A note from Mike Walker, USMC Colonel, retired. I sure hope someone is thinking about this now besides Mike, but I'm not confident. Our actions should be proactive, we shouldn't be "surprised".

A very short missive on a Containment Strategy for Iran

All,

Let us face reality, neither the United Nations nor the United States is going to take the steps necessary to prevent Iran from fielding nuclear weapons.

So now is the time to take out and dust off our old containment strategy books from the Cold War and develop a comprehensive policy to contain Iran.

That means putting together the unified military, multinational, economic, information, diplomatic, intelligence strategy, tactics, techniques, and procedures needed to defeat the world's newest totalitarian regime.

We have the time now to create a "soup to nuts" policy that will win this for us. Let us not waste the opportunity.

Semper Fi,

Mike

I just received this post from Mike Walker, a retired Marine Colonel. What a legacy Harry has left, "Say anything, no matter how damaging!" Yes, Mr. Reid, we remember!

All,

On 20 April 2007 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, on the floor our capitol building, stated:

"...this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything..."

Was there ever an American holding a high office in time of war that made a more defeatist statement than that of Harry Reid?

Was there ever an instance where our armed forces, in the midst of life-or-death battle, were publicly subjected to such words of betrayal as those spewed forth by our Majority Leader in the Senate?

Due to the unsung bravery, dedication, and professionalism of our armed forces we have now obtained victory in Iraq. We have won the war that Harry Reid recklessly opined as lost, all the while sitting safe and sound back home (or "fat, dumb, and happy" in Marine jargon).

If ever a national leader deserves an equal public censure of being voted out of office by his electorate then that man is Harry Reid of Nevada.

President Obama said this during a speech on 21 March 2007 as a Senator:

"...we must learn the lessons of Iraq. It is what we owe our soldiers. It is what we owe their families. And it is what we owe our country – now, and in all the days and months to come."

We do indeed owe them and we can pay them back in part by doing whatever it takes to turn Harry Reid out of office in November 2010.

Semper Fi,

Mike

Two-tour veteran of the Iraq War

Excuses for Obama's Failure to Lead

By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- In the latter days of the Carter presidency, it became fashionable to say that the office had become unmanageable and was simply too big for one man. Some suggested a single, six-year presidential term. The president's own White House counsel suggested abolishing the separation of powers and going to a more parliamentary system of unitary executive control. America had become ungovernable.

Then came Ronald Reagan, and all that chatter disappeared.

The tyranny of entitlements? Reagan collaborated with Tip O'Neill, the legendary Democratic House speaker, to establish the Alan Greenspan commission that kept Social Security solvent for a quarter-century.

A corrupted system of taxation? Reagan worked with liberal Democrat Bill Bradley to craft a legislative miracle: tax reform that eliminated dozens of loopholes and slashed rates across the board -- and fueled two decades of economic growth.

Later, a highly skilled Democratic president, Bill Clinton, successfully tackled another supposedly intractable problem: the culture of intergenerational dependency. He collaborated with another House speaker, Newt Gingrich, to produce the single most successful social reform of our time, the abolition of welfare as an entitlement.

It turned out that the country's problems were not problems of structure but of leadership. Reagan and Clinton had it. Carter didn't. Under a president with extensive executive experience, good political skills and an ideological compass in tune with the public, the country was indeed governable.

It's 2010 and the first-year agenda of a popular and promising young president has gone down in flames. Barack Obama's two signature initiatives -- cap-and-trade and health care reform -- lie in ruins.

Desperate to explain away this scandalous state of affairs, liberal apologists haul out the old reliable from the Carter years: "America the Ungovernable." So declared Newsweek. "Is America Ungovernable?" coyly asked The New Republic. Guess the answer.

The rage at the machine has produced the usual litany of systemic explanations. Special interests are too powerful. The Senate filibuster stymies social progress. A burdensome constitutional order prevents innovation. If only we could be more like China, pines Tom Friedman, waxing poetic about the efficiency of the Chinese authoritarian model, while America flails about under its "two parties ... with their duel-to-the-death paralysis." The better thinkers, bewildered and furious that their president has not gotten his way, have developed a sudden disdain for our inherently incremental constitutional system.

Yet, what's new about any of these supposedly ruinous structural impediments? Special interests blocking policy changes? They have been around since the beginning of the republic -- and since the beginning of the republic, strong presidents, like the two Roosevelts, have rallied the citizenry and overcome them.

And then, of course, there's the filibuster, the newest liberal bete noire. "Don't blame Mr. Obama," writes Paul Krugman of the president's failures. "Blame our political culture instead. ... And blame the filibuster, under which 41 senators can make the country ungovernable."

Ungovernable, once again. Of course, just yesterday the same Paul Krugman was warning about "extremists" trying "to eliminate the filibuster" when Democrats used it systematically to block one Bush (43) judicial nomination after another. Back then, Democrats touted it as an indispensable check on overweening majority power. Well, it still is. Indeed, the Senate with its ponderous procedures and decentralized structure is serving precisely the function the Founders intended: as a brake on the passions of the House and a caution about precipitous transformative change.

Leave it to Mickey Kaus, a principled liberal who supports health care reform, to debunk these structural excuses: "Lots of intellectual effort now seems to be going into explaining Obama's (possible/likely/impending) health care failure as the inevitable product of larger historic and constitutional forces. ... But in this case there's a simpler explanation: Barack Obama's job was to sell a health care reform plan to American voters. He failed."

He failed because the utter implausibility of its central promise -- expanded coverage at lower cost -- led voters to conclude that it would lead ultimately to more government, more taxes and more debt. More broadly, the Democrats failed because, thinking the economic emergency would give them the political mandate and legislative window, they tried to impose a left-wing agenda on a center-right country. The people said no, expressing themselves first in spontaneous demonstrations, then in public opinion polls, then in elections -- Virginia, New Jersey and, most emphatically, Massachusetts.

That's not a structural defect. That's a textbook demonstration of popular will expressing itself -- despite the special interests -- through the existing structures. In other words, the system worked.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Iranian regime change: An Obama achievement we could believe in

By William Kristol

Vice President Biden -- who was for the Iraq war before he was against it, and who then argued that the surge could never work before he decided (in retrospect) that it did -- said this to Larry King on Wednesday night:

"I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government. . . . I've been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences."

Iraq is "one of the great achievements of this administration"? Well, any port in a political storm -- even if it means taking credit for the success of policies of the previous administration, policies you opposed. In politics, after all, success acquires many fathers. And that's fine, if it means the Obama administration is careful over the next couple of years not to toss away American troops' achievements in Iraq.

King (in his inimitable way) then asked Biden about Iran: "Iran, nuclear -- worry?"

Biden acknowledged that, yes, Iran is "a concern. A real concern, not an immediate concern in the sense that something could happen tomorrow or in the very near term. But what I worry most about with regard to Iran, if they continue on the path of nuclear weapons and were able to gain even a modicum of the capability, then I worry what that does -- Larry, and you know the Middle East, what that -- what pressure that puts on Saudi Arabia, on Egypt, on Turkey, etc. To acquire nuclear weapons . . . .That's very destabilizing."

Leave aside whether it make sense to worry more about other countries getting nuclear weapons in response to Iran than about the more immediate problem of the Iranian regime acquiring nuclear weapons capability. Leave aside also that Biden -- following in his boss's footsteps -- couldn't be bothered to express anything in the way of solidarity with the demonstrators who would be taking to the streets of Iran the next day.

What's striking is this: (a) Even Biden seems to realize that having the current Iranian regime go nuclear would be a problem that could, unfortunately, outweigh all other successes in the Middle East, such as Iraq; (b) even Biden doesn't bother to pretend that the year the Obama administration spent on "engagement" with Iran produced anything worthwhile; and (c) even Biden doesn't bother to claim that the effects of a nuclear Iran can be "contained" by extending deterrence to other nations in the Middle East, or other favorite nostrums of some in the foreign policy community.

So what is the Obama administration going to do about the Iranian regime's pursuit of nuclear weapons?

Sanctions. But even if the administration succeeds in the U.N. Security Council, even if the administration is then able (with the Europeans) to go beyond what the Russians and Chinese will accept at the United Nations, even if the administration is willing to again consider the "crippling" sanctions it once discussed but now shies away from and even if the administration is willing to risk military conflict by preventing the importing of refined petroleum to Iran -- none of this is likely to succeed in inducing the regime in Tehran to halt uranium enrichment or in preventing the regime from ultimately acquiring nuclear weapons capability.

But maybe sanctions are simply designed to buy time. Or, as one senior Obama administration official told the New York Times this week, "It is about driving them back to negotiations, because the real goal here is to avoid war."

One supposes the official is referring to the possibility of an Israeli strike against the Iranian nuclear program. Or is he referring to an American strike? In either case, he's right that war is a real possibility. In fact, I'd say military action is likely at some point over the next couple of years if there's not regime change in Iran.

But thanks to the people of Iran, regime change is now a real possibility. Surely the administration could have more of a sense of urgency in helping increase the odds of that devoutly to-be-wished goal.

Perhaps embracing the concept of "regime change" spooks the Obama administration. It's awfully reminiscent of George W. Bush. But one great failure of the Bush administration was its second-term fecklessness with respect to Iran. Bush kicked the Iran can down the road. Does Obama want an achievement that eluded Bush? Regime change in Iran -- that would be an Obama administration achievement that Joe Biden, and the rest of us, could really celebrate.

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, writes a monthly column for The Post.

Ronald Reagan would be 99 years old today. When we talk about keeping our "eye on the ball" we should remember our role model of a fiscally conservative and prudent President. If you don't have it, don't spend it... and please, don't spend mine.

There is something wrong with this man... he is our president and he doesn't see the obvious. His remarks about Las Vegas, the bald faced statement below, and a pile of others which should have everyone alarmed. This guy is not prepared to do his job and we are in for a very rocky three years, well, like the one we just had. I think I am experiencing "flabbergast"....

President Say Anything

Hugh Hewitt

Today President Obama told Senate Democrats that they had faced "enormous procedural obstacles that are unprecedented.."

"You had to cast more votes to break filibusters last year than in the entire 1950s and 1960s combined. That's 20 years of obstruction jammed into just one."

This is astonishing. A filibuster is the successful use of 41 or more votes to prevent the closing of debate. There wasn't a single filibuster in 2009. Not one.

The president will say anything to advance a narrative that makes him a victim of obstruction. It is clear that 2010 will be spent pivoting from his 2009 mantra of Bush's fault to his campaign year blasts at the "do nothing Republicans."

His advisors must foresee grim news on jobs to offer up such a transparent and unpersuasive, indeed almost purposefully alienating argument.

More Washington

Mark Steyn, National Review Online

As Obama sees it, whatever the problem, the solution is more Washington.

The world turns

In Indonesia, the principal of a Muslim boarding school in Tangerang who is accused of impregnating a 15-year-old student says the DNA test will prove that a malevolent genie is the real father.

In New Zealand, a German tourist, Herr Hans Kurt Kubus, has been jailed for attempting to board a plane at Christchurch with 44 live lizards in his underpants.

In Britain, a research team at King’s College, London, has declared that the female “G-spot” does not, in fact, exist.

In France a group of top gynecologists led by M. Sylvain Mimoun has dismissed the findings, and said what do you expect if you ask a group of Englishmen to try to find a woman’s erogenous zone.

But in America Barack Obama is talking.

Talking, talking, talking. He talked for 70 minutes at the State of the Union. No matter how many geckos you shoveled down your briefs, you still lost all feeling in your legs. And still he talked. If you had an erogenous zone before he started, by the end it was undetectable even to Frenchmen. But on he talked. As respected poverty advocate Sen. John Edwards commented, “After the first hour, even my malevolent genie was back in the bottle.”

Like any gifted orator, the president knows how to vary the talk with a little light and shade. Sometimes he hectors, sometimes he whines, sometimes he demands. He hectored the Supreme Court. He whined about all the problems he inherited. He demanded Congress put a jobs bill on his desk. Or was it a desk job on his bill? No matter. He does Nixon impressions, too: “We do not quit,” he said.

Boy, you can say that again!

So he did: “We don’t quit. I don’t quit,” he said. Throughout the chamber, Democrats were quitting. “I quit,” says Rep. Marion Berry of Arkanas, declining to run this November. “I quit,” says Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, doing likewise. “I quit,” says Beau Biden of Delaware, son of Vice President Joe Biden, choosing not to succeed to his father’s seat in America’s House of Lords.

But not Barack Obama: “I don’t quit.” So on he went. As my colleague Rich Lowry put it after the Massachusetts vote, the public thinks Obama doesn’t get it, and Obama thinks the public doesn’t get it. And as he’s got the microphone, he’s gonna keep talking at you until you do get it.

The ever tinnier, more perfunctory sophomoric uplift at the start and finish can’t conceal the hope-killing, jobs-slaying, soul-sapping message in between, which is perfectly consistent, and has been for two years. As President Obama sees it, whatever the problem — from health care to education, banking to the environment — the solution is more Washington.

Simply as a matter of internal logic, this is somewhat perplexing. After all, when he isn’t blaming Bush, Obama blames “Washington” — a Washington mired in “partisanship” and “pettiness” and “the same tired battles” and “Washington gimmicks” that do nothing but ensure that our “problems have grown worse.” Washington, Obama tells us, is “unable or unwilling to solve any of our problems.”

So let’s have more Washington! In our schools, in our hospitals, in our cars, in everything!

Which raises the question: Does even Obama listen to Obama’s speeches? The public does — at least to this extent: They understand that, when he’s attacking the tired old Washington games, he’s just playing the tired old Washington games. But, when he’s proposing the tired old Washington solutions, he means it; that’s the real Obama, the only Obama on offer. And everything the president proposes means more debt, which at the level this guy’s spending means, at some point down the road, either higher taxes or total societal collapse.

Functioning societies depend on agreed rules. If you want to open a business, you do it in Singapore or Ireland, because the rules are known to all parties. You don’t go to Sudan or Zimbabwe, where the rules are whatever the state’s whims happen to be that morning.

That’s why Obama is such a job-killer. Why would a small business take on a new employee? The president’s proposing a soak-the-banks tax that could impact your access to credit. The House has passed a cap-and-trade bill that could impose potentially unlimited regulatory costs. The Senate is in favor of “health” “care” “reform” that will allow the IRS to seize your assets if you and your employees’ health arrangements do not meet the approval of the federal government. Some of these things will pass into law, some of them won’t. But all of them send a consistent, cumulative message: that there are no rules, that they’re being made up as they go along — and that some of them might even be retroactive, as happened this week with Oregon’s new corporate tax.

In such an environment, would you hire anyone? Or would you hunker down and sit things out? Obama can bury it in half a ton of leaden telepromptered sludge but the world has got the message: More Washington, more micro-regulation of every aspect of your life, more multi-trillion-dollar spending, and no agreed rules in a game ever more rigged against you.

Obama and the Democrats have decided, in the current cliché, to “double down.” That hardly does justice to what the president’s doing. In effect, he’s told embattled congressmen and senators to strap on the old suicide-bomber belt and self-detonate for the team this November.

That’s a lot of virgins to pass out, but with this administration, budget restraints aren’t exactly a problem: Untold pleasures will await every sacrificial incumbent in paradise, or at any rate the coming liberal utopia. What’s the end game here? President Obama gave it away in his student-loan “reform” proposals: If you choose to go into “public service,” any college-loan debts will be forgiven after ten years.

Because “public service” is more noble than the selfish, money-grubbing private sector. C’mon, everybody knows that. So we need to encourage more people to go into “public service.”

Why?

In the last 60 years, the size of America’s state and local workforce has increased five times faster than the general population. But the president says it’s still not enough: We have to incentivize even further the diversion of our human capital into the government machine. Like most lifelong politicians, Barack Obama has never created, manufactured, or marketed any product other than himself. So quite reasonably he sees government dependency as the natural order of things. And in his college-loan plan he’s explicitly telling you: If you start a business, invent something, provide a service, you’re a schmuck and a loser. In the America he’s building, you’ll be working 24/7 till you drop dead to fund an ever-swollen bureaucracy that takes six weeks off a year and retires at 53 on a pension you could never dream of. Obama’s proposals are bold only insofar as few men would offer such a transparent guarantee of disaster: It’s the audacity of hopelessness.

In Massachusetts, enough voters got the message. And the more speeches this one-note politician inflicts on the nation, the louder they’ll hear it.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. © 2010 Mark Steyn

Mike Walker lays out a disturbing scenario supported by historical references and raw economic data… I hope I have some change left...

When the Next Bubble Bursts

All,

Life with our Federal Government is like a marriage, so here are my taxpayer wedding thoughts:

Something Old – From over a year ago

Something New – Bipartisanship

Something Borrowed – TARP Payback

Something Blue –The Next Bubble: Our Federal Deficit

So here we go!

A. Something Old – From over a year ago

It Is The Economy Stupid!

All,

My very brief musings on the current troubles in our economy. Here are hard questions that need to be asked in Washington:

A. Increase the velocity of the dollar in the economy. This means getting the cash flowing again in our financial markets. When the "quiz kids" and hat-in-hand bankers show up ask them how they are going to achieve this paramount goal. If they waffle, dissemble, etc send them packing without a dime.

As an aside, it is a national loss that many investment banks have gone away. Investment banks are a great engine for economic growth. Their "velocity" in priming the economy is double that of commercial banks. They are the best.

B. Good Stable Jobs = Support for Private Sector Businesses.

Job #1 is support for Small Business. That is the road to turning the economy around. Every other stimulus goal must be secondary.

When someone opines in Washington that they have the "magic bullet" to cure our ills ask them about small businesses. If it ain't first and foremost then send them packing without a dime.

Job #2 is support for the rest of the private sector. If we want to keep jobs in America we need to make American industry competitive. We have the second highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. Shame on us! We need to be globally competitive and that means keeping big government out of the pockets of the private sector.

Job #3 is infrastructure development. This is an essential but tricky issue. Infrastructure can enhance economic growth but alone it cannot turn an economy around.

When the gurus propose their infrastructure plans, ask how does this help our Country achieve Job #1 and Job #2?

If it looks like they are giving you the "smoke screen" and really arguing infrastructure is Job # 1 then send them packing without a dime.

The purpose of infrastructure development is to create an environment that allows the private sector to thrive. Building a bridge to make it economically efficient for local business to operate is super. Building roads to provide access for new businesses is the ticket.

But these projects are never ends in themselves. They take years to get off the ground and it is short-term work. Once the bridge is built the jobs go away for many decades.

Ask how the project stimulates the private sector and how that will create long-term job growth. If the nabobs can't clearly answer that question then send them packing without a dime.

The last Job. Assisting failed/failing industries and State/big city bureaucracies. When these guys come begging ask them to specifically explain how they are going to change.

Ask them to present a fiscally responsible plan for the future. Ask them to explain in detail how the money they want from Washington is a one-time bridge to a responsible future. If they can't provide the answers then send them packing without a dime.

C. Change the business model in Congress. Kill the pork added to the economic actions. Enough is enough. This national economic downturn is a real problem. It is a serious problem. It is time for adult leadership in congress.

Congress needs to put our county first and their pork project/special interest pandering dead last.

Ask your elected representatives if they are going to deal with the task at hand before they go back to politics as usual. If they start to pontificate and ramble, vote them out the first chance you get.

Semper Fi,

Mike

New 2010 Addendum: There are two points I would like to add to this “something old” section. First, I failed to note that during the last recession in California small businesses alone led the way in job creation. That is why support to small businesses is so crucial. Second, when the states, like my California, come knocking for more bail out money then simply tell them “No.” But also tell them the federal government is ready to give them a LOAN, and one with a sweetheart deal on the interest rate. But firmly say “No” to any further federal gift of funds.

B. Something New - Bipartisanship

Remember what the late Tip O’Neill used to say about differing political opinions: Hate the sin but love the sinner. It is OK to disagree. It is NOT OK to hate the other guy or consider them a criminal because you disagree.

In 2008 the wind was to the back of the Democrats.

In 2010 the wind is to the back of the Republicans.

The overwhelming majority of us were more than willing to support a centrist President Obama.

Very few of us thought we were going to have the country run by the far-left folks under Nancy Pelosi.

We have had it with them and are fed up.

But very few of us want to be led by a bunch of far-right folks from the Republican Party.

So here is what needs to happen. After the 2010 elections in November, the Republicans and the Democrats need to identify five to ten tasks of great need that are shared in common, if not identical, aim. They then need to sit down with the President and under his leadership seek to find the middle ground with all their might to get the job done for the benefit of all Americans.

If that cannot happen then a pox on all their houses.

C. Something Borrowed – TARP Payback

“We want our money back!” President Obama declared during a 15 January 2010 speech where he announced a proposal for a new 15% tax on banks that took TARP monies. Here are the facts from the “top ten” list on where our tax dollars went:

Entity Borrowed Paid Back Plus Profit for US Taxpayers New Tax

AIG $69.8 Billion $0 $0 Exempt

Fannie Mae $59.9 Billion $0 $1.3 Billion Exempt

Freddie Mac $50.7 Billion $0 $3 Billion Exempt

GM $50.7 Billion $0 $0.3 Billion Exempt

Ctitgroup $45 Billion $20 Billion $2.5 Billion 15% Rate

B of A $45 Billion $45 Billion $2.8 Billion 15% Rate

Wells Fargo $25 Billion $25 Billion $1.3 Billion 15% Rate

JPMorganC $25 Billion $25 Billion $0.8 Billion 15% Rate

GMAC $16.3 Billion $0 $0.7 Billion 15% Rate

Goldman-S $10 Billion $10 Billion $0.3 Billion 15% Rate

Morgan-S $10 Billion $10 Billion $0.3 Billion 15% Rate

$135 Billion paid back with interest is a good start. But we taxpayers are still owed $272.4 Billion by the big borrows alone.

How about collecting from these deadbeats?

How about taxing every pig at the federal money trough the same? While you’re at it, how about capping the million dollar salaries for the two super pigs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? And also promise no more “closed door” payout deals for the AIG fat cats as well.

D. Something Blue – The Next Bubble: Our Federal Deficit

Top 6 World Economies and Stimulus Spending

Nation Stimulus Date

United States $887 Billion February 2009 ARRA

Japan $100 Billion April 2009

China* $590 Billion November 2008

Germany $67 Billion February 2009

France $31 Billion February 2009

United Kingdom $250 Billion October 2009

* As reported in late January 2010 in the Wall Street Journal, China is desperately trying to roll back its stimulus due to the damage done to the economy.

Lest you need another perspective:

Period US Deficit Spending – What we will owe to others

2001-2004 $766 Billion

2005-2008 $1,200 Billion

2009-2012 $4,970 Billion (Actual and projected0

2013-2016 $3,440 Billion (Projected)

2017 alone! $1,080 Billion (Projected)

Good grief!

This is an unsustainable expenditure model. Why? Because we have to PAY BACK THE MONEY! It is nothing short of economic suicide to keep spending money we do not have at the rate of the US Government. If we keep going deeper and deeper into debt at this insane pace then that is the next bubble waiting to burst open in a flood of ruin over the world’s economy. At some unknown point in the future, the US will no longer be able to either borrow money or pay it back or both. Then all hell will break loose.

Are you prepared?

And for your own information, it ain’t the war considering US defense spending:

Year Percent of Federal Expenditures Note

1944 90% Peak of WWII

1952 70% Peak of Korean War

1968 46% Peak of Vietnam War

1987 28% Peak of Reagan defense build-up

2009 18% Iraq & Afghanistan Wars

Is there really a war on? You can’t tell by where we are putting our money.

Semper Fi,

Mike

Thoughts on bubbles for those who are not yet bored to tears:

Bubbles, at a basic level, have a few common characteristics.

First, the supposed “good” that is happening is at an unprecedented rate. In other words, the “good” thing grows so big that it becomes a “bad” thing. Second, we do not really understand what is going on but we think we do. I am particularly good at that. Third, the grey beards we seek out for knowledge say the unprecedented “good” is really a good thing when it is really a bad thing but we believe them anyway. Fourth, everyone thinks the good times will roll on forever. We convince ourselves that we are on the up escalator for life.

Then we get hit in the face with an ice-cold bucket of reality.

The 1930’s

We first saw this before the Great Depression with the stock market. First, the stock market grew to unprecedented heights. Second, everyone though they understood options, margins, splits, and the like. Third, all the young and bright economists praised the market conditions. Fourth, if you plunge into the marker you will only make money, forever. Then came the Stock Market Crash in October 1929.

The result was the Great Depression. This trip was so bad and so long that we learned not to repeat it for forty years.

The 1970’s

It began with the United States in a hopeless position where its dated manufacturing base, built on 1920’s technology left intact during the WWII, hit head on with the modern 1950’s and 1960’s technology utilized by the major world economies who had been forced to rebuild following the destruction of their industrial sector in WWII. By 1970 we simply could no longer compete in either the global or domestic marketplace.

We had wasted our enormous 1945 advantage by systemically declining to invest in new technologies because of what turned out to be a badly placed fear of losing any jobs that would be eliminated/displaced by modernization. We put almost everything into trying to hold back the tide of progress and inevitably almost lost everything when the tipping point was reached in 1970.

Our fall was further assisted by the Arab oil embargo of 1973. What followed was a national calamity. Year after year of double-digit inflation made paupers of retirees who saw their life saving turned into pennies by inflation. The story of old couples trapped by a fixed income eating dog food for meat protein was both sadly true and all too commonplace.

What is next?

We will be faced with two painful decisions. The first it to have great but limited pain by drastically reigning in government programs. The second is to have universally cataclysmic pain by letting the government programs run unabated until they crash the entire national economy ala the 2007 Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac/AIG/Investment Bank meltdown. Only this time it will be on a far larger scale.

The 2007 financial/mortgage meltdown was defined by the suffering of millions. The next one will be defined by the suffering of hundreds of million. This is our future if we do not act and act now to prevent it.