It’s no surprise that politicians hear only what they want to hear, but the Democrats take a new world indoor record for tone-deafness into the election. As the year opened with real unemployment at double-digit levels, all the President and the Democrat establishment could think about was passing Obamacare. They may be proud that they stayed on message, never mind that for most people a health care plan starts with a job and some savings.

With polls suggesting Republicans are set to re-take the House, it looks like the Democrats have a glass jaw to go along with that tin ear. And while scattered tea party victories gave the Republican establishment the thrashing it so richly deserved, the bad news is that none of it matters to our financial prospects. At least that’s the message from the gold market.

Who can disagree? Unless you think that Republicans will want to go into the next election cycle having taken on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements, there is not much hope that they will do anything meaningful about fiscal policy. Announced on September 23, the Republican Pledge to America promised to save “at least $100 billion in the first year alone.” $100 billion a year? They can’t be serious. By the end of September, just a week later, the federal debt had already grown by another $100 billion.Of course Republicans will tinker with the hated Obamacare just enough to deliver up some form of Boehner-care. Sorry, but the chance to earn lobbyist affection and future campaign contributions trumps any thoughts about simply facing up to federal insolvency and getting government out of health care.

Some real money could be saved rolling back the American empire. Congressman Ron Paul and others calculate total war and foreign spending at about $1 trillion a year. In this context, a return of the Republicans reminds us of Talleyrand’s comment on the Bourbon dynasty that returned to the throne of France after the abdication of Napoleon: They “had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” Republicans seemed to have learned nothing and forgotten everything. Betraying a hubris not seen since Bush set off to “rid the world of evil,” the pledge from November’s likely winners includes “bringing certainty to an uncertain world.” Republicans do take their military Keynesianism seriously. Just months ago Republican congressmen came together to support President Obama’s surge in Afghanistan with a $59 billion emergency spending bill. Now they are campaigning about a “robust defense,” one category of spending that even the new members from the tea parties aren’t inclined to resist.

On the monetary front, Federal Reserve officials, having forgotten at least the French Revolution and probably the 1970’s as well, are counting on inflation to kick start economic growth. Money printing is the Fed’s old time religion, but at least they are going to the trouble of bottling it under new names: liquidity operations, deficit accommodating, and quantitative easing.When chairman Bernanke said something euphemistic last week about “additional purchases,” gold shot up again, joined by silver and oil. And the dollar moved decisively lower. It’s now down 12 percent since June, resuming its long-term slide. Markets are said to be pretty good at discounting future events. Haven’t they heard that the fiscal conservatives will re-take Washington?

It is clear that the rest of the world is similarly unimpressed by Fed euphemisms or the dollar’s prospects, no matter who wins. Like the picnic ramada at the park where people take cover for a while when it begins to rain, investors take cover with the dollar briefly during a crisis. They did so in the 2008 mortgage meltdown and again during the Euro debt crisis. But like a ramada, nobody wants to live there. Or wait out a really bad storm.

Where does one weather a currency crisis? Take a look around. Reuters reported this week on a Swiss private banker who handles clients with at least $50 million to invest that they are buying gold, sometimes by the ton, and moving it out of the financial system. According to the Financial Times, JPMorgan, having recently built a vault in Singapore, has reopened an underground gold vault in New York, while Deutsche Bank and Barclays may be opening new vaults in London. India illustrates the trend: investment demand in India has grown to 92.5 tons in the first six months of this year, compared to 25.4 tons a year earlier; this time last year India’s central bank lightened its dollar reserves substantially, taking down 200 tons of gold in one move. They aren’t alone. Central banks around the world, long net sellers of gold reserves, have become buyers, among them China and Russia. Gold keeps making new all-time highs. And it doesn’t seem to care about the Republican’s prospects this fall.

Regards,
Charles Goyette
TheDollarMeltdown.com
Whiskey & Gunpowder

October 18, 2010

Gold Cares Nothing About U.S. Elections was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

When President Bush took office, the government was running a budget surplus and was on its way to paying off the national debt. Tax cuts, war in Iraq, the biggest new health program since the 1960s, a Wall Street bailout and a raft of spending increases wiped away the surpluses, creating a $400 billion deficit by Bush’s last year in office.

Yet Republicans, adopting a Who, me? approach, have managed to convince an increasingly angry populist uprising that it was Democrats who got us here.

President Obama’s policies certainly deserve scrutiny. The Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl figures Obama’s stimulus program, proposed health legislation, and other initiatives would add trillions more to the public debt.

But if the Tea Party movement believes the GOP is the champion of fiscal restraint, it is ignoring the history of the last decade.

In retrospect, it is clear that the Sept. 29, 2008 House vote rejecting the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street marked a political turning point — a new grassroots politics — that culminated in last week’s stunning upset of the Democratic candidate in Massachusetts Senate race.

Republicans have brilliantly succeeded in hanging the bailout albatross around the neck of Obama. What has largely been forgotten is that a third of House Republicans and virtually all the party leadership favored the bailout and fought for a second vote that would, finally, approve the controversial $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

It was Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson who (literally) got down on his knees at the White House and begged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to try again.

Paulson was backed by Minority Leader John Boehner, who said on the House floor: “If I didn’t think we were on the brink of an economic disaster, it would be the easiest thing to say no to this.”

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, put it even more bluntly: “There are no other choices. No alternatives.”

Republican support for TARP was in tune with eight years of profligate GOP spending.

Earmarks for home-state projects exploded. War and the expansion of the American military might into Eastern Europe and the Middle East doubled the Pentagon’s budget.

Bush-era Republicans scrapped “paygo,” a budget device adopted earlier with strong Democratic support, that required new spending to be offset either by spending cuts elsewhere or with new taxes. That enabled the GOP to push through a new Medicare prescription benefit for 41 million Americans without one nickel of the costs being offset elsewhere in the budget.

By contrast, Republicans have hounded Democrats for the cost of health care legislation that would, at least on paper, be paid for with spending trims and new revenues.

(Democrats restored paygo after taking back the House and Senate in the 2006 mid-term elections, forcing a measure of fiscal restraint on themselves.)

That is all largely forgotten now. Republicans have skillfully exploited populist rage while Democrats have reaped the political whirlwind. After sweeping to power the Obama administration forgot all about the stunning Sept. 29, 2008, House vote, the first harbinger of the coming populist wave.

Instead of making reform of Wall Street his signature issue — a move that might have given him cover with independents who are now in firm control of U.S. elections — Obama turned to health care.

Democrats should not be surprised by the political turn of events. American voters have short memory spans.

Regards,
Dan Morgan

January 29, 2010

Big Government Republicans was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

The health care bill was a cliff. It had become tainted with Chicago-style pressure politics, industry and congressional payoffs, secrecy, profligacy and policy confusion. When the Democratic Party stronghold of Massachusetts elected a Republican senator to the “Kennedy seat,” Obama’s progressive agenda fell into the abyss.

The president then magnified his losses by countering the Massachusetts loss with a populist attack on the very banks he had bailed out. He proclaimed that he would increase regulations on banking institutions. Exempted, of course, were his beloved quasi-governmental agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose fraud and corruption cascaded us into the current Great Recession. Worse, he promised to raise taxes to “get our money back” from a still unsteady financial industry.

The stock market dutifully and predictably plummeted 500 points. Even loyal supporters in the media, who swallowed the administration line concerning the boondoggle stimulus package, broke ranks. If I had to bet, at this point, my money says Obama joins Jimmy Carter on the list of one-term presidents.

I’m writing about this stuff because of the financial consequences, and the news is very good. I never doubted that America would eventually rein in the big spenders and return to fiscal sanity.

I predicted a hard tack to the center when Barack Obama was elected. I also predicted that the health care takeover would not succeed. I didn’t predict, however, that this failure would be so hard and so fast.

The reason I was wrong about the timing was that I didn’t expect him to abandon his centrist campaign promises so completely. I had assumed that he would govern as a pragmatic opportunist, not one of Eric Hoffer’s “true believers.” And I lost faith in my own judgment regarding health care, believing that some watered-down version would pass. Even that outcome is now in serious doubt.

Regardless, the consequence of this shift is extremely positive for the economy and investors because the administration’s ability to expand government has been abruptly curtailed. After unnecessary and public humiliations over the Chicago Olympics, Copenhagen and Massachusetts, the president’s currency is looking a lot like the Venezuelan bolivar.

While the president promises to double down and keep fighting for his progressive goals, Democratic moderates are abandoning ship. Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas, for example, is only one Democrat who has decided not to run for re-election in this climate of backlash. He now openly mocks the president’s belief that he can prevent a massive shift to the Republicans in the 2010 elections.

So let’s discuss the benefits of these developments. Primarily, we will now see a coalition of Republicans and moderate Democrats grow in power. This means that the most radical of the administration’s legislative goals, cap and trade and a government health care takeover, are almost certainly shelved.

This is extremely good news because cap and trade was an economy killer even in good times. Moreover, it would have had no impact on climate. I believe, as do many scientists shut out of the corrupt U.N. process, that CO2 does not drive climate change. Even if you believe it does, however, many environmentalists have pointed out that the legislation would have no appreciable effect on CO2 levels. Cap and trade was always about raising taxes and delivering control of industry to the intellectual classes.

Incidentally, China and India have confirmed what I predicted. They will not sign even the toothless Copenhagen climate accord. This is the final nail in the U.N.’s effort to institute global governance based on climate concerns. Interestingly, the Indian media credit the vote in Massachusetts for their government’s decision to repudiate the U.N. power grab.

I can’t express how happy this makes me. Economic growth is the only solution to the enormous debt overhang that has been foisted on us by both our political parties. It’s also the solution to most of the developing world’s challenges. Like it or not, all economies have been globalized to one degree or another. Growth in Asia and South America will have beneficial impacts on your portfolio.

We can now expect the administration to start talking about the economy. Unfortunately, the enormous pork-barrel stimulus package and the debt it has entailed has already depleted the fiscal arsenal. Fortunately, two-thirds of the so-called stimulus package has not yet been spent. If Obama were to support the repeal of that spending and institute tax breaks, he could probably accomplish the same thing that JFK did when he faced a lousy economy. A CNN poll just showed that 56% of Americans favor doing so.

It is particularly meaningful that Nebraska voters forced Ben Nelson to take the special advantages he won for the state from the health care bill. Americans are clearly willing to forgo politically gotten gains. Obama himself is now talking about “deficit reduction,” though starting a year from now.

Without spending cuts that I doubt he will support, that’s a synonym for “increased taxes.” The Tea Party movement, which now has higher voter approval than either major party, probably won’t allow that to happen.

Incidentally, it has taken one of the most liberal representatives, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, to point out the damage liberals have done to themselves by disparaging that movement. He said, recently, “I met with people who were unfairly ridiculed as being just a bunch of Teabaggers and, frankly, they had basic economic concerns just like everyone else, they felt that government wasn’t listening to them, and this is where the Democratic Party better wake up.”

Whether or not one agrees with the movement, the individuals have been alienated by those who insulted them, and this includes the failing media as well as the president.

Anyway, the bottom line is that we’ve turned an incredibly important corner. The delusion that the smart kids could solve all our problems if they just had enough power has been brought back under control, at least temporarily. We will pay the price for the foolishness of the last decade for some time, but lessons have been learned.

I hate to be the optimist in the crowd, but I predict that people will look back in a few years at this as an enormously positive time. Breakthrough technologies will have powered investors and the economy to new financial heights.

The weakness of economists is that we cannot imagine the true nature of exponential growth. In my lifetime, I’ve seen enormously intelligent economists consistently underestimate the ability of free peoples to solve problems. They are making that mistake again now.

Significantly, these lessons are being learned all over the world. The Obama administration’s message has always been that America should be more like Europe. This is contrary to the message of other great Democrats, like JFK. America took that turn toward European-style mixed economies. We did it disastrously with our banking system and then unsuccessfully with health care. And the world has noticed.

If you’d like a little pick-me-up, there’s a great article in The Economist. An excerpt: “America’s most vibrant political force at the moment is the anti-tax Tea Party movement. Even in leftish Massachusetts, people are worried that Mr. Obama’s spending splurge, notably his still unpassed health care bill, will send the deficit soaring. In Britain, where elections are usually spending competitions, the contest this year will be fought about where to cut. Even in regions as historically statist as Scandinavia and southern Europe, debates are beginning to emerge about the size and effectiveness of government.”

My old friend Leonard Read, who brought Austrian economics into the U.S. and funded Ayn Rand when she was writing her first novel, had something to say about times like this. Paraphrasing, he said that three steps forward in human progress are inevitably followed by two steps backward. Yet thousands of years of history have shown that those two wrong steps are always followed by another three that lead to increased freedom and prosperity.

It’s nice to be moving in the right direction again.

Regards,
Patrick Cox

January 28, 2010

Massachusetts Makes Far Left Democrats Think Again was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

If you have a house which is falling down from termites, has a leaky roof, iron plumbing, stopped up septic tank, or whatever, and you approach a home insurance company, wanting full coverage for your house, and they say “you’ve got to be kidding,” should the D.C. Gang force the insurance company to issue you a homeowners policy? If you never cut your grass, never paint, never shovel snow off your sidewalk, and your neighbors consider you a menace, would any insurance company issue you a policy? Both Dems and Repubs might want big daddy government to force them to issue it, assuming the health care thing goes into effect. Why not throw pre-existing conditions out the window for home coverage?

Currently, there are scads of auto mechanical insurance policies advertising on the TV channels. If you have a true clunker which knocks, smokes, and leaks, would you expect an insurance company to issue you a policy? If the health care proposal for no pre-existing conditions considerations, why not for cars too?

If you were an alcoholic, with dozens of DUI’s, and a host of traffic accidents charged to you, would any insurance company issue you any coverage for any price, if they had their head screwed on correctly? If no pre-existing conditions can keep a health insurance company from insuring your health, why not force insurance companies to insure your driving habits, regardless of the risks?

Insurance companies as well as all businesses are in it to make a profit, and that’s the way it should be.

If you need a loan and go to a bank, shouldn’t they check your credit rating? If you have a credit rating of 100, have defaulted on lots of loans in the past, have no savings, your credit cards have been revoked, and there are tens of thousands of dollars still owed on them, would a banker loan you a quarter if he was in his right mind? If insurance companies can’t use pre-existing conditions to deny you health coverage, why not force the banks to loan you money, regardless of your credit rating?

If the Dems and Repubs have their way, along with Obama, and you have advanced cancer, Hodgkin’s, melanoma, kidney failure, or whatever, they want insurance companies to have no choice but have to insure you. In other words, by law or bureaucracy, the D.C. Gang in both parties wants to insure the death of insurance companies.

It seems to this amateur, that if you have a serious, incurable disease, or severe health condition which either can’t be fixed, or to fix it would cost several hundred thousand dollars, an insurance company wouldn’t really be interested in covering you for a hundred bucks a month. One of my best friends is in such bad health that he has cost his medical insurance company probably a million dollars already, and he is still living with myriad health problems. Bud is probably 150 pounds overweight, has never cared for himself, smoked for decades, has very high blood pressure, and did tons of drugs, in addition to being diabetic and having had several heart attacks. He is still covered because unless he misses a payment, his insurance can’t be cancelled. Believe me, he’ll never miss a payment! His insurance company is on the hook with a certain loser, but when he took out the policy, the insurance company thought him to be a fair risk.  They were wrong, and are paying for it.

Denying pre-existing conditions as an excuse for not issuing a health policy, sounds just wonderful to the un-thinking boobs who occupy those offices on Capitol Hill. Do they ever really THINK?

Actuaries are in business to do risk assessment for insurance companies. They go over statistics, figures, probabilities, and risks. If the Demos and Repubs have their way, you can forget actuaries, because the D.C. Gang will force insurance companies out of business. The point is, once again, that both parties have destroyed America with stupidity, greed, and that ever-present ego governing us, when we need laws only to protect us from our enemies, and not ourselves. With every vote over the last 75 years, it seems as though each vote drove another nail in our collective coffins. The Tea Parties have plainly demonstrated that we have had enough of both parties, and we should throw them both out with a couple of exceptions. The Democrats are worse than the Republicans, I’ll admit, but there are far too many office holders who haven’t a grain of common sense, and I have had enough of both of them. I am no longer proud to be a registered Republican, but have not yet re-registered as an independent. Local Republicans are fine.

Regards,
Don Stott

September 11, 2009

Pre-Existing Conditions? was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

It’s not because I’m a computer wizard (far from it), nor is it because I’m addicted to video games involving animated fighting of fantasy creatures. It isn’t because I’m a champion Dungeons & Dragons player, a widely published author of Lord of the Rings fan fiction, or because I drive some little electric roller skate of a car — although this one thing alone would qualify me…

It’s because every year in January, I watch the State of the Union address, instead of the NFL playoffs.

All right, so maybe I am a dork.

But since an informal personal poll in my group of like-aged friends showed that I’m one of only a few that watched the speech in real time (not including my colleagues in the publishing world, of course), that makes me a dork who’s at least somewhat in touch with the American political process…

And as troubling as it may be that a lot of American 30-somethings seemingly aren’t paying much attention to the goings-on of our political machine (clearly, they aren’t — look at how sporadically they vote), it’s nowhere near as troubling as what was in the State of the Union address itself — and what wasn’t.

Statists of the Union

Along with most of America, my feelings about George Dubya have been pretty wobbly of late. Not that they were ever as cheerleader-ish as many of my critics would claim…

However, I’ll admit there have been moments when the man’s, uhh, uncomplicated leadership has loaned a much-needed singularity of vision to certain political endeavors, in my opinion. His was the opposite of Carter’s “analysis to paralysis” style — and a refreshing change from Clinton’s finger-to-the-wind, ask-the-wife-first, what-they-don’t-know-can’t-hurt-’em method of governance.

I say “was” because Bush has clearly morphed — like most modern lame-duck American politicians — into a shapeless, spineless entity more worried about his legacy than his country. Borrowing a page from the Democrats’ playbook, Bush has tailored his rhetoric and agenda toward not principles or leadership, but appeasement and capitulation to those in power, and a more favorable depiction among those who write tomorrow’s accounts of today’s history…

Seriously, all partisanship aside (literally — I’m feeling like a man without a party these days), I want those of you reading this who actually watched the State of the Union address to ask yourselves this question:

If you somehow didn’t know that George W. Bush was a Republican president, could you have figured it out by what he said in his speech?

I’ll tell you right now that I couldn’t have, at least not by any of the yardsticks the GOP likes to claim as its own. Aside from a token bit of nebulous rhetoric about erasing the deficit and balancing the federal budget — laughable coming from the mouth of what has to be one of the biggest-spending, government-bloating presidents in history — many of Bush’s talking points sounded like some of Bill Clinton’s, and Al Gore’s, from various speeches during their tenure…

Only not as well (or even as convincingly) articulated.

That’s one of the main reasons I’m writing this rambling discourse today: Because I’m alarmed at the fact that the rhetoric of the two dominant political parties in the U.S. today seems always to inexorably blend together when there’s a balance of power between them in our government — like a pair of amoebas mating…

Actually, I’m not alarmed. That’s what they do, politicians. They test the wind, kiss each other’s butts, line each other’s pockets, and then tell us what they think we want to hear while telling each other whatever pays them the most. And we all know it. What’s worse, we’ve all grown to expect and accept it. What disgusts me about it is that they all tell the same lies, just at different times — yet ALWAYS toward the same goal: a bigger and more intrusive government.

In this respect, at least across the span of the election and reign of the current administration, the Democrats are far less deceptive than their Republican rivals. Though they try to understate it in election years, most times, the left makes little effort to conceal its desire to expand government — they see it as the cure to all our ills. The GOP, however, rides to power on the votes of millions of Americans who cling naively to the hope that it is the “smaller government” party it claims to be…

Then it legislates and spends us into the governmental equivalent of a diabetic coma too!

And in this State of the Union speech, I heard not only the same old lies in frilly, updated verse, but also a whole pack of new ones that I find so brazen and absurd I can’t stay quiet about them. Here are just a few of the low spots, for me…

The Speech As Spin

Aside from being one of the least meaty State of the Union addresses I can remember, Bush 43′s latest effort rung throughout with a kind of desperation, in my opinion — not the desperate will to persevere in policy leadership against newly empowered political adversaries, but the need to simply be a relevant part of changing policies that are well beyond his control.

Though well delivered (for him), the speech smacked more of issue ownership than initiative. In other words, the status-quo “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” mentality that so frequently pervades two-party American politics. A few examples…

SPENDING

Dubya spoke with conviction about a return to “spending discipline” in government. But does this mean “spending cuts”? Because I didn’t hear much in the speech about what programs, entitlements, or benefits are in line to get the ax. In the address, Bush never makes the promise to actually trim any spending at all. Instead, he appears to be relying on future tax revenues computed from his own rosy economic forecasts to eliminate the federal deficit and balance the budget — without raising taxes.

Yet in the real world of an ever-older American citizenry coupled with a draining invasion of parasitic illegal immigrants (from a free benefits standpoint), his pledge to restrain the spending appetite of the federal government seems contradictory to his stated desire to “fix” Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid with nothing more than “good sense and goodwill.” Again, without raising taxes.

It takes MONEY to bail out these programs. That means other programs have to go or revenue has to increase. Simple as that. Since Bush seems unwilling to do anything but expand programs and entitlements (not to mention tax cuts), where is this money going to come from? Especially in time of war?

Let me be clear: I’m all for tax cuts. They worked to stimulate the economy in Kennedy’s era (he was a fiscal conservative, you know), during the Reagan years, and have arguably worked in the current administration. But how overheated would our economy have to get to sustain tax cuts AND new programs AND a massive benefits bailout AND an expensive war?

Is a boom of such scope even possible, never mind likely? More importantly, were it to occur, would the government REALLY be able to resist the urge to fritter away all that shiny new money squaring the books, instead of on a bunch of programs aimed at increasing your dependence on them?

Uhh, no.

IMMIGRATION

In keeping with Bush’s tone-deafness toward those who got him into office, his plans to double the size of the Border Patrol and to fund “new infrastructure and technology” run contrary to what the American people want — on both sides of the political fence (but especially on the right). A Rasmussen poll in 2005 revealed that more than 60% of Americans favored the construction of a barrier along our nation’s southern border. Surveys closer to the election pegged this number at as much as 80%. Candidates from both parties promised strong action on illegal immigration in the run-up to the 2006 midterm election, with the border fence an oft-mentioned solution…

Yet here we are, talking about the same old stuff. Increasing the Border Patrol. “Guest worker” programs. Employer accountability. These things all expand the scope and reach of government, and increase spending in all the wrong ways — yet do nothing to curb the influx and cost of illegals who come here not for work, but for the free benefits and instant citizenship status for their babies.

To be fair about it, BOTH parties want the illegal tide to continue unabated. The Republicans want it for cheap labor for businesses and the Democrats want it to expand dependency on government, which translates into votes.

But think about it: If ever there were an opportunity for Bush and the Republicans to redeem themselves in the eyes of the people, it’s with this issue.

The GOP already knows that most Americans want the fence. It’s far cheaper and more reliable than expanding the Border Patrol, and people know it. You’d think that even if Bush doesn’t want the fence in his big-business heart of hearts, he would at least aggressively push for it rhetorically to make the Democrats show their true colors by shooting it down…

But NO, he’s got to roll over into the great wishy-washy middle ground that inevitably prevails for both parties. Meanwhile, we pay out ever more in benefits to illegals, lose ever more in taxes from under-the-table wage paying, and STILL live with the most lax border security imaginable!

GAS

Here’s a gem: Bush is going to cut U.S. gasoline consumption by 20% in 10 years. Did you see Cheney’s expression in the background as the Prez unleashed this one? Was that a smirk I saw?

Yeah, this’ll happen. Our country’s population is exploding exponentially. Air travel is such a god-awful pain in the ass that people are driving more for vacations. Cities are expanding into greater and greater sprawl, so commuting distances are getting longer and longer…

Aside from this, “hybrid” gas-electric vehicles aren’t proving as fuel-efficient as they’re touted to be (look this up — it’s true). Ethanol takes more energy to produce than it saves and is a bona-fide nonstarter, as almost any of my Agora Financial comrades can tell you. Hydrogen “fuel cells” are potentially decades off — if manufacturers can work out the safety, range, and supply issues. And although rechargeable electric cars may someday indeed curb gas usage, they would increase consumption of air-polluting coal for electricity generation, not to mention present environmental challenges from this battery disposal.

Basically, this is nothing more than an attempt at issue control. The Republicans know that rank-and-file Americans (especially tomorrow’s voters) are turning greener, and are against dependence on Middle East oil — yet they’re also unwilling to tolerate ramping up domestic oil production…

So they try to rebrand themselves as being on the cutting edge of conservationist policies t A) garner future votes, B) steal some of the opposition’s core thunder, and C) be able to blame a Democrat Congress when this ridiculous proposal fails.

It’s just more of the same type of typical political rhetorical game-playing that marks the Republocrat party that’s perennially running things.

Small Gov Snubbed Forever?

I’m usually pretty good about putting a “bottom line” on these missives, but today I haven’t really got one. I just wanted to vent a bit about the mealy-mouthed, double-tongued nature of two-party American politics, as revealed by the latest State of the Union address — not that this one is so unique in the modern age. And of course, there’s a lot more I could say about the speech to buttress my points (health insurance, the war, etc.), but you already get my drift…

That all American political rhetoric is a crock of crap we’ve come to accept without outrage — and that the two parties are basically dedicated to the same insidious goal of governmental expansion. The fact that they marginally disagree about how best to do this is immaterial.

Basically, the frustrating bottom line for me is this: Not that this would even be possible, but in order for this country to once again have a true two-party parity of ideas, there’d almost have to be a viable THIRD party in the mix (are you listening, Libertarians?). In my opinion, the Republicans are too far gone to reverse course and become the smaller-government “yin” to the Democrats’ “yang.” They’ve sipped from the fountain of big government and found that it was sweet…

Now, the two parties are only truly distinct from one another at their fringes. For the most part, neither is dedicated to preserving our freedoms (perish the thought!) or protecting our citizenry — only extracting the most money out of us to sustain the greatest possible dependency on government.

And at this, they should be toasting each other to their great and continuing success.

Wishing for a State of Disunion,

Jim Amrhein,
Contributing Editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder

January 30, 2007

Where’s the Party? was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.