Reality Check

So… I’m still in a bit of a funk today. I’m having the hardest of hard times coming to grips with the reality of the nation’s political situation, truth be told. Here’s part of an e-mail exchange I had with SN1 earlier today:

Me: So... here I am, waiting for the coffee pot to finish its magic. Yesterday was SUCH a strange day. I was up until 0400 yesterday morning, watching all the election returns (Missouri and N. Carolina still "too close to call" as I write), and up again just after noon. When I say "strange," I mean the feeling I get whenever I see The One's smiling face and hear people refer to him as "President-elect Obama." I've even said "President Obama" out loud a couple of times and it simply doesn't work for me. At all. I'm still in something akin to a mild state of shock. In my heart I knew McCain would lose, but the reality is very hard to accept.



What's the temp like among the troops? Most of the milbloggers I read have the typical military attitude... Obama will be the CinC, and that's that. Salute smartly and move on...

SN1: As for the local mood regarding the election…you hit it spot on. Here’s an excerpt from an email I wrote the kids:

Ok...now that the initial shock has worn off...

The beauty of our country is our ability to have an election, peacefully transfer the greatest power on the planet, and press on with our lives.

We'll be ok. I don't agree with the man on a lot of things...but he'll be the president and I'll support him, because he is our nation's leader. That's what we in the military do...we follow our leaders.

So you nailed my sentiments…and those of most around here…right on. I’m having a hard time imagining him as the CinC as well…I really don’t want to retire while he’s in office…another reason to stay in…

I’ve noticed in my ramblings around the ‘net… through the (primarily military) blogosphere… that the above opinions are nearly universal, and that comes as NO surprise to me. As SN1 stated… “that’s what we in the military do… we follow our leaders.” The key point is left unsaid, of course. But, just to clarify for readers of little or no military experience, there are two salient points in play here.

First and foremost: everyone who puts on the uniform of our country swears an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” and “I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me” (there are minor differences between officer and enlisted oaths, but let us not quibble over details). I cannot over-emphasize the importance of this oath, as it ends with the words “So help me God.” You swear the oath, you make a commitment in the presence of the Deity and invoke His help. This is NO small thing. It’s the very essence of what it means to be in the military and that essence remains a part of you as long as you live. Or it should, at any rate. There are always a few outliers.

Point Two: The President of the United States isn’t the President of the Democrat/Republican/What Have You Party… he’s the President of the United States, duly and lawfully elected to that office by the people. As such, the incumbent is OUR president, and that’s no small matter, either. I could launch a huge tangential rant about how annoyed I was with the Left for failing to realize this fact over the course of the last few years, but I’m sure you know where I’m coming from, Gentle Reader. And I flat REFUSE to become the right-wing equivalent of a moonbat by saying shit like “Obama isn’t MY president.” The people have spoken, for better or worse, and we’ll have another go at this four years on. In the meantime… I suggest any malcontents out there suck it up and get with the program. Otherwise? Vote with your feet. There are airplanes departing these shores every single day. Get on one and be gone, as you obviously don’t “get” what this country is all about. I’ll end this part of the rant right here… or, ‘nuff said.

One last point… I agree with what Cassie has to say on this subject:

It remains for us now to find a way to reconcile our political differences, for despite the rhetoric of hope and change our differences are stark and will not give way to the fuzzy talk that wins votes. This will require grace and magnanimity from the victors as well as restraint and willingness to forget old grudges from the losers in this contest. We need not forebear to criticize, but we should never undermine policy once Mr. Obama takes his oath in January.

And above all, let us respect the dignity of the office of the President. He has earned it by dint of the campaign he ran, as well as by virtue of the thousands of votes cast for him. It is well that there will be no unseemly haggling over the vote counts, as happened in 2000 and 2004. This has been a long contest and with two wars going on and an economic turndown to deal with, our energies will be best directed to the conversation about the America we want to leave for our children and grandchildren.

The good news is that we all still have a voice in that America. Let's roll our sleeves up and make it a better place.

What she said.

(Image from The Wiki)

A Couple of Political Items...

As if we needed yet another reason to NOT vote for The One… along comes the WSJ with this op-ed (Will Obama Gut Defense?... Capitol Hill Democrats want to target the Pentagon). The lede grafs:

Barney Frank will not soon be named secretary of defense or, insha'Allah, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. So there's really no reason to fear that his recent call to cut defense spending by 25% is a harbinger of what to expect in an Obama administration.

Then again, maybe there is.

When it comes to defense, there are two Barack Obamas in this race. There is the candidate who insists, as he did last year in an article in Foreign Affairs, that "a strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace"; pledges to increase the size of our ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines while providing them with "first-rate equipment, armor, incentives and training"; and seems to be as gung-ho for a surge in Afghanistan as he was opposed to the one in Iraq.

And then there is the candidate who early this year recorded an ad for Caucus for Priorities, a far-left outfit that wants to cut 15% of the Pentagon's budget in favor of "education, healthcare, job training, alternative energy development, world hunger [and] deficit reduction."

"Thanks so much for the Caucus for Priorities for the great work you've been doing," says Mr. Obama in the ad, before promising to "cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending . . . slow our development of future combat systems . . . not develop new nuclear weapons."

Joe Biden also cut an ad for the group that was even more emphatic: "I'll tell you what we cannot afford . . . a trillion-dollar commitment to 'Star Wars,' new nuclear weapons, a thousand-ship Navy, the F-22 Raptor."

MY emphasis is on Ol’ Joe’s comments in that last paragraph. The National Missile Defense program has made some impressive progress over the course of the last few years, the Airborne Laser is in the flight testing stage of its development as we speak, and the Navy’s AEGIS/Standard Missile system proved it’s worth earlier this year. And that’s just one item on Ol’ Joe’s hit-list. Frequent readers of EIP should know how I feel about the Raptor, given as how the F-22 is something of a recurring theme for bitch-moan-and-complain posts in these parts.

As a military “survivor” of the Carter years I know only too well the negative effects of active cuts in the defense budget. Other, more recent veterans can attest to the impact “benign neglect” can have on national defense, as well… think Clinton, if you will. So… there’s ample reason and precedent for worry should the Democrats win the White House AND working majorities in Congress… not to mention the Democrat candidates’ own words in this space. As I said in the opening paragraph of this post: yet another reason not to vote for The One.

But Hey! What the Hell do I know, anyway? Well… it seems I know a little more than Joe Biden, if nothing else.

―:☺:―

I find I’m a little bit out of it when it comes to politics, of late. A great good deal of my disinterest has to do with the fact the election is over for me. I cast MY ballot last week and I’ve done all I can do… personally… to affect the outcome. So my mindset is “let’s just get this shi’ite OVER with, if you please.” The sooner, the better. Just one more week and then it’ll either be cryin’ time or slack-jaw amazement at one of the greatest comebacks in American political history. I’m still holding out hope for the latter, ya know.

Speaking of politics… Blog-Bud Phlegmmy has come up with her very own and oh-so-unique way of harvesting Presidential Timber from the political forest, and calls it “The Toothpick Test.” Her first installment is here, the second is here. Here’s a sample, just to whet your appetite, Gentle Reader:

Some have expressed surprise at the elevation here of toothpick to political barometer, but it is indeed a very humble and yet marvelous device on closer examination. Let us consider the lowly toothpick which has been with us as long as the domesticated feline. Paleontologists have found scrapings on the teeth of neanderthals, which would seem to indicate that the dilemma of dislodging chunks of meat and veg from the grille predates such modern fancy grooming niceties as Dippity-Do, eyelash curlers and banana clips.

Picture the poor average guy (Joe the Caveman) out dragging his knuckles around just for giggles, hoping one day his descendents will quit inbreeding long enough to vote republican, except that he can't quite concentrate on such abstract concepts because he's got a bit of wolverine rib meat stuck between his molars. Ouch! Perhaps Joe picked the spine from an obliging nettle or succulent, and thus was the first toothpick born.

Phlegmmy’s on-going series is the brightest spot in what has become a dark, dark political scenario… she’s both enlightening and entertaining, to say the VERY least… with Art!

Do go…

On Joe

So… like many others around the Right-O-Sphere and elsewhere I’m simply appalled at the way the Left-O-Sphere and the MSM have slimed Joe Wurzelbacher, aka “Joe the Plumber.” Jeez… the sheer temerity of this guy, questioning The One, and worse yet… disagreeing with him. You can’t DO that… this is a Brave NEW America! About which, a short video from Fox News Channel:

Regarding that “elsewhere” link, above. This is an excerpt from that link (Jules Crittenden, writing on his blog):

Now they’re investigating the “I am Joe” crowd. CBS:

The Republican National Committee is sending around this Associated Press photo of overall-clad McCain supporters standing outside an Obama rally, clutching plungers and a sign proclaiming “I Am Joe The Plumber”:

The only problem? At least two of the members aren’t quite as similar to the newly famous Joe Wurzelbacher as they might like you to think. As CBS News’ Maria Gavrilovic, who is traveling with the Obama campaign, reports, the man on the right does say he’s an actual plumber – though he is from Melbourne, Australia, and will thus not be casting a vote this November.

And the man on the left, plunger thrust high in the air, is Charlie Smith – the National Chairman of the College Republicans.

Yeah, well maybe it isn’t that they actually are Joe, but that they’re expressing an affinity with Joeness, you morons. Hard to grasp, I know, after all the energy that’s been put into explaining how sitting on boards with people, kicking off campaigns in their living rooms, sitting in their pews for 20 years, doesn’t make you an America-hating, ex-terrorist-palsing bigot or give you any affinity for them.

There’s much more, and here’s the link again. You should go read, if you haven’t already.

Further: Here’s David Burge (aka Iowahawk) on the subject, deviating from his usual and inimitable satirical take on things political:

First, a pre-emptive apology for the intentional non-humor to follow. I promise that all future non-humor will be strictly unintentional.

We've all witnessed a lot of insanity in American politics over the last few years. Up until the last few days, none of it has seriously bothered me; hey, just more grist for the satire mill. But after witnessing the media's blitzkreig on Joe 'the Plumber' Wurzelbacher, I can only muster anger, and no small amount of fear.

Politicians -- Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, et al. -- obviously have to put up with some rude, nasty shit, but it's right there in the jobs description. Joe the Plumber is different. He was a guy tossing a football with his kid in the front yard of his $125,000 house when a politician picked him out as a prop for a 30 second newsbite for the cable news cameras. Joe simply had the temerity to speak truth (or, if you prefer, an uninformed opinion) to power, for which the politico-media axis apparently determined that he must be humiliated, harassed, smashed, destroyed. The viciousness and glee with which they set about the task ought to concern anyone who still cares about citizen participation, and freedom of speech, and all that old crap they taught in Civics class before politics turned into Narrative Deathrace 3000, and Web 2.0 turned into Berlin 1932.0.

Godwin's Law! you say? if the jackboot fits, wear it.

If it's meta-memes and meta-meta-narratives these media headlice want, so be it. I hope you will join me in expressing a simple bit of solidarity with this guy, Spartacus style. I AM JOE. I am a Wal Mart schlub in flyover country who changes my own oil and unclogs drains without a license. I smoke and drink beer and toss the football in the front yard with my kid, and I figure I can fend my way without handouts from some Magic Messiah's candy bags. Most everyone in my family and most everyone I grew up with is another Joe, and if you screw with them, you screw with me.

Are you a Joe? Say it proud. Leave it on every goddamn newspaper comment section and online forum. Let these pressroom and online thugs know you won't stay silent when they try to destroy the life of a private citizen for speaking his mind -- because for every one of them, there are a million Joe Wurzelbachers. And for that we should all be thankful.

Dang. What he SAID! Mr. Burge also included a link to the graphic displayed at the top of this post… suitable for insertion in your sidebar, if you have a blog. I’m just gonna include it here… coz my sidebar leaves NO doubt as to who I support and what I think of The One… and his policies. With any luck this whole “Joe” flap might be the event that allows Senator McCain to turn the corner. One can always hope…

And now… it’s Saturday, so it’s All Football, All The Time. For the rest of the day and well into the night.

Joe's 15 Minutes

Via Blog-Bud Phlegmmy:

The man does make sense, doesn’t he? I’m bettin’ The One wishes he’d NEVER had that conversation out on the trail, eh?

While we’re on the subject of last evening… however indirectly it might be… I think Senator McCain scored a thin win last night, on points. But I also believe his (McCain’s) performance was/is too late to change anything, as the “undecideds” are largely a myth at this point in time. In other words… if I were a Lefty I’d be telling anyone/everyone who would listen that I’ll be off to Canada pretty soon (think: Dubya/2004). But I’m NOT a Lefty, and I intend to stay right where I am, thankyouverymuch. The Republic will survive an Obama presidency… maybe even in a form we’ll recognize, four years on. I’m hopeful.

Oh yeah… I should ALSO add I’m not giving up. Stranger things have happened in American politics than a McCain win, ya know.

Frontline

The biggest complaint from most of us who oppose The One is his demonstrable lack of experience, his opaque track record, and the fact he seemingly hasn’t done anything of consequence during his four years in the Senate — and that would be the US Senate, not the Illinois State House. Well… it’s come to light that this didn’t just happen, it’s by design. Here’s Tom Daschle, speaking about His Boy Barack:

In 2006 ... he talks to you about the possibility of running for the presidency. What do you tell him?

I tell him he should do it. We went to my favorite restaurant and took the kitchen table in the back where nobody could see us. We had a bottle of wine and a great meal and what was supposed to be a conversation that lasted about an hour I think went over three.

And during that time I told him that I thought his lack of Washington experience was one of his greatest assets. And I argued that windows of opportunity for running for the presidency close quickly. And that he shouldn't assume, if he passes up this window, that there will be another. I had that experience, and I wouldn't want him to see the same thing happen to him.

Why the 2008 window for Obama?

I think the window is important for a couple of reasons. One, it was an open opportunity -- that is, he wasn't running against an incumbent; and secondly, because the longer he's in Washington, the more history he has, and the more history he has, the more he's going to be explaining his votes and his actions and his statements and his positions that undermine his message. His message is one of change, his message is one of new direction, and it's harder to do that after you've been in Washington for a long time.

The passages above were taken from the PBS/Frontline web site, specifically from the text of the interview with former senator Daschle. The web site is an adjunct to the Frontline program “The Choice 2008,” a two-hour show that ran last evening. I watched the whole thing and was more than a little surprised at the even-handedness and objectivity of the program. Frontline tends to have a decidedly Left point of view, and I expected the program to be a puff-piece for The One. And it wasn’t… much to my surprise.

But… back to the main point. There was also another interview during the program last evening where a Talking Head claimed a conscious decision was made by Obama and his staff to keep the junior Senator from Illinois away from any and all issues that might be the least little bit controversial. I looked high and low for that quote, but it’s either been edited out of the interviews, or eliminated entirely. But… the point remains: The One’s track record is thin, by design. I find that particularly troubling.

I really liked “The Choice 2008.” Frontline usually re-runs its Tuesday show on Thursday evenings (in my market, anyway) and oftentimes again on Saturday. I heartily recommend watching the show if you haven’t made up your mind about who you’ll vote for on November 4^th. MY mind has been made up for months now, and I think it’s a testimony to the quality of the Frontline presentation that I felt my decision was reinforced by watching that show. In other words, Frontline’s “The Choice 2008” validated my judgment… and that’s no small feat for a bunch of left-wing documentary producers. You can also watch the program in its entirety on the web site… but I don’t know anyone who has the patience to watch two hours of teevee on a computer screen. I certainly don’t, but your mileage may vary.

The Winter of Our My Discontent

So… today is the season's first “heating day” here on The High Plains of New Mexico. It was 44 degrees when I awoke this morning (I use the term “morning” quite loosely) and it’s supposed to hit a high of 58. I don’t think we’re gonna make that, but I could be wrong. It’s been known to happen. One thing I DO know: no beer and cigars on the verandah today. Nosiree, Bob.

―:☺:―

I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in my life, as noted above, but it appears I wasn’t wrong about the McCain campaign. Here’s Bill Kristol, writing in yesterday’s NYT (“Fire the Campaign”):

It’s time for John McCain to fire his campaign.

He has nothing to lose. His campaign is totally overmatched by Obama’s. The Obama team is well organized, flush with resources, and the candidate and the campaign are in sync. The McCain campaign, once merely problematic, is now close to being out-and-out dysfunctional. Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic. If the race continues over the next three weeks to be a conventional one, McCain is doomed.

He may be anyway. Bush is unpopular. The media is hostile. The financial meltdown has made things tougher. Maybe the situation is hopeless — and if it is, then nothing McCain or his campaign does matters.

But I’m not convinced by such claims of inevitability. McCain isn’t Bush. The media isn’t all-powerful. And the economic crisis still presents an opportunity to show leadership.

Mr. Kristol goes on to lay out a roadmap of sorts for a McCain recovery and come-from-behind win. It’s really late in the game for Mr. Kristol’s prescription (or anyone else’s, for that matter) to work, but God knows the current campaign isn’t working… at all.

I was looking for the transcript of yesterday’s Fox News Sunday panel discussion, in which Mr. Kristol gave the closing remarks… all about the sorry state of the McCain campaign. Those remarks were short and to the point, whereas Mr. Kristol’s op-ed in the NYT tends to wander a bit. But the op-ed will have to do, in the absence of a published FNS transcript. I’ll keep watching for those remarks and will post them when and if they become available.

In the same vein (kinda-sorta), here’s Victor Davis Hanson, writing at Real Clear Politics (“Jumping Ship…”):

Obama, as I have said ad nauseam, has brilliantly prepped the battlefield to such a degree that a Farrakhan endorsement or surrogates calling Palin a quasi-Nazi or a bimbo, or smearing McCain as near senile is irrelevant; yet one screamer in a crowd of tens of thousands is proof of McCain's and Palin's racism and hatred.

Again, most conservatives know this paradox, but for some being outraged, as the conservative voice of reason, at McCain's supposed low road ensures a CNN spot, or some future rehabilitation during the expected Obama regnum of the next eight years. I think should I write a column suddenly taking the "high road", praising Obama's wit, taste in books, and metrosexuality, I would be dubbed principled rather than cynical, 'even-handed' rather than self-serving, and a maverick rather than toadish.

Yet for a self-acclaimed conservative to vote Obama would mean that higher taxes, larger government, more entitlements, more of a UN-centered foreign policy, dialogue with an Iran, less coal, oil, and nuclear energy production at home, more "oppression" studies and "reparations", leftish Supreme Court judges, open borders (I could go on) were the truly conservative positions, or perhaps suddenly truly the 'right' positions. And as far as ethics go, in fact, a cursory review of the past Obama campaigns would reveal a ruthlessness never seen in any of McCain's efforts. Obama's record is far more left than McCain's is far right. Obama the healer has proven to be the most partisan in the Senate, McCain one of the most bipartisan.

The foregoing isn’t so much a treatise on the failures of the McCain campaign as it is a warning to conservatives who have jumped ship for The One. Yeah… I’m looking at you, Doc and Barry. Just imagine… for a moment… The One, Pelosi, and Reid discussing tax policy over dinner, mmm-kay? Or, Hell… discussing anything else of import for the nation, for that matter. That doesn't scare ya?

―:☺:―

Good news… the Dow Jones Industrials are up 700 points or so about a half hour away from the market close; the other indices are also up. So, we’re spared a ninth consecutive down day on Wall Street. We certainly needed a breather, eh?

―:☺:―

And finally… a new, self-explanatory, tongue-in-cheek video of that ol’ ‘80s hit “Take on Me” has surfaced and is making the rounds of these here inter-tubes. It’s pretty cute, so I thought I’d pass it on. Me and about 379 other people, according to ViralVids. Here we go…

Pretty good, innit?

A Rational Defense of HopeyChange... and a Rebuttal, of Sorts

Blog-Bud Doc put up a thoughtful post earlier this week entitled “Why I’m Leaning Toward Obama.” His very first line is this:

“Leaning, mind you. Much can change in the next few weeks.”

And then Doc launches into a well-reasoned explanation for his leanings, which basically involve contrasting Senator McCain’s character with that of Senator Obama’s. And Doc obviously finds flaws with Senator McCain, or rather with Senator McCain’s campaign, and to a much greater extent, some of Senator McCain’s idiot supporters… the sort of people who send out idiotic rants like this in the hope of swaying opinion.

(Short parenthetical digression: people who send out videos like the one at the link aren’t so much McCain supporters as they are Obama haters… and there are a LOT of haters out there, sad to say. I’ve noticed there’s a tremendous amount of bad information — which is to say info that is factually inaccurate or outright lies, as in the “Obama is a Muslim” meme — being circulated via e-mail, and I’ve received way too much of it. But the point is… the “hate” stuff is out there and it’s having a NEGATIVE effect on some of the undecideds.)

This, I suppose, plays into my point that McCain is running a very inept campaign. I’ve not articulated that point in a main blog-post here at EIP, but I’ve left comments to that effect in my friends’ blogs when the subject comes up. One such comment:

I'm of the opinion that the McCain campaign has been... to date... one of the most inept, tone-deaf, and incompetent presidential campaigns... ever. One expects this sort of thing from the Dems (witness: Dukakis and Kerry), but from the GOP? McCain's descent into faux populism ("Greed and corruption on Wall Street!") turns my stomach, and the "handling" of Palin has simply been a disaster... of incredible and potentially devastating proportions.

I'm thinking it's too late to save it, but I HOPE to God I'm wrong.

So. Back to Doc. If I’m reading him correctly, Doc believes Obama has run a more principled campaign while McCain has opted for traditional mud-slinging. Or… McCain is doing the classic “whatever it takes” maneuver so common to our politicians (especially when they fall behind), thereby sacrificing his principles. Doc does have a point with the direction he’s taking here, and that point is “character matters,” where the tone of a campaign is concerned. This is something of an explanation as to why otherwise rational people might choose to vote for The One. I’m sensing there’s a lot of disgust over the state of our political process, but I’m of the opinion that The One is most certainly NOT the answer. But to give the Devil his due, Obama has played this discontent like a freakin’ Stradivarius. And McCain has not.

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over… and The Fat Lady ain’t gonna sing until the wee small hours of November 5^th. Doc, in closing to this particular post, makes the point that American politics has (seemingly) always been about choosing the lesser of two evils. I’ll agree with that. You have to go back to Reagan to find an example of someone worth voting for, rather than someone to vote against. But… that said, McCain is the lesser of two evils in this election cycle, which is obviously one of the more important elections of our time. The One is just be SO wrong and SO detrimental to the success and prosperity of America it’s scary.

Your mileage may vary. But I hope not.

(Image from NY Magazine)

An Economic Idiot Discusses Economics

… and that economic idiot would be me, Gentle Reader. But I’ve come across a few articles that seem to be written in layman’s terms, all of which make sense to me. “Sorta,” he said… contradicting himself. YMMV, of course… but… read on.

―:☺:―

We’ve been subjected to a lot of negative reporting and Gloom ‘N’ Doom missives on the state of our economy over the past week or so, but there IS one person who has a kind word for the American economy: Irwin Kellner, writing in MarketWatch (“Don't call it a bailout. Or a depression.Commentary: The nattering nabobs of negativism have it wrong. Here's why…”) Excerpt:

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) -- We are nowhere near a depression, so let's stop talking ourselves into one.

Spiro Agnew's words of the Nixon era ring true today. The politicians, pundits and, yes, the press, are nattering nabobs of negativism.

[…]

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying things aren't serious out there, but another Great Depression? I don't think so.

· If you look at the data, you will see more differences than similarities between the 1930s and today:

· In the crash of 1929 the Dow Jones industrials plunged 40% in two months; this time around it has taken a year to fall 22%.

· The jobless rate jumped to 25% by 1933; it is little more than 6% today.

· The gross domestic product shrank by 25% during the early 1930s; it is up over 3% during the past year.

· Consumer prices fell by about 30% from 1929 to 1933; and the last time I looked they were still rising.

· Home prices dropped more than 30% during the Depression vs. about 16% today.

· Some 40% of all mortgages were delinquent by 1934 compared with 4% today.

· In the 1930s, more than 9,000 banks failed compared with fewer than 20 over the past couple of years.

There is a bit of a flaw in Mr. Kellner’s reasoning from my point of view. He makes an historical leap from the crash of 1929 to quote facts and figures from 1933. Which is sorta like trying to visualize what our GDP, unemployment figures, and foreclosure rates would be in 2012, if one believes the economy is going to tank based upon our sub-prime mortgage-cum-credit crisis. Still and even, I do think Mr. Kellner makes a good point, and that point is we shouldn’t try to talk ourselves into another Great Depression. I agree with Senator McCain: the American economy is fundamentally strong. Our system encourages entrepreneurship, our productivity is high, inflation and unemployment are low (for the moment, anyway), and we still lead the world in areas where it matters… like information technology, aerospace, and pharmaceuticals, just to name three industries.

So: Don’t panic. Let’s just fix it and get back to business.

―:☺:―

Further on the subject of “Fixing It”… Here’s Joseph Calhoun, writing at Real Clear Politics (“In Times of Crisis, Trust Capitalism”). Excerpts:

The US government is executing a coup d’etat of capitalism and I fear that we will pay the price for many years to come. Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke and a host of others tell us the credit market is not working and the only way to get it working again is for the government to intervene. They claim this intervention is urgently needed and if we don’t act, the consequences are dire. Dire, as in New Depression dire. Have these supposed experts on capitalism forgotten how it really works?

Last week Goldman Sachs raised $10 billion in new capital in one day. They sold $5 billion in preferred stock and warrants to Berkshire Hathaway and also completed a secondary offering of common stock that raised another $5 billion. Friday, JP Morgan raised $10 billion in a secondary offering to help pay for the Washington Mutual takeunder. Both of these offerings were oversubscribed, meaning that the companies could have raised more capital if they wanted. There is not a shortage of capital for well run financial companies.

There is, however, a shortage of capital for companies that have acted irresponsibly with investor capital in the recent past. For some reason, our political leaders believe this is a failure of the market, but isn’t this what should be expected from rational investors? Given a choice, why would a rational investor allocate limited capital to the losers rather than the winners? If capital is really as scarce as it seems, isn’t it better for our economy if we make sure that it is allocated wisely?

[…]

Paulson has said that the cause of the current problems is the housing deflation, but that ignores the elephant in the living room. The housing bubble, which was concentrated in a relatively small number of states, was caused by the reckless actions of the Greenspan Fed. The consequences of that bubble have been exacerbated by the Bernanke Fed. The market is functioning as it should. It is the Fed that is not functioning correctly. There is no reason we had to go through either the bubble or the aftermath. We got into this mess because we tried to avoid the consequences of the Internet bubble. We will only make things worse by trying to avoid the consequences of the housing bubble.

We are not on the verge of a new depression. The housing bubble collapse in California, Florida and a few other states is not enough to bring down the entire banking system. Investors who made mistakes in these markets should be held responsible and those who navigated the Fed-distorted market should be rewarded for their wisdom and prudence. Enacting the Paulson plan will not allow that to happen and our economy will suffer for it in the long run. The Japanese tried to prop up failed banks in the aftermath of the bursting of their twin bubbles and the result was 15 years of stagnation. Why are we emulating a strategy that is a demonstrable failure? A better alternative would be to allow capitalism to work as it should and stop the interventions of the Fed in the money market. Trust capitalism. It works.

There’s an interesting and fairly lengthy discussion about the whys and wherefores of the current crisis in between the excerpts I’ve quoted, along with a prescription for solving the problem. I believe Mr. Calhoun is articulating (and quite well, at that) the reasons a large block of Republican members of the House oppose the current rescue/bail-out bill that will be voted on today. The passage of that bill is far from a done-deal, if one believes what one is hearing today. I’m beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of this “bail-out,” as currently written. But then again, I could stick everything I know about economics in my right eye and it wouldn’t even water…

―:☺:―

The Economist has an alternative POV on this subject, expressed in its op-ed “Unpleasant but essential.” Excerpts:

IT MUST be one of the most unpleasant laws that Congress has found itself writing so close to an election. Devoting $700 billion of taxpayers’ money to rescuing the country’s least popular industry is not a vote winner. That Democratic and Republican congressional leaders held their noses this weekend and came up with the Emergency Economic Stabilisation Act is encouraging evidence that they appreciate the gravity of the financial crisis. “This is something that all of us will swallow hard and go forward with,” John McCain said. Barack Obama added that “What we can't do is do nothing.”

[…]

By legislative standards Congress moved at light speed after Mr Paulson and Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, proposed action on September 18th. Yet it may not be fast enough. In the past week the financial crisis has erupted in even more dangerous forms globally. The interbank-funds market has seized up and even the most creditworthy corporate and financial firms are paying punitive rates. Last week Washington Mutual became the largest-ever American bank to fail. In Europe, three countries had to come to the rescue of Fortis, a Belgian banking group, and Britain did the same with a mortgage lender, Bradford & Bingley. And on Monday Citigroup agreed to buy most of the assets of Wachovia, another beleaguered American bank, in a deal brokered by regulators.

So… this isn’t just an American problem, it’s a global problem. And that makes it pretty damned serious, doesn’t it?

Aiiieee. My head hurts. But that’s what one should expect when an economic idiot tries to understand economics, innit?

Gray, Cool, and Blustery (The Weather... NOT Me)

I feel rather small complaining about our weather, what with Gustav bearing down on the long-suffering Gulf Coast (the link is time-sensitive and may not appear if you’re reading this on some day other than 8/31/2008). But… I will. Our weather on this last long weekend of summer has been something of a bust for P-Ville’s working folks. It doesn’t affect me all that much, coz one day’s pretty much the same as the next. I can take a blustery, gray, occasionally rainy, and relatively cool weekend in stride and defer any outdoor activities until the next sunny day… be it Tuesday, Thursday, or whenever. Not so for the average family. I remember all too well how disappointed we were when our parade got rained on… both literally and metaphorically. Rain, and its accompanying disappointment tends to be tempered by gratitude in these parts, however. Coz we just don’t get that much… so what we DO get is always greeted with Hosannas.

―:☺:―

I was amazed at the torrent of MSM articles and blog posts on Sarah Palin… and the fact that fully half the space on memeorandum’s page was all about Sarah yesterday. And it hasn’t let up all that much today. One of the better things I’ve read this weekend on the subject of Sarah came from Newt Gingrich, by way of Bill Kristol writing in the Weekly Standard’s blog (“Kristol: Gingrich on the Power of Authenticity”). Here’s an excerpt:

In one sudden moment Friday, John McCain fundamentally changed American politics in a manner that transcends issues and details.

The great threat to the Obama-Biden ticket can be captured in one word: authenticity.

There is something unaffected and "unsophisticated" (in the Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and University of Chicago meanings of the word) about Governor Palin. She really was point guard of a state championship basketball team. She really is a competent hunter. She is a hockey mom. She has one son about to go to Iraq.

She has 13 years in elected office

By any practical standard she has done far more in the real world with much more spontaneity and practicality than Barack Obama. And there is something deeply real and courageous about John McCain ignoring most of his advisers and all of the "insider wisdom" to reach out to a younger woman whose greatest characteristic is undaunted courage and a willingness to clean out the corruption in her own party.

This is a moment of stunning authenticity versus a sad collapse on the part of the Obama campaign from " change you can count on" to politics as usual, as marked by Obama's choice of a senator first elected when Palin was 9 years old.

Jennifer Rubin noted that Gingrich’s e-mails are better than most books. And she’s right. Go read Kristol/Gingrich… if you haven’t already.

It’s amazing… no, not really… how the Left is tying itself in knots trying to discredit Palin while mocking McCain’s choice as the act of a desperate pol whose campaign is going down the tubes. They can only wish. Well, Hell. Let’s review, shall we? It’s admittedly biased, but Redstate has a good post (“Tale of the Tape: Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama”) comparing Palin to The One. Wanna guess who wins and who loses?

―:☺:―

In other news… football season has begun! Yays! And there go my Saturdays from now until the end of November. It was just SO good to lay back yesterday and watch football ALL day. Even the weather cooperated, seeing as how it was better indoors than out. Which helps to mitigate the guilt, ya know. As if there were any…

About yesterday’s games: pretty predictable, except for Big Blue (and ‘Bama, too). As for the Maize and Blue… I’m thinking they should skip the first game of the season and just go directly to the second game on the schedule. Last year it was Appalachian State, this year it was Utah. Not a good beginning for new head coach Rich Rodriguez. But Hey! Everything will be cool if he beats Ohio State, coz that’s pretty much all that counts in Ann Arbor. BIG “if,” that.

As for me… I’m waiting for next week to see how the The Domers fare on their first outing. This year doesn’t look to be as intense as it usually is… what with only two pre-season Top 25 teams on the schedule. But they should do better than last year. (He said, whistling and looking skyward…)