THE SEVEN-YEAR ITCH

THE SEVEN-YEAR ITCH

The number seven seems to permeate the current political silly season. Seven years seems to be a recurring time frame and groups of seven seem to define the mess in which we find ourselves.

THE NEW 9/11 – THE SEVEN YEARS wherein the Liberal Democrats succeeded where the 9/11 terrorists failed.

In September 2001, fanatical Muslim terrorists attempted to topple the U.S. financial system and the Twin Towers that embodied it. They succeeded in bringing down the Twin Towers but failed to topple the U.S. Economy

In September 2008 (seven years later), Congressional Democrats completed their socialistic agenda’s decades-long misuse of their own twin towers (and cash cows), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their attempts to deny their complicity, to protect their party and to shield their Presidential nominee from blame for the resulting financial fiasco blocked any realistic chance of containing the damage to our financial system.

These Liberal Congressional Democrats succeeded not only in bringing down their own twin towers (Fannie & Freddie), but also succeeded where the terrorists had failed by dealing a crippling blow to the U.S. Economy.

Score The Democrats – 1 The Country – 0

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS – An Association Test wherein you are invited to match one from Column A with one from Column B.
---A ----------------------- B
Gluttony ..............Franklin Raines (CEO Fannie Mae, Carter & Clinton OMB, advisor to Obama)
Lust ......................Barney Frank (D. Mass.)
Greed ...................Chris Dodd (D. CT)
Sloth .....................Chuck Schumer (D. NY)
Wrath ...................Maxine Waters (D. Cal)
Envy ......................Nancy Pelosi (D. Cal)
Pride .....................Barack Obama (D. ILL.)

(Hint to solvers: THERE ARE NO WRONG ANSWERS.)

Score The Democrats – 2 The Country – 0

THE INNOCENCE OF THE SEVEN YEAR OLD – Wherein the Child is Father to the Man

When Adolph Hitler marched into Poland, I was only 7 years old. Years later, had I the opportunity to socialize and work closely with him, I might have politely refused (possibly even impolitely) and if he’d offered to host my political coming-out party and do some fund-raising for me, there’s a good chance I might have refused his help.

When 60’s radical Bill Ayers began his public career as a terrorist by bombing New York City Police Headquarters, Barack Obama was only 8 years old.
When 60’s radical Bill Ayers bombed the United States Capitol building, Barack Obama was only 9 years old.
When 60’s radical Bill Ayers bombed the Pentagon, Barack Obama was only 10 years old.

Therefore, Obama claims his close association with Bill Ayers years later is not to be regarded as a reflection on his own patriotism, his judgment, his political philosophy or his fitness to govern. Of course, this rationalization doesn’t take into account the following:

When 60’s radical Bill Ayers publicly expressed his regret for not having done more damage to the United States, Barack Obama was only 39 years old.

Obama never knew about Ayers’ terrorist activities. Never knew, even while living in an area where Ayers was celebrated and idolized for his past. He never heard about it, never read about it, never realized that his benefactor, mentor and co-director was a detestable hangover from the ranks of the 60’s anarchists, bomb-throwers, cop-killers and America-haters.

Just as the smartest woman in the world didn’t have the faintest idea of what her husband was doing (or rather, having done to him) while they both lived in the White House, we now have this smart fellow who would use his wisdom and insights to govern 300 million citizens. The same smart fellow whose wisdom and insight never provided him with the faintest glimmer into the heinous crimes of only one citizen, the acts of terrorism his friend, benefactor and fellow-traveler had committed, admitted to and bragged about.

Score The Democrats – 3 The Country - 0

THE SEVEN VIRTUES – Another Association Test wherein you are invited to match one from Column A with one from Column B.

---A-------------------- B
Faith ...............Chuck Schumer (D. NY)
Hope ...............Bernie Sanders (I. VT)
Charity ............Ted Kennedy (D. Mass)
Fortitude ........Hillary Clinton (D. NY ?)
Justice .............Henry Waxman (D. Cal)
Prudence .........John Conyers (D. Mich)
Temperance ....Harry Reid (D. Nev)

(Hint to solvers: THERE ARE NO RIGHT ANSWERS.)

Score The Democrats – 4 The Country – 0

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN – Wherein the Seven ‘Masters of the Universe’ were duped by The Seven Deadly Sins into betraying The Seven Virtues (see above)

Lehman Brothers
Goldman Sachs
Wachovia
Washington Mutual
Fannie Mae
Freddie Mac
Indy Mac

Score The Democrats – 5 The country – 0

THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD – Wherein I Wonder:

1. I wonder when the Liberal/Progressive, Socialist-Leaning Media will wake up and realize that their reward for blindly backing the Obama Manifesto could result in they, themselves, being destroyed by it?

2. I wonder when the Liberal/Progressive throwbacks will realize that their visceral hate for George Bush, the Military and business in general is at best childish, at worst treasonous, and that George Bush saved their asses in spite of themselves.

3. I wonder when the right will stop trying to make nice with the left? When will they learn that you don’t defeat duplicity by encouraging it?

4. I wonder when the 60’s crowd will grow up, stop looking for their lost youth, their lost causes, their lost hates and realize how their generation and its spawn have done lasting damage to this country that shelters them?

5. I wonder if the party that supports partial birth abortion and wants governmental control of a socialistic healthcare delivery system realizes that neither position promotes human well being?

6. I wonder why the feminists of the left (a redundancy) have so much hate for their country that they spew their venom on a successful woman simply because she doesn’t support abortion on demand, the indiscriminate murder of millions of their fellow citizens?

7. I wonder if, at age 75, I will live long enough to see the rebirth of a Democratic Party that rejects the Clintonian principles of character assassination, dissembling and outright falsification, that stands for something other than the failed collective ideologies of the last several centuries and that reemerges as a vital and vibrant contributor to honest and intelligent political discourse? I Wonder.

YESTERDAY PEOPLE - THE CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS

A FOUR POINT PLAN FROM A FIVE STAR FOOL

"Bailout Plan Rejected, Markets Plunge, Forcing New Scramble to Solve Crisis" (Wall Street Journal – September 30, 2008)

The current financial crisis was brought about by the Liberal Democrats, starting in 1977, when Congress enacted the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) under Jimmy Carter. Their ‘redistribution of wealth’ philosophy, straight out of the Karl Marx playbook, was further strengthened under Bill Clinton. The revised CRA regulations can be found in the May 4, 1995, Federal Register (60 FR 22156).

All of this culminated in Congressional action, forcing lending institutions to lower, if not eliminate, their credit standards. The penalties for non-compliance ranged from threats of being labeled as racist to punitive fines ranging up to $10,000 for each loan application in which ‘discrimination’ was found.

It’s a damnable lunacy to look for these same Liberal Democrats to provide solutions to the very problems they created. They have made known their intentions to socialize our country, starting with schemes that would destroy the best Health Care delivery system on the planet. Their scheme for the Financial Markets in no less Socialistic and much more dangerous.

We do not need a trillion dollar + bail out. We don’t need any more politics injected into the mix. Let the free market function freely. Where there is fraud, we have laws and courts where wrongdoing can be punished. Unfortunately, we have no such protection against stupidity.

If, indeed, The current problems are a poisonous cocktail of a liquidity crisis, a shortage of available capital and a shrinkage of available credit for Main Street and Wall Street, I propose a four-point plan, each piece of which is simple to implement, and carries no cost to the taxpayer.

1. INSURANCE - As Larry Kudlow was the first to suggest, raise the limit on FDIC insured deposits from $100.000 to $250,000. Benefit – Small Business Security

2. ACCOUNTING - Eliminate “mark-to-market’ requirements and allow holders of mortgage debt to value such debt at a price they can realistically anticipate in the future, not being forced to carry them at today’s depressed prices. Benefit – Lenders and Borrowers

3. TAXES - Declare a temporary moratorium and allow U.S. Companies to bring back deposits from tax havens abroad on a tax-free basis. Benefit – Capital Infusion

4. CAPITAL GAINS - Eliminate Capital Gains tax on any sale of the mortgage-backed securities at the heart of the current problems. Benefit – Increase value of severely depressed paper.

As I am neither economist, financial guru, nor political genius, I am not implying that these are the only options. I’d just like to see our employees in Congress, the Regulatory Agencies and The White House address this problem by examining the full-range of remedies available.

THE UNITED STATES MARCHED TOWARD ITS DESTINY AS THE STRONGEST ECONOMY IN THE WORLD BY REMAINING FAITHFUL TO ITS CAPITALISTIC, FREE-MARKET ROOTS AND PHILOSOPHY.

FOR GOD’S SAKE, DON’T ALLOW THE ULTRA-LIBERAL LOONS IN THE FAR LEFT FRINGE OF OUR COUNTRY TO DESTROY THAT WITH WHICH GOD HAS BLESSED US.

Jack Deeney
Danbury,CT
30 September 2008

YESTERDAY PEOPLE: THE U.S. CONGRESS - STONE AGE SOLUTIONS IN THE HYDROCARBON AGE

OIL SURGES OVER $134 ON SUPPLY WOES, WEAK DOLLAR. (Reuters – May 21, 2008) “Weakness in the U.S. dollar encouraged Wednesday's buying spree by bolstering the purchasing power of buyers holding other currencies, dealers said.”

OIL PRICES PASS $134 AFTER REPORT OF SUPPLY DROP. (AP – May 21, 2008)
“With demand for oil growing in the developing world, and little end in sight to supply problems in producing countries such as Nigeria, few analysts are willing to call an end to crude's rally.”

So, is it the weak dollar or the time-honored story of supply & demand? Whatever the underlying cause, the fact remains: we have an energy crisis, so what do we have to do to solve it? Not to worry. Our politicians are stepping up to face this newly emerging crisis.

1. The Senate calls in the oil company executives (May 21, 2008) and Senator Durbin (Illinois Democrat) berates them for having no “corporate conscience”. "Is there anybody here that has any concerns about what you're doing to this country with the prices that you're charging and the profits that you're taking?" Durbin asked.

According to the unbiased reporter from Associated Press, “The titans of America's oil industry sat quietly for a moment.” And further, from that fair and balanced reporter, “The executives, sitting shoulder to shoulder in the hearing room, said they understood people were hurting, but they tried to blunt the emotion with economic analysis.”

How dare the Oil Company executives blunt emotion – and with economic analysis, of all things?

2. The House votes to pursue legal action against OPEC “CONGRESS' LATEST ANSWER TO RISING GASOLINE PRICES: SUE OPEC” (The Los Angeles Times, May 21, 2008)
“Defying a White House veto threat, the House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved legislation that would allow the Justice Department to pursue legal action against the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries for conspiring to restrict supplies or drive up prices.”

So, the Democratic House goes in a direction different from the Democratic Senate and wants to lay the blame for our oil-related problems squarely on OPEC, of all people.

3. Barack Obama “wants windfall profits tax on oil companies.” (The Guardian April 25, 2008). “Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama today called for a windfall profits tax on oil companies, which he said would be used to ease the burden of rising energy costs on poor and middle-class Americans.”

So, Barack Obama throws his lot in with the ‘tax windfall profits’ gang founded by Jimmy Carter (and we know how well that worked for him) and recently joined by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Chavez announced his ‘windfall profits tax’ in April 2008, claiming that it is necessary to fund key social programs as part of his effort to implement an economic and social system he calls "21st-century socialism."

With all this political posturing, confusion, finger pointing and hand wringing, where do we look for answers? Certainly not to our elected officials who have never some to grips with the fact that, other than through enacting tax related measures and caving in to the manic demands of the environmental lobby, they have negligible power over global markets. In fact, the sum total of their proposals will not produce one additional drop of oil. We are in the Hydrocarbon Age, reaping the rich harvest of rewards of this gift from God. Just as the Stone Age did not come to an end because we ran out of stones, the Hydrocarbon Age is not coming to an end because we're running out of oil.

According to the website http://www.partnershipforenergy.com (a project of The American Petroleum Institute), "As global demand for oil increases, many people are asking how our nation’s oil needs will be met in the coming decades. The good news is that America isn’t running out of oil—and neither is the rest of the world."

"New extraction and refining techniques have opened up opportunities to explore for oil cost-effectively in oil sands, oil shale, and coastal lands and waters. New oil discoveries worldwide would provide billions of barrels of oil for years to come. In the U.S. and Canada alone, these discoveries include:

• Up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil in oil shale in North Dakota’s Bakken Formation
• Up to 19 billion barrels of oil in oil sands in Utah
• More than 30 billion barrels of oil in Alaska’s coastal plains and the Chukchi Sea
• An estimated 173 billion barrels of oil from oil sands in western Canada
• More than 1.2 trillion barrels of oil in oil shale in the Green River Formation in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah.

What does it mean? 1 billion barrels of oil could provide enough fuel to keep more than 1 million cars running for the next 30 years."

Now I know that Big, Bad Oil is supposed to be the enemy, Congress is our friend (assuming you pay no attention to Nancy Pelosi & Company's approval ratings) and the environmentalists all have our best interests at heart.

How about a novel approach? Might it not make sense to listen to the people who best know about oil, the oil industry itself?