Here’s a news-flash you won’t see on CNN, FOX, or any other media outlet of ill repute for that matter: the US Government thinks you are stupid. So do the politicians we continue to elect to “represent” us at the legislative and executive levels. So do the bureaucrats that are appointed and hired by the government. They all think we are stupid, and they might even be right.

Why would I even suggest such a thing, that we the people might just really be as stupid as the politicians assume us to be? Here’s my answer: because we are acting like it. And if we don’t wake up real soon and take some serious action we are going to be jolted awake one morning only discover that we no longer live in a free republic, and all the evidence, coupled with the total economic impact of the events of the last several weeks suggest that we are coming perilously close to that day.

Many, if not most, who are reading this would agree with this assessment, but for the sake of those who haven’t been paying attention to history, have no clue that we have a Constitution that is being knowingly and continually violated with seeming impunity by our elected representatives, bureaucrats and judges, and for those who, being either blissfully ignorant about the truth regarding the economic catastrophe our once-free market has become or who simply nod their heads at the assurance of government that they are working hard to fix the problem and everything is going to be OK, I have some disturbing news for you: the government and the politicians you elected are all lying to you – because they think you are stupid. And if you continue to believe them, then you are stupid.

Here is the ugly truth: In the last month your government has committed to spend approximately $1 trillion to bail out various Wall Street financial institutions, along with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. That brings the officially acknowledged federal deficit to roughly $10 trillion. And there will most certainly be more regardless who wins the election: more spending, more promises of programs to help homeowners in over their heads, more debt. The Treasury will have to continue bailing out the FDIC as it (the FDIC) has already paid out the $45 billion fiscal insurance policy it holds to the many banks that have already failed. Amid all this chaos the government officials and elected representatives and candidates for office step up and promise they’ll fix it. One of these reprehensible bulwarks of all that is wrong in the world, Rep. Barney Frank – a man who is at the very least (along with his many Democrat and Republican comrades) complicit if not guilty of gross negligence in facilitating this mess has promised to do “major surgery” on the nation’s financial system. 

If Frank and his compatriots in the Congress hold true to their promise you can bet there will be more bank failures and this current recession will likely devolved into a long depression. Why? Because the whole reason the world’s financial system is on the verge of total collapse is because of government meddling in the economy by trying to manipulate and perpetuate artificial conditions of a growing economy. This is called central economic planning, a long discredited manipulative policy that has been proven unsustainable over time, as we are currently witnessing. You will never hear your Congressman or Presidential candidates speak of this, for to do so would betray the truth, and the truth would set us free, so to speak. 

Speaking this truth would be the equivalent of admitting that our planned and over-manipulated economy is no more a true free market system than was the Soviet economy that imploded in 1991 – and as this ugly truth stares us in face all we hear from politicians and bureaucrats is that “greedy Wall Street CEOs” are the ones to blame. In fact, some in Congress are already holding hearings featuring testimony from CEOs of several of the companies recently bailed out or that have failed. The Congress has the sheer audacity to lay 100% of the blame at the feet of these CEOs, who certainly deserve their share of the blame to whatever degree they jumped on the high-risk bundle bandwagon, while conveniently overlooking their own actions that directly contributed the creation of an environment where such catastrophically stupid business practices were not merely possible but were strongly encouraged. One party accuses the other of deregulating the finance industry as if that were the cause while the other accuses the first party of enacting senseless regulations as if those were the cause – and to an extent, both are correct. What was had prior to deregulation was a lot of bad regulation that was replaced by nothing that would solve the problems the bad regulation created, and most would agree that this is so.

However, while enacting laws for the purpose of regulation of commerce is a legitimate function of the Congress, enabling the Federal Reserve to secretly enact policy of its own, and for which it is unaccountable and un-auditable, specifically designed and intended to manipulate the money supply and interest rates to create and perpetuate a false prosperity nicely contained in a bubble that is an anomaly of free market operation, is not. In fact not only does the existence of a central bank go against the advice of the Founding Fathers of our country, it essentially violates all of the core principles upon which the Constitution is founded.

The Founders knew all too well the pitfalls of a fiat currency, that is, a currency of paper money that derives its “value” by the arbitrary authority of government declaring it’s worth, as it is in reality not backed up by any tangible assets. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress financed itself partly by its self-produced Continental currency – paper money like we use today – that was not backed up by gold or anything else of any intrinsic value. The people were forced to use it, and the government simply was able to produce more of it by printing it, until they had printed such an overabundance of it that the currency itself became entirely worthless. Unfortunately the geniuses in government and those at the fed have not correctly understood the warnings of the Founders, because we have been doing the same thing since 1971 when Nixon took us of the gold standard. Either that or they know exactly what they are doing, which would be even more disturbing.

The fact of the matter is that those running the Fed are not stupid – everything they do is calculated. So why would they deliberately choose to destroy the dollar, because that is exactly what our government’s economic “rescue plan” or bailout will achieve if it continues the current charted course. They are destroying the dollar because the fundamental element of this “rescue plan” is the infusion of massive amounts of cash into the monetary system. The problem is that the treasury has none, and so it is left to the Fed to print it. With each new dollar that gets printed and injected into the system, the value of all the other dollars out there is diminished so they become worth even less on the market; therefore the buying power of individuals is likewise diminished as the value of the dollar goes down. The more currency produced, the less value it has. 

This is “inflation 101” and everyone on Capitol Hill and in Washington ought to know that. But, then again, these are by and large the same folks who signed on to creating the conditions that ultimately brought about this catastrophe, so it is not entirely surprising that they would sign on to allowing massive amounts of money to be printed and injected into the system. My dark theory on this is that in doing so they are inviting hyperinflation, which is when so much fiat currency is produced that it becomes essentially worthless (take Italy, for example, where you would pay 10,000 Lira for a pack of cigarettes). Perhaps they know this. Perhaps they don’t care. At the very least, they’d tell us, they are working hard and doing something to “fix the problem. 

But that is exactly the root of the problem in the first place, and so here is where the idea of individual responsibility and self-government comes in. The people are running like sheep in whatever direction the government leads – even if it is off a cliff- and unfortunately they have become so conditioned to looking to government to solve their problems that to do otherwise is often not even an afterthought. The people are not asking the right questions either – if they’re asking them at all. But, they are demanding that government “do something.” If they were living up to their civic responsibilities in the first place they would have been paying attention and seen this coming and would have been able to put enormous pressure on their elected representatives to stop the insanity before the crash became inevitable. 

The fact that this is happening in a Presidential election year makes the idea of individual self-government all the more important. The people are panicking as they see a long and deep recession looming, the politicians are panicking because they are afraid they’ll not be re-elected, and no one wants to tell the truth about how we got here in the first place. And now with the totality of the erosions of our Constitutional liberties having been much accelerated in recent years and the government nationalizing massive segments of industry, taking over individual home mortgages to presumably have courts renegotiate rates or perhaps dictate them, a complacent and uninformed electorate is only weeks away from electing a relatively unknown, unprepared, and untested politician who has spend the vast majority of his life immersed in the world of radical socialist ideology while pretending not to be. Our economy, our nation, our republic is being handed to him like John the Baptist’s head on a platter.

The people are crying, “Do something!”   Be careful what you ask for, because now that the government is doing something everything is going to get worse. You don’t believe that? Then name something outside of the realm of military action or law enforcement that the government does well. Incidentally, the national defense and law enforcement are really the only useful Constitutionally mandated obligations of the Federal Government, aside from the construction of roads, and the legitimate regulation of commerce. 

Also of note is Article I, Section 8. Under the title “Power Granted to Congress,” paragraph 5 reads: “To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin and fix the Standard of Weights and measures.” Note that nowhere in this paragraph is there mentioned an entity known as “The Federal Reserve,” nor is the authority to coin money and fix its value given to a single principal in the person of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Furthermore, it is important to note that the Constitution as written is binding as the Supreme Law of the Land, except where amended and ratified. No amendment created the Federal Reserve; rather, by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 did the Congress unconstitutionally give charter to the Federal Reserve and illegally abdicate its obligation to coin money and set its value. Indeed, as if the creation of the Fed as an illicit central bank wasn’t bad enough, think for a moment of the sheer audacity and arrogance in thinking that one person with even the best and brightest minds to assist them, could ever permanently manipulate the forces of the free market to create a condition of permanent prosperity. And that is a major part of the problem.

If the markets were left to themselves there would indeed be periods of growth and periods of correction; however, absent mountains of poorly defined or ill-scoped regulation and meddling politicians abusing their lawful authority to implement self-serving policies pandering to their own constituencies and thereby exerting massive, undue influence and encroachment on the machinations of the free market, those corrections would be comparably mild and sort-lived. Yet those very persons responsible for creating those conditions encouraging greed and corruption are now the same who demand of us still more of our money and our trust. The talking heads on the TV, with few notable exceptions, tell us repeatedly that as unfortunate as it is, we have no other option. 

To those who suggest as much I say this: economic freedom and liberty are inseparable – you cannot have the one without the other. If the market can be so easily manipulated by the arbitrary will of government for the benefit of the few, then the market is not free and neither are those who participate in it. If, on the other hand, the market is allowed to dictate unto itself and to its participants the worth of goods and services and the worthiness of those who seek them, then all are able to prosper to the extent that they wish to share in that prosperity. Such is free-market capitalism is spared undue meddling of government. That is our other option, indeed our only option; for if we do trust these power hungry fools again, the hegemony of the government, then we are exactly as stupid as they think we are, and we deserve the misery that shall most certainly befall us. If not for liberty we would only then have no other option but follow along like sheep and give to government all that it demands. We are now at a crossroad in the history of this nation, and the decisions to be made and the actions to be taken in the immediate future will have a profound and perhaps irreversible impact on our lives and those of our children. 

Let us not fool ourselves: we have been asleep at the wheel for far too long, and if we don’t immediately wake up and grab the wheel we run the very serious risk of driving right off the cliff. If you don’t believe in the possibility of an authoritarian socialist regime in the United States you are either very naïve or ignorant of history, because the possibility is not only very real but is staring us in the face. Right now our system is still the best in the world, albeit imperfect. It would be even better and we would be returned to great prosperity if our representatives and government were actually abiding by the Constitution. They will not do so unless we the people force them too.

It could be argued that we are in the beginning stages of tyranny, of the proverbial “benevolent dictatorship.” The government is moving now, through the Fed, to take over controlling interest in even more of the banks in the US. The government is also planning on purchasing mortgages and will thus become the largest homeowner in the world. As they “loan” billions to the auto industry and then, doubtless, to others they will likewise require oversight, if not “public ownership” in those companies. Does “public ownership” sound familiar?   Once government encroaches on a segment of the private sector it will not extricate itself unless the people force it to do so. Remember, the New Deal was sold to the people on the premise that it was a temporary measure to meet the needs of an extraordinary crisis. This same line is being sold to us today. Don’t believe it.

At a time when government encroachment into the private lives of citizens at the federal and state level is at an unprecedented level, where state executives and legislatures usurp the rights of parents by mandating that children receive certain “vaccines,” where the Federal Government is pursuing a course to take over massive segments of the economy, where private sector jobs are being lost while government jobs are being created, and where the most likely winner of the upcoming Presidential election will seek to force state run health care, “world” taxes payable to the UN, and the elimination of the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, complacency is not an option. We must be organized and united starting today, for we must take back control of our government and make it work for us and not against us. Government encroachment into areas heretofore left to the individual self-government and personal responsibility of each citizen is out of control, and if left unchecked it will consume us. Keep this in mind: our Founding Fathers sacrificed their very lives for the liberty we are letting the government illicitly usurp piece by piece. So, as you witness these current events continue to unfold, keep asking yourself this question each day: “Am I sovereign or a subject?” Wake up, America, before it’s too late.

McCAIN AND OBAMA CAMPAIGNS

With the expected news of a poll-bounce for the GOP in the wake of the Republican National Convention comes the unexpected, albeit much welcomed news for conservatives that the McCain-Palin ticket has pulled ahead of Obama-Biden. Real Clear Politics averaged the major poll results and came out with McCain at 48.0% and Obama at 45.6%, a 2.8% lead for McCain. The pollsters from whom these averaged results were taken ranged from CNN/Opinion Research and Rasmussen Tracking polls showing the two candidates tied at 48%, to a USA Today/Gallup poll showing McCain ahead by ten points at 54% to Obama’s 44%.

Clearly the McCain-Palin ticket has succeeded in stealing Obama’s thunder, but a 2.8% lead is still a statistical dead-heat, and although the GOP ought well to take a measure of pride in surpassing Obama in the polls for the time being, gloating and/or complacency could prove fatal.   Momentum has shifted, but the deal is far from sealed. So how does the McCain-Palin ticket seal the deal? This is a difficult question with many potential answers.

First, it is noteworthy that in the weeks prior to the Republican National Convention Obama was generally the frontrunner. The week just after to the Democrat convention in Denver saw Obama ahead by as many as 8 percentage points (Gallup). The week prior to the DNC event in Denver revealed a general trend of an Obama lead, but that lead only ranged between 1 and 4 percentage points. This is significant, because in the weeks beginning 01 July and ending 25 August, Obama was up as high as 9 percentage points the week of 13 July, but averaged only a 4 to 5 percentage point lead until the week of the Democrat convention. In the days immediately following the Democrat convention Gallup Tracking and CBS had Obama with an 8 percentage point lead over McCain, while Hotline/FD gave him a 9 percentage point lead. On the low end, a CNN poll result showed Obama with only a 1 percentage point lead that week.

PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL

Why is this significant? It is significant because at no point in the several weeks leading up to the Democrat National Convention was Obama leaving McCain in the dust, which is what one would expect if things in this country were perceived as being really as bad as Obama campaigns on. Indeed, there is real discontent with President Bush as he currently has a 32.8% approval rating with 64.0% of voters polled indicating disapproval of his administration. With a disapproval rating twice that of the incumbent Republican’s approval rating, one would rightly assume that voters should be flocking to Obama in droves. Despite the messianic coverage of Obama by the mainstream media, this is apparently not the case; and, this is a very interesting thing, because in general, one can view approval ratings and disapproval ratings of the incumbent President as a referendum on the party as a whole during a combined general and presidential election year. 

This next set of numbers, however, is very telling about the current electoral climate when looked at in context with numbers cited above.

CONGRESS AND GENERAL ELECTION PREDICTIONS

First is the Real Clear Politics Congressional Job Approval average of four polls over the period from 12 to 31 August. The RCP average gives Congress a meager 17.8% approval rating and a staggering 73.8 disapproval rating. The approval ratings for Congress were as follows: Quinnipiac from 08/12 to 08/17 16%; LA Times/Bloomberg from 08/15 to 08/18 17%; Hotline/FD from 08/29 to 08/31 at 18%; and FOX News from 08/19 to 08/20 at 20%. The disapproval ratings show FOX News and LA Times/Bloomberg at 73%, Quinnipiac at 74%, and Hotline/FD at 75%. 

This next set of numbers is very telling, again when taken in context with the previous results. 

The polls for use in predicting the emerging trends for the general Congressional electoral results for November averaged by Real Clear Politics from 15 August through 07 September give Democrats a 5.4 point advantage with 45.8% of the vote over the Republicans an average of 40.4%. The two extremes were the NBC News/Wall St. Journal poll conducted between 08/15 and 08/18 that show Democrats likely gaining 47% which is 11 percentage points above the Republicans 36%. The other extreme was the USA Today/Gallup poll conducted between 09/05 and 09/07 showing the Republicans up 5 percentage points likely gaining 50% of the vote to the Democrats 45%. It is noteworthy that the remaining three polls in the RCP average, Democracy Corps, Hotline/FD, and FOX News showed marked advantage for the Democrats, with that party polling ahead 5, 7, and 9 percentage points, respectively. 

SUMMARY

1. Emerging trends for the General Election: Beginning with the last batch of numbers, these clearly show that the Democrat Party has the overall advantage going into the November general Congressional election with the combined RCP average showing them up 5.4 percentage points over Republicans. Clearly the result demonstrates a widespread dissatisfaction with both Congress and the Republican Party. This is interesting because it is indicative of a distorted perception that the Democrats in Congress are doing a better job that the Republicans, when this is clearly not the case as evidenced by the Congressional approval ratings.

2. Congressional Job Approval: The interesting factor here is that the Democrat Party is the majority party in Congress that the polls show overwhelming dissatisfaction with. Congress gets a 73.8% overall disapproval rating and is ruled by the Democrat Party, yet the emerging trends above show this same party with a 5.4 percentage point advantage over Republicans going into the general election.

3. Presidential Approval: President Bush and his Republican Administration are disapproved of by voters by a margin of 2 to1, or 64.0% overall disapproval to 32.8% overall approval.

4. Presidential Campaigns: On 7/01 Obama had a 5.9 percentage point lead over McCain. His lead decreased to 2.3% on 8/04, and then climbing back to 4.8% on 8/12, dipping to 1.2% on 8/20 the week prior to the Democratic convention and then climbing to 6.4% on 9/02. Immediately upon entering into the Republican convention, and following the significant development of McCain announcing Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, Obama’s numbers began to fall off from a 6.4% lead on 9/02 and continued to drop as momentum appears, at least for now, to have shifted to the McCain camp with a 2.4% lead as of 9/08.

CONCLUSIONS

Clearly this is as tight a race as has been in recent history, with the poll results showing mostly a statistical dead heat once these polls are averaged together. What is certain is that the announcement of Sarah Palin’s addition to the Republican ticket served to give the GOP a definitive boost in the numbers, and once both candidates’ acceptance speeches were delivered at the GOP convention, erased Obama’s lead and put the McCain camp ahead. This is largely due to the fact that Palin is viewed by the conservative base of associated with the Republican Party as a solid conservative, fiscally and socially, and is also seen as a true reformer with a proven record.

That notwithstanding, the McCain ticket is clearly hurt to some degree to whatever extend the Obama-Biden camp can sell the argument that McCain is the equivalent of President Bush, a fellow Republican with a 64.0% disapproval rating. This is where things get as interesting as they do confusing. While the high rate of dissatisfaction with President Bush and his administration can be understood as a referendum on the entire Republican Party, and so while it is no surprise that the polling for emerging trends and predictions for the general Congressional elections gives the advantage to the Democrats, the advantage is not as large as one would think, a mere 5.4 percentage points. What is truly interesting here is the fact that Congressional disapproval ratings are averaged at 73.8%, down only slightly from a high of 77% in July. 

What this data show is that the country is still sharply divided politically. But what is more surprising is that given the increasing overall dissatisfaction with President Bush, the numbers have not swung more steeply in favor of Democrats. The data suggest a strong distrust of both parties as evidenced by the President’s disapproval rating, but no solid referendum for a different direction even while the RCP average taken between 08/19 and 09/07 that only 20.0% approve of the direction the nation is going in, with 75.7% disapproving.

For McCain, this is all good news and for Obama it is worthy of concern. For both campaigns it is worthy of very careful attention and much reflection. Obama, a highly charismatic person and eloquent speaker, has yet to complete the sale to the American voters. Given the state of dissatisfaction with government in general, Obama ought to be clobbering McCain, and yet he has barely pulled out a lead better than a statistical dead heat when all the poll results are averaged together.

McCain has seen momentum shift in his favor, and this is largely due to his choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, he acceptance speech, and his follow up acceptance speech which reassured the conservative base by telling them what they needed to hear to get behind the ticket, and making an appeal to undecided voters. What is certain is that prior to the GOP convention, most conservatives were very leery about McCain and if even inclined to support his candidacy did so only grudgingly and as an affront to Obama. 

What is equally certain is that by choosing a staunch conservative reformer who is solid on social and fiscal issues of concern to the conservative base, who is relatively unknown and who is a woman has undeniably galvanized and energized that same base and thereby the whole of Republican Party. McCain drastically increases his chances at victory if he stays to the right, and in picking Palin he has signaled his intent to do exactly that. What the campaign needs to do next is to take the message to the people that the Democrats are the majority party in the Congress they so disdain and hammer the point home with voters to disassociate the Republicans from the failures of a Democrat controlled Congress.

McCain must also be careful not to be perceived as being George W. Bush redux, which ought not be too difficult a task; especially in making the case that he and Palin are the candidates of real reform and change, especially on wasteful government spending. If McCain-Palin can accomplish these things, they can easily beat Obama in November. The conservative base is largely on board now, and so the sale needs to be taken to the undecided’s and independents. 

Clearly the Palin pick has put Obama-Biden in a box in a way they never saw coming, and they are still reeling and assessing what is the best move and direction to proceed. McCain put them there and only he can keep them there. Right now it’s his race to lose, though far from over.