Category Archives: Economy

Economy, Politics

House Democrats Deem Faux $1.1 Trillion Budget as Passed

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On Friday, as part of a procedural vote on the emergency war supplemental bill, House Democrats attached a document that “deemed as passed” a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget. The execution of the “deeming” document allows Democrats to start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the pesky constraints of a budget.

The procedural vote passed 215-210 with no Republicans voting in favor and 38 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote against deeming the faux budget resolution passed.

Never before — since the creation of the Congressional budget process — has the House failed to pass a budget, failed to propose a budget then deemed the non-existent budget as passed as a means to avoid a direct, recorded vote on a budget, but still allow Congress to spend taxpayer money.

Link:  House Democrats ‘Deem’ Faux $1.1 Trillion Budget ‘as Passed’ – HUMAN EVENTS.

Economy, Politics

Speaker Pelosi, M.R.I.O.T.D. Winner

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), for her contention that unemployment checks are like creating jobs, wins the Most Ridiculous Item Of The Day award, by unanimous decision.

As a small business owner and employer, I’ve been told by people on unemployment that they’d much rather collect an unemployment check than go to work. Problem is, trying to make a person who is out of a job more comfortable with unemployment minimums rising, and the length of time they can collect increasing with extensions upon extensions,  the administration and Congress are creating negative incentives for people to find and take work.

What ought to be obvious to everyone by now is, that after billions and trillions of dollars spent and borrowed in the last eighteen months under the pretense of jump-starting the economy, that President Obama and his circle of advisers either don’t have a clue how to stimulate the private sector economy to create self-sustaining jobs, OR, they are hell-bent on destroying the private sector in order to rebuild the country into another Europe.

Which one works for you?

Economy, Europe, Politics

GOP Aiming Backwards?

Only Obama and others who harbor a distaste for free market capitalism, American exceptionalism, the Constitution,  personal liberty and freedom can ignore over 200 years of progress and call continuing that as going backwards.

It wasn’t socialism that made this country the best in the world, by any standard. For example, the poor in this country have cell phones, color televisions, cars, homes that don’t melt in the rain, electricity, air conditioning, indoor plumbing, a school to learn, medical care to heal and food stamps to eat.

On the perpetual campaign, addressing a crowd during a town hall-style meeting and referring to Republicans, Obama said . . .

“They want to take us backwards, we want to move forwards.”

President Obama and his administration are about one generation too late to push a socialist agenda that the socialists in Europe are now turning away from. Learning through experience that, like Margaret Thatcher said, ‘the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money,’ they have reached the point of entitlement un-sustainability. The very same direction Obama’s vision is taking us. The inconvenient truth about Obama is that the leading European countries see Obama as having a vision of going backwards. Not the GOP.

Link: Politico: GOP aiming ‘backwards’ – Kendra Marr and Carol E. Lee

Economy, Politics

Obama Can’t Make Hard Choices, Demonizes GOP

Here we go again. The community organizer in chief, who has to form a committee to tell him when he is spending money he doesn’t have, is at it again. This time, just like the last time, using his bully pulpit to poo poo the GOP for his inability to stick to the PAYGO legislation that congress passed last year.

And this time, just like the last time, Republicans are saying fine, if you feel a need to put up a spending bill to extend unemployment benefits, or for anything else for that matter, then cut some other spending initiative(s) by an equal amount to cover it. Follow the law you created.

“If this obstruction continues, unemployed Americans will see their benefits stop,” Obama said. “Teachers and firefighters will lose their jobs. Families will pay more for their first home. All we ask for is a simple up or down vote. That’s what the American people deserve.”

The broad economic bill failed Thursday when Democrats could not muster the 60 votes needed to end debate. The 56-40 vote fell four shy of the total required to break the GOP filibuster. Republicans support many of the policies in the legislation but are demanding changes to shrink its toll on the deficit.

By now, it should be obvious to everyone that the PAYGO legislation was just a sham. That Obama and his Democratic leaders had no intention, let alone the will or the guts, on cutting anything. Which was why the 111th congress added an ’emergency exemption’ to PAYGO. The plan is to declare everything an emergency, bypassing the PAYGO law, and continue borrowing, increasing the debt, and spending away the liberty and opportunity of future generations of Americans.

How’s that hope and change working for you now?

Link: Obama says GOP making life harder for the jobless – Yahoo! Finance.

Economy, Energy, Politics

Obama’s Gulf Disaster Speech

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Obama’s address to the nation Tuesday night was true to form to what he knows and how he operates. And some of his staunchest supporters are beginning to have some buyers remorse. He isn’t turning out to be what they thought they voted for.

I could have told you what he was going to say before he said it. Oh that’s right, I did.

Testing someone in a crisis does reveal a lot about what one knows and how they operate. Where THE ONE is concerned, he knows to appoint commissions and tell people to fix the problem and ‘report back to me.’ We’re all witnessing the consequences of taking a chance on electing a chief executive that has no executive experience.

Last night’s speech brought nothing new to the table. BP will pay for all damage$. He has said that before and so has BP’s Tony Hayward.

He used the crisis to advance his cap and trade agenda. That’s how community organizers will operate. Though advancing an agenda is also his job, the Gulf disaster speech is not the place and time for it. The never-ending campaign rolls on.

He used Bush’s ridiculous statement about us being ‘addicted’ to oil and fossil fuels for energy. We are no more addicted to fossil fuels than we are addicted to the air we breathe or the blood in our veins. He doesn’t understand the reality that petroleum is the blood of the world’s economy. He doesn’t (or won’t) understand that petroleum is used for more than gas in our cars or energy production.

Where energy is concerned, about half of our electricity is produced by coal, another fossil fuel. And in all his talk about clean energy and wind and solar, industries that are really still in their infancy, he does not even bring up nuclear, making it patently obvious that solving our energy needs take second seat to his cap and trade agenda which is nothing more than taxing energy producers and energy consumers, making everything we do and buy, including our electric bills, more expensive while putting the government’s foot on the neck of the industries we need. A-la community organizer, not chief executive.

A discussion on the merits (?) of cap and trade is for another topic, but is only relevant here to the point that he brought it up in his speech last night. Well, he more than brought it up. He made it his focus.

Economy, Energy, Florida, Pensacola, Politics

Who Is The Most Dangerous Man To America?

If you are thinking of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or the president of North Korea Kim Jong IL,  or BP’s CEO Tony Hayward, it’s not your fault. That would be the desired reaction by any sleight of hand magician who has you looking at his right hand while his left hand is removing your wristwatch. The magician of whom I speak is our own President, Barack Obama.

His agenda to remake America and, in his mind, become America’s new founding father is the reason the tea party movement has surfaced. And rather than deal with their heartfelt objection to his policies, his disciples simply discount them as racists.

His eighteen months in office has not been a string of coincidences to fundamentally change the role of the federal government, to expand the size of government, to control and usurp private sector industries, and expand ‘social justice’ by owing America’s future to China. Not to mention dismantling our global military defense and foreign policy strategy.

His Gulf Coast tour to talk about the oil disaster in the Gulf is not designed to ‘feel our pain.’  It is just another coincidence, along the line of Rule 1, to advance an ‘energy policy’ called Cap and Trade.

The evidence of this comes directly from the most dangerous man TO America himself in this email I received this morning, during his visit to Pensacola.

Ross —

The BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast is the worst environmental disaster of its kind in our nation’s history. I am returning to the region today to review our efforts and meet with families and business owners affected by the catastrophe.

We are working to hold BP accountable for the damage to the lands and the livelihoods of the Gulf Coast, and we are taking strong precautions to make certain a spill like this never happens again.

But our work will not end with this crisis. That’s one of the reasons why last week I invited lawmakers from both parties to join me at the White House to discuss what it will take to move forward on legislation to promote a new economy powered by green jobs, combat climate change, and end our dependence on foreign oil.

Today, we consume more than 20 percent of the world’s oil, but have less than two percent of the world’s oil reserves. Beyond the risks inherent in drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth, our dependence on oil means that we will continue to send billions of dollars of our hard-earned wealth to other countries every month — including many in dangerous and unstable regions.

In other words, our continued dependence on fossil fuels will jeopardize our national security. It will smother our planet. And it will continue to put our economy and our environment at risk. We cannot delay any longer, and that is why I am asking for your help.

Please stand with me today in backing clean energy. Adding your name will help create a powerful, public display of support for making this change happen.

The time has come, once and for all, for this nation to fully embrace a new future. That means continuing our unprecedented effort to make everything — from our homes and businesses to our cars and trucks — more energy-efficient. It means rolling back billions of dollars of tax breaks to oil companies so we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development.

Many businesses support this agenda because shifting to clean energy creates opportunities for entrepreneurship. This is how we will reinvent our economy — and create new companies and new jobs all across the country.

There will be transition costs and a time of adjustment. But if we refuse to heed the warnings from the disaster in the Gulf — we will have missed our best chance to seize the clean-energy future we know America needs to thrive in the years and decades to come.

The House of Representatives has already passed a comprehensive energy and climate bill, and there is currently a plan in the Senate — a plan that was developed with ideas from Democrats and Republicans — that would achieve the same goal. But this is an issue that Washington has long ignored in favor of protecting the status quo.

So I’m asking for your help today to show that the American people are ready for a clean-energy future.

Please add your name to mine:

http://my.democrats.org/CleanEnergy

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

The magic show is on.

China, Economy, Europe, Organized Labor, Politics

U.S. Debt Poised to Overtake GDP

Hellooooo! Eh, no problem. According to VP Joe Biden, the stimulus bill was an absolute success.  Maybe so for labor unions, and government workers. The latter being the only job sector that has grown.

When government grows government jobs, it is adding overhead to an already broke company, or rather, country. Who pays their salaries? You do. Government employees and government jobs don’t make money, they consume it.

What happens next? Picture a snowball at the top of a hill. For the last couple years, economists were warning about out-of-control spending, deficit spending. So is China, a major benefactor of the dreamers in Washington.

The government is gambling with the future of the country, or more accurately, the future of your children and grand children. They claimed that all this spending was needed to jump-start the economy. Realists were warning that the debt is heading to an unsustainable point. They warned that when interest rates begin to rise from their all-time low, that we wouldn’t be able to make the interest payments on the debt, let alone the debt itself.

The problem is not where to get more tax revenue. The problem is where to find the guts to cut spending. Realists were telling Washington to look at Greece and Europe to see what we can expect to happen here IF we don’t roll back spending.

Well, it is starting. Interest rates on our debt is poised to rise. The time to get real has come. The time has come to put all our dreams of a socialist utopia behind us and realize the truth of the matter that, just like you and your household can’t live beyond your means, the country can’t either.

Link: U.S.’s $13 Trillion Debt Poised to Overtake GDP: Chart of Day – Bloomberg.com.

Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

Behold Your IRA And 401(k)

In this day and age where things are happening that no one could have imagined happening just a few short years ago, do you think your IRA and 401(k) plan will always be yours? Do you believe that your children will be able to collect their Social Security?

Let me put it this way. The Department of Labor and the Treasury Department are exploring the idea of using your retirement accounts and to replace them with yet another version of a Social Security-like retirement program, or ‘revenue stream’ as it is referred to.

Some food for thought:

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it.”

Frederic Bastiat

Right now, they’re toying with the idea. But from here, it looks like the compass they’re following.

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2010 Election, Economy, Florida, Media, Pensacola, Politics

BP’s $25 Million For Florida’s Panhandle

Gov. Charlie Crist (NPA-FL) visited the Florida Panhandle a few times since the Deepwater Horizon incident. Hearing from residents and industry leaders about how the already weak economy is worsening because of the bad publicity, BP officials agreed to support an advertising fund to help offset the economic damage with an advertising effort to promote business in the Panhandle.

So far, and according to RicksBlog . . .

State Senator Don Gaetz says that, as of Friday, May 21, BP has not given Florida the $25-million block grant for tourism advertising that BP CEO Tony Hayward promised Gov. Charlie Crist on Monday.

According to State Senator Don Gaetz . . .

state officials are still negotiating a ‘memorandum of understanding’, which must be completed prior to receiving the funds.”

Well, that’s how it started. From there it has gone to a gimme-fest by politicos all over the state. Developing a memorandum of understanding over the $25 million seems only prudent. Especially when you have people like Kendrick Meek showboating for $100 million.

Aside from all that, take a peek at how the Panhandle is going to be ‘promoted.’ No, take a long look at it, and a peek is all you’ll see. Links to the proposed ads as produced by VisitFlorida.com are here:

Link to spots: http://www.2150.tv/getpass.html

password: visitflorida (case sensitive)

There are currently 2 versions of the spot – a general Florida version and a more Northwest Florida oriented spot.

Take a look at those ads. If that’s what they call focused on the Panhandle, I think we need to look to another ad agency with a more effective message. VisitFlorida.com’s website is nothing but a glorified Yahoo travel site. You’re lucky to find beach shots with sugar-white sands, and no mention of the timeliness of the ads and the beautiful conditions that exist in this part of the Gulf of Mexico and Florida.

But you will find this . . .

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Update

There continue to be no confirmed oil sightings associated with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on Florida’s shores at this time.

The great majority of the hotels/motels are inland. There is no evidence there of any emphasis placed on fighting the negative impression created by the news media and environmentalists.

Considering both ads, if I had to put a percentage to it, as for how much of it is ‘focused’ on the Panhandle and how much of it is generic to Florida, I’d give the Panhandle less than ten percent. And if you don’t live in the area, like 100 percent of the target audience, you wouldn’t recognize anything to do with the Panhandle. It’s a sham.

It seems apparent that Charlie Crist and Alex Sink care more about getting the money to promote Florida than the Panhandle. The place where Florida’s economy is most severely impacted.

Give money to Crist and Sink, and you can kiss it good-bye. Especially in this political season. All the Panhandle is left with is hope. Nothing has changed.