Victor Davis Hanson, on why Wall Street isn’t feeling the hope:

1) The proverbial Wall Street capitalists believe that, with new federal income tax rates, the removal of FICA ceilings, increases in capital gains rates, decreases in deductions, and simultaneous tax raises, not only will Obama remove incentives for innovation and productivity, but that he does not seem to care about—or perhaps appreciate—he consequences?

2) On the spending side, investors see too many subsidies and entitlements that may Europeanize the populace and erode incentives, while creating so much debt that in the next decade, should interest rates rise, the federal budget will be consumed with servicing borrowing and entitlement obligations. A redistributive economy in which government ensures an equality of result is Wall Street’s worst nightmare. Debt can only be paid back by floating more foreign debt, issuing more US bonds at home, raising taxes, or printing money—all bad options in the mind of the investor.

3) Too many are beginning to think Obama is, well, a naïf—and hence dangerous. He chest-thumps speeches Geithner cannot deliver. He says we are near the Great Depression—but then, after the stimulus package passes, suddenly hypes future growth rates to suggest that we will be out a recession, soon after all? Add in all the talk of high-tax, Al-Gorist cap-in-trade, wind and solar, socialized medicine in the midst of a financial crisis, and at best Obama comes across as confused and herky-jerky, and at worse, clueless on the economy—as if a Chicago organizer is organizing a multi-trillion-dollar economy. Talking about ‘gyrations’ and confusion about profits and earnings, and offering ad hoc advice about investing do not restore authority.

`4) Given the amount of debt the US is incurring (and the decades needed to pay it off), given the loose talk about the ‘rich’, and given the rumors about nationalization, investors are unsure whether the United States will remain a safe haven for investment, or even offer a climate for profit-making, since it would either be taxed to the point of seizure, or its beneficiaries would be culturally and socially demonized. Ultimately perhaps some will accept that as the price of doing business in a socialist US, but for now it creates doubt. This is not a defense of Wall Street (a year ago Richard Fuld and Robert Rubin were our Zeuses on Olympus who strutted like gods), simply a warning that we are going from excess to stasis, and the cure will be as bad as or worse than the disease.

5) Uncertainty. Who is now our Commerce Secretary? Which cowards is the Attorney General talking about? What did Geithner mean about pernicious oil and gas companies? What is with this Solis, and card check? How hard is it to ensure a Richardson or Daschle is clean? In other words, market watchers see after five weeks chaos, and think there is no sure and steady paradigm in which they can make careful business decisions and anticipate with some surety future risk.

So the perfect storm forms, and millions of individuals come to millions of identical conclusions: “Cut your losses with these guys, and get your cash out before it gets worse” rather than “Wow, what bargains! I gotta get in before the window of profit opportunity closes.”

It’s scary how much sense it makes.

I wonder what the other side’s take on it is. I’m perceiving, rightly or wrongly but I think rightly, that there is a point of agreement among persons of all ideological tints and shades that there was a serious downward slide in the third quarter of ’08 that continues today. “On George W. Bush’s watch.”

Well, I’m certainly not flush with biases favorable to The Chosen One. But to a more objective mindset, even, it seems to me when you overlay His prospects of winning the election last year, with what the market was doing, the evidence is damning. Let’s see, He had this long knock-down drag-out with Hillary…the bottom fell out sometime shortly after that whole thing was resolved. There may have been a brief spell of semi-serious doubt from Palin-mania, but perhaps the Palin-mania took root only with the dedicated knuckle-dragging barbeque-breath bitter people clinging to their guns and Bibles, like me. At any rate, Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric did their level best to put the kibosh on it, and they succeeded in short order.

Obama came to enjoy a virtual lock on the presidency, at just about exactly the time the market tanked. If you want to get pinpoint-precise about it, I seem to recall a major avalanche about a third of the way or halfway through October — right about the time word was getting around about what He told Joe the Plumber about “spreading the wealth around.” What does VDH’s Point #2 say up there? “A redistributive economy in which government ensures an equality of result is Wall Street’s worst nightmare.”

Game, set, match. Now, is there a way out of this tailspin, other than impeachment? Because somehow, I have my doubts that a President Biden or President Pelosi will succeed in reversing the trend.

Like all dopey ideas, the State of the Union is dealt the most devastating damage when it is taken seriously. Rather like a beached whale suffocating under its own weight — its rib cage simply wasn’t designed to withstand the force.

This is going to be some trick. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can’t possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama’s new spending ambitions.

Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and “the wealthiest 2%.” Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That’s about 7% of all returns; the data aren’t broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% — about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 — paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.
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A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That’s less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010.
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The bottom line is that Mr. Obama is selling the country on a 2% illusion. Unwinding the U.S. commitment in Iraq and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire can’t possibly pay for his agenda. Taxes on the not-so-rich will need to rise as well.

Call me nutty, but this has just the whiff of inspiration for a rather cagey sort of optimism. President Obama, clearly, has meant very little of all the things He has said up until now. Changing America, it would seem, is about the only thing His rhetoric has had in common with His deeds. If He’s just promised to spend money on all these programs He obviously can’t afford, with His track record that’s pretty much the same as not having promised anything at all.

Again: The fault does not rest with President Obama. The fault lies with the rest of us. It’s a non-partisan position that we shouldn’t pass on debt to the next generation, but it’s a blisteringly partisan position to take that we should write to our congressmen or to the White House telling ’em to stop spending so much goddamned money.

No such dichotomy can be embraced by a sane mind. But that’s the mindset of our culture right now. So what’s this little dance people are going through, pretending to be trying to make sane decisions? Who do they think they’re kiddin’?

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Speaking of “Buck,” our good blogger friend down in New Mexico by that name is taunting us, ridiculing our favorite Presidential (Vice) candidate in the title of his latest post.

Yeah good one, Buck. Like you wouldn’t give up some teeth to see her sworn in right about now. In hot pants, Supergirl cape and go-go boots. Hey…for the next three years, ten months and three weeks, that last part is about as likely to happen as the former part…a fella might as well dream.

Well, Californians know how to be snarky too. So I sent him a link to Cassy’s place. In which a feminist is demanding her rightful status, not as a flesh-burning, head-chopping brutal dictator, but rather as a more modest generically-unpleasant female person. A rhymes-with-rich.

As if we’ve had some kind of shortage of those.

Speaking of delusions of supply-and-demand, I hear PrezBO is going to descend from his cloud tonight to tell us the best way to balance the budget is to spend money we don’t have like crazy. Oh yeah, Obambi! That’s exactly the way my household does it! Phone’s about to be shut off and there’s a cardboard thingy from the power company on my doorknob…only one thing to do…run up the charge cards on a whole lotta crap!

That doesn’t seem to make an awful lot of sense, does it?

And yet…there our elected representatives go…the ones whom, I’m told, are so much smarter than the rest of us. Doing that very thing.

You figure this shit out, drop me a line explaining it. Okay? I’ll be snoozing away, dreaming about a certain Governor of Alaska being sworn in, in some kind of getup that would make Stacey Keibler blush.

Treacher.

I’m very proud to announce the establishment of a new government agency called the Monetary Uniformity Group. This agency will put people to work performing a simple but effective task: Americans who are currently [mimes scare quotes] “earning” too much money will be relieved of all excess cash — by force only if necessary — after which it will be gathered up, bundled into thick, heavy bales, and thrown into a wood chipper.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking, but please keep in mind that this plan is flexible. It could be some sort of industrial shredder instead. Or the money might be incinerated with flamethrowers, or weighed down with lead and dropped into the deepest part of the ocean. There are any number of options. The whole idea is to get that money moving away from people who don’t deserve it.

To put it in terms someone like you might be able to understand: Look at your neighbor. Is it fair that he has a nicer car than you? A bigger TV? A younger, more physically fit wife or girlfriend? Well, then, let’s see how he likes it when I grab his wallet and throw it in the wood chipper.

[Smiling, Obama mimes taking a wallet from someone’s pocket with his thumb and forefinger, tossing it over his shoulder, and cringing slightly at the imaginary roar of the machine.]

Just picture that. Doesn’t it feel good? A minute ago he thought he was soooo great, and now he’s all mad because he doesn’t have his iddle-widdle wallet. Look at him, he’s actually crying. Got something to say, Richie Rich? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Only by following this plan can we restore America to the greatness it has yet to achieve. Remember: You deserve better, which means everybody else deserves worse.

Thank you.

Good satire resembles real life. I’m afraid this bears more than just a passing similarity. And just remember, Obamatons, this does nothing to break a campaign promise. There were very few made. You weren’t that insistent on finding out what Chosen One was gonna do. All that mega-awesomeness to be celebrated.

Hat tip: Gerard.

Bradley Schiller, writing in WSJ Friday:

President Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression. First, he did so to win votes in the November election. He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his stimulus package.

In his remarks, every gloomy statistic on the economy becomes a harbinger of doom. As he tells it, today’s economy is the worst since the Great Depression. Without his Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he says, the economy will fall back into that abyss and may never recover.

This fearmongering may be good politics, but it is bad history and bad economics. It is bad history because our current economic woes don’t come close to those of the 1930s. At worst, a comparison to the 1981-82 recession might be appropriate. Consider the job losses that Mr. Obama always cites. In the last year, the U.S. economy shed 3.4 million jobs. That’s a grim statistic for sure, but represents just 2.2% of the labor force. From November 1981 to October 1982, 2.4 million jobs were lost — fewer in number than today, but the labor force was smaller. So 1981-82 job losses totaled 2.2% of the labor force, the same as now.
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Mr. Obama’s analogies to the Great Depression are not only historically inaccurate, they’re also dangerous. Repeated warnings from the White House about a coming economic apocalypse aren’t likely to raise consumer and investor expectations for the future. In fact, they have contributed to the continuing decline in consumer confidence that is restraining a spending pickup. Beyond that, fearmongering can trigger a political stampede to embrace a “recovery” package that delivers a lot less than it promises. A more cool-headed assessment of the economy’s woes might produce better policies.

I wonder if the spirit of pessimism that enshrouds us after a typical “Hope and Change” Obama speech, isn’t quite so much pure emotional depression, or pure economic analysis, but more a reasoned pondering of the history of executives taking charge of things.

After all, bosses typically pull victory from the jaws of defeat when they take ownership of a given situation. If they spend all their time blaming their predecessors for every little hiccup, they usually preside over disaster.

In the pantheon of hopeful guys, this new President doesn’t seem to have an awful lot to do with hope. And when I hear this new President speak, what I usually hear is a lot of blame. It’s not the rhetoric that comes from a boss who is about to preside over victory. It’s the kind of stuff you hear from a ship’s captain who has made damn sure his name is on the safest lifeboat.

Hat tip to Dr. Helen.

It amounted to a do-over for tax-cheat and guy-who-runs-the-I.R.S. Timothy Geithner.

For Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner as much as for the troubled government program to bail out the financial system, Tuesday amounted to a do-over.

Initial reviews for the man and his plan were not good, however. Stock markets slid through the day, perhaps spurred downward by withering punditry on the business-news cable channels faulting Mr. Geithner for not providing more details, particularly on stemming home foreclosures. Senators of both parties lodged similar complaints at a hearing.

“I haven’t heard yet how we’re going to solve this problem,” Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, told the Treasury secretary more than three hours into the Senate Banking Committee hearing.

With a formal speech, live television interviews and then his Senate appearance, Mr. Geithner announced the Obama administration’s overhaul of the Bush administration’s bank bailout program, which had proved largely ineffective at getting credit flowing again.

I have a really thin paperback on my bookshelf. It’s called “Government plans to meddle in the economy, that worked.” It’s up there, sandwiched among “Republicans who survived scandals,” “democrats who didn’t” and “Movies made from video games that don’t suck.”

Seriously. As I just said last night, I’m flabbergasted at how quickly this whole party is over. “Party,” not as in political party, but that huge cocktails-and-LSD bash that was The Annointed One’s inaugural festivities. Where’s all that hopey-changey goodness? I wish I was happy about all this failure as the Obamatons keep saying I/we are. I’m not. I’m about as happy as I am when I’m watching one of those scary movies, and the girl’s walking backwards after the lights have gone out, muttering “Bobby is that you? It’s not funny anymore”…and doing drugs…and fornicatin’…pretty much breaking all the rules. And you have the scary music going on, and she hears a noise but it turns out to be the cat…and then she runs into the REAL KILLER and gets her head lopped off. Yeah, just like that. “*Sigh* Couldn’t have seen that one coming.” How quickly we reach the turning point, is surprising. That we did — not so much.