Two Signs the Political Apocalypse is Nigh

Jimmy Carter famously said: "All of us must learn to waste less energy. Simply by keeping our thermostats, for instance, at 65 degrees in the daytime and 55 degrees at night we could save half the current shortage of natural gas."

Barry Obama, not to be outdone, calls for an "investment (to) place Smart Meters in homes to make our energy bills lower, make outages less likely and make it easier to use clean energy".

It's one thing to have Uncle Jimmy chiding us for liking it over 65 degrees in our homes; it's quite another to let the government into our home to check up on our thermostats.

Then there's this:

Henry Ford famously said: "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black."

Not so fast! The California Cool Paints Initiative says that's gonna be a problem.

Aren't we just about ready for a free market on energy by now? Isn't it high time we told Big Brother to butt out?

Contender Schmontender

Everybody's got a plan until he gets hit. -- Mike Tyson

Read Iowahawk's Requiem for a Lightweight. Then come back.

So in another whiffed uppercut, Obama causes the resignation of a private citizen (Wagoner), announces that the US treasury will now guarantee auto quality for GM and Chrysler cars, and of course the market counterpunches another 3%.

....6...7....8....9....

(FADE TO BLACK)

I'm Obama's Approval Rating, and I Approve this Message

News item: Obama's approval rating drops to 50-50.

For a fellow who might as well have changed his name to "Notbush" for the last election, he sure has been getting Bush-like results. People wanting change were told that Obama was the candidate for that, yet it sure looks like he wants to continue the Bush policies that people were voting against. Bigger government, wall street bailouts, misguided education and health programs. It's no wonder he's seeing sub-Bush approval ratings (by this point). What, exactly, is the difference between a big government republican and a big government democrat? Not much, I say. But you would at least expect to see some meaningful differences in economic policy. No, turns out the first order of business is launching Pelosi's shopping list.

Sure, guys like Geithner and Biden are merely incompetent; but Emmanual and Obama know what they are doing. They are doing Bush one better at every turn. Hard to believe it, but I can already see Bush 43's image as being rehabilitated before the midterm election. His will not have been a bad administration after all when compared to this one.

Obama's Budget

Asking the Right Questions

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people". -- Eleanor Roosevelt.

You can usually tell when an idea has impact. The enemies of a great idea will invariably dive down and attempt to undercut the source of the idea, by attacking the person, instead of the idea. You've heard from these small minded people a lot, and especially lately.

Where the idea is the defeat of socialism, the response is "Rush is fat".

Where the idea is resisting the attack on American culture, the response is "O'Reilly is a racist".

Where the idea is the right size for the government, the response is "Gingrich is mean".

Where the idea is the sovereignty of the USA, the response is "Mark Steyn is a fear-monger".

I want you to watch for this, and then ask the name caller a simple question. If we all start asking this one simple question, we can begin to get the dialog focussed on the ideas, and not on the names. After all, it is the idea that counts, and a great idea is better than all of us put together, no matter our faults and personality traits.

The question: "But can you refute what he/she says?" Try it. It is guaranteed to stop the downward slide of the dialog, and might even cause some folks to reflect more on their own faults.

"Yes, but can you refute anything he/she says (Something?, Anything?)?".

"Chuck Baldwin is a bible thumping moron" - "Not really, but can you refute anything he says?".

"Ayn Rand was a godless witch" - "If you say so, but can you refute any of her ideas?".

"Pat Buchanan is a jew hating leviathon" - " Not at all, but tell me, can you refute what he says?"

If they can, then there's a basis for continued dialog. If they can't then it's surely best for the discussion to end there.

By the numbers

Here's another fun thing you can do while waiting for the weather and the economy to warm up:

Go to this database, and study the earmarks of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill. (Thanks to Taxpayers for Common Sense).

The NTU blog shows the list of the biggest earmark culprits. Who says bipartisanship is dead?

June Swoon

More math assignments:

Dow Jones Industrial Average on May 30, 2008:

12,638.32

On June 2, Obama clinched the nomination. Market dropped 9% that month alone.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average as of March 3, 2009:

6,726.02

Saw it coming

There's much more talk lately about Going John Galt.

I think a lot of people saw the emerging Bush-Obama Recession as the opportunity to bail out of the system; and they're pulling all their wealth out of the equities market. The market is known as a proxy for the future value of the economy. The smart money has already left, and the rest of us are holding onto what little is left of the market expecting some kind of upturn.

Along comes news of another stimulus plan, there's a fourth AIG bailout, a planned tax on the small business owners, and it goes lower than even the most pessimistic of us would have predicted. In every likelihood it is not over yet, thus more people are talking about John Galt.

Consider what has happened in the last 22 years:

Ronald "government is the problem" Reagan
George "read my lips" Bush
Bill "era of big government is over" Clinton
George "exporting democracy at all costs" Bush
Barry "spread the wealth" Obama.

The decline into socialism was slowed by one democrat ( Clinton) and one republican (Reagan), accelerated by two republicans (Bush and Bush) and now the democrat (Obama) who will show you how it's really done.

How we got here is not surprising given that the "other" choices presented were Dukakis, Dole, Gore, Kerry, and McCain. Somehow we have to get out of the cycle of settling for the evil of two lessers.

As I mentioned earlier, the so-called "wealthy" are smart enough to put their money out of reach of Obama. Any attempt to take it from them will wind up hurting us all; the people who do make 250,000 will find a way to make it 249,999. People will move out of the expensive cities, take up permanent residences in rural America and live off the CDs and mattresses they created when the market and the economy were working. That's going John Galt. Believe me, it has already started.

Meanwhile, Obama, ostensibly seeking to become more notorious than FDR, is about to make the great depression look like a spring vacation.

Those who saw it coming in early 2008 are in pretty good shape. Hope you got your mattresses full.

The (sordid) SOTU

I expected this to be depressing, and I wasn't disappointed. Sure, he painted a very bleak picture, but that had nothing to do with my disposition. It was the remedies he was proposing that sunk my disposition lower than the Mariana Trench.

First of all, this speech was designed to make sure that Bush gets the blame, and I understand and accept that. Comes with the territory. And Bush is not totally blameless. If he would have vetoed everything coming out of the 110th congress, plus seen to it that the CRA was repealed, then none of this (including the election of a socialist president) would have happened. So be it. Obama is within his rights to set everything up as a Bush induced problem. I'll leave the sorting out of that to the historians. Bush failed to defend the constitution. Fine. Now what is Obama going to do differently?

Your first clue would be the constant and incessant jumping up and cheering by (spender in chief) Pelosi whenever Obama mentioned another mind bogglingly huge spending proposition.

Another clue was his singling out little Ty'Sheoma for writing a letter to Congress about education. She looked like someone who was being congratulated in front of class for doing a homework assignment. What's the big deal? She just did what she was told to do. Never mind that the education system is not legally connected to nor should it be dependent on the federal government,; and a truly well educated schoolchild would know that. If she would have sent the letter to her school corporation, that would get an "A". This paper gets a "C". So, it appears Obama's education goals are for "C" level work even ahead of "A" and "B".

Obama talks about making sure the top 2% of wage earners send their money to Timothy Geithner instead of using it to create private sector jobs. Without even the slightest hint of irony in his voice. How exactly does he propose to classify "the wealthy"? If it really is families who make over $250,000 / year, we will have fewer families producing that amount. What's good or useful about that? The so called wealthy are smart enough not to make $250,001. They are smart enough to place their money into hard assets. What then? Tax revenue will drop significantly. So, not only will the economy continue to fall, tax revenue will fall, as well. And with all this spending going on, it doesn't take Geithner's accountant to know what happens next.

And then there's 95% of working households that will receive a tax cut. Note that tax cut as used here is actually a transfer payment, so it really means free money, at least to those who have zero net taxes. It seems like that detail is often lost on pundits. Regardless of how our collective wealth is redistributed I always find it helpful to calculate my share of the expenses, and compare it to my budget. 750 Billion dollars is about ten grand per family. So, if you are going to spend 10 grand of my money, it better be on something worthwhile. I don't think charitable redistribution would be on my short list. In fact, it just makes my dollars worth less, and the companies that use my dollars require more of them to provide the same service. Sorry to boil it down and ruin the president's fun.

Tax credits for college? $2500? Artificially subsidizing college will just raise college costs. Probably by $2600. Net result is less, but the teachers will sure like it.

Finally, the nationalization of banks. What to say about that? Well, I'm as good at running banks as I am at running the post office. Now as long as I'm a shareholder in the banks, I just have to vote for bankers to watch out for my interests. Steve Forbes, anyone?

I'm going to let others tally up all the cash register rings in this speech. I'm too depressed.

The (sorta) SOTU

Your Wizer hasn't had a chance to break down the State of the Union speech, but I promise some analysis by the weekend. In the meantime, if you want a quick read of what was covered, Rich Galen mulls on it here.