Doing away with independent Inspectors General? It certainly looks like it. The Washington Post has the story.
Obama has already run off three of them, illegally, of course. The guy in charge of "hope and change" turns out to be another corrupt Chicago pol. No surprise except to those who drank the Koolaid.
The South Plainsman
The Best of the Web with James Taranto follows up my initial question of the day about Honduras with one of his own.
After the following quote from Rosalinda Cruz, a Justice on the Honduran Supreme Court:
"The only thing the armed forces did was carry out an arrest order," Cruz, 55, said in a telephone interview from the capital, Tegucigalpa. "There's no doubt he was preparing his own coup by conspiring to shut down the congress and courts.",
he asks his own question:
Why won't Obama listen? Does he have something against wise Latina women?
My speculation is that Obama won't listen because he likes and feels close to leftist dictators.
The South Plainsman
The Telegraph in the UK is saying the "US is lurching toward a debt explosion with interest rates on course to double."
That is not particularly a new concept, but it is rare to see the media actually report it. Of course this is from the UK, so the US media is not implicated in telling a bad truth about the economy. That would reflect upon their Messiah, Mr. Obama.
They quote a paper from 2003 by the senior Economist at the Federal Reserve, Thomas Laubach. You can read the paper here.
Really, what it says is that the more the government borrows and spends, the higher the debt gets and the higher interest rates go. Who knew?
Actually, they just predict a doubling of interest rates. My view is that they are quite likely to go even higher. But it doesn't matter. Any higher will prolong recovery.
The conclusion of the story:
"Should the cost of raising or refinancing public debt in the markets double, “the debt could just explode”, he said, adding that it would come to a head in “five to 10 years”. "
Have I worn out the Banana Republic reference? Sorry, it just keeps coming to mind.
The South Plainsman
14% Unemployment? Surely not. But that is what Louis Woodhill is predicting over at Real Clear Markets.
But what about simulus? Well, he says it won't work:
""Stimulus" is based upon the superstition that government borrowing and spending creates "demand". In reality, it does no such thing. "Stimulus" is like trying to raise the level of the Hudson River by dipping out a bucket of water, walking five feet downstream, and pouring it back in. The only difference between the Bush and Obama plans is that Obama's bucket is bigger (and will create more debt). Ironically, the July 2 jobs report prompted calls from leftist economists for Obama to go back to the river with an even bigger bucket."
His conclusion:
"Virtually everything the Obama administration wants to do will have the effect of increasing unemployment. As bad as joblessness is now, be prepared for it to get much, much worse."
It is really that simple. Our problems are caused by too much government, too much spending and too much debt. Obama's main aims are to expand each of them as far as he can.
Anybody ever been broke before?
The South Plainsman
Correcting the President. Scott Ott, who writes some great satire at his site Scrappleface is now also blogging over at Townhall, seriously. He has a great piece posted on July 4 in response to Obama's invocation of the Founding Fathers this weekend to justify his programs. Go to the site for the whole thing, which is great. Here is the conclusion:
"Finally, Mr. President, the 13 colonies did not become free and independent states by confiscating wealth from the productive sector of society and doling it out to the unproductive sector in a way that guarantees the perpetual enslavement of both.
"This new nation, conceived in liberty, was brought forth by people who said 'Enough' to a tyrant who capriciously ruled from afar -- people who were willing to risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor that succeeding generations might live the freedom they bought with blood.
"Mr. President when you compare your socialized insurance program, your speculative wealth confiscation program or your Niagara Falls of spending with the endeavors of those bold patriots, you trivialize their sacrifice while you crown yourself with the Styrofoam diadem of a clown."
Well said.
The South Plainsman
California IOUs. According to the Financial Times, Wall Street is gearing up to trade in California's IOUs. And so are opportunistic entrepreneurs on Craigslist.
“If you are receiving a California IOU and you need cash immediately,
please contact me. I may be of assistance,” reads one posting."
How much are those things worth? Well, one guy wants to pay half price:
"Brandon Schlichter, a 23-year-old self-employed online marketer and blogger from
Columbus, Ohio, is among those advertising on Craigslist. He is hoping to buy
the IOUs for about half face value and has set up a website to connect buyers
and sellers for 5-10 per cent commission."
Will US Treasuries be next? Don't be so sure they won't if Obama and the liberals in Congress have their way.
Does the term "Banana Republic" ring a bell with anyone?
The South Plainsman
Robert McNamara has died. The Washington Post accurately calls him the "architect" of the Viet Nam War, which he was.
I have never understood why the voters blame the Republicans for the war when the Democrats started it, screwed it up royally, then did everything they could to undermine Republican effforts to end it honorably.
I guess if you have the press, fiction can become some version of truth. We are seeing more of that phenomenum every day.
The South Plainsman
Good news for coffee drinkers! From the University of South Florida:
"The new findings provide evidence that caffeine could be a viable 'treatment' for established Alzheimer's disease, and not simply a protective strategy," said lead author Gary Arendash, PhD, a USF neuroscientist with the Florida ADRC. "That's important because caffeine is a safe drug for most people, it easily enters the brain, and it appears to directly affect the disease process."
The whole story is here.
The South Plainsman
Ross Douthat writing in the New York Times, says Palin should have just said "no." I have to agree with that. She was not ready for prime time.
He goes on to point out that her popularity has as much to do with class as ideology
In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president
represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow
up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.
She probably never understood the wringer she would be put through for agreeing to run with McCain, until it happened. Woefully unprepared, she blew it. She "tarnished" the "democratic ideal."
But, he says, its also been tarnished by the elites themselves, including the media, by the way they have treated her. I have to agree that they went far overboard, and still are doing so. The purveyors of "hope and change" have continued with the same old gutter politics we have come to expect from them. They hate anyone that is not like them.
Shame.
The South Plainsman
Kevin Hasset over at Bloomberg says that California's nightmare will cause Obamanomics a lot of trouble.The California morass has Democrats in Washington trembling. The reason is simple. If Obama’s health-care plan passes, then we may well end up paying for it with federal slips of paper worth less than California’s. Obama has bet everything on passing health care this year. The publicity surrounding the California debt fiasco almost assures his resounding defeat.
The cause is simple, he says:
All that you need is two political parties that are always willing to offer easy government solutions for every need of the voters, but never willing to make the tough decisions necessary to finance the government largess that results. Voters will occasionally change their allegiance from one party to the other, but the bacchanal will continue regardless of the names on the office doors.
This sounds awfully familiar. In fact it seems like the pols in Washington have been doing the same thing for four decades.
The result will be the same, too. Busted!
The South Plainsman
Starting out the blogging day wondering why Obama is siding with the socialist/communist dictators in the Caribbean and South America, guys like Castro and Chavez, against the Congress and Supreme Court of Honduras, who removed the President thereof for having violated their constitution. Birds of a feather?
