What is President Obama’s plan to fix Medicare and Social Security? Oh that’s right. There isn’t one. Too busy taking over and running companies while saying he doesn’t want to take over and run companies. And too busy ‘remaking America’ to worry about the elephant in the room.
It’s fair to say that auto sales of any brand is down, and down significantly and for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is government intervention. Current economic conditions aside, the Prius and vehicles like it are not what the market demands. And for whatever demand there is, there is no demand to eliminate the SUV and American cars as we know them. That demand is coming from Washington, not the market.
Despite claims that Americans turning their backs on gas-guzzlers have contributed to the present dire straits faced by GM and others, Toyota’s latest sales figures point to a stagnant market for more efficient Japanese models as well.
Sales of the Prius in the US were down from 15,011 in May 2008 to just 10,091 for the same month this year. For the year to date, sales of the Prius in the US stand at 42,753 compared to 79,675 in 2008 – a drop of more than 45 per cent.
Markets don’t respond well to political direction. Markets are self-correcting when ‘allowed.’ That is to say, when they are not interfered with. Above everything else, markets don’t do well in an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. In light of the power grab the Obama administration has perpetrated over various industries and companies within his first 100 days, the only message Barack Obama is sending to business is watch out, you could be next.
Here’s an interesting bit of information about how environmentally-green mass-transportation is not simply ‘green’ by default. Written not by politicians, but by scientists, which probably qualifies them as card carrying extremists.
Its authors point out an array of factors that are often unknown to the public. These are hidden or displaced emissions that ramp up the simple “tailpipe” tally, which is based on how much carbon is spewed out by the fossil fuels used to make a trip.
Environmental engineers Mikhail Chester and Arpad Horvath at the University of California at Davis say that when these costs are included, a more complex and challenging picture emerges.
In some circumstances, for instance, it could be more eco-friendly to drive into a city — even in an SUV, the bete noire of green groups — rather than take a suburban train. It depends on seat occupancy and the underlying carbon cost of the mode of transport.
Which reminds me of a related subject, biofuels. Did you know that it is greener to burn our fossil fuels than to produce and burn biofuels?
links: Think twice about ‘green’ transport, say scientists | Fossil Fuels Out-Green Biofuels
The European Union held parliamentary elections over the weekend and the results indicate a rejection of socialism as they see it and of left-leaning parties in most member nations.
Conservatives raced toward victory in some of Europe’s largest economies Sunday as initial results and exit polls showed voters punishing left-leaning parties in European parliament elections in France, Germany and elsewhere.
Right-leaning governments were ahead of the opposition in Germany, France, Italy and Belgium, while conservative opposition parties were leading in Britain and Spain.
First projections by the European Union showed center-right parties would have the most seats – between 263 and 273 – in the 736-member parliament. Center-left parties were expected to get between 155 to 165 seats.
The EU seems to get it. They’ve seen it all before. Even more reason for the Obama administration to keep his socialist plans on the fast track. Before most Americans figure him out and what he is doing. The US media are not talking.
You can kind of tell when a media outlet doesn’t like what they’re seeing. Look how the left-leaning Telegraph.co.uk describes the victories. They get very creative in adjectives for the winners. Extremists, far-right, fringe parties, anti-immigrant, anti-Islamic immigrant party, anti-gipsy extremist, ultra-nationalist. See any bias there?
Far-Right parties and extremists made gains across Europe this weekend as protest votes and low turnouts marked the European parliament elections.
Support for centre-Left parties and governments crashed across the EU as fringe parties, not the Socialists, picked up protest votes while the centre-Right weathered the storm.
Anti-immigrant and far-right groups made significant gains in the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Denmark, Slovakia and Finland.
In Slovakia a low turnout of just 19.4 per cent propelled an anti-gipsy extremist ultra-nationalist into the parliament and Hungary’s far-Right Jobbik took three seats for the first time.
In France, Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre-Right UMP group was the big winner, with 28 per cent of the vote, as the opposition Socialists suffered serious losses, plunging the already weak party into further disarray.
Can hardly wait to hear David Axelrod’s spin on the election results. It is the writing on his wall.
Of all the political discourse out there, Rahm Emanual’s ‘rule one‘ has received the least amount of attention, while the evidence of it abounds in spades. The synergy between the Obama administration and the social and political activist group ACORN deserves some exposure and scrutiny as well. It’s time we (the American people) had this examination and discussion.
“Never allow a crisis to go to waste, they are opportunities to do big things.” This is “rule one” as explained by President Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on national television last fall.
What does that mean to you? Just look at what President Obama is doing, as opposed to what he is saying.
To me it means President Obama is not going to rebuild the economy until he first transforms it into his socialist version, complete with a “youth corps” that will include ACORN.
ACORN, you will recall, is the community activist group that he represented as a Chicago lawyer to expand the toxic sub-prime mortgages that started this economic mess. All in the name of “social justice.”
It means that plans to rebuild the economy come last, not first. That is rule one. Or to put it another way, “the chickens are coming home to roost.”
links:
H/T to the Pensacola News Journal for taking the risk of printing my letter to the editor on this subject.
On the day that the government takeover of GM is complete, which President Obama explained as just temporarily helping out the auto industry, as ‘reluctant shareholders,’ leave it to a Russian citizen to put it all in its proper perspective. They have been there, done that.
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
This morning, the President told the auto industry that they have to make the sacrifices, so that his children and their children and grandchildren can live in a country where we still make things. He fired GM’s president, replaced the board, put his advisers on it, dictated the kind of cars they are going to make, and he also said that he doesn’t want the government to run the company. What he said was exactly this . . .
The federal government will refrain from exercising its rights as a shareholder in all but the most fundamental corporate decisions.
What? Just the most fundamental corporate decisions? Like who will be on your board of directors, what kind of car to make, and the mileage standard it must meet, the type of fuel it must run on, and where it will be made. It’s reassuring that he doesn’t want to run the company isn’t it?
And the change doesn’t stop there.
Is it me or are things beginning to unravel? I can hardly wait to see what kind of cars that Obama, his auto industry advisers, and the UAW will produce. And, besides the government, who will buy them?
That this seismic shift from a free market capitalistic society to a socialist / Marxist type society is happening without comment from our media gives credence to the ”passive, hapless sheeple’ comment from the writer. If you were a frog in a pot of water, the heat has just been turned up. It’s time to get out. If you’re not a frog, then it’s time to speak up.
The hemisphere’s idiot, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is not having a good week. According to all the government controlled media hype about Chavez’s special 10th anniversary Chavez-a-thon, the planned 4-day TV special was quietly and mysteriously cut in half.
For the second consecutive day, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has cancelled his TV show Alo Presidente. In the end, his four-day TV anniversary extravaganza was reduced to a handful of transmissions over just two days.
And on an unrelated related matter, have you noticed fewer Citgo gas stations around town? Hip Hip Horay! One can only hope that the Citgo employees are able to find employment at a real American oil company.
Never mind the mis-use of the ‘redneck‘ moniker, but you have to consider the source. The British media apparently is confused between the ‘wild west’ and rednecks. On the flip-side, would you have known of this if it weren’t for the foreign media? That aside, there is a town in America that wants to keep the detainees in their new prison, which is vacant. What?
I’d much prefer that GITMO and its residents stay right where they are. However, the idea of solving a logistical problem and providing an economic stimulus in one fell swoop does sound interesting.
Sonia Sotomayor’s life story is one thing. It’s a picture perfect American success story. That is, in the America that she grew up in.
Take away the liberal heart-string tugging of her life’s story as a qualification to the Supreme Court, and what you have is a judge whose decisions have been overturned 60% of the time. A judge that upheld racial discrimination in a case now in the Supreme Court, where it is anticipated she will be overturned again.
It is not right-wing spin to say that her version of justice is not ‘blind.’ It’s just that you won’t see it put that way in the mainstream media. An automatic dis-qualifier for anywhere in the judiciary, let alone the Supreme Court.
President Obama picked an ideological soulmate with his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. His idea of the U.S. Constitution seems to be in line with hers. Being overturned 60% of the time turns out to be a resume enhancement for an Obama Supreme Court nominee.
Which begs the question. Will future generations of Americans have the same opportunities that she had in an Obama-remade America?
related link: Why did George H.W. Bush pick Sotomayor for the courts?
audio, in his own words: What Obama thinks of the Supreme Court, and the Constitution
So goes the position of the United Nations, at least as far as the United States is concerned. Reacting to North Korea’s third nuclear bomb test after several missile tests including another missile test today, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said . . .
If North Korea’s leaders continue to act provocatively, “they’re going to find that they will pay a price, because the international community is very clear: This is not acceptable. It won’t be tolerated, and they won’t be intimidated,”
Rice said the United States would pursue within the U.N. Security Council a new resolution on North Korea, “a strong resolution with teeth.”
{emphasis added}
Well, it seems we are intimidated. Does this mean that the first three nuclear bombs are free? And when Kim Jong Il does it again, then what? Meanwhile the President wants to scale back our missile defense program. Is this the part that Vice President Joe Biden was talking about after the election, that Obama would be tested soon and hey, we might make the wrong decision. But hang in there will ya? We love you man. What?
Now, it gets better, or worse.
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea warned South Korea and the United States on Wednesday that Seoul’s participation in a U.S.-led program to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction is equal to a declaration of war.
Biden’s remarks made the transition from campaign promises and speeches to a bit of the real world before being sworn in. Planned or not. I don’t know about you but he didn’t do anything for me that said that either he or Obama had a clue in dealing with the world’s worst and most dangerous dictators. Take the U.S. World Apology Tour 2009 for example.
There’s two ways to look at this. Is no decision better than the wrong decision? And, how many ‘free lives’ do they get?
h/t Black & Right
Nearly a month ago, April 29th, President Obama held his second televised press conference marking his first 100 days. There were thirteen questions given and answered.
What surprised me, well not really, was how challenging the press conference really was. It was anything but challenging.
One question was most penetrating ‘what has surprised, troubled, enchanted, and humbled you about the Oval Office?’
Another was about Chrysler Corporation.
Is bankruptcy the only option for Chrysler, and what about plant closings announced by GM? Obama says he’s more hopeful now than a month ago that there will be a deal that “maintains a viable Chrysler auto company.”
In less than a month, look at the difference between what he said then and what he has done to Chrysler, their secured creditors, and the UAW.
What is noteworthy about this press conference is what the President was not asked.
For this being only his second press conference, with so much that has happened since his last one, do you think that the media lived up to its ‘watchdog’ status? Is the media serving you well when out of 13 questions posed, none of them included the four most obvious ones?
related link: Watchdog No More