Obama's Failure Rallies Stock Market

Let's go with the premise that “analysts” are once again wrong – or are “surprised” as the media likes to call it when one their own misses a call entirely – as they often are when reading economic indicators. I'm not an economist, but it seems to me in order for “analysts” to get it wrong as often THEY have, the “analysts” have to be reading the wrong indicators – or are intentionally getting it wrong to try to give the Obama Administration credit where none is deserved.
For the first time since January the Dow closed at over 9,000. The announced reason by “analysts” for this was that the housing market is showing improvement. Now, if you listen to people in the real estate business they say housing is moving because the foreclosures are clearing out of the market and housing prices are so depressed people with stellar credit and first time buyers are able to get "steals" they were not able to get in the last decade when the housing market was moving like a runaway freight train, so they are grabbing houses while they can before the prices go back up. Of course, that is the opinion of people who actually work in business, not the opinion of pundits who work for networks looking for ANY positives to help their president dig his numbers out of the toilet.
MY analysis – which seems to be “on” more often than the paid “analysts” – is that the mood on Wall Street and in businesses is a little brighter NOT because of gurgle in the housing market, but because the Nationalized Healthcare Bill took a beating and was shelved in Congress IN SPITE OF a direct appeal from President Obama himself. MY analysis is that it is the failure of the Obama Agenda that is causing the market to show signs of life.
Let's face it, businesses and investors are following closely what is going on in Washington. They KNOW the Obama Administration HATES businesses and profits of any kind. Profits all fall under his “redistribution of wealth to its rightful owners” agenda. That means he’s going to take as much of them as he can through taxation to do with as HE sees fit. As we went through the Stimulus Plan, the building of the deficit, the CHINESE telling the Obama Administration his numbers are bogus, the takeover of GM and Chrystler and Obama dictating that Washington will decide salaries and compensaton packages for executives - then the proposal of Stimulus II, Nationalized Healthcare, Cap and Trade and a whole host of tax programs designed to destroy Capitalism - the mood of the country and business was EXTREMELY dark.
Now that Healthcare is being shelved until after the August break; Cap and Trade is under assault from all sides; Americans are starting to come out of their post-election stupor to find out this administration is NOT what they voted for and are fighting back with letters, calls and townhall meetings – as well as seeing bi-partisan action AGAINST the Obama Administration giving America its first glimmer of HOPE since this current oppressive adminstration was sworn in – The Market is reacting in a POSITIVE way!
“Analysts” going out of their way to come up with bogus reasons for the Stock Market resurgence to help the Obama Administration is OVERREACHING. Businesses and investors are NOT STUPID. They are looking at the mood of America and seeing signs of the America they know, love and understand and investors are reacting in a POSITIVE WAY!! Go America!!!

'Alien' Monsters In Washington

This has to be a deliciously funny time in the White House. I can see President Obama and Rahm Emmanuel sitting around laughing themselves silly, rubbing their hands together in glee at the battle they’ve created between two of the great American juggernaut companies - United Parcel Service and FedEx.
UPS and FedEx have been competitors for decades in their battle over the overnight package market and now the ground package market as well. Competing in the Free Market building their businesses and improving their bottom lines worked well to help them get stronger in the dogfight of daily business to get ahead of each other. Business 101.
Now all that has changed.
Congress and the White House have decided – in their infinite lack of wisdom – to try to write new laws that will allow unions to have contracts in individual locals with twelve or more members and to have Card Check that will allow unions to use ‘any means necessary’ to unionize shops and grow their memberships. In the process they have taken away the fairness of the Free Market competitors and made it into a blood feud.
The growing battle between these two companies is one of MANY examples of the current Washington attitude that the Free Market Capitalist system needs to be destroyed. Congress and the White House are skewing the field of play then standing back and acting like it’s Capitalism that is the problem – not Washington. Every day we are bombarded with new propaganda examples of why Capitalism is horrible. All the while Washington is trying to create a ‘crisis mentality’ or ‘ siege mentality’ with the public they tell us it is ONLY the government that can fix our problems with more control and more regulations – the very problems that are strangling business and our way of life.
New words – that are really old words transplanted from the old Soviet society – are starting to enter our lexicons. We hear ‘central planning,’ ‘czar,’ and redistributing our wealth to make life ‘fair.’ There are propaganda attacks against the rich, businesses and the infrastructure that makes America strong. And taxes are being talked about being levied on us as if we have bottomless pockets and there is no such thing as a Recession. And who can blame them? Government is the only sector that is GROWING!!! Washington, D.C. has the lowest unemployment in the country!! Our government has no concept of how the rest of us are suffering. Or they do and they don’t care…We are living the political version of the ‘Alien’ movies. Monsters are springing to life right in Washington – Socialist seeds impregnated in our country are starting to hatch out of our communities and kill us all as they take over… and the result is every bit as ugly and terrifying as the movies were.

Guilt Manipulation

I think I’m getting a handle on how this ‘White Guilt’ mentality works – and why it works on some people and not on others. And quite frankly, I’m tired of getting beat over the head with this stuff.
Let’s start with an explanation of what I’m taking about. ‘White Guilt’ is the premise that White America has collectively done something 'wrong' and OWES a debt of some sort to other defined groups of the country – currently the named group is Black America. The way it works is based on the theory that White America buys into the notion that they are responsible for actions taken 150-250 years ago and White Americans have done NOTHING to change their mindsets over all the intervening years. Actions like voting for Barac Obama help the 'guilty' absolve their guilt.
For MOST Americans that 'guilt' is recognized for the ludicrous ploy it is. There are NO Americans left alive today who owned slaves - nor anyone who was a slave - likewise, there are an ever-shrinking number alive who knew the active segregations prior to the Civil Rights Act. Most Americans today want to see 'hypenated America' disappear and for Americans to be Americans without divisions. Granted, for those who want to USE race as a political chip or to squeeze money from people it is convenient to keep race boiling on a front burner.
Did segregation and racism disappear with the passing of the Civil Rights Act? No. That’s just where we started. But where racism runs rampant today is in the people who treat minorities as their own personal 'pets' rather than as Americans of equal status. Where does THAT happen - you ask? Who thinks of people as their pets?? It’s in the hearts and minds of those who claim they have done the most for minorities. It is in those who have HATE in their hearts and actions. They are mad at themselves for feeling that way and feel that everyone shares their feelings. THOSE people are the ones who keep throwing social programs at minorities rather than get government out of their way so these Americans can become successes. It's those who slice the American political landscape into voting segments based on the color of their skin or their sexual orientation or their religion or any of a group of other classifications they use to tear American society apart - which are unconstitutional prejudices – who are the REAL racists today… but I digress. All those programs do is drive us apart for the gain of politicians rather than let us all be Americans together and enjoy our culture together. They WANT to keep groups down and take away incentives for them to get ahead - keeping minorities as 'pets' of the State and those running the State to keep their votes under control. And it has worked well for the last sixty years.
And THAT is why "White Guilt' continues to work. It’s the 'guilt' of those who continue to find ways to hold down segments of American society in their 'War on Minorities.'
As an example of this 'hatred' in the minds of some - in her interview with the New York Times Magazine Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsberg admitted her own bias against ‘elements of society’ by stating that Roe v. Wade was to have allowed 'elements of society' to eradicate themselves through abortions – further sited a 1980 decision that should have helped by allowing Medicare and Medicaid money be used to forward that agenda of eradication. It is that very 'progressive' line of thinking that has worked AGAINST minorities of this country for decades - and continues to keep a heavy boot on minorities holding them down. The 'progressive thinkers' espouse compassion while their actions have exactly the opposite outcome - which begs the question: Was that their original intention? For as long as these actions have been going on getting these results the answer would HAVE to be YES! That is EXACTLY their intention. These 'progressives' INTEND to attack and destroy Americans!!!
Interestingly enough, it is President Obama who is running around the world apologizing for the sins of White America against the world while telling the world in the next breath that he nor HIS administration should be held accountable for actions that were taken before he came to office. Huh?? In one fell swoop he is apologizing for the perceived sins of White America and offering – indirectly and he would NEVER knowingly allow White America off the hook – absolution for those sins at the same time. He lords that 'guilt' over America and uses it to his advantage at his every opportunity. Yet, it is HIS associates who are responsible for these very policies!!!What America - not 'White America' because anyone who reads my posts knows I reject a divided America - needs to look seriously at apologizing for is the 'New Deal' and 'Great Society' along with a seemingly endless laundry list of bills over the years which have done so much grave damage to the family unit of Americans in the lower economic strata. Family units – sociologists agree – are a common denominator in the advancement of social groups as they advance into the mainstream society. These bills to help low income Americans have failed miserably through their ‘unintended consequences’ creating a dependent mentality among their recipients. For THAT America should apologize – the ONGOING poorly planned ‘help,’ not history that happened long before any of us were born.

Lost The Rat Pack

Every once in awhile I come across a place that reminds me of 'days-gone-by' and they cause me to lament what we have lost as a society.
This time it was a restaurant and cigar bar hidden away just off a main street nestled neatly in the middle of the 1960s. I'd tell you where it is, but... NO. That would be like finding THE perfect deserted beach then telling everyone where it is. The next thing you know there'd be a resort planted on it with thousands of people trouncing MY sand and I'd have to go on a quest to find the new perfect deserted beach. And there just aren't that many of them left!! Well, this cigar bar and restaurant are the same way... there just aren't that many of them left… so, NO.
A good friend of mine deemed me WORTHY of sharing this secret Mecca and to whom I will be forever grateful. As soon as I walked in I saw men at the bar smoking quality cigars and I knew I was in the 'right place.' I had to pinch myself to see if I was still alive. Had I gotten run over by a bus on the way here and now I was dead?? This HAD to be Heaven. There were men smoking cigars in the bar!!! I thought there was nowhere left in the country where people could do THAT!!
My next reaction was to get in quick and lock the doors before the 'Smoking Gestapo' found out that we were smoking cigars in there!!! People smoking cigars in an enclosed area within a city limit!! What were we thinking?! What am I thinking? You can't even smoke in the great outdoors nowadays, why would I think we could smoke ANYWHERE and not have 'Brown Shirts' breaking down the doors? Yet, everyone inside seemed unexcited by a new entrant to their secret society and totally unconcerned that they’d be discovered, so it must happen all the time.
Once we got settled in and ordered a couple martinis – which turned out to be HUGE and GOOD compared to what you get at most bars – I was able to take it all in. The place looked like a throwback to 'Rat Pack' days. I LOVED it! I expected Dean, Frank, Sammy, Peter and Joey to come in the door any second, sidle up to the bar and start talking to the ‘broads.’ Perfection… And food to match. Low on foo-foo, high on steaks and lobster.
But as I looked around another ton of bricks landed on me. We’re losing these little ‘finds’ every damned day. Just a week earlier I was in a couple other restaurant-bars and the difference was… stark. First of all, cigars were absolutely FORBIDDEN even on the outside patio. They were glitzy, plastic and contrived – right down to the miniscule uniforms the girls wore. They were right out of some magazine – one of those ‘corporate cookie cutter’ magazines that shows us where we ‘should be’ dining as per some NYC office dweller. BS… I love the character that goes with the neighborhood place and the guys smoking cigars at the bar. It’s the REAL ‘authentic’ the other places are TRYING to capture and missing entirely.
Speaking of the ‘Rat Pack…’ brought to mind another thought. Las Vegas is a perfect example of what we’ve lost as Americana and the American Experience. The boys of the Rat Pack would barely recognize what’s there now. Back in THEIR day Vegas had character. It was grittier, bolder, wilder, more about gambling, drinking and sex and less about trying to be the Nevada Disneyland. Granted, there’s more money to be made from the ‘corporate’ angle, but look at what we’ve traded away.
We’re losing character in excahnge for our bottom lines – we’re trading away our souls to fill our pockets with gold. Is there such a thing as a happy medium? Can we save our character without destroying who we are?
Doubtful… Not any more…