Frankly, anything that has to do with the defense of our nation and is proposed by this administration is suspect in my eyes because of my take on Obama's seeming willingness to see this nation weakened and/or radically altered. (See 1 below.)
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This posting from a friend and fellow memo reader in response to my previous memo regarding why the Left hates Palin with a passion. The Left always hates what they fear and resort to 'Borking.' They had their long knives out for now Justice Thomas as we all know.
"Why is Sarah Palin so hated? Prof. J. Budziszewski of the University of Texas wrote an article for First Things entitled “The Revenge of Conscience” which suggests an answer. Sarah Palin in the way she lives and thinks is the embodiment of core principles, that is, she reflects the Noahide Commandments or the Natural Law. She did not kill her Down’s Syndrome baby; she did not force her unmarried daughter to have an abortion; she goes to church and believes; she values a family as a blessing not a burden; she believes that humanity is not a matter of degree and the humans are of a higher order than other living creatures. In short, she stands for everything the dominant cultural left despises. She reminds them of their ultimately guilty consciences which must be suppressed by ignoring the consequences of their ideas and policies. She reminds us that we as a culture are, as Prof. Budzisewski points out, subject to the “tyranny of our own vices” and rather content to “compensate immorality” in the name of compassion or freedom or for the purpose of defining ourselves."
This was sent by a liberal friend to a conservative friend. Humorous but also illustrates the above.
"Hi. This is Sarah Palin. Is Senator Lieberman in?"
"No, governor. This is Yom Kippur."
"Well, hello, Yom. Can I leave a message?"
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I will drink to this. (See 2 below.)
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Interview with Mara Karlan regarding her thoughts on Hezballah and Lebanon. (See 3 below.)
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Just a few reasons why I distrust our president and why his words mean nothing.
Obama remains committed to helping the middle class but is suing Arizona for his administration's failure to protect their citizens from invasion.
Obama has imposed sanctions on Iran yet did nothing to help those in Iran protesting against their government.
Obama ran on having an open administration and having law making shown on C Span yet, what goes on is cloudier than ever.
Obama ran on fiscal responsibility. We are bleeding more than ever.
Obama said he would unite the nation and within days started attacking Wall Street, doctors, insurance companies, the rich (whatever that means)and GW and Republicans and when it suits his 'darker' political interests he plays the race card.
Obama said he would bring honesty to government yet many of his appointments turned out to be dishonest when it came to simply paying their taxes.
Obama promised to build stronger relationships with foreign governments and restore their respect for America. We have become the laughing stock of the world and are more distrusted than ever in the Middle East among Arab nations. He has traveled abroad and demeaned and apologized for our nation.
Obama pledged to improve our health care and has wrecked any hope of improvement through 'Obamascare."
He attacked GW constantly for much of what he did for political gain yet, Obama has embraced much of what GW accomplished. The latest Obama flip flop is acknowledging extending tax relief is imperative.
Everything I have listed above is factual. You can interpret or spin it as you wish. I cite the above to buttress my own reason for distrusting Obama both as a president and as a man who tells the truth.
He has proven to be what I said all along: an incompetent, weak and petulant leader -an empty shill 'music man.'
Krauthammer may prove to be right that Obama's embrace of the recent tax extension may get him re-elected so he will be in a vaulted position of putting the final nail in our nation's coffin. We have two more years to endure Obama's effort to de-radicalize himself as he struggles moving to the center so he can fools the electorate again. Shame on us if he does and God Help America. (See 4 below.)
And these are edited comments of what one shrewd investor thinks who concurs, more or less, with my own thoughts and what Milton Friedman wrote about the dollar in: " Money Mischief."
Finally, another brilliant market analyst suggests what Congress just did was to 'kick the can down the road.' We know politicians are superb at pain avoidance and putting solutions off for the another day and for those who succeed them.(See 4and 4a below.)
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Is Al Qadea planning a Christmas present for the West? (See 5 below.)
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You be lets. (See 6 below.)
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We are prepared to counter! What about pre-empting? (See 8 below.)
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Caroline Glick feels towards Livni and Tom Friedman as I do: neither trustworthy and very imbued with their own self-importance. (See 9 below.).
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Dick
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1)Reagan Aide Perle: START 'Seriously Flawed'
By Dan Weil and Ashley Martella
Instead of pressuring reluctant Republican senators for rapid ratification of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, the Obama administration should just drop it, says Richard Perle, a key architect of President Ronald Reagan’s strategy to end the Cold War.
“It’s a seriously flawed treaty,” Perle, now a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, says during an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV. “It’s certainly not the kind of treaty Ronald Reagan fought for and accomplished.”
The pact is very weak on verification, he says. “For example, our right to inspections is limited to sites the Russians declare . . . which makes a mockery of the whole idea of on-site inspections,” Perle explains. “Imagine when Iran asserts a similar right to limit inspections, or the North Koreans or others. For that reason alone, it’s a very doubtful agreement.”
Plenty of time is needed to examine the treaty. “That won’t be done if they vote immediately,” he notes. “The Senate has never seen the full negotiating record on the treaty.”
That’s because the Obama administration doesn’t want a serious examination of the dispute between the United States and Russia over ballistic missile defense, Perle says.
“Russia claims that, if we build future ballistic missile defenses that impinge on what they believe to be their national security, then all bets are off, and the treaty no longer applies,” he says. “That would inhibit our ballistic missile defense program, even though it’s not aimed at Russia — it’s aimed at Iran, North Korea, and others.”
The Obama administration essentially has handed Russia a veto over our missile defense program, Perle says. “At any point they can say we don’t like what you’re doing, you’re putting us in a position where we’ll walk away from this treaty. I think this president would back down under those circumstances.”
A close examination of all this is vital, but the White House refuses to turn over the negotiating records, says Perle, who was President Ronald Reagan’s assistant defense secretary.
“This treaty doesn’t need to be signed now, and I don’t believe it needs to be signed at all. There is no reason after the Cold War why we can’t build what we think is necessary and let the Russians build what they want. We don’t need a treaty to regulate relations between us.”
As for the war in Afghanistan, “it’s very hard to judge progress in a war of this kind,” Perle tells Newsmax.TV. “Attacks are up. The key to fighting an insurgency like this is persuading the population we are the winning side.”
But President Barack Obama’s imposition of a deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan makes the effort much more difficult, Perle says. “In effect, he’s saying to any Afghan who’s trying to decide whether to cooperate with an insurgent, the U.S. is going to be out of here. The clear implication is that a smart Afghan will work with the people who will be there after we’re gone.”
Regarding the contentious issue of nuclear Iran, Perle says Israel will have to attack Iran to prevent it from developing such weapons.
“Time is running out on [halting] Iran’s nuclear program, though I believe they’ve been dealt a severe setback by the clever insertion of a worm [computer virus] in their control systems,” Perle says.
And in the Asian theater, North Korea will continue to cause problems for the United States because the Obama administration isn’t willing to put enough pressure on China to moderate the rogue nation’s behavior, Perle said.
The United States has tolerated North Korea’s outrageous behavior for too long, Perle says.
“Our task is to make our views so emphatic that China will respond,” he said. “I believe we could do that, but we haven’t. The Obama administration has been unwilling to deliver the necessary ultimatum to China.”
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2)Tax System explained in Beer
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement,
until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.”
Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes
So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.
But what about the other six men - the paying customers?
How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that
from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid
to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill
by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $ 5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free.
But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
“I only got a dollar out of the $ 20,” declared the sixth man.
He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10!”
“Yeah, that's right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a Dollar, too.
It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!”
“That's true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back
when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”
“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison.
“We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down
and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered
something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half
of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works.
The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction.
Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy and they just may not show up anymore.
In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia
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3)Interview: Mara Karlin
Near East Report recently sat down with Lebanon expert Mara Karlin to ask her about the complicated political scene in Beirut. In part one of this two-part interview, Karlin discusses the future of pro-Western factions, the strength of Hizballah and the thinking behind U.S. policy.
Near East Report: Can you explain politics in Lebanon today?
Mara Karlin: This is not an easy question particularly because the answer changes pretty much every few months it seems. If we had had this conversation a few years ago, the political dynamics would be very different. In effect, there were two camps, those who were leaning towards the West, towards freedom and sovereignty in Lebanon, known as the March 14th Coalition, and those who were more allied with Hizballah, with Iran, with Syria, who had supported the Syrian occupation and everything that it included.
These dynamics have since changed a bit over the years for various reasons, not least the many assassinations that have occurred in Beirut over the last five years, increasing Syrian pressure throughout Lebanon and an increasing pressure on the Lebanese government in various ways.
I would argue that May 2008 was actually the critical moment that showed the path of Lebanon and got us to where we are today because May 2008 was the first time that Hizballah used its weapons against Lebanese citizens. It had used them superficially during the civil war, but this was to a much greater degree, and it forced a lot of Lebanese who had allied against the Iran and Syrian-supported coalition to step back and question what were they really willing to do.
NER: What happened to pro-Western forces in Lebanon during the country’s 2009 election?
MK: The challenge with looking at elections—and I would argue this was one of the difficulties in U.S. policy—is that in Lebanon elections are important, but cabinet formation is really the critical moment because that’s when those who are in power are decided. And I think that that goes against kind of what we’re used to in the U.S. government and in the United States.
We’re used to the election really being the critical moment. So because of this, you saw a lot of U.S. and Western effort running up to the election. When the election turned out to be more in favor of the March 14th Coalition, then there was really a stall in assistance and support because everyone thought, in effect, the game was over, the game had been won—but that really wasn’t the case.
It was cabinet formation that was critical, and I would argue that parties like Hizballah or Christian leader Michel Aoun, they understood that and that’s where they really played their tough cards.
NER: Where are the pro-Western forces today?
MK: The pro-Western forces are still around. This is Lebanon. This is a diverse country. The challenge is they’re forced to deal with the tactical situation. And tactically right now, they’re pretty nervous and they have reason to be. You’ve seen a lot of assassinations in Lebanon. You see a growing Syrian presence, growing Iranian presence, and more importantly, you don’t see a substantial Western presence any more. I mean, the number of senior Westerners visiting Lebanon has gone down dramatically. U.S. assistance to the Lebanese military is currently on hold due to members of Congress. [Ed. note: Rep. Howard Berman recently lifted his hold on aid.] The idea that the United States and other members of the Western alliance who support democracy, freedom and the Lebanese government—the idea that they’re going to be there assisting on a regular basis is called into question. And so one really has to sympathize, I think, with those who are seen as perhaps more Western-looking.
NER: What is the biggest domestic issue facing Lebanon today?
MK: Right now, the big discussion in Lebanon is about the special tribunal for Lebanon. The special tribunal is looking at the assassination of Hariri’s father and countless others who have been assassinated in the five years since February 14, 2005. And… this debate on the tribunal… I think to us in the United States should seem clear cut. Of course you would want justice, right? Well, remember this is a country that’s never had any justice for any assassinations that have occurred against political and military leaders in decades and decades. And furthermore, Hizballah and Syria have decided to play a very tough game on the tribunal, and really they’re encouraging, in more ways than one, as you can imagine, they’re encouraging Prime Minister Hariri to step away from the tribunal, and all signs are point to the possibility that he probably will.
NER: How strong is Hizballah today?
MK: Hizballah’s military capabilities have grown rather significantly over the last few years. You see estimates of their number of rockets and missiles they have more than doubling. The most recent figure I’ve heard is 80,000. Even if half of that is accurate, those are some pretty significant numbers. The sophisticated nature qualitatively, quantitatively of the material they’ve gotten is really quite different than what they used to have. You’re probably aware that a few months ago there was talk that they had received Scud missiles from the Syrians. That’s entirely plausible. We have not seen any evidence that Hizballah has turned down aid from Iran or from Syria in the past. And as these countries have grown more willing to give additional assistance, so Hizballah’s capabilities have increased in line.
One sort of astonishing thing to consider is that the Syrian political leadership has been willing to sacrifice the Syrian military’s stocks to help Hizballah, and this is not something you saw under the previous Syrian leadership. For instance, in the 2006 Israel-Hizballah war, we saw that Hizballah had these Kornet anti-tank guided missiles which were responsible for the destruction of quite a few Israeli tanks. These had come from the stockpiles of the Syrian military. That’s really different. Once you start, you know, in Assad’s eyes, in effect, once you start to see Hizballah as part of your offensive and defensive posture, that’s a different dynamic.
NER: Can one differentiate between the Lebanese Armed Forces and Hizballah today?
MK: You absolutely can. They’re two distinct forces. I would not make the argument that there’s not some spill over, that for instance there’s not a large, not a noticeable presence of Hizballah within the Lebanese military. This occurs. This is also the nature of a tiny country with a lot of diversity. That’s going to happen. But I still think it’s in the U.S. interest to help the Lebanese military.
First of all the Lebanese military is the most respected national institution in Lebanon. And so, you know, you’re feeding into this institution, and ideally, to the extent you can help professionalize it, make it more Western oriented, and use it to help extend the Lebanese government’s sovereignty, you’ll help strengthen the Lebanese government and its presence throughout Lebanese territory will increase. This only helps to diminish the operating space of actors like Hizballah, al-Qaeda, you name it.
So I think it’s in our interest to help this military, even though there’s going to be going some diceyness here. You know, one great parallel is if you look at Afghanistan and the U.S. efforts to build the Afghan national army or the same thing in Iraq. You’re not going to get a 100 percent military that’s going to be supportive of the types of things we want, that’s not going to have some sort of infiltration by rogue actors. That’s inevitable. The question is, is it worth providing some assistance and getting yourself a seat at the table, a way to help influence their military and maybe their politics? I would argue that it’s worth it.
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4)Class Warfare
The last refuge of a Democrat.
By PETER Wehnere
Democrats are enraged at President Obama for his decision to extend George W. Bush’s tax cuts for all Americans, including top income earners. What explains their anger?
Image Credit: Jason Seiler
It cannot be because of concern for the deficit. After all, Democrats are responsible for an unprecedented two-year spending binge (the United States spent $1.3 trillion more over the last two-year period—2009-2010—than in the two-year period preceding it). In addition, increasing tax rates for the middle class, something Democrats oppose, would do far more to reduce the deficits than increasing tax rates for the top 2 percent of income earners. Nor do most Democrats believe the deal Obama struck with Republicans would hurt job growth. The White House is highlighting independent forecasts predicting the package could create as many as 2.2million jobs next year.
What, then, explains the ferocious opposition many Democrats have for the tax deal Obama struck with Republicans? Senator Mary Landrieu spoke for many of them when she said, “I’m going to argue forcefully for the nonsensicalness and the almost, you know, moral corruptness of that particular policy. This is beyond politics. This is about justice and doing what’s right.”
For a lot of Democrats, this is not simply a matter of wise vs. unwise economic policy; it is about basic justice. Those who favor allowing high-income earners to keep more of their money are not simply wrong; they are guilty of an immoral act. One cannot help but conclude that even if lower tax rates for the wealthy led to strong economic growth, more jobs, and a higher standard of living for everyone, it wouldn’t matter. Punishing “the rich” would remain a top priority.
I am reminded of something Jimmy Connors, one of the greatest tennis players of his generation, said when asked to explain his fierce competitiveness. “I hate to lose more than I love to win,” Connors said. Of some liberals it can be said: They hate the rich more than they love economic growth or tax cuts for the middle class. It is more emotionally satisfying to punish the wealthy than it is to assist the nonwealthy.
Part of this is driven by a deeply ingrained animus toward the rich. If you examine how Democrats characterize the affluent in America, it’s almost always negative. The top income earners are portrayed as greedy, selfish, and generally contemptible. Mention the wealthy and liberals don’t think of creative, entrepreneurial, and hard-working people; they think of Gordon Gekko. Even President Obama, in arguing for passage of legislation his administration negotiated, couldn’t hide his disdain for “millionaires and billionaires.” David Axelrod, Obama’s senior adviser, referred to reductions in the estate tax as “odious.”
What animates this liberal cast of mind, apart from their contempt for the well-to-do, is the belief that the rich need to pay more taxes in order to reduce inequality. Inequality, according to this outlook, is intrinsically bad—and tax cuts for the wealthy, even if they make economic sense, accelerate inequality. This is an offense, and the role of the state is to narrow inequality through redistribution of income. Equality of outcome is, for liberals, more important than equality of opportunity. The duty of the federal government is to ensure greater “fairness” in the system.
There are many reasons why this attitude is, in the most fundamental sense, wrong. Here it’s worth recounting what a professor does every semester with his students. This professor told me and Arthur Brooks, with whom I cowrote Wealth and Justice: The Morality of Democratic Capitalism, that he will redistribute points on the first exam in order to achieve an equal outcome of results. He then tells his students to imagine that he has taken points off their exam in order to achieve that result. To a person, these students are adamant that such a thing is simply unfair; they have earned their grade, they insist. To take points off their exam in order to give them to someone who scored lower is unfair. That is, of course, precisely the point. The students understand, in very personal terms, that justice is a matter of receiving one’s due.
Pope John Paul II called “personal economic enterprise” a fundamental human right and, in his encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (“On Social Concern”), wrote:
Experience shows us that the denial of this right, or its limitation in the name of an alleged “equality” of everyone in society, diminishes, or in practice absolutely destroys the spirit of initiative, that is to say the creative subjectivity of the citizen. As a consequence, there arises, not so much a true equality as a “leveling down.” In the place of creative initiative there appears passivity, dependence and submission to the bureaucratic apparatus which . . . puts everyone in a position of almost absolute dependence.
This is not to say that a tax system that levies a proportionately higher tax rate on those with higher income is itself evil or even unwise. Simple justice does not require a society to tax the rich at higher rates than -others, but compassion for the neediest might. Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, wrote, “It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”
But a progressive tax system is a world apart from the modern liberal belief that inequality is itself a sin that government should take great strides to ameliorate. It cedes a frightening amount of power to the federal government to fine-tune outcomes and take upon itself the task of leveling out differences.
Indeed, inequality is the inevitable outcome of human differences. A healthy society, while caring for the poor and the weak, also needs to celebrate and reward human excellence. Tom Brady deserves to make more than his New England Patriot backup Brian Hoyer. And to demonize the wealthy is not only unwarranted but undermines civic comity. In an effort to promote an economic theory, liberals are appealing to class resentment, which is itself deeply contrary to the American ideal as interpreted authoritatively by Lincoln, who praised ambition and enterprise and upward mobility. “I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good,” Lincoln said. “So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.”
Mary Landrieu is right in one respect: There is a moral calculus to the current economic debate. The problem for her is that she, and contemporary liberalism, are on the wrong side of it.
Peter Wehner is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a managing director of the economic website e21.
4a) I'd like to begin today's Digest with a parable of sorts. I'd like to show you what the "compromise" reached in Washington was all about and the damage it will have on our economy moving forward. The specifics of the compromise are mind-numbingly dull, so I've thought of a more entertaining way to explain what's really going on...
Here's how our story begins: Pretend you're one of the millions of deadbeat home "owners" out there. I put "owners" in quotes because lots of the people in this situation don't actually have any equity in the property at all – and never did, thanks to piggyback and no-doc loans (among other absurdities). Now, I realize our subscribers aren't these kinds of people. So you'll have to use your imaginations. Just indulge me for a minute. Pretend you bought a house you knew you couldn't possibly afford (unless home prices actually did go to the moon), and you haven't been making any real payments on your house in months or years...
Normally, you'd be facing two choices. If there's simply no way you can afford the interest on the note – if you've lost your job, for example – you don't have any other choice. You have to return the keys. You'll lose whatever equity you had in the house. And you'll have to start paying rent somewhere else or rely on the kindness of family (or strangers) to take you in.
The other choice, assuming your income exceeds the interest and principal payments, is simply to reduce all your other expenses until you're able to make the payments. That's biting the bullet and taking your lumps. It's painful, but it will teach you a valuable lesson about buying things with credit.
Congress faces a similar choice. Our current total debt is now close to $14 trillion. The number is so large it's meaningless. No one can comprehend how much money $14 trillion really is. A better way to think about it is that each American taxpayer owes $125,000. That's like a whole additional mortgage for most people.
I want to be clear about this: These debts are real. These debts are money we owe today. They must be financed (we have to pay interest on them). And they DO NOT include any future promised payments.
And the money Congress officially owes fails to include other significant debts. Regardless, Congress is likely to end up repaying these debts. Debt at the state level now totals $1.1 trillion, and local government debt is another $1.6 trillion. Investors have long assumed Congress effectively guarantees these debts (Investors trusted the federal government would step in to prevent state and local governments from defaulting).
In addition to these debts, Congress has guaranteed the assets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on an unlimited basis. Losses at these two companies, by my estimate (which was once thought ludicrously large and is now a mainstream prediction), total $800 billion. And then there's a slew of TARP-related investment and guarantees, the costs of which are unknown. If you throw on an extra $3 trillion, that brings the total debt package up to much more than 100% of GDP.
Adding up all the numbers and applying a market-based rate of interest (6%) to these debts, you'll find that the real (i.e. not manipulated by the Federal Reserve) cost of servicing these $17 trillion in debts would be a little more than $1 trillion. Total annual federal revenue from income taxes and corporate taxes over the last year was $1.1 trillion.
These are all real numbers. You can verify all of them. What they tell me is... absent the Federal Reserve's intervention in the Treasury bond market... and absent the myth of "off balance sheet" obligations... our federal government would already be bankrupt. I don't believe in financial myths. Neither should you. Our government is bankrupt: It cannot possibly afford to finance its existing obligations in sound money.
At the moment, none of the official numbers appear so dire because state governments haven't gone belly up (yet), the losses from Fannie and Freddie (which are certainly real) haven't been officially added to the budget, and the Federal Reserve is still holding down interest rates. The problem is, by manipulating interest rates and printing money, inflation pressures are already heavily influencing the real economy. Sooner or later, the Fed will have to stop or risk a massive hyperinflation.
And at the moment the Fed steps away from the Treasury bond market, how high will rates go? Given the real state of the government's balance sheet, rates could soar well past 6%. This collapse of the bond market could happen overnight. It could happen at any time... any time.
Again... all of these facts and numbers are real – all of them. They are all based on what we owe today. I'm not counting projected deficits (which are huge and growing). I'm not counting any personal debt in these forecasts – which are also immense. Total debt in the U.S. comes to more than $680,000 per family. No doubt, these personal debts cannot be repaid and could not even be financed without the ongoing intervention by the Federal Reserve.
Thus... our nation's economy is literally hanging by a piece of paper – the global paper-dollar standard. And Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is destroying it by printing billions of dollars per day. How long can this go on? Not long, friends. Not long at all.
The Congressional Budget Office knows all of these facts. WikiLeaks obtained none of this data. Every single member of Congress knows these facts. Bernanke knows them, too – which is why he was trembling so hard on national TV a couple weeks ago.
So what did Congress decide to do about these problems this week? What was the compromise that was reached that the news media seems so happy about? The politicians decided to lower taxes. It's a move the Congressional Budget Office estimates will add nearly $1 trillion more to the deficit over the next two years. That's another $1 trillion that we will have to finance. No spending programs were cut. None.
Congress is like an upside-down, deadbeat homeowner who has refused to move out of his house and can't possibly afford the mortgage. He thinks everything will be fine because he's living rent-free and thus can afford to go out to dinner, take vacations, and buy a new car. In fact, things are going so well, he's kinda forgotten about the entire risk of foreclosure. Nobody will ever get around to kicking him out he's come to believe. What could go wrong?
The leadership of the United States is driving our country directly off a cliff. They are pretending a day of reckoning will never occur... that Bernanke can successfully paper over these debts along with however many trillions of additional dollars are necessary. This is the absolute height of ignorance. The destruction of our currency and our country's standing in the world's economy is certain.
We are already at the point where our government's debt cannot be financed at any legitimate rate of interest... and yet our leaders show zero interest in doing anything to prevent this unmitigated financial disaster.
4b) Milton Friedman Predicts the Destruction of the Dollar
The late, great Milton Friedman in his classic book prophetically revealed how Obama's reckless monetary policies will cause hyperinflation and destroy our nation
Everything Barack Obama, the Federal Reserve, and Congress are doing was predicted in startling detail almost two decades ago by a famous Nobel Prize-winning economist.
His name was Milton Friedman.
Though he passed away in 2006, in his prophetic book, Friedman showed how, facing massive deficits, the U.S. government would dramatically increase the money supply; why foreign countries would stop buying our debt; how the Fed would start buying our Treasury bills; and why this would call cause massive inflation.
He even predicted that our officials would claim inflation was no problem at all.
Amazingly all of this is coming to pass!
Make no mistake about it — the Obama administration is embracing massive inflationary deficit spending.
Barrack Obama has committed the government to at least $7 trillion in new spending . . . and warned the American people to expect trillion-dollar deficits for the foreseeable future.
And Ben Bernanke has released unheard of measures of "quantitative easing" — intentionally devaluing the dollar as a risky gamble to restart the economy. In the meantime it has only eroded the value of your savings and decreased the returns you can get on safe investments like CDs, Money Market accounts, and bonds.
While the media has been falling over itself to praise Obama's "bold initiatives," the question no one has been asking is, "Where is all of this money coming from?"
Decades ago, Milton Friedman answered these questions clearly and precisely in his insightful — and very topical — book, Money Mischief: Episodes in Monetary History.
In Money Mischief, Friedman even warned that the coming inflation could "destroy" our country.
Here's what he wrote: "Inflation is a disease, a dangerous and sometimes fatal disease that, if not checked in time, can destroy a society." (Money Mischief, Page 191)
You see the end result of that process in countries like Zimbabwe today, where prices double every day, and it now takes a $10 billion Zimbabwe note to buy a single loaf of bread - assuming you can find one.
Could America suffer the same fate? Friedman wrote ominously, "The fate of a country is inseparable from the fate of its currency."
Even Warren Buffett recently admitted on CNBC that the only way for the U.S. to solve its woes was to inflate the currency.
There is little doubt that Obama's massive deficit spending will doom the dollar and our economy.
Its insights are so relevant and shocking — it reads like it was just published for our times!
Friedman also tells how the U.S. and the West could still avoid hyperinflation, even with unbacked paper currency.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5)Officials: Al-Qaida Planning Christmas Attacks
Iraqi authorities have obtained confessions from captured insurgents who claim al Qaeda is planning suicide attacks in the United States and Europe during the Christmas season, two senior officials said Wednesday.
Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told The Associated Press that the botched bombing in central Stockholm last weekend was among the alleged plots the insurgents revealed. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, in a telephone interview from New York, called the claims "a critical threat."
Both al-Bolani and Zebari said Iraq has informed Interpol of the alleged plots, and alerted authorities in the U.S. and European countries of the possible danger. Neither official specified which country or countries in Europe are alleged targets.
There was no way to verify the insurgents' claims. But Western counterterrorism officials generally are on high alert during the holiday season, especially since last year's failed attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called underwear bomber, who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day.
Al-Bolani said several insurgents claimed to be part of a cell that took its orders directly from al Qaeda's central leadership. He said at least one of the captured suspects was a foreign fighter from Tunisia.
The confessions were the result of recent operations by Iraqi security forces that have netted at least 73 suspected operatives in the last two weeks, al-Bolani said.
Links between al Qaeda's central leadership, which is believed to be hiding in Pakistan, and the terror organization's front group in Iraq are tenuous as the local branch in recent years has been run by local insurgents.
But al-Bolani said the claims; if true; show al Qaeda remains a presence in Iraq.
"Several members of this terrorist group have direct links with the central leaders of the al Qaeda organization," al-Bolani said. "Those captured represent the main structure of the al Qaeda organization in Iraq."
Zebari, who is in New York for a meeting of the U.S. Security Council, said he informed "the countries concerned." He mentioned the U.S, but would not specify which countries in Europe.
Al-Bolani said the suspects claimed that last Saturday's suicide bombing in Stockholm - carried out by an Iraqi-born Swede on Saturday - was among the plots. He said the suspects made the claim after the bombing happened.
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6)Bill Clinton in Lifeboat No. 1
By Robert Morrison
"Unlike Bill Clinton, who is a survivor, Obama is an adapter, says Democratic pollster Peter Hart. 'If Clinton were on the Titanic, he'd be in Lifeboat No. 1,' says Hart, recalling how Clinton, who grew up with an alcoholic stepfather, did whatever it took to survive politically[.]" This report appeared in Newsweek recently.
Do liberals ever think before they talk? Does Peter Hart think that he's somehow praising Bill Clinton by saying the former president would have been in the lead lifeboat on the Titanic?
There was a time in this country when every young man knew by heart the saying "women and children first." What did that mean? It should have meant, Mr. Hart, that you don't compliment a man by implying he'd have elbowed his way past hundreds of young mothers and their babies -- probably riding in steerage -- to get into the lifeboats.
Many rich young men on that ill-fated ship played with the ice chunks that broke off from the White Star liner's fatal collision with the iceberg on that night to remember. The mood of merriment on the First Class Promenade would, within hours, turn to deadly earnest as the unsinkable luxury liner disappeared beneath those frigid waters.
You would think that at least Peter Hart would have seen the 1997 movie Titanic, with young Leonardo di Caprio's character, Jack Dawson, tragically slipping away to an icy death. Why was that? It's because men were not allowed to enter the boats. Even married men with children were forbidden.
Well, most men were not allowed. The White Star Line's managing director, Bruce Ismay, did manage to step gracefully into a lifeboat. And he never lived down the dishonor that came with that reprehensible action.
Is that the man to whom Peter Hart is comparing Bill Clinton? Part of the problem for Peter Hart, I'm sure, is that scandalous conduct isn't really an impediment to a career in liberal politics.
Senator-elect Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut will take the oath and sit in Congress next January, even after it was revealed that he had lied and lied for years about serving with the Marines in Vietnam. "Earned, Never Given," is a famous recruiting slogan of the U.S. Marines. Now, perhaps, that will have to be amended to "but occasionally purloined."
What a contrast with Jim Fisk, from neighboring New York State. In the 19th century, the slippery Fisk escaped indictment in a financial scandal. "Nothing lost," he winked to reporters, "save honor." At least Fisk recognized that honor could be lost. We actually had a better class of scoundrel back then. Sen. Blumenthal will wear the title "Honorable" without a blush of embarrassment.
They knew what honor meant, too, on that moonless night in the North Atlantic in 1912. Most of those men on the Titanic -- rich and poor alike -- faced their death with the same stoic courage that Major Archie Butt -- a top aide to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft -- faced his. The talented and loyal Archie Butt had been personally torn by the intense political rivalry between the two presidents he had served so well. The major was returning from a European vacation when he met his death.
Another man of stainless honor was Arthur Rostron. Hollywood has never made a move about this skipper of the SS Carpathia. Captain Rostron raced through ice-choked waters at a top speed of seventeen and a half knots to rescue those few survivors who had managed to get into the lifeboats or who were clinging to wreckage. Captain Rostron gave orders to divert all steam to powering his ship's propeller, allowing his own passengers to shiver for lack of heat. He ordered up warm blankets, coffee, and tea for the expected crowd of distressed people he would take on board.
After calling out his orders calmly, in rapid-fire succession, Captain Rostron went out onto the bridge wing of his speeding vessel -- and prayed. The Carpathia was in as much peril as the great ship Titanic. Without Captain Rostron's fearless dash that night, all of the stricken liner's remaining 712 passengers surely would have died.
To express this nation's gratitude to the men of the Titanic, Mrs. William Howard Taft sponsored a women's memorial. Its inscription reads, "To the brave men who perished in the wreck of the Titanic, April 15, 1912. They gave their lives that women and children may live."
The women's memorial once stood in a prominent place in Rock Creek Park in Washington. But Lyndon Johnson had it moved to an obscure location on the Potomac River front in 1965. President Bill Clinton served in the Oval Office nearby for eight years. Perhaps he missed it.
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8)U.S. military chief: We are 'very ready' to counter Iran
During visit to Bahrain, Admiral Mike Mullen says that Iran is still trying to build a nuclear bomb.
By The Associated Press
Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb, posing a threat to its neighbors, and the United States is "very ready" to counter Iran should it make a move, the top U.S. military officer said Saturday.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reassured Persian Gulf nations nervous that an increasingly militarized government in Iran might try to start a war.
"The United States takes very seriously our security commitments in the Gulf region," Mullen said following a meeting with Bahrain's king. Bahrain, directly across the Gulf from Iran, is home to a large U.S. Navy base that would be on the front lines of any war with Iran.
"We're very ready," Mullen said, an unusually direct acknowledgment that the United States has contingency plans to counter Iran should it make a move. "There are real threats to peace and stability here, and we've made no secrets of our concerns about Iran."
Iran denies it is seeking a nuclear weapon, and denies U.S. claims that it sponsors terrorists. Iran has wary relations with many of its neighbors, who are trading partners with the oil giant but distrust the theocratic government.
"Concerns about Iran's nuclear program are very real and inform a lot of the decision making" among Gulf nations, said Adam Ereli, the U.S. ambassador in Bahrain.
The U.S. fears that if Iran masters the technical challenge of building a bomb it could set off a nuclear arms race around the Gulf.
"From my perspective I see Iran continuing on this path to develop nuclear weapons, and I believe that that development and achieving that goal would be very destabilizing to the region," Mullen said.
He gave no specifics about U.S. plans or defenses, but the Navy base is headquarters for ships and aircraft that monitor Iran and could be used to deter or defend against what military officials fear would be an attack that would come without warning. The base also houses Patriot missiles.
The U.S. keeps tabs on Iran through extensive air surveillance in the Gulf and from naval patrols that regularly engage in formal communication with Iranian ships.
"I would like someday to think that they would be responsible regional and international players as opposed to what they are right now," Mullen added. "I just haven't seen any steps taken in that regard."
Mullen said he supports the current strategy of applying economic and political sanctions on Iran to try to dissuade it from building a bomb, while engaging Iran in international negotiations over the scope of its nuclear program. Iran claims it is seeking nuclear energy.
Mullen repeated his view that a pre-emptive military strike on Iran's known nuclear facilities is a bad option that would set off "unintended consequences," but one the United States reserves the right to use. The Obama administration has said it will not allow Iran to become a nuclear weapons state but has never said exactly what steps it would take to prevent that.
"I've said all options have been on the table and remain on the table," Mullen said.
Iran is currently under four sets of UN Security Council sanctions and subject to additional penalties imposed separately by the United States, European countries and others. The most recent round of Security Council sanctions were adopted in June.
The Obama administration and its European allies are prepared to impose additional sanctions if Iran fails to meet international demands to prove that its nuclear program is peaceful, a senior U.S. official said Friday.
Gary Samore, the White House coordinator for arms control, told a Washington think tank that the U.S. and its partners will keep up pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear ambitions.
Leaders of six U.S.-allied Gulf Arab nations said this month they are watching Iran's nuclear ambitions with "utmost concern," and appealed to the West for a greater voice in the renewed talks with Tehran.
The statement from the Gulf Cooperation Council — powerful Saudi Arabia and its fast-growing neighbors — appeared to cast off a bit of the group's traditional caution and adopt a harder tone. The group warned Iran not to interfere in Gulf Arab affairs and called on it to reject "force or the threat to use it."
Iran holds frequent military drills along the Persian Gulf — primarily to assert an ability to defend against any U.S. or Israeli attack on its nuclear sites, but also to send a message to Arab neighbors on its southern border.
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9)Bringing down Bibi
By Caroline B. Glick
The media and the Obama administration are again colluding with the Israeli Left's political leadership to overthrow the Netanyahu government. How they intend to succeed at their goal
Over the past week, two writers published columns in foreign newspapers. One received wall to wall coverage in Israel. The other was completely ignored. The contrasting fortunes of the articles are a key to understanding the central challenges to Israel's democratic order.
Last Friday, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian Authority's chief peace negotiator with Israel published an op-ed in Britain's Guardian newspaper in which he declared eternal war on the Jewish state. This he did by asserting that any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that does not permit the immigration of some 7 million foreign Arabs to Israel will be "completely untenable."
So as far as the supposedly moderate chief Palestinian negotiator is concerned, a peace deal in which Israel cedes Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem to the Palestinians as the Israeli Left desires will not be sufficient for the Palestinians. Unless Israel also agrees to commit national suicide by accepting 7 million foreign Arabs as citizens, the Palestinians will continue to wage their war. So with or without a Palestinian state, as long as Israel exists, the Palestinians will continue to seek its destruction.
The second article was Tom Friedman's latest column in the New York Times.
Throughout his interminable career, Friedman has identified with Israel's radical Left and so been the bane of all non-leftist governments. In his latest screed, he compared Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to someone in the throes of an LSD trip. Friedman harangued Netanyahu for failing to convince his cabinet to agree to the Obama administration's demand to abrogate Jewish property rights in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem for another 90 days. He argued that by doing so, Israel -- with some help from the Palestinians -- is destroying all chance of peace.
So on the one hand, the chief Palestinian negotiator declared eternal war. And on the other hand, Friedman condemned Netanyahu -- for the gazillionth time.
And characteristically, the Israeli media ignored Erekat's article and gave Friedman's screed around-the-clock coverage.
Despite its hysteria, the media has not fooled the public. The Israeli people don't need to hear about Erekat's declaration of war to know that the supposedly moderate Fatah party is just as committed to Israel's destruction as Hamas. Israelis know that the majority of terrorist attacks carried out by the Palestinians since 2000 have been conducted by Fatah. They know that the US- and EU-financed and trained Palestinian security services commanded the Palestinian jihad that began in 2000. They know that Fatah is behind much of the political warfare being carried out today against Israel throughout the world. The disparity between the pubic and the media comes across very clearly in a poll released last week by the Brookings Institute. A mere eight percent of Israelis believe that Israel and the Palestinians will achieve a lasting peace in the next five years. 91 percent of Israeli Jews and 88 percent of Israeli Arabs think either that more time is needed or that there will never be peace.
Despite the sentiments of the public, there is a class of Israeli leaders that acts as though peace is just around the corner and that the public expects them to deliver it. Not unlike Friedman, for the most part these politicians argue that the Israeli government bears either sole responsibility or the lion's share of responsibility for the absence of peace. Consequently, they argue that all that is required to achieve peace is an Israeli leader willing to do what it takes to make it happen.
Over the weekend, opposition leader Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister and Labor Party leader Ehud Barak were in Washington for the annual Middle East peace process conclave at the Brookings Institute's Saban Forum. In their addresses to the forum and in media interviews, both politicians followed the Israeli media's lead by ignoring Erekat and parroting Friedman.
Barak brazenly rejected the policies of the government he serves by calling for the division of Jerusalem in the framework of a final peace accord with Israel.
As for Livni, she eschewed every semblance of propriety during her stay in the US capital. During a joint appearance on ABC's "This Week," with the unelected Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, Livni viciously attacked the Netanyahu government. Livni criticized Netanyahu for not accepting the Obama administration's call to abrogate Jewish property rights. She attacked him for not forming a leftist government with Kadima and Labor. She made it clear that she doesn't believe that Netanyahu is interested in peace.
Echoing Barak's assertion at the Saban Forum that being a Zionist means supporting a Palestinian state, Livni asserted that by surrendering to the Palestinians, and agreeing to every US demand, Israel is advancing its own existential interests.
On the so-called Palestinian refugee issue, while stipulating that Israel could not accept immigration of foreign Arabs to its truncated borders, she said nothing about Erekat's Guardian article. And she voiced no objection when Fayyad intimated that a Palestinian compromise on this issue is not in the offing. From Livni's perspective, the only one acting in bad faith is Netanyahu.
Barak and Livni's behavior was not wrong simply because it is classless to attack your country's elected leadership while visiting in foreign lands. It was wrong because in behaving as they did, they showed extraordinary disrespect for the 92 percent of Israelis who do not share their professed belief that peace is just around the corner.
So what were they after in Washington? Why did they embrace the views of a mere 8 percent of the electorate while treating 92 percent of their countrymen with contempt? And why did they choose to launch their assault on the government from Washington? In truth Barak and Livni were simply following what has become the standard operating procedure for leftist politicians over the past twenty years. They were playing to two constituencies that they prize more than they prize the public.
They were playing to the US administration and the Israeli media.
Barak is an old hand at this game. During Netanyahu's first tenure as prime minister, Barak used then president Bill Clinton to bring down Netanyahu's government and get himself elected in his place. After Barak made clear that he would be far more accommodating towards Yassir Arafat than Netanyahu was, Clinton went out of his way to demonize and isolate Netanyahu. He pressured Netanyahu's coalition partners to abandon his government. And when Netanyahu's government finally fell, Clinton dispatched his senior political strategists James Carville, Stanley Greenberg and Robert Schrum to run Barak's campaign.
Since Netanyahu appointed him Defense Minister, Barak has been racking up frequent flier miles on the Tel-Aviv-Washington line. Barak travels to Washington at least once a month. Amazingly, he always happens to come home with recommendations consonant with the administration's whims.
Livni was similarly richly rewarded for her willingness to attack Netanyahu while sitting next to Fayyad on American television. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton treated Livni like the most esteemed politician in Israel. Clinton steadfastly ignored the fact that 91 percent of Israelis think Livni's views are utter nonsense. And after accusing Netanyahu of lacking the courage to embrace the cause of peace, Clinton ostentatiously hosted Livni for an hour-long private meeting.
Livni's party, Kadima, is a media creation. Whereas every other political party in Israel was formed by citizens who felt they needed to organize politically to empower their voices, Kadima was the brainchild of the media. The media colluded with Likud leaders who were disenchanted with their voters. The likes of Ha'aretz, Yediot Ahronot and Channel Two convinced these Likud politicians to join forces with breakaways from the Labor party, who also held their voters in contempt.
As Barak's rise to power in 1999 makes clear, the media's bid to demonize the Right and undermine Israel's alliance with the US in the hopes of restoring the Left to power is nothing new. But this week, a leading media siren was kind enough to expose the media's entire strategy for disenfranchising the public. Ha'aretz's veteran columnist Akiva Eldar performed this service in a pair of articles published Tuesday in the Guardian and Ha'aretz.
Eldar co-authored his Guardian article with his comrade Carlo Strenger. It was their response to Erekat's declaration of eternal war. Eldar's main message to Erekat was that he should keep his plans to himself. Certainly he shouldn't be blabbing about them in a place the Israeli public was liable to see them. It could wreck the media's entire plan to discredit the government.
Eldar and Strenger scolded, "Erekat''s article is disappointing. He is not just a private citizen, but the Palestinian Authority's chief negotiator, and he knows Israel and its internal dynamics very well. He knows that raising the right of return at this moment plays into the hands of Israel's right wing: they will be able to say: 'We always told you so: the two-state solution is just a Palestinian plot to incorporate the Jewish state into the Greater State of Palestine.'"
But then again, as Eldar showed in his article in Ha'aretz, Erekat doesn't really have anything to worry about. Eldar and his comrades will keep the Israeli public in the dark about Erekat's determination to destroy Israel.
Ignoring completely what Erekat wrote, Eldar's column in Ha'aretz started where Friedman's ended. He placed all the blame for the absence of a peace process on Netanyahu's shoulders. He accused Netanyahu of destroying Israel's alliance with the US by not embracing Obama's latest request to abrogate Jewish property rights in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. He then claimed that due to Netanyahu's behavior, the Obama administration has decided to follow in the Clinton administration's footsteps and overthrow his government.
As Eldar put it, "When Clinton recently invited Kadima leader Tzipi Livni to a private meeting, this signified an unofficial announcement that Netanyahu's account in Washington has been closed."
He continued, "Twelve years ago, when Hillary Clinton's husband realized that� [Netanyahu] had no intention of honoring his signature (on the Wye River Accord with Yasser Arafat), that was Netanyahu's last stop before being sent back to his villa in Caesarea."
So this is the game. The media and the US administration are again colluding with the Israeli Left's political leadership to overthrow the Netanyahu government. They are willfully ignoring both the will of Israel's voters and the declared commitment of their favorite "moderate" Palestinians to fight Israel until it is destroyed in order to blame the absence of peace on Netanyahu.
This game can stop. But two things must happen first.
The Obama administration and the US foreign policy establishment that supports it must pay a price for seeking to undermine the elected government of the US's most important strategic ally in the region. And Israeli voters -- who gave Kadima more mandates in the Knesset than any other party in the last elections -- must abandon Livni and her Astroturf party.
Until these things begin to happen we can expect our media to continue to collude with its American partners, and with Livni and Barak to undermine the will of the public.
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