Rep. Paul Ryan tells it like it is.

Mr. President, you said health care reform is budget reform. You’re right. We agree with that. Medicare, right now, has a $38 trillion unfunded liability. That’s $38 trillion in empty promises to my parents’ generation, our generation, our kids’ generation. Medicaid’s growing at 21 percent each year. It’s suffocating states’ budgets. It’s adding trillions in obligations that we have no means to pay for it… If you take a look at the CBO analysis, analysis from your chief actuary…this bill does not control costs. This bill does not reduce deficits. Instead, this bill adds a new health care entitlement at a time when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have. What has been placed in front of [the CBO] is a bill that is full of gimmicks and smoke-and-mirrors. Now, what do I mean when I say that? Well, first off, the bill has 10 years of tax increases, about half a trillion dollars, with 10 years of Medicare cuts, about half a trillion dollars, to pay for six years of spending. Now, what’s the true 10-year cost of this bill in 10 years? That’s $2.3 trillion. It does couple of other things. It takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that’s really reserved for Social Security. So either we’re double-counting them or we don’t intend on paying those Social Security benefits. It takes $72 billion and claims money from the CLASS Act. That’s the long-term care insurance program. It takes the money from premiums that are designed for that benefit and instead counts them as offsets. The Senate Budget Committee chairman said that this is a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud… You can’t say that you’re using this money to either extend Medicare solvency and also offset the cost of this new program. That’s double counting.

I’ve alluded to this subject before, but thanks to my wife for a link to a fascinating set of data on the corrosive social effects of income inequality.

I’ve seen more than a few presidents. A very few, like John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, were good men and good leaders. Some, like Jimmy Carter, were good people whose personal style was not suited to the demands of the job. Some, like George Bush Jr., were principled men but allowed their egos and emotions to over-ride their judgment and alienated people. And then there were the pure politicians, completely lacking in principle. In that category I would place Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. One was eventually forced to resign and the other came within an ace of the same fate.

But President Obama takes the cake. Not only does he lack principle, but, unlike Nixon and Clinton, he is also a weak leader. A prime example of this is his continuing mistreatment of Paul Volcker.

The president needed the gravitas of the former Fed chairman to sell his bank reform to Wall Street. But when the big banks didn’t buy it, Obama sold him out.

Barack Obama owes Paul Volcker a lot, but he apparently owes the fat cats on Wall Street even more. That’s the only reasonable conclusion that can be made from the president’s timely and, in some ways, bizarre about-face on the former Fed chairman’s plans to reform the financial industry and prevent another meltdown.

As first reported by the New York Post, Volcker’s bank-reform idea—the one trotted out by the president with Volcker standing at his side just hours after Republican Scott Brown won Teddy Kennedy’s seat and vowed to help crush Obama’s economic agenda—has been nixed in favor of a watered-down version that bank chiefs like J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and other Obama supporters on Wall Street are advocating.

Unemployment claims rose sharply again this week (well really last week due to reporting lag) to 496,000. Bernanke, in front of the Senate today, blamed the weather. Ben, some news for you. It is winter. There is bad weather in winter. Even, despite Al Gore’s best efforts, snow. That, in part, is why these numbers are “seasonally adjusted.”

But, of course, there is an effect if unemployment offices are closed by bad weather. Then the numbers are estimated, and there is some fluctuation as revisions are made and people catch up on filing claims. That’s why there’s a 4-week moving average which tends to dampen out those effects. At 474,000, this average is 15,000 above January levels. That’s not a falling trend.

Warren Buffett says Charlie Munger, his partner, is the brains of the outfit. We seldom hear from Charlie, so when we do, we should pay attention. Unlike the Oracle of Omaha, who speaks bluntly these days, Charlie speaks in parables. According to Wikipedia, the word “parable” comes from the name given by Greek rhetoricians to any fictive illustration in the form of a brief narrative. Later it came to mean a fictitious narrative, generally referring to something that might naturally occur, by which spiritual and moral matters might be conveyed. A parable is a short tale that illustrates universal truth, one of the simplest of narratives. It sketches a setting, describes an action, and shows the results.

Basically, It’s Over. A parable about how one nation came to financial ruin.

As it worked out, the politicians ignored the Good Father one more time, and the Basicland banks were allowed to open bucket shops and to finance the purchase and carry of real securities with extreme financial leverage. A couple of economic messes followed, during which every constituency tried to avoid hardship by deflecting it to others. Much counterproductive governmental action was taken, and the country’s credit was reduced to tatters. Basicland is now under new management, using a new governmental system. It also has a new nickname: Sorrowland.

I hope Charlie is right about the new management and governmental system.