Vanguard: Rogue Lefty Blogger or "Shit, We Got Caught"?

I blogged on what a bad business decision Vanguard made to tout the effectiveness of the stimulus ahead of the election. Turns out it may not have been a conscious bad decision but a rogue lefty employee, in which case it would mean deficient controls on corporate messging, which is a pretty bad situation and reflects badly on Vanguard anyway. Corporations trying to look hip by having official "blogs" need to understand that they still need controls on messaging. Or maybe Vanguard just got caught, not knowing that their position could go viral and discredit them, because only a small minority of people still think the stimulus was a positive policy and many many think it was an outright disaster.

The White House's Human Resources Problem

The WSJ has a page one story that highlights an important but little known factor in the travails of the Obama administration - personnel. Of course, readers of NBfPB were already hip to this problem if you read this or this. You heard it here first folks!

Is This A Farce?

Pardon my French, but are you f*&king kidding me! Of course the drug isn't safe...that's why it's used for LETHAL injection!!

Fewer Ideas, More Wisdom Please

As a follow-up to this post where I lament our inability to reach back into history and choose what worked then for application today, because, after all, our modern problems are generally the same as were our problems in bygone eras, I point you to an almost off-hand but very trenchant observation by Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek. Yes indeed liberalism is practically brimming over with ideas, but as Don points out, nearly all of them entail how a certain small minority of people want the majority of people to live their lives. This of course is the natural essence of modern liberalism, a comprehensive desire to engineer society based on utopian visions. It is also a result of the "publish or perish" incentive system that has taken over and ruled the higher education industry for decades now. The incentive system in academia drives scholars to write/say just about anything as mere production is valued over quality. After all, much of what has merit is known, so to be original one has to strive and more often than not the striving leads scholars into the outlandish; and, because these scholars are putatively "experts" (b/c they are "credentialed but not educated" as Glenn Reynolds would say) the outlandish becomes a viable "idea." Thus the profusion of ideas on the left/liberal side of the political spectrum, much of them utter nonsense. Thus the focus on the presence or quantity of ideas is a flawed barometer for assessing policy vibrancy. What we need is not ideas but ideas that work, and most of the time we'd be better off calling upon historians than with the supposed visionaries that our society seems to seek out for adulation.

Lefty Press Pissed Cameron's Prudence Isn't Backfiring

Economic leftists the world over and their cheering sections in the MSM have been salivating to report any and all bad economic news out of the UK in order to dicredit David Cameron's aggressive budget restraint. They are not getting their chance given the facts on the ground, but they nonetheless persist in slanting the coverage pejoratively referring to Cameron's resolute and necessary fiscal prudence as a gamble. Of course, this is worthy of Orwell as the real gamble was continuing to spend the way Labor had been spending for years.

Pound Foolish in Cambridge

Harvard let a bunch of anti-capitalist rabble-rousers drive its best-in-class endowment manager Jack Meyer from his job managing Harvard's money. Well, Meyer is off on his own, doing quite well for himself and his clients, while Harvard lags. Every aspect of the institution is ultimately poorer for the decision to let a few people complain that Harvard paid one of the best in the world commensurate with his abilities and results. Harvard chose to pay for mediocrity and it is getting it. I hope all those nimrods are happy.

Some Elections Are About the Details, But Not This Year

A Five Run Inning for the Supply Side?

Scott Grannis helpfully reminds us of the massive resurgence in the value of global equities. As I have said before, a good chunk of this increase in wealth has likely accrued to those who analyze the world through a supply-side lens (I lump Friedmanite monetarists in as "supply-siders" for simplicity). Viewing the world through a supply-side lens versus a Keynesian or neo-classical lens was the key differentiator in correctly analyzing the financial crisis and making the appropriate investment decisions. Indeed, it is not just in equity markets that supply-siders are raking it in, check out this runup in TIPS. Any supply-sider worth his salt could have seen inflation coming even while the conventional wisdom was fearing deflation. These developments represent important wins versus competing viewpoints on the idealogical scoreboard. But it doesn't stop there, traditional, demand-side theory on economic growth, aka Keynesianism, is currently taking a beating in the real world laboratory. The blow could eventually prove fatal. If the US's economic torpor persists despite unprecedented "stimulus" and if Europe decisively rescues itself by adhering to a doctrine of austerity, Keynesian theory will be forever hobbled, if not defeated. There's nothing like a decisive real world counter-factual to trash a good theory. While Milton Friedman and Edmund Phelps eventually won Nobel prizes for their work burying the long accepted Phillips Curve, it wasn't until the 1970s delivered stagflation that Phillips Curvers had a permanent, undeniable, debilitating flaw attached to their beloved theory. Here's hoping that the next few years bring further vindication to supply-side theories so that we will be less likely to have to live under the dreadful policies that emanate from the demand side such as $1 trillion stimuli, "quantitative easing" and all the rest.

What Is the Dems Threshold of Pain?

I'm sure you've all read Krauthammer's analysis of Dr. Obama's diagnosis of pervasive Obama Underappreciation Syndrome, and it speaks for itself. Yet, Krauthammer mentions something that is worth noting because, although it is obvious, seems to be long forgotten ancient history - the anti-Obama electoral wave started with New Jersey and Virginia and rolled on up to Massachusetts. (What's more, the Dems didn't just lose these races. In the case of New Jersey they spawned, in republican rock star Chris Christie, what to them is surely a Frankenstein monster loose in the land.) So in looking at the entire string of events from Virginia, New Jersey, and Scott Brown to what is shaping up to be a very bad Nov 2nd, what will Dem party poobahs conclude? Will they conclude that Obama is damaging to the party? Maybe, maybe not, but it is hard to draw any other conclusion. And what if they conclude he is? How will this affect the spending of resources and ability to attract competent indivduals to the administration? As I state here, it will be difficult, making a turnaround very unlikely. This will be gut-wrenching for Dems, they are likely facing an intra-party debate on the fundamental question of whether to go all in for Obama and resurrect his presidency or pull the plug entirely on Hopeandchange and, as they so famously put it, "move on."

UPDATE: I predicted here that Obama's approval rating would see the 30s. Drudge has a link (that is not working) to a Harris poll that says ole' Lightworker is at 37.

Dating the Stirrings of the Tea Party

Timothy Dalrymple thinks the tea started brewing under Bush. I say Clinton, as evidenced by that City Journal article that I reference here...
It's semantics though, the point is that a nice strong pot has been brewed, and the smell is wafting all over the house...a glorious development.

Shut Up and Manage Mutual Funds

This seems like a very dumb business decision on Vanguard's part. First, they seem to be adopting Obama's "you are stupid if you don't like my policies" schtick. Insulting your customers is never a winning strategy (in the case of politicians, it ought to be said again, that us voters ain't customers, we are employers, but the notion still holds). Second, the same way that most Americans want entertainers to cease preaching inane leftisms at us (I believe "shut up and sing" is the apt phrase here), I imagine they just want Vanguard to do what it does without the politicking, i.e. manage money.

Jet Blue Bombs the Jerry Dome

A Giants win is a good thing. A Giants win over the Dallas Cowboys is a very good thing. And a Giants win over Jerry Jones's Dallas Cowboys is just tops. The NBfPB game ball - a slot next to the Trenton Thunder - could go to a variety of folks. Michael Boley is surely a candidate for knocking Tony Homo out of the game, but ultimately I have to give it, despite the many pics, to the cool hand that refocused after the tough start and racked up 41 and even had Gruden dubbing the Jints air attack Jet Blue! Number 10, enjoy your spot next to the Gov!

Lightworker Seeks to Punish the Confused, Scared

The Lightworker wants you to help him punish your enemies.

Innumeracy

This is what is called "innumeracy", or the mathematical equivalent of illiteracy. People who work with and around numbers understand the relative size, scope, and meaning of the numbers they deal with. Perhaps this is just a gaffe or an intended lie, but, taking it at face value, you can only conclude that the speaker lacks a basic understanding of the dimensions of government and the US economy.

Feds To Manipulate the Vehicle Market Again

Economists and industry observers are in agreement that Congress's "Cash for Clunkers" program merely pulled forward car purchases that would have taken place in subsequent months (and drove up the price of used cars to boot, showing their hatred of poor people). At least some of us had the opportunity to get a little bit of our neighbor's money by participating in this market distorting event. The Obama administration's next big distortionary stampede through the vehicle market, unfortunately, won't favor some of us over others, it'll just be what economists call a "dead weight loss." The results of this policy will be predictable, and not just by employing elementary lessons of economics and logic, but by looking to recent history. New truck emission standards were last implemented on October 1, 2002 (which also points out that the reporter in the story got things wrong). Back then the new standards resulted in increased fuel consumption (the engines contained numerous emissions-controlling componets which made them less efficient) and thus increased cost for truck owners and operators. So what did truckers do? They went out and loaded up on trucks from the model years just before the standards went into effect, so they could benefit from years and years of the older technology before they had to absorb the mandated increase in costs. Truck tractor sales soared in the years leading up to the change and plummeted immediately after the change. Of course, this wasn't the only distortion involved; because truckers spent all of their capex and more on these extra tractors, they didn't have any money left to maintain and refresh their trailer fleets. This is from a leading trailer manufacturer's 2003 annual report: "The trucking industry...reduced trailer purchases from a high of approximately 306,000 in 1999 to approximately 140,000 units in 2002, a 54% decline in demand." The exact same thing will happen this time around, there will be a rush to buy vehicles before the standard goes into effect to save on inevitable costs that the mandate will impose, and the effects will ripple through the industry and all those who touch it. All in the name of the false god of controlling emissions.

Hennessey Answers Goolsbee

Keith Hennessey is an invaluable resource in debunking leftist economic gibberish.

Supply-Side Monday?

Two articles this morning that may reveal that the worm is turning on the macro supply-side trade. Most supply-siders have been saying that we have incipient inflation and the Fed is nuts to be worrying about deflation. Second, they've been saying that things really aren't that bad, and that despite disastrous policy emanating from Washington, undoubtedly a headwind, the economy is still incredibly resilient and can do OK. The first article tells us that bond investors may finally be giving up their concern over deflation and are turning to inflation worries. The second article illuminates an emerging view that the US consumer might not be all that dead after all and a whiff of recovery might be in the air. Who's to say, but the supply-side trade - long stocks/short Treasuries - may be starting to gain traction.

One note on the economy...when I say "doing OK", it doesn't mean massive hiring by companies. Rather it means, hoarding cash, investing abroad and other pro-shareholder moves like stock buybacks.

Whereas Once Juan Williams Was Blind, Now He Can See

Ah Juan, you're just figuring this out now?? Welcome to the party pal.

Bill Whittle Sums Up It ALL Up

Ever wonder what drives conservatives? Want to know what we think? Don't quite get the Tea Party? Well, you are in luck. You don't have go off and read Hayek, Friedman, Smith, Nozick, Olson, the Federalist Papers or any of that icky stuff. It's all been summed up for you in three easy videos. Three stunningly gripping, lucid videos. This is the equivalent of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy of conservatism. With Whittle on our side, the Helms Deep of Liberalism is toast. Enjoy.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Did you watch them? All three of them? Well, welcome to the right side...

"Unrestrained by the Facts"

The Obama administration's terrible decision to impose a drilling moratorium in the wake of the BP/Deepwater Horizon is and will continue to be felt in the price of oil and the local economy in the Gulf region. Let's put the economics aside though for a second. As suits wind their way through the courts it is looking more and more like the administration resorted to some pretty serious extra-legal maneuvering to impose the moratorium as well as its new safety regulations. It appears that they took the approach that can best be described as "shut down drilling and keep it shut, legalities be damned." Given what we know about the radical greens sitting at Obama's right hand, this episode adds to the disturbing pattern that this administration has displayed of steamrolling the law in pursuing its goals. Actually, they've been doing it since they came into office, they didn't need the BP/Deepwater Horizon incident to provide an excuse to stop oil exploration.

Not Correlation, Causation

I was early and have been consistent in my espousal of the "Obama Down = Stocks Up" analysis/formulation. Let's check in on the data...pretty steady movement down...not as steady, but a solidly up pattern. I think the formula holds, and I think it will hold going forward.

Not Needed But Let's Drive Another Nail Into the Coffin of Global Action on Climate Change

Brazil set the petroleum world on its head (and, quite frankly, the world on its head as oil wealth has a large impact on geo-politics) in 2006 when it announced the discovery of the Tupi oil field. Remember all that "God is Brazilian" stuff? Tupi is believed to contain 8 billion barrels of oil (although some claim it is much larger) making it the largest discovery in the western hemisphere. Well, it looks like Brazil just found another 8 billion barrel field, in Libra. Yeah just another cool 8 billion. Nothing to see here, move along...

So, what are the implications? Many, but a few easy ones. More investment in oil production. More oil production. Global action on global warming - er, sorry, climate change - is dead, dead, dead, dead.

Headline We Won't Read Today

"John Kerry Assails 'Benedict Arnold Corporation' Google."

Let me make it clear that I do not condemn Google one iota for engaging in these legal tax avoidance strategies. In fact I applaud it. I condemn a) this stupid "Benedict Arnold" line of reasoning, b) what I assume will be John Kerry's hypocrisy (he has a good track record).

Again, Stupidity Means You Are Free

I have said, "Maybe freedom means being able to be a fat, artery-clogged slob who gets winded climbing stairs if one so chooses." Don Boudreaux agrees.

How the Headline Oughta Read

Real Headline of the Day: "Man Who Can't Figure Out Turbo Tax Wants to 'Rebalance' Global Economy."

Even if Turbo Tax Timmy were the smartest person in the world, the notion of "rebalancing the global economy" is the most arrogant and hubristic rubbish I have ever heard.

Tea Party Is Crowning Glory of Feminism

Tammy Bruce is right...women have been told for decades now to 1) determine for themselves what is good for them, 2) stand up and speak out in favor of their interests, and 3) never let society define them and stand in their way...and now their government is is telling them what is good for them, telling them to shut up, and defining them narrowly. Looks to me like the Tea Party is evidence of the raging success of feminism.

or maybe the girls have just read more David McCullogh than we have ...?

I'm Getting All Giddy

Phil Hare is down by seven. Hard not to get excited about that. All I need is an Allen West surge to +10 and I might just faint.

Also, most astute political analysis...ever...right here.

UPDATE: Awwww baby, come to papa!!!

Christie Ought to Hire Some Euros to Dig

Chris Christie is taking alot of heat for cancelling the ARC, which is the name for the extra tunnel underneath the Hudson river that would provide another rail link between New York City and New Jersey. The tunnel is needed, but as it stands it's a a huge waste/boondoggle. I've got a better idea, let's have the Swiss do the job. They just drilled a 35.5 mile long tunnel underneath the Alps for $12.58 billion (that's $354 million per mile). In NJ they're talking close to $11 billion for barely over a couple of miles (if that). Call it three miles, that's $3.66 billion per mile. Engineering differences simply can't account for the cost difference - the delta is 1) corruption, 2) ineptitude, and 3) union wages. Don't think this is a fair analysis? Remember when I told you about the Tappan Zee Bridge versus the Millau Viaduct?? It is a crime. We could have so much more/better infrastructure in this country, but we'd have to totally rethink how we go about it. Christie is right, no matter much a project is needed, at some grossly repulsive level of cost overrun, it is not worth it. Pains me to say it, but we should hire the Swiss and/or the French to build the ARC and the Tappan Zee on fixed price contracts. They may have screwed up their private sectors to no end with radical unionism over there across the pond but they haven't let union greed hijack their infrastructure needs.

An Anti-Blumenthal for AG in Connecticut

Last night I attended a meeting where several candidates running for office got to get up and give a brief background on themselves and their respective races. All were impressive and almost all were remarkable in that they were ordinary citizens who got fed up and called themselves to action because the country is headed at full speed toward destruction and the capabilities of the establishment (i.e. the Republican Party) to stop the madness and right things is clearly deficient. They saw the need for private citizens to start taking over for the career politicians. All were impressive, but there was one candidate that was far and away the most impressive. I am a political junkie and I haven't seen a sharper more inspiring candidate in a long while. However this person won't be going to Washington DC if she wins her race, she'll be attempting to revive Connecticut's business climate after 20 years of decimation at the hands of Richard Blumenthal, as the Nutmeg state's new Attorney General. She's Martha Dean and Connecticut could sorely use her. I hope, for their sake, that Connecticutters have the good sense to elect this impressive woman to be their top law enforcement official and close the era of job crushing shakedown artistry that has prevailed in Hartford.

Spain's Green Economy Bleeds Red Ink

President Obama has hailed Spain as an exemplar of a country plowing ahead with clean energy initiatives to forge that wonderful green economy that lefties the world over keep telling us about. This story in Bloomberg Magazine (into which BusinessWeek was subsumed) illuminates for us that it isn't going so well.

Flubba Bubba

Bill Clinton channels Jose Luis Zapatero. I would say that Bubba is having a senior moment here, but this seems to be the best liberalism can do (aside from Dick Blumenthal's "lawsuits create jobs" and Pelosi's "unemployment checks create jobs"). So sad to see Bubba look so foolish, I was never a Bubba fan but I thought he was aging rather gracefully (gracefully for a philandering scumbag, that is). Sorry to break it to you Bubba, but California has plenty of well-trained people, it's just that the jobs are leaving.

McKenzie & O Line...Meet the Gov

This week's NYG game ball goes to the O-line, represented here by Kareem McKenzie, who had a typically solid game, allowing a solid balanced attack. While the defense perfomed well, they shouldn't have let the Lions, with a third string QB, rack up 20 points. Well done, O-Line!

Good Advice

This is the best piece of wisdom you will consume today and perhaps for a long time, and it is how I have felt for many many years now: "“There is a saying that we should leave a better country to our children. But it’s more important to leave better children to our country.” (HT: Carpe Diem) Forget all the mumbo-jumbo that you hear from the left that we need to bequeath our children all this utopian machinery, they'll do fine if given a solid moral foundation, a thoroughgoing Anglo-Saxon education strong on the study of the classic civilizations and Western history, science and math, and short on all the post-modern relativist, mumbo-jumbo, and the freedom to make their way in this world. Michelle Obama and all the others can stuff their rhetoric about what we need to do, how we need to change, and stuff all this social engineering and taking our money in the name of building a better nation. Job one for me is raising children that can make make good choices and make their way in this world. It's something we should all see as our principal role. Leave us alone and let us pour the fruits of our labor into that job and we can stop worrying about the future of our nation.

Even After ObamaCare, Can the Dems Outdo Themselves? Yes.

I've been highlighting the risk of an Argentina-style theft of your retirement assets ever since I heard of it. Well, it may be coming in the lame duck session. This type of loathesome and economically destructive policy would be a disaster if passed under normal circumstances. If it comes in a lame duck session where large numbers of legislators have been sent packing and the politcal power has shifted, well, then it is nothing short of a moral outrage. If it does come, its repeal will be more important than repeal of ObamaCare. If ever there was cause for pitchforks-in-the-streets outrage, this would be it.

Ooooo, Not Good

Iran: Tehran Voted In As President Of OPEC
October 14, 2010
Iran has been elected as the president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for the first time in 36 years, Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Mohammad Ali Khatibi said Oct. 14, citing Mehr news agency. The 12-member cartel voted in Vienna on Oct. 14. Iran holds the post until 2011.

Tribalism Anyone?

Here's something to ponder: unemployment among African-Americans is 16.1% up from 12.8% in January of 2009 and the number of said folks leaving the labor force is soaring, and yet Obama's approval rating among this group is over 90%.

Awe-Inspiringly Intelligent President: "Um, I Didn't Know Government Was Slow and Inefficient"

I was just too stunned (yes even me, jaded man of world that I am) by this to blog about it. I don't no where to begin - shouldn't a certain level of wisdom that understood this have been a requirement for the office of President of the United States? Of course it should have, but somewhere, somehow, we lost our heads.

So, is Obama saying he should have worked with Republicans more? That's what it sounds like, but here he said they'll have to work with him more. First, so which is it? Second, why do they have to do what he didn't after their relative power is dramatically enhanced. Doesn't make sense. No wonder our foreign policy is so f**ked, this guy thinks the more powerful you get the more conciliatory you need to be. A Sun Tzu scholar this guy ain't. Again, I am still waiting for the evidence that we have this hyper-intelligent President as everyone keeps saying.

Pinera Schools Obama In Leadership

Like many millions across the globe, I've been riveted to the miraculous rescue of the Chilean 33, and although there are many noble themes - the greatest being the persistence of the human spirit, call it faith - and lessons to be learned from this event, I can't resist focusing on, perhaps, a baser theme. And it is this: Barack Obama just got schooled in how do to Presidential leadership and crisis management correctly by Sebastien Pinera. Pinera established the priorities and goals, was fully engaged, and - this is the most starkly divergent from Obama - sought the right resources and help from anywhere in the world he could get it. I bet you Obama not once talked to any oil company executive except to read them the riot act, and here is Pinera tracking down the most advanced drilling technology and expertise to get it involved asap. With its strong example of leadership, little Chile, for 70 days, has towered over the mighty United States of America and its embarrassing paucity of leadership.

You want the UPLIFT (and you should rather than my decidedly, and admittedly, base take)? Go here. Go.

Tide of Tea Party Money Bewilders MSM

This ABC News report linked to by Drudge is an interesting sight to behold. On the surface it is a typical pre-election "get to know the candidates" type segment, but underneath lie two powerful ironies: 1) the MSM is essentially reporting on their own declining influence, and 2) the media personalities are oblivious to their own display of the typical cluelessness that has contributed to that decline. Diane Sawyer and Jonathan Karl are brimming with disbelief that Sharon Angle has raised such a stunnning amount of money and that some little known gal in South Dakota has also raised big money. You can almost hear them say, "Both of these women have certainly gotten no attention from us, the national media, (except in Angle's case maybe a few snide put downs), where possibly could this fundraising prowess have come from?" Of course, what they seem not to understand is the massive anger and disillusionment that has crested the banks of our national politics and that technology has enabled this anger to coalesce and organize and that new voices from the blogosphere are informing the electorate and driving people to engage. This is typical - it is posts like that from a well-respected and widely read blog, multiplied by the thousands, that is driving the fundraising prowess of these candidates that have the MSM scratching their heads. But they won't be scratching their heads much longer. MSM biggies are on the phones with their political party establishment friends asking how this could happen, and the establishment has to let them in on the secret - blogs and alternative media have replaced them, it's "open-field" politics as Michael Barone has labelled it, and how the game is played is changing before their very eyes. Sawyer's and Karl's bewildered curiosity is actually touching to behold, it is exactly what I get from my nine year old when she discovers something eminently new and odd.

UPDATE: More MSM outing of its own bewilderment and irrelevancy live on TV!

What Wine?

I recently had a big birthday (an age where the numerical representation ends in a 0) and since I am quick to bust out a nice bottle of wine for any special occassion (and, er, invent specialness for occassions where I need an excuse to bust out a nice bottle...!), many of my friends and acquaintences asked me what I planned on drinking on my birthday. This year my stock answer is "Birthday, Schmirthday, ask me what I am going to drink on Election Day!" It's gonna be big, historic, and it looks like I'm gonna be up all night following races like this one. I may need two bottles of the good stuff.

Misc...

Ann Coulter, F.A. Hayek, blah blah blah...

Fine, so then would you rather have the career politician Fredo Corleone or the businessman Fredo Corleone???

The "empty suit' rhetoric is flying these days. Remember folks, I told you here in November '08...pig in a poke.

To My Readers...

I must say I've had a spurt of fantastic blogging (i.e. check this out) of late. Despite this my traffic numbers look terrible, so I must take inspiration from Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry and assorted other Democrats and ask..."What the fuck is wrong with you people!?!?!"

And the Nobel Prize in Economics Goes to...James Madison

This is amazing. Beyond the direct object lesson here, this teaches us that a) our problems are the same as they've always been, thus our solutions ought to be the same as they've always been, and b) we continue to not learn what history has repeatedly taught us. This is the historical time equivalent of "not invented here syndrome", I call it "not invented in this era" syndrome. Why do we continually reject what our forebears have taught us as if it is some dishonor to copycat them, as if we must solve our problems with only newly inspired solutions (which, of course, are themselves only recycled versions of our forebears' failed solutions)? What a tragic aspect of human nature (or is it an indictment of the state of our schools, the Founders, after all, were all reciting Greek and Roman texts by memory in their early teens).

(HT: Instapundit)

Naturally...

Yet again it appears that our powerful elites have been lecturing us, with their tedious and obvious disdain, while the facts show the pox is on their houses. Mark Perry powerfully illustrates.

UPDATE: Related. I second...pathetic.

UPPDATE: "Shovel ready", the Democrats catch-phrase for the mythical immediacy that they used to sell their stimulus package, had the comic ring because America seemed to know from the start what they were indeed shovelling. Now though, we have a new, distinctly perverse, comedic angle to the trillion dollar disaster that was the stimulus. I wonder what the Keynesian multiplier is for cutting checks to stiffs??

Disappointed? Let Down? WHY????????

This seems to be the theme breaking out all over. People expected more. WHY????? There was no evidence for anybody to expect anything. The red flags were all there. This had disaster written all over it. The problem is not with Obama, he is living up to potential, the true problem is with us (not me), or, more precisely, those of us who voted for him not out of partisanship but out of actual, true-blue conviction in the man.

Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen

When I read that Michelle Obama was deemed the most powerful woman in the world by some publication, I said to myself, "Self, I wonder what gaggle of liberal twits came up with this howler...Newsweek, Time, the NY Crimes?" (After all, her fellow Democrats just laughed her laughable nutrition bill right out of Congress...) But it turns out it's Forbes!!! Forbes!! Oh how the mighty have fallen. No wonder my monthly Forbes is as thick as my kids' Club Lego newsletter.

Oil WIll KO Obama (Updated!!)

I told you ( in May of 2009, no less) that 10% unemployment and $4 gas would send Obama into the history books as a one term disaster a la Jimmy Carter. I nailed 10% unemployment with one hand tied behind my back; $4 gas has been more elusive, but it's coming. This segment of Sir Lawrence's show gives you the goods. It's partly Mr. Bernanke's fault but Dear Leader's clueless drilling moratorium, which has yet to be felt in the economy - the oil market operates with a 6-12 month lag - sealed the deal. It's coming. Sir Lawrence is right, $140 crude in July of 2008 gets little blame for the subsequent meltdown, but it was decisive in my opinion. Obama is staggering around the ring right now, and oil will deliver the knockout blow. Unfortunately you and me will feel it too.

UPDATE: Peter Beinart - who, while not very compelling a thinker/writer, is no run-of-the-mill lefty twit - thinks Obama is a lock for a second term. He gives three reasons: 1) the base will rally, 2) the economy will rebound, 3) the GOP will screw it up. Only one of these is at all convincing to me and that is #3. Yes the GOP could screw it up, although one thing is clear to me, if they screw it up they will screw it up less than last time. So will the voters reject a GOP that is learning its lessons, albeit imperfectly, for four more years of Obama? Maybe, but doubtful. As to #1, I can't (nor would I want) to crawl inside the head of anyone typical of Obama's "base" but I have posited that the Obama coalition is dead. Fine, the base may rally but Obama needed a coalition last time and he'll need it again, but it is gone forever. "The base" isn't enough. (Oh, and let's not forget the other side's "base", if you think the Tea Party crowd will be satisfied with what they achieve in November, you've got another thing coming. Small-gov conservatives, libertarians, and Tea Partiers all understand that this is a two cycle fight at a minimum and that the really important pink slip that they need to issue is...Obama's.) Finally, IMHO the economy will stumble along, but even if the economy does do OK it won't feel like it to the average voter - lackluster growth won't create enough jobs to absorb workforce growth, $4 gas will dampen consumer spending, ObamaCare fallout will continue to plague businesses, and we will continue to look like laggards relative to the rest of the world. Furthermore, and this is a point that Beinart completely ignores, the world will look a mess and/or Obama's foreign policy ineptitude will shine through in a particularly visible and ugly way. The world's bad guys have already sized Obama up and will do what they want, and the world's good guys realize that Obama doesn't much care or even think about things in terms of good/bad, so no net positive on the global scene is forthcoming.

My take is that Obama's troubles are only beginning. One of the structural flaws that he had coming in to his Presidency was a shallow political base. As a newby, he didn't have the deep networks and connections to draw the top talent to his side; he only had the ability to draw party loyalists who do what they do for the party, not for him. As he proves damaging to the party, these folks will not sign up to resurrect the great Obama experiment, which is a major problem for him. He is going to need top class talent to resurrect his presidency. Where is he going to find these people? Where are the All-stars going to come from? Answer: He's not gonna get them. Is he really going to turn things around dramatically in 20 months with a bunch of B-teamers? Doubtful.

Think I'm wrong? Let me remind you what I said just over a year ago: "Mark these words, we will see at least one high profile cabinet resignation in the next six months and as many as three in the next 18 months as some determine that it is not good for their careers to be associated with this administration (Gates excluded)." We've gotten more than three in thirteen months. Trust Donny B. on this one. Beinart's got nothing on me.

"Come and GET my 1099s!"

Bob Zubrin highlights an enormous disaster lurking underneath the surface - the 1099 requirement embedded deep within ObamaCare. This is one of the Sausage Factory's stupider dictats - it literally would bury American business under mountains of paperwork, sucking billions of dollars of productivity out of the economy. Zubrin wants us to resist this tyranny. I agree. But how? Simple. Don't do it. Say "Pound sand, Congress." Don't file the bloody forms. We constantly hear that we can't be worried about people breaking our laws because it just isn't practical and/or sensible to deport 11 million illegal aliens. So let's make it neither practical nor sensible for our federal government to come and arrest millions of business owners, small and large. They can't arrest us all. This is one form of civil disobedience that is easy and relatively risk free, as far as breaking laws go. So there you have it businessfolk...Just Say No to 1099.

UPDATE: Remember, as John Dingell has kindly revealed, ObamaCare is about "controlling the people", so don't be controlled!!

Chuckle of the Day

Best chuckle line of the day: "When Fritz Mondale is giving you advice about connecting with your audience . . ." (here)

Off the Schneid Thanks to the Pass Rush

With 3 sacks as part of the New New York Sack Exchange, this week's NBfPB "gameball" goes to Osi Umenyiora. Been awhile, glad to have you back Osi! Enjoy your spot next to the Gov...

"It Took Time To Free the Slaves..."

"...and it's gonna take time to redistribute all of whitey's money to the peeps!"

Why This Recovery Stinks

Phil Gramm takes to the pages of the WSJ Op-ed page to tell you that this recovery is anemic because we're making too many of the same mistakes we made back in the thirties because we have a business-loathing, progressive President. As usual folks, you heard it here first.