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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.
Note: Thank you Bloomberg for your resources. You are an honest news source indeed.
WELCOME TO EUROPE! America has changed its course, perhaps forever. By PETE DU PONT
Late Sunday night America made its largest public-policy course change since the 1930s: Congress moved 17% of our national economy from the market place to full regulation and control by the federal government. The vote in the House was close, 219-212, but our country’s health care system will now be organized, operated and regulated by the federal government.
Tens of thousands of new employees, supervisors and investigators will be in charge of our health-care system’s day-to-day operations. And the Heritage Foundation estimates the original Senate bill will retard economic growth to the tune of 620,000 lost jobs.
Add to that the new income-tax increases that will soon be with us. The Bush tax-rate reductions expire at the end of this year, so that the top personal income tax rate will go from 35% to 39.6% and the dividend and capital gains tax rates will rise from 15% to 20%.
Then will come the ObamaCare tax increases. There will be a new 3.8% Medicare tax increase on investment incomes–interest, dividends, capital gains, annuities, royalties and rents–for individuals with annual adjusted gross incomes over $200,000. Those increased rates are estimated to reduce disposable income by $17.3 billion a year. A second Medicare tax increase will take 0.9% of upper-income workers’ earnings.
Soon the government will fully regulate health care. As The Wall Street Journal pointed out last weekend, “ObamaCare is really about who commands the country’s medical resources. It vastly accelerates the march towards a totally state driven system . . . [and] government rationing will become inevitable [while] . . . doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies will over time become public utilities.” Even worse, the government will begin to decide “what kind of treatment options patients are allowed to receive.”
And a Republican House Ways and Means Committee report estimated that 16,500 IRS agents will be employed to make sure that people sign up–and pay for–the health insurance they will be forced to purchase.
Consider the impact these policies will have on our country and all of us.
First, tax rates will continue to increase for most everyone as the federal government needs more revenue to cover ever-expanding expenditures. Economist Stephen Entin estimates that the investment taxes discussed above would depress gross domestic product by some 1.3%, reduce capital formation by 3.4%, and thus reduce the after-tax incomes of everyone not paying these taxes by perhaps 1.2%. In other words, federal taxes will rise and personal incomes will fall.
Second, our national debt will continue to mount. From about 1970 to 2008, the U.S. government debt was between 33% and 69% of GDP. The Obama administration projects the national debt will increase to 100% by 2012 and to over $25 trillion by 2020. This will result in fewer jobs and less income for many years as it suppresses our economy.
Third, the federal government’s massive interventions, from the General Motors bailout to a prospective cap-and-trade policy, command and control of national health care, and the large increases in the size and scope of government, will slow our growth and depress our economy even more.
Finally there comes the growing loss of trust in America’s government. We have seen the national disbelief in the huge government expansions, spending and control over our society. In the health-care debate people figured that the whole bill was some sort of scam to help senators and congressmen in their home districts. There was the Cornhusker Kickback for Nebraska, special dollars for Tennessee, North Dakota, Louisiana, Connecticut, and other states and districts.
As a result of last Sunday’s vote, the Europeanization of America is coming to pass, for individual choice and opportunity are being replaced by statism.
Contrast this new American policy direction with our country’s history, and it leads to an even worse conclusion. We held our country together in the Civil War, fought two wars in Europe to keep its nations free, won the Cold War, survived the social upheavals of the 1960s and the economic challenges of the ’70s, and built a greatly expanded American economy and opportunities in the 1980s.
But now, for the first time in our history, we are becoming just another European nation, with bigger government, higher taxes, more regulation of almost everything, and the basic public-policy preference that the government, not we the people, should be in charge of the nation’s choices.
So America has indeed changed, perhaps forever, as the White House and brazen congressional leadership nationalized 17% of our economy, replacing individual choices with governmental regulation. The sunset of the American belief in economic growth and individual choice and responsibility is now with us. If we do not change our course, that will be a shame.
That, thanks to Mr. Du Pont, is my Reetzality for the day.
Does Obama despise America? Now there’s a question worth asking. I didn’t vote for the guy but I had hope that he would prove me wrong and be a moderate, like Bill Clinton ended up being. He didn’t. Let’s do a run down on Obama’s policies and see if he likes this country or not.
1. Health Care. He is vigorously pushing health care reform which will embody the government controlling one sixth of our economy, taking away freedom and liberty. It will also embody the taking of one person’s productivity and giving it to another, the redistribution of wealth. It will, by rudimentary economics, impose rationing. It cripples the free market. Thus, health care reform, according to Obama, takes away freedom, liberty, choice, redistributes wealth, limits the freedom to take care of oneself by rationing, and cripples, retards, pick, the free market. The ruling? Obama Health care is un-American.
2. Taxation. Obama wants to raise taxes to further his agenda of redistributing wealth. The ruling? Again, un-American.
3. Immigration. Obama wants to legalize illegal aliens with no agenda to secure our borders. The ruling? Again, un-American.
4. Financial Industry. Obama wants to impose drastic regulatory regulation that will limit credit, impose costs on the industry that will not just trickle down, they will fall down on the regular Joe like a tidal wave, hurting the average American. The ruling? Un-American.
5. Privacy. Obama has continued the Bush doctrine of warrantless searches and is encouraging the government monitoring of the internet. The ruling? Un-American.
6. Foreign Affairs. He has spent more time apologizing for America than praising its excellence. The ruling? Un-American.
7. Economic Policy. Obama has used the “stimulus plan” to reward political allies. He has used the money, debt rather, to give back to those who supported him, meaning government employees, unions, and state bureaucracies (Government Universities). He has burdened our off spring with massive debt that, if they chose to stay and participate, will thwart our offspring’s freedom and prosperity. The ruling? Un-American.
8. Freedom of Speech. Obama favors the Fairness Doctrine which would mandate equal time for all views regardless of market forces and popularity. It would mandate that for every Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, there was an Al Franken on the air with equal time. The fairness doctrine would do this by taxing media and redistributing the resources to subsidize the contrary and opposite opinions. The ruling? Un-American.
9. Voting privacy. He favors “card check” which means that union votes would no longer be private. If you voted non-union, the union would know. His Attorney General dropped the suit against the Black Panthers for intimidating voters. The ruling? Un-American.
10. Free Market Principles. Obama has bailed out, taken over, GM and Chrysler. He has bailed out and taken over AIG. He is, through bail outs and regulation, attempting to take over the financial industry. He wants to publicize student loans, taking them out of the public sector. He believes that government is the only solution to our economic woes which were caused by government. He has expressed vitriolic contempt for the insurance industry which make less of a profit percentage than the top twenty-five industries. He loves Unions which fix prices and wrench power from the owners of businesses. The ruling? Un-American.
11. The Constitution. He himself said it was flawed in that it didn’t contemplate redistributive justice which, by the way, Mr. Constitutional Law professor, rocket scientist; redistributive justice contradicts the very core, the very fundamentals, of our constitution. The ruling? Un-American.
12. Fiscal Responsibility. Obama is making a drunken sailor look frugal. The ruling? Un-American.
13. The Second Amendment. Obama’s voting record and writings show that he is against the Second Amendment. The Ruling. Obama’s view on the Second Amendment is blatantly un-American. He fails.
Enough already. It took me all of five minutes to list the aforementioned un-American policies of Obama. Well, maybe eight minutes, but I can type as fast as I think which may be an indictment of my thinking rather than an accolade for my typing.
But let’s look at the core of an American and run Obama through this gauntlet. Here’s what I know Americans are: They are for independence. They are brave. They stand on their own. They are creative and innovative. They reject charity as a way of life. They are responsible. They are hard working. They are loyal to the Constitution. They are traditional. They are proud. O.K. Now to the second analysis of Obama:
1. Americans are for independence. Obama is against independence. He supports deference to other nations’ laws. He wants to join the world on cap and trade. He is for world solutions that depreciate our independence. The ruling? He is not independent. He fails.
2. Americans are brave. Obama does not speak from the heart, he speaks from the teleprompter. He’s never been in the military. He endlessly sheds responsibility and blames others. He is afraid to take responsibility for anything that shines poorly on him and his past. The ruling? He is not brave. He fails.
3. Americans stand on their own. Not Obama. Present was his most popular vote in the Illinois legislature. If things are going bad, he blames his predecessor. He defers to others, i.e. congress, to draft bills, i.e. health care. (His bill was nothing more than a collection of ideals with no meaningful merit.) He supports unions which contradict independence in the work place. The ruling. Obama does not stand on his own. He fails.
4. Americans are creative and innovative. Obama’s philosophies have been spoon fed to him by his mentors. His book was ghost written. He has not created a thing. The ruling. Obama is not creative. He fails.
5. Americans reject charity as a way of life. Obama was a community organizer where his passion was to shake down the system for the transfer of wealth. He is for the abject transfer of wealth, taking from a producer and giving to a non-producer. The ruling? Obama is in favor of charity as a way of life. He fails.
6. Americans are responsible. Obama blames his predecessor whenever in a pinch. He dodges questions, i.e. telling John McCain that “election is over.” He abhors any responsibility for the condition of our nation as caused by too much government. He spends like, I’ll use the term again but hype it a bit, a drunken sailor on crack cocaine. He is burdening our off spring with monumental debt, destroying our very fundamentals, and taking no responsibility. The ruling? Obama is not responsible. He fails.
7. Americans are hard working. Obama didn’t break from a golf game when the crotch bomber attempted to take down a jet. Obama hasn’t read a bill, maybe not even his own pseudo bill. Apparently he drinks too much and smokes too much. He has never held a private sector, bill paying job. He doesn’t respect one’s accomplishments for working hard. See redistributive justice opinion. The ruling? Obama is not hard working. He fails.
8. Americans are loyal to the Constitution. Obama says the Constitution is lacking in that it fails to address redistributive justice. Enough said. The ruling. Obama thinks he knows better than our founding fathers. He fails.
9. Americans are traditional. Obama said over and over again that he is going to change the fundamentals of our nations. Fundamental is defined as the origin of existence. Well if you are going to change the origin of one’s existence, you certainly are not traditional. The ruling? Obama is not traditional. He fails.
10. Americans are proud. Obama rejects American exceptionalism and continues to degrade our nation with his apologies. The ruling. Obama is not proud of America. He fails.
So face it folks, regardless of who you voted for, we’ve got us an un-American running the country. He’s not like us, nor does he even like us, assuming his policies are consistent with his likes and dislikes. So get your head out of the sand and speak out. Reject his policies. Call your congressman and let them know that you are independent, brave, that you can stand on your own, that you are creative and innovative, that you reject charity as a way of life, that you’re responsible for your own life, that you are hardworking, loyal to the Constitution, traditional, and damn proud of who you are.
Well unless you are with him in his anti-American Agenda, then I suggest you see a shrink. You need it. For a variety of reasons, to start: Self deprecation (destroying your nation), self loathing (despising your nation), child abuse (burdening your children with your debts), dependency (relying on government), anger management (control your loathe for our nation), sociopathy (ignoring the impact of your views upon others), and ultimately for depression (You won’t like your stated destination. See all socialist nations).
And that’s my Reetzality for the Day.
Today was the health care summit. I watched most of it. As a practical analysis, there was no significant intellectual intercourse between ideals, principles and values. None. It was nothing more than a talking points event with this exception; the Republicans identified legitimate concerns about the impact of such a proposal, if implimented. Congressman Paul Ryan did a great job. He was articulate, on point, and his concern was righteous. Others did too.
But here’s the telling point. Obama accused Paul Ryan of using a prop. The prop he was accused of using was, and this is amazing, the Senate bill which is Obama’s bill. So let me get this straight, the President accused a representative of using a prop and the prop that he accused him of using was the bill that the President is pushing? Weird! So let’s go through this again; A guy, our president is pushing a bill, a counter-voice reads the bill and questions our President on the bill, and the President calls his own bill a prop? Again, weird.
Not really. Here’s a truth. It’s mostly right. When people accuse, blame, complain, tell you about someone who did something wrong, keep going; let me sum it up. When people bitch, they are oft times talking about themselves. True. Listen to complainers and I swear, more often than not, their complaints actually explain their personal failings. Their complaints reveal. That’s what happened today.
When President Obama accused Paul Ryan of using a prop, the President’s own bill, he was revealing himself. It WAS a prop. But it is Obama’s PROP. It is a PROP couched in faux compassion for folks, couched in taking care of the needy, stuff that is hard to debate. However, and this is a big however, what it really is is a prop for is Obama’s agenda to socialize our nation. It is a prop for more government control and seizure of our freedom. He actually hesitated before he used the term “prop.” Why? Because, in his heart of hearts he realized it was his prop, not Paul Ryans. That’s why.
And it is a PROP! He has hidden his true agenda under a cloak of health care and his true agenda is government control. He could give a rat’s arsh (edited based on relative class) about health care. Disagree? How’s his brother or his aunt doing on their health care? If health care is so important, why isn’t he taking care of his own family. Because he doesn’t care about health care, he cares about government control, and, and this is scary, he cares about destroying our nation. Thus, I’m right. It’s not about health care. If it was, his own family would be cared for; they’re not.
And from his perspective, what a great thing. From his perspective it is great that he can expand government and crush the country he has contempt for in one fell swoop, with health care. Marvelous.
So folks, don’t fall for it. Don’t start crying because some old lady had to borrow her dead sister’s dentures. (This was actually a democratic pitch which I question; Am I supposed to take from my children to buy an old lady dentures?) Fight it. Don’t get seduced by the sob stories, get enlightened by the principles. Freedom. It is imperative, if we want to save this country, that we stick to our principles, our nation, then we have to reject the shallow rhetoric, the illogical talking points spewed by the left. We must. Do it friends.
Today, although I’m writing this at 10:34 p.m. Wednesday night, there will be the health care summit. What in the hell is a summit anyway? I’ve never yet seen one that wasn’t a collective effort to shed blame, responsibility, accountability, and truth. So be it. Tomorrow, today actually (as you read this) Obama has his summit on health care. So what would be the best outcome? Here are my thoughts.
Obama has no respect for alternative thoughts. It’s not his style. It is not who he is. He has been a spoiled child for most of his life. He didn’t think of this event, somebody else did. He will be well prepped and the powers that are, will be in control.
So now, it’s up to the Republicans, better folks, but in no way as pure as the driven snow. I mean come on, they had control of the house, senate, and the executive branch for two years and they failed to shrink government or get us a flat tax. They are not as pure as the driven snow. Still, it’s up to them to save our country. So what do they do?
Here’s what they do:
Don’t back down. Stick to the principles of freedom and choice. It’s rather amazing that the left pro-choice movement rallies around choice and in contrast, the current bill denies choice. What a beautiful oxymoronic position? Really, you can chose to end a future life but you don’t have the ability to chose your provider and the terms under which you pay for the provider and take care of your present life? You can chose to end an unborn life but can’t chose about your health care? Reconcile that! To me, it makes no sense. But I digress.
Are there really folks, like Obama, who would socialize one sixth, actually more, of our economy because thirty one million folks don’t have health insurance? Yes there are! Make note, we have three hundred million people in this nation. Thirty one million is basically ten percent of the nation. Are we really going down a path to fundamentally change that which makes us great for one tenth of our population. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Come on folks, there is a right to get the best health insurance, but a right is not an entitlement. Is anybody asking the question, “why don’t these folks have health insurance?” No. But I am. They are folks who didn’t put in the effort to get it or folks who are illegal or folks who simply don’t want it. Sure, there are folks with pre-existing conditions, but I’m all for taking care of those folks. But that’s not the mass. That’s not the heart of the problem. Let’s face it, most folks who don’t have health insurance brought it on themselves. They chose not to have it. Their priorities are askew. They chose smokes or booze or the absence of self improvement, something, but they just chose not to have health insurance. And my objectionists, don’t insult my intelligence by telling me about the poor soul who just couldn’t afford it; unless you have an affidavit that says, no cigs, no booze, high school degree, no crime, no vacations, no big screen TV . . . get my point? Where is your poster child? You know, the one who legitimately suffering from the lack of health care? I’m waiting.
And the bigger question, why is Obama and the left doing this? Why would they crush our economy with this extreme government control, this take over of our freedom, this condemnation of free enterprise, this assault on liberty and most importantly, this assault on what makes our nation great?
I’ve thought long and hard on this issue. The big why? question. I’ve been unable to reconcile their intent with much of anything other than one thing. Evil.
Let’s face it folks. Their policies hurt us. Their policies discriminate. (They claim to be un-racist but routinely they identify folks by race). Their policies take. (Obama told Joe the Plumber he was into some redistribution) Their policies deny individualism. Their policies contradict our God given principles, the Bill of Rights. Their policies hurt folks. Their policies stymie the economy. Their policies retard personal responsibility. Their policies don’t work with the exception of keeping them in power.
These guys want to be on top of the pile but they are ill equipped to be on top of a righteous principled pile, so they destroy the mass and they get to be king of the dredges. How do they destroy the masses? They addict as many people to need for one. For two, they skew public opinion by focusing on need rather than principle and responsibility. That’s what they do. Historically, and history is important, it gives us a window into the future, their policies always hurt folks. They always fail.
So what is it that causes people to strenuously push an agenda that hurts folks? I’ve thought about it a lot. What is it? Is it that they care about people? History proves that their policies (big government) don’t help people. Is it that they think their system is better? Check out Russia and Cuba. Nope. The only thing I can come up with to reconcile, find a purpose behind their agenda, an agenda that hurts folks, denies freedom and liberty, is this: They are possessed by evil.
And tomorrow, today, we are going to witness the fight between good and evil. Think I’m being extreme? The President’s proposal on the table will take over one sixth of our economy. It will deny freedom. It will institute government control. It will crush liberty on the most fundamental level, our ability to take care of our own bodies. That sounds evil to me. Hopefully the Republicans will arrive without their evil. Hopefully, they will have shed it for tomorrow.
And more hopefully, having shed their evil, they will throw the holy water on the president, meaning they will, in an articulate manner, expose the President as an anti-American, un-freedom loving, big government adoring, guy. They will cut through the faux respect and be honest. We are fighting evil, plain and simple.
If they don’t, we should all be worried. We should go to church. You know, the place where God resides, the place where the entity resides that gave us our freedoms. Because there is no way that I will ever accept the principle that my freedoms come from the tolerance of Harry Reid, Obama, and government over all. God gave me, us, the freedom, not government. Let’s pray for an exorcism tomorrow. Let’s pray that the Republicans do the right thing and go there baring arms. Let’s pray that they have the strength to be honest, stick to the principles, and be Americans. We’ll see.
Because if tomorrow is done right, it will be an exorcism. The good guys, if they show up as Republicans, will shun and condemn and out the evil of the bad guys.
I’ve watched Obama. The devil is nervous. Not that Obama is the devil, he’s only a minion of the devil. He’s possessed, I’ll forgive him, I’m Christian. But right now he is the spokesperson of evil Wow Brett! You’ve gone off the wall! Really? Then explain to me what could motivate a person to injure a nation, defy reason and logic, and pursue an agenda that will decimate the greatest nation on earth?
Evil is the absence of logic, reason and truth. This pretty much sums up the current agenda in Obama controlled Washington. Sorry to bring it on, but it is time.
That’s my Reetzality for today.
Obama told CBS News’ anchor Katie Couric in an interview taped before the Super Bowl that “I want to ask them [the Republicans] to put their ideas on the table, and then after the [congressional] recess, which will be a few weeks away, I want to come back and have a large meeting, the Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward.”
The Washington Post reported that Obama had invited Republicans to take part in a half-day summit that would be televised live later this month, just as his meeting last week with House Republicans at their Baltimore retreat was open to cameras.
Obama’s offer reflected both the political reality that health care reform is in jeopardy after the loss of the Democrats’ 60-vote majority in the Senate, which allowed them to shut down filibusters. It also reflected Obama’s sensitivity to the criticism that the shaping of the legislation had not met his promise of transparency, something that he acknowledged at the Republican retreat.
DO NOT FALL FOR IT REPUBLICANS! Summits don’t work. Nor do committees. Summits, committees, panels, pick a name, they serve as nothing but a forum to point fingers, spread blame, and escape responsibility. How many times have we heard as a response to an attack on a political position that “so and so on the panel agrees with me.” Too many. Obama is the president, he’s responsible. Make him so. Let him fail on his own rather than joining him in his failure. I’ve read the bills, they are both a disaster for our nation, for our liberty. They both fail the fundamental American constitutional test, so again, don’t join him in his attack on our liberty.
So do not attend his summit. He will use the attendance to accomplish one of two things. He will either use it to claim he has bi-partisan support or use it to attack Republicans as the “say no” guys.
Obama will not use the summit to accomplish anything other than putting Republicans in a bad light. He will use it to shift the middle ground to the “left.” Don’t fall for it. Don’t go. This guy isn’t into compromise and neither are most Americans. We want our freedom. We demand it. His beliefs are different than ours. Don’t let us down by reaching across the aisle. Reach for American Principles of which both the pending House and Senate bills are vacant. But don’t be uninvolved. Here’s what you should do:
Draft a comprehensive health care proposal that does the following:
1. Allows inter-state competition. 2. Makes health insurance policies portable. 3. Provide tax benefits that subsidize the cost of insurance companies providing coverage for pre-existing conditions. 4. Propose tort reform. 5. Expand medical health care savings accounts. Allow folks to get more than a dollar for dollar tax break on money they put into their medical savings account. 6. Provide liability protection for nurses and physicians’ assistants so that they can increase the supply of medical services without the need for a supervising medical doctor. Increased supply over demand drives prices down. You’ll have to use simple words when explaining this principle to the Obamanomics followers. 7. Provide tax incentives for attending medical schools for doctors and nurses. 8. Provide tax incentives through medical savings accounts that will allow the eventual discontinuance of entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid. We can’t afford them, period. They will end one way or the other. Take some responsibility and wean America from them rather than collapsing America with them. 9. Propose that all government workers, including congress, will be placed in the same circumstances as all other Americans. 10. Do the numbers. Provide hard accounting of the facts of your proposal. Have specific numbers based on reality and not fantasy as to how much it will eliminate government bureaucracy and governments costs.
And send it in a memo to Obama. Come on guys, aren’t you a bit embarrassed to be participating in an Obama Summit? You should be so don’t participate, just send a memo. He can send one back so you have his response in writing. Although, he might just send over his teleprompter. What’s the difference?
That’s my Reetzality for the Day.
Captain Obonga to the Rescue!
I am so relieved. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Captain Obonga. I had no idea that the government, that failed to prevent a terrorist on the watch list whose father reported him as a radical without a passport from getting on a plane headed to Detroit with a bomb hidden in his underwear, no idea whatsoever that that government could fix everything else. The next thing you know they’ll be joking that the government can’t even keep strangers out of White House dinners? But you set me straight Captain Obonga. Thank you.
O.K., on a more serious note (although the first note was serious, I just utilized humor to demonstrate the seriousness, now I’ll get rid of the humor) was that a speech or what? Shoot, here comes the humor again. Captain Obonga is going to do everything. Pheewww! Say good bye to worries my little friends, I mean you American People. You “they” people.
O.K., O.K. O.K., I took a serious pill, so here goes, firm, fair and frank. The State of the Union address was a rambling cacophony of lies, misrepresentations, false promises, insincerity, rewriting of recent history, bragging, blaming, arrogance, ignorance, condescension, and otherwise consistent with a complete ripper of a marijuana fest. Thus, the “Obonga” nick name. We’ll call it a “BS”-afest instead.
Folks, he’s going to raise our taxes either directly or indirectly and has already done so with his deficit spending. Wait, small correction-maybe. He may have only raised our childrens’ taxes. Folks, he’s not going to endorse nuclear energy or off shore drilling. Folks, he has no desire to assist small business. He doesn’t even respect business for what it does. He said that all student loans would be forgiven in twenty years but in ten years if a graduate goes into public service. That’s right, we need more social workers and bureaucrats in our future than business people because social workers and bureaucrats are just so damn critical. See folks, this is another window into Captain Obonga’s soul. He values government more than the private sector. And he doesn’t understand basic values either; like paying off your debt. What in the world would justify a person to stop paying a debt if it’s not paid off? Shoot, that’s that pesky “keep your word” stuff. God that’s irritating. So what’s the big deal? I cut a deal, borrow some money for a four year degree which I actually spend six getting, drag the payments out for twenty years and then tell the lender that Captain Obonga told me I didn’t have to pay anymore after twenty years. Wait, wait, wait. I thought of something. Why don’t I just grab a public sector job in let’s say year nine, work it for a year, stop paying which is absolutely justified since I’ll be doing something so critical to America, actually serving the public for America, like for example, collecting tolls on a turnpike, and then, when I’m free of my promise to re-pay my student loan, I quit my cherished public sector job and go into the private sector and stick the tax payer with the rest of my debt. So many possibilities.
O.K. Folks, now I’m really going to be serious, actually I have been. I was just using humor to exemplify how much of a joke the State of the Union Address was. Our president has never made a bottom line, hangs out with communists and terrorists, loves Government, big government, is a progressive democrat, wants to socialize medicine, (He said he’s not quitting in his pursuit of his anti-American Agenda (He didn’t say “anti-American” but it is)), has no understanding of the economy, nothing is his fault, and after listening to his speech, wants to run everything.
Prior to his address, it was suggested that the Obama Administration was going to do a “re-set” on its agenda due to the rapidly growing trend against them. The pundits got it half right. Obama did do a reset but not on his agenda. He did a reset on the focus button so that the picture we see is different than before, blurred; but the content, the actual content, is exactly the same.
Beware folks, this guy does not like us “they” people. But he’s afraid of us and that’s why he reached out last night and spun the focus button. He changed the focus to hide. What he didn’t change was the content of his ambitions which are very un-American. Only our ability to see it was changed. But folks, you need not worry. I know this guy and his ambitions will come back into focus sooner than you think, definitely by November.
NOTE: I use the “Captain” title to remind folks of the Titanic, you know that unsinkable ocean liner that sank on its first voyage. Of course, America could never be like the Titanic.
