L
Posted on 06/30/2010 9:42:27 AM PDT by CanGyrene
There is no shortage of disastrous behaviors in Obama’s District of Corruption today, but among the most fatal practices is that of refusing to discuss our many challenges in an open, honest and forthright manner.
One of the most dangerous patterns in American politics today is the practice of allowing political ambitions to drive the facts, instead of allowing the facts to drive policy decisions. Nowhere is that more evident than in the insane discussion concerning very serious global economic conditions and the right medicine for those international ills.
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
Surely, Williams knows the answer to this question, right?
Bad economic news is always good news for Democrats.
When the economy tanks and people lose their jobs, homes, and savings, they become dependent on government handouts and eventually become addicted to those handouts. And, just as drug addicts keep going back to their dealers for a fix, government addicts likewise keep going back to THEIR dealers, the Democrat politicians, for their fix of "free stuff" in exchange for their votes. A tanking economy, therefore, means more government-dependent addicts and more votes for Democrat politicians.
For the Democrats, sabotaging the economy is job #1. ...It's what they WANT.
This ain’t rocket surgery.....
JB Williams is noted for cutting to the heart of the matter - and he certainly does here...
Sounds more like a knee-jerk libertarian zealot to me.
Yeah... Obama's a bum whose trade policies undermine our recovery..
But it was the failed globalization policies of his predecessor who got us into this mess to begin with.
Williams must be hallucinating if he thinks our economy can withstand another decade of downsizing and outsourcing,
A frank and honest discussion on global economics!!???
The politicians can’t stand that kind of honesty - it would ruin their political careers!!!
But it was the failed globalization policies of his predecessor who got us into this mess to begin with.
Not sure I agree with your diagnosis. There was too much leverage put on but it was not caused by globilization, simply those in the suits thought the higher valuations could support higher leverage. Mandating and rigging the biggest bubble created under CRA by Bill Clinton, the housing bubble, was the linchpin that caused folks to consider higher leverage on real estate. The CDO was invented to offset the risk. The only problem was the risk was incorrectly priced. Once that realizaton of under capitalization of risk was made, then things fell apart. No where in this story is the Bush administration guilty of commission. Omission, maybe, but hell he was fighting a war in the Mid East and on Capitol Hill. Ask yourself had Dems circled the wagons to win a war what the outcome today would have been?
Mandating and rigging the biggest bubble created under CRA by Bill Clinton, the housing bubble, was the linchpin that caused folks to consider higher leverage on real estate.I think that it's naive to place blame on one Party and ignore to the treacherous faults of the other.
Let’s call this the “Goldman Sachs Effect” – after the international banking firm that has supplied two Treasury Secretaries in the last decade, Robert Rubin in the Clinton Administration and now Henry Paulson in the Bush Administration. Current Treasury chief Paulson took the job after winning assurances from the White House that he would run China policy, even as Goldman Sachs continues to raise capital for Chinese industry and the dictatorial regime. In effect, Goldman has been able to substitute its trans-Pacific, private business agenda for a U.S. national strategy.
(The Goldman Sachs Effect is not limited to the top Treasury post. The ethically questionable practice of shuttling between government and private firms, known colloquially as the “revolving door,” was recently highlighted by Robert Zoellick, Deputy Secretary of States and former U.S. Trade Representative, who announced that he was leaving government for a high post at Goldman Sachs. Additionally, President Bush's chief of staff, Josh Bolten, was Executive Director for Legal & Government Affairs in Goldman Sachs’ London office before coming to Washington. Goldman Sachs senior partner Stephen Friedman briefly headed the National Economic Council before returning to the firm.)
Your insight on the Goldman Sachs Effect regarding China policy is good. But from a purely capital point of view, Clinton/Greenspan used home equity to refloat the Dot.Com bomb. This in itself was okay, the real perniciousness was using CRA to get the Black Caucus support (or better said bribe the CBC not to lynch Clinton) for signing the Welfare Reform Bill. The CRA, as implemented by Clinton, eroded any objective standard in underwriting causing the “root cause” of valuation of real estate throughout the country. Paulson and the Goldman Sachs Effect, convinced themselves that higher leverage was possible without proportionally higher risk (or risk could be spread through CDO). This view was exactly opposite the truth. The underlying valuations of the leverage scheme had reached lunatic levels based on any mouth breather qualifying for a loan via CRA standards. The real estate market had become nothing more than a musical chair game, with banks trying not to become the one without a chair (see Wachovia). Had this debt bomb only been constrained to the increase in leverage authorized by the Treasury, I feel certain the market would have held above 10,000 DOW. But because of the damage to housing prices inflicted through CRA frothing the bubble with no legs the market broke. This is how I see things. If we had restrained ourselves in doing “good things” (?) with Fed underwriting and financing, we would now be out of a recession with the DOW trading above 13,000.
Paulson and the Goldman Sachs Effect, convinced themselves that higher leverage was possible without proportionally higher risk (or risk could be spread through CDO). This view was exactly opposite the truth. The underlying valuations of the leverage scheme had reached lunatic levels based on any mouth breather qualifying for a loan via CRA standards.
Yes, Paulson, Zoellick, Bolton et al in the Bush Administration should've known darn well that the downward pressure their dismal trade & immigration policies placed on domestic wages and benefits would udermine people's ability to pay back those risky loans.
Yes, Paulson, Zoellick, Bolton et al in the Bush Administration should’ve known darn well that the downward pressure their dismal trade & immigration policies placed on domestic wages and benefits would udermine people’s ability to pay back those risky loans.
No Willie, people who could not qualify for home loans should have never been given them. What did we achieve by hurrying a natural process of learning and earning? Did the people given a cool $500K mortgage for their starter home really get helped or hurt when the home returned to real value of $250K? They are out of a house with a crap credit rating and they learned that home ownership is extremely dangerous. They never had the legs to withstand any downward pressure on home prices because they never had a meaningful down payment. Imagine what would happen if the fed gave any idiot a $500K margin account? Things would be great as long as prices went up. As soon as downturn occurs you create a collapse. Sound familiar?
No Willie, people who could not qualify for home loans should have never been given them.
Then there never would've been a housing boom to employ all those illegal constuction workers that Dubya was importing.
Then there never would’ve been a housing boom to employ all those illegal constuction workers that Dubya was importing.
Shoosh Willie, you sound like Rahm Emmanuel. Even James Carville is now willing to call Obama on his failures. I was not aware that the illegal immigrant problem started under Bush. I do recognize that Bush moved towards Amnesty and was seriously harmed politically for doing so. I personally had great hopes that Bush could push Mexico towards market reforms and opening their country to investment. That didn’t work because the Mexican elite can export their problems rather than face them. Having dealt with Mexicans on the border, I can tell you they are not interested in citizenship but simply employment. This problem could easily be remedied with a worker visa program. The left does not support such programs because they think they are exploitive and racist. Until Mexico is forced to face its endemic problems of unemployment, property rights, and transparency of markets, things will not change.
I was not aware that the illegal immigrant problem started under Bush.
No, Dubya didn't start the illegal immigrant problem,
but I believe that he helped expand it beyond traditional agricultural picking/harvesting and into the construction/landscaping trades at the request of real estate development lobbyists who directly benefited from the faulty home loan program.
but I believe that he helped expand it beyond traditional agricultural picking/harvesting and into the construction/landscaping trades at the request of real estate development lobbyists who directly benefited from the faulty home loan program.
I find that observation silly based on my experiences with LA, AZ and the west generally dating back to Reagan. The problem has been present for sometime. Yes a building boom would draw more manual labor, but did I not indicate who used home equity to refloat the Dot.Com bomb? It wasn’t Bush. Further, starting a housing boom is fine, but throwing gasoline on it with 0% down mortgages for people with no or bad credit was insane. How many local pols did anything to discourage illegals in the trades? How many Mexicans were willing to take over black neighborhoods while the Feds Section 8’d the blacks to suburban neighborhoods? There is a long and ugly story of one party playing games with certain minorities and it ain’t the Republicans. Study your voting patterns Willie and you will discover a lot.
Yes a building boom would draw more manual labor, but did I not indicate who used home equity to refloat the Dot.Com bomb? It wasn’t Bush.
But the Dot.Com bomb was never refloated.
Those tech jobs were downsized and outsourced to Bangalore,
And the money was used to buy Chinese trinkets and beads at Walmart.
It WAS Bush.
I saw him do it.
I tried to warn everybody, but nobody listened.
L
We need to be honest about how we got here.
Obama could never have been elected but for the incredible amount of back-stabbing conservatives suffered under GWB. He constantly sided with RINOs in every state election, butting in everywhere he could, from Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey, to Pawlenty in Minnesota to Schwarzenegger in California, and many others. This was manifest in his foreign policy as well. He continued Clinton's ignoring of Chinese violations of our trade laws and rights and interests...and national security. He perpetuation Clinton's trashing of the Navy. He appointed Gates who is happily undermining the U.S. military, canning the F-22 (which GWB had set up with his arbitrary "ceiling" on production)
He forced the massive TARP bailouts, and allowed Paulson to then disregard the law's requirements...and allowed the Fed to make unsecure investments with printed money likely exceeding $2 trillion. This kind of stuff always gives the communists their "out" having their GWB scape goat on deficits....as they do ten times worse.
We know Bush was a globalist liberal. He was also, in many ways, as was his wife (no surprise there), an elitist against American culture and history, and edging up to world government. He pushed for the Amnesty for the illegals and stalled on Duncan Hunter's fence far longer than the law required, ignored its quality requirements, used Chinese steel, and ignored the will of Congress as to timing. Now Obama had an unfinished fence he could cavalierly stop building...leaving the border unsecure. GWB never condemned liberalism, or communism. He did rely on those who did, but he himself was "above it all." Really? He did attack conservatism as "racist" or "bigoted", and on and on. Remember the Dubai ports deal? Calling the national security conservatives "anti-Arab". Pushing for the Law of the Sea Treaty (which will tax all our ocean trade and activities and give the UN the money and authority over us and our Navy), and clearly, despite the insane rantings and ravings of Michael Medved trying to deny it, a North American Union.
The SPP as reported by insiders from Canada and Mexico's own leadership contradicted all the GWB defenders. This is not really debatable.
Where was he coming from? It wasn't a conservative place at all. We were warned.
Read this article by Lawrence Auster in 2000, without having to point fingers at all... and see how much it explains to this very day...
My Bush epiphany
A few weeks before he was nominated as the Republican candidate for president of the United States, I happened to see Bob Dole being interviewed on TV. As I watched, everything I knew about Dole came to mind -- the love for big government that he had unembarrassedly revealed in his Senate retirement speech a few days earlier, the constant hints and sardonic asides by which he distanced himself from conservatives and accommodated himself to liberals, even the way his eyes kept shifting from side to side as he spoke. Suddenly the thought flashed into my mind: "He's not on our side; he's on their side."It gives me no pleasure to say it, but George W. Bush, at least on some key issues, has given conservatives reason to have similar concerns about him. Of course, many conservatives were already put off by W.'s "compassionate" conservatism, his inclusion-soaked nominating convention, and his failure to say anything serious about the Clinton-Gore corruption of our national life. If W. would not take even a minimal stand against the epic illegalities and abuses of power that we have been living under, then how could his election be seen as a repudiation of those abuses, and how could it cleanse the country of the stain that Clinton has left?
By the same token, given the fact that W. panders to Hispanics and is so conspicuously fond of diversity, how can he be counted on to defend America's national identity and sovereignty from the organized Hispanic interest groups and globalist elites who are hostile to both? A case in point was his refusal during the primaries to criticize a Texas town where Spanish had been declared the official language.
Thus W. had already shown a troubling degree of softness on the important issues of public morality and national identity. But in a two-day period in late August, he went much further (or much further backward) on both fronts than he ever had before.
On the matter of public integrity, he announced his approval of Janet Reno's decision not to appoint a special counsel to investigate Al Gore's role in the 1996 campaign scandal. In doing this, W. was not just avoiding a "partisan attack" on Clinton-Gore corruption; he seemed to be going out of his way to help protect Clinton and Gore from accountability.
On the matter of national identity, W. delivered in Miami on Aug. 25 a major address on U.S.-Latin American relations, in which he unveiled a startling -- at least for a Republican -- view of America. We should pay close attention to his words:
We are now one of the largest Spanish-speaking nations in the world. We're a major source of Latin music, journalism and culture. Just go to Miami, or San Antonio, Los Angeles, Chicago or West New York, New Jersey ... and close your eyes and listen. You could just as easily be in Santo Domingo or Santiago, or San Miguel de Allende.For years our nation has debated this change -- some have praised it and others have resented it. By nominating me, my party has made a choice to welcome the new America.
Let us be clear that W. is not (as Republican politicians including Reagan have done for decades) celebrating immigrants from diverse backgrounds on the assumption that they are becoming part of our culture and way of life. On the contrary, he is applauding the expansion and the increasingly dominant role of the Hispanic culture and the Spanish language in this country. He is explicitly welcoming the very things that are making America less and less like its historical self and more and more like Latin America. To repeat, this is not the usual establishment conservative line of "immigration with assimilation." This is multiculturalism, the view of America as a collection of unassimilated yet "equal" cultures in which our former national culture will be progressively downgraded and marginalized.
Also surprising is W.'s claim that Republicans have "made a choice to welcome the new America." Did Republicans realize that by nominating W. they were not only committing themselves to a pro-multicultural candidate, but shutting down all debate on the issue?
Complementing W.'s support for the Hispanicization of American culture was his view of Mexico-U.S. relations:
I have a vision for our two countries. The United States is destined to have a "special relationship" with Mexico, as clear and strong as we have had with Canada and Great Britain. Historically, we have had no closer friends and allies. ... Our ties of history and heritage with Mexico are just as deep.
In equating our intimate historic bonds to our mother country and to Canada with our ties to Mexico, W. shows a staggering ignorance of the civilizational facts of life. The reason we are so close to Britain and Canada is that we share with them a common historical culture, language, literature, and legal system, as well as similar standards of behavior, expectations of public officials, and so on. We share none of those things with Mexico, which, along with the rest of Latin America, constitutes a cultural region quite distinct from that of the United States and Europe. Everyone, on both the left and the right, has always known this to be so. W., apparently, does not. As he sees it, our mere physical proximity to Mexico is tantamount to cultural commonality with Mexico.
W.'s delusions of cultural similarity don't stop there. "Differences are inevitable" between Mexico and the U.S.," W. continued. "But they will be differences among family, not between rivals."
Coming from the Republican candidate for president of the United States, the statement boggles the mind. It was bad enough when the Democrats in the 1980s started their socialist rant (soon echoed by the Republicans) that Americans are all "one family." But now George W., "The Man from Inclusion," has taken the "family" idea several steps further. For W., it is not just the United States, but the United States and Mexico, and ultimately the United States and the whole of the Americas, that constitutes one "family."
With this thoughtless cliché, W. is moving in symbolic terms toward the goal that Mexico's newly elected president Vicente Fox is calling for in concrete terms: the opening of the U.S.-Mexican border. After all, who would want to maintain national borders and high-tech barriers between members of the same family? Within a family there is unconditional support, mutual obligation, and the sense of a shared destiny -- not armed patrols and checkpoints.
Whether or not W. himself understands the logical implications of his "family" rhetoric, its political consequence if he becomes president will be the same -- the further delegitimization of our borders and our national sovereignty.
All of which leads up to the question: Why is he doing this? Most conservatives had accepted, if without enthusiasm, the pragmatic need for W. and other Republicans to project a warm and "inclusive" image, conspicuously embracing minorities and so on. But by no reasonable calculation did that require W. to embrace multiculturalism, any more than the need to avoid "negative attacks" on his Democratic opponent required him to praise Reno's cover-up of Gore.
Since his adoption of a multicultural vision of America makes no sense in political terms (indeed, it would tend to alienate his own base), the only explanation is that W. really believes in it. Watching his speech in Miami, you couldn't help but feel that W. is genuinely moved by this "We're all one family" sentiment. It is as central to his heart (about which he is always telling us) as the love of big government is to Bob Dole's.
Just as Dole at the 1996 Convention showed his liberal colors when he declared that the Republican party is rife with unspecified "haters" for whom "the exits are clearly marked," W. has unambiguously demonstrated his allegiance to the liberal policies of open borders and multiculturalism, characterizing everyone who dissents from those policies as driven by "resentment" and implying that they have no place in the Republican party. He has left no wiggle room for honest conservatives to tell themselves, "Well he's really on our side, the side of a unified American nation. He just has to say all these things about welcoming other cultures in order to get elected."
Of course, many principled conservatives feel they have strong reasons (I will leave it up to the reader to decide whether they are compelling reasons) to vote for W. They believe that with W. in the White House, there will be at least a chance of forestalling a further leftward lurch by the Supreme Court and such nightmarish statist projects (endorsed by Gore) as universal childcare. They also feel that our country cannot endure the continued debauching of our national institutions and character that has occurred under Clinton and Gore. But, if conservatives do mark their ballot for W. on Nov. 7, they should do it without illusions -- and they should be prepared to fight President Bush every inch of the way to preserve what remains of our national identity and sovereignty.
Lawrence Auster lives in New York City.
But the Dot.Com bomb was never refloated.
Those tech jobs were downsized and outsourced to Bangalore,
And the money was used to buy Chinese trinkets and beads at Walmart.
It WAS Bush.
I saw him do it.
I tried to warn everybody, but nobody listened.
Willie, when I say refloat the Dot.Com bust, I am referring to reinflation of the stock market not the sector. The Dot.Com bubble was a bubble that all could see and understand was silly. You had companies worth millions that had never earned a dollar and had no plan to earn a dollar trading at insane valuations. Clinton with Greenspan chose to use home equity to reinflate the stock market. That was okay until you throw gas on the fire with Franklin Delano Raines underwriting standards and mugging of private banks by Fannie and Freddie. None of the houses that sold throughout this period were manufactured in China! Most, if not all the appliances installed were made in America and to a smaller part Europe. People buy cheap chinese goods today as we bought cheap Japanese goods when we were a kid. George Bush did not set China policy. That was Nixon followed by every successive President since. You have a serious BDS mind parasite going on. Willie, Walmart markets cheap stuff. This means they will find the lowest price for goods and use economies of scale to bring the lowest price to their consumers. Are you suggesting that we should mandate higher prices for consumer goods? Then vote for Cap’n Trade and VAT. Reality check, those two policies will end up increasing imports from China and destroy American manufacturing. It sounds like you want to go to isolation and tariff all imports to artificially support domestic production. We did this once before and caused a depression. It also was a key ingredient to causing WWII. Not a real winner of a solution.
Willie, when I say refloat the Dot.Com bust, I am referring to reinflation of the stock market not the sector. The Dot.Com bubble was a bubble that all could see and understand was silly. You had companies worth millions that had never earned a dollar and had no plan to earn a dollar trading at insane valuations. Clinton with Greenspan chose to use home equity to reinflate the stock market.
You do realize that you're talking about the same stock market bubble that Blowhard Bush wanted to hyper-inflate by "privatizing" Social Security, don't you?
Walmart markets cheap stuff. This means they will find the lowest price for goods and use economies of scale to bring the lowest price to their consumers. Are you suggesting that we should mandate higher prices for consumer goods?
WalMart is a predatory retailer that undermines domestic industries with inferior quality products from sources who are not compliant with our health, safety and environmental standards.
Willie, you are a statist. Dictating to people what to do with their money, lives and property is so, well 20th Century. The people that promise solid gains and safety on Social Security deposits were the same giving out 0% down Fannie/Freddie mortgages to people with no credit rating, and many times no citizenship. Who to trust with your money? An open market that responds to objective data or a closed door session with Pelosi, Reid, Obama, Emmanuel, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Frank, Dodd, Raines, Boxer..... You get my drift? I am an individual, you are a collectivist. Ask yourself where the money for all the collective toys come from, the collective or individuals? Stealing others money under the cover of “helping people” is still stealing. Envy, the life blood of leftists, is destructive of the envier and the envied. Nothing good comes from it. Heres an idea, why don’t we attempt to treat all citizens equally under the law? One tax rate, zero tolerance of racial and sexual discrimination by Govt, total focus on merit (virtures rather than vices). Do you think the left is up for equality?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.