Tag Archives: Economy

Economy, Europe, Immigration, Media, Politics

Obama To Focus On The Economy; Believe It, Or Not

Breaking news from the Associated Press, ‘Obama pledges economic focus during next 2 years.’ Sounds eerily similar to his presidential campaign doesn’t it?  Two years later, there remains only a marginal, if any, net increase in full-time permanent jobs, and unemployment is still going up.

Providing zero analysis, not only is this story nothing more than a press release from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, but it is apparent that the Associated Press has no memory of its own either.

‘What do you mean no memory?’ you ask?

Aug. 1, 2009 – May 7, 2010: “I Will Not Rest . . .”

Dec. 4, 2009: Obama puts renewed focus on job creation

Jan. 21, 2010: Obama to focus hard on economy after Democratic loss

Dec. 22, 2010: Obama pledges economic focus during next 2 years

That President Obama is still working on the economy is evident. What is becoming more evident is that the American people mistakenly thought he was going to create jobs and stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, his goal to ‘remake America’ is a longer term project.

He must first dismantle our free-market economy which necessitates unemployment going higher, which necessitates unemployment compensation going longer, which creates a growing population (not counting millions of undocumented Democrats from Mexico) more dependent on the government. That, coupled with more industries coming under the control of the federal government and viola, we’ll be just as broke and socialist a nation as any one in Europe. Under Obama, the days of unemployment under 5 percent are over and gone. The new norm will be somewhere between 10-15 percent. And if he can do it in one term, all the better. To him, that would be Mission Accomplished.

How long does it take before hearing what you want to hear takes a back seat to seeing the results that you want to see?

Economy, Media, Politics

Dems Message For Food Stamp Recipients: Eat Less, part 2

The sequel to this post from four months ago was played out today, when President Obama signed into law a bill called the ‘Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.’ It is curious why the AP writer of this story did not offer up the name of the bill he signed and instead felt it necessary to justify it in her headline.’

In this audio capture of ABC News radio today. ABC’s spin on it is ‘It’s not costing anything.’ Well, not really ABC. What he said was it was fully paid for. I suppose that’s what they mean by a ‘free lunch.’ And dinner.

President Obama said ‘It won’t add a dime to the deficit. Some of the funding comes from rolling back a temporary increase in food stamp benefits. . .’

Audio clip from ABC News: Michelle’s feed the kids program

So where does the rest of it come from? The food stamp program.

So the self-proclaimed champions of the poor, the less fortunate, the working people, who continually whine about Republicans legislating on ‘the backs of’ the working people are actually taking food ‘from the mouths of’ the hungry.

One might ask, why can’t the president find a way to ‘pay for’ extending unemployment compensation?

Link: Obama: Nutrition bill vital to children’s future

Economy, Politics

Kill The So-Called Tax Cut Bill

I find myself in agreement with the wacko Left on killing this bill now. Although for different reasons. Problem with the House version was that the unemployment extensions were not paid for when they could easily have been. That, and they want to tax the dead again. And then there’s the myth that keeping the tax rates the same are going to be a stimulus and create millions of jobs, is pure fantasy. Well, if Obama actually believes that it will, then it is pure fantasy. But I don’t think he believes that it will. Which makes it a lie. No different than the lie that Obamacare was not going to increase the debt, and was going to lower premiums, increase care and coverage, can keep your doctor. All that.

The benefits from ‘the Bush tax cuts’ have come and gone. It took a couple of years for those tax cuts to pay off. They’ve run their course and we’ve spent our way into a recession, and then some. We haven’t gotten trillions into debt by not taxing enough. I’m pretty sure it’s because we’ve spent and borrowed too much.

Now that Harry Reid has the bill, he has made it worse by adding another $55 billion of pork to it. Notice a trend here? If you’re having trouble passing a bill (like with Obamacare), just keep adding pork to it to bribe the votes you need. Where’s that change that Obama campaigned on? From here it looks like more of the same, on steroids.

The best we could do now is to let this bill fall on its face and let the next congress pass one with no pork in it. Making the current rates permanent, if not lower, will help to stop the FUD factor which now is more of a hinderance to growth and investment than the current tax rate itself. Raising taxes anywhere, and especially on those who we expect the growth to come from, will absolutely guarantee that the economy won’t be turning around anytime soon.

Link: Add-ons turn tax cut bill into ‘Christmas tree’

Economy, Media, Politics

Obama’s Tax Package Challenges Media

This is just so rich in Obama-speak that I don’t know where to start. Let’s start with that, for the last 10 years, Democrats, including President Obama, have been harping on George Bush and the ‘Bush tax cuts,’ which are to expire at the end of this month. They accused Bush of ‘lining the pockets of the rich on the backs of the poor.’ That’s their class warfare game. Nothing new with that. And for the last year running up to the mid-term election, Obama has said repeatedly that he and the Democrat majority we’re ‘looking forward.’ We’re not going back to ‘the failed policies of the past.’ You with me so far?

Not sure if the President is living in Fantasy Land, or if he thinks the American people are, but President Obama just said the tax-cut deal he negotiated with Republicans will determine whether the nation’s economy ‘moves forward or backward.’

Obama is only giving the appearance that he understands that raising taxes during a recession is counterproductive to growing the economy and creating jobs. And that cutting taxes are actually stimulative to economic and job growth. Trust me on this, he is not capable of that level of economic understanding. He understands two things, he needs to get re-elected in two years, and he wants you to think that he now ‘gets it.’ Improving the economy is not what he wants. If it was, he would not have spent two years of over-reaching into redistributing, spending, and borrowing other people’s money.

This President would like us to believe that his extending of the current tax rates are tax cuts, when they are not. They are a continuation of the current tax rates, instead of tax increases when they expire. He also wants us to believe that he is doing this in order to move the economy forward. Further, he says it has the potential to create millions of jobs. He also said if it fails, Americans would see smaller paychecks and it would result in fewer jobs. Still with me?

Keeping the current tax rates on a temporary basis just maintains the FUD factor and kicks any economic recovery further on down the road. It won’t create an investment climate, especially when the only job category that is showing signs of an increase is in the government sector, adding to our overhead. The fact is, under the current tax system, we have lost millions of jobs since President Obama took office two years ago. And now, he wants you to believe that this same tax system has the potential to create millions of jobs. What he is doing is setting us up for failure.

Why would the President want to set us up for failure you ask? So in two years time, when he wants to be re-elected, he can say ‘hey, I tried it their way and it doesn’t work.’ Our community organizer President cares more about political expediency than the welfare of our economy and the American people.

The challenge for the legacy media is this, how can we now support the President on what we have demagogued for the last ten years?

Link: Obama: Tax deal could yield ‘millions of jobs’

Economy, Media, Politics

Will An Articulate Republican Please Stand Up?

That class warfare and wealth envy play very well from the Left’s playbook is no surprise. Especially to the dumb masses. From Obama on down, and with the help of the media to carry the water for them, ‘tax cuts for the rich’ seem to be the mantra. Well, that and Republicans don’t want to extend unemployment benefits, yet they want tax cuts for the rich. And at Christmas time no less. Grinch!

There are two truths that blow the Left’s demagoguery out of the water, that the media has no interest in exposing. First, regarding extending unemployment. Regardless of what Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) says, Republicans have no objection to extending unemployment. After all, it would be a spending bill. And, like all spending bills, must be paid for. That’s according to Nancy Pelosi and her party’s PayGo legislation. The concept of PayGo was to not increase the debt. So pay for it already. Pay for it by cutting some other spending from somewhere else, or better yet, pay for it from the hundreds of billions of dollars that are still unspent from the porkulus bill. Pay for it. As a matter of fact, why not throw in an extra $100 as a stocking stuffer. There’s enough money to do it. Republicans would pass it. But, Democrats would lose their demonization tool. Sorry, can’t do that.

The next truth is that cutting taxes increases revenue. Not only does it increase revenue, but the percent that the evil rich pay actually goes up, not down. It is not, contrary to popular opinion, a cost. And certainly nothing that has to be borrowed, like Ms. Pelosi says. And it does not increase the debt. Cutting taxes is an incentive to produce. Cutting taxes leaves the money where it will be of most use. With the people who earned it. The Left quotes the CBO on tax cuts as being a cost. That’s because, by law, the CBO has to calculate everything as a static, zero sum game. They can not, by law, consider changes in behavior or consequences in the market place that a tax law or tax adjustment would cause. This is a fallacy in real life. They assume that by raising taxes by X percent, that they will actually get X percent more in revenue. And if taxes are cut by X percent, then the revenue will be decreased by X percent. Well, sorry Nancy. History and the laws of free-market economics tell a contradictory story.

Thomas Sowell writes . . .

Over that long span of time, there have been many sharp cuts in tax rates under Presidents Calvin Coolidge, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. So we don’t need to argue in a vacuum. There is a track record.

What does that record say? It says, loud and clear, that cuts in tax rates do not mean cuts in tax revenues. In all four of these administrations, of both parties, so-called “tax cuts for the rich” led to increased tax revenues— with people earning high incomes paying not only a larger sum total of tax revenues, but even a higher proportion of all tax revenues.

But when confronted with this concept, President Obama acknowledged that yes, even though revenues increased, that it was more important ‘to him’ to go the wealth envy route in the name of social justice and fairness. So while Democrats claim to want to increase revenues, they really don’t.

So, where are all, or any, Republican leaders in Congress talking about this? Grow a pair and tell it like it is. Show the Democrats for the class warfare demagogues that they are. Preferring to keep people down rather than lift them up.

Link: Can Republicans Talk? |  Can Republicans Talk?: Part II

China, Economy, Energy, Florida, Media, Pensacola, Politics

Florida’s No-Energy Policy Is No Energy Policy

It’s not surprising that the St. Petersburg Times would come out with an editorial supporting the President’s about face on opening up 25 million acres of land off of Florida’s coast to oil exploration. They also thought that shutting down ALL oil drilling in the entire Gulf of Mexico by ALL oil companies was a good idea too! It reflects the knee-jerk reaction to pressure from the environmentalist lobby who, last I checked, does not produce energy.

Critics of the plan, like State Senate President Mike Haridopolos, are right to say that the Florida ban will cost jobs. It is preventing jobs from being created. Forget that ‘saved or created’ nonsense. This, like the rest of Obama’s economic policies are preventing jobs from being created and the economy from recovering.

Out of the lost wages and earnings, all of which BP is responsible for replacing, the Times did not give a number of jobs lost due to the leak. And didn’t BP put thousands of people to work (because of the leak) all over the Gulf coast to do the cleanup work? Sorry to say, but devastating hurricanes create jobs and work too! This is no more a justification for lax safety procedures than a hope for another accident. Point is, we can recover from accidents and disasters.

The jobs lost by extending this Florida waters moratorium another 12 years is real. Likewise, the jobs lost from our president and Ken Salazar putting the drilling moratorium in effect for all drilling in the Gulf in the wake of the 4/20 BP rig explosion was ignored by the St. Pete Times. But, that is to be expected of them.

It’s been 15 years since the Clinton administration put the kibosh on ANWR development, which would have long been producing energy by now had that not happened. Now we’re to wait twelve more years for Florida and the Eastern U.S. to use its resources?

Time is long overdue for an energy policy that gets some. In every area. How many new nuclear generating plants have opened in the last 20 years? How many new refineries have been built in the last 20 years? Did you know that 57% (that’s more than half for those of you educated in government schools) of our electrical energy comes from coal? How many new coal-fired electrical generating plants have been built in the last 20 years? So President Clinton made our nation’s only low sulfur coal reserves (the largest in the world) off-limits, handing China a monopoly. And banning oil development off our East and Gulf coasts, leaves OPEC to profit. Buying coal from China and oil from OPEC is not good for national security, nor is it a good energy policy.

Long story short. Unless you expect the energy industry to make environmental guidelines, don’t expect the environmentalists to make energy policy.

Link:    Shelving expanded gulf oil drilling is responsible course |  Oil spills kill jobs

China, Economy, Energy, Politics, United Nations

Climate Change Conference ‘Going Backwards’

That’s the good news. Frustrated by the competition to play God, the big U.N. climate talks in Cancun are ‘going backwards.’

They are arguing over adjusting the imaginary global thermostat down 2 degrees or 1.5 degrees. While the world’s two biggest polluters, China and India, feel it is unfair that they be forced to participate, don’t want anything to do with it. They haven’t signed on to the Kyoto Protocol either.

Then there’s the rift as to who would manage the $100 billion per year fund that they say they need in order to meet their goal. The World Bank or the United Nations? No matter who it would be, you know it would be nothing more than a slush fund for dictators and despots around the world, helping them to play God while the United States mostly foots the bill for their folly.

Meanwhile, environment ministers began flying in Saturday, hoping to put new life in the U.N. talks. Don’t you wonder about ‘the cost’ that their carbon footprint places on our green earth?

Link:  Plodding climate talks stepping up to higher level

Economy, Energy, United Nations

Skeptic Or Denier?

The role of skeptic – the one who asks the questions, the one who demands answers – is generally a lauded role in modern society. At least .. as long as there’s a Republican on the hot seat. But in climate circles, they have another word, a pejorative term, for skeptics: deniers. The church of global warming has no tolerance for heresy, and even less for probing questions or investigations. And so it is that the journalist Phelim McAleer was denied press credentials for the UN Climate Change Conference taking place in sunny Cancun, Mexico this week.

Meanwhile Christina Figueres, the UN climate chief, launched the annual climate change meeting in Cancun in Mexico, asking negotiators to strike a “compromise” and weave together elements of a solid response to global warming by drawing inspiration from the Mayan goddess of “reason and creativity.”

And, more talk of the need to transfer money and technology under the belief that the United Nations can adjust an imaginary global thermostat by moving vast amounts of money from one side of the earth to the other, if only the other side of the earth will go along. Guess who from? Leaving the rest of us in the dark.

Link:  The Climate Conference Echo Chamber |  UN climate change conference opens in Mexico

Economy, Europe, Politics, Russia

Restructure, It Worked For Russia

In fact, it worked for Russia and Argentina. In fact, to keep ‘bailouts’ on the table for countries that are currently set up to spend more than they take in is, I’ll use a technical word here, crazy. It is a waste of everyone else’s money and does not solve the problem.

Socialist states must restructure. The post WWII boom days are over. The demographics are nothing like they were 50 years ago. And ‘reform’ means ‘taking away.’

The cure means a new economic model for Europe. The lesson for the United States is that transforming America into the image of Europe is not only the absolute wrong direction for our country, but is antithetical to President Obama’s responsibility of being the steward of the country and the Constitution.

Link:  In European Debt Crisis, Some Call Default Better Option |  The State Of The Welfare State

Economy, Europe, Politics

Ireland Asks EU For Bailout

What happens when markets are interferred with? Like when ‘too big to fail’ becomes the excuse to fake a ‘market correction?’ In our case, we see how well that worked out. It hasn’t. Instead, what it has done is cripple the markets, paralyze investement and economic growth.

Ireland has been brought to the brink of bankruptcy by its fateful 2008 decision to insure its banks against all losses – a bill that is swelling beyond euro50 billion ($69 billion) and driving Ireland’s deficit into uncharted territory.

Economists question whether the economies of Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece will grow sufficiently to build their tax bases and permit them to keep financing, never mind paying down, their debts.

Unfortuanetly for Ireland, they bought in to that same excuse. Problem for them is, with their much smaller economy, the consequence is more severe. Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece are all in the same boat. Hit with the financial perfect storm of unsustainable social welfare economies and handicapped free-markets, the European dominos are all in line to fall.

Link: Ireland swallows bitter pill, asks EU for loan

UPDATE: 11/23/2010 In European Debt Crisis, Some Call Default Better Option