TruthSavvy.

Is there a global debt bomb waiting to be detonated? If so, will it create rampant anarchy in America? Maybe in Great Britain, too? Does an apocalyptic world await? Is the coming world worth fighting for? Increasingly, people believe these questions are worth exploring, evidenced by the size and nature of audiences generated by writers like Marketwatch’s Paul Farrell.

Darrell Delamaide argues that President Obama must stimulate the U.S. economy sufficiently to boost employment figures in the near-term, otherwise Democrats will court a political disaster next year. However, the idea of America is far more consequential than today’s interest group driven party goals. In reality, Delamaide is not arguing for stimulus as much as he is arguing against the GOP. A better argument is to replace both reckless, feckless political parties and get the nation’s budgetary affairs in order.

Is irrational exuberance making a comeback at the Fed’s invitation? Irwin Kellner thinks so, arguing that the “humongous volume” of Fed injected liquidity invites a speculative fever. The Fed’s bogus money has not produced consumer price inflation because the wealthy beneficiaries of the liquidity are keeping it engaged in speculative pursuits, with little trickling down to consumers.

Has America lost its soul? Is America too immoral and shortsighted to allow prudent capitalism to work properly? (Yes.) Is the Canadian hedge fund manager, Erick Sprott correct that the U.S. government is now a “dead man walking,” with central bank intervention the main dynamic that allows the U.S. Treasury to roll over government debt at low interest rates? (Marketwatch, Oct. 20, 2009).

National expenditures on health care as a percentage of GDP and as an outright expense will rise with the reforms President Obama signs into law. Choices will decline and coercion will climb as bureaucrats struggle to contain soaring costs. As pending health care reforms swell our medical expenditures bubble, the nation’s slide will accelerate.

Purportedly, President Obama may attempt to shift the focus of the G20 summit from banking improprieties to a rebalancing of trade. While a restructuring of trade is important, Obama is out-of-step with the American public if he diverts attention from the need to cap bank bonuses, heighten scrutiny of hedge funds, and corral the shadow banking system. Recent reports of a power regrowth in the investment banking sector lend support to this concern.

Did Wall Street quake when President Obama recently addressed its elites on the one year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse? Hardly. If anything, some on Wall Street were heartened by discrete assurances that reforms would not go deeply into the evolved architecture of capitalism.

In September, 1901, Vice-President Teddy Roosevelt uttered his memorable adage, “speak softly but carry a big stick.” Shortly thereafter, President McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist, making TR at age 42 America’s 26th president. As president he failed to speak softly at times but did carry an executive bludgeon. His legacy still shines because he swatted at the insolence of his own party as well as Democratic interests. Our current president would do well to consider Teddy Roosevelt’s example in matters of economic justice.

President Obama’s national health care agenda is big, bad, and bold. It is also better in various important respects than what we have currently. However, it is fatally flawed. The seriousness of the flaws outweighs the plan’s efficacies and virtues. As a result, the U.S. Congress should reject this legislation and address the fact that the nation consumes too much expensive but ineffectual health care.

President Obama's financial regulatory reforms will bring positive, meaningful changes to the way Wall Street does business. For this he should be commended. Nevertheless, the reforms fail to do enough, are not suitably instrumented, and sidestep systemic change. The reforms serve to affirm Wall Street's position, increasing the odds that Wall Street's grip over America will continue. This means more elitism and less true justice. The wealth and power gap between working Americans and the privileged elites of Manhattan Island will remain unjustifiably wide.