Believe me, while I have rested my keyboard-weary fingers for a few months, my mind has been going full-speed-ahead.  I have watched my stock portfolio take a hit that is reminiscent of 2008 (I cringed when I got my statement today), Congress has proven yet again their unworthiness to govern and President Obama  has demonstrated to all sensible  Americans that he is  as American born and Christian (he professes) as the next  who only attends church on Easter and for funerals.  The economy is souring with unemployment still (20 months into this recession) the #1 problem.

But wait, there is more.  Iraq is no longer a combat zone for Americans (pity the Iraqi’s though), Afghanistan is ballooning into a Vietnam and a Korea all balled up into one awful nightmare, and the Mid-East situation is no better at all (despite the opening of Obama’s direct talks with Palestinians and Israelis) as the threat of Iranian nukes hovers ominously.

Hold on!  If you keep on reading you will get even more from CapitalistMarks in the coming days.  Health care reform is proving to be the opposite of the wonderful promises made  (Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Utah has cancelled my policy and forced me to take another with significantly less coverage/benefits coupled with added costs that could easily be in the tens of thousands of $$ each year).  I am told there are a bunch more like me out there that won’t be helped at all until at least 2014 when the new Obamacare/Democratcare plan kicks in.  But will I (others) live that long with reduced coverage and costs that exceed average American family incomes?

Bailout spending?  Sure a few big banks have survived and some large Corps.  too . . . but only to the benefit of the CEOs and a few of their croonies . . . surely not you and I . . . the ‘head-shaking’ shareholders or the stunned taxpayers.

Stimulus?  Cost billions more than we were told originally and now Obama and his minions are talking about adding a few dozen more billions.  And, the Federal Reserve is out of arrows with interest rates at about zero (of course they have quantitative easing left . . . but by the Fed buying up government notes all they do is add to the already enormous deficit).

Fiscal Policy?  Don’t look for any help there in an election year.  Everyone in the country knows that the tax system needs to be reinvented.  But, don’t expect any politicians to offer  any credible solution.

Remember the old sage who said (roughly) ‘when 51% of the poor decide they want to live off the honest earnings of the other 49% then democracy will fail’ . . . and Obama’s democratic solutions of socialism at it’s worst are beginning to make that a possibility.  Wouldn’t it be something if he really is a Muslim or Communist ’sleeper’ who ends America’s greatness by destroying our economic/political system with old fashioned Marxist policies?  NOTE:  I am not saying that is true but Geeze Louise . . .

China?  Passed Germany as the #2 economy in the world and is only 30 or so more years of double digit GDP growth from passing the U.S.  Oh, yeah, don’t forget their military is growing faster and more aggressively than any other in the world, nor their efforts to grab natural resources from the rest of the world for their own good (sounds pretty capitalist to me).  Note that the ‘rare earth’ minerals used in so many high-tech products are produced primarily in China’s two mining centers, and that the costs of these crucial minerals have gone up over 1000% (yep, one thousand) in the last 10 years or so.

Iran?  I can’t even bear to talk about it.  Ahmadinejad is nuts!

Venezuela?  Run by a lunatic dictator.

Housing?  Millions of homes in foreclosure and the banks aren’t bending over to help anyone despite new federal laws requiring them to do so  (wait until those writeoffs hit the books!).

Unemployment?  Some estimated put actual #’s as high as 20+% when underemployed and work-force abandoners are included but regardless there are at least 25 million Americans who want full-time jobs.

Global warming?  Only the HOTTEST summer in history for our northern hemisphere.

I could go on but my moist, warm tears are clouding my eyes so much as I return.

All I can say is it behooves you to stay tuned to this channel.

I will tell it like it is–give my answers to tough questions–offer solutions where needed.  I will be right-on most of the time and never wavering in pursuit of truth and justice.

But,remember this always:  the single biggest problem America has today is professional politicians.  They call D.C. home and they love living there and partaking of their unAmerican perks.  The new byword is ‘if you don’t like thier perks, get rid of the jerks.’

Do NOT vote for incumbents . . . we need citizen leaders who leave their real lives to serve for 4-8 years and then go back to those same lives.  Guys like you and I who can listen to both sides consider the alternatives and decide what is really best for our country.   Our founding fathers depended on it.  We really have to now.  Oh, and eliminate the golden retirements and benefits for congress and government employees.  Make them live like the rest of us ./ . . they won’t want to stick around more than they are welcome if we can push that through.

I hope you will join me at the polls in November to oust these greedy, self-serving ‘pros’ and vote in our neighbors and friends (particularly those who promise to go home after one or two terms).

I will post when impressed to do so and not just in order to get another word in.  You can count on that.  Also, due to some lingering and worsening health issues, I may not post as regularly as I would like.  I promise though, every post will be important, current, relevant and helpful.

Please take this break as an opportunity to visit some of the many blogs I have posted in the past.  They all continue to be relevant today.  Comment if you like, I will check back every once in a while.

God Bless our great country — and my wife.

Scott

Read this with the clear knowledge that President Obama has proven he is NOT a free market capitalist in the Adam Smith mold.  He claims to be, but the last 16 months have given sufficient proof that he is a genuine dyed-in-the-wool left-wing democrat socialist (not that this ideology is bad since it works in China . . . just that it is generally bad for the world’s greatest and most powerful economy).

I am going to give each of the points he enumerated in his recent speech a letter grade.  Just like school.  An ‘A’ is really good, a ‘B’ is pretty good, a ‘C’ is  politically and economically tiresome with no new news, a ‘D’ is bad stuff for you and I as individual investors, and an ‘F’ is bad news for everybody but the big-wigs on Wall Street (already the highest paid–read overpaid–executives on the Planet Earth).

First:  Obama is going to ‘make certain taxpayers never again are on the hook to bailout Wall Street Firms that are Too Big To Fail.’ To do this he is going to put a limit on the size of risks that financial firms can take.

Grade– ‘C’  maybe ‘C-’.  How does he intend to accomplish this task?  An army of accountants in the hundreds of thousands to monitor every transaction above a certain limit?  Impossible.   New rules that simply say what he said?  Impossible.  Wall Street is overloaded with entrepreneurial and greedy financial wizards right out of Business Schools that give prestigious MBAs.  They can, and will, find a way around any new rules including breaking up trades so that the risk appears limited but really isn’t.  Bottom line:  fancy talk that makes points with taxpayers (the 50% of the population that do pay taxes and do invest) but  Obama will NOT be able to deliver.

Second: New transparency that will take derivatives out of the ‘filthy cellar’ of Wall Street’s underground and make them legitimate financial instruments that are well-defined and traded on an exchange so that everyone can see and understand what the risks and benefits are.  Whew, that sentence took some effort!

Grade: ‘B.’  It makes sense to get all derivatives out in the open and trade them on an exchange.  Doing this will require that those who create and sell such ’stuff’ will have to meet SEC disclosure regulations ( improved for this purpose).   Then, if you are so inclined, as an investor, you will be able to look up the ugly (or pretty) details of all  derivatives and judge for yourself, though I caution you these could run into the hundreds of pages.  There will also be a market for derivatives and you had better believe they will trade a lot.  This means that skilled and savvy financial wizards will study them carefully before they commit their own, or their client’s, money — because if they don’t they could be liable for losses.  I don’t know how this will work but the infrastructure to do so is in place and won’t require a lot of time and money.  Good for you President Obama, but, isn’t this one kind of obvious given the current recession?  And does he really think individual investors will read all that crap?

Third:  Create ‘The strongest consumer protection ever.’  This is really nothing more than a political ploy to appeal to voters.  It doesn’t do anything more than #2 above does.  But, it does give the President a talking point to prove he is an efficient and versed user of the ‘Telepromter.’

Grade: ‘D’.  There isn’t anything here that will offer new meat to investors.  Better product?  Better disclosure?  Better Choices?  All encompassed in #2.  Make your talks short and to the point Mr. President.  Stop gloating at your command of financialese.

Fourth:  Give shareholders more power.  ’Say on Pay and  more say on the election of Directors.’  Attaboy.  This was always intended in public corporations but has been dreadfully abused and destroyed by modern management.  Shareholders provided the capital and they should have a determinative say on compensation at the highest levels.  Directors should also be elected by the shareholders and not as a result of ‘friendly’ votes by Mutual Funds or Retirement Funds with majority control and ‘interlocking directorships’ (where directors serve . . . with handsome compensation . . .  on boards of mutual funds and also on the board of corporations that the mutual fund invests in — just one of many ways that directors and CEO’s pad there own pockets.  This is a move that could really level the field for what Obama calls ‘consumers’ or individual investors like you and me.  It means those proxy statements that come in the mail once a year will be meaningful and give each of us a say.

Grade: ‘A’ – if the president can pull it off.  Remember that these same mutual funds and corporate boards are the ones who contribute huge amounts to election campaigns (another area for major reform) and won’t want to kill the golden goose.  I am a long time investor and I ‘KNOW’ that certain CEO’s and many Directors are paid far too much.  There is nothing really magic about running a huge public company (I have consulted to a few in my days).  Good leadership is not as rare as many people believe and decision making is not as difficult as many others tell shareholders.  There has to be a limit and Boards have to represent the shareholders rather than the CEO’s and themselves.  This can be done but it is going to take some real ‘cajones’ to push through politically.  Does the President have what it takes?  The health care reform bill makes me think he might.   We can only hope.

Overall, reform of Wall Street is needed.  No doubt.  I just hope lobbyists and ‘endentured servant’ politicians can pull it off.

I liked what he had to say and heard a few Wall Street regulars on the preceding talk shows also agree.  But is that enough?

Bottom line?

We can’t trust the folks on Wall Street (the investment capital of Earth) any more than we can throw them . . .  and some of those dudes are very rich and very heavy types.  Why should we expect?  Wall Street is the most sublime exhibit for Capitalism at work.

If there are no rules to follow you can (and they do) just about   anything to make money.

The key problem has been the use of scary, misunderstood, largely unregulated derivatives.

No one, including the salesmen who pumped them, understood entirely what derivatives were all about, except that they were a grand scheme to make a lot of money at the expense of naive investors.

These things (derivatives) are fancifully names financial instruments like CDS’s (credit default swaps) which are kinda like insurance for debt (you pay a fee or premium to a big financial institution to guarantee you will get paid the debt you owe and if there is a default the company — like AIG — will pay the debt).  This can also include sovereign debt (countries debt).

Then there are CDO’s or consolidated debt obligations.  These are a bit simpler but just as deadly.  A bunch (in the hundreds of millions of $$ and more) of mortgages are bundled together and sold.  And the seller does the bundling. Since there are hundreds or thousands of mortgages the seller sort of takes the ‘bundled’ debt on a leap of faith.  This is what Goldman Sucks Sachs is being sued by the SEC for and that has been in the news all week.

Problem is CDS’s and CDO and the like  are no small financial ‘instruments’, they can represent hundreds of billions of $$ and if there are a bunch of defaults all at once then there isn’t enought money to pay the debt.  Then  companies — Like AIG — reneg on the debt.  Whabang!  All of a sudden (like in 2008) companies fail (unless they are ‘too big to fail’ and the government steps in and guarantees them with taxpayer $$) and there is a terrible financial crises followed by a recession.

All of this fancy financial dealing is further endangered (to you and I particularly) because there is no regulation, no markets to trade them in so that they are monitored, and no rules to manage them.

This is a very bad place to be . . . one that in fact exacerbated an already scary recession.  And, it can’t be allowed to happen again.

What to do?

Write some regulations that will manage this threat and stop the secrecy perpetrated by large financial institutions, like JPMORGAN, MORGAN STANLEY, AIG, CITI BANK, BANK OF AMERICA and others.

I hope this brief lesson clarified the problem.

It was, and continues to be a big one.

Since I endeavor to make these posts short and to the point, and have failed miserably at this in the past, I am going to stop now and let you mull this over.

Ohh, the suspense!

Remember, as it stands now, we CAN”T trust Wall Street.  Investors lack confidence and with good reason.

Our definitively leftward-leaning President proposed today what he wants to do.

My next post will consider his proposal, and evaluate my estimate of its effective handling of such problems in the future.

I hope you are on the edge of your seats by now.

Tune in Tomorrow, or soon, for the conclusion:  Obama Takes on Wall Street.

thanks to flickr’s rosino for the photo

We can’t believe them though.

Taxes are everywhere at all times.

Buy a car?  Check the sales form for everything from sales tax to tire taxes.

Buying a house?  Check the closing statement for everything from property tax to energy taxes.

Shopping for groceries or clothes?  Sales tax.

Buying gas for the weekend drive into the mountains?  Well, there is the $0.75 federal tax and sundry state and local taxes — all per gallon.

Wanna tan before the spring break beach party?  Uhhuh, thanks to the dems (remember not a single Repub voted for the health care bill) you now pay a tax on your quick-tan.  I could go on but I am too dang depressed because taxes will keep haunting me right through the end of next tax season — when nearly all our taxes will have to go up due to the huge city, county, state and federal deficits.

I guess I wouldn’t mind, since this really is a great country and we should all pay our part, but I read an article recently that confirmed what most of us income-tax paying types have believed for a long while.  About half of our entire tax-age population paid no taxes at all this year.  Shoot, what is fair or right about that?

And there are so many taxes that are hidden and add to costs of just about everything.  Take sugar.  We could get imported sugar a lot cheaper than the domestic stuff (and this isn’t like wine– it all tastes the same) and the reason is that our government puts tariffs (import taxes) on the dang stuff.  So, now my Dr. Pepper (I would like to start a Dr. Pepper party instead of a tea party) costs a whole lot more.  About 30% according to my reckoning.  Now, a nice big bottle of the Dr. costs about the same as a bottle of domestic wine did just  a few years ago.  (note:  few may be an exaggeration and I don’t drink wine so what do I know?)

The whole tax thing gets worse though.

Most Americans (the 50% of us that pay income taxes to support the others, anyway) can’t do our own taxes.   Too complicated.  We pay out of the ying-yang to get it done for us.  The tax code was 400 pages long in 1913 and is 70,000 pages today, or about 35 times as long as the new health care reform bill.  Who can read 70,000 pages let alone understand it when it is written not in English but in Governmentish (more complicated than Hieroglyphics.

Entire industries are built around the fact that the tax code is incomprehensible to the average American.  It takes the equivalent of about 4 million skilled professionals working full time to handle the paper work (thanks to The Economist for the arcane facts).

Does it make you wonder how all this got screwed up so much?  Just think of Congressmen (hundreds of them for over a hundred years) adding bits and pieces of tax code just to protect their own little constituency —  think of the credits you get for ‘bee-keeping’ or ‘hand-stitching’ footballs, or ‘bridges to nowhere’ and you will quickly get the answer.

I have said this before in this very forum and quite a few others.  Our tax system sucks!

Half the people supporting the other half?  Boy would Karl Marx ever smile at this system and we can’t let that dude win.

We need a national sales tax system (or Value Added Tax –VAT) to simplify and speed up the federal part of it all.  And contrary to what many complain, it can be done fairly and with a great more equity than the present system.  It won’t take an Army of congressmen to do it either.  Start with no taxes on any food or medical items to protect the poor, and then tax everything else at increasing rates based on basic utility.  In other words average priced cars (everyone needs them) are taxed low–say 10% and fancy-shmantzy cars (no one needs them) are taxed at 20%.  Funeral costs: 10%.  Wedding costs: 40%.  Golf: 10%.  Soccer: 70%.

You get the idea.

Put me in a room with 9 other average type Americans (tax payers) and give us a month — we will come up with a tax system and tax code that makes sense, works, is easy and fair in less than one month!

As for now, well I guess I won’t have to write about this particular travesty until next April 15 or so.

thanks to flickr’s josh thompson for the photo

I can’t imagine any other reason for it.

Man, aren’t we great though?

A nation that allows all sorts of behavior in public (dare I admit that sometimes we even encourage it?), all kids of crazy dress (my opinion — but then who am I to judge styles?), all kinds of religious belief (without judging for the most part — a special caveat here for Tom Cruise), all kinds of decorating on automobiles that drive our highways (remember the fur covered ‘dogmobile?), shoes that make you wonder why we ever invented the dern things . . .  and on and on.

But, we are also a nation that forgives a guy like Tiger Woods who egregiously violated marriage oaths and common sense.  The crowd at the Masters has followed him loyally and encouragingly — well he did offer a genuine (it seemed to me) apology before the competition started.

At the same time we welcome a new Masters hero (for this year)  and applaud the success of Phil Mickelson, because he is a great golfer (the best this day) and a dad who loves his wife and family so much they spent the week there with him.

Yep, we can appreciate at the same time that we forgive.

And that is a good thing.

We forgave the Germans for WWII (thank heavens since I married one), and the Japanese for the same war ( thanks for the Toyatas and Hondas that I have bought over the years and continue to drive).

And we will forgive the Iraqies and the Afghans if we can ever finish our wars there and let them prove to the world how great their culture is.

In fact this propensity to forgive is one of the greatest things about our country . . . we are so varied and diverse that we find it easy to forgive just about anyone and any nation for just about anything.  Pretty quick too.

Each time we do it the world opens up, gets more forgiving, allows greater acceptance and follows our example.

In short the whole dang place gets better.

I hope, and believe,  that we will never change.  Good thing too.

Just a year ago the world (well at least the Chinese and Russians — I don’t count Iran, Venezuela or Cuba) were yelling that the American Economic model of free-market capitalism was dead.  Boy were they ever wrong.  Our system works and worked — adjustments were made, changes were accepted and now we are on another tear that I hope will soon employ everyone that really wants a job (another neighbor got off unemployment this week!).

Man aren’t we great?

Your darn tootin’ we are!!

thanks to flickr’s johntraynor for the photo

Like we all want to root for Afghanistan to rise up out of the poverty and religious intolerance that has made it one of the poorest nations in the world . . . war torn for decades, rife with uneducated Mullahs (except in their perverted view of the Qu’ran) who poison the minds and wills of generations of young people, destroyed by Russia’s arrogance, and now occupied by America and it’s allies in a seemingly perpetual war against terrorism and Al Quieda.

Our government has tens of thousands of troops in this God-forbidden, mountain bound’ land-locked and insular land.  We have spent hundreds of billions of $$ trying to rid the country of wicked and ignorant men and women who care nothing for the ‘nation’ we are trying to create for them.  Our efforts to educate the people (mostly the young) have met with resistance and killing.  Attempts to free women from the bondage of poorly interpreted religious traditions resulted in further hatred and even torture.

And yet, our government (with support of a majority of citizens) has labored on.  Like other battles for the ‘underdog’ Americans stand willing to sacrifice for the ‘greater good.’

The blood of hundreds of our young men and women has been spilt on the dusty plains and rocky ranges of the faraway country.  Enormous amounts of equipment, supplies, food, and other necessities have been shipped there.

And why?

We think we know and so struggle on, but . . . Karzai?

Karzai has assumed that it has all been for him and his ill-conceived, and even more ill-functioning government.  Bribery is a way of life there.  Fraud and abuse of the $$billions we send there result in little being dribbled down to the people as corruption at the highest, and all, levels are commonplace.

Karzai and his cronies line their pockets and play at governing but the Afghan people see no improvement.  In fact most reports say they  either fear or hate the bureaucrats and police.  There are even rumors of government alliances, both political and financial, with some of the Taliban.

This of course has been hard to stomach.  I have not trusted Hamid Karzai from the first day I saw him on TV costumed in his pretentious green robes and sillywool ‘crown.’  There was something inherently dishonest in the was he spoke . . .  the droll of his pleas for peace and money.  I have been a pretty good judge of character in my life . . . it has helped a lot . . . and I judged him bad from day one.

The stated strategy has been that we must support the ‘nation building’ of a country that has rejected a central government for generations.  All so that the nooks and crannies within its borders will not become hiding places for terrorists bent on destroying all western and Christian forms of life.  The process has been harrowing and dangerous.  Some of our allies have packed up and left . . . deeming the goal to be unachievable.

Yet, America presses on under the leadership of our own new President.  Hoping that eventually Afghanistan will thrive under a legitimate and self-sustaining democratic government.  I can only say dream on.

Both President Bush and President Obama have voiced support for the ‘elected’ leader of the land:  Hamid Karzai.  I say ‘elected’ because the most recent elections were so rife with fraud that no President should have been elected.  Yet Karzai prevailed . . . and Obama has said that ‘the people’ of Afghanistan have spoken.

Let me tell it like it is:  Karzai is in power in Afganistan only because America allows him to be.  Perhaps this administration considers him the lesser of two evils (or three or four for that matter).  But, this support is misguided and wrong.

Karzai is not in control of his nation.  He is even less in power. The United States military, along with our few remaining allies, is in control and has the power, such as it is.

Yet this administration continues the charade of Karzai’s puppet government.  We allow him to parade around the world as if he was a genuine leader worthy of international acclaim.  He is the titular head of a ragtag army and national police force . . . yet those very forces are trained and funded with our tax dollars.  There is no real government in Afghanistan.

Talk about a balanced budget– heck Afghanistan’s government has revenues of only $1 billion and spends over $3 billion.  About the same as a mid-sized city in Montana.  Are you kidding me?  Karzai has been bad for his own people and he has been bad for us . . . more so every day it seems.

Now, Karzai has really crossed the line.

Last week he complained of ‘international’ interference in the most recent election (international can only mean U.S. since we dominate the foreign presence there).  The White House took that with unexpected resilience that came across as far too understanding.

Then, a few days later, in a final strike at the hand that feeds him, Karzai said that if foreign interference continued the Taliban would be legitimized and he might even join them.  What the heck would he do without ‘foreign’ interference?  He would be nothing but another penniless  ’foreigner’ strolling along Paris streets.  Is this guy crazy?  A Quisling?  Traitor, enemy, crook?

The audacity of this idiot is incredible.

And it must not be allowed to continue.

It is time for Obama to follow the lessons learned after WWII in Germany and Japan.  Our military must take over the entire government process until the people of the country are distanced enough from Karzai’s puppet and illegitimate rule to see that self-governance can and will work.

This will take years.  But we must do it.  We simply cannot allow Afghanistan to collapse again like it did when the Russkies abandoned it.

America and our allies must be in control of everything that goes on in Afghanistan.  We have to control the police, the army, the bureaucrats, transportation, licensing . . . the entire government.  We have to be there to manage our $$Billions and save our soldiers lives.  We can’t leave any decision that involves the Afghans or our soldiers to be left up to others — especially not someone like Karzai who only came to Afghanistan after the successful ‘invasion.’  We have to make sure the people in every city and throughout the country have peace, freedom, education, roads, dams, schools, hospitals, and everything else it takes them to enter, at least, the 20th century.

It is clear that this will never happen with Karzai or anyone else like him.  Leadership can’t just be assumed.  It has to be learned and earned and America must be the teacher here.  Perhaps there is a young man (or woman) somewhere in Afghanistan who can, someday,  rise to leadership . . . and we must provide the avenue for him (or her) to do so.

It will be a huge commitment (perhaps along the lines of post-war Germany or Japan, maybe even South Korea) and it will take years, not months.  Forget the pretense of Karzai’s leadership and take control.  Out of the existing mess, one day,  pride and greatness can rise. jJust not now.  Just not Karzai.

That much is as clear as anything in this troubled world.

I call on President Obama to recognize that Karzai is NOT a legitimate leader and has neither the qualifications nor the honor to function as President of Afghanistan.  Appoint an interim ‘Governor’ and assume complete leadership.

Give the Afghan people a chance–and some time.

thanks to flickr’s blatantnews.com for the photo

With patience and hope, I have watched his ‘rookie’ mistakes:  wavering and waiting on Afghanistan as more Americans perished at the hands of the ‘talibummers’, ignoring our dependence on foreign oil (what about natural gas dude?), passively accepting the ‘gotchas’ by the Chinese, Russian and even Brazilian leaders, staying in the background as congress pussy-footed around until health care reform became a 2,000 page mess, waiting (still) as unemployment soared to completely unmanageable highs (can’t wait for the #’s that come out tomorrow — I look for a gain of 100,000 or so but don’t give much credit to Obama), and . . . well you get the idea.

But sadly I now come down hard on the side of those who believe that obama is the ‘anti-capitalist’, the American Socialist of the 21st century, one mighty big government, income transferring danger to everyone who believe in free markets and freedom of choice.

President Obama right now is a socialist, tried, true and red as can be.

Here is what pushed me over the precipice:  the health care bill . .  and the ’stealth’ student loan provisions that were hidden inside that 2,000 page horror and passed without a whisper from the right.

I am far from alone.  Steve Forbes (April 12 issue of FORBES), “Health insurers will eventually be private in name only, as the details of their policies will be dictated by governmental decrees.  About the only thing companies will have any autonomy over–perhaps–will be their corporate logo.”  And, “President Obama wants higher education in this country to be free of charge, which is why his admin is pushing for a government takeover of student lending.”

This absolutely could lead to complete government control of higher education (think of North Korea here to get the full impact of such an awful thought).

Others are even more condemnatory and I will not repeat the rantings of such as O’Rielly or Beck.  Those guys make Obama seem like a total Boy Scout (with all the merit badges of course).

Oh, how I fear for our country when the left manages (and micro-manages) with no debate with the right.  But, the right is motionless as republicans cower behind an agenda-less fury.  Oh, the dread of democrats in control as President Obama ignores the right.

At his peril, we can only hope.

This is what is happening.  Obama pushed health care reform through with NO republican support.  The victory seems to have made him into the ‘Teflon’ President.  Forget that he has opened more areas to off-shore drilling — with the same sweep of his left-wing pen he also denied drilling in other areas with great potential.

Consider that No, None, Nada, Zip, Zero, government programs have ever come in at or below the original estimates.  Name me one!  You can’t.  Oh, dread the thought.

If Obama gets his way now, those who have worked hard, paid their debts and mortgages, saved, invested and benefited from American opportunities are now going to have to finance the mistakes of the lazy, the indolent, the illegals, and the entitled.  Those who pay are most of you reading this because the others never have to worry about the facts–they get everything they need from the government or MTV!

Have a huge mortgage on you McMansion?  Don’t worry Obama will pay off enough of it to make you whole–with our money.

Got no health insurance?  No problemo Obama will take our money and pay your premiums or your health care costs.

Can’t afford a car or a toaster?  Heck, Obama has a few hundred to $8,000 just to get you in the driver’s seat.  With our money.

Own a big bank that is busted?  Shoot, Obama has $trillions to back your risky bets right or wrong.  Again our money.

Crap — I can’t stand to go on.

Bottom line today?

Obama is a socialist, through and through.

Doesn’t look like he is going to live up to the hype (unless you are a rich hollywood star or a tort lawyer).

There are some of us out there ready to do something about it.  Not those you might think.

Conservative values are not those of the whacky right that think Obama is the ‘Anti-Christ’ or not even born in America.  Conservative values are the exact same values that directed President Lincoln to same the Nation, that made Apple a house-hold name, that developed amazing drugs to help the sick, that put a man on the MOON for crying out loud.  Real people, real work, real hope, real patriotism, real values.

Obama is a good man, I am convinced of that (would love to take him on one-on-one for a few of my political and economic agendas), but he really does have this whole government and economics/social  thing wrong.

We (the good guys above — you know who pay taxes and stuff) have got to start a real movement to get our country back.  No silly ‘tea-party’  or ‘coffee-party’ , we need a genuine ‘Founders Party’ to get us back to where the Constitution, common sense, and a high school education take us.

DO NOT VOTE FOR ANY INCUMBENT!  NEVER!  EVER!  NOT OF ANY STRIPE!

America by and for Americans.  Sounds good (maybe that should be the name of our new party)

‘America for Americans’ — and God Bless Our Great Nation!

thanks to flickr’s doratagold for the photo

“I’m 63 and I’m Tired” 

The Repubs are guaranteeing to make this the #1 issue in this year’s midterm elections.  Some are even proposing to repeal the bill.  Of course, Obama, has struck back with ‘bring it on’ which is scary since weren’t those the exact (or very close) words Bush used when referring to Osama Bin Laden and his rag-tag crew a few years ago?

But at least we, the people, are now getting a chance to look at the bill (several web sites including  Whitehouse.g0v link to copies).

Politics aside this bill is clearly better (at least for 30 million Americans) than nothing . . . and there are some real advantages to what has been passed: no lifetime limits for coverage of serious illness (like the cancer that has struck both the mother and father of a great family we know), and no arbitrary exclusion of coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Great.  And of course as the only developed nation in the world that doesn’t offer health care as a ‘right’ we have just added those 30 million mentioned above to the system so we are a bit closer to the health equity of all other rich nations.

And this is probably a good thing.

Yesterday I was driving home from a doctor’s appointment with my wife when we heard a discussion about that very point on the radio.  She turned to me and said something I had never heard from her before–and believe you me it pressed home the point.

“I remember my Dad telling my Mom with real astonishment a few months after we had emigrated here from Germany, ‘I had no idea that you get no health care in America — you have to pay for it all yourself, either with insurance or out of your own pocket.  The government does nothing.’  They were both worried and the result was that while I grew up my brothers and I  hardly ever saw dentists or doctors because we couldn’t afford to.”

Boy that struck home.  If my 4 kids had not had good insurance while growing up then none of them (nor I) would be around today.

Of course from a social justice point (and to heck with that airhead Glen Beck for ridiculing that term) America should provide health care to those who need it.  How can we have ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ without good health?

BUT . . . on the other hand.  How do we (and believe me it is you and I that will) pay for it??

Big issue and one that the Obama plan practically ignores.

I took a survey and extended it from the one person I polled to the entire nation.  Here is what I found out.

Most Americans would like to see the government provide health care to all . . . they just don’t want to pay for it with more taxes.  What they DO want is to lower the out-of-control inflation of health care costs and the crazy increases in insurance premiums.  Did you know that if health insurance premiums continue at the rate of the last decade then in another decade or two all of our paychecks will go to health insurance?  True.  And that is a scary thought.

Government always over-extends social benefits–and not just the democrats.

Social Security?  The standard employee withholding in 1950 was 0.2% (the amount the government takes out of your wages for you to contribute to S.S.) and today it is 6.2% or a 3100% increase!  Further S.S. is the most expensive government program in the world and America’s biggest federal budget expenditure all while being essentially bankrupt.

Medicare?  Medicaid?  Same kind of thing with even worse funding and cost problems down the raod.  Do your own search but I assure you that what you read will be scary.  And now we add another program that is almost just as bad and will certainly bet worse?

What is going to happen with this new reform?  We know that, at least, in the next ten years it is going to cost about $1 trillion and as our government gets into it and as entitlements increase the costs are going to soar just like other entitlement programs in the past.  That seems to be inevitable human and political nature.

This reform does very little to deal with the most critical issue on the health care horizon:  costs.

America has to find a way to lower cost inflation in health care.  Actual costs have to be lowered while still providing reasonable service.  The bill is silent on the issue.  No interstate competition for insurers (Adam Smith assured us that competition would always drive prices lower), no effort to deal with Tort Reform and limit frivolous law suits (that enrich greedy lawyers who then run for Congress, yech), no legislation that deals with incredible RX costs (ours are much higher than most nations even though a majority of new drugs are developed by U.S. companies), and there are other ways to cut costs too — but Obama failed to address them.

Seems like tax and spend, or spend and tax, all over again.

How the heck are we going to pay for this thing 10 years down the road.  Will the 4% surtax on the wealthy be increased by 3100% and extended to everyone like Social Security funding?  My math shows that is not even possible but the thought is scary enough.

We can’t afford  to have another Social Security system or another Medicare/Medicaid system.  Not without giving up defense programs, the war on terror, and many other federal programs.

Maybe, and it pains me to admit this, the repubs have it right and they should try to repeal this bill and start over by taking health care issues one at a time and do each of them methodically and  right.  I do know that as it stands we surely have moved one step to the left and are closer to European socialism than we have ever been before.

For a free market, true democracy, freedom of choice guy like me this bill smells bad.  Something is rotten in Denmark Washington D.C. and in a few years our Treasury is going to need open heart surgery and a full financial-resucitation all at once!!

Sorry folks, but the truth hurts.