We get your drift .............too bad it's blowing the

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The Federal Reserve (Fed) has gone beyond playing with fire, and may have indeed set the house on fire. It�s one thing to push interest rates to near zero to stimulate the economy; it�s another to �monetize the debt� by printing money to buy government debt. In recent weeks, the Fed has broken outside even those boundaries and become actively engaged in managing the private sector beyond the core banking system. Worse still, the steps taken may be difficult to reverse and as such may shape the U.S. economy for a long time. These steps are taken with the best of intentions, to �save� the economy. The only trouble is that we may be on a slippery slope to destroying capitalism on the way. In �doing whatever it takes� to get the economy back on its feet, the Fed risks destroying the foundation of why the U.S. has been able to establish itself as the world�s leading economic force. Actively participating in credit allocation within the private sector, the Federal Reserve (Fed) jeopardizes the capitalist foundation the U.S. economy is built on. As a result of these actions, the U.S. may be on its way to becoming a modern incarnation of a planned economy.

Why these harsh words? To understand what is so frightening with recent Fed activity, consider that most central banks focus on interest rates, inflation and money supply to promote price stability (and maximum employment in the Fed�s case). Generally, they all influence credit creation by managing the cost of borrowing. Central banks may employ slightly different levers and targets; and while some central banks are better than others at achieving their goals, what they have in common is that they traditionally focus on government debt, mostly short-term Treasuries, to achieve their goals. This is very much by design as good central bank policy leads to an environment of price stability fostering long-term economic prosperity. On the other hand, bad central bank policy may lead to inflation, wide swings in economic activity or unnecessarily high unemployment. However, free market forces will push the private sector to make the best of it. It�s when policy makers start subsidizing ailing sectors of the economy that distortions are created that will come back to haunt us. Traditionally, for better or worse, elected officials decide on the socio-economic fabric of society. Now, the Fed decides which areas of the economy need to be propped up.

The hysteria that has been created by policy makers and the media has allowed the Fed to pursue its recent unorthodox policies. In late September, the world financial system looked rather dire; the government was able to play a role to avoid a disorderly collapse; but the government�s role should have been limited to allowing an orderly adjustment of the excesses of the credit bubble. Instead, the latest salvo to promote the bailouts is that payrolls have dropped by the largest amount since World War II. This may be the case in absolute numbers as the population has grown, but more jobs were lost as a percentage of the workforce in a twelve month period in each of 1982, 1961, 1958, 1954, 1948/49; in many of the cases more than twice as many. Recessions are no fun, neither are personal or corporate bankruptcies; but they may be the cure needed to weed out the excesses of the boom. In contrast, today, hedge fund managers that ran their funds into the ground are raising hundreds of millions of dollars to start anew. Some of the folks that ran Long Term Capital Management into the ground in 1998 started fresh only to have another massive failure in the current credit crisis. We don�t expect the new breed of second chances to be any better. And while the blame lies with the managers, excessively low interest rates contribute to irrational risk taking: all of the bailouts focus on those who have been over-leveraged. What about the group of responsible savers that rely on income? With interest rates near zero, many are tempted to engage in highly leveraged strategies to meet their required income objectives. Pension funds �must� return 6% per year, leaving them little leeway but to give money to hedge fund managers to magically turn 1% yields into 20% returns; the way to achieve this is with leverage. Actually, there is another way: the Swiss public pension fund system just announced that it will scale down its long-term return objective to 4% from its current 6% per annum.

In late December, the Fed Board of Governors approved GMAC�s application to become a bank. The vote was 4-1, and the one board member with experience as a bank regulator, Elizabeth Duke, dissented. There was another hurdle: GMAC, General Motors� finance arm, did not have sufficient capital to be a bank. That problem was solved, too, in early January, as the Treasury injected $5 billion into GMAC; the Treasury also GM $1 billion, so that GM could inject that money into GMAC. Equipped now with a minimum capital base, GMAC is able to operate as a bank, go to the Fed to access the TARP program, as well as other regular and emergency Fed windows.

In December, car sales fell off the cliff. But it wasn�t only GM that had problems; even Toyota that had access to credit and introduced zero percent financing, recorded a 37% plunge in sales (unlike other car makers, Toyota has traditionally not offered zero percent financing). Shell-shocked consumers are worried about their jobs and have lost a substantial amount of their net worth in 2008; further, incentive programs prior to the bursting of the credit bubble lured consumers into 6-year loans with zero percent financing. Consumers simply don�t want or need a car right now. Policy makers take this as a reason to provide money to GMAC that pursues a business model proven to be ruinous: it simply doesn�t make sense to offer cars at 0% if interest rates are above that, even if they are �close to zero� as they are now. GMAC takes money from the Treasury to be able to request more from the Fed. And the first course of business for GMAC is to extend zero percent financing to consumers with lower credit ratings than had traditionally qualified.

The Fed is only ramping up its mission to allocate credit where the Fed � rather than the free market - deems it appropriate. A major program announced in the fourth quarter, but rolled out in early January consists of a $500 billion program to buy mortgage-backed securities (MBS). The perceived positive is the plummeting of mortgage rates. Consumers with superb credit now qualify for 30-year mortgages at less than 5%. One problem with such programs is that the Fed intentionally inflates prices (lowers the yields) on these securities; in turn, rational market participants may abstain from buying them. As a result the Fed risks replacing private sector activity, rather than encouraging it. Furthermore, the Fed jeopardizes the dollar as foreigners may be discouraged from buying U.S. government and agency security debt; given that the U.S. has become dependent on foreigners to finance its spending needs as well as the unprecedented debt that will be financed in 2009. This is a very dangerous road to be on.

The Fed may be able to phase out its commercial paper subsidy program or drain liquidity from the TARP program over time; however, the $500 billion MBS program may be difficult, if not impossible to unwind. Indeed, the design of the MBS program calls for holding of the securities until maturity. For practical purposes, this means that the Fed�s balance sheet is not just �temporarily� inflated, but that the Fed will permanently keep more money in the economy. Traditionally, the Fed�s balance sheet is $900 billion. Therefore, even if one gives the Fed the benefit of the doubt that the current escalation to over $2 trillion is temporary, there will be a significant hangover as not all additions can easily be removed. This doesn�t even consider that, quite likely, the MBS purchase program may need to be extended beyond the 6-month period it was put in place for. Watch for bond manager Bill Gross this June, calling for the Fed to continue buying MBS, preferably the ones he has on the books, to save the economy from collapse. Incidentally, his firm, PIMCO, is one of the firms managing the Fed program.

To counter the effects of this added money in the economy, the Fed would need to keep interest rates permanently higher. One realistic alternative, however, is that the additional money will stay in the economy as draining it would cause too much economic hardship. This may well embed inflation into the U.S. economy for years to come. Importantly, note that there is little, if any, accountability at the Fed monitoring its actions; no one is there to ensure that the Fed will, at some point, phase out its programs or added powers.

By engaging in credit allocation to specific sectors of the economy, the U.S. is stepping into a territory traditionally left to governments with a socialist or communist brand. Communism has shown us that planned economies don�t work. New Hampshire in 1945 added the slogan �Live Free or Die� to its state emblem, a quote stemming from a general in the Revolutionary war. Translated to the economic crisis, this should mean that a severe recession ought to be the lesser evil than a planned economy. And to continue the parallel, when communism swept Eastern Europe, the standard of living for everyone dropped. In today�s world, we already see that the �re-failure� rate of those who defaulted, then renegotiated their teaser rate loans, is above 50%. Yet all taxpayers have to pay the price for the bailouts.

To be sure, we are a far cry from communism. But we must keep our eyes open and not be blinded by the perceived �help� of money printed by the Fed. Debt is the origin, not the solution to the problems we face. The Declaration of Independence�s �life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness� may be difficult to achieve when drowned in debt; building sustainable wealth without the shackles of debt may be the more appropriate path. It�s not by mistake that the Founding Fathers be backed by a precious metal that cannot be inflated to give in to the temptation of the day.

Glenn Beck. (Photo: Jennifer Ackerman / Deseret Morning News)

Idiott wind, blowing like a circle around my skull,
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.
Idiott wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiott, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.
- Bob Dylan

One thing is certain: martial arts movie star Chuck Norris does not like President Obama. Not at all. Not one little bit. Norris dislikes Obama so much, in fact, that he discussed running for the office of president of Texas, which doesn't exist, as part of a larger move by him and a variety of other right-wing groups to overthrow the American government and return honor and decency to the country.

No, really, he said all that, and more. Read it yourself if you don't believe me. The best part is where he writes, "Remember the Alamo!" Great stuff.

Or something.

There's more. The owner of right-wing web forum Free Republic, Jim Robinson, was recently forced to post a truly deranged piece of apologia regarding the attention his web site recently earned from the Secret Service. "Unfortunately," wrote Robinson, "we are saddled with a communist sympathizer in the White House. I don't know whether or not he's an actual card carrying commie, but he's definitely an America-hating, anti-capitalist Marxist leftist who thinks communism is the way to go. So now comes the problem. If you feel it's your duty to call Obama a traitor and use salty language in your proposed resolution, ie, suggest the commie be keelhauled, walked off the plank, run up the yardarm, tarred and feathered and run out of Dodge, etc, etc, etc, you may be facing a visit from your friendly Secret Service."

"Keep," wrote Robinson in closing, "your powder dry." Yeah, O.K., good thinking.

Or something.

Last month, Fox News celebrity Sean Hannity ran a poll on his web site. It asked readers what kind of revolution they'd prefer: military coup, armed rebellion or war for succession? "#3 seems most realistic," opined Hannity, "since it does present an opportunity for more homogeneous states to sort of capitalize on their homogeneity. However, it would likely lead to mass migrations of the minority partisans out of the rebel states. Of course, that may be fine with those states. Yet it seems that the ultimate paradox in any rebellion for freedom from within is that the ultimate goal is to impose the will of the rebels on everyone else through force. It seems the very foundation of representative democracy is ****tered if we accept that we exchange the power of ideas for the power of the sword upon each other. Nevertheless, I am still very interested in your own preferred form of revolt."

That page has since been removed from Hannity's web site, surely due to some technical glitch, but before it was taken down, "armed rebellion" appeared to be the most popular choice of the three.

Of course.

Earlier this week, right-wing loudmouth Glenn Beck asserted during his radio show that President Obama's lifting of the ban on embryonic stem cell research would open the way for the genetic development of a new master race. "So here you have Barack Obama," said Beck, "going in and spending the money on embryonic stem cell research, and then some, fundamentally changing - remember, those great progressive doctors are the ones who brought us Eugenics. It was the progressive movement and it was science. Let's put science truly in her place. If evolution is right, why don't we just help out evolution? That was the idea. And sane people agreed with it! And it was from America. Progressive movement in America. Eugenics. In case you don't know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening. So I guess I have to put my name on yes, I hope Barack Obama fails. But I just want his policies to fail; I want America to wake up. "

One assumes this forthcoming master race will enjoy minds of greater volume and depth than Mr. Beck's, because, well, people just can't get much dumber than this. It would be a profound waste of genetic material if we went out and created some master race that, like Messrs. Beck, Hannity and Robinson, was incapable of rational thought or speech. Just an idea.

There is even more out there like this, from all over the place, with each seemingly trying to out-weird the other. So, yeah, it appears a fair portion of America's hard-right population, along with most if not all of their spokespeople and commentators, have been driven absolutely, positively bat-poop crazy by the election of and policies by Barack Obama.

The trend has been sucking in more and more high-profile members of the conservative community. Newt Gingrich was forced to jump up and down on Rush Limbaugh for saying he wants Obama to fail. Limbaugh responded by calling Gingrich "a fly-by-night operator," who can't be depended on and who "will sell you out." Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah came close to threatening Arizona with an infestation of crickets to shut John McCain up about earmarks in the budget. Conservative commentator David Brooks called House Minority Leader John Boehner "insane" after Boehner called for a complete freeze on federal spending as an answer to the ongoing economic crisis.

Perhaps the most resounding cannonade fired at conservatives by a conservative was David Frum's Newsweek article lamenting the sad state of the party, and the ongoing catastrophe represented by the ascendancy of Limbaugh. "Even before the November 2008 defeat," wrote Frum, "even before the financial crisis and the congressional elections of November 2006 - it was already apparent that the Republican Party and the conservative movement were in deep trouble. And not just because of Iraq, either (although Iraq obviously did not help)."

"Every day," continued Frum, "Rush Limbaugh reassures millions of core Republican voters that no change is needed: if people don't appreciate what we are saying, then say it louder. Isn't that what happened in 1994? Certainly this is a good approach for Rush himself. He claims 20 million listeners per week, and that suffices to make him a very wealthy man. And if another 100 million people cannot stand him, what does he care? What can they do to him other than ... not listen? It's not as if they can vote against him. But they can vote against Republican candidates for Congress. They can vote against Republican nominees for president. And if we allow ourselves to be overidentified with somebody who earns his fortune by giving offense, they will vote against us."

Unfortunately for Mr. Frum and any conservatives who share his concerns, it does not appear any of the hard-right noisemakers have any intention of moderating either their tone or their tantrums. Maybe it will be another couple of months before the swelling from that electoral bruising goes down enough for these people to calm themselves, but at this point, it ain't happening.

The hardest part for the GOP? Neither Obama nor any other Democrat have been required to say a word about any of this. The right-wing shouters do their shouting, get shouted at by other right-wing shouters, and a perfect circle of Republican self-destruction is formed.

Stay tuned ... and, yeah, keep your powder dry.

Or something.

Gallup has Obama at his lowest numbers in their polling at 58% approval (down from a high of 69%) and his approval index remains low at +1 on Rasmussen. The approval index is computed as the difference between those who strongly approve minus those who strongly disapprove.

And, both pollsters say that the difference is the growing disenchantment of independents. Republicans and Democrats have held fairly steady opinions, although some Dems are also beginning to have buyer's remorse.

ABC News is going to try to pull Obama's fat out of the fire on healthcare by turning the whole network over to the White House while allowing no dissenting views (bananas, senorita? we have some berry, berry nice fruits here in Banano Republico), but it's safe to predict that it won't work.

Meanwhile, Obama is spending more time denouncing Fox News than Kim Jong IL or the ruling clerics in Iran - and meanwhile Fox viewership continues to grow and grow and grow. None of his folks will come on Fox, of course, so yes - you do hear the faint sound of chickens clucking in the background.

The longer this man is in office, the more cracks we see in his character (i.e., that it really didn't matter to us which Iranian candidate was declared the winner, which betrayed a singular lack of commitment to the principles of democracy) and the more his inexperience shows (i.e., that he doesn't realize that the American people don't want anymore of his programs and spending).

I think that this is the fastest I've ever seen an American public grow sick and tired of a President. The best thing for him to do would be to keep his ugly mug off the TV right now. If he rotates his czars out in front of the camera, one a week, we wouldn't have to look at him for months and months.