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

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Hilarity: Obama tries to claim credit for Ohio's economic resurgence, which was orchestrated by... GOP Gov. John Kasich

President Obama was visiting Ohio today and tried to take credit for the Buckeye state's economic resurgence.

Obama, speaking Wednesday at Lorain County Community College in the Cleveland-area town of Elyria, touted his support for investment in job training programs that connect community colleges with unemployed workers, programs he warned the Republicans would "gut" under their budget blueprint...

...Obama's trip to Ohio -- the 20th of his presidency, according to CBS News -- was ostensibly official, and not a campaign event. But he again used the congressional Republicans as a proxy to frame the general election case against Romney. [Ed.: and again stuck taxpayers with the bill for his campaign expenses.]

..."What's the better way to make our economy stronger? Give more tax breaks to every millionaire and billionaire in the country, or make investments in education and research and healthcare and job training?" he asked.

In celebrating Ohio's comeback, Obama is unintentionally repudiating his own policies. It turns out that, in spite of Obama, Ohio is 4th in the nation in job creation and tops in the Midwest. In the previous four years before Republican Gov. Kasich came into office, Ohio was 48th.

Even the states that are ahead of Ohio in job creation are far larger. Check out the other members of the top five job-creating states: Texas, New York, California and Florida. All are far more populous than Ohio. Florida, for instance, has 6.5 million more people, yet Ohio edged it out in job creation.

In fact, February's BLS data showed that Ohio created more jobs than any other state. When was the last time that happened? Can't tell, because the BLS doesn't offer data prior to the Clinton era, so it's been at least that long.

In short, Ohio proves that conservative fiscal policies work in spite of Barack Obama. While Obama's "leadership" destroyed America's pristine AAA credit rating, S&P was simultaneously upgrading Ohio's rating.

And for Obama to run to Ohio and try to take credit for its success is outrageous, but not unexpected coming from the man who claimed "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it."

Kasich has a damn good record when it comes to fiscal policies. Bill Clinton won't ever admit it in public, but the real architect of the much-ballyhooed 'Clinton Surplus' was none other than John Kasich, the Paul Ryan of Newt Gingrich's House of Representatives.


Monday, April 16, 2012

Brilliant: Looming Obama Tax Hikes Threaten To Send Economy Into Real Depression

The invaluable Jim Pethokoukis explains the anchor about to lasso the economy and drag it under.

If you combine all the other tax increases from 1980-1993, they add up to 3.3% of GDP, according to the brilliant budget team at Strategas Research. The coming “taxmageddon” of 2013 surpasses all those tax hikes combined!


How could the Obama White House even toy with the idea, which it has, of letting them happen?

How could Democrats let this happen?

Simple. For this group of radical Leftists, ideology trumps reason, history, experience and logic.

Plus, our beloved Golfer-in-Chief is "historic".


Sunday, April 15, 2012

It's Here: Form 1040B (the B is for Buffett)

Or is it spelled Buffet? Zombie does the heavy lifting that legacy media long ago dispensed with, offering an exclusive look at the new 1040-B form.

Time to call his bluff.

Obama is still harping on the so-called “Buffett Rule” as some sort of miraculous tax hike, despite the fact that it would only pay off 1% of the debt that Obama has added since he became president.

When Obama first proposed the Buffett Rule last year, I made a post called Voluntary Tax Rates and Personalized Earmarks: How to Solve the Debate over Taxes as the true version of the Buffett Rule. Because, you see, Buffett originally didn’t call for a higher tax rate on the wealthy in general; instead he said that he himself wanted to pay more taxes. Sure, he was just using himself as a personal example, but I thought: Hey, he could be on to something here. Why don’t we all decide at what rate we individually pay taxes? That‘s the Buffett Rule: You want to pay more taxes? Fine — pay ‘em. And if you don’t want to pay more, or even want to pay less — well, we have an option for that too.

To that end, I produced a new version of the IRS’s 1040 form which featured (exactly as the post’s title implied) “voluntary tax rates and personalized earmarks.” But that was last August. Who, after all these months, remembered to use those new forms now that Tax Day has rolled around again?

So I have now updated the revised 1040 form for 2011 and am offering it for download today, April 15, for your convenience.

Obama wants a Buffett Rule? OK, fine — let’s call him on his bluff. Download this “Buffett Rule”-adapted 1040 form, and integrate it into the rest of your IRS forms. As I noted in my original post, this new 1040 form makes everybody happy, because not only can you (like Warren Buffett) pay whatever tax rate you prefer, but you can allocate those taxes to whichever part of government expenses you want...

I've trans-mogrified the new section for ease of reading:


You can download the full version of the 1040-B here.


Saturday, April 14, 2012

Want Jobs and Higher Salaries? Simple. Move to a Right-to-work State

Do you prefer slavery or freedom? I ask that question because the modern-day version of slavery in this country is being forced to join a union -- and pay union dues -- against your will. And, as it turns out, in "union/slave states" there are provably fewer jobs and lower wages.

[Last year, t]he business world [was] abuzz over the National Labor Relations Board's complaint vs. Boeing's new South Carolina production line. For NLRB critics, the case boils down to one thing: "right-to-work" laws.

Right-to-work states have generally lower unemployment, higher job growth, lower taxes and better business climates. They have growing populations and have been attracting businesses from other states.

In most states, once a workplace is unionized, employees are required to join the union or they can't work there. But 22 states, including South Carolina, have passed laws that give employees the right not to join. Hence the term "right-to-work."

Unions dislike these laws for the obvious reason: It reduces their membership.

Critics like the Chamber of Commerce say a union-friendly NLRB is simply punishing Boeing for choosing a right-to-work state, a charge the agency has rejected.

But if the complaint stands, it could stop firms in heavily unionized states from expanding or moving to right-to-work states. [And these states seem] to be a good deal for the workers, too. The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.1%. In right-to-work states the average is 7.9% — 8.6% adjusted for population.

Between 1977-08, employment grew 100% in right-to-work states vs. the national average of 71% and 56.5% in non-right-to-work states. That's according to a January study that Ohio University economics professor Richard Vedder did for the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.

In this period, real per capita income in the right-to-work states grew 62.3% vs. the national average of 54.7% and 52.8% for non-right-to-work states... Between 2000-09, about 5 million people moved to right-to-work states from other states. The population of 25- to 34-year-olds in right-to-work states has grown 16%, according to an American Legislative Exchange Council study, indicating that they "attract the most productive members of society."

Union members: it's time to throw off your shackles. The Democrat-Union Boss alliance -- and their oppressive regulations from the EPA, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Labor, and dozens of other useless bureaucracies -- are funding your destruction.

Fight back.


Friday, April 13, 2012

Your future under Obama: Union thugs pressuring you 24/7

That is, if you're lucky enough to have a job.

Unknown figures entering your workplace through the back door without identification. Harassing late night phone calls. Strangers blocking your driveway and studying your exact movements.

These are not just the tactics of common criminals and thugs; they are also the tactics of Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West organizers at Chapman Medical Center in Orange County...

"It is just ludicrous," said Marlene Felter of Costa Mesa, a medical coder in Chapman's financial department. "(The company) said the SEIU can come in and organize (without any notice). SEIU organizers were calling people on their jobs and showing up at people's homes at 9 o'clock at night... "They would block people in their homes and driveways. How they got our cellphone numbers I don't know, but we've received numerous calls from different numbers... They wanted to know what my hours were, when I came and left work, and my pay."

You see, SEIU officials and Chapman management entered into a backroom deal known as a "neutrality agreement," designed to grease the skids for workers to be forced into union ranks.

However, the agreement is anything but "neutral:" Company officials granted union operatives access to company facilities to conduct a coercive "card check" organizing campaign in which union organizers pressure workers to fill out cards that count as votes for unionization of the workplace. Meanwhile, Chapman waived the right to have a federally supervised secret-ballot election to determine whether employees really wish to be unionized.

In response to the union's coercive tactics, a majority of hospital workers signed cards, letters, and petitions stating that they do not want the SEIU union bosses' so-called "representation." Instead of respecting the employees' wishes, Chapman officials accepted SEIU officials as the workers' monopoly bargaining agents after a rigged "card count" was held in November 2011.

"The SEIU 'won' by two votes because they kept throwing the votes out," Felter told us. "It was all done behind closed doors."

...Felter has filed federal unfair labor-practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board against SEIU and company officials. She seeks an injunction to stop hospital and SEIU officials from illegally negotiating a contract based on the fraudulent "card check" union recognition because the union does not have majority support of the workforce. Because of the gravity of the charges and the overwhelming evidence, the NLRB has authorized investigative subpoenas...

Uhm, hate to be Johnny Buzzkill, Ms. Felter. But I wouldn't get your hopes up with the NLRB. After all, they're not even legitimate appointees.

Card Check - That's a pretty little house ya got there.
It'd be a shame if it got boined up.


Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Man Charged With Dealing Heroin in a School Zone Very Nearly Bails Himself Out With an EBT Welfare Card

When it comes to illustrating the multi-faceted failures of Barack Obama and his Democrat-media slags, this story is the funniest thing I've read all day:

A convicted drug dealer — who cops said wanted to use cash from his taxpayer-funded EBT card to post bail — is the new face of welfare abuse, according to tough-minded lawmakers who are pushing the reform-resistant Patrick administration for a crackdown.

Kimball Clark, 45, was locked up Friday on drug-dealing charges — again — when he was overheard using his one phone call to ask the person on the other end of the line to “get my EBT card and go to the ATM and get the money to bail me out, get me outa here tonight,” according to a Boston police report.

“It’s another outrage,” said state Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton), a member of the EBT Task Force who criticized the group for failing to push tough restrictions on the use of the controversial cards. “When we were on the EBT Card Commission, I fought to get bail bondsmen on that list of places where people could not use their EBT cards. They fought me on it and told me people can’t use their EBT cards in that way.”

In less than three and a half years, Barack Obama's administration has redistributed a record amount of money to unbelievably fraud-laced programs. From welfare to food stamps, Medicare and Medicaid, and everything in between.

• "Not even the USDA knows what people are buying with food stamps"

• "Medicare fraud is estimated at between $60 and 80 billion annually"

• "Widespread fraud associated with the Stimulus"

In short, everything the government touches turns to crap. Which, each and every day, highlights the wisdom of the Constitution's Framers, who explicitly forbade government from entering these realms. It's time we returned to the Constitution's letter and meaning. And to throw all of these leftist bums out of office.


Hat tip: BadBlue.

Good news for millionaires: President Obama wants their tax rates dropped to match those of "average working Americans"

Of course, what the president said and what he meant are, as usual, diametrically opposed.

NPR says that President Obama will propose that millionaires pay income taxes “at the same rates as average working Americans.”

That would be good news for most millionaires!



The Congressional Budget Office reported in 2010,

The overall federal tax system is progressive—that is, average tax rates generally rise with income. Households in the bottom quintile (fifth) of the income distribution paid 4 percent of their income in federal taxes, while the middle quintile paid 14 percent, and the highest quintile paid 25 percent. Average rates continued to rise within the top quintile, with the top 1 percent facing an average rate of close to 30 percent.

I'd like to remind readers that the "progressive" income tax -- which is actually regressive -- is antithetical to America's history, traditions and founding.

As Karl Marx wrote in his seminal Communist Manifesto:

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie... ...in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable: A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

In fact, a careful comparison of Karl Marx' 10-point program of Communism and the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda would truly find few disagreements.


Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Celebrate: America's Debt Is Greater than the Entire Eurozone

Why isn't President Obama trumpeting this news? After all, he's been the architect of the plan to bankrupt America. And it's one of the few things he's actually been good at.

...the Senate Budget Committee will release this chart later today, clearly showing that America's debt is greater than the combined debt of the entire Eurozone and the U.K.


As the chart shows, America's debt is currently $15.1 trillion, while the Eurozone (which includes France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, the U.K., and others) has a combined debt of $12.7 trillion. (All dollar amounts are in U.S. dollars, and the data refers to closing 2011 numbers.)

The Eurozone is larger than the United States, so America's debt per capita also exceeds the Eurozone's. According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. has a population of 313 million, whereas the Eurozone has a population in excess of 331 million.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney frequently warns that the United States should not become like Greece. "We need to rein in government and unleash the extraordinary vitality and creativity of the American people," Romney wrote in a December op-ed. "We must not wait to suffer a crisis like Greece's or Portugal's to right the ship of state."

But with charts like this, that formulation might already be out of date, considering the enormity of America's debt burden.
Why aren't Democrats proud of their record?

Hell, they've gone 1,080 days without passing a budget. That's a modern American record.

Take pride in your failures, progressives! Revel in your efforts to destroy America! Own the fiscal destruction, the unemployment, and the epic ruin you're bringing to our children!


Monday, April 09, 2012

L.A. residents stunned to find out that solvency and 11% wage hikes for public unions may be mutually exclusive

I just want a Democrat to point me to one state, one municipality, one anything where their infernal policies of high regulation, high taxation, oppressive government and mirage-like Utopianism actually work.

But I won't hold my breath.

Offering a dire warning about potential bankruptcy, Los Angeles City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana said Friday the city will need to raise taxes, clamp down on employee pay and consider layoffs in order to keep solvent...

...The report comes two weeks before Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa - who recently also warned of possible salary freezes and layoffs - releases his budget for the coming year...

..."The rise in the city's labor costs has not been as a result of increased employment levels, but rather increases in what the city spends on health care for employees, workers' compensation, employee compensation and retirement benefits," Santana said.

There is an agreement to provide cost-of-living adjustments of 11 percent for the next two years and 11.75 percent for deputy city attorneys.

"It is not sustainable without further reductions to the workforce and essential public services," Santana said. "In addition, these increases create substantial compensation inequity within the workforce. This will result in significant pressure from other unions."

But, whatever you do, don't outlaw public sector unions, or raise the retirement age, or require reasonable contributions to pension and health benefits, or actually pay workers market wages.

Heavens, no.

These are Democrats we're talking about. And Democrats are big government. They are public sector unions. And, together, they're dedicated to extracting every last cent from you, the taxpayer.


Merrill Lynch Chart Kerplodes the Administration's 'Official' Unemployment Number

The central bankers-slash-crony capitalists who run the financial system can't be happy with Bank of America's disclosure of the following:

One can write lengthy essays, op-eds, and client letters explaining both why the labor force participation rate is plunging due to innocuous reasons such as everyone over 40 retiring yesterday full of jouissance and excitement to begin the sunset phase of their lives using copious life savings earning 0.0001% in interest, or, inversely, why this is one great big propaganda ploy by the BLS to make Obama look good a few short months ahead of the pre-election debt ceiling breach, pardon, his re-election date. We prefer cutting to the chase. Here is today's chart of the day from BofA, which begs one simple question: when will the two time series recouple, because recouple they will, and how will America react to the realization it was lied to for 2% worth of unemployment "improvement"? The chart says it all.

I can just see Turbo Timmy now, screaming at anyone who will listen, "BUT WE BAILED THEM OUT! WE BAILED THEM OUT!! AND THEY JUST STAB US IN THE BACK!!!"


Asset Management Firm Describes the Real U.S. Employment Situation As 'Awesome'. Just Kidding. It's Horrific.

Zero Hedge passes on last month's macro job report from IceCap Asset Management and it is, in a word, glum.

At its peak in 2008, the US economy was supported by over 138 million workers. Today, despite the American government spending billions to create jobs and printing trillions to save the banks, the American job machine has a total of 132 million people working. That’s a full 6 million less jobs than 3 years ago and is actually the same number of people who were working 11 years ago. ..
Just before the onslaught of the Great Recession in 2007, about 4 million Americans were working part-time for economic reasons. Today, we have over 8 million. ..
...in the USA there is over $1 trillion in student loans outstanding. To make matters worse, we should also consider that over 25% of these student loans have not received a loan payment during the last 30 days...

Under this administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has become a thinly disguised, Soviet-style industrial propaganda engine, churning out happy-face news as more and more workers 'disappear' from the labor force.


Sunday, April 08, 2012

The Coming Reckoning

The civil society may be defined as follows:

...the totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that state's political system) and commercial institutions of the market.

The civil society is something we Americans take for granted.

But what happens when promises to huge segments of society simple can't be fulfilled?

The next decade in Illinois will yield some answers; it represents the problems of the country in microcosm.

Illinois has combined $137 billion in pension and healthcare liabilities on top of $9 billion in current unpaid bills. Yet, Illinois legislators will not even ask 6-figure pensioners to pick up a portion of their health premiums...

...The Illinois Policy Institute ... is releasing 133 pages of frightening data. Beyond that $83 billion in unfunded pensions, state government alone faces an unfunded liability of more than $54 billion in retiree health liabilities over the next 30 years.

During the 2011 deliberations, two groups helped block retiree health reform: lawmakers of both parties who have state institutions (and thus state retirees) in their districts, and well-paid lobbyists whose prior careers in government entitle them to, yes, fat public pensions. If that happens this year, we want to read names.


Who is to blame for this mess?

• Public unions
• Politicians in bed with public unions
• Voters who vote for politicians who are in bed with public unions

Yet this problem wasn't supposed to happen.

Already levying one of the nation's highest tax burdens, Illinois' Democrat governor decided to raise taxes to help "close the gap". In January of 2011, Governor Quinn predictably broke a campaign promise and raised income taxes by a stunning 66 percent.

Problem solved, right?

Of course not. Because Democrats and public sector unions -- the unholy alliance designed to extract ever-increasing amounts of money from taxpayers -- choose to ignore history, facts, logic and common sense.

In a study for the Brookings Institution, Richard Goode (1983, pp. 96—97) expressed some of the all-too-predictable problems with raising taxes on the productive members of society (PDF).

High taxes may make people less willing to work, to assume managerial responsibility, to make innovations, to save and to invest.

The more progressive a tax the more likely it is that. . . incentives will he damaged. . . . Government use of tax revenues to subsidize or provide free goods and services that people would otherwise buy for themselves, such as food, housing and medical services, will accentuate the adverse effects on incentives. . .

Resistance may take the form of increased evasion . . [or] diversion of activities from commercial or organized markets to other channels that are less exposed to taxation, . . . Migration and capital flight to [regions]
with lower taxes are strong forms of resistance.

In other words, the act of raising taxes invariably fails to successfully raise revenue.

There is a reckoning coming. Retirees will not get the pensions and health care benefits they were promised. Vendors will not get paid in full.

The extra-Constitutional promises of temporary politicians have set this society on a course for an inevitable conflict.

It is our job -- it is our duty -- to re-moor this society to the Constitution. The alternative is too painful to consider. The alternative is to abandon this, the most magnificent society ever seen on Earth, to the rubrics of corrupt and power-hungry politicians.

And this I refuse to do. November is coming.


It's so touching that CBS News runs an affirmative action program for microcephalics, which seems to explain Andrew Cohen

On Friday, March 30th, Andrew Cohen -- the so-called "chief analyst and legal editor for CBS Radio News" -- authored what could be the most preposterous excuse for analysis this side of Paul Krugman.

Cohen’s cheap shot... came in #7 of [his Atlantic article entitled] “13 Final Thoughts About the Health Care Arguments.”

Cohen, who back in 2005-2007 appeared occasionally on CBS News television newscasts but is now, thankfully, confined to a few brief soundbites on the radio side, asserted in the blog post:

7. Smug justice. I admit I lost my temper on Wednesday. The arguments in the Care Act cases may be funny to Justice Antonin Scalia, the bully that he is, but they aren't funny to the single father who will avoid bankruptcy because of the law, or to the millions of others who will benefit from the Medicaid expansion or from the provision that allows young people to stay longer on their parents’ health care plans. Justice Scalia gets his health insurance from the government. To him, the care act is just another statute. Fine. Let him be so dispassionate when his conservative fellow travelers ask him to endorse an act of Congress.
Let me repeat:

"The arguments in the Care Act cases may be funny to Justice Antonin Scalia, the bully that he is, but they aren’t funny to the single father who will avoid bankruptcy because of the law."

Really?

Avoid bankruptcy? As the country itself is drowning in a cesspool of debt and unfunded liabilities?

But don't believe me -- believe the Medicare Actuaries or the Trustees of the Social Security Administration.

Medicare: $24.8 trillion -- Obligation per household: $212,500

Social Security: $21.4 trillion -- Obligation per household: $183,400

Federal debt: $15 trillion -- Obligation per household $128,000

Hey, Cohen: where's all that "free health care" coming from in your pathetic excuse for an analysis?

From the taxpayers?

From a country headed into a cyclonic funnel of fiscal torment?

Cohen, the sad thing is you're too dim to realize the evil of the unfettered government spending you're espousing. Because you're a mathematic ignoramus, a chronic putz, whose religion is Statism. You're a walking, talking joke.


Saturday, April 07, 2012

Hey, Justin Bieber Fans: Hope You're Ready To Pay Special 'Youth Taxes' To Cover Your Elders' Screw-ups

Via the indefatigable Gateway Pundit comes this delightful news:

Germany set to tax young


GERMANY is proposing to levy extra taxes on the young to pay for the costs of the country's growing numbers of old people, under government plans for a ''demographic reserve'' levy.

...The German Chancellor's ruling party is seeking extra sources of revenue to pay for soaring pensions and bills for social care costs as Germany's ''baby boomer'' generation ages amid a decline in the birth rate.

...The proposals, to be adopted by Dr Merkel's party cabinet after the Easter break, have not yet set a figure on the age tax but officials are considering a special levy of about 1 per cent of income.

Because of a slump in Germany's population, as more ageing Germans retire there are fewer young workers to replace them as taxpayers to fund generous welfare and pension arrangements.

Ain't socialism great, kids?

How George W. Bush Destroyed the Economy In Only Eight Short Years

The conventional wisdom among the denizens of the left is that George W. Bush took a surplus and destroyed the economy in only eight short years. The following illustrated story describes just how he pulled off this difficult task.

In 1997 President Clinton's HUD secretary, a man named Andrew Cuomo, claimed Fannie Mae had exhibited "racial discrimination" and proposed that 50 percent of the GSEs' (Fannie and Freddie) mortgage loan portfolio be made up of loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers by 2001.

In August of 2008, Wayne Barrett at the Village Voice wrote, "[Clinton appointee] Andrew Cuomo... made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis. He took actions that... helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration...into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded 'kickbacks' to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans."

At the time, Cuomo said "GSE presence in the subprime market could be of significant benefit to lower-income families, minorities, and families living in underserved areas."

As the housing market unravelled thanks to these policies, even The New York Times' Paul Krugman admitted that, "homeownership isn't for everyone," adding that "as many as 10 million of the new buyers are stuck now with negative home equity... So many others have gone through foreclosure that there's been a net loss in home ownership since 1998."

From 2001 to 2008, the Bush administration tried more than 18 times to bring Fannie and Freddie under heel.

For example, Richard Banker opened testimony on October 6, 2004 in the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises with an almost unbelievable summary of a report entitled, "Allegations of accounting and Management Failure at Fannie Mae."

"[This] is indeed a very troubling report... it is a report of extraordinary importance [to] the taxpayers of this country who would pay the cost of cleanup. ....[the report questions] the validity of previously reported financial results, the adequacy of regulatory capital, the quality of management supervision, and the overall safety and soundness of the Enterprise..."

"We all know that the Enterprise is very thinly capitalized, but the potential effect of requiring a responsible capital level would be to adversely affect earnings per share, and consequently make the payment of bonuses [to Fannie executives] much less likely...

...I also wish to inform members of the Committee of another troubling incident... About a year ago, I corresponded with the Director’s office making inquiry about the levels of executive compensation at the enterprise for the top twenty executives...

...Now I understand why the Enterprise [Fannie Mae] was so anxious not to have public disclosure of compensation of an entity that was created by the Congress, and supported by the taxpayer... As a direct result of abhorrent accounting practices, executives have been able to award themselves bonuses they did not earn and did not deserve."

In 2003, the effort to rein in Fannie began in earnest with a GOP bill ("H.R. 2575—THE SECONDARY MORTGAGE MARKET ENTERPRISES REGULATORY IMPROVEMENT ACT"). The bill would have strengthened an independent regulator that did not have to kowtow to the political establishment. Like most efforts aimed at reformation of Fannie, the committee votes were typically on the straight party line.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): "I think it is clear that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are sufficiently secure so they are in no great danger... I don't think we face a crisis; I don't think that we have an impending disaster. ...Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do very good work, and they are not endangering the fiscal health of this country."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA): "I have sat through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke. [sic] ...These GSEs have more than adequate capital for the business they are in: providing affordable housing. As I mentioned, we should not be making radical or fundamental change... If there is anything to fix or improve, it is the [regulators]."

Rep. David Scott (D-GA): "...affordable housing goals for both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae require that 50 percent of units should be built for low-and moderate-income home buyers, and 20 percent for very low-income families... Yet, from 1998 to 2002, African-American home ownership rates only rose from 45.6 percent to 47.3 percent, less than 2 percent compared with the white average increase from 72 percent to 74.5 percent, huge gap remains. Clearly, the mission of Freddie Mac, and especially Fannie Mae, is to close that gap..."

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY): "...I have to go to another hearing, I will try to be just real quick... I am just pissed off at [the regulator] because if it wasn't for you I don't think that we would be here in the first place. ...we are faced with is maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSEs in the first place, you have given them an excuse to try to have this forum [to change the] mission of what the GSEs had, which they have done a tremendous job... There has been nothing that was indicated is wrong, you know, with Fannie Mae... The question that then presents is the competence that your agency has with reference to deciding and regulating these GSEs."

Franklin Raines, former Clinton official and then-Chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae: "...In 1994, we launched our trillion-dollar commitment, a pledge to provide $1 trillion in financing for 10 million underserved families before the decade was over... In 2000... we launched a redoubled new pledge... to provide $2 trillion for 18 million underserved families before this decade is over. ...we are one of the best capitalized financial institutions in the world, when compared to the risk of our business... ...these assets are so riskless that their capital for holding them should be under 2 percent."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): "I don't see any financial crisis."

Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL): "A concern that I have... is you are making very specific... broad and categorical judgment about the management of this institution, about the willfulness of practices that may or may not be in controversy. You have imputed various motives to the people running the organization... That sounds to me as if you have gone from being a dispassionate regulator to someone who is very much involved and has a stake in this controversy... And I will follow up on Ms. Waters's point because I think it is very well taken: Her observation is that the political context surrounding your investigation was that serious doubts were being raised about OFHEO... In fact, frankly, doubts were raised about your leadership of OFHEO. And all of a sudden, the response to that is to produce an enormously critical report."

Late in 2008, even ex-President Clinton admitted that the Democrats were guilty of destroying Fannie and Freddie... and responsible for the current crisis that has left the entire U.S. economy on the brink of depression: "I think that the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by the Republicans and the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

And who were the top recipients of Fannie Mae's money-dispensing leaf-blower? The top three were Chris Dodd (D-CT), Barack Obama (D-IL) and John Kerry (D-MA).

And where are these Fannie Mae executives -- all former Clinton administration officials -- now? Are they serving time in prison as they likely deserve? No. They're enjoying their riches:
  • Franklin Raines ($90 million in compensation): Democrat adviser and one-time adviser to Barack Obama
  • Jamie Gorelick ($26 million): left-wing lawyer and Democrat fundraiser
  • James Johnson ($21 million): Democrat adviser and one-time adviser to Barack Obama
These Democrat crony capitalists -- and their friends in Congress -- greased each others' palms in a series of scandals, accounting frauds, and skulduggery that would make Bernie Madoff blush. When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed thanks to their actions, AIG and Lehman Brothers soon followed, their portfolios undergirded by investments in the "ultra-safe" GSEs.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Oh, on second thought, the title of this piece is incorrect. Bush didn't cause the economic meltdown. In fact, he tried to fight it -- on at least 18 separate occasions.

More importantly, the conventional wisdom among liberals -- the dishonest talking points -- are completely and utterly wrong. That is, if you rely upon history, facts, logic and reason. Which appears to be a stretch for many liberals.

No matter your political affiliation, if you value the truth you will vote in November to fire every Democrat running for office. Because there are no "moderate Democrats" left.



Hat tips: Naked Emperor News, Ann Coulter, Barking Moonbat, Country Store ("Jamie Gorelick: the pinup girl for Democrat foolishness strikes again") and Gateway Pundit.

Friday, April 06, 2012

Ignore the Government's Propaganda: The Real Unemployment Rate Is 10.9%

The American Enterprise Institute's James Pethokoukis uses the tools that legacy media won't bother with in their effort to regurgitate government propaganda. Which is to say: he uses arithmetic, logic, history and common sense.

Recall that back in 2009, White House economists Jared Bernstein and Christina Romer used their old-fashioned Keynesian model to predict how the $800 billion stimulus would affect employment. According to their model—as displayed in the above chart, updated—unemployment should be around 5.8% today.

But the true measure of U.S. unemployment is far worse:

1. 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. 63.8% today down from last month—the U-3 unemployment rate would be 10.9%.


2. But what if you take into the account the aging of the Baby Boomers, which means the labor force participation (LFP) rate should be trending lower. Indeed, it has been doing just that since 2000. Before the Great Recession, the Congressional Budget Office predicted what the LFP would be in 2012, assuming such demographic changes. Using that number, the real unemployment rate would be 10.5%.

3. Of course, the LFP rate usually falls during recessions. Yet even if you discount for that and the aging issue, the real unemployment rate would be 9.4%.

4. 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 14.5%.

5. The employment-population ratio dipped to 58.5% vs. 61% in December 2008. An historically low level of the U.S. population is actually working.


6. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or longer) account for 42.5% of the unemployment. That number is basically stuck. It was the same, for instance, in August 2010 and last December.

As Tyler Durden noted a few days ago, governmental entities like the Bureau of Labor Statistics are about as trustworthy as a slip-and-fall lawyer who's hooked on crack.


Thursday, April 05, 2012

Obama's Got a Gun

Sad Hill News:


Obama says, ‘There is going to be a tug-of-war within the US between those who see globalization as a threat, and those who accept it’...

Yes, there is.

Among all the factors pushing up prices at the gas pump, the weakness of the U.S. dollar is one of the most important and least discussed. Ultimately, supply and demand set the price of oil, gasoline and all other sources of energy. But the fact that oil is priced globally in dollars also has consequences for American consumers.

When the dollar buys less, Americans pay more for oil. And right now the dollar is weak, its buying power diluted by easy money and huge budget deficits...

[Oil] plunged in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan and the Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker moved aggressively to tamp down inflation and restore confidence in the dollar. The effort succeeded.

In some ways the world oil market has changed little since then. The Mideast is still the center of the action, and Iran is still the threat at center stage. But it's a different world for the dollar. Budget deficits under Barack Obama dwarf those under Ronald Reagan (and red ink back then broke peacetime records).

The Fed under Ben Bernanke has flooded markets with liquidity every bit as aggressively as Volcker's Fed worked to tighten. Though a weak-dollar policy is not official, it is widely recognized as a fact. Reversing that policy is possible, but it would take commitment and courage that we don't see from the government today.

It's not courage. It's ideology. Call it Obama's Cloward-Piven Energy Policy.



Beautiful: Four Weeks of Government Unemployment Propaganda, As Regurgitated by Legacy Media

Annual budget of the fat, bloated and utterly useless Department of Labor: $14,000,000,000.00 ($14 billion)

Annual budget of the fat, bloated and utterly useless Bureau of Labor Statistics: $1,800,000,000.00 ($1.8 billion)

Tyler Durden deconstructing the Bureau of Labor Statistics' laughable propaganda: priceless!

For everyone who wants to see a simple yet explicit example of how the BLS' relentless propaganda courtesy of perpetual prior "adjustments" trickles down in terms of media propaganda, here it is.



All of this would be great... if only the March 15th original number of 351,000 wasn't lower than the April 5th pre-revision number of 357,000, and which next week will be revised to 361,000!

In other words, the BLS continues to revise prior numbers -- after the fact -- to disguise the ongoing Obama Recession.

On 3/15, 351,000 unemployment claims represented a four-year low
On 3/22, 348,000 also was a four-year low
On 3/29, 359,000 also was a four-year low
On 4/05, 357,000 also was a four-year low

Only in the mind of a propagandist does that math make sense.

Ain't our media great?



Wednesday, April 04, 2012

'It's on, cuz we don't have to worry about re-election'

Gee, this doesn't send shivers up my spine:

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign website has removed several videos that pitched alarmist messages to African-American voters, following reporting by The Daily Caller and the Fox News Channel.

In one video that the campaign yanked from the “African-Americans for Obama” section of its website Tuesday, actress Tatyana Ali seemed to predict that a second Obama term would bring a host of benefits to African-Americans once the president no longer had to concern himself with campaigning.

“What really excites me … is that a U.S. president has only two terms,” a laughing Ali said in the footage that the Obama campaign scrubbed from its website Tuesday. “In the second term, ‘it’s on,’ because we don’t have to worry about re-election.”

...The video series, titled “Leading Women Defined,” focuses on African-American women, including Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s longtime aide and a former Chicago government official. It was produced by Black Entertainment Television and is still available on that that network’s website.

“We’re encouraging people to come out and vote to, as we say, vote like your life depended on it,” BET CEO Debra Lee said in one of the videos...

The BET videos include a raft of black-targeted messaging, including a reminder that Obama has delivered $1 billion dollars to historically black colleges and universities and $3 billion in contracts and loans to African-Americans entrepreneurs...

"In the second term, ‘it’s on,’ because we don’t have to worry about re-election"?

What's on?

Oh. That's right. More race-baiting. More deficit-spending. More unemployment. More class warfare. More trickle-up failure. More crony capitalism. More lawlessness. More socialism.

More "fundamental transformation".

Got it.


Here's the one chart you can show to any liberal propagandist who claims GM paid off its debt to taxpayers

When the president or any other propagandist tries to claim that GM and Chrysler have made the American taxpayer whole, wave this in their face.

In a February 28 speech, President Obama referred to this expenditure of $80 billion as a bet on the American worker, and added: “Now, three years later . . . that bet is paying off, not just paying off for you, it’s paying off for America.” His implication that the bailout is succeeding-that it will not ultimately be a loss for taxpayers-is a constant theme of Democrats.


The [accompanying] chart, drawn from information released by the Treasury, shows the current status of the financial assistance that the automotive industry has received through TARP. Out of the total $80 billion that has been paid out, only $35 billion has been repaid, some $7 billion has been written off, and $37 billion is still outstanding. That is, 9 percent of the original amount has already been lost, and close to half is still in limbo.

The latest Congressional Budget Office report estimates that the total cost of the bailout will end up being $20 billion. The biggest culprit will be GM, since the Treasury has no remaining investment in Chrysler, having sold its shares in July 2011.

The automakers may be profitable now, but only because we are not counting the taxpayer losses against the profits. If the president continues to avoid this simple math, perhaps someone should ask him why he didn’t shower billions on every industry and create millions more jobs.

Repeat:

Close to 10 percent of the "investment" has already been irretrievably lost. And it's questionable we'll ever see the other half of the money.