Posted on 08/05/2010 7:11:06 PM PDT by pissant
It was a sobering dinner party last night (6/16). Hosted by a London billionaire in his exquisite home - a Boccaccio hung on the wall behind me - the wine flowed liberally, but the conversation between the ten of us was stone-cold serious.
There were lighter moments, as when I proposed a toast to "a great hero of Europe - Geert Wilders." Every one raised their glass in a smile, but the biggest smile was that of a spectacularly gorgeous super-model (you've seen her in many a high-fashion ad). She was from Holland.
Then a well-known Hollywood producer raised his glass to toast his hero - Ronald Reagan. "We need him again," he commented. I guarantee you've watched one of his TV shows.
But when a self-made billionaire with an 11-figure private equity fund and a clear grasp of Austrian economics starts to talk about America's prospects, you listen. So we all listened.
Being in London, he started there. "To call (new Brit PM David) Cameron a disaster is like calling Hurricane Katrina a squall. He's as much a Conservative as I am a Moslem. I have already started preparing to relocate to Switzerland. If he succeeds in his current push to raise capital gains taxes from 18% to 50% -- and it looks like he will - the British economy and the London real estate market will crash. The best play around will be to short the pound.
"In short, Cameron and Osborne (George Osborne, David Cameron's Oxford classmate and now in Cameron's cabinet as Chancellor of the Exchequer, equivalent to our Treasury Secretary) lead secret lives. Just as they hide from the public that they are homosexual behind the pretense of a marriage, they hide their liberal agenda behind the pretense of being conservative. They will destroy Britain's economy just as sure as Obama is destroying America's."
There followed a spirited exchange about financial escape hatches -- if the euro, the pound, and the dollar fall off their respective cliffs, where does anybody go? The time-worn adage of "buy gold, buy silver, buy Swiss Francs" may work for individuals, but world equity markets are in a trap from which there is no clear exit.
One opinion was, "The best run governments around today are those of Canada and Singapore - having one's savings denominated in their currencies is not a bad idea." Then we got back to America.
"You know what my biggest fear is?" our host asked. "It's not really Obama, for what he's done is to accelerate what the liberals have been slowly doing for decades - so quickly that their socialism is obvious to everyone. Which means the solution is obvious to everyone. My biggest fear is that voters will give Republicans the power to repair America on November 2nd - and the Republicans won't have the courage to do it."
All I could respond with was "Ouch," to shake my head and sigh. I mentioned an email I just got from a friend of many years in Las Vegas. He's a very successful banker and businessman who knows everyone in Republican politics in Nevada - and I had asked his opinion of how Sharron Angle might possibly beat Harry Reid. The reply I got back shocked me. He will do nothing to help her, he said, as she is too "extreme."
Why is she considered extreme? our host asked, not on intimate terms with Nevada primary elections. Because she wants a government restricted to constitutional activities, I replied, which means, for example, eliminating such things as the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Our host leaned over the table to look at me as if his eyes were lasers. "Jack, you need to explain something to your friend. You need to explain something to America and all those Congressmen you know. Amputate or die. That's the choice America has right now. That's the choice Republicans will have after November 2nd, because they're the only surgeons around who can do the surgery."
Everyone was quiet so he continued. "Gangrene will kill you. If you don't amputate a finger or other limb that's gangrenous, it will spread bacterially [via Clostridium perfringens], and you will die. Look at these unconstitutional growths of government on the body public as gangrenous infections that have to be amputated for the body to continue living."
He looked around the table at all of us. "You know that I know all the main players in the world economy. Some are fools who don't know what they are doing like Strauss-Kahn (Dominque Strauss-Kahn, head of the IMF, International Monetary Fund), some are not like Trichet (Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank). America has no adult on the economy's lever - Geithner is more of a hopeless disaster than Bush's Paulson was, and Bernanke is worse than Greenspan.
"So I don't know any player whose smarts I really respect who has much hope for America, who doesn't see an alternative future than the destruction of America's wealth through hyper-inflation. They think elephants will fly before Republican elephants will do what is necessary if the voters give them the power to do it."
He looked at me - so everyone else did. "Are they wrong, Jack?" The question hung in the air as I felt my face redden.
"Thanks, pal," I responded with a smile to gain a little time. Everyone did laugh for just a moment, then I had to jump into the waiting silence. Here's what I said.
"The situation is dire, there is no doubt, the gravest since the Civil War. The only hope I see is with the anger of the TeaPartyers. That anger is directed just as much towards Republican cowards as towards Democrat fascists. We don't have to wait long to see the power of that anger. Just six days from now (6/22) in South Carolina, Nikki Haley the TeaPartyer is going to wipe out Gresham Barrett the RINO, even though the state GOP establishment is doing everything slimy to smear her.
"I think your player-friends have to see things not as Democrat vs. Republican but as the Court Party - the establishment in power be they Democrat or GOP - vs. the Country Party, the TeaPartyers who want an end to all the corruption, Dem or GOP. Your players are part of the Court Party. The TeaPartyers you might think are like those who led the French Revolution - but they are like those who led the American Revolution instead.
"Yes, the TeaPartyers own most of the 300 million guns in America, but they don't want blood unless there's no choice. Note the ‘unless.' November 2nd better be an honest election. What the TeaPartyers must grasp is Churchill's call after the battle of El Alamein [November 1942], that November is only ‘the end of the beginning.'
"So you are right - the only hope is radical surgery to cut out all the metastasizing cancer, to amputate unconstitutional gangrene, or another metaphor, to be like Alexander and cut the Gordian Knot with a swordstroke.
"But the question really is not whether Republicans have the courage to perform the surgery, to defund ObamaCare, to defund the entire Obama agenda, to defund entire agencies like the Department of Education, Energy, and the EPA. It is whether the TeaPartyers have the courage and capacity to force the Republicans to. I mean, how is eliminating the EPA extreme, and EPA unconstitutional fascism not extreme? We'll find out, because they are America's only hope now."
Everyone waited for our host's response. "And the hyper-inflation? The debt's already baked in the cake, no matter what future spending is cut."
"Hyper-inflation is only another word for total default. The only way to avoid it is a government default on its debts only. Then we can switch from a worthless fiat currency to an asset-backed currency." I smiled. "Gold brings freedom."
He smiled in return and raised his glass. "We can all drink to that. To gold, to freedom, and these TeaPartyers - may Jack be right about them. May they amputate fascism before the fascists amputate our freedom."
“My biggest fear is that voters will give Republicans the power to repair America on November 2nd - and the Republicans won’t have the courage to do it.”
Mine too.
Good article. I have always wondered where to put money but gold is just too high but I never thought of putting it in Loonies until I read this (for when the dollar crashes).
Well, with incumbents like Mccain winning their seats back, it is a well founded fear.
Amputate!
Remember in November!!
Dittos to that.
I wish I could join the optimists in thinking the GOP can be redeemed. Unfortunately, I don’t see objective reasons to support that belief.
My biggest fear is that we don’t amputate enough RINOS with the Dems. Down with McCain the costliest RINO of them all!! He’s the idiot that ushered in TARP and with it, Obama!!
It will have to be redeemed, or their will be a revolution.
Although I am fully prepared to accept it, given the British prep school system, I had not heard that Cameron is a homosexual. Is there other support for this claim?
P
Don’t forget his VP selection warbling out her tunes in praise of TARP.
TRiple ditto.
Jack is great. Maximum old school. He is an ex-mountain climber and adventurer. Just got too old
“It will have to be redeemed, or their will be a revolution.”
Now, that IS supported by historical example.
Spain, Chile, Romania, USSR . . .
A high ranking official from a world wide corporation asked me a few years back if I thought a lot of men in the corporations were more feminine than ever.
Now I understand why.
Oh come on now!!! How can you forget Lindsey Graham!!
Not that I’m aware of, but he looks & sounds the part of the limp-wrist.
vaudine
Scary true.
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