Stock Markets Exposed - Hillary Clinton: The Tragedy Continues? Clinton II?

Hillary Clinton: The Tragedy Continues? Clinton II?

Hillary Clinton: The Tragedy Continues by Michael S. Rozeff by Michael S. Rozeff DIGG THIS Hillary Clinton is more and more likely to become the next President of the United States. The price of her nomination contract on Intrade has jumped to the 60 area, meaning she has a 60 percent chance of winning the nomination. No one else is even close. The market thinks that Bill Richardson is likely to be her running mate. Speculators think that this ticket will win the election, although they are not as sure of that. They are very sure that Democrats will retain both Senate and House control. A Clinton II presidency will affect taxes, stock and bond prices, dollar and gold prices, and a great deal else. Speculators and planners will be watching closely her every word in order to discern the material impacts of her possible policies. Long before she is elected, asset prices will begin to move in anticipation of potential legislation and policy changes. There are certain areas that Hillary Clinton is very interested in that will affect many Americans and the portfolios of many Americans. Interesting questions arise. Will Bill Clinton serve in a new Clinton administration? Will he have a marked influence on Hillary’s policies? Will her fiscal and monetary policies look like his? Will she be her own woman? I will briefly summarize a few of Hillary’s currently indicated directions. This usually is a valuable exercise. Elected officials often follow the signals they emit during their campaigns. But it is an iffy exercise. Events overtake a president and lead to unexpected twists and turns. I also cannot resist offering a few of my own jaundiced reflections. It is extremely difficult to watch multiple American tragedies unfolding before our eyes and not say something about them. And who knows? Maybe Hillary or someone close to her will read this and see some light. Hillary would like to end the war in Iraq. Bill Richardson even more plainly wants to end it. The idea is to shift the $450 billion going into warfare into domestic concerns like health care, education, and energy. Such a platform is a sure winner. But Richardson as Vice-President will have limited influence. Hillary will find herself drawn into the foreign policy game just as her husband was. Hillary as President will curtail U.S. military operations in Iraq but not end them. She has promised to end the war, but at the same time she promises to transform and continue it. She says she will retain a significant force and continue to try to produce country-wide military and police forces, attack terrorists, and provide materiel. She will call for more equipment for the area and fewer personnel. She will talk tough to Iraq’s leaders. Her promise to end the war is an empty one. Since she and the U.S. establishment want to produce a stable Iraq allied to the U.S., she can’t end the war because that will produce the opposite consequences. Iraq will disappear and be replaced by a partitioned country with many frictions: between Iranian and Iraqi Shiites, between Iraqi Shiite factions, between Sunnis and Shiites, between Turkey and Kurds, etc. The bloodthirsty terrorists of Al-Qaeda will ally themselves with whomever they can to lever their position. Events in Iraq are unpredictable. Both the U.S. and Hillary are willing hostages to them. Even under the cover of a democracy, a strong man could arise, another Saddam. Which way will Hillary go? Will she bite the bullet and withdraw, letting the chips fall where they may? Or will she succumb to the urge to shape events and control Iraq’s future? Like her husband, she will do both. She will straddle the issue. Just as he bombed and bombed, she will try to substitute equipment for manpower. She will withdraw some men but not all; and she will not withdraw power and interference. She will compromise between those voices urging faster exit and those counseling disaster if she withdraws too quickly. In other words, the war will drag on until the balance of power shifts to install a regime or regimes that keep power. Hillary on the Iraq War is a continuing disaster. She will not exercise a foreign policy leadership that will make a real difference. She has already joined others in her party who promise to heat up U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. Adjacent Pakistan also continues to heat up as another hot spot. On energy, Hillary is a booster of the Apollo Alliance. She supports renewable energy sources, ethanol, biofuels, clean coal, and measures to reduce global warming, which are all popular but costly, wasteful, and ineffective ideas. None of these measures will reduce America’s oil dependence, as she claims to want. Only a big shift into nuclear power will accomplish that. However, she is at best lukewarm and/or really cold on nuclear power plants. She thinks the public is against them ("so hard to site them") and that they cost too much ("so hard to fund them.") Since she could exercise leadership on nuclear power and isn’t, she is unlikely to go in that direction. Instead, in a speech on Feb. 26, 2007, she called for an Apollo Project for energy that would end "tax breaks for big oil" and subsidize research and development of clean fuels. Hillary on energy is a disaster, but so has been every administration for a long time. U.S. energy policy is a huge and stupid tragedy, and Hillary will play a lead role in continuing it. Hillary hasn’t moved an inch on HillaryCare. The Congress, with benighted public support, has moved in her direction, enacting universal health care piece by piece. Hillary will extend health care benefits and introduce price controls on insurers. She wants full and universal coverage for all Americans. On paper everyone will have health care. In reality, there will be rationing and price controls. American health care will deteriorate even further. Will Americans care? Will they fly to India or Thailand where they can get better, faster, and cleaner health care? Hardly likely. Unlike Canadians suffering with their national health care system who have been coming here, where will Americans turn? They will wait, suffer, and die before their time. The only bright side is that this will provide a background for those who see some advantage in running against the system and drastically changing it. Nothing less will suffice at this point than completely dismantling the health care monstrosity. Hillary on health care is a continuing disaster. George Bush II played his role in this tragedy by introducing the prescription drug benefit and failing to reform the system in any way. In another sign that she does not understand economics and/or wants to make political hay, Hillary wants women by law to be paid the same as men are. This sounds good to untutored American ears, who think this is a matter of simple justice. However, if women were systematically being underpaid for no good reasons, wouldn’t those same businessmen who are supposed to be so greedy rush in and hire them at $0.75 on the dollar? Shawn Ritenour explains some of those good reasons for men-women pay differentials here, and Thomas E. Woods, Jr. explains that "never-married women of comparable education and experience and who work full time have the same incomes as their male counterparts" here. Raising women’s pay above the market level that takes into account compensating differentials (related to such factors as on-the-job training, length of tenure, job interruption, and time spent with family) will put women out of work. In an interesting pair of contradictory statements from the Hillary campaign site from which I draw her positions, we are told that "Hillary has stood firm as an advocate for a woman's right to choose." Hillary favors Roe v Wade. She is in favor of abortion. But a few sentences later we read this: "As president, Hillary will continue her lifelong fight to ensure that all Americans are treated with respect and dignity." Apparently, babies in the womb do not count as Americans. Moreover, Hillary is known as a champion of children: "America is ready for a president who fights for our children." She has a long slate of legislation relating to children, including a new proposal to extend pre-kindergarten schools to all 4-year-olds. Why then does she not favor the babies who would be born? Maybe it’s because they can’t vote. Hillary on the American family is yet another continuing disaster. In the Clinton II realm, the government will step up its invasion of the family. The State long ago crossed the boundary into American family life in a largely unnoticed and unheralded stealth invasion. Hillary will extend the State’s victory over the American family and consolidate that control. Like all presidents, Hillary can be counted on to push for a number of favorite hobby-horses. Hers are many. They include public schools in overseas countries, support of Israel, government reform, voting reform (including same-day registration and an Election Day holiday), and working with the U.N. Political government under Hillary will grow larger, just as it has under just about every president ever elected. This process can go on for some time as there is a lot of ruin in a country. When major American establishment figures start talking different games than the ones we’ve been hearing for the last 100 years, then we’ll know that some real change is in the air. This has not happened yet. In the meantime, the only consolation is that the State is running into diminishing returns. We can see this in the projected deficits to fund the government’s programs. We can see it in the difficulties and cutbacks in countries overseas. Economics is a constraint on how far the State can go. Clinton II will be operating under constraints. Unfortunately, they are not yet tight enough to prevent her from continuing the tragic policies of her predecessors and placing her own personal stamp upon them. August 18, 2007 Michael S. Rozeff [send him mail] is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York.

Public Comments

She will still be better than what we have now in the White House
Hillary 08 Bring it On! We're ready for new leadership
Despite the lies of Limbaugh and others, Bill Clinton balanced the budget and was reducing debt. Today, non-"tax and spend" president is the biggest deficit spender ever. That's hypocracy. However, I agree that Hillary is likely to be more of the same despite her rhetoric. Vote Green!
What if she is not elected?
Why do you get to write so much?
Oh more of the same FEAR and SMEAR from a blockhead of a neo-con. One can hardly keep from falling down laughing when a "professor" (did he get his degree by mail) criticizes someone who hasn't even been elected yet for a failure to understand economics or her failure in Iraq. What crystal ball is he using? He should focus entirely on the man who is bankrupting the country NOW while he sits on his ass in Amherst and writes letters to the editor. Your post is a bad joke, really.
You wrote so much, not sure you are for Hillary or against, but in a nutshell, it looks like you are saying that she will definetly win the Whitehouse, and she definetly will be a bad president. I agree with you on her winning, but her being a bad president, I dont think no one is a bad president, I just think that she may stand on some issues that you may not agree with. I say give her a chance, and if she is so terrible, do not vote for her in 2012.... that's all.....oh by the way in a 3 way match up, Clinton, Giuliani, and Bloomberg, she wins by 5-6% So Bill Clinton, Bloomberg, Iraq, and as you said Bill Richardson, are her keys to the Whitehouse.
I agree she might prefer Bill Richardson as her running mate. But I think the political reality is that Obama will be the VEEP. And yes, they will win. And yes, the country will be just fine.
First of all, I really could careless that your a professor! and I really doubt it, By the way you wrote your letter with answers and no real questions like you were supose to do! I believe by your letter your campaigning against Hillary, for reasons of monitary,or working with a different campaign for someone else! or your awfully afraid that a woman could actually become a president! I would even guess you are involved with government in some way and trying to get the word out to not bother voting for Hillary because you have someone else your pushing for! And I would also bet you voted for Two faced Bush both times and that all you mentioned against Hillary you got confused when writing , and you thought you were writing about Bush! What ever the case no ones twisting your arm to vote for Hillary, as far as that goes, no one is twisting your arm to vote at all, as you can see by many post and many to come, you 'll actually get to see that the American people have wanted change for years and all they get is lies, this might be the biggest chance for the American people to stand up and demand change and that's what Hillary is offering, Just because she's a woman, you didn't have the right to degrade her the way you did or Bill as far as that goes! If you don't like Hillary because of some personal reason or because she's a woman and will make history being our First ever Female President, you can always move to a foreign country if you think she'll be so bad and you can take Bush with you! I believe like million's of others believe, she's the change we need and she's the one that will do her hardest to get results on what the American people have wished for, for years! CHANGE and a HONEST President! We don't need anymore government lieing puppets for President.
Hilary can kiss my ass
The Hildebeast has already said that is is going to give BJ Bill a job and she is going to put our troops in the middle of the civil war in Darfur.
And where did Mr. Rozeff get his crystal ball?
All americans with any sense of reason had better pray that she is not elected. If you will remember and note, neither her nor her husband has EVER stood up for anything that mattered, and made their opinion in favor the winning side at the last minute. All they ever did was deny wrong doing even though proof was in their face. Remember monica? Remember their tax preparer that "commited suicide" when he could prove the scandal they were involved in? Wake up america. She is a bigger threat than Bill ever was. (although she told Bill everything to say and do)
For us new yorker's the tragedy has never left! From the white house to the senate we have this cancer now in New York! I too have many questions to ask: Why my beloved New York? Why a junior senator for president? Clearly, Chuck Shumer is better qualified and experienced to take a stab at the presidency. Why did she not run Arkansas where she resided and had a driver's license and was first lady and lived 13 years there? Why not Illinois where she was born and raised? Poor Congresswoman Nita Lowey got carpet-bagged out of contention because Hill & Bill wanted to position her for an easy election with the future target being the white house again! Had Hill & Bill tried to carpet bag Illinois she would have had to eventually contend with upstart Baraq Hussein Obama! Now the chickens have come home to roost and B.O. has given her and B.J. a run for their money. Finally someone is willing to fight back the BillHill attack machine. Hillary should not even be a candidate for the white house position. What happened to the 8 year maximum BJ tolerance level written into law? Does anyone really believe that Bill will go and have a little tea and small talk with the president of France's wife while Hillary gets down to business to discuss Iraq's future with Nicolas Sarkozy? This is nonsense and we as citizens need to put a stop to it preferably in the democrat primary. If she wins the democrat primary, Rudy will smash her to pieces! It will be a landslide cakewalk. She and her co-president BJ Bill Clinton already served 8 years mucking things up before. Her disastrous Hillary-Care was an abomination causing the dems to lose the Congress in 1997 (the first time in over 40 years!) It took the dems 13 years to recoup! And for that nightmare the dems want to promote her? It is obvious that the democrat party is still in disarray. If she shows up on the ticket, the dems stand to lose the senate and quite possible the house also!
Definitely time for a change - 20 years with a Bush or Clinton in office and look where we are...can we survive more of the same?
The bottom line is that if Hillary wins, this whole nation will down the toilet in a hurry. I'd rather see my puppy as president than Hillary. At least my dog knows right from wrong.
She is a nut. See the Hillary Clinton Nutcracker at: http://www.pecanworld.com/hillaryclintonnutcracker.htm
Sorry, this won't happen--guaranteed. She is a war criminal, along with the rest of the Shrub Gang, and is guilty of TREASON, just as the WH is, Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court. None of them will be in office for much longer.
Hillary was already "co-President" with one of the most corrupt administrations in history. Under the Co-Clinton Co-Presidency the Chinese acquired missle targeting technology, ICBM miniturization technolgy (from the Energy Department penetration), and multi-stage missle technolgy. At the start of the Co-Presidency China could not put a satellite in orbit. At the end of it they sent a man to orbit. In between they downed one of our recon planes and sent it back to us in boxes. Hillary and Bill took millions in cash for the Peoples Liberation Army's agents, including Riaddy and his henchmen. 8 years was a national security disaster, that led directly to 9/11. The right place for the Co-Clintons to be is in a military tribunal being tried for treason, not running for another shot at POTUS. Over and Out.
Hi I am very much looking forward for Hillary Clinton to become the president. I feel she is very smart and will take the right choice to end all the wars. I feel at least will take the right choice for all collectively to make it better. Very much looking forward for Hillary Clinton to become the president.