Don't Diss Our Prez But He Can and Will Diss You!

Subject: Business owners
 Business owners, we now know why he said what he did last week.

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Don't count on Obama doing anything about Syria because he is too busy campaigning, raising money and telling voters why he needs to be rehired - ain't no jobs out there and he does not want to add to the unemployment figures!  (See 1 below.)
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Nixon had his enemy list and fired a class mate of mine.  Obama uses a different strategy.  He sicks various government agencies on private citizens who diss him. (See 2 below.)
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When it comes to Israel the New York Times cannot get it right because they are too far left.  (See 3 below.)

But when it comes to finally getting to understand who Obama is he tells us if we are willing to listen. (See 3a below.)
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This from a neighbor, dear friend and fellow memo reader.  Yes, even cities can experience a 'death spiral.'  Here is an article written last December 22 by Porter Stansberry titled "The death spiral of Detroit since 1960". It is a telling story of how socialism and corruption brought down a once vibrant city. What makes this a very appropriate article is the similarities of this administration's policies on the country and what could be the ultimate consequences if Obama stays in office with his ultra liberal policies.

B... (See 4 below.)
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A marvelous and effective ad that portrays even some Democrat Presidents who understood better than to demonize achievers: 

Let America Be America Again

By Scott Brown

Watch

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It is all about them apples the tongue in cheek kind!  (See 5 below.)
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Roubini minces no words. (See 6 below.)
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Dick
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1)Obama's Syrian Education

Now that the U.N. has 'failed utterly,' will the President act?

  It only took 17 months, and multiple Russian and Chinese vetoes, but the Obama Administration has finally concluded that the United Nations has failed on Syria. "Failed utterly" is how Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., channelled John Bolton last week, even as the White House now whispers to its media favorites that it suddenly has all kinds of plans to oust Bashar Assad by force.

The Syrian opposition can be forgiven if it asks where the U.S. was when it really needed the help. Now that the opposition is getting arms from others, and has taken the fight to Damascus and the Assad inner circle, the Obama Administration is scrambling to get in front of the parade. If Assad falls, no doubt the President will declare it a triumph of his subtle statecraft of leading without appearing to lead.

The reality is that the U.S. abdication to the U.N. has produced a Syrian mess that will be harder to clean up than if a coalition of the willing had intervened.

Without a haven safe from regime attacks in Syria, refugees are pouring into Turkey and Lebanon. The ferocity of the fighting for so many months will make Sunni revenge more likely against the Alawites who dominate the regime, and maybe against the minority Syrian Christians who have sided with the regime or stayed neutral. Jihadist elements among the opposition have had more time to organize and plot their attempt for post-Assad power.

All of this might have been mitigated if the U.S. had worked from the start with Turkey, Europe, the Saudis and the Gulf states to assist, arm and organize the opposition.

The same goes for Syria's chemical-weapons stockpile, a problem the Administration is busy leaking that it has under control. We can recall during the Bush years when CIA leakers, State Department drop-outs and some leading Democrats attacked Mr. Bolton, then a senior State Department official, for suggesting that Syria's WMD posed a regional threat. Now we're learning how right he was.

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Associated Press

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.

One problem with chemical arsenals is that they are relatively easy to disperse. Even Assad may not have the nerve to order their use against fellow Syrians, and his officers may not follow through if he does. But a bigger threat is if they fall into the hands of Hezbollah, Iran's military arm in Lebanon, or Iran's Quds Force. They could easily be used as a terror weapon against Israel.

All of this illustrates the folly of the Obama worldview that the U.S. can act to check the world's rogues only if the U.N. first vouchsafes its approval. In Libya, the President also deferred to the U.N. for weeks despite pleas from France and even the Arab League. But Mr. Obama got lucky at the last minute as the prospect of a globally televised massacre in Benghazi caused the Russians to bend enough that NATO could drive a no-fly zone through a narrow U.N. Security Council resolution.

In Syria, the massacres have mostly been off-camera, so the political pressure to act has been lower. The result has been that the U.S. has let Russia and Iran set the world's Syria policy, arming and propping up Assad while his troops shell civilian neighborhoods and his paramilitary operatives slit throats.

The U.S. even acquiesced in the Russian-backed plan to send Kofi Annan, the former U.N. Secretary-General, as an envoy to negotiate a cease-fire between Assad and the opposition. Assad publicly endorsed the cease-fire and a troop withdrawal while continuing the killing.

In what can only be called a self-parody, the Security Council agreed on Friday to Russia's desire to extend the Annan mission for another 30 days. Ambassador Rice voted for this farce even though a day earlier the Russians had vetoed the latest watered-down U.S. resolution to impose economic sanctions against Assad. By the way, Ms. Rice is a leading candidate to be Secretary of State in a second Obama term—lest anyone think this Obama worldview would change.

If the U.S. really wants to avoid a greater Syrian disaster, it should move with dispatch to shape the outcome with allies outside the U.N. The Administration is leaking that it has unleashed the CIA to help the opposition, which is useful but not sufficient.

A threat of additional military intervention, either by mobilizing a no-fly zone or raids to capture chemical stockpiles, might accelerate military defections from the regime. An internal coup of some kind could avoid a long and bloody siege of major cities and lead to talks for a real transition government. In the event, Mr. Annan shouldn't be allowed anywhere near that diplomatic effort.

Even at this violent stage, genuine U.S. leadership could contribute to a better outcome in Syria. But Mr. Obama first has to shed his self-applied U.N. fetters.

-------------------------------------------------------------2)Strassel: Obama's Enemies List—Part II

First an Obama campaign website called out Romney donor Frank Vandersloot. Next the IRS moved to audit him—and so did the Labor Department.

This column has already told the story of Frank VanderSloot, an Idaho businessman who last year contributed to a group supporting Mitt Romney. An Obama campaign website in April sent a message to those who'd donate to the president's opponent. It called out Mr. VanderSloot and seven other private donors by name and occupation and slurred them as having "less-than-reputable" records.

Mr. VanderSloot has since been learning what it means to be on a presidential enemies list. Just 12 days after the attack, the Idahoan found an investigator digging to unearth his divorce records. This bloodhound—a recent employee of Senate Democrats—worked for a for-hire opposition research firm.

Now Mr. VanderSloot has been targeted by the federal government. In a letter dated June 21, he was informed that his tax records had been "selected for examination" by the Internal Revenue Service. The audit also encompasses Mr. VanderSloot's wife, and not one, but two years of past filings (2008 and 2009).

Mr. VanderSloot, who is 63 and has been working since his teens, says neither he nor his accountants recall his being subject to a federal tax audit before. He was once required to send documents on a line item inquiry into his charitable donations, which resulted in no changes to his taxes. But nothing more—that is until now, shortly after he wrote a big check to a Romney-supporting Super PAC.

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Zhang Jun/Xinhua/ZUMAPRESS.com

Two weeks after receiving the IRS letter, Mr. VanderSloot received another—this one from the Department of Labor. He was informed it would be doing an audit of workers he employs on his Idaho-based cattle ranch under the federal visa program for temporary agriculture workers.

The H-2A program allows tens of thousands of temporary workers in the U.S.; Mr. VanderSloot employs precisely three. All are from Mexico and have worked on the VanderSloot ranch—which employs about 20 people—for five years. Two are brothers. Mr. VanderSloot has never been audited for this, though two years ago his workers' ranch homes were inspected. (The ranch was fined $8,400, mainly for too many "flies" and for "grease build-up" on the stove. God forbid a cattle ranch home has flies.)

This letter requests an array of documents to ascertain whether Mr. VanderSloot's "foreign workers are provided the full scope of protections" under the visa program: information on the hours they've worked each day and their rate of pay, an explanation of their deductions, copies of contracts. And on and on.

Perhaps all this is coincidence. Perhaps something in Mr. VanderSloot's finances or on his ranch raised a flag. Americans want to believe the federal government performs its duties without fear or favor.

Only in this case, Americans can have no such confidence. Did Mr. Obama pick up the phone and order the screws put to Mr. VanderSloot? Or—more likely—did a pro-Obama appointee or political hire or career staffer see that the boss had an issue with this donor, and decide to do the president an unasked-for election favor? Or did he or she simply think this was a duty, given that the president had declared Mr. VanderSloot and fellow donors "less than reputable"?

Mr. VanderSloot says he "expected the public beatings" from the left after the naming, but he "also wondered whether government agencies, anxious to please their boss, would take notice of the target he had apparently placed on me. Now that I'm being singled out for audits, I can't help but wonder whether there is a connection."

As for other Romney donors: "It is un-American and irresponsible for a president to target individual, law-abiding citizens for political retribution, and it is inconceivable that any U.S. agency would stoop to do the bidding for this campaign's silliness," says Louis Bacon, an investor and conservationist who also made the Obama list.

We don't know what happened, and that's the problem. Entrusted with extraordinary powers, Mr. Obama has the duty to protect and defend all Americans—regardless of political ideology. By having his campaign target a private citizen for his politics, the president forswore those obligations. He both undermined public faith in federal institutions and put his employees in an impossible situation.

Every thinking American must henceforth wonder if Mr. VanderSloot has been targeted for inquiry because of his political leanings. And every federal servant must wonder if his inquiries into an Obama enemy will bring suspicion or disgrace on the agency—even if the inquiry is legitimate.

As for Mr. VanderSloot, to what authority should he appeal if he believes this to be politically motivated—given the Justice Department on down is also controlled by the man who targeted him? (The White House did not return an email requesting comment.)

If this isn't a chilling glimpse of a society Americans reject, it is hard to know what is. It's why presidents are held to different rules, and should not keep lists. And it's why Mr. Obama has some explaining to do.

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3)THE NEW YORK TIMES NOTWITHSTANDING, THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH ISRAEL’S LIBERAL VALUES AND DEDICATION TO HUMAN RIGHTS.

ISRAEL IS THE MOST COMMITTED AND MOST VIBRANT DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST.   

THE PROBLEM IS NOT WITH ISRAEL, BUT WITH THE TIMES, WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN ABLE TO SEE THAT ZIONISM PERFECTLY COMPLEMENTS HUMANITY’S  LOFTIEST DEMOCRATIC VALUES.                                      

LEO RENNERT

                                          

Israel’s Embattled Democracy

Six decades after Israel’s founding, its citizens remain deeply at odds over the future of their democracy. The latest illustration is the disintegration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new governing coalition after only 10 weeks.

Mr. Netanyahu and his hard-line Likud Party, supported by smaller right-wing parties, has had a majority in Parliament since 2009. But when Shaul Mofaz and his centrist Kadima Party joined the government in May, the merger created a much broader coalition. It seemed to give Mr. Netanyahu — a disappointing, risk-averse leader — unprecedented authority to get things done.

Mr. Mofaz became deputy prime minister and outlined an encouraging agenda. The first priority would be integrating minority populations of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli Arabs into the military and civilian service. The coalition would also revive peace negotiations with the Palestinians, pass a national budget and enact electoral reforms. But the coalition quickly collapsed over the issue of military service, which has exacerbated tensions between secular and religious Jews and with Arabs. Secular Israelis are increasingly resentful of the tendency of the ultra-Orthodox to refuse to serve and to separate themselves from the country’s mainstream.

The issue came to a head after the Supreme Court invalidated a law that granted draft exemptions to thousands of religious students and mandated that it be rewritten by Aug. 1. To share the burden more equitably, Mr. Mofaz proposed enlisting 80 percent of the ultra-Orthodox within four years, with stiff penalties for draft dodgers. Mr. Netanyahu sided with his right-wing allies and insisted on something more incremental. There was also talk of doubling army enlistment for Arabs. Israeli Palestinians are not required to join the army, and most do not. Many feel like second-class citizens and are deeply conflicted about their place in Israeli society.

Demographic changes are making political compromise harder. Experts say an influx of Jews from the former Soviet Union and a high birthrate in the ultra-Orthodox community mean that many Israelis have a cultural mistrust of the democratic values on which the state was founded. The Palestinian population is also expanding, hastening a day when Jews could be a minority.

Mr. Netanyahu’s past dependence on hard-line parties has manifested itself in aggressive settlement building and resistance to serious peace talks with the Palestinians — who themselves have not shown enough commitment to a solution. Without Kadima’s moderating force, these trends will continue.

There are other worrisome developments. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has expressed concern over “intensifying infringements on democratic freedoms.” In the past two years, activists say, more than 25 bills have been proposed or passed by the Parliament to limit freedom of speech and of the press; penalize, defund or investigate nongovernmental groups; restrict judicial independence; and trample minority rights.

One of Israel’s greatest strengths is its origins as a democratic state committed to liberal values and human rights. Those basic truths are in danger of being lost.




3a)Obama of Roanoke: We Saw You Coming
By C. Edmund Wright


Now that Brit Hume, perhaps the best network anchor of our time, is on record that it's  fair to say that we know more (after the Roanoke speech) than we ever have about the President's view of business and the economy," the real Obama is finally starting to be recognized in the truly mass media. While Mr. Hume and many others have been reticent, Obama of Roanoke has been out there for all to see for years quite frankly.

What might be "fair to say" is that Obama let slip in a momentous way what many of us knew all along about him.

Ayn Rand saw Obama of Roanoke coming way back in the 1950's, before Barry Soetoro was even born.  Ronald Reagan saw him coming in the 60s and 70s -- and was especially prescient on how he would use the medical industry to advance his goals -- even though our current President was but a choom boy "doing some blow" back in the day.

Obama of Roanoke, understand, is not merely a specific person named Barack Hussein Obama.  He is Van Jones.  He is Elizabeth Warren. He is Valerie Jarrett.  He is Steven Chu and Cass Sunstein.  He is Jeremiah Wright and Frank Marshall Davis and Karl Marx and many others.  Obama of Roanoke is not some benign elegant speaker. Obama of Roanoke is a malignant mindset.  His fingerprints are all over the biggest disasters in world history.  For this reason, he was and is utterly predictable long before Friday last.

And many utterly predicted him, though for some reason they are not among the elite pundit wizards of smart or among elected Republicans for the most part.

All through the campaign of 2008 Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity and Joe the Plumber saw him coming.  Why do you think Rush said "I hope he fails."  The millions who flocked to see "Atlas Shrugged" also saw him.  And here, in early 2009,

I outlined why we were systematically dismembering my business of 20 years -- that I actually did build by the way -- and why I knew instinctively that millions of others would do some iteration of the same thing we were doing.

Why did we do this and how did we know it was the thing to do?  Obama of Roanoke, that's why.  It mattered not at all that he waited until July of 2012 to give the Roanoke speech.  Obama of Roanoke is exactly who he has always been and he has done exactly as many of us expected him to do.  The Roanoke speech was not a contextual problem nor was it an aberration or a teleprompter misprint. 

Roanoke was Obama, and Obama is Roanoke.  As I paraphrased before inauguration, we already had in place plans to avoid those who naively think that "we didn't do that" in our business:

Atlas has shrugged all over the country.  Like many business owners, we are no longer willing to take all of the financial and legal risks and put up with all of the aggravation of owning and running a business. Not with the prospects of even higher taxes, more regulation, more litigation and more emboldened bureaucrats on the horizon.

It is no secret that owners circulated endless emails leading up to election day discussing lay off plans were Obama to win.  Entrepreneurs instinctively understand the danger posed by larger liberal majorities... the risk-reward equation and fierce independence spirit of start up businesses are anathema to the class warfare, equality of outcome and spread the wealth mentality of the left. [...]

We got into business to be independent. We will get out for the same reason.

Now at the time, we had not met folks like Jones and Chu and Sunstein.  It didn't matter.  We knew Obama of Roanoke and we knew exactly what kinds of people would be put in charge of our lives without having to know the specific names. 

And Roanoke may now become synonymous with the moment that others figured this out too.

Yes, history has a way of soft morphing big truths into events or even speeches, and I suspect that the term 'Roanoke' will cease to connote a small town in Virginia populated by Hokie football fans and will instead live throughout this entire campaign and perhaps even have a long life in the annals of Presidential politics as a seminal moment.

It may well be the moment that Mitt Romney and his advisors and the so called conservative pundit class finally had to admit that this particular emperor has not a stitch of proper economic  or even pro American clothing.  It may be the moment where on some level, the elites in Washington and Manhattan had to come out of the closet of ideological denial and join the enlightenment that so many so-called normal average folks had from the get go.

It may well be the moment when the budding momentum by Democrats to shun the Charlotte Convention and to leave Obama there all by himself reached critical mass.  As we saw in 2008 when all Republicans ran against George W. Bush, a party that runs against its own President is a party in deep trouble.  The same was true in 1976 with Carter and Ford (Nixon).

It may also be the moment that the independents and the moderates finally 'got it.' It may be a turning point of realization that their problem is not what Mitt Romney was doing with his money, but is what Obama of Roanoke is intentionally and systematically doing to their dreams to ever earn and keep some of their own money.  It could be the time where they say to themselves "hell yeah, I hope I can one day send my money to the Caymans too!"

And because of Roanoke, I am ironically more confident than I was in January of 2009

Maybe Roanoke will be the term that defines when that "over 50%" tide started to turn.  Maybe it will be the day the beltway Republicans realized that while Obama of Roanoke is many people, but he is not the same old Democrat Party of Tip O'Neil.  It may be the day that Obama's electoral coffin - and the coffins of many other statist liberals, were nailed shut by a rare act of candor

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4)Written by a financial guy............speaks volumes........

USA: The Next Detroit
By Porter Stansberry

One of the most important things to remember about socialism – or coercion of any kind – is it fails eventually because human beings have an innate desire for liberty and a strong need for personal property rights. In fact, the origins of government lie in the need of agricultural communities to protect themselves from violence and theft. So it is particularly ironic that in more recent times, it is government itself that has more frequently played the role of bandit.

When you start taxing people at extreme rates to pay for socialist "benefits," when you start telling them which schools their children must attend, when you start giving jobs away to people based on race instead of ability… you quash human freedom, which bogs down productivity and if continued for long enough leads to social collapse.

I find it perplexing that only 20 years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the West continues to implement laws that mimic all of the failed policies of our former "communist" foes. Our current president won the election by promising to "spread the wealth around." But… truth be told… we don't have to look to Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union to find a society destroyed by coercion, socialism, and the overreaching power of the State. We could just look at Detroit…

In 1961, the last Republican mayor of Detroit lost his re-election bid to a young, intelligent Democrat, with the overwhelming support of newly organized black voters. His name was Jerome Cavanagh. The incumbent was widely considered to be corrupt (and later served 10 years in prison for tax evasion). Cavanagh, a white man, pandered to poor underclass black voters.

He marched with Martin Luther King down the streets of Detroit in 1963. (Of course, marching with King was the right thing to do… It's just Cavanagh's motives were political not moral.) He instated aggressive affirmative action policies at City Hall. And most critically, he greatly expanded the role of the government in Detroit, taking advantage of President Lyndon Johnson's "Model Cities Program" – the first great experiment in centralized urban planning.

Mayor Cavanagh was the only elected official to serve on Johnson's task force. And Detroit received widespread acclaim for its leadership in the program, which attempted to turn a nine-square-mile section of the city (with 134,000 inhabitants) into a "model city." More than $400 million was spent trying to turn inner cities into shining new monuments to government planning. In short, the feds and Democratic city mayors were soon telling people where to live, what to build, and what businesses to open or close. In return, the people received cash, training, education, and health care.

The Model Cities program was a disaster for Detroit. But it did accomplish its real goal: The creation of a state-supported, Democratic political power base. The program also resulted in much higher taxes – which were easy to pitch to poor voters who didn't have to pay them. Cavanagh pushed a new income tax through the state legislature and a "commuter tax" on city workers.

Unfortunately, as with all socialist programs, lots of folks simply don't like being told what to do. Lots of folks don't like being plundered by the government. They don't like losing their jobs because of their race.

In Detroit, they didn't like paying new, large taxes to fund a largely black and Democratic political hegemony. And so in 1966, more than 22,000 middle- and upper-class residents moved out of the city.

But what about the poor? As my friend Doug Casey likes to say, in the War on Poverty, the poor lost the most. In July 1967, police attempted to break up a late-night party in the middle of the new "Model City." The scene turned into the worst race riot of the 1960s. The violence killed more than 40 people and left more than 5,000 people homeless. One of the first stores to be looted was the black-owned pharmacy.

The largest black-owned clothing store in the city was also burned to the ground. Cavanagh did nothing to stop the riots, fearing a large police presence would make matters worse. Five days later, Johnson sent in two divisions of paratroopers to put down the insurrection. Over the next 18 months, an additional 140,000 upper- and middle-class residents – almost all of them white – left the city.

And so, you might rightfully ask… after five years of centralized planning, higher taxes, and a fleeing population, what did the government decide to do with its grand experiment, its "Model City"? You'll never guess…

Seeing it had accomplished nothing but failure, the government endeavored to do still more. The Model City program was expanded and enlarged by 1974's Community Development Block Grant Program. Here again, politicians would decide which groups (and even individuals) would receive state funds for various "renewal" schemes. Later, Big Business was brought into the fold. In exchange for various concessions, the Big Three automakers "gave" $488 million to the city for use in still more redevelopment schemes in the mid-1990s.

What happened? Even with all their power and money, centralized planners couldn't succeed with any of their plans. Nearly all of the upper and middle classes left Detroit. The poor fled, too. The Model City area lost 63% of its population and 45% of its housing units from the inception of the program through 1990.

Even today, the crisis continues. At a recent auction of nearly 9,000 seized homes and lots, less than one-fifth of the available properties sold, even with bidding starting at $500. You literally can't give away most of the "Model City" areas today. The properties put up for sale last week represented an area the size of New York's Central Park. Total vacant land in Detroit now occupies an area the size of Boston. Detroit properties in foreclosure have more than tripled since 2007.

Every single mayor of Detroit since 1961 has been a Democrat. Every single mayor of Detroit since 1974 has been black. Detroit has been a major recipient of every major social program since the early 1960s and has received hundreds of billions of dollars in government grants, loans, and programs. We now have a black, Democrat president, who is promising to do to America as a whole what his political mentors have done to Detroit.

Those of you with a Democratic political affiliation may think what I've written above is biased or false. You may think what you like. But there is no way to argue that what the government has done to Detroit is anything but a horrendous crime. You may think what I've written above is merely a political analysis. Perhaps so, but politicians drive macroeconomic policy. And macroeconomic policy determines key financial metrics, like the trade-weighted value of a currency and key interest rates.

The likelihood America will become a giant Detroit is growing – rapidly. Politicians now control the banking sector, most of the manufacturing sector (including autos), a large amount of media, and are threatening to take over health care and the production of electricity (via cap and trade rules). These are the biggest threats to wealth in the history of our country. And these threats are causing the world's most accomplished and wealthy investors to actively short sell the United States – something that is unprecedented in my experience.

Regards,

Porter Stansberry

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5)- You Didn't Build That

Readings from the Book of Barack

¹ In the beginning Govt created the heavens and the earth. ² Now the economy was formless and void, darkness was over the surface of the ATMs, and the Spirit of Govt was hovering over the land.

³ And Govt said, “Let there be spending,” and there was spending. ⁴ Govt saw that the spending was good, and that it separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ Govt called the spending Investments, and this he did in the first day.

⁶ Then Govt said, “Let there be roads and bridges across the waters, and let dams divide the waters from the waters.” ⁷ Thus Govt made the infrastructure and the patronage jobs for eternity under the firmament from the Potomac which was above the firmament; and it was so. ⁸ And Govt called the firmament Washington. This Govt did on the second day.

⁹ Then Govt said, “Let the regulations and the guidlines under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the Bureaus appear”; and it was so. ¹⁰ And Govt called the Bureaus demigovts, and the gathering together of them He called AFSCME. And Govt saw that it was good.

¹¹ Then Govt said, “Let there be police, and firefighters, and teachers according to their kind, for they will create more jobs”; and it was so. ¹² And then Govt bade the void bring forth crime, and arson, and stupidity, that each would yield seed to bring forth more police, and firefighters, and teachers, and jobs. And Govt saw that it was good. ¹³ So the evening and the morning were the third day.

¹⁴ On the fourth day Govt said, “Let Us make the economy in Our image, according to Our likeness; let it have dominion over the cars of the road, over the appliances of the supercenters, and over the pet groomers of the strip malls, over all the clickthroughs of Amazon and over every creepy thing of the Dollar Stores.” ¹⁵ So Govt created the economy in His own image; services and wholesale and retail He created them. ¹⁶ Then Govt blessed them, and Govt said to them, “Be fruitful and use the multiplier effect; fill the land with jobs; thou have dominion over thy realm, within limits, as long and thou remember to get thy permits and tithe thy taxes, for they are good. Hope to see you at the fundraiser.”

¹⁷ And on the fifth day Govt made an official Govt holiday, and headed off for a 3-day golf weekend at Camp David. But first Govt said to the economy, "you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, except the tree of Knowledge. There is a serpent in that thing, and thy health care does not cover it."

¹⁸ So when Govt was on vay-cay the economy set about the garden, plowing its fields and generating revenue for the glory of Govt. They obeyed the regulations and were not ashamed.

¹⁹ Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the balanced, publicly-funded birds the Lord Govt had made to sing news to the economy. The serpent was on the AM band. He said to the retail sector, “Did Govt really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? ”

²⁰ "Only yours, serpent," said the retail sector.

²¹ “Don't be a wuss,” the serpent said to the retail sector. ²² “For Govt knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will wise to Govt's scam.”

²³ When she saw that the fruit was pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, and also free to download, she took some and ate it. She emailed a copy to her wholesaler, and he ate it; and then the wholesaler to the manufacturer, and he to the servicer. ²⁴ Then the eyes of all of them were opened, and they realized they were being taxed naked; so they outsourced fig leaves to make coverings for themselves. 

²⁵ Then the economy heard the sound of the Lord Govt returning from vay-cay with the demigovts Osha and Tarp and Irs. It was the cool of the day, and they were hiding their profits from the Lord Govt among the trees of the garden. ²⁶ But the Lord Govt called to the manufacturer, “Where are you?”

²⁶ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid, so I sought a tax shelter.”

²⁷ And Govt said, “Who told you that your profits were yours? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? ”

²⁸ The man said, “The retailer made me —she has a thing for serpents.”

²⁹ Then the Lord Govt said to the retailer, “What is this you have done?”

³⁰ And she said to the Lord Govt, “Don't take that tone with me, fat boy. And why should I give you my profits?”

³¹ The Lord Govt was in wrath, and said, “For I am the Lord Govt, creator of Eden! ³² I gave unto you the roads and bridges, and schools and cops, brought unto you of gentle showers of Tarp and Stimulus and rivers of Subsidy, I am the purifier of the waters, cleanser of the air, without which you and your profits would not exist. Thus all that thou have created is created by Us. Thus ye shall render unto Govt what is Govt's, and this is the Word of your Lord.”

³³ At these words, Solydra and Gm and Seiu and all the Cronyans and Laborites dropped to their knees in trembling fear and supplicated themselves before the Lord, presenting Him golden gifts of contributions.

³⁴ Then the retailer said to Govt, “And who created you?”

³⁵ In righteous anger did the Lord Govt again rise up and said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Tri-Delts and the Dekes, I am and have always been! I am the great cosmic turtle on which you and the entire economy rest.”

³⁶ "And on whom do you rest, turtle?" said the retailer in blasheme.

³⁷ "Do not mock me with your knowledge trickery, harlot!" said the Lord Govt. "I am turtles all the way down."

³⁸ So the Lord Govt said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock
    and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
    and you will eat dust 
    all the days of your life.
39 And I will keep you from tenure
    and grants and the airwaves,
    and condemn you to the bowels of internet."

⁴⁰ Then the Lord Govt turned the retailer and the manufacturer and the wholesaler and all the servicers, and said,

“I will make your taxes and regulations very severe;
    with painful labor you will give birth to profit. 
You shall be afflicted with plagues of audits,
    the coming of Osha, and the trials of Irs.
By the sweat of thy brow you will earn thy living
    until you return it to Me.
You will suffer the droughts of subsidy and stimulus,
    and will thirst forever. You're welcome." 

⁴¹ And so the Lord Govt banished the economy from paradise, and bade them go outsource to the Far East of Eden. And as the chastened economy slouched out of of Babylon He said unto them,

⁴² "How do you like them apples?"

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6)-.Roubini: US Rebound a 'Fairy Tale,' Stocks to Fall

By Forrest Jones

U.S. stocks have risen in recent years but mainly due to the Federal Reserve's moves to stimulate the economy.

The Fed may move again to prop up the country and stave off recession, but results will be weak and stock prices will plummet when the monetary sugar rush ends, said New York University economist Nouriel Roubini.

Previous calls for U.S. gross domestic product growth of around 3 percent this year have been off, with forecasts being slashed.

"The first-half growth rate looks set to come in closer to 1.5 percent at best, even below 2011’s dismal 1.7 percent," Roubini wrote in a Project Syndicate column. 

"And now, after getting the first half of 2012 wrong, many are repeating the fairy tale that a combination of lower oil prices, rising auto sales, recovering house prices, and a resurgence of U.S. manufacturing will boost growth in the second half of the year and fuel above-potential growth by 2013." Roubini wrote.

Despite improving manufacturing industries and a housing sector that appears to be bottoming out, a sharp fiscal retrenchment will strike the country at the end of this year.

At the close of 2012, tax breaks, including the Bush-era tax cuts, will expire, while automatics cuts to government spending will kick in, a combination dubbed as a "fiscal cliff" that will siphon $500 billion out of the economy next year alone and possibly spark a recession if Congress doesn't act.

Further, Federal Reserve stimulus measures such as buying bonds from banks to prop up the economy and stock prices — known as quantitative easing — are temporary measures that carry diminishing returns, meaning further action won't help much.

Add to that uncertainty, headwinds from the European debt crisis, a cooling Chinese uncertainty and weak wages will ring in a fresh downturn, wrote Roubini, who accurately called the housing bust and subsequent recession long before it happened.

"The gravity of weaker growth will most likely overcome the levitational effect on equity prices from more quantitative easing, particularly given that equity valuations today are not as depressed as they were in 2009 or 2010," he wrote. "Indeed, growth in earnings and profits is now running out of steam, as the effect of weak demand on top-line revenues takes a toll on bottom-line margins and profitability," he wrote.

"A significant equity-price correction could, in fact, be the force that in 2013 tips the U.S. economy into outright contraction. And if the U.S. (still the world’s largest economy) starts to sneeze again, the rest of the world — its immunity already weakened by Europe’s malaise and emerging countries’ slowdown — will catch pneumonia."

Even if lawmakers work to steer the country away from the fiscal cliff, not an easy task in an election year, uncertainty over the event can crimp consumer spending, the motor of the U.S. economy.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said Congress must find a way to steer the country away from the cliff or the economy will suffer, adding monetary policy tools won't work.

“U.S. fiscal policies are on an unsustainable path, and the development of a credible medium-term plan for controlling deficits should be a high priority,” Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee recently, according to the National Journal. 

“At the same time, fiscal decisions should take into account the fragility of the recovery.” 

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