Obama is a Post Turtle

While suturing a cut on the hand of a Texas Rancher whose hand was caught in a gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually, the topic got around to Obama and his bid for the Presidency.

The old rancher said, Well, ya know, Obama is a ‘post turtle’. Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked, What is a post turtle?

The old rancher said, When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post turtle

The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor’s face, so he continued to explain. You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he sure as heck doesn’t belong up there, he doesn’t know what to do while he is up there and you just wonder what kind of an idiot put him there in the first place.

(I found this on another site and wanted to post it to my site as well. Its a brilliant explanation of the Obama candidacy…)

Your Choice: A Year or A Decade

The chickens are coming home to roost. The bad choices and all the living beyond our means are about to settle in a new reality–one where the market holds us all accountable for those bad choices.

From the people who bought homes far beyond their means to the folks who thought it was ok to keep refinancing over and over again to get every dime of the housing price bubble into their pocket. From the people who saw credit cards as if they were cash to the credit card companies who think its ok to charge ridiculous interest rates and to mislead borrowers.

Alas, both Presidential candidates are on board with ideas that will lead to a DECADE of pain instead of a year or so. If we let all these poorly run companies fail, sure it would be painful–but the pain will pass quickly. By propping up a FAILED system of intervention and Big Government, we will elongate our pain just as FDR did when his supposed New Deal drastically lengthened the Great Depression.

Make no mistake: Depression is caused by GOVERNMENT meddling in the economy. Recessions are part of a normal business cycle and represent market corrections to bad choices. The point is that private companies cannot make enough bad decisions at the same time to cause a Depression. Only through GOVERNMENT regulation can enough companies be FORCED to go down the same wrong path at the same time.

The answer is simple: Tell your elected officials to STAY OUT OF IT and let the market correct itself. Thankfully, the market doesn’t really care about your politics–it cares about value and substance. If a company becomes a useless empty shell with no real value (i.e., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) through government intervention, the market knows better than to go there.

As I’ve said before and I’ll say again, if you play in the market you’ve agreed to the risk of investing. Don’t whine when your 401k goes down in value because you failed to research the companies you chose for investment. The information is out there: read it. And if its not there, act like an adult and accept the consequences of choosing an investment that went downhill.