Hennessy's View

On December 28, 2008,  I published my predictions for 2009.  I should have graded myself in January, but I was still on hiatus from Hennessy’s View.  So let’s take a look.

The Dow:  The Dow trades within a range of 1,000 points with a daily average closing of 8,500.

Grade:  D. The average would be a pain to figure out, but it looks like it was closer 9800.

GDP and Economy:  By July, everyone pretty much calls the situation “Great Depression II.”  Unemployment, which declines in the first quarter, increases to more than 12 percent by fall.  Gross Domestic Product by quarter:

Q1:  -.06

Q2: -1.5

Q3: -6.5

Q4: -2.0

Grade: B.  The combination of unemployment and GDP followed my track except that Q1 actual was worse than I predicted and Q3 better.

US Treasuries: Moody’s warns investors in US Treasuries that inflation could erode the real value of the paper dramatically but falls short of lowering bond ratings.  China and Japan sell over $1 trillion in long-term US debt.

Grade:  C+.  Moodys did release several warning about US debt hurting Treasury ratings, and China was a net seller most of the year.  I overshot the amount of treasury sales by China and Japan—by a lot.

Auto Industry:  The bridge loan isn’t enough and the UAW refuses major compromises, but Obama and Congress block GM and Chrysler from bankruptcy.  Instead, Congress authorizes $70 billion in exchange for voting stock and a seat on the companies’ boards.  The companies oblige, effectively becoming government agencies.

Grade:  B+.  Everything happened as I predicted, but the companies went through bankruptcy anyway.  On this, I was overly optimistic.

Iraq:  The slow drawdown of troops will continue according to the plan approved by Iraq in 2008.  The net effect of Obama’s win on Iraq is zero.

Grade:  A.

Iran:  The Obama administration achieves a pyrrhic victory by signing a non-proliferation agreement with Iran similar to the one Clinton (via Carter) signed with North Korea.  By the end of 2009, Iran’s cheating is obvious, but both the US and UN ignore it . . . until it’s too late.  Israel acts alone.

Grade: D.  Israel hasn’t attacked Iran, obviously.  Obama got way too friendly with Iran, but he’s backed off.

Key Legislation:

Fairness Doctrine returns requiring television and radio stations to provide equal time to all sides of any news or science issue with the exception of climate science.

Grade: F

Emission Standards increased dramatically by Congress and rubber-stamped by GM and Chrysler boards.  Ford sues claiming unfair competition and anti-trust violations.  Suit will take years to settle.

Grade: A

Unions can demand to know a non-union’s position on unionization votes.  Many shops turn union; many anti-union workers are assaulted and threatened.

Grade: F

Medical workers are compelled to participate in abortions regardless of religious or personal beliefs.  Thousands of doctors and nurses quit in protest.  The Catholic church closes thousands of hospitals creating the greatest healthcare availability crisis ever in a post-industrial country.  Congress prepares, by year’s end, to take over the healthcare industry and all medical universities and colleges.

Grade F

Overall: D

Sports

Several major professional sports teams fold as advertising dollars disappear.

Grade: F

Entertainment

No one really cares after reading the list above.

Grade:  B.  Michael Jackson died.

Politics

Newt Gingrich prepares a presidential run in 2012 by quarterbacking a team of more than 200 Republican Congressional candidates on single agenda to win back Washington and capitalism.

Grade:  B.  Newt will run.  He just didn’t quarterback the Congressional Win-Back.

Climate Change:  2008 was the coolest year in almost 20 years, and 2009 looks to be even cooler.  A major flaw is revealed in the most sophisticated models.  James Hansen refuses to admit he was wrong, but even the media stop covering climate change.  Environmentalism shifts to potable water, an actual problem that will affect the US in 20 years as the Ogallala Aquifer dries up.

Grade:  A++.  How could I have known that ClimateGate was coming down the pipe?  Huh?  You believe that?  Amazing.

Composite:  I’ll give myself a C.

Popularity: 1% [?]

So says Yale economist Nouriel Roubini in an interview today on CNBC.

“There are some parts of the global economy that are now at the risk of a double-dip recession,” said Roubini, head of Roubini Global Economics. “From here on I see things getting worse.”

Roubini’s comments came in response to a 376 point drop in the Dow Industrials. Nasdaq and S&P 500 were off significantly as well.  All three indices are at or near correction territory, having fallen about 10 percent from their peaks.

The reasons for the nosedive are pretty obvious:

• Uncertainty in the future of finance because of Dodd’s financial takeover package
• Fear of sovereign debt as seen in Greece, Spain, Portugal, and the USA
• Continued unemployment in the US
• The Obama Administration’s unquenchable thirst for borrowing
• Talk of the collapse of the Euro
• Weakness in Asian economies, including China
• Unexpected jump in unemployment claims
• Unexpected drop in the Index of Leading Economic Indicators

In short, if the news isn’t uncertain, it’s bad news for economic growth.  Other economists see weakness in the US economy, as in this Yahoo News story:

“The economic recovery story has started to look like a mirage and the new reality is a return to credit crunch conditions” like those seen during the financial crisis, said Tom Samuels, manager of the Palantir Fund in Houston. “If that’s correct, stock prices are well ahead of economic reality.”

Buckle your seatbelts.  It looks like Obama’s second recession is on its way.

*UPDATE*

The stock sell-off continues in Asia on Friday.  Major indices are down about 2.5 percent from yesterday’s close.  The Senate tonight voted to place massive controls on banks and finance, a move sure to spoil investors’ appetites.  This Congress and this administration are bent on controlling every aspect of our lives.  Alexis de Tocqueville predicted this outcome 180 years ago:

Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

Please read the rest of Democracy in America, Volume II, Section 4, Chapter VI.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Whether you’re the party darling or the federal office holder, 2010 is shaping up to be your  last year in politics.

In Kentucky, Tea Party Republican, Rand Paul, opened a can of whoop-ass on Republican party favorite, Trey Grayson. No single race proves the strength or impact of the Tea Party, but races like Paul’s demonstrate that the right candidate with the right campaign team with the strong backing of the Tea Party and 9-12 Project can blow away the party candidate. Don’t read anymore into it.

And don’t read too much into the PA12 race to fill Jack Murtha’s seat. This race involved a single district in Pennsylvania where Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one.  Tim Burns’s opponent ran to the right of Ronald Reagan:  pro-life, pro-gun, anti-ObamaCare, and anti-Cap and Trade.  Critz also was credited with being shovel man in Murtha’s pork-barrel filling operation.

Additionally, thanks to traditional Republican circular firing squads, there were approximately 16,000 under votes in the special election.  Yesterday, Burn was not only the GOP candidate in the special election, but he was on the Primary ballot against establishment Republican, Bill Russell, for this November’s general.  It seems Russell’s supporters were encouraged not to vote in the special election. It’s difficult for a Republican to beat both a Republican and a Democrat.

Russell’s strategy backfired.  He’s losing the primary race to Burns.  But he did succeed in ensuring Burns will face an incumbent Democrat.  Way to go, Einstein.

Across PA, RINO-cum-Democrat, Arlen Specter lost soundly to Any Democrat.  In this case, Any Democrat was played by Congressman Jay Sestak.  (Pronounced: who cares?) This commercial explains why cynicism, even naked cynicism, won’t cell in 2010:

In Arkansas, it appears Blanche Lincoln’s career will be decided by a  run-off in June.

So what does it all mean?

1. Incumbents and party favors are out

2. Money can still buy votes

3. Republicans are still the only people who can beat Republicans—and they do it very well.

4. Pat Toomey (PA) and Rand Paul (KY) will be freshman Senators together next January.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The final poll before Tuesday’s special election to fill Jack Murtha’s unexpired seat in the U.S. House shows that Republican Tim Burns is neck and neck with Democrat and pork barrel specialist Mark Critz. (Yes, Critz’s campaign is funded by lobbyists and special interests.)

PPP has it 48 to 47 Burns.

That means GOTV will determine the winner.

If you want to make a difference, here’s the four step plan:

• Got friends in PA12?  Call them.  Ask them if they intend to vote for Tim Burns on Tuesday*
• Email friends who live anywhere in western PA, eastern Ohio, or West Virginia asking them to contact their PA12 friends
• Use twitter, facebook, or any other social networking channels to spread the word
• Join the nationwide Virtual Phone Bank
• Pray. For the next two days, let’s set aside One Minute of Prayer at 3:00 p.m. local time. I’ve added a One Minute of Prayer event to our Conservative Calendar.

(And on Wednesday, we’ll take a moment to thank God for the election, no matter the results. )

This is a great chance to make a difference and set the tone for 2010.

* Just asking someone if they intend to vote increases the chance that they will vote by 40 percent, according to researcher Dr. Robert Cialdini.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I can’t tell you the date of our last sandlot football game. We didn’t commemorate it or mark with a special ceremony.  We probably didn’t even know it would be our last game together.

After school, the kids would come to my house. Our next door neighbors, the Nahers, had a double lot, and Mrs. Naher was a former professional women’s baseball player. She loved sports and kids and let us tear up the the lawn they manicured all summer by playing sandlot football in the fall and winter.

“We” were three or four classes of boys who graduated from Epiphany School between 1975 and 1979, roughly.  Joe Cox, Matt Ellison, Dan Ellison, Dan Psaris, Bobby Psaris, Chris Winkelman, Jerry Walk, Sonny Oliver, Francis and John Godfrey, Don Vopel. Sometimes others. We played by our own set of rules.  I believe that two forward passes constituted a first down. Rushers had to count to “three Mississippi” before rushing the quarterback. 

We planned the games and chose teams at school, at Epiphany.  Then we picked teams, again when we realized that a different set of kids showed up.  Joe Cox or Matt Ellison would often volunteer to ref. 

It was during those cold, wet, painful football games that I learned about drive, desire, strengths, and limitations.  I learned that I was fiercely competitive and could be vengeful.  I also learned that I was fast and quick despite being one of the bigger kids.  And I learned to laugh and to be funny. I would catch myself noting the kinds of jokes that “worked” and the kinds that didn’t.

By the time I reached seventh grade, the games were over. The Nahers had moved to the Lake of the Ozarks, and the new owners put in a fence. Our attentions shifted to girls.  And we had less carefree time as got older.  CYC league basketball, soccer, and baseball practices became more frequent and more intense.  There was more homework.  And we were getting bigger and stronger, able to inflict far more pain and injury with each passing year.

***

I thought about those games and those boys and the girls of Epiphany today. The parish held a special mass and reception for Epiphany School alumni. The school’s closing after this year.

The church looks very different than it did when I left for the Navy in 1984. It’s both more modern and more worn, like the manicured fingernails of a wealthy old lady.  The neighborhood looks the same, although many of the houses have been town down and replaced. 

I sat with two of my three sisters and my dad.  We’re all alums. So are Dad’s sisters and brothers. With Dad, they are Margaret, Mary, Jack, Jane, Jerry, Geraldine, and Jim.  Of that brood, my dad was the lone preventative.

Next to me was my youngest son, Patrick. He’s almost seventeen. He didn’t go to Epiphany, but he and I wish he did.  After moving to the suburbs in 1995, I never moved my boys back to town. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but on days like today, it gives me a little twinge of guilt. Maybe I could have saved the school.

***

Mark Palardi was there.  His son will have the honor of graduating in Epiphany’s last class.  From 1912 to 2010, thousands of students received excellent educations at the school on Smiley Avenue. Alumni include local celebrities Mike Shannon and Mayor Francis Slay. 

Mark hung around Epiphany taking care of things after graduation. So did my best friend, Dan Psaris. And Jim Przada, who was there today. So did Richard Hanneke, now a Monsignor. He concelebrated today’s mass.  Dan and Mark and Jim and I attended Fr. Hanneke’s very first mass after ordination in 1976.  After that mass, we did something, but I don’t remember what. Probably played baseball, considering it was may. May 22 to be exact.

***

The cycles of a Catholic parish’s life include the boys who become men and the girls who become women. They meet in kindergarten, grow apart, return to the parish, and make it stronger.

Only that last part isn’t happening anymore it seems.  My childhood sweetheart and I didn’t marry and return.  She went off to be a star and I went into the Navy after numerous failed attempts at growing up.

The classes at Epiphany dwindled.  From 1912 to about 1972, each class grew larger and stronger.  My sister Mary was the first class in the “new” school building.  during her time at Epiphany, the Baby Boomers filled the place to the rafters with over 1,000 students.  The men of the parish built makeshift classrooms in the Upper Gym. 

The school was shrinking when I arrived.  My class had about 60 students, not the 120 my sisters’ had.  But 60 meant a student to teacher ratio of 30 to 1. (Despite those numbers, they learned us real good.) 

And generations moved away.

Regulation, costs, fewer nuns, state mandates all drove up the cost of a Catholic education.  The parish aged. It’s too expensive to continue operations, so the kids will disperse to St. James, St. Joan of Arc, St. Michael the Archangel, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael.  The Archdiocese will lease the school building to someone else who will operate another kind of school.  There, the kids will learn everything they need to prepare for adulthood, except the two most important things.

These two things were the most important lessons we learned at Epiphany—lessons that some of us learned and practiced while others of us pridefully ignored.

Those lessons were to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ and to return home to keep your parish going.

The new operators of the school on Smiley won’t teach those lessons. And because of that, the school will never be Epiphany again.

Dominus vobiscum.

Popularity: 2% [?]