Searching in Vain for the Obama Magic......

Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric -- and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught. One can hardly blame the West Point leadership. The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama's speech would be well-received. Just minutes before the president took the stage inside Eisenhower Hall, the gathered cadets were asked to respond "enthusiastically" to the speech. But it didn't help: The soldiers' reception was cool...Link

'Panic' after surprise currency revaluation.

North Korea's surprise decision to redenominate its currency has prompted panic and despair among merchants left with piles of worthless notes, even driving one couple to suicide, activists said today...Link

Where Obama and republicans agree.

President Obama will finally have a bipartisan piece of legislation passed through Congress because opposition to the troop surge he proposes in Afghanistan is so strong within his own party. "The president is going to have to count on getting almost all Republicans to support this funding, because he's unlikely to get more than half the Democrats, especially in the House," notes George Stephanopoulos of ABC News. Make no mistake about how badly the Afghan decision is playing among media allies and grassroots supporters of the president. Several highlighted the contradiction between Mr. Obama announcing the sending of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and also insisting he will begin to pull them out in 2011. "Where's the hope? . . . It sounds more Rube Goldberg than 'Remember the Alamo,'" was the reaction of MSNBC host Chris Matthews last night. "If I were with the Taliban right now, I'd put a little Post-it up on that month in 2011, and say: 'This is when we do OUR surge.'"...Link

Obama's plan for Pakistan..................

WASHINGTON – Facing the prospect of more American deaths in Afghanistan as the war escalates, lawmakers lashed out at neighboring Pakistan on Thursday as an unreliable ally that could spare the U.S. its bruising fight with al-Qaida if it wanted. "They don't seem to want a strategic relationship," New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez said of the government in Islamabad. "They want the money. They want the equipment. But at the end of the day, they don't want a relationship that costs them too much."..Link

Ron Paul: An Answer to Bernanke......

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (November 29th Washington Post) does not want us to know any of the details of the Fed's secret operations. This position is not surprising and has been typical of all central bank chairmen. Bernanke's stated goal in his editorial is "To design a system of financial oversight..." that will "provide a robust framework for preventing future crises."

During its 96 years of existence, the Federal Reserve has played havoc with our economy and brought great suffering to millions through unemployment and price escalation. In addition, it has achieved what only a central bank can: a steady depreciation of our currency. Today's dollar is now worth four cents compared to the dollar entrusted to the Federal Reserve in 1913.

Ninety-six years should have been plenty of time for the Fed to come up with a plan for preventing economic crises. Since the Fed is the source of all economic downturns, it is impossible for any central banker to regulate in such a manner to prevent the problems that are predictable consequences of his own monetary mismanagement.

The Federal Reserve fixes interest rates at levels inevitably lower than those demanded by the market. This manipulation is a form of price control through credit expansion and is the ultimate cause of business cycles and so many of our economic problems, generating the malinvestment, excessive debt, stock, bond, commodity, and housing bubbles.

The Federal Reserve's monetary inflation indeed does push the CPI upward, but concentrating on government reports on the CPI and the PPI is nothing more than a distraction from the other harm done by the Federal Reserve's effort at central economic planning through secret monetary policy operations. Real inflation, the expansion of our money supply, is greatly undercounted by these indexes. In response to our latest financial crisis, the Federal Reserve turned on its printing press and literally doubled the monetary base. This staggering creation of dollars has yet to be reflected in many consumer prices, but it will ultimately hit the middle class and poor with a cruel devaluation of their savings and real earnings.

The Fed has clearly failed on its mandate to maintain full employment and price stability. It's time to find out what's going on. Instead of assuming responsibility for the Fed's role in the crisis, Bernanke brags about "arresting" the crisis. I would suggest to Mr. Bernanke that it's too early to brag.

Bernanke decries any effort to gain transparency of the Fed's actions to find out just who gets bailed out and who is left to fail. Instead, he proposes giving even more power to the Fed to regulate the entire financial system. What he does not recognize, or does not want to admit, is that he is talking about symptoms and ignoring the source of the crisis -- the Federal Reserve itself. More regulations will never compensate for all the distortion and excesses caused by monetary inflation and artificially low interest rates. Regulation distracts from the real cause while further interfering with market forces, thus guaranteeing that the recession will become much deeper and prolonged.

Chairman Bernanke's argument for Fed secrecy is a red herring. It serves to distract so the special interests that benefit from Fed policy never become known to the public. Who can possibly buy the argument that this secrecy is required to protect the people from political influence?

49 Percent..........Isolationism?

Non-interventionism often gets spun as isolationism.

Nonintervention - n. A foreign policy of staying out of other countries' disputes.

Isolationism - n. A policy of nonparticipation in international economic and political relations.

Although true isolationism will ultimately be what we are doing now....for one..we are pissing a lot of countries off....and two...we are ruining our currency and it may get too expensive to travel anywhere.

WASHINGTON -- Americans are turning away from the world, showing a tendency toward isolationism in foreign affairs that has risen to the highest level in four decades, a poll out Thursday found. Almost half, 49 percent, told the polling organization that the United States should "mind its own business" internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own, the Pew Research Center survey found. That's up from 30 percent who said that in December 2002...Link

DeMint to Oppose Bernanke Nomination.....

December 3, 2009 - WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, announced this morning that he will oppose the nomination of Ben Bernanke to serve a second term as the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Senator DeMint made the announcement after Bernanke's confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, and pledged to object to floor consideration of the nomination until the Senate votes on S. 604, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009. "Ben Bernanke is an intelligent and well-intended public servant, but the fact is the Fed has failed the American people during his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and I cannot support his nomination for a second term,” said Senator DeMint. “Americans want a new Fed chairman who is willing to provide transparency into the Fed's actions, who is willing to accept responsibility for the Fed's mistakes, and who is willing to support true monetary reform that guarantees the soundness of our money.

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Update - HR 1207 - 317 Co-sponsors!.........

Title: To amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported, and for other purposes.