2 Things About the Obama Campaign

2 Questions:

1. How important can the endorsement of Barack Obama by Colin Powell be, considering:

Colin Powell is the one, as Secretary of State, who delivered testimony about Iraq having the Weapons of Mass Destruction. If he’s so good, why didn’t he know that wasn’t true? If he DID know it wasn’t true, why didn’t he resign, rather than lie to us?

2. Why isn’t the media holding Obama to his promise to take federal campaign funds, thus limiting his ability to raise money himself. The answer is this: The media is profiting from a staggering $150 Million he raised last month. They get a huge windfall in tough economic times for television and radio and in return, they support Obama.

I’m no fan of John McCain, but what a mess we’re in for. The problem with an Obama Presidency is that the real issues will be overshadowed by the ones that don’t matter: Race, experience, the charge that will be leveled that Obama bought the office. It’s all going to take away from the real problem – that we’ve entered the most dangerous recession of our time, and will probably suffer a Greater Depression.

I predict the race issue will be a big problem. A big portion of the U.S. is simply not interested in a black President. Militant and vocal Black America will soon become disillusioned when things don’t change overnight to put them on top. Liberal White America, who (if it happens) will have elected Obama, will bear the brunt of the Militant Black community’s anger. After all, the Democrats are still basically white. With the “super-majority” in Congress they expect to get, the Democrats will be seen as blocking Black America’s triumph. The backlash could be devastating, and won’t help anyone.

I don’t envy Barack Obama if he becomes President. Black America will expect to see a White House and Administration filled with African-Americans. Liberals call fears of that “racist,” but only because they don’t believe it will happen. If it doesn’t happen, Obama has problems with Black America, who will believe they’ve elected him. If it does happen, it will scare a lot of non-black people who will have voted for Obama, and they will start to reconsider their previous assertion that “race doesn’t matter.”

Sadly, it does.

Posted in Economy, Politics, US
Tags: Campaign, Election, McCain, Obama, Presidential Election

A Cynic’s Paradise

As we get within three weeks of the Presidential election, it’s easy to be cynical, easy to just shake your head and wonder how America got to this place. It’s a travesty.

While we follow the tale of “Joe the Plumber,” a voter the McCain campaign decided to shove into the spotlight and use as a device, the absurdity of it all just boggles the rational mind. Forget for a moment that the Republican’s new icon should probably be worried less about his taxes going up, and more worried about paying the back taxes he’s got a lien on his house for.

I know campaigning for President is hard, trying to reach all the different flavors of voters, but the Republicans have forgotten the lesson they learned from Bill Clinton. Remember “It’s the economy, stupid?”

I do.

Apparently, they don’t. Who cares about taxes right now? McCain had the perfect opportunity to present himself as the experienced statesman who can guide us through this potentially world-changing crash, but missed.

At this point, I’m sadly starting to prepare myself mentally for the disaster an Obama Presidency will be. If the Republicans win, it will only be through the sad racism that still exists in too great measure. I don’t think Obama is the right choice, and I disappointed that I have to vote against the first black Presidential candidate because of his politics and lack of experience. A couple years ago, I was hoping to have the opportunity to cast a vote for Colin Powell, but that didn’t play out. That being said, I wouldn’t vote FOR a candidate because he’s black anymore than I’d vote AGAINST one for the same reason. Unfortunately, in this election, a vote against Obama is going to be seen by a lot of people as a vote agains THE black man, rather than a vote against A black man.

We’ve got a long way to go.

Posted in Politics
Tags: Election, Joe the Plumber, McCain, Obama, President, Voting

The Coming Recession/Depression and What You Can Do To Protect Yourself

It’s an amazing time when the optimists among us are expecting only a severe recession. But that’s the case right now. Most observers know what is coming. It’s a Depression (capital “D” intended) that’s coming, called by some another Great Depression, and by others the Greater Depression. I think that’s accurate.

Why? We have built our house on the shifting sands of credit, not financially stable savings. We made the mistake of assuming paper profits that were so inflated they weren’t even taxed (how insubstantial must a type of profit be for even the U.S. Government not to recognize it?). Sure, Capital Gains on Real Estate used to be taxed when the property was sold, but no longer. That, as much as anything should have tipped us off that they weren’t real.

Over the next two years, Americans will learn some hard lessons. Among them:

• Real Estate prices cannot and do not go up forever.
• Houses and ATMs are two very different things.
• Our leaders don’t know nearly as much about the economy as they pretend to.
• Spending more than you make doesn’t work for individuals, businesses or governments.

So, Americans are left watching the spectacle devoted to what the government is going to do to fix this. Soon, maybe in the next 3 weeks, maybe in the next 3 months, we as a society will come to the conclusion that the government hasn’t the first clue about how to fix the problem. At that point, Americans’ attention will shift to what they can do individually to protect themselves. My suggestion is that you make that shift now.

Toward that end, I’m putting together a report titled “A New Great Depression: What you can do to prepare your family and yourself for economic disaster.” It’s going to be a free report, downloadable from this site when it’s finished, hopefully by the end of the week.

In it, I’ll lay out where we are right now as an economy, and some of the things I believe we’ll be facing as Americans over the next 10 years. The report will have a set of steps to prepare for the aftermath of the collapse we’re seeing unfold right now.

As soon as I have it finished, I’ll post the link to download the report.

Posted in Economy, Housing Bubble, Politics, Society
Tags: Depression, Dow, Economy, Greater Depression, Market Crash, Recession

We Were Hosed

—WCN Warning: Economic/Terrorist event possible—

The House of Mis-Representatives have stolen $700 Billion of yours, mine, and our children’s money. Not to “rescue Main Street,” as this breakers of faith state, but rather to bailout Wall Street gamblers bankers and foreign banks that gambled, trying to get in on the mortgage game. The sad thing is these foreign banks will reportedly be able to offload their bad foreign debt on to us as well. In essence, we’re paying for mortages in Europe and China that those consumers couldn’t pay for. The mortgage fiasco isn’t an exclusively American problem.

Michael Panzer of Financial Armageddon on the disasterous bill.

From Jim Sinclair of JSMineset:

Dear International Friends,

Maybe you should consider a visit to your local bank for their abbreviated Saturday hours.. What do you have to lose? That all depends on how much you have deposited there…

I have no doubt that $1650 will come. My concern is not that it will not happen, but that I am much too conservative in my long-term price objective held since 2000.

If major banks can be torn apart how can we have faith in the small local institutions that hold most of your ready cash?

When I said “This is IT,” it is not something that I take lightly. Never in 49 years in finance have I seen a set of circumstances so challenging to the man in the street.

What I am getting at is a simple question. Are you prepared? You have heard us talk repeatedly on removing financial intermediaries between you and your assets, but the time has come for us to recommend going one step further:

Hold enough cash at your household to last you a month or two. It may be largely unnecessary for the majority, but what do you have to lose? If your bank should fail this will save you a lot of grief in the short term. If they do not, you still have all your cash that can easily be deposited back into your account.

Good advice.

Scott Simon, of NPR’s Weekend Edition had a great interview with Libertarian Presidential Candidate Bob Barr. It’s such a shame that our Republic has been hijacked by this “two parties who are really one” as many people believe.

In a way, it’s like our country has liver disease. Your liver acts as a filter that detoxifies the blood. If not for the service of that essential organ, we would (and do, when we do enough damage to it) die. The toxins, infiltered, kill us. The media in our Republic could, and pretends to, act as a liver, showing the toxins for what they are, and allowing the body (you and me) to remove those toxins from influence, by voting them out of office, charging them with crimes and misdemeanors, etc.

Unfortunately, our mainstream media doesn’t do it’s job of unmasking these opportunistic “infections” and “toxins” in the form of career politicians, crooks and liars who take up residence in Washington, DC and pass law after law that enriches them and their friends and allies (on both sides of the political aisle, by the way) and hands us the bill. You got a $700B bill yesterday, and I guarantee you, it won’t be the last. But we’re on the hook, and the next looming catastrophe if the ransom isn’t paid will be much bigger. Bet on it. Sadly, our Republic’s “liver” has gone rogue, and is filtering out the antibodies we need (the Ron Pauls and Bob Barrs) and opening the gates to the true toxins, the Barack Hussein Obamas and Joe Bidens of our world.

As of today, the America I was born into, in which I was raised and fairly well educated, is gone. The world, aided by the very people we elect and trust to protect and govern us, has found a way to dump its financial toxins here, in a bizarre twist on what we’re often accused of doing to other countries and regions in more physical ways. We’ve been accused of dumping tons of depleted uranium in Iraq through the Bush (Sr. and Jr.) wars. Friday’s vote by the House of Representatives does the financial equivalent of dumping $700B of “depleted mortgages” on these shores. These mortgages will be on London flats, French commercial buildings, German multiplexs and probably Chinese high-rises.

What history has to say about all this, we’ll have to wait a few decades to read. But, barring drastic and dramatic political action, the America I grew up in is on life support, suffering greatly from acute liver failure, in dire need of a transplant. What I fear, is that our nation and society’s medical history, so full of unhealthy lifestyle, overconsumption of the very toxins killing us, is keeping us off the transplant list.

Plus, our medical insurance is at best, bad and at worst, bankrupt.

Posted in Economy, Politics
Tags: $700 Billion Bailout, Economy, Financial Crisis, Financial Rescue, Paulson, Wallstreet Bailout

The Beauty Pageant completely misses the point

—WCN Warning: Economic/Terrorist event possible—

Watching the Vice President Debate last night, I was struck at how (almost) pointless this campaign is, and just how out of touch these people are. There was so little of serious consequence debated last night, I wondered if anyone up there truly grasped the danger of the economic situation, or realized more and more, everyday Americans are beginning to understand it. There’s worry out here, and a rising sense of anger over it. With the exception of Sarah Palin, everyone in the race is a complete Beltway Insider. I’ve lived and worked inside the Beltway, and I know insiders when I see them.

That term, “Beltway Insider” gets bandied about a lot. The interstate system that encircles Washington, DC, running through Virginia and Maryland, is a system I avoided as much as possible. My wife and I lived first in Arlington, then Vienna, both in Virginia. Arriving in the Nation’s Capital not long after Bill Clinton’s election (don’t read anything into that – purely coincidental), I quickly realized that when you came to Washington, you were either a Virginia or a Marylander, and you figured that out pretty quickly. Most never change sides. Sure, a few people end up living in the District, but that’s usually either ghetto or uber-upscale real estate. Neither for me, thank you.

Living in Arlington was subtly different than Vienna. Vienna is a nice little community barely a mile outside the beltway on I-66. There’s a Metro station at the edge of town, but my work hours (I’m writing this at 4:29am) kept me in the car, driving across the Chain Bridge, or else around the circular off-ramp that provided a magnificent view of the Iwo Jima Memorial as I left I-66 to drive through Arlington and across the Key Bridge into Georgetown.

Living in a high-rise in Arlington was a much more urban, inside the beltway experience. I loved it, though. We lived in a building just across a small plaza from the National Science Foundation, so between that, and my work in the media, there was a lot of contact with the “insiders.” When you’re inside, it’s almost like you’re in a “cone of acceptance,” and belong there. More than once, on a coffee-break we bumped into Chelsea Clinton and stopped and talked for a couple seconds outside Starbucks with her and her surly girlfriend/Secret Service protection. The “surly” was in a high school girl way, not a Secret Service Agent way, but she still could have probably kicked my ass in a heartbeat, even though I’m 6’2″ and on the day we first met, was wearing a long Aussie-style raincoat and a “USS Ronald Reagan” baseball cap (the ship hadn’t been launched yet, but I have Navy connections that got me a “Gipper” cap not long after they laid the keel), but they showed no concern. I figured my much more friendly looking staff, one metro-sexual male and a pretty 30 year old female “softened” my look. I was a little surprised that high school girls did lunch at Starbucks (it was only the middle 90s, and I don’t think the Frappacino had made its debut yet) – her school, Sidwell Friends – was down the street, but that’s the District. Things are just a little ahead of the rest of the country, like the East Coast, but in a subtler way.

Once we moved to Vienna, we got away from a lot of the “total government” people and more into the high tech and government support industry community. Sure, there were still insiders there – our next door neighbors, still friends to this day, were an Air Force Captain (now Colonel) at the Pentagon, and his government contractor wife. But Vienna residents seemed more down to earth.

We occasionally would run into insiders outside the Beltway, but it was rare. There was a salad bar we frequented, a mile or so further outside the Beltway from where we lived, where we would see and chat with ABC (now Fox) anchor Brit Hume and his wife Kim, Washington Bureau Chief for Fox. Really nice people, and when we first met them, my quick introduction (I was a voice in DC, not a face) warmed the meeting up, and while I wouldn’t say we became close friends over infrequent salad bar meetings, it was a much more comfortable knowing each other than you would normally experience two miles further east, inside the Beltway. That’s the nature of the region. Every two or three weeks I would have my hair cut at Okyo Salon in Georgetown, almost always sitting next to, or not far from, Larry King, who was (maybe still is?) there every day having his hair blow dried (I know…but that’s what he was there for – he’d walk in, hair a mess and leave the perfectly coiffed Larry we all know and love, thanks to Bernard, who cut my hair a couple times and he’s GOOD). We never talked. And I have nothing against Larry King, in fact early in my career he was someone I learned a lot about being a talk show host from, but it was not a friendly media-people meeting. Neither was my almost daily passing on the sidewalk of Jim Leher, of PBS, even though on that walk I was usually with my very well-known radio news anchor. We were inside the Beltway, and it’s a different environment.

My point in all this, is that being inside that Interstate system, the air is different. When people pass through the invisible boundary they are changed. What goes on outside the Beltway becomes more academic, and less personal to you. And when I say “you” I can’t say that I was exempt. When you’re regularly inside, you are part of a social system that makes you want to continue to belong to it, and be true to it. I can’t explain it better than that. Moving to Vienna, outside, albeit barely outside, changed that. Again, I can best describe it this way: The air is different.

So, when I watched the VP debate last night, I was startled, more than anything, by the contrast between the accomplished insider, Joe Biden and the massively outsider Governor Sarah Palin. Gov. Palin brushed by a topic I would have pounded, that Biden, in his Democratic Primary race against Obama mercilessly hit Obama with the charge that he’s in no way ready to lead. Much like George Bush Sr. in the 1980 Republican Primary campaign, where he slammed Ronald Reagan so hard, it was shocking to see Reagan pick Bush, the elder, as his VP candidate, it shocked me when these Democratic candidates hooked up to campaign.

But that’s the way it works inside the Beltway, and I realize John McCain is an insider. But, it’s why, when I watch Sarah Palin I can’t help but think we need many, many more like her. Candidates who simply reek of outside the beltway. We need them. The same old insiders have put us in these troubling times. The interesting misconception about Washington is, that we think we need these experienced hands to run government. Not so. Staffers run the place. Sure, the higher up you go, the more partisan the players, but on the administrative level, the people that do a lot of the real work are the people who take public transportation to work, answer the phones, word process the paperwork and handle the day to day stuff of running the government. Even partisan staffers aren’t nearly as tied to their party affiliation as we tend to think. Much like Judd Nelson’s character in St. Elmo’s Fire, staffers sometimes jump parties for better job. Heck, didn’t Dick Morris do just that? Not even going to mention Joe Lieberman.

And after all, let’s face it. We are called “The United States of America” for a reason. We are an association of States, not a single centrally-run organization. Remember when the Government shut-down in the winter of 1995? I was there. Between the snowstorms that shut down the District (don’t even get me started about Marion Barry and his “80 snow plows at work,” he had maybe 2 running) and the budget crisis that sent Federal employees home for a few days, despite the worry, American still ran just fine. Better, according to some! I ferried our private industry employees to and from work through waist high snowdrifts in the District and Maryland in my Jeep Cherokee – We Virginians are just much more hardy souls The government employees stayed home on paid vacations.

The insiders must go. Please do not vote for them. I will hold my nose and vote for McCain, because it seems like someone involved at a high level of the McCain campaign understands this. If I thought it would make a difference, I would write-in Ron Paul. I will continue to help him in any way I can, because we truly need Dr. Paul. We need Congressional candidates of his like elected for the next Congress.

Let’s find them, and elect them.

Posted in Economy, Politics, US
Tags: Biden, Palin, Politics, VP Debate

Will the Bailout Bill Fail?

—WCN Warning: Economic/Terrorist event possible—

Here’s my bet.

Yes.

I think the outpouring of angry comment from the constituents of the 435 House members, all of whom are up for reelection in November, will convince a big enough number of them that if they want to keep their jobs (for whatever that will be worth in the post-crash United States), they will vote against the bailout.

The American people are angry. They have a right to be. They’ve been manipulated, lied to, drugged with cheap credit, cheap mass media “entertainment” rich with endless hours of inane reality TV, ridiculously expensive popular culture retail fluff and the American Panto of loundmouthed talking head news/debate shows. They’re waking up from the American Dream, which is starting to look like a night’s restless sleep brought on by a huge malt liquor bender, their head hurts and they’re pissed.

Con Artists like Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd and the like are still trying to shove this pork-infested rescue of their rich patrons, getting progressively more strident in their swearing the bailout is necessary to keep the U.S. from plunging into a depression.

I, for one, am already depressed! I’m depressed that those who profess to lead our nation don’t feel they’ve stolen enough, that they have to take what’s left before fleeing town themselves. Then again, I think it’s possible that the thieves who have put us (with our distracted and at times unconscious help) in this precarious position may well have thought their gravy train would continue indefinitely. Is it possible their panic is more caused by their sudden realization that the income derived from their stealing may be at an end, too? Could it be they’ve overreached, and are about to kill their own golden goose?

That would sure panic me!

In any event, as painful as it will be, our economy and political system needs an overhaul, a cleaning that will sweep away those we’ve foolishly allowed to lead us. Americans need to really read the Constitution and once again embrace this document. it’s still relevent and will save us.

If we let it.

***Update***

Clearly, I was wrong about the bill failing. I keep this post up because I don’t want to hide the fact that I was wrong in my optimism that the Executive and Legislative branches of our Government would listen to the will of their constituents. They did not. There reportedly hasn’t been a greater outpouring of opposition to legislation they were pushing in the history of our Republic.

They failed us. And should pay for this dereliction of duty with massive electoral change in the November elections. No member of the House, Republican, Democrat or Independent (all of whom are up for reelection, of course) who voted for this atrocious bill should be summarily release from service by being voted out of office. The same for any Senator up for re-election, though I would guess you will find a lower percentage of those, since only a third of the Senate is begging for their continued employment in November. Though I haven’t looked at the numbers, the water for this abomination was probably born by those who had another 2 or 4 years left in their term.

Cowards, crooks, thieves and liars. I am ashamed. It is time for change.

Posted in Economy, Politics, Society, US
Tags: Bailout, Congress, Constitution, Depression, Economy, Politics

The Vote of ‘No Confidence’

—WCN Warning: Economic/Terrorist event possible—

Congress refused to pass a $700B bailout bill on Monday. The reasons for the failure of this bill, if you listen to the media are basically, two:

1. Many people don’t believe there really is a dire economic emergency that requires Congress to take action to hold off a “Greater Depression.”

2. Republicans, childishly miffed over being insulted by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who while speaking just before the vote layed all the blame at the feet of the Bush Administration.

Typically, these two reasons are basically made of that substance, bovine-produced, that is often said to be “hitting the fan.”

The huge outpouring of “VOTE NO TO THE BAILOUT BILL” from an angry populace was in fact, a vote of NO CONFIDENCE to our elected leaders, who often fail to remember that they do, in fact, work for US. We were saying “we’re not going to allow the same fools who created this problem attempt to SOLVE this problem, because we’re not confident they know how to do so.”

The vote on Monday was a startling and very welcomed affirmation that we call the shots, and if Congress wants to keep the cushy jobs they live their lives trying to hang on to, they’ll do what we tell them to do, or they’ll be out on their asses.

NO to a bailout. NO to the people who created this crisis (Bush, Bernanke, Paulson, Congress) spending hundreds of billions of our dollars to try and fix this problem.

In NPR’s defense, in a story that followed the one cited above on Morning Edition, a much friendlier friendly version of this opinion surfaced. Though the concept of “no confidence” wasn’t meantioned, I believe that future events will make this very, very clear.

Posted in Economy, Politics
Tags: Bailout, Congress, Depression, Economy, Recession

“Economic Catastrophe” What might happen

—WCN Warning: Economic/Terrorist event possible—

As we wait for the markets to open (in about 40 minutes from this writing), many readers of WCN are asking “what will happen if the economy ‘melts down?’”

That’s a good question. The answer to which brought a chilling silence to the assembled Congressional leaders when Bernanke and Paulson briefed them several days ago, pleading for the adoption of the $700B bailout plan.

In short, the result could very well be the end of the United States of America as a viable economic entity. To be blunt and even shorter: Chaos.

The United States is an economic system that depends on a lot of moving parts working together in complicated subsystems. Money must flow, in the form of credit, trucks must roll, supplying a long supply line of commerce that stretches from the manufacturer of millions of products all the way to the checkout stand, and people must go to work so they can earn paychecks that go into bank accounts so all of this can be paid for.

If there’s no money to buy loads of plastic, made-in-China stuff at Wal-Mart, there are no jobs for the Wal-Mart checkers, with no money going into THEIR checking accounts, etc. If money can’t flow to pay for fuel, big trucks pulling semi-trailers can roll into your local Safeway to deliver the food that you use YOUR bank credits to buy and take home. Without those trucks rolling, there’s nothing on the shelves of that Safeway.

Chaos.

If you were watching CNN or Fox News over the weekend, you may be wondering why all of these professional, usually cool-under-fire politicians were on camera clearly shaken, unsure and in my estimation, on a couple of occasions, almost ready to cry. They were staring into the abyss, know that even if they passed a bailout package, there was no guarantee that it would save them from the plunge along with the rest of us.

And it was interesting seeing them so shaken. It is absolutely critical that you realize these people who pretend to serve us in Washington, DC have created a system that almost totally insulates them from the challenges we “unwashed masses” face in our lives. From health care to a retirement system that is completely detached from our Social Security system. Their system is well-funded and not, as ours is, bankrupt. To see these people, who by the way created this crisis, sweating it along with the rest of this, is interesting.

—Update—
Here we go…Down +100 9:34am…

Down 300+ 10:45am…

Posted in Economy, Politics
Tags: Bailout Plan, Congress, Depression, Economy, Recession