“This is the greatest wealth destruction I’ve seen by a president.”
-Jim Cramer
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
THE GREATEST WEALTH DESTRUCTION BY A PRESIDENT
...Cramer goes nuclear on Obama
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22 comments:
Steve,
Here's another one from Rick Santelli on CNBC:
Santelli's Tea Party
Michele
blah, blah, blah.
Another free market capitalist that doesn't realize HE is the problem.
Bruce,
How much of your freedom do you want to lose before you will be happy about the misery of others who are being targeted with overtaxation?
Every time the government grows, you will lose that much of your own freedom.
I looked at your website where it says the following:
Bruce is a retired, ordained Baptist minister who is in the midst of a reevaluation of his religious faith.
For over 25 years Bruce pastored Fundamentalist and Evangelical Churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan.
Bruce is best described as a Religious liberal with universalist tendencies. His writing on religion reflects the current journey he is on.
Politically, Bruce is a registered Democrat and his writing reflects a progressive, liberal view of politics.
Bruce was a registered Republican for over 25 years and was a card-carrying member of the religious-right.
It could be a long discussion, but what disillusioned you about your faith to cause you to question it and basically do a 180?
Although you call yourself "a religious liberal with universalist tendencies", you say that you are still on a "journey", and are still "in the midst of a reevaluation of [your] religious faith".
So, I'm guessing that you are still not at peace with your present religious beliefs and are still looking for answers.
Interestingly, you have questioned both your faith and your politics so that both are liberal now.
What is happening with you right now gives evidence that faith and politics really do have a connection. They really do affect each other.
Comrade Bruce,
Go live in Cuba for awhile and complain about free market capitalism.
Jim Cramer is notorious for hyperbole, empty showmanship, and above all; being flat out wrong in his analysis of and predictions for the stockmarket.
Check out http://www.cxoadvisory.com/gurus/Cramer/ where Jim's record as an "expert" is exposed. To be fair, he is given a right of reply there which he undertakes vigorously.
Declaring that someone with the pop gun credibility of Cramer has gone "nuclear" on Obama isn't saying much.
Though Cramer maybe a bit of an entertainer as well - what makes his words worthy of note is that he has not been a conservative politically. IOW, he voted for Obama and is now realizing the ineptness of some of his policies concerning the economy.
Don't be too quick to throw the baby out with the bath-water on this one.
Yes, point well made Steve. And at least Cramer seems to be trying to bring some balance to his remarks. He mentions at least twice that the stock market isn't the only factor in the economic situation. In other words, he isn't really painting quite as simplistic a picture as he could have.
Still, as someone who jokes about stoning to death modern "prophets" who make faulty predictions, Steve, I think you might want to look into Cramer's tendency to often get predictions 100% wrong before giving him such a prominent position on COT.
TheOldAdam
That was my initial knee jerk reaction too :-).
Michele
Thanks for the link. Tea Party indeed!
Bruce
Any thoughts about Dodd and Frank in regards to Fannie and Freddy? Bush spent way too much in his last four years apart from the war on terror. No question. But the Dem's also have blame here too don't you agree?
To quote Reagan: "The government isn't the solution to the problem; the government IS the problem."
Oh for a man of his political conviction again.
And did you hear Erin Burnett on the Today show yesterday with Cramer and Lauer? It was surprising, for she is a very capable and knowledgeable economist; but her assessment of TARP, the debt, the bail-outs, etc. was that "there is a way to put it together... there is also a key which is psychology and that can be turned around and that needs to start and people need to start speaking more positively to feel more positively..."
What? Forget reality. Forget careful financial analysis Forget companies taking responsibility for their mismanagement and wild spending. Forget governments' lack of accountability and fiscal oversight. Forget the Wall Street speculators who are trashing the market daily. Forget the utter incompetency of the SEC regarding Madoff... etc. What is her sagistic advice? Just speak more positively to feel positively; and everything will just work itself out and all will be well. Oh man... someone has been drinking the Kool-Aid on their coffee break :-). She's much better than that...
What are your thoughts Bruce?
David
Steve, I think you might want to look into Cramer's tendency to often get predictions 100% wrong before giving him such a prominent position on COT.
Point taken.
To clarify - I am not endorsing all aspects of Cramer by showing this segment here. But I thought he offered some very good advice and expressed the concerns and frustrations of many of us in the hoi palloi concerning these things.
Thanks as always for your thoughts here.
My computer isn't willing to load the video right now, but I hope it's okay to make a couple of observations...
1. Bruce: Capitalism is not the source of our financial and social problems.
Sin is.
If man were not sinful, then he would naturally look after the needs of others. The fact that we can SEE the destructive effects of such sinful attitudes as greed and self-worship SHOULD cause us to take very seriously the Truth of God's Word.
The fact is, we ALL need Jesus' atoning blood covering our sinful hearts. If people were somehow capable of being "good enough" then Jesus' death was pointless.A societal shift to socialism is not going to "fix" things.
2. Jesus warned against dividing our loyalties and attempting to worship God and mammon (read Matthew 6--specifically verse 24).
I understand "mammon" to be this world and all it has to offer--This includes money, political affiliations, possessions and self-reliant religion which has been stripped of (or has added to) the Truth of Scripture.
If my god is mammon, then my solutions to problems will be worldly ones (which are temporarily, if *ever*, effective). Those who worship mammon will be crushed when their god is destroyed. Those whose hope is in Christ alone will be able to look beyond the current problems and trust that God's plan is best and none of this is out of His control.
Thank you, Mr. Camp for the ability to speak freely.
Heather
SJC: "Don't be too quick to throw the baby out with the bath-water on this one."
Aye.
Irony: Wall Street overwhelmingly supported the portending instrument of their demise, both financially in campaign donations and with their ballots last November.
Then there's that old aphorism about those who have little regard for the lessons of history being doomed to ... well, you get the point, I trust.
Thanks be to God our real eternal treasure is not susceptible to the corruption and decay of this world. ... "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world."
The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 gave control of our Treasury to private bankers who do not have the interest of the United States at heart. The Income Tax Act of 1913 gave the federal government the power to tax the personal income of every citizen and by the end of WW2 ever citizen who earned a waged was and continues to this day to be taxed. WW2, Korea, Vietnam drove our national debt to high levels. During 1972 President Nixon traveled to Red China. It was the precursor to the largest transfer of wealth in human history. Most of our manufacturing base has now been outsourced to China and other nations. Deregulation of banking in the 1990's and the cross breeding of banks, risky loans, investment houses and hedge funds has caused a perfect financial storm. In 2008 we elected a democratic socialist to the White House. You can mark it down - the USA as you and I know it is over. Decades of out of control government spending, recent trillion dollar attempts to prop up banks and other businesses (GM, AIG, Ford, etc), depleted savings and retirement accounts, a weak US dollar and coming hyper inflation will impoverish a large percentage of our people. The storm is just arriving and we have yet to see the tsunami and hurricane winds that are bearing down on us.
I'm glad I don't store my treasure on this earth. :)
Michelle wrote to Mr. blah, blah, blah...: "Every time the government grows, you will lose that much of your own freedom."
The late Dr. Schaeffer wrote: "When ... freedoms are separated from the Christian base, however, they become a force of destruction leading to chaos."
To which a one liner from the late Eric Hoffer lends a sobering tone: "When freedom destroys order, the yearning for order will destroy freedom."
Again, quoting Dr. Schaeffer from his writings in 1976:
"Overwhelming pressures are being brought to bear on people who have no absolutes, but only have the impoverished values of personal peace and prosperity. The pressures are progressively preparing modern people to accept a manipulative, authoritarian government.
"History indicates that at a certain point of economic breakdown people cease being concerned with individual liberties and are ready to accept regimentation. ... We have already seen indications of how people give up liberties when they are faced with the threat of terrorism. ... As insecurity grows, greed - with the goals of personal peace and affluence at any price - grows.
" ... They [western democracies] did not understand that freedom without chaos could not be separated from its [orthodox Christian] roots. ... The [democratic] system will not simply go on, divorced from its founding [orthodox Christian] roots. And the drift will tend to be the same, no matter what political party is voted in. When the [orthodox Christian] principles are gone, there remains only expediency at any price.
"... Pragmatism, doing what seems to work without regard for fixed principles of right or wrong is largely in control. ... Absolute principles have little or no meaning in the place to which the decline of western thought has come."
[Schaeffer, Francis A., How Then Should We Live?, c1976, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, pp. 245-250]
LivingDust
Excellent pathology. Thank you!
Deb B
Also, excellent analysis and some tremendous quotes from Schaeffer. Thank you too.
I will have to digest both of these posts for awhile.
What is sad is that in our current political culture, "wealth destruction" might actually be considered a noble, desirable thing.
Deb_B,
What you quoted by Schaeffer, especially this:
"... Pragmatism, doing what seems to work without regard for fixed principles of right or wrong is largely in control.... Absolute principles have little or no meaning in the place to which the decline of western thought has come."
...reminds me of what John Adams (2nd President of the U.S.) said:
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
Previous post deleted to correct typo.
Michelle opined: "..reminds me of what John Adams (2nd President of the U.S.) said:
'Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.'"
Amen.
I was just listening to something which goes thus:
"...We need righteousness and justice to flow down like a mighty stream.
Where are you going, my America?
I hardly know you, my America.
We need truth and justice to heal the land.
Love and honor for every man.
Where faith in God stirs our hearts again.
This is my America.
Every man does today what is right in his own eyes;
The absolutes are obsolete, ah, there is no wrong or right;
And the talk show host is our holy ghost, conscience and morality;
Character means nothing and truth a commodity;
So many search for peace in this troubled land;
But the hope for this nation is found in nail-scarred hands;
Where are you going, my America?
I hardly know you, my America..."
[Campi, My America]
"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land."
[2 Chronicles 7:13-14]
They should get off Obama's back!
The same stuff was said about Marx and Lenin...and they turned out to be quite successful...didn't they?
Thanks for liking to this, Steve. I hope this spreads to the man on the street to see that it is not only Fox news or Rush or Sean Hannity or Maulkin or L. Ingram or the Weekly Standard that are sounding the alarm; even the "money expert" on MSNBC gets it.
The main point seems to be that Jim Kramer is on MSNBC and so it is ironic that he is saying this on a station that usually stacked with talking heads for Obama and leftist policies. (except for Rick Santelli and he was "fried" by the left recently.
Excellent quotes from Francis Schaeffer.
Deb_B,
That is such a beautiful song by Steve..."My America".
BTW, another one of your quotes by Schaeffer reminded me of what Benjamin Franklin said.
Schaeffer said:
"History indicates that at a certain point of economic breakdown people cease being concerned with individual liberties and are ready to accept regimentation. ... We have already seen indications of how people give up liberties when they are faced with the threat of terrorism..."
And Benjamin Franklin said:
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Or to paraphrase, "People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."
Today, we see this also with the threat of terrorism within our borders. We may lose some of our freedoms for a little while, but we have to be careful that it doesn't become losing all of our freedoms permanently.
Wise, Well-Read Michelle opined: "And Benjamin Franklin said:
'They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.'
"Or to paraphrase, 'People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.'"
Point. X2
It all rather reminds one of Job 2:4, doesn't it?
"Then Satan answered the Lord and said, 'Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life.'"
"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
[Mark 8:34b-38; see also Matt 10:39, 16:35; Luke 9:24]
Word.
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