He identified Rush Limbaugh as his enemy.

Big mistake.

It’s assumed that Raum Emmanuel came up with this strategy, and sadly, it shows just how out of touch the people running the White House are.

We are falling headlong into probably the greatest financial catastrophe in the history of our nation. Forget the Great Depression, that event will eclipsed by what we’re entering now. This is bigger. President Barack Hussein Obama didn’t have any more to do with creating this mess than did any other member of the Senate or House. But he did raise his hand and promise himself into the leadership of our Republic. There are questions whether there will be another President after him, presiding over a 50 state Union. There are serious questions being talked about that question exactly how bad things will have to be for him to declare Martial Law and suspend the Constitution of the United States. There are men and women who could be a sufficiently respected President to pull that one off. For reasons that are completely unfair but real nonetheless, he is not one of them.

The White House, in setting Rush up as the head of the resistance, Obama and Emmanuel have annointed an opposition leader with real teeth.

Again, big mistake.

Conservatives are indeed divided. There are the Republicans, who true conservatives are not terribly happy with. The Republican Party is the party that put John McCaine and Sarah Palin on the ticket last November. True conservatives gritted their teeth, held their noses and voted against Obama. The Republican Party is the party that has marginalized Ron Paul, the only vocal member of the party who gets it. The numbers of people in the United States who are infuriated that Dr. Paul’s message is being ignored are big. McCaine was an attempt to get the “moderate” Republicans on board after the difficult Bush years.

The Conservatives, who outnumber Liberals in the U.S. are divided, without a standard bearer. Or, they were, until the White House’s new residents created one for us.

Rush Limbaugh.

I became a fan of Rush in 1988 when his national show began to take off. I’m a conservative voice on the radio myself, a broadcaster since the early 80s. Right now, I keep my writing and my broadcasting on different “channels,” writing under my real name, broadcasting under the name I’ve used in the industry for going on 30 years. I’m an Economist, who has been devoted to the philophies of Milton Friedman since first reading Free to Choose while in college. During the Bush years, I drifted from Rush, not happy with his position as a party “hack” who worked hard to sell Bush’s mistakes to us. I questioned my Conservatism, and as someone who respects and admires Al Gore, regretted my 2000 vote for Bush.

But, seeing the realities of Liberal American Socialism born under the guise of “Change,” I have snapped back to my Conservative roots, quickly rallying with a growing multitude under the Limbaugh standard. The White House has miscalculated, and sent everyone a map and directions to that rally point. If they thought the name “Rush Limbaugh” was one that would repel true conservatives from a central meeting point, they were wrong. Conservatives will find a Rush-led Conservative movement a very compelling place to be, and as the economy worsens, unemployment soars, and more and more of Obama’s promises are broken, the White House will see just what a monster they’ve created, and just how few true Liberals there are, outside the Beltway.

Most people misunderstand Gordon Gekko’s line in the film Wall Street when he said “Greed is good.” The slick, suspendered Gekko made it seem like an evil statement, but Friendman points out that humans don’t reward virtue, they do things for self-interest.

As a young Economics student in the late 70s and early 80s, my interest and belief in the theories of Dr. Friedman were met with scorn by my Keynesian professors.

Well, they were wrong, and their resurgence by the Obama regime will doom millions of us to economic misery, and eventually will sentence millions (if not billions) humans to death by the next World War that is inevitable as our bubble world economy bursts.

Sadly, Donohue hasn’t begun to see misery in the world, yet.

Discussing the two forks in the road ahead, deflation or inflation, Kunstler agrees with those who suggest (like myself) that it’s not an either/or proposition:

Some of us see both outcomes in sequence: the deflationary “work out” of bad debt currently underway — of loans that will will never be paid back, of acronymic paper securities revealed as frauds, of “non-performing” contracts entering the swamps of foreclosure, of banks pretending to still exist, of hallucinated “wealth” rushing into the cosmic worm-hole of oblivion — can only go for so long before everyone who can go broke will go broke. Then, just as we find ourselves a nation of empty pockets, the tsunami of shoveled-in “money” designed to “reboot the consumer” (created not from productive activity but just printed recklessly), will start churning through the “economy,” chasing products and commodities that became scarce during the deflationary phase — and the result is hyper-inflation, the eraser of debt, destroyer of fortunes, and suicide pill of feckless governments.

Make no mistake about it. We will see a one-two punch that will level this economy, leaving our new President and his administration holding the bag. Did you notice that the Dow yesterday rose while Gold not only held its ground or rose a little, but in fact broke through $900? Sure, most technical analysts were calling $880 an important level, but $900 is a symbolic number that can’t be ignored.

Prices will continue to fall. The faltering demand that is killing retail and wholesale business is bringing prices down. Energy, durables, even food is some cases. But that’s a short-term situation. The TARP’s failure is a sobering glimpse into just how serious the situation is, because it gives us some sense of just how big the “black hole” we’re pouring this newly printed money into is. Eventually, our government will dump enough in to see the result, and that result will be devastating and unstoppable. Our economy and currency is doomed. The hyperinflation caused by this idiocy in Washington will inflate the dollar out of existence.

Many are drawing comparisons in what’s going on right now to the First Great Depression, and that’s a valid exercise. Our civilization’s timeline unfolds in cycles, to be sure, and in terms of human lifespans, those cycles are long. If we leave sufficient records, a civilization looking back on us in a thousand years will probably see these two depressions as one event, the second a direct result of the first. Since we humans live a lifespan of 70 to 100 years, and the last depression began over 70 years (a “lifetime”) ago, we see them as distinct events. We and our future observers are in truth, both right and wrong about it.

The “fog” that keeps us from seeing exactly what’s going on, and what we should individually do about it, is made thicker by the fact that our future isn’t unfolding exactly as our past did. But there are patterns that are important to look for.

As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes in the UK’s Telegraph, there’s a case to be made that we’re following a path similar to the 1930s, but the worst, by far, is yet to come.

Obama supporters see the President they elected as a new FDR. Sadly, students of economic and political history agree. So far, the new President is following Roosevelt’s path, a course that those who only concern themselves with slogans and icons believe is the path to salvation. Those who read, study and understand know that FDR’s path led to a longer than necessary depression, ended only by World War and over 400,000 American dead.

Given the weapons of today, a repeat of that sad history will yield far more flag-draped coffins, and will certainly this time,  include a horrifying number of American civilian dead.

Preparation Steps

Many things are cheap right now, but that’s a very short-term situation. Use your dollars’ spending power today to stock up on the things you will need when there are disruptions that make buying them impossible. But don’t just go to Sam’s Club or Costco. Make a list. Start here.

If you’re serious (and you should be), send George Ure of Urban Survival $40 and read (and print) his September 28, 2008 issue of Peoplenomics entitled “A Lifetime of Camping.” It’s the best place to start.

Once I got back to the “business” of WCN, I saw some things that need to change with the site. You’ll start to see some of those changes gradually over the next month. The big change is of perspective. It occured to me that this site has been mostly about the possible branches on the path that our economy and resulting society could travel. WCN.net is going to start being more about the path we’re on and what you can do to survive, thrive and be successful in our new world. Make no mistake, we are in a world that’s much different than the one we were living in 2 years ago.

We are living through a societal paradigm shift that is changing almost everything about the way we live in the U.S. Part of that paradigm shift is that sites like WCN.net, Kunstler.com, Financial Armageddon, When Giants Fall, WorldNetDaily, Urban Survival and others are “suddenly” seem less directed at the “paranoid fringe” and more for everyone. Those sites mentioned haven’t changed their direction, many people are simply seeing the light. Events have played out in ways the writers and editors of those sites (and many more, by the way) predicted. Those who previously scoffed are now getting it, and in many cases, preaching the gospel of dramatic change.

The tenor of WCN.net won’t change. The changes I’ve been writing about for a couple years now are happening, and instead of engaging in the tempting “I told you so” that would be easy to write, I’m going to transition to writing more about what preparations and activities could help ensure survival and success in these difficult times.

President-elect Obama says they are “absolutely right” to do this. Interesting choice of words for a President-to-be, who is the chief enforcer of laws in the U.S. They are absolutely right to do this? Does he realize just how many more of these situations he’s going to face in his single term, especially since he is throwing his support to the movement?

Here’s the story.

The most interesting and telling part though, is this:

One of the factory’s workers, Silvia Mazon, said in Spanish that she needs the money owed to her for an $1,800 monthly house payment. The 40-year-old from Cicero said she has enough money saved to survive for one month.

“We’re making history,” she said.

An apparently Spanish-only speaker, working in a factory in Chicago with only a single month’s savings and her house payment is $1,800?

This, is why the work of James Kunstler, George Ure, Michael Panzer and others, is so important. This situation is going to get worse. Much worse, and there will be a huge number of people like the unfortunate Ms. Mazon, who were participating in an economic model they thought was never-ending. One where real estate always rose in value, there were always blue collar jobs available, and new cars and plasma tvs grew on trees. Unfortunately, these assumptions were wrong, and those who didn’t understand that will be hungry, moneyless and angry.

Have you thought about what you will do then?

I’ve noticed recently the same phenomenon, that though all indicators say we’re in a severe economic meltdown, and entering a “greater depression,” life still goes on as before. The lights still work, the trucks still roll and in some cases, Black Friday was a success.

But, as we noticed last night, restaurants are empty, the airports aren’t madhouses, and there’s the palpable sense from those in the know that winter is coming.

Wal-Mart worker dies after shoppers knock him down.

First of all, it disgusts me that our culture (yes, even the early morning “Black Friday shopping at Wal-Mart” culture is our culture) has fallen into consumerism so deeply that we become animals for a sale on plastic imported-from-China crap. It’s disgusting. There was a crush of people who were so out of individual control that they killed another person to gain first access to what they wanted. If they were hungry people, it would be a tragedy, but somewhat understandable. But they weren’t hungry. In fact based on my limited experience shopping at Wal-Mart, I would assume they were very well, and probably over-fed. This was a riot. Not a food riot, but a plastic, disposable, consumer-good riot.

Even though the first point is sufficient for this post, the more sinister second point is that because we’re (mostly) raional-acting beings, and because Wal-Mart is known for the lowest price-point on plastic crap from China, these people were rioting because they saw getting to that store’s supply of plastic crap from China as the only way to sustain their expectation of Christmas in a crashing economy. In other words, rather than attack the root of the problem by being disciplined this year and not spending money on crap, they’re doing whatever they can to maintain the very behaviors that got us in this mess – excessive consumerism.

This is exactly the same as burning food and ruining topsoil to maintain what Kunstler calls our “happy motoring society.” We grow corn (food) to make ethanol, in an effort to extend the life of the unsustainable auto-centric society, instead of banking the food and taking better care of the topsoil.

This is going to sound strange, but apart from any security responsibilities they may have dropped the ball on, I don’t blame Wal-Mart. They’re simply participating in the market and doing what they should do. I blame the culture we’ve created, the culture that will be our undoing. If we are to survive as a nation, we have to stop making shopping our national pastime, and start making things worth repairing, saving and working harder. We’re past the point of preserving our way of life, that’s a societal evolutionary dead-end.

Here’s a compilation of some of those appearances. Note the amount of scorn heaped on Schiff as he accurately called what was coming. The laughing at Schiff’s on-target message is a sad commentary on the skills of the pundits that populate the mediasphere.

If you go to blogs written by some of these nay-sayers, you’ll be entertained by their responses to readers calling them out on being completely wrong. They get very technical and petty (“keep drinking Schiff’s Koolaid” as Norman tells one reader).

I think I will. It may not be the tastiest, but it’s sure a lot more nutritious than whatever you’re pouring, Mike. My suggestion is make sure you’ve read everything Peter Schiff has written, and lose the bookmarks for the sites written by those who laughed at him.

Schiff was right.

The credit crisis has flared and is now building again in intensity. The stock market, when it opens today (in about an hour from this writing) will almost certainly crash, possibly big.

The European and Japanese stock markets have “been mauled,” on what could very well be known in the years that come as “Black Friday,” or maybe “Bloody Friday.” Whatever the case, it won’t be pretty.

This week has seen a LOT of building bad news. Unemployment projections are looking bad. The snowball of advertising cancellations for November and December, where advertisers cancel already placed advertising orders with radio and television stations and newspapers. Massive layoff talk has been out in the open this week. Despite the fact that oil prices are tumbling, and with them, the price of gas at the pump, economic activity is quickly winding down.

Also out in the open in the news this week, has been talk of state and local tax shortfalls. When there’s lower economic activity, tax revenues fall, and so the amount of money states and cities have to spend on services falls pretty fast. This causes more layoffs, and since in many areas, states and cities are high headcount employers, the problem spirals and can crash pretty quickly.

Which it is most certainly doing.

At the height of the intensity of the bailout drama a couple weeks ago, I visited a nice, mid to upscale mall where I occasionally shop (I needed the Apple Store, my only consumerist passion). I was amazed that even though our economy was on the verge of meltdown with anyone who knew anything about what was going on tense and wondering how the next couple days were going to play out, the everyday consumers flowing around me in the mall seemed completely unaware that anything unusual was going on. I realize now that they weren’t completely unaware of dramatic things going on, they were simply convinced that it wouldn’t affect them. That’s a distinction that was lost on me that day, as the well-practiced credit-card presentation moves were displayed even as the Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson got down on one knee to beg Nancy Pelosi to pass the $750 Billion bailout bill.

I was comfortable spending a little money that day, because I have protected myself from short-term disruptions in the everyday workings of our economy. Having cash on-hand, safely stored along with enough food, water and household goods to easily weather a couple months disruption is something I recommend to anyone who asks my advice about what could possibly happen. But looking around, I realized that few, if any, of my fellow shoppers had protected themselves in that way.

Reading Orlov’s new book yesterday, I realized that we Americans are asleep about what could happen to us because we don’t believe anything catastrophic could happen to us. And that’s not a completely unreasonable assumption, since nothing bad has happened to us in almost 80 years. Plus, it’s been almost 150 years since war has been seen on our shores, as wars are something that Americans have to travel a long way to participate in. It’s been that way since the Civil War ended in 1865. Europe lives with that collective memory still relatively fresh. Even if Europeans haven’t lived through it first-hand, it’s a part of their history that’s closer to the surface.

We in America are living in one of the best-insulated pockets of comfort the world has ever seen, and that will make the troubles that are almost certainly coming much harder to deal with. The shock Americans will feel when the ATMs don’t work will be devastating. When the grocery shelves are cleared by those with a little cash on-hand, the panic will set in. Most people don’t plan for disruption because they don’t believe it is possible. Waking up to the realization that their assumptions in that regard aren’t true will be a difficult experience.

The alarm has most certainly gone off. The government is frantically doing what it can to keep hitting the snooze button, but when it’s morning, you can only do that for so long before waking can no longer be delayed.