Chasing the Wind

And so the veil of deceit lifts. The news media, so eager to proclaim Obama as the messiah during the election cycle, now turns on him and begins to devour him. What changed?

In one sense, nothing. Obama’s promises of socialist changes are progressing. Universal health care, nationalization of manufacturers and banking, imposition of union rules, reestablishment of federal funding of abortion, and massive taxing and spending are being implemented at a frightening speed, with no conservative obstacles in sufficient numbers to slow them down.

In another sense, everything. Obama promised to be open and honest, anti-pork, hope and change instead of fear, yet many of the policies were buried inside a pork-laden monstrosity without debate, without the 5-day evaluation, and signed under dire warnings of catastrophe, and sometimes outright lies, such as the re-hiring of manufafacturing jobs and “all economists agree” pitches.

The revolt of hard working American, long overdue, has begun. Trillions of dollars printing are now showing up as inflation. CNBC says “traders revolt” and openly question why diligent homeowners must pay for the mortgages of dlinquent homeowners. Even high school children, governed by emotion instead of experience, said after his appearance this morning that they don’t believe eveything Obama says and understand the Stimulus bill is bad for the economy and is merely a thinly-disguised pork-laden liberal agenda.

One teenager even wore an Obama t-shirt that said, “Hitler gave good speeches, too.”

But the “angry left” is having it’s day, and I see few obstacles in their way for the next two years. It’s amazing the damage they’ve caused already in just 3 weeks of office. What can we do except batten down the hatches and weather this liberal storm?

I’m praying, and I’m buying gold.

Congress is sapping any possibility of US productivity for generations to come. Only a fraction of this so-called “stimulus” bill actually stimulates the economy. The vast majority of it is increased government oversight and additional government programs. By taking such a whopping amount from the American people, the US government is stifling productivity of the American people and small business where any chance of economic recovery must begin. By printing such a whopping amount of money to cover the spending that cannot be sold overseas as IOUs, the government will cause massive inflation for years and years to come.

The best and simple economic “stimulus” plan I’ve seen is to simly refund all individual taxes collected in 2008. It costs about the same and gives all the people’s money back to the people who would happily spend such a windfall.

Please, Congress, stop helping us now. Just put the checkbook down and back away.

Fortunately, the Senate gagged on ramrodding (which is different than “Hillary Ramrodding”) the immigration bill down The People’s Throat. It’ll give us more time to hoot and hollar and threaten to vote for the other party. James Lileks offers these highlights of the immigration bill this morning, and it’s amazing what they thought they could slide by us. Bah. Put the Hokey Pokey back in, you nimrods (which is different than “Hillary Nimrod”):

6 (1) (D) Undocumented Xenonationals who have been in the country since noon March 16, 2004 (this language reflects a compromise between the hardline “AM” faction and moderates who wanted to extend the deadline to 4:57 PM) will have to report to a government office to announce they are departing. This is the HIMBG Provision, or the “Hello, I Must Be Going” provision. Immigrants will have to return to the Mexican border, put their left foot in, put their left foot out, put their left foot in and shake it all about. (Language requiring that the applicant then “do the hokey pokey was removed over an inability to define the exact nature of said action.) The immigrant is then required to return to the place where he announced he was leaving, present a notarized photograph of himself sticking a portion of his body into Mexican airspace; at that point, he will be eligible to receive a “Q” visa, which enables him to start the process towards a “Z” visa, which estabishes a legal framework towards a “path towards citizenship,” although applicants who have paid 67% of their adjusted tax burden over the last 14 years, minus inflation, will be put on a “jogging path” towards citizenship.

The entire process will take no less than seven years, during which the applicant may not work, but must stand absolutely still in a small room while reciting the Constitution. (Spanish is permitted for the boring Amendments.)

I. (7) (3.14) There shall be a fence stretching 356 miles. The fence shall be three feet high. Paper mache crocodiles shall reside on the other side, arrayed in a threatening manner ($400,000 shall be appropriated to determine the optimum angle of the opened jaw; the final crocodile shall represent a consensus among herpetologists, and reflect a crocodile who is defending his position but showing his teeth to warn off, and not necessarily threaten violence.) Every nine miles, there shall be a sign that reproduces the FBI warning that precedes all DVDs and videotapes and warns of criminal liability for breaking the copyright law. (It has worked so well thus far the language might as well be used intact.) The fence shall be raised to four feet in the event the population of any state becomes 51% undocumented Xenonationals. The fence shall be raised to five feet in the event GOP presence in the Senate drops below 4 seats. The fence shall be raised to ten feet after a nuclear device is smuggled in from Mexico, providing the yield of the bomb is at least 4 (four) kilotons. A bomb with a yield between 3 and 3.99 kilotons will be a sufficient trigger to raise the fence only if the attendant radiation is carried by prevailing winds a distance greater than 20 miles.

T. (t) (t) $779,000 shall be allotted to create Inez, a mascot who provide a welcoming and comic presence to the INS offices.; $3.2 million for an ad campaign that raises awareness of Inez; $2.9 million to be put in escrow from the inevitable sexual harassment suit after Woodsy Owl learns about here; that bird can’t keep his wings to himself; $1.2 million to buy out Woodsy’s contract

7 (b) (f) (f) The government shall, at its discretion, ignore the hell out of any of this

II. 5.6 All legal immigrants will be required to go through the entire process again, just to rub their noses it in. Mark Steyn shall sit in his car on a bridge between Canada and the United States until he learns his place.

R. R. (x) Any illegal immigrant from a state known to sponsor terrorism will be required to renounce terrorism by an oath of utmost solemnity. This act shall also supply funds for translators to determine the equivalent of “pinky swear” in other tongues. The translator will work through the world’s languages in reverse alphabetical order.

XX (vi) Employers found guilty of employing illegal aliens must perform the crying aria from Pagliacci.

F. (U) This bill shall be passed before anyone can read it.

Today’s a good example of why I invest mechanically. I don’t read news resports to see whether the market is going up or down, I just stay invested because over the long haul the market goes up. The daily fluctuations, no matter how hard I try to understand them, only make sense if you are an expert in doublespeak.

Here’s today’s example: Dow Slips After Early Gains

While the Labor Department report lifted hopes that the Federal Reserve might pause after two years of raising interest rates, traders also said the data could portend a slowdown in the economy, which would hurt corporate profits.

“Initially, people felt positive because the jobs report was weak and anti-inflationary. But now investors are probably settling in on the fact that it was, in fact, weak and maybe that’s not good for the economy,” said Tim Heekin, director of trading at San Francisco investment bank Thomas Weisel Partners.

Read that blurb carefully to see if it makes sense. Traders were excited that the economy may not be that great because interest rates will stop risinig. Then traders were worried that the economy may not be that great.

That’s right – the possibility that the economy may or may not be doing as poor as previously expected is the reason the market went up and down this morning.

To me, predicting market performance must be a lot like being a weatherman. Nobody expects you to get it right. Does anybody read these news articles and make investing decisions based on them?

First, our Texas government says they have more money than ever. In fact, they have too much.

[Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton] Strayhorn estimated legislators will have $64.7 billion in state revenue to spend in the upcoming two-year budget — $6.4 billion more than they had in January 2003.

Then they say they need more:

[Texas municipalities] do not want new laws that erode municipal powers. They do not want any legislation that requires them to spend more money. And they do not want lawmakers capping property tax rates.

Emphasis mine. Why is the Texas legislature awash with cash? Because they get a free bump in property taxes every year when property values go up. Citizen groups like C.L.O.U.T. and AppraisalCap.com formed a couple of years ago to combat this; when property values go up, the taxes go up, too, and price you right out of your own home.

Imagine you bought a house for $150,000, and stretched yourself financially thin to get into it. 7 years later, your house is worth $200,000. Are you in good shape? Absolutely not – your taxes have now gone from $4200 a year to $5610, or $117 more each month.

What if you were a little old lady with a tiny house in a newly popular section of town like West University? Your property value may have tripled or more, but you’re on a fixed income. Where are you going to get the hundreds of dollars more you need just to pay taxes?

C.L.O.U.T. is trying to cap the appraisal rate growth, which can go up 10% each year. At that rate, your taxes can double every 7 years. C.L.O.U.T. isn’t even concerned about the actual tax rate, they just want to cap how fast it goes up, to 3% a year to more or less match inflation. Yet the sinister Texas Municipal League (funded by our tax dollars to campaign for more taxes!) opposes any cap. “More taxes!” they keep screaming.

Do you know how much it bothers me that I pay 50% more property tax than when I bought my house 5 years ago, knowing that my taxes are funding an organization that wants my taxes to go up even more? That ought to be illegal.

The state legislature is going to vote on this again this year, having voted against lowering the appraisal cap rate the last 2 years. After that, the whole lot of them should be voted out of office and replaced with a black hole that sucks in everything around it with no escape. That would be a lot more efficient.