Will The Drilling Moratorium Become Wonderboy's Schecter Case?

Yesterday's news that a federal court judge had overturned Wonderboy's drilling moratorium could be big, big news for the Rookie's presidential career.

Of course, his DOJ immediately filed an appeal. I didn't notice if the venue is one of the dyed-in-the-wool liberal appellate panels, or not.

But the news reminded me of Amity Schlaes book, The Forgotten Man, which I was reading at this time last year.

Unbeknownst to most people, the event which began to unravel the New Deal, and, most significantly, the NRA, was when the government lost its suit against the Schecters, Jewish butchers in New York City. The details wouldn't seem to be important anymore, but the nature of them actually could be.

New Deal regulation was so minute that it forbid butchers to offer customers a choice of which fowl to purchase and have, well, butchered. The Schecters were found to be in violation of this, which was a 'wages and hours' type of crime. When the whole mess ended, the Schecters went free and the NRA's basis was undermined.

I heard some of the language of yesterday's superior court decision. The judge rather sensibly noted that just because BP's rig exploded is no reason to believe that every offshore rig in US waters is also about to explode.

I don't know the basis on which the appeal has been lodged. It matters, of course, because appellate courts judge and rule on the application of laws, not the full case, itself.

Should be an interesting show to watch, because you can bet the company which brought the suit, a drilling services firm, if I recall, is sure to appeal any reversal of the superior court up to the Supreme Court.

FDR's larger New Deal fell apart on a case involving plucking and butchering chickens.

Will Wonderboy's term lose momentum and begin to die over a hastily, ill-advised and deceptively-presented (i.e., the lie that seven engineers had argued for the ban) offshore drilling ban?

The Ultimate Nanny State of Wonderboy Prefigured

We all remember seeing the video of this woman during last year's campaign.



It became even scarier when I read this in Amity Schlaes' book, "The Forgotten Man," on page 251,

"A young black writer named Richard Wright repeated a few lines of a song he had heard,

'Roosevelt! You're my man
When the time comes I ain't got a cent
You buy my groceries And pay my rent!' "

It seems this ultimate liberal meal ticket is not a new idea, after all.

FDR & Wonderboy: The Scary Parallels

I've been reading Amity Schlaes' excellent book, "The Forgotten Man, A New History of The Great Depression."

In it, Ms. Schlaes carefully documents many of FDR's motivations and confused approaches to areas such as monetary policy and the gold standard, the NRA, TVA and the power industry.

Two things struck me about FDR's activities which seem to be shared by our current First Rookie.

First, FDR often had no clear conviction for his actions. For example, on monetary policy, he first disavowed leaving the gold standard, then formally severed the link, and, then, when this made gold price setting unable to affect the dollar's value, he returned the dollar to gold convertibility, albeit at a much higher $35/ounce, rather than the $20/ounce or so it had once held.

Schlaes' description of FDR's willy-nilly changes of mind to his own representatives to a gold conference he convened in London would be funny, if it were not so sad.

The other aspect of Roosevelt's activities which I had not realized was that the entire NRA was accomplished by executive orders. Congress had no say whatsoever in the autocratic agency which attempted to organize and regulate the entire US economy. Schlaes notes that, as of the mid-1930s, the NRA's regulations ran to some 10,000 pages, more than the entire Federal Register from the Republic's founding, in 1789, to that time.

One gets the sense that Wonderboy is also devoid of any clear sense of economic direction in his own deliberations. He demands a nearly-$800B stimulus bill, all to be borrowed, then claims his healthcare bill will not increase the deficit.

Too, as FDR did with his executive orders, Wonderboy has appointed a huge array of 'czars,' and is running the auto sector and supporting banks without meaningful Congressional oversight.

It's scary how much of FDR's approaches and overall game plan of explicit socialization our current president seems to have borrowed.

But, in contrast, there's hope, as well. Schlaes details how the tide eventually turned against FDR, as I will relate in an upcoming post.

Liberal Wishful Thinking

Democratic operative and one-time Humphrey aide Ted Van Dyck wrote a rather pathetic, yet revealing piece in the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

Entitled, "Obama Needs to 'Reset' His Presidency,' Van Dyke enumerates the ways in which Obama has basically behaved differently than he promised when on the campaign trail, as well as differently than those Democratic icons to which he likes to compare himself, Roosevelt and Johnson.

Specifically, Van Dyke notes how patient and careful FDR and LBJ were in building some consensus and bi-partisan compromises in their landmark legislations. Wonderboy, by contrast, only a few hours after Van Dyke's editorial was published, again demanded action on healthcare by the August Congressional recess.

The pathetic part of the piece is seen in the title. No president 'resets' his presidency. The two-termers gut it out and overcome mistakes, but they basically continue being who they are. Either the opposition is too weak, the people approve, or are gullible, but a second term rewards inflexibility.

The ones that are simply wrong-headed and either meet capable opposition, or are seen to be out of step with the situation, like Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover, are not re-elected.

He demonstrates his sensibility with these initial passages,

"You restored hope to millions- including me- who had been demoralized by the political polarization that characterized the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

The first warning signals for me came with your acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. In it, you stressed domestic initiatives that clearly were nonstarters in the already shrinking economy.

I had greater concern when you staffed your administration and White House with a large number of Clinton administration retreads."

Van Dyke continues in this vein, contrasting how FDR and LBJ worked with how Wonderboy is using strong-arm tactics, on a much lower margin of victory than the former, to pass questionable legislation with far-reaching implications for American society.

Van Dyke's suggestions are actually quite good- for another candidate. Maybe because Humphrey lost his election, Van Dyke doesn't have actual Oval Office experience, and naively believes his advice would matter.

Cutting back proposals, appearing in the media less often, and following through on his campaign promises are good ideas, but our First Rookie won't be considering any of them. They would represent admissions of mistakes and defeat, which presidents don't historically do on a large-scale.

I suppose, like Carter, Obama could become sufficiently weak, even with his party controlling both Houses, to attract an opposing nominee candidate from his own party in 2012, much like Teddy Kennedy did in 1980.

Failing that, the more Wonderboy steers a course away from Van Dyke's useful recommendations, the greater the chance of a GOP candidate taking up residence in the White House come January, 2013.

The Left Hand & The Right Hand

I've been listening to Tax Cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner give testimony before the Congressional TARP Oversight Committee this morning.

At one point just a few minutes ago, the absurdity of this administration's activities became viscerally apparent.

Geithner complained that, in the recent past, the private financial sector of the US economy took too many risks. Now, he alleged, it is taking too few risks, and needs to be taking more. So, he reasoned, the government was getting involved with the private sector, to encourage it to 'take more risk.'

Within the last week, the Wall Street Journal featured a headline calling attention to this administration's EPA declaring by fiat carbon-burning byproducts to be pollutants. Thus, the attendant article warned, all US business and consumers are now on notice that energy usage, costs, and the very way of American life have been thrown upwards in disarray and uncertainty.

Tim, we're all taking more risk now, everyday, thanks to the administration of which you are a part. That's why private capital remains on the sidelines.

Thanks to the EPA's unilateral declaration that our mainstay energy sources and processes are now probably going to be either declared illegal or incredibly expensive, nobody wants to take risks on the future value of assets.

Like FDR, Wonderboy has now given private capital a reason to flee markets. His administration is scaring the hell out of the American voting public. Nobody has any confidence that rules for investing, spending or just living are going to be consistent and reliable for the next four years.

Really, this is just too absurd. One Secretary implores the private sector to take risks, while another one declares life, lived as we now know it, to have suddenly become at risk on its own.

The Political Costs of Economic Illiteracy

I had a very disturbing conversation last night with a friend and squash partner.


J is a lifelong Democrat and resident of the Garden State, as well as a practicing attorney. I, on the other hand, consider myself to still be moving through a period of living in New Jersey, and, because independents can't vote in primaries, am a registered Republican. Not so much because I trust them, but because I know I can't and don't trust the Democrats- especially in this state.


I began by gently needling J about Wonderboy's cabinet nominees' tax cheats, and the various waivers on lobbyists that our First Rookie wants in his administration. Then I moved on to the bloated, ill-considered 'stimulus' bill.


J retorted with his usual lead, that of hating former President Bush and anything he did. J excoriated the greed of financial institution CEOs, which, he is convinced, is the only reason we have any economic problems whatsoever. From there, he moved on to claiming that the Bush era saw a lack of regulation, which happens to be factualy so far from the truth as to not even be funny.


Then J claimed that Wonderboy's stimulus of nearly $1T was payback for Bush overspending on Iraq. Hey, J's liberal, so he has to get a whack in on Iraq. And that 'some economists even say we should spend more.'


Oh boy.


I like J. He's a nice guy, very ethical and principled. But he is economically misinformed. In effect, economically illiterate.

He refuses to acknowledge research in the past decade that conclusively proves FDR's own New Deal failed to revive the American economy. He also probably doesn't know, and wouldn't believe, that Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad took bribes from lenders like Countrywide to let them securitize low-doc and no-doc, low-downpayment mortgages via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

What's sad is that his final comment was something to the effect that,

'We both have our scripts. And we believe them. So there's no point talking about these topics.'

Were that it was so simple.

Instead, it's more like this. I understand economics, have read and observed economics for several decades, and note that socializing economies does not bring about long term productive growth and wealth creation. J just believes what the latest Democratic candidates tell him is true.

Even when it's not.

For example, Wonderboy evidently had a lot of fun declaring FDR's New Deal successful, saying something like,

'I thought we all knew what the New Deal accomplished.'

Then he wrongly referred to Republicans objections to his wasteful spending by saying that

'Tax cuts for the rich have been tried and failed. The Republicans are advocating failed solutions.'

That's just false. Even JFK's economic advisor, Walter Heller, cut marginal rates to stimulate economic growth in the early 1960s.

While we're at it, let's understand that there's a lot to the Ayn Rand view that the productive, creative entrepreneurs in American become wealthy because they succeed economically. And by succeeding, create jobs, tax revenues, etc.

Which do you think will create more value in the American economy: cutting taxes for a successful entrepreneur with capital and income, or; sending checks to jobless poor who can only spend the money, rather than invest it to create more value?

Unfortunately, J won't think about any of these ideas. I guess he just listens to Democrats and figures they'd never lie. And they know all the economic facts, too. Which they would accept, even if the facts did not support the large spending programs they intend to create and propagate for decades to come.

Obama As The New Lincoln, FDR & JFK ???

Of all the political nonsense floating about recently, the most nonsensical is the Illinois rookie being compared to: Abraham Lincoln, FDR, and JFK.

I saw one article in the Wall Street Journal claiming that the President-elect fancies Lincoln as his role model.

As if.

Apparently, the big connection here is that....are you sitting down for this?......they both began their lives in poverty.

Wow. You know, they are the only two Presidents to have begun life in other than highly-privileged surroundings. Reagan, Nixon, Grant, to name a few, actually did, as well.

But for purposes of glorifying the New Messiah, let's just focus on ol' Abe, shall we?

Then we come to FDR. I've seen a picture of the magazine cover which places the Illinois freshman Senator in the chauffeured sedan, drawn and posed as FDR, complete with cigarette holder, hat and grin.

Pullllleeeeeze!

FDR had actual work experience prior to running for President. He was Secretary of the Navy, then Governor of New York.

And, no, this is not the worst economic period in American history since the Great Depression. The recession we are just entering may be as bad as the one in 1982, or even 1974, the latter fanned by the first Arab oil embargo. But we are nowhere near 25% unemployment and a drop in money supply as most of the country's banks fail.

The only way the incoming President will become like FDR is if, as promised, he rams his socialistic programs through a willing, Democratic Congress.

Court packing, anyone?

And, of course, JFK. The newly-elected President is on the younger side, attended Harvard (but not as an undergraduate- only law school), is intelligent and articulate.

But, again, he has far less experience than JFK. Kennedy had combat experience in WWII and served a few terms as a US Representative and at least one Senate term. And, even then, his legislative failures were notable. As were his foreign policy gaffes.

All of which simply goes to show how desperate Democrats and other liberals are to project their hopes onto this empty slate who's just been elected as our next President.

One thing is certain. He's not going to measure up to any of these predecessors, even if you liked what they did.