Barrel Strength

The One now wants to dictate compensation and the behaviour of boards of directors across the American economy:

“The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation,” according to government officials who spoke to the New York Times (emphasis added).

Somewhere in the bowels of Hades Saul Alinsky is beaming with pride.

A nice take on the bluster from Congress and the White House:

*_

During the campaign, no-drama-obama approach won plaudits from across the political spectrum.  Today Obama veered off that path and compared AIG to a suicide bomber.

“The same is true with AIG,” he said. “It was the right thing to do to step in. Here’s the problem. It’s almost like they’ve got — they’ve got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger. You don’t want them to blow up. But you’ve got to kind of talk them, ease that finger off the trigger.”

This sudden change in character is surprising and has left several people puzzled.  Fortunately we now have a view of machinations in the White House, thanks to a blog started by somebody on the inside, namely TOTUS.   TOTUS provides the following insight when questioned.

Did he convey the level of anger you hoped for regarding what you told him to say about AIG?
This was my bad. It’s tough to insert instructions, like [FROWN] or [SMILE], because in the heat of the moment, Big Guy might actually read it aloud, like “I am sorry [frown] that Senator Dodd and my Democratic colleagues on the Hill were singularly responsible for the AIG bonus protections.” That would be embarrassing and possibly indicate to unsuspecting viewers that The Man was reading off a teleprompter. And we don’t want that. And even if He did screw up, there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that there is an electronic-shock mechanism on the podium used when he makes those kinds of mistakes … so far as you know.

TOTUS’ blog is a must read!

1. There is no limit to human hypocrisy, including my own.

2. There is a fixed amount of intolerance; its targets are periodically dispersed, concentrated or re-fashioned.

3. All conscious beings know everything anyway.

4. The principal determinant of outcomes, in any situation of uncertainty, is the model people have of the world.

I thought of these so long ago they are still encoded in Word Perfect, but I thought they should be shared with the world.

I can imagine a language existing which has one word for the concept expressed in law #2 by “dispersed, concentrated or re-fashioned”, such as “squatched”, or “remelded”. It would be the sign of a tyranny that all private demons and enemeies are concentrated into one target: the infidels, the Jews, the kulaks, the capitalists, the Tutsis, and so forth. It is the sign of a pluralist democracy that the targets of intolerance are dispersed, and mutiform. Call this Corollary #1 of Dalwhinnie’s Second Law.

More to follow.

Remember the Michael Crichton book whose eponymous subject was subject to increasingly violent and more frequent seizures?  How is this different from living under the Obama dispensation?  The shocks to my system are arriving more often, and they send me into worse paroxyms. This hour’s -

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners could be released into the United States while others could be put on trial in the American court system, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday.”

In an earlier time, barriers of skepticism would automatically go up against things like this. Not any more. Those shields are down. The photon torpedoes of fantasy made real are causing real damage.

Some political stories develop a myth of their own.  The NYT story in 1988, that President Bush was “amazed” when he saw grocery price scanners, was a complete fabrication, yet it took hold in the psyche of the electorate.  Unfortunately for Andrew Rosenthal, the reporter behind this lie, he did not win a Pulitzer for this.  This is indeed fortunate, as there won’t be any calls for him to return the Pulitzer as has been suggested for another NYT reporter, Walter Duranty, who did win the coveted prize after reports that denied the famine in Ukraine during Stalin’s reign.

Another similar event related to the “uni-directional impact generator”, aka hammer, swept through the psyche of the electorate in early 1980s.

Two decades later, perhaps the most enduring example of government waste is the $436 Pentagon hammer. The ignominious piece of hardware, though hardly the most egregious purchase of the time, struck a chord with the American public and became an emblem of the Department of Defense’s procurement scandals of the 1980s.

The broad coverage accorded to the AIG bonus issue might lead to this becoming the seminal event of the Obama administration, especially given the ineptness and lack of knowledge displayed by the government.  The Chris Dodd circus, no-i-didn’t-yes-i-did, went on to highlight this.

Many of the gripes about Stephen Harper’s tight-fisted control of the government agenda and its communications channels have focused on his seeming ideological pliability. These tend not to square with the stark realities of managing a minority government. One lives or dies by every budgetary and other confidence measure, yet advances can be made through the ongoing work of sound appointees within the machinery of government.

But the gains through incremental change could be all for nought if the fundamentals of government are not handled properly. The Gary Goodyear fracas has demonstrated that the PMO can only control so much of regular governance. It is bad enough that Harper is content to micro-manage at the expense of having marginally competent ministers and advisors in portfolios. Do we have to sacrifice worthwhile policy ground when one of his “carbon blobs from Sector 7-G” drops the ball?

Science and technology should not be regarded as an after-thought by conservatives. Creating the optimal conditions for a knowledge economy allows the best and brightest the freedom to succeed. As we have seen in the past year, decreasing our dependence on a volatile resource-based economy makes greater sense. And this approach includes basic science. Where do the Tory wonks think applied science comes from?!

Another failure of this Army of One is its fixation upon the Inner Party. Must Conservative supporters rely upon second-hand accounts of Harper’s address to a Manning Centre conference to learn where he wants to aim the party in the future? Can we expect more from him than the unceasing emails pleas from Irving Gerstein for more donations?

Governing in economically difficult times is challenging for any political leader. That does not excuse deficiencies in obvious areas like fielding a competent cabinet and reaching out to the real party base. Seeing that many of us do not rely upon the beneficence of Ottawa for our livelihoods, are we so ready to weep for those who may lose theirs through their growing hubris and ineptitude?

Slashdot relays horror stories of shoppers at Office Depot being swindled on computer purchases by employees flogging extended warranties. This is nothing new in the realm of big-box tech merchandising. Get yourself a decent CompTIA A+ certification manual like A+ for Dummies and you can fix many computer problems on your own. After all, thrift is a conservative virtue.

New York Times, March 16

In strongly worded remarks delivered in the White House East Room before small business owners, Mr. Obama called A.I.G. “a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed.” … “All across the country, there are people who work hard and meet their responsibilities every day, without the benefit of government bailouts or multimillion-dollar bonuses,” said Mr. Obama, who called the issue one of “fundamental values.”

….

I think the real news was that the small business owners failed to start yelling, “Connect the dots, you idiot! Let them fail! You’d let us go under without a second glance! Give us back our money!”

This administration continues to ensure that this crisis is “not wasted“.  The WSJ notes the following.

President Barack Obama has filled nearly twice as many government posts as the previous two presidents did at this point in their first terms. The problem is, the current administration has so much more on its plate that it needs more key people in place to advance its ambitious agenda…

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner remains his department’s sole confirmed official…

According to the White House’s tabulation, Mr. Obama by the end of February had inserted 512 staffers scattered throughout government, compared with 288 for the Bush administration and 286 under President Bill Clinton. Of those, 32 Obama aides were for more senior jobs requiring Senate confirmation, compared with 22 under George W. Bush and 25 under Mr. Clinton. The administration by March 1 had hired a striking 183 noncareer senior executives, compared with just two under Mr. Bush and 57 under Mr. Clinton.

The most critical item on the agenda should be the financial crisis.  It seems that Obama is more interested in ensuring that his political agenda progresses, by appointing candidates to other posts, but is willing to let the economy burn.

Man-caused global warming is the gigantic Ponzi scheme of policy. Al Gore is its Bernie Madoff. The payouts (in self-righteousness and assumed moral status) can only be maintained by geometric increases in the number of converts to the collectove folly.

Fortunately, recent data heralds the demise of the scheme. Will Al Gore be sentenced to prison? Most unlikely.

With thanks to a letter from a Mr. H.R.Bullis of Edmonton in the Financial Post Comment page, Saturday March 14, 2009.

The lack of economic policy to address the financial crisis might be due to the fact that Obama administration is busy undoing the foreign policy initiatives of the previous Bush administration.  And what an effort it is!

News stories abound today about UK planning a rift with US which is obviously a pushback by the Obama administration to earlier comments by the head of the civil service in UK, Sir Gus O’Donnell:

In an extraordinary blunder, the usually-guarded Sir Gus said no-one in the U.S. Treasury department was answering telephone calls.

He said it meant the Government was finding it ‘unbelievably difficult’ to hold discussions ahead of the meeting of world leaders in London.

Even though the world was in the grip of the worst economic crisis in decades – top of the G20 agenda – Number 10 was having trouble getting in touch with key personnel, said the Cabinet Secretary.

‘There is nobody there,’ he told a civil service conference in Gateshead.

‘You cannot believe how difficult it is.’

There seems to be a trend in this administration in picking fights with allies.  Whether it is free trade with South Korea or abrogating a defense agreement with India.  The latter is interesting given the scope of rejection, involving UK and Australia, as well as the fact that Bush administration worked hard to make India an ally.

The Indian Navy chose to power its indigenously designed, cutting-edge stealth warship, the INS Shivalik, with gas turbines from American company General Electric (GE). But even as the Shivalik readies for sea trials, the US State Department has ordered GE to stop all work on the turbines it has supplied….

GE has told MDL that there could be up to three months delay, while the new US administration reviews its military relations with several countries. India is not alone in facing this ban; GE has been told to stop work even with close US allies like the UK and Australia.

The rejection of allies and the corresponding attempts to improve relations with countries hostile to US interests, such as Syria, Russia and Iran, is bizarre and contrary to Political Realism which this administration was suppose to spawn, when it rejected neoconservative foreign policy.  In the real word is there such thing as a moderate Taliban?  Is it any wonder that the Chinese are testing the US mettle in South China Sea and North Korea is doing the same in the Korean peninsula?

The CRTC gives approval  for an obituary channel.

And Ralph Benmurgui waits anxiously for a call from his agent.

This past winter, Roger Scruton published the essay “Islam and the West: Lines of Demarcation”,  which deserves the broadest possible readership. He sees the West distinguished from Islam by the following (incommensurate) factors:

1. Secular law leading to citizenship
2. Nationality
3. Christianity
4. Irony
5. Self-criticism
6. Representation
7. Drink

“First, we should be clear about what it is that we are and are not defending. We are not defending, for example, our wealth or our territory; these things are not at stake. Rather, we are defending our political and cultural inheritance, embodied in the seven features which I have singled out here for attention. Second, we should be clear that you cannot overcome resentment by feeling guilty or by conceding fault. Weakness provokes, since it alerts your enemy to the possibility of destroying you. We should therefore be prepared to affirm what we have, and to express our determination to hold on to it.”

Please read this essay. It will clarifiy issues for you.

The foibles of the Obama administration make for a titillating read, but it is time to step back and look at the broader canvas.  This administration is working against a backdrop of a severe financial crisis that is widely reported as the worst since 1930s.  It is instructive to recall that that when the NASDAQ bubble popped, with market peaking in March 2000, it was widely compared to the 1929 crash with predictions of catastrophe ahead. For Obama to state that “I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office”, as if no other president had faced similar financially accentuating circumstances is a gross misrepresentation of facts.  It seems some are better qualified to address the issues or are willing to put a better effort into resolving them.

Obama administration has chosen to to ensure that this crisis is not “wasted”.  Earlier Rahm Emanuel said “Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things.” Hillary Clinton said the same recently, “Never waste a good crisis … Don’t waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security.”  The mad rush to implement spending programs to affect this change can be better understood when one examines the future political timeline.

The stock market took a sharp downturn in Oct 2008 and Obama was elected in Nov 2008, i.e. very early in the crisis. In contrast, FDR was elected two years after the stock market crash, and thus at a different point in the economic cycle. When FDR was elected, the worst was behind him and he had the wind in his back. In case of Obama, the fate has given him the reins too early in the crisis and he is exacerbating the problem with poor, or in some case no, policy decisions.   This contrast can be seen most vividly in an earlier post.

When elections are held in 2010 the economy is likely to be much worse than it is now.  It is likely that the Democrats will lose a significant number of seats and subsequently will have insufficient votes to pass the desired legislation. Your correspondent believes that this will be an important theme during the upcoming election, just as was noted in a post in the middle of last year, that Republicans were likely to lose a substantial number of seats in the 2008 elections, because several GOP incumbents were retiring.