Neo-Socialism and the Subprime Paradigm.

Neo-socialists are interested in the acquisition of power, not money. Therefore Neosocs work to make the population resentful of those who appear interested in the acquisition of money. They then use that resentment to acquire power over those interested in money (whose interest can be useful) and everyone else.

The fact that the economy began to tank under a Republican is a godsend to the Neosocs who surround President Elect Obama. So President Obama will do what he says he'll do, not what most on the "center line" of the political highway hope.

Back when everyone was talking $180 bbl oil I said the world has plenty of oil at $60 bbl and if the markets are allowed to function that is where the price will go. So obviously, the markets cannot be allowed to function.

For Obama and the Neosocs, $2 a gallon gas has got to be $5 a gallon gas if their "alternative energy" power grab is going to work. The business of OPEC is raising the price of gas by cutting supply. The Democrat Congress is the most important member of OPEC (see previous post) so look for them to significantly cut future US production. Of course it must be done with plausible deniability. Environmental concerns will stop oil exploration, stop oil shale development and stop new refining capacity. Meanwhile expanded oil use in the rest of the world will be allowed, if not encouraged, through Kyoto style loopholes (it's an antipoverty measure). Taxes and regulations of the oil companies must be greatly expanded in the name of Fairness. In return Big Oil will get -- from the Democrats -- expensive oil and good profits (the Democrats get their cut in the form of taxes). The Neosocs must get the price back on an upward path soon. They don't want their finger prints on "five dollar gas."

The USA as the TVA is part of the Neosoc agenda, and economic distress will provide all the excuse they need to implement it. Look for grandiose public work projects (as broadly defined as possible).

Meanwhile the economy as a whole will be organized into Cartels of Caring. Cartels exist to advantage producers over consumers and cartel community organizers over everyone. Cartels are justified as providing a social good -- even in autocratic Nations. As they spread through our economy they will provide little but social harm. The poor will become poorer (but they will be "helped") and the workers will become Cartel dependent. In fact, economic distress will make the emerging system more stable by making the dependent citizen conservative in the "change adverse" sense. The "change we can believe in" is neosoc "fear of change" in the population as a whole once the neosocs are in charge.

The Cartels of Caring will get a steady stream of income and protection from competition in return for supporting the new social order. In the neosocialist order, management and "Capitalists" will front for the bureaucracy and the Washington Party -- that combination of politicians, top bureaucrats, major media and "public private partnerships" that make up our ruling class. They will be politically dependent clients of the Washington Party. They will be selected for being responsible not in the sense of being competent, but in the sense of taking the blame when things go wrong (and they will go wrong).

Under old style socialism, socialist took the hit when economies collapsed. Under Neo-socialism the "capitalists" become neosoc puppets. They are kept around to take credit for failure rather than provide additional credit to success. Neosocialism operates on the Subprime Paradigm -- where the architects of the mortgage meltdown take charge of the "blame shift" and take over the government. Nice work, if you can get it.

The Democrat Congress: The most powerful member of OPEC

Pajamas Media » We Can Solve the Financial Crisis by Destroying OPEC

We need to ask ourselves the question: Why has the housing market collapsed? If you want the answer, just follow the money. It’s gone to pay for oil.

Consider: This year, with OPEC-rigged oil prices averaging near $110/barrel, Americans will pay $900 billion for their oil supply, and the world as a whole will pay $3.6 trillion. These petroleum costs are up a factor of ten from what they were in 1999, and represent a huge highly-regressive tax on the world economy. For Americans, the $900 billion oil levy (up from $80 billion in 1999) is equivalent to a 33% increase in income taxes across the board — with sixty percent the sum being paid over in tribute to foreign governments.

To see how this tax can destroy real estate values, it is only necessary to compare expenditures. In 2003, Americans paid $268 billion for new homes, and $197 billion for oil. In 2008, we paid for new homes at an annual rate of $134 billion, and $900 billion for oil. So the increase in our oil expenditures was more than five times as great as the fall in our spending for new homes.

OPEC functions by limiting supply to drive up prices. What is the response of the Democrat Congress to the recent fall in oil prices? They announced they will block oil exploration, not only off shore but on land -- in other words they will keep millions of barrels of oil (every day) off the market.

The most powerful member of OPEC is the Democrat Controlled Congress. They keep more oil off the market (by far) than any other member. And the American people pay through the nose. Why would they do anything to undermine the organization of which they form an important part? If they can find a way to get control of that money rather than sending it to foreigners — then maybe. Still, they will want the money (or more to the point the "power of the purse" and the power of regulation), not affordable fuel. They need expensive fuel to make their alternative future, with them in command in DC, a reality.

What do you call Bankrupting the coal industry? A good start on the road to bankrupting oil.

AP says President Obama to ban Embryonic Stem Cell Research!

My Way News - Obama to use executive orders for immediate impact

WASHINGTON (AP) - President-elect Obama plans to use his executive powers to make an immediate impact when he takes office, perhaps reversing Bush administration policies on stem cell research and domestic drilling for oil and natural gas.

Reversing the Bush administration policies on stems cells research means reinstating the total ban on Federal Funding of embryonic stem cell research which was in place before President Bush changed it (allowing funding for research on existing embryonic stem cell "lines"). Is this what AP means? Probably not.

And they can't mean the second part either. Because Sen. Obama looked right into the electorates eye during the second debate and said "I do not oppose drilling!" Of course the AP and every other reporter knew he was lying to the voters and that was OK because he was lying to the voters and not to news fellows. And so they past over it in silence. And now he's doing so many pirouettes that if you put a drill bit on his shoes he'd be down to 4,000 feet. And what will the media do? Help him spin.

We should look upon the news manipulation of the new administration as a teaching moment. It is an opportunity to show the nation why centralizing power in Washington is a bad idea: Why the Democrat’s “groupism” of the parts hurts the group as a whole. Such instruction requires patience; that’s why I’m not a teacher. Anyways, here’s my take.

President Elect Obama rocketed to the top by opposing the US war in Iraq. There is nothing wrong with that.

So what is wrong with opposing his war on the US economy? The neo-socialist war on free enterprise? Why can’t “save the whales” become “save our trade”? And the machinations of the Carbon Market (which we don’t need) be compared to the worst that an excess of corruption and incompetence ever brought to the Free Market (which punishes the sorts of wretched excess that governments so often reward).

The left opposed the malefactors of great private wealth. We can oppose the malefactors of great bureaucratic power. The left opposed Christian “theocrats” reaching into our homes. We can oppose environmental Gaea-crats reaching into our homes, our bodies and everywhere else we inhabit (and even the areas we don’t).

We can safely oppose trashing an old power network that delivers power cheaply and — if the environmentalist would allow upgrades — reliably, only to replace it with a fantasy one that is expensive and unproven. This is like sending a good $25,000 car to the crusher (forgoing the resale value) to be replaced by a bad $50,000 car that is still on the drawing boards, can’t yet be manufactured and will end up costing 75,000. In fact, it may be exactly like that. It is, in short, a crash program to crash the economy. The only good thing here is that critics won’t have to make anything up or distort the truth when they point this stuff out (they need only persevere through persecution).

I even think being anti the neo-socialists war on the private economy will be patriotic. As the saying goes, “Do the right thing.” What do you think?

Europe has a Change of Viscera, too

Denis Boyles offers a humorous take on Obamaphile Euros.

 At Long Last Love by Denis Boyles on National Review Online

Americans, especially those on the Left, love to be loved, and there hasn’t been this much of the stuff aimed at the U.S.A. for a long time — just over seven years in fact. The last time Europe erupted in a clamor of amour it was because terrorists were flying airplanes into the World Trade Center. That bout of affection lasted about 48 hours. This love is made to last for weeks, maybe even months, but probably not years. Still, by the standards of the trans-Atlantic marriage, that’s an eternity.

When the internationally esteemed, noble peace prize winning "Great Satan" Jimmy Carter was President -- and our embassy personnel still captives of the Iranian Mullahs -- I was traveling through Asia. I ran across many people on the international left who told me that the Japanese, for instance, hated Americans. I never encountered much overt anti-Americanism myself, but perhaps that is because I come from the "so what?" school.

It was an attitude I developed when traveling in Europe when Nixon was President and I would often find myself talking to leftist -- the riotous "1968ers" I encountered in '70. I remember once they snarkily demanded to know when the US would stop being racist. I said in fifty years (this is almost forty years ago). They got intrigued: why fifty years? I said, "Because most people alive today are going to have to die." Or they would demand that we stop occupying West Germany (We had 300,000 troops there at the time). I'd say, "Sure, we can do that. But West Germany would either double the size of its military or become a satellite of the Soviet Union. Which outcome would you prefer?" Generally speaking, since their pushing anti-American buttons didn't get me upset or apologetic or just generally defensive, they'd just as soon carry on a healthy conversation as go for the cheap thrills.

I think what gives anti-Americanism its charm is that many Americans actually seem to care.  And so I think it will be back.

The World has a Change of Viscera

According to Philip Stephens, "In recent years, the anti-Bushism born of Iraq, Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo has hardened into visceral anti-Americanism." But seems it ain't hardened into concrete and must be made of ice because the blow-torch election of Sen. Obama to the Presidency has melted it. "The election confounds the prevailing image (always something of a distortion) of a nation described only by its arrogance and indifference." Well, good. I'm glad they're confounded, confound it! But is it arrogant to be indifferent? Here's more (FT.com Obama’s victory: a change the world should believe in):

With Dick Cheney, the vice-president, hovering ever present in the wings, few have believed that the [Bush] administration’s motives could be anything but bad, its embrace of engagement anything but tactical. Mr Bush completely lost the benefit of the doubt.

That will change. It will no longer be possible (it should never have been so with Mr Bush) for America’s adversaries to draw moral equivalence between the president of the world’s most powerful democracy and tyrants, despots and terrorists everywhere: Mr Obama as the Great Satan?

In demonstrating the infinite capacity of the US to reinvent itself by rediscovering idealism, Mr Obama robs friend and foe of their alibis.

The way I look at it, anti-Americanism comes in two types: that based in self interest and that based in emotion. Typically, the self interested anti-Americans are using it to manipulate the emotional ones. During this stage it is more their problem than ours. Only when the Demagogues take over does it become ours -- typically because of what they are doing to everyone but us.

There is only one difference between the anti-Americanism of the recent past and of that going forward: When Bush was President, the media cared (or pretended to) and going forward it won't. That is because their interest in anti-Americanism was utilitarian in nature (something to whack Republicans with) and its utility is now gone. In fact it was they who drew the "moral equivalence." The adversaries of America need only repeat it.

Those who need anti-Americanism as a political crutch will continue to use it at the expense of those who need it as an emotional one. We just won't hear much about it. I grant you, this will be an improvement.

Mr. Stephens goes on:

A week ago Moscow’s latest threat to site its missiles on Poland’s borders might have been greeted with a pained shrug: after all, Russia, many in Europe would have said, had been provoked by Mr Bush.

As it was, the sour response of Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, to Mr Obama’s victory spoke to his own failure to grasp the significance of the event. Moscow has precious few friends even now. Henceforth it will find it a lot harder to hide its belligerence behind America’s unpopularity. The same might be said of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and one or two others.

There is an important lesson here for Washington’s allies, too. Mr Bush has been an excuse for inaction. Many Europeans have spent the past few years carping from the sidelines: the US has been messing things up everywhere, so why should they contribute anything to global security?

Apparently a new day has dawned and the Russians have hit the snooze button. But not to worry, the Europeans are already making coffee and croissants.

Actually, as his supporters on the left know, President Elect Obama has pledged to kill anti-missile defense. Now when he abandons missile defense (and the radar and missile sites in Poland) it will look like he folded in front of the Russian threat.

I once had a girl friend who explained to me the difference between fashion and style. So let me put it this way: Obama may have fashion. But the Russians, they have style.

A Gruntled American Speaks -- or rather Writes

We really shouldn't take the future of our country too seriously -- or at least that seems to be the attitude of the electorate. Just kidding. I do feel a bit like one of those Old Testament Prophets, though: Nothing to do now but wait for the locust plagues to show up. Again, just kidding. I do expect a rain of frogs on Saturday, though. OK, more like a light toad shower.

Originally I thought of Kiddington Oh! as the setting for a comic novel (I think the very first post is the very first part). Then I reread it and realized it wasn't funny. Be that as it may. I am toying with another idea for a novel.

See, there's this extended family of bankrupt coal miners. And they strap the mattress to the top of the SUV and borrow some gas money from a rich uncle who works for the government. Or maybe they have one of them stoves strapped to the back that cooks gas from coal to run the SUV. Now their coal cooking SUV spews black soot, and it's a good thing they got carbon credits from their rich uncle because they use them to bribe the enviro-police.

As they travel down the refugee filled roads, they stop at abandoned coal pits to scavenge more fuel. They have to beat off the widows and orphans who make their living clawing coal from the face of the strip mine with their fingers! (And the mine is filling with water so the kids have to dive to get it! And it's freezing! Good thing they're young!). So the family -- basically decent sorts with a few sexual peccadilloes and one potentially explosive sociopath who's just turned sixteen (should it be a girl?) -- end up stealing their coal from the young coal divers because they are desperate for fuel for their coal cooker! And some of the young coal divers might starve as a result if they can't get to where they give out food stamps to the well connected!

But the basically decent family (with the few exceptions I noted) have got to steal the coal from the children because -- you see, they're heading for the new Government work camps that have sprung up in the wind blessed Midwest! There windmill farms are built to send ever more power to Washington! And when the wind ain't blowing, the people get on treadmills because they are like, like, back-up batteries! What do think?

I think I'll call it The Shafts of Coal. No, that's too dark. I know. The Shafts of Lite.

Congratulations to the Democrats and a few predictions.

If doing a splendid job winning the Presidency is proof that you will be a good president, then I think my country, the good 'ol USA, will be in good hands for the next four years. Unfortunately, the one does not necessarily follow the other.

A Democrat friend, to whom I had described the possible downside of an Obama Presidency on a number of occasions (but who voted for him anyway) asked me today if I really thought he'd make a bad President. I said, "If Obama is as pragmatic as he often sounds, he'll be alright." Of course, that's the question: Was Obama fooling the left radicals who promoted him to the nomination? Or was he fooling us?

The Democrat Congress may come back into session this fall. If so they will pass a great big Christmas gift for the voters paid for by the Rich Uncle Collective.

The Christmas package will be tied up with several unpleasant strings -- riders the Democrats will want George Bush to sign into law (not Barack Obama). Possible examples might be the "Fairness Doctrine" (to take down talk radio) and "card check" (to thug up the unions by removing the secret ballot). In this way they can say "The Bush Republicans put in place the Fairness doctrine" (or whatever the item is) and repeat it a thousand times. If they do add poison pills, I hope George Bush has the wisdom to veto the whole $500 Billion stocking stuffer. And tar the Democrat Congress with the trick they will try to pull.

From The Volokh Conspiracy.

Looking for a Post-Election Republican Agenda?:

Here's something I think the vast majority of Republicans/conservatives/libertarians can agree on: holding Obama to this pledge, made to the American public during the third debate: "what I've done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut.... What I want to emphasize ... is that I have been a strong proponent of pay-as- you-go. Every dollar that I've proposed, I've proposed an additional cut so that it matches."

We should remember that the Democrats and the Media considered the Bush Tax Cuts an increase in spending. Back in 2001 and 2003 they would say, "How much can we afford to spend on tax cuts?" So there is a cheap rhetorical out for Obama (but an expensive one for us). The Bush tax cuts expire in 2010. Since the US government was spending on tax cuts, allowing the taxes to increase becomes a spending cut. Extending the Bush Cuts for some tax payers becomes an Obama tax reduction for them (even though their taxes are not reduced -- only not increased). Therefore, the spending cuts in "pay-as-you-go" are actually massive tax increases. The tax cuts are, in the main, merely refraining from raising taxes on some tax payers. I believe the new figure will be couples making less than $120,000.

Mr Bernstein further comments:

it would be wonderful...the Senate and House minority leaders each congratulated Obama, and added, "we look forward to helping President-elect Obama fulfill his promise of a net spending cut."

Unfortunately, if they helped Sen. Obama fulfill his promise they will find themselves supporting tax increases.

In the national security arena, Barack Obama will find himself handicapped by the way he used the Iraq War to gain power by tearing down George Bush and Hillary Clinton over their stands on the war. Having pointed the way, he will fear that others will follow the same route to destroy the Obama Presidency. His first term will be spent avoiding the types of commitments that will lead to this outcome. He will not succeed.

Good luck and God bless.