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.

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, 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.

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.