Category Archives: Economy

2012 Election, Economy, Politics, Race Relations

Obama’s Historic Presidency

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Yes historic. And I’m not talking about his race. Everyone got over that the day after the election. (well, except for liberals/progressives) What else is historic for President Obama is that he now has the bragging rights for overseeing the country’s fall into decline while in office.

  • the return of double-dip recession fears
  • an emboldened Tea Party
  • a sinking Dow
  • stagnating employment
  • and the nation’s credit rating downgraded for the first time in 70 years.

That would be the AAA credit rating that President Obama inherited from President Bush. A dubious honor for sure. What makes it worse is that not only was this train wreck of an economy predicted, it was preventable too!

The Obama administration says they’ve done all that can be done to fix the economy. They want to borrow and spend even more money, ostensibly believing that what didn’t work the last time, and the time before that, will work this time. Obama says we just have to sit tight and wait for the economy to improve. Recovering from the worst economy since the Great Depression is a “slow process,” the president said. What he really means is he has done all that he and his advisers know to do. It is not all that can be done.

There was a solution passed by the Republican-led House and tabled by the Democrat-led Senate called Cut, Cap, and Balance. By the way, Standard & Poor’s said that ‘Cut, Cap, and Balance’ was the only plan proposed by either party that would have preserved the AAA credit rating. So no one has the right to act outraged at S&P’s downgrade action. But for political reasons, not economic ones, the President has to pretend like there is nothing else that can be done. Just take it. Eat your peas. Get used to high unemployment, rising interest rates, rising costs everywhere, and a stagnant economy. That’s the change Obama has in mind. Don’t you wish you knew that a couple of years ago, before the election?

Link: Facing Economic Headwinds, Obama Struggles Again to Find an August Storyline

Economy, Media, Politics

Phony Unemployment Numbers

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced a drop in the unemployment rate from 9.2 percent to 9.1 percent.  And that 117,000 jobs were added.

The BLS also noted that there were 38,000 fewer people working in July than in the previous month. So how can it be that the unemployment rate ‘dropped?’

It dropped because the bean counters in Washington have reduced the pool of workers enough to cause the percentage change go in one direction when what is measured is actually going in the opposite direction. The BLS calls this “seasonally adjusted” as modified by the “civilian labor force participation rate.”

[scribd id=61861912 key=key-2inwl0ufhv0awdanz1ti mode=list]

Look what the rate is if Washington used the same method of tracking unemployment that you and I use. Beginning with the active labor force as big as it was when Obama was inaugurated, the unemployment rate would be 11.7%.

If the unemployment rate goes up but is not reported, did it really happen?

Link: Jobs report shows some ugly truths  |  Bureau of Labor Statistics

Economy, Politics

Geithner Still Pointing Fingers

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Standard & Poor showed “terrible judgment” in lowering the U.S. government’s credit rating.

“They’ve handled themselves very poorly. And they’ve shown a stunning lack of knowledge about the basic U.S. fiscal budget math,” Geithner said in his first public comments about the credit rating decision.

“Terrible judgement?” This from a guy who earned the nickname ‘tax cheat Geithner’ for not paying his income taxes. Just like he blamed ‘TurboTax’ for his tax cheating problems, Geithner is blaming Standard & Poor’s poor judgement for lowering the United States’ credit rating for the first time ever to AA+, down from AAA where it has been for nearly a hundred years.

According to Geithner, it’s just because the credit rating company does not understand “U.S. fiscal budget math.”  No doubt they don’t understand the concept of spending your way to prosperity and borrowing your way out of debt. They don’t understand that increasing the national debt by 7 trillion dollars in ten years is a decrease.  What they do see is U.S. doing nothing to attack the public debt or the willingness to stop the deficit spending in the budgets that they have failed to produce. That is what Geithner means by U.S. fiscal budget math.

Some people are calling for Geithner to step down for his mangling of the economy. Even if he did, it would not solve the problem. His boss believes in the same fuzzy math and points fingers at everyone but himself too!

2012 Election, Economy, Media, Politics

Obamanomics Is Expanding

Updated 8/7/2011. Now that all the stimulus money has played its course, look around for signs of success. And also look for President Obama to ask for either another “stimulus” package or a QE3, or both. But that’s beside the point.

The point is the economic genius of our president, media malpractice, and how well the two go together.

Obamanomics began from a “social justice” footing. Simply put, social justice is a statist belief that the government must manage society in a way that guarantees outcome under the pretense of fairness.  I don’t believe that is in the Constitution, but Obama doesn’t preserve, protect, or defend it anyway. He really wants to be America’s new founding father.

He manages society through taxation, taking money from those who have it (regardless of whether they have been born) and give it to those who want it. The fact that the recipients might want to keep the checks coming by voting to keep them in office is just an unintended? consequence.

While Americans that have lost their jobs are in the unemployment line, President Obama is working hard to keep his own. Having been to 37 fundraisers up to this point in time, it is clear where his focus is. Bush and Clinton had 10 and 7 respectively for the same length of time in their first term.

But now, Obamanomics has a new twist. The fact that there is no job creation going on is not because of the president’s policies or his class warfare, wealth envy, or anti-business tendencies. PBS and Obama blame it on businesses for not hiring people. Here is a quote from a short PBS article that took two people to write.

However, it’s been clear for months that President Obama’s ability to enact job-creating policies has been significantly restricted by politics and the business community’s refusal to hire in the face of depressed consumer demand.

Restricted by politics? Not hardly. Obama got all the stimulus and major policies he asked for. Neither PBS nor President Obama and his advisers understand free-market economics. Businesses don’t hire people so that someone will have a job. They hire people when they believe they would lose business if they did not hire. They hire people so that they can make money. Or to put it another way, businesses don’t hire people when business is down and there is no prospect of business getting better any time soon. But in Obamanomics, businesses should hire people so they will have a job.

So this is why taxpayers have to continue to fund PBS?

But wait, there’s more. Remember the first stimulus package? All that shovel ready stuff, rebuilding the nation’s roads and infrastructure. He sold it to the American people on the pretense that that’s what it was going to be used for. And they bought it. Now we know it was nothing more than a slush fund to give to state governments to support the public-sector union wages and pension plans. Knowing full well that that money would come back to the Democratic party in 2010 like it did.

Well guess what? Pretend all that infrastructure rebuilding never happened. Because in reality, it didn’t. That’s why President Obama will be hitting up the American people for more money to ostensibly do the same thing that he asked Americans to pay for a couple years ago. You know, back when unemployment was in the 6-7 percent range.

We also need to give more opportunities to all those construction workers out there who lost their jobs when the housing boom went bust. We could put them to work right now, by giving loans to private companies that want to repair our roads and our bridges and our airports, rebuilding our infrastructure. We have workers who need jobs and a country that needs rebuilding; an infrastructure bank would help us put them together.

The administration is counting on the short memory of the dumb masses and outlets like PBS to dutifully carry their water. Short of admitting they have it all wrong, they are left with no other choice.

Link: With Debt Deal Done, Obama Turns to Re-election Campaign  |  With debt deal done, Obama sees need now for new spending on bridges, roads, unemployment  |  Huffington: Nobody Believes Obama’s Top Priority Is Jobs; It’s Getting Re-Elected  |  I Will Not Rest

Economy, Politics

No Deal On Debt Deal

If anyone thinks that this deal fixes anything, they need to think again.

At best, in ten years, Congress plans on increasing the debt by $7 trillion instead of $10 trillion. The ‘baseline budgeting’ scam employed by our lawmakers has got to be scrapped. That’s nothing but fantasy economics. Time to get down to the same ‘real economics’ that exists in the real world outside Washington D.C..

That bill and the PR surrounding it is another way to kick the can down the road while making it look like something good was accomplished. It is unlikely to prevent a downgrade in the credit rating, which was what all the crisis-talk was about. The only good that came out of it is that at the very least, the conversation has shifted from expanding government to reducing it.

But this bill does nothing to reduce it. Because of that, the credit rating is still going to suffer. And the so-called cuts don’t even start until after the election in 2013.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) characterized it this way, ‘instead of running to bankruptcy, we’re walking to it.’

If the bill called for spending to be held at last year’s level, with no automatic annual increases as exist in this bill, then that would be worth signing into law.

To illustrate how ridiculous the smoke and mirrors on the budget gets under baseline budgeting, if this bill called for a spending freeze, that is to say with no increase whatsoever, the CBO would rate that as a 9 trillion-dollar cut. And that makes sense to who? Apparently it makes sense to too many people on capital hill.

UPDATE 8/6/2011: U.S. Loses AAA Credit Rating From S&P

Economy, Media, Politics

Government Overestimating Growth

Well who knew that the Bureau of Economic Analysis would not be dealing straight with the folks when they come out with their economic reporting? After month after month of the administration telling us we are in recovery mode, the folks are still asking ‘where are the jobs?’

Turns out, not only is this a jobless recovery, but a recovery-less recovery too! Looking around, you don’t need Ezra Klein writing in the Washington Post to tell you that. But he did . . .

The economy grew at an annual rate of just 1.3 percent in the second quarter of this year. What wasn’t expected is that the BEA would go back and admit it’s been overestimating growth for the past three years. “For 2007-2010, real GDP decreased at an average annual rate of 0.3 percent; in the previously published estimates, real GDP had increased at an average annual rate of less than 0.1 percent.” {emphasis added}

Keep a sharp eye out to see if the rest of the legacy media jumps on this story. But don’t hold your breath.

Economy, Media, Politics, War On Terror

Putting Country Over Party

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Listening to the storyline of Democrats in the House of Representatives over the budget and debt ceiling debate, you might think there is some message coordination going on.

If you want a government that does not spend more than it has, you must be a terrorist. If you reject the growth in government and government policies that are not economically sustainable, then you must be a terrorist. Jeff Foxworthy could do a bit on this.

Referring to an opinion piece in Politico by William Yeomans, Rush said . . .

It has become commonplace to call the Tea Party faction in the House ‘hostage takers.’ But they have now become full-blown terrorists. They have joined the villains of American history who have been sufficiently craven to inflict massive harm on innocent victims to achieve their political goals.” This is William Yeomans writing. Mr. Yeomans, what in the name of Sam Hill do you think Barack Obama is?

Look at this array of examples of how the elected Democrats portray Republicans, and tea party folks specifically. Below are some quotes from the house floor . . .

STENY HOYER: (rotunda noise) The Republicans are holding hostage the credit of the United States of America.

DEBBIE “BLABBERMOUTH” SCHULTZ: …our Republican colleagues to hold our economy hostage.

DINGY HARRY: The Republican Party is holding our economy hostage.

CHUCK-U SCHUMER: (rotunda noise) It didn’t say, “Hold America hostage.”

LOUISE SLAUGHTER: …hold the debt ceiling hostage.

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: One party is holding the country hostage.

JOHN OLVER: The debt limit has never before been held hostage.

BARBARA LEE: Republicans are holding our economy hostage.

EARL BLUMENAUER: …willing to take hostage the debt ceiling.

JASON ALTMIRE: Stop holding America’s credit rating hostage.

ROSA DeLAURO: The Republican majority continues to hold the American economy hostage.

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Let’s not hold the entire American economy hostage.

JOHN LARSON: …ideological HOSTAGE situation…

LLOYD DOGGETT: The only belt they’re really tightening is right around the neck of those hostages.

JAMES CLYBURN: Holding the American economy hostage.

JESSE JACKSON, JR.: This President is being treated differently!

SPEAKER PRO-TEM: (gavel banging)

JACKSON: No other President has been stuck up, shook down, or held hostage!

 Limbaugh continues . . .

We’re not holding anybody hostage. We are the hostages! We are equal time. We are paying the ransom all the time. We are the hostages. Our country has been kidnapped, and you’re asking a ransom from us in the form of higher taxes and less liberty and less freedom each and every day — and you dare to write pieces calling us terrorists! We don’t fly jet planes into buildings. We’re not killing people. We’re not putting people out of work. We’re not taking their money. We’re not destroying their savings. We’re not taking over the oil companies. We’re not taking over the car companies. We are not the ones in the process of destroying the U.S. healthcare system.

Bottom line. We’ve seen and heard this kind of rhetoric from Democrats before. It is still name-calling, only now we are being compared to Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda.

Limbaugh continues . . .

I don’t want to hear any more crap from Democrats about “civility.” I don’t want to be preached to one more time by these holier-than-thou, better-than-everybody-else, smarter-than-everybody-else craven villains about “civility.” I have to tell you, folks (and I know that I am not alone): I am mad as all get out. The Democrats and their cohorts and the Drive-Bys have collectively ratcheted up this divisive, uncivil, reactionary language to trash the Tea Party — and, by extension, conservatives. We’re not terrorists! We’re not killing people. We are Americans who disagree with you! We’re Americans who disagree with statism. We are Americans who disagree with socialism, communism and liberalism.

Consideringstand-by-country what the Obama administration has done to “remake America,” you and I, the American people, are the real hostages. Ironically, it is the tea party people who have followed Obama’s advice to “put country over party.”

Link: Media Reality Check: During Debt Talks, Liberal Media Savaged Tea Party as Ignorant, Irrational Terrorists

Economy, Politics

‘Balanced Approach’ And Economic Suicide

By now it should be obvious to everyone in both parties that what the president means when he calls for a ‘balanced approach’ to ostensibly solve the public debt problem, that he is actually talking about increasing taxes. You know, on rich people who he feels are not paying their fair share.

If he knew anything about free-market economics, he would know that you don’t tax your way to prosperity, and you don’t borrow your way out of debt. If he knew anything about free-market economics he would know that a government that stifles a free market through increased taxation and regulation at a time when what is needed is economic growth and jobs, will do nothing but support the FUD factor. Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. The result of which is a depressed, stagnant, and weak economy. Which, according to the bean counters in Washington is where we are now.

Increasing taxes and regulation like (but not limited to) Obamacare, in an economic climate like we have now, will only serve to kill the economy, not save it.

If you want to believe that he and his ‘social justice’ pals are not aware of the negative consequences of their actions, go ahead and believe it. But it won’t change the outcome.

What the President is asking us to accept is economic suicide. When being ‘balanced’ means bleeding the economy to death, then no, there is no room for compromise.

The result is not unlike a ‘balanced approach’ to a mugging:

Give me your wallet or I’ll slit both your wrists.

Let’s compromise, how about only one wrist?

2012 Election, Economy, Politics

Interest Rate And The Debt

As an aside from the debate in Washington about whether or not to raise the debt ceiling, spend less, or balance the budget, there is something else just as ominous to the country and future generations that you should know about.

We all understand that borrowing money has a direct cost to it, the interest rate. Interest rates now are at all-time lows. No problem. When interest rates go back up, big problem.

This video demonstrates the effect of what higher interest rates will have on the economy and yet unborn Americans.

Short version, instead of owing over $1 trillion a year in interest payments now, we could be looking at $2.6 trillion per year by 2021. Or to put it another way, it amounts to more than half of what the government gets in taxes per year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdbqjiIiQLQ

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi and The White House call the GOP’s plan (remember, Democrats don’t have a plan) extreme. Who knew that balancing the budget, reducing spending and trimming the size of government to a sustainable level would be characterized as extreme?