Wall of Worry

Investors have long uttered the adage that markets climb a wall of worry. Uncertainty fuels speculation, but January in stock trading conveyed bitter certainty. The month was the worst January in the history of market performance and the worst post-inauguration down-slide ever. Investors are voting with their feet. While the old-line press tries to insulate Obama by terming this the "Bush recession", the proposed stimulus Democrats pushed through in the US House of Representatives has no prospect of reversing the nation's economic ills. It is a leftist wish-list that rewards those who do not work with earned income tax credits-a misnomer for those who earn no income. This is simply a welfare measure by another name. The Democrats in the Senate may peel off the couple of Republican votes necessary to end the filibuster and pass this pork-laden monstrosity, but it won't have any salutary effects on the markets or prevent the nation from requiring further bailouts or falling into depression. The Democrats are talking down a reversible recession that could be solved by lowering taxes and the markets themselves if they are allowed to work, and trying to produce a bill that enshrines them in power for generations. Democrats in positions of power are evidently not overly concerned about tax burdens, today it was revealed that Tom Daschle was $120,000 in arrears to the IRS. This most-ethical administration doesn't mind a few tax-cheats and is hiring former lobbyists. They will gladly bleed the productive and pass laws they have no intention of complying with. If you fail to file, you may not end up in the Federal pen, you too may end up in the Obama cabinet.

Country's Crime Capital

For years, debate has raged over whether East St. Louis, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, or Camden, New Jersey, for felons not concerned their Pennsylvania peers would think they were slumming, was the nation's crime capital. The recent collapse of the economic structure would suggest that ne'er-do-wells are liberally distributed across the lower forty-eight, with a deeply embedded vein as rich as oil in Alaska and almost surely a surfer's tide of them rolling onto the verdant shores of Hawaii. The recession was not brought forth by sub-prime loans, labor-management rifts, mark to market accounting rules alone or in combination but as Bernard Madoff seems to have aptly illustrated, quite a bit of raw criminality. George Will, I believe coined the term "cleptocracy" to describe the mercantile machinations of malignant African dictators (see Mugabe). These petty thugs have been surpassed in avarice and impact by a group of confidence capitalists who would have made robber barons blush. Their manipulation has gone a long way toward bringing down the world economy. The government agencies charged with oversight were either populated by naifs who would have made Twain's Innocents Abroad seem like jet set sophisticates, which meant they were ill-equipped for their positions and should never have been hired, or they had become so cavalier that they would keep their positions no matter what, that they did not bother to do their jobs (there must be a way to terminate an employee this blase'), or they thought their compensation package as a Federal employee was meager, and they may have been sharing the benefits of the endemic graft to supplement it. A public official would never seek an inducement or accept a bribe-(Blago) would they?

A Manipulated Result

Ray Suarez reported before the polls closed that Senator McCain met with the press traveling with him saying, "we had a great run". A tear reputedly welled-up in his eye and his wife Cindy who was with him was crying. This was at just after 6pm central and polls had just closed in the east. Were McCain's internal polls so bad that he knew he had lost already? Was this more of the effort by the press to tamp down Republican turnout in the rest of the country where voting was still taking place? Or did McCain know the die was cast? Was he offered up by Republicans as a sacrificial lamb? Have Republicans cooperated with Democrats to author the socialist script the nation now seems destined (doomed) to follow. After all, the largest Federal entitlement since LBJ occurred with the expansion of Medicare under Bush. Public k-12 education was basically federalized with No Child Left Behind. Early childhood programs were expanded. Federal spending soared to unprecedented levels. And all this happened before the economic collapse and the accompanying leviathan bailout with government gaining ownership positions in banks and insurance companies. Republicans in Washington have been convicted of corruption-Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Senator Ted Stevens of late. Democrat Congressman William Jefferson had evidence of corruption quashed in a separation of powers dispute between the Justice Department of the executive branch and the leadership of Congress, and this was when Republicans controlled the House. Why did Republicans assert their prerogatives to protect a Democrat? Could it be Republicans and Democrats are thick as thieves?