Aftershock, Wiedemer/Spitzer

"Protect Yourself and profit in the next global financial meltdown".

You may read the sub-head and say "I hope that is a long time", but these guys would tell you that we have not yet begun. They called the housing bubble correctly in their first book "America's Bubble Economy" that came out in '06--something they are NOT going to let you forget during the book, and remind the reader CONSTANTLY.

The thesis of this book is that we have a series of bubbles, and they are all going to "pop" -- once it started happening, there is no stopping it:

1. Real Estate
2. Stock
3. Private Debt
4. Discretionary Spending
5. Dollar
6. Government Debt

While I think a number of their conclusions are essentially correct, I really question some of their overly confident what I would call "pseudo science" methodologies that supposedly go into their predictions. A big one is "Science, Technology, Economics, Politics" ... "STEP".  Page 189 "If our current economy is part of a long evolution of society, life, and the universe---starting from the Big Bang--then there are certain predictable forces that drive economic evolution."

Really? Let's get this straight, the Big Bang was a random purposeless event that randomly kicked off a random process on the third rock from a ho hum sun called "evolution", eventually resulting in organisms that formed cultures and eventually economies -- all without any direction of course, completely on a random basis. But that begets? "predictable forces that drive economic evolution"?  Can anyone say "leap of faith"?

While some of their thinking may border on New Age, and they are clearly liberal in orientation:

p 188, "candidates will step forward who are willing to support real and responsible reforms, politicians more like Franklin Roosevelt than Herbert Hoover".  Sadly, it is hard to be much more historically unaware than that -- both FDR and Hoover were huge "progressives", Hoover was ALL OVER the model of heavy government interference and was taking steps just like FDR even before the election, and certainly during the lame duck period until FDRs inauguration. Another huge parallel to now -- with Bush heavily "progressive", just less so than BO.

p221, box, "The only silver lining to this dreadful situation may be that after a while, people will become unhappy enough with the high levels of violence that they consider ways of reducing it that were previously unthinkable in the United States, such as gun control."

See the very clear crystal ball that these guys have says that unemployment is going to be over 60%, inflation is going to be in the 100's of percentage points, the government will no longer be able to borrow money and this will go on for "a decade", but there will be no real general move to any sort of a massive government re-structure. No, the "gun nuts" will just stick to shooting their own family, friends, and co-workers, so hopefully, that can get us the basic good of "gun control" -- all a matter of what is important to you.

Even with all their slightly odd views, we now have liberal gold bugs! We must have crossed some sort of metaphysical tipping point. P138, "Gold is a rising bubble on it's way to becoming one of the biggest asset bubbles of all time. Second only to the fall of the dollar bubble, the bursting of the gold bubble will be quite impressive as well."

But that won't be for a long time in financial terms -- they of course have huge faith in the system, so recommend having your gold held in some certificates, but since I'm not as liberal as they are, I'm betting BO and company are going to be looking to CONFISCATE any gold that is listed in that kind of account, and giving you a "really good deal" on some "inflation protected" government debt rather than that gold.

It isn't that super of a book ... but as I say, it does break some new ground to see relative lefties pretty convinced it is all coming down around our ears.

Location Matters

Charles Krauthammer - Sacrilege at Ground Zero:

Good coverage by Charles. One has to be VERY out of touch to support this Mosque--no surprise that many liberals do.

Ten Commandments in a public place? Christmas tree in the public square? Silent prayer in a locker room? Break out the "wall of separation".

Mosque at Ground Zero? Hey, what in the world would the problem be?

"

Location matters. Especially this location. Ground Zero is the site of the greatest mass murder in American history -- perpetrated by Muslims of a particular Islamist orthodoxy in whose cause they died and in whose name they killed."

Never Enough, William Voegeli

"America's Limitless Welfare State", by William Voegeli.

SUPER, SUPER important, extremely well written and readable book. I reviewed it on Amazon (which I don't usually do), so I'll start with that as "the short version".

No review is going to do this book justice, just buy it and read it. While it is a very serious work on the very serious issue of the ever more unaffordable and expanding US welfare state, it is ALSO highly readable and witty. It successfully covers the difficulties of the competing liberal and conservative world views, philosophical strengths an weaknesses in each, and what Voegeli sees as the political realities that affect the debate. The conclusion is that the best hope for heading off the impending (or already occurring) collapse brought on by the lack of limit in the liberal view, conservatives must cease trying to turn the clock back and focus on a discussion about "how much" rather than "we have already gone to far". It may well be true that we have already gone too far, but a discussion of what is an appropriate limit will engage the liberals in a discussion that rests on the weakest part of there position rather than the strongest, and be the best hope for finally getting to some level we have at least a prayer to afford and sustain.

I stand by that, but I like to leave some key memories for myself out here.

p86 is a good discussion of FDRs "2nd bill of rights", which the left in this country has continued to try to pass.

p99, "Liberalism is even more of an attitude than it is a program. Liberals are critical of injustice, suspicious of vested interests, friendly to change, hopeful of peaceful improvement and convinced that reasoned argument ultimately overcomes selfish opposition."

One wonders if reasoned argument can also overcome vacuous platitudes, straw-man arguments and wishful thinking?  It reminds me so much of a liberal survey person that once asked me "are you in favor of clean water" -- to which I responded "compared to what?". They simply could not conceive of a heart so foul that there would be "strings". I think I proffered something like "at what cost? My eternal soul? the life of my first born child? a buck ??? ... it makes a difference." Needless to say, not to the "survey taker". "critical of injustice" is sophistry plain and simple ... the opposition is NOT "critical of injustice"???? Oh, I'm sure they are, they are in fact likely critical of the very injustice (in their eyes) that the "liberal" is about to foist upon them.

"The danger liberalism poses to the American experiment comes from it's disposition to deplete rather than replenish the capital required for self-government. The operation of entitlement programs leaves the country financially overextended, while the rhetoric and rationale for those programs leave it politically overextended. They proffer new "rights", goad people to demand and expand those rights aggressively, and disdain truth-in-advertising about the nature and scope of the new debts and obligations those rights will engender.  The moral and social capital required by the experiment in self-government is the cultivation, against the grain of a democratic age, of the virtues of forbearance, resolve, sacrifice, and restraint."

"The refusal to answer or engage the question of what would be enough--specifying the point at which the welfare state has done all we can expect and can no longer be expanded--leaves liberalism inviting, if not demanding, that dissipation ...permanently. Conservatives will have discharged a significant portion of their duty to protect our experiment in self-government if they can induce liberals to fulfill their duty by treating this question seriously--or make them pay a political price for refusing to."

The book is full of that kind of writing. It's major specific policy proposal is that means testing of all the benefits of the welfare system is our best hope. Conservatives need to admit that such a system is going to exist, but ask the question "should someone that makes over xxx $ be getting FICA"???  The only way that the welfare system can do the most good for the needy is to focus the benefits on the needy. The fiction that everyone in the US can be a net importer (eventually, if you live long enough) of the dollars of the welfare state, vs a net exporter has to stop!

4 Principles of Liberal Mind

American Thinker: Manufacturing Liberals

This article does a nice summary of how one can end up a liberal:

1. Education via indoctrination -- Unionized teachers, far left university professors, never being exposed to dialogue, different views, conservative thought as anything but a bad example.
2. Possibility more important than probability -- I MIGHT win the lottery, or we MIGHT be able to pay for this great program ... don't tell me it is against the odds.
3. Sympathy vs Empathy -- I may never have been poor, but somebody told me how to think about being poor. I don't know any "x" (illegal aliens, drug addicts, etc), but somebody told me the right (sympathetic) way to think about them. Empathy would call you to action -- not try to force someone else to take care of it.
   
4. Control vs Freedom -- Better have some "system" make things work out the way the liberal wants. Seems too hard to allow free people to operate. Better use force (control).
   

When we put these four principles together, we begin to see a familiar pattern. The mindset of ordinary liberals begins with indoctrination. The world is primarily viewed through the imagination. Liberals favor sympathy over empathy and embrace possibility rather than probability. Liberals long for a utopia, or perfect world, and believe that some greater power (the government) can solve problems outside of their personal control.

Notice how similar the liberal mindset is to the belief systems of the pious -- with a crucial difference: Members of the various religions accept the fact that many of their theological principles are based upon belief. Knowledgeable practitioners of most religious sects willingly admit that the acceptance of a particular dogma is, in the final analysis, a matter of faith. This is why the catechism and the various professions of many denominations feature the words "We [or "I"] believe ..."

As I've often said ... liberalism is a religion, it just doesn't admit that all of it's tenets are just as much a matter of faith than any other religion.

Political Payola on Parade

Stimulus Pushers - WSJ.com

Were the Republicans executing a direct political payoff for a major voting block with deficit funds in an an election year with all sorts of seedy attempts to contramand state budgets to the benefits of their special interest, the MSM would be screaming holy hell. Doing it during a recess, in August and rushing it through with no chance for media discussion? Sauce for the goose ... and again, not problem at all for the MSM. Remember when "the swamp" needed to be drained?

"Transparency"? HA! And some fools think that the Queen of Slither, Nancy, is going be doing any draining? Why don't we have Charlie Manson run a home for wayward girls? Those kiddies are no doubt distracted by her little forked tongue flicking in and out while she signs away more of our present and their future.

My god, have they no mercy at all? Those innocent kids in such close proximity to Nancy? What if her tail swings around and whacks one of them? Does the term "political grandstanding" just completely fall out of the MSMs brains when Democrats are in office? A spectacle that gives shamelessness a bad name.

Kickbacks and lining their own campaign coffers in one fell swoop ... with innocent litte kiddies looking on. Political child porn.

Keep in mind that this teacher bailout also amounts to a huge contribution by Democrats to their own election campaigns. The National Right to Work Committee estimates that two of every three teachers belong to unions. The average union dues payment varies, but a reasonable estimate is that between 1% and 1.5% of teacher salaries goes to dues. The National Education Association and other unions will thus get as much as $100 million in additional dues from this bill, much of which will flow immediately to endangered Democratic candidates in competitive House and Senate races this year.

***

So in the name of still another "stimulus," Democrats are rewarding their own political funders, putting the most fiscally responsible states into even greater distress, and postponing the day of reckoning for spendthrift states. Oh, and Mr. Obama rushed to sign the bill Tuesday, violating his campaign pledge to give the public five days to read legislation online. As we say, the only way for voters to stop such fiscal abuse is to run this crowd out of town.

US Bankruptcy

U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know: Laurence Kotlikoff - Bloomberg

Actually, some of us DID know, but no matter.

But delve deeper, and you will find that the IMF has effectively pronounced the U.S. bankrupt. Section 6 of the July 2010 Selected Issues Paper says: “The U.S. fiscal gap associated with today’s federal fiscal policy is huge for plausible discount rates.” It adds that “closing the fiscal gap requires a permanent annual fiscal adjustment equal to about 14 percent of U.S. GDP.”

That just means that we would have to DOUBLE our current tax take, which isn't going to happen ...

The Embarrassment of BO

Fouad Ajami: The Obsolescence of Barack Obama - WSJ.com

I'm a long way from declaring the danger or the damage of BO as being somehow "over" ... this column may be correct in a lot of it's conclusions, but I think it is too early to be drawing them until January 20th 2013 with the embarrassment safely out the door and healing under way.

This paragraph captures a general mood of August 2010 for more and more people. I've been embarrassed since the summer of '08.

It is in the nature of charisma that it rises out of thin air, out of need and distress, and then dissipates when the magic fails. The country has had its fill with a scapegoating that knows no end from a president who had vowed to break with recriminations and partisanship. The magic of 2008 can't be recreated, and good riddance to it. Slowly, the nation has recovered its poise. There is a widespread sense of unstated embarrassment that a political majority, if only for a moment, fell for the promise of an untested redeemer—a belief alien to the temperament of this so practical and sober a nation.

Democrats Making Sense

RealClearPolitics - Real Democrats

Pretty good column. I hope BO fails to take her advice, because I'd love to see him be a one term president ... in fact, even with "compromise", I'm not sure our country can survive two BO terms. I'm absolutely sure that I don't want to try.

I think the real message here is how huge the difference is between the MSM treatment of Democrats and Republicans. I'm not sure that Bush vacationed much of anywhere other than his Texas Ranch -- and the MSM was all over him for taking any vacation at all with "troops in the field". (did they all come home recently?) My main MSM coverage comes from CNN and NPR -- they aren't very concerned about either Michelle's Spanish junket or the family planned outing to the Vineyard. In fact, were it not for some right wing media exposure, I'm not sure I'd know about either.

I think Susan is pessimistic here. The MSM is very powerful, and even more powerful among Democrats. While they constantly harped on W being "out of touch, arrogant, rich, not caring for normal Americans, stupid, not dedicated to his job, etc, etc", you can bet they will continue to do the opposite with BO ... even though I'd argue that actual evidence, even from a real Democrat like Susan, is actually pretty much that what they had wrong about W, they would have right about BO -- were they willing to say it.

NOBODY is more arrogant than BO, and that almost insures being out of touch. He is certainly "rich enough" now in his Tony Rezko aided Chicago home, and in the future, he will roll it in like Slick Willie to the tune of 100's of millions. BO has played plenty of golf all along and had his share of good times -- do I begrudge him that? No, only one ought to think a bit of the contrast with the quality of the work done by Bush, or for that matter Reagan, while the press harped and harped about any opportunity they took for R&R. Let's face it, over 50 days before hardly even noticing the oil spill would have been plastered all over the press forever -- see Katrina, or the Challenger disaster for that matter as past examples. When a Republican is in the WH and something bad happens, the MSM KNOWS who is at fault right away!

Stupid? Well, in Forest Gump terms, "stupid is as stupid does". IQ is pretty useless as a measure -- the Unibomber is a total genius, but I don't think that would make him a good President. Media pronouncements aside, "Presidential Intelligence" is pretty much "Emotional Intelligence", which means paying attention to the kinds of things that Susan discusses here. Very hard to rate it when the MSM goes completely overboard to try to make one guy look as good as they can, and to make the other brand look as bad as they can -- but I think the fact that we now have more and more Democrats seeing to the obvious concerns about BO that Susan does here, gives a bit of strong insight.

The Cash Nexus, Niall Ferguson

"Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000".

I continue to marvel at Ferguson, "erudite" is a word that clearly applies. Hopefully I'll be able to get some blogs out on a series of books to provide myself with perspective of the current financial and political state of the US and the world, and this book is one of the cornerstones.

"This books conclusion is that money does not make the world go round any more than the characters in "Crime and Punishment" act according to logarithm tables. Rather it has been political events --above all wars--that have shaped the institutions of modern economic life: tax collecting, bureaucracies, central banks, bond markets, stock exchanges. Moreover, it has been domestic political conflicts--not only over expenditure, taxation and borrowing, but also over non-economic issues like religion and national identity-- that have driven the evolution of modern political institutions: above all, parliaments and parties."

Niall isn't the most reachable of authors, but he did deliver on that thesis in my opinion.

"In the modern democracy...policy may ultimately be controlled by, and in the interests of, the majority of an electorate consisting mainly of the poorer classes, while revenue is obtained mainly from a minority of wealthy persons."

"The lack of deficits before 1973 also casts doubt on the theory of the inherent "democratic deficit", which predicts that democracies will tend to run deficits because the electorate favors public spending but is averse to taxation". 

Ferguson is British, so Britain gets at least as much scope as the US, but he is trying to be general. Essentially, a lot of the issues come back to the old "gold question". Without a fixed peg, countries and financial systems tend to just float off into speculation, inflation, and finally crash.

"Set in this comparative perspective, the subsequent increase of the debt under Reagan--which at the time caused commentators so much angst--was modest ..."

His point, as is the point of the book, is PERSPECTIVE -- relative to GDP, relative to winning the cold war, relative to historical debt in the US and other countries. One of the main weapons the MSM and especially left politicians like to use is the supposed "primacy of the moment". What is happening TODAY is "special, unique, maybe a "crisis", maybe "the greatest (or worst) ever" ... depending on of course who is in power. For the MSM, deficits under Reagan and under Bush were horrific -- deficits 3-5x as large under Obama? No problem at all, with many talking heads indicating that they "ought to be larger", and "deficits aren't really a problem.

"All these countries are actively encouraging their citizens, by a variety of incentives, to provide for ill health or retirement by investing directly, or through mutual and pension funds, in the stock market. In combination, these forces are causing an unprecedented shift in the balance of financial forces, so that the market capitalization of the NYSE is now for times greater than the stock of US Treasuries."

Er, at least they WERE encouraging (Britain, Germany, US, etc) ... with the failure of trying to start some privatization of FICA and now the add of health care to the never ending list of "entitlements", it appears that the US has lost it's way from this happy approach.

"Since 1899 the price of a loaf of bread in Britain has risen by a factor of 32; the price of an ounce of gold by factor of 38. Indeed, an ounce of gold buys approximately the same amount of bread today as it bought in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, more than 2,500 years ago."

As I said, I'm reading a series of books on past and present economic and political crisis. The basic bottom line is "get at least 5% of your portfolio in gold -- maybe 10%".  Pay no attention to what looks like "record prices"  --  ratios like the above tell you what you need to know. When governments get stupid, private ownership of gold as a store of value is key, and the time to buy is NOW -- before they make it illegal to own gold, as they did in the past.

"Past experience therefore tends to suggest that asymmetric fiscal problems--often, but not necessarily generated by war--quickly cause monetary unions between politically independent states to dissolve. In the case of present day Europe, it seems quite possible that the strains caused by unaffordable social security and pension systems could have similar centrifugal effects ..."

What is obvious to a historian like Ferguson, and what ought now be obvious to even the most out of touch liberal at this juncture, is that most of the worlds social security, pension, and medical systems are unaffordable. When something can't go on forever, it doesn't.

"further democratization may retard growth because of the heightened concern with social programs and income redistribution"

"...concluded that political instability is more harmful to growth than the absence of democracy".

In other words, investors and business people know they have to deal with "real risk" -- competition, natural disaster, price fluctuations, etc. What  they can't deal with is "created risk" -- what new tax, fee, rule, directive, price control, etc will be randomly hurled down from the idiots in Washington (or London). They know that the "real risk climate" is pretty much a constant and beyond anyone's control, but once they have seen "reasonable government", they are unlikely to invest and create under "activist government".

Excellent work, bit of a tug, but worth the struggle. Not reachable enough for me to recommend to all, but if one is up for a bit of a worthwhile challenge, I have yet to see Niall disappoint.

Krugman's detour on 'Roadmap' to solvency - JSOnline

Krugman's detour on 'Roadmap' to solvency - JSOnline:

I think this past blog post on Krugman ought to have completely removed his credibility on deficits. To argue that smaller deficits are huge problem under W, then to turn around an argue that HUGE deficits are too small and no problem at all under BO is simply proof that he is either insane, or merely a pure partisan.

Ryan may be one of the best hopes for keeping this collapse to '70s levels vs 30's levels. His Roadmap ought to be the economic plank for returning the Republicans to control of congress. An excerpt:

"It reforms Medicare and Social Security so those in and near retirement (55 and older) will see no change in their benefits while preserving these programs for future generations of Americans. We do not have a choice on whether Medicare and Social Security will change from their current structure - the true debate is if and how these programs will be made solvent."

Senator Scum

McConnell scolds Franken for making faces from dais during his speech - TheHill.com

There is no excuse for Al Franken. "Civility" is going to require promotion beyond the grade school level.

BO's Father Served in WWII

But for what country? Certainly not the US ... his biological father was Kenyan and too young. BO was known as Barry Souetto (BS ... maybe more apt) up to early adulthood. Maybe that Philipine stepfather served? or maybe he is just fabricating like he usually does.

In any case ... BO doesn't know if his father served in WWII, Dan Quayle can't spell potato ... one is a big news story at the time, the other is nada.

Our media is unbiased.

Imagine a Lunatic

Op-Ed Columnist - The Lunatic’s Manual - NYTimes.com

Reading this column made me thing of John Lennon's "Imagine" ... "nothing to fight or die for". I strongly suspect that Herbert can't "imagine" anything worth that kind of commitment, thus the column.

The strange idea that war at any level is a "shared commitment" that requires the "sacrifice" of tax increases, while massive entitlements apparently are not, is especially curious. Historically, the situation is exactly the reverse -- WWII, which Herbert holds up as an example was of course paid for via a massive level of government debt.

Virtually nobody sees national defense as anything but a national priority of the highest order. If a couple major cities are smoking nuclear wastelands, considerations as to "infrastructure" and the latest entitlement will drop extremely far on the priority list of the sane.

In the "Herbert Universe", both Bush and BO are "lunatics", and I guess "somewhere out there" exists the level of sanity confidently declared by Bob Herbert.

One quote:

It’s time to bring the curtain down for good on these tragic, farcical wars. The fantasy of democracy blossoming at the point of a gun in Iraq and spreading blithely throughout the Middle East has been obliterated. And it’s hard to believe that anyone buys the notion that the U.S. can install a successful society in the medieval madness of Afghanistan.

So BO just declared that HIS ADMINSTRATION had brought the troops home and was "declaring victory". So is what is happening in Iraq a "fantasy that as been obliterated"? Once we "put the lunatics manual" aside, what do we see? The world as seen by Herbert?

Two Ways To Live Life

Op-Ed Columnist - The Summoned Self - NYTimes.com

First, I want to applaud Brooks for even travelling this ground, most folks seem happy to not even think about what they are up to for their four score and ten. Now to get snarky.

There are two kinds of people, those that divide groups into two groups, and those who don't ;-)

or my favorite, there are 10 kinds of people, those that understand binary and those who don't!

It is interesting to me that Brooks assigns Christensen, "the well planned life" and the "other" as the "summoned life". Supposedly, the person in the "summoned life" is always asking "what are my circumstances asking me to do?". Christensen is a Christian, part of what he does is ask God what his life is about. I'd argue that if one is determined to come up with two basic categories, the categories are life based on Transcendence (God, something bigger, philosophy, etc), or "Situational Ethics" ... what does it seem is the right thing for me to do today based on knowledge, experience, the environment, etc. So were I to label Brook's categories, they would be "Summoned" -- the God (or other transcendent) directed life, or "Situational" ... I'll make it up as I go along.

I'm not really a "two class" person ... I think "avoidance, distraction, ignorance and procrastination" are all more common categories for "how to live my life" than the ones that Brooks happened to pick out, but it is worth low cost of the quick skim anyway.

The Social Welfare Bubble?

RealClearPolitics - Not a State-Broken People

This is a rather long George Will speech that is well worth reading through. I SINCERELY hope that his thesis, borrowed from Orwell, that "we are not a state broken people" will hold true in November and beyond. Putting the likes of BO in the WH is taking a severe risk, I think it remains to be seen if this regime will allow itself to be slowed by the vote. 

I've been reading a number of books that dovetail with my view that we are in for a very extended "age of re-assessment" -- involving significant loss of wealth, lifestyle and our very liberties being very much in doubt in America. Like all Presidents, Bush was a dissappointment, especially in his 2nd term. Most people forget how difficult Reagan's 2nd term was -- Iran Contra may refresh the mind. What was very new is that this time, for the first two years of that term, Republicans were in charge of Congress, and had already fallen prey to that very real temptation to spend the current and future people's treasure, heavily contributed along with the painful drag of the two wars, to "the base" abandoning the Republican brand.

Republicans as a voting block forgot that in order to govern for the long run, many candidates that are far far less than perfect must be tolerated as the lesser of two evils. The idea that "we may as well have Democrats if they can't do any better than this", has now, very quickly been proven to be demonstratively false. The sad problem is that like the AM hangover compounded with very real damage done to your reputation, family, finances, or all of the above, bad decisions often have much longer term consequences.

In my opinion, we are seeing a series of very long term bubbles pop, and they will continue to pop ... home prices, markets, personal and public debt, the dollar ... an yes, "entitlements". For a century ... with peaks in the 30's, 60's and  now 10's, BOTH PARTIES (the W drug benefit is like 1/3 the size of BOcare) have engaged in an orgy of vote buying through entitlements that are largely to be paid (they thought) by "future generations".

Folks, welcome to the future! We have seen it, and it is impoverished! Thank you "Progressives"!

Anyway, I recommend the whole Will article. Here is just a little teaser on the "welfare bubble".

In 2007, per capita welfare state spending, adjusted for inflation, was 77 percent higher than it had been when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated 27 years earlier. The trend continues and the trend is ominous. Fifty-one days ago the president signed into law health care reform, that great lunge to complete the New Deal project and the Great Society, that great lunge to make us more European. At exactly the moment that this is done the European Ponzi scheme of the social welfare state is being revealed for what it is.