America's Federal Reserve

On the mend

The Fed's chairman talks up the economy

IT HAS been a long time since comments on the economy by an official of America’s Federal Reserve comments could be described as cheerful. Yet there was no denying the upbeat tone of Ben Bernanke’s testimony to Congress on Tuesday July 21st.

Markets have experienced “notable improvements,” the Fed’s chairman told Congress. The fear of investors has “eased somewhat,” and “many markets are functioning more normally.” As for the economy, consumer spending has been stable, the drop in the housing market has moderated and many “of our trading partners are also seeing signs of stabilisation.” His fingers may be crossed but it is clear that Mr Bernanke thinks the recession, if not over now, soon will be.

That is a far cry, though, from seeing a threat from inflation and Mr Bernanke made it clear that the federal funds target rate, now near zero, will remain there for a long time. On Wall Street, most reckon that means until well into 2010 at least.

Yet the Fed is already under pressure to explain how it intends to tighten monetary policy, even by congressmen who usually want nothing of the sort. The source of their angst is the explosion in the size of the Fed’s balance sheet. It has financed its emergency loans to the financial system and purchases of long-term government and mortgage-related bonds (the latter designed to push down long-term interest rates) by printing money, or, more technically, creating new reserves for banks. Such reserves now stand at $782 billion compared with a typical level of around $10 billion before the crisis. And people who know nothing else about inflation do understand that it is what you get if you print enough money.

In fact the connection between bank reserves and inflation is rather weak. Inflation is the result of demand exceeding supply. Excess reserves are only a problem if banks turn them into new loans that generate new spending. That’s unlikely to happen when the demand for credit is in the ditch and loan losses are crimping banks’ capital and lending capacity.

Still, both loan demand and bank capital will be healthy again some day. Whether inflation follows depends on if the Fed raises interest rates in time and thereby curbs the appetite for credit. Mr Bernanke spent much of his testimony explaining how he can do just that. First, the Fed can pay higher interest on those reserves, giving an incentive to banks to leave them at the Fed rather than turn them into loans. It could, if necessary, induce banks to lock up the reserves for long periods by offering them the equivalent of certificates of deposit. It could soak up those reserves by borrowing from financial firms in the form of secured loans called “reverse repos.” And if necessary, it could sell some of its bonds, which would push up long-term interest rates. That, though, is not a preferred option.

Politics could also interfere with the Fed’s willingness to tighten monetary policy in time. Congress’s nonpartisan investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, can now audit the Fed with the exception of its monetary policy, lending programmes or relations with foreign central banks. A bill in Congress would lift those prohibitions. Mr Bernanke argued that the threat of such audits would lead investors to question the Fed’s willingness to do unpopular things, like tighten monetary policy, unsettling them and driving up long-term interest rates.

This is not idle speculation. Anti-Fed sentiment was also strong in the 1970s, when Congress first sought to have the GAO audit the central bank. Arthur Burns, chairman at the time, fought back, and a compromise was struck to allow audits, but with the current prohibitions. Mr Burns later reflected that the effort of “warding off legislation that could destroy any hope of ending inflation” involved “political judgments” that may have weakened his anti-inflationary resolve.

For all the discussion, any tightening of policy is a long way off. Housing may be stabilising but Mr Bernanke noted that commercial-property borrowers are struggling to refinance; their defaults may pose the next big threat to the banking system.While the threat of deflation disappeared from the Fed’s official post-meeting statement last month, it reappeared in the monetary-policy report that accompanied Mr Bernanke’s testimony. The focus of monetary policy, it said, is “to prevent a sustained decline in inflation below levels consistent” with the Fed’s goals. The report also noted that despite their success in raising new capital, banks’ lending contracted by nearly 7% at an annual rate in the first half of the year. That’s due both to lower demand and tighter lending standards: unused lines of credit fell by a dramatic 30% in the first quarter.

Indeed, further easing should not be ruled out. But how? Not only is the Fed funds rate in effect at zero, but the Fed’s foray into bond buying did not have the intended impact on long-term rates: they have risen, not fallen. That is partly because of lower panicked demand for the shelter of bonds but also fear that such purchases would ultimately lead to inflation. No wonder Mr Bernanke likes to discuss his options for tightening monetary policy; they are better than his options for easing.

Western states want reins on federal power

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Eliza Wiley / Helena Independent Record

Montana state Rep. Joel Boniek, shown with his mule Jesse, introduced a bill seeking to exempt from federal regulation any firearm made and used within the state borders.

An expanded federal role prompts declarations of state sovereignty. Montana goes further with a gun bill defying U.S. firearm restrictions. The goal: Keep Washington on its side of the fence.

By Mark Z. Barabak
June 16, 2009

Reporting from Bozeman, Mont. -- Frustrated by the expanded power of Washington, a growing number of state lawmakers are defying the federal government and passing legislation aimed at rolling back the reach of Congress and President Obama.

While many measures are symbolic ones declaring the sovereignty of states, some Westerners are taking more dramatic steps. One Utah lawmaker wants to limit federal law enforcement in his state. In Montana, legislators enacted a bill that flagrantly ignores federal firearm restrictions, hoping to force a constitutional showdown.

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FOR THE RECORD:
Western politics: An article in Tuesday's Section A about the state sovereignty movement referred to legislation being considered for introduction next year in Montana that would make the sheriff the top law enforcement official in each county. The state Legislature does not meet again until 2011. —

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Supporters of the bill want the Supreme Court to eliminate gun controls and, eventually, curtail Washington's ability to set policy on a wide range of issues, including education, civil rights, law enforcement and land use.

"It's about states' rights," said state Rep. Joel Boniek, an independent-turned-Republican from nearby Livingston, who introduced the bill. "Guns are just the vehicle."

The Montana Firearms Freedom Act seeks to exempt from federal regulation any firearm, gun component or ammunition made and kept within the state's borders. The legislation, signed by Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, becomes law Oct. 1, though federal officials will likely act quickly to keep the measure from taking effect.

Legal experts are skeptical Montana will prevail in court, and even some proponents express their doubts. But supporters say the fight is a necessary step to change Washington's attitude. Similar bills have been introduced in nearly a half dozen states, and lawmakers in about a dozen more have expressed interest.

"We need 15, 25, 30 states to pass these types of legislation, so that we send a clear message to the country and to the national government," said Utah Rep. Carl Wimmer, a Republican from suburban Salt Lake City.

In addition to supporting a version of Montana's gun law, Wimmer is drafting legislation that would forbid local authorities to help enforce federal statutes inside Utah -- another bill that, if passed, would surely trigger a court fight.

"The national government has gained more and more power . . . to a point where we're simply subjects of the ruling masters in Washington, D.C.," said Wimmer, who has established an organization, the Patrick Henry Caucus, to rally like-minded lawmakers from other states. "That is not the way this country and this government were set up."

It is no accident the greatest defiance has surfaced in the West, a region with a history of antipathy toward outsiders and, especially, Washington.

"You're going to get more of it as people look at the growth of the federal government and the big bailout of financial interests," said Eric Herzik, a University of Nevada political scientist and expert on the Sagebrush Rebellion, the populist movement that swept the West a generation ago and helped put Ronald Reagan in the White House.

The sacred text for Wimmer, Boniek and their allies is the Constitution's 10th Amendment, which limits the powers of Washington. Although the language is straightforward -- all powers not specifically delegated to the federal government are reserved for the states -- the meaning has been debated (and elastically interpreted) throughout history.

Conservatives and libertarians have long cited the 10th Amendment to press their case against the expansion of federal power, usually to little avail. Their latest effort is the state sovereignty movement. (Some also refer to the "states' rights" movement, though for many those words evoke the segregated South and efforts to fight racial equality.)

In just the last few months, legislatures in five states -- Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota -- have passed resolutions asserting their sovereignty and asking the federal government to "cease and desist" from meddling in their business. Similar measures are pending in about two dozen other states, including seven out West.

"There's a lot of people in the federal government saying: 'Do this. You must do that. We're the boss,' " said Republican state Rep. Brad Klippert, co-sponsor of sovereignty legislation pending in Olympia, Wash. "That's not true."

Several Republican governors, including Sarah Palin in Alaska, Mark Sanford in South Carolina and Rick Perry in Texas, have gone beyond symbolism, turning down a portion of federal stimulus funds -- and rejecting the strings attached -- as a way of expressing their independence from Washington. That has sometimes meant going to court and fighting fellow lawmakers eager to accept the money.

The latest movement appears aimed at Obama, who, in just a few months, has increased the size and scope of the federal government more dramatically than any president in decades.

Advocates deny that, citing a litany of grievances that include the No Child Left Behind education bill, which imposed strict federal testing requirements, and the Real ID law, which dictates costly national standards for driver's licenses. Both were signed by President George W. Bush.

Still, Obama and his expansive agenda have unquestionably given momentum to the state sovereignty effort, which has been embraced by Republican politicians like Perry and heavily promoted by sympathetic commentators on conservative TV and talk radio.

For his part, Boniek at one point equated Obama with Hitler, Mao and Stalin, saying each loved his country in his fashion but proved disastrous as a leader. "He's ruining the country I love," Boniek said of Obama, his soft tone belying the harsh comparison. "He doesn't know what freedom is."

It is difficult to say how the Supreme Court might rule on Montana's gun law, which challenges the government's authority under the commerce clause of the Constitution, the legal basis for much federal regulation.

In the mid-1990s, the court struck down a federal law that sought to restrict guns near schools, using the rationale behind Montana's law: that the federal authority over interstate commerce did not extend to a product that was made and used within one state.

More recently, however, the justices rejected a direct challenge to the commerce clause, ruling in 2005 that the federal government had the authority to effectively override California's medical marijuana law, even though the cannabis was being grown and used within the state's borders.

"As an abstract legal matter, it's perfectly plausible," Eugene Volokh, a UCLA expert on constitutional law, said of Montana's case. "But it's very unlikely to succeed in today's legal climate."

Backers of the legislation concede as much. "No federal employee in a black robe is going to roll back the power of the federal government," said Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Assn., who wrote the bill. "But we want to make a statement, get the legal arguments on the record and get people active."

Boniek, who makes his living operating a crane and leading big-game hunts, is already planning for next year's session. (Montana, like some other Western states, has a part-time legislature.)

He plans to introduce a bill that would make the sheriff the top law enforcement official in each county, requiring federal officers to seek permission to exercise authority in Montana.

For now, Boniek is waiting to see how the fight over his gun bill goes. "The whole thing is like a chess game," he said. "We've made our move. The next move is up to the federal government."

Obama's Federal Suggestion Box

BRIAN M. CARNEY ISAAC GETZ

President Barack Obama is proposing what amounts to a giant suggestion box for government workers: "We'll establish a process through which every government worker can submit their ideas for how their agency can save money and perform better," he said in his Saturday address to the nation. He described the idea as a "bottom-up" effort to "make your government more efficient and effective."

Martin Kozlowski

The president's intention is admirable, and he's right to say that "Americans across the country know that the best ideas often come from workers -- not just management." But American workers also know that even in the private sector, management often does little to implement their ideas. If the president really wants to take government workers' ideas seriously, he should know that there's a lot more to it than setting up an email address and telling workers to fire away.

There are good reasons the suggestion boxes at most companies collect more chewed-up gum and recommendations to "fire my boss" than valuable ideas. Workers know that the bureaucracy will strangle even good ideas with "suggestion-review committees" and rules on who is eligible to offer ideas, what kind of ideas will be considered, and how to decide what constitutes a "good" idea.

It doesn't have to be this way: Toyota's plants in Georgetown, Ky., and Fremont, Calif., benefit from a continuous flow of their employees' ideas. But copying this model isn't easy: GM co-owns the NUMMI plant in Fremont and has tried to emulate its culture -- with little success, as the administration is well-aware.

Creating a process for gathering employee ideas and implementing them isn't enough to change an organization, just like doing 50 push-ups every morning so you can overeat the rest of the day won't get you in shape. In between the president, or a CEO, and all those frontline workers stand decades of rules and regulations and layers upon layers of accumulated management tasked with enforcing them.

Those managers, by the way, have their own personal and institutional interests. In some cases, the best ideas of those frontline workers will threaten the authority -- if not the very jobs -- of the people in the middle of the government's organization chart. And in a bureaucracy, arguing for your boss to be deprived of some perk or some tool of control is professional suicide, whether the president asked you to do it or not. It doesn't take many rejections -- usually one is enough -- to convince a worker that his ideas aren't welcome by the management. So what can be done?

For starters, don't blame managers for the accumulated weight of bureaucratic regulations. Though management enforces the rules, it didn't create them. Managers are fellow victims of what Gordon Forward, the former CEO of Chaparral Steel, calls "management for the 3%." Under management for the 3%, rules are slapped on the honest 97% in the hopes of clamping down on the tiny minority who might abuse their freedom.

To start "managing for 97%," a CEO or president has to reject this top-down approach. He has to punish the 3% and start trusting and showing respect to the 97%. This means removing time-clocks and breaking down the myriad symbols of status that signal to workers that they are lazy and untrustworthy.

Even if this can be done within the restrictive confines of government agencies, there are still all the rules and regulations that tell people how to do their jobs and which tell them, implicitly, that they are stupid and incompetent. This message, delivered to workers daily, is much stronger than a suggestion, even from the president himself, that they have "the best ideas." To overcome this would require a broad cultural shift in how the government does business. Managers would have to stop telling workers to "do it by the book," and start asking, "What do you propose?"

Only when you stop telling your employees how to do their jobs can you start building a freer, more efficient and effective "why" organization. If a company or a government agency wants ideas from everyone, the CEO or president has to spend a lot more time explaining to people "why" they do what they do, and leave the "how" to them.

This freedom has the advantage of giving workers responsibility for their jobs. And once they own their work and feel that they are trusted, employees will come up with ideas and initiatives and act to put them in place. Without being asked. There are companies around the world that do this today, including W.L. Gore & Associates, the San Antonio-based insurer USAA and Sun Hydraulics in Sarasota, Fla., among others. And their performance is nothing short of astonishing. But they didn't get there using a suggestion box.

Mr. Carney is a member of the Journal's editorial board. Mr. Getz is a professor at the ESCP Europe School of Management in Paris, France. They are the authors of "Freedom, Inc.," due out from Crown Business in October.

Federal Takeover

Federal Takeover

Bailouts: Didn't Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner say that it was not the administration's intent to control private companies? Then why is it reportedly reluctant to accept TARP repayments from some banks?

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If it has indeed declined to accept $340 million in payments from banks in Louisiana, New York, Indiana and California, the administration is tacitly admitting that it wants to control those banks as well as others that will try to pay back the taxpayers' money they took in the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

By refusing repayment, the government can keep the leverage it bought with the bailouts. Banks that still "owe" would not be in position to reject the administration as a "partner."

This reminds us of mobsters making a small "investment" in a family-owned shop, which is not always wanted by the owners, and then using it to justify taking over the business.

Joseph DePaolo, president and CEO of Signature Bank in New York, one of the four banks making TARP repayments last week, said his company wanted to return $120 million it received because, in part, it wasn't comfortable with legislation passed that would limit compensation for salespeople. Those limits, he explained, would make it hard to recruit top professionals.

And then there's the fact that the bank didn't actually need the money. But, as we have learned, need is not relevant in the era of the bailout.

Andrew Napolitano reported last week on Fox News that he had spoken to the head of a $250-billion bank the night before who said Washington forced him to take TARP funds last September.

Napolitano said this bank "has no subprime loans, it has no bad debts, wasn't involved in credit default swaps. It didn't need any money. It didn't ask for the money and didn't want it. . . . officials from both the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Treasury said if you don't take this money, we will conduct a multi-year public audit of you."

The Fox News analyst said the bank's "board was forced to issue a class of stock just for the federal government. The federal government owns 2% of this huge bank."

That was done under the Bush administration. Enter the Obama White House. Last month, Napolitano said, Treasury told the bank "we own 2%, we're going to tell you how to run the place."

"As a result of that minority ownership, they now want to control salaries. They want to see his books, and they want to tell him who he can do business with," Napolitano reported.

Before his trip to Europe, President Obama, according to Politico, told a group of financial institution CEOs who were unhappy with the federal war on executive salaries and bonuses, "My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." At the time, that sounded like nothing more than exaggeration.

An incident at the same meeting in which Geithner declined to take a fake $25 billion TARP repayment check from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon also seemed to be meaningful.

Later, says Politico, "Dimon also insisted that he'd like to give the government's TARP money back as soon as practical . . . But Obama didn't like that idea — arguing that the system still needs government capital."

Looking back, these are small signs that reveal the administration's desire to seize command of the nation's financial system. The bigger, unmistakable sign is the reluctance — or is it outright refusal? — to take $340 million from four banks trying to be responsible and operate on their own.

This shouldn't be happening in this country. The private sector and the state are not to be mixed. The American financial system is best directed by markets, not politics. Prosperity and liberty suffer when the latter excludes the former.

Federal Corruption Lacks Proper Punctuation

By The Mogambo Guru

03/25/09 Tampa Bay, Florida The first thing that I noticed was that my head was exploding, as every alarm bell in the fashionable-yet-filthy Mogambo Big-Time Bunker (MBTB) was ringing (ring ring ring) making a hell of a racket and seemingly scrambling my brain with pain, which I quickly concluded was because I had a doozy of a hangover, judging by the half-empty tequila bottles and fully-empty buckets of fried chicken all over the place.

Hurriedly turning them all off, in the blessed, blessed silence I see that the reason was simplicity itself: last week the loathsome Federal Reserve increased Total Fed Credit by a whopping $164 billion!!!

Note the three exclamation points, which was a choice of punctuation that was a compromise between my more pessimistic editing-self, “This is madness!! We’re all freaking doomed!!” Which advocated four exclamation points, versus my more optimistic editing-self, “This is madness! Everybody is doomed except those who own gold, silver and oil!” Which advocated merely two exclamation points.

My problem was to weigh the bias of each. The source of my pessimism is that in the last zillion years or so, Every Freaking Time (EFT) that a government acted so stupidly as to allow such a reckless expansion of the money supply, especially to finance out-of-control government deficit-spending and insane levels of private debt, everything was soon destroyed, and it seems that most of the time the country in question completely disappeared, too.

My optimism, on the other hand, is because 1.) The historical record is also clear that people who owned gold when their government acted so bizarrely are the only ones to survive, a fact made especially and deliciously pertinent to me because I actually own some gold, silver and oil, and 2.) Everyone else deserves the ruination they get because they are the morons who elected, and who kept electing, the achingly incompetent and suicidally dangerous morons to Congress who allowed (and abetted!) the Federal Reserve to create all that excess money and credit, all those years, that financed all the damned speculative bubbles in stocks, bonds, housing and size of government that are now popping (or are in danger of doing so) and which are making the government act even MORE stupidly and the Federal Reserve to act even more insanely, too! INSAAAAAANE!

Naturally, I am working myself into a howling rage, inching towards some kind of open rebellion where I seize control of the USA by rallying those who respond to my campaign promise of “Free lunch for everybody! And a free breakfast and a light supper, too!” by gathering them all up, declaring them to be “mentally incompetent” to believe in such a stupidity as a free lunch, and sending them to those secret internment camps that the government has been building.

Or at least taking away their right to vote so that they can no longer infect the future with their astonishing electoral imbecilities, but can still keep working in some menial job for the glorification of the new Glorious Emperor Mogambo (GEM).

Doug Noland, in his PrudentBear.com column, has never acknowledged, either publicly or privately, the Glorious Emperor Mogambo (GEM) as the nation’s ruler and as such, deserving of omnipotent powers, but calmly notes that “Federal Reserve Credit inflated $164bn last week to an 8-wk high $2.041 TN.”

Ignoring the sheer horror of it, I instead note that he ends the sentence with a period instead of an exclamation point, which I take as his clever, deliciously subtle way of showing that this kind of lowly, disease-ridden Federal Reserve mental illness of creating excess money and credit has become so common that it no longer is surprising, and thus is correctly punctuated with a plain, everyday period.

He then goes on to say, “Fed Credit has dropped $205bn y-t-d, although it expanded $1.163 TN over the past 52 weeks.”

Okay, now this is where I draw the line! I note that he does not conclude with at least one lousy exclamation point so that people would know that the Fed more than doubling the amount of credit in the banking system in One Freaking Year (OFY) is something very important!

For this, in a fit of my usual childish pique, I take points away from his score at the Mogambo Writers Rating Service (MWRS), and I give them to me, inflating my score, because I used three of them when I wrote, “last week the loathsome Federal Reserve increased Total Fed Credit by a whopping $164 billion!!!”

This sudden addition to my total score means that I am now in the lead in the race for the prestigious Mogambo Economics Writing Award (MEWA) for 2009, which I have already won every year for the last 17 years.

To those who object to my fraudulently giving myself the ratings points at the noble MRS, let me just tell you that although I am incompetent, undeserving, and the whole Mogambo Writers Rating Service (MWRS) is a fraud and a scam, I decided to give myself a bonus anyway, and to get them, I took them from someone else! Hahaha!

Just like the fraud that the Fed and the Congress commit for their Goldman Sachs/Wall Street buddies every day! So there is nothing you can do about it! Hahaha!

Fortunately, the news media is overlooking this Mogambo Writers Rating Service (MWRS) scandal, and so I get back to the point, which is that $164 billion in new credit was created by the Federal Reserve last week, and to make matters worse, of that $164 billion in credit that appeared, literally, out of thin air, a full $163 billion of it was used by the Federal Reserve (a private bank owned by private parties and run by private citizens of various nations, all without any real oversight by anybody) to buy Treasury and agency debt for itself!

Now do you want to talk about fraud, or about how you should be buying gold, silver and oil to protect yourself against the predations of a corrupt government and their unholy henchmen, the corrupt banks who will bankrupt everybody under an onslaught of inflation in prices except those who own gold, silver and oil.

Fortunately, it’s just that easy of a choice! Whee!

Dear Federal Government,

Dear Federal Government,

Drop dead.

Excuse us. Some may consider such bluntness to be indecorous, but why beat around the bush? In any case, we've been around this bush (Bush?) too many times to count already. It's time to let you know what we really think of you, what we say behind your back, what we whisper to each other when you leave the room.

We hate you. We want you to drop dead. Or, anyway, to go away and never come back. You are not welcome anymore. We have tolerated you – and we emphasize "tolerated" – for a long time, long after whatever romance there may have been was gone. We can pretend no more. You are disgraceful, boorish, nauseating, corrupt, shameful, arrogant, dishonest, self-serving, parasitic, disgusting, hypocritical, and rotten to the core. You have not even one redeeming quality. There is nothing you offer that we want any longer. We're not even sure what it is we ever saw in you to begin with.

We suppose you can be forgiven if this letter comes as a shock. "Why," you say, "what do you mean? I still command great respect and inspire widespread adulation. And I still care about you. Isn't it obvious?"

It's true that, in public, we often nod our heads and agree with you, even defer or appear to defer to you. But we assure you that this happens not out of respect; rather, it arises merely from the fact that you have a lot of guns and a bad temper. Inside, we are seething and resentful. Inside, we imagine your demise in the most vivid and gratifying of ways. We may fear your irrational and violent behavior, but we manifestly do not respect or agree with you. We don't love you. We don't even like you. (See the part about hate, above.)

At any rate, our revulsion toward you has finally come to outweigh any fear we have of you. We refuse to keep our real feelings in for even one more second. We want you gone from our lives. And we mean completely. Vamoose. Go. Die.

Please understand we aren't here to argue. No special new subsidy, tax break, or privileged "loophole" is going to sway our opinion or make us change our minds about this. We've been there, done that, for too many decades to count now. Likewise, your threats are starting to make us yawn and even laugh. You see, we know all your tricks now. We can see through your lies because we've heard them all so many times before. We are fully aware of your true nature, and we see that that nature is radioactive evil, wrapped in a tattered blanket of ignorance, foolishness, and stupidity.

Look, we know it's only a matter of time anyway. Your dimwittedness, greed, fraudulence, and moral bankruptcy are finally starting to catch up to you. Even your former employees admit as much. Do you remember Paul Craig Roberts, one of your past Treasury officials? Today he says of your latest economy-wrecking and warmongering efforts:

"The world has never seen such total mindlessness. Napoleon's and Hitler's marches into Russia were rational acts compared to the mindless idiocy of the United States government."

Mindless idiocy: We could not have said it better ourselves. Wait, yes, we could have, because we would have also mentioned your meanness and malevolence.

Our state governments are starting to feel the same way about you that we do. Many are openly refusing to obey your so-called "REAL ID" attempt at creating a national "your papers, please" regime of Hitlerian proportions. Some are even starting to make noises about the Tenth Amendment, which reiterates that you aren't allowed to just do anything you feel like doing. (We are not big fans of our state governments either, but at least they don't start wars, counterfeit our money, and prop up tyrannies across the globe.)

You see? Look in the mirror for once. The emperor not only hasn't got any clothes, he's a quadruple amputee demanding that everyone admire his muscular physique. We don't know whether to laugh at or feel pity for such a pathetic creature.

In conclusion and just so we're clear: We're done. Pack up and get out. Better yet, don't pack – all that stuff belongs to us in the first place. Just get out. And when you finally, mercifully, do kick the bucket, please make sure it is in some place far away from us, where we won't have to smell the stench of your hideous, rotting corpse.

Signed,

Every Normal Human Being in America and the Rest of the World