The Rant

While I'm gone, you can read this interesting article about how Obama is struggling with his communication skills.  Who woulda thunk.  Meanwhile, if you are beginning to panic, you can prepare for catastrophe with this book . 

Or perhaps Ray Guns?   Coming to your local war soon .  Photon torpedoes next.  

     What if Senators Frank, Dodd and Grassley did the honorable thing .  Hint see the "suicide bunny" tickling Atlas on the right. 

    Who in their right mind would put a provision in the "Stimulus" Bill guaranteeing bonuses to executives of bailed out firms?   Chris Dodd did.       Good thing they rushed the bill through on the weekend in secret meetings at night so that no one could read the bill.   That represents a new kind of responsibility and transparency.  Opaque transparency.   Dodd's excuse is that it was done by one of his staffers and he didn't have time to read it either.  Great. 

    Barney Frank is against rewarding incompetence .   I agree with him on this point.  But Barney was on the banking committee that created many of the incentives to loan to unqualified borrowers which helped to lead to this financial meltdown. Bush was often assailed as being an idiot and incompetent.  But Iraq is doing pretty well .  The United States is struggling.  My worry is that Obama fails the competency test. Does he really have any idea what he is doing?   His plans for reviving the economy do not seem to have any consistent strategy to me. Instead, he simply borrowed a trillion more dollars and redistributed to various Democrat pet projects.   So either he does not really understand economics very well, or he really doesn't want to revive the economy.  Either option is disturbing. 

    Atlas Shrugged is on the Amazon best seller list again.  Will Atlas Shrugged prove prophetic?  People do make choices based upon incentives.  If Democrats want to demonize success and wealth, perhaps some people will opt out and "go on the county."  Why should people take risks with their money and work hard, only to have it taken and redistributed to government workers and various citizens with political pull, who do not have to work so hard or face competitive pressures.  As a Soviet worker said, "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us."