The issues to watch

I spent last night with some conservative friends live blogging the election. Well, we started at 2:00PM, and I left at 11:30PM. A few stuck around after me. We had over a 100 observers. It was a good time. Thank you for coming.

I’ve thought about how to proceed. I have little interest in chasing down Ayers or Wright or birth certificates or illegal-alien relatives.

He wants his shot on the big stage? He got it. I am going to track his performance.

The biggest disconnect that I see in dems running for the presidency is that they preach economic injustice to the exclusion of foreign affairs. Their words on foreign affairs are naïve: “We need to rebuild our reputation!”

Rebuilding that reputation by Clinton resulted in bombing aspirin factories and 9/11. Rebuilding by Carter resulted in our citizens taken hostage in Iran and an abortion of a rescue attempt. Rebuilding by LBJ continued a war that he was incapable of allowing us to win.

Domestically, I’ve read a lot about Clinton’s job creation. If you run the numbers, you find that as a percentage, the workforce grew the same under Reagan as it did Clinton – about 22%. What does that tell you? The economy adapts to new rules, and behaves largely independent of the government.

Well, unless the government rules are economic suicide like mandating mortgages to people that cannot afford them.

So Obama is going to “redistribute the wealth.” So he thinks. He will learn in short order that taking away the incentive to achieve success will give people an incentive to achieve leisure time. The economy will adapt. People will take care of themselves first. They will not seek to expand as they have before. They will settle for less because they do not wish to give the government more.

And in the midst of this tax revenue shortfall, the dem congress will go on a spending spree.

Should be interesting.

I plan on tracking macroeconomic data: New factory orders, unemployment, orders for durable goods. I want to see the balance of trade. I want to watch the split of manufacturing and service jobs. I want to count the number of government employees, bankruptcies, new home sales, existing home sales. I want to see the number of people in poverty. The budget deficit.

I have no interest in viewing these metrics to create an “I told you so” database. I want to do it because it will help me to understand the impact of his policies on the economy. I will give him his fair shot. These data will either buoy him through turbulent waters or drag him to the bottom like a stone.

I don’t care which. Outside my control. I don’t mean that I am giving up – I voted, I did my part, now the system takes over. Our Constitution – right or wrong in the result.

But that brings us to foreign affairs. Wars and the rumors of wars.

People that say “why kill people to prove that killing people is wrong” don’t understand why we neuter cats.

There are real enemies out there. Putin does not play well with others. China used to play nasty in Africa, and now they are in South and Central America. I feel so badly for the Iraqi people. The Afghans are toast.

Obama will have countless 3:00AM calls.

Who will he look to? Who are his advisors? Jimmy Carter will be his elder statesman – that’s a disaster for Israel. Sam Nunn, a voice of reason, will be around. John Kerry will demand a place at the table – Ambassador to France? He has family there.

How long before an attack on American soil happens due to the presumption of weakness by our adversaries? Will it be soon enough that the libs will blame W?

I think the world has just become a much more dangerous place.