Amen brother Leo.

First Ford Motor declines the offer. Thanks but no thanks.

Now they are actually re-opening a 58-year-old, retooled manufacturing plant.

…without government aid.

Ford is reopening its Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1 to produce the 3.5L EcoBoost V6 for the Lincoln MKS and MKT, Ford Flex and 2010 Taurus SHO. The plant has been idle since 2007, but Ford has invested $55 million in the 58-year-old facility to create a flexible manufacturing system for powertrains. No new jobs will be created by reopening the plant, as Ford will staff it with 250 workers from other facilities on the site, but the job security that comes with being the first in the world to build the automaker’s most advanced engine is surely welcome.

So it can be done.

I wish I were in the market for a new car.

It would be a Ford Motor Company product.

I dreamt that John McCain was President last night.

I know, I know…he’s not the most Republicanny Republican and all, but think about it for a moment.

We’d have three highly qualified candidates waiting in line to be Commerce Secretary instead of Obama’s “sometimes it takes three tries to get it right.”

…yah, I am sure you think that sounds pretty smart Obammy, but I’d like to know what Michelle thinks of that.

I think you meant it takes three tries to find someone desperate enough to put “Obama Administration” on their resume knowing full well what his policies are going to do to with what’s left of “commerce” in America.

It’s why we don’t have a Titanic II. No one would want to be Captain, let alone sail on her.

If John McCain were President, we would have a cabinet packed with people that actually pay their taxes, have actually started business (vs. reading about it in a textbook), hired employees, owned homes and paid mortgages – versus trading favors with a Chicago criminal to put a roof over their head.

There’d have been no speculation of Oprah’s official capacity either.

As for the speech last night, McCain would probably have dissapointed us ala the debates been less inspiring…from a show-business sort of perspective. Not a lot of charisma or flash. Not a lot of big words. Very little emoting.

We’d have his nervous ticks instead of Obama’s sweeping, graceful poise.

…and no Hopey Changey Messiah talk.

But McCain’s math would have been better.

Obama’s Math:

Socialize Health Care

+ Cap and Trade

+ Increase Taxes on Those That Actually Pay Taxes The “Rich”

+ Halve The National Debt Deficit

= Fatal Error. Please Reboot.

Either way, we’d still have Nancy Pelosi’s assenine permagrin dental work burned into our pixels (I actually had coffee with someone this morning that had to put a towel over the right side of the TV screen last night so he could watch Obama’s sermon).

If John McCain were President, Congress would still be hashing out the “Stimulus” bill under threat of a veto, and chances are in the end there would have been less pork hanging on it’s bones – it would still be a terrible mistake, but to a lesser degree.

…and we’d all actually have some true hope for the economy and our dollar.

McCain would be fighting for government policy that might actually have a chance of stimulation, like cutting taxes to corporations, business owners and consumers, and forcing government to do more with less, like the rest of us poor saps that have the audacity to pay our mortgages, live within our means and respect our commitments and responsibilities.

As it stands, the only thing Obama has proposed to cut is military spending – in the era of the only successful terrorist attack on American soil – barely a footnote in Obama’s monologue last night.

John McCain’s speech would have been shorter. He’d be less talky-talky and more worky-worky. He would have ended his campaign once elected. Obama can’t stop his.

John McCain likely would have tackled our nation’s issues like the decorated hero/servant that he is. He’d likely have picked the most urgent, pressing target, (it’s the economy, stupid) trained his sites and directed his resources and political capital in a focused campaign dedicated to it’s destruction, and we’d have some semblance of a plan right now.

Contrast that with Obama’s reckless design to force-feed thirty years of pent up and failed liberal agendas, without regard for the timing or capacity of our economy to absorb the costs or overcome the additional friction borne by the conduct of commerce.

The President and his book-learned liberal turd-squad think you can make a train start moving again by building more track and adding more cars. McCain would feed the boiler with more coal.

In all fairness, neither President would have a clue how exactly to solve an unprecedented, systemic and global financial and credit crisis; but one would have the good sense of what not to do right now.

…but he’s still the Senator from Arizona.

A guy can dream, can’t he?

Anyone else find incredible irony in a “Republican” governor that has run his state into the ground, and is now lauding the stimuless bill?

In an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Schwarzenegger said he welcomes his state’s share of the massive $787 billion package, believing it could create as many as 400,000 new jobs.

“We welcome this economic stimulus package. I think it’s terrific and will help us,” the California governor said. “We were happy even though there’s…people complaining. It’s not what they envisioned, but what is? The people will give you 1,000 different answers.

“It was Obama that got elected. He put the package together, so let’s support it,” he also said.

Ahnold, I loved you in True Lies but in real life you are an “ee-dee-yot.” There is nothing “terrific” in the rest of us bailing you out after years of deficits and mismanagement of your state.

What a sad artifact of a bygone era that moniker is. Arnold Schwarzenegger circa the 2003 “total recall” election was going to sweep all before him as California governor, bringing the same élan and toughness he had on the big screen to fighting special interests and restoring his beloved state to competitiveness.

With no screenplay to save him, the much-reduced Governator simply buckled and switched sides.

Sadly, California may serve as a model for the rest of the nation, now following in California’s footsteps.

California Democrats are only slightly ahead of national Democrats, so the country’s fiscal future may be in preview in Sacramento.

The state has been buffeted by the housing crisis, but the ultimate cause of the mess is relentless, heedless overspending.

Sound familiar?

Sorry Mr. Kennedy-Shriver, its time to cut the mooring lines and let Caleefohnia float out to sea.

Barack Obama has a new web site…with some handy graphics too.

Recovery.gov

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be carried out with full transparency and accountability — and Recovery.gov is the centerpiece of that effort. In a short video, President Obama describes the site and talks about how you’ll be able to track the Recovery Act’s progress every step of the way.

Where is Your Money Going? (click on the graphic for more detail)

*Wealth Transfers, Political Payback and the Installment of Socialism

Eight Billion Dollars. Gone.

…all you can offer is “Other“?

Welcome to the club. Please pass the Grey Poupon.

The richer people are, the ruder they are, according to Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Are rich people rude?

…or are rude people rich?

And yet while the rich may be rude because they are wealthy, it is just as likely to be the other way around. Just as plausibly, they are wealthy because they are rude.

So screw you.

Jerks.

PS Aw, shucks. Sorry. *Hug*

Senator Judd Gregg disses Obammy and makes it crystal clear why he said “Thanks, but no thanks” withdrawing his nomination as Commerce Secretary for the Obama Abomination Administration.

“It has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me.”

Gregg’s withdrawal is yet another in a string of embarrassments for Mr. Jimmy’s team of fools and serves to underscore the utter folly that is the “Stimulus” bill and portends a brewing census scandal.

At least a dozen candidates turned the prestigious commerce secretary’s post down before President Obama came up with Gregg, after assuring him that the Democratic governor in his home state would appoint a Republican to take his seat. Obama even joked about the difficulty of “finding a commerce secretary” to the media.

But the real reason why Gregg pulled out is probably that he found there isn’t any real place for commerce in the new administration. With President Obama saying things like “only government” can save the economy, Gregg learned quickly he was unlikely to have any power or influence on behalf of the private sector.

The current approach has been to use business and bipartisan Republicans like Gregg as window dressing. But no one’s fooled.

Well, actually, about 52.9% of us are still being fooled. Meanwhile Obammy’s back to begging someone to take the job.

Prestigious commerce secretary post? Not so much. In another time and on another team, maybe. It appears no Republican is willing to go down with the bipartisanship.

Sadly the passage of the stimulus bill to an all-too-willing President serves to mark the certain end of an era.

We have become a nation ruled by a majority no longer able or equipped to face our challenges head-on, rather deferring them ever further into the future for our children to solve.

In a bygone era, we collectively strove to live our lives and suffer sacrifices to lever the rarefied benefits of freedom and enterprise for the sake of future generations in the interest of a higher standard of living.

A great many among us even risked their very lives so that America could remain free and were thus christened The Greatest Generation.

Alas, long gone are the concepts of thrift and sacrifice that faded memories of a great depression taught us generations ago.

There once was a time when the trappings of success were acquired once you were actually successful. Nowadays young people feel they deserve to pick up where their parents left off.

Indeed, our entire commercial culture is predicated on the fact that whatever you wear, whatever you drive, the very house that you live in is obsolete the day after you acquire it.

An anachronism indeed is the concept that if you can’t afford it don’t buy it. In its place: buy now pay later; you deserve it!

Is it no wonder then that our government is an apt reflection of we who sent them and are now levering the future for today?

Driven by an insatiable appetite for consumerism, enabled by institutions all too willing to lend with greater margins of risk, risk falsely mitigated by high minded liberals hell bent on gerrymandering and meddling their way to Utopia, our nation has been sowing the seeds of this crisis for decades.

Growing under the dark clouds of a three decade long supercyle of personal, corporate, institutional and government borrowing, the seeds needed only a nudge to emerge.

Now germinated, a crisis that has left our government so clueless as to the solution that it offers a larger dose of the poison as prescription.

Liberal politicians have hijacked the will of half of our electorate, skillfully conditioning their impressionable sensibilities and aligning millions behind the notion that mother government is somehow able to absolve them of their responsibilities as a citizen of a free nation.

They have been led to believe that they are entitled to the coffers, filled now only with obligations to future generations, or to be defaulted upon entirely, because they are entitled to be equal to those vilified by their choice to work hard, employ others, save and invest.

These hapless many are being reminded that all men are created equal, and entitled to remain so.

Substantiated by billions to be spent with no chance of any economic impact, this stimulus bill is the manifestation of all of this coupled with the inexorable will of liberals to enlarge our government as an instrument of their collectivism ambitions. This crisis is not seen as a challenge to solve rather it is a gift not to be squandered. The American people are vulnerable; time is of the essence for a liberal political land grab.

…all sold under the guise suffering and sacrifice are no longer modern concepts, offer no tuition and are to be avoided at all costs; even at the expense of our children’s financial future – even at the expense of our freedom as a nation.

Wars were once fought with sticks and stones but the wars of the future may very well be fought with financial instruments. The battleground may be the internet and in the financial markets. The strong, preying on the weak, especially those destroyed from within.

This battle may already be afoot.

This generation has brought our nation to its knees. Now manifested is the notion that a democracy made aware of it’s power to vote itself it’s riches will do so, and with a vengeance.

At President Obama’s El Grande Stimuloso Tour Del Mundo  New New Deal Road Show  Socialist Party Recruitment Tour Town Hall meeting in Florida this week, a downtrodden Henrietta Hughes stepped to the microphone and asked for an extra helping of Hopey Changey^© from the Messiah.

“I have an urgent need, unemployment and homelessness, a very small vehicle for my family and I to live in,” she said. “The housing authority has two years’ waiting lists, and we need something more than the vehicle and the parks to go to. We need our own kitchen and our own bathroom. Please help.”

Now, why didn’t she ask for help getting a fricken job? Why does she expect the government to skip to giving her the fish instead of helping her to catch one?

Who could be giving people the idea that that is how America works?

…I don’t even have my own bathroom – I have to share it with Mrs. Roosh – and Henrietta just got…three? Plus a study, a library, a jacuzzi, a three-car garage, and a big-screen telly-vision.

Supplied by Obammy’s handlers?

Nope.

A Democrat breaking rank and actually giving his/her own money?

Nope.

Chene Thompson, the wife of state Rep. Nicholas Thompson, R-Fort Myers, is letting Henrietta Hughes and her son stay in a house she owns in nearby La Belle rent free until they get back on their feet.

“You don’t have to be a politician to put forth a stimulus package,” Chene Thompson said during a joint interview with Hughes Thursday on CNN’s “American Morning.” “This is our own little mini-stimulus package for a person who was a stranger and now is a friend.

What? The guvment isn’t coming to the rescue?

Republicans…one voter at a time!

Now if someone could help find her a job…

You know the US real estate market must be close to bottoming out when the Chinese are coming here looking for deals.

Beijing lawyer Ying Guohua is heading to the United States on a shopping trip, looking not for designer clothes or jewelry, but for a $1 million home in New York City or Los Angeles.

He expects to get a bargain. Ying is part of a growing number of Chinese who are joining tours organized especially for investors who want to take advantage of slumping U.S. real estate prices amid a financial crisis.

Harvard Economist Robert Barro:

This is probably the worst bill that has been put forward since the 1930s. I don’t know what to say. I mean it’s wasting a tremendous amount of money. It has some simplistic theory that I don’t think will work, so I don’t think the expenditure stuff is going to have the intended effect. I don’t think it will expand the economy. And the tax cutting isn’t really geared toward incentives. It’s not really geared to lowering tax rates; it’s more along the lines of throwing money at people. On both sides I think it’s garbage. So in terms of balance between the two it doesn’t really matter that much.

Translation: This bill sucks and won’t work (although you probably didn’t need my translation given the non-Economist descriptors “worst” and “garbage.”)

Clearly Barro recognizes giving money to people that don’t pay income taxes is being fed to us as a “tax cut.”

We are going to borrow 800 billion dollars to no economic effect, although mark my words, Democrats will take credit for the recovery that will eventually come with or without the bill. Because this is still America after all.

…at least for now.

Jim Rogers on the banking “bailout:”

The new financial rescue plan may not work and could even make things worse because it plunges the US further into debt and it is designed by the same people who failed to forecast the crisis and take measures, legendary investor Jim Rogers told CNBC Tuesday.

But Rogers said Geithner, who was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, “has been dead wrong about everything for 15 years in a row,” and so was President Barack Obama’s economic advisor Lawrence Summers, who acted as Treasury Secretary at the turn of the century.

Translation: This bailout, once it is decided upon, will suck.

“If I were on your show 15 weeks in a row and was wrong, you’d probably never invite me back. These guys have been wrong year after year after year consistently and here they are making the same mistakes again. This is not going to solve the problem, it’s going to make it worse.”

It never ceases to amaze how so many in our country expect the same people that caused the crisis will grow a brain and fix it…and with the same tools that caused it.

…on the bottom of the screen on CNN in our lobby as I type:

Delay Means “DEEPENING DISASTER”

Guess who?

Pass the Pork Package…

…or else! (Shivers should have just gone down your spine)

…another reminder that the best thing Congress and Comrade Obama could do right now is simply make sure that unemployment benefits are well funded nationwide and otherwise stay out of the way.

[Despite a tough employment report], stocks traded strong on Friday, with the Dow industrials finishing up over 200 points. Broad stock indexes are up 15% to 20% from their November lows. How can this be?

Well, the stock market is telling us that the economy’s future is a lot brighter than its past. The stock market looks ahead; the employment report looks behind.

Which is to say while this particular recession is a wee bit longer than most, it is otherwise reasonably predictable. Unemployment numbers will peak while the stock market moves up and small businesses and large corporations will start hiring again, usually before they are done laying off all that were slated for release.

By the way, in Friday’s jobs report, wages rose again, and now stand nearly 4% higher than a year ago. With zero inflation, that’s a real increase in worker purchasing power for the 92.4%, or 135 million workers, still employed.

Mr. President? Curious. I thought we were in the midst of a national catastrophe (actually we are – it started on January 20th).

…stocks may now be telling us that the gloom-and-doom crowd — and its pessimistic economic prognostications that cover all of 2009 and in some cases 2010 — is about to be proven wrong.

Or you could believe the President, what with his track record of truthiness and all. It’s going to suck to tell America “we screwed up” again and again.

The commodity markets — among the first asset sectors to respond to [the lowering of rates and increase in the money supply by the fed]  — are stabilizing. Broad commodity indexes are 6% or so above their lows. Ditto for energy.

So, let’s spend a trillion dollars any way.

Barack Obama, a reputed master of the persuasive art, has settled on his central argument for the stimulus bill: I won.

That Obama is reduced to this crude appeal is a symptom of the intellectual collapse of the case for his stimulus bill, a congressional spendfest untethered from its stated goal of providing a rapid “jolt” to the economy.

Is there anything good about the Spendulus Package?

And as Art Laffer has taught us all, taxes also matter — a lot. In fact, the only real stimulative part of the behemoth stimulus package is the simple fact that marginal tax rates will not be raised.

Oh, you mean the Republican version. Gotcha.

So cheaper energy, bundles of new money creation, zero inflation and no tax hikes could very well combine to produce a stronger economy as the year progresses — to the great surprise of the majority of economic pundits.

…and to the dismay of The Little President that Cried Wolf.

Too late for that now.

…but in hindsight, if one considers our economic woes the current regime’s “9/11”, clearly America chose poorly.

While Obama is caving in…

Stopping just short of a take-it-or-leave-it stand, Obama has mocked the notion that a stimulus bill shouldn’t include huge spending. He’s also defended earmarks as inevitable in such a package. And he’s pointedly reminded Republicans about who won the November election.

…John McCain is on point:

“The whole point, Mr. President, is to enact tax cuts and spending measures that truly stimulate the economy,” McCain said. “There are billions and tens of billions of dollars in this bill which will have no effect within three, four, five or more years, or ever. Or ever.”

While Obama is turning up the rhetorical amplitude, favoring expedition over the more contemplative approach that came and then went on the hill, and preying on American fears with his “National Catastrophe” rhetoric, cooler heads like John McCain are leading a growing opposition to the liberal crooks and liars that have dominated Congress for a handful of years now. Falling poll numbers for their Pork Pie stimuless package initiative (once Americans had a gander under the hood) are favoring restraint.

Congress and the Bush Administration got it wrong with the TARP monies and the Big Three bailouts. History will show neither were necessary nor effective. Both were costly and damaging to our reputation and currency. Both scenarios would have played out very differently given a more iterative approach to their design, and even moreso under the auspices of a Republican majority; but they squandered their chances for a fiscal overhaul under the Gingrich regime.

But hindsight as it were, doesn’t appear to be 20/20 for “That One.”

“They did not choose more of the same in November,” Obama said Friday. “They did not send us to Washington to get stuck in partisan posturing, to try to score political points. They did not send us here to turn back to the same tried and failed approaches that were rejected because we saw the results. They sent us here to make change with the expectation that we would act.”

How ironic is that statement? Three weeks in, and Obammy is calling earmarks “inevitable”, unprecedented government spending “stimulus,” lamenting political posturing while repeatedly reminding “who won in November,” and at the same time decrying the “tried and failed approaches that were rejected because we saw the results?”

How did the Bush stimulus work for us? TARP is a failure. GM and Chrysler will ultimately file Chapter 11.

Where’s our Change^© Mr. Jimmy? A few weeks in office and you’ve already succumbed to politics as usual when what we need is a man with a spine.

Someone like John McCain.

An enema with a sandblaster or a foot massage by a Pittsburgh Steelers Cheerleader?

Coming home to a raging house fire or arriving at your cabana on the beach replete with a fully stocked mini-fridge?

A hijacked jetliner crashing into the ocean off the coast of East Africa or a skillful landing on the Hudson River?

Five minutes in the ring with a folding metal chair in the hands of a steroid-ridden Jesse Ventura, or a playful moment in a pile of fallen leaves with your little girls?

Last one…don’t let me influence your choice:

A bloated pork-ridden stimulus package of some eight hundred billion (soon to be worthless) dollars including billions for liberal pet projects and paybacks or

$430 billion dollars on tax cuts.

$114 billion for infrastructure projects.

$138 billion for extending unemployment insurance, food stamps and other provisions to help “Americans in need.”

$31 billion to address the housing crisis ($11 billion for a loan modification program, $20.4 billion in tax incentives for home purchases, $50 million to temporarily increase loan limits for Freddie, Fannie and FHA)

For those of you that can’t do math (sorry Mr. President, yes I am including you) that’s over one hundred billion dollars less than the current proposal.

…and

…it actually sounds like a real stimulus package – the lesser of two evils version at least.

Sadly, Barack Obama’s flavor of bipartisanship means we probably don’t have a choice.

…and they can’t all be Republicans.

45.6% thought the [stimulus] plan was a bad idea. Meanwhile, 29.7% thought it was a good idea, and 24.7% were unsure.

“I think most of us are opposed to it because it’s a bailout in nature, and people are concerned about how it will be allocated,” said Eric Toya, vice president of Trovena LLC of Redondo Beach, Calif., which manages $400 million in assets. “It’s so anti-free-market-capitalism, which is what most financial advisers and the public believe in.”

…until they were told that they don’t believe in that any more by rockstars, the media and The Messiah.

“The fact that the size and price of the plan keeps growing should be a major concern,” said Greg Zandlo, president of The Zandlo Financial Group of Minneapolis, which has $50 million in assets under advisement.

What’s the difference between The New Deal and The New New Deal? Scale. Scope.

There’s only one thing worse than a liberal that doesn’t know what to do. A liberal that doesn’t know what to do and does it any way.

The survey also found that 36.4% of advisers did not have much confidence in Mr. Obama’s ability to fix the economy. Meanwhile, 31.5% said they had a “fair amount” of confidence, and 12.2% said they had a “great deal” of confidence.

About 15.5% of respondents said they had no confidence in Mr. Obama’s ability to fix the economy, the online survey found.

Which can only mean another “Fairness Doctrine” aimed at financial advisers is on it’s way.

…unless it’s ours.

Glenn Beck explains the folly that is our Stimulus habit…using the Al Gore method.

In the realm of politics, favorably comparing Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan is like comparing God to Satan.

But NPR done gone and done it any way.

The rise of Barack Obama and the historic challenges facing his presidency have prompted comparisons to past presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. But in these very early days, there are also parallels to be drawn between Obama and a more recent occupant of the Oval Office: Ronald Reagan.

…actually Jimmy Carter comes more to mind for those of us that actually understand basic economics.

That’s not to say that there aren’t elements that Obama and Reagan have in common.For instance, they both wear neckties around their necks.

While both Presidents inherited trying economic times to say the least, it is abundantly clear that they have polar opposite remedies in mind.

It’s clear that Obama and Reagan are very different ideologically, Obama being a Democrat on the liberal side and Reagan a Republican and an iconic conservative.

One accurately saw government as the cause, not the solution and acted accordingly.

Leave it to NPR to compare these two statements and find similarity:

Most people who remember Reagan’s speech remember him saying government is not the solution. But Edwards recalls that Reagan also said this: “Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work — work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it.”

Compare that to Obama’s inaugural address, in which he said the question is not whether the government is too big or too small, “but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. Those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account.”

Barack Obama, despite empty rhetoric to the contrary (watch what he does folks, not what he says), sees government as the solution, despite it being the cause.

Despite the fact that government stimulus programs don’t work (because they weren’t big enough?!) and despite TARP monies actually freezing credit even further, Obama proposes nearly a trillion dollars of government spending including money for the arts, and sod for the mall, among other disgustingly obvious liberal pet projects.

All in the face of the fact that Reagan’s actions set forth the largest and longest run of economic growth and prosperity in American history.

A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from others’.

Obama and his book-learned elite cronies put our futures in great peril by electing to consider what Reagan did and do the opposite.

And why not? Look where it got us…and Jimmy Carter.

[former Rep. Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma] is one of a number of prominent Republicans who say they voted for Obama. The list includes several of Reagan’s top advisers, such as Gen. Colin Powell and former Reagan Chief of Staff Ken Duberstein. Edwards goes so far as to wonder whether the former president himself, if he were still alive, might have thought about voting Democratic in 2008.

Not a chance.

Republicans of today couldn’t touch the garment of Ronald Reagan. Prominent conservatives that voted for Obama, the slim and now meaningless minority that they represent, did so for a lack of top-down conservative leadership on the part of the Republican party. Some even did so to send a message to the party.

Ronald Reagan was a man of action and leadership. Action that gave gravity to his words. Leadership borne in true change in our government, not Obama’s brand of more of the same sold as Change^©.

Barack Obama is a man of words; a lack of corresponding action and experience rendering his words even more useless to all but those Americans deliberately marginalized by he and his ilk.

TARP money is being distributed to banks as we speak, and more is on the way.

Sounds like a plan, right?

Anyone want to borrow money at 10-12%?

…when Treasuries are in the tank?

Didn’t think so.

But  Obama wants to force banks to lend these dollars.

The $350 billion second half of the federal government bank bailout—aka TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program)—funding was released by the Senate. According to the Wall Street Journal, President-elect Barack Obama intends to “spend $50 billion to $100 billion on a ‘sweeping’ foreclosure-prevention effort” as well as “impose tougher restrictions on banks that receive government aid, including requirements on banks to lend money, increased restrictions on executive compensation and curtailed dividend payments for some firms.”

The spankings will continue until moral improves.

Forcing banks to lend money…hmmm. Sound familiar?

C.R.A. anyone? That worked well for the economy didn’t it Mr. Jimmy?

TARP money costs banks 8-9%; it’s debt that shows up on their books as an “asset.”

Huh?

To make money, banks need to lend it out somewhere north of what it costs them, to make what we here in the real world call a profit.

As such, the good banks want nothing to do with TARP money and are simply waiting for the banks that took it or are otherwise soon to be insolvent, and then take advantage.

As they say, assets return to their rightful owners. Capitalism will prevail until liberals extinguish it’s last breath.

Now you know why TARP has done nothing to free up credit and get banks lending again.

…and why government intervention in a free market is almost always a bad idea.

…but sometimes they’re just stupid.

Nancy Pelosi gave up on the condoms today, but stimuless dollars for ACORN?

Seriously?!

Republican lawmakers are raising concerns that ACORN, the low-income advocacy group under investigation for voter registration fraud, could be eligible for billions in aid from the economic stimulus proposal working its way through the House.

House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement over the weekend noting that the stimulus bill wending its way through Congress provides $4.19 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities.”

…probably won’t make it through the Senate, but come on.

Weasels.

I enjoy Glenfiddich 12-year-old Scotch and almost any Red Wine, but have often wondered how mankind discovered alcohol.

Did Cro-Magnon man have a little still in his cave? Was it the social lubricant that it is today? Having invented the wheel and alcohol, did early man anticipate the trouble the two would cause generations later when used together?

We may never know the answers to these vexing questions, but it appears the imbibing of fermented fruits and grains is a natural thing.

A large variety of creatures consume alcohol in the wild, ranging from bumble-bees to elephants. Hooch finds its way into their diets via the fermenting fruit, sap and nectar of various plants, and many exhibit signs of inebriation after they’ve enjoyed a good feed. Their weakness for the substance au naturel is understandable: ethanol is a rich food, with 75 percent more calories than refined sugar, and its distinctive aroma makes it easy to locate. This natural thirst has been exploited by man since the dawn of history. Aristotle noted that wild monkeys were caught by setting out jars of palm wine — the creatures would drink, then pass out, leaving them easy prey. The same method of trapping was still in use in the 19th century and commented on by Darwin in the opening chapter of “The Descent of Man,” when drawing similarities between humanity and the rest of creation. Monkeys could get drunk like men. They also got hangovers: “On the following morning they were very cross and dismal; they held their aching heads with both hands, and wore a most pitiable expression: when beer or wine was offered them, they turned away with disgust, but relished the juice of lemons.”

Interestingly, a few species of mammals including the slow loris and the pentailed treeshrew (with which we share a common ancestor) not only have a predilection for alcohol but also a natural tolerance. When the latter species find an especially rich batch of fermented palm nectar in their native Malaysian rainforests, they’ll visit it several times each night and consume the equivalent, in human terms, of nine standard drinks, without any evident deterioration in their behavior. Perhaps we drank deep before we were fully human?

Well, isn’t the pentailed treeshrew a lucky bird. Modern man, after “drinking deep” is usually not so fortunate.

The propensity of a variety of domesticated animals to drink is well documented. Clearly, it’s cruel to force alcohol on them — tantamount to poisoning them: Mad Jack Mytton killed one of his horses when he made it bumper a bottle of port after it had won a race. However, some, including dogs, goats, cows, and pigs, develop a taste for it on their own. Aristotle noted that Greek swine became inebriated “when they were filled with the husks of pressed grapes.” A similar phenomena was common in colonial-era New England, where cider production and consumption, in per capita terms, were colossal, and where hogs were fed on windfalls and pomace (the pulp from the bottom of the cider press) both of which ferment. Their subsequent inebriation was often a matter of comment, and may have been the inspiration for the term “hog-whimpering drunk.”

I hadn’t heard that term, but it does explain the more common “drunk as a pentailed treeshrew.”

Obama’s Inauguration Speech failed to meet expectations.

His “Don Pardo” announcer notwithstanding, how could it not have.

Already he has fallen victim to soaring expectations set forth by months of rhetoric and unsubstantiated promises. Obama set himself up to fail. Here, now, and in the months to come.

One hundred and fifty million dollars later and he can’t retreat fast enough. His speech was mediocre – especially by his own standards.

Maybe by design.

Might I lend a hand?

My fellow citizens:

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