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

Thursday, February 16, 2012

It was Bush's fault...

...not.

Here's the only chart you need to combat the absurd lies of the Left.

Bush was certainly a big-government Republican. But no human being in history has spent as recklessly as Barack Obama (with the help of Democrat miscreants like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid). No one's even come close. Together this troika of idiocy has lawlessly permitted the country to run for more than 1,000 days without a budget.

The budget deficit in 2007 – the last budget approved by the Republican Congress before Nancy Pelosi became speaker – was $160 billion. When the Democrats took over, the deficit exploded. So, yes, Barack Obama inherited a huge deficit from the Democrats in Congress.

...You can also see above that it is irresponsible spending, not revenue, that is driving the debt.

Barack Obama, with the help of a Democratic Congress, has put us on an unsustainable path. This country cannot afford four more years of this man’s destructive policies. He must be defeated.

But November is coming.


A Chart From the Obama Budget That Is So Horrifying It Must Have Been Left In Accidentally

There are many historic "firsts" associated with the Obama administration, but none more curious than the appointment of the first known tax cheat as Treasury Secretary. Tim "TurboTax" Geithner is a partisan hack of the first order and his recent testimony before the House Budget Committee should be required reading for all Americans.

Testifying before the House Budget Committee today, U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told Chairman Paul Ryan the following: “We’re not coming before you to say we have a definitive solution to that long-term problem. What we do know is we don’t like yours.”

Actually, President Obama sort of did have a definitive solution. He created a debt commission, which devised a long-term debt reduction plan. Which the president rejected. And instead, we get this new budget proposal, which makes no effort to deal with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — the long-term drivers of U.S. federal debt. The debt curve never gets bent, as [this] White House (!) chart shows.


Yes, this chart came right out of the Obama administration's budget.

It says: follow us! We're headed for collapse!

At one point during the hearing, Ryan brought out this chart illustrating the impact of the Ryan debt plan, the one Geithner said “we don’t like”:

And here was the exchange between Geithner and Ryan, after Ryan pointed the terrifying baseline (in red):

GEITHNER: You could have taken [the chart] out [to the year] 3000 or to 4000. [Laughs]

RYAN: Yeah, right. We cut it off at the end of the century because the economy, according to the CBO, shuts down in 2027 on this path.


And that’s no joke, Mr. Geithner.

Actually, the topmost chart is a joke. A sick, tragic joke, the butt of which is us.

Our country cannot survive another four years of Barack Obama.


Tuesday, February 14, 2012

BBC: "America's homeless resort to tent cities"

Of course, America's "journalists" are nowhere to be found.

America's homeless resort to tent cities


...Just off the side of a motorway on the fringes of the picturesque town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a mismatched collection of 30 tents tucked in the woods has become home - home to those who are either unemployed, or whose wages are so low that they can no longer afford to pay rent.

Conditions are unhygienic. There are no toilets and electricity is only available in the one communal tent where the campers huddle around a wood stove for warmth in the heart of winter... Ice weighs down the roofs of tents, and rain regularly drips onto the sleeping campers' faces.

Tent cities have sprung up in and around at least 55 American cities - they represent the bleak reality of America's poverty crisis... There are an estimated 5,000 people living in the dozens of camps that have sprung up across America.

...Unemployment in America today has not reached the astronomical levels of the 1930s, but barring a short spike in 1982, it has not been this high since the Depression era... There are now 13 million unemployed Americans, which is three million more than when President Barack Obama was first elected. ... The stark reality is that many of them are people who very recently lived comfortable middle-class lives.

The real unemployment rate is over 15 percent. Only through obvious, political skulduggery (like disappearing 1.2 million workers from the workforce in a single month) are the headline numbers reporting to be "improving".

And the media -- which is now indistinguishable from the Democrat Party -- laps it right up. And then wonder why their profession is dying.


Could someone wake up John Boehner? Because it's long past time to impeach Kathleen Sebelius

The peerless Mark Levin made the point last night. If the House of Representatives had real leadership, it would already be drafting articles of impeachment for HHS Chief Kathleen Sebelius.

...the Obama administration has reversed itself on whether it has enough money to create federal Exchanges in states that decline to create them. The administration has repeatedly claimed that the $1 billion ObamaCare appropriates would cover the federal government’s costs of implementing the law. And yet the president’s new budget proposal requests “another $1 billion” to cover what Sebelius calls “the one-time cost to build the infrastructure, the enrollment piece of [the federal exchange], the IT system that’s needed.”...

In other words... the Obama administration does not have the money it needs to create federal Exchanges. Therefore, if states don’t create them, ObamaCare grinds to a halt. (Oh, and this billion dollars is the last billion the administration will request. Honest.)

Most important, however, is this:

Even if Congress does not grant the president’s request for more health reform funding, Sebelius said her department will find a solution. “We are going to get it done, yes,” she said.

An HHS staffer prevented the reporter from asking Sebelius what she had in mind... This is a remarkable statement. Sebelius basically just copped to a double-subversion of the Constitution: Congress appropriates money for X, but not Y. Sebelius says, “I know better than Congress. I’m going to take money away from X to fund Y.” Sebelius has already shown contempt for the First Amendment, first by threatening insurance carriers with bankruptcy for engaging in non-fraudulent speech, and again by crafting a contraceptives mandate that violates religious freedom. Now, she has decided the whole separation of powers thing is for little people. What will Sebelius do the next time something gets in the way of her implementing ObamaCare?

We know what she'll do. She'll spit on the Constitution.

Could someone tell me what the hell John Boehner is doing as Speaker? The president is violating the Constitution left and right as he bankrupts America. His attorney general is, in the estimation of some law enforcement officials, perjuring himself in the process of orchestrating a massive cover-up of an illegal gun-running operation. And his HHS Secretary has basically laid a dukie on the House Speaker's head.

Which is the term Boehner prefers, I hear.

John Boehner needs to go. He's about as useful as you-know-whats on a bull. Which really overstates his usefulness.


Monday, February 13, 2012

J. Wellington Obama's Official Budget

J. Wellington Wimpy -- better known simply as "Wimpy" -- was Popeye's recurring sidekick in the long-running cartoon series.

And Wimpy had a motto that could just as well be President Obama's:

"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today"

As Cato explains, Obama's budgets consist of tax hikes now, with spending cuts and accounting gimmicks sometime... in... teh... future.

We’ve become so used to these unfathomable levels of deficits and debt—and to the once-rare concept of trillions of dollars—that we forget how new all this debt is. In 1981, after 190 years of federal spending, the national debt was “only” $1 trillion. Now, just 30 years later, it’s past $15 trillion...


As ATR points out, the "Obama Plan Uses Budget Gimmickry To Mask Explosive Spending":

The budget continues to call for spending at historic levels: the request sets spending for the fiscal year at $3.8 trillion and projects $47 trillion in spending over the next ten years

Holds spending at 23 percent of [GDP] the next ten years, two percent higher than its historical average

Uses totally dishonest accounting: the President claims to include $4 trillion in deficit reduction. These supposed cuts include $1.6 trillion in tax hikes and $900 billion in war spending the President plans to plow back into infrastructure spending

Repeats failed “stimulus” spending: For the third year in a row, the plan looks to create a permanent Infrastructure Bank with $350 billion in new spending. The budget also requests $500 billion for a transportation package while shifting Highway Trust Fund spending to mandatory accounts, ensuring its insolvency for posterity

Continues practice of extending Medicare providers payments without offsetting the $438 billion in spending with cuts elsewhere

The budget only addresses 40 percent of the government spending problem: the President bankrupts the entitlement programs by once again refusing to confront the nation’s largest debt-drivers

Fails to take into account the coming costs of the government takeover of healthcare and financial regulatory overhaul. Instead, the President’s budget claims zero effect for supposed cost-saving mechanisms, such as the implementation of the Obamacare Independent Payment Advisory Board

James Pethokoukis summarizes some of the most important changes for the average worker and small businessman:

• The top income rate [for individuals and most small businesses] would be raised to 39.6 percent vs. 35 percent today... [Ed: well, that should help hiring.]

• Between now the end of a second Obama term, Obama proposes $707 billion in “net deficit reduction proposals.” Of that amount, only 16 percent is spending cuts.

• The capital gains rate would rise to 25.0 percent (including the Obamacare surtax and deduction phase out) from 15 percent today... [Ed: well, that should help investments.]

• The double-tax on corporate profits (including dividends) would increase to 64 percent based on the statutory corporate tax rate (58 percent using the effective tax rate), easily the highest among advanced economies... [Ed: well, that should help hiring.]

...Higher taxes, more spending, more debt, and no long-term entitlement reform plan. Hmm, this isn’t a rosy scenario at all. It’s actually a pretty bleak one.

The problem on Capitol Hill is spending, catastrophic levels of debt and an impending fiscal collapse. And we need another wave of real conservatives -- not RINOs and certainly not Democrats -- to continue turning the tide. Because the feckless John Boehner ain't cutting it.


Obama Unveils Family Togetherness Plan: Economy Sucks So Bad That a Record Number of Adults Are Moving In With Their Parents

Had Democrats known their wanton destruction of the economy would bring so many families together, it's likely they would've toned down the reckless deficit spending and regulations a bit.

According to a report released today by Pew Research, most Americans believe the young have been hardest hit by the Obama economic failures, nearly one quarter young adults aged 18-34 have been forced to move back in with their parents.

For some, tough economic times have had an impact on their personal life as well. Roughly a quarter of adults ages 18 to 34 (24%) say that, due to economic conditions, they have moved back in with their parents in recent years after living on their own. Among those ages 25 to 29, the share moving back home rises to 34%. Most adults under age 25 are enrolled in school at least part time (46% are full-time students). By age 25, the majority are out of school, but jobs and housing can be hard to come by, and many “boomerang” back home.

The lesson here, of course, is that you should never tell your parents that you hate living with them, because you’ll probably end up back there, eating your words and helping to chop beans with a dull knife.

To be fair, the real lesson for young people is that voting Democrat means voting for your own economic destruction -- through massive, centralized government; unchecked deficit spending (which you'll have to pay for... plus interest); and complete disregard by government for the rule of law and the civil society.

To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, the problem with Democrats is that eventually they run out of other people's money to spend.


Sunday, February 12, 2012

Good news: 1 in 5 Americans now dependent on government assistance (not including public sector employees)

Hey, check it out, kids: it's another Obama record!

The number of Americans dependent on the federal government has exploded over the past five years, reaching a record 67.3 million people, according to Heritage’s annual Index of Dependence on Government. That means 1 in 5 Americans (21.8 percent) today receive some level of assistance from the federal government.

This week’s chart — one of 15 featured in this year’s report — depicts the percentage of the U.S. population who receive government assistance and the total number of individuals who are dependent on the federal government.

Fifty years ago, before President Lyndon Johnson created the Great Society programs, some 21.7 million people (or 11.7 percent of the population) received assistance through government programs that existed at the time. The number increased sharply in the 1960s and 1970s before falling in the 1990s. Recently, however, it has skyrocketed.

I think this chart must be racist or something.

Or it could just be that this country is headed for fiscal collapse unless we reverse course ASAP.


Shhh. No one tell legacy media that a huge battle is raging in Britain to privatize the National Health Service

The failures of England's National Health Service (NHS) are well known throughout Europe. Of course, as Congressional Democrats and President Obama rammed through their own takeover of the health care industry here in the U.S., legacy media was careful to ignore all of the headlines from abroad.

The often-horrific levels of health care delivered by the NHS became so controversial that the current debate is over how much should be privatized. That's right: the DMV-like NHS will inevitably be dismantled in favor of private health care.

Because government-run health care can't work, won't work and hasn't ever worked in all of human history.

Almost two years in the making, the once eye-catching plan to take the axe to the NHS's bloated bureaucracy and hand power to family doctors has become a metaphor for Mr Cameron's worst failings as Prime Minister – lack of attention to detail, a hands-off management style, misplaced loyalty to old friends and a deep-rooted belief that shouting at the Despatch Box will silence one's critics.

...There has also been the lack of consistency; where once ministers boasted of having the professional bodies signed up and on board, they now claim angry and almost universal opposition is an inevitable outcome of radical reform. What was once hailed as the biggest change in the NHS for 60 years is now being represented as a logical, small-scale continuation of Blairite reforms. In July 2010, Mr Lansley boldly declared that "people voted for change" – which doesn't sit well with his pre-election promise of no more top-down reorganisations.

...In a sign of the fiasco at the heart of the Government, it is now the Liberal Democrats who speak most warmly about the legislation, having rewritten large passages in a coup led by Baroness Williams. The Lib Dems are furious after working hard behind the scenes to be constructive. "The Tories are flip-flopping all over the place," says one. "Cameron is panicking about local elections in May," says another, adding pointedly: "It is very much their Bill."

This, my friends, is the future of health care here in the U.S.

No lack of coverage, but deadly lack of health care. Rationing. Horror stories. Begging your representatives for treatment for yourself or your family members.

Until it all finally collapses. Just like the NHS.


Related: State-run Health Care, By the Numbers.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Chinese Plutocrats Hire Migrant Workers to Wait in Line for New iPhone 4; Thomas Friedman Hardest Hit

Thomas Friedman (pronounced: fried - man) is a Marxist New York Times hack who simply loves China's form of government.

"There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today. One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century." --Thomas Friedman

Yep, that's right: Friedman's pining for a totalitarian form of fascism.

To put it in the kindest terms.

So I'm sure this despicable human being will be ecstatic to hear how China's plutocrats are spending their money:

On January 13th, Apple’s new iPhone 4S was finally made available for purchase in China。By 7PM, over one thousands eager customers were lined up outside Beijing’s two official Apple Inc. retail stores, in Sanlitun and Xidan. The crowd was made up of a large number of migrant workers from Hebei province and Beijing’s Daxing...

...By 7pm, the crowd outside of the Xidan location had surpassed 1,000 people. This number includes the Apple store’s staff as well as police officers that were dispatched by the city government to maintain order at the scene.

...As the day went on, the crowd grew. Tensions rose when the clock struck 8pm and the promised dinner was still nowhere to be seen. Around the same time, it became evident that the number of Apple employees was insufficient to provide for the needs of the hundreds waiting in line. Some began to worry that after already waiting in line for a full day, they would still be unable to get their hands on the new cell phone.

The situation further intensified when those hired to wait in line began to worry that they would not be compensated for their hours of waiting, knowing that their pay was conditional upon whether or not they produced the iPhone 4s. Some began to abort the plan and headed home, still leaving several hundreds committed to waiting in line...

Someday I hope that Friedman, Sean Penn, Samuel L. Jackson -- and the rest of the clueless, incredibly wealthy freaks who take America for granted -- will get to experience life as a migrant in China.

Just for a couple of years. Or ten.

Such a lesson might help them better appreciate America, because they obviously don't have a semblance of a clue right now. They take their stunning wealth for granted, when the default condition for man is poverty, misery and an all-powerful government that suppresses individual liberty and expression. Kind of like being a migrant in the PRC.

Friedman and his ilk are disgraceful schmucks.


Related: Thomas Friedman Has a Plan for Managing the Climate, the Economy and More!.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Rubio obliterates Obama's budget proposals: POTUS offers another 'blank piece of paper' on entitlement reform

A fitting description for President Mails-It-In's latest prescription for destroying the country's finances. And we're at, what, day 1019 without a Democrat budget? Any comment on that, President McDowngrade?

From the WSJ:

President Barack Obama’s budget proposal Monday will offer several measures to trim the federal deficit in the next 10 years. But it would leave largely unchanged the biggest drivers of future government spending: the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs that are expanding rapidly as the baby boom turns into a senior boom.

Senator Marco Rubio saw this coming.

As he said yesterday in his CPAC speech:

So, where is the President’s plan to save Medicare? Let me show it to you. Here it is. [Holds up blank sheet of paper.] He doesn’t have one. It is a blank piece of paper. This is his plan when it comes to Medicare. His plan is wait for a Republican like Paul Ryan to offer a plan and then attack him. He hasn’t been in office three or four weeks. He’s been in office a little bit over three years. Two of those years, his party controlled both houses of Congress. And he’s dealt with none of these issues I’ve just outlined.

And it now looks like President Obama will end his term with a whole stack of blank sheets of paper... And why hasn’t Obama outlined some long-term plan since a coming debt deluge will make a “built to last” economy impossible to achieve otherwise?

Pethokoukis is more forgiving than I am. He concludes that President Obama will simply propose more tax increases on the middle class (because the rich simply can't be taxed enough to make up for this monstrous shortfall).

Obama won’t tell you that he wants to raise taxes on all Americans. I just did.

I disagree.

President Obama, in my estimation, is trying to "fundamentally transform" this country (his words) into some Statist Utopia. And to do so, it will require a complete economic collapse. Which is precisely where we're headed if we don't remove this disaster from office in November.


Wednesday, February 08, 2012

The Obama Legacy: Sloth, Dependency and Depression

If you're wondering why the economy just can't seem to get rolling, please remember that the White House is motivating a record number of people not to work. It's called "building a culture of dependency (and a constituency of dependents)".

The American public's dependence on the federal government shot up 23% in just two years under President Obama, with 67 million now relying on some federal program...

[The] annual Index of Dependence on Government tracks money spent on housing, health, welfare, education subsidies and other federal programs that were "traditionally provided to needy people by local organizations and families."

The two-year increase under Obama is the biggest two-year jump since Jimmy Carter was president... The rise was driven mainly by increases in housing subsidies, an expansion in Medicaid and changes to the welfare system, along with a sharp rise in food stamps...

If there's anything the last half-century of failed Leftist policies have taught us, it's this: when you reward sloth, you get more sloth. Not to mention rampant fraud and monstrous waste.


Related: More than a third of all U.S. wages and salaries come from government confiscating wealth and redistributing it

Monday, February 06, 2012

Oh, my. Gallup: underemployment actually ROSE to 18.7% in January

Ex-Pravda employees at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (and The New York Times) hardest hit

Underemployment, a measure that combines the percentage of workers who are unemployed with the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work, surged to 18.7% in January. This is a worsening from the 18.3% of December...

...U.S. unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, increased slightly to 8.6% in January from 8.5% in December...

...Regardless of what the government reports, Gallup's unemployment and underemployment measures show deterioration since mid-January. While the unemployment rate of 8.6% for January is up only modestly from December, this overall increase subsumes the more negative trend of the most recent weeks. In turn, this also seems consistent with Wednesday's ADP report showing less job growth in January than in the prior month.

In fact, the only group showing the employment situation improving in January was the BLS. And it had to remove 1.2 million Americans from the labor force to do so.

Here's a helpful hint for the CFO of Gallup: I predict a major audit by the IRS is in your future.


Hat tips: I Hate the Media and BadBlue.

Special Offer for Democrats Only: Looking for Excellent Investment Returns at Low Risk?

Hey, Dems: check out this low risk, high-return investment: the Greek 1-year bond, which is paying over 500%!

This investment must be low risk, because Greece follows the very same policies that are practiced by the Democrat Party: unsustainable deficit spending, bloated entitlements and easy access to welfare -- the same as Greece!

C'mon Dems, hurry up and jump on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make 500% on your money the easy, social Democrat welfare state way! Call 1-800-GOT-STUPID? now!


Disclaimer: The content on this site is provided as general information only and should not be construed as investment advice. This means you especially, Democrats, because your grasp of arithmetic, logic, reasoning skills, and financial information is obviously in question. Any and all site content, including advertisements, shall not be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security or financial instrument, or to participate in any particular trading or investment strategy -- especially those espoused by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. The ideas expressed on this site are solely the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the opinions of sponsors, firms or organiziations affiliated with the author(s). Any action that you take as a result of information, analysis, or advertisement on this site is ultimately your responsibility. Consult your investment adviser before making any investment decisions.


City Workers in Hazmat Suits Clean Up After Occupy DC Kooks Evicted

Just in time for CPAC, the toxic Occupy DC protesters say they'll be returning to McPherson Square.

The Occupy D.C. protesters are returning to McPherson Square park, after it was closed late Saturday when tensions escalated between the protesters occupying the park and the U.S. Park Police trying to enforce the no camping rules at the park.

McPherson Square reopened Sunday afternoon, after police removed several tents for violating the no camping rules, and for being considered a biohazard. Some of the tents are still standing, but the park looks remarkably different from Friday... Officials said it was relatively peaceful but got tense late Saturday when an officer was hit in the face with a brick as police pushed protesters out of the last section of the park. The officer was taken to a hospital for treatment... [A] total [of] 11 people were arrested.

...Officials used barricades to cordon off sections of McPherson Square, a park under federal jurisdiction near the White House, and checked tents for mattresses and sleeping bags and sifted through piles of garbage and other belongings. Some wore yellow biohazard suits to guard against diseases identified at the site in recent weeks. Officials also have raised concerns about a rat infestation.

That move left large swaths of open space and raised questions about exactly what would remain of the encampment once the enforcement was over.

"We found urine soaked bedding materials, bottles of urine, and in some of the tents we found dead rats," says U.S. Park Police spokesman David Schlosser.

The Washington Examiner has before and after pictures of McPherson Square.


Sunday, February 05, 2012

Dear pro journalists: if the economy is improving...

...then perhaps you could explain:

If the economy is getting better, then why did new home sales in the United States hit a brand new all-time record low during 2011?

If the economy is getting better, then why are there 6 million less jobs in America today than there were before the recession started?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the average duration of unemployment in this country close to an all-time record high?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of homeless female veterans more than doubled?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of Americans on food stamps increased by 3 million since this time last year and by more than 14 million since Barack Obama entered the White House?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of children living in poverty in America risen for four years in a row?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the percentage of Americans living in "extreme poverty" at an all-time high?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the Federal Housing Administration on the verge of a financial collapse?

If the economy is getting better, then why do only 23 percent of American companies plan to hire more employees in 2012?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of self-employed Americans fallen by more than 2 million since 2006?

If the economy is getting better, then why did an all-time record low percentage of U.S. teens have a job last summer?

If the economy is getting better, then why does median household income keep declining? Overall, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% since December 2007 once you account for inflation.

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of Americans living below the poverty line increased by 10 million since 2006?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the average age of a vehicle in America now sitting at an all-time high?

If the economy is getting better, then why are 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida currently sitting vacant?

If the economy is getting better, then why are 19 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 34 living with their parents?

If the economy is getting better, then why does the number of "long-term unemployed workers" stay so high? When Barack Obama first took office, the number of "long-term unemployed workers" in the United States was approximately 2.6 million. Today, that number is sitting at 5.6 million.

But there is some good news.

When Barack Obama first took office, an ounce of gold was going for about $850. Today, the price of an ounce of gold is over $1700.

The era of great prosperity that America has enjoyed for so long is coming to an end.

In fact, our long-term economic decline is about to accelerate.

So enjoy this "bubble of hope" while you can, because it won't last long.

As I have written about previously, many are warning that Europe is on the verge of a nightmarish financial crisis that could potentially plunge us into a global recession even worse than 2008.

So let us hope for the best, but let us also prepare for the worst.


Anyone with an ounce of sense knows that the economy isn't recovering in any meaningful way. Which excludes drones and legacy media.


Hat tip: Wolf Howling.

Warmal Colding strikes Europe: record cold snap kills hundreds; thousands trapped by "heaviest snow... ever recorded"

Al Gore hardest hit.

Bosnian authorities on Sunday used helicopters to evacuate sick people and deliver food to thousands of people who have been cut off by the heaviest snow the country has ever recorded... Across Eastern Europe thousands of people were digging themselves out from heavy snow that followed a weeklong cold snap that has killed hundreds.

More than 100 remote Bosnian villages are cut off by snow over 6 1/2 feet high in the mountains. More than three feet has fallen in the capital Sarajevo, where a state of emergency has been declared...

London's Heathrow Airport—Europe's busiest—canceled a third of Sunday's flights and warned of delays amid heavy fog.

...Rome is struggling under its first heavy snowfall in 26 years, and snow has also fallen on Spain's Balearic islands in the Mediterranean... Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday said the snowfall was beautiful, but he is wishing spring will come soon.

Please take note of the reaction of the global warming cult to news stories like these. When record cold temperatures savage the planet -- which some scientists believe herald the onset of a new ice age -- they screech that "weather isn't climate".

But when temperatures hit 100° in Manhattan during the month of July, they're the first to shriek about "evidence" of warmal colding.

How stupid do they think we are? Stupid enough to think that they can continue to pull off the United Nations' latest multi-billion dollar scam, courtesy of corrupt scientists seeking grant money and the Marxist left, who desperately want to regulate the economies of the West through cap-and-trade.


Saturday, February 04, 2012

Allen West: reports of huge drop in black unemployment last month kind of like reports that FLOTUS grows her own vegetables in White House garden

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week that black unemployment dropped last week by a stunning 2.2% and that Santa Claus is hiring more elves this year than last. So things are really looking up for the economy.

In response to news that the overall unemployment rate had dropped to 8.3 percent and the unemployment rate in the black community declined from 15.8 percent to 13.6 percent, [Allen] West floated the possibility that the numbers might have been cooked.

"Can someone tell me how employment in the black community has improved at a rate three times the national average in just a few months?? With numbers like today, urban communities should be well on their way to economic recovery then! There is something suspicious about the job numbers released today and it has me very concerned," West wondered Friday. "Is this dramatic supposed decrease in black unemployment a result of job creation or is someone playing around with the census numbers??"

Economists reached by The Hill for comment couldn't fully explain the unemployment rate change for the black community. William Darity, a professor of public policy at Duke University specializing in African-American studies and economics, wrote in an email to The Hill that the decline could have been due to a smaller labor force. He called the drop an "unbelievably dramatic drop" but didn't rule out the possibility of someone tampering with the numbers; he said there was no evidence one way or the other... "...a one month drop in the black unemployment rate from 15.8% to 13.6% strikes me as somewhat unprecedented."

President Obama hailed the January unemployment news as a sign that the economy is growing stronger.

No, seriously, he really said that, though he somehow neglected to mention that the Bureau of Labor Statistics had to disappear 1.2 million Americans from the labor force to 'reduce' the unemployment rate.


Hat tips: Ace o' Spades and BadBlue.

Social Security Administration Misplaces Car Keys Plus One Trillion Dollars, But Mostly One Trillion Dollars

How disconnected from reality do you have to be to believe that an enormous federal bureaucracy -- that can't fire anybody, has no competition, and operates like the DMV -- can effectively run the entire health care system?

Answer: You have to be a Democrat.

The outlook for Social Security's trust fund has deteriorated to an astonishing degree over the past year, new Congressional Budget Office projections show... [The] CBO expects the trust fund to peak in 2018 and decline to $2.7 trillion in 2022 — a full $1 trillion less than Social Security's own actuaries predicted last year.

...Under current law, once the trust fund is gone, Social Security could only pay 78% of benefits. Since older retirees and the disabled would be protected, new retirees would face much deeper cuts to a benefit that is not especially generous to begin with... The average retired worker received a $1,200 monthly benefit last year before Medicare premiums were subtracted.

...Assuming a 22% automatic cut, average earners (about $43,000 in 2012) halfway into a 40-year career would have to set aside more than 5% of annual wages, or $2,150 a year, to replace [the] lost benefits.

Already, the next president will have to address a near-term crisis in Social Security's disability insurance program that CBO expects to hit in 2016 — resulting in immediate cuts for many of the neediest beneficiaries.

...Social Security already is cash-flow negative, taking less in revenue than it pays out in current benefits. CBO sees the program's $48 billion cash gap in 2011 rising above $100 billion by 2019... And depressed Treasury rates mean smaller interest payments on the trust fund's official balances.

Like night follows day, bankruptcy awaits each and every one of these Democrat-created programs, all operating outside the Constitution (not to mention the laws of arithmetic and common sense).


Friday, February 03, 2012

Lies, Damn Lies, and Obama's Unemployment Numbers

Look up bogus in the dictionary and odds are you'll see a picture of President Obama standing in front of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Such is the reputation of the BLS as the nation's leading producer of economic propaganda.

You may have seen their headline number of 8.3% unemployment earlier today. What you didn't see is that the BLS had to "disappear" 1.2 million people out of the workforce over the last month alone to achieve that "drop".

It’s the headline that a President facing re-election with a dismal economic record didn’t want to see:

1.2 million people driven out of the workforce in a single month!


A frantic White House exploded into damage-control mode, as a deeply shaken President Obama retreated into his chambers. Nervous spokesmen fanned across the airwaves to stammer apologies, search for silver linings among the storm clouds, offer campaign boilerplate about “hope and change,” and desperately search for some way to blame George Bush for an absolute unemployment disaster that occurred over three years after he left office…

What’s that, you say? You didn’t see that headline? Well, of course not, silly. All you’re seeing in the headlines is good news, because the official, heavily-massaged U-3 unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent. Fewer people in the workforce means the percentage of unemployed people in the workforce drops.

Tyler Durden uses an illustration to explain how the Democrat employment scam works:

Sick of the BLS propaganda? Then do the following calculation with us: using BLS data, the US civilian non-institutional population was 242,269 in January, an increase of 1.7 million month over month: apply the long-term average labor force participation rate of 65.8% to this number..., and you get 159.4 million: that is what the real labor force should be.

The BLS [instead] reported ... 154.4 million: a tiny 5 million difference. Then add these people who the BLS is purposefully ignoring yet who most certainly are in dire need of labor and/or a job to the 12.758 million reported unemployed by the BLS and you get 17.776 million in real unemployed workers.

What does this mean? That using just the BLS denominator in calculating the unemployed rate of 154.4 million, the real unemployment rate actually rose in January to 11.5%. Compare that with the BLS reported decline from 8.5% to 8.3%. It also means that the spread between the reported and implied unemployment rate just soared to a fresh 30-year high of 3.2%. And that is how with a calculator and just one minute of math, one strips away countless hours of BLS propaganda.

Oh, and just for reinforcement, the invaluable James Pethokoukis piles on:

...If the size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office... the U-3 unemployment rate would be 11.0 percent.

...Then there’s the broader, U-6 measure of unemployment which includes the discouraged plus part-timers who wish they had full time work. That unemployment rate is still a sky-high 15.1 percent.

Based on Peth's data, the BLS has "disappeared" a startling four million workers to get unemployment "down" to 8.3 percent.

This kind of egregious activity -- certain to go unreported upon by legacy media -- is why I like to call the BLS unemployment numbers "the Eric Holder of Economic Reports."


Thursday, February 02, 2012

Genius: Starting in 2014, Obamacare begins taxing... itself.

Gee, it's so surprising that we keep uncovering time-bombs buried inside a 2,200-page bill that no one read.

Under the health care overhaul, the federal government will begin taxing itself and the states beginning in 2014... And that’s giving state Medicaid directors heartburn.

The law calls for a new tax on health insurers’ premium revenue — intended to help pay for expansion of coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans. But the tax will be paid by all insurers, including those that contract with states to provide coverage to recipients of Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor. Under federal law, that fee must be paid by the Medicaid program, meaning that state and federal governments must pick up the tab.

A report released today by the actuarial firm Milliman Inc. said the tax will cost the Medicaid program between $36.5 billion and $41.9 billion over 10 years. At least $13 billion will be borne by states, and at least $23.5 billion by the federal government, based on the state-federal Medicaid matching formula, according to the report paid for by the Medicaid Health Plans of America, which represents private health plans that cover people on Medicaid. According to the America’s Health Insurance plans, the tax overall would generate at least $73 billion from 2014-2019.

“This is not an issue on most people’s radar screens, but this is going to be a big problem,” said Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. “This policy never really made sense … I get the point of an insurance tax, but when you are just passing on those costs to Medicaid, that makes no sense.”

With delightful surprises like this built into the Democrats' destructive health care bill, it's no wonder that Obama's advisers are predicting the death of America's health insurance companies. Which should do wonders for unemployment.