The Federal Grizzly, Capt. Ben & the Bernacke Maneuver

It has already begun, and now it escalates.

Just as there is nothing subtle about the paw of a grizzly bear as it feels around the underside of your tent, so the paw of federal "oversight" into the tent of the free enterprise system. The grizzly may only be wanting to see if there are any cookies hidden under your backpack; he probably doesn't mean to hurt you. Yet the claws are sharp and he is not adapted to skillful maneuvering in this alien environment. The federal bureaucrat may not be aiming at you, the once happy camper who has hidden his retirement cookies in the backpack of an IRA or 401(k) plan, but their regulatory claws are sharp and they are not adapted to skillful maneuvering in this alien environment of the private sector.

First came the bailouts under the Bush administration, the suspension of free market principles in order to "save" the free market system. (This under a nominally pro-capitalist president).

Then came the stimulus bill, the Porkulus, that stimulates government spending with nearly $800 billion that this nation does not have to spend. Then within days came Son of Porkulus, the Omnibus Appropriations bill 8 percent larger than last year's bloated budget-buster, filled with 8,500 "earmarks," totalling over $405 billion. Both of these under an administration, working with a very liberal Congress, that is not a friend of the free market system, since it has done nothing but call for tighter and tighter regulations of said markets.

This week something wicked this way came, but few noticed because all the attention was instead directed to the "shocking" bonuses given management employees at AIG, an American-based insurer that got trapped in the downward spiral of mortgage-backed securities gone sour. (The company also insured many other firms that were trapped in the same derivatives bubble.)

"Look at those evil, greedy, rich bastards of AIG!" shouted members of Congress, and even the President himself, perhaps in words not quite so blunt but the meaning was crystal clear. We, the American people, should direct our anger at the trillions spent on bailouts, and stimuli, at a couple of hundred men and women who work for one firm. These evil people, who dared collect on the bonuses promised them over a year ago in their employment compensation packages for work done in 2008, represent all that is wrong with America! How dare they? Where is their shame? What are their names, and where do they live? Give us the pictures of their spouses and their children so we can threaten to turn loose the ravening hordes of outraged countrymen ...

... unless, of course, they want to play nice, do their patriotic duty, and give back the money.

Or better yet, let's pass a law and tax those bonuses back into the federal treasury. How much? How about 90 percent; we'll leave a little something for state and local governments to tax. After all, isn't that the proper place for wealth in America, back in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats where it can be spent for the greater good of all? ("I'd tax them 1,000 percent if I could," one congresswoman bravely declared in front of the cameras. Damn right, that'll show those ingrates who's boss!) Hurry, there is no time to waste! We must pass this tax legislation immediately so that the IRS can get out those notices in time to claim the money in April 2010.

All our eyes and ears were focused on our brave, patriotic elected officials working hard to protect the American people from avarice in the private sector. Only when the Obamessiah misspoke on the challenged nature of his bowling skills did we remember that there were other important issues to consider. And our March Madness brackets to fill in, of course.

So hardly anyone noticed that on Wednesday the Federal Reserve announced that it was beginning a new round of purchasing mortgage-backed securities and United States Treasury bills to the tune of $1.15 trillion. The initial purchase of T-bills is in the $300 billion range. Where is the money coming from?

Thin air.

Terence Corcoran at Canada's National Post, was not distracted:

Mr. Bernanke is sometimes known as “Helicopter Ben” because he once in an academic paper referred to the use of “helicopters” full of money to rescue an economy from deflation. In comments Wednesday to explain the Fed’s new policy of buying $300-billion in U.S. treasury bills, Mr. Bernanke noted that the Fed is now more worried about inflation being too low than about it getting too high in the future.

For the rest of the world, however, the worry is that America is at risk of becoming the fountainhead of a new inflationary outburst. The U.S. dollar is now in decline, gold is moving sharply higher, and new global currency turmoil is on the horizon.

It may not happen. A paper just published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, ... says that the Fed will have to be prepared to absorb all the excess money it has poured into the U.S. economy. It will be a technical and political challenge unlike any central bank has ever undertaken. The future of America is at stake.

Perhaps it takes someone outside the tent to see that the grizzly bear is about to do serious damage to those inside the tent. Mr. Corcoran's article, by the way, is entitled, "Is this the End of America?"

America is in grave danger. The Fed is attempting a maneuver never before tried at this stage of a financial downturn. It requires precision timing the likes of which only a competent crew on a Federation Starship can usually pull off, since it is based on a theory that you can stop an oncoming Depression with hyper-inflation, then squelch hyper-inflation by pulling back all the excess money you "created" and put into the system.

There is a technical term for such a maneuver: It is freakin' insane!

But we're committed to it. Captain Ben and his Starship Fed crew, with or without consulting those of us who are back in the tent in the woods, are already in warp drive and engaging "the enemy."

Meanwhile, according to Drudge (quoting sources in the New York Times newsroom), says Mr. Obama is about to declare a new financial regulation policy that will call for "increased oversight" of executive pay at "all banks", Wall Street firms and "other companies." Oh, goody! The grizzly is now looking for some bacon, too.

So we have to hope for two wildly optimistic outcomes now. First, that Capt. Ben successful executes the "Bernacke Maneuver" and our currency doesn't collapse like a second-hand Ferengi warp coil, and that Mr. Obama's grizzly bear is satisfied with a little bit of Wall Street bacon and doesn't come on in to the tent for the rest of our goodies, which we should've hidden in secret Swiss bank accounts years ago, but who knew?

Who knew that the American people would have dumped a bunch of cretinous, hypocritical Republicans out of Congresss two years ago for spending like drunken sailors, only to replace them with cretinous, hypocritical Democrats who have taught us that drunken sailors are pretty frugal after all?

And who'd a thunk that we'd go all "hopey/changey" and elect a man of mystery who has no legislative accomplishments, no business experience, and virtually zero abilities to think on his feet without a teleprompter keeping him from putting those same feet into his mouth, and who, for all we know, might have been born in Kenya instead of Hawaii, and might be a citizen of Indonesia; a man who was befriended by Marxists and black liberationists, and the "community organizers" of Chicago. A man who promised during his campaign to give us socialized health care, higher taxes on all types of energy, and "spread the wealth" tax policies.

When a grizzly bear is attacking my tent, I want more than a cellphone call or a text message to my congressman. I want to know that someone is nearby with a tranquillizer gun, a bullhorn, and a big bucket of raw meat with which to lure the beast away.

I don't think Mr. Obama is that guy.

I think he enjoys watching the bear.

Let's Play Another Round of 'Bashing AIG'

Don't play their game.

Whose game? The government "progressives" who want you to hate AIG -- and thus by extension all those who deal with big money issues. Or more simply, they want you to hate the rich!

Right now Barney Frank (a national disgrace rapidly working himself into worldwide competition) is livid over $165 million in bonuses paid by insurer AIG to its employees. Barney is the blocking back for President Obama, who this morning called the bonuses an "outrage" and pledged that the feds will do everything legally possible to stop the bonus payments.

AIG has received about $170 billion in bailout funds.

A few key points to keep in mind:

1. The bonuses are required by the employment contracts of those who merited the bonuses. It is the price an insurer pays to attract and keep competent help. It would be a breach of contract -- a violation of the law -- not to pay them.

2. Frank claims "these bonuses are going to people who screwed this thing up enormously." That is pure bullshit! AIG is an insurer. It is in trouble because it must pay claims to banks on insurance contracts for investments they made that went bad, many of them piss-poor bundled mortgage investments that were created because Barney Frank and his cronies in Congress, and at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, forced lenders to make loans to people who were never going to make good on repayment. If Frank were honest, he would have to resign from Congress for it is his failure, and his continued coverup, that is most egregious.

3. Mr. Obama knows all of this, and doesn't care. It serves his purpose to have a national scapegoat. It draws your attention away from the other things he is doing, or getting ready to do.

4. If we are going to hunt for bedrock principles upon which to stand, then we never should have bailed out AIG, or any of the other financial institutions, in the first place. That was not the position of Barney Frank at the time all this was happening. It is not his position now. Who the hell knows what Mr. Obama's position was at the time all this began (he wouldn't commit)? Who the hell knows what it will be tomorrow, or next week?

5. Barney Frank says: "Maybe it's time to fire some people. We can't keep them from getting bonuses but we can keep them from having their jobs. ... In high school, they wouldn't have gotten retention (bonuses), they would have gotten detention." That rhetoric is designed to inflame the public, which is mad as hell already at the whole mess, but it sheds no light on the truth of the matter, which is that Barney Frank wants to get his grubby, greasy fingers inside the bowels of the American banking system.

Please don't fall for this game. You don't have to like the big banks, and you don't have to like or admire the rich. Just realize that you could take every dollar of wealth away from the rich and powerful, distribute it equally among all the rest of us -- like that will ever really happen, sure! -- and you will have a country in chaos that will not be secure, happy or productive.

Ban bonuses, make executives afraid to make decisions to incent the help, and you will reduce American business to the same mediocre level of efficiency that you will find in your average government-run health clinic. If you want to kill the capitalist geese that laid the golden eggs that created the wealthiest economy in the history of the world, let Mr. Frank and Mr. Obama continue to call plays from the progressive playbook that got its start back in the FDR administration.

And then we will have true equality. The equality of the equally miserable.

My Father Wanted to be My Axe Murderer

Your "religion of peace" update for the Ides of March.

My imam father came after me with an axe

This takes place in Great Britain, not the Middle East, and displays the probable result of political correctness run amok in government, social services and even in well-meaning but clueless religionists who seek first to be culturally sensitive rather than the true Kingdom of God.

The book is called The Imam’s Daughter because “Hannah Shah” is just that: the daughter of an imam in one of the tight-knit Deobandi Muslim Pakistani communities in the north of England. Her father emigrated to this country from rural Pakistan some time in the 1960s and is, apparently, a highly respected local figure.

He is also an incestuous child abuser, repeatedly raping his daughter from the age of five until she was 15, ostensibly as part of her punishment for being “disobedient”. At the age of 16 she fled her family to avoid the forced marriage they had planned for her in Pakistan. A much, much greater affront to “honour” in her family’s eyes, however, was the fact that she then became a Christian – an apostate. The Koran is explicit that apostasy is punishable by death; thus it was that her father the imam led a 40-strong gang – in the middle of a British city – to find and kill her. [SNIP]

This is the sort of cultural sensitivity displayed by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, last year when he suggested that problems within the British Muslim community such as financial or marital disputes could be dealt with under sharia, Islamic law, rather than British civil law. What did Hannah, now an Anglican, think on hearing these remarks?

“I was horrified.” If you could speak to him now, what would you say to the archbishop? “I would say: have you actually spoken to any ordinary Muslim women about the situation that they live in, in their communities? By putting in place these Muslim arbitration tribunals, where a woman’s witness is half that of a man, you are silencing women even more.”

She believes the British government is making exactly the same mistake as Rowan Williams ...

How can you maintain a civil society if you allow two different overlapping sets of justice, diametrically opposed one to the other, to operate? How can a justice system based on the rights of the individual - every individual - step aside to allow another operate which recognizes values that subjugate the freedom of some people to those who happen to be male and of one particular religion?

The belief that one culture is as good as another does not pass the sanity test. Toleration in this situation is madness.

And yet it is Great Britain, home of the Queen and the late Princess Diana; of fish and chips. The land of Winston Churchill, Shakespeare, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, William Wilberforce, the Beatles and the Moody Blues. That this once fearless nation that gave the world so much can be facing societal rot from within is nearly unthinkable, unspeakable. Yet it continues.

Don't say that it can't happen in America. It is already beginning in places like Detroit and Minneapolis, and in Buffalo. It will accelerate if we continue on a like path with our British friends.

Market Drop Reflects Fear ... of Obama's Policies

Today, as unemployment hits 8.1 percent and investors mull that there have been only two "up" days since Valentine's Day, the Wall Street Journal had Michael Boskin analyze the market slump.

It's hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president's policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis.

The illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center has quickly come to an end. Instead of combining the best policies of past Democratic presidents -- John Kennedy on taxes, Bill Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance -- President Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter's higher taxes and Mr. Clinton's draconian defense drawdown.

Okay, so Mr. Obama is not a centrist. It gets worse.

Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined.

Let that statement swirl around in your brain for a moment or two. (It's awfully early in the morning for this.) More debt than all previous presidents combined!

It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.

By this time you're probably wondering if the WSJ has anything good to say.

To be fair, specific parts of the president's budget are admirable and deserve support: increased means-testing in agriculture and medical payments; permanent indexing of the alternative minimum tax and other tax reductions; recognizing the need for further financial rescue and likely losses thereon; and bringing spending into the budget that was previously in supplemental appropriations, such as funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Let me just say that in comparison to the sins Mr. Boskin has exposed, this is mere window dressing. A bit further down in the article is this:

The president's proposed limitations on the value of itemized deductions for those in the top tax brackets would clobber itemized charitable contributions, half of which are by those at the top. This change effectively increases the cost to the donor by roughly 20% (to just over 72 cents from 60 cents per dollar donated). Estimates of the responsiveness of giving to after-tax prices range from a bit above to a little below proportionate, so reductions in giving will be large and permanent, even after the recession ends and the financial markets rebound.

The real reinvention of American society is tucked away a few paragraphs later. The creation of a permanent class of voters who don't give a rat's behind what tax rates are because they won't pay any.

New and expanded refundable tax credits would raise the fraction of taxpayers paying no income taxes to almost 50% from 38%. This is potentially the most pernicious feature of the president's budget, because it would cement a permanent voting majority with no stake in controlling the cost of general government.

Or to use Mr. Obama's phrase (which I'm beginning to loathe), these people will have no skin in the game.

Who is John Galt?

Two Very Different Views of Economics

You will be reassured to know that the stock market's disastrous performance during the past two months -- it's dropped 25 percent of its value -- is really just "fits and starts" that should be ignored by the government in devising long-term economic policy.

We have the word of our Economist-in-Chief Barack Obama.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is comparing the stock market to the daily tracking polls used during campaigns, saying that paying too close attention to Wall Street's "fits and starts" could lead to bad long-term policy.

Obama spoke to reporters Tuesday after meeting in the Oval Office with visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Obama said he is not measuring policies against "the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market," but by whether lending is flowing more freely, businesses are investing and the unemployed are going back to work.

He said he is "absolutely confident" that those things will happen. But the president also said it will take time for the mistakes of the past to work their way through the system.

How long will it take for the "mistakes of the past" to become the "mistakes of the present" in the minds of Obama and his people? Today's Wall Street Journal wondered the same thing:

As 2009 opened, three weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama's policies have become part of the economy's problem.

Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after five weeks in office, it's become clear that Mr. Obama's policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence -- and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth. [SNIP]

So what has happened in the last two months? The economy has received no great new outside shock. Exchange rates and other prices have been stable, and there are no security crises of note. The reality of a sharp recession has been known and built into stock prices since last year's fourth quarter.

What is new is the unveiling of Mr. Obama's agenda and his approach to governance.[SNIP]

The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they're no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier.

Meanwhile, Congress demands more bank lending even as it assails lenders and threatens to let judges rewrite mortgage contracts. The powers in Congress -- unrebuked by Mr. Obama -- are ridiculing and punishing the very capitalists who are essential to a sustainable recovery. The result has been a capital strike, and the return of the fear from last year that we could face a far deeper downturn. This is no way to nurture a wounded economy back to health.

Listening to Mr. Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, on the weekend, we couldn't help but wonder if they appreciate any of this. They seem preoccupied with going to the barricades against Republicans who wield little power, or picking a fight with Rush Limbaugh, as if this is the kind of economic leadership Americans want.

The WSJ editorial writers fear it may be two or three years before Americans wake up to the real reasons behind our economic problems. I hope they're wrong, and we awaken before then.

Not Working: The Bailouts & The Stimuli

In medicine, there is the occasional situation when a patient becomes addicted to the painkillers used to help him survive his illness. There comes the time when the patient must be weaned from the painkillers, and the pain he must endure feels worse than the disease ever did.

Now financial experts worry that the bailouts/rescues/stimuli (whatever the term of the day) may be so invasive that the patient, the American economy, will collapse back into a worse recession when the day arrives that no federal monies are being injected.

Heaven knows we aren't even close to that point yet. As today's stock market numbers aptly proved, we are still on the downside of the first wave of this economic downturn. The Dow closed under 6,800, a level it has not seen since 1997. Despite all the trillions that are being injected into the banks and markets to prop up the system, it is not working.

As heartless as it sounds, the better solution would be to let the chips fall where they may. Let failing companies fail, go through bankruptcy, and start all over again. Just like individuals must do. The weak are eliminated, the strong survive. The economy falters, then begins anew without the baggage of an oppressive government regulating every small decision.

We've already seen what happens when government gets involved in the ownership of private business. New regulations are issued. Certain behavior, even speech, is prohibited. Certain prosecutors begin wagging their fingers at cameras promising to put business executives behind prison bars for flying private jets or sponsoring golf tournaments to attract clients. Banks that take "rescue" funds are forbidden to advocate the defeat of legislation that would greatly empower labor unions.

And this is only the beginning.

All liberties are inextricably linked. You cannot curtail the ownership of private property without eventually being forced to curtail free speech and free association.

We are headed down just that path. It would require a great deal of political courage to reverse course, and it may not be possible. But it is possible to delay further encroachments into the private sector and liberty by the government, and it might buy the time needed to get us to the mid-terms of 2010 where we could "divide" government again.

If you see the wisdom in this, then it is your battle as well as mine. It means that we must hold our elected representatives feet to the fire, letting them know that we expect fiscal responsibility and political courage from them if they expect to see our money or our votes in the next campaign season.

And if they disappoint us, we must stay true to our word.

China Reduces its CO2 emissions

Algore is undoubtedly pleased.

China has cut its CO2 emissions.

But the 20 million Chinese laborers who have lost their jobs and their incomes may not be as thrilled.

In the past months, about 70,000 factories nationwide have closed. Beijing official Chen Xiwen estimates about 20 million migrant workers have lost jobs. Tens of thousands of villages in the countryside depend on migrant workers' income.

China analysts say the spike in unemployment has caught China off guard. "The central government is now telling local governments to provide help and job training, re-employment," says Wenran Jiang, a political science professor and China expert at Canada's University of Alberta. [SNIP]

"Many migrant workers have lived a very hard and simple life," he says. "They have some savings for a rainy day like this, so in the short-term they may be able to cope -- but if eight or 12 months later things continue to deteriorate, it could turn volatile."

Most farmers like the Tangs do not get social security. So villagers who lost factory jobs have few choices except go back to farming. But it is not easy.

Farming feeds people but brings little cash. Millions of the jobless are second-generation migrant workers, young people who grew up in cities.

"It would be very hard," says Tang Hui. "I have never farmed. I don't know how to do it."

Just a reminder to all those CO2 reduction fanatics that there is a human cost to green progress. Hopefully this is not a preview of what could happen in America if our government keeps rushing headlong into socialist economic policies.

Looking Ahead to Hard Times

The concept that the United States is entering a new era where materialistic achievement and expectations will be scaled back is beginning to seep into the writings of people who a few weeks ago would have mocked anyone making such predictions.

Or, in simpler terms, people are catching on that hard times are a comin'.

Today's offering: Jim Manzi posting in The Corner.

We use the abstract expression “deleveraging” to describe what’s happening in the economy right now. That’s fine for a textbook or a newspaper article. But what’s really happening is that people are learning that the world is not as benign as many people in America talked themselves into believing it to be. Most middle class Americans are going to drive older cars, live in worse houses, and travel less than they thought they would even a couple of years ago. They will be less able to afford to move to the school district that they think will put their kids into the school that they think best for them. They are going to retire later, and have less money to spend when they do. This is painful and dispiriting. It is unequally shared suffering, and much of the distribution of relative pain is driven by luck, which makes it especially bitter to those who have been unlucky.

Manzi starts his post discussing the fallout from the Bernard Madoff fraud. Unless you've been sleeping or over-indulging in Christmas egg nog, you know that over $50 billion of other people's money was misappropriated, siphoned off and otherwise pissed away by one charmingly clever individual who apparently thought Charles Ponzi and the federal Social Security system were great role models.

Should the taxpayers bail out the Madoff victims? My gut reaction is not "no," but "Hell, no!"

But I think it will happen, at least to some limited extent. I also think that many average Americans are going to be very unhappy when they realize that our federal government is putting itself in the position of determining who are the true deserving and undeserving victims of our economic straits. This poses a potential for civil unrest, and that's not a good thing.

Thanks to the billions (trillions?) in financial experiments undertaken by the Administration and the Congress, it is not likely that we can avoid the economic pain ahead, especially considering the incoming Obama administration is even less economically savvy than its predecessor. The best advice for most of us is to pay off our debts as rapidly as we can, reduce our monthly overhead, and make preparations for a period of time that we pray will never come.

And if you're one of those people who still cling to the idea that "it can't happen here" because this is America or that God won't allow it, please try to remember that it already did happen here 80 years ago and the American people then were a lot more God-fearing and devout than they are today.

Have We Lost Our Republic?

This morning, with a cheerleaders' chorus of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the United Auto Workers union echoing in the background, the President of the United States says that he may use some of the $700 billion in "bailout" money to rescue the Big 3 automakers because of the "failure" of Congress to act to save them.

My first reaction is, "Has he lost his mind?"

(Many on the left would argue that you can't lose something you never had, and perhaps some of the right are now inclined to agree, but we'll leave this debate for historians to decide.)

My second reaction, sadly, came almost as quickly, and it is the one with which I find myself returning to continually today:

"Have we lost our Republic?"

Congress did not "fail" to decide. It was a decision. And the decision by a number of senators to oppose the bailout of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler was a reasoned one that can be defended upon philosophical, historical and constitutional grounds. Bailout backers may not like the constitutional rules that allow a minority to filibuster a proposal to death, but it was included by the architects of our system of government in order to slow down or halt just such a panic-induced stampede of legislation.

If George W. Bush proceeds to finance a bailout with taxpayer money after Congress refuses to authorize such, and We the People stand by and do nothing, you can kiss goodbye whatever is left of the remnants of our once magnificent experiment in republican democracy.

Forget about naming an "Auto Czar." If our elected representatives no longer control the purse strings of our government, then we have a real Czar instead of a president. (By the way, the word czar is a slavic form of Caesar, or Kaiser. Funny how words mean things.)

What happens next?

If Bush "rescues" the Big 3, it will be but the first installment of tax dollars that will be needed to prop up an industry that should instead be allowed to fail and rebuild. It will be mean that the only lessons learned are that rules are for chumps. And other businesses and industries, and governments, will grow louder in their demands that they, too, be "rescued." Soon, the federal government will "own" a piece of everything and everybody.

Welcome to the United Socialist States of America. Won't that be fun!

If Bush somehow recovers his sanity and abandons the rescue plan, it will mean bankruptcy and reorganization for at least two of the Big 3. It will mean pain, lost jobs, restructured contracts, and a new awareness of financial realities that might bring people to their senses, sooner or later. It will be ugly, the country will suffer, but the Republic and the freedoms that free men and women should enjoy will survive. After a time there will be a rebirth of jobs and opportunity.

But no one wants to go through pain anymore.

So my prediction is that we are about to go through worse.