Somebody had to say the obvious. Barack Obama is tying himself in knots. Andy Grove does in the Washington Post.
We have gone through months of chaos experimenting with ways to introduce stability in our financial system. The goals were to allow the financial institutions to do their jobs and to develop confidence in them. I believe by now, the people are eager for the administration to rein in chaos. But this is not happening.
Until the administration does this, we should not embark on attempting to fix another major part of the economy. Our health-care system may well be ripe for a major overhaul, as are our energy and environmental policies. Widespread recognition that all of these reforms are overdue contributed to Barack Obama’s victory in November. But if the chaos that resulted from initiating such an overhaul were piled on top of the unresolved status of the financial system, society and government would become exhausted. Instead, the administration must adopt a discipline; not initiating a second wave of chaos before we have a chance to rein in the first. …
Leading an organization, let alone a society, out of the chaos phase and into a new order requires explicitly clear and consistent messages from the top. The leader must paint a picture of the new and fill in lots of detail so that all relevant parts of society understand what they need to do to contribute. The answers to the questions “What is wrong?” “What are we going to do?” “How are we going to do it?” and “What should we expect?” should be drummed home relentlessly. This needs to be an ongoing process, where clarity, consistency and repetition are key. It is hard work and requires a laser-like focus on the solution.
First things first. Strive to achieve stability in our financial system. When the momentum is clear enough to allow trust in the system to return, then tackle the next mega-problem. As Machiavelli said, “One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.”
I made a similar observation in past posts, and wrote, not long ago, that Obama’s desire to turn the economic crisis into a laboratory for his own political vision was a disaster waiting to happen. Andy Grove understands the dangers well. But does Obama? I wrote:
Maybe part of the reason the White House is frazzling itself into the ground is that they’re trying to remake everything. Everything has now become part of the delta. Everything is changing. Now they are facing the revenge of the second derivative: the rate of the rate of change. They are trying to restructure the government so it is run with Czars instead of cabinet secretaries; “engaging” hostile nations with little or no preconditions and getting blown off; changing the basis of the economy to conform to their untried vision of the future; creating the single greatest expansion of government since FDR; redesigning health care; holding consultations on everything and planning to save the world from Climate Change. They’re busy because crisis creates an “opportunity” for their own vague revolution.
The cumulative consequence of these actions is a vast increase in the amount of risk the entire system has to endure because variables are being added faster than they are being solved. The margins are gone — removed by design. The margins are in the way. But while things might hold together for so long as the road ahead is smooth, what happens if things hit a bump? What happens in the Obama administration, too preoccupied to “even fake an interest in foreign policy meets a sudden challenge?
So far the Obama administration has only had to deal with the economy. And despite their campaign handwringing about how much less safe America has become, its foreign enemies, perhaps still picking themselves up off the ground from the pasting they received at the hands of George W. Bushchimp, have not yet made a move. But one day they too may notice that nobody is at home.
Even Tom Friedman understands that not everything is as it should be in Obama’s policy universe. He’s missing the obvious, which even Friedman can see. “First, to get out of a crisis like this you need to let markets clear. You need to let failed companies, or homeowners, go bankrupt, unlock their dead capital and reapply it to thriving entities. … Second, we need to get a market going that would bring fair value and clarity to the “toxic mortgages” crippling the balance sheets of our major banks. …” This is economics 101. It’s the default policy action. So why doesn’t Obama do it? Or more to the point, why can’t we appoint someone off the street to do it? We could, but we can’t because Friedman still persists in creating the supercategory of tasks, one which only a Lightworker can accomplish. Friedman writes:
Third, the president may have to make some trillion-dollar decisions — like nationalizing major banks or doubling the economic stimulus — with no real precedent and without knowing all the long-term ramifications.
This is a task which manifestly requires a special person to perform because it will have to be done by inspiration, rather than calculation, there being “no real precedent” and “without knowing all the long-term ramifications”. It’s the kind of job you assign to Moses or to Luke Skywalker. But if we return to the simple clods of earth, why would one rationally hope that President Obama gamble the future of the country in some cosmic casino? Maybe this obsession with monumental tasks is to retrospectively justify the idea that we need this “extraordinary man”. It’s a curiously medieval concept. Democracies are different from aristocracies in that they assume that government requires no special people; no one anointed by Divine Right. The reason for that is that the history itself provides the surprises. God if you will, already blows through the grass with a restless spirit. We don’t need our own jumped up Locomotives of History. The sources of surprise are already there. What humanity often needs isn’t more vainglorious surprise but ordinary simplicity, clarity and focus. We don’t need someone to Feel the Force. All we need right now is someone with common sense.
“All we need right now is someone with common sense.”
Meaning, of course, we’re doomed.
Obama is a Marxists idealog dressed in a Black Chicago suit. He has not EVER managed anything to a practical end and is in WAY over his head. He doesn’t understand or care about the economy or the consequences from instability. The point is to remake the US into a copy of a Euro-socalist (French) economy as fast as possible.
The faster the black guilt voting liberals realize this and vote their economic (read retirement) interests the faster we can throw him under the bus and return to the right path. We need to let him fail for a cathartic purging of American Marxists(read liberal Democrats) to occur.
It’s called “tough love” on the Dr. Phil show. Is it working for them?
Interesting that you should turn to physics and thermodynamics.
A critical aspect of our system overload is the performance limit of the government decision engine. It obeys Carnot’s limits, too.
Unfortunately, the decision engine is a clunky leaky beast and the control readouts are only displayed in the caboose.
Hence, it’s amazing that the brute is even able to gain headway or to stay on the rails.
Tough love = wallet masochism ?
calling it a “laboratory” or “experiment” may be a bit dubious, since they don’t seem to care about the results…
The mark of a good commanding officer is to quickly understand large amounts of conflicting information, make a snap decision and then move onto the next problem (stay inside the OODA loop).
Obama is NOT a good commanding officer (we all knew that months ago at Belmont Club). Talnik is right:
“We’re doomed”.
Faith based economics ?
Just ‘trust me’ ?
When will Wile E. Coyote look down ?
He’d better stop using Acme Economics for the Affirmatively Active.
Somebody said, “There are no bargains at the leadership table”. Bush rolled the dice on “Screw the polls, damn the torpedoes, do whatever is necessary to take the fight to the Jihadists” . A majority of Americans ( with an influx of voter fraud) said, “This is hard, we don’t like this”, so Bush went home to Crawford with the satisfaction of having followed his principles ,leaving history to judge him.
The new guy wants to be the cool, aloof hipster ,too special to bloody himself with dealing with realpolitik . Meanwhile the global gangbangers lick their chops to slap him and take his lunch money. Scary.
trangbang68,
We got the president we deserved just like we got the economy we deserved. Too many moonbats, too many crooks…
Another great insight from our Wretch: democracies neither want nor need the “extraordinary man”. The fact that there was such a great yearning expressed among the people for this supposed healer shows the failure of modern public education. Its victims seem to not possess a shred of healthy skepticism. If H.L. Mencken were still with us, he would not be writing for a big daily newspaper, he’d be in the farther reaches of circulation with us and Wretch and Mark Steyn. On your last point: common sense is in expecially short supply among the Ivy League Leftoids: They are ILL, and so they shall make the rest of us.
Even Maxwell’s Demon couldn’t crank out decisions fast enough for BHO’s command economy.
We will have massive tax revolts and civil unrest before the year is out if BHO stays ‘on program.’
With a life long immersion in Gramscian programing his world view is so damaged that there is simply no way that he can correctly react to reality.
The ethos of Affirmative Action, its victimhoodery, means that any political counter-force will be interpreted as racial-political assault.
The pathological and tyrannical potential from such a sense of ‘just cause’ being thwarted by the other races is obvious.
That BHO will be astoundingly destructive is a given.
What I’m really trying to find is someplace outside the blast zone.
That’s where the Club should focus some energy. It’s plain that our considered opinions have no hope of fruition with this Black-Supremacist Marxist gas bag.
weSwinger said:
“Another great insight from our Wretch: democracies neither want nor need the “extraordinary man”.”
I reminded of a comment made to me by Prof. Anthony Raubitschek (a brilliant teacher):
There are two types of democracy, i.e. representative democracy and aristocratic democracy.
Aristocratic democracy: The people chose their leaders from the population’s most intelligent, experienced and wise.
Representative democracy: The leaders are chosen from those who are most typical of the general population (peak of the bell curve), e.g. the leaders with an IQ of 100, don’t pay their credit cards on time, had at least one divorce, spent 2 years on an undergraduate degree but didn’t complete it, etc.
America started out as an aristocratic democracy but slowly morphed into a representative democracy.
For me, I would be happy if he never touches health care or energy, other than to allow drilling EVERYWHERE. I like my med care. Don’t fix what ain’t broke.
But what if creating chaos IS the objective?
Decades of Gramcian damage (hi, blert!) have undermined the institutions of free market democracy. Like a controlled demolition expert, an Alinsky-ite agitator would spot the opportunity to bring down (reshape, as it were) the old order. Add to the confusion (deliberately rudderless economic policy), foster strife (nation of cowards), overwhelm the mechanisms (flood voter registration offices with phonies), etc.
Good, God, I hope I’m wrong.
Eggplant, Sum up the sad state of affairs in our nation in 6 words or less: “Too many moonbats, too many crooks” . Bingo, you nailed it.
Like a controlled demolition expert, an Alinsky-ite agitator would spot the opportunity to bring down (reshape, as it were) the old order.
Add to that V. I. Lenin: “the worse the better”.
And the young Obama’s mentors could not have missed that idea in their ‘revolution’ against Amerikkka.
We’re Doomed and we can’t seem to get any professionals to turn on the lights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=potlDrRI01A
InSufSen 16: – “could not have missed!”
indeed! – In 1972 a real red – Jewish (perfect exemplar!) – Sociology Prof spent a full hour on “the worse the better” – I still remember the heigthened and peculiar gleam in his eye
I recall often these days that saying of a famous person, “‘Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?’”
We’re getting lots of snakes these days.
Lincoln elaborated the statement, recognizing that you might find a snake in your child’s bed. In that case you would have to move very carefully to remove the snake and protect the child. He was talking about slavery, of course.
Lots of people seem to think that Obama is giving them and their children bread. Looks like they’re going to have to find out that somehow the bread came with some snakes, which they’ll find in their children’s beds.
And then we’ll need massive federal programs to get “rid” of the snakes.
Unfortunately it is not just POTUS that is not being effective. It is also and to a larger degree those he and his staff have hired. Knowing how and what to act on is a bitch compared to voting “present”….
I have a suspicion that Obama and his integrity challenged inner circle spend trillions without batting a eye because they already plan to default when no one is left to buy our debt. Not much different from their moral soul mates who see bankruptcy coming and max out all sources of credit before the party ends. Every day the most dire predictions gain new credence. If we have to suffer a great deal to be done once and for all with the socialist pathology, okay, as long as we have finished it off.
It is also and to a larger degree those he and his staff have hired.
Those are “his people” — the ones he brought with him. And the job requires maximum adulation and toe-kissing, or they’re out on their arses, like the media clowns.
In Systems Administration, one of the things we learn about making changes to complex multilayered computer systems is to only make one big change at once. If you do and things go wrong, you have a backout plan – you can put things back the way they were before.
If you make two big changes at once and it fails, however, you have a problem. You don’t know which big change caused the problem nor if the two big changes are interacting in an unforeseen way. You could fix one of the big changes and just get a different error. So you have three times the work to try and fix things. We call this ‘crossing the streams’ and as Egon Spengler tells us, crossing the streams is bad.
What happens when you change ten things at once? You obviously don’t want to be able to return to the prior state.
“All we need right now is someone with common sense.”
Maybe like a certain governor ridiculed by the left:
“we can’t buy into the notion that for government to serve better, it must always spend more. Reductions we support are a chance to show the true measure in public policy. Simply increasing budgets every year, a common government practice, is no guarantee of success. More often, it’s an incentive to failure. Good public policy is accountable for results, and focused on critical priorities.”
~ Sarah Palin 2009 State-of-the-State address
They think they are succeeding.
Jeb Bush in 2012.
Delusional Narcissist do not surround themselves with common sense people and they won’t, it’s far to beneath them and far too dangerous for the Great “0”ne to come into close proximity to any “Common Sense” folk, for the normal deceitful politician to exhibit common sense, well that’s asking for a miracle!
Lots of politicians have common sense. A typical Senator or Representative is preoccupied with re-election precisely because that is where the next term’s employment comes from. Most of them act in a perfectly rational manner even if they appear to be crooks or fools.
Obama’s kind of exceptionalism is something that most pols stop aspiring to once they win a House seat or a Governorship, if in fact they ever entertain O’s kind of grandiose narcissism. I don’t think we can tell how dangerous this guy is yet, but the dangerousness of the systems he says he’s going to tinker with is what makes the risk seem catastrophic.
Time is an illusion. Time is not nature’s way of seeing to it that everything doesn’t happen at once, for everything did happen at once, one time, at the singularity. The concept of time reflects man’s imperfect grasp of reality, necessitated by his inability to understand that there is no such thing as time. And since everything happened at once, there is a record of everything, a record we see as time, unfolding in its irreversible way. That record has the account of everything that happened, including those things we think of as in the future. I do not claim special powers, but I have been given access to those records. – Waltrodamus
Late Spring will see the bankers weeping
New regs by government in keeping
Will cause the liquid base to flow
In ever faster volume go
The failings gather as may be
With prayers to the FDIC
The summer sees a blinding flash
As two religious peoples clash
One religion has the power
To name the date and name the hour
The other gains to live by bluster
But force is something they can’t muster
The Fall will see the war increasing
The Kushmen fighting without ceasing
The soldiers of the Power fight
To make the Kushmen see the light
But Power CinC says whoa
This is as far as I can go
To accomplish what Obama and his minions desire requires the development of a new system. They don’t want to just have, for example, the Community Reinvestment Act, Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, Aid to Families With Dependant Children, minority business set-asides in government contracting, and a few hundred Bridges to Nowhere, they want all that and not have it all go Boom! – at least not go Boom! on their watch.
This is a big problem. In the first place, concentrating on all the welfare goodies means that you are trying to figure out how use the country’s Design Margin rather than add to it in order to pay for all of the goodies. In the second place, the Left does not think about systems to produce wealth any more than college kids wonder how the beer is made while they are drinking on Saturday night.
On the other hand you can’t pay for all the welfare goodies without changing the system that produces the wealth. The CRA and all that other stuff did indeed cause it to all go Boom! – and even bigger booms are promised in the future when the bill for the Boomers comes due.
The Left is defined by a designer bag that they carry trendy ideas around in, not by figuring out The Way Things Work or Ought To.
Isn’t Obama creating a need where none really exists, that is, for massive government “stimulus”? It seems to me (admittedly, I’m not an economist, though I took a macroeconomics course as an undergrad once) that the problem may be liquidity, but that’s because the government broke the economy’s primary mechanism for creating liquidity, i.e., the stock market. Foolish legislation, in particular the CRA, robbed the market of the confidence it needed to continue operating effectively. I haven’t heard anyone even suggest that CRA be repealed. Am I wrong on this? We saw yesterday (3/10) a brief infusion of market hope when the government suggested that they would re-implement the “uptick rule” to rein in short sellers, but the hope died quickly, because that gesture isn’t enough: investors, myself among them, are looking for stability before they invest any more money in the market. Without that guarantee of stabilty, which is the government’s primary role in “managing” the market, no one is going to invest, and no capital is being raised. We don’t need a stimulus, we need adult supervision – which is FREE! it costs NOTHING! – and we’re not getting it. Instead, we’re getting $1 trillion+ of additional public debt. Obama hasn’t seemed to figure out the difference yet between campaigning and governing. Our only hope, as another commenter opined recently, is that, if there are any adults left in the Democratic Party, they need to step forward now. Like, yesterday. (“Scotty, I need Warp 8 YESTERDAY or we’re all DEAD! Scotty? Scotty?”)
Gary Ogletree said:
“I have a suspicion that Obama and his integrity challenged inner circle spend trillions without batting a eye because they already plan to default when no one is left to buy our debt.”
I suspect this has been standard operating procedure for the last 20 years. Did anyone seriously expect the federal government to pay for Medicare and Social Security after the Baby Boomers retired? The whole system is on the verge of imploding. The only saving grace is that it’ll implode on Obama’s watch and he’ll catch the blame.
Luagha: great analogy. If only the greater populace could think that way!
The penultimate cause of the creation of the present state of affairs is the liberation of those who are ripe for it. The ultimate cause is the play of the great mother herself and if you want to know more about that you’ll have to ask her.
If you’re driving a mountain road, you can’t see around the next curve though if you’re a hawk in the air you can see what’s coming.
Hey who say’s Obama can’t handle several problems at once? Look how he focused on our economic problems at Treasury. Of the 18 positions that Obama is responsible to put forth a nominee, only one, the Treasury Secretary (Tim Geitner) , has been nominated. per Hot Air.
Like a laser beam. Job One baby! He wants chaos.
Think about this “Behind every successful man is a supportive woman”. What’s her name? Mad Michelle…
The emperor has no clothes. Only a teleprompter.
Like a controlled demolition expert, an Alinsky-ite agitator would spot the opportunity to bring down (reshape, as it were) the old order.
Let’s just hope he didn’t learn controlled demolition from his buddy Ayers’ atomized comrades. At least not while we’re within the blast radius….
Strange, haven’t heard anything from Benj in a while…
JAK said:
“Strange, haven’t heard anything from Benj in a while…”
As far as the moonbats are concerned, we became irrelevant after George W. Bush left office. I guess we should count our blessings.
“Strange, haven’t heard anything from Benj in a while…”
As far as the moonbats are concerned, we became irrelevant after George W. Bush left office.
I don’t consider Benj a moonbat. He was much smarter than that. He was an interesting character, suffering an unfortunate bro-mance with Obama. He just couldn’t get beyond his schoolgirl crush, but Benj was no drooling moonbat imbecile, not by any stretch.
Benj, if you are still lurking, I for one would love to hear your take on the Reality Obama vs the Dreamworld Obama. If you’re having buyer’s remorse I’m not here to shout “I told you so.” Not at you (though happily at many others). But I’m genuinely interested in your thoughtful take on what Barry has done so far.
You never did say what you wanted him to DO, though I asked you several times. Forget that. What do you think now about what he’s DONE?
Meanwhile, one of The One’s minions denies that he’s distracted by multitasking:
WASHINGTON D.C. – A key economics adviser to President Barack Obama denies the administration is juggling too many things at once.
Head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, said the administration is moving methodically to restore American business health. In an interview Wednesday, Romer said Obama has communicated clearly that attacking the deep recession is his top priority.
She acknowledged the administration’s response to the economy is inherently complicated, but said they have rolled out many specific strategies to tackle issues like home foreclosures and the current “stress test” to determine the capital needs of troubled banks. Romer added that if people can lower their house payments, the extra cash would help “put their friends back to work.”
http://www.news25.us/dsp_story.cfm?storyid=11646&RequestTimeout=500
Glad to know he’s such a clear communicator; there must be a problem with the teleprompter then.
Aristocratic democracy: The people chose their leaders from the population’s most intelligent, experienced and wise.
Representative democracy: The leaders are chosen from those who are most typical of the general population (peak of the bell curve), e.g. the leaders with an IQ of 100, don’t pay their credit cards on time, had at least one divorce, spent 2 years on an undergraduate degree but didn’t complete it, etc….
I think we’ve zoomed past Representative democracy into Dufus Democracy.
21 & 23 are dead right i thjink. today’s m2m tease coulda been done when the evidence was clear (which BTW was 1938, when m2m WAS pulled, after which banking worked fine for seven decades before it was sic’d on the system again in 2007).
Now a few trillion burnt-off dollars later, back it goes into the terlit from whence it had been fished out, one year before election day 2008.
The rooskies old Nyquist keeps debriefing seem to have this idea that it ain’t the USA military that holds back their erstwhile colleagues, but the money behind it, the system-profit that builds & operates it.
Ya know, the boys in the Kremlin have time, lots of time, to execute a plan. No 2 and 4 year streaking thru the people hair afire begging votes, and often losing, and ending up win or lose testifying before congress and having to publically answer questions thought up by the nastiest among the sentient on the staffs of congresspersons.
Nope, a smart young rookie rooskie can get a job in, say, the USA Subversion Dept, and cook up a long scheme or join a team on a multi decade project, and devote an entire career to one simple idea, brought along slowly and carefully, safe from witch-hunting grandstandng oppo pols on money-hungry ree-form committees, uninterrupted by constant elections bulldozering through your project, and, if you’re a Pub, Dems in the media and government looking for a scandal real or imagined to ruin you with.
Tough adversary. what if they’re seriously after world control? are we ready? sure, we win wars when we want to –so far. what does defeat look like, i wonder?
Andy Grove said @ the WaPo:
“We have gone through months of chaos experimenting with ways to introduce stability in our financial system. The goals were to allow the financial institutions to do their jobs and to develop confidence in them. I believe by now, the people are eager for the administration to rein in chaos. But this is not happening.”
I said the financial system was a chaotic one before. Doesn’t really prove it, but…
As luagha @ 23 said:
“In Systems Administration, one of the things we learn about making changes to complex multilayered computer systems is to only make one big change at once. … What happens when you change ten things at once? You obviously don’t want to be able to return to the prior state.”
Bang On!!!!!!!! Change one thing and you have only small perturbations that can be controlled or backed out. Change more than one and the whole system can become unstable and ‘Crash’ as it were.
In chaotic mathematical constructs, members of the set, when iterated under the conditions of the set become meta-stable, i.e. they tend to settle around a set of (sometimes) wildly oscillating values. Non-members of the set tend to soon ‘blow up’ and tend to +/- infinity.
Buddy @ 44:
“…what does defeat look like, i wonder?”
I don’t know but unless The Won and Co get their shit together, we may find out this year or next.
Ever read Raymond Kraft’s “December 7, 2008″ @ New Media Journal?
http://www.therant.us/staff/kraft/10242006.htm
That maybe fairly prophetic, it turns out.
Benj already said more than he needed to say (cough) in agreeing with Sullivan, that Obama was using the economic crisis to remake the USA. We are troubled by the notions that President Obama is doing everything wrong in tackling the problem.
But that isn’t the President’s problem. He is not trying to tackle the same problems that we think he should be. The goals that the President strives for are not remotely what your common sense dictates. The President is about a different task.
This administration is looking to pave the way for a government controlled society, one where the motivated get things done for the sheer joy of getting things done and where the rewards for doing so are not measured by dollars, but in power and adulation. Because that is what the administration believes in and perceives as the reward. It is the thing to strive for a’ la Alinsky.
One of the Marxist fallacies. They don’t know how to reward in a manner befitting the effort or the man. The President fervently believes that money corrupts, and that power and influence is a tool. It is exactly the reverse of the way “free market enthusiasts” view the world. Thus the disdain for money and the willingness to inflate the money supply. In the Marxist world money has no value, and consequently people who have lots of money are of no value either. In the President’s mind only power and influence, not dirtied by filthy greenbacks, have worth.
The danger lies in the arbitrary measure of value or worth. Like Political Correctness or Hate Speech there is only some powerful or influential persons notion of what defines it.
The monitary system is dead,
Individual freedom has no meaning,
Long live the…King
The all powerful wizzard.
The beneficent Czar,
The benevolent Oh, So relevant One,
The one you have been waiting for.
The notion of a limited socialism that the President and the majority of the Democrat party strive for is based upon a steady state. A stasis implying they are much more likely to attempt to revive or reconstruct the structure of an old system (no matter the merits), than allow it to self destruct or die a quick and merciful death.
Stasis is also program effort in the EU to use semantics to overcome the proliferation of and lack of standardization for the various program software use for trade by businessmen. I don’t know how the project is progressing but the Orphaned Wikipedia page indicates it too is ah lets say, problematic.
Timmy Geithner’s Black Hole
“With a life long immersion in Gramscian programing his world view is so damaged that there is simply no way that he can correctly react to reality.”
—
The Truth will Scare the Hell Out of You!
(Which is your good fortune in these times when
Freedom = Slavery)
The government that tries to meddle with the basic institutions of a society without clear goals or understanding of the system is courting disaster.
But then again this is what the dhimmierats are hoping for because only the government can save us.
Unless of course the people in the end reject the existing government and its solutions. Obama should re examine the results of reform in Paris in the 18th century and St Petersburg in the 20th before meddling with the unknown.
Andy Grove is one the best American CEO’s of the last half century and his personal story about escape from Hungary in the 1950′s is inspiring. He’s the kind of immigrant that has made America a great nation. Having said that, his buyer’s remorse is disgraceful, unworthy of a man with this much leadership experience and crisis management acumen. Surely he knew that Obama’s onion-skin thin executive resume did not prepare him to lead anything larger than a boy scout troop or more consequential than a company cafeteria.
Voters have shown a decided preference in the last 32 years for candidates with strong executive experience prior to becoming the nation’s chief executive. Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and George W. were all governors. George HW ran at least one federal bureaucracy and had time in the oil industry. The Republican’s understand this. Flawed as each candidate was, the Republican’s offered us two governors (Romney and Palin), a big city mayor with superb crisis management skills (Guliani), and a Senator who was among other things a former commander of a very large Navy squadron (McCain).
The Democrats, in stark contrast, offered four senators in their top tier- Edwards, Biden, Clinton, and Obama who taken together have less executive experience than the typical applicant to a top-20 MBA program.
Grove was aware of these things but kept his mouth firmly shut when it might of made a difference. His regrets are late to the marketplace of ideas and by me discounted in value accordingly.
doug/47; sez David M. Smick in the WaPo:
In the end, at least one thing is certain: Our present position is unsustainable. The longer we delay fixing the banks, the faster the economy deleverages, the more credit dries up, the further the stock market falls, the higher the ultimate bank bailout price tag for the American taxpayer, and the more we risk falling into a financial black hole from which escape could take decades.
Yet week after week, Mr G stays “understaffed” (in DC? With the printing press at hand? And the whole Dem party to choose from?) and is “working so hard” down in the government bowels that we simply must just hold our breath awhile longer, and wait and see. Why, what are we, *rude*?
robohobo/45; that Kraft story is really good. well, bad. good writing, bad news. Pearl Harbors indeed –and nowhere is it written in stone that America roused must win. That’s just how it happened a couple times a long time ago.
to The Idiot’s Guide to Destroying the Economy: a 12-Step Program we added many more than 12. Here’s a 21 -25, while we’re on the topic of security:
21) Instantly add value premiums to the weapons of invigorated rivals and adversaries while demoralizing and destabilizing friends and allies, via cutting off our top next generation “tech edge that allows fewer numbers” defense procurement programs.
22) Throw away the billions of sunk R&D and production line startup costs just as the easy copying ‘payoff’ starts.
23) Make sure the world understands you intend harm for the free world by (A) giving out 2 or 3 trillion dollars to Party operatives and crony payoffs and the banks you’re buying for your Party to logroll, featherbed, daisychain and bribe friends and starve opponents with, while simultaneously (B) cutting those “equal-to-a-percent-of-the-new-porkifest” defense high tech production lines by jaw-droppingly announcing cuts are “because of the deficit” (even tho defense spending, unlike pork cronyism, is not “expensed” but “capitalized”, adding dollar for dollar to GDP).
24) Add even more need for emergency unemployment-fighting “stimulus” via instantly unemploying that 100,000 highly skilled, productivity-advanced defense engineers, machinists, execs, and subcontractors.
25) Take little note of foreign policy and world geopolitics so that the absence of the new planes ands ships can sooner be leveraged into actual military disasters and defeats, in order to achieve in the most efficient and permanent manner possible ever higher rates and volumes of not just demoralization but actual physical destruction of the free world and as many as necessary of the people in it.
I think Giuliani was the only candidate that would have understood what he was up against.
His knowledge of the left’s use of Alinsky’s methods was one of the essentials in his armamentarium for curing NY City’s sickness.
“who”
Buddy,
Timmy tells Charlie Rose that he is carefully determining the value of the toxic assets.
…guess he never started on that task back in his Paulson days, nor in the days and weeks and months after Obama was elected.
– In Crucible of Crisis, Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner Forge a Committee of Three –
As they chart a government response to the crisis, the stakes could hardly be higher. If they succeed, they could tame the economic downturn and orchestrate a restructuring of Wall Street with minimal collateral damage. If they fail, the toll could be millions of jobs, trillions of dollars in lost wealth and a crisis of confidence in global capitalism.
Thomas Jackson/49; not to mention the USA in the 19th. Different than those two but not in the essential of arms taken up by rebels against governments.
doug, i saw rudy discussing the thing with someone –cavuto maybe –on tv recently. he has it down, internalized and second-natured. (*sigh*) –what a difference he would’ve been. this country must be insane to shelve such proven talent for essentially a new breakout star in the entertainment biz.
Re the Charlie Rose intrvw, if Mr. G & co aren’t dragging their feet, then what would they be doing different if they were? And if they ARE dragging their feet –and how could they not be? –then the implications are incalculably terrible.
We keep hearing “Wise Men” assuring us that Obama is “really brilliant” It is like it was a script handed out in the Charlie Rose green room. Some of those who say it have had a passing acquaintance with him and others are openly passing on hearsay and giving it the imprimatur of their own social standing and credibility. These are all people who rose through the best educational systems we have to offer. No one is ever called on it, yet it is a given that any competent teacher would have torn such a lazy position apart if no evidence or footnotes could be attached to it. We are constantly assured that Democratic presidents or candidates are really intellectuals. I can remember reading about the braininess of Woodrow Wilson, Adlai Stevenson, Jack Kennedy (based on his ghost written book and quotes from Robert Frost), and even Carter and Clinton. FDR was elevated beyond such considerations and on the other hand given cover as “a first rate second rate mind.” LBJ was never mentioned, although he probably had as many brain cells as any of them. I expect that text books will eventually rewrite him as a Republican or delete him entirely. Republicans are of course assumed to be cretins.
People forget that Geithner was the head regulator of the banking system –the governor of the New York Fed –during the years this thing swelled up –right there under his nose in the New York banking system. And don’t forget harry markopolos, testifying his stunned disbelief that SEC and FNRA did not know what bernie Madoff was doing. he doesn’t believe they didn’t know, and i don’t believe Geithner didn’t know. these things are MUCH bigger than elephants in living rooms like the NY Fed and the SEC. defenders keep saying the SEC was too weak and small –jeez, it has 3,700 employees, and under their noses despite Markopolos’ professeionally resytrained and persistance officially-channeled highly documented written complaints, a rogue financier was able to run a several-billion dollar-per-year ponzi, for TWENTY YEARS?
and Citi, JPM, and BAC right there asshole to elbow with the New York Fed were amassing 15 TRILLION DOLLARS of CDSs betting against each other who’d fold first, even tho all three knew –know –that there was no one BUT the PUBLIC TREASURY to pay off the inevitable –and the New York FED didn’t know ?
Bullshit.
Unless there was some sort of giant auditor conspiracy cooking the quarterly reports, then some regulators were SHOCKINGLY incompetent, to the point of not even glancing at those reports –for YEARS on end.
“Too big to fail” means the busted out investor class action lawsuit would put everyone on the planet plaintiff, except for a couple dozen democrats. well, we can’t sue them, they’re the government and besides they’re REALLY WORKING HARD for teh taxpayer. maybe we can sue Mars.
the only argument is, “they can’t be marxists because they’re the mob” vs “they can’t be the mob because they’re marxists”.
The “Obama Bear Market” And Why He Triggered It
Maybe, deep down, Obama has changed his mind. Nobody, however, seems to have asked him.
In his 2004 Preface to the reissue of Dreams, the older Obama himself denies that he has gained much wisdom in subsequent years:
“I cannot honestly say, however, that the voice in this book is not mine—that I would tell the story much differently today than I did ten years ago, even if certain passages have proven to be inconvenient politically, the grist for pundit commentary and opposition research. “ [p. ix]
This is a bad outlook for the American economy.
confiscation done whimsically is a rifle shot into the heart of risk-taking. why bother when that gang of thugs over there is just waiting for you create something so they can grab it off ya.
He wont stop. He can’t stop. The radical leadership in Congress won’t either. They know they have to push as hard as possible now, while they can. Everything has to be done prior to the midterms, preferably in the first year. After that, the media can do their work to mitigate the losses in the election as much as possible.
The Left seeks to make structural changes that cannot be reversed and will ensure the steady advancement of the welfare dependency state–and ensure their permanent dominance.
“After that, the media can do their work to mitigate the losses in the election as much as possible.”
…and what wonders will ACORN be capable of with $4 Billion in the coffers?
(part of me still regards that as my nightmare as I type it, not reality.
4 BILLION?)
Talk, Talk, Talk, Talk…Nero played as Rome burned!
Obama is blithering dishonest partisan hack out to enrich and entrench himself and his cronies.
I say fight back at every opportunity and with any luck he will be tossed out of office.
China Trade Surplus Falls To 1/8 Prior Month Level
China Trade Surplus Falls To 1/8 Prior Month Level
Update 12:10 AM: OK, sports fans, we now have more meat. Note in particular how the decline was way above consensus forecasts. The fall in the surplus plus dollar strength (ie little/no need to intervene to keep the RMB from rising) also says China will have much less reason to buy dollar assets like Treasuries
The trade gap narrowed to $4.8 billion, about an eighth of the amount in the previous month, the customs bureau said in a statement. Exports tumbled 25.7 percent from a year earlier. Imports fell 24.1 percent.
The government has halted the yuan’s gains against the dollar and plans to cut export taxes to zero as demand dries up because of the global slump…
@Doug,
Well done, further cash infusions from China would indicate not a burning desire on their part to stuff the shelves of Walmart but a chosen policy interest in subsidizing the entrenchment of BHO and his supporters. That would make them a foreign subsidized (Beijing) China lobby akin to the Saudi supported front groups in CAIR and hundreds of mosques, the Communist fronts the Progressive Party of 1948 and the National Lawyers Guild or the Nazi German American Bund. BTW the wiki says this about the funding of the NLG:
The NLG is a dues-paying membership organization, and various projects have also received funding from the Open Society Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the New World Foundation and other funders. Emphasis added, Open Society is Soros.
Billions of tax dollars going to ACORN is one of the worst things that has ever happened in American history.
Much of the agitation to deindustrialize America has been arranged by the Billionaire Maurice Strong, under the cover of the Green movement, from his home in Beijing.
From Buddy: the only argument is, “they can’t be marxists because they’re the mob” vs “they can’t be the mob because they’re marxists”.
The drug cartels seem to have a cozy relationship with both the Marxists, Chavez et al, and the Jihadis like the Taliban. Wonder how much of the working capital for the September 15th run came from Drug Money funneled through hedge funds like mafioso and fomer DNC Chairman Michael Stienhardt’s.
There are so many interwoven, interlocking connections with bad guys on Wall street, and with the bunch now running Wall Street and the Country, even if one wanted to clean up our financial mess, it might be pretty hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Although the real bad guys, like Steinhardt do stand out. There is also way too much money involved; more than enough to thwart with a multitude of bribes and lawyers, anyone except a Jack Bauer type investigator.
The big Wall Street Banks at this point may be beyond repair.
Gary@21
You have hit the nail squarely. Could we ever, ever, recover from a massive debt default? What would it do the the rest of the industrialized world? Were I an alinsky (lower case intended) fan I would be salivating at the chaos.
Upon total western meltdown there are only a couple of options left to fill the vacuum.
Buddy@61
the only argument is, “they can’t be marxists because they’re the mob” vs “they can’t be the mob because they’re marxists”.
Your acumen is surpassed only by your cynicism. Okay, so it’s one or the other. And over the next couple of years, say we manage to reverse course without a long and bloody civil uprising (insert degree of doubt here), or maybe more likely with (I type while reloading), then what is to be done with the Left?
Unrepentant, recidivist perps, all. At best a class of gangsters and thugs, at worst a cadre of overloard-wannabes; both/either willing and eager to destroy our society in order to gain and hold power with all its trappings. It seems to date, we’ve invited this upon ourselves by negotiating in the spirit of bi-partisanship and friendly political rivalry, for 150+ years.
It becomes ever more obvious why the Left would eliminate the death penalty for captured foreign and homegrown terrorists; ban all forms of torture, but especially waterboarding; and dismantle Gitmo. The Left groks; ie, fully appreciates the devastating consequences of their success and their FAILURE, far better than their productive class opposition. The Left is way inside our OODA loop; they think OJ juries are a certainty.
I read Kraft’s future-focus-scenario: we lost, bigtime, fast. It only suggests, if we turn things around, that we won’t suffer that fate, as much or fast as portrayed, but we’ll remain threatened.
And in any future-focus-senario wherein we retake what is ours, then I ask in all seriousness, do we let them run for re-election? Retire on our dime? Or, 10-20 year sentences require how many new jails be built with HDTV and workout facilities?
Surely, we must at least spank lots of these children, no? This leads me to surmize (and I seek comments from all BCers) that the US becomes a single-party system, whether the productive class wins or loses.
Just what is it that a loyal opposition achieves? 61,000 new laws that restricted your behavior last year…60,994 of which are yet to be enforced. You cannot know what you’re guilty of beforehand, Comrade. A different slant on sin you are born with.
So if we’re hopeful of winning, we must begin to frame and articulate what the future will look like if we retake the republic. The results of these very difficult philosophical decisions must become the basic planks of perhaps our last party platform. Ever.
At some point, we’re gonna have to be upfront about the real anti-slavery issues, no? To rally round, and maybe get some of that 52% majority over to our side? Talk about a “radical new agenda!”
Or, we can just sit here and negotiate away freedom of the individual, intoxicated by the spirit of fairplay, and diddling.
I’m certain our host and you and others can speak to the “issues raised by victory” better than I.
I’ll throw out my First Plank – We the people, upon ever regaining the majority will move to prosecute and imprison all the elected officials who voted FOR the Stimulous Bill WITHOUT READING it. There will be a “test” given each individual to determine their complicity and guilt in the theft of the national treasury. We are considering overturning Executive Orders re waterboarding. Automatic 10 years, recalcitrants longer.
This gives all those electeds the opportunity to publicly reverse course rapidly. Disavow, diss, throw-under-the-bus, etc. And they will, or they won’t. And, then we’ll know where they think we stand; but not exactly where we are.
Shouldn’t the Left begin to realize/fear that their worst case scenarios could actualize if we’re successful? Shouldn’t we seek to provoke a response soon?
Madoff refuses to come out of his $7 million apartment Major, and he’s hiding among the women and children with a grenade. Also, he’s holding hostage all 23 illegal alien servants. Fortunately 18 other domestic staffers have escaped. Plus, he’s threatened to destroy over $35 million in precious paintings. Moral dilemmas everywhere.
Recognizing the wisdom of preparedness, can we start working on that OODA stuff and announcing our cause and intentions? Recruiting will be all important to launching a final campaign, if we’re gonna have one. Even envisioning success is problematic, given that the unionized workforces may act for either the gangsters or the overlords. Sicily or Chicago? Moscow or Venezuela? Known, unknowns.
Friedman is the vastly-overrated product of a moribund (dead man walking?) industry. He is so blitheringly obtuse that I have had to switch channels away from him for the last 10 years. He hasn’t had an original thought about his supposed area of expertise – the Middle East – in 20 years.
Listening to him speak about economics is like listening to a first-grader sight read Shakespeare: he might eventually get words out that when strung together are close to what was written five hundred years ago, but all meaning, art and thought has been removed. Put another way, if you have lost Friedman, you have lost the war.
Damn, missed the end-of-bold again. Sorry.
Re Doug @ 54, et al.
Doug, even though it was not your point, you did trip my trigger. The constant discussion about valuations is a large red herring.
Value only matters in specifying how many and how big new bank loans may be. From a lenders point of view, the value is the discounted cash stream. If the stream services the debt at any rate at or above the cost of the money lent, the only thing at risk is OH&P.
If the cash flow is lower there are two stop loss options. Foreclose, sell at salvage value and take the loss all at once or take whatever cash stream is available and take the loss against profits from other lines and owners equity. It really is a simple cash flow problem.
OT. Since Entropy is one of my favorite topics. A useful anolog is the ocean. It is both a global energy heat sink (pot o “s”) and a global mineral sink (pot o’ salt). When manipulated both energy and minerals can be consolidated and raised from the sink.
Energy is constantly added from outside the system by the sun and minerals are replaced by rain water absorbtion.
Application to mortgage meltdown? The housing issue, that is default rates above normal, were concentrated in a few states where “manipulation” was most extreme are water spouts above sea level (normal).
Spouts will fall. Always. The sea will remain. Always. If we are in the spout it looks worse than is. If we are at sea looking at the spout it is what is.
“Hence it is to be remarked that, in seizing a state, the usurper ought to examine closely into all those injuries which it is necessary for him to inflict, and to do them all at one stroke so as not to have to repeat them daily; and thus by not unsettling men he will be able to reassure them, and win them to himself by benefits. He who does otherwise, either from timidity or evil advice, is always compelled to keep the knife in his hand; neither can he rely on his subjects, nor can they attach themselves to him, owing to their continued and repeated wrongs. For injuries ought to be done all at one time, so that, being tasted less, they offend less; benefits ought to be given little by little, so that the flavour of them may last longer.” — Machiavelli, The Prince
#77 vanderleun
A palpable hit! There has to be a massive and immediate repudiation of the injuries done to us by the Marxists if we should liberate the country. There is a reasonable point of debate as to the reset point; but we must destroy that which the enemy has done to us as completely as possible.
In conjunction with this:
#73 Geoffgo
I more than share your doubts as to the possibility of national redemption short of civil conflict. Keep in mind that the means of election are now wholely in the hands of the Democrats and that ACORN has just been funded beyond their wildest dreams for the specific purpose of stealing this coming, final semblance of an election.
As to the spark that instigates the redemption; it is not yet apparent and depends largely on the known ineptitude of the regime.
Assuming victory, there will be an inter-regnum between the fall of the enemy, and the rise of a Constitutional order. Keep in mind that we are not now governed Constitutionally, nor have we been for some time. There is no “Equal Justice under the Law” because regardless of party; politicians and those connected with them have an immunity from prosecution and punishment for any crimes or abuses committed. Think of those who sit in Congress, and in state houses, and executive mansions, and make your own list of those who would literally be in prison or have been executed by the State or vengeful families if there was a semblance of Justice in the country.
The Democrats keep returning to the idea of show trials of political opponents. Some cooler heads try to restrain them, but the Jacobins amongst themselves are drawn to a vision of tumbrils and flashing blades. So be it. If they start it, scales can be balanced.
In this forum, and others, I have written of the fact that our ruling class has no fear of any repercussions for anything that they do. Raid the Treasury for yourself? All you get is the admiration of your fellows. Sell out the country to foreign powers? No problem. Oppress the citizens of this country, seizing their property and livelihoods without legal or constitutional justification? The courts will cover for you. Literally kill your “subjects” [true citizenship involves a standing against the power of the State that does not seem to obtain] through acts of commission or omission? Find a reporter, editor, or prosecutor who will take a stand.
The advantages of incumbency are now so great that the electoral turnover rate in Congress approximates the mortality rate for their age cohort. They cannot be prosecuted for crimes [see the list you generated above]. They are totally safe from physical harm, protected by the full might of the State. They are safe from civil suit, for no lawyer will risk his chances of joining or benefiting from the political class; and in any case, when is the last time that a civil court has ruled against a Congressman on anything of significance?
I emphasize again, they have no fear of repercussions from any action.
If the Constitution is not in force now, there will have to be some period of reimposition of constitutional rule. During that period, those in charge are going to have to set the stage for such a return and the rebuilding of institutions on a constitutional basis. That stage setting must, perforce, involve the reimposition of a fear of the wrath of the citizenry against those in government. Concurrently, those who have usurped constitutional rule will have to be removed from power and any hope of ever regaining power. I suspect that in the wake of civil strife, the means will not be either humane or pacifistic. But once again that is a matter that is not yet apparent and will have to be left for the time it has to be decided.
I suspect, indeed recommend, that whatever arises from the wreckage of the regime be explicitly ratified by the nation; at least as solemnly as the ratification of the original Constitution. The nation must reconsecrate itself to the ideals and means as a basis for passing it down through the generations.
If we are capable of redeeming our nation; it may be the original Constitution. It may be a variant with built in safeguards against the forms of internal tyranny we have seen arise in the last 100 years [for over 10 years I have had in my possession a copy of a "Liberty Tree Constitution" that purports to do just that], or it may be an entirely different document and governmental scheme approved by the people. But there has to be a cultural clean break from the current regime and what is to come, with the people rededicating themselves to Liberty.
That, of course, is if the nation is to be redeemed. I have to emphasize strongly, that Tyranny could be the victor. If the military does not stand by their Oath, if we do not have the fortitude to stand for our freedom; we could be defeated. Further, it is possible, indeed historically likely, that if we win that we will not end up with a George Washington or a Cincinattus, but with a dictator that will require that the process start again.
But then again, if such is so, we will have the same choices that we have today. Submit to servitude or resist with the means at hand. It is ever so.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai,
Thank’s for your spledid, as usual, response. IIRC, both you and I are in CO, the site of Galt’s Gulch and the locale of King’s book “The Stand.” Ironic, no?
Must be the mountain air.
mountains multiply force like crazy. the only way to beat mountain people is with your own mountain people –if you can find the numbers and manage the training. Or, ask the Hmong, Yellow Rain.
subotai, an open system is gonna be attacked –murphy’s base point, “can, will”. the trick will be to find the point where closing the openings is just barely enough. barely enough should be up to the people –but hell november 08 was up to the people. what if the reds and red symps simply outnumber us –whose America is it?
the Founders of course had limited the executive actions of the nation to the majority vote of the stakeholders in its success as a certain type of place.
now we are told that that’s not what they meant, that what they meant was “majority rules”.
This could be the heart of a new politics –to return to what the Founders meant. how does we repeal the 19th amendment? answer, no way. but maybe we could let the women have the domestic policy and the men the foreign policy. and some eunuchs for the intersections.
All of the curiously stodgy comments, coming out of the camps that were anti-Obama to begin with, sound weak, forlorn, and with an agenda that doesn’t care if the USA unites or not.
Sorry folks. You have to stay on the honeymoon longer than this to make any appearance that you were willing to honor the marriage in the first place.
Obama has to blast changes out. His agenda is not really any more destabilizing than Bush’s. There are so few that advocate for the Hoover approach to Depression that we might as well call the hanging back and not paying anyone obsolete — yet the frontrunners of the GOP are racing to make those arguments and pretend they have credibility.
The lubricant of cash needs to be injected in the stiffening sockets and joints of the financial system. We may very well need to go through a large bout of inflation before we recover. When we recover there will be more pain and headaches than we’ve seen since the 80′s or 50′s. The painful recovery will likely last longer than either of those two periods. So what is the Right going to do about it? Go sulk in a corner and wait for failure? Then they lose my respect.
Better to come up with more inviting counter plans to Obama’s. Convince the populace that there are better ways and get them executed. But don’t sit around like a vulture and call yourself an eagle!!
Does anyone think that Hannity, Limbaugh, Bortz look good as opposition? Heck no! They just proved that they have no effect or a negative effect on their own political interests. With a massive radio audience, they still could not pull this election over to McCain. Call them ImPotentates, call them shriners with a mic. But don’t let them sit around and do the vulture dance for the next few years — absolutely nothing will be gained by the GOP for that type of work.
GWB tried to keep the terrorists away with almost a trillion $$. He might have succeeded, but we could have used that trillion in other places. I supported him, but now in order for my country to win, I need the new President to keep the terrorists away with much less.
We are going to have to do everything with much less. The conservatives are supposed to be good at this. But they aren’t bringing their “A Game” to the field yet.
craigicus, that ‘man does not live by bread alone’ is not the same meaning as ‘bread alone does man not live by’.
you may ought to spend more time outdoors exercising, but that does not mean you must love who steals your car and burns down your house.
73, 78 to 82
Outstanding, I find value and take heart almost every time I come to this site. It seems to me that continual talk, compromise and “work” through legislation within a system already compromised is a fool’s hope. Any attempt to play within the rules of this system result at best in a slowing of the inevitable, just as Subotai said (and more eloquently, at that).
I do not intend to leave this problem for my children to face and correct.
Craigicus, I agree with what you’ve stated, you and I differ I think because I simply don’t see ANY of the chattering class as part of the solution. As far as the honeymoon, what exactly would you consider to be enough time to keep up proper appearances?
Buddy, speaking of bread, mountains are great (Wolverines!) but even the Mighty Patrick had to lead the troops down and out to find victuals. Better count some of us flatlanders in, it’s usually down to logistics and those scarecrows in Denver might be wanting some of our cornbread before it’s over.