The Emperor's New Clothes

Once upon a time there lived a vain Emperor whose only worry in life was to dress in elegant clothes. He changed his clothes almost every hour and loved to show them off to his people. When word of the Emperor's vanity spread, two scoundrels decided to take advantage of it. They got an audience with the Emperor and told him, "We are two very good tailors and after many years of research, we have invented an extraordinary method to weave a cloth so light and fine that it looks invisible. As a matter of fact, if it invisible to anyone who is too stupid and incompetent to appreciate its quality."
The Emperor's curiosity was piqued when the tailors told him "Besides being invisible, this cloth will be woven in colors and patterns created especially for you." The Emperor gave them nearly $1 Trillion dollars so that they could begin working on it right away.
"Just tell us what you need, so that you can begin working on the clothes right away," the Emperor said. The Emperor was sure he had spent his $1 Trillion wisely, as the scoundrels pretended to go to work: In addition to getting an extrordinary, fantastic new suit, he would also discover which of his subjects were ignorant, and which ones were competent. The next day he called his wise Speaker of The House and Senate Majority Leader, and sent them to the scoundrels to see how the work was proceeding.
The scoundrels told them they were almost finished, but needed more gold thread. The Speaker of The House bent over the loom and tried to see the fabric that was not there.
"I can't see anything," she thought. "If I see nothing, that means I'm stupid." The Senate Majority Leader, too did not see anything. "If I do not see anything, it means I am incompetent. The Emperor will surely have me fired," he thought to himself.
"What a marvelous fabric this is!," they both agreed. We will run and tell the Emperor directly.
The Emperor arrived later for his fitting, and the scoundrels held out the imaginary spools of fabric. "We have worked night and day, and at last, the most beautiful fabric in the world is ready for you. Look at the colors and see how fine it is." But the Emperor did not see any colors and could not feel any cloth between his fingers. He was panicked. He felt better when he realized that no one could know he did not see the fabric. Nobody could find out that he was stupid and incompetent. And the Emperor didn't know that everybody else around him thought and did the very same thing.
The tailors cut the invisible fabric with scissors, and sewed the invisible fabric with needles. "Your Highness, you'll have to take off your clothers to try on your new ones," they said. The tailors draped the new clothes on the Emperor, and one of them held up a mirror. The Emperor was embarassed, but since none of his bystanders were, he felt relieved.
"Yup! Uh, this --- uh, here is a beautiful suit, and it looks great on me," the Emperor said, trying to look comfortable. "You have done a fine job!"
The Speaker of The House and Senate Majority Leader told the Emperor that the people have heard of this fantastic fabric, and were anxious to see him in his new suit.
"Alright, I, um. . . uh... will grant my people this privilege." He summoned his people and instructed them to form a parade route. Senators, Mayors and Governors lined the street for the parade, proudly surveying the faces of the people. An applause welcomed the regal procession. Everyone wanted to know how stupid or incompetent his or her neighbor was but, as the Emperor passed, a strange murmur rose from the crowd.
"Look at the Emperor's new clothes! Aren't they beautiful?!" people shouted as he passed. "How marvelous!" others shouted. "And the colors, of such a beautiful fabric! I have never seen anything like it in my life!," shouted another.
Everyone tried hard to conceal their disappointment at not being able to see the clothes, and since nobody was willing to admit his own stupidity and incompetence, they all behaved as the tailors had predicted.
A child, however, who had no important job, and could only see things as his eyes showed them to him, went up to the Emperor's carriage and said, "The Emperor is naked!"
"Fool!" Everyone shouted. "Don't speak nonsense!"

* * *

So far, in total, without counting the sham of a "stimulus" bill, your Emperor and his accomplices in Congres have spent or pledged to spend $8.8 Trillion. That's $8,800,000,000,000.00. If you add the $780 Billion and you get a staggering: $9,580,000,000,000.00. Without even arguing whether or not this kind of spending is necessary or helpful, anyone with an even cursory understanding of economics knows that what they are doing is absolutely insane.

* * *

Yesterday, the Emperor hosted a "fiscal sustainability summit" at the White House. He invited some lawmakers, and lobbyists, community activists, and special interests to the White House and gave them a lecture about the economy, and then instructed them to break into "breakout sessions" and come up with ways the government could save money, in hopes of slashing the deficit, and then report back to him in the afternoon with their findings.

I'm going to write this again, just so we're clear: The Emperor, after spending more than 9 1/2 trillion dollars, lectured to us about being fiscally responsible.

"Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past few years, we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget, the next administration or the next generation."

We can't? Where in the hell are you going to get $9.5 Trillion Mr. Emperor?

He continued, "For too long, our budget process in Washington has been an excercise in deception; a series of accounting tricks to hide the expense of our spending and the shortfalls in our revenue and hope that the American people won't notice."

I'd have to admit, he got this one right. $9.5 Trillion is hard to hide, no matter how clever your accounting tricks are. After a bunch more fearmongering, he even went to far as to claim that the government would return to a "pay as you go" system in which all new spending would require a tax hike or a budget cut to make it happen. This idea was supposedly popularized by President clinton when he had a budget "surplus."

Then, he did what all idiot Presidents do, he told us what we want to hear. He claimed that he would cut the deficit in half by the end of his four years in office.

What's worse, the lawmakers, lobbyists, community activists, and special interests just sat there and admired his new clothes. John McCain asked an anemic question about the Emperor's fleet of helicopters, and another Senator asked a question about IT contracts.

And let's not even get into the media's reaction to this sham, as that will scramble your brain.

* * *

Before the Emperor dares lecture anyone about fiscal responsibility, I might suggest he start paying some of his own bills. The president's campaign still owes Springfield Illinois $65,000.00 for police overtime and other costs for campaign events, that it has not paid. obama owes the City of Chicago $1,740,000.00 for his victory celebration in Grant Park that he has not paid. obama still owes the City of Philadelphia nearly $24,000.00 for several pre-election events, that he has not paid.

* * *

The "fiscal sustainability summit" was such a joke that Lawrence Summers, head of the National Economic Council, fell asleep on the podium.

* * *

Last week, Rick Santelli, a business news anaylist for CNBC, made a now-famous rant on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. "This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbors' mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills? ... President Obama, are you listening?," he said. He might as well have been the child who shouts "The Emperor is naked!" in the Hans Christian Anderson story.

* * *

In the story, eventually people in the crowd keep repeating what the child said, and as word spreads, more and more people admit to eachother that the Emperor indeed has no clothes on. In the story, the Emperor realized that the people were right, but he could not admit to that. Instead, he contuinued on with the procession under the illusion that anyone who couldn't see his clothes was either stupid or incompetent.

We can only hope that eventually enough people will come to the realization that the obama administration has literally no idea what they are doing.