Klaus Rohrich

American WaBenzi

In Africa the ruling class is known as the “WaBenzi,” a term describing a corrupt government official or a family member of one. The term originates from a Bantu colloquialism with “Wa” being a prefix that refers to people and “Benzi” referring to Mercedes-Benz, a vehicle favored by African rulers. WaBenzi excel at privatizing public resources in order to further their own goals and think nothing of spending government revenues or foreign aid on themselves and their family or tribe, while the people of their nation languish in abject poverty.

Losing before the first shot is fired

I was at a dinner party on Saturday night and we were talking about the economy. One of the guests opined that, like in the 1930s, this Great Recession was here to stay and recovery will only come about as a result of war. While I personally agree with this sentiment, as did some of the other guests, one guest’s comments struck me as being particularly prescient. “There’ll be a war,” he said. “But we’ll lose because we won’t fight. Our young people just aren’t up for it.”

Obama whacks another bad guy

Who’d have thought that Barack Hussein Obama, the skinny community organizer from Chicago, would turn out to be so butch? First, he goes out and personally hunts down Public Enemy #1, Osama bin Laden, and finishes him off with a nice clean double-tap, making his head explode like an overripe watermelon. Then he goes after that arch cross-dresser Muammar Qaddaffi and whacks him as well. America hasn’t seen a president this bellicose since Theodore Roosevelt led the charge up San Juan Hill. Never mind Harry S. Truman dropping The Big One on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Obama gets up close and personal with America’s enemies, making them bleed in the streets.

Government healthcare is bad for your health

A friend who lives in Tennessee sent me an email last week, decrying that the “experts” advising President Obama on healthcare are suggesting that PSA tests for men aren’t necessary and should not be covered under government healthcare.

The second Civil War

Immigration reform has been a long simmering issue that successive administrations have failed to address. Not since the Reagan administration passed the Immigration Control & Reform Act (ICRA) of 1986 has any party given serious consideration to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws. When the ICRA was passed it granted amnesty to an estimated 3 million illegal immigrants on the assumption that such an amnesty would once and for all “fix” the problem of immigration.

Founding the Flea Party

It’s clear that the Democrats have “party envy,” even as they cast sneering glances at the Tea Party, which everyone assumes to be a primarily Republican organization. With the recent formation of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, some Dems are beginning to see the possibilities of having their own Tea Party-like organization in the hapless shlubs protesting against America’s billionaires.

Pass the jobs bill now!

Ever notice how President Obama never seems to deal with ideas, but rather speaks in clichés. He often talks about “fat cat” Wall Street bankers, “big” oil companies and of course the ever-popular “wealthiest Americans.” It’s kind of a window into the man’s soul that reveals volumes about what he really thinks about his fellow citizens. His most recent Bogeyman is the “millionaire,” you know, the guy whose picture you see in the monopoly game lighting his illegal Cuban cigars with crisp new hundred dollar bills, while the slavering masses wallow in abject deprivation, dragging their tired asses along endless soup-kitchen line-ups. Yeah, we get the picture.

Job creation: why now?

It’s interesting to note that President Obama’s so-called “job-creation” plan comes more than two years after the lack of jobs became an 800-lb gorilla. Foregoing the question of whether or not government is even capable of “creating” jobs, the question of the day is “why has it taken 33 months for the president to finally come up with a plan?”

Excuses, excuses

A recent article in Canada’s Financial Post by Eric Lascelles, chief economist at RBC Global Asset Management, Inc. predicts that the U.S economy will soon be all sunshine and lollipops, as its current malaise can easily be explained by a confluence of several unfortunate and unavoidable factors. These include the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the spate of bad weather that wreaked havoc upon the American south and mid-west, and the spike in oil prices earlier this year that Lascelles assures his readers will return to normal sometime soon.

The Democrats’ own Reichstag Fire

It’s February 1933. Adolf Hitler has recently been appointed Chancellor of the Weimar Republic. A mysterious fire breaks out at the German Parliament, known as the Reichstag and totally destroys the building. Near the scene of the fire a spaced-out Dutchman named Marinus van der Lubbe is taken into custody and it turns out he is a communist. Authorities quickly convict van der Lubbe who is then executed for his “crime.” But not before Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution is invoked, which gave Hitler total control of Germany and curtailed the country’s most basic rights, including the right to free expression, freedom of the Press, the right of free assembly, the right to secure postal and telephone communications, protection from illegal search and seizure, right to private property and the right of German states to self-government. A supplemental decree added the creation of special police agencies such as the SS (Schutz Staffel , or protective echelon) and the SA (Sturm Abteilung, or Storm Troopers).

Pandering to morons

It seems that Chuck (the rat) Schumer is at it again attempting to gain popularity among America’s less than salient citizens. This time the Senator from New York, who makes Wyle E. Coyote seem like an amateur plotter, wants to investigate Big Oil Companies because he’s sure they’re ripping off hard-working American consumers at the gas pump.

Going for broke

Standard and Poor’s threat to downgrade U.S. government debt isn’t so much a warning about what might happen as it is a confirmation of what has already happened. After all, the bond rating agencies haven’t exactly been oracles of insight when it comes to financial disasters, else the meltdown of 2008 would have been avoided.

Fighting to maintain the status quo

The current round of skirmishes between Democrats and Republicans at pretty well all levels of government is a clear illustration of who is in favor of change and who wants to maintain the status quo. Democrat legislators from places as diverse as Wisconsin, Indiana, New York and Ohio are eagerly defending public sector unions and advocating higher taxes, rather than cut government spending.

The dollar’s death spiral

The US dollar is the world’s reserve currency, meaning that most meaningful financial transactions are conducted in US dollars. If French or German companies want to purchase oil from Saudi Arabia, they can’t do so using Euros. They have to take those Euros and convert them to US dollars in order to pay the Saudis for their oil. This system worked really well for decades because the US dollar was a solid currency backed by a government whose monetary policies ensured the dollar’s strong economic performance on the world stage.

Egypt’s own Obama

As the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for...” The change that Egyptians are seeking is a lot like the change Americans sought back in 2008, when the majority of voters wanted to put a resolute end to the administration of George W. Bush. It’s how a little-known and untested Senator from Illinois managed to charm his way into the White House through vague promises of “hope and change.” In their zealous ousting of the long-ruling and much-reviled strongman, Hosni Mubarak, the people of Egypt stand to make the same mistake that Americans made in 2008, except in this case, the mistake could well be fatal to any hopes or dreams of attaining the Arab world’s first spontaneous democracy.

Beware of cheap imitations

With all the changes currently taking place in the White House, MSM pundits have become rapturous over what they perceive to be President Obama’s latest masterstroke. As they see it, his nearly complete cleansing of original advisors for a collection of more “centrist” advisers is the reflection of a gentler, kinder Barack Obama who is totally committed to working in a bipartisan fashion.

Engineering poverty

A lot of North American politicians appear to have a tin ear when it comes to the effects their policies impose on their constituents. The current global warming fetish is a case in point, with politicians of all stripes and jurisdictions feverishly attempting to out-green each other. In the process the people those politicians are supposed to serve will ultimately pay more for less, as ill-considered solutions result in steep energy price increases.

TSA: a profile in cowardice

Following a failed attempt by Richard Reid, the so-called “shoe bomber,” to set off explosives hidden in his shoe aboard an aircraft, the US Government instituted a new rule that forced all aircraft passengers to remove their shoes for inspection prior to boarding. In the wake of the botched attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up an aircraft with explosives hidden in his skivvies, the US Government created a new regulation that forced all passengers to either get a full-body scan or an intimate pat-down by airport security workers. I’m sure we all know what will happen once some terrorist attempts to blow up an aircraft with explosives concealed in his rectum.

Look to Canada to see why Obamacare must be repealed

If you want to know what life under Obamacare will be like in the very near future, then I recommend a visit to Canada. Due to government rationing, healthcare in Canada has all but imploded since the institution of a universal single-payer system back in 1984. Since 1984 (an fitting date, if ever the was one) Canada has been one of only three countries in the world where private healthcare is illegal. The other two are North Korea and Cuba, in case you’re wondering.

Some lessons to learn

Sitting bleary-eyed in the wee hours of election night witnessing the monumental turn about in American politics, one is given to wonder if America and particularly the country’s elected representatives are drawing the proper conclusions from this massive political shift. John Boehner’s victory speech made the point that the Republicans’ reversal of fortunes wasn’t so much about agreeing with that party’s policies, as it was a repudiation of President Obama and his party. There is even a question about whether it was the policies or the arrogance and deeply rooted sense of entitlement that undid the Democrats.