The Golden Age of Obama

Things are not all sunshine and roses in Obamaland. Back around the first of October, when it became obvious that The Messiah was going to win the election, the Dow took a 2,500 point dive. It hovered between 8,000 and 9,000 until shortly after he took office, and now, since he's had an opportunity to begin implementing his grand plans, it has tanked almost another 2,000 points. They say a picture is worth a thousand words...look at this chart of the Dow for the last year. It has lost fully 50% of its value since last May, and the downturn is obviously accelerating at a precipitous rate.

Had anyone asked a couple of months ago, I would have said that I thought 7,000 was the bottom - it couldn't possibly fall below that. Well, fall it did, closing today at 6,763. There is no reason whatsoever to think that we are finished yet. Experts predict that we will learn Friday that 700,000 jobs were lost in February. The Sears store up the street from my house, where my daughter works, informed their employees the other day that the store will be closing on May 31st. Many retail establishments are already struggling - by the Christmas season, which they all have relied on for decades to put the "in the black," so many people will be out of work that malls will look like ghost towns.

In the midst of all of this, we have a president who states, on the whitehouse.gov website, that he and his hapless vice-president "will embrace the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty and hunger around the world in half by 2015, and they will double our foreign assistance to achieve that goal." This will be paid for, of course, with taxpayer dollars which could have gone to those struggling retail establishments to help cut extreme poverty and hunger right here at home.

Obama and his Democrat colleagues have spent more money in thirty days than anyone in the history of this nation. They are throwing unfathomable amounts of our money at their pet causes, with no accountability and less judgment. I have been seeing ads all over the internet, prominently featuring pictures of The One, encouraging me to apply now for my grant - telling me that there is free money out there, thousands of dollars worth, that I can apply for and never have to repay. Just a few minutes ago, this landed in my inbox:

"Find out today if you are entitled!" Entitled? Entitled?! It's MY money...and my children's, and my grandchildren's, and...you get the idea. Tomorrow will mark the six week anniversary of the inauguration, and already I barely recognize my country. To those who remember the Carter years, they're going to look like a walk in the park compared to the Golden Age of Obama.

It isn't quite a shrug...

...but Atlas is getting restless. Great piece today from Investor's Business Daily:

Capital On Strike

Economy: Barack Obama won the presidency by vowing to bring "hope and change" to America. We've seen the change as the economy's deterioration accelerated. Now where's the hope?

In the three months since the election, the broadest measure of the stock market's value, the Wilshire 5000 Index, has plunged more than 30%, slicing over $3 trillion from Americans' wealth. Investors have walked away from investing, while businesses shut down factories and offices and slash jobs.

This is both highly significant and dangerous. Capital, bluntly put, has gone on strike. Those who own wealth are pushing it to the sidelines, as a young and inexperienced president tries to jam through the most sweeping economic changes in over 70 years.

[snip]

ABC News reported this week that many upper-income taxpayers already are planning to cut back on work and investments to stay under $250,000 in income — the point where Obama's punitive taxes kick in. No one wins from this, yet Obama seems oblivious.

For the first time in our history, we are no longer the perceived as the land of milk and honey.

This isn't the only warning sign. A new study asserts that some 100,000 highly educated, well-trained Indians now living in the U.S. will return home in the next few years. Ditto China.

Immigrant entrepreneurs are highly sensitive bellwethers of economic and social conditions. They know where the opportunities are — and where they aren't. They're voting with their feet.

[snip]

[W]hen taxes go up, regulations proliferate and the rule of law and private property protections are weakened, the economy will invariably suffer. This is a universal lesson of economic history, one we ignore at our peril. And yes, this is what's happening now.

No, we don't blame all our current ills on President Obama. He came in at a tough time, when many bad decisions had already been made. But he is responsible for what he's done since.

His stimulus package is little more than a down payment on a socialist economy. It raises taxes on the successful, brings back the welfare state, hands out favors and cash to friends of one political party, while imposing government control over the entire free market in ways that just a year ago would have seemed unimaginable.

Read the whole thing.

Will Obama get anything right?

It's almost too incredible for even a cynic like me to believe. Today's news...

While publicly calling it a "negative development," U.S. officials are privately backing Pakistan's "sharia law for peace" deal.

The EPA is expected to begin regulating carbon dioxide, thus hastening our fall into the second Great Depression.

John Kerry is acting as personal postman between Hamas and The Messiah.

Iran is considering face-to-face talks with Obama, assuming, of course, that he meets their demands (does anyone doubt his willingness to do so?). Oh, and the UN now says Iran has enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb.

After having just dropped/relaxed/ignored sanctions against Syria, it comes to light that they are building a chemical weapons plant.

And, of course, all of this comes on the heels of the burgeoning revolution spawned by the Democrats race to spend money faster than they can print it (discussed below). All of this in ONE DAY?!

Change we can believe in? I feel like I'm living in a horror movie.

You say you want a revolution.....

Thirty days. Four weeks and two days. A day short of one month from inauguration day, and already there is talk of revolution...and not just among right wing, obscure bloggers. Glenn Beck is firmly convinced that we are headed for a deep depression followed by revolution, and today, from the trading floor in Chicago, rousing cheers for the idea of a new "tea party" -- throwing derivative securities into Lake Michigan. The video is from a most unlikely source, CNBC, so I can't post it, but you can view it here.

I have to be honest. I find the idea of a second American Revolution somewhat appealing. When I think about all of the bad laws, entitlement programs, incomprehensible tax code and crooked politicians that we need to get rid of to return this country to some semblance of what it was intended to be, it just seems easier to bring the whole thing crashing down and start over. In my heart of hearts, I do not believe it's possible to reverse the course we are on any other way. Even with Reagan at the helm there was negligible progress. The Republican welfare reform of the Clinton years was just eradicated with a single stroke of Obama's pen. With each successive administration the problems grow larger, never smaller. The debt has ballooned to unfathomable levels, and we face the very real possibility of doubling it over the next four years. Where is the breaking point? When do we stand up and say, "NO MORE!"

I think it's close. Closer than it has ever been in history. My daughter and I recently took a beginner's handgun class. The class was taught by a wonderful woman with a list of sharpshooter credentials that was amazing. She told us that she used to teach the class a couple of times a month, maybe once a week, but, since the last election, she is teaching it almost every night of the week, and is booked for more than two months in advance. I read stories regularly about how much gun sales are up, and the media is trying to convince us that it's all people who already owned guns and are buying more, fearing new constraints on our Second Amendment rights. If that's the case, why are there so many people enrolled in a beginner's handgun class? How terrible is it that, in the United States of America, the greatest nation on earth, millions of citizens fear the loss of their rights - or worse - enough to buy and learn to use handguns? The cover story is the fear that guns will be regulated or taxed, and thus much harder to obtain, so we have to get them now. Deep down, I believe most of these people have thought, at least in passing, about the possibility of needing to defend their families in the event of anarchy.

On blogs and forums, commenters advise each other to stock up on survival supplies and ammunition, to be prepared for whatever may come. The fear is palpable. These are not people who would ever, under ordinary circumstances, contemplate violence. They are music producers and investors and housewives and computer programmers who have been paying attention and do not like the change they sense on the horizon. Case in point - just now, while writing this, I received an email from my old hairdresser. The message?

When the citizens of the freest nation in existence feel like that about their government, something has gone badly wrong. And it's becoming increasingly difficult to imagine righting it through peaceful means.

Change the mullahs can believe in?

American Thinker has a post up quoting Gateway Pundit, quoting Geostrategy Direct, which indicates that Obama has abandoned U.S. policy of sanctioning companies that aid Iran's nuclear and missile program. Geostrategy Direct is an open source intel newsletter available to subscribers only, so no link to the original item is available, though it is quoted extensively in the Gateway Pundit article, linked above.

The article contains a wealth of information, including a claim that we will be returning an ambassador to Syria, the first since 2005 after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and alleges that Obama has been engaging these rogue states covertly since well before the election in November.

It's pretty disturbing stuff...rather than quoting it here, read the whole thing from the source.

I dislike squishy sources and alarmist thinking, but this has a very strong ring of truth to it, given the recent decision by the new administration to waive sanctions against Syria.

Obama's Fabulous Fortnight

Never in recorded history have so few done so much to piss off so many so quickly. In a mere 14 days, the new administration has quite an impressive list of accomplishments:

• House Republicans are more united than they have been in recent memory against what is perhaps the worst idea of a "stimulus" package ever dreamed up
• Senate RINOs like Susan Collins and John McCain are showing signs of remembering the meaning of the word "conservative"
• Talk show fans everywhere are prepared for battle after the recent attacks on Limbaugh and fears of stifling restrictions on free speech
• More Americans are buying guns than ever in our history, afraid that their right to do so will soon be stripped away
• Taxpayers are sending letters to the IRS, telling them that they will pay their taxes when they are selected for a position in the cabinet
• The EU has threatened trade wars over Obama's "Buy American" proposal
• Iran has launched its first satellite amid demands for an American apology
• India has warned The One to keep his nose out of their business regarding their dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir
• Afghan officials are critical of U.S. plans to arm militias in the country to fight the Taliban
• Kyrgyzstan has submitted a bill to parliament that would close an American military base that is key to our efforts in Afghanistan
• North Korea is preparing a test of a long range missile
• Russia has embraced Obama's proposal to cut nuclear arsenals by up to 80%, noting that it will, of course, be contingent upon dropping the missile defense shield in Europe
• General Petraeus is reportedly extremely angry over Obama's refusal to heed the advice of his military leaders, and his continued demands for a detailed withdrawal plan for Iraq that can be accomplished in 16 months

And the list goes on....and on....and on. And I'm not even talking about the "distractions" of tax-dodging nominees, White House thermostat settings, wagyu beef bribery attempts, exceptions to lobbyist bans or being "tired of being in the White House."

During the campaign, I thought that all the talk of hope and change was "just words" - looks like I was sadly mistaken! This is change on a scale I would not have dreamed possible. Let it never be said that I fail to admit it when I am wrong...