George Rebane
Our ongoing theme on the nation’s economic stagnation – Depression2 – led by California is abetted by Linda Erdmann’s piece – ‘Fleeing the Golden State’ – in the 6feb16 Union print edition and a couple of cogent ZeroHedge links (here and here) sent by Russ Steele on the dissimulation that Team Obama and his progressives are spreading about the great state of the nation’s economy. (See also the 9feb16 Sandbox.)
Catch & Release illegal aliens has been Obama administration’s reinstated sub-rosa policy of border control. The existence of this great National Lie was communicated to Congress in testimony by a Border Patrol executive that illustrates how every one of Obama’s cabinet secretaries promotes perfidy in covering up what their departments are really doing (more here). HSA’s Jeh Johnson’s ongoing lies about our borders being more secure is based on the reported reduced number of arrests made of illegal entrants. However, the Border Patrol explained that they have been working under orders to release all illegals caught at the border who declare they have been in the country since 2014 and are not criminals – no further vetting of such claims are allowed, the individual is simply released on his own recognizance and told to appear at a future immigration hearing. Hence arrests are down, no one shows up at their appointed hearing, and the borders remain open to all who remember the magic ‘Get out of Jail’ mantra.
‘$100 Trillion Up in Smoke’ trumpets the usually sensible financial pundit John Mauldin about the recent drop in the price of crude. Such pronouncements join with headlines like ‘Investors dump tech stocks’. Nothing could be further from a more sober understanding of what’s going on. Markets price things at the margin – i.e. the money exchanged during the last buy/sell event. Current market price never implies that you can buy nor will anyone sell the whole inventory at that figure. For example, had you the money, you could not buy all of the world’s above ground crude oil at the current $31.00 a barrel. If you tried, the price would immediately sky rocket. In the same hysterical vein investors did not dump tech stocks because the stocks were simply bought by other investors, not by potted plants nor were they flushed down the toilet by their previous. It’s best to pay attention and not get caught up in misleading one liners.
[update] More on Obama’s strangling our liberties and economy, and California’s secure place as America’s least free state in terms of personal liberties and business freedoms (more here). McKee’s cartoon says it best.
[9feb16 update] Bolshevik Bernie is cranking up his class warfare rhetoric which is easy to compare to the rhetoric heard on the streets of Moscow in 1917. And it is lapped up enthusiastically by the new class of certifiably mindless millennials who have no idea what they will be voting for this year. They might consider what socialismo has brought to Venezuela in their lifetime (with empty store shelves and citizens driven to destitution but kept in line by government guns). Their little heads have been carefully kept empty in America’s universities finds the National Association of Scholars after surveying the humanities reading requirements at 350 colleges (more here). Also explains a lot about the political leanings of many high tech executives in Silicon Valley.
rebanesruminations.com 
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