Kudlow is Confident on the US Economy

Here’s his take:

…the plunge in consumer prices is a great thought. It is a tax cut of massive proportions. The drop in retail gas prices alone has been variously estimated at $350 billion in new consumer purchasing power. In fact, real average weekly earnings have now risen four straight months on the back of the CPI drop. Over the past year, this key measure is up nearly 3 percent.

And while consumer prices are deflating, producer prices — which represent wholesale costs to business — have been deflating even faster with the plunge in energy and other commodities. Consequently, corporate profit margins are improving as costs drop faster than prices. This important development is also overlooked.

Inflation is the cruelest tax of all. It is a prosperity killer. But the inflationary decline is the most pleasant tax cut of all, and is a key part of the recovery process.

Although the stock market has stumbled in the new year, it too will benefit from the inflation tax cut. Remember, the capital-gains tax is un-indexed for inflation. As prices moved up towards 6 percent last summer, stocks moved down big-time. Now, however, the decline of inflation is reducing the effective tax rate on real capital gains from roughly 40 percent last summer to only 15 percent through December. This is a huge tax cut on stocks and wealth-creation. While President-elect Obama appears to be willing to leave the Bush tax cuts untouched in 2009, and perhaps 2010, the falling consumer price index is slashing the cap-gains tax rate in real terms.

Indeed – if we generally leave things alone, things will start to improve…just as they would have started to improve if FDR had left things alone and had Jimmy Carter left things alone. Problem is, Obama is the direct political descendant of FDR and Carter, and he’s not going to leave things alone. Democrats, you see, actually believe that FDR’s spending cured the Depression. I know, hard to believe that someone could be that obtuse, but we’re dealing with Democrats, here.

The $1,000,000,000,000.00 or so stimulus package is going to get passed, in some form, in the next month or two. What this means is just about the time the market is finished shaking out the bad investments and clearing the decks for a new round of growth, Obama’s spending plan will both suck up dollars which will be needed for rebuilding the economy and it will drive up inflation as it adds a huge amount of currency to an economy which already has too much on hand for the money in circulation. All Obama need do at that point to turn a recession into a depression is to start enacting various protection measures for US industry.

We GOPers lack the power to stop Obama and his Democrats. Now, we’ll reap the benefits of what will prove liberalism’s fourth economic failure in the United States, but the problem is that we still have to weather the storm between the opening of the Obama Error, and the shutting of it down either in 2010 or 2012.

Rules for Commenting

Things have been getting a bit out of hand lately, so here are the basic rules for participation in the community at Blogs for Victory:

1. The people who run the blog make the rules.
2. No obscenity.
3. No changing a person’s nom d’blog – if someone calls himself “fooldisclosure”, then calling him “fool” is ok, but the name must be all or part of the name, with no addition of things not found in the name.
4. Stay on topic.
5. When it doubt, refer to rule number 1.

Thank you for your kind attention.

What if They Gave an Anti-Israel Demonstration and No One Showed Up?

You’d have the clearest signal yet that Bush Administration policies are creating a sea change in the Arab/Moslem world:

It’s quiet in Ramallah. At the northern entrance to the city, not far from the mall, a new fountain spouts water. Next to it lies a sign in English: “Gaza under fire.” But it seems the Gaza Strip has never been so far away. Tel Aviv, meanwhile, feels closer than ever. Almost every day at 1 P.M., a demonstration leaves Manara Square in the city center, expressing support for the residents of the Gaza Strip. The number of participants has declined, however, on a daily basis, and on Wednesday the demonstration was called off for a lack of protesters.

Dozens of men sit in cafes near the square playing cards. In the background, the television blasts the voices of Al-Jazeera reporters, who provide continual updates about the events taking place in the Strip. But even the dramatic reports do not stop the card players for a moment. Occasionally one of them glances up at the screen, but then gets back to business.

The offices of the Al-Jazeera television network overlook Manara Square. Walid Omari, the bureau chief for the Palestinian Authority and Israel, explains that “the residents of Ramallah are filling the cafes, the restaurants, watching Al-Jazeera, cursing the situation, expressing anger and then continuing with their own affairs.” Omari explains that the quiet all over the West Bank in the face of the events in Gaza stems mainly from disappointment and frustration with the leadership of Hamas and Fatah.

“The residents of the West Bank lost a great deal in the course of the last Intifada, but saw no achievements. They are very afraid of more losses, mainly in light of the crisis of confidence between the Palestinian street and its leadership.”

Do these people love Israel? No. Would they be distressed if there were some strange turn of events which pushed the Israelis into the sea? No. Are they willing to shoulder rifles and blow themselves up over the difference between Hamas, Fatah and the IDF? Not any more, if they ever really were. Like almost all people, everywhere, the average Abdul on the street in the West Bank just wants to be left alone to live his own life as he sees fit. There is clearly a fatigue with the endless Jihad and equally clear is that the Palestinian Authority is content to see the IDF wipe out Hamas. Its time to finish the war and make peace – only the die hards in the Islamist movement and the government of Iran is interested in keeping up the fight, simply because if they aren’t fighting, they are nothing.

As I’ve said before, if Obama merely continues Bush Administration policies in foreign and military affairs, he will reap stunning benefits. These benefits will, naturally, be accorded to Obama as if he stepped in on January 20th and started making the world a better place after Bush wrecked it for 8 years…you just watch our mindless liberals, a month or two from now, start crediting all the good things which started happening a year ago to Obama…just as they credited the economic recovery which started in 1992 to Bill Clinton in 1993.

But, no matter – we on the right know that it was President Bush and our glorious military which carried the load and did the things necessary to break the socio-political logjam which fed Islamism and made a conclusion of the war impossible. Only a clear choice by Obama to return to pre-9/11 ways of doing things can give Islamo-fascism a new lease on life – absent such an act of sheer idiocy, we’re now entering the terminal phase of the War on Terrorism.

This does not mean there won’t be some nasty things in store over the next two or three years before the Islamists are hunted down and/or hounded out. Fanatics who know how to make bombs can continue to cause damage long after their reason for existence is destroyed – but a steady, firm pressure in a continuation of Bush policies will finish this thing for all intents and purposes before the end of Obama’s term in office.

In the Most Recent No S*&%, Sherlock News

From the Telegraph:

Refusing to have sex on the first date ‘increases the chance of finding a good man’

Prolonging the mating courtship increases a woman’s chance of finding a “good” man, mathematicians have found.

A new study shows that refusing to sleep with a partner on the first date could be one of the keys to making a successful match.

Researchers used a mathematical model to show that more reliable men were willing to wait longer before having sex for the first time.

By contrast, less suitable men were not as likely to continue dating.

What is most amazing? That anyone actually had to do a study to figure this out.

Liberals, This is the Man You Choose to Hate

And I mean that – you choose to hate him, because hating him fills some bizarre, twisted need in yourself. This likely the result of the overwhelming despair you ultimately feel in your lives because you either lack faith altogether, or believe that faith is trivial – so, lacking real hope or any real sense of love, you turn to hate to at least feel something…and President Bush has been your object of hatred, so much so that no matter how absurd the lies told about him, you believe every last one of them, no questions asked.

But here is the real President Bush – the President Bush we know and love, and who is known by those who don’t choose to hate:

…under his (President Bush’s) rule, he introduced the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), which has given shape to the fight against HIV/Aids in 13 focus countries in Africa and two outside the continent.

PEPFAR has been operational for five years on a budget worth $15 billion, and Bush recently asked the Congress to double that funding for another five years. The funding is the largest ever financial commitment from any donor for fighting a single disease.

There have been voices suggesting that the additional $30 billion Bush has requested Congress is little, but what is indisputable is that he has showed commitment to help save lives in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

Obviously for Africans, any suggestion by a Congressman or Aids activist for an increment in PEPFAR money is mostly welcome.

Tatu Msangi, a single Tanzanian mother, took the story of the success of PEPFAR to Congress during a State of the Union address last month.

She is a living testimony of just how, through PEPFAR, the Bush administration has saved a life deep in a remote African village.

Msangi testified how despite living with HIV, she received the necessary counseling and Nevirapine (medication) during her pregnancy, and subsequently delivered a bouncing HIV-free baby girl. Now, her daughter Faith Mang’ehe has a future, and Msangi hope, thanks to Bush’s Emergency Plan.

This is not the only success story of its kind. In Rwanda and in other benefiting countries, such achievements are there although many remain publicly unnoticed.

“Thank you so much for the initiative. It has done so much for our people. It has given us a future,” Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kiwete told Bush on Sunday at a Dar es Salaam hospital which was partly built by the American people.

Under Bush presidency, a number of African countries have continued to benefit from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) although not many Africans have benefited yet due to a number of factors.

Africans will remember that in 2004, President Bush signed into law the AGOA Acceleration Act, which extended the legislation to 2015. The initiative has helped triple African total exports to the US since 2001 – the year Bush came to power.

Another groundbreaking initiative by Bush is the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) which he announced in March 2002.

Through MCA, the US has ‘rewarded’ poor countries that ‘govern justly, invest in their people, and open their economies to enterprise and entrepreneurship.’ Although the criteria could still be quietly disputed by some African governments, at least all well-intentioned developing countries in Africa will strive to qualify for MCA funding, thus improve their accountability and governance standards.

On Sunday, Bush signed $698 million Millennium Challenge Compact with Tanzania, a deal which will help the latter to reduce poverty and stimulate economic growth through infrastructure investments in transport, energy and water. This grant is the largest in the history of the programme.

In addition, through the Africa Education Initiative which Bush launched in 2002, the US intends to distribute more than 15 million textbooks, train nearly a million teachers, and provide scholarships for 550,000 girls by 2010 in Africa.

On conflict-resolution, the US government has over the recent years seemed to act a bit more responsibly than in the past, a shift from its costly behaviour from, for instance, 1994 when the international community stood by as the Genocide unfolded and claimed at least one million Rwandans in 100 days.

Bush and his administration officials have repeatedly described the ongoing violence in Darfur as genocide, and helped train and equip African peacekeepers, including Rwandan soldiers, for the peacekeeping mission in the troubled western Sudan region. Although the violence still continues, there is evident political will from Bush’s government to help end the crisis.

Five years ago, the US government helped end the Liberian civil war, resulting in the eventual election of the first African woman president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

Did you catch that, liberals? “First African woman president”…not fostered by Bill Clinton, Obama or any other “I feel your pain” or “hope-n-change” liberal, but fostered by a conservative, Christian who sees it as his moral duty to try and help the less fortunate – and not help by putting a bumper sticker on the Volvo or sending a donation to Obama, but helping by actually doing things for people. You liberals throw an aluminum can in the recycling bin and think you’ve done a good deed…well, there are far better deeds you could be doing, if you’d leave off the hate, ask for faith and start to love a bit.

The very same faith in God and love for fellow man which motivated President Bush to go out on a limb for Africa motivated him to go out on a limb for the people of Afghanistan, and the people of Iraq. There isn’t Good Bush and Evil Bush, dividing the President’s time…no, its all just President George W. Bush. While he was doing this you were calling him a war criminal, saying that he lied and people died, saying that he was doing this for oil, or just because he was cruel and/or stupid. I’m sorry to have to say this to you, my dear liberals, but you have acted the part of fool for 8 years, and wicked fool at that.

There is your grand chance at redemption, here – you can, simply by asking, stop hating and obtain the faith you need. Knock and the door shall be opened – and that is absolutely certain. All you have to do is work up the will to not want to hate this decent, patriotic man who did his best by you for the past 8 years. I’m not saying “support him”, I’m not saying, “become Republican” – I’m saying “stop hating”. You do that and the Obama years might be really the best years of your life – as you work hard for your cause, freed from hatred, bitterness and despair. Its your choice, and its your fair chance.

Can Obama Save His Lapdog Media?

This is the largest crisis President Obama will face – how to keep his slavishly devoted MSM alive through the 2012 election:

The Star Tribune, saddled with high debt and a sharp decline in print advertising, filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition Thursday night.

Minnesota’s largest newspaper will try to use bankruptcy to restructure its debt and lower its labor costs.

“Lower its labor costs” translates as “less workers at lower pay”. Who wants to be that the Star Tribune favored increases in the minimum wage in the past and has had a lot of good things to say about unions? Liberalism meets reality, liberalism loses.

As a conservative, I’d normally feel a twinge of regret at the downfall of such elderly institutions – but the reality is that the sooner the MSM is dead and buried, the sooner we can fully restore American liberty and dignity.

Tonight, Blogs For Victory is Blogs For Bush

With an hour to go before Bush gives his farewell address to the nation, I have resurrected the old Blogs For Bush logo in honor of a true patriot who has faithfully served this country these past 8 years.

As our readers here way know, Blogs for Victory began as Blogs for Bush back in November 2003. We worked tirelessly to unite bloggers who supported Bush’s reelection campaign. In the end, me built a community of 1500 blogs, and eve more blog readers. Blogs For Bush was one of the most popular political blogs of the 2004 campaign. Four years ago, I attending his second inauguration. I can’t say I agreed with everything President Bush did, but I am grateful he was the president these past eight years.

It is too bad more don’t appreciate what he has done to protect this country… but before the next four years are up, they will.

I will have more to say after Bush speaks.

UPDATE: Special radio show on Bush’s farewell…

NOTE: The Blogs For Bush logo will remain on this site, in tribute to President Bush, until January 21, 2009

UPDATE: Bush’s prepared remarks…

Climate Change: Welcome to the Looking Glass

Up is down, down is up, good is evil, evil good, cold is warm, warm is cold…

Details at The Ice Palace.

Rangel Still Wants a Military Draft

For nobody can tell what real reason – other than, perhaps, as a means of distracting attention further away from his manifold ethics troubles:

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) likely will introduce his controversial legislation to reinstate the draft again this year, but he will wait until after the economic stimulus package is passed.

Asked if he plans to introduce the legislation again in 2009, Rangel last week said, “Probably … yes. I don’t want to do anything this early to distract from the issue of the economic stimulus.”

Not now, not ever – no draft. Of all the mistakes ever made in human history, a military draft ranks up there in the top 10. A military draft produces large numbers of men in uniform, but it doesn’t give you a really good military instrument. And it won’t spread the risk around evenly because in a nation of 300 million people there are about 30 million military-aged males and as we’ll never need 30 million men in uniform there will be ways to game the system so that economically and politically advantaged never shoulder their share of the burden.

While conscripts can be as brave and intrepid as volunteer soldiers, the plain fact of the matter that you’d rather go into battle with 100,000 highly motivated volunteers than with 200,000 men conscripted into the fight and perhaps not motivated so much by victory as by a desire to get out of it alive.

Any nation which cannot raise armies of volunteers sufficient to fight for victory had better not engage in war or, if in war when the volunteers dry up, had better make peace. Men are not stupid – they don’t join failure…they can be conscripted into it, but they don’t join it. If the war is going badly and recruitment is drying up it is because the war is going badly – and if the leadership is bad, it will continue to go badly even if a million men are forced into the fight.

Let our military be made up of professional, volunteer soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines – each of them as good as ten conscripts in enemy armies. Let us be chary of the blood of our magnificent servicemembers and by reason of there not being an endless supply of manpower, let our officer corps continually study the art and science of war to perfect their plans of campaign to win wars swiftly and with the lowest possible cost to both sides.

GOP Targets Reid

With only one drawback, we haven’t got an actual candidate to run against him, yet:

A conservative organization is set to launch an all-out effort aimed at beating Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2010.

The American Future Fund Political Action is planning a two-year long offensive against the Democratic leader, who is already a top target of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The organization, stocked with former Mitt Romney presidential campaign operatives, is set to launch its effort this week with a Web -centered fund-raising drive.

Tim Albrecht, an organization spokesman, declined to say how much money the organization was planning to spend against Reid. In the 2008 election cycle, American Future Fund spent about $10 million targeting Democratic Senate candidates across the country

Albrecht said a fund-raising drive would start up this week with the launch of a Web site called “Watchin’ Reid.” The site intends to “shine the spotlight on [Reid’s] actions and motivate Republicans across the country.”

Even as Republicans talk up their effort to knock off no viable Republican candidates have stepped forward to run. Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki had announced his interest in a bid, but last fall he came under indictment for his management of a student loan program. Former Rep. Jon Porter, a moderate Republican from suburban Las Vegas, has also been mentioned as a potential candidate, but he lost his congressional seat in the November election.

“Certainly, we’re looking to be the most high-profile effort aimed at unseating [Reid],” Albrecht said.

American Future Fund launched in early 2008. It is staffed by a long line of former operatives from Romney’s failed presidential campaign, including Larry McCarthy, Ed Tobin, and Ben Ginsberg.

The indictment against Krolicki looks bogus, but its also not something amenable to easy resolution…and even if resolved entirely in Krolicki’s favor, it still taints him. Right now, the Nevada GOP’s bench is rather thin – but Harry Reid is the most beatable Democrat in the nation for 2010. He’s terribly unpopular out here and entirely identified with the political system which has now seized up in budget crisis and is talking about cutting teacher pay and raising taxes. The giant may be slain…