The checking and balancing of American electoral politics has occurred in a manner too fanciful for Hollywood. A triathlete, military-trained, former model turned attorney has, only 14 months after Barack Obama's sweeping victory, become the first Republican elected to the Kennedy seat in Massachusetts since 1946.
Small business sentiment will likely improve with the knowledge that at least if the Republican party is unified, then one-party rule in the Senate has ended. The market had a bit of a celebration today and may well do so tomorrow. We should consider the possibility that the 2010 election could be similar to the 1994 election that brought gridlock to Washington and that catalyzed the stock bubble and economic boom of the second half of the 1990s.
The big picture is, however, muddled and schizophrenic. Fannie and Freddie are losing hundreds of billions of dollars, and those losses are income of a sort for the public or corporate America. How are Fannie and Freddie losing this money? By Fed money-printing to buy mortgages.
Large, international companies may well represent good "value" in a generally overvalued market. Domestic companies are chancier. I continue to like dollar stores. (Reluctantly)
The arguments for gold remain unchanged. Gold and other precious metals are in bull markets that are not bubbles by conventional analyses. For gold ETF buyers, the Canadian ETF "GTU" has had enough underperformance lately vs. "GLD" to be, in my humble opinion, a "buy".
In any case, Mr. Brown has relatively single-handed run on opposition to the Obama healthcare "reform" effort. The political and investment worlds have changed. In that one-party rule has been diminished, this represents a return toward normalcy and therefore will be taken well by the investment community.
Copyright (C) Long Lake LLC 2010
Showing posts with label scott brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scott brown. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
The Culture of Corruption Is Causing the Coakley Collapse
You know the Establishment is out of ideas when the anointed successor to Edward Moore Kennedy has to bring in Bill Clinton to try to pull out a win in the only state that didn't go for Richard Nixon in 1972 (but that did go for Reagan in 1984) and he actually says "You have to decide whether you want to be a tomorrow country or a yesterday country". Click HERE for the WaPo article.
Actually, yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away. But that matters not. All that is happening in 3 days is a vote for one of 100 Senators, not a vote for a silly term such as a tomorrow or yesterday country, whatever that means (time's arrow moves in one direction even for reactionaries).
This blog is a good-government advocate. Good ideas can come from anywhere, but they will be useless if they are misused in the modern way that funnels the wealth of the country to the insiders. Partisan politics in the United States has devolved into the Depublicans sharing the riches with the Remocrats, periodically alternating into the Republicrats splitting the riches amongst themselves, with some fringy people such as Bernard Sanders and Ron Paul and somewhat less fringy people such as Richard Shelby and Russ Feingold being ignored by the MSM during disgraces such as the enactment of TARP. The subtext of the astonishing surge by an obscure Republican state senator to what appears to be parity with Martha Coakley is found in the WaPo article:
"Right now, it's broken here in Beacon Hill," Brown said Friday at a campaign event beside former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, summoned to commend Brown's anti-terrorism credentials and to slam Coakley. "There's one-party rule that's contributing to three speakers being indicted, three senators resigned in disgrace. One's in jail right now."
"In Washington, there's no debate," Brown continued. "Everything's being done in the back rooms. The health-care bill, we've lost faith, and we need to send it back to start over."
Three consecutive speakers indicted; three state senators resigned.
In other words, it's the corruption, stupid. The arrogance of power and all that.
When I was advised a decade ago by a Washington insider that bipartisan corruption in the Federal Government had reached highs not seen by all three generations of his family in their lifetimes, I knew something was rotten. Eventually rotting things stink, and the electorate smells it. Given all the gifts from taxpayers to international Big Finance over the past 15 or so months, which continues under the ruse of an anti-deflationary zero interest-rate policy and other Fed and Federal programs, it is obvious that the looting continues. Even Massachusett((e)s voters may have decided that between two bad choices, gridlock is a lesser evil than one-party rule.
If Martha Coakley, who was elected Attorney General in 2006 with (merely) 73% of the vote, joins Jon Corzine and Creigh Deeds on the list of Democratic unpersons, the main message may well be that the public is mad as hell at the p0wers that be that have given us bread, circuses and misery while enriching and entrenching themselves in over-the-top style. They know well that an unreformed Republican Party is not the answer, but they are hoping, perhaps against hope, that the country can return to the days of FDR when the Government appeared to actually work for the people rather than the powerful (not that it was as simple as that narrative), or of Eisenhower when a vicuna overcoat and oriental rug were given to Ike's powerful Chief of Staff Sherman Adams--who was fired in less than one day by Eisenhower when he learned of the apparent bribe.
Even loyal Democrats and other Obama voters are disheartened by the realization that candidate Obama was another liar, just like so many of his predecessors, but one who they actually believed was different. Now it's a fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me story. This realization has led to the following observation in Massachusetts, also from the WaPo article:
There was no shortage of dismay on the ballroom floor. "I'm from the Cape. There's Scott Brown signs everywhere," said Pam Alden of Sagamore. "What I don't know is if there's enough time. There's $3 million being poured in. Are we already tired? Will we listen?"
Scott Brown signs all over the Cape where John Kerry began to lose the campaign while windsurfing so skillfully? Heavens forfend!
If the upset actually happens (and Brown's camp is trying to curb its enthusiasm), Hollywood couldn't have scripted it better.
Mr. Brown goes to Washington?
Win or lose, heckuva job, Brownie.
Even if you're no James Stewart, if you are elected it will be to channel Jefferson Smith.
Copyright (C) Long Lake LLC 2010
Actually, yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away. But that matters not. All that is happening in 3 days is a vote for one of 100 Senators, not a vote for a silly term such as a tomorrow or yesterday country, whatever that means (time's arrow moves in one direction even for reactionaries).
This blog is a good-government advocate. Good ideas can come from anywhere, but they will be useless if they are misused in the modern way that funnels the wealth of the country to the insiders. Partisan politics in the United States has devolved into the Depublicans sharing the riches with the Remocrats, periodically alternating into the Republicrats splitting the riches amongst themselves, with some fringy people such as Bernard Sanders and Ron Paul and somewhat less fringy people such as Richard Shelby and Russ Feingold being ignored by the MSM during disgraces such as the enactment of TARP. The subtext of the astonishing surge by an obscure Republican state senator to what appears to be parity with Martha Coakley is found in the WaPo article:
"Right now, it's broken here in Beacon Hill," Brown said Friday at a campaign event beside former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, summoned to commend Brown's anti-terrorism credentials and to slam Coakley. "There's one-party rule that's contributing to three speakers being indicted, three senators resigned in disgrace. One's in jail right now."
"In Washington, there's no debate," Brown continued. "Everything's being done in the back rooms. The health-care bill, we've lost faith, and we need to send it back to start over."
Three consecutive speakers indicted; three state senators resigned.
In other words, it's the corruption, stupid. The arrogance of power and all that.
When I was advised a decade ago by a Washington insider that bipartisan corruption in the Federal Government had reached highs not seen by all three generations of his family in their lifetimes, I knew something was rotten. Eventually rotting things stink, and the electorate smells it. Given all the gifts from taxpayers to international Big Finance over the past 15 or so months, which continues under the ruse of an anti-deflationary zero interest-rate policy and other Fed and Federal programs, it is obvious that the looting continues. Even Massachusett((e)s voters may have decided that between two bad choices, gridlock is a lesser evil than one-party rule.
If Martha Coakley, who was elected Attorney General in 2006 with (merely) 73% of the vote, joins Jon Corzine and Creigh Deeds on the list of Democratic unpersons, the main message may well be that the public is mad as hell at the p0wers that be that have given us bread, circuses and misery while enriching and entrenching themselves in over-the-top style. They know well that an unreformed Republican Party is not the answer, but they are hoping, perhaps against hope, that the country can return to the days of FDR when the Government appeared to actually work for the people rather than the powerful (not that it was as simple as that narrative), or of Eisenhower when a vicuna overcoat and oriental rug were given to Ike's powerful Chief of Staff Sherman Adams--who was fired in less than one day by Eisenhower when he learned of the apparent bribe.
Even loyal Democrats and other Obama voters are disheartened by the realization that candidate Obama was another liar, just like so many of his predecessors, but one who they actually believed was different. Now it's a fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me story. This realization has led to the following observation in Massachusetts, also from the WaPo article:
There was no shortage of dismay on the ballroom floor. "I'm from the Cape. There's Scott Brown signs everywhere," said Pam Alden of Sagamore. "What I don't know is if there's enough time. There's $3 million being poured in. Are we already tired? Will we listen?"
Scott Brown signs all over the Cape where John Kerry began to lose the campaign while windsurfing so skillfully? Heavens forfend!
If the upset actually happens (and Brown's camp is trying to curb its enthusiasm), Hollywood couldn't have scripted it better.
Mr. Brown goes to Washington?
Win or lose, heckuva job, Brownie.
Even if you're no James Stewart, if you are elected it will be to channel Jefferson Smith.
Copyright (C) Long Lake LLC 2010
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