Mark to Market Torpedoes Paulson

Paulson uses Sarbanes-Oxley to grab power for Goldman-Sachs’ Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. The key is mark to market. Rising assets, marked to market, cause euphoria. Falling assets, marked to market, cause panic. Paulson uses this panic to enrich himself. Main Street voted NO. Let banks determine fair market value based on proven accounting methods.
Reinstate up-tick rules and stop hedge funds from bludgeoning stocks by false rumors. Government cannot legislate common sense or morality. These qualities spring from Main Street, not K Street in Washington.
Bush stuck with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld for too long and paid the price. He must fire Paulson and find another Petraeus. Go back to fundamentals.

Oil, Obama & McCain

Obama would commit forces to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Russians learned that Afghanistan cannot be tamed. Poppies are the cash crop, bought and processed worldwide by various mafia organizations. We should outbid the competition for poppies, and process them to create pain killers for our elderly. No battlefield casualties. If the Pakistani army cannot control its northern provinces, military intervention by the United States is wishful thinking. Would we bomb localities controlled by terrorists? Are we willing to accept the political risk?

Obama likes oil substitutes. Will he open the doors to Brazilian gasahol? The middle east has cheap oil which they sell to intermediaries. The United States should grant offshore drilling rights, claiming ownership of the oil. That ownership is then sold to the drillers and marketers.

Our oil industry grew by generous depletion allowances. Our cattle industry grew by generous depreciation allowances. These tax breaks from a friendly government drew in the capital necessary for these industries to grow.

What is the point of clean energy in the United States when Russia, China, India, and the rest of the world burn oil? To control the price of oil we must be the world's largest source. Ban ethanol--embrace Brazilian gasahol. Let free markets work. Substitutes must compete on a price basis.

Obama, like Stalin who nationalized agriculture, can only create shortages. Free markets will work if the environmentalists can be tamed!

McCain/Palin affirm reality. They deny the dreams and claims of neophytes who ask for our votes so they can speculate on solutions they cannot define. McCain/Palin know that only cheap oil can draw entrepreneurial capital for substitutes. That is the reality--a reality the media cannot accept.