Obama, Idle Thoughts For The Ides Of July

By: Andrew_McKillop

Most persons vaguely heard of the Ides of March, associated with the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, but in fact the ides were periodic Roman pagan calendar-based days, that repeated right through the year, with the Ides of March, May, July and October being the most magically powerful.

Although we missed this year's Ides of July by a few days, the slippage between the Roman calendar, and our own, variously called the "christian" or "modern" calendar (named for the not-so-modern 13th century Pope Gregory), can easily cover this problem.

July 31st, 2011 is an ideal day for portentous events. If necessary, slippage aiding, the 1st or 2nd of August are also good for such high calibre events.

We mean the disappearance of Barack Obama. Obviously this could be through a Senatorial (or even Congressional) coup, but the public prefers juicy action thrillers. Although we have nothing personal against Happy Changey, he might suffer an unexplained viral infection, a new but grave basketball accident, he could fall out of his helicopter leaving the White House lawn, or an Afghan disguised as a Marine guard in a dark corridor near the Oval Office could do something terrible. We really dont know, until it happens.

It is very unlikely Obama would do the decent thing and resign, but however he goes he will leave the USA behind in an ocean of debt that his administration built to stunning heights - and then walked away from the problem saying "Give us another 2.6 trillion or we pull the plug".

APRES MOI THE SUN SHINES
Over in China the debt panic inhabiting White House corridors and column inches in remaining Murdoch tabloids like the WSJ, and on TV too, has powerfully concentrated minds but the Zero Option does not figure: get rid of Obama. In fact this is the neatest and quickest solution of them all.

To be sure there would be dark days when equities plunged, followed by days when equities plunged, but the sun would shine at the end of the tunnel. Chinese creditors would soon rally to the Zero Option. With Obama gone, almost any sane program for restructuring US debt would be welcomed with open arms. In fact Treasuries would rapidly fall back to derisory low rates of interest as global investors, led by the Chinese heaved a sigh of relief. The crisis would be over - and Obama sightings could start in Hawaii or other sufficiently distant, non-provocative places, not like Pyongyang or Harare.

To be equally sure, this could all have been planned and scripted in advance by Obama and his market-savvy advisers, if they really exist. Being unprecedented, the gameplan would have to be ground-up and well scripted, and this author can help.

Firstly, Obama appears to have been seriously wounded, injured or incapacitated, and disappears, George W Bush and Dick Cheney style, as in the wake of 9/11. The wave of public sympathy is massive, which will already tend to trim the free-fall of the US dollar, and start to win hearts and minds in China. Details are unimportant at this stage: Obama has gone and we miss him a lot, but sovereign debt business is business.

US debt negotiations will instantly, and we mean instantly move into consensus territory. If the fake Marine guard in the White House corridor is found to be an Anders Breivik-type Knight of Free Enterprise and not Afghan, this also will aid and speed debt negotiations, because the US can pull out of Afghanistan even faster, saving over one hundred billion Federal dollars in 2011-12, not 2013.

If it is found that Our Hero succumbed to rare food toxins, the contents of his last know meal will be given heavy scrutiny, showing a high incidence of imported foods from Brazil, Canada, Thailand, Australia and other net surplus food exporter countries, ranked by their trade surplus with the USA.  The coming Buy America austerity plan with US foods placed high up the list for patriotic action to trim the trade deficit, will be off to a flying start.

In the possible case where the First Family dog bit him, and conferred a dangerous and hitherto unknown bacteria, as used in Germany in recent months, the food habits of the dog will pas under the microscope. For sure and certain the dog was eating imported foods, wore a foreign-made collar, and had been toileted by low cost illegal immigrant labor, despite Obama's proud claim that he was acting to stem the rise of American unemployment.

All is possible on the magical ides of July or, with calendar drift, early August. Above all the wave of relief that Obama is gone, communicated as sympathy for his family and for America, will be paramount.

STRAWS IN THE WIND
We can expect that current fever-pitch negotiations by US powerbrokers produce nothing, because Obama is still there. With him mysteriously gone, even provisionally the change is total. Obama could for example suffer memory loss, return to Chicago incognito and defend the rights of the jobless whose numbers he has massively raised since 2009. In the wake of the 22/7 Norway killings he might adopt an even more overtly Jimmy Carter-style peace and love stance, prefiguring his total defeat in coming elections, and wearing a really nice pullover in 100-degree August heat to show it isn't real.

Slowly but surely the public would understand that Obama had resigned, but softly, and his food toxin problem was only short-term until he went back to true grit all-American food habits, and re-educated his dog on the same lines. Being independent, now, Obama could give chapter and verse on his New Economic Doctrine - evidently an awful lot different from the present.

This of course is jumping the gun, or we could prefer, the strange imported food toxin. The most important straw in the wind is how Obama thinks he could or might talk around the debt debacle he has organized for Americans, exactly like the disaster his European and Japanese colleagues have allowed to happen, for their voters. Currently he can only blame it on right-wing Republicans and economic bad luck, but here again smart handling of the Norway massacre could offer a way out of the impasse.

Obama may only be sick, for some while, and will bounce with a new, blatantly socialist program. He has already nationalized the US banking and insurance sector, and now is the moment to create jobs on the back of that public spending. This will need unexplained, or at least surprising weather-related disasters, which can be helped a little during his tragic absence from the public scene, as he recovers and pens his first authorized biography, with the powerful title "Debt and Disaster in the White House".

The publication date will obviously be an ides day - nice idea !

By Andrew McKillop

Contact: xtran9@gmail.com

Former chief policy analyst, Division A Policy, DG XVII Energy, European Commission. Andrew McKillop Biographic Highlights

Andrew McKillop has more than 30 years experience in the energy, economic and finance domains. Trained at London UK’s University College, he has had specially long experience of energy policy, project administration and the development and financing of alternate energy. This included his role of in-house Expert on Policy and Programming at the DG XVII-Energy of the European Commission, Director of Information of the OAPEC technology transfer subsidiary, AREC and researcher for UN agencies including the ILO.

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