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I Know What Keeps Obama Awake at Night
Zero Hedge ^ | 01/04/10

Posted on 01/04/2010 11:47:40 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster

I Know What Keeps Obama Awake at Night

Submitted by madhedgefundtrader on 01/04/2010 09:14 -0500

While Obama relaxes in Hawaii, sipping Mai Tai’s adorned with little umbrellas and hooking up with distant relatives, a potential nightmare is giving him sleepless nights. Let’s say we spend our $2 trillion in stimulus and get a couple of quarters of decent growth. The “V” is in. Then once the effects of record government spending wear off, we slip back into a deep recession, setting up a classic “W.” Unemployment never does stop climbing, reaching 15% by year end, and 25% when you throw in discouraged job seekers, jobless college graduates, and those with expired unemployment benefits. This afflicted Franklin D. Roosevelt in the thirties.

So Congress passes another $2 trillion reflationary budget. Everybody gets wonderful new mass transit upgrades, alternative energy infrastructure, smart grids, and bridges to nowhere. But with $4 trillion in extra spending packed into two years, inflation really takes off. The bond market collapses, as China and Japan boycott the Treasury auctions. The dollar tanks big time, gold breaks $2,300, and silver explodes to $50. Ben Bernanke has no choice but to engineer an interest rate spike to dampen inflationary fires and rescue the dollar, taking the Fed funds rate up to a Volkeresque 18%. %. The stock market crashes, taking the S&P well below the 666 low we saw in March. Housing, having never recovered, drops by half again, wiping out more bank equity, and forcing the Treasury to launch TARP II.

The bad news accelerates into the 2012 election year. Obama is burned in effigy; Sarah Palin is elected president, and immediately sets to undoing all of his work. Republicans, reinvigorated by new leadership, and energized by a failing economy, retake both houses of congress. National health care is shut down as a wasteful socialist mistake, boondoggle subsidies for alternative energy are eliminated, and the savings are used to justify huge tax cuts for high income earners. We invade Iran, and crude hits $500.

If you’re over 50, and all of this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because we’ve been through it all before. Remember Jimmy Carter? Remember the “misery index,” the unemployment rate plus the inflation rate, which hit 20, and catapulted Ronald Reagan into an eight year presidency? A replay is not exactly a low probability scenario. This is why junk bond yields are still stubbornly high at 12.5%, and credit default swaps live at lofty levels. It’s also why the investing public is gun shy, favoring bonds over stocks by a ten to one margin. Are the equity markets pricing in these possibilities? Not a chance.

The risk of economic Armageddon is still out there. Personally, I give it a 50:50 chance. Batten the hatches, and please pass the Xanax.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: economy; obama; politics
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1 posted on 01/04/2010 11:47:42 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
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To: TigerLikesRooster; PAR35; AndyJackson; Thane_Banquo; nicksaunt; MadLibDisease; happygrl; ...

Ping!


2 posted on 01/04/2010 11:48:17 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster (LUV DIC -- L,U,V-shaped recession, Depression, Inflation, Collapse)
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To: TigerLikesRooster
The risk of economic Armageddon is still out there. Personally, I give it a 50:50 chance. Batten the hatches, and please pass the Xanax.

BUMP!

3 posted on 01/05/2010 12:02:51 AM PST by happygrl (Hope and Change or Rope and Chains?)
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Comment #4 Removed by Moderator

To: TigerLikesRooster
On second thought, I doubt that Obama spends sleepless nights over this.

I don't think he understands it enough to worry.

5 posted on 01/05/2010 12:04:32 AM PST by happygrl (Hope and Change or Rope and Chains?)
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To: TigerLikesRooster

Good Article. We will know which way this cookie will crumble by June.


6 posted on 01/05/2010 12:07:33 AM PST by Candor7 ((The effective weapons Against Fascism are ridicule, derision , truth (.Member NRA))
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To: happygrl

I think he keeps it under wraps because it has his full birth name, and he would have a hard time passing it off on the public.

Barak Hussein Mohammed Obama

It may very well be that he was born in Honolulu, as he insists.

It is only speculation, but one that would fit the circumstances.


7 posted on 01/05/2010 12:11:06 AM PST by UCANSEE2
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To: UCANSEE2

I Know What Keeps Obama Awake at Night

The Donald Young murder investigation
Larry Sinclair’s Book
Larry Sinclair’s run for Congress


8 posted on 01/05/2010 12:16:08 AM PST by TomasUSMC ( FIGHT LIKE WW2, FINISH LIKE WW2. FIGHT LIKE NAM, FINISH LIKE NAM)
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To: TigerLikesRooster
While Obama relaxes in Hawaii, sipping Mai Tai’s adorned with little umbrellas and hooking up with distant relatives, a potential nightmare is giving him sleepless nights. Let’s say we spend our $2 trillion in stimulus and get a couple of quarters of decent growth. The “V” is in. Then once the effects of record government spending wear off, we slip back into a deep recession, setting up a classic “W.” Unemployment never does stop climbing, reaching 15% by year end, and 25% when you throw in discouraged job seekers, jobless college graduates, and those with expired unemployment benefits. This afflicted Franklin D. Roosevelt in the thirties.

So Congress passes another $2 trillion reflationary budget. Everybody gets wonderful new mass transit upgrades, alternative energy infrastructure, smart grids, and bridges to nowhere. But with $4 trillion in extra spending packed into two years, inflation really takes off. The bond market collapses, as China and Japan boycott the Treasury auctions. The dollar tanks big time, gold breaks $2,300, and silver explodes to $50. Ben Bernanke has no choice but to engineer an interest rate spike to dampen inflationary fires and rescue the dollar, taking the Fed funds rate up to a Volkeresque 18%. %. The stock market crashes, taking the S&P well below the 666 low we saw in March. Housing, having never recovered, drops by half again, wiping out more bank equity, and forcing the Treasury to launch TARP II.

0bama doesn't have the brains to think through such economic scenarios
I doubt he is being kept awake at night by this
At this time he believes that all of Bernanke's and Guithner's machinations have succeeded
Look the stock market is way up off its lows!

9 posted on 01/05/2010 12:31:53 AM PST by dennisw (It all comes 'round again --Fairport)
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To: TigerLikesRooster
"Then once the effects of record government spending wear off, we slip back into a deep recession, setting up a classic “W.”

Actually that makes sense since Obama blames everything on "W" anyway. "Bush's fault."

10 posted on 01/05/2010 12:38:05 AM PST by Cobra64
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To: TigerLikesRooster
You have to be somewhat of a deep thinker, AND, pride yourself in having a little integrity, honor, and responsibility to "worry" about things....

...obama has none of those...

The _resident is that cartoon dog in the commercial, jaunting along, dumb & happy singing, "I'm a lucky dog, I'm a lucky dog"...he could care, freakin' less.


11 posted on 01/05/2010 12:50:03 AM PST by FrankR (You want your America back...then we have to go back to BASICS.)
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To: happygrl

“I don’t think he understands it enough to worry.”

He knows exactly what he is doing. Guilt should keep him up but he feels nothing! The man is Evil!


12 posted on 01/05/2010 1:31:20 AM PST by timetostand (defund the Federal monster! Proud member of the party of NO!!)
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To: timetostand

“He knows exactly what he is doing.”

Yep. Just like FDR knew what he was doing. The trick for Obama will be to keep the charade going so he can get re-elected. “We inherited a disaster, greedy capitalists, a problem so big only government can fix it, etc...”


13 posted on 01/05/2010 1:35:09 AM PST by 21twelve
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To: TigerLikesRooster

I don’t think he spends a moment of his time worrying about anything.

Absent the GOP getting their heads out of their asses and putting up some candidates who know something about the situation and who are then proposing to do something that has a chance of working, he has no real worries.

The GOP continues to repeat their mantra of “tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts” — ignoring all the while that tax cuts work only when you have a profit, or you’re employed at a high enough wage to worry about paying taxes in the first place. When you’re out of business or out of work, tax cuts don’t do jack - but the GOP thinks that they’re the magic salve that will cure all ills, political, fiscal and moral.

Someone will have to emerge that has the balls and the brains to attack the surplus of labor by reducing immigration, restricting the out-sourcing of jobs and going after trade policies that are slitting our own throats.

But there’s no one with the balls or brains to do that in the GOP ranks right now. So Barry can sleep quite soundly at night, because a “bad plan” beats “no plan” at the polls in election years every time. That’s how McCain lost: no plan, as well as no clue.


14 posted on 01/05/2010 2:15:35 AM PST by NVDave
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To: TigerLikesRooster
Oh c'mon. Hussein lays awake at night? Not a chance. His goals are being pursued, he has no real opposition anywhere in the mass media, and he considers the grassroots movement against him as a pest--not a danger.

He has plans to swat us down as soon as he is able without getting his other plans buggered up.

He loses about as much sleep as Castro or Chavez.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

15 posted on 01/05/2010 2:32:35 AM PST by Recovering_Democrat
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To: happygrl

I don’t think he is worried at all if he and Congress are going to steal the 2010 election with DMV.


16 posted on 01/05/2010 2:40:16 AM PST by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: TomasUSMC; shibumi; Slings and Arrows; Markos33

I kinda figured it was the burning red eyes of Lucifer glaring at him from his perch on the blanket rail of his bed.


17 posted on 01/05/2010 2:40:55 AM PST by Salamander (I'm sure I need some rest but sleepin' don't come very easy in a straight white vest.....)
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To: TigerLikesRooster
" setting up a classic “W.”

I knew he would blame W.

18 posted on 01/05/2010 2:57:00 AM PST by DeaconRed (Now, more than ever, is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. FUBO)
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To: freekitty

I don’t think Obama is worried..His administration has a plan...The rest of us should be very worried because we are quickly being forced into submission to our enemies and many will not realize it until it is too late for peaceful intervention. I have come to the conclusion that only a act of God is going to save America, so, Christians, all of us had better be constantly in prayer for our nation. And, oh, yes, I remember Jimmy and his loud pronouncements about “obscene profits,” and about the reams of news government regulations that could not be understood by even the beaureacrats who wrote them..I know this because my husband was one of the young persons trying to decipher those regulations. As bad as that administration was, though, it was nothing to what we could see through this one.


19 posted on 01/05/2010 3:02:09 AM PST by jazzlite (esat)
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To: jazzlite

I believe God has already started by freezing the world.


20 posted on 01/05/2010 3:04:00 AM PST by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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