Obama Crashes Stock Market

...or Headlines You'll Never See from the Mainstream Media.

This morning's stock market opening witnessed a wild slide for a few minutes. The Dow Industrials saw their largest selloff in history, losing over 1000 points in the first few minutes. As I write this, it has recovered somewhat, but is still down. One TV observer called it the "great progressive reckoning."

Wouldst that it were. And wouldst that people would be aware of the many failures, most caused by government interference and begin to work to eliminate them as quickly as possible so we could get back to a healthy, stable economy.

Today's economy bears no resemblance to any that came before it. What passes for economic wisdom these days is so far removed from sanity that it makes my head hurt. "Popular" economists like former Enron economic advisor Paul Krugman are promoting policies and practices that are pretty much the exact opposite of what one needs for a prosperous country. I put that in quotes because he's propped up as some sort of guru for reasons that I can't quite fathom. His record is less than stellar and his failures are never mentioned. Yet, he's the one we see most often and his every word is held in high regard by policy-makers, most of whom have never owned or operated a business.

Early in Obama's term, we were told that we were entering a "new normal" where unemployment numbers of 9% were the best we could expect. Recent history has certainly proved that prediction true. Our economy has been dragging along for years.

One Recovery Summer after another has had little positive effect out here in the real world. What we hear on the news is "the economy is booming," "there's no inflation," "progressive policies are working." What we see are companies going out of business, empty buildings and many friends who've lost their jobs, their livelihoods and their families.

So, who are you going to believe? The spinmiesters (all of whom are comfortably well-off, thank you) or your lying eyes? My own experience is that grocery prices have more than doubled in the past five years. Gasoline prices are low today but still higher than they were. Many of the little things that I was once able to do like going to the movies or taking a vacation are no longer possible. Now I'm reduced to praying that one of my two ancient vehicles will get me home.

Many people are under the mistaken impression that things like this just happen unprompted. Or they think that George Bush is somehow still responsible, six years after his last day in office. Or that there's some vast right-wing conspiracy engineered by the Koch Brothers. I pity these people.

Danger, danger Will Robinson! Commonsense Solution Ahead!

Allow me to introduce to you, gentle readers, the concept of Cause and Effect. The Cause of our current economic travails is Big Government. What we see all around us is the Effect. If there isn't an economic postulate that states that the larger a government becomes, the worse the economy becomes, there certainly should be.

The Obama administration has implemented the largest intrusion into the private sector in history with its hostile takeovers of the healthcare and student loan industries. Then factor in the tens of thousands of pages of regulations forced upon us. It's little wonder that we're still afloat at all. That we haven't been plunged into another Great Depression is a testament to the strength of capitalism.

The solution is simple: reduce the size, scope and cost of government, anywhere and everywhere. I would even argue that the nearly incomprehensible size of our debt requires the wholesale elimination of entire federal departments, especially those duplicated at the state level.

This will cause the Left to react not unlike a vampire when shown a Cross. "Why, reduce government? How preposterous! We've never heard of such a thing! How dare you threaten my power over you unwashed proles, um, wait a minute, did I say that last one out loud?"

For a few brief, shining years, we enjoyed an economy where the average American was free to climb the economic ladder of success. One-earner households were the norm thanks to not much economic pressure. Kids could look forward to having careers in areas that were innovative and stimulating. The economy grew as only a free one could. There was a diversity of opportunity for all, regardless of ability. The truck driver was as essential to industry as the degreed engineer or  accountant. Thus was the golden era before the progressive leviathan of big government roamed the Earth.

What we have today is pretty much the exact opposite of that. Corporate fat cats buy and sell politicians like commodities, with elections going to the best funded candidate who can hire the best bamboozlers in the business to promise what they never intend to deliver. Laws are written not to solve any type of problems but to erect barriers for competitors (see Uber and the unions who oppose them). As has been amply documented, while the progressives preach loudly about "income inequality," the very real income gap between the rich and poor has never been greater. For the first time in our history, more businesses fail than succeed.

The heavy hand of government has forced the cost of business to increase dramatically, to the point that today's Chamber of Commerce actively endorses the replacement of American employees with cheaper, less capable foreign imports. That they have no empathy for those displaced workers is a sad testament to the American Dream. But I digress...

So the question for today is, "Do we want to tolerate the intolerable and continue to suffer under a government that was never designed to be this large or do we get to work reducing it?"

Your answer lies inside a voting booth. Choose wisely, for your own sake and that of your family. And the rest of us, too.

Just a Reminder...

...of what gas prices once were.

h/t The Political Commentator

Another Video You Should See

Wow. American Life really sucks these days. The economy's in the crapper, money's hard to come by and those we elect to do our bidding in Washington could care less about us as long as they have their power and money.

*Sigh*

But before you draw a warm bath and get out the razor blade, listen to Bill Whittle's latest offering: Get to Work. I may have to watch this first thing every day.

On a partially related note, I have some friends who are decidedly Democrat who occasionally post something from some loopy leftard sites on my Facebook page. Since I consider myself fairly well read on current events, it's not hard to refute them. As since I like having friends, I never rebuff them directly, but do rebuff the outrageous articles they post from places like Media Matters for America, Mother Jones and the like.

It has become great sport for me. I hope all 16 of you have a similar pastime.

h/t to Bad Blue and Gates of Vienna

Everything You Need to Know About Income Inequality in One Handy-Dandy Chart

This is stolen, shamelessly, from Ace of Spades HQ.

This One Chart Explains Everything You Need to Know About Income Inequality, courtesy of freebeacon.com.

As for the entire premise of "income inequality," whomever is in charge of this, please make my income equal to that of Bill Gates.

Thank you.

Oh, and while we're talking about that "money" thingy, from Instapundit comes this link: Jobs: the best way to fight poverty. Well, duh. Everybody know that except everybody in Washington.

How to End the Obama Recession in One Easy Video Lesson

Wouldst that everyone in Congress understood free-market economics as well as this fellow.

Reid: Tea Party Equals Anarchy. Harry, You Couldn't Be More Wrong

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D - NV), in a startling display of ignorance, attempted to label the Tea Party as "anarchists." He criticized the new class of senators, who were sent to Washington to stop the extreme leftward lurch this administration is taking against the will of the people in defiance of the Constitution.

“People who don’t believe in government — and that’s what the Tea Party is all about — are winning, and that’s a shame.”

This is a gross mischaracterization of the movement. Perhaps someone in a position to do so will make sure this article finds its way to Mr. Reid, for he is in dire need of correction.

The Tea Party is not a group of anarchists. It believes in government because there can be no civil peaceful society without it. What it doesn't believe in is a Progressive form of government where the basic law of the land, our Constitution, is ignored or misread. It doesn't believe, as Mr. Reid apparently does, that government should be so large, so intrusive and so expensive that it begins to have a deleterious effect on the everyday life of Americans.

It doesn't believe that government has the right to snoop on emails or telephone calls of innocent citizens without probable cause presented before a judge.

It doesn't believe that the IRS should discriminate against conservative political action groups in order to affect the outcome of a national election.

It doesn't believe that the government should be powerful enough to shut down or take over entire sectors of the economy as we are seeing with the destruction of the coal industry and the takeover of the health care and student loan industries.

It doesn't believe that government should be able to issue tens of thousands of pages of onerous regulations to "solve" a fabricated environmental "crisis" that has cost trillions in lost wages, lost productivity and lost careers.

It doesn't believe that government should treat some citizens differently than others.

It doesn't believe there should be open borders.

It doesn't believe that schoolchildren should be indoctrinated into radical, far-left, anti-American thought.

It doesn't believe that law should be passed before we know what is in it.

It's not that the Tea Party doesn't believe in government, Mr. Reid. It's that it doesn't believe in your Progressive vision of it.

As Goes the Porn Industry, So Goes America

Eureka!

The pornography industry, long accustomed to being a scapegoat for the country’s moral ills, is now being blamed for America’s economic failings, too.

OK, America, you know what you have to do.

Get, um, cracking.

Depressed? You Will Be After You Read This

I was surfing the Intertoobs this morning and found this link over at Instapundit. It's a short post from the Washington Times hawking an e-book called Enjoy the Decline by economist Aaron Clarey entitled Has America Seen It's Best Days?

According to Clarey, the answer is yes. This is the point where you, gentle reader, should consider removing any sharp objects within your reach.

The author asks why Clarey recommends we lie back, think of Norman Rockwell, and let the wave of Doom wash over us?

“What else are they supposed to do?” He asks. “If they try to stop it, they’ll waste their lives on a problem that cannot be fixed. Instead I’m much more practical. I recommend people take inventory of their lives and find out how to benefit the most from it, regardless of what’s happening in the public sector.”

OK, that's advice, but not necessarily what I wanted to hear. Certainly, What Has Been Done can be Undone? Right?

Right?

Oh, it's not just economics?

Beyond economics, Clarey claims that “Kim Kardashian and the fact rap is more popular than jazz” lead him to believe American social values are crumbling.

I have no particular animus towards either KK nor rap. I prefer art with a bit of substance and celebrities with some depth and I find neither in those examples. We've already seen people famous merely for being famous before. And popular music has always been more about marketing than talent (I'm looking at you, Bay City Rollers).

So how did we arrive at this sorry state?

“The Baby Boomer Generation. Without a doubt. When you go from Frank Sinatra to Jim Morrison in 8 years, that’s not a slow transition from musical tastes of society, that is an immediate change purposely forced by a generation determined to ignore wisdom, taste, culture and value just for the sake of doing so. 

“But music is only one aspect. Fashion turned hideous, divorce became an Olympic event, the idea of outsourcing your children to daycare became standard, nearly every aspect of work, effort, and ethic was thrown out the door and every non-economic aspect of society shows it.”

Purposely forced upon us, you say? Do you mean by, oh, an enemy who wished to defeat us without firing a shot? Like the old Soviets of the 1960's?

Like this...

Gain control of key positions in radio, T.V., and motion pictures.

Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.
 

Break down culture standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and T.V.

Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

So, this wasn't a normal progression of American society, Mr. Clarey? Tell me more.

“People, going back to FDR, Woodrow Wilson, and more recently the Baby Boomer, Gen X and Gen Y Generations actually believe they don’t have to work,” he explains. "The concept of Keynesian economics where we just “shuffle money around and POOF” economic growth occurs, not to mention it’s MAINSTREAM economics is proof as to just how stupid, naive, and gullible the average American is. 

Ahh, Free Market Economics. I can almost remember what that was. That was the arcane idea that innovation, quality, and merit were to be rewarded. A rising tide raises all ships.

How quaint.

Surely our state of affairs can be reversed. But how?

“Eliminate all income taxes and replace it with a single sales tax at state, federal and local levels and make a constitutional amendment limiting the total amount to less than 20% GDP,” he states. “This would assure productive people and businesses their labor would not be confiscated as well as send a signal to the parasitic classes that they will have to work.”

Oh, I get it now: bad governmental policy lies at the root of our problems. Who could've guessed that a bunch of politicians with little to no experience in the private sector crafting ill-thought-out laws could have such a negative effect on everyone's life?

Gosh, it would be nice if we could somehow reacquaint our society with positive values once more. Even nicer would be to gain some control over our government again so we could look forward to a better tomorrow for ourselves and our families and have our elected representatives do the most good for the most people. More freedom, not less.

I'm with Aaron Clarey: I just don't see this happening.

Pardon me while I draw a warm bath. Now where did I put that razor blade...

Beware the Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (The Fabian Socialist)

If you've watched Glenn Beck, you've probably seen his explanation of the Fabian Window (not to be confused with the Overton Window).




William Kevin Stoos over at the Canada Free Press gives us this reminder...

The wolf plays a prominent role in socialist thought. V.I. Lenin once said “When you live among wolves you must howl like a wolf,” meaning, of course, that if political necessity requires you to act like a capitalist or live among capitalists while you organize and work for socialist causes, you must act like those among whom you live. This is simply a matter of expediency. Norman Thomas, a founder of the A.C.L.U. once said:

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”
 

 Couched in flowery prose of "caring" and "fairness," we've been fed the socialist line for decades. And the easily led among us are made to feel guilty for not being "good people."

I'm not speaking of personal charity. This is a true act of compassion and not at all what these wolves are talking about. Their goal is to forcibly take your money and give to others through government. This is what Obama meant when he said he believes in redistribution. If you can be made to think that it's "for the common good," then you'll go along with it.

It's what all the cool people are doing, aren't they?

Um, not so much.

We're seeing the fruits of socialism: an economy and a nation in shambles.

I sincerely hope that no one wants four more years of this "goodness."

Obama Plumbs the Depths of Redistribution Again

Here's a video that pretty much proves that socialist leopards don't change their spots.

Obama states he believes in redistribution of your money.



Need I remind you that this little statement is a rephrasing of that old failed Marxist tome of "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" with the governmental elite rulers deciding who needs what? It's usually themselves first, and the little people last, if at all.

If constitutional freedom theory was taught in school (gee, they could call it civics, or something), everyone would immediately recognize this and recoil from it, as they should. As it is today, most folk just say that it sounds nice. Of course it does. If all the Marxists who currently infest the Democrat Party were to actually admit what they wanted to do, they'd never win another election, as they shouldn't.

This statement, like so many others, must be decoded in order to understand its true meaning, since politicians speak a dialect of English known popularly as bullshit.

A Viral Video You All Should See and Spread Around

Watch this video. Get your spouse to watch it. Get your children to watch it. Get your grandchildren to watch it. Get your neighbors to watch it. Get your pets to watch it. Email it to your friends.

Actual Unemployment Rate Now 11.7%

If you've noticed a new emphasis on the numbers behind the figures in the latest unemployment figures for August released yesterday, you aren't alone.

Nearly every mention I heard of it on the airwaves also mentioned that a paltry 96,000 jobs were added. Reporters also noted that the labor force participation rates reached a new 30-year low. We have about as many people working today as we did thirty years ago.

The amazing part (to me, anyways) is that we're hearing this at all. It's about time we did.

The way the numbers are calculated don't include those who have dropped off the rolls and have given up looking for a job. What's the point? There is nothing out there.

If the unemployment figures were accurate and included the workforce numbers from Obama's first day in office, our actual U-3 rate would be a whopping 11.7%. The U-6 figure would be around 19%.

That's what this administration doesn't want you to know.

From the link...

Have 4.5 million new jobs been created under President Obama, as several speakers in Charlotte have claimed this week?

A fact check shows that under President Obama, the U.S. economy has created a net 415,000 private-sector jobs—less than 0.2 percent of the 155 million-member American workforce. But even that statistic does not tell the full story, since the workforce itself has shrunk dramatically in size since Obama took office. Labor force participation is at 63.5 percent, its lowest level since 1981. In other words, a large chunk of Americans have simply given up looking for work. A significant number are collecting disability insurance instead...

So the next time you hear this "4.5 Million jobs created" line, understand that what you're being told is a lie.

And don't get me started on the inflation figures either. Those numbers are cooked even more worsely that the unemployment numbers. That's running around 9% and will begin to rise dramatically in the coming months.

Brace yourself, Effie. The Progressives aren't through turning us into a third-world country by their irresponsible spending just yet. Remember that we still don't have a Federal budget, and haven't had one during Obama's reign of economic terror, despite there being a law that requires it.

Um, Whee? Unemployment at 8.1%

The latest unemployment figures are out for August. They fell a whopping .2% to 8.1%.

I guess it's time to break out the party favors, pour a glass of champagne and celebrate. Happy days are here again! Except for one teeny, tiny little thing: labor force participation is at a new 30-year low. Both the civilian labor force (154.6 million) and the labor force participation rate (63.5 percent) declined in August. The employment-population ratio, at 58.3 percent, was little changed.

The economy saw an increase of 96,000 jobs. Keep this number in mind. Just to keep up with population growth, we need to add around 240,000 jobs per month.

This, gentle reader, is pathetic. It's a direct result of Obamanomics, that curious blend of Soviet-style command and control economics, coupled with far too many regulations and laws that stifle job and wealth creation. In other words, this is the "new normal" we hear so much about. Despite this administration's attempts to cook the books to make these figures appear to be not quite as bad as they look, the results are the worst "recovery" since WWII.

But wait! There's more!

One thing you won't hear on the nightly news from the MSM is that the July figures were revised downward, "unexpectedly."

But job reports for June and July were revised lower. The June count fell from 64,000 to 45,000, while July’s number came in at 141,000 from an originally reported 163,000.
Despite hopes that job creation would be better than expected, the monthly report fell short of economist expectations that 125,000 jobs were added for the month. The government said private payrolls increased by 103,000, about half the 201,000 that ADP reported Thursday.
 

Oh joy.

But take solace that things are proceeding as planned. President Obama said the private sector is "doing fine."

Here's a video to help you understand how Obamanomics works, courtesy of Professor Glen Reynolds...

Mike Rowe's Open Letter to Mitt Romney

I found this yesterday and Andy over at Ace's place posted this excellent article this morning.

As all fourteen of you (and most of the Moron Horde) knows, I was a machinist in my past life. The past life when I was employed, that is. I spent two years in high school getting certified, did a four year apprenticeship as a Tool and Diemaker, another few months getting my Quality Control Inspector Certificate and learned a whole lot of other stuff on the job. I added CNC programming and setup to my resume, along with CAD Drafting and Design, and a bunch of management experience. I've run several machine shops at various times during my thirty years spent in the manufacturing theater and loved every minute of it.

In addition, I got real close to an Associate Degree in Computer Science before I ran out of money (I paid my way because I didn't want to be burdened with a bunch of student loan debt).

You could say I enjoy learning stuff.

But I digress.

In the early Nineties, I began to notice a shift in the attitude of society towards the skilled trades. There was a decided bias against any job that involved getting dirty. This came as somewhat of a shock to me, since I valued the time spent in the shower (with a cold beer) after a day at work. In an hour, I was good to go. My job was dirty and dangerous, so what?

It was along about this time that president Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement and announced that we were going to move to a "service" economy. Several weeks before NAFTA was to take effect, the company I worked for that made automotive parts announced that they were closing operations here and moving the company to Mexico. This was just before the Holidays in 1994. Merry Christmas!

Things have gone downhill ever since for the manufacturing sector of our economy. My skills have become passe, an anachronism in the brave new economy where no one gets soiled and everyone has a college degree. We've watch other countries' economies expand to create a new middle class while ours has steadily declined. The things we used to make for ourselves, the goods that people always bought because they needed things like washers and dryers, computers, and cars were being produced by others in faraway lands who didn't share our passion for quality. What's worse was the attitude that began to pervade society that  those in the skilled trades were somehow less intelligent and coarse.

Which wasn't right or accurate. My coworkers were bright and smart. Just as smart as anyone who attended college. You had to be to be good at your job. If you weren't, you didn't last long in a shop.

Economically, I knew this was a big mistake. Purchases of hard goods such as appliances and autos never declined as much during a downturn. Service jobs were and are dependent more upon disposable income, which fluctuated greatly during economic dips. My point is, we were sacrificing an important, vital and robust section of our economy to, what? I still haven't figured that out, except that concurrent with that transition was the political attitude (found primarily on the Left) that America was too prosperous and that in order to be "fair" to other countries, we gave away a significant portion of our wealth instead of encouraging them to develop these industries on their own.

Environmentalism had something to do with this, too. Dirty became bad, the harvesting of Earth's resources became "evil," we were "raping the planet" and causing all types of damage to the climate resulting in "global cooling." Then, we were causing "global warming."

That wasn't right or accurate either.

Thankfully, there are several prominent people in America today who are realizing this same thing and are trying to remedy it. Mike Rowe is one of them, along with John Ratzenberger. Mike has formed mikeroweWORKS.com in an effort to revitalize our manufacturing base by changing the societal attitude and image toward those who work in the skilled trades.

Mike's has penned an open letter to Mitt Romney, making the same offer he made to Obama four years ago with no response (go figure). Here's a snippet or two...

Dear Governor Romney,

My name is Mike Rowe and I own a small company in California called mikeroweWORKS. Currently, mikeroweWORKS is trying to close the country’s skills gap by changing the way Americans feel about Work. (I know, right? Ambitious.) Anyway, this Labor Day is our 4^th anniversary, and I’m commemorating the occasion with an open letter to you. If you read the whole thing, I’ll vote for you in November.

...when our economy officially crapped the bed in 2008, I was perfectly positioned to weigh in on a variety of serious topics.

In each case, I shared my theory that most of these “problems” were in fact symptoms of something more fundamental – a change in the way Americans viewed hard work and skilled labor.

Certainly, we need more jobs, and you were clear about that in Tampa. But the Skills Gap proves that we need something else too. We need people who see opportunity where opportunity exists. We need enthusiasm for careers that have been overlooked and underappreciated by society at large. We need to have a really big national conversation about what we value in the workforce, and if I can be of help to you in that regard, I am at your service – assuming of course, you find yourself in a new address early next year.

According to Ben Domenich and Andy, Mitt's campaign has been informed and will respond to Mike. In addition to the obvious benefits for Mitt's presidential run, it's a perfect counter to Obama's "you didn't build that" statement denouncing America's producers.


Here's a video that I found a while back that shows what we're talking about. Gearheads amongst you will get an idea of what it's like to make something, something cool: a high-performance big-block engine.

From scratch. Enjoy.



Pardon me, I need a cigarette after that.

Where was I? Oh yeah. I was going to tell you some of the stuff you need to know in order to do something like that: a lot of math (horrors!), properties of metal and how quickly the cutters need to spin and be fed through the material, trigonometry, physics, computer programming and basic design skills. And that's just the beginning. Also a nice big, expensive machine. (Note the brand on the control face: Haas. That's one of NASCAR Champion Tony Stewart's sponsors.)

In other words, this isn't a job for the faint of mind or heart. And you can't tell me that video isn't cool.

One last clip and I'll leave you alone. It's a TED Talk by Mike on the virtues of work and sheep testicles.

Dems: Let's Ban Profits!

(Extreme content warning for vacuity, vapidness, stupidity and gross economic ignorance.)




OK, let's extend this to it's logical conclusion and make sure that no one has any money left over after all their bills are paid.

Oh, wait...

(h/t to the Moron Horde)

Obama's Role in the Housing Market Crash

Here's a link to the Daily Caller's expose on President Barack Obama's role in the Great Housing Crash of 2008: With landmark lawsuit, Barack Obama pushed banks to give subprime loans to Chicago’s African-Americans.

This is going to leave a mark. I've studies this subject quite a bit over the years and am familiar with Obama's role in this lawsuit and the horrible Community Reinvestment Act enacted during the Carter administration and given teeth by the Clinton administration. I'm glad to see this getting wider coverage.

More Americans need to know that it's not deregulation that caused the Crash (as those on the Left would have you believe), but regulation. This is yet another law that I hope the Romney administration repeals.

Your Weekend Reading Assignment - The Blessings of a Free Country

OK, buckaroos and buckarettes, here is you weekend reading assignment. It's from the great Kyle Becker once again, over at Conservative Daily News called The Blessings of a Free Country.

I'll warn you ahead of time: this is a long article that may require more than one adult beverage to complete. But it's well worth your time. I have every confidence that y'all are up to the task.

Here's a taste...

What the leftist will never realize is that what separates the United States from those it supposedly ‘colonizes,’ with merely an offer of trade no less, is America’s capitalist economic system, which allows free-thinking individuals to create, risk-taking entrepreneurs to invest, and carefully-spending consumers to buy. America put a productive gap between itself and many other states that preceded it by millennia by adopting free market capitalism while other states continued on in tyranny and oppression. Simply put, the U.S. thrived while despotisms lagged behind. The tyrannies of the world could not beat the United States in terms of economic clout while still maintaining strangleholds on their respective peoples – therefore the U.S. had to be subverted. The statists of the world adopted and codified an ideology that would rationalize their totalitarian control over the economies, governments, and societies of the world, and scapegoated “capitalism,” a term invented by Karl Marx as a monolithic descriptor of free market economies, as the source of all of mankind’s woe. Here was a boot-licking statist ideology that so-called “radicals” could [get] behind. Unbeknownst to most of these malcontents, subversion of the free market system leads directly to tyranny in economics and then in politics.

 Becker's article is a strong defense of capitalism and freedom.

Do read the whole thing. You won't regret it.

Obama's Most Horrifying Nightmare - Math. And Paul Ryan

You gotta love IowaHawk's Tweet in the title. (His subsequent hashtag is #burnthemathwitch, where he gets Tweeters to post the most outrageous lefty attacks on Ryan.)

And you gotta love Mitt's decision to tap Paul Ryan as his VP, if only for this video...

And here's a post over at American Thinker that builds the case for a Romney/Ryan ticket rather well: Paul Ryan and the Triumph of Math.

Math, do you speak it?

George Soros' Latest Effort to Take Over the World

Your favorite anti-Christ and mine, George Soros, is planning to take over the world.

Again.

Color me surprised.
He has created a new organization called INET - Institute for New Economic Thinking and has invested $50M in it.

As usual, you're job is to watch out for this organization. You and I need to make sure that this sinister effort never gains any traction anywhere. Watch your representatives in every level of government and question them any time they cite this organization or its goals for any reason.

Oh sure, it sounds innocent enough...

Three months after a summit in New York state last July, Soros pledged $50 million to INET, which promises “to promote changes in economic theory and practice” by “providing the proper guidance” to “the next generation.”

Despite its name, its philosophy is nearly a century old. The group blames the economic crisis on free market capitalism and promotes a return to the theories of John Maynard Keynes.

The current global economic crisis was not caused by free market capitalism. It was caused by governmental interference in the market. If you need another example of the failure of Keynesian economics, just take a look at us. Obama's justification for wasting some $800B on the Stimulus Bill can be found in that theory.

In other words, this new Soros organization is yet another attempt to repackage the failed economic theory of socialism. It seems that Georgie Boy wants to take advantag of the undereducated and ignorant masses to try it again.

But that's not all Soros wants to do. His goal is the destruction of the Western way of life, which is the foundation of freedom in the modern world. He also wants you and me living in poverty. One of the attendees at his forum is one Andre Wilkens. Here is what he said following Obama's election.

 The challenge ahead is to manage a peaceful decline of the west while rescuing as many of the west’s liberal political and economic values as possible…We need new global governance which can both manage the ascent of China, India, Russia, Brazil as well as the relative decline of the United States and Europe. Europe and the US must concentrate on shaping this new global governance and enshrine its progressive values within it, while they still have some power to do so.

In case I haven't mentioned it lately, progressive values are not compatible with freedom. Anyone who claims to be a "Progressive," regardless of party affilliation, is an enemy of America.

And you.

We don't need any form of global governance, thank you. We here in America elect our representatives directly, and if they don't perform their duties to our satisfaction, we replace them in the next election. It's called "sovereignty" and we like it. Self-contained, local and regional representation is what it is. It's enshrined in our Constitution.

So, George, ol' buddy, ol' pal, you can take your plans to rule over me and shove 'em up your ass.

Your Economics Monday Video

OK, buckaroos and buckarettes, you knew it was coming. It's Economic Monday, and today's lesson comes courtesy of Cato@Liberty.org.

Presented for your viewing pleasure: Obamanomics - A Legacy of Wasteful Spending,


For some reason, I can't seem to remember one word she said. Maybe I should watch that again...