ON HIS KNEES, RONALD REAGAN

Marion Algier – Ask Marion

I posted this video once before, but this week, with the death of Ronald Reagan’s good friend and ally Lady Thatcher, has brought back many memories from that era in history and it seemed only fitting to post it again for those who have not heard it.

Ronald Reagan's church put this together to commemorate the birthday of Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately the war against the evil of liberalism is still alive and well, and we fight it even at Bel Air Presbyterian. The liberal Presbyterians are doing all they can to pervert the church from the inside out. Fortunately the conservative Christians are strong at Bel Air. (Those Presbyterians from Reagan’s era might be very surprised at the direction their church has chosen.) Ronald Reagan loved Bel Air Presbyterian as I do...Enjoy!

Video: Ronald Reagan Tribute -- Bel Air Presbyterian Church

Below is a quick transcript of the narration from the video above.

“Someone asked me whether I was aware of all the people out there who were praying for the president and I had to say, “Yes, I am”. I’ve felt it…..I believe in intercessionary prayer, but I couldn’t help but say to that questioner after -  that sometimes when he was praying if he got a busy signal – it was just me in there [praying] ahead of him.

I think I understand how Abraham Lincoln felt when he said “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming convictions I have that have nowhere else to go.”

Now I realize it is fashionable in some circles, to believe that no one in government should encourage others to read the Bible. That we are told that will violate the constitutional separation of church and state, established by the founding fathers in the first amendment. The first amendment was NOT written to protect people and their laws from religious values, it was written to protect those [ religious] values from government tyranny.

I’ve said that we must be cautious in claiming God is on our side. I think the real question we must answer is  “Are we are on His side?”

No matter where we live, we have a promise that can make all the difference. A promise from Jesus to soothe our sorrows heal our hearts and drive away our fears.

He promised there will never be a dark night that does not end. Our weeping may endure for a night but  joy cometh in the morning

He promised if our hearts are true, His love will be as sure as sunlight.

And by dying for us, Jesus showed how far our love should be ready to go – all the way.

For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Inaudible [Spanish]

Americans yearn to  explore life’s deepest truths. To say their entertainment ….their idea of entertainment -  is sex and violence and crime is an insult to their goodness and intelligence.

We are people who believe love can triumph over hate - creativity over destruction and hope over despair.

That’s why so many millions hunger for God’s good News. I have always believed that  we were ….each of us put here for a reason we were put here for a reason that there is a plan.

Somehow A divine plan for all of us

I know now that whatever days are left to me - belong to Him.

I also believe this blessed land was set apart in a very special way.

Our forebearers came not for gold, but mainly in search of  God and the freedom to worship in their own way. We have been a free people living under the law with faith in our maker and our future. I have said before that the most sublime picture in American history is of  George Washington on his  knees in the snow at Valley Forge. That image personifies a people who know it is not enough to depend on our own courage and goodness, we must also seek help from God our Father and preserver.

We’ll never find every answer,  solve every problem or heal every wound, but we can do a lot if we walk together down that one path that we know provides real hope.

The morality and values such faith implies are deeply embedded in our national character. Our country embraces those principles by design and we abandon them at our peril.

My experience in this office I hold has only deepened the belief I have held for many years.

Within the covers of that single Book are all the answers  to all the problems that face us today, if we would only read and believe.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9eQIWKBR-s]

Video:  Eulogy to Reagan by Thatcher

President Ronald Reagan, Blessed (Pope) John Paul II, Prime Minister (Baroness) Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev (the General Secretary Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) ended the Cold War and changed the face of the world. Reagan and Thatcher were political soul mates, making our countries even closer allies than they had been before.

Sadly like relations with our strongest ally in the Middle East, Israel, The Obama Administration was conspicuous by its absence, at the Thatcher funeral.  It would have greatly surprised, saddened and disappointed President Reagan. Obama and his administration said it was ‘too busy’ to send anyone just now, and this was before the Boston bombings. There was no official American envoy sent to Thatcher’s funeral.  It was a disgrace! America was (unofficially) represented by former Secretaries of State James Baker III, George Schultz and Henry Kissinger, all of whom attended as private persons. And by a small private, mostly Republican delegation from the U.S. House of Representatives, including former Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn and Tim Holden. Senator John McCain and former V.P Dick Cheney also attended as private citizens because there was no official American envoy sent.

Obama and company, as well as the Clintons and all the Bushes, all stayed home. Shameful.

*First Lady Nancy Reagan and President George H.W. Bush were too ill to travel.

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The Three Missteps in President Obama's Economic Turnaround Plan

U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech to the joint session of Congress late Tuesday was a beautiful performance. His language was exquisite, his delivery was superb, his rhetoric - at times - truly uplifting. It no doubt reflects a fault in my makeup that I found it not entirely convincing - but then I’m a math major and a former banker.

The speech - which took the place of the State of the Union address since it’s Obama’s first year in office - concentrated almost entirely on economics, and in particular on the financial and economic crisis currently facing the United States. President Obama’s comments were least convincing when they focused on the financial aspects of the crisis.

That’s probably why he “won overwhelming … approval” on Main Street even as he failed to “wow” Wall Street, such news agencies as the Voice of America and ABC News reported.

But according to my own analysis, President Obama made three notable missteps, including an error in strategy and goal setting serious enough to nudge the U.S. economy back into a recession, should his stimulus plan and banking-rescue program create a near-term economic recovery. Let’s look at all three of the miscues I’ve identified.

Mistake No. 1

President Obama’s first mistake was one of assessment - in that he blamed the entire current situation on Wall Street. That’s attractive, populist rhetoric, but where was the acknowledgement of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s role in the debacle, inflating the money supply 70% faster than gross domestic product (GDP) for more than 13 years, so that asset bubble after asset bubble caused the incentive structures on Wall Street to go haywire?

Where, too, was the (admittedly subsidiary, maybe No. 3 after the feckless Fed and the greedy bankers) role that Congress played over decades, messing up the housing market by creating unregulated irresponsible government guarantee monopolies in Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), an extra excrescence that no other advanced economy has found necessary to finance housing?

Bashing bankers is good rollicking stuff for a campaign speech, but it is less appropriate here, when the problems must actually be fixed. This rhetoric actually obscures the reality of the current problem, and diverts attention from the still-dangerous presence of U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, whose role in creating the disaster is in danger of being exceeded by his role in perpetuating it. If Bernanke’s current rapid expansion of the money supply leads to violent inflation, as is likely, the crisis will indeed be prolonged for a decade, as Obama claimed was possible without government action.

Mistake No. 2

President Obama’s second inaccuracy - or misstep - on the financial side in Tuesday’s speech was in diagnosis. Lending in the U.S. economy has not seized up. It did seize up for about two months after the September crisis, but even by the end of the year loan growth had resumed, as figures from the major banks show. The commercial paper market has reopened and the investment-quality bond market has run at high volumes since the beginning of January.

Only one major source of “easy money” in past lending markets has disappeared - the securitization business: Almost nobody will now invest in securitization structures, and with good reason. However, as my investigative analysis of the nation’s Top 12 banks last week demonstrated, most of the major U.S. banks are in better shape than we believe, and are actually making money.

Their profitability has been greatly increased by the disappearance of competition from securitization - loan margins at the healthy US Bancorp (USB), for example, increased from 3.7% to 3.9% in the fourth quarter of 2008, and will have increased still further now.

Other than a few huge “zombies,” most banks are now making good money the old-fashioned way, through the interest margin between borrowing and lending rates. They will continue to do so, provided the government doesn’t (as President Obama and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner are currently readying to) introduce artificial competition, by inventing new taxpayer-funded vehicles to make consumer loans and drive margins down.

Yes, loans need to remain available for houses, automobiles and other purchases, but there’s no reason why they should not be somewhat more expensive - to rebalance the U.S. economy, the U.S. consumer needs to save more, not borrow more.

Mistake No. 3

Given that his first mistake was in assessment, and the second was in diagnosis, it’s no surprise that his third mistake was in goal-setting: One of the central objectives he established in his speech was a promise to pursue multiple objectives - even as he slashed the deficit in a big way.

In fact, as well as appearing to be a bit shaky in his knowledge of banking, President Obama made me question both his math, and his choice of economic objectives.

Reducing the budget deficit from 10% of GDP, its level in 2009, to $500 billion, or about 3% of GDP by 2013, is a hell of a task.

And quite possibly a hell of a risk, too.

That 7% swing in the budget balance is almost double the largest four-year swing ever achieved since the end of World War II - the 3.8% swing achieved from 1996-2000. Even during the 1990s economic cycle as a whole - a period of exceptional economic good fortune and budget thriftiness - the swing in the eight years from 1992 to 2000 was only 7.1% of GDP.

The problem with trying to tighten fiscal policy so rapidly is the negative “stimulus” effect it would cause. If the U.S. economy does anything in mid-2010 but zoom like a Saturn V rocket roaring off the launch pad, sucking 7% of GDP out of government demand over so short a period is likely to abort the recovery and push the economy back into a depression. Furthermore, Obama intends to do this without raising the taxes by one penny on anybody earning less than $250,000, and while increasing the size of the armed forces, their pensions, and spending more on energy, healthcare and education.

Maybe I’m a grouchy old skeptic, but it doesn’t look to me as if the math adds up.

Look, President Obama is a wonderful speaker, he really is, and he gave quite a performance in his address to Congress Tuesday night. As a gnarled old Republican, I’m prepared to admit he’s as good as late President Ronald W. Reagan, I may even nurse a faint suspicion that he’s better than Ronald Reagan.

And don’t forget: Reagan was known as “The Great Communicator.”

But to be a great president, Barack Obama will need to pursue policies that are sufficiently middle of the road so as not to destroy the superb private sector that’s the backbone of the U.S. economy, and that are also cleverly designed to work properly. It’s the math, the economics and the finance, not the language, the arts and the humanities, where there are still doubts. 

By Martin Hutchinson
Contributing Editor
Money Morning