We are all living the tail end of the Age of Luxury; the death throes of entitlement. It’s not just Americans, it is everyone with material aspirations in the burgeoning world; the millions upon millions in Asia … who are entitled to automobiles, televisions and air conditioning, simply because they – both the automobiles and the inhabitants – exist!

The President’s speech last night is a classic example of entitlement thinking, where a luxury is presented as a necessity, an entitlement. Such a thing cannot be offered truthfully since it is only necessary for all to pay taxes and to die, so the first words out of the President’s mouth were lies:

But thanks to the bold and decisive action we have taken since January, I can stand here with confidence and say that we have pulled this economy back from the brink.

Bold and decisive actions would have to include (be limited to) handing out a trillion here and a trillion there to defunct businesses like Chrysler and AIG. It would also have to include bloating the balance sheets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac … and FHA and Ginnie Mae … all presumably to support still debt- inflated housing prices.

Bold and decisive actions that have not held anyone on Wall Street accountable and have not determined in detail what exactly happened during the now- ameliorated ‘Great Bust’ as well as the run up to it.

As for the non- plan itself; the details of it are becoming tired. In its essence, it is corporate welfare for giant insurers, who will be given access – by police powers – to an otherwise unavailable pool of theoretical money; the funds of the currently uninsured.

That’s why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance – just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.

This is the inner Obama iron fist; the weight of government aimed at those with little or nothing:

Now, even if we provide these affordable options, there may be those – particularly the young and healthy – who still want to take the risk and go without coverage.

The detritus of luxury; that a man can be jailed for not buying a Louis Vuitton handbag! Why not make all Americans buy each and every one their own Formula One team?

Certainly, that would be good for the economy! It’s also completely absurd! Health insurance costs an individual $5- 8 thousand dollars a year! How will someone who is unemployed or underemployed – the average American, in other words – afford this!

This is the point when the health care price bubble – supported by current government subsidies – deflates. The high price levels will be as unsustainable as are the current high real estate prices – all too expensive for incomes to support. Obama cannot outlaw simple mathematics nor can he stop deflation by fiat. When the subsidy ‘magic wand’ then substitutes for the uninsureds’ lack of funds we are back to square one:

Which is the plan, anyway. Congressman Wilson is correct, it’s all lies.

This leaves aside the issue of whether such a proscription is Constitutional or not. I suspect ‘Kelo v. City of New London’ will be revisited …

Underlying the entire approach is a sense of fantasy or disconnect from reality. The entire world is in a situation that is unprecedented; the strategy of the past fifty years of leveraging cheap petroleum into dollars or euros or yen is foundering on the rock of more expensive petroleum. The strategy worked too well … the petroleum is fast disappearing.

At $30 a barrel, a public health care plan for all Americans is a necessity. Now, @ $75 a barrel, it is an unaffordable luxury. Too bad nobody in charge can tell the difference.

The same blindness to the effects of expensive oil fogs the vision of the rest of the economic players. With credit nationalized and ‘Key Men’ insured against collapse by various Treasuries, the central banks can liquefy equity markets and create the appearance of economic recovery.

But, without cheap petroleum, there is no successful margin for businesses that continue to fail as a consequence; no successful margins for exurban development, for increases in transportation, for decentralization of commercial activities – the activities that have defined the American Way of Life not just for Americans but for the rest of the world!

All those who watch television, that is.

Meanwhile the debt burdens increase. The next leg of deleveraging is coming and the consequences will be severe. Time for bold and decisive actions – to prepare for the inevitable – are needed now, but seem to be over the horizon.