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

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Utterly Predictable Democrat Fail, Chapter 4,815: Cali Tax Hikes Crush Revenue to Moonbeam's Doomed Government

California and Greece have more than a few things in common, including the fact that their unofficial slogans are both "Ask Us About Our Death Spiral!"

Inquiring minds have noticed a huge plunge in California Tax Revenue for the month of February compared to February 2011...

That is a 22.55% plunge in spite of the fact that this February was a leap year adding a day to the calendar...

Via Mike Shedlock, we find a Breitbart article that provides additional insight into California's tax implosion:

Compared to last year, State tax collections for February shriveled by $1.2 billion or 22%. The deterioration is more than double the shocking $535 million reported decline for last month. The cumulative fiscal year decline is $6.1 billion or down 11% versus this period in 2011...

...businesses and successful people are leaving California for the better tax rates available in more pro-business states.

Derisively referred to as “Taxifornia” by the independent Pacific Research Institute, California wins the booby prize for the highest personal income taxes in the nation and higher sales tax rates than all but four other states. Though Californians benefit from Proposition 13 restrictions on how much their property tax can increase in one year, the state still has the worst state tax burden in the U.S.

Spectrum Locations Consultants recorded 254 California companies moved some or all of their work and jobs out of state in 2011, 26% more than in 2010 and five times as many as in 2009. According SLC President, Joe Vranich: the “top ten reasons companies are leaving California: 1) Poor rankings in surveys 2) More adversarial toward business 3) Uncontrollable public spending 4) Unfriendly business climate 5) Provable savings elsewhere 6) Most expensive business locations 7) Unfriendly legal environment for business 8) Worst regulatory burden 9) Severe tax treatment 10) Unprecedented energy costs.

Like the movie Groundhog Day, the idiotic Leftists and those who support them approach each day as if history, logic and reason didn't exist.

Raising taxes on "the rich" drive "the rich" away. Raising taxes on "the rich" promotes barter and black marketeering for the most productive members of society. Raising taxes on "the rich" suppresses tax collection, because it punishes success and rewards sloth.

Which is why the party of tyranny must be defeated at the ballot box in November -- at every level of government.


Related: 161 years ago this fall.

Obama's YouTube Outreach Program: Corrected For Accuracy

A must-watch:

Pass it on.


Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Great News: CBO Reconsiders Obamacare, Decides Country Is Headed for Collapse Under President Subprime McDowngrade

Pity they couldn't have told the American people before the passage of the Patient Destruction Act.

CBO Report: Spending Is Driving Debt to “Unsupportable” Level


...CBO’s “alternative” projections ... make clear once again that too much spending—not too little tax revenue—is the biggest threat to the country’s fiscal and economic health. Among other things, the alternative figures show that:

Federal spending will consume record levels of resources as a share of the economy, reaching nearly one-quarter of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022.

Without tax increases, tax revenue would still reach its historical average, but uncontrolled spending would outpace revenue. This would push federal debt to levels that the CBO calls “unsupportable.”

CBO’s conventional baseline (defined by statute) projects spending, tax revenue, and deficits assuming current law—including scheduled changes in law. This includes an expiration of the “doc fix,” which has prevented a plunge in Medicare physician reimbursements every year since 2003, and the expiration of the Bush-era tax policies, as well as a number of other tax provisions. These would result in a tax increase of about $4 trillion over the next 10 years. These assumptions represent what CBO calls “a significant departure from recent policies.” That is, no one expects these changes to happen...

Oh, and as for Obamacare itself -- guess what?

CBO: New 10-year projected cost of ObamaCare is … $1.76 trillion


...The original 10-year price tag, the one that made it “safe” (but not really safe) for Democrats to drop this fiscal atomic bomb, was $940 billion. What happened, you ask? Well, see for yourself:

Remember, they gamed this thing so that it wouldn’t take effect until 2014, which means that the cost of the first four years of implementation was essentially zero. That $940 billion figure really represented just six years of cost, not 10, but it was politically invaluable to Democratic messaging in letting them tout the bill as costing less than a trillion dollars. Now that we’re nearing 2014 and the 10-year window of cost projections has slid forward, you can see what this leviathan boondoggle really costs: $1.76 trillion, soon to top $2 trillion when the window slides forward another year in 2013 and the new projection reaches into 2023.

But wait. More good news: "Four million Americans can expect to lose their employer-provided healthcare by 2016, according to the revised figures, far more than the 1 million people estimated last year..."

Thanks to the economy, we’re going to end up with a lot fewer people getting health insurance through the workplace than previously estimated and a lot more people getting it through Medicaid, which, as Klein notes, inches us a little closer to that government takeover of health care that the left insists is a conservative myth...

This represents another all-too-predictable failure by the Utopian Statists -- also known as Democrats -- who are bent on dominating our lives.


Epic fail juxtaposition o' the day

James Pethokoukis calls this item "The entire Obama presidency, in one anecdote."

One of my favorite moments from the new book The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery:

Energy was a particular obsession of the president-elect’s, and therefore a particular source of frustration. Week after week, [White House economic adviser Christina] Romer would march in with an estimate of the jobs all the investments in clean energy would produce; week after week, Obama would send her back to check the numbers. “I don’t get it,” he’d say. “We make these large-scale investments in infrastructure. What do you mean, there are no jobs?” But the numbers rarely budged.


[Ed: gee, what a surprise!]

Now let’s fast forward to this past September:

A $38.6 billion loan guarantee program that the Obama administration promised would create or save 65,000 jobs has created just a few thousand jobs two years after it began, government records show. The program — designed to jump-start the nation’s clean technology industry by giving energy companies access to low-cost, government-backed loans — has directly created 3,545 new, permanent jobs after giving out almost half the allocated amount, according to Energy Department tallies.


So where are the new jobs coming from, at least the good-paying ones? From the industry Obama wants to replace as much as possible with “clean” energy: oil and gas.

Fast forward this week to President Obama's spastic, poll-driven reaction considered policy positions on, eh, energy.

To purportedly tame the progressive rise in gas prices, President Obama visited a North Carolina truck manufacturer on Wednesday to unveil a new $1 billion plan to advocate electric and alternative vehicles through consumer incentives and federal grants for states.

The "green" initiative, tagged the "National Community Deployment Challenge," provides a $10,000 tax credit — up from the current $7,500 incentive — to consumers purchasing "advanced cars and trucks." The grant program includes a "Race to the Top" contest that would award money to states with "model communities" that agree to fund infrastructure such as charging stations or natural gas corridors "where alternative fuel trucks can transport goods without using a drop of oil," according to the White House Press Fact Sheet.

Yes, that's right. He wants to funnel more money to his campaign contributors, bundlers, and other fat-cats and claim it's for "green jobs".

What's the definition of insanity again?


Monday, March 12, 2012

'Are We Better Off Than We Were 4 Years Ago? Uh, No.'

Using the basketball metaphors President Subprime McDowngrade loves, Tammy Bruce highlights this slam-dunk.

Ouch.

David Axelrod may want to apply some ice. And then knead the thighs very gently.


It's Another Historic Obama Record! U.S. Runs a Quarter of a Trillion Dollar Deficit... in One Month

This President has certainly been a trailblazer when it comes to economic records. Oh, and I blame Bush. And Martin Van Buren, too.

A few days ago we noted that based on preliminary data, the February budget deficit would hit $229 billion (yes, nearly one quarter of a trillion in one month, about where real Greek GDP is these days) - the largest single monthly deficit in history. Unfortunately, this number was low: the final February deficit was just released and the actual print is $231.7 billion...

...It also means that in the first 5 months of the fiscal year, the US has raked up $580 billion in deficits, oddly matched by $727 billion in new debt issuance, 25% more new debt issued than needed to fund deficits...

...through last Friday, and net of tax refunds, total US tax revenues were actually lower in the fiscal 2012 year to date period than compared to 2011, by just under $2 billion, at $625.5 billion. Which is the weakest link for any argument that the US is actually growing: what is growing is America's debt (now almost exponentially), while its revenues are at best unchanged. And the scariest: annualizing net tax revenues brings the number to $1.5 trillion. Which is just 50% more where total US debt interest will be in 2014 when debt is $20 trillion, assuming interest rates are somehow allowed to go back up... to the astronomical level of 5%.

So, despite all of the media cheerleading, it turns out the country's economy isn't growing at all. And the debts just keep on piling up, month after month, at a clip unprecedented in world history.

Another four years of Obama and we won't recognize this country.

Of that, there is no doubt.


It's come to this: Tide laundry detergent being used as currency in some U.S. neighborhoods

Didn't this happen in Zimbabwe just before their currency collapsed under a tidal wave of hyperinflation?

...Theft of Tide detergent has become so rampant that some cities are setting up special task forces to stop it and retailers like CVS are taking special security precautions to lock down the liquid.

...Tide has become a form of currency on the streets. The retail price is steadily high -- roughly $10 to $20 a bottle -- and it's a staple in households across socioeconomic classes.

Tide can go for $5 to $10 a bottle on the black market, authorities say, and some thieves even resell it to stores.

"There's no serial numbers and it's impossible to track," said Detective Larry Patterson of the Somerset, Ky., Police Department, where authorities have seen a huge spike in Tide theft. "It's the item to steal."

To paraphrase Mark Steyn, when laundry detergent becomes a de facto currency, you're pretty much done for.

You feeling stimulated yet?


Hat tip: BadBlue.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Unexpected: job growth consistently higher in right-to-work states

Why, this must be some sort of strange coincidence:

Currently, the U.S. has 22 right-to-work states. All of them are in the South, West, and Central Midwest. During the past 15 years, these states have collectively outperformed the rest of the nation to an almost embarrassing degree:

• “From 1995 to 2005, incomes of residents in right-to-work states grew by 142 percent more than the incomes of Ohioans,” and “private-sector job growth was 500% greater.”

• After passing right-to-work legislation in 1986 and 2001, respectively, Idaho and Oklahoma both experienced explosive growth in their economies and overall employment.

• An after-tax dollar earned in a right-to-work state has more real purchasing power than it does in other states, “because union labor tends to raise (the) costs of goods and services.”

I took a look at economic growth in the individual states during the past decade as measured by gross domestic product (GDP). What I found also shows that right-to-work states clearly outperformed the others [see table at right]...

...2001-2010 economic growth weighted by average population in all right-to-work states was 21.7%; in the rest of the states and the District of Columbia, it was only 13.6%. During the past thirty years, the tremendous leads in per-capita GDP industrial states like Ohio and Michigan once had over the right-to-work states have mostly and in a few cases entirely evaporated.

Wealthy union bosses like Dick Trumka proudly proclaim their hatred of capitalism and their desire to push America into a Soviet-style, socialistic economy.

Furthermore, union leadership has aligned itself with the environmental, flat-earth, no-growth "green" movement that has dedicated itself to the de-industrialization of America. Labor bosses support -- of all things -- the EPA, which is gutting energy exploration, pipeline construction, the drilling business, the mining industry, all power generation facilities, refinery construction, and the like.

In their rapacious quest for power, union bosses have thrown their members to the wolves.

At some point in the very near future, union members are going to rise up against their bosses -- who have aligned with far Left Marxists -- to destroy the economy and all of their members' jobs. A good start will be voting to pink-slip the top union boss, one Barack H. Obama, in 2012.


The Tinderbox That Is Europe

True, the Middle East is boiling over with the rise of Al Qaeda in Libya, the mass slaughter of Syrian dissidents, and the takeover over of a one-time ally by the Egyptian strain of the Muslim Brotherhood. But Europe too, as Tyler Durden explains, is on the precipice of widespread civil unrest.

The last time we plotted European youth unemployment in what was dubbed "Europe's scariest chart" we were surprised to discover that when it comes to "Arab Spring inspiring" youth unemployment, Spain was actually worse off than even (now officially broke) Greece, whose young adult unemployment at the time was only just better compared to that... of the United States. Luckily, following the latest economic (yes, we laughed too) update from Greece, it is safe to say that things are back to normal, as Greek youth unemployment is officially the second one in Europe after Spain to surpass 50%. In other words, Europe's scariest chart just got even scarier.

And so while the Greek economy is in tatters, following another downward revision to its GDP as reported last week, this time dragging Q4 GDP from -7.0% to -7.5%, that's only the beginning, and it now appears that a terminal collapse of not just the Greek financial sector, but its society as well, has commenced, as the number of people unemployed in the 11 million person country is now 41% greater than its was a year ago...

You would think that the failure of their model -- the European social welfare state -- would cause Democrats to rethink their approach to governance.

But then, that would require substantial measures of reason, logic, and rationality, all of which are woefully lacking in the modern, Marxist-controlled Democrat Party.


Ephemeral dreams of an ideal society

Can Americans trust the claims of temporary politicians who promise that their grand dreams and intricate plans will solve humanity's most vexing issues?

Consider their track record...

Social Security


THEN: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 14 August 1935, Washington, D.C.:

Today, a hope of many years' standing is in large part fulfilled. The civilization of the past hundred years, with its startling industrial changes, had tended more and more to make life insecure. Young people have come to wonder what will be their lot when they came to old age. The man with a job has wondered how long the job would last...

...This social security measure gives at least some protection to 50 millions of our citizens who will reap direct benefits through unemployment compensation, through old-age pensions, and through increased services for the protection of children and the prevention of ill health...

...It is, in short, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness...

NOW: Social Security Is Failing Even Faster Than We Thought:

In last year's Trustees Report, the Social Security Administration warned that the program's trust fund was likely to run out of money in 2036, leading to deep cuts in benefits. If that weren't bad enough for anyone expecting to be alive then, a more recent projection from the Congressional Budget Office paints a much worse picture.

This year's CBO report forecasts that by the end of this decade, the combined Social Security Old Age and Disability Trust Funds will be about $800 billion smaller than last year's SSA projections. That's a very substantial drop -- and a sign that this year's Trustees Report will likely bring another downward revision to the year it expects those Trust Funds to dry up and benefits to be cut.

Medicare


THEN: President Lyndon Baines Johnson, 30 July 1965, Washington, D.C.

...No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years... And no longer will this Nation refuse the hand of justice to those who have given a lifetime of service and wisdom and labor to the progress of this progressive country...

...During your working years, the people of America--you--will contribute ... a small amount each payday for hospital insurance protection. For example, the average worker in 1966 will contribute about $1.50 per month. The employer will contribute a similar amount. And this will provide the funds to pay up to 90 days of hospital care for each illness, plus diagnostic care, and up to 100 home health visits after you are 65. And beginning in 1967, you will also be covered for up to 100 days of care in a skilled nursing home after a period of hospital care.

NOW: Medicare’s Worsening Finances: The Other Shoe Drops:

A week ago, the Medicare Trustees issued their annual report, which showed that the program is on the fact track to insolvency. The 2011 analysis projected that the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund (which funds Medicare Part A) will be insolvent in 2024, and the program’s long-term unfunded obligations—promised benefits that are not paid for—amount to $24.6 trillion...

...[new] across-the-board cuts would cause 15 percent of hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and home health agencies to become unprofitable by 2019. This number would climb to 25 percent in 2030 and 40 percent by 2050.

Obamacare


THEN: President Barack Hussein Obama, 23 March 2010, Washington, D.C.:

...And we have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care...

...I said this once or twice, but it bears repeating: If you like your current insurance, you will keep your current insurance. No government takeover; nobody is changing what you’ve got if you’re happy with it. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. In fact, more people will keep their doctors because your coverage will be more secure and more stable than it was before I signed this legislation.

NOW: Obamacare's Broken Promises:

Hard times continue for the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). The administration has scrapped the law's long-term care insurance program, covering nursing homes and home health care. The program was deemed unrealistic. This is a harbinger...

...Writing in The New York Review of Books, [Arnold Relman, the former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine] says that "the law does very little or nothing to address some of the most important causes of the high cost of care and its rapid inflation.” Note: Relman isn't a conservative crank. He's a critic of insurance companies and advocates a single-payer, government-run health-care system.

The ACA, Relman writes, doesn't alter fee-for-service reimbursement... [he is also] unimpressed with the ACA provisions intended to control costs: for example, the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). It's a group of 15 experts who would recommend changes if government health spending rose too rapidly... Relman also dismisses "accountable care organizations” (ACOs) that supposedly save money through coordinated care by doctors and hospitals. The regulations governing ACOs will be so complicated that there won't be many of them, he writes.

...Many of [the ACA's] promises rest, like CLASS, on unrealistic assumptions. Disappointments loom, and the needed debate is deferred.

We are living in Ameritopia


Mark Levin explains:

The reason I say that liberalism is the philosophy of the stupid is because we can look at what's going around in the country today. If, in your own lives, you were pursuing policies that were destroying your own home ownership, that were destroying your own job, that were creating a massive, impossible debt for your family and your children in particular, you'd stop it. You wouldn't keep doing it!

And yet for the liberal, if it's imposed on you -- and they feel that they can be immune from it -- they're for it. They wouldn't do to themselves and their own family what they're doing to you, and your family, and the whole nation! Take Barack Obama. Does Barack Obama conduct himself in his own, personal affairs, in his family's affairs, as recklessly as he conducts the affairs of the nation? No. Would he run up the kind of relative personal debt that he's running up for the nation? No way.

...So they do to us -- and they do to our society -- what they would never do to their own families. They do not live in their own lives as they seek to have the rest of us live. Or as they seek to have our society conduct itself.

The only question that remains is whether the country can be saved. 2012 may be our last, best chance to save this Republic from the Utopian Statists, whose pursuit of impossible, narcissistic dreams have set the country on a course for national fiscal suicide.


Friday, March 09, 2012

I Told You He Was Historic, Melvin: Jobs Recession Now Officially Longest Since World War II

It's another Obama record!

The U.S. economy added 227,000 jobs in February vs. expectations for 206,000, continuing a recent trend of decent hiring activity. The unemployment rate held at 8.3%.

But America remains mired in the longest jobs recession since the Great Depression. It's been 49 months since the U.S. hit peak employment in January 2008. And with nonfarm payrolls still 5.33 million below their old high, the jobs slump will continue for several more years.

The previous jobs recession record — 47 months — came during and after the comparatively mild 2001 recession, which saw unemployment climb to only 6.3%... The labor market won't truly return to health until some 10 million positions are created to rehire all those who lost their jobs and to absorb new workers.

The longest jobs recession in decades coincides, not coincidentally, with the longest stretch of anemic economic performance on record.

And the jobs recession also coincides, not coincidentally, with the regulation-happy Obama administration.

As for the "8.3 percent unemployment rate" reported earlier today, well, that's about as reliable as everything other statement this administration makes. Which is to say, it's about as genuine as a Hillary Clinton $11 bill.

Even if it were a legit number, the 8.3% February unemployment rate, released today by the Labor Department, would be simply terrible—and unacceptable. It would still extend the longest streak of 8%-plus unemployment since the Great Depression. The U.S. economy hasn’t been below 8% unemployment since Obama took office in January 2009. And back in May 2007, unemployment was just 4.4%.

But, unfortunately, the true measure of U.S. unemployment is much, much worse.

...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—65.7% then vs. 63.9% today—the U-3 unemployment rate would be 10.8%.

...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, perhaps the truest measure of the labor market’s health, is still a sky-high 14.9%.

Maybe next month the Bureau of Labor Statistics will pull another million Americans "out of the workforce" to get unemployment down to, say, 7.5 percent.

That way useful idiots like Mike Dorning at Bloomberg can continue spewing the administration's propaganda without a hint of thoughtful analysis.


Thursday, March 08, 2012

The Reparations Administration [Updated]

Author's Note: I originally wrote this article nearly two years ago, on July 8, 2010, to address what I perceived to be the unspoken agenda of the Obama White House.

In light of the recent revelations that Obama was a personal advocate for the racial eliminationist Dr. Derrick Bell, I thought it fitting and proper to re-post it.

Observers have characterized President Obama's many efforts to nationalize industries a systematic form of "wealth redistribution." But the activities instigated by the White House go beyond redistribution and devolve straight into reparations. Consider:

Race Gender Quotas in "Financial Reform"

Section 342, which declares that race and gender employment ratios, if not quotas, must be observed by private financial institutions that do business with the government. In a major power grab, the new law inserts race and gender quotas into America's financial industry... ...Section 342 sets up at least 20 Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion.

Racial Preferences in Obamacare

Transfer of wealth and “crucial decisions” aside, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act contains provisions that provide incentives for racial discrimination...

One provision states that programs with “a record of training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups or from a rural or disadvantaged background” will be given priority for government money. This is only one of several such provisions. Programs and medical institutions that practice racial preferences will be moved further up the money queue than programs and medical institutions that disregard race... The one who disregards skin color is penalized... The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights called the provisions racially discriminatory and sent President Barack Obama and Congress letters warning them about the provisions. The politicians ignored the warning, naturally.

DOJ encourages illegal immigration by Mexican crime gangs

A study released earlier today calculates that illegal immigration costs U.S. taxpayers $113 billion annually... And rather than defending America's citizens, which is his primary duty under the Constitution, President Obama instead has unleashed a professional defender of terrorists to expand his practice -- protecting the Mexican crime gangs who now terrorize the southwest.

Another voter fraud scandal involving the Justice Department.

J. Christian Adams,, a former career Justice Department lawyer who resigned recently to protest political interference in cases he worked on, made some news yesterday in testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights... As expected, he claimed that Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, an Obama appointee, overruled a unanimous recommendation by six career Justice attorneys for continued prosecution of members of the New Black Panther Party on charges of voter intimidation in an incident I detailed here yesterday...

...But Mr. Adams leveled an even more explosive charge beyond the Panther case. He testified that last year Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes made a jaw-dropping announcement to attorneys in Justice's Voting Rights section. She said she would not support any enforcement of a key section of the federal "Motor Voter" law -- Section 8, which requires states to periodically purge their voter rolls of dead people, felons, illegal voters and those who have moved out of state.

This Administration is Lawless

The Civil Rights Act prohibits racial discrimination and preferences. But the White House has chosen to ignore applicable law -- and the Constitution itself -- to promote a racially divisive and potentially explosive agenda.

This morning, a Wall Street Journal op-ed asked, "Who Will Investigate the Investigators?".

I would phrase it differently: "What recourse is there when the White House and the Justice Department are operating lawlessly?"

Obama has spurned wealth redistribution for something even more extreme: a political form of reparations.

We know from a series of painful examples -- throughout history -- that wealth redistribution does not work. In fact, one need only point to the wealth redistribution approach advocated by Carter, Clinton, Reno and Cuomo -- the Community Reinvestment Act and its ilk -- which led directly to the implosion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The reparations model that Obama is pursuing could tear apart the very fabric that led to the creation of the most inclusive society in the world. It is destroying the integrity of the ballot box; corrupting health care; destroying financial services; and eradicating American sovereignty.

The reparations model advocated by the White House represents lawlessness. Ergo, this administration is lawless.

It's November or never. And citizens of every race, creed, religion, color and culture should reject the systematic destruction of America, before it's too late.


Wednesday, March 07, 2012

"Government Employees Are the True 1%"

We are on track in the United States to pay more money to 20 million public sector retirees – at an average pension of $65,000 we will pay these retirees $1.3 trillion per year, then we will be paying in social security to 80 million private sector retirees – at an average social security benefit of $15,000 per year that will cost less, about $1.2 trillion per year. Providing a level of retirement security to government workers that only the wealthiest 1% can enjoy in the private sector is not “protecting the middle class,” it is economic enslavement by government unions over the taxpayer.

Wayne Allen Root explains how public sector unions are bankrupting the United States, by the numbers:

How did America become broke and insolvent? How did we build up an unimaginable $115 trillion in debt and unfunded liabilities? How did we allow the American Dream to become a nightmare?

...The truth is that government employees are the true 1%. We have far too many of them (21 million), many of them are paid too much, and their union demands are straining taxpayers to the breaking point.

They have become a privileged class that expects to be treated superior to the taxpayers — the same folks who pay their salaries and pensions. But it is their obscene pensions that are the big problem moving forward for America.

• A retired New York City toll-taker will received a taxpayer-funded pension of $120,000 a year for the rest of his life. And he's only 50 years old.

• Nearly 80,000 federal employees earned more than the governor of their state of residence.

• The compensation of the average federal worker is more than $123,000-a-year, more than double the average private sector worker.

• The average firefighter in Las Vegas, NV earns $199,678 per year.

• Over the course of his or her career, the average janitor working in government makes over $600,000 more than a private sector janitor.

• More than a third of the Las Vegas teachers' union's entire $4.1 million annual budget went to pay just nine union leaders (including salaries of $632,546 and $546,133).

• Roughly 50% of all Clark County (Las Vegas, NV) firefighters retired with work-related injuries in recent years and received an average bonus payment of $320,000 each, in addition to gold-plated pensions for life.

...do you know any small business owners who retire with $5 to $10 million? They are few and far between. But that’s exactly what a private sector employee would need in the bank on the day of his or her retirement to match the $100,000 per year pensions (plus health care benefits and cost of living increases) of government employees paid out over 30 to 50 years.

Keep in mind that government employees never risk a dollar of their own money. They have lifetime job security. And they rarely work beyond 9 to 5, let alone weekends or holidays.

Yet government employees are paid millions by taxpayers to retire early, often on pensions fattened by gaming the corrupt system.

They are the true 1%.

No country anywhere in the world can afford this insanity.

The arithmetic is unassailable. If this country is to survive, public sector unions must be eradicated.


Related: A Brief, Illustrated History of the Public Sector Unions That Are Bleeding America Dry With the Full Support of the Democrat Party

Congratulations, it's another Obama record! Home prices 'down to nearly the same levels as 10 years ago'

Say, I've got an idea! How about another massive, taxpayer-funded rescue package for distressed homeowners? The ninth time is a charm, right?

...national home prices, including distressed sales, declined on a year-over-year basis by 3.1 percent in January 2012 and by 1.0 percent compared to December 2011, the sixth consecutive monthly decline.

...Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices declined by 0.9 percent in January 2012 compared to January 2011, but that same metric posted a month-over-month gain, rising 0.7 percent in January. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.

“Although home price declines are slowly improving and not far from the bottom, home prices are down to nearly the same levels as 10 years ago,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.

I guess I have to update my Complete List of President Obama's Historic Firsts.


Tuesday, March 06, 2012

WARNING: Do not show this chart to a liberal (unless wearing headgear to protect you from a cranium exploding into high-velocity brain-shrapnel)

A couple of observations about this graph:

• The vaunted "Clinton Surplus" was, in fact, the work of a GOP House that was willing to fight for fiscal sanity (current Ohio Governor John Kasich was one of the architects of the surplus); in addition, two events conspired to turbocharge the economy -- in spite of Clinton, not because of him.

• Liberals like to talk about Reagan's deficits, but they ignore the fact that every budget Reagan ever sent to the Democrat-controlled House was declared "dead on arrival". Reagan supported a Balanced Budget Amendment, sought to eliminate useless agencies like the Department of Education, and otherwise believed in the U.S. spending within its means.

• Since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007, they have jammed through the most fiscally irresponsible spending programs in world history (I won't use the word "budget", because they've refused to propose a budget for roughly 1,029 days).

In short, Democrats never propose less spending than Republicans -- unless we're talking about defense. And now, after four years of Democrat-controlled spending, the federal government is forced to borrow 40 cents for every dollar it spends.

And that, my friends, is bound to end badly since the hard left Democrat Party and the RINOs appear ready to turn the spending on auto-pilot -- right into the tarmac.


WE are the 99 percent

As James Pethokoukis describes it, "For 99 percent of Americans, the Obama recovery has been no recovery at all."

Liberal economist Emmanuel Saez has updated his much-referenced income inequality research. Here’s how the recovery is going after the Great Recession:

In 2010, average real income per family grew by 2.3%, but the gains were very uneven. Top 1% incomes grew by 11.6% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.2%. Hence, the top 1% captured 93% of the income gains in the first year of recovery. Such an uneven recovery can help explain the recent public demonstrations against inequality. It is likely that this uneven recovery has continued in 2011 as the stock market has continued to recover...

1. So this isn’t exactly an endorsement of the Obama recovery is it? I mean, for 99 percent of Americans there has been no recovery, according to Saez...

2. Saez embraces and promotes the back-to-the-1950s nostalgia economics of Obamanomics and modern liberalism: “A number of factors may help explain this increase in inequality, not only underlying technological changes but also the retreat of institutions developed during the New Deal and World War II—such as progressive tax policies, powerful unions, corporate provision of health and retirement benefits, and changing social norms regarding pay inequality.” Indeed, Saez thinks the top marginal tax rate should more than double to 80 percent...

[And j] ust what is the right level of inequality? And how much economic growth is Saez willing to sacrifice to get it? ... Let me repeat this bit from a 2008 study on income inequality from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis:

It is important to understand that income inequality is a byproduct of a well-functioning capitalist economy. Individuals’ earnings are directly related to their productivity. Wealthy people are not wealthy because they have more money; it is because they have greater productivity. Different incomes, thus, reflect different productivity levels. The unconstrained opportunity for individuals to create value for society, which is reflected by their income, encourages innovation and entrepreneurship. Economic research has documented a positive correlation between entrepreneurship/innovation and overall economic growth. A wary eye should be cast on policies that aim to shrink the income distribution by redistributing income from the more productive to the less productive simply for the sake of “fairness.”

The National Social Democrat Party -- and its court jester, Paul Krugman -- hardest hit.


Saturday, March 03, 2012

Friday, March 02, 2012

Simply delightful: In July 2009, Mitt Romney pressed Obama to use the Individual Mandate to Nationalize Healthcare

Erick Erickson has all of the details.

Had Michigan not been as close, the Democrats would have waited to spring this on us in the general election. Luckily we have it now and I hope Ohio voters are paying attention.

In July 2009, Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed in USA Today urging Barack Obama to use an individual mandate at the national level to control healthcare costs.

Health care cannot be handled the same way as the stimulus and cap-and-trade bills... There's a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it.

...Our experience also demonstrates that getting every citizen insured doesn't have to break the bank. First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages "free riders" to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others.

On the campaign trail now, Mitt Romney says the individual mandate is appropriate for Massachusetts, but not the nation. Repeatedly in debates, Romney has said he opposes a national individual mandate.

But back in 2009, as Barack Obama was formulating his healthcare vision for the country, Mitt Romney encouraged him publicly to use an individual mandate. In his op-ed, Governor Romney suggested that the federal government learn from Massachusetts how to make healthcare available for all. One of those things was “Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages “free riders” to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others.”

Friends, if Mitt Romney is the nominee, we will be unable to fight Obama on an issue that 60% of Americans agree with us on.

Just a month after Romney penned his op-ed advocating the Individual Mandate, The Boston Globe ran a breathless report complaining about RomneyCare, headlined "Bay State health insurance premiums highest in country."

Massachusetts has the most expensive family health insurance premiums in the country, according to a new analysis that highlights the state’s challenge in trying to rein in medical costs after passage of a landmark 2006 law that mandated coverage for nearly everyone.

Oh, but that's right: Romney's the "only one who can win".

Of course, that's what they said about McCain and Dole.


Get Ready For Our Third Annual 'Summer of Recovery'

Tyler Durden asks, "If this is such a strong economy, why does this chart look recessionary?"

One way to gauge the real economy is to look at charts of the GDP, wages, household debt and the price of oil; another way is to correlate all of these on one chart. The [above] chart (courtesy of frequent contributor B.C.) plots these four metrics thusly: GDP/(wages/household debt)/price of oil.

Wait. Just. A second. I zoomed the right side of the graph, like, a thousand times.

I marked the green shoot with a nice, pretty arrow!