The Road Not Taken

As we wind down the 2008 presidential election, I think we will look back on it and ask ourselves many questions about how we ended up with a Marxist-socialist in the White House. This election will have profound negative consequences on us as a people and on the world. As I have stated in previous postings, this trip did not start yesterday, it started over 70 years ago. It will take us at least 70 years to reverse this course, if we can do it all. I doubt that we can, but that does not mean that we cannot -- or I will not -- try.

So, for those of you who are committed to an Obama presidency, I would ask you to consider three decision criteria in selecting our next president: character, experience, and accomplishment. In the business world, these three criteria are generally evaluated through a review of a written resume, validated through a personal interview, and a final hiring decision confirmed through personal references. With respect to a personal resume, you have Obama's own books (Dreams from My Father and Audacity of Hope) and books written about him (The Obama Nation by Jerome Corsi and The Case Against Barack Obama by David Freddoso). With respect to interviews, you have Rick Warren's Saddleback debate, the Presidential Debates, and interviews with numerous cable pundits. However, one is hard pressed to confirm the hiring decision through personal references, as this is not an area the media wants to fully explore. So, I decided to find the most comprehensive list I could so that you could make an informed decision. They are summarized and illustrated through video documentary in the Cloward Piven Strategy - Part 2 - Political Allies and Advisors. As my father told me "You will be judged by the company you keep." I guess this does not apply to Barack Obama.

As for me, I think I will stay on The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost, 1920).

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Second Open Letter to the United States Congress

The following letter was sent to my elected representatives on October 17, 2008. I suggest you write one to your elected rerpesentatives requesting your "stock" certificates be sent directly to you for safe keeping.

"The purpose of this letter is to request information about the contractual nature that the US Treasury has with the various financial institutions, which Congress has authorized the Treasury to nationalize. Specifically, is the Treasury receiving voting shares for its investment? If so, how and by whom will these shares be voted? If shares are being issued, I would like to receive mine in the mail. Otherwise, I am concerned that when these shares appreciate, as they must according to Mr. Paulson (as he knows that the mark to market rule allowed him to buy these shares at a depressed value), then I want to make sure that my pro rata share of the proceeds are returned to me. Otherwise, I fear they will be absorbed by the US Government and returned to organizations such as ACORN, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other entities who do not have my best interest in mind.

While I await word from you, I will spend my time in retirement working to recover one-third of my life savings. Plan B is to figure out how to die 33% sooner than my actuarial age, which will be bad for me, but even worse for those who were depending on my continued contribution to their prosperity and ultimate realization of the 'American Dream.' ”

Money Ain’t For Nothing … and the Checks are for Free!

As stated in Comments on The 2008 Second Presidential Debate, the only difference between the state of our country and its institutions and the Titanic is that the Titanic had a band. So, after a little thoughtful reflection and a strong sense that we are about to inaugurate the first social Marxist to be president of the United States , I propose that we celebrate (with the little money we have left) by hiring the band Dire Straits. With a little twist on the lyrics, their classic hit “Money Ain’t for Nothing” could become American pop culture’s new national anthem! Unfortunately for Obama and his fellow Marxists, the euphoria will be short lived, tempered by economic reality. The “wealthy,” upon which the left’s tax and spend economic policy depends, are fleeing the market. Apparently, they understand that replacing the free market with a large central government controlled entirely by “Democratic” socialists – propped up by a $100B stimulus package, a $700B bailout, and yet another $150B stimulus package currently under discussion – will not work .

America is at a “strategic inflection point” in its history. I believe that if Obama is elected, our children and grandchildren will look back in history and identify this election as the point in time we transitioned from a free, capitalist society – one nation under God with equality of opportunity for everyone – to a Marxist socialist one – a multi-cultural, secular humanistic post-modern society that seeks equality of outcome for everyone but its “intellectual elite,” who view themselves as saviors of the common man and worthy of special dispensation. The Bush Administration’s policies are not the cause of the recent economic implosion, as much as the left would like to us to believe. The cause is the result of a relentless, long-term strategy that was implemented by Marxists starting in the 1920s, brought to the United States in the 1930s, and fully implemented starting in the 1950s (see Taking America to School … and Other Places We No Longer Recognize for background, discussion, and links to Obama’s world view).

The principal thesis of this movement (Critical Theory) was that Marxism could not defeat Capitalism through direct conflict or economic means but had to first undermine its culture by attacking its underlying institutions: the nuclear family, its Christian faith, education, media, entertainment, and popular culture. As the theory goes, success in subversion of these institutions would lead to economic, political, and military collapse. This is exactly what we have seen. Future articles will examine trends in each of these areas; however, suffice it to say that the current economic meltdown is simply a result of this much larger strategy. Our current economic woes are the result of 70 years of social engineering, which has year-by-year – in 2007 inflation adjusted dollars – driven federal spending in 1965 from $628 billion to $2.7 trillion in 2007 (a 334% increase), while the median income of the average American has risen 35% ($28,346 to $38,386 per year). Over this period, mandatory spending on entitlement programs (social security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, etc.) has grown from 26.9% of the budget to 52.9% of the budget. These programs had their genesis in the 1930s through democrat president Franklin D Roosevelt’s “New Deal” and came into full bloom under democrat president Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society.” When interest is considered (8.3%), only 38.8% of the budget is discretionary (within the control of the President).

One of these social engineering programs was the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), signed into law by democrat president Jimmy Carter in 1977 and further expanded by democrat president Bill Clinton in 1999 to offer sub-prime mortgages to low and moderate income persons, who otherwise could not afford them. This fiscally irresponsible, social engineering program targeted at providing “affordable housing” to those who could not “afford” it directly resulted in the economy crumbling under the weight of credit that could not be repaid. In true socialist fashion, the democratically controlled congress – aided and abetted by a minority of clueless Republicans – have now exacerbated the problem by throwing more fuel on the fire, in the form of $700B in cash guarantees. Instead, they should have taken action by unleashing the power of free market capitalism: eliminating insane mark to market rules, reducing capital gains taxes, reducing corporate income taxes, and debating the merits of new tax systems like the fair tax or flat tax system. Note: all solutions proposed by democrats require the government to be in the middle, and that is the problem.

So, what is the bottom line (pun intended)? The progress made by the Bush administration over the past six years has been erased in two weeks by long-term, systemic socialist policies that have been at work for 70 years. A little over a year ago, consumer confidence stood at a two-and-one-half year high, regular gas sold for $2.19 per gallon, the unemployment rate was 4.5%, the Dow reached record highs, and Americans were buying new cars. Over the six year period, the Bush administration has put forward proposals to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, address social security, address energy policy, and address health care. Many of these proposals passed the House, only to die in committee in the Senate because they were blocked by the democrats. Since the democrats have taken control of congress, every one of these economic indicators has reversed and to borrow a phrase from one of their social justice theorists, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, “the chickens have come home to roost.” Consumer confidence has dropped, the Dow is trading in ranges we have not seen since the 1970s, a record number of homes are in foreclosure, unemployment has risen by 10% (to 5.5%) , and the federal deficit has ballooned.

May be the market understands, better than the voters, the true cost of Obama’s Change: you give him a dollar and he gives you back two cents.

Comments on the 2008 Second Presidential Debate

Last night’s debate was mind numbing. The questions did not take us where the American people have a right to go: to questions of world-view, personal character and integrity, and demonstrated experience.

Rick Warren's Saddleback debate was the most informative of all the candidate debates. If the first two presidential debates had followed the Saddleback format and / or asked similarly insightful questions on key issues like the economy, energy, the war, education, and healthcare, perhaps the American people could determine the difference between each candidate’s position. To me the choice is straightforward. We can either vote for the McCain / Palin team, which supports a Judeo Christian worldview, demonstrates high personal moral character and integrity, and has a proven track record or we can vote for Obama, who has a Marxist / humanist world view, a questionable moral character, and no proven track record. I purposely left Biden out because his views are immaterial: he has demonstrated consistently that he cannot even get his facts straight. As the mortgage guy on the radio says, "This must be the biggest no brainer in the history of the earth." Any further discussion is little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic ...

... at least they had a band.

Obamanomics 101 – The Root Cause of Our Current Economic Crisis

Recently, I was notified by the Naval Postgraduate School that as an alumnus I could have access to their online research resources. I guess they gave that privilege to the wrong guy!

Attached is an article published in the Urban Affairs Quarterly, March 1979, discussing the topic of “Financing Home Ownership, The Federal Role in Neighborhood Decline.” It traces the history of home financing from 1934 to 1979. Its conclusion, ironically, is that even at the time of its writing in 1979 that “federal policies and programs designed to expand the opportunities for home ownership have often contributed to neighborhood decline rather than curing it.” It also describes the credit market that was created for “community organizers” by federal policies. In essence, these federal policies view communities as “sophisticated conglomerates, whose major subsidiaries, the housing market, the business sector, and the social institutions, are themselves composed of smaller economic units, such as households, individual organizations, and enterprises – all of which are integrated through interdependent financial interactions, each depending upon a supply of credit to expand its own capital and make new investment in order to survive.”

In contrast to a capitalist view of the market where monetary investment is made by individuals and by corporations in ideas and capital equipment and the consumer determines winners and losers, the community organizer model relies on the federal government passing socially progressive legislation that makes monetary investment in the “conglomerates,” described above, through quasi-governmental agencies like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Freddie and Fannie provide tax-payer money and access to easy credit to persons who otherwise could not afford it. Enter the “community organizer,” who trains the so-called “disenfranchised” to believe that they are victims of a corrupt capitalist society, that they are entitled to the “American Dream,” and then indoctrinates them in a liberal, socialistic ideology. For the organizer, the medium of exchange for the “American Dream” no longer becomes money, but instead a vote. The “organizer” organizes the communities to believe that they are “companies,” in which society has a moral mandate to “invest.” The “organizer” then forms organizations like the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) – funded at taxpayer expense – to encourage low income, poorly educated, disenfranchised persons, whose principal asset is that they are over 18 years old but otherwise are clueless, to vote for socially progressive legislators, who will further expand these socially progressive programs. In essence, the “social progressive” seeks to replace equality of opportunity, with equality of outcome. Obama’s euphemism for this model is “being neighborly.” My definition is Marxist socialism.

So the real question is this. If we are about to elect “The Organizer in Chief” to be the next President of the United States of America, does his “trickle up” economic model work? I guess some would point to Europe as a success story; I would think most Americans would disagree. So instead of debating that issue, a better question to ask is “how has the ‘organizer’ model benefitted the community represented by Barack Obama – Chicago?” Chicago is a good example, because of Obama’s long history of service in the community, as a community organizer, state congressman, state senator, and US senator. The elected representatives from this area are all democrats – no republicans to blame! So here goes:

1. In the last six months, more people have been murdered in Chicago (292) than killed in combat in Iraq (221).
2. The state pension fund is $44B in debt – the worst in the country.
3. The Chicago school system is one of the worst in the country.
4. Cook County Illinois (Chicago) sales tax is the highest in the country – 10.25%.

I know, I know – we have not invested enough, the folks have been victimized, and they are entitled to better. I submit we have invested more than we can afford in this 30 year social engineering project. It has resulted in the need to enact a $700B bailout of the credit system that will have to be borne by all of us, our children, and their grandchildren. This “investment” in the alternative economic world of social progressive politics has bankrupted all of us. For someone whose self described strong suit is “economics,” Obama would be well advised to read the modern version of the “Goose that Laid the Golden Egg” by Richard Cummings.