The election ended and the crowds in bars and taverns where filled with joyous customers.  Imbibing drink after drink and speaking merrily of the salvation from the previous party.  The new President, according to the merry makers would bring new jobs, reconstruction, reestablishment of known freedoms, and bring home the troops.

The crowds spoke of how the labor would be saved by the tumultuous competition that was unfair to them.  In other moments they spoke of how unfair and stupid the previous administration was for making the trade deals they had made.

As the election ended and the economy plunged into darker territory, fear gripped the nation, but the new President would have many solutions.  He’d save us from our own mistakes by applying what the previous President had done to create the mistakes.  Many where sure of this, and they where ready to put their money down – or more realistically to trigger those credit cards again for some purchases!  For no doubt, the Federal Reserve would fix things by printing more money or making money cheap and easy.  Somehow, someway, some miracle would bring us through!

The days before the inauguration brought tears to the eyes of many women, who now felt empowered to go about their business.  They thought, finally, “we won’t have to listen to the other side and their sexist demeaning ramblings”.  These ladies thought, “we’ll stand on our own in the world of business now with this new leader”.  In fact they would.

Men stood by solemnly, wanting to move further ahead in business.  Many men wanted to provide for their families, some wanting tradition, some just wanting to know that they could find a job.  The new President gave them hope, not particularly because they where prepared, but because the previous President was a let down.

Millions however, still stood apathetic in the face of the media blitz.

These stories tell of what I saw, at the end of an election cycle at the end of a two term President.

Deja Vu

The strange thing is, this has happened to me twice.  Once just recently, with the inauguration set.  The irrational joys bring fear to me as I know how things pan out afterwards, at least according to past Presidents taking the throne of power.  The other however, was 8 years ago when George W. Bush took office.  Revered in the red counties as one who would give the farmers an ability to stand up again.  Someone who would bring the troops home.  Either way, one sees the same emotional responses, you just have to be in the right place.

The only real question though, that is left, is will Obama be different?  I’d garner that the real question is how different will he be?  Will this scenario get replayed again in 8 years?  One thing is for sure, I’m up for something, I wouldn’t call it change, but Obama seems to at least spurring something.  Let’s hope it doesn’t become irrational exuberance, and hopefully America will get a little sober in it’s drunken binges of easy money.

We shall see.

I was wondering recently, "why is deflation setting in exactly with the massive amounts of money getting printed and dumped into the market".  I got my answer, which hit my like a Homer Simpson, "doh!"

The money is NOT getting to the market.

One great explanation, with a few good comments is over at the Financial Ninja.  The fact is, nobody is requesting debt increases via loans and otherwise right now, and the banks to top that off aren't loaning haphazardly like they have been for the last 30 years to the people that are trying to get money.  All other criteria not being as important as these two simple facts.  Money gets into the market via the banks via the Federal Reserve, to put it crudely.  But if the money isn't leaving those banks, it will stave off inflation for however long they hold on to that currency.  The problem lies in when they start releasing those funds.

Since we operate on a fractional banking system the banks have no limit of liquidity that they must maintain and as such, when it leaves the banks and becomes fiat capitol in which to blow on whatever investment we're right back where we were the last 5 years.  Mythical growth based on overblown investment done with money that doesn't exist, only to blow up bigger and bigger each time.  How many times can we repeat this cycle with our fancy Federal Reserve System?  My guess is probably just as good as anyone's, but it sure doesn't look like it will end soon.

We're lining up to have the same policies of fractional banking with the Federal Government in charge of market manipulation and booms and busts.  Obama really is no hope, as he hasn't mentioned fixing the monetary system at all, and he's put the same people that have perpetuated it over the years into key positions.  I really doubt at this point I'll see honest money in my lifetime, instead I'm more likely to see armed revolt and revolution.  I'd take a lot of things over that, but we get the hand we're dealt, and at that point it is up to us to make the best of things as we may.

At least for now, the banks have managed to, on purpose or by mere accident or fear, stave off runaway inflation.  2009 is about to roll in the door and we'll surely see the results of the runaway monetary printing presses.  One of these days, I sure hope I get motivated not to think about all of this market mess again, and can once again ignore and instead focus on more productive things, like career, life, and existence on a human level.

He's back!  ??  Really?  Maybe Obama has been listening to Ron Paul and crew after all.  Better to tighten down and get to the dry dock to fix this financial collapse than to try and keep this ship afloat.  Mr. Volcker is probably a good candidate to help with that.  So far, I must admit, I'm impressed by Obama's fast pace at naming new administration members and such.  He's being more pragmatic than I originally thought he would be.  Of course, this will piss off tons of Democrats, especially Socialist Democrats, but really what we need is for him to look at the options and use reason in application of policy.

He's already shaping up to be more free market than George Bush (who is probably one of our most socialist of President's, ironically enough).  Obama is pushing for tax breaks, keeping Bush's until their expiration, and has pushed for Volcker and other stronger money policies.  This is almost against the Democrat's historical tendency.  Oh the craziness - I guess Democrat's are fairly pragmatic though, and the core beliefs of the party are as wrought with idiocy as the Republicans.  Oh well, dibs to Obama.

Now if only we can get the Government removed from the nationalization business of taking over large shares of banks and other financial entities.  What we really need, is a Pierpont Morgan again, because obviously the Government (Paulson and such) doesn't seem to have a clear cut idea or direction in what they're doing.  Morgon, as his actions showed, had a talent for laying things straight and honest.

So, no clear sight on this whole financial collapse yet, but I'm starting to figure out what is going on from the insides.  Some of my intuition is right and some is wrong so far.  Overall though my intuition has been leading me in a good direction.  Anyway, that's enough bantering for tonight, I have some turkey and such to eat tomorrow and am off to begin preparations...

As quoted on seekingalpha.com in the article "Get Ready to Buy Like It's 2002",

I believe that the price of Treasury bonds will go down, the prices of stocks will stabilize and go up, commodity prices will stabilize and go back up, housing prices will stabilize and go back up, and eventually interest rates will go back up. There's nothing mysterious about it. It's just the inevitable repeating of economic cycles, boom and bust, that sort of thing.

My guess is that the worst is over, unless President Obama becomes President Carter, and runs the economy into the ground with high taxes and disincentives for individuals to work and disincentives for businesses to operate or to grow. That's a very big unknown, and a very important unknown. The power to tax is the power to destroy!

But deflation will rapidly revert to inflation sooner rather than later. The least risky way to make money, I'm guessing, would be precisely how money was made following the last recession: commodities and stocks in commodity based companies, and owning currencies in countries with better monetary polices, more robust economies, and countries rich in commodities the world needs.

This was quoted on November 2nd of 08.  Now to watch and make the appropriate calls, and stay employed, however that might work.  I still see so few people making good calls.  Even recently some of these big name investors are just making horrendous calls.  I'd almost think they were vying for political hack for random thought.

So far within just a few days Obama has started to work in some of the greats famous techniques.  Except there are a few major differences.  Instead of radio, Obama is using Youtube to put forth a kind of fireside chat.  He also speaks of Lincoln, even though they had very different, let me rephrase, COMPLETELY OPPOSITE views on individuals, individual economy and work, and the motive of the individual.  I personally hope Obama also does a lot of his own thing besides cycle through the techniques of these past Presidents.

Recently in the Washington Post Article Eliot L. Spitzer wrote, "Although mistakes I made in my private life now prevent me from participating in these issues as I have in the past, I very much hope and expect that President Obama and his new administration will have the strength and wisdom to do again what FDR did."  He then goes on in several sections to outline why the entire regulatory system needs a serious overhaul.

First thing, I agree, it needs a complete overhaul.  But were I diverge is that it is only the regulatory system that needs the overhaul.  The industry needs focus, it needs to stop "playing".  But at the same time our economy needs to be put back to work.  With that I do NOT mean put back to work by subsidies and more unbalanced economic incursions by the Federal Government, but instead it needs put back to work for itself, for private industry of the individuals out there in this country.  In the article, this seems to be almost completely ignored, instead just mentions a half hearted attack on free-market economics.

He does point out though, that even Adam Smith didn't mean an exclusion of regulations from the economy, but we separate on agreeing what Adam Smith did want the Government to do.  Adam Smith didn't want the Government to interfere and subsidize one part of a market over another, destabilize one while declaring a monopoly for another.  So many Americans truly do not realize how socialist the Government has acted in the last 60-75 years, specifically in large part since FDR.

So in turn, I hope that Obama doesn't act like FDR.  I hope Obama sees were the market can be used and prodded to do the right thing and to move society forward.  I hope he can see were the individual can be left be and remove the yoke of enslavement that the Government, especially the Federal Government puts upon all of us.  He has stated a desire for tax breaks, and I believe this is merely talk, but if he were to move his plan forward in the first 100 days I would prospectively become a true believer in this change he speaks of.  I can't name the last Democrat that pushed forward a tax break, or encouraged their beloved Keynsian Economic Ideals.

So in summary, Obama, don't fall prey to acting like Lincoln or FDR.  Instead act in accordance with what America should do now.  Don't deprive Americans of more cash flow, get that tax break pushed through.  Don't leave the regulations the way they are, get someone working on cleaning those up and getting a new alignment for the financial sector so they stop burning America's money in the money pit.

I have hope, and Obama has time to do this, but the time is short.

So, Now that it is over and we can move on with the catastrophe of the current United States there are things I'm curious about.  What's the plan of attack, when are the troops coming back, when is the tax cuts and tax increases?  Obama is President and I'm somewhat happy with that, which is a lot coming from my Libertarian views of Freedom and Liberty.  He seems far more aware of these concepts than the last 3 Presidents by far.  I also wonder if he'll be more akin the the market philosophy of Clinton, Reagan, or will he actually tread new ground?  I hope with a dreaded fear it isn't toward more nationalization and monopoly via Government manipulation.  Well, one can hope right?

Anyway, on the other political fronts.  I noticed some of the measures I was rooting for passed and some didn't.  Kind of par for the course.  The biggest thing is that there is basically no way to pay for the levies that were passed except to raise taxes.  Not sure if anyone has checked around Oregon, but we're already WAY THE HELL UP THERE in the tax range.  We don't have a lot of disposable income left.  We lose at least 45% of our earned income as it stands, we can NOT afford much more of a tax increase.  If you don't understand how we lose that much, PLEASE, research it and figure it out, explain it to others, expand and spread the knowledge of the income tax joke.  There are already several tax increase lined up just with the existing legislative changes from expiring tax laws.  For anyone in the top 50-60% income bracket (i.e. if you make over about 60k) YOU are going to see a tax increase in Oregon.  Even with Obama's tax break, if it goes through, we'll be seeing somewhere between 1-5% of our money disappear into some type of levy or tax measure.  Somehow the city and state will have to fill these gaps.

The Positive Things

Amid these concerns, there are some ABSOLUTELY HUGE POSITIVE THINGS about Obama.  Here's my list.

1. He speaks clear and concisely when giving a speech.
2. He can actually communicate his ideas and thoughts to the audience and others he is speaking to.
3. He actually knows American History and has an understanding of things that far exceed our last couple Presidents.
4. He already has a positive reputation and view among other nations throughout the world.
5. He will no longer cause the United States to be laughed at nearly as much as we have in the last 16 years (Yeah, you read that right, Clinton didn't help us out too much on being the laughing stock of the developed nations).

So with that, I'm off to do what I do, and be a productive citizen and contribute to the economic activity of the region.

...and still, only one guy speaking the truth.

Well, it's almost time to get all apathetic and stop watching politics again.  I've been watching and reading a ton of stuff lately about our new President Obama.  I know, I know, he isn't President yet, but seriously...

So anyway, back to reality.  President Obama has outright said some messed up things.  For one, he views the Constitution as an "imperfect document" and one that has "deep flaws".  One, I'd like to see him even cover the basic fundamental concepts of the Constitution.  He studied the document for years and seems to have completely missed many of the key points.

The Positive Parts?

Hopefully Obama will have the brains and brawn of Ron Paul to get the troops home from Iraq so we can deal with places that are hot zones like Afghanistan.  Hopefully Obama can bring home the troops in Korea, Europe, and other countries.  Hopefully Obama can get fiscal restraint put back into place.

The Non-Positive Parts!

I however have no faith in Obama to clean up any of the departments, funding policies, or even straighten out our nation's internal investments.  I definitely do NOT have any faith in Obama to put this country back into the hands of the people.  I know for a fact he will not perpetuate our Constitutional Rights, and this, I fear dreadfully.  He's spoken against it himself, and not much more can be said about that.

I also do not see this supposed tax cut going through.  If he does pass it I'd be highly impressed, but the US is broke, we've been broke and it is even more obvious now.  Our economy and our citizenry has so much weight on our shoulders that we can barely bare our own lives, let alone the burden of Government.  We're on the verge of crumbling and most of what Obama has proposed is to increase that weight, somehow and with unknown funding, and leave productive America in a lurch to cover these costs in some unknown way.

Free-Markets Effectively Destroyed

Our markets, our ability to live with each other, corporatism, have effectively been nationalized now and we've lost the largest base of the economy to the Government.  It is out of the hands of the citizens of the United States.  Ron Paul again states the obvious.

Obama doesn't seem to grasp these points, but I do understand you can't speak about these things like Ron Paul does or you get lumped in the loony category. Heaven forbid anybody actually deal with the real problems instead of merely applying some band aids.

Got my fingers crossed, got some beers in the fridge, and I'm ready to tilt those suckers up to the pending chaos.  I just hope I don't have to lift something else besides those beers.

...and I leave this entry with a post by our last truly great intelligent President and a few of our other greats, what I fear to be our last greats.

Larry Elder points out in a recent article he writes about the hypocrisy of charitable giving on the lefty and righty candidates and existing President.

"Liberal families earn about 6 percent more than conservative families, yet conservative households donate about 30 percent more to charity than do liberal households. And conservatives give more than just to their own churches and other houses of worship. Conservatives, especially religious conservatives, give far more money and donate more of their time to nonreligious charitable causes than do liberals — especially secular liberals.

In 2007, President George W. Bush and his wife had an adjusted gross income of $923,807. They paid $221,635 in taxes, and donated to charity $165,660 — 18 percent of their income.

Vice President and Mrs. Cheney, in 2007, had a taxable income of $3.04 million. And they paid $602,651 in taxes, and donated to charity $166,547 — 5.5 percent of their income.

Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, earned between $200,000 and $300,000 a year between 2000 and 2004, and they donated less than 1 percent to charity. When their income soared to $4.2 million in 2007, their charitable contributions went up to 5 percent.

Joe and Jill Biden, by contrast, made $319,853 and gave $995 to charity in 2007, or 0.3 percent of their income. And that was during the year Biden was running for president. Over the past 10 years, the Bidens earned $2,450,042 and gave $3,690 to charity — or 0.1 percent of their income."

Of course, I'm for whatever you want to give.  I don't really have many programs I can honestly support that are "charitable".  I don't particular care that either of these groups of people gave as much or as little as they did, but it really points out how absurd the common belief of bleeding heart liberals and tight wad conservatives is.  Matter of fact, it just goes to show how absurd both side's arguments are as is often the case.  Seriously you Republicans and Democrats need to sit down and review your facts before lobbing talking points at each other.

As for charity, I find it amazingly odd that the Dems often want the Government, by force, to take your money and provide some form of charity.  Meanwhile Republicans give their money away like crazy and generally do something about the needy themselves.  Very strange reversal of perceived ideals.

Anyway, this is a good point to keep in mind for arguments and debate, for now, I'm again off to do something more useful.

Ok, I'm going to start rambling on about our next President, President Obama.  I need to start figuring out what policies of his will actually and will not get through and put into practice.  Of course, as anyone that actually knows about politics, functionally a president in this country has very little actual impact.  He's about to go out and be a cheerleader for this or that policy, but overall he still is at the whim of following the system.  In the end, this is the way it is supposed to work.

Over the last 50-60 years though Presidents have routinely usurped far more power than originally intended.  From Kennedy start Vietnam, Bush starting the Desert Storm, to Bush "W" going into Iraqi Freedom.  Recently the president has made our rights more difficult to maintain in many ways, some are stronger (gun rights), some are weaker(privacy).  It is of course arguable that either of those, gun rights or privacy, are really promised, but regardless of if they were or weren't we have a little more and a little less of a lot of them.

So on this note I'm going to start throwing out what some of my honest policies (HP) would be, my working with the system policies (WWSP), and my don't do this or we will pay the price policies (DDTWWPPP).  In later entries I'll use these acronyms to describe what I'm talking about.

HP is what I'd do in an ideal situation, where people have liberties that aren't continuously on the chopping block, economic activity that is based on people's demand and choices of liberty, and a Government that provides for defense of the nation as intentioned by weak or strong federalism.  The ideal situation is one were people are left to be people, to make mistakes, to be honorable and dishonorable, and for citizens of a community to come up with the real resolutions and solutions to their respective problems.  An ideal situation is a world without nanny state ideals and hidden agenda socialism, a situation without begging from the selectively downtrodden (be sure, the poor are not these people) and begging from the politicians.

WWSP is the situation in which we live.  When I come up with policies for WWSP situations it is based on the current underlying political state, the assault on our rights being a common problem, and liberty and freedom thought of as mythic notions and socialism as a common fix for economic and social ailments.  These policies of course are loaded with issues, because of the massive context they must all be created and made aware of.  A lot of these policies would and will bring out the other current legislative, bureaucratic, and related nightmares that must be fixed for America a land of Liberty and Individualism or America the land of Socialism and Society to move forward in a positive light.

DDTWWPPP situations are the ones, like now, were a bailout of this scale 5-10 years ago would have been laughed at.  The Keynesian economics of removing responsibility and accountability for those at fault is absolutely stupid.  The market punishes bad moves and ill thought plans of the individuals, let them suffer while us who made smart plans get ahead.  We made good decisions so why are we suffering right along them to bail those bastard out?  These are the insane, stupid, and anti-American ideal plans I'll post here in this category.  Really, these situations are only good for a laugh really, because if you think to hard about them, just like the bailout, you'll probably end up depressed and somewhat scared.

So in the coming days, months, and years this is what I'll use to outline various policies.

...except for Ron Paul.  Why is he not running still?  Instead we have McCain and Obama?  Two people who don't care or don't perceive the injustice inherent in the Government.  Two people who have such skewed, out of touch realities that they just ignored the pending economic collapse.  With little hidden comments and such...

...amazing people aren't stupid, they know Ron Paul is telling the truth once they hear him, problem is not enough have been able to hear him.  Amazingly even the newscasters can't corner him.  His record on voting is flawless.  He's been right, and unfortunately has been proven more than right about the economy.  I can't imagine why he's been so ignored, when he's the only one that's been remotely correct.  Unfortunate for the country in so many ways.

It's so hard to perceive the sad choices we have in Obama and McCain when we could have had someone that has proven, time and time again, with an impeccable voting record, some who knows and understands how to truly enable the United States.

Call me crazy, mark my words I'm right.  I sure hope though, that I'm wrong, but simply, we should have Ron Paul as President.