• DEMORALIZING AMERICA

America is shuddering in a struggle to shake off a recession, just as it is told the recession might morph into a depression. The admonishments coming from the daily teleprompter addresses of its President further shake the nation’s confidence, as blame becomes the only strategy dripping from the country’s leadership.

America has ushered in a new age of self admonishment led by a White House and a Congress that are using the widespread economic crisis to reinvent the country. As the administration increases spending, and augments government intrusion into all corners of human endeavor, it rationalizes the trillion dollar budget deficit, and ignores the looming burden of overwhelming debt. The government ignoring the imminent and inevitable monetization of this debt, doesn’t subdue the anxiety felt by entrepreneurial or mid-sized businesses in every corner of the country.

Beside shattering the economic foundation with which America has been endowed, this Administration and this Congress are also doing everything possible to internationalize their own feelings of impotence. Through promotions of head-numbing programs such as those given energy in Copenhagen, or the exaltations on the cap and trade contrivance, there is astonishing evidence that a radical transformation of the country is being attempted.

Actions and policies of this White House are either purposeful or the result of ignorance, but in either instance, the MSM is providing it a pass on the majority of its follies. In some cases the MSM even applauded from the sidelines such as when Obama strengthened the influence of the United Auto Workers over the US auto industry. Americans watched passively as the very unions who destroyed Detroit were provided even greater influence over companies that now flail against advancing forces of extinction. The people who abused their power and the cash of their own membership for most of a century, now dictate the future of the American automobile.

Working Americans, and all those who have lost good paying jobs, will not be lulled into believing in taxpayer funded windmills, but they are being demoralized by Washington politicians who can’t seem to tell truths, or provide direction. The endless releases of nostrums pitched by a floundering President leave little suspense as to his abilities, or capacities to lead the country creatively out of the doldrums. His limitations have further evidenced themselves in those he has surrounded himself with. His most senior advisors and appointments are either reflections or lesser versions of their boss.

There is also failed leadership in the richest corners of corporate America where the most visible captains of industry have not shown themselves to be diligent or effective in administering their fiduciary or managerial duties. Some, such as the CEOs and Directors of City Bank, AIG, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, and Citygroup, have in fact proven to be weak-kneed, and self serving hacks who had to run for cover, begging for taxpayer bailout money when twenty years of easy money, easy growth and easy markets turned against them.

Americans do not appreciate bailout receivers or givers. Americans don’t respond so well to whiners and blamers who depend on committee regurgitations for direction. Americans, like most fellow human beings, respond positively to optimistic visionaries who are clear, confident, and straightforward on goals and strategies.

The current leadership appears incapable of pulling the national consciousness out of its stagnating paralysis. The nation has slowly slid into react mode, with no charisma-with-purpose pulling its attention. The result is a country of demoralized taxpayers staggering to pull the eject lever on incumbents. Unfortunately this negative energy is simply a reaction against the current leadership, rather than a wave of confidence empowering an inspiring champion.

America is once again playing “find a leader.”

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• Does America Yearn For A Monarch?

Life Magazine fabricated a mythical monarchy in the early sixties by applying polish and airbrushing to John and Jacky Kennedy, elevating them into a Camelot. America couldn’t get enough of the magazine, and rewarded its uncommon “access,” to the JFK White House with financial success. The corporate strategy very successfully built an unprecedented, but mutually beneficial, relationship.

This was not the first popularization of an American President, but it was the most successful anointing of an almost-monarch. We all admire true heroes, however, there are many who seem to require more than honored heroes. To satisfy that craving, we create stars and surround them with irrational adoration bordering on veneration. The mainstream media (MSM) plays a role in the process, and has much to gain from it just as Life Magazine solidified itself, and its profits with the creation of the American version Camelot.

Life Magazine presented a glossy veneer of a young President and his family, because it could, and because it would not have been as profitable to have done otherwise. The public reaction was extremely receptive, and the oversized periodical continued to publish its principal stars’ immaculate images.

America has long succumbed to Hollywood’s very adept star manufacturing machine. Studios and production companies very effectively and profitably practiced the art of star production, as well as veneer creation, for a century. Whether the individuals in question believe their own press, matters little to the studios and the machinery that creates them. They are ephemeral creations that have no truth other than that of existence in the percepts of adoring devotees. They scatter nonsense, and often lies, and all utterances are gratefully accepted. Stars step into the light, feigning timidity, as they engage in absorbing gushing adulation. The star making process has been perfected and whether young, old, intelligent, rich, poor, educated or not, it seems that everyone is susceptible to its affects.

In 2009, the MSM has been provided a new President, whose natural tendency is already a well-prepared gleaming image, requiring little visible airbrushing. Obama’s promotional machine has had the added and unabashed advantage of having its subject well versed and practiced in the art of sermon delivery. Obama placed himself on a pedestal, and the MSM has delivered applause and sometimes infatuation. The zeal of this infatuation has translated into an abandonment of any application of journalistic ethics or common sense. The obsession has been transferred onto the population eager to satisfy a yearning for a monarch. This is not to suggest that America wants a king, because it doesn’t, however, there is evidently a vast portion of society that yearns for a personality that it believes will transcend it to a place where Camelots exist. America doesn’t want to literally revisit the anachronism of royalty, yet the British monarchy is as popular in the U.S. as it is in Great Britain.

In Obama, America found a willing aspirant on whom it consigned the cloak and stature of monarch, the ultimate iteration of star. Modern versions of monarchs however, have no effective power, but they enjoy fulfillment of ceremonial roles. Obama accommodates that role rather effectively and continues his cultivation of the “I,” unabated. As President, he has avoided the thorny details of assiduous analysis on the most critical problems facing America, and has used sweeping, but banal statements of obvious principals, while his appointees actually implement policies and programs inconsistent with the claims of the message.

Obama has filled the ceremonial role of monarch with enchanting voyages across the country and around the world, although the country might wish for more representation of America’s interests, rather than promotion of its leader as internationalist. While the public and the MSM might treat a monarch with reverence, a President should be treated as a politician, and challenged as such.

As President, Obama has yet to demonstrate any proclivity for practical leadership of the free nation envisioned by the unpretentious framers of the Constitution. As he insinuates government into all social and economic fibers of the country, the American taxpayer’s expectations of Obama’s heralded change will rapidly evaporate, the “self-evident truths” will become redefined, and the reality of the costs will become the new, overwhelming burden.

Now that the Congressional Budget Office has notified them that federal spending in 2019 will represent at least 25% of the GDP, all taxpayers should decide that a monarch just will not be injected into their futures in any form, and that their President should be challenged. There are enough stars floating out of Hollywood to satisfy desires of royalty.

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• Democrat Responsibility For The Economic Crisis

On their road to domination of Congress and The White House, the Democrats clamorously and successfully, accused the Republicans of engineering the current economic crisis gripping the nation. Today Democrats control the country. Now what?

As dust settles on reality, the evidence of responsibility now points backwards in large degree to the Democrats, not just Republicans. At least to a much greater degree than the MSM ever pretended. The following piece of video shows segments that cannot be repudiated. Democrats were the biggest beneficiaries of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac generosity, yet their leaders were at the frontlines of defense for those who were at the heart of the mortgage financing bubble. Democrats not only prevented oversight and restraint, they enthusiastically applauded the abuse.

One can put spin in the retelling of most events, however, the high culpability level of Democrats for the financial disaster that has been inflicted on the Nation is difficult to deny. For example, the words of the bombastic Barney Frank, the Harvard educated Democratic Attorney from Newton, Massachusetts, cannot be spun, twisted or camouflaged. As you watch the video on the following link, you might wonder why no one has asked Barney Frank or the Democrats to explain his unambiguously stated position. Don't get too hung up on the fact that the video is from Fox News archives. They didn't force Frank to fabricate the Democratic position.
YouTube Fox News Video - Barney Frank & Co.

Apologists for Mr. Frank, including the NYT, steadfastly refuse to assign him responsibility for a questionable lack of interest or awareness in organizations under his aegis, while they suggest he is the smartest guy in Congress, and that he has been bold enough to “take on” Paulson. Has everyone forgotten that Mr. Frank is Chairman of The House Financial Services Committee? I rather think that this is more substantiation of his capacity to outwit and out-shout his detractors. And he does it with such compassion.

Mr. Frank has proven the most gifted Congressional deflector. He very successfully diverted attention away from his and Ms. Pelosi’s negligence, and from the role of Democratic policies and tendencies in the creation of a social experiment in utopia where everyone with or without income would own a home. Of all people to whom Barak Obama now owes infinite gratitude for his Presidency, Barney Frank is at the top of that list. Mr. Frank should have a bedroom in the Obama White House named after him. Well, … at least for four years.

Republicans can take some heat for not having been more vocal, however, leadership out of the current economic quagmire is now squarely in the hands of those who fuelled the fire that destroyed value across all markets burning trillions of dollars. We will be witnessing Mr. Frank and his associates parade the SEC through an artificial inquisition, knowing nothing will come of the performance. Questions will be asked and answered with equally tempered determination, resulting in nothing. Retaliations will be minimal, nor will they serve the public good, and restitutions will be impossible. While Democrats have won control of the nation, their motives and their capacities to steer America out of the recession with diligent concern for taxpayer interests, are in serious doubt and will continue to remain so.

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• OBAMA – THE FIRST “TELL”

Throughout the election process, image is everything. Now, post-election, the Electorate looks for signals of capacities beyond the ability to get elected. We peer in, looking for tells of what an Obama Presidency will mean. Has there been a tell? … Did we miss it?

There was little satisfaction in The Pacific Gate Post having predicted back in early July that Obama would become the next President. The conditions and road signs were easy to read. The population’s unrest was conspicuous. The discontent gaining momentum rendered Hillary’s bid for the White House, and then John McCain’s charge, little more than valiant but submerged free-style strokes against a powerful current. Obama was a refreshing embodiment of eloquence which the self proclaimed intelligentsia believed accurately reflected America’s image. In contrast to George Bush’s endless public verbal faux-pas echoed with flourish by CNN, and late-night talk show hosts, Democrats agreed, and many across the political middle acquiesced, with fingers crossed.

Since the election, the mainstream media has presented us what it believes are satisfactory analyses on the transitioning process. We have been provided examinations of moment-by-moment cameos in the life of a history making President Elect, from his visit to the White House, to the pasting of fresh faces on titles fashioning the top of the new administration’s food chain. Endless Op Eds have given us “much ado about nothing” over the Rahm Emanuel pick for Chief of Staff. Will it annoy the Israel’s neighbors? Will it make this a too pro-Israel administration? Will Emanuel’s tantrums impede or frustrate relations with some Democrats in Congress? We are not getting much reporting of the fact that he failed dismally in his fiduciary duties as a Director of Freddie Mac through a time when the books were getting massaged in that institution. But then, no one seems to be held accountable for any of that corrupted abuse of the taxpayer’s cash by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

No, the Emanuel decision, although momentous, is not a tell. Neither are any of Obama’s other likely announcements on his Cabinet. How could they be? Just as George W. Bush was a product of his father’s political machine, it cannot be a surprise to anyone that Obama is a product of the Chicago political machine that produces Senators, Congressmen, or Mayors. It cannot bewilder anyone that a lawyer by training, and Senator by oratory, would surround himself with powerful members of the Democratic system that funded him into the Oval Office, or with former members of the Clinton inner circle. We expect that a couple of Republican faces will take a chair around his table in deference to campaign promises of bipartisan politics from his administration. None of this will bring change. And so, we look for signs that some may come, and we await a sign that Obama will establish a sense of history for his Presidency beyond the obvious.

We will strive to decipher the reveals on the Obama economic front, and gage his engagements to resolve the Nation’s greatest crisis. In the meantime, here is the first sign of a tell on the international relations, and foreign affairs negotiating front…

He “supports deploying a missile defense system when the technology is proved to be workable."

Such sentiment, on the surface, appears an innocuous and even benign proclamation. Not so. Not in a time of so much international tension, or fear of nuclear proliferation. Let’s take a page from the most central and dominant figure in the end game of the Cold War. Let’s glean from a master negotiator, Ronald Reagan.

Reagan’s most sobering moment may have been his realization of the devastation that would define a nuclear war. His awakening to the outcome of a nuclear attack on America by the Soviet regime sharpened his mind to the protection of his country. To buttress against the potential of such a holocaust, Reagan threw himself behind the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). As many of you will recall, on March 23, 1983, he committed to the creation of an elaborate umbrella of space-based missile destroying long-range strategic nuclear ballistic missiles in flight, deployed from satellites, and X-ray lasers also shot from satellites. The brain center of this program may have been the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, East of San Francisco, California, but its heart was Ronald Reagan. His strategy was a dramatic shift from the long assumed doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), and it sought a leap in weapons systems unlike any ever conceived in military history.

Far from being an “intellectual”, or ever pretending to be one, Reagan’s genius was his knowing what he didn’t know, and embracing a deep seeded conviction that American ingenuity could achieve the near impossible. His Lawrence Livermore Labs would deliver. He did not question whether SDI would be "workable". The very fact that he set Lawrence Livermore Labs on track to realize his dream, would make it so. He convinced America of it, but more importantly, he convinced the world of it, particularly the Soviets and Gorbachev.

At summits held in Geneva and Reykjavik, Mikhail Gorbachev offered concessions, including nuclear armament concessions, in exchange for abandonment of the SDI program. With power of rhetorical persuasion and confidence, coupled with his fervent distrust of communism, or communists, Reagan prevailed, undaunted, in the shaping of his audacious foreign policy. He backed the Soviet bear into a corner. The already cracking Soviet economy could not support the escalating costs of competing with such exotic technological deployments as SDI. The advantage would provide America with overwhelming dominance. An initial result of the Reagan strategy was the Intermediate Nuclear Force treaty of 1987, followed a few years later with the disintegration of the Soviet empire, and the destruction of the Berlin wall.

Some of us close to the technological capacities resting in the state of the art during this period knew that the Reagan “Star Wars” system would not be achievable for at least the coming decade, and possibly far beyond. And yet, we marveled at the brilliance, the audacity, and the execution of the Reagan strategy. Even his closest aids believed that he believed. His enthusiasm was infectious. He was never in doubt.

So, back to Obama. Where was the tell? Where was the reveal? It was too painfully, and obviously obvious.

We await the next tell.

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• 44th. PRESIDENT - YOUR FIRST CHALLENGE

The 44th. President of The United States will inherit a financial house in state of disarray. Upon assuming the Office, the new President will have to be furnished an unobstructed perspective on a slowing economy clouded with surging inflation baring its indignant and unprejudiced fangs. Add, to the context of this vista, the enormous interest on the national debt, along with the long term consequences of sustained budget deficits of the size America has been consistently incurring, and you have potential for serious adverse impact on the social fabric of the country. First and foremost, this troubled and uncertain economic scene has to be effectively addressed.

The recent rate of commodity price advances, particularly oil, and the resulting hikes in the costs of goods is unsettling all forecasting based on economic indicators and cycles. Price escalation on certain products will simply reduce their consumption, however strong price increases in all staple goods are placing hard upward pressure on inflation, and demand continues unabated. These price pressures are coming in significant measure from a large number of developing countries that have created a demand that was not present in the pressures responsible for the wild inflation swings of the mid 70’s to early 80’s.

There is debate as to how inflation should be calculated, however, Inflation rates are currently fundamental measurements dependent on the contents of the basket of prices used for the calculations. Such calculations can be manipulated. Accurately defining current inflation toward the higher levels might not be advantageous if it were shown to be at a rate of 8%, for example, instead of the 3.9%, while ten year treasuries are at 4%. A central bank may enjoy the current understatement of inflation, and such understatement might also serve to minimize government liabilities which are indexed to the floating rate, like Social Security. Furthermore, a high level of inflation would suggest stagnant, if not contracting GDP. Then if this isn't enough to unscramble, we will likely see a reduction in total lending which will incite the winds of deflation. Amidst the confusion of reporting, the new President will have to provide some guidance and leadership to the Federal Reserve, rather than humbly await its decisions, and doing so will require accurate, untainted information. Altering the course on the Fed’s current strategy to continue dropping interest rates would affect inflation and the current slowdown inversely, making any decision difficult.

From the perspective of any conventional analysis and whatever the published inflation rate might be, the reality is that purchasing power of the dollar, meaning the purchasing power of the taxpayer, is dropping. That is the critical element that all taxpayers can feel without being fed convoluted or distracting statistics. Their real income is shrinking.

The medicine, which may well include higher government revenues coupled with reductions in spending, while initially having a bitter taste, would satisfy one critical leg of managing any government, that of paying current bills without laying off staggering debt onto future generations of taxpayers.

The current economic climate and feelings of uncertainty affecting North America differ from those of previous downturns in relative breadth and depth, and require unique solutions. Even a decision to overtly confront the challenge would be reason for applause since it would present a sign of impending responsible governance.

The 44th. President with have to rapidly re-establish a long lost sense of confidence, that perennial footing upon which national and international leadership, as well as economic progress, are built. The new White House will have to assertively confront the fiscal challenge, sell it to the taxpayers, and energize Congress to support the required major budget overhaul toward sound fiscal policy.

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