The Forgotten Man

"They are always under the dominion of the superstition of government, and forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion -- that the state cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man."

William Graham Sumner - 19th century economist

A Word From one of Our Sponsors

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. --- John Adams

Ol Fred has it Right

Dear Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

I just wanted to take this time to thank you for everything you have done for me the past two years. With what is going on with Congress I unfortunately will not be able to retire because I have lost thousands of dollars in my retirement fund and had to sell my house for about $80,000 less that what it was worth two years ago.

I know the media and many politicians are quick to blame our current President but here are the facts as I know them...and if I am wrong, please feel free to corrected them.

George Bush has been in office for 7 1/2 years. The first six the economy was fine. A little over one year ago:

Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;

Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;

Unemployment rate was 4.5%;

The DOW JONES hit a record high-14,000 +

American's were buying new cars, taking cruises, vacations overseas, living large! But American's wanted CHANGE! So, in 2006 they voted in a Democratic Congress and yes--we got CHANGE all right and you were in charge. In the PAST YEAR:

Consumer confidence has plummeted ;

Gasoline is now over $4 a gallon & climbing;

Unemployment is up to 5.5% (a 10% increase);

Americans have seen their home equity drop by $12 TRILLION DOLLARS and prices still dropping; 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

As I write, THE DOW is probing another low~$2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS HAS
EVAPORATED FROM THEIR STOCKS, BONDS & MUTUAL FUNDS INVESTMENT
PORTFOLIOS!

YES, IN 2006 AMERICA VOTED FOR CHANGE...AND WE SURE GOT IT!


Everyone keeps blaming the President, but he has absolutely NO CONTROL over any of these issues...only Congress - and you are in charge!!!!

Looking at the record to determine what Congress has done the past two years, you've done NOTHING but destroy the lives of hard working Americans.

You've lied to the public and you are a disgrace to what this Country stands for. I fought for our FREEDOM, spending 34 years in the United States Air Force, and I'm not going to give up that FREEDOM to the idiots in Congress in Washington who think they are "in charge."

Please note that I didn't once mention Democrat or Republican...Conservative or Liberal (until this paragraph)! It doesn't make any difference what party is in charge, Washington is SCREWING the Americans and it has to STOP!!!!!

You'll notice if you go to my website link www.the-rosenthal-group.com my business evolves around waste and recycling. Our goal is to cut back the waste and recycle as much material as possible. Seems to me I could expand our business to include wasteful politicians and recycle them in November.

I've saved businesses millions of dollars with our program...TURNING WASTE GREEN...think it would work in Washington?



Fred J. Rosenthal
Waste & Recycling Consultant

Dick Morris Unloads on Alan Colmes

The Real Deal

So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:

The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.

Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.

Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.

Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.

The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.

Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.

Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as
collateral.

The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.

An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.

Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising
forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.

The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.

–by Joe Miller and Brooks Jackson

Good Lord John!

I am getting tired of hearing that getting legislation passed is like making "sausage". The inference being that the process is messy, but everyone likes the result. True perhaps, but there is one difference from making sausage and this legislative process. In sausage you don't add ingredients that can kill the one consuming it.

So with this in mind John McCain votes yea on this Bailout, excuse me, Rescue Bill. This the man that abhors spending but is willing to agree to the largest spending bill of them all. John, my friend, your message is mixed.

I understand that you believe this credit crisis is a real risk to our economy, I agree with you. I as your supporter just don't understand fully, why you would abandon what you call a core principle.

I understand that under this current system compromise is necessary. It is saddening however that you find yourself in this position. I know you are a good man and you not I have seen the evidence. Having that perspective you voted your conscience. This I don't doubt.

I just unnerves me that it is also the way Obama voted, and opposite to the conservatives and Joe Liebermann. It raises the question why? John? Did you listen to Jeffery Miron's arguments.... I have.