The Bleak Future under President Obama

It is the natural tendency of any bureaucracy to grow, and my current fear is that our federal bureaucracy is on the verge of becoming so big that it will topple the economic ship. Therefore, it is my top priority to support candidates who at least claim they will fight the growth of big government.

Sen. Obama is promising he will add to the bureaucracy, add entitlements, add payouts, and add universal health care. Sen. McCain says Sen. Obama will add about $800 billion to the annual federal budget. Add to that about $200 billion per year for the bailout package working its way through Congress. Add to that Sen. Obama's promise to reduce taxes on the lower 95% of taxpayers -- even at $1,000 per household per year, that will add $100 billion to the deficit. Now consider Sen. Obama's claim that he will raise taxes only on the top 5% of taxpayers (roughly 5 million households). Even if the economy stays out of a recession (unlikely at this point), he must increase the taxes on the top 5% by about $220,000 per year. Did Sen. Obama promise to balance the budget? Then he needs to collect another $400 billion or so per year, making the tax increase on the top 5% almost $300,000 per year.

What do you think will happen to the economy when the richest 5% of our population have $1.5 trillion less to invest and spend each year??? This is certain to cause a severe recession!

At what point will the voters realize that the federal well is dry, and that we cannot afford to increase the federal budget, even for universal health care???

Democrats to Blame for Freddie and Fannie Mess

A lot of people, including Obama, are pointing their fingers at Bush for making the Freddie and Fannie mess. This video tells the true story:

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/23/video-whos-responsible-for-the-fannie-and-freddie-mess/

To summarize, this sad story started during the Clinton era when laws were passed to force banks to make risky loans for the purpose of getting more poor people into houses and reduce racial disparities. One huge consequence was the housing boom that strangely kept pace right through the 9-11 economic slowdown. I correctly guessed at the time that this overbuilding would eventually result in prices falling.

Fannie and Freddie changed their regulations to allow them to back these risky loans. Then there were the loyal Democrats who ran Freddie and Fannie who cooked the books to increase their bonus pay (and many of those names are currently working on Obama's campaign staff. For example, Jim Johnson, former Fannie Mae Chairman who had to resign as head of Obama’s Vice Presidential search team, and Franklin Raines, an Obama financial adviser, was CEO of the Fannie Mae from 1999-2004.

And for some odd reason, these two quasi-government agencies, Fannie and Freddie, were allowed to contribute to political candidates. How's that again? There is a list on the web showing Chris Dodd, Kerry, Obama, and Hillary Clinton to be the top four recipients.
http://pfds.opensecrets.org/092408.html . Yup, the same Chris Dodd who just today sat on the Senate committee reviewing the mess.

This whole stack of cards worked fine as long as those low income borrowers had jobs and could sell their houses for more than they paid for them when they needed to. But the stack of cards collapsed when housing prices dropped, as we all knew they would, and the risky borrowers defaulted on their loans.

For what it is worth, John McCain also tried to fix the mess in 2005:
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/17/mccains-attempt-to-fix-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-in-2005/

The View from Mt. St. Helens

Starts looking west on the south rim of the crater. Pans north to Mt. Rainier and Spirit Lake, then east to Mt. Adams, then south towards Mt. Hood and Portland, then west.

My Subaru Turned One

It has been a year since I got my new Subaru Forester. And it passed 18,000 miles on its birthday. For comparison, I averaged about 12,000 miles per year in my Nissan pickup, and about 8,000 miles per year in my previous pickup. I guess I like driving the Subaru. My passengers say it is comfortable, even in the back seat. It has been washed a few times, and it has a few dings in it. Several door dings, some deep. It has a peculiar L-shaped scratch on the hood. I dropped an ax on it and scratched the soft front bumper. And a scout scraped the soft rear bumper with his backpack. I have changed the oil four times. I have put 654 gallons of gasoline into it, and spewed 6.4 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. I paid $2,337 for the gasoline, but I figure that I saved $1,000 on gasoline compared to the old Nissan pickup driving the same miles. I averaged 26 miles per gallon for the first ten fillups, over 28 mpg for the last ten fillups, and the annual average was 27.1 mpg. The EPA numbers for it are 20-26 mpg, but my data indicate that I get 21 mpg in city traffic and 35 mpg on the open road on cruise control at 60 mph.

I Was Wrong

Well, I guess I was wrong. I've been telling everyone for months now that I thought we would never see the day when the spot price of crude oil dropped below $100 per barrel. It's been below that for several days now, even with Ike hitting the oil rigs and oil refineries. The good news is that maybe now we'll see lower prices for gasoline, diesel, propane, and home heating oil this winter, all of which are closely tied to the price of crude oil.

That is a Lot of Children!

Altogether, the McCains, Palins, Obamas, and Bidens have 17 children with seven biological mothers and six biological fathers. In alphabetical order, their names are:
Andy
Ashley
Beau
Bridget
Bristol
Doug
Jack
Jimmy
Hunter
Malia
Meghan
Piper
Sasha
Sidney
Track
Trig
Willow
Without looking elsewhere, can you match these names to the candidates?

Redefining Feminism

Is Gov. Sarah Palin redefining the feminist movement?

See what a liberal maverick, Camille Paglia, has to say about it (at the top of page 2):

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/

Gov. Sarah Palin

WOW!

Best line: "Here's how I look at the choice Americans face in this election," said Palin. "In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change."