Nice odds if you can get them. But now you can. The Washington Post reports on a new, trillion dollar scheme to save the economy and boost demand.
The government is seeking to resuscitate the nation’s crippled financial system by forging an alliance with the very outfits that most benefited from the bonanza preceding the collapse of the credit markets: hedge funds and private-equity firms.
The initiative to revive the consumer lending business, outlined by officials this week, offers these wealthy investors a new chance to make sizable profits — but, thanks to the government, without the risk of massive losses.
AdvertisementThe idea is to entice them to put their huge cash piles to work to stimulate the financial system. They would be invited to buy up recently issued, highly rated securities. These securities finance consumer lending, such as credit cards and student and auto loans.
The program, which could involve the government lending nearly $1 trillion to these investors, exceeds the size of every other federal effort to address the crisis so far. The initiative’s approach could be the model for future federal efforts to aid the credit markets, sources familiar with government planning said. Officials call this strategy a “public-private partnership,” but in essence the government is offering good deals to private investors to draw them into its rescue efforts.
Interested? Who wouldn’t be. Our members have significant interest,” said Richard Baker, president of the Managed Funds Association, the leading association for hedge funds.
Here’s how a typical TALF deal would work: A hedge fund uses $1 million of its own money and gets a $9 million loan from the Fed, payable after three years, to buy a $10 million asset-backed security, which finances consumer loans. Hoping that the market for these assets recovers, the hedge fund would hold the asset for three years.
If the security rises in value to $11 million, the investor would keep the profit, essentially doubling the initial investment. The government, meanwhile, would consider the deal a success because consumer lending was spurred.
If the value fell below $9 million, the hedge fund would lose its down payment but nothing more. The Treasury, using bailout funds approved by Congress, would cover the next set of losses, with the Fed ultimately on the hook for anything more.
Megan McArdle, writing in the Atlantic, thinks we’ve seen enough. Geithner should go. Unfortunately that’s not possible because the Obama appointments process is so constipated that if Geithner went, the administration might not be able to replace him for months. And then who would save the world? Who would bring us Hope and Change?
Henry Blodget thinks it is time for Timothy Geithner to go. So far, Geithner’s performance has been shockingly unimpressive. It’s not as if he’s walking into the crisis anew; he’s been the head of the New York Fed for years, and dealing with these issues from the very beginning. Yet on the really crucial problem of what to do about the banking system, he’s been very nearly silent, going to Congress with a non-plan-plan that terrified the very markets it was supposed to reassure. Blodget also has a point when he says that Geithner has been mysteriously stuck on his original ideas. I would add that he seems mysteriously stuck on them, but not willing to pay the political cost of executing them, which is the worst of both worlds.
On the other hand, though I’ve so far been underwhelmed by his performance, we can hardly fire him, because who on earth would replace him? The administration’s vetting procedure has gotten entirely out of hand. Two candidates for Treasury slots have already withdrawn their candidacy in the face of the delays and Mossad-style interrogation procedures the candidates have to submit to.
The inability to get anyone confirmed has to be laid at the feet not of Geithner, but of Obama. We’re in the biggest financial crisis in living memory, and the administration has so far failed to staff treasury because it is unwilling to take any political risk that a nominee will have a tax or a nanny problem.
Why do I get the feeling that things aren’t going according to plan. Or maybe they are.
Oh, Obama may think he’s got excellent opportunities with a collapsing economy, but all that does is bring the Ron Pauls closer to power.
Don’t forget, at CPAC, with basically nothing but nutballs, Paul got 14%, tied with Palin and Huck.
Already, Paul’s Gold standard is looking good with printing money and inflation killing those on a fixed income.
Of course these Wall Street Guys supported Obama with lots of cash. Now Obama is paying them back.
We can call the Obama White House “The Dukes of Moral Hazard.” Soon they’ll be hot rodding around in eco-friendly electric muscle cars while they’re being chased by the revenuers in Chevettes (controlling the appropriations process has its advantages).
This proposal is really beyond belief.
They have got to get this in from of the American people.
My head is just spinning with the corruption of this.
Trillions from the taxpayer to enrich a bunch of elite Hedge Funds. Comically, Hedge funds were meant for wealthy individuals who could handle the risk. On every level, morally, politically and economically, this is just evil.
And they so it right out in the open.
We have just lost our moral compass, pure and simple/ Can you imagine someone proposing this even two years ago?
May God help us. Seriously.
Buffett must have blown the words,”Crony Capitalism” into the ear of BHO.
And the wind-up boy is sprung into action.
in form-in front
Well at least we are starting to hone down to who the players are.
Let’s see…
Soros, check…
Buffett, check…
Goldman Sachs, check…
Now we know who sent BHO and Timmy…
Oligarchy here and now.
lots of Russian money i London based hedge funds.
Very unregulated business. What tower lies. Have we ever seen anything remotely like this, even under FDR or Clinton?
The filp side of “To big to fail” is now “To incompetent to fire.”
OT two stories: 1) Mugabe apparently tries to kill his new PM and does get the man’s wife. 2) The Minnesota Supreme Court rejects Al Franken’s effort to dispense with pesky lawsuits and allows Norm Coleman to drag this exercise in ballot box stuffing into daylight.
money in^
(this stuff has me so PO’d , sorry)
Or too corrupt to ignore.
Read that comment thread in the Atlantic article. The libs there are accurately putting forth the idea that it is congress problem for vetting these people. That somehow putting corrupt people into these positions will somehow do the trick in restoring confidence. Unreal.
I’m not convinced (yet) that it’s intentional destruction on Obama’s part.
I still think its text book Chicago political paybacks (corruption), coupled with a complete lack of understanding of how things work in the real world.
In other words, incompetence and ignorance.
But that’s bad enough. God help us make it to 2010.
jaymaster @ 12:
“…incompetence and ignorance…”
That is THE BEST we can say! The worst is that they are trying to bring the Republic down. Know what that is called?
God save America! Because nothing can save Obama.
I think it is both.
Do not tell me that he he is trying to do anything but line his pockets, indulge his narcissism, lock in power and destroy the nation.
If he cared about the nation, he would just resign. He is 47 years old, and is the POTUS, placed there by a major party. He is a graduate of Columbia and Harvard. Nobody who has been though this can be this stupid. Ignorant yes, incompetent for his job, but not stupid. I think that a good portion of his supporters are fine with what he is doing. It is that left of center 3rd that is shocked.
He is out to destroy the USA as it has been for the last 200 plus years.
@Mongoose,
The argument that it was someone else’s job to vet them so they can’t be stopped now is a reflex from Union negotiations. When you want to fire someone for being incompetent or lazy they will say that if they didn’t build a case against them in the first two years then they are vested and it needs an act of god to remove someone. Of course in the first two years everyone is in training and can’t be evaluated fully so they get a pass, besides the new hire covers for the seniors when it comes time to divide up vacations. Finally the union will point out that they got through training so they must be OK. Of course it is very hard to remove anyone in training. Trainers are there to train and not to evaluate. Round and round.
I still think its text book Chicago political paybacks (corruption)
Interesting. What are the hedge funds being paid back for?
The Politico reports on Hillary’s choice of symbolic gifts for the Russians.
Mr. Lavrov, overcharged for what?
Words fail me- but I’ll grasp. The people who ran the Soviet Union probably had themselves convinced they were working for the benefit of the world, that their self-enrichment was only perfectly reasonable compensation for their work, and those opposing the system really were evil and needed to be eliminated.
The American siloviki believe exactly the same thing. If they are going to save the country from their offices in Greenwich shouldn’t they be well compensated?
The hysteria of Peggy Noonan and David Frum becomes a little more understandable. Their revulsion for populist Republicans and affinity for Obama is social but the social becomes the political and economic. Wealth as well as power is now in the hands of the Obama axis. I’m sure Noonan and Frum would like their children to be able to join good investment banks or hedge funds when the time comes. Noonan’s son was born in 1987, so he will be graduating this year, and I will be very interested to see who he goes to work for.
The Politico reports on Hillary’s choice of symbolic gifts for the Russians.
*snip*
Good lord, talk about amateur hour. Don’t we have anybody on staff that speaks fluent Russian?!?!
And can you imagine this happened to Condi Rice?! The screeching from the left would be deafening, even out here in the wilds of NH.
ECM,
Condi Rice, whatever her other failings, knows Russian.
LOTM: Oh those idiots on the Atlantic comment thread know nothing about unions, they would not be caught next to one except at a charity function. This is just a part of their moral and spiritual landscape.
Every thing is about “brilliant technocrats”; they never consider that real judgment and wisdom stem from a sober morality and not some sort of analytical skill set.
Thus they think that crooks can “fix” a credibility problem.
I know let’s let developers buy and run savings and loans. Wait thats been done, nevermind.
can you imagine how Bush would have gotten his face ripped off if he would have called P/E ratios = Profit to Earnings? any kid in any decent undergrad business program should be stunned in hearing that.
On further reflection (having gotten over the initial shock of such an elementary mistake), does anyone else think that this was a too-cute-by-half act that the left would have exorciated Bush for as being juvenile (or even puerile) had Condi done it(even if, as Lifeofthemind notes, she had gotten the word correct)?
I mean, it has all the gravitas of giving a foreign digniatary something from Fisher-Price and, unless the Russians are big on children’s toys, this just seems almost entirely insipid. (All the worse for using the wrong loody word! Grah!)
ECM asks:
Good lord, talk about amateur hour. Don’t we have anybody on staff that speaks fluent Russian?!?!
programmer surmises:
I think Wretchard is saying the word was translated correctly. “Overcharge” is the message. Push the button to overcharge for what?
Obama’s “Friends & Family investment fund?
Are the assets distressed enough yet?
#13 Robohobo: You’re not whispering the “T” word are you? Could Obama be Mr. T in an (empty) suit? Oh hell — the Secret Service is knocking on my front door. F
lending a trillion dollars
Not quite right. In transactions that depend on risk, you must distinguish between the Sum Assured and the Risk Premium.
In the above proposal, in a wipe-out situation, the hedge fund would lose 1m, and the Govt $9m. But not everything will tank, so the distribution of the tanks and non-tanks is what is required, and the expected value worked out.
If the expected value is positive, the Govt proposal is good. The fact that the hedge-funds losses for a tanker are real but limited means that they may look anew at some of the toxic loans. Don’t forget, the problem is not that there is no money and no opportunity, the problem is that the risk/reward equation is opaque at the moment. The proposal helps to remove some of the risk (but not the opaqueness).
Not everything a Govt does is bad, and this time I think the proposal is OK.
ADE
The hedge fund industry (perhaps counterintuitively) has been one of the biggest contributors to the DNC/Dem candidates over the years. Despite the public hand-wringing, Democrats love a lot of the hedge fund guys.
But politics aside, I’m not sure what this is supposed to achieve. No matter what is done, there will be winners and losers and this whole situation is terrible and a lot of innocents will pay the price or otherwise be swept out to sea in one way or the other. I’m not opposed to a stinky plan if it stinks less than another.
But what I don’t get is why the government should do again what everyone has been complaining about- privatizing the gains while socializing the losses. If it’s so important to do this, just finance the whole thing and keep *all* of the profits for the taxpayers.
The only possible upside I see here is that they’re depending on the money managers to somehow separate the sheep from the goats relative to the individual deals, but I could personally get that done for a lot less money than they’re going to essentially give away here.
This is a perfect hedge fund type bet- it’s asymmetric to the upside. And given the free leverage, if I were a fund I’d do as many of these deals as reasonably possible.
The gov’t only wins if this goes horribly awry. Again, I don’t get it, but hopefully there is some other detail or something else to the rationale that I’m missing.
programmer:
Seems it was, indeed, a screw-up, at least according to the folks over at the Volokh Conspiracy (from the first comment):
It’s a case of misspelling (and someone no doubt will be loosing a job over it)
reload in Russian is spelled as «перезагрузку»
However, the button had an inscription of «перегрузка» translated as overcharge.
Sorry, forgot the link:
http://tinyurl.com/7h5bpy
Could the hedge funds already have their hand in the cookie jar?
[Mcauley’s world]
“So where is the Taxpayer money going. Why is the Federal Governemnt hiding the facts from the American people. Why don’t we have the transparency the Government promised us. Who, exactly, is getting these bailout dollars.
“Did you know that the Biden Family (Vice President Joe Biden) ran a Hedge Fund called the Paradigm Companies. The Paradigm Companies had an “exclusive sales agent” – Sir Alan Stanford – the disgraced financier charged with defrauding investors of $8 Billion dollars. Stanford even invested $2 Million of his own money in the Biden fund.
“Has this Hedge Fund received funds through AIG under the Government bailout? What other Hedge Funds received money through the bailout? Did we, the American Taxpayers, send money to Bernie Madoff through AIG or any of the other Bailout recipients? The questions are: Why don’t we know where our taxpayer dollars are going? Where is the transparency?”
See: Mcauley’s World
http://mcauleysworld.wordpress.com/2009/03/06/the-aig-bailout-vp-bidens-family-alan-stanford-the-paradigm-stanford-fund/
Well the financial people are going to reap the whirlwind.
Besides that, they do nothing productive. This will have to be met head on politically andeconomically one day.
Economically, financial manipulation is not wealth creation. A “Wealth Axis” that does not include productive capital will fail, as will one that precludes a large, strong and independent middle class. But it goes to show how narrow and venal our “elites” are. You cannot just loot the treasury (and thus the middle class) and bankrupt the country like this for very long even if all that concerns you is self aggrandizement. These people have abdicated their responsibilities, it is just a matter of time before there is a broad reaction to all of this. I do not see how “Oligarch System” like what has happened in Russia will actually last here, and I ws over there often during the period when their encroachment occurred.
This will be a watershed moment if they go ahead with this sort of broad and open corruption.
Noonan and her ilk would be a better mother if they taught their children to go out in the world and do something productive and useful with open hands, hearts and minds humbly before before God. It is a completely delusion that one can engage in this sort of immorality and traffic with this sort of evil and not have it compromise your soul and the should of those around you. It is a sort of spiritual sleep; a form of spiritual sloth. What bizarre priorities, what bizarre understandings of the world these people have.
I am thankful that I returned to the Christian faith and the Church of my childhood and my forebearers. This sword and a shield against this sort of temptation to traffic with evil merely for a few babbles and vainglorious self regard.
I know that I perhaps say this too much here, but in the end our crisis is rooted in the weakening of Faith, culture and true civilization. We have collectively become deracinated.
Only people without real spiritual live can imagine that they can profit by destroying their country and civilization, or that their appetites and vanities are worth destroying the great heritage that is the West and the USA.
But I do thank that there will be a reckoning, and not just in the next life.
“Do you know the nickname the lobbyists have for the stimulus bill?”
[I hope this doesn't get censored]
“Do you know the nickname the lobbyists have for the stimulus bill?”
“No, what is it,” I replied.
“FYGK, which means we’re going to f*@k your grand kids.”
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2009/03/05/what-the-lobbyists-are-saying/#more-16371
oh for heaven’s sake. My Russian is good enough for this, and my is hardly fluent, just business traveler’s Russian.
Do mot tell me that they spent “a lot of time getting it right”. You could ask someone in an airport lobby about something like this. It is so completely idiotic. It is so embarrassing.
the should of those around you=the souls of those around you
All of socialism and Marxism is just a modern reproduction of a feudal oligarchy. I have stated this on occasion and been laughed at on account of it, but mockery does not shake what I certainly know about the personality types of the people in the Marxist movement who think they are the natural leaders of us all.
Barry O is just a puppet of far more powerful people. His reptilian brain is of a lower order than theirs. They would consume him in a heartbeat if he failed to do their bidding.
If Yuri Andropov were alive to day he’d be laughing his ass off.
fred, You can also think of ti as a Christian heresy.
Hillary is a joke, nothing new. She was completely graceless in her “photo op” with Lavrov. She acted as though she expected him to be her straight man in some vaudeville comic exchange. What else would one expect from a Clinton–those people who left the White House trashed for their successors?
But the rest of this–I honestly cannot make out whether this show is incompetence or malevolence. Does O mean to destroy the country, or does he merely not care what happens to it? Either way, if that were what he wanted, this is what he would do, and there is no good way to tell the difference. We are, either way, totally fooked.
I’m with jaymaster–God help us, and pray we hang on until 2010.
And I might add that, come 2010, if we manage to have hung on, we have the crust to do what must be done.
I’m not optimistic.
“Mossad-style interrogation procedures”–it is to laugh. Evidently it’s Mossad-like to determine if nominees are “I’m too special, tax rules are for the hoi polloi” lawbreakers, and it’s bad to be Mossad-like. Great, a twofer.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5253XS20090306?sp=true
oh me aching ass !
Hillary is like a middle aged office manger getting promoted to a junior executive position.
She is just as bad as Obama, she has never really done a actual thing in her life.
Never to be forgotten:
BHO has Gonnabee written all over him.
Such is the nature of the Gonnabee that they ALWAYS inflate to implode.
It’s for the plebs to clean up after the exalted One.
It is also in the nature of the beast that he is able to paper over all of his stink until a complete eruption…
something like a psychic super-volcano which spreads gas and ash to astounding heights.
All style and little substance: the perfect IMAGE of a super-success: such is the wardrobe of the Gonnabee.
We’ve all seen them.
BHO = Ahab
Attention = Moby Dick
Oh, re Hillary’s gaffe: the Russians have a word for it: nekulturniy. It means you’re utterly uncultured–a rube, a boob, uncivilized and not to be borne. Just what we need from a SecState.
It goes comfortably with exchanging a cheesy set of DVDs for an artifact of unique meaningful provenance. Next time Obama should just hand out McDonald’s gift vouchers.
You stay classy, administration!
sig…
Such a gaffe master.
BHO, Bidden, Hillary… yiikes.
They’re pressing all of MY buttons.
Oh you mischaracterize Ahab…much deeper character than Obama.
Ahab was confused about the nature of evil and what it takes to defeat it, thus he was brought down.
Obama is not even close to Ahab’s level.
I’ve come to equate Michelle with Livia Drusilla. I recall that in her dying scene in the old “I, Claudius” from 30 years ago or so, she kept her wits, and had the good sense to have a coin put in her mouth, to pay the Ferryman.
Ahab is much deeper than Obama, that’s true.
I figured it out, this series of prat falls by Obama with Brown and Hillary with the EU shows a diabolically clever plan at work. After 605 years of the US carrying the load for our dead beat allies Obama is going to make them take a deep breath, pull up their big boy pants, and stop expecting Uncle Sugar to swoop in and solve their problems, while he traditionally thanked them for giving him a heaping serving of abuse in the process. The 2400 word explanation proving this in The Atlantic, to be titled “The New Americanism,” is being cooked as we speak.
Last I knew, Ahab was obsessed with killing the ‘great white’…
Further,
BHO has much deeper character flaws than Ahab…
Umm 65 years tops, may we get some tools please? This is like blogging on Etch-a-Sketch. Hope it is good for the soul.
In fact, I don’t think Obama is deep at all, just a really good con man.
He’s conned himself into believing that he’s really god…
strike that….
really good.
I’m with LOTM…
I’d love the ability to re-edit my posts…
Spelling and punctuation…
Sheesh…
Anybody that can suggest a ‘comfort room’ for those that survive an abortion, has deep character flaws. I would have thought a little reason applied to that situation might suggest that that baby has at that point, being out of the womb, and on her own, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But this didn’t occur to our Zero.
Yes, obma does not seem to have much too him at all.
It is noticeable without even having to deal with him as person.
A cartton-like spirit and mind.
Perhaps…
in all his years…
BHO wished he’d had a post-natal abortion?
Unlike the rest of the Club…
I had the experience of seeing what his tutu did to BHO while he was a young collegian…
It was brutal, a boot camp that did not end, I must imagine….
It’s NOT his mother, it’s his grandmother ( tutu ).
She’s the ultra-dominant ultra-dyke wedded to the ultra omega-male…
BTW…
BHO knew his father…
Frank Marshall Davis.
How brutal to realize that you are a TRUE bastard and that Stanley had the nerve to marry a beard….
BHO has ever been a spawn of anti-Americanism.
His tutu and his Communist father absolutely HATED everything that American stood for…
He’s anti-western tradition right across the board.
As for his sanity: he’s our Caligula… cute but lethal.
Cahtolics Threaten To Close Their Hospitals Rather Than Comply With New Proposed Abortion Regulations
cartoon-like^
Mongoose…
I rather fancied the image of BHO as a cardboard box….
You’ve ruined it for me !
well that works too.
Heads I Win, Tails I Win.
Indeed.
But I think you folks miss the stroke of genius in the Treasury’s hedge fund plan, namely that in three years, there are only three possible outcomes:
1. The loan packages rise in value. The hedge funds make a ton of money and the fund managers get 20-30% of the profit, but by then marginal tax rates will have risen to >70%, so the government gets most of this. The hedge fund managers take what’s left over and split it between contributions to socially-responsible NGOs, the New York Times Preservation Trust, and PR firms that can get compliant reporters to write stories about the wonderful philanthropic and patriotic character of these blessed souls. New York real estate rebounds in value, and the Hamptons come back to life.
2. The loan packages fall in value. The hedge funds lose their entire investment. Those who want to punish the rich are pleased, and the fund managers give interviews to CNN in which they describe the way they stepped up and took risk for the benefit of the nation. This diverts attention from the massive profits they earned on the rest of their portfolio when they took massive short positions on community lenders and credit unions, who tanked when a massive wave of inflation hit the economy. (They were bought out of bankruptcy by a government-owned Citigroup with funds provided by TARP IX.) The government then takes back the loans, repackages them, and gets another hedge fund to play. Eventually, outcome #1 gets back their lost profit.
3. The loan packages’ value stays the same. The government can claim credit for having stabilized the financial market, the hedge fund managers get to earn their 2% management fee, and the US Treasury gets the interest on the loans they made.
You guys just don’t understand capitalism. But, then, you didn’t graduate from Harvard Law School. Good thing you left this problem to be solved by your betters.
L3
перезапустить, перезапуск = reboot
overload: Definition from Answers.com
перегрузка, перегружать.
Русский (Russian)
reset=перезапускать,
Agree with ECM and the link.
Reboot is very similar to reset. I think it is less likely to be misinterpreted.
It appears that overload is the correct meaning rather than overcharge but Russian can be like English and is a fluid idiom filled language.
Who knows what the folks in the stores say.
Don’t forget, at CPAC, with basically nothing but nutballs, Paul got 14%, tied with Palin and Huck.
Thing is, Ron Paul is only a nutbar when it comes to foreign policy. Domestically, he’s got it right. Sort of the inverse of Dubya (hmm, wonder if his middle initial is M… no, it’s E, so more of a sideways W…).
Oh, re Hillary’s gaffe: the Russians have a word for it: nekulturniy. It means you’re utterly uncultured–a rube, a boob, uncivilized and not to be borne. Just what we need from a SecState.
If calling Obama a monkey is racist, what’s calling Hillary a boob? But really, you should give her a break. In the Teleprompter script that The One (Termer) signed off on, Lavrov gushed enthusiastically about the wonderful chance to start over. It’s not Obama or Hillary’s fault that Lavrov ad libbed when the ‘prompter broke.
Good thing you left this problem to be solved by your betters.
L3, you have a typo there. Bettors. It’s spelled with an O…
JMH,
Dam spel chek.
Cheers.
L3
There are those who call me … Tim
Indispensable when times are grim
I may seem like a knave
But I’m actually brave
To be working for someone so dim.
— —
We wonder if there is a plan
For the market, or maybe Iran
It appears there is not
Save for “Do not get caught”:
Like any good confidence man.
— —
L3
As SecState, Hillary has beclowned herself.
As SecTreas, Geithner has beclowned himself.
As Chair of Ways and Means, Rangel has beclowned himself.
So too Reid, Pelosi and Frank.
I get it now! It’s not love Obama longs for, it’s the big top!
His name’s not Barak, it’s Barnum, and he hopes there’s a sucker born every minute.
Remember that fine Sondheim song “Send in the Clowns?” Done. F
Once the Democrats held total power
The mood of the nation turned sour
With Obama unvetted
We all soon regretted
Tuning in to the amateur hour.
— —
L3
Whether Obama is incompetent, malicious, naive, or a combination of these, the fact is that we’re heading down his road, and I don’t see any course corrections in the near future. The left has thrown all it’s chips on the table, and won’t back down now. It’s probably going to get worse.
The GOP may provide some temporary utility by regaining power in Congress in 2010, and blocking any further radical initiatives.
But what happens in 2012? Where is the powerful political coalition that will unseat the DEMS, and put this country back on the right track? This is the question we need to be asking unless we want to be old men pitifully shaking our fist at the TV (whenever the power is on at the house) everytime the gov’t sponsored news come on.
There’s a lot of smart people commenting on this website – anybody have ideas how we right the ship (if it hasn’t sunk by then)?
IDtmack: It is a little early yet. 3 years is a long time in American politics. It seems clear that this will have to be a new coalition with new values and new leader.
My guess is that the opposition will be about a ideological truce driven by the center in order to save the Republic, to somehow move the center back to where it was, and that this will come out of the grass roots of both parties. At least that will be the touchstone of some sort of “moderate coalition”. This may not be what is needed, I know, but I would guess that this is what we should come to see. I doubt that it is wise for conservatives to see this as a moment to implement their full project. However tempting this may be, the public will not stand for this, or so I’d wager. Nor do I think that the GOP will be able to go it alone in opposing Obama. So this would mean compromise, and thus some portion of Obama’s structural changes would remain in place. I think that grayer heads in the Democrat Party know this even if Obama does not, so they will push to get as much as they can off of Obama’s agenda before he goes down. Also, we must at least consider that notion that Obama may be so reviled by 2012 that he does not actually run–the economy could be to him much what Viet Nam was to LBJ. The political landscape could be wholly different than today. If you look at Newt’s CPAC speech, you can see that he has already understood this. It is worth going back to that speech. I do not know if his practical implementation is right, but he is headed for the right point on the horizon.
But you touch on something else i should like to note. As I look around, I do see an great deal of intelligent, wise, cogent and often highly informed comment out there on the internet. All of this is coming straight from the “average” citizen. Contrast this with the complete nincompoopery we get out of the elites and the difference is striking.
So it tells me that if we could somehow clear out the stables and do something about the political entropy and the cultural decadence the bedevil us, the notion that the common man can still govern himself is still valid.
I think that this wonderful crew here at BC needs to continue to post its insightful, multifaceted commentary, and make a special effort to offer up its best in the coming moths. I do think people are listening out there. I do not think that it is in vain.
It may be a small act, but that does not been it is a supreficial one.
dtmack@70
At best – temporarily block further radical initiatives…from a determined Left that’s designed to keep on initiating, evermore radical, evermore destructive. When they run for re-election, we should be calling it recidivism.
Can the good prevail? I fear not. Good people are intellectually ill-equipped and busy being productive, prone to act ethically and thinking about improving our free society. The Left is NOT ill-equipped, productive or interested in individual freedom. Seems like they’re diametrically opposed; just like good and evil.
Unless we unveil the Left as outright evil, we’ll fund our own enslavement. Time clearly favors the dark side. If not by 2012, then 2016 will suffice for the Left – after all, we’re paying them to continue to do what they do, all the while. “Loyal opposition” is a misnomer for describing anyone intent on your demise.
As long as most voters with eyes wideshut perceive this as merely a political contest, a “natural rivalry,” a mud-slinging contest between Democrats and Republicans, where grace, civility and morality can be set aside in any discussion; where criminal behavior is ignored and/or excused and/or rewarded; where the Left can use your tax dollars to advance their cause, we have NO chance.
When I hear erstwhile intelligensia on FoxBiz arguing that raising personal income tax rates from 42% to 54.56564332% is unfair, I see evidence that they’ve intrinsically bought into the “redistribution” proposition of the Left – like we know you’re a whore, it’s now just a matter of price.
The good is made “guilty” for being good, and the more guilt we accept, the heavier the chains will be. And, since the Left is immoral by design, they have nothing to be guilty about, shirking any such self-imposed burdens.
The good enters this confrontation niaeve and unarmed, expecting at worst a shouting match, bringing only words to a gunfight…historically ending in their slaughter.
In any hopeful future-focus scenario, wherein the conservatives’ counter-conjuring somehow manages to recapture a majority, and then attempts to “unwind” all the destruction wrought by that time, I’ve seen no discussions about how a rational conservative leadership will treat these now obvious mortal enemies…to disabuse the Left of their agenda, and prohibit their return to power EVER AGAIN, across the nation.
Make no mistake, absent our setting a really dramatic example as victors, the socialist/fascist/Marxist candidates will continue to run for local, state and federal office, and gain influential appointments. And, this because there is an institutionalized potential for huge personal gain, no accountability and increasingly, everless to lose.
The Left’s stated goal is to inflict slavery. For nearly 70 years, I’ve been led to believe our Founding Fathers would have taken to the streets years ago; armed, outraged and full of Judeo/Christian vengence – incensed that one AmeriKan political party – (taken over by thugs, cheats, criminals, thieves, appeasers, seditionists and out-and-out traitors) has even been contemplating what they’re clearly succeeding in doing. I weep at our betrayal of the hundreds of millions yet to be born; that we would insure they’ll be slaves by our inaction. Embarassment can hardly convey the guilt we’ll have deserved.
Any bi-partisanship with evil, always favors evil. Any compromise with evil, always advatages evil.
Then you get 0bama. And Pelosi, Reid, Frank and Dodd and a cast of tens of thousands more intentional-evil-doers like Geitner, Reich et al; each and every wanting in on the slave trade – interrogators, provisioners, outfitters, water-carriers, guards, enforcers, executioners, weapons dealers, blacksmiths, chain-makers, locksmiths, tailors and undertakers.
Liberalism/progressivism may be a mental disorder afflicting the masses; but for those who would be overlords, it’s the tyrant’s mantra and playbook.
Looks to me like the US becomes a single party system, either way it turns out, no?
I would strategize that only millions of men, women and children soon taking to the streets in peaceful protest (but each wielding a “symbolic” weapon and all carrying the same sign that shouts IT’S NOT LOADED THIS TIME!) can we citizens HOPE to CHANGE our now prescribed sub-human existance.
Water pistols and paintball guns, bows, even cardboard cutouts will be sufficient, for the first march.
And, I would predict the overlords will get that simple “message.” If they won’t, then all us Comrades will better comprehend what the future holds.
Re: Freeman
Which showed exactly how much and seriously anybody in the Obama gang think about OUR national security.
All foreign hostilities could be bought off, ‘with the right price.’
So when does Michelle launch a foundation for one thing or another and announce it is ready to start processing donations? Perhaps we can help with a contest to name her foundation…