Be Careful What You Wish For Mr. President

     I was not a fan of Mitt Romney during the Republican primary season, partially because it was obvious that the Obama campaign wanted to run against Romney. They created and nurtured the Occupy movement for that expressed purpose. All the anti-Wall Street and class-warfare rhetoric was specifically designed to battle Mitt Romney.
     But I must say that in the last couple of weeks I have been pleasantly surprised by Mitt Romney's performance. He and his wife Ann, in large part, neutralized the administration's attempt to convince people that the Republicans were waging a war on women. He masterfully responded to the Obama campaign's mis-characterizations of his time at Bain Capital. His response was so effective that even Democrats such as Duval Patrick, Ed Rendell, Corey Booker and former president Bill Clinton joined the defense of Bain specifically and private equity in general. When the left demanded that Mitt Romney denounce Donald Trump because of his views on the President's birth certificate, he stood his ground while saying he disagreed with The Donald's birth certificate view. This incident would have had John McCain running to the woodshed for some serious self-flogging, even before it was demanded by the left-wing media.
     The Romney campaign has been very effective staying on message while rapidly responding to attacks from the Obama campaign and their minions in the mainstream media. Mitt Romney's secret trip to the shuttered headquarters of Solyndra was brilliant. Solyndra is the solar panel company run by a major Obama donor which received 500 million dollars in taxpayer money then went bankrupt. Governor Romney made an effective speech at the former solar panel maker, drawing a distinction between the 80% success rate he had at Bain Capital, using private money, and the President's 0% success rate in the "Green Energy" industry, using taxpayer money. For those who don't know, Solyndra is only one of over a dozen "Green Energy" companies that have received taxpayer money and subsequently have gone bankrupt. In fact 70% of the loans made by the Department of Energy for "Green Energy" projects, have been to major Obama donors or campaign bundlers.
     Whether or not Mitt Romney is at heart a true Conservative may yet to be proved. One thing for sure is that he doesn't intend to run a campaign that apologizes and shrinks from the fight like the wilting flower campaign of John McCain. Yes, the Obama campaign hoped and wished for Mitt Romney to be the Republican candidate, because they thought they had an effective strategy for defeating him. But that desire by the Obama campaign is illustrative of the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for." And they may yet regret their wish made upon the falling star that has become their campaign.

The Great Facebook IPO Drama

     Unless you have been living on a secluded mountaintop or at the bottom of the ocean the last week, you've probably heard something about the long-awaited Facebook initial public offering. The stock opened at $38 on last Friday, and after a week of trading it had dropped below $32. The first day it traded there were some glitches that were the responsibility of the NASDAQ. These glitches delayed some orders for the stock from being filled in a timely fashion. The other complaint from investors was the addition of shares in the last week before the IPO and an increase in the IPO price. While this is not totally unheard of, it was slightly unusual. The investors also charge that Morgan Stanley, who was the chief underwriter for the IPO, told certain clients that their analyst had downgraded the value of the stock before the IPO.
     When you add all these things to the hype that was created around the IPO by the media, you had a recipe for disaster. The hype got so bad that CNBC's Maria Bartiromo and Bob Pisani enagaged in the most irresponsible behavior I have ever seen by so-called finanacial reporters; they were making guesses on where the stock would close after its first day of trading. Their guesses were as high as $100 a share, they were giddy with excitement. Of course after the stock collapsed, these two financial geniuses were assigning blame to everyone but themselves, as if they had no part in hyping the value of the stock.
     Now that there is blood in water surrounding Facebook, disgruntled investors have lawyered up in order to blame someone, anyone, for their bad investment. I follow the market everyday and handle (sometimes mis-handle) my own investments. In the weeks before the IPO I found plenty of articles detailing the over-valuation of the company. The very week of the IPO, GM said it was pulling its ads from Facebook because they said they weren't working. The problem with Facebook is that it has to find a way to monetize its 900 million users. This is done through advertisers, which if GM is to be believed, is not the main focus of Facebook, it is their users. This user-centric business model works for companies like Apple and Microsoft where the bulk of the revenue is generated directly from the users, but not for Facebook, whose revenue is generated from advertisers.
     All of this information was available to me as well as anyone else who wished to conduct due diligence before investing instead of buying into the hype. I just wonder if these whiny investors would be demanding that half their money be returned had the stock doubled the first day of the IPO. These investors want the benefits of stock gains but want to be protected by the courts or government regulators from their bad investment decisions. The market works best when individuals and firms are allowed to reap the rewards or suffer the losses of their risky decisions without blame being assigned to someone else.
  

The Great Distraction

     When President Obama announced his "evolved" view of gay marriage, my first reaction was, "Who cares?" Of course there were several reasons he made this choice, not least of which was the fact that donations to his campaign  from the gay community were sorely lacking because of his previous position that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. The larger reason, I believe, for the reversal of the President's position was to distract the nation's attention from the obvious failure of his policies.
     For the record I am not in favor of gay marriage, but do support civil unions. This doesn't make me a homophobe or simpleton. Marriage has been, for millennium, the union of one man and one woman for the purpose of creating and raising children for the benefit of society. The fact that a small sliver of the population wants to impose a new definition on the rest of society for the expressed purpose of destroying the traditional institution, to me, is wrong. Once the definition of marriage is changed to include same-sex couples, then what's to say that polygamy and intra-familial marriage, such as a father marrying his daughter, shouldn't also be accepted. It's a slippery slope that can only be destructive to society.
     The larger issue in this fall's election is the struggle between two very different visions for the country. The Obama administration has made their view of a dependant society crystal clear, most recently with their sad and depressing slide show about a fictional woman named Julia. In the slide presentation, Julia's life consists only of her relationship with Obama's big government from age 3 thru 67. The natural state of humans is to be independent, and it is only through this independence that happiness is attained for the individual and innovation is created for the benefit of society. But President Obama, and those who share his big government ideology, have demonized success and wealth. When a society criminalizes individual wealth it ensures collective poverty. President Obama knows that the more poverty that exists the more dependence on government grows. But don't take my word for it, look at every Liberal policy and ask yourself whether or not it encourages individualism or government dependence. President Obama and his ilk look at individualism as an enemy to their political ambitions to consolidate power.
     Thomas Jefferson said, "No society can remain both ignorant and free." This statement has never been so true as it is in this upcoming election. If the majority of the population allows themselves to be distracted from the real choice, between liberty and tyranny, then we shall surely reap the harvest of the latter whose seeds have been sown in the last three and a half years.
    

Bernanke's Bountiful Basket of Bull

      This Wednesday, the Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke spewed out some of the most financially illiterate ignorance I have seen from a public figure since the President's last public speech. This is not a surprise coming from a man who has never held a job in the real economy and is firmly ensconced in the  economic theory of academia, which has very little relationship to the real economy.
     The market responded positively to the Chairman's remarks, and why wouldn't they. For the last 3 years they have been the jonesing crack addicts to Big Ben's quantitative easing fix. In recent bond auctions, which is how the government borrows money to fund all the things they shouldn't be doing, the Federal reserve has bought 90 percent of all the government's debt. It's not the Chinese that Americans have to worry about, it's the Federal reserve monetizing our debt to levels which have ballooned its balance sheet to over 7 trillion dollars. Anyone with a grade school education realizes that this situation can't continue indefinitely. Eventually the U.S. currency will collapse and our credit worthiness will be in dumper.
     In 2010, tax-cheat Timothy Geithner (Treasury Secretary) went to China and told officials there that the U.S. was not monetizing its debt. The Chinese called him on it by letting him know that they have kept track of our money supply and that we were most definitely monetizing our debt. Since then the Chinese have been divesting themselves of U.S. debt. Which is why the Federal Reserve has had to buy the debt themselves, further exacerbating the monetizing problem. Of the 5 trillion dollars in new debt created by the Obama administration, over sixty percent has been purchased by the Federal Reserve. They have done this by simply printing money and using it to buy the Federal government's debt, which is going to hurt pension funds which invest in long term bonds.
     If all this wasn't enough to scare the b-Jesus out of you, Big Ben made a comment during his remarks that made me pop a blood vessel in my brain. He said that the government had to reduce incentives for companies to grow. Evidently this is to avoid the myth of too-big-to-fail that this administration has used to cut the legs out from under capitalism. The administration has done a good job of doing just that, which is why we have the longest period of unemployment over 8 percent since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It has been this intense meddling in the economy by people like Ben Bernanke, who don't understand it, that has lead to a lack of confidence in the markets to stand on their own, anemic GDP growth and chronically high unemployment. November's election can't come quick enough and with it a change in leadership at all levels of government.

The Cowardice of Rock

     Over the last 3 years, Gibson guitar has been, in the words of CEO Henry Juszkiewicz, stalked by the Department of Justice. The basic gist of the DOJ case is that Gibson illegally imported ebony and rosewood, used in the fingerboards of their guitars. But this is based on the DOJs wild misinterpretation of Indian law, where the wood originates. The Indian government approved the transfer of the wood and the United States Customs department did as well. The importation of the wood was also approved by Forest Stewardship Council, which has the final word on these matters. The entire process used by Gibson in securing the wood was completely legal and followed the laws of both countries. The process, by the way, is the same one used by other guitar manufactures, who for some reason have escaped the DOJs attention. Gibson, to date, has not been officially charged with a crime but has had a half million dollars worth of their product confiscated by the U.S. government as well as losing one million dollars in productivity.
     The reason for this selective prosecution (or what some may call persecution) of Gibson guitar might be found in the political realm rather than the legal. Gibson guitar is a non-union shop and has donated money to conservative causes. This wouldn't be the first time the Obama administration has used the power of government to silence its political opponents. It started after the administration took control of GM and closed profitable car dealerships owned by Republicans. It continued when the administration tried to ban Fox News from White House press briefings. This move was roundly criticized, even by the left-leaning mainstream media and the administration was forced to reconsider its decision.
     It seems to me that no matter what the reason for the DOJs selective prosecution of Gibson guitar, there is a blatant injustice in it. I'm wondering when we will hear from the rock stars who claim to abhor injustice. Country music stars have come out in support of Gibson, but as of the date of this post, the only rock musician to come to Gibson's defense has been Ted Nugent. It seems as though his fellow rockers, like Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, et. al., don't have the courage to stand up for injustice when it conflicts with their politics. Their courage only extends to causes for which their Allys on the left won't criticize them. The cowardice of these rockers is defined by their unwillingness to stand with true justice against the slings and arrows of an out-of-control administration and its sycophants in the mainstream media.

Fidel Is Smiling

     Florida Marlin's manager, Ozzy Guillen, recently said that he loved Fidel Castro. The comment was made while he was being interviewed for Time magazine. The incident sparked a firestorm which resulted in Mr. Guillen's suspension from baseball for five games. Let me state for the record that I think Fidel Castro is a murdering tyrant and is not worthy of love, except maybe by God, in whom he doesn't believe. But I am also a big supporter of free speech, even when that speech is misguided and offensive to some people. Mr. Guillen's comments can be characterized as misguided and most certainly should be offensive to anyone who believes in justice and liberty. These concepts have been absent from Cuba for the 50 plus years that Fidel Castro has ruled.
     I have to wonder why Mr. Guillen's comments are any more offensive than the useful idiots in Hollywood and elsewhere who wear Che Guevara tee-shirts and elevate him to some sort of heroic status. After all, Che Guevara was a murdering coward who ran away from the only battle in which he was ever involved. When the Bolivian military found him hiding like the Coward he was, he begged for his life saying he was the great Che Guevara and was worth more to them alive than dead. He was very brave when he was slaughtering unarmed and innocent men, women and children. It was a different story when he faced armed military personnel.
     I also wonder why Mr. Guillen's comments would be any more offensive than Anita Dunn saying that Chairman Mao was one of her heroes. She made the comment while delivering  a speech to high school students. At the time Ms. Dunn was President Obama's press secretary. Mao murdered 100 million of his own countrymen and tortured untold millions more. Just the kind of a guy you'd want administration officials to lionize. And while we are on the subject of Mao, I take much more umbrage with the President and first lady hanging a Mao ornament on the White House Christmas tree their first year in office than I do with Ozzy Guillen's remarks. I also find the strict adherence to politically correct speech the left has placed on public discourse to be more offensive than a comment made by a baseball manager. Let's not forget that there are many people on the left in this country, some of whom are in our government, who have expressed admiration for Fidel Castro and the wonderful things he has done for the Cuban people. Some of these people are bound and determined to impose the Cuban-style of healthcare on the U.S. Now that I find that much more offensive than Ozzy Guillen's comments.
    Ozzy Guillen's remarks were stupid and misguided, but don't rise to the level of offense that our government officials utter almost on a daily basis. Freedom of speech has no filter that strains out stupidity, people are free to make fools of themselves. I think the reaction by Major League baseball and others to Ozzy Guillen's remarks were somewhat disproportional. I have to think that in some corner of Cuba Fidel Castro is watching the limits we are placing on our own free speech, and Fidel is smiling.

Voter ID Opposition Equals Citizen Disenfranchisment

     There has been quite a dust-up recently over the institution of voter ID laws various states. Democrats are opposed to these sensible laws because they say it disenfranchises blacks disproportionally because more inner-city blacks are likely not to have IDs than other segments of the population. The fact is that most states allow lower income residents to obtain state IDs free, and in some states they will even send a representative to a person's house to sign them up for an ID. Nothing could be easier than obtaining an ID, no matter in which state you live.  
      The most obvious reason for Democrat opposition to voter ID laws is corruption of the voting process. If one doesn't have to prove who they are, it allows for more deception in voting. This was recently illustrated by James O' Keefe, the now famous videographer who exposed the immoral and illegal tactics of President Obama's favorite community organizers, ACORN. Mr. O' Keefe strolled into the polling place in Attorney General Eric Holder's district, and without an ID, the poll worker was going to allow him to vote as Eric Holder. The poll worker actually said that as long as he was on the list and said he was who he claimed to be, no ID was necessary. The really frightening part is that Mr. O' Keefe never said he was Eric Holder, he only asked if they had a registration for Eric Holder. The poll worker eagerly volunteered to allow him to vote as Eric Holder.
     I think the opposition to voter ID goes much deeper than simple elections fraud. Without an ID it is very difficult for someone to fully participate in our society. An ID is needed to cash a check, obtain a credit card, board a plane and hundreds of other activities which allow a person to fully participate in the economy. We should be encouraging people to be responsible by securing an ID. But the political fortunes of Democrats depend on keeping people irresponsible and separated from participation in the economy. The more people become self-sufficient, the less they need Democrat politicians passing legislation to feed, clothe and house them. This has been outlined by President Obama in many speeches, most recently when he talked about the failure of the "on your own economy." The President would have people believe that they can't make it on their own and need government to intercede on their behalf. But what the President, and others who believe as he does, fail to recognize is that it is free market capitalism and the individual freedom it provides that created a nation that has advance the human condition more than any other in the history of the world. Freedom dictates that the individual takes the responsibility of proving who they say they are when it comes to our most precious right, the right to vote.