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Hello again dear friends. For the past year I have pondered the abyss yawning before us. I sought perspective and found the best analysis of what is happening today in the following, written 172 years ago:
“Above this race of men (citizens of the United States), stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness, such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns …: what remains but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?
Thus it every day renders the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principal of equality has prepared men for these things; it has predisposed men to endure them and often to look on them as benefits.
After having taken thus successively each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds cannot penetrate, and rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
I have always thought that servitude of the regular, quiet and gentle kind I have just described might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with the outward forms of freedom, and that it might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of the people.”
(from Chapter VI of Democrary in America, Alexis De Tocqueville)
President Obama could not ask for a better statement of his aims and methods. He relentlessly strives to assemble a majority willing not only to “endure” his ministrations, but to “look on them as benefits.” In the coming test, his opponent must appeal on a higher plane to those who might still consider the good of the nation and not simply ask “Where’s mine?” Are there enough of us left? It seems doubtful.
Publius
Ladies and Gentlemen of Ireland:
Some financial advice from across the pond: we’ve both been drinking from the same poisoned chalice, so the disease is familiar to us. But you are fortunate to live in a soveriegn nation on a small island known for its independence. Just because they hold the paper does not mean you have to sell out your nation and your children to the end of time. Stop and think now before its too late.
To the dope peddlers who’ve been feeding you from afar, why not take the advice of the wife of our late President Reagan, and just say no? What are they going to do about it? Once you’ve rebelled against this yoke of debt, is the High Sheriff of County Cork going to come and repossess your home in favor of some foreign bank? Will Ireland become a land of frogs? Take a look at what this paper avalanche amounts to underneath the juggling. They are just trying to hold the tide back with a rake, don’t you see? It is all going to come apart in the end. The center cannot hold. They are erecting a house of cards just to buy time before the whole thing collapses around their heads. The banks are all under water, and the only thing keeping the charade going is the music that hasn’t stopped yet. The Germans understand it. They know and you know in your bones this will not end well. It’s only the politicians, beholden as they are to the bankers, who are trying to sell you this extra fine mountain of crack.
Why not do them the favor of letting them know they are playing a mug’s game? There is no point in putting the next hundred generations into bondage for the sake of maintaining Ireland’s credit for a few more years. This mountain of debt can never be repaid. Run the numbers: it will be repaid when the mountains of Mourne fall into the sea.
If you decide to repudiate this debt, bear in mind that over the last 200 years, you’ve built up some credit in America. If you go cold turkey, you will find friends here. If you do it, you will not starve – even if it will be very difficult for you until you find your footing.
Remember dear friends: half the politicians in America are descendants of your land. If you need an anchor to windward, Ireland is no further from us than Hawaii, and much closer by blood. So, why not brace yourselves and be the first to get off this merry-go-round of endless debt? Let them play the pipe for other fools – dance no more to their tune. You will only be keeping the kleptomaniac bankers in pinstripes a little longer if you sign these papers. Repudiate your government and the debt, and start fresh. Have the courage to just say no; and for a change – let them hang.
Publius
Our Speaker of the House, (second in line to the President) is one of a kind. She seems to operate in her own alternative universe, and Alice in Wonderland may be the key to understanding it. We have insufficient command of Lewis Carroll’s cast to flesh out all the parts, but we do like Barney Frank as the Mad Hatter. Ms. Pelosi must be the Queen of Hearts, if only because the phrase “off with their heads!” seems to be just barely suppressed by Ms. Pelosi, and with nearly as much difficulty as Dr. Strangelove’s salute.
As a lady, she is nothing if not stylish. Whatever else she can be faulted for, her wardrobe and makeup are flawless, especially for a woman of 70. Cleopatra would be proud. We do think Cher (another notable defier of age and the fates) should be appointed for the rest of Ms. Pelosi’s tenure as mistress of the royal bedchamber. We also like to see her ferried back and forth between her official and private residences by military jet. Cleo and Antony would both appreciate this martial touch. We hope that as a special dispensation, Republicans will allow her to keep this perquisite as part of the trappings of her minority leadership post assuming she gets it.
As a further mark of her exclusive status, the servility accorded Her by the media is truly fit for royalty alone (see recent Charlie Rose and Diane Sawyer interviews). As the keynote of her Speakership, we fondly recall her first promise as she ascended the throne in 2007, five trillion dollars ago: “This new Congress will commit itself to no new deficit spending.” One of our all time favorites, regarding passage of Obamacare, is ”we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
Also reflecting her iron grasp of political reality on the eve of the midterm elections, she stated ”we are poised to maintain control of the House of Representatives and are very confident in our candidates.” She does seem better at counting noses in the House than the rest of the country. Close observers of the Queen have however noticed a slight shift in tone from two years ago. At the beginning of the New Era, discussing the stimulus bill, she said: “We won the election. We wrote the bill.” After the recent electoral setback, there seems to be more interest in finding a way to work together. Amazing how these things change.
Given her stellar record as election seer, here’s another prognostication to ponder: “I believe Barack Obama will serve eight years as President of the United States.” Let’s also give her credit for sharp problem diagnosis. In sifting post-election tea leaves, she surmised Americans were mainly upset that Democrats didn’t move faster to implement their plans.
So cue the Wedding March from Aida and lift a glass to Ms. Pelosi: As they used to say for Queen Victoria, so we say for Da Queen of Da Nile: Long May She Reign!
Publius
Many people wonder if President Obama “gets it,” i.e., does he understand that the historic defeat sustained by his party last Tuesday was a repudiation of his policy? He strenuously rejects the notion, variously ascribing this little electoral bump in the road to a failure to communicate, general ignorance compounded by fear, or a natural reaction to the sustained economic devastation, which is of course all ”Bush’s fault.”
Although we didn’t vote for him, we toasted his victory two years ago, believing the moment reflected the essence of the American idea. And although President Obama clearly rejects the idea of American exceptionalism, his election was a most compelling example of it.
Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, described the awful historic burden of slavery to be discharged: ”… if God wills that it (the Civil War) continue until all the wealth created by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid with another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said: ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” It seemed reasonable to hope two years ago that Obama’s election might serve as a partial and perhaps final expiation for the sin of slavery. Mr. Obama must have understood that this feeling, although unspoken, was widely shared among his fellow citizens.
Lifted as he was by this wave of moral exultation, President Obama nevertheless took it upon himself to embark upon a complex and sustained deception. Being the very smart man he was, he knew a majority of Americans would never favor the massive redistribution of wealth and state aggrandizement he had in mind. So it had to be conceived and carried out by stealth. The economic debacle of 2008 combined with the momentary pinnacle of Democratic ascendency to give Mr. Obama the opportunity. He didn’t waste it.
The burden thus imposed on the President has been to appear to be doing one thing - saving jobs and “changing” the way we do things – while actually doing quite another: laying the foundation for massive expansion of state power and wealth redistribution. He knew exactly what he was doing. He just couldn’t admit it because that would reveal the man behind the curtain. For the next two years President Obama will urge us to “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” Yet the discrepancy between what he has pretended to be and what he is becomes more evident by the day. This continuing need to deceive may impose a considerable psychological burden upon Mr. Obama over time.
Massive deception lies at the heart of this Presidency. If he in fact didn’t “get it,” we could at least await the process of awakening to come. But he ”gets it” perfectly well, and that is why the deception must continue. He has to pretend there has been no repudiation, because he cannot concede the dimensions of what he has been attempting to do. This also explains why there will be no pivoting or attempt at triangulation. Mr. Obama’s only strategy to recapture a majority of Americans is to shield his purposes from us as long as he can. This is also why he at times seems to concede that he may be a one-term President. He has only one game, and because it was always a political loser, he cannot reveal what it is.
The continuing need to deceive explains why even his own supporters notice he is increasingly unconvincing and unfeeling in his public rhetoric. Unless you have the manic faculties of an Adolf Hitler or Huey Long, it’s hard to sustain a lie day after day with conviction. Fortunately, it does not appear that President Obama has those qualities. For that at least, we are truly grateful.
Publius
What’s gotten into the electorate? If it’s just tea party kooks, how come the polls predict a tsunami? If as John Kerry says, the electorate is not paying attention to ”facts” and “the way things are,” how come the smart people who elected President Obama don’t wake up? Have they just become a bunch of “whiners and complainers” or have they become bored and discouraged?
Perhaps trillion dollar deficits forever have caught the attention of the electorate. One tactic used during WWII was to drop bundles of counterfeit Reichsmarks over Germany. To some of us, it appears President Obama, Congress, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have decided to do the same thing to our own economy. The advent of the Obama administration coincided with a change in monetary terminology. Billion was replaced by trillion as the most common and useful term for government expenditure. Anything less than a trillion was chicken feed. President Obama’s stimulus bill (close to a trillion) seemed to shift the financial dialogue onto a permanently higher plane.
The combination of trillion dollar deficits with sustained 10% unemployment squares neither with the promises made at the time by the President nor any reference point in the lifetimes of most living Americans. The spending lust consumes not only Democrats but many Republicans, and that is why some of them have already been purged in the primaries. We see the dollar on a path to inevitable devaluation. Dimly we perceive that only the vast size of this titanic state postpones the inevitable bankruptcy. And unless this financial hemorrhage is stanched, we perceive that our children and grandchildren are doomed. Even Democrats see they cannot sell more “stimulation.” They have reached the end of the line. And so they leave Washington without even passing a budget. They are tired of adding two and two and getting twenty-two.
Seventy percent of the electorate have unshakeable presuppositions about what drives the US economy. Roughly 35% assume the Government is Mommy and Daddy and will vote for the party of redistribution until the end of time. At best, the same percentage assumes private initiative, in one form or another plays the primary role in making life better for Americans. The electoral outcome rests with the remaining 30%. This year most of that 30% seem to recognize that you cannot sustain at the local, state and Federal level, what you cannot sustain on a personal level.
The only realistic platform Republicans can offer this year is “STOP.” Stop government at all levels from running us over the cliff. Its safe to assume President Obama will use his veto power to kill Republican initiatives no matter what. So, if they take control of one or both chambers of Congress, Republicans will have two years to put together a sensible plan to govern once Obama is retired. Deadlock is a terrible thing to look forward to, but it is the most we can expect to achieve with a President committed to economic suicide.
Publius
In Leonard Bernstein’s musical West Side Story, Maria sings “I feel pretty, oh so pretty, I feel pretty and witty and bright. and I pity any girl who isn’t me tonight.” With just a few modifications, we have the theme song for the 2010 election.
“I feel stupid, Oh so stupid,
I feel stupid and racist and white,
it’s a pity I can’t see the light.”
John Kerry has figured it out and why in Hell we don’t get it, we just don’t know. The man who’s smart enough to moor his yacht in Rhode Island so he doesn’t have to pay his kleptocratic home state’s sales tax on the $7,000,000 price tag, has discovered the reason the Donkey Party is facing a tsunami this coming November: ”we have an electorate that doesn’t always pay attention to what’s going on so that people are influenced by a simple slogan, rather than the facts or truth or what’s happening.” He didn’t say what slogan we are being influenced by, so I guess we’ll just have to go back down into the basement bomb shelter and cling to our guns and religion until he tells us. Meanwhile Eugene Robinson, the esteemed liberal columnist says we are all acting like a bunch of “spoiled brats.” Countless other pontificators assure us that opposition to Obama in particular and the Democrats in general is motivated by racism, pure and simple.
Evidently there’s nothing for the Donkey Party to worry about however, because Speaker Pelosi says she sees nothing but sunshine and a cloudless sky - the Dems are going to retain control of both houses of Congress, and that’s that - she doesn’t have time for speculation about any other outcome. But wait, Vice President Biden sounds a completely different note, telling the party faithful to “stop whining.” It’s a little hard to figure out what all this means, because according to Pelosi, there’s no whining or anything to whine about. So, what is it - all sunshine and roses, or are we falling for simple slogans and acting like “spoiled brats?” In a fine piece this morning on Real Clear Politics, Victor Davis Hanson recalls Adlai Stevenson musing during the 1952 election that if most thinking people supported him, that still wouldn’t be enough in America, because “I need a majority.” In the same article, Hanson recalls a comment by Michelle Obama during the 2008 campaign: “Barack is one of the smartest people you will ever encounter who would deign to enter this messy thing called politics.”
So where to turn: we are obviously being lead by the best and the brightest - and somehow we just don’t get it, we’re spoiled, we’re brats, we’re stupid. Why can’t we appreciate these people who have sacrificed everything to provide us the leadership we so desperately need? This prompts a further chilling thought: what happens if the tsunami hits in November? Will the smartest guy we’ve ever encountered still “deign” to lead us through the muck and mire?
Publius
Thanks to President Obama, we now see the main purpose of Mosques in America: they can teach us tolerance – how to be better citizens, more open and respectful of different points of view. To help this process along – the Mosque at (near) Ground Zero is the perfect instrument. From it, we’ll learn why America is an accessory to the crime of 9/11, and we’ll begin to recognize all the things we’ve been doing to merit the attention of Muslim fanatics. But if the Mosque near Ground Zero is good, wouldn’t moving it to dead center of Ground Zero be even better? If the Mosque is built a few blocks away, dumber Americans will miss the point. They’ll still just wallow in their own ignorance.
President Obama, the Attorney General and Mayor Bloomberg have all noted the main point is to demonstrate that we are tolerant of cultural differences and respectful of others, and that no barriers can be placed in the way of free religious expression. We say amen to that. But why stop at a single Mosque near Ground Zero? To promote greater tolerance and respect, kiosks - Mosquiosks actually - could be set up in the Washington Monument, the Capitol Rotunda, the Lincoln Memorial, Monticello, the graveyard of Trinity Church, Union station, Grand Central, all the major airports, every mall, civic building, library and monument. These Mosquiosks need to be placed where they will do the most good, where they can reach the dummies who just don’t or won’t try to understand Muslims.
As part of this lesson, let’s go just a teensy bit further and get women properly covered in burquas so we can show Muslims we mean business. Modesty is only one of many unappreciated Muslim virtues that deserve more consideration. And wouldn’t an ocassional stoning help to show that we don’t always insist on just doing everything “our way?”
While we’re at it, we should also consider modifying other cultural symbols which have gone along unquestioned too damned long. Take the flag: we could take the pyramid from the back of the dollar bill and put it on the flag in place of the field of stars. Or if you really like the stars, we could keep some, but replace every other one with a crescent. Patriotic gestures are so banal and tedious. Why do we have to listen to the Star Spangled Banner before every athletic contest? How about the Saudi national anthem accompanied by a large band of vuvuzelas? How about a different anthem every day of the baseball season? There are at least 162 different nations. This whole tolerance thing needs more than just a single Mosque near Ground Zero. We need to reach the hicks and boobs in the hinterlands who just stick to outmoded ways of thinking no matter what. Manning the Mosquiosks could even help expand employment. If one Mosque is good, more Mosques are better. And tolerating Mosques is the most important thing of all.
Publius
Those words, spoken by Glendower in a memorable exchange with Hotspur, seem ready-made for President Obama, dealing with his own serious problems in the vasty deep. It would seem he must do something like this very soon, as he has “taken responsibility,” faces Malia every morning wondering if he has “plugged the hole yet,” and has henchmen placing their “boots on the neck of the company” from whose orifice the oil is shooting in prodigious quantities. Since he cares so much, and has already said his mere nomination would be marked as the time whence “the oceans began to recede,” can we imagine he does not have the power to plug an itty-bitty hole in a pipe a mere 5,000 feet below sea level? Apparently it has not yet occured to him that he does not. It falls to the admirably level-headed Admiral Thad Allen to remind us that the US government does not have the means nor the brains to do much of anything to plug the hole that is befouling a good part of the Gulf of Mexico. Of course we know it’s Bush’s fault anyway, so let’s just let it go at that. Or maybe not.
Modesty, even false modesty would be a good start for our President at this moment. That would be at least the beginning of wisdom. Maybe at some point it will dawn on him that the solution to this problem, if there is one, will come from the efforts of the largest repositories of drilling technology in the world – the Erl Companies, as they are called in Louisiana. If that simple fact does register, perhaps it will also occur to Mr Obama that keeping a boot on the neck of BP, while engaging in frantic political posturing with the rest of his party as the peanut gallery, does little to promote teamwork, without which this fiasco may go on for a very long time.
Why has it not occured to the chief officers of BP to simply offer their technical resources free of charge to the President for as long as he would like to command them? BP is going to pay through the nose anyway, no matter what. Why not let Mr. Obama stand at the helm and issue commands with boots placed wherever he wants? One wonders how much of the American electorate is enchanted by a President who considers it his principal job to channel the feelings of aggrieved persons. Rage, fear, hatred, puzzlement, more rage, scapegoating, punishment – what a wonderful job of channeling he is doing. Meanwhile the oil continues to ooze. There is decision making and there is posturing. Is there any question what we are getting at this moment from this President?
Perhaps it would help President Obama, before calling spirits from the vasty deep, to consider Hotspur’s rejoinder: “Well, so can I, and so can any man, but will they come when you do call for them?”
Publius
In the history of Judeo-Christian civilization, Greece, perhaps more than any other nation, has shown us the way. Over the past few weeks, she is doing us the same courtesy. It is astonishing to witness the collective failure of Europeans to see or understand the meaning of it. In Greek mythology, it was the fate of Cassandra to predict the future, but not to be believed. All signs point to a re-enactment of this same tragedy today.
A good friend, a Greek, has just sent along his take on the current tragedy playing out in Athens. It seems the unsuspecting Greeks were invited to a wonderful party by those hucksters running the Eurpoean Union. Imbibing too much, they’ve now been presented with the bill and are feeling overcharged and poorly served. Our friend does as good a rendition of Margaritaville as anyone we know so we presume he may be temperamentally partial to this interpretation of events. But its interesting that the first instinct of the entire European polity is to paper over the problem with a massive infusion of the drug – money – which the Greeks have been over-imbibing for the past two decades – hair of the dog it would seem.
Who are these Greeks – striking, fire-bombing, protesting, marauding, and generally terrorizing the government of their ancient capital? And what are they protesting? If reports are to be believed, there is a small but hardened core of anarchists, and a larger mass of mendicants, the legatees of a bankrupt state, who all intend to press their own claims, oblivious of the fact that there is no one left to pay them. The rest of the country must consist of a few Greeks who are rich enough and smart enough not to have their capital sitting in Greek banks or bonds; and a much larger mass of poor and middle class people whose ability to survive in this overburdened welfare state is being degraded daily by the depredations of the mob.
To anyone with a crude understanding of math, it is not hard to see that the mild retrenchments being proposed by the Greek government, and so strenuously opposed by the mob, are hardly sufficient to stem the tide of bankruptcy bearing down on the Greek nation. Nor is it hard to see that much of the rest of Europe, including Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and even Great Britain, are poised on the edge of the same slippery slope. All of them live well beyond their means. And the recent British election was distinquished more than anything else by the refusal of any party to acknowledge let alone address the looming bankruptcy of the nation which only 100 years ago ruled the world.
Under our own fearless, feckless President, our gigantic Federal, State and municipal deficits will shortly bring us to the edge of this same abyss. Our point is simply to watch how the play unfolds: in our humble opinion, as Greece goes, so goes Europe, and eventually the US, unless a draconian retrenchment is achieved.
Publius
There is so much gobbledegook floating through the air about Goldman Sachs it seems impossible to understand how they make money, whether the firm helps or hinders the US economy and whether the Dodd bill will assist or impede them in going about their business.
Arguments from the left can pretty much be distilled down to “Business Bad, Regulation Good.” Under this formula anything with a “reform” label on it must be passed. If it’s got 1300 pages, we can read it later to figure out what it does. For now – just pass it. You can also take arguments coming from the right and boil them down pretty much to “Business good, regulation bad.” This is an equally useless guide to understanding what should be done. As for the Dodd bill itself, if you want to know whether it will help or hinder Goldman Sachs, look no further than the Goldman stock price. While it has taken a hit lately because of SEC charges brought against the firm earlier this month, it closed yesterday at $153.02. That’s up from $47 a share in November of 2008. They’re doing okay, considering the US is going through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. So it would appear investors, at least, do not regard the Dodd bill as much of a hindrance to the firm.
As to whether or not new financial regulation is needed - we believe it is. However, you won’t find much of what is needed in the Dodd bill. On the contrary the Dodd bill in its present form is more likely to cement Goldman’s status as the premier investment bank in the world with a permanent advantage in cost of capital, and with the US taxpayer as underwriter of last resort. Claims to the contrary by Senator Dodd and President Obama are a wonderfully impressive version of three card monte. We will examine the basis for this assertion in future Goldman posts.
Before deciding what is to be done about Goldman, consider one fact which has not, so far as we know, been noted. Take as a point of reference, Goldman Sachs employment (30,522) and total compensation to employees ($20,200,000,000) in 2007, a good year for the firm. Using the closest numbers we can find for nonfarm employment (March, 2009) and median per capita income by state (2006), compensation to Goldman Sachs employees exceeded the total earnings of all nonfarm employees in each of ten states including Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Hawaii, Montana, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming.
This means the economic value of Goldman exceeds the economic value of what all nonfarm employees in each of the ten smallest states do. So who do your Representatives and Senators work for? And why is Senator Schumer so quiet these days? And remember, Goldman compensation in 2007 or any other year is after all expenses including lobbying have been deducted. That is power - largely untrammeled power. And the fairy dust blown around on all sides serves wonderfully to hide this raw power from view.
Publius
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