stock_creeper's  Instablog

Memorial day is for paying homage to America's fallen soldiers, but for Obama it's just another stop on the campaign trail to flaunt his supposed patriotism and divert media attention away from the economy. In true Obama spirit a boring, platitudinous speech is to be expected with extra-long pauses between words and evocation of struggle, hardship and how we have 'a long way to go' until America is molded into Obama's likeness.

In the final months of the 2008 campaign the media over-hyped the stock market collapse to get Obama into office. Now the media is trying to turn JPM and Facebook into the next Lehman so Obama can win on economic issues. Obama's 'economic plan' is to soak the rich, impose choking regulation on businesses and Wall St., and fritter tax payer dollars on useless job creation programs. This is not an economic plan.

Romney has business experience and is unemployed; Obama is a community organizer, career politician, and scholar. This not only makes Romney more relatable to average voters, but more qualified. Obama wants to make the one percent pay their fair share, which is too much money. Boehner is right. Why should the one percent who are the most productive members of society pay higher taxes for economically unproductive social safety nets? Let's cut the waste, but leave the tax cuts and defense spending unchanged.

Sometimes cognitive dissonance is justified it's in the best interests of the economy and national security. It's better to hold two contrasting views if one of them is correct than to hold the wrong ones. Sometimes we need more exotic financial instruments because they help the economy in some way, and if they fail the taxpayer should feel obliged to bail it out, out of a sense of selflessness to the good of the economy. Mortgages on supposedly dubious terms is part of the American dream of home ownership; it's the personal responsibility of the borrower to read the fine print. Too big to fail isn't so bad, if we have the support structure to prop it up should the unthinkable happen. Bailouts help the free market function more smoothly.

Obama is alienating the Latino vote by failing to implement immigration reform or a pathway to citizenship, through his attacks on the Catholic church, the contraception mandates, gay marriage endorsement and a general lack of hard working values. Populism sounds good on paper by pitting the haves against the have-nots, but this doesn't work because you can't talk down to the American people; instead you have to dangle the carrot of the American Dream to win the swing state votes. Voters want to think they can be rich, if they work hard enough. A Quinnipiac University poll out this week found Mitt Romney with a 6-point lead over President Obama in Florida, meaning there is still hope for Romney to win swing states by converting minorities on social issues. Obama has hopelessly lost the hard working white vote; but he still retains the slacker vote, the freeloader vote, and the single women vote. Too bad for Obama these groups don't have reliable turnout numbers on election night.

Admittedly, if Romney or McCain had won in 2008 we would still be complaining about the same stuff we are now like pain at the pump, debt and the weak housing & labor market. A Romney presidency won't make much of a dent in the aforementioned problems, but it will be bullish for stocks and & economy which is why I endorse him. Congress will be more accommodative if Romney wins, meaning uncontested spending for pro-growth things like defense, homeland security and tax cuts and, best of all, no more debt ceiling standoffs.

Bernanke or Geithner would make a better president than Obama. They deserve credit for the present economic & stock market boom, not Obama. Obama's specialty is taking credit for the work done by more competent people.

One of biggest mistakes of the administration is using Keynesian policy to try to forcefully reverse autonomous structural shifts in the labor market. The greater trend towards automation and globalization and

ultimately a shrinking , but a more productive and useful labor force,

is irrevocable.

In a recent column Robert Reich is still bemoaning inequality. The good news: growth will always supersede fairness. It's better to have a dynamic, competitive economy with fewer jobs than a bloated, ineffective one that resembles a DMV office.

The left insists that without more equality economic growth will stagnate. To the contrary the economy is not stagnating. US GDP growth has been positive since Q1 2009 and the economy is growing faster than any country in Europe. Increasing inequality is a byproduct of a successful economy and not a cause for concern, but is to be embraced.

Facebook is under assault by the litigious left over failure to disclose certain statement during the roadshow. It's laughable to believe that having that extra morsel of information would have affected the IPO when retail investors were blindly buying into the stock. Nasdaq is also being sued because of trading errors that somehow prevented investors from knowing when bought or sold. I hope the next time I lose money I can complain to the exchange that somehow I couldn't see my order. Instead of the dog ate my homework, I did my homework and the answers vanished! How lame does that sound. Nervermind that too much Facebook stock was issued or that the S&P 500 had its worst week since August 2011. If Facebook deserved to close at $50 it would have done so, errors not withstanding.

The Ron Paul revolution was DOA but that didn't stop liberals and libertarians from writing pro Ron Paul articles on sites like Business Insider while scorning real conservatives such as Romney or Santorum. These supposed delegates are like Loch Ness Monster sightings; the true believers think it's real in defiance of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.