History Repeating Itself?!...must be something I ate

Check out this 65 year old cartoon from the 1934 Chicago Tribune. Those crazy midwesters. Except for the names of the individuals doesn't this scene seem strangely familiar?

And I don't think the familiarity is necessarily because the cartoon is an accurate depiction of what's happening in our country today (although it could be that). The way I see it this is interesting as a historical piece no matter which side of the political aisle you feel most comfortable sitting in.

For example, if you are appalled by what's happening today and believe that President Barack Obama and the current political gang in Washington are drunk with power and spending us towards socialism, then this cartoon will definitely appear as an accurate depiction that what was happening during the Great Depression under Roosevelt is reappearing with new names and faces. Please feel free to pass it on to your friends.

On the other hand, if you don't believe that the amount of spending going on today is actually bad and that our surviving the Great Depression and the subsequent societal gains are the proof of that, then you could actually see this cartoon as a historical indicator that the anti-government reactionaries and naysayers have nothing better to pull out of their bag than the same old demons of communism and intellectualism. In that case show it to your friends and have a good laugh.

Interesting isn't it this great experiment in self government? It sure would be a lot easier if everything were black and white with no shades of gray, wouldn't it? You know I think sometimes the political pundits on both the left and the right actually sell us this lie, that things are just black and white. This guys a good guy. That guys a bad guy.

I don't know, maybe I just need corrective lenses but I see a lot gray on both sides of the political spectrum. I'd say political rainbow but I don't want to offend anybody.

The one thing I do appreciate about the process though is the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression that allows us to disagree, sometimes vehemently, at yet still remain Americans. That is a great thing.

For the past 20 to 30 years, I have, by choice, moved in conservative, right wing, religious circles. Politically I've been Republican. It has been difficult for me to be a Democratic during these years because I felt the party was so beholden to what I feel are radical elements in Environmentalism, Social policy and economics.

My heart has always been bent towards freedom and individual liberty which means that I believe strongly in limiting government's power over the individual. I've seen the Democratic party loyalties after Kennedy's assassination solidifying themselves more and more in ways that seemed to me to be an expansion of governmental power and control. If I was going to be a Democrat I'd have to be a blue dog choking for air since Harry Truman and John Kennedy. The only problem is that I come from the liberal Northeast and I don't have a southern twang.

And yet my ideas concerning limited government and individual liberty were not at all crystallized during my teen years. I spent the 1970's, like many others of my generation, wondering why the heck we were in Vietnam and disliking Richard Nixon. I mean how do we kill four college students at Kent State even if they are disrespectful and throwing rocks? That was scary. To this day no one has ever been brought up on charges for that one.

And seeing the race riots and the prejudice that existed against blacks...that was really harsh too. As a teenager I became suspicious of almost all governmental authority because they had the power to shoot you or club you and throw you in jail which seemed really oppressive to my young mind.

In my junior year of high school, my buddy and I got an A- from our English teacher for our anti-Nixon, anti-Watergate song and slide show. I argued a lot with my Dad back then who was clear about what side of the fence he was on. I mean he wasn't comical like the caricatured Archie Bunker and I wasn't as liberal as the caricatured Michael Stivick but we were a little like that back then. (for those of you who don't know who Archie Bunker is...I'm sorry...use Google, you may even get a laugh out of it.)

I think the reason why talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and even Bill O'Reilly have risen to such popularity is that they really do give voice to a silent group of Americans who do not and did not relate to all the turmoil that accompanied the 1960's and 1970's. There was such an emphasis in the media on the Civil Rights issues and the student protesters and the Vietnam War and the Environmental initiatives, all of which needed coverage don't get me wrong, but I think it left a lot of 'common folk' as Bill O'Reilly calls them (#1 cable news program in the US for over 8 years in a row?...that's got to say something) feeling like nobody cared about them. Yeah it might be white rage but I don't see everything in terms of black and white, remember?

So I think that when the Carter administration failed to unite the country while at the same time appearing weak and ineffectual against terrorists as gas prices and interest rates rose in an inflationary spiral, there was a backlash. Many Americans were embarrassed by how quickly the greatest nation in the world that had defeated National Socialism in Germany (Nazis) and put down the burgeoning empire of Japan was now somehow wallowing in self-pity and defeatism.

And into that vacuum stepped Ronald Reagan. With Carter hiding out in the Rose Garden and Luke Skywalker defeating Darth Vader on the silver screen, Reagan, the former actor, former governor, former Democrat rode onto the political scene like Roy Rogers on Trigger with both six shooters blazing. His speech was simple, direct and to the point: Government wasn't the solution to our current economic woes...it was the problem.

Now for those of you who either dislike Reagan because he was a Republican or just don't know enough about him because you are under 35 years old, I want to draw an analogy for you to help you understand how popular he was back in the 1980's.

What if Barack Obama came into office this past year and had to immediately deal with massive unemployment, a sinking stock market, runaway inflation, failing institutions, a car industry in ruins seeking help, high gas and oil prices, a weak real estate market, a divided electorate after eight years of unsatisfactory Presidential administrations including scandal and corruption at the highest levels, a terrorist threat from the Middle East and an enemy that was threatening to rule the world and moving into Afghanistan with armored tanks and personnel?

You're right. It does sound just like today. So maybe that is what President Obama is facing. But he's not the first. That was exactly what President Reagan was facing 28 years ago. And to make matters worse, on his 69th day in office President Reagan entered the hospital after a bullet from a would be assassin named John Hinkley Jr. punctured one of his lungs. Talk about facing a challenge.

So both President Reagan and President Obama started their administration's under fire, so to speak. Now what about popular support?

I don't think you can argue against the fact that President Barack Obama is very popular today especially among the younger generations in our country. In his presidential race against John McCain, President Obama won 28 of 50 states (365 electoral votes verus 173 for McCain) and had 9,500,000 more votes than John McCain. A pretty decent showing. I don't think it's too much to expect that his followers, at least, take this result as a clear mandate that the country wants the change President Obama was addressing during his campaign.

What many young people today may not know is that in President Reagan's first term in office, running against the incumbent President Jimmy Carter, Mr. Reagan won 46 out of 50 states (489 electoral votes versus 49 electoral votes) and had 18,500,000 more votes than President Carter. And, just for the record, in his second term in office, President Reagan, carried on by the strong economic recovery following the 1981-82 recession, carried 49 out of 50 states for a record 525 electoral college votes the most ever received in a Presidential election.

I'll leave it to you to decide how to define a clear mandate because my point is not to lessen President Obama's victory. I like the guy and obviously so do a lot of other folk. I did not vote for him, however, mostly because of his lack of governing experience and his voting record that leaned towards far left wing economic policy. But he won easily without my vote.

My point is that many of us didn't have the incredibly uplifting experience our country experienced during the Reagan presidency. Anyone who was born after 1975 probably wasn't old enough in 1980 to really understand the devastation our country was facing and then in contrast just four years later to experience what real change is and what it feels like to have the morale and the economy of an entire nation lifted back up from despair to hope again. We experienced that with the election of President Reagan in 1980. Right now I can only hope that we will experience it again with President Obama.

And back then I was a registered Independent like many of us that voted for Reagan. I finally registered as a Republican after the Reagan years when I moved to Colorado in the early 1990's. Today I'm seriously thinking of changing back to an Independent for reasons that extend beyond the scope of this 'public service' length email.

So back to the political cartoon. Is this current administration with their hope for change doing the right thing? No matter what I believe or say, the fact is only time will tell. But I know one thing, the Democrats didn't inherit from President Bush anything harder than President Reagan inherited back in 1981 from President Carter. You may not believe it but I lived through both periods and the facts pretty well bear out the truth of that statement. It was bad in 1978 and 1979...really bad. That's not saying that this current economic situation might not be harder to control because of how long it's been ignored, but we were in just as much hot water in 1980 as we are in 2008. In some ways it might have even been worse.

So since the Democrats now control both houses of Congress as well as the Presidency, whatever happens from here on out will be in their hands. There are no excuses left to blame on the last President or the Republicans or anyone else. This is President Obama's and the neo-progressive Democrats time to lead and let History write the story when it's all over.

For all of our sakes I hope that after four years of this Presidency we feel the same united hope and good feeling that Carol and I felt back in 1984 when we were just 26 years old, with one young child and a very bright future ahead of us. I desire that for this generation of young people also - the chance to feel good about what's happening and what's going to be happening in their future.
@ 2009 Joseph Ricciardi Jr

The Chicago Tea Party - be sure to NOT wear flowers in your hair

TRUTH WARNING! If you are not used to people speaking their mind with conviction, passion and freedom, this email may not be for you. This pill may be bitter and difficult for some people to swallow. No sugar has been added for taste.

Check out this video. An individual NEWS REPORTER with some passion, an opinion and who’s not afraid to tell the truth on national TV.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1039849853 (Rick Santelli – Chicago Tea Party)

This isn’t Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh…this is Rick Santelli, a ten year veteran reporter at CNBC working the Chicago Board of Trade.

Wake up America. Throwing good money after bad doesn’t “fix” an economy, it weakens it even further.

Although Franklin Roosevelt was very effective, a great communicator and much loved by the American people, it certainly wasn’t any of his economic pogroms (look it up) that got us out of the great depression. It was, unfortunately, World War 2. This knowledge is becoming more and more commonplace today among scholars and government officials. If you grew up with parents and journalists around you who adored FDR (like so many of us did), you may want to update yourself on what history is now saying about the Great Depression. The consensus more and more is coming to light that we would have been better to do nothing than to legislate the social programs of the 1930’s which only prolonged the Depression and did NOT end it or even get it under control for that matter.

And it wasn’t Bill Clinton or any government organization that made the 1990’s so prosperous. It wasn’t even Reagan’s tax cuts although lowering the corporate tax rates always stimulates growth and in the long run more tax revenues than raising tax rates does.
The two simple things that happened 15 to 20 years earlier that made the 1990’s so prosperous at least in terms of the stock market and investment returns was:

1. the invention of the microchip in the mid 1970’s and the subsequent rise of technology in it’s wake
2. the ERISA act of 1974 that allowed individuals a tax deductions for investing in the stock market using a vehicle known as an IRA

This video underscores how most businessmen and women really feel about redistributing wealth a.k.a. legalized theft under the guise of government aid.

We’d rather fail than bail because we know the fallout that results from bailout: when there’s no upside potential you turn the engine of productivity upside down and we go nowhere when the train’s on it’s back with the wheels spinning in the air.

Listen closely to exactly what Rick says while it’s still possible to turn this ship of state around. And if not, at least you’ll learn about what it will take to build a strong economy in the new country you may live in after the United States of America goes bankrupt. (for those of you who think this is impossible for a major world power to go bankrupt in the modern era please go to http://www.fas.org/news/russia/2000/russia/part08.htm )

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1039849853 (Rick Santelli – Chicago Tea Party)

Will our government listen before it’s too late?

For those of you old enough to remember we went through similar times to these in the 1970’s.
A republican President (Richard Nixon) who was extremely popular early on and then became a liability to the party.

- A gas crisis with Arab nations raising and lowering gas prices leading to inflationary and recessionary fears.
- A regionally strong, relatively unknown “man of the people” running for President of the US as a Democrat and winning (Jimmy Carter)
- Democrats control both houses of Congress and start raising taxes and spending money
- Carter creates the department of Energy and implements a National Energy policy emphasizing conservation, price control and new technologies (wind, solar, etc.)
- Under his watch Russia invades Afghanistan, we have the takeover of the American embassy in Iran Hostage crisis and we voluntarily give up control of the Panama Canal.
- Carter visited Cuba and the socialist dictator Fidel Castro, the first American President to do so since the 1950’s revolution.
- Carter attended the recall elections in Venezuelaand supported Hugo Chavez’s right to continue as “President” (socialist dictator) even when everyone else cried foul and believed - Chavez had rigged the polls. The European Union wouldn’t even attend the election because they felt that there were too many restrictions put on them and they didn’t want to be “seen” supporting Chavez. This didn’t bother Carter.
- Carter always seemed to take the side of the Palestinians in the Israel/Palestinian conflict even supporting known terrorist groups at times. Even as late as a few years ago, Carter published a book entitled Palestine: “Peace, Not Apartheid”, linking the Israeli occupation of Gaza with the White occupation of South Africa.

So Barack Obama, except for being from a mixed marriage (black dad, white mom) and having a weird name that sounds Middle Eastern, is not really that “new” of a political leader to those of us who are his age and older. We’ve seen this all before.

When Carter, who was a really nice guy but a terrible administrator, left office after just four years, we had runaway inflation, home mortgage interest rates between 18% and 21%, gold was at an all time high and the stock market was very glum during his administration with Forbes magazine rating the stock market as 8th lowest out of the 10 for the past 10 presidents.

And what’s even worse than that, and may be the single biggest factor to account for why we are in the financial crisis we are in today, was the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act signed into law by Jimmy Carter. (for more info go to http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/09/20/ibd-carter-more-blame-financial-crisis-bush-or-mccain )

Remember Carter is the same President that started Habitat for Humanity. If FDR was a ‘chicken in every pot’ kind of guy, Carter is definitely a ‘house for everyone’ type of guy. Not that the concept is bad…we’re all for that…it’s how we go about implementing that vision that is under attack. The Community Reinvestment Act (or C.R.A.P. for short) required banks and savings institutions to make loans to the lower-income areas in the communities they were in. Haven’t we been hearing about Toxic Assets and Mortgage bailouts a lot lately? The root of this idea that we banks must lend money to people that they know can’t afford to pay it back is in the Carter Administration. So like I said nothing new about Obama - just a different name and face.

But back to the original video: Rick Santelli’s Tea Party…if you read or watch nothing else in this email, you must watch this. It just happened a few days ago on national TV…it’s real, it’s live and it’s not all milquetoast and tea…it’s gut level stuff that doesn’t buy into the lie that it’s government’s “job” to help those that are failing…where to spend my money in the realm of charity is MY DECISION not government’s decision…and when you pay off someone’s mortgage or credit cards and don’t allow them to feel the pain or to fail, that’s charity…and charity begins at home not in Washington…churches, missions, non-profits, helping hands, volunteerism, boys clubs, girls clubs, United Way, YMCA’s, soup kitchens, Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity…all these are right ways to help…government mandates to private organizations and government bailouts to private individuals OR corporations (like GM)…is outside of their constitutional powers…it’s an abuse of authority and, we’ve shut governments down for much less in the past (i.e. the Boston Tea Party)

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1039849853 (Rick Santelli – Chicago Tea Party)

Will we listen and speak up and act out before it’s too late? Maybe we should all go to the Chicago Tea party…I wonder if Santelli will really do it? I wonder if our brethren who like and support Obama because of his fair words and pretty face will be able to discern between what’s right and wrong and stand up and really let him know how they feel or if they’ll crater under the weight of public opinion? At least Santelli wasn’t afraid to put his job and reputation on the line on the CNBC…I wonder if he’ll end up unemployed over this free exercise of his First Amendment right to free speech…what do they say about big government?…it’s only free when you’re not criticizing me…something like that.

If you’ve already been sipping the kool-aid of government expansion and bailout (our should I call it the Democratic re-election spending initiative which is what it really is…tax, spend and influence peddle), it MAY NOT be too late to stick your finger down your throat and spit it up…
By the way, Rick works in Obama’s backyard – the Chicago Board of Trade is, of course, in Chicago, Illinois, so not everyone from Illinois is a socialist or labor union sympathizer.

RICK SANTELLI
CNBC On-Air Editor

Rick Santelli joined CNBC Business News as on-air editor in June 1999, reporting live from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. His focus is primarily on interest rates, foreign exchange, and the Federal Reserve.
A veteran trader and financial executive, Santelli has provided live reports on the markets in print and on local and national radio and television. He joined CNBC from the Institutional Financial Futures and Options at Sanwa Futures, L.L.C. There, he was a vice president handling institutional trading and hedge accounts for a variety of futures related products.
Prior to that, Santelli worked as vice president of Institutional Futures and Options at Rand Financial Services, Inc., served as managing director at the Derivative Products Group of Geldermann, Inc., and was Vice President in charge of Interest Rate Futures and Options at the Chicago Board of Trade for Drexel, Burnham, Lambert. Santelli began his career in 1979 as a trader and order filler at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in a variety of markets including gold, lumber, CD's, T-bills, foreign currencies and livestock.
He is a graduate of the University of Illinois Champaign/Urbana with a Bachelor of Science degree. Santelli has been a member of both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade.