The Patriot Post® · It's the Economy, Stupid!

When it comes to economic matters, I’m not ashamed to admit that I know next to nothing. The reason I’m not ashamed to make that confession is because I realize that I share this failing with Barack Obama, all the Democrats in Congress, Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke.

Part of my problem is that the Stock Market, which is supposed to be a major indicator of America’s fiscal condition, always reminds me of that roomful of monkeys who, theoretically, given enough time just might write “Hamlet.” I don’t know the basis for that odd notion, but I think it far likelier that they’d eat a lot bananas and make a big mess. Sort of the way that liberals do.

I recall that some years ago I was shocked to hear that the Market had reacted badly to the news that unemployment had dropped below something like 5%. I recall asking some expert why low unemployment should have an adverse effect on the economy, but I believe I dozed off when he brought out his fifth pie chart.

But, knowing I was going to deal with this subject, I did a little research. The New York Stock Exchange Composite Index was 5,058 when Obama took office. About a year later, it stood at 7,051. This afternoon, it was at 8,016. Now how is it possible that with unemployment at 9.1%, underemployment about the same, and four trillion dollars of additional national debt threatening to turn the dollar into the 1929 version of the deutschmark, the market’s been rising during the Obama administration? The only answer that makes sense is monkey business. It’s no wonder that Bernie Madoff was able to con people out of billions of dollars for such a long time. I wonder who’s filled the Ponzi vacuum now that Bernie’s in the cooler.

To me, and I suspect the rest of the world, America must appear to be the world’s most spoiled and immature teenager. We’re behaving exactly like some boneheaded adolescent who’s trying to impress a girl by blowing his allowance for the next two thousand years.

What is truly odd is that liberals in Washington, who are hardly the most religious people you will ever run into, all seem to believe in miracles. I mean, what is it but blind faith that explains how it is that folks like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi fully expect Medicare and Social Security to continue paying out indefinitely at current rates when the money, according to agnostics in the field, is due to run out in the next few years? It makes you wonder why so many of these same politicians regard Christ’s conversion of water into wine as a parlor trick and Jonah and the Whale as far-fetched.

We refuse to dig our own coal or drill for our own oil, but we go on paying Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, whatever they demand – and, what’s more, we do it with China’s money. Which is also how we manage to subsidize the U.N., re-build Iraq and Afghanistan, bribe Pakistan and the Palestinians, support illegal aliens and over-pay and over-pension public sector union members. When the Chinese come to collect, do you think they’d be willing to settle for everything north of the Mason-Dixon line?

You would think China would at least insist that Obama cut down on the White House parties and the Hawaiian vacations, but perhaps they, too, have a bunch of chimpanzees in charge of their economy.