The American Experiment Is Over

[short&naked]

Quote from piezoe:

When I read opinion that happens to align with my own I've noticed I have a tendency to confuse the opinion with fact, creating as it were my own reality. I have to guard against that, difficult as it may be. I would suggest you do the same.

16 trillion. That real enough for ya?

 

[MarketMasher]

Quote from piezoe:

When I read opinion that happens to align with my own I've noticed I have a tendency to confuse the opinion with fact, creating as it were my own reality. I have to guard against that, difficult as it may be. I would suggest you do the same.

Very true - the "being in a bubble" effect.

However, there is a much more pragmatic reason for avoiding partisan pundit prognostications....

Let's say you have made an educated guess that the market will react adversely to an Obama victory.

If you listen to partisan pundits who claim that Romney will win handily, then you might take a different action than if you assemble your own unbiased view that Obama will win.

Thus listening to people like Pillsbury Dough-boy Rove or Sinister Spinster Maureen Dowd amounts to a self-screw.

The gas that comes out of their mouths isn't worth breathing in. Unfortunately, the gas they emit from their other end is often taken as fact by too many.

 

[rubibond007]

Im a center right voter and I did vote for Romney because of his qualifications. But lets be clear, yesterday we saw democracy at its finest. This article is pure BS.

Im getting tired of the so called socialist obama crap. Lets look at some facts

-Obama privatize the US Space Program, that's not socialism.
-Obama Kept the Bush Tax cuts and made some aditional cuts, that's not socialism.
-Obama create the National Health insurance exchange
-The Obamacare is a "right wing" idea (by structure and by idea).
-Bush Privatize some big Corps, Obama put those companies back on the private sectors hands.

Im not saying that Obama is the King of capitalism, but he is far, far way from being a socialist.

The best we can do as a nation is to set aside our differences.

Quote from pspr:

This story represents what I feel has happened in America. The vote last night was just a confirmation of what many here already know. Congress will have two options for the next four years. Obstruct and shut down government or allow the left to bring this country down. Either is a losing proposition for the U.S.A. and the free world.

By Alan Caruba

I had hoped that the majority of voters would elect Mitt Romney, but instead of a man of character they chose charisma. They ignored four years of failure and deception. In advertising, they say “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” Romney, sadly, lacked sizzle.

Obama’s victory was one of a long line of Progressives from Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Jimmy Carter. It was not new, but it will likely do more damage on top of what his predecessors have done. It turned out that there were not enough voters from the faith-based communities. You know—the kind of people Obama said “cling to their religion and guns.” There were not enough from a range of population subsets to make a difference.

Like New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg who thought a marathon run through boroughs devastated by Hurricane Sandy was a really good idea, Obama has never had any real sense of how people feel about things that are important to them. Why should he?

He was raised in a communist cocoon in which family, friends, fellow students, teachers, and mentors ensured he would never be exposed to the fundamentals of free market capitalism that has been the bedrock of the nation’s prosperity. I have written repeatedly that he just does not like America and that this explains his view that our nation is not an exceptional place in which to live.

His mother was attracted first to an African and, after being divorced, to an Indonesian, both Muslims. And then she abandoned Obama to the care of his leftist grandparents. His academic life led him from Occidental College to Columbia University, and then onto Harvard Law School, all leftist strongholds and, yet oddly few of his fellow students even remembered him.

On the radio of the 1940s there was a show called “The Shadow” about a man with the “power to cloud men’s minds” who used it to fight crime, but Obama developed the power to so utterly charm people that, like any successful confidence man, he left people impressed with all the exterior aspects of him without few clues about what he stood for, what he believed, and what his true goals are.

Despite four years of his campaign and his first term not enough Americans understood that Barack Obama is as alien to America as if he had come from some very different, very foreign place. What is most baffling is why a majority of voters looked at the estimated 23 million of their fellow citizens who were out of work or had stopped looking for work, and whose lives along with their own were even further encumbered by the massive debt Obama had run up; currently $16 trillion and climbing, and thought that was okay?

In a nation whose citizens pride themselves on their ability to work to meet the needs of their families, it was and is profoundly disturbing that 47 million must use food stamps or that millions have fallen below the poverty level.

Why did the majority of voters not understand the fearful implications of the erosion of the nation’s military power, not knowing that peace can only be maintained by a navy that keeps the sea lanes open, the marines who are skilled at making a quick entry into a battle zone, the army that can subdue an enemy, and an air force that has no comparison? The active military and veterans understood what their Commander-in-Chief was doing to them, but the lies about the Benghazi attack that killed a U.S. ambassador and three others were ignored.

Those who voted for Obama were content to believe the cascade of lies Obama told. They ignored the President’s record of failure—the failed “stimulus” that was nothing more than a political slush fund, Obamacare that was forced on the nation by a straight party vote by Democrats in Congress, the bankruptcy of the “clean energy” companies that could not compete even with public funding, and the eruption of Islamic frenzy that saw him abandon friend and foe alike in the Middle East. It was Obamacare that gave birth to the Tea Party movement.

The President, his advisors, the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate never understood what the Tea Party was about. Why would they? The U.S. Constitution was what they wanted to believe it said, not what it really says. Now Obama has the opportunity to fill seats on the Supreme Court with more progressive judges, thus affecting not just the next four years, but generations of Americans to come.

The abandonment of Israel troubled many, but just as troubling was the Democratic Party convention in which the inclusion of God and Jerusalem in the party platform evoked jeers and derision. It was the same Democratic Party that had, since the end of the Civil War, fought against the calls for equality from America’s black community. Even so, the African-American community continued to support them.

In 2008 Americans voted for Obama in the belief that they could demonstrate to the world that it was post-racial, post-partisan. Instead they got a cold, indifferent, arrogant man who listened only to a small circle of leftist advisors and shadowy, unknown and unseen “czars” in the White House.

Obama was as disinterested in Main Street as he was antagonistic to Wall Street. His constant talk of “millionaires and billionaires” and the need to redistribute wealth may have worried some people, but not enough of those who believe they too can achieve the American dream of wealth and success based on hard work and a measure of risk.

The majority of voters ignored the realities of the nation’s economy. They failed to realize that Obama’s opposition to the vast wealth of America’s energy reserves of coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear will only delay the nation’s way out of debt and dependency.

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

John Adams, Founding Father and the nation’s second President warned: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

Today, conservatives in America are wondering if the 2012 election was a vote to commit national suicide.

http://cnsnews.com/blog/alan-caruba/america-commits-suicide

 

[budcampbell]

Quote from short&naked:

What nobody wants to say is that the US has by and large become a nation of BSers (in school, at the universities, in business) that produce nothing and want everything.

Yeah, fish rots from the head down. Hard issues were ignored by the media in this election. Too bad really, as America will continue to become polarized over the massive cash flow problems coming just over the horizon. Bye, bye American pie.

 

[Mercor]

Quote from rubibond007:


Im getting tired of the so called socialist obama crap. Lets look at some facts

-Obama privatize the US Space Program, that's not socialism.
-Obama Kept the Bush Tax cuts and made some aditional cuts, that's not socialism.
-Obama create the National Health insurance exchange
-The Obamacare is a "right wing" idea (by structure and by idea).
-Bush Privatize some big Corps, Obama put those companies back on the private sectors hands.

Don't be fooled
Obama is a Fabian socialist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_socialist

*Obama cut funding to NASA( typical socialist anti-military move)
*Obama was forced to keep the Bush cuts ( against his almighty will)
*national health insurance exchange( Fabian socialist move-incremental moves to total government control)
*Not sure what you mean by private corps( forcing BP to fork over 20 billion in good faith?)

 

[rubibond007]

Quote from Mercor:

Don't be fooled
Obama is a Fabian socialist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_socialist

*Obama cut funding to NASA( typical socialist anti-military move)
*Obama was forced to keep the Bush cuts ( against his almighty will)
*national health insurance exchange( Fabian socialist move-incremental moves to total government control)
*Not sure what you mean by private corps( forcing BP to fork over 20 billion in good faith?)

Just some good articles.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nasa-budget-constellation-cancel

http://m.cnbc.com//id/49261153/Revisiting_President_Obama_s_Small_Business_Tax_Cut_Claims

http://www.businessweek.com/politic...2/why_its_dumb_to_call_obama_a_socialist.html

Look, Im a conservative Libertarian, but the truth is that Bush jr was more socialist than Obama. I don't like Obama arrogance, big spending, energy policies, the GM bondholders abuse and some others issues. But he is not a socialist in the european or latinoamerican sense. Im very proud of our democracy (Where in the world a minority member will have the chance to be the president?). Romney concede with elegance and honor.

My fellow Americans should travel abroad more often.

 

[Ricter]

Quote from rubibond007:

Just some good articles.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nasa-budget-constellation-cancel

http://m.cnbc.com//id/49261153/Revisiting_President_Obama_s_Small_Business_Tax_Cut_Claims

http://www.businessweek.com/politic...2/why_its_dumb_to_call_obama_a_socialist.html

Look, Im a conservative Libertarian, but the truth is that Bush jr was more socialist than Obama. I don't like Obama arrogance, big spending, energy policies, the GM bondholders abuse and some others issues. But he is not a socialist in the european or latinoamerican sense. Im very proud of our democracy (Where in the world a minority member will have the chance to be the president?). Romney concede with elegance and honor.

My fellow Americans should travel abroad more often.

Aint that the truth.

 

[Mercor]

Quote from rubibond007:

Just some good articles.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nasa-budget-constellation-cancel

http://m.cnbc.com//id/49261153/Revisiting_President_Obama_s_Small_Business_Tax_Cut_Claims

http://www.businessweek.com/politic...2/why_its_dumb_to_call_obama_a_socialist.html

Look, Im a conservative Libertarian, but the truth is that Bush jr was more socialist than Obama. I don't like Obama arrogance, big spending, energy policies, the GM bondholders abuse and some others issues. But he is not a socialist in the european or latinoamerican sense. Im very proud of our democracy (Where in the world a minority member will have the chance to be the president?). Romney concede with elegance and honor.

My fellow Americans should travel abroad more often.

You have a pedestrian view of what Socialism is.

Here this will help you learn whats happening.

Barack Obama, Fabian Socialist
Jerry Bowyer, 11.03.08, 12:32 PM EST
Who needs Molotov when we've got Alinski?

Barack Obama is a Fabian socialist. I should know; I was raised by one. My Grandfather worked as a union machinist for Ingersoll Rand (nyse: IR - news - people ) during the day. In the evenings he tended bar and read books. After his funeral, I went back home and started working my way through his library, starting with T.W. Arnold's The Folklore of Capitalism. This was my introduction to the Fabian socialists.

Fabians believed in gradual nationalization of the economy through manipulation of the democratic process. Breaking away from the violent revolutionary socialists of their day, they thought that the only real way to effect "fundamental change" and "social justice" was through a mass movement of the working classes presided over by intellectual and cultural elites. Before TV it was stage plays, written by George Bernard Shaw and thousands of inferior "realist" playwrights dedicated to social change. John Cusack's character in Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway" captures the movement rather well.

Arnold taught me to question everyone--my president, my priest and my parents. Well, almost everyone. I wasn't supposed to question the Fabian intellectuals themselves. That's the Fabian MO, relentless cultural and journalistic attacks on everything that is, and then a hard pitch for the hope of what might be.

That's Obama's world.

He's telling the truth when he says that he doesn't agree with Bill Ayers' violent bombing tactics, but it's a tactical disagreement. Why use dynamite when mass media and community organizing work so much better? Who needs Molotov when you've got Saul Alinski?

So here is the playbook: The left will identify, freeze, personalize and polarize an industry, probably health care. It will attempt to nationalize one-fifth of the U.S. economy through legislative action. They will focus, as Lenin did, on the "commanding heights" of the economy, not the little guy.

As Obama said, "the smallest" businesses will be exempt from fines for not "doing the right thing" in offering employer-based health care coverage. Health will not be nationalized in one fell swoop; they have been studying the failures of Hillary Care. Instead, a parallel system will be created, funded by surcharges on business payroll, which will be superior to many private plans.
Comment On This Story

The old system will be forced to subsidize the new system and there will be a gradual shift from the former to the latter. The only coercion will be the fines, not the participation. A middle-class entitlement will have been created.

It may not be health care first; it might be energy, though I suspect that energy will be nationalized much more gradually. The offshore drilling ban that was allowed to lapse legislatively will be reinstated through executive means. It may be an executive order, but might just as well be a permit reviewing system that theoretically allows drilling but with endless levels of objection and appeal from anti-growth groups. Wind and solar, on the other hand, will have no permitting problems at all, and a heavy taxpayer subsidy at their backs.

The banking system has already been partially nationalized. Bush and Paulson intend for their share purchases to be only non-voting preferred shares, but the law does not specify that. How hard will it be for Obama, new holder of $700 billion in bank equity, to demand "accountability" and a "voice" for the taxpayers?

The capital markets are not freezing up now, mostly because of what has happened, although community organizers' multidecade push for affirmative-action mortgages has done enormous harm to the credit system. Markets are forward looking.

A quick review of the socialist takeovers in Venezuela in 1999, Spain in 2004 and Italy in 2006 show the same pattern--equity markets do most of their plummeting before the Chavez's of the world take power. Investors anticipate the policy shift in advance; that's their job.

It's not just equity markets, though; debt markets do the same thing. Everywhere I turn I hear complaints about bankers "hoarding" capital. "Hoarding" is a word we've heard often from violent socialists like Lenin and Mao. We also hear it from the democratic left as we did during the 1930s in America. The banks, we're told, are greedy and miserly, holding onto capital that should be deployed into the marketplace.

Well, which is it, miserly or greedy? They're not the same thing. Banks make money borrowing low and lending high. In fact, they can borrow very, very low right now, as they could during the Great Depression.

So why don't they lend? Because socialism is a very unkind environment for lenders. Some of the most powerful members of Congress are speaking openly about repudiating mortgage covenants. Local officials have already done so by simply refusing to foreclose on highly delinquent borrowers. Then, there's the oldest form of debt repudiation, inflation. Even if you get your money back, it will not be worth anything. Who would want to lend in an environment like this?

Will Obama's be the strong-man socialism of a Chavez, or the soft socialism that Clement Atlee used to defeat Churchill after WWII? I don't know, but I suspect something kind of in between. Despite right-wing predictions that we won't see Rush shut down by Fairness Doctrine fascists. We won't see Baptist ministers hauled off in handcuffs for anti-sodomy sermons. It will more likely be a matter of paperwork. Strong worded letters from powerful lawyers in and out of government to program directors and general mangers of radio stations. Ominous references to license renewal.

The psychic propaganda assault will be powerful. The cyber-brown-shirts will spew hate, the union guys will flood talk shows with switchboard-collapsing swarms of complaint calls aimed at those hosts who "go beyond the pale" in their criticisms of Obama. In concert with pop culture outlets like The Daily Show and SNL, Obama will use his podium to humiliate and demonize those of us who don't want to come together and heal the planet.

You've heard of the bully pulpit, right? Well, then get ready, because you're about to see the bully part.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/03/obama-fabian-socialist-oped-cx_jb_1103bowyer.html

 

[iceman1]

Quote from rubibond007:

Im a center right voter and I did vote for Romney because of his qualifications. But lets be clear, yesterday we saw democracy at its finest. This article is pure BS.

Im getting tired of the so called socialist obama crap. Lets look at some facts

-Obama privatize the US Space Program, that's not socialism.
-Obama Kept the Bush Tax cuts and made some aditional cuts, that's not socialism.
-Obama create the National Health insurance exchange
-The Obamacare is a "right wing" idea (by structure and by idea).
-Bush Privatize some big Corps, Obama put those companies back on the private sectors hands.

Im not saying that Obama is the King of capitalism, but he is far, far way from being a socialist.

The best we can do as a nation is to set aside our differences.

BRAVO
+10

 

[iceman1]

Quote from Mercor:

Don't be fooled
Obama is a Fabian socialist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_socialist

*Obama cut funding to NASA( typical socialist anti-military move)
*Obama was forced to keep the Bush cuts ( against his almighty will)
*national health insurance exchange( Fabian socialist move-incremental moves to total government control)
*Not sure what you mean by private corps( forcing BP to fork over 20 billion in good faith?)

you sound like the nutjobs that most of us want to rid from both parties. If you don't like it here get the f-ck out or become part of the solution you nitwit