Shows on: Is it Obama and Biden or That 70's Show

Obama has made one of the better picks in Joe Biden the thoughtful if not very succinct orator, also known as foot in the mouth Biden. Biden actually brings many credentials to Obama which he lacks, most notably on foreign policy. If one can survive the length of his speeches he actually has good stuff to say.

After the Biden pick it all seemed downhill as the opening day of the Democratic convention was a borefest of people making promises to give everyone health care without any thought for who would pay for it. I guess that is the nature of conventions and politics in general. Promise the moon, deliver the dust.

This convention is all about hope and change, for all those [unfortunately] old enough to remember, this is looking more and more like a throwback to the 70s. We have all the hope and feel of Jimmy Carter, cleaning up the mess in Washington, while we will have more and more government to help us out. Just exchange Jimmy's cardigan sweater for Obama's Unicorn and its a wrap. Incidentally, I always felt Jimmy C meant well, it just did not turn out that way.

At least Obama is much more uplifting in his rhetoric, unfortunately there is nothing to be upbeat about right now. Each day more banks continue to flounder and fail, while Fannie and Freedie the biggest of all will have to turn over $223 billion in debt by the end of September with no buyers in sight. It will most likely be us - the US taxpayers that are going to pony up and nationalize them. The Chinese are queasy enough about their US exposure and are trying to go cold turkey so don't look to them. Will Citi go bust also? Slightly more positive the US balance of trade has improved a bit as consumers scaled back purchases while the worthless dollar has improved our exports. Too bad now the European market and our other export markets are starting to tank also. Meanwhile we are being tested by Iran and a resurgent Russia. The financial numbers showing the US going into receivership as the Social Security and Medicaid have been shown with mathematical precision to be on the verge of overwhelming and bankrupting us. Money for global warming remediation?

So Obama plans to raise taxes, lift the cap on Social Security contributions, increase corporate taxes and soak certain industries with targeted punative taxes. With this money he will do what, address the list of issues above? No he will throw more money at health care and new government programs.

Social security has always been a shell game, where half of your tax burden is hidden in the "employer contribution". Since the employer sheds this burden when they lay you off the reality is that this is your money that is deducted before it ever reaches your paycheck. For the poor self employed suckers paying 15.3% they at least looked forward to FICA top-out where they went back to 2.9%. For many people just above the $102K threshold, people the democrats assume to be rich Americans, this is referred to as their Christmas bonus, real bonus checks and wages have been non existent for years. This is where they get an extra $500 - $1000 to spend on the holidays. Wages have stagnated in these better paying professional jobs engineers, mid-level managers as they are outsourced or HIB visa'd to oblivion. Note that Obama does not consider this a tax increase, they just removed a cap costing people in the middle hundreds and thousands of dollars more. This money will not be saved in a rainy day fund to save Social Security, it will be spent. The real Social Security trust fund is our children who will be so indebted by the time the orgy of spending is done as to be unable to afford to raise a family of their own.

Obama also wants to raise corporate taxes. Democrats love employees who can vote them in, however they don't like employers that would give them a job. Eastern Europe and many places have been cutting corporate taxes and finding increased business activity. Here we have the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Who pays these taxes, the fat cigar chomping tycoon? Actually, we all do in higher costs for goods and services, less return on our 401K plans and other investments. Most Americans do not have the luxury of government pensions (double or triple dipped) with COLAS with full medical coverage. They have a 401K that is tanking. It is interesting to note that Obama's personal investments appear to avoid the equity markets where most of Americans pray they can make enough money to retire.

Taking up another populist hobbie horse, Obama also plans to impose special taxes on oil companies, a windfall profits tax. This was also tried in the 70s and proved a disaster. The end result then was decreased production and more money flowing to OPEC coffers. Notice now who are the really big oil companies on this planet. The holders of the oil are all state owned oil monopolies leaving our companies more as middle men who take a percentage of the oil profits that pass through their hands. We would like to encourage them to invest these profits into renewables and yes more oil exploration. Instead Obama will follow the lead of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez who uses the Venezuela oil company as his piggy bank. By siphoning off profits he has succeeded in curtailing investment in infrastructure and finding new fields. Despite high prices Venezuela's production has been falling. I could also mention that was Saddam Hussein's methodology as well.

Change, change, change. Baloney, this has been in reruns for years.