New Gyroscopic 2 Wheel Breakthrough

By Charles Payne, Wall Street Strategies

11/26/2012 8:08 AM Eastern Time

  By Charles Payne, CEO & Principal Analyst

 "The emotions of people are far more similar than their intellect."- Stanley Kubrick


Kubrick understood that in the end, we are self-destructive to a degree. Now we have the ability to extend that self-destructive impulse beyond ourselves and immediate surroundings. This is why there has to be real concern that one day Iran or North Korea would launch a nuke. This is why there has to be real concern that one day Americans would ditch all the pillars that made it the greatest nation in the world, from belief in God and free markets, to try something that sounds "fair."

Such moves would be the culmination of a series of short-term emotional events and decisions. If everyone thinks he or she is a victim in this society, then we may all stand and exclaim "I'm Spartacus." The irony would be that once we began the inevitable last slide from greatness after enacting higher taxes on so many people that work, a carbon tax, a sugary snack tax, and several other taxes combined with productivity-coking regulations, we would be reduced to a human state that could only survive on government handouts. 

It's really all about controlling behavior. The war on success helps fund runaway government spending but it also curbs individual ideas of success. It deters the average person from embracing profit-motivation and soon makes them embrace the notion of a world created from the writings of Voltaire. It would become a homogenized world of fit people tending to small terrace gardens in giant utopian cities, all obedient to government and a communal society. Of course, removing these freedoms isn't easy and has to be done with combination of finesse and muscle.

Case and point is the action in the UK this week that will see the announcement of new taxes to fight cheap booze. Prime Minister Cameron probably suggests 40p a unit tax that would make cheap supermarket lager £1 and bottle of wine £4. After all the warning labels, scare tactics, and common sense when it comes to over indulging drink, the UK government is looking for stronger approach. (I'm not sure if anyone there has heard of that great social experiment in America known as Prohibition.)

Cameron is going for the wallet to stop people from getting drunk. It's insane but illustrates how all these efforts from government to determine more perfect societies end up costing us economic and personal freedoms. Lower wage workers that simply want a brew after work are going to pay the highest cost, but the fact is, they are always the collateral damage. They will pay the biggest price for Obamacare, higher taxes on the so-called rich will take a greater toll on the decidedly not rich, and emotions will still burn.

Once the government goes broke the next step in our backward evolutionary slide would have us resembling cavemen featured in opening scenes of 2001 Space Odyssey.

This stuff doesn't happen overnight and thankfully every nation that tried a combination of socialism and communism failed fast enough to make adjustments that included free markets. Russia gave up the expense of holding together so much territory to focus on its core nation which is minting millionaires and billionaires and sports a 5% unemployment rate even with massive corruption. China's leaders know the end is near for their social experiment, too, as free markets have taken the country from a sea of bicycles to notions of going to the moon. Talk about an upside down world as China has become the largest car market in the world. 

New measures are set to go into effect this week in Washington DC that aim to make 75% of all trips into the city by foot, bike, or public transportation. New parking meter rules will manipulate the ability for visitors to park and make more room for bicycle lanes. Did I say this is an upside down world? Even Marion Berry has expressed concerns about more bike lanes and less parking citing the exorbitant cost to using parking garages.

Yet even the former mayor hesitates to speak ill of more bike lanes.

Social engineering is running amok and it continues to be funded by people that have achieved a modicum of success while punishing those that dare to knock a few back - either Twinkies or beers.

 Cooler Heads Ultimately Prevail 

There is no straight line to a path of glory and maybe this is the fork in the road where America gets off track. We may need to fall off a cliff before being jarred out of this current emotional state. The road to a wonderful socialist utopia where there is neither smog nor fat people, and we work for the greater good so there are no wallets or individual wealth, can't be pulled off for long periods of time. In the end, there are other human emotions, such as a desire, to be the best, a desire to attain stuff, to taste a cream-filled snack loaded with calories and desires to rule our small universe called our life.

But as long as the economy falters and finger pointing replaces executive decisions, it is going to be a long time. But, I do think that in the end, cooler heads will prevail.

 Emotions and the Stock Market 

There are so many stocks that are cheap by any measure, but are depressed mostly for a variety of emotional reasons. Would-be investors are boycotting the market for fear of administration policies and now many people understand higher taxes will dissuade what used to be known as safe investments.>

CA Governor Brown Signs SB1298 (Autonomous Vehicles)

My Mother is going blind from Macular degeneration, so I can relate to this. She has been legally blind for close to a year, now. She gave up driving a couple of years ago and sold her car. I drive her to the store and help her with her bills.

Dennis Miller Radio: Soup of the Day - Tissue of Lies

Dennis Miller Radio: Soup of the Day - Tissue of Lies

Milton Friedman Crushes Man's 3 Questions like Dixie Cups

Street Cred Can Be Insurmountable Because Progressives Rule!

Ah, if only I could finish writing a song that would be much easier to absorb than text, especially if the tune were so catchy as to....oh well, you get the idea. My brother was a top honors Stanford Graduate. I remember a book he passed to my Dad, then on to me, Allan Bloom's, "The Closing Of The American Mind" in 1988.

It was the very beginning of what we have come to view as "political correctness" and, in effect, the polarity within our culture that has delivered us to this point where the majority of us are incapable of discussing, let alone dissolving our differences. What exists is an annoying self righteousness on "both sides" that would certainly make Jesus blush. The link is to Amazon, because I find the comments so all encompassing. Mr Bloom's assertions were not political but philosophical in nature. Over the years since 1988, there has been a subtle selection process that has modified free debate in American Universities. I was so glad to hear about Bruce Bawer's new book, "The Victim's Revolution" that picks up where Bloom lets off.

It was refreshing that Mr. Bawer references Mr. Bloom. < An eye-opening critique of the identity-based revolution that has transformed American campuses and its effect on politics and society today. The 1960s and ’70s were a time of dramatic upheaval in American universities as a new generation of scholar-activists rejected traditional humanism in favor of a radical ideology that denied esthetic merit and objective truth. In The Victims’ Revolution, critic and scholar Bruce Bawer provides the first true history of this radical movement and a sweeping assessment of its intellectual and cultural fruits. Once, Bawer argues, the purpose of higher education had been to introduce students to the legacy of Western civilization—“the best that has been thought and said.” The new generation of radical educators sought instead to unmask the West as the perpetrator of global injustice. Age-old values of goodness, truth, and beauty were disparaged as mere weapons in an ongoing struggle of the powerful against the powerless. Shifting the focus of the humanities to the purported victims of Western colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism, the new politicized approach to the humanities gave rise to a series of identity-based programs, including Women’s Studies, Black Studies and Chicano Studies. As a result, the serious and objective study of human civilization and culture was replaced by “theoretical” approaches emphasizing group identity, victimhood, and lockstep “progressive” politics. What have the advocates of this new anti-Western ideology accomplished? Twenty-five years ago, Allan Bloom warned against the corruption of the humanities in The Closing of the American Mind. Bawer’s book presents compelling evidence that Bloom and other conservative critics were right to be alarmed. The Victims’ Revolution describes how the new identity-based disciplines came into being, examines their major proponents and texts, and trenchantly critiques their underlying premises. Bawer concludes that the influence of these programs has impoverished our thought, confused our politics, and filled the minds of their impressionable students with politically correct mush. Bawer’s book is must-reading for all those concerned not only about the declining quality of American higher education, but also about the fate of our society at large.>

Joni Mitchell On Charlie Rose in 2008

Joni answers questions about her childhood motivations here. To me her songs always offered great insight into life, while her musical lyricism was very inspirational. She went from a raw simplicity to very complex tonalities early on. Her tour with Pat Methany and Jaco Pastorius was a powerful wave on through to Amelia, probably because I saw her on stage several times during that period. I lived music then. Although the video was in 2008, it was prescient as she always has been a true philosopher. I agree with her accessment of what has happened in our country as her prescient vision has been amplified in the last few years! Here's some more Pat Methany and more.