Opinion: Heading toward a Sept. surprise
by Judd Gregg
07/23/12

The fiscal cliff is the most talked about , and predictable, event in
politics today.  

If the policies it involves go forward with massive cuts in defense
spending and a massive tax increase on everyone who pays taxes  it
will cause a dramatic slowdown in the economy.    

It will probably put the nation into recession.  

Just the anticipation of it seems to have significantly slowed
economic activity investment, in particular as we head into the
second half of this year.  

Of course, Congress talks about it. But it cannot act, or will not
act, until December.

President Obama has simply abdicated his role as the nation s leader
and moved on to something he can actually do, which is campaign.

But while the fiscal cliff is a critical issue, it may not be the next
major threat to our prosperity.

September is a month where unusual and often extremely damaging things
seem to happen.  

It is the month that kicked off the Great Depression and led to Black
Monday a month later.  

It also is the month in which, in 2008, the nation came close to a
total economic collapse.  

Bear Stearns failed. Lehman failed. And the world stood on the brink
of another potentially massive depression brought on by financial
disarray.  

Without the forceful intervention of Hank Paulsen and Ben Bernanke,
Main Street America would have gone through extraordinarily hard
times.

In between these two cataclysmic events, there have been numerous
sharp stock market downturns in September.

Why these events seem to crowd into September is a subject of a great
deal of conjecture.  There is no consistent answer. But it seems
September is the point in the year where people assess where they have
gone, and what the next year will be like, and make investment
decisions based on their conclusions.  

To put it another way, reality sets in.    

If investors see big problems in the economy or in world affairs, they
take matters into their own hands rather than hoping they will be
fixed by some outside force such as government.

Usually, they act defensively.

Unfortunately, this year, September may be a decisive month for the
world and our nation s economy.

Think about the forces afoot.   None of them seems to be headed to a
happy ending.  

First, there s the European fiscal mess.  

Although there is a constant and energized effort to abate the
problems driving the disarray there, progress is minimal.   As
Bernanke pointed out in sobering testimony before the House last week,
Europe does not have its act together.    

It has not addressed the core of its problem its massive debt and
unstable banking system. The recession brought on by this problem is
only aggravating things.  

This will probably be undeniably clear by September.

Second, Israel is under attack, or at least her people are, in places
such as Bulgaria. They believe Iran is behind these attacks.    

Couple this with the fact that Iran continues its march to obtain
nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them and one wonders how
much longer Israel will cede her potential survival to Obama and the
United Nations.  

Not long, one suspects. September.

Third, America is not doing a good job of managing its own
responsibility being a force for  responsible government and a
source of economic growth.  

In fact, the impending fiscal cliff is clearly a potential accelerant
for a meltdown.  

After all, once reality sets in that there is going to be no
improvement in leadership , whether on the fiscal cliff or on
long-term deficits and debt, people and markets will react.  

They will not wait until January.  

Historically, September has been a good time for such a reaction.

Fourth, Americans who generate economic activity are beginning to get
worn down amid the incessant attacks of the Obama administration.

It is becoming clear to anyone who participates in the private economy
that they have a target on their backs.

The  president, for one, has revealed his view that government is
responsible for the success of people who take risks and generate
jobs.

In the meantime, true believers at the White House continue with
pervasive expansion of regulatory excess.

The Obama administration is expanding government to a point where it
rivals European social welfare states in size.  

These things provide a type of clarity that tends to lead to
investment decisions that in turn lead to economic contraction.  

All this is probably not good news, but I will say this September is
a great month to be in New Hampshire.

Judd Gregg is a former governor and three-term senator from New
Hampshire who served as chairman and ranking member of the Senate
Budget Committee and as ranking member of the Senate Appropriations
subcommittee on Foreign Operations. He also is an international
adviser to Goldman Sachs.

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After announcing earlier this year that the company would lay off 200 of
its 300 employees, solar manufacturer Amonix Inc. closed its operation in
North Las Vegas leaving taxpayers in the red by $20 million.

Editor's note: We've updated this piece with research from the RNC below,
entitiled:  "The Big Payback: Where It All Began," which details the
massive payoffs directed to Obama supporters using taxpayer dollars in
the guise of "stimulus."

Just seven months after California-based solar power company Amonix Inc.
opened its largest manufacturing plant, in North Las Vegas, reports the
Las Vegas Sun, a liberal paper, last January, the company s contractor
has laid off nearly two-thirds of its workforce. Flextronics Industrial,
the Singapore solar panel manufacturer that partnered with Amonix to
staff the new $18 million, 214,000-square-foot plant, laid off about 200
of its 300-plus employees Tuesday.

Now only 14 months after opening the facility, and seven months after
massive layoffs, it has closed due to manufacturing over-capacity in the
solar industry, along with quality control issues.

"I don't think they had a lot of training," said Rene Kenerly, a former
material and supply manager at Amonix, according to the Las Vegas Review
Journal. "There were a lot of quality issues. A lot of stuff was coming
back because it had some functionality issues."

Sounds like a picture perfect Obama program: Very expensive with
"functionality issues."    

The man behind the company, Steve Westly, has received over $500 million
in taxpayer-funded grants, loans and cash for a variety of companies-
mostly in the in the green space after raising $86,000 for Obama as a
bundler in 2008, according to the campaign cash website opensecrets.org.

So far this election cycle, Westly has donated $101,000 to various
Democrat candidates and groups according to data compiled by opensecrets,
including $60,000 to DNC Service Corp, also known by the less creepy name
of the Democrat National Committee.

Earlier this week, I detailed plans by another Obama bundler, Steven
Gluckstern, to help municipalities seize mortgage loans under eminent
domain laws- that is, abuse eminent domain laws- in order to generate
fees for his company, Mortgage Resolution Partners.

Westly s list of interests backed by the Obama administration is much,
much longer than the Gluckstern scheme however.

From the Center for Public Integrity:

We believe that with the Obama administration, and other governments
committing hundreds of billions of dollars to clean tech, there has never
been a better time to launch clean tech companies, says his company
website. The Westly Group is uniquely positioned to take advantage of
this surge of interest and growth.

Uniquely positioned, indeed.

One of President Barack Obama s most prolific fundraisers, Westly was
among guests at January s state dinner for the president of China. A
month later, he dined with Obama again at an exclusive San Francisco Bay
area gathering for prominent high tech CEOs, including the leaders of
Facebook, Google and Apple.

In addition to the $20 million in loans and tax credits for the failed
Amonix plant, Westly also is involved in other companies that have
benefited from Obama-directed taxpayer help: Tesla Motors, CalStar
Products, Solexel, Recycle Bank, EdenIQ and Amyris Biotechnologies.

Now I understand why the Democrats are so worried about Mitt s tax
returns: Mitt s showing income not losses.

Obama's taxpayer rate of returns shows losses not income.

Occupy that.

Here s my proposal: If it s constitutional to tax people who don t have
healthcare, isn t it constitutional to levy a tax on investors who
benefit from federal green energy boondoggles?

If you are going to go after millionaires and billionaires, here s a set
of folks who are just crying for it.

Because if you want to know what happened to the all the stimulus jobs
that were supposed to be created, now you know: They were sacrificed to
stimulate the bundlers.

That s all.

Read the full piece - including extensive documentation - here:
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2012/07/23/obama_do...
stimulus_was_like_a_hooker_in_prison

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