Notice no one said how big the steps were. I can’t find the whole quote, but many years ago, I read it, not in the title of the book by V.I. Lenin, but the entire text that had “the rest of the story” about step size. Meaning: Take a large step, if resistance is encountered, promise to back up two. It looks, to the resister, like you are actually moving backwards by your words, further back that your start point, but you merely make two small steps in reverse, leaving you with “conquered” ground. It’s all about manipulating the perceptions.

Note the choice of words: “Punitive Legislation.” Somebody gets it.

Consider: The full power of the Federal Legislative and Executive branches “punishing” people for running a private firm. Yes, they have been given taxpayer dollars, so the overall system wouldn’t suffer, then the Government punishes them for taking the bonuses that the Treasury Department and Senator Dodd made sure they were in the bailout legislation.

What kind of America have we become?

Financial-industry officials launched a campaign Friday to fight back but are finding their hands tied: Anti-Wall Street sentiment following the American International Group Inc. bonus payouts is making it difficult to reach once-friendly lawmakers to make their case. Key senators and their staffers, nervous about appearing to support the industry, are refusing all meetings, and, in some cases, turning away phone calls. “Unless you have a pitchfork and a noose nobody’s listening to you” on Capitol Hill, said one financial lobbyist.

Who has the best paid lawyers on their side? You know, why would a top notch law school graduate go to work for the Govt, when they can make lots and lots more money as a private one? Sorta like why so few military academy sports players end up in the big leagues….not a snipe, just a fact. It’s about you life priorities.

Oh, call it the “Full Employment Act for Trial Lawyers Bill (FEA4TL)” just for fun.

The White House has yet to publicly criticize the bonus tax proposals. But administration officials say privately they are concerned the House and Senate bills could lead to an exodus of employees or whole companies from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, known as TARP, as well as other government-sponsored financial rescue efforts.

Hallmark of this administration: It’s merely a act/poll/react mentality. They don’t can’t think about the consequences of any action. They are to focused on “The Agenda!,” to have actually developed the political equivalent of a business plan.

Consider all of this derision from the government, calling bankers the equivalent of “suicide bombers.” It’s a cultural thing. When the President tells the world one profession is good (lawyers) and another is bad (bankers, investment bankers, Wall Street companies, etc….), it leaches into the psyche of those considering their upcoming, either first or subsequent, career choices.

Speaking of that, the President is showing himself to be the “Offender-in-Chief.” Besides calling his fellow citizens suicide bombers, the also disses those in the Special Olympics. He’s “sensitive” about his big ears, he’s sensitive about it being pointed out his close associates in recent years want to see the Government and officials destroyed, and that America is one big bigoted nation, and then he has the gall to use those words?

Back on topic: He has the power to influence where the talent goes. He may not know it, but he’s going to chase away the very people who may just be able find a way out of the current darkness in the economic arena.

If these are the “smart” people, I don’t want no more smart ones telling me they know the answers. They ain’t got ‘em! They don’t or they just are pushing to see what they can achieve, and pull back if they find resistance.

It is also a vestige of “real world” business experience. If they had it, they’d certainly understand marketing a whole lot better. However, it seems they are a bunch of lawyers, who think written text is always right, unless they find a loophole that compliments their desires to avoid the specifics, and certainly the intent, if they disagree.

Just a closing thought: What industry is next to be publicly called out? Which corporation will next have to hire private security and tell their employees to not go out alone, for their fellow citizens may want to cause them physical harm?

The President using his bully pulpit to send the citizens after one another is immoral, and unjust. He is the one who calls for justice for the “enemy combatants,” who are no longer are enemies, despite their own statements, yet cannot see it worthy of our own neighbors.

Paranoia? Yes, another hallmark of communism. Ask any who have lived under it.

It used to be conservative talk show hosts, and MSM financial reporters. Now it’s just your average finance industry worker…yoou know, the “greedy capitalists.” Who’s next?

Call to Action: I’d recommend you contact your representatives and let them know how you feel about the President vilifying citizens.

Update 3/21/2009: And then an ACORN derived group shows up at AIG Executive’s homes. You remember ACORN? The “community organizing” group President Obama worked for, and trained for? The one accused of voter fraud in at least TWELVE states, the group that is receiving $2B in Stimulus Fund dollars. The same group that entered bank lobbies and demanded CRA loans be issued to those who couldn’t actually afford them?

Yes. A group bent on destroying us financially, for their own political gain, one President Obama actually worked for.

Now they are at the doors of private citizens.

It’s a multi-pronged attack on citizens. With the Executive and Legislative branches, blatantly violating the basics of the 14th Amendment, supported and abetted by known socialist groups.

My God, what have we done?

Does any thinking being have to wonder why, when Porkulus 1 money hasn’t even been barely distributed, they are already calling for Son of Porkulus?

Here’s the deal: Unaccountable bureaucrats will tell you how you will handle everything in your life, or the money will stop flowing.

All under the guise of making sure the taxpayers money isn’t being mis-appropriated…like for that fat laden Big Mac, the soda with sugar and caffeine, the “nasty” second hand smoke producing cigar, or…how much you drive your car (oh, and what kind it is) instead of taking light rail and the bus and where you send your children to school.

They want everyone to sign on the dotted line now, and then, the “fine print” reading will be way too late. As pointed out in an article on banks trying to return the money, it was noted that the Government can change the conditions in the future. So, consider what that portends for anyone taking Government assistance. The basics: Unintended consequences, based on unforeseen regulations, without the benefit of a legislative process to vet them.

Tea Parties are a start. More push back will be needed, or we shall all be drones of the state, working to give to the Federal Government, so they can hand some of it back, with massive restrictions, and new restrictions they can apply at the whim of anyone in the heap of civil servants between you and the President.  Interesting how it works:  They take our money, then pay off a bunch of civil servants, hand us back some of the leftover funds and tell us we have to respect the rights of all other taxpayers for taking it.  Yep, I hope that makes your head explode, because it stupid at the core, and the thinking person knows it.  Side note:  what does that say about those who we voted into office who can’t stand up and say “This is not only stupid, it’s immoral!”

And: Just think, the news this very day is Bernie Madoff may have to serve life in prison for his $65B ponzi scheme. Think about the bailout/stimulus/America Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and all such permutations as a huge money laundering scheme. The difference is when the power of the Congress and the Executive is behind it, it is somehow legal.

The Government takes our wealth in taxes, then drafts up a mountain of conditions, then places the money on the table in front of us, with the tomes of “conditions” and a pen.  The Government representative, or their proxy by the chain of money distribution, will say “Sign here” and then put a fork in you, you’re done. You know how desperation works: If you’re hanging on by a thread, you sign without “reading the contract.”

I spent a few decades where my part of my duties required me to be a steward of taxpayers funds as an end user, not as a bean counter. Near the end of my time, I directly handled $11M and oversaw a total of $34M of federal expenditures. A portion of my time, as a department head in a large software maintenance organization was spent ensuring the funds allocated by a DC office was spent in accordance of the guidelines, which extended all the way from the Congressional Budget. There was single year money, multi-year money, all with specifics of under which projects the funds could be expended. The “rules” were that the person who last touched it was accountable for where it was spent, even if an error in the funding lines may have been altered by accident up the chain somewhere in the “accounting data.” The strings attached to this money were lengthy and very specific, including the legal outcomes if you did the wrong thing. Moral of that paragraph: No seat of the pants spending allowed.

Puppets. We shall all become puppets if we are not mindful of the serious danger of President Obama’s ingrained punishment mentality, bred into him by the radicals who were his mentors and role models.

The bottom line:  He wants to be able to tell each and every citizen how they will live their life, and he will keep telling you it’s to make sure the taxpayer’s money is spent right.

The almost final thought:  no wonder the President hasn’t had time to deal with the pressing issues of foreign affairs.  First he needs to gain a massive degree of control of the populace, using this sort of end around of The Constitution first.  With such control he’ll be much more able to control the conversations that should go on in a republic.

The final thought:  Didn’t we get here by Government mandating who got money and who didn’t and how and where it would be doled out?  How’d that work out for us so far?

Mark my words.  This theme will play out in the Consumer Safety Protection Act, gun control (think localities taking money being told that a condition is “reasonable regulation of ownership”), and a variety of other social, legal and even moral issues (can you say no protesting abortions?).  Take a moment and envision the “unintended consequences” that shall follow the money from the halls of Congress and trhe Desk in the Oval Office.  I trust you are reasonably horrified.  I trust you will let your elected officals know how you feel about this.  It is time for “feelings” to come to the forefront.

So, once more, in the light of the aftermath of the election, and gauging his words against his own deeds, “we” got so much of him wrong.

Experience isn’t necessary, if you already know how you are going to judge. Even more so, if you think your understanding of all things is superior to all around you (that’s the “intellectual” part coming into play).

If he is a quick study, all I see is a quick study in how to implement a radical agenda in the face of determined political resistance. Note the word “political” and no others in the sentence. By looking at those who he seems to have initially held up as his associates (before he tossed them under the bus when they came to light), they were pretty much all about radical political change. Yes, the names Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright come to mind.

He his long term friends and close associates do not include people who have been or became ambassadors, economic wizards, business builders, nor even historians. The close associations seem to all be those who would corrupt the system, specifically for political change.

President Obama just is going to have it his way. History be damned, and any, yes, any political opponent, regardless of party affiliation, (soon some Blue Dog Democrats, I predict, will be getting the Rush/Joe the Plumber/Rick Santelli/Jim Cramer/Sara Palin treatment) be damned, too. It’s now the time to destroy America as a leader, and the ironic thing is, it is being done by our leader.

Now, a commenter on The Anchoress nailed some of my thoughts, that hadn’t completely formed. These words became the basis for this post, and extend my thoughts along these lines well.

# Bender B. Rodriguez Says:
March 4th, 2009 at 12:00 am

You know, we were all concerned that, as inexperienced as he is, Obama would need on-the-job training. But apparently, Obama does not believe he needs to learn how to do the job. He clearly believes that he knows everything he needs to know — and the things he doesn’t know are irrelevant to his objectives.

For example, how the economy works. He doesn’t care to know that because he is not interested in making it work. He is only interested in changing it. Don’t bother him with financial facts, don’t interrupt to tell him that his pants are on fire, he has an ideological agenda to enact and the facts and/or results be damned. It doesn’t work? Who cares? The agenda is going to be enacted anyway.

Or, foreign policy. That the Iranians and Russians and Syrians and Gazans and Taliban and Al Qaeda and everyone else is ready to roll Obama is irrelevant. He doesn’t care about the facts. He has an agenda of appeasement and apologizing for America and blaming America for everything, and that’s that.

Actually learning the facts, actually learning how to do the job of president is irrelevant. Obama is going to do whatever the hell he wants to do. He won. That’s all the learning and knowledge and facts he needs.

What else have we mis-interpreted about his “campaign rhetoric?

Note in this analysis regarding these types of behaviors:

[...]
An important distinction is between cerebral and somatic narcissists. The cerebrals derive their Narcissistic Supply from their intelligence or academic achievements and the somatics derive their Narcissistic Supply from their physique, exercise, physical or sexual prowess and romantic or physical “conquests”.

Another crucial division within the ranks of patients with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is between the classic variety (those who meet five of the nine diagnostic criteria included in the DSM), and the compensatory kind (their narcissism compensates for deep-set feelings of inferiority and lack of self-worth).
Obama displays the following behaviors, which are among the hallmarks of pathological narcissism:

* Subtly misrepresents facts and expediently and opportunistically shifts positions, views, opinions, and “ideals” (e.g., about campaign finance, re-districting). These flip-flops do not cause him overt distress and are ego-syntonic (he feels justified in acting this way). Alternatively, reuses to commit to a standpoint and, in the process, evidences a lack of empathy.

Ignores data that conflict with his fantasy world, or with his inflated and grandiose self-image. This has to do with magical thinking. Obama already sees himself as president because he is firmly convinced that his dreams, thoughts, and wishes affect reality. Additionally, he denies the gap between his fantasies and his modest or limited real-life achievements (for instance, in 12 years of academic career, he hasn’t published a single scholarly paper or book).

- Feels that he is above the law, incl. and especially his own laws.

- Talks about himself in the 3rd person singluar or uses the regal “we” and craves to be the exclsuive center of attention, even adulation

- Have a messianic-cosmic vision of himself and his life and his “mission”.

- Sets ever more complex rules in a convoluted world of grandiose fantasies with its own language (jargon)

- Displays false modesty and unctuous “folksiness” but unable to sustain these behaviors (the persona, or mask) for long. It slips and the true Obama is revealed: haughty, aloof, distant, and disdainful of simple folk and their lives.

- Sublimates aggression and holds grudges.

- Behaves as an eternal adolescent (e.g., his choice of language, youthful image he projects, demands indulgence and feels entitled to special treatment, even though his objective accomplishments do not justify it).
[...]

To paraphrase a comedian, but put it in this context: That’s scary, no matter who you are.

Maybe we elected the “Punisher-in-Chief.”

Responsibility? Nope. Earmarks? Yes. The beginning of a bill for the generations unlike what we’ve ever done before…and when we’re in financially hard times? Oh, yes. Borrow your way out of debt. Wasn’t that what our “keep up with the Jones,” apply for every credit card you were “pre-approved” for got us? Yep. So let’s now try it at the Federal Budget level. If we don’t expect different results are we insane or sane? If we do expect different outcomes, my question remains.

Not how the “entitlements” category goes up by $900B in one fiscal year. Why?

Note how the one who told us he will cut the deficit in half, presents a budget that increases it 9.92 times…Yes, almost quadruples (but who’s quibbling over a few billion at this point?) the deficit. Who are his advisors? Oh, yes…a man who came from A large, now crashed investment firm…Tim Gietner, and a man who helped President Clinton put the Community Reinvestment Act in place, which has destroyed the mortgage market, Larry Summers. Those are two key advisors to the President. Since the President is a lawyer, who do you think he went to to put this budget proposal together?

How much longer can we afford to have “smart” people telling us how to run the Nation?

Link to the article that contains this graphic at the New York Post is here.

This statement is not made lightly, and it is supported by his own staff, and is based upon how the Nations non-military legal system works.

He is a lawyer, who seems to not understand the law, or he is more concerned with keeping support of those who make dangerous and outrageous decisions, based on emotion, not reality or legal precedent, nor even common sense.

The manner in which he is closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba also allows the detainess access to National Security Secrets:

President Obama clearly didn’t do his homework before ordering the suspension of military tribunals to try terrorist suspects. We have learned that even his own legal counsel admitted that Mr. Obama erred in discussing details about terrorism with families of victims last week, and that the administration was ignorant of a key point that terrorists exploit to their advantage. In his rush to fulfill a campaign promise to his more fervid anti-war supporters, the president’s legal oversights risk the disclosure of some highly classified information to terrorists.
[...]

The Washington Times editorial, quoted above, calls this an “oversight.” I would refer to it more appropriately as an “egregious error in judgment,” as that is more fitting.

Blundering ahead at full speed to make good on what he described, right after being elected as “Campaign Rhetoric,” so as to continue to maintain a razor’s edge of majority of support for his ill conceived plans, he is oblivious to the consequences of the mis-use of his real powers.

Think about it: Many of us were justifiable upset when the New York Times published stories about tracking terrorists by their cell phone signals, or the international money trail, or that some very hardened terrorists were kept in prisons elsewhere (a policy put in place by President Clinton and Leon Panetta, but blamed on President Bush (43)). In this case, the legal process to “bring them to justice” will actually cause the Federal Government to hand over classified information to those who’s stated purpose is to destroy this nation. It is a methodology that leads to national suicide. Why? So President Obama can wake up in the morning and say to himself in the mirror “I kept my promises” as he grows old and has left the White House.

Additionally, unlike those who believed the single human being named George W Bush was the origin and locus of all evil in the world, I comprehend that the President is supported by many, many staff people, who are picked for their understanding. His decisions will, in many cases be directly formed as a result of the positions they present to him. Analysis: They, too are a bunch of zealots, and not thoughtful, experienced, intelligent people. They, too, are unreasonable in their judgment, and it affects the people of the US and the entire world, when they fail to grasp the magnitude of their words to the President, written or spoken.

In thinking about the approach I have observed of the President since he took office, I thought back to his acceptance speech. It all of a sudden struck me that a key word “hear” was used on the evening of November 4th, 2008 at Grant park, but it does explain much.

And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

Think about it: “I hear” your voices. What if he had said “I will listen to your voices” and then added something like: “so we may find the best course to take the Nation into the future in these challenging times.” That would have implied that there are possibilities for good ideas to be formed on either or both sides of the aisle, while not surrendering his elective decision making status to just anyone with a voice from the opposition.

He cannot deny the voices are raised now. He hears them alright, and responds by calling them “so called economists” and telling also elected officials of the Nation “I won.”

I credit his self-centered, dismissive attitude of no one can know except him in not gathering the rest of us to help him. He slaps us in the face at every opportunity, then lifts his socialistic, union controlled, special interest groups into our faces and tells us they deserve to have access to an exceedingly large amount of capital the economy can produce. How does he expect to get help in this manner?

He is doing exactly as he is saying, he is carrying out a slash and burn campaign against his political adversaries, and the economy of the nation, which impacts the economic underpinnings of the world.

I come back to this point: bad judgment is not an option, as he has shown in the case of signing an Executive Order immediately upon taking office, which, puts us all at risk, himself included, and his wife and children.

On a cold winter day in January 1979, I stood on the bridge wing of a Navy replenishment oiler, preparing to get underway from the NATO fuel pier in Gaeta, Italy, with the position of Junior Officer of the Deck, and I had the “conn” (authority to issue rudder and engine orders). The Officer of the Deck, LCDR Mike Hunt and I had already briefed the brand new Captain (Chance of command had been about two hours prior) on how we planned to maneuver the ship safely out of port. Now we stood ready to put the plan into action, and the winds had changed. Mike looked at me and said words to the effect: “It’s a foolish man who sticks with the plan when the evidence says he needs to change it.”

That concept, while I don’t believe I have the exact wording, was clear. A plan is great. But with more specific knowledge, the wise person reconsiders and adjusts operations, before causing, in that case, our possible grounding of a major logistics asset for the 6th Fleet.

Can I ask: Will we survive his ignorant/arrogance/stupidity, and that of his supporting staff, if this is the manner in which he will act as the leader of the most powerful nation in the history of mankind?

The “America First” crowd must step in the face of the “Politics First” mentality that has overrun the nation.

He is my president because I believe in The Constitution as the foundational guidance. His acceptance speech wasn’t tossing me a life line, it was a statement of the obvious, placed to imply he was interested in unity. He is not, he merely wants to eat his waffles, and he wants to eat them now and someone agrees with me at the Wall Street Journal.

Update 2/12/2009: Another view of who’s the terrorist at The Evil Conservative.

Note the time line graph at the bottom. While “2012” is flagged as an election year, they failed to show that the next significant election takes place in 2010, when many House and Senate seats will be up for a choice of the voters. As happened with several not so long since past Presidents, the mid-year elections (1994 being a major game changing election year) have taken the control of the Congress to the opposite side of the aisle.

My analysis: Hence the massive amount of money flowing not this year, as people are struggling, but next year, as we are ramping up to a voting season that could actually have a chance of balancing the political powers that be. Note that in order to stimulate the plight of the people, the money goes not to people, but specific functions. How does that specifically address the job situation for the average person? If you are have a skill set in one of those categories of spending type, then I guess you’re set. I actually doubt, since this all has taken place in a matter of weeks, that there was any serious analysis of which particular job markets were affected.

The “crisis” only being a few months long, there can’t be useful data compiled yet to determine these are the best ways to get America back to work. However, it certainly is the best way to throw not bones, but entire slaughtered sides of beef to those who have been in your office, lobbying for their particular “need.” In addition to that dynamic, this bill also does what DC likes to do best: Tell us how to do things in private business/State affairs, not by specific direction, but by attaching money to the mandates. Just like 55MPH. States could ignore it, they just wouldn’t see any Federal funds come their way anymore.

Watch how this $91.3B Health, Labor and Education “bubble” begins to lead us to a national bureau that directs the control/uses of health care, for instance. $79B for State Stabilization Fund will also be a way to manage governors and state legislatures into “compliance.” Heap another 48.9B in Energy and water then $62.3B in Housing, transportation. Between those, DC will pretty much have told us how things will be done. Most of the money in those categories will come to “us” in 2010. November, of course is late in the year, but not so late as to have people recall how their Congressperson “got them” all this help from DC.

Thomas Sowell (an African American economist) told us what was going on in January (29th to be precise) in his editorial. Some “straight talk” is here:

None of this is rocket science. And Washington politicians are not all crazy, even if sometimes it looks that way. Often, what they say makes no sense because what they claim to be doing is not what they are actually doing.

No matter how many times President Barack Obama calls for “swift action,” the kind of economic policies he is promoting take effect slowly.

If the Beltway politicians aren’t really trying to solve this crisis as quickly as they could, what are they trying to do?

One important clue may be a recent statement by President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, that “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”

This is the kind of cynical revelation that sometimes slips out, despite all the political pieties and spin. Crises have long been seen as great opportunities to expand the federal government’s power while the people are too scared to object and before any opposition can get organized.

That is why there is such haste to do things that will take effect slowly.

What are the Beltway politicians buying with all the hundreds of billions of dollars they are spending? They are buying what politicians are most interested in — power.

In the name of protecting the taxpayers’ investment, they are buying the power to tell General Motors how to make cars, banks how to bank and, before it is all over with, all sorts of other people how to do the work they specialize in, and for which members of Congress have no competence, much less expertise.

This administration and Congress are now in a position to do what Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression of the 1930s — use a crisis of the times to create new institutions that will last for generations.

Pardon my cynicism, but isn’t this how we got here? DC telling the economic system how they would do business? Lawyers: They should just stick to being the instigators of acrimony they are, and let business run the economy.

Credit: Washington Post

Nope.   Gleaned from a CNN report (which is very troubling on it’s own), this indication of the direction of the current Administration:

[...]
Days after assuming office, [ed: more like, if the truth is the objective "The day after assuming office," but maybe counting the single digits is too difficult for the well educated "journalists" at CNN...and their "editors," too] Obama plans to issue three executive orders Thursday that will show a clean break from the Bush administration on the war on terror, including one ordering the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay be closed within a year, according to a senior administration official and a congressional aide.

A second executive order will formally ban torture by requiring the Army field manual be used as the guide for terror interrogations, essentially ending the Bush administration’s CIA program of enhanced interrogation methods.

A third executive order, according to the officials, will order a systematic review of detention policies and procedures and a review of all individual cases.
[...]

My experience may not be that of Chief Executive, but I have been in situations where immediate action was required. The decision matrix used was one that always indicated the biggest problem was the one requiring the first action.

For all those looking forward to a “centrist” view point to guide Obama. Good luck with that. I surmise one of two things in light of this urgent push: Either President Obama, is exactly who he told us he was by his “campaign rhetoric,” anti-war from the very beginning or, he is like the picture below:

In either case it portends bad things. He’s the radcial we were warned about and will use the Bully Pulpit to drive the train, or we have an empty suit, who will be directed, not even by the polls, but the demands of the radicals who supported him, not for his foresight and vision, but in order to get what they wanted, regardless of the consequences.

It shall be 4 long years ahead.

A more “directed” article from CNN is here.

Update:  And I’m sure if we just sit down with AQ and their merry band of terrorists, it’s be all sunshine and lollipops for all.  The President is missing some clippings from his briefing folder…

Under the best of conditions, Federal money takes time to allocate and then get to the end point of the money chain.  There’s many reasons for it, many because peopel in and out of the Government have figured the loopholes necessary to part the citizens and their money (notice the language implies, properly, that it is the citizen’s money being taken), and the rest of the rules in place to allow the Government to be able to make sure they can be held accountable to the taxpayer to show where the money went.

One site, with a great deal of material on the finanical issues facing the country is The Provocateur. Today, he cites a report from the Government we al all supposed to (overnite) be able to trust.  In this case, it would be “conservative” to take heed of the message he discusses in this post:  The Congressional Budget Office Troubling Analysis.

The basic premise?  It will take years to move the money from Congress to the people, like most of it not coming from the proposed “Stimulus Package” of $825B until sometime in 2010.

All of a sudden, I’m reminded of a smallish storm in the Gulf of Mexico.  And, oh, the irony, as the first changes to the White House website were to hammer President Bush’s handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Think, for a moment, how we now enter a similar circumstance:  People, for as long as I can recall, have been taught to be ready for emergencies.  In this case, to have about 6 months of income in ready cash, you know, just for a rainy day.  So, like Katrina bearing down on the Gulf coast’s shores, the resident’s are told to be ready.  Stock up on water, batteries, canned foods, etc.  In that case, at least in NO, far too many people sat around, thinking no harm would come their way, then…when it did, hollared for the Federal Government to come to their aid.  Thankfully, it wasn’t all of the LA resident,s but far too many.

The similarity to now?  For years, we, as a nation, have been on a diet of debt financially.  Now, with the storm gone at least partially by (we may be sitting in the eye right now), to many are sitting around the virtual SuperDome, screaming into cameras, demanding to know where the Federal Government is in getting them relief.

The differences?  At least FEMA wasn’t deliberately sabotaged in it’s ability to do what it did, much less have any real blame for the act of nature the happened.  In the case of the housing crisis, the Democrats, aided by enough Republicans who couldn’t say “no,” did manage to exacerbate the conditions for the onset of the calamity.

The question:  Is it still a good idea to let the President and Congress create/pull out of the ecomony $825B for at least a year, or 18 months, while promising to help us now?

My thought:  Better to keep the money in the pockets of the people, hoping they’ll pay bills and avoid defaulting on loans.

What say you?

Action item:  Let your elected representatives know how you feel about this.  Move forward, or put the brakes on and re-examine the plan.

Recommendation:  Keep up with The Provocateur and improve your economic knowledge.