Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts

Saturday, June 11, 2011

The Obama Recovery... By the Numbers


3: The annual percentage growth in employment for foreign-born workers (illegal immigrants included) versus a 2.5 percent drop in employment for native-born Americans.

12: The percentage of newly minted lawyers who are unable to find employment, the highest since the 1990s.

14: The percentage of home loans in Florida that are being foreclosed upon.

23: The percentage of homes with "underwater" mortgages (more is owed in loans than the home is worth), despite HAMP, the first-time buyer tax credit, and dozens of other dubious, federal central-planning programs.

30: The percentage of people who have taken a loan out against their 401(k), a new record.

40: The median number of weeks of unemployment (i.e., the time it takes to get a job) -- an all-time high.

41: The average number of weeks it takes each unemployed American 55 or older to get a job, "the longest stretch on record."

43: The percentage of African-American males aged 18-29 who have full-time employment.

45: The percentage of unemployed Americans who have been jobless for six months or longer, the highest since the Great Depression.

63: The percentage of Nevada homes with "underwater" mortgages, a testament to the fine leadership of Senator Harry Reid (D-NV).

111: The number of years since the United States experienced a housing price decline greater than that which has occurred since 2008, despite a variety of federal housing programs designed to assuage the crisis.

2002: The year that home prices have retreated to -- a post-crash low. Nationally, home prices have returned to 2002 levels; "Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit and Las Vegas are ... markets where average home prices are now below their January 2000 level."

44 million: The number of Amerians who receive food stamps, a record high, representing 15 out of every 100 people living in the U.S.

$888 billion: the total amount of U.S. spending on welfare in a single year (2010), $266 billion more than the U.S. "spent on war in Iraq from the first 'shock and awe' attack in 2003 until Bush left office in January [2009]."

$6.4 trillion: The amount of debt President Obama will have added to America's tab in four years in office: "Obama inherited a national debt of $10.6-trillion. He will end his term with a national debt, give or take, of $17-trillion – a debt equal to 115 per cent of GDP."

Say, I've been out of town for a while. How are those Stimulus, HAMP, Cash-for-Clunkers, Weatherization, Green Jobs, Obamacare, "Banking Reform", drilling moratorium, First-Time Home-Buyer Credit, auto company takeovers and QE2 programs working out?


Friday, June 10, 2011

The national debt: 1797-2010

The Wall Street Journal offers a unique, graphical perspective on the national debt since 1797.

Save World War II -- an existential, global struggle against Nazism and Military Shintoism -- no federal bureaucracy has run up the national debt like the 111th Congress and President Obama.

Of course, he's done so for an equally important cause: promoting a counter-revolution to America's founding. Of that, there can be no doubt.


Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Median period of unemployment hits 40 weeks, an all-time high, as President Obama focuses on job creation... overseas

ABC News reports that in addition to persistently high unemployment, "[the] Time It Takes to Find a Job is Off the Charts."

We’ve seen the headline numbers from the monthly jobs report; losing a job means a long stint without employment these days. The median period of unemployment is now at a historic high; 39.7 weeks according to the May Report. That’s the highest it has ever been in the history of the survey.

A new research report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics dug into this trend to offer new details on how long it takes to make the transition from unemployed to employed and found that 11 percent of job seekers took a year or longer to land a new job. Another off-the-chart reading.

As America sinks deeper and deeper into debt -- each U.S. household is now more than $500,000 in hock -- President Obama is laser-focused on jobs. The only problem is that those jobs are overseas.

Jobs in Greece: "CNBC is reporting that President Obama is putting American taxpayers on the chopping block to bail out Greece’s corrupt politicians... What makes this development so unpleasant is that this new bailout (Greece already has been bailed out several times, with both direct and indirect handouts) will make things worse. Another bailout will be a case of throwing good money after bad. And it will exacerbate the economic damage by delaying the economic reforms that are needed to put Greece’s economy in better shape."

Jobs in Brazil: "The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field... The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a “preliminary commitment” letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount."

Jobs in China: "Senate Democrats lashed out at the Obama administration on Wednesday, saying its stimulus wind energy program creates jobs overseas instead of in the U.S.... "Today, we are demanding the Obama administration suspend this program immediately," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y... The program has already spent $2 billion, funding enough projects to power 2.4 million homes... An investigation by ABC News and the Investigative Reporting Workshop found that 79 percent of the program's money has gone to foreign companies... in China."

Jobs in Spain, Portugal and the U.K.: "Although Barack Obama and other Democrats touted the $787 billion stimulus package as a way to create green jobs that would put Americans back to work, new reports show the spending package has mostly created green jobs for foreign workers... The Spanish company Iberdrola has received $443 million; the Portuguese company EDP has received $229 million; and the British company Terra Firma, which bought a large wind farm in western Pennsylvania, received $42 million."

As Michelle Malkin points out, Obama "has stopped receiving daily economic briefings that were once treated with the same emergency status as national security briefings."

Daily economic briefings have apparently lost out to a record number of rounds of golf (71 in only two-and-a-half years), pick-up basketball, fund-raising (Obama's handlers hope to raise a billion dollars in propaganda money) and gourmet dinners.

What, me worry?


Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Destroying the future, one job at a time

Unemployed -- which is to say, almost all -- young people are abandoning Barack Obama in record numbers.

A very large proportion of recent university graduates have soured on President Barack Obama, and many will vote GOP or stay at home in the 2012 election, according to two new surveys of younger voters.

...The scope of this disengagement from Obama is suggested by an informal survey of 500 post-grads by Joe Maddalone, founder of Maddalone Global Strategies. Of his sample, 93 percent are aged between 22 and 28, 67 percent are male and 83 percent voted for Obama in 2008. But only 27 percent are committed to voting for Obama again, and 80 percent said they would consider voting for a Republican, said New York-based Maddalone.

That’s a drop of almost 60 points in support for Obama among this influential class of younger post-grad voters, who Maddalone recruited at conferences held at New York University and Thomson-Reuters’ New York headquarters.

The bad news for Obama was underlined May 19 with a report by a job-firm Adecco that roughly 60 percent of recent college-grads have not been able to find a full-time job in their preferred area. One-in-five graduates have taken jobs far from their training, one-in-six are dependent on their parents, and one-in-four say they’re in debt, according to the firm’s data.

Each household in America is now on the hook for $534,000 in debt and unfunded liabilities, with "a staggering $5.3 trillion ... added to the ... tab last year" alone.

These college kids are, unfortunately, learning a very hard lesson in macroeconomics. Centralized, authoritarian, Soviet-style government can't work, doesn't work and, in fact, has never worked in all of human history.


A "Devastating" Unemployment Chart

Michelle Malkin calls this unemployment chart "devastating."

The good folks at e21 have updated the wildly optimistic chart from January 2009 prepared by incoming White House economists Jared Bernstein and Christina Romer. You know, the one that show the Obama stimulus plan would keep unemployment from hitting 8 percent.


It turns out that the only thing the Stimulus stimulated was public sector union employment.

A large chunk of the union dues will, inevitably, end up in the coffers of Democrat politicians.

It's legalized theft, plain and simple. All taxpayers, irrespective of political persuasion, are funding Democrat politicians through the unholy, unlawful alliance of big government and the Democrat Party.

Remember in 2012.


Saturday, June 04, 2011

One Obama Chart to Rule Them All

By the way, I've been out of town for a while.

How are those Stimulus, HAMP, Cash-for-Clunkers, Weatherization, Green Jobs, Obamacare, "Banking Reform", drilling moratorium, First-Time Home-Buyer Credit, auto company takeovers and QE2 programs working out?


Hat tip: The Blaze

Illinois Has an $8B Budget Deficit, So Dem Governor Guarantees No Union Layoffs in Exchange For a Whopping... $50 Million in Concessions

If they weren't entrusted with power, Democrats would be useful only as comic relief.

... Ninety-six percent of state workers are in collective bargaining units, and there are petitions pending before the state labor board that could increase that proportion to 99 percent, said House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago...

...Rep. Rosemary Mulligan, R-Des Plaines, said the governor is to blame for reaching a no-layoff agreement until June 30, 2012, with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in exchange for $50 million in concessions.

“Didn’t he think everyone was going to join the union?” Mulligan said. “They’d have to be stupid not to.”..

Because big government and the Democrat Party are one and the same, Governor Quinn appears unable to address the state's $8 billion budget deficit in sensible ways, like eradicating collective bargaining, privatizing much of the state's workforce, promoting charter schools and otherwise letting the free market unleash entrepreneurship, innovation and private sector growth.

As for all of the hospitals, vendors and suppliers to the state who are owed money -- much of it six months in arrears -- the news just got worse thanks to the Democrats' intransigence.

The Senate rejected four bills sponsored by state Sen. John Sullivan, D-Rushville, that would have sold more than $6 billion in bonds to pay vendors to whom the state owes money. That means, for now, school districts, local governments, vendors and other providers won’t be getting paid any more quickly.

As of last week, Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka had more than 130,000 unpaid bills dating back to December that total just over $4 billion.

“Vendors should know that there will still be substantial delays, but the situation will slowly begin to improve if we hold the line on new spending,” she said.

I wonder how bad it will have to get for the righteous taxpayers of Illinois to rebel?

That's a rhetorical question. I suspect that it is too late for the state. It would appear that the intertwined, interdependent gang of Democrats and union hacks are so powerful, so corrupt and so malevolent that they simply can't be dislodged from the halls of power.

And so people and businesses will simply flee rather than deal with the United States' own version of East Germany.


Update: IL comptroller: None of Quinn's "temporary" tax increase has gone to pay off old bills.

Friday, June 03, 2011

Funemployment in Obama's third consecutive Summer of Recovery™: "Things are much worse than the reported numbers would have you believe"

Mike Shedlock lays bare the official job numbers and finds things are far, far worse than the administration would have you believe.

For the last two months I commented "It is very questionable if this pace of jobs keeps up." Clearly it didn't and this certainly cannot all be blamed on a Tsunami in Japan. The entire global economy is slowing rapidly...

...In the last year, the civilian population rose by 1,814,000. Yet the labor force dropped by 544,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,358,000...

...Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 11%...

...The official unemployment rate is 9.1%. However, if you start counting all the people that want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.

While the "official" unemployment rate is an unacceptable 9.0%, U-6 is much higher at 15.8%...

Things are much worse than the reported numbers would have you believe, and for the second consecutive month the beneath the surface numbers were bad-to-awful.

Gee, Mish, that seems so hard to believe.

After all, President Obama and his Democrat sycophants have only destroyed the housing, energy, auto, banking, health care, and insurance industries.

I mean, how many jobs could those tally?


Suddenly raising the debt ceiling just became a whole lot less important: China sells almost all of its U.S. Treasury Bills

By that I mean, raising the debt ceiling becomes a lot less important when no one will loan you money. And China ditching our debt simply means that fewer and fewer investors are willing to front the spending-addicted Obama administration any dough.

China has dropped 97 percent of its holdings in U.S. Treasury bills, decreasing its ownership of the short-term U.S. government securities from a peak of $210.4 billion in May 2009 to $5.69 billion in March 2011, the most recent month reported by the U.S. Treasury.

Treasury bills are securities that mature in one year or less that are sold by the U.S. Treasury Department to fund the nation’s debt... Until October, the Chinese were generally making up for their decreasing holdings in Treasury bills by increasing their holdings of longer-term U.S. Treasury securities. Thus, until October, China’s overall holdings of U.S. debt continued to increase.

Since October, however, China has also started to divest from longer-term U.S. Treasury securities. Thus, as reported by the Treasury Department, China’s ownership of the U.S. national debt has decreased in each of the last five months on record, including November, December, January, February and March.

The hysteria generated by TurboTax Tim Geithner and the Democrats in Congress -- translating roughly to 'if you don't raise the debt ceiling, the four horsemen of the apocalypse will take a collective dump on the world economy' -- is utter bunk.

While it is true Congress has never before refused to raise the debt ceiling, it has frequently taken its sweet time to do so. In 1985, Congress waited nearly three months after the debt limit was reached before authorizing a permanent increase. In 1995, 4 1/2 months passed between hitting the ceiling and congressional action. And in 2002, Congress delayed raising the debt ceiling for three months. In each case, the U.S. and the economy survived.

... The people running this government are never going to deal with this untenable situation unless and until it becomes untenable for them. The only way that will happen is if Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling and forces the administration to prioritize payment of those obligations that must be paid to maintain our full faith and credit — for as Kevin and Veronique point out, this already perilous situation could be blown sky high if the interest rate we must pay to borrow spikes. Only when there is no way around it will we get serious consideration of what government should and should not do, and what kind of welfare state the public is willing to pay for.

If we put it off, if we expand the credit card of a bankrupt Washington whose credit card needs to be cut to pieces right now, not only will our dire straits get worse. We won’t get to deal with them — we will be at the mercy of how they deal with us when the music finally stops.

It turns out that 150 prominent economists back the GOP on the debt ceiling fight.

More than 150 economists back U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner's call to match any increase in the debt limit with spending cuts of equal size, according to a letter released by the Republican leader's office Wednesday... Signatories include Nobel laureate Robert Mundell of Columbia University and economists from schools like New York University and Georgetown University, as well as conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute... Republicans say they will not back any increase that does not include steep spending cuts and other limits to ensure that debt stays at a manageable level.

Hey, Speaker Boehner: it's a real simple message. Try writing it on your palm, if you need to, for the Sunday talk shows.

President Obama better start slashing the federal government right this instant if he wants to avoid a downgrade or a default. He's grown the federal government by a phenomenal percentage in only two-and-a-half-years. And now it's time to balance the books.

Don't you dare raise the debt ceiling, Mr. Speaker. Period. Let Obama figure out where to start slashing this immense, unconstitutional federal leviathan. A default or a downgrade will be on Obama's head alone.


Hat tip: TrendingRight.com

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Craptastic: GM stuffs the dealer channel to pad sales numbers; Nissan Leaf "easily outsells" the Chevy Volt in May

The phrase "stuffing the dealer channel" describes a method that automobile manufacturers use to pad their sales numbers. They deliver vehicles to dealers, count them as sold, but until actually accepted by customers, the cars just languish on lots.

And channel-stuffing is a tactic that the UAW-controlled General Motors has raised to an art form in its ill-fated attempt to continue operating as if it's 1963.

That GM sales declined in May by 1.2% on expectations of a rise of 1.5% in May is not really surprising: as we have been saying for a nearly three months now, the Japanese earthquake, far from adding points to US GDP, is now impacting every aspect of the US and global economy...

...Furthermore, the bulk of these purchases are the government-funded equivalent of subprime home purchases from 2005-2006: take away government funding and the sales collapse would be historic. Yet what is surprising, and what continues to be the only important metric in the monthly GM sales report, is the monthly channel stuffing update, aka the "month-end dealer inventory." We hope nobody will be surprised to find that it just hit another all time record of 584,000, 7k more than April and 177 more than a year ago. Although in reality, considering that GM car assembly should have been impacted by the Japanese earthquakes, one would have hoped for this inventory to decline. Which is the truly surprising part. In other words, in May, channel stuffing at GM went into overdrive.

Emblematic of this union-orchestrated malaise is the following delightful missive, entitled "Nissan Leaf easily outsells the Chevy Volt in May 2011":

Since the first official month of delivery late last year, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt has held an overall lead in sales over the 2011 Nissan Leaf but in April, Nissan was able to boast of being the bestselling electric vehicle in the US for the first time as their all-electric vehicle outsold the extended range Volt sedan by a margin of 573 to 493... General Motors stated that deliveries were slow because they were working on getting demo vehicles to dealerships but as the May numbers have come in – things haven’t improved for GM. In fact, they have gotten worse as the number of Volts delivered last month was down to just 481; compared to the 1,142 Nissan Leaf units delivered.

But don't worry kids, this little experiment in giving the union bosses control of two auto companies will only cost us $12 billion. So far, that is.


Another Record Shattered: This is 'a Great Depression in Real Wages'

Oh, this president is 'historic' all right.

The past decade of wage growth has been one for the record books — but not one to celebrate.

The increase in total private-sector wages, adjusted for inflation, from the start of 2001 has fallen far short of any 10-year period since World War II, according to Commerce Department data. In fact, if the data are to be believed, economywide wage gains have even lagged those in the decade of the Great Depression (adjusted for deflation).

Two years into the recovery, and 10 years after the nation fell into a post-dot-com bubble recession, this legacy of near-stagnant wages has helped ground the economy despite unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus — and even an impressive bull market.

Over the past decade, real private-sector wage growth has scraped bottom at 4%, just below the 5% increase from 1929 to 1939, government data show.

To put that in perspective, since the Great Depression, 10-year gains in real private wages had always exceeded 25% with one exception: the period ended in 1982-83, when the jobless rate spiked above 10% and wage gains briefly decelerated to 16%.

Obama's record is a perfect one -- he's ruined the housing, energy, auto, banking, health care, insurance and probably other industries I'm forgetting.

His swollen bureaucracies and regulations are strangling the private sector and, by extension, our livelihoods. What the ideologue-in-chief has yet to figure out is that his leviathan -- his unconstitutional federal bureaucracy -- can't exist without us. Without the taxpayers. By strangling us, he'll end up strangling the federal government. It's simple mathematics. And whether through total systemic collapse or by booting his incompetent rear out of office in 2012, it will end.

Let's work to make it the latter.


Hat tip: TrendingRight.com

Say, about that DNC plan to make the auto bailout a central theme of the 2012 election...

Jim Geraghty tracks the inevitable expiration date that must accompany all of Barack Obama's promises.

Politico, May 14:

President Barack Obama and his allies in two big industrial unions appear poised to make the auto bailout — begun under President George W. Bush in 2008 — a central issue of the 2012 campaign. With General Motors back on its feet — it announced $2 billion in new investments at 18 GM plants Tuesday — and losses from the government’s intervention shaping up to be minimal, Democrats hope to punish Republican presidential candidates for their early opposition.

The news, today: “WASHINGTON – The Obama administration said Wednesday that the government will lose about $14 billion in taxpayer funds from the bailout of the U.S. auto industry.”

Taxpayers spent only $14 billion to get GM to make $2 billion in new investments! Yay!

Also note this comment from the president, which he has probably forgotten, or that he hopes everyone else will forget:

President Obama, July 29, 2010: “We are going to get all the money back that we invested in those car companies.”

As I may have mentioned a time or two, all statements from Barack Obama come with an expiration date. All of them.

Gee, I was never too keen at math, but $14 billion spent... minus $2 billion in realized investments equals... carry the one... $12 billion. That's how much Obama stuck the taxpayers -- actually the taxpayers' kids and grandkids -- with. And yes, I ended a sentence with a preposition. That's how exasperated I am with this disastrous president.

And where did that $12 billion go?

The United Auto Workers (UAW) union, one would assume.

And where will most of it end up? You've got it, Sparky,

Right back at the DNC for the 2012 election cycle.

As a wry commenter observes, "It's the Circle of Democrat Life, Simba."


Wednesday, June 01, 2011

But, Melvin, he's so historic: 'we’re on the verge of a great, great depression'

LC writes:

Today, CNBC, a media outlet that was an unofficial arm of the 2008 Obama campaign, rang the fire alarm on the US economy. Below, CNBC refers to "near panic," a "sputtering" economy, "low yields," on the verge of a "Great, Great Depression." No, this isn't FOX News, Glenn Beck, or even Rush Limbaugh. It's... brace yourselves, folks... it's from N... B... C.

Oh, my.

Wall Street Baffled by Slowing Economy, Low Yields: Trader


01 Jun 2011 | 11:06 AM ET

Wall Street is having a hard time figuring out what to do now that the U.S. economy appears to be sputtering and yields are so low, Peter Yastrow, market strategist for Yastrow Origer, told CNBC.

"What we’ve got right now is almost near panic going on with money managers and people who are responsible for money," he said. "They can not find a yield and you just don’t want to be putting your money into commodities or things that are punts that might work out or they might not depending on what happens with the economy... Stocks extended losses after the manufacturing fell below expectations in May and the private sector added only 38,000 jobs during the month.

"Interest rates are amazingly low and that, thanks to Ben Bernanke, is driving everything," Yastrow said. "We’re on the verge of a great, great depression. The [Federal Reserve] knows it.

"We have many, many homeowners that are totally underwater here and cannot get out from under. The technology frontier is limited right now. We definitely have an innovation slowdown and the economy’s gonna suffer."

If this Republic is to survive, we need to elect a president in 2012 who will operate using a playbook unknown to the Left:

The Constitution.

The document upon which politicians swear to the Creator to protect and uphold. And then, in the case of Barack Obama, promptly ignores.

The Constitution. Faith, family, individual liberty, private property rights.

Not big government, unchecked entitlements, mandated light bulbs and shower heads; not Europe-lite.

The Constitution. Thousands of years of human experience codified into a single document that created the greatest system of government ever seen on the face of the Earth. Not perfect, because no system is perfect, but the most perfect ever created.

We need to elect a president in 2012 that will protect all Americans, not the racial separatist groups, not the race-baiters, not the imploding welfare state addicts, not the politicians addicted to unlimited power. A president who will protect all Americans and, by logical extension, the American system of government itself.

It's 2012 or never.


Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Obamaconomy in Two Mind-Blowing Pictures

"Winning the Future™, Obama-style."

In April, I reported on the Obama FoodStampCorps’s mission to enroll countless more food-stamp beneficiaries... Looks like they’re accomplishing their mission of dependency in spectacular fashion...

Food stamp usage by the American people reached a new high last month as more than 44 million people relied upon the government benefit to purchase necessary groceries for their families.

A new chart issued by the Supplimental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on May 31st showed that just under 14.5% of the American public received food stamp benefits that averaged $133.24 per person.

As you've probably noticed, the federal government isn't feeling your pain.

Number of government-owned limos has soared under Obama

Limousines, the very symbol of wealth and excess, are usually the domain of corporate executives and the rich. But the number of limos owned by Uncle Sam increased by 73 percent during the first two years of the Obama administration, according to an analysis of records by iWatch News.

Oh, and then there's this: CNBC is reporting that the 'double dip' in housing prices is far worse than expected.

I wonder when legacy media will publish the entire list of failed Obama programs: from "Cash for Clunkers" to HAMP, TARP, Stimulus, QE2, ... etc.?

That's a rhetorical question, Sparky.


Saturday, May 28, 2011

Exhibit A: Food-Stamp Fraud

Via the always-entertaining Curmudgeonly & Skeptical comes more evidence that every one of the Democrats' budget-busting social-engineering programs are failures, through and through.

Consider: at least ten cents of every dollar government spends on Medicare and Medicaid is fraudulent, according to experts that put the total amount of criminal waste at over $100 billion.

Since Barack Obama took office, roughly 12 million additional people have begun using food-stamps. And since Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007, almost 20 million people have joined the rolls of food-stamp recipients.

15 out of every 100 people living in the U.S. are now receiving food-stamps.

And a huge percentage of these people are using them for fraudulent purposes. Worse yet, the unfettered giveaway of these chits leads to all sorts of unintended consequences: more single-parent families and more violent crime in inner cities, to name just two.

It's time to end the Democrats' failed "War on Poverty" once and for all.


Thursday, May 26, 2011

Party of the rich: Democrats in Congress score 'abnormal' stock profits

Corporate executives are banned from trading stocks based on inside knowledge, but apparently Democrats in Congress operate under no such restriction.

An extensive study released Wednesday in the journal Business and Politics found that the investments of members of the House of Representatives outperformed those of the average investor by 55 basis points per month, or 6 percent annually, suggesting that lawmakers are taking advantage of inside information to fatten their stock portfolios.

...Despite the GOP’s reputation as the party of the rich, House Republicans fared worse than their Democratic colleagues when it comes to investing, according to the study. The Democratic subsample of lawmakers beat the market by 73 basis points per month, or 9 percent annually, versus 18 basis points per month, or 2 percent annually, for the Republican sample...

...Strict laws ban corporate executives from trading on their insider knowledge, but no restrictions exist for members of Congress. Lawmakers are permitted to keep their holdings and trade shares on the market, as well as vote on legislation that could affect their portfolio values...

Government is the most powerful, unaccountable and monopolistic "corporation" of all. Which is why the Framers created the Constitution the way they did: to constrain government, not us.

Consider the Democrat swamp un-drained


Related: The Secret Garden (and Mansion) of Christopher Dodd

Democrats: yep, we're going to continue scaring Seniors until Medicare collapses under its own weight

Look up pond scum in the dictionary and odds are you'll find the logo of the Democrat Party.

The leaders of Democrats' campaign committees said Thursday they wouldn't get "cocky" about their victory in New York's 26th Congressional district but promised to keep attacking Republicans over Medicare.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (N.Y.) and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (Wash.) spoke to reporters about their plans, attempting to use Rep.-elect Kathy Hochul's win to gain momentum without sounding overly optimistic.

"Today I can tell you that I fundamentally believe that the House of Representatives is in play," Israel said during a briefing at the Democratic National Committee. He said Hochul's victory doesn't mean Democrats would win back the 24 seats necessary to recapture the House in 2012, "yet." He said the Tuesday special election would not make Democrats "cocky."

...Israel hammered home three points: Democrats are recruiting good candidates, the DCCC is out-raising the National Republican Congressional Committee even though the GOP is in the majority and the party apparatus for mobilization is strong, which he called "a critical element for taking the House back."
Israel told reporters that earlier this month 43 recruits visited Washington. After Hochul's win, Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) "made 50 calls to our top 50 recruits," he said.

...Murray criticized the GOP for saying they would focus on jobs and the economy but instead focusing on "changing Medicare as we know it today in order to protect the wealthiest Americans and tax cut subsidies for oil companies."

The Democrat game-plan can be summarized thusly: lies, demagoguery, class warfare and, finally, a tragic collapse of the entire system.

I can't remember who said it, but the GOP needs to run a very simple tag-line from this point forward: Democrats lied, Medicare died.

Because every expert agrees: without changes, Medicare is set to collapse. And the Democrats are lying to the American people in a petty, last-gasp attempt to stay in power. Which is why pond-scum now talks down to Democrats.


Hat tip: TrendingRight.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Good news: media controlled or influenced by George Soros reaches a third of a billion people a month

Like some sort of Bond villain, the malevolent financier George Soros directly reaches 330 million people through 180 different media outlets he funds, controls or otherwise influences. And his agenda is nakedly partisan and outright Statist, from the pathetic Media Matters to Think Progress; from NPR to the hilariously named Center for Public Integrity.

Books, newspapers, radio stations, TV stations, websites and cutting edge videos... [the] pieces of the George Soros media empire are as diverse as the nations of the world and just as widespread. From nakedly partisan left-wing media like Think Progress, the blog for the Center for American Progress, and a TV show on MSNBC, to the supposedly impartial National Public Radio, Soros has impact on the flow of information worldwide.

It gives him incredible influence. Every month, reporters, writers and bloggers at the many outlets he funds easily reach more than 330 million people around the globe. The U.S. Census estimates the population of the entire United States to be just less than 310 million.

...Just counting 13 prominent operations of the 180 media organizations he has funded equals 332 million people each month. Included in that total are big players like NPR, which received $1.8 million from Soros, as well as the little known Project Syndicate and Public News Service, both of which also claim to reach millions of readers.

And that's really just the beginning. That tally takes into account only a few of the bigger Soros-funded media operations. Many numbers simply aren't available. 'Democracy Now!' - 'a daily TV/radio news program, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez' - is known for its left-wing take on global news. Its vitriol ranges from attacks on Blackwater founder Erik Prince and supporters of Andrew Breitbart (whom it calls 'Electronic Brownshirts'), to claims the U.S. is opposed to Arab democracy. Just that one Soros-funded operation is heard 'on over 900 stations, pioneering the largest community media collaboration in the United States.' But it posts no formal audience numbers. Phone calls to 'Democracy Now!' were not returned.

Laughably, Soros denies he has a media empire, despite spending easily more than $48 million on that empire and having top journalists from more than 30 major news organizations serving on the boards of groups he funds...

And people are worried about the power of Google or Fox News?

George Soros and Barack Obama are partners in a global effort to undermine the United States Constitution and American exceptionalism. Of that, there can be no doubt


Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Taxpayer Cash Inferno Chapter 5,034: Obama Will Spend Millions on Coal-Powered Chevy Volts and Charging Stations

Good news, peons: the Obama administration says it's going to burn a few more millions of your dollars funding our national automobile company (you may know it as "GM").

The Obama administration will announce today it is buying more than 100 Chevrolet Volts and install charging stations in government buildings in five cities, including Detroit, according to a report in The Detroit News... [It] says the General Services Administration — which oversees most of the federal government's 600,000 vehicle fleet — plans to buy the General Motors' Volts, 10 battery electric Nissan Leaf vehicles, and five Think City EV models from Finish EV startup.

In that regard, please consider the sources of electricity generation in this country, all of which are being gradually strangled by the White House.

Coal is, by far, the biggest single source of electricity. Which makes the Chevy Volt a coal-powered vehicle.

Of course, Obama did correctly predict that energy prices would "necessarily skyrocket" under his administration's policies.

As far as I know, it's the only prediction he's made that's come true.


Monday, May 23, 2011

Sah-weet! Crony-Filled Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board Paid $6,000/Hour Each

What do you get when you combine crony capitalism, organized crime, corruption, graft, public sector union bosses and the outright rape of the taxpayer?

That would be the Democrat Party of Illinois:

The March 17 monthly meeting of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board began at 10 a.m. in Springfield.

The board members approved the minutes of the previous month's meeting. They discussed labor disputes from several school districts. They issued orders in several cases. They heard staff reports. They moved the date of the next monthly meeting. They took six votes (all unanimous), including the adjournment vote, which came at 11:16 a.m.

Their effective pay for that 76-minute meeting was about $7,800 each.

Four of the board members are paid $93,926 a year, with the chairwoman getting $104,358 for a job that generally entails one meeting per month, usually for one to two hours. Relevant documents are sent to board members' homes ahead of time. A full-time staff member gives them recommendations at the meeting. Most of the votes are unanimous. Some board members don't even travel to all the meetings, instead listening in by phone.

How do you get a gig like that? Technically, you just have to be appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. But the members of the educational labor board aren't what you'd call typical citizens.

One is married to a state senator. One is an ex-Springfield lobbyist. One is an ex-legislative staffer. One is an ex-gubernatorial aide.

The board is one of more than 320 in the state's executive branch, where unelected appointees preside over governmental decisions from utility rates to pollution control to property tax appeals. Some 30 of the boards offer payment for members ranging from a few hundred dollars per meeting to five or six figures a year, records show. Salaried board members also get state pensions...

...[Sen. Dan] Duffy [R-Barrington] introduced legislation in February that would bar the relatives of state officials from getting board or commission appointments. The legislation didn't even get a committee hearing.

Citizens of Illinois: please keep electing Democrats.

We need the productive citizens and businesses you keep chasing out of your monumentally defective state.