France: a case study in socialism's sustainability

Do you love President Obama and all his socialist leaning ways? Do you think it's time for America to abandon capitalism and embrace something more radical?

Why don't you ask a French resident first. Or a French CEO.

Selling policies to Americans on late night talk show

The first black presidential candidate of a major political party. The first black president. Soon he'll be the first sitting president to appear on a talk show. (Yes, another historic event! Now go on with your lives, please.)

Jay Leno and his producers would be proud. Clearly the White House thinks Obama supporters are the young, hip, night owls and couch potatoes, and by doing the Leno interview he'll be more effective in pushing his expensive and expansive policies. Well, good luck with that now that a lot of these supporters are also jobless and upside-down on their mortgages...

The majority of Americans have no desire for more bailouts. If Obama and his Democrats cannot understand this and continue to push their anti-capitalistic agenda, it will backfire on them as soon as 2010.

Rising inequalities in America?

Here's more evidence of liberals high on President Obama's multi-trillion dollar budget proposal. E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post griping about inequalities:

The central issue in American politics now is whether the country should reverse a three-decade long trend of rising inequality in incomes and wealth.

Politicians will say lots of things in the coming weeks, but they should be pushed relentlessly to address the bottom-line question: Do they believe that a fairer distribution of capitalism's bounty is essential to repairing a sick economy? Everything else is a subsidiary issue.

Dionne and many liberals seem to lack a clear understanding of capitalism. Capitalism works when the individual has the will and opportunities to work hard and accumulate wealth. Everyone can have the same opportunities, but not everyone has the will. Liberals tend to forget this facet and bring in the government as the Great Equalizer. That is socialism, not capitalism.

Capitalism is never fair because there will always be lazy punks who make the wrong decisions and waste their talents. Socialism wants to be fair, but that means taking money from the responsible members of society and feeding it to the lazy punks. No, thanks.

Government, please just stay out of the way. All I want is economic freedom and opportunities to work for my wealth.

Rick Santelli is my hero

Rick Santelli of CNBC is upset about the President Obama mortgage rescue plan, and rightly so. He and the traders at CBOE working around him are certainly the faces of good ol' American capitalism!

America already has superheroes to save her

Gerard Baker of The Times begs a superhero to save America:

But what Mr Obama really needs right now is a television superhero to help him to rescue the US economy. His inauguration as president in 11 days' time will take place in what can be described, without hyperbole, as the worst economic conditions the US has faced in at least 70 years. Data due from the Labor Department this morning is likely to show that the US lost more jobs, net, in 2008 than in any year since the Second World War. Economic activity in 2009 is likely to decline at its fastest since the same historic landmark.

Most alarming, not only is there no obvious end in sight, the evidence suggests that things are getting worse. Despite the bailouts last year, the financial system, crippled by the housing market disaster and folly, remains clogged and more big financial institutions are likely to be in trouble in the next few months.

He's right in calling the American consumer "the hero of the global economy," but the true superhero is good old fashion American capitalism. Unfortunately, Captain Capitalism is losing the battle against his Big Government, Big Spending nemesis, President-elect Barack Obama (now affectionately known as PEBO in the blogosphere). An $800 billion stimulus package. Are you kidding me? Read carefully and it's all about Obama's socializing education and health care. He's found his excuse to spend money, increase taxes, and all that anti-capitalism stuff.

Capitalism won't fail

Ariana Huffington believes capitalism is as dead as Soviet Communism. For her sake I hope it's not true because The Huffington Post launched with V.C. (that's venture capitalist) funding -- around $40 million after several rounds. Surely she has more faith in the system?

This world economic meltdown won't kill capitalism and is not evidence of capitalism's failure. In fact, the meltdown exposes the failure of government overregulation and unchecked greed. Capitalism favors those with, well, capital (cash). The banks that have survived in this meltdown are ones with enough cash and not the ones betting everything on real estate properties and their derivatives. Same with car companies. Or any company for that matter.

People fail to realize that capitalism works with capital, not credit. Americans have gotten used to finance every purchase, from cars to televisions to furniture, instead of paying cash. Those households abiding the "cash is king" rule will do just fine in this economy. Same goes with companies. Firms operating with little or no debt will survive this economy. That's capitalism.

Ultimately liberalism brought down Wall Street, not terrorists

Wall Street, the stock market, the Twin Towers. These are icons of Western capitalism, or even more specifically, American capitalism. The free market catapulted America into a world power, wealth amassed and opportunities abound. In the eyes of Islamic terrorists, America was corrupting the world -- their world of purity and faith. Our enemies would make many attempts to destroy not only these symbols of America's financial achievement, but also have no regard for human life.

Today capitalism is diseased and the American dream shattered. Al Qaeda couldn't have hoped for a better attack on America and the Western world. But this time terrorists didn't do a thing except watch TV as the news cycles break story after story of bear markets and economic doom.

On February 26, 1993, Ramzi Yousef drove a rental truck into the underground garage of the WTC North Tower then detonated the 1,500 lbs. of explosives. Six people died and thousands injured. The Twin Towers were damaged, but still stood -- an icon still.

Then the 9/11 attacks struck. Al Qaeda terrorists flew passenger airplanes into the Twin Towers, causing them to eventually collapse. Islamic terrorists danced in the streets when they saw the news footage of the towers' downfall. The stock markets closed on that day of infamy and reopened on Sept. 17 to a 7.1% decline. By the end of the week it'd fallen 14%, wiped out nearly $1.4 trillion in value for the week.

However, Wall Street titans still stood firm. Business conducted under a cloud of despair, but there were no major bankruptcies or fire sales.

Now look at where Wall Street stands today. Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merrill, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Washington Mutual, Wachovia, IndyMac -- those are just the major institutions. Many other regional and smaller banks have failed. Subprime mortgages are blamed, but the deeper issue lies in how American liberalism influenced Washington policies and the adverse effects trickled down to Main Street from Wall Street.

Liberalism is the disease which sucked the life out of American capitalism. For decades Democrats in Washington have willingly manipulated our free market under the guise of social equality and fairness. We are now just getting a taste of the bitter fruits of their labor...