Are the markets discounting a V-shaped recovery? Or does the evidence advise this is still a bear store rally akin to those of the 1930s and 1970s?

Ah, V-shaped recovery, how we doubt thee. Let us count the ways...

Trickle Up Poverty

But first, let's note something about how to make money in markets. (Because, really, that's what this is all about, right?)

7 Reasons to Doubt the V-Shaped saving

Just as there are many company models that victorious fellowships follow, there are many profitable paths up the store mountain. But one of the most time-tested, trustworthy ways to do well in markets over time is establishing a large position (often after testing the waters with small positions)... Riding that position to vast gains... And then protecting those gains when the store turns.

Simple, right? It's easier said than done, of course. There is a fair amount that goes into it. But that's the gist.
And given that gist, one might say the trader or investor's job record falls into four categories:

o Minimizing losses on positions that aren't working.

o Maximizing gains on profitable open positions (knowing when to add to the position).

o Protecting gains when a vast body of profits has accrued.

o retention an eye out for the next big venture or trade.

This roster of responsibilities highlights why we are at such a needful juncture.

For those who have ridden the 2009 rally to major gains, the dilemma is either to protect open profits with a hedge (akin to buying fire assurance on one's portfolio)... either to "take some off the table" and partially cash out... Or either to cash out entirely. (Notwithstanding the fourth choice of naturally "letting it ride.")

For those who are not sitting on long-side profits (and even for those who are), a key query is where the next big round of chance will come from. Will it be on the upside... Or the downside? Will it be in "risk-loving" assets (more of the same)... Or "anti-risk" assets (a turn from the status quo)? How soon might the turn arrive?

From a practical perspective, these questions highlight the importance of the "what's next" question. So now, without supplementary ado, let's take a closer look at some reasons to doubt the V-shaped wisdom.

Reason to Doubt #1: Parallels to 1930

"There's a large amount of money on sidelines waiting for venture opportunities; this should be felt in store when "cheerful sentiment is more firmly intrenched [sic]." Economists point out that banks and assurance fellowships "never before had so much money lying idle."

Sound familiar? The above headline feels like 2009, but is authentically vintage 1930 (courtesy of the "News from 1930" Web site).

Those who take the gift rally as incontrovertible evidence of a V-shaped salvage are forgetting something important. Investors in 1930 brimmed with a similar doomed confidence.

Comparing today's post-crash move to the one back then, fund employer John Hussman notes that "the store recovered by an roughly same percentage following the 1929 crash, peaking in April 1930, after which it suffered a subsequent decline to fresh lows."

The point is not to say today looks just like 1930, Hussman goes on to add, but rather to point out that, when it comes to economic salvage prospects, a giant rally doesn't prove that much at all.

Reason to Doubt #2: The Biggest Rallies Are Bear store Rallies

From Monday's Wall street Journal:

Rarely has the stock store seen a six-month rally like the one it just turned in. The Dow Jones industrial Average's 46% surge was one of just six of that magnitude in the last 100 years. And that is exactly what worries many analysts.

All former rallies of this magnitude took place in the 1930s and the 1970s, according to Ned Davis Research. Those were periods of turbulence for both the cheaper and the markets, and none of the gains was sustained.

Many analysts believe that stocks are again in such a turbulent period, and that this rally could lead to someone else slump. Stocks did enjoy a rally of 40% in 1982, at the start of a long-running duration of stock-market prosperity. That rally wasn't of the same magnitude of the others, however. It came as economic troubles, notably inflation, were ultimately being squeezed out of the economy.

Reason to Doubt #3: It Still Ain't 1982

In a Taipan Daily piece some months back titled "This Ain't 1982," we noted the many reasons why the gift environment looks nothing at like that of the early 1980s.

In a nutshell, 1982 was the starter year for a 25-year upswing in leverage and credit. Fed Chairman Paul Volcker had just "broken the back of inflation" (at a cost of great economic hardship) and America was on the cusp of the longest debt binge (among consumers, businesses and government) in all of recorded history.

At the same time, consumer savings rates went into a steady decline, from double-digit division rates to below zero, as America shopped and shopped. Meanwhile, decades of aggressive financial innovation (under a complacent Alan Greenspan) led to the creation of the "shadow banking system," a quasi-official means of pumping the cheaper full of even more leverage and prestige by way of venture banks, secret venture pools and so on.

Now we are at the tail end of all that. After a quarter-century of build-up, a great "deleveraging" is at hand. The consumer is flat on his back, the shadow banking principles lies in shambles, and consumer entrance to prestige has gone from a flood to a trickle.

Reason to Doubt #4: The Megabanks Are Just as Rotten as Ever

Every year the World Economic Forum (Wef) releases its yearly "Global Competitiveness Report." Among the assorted factors thought about by the Wef is the soundness of a country's banks. By this quantum America ranked 108th, a spot behind Tanzania. One could arguably have more reliance development a deposit at the Bank of Burundi than many institutions in the U.S. Or the U.K.

And in spite of the hundreds of billions (trillions?) poured in via backstops, guarantees and cash injections, some of the major banks still look like ticking time bombs. For instance: Dick Bove, a long-respected banking examiner with decades of taste on the street, has described present-day Wells Fargo as a "volcano, with a amount of tremors, that is possibly about to blow."

The new Wells Fargo concern traces back to the big Wachovia merger (a failing bank that Wells swallowed up). In taking on Wachovia, it turns out, Wells Fargo may also have gulped down a amount of live hand grenades in the form of unhedged and unaccounted-for derivatives trades. Surprise surprise, Wells Fargo's management has turned out to be less than forthright about this troubling exposure.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. The real problem is, the banks haven't changed much at all... The only material difference, in fact, is that the big have gotten bigger. Tens of trillions of dollars' worth of unstable derivative contracts are still concentrated in untrustworthy hands. And as the newest Wells Fargo concerns demonstrate, the megabanks have been anything but forthright.

With the blessings of the Fed and Treasury, the megabanks' strategy has been to use every accounting trick in the book to gift the appearance of big profits - most of those profits created by way of government bailout funds - while simultaneously burying the remaining toxic time bombs as deep in the balance sheet as possible.

This "play for time" strategy hinges entirely on the hope that nothing else will blow up before the patchwork of quick fixes finds time to work. It is, in other words, one hundred percent company as usual.

Reason to Doubt #5: Hundreds More Banks Will Fail

As of this writing, 94 banks have failed in 2009. Banking examiner Meredith Whitney (who gained fame for calling the collapse of Citigroup in advance) has said she expects at least 300 banks to fail. Institutional Risk Analytics, one of the top bank-analyst services in the country, expects more than 1,000 banks to fail over the course of the cycle.

Banks provide prestige to consumers and businesses straight through the form of mortgage loans, auto loans, prestige card loans and the like. When banks fail, prestige contracts, development it harder for consumers to spend and businesses to stay afloat. Lowered spending as a result of reduced prestige then leads to more layoffs and lost jobs in a vicious circle. The vicious circle completes itself as banks pull back even supplementary in a tough economy.

Not only are hundreds more banks set to fail, the Fdic (Federal Deposit assurance Corporation) is on the verge of a public relations disaster as it runs out of money. There is no way the Fdic will be able to handle all these failures. Based on their projections, Institutional Risk Analytics thinks the Fdic could be on the hook for 0 billion-0 billion if not more. (And that's not even taking into list a fresh megabank debacle, like a Wells Fargo blow-up).

Where in the world is the Fdic going to get 0 billion? As John Mauldin writes,

The Fdic can borrow 0 billion in an emergency line of credit, and straight through 2010 it can get someone else 0 billion. But if and when that money is borrowed, it will have to be paid back. Remember the money that was lost in the savings and loan emergency 20 years ago? The Fdic had to borrow a mere billion. We are still paying that 30-year loan back.

If the Fdic is forced to borrow from the Treasury, Congress (and America's creditors) will scream bloody murder. One alternative, as Mauldin supplementary notes, is for the Fdic to leverage more "special fees" against the banks.

But guess what? If the Fdic tries to squeeze blood from a stone in terms of hitting up the banks, that will cause the surviving banks to pull in their horns even further... To lend even less. This is someone else heart attack waiting to happen for consumer prestige and small company prestige - in an cheaper 70% driven by consumer spending and largely powered by small businesses.

Reason to Doubt #6: The Housing Bubble Has Not Yet Fully Burst

U.S. Mortgage delinquencies set a new record in July, with 7.58% of mortgages (roughly one out of 13) at least 30 days late on payments. according to Reuters and Equifax, subprime mortgage delinquencies have hit a whopping 41%.

And now the banks have to worry about a new problem: "Strategic Defaulters." As the Los Angeles Times reports,

Who is more likely to walk away from a house and a mortgage - a person with super-prime prestige scores or person with lower scores?

Research using a weighty sample of 24 million private prestige files has found that homeowners with high scores when they apply for a loan are 50% more likely to "strategically default" - right away and intentionally pull the plug and abandon the mortgage - compared with lower-scoring borrowers.

The La Times reports there were more than half a million (588,000) "strategic defaulters" nationwide in 2008.

These are individuals with high prestige ratings who technically have the financial wherewithal to continue development payments on their mortgage, but naturally do not see the logic of pumping money into a more or less permanently-upside down asset.

The thinking runs something like: "Why throw good money after bad in terms of staying committed to a house worth 0,000 less than I paid for it, when the penalty for walking away (damaged credit) will hurt less than throwing time to come wage into a hole for 10 or 20 years."

Meanwhile, Iowa attorney general Tom Miller recently went on record saying "Payment choice Arms [adjustable rate mortgages] are about to explode... That's the next round of potential foreclosures in our country."

Homeowners and banks have only just begun to wrestle with the mortgage "reset" problem, in which monthly payments due suddenly double or triple (or worse) based on fine-print deadlines. As the choice Arm qoute gets serious, look for the amount of "strategic defaulters" to shoot even higher.

That's more horrible news for the already struggling banks... And no wonder previously mentioned forecaster Meredith Whitney think home prices could fall someone else 25% before hitting bottom.

Reason to Doubt #7: Uncle Sam Is a Borrowing Fiend

If you understanding America was a "borrow and spend" nation before, you ain't seen nothin' yet. The past four quarters have dwarfed all former U.S. Government borrowing efforts, and that is a trend that's guaranteed to continue.

What probably won't continue, however, is the Federal Reserve's capability to buy hundreds of billions worth of U.S. Treasuries directly - effectively "monetizing" the debt - without foremost to either 1) an eventual collapse in the U.S. Dollar or 2) an eventual collapse in bond prices and subsequent sharp rise in interest rates. We are headed for an environment of heavier regulations, higher taxes, and more government operate of the cheaper at a time when we can least afford it, and plunging headlong into the debt abyss to pay for it all.

Reason to Doubt #8: Black Boxes and Punk Volume

Finally, a big think to doubt this rally is the troubling lack of volume. Bull markets are typically characterized by wholesome and rising volume trends as more and more investors decide to partake in the market. But that is not what we are finding here.

Instead, share trading has been dominated by quants, high frequency trading (Hft) shops, and other "black box" type outfits rather than more legitimate buying sources. Not only that, but volume has been alarmingly concentrated in a handful of super-speculative stocks. Reuters recently reported that, over a week's worth of trading, a full 40% of trading volume came from just four (!) heavily traded names: Bank of America (Bac), Citigroup (C), Fannie Mae (Fnm) and Freddie Mac (Fre).

So not only are we finding suspiciously low volume when these super-speculative names are weeded out (Citigroup - 491 million shares per day midpoint volume!), we are finding heavy operation from quants and other "black box" type trading systems, with the bulk of operation concentrated in the most casino-oriented corners of the market.

These are a few (but by no means all) of the reasons why your humble editor tips a hat to the mania, yet continues to doubt.

7 Reasons to Doubt the V-Shaped saving

If you want to get underway a heated deliberate upon in any place in the United States, all you have to do is mention wage taxes. Everybody has an concept fluctuating from one ultimate to another: the Socialist wants to tax the wealthy and middle class until they are as poor as Everybody else; the Capitalist says no, we need a simple flat tax; and the Libertarian says you're all wrong; if we eliminate all inefficient government programs, we won't need any wage tax. In spite of this diversity in opinion, nearly Everybody thinks the tax code is far too involved and must be simplified no matter the cost. Regardless of political ideology, finding someone who is truly satisfied with our current wage tax laws is extremely rare. However, a realistic look at the facts indicates we do need some type of tax ideas to fund considerable government services and a progressive wage tax is the fairest and least involved method to raise the required funds. 

The first prominent question is whether or not we need an wage tax. Hard core capitalists and libertarians would have us believe that the hidden sector can furnish all the services we need, with the exceptions of national defense and protection of our constitutional rights, "better and cheaper" than our government. (Libertarian 1,2) They would have us believe that government services, programs, and regulating agencies are unnecessary and even harmful to our economy. This reliance plainly denies our history and fails to identify why our federal government instituted the public programs and regulations in the first place. As ineffective and counterproductive as our government may be at times, a brief study of history proves the ramifications of unrestrained enterprise are even worse. One need not travel far back into our history to realize that our quality of life, from working conditions to pollution, was hardly utopian when there were fewer government regulations and public programs. The federal government didn't pass child labor laws, pollution regulations, minimum wage laws, and workplace protection regulations just to hamper business. 

Trickle Up Poverty

Barber Conable, who served for many years as a Republican leader on the House Ways and Means Committee, said, " As a former Congressman, I can tell you that habitancy are all the time writing to their legislators to say there ought to be other law to do this or that. They are all the time suggesting new ways in which government should be useful." (Conable 94) In other words, these laws and regulations were enacted because of perceived failures and deficiencies in the hidden sector. These laws were passed because constituents felt there were problems that needed to be corrected and hidden enterprise wasn't about to precise the problems because it wouldn't be in their best interest to get underway actions which would growth their costs without also increasing their revenue. 

An consulation For a Progressive income Tax

We wouldn't necessarily save money if we eliminated many of our government programs, we would just turn who received our money or, in some cases, we would growth our risks. Eliminate the Food and Drug management and you good study hard in biology and chemistry because it is going to be up to you to conclude if that steak is safe to eat and what adverse side effects that new drug may levy upon your body. Of course, if you are wealthy you can all the time send your steak and pills to a hidden lab to be tested but it's going to cost you because they want to yield an inviting bottom line. And if you can't afford a lab test? Oh well, just take your chances. Want to drive from New York to California? good take along a huge stack of turn because those toll roads are going to take some money out of your pocket for each and every mile you drive; the same tolls will be charged whether you are rich or poor. Although our public schools may not be the best, they still furnish a basic education to even the poorest of children who have the desire to learn and enhance their position in life. Eliminate our public schools and you can rest assured that many of the poor will be denied an education plainly because they cannot afford the hidden school. Our federal government provides considerable services, programs, and infrastructure for the advantage of all regardless of one's quality to pay. The hidden sector wouldn't: they would only be provided to those with the quality to pay the price and the price will all the time aim to consist of a profit. 

The libertarians would have us believe that eliminating most of our government agencies and programs would give individuals more control over their lives. But the libertarian discussion that government services should be provided by hidden enterprise is undoubtedly not an discussion about someone having control versus no one having control over our lives. It is undoubtedly just an discussion about who is in control. We can have control by elected officials who must face periodic elections or we can have huge international corporations, who need to answer to no one but the wealthiest of stockholders, in control. whether way, some entity will be in control and running aspects of our lives, directly or indirectly. 

Without government regulations, the large multinational corporations would control much of our lives and most of us would find the situation worse than the current level of governmental control. enterprise entities would control the distance of the work week and the size of our paychecks without any restraint on how low the pay could be or how long we would have to toil in order to earn the measly compensation. Without unemployment insurance, laid off workers would be forced to take a job, any job, in order to survive. Competition for jobs, if government employment was eliminated, would ensure a decrease in wages due to increased competition. It's a fallacy that the jobs would merely move from the public sector to the hidden sector. Many services that our government now provides wouldn't be provided by enterprise in a totally unregulated free-market economy. Some services would plainly be unprofitable and others, like welfare for the needy, would be impossible to double in the hidden sector with the same reliability as the public sector. After all, if hidden charities had undoubtedly been successful in feeding the hungry and housing the homeless, there never would have been constituents demanding their government take performance to safe the most basic human ownership of the those doing without life's basic necessities. 

The expenditures of the Federal government have all the time had a major impact on our economy. Our government has been in debt continuously since 1791. (Historical 1117, 1118) Attempts at paying off the debt, that is, running allocation surpluses, has preceded six major periods of economic depression this nation has witnessed. The United States suffered depressions and financial panics in 1820, 1837, 1857, 1869, and 1893. (Davis) After World War I our federal debt stood at ,484,506,000. By 1930 a decade of balanced budgets had allowed the debt to drop to ,185,310,000 (Historical 1117) and we were entering what became known as the Great Depression where the Gross National product fell from 3.1 billion in 1929 to .6 billion in 1933. (Historical 224) during and after the Great Depression, the federal government took more control over our cheaper out of necessity. Elected officials, for the advantage of the citizens, wanted to put an end to the periods of depression that were determined normal in the unrestrained capitalist market. For over 60 years, they have been successful. The recessions since World War Ii have been mild compared to the economic downturns of the 19th and early 20th centuries: a direct succeed of increased government intervention in our economy. 

If we can found that the federal government has economic and public responsibilities to the citizens, we can agree we need some method of financing the required government services and programs. Most of us agree that we do need an wage tax, but disagree on how the tax should be structured. 

Many capitalists prefer the flat tax, one tax rate for all regardless of income. According to capitalist theory, this would allow the wealthy to keep more of their money so they can invest it and finance additional economic growth. The increased economic growth provides new jobs and additional wage which can be taxed, leading, ultimately, to more taxes taken in by the government at the lower rate: good old furnish side economics coming to the rescue. Make the rich richer and the wealth will trickle down and we all benefit. This sounds good in theory, but the realities of the speculation world don't all the time work in the intended manner. If the wealthy take their savings from lower taxes and buy an existing factory or business, they originate no new jobs. They just own and control more of our nation's financial assets than they already do. If they take their increased capital and buy existing houses for rentals, no new jobs are created; no new wealth is brought into the economy. But the increased competition for houses can drive up the price of homes, forcing lower wage families out of the housing shop and into the rentals owned by the already wealthy. They can stick their extra money from lower taxes into gold and, once again, the cheaper doesn't benefit: the price of gold plainly rises. additional money in the pockets of the wealthy can lead to economic growth and additional jobs, but there is no economic law that says it has to or that it all the time will. furnish side economics didn't work during Reagan's management and it's not going to work now. 

Libertarians and capitalists are fond of quoting John Locke as evidence governments shouldn't intervene in the lives of the individual through wage taxes. Locke wrote, "...every Man has a property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his." (Locke 287,288) But government taxes aren't the only means of confiscating what is properly ours. enterprise owners, in the name of profit, also take a piece of our labor. Any economist will tell you there are two kinds of profit: normal behalf and economic profit. normal behalf is the return received from the labor and goods, along with capital, that a enterprise owner puts into and provides for his business. The owner earns the normal profit. The economic behalf is the gross receipts less all costs, along with normal profit, that a enterprise incurs. All economic behalf is earned from someone's labor. Of course, some of the economic behalf can succeed from the owner's labor, but, in reality, most of the economic behalf comes from the labor of the employees, especially in the contemporary corporation where the owners are ordinarily not employees of the firm. When a enterprise shows an economic profit, it is confiscating part of what Locke said properly belonged to the one who produced the good or performed the service. 

The higher your wage and the larger your net worth, the less likely you are to have earned your wealth from the sweat of your brow and by only your own labor: expansive net worth is most likely earned through confiscating a piece of the labor of many others through economic profit. A progressive wage tax plainly returns some of that unearned wealth back to its rightful owners through government benefits and services. 

Those who think that our tax ideas is too involved often want a flat tax in order to simplify the system. But the estimate of tax brackets is not what complicates our wage tax. The Irs can found tax tables to accommodate any estimate of tax rates. Frame your income, look up your wage on the tax tables and there's the tax you owe. What complicates our taxes are the many preferences, commonly called loopholes by those who don't qualify for the preferences, which have slowly been instilled into our tax code. Conable states, "Congress wasn't trying to complicate the process. It was plainly trying to be responsive to a expansive diversity in sources of wage and dissimilar circumstances of taxpayers." (Conable 41) He believes, "Preferences are... A form of qoute solving. They are a way to encourage, through incentives, some speculation by the hidden sector in areas for which Congress is unwilling to acceptable money." (Conable 101) Individually, the preferences were all legitimate attempts at creating a more equitable ideas of taxation intended to perform goals that would advantage society, but collectively they have created a monster of expansive complexity. The tax code is a extraordinary tool for public engineering, but the price is a involved ideas of tax laws. We can simplify the ideas by eliminating the loopholes, but a flat tax in itself will not simplify the system. 

Not Everybody thinks the tax code should be used to perform desired public aims through tax preferences. Stanley Surrey was a Harvard Law School professor who believed "... Our wage tax ideas should be used only to raise revenues and that the rate of taxation should be extremely progressive." Surrey felt that tax preferences "...eroded revenues otherwise available to the government." He wanted to simplify the tax ideas and he concept the wealthier taxpayers should shoulder a proportionally higher cost of government operations. (Witte 8) 

Surrey was not alone in his call for progressive tax rates. Henry Simons was a professor of economics at the University of Chicago who believed that "...the prevailing inequality of wage and wealth was unjustified in terms of merit and thus inappropriate, and that the tax ideas was the most convenient vehicle for altering the situation." (Witte 49, 51) Simons said, "The case for drastic progression in taxation must be rested on the case against inequality- on the ethical or aesthetic judgment that the prevailing distribution of wealth and wage reveals a degree... Of inequality which is distinctly unlovely." (Witte 51) 

While capitalists and libertarians are fond of citing Adam Smith's singular reference to "the indiscernible hand" in The Wealth of Nations, they fail to mention that, in the same book, Smith also said, "The subjects of every state ought to lead towards the keep of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the wage which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state." (Book 5, Chap.2, Pt. 2) 

Were Surrey, Simons and Smith radical socialists demanding equality for all? No, they were plainly involved with a degree of morality and fairness. They realized societies and economies function good when there is a degree of balance in the wage and wealth among the citizens. In the case of Smith, a classical capitalist of expansive influence, some balance in wage and wealth was believed to be considerable to capitalism itself. In his view, capitalism works best when there are many firms producing a singular product or service. Ideally, there should be so many producers that no singular producer can control adequate of the total yield to have any effect, regardless of its actions, on the price or availability of the product or service. Due to the success of some firms and the accumulation of wealth, we no longer have contentious capitalism in most industries of the United States. Instead, we have what economists call oligopolies where few firms control a market. The Fortune 500 consists mostly of oligopolies. (Gottheil 208) We live in a world where more and more of the yield and wealth are controlled by fewer and fewer firms and individuals. A progressive wage tax plainly brings the playing field a little closer to level.

An economic goal, "widely acceptable in the United States" is the principle of "equitable distribution of income." (McConnell 9) In 1967 the top 20% of households earned 43.8% of our nation's total household income. By 1998, that Frame grew to 49.2%. In contrast, the bottom 20% of households earned 4% of the total wage in 1967 and only 3.6% by 1998. It is no illusion: the rich are getting richer and the poor are growing poorer. (Jones 4) The situation is even worse if you reconsider the distribution of financial assets. In 1998 the wealthiest 5% of households held 57.2% of the total wealth held by all households; the poorest 25% held -0.2%. The richest 5% owned 81.6% of all stocks owned by households; the poorest 25% owned 0.0%. (Bertaut 30) 

A progressive wage tax, and taxing all sources of wage at the same rates, is the most logical and convenient method to keep a uncostly gap between the rich and poor and keep the spirit of contentious capitalism alive and functioning in the manner intended by the classical economists. In The ideas of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith said "The wise and virtuous man is at all times willing that his own hidden interest should be sacrificed to the public interest of his own singular order or society. He is at all times willing, too, that the interest of this order or community should be sacrificed to the greater interest of the state... Of which he is only a subordinate part. " (346) While absolute economic equality among all is neither a logical nor desirable goal, it is in the public interest to aim for uncostly levels of economic inequality. It is in the public interest to ensure that all humans have way to the basic necessities of life. It is in the public interest to ensure that all citizens have way to education and condition care. Policies that are intended to perform these goals are in our public interest, from both a moral as well as practical point of view. Healthy, well fed, and well educated citizens lead more efficient lives and that bestows benefits on the entire society. 

Freedom for the largest majority in any community requires that financial power be relatively equal. That is a permissible goal for not only the socialists but the capitalists and libertarians as well. A progressive wage tax is the simplest and fairest method to perform that goal. 

Libertarian Party Brochure. 

U.S. Agency of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. 

Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970. Bicentennial Edition.

Davis, Kennneth C. Don't Know Much About History. New York: Avon Books, 1995.  

McConnell, Cambell R. , and Stanley Y. Brue. Economics. 14 ed. Boston: Irwin/Mcgraw-Hill, 1999.  

Gottheil, Fred R. Principles of Economics . 2nd ed. Cincinnati: South-Western College Publishing, 1999.

Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations.

Jones, Arthur F. Jr., and Daniel H. Weinberg. The Changing Shape of the Nation's IncomeDistribution. U.S. Agency of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau, June 2000.                        

Bertaut, Carol, and Martha Starr-McCluer. Household Portfolios in the United States. Federal Reserve Board of Governors, April, 2000.

Conable, Barber B. Congress and the wage Tax. University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.

Witte, John F. The Politics and development of the Federal wage Tax. University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.

Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. Ed. Peter Laslett. Trainee Edition. Cambridge University Press, 1988

Smith, Adam. The ideas of Moral Sentiments. Amherst, New York: Promethus Books, 2000.

An consulation For a Progressive income Tax

Many people who are master in the issue of the Oswald's rifle are able to clearly demonstrate that the best marksman in the world could not have done what that one rifle was supposed to have done. I suppose once the story was man-made they had to stick with it before they knew about the ricochet and other evidence. On forums and in debates with serious people who have studied all facets of the case I have never had anything stand behind the fact that this one bullet ended up in such a pristine condition. They say things like - 'That was obviously a planted piece of evidence.' I then say things such as this.

If they can allow Ruby the kind of freedom in a police building that I saw as a youngster, they are capable of having done many fabrications in the endeavor to confuse and mislead the American people. If they placed fake evidence on the body of Jfk and told the coroner not to do his usual job, they broke laws that would land anything in prison. Thus when I hear a trained assassination squad person at Camp Le Jeune come forward after he has left the forces and is no longer whether afraid of reprisals or considers the matter de-classified, I listen. I listen when the son of a Dallas policeman who is dead tells me that his father was on the grassy knoll and saw the triangulation team member take the vital shot.

Trickle Up Poverty

The American people had a totally false impression of Jfk and really the American people are commonly gutless sheep who are willing to accept this kind of government due to the fact that most of them know where their bread is buttered. They cannot really say they do not know the Us has been behind numerous enforced and fraudulent businesses that allow America to be the recipient of the largesse it enjoys. It started with the outright immoral invasion of the land of people whose culture was far better and at least as developed as European culture. They used bioweapons and disease with intent. The pork-barreling cronyism that is all over America has allowed people to re-elect whoever brings their district the most shares o these spoils of immoral actions conducted by their agents in the armies and private operations so they turn a blind eye to the facts.

The Cost of the Cold War

The End of the Cold War Could Cost:

The 'dismal science' of economics with its 'trickle-down' or 'voodoo economics' as well as Keynesian wastefulness is defended by many to this day. They believe in full employment rather than sufficient employment of technology just as Rome used slaves rather than technology. The Hobbesian or Machiavellian 'appeals to base human urges' (Il Principe) are behind this Neoplatonic hierarchial oligarchy or Synarchy but I have done many other books on these things.

Please, just think of your own family allocation and how slow-witted it is to spend money blowing up and destroying things just so you have something to fix or work at fixing. The heavy over-building of deserts full of helicopters and airplanes come to mind. Truman sold the Russians a whole air force at scrap value shortly after having gotten the American people to go along with expanding the defence allocation in a time of Peace. He had said bad things about the Russians while cajoling Congress to authorize these black and horrid spending measures that Eisenhower later warned us about. Make work programs might cause greater employment but just imagine what could be achieved if sufficient and educational efforts had been taken rather than the whole Cold War. A War on Poverty and Ignorance would have lead to free power and no need for planned obsolescence and all the other wasteful programs of these economic One Pie schools of thought.

There are people who argue that re-distribution of assets or the seizure of ill-gotten gains is communistic and counter-productive. I could argue that it is not counter-productive, but there is no need to re-distribute the wealth held by the rich except in cases where they continue to operate in immoral fashion. We should tax churches that diminish women and children and we should close loop-holes throughout the world so that the super-rich are paying their fair share of taxes while we cut bureaucracy and encourage sufficient use of the human asset pool and other resources. The Club of Rome, Bucky Fuller and many futurists have described sensible alternatives to these One Pie ideologies.

I think Jfk intended to make real convert quicker than his Merovingian bosses felt comfortable with. They saw the profits they were development from more war and they knew they were gaining greater operate over the world economy. This was the 'cost' that had to be addressed. They acted to end his life rather than end the Cold War that Jfk and Khrushchev had agreed to do. Nelson Rockefeller took his first trip to Moscow the day before Nikita was sent packing. I think this was no coincidence even though I do think the book called None Dare Call It Conspiracy was a politically motivated sensationalistic piece of the Hegelian plot. Again I remind you of what Fdr said - 'If it happened, it was planned.' I have many similar quotes from Yeltsin, Bismarck and even from the horse's (Rothschild) mouths. I know Chomsky is right about Canada being a satellite state and when I say American people are ignorant I consist of all the satellite states and people that this New World Order economic hegemony has wrought.

I remind my brother and other piquant people who I argue these points with, that the Cathars demonstrated a working model for proper governance. I remind people that before Empire there was a Brotherhood that Jesus (and Jfk) or other wise people inside the hegemony have given their lives for. I do really specify details that they often have never heard and I give them the references to back it up.

The Cost of the Cold War

Even though money matters are confusing, it can be explained quite simply that in order for our cheaper to work there has to be scarcity. This means there can' tbe adequate money going around for every man to have their needs met. Photograph a game of musical chairs. When the music stops, there has to be habitancy left standing.

Understanding that our cheaper as it is can elucidate that you're either "in" or you are "out"... But chances are, if you're "out" you already knew that to some extent. Hearing it put into words only makes it more frustrating. However, there are some other things to think as well.

Trickle Up Poverty

Products have a shelf life, for a reason.

What If Money Did Not Exist?

Is it inherent for a lightbulb to burn for over 100 years? Yes it is, look it up. Would it be practical to sell lightbulbs that did not need to be replaced? Most well not! Where's the profit in that?

Alternate fuel sources could be used.

However a solar panel is only profitable about the sale of the goods itself. After that, there is not (yet) a way to operate and profit from the power produced by the sun. Therefore, it is just not practical. For in this cheaper to work, there has to be scarcity.

Homelessness, poverty, and hunger are all results of a monetary based economy.

Money has overwritten human concern for one another. It is not necessary for humans to suffer based on unmet needs. Some say "get a job!" but there just aren't adequate jobs for everyone! Nobody said life was fair, but this brings up the most prominent point of all.

It does not have to be this way!

Imagine working to survive, and not for pieces of paper that have no real value. In other words, imagine a world without money. imagine an cheaper that was based on natural resources ready to us, and not in the hands of "higher ups" who decree how many of us can have a roof over our heads and food on the table.

Imagine a world of abundance, instead of scarcity. Is it possible? There are two prominent things to understand about this. The first is that yes, it is very possible. The second is that it is not a Utopia. It is merely a plan that if people... Humanity... Could unite together to support, it would be something real.

The Venus task is the redesign of a culture, and the exchange of a controlling cheaper that places obscuring on society about what is well important. It is a plan for an cheaper based on resources that are abundant to society.

The idea of technology taking over our jobs has been feared for a long time, but what if it was a welcomed idea. Because technology is capable of replacing many of those unnecessary tasks... Why not allow these creations to make our lives so much easier?

The financial crisis is much deeper than most of society has allowed themselves to think aloud. Maybe the real qoute is the existence of money. What good does it well do?

What If Money Did Not Exist?

In the first presidential debate, Senator John McCain repeatedly accused previous Senator Barack Obama of lacking experience, being naive, and most ironically, not knowing the contrast in the middle of a tactic and a strategy. It was a portentous allegation.

On Super Tuesday, after watching the Maverick and war hero (a.k.a.) McCain go down in defeat, state after state, one thing was abundantly clear: "that one" (a.k.a. Obama) not only knows the contrast in the middle of tactics and strategies, but has mastered them. It proved that you don't have to be a previous prisoner of war to effectively use tactics and strategies to perform your goals.

Trickle Up Poverty

This description focuses on how black males can use the same tactics and strategies employed by President Obama to reposition themselves to perform success in their expert endeavors and add momentum to the black male movement.

The Repositioning of the Black Male

First, let's define terms to ensure that we are on the same page and are speaking the same language:

Tactic: a device for accomplishing an end.
Strategy: a true plan or method; a clever stratagem b: the art of devising or employing plans or stratagems toward a goal. (There are many war references made in its alternate definitions; thus the suspect for McCain's arrogance.)

The generally used and often misunderstood term "position" was created by marketing pioneers Al Ries and Jack Trout in the 70s. Agreeing to them, position naturally means to occupy a unique mental position in one's mind. We are all positioned in one way or another. Positioning is the deliberate exertion of establishing and controlling one's position. To reposition is to convert or enhance one's primary position. The act of positioning and repositioning should be plan of and used as an element of strategy.

Now let's move on to the specifics of how the repositioning of black males can be closed through lessons in case,granted by President Barack Obama's historical campaign run.

First, I have to say that while both blacks and whites adroitly handled racial issues in this election with striking diplomacy, we all know - whether we care to admit it or not - that race, like sexuality, is all the time an issue. It's the big elephant in the room that we are aware of, but try to ignore, as I try to ignore the fact that I now have over a decade of caress working in corporate America and have yet to work alongside an additional one black male. With the election of our first black President, hopefully a trickle down consequent will take place and employers will be able to transcend any racial issues which may alter my situation (or isolation), and an increase in black male presence will occur.

No doubt we've crossed an epic racial fence - but we still have many battles to be fought. We can't be naive; racist issues (not to be confused with racial issues) still exist and they will for real outside while Obama's Presidency. Many of the racial issues which pertain to and specifically consequent black men, can now be dealt with openly and politically since they were eclipsed by universal concerns while the election. Focus upon them would have created the appearance of an imbalanced perspective for Obama. After all, black issues are esoteric.

Obama's campaign team, lead by David Plouffe, and his chief strategist David Axelrod, have acknowledged that one of the key tenets of the campaign was, in fact, to avoid discussions focused on race. From polling and interviews, the campaign closed from the outset that it was imperative to define Obama's candidacy in terms that would transcend skin color.

Who were their first efforts aimed at? Blacks. Apparently, they deemed it imperative to get blacks to move beyond their "natural" skepticism that one of their own could for real become president. They knew that Obama would have to position himself to be chosen as a leader because leaders don't select their followers; followers select their leaders - regardless of race.

In a description on Msnbc.com by Adam Nagourney, Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny, Obama's campaign team made the following quote, "The biggest race question we had to solve was not with the white voters," Mr. Axelrod said, "but with African-American voters, a deep sense of skepticism that this might happen."

How about that?

These are called interracial issues. They offer a window, if not a measurement, into just how long the roots of negativity and its insidious effects can have on the psyche of an oppressed people. Were we for real skeptical? Yes, initially, but we were not doubtful of Obama's competence; we were doubtful of his chances based upon our system, and our individual and social black experiences.

After identifying the hurdles to the White House, Obama's camp had their agenda, a mission, and a message. They were all set to execute a textbook policy on repositioning Obama, and offer America's black men invaluable lessons that they could use to transform their lives and perform greater success in their expert endeavors.

This brings us to episode 1 in repositioning the black male: take off skepticism - primarily your own - and identify the hurdles to your success.

With Obama's campaign mantra of Change you can believe in, and Yes we can!, they created a strategy that would enable them to fuel hope and engender allegiance at a time when our nation is at war and in dire economic straits, while simultaneously instilling optimism into the psyches of African Americans, and the vast majority of Americans, in the process.

The strategy was brilliant, but not surprising when you think that Obama wrote a book entitled The Audacity Of Hope, in which he wrote: "Hope is that thing inside of us that insists, despite evidence to the contrary, that something great awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it." The tears that flowed so copiously while his acceptance speech were tears of hope. He clearly understands that one can not have hope without optimism. He may want to entitle his next book The Benefits Of Optimism.

Lesson 2 in repositioning the black male: understand the thinking and emotional state of the citizen you will serve in order to inspire optimism. Build a bridge from them to you (not the other way around).

Psychologist Martin Seligman, author of the book Learned Optimism, says that optimism has been defined by some researchers as naturally finding the silver lining and suggests that your explanation for why something happens has a major impact on how you will act in the hereafter and what consequent your actions will bring about. This in turn has an eventual impact on your self-esteem and self-image. Optimists expect the best outcome, even while setbacks, and they're more motivated to bring it about.

This is the suspect why a description amount of blacks, youth, and first time voters shed their apathy and zealously headed to the polls in description numbers which accounted for 13 percent of the electorate.

The importance of optimism is not to be understated. Since studies show that black men live 7.1 years less than other racial groups, have higher death rates than women for all foremost causes of death, and caress disproportionately higher death rates in all the foremost causes of death, they'd be interested to know that increased optimism has condition benefits. The May 2008 issue of Harvard Men's condition Watch explores potential reasons for this connection.

Among the description findings: very pessimistic men were three times more likely to institute hypertension, and citizen who display sure emotions had lower blood pressures. In one study, the most pessimistic men were more than twice as likely to institute heart disease compared with the most optimistic. That's welcomed news since 40% of black men die prematurely from cardiovascular disease as compared to 21% of white men.

The description concludes: These results argue persuasively that optimism is good for health. It is potential that optimists enjoy great condition and longer lives because they lead healthier lifestyles, build stronger social maintain networks, and get great medical care. In addition, optimism itself may have biological benefits, such as lower levels of stress hormones and less inflammation.

Because I know that many black men are church-going folks, they are sure to revel in the fact that the Bible also contains scripture on optimism and its effects. (Matthew 8:25-27) Pessimism results from lack of faith. Pessimism is born of doubt; optimism is born of faith. The repositioned black male will have more faith in himself and will prove to be adept at garnering the faith of those who were once reluctant to give it. Being astounding will be the norm.

Cornell Belcher, a pollster who worked for Obama's campaign and studies racial voting patterns said to the press, "It would be difficult for an African-American to be elected president in this country; however, it is not difficult for an astounding individual who happens to be African-American to be elected president." Obama made mention of this in his acceptance speech when he said, "I was never the likeliest candidate for the office." But he ran anyway. And he ran unlike any other presidential candidate in history because he had to. Analysts say he ran a perfect campaign that was astounding in its execution.

Lesson 3 in repositioning the black male: understand that being marvelous begins in your mind with your own self-image; the least likeliest candidate can still get the job. Also, you are no longer the least likeliest candidate.

Like Obama, you must make it your mission to get employers to become comfortable with you and the role in which you will play in their business by demonstrating your quality to cope the challenges within that role. If your values are aligned with theirs, all you have to do is effectively carry on expectations and deliver - which is what the world is waiting for Obama to do next.

It was sure from the outset that Obama was a proficient politician, but he got great while the election in the same manner that any talented and driven athlete gets great as their season progresses. He became superlative while the playoffs of politics, the election run, and was naturally indomitable in each of his debates. He didn't just win the election, he restored faith in the integrity of the presidency while repositioning himself and showcasing solid character.

Lesson 4 in repositioning the black male: showcase solid character at all times.

Where does the process of building character begin? At the very beginning of your journey: at home with your parents and in college. It intensifies when you are pursuing the caress and skills critical to successfully navigate through your career when entering the workforce. It doesn't matter where you want your vocational journey to take you because most citizen can't dream where they are going to end-up; they just need to be prepared to consequent when they get there.

Chances are Obama didn't dream being president when he was working with victims of housing and employment discrimination. That experience, along with teaching at the University of Chicago Law, and landing a spot in the senate clearly helped him procure the skills, knowledge, and caress critical to navigate through the glossy slopes of the political process without getting tripped up - despite the disproportionate lack of caress he had in comparison to McCain.

Lesson 5 in repositioning the black male: lack of caress does not equate lack of chance unless you allow it to.

As previously stated, for many Americans character takes shape in college. For black men, college attendance - on the community college and university level - is dwindling. Agreeing to the spring 2006 Integrated Post secondary education Data ideas study (Ipeds), Black, non-Hispanic male students had the lowest three-year graduation rate - 16 percent - among all minority male community college students.

In an description published in 2007, Disappearing Acts: The Vanishing Black Male On community College Campuses, Lorenzo I. Esters and Dr. David C. Mosby write: What is most alarming about the current state of the Black male on America's community college campuses is that those who are in positions of leadership have been slow to identify the situation as a state of crisis and have been approximately reluctant to own up to their accountability to take restorative action. The accumulated research studies on the subject of Black male student holding may be a source for community colleges to gain some comprehension as to how they may appropriately talk to the epidemic.

Over the past 33 years, black women have enrolled in four-year colleges at higher rates than have black men, Agreeing to the results of a new study conducted by the Higher education research institute at Ucla's Graduate School of education & facts Studies. In 2004, black women comprised 59.3 percent of all first-time, full-time black students attending four year institutions, compared to 54.5 percent in 1971.

With this type of research and data, why haven't there been any extra initiatives or greater outreach from colleges to address this issue? My research found a potential answer:

Black male enrollments are shockingly low at many colleges and universities, even those with good track records at attracting a diverse student body. While some demographers have noted this situation for years, many colleges have shied away from dealing with the issue head on, fearing that doing so could reinforce stereotypes, offend women, or draw conservative criticism.

Perhaps Obama will put this on his ever growing list of priorities. He's well aware of the question and has referred to it on any occasions, the first in his Democratic National custom speech when he stated: "Yes, we must contribute more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programs alone can't replace parents (and) that government can't turn off the television and make a child do his homework...that fathers must take more accountability to contribute love and guidance to their children."

Last year, at the Naacp forum on July 12, 2007, he was also quoted as saying: "We have more work to do when more young black men languish in prison than attend colleges and universities across America." That is incorrect. The media has perpetuated that myth by reporting the total amount of incarcerated black males, in comparison to the the total amount of college-age (18 - 25) black males. Precise statistics divulge that since 2005 there are, in fact, more college age black males enrolled in colleges and universities than there are incarcerated in the same group.

Lesson 6 in repositioning the black male: increase and strengthen your education with the goal of becoming smarter. That includes, but is not itsybitsy to, enrolling in school. education builds character and is a crucial tactic in our uncut success strategy. education shapes values, alters perspectives, and fosters altruism. Studies show that there is a direct link in the middle of increased education and decreased levels of crime and violence - even within the prison system.

Education is also the fountain from which the tactical resolutions to the previously stated problems and those which have plagued us for centuries will be spawned. The repositioned black male must encourage the next generation of black men to take interest in pursuits other than sports and entertainment at a younger age. We need to deepen our talent pool of hereafter policy makers who can instigate and maintain change. A generation of young men, who like Obama, will be effective at using tactics and strategies to get results.

That's the crux of President Obama's success. Success is within closer reach for the repositioned black male who comprehends that positioning is an art, a psychology, and a science. It's not just for the artful, the psychological, or the scientific; it's for thought about visionaries who want great lives and a greater share of resources for their families, their communities, and themselves.

And while we have reached our most critical milestone as black men, we must now look ahead to the hereafter and get ready for it in the present, the way Obama did when he contained his emotions, less than 30 minutes after being elected, and had the presence of mind while his shining moment, to take the chance to carry on soaring expectations by remarking in his acceptance speech:

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America -- I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you -- we as a citizen will get there...there will be setbacks (see paragraph above on optimism and setbacks) and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can't solve every problem. But I will all the time be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree."

Final episode in repositioning the black male: all the time see the big picture and your place within it.

The Repositioning of the Black Male

The years of the great depression, the symbols of economic failure were the long line of citizen queuing up at Soup kitchens, and growing shanty towns for the homeless. This was the corollary of a great economic change.

Today, we are also living in the crossroads of great economic change, a turn that is transforming existing economies that should finally lead to a more sustainable New Economy.

Trickle Up Poverty

The extreme cost of this turn could be the impoverishment of millions, who are adjusting to the end of the old economy, into the first months of our economic transformation. Creating employment could be the key to reducing poverty, whilst creating hope.

Eight Ways to create Sustainable Employment during an Economic urgency

1. Community Help

Communities hit hard by the current economic crisis, may need to resort to self-help tactics. This could mean, setting up society food banks, encouraging volunteers to seek out the worst effected by this crisis, and encouraging clothes and treatment collections. That can be distributed to those suffering the most.

2. Governmental Assistance

Governments may find themselves short of funds in the long term, and may have to cut or even stop unavoidable pre-crisis benefits to equilibrium budgets. One way our governments may choose to help the worst affected, is to offer tax holidays for low paid workers, New deal company start up schemes, and generate temporary society housing schemes in empty government owned reprocessed properties at reduced rents.

3. Self Employment

Governments could encourage self-employment by sponsoring society operation groups, and slashing taxes and cutting down on restrictive bureaucratic practices to anything waiting for help.

4, Re-Training Programs

Some jobs in the old pre-crisis cheaper are now obsolete, pin-pointing the unemployed who did these jobs, and now need re-training for jobs that exist in the current economy, could cut poverty levels by their millions. Some current Governments acknowledge that unemployment levels still exceed job vacancies in many Countries. Re-training and re-location schemes could cut the level of unemployed, whilst filling these current vacancies.

5. Infrastructure Projects

How cash-strapped Governments pay for repairing existing infrastructure projects is a major question. Any way in the 1930s, the New Deal did offer employment to millions who were otherwise facing destitution and long term unemployment.

Infrastructural projects cooperating with localized industry, is a duplicate win-win situation in the short term. Local industries employ citizen for these projects, whilst governments fund these projects, in return taxes from these Industries, and employees pay for the projects. This may stimulate local economies, and re-build communities worse effected by this current crisis.

6. Green Grants

If normal Motors or Ford were offered a Green Grant, to turn their procedure of manufacturing inefficient gasoline driven cars, towards Green cars. Then both associates could reinvent themselves, offer employment during the current economic transformation, and emerge as a rising star in the new economy.
Green Grants may not be cash incentives, they could be in the form of reduced taxes, promises of time to come business, and even untaxed society led programs.

To offset the loss of taxes, in the case of petrol driven cars, high taxes could be imposed on less fuel productive cars, whilst lowering taxation levels on more 'greener" cars.

7. Employment Driven Policies

In the old pre-crisis Economy, we were encouraged to look at labor savings, rather then encourage employment. Now in a temporary era of unemployment, we need to focus on labor creating ideas, rather then the old idea of labor saving.Reducing the dependency on our Governments to supply unemployment benefits whilst creating new short-term unemployment could make economic sense, especially as developed economies could face financial restraints.

8. Self Learning

Encouraging self-learning rather then forced learning, through society centers, and social libraries could train individuals to meet the future. citizen could be encouraged to visit these centers, by chance them up, supplying voluntary counselors and even paying part-time trainers.

Labor creation is good than labor saving, society self-help groups can take the pressure off governments to provide, lowering unemployment benefits, whilst re-training and contribution employment alternatives creates opportunity. contribution incentives in terms of business, through taxation policies leads to building new industries, but also reinventing the old. Thus reducing the chances of meeting the New cheaper in a weakened state, but rather in a healthier more viable state, ready for the future.

Eight Ways to create Sustainable Employment during an Economic urgency

As far as I am concerened, the leaders of China are not now and never will be our friends or allies. The leaders of China do not care about anything other than amassing power and destroying their enemies and since everybody not Chinese is their enemy they feel that it is their duty to someday rule the world. As far as they are concerened the United States is the largest hurdle to their attaining their dreams, therefore the first thing that they have to do is destroy us. They are not currently capable of defeating us militarily so they have decided to attempt to defeat us economically and so far they are doing a fairly good job at it. They are not our trading partner, they are our trading enemy and they are currently trading us into the ground.

Shock of shocks, today I was reading the op-ed section of the paper and found myself according with the author about American relations with China and the Vip treatment Chinese President Hu is recieving in this country. Both of us agreed that President Hu does not deserve such treatment. My shock was, I was according with Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. I never agree with her.

Trickle Up Poverty

Her narrative stated in part "Today, President Bush will roll out the red carpet for Chinese President Hu Jintao, a leader whose government brutally crushes freedom, democracy and the religious expression of the Chinese and Tibetan people. Hu will receive the best welcome U.S. Taxpayer money can buy, together with full military honors and a 21-gun salute.

Relations With China

This is the same regime that provides military technologies to countries that threaten international security, together with Iran and North Korea. The same regime that threatens Taiwan with a military attack, detains and tortures Chinese citizen for expressing their political and religious beliefs and arrests Tibetans for carrying a photograph of the Dalai Lama.

While open dialogue is essential, many of us on both sides of the aisle in Congress oppose the celebratory nature of this official visit.

This is not about isolationism. We must have engagement with China, but it should be sustainable engagement that enables us to assert our values, continue our economic increase and uphold our national security.

Our growing national debt to China is a national protection issue. Countries such as China that own our debt will soon not only be production our toys, our clothes and our computers, they will be production our foreign policy.

U.S. Course toward China is ineffective in upholding the pillars of our foreign Course -- promoting democratic freedom, stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and growing our economy by promoting exports abroad. Instead, we have pursued trickle-down liberty -- promoting economic leisure first, assuming that political leisure will follow. Reality exposes this Course as the illusion it is."

There was more to her article, some of which I agreed with and some of which I disagreed with. The point is, though, that we should not be treating the President of one of our most perilous enemies like he is a favored long lost friend and ally. He is not a favored long lost friend and ally, he is our enemy and should be treated with caution and firmness. It is right that our President should meet with him but it is wrong that our president should treat him with such a show of pomp and ceremony.

Relations With China