Karl Denninger's Personal Blog

Let’s think about 2005 for a few minutes, and try to take stock of the year that is about to pass into the history books…..

Some benchmarks and events to go out of 2005 with….

• The Iraqi people held two elections this year – free elections.  The first in that nation’s history.  Both were credible, both were democratic, and neither was “shut down” by the insurgents.  Whatever else you might want to say about George “W” Bush, you must give him credit for being the reason this happened.

• Saddam, during his trial the other day, proclaimed that the United States “doesn’t know how to torture”, claiming that our interrogation methods are an “embarrassment” compared to his former methods and means, and bragging that Iraq used to have – and should have – “world-class” torture.  Does anyone still really believe we should have left this guy in power?

• The Dow finished slightly down for the year.  The Nasdaq and S&P500 finished slightly higher; call it even between them all.  The Dow was hurt badly by GM’s “falling apart”, which can be traced directly to organized labor and its incessant demand for entitlements. There is a lesson here if we care to learn it; what has befallen GM is about to befall the entire nation.  2006 marks the start of the boomer generation’s “official” move into being “senior citizens”.  Our entitlement mentality in this country – Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid – is going to bankrupt us 30 years down the road unless we make radical changes.  2005 also brought us another example of the same thing, in the form of the MTA strike in New York.  Of course in typical New York “screw reality” fashion they ignored the issue and didn’t actually solve anything.  This train is on a circular track folks….

• Speaking of Medicare and Medicaid, this year has also marked the first time we’ve actually heard people talking in other than “hushed tones” about the truth regarding medical expenditures for old folks – most of what we blow on medication is self-inflicted.  In other words, we prefer to pop a pill instead of getting off our asses.  Then, we demand that someone else pay for that pill – after all, if we can’t be bothered to exercise why would we spend our own money on our medication when we can pick someone else’s pocket?  This is a discussion you’re going to hear more of, and you should.  Sooner or later, you see, society is going to be unable to fund those pills – you’re either going to have to come up with the money yourself, die, or get off your ass.  You might want to think about all that before it happens – after all, getting off your butt and actually making your body do some work can be fun – not to mention healthy.

• Tax reform.  Social Security, Income Tax, etc.  What a joke – one of the worst ones of 2005, in fact, since these issues are VERY real and leaving them unaddressed is borderline criminal. There is exactly one real tax reform plan floating around out there that will work, un-taxes the poor, is progressive, does not penalize investment and business development, and ties the growth of government to the growth of the GDP – and aligning those things is important, as it means that government needs to care about its impact on your wallet.  Its called the Fair Tax, and more information can be found at http://www.fairtax.org – if you haven’t read the book and web page, you need to get educated and start screaming for this, because its one of the few “real” ways that we have out of the hole we’ve dug for ourselves in terms of government spending.

• Energy.  Katrina and Rita taught us something, which we immediately forgot.  Wait a month until the heating bills start showing up in earnest – we’ll collectively “remember” again.  But we still refuse to address this problem, and five years from now, if we don’t take care of this, we’ll find ourselves in an economic Depression not seen since the 1930s.  This issue cannot be solved with platitudes or “greenie weenies” screaming about CAFÉ standards and such.  It can only be fixed through private industry and getting the government the hell out of the way.  We have, in this nation alone, twice the proven oil as there is in Saudi Arabia.  It happens to be in the form of shale on (mostly) federal land out west.  We have, so far, refused to process that shale because to do so we must mine the land and the greenie weenies have successfully blocked it.  Said shale is economically recoverable at a per-barrel price of oil of $40 – that is, with the spot market at $40 or above, it is cheaper to recover shale than pay someone else for a barrel that comes out of the ground.  Gas would be $1.75/gallon – for the next 40 years – if we’d recover that shale and refine it.  Until we are willing to mine and consume our own reserves we have little room to bitch and moan about what the Saudis, Iranians and Kuwaitis, not to mention the Venezuelans are doing to us in terms of oil prices.  If 2006 is not the year when one or more of those nations “cut us off”, certainly it will happen down the road. We had better pull our heads out of our ass before then or we will all be getting the exercise we so badly need – riding bicycles to work!  Figure out how much annually that “greenie weenie” crap costs you – then consider that for poor folks, it’s often the difference between paying the heat bill and buying groceries.  The same applies to drilling for oil and gas in the Gulf off the Coast of Florida.  We have no valid excuse for this “NIMBY” attitude, and when – not if – we pay for it dearly I will be the first to say “I told you so!”

• Speaking of oil, can we put to rest the “War for Oil” crap that the lefties have been tossing around for the last four years?  What war for oil?  Where’s the freaking oil?!  It’s clever how the media never follows up on those screech-owls who crow about this sort of crap when it’s later shown that they were completely full of it.  Never happens!  Why not?  Because it isn’t “politically correct” to actually call a leftie on their lies and posturing.  For the record: There is not and never has been any “war for oil” involving Iraq.

• As if that’s not enough, let’s look at what the War in Iraq actually did involving oil.  It cut off the bribery that was being performed and paid for in the form of oil!  Who was being bribed?  The lefties.  France, Germany, Russia, various people in the UN, possibly even Kofi Annan… maybe Mark Rich…..  All leftist governments and people.  Billions of dollars paid out in bribes.  So when the “lefties” say that this was a “War for Oil”, what they’re really saying is that the war shut off the spigot of theft, bribery, and coercion – which was incidentally robbing Iraqi children of food, water and medicine.  Just like a true Leftie – bitch and moan about how horrible the CAFÉ standards are and that they should be tightened, then get into your Lear or convoy of Suburbans!  Do as I say, not as I do.  From John F’in Kerry to the Kennedy’s to the Hollywood Leftie Elites, one thing is constant among all of them – hypocrisy.

• 2005 was also the year for public display of insanity in the form of all sorts of stories about sexual predation aimed at kids.  Jackson, of course, headlined here, but there were far more grisly stories as well.  Carlie Bruscha for one…..  We finally displayed in the media the blatant truth that government doesn’t give a damn about kids – except when they can make money off siphoning up child support checks.  Bill O’Reilly went on the warpath about the sexual predation issue, and that’s all well and good – but he misses the forest for the trees, even though getting that mess cleaned up will and does help.  But what’s left unsaid – and unaddressed – is that our government and society in general doesn’t give a tinker’s cuss about families and children, and thinks nothing of using kids – especially cute kids – as pawns in all sorts of nefarious and obscene schemes.  Politicians have been doing it for years, and we, the people, refuse to stand up and put a stop to it.  What’s sick is that some of the most vocal people against stopping this crap have children – they’re arguing for the right of others (or themselves!) to abuse their own offspring!  There’s a lot of reform necessary here and most of it is in places that are very politically incorrect.  Locking up all the pedophiles is a damn good start, but that is a pimple on the “business end”. This is a long-running crusade of mine, and I’m sure the issue will outlive me – it’s just so easy to exploit and abuse people who aren’t yet sentient, not to mention those who have no effective voice of their own (they’re not old enough to vote you see…)

• As for natural disasters, 2005 (and the tail of ’04) saw their share.  A tsunami right at the close of ’04, then a monster storm of ‘05 taught us a few things.  Among others:

1. Politicians cannot – and will not – protect you.  You have to do that yourself. If one lesson comes out of Katrina that is worthwhile, it is that a “nanny government” does neither function well, and you will be the one who suffers.  Plan accordingly, but griping, after this demonstration, will meet with no sympathy from these quarters.


2. Democrats have held power in Lousiana for 40 years.  Their version of “benevolence” and “public trust” gave us levees that were not constructed according to plan, money for levees that was instead spent on a bridge to insure people could get to a casino to gamble and a levee “commission” that never inspected the levees under its charge. We also got a mayor who parked 500 busses that held 50 people each instead of using them to get folks out of harm’s way (that’s 25,000 people a run) – in a flood zone – and both a governor and mayor who whined, bitched and moaned post-storm while at the same time refusing to allow relief workers from the Red Cross in to distribute food, water and a place to take a crap.  Then these very same Democrats had the audacity to show up in Washington DC and demand a bailout in the form of the largest assistance bill ever requested from the American Taxpayer, including billions for projects that had exactly nothing to do with the storm and its impact. I have two words to the politicians from Lousiana, and anyone who thinks I will spend one nickel of my money in that state so long as you continue to elect those very same Democrats to public office: BITE ME.


3. Insurance is for losses you cannot afford to “eat” on your own.  If you live within 100 miles of a coast or river, and don’t have flood insurance, I don’t want to hear about how horrible it is that you got flooded after the NEXT storm.  You should have known before, and if you didn’t the last time around, you sure have had your object lesson THIS year.  Flood insurance is cheap (couple hundred bucks a year), universally available, and there’s no excuse for not having it.  Buy it.  Today


4. If you don’t like the “tax” that mother nature exacts from you for living near a coast or other body of water, then move.  I’m tired of hearing the whining about how horrible it is when a known risk comes and visits your life.  You live here because you like the view, climate and environment.   I understand – I live here too.  Now shut up and deal with it – all choices have costs associated with them.  We live in a country where you can pick up and move any time you’d like.  If the costs are unacceptable, then get out and move to Nebraska.  You are welcome to trade hurricanes for bears and snowstorms any time you’d like.  Personally, I’ll take the hurricanes.


5. Those who claim that there’s something wrong with a trailer on a piece of land that used to hold a house should be taken out and lynched.  Yes, I mean lynched, with all its implications – because that’s exactly the sort of logic that is being used to stop the trailers from showing up.  This is what “zoning” and “neighborhood protection” have brought us.  Now, if your home is destroyed, your neighbors (who weren’t destroyed) will try to keep FEMA – or you yourself – from putting temporary housing on your lot so you can live there.


6. Hurricanes are really quite simple.  They’re big, nasty, and blow like hell.  I live in a hurricane-prone zone and have been hit, directly and indirectly, something like six times in the last two years, with one direct strike (Ivan.)  They are also one of the more visible phenomena we have, and you get plenty of warning before they get to wherever you happen to be, unlike earthquakes, tsunamis and tornadoes. They blow all kinds of things around – like 30’ high walls of water, trees, boats and parts of houses, just to give you a few examples.  When you have several days worth of warning and stay put, don’t whine when you and yours get trashed, hurt or even killed.  You – and you alone – are responsible for that decision.  Even if you’re on welfare, even if you have no car, even if you’re poor.  In 48 hours you can WALK (at 1mph – a VERY leisurely pace!) far enough inland to be safe from surge anywhere along the coastline – yes, even from a monster like Katrina.  My wood was up on the house the Friday before Katrina got here – that’s three days in advance – even though we were not “predicted” to be in the center of it.  Never again will I feel sorry for those who fail to prepare and depart when these storms threaten.  I gave plenty of money to hurricane relief this year.  Next year it’s all earmarked for those who suffer losses from disasters that cannot be predicted in advance.

• Eminent Domain abuse must be stopped.  This was the year when it really got put “on the map”.  Its time to fight back.  Private property rights are the foundation of this nation and without them we are no better than the former USSR – or Saddam’s Iraq.  This, I predict, will be one of the issues for 2006.

• Finally, 2005 was the year in which we saw society wake up to the De-Christmas issue, and people began to revolt.  It’s a good thing, and I hope it continues.  People who are upset that we celebrate a Christian Holiday are welcome to their point of view, and may express it most solidly by refusing the paid day off for a holiday that they personally find repugnant.  December 25th, like it or not, is a holiday because it is CHRISTmas.  If you have a problem with that, then I would expect you NOT to exploit that which you detest, rather than attempt to subvert it.  For my part, although I’m not by any stretch of the imagination a “Bible Banger”, I appreciate – and enjoy – the fact that we have a day during the year in which we celebrate the birth of, what many people believe, was the Lord and Savior of the world’s souls.  Whether you believe that to be true or not – that’s why you have the day off.  Try to enjoy it.

May 2006 be prosperous for all of you.
Now, where did I put that bottle of bubbly?