I’m just now watching Obama’s appearance on last night’s Tonight Show – thank you, Tivo! – and I just had to pause it. I couldn’t go any further without commenting on a few things, so this won’t be a full analysis, this is just me having to sound off now before I forget my initial reaction.

First off, here’s a direct quote I just transcribed from Obama. I’ll try to get an exact video clip of this line later on.

“”No, no, no, but, no, th-th-th-th… This is the point that I made, I think two days ago, when somebody asked, ‘Well, do you have confidence in Tim Geithner?’ I said, ‘Look, I’m the President. So ih-eh-uh, ultimately, all of this stuff is my responsibility. If I’m not, uh, giving him the tools that he needs, uh, to make sure that we’re moving this forward, then people need to look at me.”
- Barack Obama, Tonight Show with Jay Leno, 03-19-09, roughly 35-40 minutes into the broadcast.

Um, Mr. President, if it’s your responsibility to get Tim Geithner all the tools he needs to solve what you and your administration repeatedly refer to as the greatest financial and economic disaster to strike this country since the Great Depression, then why is it that you have time to go on a late night chat show, and yet you haven’t had enough time to fill the remaining 17 out of 18 presidential appointments within the Treasury Department? Tim Geithner is the only one you’ve appointed out of those 18 appointments, meaning Tim Geithner is operating without a full compliment of appointees on his staff, to assist him with this massive crisis.
Wouldn’t you say that’s a pretty big error on your part? Wouldn’t you say that’s an instance of you not giving Tim Geithner the “tools that he needs to make sure we’re moving forward”? Don’t you think filling those 17 appointments should be a higher priority than chatting it up with Jay Leno?
Hey, Mr. Obama, you asked us to look at you, you said this was your responsibility. We’re looking at you now.

Secondly, I will say that I was impressed with one question in particular that Jay Leno addressed to Obama. When he asked specifically about his concerns over Congress targeting specific individuals with 90% taxation legislation, did you notice that Obama didn’t even answer the question? He completely deflected and didn’t even come close to addressing Leno’s very legitimate concerns!
But then again, I guess you wouldn’t want to answer that question either, if you were presiding over a Congress that just passed legislation which violated the Constitution not just once, but twice.
Yet again, Mr. Obama, I’m looking at you. This is your responsibility, and you can’t even answer a drastically important question such as the one Jay Leno presented to you?
I sincerely hope I wasn’t the only one who picked up on that deflection, because that’s a very, very, very important question that we should all be demanding a satisfactory answer to.

Lastly, didn’t you just love how in every single answer, the only solution Obama presented to both the economic crisis AND the big AIG mess, was more regulation and oversight? That’s pretty funny, coming from the golden boy of the same Democratic party who repeatedly rejected Republican attempts at providing more regulation and oversight before this crisis even erupted, in an effort to put on the brakes before we hit an absolute catastrophe. Wasn’t it the Democrats who said that Fannie and Freddie were just fine, and that Republicans were doing nothing more than being evil “fear-mongers” for suggesting that a major global financial crisis was on the horizon and that we’d better act now through regulation and oversight?
Kinda funny that Obama thinks we should trust those very same Democrats to effectively implement that regulation and oversight now that the very same crisis the Republicans predicted has hit us at full force, that crisis the Democrats said didn’t exist and was nothing more than a Republican fantasy. But not only did the Democrats fail in that regard, but they also failed to put in any regulation and oversight into the massive stimulus bills they passed which led to this big AIG mess that Obama was commenting on.
Hmm, that’s at least two strikes, if not more. How many strikes will we allow the Democrats before we realize, hey, they have absolutely no track record of success and they flat out suck at implementing any kind of effective regulation and oversight, like the kind Obama was touting on Jay Leno?

Alright, now to hit play and finish the rest of it. I swear, I feel like pulling my hair out, this is so frustrating to listen to. So before my brain just fizzles out, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the whole debacle, so please, comment away and let me know what you think!

Oh, and by the way, just to add my voice to the chorus – let’s impeach Chris Dodd, shall we?

For those of you out there who still may not understand the process by which the markets became involved in all these sub-prime mortgages, which became the catalyst for at least one aspect of the global financial crisis – or if you have friends who might still need a little help understanding it – I’ve found this remarkable video that does a pretty good job of just explaining the market side of the issue. (It certainly taught me a thing or two about the details.) It’s not so much about the political policies that led to this behavior, but simply how the market reacted to changes in policies. And hey, the video’s also just plain pretty to look at, so enjoy!

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

“We must not revert to isolationism and unrestrained economic egotism… Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence is another possible mistake. True, the state’s increased role in times of crisis is a natural reaction to market setbacks. Instead of streamlining market mechanisms, some are tempted to expand state economic intervention to the greatest possible extent… In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”

- Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin
Opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland
January 28, 2009

It seems a shame that everyone in the world but us can recognize that the United States, under the leadership of the Democrats and their Messiah, is slipping ever further into the clutches of socialism. Why is it that we’re the only ones who still refuse to admit the truth? Even when our own newspapers and magazines are declaring, “We’re all Socialists now!”, so many people still refuse to believe it, refuse to acknowledge it. Perhaps what’s worse, the few that do see it, are still saying, “What’s so bad about socialism?”
Putin, of all people, just told us what’s so bad about socialism! Look at history, look at what became of the Soviet Union. Look at the horror it inflicted upon its own people, the people of Europe, the Middle East, and the entire world. The former head of the KGB is warning us not to slip any further toward socialism, or it will eat us alive, as it ate his country alive. Please, let’s listen before it’s too late.
If he can see it, why can’t we?

(hat tip to my friend Joey for sending me the link, and to Gateway Pundit for the info.)

My brother (the non-liberal one) sent me this and it was just too funny not to post. Enjoy!

Oh boy! I sure can’t wait to put one in my garage next to my cardboard box house!

Our friends over at Deceiver.com have done an absolutely remarkable job of putting this whole Timothy Geithner debacle in perspective. It’s just too good for you to miss, so please, you HAVE to go read this.
Enjoy! Of course, I’m sure – like me – the enjoyment will end when you realize that you’re going to be crying once the reality of the situation sinks in and it becomes all too apparent that this is our country this man is futzing with in making all of this ludicrous nominations, and that these sorry people are the ones who will be determining our fate. Yeah, once that sinks in, all the enjoyment of Deceiver’s clever post kind of dries up and is replaced with a remarkable empty feeling inside. That feeling of finally seeing all that “Hope” and “Change” turn right into exactly what we all thought it would be – nothing but tried and true “Deceit” and “Business as usual.”
But of course, what else can we expect from a whole hoard of Chicago politicians and Clinton retreads setting up camp in Washington? That’s an unholy union in there ever was one.

You really have to read this if you haven’t already – apparently a letter has been circulating around EmailLand lately, and it only just now made its way to my inbox. It’s a response to a pitiful plea for bailout support that was sent out by Troy Clarke, President of General Motors. When one average, hard-working American – Gregory Knox, President of Knox Manufacturing – received this missive in his email inbox, he decided to let loose and give Mr. Clarke a piece of his mind. That piece turned out to be quite honest, truthful, and not only thankfully sane, but refreshingly American. I’ve checked it out on Snopes, and sure enough, it’s for real. So I’m sharing it here, to hopefully add to the throngs of average Americans who are shouting the same sentiments right back at Mr. Clarke and the rest of Congress. Maybe they won’t listen to us, but they should at least be well aware that if they continue down the path of the bailout, they sure as hell won’t be receiving any of our money or our votes.

Dear Employee,

Next week, Congress and the current Administration will determine whether to provide immediate support to the domestic auto industry to help it through one of the most difficult economic times in our nation’s history. Your elected officials must hear from all of us now on why this support is critical to our continuing progress we began prior to the global financial crisis. As an employee, you have a lot at stake and continue to be one of our most effective and passionate voices. I know GM can count on you to have your voice heard.
Thank you for your urgent action and ongoing support.

- Troy Clarke
General Motors North America

Dear General Motors,

In response to your request to call legislators and ask for a bailout for the United States automakers please consider the following, and please also pass this on to Troy Clarke, the president of General Motors North America, for me.

You are both infected with the same entitlement mentality that has bred like cancerous germs in UAW halls for the last countless decades, and whose plague is now sweeping the nation, awaiting our new “messiah” to wave his magical wand and make all our problems go away, while at the same time allowing our once great nation to keep “living the dream.”

The dream is over!

The dream that we can ignore the consumer for years while management myopically focuses on its personal rewards packages at the same time that our factories have been filled with the world’s most overpaid, arrogant, ignorant and laziest entitlement-minded “laborers” without paying the price for these atrocities, and that still the masses will line up to buy our products.

Don’t tell me I’m wrong. Don’t accuse me of not knowing of what I speak. I have called upon Ford, GM, Chrysler, TRW, Delphi, Kelsey Hayes, American Axle, and countless other automotive OEM’s and Tier ones for three decades now throughout the Midwest and what I’ve seen over the years in these union shops can only be described as disgusting.

Mr. Clark, the president of General Motors states:
“There is widespread sentiment in this country, our government and especially in the media that the current crisis is completely the result of bad management. It is not.”

You’re right, it’s not JUST management; how about the electrcians who walk around the plants like lords in feudal times, making people wait on them for countless hours while they drag ass, so they can come in on the weekend and make double and triple time for a job they could easily have done within their normal 40 hour week.

How about the line workers who threaten newbies with all kind of scare tactics for putting out too many parts on a shift and for being too productive (mustn’t expose the lazy bums who have been getting overpaid for decades for their horrific underproduction, must we?!?) So you really not know about this stuff?!?

How about this great sentiment abridged from Mr. Clarke’s sad plea:
“over the last few years we have closed the quality and efficiency gaps with our competitors…”

What the hell has Detroit been doing for the last 40 years?!?

Did we really JUST wake up to the gaps in quality and efficiency between us and them?

The K car vs. the Accord?

The Pinto vs. the Civic?!?

Do I need to go on?

We are living through the inevitable outcome of the actions of the United States auto industry for decades.

Time to pay for your sins, Detroit.

I attended an economic summit last week where a brilliant economist, Alan Beaulieu, surprised the crowd when he said he would not have given the banks a penny of “bailout money.” Yes, he said, this would cause short term problems, but despite what people like George Bush and Troy Clarke would have us believe, the sun would in fact rise the next day and something else would happen where there had been greedy and sloppy banks, new efficient ones would pop up. That is how a free market system works. It does work if we let it work.

But for some reason we are now deciding that the rest of the world is right and that capitalism doesn’t work, that we need government to step in and “save us”. Save us, hell! We’re nationalizing and unfortunately too many of this once fine nation’s citizens don’t even have a clue that this is what’s really happening, but they sure can tell you the stats on their favorite sports teams! Yeah, THAT’S important!

Does it occur to ANYONE that the “competition” has been producing vehicles, EXTREMELY PROFITABLY, for decades now in this country?

How can that be???

Let’s see:

Fuel efficient…

Listening to customers…

Investing in the proper tooling and automations for the long haul…

Not being too complacent or arrogant to listen to Dr W Edwards Deming four decades ago…

Ever increased productivity through quality, lean, and six sigma plans…

Treating vendors like strategic partners, rather than like “the enemy”…

Efficient front and back offices…

Non-union environment!

Again, I could go on and on, but I really wouldn’t be telling anyone anything they really don’t already know in their hearts.

I have six children, so I am not unfamiliar with the concept of wanting someone to bail you out of a mess that you have gotten yourself into. My children do this on a weekly, if not daily basis, as I did at their age. I do for them what my parents did for me (one of their greatest gifts, by the way), I make them stand on their own two feet and accept the consequences of their actions and work them through.

Radical concept, huh?

Am I there for them in the wings? Of course, but only until such time as they need to be fully on their own as adults.

I don’t want to over-simplify a complex situation, but there certainly are unmistakable parallels here between the proper role of parenting and government.

Detroit and the United States need to pay for their sins.

Bad news people, it’s coming whether we like it or not.

The newly elected Messiah really doesn’t have a magic wand big enough to “make it all go away”. I laughed as I heard Obama “reeling it back in” almost immediately after the vote count was tallied. We might not do it in a year or in four. Where was that kind of talk when he was RUNNING for the office?

Stop trying to put off the inevitable.

That house in Florida really isn’t worth $750,000.

People who jump across a border really don’t deserve free health care benefits.

That job driving that forklift for the Big Three really isn’t worth $85,000 a year.

We really shouldn’t allow Wal-Mart to stock their shelves with products acquired from a country that unfairly manipulates their currency and has the most atrocious human rights infractions on the face of the globe.

That couple whose combined income is less than $50,000 really shouldn’t be living in that $485,000 home!

Let the market correct itself, people. It will. Yes, it will be painful, but it’s gonna be painful either way, and the bright side of my proposal is that on the other side of it is a nation that appreciates what it has and doesn’t live beyond its means. Gets back to basics and redevelops the work ethic that made it the greatest nation in the history of the world. And probably turns back to God.

Sorry, don’t cut my head off, I’m just the messenger sharing with you the “bad news.”

- Gregory J. Knox
President
Knox Machinery, Inc
Franklin, Ohio 45005

Well said, Mr. Knox! I certainly wish there were more politicians like him around, and hell, for that matter, simply more Americans like him. Then maybe we might actually be a little closer to solving this mess the right way, rather than digging ourselves even deeper into this hole of debt we already find ourselves in. Continually bailing out companies and individuals who repeatedly engage in unsound financial practices is like shooting yourself in the right foot after already shooting yourself in the left one. Fairly soon you won’t even have a foot to stand on, and it’ll be your own damn fault.
Wake up, people. Times are going to be hard enough anyway, let’s not make them any harder by completely decapitating the free market system that made us the greatest, most successful, most independent country in the world. Name me just one socialist nation that can even hold a candle to what we’ve accomplished, then I might actually think that bailing out any companies at all might be a good idea. But guess what? You can’t even name one. So let’s just drop all this nationalizing crap once and for all, okay?

Obama’s been talking lately about a $1 trillion stimulus package. But he’s not the only Democrat who’s been throwing that number around willy-nilly all over the place lately. Therefore I think it would be nice if we could put that number in perspective for those of us who don’t have an inflated sense of excessive spending. For that, I turn to a lovely paragraph put together by Glenn Beck, which a friend of mine was kind enough to forward. Read it, it’s certainly worth it, cause if we don’t keep in mind just how insanely huge $1 trillion dollars really is, apparently our representatives won’t either.

Let me give you a handle on how big $1 trillion is. NASA has a budget. You know the people, they send up space planes and the space station and all the satellites and everything else that NASA does? NASA’s budget is $17 billion. The post office’s budget is $34 billion. The Department of Labor is 10, EPA is 7. Treasury, well, this has got to go up. Can you check on this, Joe? It’s only $12 billion, but they’ve got to be spending a lot more on ink and paper right now. Treasury department is $12 billion. Department of Energy is $24 billion. The Department of Transportation is $12 billion. Justice is $20 billion. Agriculture is $20 billion. Department of Interior is $10 billion. Department of Homeland Security is $120 billion. That’s $286 billion for all of those: NASA, post office, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Labor, EPA, Department of Treasury, Department of Energy, transportation, justice, agriculture, and interior, $286 billion. Obama wants a $1 trillion stimulus package. By the way, if you add in the defense budget, the Department of Defense budget for 2009 is $515 billion. Half a trillion dollars. Add that to all of the other departments I just gave you, that’s $801 billion. You still have $200 billion left before you reach the new Democratic stimulus package of $1 trillion.

That puts it in perspective, doesn’t it? Lastly, let me just add one final thought; with all of the other problems that our federal government has chosen to simply thrown money at, how many of those problems have actually been solved by that course of action? Education? Poverty? Foreign Policy? Anything?

Check out this video of Democratic Congressman Jim Moran.

Oh, those silly Republicans, believing in a free market system! Will they ever learn? That’s never worked before! That’s not why we have been the world’s leading super power for so long, nooooo! Stupid Republicans!

Holy freaking crap!!! Does it need to get any clearer that the Democrats have gone off the radical deep end?! Is this seriously what the average Democrat believes in!? Have we all gone completely and utterly mental and I somehow didn’t get the memo!?!?!

Eeeeesh! Yes, Congressman Moran, free markets have never ever worked, yet redistribution of wealth has never ever failed. I think you’ve got that a little bit bass-ackwards, sir. So according to you, even though someone has worked really, really hard for a very long period of time, has employed lots and lots of people, and has earned lots and lots of money, they are not entitled to the fruits of their labor? Because, in your twisted mind, if someone is smart enough to earn money, they aren’t smart enough to spend it? Yet somehow, a politician is smart enough to do it for them? Seriously?

I’ll say it again, holy freaking crap, the Democrats have all gone completely ass backwards. I’m sorry, I know that isn’t very Independent-minded of me, but seriously! Look at that video! It’s INSANE! Since when did we all become communists? Because really, this goes well beyond socialism. This is the government deciding what you own and what you don’t, no matter how hard you worked for it. That is communism.
Ugh. It continually baffles me how these Marxist idiots keep getting away with this absolute crap.

I just came across this article again about what many are calling “The New New Deal” and thought it was worth posting. I meant to post it weeks back but could never find the link again. Ah well. At least we can read it now, to prepare ourselves for exactly what it is we need to fight. It’s an article from the Wall Street Journal, written by Paul Rubin, a professor of economics and law at Emory University.
Click “more” to read this brilliant article, because we need to know what it is we’re up against. Enjoy!

Every time I hear Barack Obama opine on the woes of the middle class, I want to tear my hair out. The more he goes on and on about Bush supposedly decimating the middle class, the more I want to scream. Why? Because everything he says about the middle class is just flat out untrue. Taxes for the middle class have decreased significantly since Bush took office. If you look at the taxes from Clinton to Bush, there was a significant drop in the taxes paid by the middle class. Significant! And don’t even get me started on Obama’s promise to not raise anyone’s taxes. Obama has already guaranteed that he will let those significant Bush tax cuts expire. Those are the taxes that have significantly lowered everyone’s taxes, most especially the middle class. By letting those taxes expire, Obama will be raising your taxes! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg as far as Obama’s tax policy is concerned.
But beyond even taxes, Obama doesn’t even have any other numbers to support his doom and gloom claims for the middle class either. Even in spite of the major economic crisis we’re facing at the moment, we have not yet been in a recession, despite the Democrats cries to the contrary. The definition of a recession is two straight quarters of negative growth. Yet we haven’t even endured a single quarter of negative growth. Of course, this might change considering the housing crisis, but that’s the future, and Obama’s referring to the past.
Want some straight figures affecting the middle class? Median wages have risen 28 percent from 1975 to 2005. Inflation-adjusted median household incomes for most household types increased by roughly 44 to 62 percent from 1976 to 2006! That’s HUGE!
So where is this supposed Bush-caused crisis for the middle class over the past 8 years? The only crisis I’m seeing is the fair-housing Democrat-induced housing crisis, thanks to Clinton, the Democrats, and the expansion of the CRA during the 1990s, coupled with the Democratic-led committees that blocked every single Republican attempt to increase regulation to avoid this catastrophe.
Yet again, why is Obama getting away with this massive lie? Where’s the reason? Where are the facts?

Then I remember, oh yeah, it’s the media. I really have to stop being shocked by the media’s love affair with Obama and realize, they don’t give a flying monkey’s crap about truth or statistics or reason whenever it goes against their chosen leader’s rallying cries.
Therefore, it’s up to us to look at the data. That’s why I started this blog, after all. It’s up to us to talk amongst ourselves and figure this crap out. In that vein, I found a brilliant article from Reason Magazine about the truth of the middle class. Click on “More” to read it, it’s good stuff.