What Does 2008 America Have in Common With 1920's Germany?

After the defeat of Germany and her allies at the close of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles specified that Germany was entirely at fault for having started the war, and therefore liable for all of the damage resulting from it. In the interwar years (1919-36, between WWI & WWII) the German Republic or Weimar Republic as it is now called, began paying economy-crushing war reparations. After some downward revisions, these reparations were levied at the then-astronomical sum of 132 billion Gold Marks, equivalent to approximately 200 billion of today’s US dollars.

Even though Germany had until 1984 to pay off this debt, the Great Depression combined with the greed of unscrupulous speculators and some international shenanigans over the Ruhr district made payment impossible. Left with no alternative, Germany began printing money at a ridiculous pace to meet its debts. This rapid expansion in the German money supply grossly devalued the mark and resulted in hyper-inflation. The mark dropped in value from approximately 40 per US dollar in 1920 to around 18,000 per US dollar in early 1923. By late 1923, the German paper currency was nearly worthless at something like four trillion to the dollar. In that year a pound of bread cost three billion marks, a glass of beer was four billion marks and a pound of meat cost a whopping thirty-six billion marks! (I’m not kidding, look it up!) It was literally cheaper for a German to burn his currency in his furnace than to use it to buy fire wood! And the entire mess was jump-started by some idiot who thought printing more money would pay the bills.

The crisis was eventually resolved by the issuance of a new German currency (The rentenmark, fixed in value and backed by real estate) and the later repudiation of the war reparation debt by a twisted little man with an absurd little mustache named Adolf Hitler.

Right now you’re asking yourselves “Where the hell are you going with this, Terence?”

Well, I’ll tell you where I’m going: I happen to have in front of me an article from the November 26th Edition of the NY Post that I’d love to share with you. (See “Start the Presses” by Paul Tharp p. 35.) It appears, according to the article, that the US Treasury plans to print some eight-hundred billion dollars in extra cash to buy a bunch of bad loans and mortgages, etc. According to Mr. Tharp, this will bring the total bailout package - past, present and yet to come - to eight point two trillion dollars. This is a staggering sum. (I'm not even sure what that many grains of sand would look like! We didn't even learn numbers like that when I was in school!) With the endless parade of corporations and industries coming to Washington with their hands out for cash, eight hundred billion may just be the beginning.

Not to sound alarmist, but is any of this starting to sound familiar? (Hint: YES!) This situation could easily spiral out of control.

But wait, it gets worse…

To keep up with the increasing demand for cash, the government is planning, according to Tharp, to expand two huge printing facilities which are already spitting out cash at full capacity.

But wait, it gets even worse…

To add insult to injury, the government is turning to a Swiss firm, KBA-Giori, SA to do the upgrade. The Treasury wants to contract with the Swiss giant to provide everything from labor to software and everything in-between on the project. Our President-Elect claims to want to create jobs for Americans through public works, etc… I submit that squashing this Swiss deal and keeping technical jobs like this at home should be his first priority.

Our money is one of those basics that helps define us as a nation. I prefer that it be made by Americans. I also prefer that it not be devalued into the toilet by overproduction, especially because some high-ranking idiot never took macro-economics or a history course. If however, we are going to be asked in the near future to endure hyper-inflation and struggle to the grocer’s with wheelbarrows full of cash, it should not be too much to ask that we at least be able to say that the money itself is the product of American industry.

We’ll be lucky if the dollar has half its current value by this time next year.

Why Americans should remain diligent.

A Post-Election Tirade

I sincerely hope I’m wrong, but here are some things we should be watching out for from the Obama Administration:

1 - Civilian National Security Force
2 - Cap and Trade program that may bankrupt the coal industry
3 - Fairness Doctrine
4 - The promotion of 1960’s style radical philosophies such as those of William Ayers
5 - The encouragement of divisiveness a’ la Jeremiah Wright
6 - Abortion legislation
7 - Supreme Court Justice nominations


The Civilian National Security Force = Police State. I don't know where Obama would get the money for it, but you know what kind of people would volunteer for it. Nasty little schmucks that are just champing at the bit to abuse whatever power they're given in order to force their world view on the rest of us. We'll probably find the little dirt-bags crawling all over our gas & electric meters spewing B.S. about carbon credits and writing out tickets.

I heard an audio clip of Obama speaking about his Cap and Trade Program. He said that his plan would "of necessity," cause our electric bills to "skyrocket." His words, not mine. He also said that he thought it was important to use pricing to moderate our behavior patterns. So, I guess if the Obama government wants to reduce our cholesterol, we’ll see eggs priced at $8.00 each and beef at $60.00 per pound.

Fairness Doctrine: Done deal: Fairness has nothing to do with it; the jackasses just can't tolerate dissenting opinion. Just because Air America has no listeners doesn’t mean conservatives should have to provide them. Obama makes his opinion of free speech pretty clear. Note that the dissenting newspapers were unceremoniously tossed off Obama’s campaign plane to make room for the likes of "Jet" magazine just a few days before the election.

Acorn.

Ayers.

Wright.

'Nuff said.

And I love his attitude towards botched abortion survivors. Maybe they should get a blanket while they lie alone in a room to die. Thanks Mr. Compassion! You know, if it's got 46 chromosomes, it's a human being, and if it's breathing it deserves medical attention, just like the grownups. We live in a country where you can get taken to court for throwing a rock at a damned pigeon, but you're branded some kind of a retard if you say abortion is anything other than what it is: a selfish murder for convenience.

And, of course my personal favorite: Wealth Redistribution. We have just damned-near nationalized our financial industry. Do we really need to be experimenting with a re-incarnated 60's radical communist at this juncture?

What sort of radicals will Obama nominate to the Supreme Court for confirmation by those leftists on Capitol Hill?

With a rubber-stamp House & Senate, this man will make big trouble, one amendment at a time. I still have hope that in the worst case, there will be a recoil in 2 years that will result in alot of Democrats loosing their seats, and the restoration of some sanity.

They will over-step. They can’t help themselves.

The best we can do is stay on top of these issues and stay in continuous contact with our representatives to make our positions clear. Maybe I’m wrong; after all, it was the moderates that elected Mr. Obama. If he realizes that, and is wise enough to lead from the center, we’ll be O.K. and I may (happily) find myself with my foot in my mouth.

I cannot repeat this enough:

"You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

May God Bless the United States of America, and preserve her from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Tirade concluded.

Beware Obama - Your vote is not a toy.

An Obama Presidency will be much, much worse than simply another Carter administration. Mr. Obama is throwing around ideas like a “Civilian National Security Force just as powerful as the military” and “The Fundamental transformation of America.” Given Mr. Obama’s far left tilt, these words of his should be scaring the hell out of you. This man just threw three right leaning newspapers off his campaign plane. I guess we know where he stands on free speech!

This man talks about redistribution of wealth in very benign terms, as if it’s no big deal. Given his association (in what is most likely a mentor-disciple relationship) with a known Marxist/anarchist like William Ayers, his (denied) twenty years of listening to the hate speech of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and his unwillingness to produce his records from the Illinois State Senate, I think it’s fair to conclude that he’s being cagey; that he’s talking about a bigger “change” than he lets on.

I think it’s fair to conclude that he’s is a Marxist.

What do we need a “Civilian National Security Force” for? Sounds like the Gestapo to me. What does he mean by the “Fundamental Transformation of America?” Sounds like he’s thinking of making major changes to the Constitution itself, doesn’t it? Don’t laugh, with an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, and a left leaning Supreme Court to rubber-stamp his ideas, he can make a lot of trouble - one amendment at a time.

Perhaps I’m being paranoid. After all, with all the money that’s just been doled out to bolster the financial industry, there won’t be much left to spend on Mr. Obama’s grand schemes. He has been making promises of all kinds to all people, and in the best case, that will make Mr. Obama just another liar making political promises he can't keep. I don’t see how he can deliver any tax breaks, health care or energy independence given the trillion-plus dollars of federal funds that have just been squandered by the Congress to bail out Wall Street.

All the same, I don’t see how we can afford to have a radical leftist in the White House just months after nearly nationalizing our banking industry. Now is not the time to use your vote as a toy. Use it unwisely, and it may just get taken away from you!

America in Distress

I have been annoying a lot of people lately. I’ve been called ignorant, racist, and a hate monger. I’ve been told that I’m resistant to change and a particularly mean spirited apparatchik told me to “enjoy my new surroundings come Jan 20th”.
My crime, of course, is not so much in my supporting John McCain, but in not supporting Barack Obama. It seems I’m unreasonable for wanting a good explanation for Obama’s association with a terrorist-turned-professor, an America-hating pastor, and a former mouth-piece of Yasser Arafat, among others. If I can’t get caught up in all the excitement, I must be a bigot!
I’m not a racist, and I’m not a hate monger. I just want my country left intact. I’d also like left-wingers to be careful in the way they throw around these terms. If any of these smart mouths ever actually encountered a real racist or hate monger, I assure you that they’d be too busy filling their pants to call him any names. A real racist is a truly nasty and evil piece of work, usually found in bunches.
I’m not at all resistant to change, but the use of the word bothers me when it’s not accompanied by specifics. Nobody really knows what either candidate’s tax plan is going to look like until Congress has had a chance to swine it up, after all. One thing is clear: raising taxes on the “rich” (however that is defined dollar-wise) means taxing the segment of society that makes the most investment and provides most of the jobs in the private sector. All taxing them is going to do is reduce investment and reduce the number of jobs available. We, as a nation, already had this discussion in 1980. Reaganomics, AKA trickle-down economics, AKA voodoo economics works. Ask anybody that remembers the double-digit inflation of the Carter administration and how it dropped off virtually overnight once Reagan took the helm. I wish Mr. McCain would make this point once in a while.
As far as the “new surroundings” comment goes, all I can say is: enjoy it while it lasts! Should Mr. Obama get elected, he’d better be careful not to let Pelosi & Reid get too carried away with their left wing antics. We’re in for a wild ride if this Obama-Pelosi-Reid government begins unrestrained liberal lunacy. The controversy over the “Fairness Doctrine” alone will likely cause a lot of turbulence, but the big trouble will come from the runaway inflation and soaring unemployment caused by their grand scale tax-and-spend policies.
Once the American people realize what they’ve done, and whom they’ve elected, they will begin to take corrective action. The recoil in 2012 is bound to be shattering. Mr. Obama and his team are well advised to heed the words of Abraham Lincoln:

“You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

Don’t forget to vote.