 1,144 Trillion. The main categories of the USD 1.144 Quadrillion derivatives market were the following:
1. Listed credit derivatives stood at USD 548 trillion;
2. The Over-The-Counter (OTC) derivatives stood in notional or face value at USD 596 trillion and included:
a. Interest Rate Derivatives at about USD 393+ trillion;
b. Credit Default Swaps at about USD 58+ trillion;
c. Foreign Exchange Derivatives at about USD 56+ trillion;
d. Commodity Derivatives at about USD 9 trillion;
e. Equity Linked Derivatives at about USD 8.5 trillion; and
f. Unallocated Derivatives at about USD 71+ trillion.
The Size of the Derivatives Bubble now equals $190K Per Person on the Planet.
“Exponential economic growth required by the mathematics of compound interest on a money supply based on money as debt must always run up eventually against the finite nature of Earth’s resources.” – British financial analyst Chris Cook.
“ ‘Unregulated financial market’ means that banks have been allowed to charge compound interest. Even ancient Rome capped interest at max 5% and compound interest (usury) was outlawed (See Tacitus, The Annals of Rome, Chapter Six, a.d. 29).
The banks want our money NOW – and Obama is giving it to them!

I’m not a ‘Member’ so Mike has left this one out so far.

Mar 21, 2009 - 2:09 am 145. TLM:

Red Blooded American:

“It shows an agenda: to rationalize the bad behavior of the very rich.”

I don’t think so. Read his other articles. Furthermore, there was no implication here that food-stamp woman was conning anyone. As you say, both her and Wall Street Wiz may have been playing by the rules as they understood them. The problem is: who determined the “rules”?

The real con artist in all this, the writer of the rules, is all of us. Our stupid decaying culture of entitlement is the rot at the core of our problems. It affects rich and poor alike. We’ve sustained this culture on borrowed money, and now our debts are coming due. That was the con.

Mar 21, 2009 - 4:53 am 146. geoffgo:

Alana@94

I would speak to Pat’s comment to you and add: Moderates are moral cowards, living off intellectual welfare.

The issue is pretty basic: individual freedom vs enslavement. If one doesn’t think enslaving mankind is pure evil, one’s at a minimum a progressive; destined to become socialist/communist/fascist. If one doesn’t have any opinion about it, and wants all of us to “just get along,” one’s a moderate.

A moderate is someone who can look at Darfur, and shrug. Or, the Arab-Iranian threat to Israel. Or,…the list of moral ambivilancy approaches infinity.

US foreign policy should be crystal clear: The US will inflict democracy everywhere. Otherwise and everytime, we’re aiding and abetting our own demise.

“Any compromise with evil only benefits evil.” This is an areligious, apolitical statement of fact. Most religions’ tenents agree, excepting Islam; and most US political views concede to it, excepting the Left.

Without resorting to religious views or party affiliation; ie, absent talking-points/ad hominem attacks/strawman arguments et al, our dialogue must be sharpened and heightened to convince large numbers of our fellow citizens to unite on our side, against the universal concept of evil.

While it’s probably safe to assert that most moderates won’t be useful in the trenches… which now extend from our local elections, to state, to DC, to overseas and back to our bunkers. We won!…the dialogue of despots, worldwide, since forever.

Conservatives = 35%
Socialists in power = 25%
Moderates (undecideds) = 30%
Illegal aliens = 10%

We need 50% + 1 just to start the stopping, and there’s only one group of citizens (moderates @ 30%) from which we can hope to recruit, and we need nearly 2 out of 3.

Taking one’s property by force is not a political issue, not the result of a friendly rivalry; it’s UNLAWFUL and a fundamental criminal threat to any society…no matter one’s politics, religion, educational achievements, job description, skin color, sexual preference, gender, income level or country of origin. Moral issues effect all citizens.

I think everyone would have to agree that if US goes socialist, then rest-of-world is doomed to follow. Last redoubt. So, what’s actually at stake here is whether our remaining 35% of freedom-remembering citizenry can halt this insidious enslavement of everyone on earth today, along with everyone yet to be, or not.

Actuate. Send 50 emails per weekend to these elected thieves. Speak your anger. Comment at Kos and other far-Left sites (if only that once-before-banning). Keep their censors busy. Cancel subscriptions and tell the publishers why. I cannot, in good conscience, continue to contribute to a criminal enterprise, and your support makes you complicit.

Boycott advertisers’ products and email them why. Have pointed and reasoned conversations with your neighbors often – at least by doing so, you’ll learn if your six is safe. Contribute to the groundswell. Rally. March. Picket. Object. Or don’t, Comrade.

Mar 21, 2009 - 7:40 am 147. geoffgo:

Tatiana@119

My fear is BHO is spiralling us down into great disaster in every area that he has no idea how to fix.

Your fear can turn rapidly into terror, upon realization that “this is the fix intended” in all of these areas.

Mar 21, 2009 - 7:51 am 148. geoffgo:

Bruce@132

And, not to be left out, 0’s birth certificate detailing his place of birth and nationalities of parentage has some relevance, no?

RBA@142

VDH objects to anyone getting food stamps and considers anyone who would do so to be a “petty con artist.”

Although the Dr. didn’t say that, one must ask: Well they are at least that, aren’t they? Clearly, generations of welfare recipients living off “charity obtained from others at gunpoint” could be called worse.
And probably will be, shortly.

By taking false umbrage, you show your socialist colors. You have no problem with the State confiscating personal property. Just say it, you Kapo-Kadet. Besides, you missed the point. Here, we are all angry at the gov’t for enabling both social welfare and corruption in corporations. It’s all immoral. And, ipods cost >$150 you jerk, and are not “essentially worthless.”

Mar 21, 2009 - 8:18 am 149. geoffgo:

Clio@5

That would be the WH Head Gardener. Butlers are prohibited by union rules from touching rakes, shovels, spades, trowels, hoses, sprinklers, edgers, weedwhackers, mowers, or any implement not specifcally designed to be used indoors. And, gardeners in turn may not wear white gloves, hoist a tray, or carry a towel.

Mar 21, 2009 - 8:44 am 150. geoffgo:

Me@149

Sorry, wrong thread. B^(

Mar 21, 2009 - 8:46 am 151. Tom:

@42.

You mentor poor Camden kids with bigger TV screens than you?

Perhaps they should be mentoring you! You might learn something!

Mar 21, 2009 - 1:18 pm 152. bbrown:

I repeat, the Obama administration is a crime in progress. Regnat populus.

Mar 21, 2009 - 6:45 pm 153. Alex:

144. Tom Dennen:

Tom Gets the big picture. Not that our Govt doesnt, they just ignore it and feed the Monster better known as the Bank of England.It was established in 1694 and ever since has been creating and taking advantage of credit bubbles and depressions. It was instrumental in the creation of the Federal Reserve, which is how they got their hooks into American Banking system.
This was the single greatest act of betrayal by American Legislators…allowing European Banking families to control American Banking system…look around at the carnage and ask yourself are people truly this stupid…or is it more likely that the Bank of England sold worthless Derivatives that the American Taxpayer is now forced to be underwrite..?

Until we rid ourselves of the Federal Reserve and by extension control by the Bank of England over America, we will continue to suffer under the hand of European Bankers.

Mar 21, 2009 - 7:30 pm 154. TermLimits:

Folks, it’s time to speak out for term limits. Congress is a self-perpetuating organism that feeds on donations and returns those donations in multiples via “payoffs”, pork spending, earmarks, etc. Both parties have been in control of Congress in recent years and both have spent like drunken sailors. The urge to hold on to power is simply too great and power can only be retained by buying votes. Yes, if we enact term limits the good ones will be purged from the system along with the bad ones. But for every Tom Coburn, there is a Chris Dodd and a Harry Reid. We need a serious house cleaning, pure & simple. And when we send these folks home, we should cancel their “special retirement program” and force them to join Social Security with the rest of us.

Mar 22, 2009 - 4:34 am 155. ipw533:

“Your grandchildren will be Muslim.

Allahu akbar!”

I don’t have any children, so I have no grandchildren. I do have nephews who are doing quite nicely, thank you. As for you, I’ve got you neatly in the crosshairs. Do you need a donation of Viagra, or are you ready for those 72 virgins? What? They’re really “raisins of Islamic wisdom”? Boy, it sucks to be you and will suck even worse if I decide to squeeze the trigger–and you’re seriously annoying me, you arrogant assclown. That’s not the sort of thing that gets you into the old age home….

Mar 22, 2009 - 7:17 am 156. David W. Lincoln:

74 – A friend of mine, who is also a priest, and a monk, calls Islam “Arab Aryanism”.

Orianna Fallaci called you and your ilk, Sons of Allah.

As long as you build your lives around, “All are equal, but some are more equal than others”, guess what: there
will be people who see the arrogance of your ways, and counter it.

Mar 23, 2009 - 9:21 am 157. deguello:

#74 AMERICAN MUSLIM: You make me proud to be atheist!(and armed).

Mar 25, 2009 - 10:31 am 158. sullinsea:

‘put away $1,000 a month in your 401(k)—and tough luck.’

Careful what you ask for, Mr. Hanson. While they are backing away from it now, their academic minions are theorizing about rolling our retirement accounts into the social security system.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/are_congressional_democrats_talking_about_confiscating_ira.html

They may not have a choice when the bill comes in for all their spending.

Mar 29, 2009 - 2:27 pm 159. jstanley01:

For what it’s worth…

The best reporting and analysis of the willful destruction of our economy can be found at:

1) The Market Ticker, for which Karl Denninger won Accuracy in Media’s Reed Irvine Award this year.

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/

2) Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis, run by Mike Shedlock of SitkaPacific Capital Management.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

3) A few more are worth the effort to google up, including Kevin Depew and Mr. Practical at Minyanville, Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism, and Barry Ritholtz at the Big Picture.

Apr 4, 2009 - 6:38 pm

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