The Toxic Highway Experience

I know Wall Street is crumbling, but Washington needs to start paying attention:

Putin’s in bed with Hugo Chavez.

North Korean Nukes are back in business.

Iran is keeping on keeping on.

Pakistan is playing chicken with US Troops in Afghanistan.

Turkey playing war games against Kurds in Iraq.

President Bush will most certainly go down in history as the worst President in American History and one of the worst leaders of all time.

Stop the Socialist Spendathon
Try pro-market, pro-growth solutions instead.

By Deroy Murdock

It is beyond irritating to watch President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gift-wrap their $700-billion early Christmas present for financially irresponsible bankers and the overleveraged borrowers who love them. These “three wise men” consider theirs the only method to stop the turmoil roiling trading desks from Gotham to Tokyo.

“Action by the Congress is urgently required to stabilize the situation and avert what otherwise could be very serious consequences for our financial markets and for our economy,” Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday.

But this mother of all government interventions is unlike a long, cold hypodermic needle in the belly: an inescapable misery, but preferable to death by rabies. There actually are desirable alternatives to building socialism and saddling every American man, woman, and child with another $2,300 in unjustified federal spending.

One option is to instruct the geniuses from Fannie Mae to Wall Street to deal with it. They made this mess; they should mop it up. Cut back, sell assets, develop fresh services, or get new jobs. Absent a federal bailout, Lehman Brothers sold parts of itself to Barclay’s Bank. Facing Uncle Sam’s cold shoulder, Merrill Lynch ran into the loving arms of Bank of America. Merrill’s customers will survive, and its employees will work for B of A or seek their fortunes elsewhere.

It may take time and tightened belts, but padlocking Washington’s bailout window will offer a generation of “masters of the universe” lessons that America’s Mr. Rogers-in-Chief cannot teach: Keep your winnings, but own your losses. If you fall on your face, especially after dancing drunk on the roof, Uncle Sam may empathize, but he no longer will rush in to swaddle you in silk sheets and place your bruised head on pillows stuffed with crisp $100 bills.

Other options exist, of course — and while they lack the bracing appeal of this sort of financial Darwinism, they remain far more attractive than our current policy of “survival of the fattest.”

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas) chairs the Republican Study Committee, the congressional caucus of idea-driven, free-market stalwarts. These practicing Reaganites seem appalled to watch their GOP president morph before their eyes from GWB to LBJ to FDR. At a Capitol Hill press conference at high noon on Tuesday, Hensarling and a dozen RSC members expressed deep misgivings about Bush’s $700-billion baby. Preferring to drown it in the bathwater, Hensarling and his band of true believers rejected Bush’s collectivism and offered their own proposals for escaping this rubble — and returning America to a path of robust growth:

Give the capital-gains tax a two-year vacation. “Suspending capital gains taxes would bring as much as a trillion dollars of capital sitting on the sidelines back into the market,” Hensarling predicts. Also, as the Tax Foundation proposes, cutting America’s 35-percent corporate tax — the industrialized world’s second highest, after Japan’s — would boost U.S. global competitiveness. Since equity prices partially reflect long-term after-tax profits, lowering corporate levies should buoy stock markets.

Denationalize, then privatize Fannie and Freddie. “These troubled financial Frankensteins — created in a government laboratory — are not creatures of the free enterprise system,” Hensarling said. “We must ultimately take their monopoly powers away and return them to the marketplace.” Why not array Fannie’s and Freddie’s loans according to mortgage holders’ surnames? They then could be divided alphabetically into 26 units and auctioned off.

Waive “mark-to-market” accounting. As the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s John Berlau argues, when distressed mortgage-backed securities sell at bargain-basement prices, unhelpful new bookkeeping regulations require that similar instruments elsewhere — including viable loans — be valued at equally low prices. This needlessly stains balance sheets.

Strengthen the dollar. Bernanke should boost U.S. currency, not pose as America’s uber-stock broker. A strong dollar lowers inflation, cheapens oil, and soothes world markets.

Bush’s bailout bonanza began with $29 billion for Bear Sterns. Then came the taxpayer-financed purchase of an 80-percent stake in AIG. And while the public and press gaped open-mouthed at the $700 billion request to rescue the financial-services sector, Washington quietly passed $25 billion to the auto industry. Doubtless, credit-card companies now await their slab of bacon. This cavalcade of giveaways and takeovers monumentally betrays the Republican Party’s most sacred tenets.

Even worse, Bush’s hyper-statism offers nothing imaginative. It takes brains to generate interesting ideas like Hensarling & Co.’s. It takes mere muscle to nationalize companies and toss handfuls of cash into the air. Just ask Eva Peron.

— New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution.

Republican Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin may have campaigned for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska (population 6 thousand at the time) as a “fiscal conservative”, but according to residents, during Palin’s 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. Decreased taxes on businesses, and raised taxes on residents.

And similar to a certain President we know, Palin inherited a budget surplus and squandered it. Palin left Wasilla $22 million in debt.

What a great VP Pick McCain! Gooooo Republicans! Idiots.

In case anyone hasn’t been paying attention, the worst threat Palin poses on a White House ticket is the threat she poses to the environment.

Palin doesn’t believe humans are responsible for global warming, even though her state has a front row seat as the Artic melts away.

Palin wants to drill through Alaskan wilderness for oil even though scientists have long concluded that the presumed oil there is negligible and wouldn’t become available at least ten years after discovery.

Palin has fought successfully against imposing stricter regulations on mining operations which pollute Alaskan streams and destroy the state’s most important international export: salmon. … If you like “wild caught Alaskan Salmon” you had better eat up now before Palin’s policies have you munching on iron ore and smelt.

And oh yeah, Palin is on record refusing to believe the polar bear is endangered.

Palin personifies the forces behind global warming and pollution: beaurocrats with their heads in the sand and pockets full of oil money.

Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention tonight highlighted the Alaska Governor’s complete incomprehension of the crisis our country is in.

Our economy is tanking. Our environment and transportation sector are held hostage by Big Oil. Our monopolies on innovation, technology and hope are crumbling. Our military is spread so thin that we have no way to check Iranian and Russian aggression, let alone catch Osama bin Laden. Our poverty and unemployment rates are increasing. Our middle class is evaporating. Our housing market is worse than it was during the Great Depression. Americans are homeless, jobless and penniless.

Did Palin mention ANY of this tonight? NO!

Palin offered nothing of substance except that parents of special needs kids would have an advocate in the White House in her.

Palin stuck to her already tiresome narrative of PTA meglomaniac.

And let’s call it like it is: Palin did not oppose the “bridge to nowhere” until she realized that Alaskans weren’t interested.

Palin has an abominable economic background, as the governor of the only state bordering two foreign countries, she has never engaged her neighbors in trade or sought to build economic partnerships — she’s never even visited her neighbors Canada and Russia.

And Palin has fought hard to make sure that Alaska doesn’t tap into its human resources and only exploits its natural resources even as pools of melted Artic water wash over her boots.

And just one more thing on this note — Palin has served as the governor of less than 700,000 people all of whom rely on Washington handouts to survive for less than two years. Barack Obama has represented at least 3.5 million Americans who live in the second most important city economy in the US and the fourth most important city economy in the world: Chicago — for six years at the state level and two on the national. And Obama doesn’t have to beg Washington for anything because his constituents do it themselves.

Palin as a Vice Presidential candidate is a joke. But it’s the Republican party who will end up having the last laugh if they’re able to pull the wool over voters eyes and move this circus into the White House.

Republicans — the party of Abraham Lincoln — should be mortified that McCain picked Palin to be his running mate. Mortified and ashamed. Deeply and incredibly ashamed.

Choosing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate speaks volumes about the real John McCain — a man who places his political ambitions in front of what’s good for the country.

Given McCain’s health and age and Palin’s lack of a resume should be enough of a signal that McCain is not thinking about what’s best for the country in this election. McCain simply wants to go to the Oval Office before he’s thrown in the grave. And he foolishly thinks an inexperienced, unqualified backwoods political player like Palin will be his meal ticket simply because she has t and a.

Don’t get me wrong … Palin is known as a reformer and rightly so. She makes a fine Governor of Alaska. And given time, no doubt Palin will rise to national prominence. But, bringing her to Washington now is like taking the bread out of the oven before it’s done baking.

McCain is making a mockery of the American public with Palin as his running mate. This move is reckless and incompetent and is not befitting a would be leader of the free world. Palin is simply not qualified — yet — to be our president (which is exactly what a vice presidential must be).

John McCain is not the simple POW maverick who’s story we’ve been forced fed over the last 20 plus years. He is proving himself to be a dangerous politico bent on becoming leader of the free world

But what the Republicans need to do is nominate someone else. McCain is not fit to serve. And his nomination is dangerous … dangerous for the country.

Palin is an exciting candidate to many marginalized voters …. and the Republican party should bring her back in eight years.

But for the next four, McCain can not, can NOT become the President of the United States.

Wall Street’s army of old-white-guys-in-suits seems to be living in a different world than the rest of us.  If you watch financial news or read financial newspapers, those hedge fund kingpins and stock speculators are trying to get the message out that the bad days are over and that the good days are right around the corner.  They’re trying to tell us that recession fears are a bunch of hog-wash.

The irony is that they are spinning this bull at the same time Warren Buffett, arguably the most successful investor of all time, is saying the exact opposite.  Buffett believes that not only are we already in a recession, but we should expect things to get worse.

“… My general feeling is that the recession will be longer and deeper than most people think,”  says Buffett.

Maybe Buffett is so level headed and insightful because he doesn’t allow himself to be blinded by his billions and instead lives a humble life devoted to his family in Omaha, NE.

But, it doesn’t take an MBA to see the direction our economy has turned.  Gas and food prices are rising and resources are becoming more scarce, the value of our homes is declining, friends and family are losing their homes and jobs and defaulting on debts, incomes are stagnating and inflation is raging: the situation ain’t good.

So, why the common sense-defying, Buffett-denying, sunny forecast from Wall Street?

They may indeed be too blinded by their billions to see what is happening on the street.

But, more likely they are so panicked by the numbers they’re seeing that they are rushing to plug the dike the best way they know how: drumming up business.  Who can blame them?  They believe the best way to stave off this recession is to buy-buy-buy.  But, they know it’s a bear market.

So next time you see a Wall Street insider on television telling you the forecast calls for sunshine, look outside and see the storm clouds gathering.  The forecast calls for rain.

Opec says to expect oil to hit $200/barrel. Currently it’s around $120.

Keep in mind that despite the rise at the gas pump everyone around the country has noticed - that price increase does not fully reflect the increase in oil prices. Our gas is heavily subsidized, effectively keeping us addicted to the stuff while the price at the pump is allowed to slowly creep up.

But, these magic tricks at masking the true price of oil are going to go up in smoke as prices for everything else that requires oil skyrockets. Food, cars, trucks, airplanes, goods and building materials.  We can’t subsidize everything.

I think it is way past time to start effectively investing in alternative energy sources.  And I believe it’s going to take independent entrepreneurs without any assistance from Washington to lead the way.

An addict has to hit rock bottom before he sees the light and changes his proverbial ways.  We haven’t come close to hitting rock bottom with oil prices.  And we need to admit that we are addicted.  Addicted-addicted.  So, expect things to get worse.

Five British citizens who were kidnapped in Iraq over a year ago are being held inside Iran by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. … Um, this ain’t good news: a direct link between terrorism inside Iraq and the government of Iran. Right. This will give the US more reason to consider military force against Iran for its meddling with Iraq. Basically, this nightmare just got prolonged. Ugh.

Americans should be raising their voices in protest at the way both fronts in the “War on Terror” are being conducted. But, more disturbing than Iraq is our quagmire in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s US-anointed President, Hamid Karzai, is highly critical of America’s “handling” of the War in Afghanistan. Innocent Afghans continue to die at the hands of American soldiers. Security is still a joke in the country.  The US is still searching rural Afghan villages for Taliban and Al Qaeda members while everyone with an internet connection knows that the Taliban and Al Qaeda regrouped to Pakistan’s Northwest Tribal Regions long ago. Our forces in the country are understaffed and overwhelmed. Tribal warlords and local chieftains barely bother with Kabul, the capital. And Afghanistan is free only in name.

And all of this is not to mention that our own generals are saying that we should expect things to “get worse” in Afghanistan this year.

What is going on here? What could possibly be the reason that the White House stopped looking for Osama bin Laden or hunting down the Taliban and Al Qaeda??? How in the world did we let the Taliban set up shop next door in Pakistan?

Unfortunately, Bush has ensured it so that Afghanistan will remain fertile ground for extremist groups hostile to the United States for at least another decade. Probably another generation.

Afghanistan should have been our number one priority from 9/12 onward. No question.

But, dwelling on the Bush Administration’s criminal flaws can not be our number one concern at the moment.

Now we need to turn as much of our attention as possible back to Afghanistan and get the job done once and for all. Get the job done right.

The country needs to be cleared of all terrorists. It needs security. It needs rebuilding. It needs to learn self-sufficiency. And it needs to be lead down the path towards prosperity. Like an orphan we need to take Afghanistan by the hand and finally treat her like a long lost family member now found.

This isn’t some pie-in-the-sky-polly anna-rant. All of this is possible. All of this can be done.

Our future depends on it.

We cannot forget what happened last time we let Afghanistan fall into ruin. We cannot let it happen again. And at the moment it looks like Afghanistan may be slipping further down that slope. Time to regroup. Time to refocus.