We Will Soon Find Out

Larry Kudlow seems finally to have understood (by his comment that ‘POTUS will go Left for his new economic team’) that Obama couldn’t care less about the economy. The question remains: How far left will he go? Will he go all the way to spark a communist revolution in this country? I suspect so. What better way to achieve it than to precipitate complete economic collapse?

The price of gold on the upswing is not so much a consequence of gold becoming more valuable. It is rather an indication of the dollar depreciating. Pretty soon we could be taking whole wheelbarrows of money to the supermarket to buy a loaf of bread. Don’t you think this would end in social upheavals of the kind this nation has never seen? Don’t you think that this would pulverize the foundations of every institution in this country, reduce them to dust to be blown away by the wind? POTUS would remain the only functioning authority over the ruin of a once great nation.

When Argentina suffered through its period of severe inflation in which the price of common products rose every day, the people themselves pegged the value of commodities on the value of a gallon of fuel. Money became irrelevant. Gas stations in effect became banks.

‘Growth recession' is an oxymoron. There is either growth, or there is recession. The two terms are mutually exclusive. POTUS himself is the one who continues to talk this nonsense. By it, he hopes to gain time to perfect his economic nuclear program. We’re all slow to figure it out. POTUS is banking on it. The majority of us still refuse to believe that the man we elected president would actually do this to us. Meanwhile, every day our economy wanes. The trigger will activate when the promise of new leadership will release all our pent up demand. By that time the guts of the system will have been so totally wrecked. Stepping on the gas will cause the economic engine to explode. …and then, nothing. The old car will stall, never to move another inch.

Already we see the signs of what’s coming. Investors in large numbers have abandoned stocks. Money and jobs are leaving the country. Bonds are shaky. Real estate is collapsing all around us. The last refuge is gold. What comes after gold? Nobody knows. Chaos, perhaps. The abyss. We’ve never been there before. Increasingly it becomes apparent that we will soon find out.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Man the Water Stations

While the debate rages about how to fix the economy (read today’s opinion pieces in the NYT), things continue to get worse out there, particularly on the jobs front. People are re-entering the job market because they have become desperate. It’s no longer a choice - to work or not to work - it’s become a matter of survival.

Unfortunately, the jobs are no longer out there. They’re over in India, China, the Philippines and elsewhere. Value-based work is fleeing the country, leaving only enforcement-related and administrative (basically government) mandated tasks which themselves face the cleaver as tax revenues continue to fall short of expectations. It’s the classic definition of a downward spiral.

Incredibly, there is a way out. It is to make America business-friendly once again. Europe is trying it - although tepidly - and thus far has had limited success at least in terms of improving the psychological climate that businesses face. The reason that this hasn’t yet happened in America is because at the moment they are freer than we are. Our taxes and regulations are literally choking the life out of us. Add to this, the people’s distrust of government policy overall, and you have the entire country in unison fuelling the tailspin.

Washington has become so toxic, even if the president were to come out tomorrow with a workable plan to solve all the nation’s problems, nobody would pay much attention. For the majority of Americans, Barack Hussein Obama has already torn up his leadership card and thrown it to the wind. We have reached a point where Obama’s government no longer represents us.

How to explain this to people in a foreign country? People tend to assume that countries speak with one voice. If the government, for instance, insists on basing its foreign and domestic policies on the now largely discredited threat of ‘global warming’ while the people themselves have become aware of the hoax, that government can be said to rule against the will of the electorate. The U.S. is not the only nation that has chosen to follow the forked path leading to civil strife. The first fault line to appear, as always, is the one between the classes. The elites have chosen one path, leaving the masses to wander another.

Time to man the water stations in this desert. Many are about to get themselves lost out in the wilds. Great swatches of land have already been ceded to cartel control. It is clear, the American government does not care about Americans. One of the two will fall and there will be blood. In the meantime, maps and survival tips must be distributed.

I open the paper today and read that the Taliban have offered to burn all medical books.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Trashing Apple

It was announced this week that Apple had overtaken Microsoft as America’s most successful tech company. At the same time, there’s been talk that the SEC is investigating Apple. It almost seems like the long knives have come out for Apple. JB’s latest two postings (in Briefs) support this theory. The attacks on Apple are coordinated and coming from all sides.

Reports of suicides at a single Chinese electronics factory that assembles consumer goods for the West are purely agenda driven.

The company, where my wife works in Chennai (India), edits legal briefs as well as academic material outsourced from the United States. The bulk of editors are paid Rs 13,000/month for 12-hour shifts, six days a week. Workers get a half hour (unpaid) break at noon. Most bring their own lunch because they can’t afford to buy the inferior product sold at the in-house company canteen. Many endure grueling (up to) three-hour one-way commutes for the mere privilege of working. Some do so to augment family incomes; some, to escape abusive relationships at home; some, to escape the heat; some, simply to pad their resumes.

Such is Asia – hugely overcrowded; hugely competitive – where a work is still precious. Most jobs amount to revolving doors; a stepping stone – a place to hang out until something better comes along. Not working adds to what is essentially a death sentence.

By the way, in Asia it is not uncommon to see a motorcycle with five riders. One is a woman; two are children under the age of seven. Only the man wears a helmet.

To focus strictly on Foxconn is disingenuous. It begs for another explanation. Pointing out that Foxconn is run by the third-richest man in Taiwan only exploits the class warfare issue for domestic consumption. After trashing housing, health care, automobiles, Big Oil, banking, pharma, etc… can technology be far behind?

Snake Oil

Your words go down smoothly like snake oil; your scope of curatorial knowledge is impressive, and hypnotizes - like the snake itself. You craft your arguments precisely to convey your meaning, conveniently leaving out facts that may run counter to what you hope to advance. You leave out 9/11 for instance - which was seen at the time as an attack on America on American soil not unlike Pearl Harbor. It demanded a response, a ’face saving’ if you wish. You ignore that the whole world, at the time, Democrats as well as Republicans, considered Iraq a rogue state, dangerous to the region as well as to itself. You discount the strategy of encircling Iran - Iraq on one side, Afghanistan on the other. You do not recognize our need to secure the continuing free flow of oil to protect our economic livelihood.

Instead, you seek to promote the notion that America is/was stupid at best or evil at worst. Eventually, our cynical, America-hating side, in conjunction with the desire of our global enemies, would prevail as all the legitimate reasons for attacking Iraq were swept under the rug and forgotten. Our enemies were elevated to be our equals (or better) by those who found a strategy which to exploit in our own parochial political wars.

You never offered alternative solutions save doing nothing. And even that would have been used against us in some way; for the struggle that would ensue was not against the people who attacked us but between factions of ourselves - one side seeking the wholesale destruction of the whole notion of America from within. They appear to have achieved their goal.

A minor point: Russell Kirk was right, of course. This is not arguable. However, dying, either before or after any given event, does not involve 'good sense’ (as you put it).

Also, immigration has never been a problem for America. The problem is 'illegal immigration'. It cheapens our rule of law which then leads to chaos. No country on earth condones illegal immigration. It violates the very concept of sovereignty. Legal immigration, on the other hand, provides the fresh blood needed for a nation such as ours to endure. This has always been the case. It's not a matter of foreign nationals taking our jobs because they are willing to work for less. It's a matter of our failed educational system (again, sabotaged by our internal enemies) that does not provide enough skilled workers to maintain our infrastructures. Why is it that even our universities outsource their editing work to India? Why is it that our legal system does the same? It's not that Indians will do it cheaper (though that might be true purely in terms of currency conversion factors). But the overall need for this kind of outsourcing has everything to do with the fact that Indians can do the work. The same is true of everything else that is being outsourced - programming, call centers, etc. ...and it has long been no great secret to Americans that Japan - not strangled by government interference and union rules - builds better cars.