Geithner to Visit his Chinese Masters

Because in order to pay for Obama’s spending bonanza, he’ll have to borrow from China…and he who pays the piper, calls the tune:

Timothy F. Geithner, who before his confirmation as Treasury secretary unintentionally charged that China was “manipulating” its currency, will make his first trip to that country since taking office and meet with its leaders next week amid rising concern about China’s willingness to continue buying United States debt.

The Treasury announced on Wednesday that Mr. Geithner had meetings scheduled with President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao and Vice Premier Wang Quishan. He will also promote American business interests and press the case for both countries, which are the world’s biggest emitters of the heat-trapping gases that contribute to climate change, to work to limit the pollution.

During his Senate confirmation hearing in January, Mr. Geithner vexed Chinese officials when, in written answers to questions from senators, Mr. Geithner wrote that “President Obama — backed by the conclusions of a broad range of economists — believes that China is manipulating its currency.”

Under a 1988 law, if the administration formally reports to Congress that China is intentionally holding down the value of its currency, the renminbi, and in turn the price of its exports, such a finding could lead to the imposition of trade barriers.

Treasury officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, later said that Mr. Geithner’s written comment about China’s currency had been mistakenly included in his responses to senators, and that the administration was not signaling a more confrontational stance than the Bush administration had taken toward trade with China.

Indeed – now that Hillary has thrown China’s political and religious dissidents under the bus, Geithner will finish the job by doing everything he can to keep China’s balance of trade with the US in the black for China, because that will provide the money for China to buy all those bonds Geithner needs to sell to finance Obama’s massive, new debt. We’ve been down this road for quite long enough – but we can get out from under China just as quickly as we balance our budget…but, even without a balanced budget, as long as we’re not contemplating a massive increase in spending, we can thumb our nose at China and demand they straighten up and fly right…Geithner is selling us in the name of Obama.

UPDATE: Ironic that its all happening around the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, huh?

Things I Didn't Know About Dad

He wrote a book on astrology. I was in the Navy at the time. Dad said he was a published author, I thought he meant only about technical works.

Tax Revenues Dropping Like a Rock

The news story:

Federal tax revenue plunged $138 billion, or 34%, in April vs. a year ago — the biggest April drop since 1981, a study released Tuesday by the American Institute for Economic Research says.

When the economy slumps, so does tax revenue, and this recession has been no different, says Kerry Lynch, senior fellow at the AIER and author of the study. “It illustrates how severe the recession has been.”

For example, 6 million people lost jobs in the 12 months ended in April — and that means far fewer dollars from income taxes. Income tax revenue dropped 44% from a year ago.

“These are staggering numbers,” Lynch says.

Now, we’ve got an America getting poorer by the day and the liberal solution is to spend more and take more money from the increasingly impoverished American people. Does this make sense to any non-liberal out there?

The Second American Revolution, Part 1

This will become a long series, I’m certain:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

– U.S. Constitution, Tenth Amendment

Fed up with Washington’s involvement in everything from land use to gun control to education spending, states across the country are fighting back against what they say is the federal government’s growing intrusion on their rights.

At least 35 states have introduced legislation this year asserting their power under the Tenth Amendment to regulate all matters not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution.

“This has been boiling for years, and it’s finally come to a head,” said Utah State Rep. Carl Wimmer. “With TARP and No Child Left Behind, these things that continue to give the federal government more authority, our rights as states and individuals are being turned on their head.”

The power struggle between the states and Washington has cropped up periodically ever since the country was founded. But now some states are sending a simple, forceful message:

The government has gone too far. Enough is enough.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer recently signed into law a bill authorizing the state’s gun manufacturers to produce “Made in Montana” firearms, without seeking licensing from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Similar laws are being considered in Utah, Alaska, Texas and Tennessee.

Are we slaves? Are we the mere milch cows for a socialist super-State? No: we are Americans – and just as our ancestors pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to defend American liberty, so will we. It is, perhaps, providential that such as Barack Obama was elected President – a man so far to the left and with such a hodge-podge of kook leftists surrounding him, has crystalized what had been a disparate sense of frustration. We now know what we are fighting against and what we are fighting for.

We are fighting against all of those powerful people and groups who presume to know better than we do how to run our lives. They tell us we can’t keep filth away from our children; they tell us we can’t enforce decency on our streets; they tell us we can’t pray in the public square we pay for; they tell us, in one way or another, that they know better and we’d better be good, little serfs.

We are fighting for our right to govern ourselves – our national government is here to protect the nation from foreign aggression and protect the individual from domestic oppression…it isn’t here to nurse maid us through life. We’ll take care of our own, and far better than government can, thanks very much.

A new spirit of liberty is running hot and strong through American life, and I’m mighty pleased to see it.

Subversive Phrase of the Day

Obama is confused:

It is extraordinarily dangerous to confuse the aggressor and the victim. It is extraordinarily dangerous to confuse the terrorist and the democracy. – Newt Gingrich

California Supreme Court Upholds Law!

The shocking news:

The California Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that Proposition 8, the successful California ballot measure which defined marriage to be between a man and a woman, is constitutional. It also decided that the some 18,000 homosexual “marriages” contracted in the state should remain valid in law.

By a vote of 6-1, the state Supreme Court justices ruled Proposition 8 was constitutional. The court unanimously ruled that existing “marriages” would stand. Proposition 8 was put forward as a response to the California Supreme Court’s May 2008 decision which by a vote of 4-3 overturned a state ban on such unions.

The 18,000 marriages are to remain legal under the ex post facto part of the United States Constitution – though a case can be made that the CA SC had no business overturning the first ballot initiative banning gay marriage…a case for another day.

Be that as it may, I guess the California Supreme Court decided against having a revolution in California – the complete overturn of CA’s political class would have been the result of an overturning of this amendment.

Home Prices Continue to Slide

While Obama and Co talk about signs of recovery, the real signs of of disaster turning into catastrophe:

U.S. home prices continued their multiyear tumble in March, according to the S&P Case-Shiller home-price indexes, as the downdraft shows no near-term signs of abating.

Meanwhile, U.S. consumer confidence improved sharply in May, especially in expectations for the economy six months from now, a report released Tuesday said.

For the first quarter, the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index posted a 19.1% drop from a year earlier, the biggest quarterly decline for the reading’s 21-year history. S&P Case-Shiller releases 10-city and 20-city indexes every month, but also releases a broader national index every quarter.

The highlighted part is the MSMs “we can’t report the straight news” bit of Obama cheer leading – as if consumer confidence will fix the collapse of the housing market. Its a reverse on the way it was during the Bush Administration – you know, when the MSM was forced, kicking and screaming, to report some bit of good news about Bush, they always inserted a bit of negative to ensure there wasn’t a chance people would feel good about things. Be that as it may…

A friend of mine relates the story of a friend who thought he got a house at a bargain for $150,000…until someone bought the house across the street for $75,000. As of right now, there is no bottom to the housing market – it can keep going down because there are simply too many houses on the market, too few people in the market to buy and all indications are that buyers will become fewer as unemployment rises and houses more plentiful as the next round of foreclosures hits. And even those who can buy will likely hold off for lower prices, thus putting further downward pressure.

What does this mean? That the “troubled assets” are even more troubled – that we’ve spent hundreds of billions propping up a financial industry which is completely doomed. One of the world’s allegedly healthier banks – HSBC – had an interesting news release:

HSBC Holdings PLC’s (HBC) Asian unit said Wednesday it will cut the interest it pays on Hong Kong dollar savings deposits of HK$5,000 or above to 0.001% effective Thursday.

Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp. said the new rate will drop from the current 0.01%. It didn’t explain the reason for the rate cut. It said its zero interest rate will remain for account balances below HK$5,000.

Don’t get confused here – that isn’t “US dollars in Hong Kong”, its Hong Kong Dollars; the currency of Hong Kong. Given inflation, HSBC has essentially said that if you deposit money in their bank, you’ll lose money by the end of the year. The Chinese people – likely wiser than us by a wide margin – save a lot of money; they don’t go on spending sprees and don’t buy useless nonsense they don’t need. They save, save, save…for a rainy day. Like today. Except it isn’t rainy for the Joe Average in China who has a fat bank account…it is, however, raining cats and dogs for financial institutions who are heavily invested in real estate, like HSBC. A very large amount of the world’s wealth is tied up in real estate investments of various types…and prices have been falling, and not just in the United States. HSBC might be just trying to get the Chinese people to disgorge their savings in order to keep the economy moving along (the Chinese government? Already pi**ing through their foreign reserves at an alarming rate…not too much left there).

This is not to pick on HSBC – but to show that there is a lot of screwy things going on out there as everyone tries to dodge the massive avalanche of economic collapse. The only way out of this is for the world’s leading economy to reduce spending – by whatever means prove necessary – to less than revenues and to spend whatever we can on new farming, manufacturing and mining enterprises. We’re going to have to work our way out of this – we won’t be able to spend our way out.

Obama Picks Sotomayor

Lots to be discussed on this issue. More to come later, but do share your thoughts here.

QUICK LINKS:
Video: Sotomayor says court is “where policy is made”

Sotomayor: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male”

Five of six Sotomayor rulings reviewed by Supreme Court were overturned (one case is still pending).

1. Riverkeeper, Inc. vs. EPA, 475 F.3d 83 (2007) — reversed 6-3 (Dissenting: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg)
2. Knight vs. Commissioner, 467 F.3d 149 (2006) — upheld, but reasoning was unanimously faulted
3. Dabit vs. Merrill Lynch, 395 F.3d 25 (2005) — reversed 8-0
4. >Empire Healthchoice Assurance, Inc. vs. McVeigh, 396 F.3d 136 (2005) — reversed 5-4 (Dissenting: Breyer, Kennedy, Souter, Alito)
5. Malesko v. Correctional Services Corp., 299 F.3d 374 (2000) — reversed 5-4 (Dissenting: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer)
6. Tasini vs. New York Times, et al, 972 F. Supp. 804 (1997) — reversed 7-2 (Dissenting: Stevens, Breyer)

Heritage Foundation’s Rapid Response.

THE NEW REPUBLIC: The Case Against Sotomayor

http://foxnews1.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/foxnews1-foxnews-pub01-live/current/videolandingpage/fncLargePlayer/client/embedded/embedded.swf

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan:

Just to show how entirely unfit she is to be a Justice, here’s a modification of one of her racist statements:

“I would hope that a wise White woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latino male who hasn’t lived that life”

Who Will Challenge Obama's Foreign Policy?

Bill Kristol asks:

For Republicans and conservatives, the temptation has been to attend to the home front and to focus on resisting Obama’s big government agenda — an agenda worth resisting, in my opinion. But the most successful conservative intervention in the first four months of the Obama presidency has been — counter to predictions by consultants and pundits — that of Dick Cheney on national security policy. He may be the only Republican so far who’s really forced Obama onto the defensive. And most conservatives and Republicans would, I think, agree that the other Republican who’s effectively — if episodically — challenged Obama on foreign and national security policy has been Newt Gingrich.

Both Cheney and Gingrich have the background and stature to address credibly national security issues. Here’s an interesting question: Will any Republican whose career lies mostly ahead of him — or her — step up to confront Obama on the foreign policy and national security front? Is any of them enough of a risk-taker to defy the conventional wisdom that if you’re a mere senator or congressman or governor or aspirer to office, you should focus on domestic issues, that it’s hard (and it is) to take on a president on foreign policy? Will any of them seek to join Cheney and Gingrich in the foreign policy fray?

Kristol goes on to suggest that by standing up to Obama, Gingrich and Cheney might be – intentionally or not – positioning themselves for a bid for the White House in 2012. An outside possibility; though one which will become much more plausible if Obama’s policies cause an American defeat and/or a serious attack upon the United States. But more important than Presidential politics is the need of our nation for an articulate counter to Obama’s warmed-over Carterism.

Unlike our leftwing foes, we are patriots through and through and thus there are things we simply won’t do – most importantly, in our critique of President Obama we won’t offer a handle to any foreign enemy to make anti-American propaganda. We know that it wasn’t President Bush the enemy hated, but the United States of America. Obama and his supporters want to think that now Obama’s in charge, things will be different. There will be a rude awakening from this fairy tale – and when it happens, we have to be prepared both with rational pre-disaster arguments for a different policy as well as a patriotic support to help the President help the nation out of whatever mess he lands us in.

Our job, as conservatives, is to try to keep Obama up on the rails, as it were – we have to help sustain the nation in the face of his foolish policies while at the same time advocating a different course which will mark out our path to victory in 2010 and beyond. But this will take some courage – and I hope that more senior GOPers start showing the guys Gingrich and Cheney have shown.

Subversive Phrase of the Day

Remember what we’re fighting for:

We can be confident because freedom is universal. I strongly believe there’s an Almighty, and a gift of that Almighty to every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth is freedom. – George W. Bush