Time for Thorns

I don’t pretend to be an expert on investments,  but this September piece on insider trading strikes me as a sensible caution sign.   So does this current  post at The Corner

One thing I’m quite sure of is that the stimulus hasn’t stimulated much of anything besides government growth and liberal lard fantasies.    Every time I drive to town I notice a few more vacant storefronts.    One of my favorite little hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurants closed a few months ago.    The shopping mall in the next larger city has lost some national chains.    A long-time friend has been out of work for nearly 6 months now,  and she has decades of experience in office work.

The small business owners I know are working their fannies off trying not to fire anyone or reduce hours.    A couple of them have just about decided to close up shop and retire.   All they know is that more people have less income and no one is in the mood to hire when all they see from the Obama  administration is a never-ending geyser of red ink and skyrocketing taxes.

The wealth-eaters are winning.

I see Obama is taking credit for having “rescued” the economy.  No mention that he and Frank, Dodd and ACORN were largely responsible for the fiscal mess.

An administration’s annual midsummer budget update generally comes out in mid-July.   Are you surprised His Oneness isn’t releasing his now while he is still pressuring  Congress to approve his planned takeover of the health care segment of our economy?

By any stretch of the imagination do you believe that the budget update  will NOT show higher deficits and unemployment,  and slower growth than projected in  Obama’s budget in February and update in May?   Of course you don’t,  because if there were any good news to reveal,  there would be rapturous HEADLINES,  and His Oneness would be on tv graciously accepting the plaudits of the media.

“Rebuilding Something Better” — that’s the title of Obama’s op-ed today in the Washington Post.

The title rubbed me the wrong way,  and the whole piece is a whine by His Oneness that the fiscal mess isn’t his fault,  never mind that every action he has taken seems designed to make it worse.

Stephen Spruiell presents a brutal annotation of the piece.

I don’t imagine His Oneness actually wrote any of the column, but it reminds me of all the jobs his job-killing,  wealth-destroying actions were going to create,  and then it was all the jobs they would save or create.    Now he is positioned to take credit for any economic recovery,  which will most certainly be in spite of his policies,  not because of them.

Obama is a skilled politician,  but a disastrous leader,  unless you like following lemmings hurdling over cliffs.

Keith Hennessey has also taken a meat cleaver to the op-ed.

In the final installment,  Sowell argues that the Obama administration is a great deal less intent on reviving the economy than on forever altering the relationship of Americans to the federal government, and he uses health care reform to prove it.

Veronique de Rugy at The Corner introduces us to a new blog by a former acting director of the Congressional Budget Office.    No, this ain’t your old-style  blog,  stuffy and tedious and dull.     Donald Marron’s stle is straightforward, and he offers a model of clarity which you’ll actually  not only find quite painless,   but also far more informative than anything the Obama White House puts out.

Dodd’s take from AIG over the past 5 years has been about $223,000 and that’s on top of the $316,000 he’s taken from Citigroup AND $218,000 from the Royal Bank of Scotland.   More than three quarters of a million dollars from just 3 bankrupt financial firms.

Not to mention that he has told a different story every day on his involvement with language in the stimulus bill permitting AIG bonuses.   His most recent stance seems to be “Treasury made me do it, and if all the things I’ve said are unclear, you’re just confused and not paying attention, because I’ve been very clear.”

And let’s not even get into the hearings yesterday, at which Rep. Barney Frank spent his time looking like a pouty pigeon, spewing outrage and threats every time his lips moved.    I actually felt sorry for the AIG current CEO, who makes $1 a year and came out of rertirement to try to steer the AIG ship off the shoals.

The one thing Frank said that I totally agreed with was that those who caused the AIG downfall should not be rewarded and shouldn’t be employed.    I’d like to apply the same standard to Frank and Dodd, since they lied repeatedly about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and so much else.

And hourly we’re finding out more about who knew what and when, and it appears that every Democrat who has spoken on the subject has either lied, or omitted huge chunks of the truth.

I have to admit it’s enjoyable watching Democrats play extreme cover-your-ass with each other.    I don’t think Obama cares much, just as he doesn’t care if the economy recovers or not.     If he can push through the legislation necessary to create his vision of America, I don’t even think he cares if he’s a one-termer.

His Oneness has invited Twitter co-founder and CEO Ev Williams to a “young business leaders” summit to discuss the economic crises.

With 6 million members and 700% plus growth, Twitter makes NO money in the US.    This apparently fits in with Obama’s economic model, which has thus far resulted in:

unemployment at 25 year high;

a record 38.1 million on food stamps;

and the fastest Dow decline for a new president in nearly a century.

At this point, you shudder to imagine what other records His Oneness is going to achieve in his first 100 days!

In a January 27th C-SPAN interview,  Rep. Paul Kanjorski,  (D-PA) said:   “…It was about Sept. 15.  Here’s the facts….

“On Thursday at about 11 o’clock…, t he Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous drawdown of money market accounts in the United States to the tune of $550 billion, … in…an hour or two.

“The Treasury…pumped $105 billion into the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide…. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn’t be further panic out there, and that’s what actually happened.”

Kanjorksi continued:

“… their estimation was that by 2 o’clock that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy system of the United States and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed.”

Read Diana West at Townhall.   Rush Limbaugh is about the only other person who has commented on it.  His transcript from February 10th, is here.   I recall wondering at the time why Pres. Bush was talking about stepped up SEC enforcement  –  this explains it.     Accuracy in Media has more.

Isn’t it time we demanded some answers?

UPDATE:  Monkey in the Middle contains an embed of the C-SPAN video for your viewing pleasure.

UPDATE:  Someone else thinks George  Soros has odd timing.

This is one of the best articles I’ve seen.