1. Stock Market Strategy From Some Politician

Ok, this one floored me. Some elected official with a funny name, “Obama” or something like that, just called a stock market bottom.

2. How “Leftist” Is The Obama Budget?

It’s to the left of Maxine Waters….

3. Michael Steele’s No Good, Low Down, Rotten, Very Bad Week

When the party you are chairman of is compared to the Nazi Party, you should consider challenging the statement.

4. The Ownership Society Becomes Obama’s Collective Society

Let them eat cake.

5. Carbon Fuels Have Small Footprints.

Not exactly what the environmentalists were hoping to hear.

6. Dirt-Digging We Can Believe In

Democrats Being Democrats Yet Again

7. Dick Durbin’s Son of Fairness Doctrine

Same result as the Fairness Doctrine through a different process.

8. When you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything

Somewhere a village is missing its New York Times columnist

9. The Economics of Healthcare

In the medium term, the United States faces an unavoidable liability to fund healthcare for the baby-boomers.

1. Stock Market Strategy From Some Politician

Ok, this one floored me. Some elected official with a funny name, “Obama” or something like that, just called a stock market bottom.

Apparently this clown was over in London talking to some other politician, I think he’s named after a color or something, or maybe the other clown came over here or something, and he says, get this, he says that “Profit and Earnings ratios” have now come down to an attractive level for stock market investors that take a “long-term perspective.”

Forget politician, this guy sounds like some snot-nosed weenie that just got his MBA and passed his Series 7 and got a job selling stock in some retail Merrill Lynch office in Jersey or someplace. (Do they even have those anymore?) “Take a long-term perspective” means “yer gonna lose money on this puppy.”

So what’s the profit and earnings ratio this guy’s talking about? It can’t ever be anything but one, can it? Because aren’t profits and earnings basically the same thing? You divide something by itself, you get one, right? Unless it’s a freakin’ mortgage or something. I mean I can see talking about the price to earnings ratio. But that’s no good either because most of the quants I know are talking about another hundred points down on the S&P.

But who listens to politicians? I mean if Bernanke or Geithner or God or someone like that got up and started talking about the stock market, I’d listen. I mean, what they do might actually make a difference. But they’re too smart for that anyway, they know we’ll overreact.

But some politician? Who cares what he thinks.

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2. How “Leftist” Is The Obama Budget?

It’s to the left of Maxine Waters….

Every year, the “progressive” (sic) caucus, led by Maxine Waters, has put out a budget proposal of its own, and brought it to the floor for a vote.

Last year, this budget proposal was soundly defeated - it garnered only 98 votes in favor, meaning that even two-thirds of Democrats voted against it.

Today, Congressman McCarthy pointed out that the Obama budget goes far beyond the Waters budget, having trillions more in outlays, spending, and deficits.

In other words, it’s even further left than last year’s “progressive” budget.

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3. Michael Steele’s No Good, Low Down, Rotten, Very Bad Week

When the party you are chairman of is compared to the Nazi Party, you should consider challenging the statement.

Good Lord did Michael Steele really botch his CNN interview with D. L. Hughley. I thought he was an articulate spokesman. His reaction to a comment about the Nazi Party was as bad as, if not worse than, his Rush Limbaugh comment.

Hughley tells Steele the Republican Convention looked like a Nazi party gathering in Germany.

Steele’s response? Well, here’s the unedited transcript from CNN covering that portion of the interview:

HUGHLEY: Well, Michael, I agree. I’m telling you, if it were the sign alone — in other words, the tenets of the Republican Party are amazing and they seem warm and welcome. But when I watch it be applied — like you didn’t have to go much further than the Republican National Convention.

STEELE: Agreed.

HUGHLEY: It literally look like Nazi Germany. It literally did. I make that point, not only are we not welcome — not only are we not welcome, but they don’t even care what we think. And that …

STEELE: Well, I’m here now

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4. The Ownership Society Becomes Obama’s Collective Society

Let them eat cake.

What I’m looking at is not the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market, but the long-term ability for the United States and the entire world economy to regain its footing. And, you know, the stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. You know, it bobs up and down day to day. And if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you’re probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong. — Barack Obama.

The problem, of course, is that Barack Obama is right. The Dow Jones is kind of like a tracking poll. And the trend downward is a vote of no confidence in Barack Obama’s economic proposals.

So many in the media are still harping on the “hoping Obama will fail” remark that they totally miss the point.

Yes, Barack Obama says his economic stimulus plan will stimulate the economy.

No, Barack Obama’s economic stimulus will not actually help the situation, but will make it worse. Even the Congressional Budget Office agrees.

So we must root for Obama to fail at implementing his agenda. Because if he is successful, the economic situation will only grow worse.

We have plenty of history to prove the point.

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5. Carbon Fuels Have Small Footprints.

Not exactly what the environmentalists were hoping to hear.

A bunch of bureaucrats in Sacramento are about to give California and the rest of the nation a license to drill for more American oil.

In an effort to save the environment, the California Air Resources Board has come up with a set of Low Carbon Fuel Standards that measure the carbon footprint of different kinds of fuels.

As it turns out, the Air Resources Board has determined that oil-based fuels have a smaller carbon footprint than ethanol or other biofuels.

Seeing as how oil-based fuel has a smaller carbon footprint than ethanol, this pretty much opens the door for more drilling of American oil – perhaps right off the California coast. And we all know that, as California goes, so goes the rest of the nation. Pretty soon, we can expect oil rigs popping up from ANWR to the Gulf of Mexico to the Virginia and North Carolina coast.

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6. Dirt-Digging We Can Believe In

Democrats Being Democrats Yet Again

The saga of Shauna Daly is yet another in a seemingly endless series of proofs of this over the first six weeks of united Democratic governance.

In late January, Daly was hired as “White House counsel research director”. Daly is 29 and has no experience relevant to the job, having worked for the DNC and a number of Democratic campaigns, including Obama’s.

Daly apparently got the job through the influence of a man who has made a career of flacking for the Daley machine and, apparently, masterminding leaks of divorce files that crippled Obama’s political opponents.

A month later, she was back at the DNC.

Given that the White House counsel’s office deals in privileged legal advice to the president, including on sensitive issues of national security, there are reasons to be concerned that Daly has used her brief tenure in the office for gathering information that was never supposed to be used for partisan purposes.

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7. Dick Durbin’s Son of Fairness Doctrine

Same result as the Fairness Doctrine through a different process.

They’ll also require advisory boards for each station and make it easier to address consumer complaints against stations.” Durbin’s Amendment purpose was “to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership, and to ensure that the public airwaves are used in the public interest.” Can you see the similarities?

The Durbin Amendment is a clear attack on free speech and 56 Senators vote with Senator Durbin to empower the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate conservative talk radio out of existence. The Amendment specifically forces the FCC ”take actions to encourage diversity in communication media ownership.” Diversity is a code word for efforts to remove some conservatives from the radio airwaves.

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8. When you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything

Somewhere a village is missing its New York Times columnist

David Brooks is shocked, shocked I tell you, that Barack Obama is a leftist.

David, you’re just stupid. It was obvious. Hell, if you’d paid any attention at all, Obama’s willingness to take the New Party’s pledge to seek their endorsement should have told you Obama is a leftist. His speaking out against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act should have told you he is a leftist. His surrounding himself with people like Bill Ayers should have told you he is a leftist.

But you wanted to believe. You wanted to believe because you stand for nothing.

All moderates stand for nothing. That is why moderates do not lead movements.

In Brooks’ column today, he calls out for a new movement of moderates. He wants a real “Moderate Manifesto”, which sounds about as exciting as three square meals a day followed by a nightly bowel movement.

Moderates stand for nothing. That is why they are parts of coalitions. Liberals and conservatives pick off moderates issue by issue because moderates do not have a prevailing set of principles to guide their choices. Each issue is up for debate with a moderate. Each position can be infinitely nuanced to get a moderate aroused enough to support that position.

Conservatives and liberals lead. Moderates cry in the New York Times that they’ve been tricked again. And again. And again.

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9. The Economics of Healthcare

In the medium term, the United States faces an unavoidable liability to fund healthcare for the baby-boomers.

As people age, they tend to consume more healthcare with each passing year. In the US, the next several decades will see steady increases in health spending, probably peaking around 2030 and declining thereafter.

This is mandated consumption. There is a firm expectation that rationing healthcare for the elderly is not an acceptable social outcome. Therefore we need to fund the spending.

There is also a firm expectation that no one may receive a level of care that far exceeds what is available to people without wealth. We could argue this point until we’re blue in the face, but I won’t waste my time. Social justice is non-negotiable in the current political environment. Therefore, some amount of income redistribution is inevitable.

It’s helpful to model the rise in health spending as a percentage over current consumption levels. It would be ideal if we could simply add future health spending on top of today’s consumption. Given that, you could project roughly how much economic growth we would need.

The long-term average growth of the stock market (a proxy for nominal economic growth) is perhaps 6%, maybe a bit more. That’s an encouraging number, but real (inflation-adjusted) growth has tended to be more like 3%. (At this moment, of course, the economy is SHRINKING at about a 6% rate.)

Real growth is a better match for health spending than nominal growth, because health spending is mandatory. It doesn’t respond to price signals because healthcare in the US is not delivered in free markets.

Therefore, under historic expectations, we’ll face an inflation-adjusted gap in health spending, between its rate of growth and the economy’s rate of growth. We’ll need to fund this gap by displacing other consumption. Our standard of living will NECESSARILY fall by the amount of the gap.

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