Obama Administration: Seams Coming Apart

The number of people who "strongly approve" of Barack Obama is dropping rapidly, while the number who "strong disapprove" of Obama is rising sharaply. These are not happy times for Baarack Hussein Obama and his political guru, David Axelrod.

For Gov. Sarah Palin to win the presidency in 2012, she needs "help" from the Obama Administration. In fact, as the "strongly disapprove" numbers above indicate, Obama and his political cronies are providing lots of help, as the President's "strongly disappove" number rise to dramatic new heights. In the words of the old commercial, "The Obama presidency has fallen . . . and it can't get up.

Some major figures in the Obama Administration will be gone soon, including Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Tim Geithner, and press secretary Robert Gibbs. In fact, Biden, Geithner, and Gibbs will be shoved out. Mrs. Clinton will leave because she's become invisible and irrelevant, a Secretary-of-State in name only.

Hawaii political analyst Jill Rethman and I both wrote (see below for yesterday's column) that Hillary's tenure as Sec. of State will be a short one. On Biden's coming resignation for "health reasons," he is a human gaffe machine and, as such, major liability to the Obama crowd. In his comments yesterday on supposed health care "savings," the V-P appeared ill and lifeless.

Robert Gibbs? He may limp along for a few more months. Warren Buffet blasted Geithner this morning on ABC, and that is very bad news for the hapless Treasury Secretary -- of course, Buffet was an important early supporter of Obama.

The only thing more "troubled" than the TARP program is Geithner himself, a man clearly out of his league. As unemployment continues to skyrocket, Obama and Axelrod will need to look for a scapegoat, and odds are that Geithner will be "their man."

If both cap-and-trade and healthcare reform fail this summer, which appears likely, the designated scapegoat in that case could be Rahm Emanuel. He could either lose his job, or much of his power. The dropping of Biden as V-P nominee was a real possiblity during the general election campaign. What saved Biden's role was the collapse of the economy, which occurred around Sept. 15 and eradicated McCain-Palin's lead in the polls.

If Obama had then replaced Biden with Hillary, she would have spent the next four years in "an undisclosed location." I also believe Bernanke is in trouble in the Fed. Jim Demint and others are calling for an "audit" of the Fed, which would be about as pretty as nude pictures of Barbara Mikulsi.

I'm sure Hillary is delivering some ultimatums, now that she must recognize Obama's goal is to shut her up and marginalize both her and Bill Clinton. Of course, the MSM responds to all these emerging developments by drooling out of both sides of its mouth.

Obama: Architect of Failing Economy

Sarah Palin at age 2 carrying shrimp in each hand

Financial expert Troy Dunn says, "It's like donating blood at a morgue." He's talking about the government's stupid decision to throw more cash at hapless AIG. [Note: Later today I'll be discussing why Sarah Palin should replace Obama as President in 2012.]

In coming days, I'll discuss what's gone wrong with the economy -- and what the Obama Administration is doing to make it worse. The reality is that you'll find much more of value here than you will on CNN and the rest of the mainstream media. The MSM continues to find it difficult to ask serious questions about Obama's policies, which are designed mainly to pay off his voters rather than to benefit the nation. (If you come here regularly, please sign up as one of my "followers" -- scroll down the sidebar at the upper right.)

Economics, my friends, is relatively simple, involving a finite number of variables, including: supply, demand, investments, profits, and taxes. Obama is focusing on demand and ignoring the other components. Worse than that, he's looking for scapegoats rather than solutions. It's a tactic disastrously practiced during the Franklin Roosevelt Administration.

Consider Obama's disastrous plunge into class warfare. Yes, many people love to hate "the rich" (whether they're really rich or not). But consider this: Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently spoke out against soaking the rich people in his city. He explained that high-tax, high-cost New York has eight million residents. But a mere 40,000 of the eight million -- one-half-of-one-percent -- provide city tax revenue totaling a massive 63%.

What if one-eighth of those people -- 5,000 -- moved out of the city? That would do serious damage to the city's capacity to provide services. What if one-fourth of them -- 10,000 -- moved out, which they certainly have the resources to do? It would cripple the city's ability to meet the needs of its people.

Is Obama aware of such a situation? He hasn't shown any sign yet that he is. Sarah Palin does understand such realities, and that's one reason she'd be a much better President than Obama. In Sarah's world, which is also my world, a company that operates efficiently, wisely, and profitably can grow and flourish. Companies that perform poorly will flounder and, eventually, fail.

Not so in the political planet occupied by Obama and people like Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. They look at companies such as GM and AIG as "too big to fail." Thus, such companies qualify for huge bailouts, which are somehow never quite enough money to change their prospects.

GM says it needs another $30 billion -- with a "b" -- to stay afloat. However, GM is the corporate version of a bottomless pit. Most insightful observers believe the company is headed for bankruptcy. Even that drastic step might not save America's largest automaker. At the same time, the overpaid members of the automakers union seem blissfully unaware of GM's lurch toward oblivion. GM wants to cut nearly 50,000 jobs, but even that probably will not be enough.

GM qualifies as one of Obama's companies that's "too big to fail," but fail it will. "Its auditors have serious doubts about its ability to survive," as one news report just said. Please let it die in peace.

What about insurance Godzilla AIG? So far, it has received a total of about $150 billion in bailout money. Guess what? It will need more, much more. In last year's fourth-quarter, AIG lost a whopping $60 billion. Is it doing better in this year's first quarter? Apparently not.

What's AIG's problem? It insured many of the companies that were up to their eyeballs in the subprime lending debacle. In other words, AIG insured companies that matched it in irresponsibility and bad financial practices. For that, we're supposed to bail it out?

What about the concept that a company like AIG is "too big to fail?" I have news for Obama (and AIG): it is failing. Last fall, its stock price was $20 a share. Today, a share of AIG stock is worth . . . 50 cents. Its terrible performance is one of the reasons owners of shares in all American companies have lost a total of $1.1 trillion -- with a "t" -- in wealth in the past six weeks. Obama is bankrupting the nation.

This morning on FOX News (an island of sanity in a sea of nonsense), self-made millionaire Troy Dunn said this about AIG: "It's not too big to fail." He added, "It has already failed."About throwing additional taxpayers' money at AIG, Dunn observed: "It's like donating blood at a morgue."

If AIG collapses -- actually, when it collapses -- many companies around the world will suffer. Some of the will fail. However, Obama, Geithner, and Bernanke are incapable of saving AIG. They are involved in trying to resuscitate a corpse stiffened by rigor mortis.

Today (Thursday), the stock market is continuing to fall. That's about as newsworthy as saying "The sun came up once again this morning."

Wall Street is sending a message to Obama, who remains tone deaf to the sobering music of the market. Wall Street is saying that it doesn't believe Obama has a clue about how to turn the situation around. In that view, Wall Street is correct.

[Tomorrow (Friday), I'll be writing on how to cure a serious recession, with emphasis on how it's been done effectively in past, specifically in the Administrations of Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. They did so by taking steps the exact opposite of what Obama's doing. A situation where companies aren't allowed to fail becomes one where companies eventually aren't allowed to succeed.]