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The Tyranny Of The Administration

C. S. Lewis wrote: Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
Such is the description of Congress and the current presidential administration with one exception: they have no conscience.
Instead, they collectively breach their covenants as elected officials to do the work of the people, ignobly ignore even the slightest aspect of fiduciary responsibility, behave delinquently with respect to fiscal restraint, and condemnably refuse to admit or recognize that they are the primary reason for the country’s financial ills, and not business, banking, or high income wage earners.

Sarbanes, Oxley, Dodd, and Frank are mindful of the Italian cruise ship captain, abandoning their congressional posts and running from tragedy like little children who got scared by a mouse, and the core of their successors, the remainder, those vestiges of incompetence, who linger in the halls of Congress like lampreys and lounge lizards buzzing like flies around detritus, have united to defy and marginalize the Tea Party while unable or unwilling to form a coalition to right their self-inflicted wrongs or reverse the moronic and demonic policies wrought by the leadership of Reid and Pelosi. It not only speaks of low moral character, but smacks of racketeering, drunk and emboldened with their sense of power and too inebriated to recognize the reflection in the mirror.
The U.S. Government Printing Office places the total number of pages in the current tax code at 16,845, which unequivocally makes it the work of cretins, created by legislators so unimaginably daft and disconnected with reality that it challenges the boundaries of mortal reasoning, and yet the latest news cycles are containing near-giddy announcements that Democrat senators are anxious to push the “Buffett Rule.” Translation: make the tax code longer and even more complicated.

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Warren Buffett is an 81 year old billionaire and has made his fortune through equal parts tenacity and gaming the system. He has operated for years on the cusp of impropriety and continues to live in the gray area without so much as a worry about perceptions for he is coated in Teflon, literally immune from questions about what he knew, when he knew it, and how inexplicably he has been in the right place at the right time for decades, scooping up timely deals, restructuring debt and riding the stock, and magically positioned in the stocks of General Electric and Goldman Sachs prior to massive infusions of stimulus money. In return, he is the face of Mr. Obama’s newest wrinkle for attacking our nation’s most successful people as if he’s a de facto member of Congress. It is no small coincidence that such an alliance was established, for insider trading information in Washington is dispensed like handfuls of candy corn at Halloween.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama continues to water board America with his rhetoric and obsessive attacks on the mythical entity he pejoratively calls “the rich”, and he does so by talking about fairness. Fairness is not an economic term, it is not part of economic theory, but instead a purely subjective concept used by someone who believes in his own omnipotence and an unconstitutional right to determine wealth. The “P” in POTUS now stands for “Provocateur” and his sermonizing serves no other purpose than to divide constituents while turning away blindly from the problem of gross financial laxity and a maniacal and unsound compulsion to spend money that does not exist, as evidenced by another $1.1 Trillion overrun. The patient is hemorrhaging profusely from wounds to the abdomen and he remains fixated with bandaging a scrape on the victim’s forehead. Regrettably, pretending a problem does not exist will not eliminate the problem, and misdirecting people’s attention through prevarication and misrepresentation is inconsistent with any definition of stewardship or leadership.

Meanwhile, the media is consumed by Winchellian Madness, content to ask candidates their favorite color and quick to parse responses for the purpose of creating news. Certainly there are the voices of reason who have clamored for solutions, but to this day the Ingrahams, Malkins, and Coulters, among others, are painted as flaming radicals by traditional news outlets and dismissed as hateful cranks. Instead we have Chris Mathews and an endless parade of talking blondes who look as though they were all made from the same mold in an Easy-Bake Oven. They speak snidely of Mr. Romney’s financial success, insinuate that his gains were ill-gotten at grave human expense, and their disdain for his business achievements color their opinions in lieu of presenting facts or discussing perilous macroeconomic issues. Such selectivity and hypocrisy is a violation of journalistic franchise and is an abhorrence, for no pretense is made that Romney’s wealth is somehow ill-gotten while Buffett earned his the old-fashioned way.

About Dan Bubalo

Daniel J. Bubalo was hired by the venerable firm of Kidder Peabody in 1978, before becoming a shareholder and partner with Drexel Burnham Lambert in 1984. He ultimately bought his own brokerage firm and steered it successfully through the market crash of 1987 before starting a venture capital and advisory company in the early 1990's. He has been a broker, manager, owner, trader, financier, and advisor on mergers and acquisitions, and throughout his career has opined regularly about the intractable nature of government and its inextricable hold and influence on financial markets. A securities violation landed him in federal prison from 1999 to 2003 which served to only sharpen his observations, watching in dismay at the dissolution of the Glass-Steagall Act, the 2001 dot.com bubble burst without so much as an investigation or arrest, and has since lectured between 2005 and 2011 at the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University on government intervention and ethics, as well as being presciently critical about Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank. Dan can be contacted at dan@mychal-massie.com

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15 Responses to The Tyranny Of The Administration

  1. Carole Rodi April 21, 2012 at 5:36 am #

    I used to be very happy to seek out this web-site.I wanted to thanks in your time for this wonderful read!! I positively enjoying each little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you weblog post.

    • Mychal April 24, 2012 at 11:37 pm #

      carole rodi: thk you much…

  2. cloeanout peabody March 12, 2012 at 7:51 pm #

    “Interesting send and thanks for sharing. A little things in at this juncture I have not thought about before.Thanks used for making such a cool post which is really same fine written.will be referring a lot of friends about this.:)

  3. MrsJB February 8, 2012 at 9:23 pm #

    Mr. Bubalo, You ARE GOOD! Thanks for saying just what I thought and needed to know! Thank you Mr. Massie for giving him a ‘spot’!

    • dan bubalo February 8, 2012 at 9:41 pm #

      It’s a distinct privilege to work with Mychal, and equally so to receive your kind words.

      Thank you,

      Dan

  4. chester February 7, 2012 at 7:00 pm #

    BRAVO!!!!

    • dan bubalo February 7, 2012 at 8:31 pm #

      Thank you, Chester. Glad to have you as a reader.

  5. John McClain February 6, 2012 at 6:27 pm #

    I would like to leave a comment, but having read the above one, I simply can’t add anything substantive to it without being redundant.
    We can simply vote them out of office, but try to convince any of your friends, it should be a matter of conscience to elect new faces each and every election, and never re-elect. It would be impossible to do worse than we have now, even if half of those we elect were either incompetent or criminal, we’d still be fifty percent ahead.
    Dan, you need to get louder, I don’t think they hear you now. Thank you for the very accurate analysis.
    Sincerely,
    John McClain
    Vanceboro, NC

    • dan bubalo February 6, 2012 at 6:37 pm #

      Thank you very much, John. I will dial up the volume and brace for some type of “censorship.”

      I’ll know I hit a nerve if he hires a new Speech Czar.

  6. dan bubalo February 6, 2012 at 3:46 pm #

    Sadly, your observations are right on the money, Sumitch. When I talk with kids today about what our country once represented it’s almost as if I’m talking about ancient or foreign history.

  7. Marilyn February 6, 2012 at 10:47 am #

    Dan, great article. Thanks. The American Mainstream is certainly not represented by the current Elite in D.C. This has become more and more evident in the past three years. Once in a while, I find a Senator who makes sense but there are only a few who actually think they are working for the American People. With all of the “horse-trading” and “bringing home the bacon” going on, it all goes to getting the next vote from politician’s home States…and frequently to enrich their own bank accounts. The Elites have no conception of exactly what is going on in the private sector and worse, they don’t care. We can votem-in, votem-out but until their is a ‘clean sweep’ this type of fraudulent behavior will continue. As for Buffett, he is a misfit, rich misfit and Obama uses his remarks in most toothy speeches to make the American Mainstream think he is doing the right thing by taking the “rich man’s” money and redistributing it (That’s a laugh!). The American Mainstream is supposed to be ignorant and follow the Elite’s every word! How very out-of touch this president and administration is to assume we will swallow his ignorant rhetoric hook – line and sinker!

    • dan bubalo February 6, 2012 at 3:49 pm #

      Thank you, Marilyn. When I hear the things coming out of Washington anymore it’s like having an out-of-body experience.

      In all seriousness, we’re in the same theater but it’s as if we’re watching different movies.

  8. Bill Sr. February 6, 2012 at 9:07 am #

    Meanwhile, Mr. Obama continues to water board America…
    Great line Mychal, only when we come up for air and attempt to speak the truth he wants to gag us with legislatuon limiting free speach. Obama is a greater threat to our freedoms and our economy than he is to Iran or North Korea and others who want us dead.

  9. sumitch February 6, 2012 at 8:05 am #

    There’s no question that the country is in sad shape Dan and, as you say, it’s 99.9% the fault of Congress. The real shame of it is that there is virtually nothing that we as “The People” can do about it. The old rag about voting them out of office is as lame as a beggar on the streets of a Dickens novel. Once in office there is virtually zero chance that they will ever be voted out. They may “retire” but they still get their salaries and free medical care and an open door policy with their buddies that lets them make millions cutting deals with the robber barons we think are representing us. And naturally they will write a book via a ghost writer for a few million more.

    Why? Because the country has reached the point where the lazy, the shiftless and the ignorant now outnumber the producers. So long as they can sit on the front porch, drink their coolaid, get free food and lodging and not be bothered with an honest day’s work, they will do nothing because congress (small c intentional)will keep “sharing the wealth” to buy the votes needed to keep themselves in office.
    They have no reason to change their modus operandi. If they are caught with their hand in the cookie jar, all that happens is maybe they will have to pay it back and get a letter read to them on the floor of congress telling them they are bad boys or girls. There’s no real punishment that will ever happen. All you have to do is note the insider trading that they have available to them that has been what the news media is reporting lately. Congress knows they are breaking laws that would send mortal beings such as us to jail and they don’t care so long as they get theirs. They know they violate the constitution on an almost daily basis and don’t care. They know that they violate their oath of office and they don’t care.

    Are there a few good men (and women) in congress? Sure. But they are as outnumbered as “We the sheep”. And there’s nothing we can do about it. I’ll have my faith partially restored when Obama is voted out of office in the next cycle. But that will never happen. His machine of thieves is already working 24/7 to insure he stays in another four. And that my friend is the end of this country.

    I’ve often said that I have been fortunate enough to have been raised and lived in the best years this country has seen as a “baby boomer”. I’ve also lived in the time that this country will be relegated to a chapter in some future history book.

    • dan bubalo February 6, 2012 at 3:50 pm #

      I pinged back in the wrong place, Sumitch. Please see my comments to you above. DB

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