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Baloney Sausage!

by John F. Tamburo, Editor in Chief, Publisher
Originally Posted: 9/19/2008 10:00:44 AM

Barack Obama, the legend in his own mind, has announced that he will "refrain from presenting" his economic recovery plan in order to give the Fed and Treasury Department time to do their jobs.  Well, actually, Mr. Obama has no recovery plan, for what he said, in total, is, "Given the gravity of this situation, and based on conversations I have had with both Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, I have asked my economic team to refrain from presenting a more detailed blue-print of how an immediate plan might be structured until the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have had an opportunity to present their proposal."  You can read the entire article here.  So, why the title "Baloney Sausage" for this article?  Simple.  Mr. Obama, and the "economic team" have no clue whatsoever on what to do about this mess.  After all, it was the Democrat Congress that caused this mess, and Mr. Obama is a member of said Democrat Congress, and bears personal responsibility for a good deal of its malfeasance.

As Rush aptly noted on September 18, 2008, referring to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their relationships with the Democrat Congress, "The very people who messed it up, set it up in the first place.  The very people who create the problem then investigate it as though they were innocent bystanders and spectators and then they give themselves even more control of the mess they made ostensibly out of benevolence to fix it."  Now, the problem is very much out-of-control, and all fixes to the problem are contrary to leftist dogma.  We cannot have the government regulate us out of this mess, although some regulations, like the tough new reg against naked short-selling, are great ideas.  We’ll need to unwind the bad assets through a "Resolution Trust Corporation" type of organization, similar to what we used in the 1990s to unwind the mess the Democrats made of the S&L industry.

But I digress.  Mr. Obama cannot state his plan, because he has no real plan.  If he espouuses typical socialist/leftist tripe and announces even more bailouts and government takeovers, he will grate against the markets.  If Obama gains in the polls, the fear will drive the markets to despair levels, giving Mr. McCain a gigantic opening to propose common-sense resolutions.  Now, Mr. Obama can sit back and play "armchair quarterback" on the regulators, avoid actually having to stand for something, and hoping the people will actually fall for anything he says.

Obama’s own economic plan?  Baloney sausage!