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

Thursday, December 27, 2012

CHART: America's Disappearing Fathers

Truly tragic:

In every state, the portion of families where children have two parents, rather than one, has dropped significantly over the past decade. Even as the country added 160,000 families with children, the number of two-parent households decreased by 1.2 million. Fifteen million U.S. children, or 1 in 3, live without a father, and nearly 5 million live without a mother. In 1960, just 11 percent of American children lived in homes without fathers...
The spiral continues each year. Married couples with children have an average income of $80,000, compared with $24,000 for single mothers.
“We have one class that thinks marriage and fatherhood is important, and another which doesn’t, and it’s causing that gap, income inequality, to get wider,”

...Though income is the primary predictor, the lack of live-in fathers also is overwhelmingly a black problem, regardless of poverty status, census data show. Among blacks, nearly 5 million children, or 54 percent, live with only their mother...

[One black father] is quick to blame the absence of fathers to deaths or incarcerations, though women point out that many absent fathers live around the corner...

The inconvenient truth? The "War on Poverty" and the Left's failed welfare state policies have decimated the two-parent family and ruined the lives of millions.

Of that, there can be no debate.


Wednesday, December 26, 2012

I WONDER WHY THEY WAITED UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION? EPA Cranks Out Third Job-Killing Regulation in a Week

Merry Christmas, Tiny Tim: the EPA has issued yet another devastating regulation. The Boiler MACT rule will hit American companies with a double whammy: it will kill jobs and spike the prices of almost every good and service. Oh, and there's an added bonus: it will make U.S. companies even less competitive internationally.

The National Association of Manufacturers is calling out the Obama administration.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) President and CEO Jay Timmons issued this statement on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final Boiler MACT regulation:

“For the second straight week, the EPA has finalized another costly and crippling regulation at a time when our economy is on the brink. Boiler MACT will not create jobs, and studies indicate it could cost manufacturers as much as $14 billion. Manufacturers are understandably growing more pessimistic about the direction of the economy. The end-of-year regulatory assault on businesses, combined with the uncertainty of the fiscal cliff, makes for one of the worst business environments in living memory.

...this regulation remains far from being realistic. Currently, it is 20 percent more expensive to manufacture in the United States compared to our major trading partners, and Boiler MACT will only drive that differential higher...

And, as usual, these regulations were all withheld from the American public until after the election. This is just another example of how the progressive Left must hide who they are from the American people. It's called deception.

It's not just the fiscal cliff we have to worry about. It's not just the overhang of deficits. It's also the intentional, wanton destruction of the American manufacturing sector, pursued by the eco-statist Left through hundreds of thousands of pages of excessive regulations and executed by thousands of unelected, nameless bureaucrats.

Everyone with two neurons to rub together knows that the federal government has a catastrophic addiction to spending. And I can think of no better way to start fixing that problem than by nuking the EPA's budget, say, by 90 percent. Nuke it. It's the only way to be sure.


Monday, December 24, 2012

THE CHUCKLEHEAD FACTOR: Whatever you do, don't blame Boehner, Cantor, or LaTourette for the demise of "Plan B"

Guess who's to blame for the embarrassing failure of John Boehner's "Plan B" to avoid the fiscal cliff?

You are. The Constitutional Conservatives and the Tea Party movement that brought Boehner into power:

Republican Rep. Steven LaTourette said that Boehner is not to blame for the stalemate, the Tea Party is.

“I don’t know what the number is but say the number is 40 out of 240 – that’s not a repudiation of his leadership. That’s the same 40, 50 chuckleheads that all year … have screwed this place up. And he has done everything in his power to make nice to them, to bring them along, to make them feel included, but it hasn’t mattered,” he said.

It's not because of Boehner's secret negotiations with Obama, bypassing the traditional committee process in formulating a deal:

House Speaker John Boehner reportedly had another secret meeting with President Barack Obama on fiscal cliff negotiations on Monday. This is the latest in a series of behind-closed-doors talks between the two.

On Friday and over the weekend, Boehner caved on the debt ceiling and on taxes enraging conservatives while failing to delight the president enough to cut a deal...

[This] was “their third conversation in the last five days.”

It's not because Boehner jammed a secret plan down the throats of the majority without even soliciting other opinions from Republicans:

...Leadership never worked with members in crafting Plan B. "We walked into conference" on Monday, one Republican member told me, "and we were told, 'Here it is. Here's what we're going to do.' "

"I don't think they ever really gave members an opportunity to weigh in," one House chief of staff told me. One Boehner ally suggested that rather than reach out to the rank and file, Boehner used Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan as "proxies," to gauge conservative sentiment.

The conservative Republican Study Committee wanted a floor vote, during consideration of Plan B, on an amendment to permanently extend all Bush tax rates. Boehner quashed that idea...

It's not because Boehner purged fiscal conservatives from all positions of power a few weeks ago:

In a discouraging sign for conservatives hoping the GOP will stay true to the fiscally conservative Tea Party message that won in 2010, House Speaker John Boehner has reportedly removed several of Congress’s most outspoken fiscal hawks from committees dealing with fiscal matters, citing their unwillingness to be “team players.”

...With fiscal cliff negotiations at a stark impasse, this could signal that Speaker John Boehner believes he will be forced to accept a deal that contradicts fiscally conservative principles, possibly to a degree that the grassroots would see as problematic.

It's not because of an intransigent president who has no interest in negotiating in good faith.

This morning, the Wall Street Journal provides a detailed account of how the fiscal cliff talks “hit the wall.” The entire article is a must read, but one blurb really jumps out:

At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?”

“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”


We’ve said all along that President Obama’s offers on the fiscal cliff were outrageous. That may have been an understatement.

No, it's not John Boehner's fault. It's the fault of the chuckleheads.

And what chucklehead got us into this mess in the first place? Oh, that's right: John Boehner, who squandered the historic Tea Party victories in the midterm elections of 2010. He rushed into a deal without even waiting for the new Congress to assemble, as then reported by The New York Times.


In every way, John Boehner has demonstrated a complete lack of vision, will and strategic thinking when it comes to facing the true economic cliff that this country faces.

But whatever you do, don't blame Boehner. Blame the chuckleheads.



Private Message to Steven LaTourette: You're a disgrace. We have an acolyte of Saul Alinsky who is trying to destroy the economy and you're talking about a tax increase that won't do anything to address the deficit nor save this Republic. Get your nose out of Boehner's kiester and think of your country for once, you hack.


CHANGE: In 2012, Generation Y voted to impoverish themselves

Good work, kids!

Generation Y professionals entering the workforce are finding careers that once were gateways to high pay and upwardly mobile lives turning into detours and dead ends. Average incomes for individuals ages 25 to 34 have fallen 8 percent, double the adult population’s total drop, since the recession began in December 2007. Their unemployment rate remains stuck one-half to 1 percentage point above the national figure.

Three and a half years after the worst recession since the Great Depression, the earnings and employment gap between those in the under-35 population and their parents and grandparents threatens to unravel the American dream of each generation doing better than the last. The nation’s younger workers have benefited least from an economic recovery that has been the most uneven in recent history.

This generation will be permanently depressed and will be on a lower path of income for probably all of their life — and at least the next 10 years,” says Rutgers professor Cliff Zukin, a senior research fellow at the university’s John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development...

Only one-fifth of those who graduated college since 2006 expect greater success than their parents, a Rutgers survey found earlier this year. Little more than half were working full time. Just one in five said their job put them on a career path...

Just one in five college graduates are on a legitimate career path?

Glad we found all of this out before the election.

Unless and until this country decides to vote for fiscal sanity, Generation Y -- and every subsequent generation -- faces a future that is decidedly bleak.

The endless class warfare, the untenable deficit spending, and the lack of leadership from the president all mean that the U.S. is destined to suffer a financial catastrophe the likes of which we haven't seen since the Thirties. We can look to Argentina for a recent example of a debt-fueled societal crisis.

Sorry, kids: it ain't gonna be pretty.


Sunday, December 23, 2012

10 DIABOLICAL FISCAL FACTS: What the Talking Heads Refuse to Discuss

I simply cannot comprehend the malfeasance of the media in discussing America's fiscal situation.

This includes the entire spectrum of commentary, from the usual suspects on MSNBC to Fox News Sunday.

10. The President's desired tax hikes -- raising taxes on "the rich", those with an income over $200,000 ($250,000 for married couples) -- would pay for just 8 days of the federal government's operation.

9. The President's one-time, emergency Stimulus package of around $900 billion, passed in 2009, became part of the baseline federal budget and has been spent every year since.

8. According to The Wharton School, "The federal government ran annual deficits well above $1 trillion in 2009, 2010 and 2011... the largest deficits since World War II" as a percentage of GDP.

7. The federal government is spending so much more than it takes in that it is now forced to borrow 42 cents of every dollar it spends. This is an unsustainable rate -- and higher taxes do nothing to limit spending.

6. The Federal Reserve is now buying nearly all (90 percent-plus) of the United States' newly issued debt in order to keep interest rates artificially low. In other words, the federal government is essentially loaning itself money by printing what it needs.

5. Again, according to Wharton, "Rising rates would cause severe problems for the U.S. government. The bulk of Treasury bonds in circulation have maturities of less than five years, which will require existing debt to be refinanced with new debt at higher interest rates. That will increase the government's debt-service costs."

4. Even under a best case scenario -- one in which interest rates gently rise to historically normative levels -- the U.S. will be forced to pay $5 trillion in interest payments alone over the next decade. Under other scenarios, the federal government would simply have to default on its obligations.

3. A recent conference of experts explored the ramifications of a federal default. In short:

Trillions of dollars of losses would roar through the world economy like a tsunami, damaging Treasury investors, including governments, corporations, pension and insurance funds, individual investors and people who own mutual funds. Panic would undoubtedly harm other types of investments as well, including stocks and real estate. And if the government wanted to borrow in the future, as it most likely would at some point, it would have to pay much higher yields to attract investors. As higher rates worked through the markets, state and local governments, corporations, homebuyers and other consumers would face higher rates as well.

2. A Treasury default would be so devastating that the entire financial sector could well be obliterated.

1. In the words of investor Kyle Bass, "The developed world faces a day of reckoning. It is time to act."

Where are the adults?

We face a real fiscal cliff; not the one you hear about from the talking heads, but a collapse that will devastate seniors, the poor and urban centers most of all.

And there doesn't appear to be a single pundit or politician capable of explaining this impending disaster.


Infographic: Addogram.

WHAT, ME WORRY? White House Chef Travels to Hawaii to Help Cater Presidential Vacation

When details of the Obama family's 20-day, $4 million vacation were recently revealed, one crucial aspect was omitted: the President is flying the White House chef to Hawaii.

President Obama’s vacation in paradise includes an element that may be making his time there even more fulfilling: the White House chef.

Sam Kass, the tasty-health-food guru the Obamas added to the White House kitchen in 2009 – they didn’t fire the old chef, just added a second – revealed his presence in Hawaii Saturday when he showed up on the golf course with the president.

It’s not clear if Kass hopped a ride aboard Air Force One or if he is staying with the Obamas and cooking for them. But it wouldn’t be surprising, given that he was their personal chef in Chicago for two years before moving to Washington to continue preparing their meals.

Nevertheless, the Obamas dined out with friends last night, heading to one of their favorite hangouts, the high-end Japanese fusion restaurant Morimoto.

Fortunately, there are no pressing matters of concern that need to be resolved before the end of the year, certainly none that would require the President's presence in Washington.


Saturday, December 22, 2012

NOSTALGIA: My Favorite Food Stamp Tweets of December

But there's nothing to cut.



But, hey: let's get a few more trillion in debt. What could go wrong?


S*** JUST GOT REAL: The 10 Most Terrifying Economic Numbers

The modern progressive movement has no understanding -- zero comprehension -- of how bad things are going to get when the inevitable federal default occurs. Borrowing 42 cents of every dollar you spend only works for so long.

And when interest rates climb, as they inevitably will, a default on the federal debt is all but certain. After the subsequent financial reckoning, the deep blue cities that blithely support economic illiteracy will be among the hardest hit.

Tyler Durden, one of the few voices for sanity in a world headed for economic suicide, lists 75 ominous economic stats. My personal top ten:

10. In December 2008, 31.6 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, a new all-time record of 47.7 million Americans are on food stamps. That number has increased by more than 50 percent over the past four years, and yet the mainstream media still has the gall to insist that “things are getting better”.

9. Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today, about one out of every 6.5 Americans is on food stamps.

8. Median household income in the U.S. has fallen for four consecutive years. Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.

7. When you total up all working age Americans that do not have a job in America today, it comes to more than 100 million.

6. Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either “low income” or impoverished.

5. Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percentof all men in the United States have jobs.

4. The average amount of time that an unemployed worker stays out of work in the United States is 40 weeks.

3. An all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial assistance from the federal government. Back in 1983, that number was less than 30 percent.

2. When you account for all government transfer payments and all forms of government employment, more than half of all Americans are now at least partially financially dependent on the government.

1. It is being projected that half of all American children will be on food stamps at least once before they turn 18 years of age.

But we're in a recovery! The people have spoken! Forward!


Image: @NF3L.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

BEFORE AND AFTER: Capitalism vs. Socialism

Der Spiegel has a startling series of before and after shots of buildings and towns in East Germany. The original photos were taken just after the fall of the Berlin wall and now some 20 years later.


Every person who voted for Barack Obama in November elected to move America closer to the first photograph.


Hat tip: Whale Oil.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

SEASONS GREETINGS FROM BARACK O'BOEHNER

Relayed by The Looking Spoon.


And could someone please -- pretty please? -- ask John Boehner to stop negotiating with himself?


10 Reasons the University as We Know It is Doomed

Culled from an excellent article at The American Interest (hat tip: BadBlue).

10. In fifty years, if not much sooner, half of the roughly 4,500 colleges and universities now operating in the United States will have ceased to exist. The technology driving this change is already at work, and nothing can stop it.

9. MIT is the first elite university to offer a credential for students who complete its free, open-source online courses. (The certificate of completion requires a small fee.) For the first time, students can do more than simply watch free lectures; they can gain a marketable credential—something that could help secure a raise or a better job. While edX won’t offer traditional academic credits, Harvard and MIT have announced that “certificates of mastery” will be available for those who complete the online courses and can demonstrate knowledge of course material. The arrival of credentials, backed by respected universities, eliminates one of the last remaining obstacles to the widespread adoption of low-cost online education.

8. In 2007 Princeton completed construction on a new $136 million luxury dormitory for its students—all part of an effort to expand its undergraduate enrollment. Last year Yale finalized plans to build new residential dormitories at a combined cost of $600 million. The expansion will increase the size of Yale’s undergraduate population by about 1,000. The project is so expensive that Yale could actually buy a three-bedroom home in New Haven for every new student it is bringing in and still save $100 million... What these universities are doing is pure folly, akin to building a compact disc factory in the late 1990s. They are investing in a model that is on its way to obsolescence. If these universities understood the changes that lie ahead, they would be selling off real estate, not buying it—unless they prefer being landlords to being educators.

7. The biggest obstacle to the rapid adoption of low-cost, open-source education in America is that many of the stakeholders make a very handsome living off the system as is. In 2009, 36 college presidents made more than $1 million. That’s in the middle of a recession, when most campuses were facing severe budget cuts. This makes them rather conservative when it comes to the politics of higher education, in sharp contrast to their usual leftwing political bias in other areas.

6. Student loan debt is at an all-time high—an average of more than $23,000 per graduate by some counts—and tuition costs continue to rise at a rate far outpacing inflation, as they have for decades. Credential inflation is devaluing the college degree, making graduate degrees, and the greater debt required to pay for them, increasingly necessary for many people to maintain the standard of living they experienced growing up in their parents’ homes.

5. The live lecture will be replaced by streaming video. The administration of exams and exchange of coursework over the internet will become the norm. The push and pull of academic exchange will take place mainly in interactive online spaces, occupied by a new generation of tablet-toting, hyper-connected youth who already spend much of their lives online. Universities will extend their reach to students around the world, unbounded by geography or even by time zones. All of this will be on offer, too, at a fraction of the cost of a traditional college education.

4. Recent history shows us that the internet is a great destroyer of any traditional business that relies on the sale of information... The higher-ed business is in for a lot of pain as a new era of creative destruction produces a merciless shakeout of those institutions that adapt and prosper from those that stall and die. Meanwhile, students themselves are in for a golden age, characterized by near-universal access to the highest quality teaching and scholarship at a minimal cost. The changes ahead will ultimately bring about the most beneficial, most efficient and most equitable access to education that the world has ever seen.

3. Technology will also bring future students an array of new choices about how to build and customize their educations. Power is shifting away from selective university admissions officers into the hands of educational consumers, who will soon have their choice of attending virtually any university in the world online. This will dramatically increase competition among universities. Prestigious institutions, especially those few extremely well-endowed ones with money to buffer and finance change, will be in a position to dominate this virtual, global educational marketplace. The bottom feeders—the for-profit colleges and low-level public and non-profit colleges—will disappear or turn into the equivalent of vocational training institutes. Universities of all ranks below the very top will engage each other in an all-out war of survival. In this war, big-budget universities carrying large transactional costs stand to lose the most. Smaller, more nimble institutions with sound leadership will do best.

2. What happens when a limited supply of a sought-after commodity suddenly becomes unlimited? Prices fall. Yet here, on the cusp of a new era of online education, that is a financial reality that few American universities are prepared to face.

1. The most important part of the college bubble story—the one we will soon be hearing much more about—concerns the impending financial collapse of numerous private colleges and universities and the likely shrinkage of many public ones. And when that bubble bursts, it will end a system of higher education that, for all of its history, has been steeped in a culture of exclusivity. Then we’ll see the birth of something entirely new as we accept one central and unavoidable fact: The college classroom is about to go virtual.

Big changes are coming, and old attitudes and business models are set to collapse as new ones rise. Few who will be affected by the changes ahead are aware of what’s coming. Severe financial contraction in the higher-ed industry is on the way, and for many this will spell hard times both financially and personally. But if our goal is educating as many students as possible, as well as possible, as affordably as possible, then the end of the university as we know it is nothing to fear. Indeed, it’s something to celebrate.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

THE END IS NEAR: 10 Terrifying Truths About the National Debt

Offering a long-term perspective on the debt and deficit, Tyler Durden presents a graph tracking the ratios throughout American history. The takeaways are anything but positive:

10. Beginning with the Anglo-American war of 1812, and continuing through the US civil war, World War I and World War II, the major military shocks to the US fiscal system are clearly obvious.

9. Just as obvious is the impact of not only The Great Moderation which started in the early 1980s just before the 1987 arrival of Alan Greenspan at the helm of the Fed, which allowed the US to exchange fiscal prudence for ever cheaper debt which could and would be used to fund an ever greater budget deficit, and lead to a surge in the Federal debt.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

No Way Out [Peter Schiff]

Guest Post by Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital:

By upping the ante once again in its gamble to revive the lethargic economy through monetary action, the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee is now compelling the rest of us to buy into a game that we may not be able to afford. At his press conference this week, Fed Chairman Bernanke explained how the easiest policy stance in Fed history has just gotten that much easier. First it gave us zero interest rates, then QEs I and II, Operation Twist, and finally "unlimited" QE3.

Now that those moves have failed to deliver economic health, the Fed has doubled the size of its open-ended money printing and has announced a program of data flexibility that virtually insures that they will never bump into limitations, until it's too late. Although their new policies will create numerous long-term challenges for the economy, the biggest near-term challenge for the Fed will be how to keep the momentum going by upping the ante even higher their next meeting.

The big news is that the Fed is now doubling the amount of money it is printing. In addition to its ongoing $40 billion per month of mortgage backed securities (to stimulate housing), it will now buy $45 billion per month of Treasury debt. The latter program replaces Operation Twist, which had used proceeds from the sales of short-term treasuries to finance the purchase of longer yielding paper. The problem is the Fed has already blown through its short-term inventory, so the new buying will be pure balance sheet expansion.

To cloak these shockingly accommodative moves in the garb of moderation, the Fed announced that future policy decisions will be put on automatic pilot by pegging liquidity withdrawal to two sets of economic data. By committing to tightening policy if either unemployment falls below 6.5% or if inflation goes higher than 2.5%, Bernanke is likely looking to silence fears that the Fed will stay too loose for too long. While these statistical benchmarks would be too accommodative even if they were rigidly enforced, the goalposts have been specifically designed to be completely movable, and hence essentially meaningless.

Friday, December 14, 2012

BUMMER: Most States Say No to Health Care Exchanges

Leftist tools hardest hit:

Facing Deadline, Most States Say No To Running Their Own Insurance Exchanges


The Obama administration will have to build and operate online health insurance markets for more than 30 states, something few expected when the federal health law was approved in 2010.

With today’s deadline hours away, only 18 states and the District of Columbia had proposed running their own insurance markets, also known as exchanges, a key vehicle under the law to expand health coverage to an estimated 23 million people over next four years.

“Most analysts did not anticipate that the federal government would end up playing such a big role in the operation of exchanges nationwide,” said Carolyn Pearson, a director at the Washington, D.C., consulting firm Avalere Health.

When President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, the option to have the federal government run the state markets was seen as a backstop. Administration officials have repeatedly said they hoped most states would run the markets themselves because they know their insurance markets best.

Most experts thought only states with small populations such as Delaware or Montana would seek federal help. Instead, most will rely on the federal government — including two of the most populous states, Texas and Florida, which together account for nearly 20 percent of nation’s uninsured. By law, the state exchanges must be approved by the federal government by Jan. 1, begin enrollment next October and have coverage take effect Jan. 1, 2014.

...For consumers, the new exchanges will operate similarly to online travel Internet sites Expedia and Orbitz in helping people compare benefits and prices. But the exchanges will also have broad powers to determine which plans are available and the types of benefits offered. They will also determine who is eligible for federal subsidies as well as Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor.

Did you notice the two highlighted quotes?

By law, the state exchanges must ... have coverage take effect Jan. 1, 2014 - the federal government? Operating under a strict deadline? Hahahahhahahhahhhaa. Hold on, I'll get the popcorn.

For consumers, the new exchanges will operate similarly to online travel Internet sites Expedia and Orbitz... - Right. The new exchanges will operate like Internet startups forged in the crucible of brutal, daily competition -- something government, uhm, excels at.

The cluster that is Obamacare will be entertaining in one respect: betting how much of it collapses under its own weight as the central planners all scramble to avoid blame.


Wednesday, December 12, 2012

DO YOU EAT? These charts should make you nervous

You may remember the last time food prices spiked: the entire Middle East exploded in an inferno of Muslim Brotherhood-fueled unrest. Democrats and the media -- but I repeat myself -- called it the "Arab Spring".

Not to get you overly paranoid or anything, but the race to devalue global currencies -- spearheaded by one Ben Bernanke and his magical printing press -- is touching off more inflation in food prices as evidenced here and here:



Now that the Federal Reserve has monetized trillions in debt, it's safe to say that there is no viable exit strategy. Other than inflation and/or economic collapse, that is.



THE NEGOTIATION: Selling John Boehner a Car

Salesman: Welcome to District Chevrolet, can I help you with something?

Boehner: Lookin' for a sedan (*cough*). One with four doors.

S: Power ashtrays?

B: You know it, sonny.

S: How much you lookin' to spend?

B: Ehhh, unnngh, maybe... six... six hunnert a month, tops.

S: Well, we have several sedans in that price range. How much you lookin' to put down?


B: Fifteen grand, tops.

S: How 'bout mileage? Good gas mileage important for ya?

B: Damn straight it is.

S: Well, based on those precise criteria, I got just the ride for you then. This beauty right here (points to a shiny black sedan) is the 2012 Chevrolet Volt, which by most accounts is a collector's item.

B: I thought you couldn't sell any of those things.

S: That's a damn lie! Eh, pardon my French, sir, but we get that a lot. The Volt is one of our top sellers, plus they fixed the kersplodin' battery problem and the melting power cord issue, best we can tell.

B: You say it's a collector's item?

S: That's what all, eh, most, uhm, some of the, er, experts say.

B: Must say it looks purty sweet. What's one of these bad boys run?

S: Well, with a fifteen grand down payment... (whips out calculator, starts clicking keys)... 'bout $675 a month.

B: Hot damn, that's pretty close to what I wanted.

S: Tell you what (looks to either side, starts talking in a hushed voice)... you look like a real pro at negotiating --

B: Damn straight.

S: Don't tell my manager, but I can get you into the Deluxe model for an extra $14 a month if you sign tonight.

B: What's on the Deluxe model?

S: Couple of really nice items: you get the rustproof undercoating and the luxury, deluxe floor mats in plush velour. Softest damn floor mats in the world, guaranteed.

B: Sounds pretty good. You sure it's only $14 extra a month?

S: Like I said, don't tell my manager.

B: Hell, I won't! Do I look like a punk to you? I can smell a good deal when I see one.

S: Alright! You wanna me to write this puppy up? I got another guy who was lookin' at this car an hour ago and just went to get his wife...

B: Well, hell -- I better do it. Why don't you write it up.

S: Sure, enough. You can't get a better 84-month lease deal than this one, as far as you know.

B: Just hurry up. That other guy may come back with his freaking wife!


Tuesday, December 11, 2012

WANTED PHOTOS: The Union Thug Who Tried to Kill Steven Crowder

Fox News contributor Steven Crowder was in Michigan today to record the pro-slavery protests orchestrated by the same union bosses who've economically obliterated Detroit. The death threats and physical violence were just what we've come to expect from the Marxist-aligned Leftists:

...the crowd started tearing down the AFP [Americans For Prosperity] tent that was there. When Crowder attempted to intervene, he was assaulted by multiple protesters with one ... shouting that he would "kill a mother f***er with a gun..."






Do you know this douche? Dana Loesch has a donation page where you can contribute to a reward to find and charge the assailant.


Update: UNION THUG Who Beat Steven Crowder ID’ed – His Name Is Tony Cummings.

Monday, December 10, 2012

BUT MELVIN, HE'S SO HISTORIC: Obamacare Triggers Record Leap in Unemployment and Underemployment to 17.2%

Is it safe to say that we're in a full-blown depression now? I think so.

Gallup's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 8.3% for November, up nearly one percentage-point over October's rate. Gallup's underemployment jumped from 15.9% to 17.2%...


...Gallup did not offer reasons for this shift but I suspect two.

1. Large numbers of part-time workers were hired as a direct result of Obamacare in September and October.
2. Additional seasonal workers were hired early.

...In the BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] report, the labor force magically shrunk by 350,000 artificially lowering the unemployment rate. No such thing happened in the Gallup survey for the unemployment rate to blast .9 percentage points higher.

Regardless of "why", if the latest Gallup survey is correct, expect to see jumps in the BLS unemployment rate in the coming months.

I wonder at what point the JFK and Reagan Democrats will finally realize that this administration has no interest in fixing the economy.



Sunday, December 09, 2012

CHARTING A GRIM MILESTONE: Federal Government Now Borrows 46 Cents of Every Dollar It Spends

Is there a single Democrat with virtue who will decry this madness? Is there a single Democrat who will condemn this unfolding economic catastrophe?

The federal government borrowed 46 cents of every dollar it has spent so far in fiscal 2013, which began Oct. 1, according to the latest data the Congressional Budget Office released Friday.


The government notched a $172 billion deficit in November, and is already nearly $300 billion in the hole through the first two months of fiscal year 2013, underscoring just how deep the government’s budget problems are as lawmakers try to negotiate a year-end deal to avoid a budgetary “fiscal cliff.”

Higher spending on mandatory items such as Social Security, Medicare and interest on the debt led the way in boosting spending compared with the previous year, which also highlights the trouble spots Congress and President Obama are struggling to grapple with.

...The government is poised to post another $1 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2013, which would mark the fifth straight year. Before that, the record was $438 billion, which came in 2008, President George W. Bush’s last full year in office.

Is there a single Democrat with virtue remaining in Washington?


Hat tip: Mark Levin.

Saturday, December 08, 2012

TAXING "THE RICH" WORKING OUT SWIMMINGLY IN CALIFORNIA: Revenues to State Fall 10 Percent

Who could have predicted such a phenomenon?

California ... state revenue for the month of November 2012 fell $806.8 million, or 10.8%, below budget.

Democrats thought they could hammer “the rich” by convincing voters to pass Proposition 30 to create the highest state income tax in the nation.

But it now appears that high income earners have already “voted with their feet” by moving themselves and their businesses out of state, resulting in over $1 billion shortfall in corporate and income taxes last month and the beginning of a new financial crisis.

Passage of Proposition 30 set off euphoria and expectations of higher spending for public employees. The California Teachers’ Association (CTA) trumpeted: "California students and working families won a clear victory today as voters clearly demonstrated their willingness to invest in our public schools and colleges and also rejected a deceptive ballot measure aimed at silencing educators, other workers and their unions.”

State bureaucrats immediately ramped up deficit spending far beyond the state's $6 billion annual tax increase, with the Departments of Health Services and Developmental Services increasing this month’s spending by over $1 billion versus last year. The lower tax collection and higher spending drove the State’s deficit after the tax increase to $2.7 billion for the first 5 months of this fiscal year...

Who could have predicted such a phenomenon?

Oh, wait. I did. Just three short weeks ago*.


*See: DELUSIONAL: California Predicts Budget Surplus in 2014 Thanks to Tax Hikes, Anti-Business Regulations.