Swiss Francs Anyone?

The angst many of us are feeling now that Barack Obama is turning our country into a Socialist Democracy is something we just have to deal with. I was fairly certain there were enough people shocked by the sweeping move to the left since inauguration day, that republicans would easily win back the House in 2010. I have now realized the republican leadership in Washington is too far out of touch to deal with the Obama machine, and there aren't enough fire in the belly Americans willing to hit the streets.

Sadder still is there are so many Americans who want to be taken care of. The mantra that baby boomers do not want to feel any pain is true. We are spoiled. As a group we want everything to go back to normal without paying any price for having lived way beyond our means for the past couple of decades. I see some of that in myself, I am sorry to say. I don't need credit at this point in my life, but if I couldn't buy anything I wanted, I'm sure I would probably be in the liberal camp right now. Part of that is age, but there is something to the psychology of the baby boomer mentality, and we are the dominant age group in the country right now. Scarier still, we have raised our children to be worse than ourselves. College students just graduating today feel entitled to a corporate desk job, a house, kids, and a three car garage. Is there no humility left in the universe? Not much, at least not in the lower 48.

The best of the boomers are leading the corporations, even the government in a few cases. Millions have small businesses, but as a whole we have been moving up the socioeconomic ladder from starter home, to all brick, to homes that would have been considered mansions to our parents, in all but very few instances. Never mind the facade, or the wire mesh stucco, it still looks like a mansion. Not only that, we used the housing boom to finance all of our toys, our lifestyles, and now as we near the age when our earning power is about to decline, our homes have lost value for the first time, and as our 401Ks dropped dramatically over the past 18 months we have become terrified.

As a result we have turned to the knight in shining armor, the black man, who called for change, and personified change even in the color of his skin. We were, and most still are, convinced that because he is glib, because he is different, because he promises riches for all, that he will deliver. So, we ignore what we know. We ignore the fact that printing money causes inflation. We ignore the acts of government intrusion into private enterprise is by definition fascism. We ignore that Rhambo is strong arming even the DOW Jones on a daily basis, by controlling the financial sector, and flooding the market with early morning and late day transactions to bring stock prices out of the basement, and control the impact of news as it leaks out over the course of the day.

For those of you who have read Atlas Shrugged, Taggart Transcontinel is our GM, but there is no Dagney Taggart, and sadly no John Galt. But we are living the thesis Ayn Rand delivered after having escaped Russia as a young woman. She laid it all out for us to see. But the promise of having Uncle Sam take care of you is too tidy. We want to believe, and I am now convinced we will go on believing until all the grapefruit is gone.

There will come a day when we can no longer buy what we want because no one is there to produce it. Or if it is produced, no one to harvest. If it is harvested, no one to ship, and you get the picture. The big government, big spending ways eventually stifles the competitiveness of the capitalist spirit, and ultimately leaves the masses actually starving for lack of sustenance. There are signs of it all over the world today. Iceland, Greece, Europe, and we are not that far behind. With Obama pushing his radical agenda through a Congress with zero opposition, he will have successfully transitioned our entire government to the end of the scale on the left by 2012. Both parties have been moving in that direction on parallel paths for many years. If any of his programs show even the slightest chance of success, the people will continue to buy his message because we are so afraid to feel any pain. In a society who has had anything and everything it wants for so long, we are unwilling to recognize the facts of our current situation.

The truly conservative wing of the republican party, and the Americans who do subscribe to conservative principle, even in their own lives, will be there to pick up the pieces when this house of cards falls, but how long will that take to happen. An even better question and one that I am almost afraid to hypothesize, how long will it take to put the pieces back together, and will we even be able to go back once that capitalist pilot light is extinguished? I think so, but I may not live to see the result.

I have been fortunate to have been born in the early 50s in a country that appeared destined to rule the Earth for centuries to come on the basis of a government created by men with great minds who envisioned the human spirit achieving great new heights when left to the power of the mind, without the ruling class, with every chance to succeed on equal footing with equals, and even with ones betters, assuming you were sharp enough to recognize where you fit in. They were so right, and not only about what would succeed, but by how it could fail, if the federal government became to powerful.

The 16th amendment was the beginning of the government's ascension to total control, and the framers understood that. The Vietnam War changed us in so many ways, the worse of which were three primary negatives that have contributed to our ruination.
First and foremost, out of control deficit spending to finance the war, second, leaving the gold standard as the basis for our currency, and we cannot ignore the psychological impact on our collective psyche of losing respect for our government, our leaders, and ultimately the rule of law.

Over the ensuing decades the events of the late 60s and early 70s have resulted in a constant assault on our values. It has showed up one issue at a time, but all of a sudden, you are a racist if you believe in enforcing the border laws, you are a bigot if you believe in traditional marriage, and you are demonized if you voice opposition to liberal views and championed if you oppose the Judeo-Christian values our nation was based upon. Our president declared to the world that America does not consider itself to be a Christian nation. He stated we are a nation of citizens. No one objected.

It has taken several decades, and Barack Hussein Obama's promises of riches without sacrifice, to convince us to ignore the rule of law. This is the beginning of the end. When the president of the United States can go on national television and vilify private citizens for exercising the basic premise of contract law, and the people accept what he says, we are no longer a nation of laws. The president is sworn to uphold the constitution. The single biggest value of our government is the rule of law. Not 90% of the time, not when it is convenient, and certainly not only when it is in the interest of political expediency. The law demands 100% participation. It will work no other way.

We are stepping aside and giving our executive leadership the right and power to act with impunity in any way he sees fit for promises of reward without sacrifice. This is the end of our republic, and the beginning of a new kind of democracy. It is the kind of democracy where the government provides the sustenance. It will work for awhile. It will work until they run out of money. And make no mistake, they will run out of money. When the paper is no longer accepted anywhere outside the United States, we will be no more.

What then will replace the dollar? The Euro? Yen? The Real? I think not. We are the bastion of freedom and capitalism. When we go, so will freedom follow. The Swiss Franc is my prediction because they will never run out of other people's money. The Swiss are the only truly successful socialist government, but there aren't that many Swiss, and their government set up a clearing house to hide everyone else s profits from the tax collectors, and it is an equation that will continue to work as long as they hold on to what they have, and keep everyone at bay when the rest of the world is starving.

This is a bearish outlook for sure, and it has recently replaced my hopes for the Great American Tea Party, and a grass roots movement of Americans I believed wanted to take their nation back. Having followed as closely as I can, and listening to people I know, and many more I do not, it appears that most people really do want to be taken care of. Swiss Francs anyone?