Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, said Moscow was bidding to help lead efforts to build a new world economic order after the old system collapsed in the global financial crisis. Mr Medvedev said the renewed interest in Russia this year was a sign of a changing world in which the institutions of the western-dominated world order had had their day amid thousands of corporate defaults and the threat of sovereign defaults.
Medvedev said, “What had seemed untouchable has collapsed. The bubbles that created the illusion of flourishing economies have burst. And we should use it to build a modern, flourishing and strong Russia … which will be a co-founder of the new world economic order and a full participant in the collective political leadership of the post-crisis world.”
That’s just great. Russia is now vying to lead the world economy. Now, I’m not faulting Dmitry. I don’t fault ambition, ever. But I am going to do some “faulting” here. Here’s what I’m going to fault. Western Government, that’s what.

Two points to consider Dmitry. One, the free market didn’t fail. Two, Western Government failed. Yes, we are in a global recession. Yes, times have been tough.

But mind you Dmitry, the vast, vast, vast majority of failures have been directly tied to government. Let’s check it out. AIG? Credit default swaps unregulated by government, thank you Lindsey Grahm and President Clinton. Financial Crisis on Wall Street? Community Redevelopment Act, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, are the root causes. The auto industry? Government imposed café standards and unions. Steel Industry? Unions and regulation caused its demise. Real estate market crash? Again, Community Redevelopment Act, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Outlandish corporate risks gone bad? Enabled by government bail outs.

But the biggest failure? Government? Which one? Pick. U.S., Greece, Spain, Portugal, U.K., Ireland, Japan. Every one of them simply spent more than they took in and bankrupted themselves, except they don’t have to go bankrupt, they can tax. The problem is that when they tax they kill the host that their parasitic nature depends on. They kill the private sector which when you look at the portion of the private sector that is not tethered, buoyed or inflated by government, that portion is doing all right, even in these disastrous times. But even the portion of the private sector that isn’t attached to the wet teet of government will be crushed if government takes much more of the productivity.

And that’s the plan, to take more, to redistribute more, to further slash liberty to the bare. Every nation, every leader needs a kick in the head. They need to be forced to objectively review history and admit that they are wrong in their pursuits. They need to accept the fact that government, more often than not, is not the solution, it’s the problem. Government is unaccountable and suffers little consequence, thus they routinely fail as they are now. This isn’t new. This is the same old story.

Come on readers. How’s our government doing on the Gulf Oil Spill? How is our government doing on the illegal alien problem? Our government couldn’t even run Arlington National Cemetery correctly. If you didn’t see the news today, they found a pile of head stones in a creek bed and were recently found to be burying veterans on top of other veterans. It is rather ironic that our government can’t even manage to run a burial appropriately while at the same time, pushing us in a direction where it’s going to need it’s own burial. There’s more. Social Security? Bankrupt. Medicare? Bankrupt. Medicaid? Bankrupt. Our future, bankrupt. (If we don’t act fast). We have 113 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities crashing down on us. If we don’t change, we are dooming ourselves and our children and our children’s children. Shame on us.

Yet, I’ll give Dmitry this: He’s on the right track. He said this too: “Russia needs a real investment boom”, in order to achieve its modernization goals, he said. To stimulate that, Mr Medvedev announced Moscow would introduce zero taxation on capital gains for companies working on long-term investments starting from January next year and said Russia was improving the legal system to provide better protection for businesses against the long arm of bureaucracy.

Wow, we won the cold war only to be out libertied by the Ruskies! Now that’s down right embarrassing.

Wake up folks. Government is the problem. It’s a cancer, and it’s killing us. We need to get it under control. We need to shrink the tumor or learn to speak Russian or maybe Chinese.

That’s my Reetzality for the day.

Thanks for the read.

Brett Reetz

June 4 (Bloomberg) – President Barack Obama is poised to increase the U.S. debt to a level that exceeds the value of the nation’s annual economic output, a step toward what Bill Gross called a “debt super cycle.” Bill Gross is the co-chief investment officer and manager of the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co. said yesterday the unemployment rate may rise to 10 percent within the next several months with job growth “anemic.” “Over the long term, interest rates on government debt will likely have to rise to attract investors,” said Hiroki Shimaru, a market economist in Tokyo at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc., a unit of Japan’s third-largest publicly traded bank. “That will be a big burden on the government and the people.” (U.S.’s $13 Trillion Debt Poised to Overtake GDP: Chart of Day, by Garfield Reynolds and Wes Goodman, Bloomberg)

“The market was assuming that the private sector was coming back, but obviously we’ve seen none of that,” Gross said in a radio interview on Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Keene.
Geithner also singled out Europe as a region needing to push forward with financial regulation reform. “Further progress on financial repair is critical to global economic recovery,” he wrote. “This requires, particularly in parts of Europe, further efforts to restructure and recapitalize the banking system.” In the U.S., where personal savings is increasing and Congress is close to passing legislation overhauling financial rules, “we are meeting our responsibility,” Geithner told reporters in Washington June 2.

The savings rate in the U.S. climbed to 3.6 percent in April, the highest level since January, from 3.1 percent in March as incomes increased and purchases cooled, according to Commerce Department figures released May 29.

June 7 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. economy may be headed for a slowdown reminiscent of the one it suffered in 2002 as the sovereign-debt crisis in Europe, fading government support and persistently high Joblessness weigh on expansion in the second half of the year.
Economists have begun to lower their forecasts for the first time since the recovery began in the middle of 2009. Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics, and Michael Moran chief economist at Daiwa Capital Markets America in New York, said they now see annualized growth of 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent in July-December, down from around 3 percent previously. “The risks to the recovery are growing,” the New York- based Sinai said. “We’ve raised the odds of a double-dip recession to one in four from one in 20.”
“Markets had excessively bought into the possibility of a V-shaped rebound driven by a self-sustaining private-sector recovery,” Mohamed El-Erian chief executive officer of Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co., manager of the world’s largest bond fund, said in an e-mail. That view “is starting to be visibly and increasingly challenged by the multiplying facts and realities on the ground.” The latest came on June 4, when the Labor Department reported that private-sector employers added 41,000 jobs to their payrolls in May, down from 218,000 in April and well below the 180,000 median forecast by 35 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. While the unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent from 9.9 percent, it’s remained above 9 percent. (U.S. Rebound Seen Slowing Most Since 2002 on Europe Debt Woes by Rich Miller, Bloomberg)

O.K., ON TO REETZALITY. There’s the financial news of the day. The European Union is on the brink of failure, Greece has failed, Hungary is facing default, said Viktor Orban who then changed his tune when Hungary’s currency, the Forint fell 4.8% in two days, destroying his credibility. Portugal, Spain, England, Ireland and the United States are “coming on strong” in the race to fail. Things are not looking good folks no matter what President Obama says about the recent job growth which only included 41,000 private sector jobs which barely keeps up with population growth. (Either an amazing lie or an amazing ignorance on his part. New jobs are compared to increased population; thus true job growth requires an increase in the percentage of employed persons to the actual population to increase.) We are in trouble, big time.

Here’s why we are in trouble: Insane government policies of redistribution of wealth! Governments throughout the world have made endless commitments to take care of people and industries, addicting its masses to the government teet. In doing so, governments have thwarted individuals’ ability to take care of themselves. Governments have reared generations of dependents rather than independents. They have done so through liberal policies of government handouts to individuals, corporations and unions. They have taxed people, either directly or indirectly (see license fees, excessive regulation, hidden taxes, value added taxes, Obama care, etc.) and threaten to tax and regulate more (see EU meetings and listen to President Obama). They have taxed us to the point that we are now partial metaphorical slaves, handing over in some cases more than fifty percent of our productivity to government so they can redistribute it, take our earnings, our wealth, and giving it to somebody else. Now, the true private sector, the corporations not in bed with government, the traditional family, the small business, these entities are doing what they should be doing, and rightfully so; they are preparing for the worst part of the storm. Folks are saving more. Folks are not spending as much. Companies are not hiring. Folks will be leaving the equities market or hedging against the predicted and ominous free fall. The world economy is faultering. It is on the brink of disaster. Let me rephrase the last sentence. We are on the brink of accepting the reality that we are in a disaster. The disaster started a long time ago.

We will begin to see government pensions fail. As reported by David Cho, a Washington Post staff writer, October 11, 2009, “The financial crisis has blown a hole in the rosy forecasts of pension funds that cover teachers, police officers and other government employees, casting into doubt as never before whether these public systems will be able to keep their promises to future generations of retirees.” See also http://www.pensiontsunami.com/. The fact is, financially government pensions have already failed. They are broke because the governments that run them, federal, state and local, have not only taxed the private sector to pay for them, but then, in a way, double dipped and took, they call it borrowed, the pension reserves to again redistribute the wealth, the same actual wealth, a second time.

Government has anesthetized the private sector which is not the best metaphor because although the private sector is hunkering down, hibernating, it is doing so consciously as a defensive measure to governments’ reckless spend and tax policies.

Here’s more Reetzality, a prediction in part and also an observation. The private sector is going to decouple from the public sector. Decoupling is a financial term. Decoupling is a situation in which returns on two assets or asset classes that normally move together move separately. For example, oil and natural gas prices usually move together: when one goes up, so does the other, and vice versa. Likewise, stocks and corporate bonds usually behave the same way. Decoupling in both cases occurs when oil moves in one direction while natural gas moves in the opposite, or when stocks’ and corporate bonds’ returns diverge.

Unfortunately, but it’s the Reetzality for the day, the public and private sector are not asset classes in the literal sense. Therefore, I am opining on a more ominous decoupling. The private sector has lost all faith in the public sector. The true private sector, the portion that is not in bed with government, unlike Wall Street, the auto industry, unions, etc., is decoupling itself from the government. Folks are sheltering their productivity, not spending when the government attempts to get them to spend through faux stimulus plans, saving more, getting out of the market, working for cash, trading goods and services to avoid taxes and generally as stated previously, hunkering down for the worst of the storm. The private sector is decoupling.

Here’s the problem with that: As the governments’ reckless, disastrous and wrongful policies manifest in failure, as government workers (see Greece) protest the bankruptcy of their employers, the governments, governments will come for the private sectors money. Governments will hijack even more of the private sectors’ productivity. I’m not certain that the private sector will tolerate this ominous Reetzality. I am not suggesting that there will be an actual revolution. I am suggesting that the private sector will say that it has had enough and will civilly revolt through the vote, through increased frugality and through government avoidance policies. The private sector will say, “No thank you government, we’ve helped enough. Time for you to accept responsibility for yourself. Be sure to tell your people.”

And let me tell you this, the government will not like this one bit. The government will blame the private sector. The government will refuse to acknowledge the real crisis which is not financial, not health care, not energy, not private debt, not education, not hunger, not anything other than a single crisis that has a redundant history, a Government Crisis. (See Rome, Greece, U.S.S.R.) Until our “leaders” accept responsibility for their policies and turn to the dependents they’ve been spoiling for generations and tell their dependents that they can’t afford it anymore, times they are a changing, things won’t get better. And if they don’t? Well then my readers, history will repeat itself and we will have a comprehensive collapse of the world economy.

God save our Children.

That’s my Reetzality for the day.

Thanks for the read.

Brett Reetz

Note: Thank you Bloomberg for your resources. You are an honest news source indeed.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said Sunday that American, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, US Airways and JetBlue Airways each have committed to him that they would not institute fees for carry-on bags. He said he was hopeful other carriers would follow suit. Spirit airlines will charge fees for carry on baggage. Mr. Schumer said he planned to meet with the leadership of Spirit Airlines in the coming week. Mr. Schumer’s intention is to change Spirit’s mind. He will have an uphill battle. Ben Baldanza, Spirit’s president and CEO, told the Associated Press on Sunday that his airline still plans to go forward with its carry-on bag fee.

Good for Mr. Baldanza! The audacity of Senator Chuck Schumer to even think that somehow he as the authority to tell a private enterprise how much to charge is amazing, not to mention un-American. What are these Washingtonians thinking? Do they need a refresher course on free enterprise and liberty? They do. In fact a bunch of them need a refresher course, a “what for” in their faces. For example:

Representative Henry Waxman called upon the CEO’s of Verizon Communications, AT&T, Deere & Co. and Caterpiller to testify as to why they wrote internal memos to their employees describing how President Obama’s takeover of the health care industry will cost millions of dollars – billions in the case of AT&T. The non-political memos stated how their company’s would be affected by ObamaCare. The corporations that are under fire are required by law, the Security and Exchange Commission, to report this information.

President Obama, twelve days after being elected as President of the United States, was quoted to saying in a one-on-one television interview on 60 Minutes with Steve Kroft what he wanted to do for college football’s maligned championship game selection. Kroft asked “As president of the United States, what can you do, or what do you plan to do, about getting a college football playoff for the national championship?”

President Obama answered: “I think any sensible person would say that if you’ve got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season, and many of them have one loss or two losses, there’s no clear decisive winner that we should be creating a playoff system. Eight teams. That would be three rounds, to determine a national champion. It would it would add three extra weeks to the season. You could trim back on the regular season. I don’t know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So, I’m gonna throw my weight around a little bit. I think it’s the right thing to do.”

Senator Orin Hatch: The Obama administration and top Republican Orrin Hatch may become the driving force behind a legal move to force a college football playoff system.The AP says the Obama administration is considering several steps that would review the legality of the controversial Bowl Championship Series, the Justice Department said in a letter Friday to a senator who had asked for an antitrust review. In the letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch, obtained by The Associated Press, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote that the Justice Department is reviewing Hatch’s request and other materials to determine whether to open an investigation into whether the BCS violates anti-trust laws.

Of course, there’s AIG, General Motors, Chrylser, Obama-Care, and the new push, financial regulation. How convenient that the Justice Department filed a civil action against Goldman Sachs just days before Obama visists New York City to push financial reform.
Obama’s financial reform plan would create a new government body, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), which would “write rules, oversee compliance and address violations by non-bank providers (!), as well as banking institutions.” This agency would have to enforce its rules and would, according to the Obama design, be able to go after any firm that offers credit to consumers. Any firm! Obama’s plan would allow the CEO of the United States, him, to determine which company is “too big to fail.” His plan has a “back stop” for these firms. Government backstopping will allow these firms to be able to borrow at lower interest rates, just as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have for years. (the biggest failures and by coincidence the most protected by government, with no hope of paying us back) have for years. If a firm gets in trouble, wala! Uncle Sam steps in and controls. Uncle Sam loves to control as of late.

Here’s the problem with all of these control tactics. I thought this was the land of the free. Free to succeed, free to fail. I thought if a company charged too much, then the free market would judge. I thought if a group of universities wanted to structure their playoffs in a certain way, go for it, it’s a free country. I thought that if a CEO spoke out, especially if the speaking out was simply complying with the law, go for it Mr. CEO, he wouldn’t get subpoenaed to Congress to explain why he was dissenting. I thought a lot of things, but then the cancer called Washington, led by the ultimate government carcinogenic, Obama, grew malignant. Now I question my thoughts. All of these control tactics are ignorant and contemptuous of American principles, such as liberty, for one. Let’s face it folks, these guys in Washington don’t have a clue about what makes this country tick. They actually believe that it is they who make this country tick. They could not be more wrong. They are parasites and we are the host. They should know that the parasites future does not shine bright when they kill the hosts.

We need to fix this mess. We need to vote the bums out this year, all of them. We need to get to work.

That’s my Reetzality for the day.

Thanks for the read.

Brett Reetz

WASHINGTON — President Obama acknowledged the deep partisan divisions gripping Congress, but he urged Republican and Democratic leaders Tuesday to cooperate on legislation that creates jobs.

Amazing. Obama actually believes that Washington creates jobs. Techically it can create a job, meaning that Washington can spend money and create “a” job. However, also technically, it costs more jobs than the one created to create the government job. This truth is based upon the negative multiplier effect that government spending has, at best about a .8. I’ve gone through this before but I’ll go again, every dollar the government spends shrinks the economy by twenty cents. Thus, every job the government “creates” takes away more than one job in greater economy. It’s basic economics folks, proven over and over again in history.

And yet, Obama thinks the absence of bi-partisan cooperation is the cause for the shrinking job market. No Mr. Obama, you are once again wrong but you do have a great excuse given that you never worked in the private sector, never made a bottom line, let affirmative action rather than your ability lift you through life, and your “caused by others” narcisism. But, excuse or no excuse, you are still wrong. In fact, it is the opposite of what you are thinking. The absence of bipartisanship is saving jobs and serving, at least a little, as a sea anchor to the free fall of our economy. Those in the private sector (the ones that pay for your fantasies) are relieved that health care failed. They are relieved that cap and trade is a long shot. They are relieved that conservatives are likely to take back the house and senate in November. They are relieved but not thrilled. They are not thrilled because your plans and policies continue to loom on the horizon like a bad storm.

Mr. Obama I would strongly suggest that you open a lemonade stand and work it on weekends. I believe you will have time to do so since you don’t write or read the bills that you telemarket and infomercial. But in truth, it would serve you well to learn the basics of private enterprise and business and a lemonade stand is great start. You’ll have a bottom line, the cost of the stand, the lemonade, cups, and labor. You’ll have income from the sales. And if you do it right, you will learn that increasing costs decreases profitability. And that’s what your missing Mr. Obama. The agenda that you telemarket and infomercial sends the message that costs are going up, that government is going to be doing a lot more “taking.” In response to your messages, the private sector tightens its belt, stops spending, stops hiring, stops lending, stops risking. Picture you lemonade stand Mr. Obama. What if you we’re going to expand and build a second lemonade stand but lemons were going to be taxed? Further, what if the tax would increase the price and the increased price would decrease sales? Decreased sales would decrease income which would certainly decrease your appetite for expansion and risk. See my point Mr. Obama. You need to work in a lemonade stand. Working in a lemondae stand would educate you on why your agenda is so inconsistent with a growing economy. I swear, I’m serious. And don’t feel bad, all work is noble for the most part. I worked in one and taught me a ton about the realities of business and the economy. I think I was six years old when I learned it. It’s never too late to start Mr. Obama. Go for it. Get out there and sell some lemonade, learn the ropes of the private sector and then go back to your employer, us, and do the right thing based upon your new higher education. And indeed it is a higher education because it taught me way more than your “poison” Ivy league farce taught you.

You know what they say Mr. Obama, “If it rains lemons, make lemonade.” Go for it Obama. It will do us all a bunch of good.

That’s my Reetzality for the Day.

Thanks for the read.

Brett Reetz

Today, King Obama announced that he wants the government to finance a super cop that will regulate companies that are too big to fail. Hey pres! We already have anti-trust laws which could be used to stop companies from being too big to fail, if there even is such a thing as “too big to fail.” There isn’t. Unfortunately, the ultimate proof that nobody, no thing, is too big to fail might just be the impending failure of our country. And what is so bad about failure anyway? Our nation was built on the failure of the British Empire to rule us. England failed. America was born. Andrew Carnegie when asked “How do you double your success rate?” answered, “I quadruple my failure rate.” Here’s another one, a Reetzality: Do you know who never fails in their endeavors? People who don’t endeavor, that’s who. Behind every success is a series of failures. We learn from failure. Failure is a cleansing and educating event. Failure makes us stronger. However, Obama’s endeavor is not to prevent failure. His policies will cause a lot of failures. Obama’s endeavor is control and to get it, he’s throwing the very basis of our nation over board. Freedom is waning folks.

We claim to have a free market and mostly we do; for now. The basis of a free market is the ability to contract and rely that the law will enforce contracts. We rely on the law enforcing contracts, enforcing our agreements. Isn’t it childhood one-O-one to keep your word? Yes. No mas amigo. The Obama government might just prevent you from either keeping your word or relying on somebody else’s word. Let’s run down the list.

1. AIG-Obama wanted to take the bonuses back, ignoring contracts with the employees who received them. He wanted to force AIG to break its word.
2. Mortgages-Obama wanted bankruptcy judges to have the ability to reduce the amount of principle a person owed, ignoring the contract between the lender and the borrower. He wanted to force the borrowers to break their words.
3. General Motors-Obama had the CEO fired over ruling any agreement he had with his employer. He forced GM to break its word.
4. Obama has demanded legislation that imposes on credit card company’s ability to freely contract; taking away the ability to freely contract.
5. Chrysler. Obama forced a bankruptcy that over-ruled creditor’s rights, denied “preference” law, and gave the UAW an ownership interest. All of this is against the law, well unless we’re now operating under the King’s law which apparently a growing number of Americans are. You’ve heard the terms, “secured creditor” and “first in line?” For example, the mortgage on your home is both secured and first in line. By analogy to Obama’s Chrysler work, it would be like him telling your bank that you have to pay others off first when you sell your home and if there’s no money left for the bank, to bad-so sad. Do you think a bank would lend money if they weren’t assured of their security interest? Not a chance.
6. Troubled Asset Recovery Plan – Obama won’t even let recipients pay it back when they want to. Why? He can’t control them if they don’t owe him. Imagine having the freedom to pay debts taken away. You don’t have to imagine it. It’s happening.
7. Income-Obama wants caps on the amount a company can agree to pay a person. He’s done this on Wall Street already.

He is doing all of this as a tyrant, not a democratic leader. For example: Hear any complaints about the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac bonuses. Nope, those were fine with Obama even though he cannot reconcile his silence as to these bonuses with his position on the AIG bonuses. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the king’s friends. How about, the Chrysler Bankruptcy? He goes in there and dictates the outcome, shunning the law and the agreements between the players. And now he wants a super cop to regulate industry, to regulate freedom. He did so in a secret meeting where the officials requested anonymity because the meeting had not been publicly announced and they were not authorized to discuss it. Don’t believe me? See More Obama .  I am shocked to be writing about a secret government meeting regarding control of freedom in this country, shocked. This isn’t American. The best analogies I can come up with are the U.S.S.R., Nazi Germany, Venezuela, or China. It is isn’t transparent either Pres; definitely not transparent.

Not withstanding the ludicrousness of the government running a business, (I wouldn’t let those guys mow my lawn. They’d over charge, do a terrible job and probably never leave) its absolutely contradictory of what makes us a free country. Hey Pres! We are a country of laws and not men. Read your history.

But in the end, I don’t think it’s Obama doing this. Sorry Pres, I’ve seen your inability to speak without a teleprompter as well as, despite your affirmative action Harvard Law Degree, your complete ignorance of the law. Therefore, I have concluded, you are not smart enough to be such a tyrant. So who’s pulling your puppet strings. I’m not sure, maybe George Soros? Whoever it is, your puppet master reeks of something very dark and un-American.

That’s my Reetzality for the Day.

Brett Reetz

WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN NOW AND FOR THE SAKE OF OUR COUNTRY, DON’T VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT SUPPORTS KING OBAMA!