This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Economy

  • The new “malaise” speech

    In 1977, Jimmy Carter told us to get out of our energy problems, we needed to put on a cardigan and turn our heat in our houses down to 68 degrees. When that didn’t solve our problems, I remember he gave a speech in July 1979 (later to be dubbed the “Malaise Speech” by the media) when he blamed Americans for our slowed economy and our weak perception overseas.

    Carter rolled out the new Energy Department which was supposed to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, but Carter told us we needed to get off our asses, paste smiles on our faces and pull the country out the doldrums. The following year, America answered him at the polls and kicked him to the curb. Then with reduced taxes and a strong military, we pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps and launched the country into the 21st Century.

    Now, we’ve got the new Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, telling us essentially the same thing – we’re a bunch of losers and he’s ashamed of us. Remember when he called us “bitter”?

    “It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or anti-pathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

    Even in his apology he called us stupid;

    There has been a small “political flare-up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois, who are bitter,” Obama said Saturday morning at a town hall-style meeting at the university. “They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they’re going through.”

    “So I said, well you know, when you’re bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country.”

    Take the statement he made a few months ago;

    We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.

    Yeah, ya buncha lazy slobs. Who do you think you are to want a little comfort in your life and benefit from what our antecedents worked for and left us?

    Yesterday he was ashamed of us, too, because we aren’t multi-lingual;

    “Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English, because they will learn English, you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish,” he said. “We should have every child speaking more than one language.”

    For comic effect, he added, “It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is ‘Merci beaucoup.’”

    What are we doing expecting people to learn our language when they live in our country? We can’t even speak the language of countries we may never visit. Who do we think we are? He’s embarrassed. Baldilocks wonders how many languages The Messiah speaks. I learned Spanish (to meet chicas) and German (to order beer and chow and to find the nearest toilet) so what’s wrong with the rest of you?

    When Obama spoke to the League of United Latin American Citizens, he didn’t mention the immigrants who can’t speak English like he did to the Americans previously. He told them that’s he’s going to protect them from the evil white folks;

    He won cheers for promising it would be a priority his first year in office and saying “it is time” to “finally bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows.”

    I hope he can teach us all Spanish by then, since he’s not all that concerned about those shadow-dwelling illegals learning English.

    But I see a pattern developing, the same pattern of the Carter years. We all need to start living up to the Democrats’ expectations of us. We need to set aside all of our earned comforts and start working to make the Democrats proud of us…or at least not be embarrassed by our rube, uncultured behavior. Now, that’s change we can believe in.

    ADDED: For those of you who are keeping track (Allen Wood), I wrote this before Rush began his program with the same format.

  • A glimpse of our future with Democrats

    You can probably name a hundred things you’d like government to do, can’t you? Things like lift restrictions on drilling and refineries, repair roads and bridges, ya know things government is supposed to do to help the economy and the infrastructure. But what are Democrats worried about? The Hill says Harry Reid is worried about taxes that are fixin’ to expire;

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) urged Republicans Tuesday to work with the majority on a measure that would extend expiring tax provisions and energy tax incentives.

    “I strongly share your hope that the Senate can work out a bipartisan solution to extend these important tax incentives before the August recess,” Reid said in a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), adding, “The fate of this legislation rests in your hands.”

    I guess the taxes on our energy are much more important than actually providing for our energy needs. CNN writes that Nancy Pelosi’s solution to the high price of gas is for the President to release the Strategic Petroleum Reserves;

    Pelosi sent a letter asking the president “to draw down a small portion” of the SPR’s more than 700 million barrels of oil “to help reduce record prices that are helping push the economy toward recession.”

    “Releasing oil from the Reserve is a tool to manage our national and economic security, and when judiciously used will in no way jeopardize national security,” the California Democrat wrote.

    She told the locals back in California that it’s Bush’s fault that gas prices are so high;

    The speaker blames what she labels the Bush-Cheney big oil agenda, using graphics to point out gasoline prices have more than doubled in the Bush administration.

    “This is a scam of the greatest magnitude,” says Speaker Pelosi.

    The New York Times profiles the Democrats’ clinging to the failed policies of the past;

    With Republicans pushing for more domestic oil and gas production and many Democrats focusing on alternative energy sources, finding consensus will not be easy, Congressional leaders acknowledge.

    Democratic leaders in the Senate also are not ready to embrace the idea of a bipartisan compromise on energy legislation, in part out of concern about adopting a position at odds with their expected presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

    Mr. Obama, who has called for higher mileage standards and investments in alternative energy, so far has espoused the traditional Democratic view that domestic drilling is not the answer to high prices — a view he affirmed in a new television advertisement that began running Tuesday in four battleground states.

    So their solution to the problem is to hope someone stumbles over an alternative energy that can be rushed out to us in time for winter – but not before the election.

    Politico writes that some Democrats are actually interested in doing something;

    At least five Senate Democrats support more domestic oil and gas exploration, and McConnell is sweetening the deal to make the sale to other moderates: The Kentucky Republican is pushing a package of incentives to boost conservation as well as a measure creating stricter enforcement of commodities markets in exchange for more offshore oil and gas drilling.

    “The goal,” he said Monday, “is to narrowly craft something that will appeal to Democrats.”

    Reid brushed aside McConnell’s new effort at bipartisanship, pointing out that GOP senators have filibustered every Democratic energy bill this year.

    Harry Reid brushes aside bipartisanship? But that’s not what he promised in 2006.

    While the nation suffers economically, Obama fiddles. The Washington Times says that Barack Obama is worried that we’re a mono-lingual nation and he’s embarrassed that US children only speak one language while European children speak their own indigenous language plus English;

    He said he agrees immigrants should learn English, but felt the concern should be more about global competitiveness.

    “Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English, because they will learn English, you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish,” he said. “We should have every child speaking more than one language.”

    For comic effect, he added, “It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is ‘Merci beaucoup.’”

    English is the language of commerce and the language of diplomacy – everyone else should speak English. Hell, a large portion of the American people don’t even speak an understandable version of English.

    Does anyone else get the idea that Democrats are more interested is keeping the economy broken for purely political reasons and focusing on inconsequential BS? Maybe that’s why LT Nixon can report that they’re suffering the worst poll numbers in their history.

  • More empty rhetoric

    The Wall Street Journal reports that Barack Obama spread more populist manure over the crowd in Georgia today;

    …Barack Obama filled out his policy stance on personal bankruptcies, saying he would make it easier for homeowners devastated by illness or other such hardships to keep their houses during periods of insolvency.

    The expected Democratic nominee said people wiped out by massive medical payments, military disaster victims, members on extended leave and elderly homeowners would all benefit from the policy, which would waive onerous bureaucratic steps required to file for personal bankruptcy and establish a financial floor to allow such people to retain their home equity.

    Sounds nice doesn’t it? There’s plenty of blood and tragedy to scare people into clapping like lunatics. That’s what his writers do best – make up scary stories. Except that there are already federal and community agencies that do all of that for people. There are not-for-profit organizations that do that. There are for-profit companies that do that. But Obama just needs a bloody shirt to wave at the crowd.

    In doing so, Sen. Obama took a swipe at rival John McCain, who supported the last revamp of bankruptcy laws in 2005. Sen. Obama, who opposed that revamp, called it a sop to special interests.

    “While I was opposing the credit card industry’s bankruptcy bill that made it harder for working families to climb out of debt, [Sen. McCain] was supporting it – and he even opposed helping families who were only in bankruptcy because of medical bills they couldn’t pay,” Sen. Obama told a crowd at a townhall event outside of Atlanta. “He sided with the big banks again when it came to protecting the most valuable possession that older Americans have – their home.”

    Well, the proposals that Obama is making are unfunded mandates to business. The revamped bankruptcy laws drove interest rates to record lows because lenders took less risk when they made a loan. If government forces more risk on lenders, the only people who’ll get hurt are low-income borrowers who’ll pay higher interest rates if they get any loans at all. What’ll Obama do then? Well, he’ll mandate high risk loans at lower interest rates – and then ALL borrowers will pay for that risk with across-the-board interest rate hikes.

    Leftism isn’t about helping up the poor, it’s about spreading out the misery equally.

  • Iran threatens oil in the Straits of Hormuz

    Yesterday, Iran threatened to disrupt Persian Gulf oil shipments through the narrow Straits of Hormuz in the event that the West attacked the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons development according to the AFP;

    The chief of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards warned that Iran would use its control of the Strait of Hormuz in response to an attack, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

    “It is natural that when a country is attacked it uses all of its capabilities against the enemy, and definitely our control of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz would be one of our actions,” General Mohammad Ali Jafari told the conservative daily Jam-e Jam.

    The strait is a vital conduit for energy supplies, with about 20%-25% of the world’s crude oil from Gulf oil producers passing through the waterway.

    Now, I’ve been staring at a map of the world and I fail to see how blocking the Straits of Hormuz would disrupt our oil flow from off of our coasts or Alaska. 76% of Americans say we should drill and refine our own fuel – can they be wrong?

    Did anyone tell the Islamic Republic that they would be violating our Carter Doctrine? Will Jimmy Carter make that point as forcefully as he did in his State of the Union Address in 1980;

    This situation demands careful thought, steady nerves, and resolute action, not only for this year but for many years to come. It demands collective efforts to meet this new threat to security in the Persian Gulf and in Southwest Asia. It demands the participation of all those who rely on oil from the Middle East and who are concerned with global peace and stability. And it demands consultation and close cooperation with countries in the area which might be threatened.

    Meeting this challenge will take national will, diplomatic and political wisdom, economic sacrifice, and, of course, military capability. We must call on the best that is in us to preserve the security of this crucial region.

    Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

    Probably not – after all, he promised in his “malaise speech” (July 1979) to build refineries and pipelines when we needed them and we haven’t built a refinery since 1977.

  • McCain: No bailouts, automakers

    The Wall Street Journal Washington Wire writes that McCain didn’t make promises he wouldn’t keep in Ohio today;

    McCain said he would do whatever he could to assist the ailing companies but stopped short of considering a bailout. “It depends on what you mean by a bailout,” he said in response to a Wall Street Journal reporter’s question. “If you’re talking about it in the classic terms, I’m afraid not.”

    And he’s right. US automakers have been riding the ass-end of auto trends since 1978. They’re in this problem because they can’t think ahead to auto-buyers’ fickle “next thing”. They did fine when they dictated to the public what the public should buy, but they’ve proved inflexible to the market, while those sneaky little Japanese crap-box manufacturers have led the way.

    McCain then put on his Democrat hat and promised taxpayer dollars for R&D;

    Instead, he reiterated that if elected in November his plan is to invest in research and development. “I would like to invest American federal dollars in pure research and development as we move forward with new technologies, whether they be flex fuel or whether it be hydrogen or whether it be the electric capability,” he said. After developing such technologies “we’ve gotta hand it over to the private enterprise and the automotive companies.”

    Horseshit. Let the automakers invest in future technologies – it’s not the government’s job to pour bad money after worse into wasteful development. If the automakers REALLY wanted to beat the Japanese, they’d get ahead of them instead of wasting their lobbying dollars on  trying to influence government to give them MY money and trying to get the government to put tariffs on import cars.

    Give Americans a reason to buy American cars instead of trying to charge us more for NOT buying American cars, for crap’s sake.

    With gas at 4 bucks a gallon, you’d think that American ingenuity would come up something viable and innovative instead of just making more copycat Jap shit boxes.

  • Hate gas prices? Blame Congress.

    Energy analysts testified to Congress yesterday that the price of gas could fall to about half of it’s price in about 30 days if Congress could only commit itself to act now;

    Testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management said that the price of oil would quickly drop closer to its marginal cost of around $65 to $75 a barrel, about half the current $135.

    Fadel Gheit of Oppenheimer & Co., Edward Krapels of Energy Security Analysis and Roger Diwan of PFC Energy Consultants agreed with Masters’ assessment at a hearing on proposed legislation to limit speculation in futures markets.

    Krapels said that it wouldn’t even take 30 days to drive prices lower, as fund managers quickly liquidated their positions in futures markets.

    “Record oil prices are inflated by speculation and not justified by market fundamentals,” according to Gheit. “Based on supply and demand fundamentals, crude-oil prices should not be above $60 per barrel.”

    Of course, that’s the problem – the Democrat Congress won’t act while there’s Republican President. Democrats figure that the more Americans suffer, the better chance they have of winning the election in November. And then, they’ll have another excuse after they win the election to avoid solving our immediate problems, because the American Left isn’t known for their solutions to Americans’ problems.

    It would seem news like today’s testimony to Congress would be shouted from roof tops – but there’s not a word. In fact, the price of oil and gas has shot up precisely because everyone in the world knows the US won’t tap it’s own sources. Just having a discussion about drilling last week, loosened up Saudi Arabia’s pumping restrictions this weekend. In fact 76% of Americans say we should drill our own oil – so where is Congress to give Americans what we’ve known we need for decades?

    It’s a cheap political stunt and it’s hurting America. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, in a letter to Harry Reid urged him to act;

    What will it take for Congress to enact comprehensive energy policy that includes increased domestic production of oil and gas, renewable and alternative energy and, and conservation? It seems to us outside of the capitol Beltway that virtually every effort to accomplish this is met with criticism and failure. In my opinion, the debate about energy policy is no longer theoretical and abstract. Our failure to enact an energy policy is having real consequences for every American in their daily lives and has begun to affect America’s place in the world.

    In other words, get off your scrawny butt, Harry and do something for the first time in your pathetic life.

    Crossposted at Eagles Up Talon.

  • Sanity on a clueless planet

    We’ve all heard how the world stood with the US on September 11th, 2001, but somehow within a few days, George W. Bush had squandered all that goodwill and the entire planet turned against us. In less than two years, the French (who were dealing with an internal Islamic problem) turned on us, the Russians (who were also fighting Islamic terrorism) turned on us, the Spanish were frightened into turning on us by Islamic terrorism.

    Of course, it turns out that the Russians, French and Germans were profiting hugely for protecting Hussein’s regime and the only western news agency in Iraq, CNN, was purposely not reporting the truth from Iraq. The news reporting hasn’t changed – no news agency, outside of Fox wants to tell the public about the oil-for-food scandal (or as Hussein’s inner circle called it, the oil-for-palaces program).

    The American Left relishes the resulting hate for Bush’s United States, because they have no policy plans that they can tell Americans about that’ll get them votes. Clinton’s “third way” New Democrats are gone according to the Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberly Strassel last Friday;

    When Mr. Clinton left, so did the most prominent New Democratic voice. Party liberals have been reasserting control ever since. Howard Dean’s 2004 consolation prize was the Democratic National Committee. Nancy Pelosi became House Speaker in 2006, and gave back committee chairs to the old 1960s liberal bulls. And now comes Mr. Obama, the party’s most liberal nominee since Hubert Humphrey.

    So how does the world feel about Obama? They’re enthusiastic, according to Fouad Ajami in today’s WSJ;

    The Pew survey tells us that some foreign precincts show a landslide victory for Barack Obama. France leads the pack; fully 84% of those following the American campaign are confident Mr. Obama will do the right thing in foreign policy, compared with 33% who say that about John McCain. There are similar results in Germany, and a closer margin in Britain. The populations of Jordan, Turkey and Pakistan have scant if any confidence in either candidate.

    84% – that’s about the same as Washington, DC’s liberal community support for Obama. Why? Because, of course, the world wants our money. Envy is at the root of almost every policy towards the United States, envy and greed for the American taxpayers’ earnings.

    Look at the list of Obama supporters in COB6’s post below – every one of them has a vested interest in seeing America fail. Why would they not support a Obama candidacy since he’s the most likely to make us a failure like Europe, Asia, the Near East and Africa and hand out our taxpayer dollars and make us more dependent on our supposed allies.

    Who cares who the Euro-wienies want to be our President? Who cares that Turks support Obama? We Americans each support our candidates based on our personal values, what makes the outside world any different? Because they want to take smiling protraits with us? No. Because they want our money and Obama is more likely to hand over sacks full of cash to them.

    Europeans and Arabs are too damn lazy to earn their own way in the world (somehow they got it in their heads that the economy is a zero-sum game – that there are losers and winners), so they all want a piece of our country – they line up outside of our consulates around the world every morning hoping for a visa to get here, and then burn our flag either here or their own country, depending on the outcome of their visa application.

    It’s becoming more and more apparent that John McCain is becoming the torch bearer for the few remaining sane people on the planet. One final question; why would any sane American want to vote for a candidate that the French support by 84% when the French are on their fifth constitution and we’re still on our first one?

  • Saudi minister: Oh, you need oil? We have oil.

    The Saudi oil minister acted surprised that the world needs more oil and said that, sure they can pump more if the world needs oil. (AP/NY Times link);

    Saudi Arabia’s oil minister says the kingdom is willing to produce more oil if customers need it, but he cited no specific production increase.

    The kingdom will pump about 9.7 million barrels a day beginning in July because of recent increases already announced.

    But Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi says it can produce more than 9.7 million a day if customers request it.

    I don’t suppose he got antsy because of the discussion in the US about tapping our own resources. 76% of Americans now favor drilling off our coasts and venturing into ANWR, despite the those 24% who are Luddites and are savoring  our current morass.

    Luckily, two years ago President Bush authorized exploration in ANWR in anticipation of this crisis. Also lucky is that Jimmy Carter formed the Energy Department which has a stated purpose of cutting through red tape to build pipelines and refineries. Now let’s see if the Energy Department can fulfill it’s stated mission.

    Obama claimed the other day that drilling now wouldn’t do anything to solve the problem, but just having the discussion has influenced the Saudis to pump more. Imagine what will happen when we actually start drilling, pumping and refining our own fuels and declare ourselves less beholden to foreign producers.