Who Sez President Obama Doesn't Plan For The Future?

After, he'll need a hobby to keep him occupied after January 20, 2013...

The Wheels On The Greek Bus Are Coming Off...

As always, there's the bad news at the lead of the article, and the really grim stuff is saved for the final few paragraphs.

Merkel, Sarkozy and company chased David Cameron off, and struck a deal to 'solve' the GreeceProblem. Problem is, they didn't check in with the Greeks...

When a country that's lived on credit cards for decades gets news that the bank wants at least part of its money back, well, folks gits all upset, and they may decide to tell the bankers and the rest of Europe to go hang. Bankers and Northern European politicians just hate dealing with uppity Southern Europeans, 'cuz no matter how you try, they just won't sit still and play nice. Why they ever decided to issue national credit cards to Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and let's not forget the Irish, OS will never know. The Euro is a Fig Newton of the central bankers' imaginations, the proverbial round peg in the square hole of each nation's culture.

This droll read of the situation from BBC's Paul Mason is worth a read.

He is cynic enough to suggest that the entire exercise of late has been designed to encourage the Greeks to leave, and hopefully not have the door hit them in the keister on the way out. Of course, since any true effort to do more than paper over the mess has been a kick-the-can-down-the-road exercise, Greece's departure will be exceedingly ugly. Actually the ugly has already begun:

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the Greek elite are buying up property in London just as fast as they can find berths in Poole for their yachts. They are voting with their spinnakers, on the basis that the game is up. In any future Greece on offer, they will have to start paying taxes and they do not want to.

One banker told me the Greek super-rich have mostly left.

The one thing governments have that investment banks do not is intelligence services with the power to wiretap people. If you ever wonder why serving politicians go grey so quickly, it is in part because they see the intelligence. So Mr Papandreou may have looked at the file and said, I can't sell this to my party, nor to my voters, and the business elite are emigrating en masse, so throw the dice.


Last week's market euphoria (nice Greek word, that) has stalled. As the world runs back to the dollar, the US markets will sink again, because the entire rally since 2009 has been fueled by devaluation of the dollar.


Oops.

At October's End, 2011

The hardwood forests that cover most of Tennessee beam with color, especially as the sun's light slants in at dawn and dusk. Contrasted against the bright blue of the skies, they are a glory unto themselves. The walk on the golf course is more about the visual than the sporting during these days,and it is hard to focus on the little white ball with such beauty pressing in from all sides.

This week, OS hopes he remembers to enjoy these days. The work load and schedule, the responsibilities (for which he is grateful, in the main) will ramp up shortly.

The silliness, craziness and venom of the 2012 elections is upon us already. It arrives now sooner with each cycle. Remember when things really didn't get underway in earnest until Labor Day before Election Day? What has happened to us? The free-floating anger is palpable, and shows up in the strangest places--at a jazz concert OS attended this weekend, in pulpits (not too surprising there), everywhere. At least the golf course is exempt in the main. Hard to hit the little white ball whilst obsessing on the latest news.

This week, OS hopes he can set that aside, and recover another day wasted in his mis-spent youth, instead of wasting another of the depleting inventory of days he has left.

Have a good week, ya'll.

Oakland Police Throw Flash Grenade At Protestors Attempting To Aid An Injured Colleague

For those of us old enough to remember the murder of students at Kent State University in 1970, this is disturbing. Very disturbing. The violence and thuggery emanate from the people with the badges.



Does OS agree with the OWS movement? Nope.

Should the kids have gone home that night instead of occupying the streets? Yep, because that much adrenaline freely roaming the streets creates a hazard for everyone.

But this is The United States, governed by a Constitution that guarantees free assemble for the redress of grievances, and prohibits the police from also serving as judge, jury, and executioner. This is the country where the same law that governs us governs the police. Otherwise, we have a Police State.

This will not end well. A threshold has now been crossed, blood has been drawn, and to quote Nixon's old advisor, 'You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.'

Now, to see if the rule of law applies to law enforcement in California, and in the United States.

Joe The Plumber Announces His Run For Congress in 2012

Now, wouldn't that just be a kick in the ol' huevos for Obama, to see Joe The Plumber elected to Congress on the same day the country sends TheOne packing?

Joe made the mistake of confronting Himself during the 2008 campaign, and Oprah'sBoyChild did not appreciate actually having to have a conversation with an informed citizen. The Left and its shills in the press made Joe's life a living hell in the days that followed, even to the present day. His visit to Madison Wisconsin earlier this year was cut short by death threats from the union types.

Here's hoping Joe gets his revenge, in the old-fashioned way: Served cold, and at a distance. Here's hoping he and his family stay safe until that day.

OS will keep an eye out for Joe's campaign site, and that little ol' 'Donate' button.
It'll feel good to send money Joe's way, and serve up a little of that cold/distant souffle from Tennessee.

'Shirtloads Of Money': Clarke And Dawe Strike Again

Another moment of black humor from Down Under. About 2:30, and very funny because very true...




Especially apropo to the week, in which additional 'shirtloads of money' are being created to paper over the results of our collective follies.

Laffer WSJ Essay On Cain's 9-9-9 Plan

OS in the midst of a long season of grinding work on little details--these seasons come and go. It is so good to look at them in retrospect, however, rather like the author who declares' 'I love to have written.'

In the meantime, OS will try to keep sharing tidbits of insight from better minds than his, in this case, Arthur Laffer's WSJ essay in support of the Cain 9-9-9 plan.

Laffer was a key advisor to President Reagan, and architect of the economic revival that finally took hold in the 1980's. For those who lived through 1980, we remember just how grim it was, and all of it-all of it--a direct result of governmental venality and ineptitude. This article is worth the read.

One of the grinding tasks of these weeks has been the family tax return. It is complex, laborious, depressing work. At the bottom of the form 1040, the summation of all the other forms, is the signature line. It states that the taxpayer, under penalty of perjury under the federal tax code, certifies that the return is accurate. OS and Mrs. OS signed, and we both sleep well at night over the declaration, but there is really no way to know whether the return is inside or outside the lines of the law. It's too complex, and the numbers can be sliced any number of ways. The productive time robbed from the family in compliance with the tax code is galling.

All this to say: OS loves his country, and is grateful to pay taxes to it. Even if 9-9-9 increases his tax bill, if it reduces the administrative burden as advertised, it is a wonderful trade-off.

Please, take 9-9-9 for the privilege of citizenship. Otherwise, leave OS alone, and let him go make more money to extract 9-9-9 from.

If You Think The Europeans Are Going To Sort Their Problems Out By Wednesday...

...you believe in the Great Pumpkin.

Chin-straps on, ya'll. This could get eventful.

Robert Peston provides a more droll summation of the conundrum:

The maths goes like this. After a recently approved expansion, the EFSF has €440bn to disburse. But €133bn of this has already been allocated to propping up Greece, Ireland and Portugal. And as I mentioned yesterday, yet more EFSF money may have to go to Greece to prevent it defaulting.
Turn away now

So right now there is just under €290bn left in the EFSF kitty. Which could go down to less than €250bn if Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy draw on it to recapitalise their respective banks.

If you don't want to be scared, turn away now.

Italy needs to borrow €250bn next year just to refinance its existing debts that are coming due for repayment - and not including the new money it will need to borrow.

Or to put it another way, if Italy is shut out of markets - which is not impossible - then the EFSF in its current form will not have even enough money to tide Italy over, let alone keep alive any other eurozone governments that run into difficulties.

Which is why it is so vitally important, as I've been banging on about, for the resources of the EFSF to be massively increased.

And that is why the failure of eurozone governments, and Germany and France in particular, to agree on how to expand the EFSF is so troubling.

So as you can presumably now see, a full-scale eurozone financial crisis can't be averted by any individual initiative but requires a whole package of remedial measures, of which strengthening the banks and enlarging the bailout fund are the two most crucial.

It requires, in other words, a level of cooperation that would be difficult to achieve amongst nations ruled by saints.

And Now, A Word From Our Friendly Despot To The South, Mourning Ghaddafi's 'Martyrdom'

The chaotic images, with glimpses of the bloodied and dazed old man, sensing that he has run through his last ally, in the hands of those who despise him, and with just minutes to live, have flashed across the screens of the world repeatedly. It was a real-world re-enactment of the final minutes of Richard the Third, with the defeated king pleading for a horse to escape the inevitable: 'A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!' As if, by that point, he had a kingdom to grant.

Not everyone, naturally, welcomes such news. The Russians bleated a protest about the illegality of it all. They were stone silent in 1988 when Mohamar sent his agent to blow up a PanAm flight with hundreds of innocents aboard, but OS digresses...

On a hunch, OS looked up references in the Venuezuelan press to the week's events, and he was not disappointed. Chavez, Ghaddafi's home-boy, issued a vigorous condemnation of his buddy's demise, translated below by Google.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said on Thursday, counter to the majority of opinions around the world, Muammar Gaddafi's death was an "outrage" to life and said the ousted leader will be remembered as a Libyan "martyr. "

Gaddafi was killed by Libyan fighters he called "rats" for injuries suffered, some apparently after his capture at the Battle of Sirte, his hometown and last bastion of support.

Chavez, who on Thursday claimed to have overcome cancer that was detected four months ago, maintained a friendly relationship with the Libyan leader characterized by his military background, leftist economic ideas, antagonistic relations with the United States and membership in OPEC.

"A Gaddafi was murdered, is an outrage is more to life (...) remember him as a fighter, a revolutionary and good, as a martyr," Chavez said in the western state of Tachira, where he went to thank a picture of Christ for his speedy recovery.

"This story is just beginning in Libya because there's a village, no dignity, rule yankee (United States) can not dominate this world," said the president.

Gaddafi was overthrown by rebel forces on 23 August, a week before the 42 th anniversary of the coup that brought him to power in 1969.

Gaddafi's death itself became perhaps the most dramatic since the riots of spring that have toppled Arab rulers in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt and threatening to the leaders of Syria and Yemen.

One has to wonder how well Hugo is sleeping these days, as he contemplates these images. He can keep the Gulfstream fueled, but there are fewer places to land with his buddy Muammar no longer available.

Please, Rick Perry, Go Back To Texas And Leave Us Alone

OS has played the night owl tonight--too much coffee, too much writing and the mind still buzzes. CNN is carrying the debate from Las Vegas.

Rick Perry has no business outside of Texas. Shrill, arrogant, angry, insufferable, bickering, alternately going for the jugular and running for cover, taking his venom out on Romney, mainly.

In other words, a horse's ass. Not anyone who should be allowed near the White House.

Go home, Rick.

Stay home.

Take Michelle Bachmann with you...holy cow...