Is The Stock Market Discounting an Obama Victory?

The Fed Funds rate is now 2%, down from 5.25% a year ago. The Fed has cut interest rates as gasoline and food prices have been rising quickly. The stock market is usually stimulated by monetary expansion, but it has been slow to react this time. The reason might be psychological, that is, news media reports about recession may have spooked investors. But the stock market declines are continuing past the points where the mainstream media rumor mill ought to have an effect. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 131 points today.

One possible reason is the strength that Barack Obama is showing in the polls and the widespread media bias supporting him. This reminds me of the 1976 race when Jimmy Carter, relatively unknown, received a considerable degree of media propaganda in support of his candidacy, which spurred his victory. According to Real Clear Politics Obama currently leads McCain in the major polls by about 4-5%. These differences may not be statistically significant in any one poll, but the fact that all polls are showing similar findings suggests significance. At the same time, public opinion is volatile at this stage of a campaign so a difference at this point may not be meaningful even if statistically significant.

Barack Obama has repeatedly stated that he favors tax increases with respect to capital gains, inheritance and income. Capital gains tax increases would depress the stock market because they reduce the real returns to investors. It is not illogical to consider that the stock market may be depressed at this point in part in reaction to the increasing probability of an Obama victory.

Publius on Attorney Martin Carasso

"Sue" O'Malley's attorney Martin Carasso has apparently gotten into a snit with "Publius" and other advocates of free speech at the Free Speech at CUNY website. I have something in common with Attorney Carasso. My first name is Mitchell and Attorney Carasso attended the William Mitchell College of Law. Also, in 1984 an attorney punched me in the eye while I was driving and wearing glasses (he was a passenger in my car) and I had to get seven stitches. Ultimately, I settled for $3,000. Thus, I know something about low-cost legal advice. Therefore, I must comment.

Allegedly, Attorney Carasso wrote an article entitled "Joseph Martin Carasso on low-cost legal advice for independents" and now claims that he "never advertised for low cost legal services.” This is disturbing. Very disturbing. Attorney Carasso should come clean and tell Publius the fee he is receiving for representing Professor O'Malley in suing the awe-inspiring, exalted Professor Karkhanis.

Will Obama Butcher Health Care As the Democrats Have Butchered Education?

Larwyn just forwarded a Hugh Hewitt Town Hall post that quotes Barack Obama's expression of delight in "creative" education at a charter school in Colorado:

"When you start working with teachers, tapping into their creativity, then you start designing curriculums that tap into the childrens' creativity. I was at a wonderful charter school in Colorado, ah, that had designed the entire school year --each year was designed around a theme-- and this is a majority Hispanic school, but the theme that year, they called it "Passages." And it was all about the African American experience.And so they incorporated music, you know, ah tracing sort of the history of African music through blues through jazz to modern times, along with history, along with literature, and these kids last year, ah, the year before they started this charter school, about 50% of the kids had dropped out, and now a 100% of them are graduating, a 100% of them are going to college because they were engaged in a curriculum that was interesting to them and seemed relevant to them, ah, and they incorporated art and music to make school interesting."

Barack Obama's delight in failed "creative" or "progressive education" approaches is not surprising, because his associate, William Ayers, advocates them. In her landmark book Left Back: A History of Battles over School Reform Diane Ravitch outlines how the quack educationist establishment has rendered America an increasingly illiterate nation through its advocacy of the "progressive" approaches in which Mr. Obama takes delight. The Democratic Party, the chief ally of the educationist establishment, has butchered the education of American children.

Do the Democrats aim to similarly butcher the health care of American patients? Throughout the debate about the need for health reform, none of the advocates has questioned the ability of state-influenced health care to eliminate the need for rationing, and none has explained how the quality of care will be affected by reform. Michael Moore, in his film Sicko, uses Cuba as an example of the kind of care that Americans can expect from a public system. Cuba spends $250 per year per citizen on health care. In comparison, America currently spends better than $3,000 per year per citizen on health care.

Does Mr. Obama aim to butcher patients on a governmentally-dominated operating table much as the Democrats have butchered American childrens' education?

The Federalist Number 8 and the Second Amendment

The Federalist No. 8, attributed to Hamilton, sheds some light on the Second Amendment debate. As many have pointed out, the Second Amendment refers to the citizens' and the states' ability to resist a federal standing army. As such, it would seem that a robust interpretation as to the right to keep and bear arms is condign. In the Federalist Number 8 Hamilton argues that the threat of a standing army to liberty will not be great since the country, under the Constitution, would not ordinarily need to worry about military threats and so the federal army would not need to be large. He adds that because of the rarity of internal invasions:

"The smallness of the army renders the natural strength of the community an overmatch for it; and the citizens not habituated to look up to the military power for protection, or to submit to its oppressions, neither love nor fear the soldiery; they view them with a spirit of jealous acquiescence in a necessary evil and stand ready to resist a power which they suppose may be exerted to the prejudice of their rights.

"The army under such circumstances may usefully aid the magistrate to suppress a small faction, or an occasional mob, or insurrection; but it will be unable to enforce encroachments against the united efforts of the great body of people."

The Second Amendment reads:

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

It seems evident that the Second Amendment, like Hamilton, refers to the public's and the states' ability to resist military incursions on liberty. Gun ownership in this light is not only an individual right, but an individual responsibility. Far from limiting the right to bear arms, the phrase "a well regulated militia" suggests that all Americans ought to bear arms as a defense against a standing army and suppression of the citizenry. Would that the European victims of nazism and communism had taken the advice of the Bill of Rights and formed a well-regulated militia.