Showing posts with label Reid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reid. Show all posts

Friday, July 17, 2009

The CBO's Greatest Hits


At his blog, the director of the Congressional Budget Office weighs in on the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Path To Economic Utopia™.


His most notable quotes include:

"the federal budget is on an unsustainable path"

"would depress economic growth in the United States"

"would cause substantial harm to the economy"

"CBO estimates that in fiscal years 2009 and 2010, the federal government will record its largest budget deficits as a share of GDP since shortly after World War II."

"This higher debt results in permanently higher spending to pay interest on that debt."

Gee, that sounds familiar.

Where do you liberals draw the line? How much federal government is enough for you? 60% of your income in taxes? 70%?

Or just North Korea-style? Their carbon footprint is very low and their health care is free!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Asset Manager: Social Security checks may be at risk this year, thanks to Obamanomics


In one of their "special reports", Sprot Asset Management offers a horrific assessment of this year's Democrat spending frenzy.

In fiscal 2009, the United States must find buyers for almost three times the debt that was issued last year...


...Given the current state of the economy, it seems frighteningly apparent that a threefold increase in debt purchases by the account holders listed above is a mathematical impossibility. There is simply not enough money in the present economy to support a tripling bond issue in the normal course of business...

...‘Foreign and International Holders’... accounts for the largest source of external capital for US debt purchases and represents a very important group to float the deficit. ...Thus far, they have only purchased $465 billion to March 2009, which is halfway through US fiscal year - and well behind the pace needed to triple last year’s purchases... In fact, April Treasury data revealed that ‘Foreign and International Holders’ were net sellers of US debt from March to April 2009. This is not surprising given the public comments from officials in China, Japan, Russia and Brazil concerning the level of debt issuance by the United States and its potential impact on the US dollar.

...[In summary,] traditional buyers of US debt will be unable to increase their debt purchases this year, so we must question how the United States is going to cover this colossal shortfall... It may not surprise you to learn that the largest percentage owner of US debt is the United States Government itself. Perhaps this doesn’t make immediate sense to some readers, but it is a fact. The debt holdings are held in accounts for the various trust funds the US manages for its future obligations - the largest of which are set aside for Social Security and Medicare... Put simply, there are no real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury, that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, increasing borrowing or reducing expenditures. For all intents and purposes, Social Security and Medicare receipts are essentially considered to be another source of government tax revenue that can be spent each year...

...Obviously this is a very troubling development for the US, and unfortunately it is likely to get worse. This year’s Social Security fund is only expected to balance, which is bad news for the government. Along with Social Security, Medicare is one of the trust funds that should be posting surpluses right now in anticipation of the massive future commitments the retiring Baby Boomers will require. As it stands, Medicare is in an operating deficit in 2009...

...We won’t speculate on what would happen to the Social Security program if new buyers for US debt disappeared, but we should all bear in mind that in that scenario the special-issue ‘IOU’s’ in the “Intragovernmental Holdings” account would be rendered worthless, and the US Government’s social ‘safety net’ would vanish...

...So, after all this, it should be clear by now as to who is going to cover the difference this fiscal year. As the lender of last resort, the only purchaser left is the Federal Reserve. In 2008 they were net sellers of almost $300 billion of bonds, but in the first half of this fiscal year they have been buyers of almost $280 billion of bonds. The Federal Reserve is the lender of last resort and must support the market for US debt. The policy ‘solution’ that the Federal Reserve implemented in March 2009 is called ‘Quantitative Easing’ [QE]. Given our projections above, this was not an option for them, but a necessity...


...Rather than stimulate the real economy, the QE program has instead resulted in increasing weakness in the international market for US bonds - the proof of which can be seen in the chart below. Bond investors are running for the exits, and our discussion above confirms what we see in this chart. Traditional buyers of US bonds are now sellers, and they are exercising a non-confidence vote in the US dollar and in US debt...

...The Federal Reserve’s policy of Quantitative Easing is failing. The US budget is ludicrous, spending is out of control, spending promises are out of control, the world knows it - and we know it. For all the pundits who see the economy improving over the next year, we invite you to explain to us how this debt crisis will resolve itself without significant turmoil. We’ve tabulated the numbers above - and they do not lie.

The era of the massive Democrat Ponzi scheme -- e.g., Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- is drawing to a close.

Medicare is bankrupt, underfunded by trillions of dollars and running a deficit years ahead of schedule. Social Security is bankrupt. Medicaid is out of money and crushing state budgets.

So what do the Obama Democrats propose? Nationalizing the entire health care system as a payoff to union bosses.

The Pelosi-Obama-Reid fiscal disaster is about to dissolve the full faith and credit of the currency. And Social Security checks to our seniors, who've worked for decades contributing to a non-existent "trust fund", may be at risk. The extent of criminality involved here makes Bernard Madoff look like a shoplifter.

And the shadow of national bankruptcy looms while President Training Wheels pretends that the falling piano isn't about to land on all of us.


Hat tip: Tyler Durden.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

R.I.P.: The American Health Care System. Died: this week.


The Democrats' War on Poverty is nearly 50 years old, yet we're told there's too much poverty despite trillions in wealth transfers of every type.

The Democrats have run the education system for nearly 100 years -- with monopolies like the NEA and the AFT teacher's unions, yet we consistently hear that education is broken and that schools need more money.

Government was responsible for securing the southern border since the era of LBJ and have intentionally failed; this has led to the presence of as many as 20 million illegal aliens in the country thanks to Johnson's policies including "chain migration".

Democrats were responsible for implementing Medicare and Medicaid, which along with Social Security, are in ruins with approximately $55 trillion in debt. That's nearly a half million dollars for every household in America.

I could go down a long list of things the government said it would do, but hasn't done. Because the Statist Democrats are liars.

And now the Statist Democrats are launching the most massive attack on the American people in the history of government.

They promise health care for everyone, but they will not -- and they can't possibly -- deliver it.

While our health care system is certainly imperfect -- because all humans are imperfect, including doctors, nurses, hospitals and insurance companies -- they are more perfect, more competent, more informed, more capable than all of the bureaucrats to whom they'll be forced to report: a bureaucracy that will make all decisions about your health care.

And it is easy to confirm the havoc that socialized medicine will wreak on American society. All you need to do is to look at how Democrats are trying to ram home socialized medicine: they're doing it as fast as possible with as little debate as possible, using a loophole to slip it through without amendments or consideration.

Democrats claim it will be more cost-effective and efficient. That's bulls***. The man who's had the least experience at running anything is going to unleash the most massive federal leviathan in history.

This has been the dream of the Statist Democrats since FDR: to force each and every one of you, whether you like it or not, into a strait-jacket form of health care. It controls you; the actual being, the person.

Nameless, faceless bureaucrats substituting their decisions for those of your doctor.

Deciding whether you will have an operation or not. Whether you will have an MRI or not. Whether you will receive a life-saving, life-extending drug or not.

And we know this, because this is what occurs in Canada and Britain and other centralized bureaucracies, where you simply can not have access to advanced health care, period.

Where will the new drugs come from, since we produce half of them? Where will the new medical technologies come from, since we invent roughly three-fourths of them?

Who will run the hospitals and what will they look like when the government unions run them?

Who will be responsive in a massive federal bureaucracy, where no one takes responsibility for anything, and yet they're all-powerful decision-makers for your family's well-being?

Where will Barack Obama be in ten years, when the rest of us are struggling with a massive, out-of-control, federalized medical system that doesn't give a damn about individuals and is busy rationing?

He will be retired as a very young man; a very wealthy young man, who will have imposed his Marxist ideology upon this society and then walked away from it.

The politicians don't last. But their policies live forever.

And in every successive election cycle, the Statist Democrats will use the health care system to bludgeon their opponents. They will use health care as a weapon, rewarding you by offering more benefits for your votes and punishing you with less benefits if you dare to vote against them.

So much power for a faceless set of bureaucrats who can't possibly have the best interests of your family in mind. And yet they're going to take those decisions away from you and your doctor. And they've been lying every day to justify what they're doing.

They've been lying about the number of people without health care. They've been lying about whether the public is satisfied with health care. They've been lying about every aspect of health care.

They unleashed the slip-and-fall lawyers on the medical system, causing untold higher costs for medical practitioners. They've attacked the health care system relentlessly, driving up costs just like they've attacked the energy industry and the automakers.

And even when they have complete monopolistic control of a system, like the educational system in America, they want more control. It's never enough. They want more money, more regulations. More. They need to "invest". They need to raise taxes. They need to repress. They need to compel.

Because the Statist cannot make the imperfect perfect, even though he says he can. The Statist is more imperfect than anyone else.

I ask you to consider something: what kind of persons can Obama and the Democrat leadership be, to think they can do these things when history tells them they can not?

What kind of a mind refuses to look at the evidence? What kind of person would refuse to look at Britain and Canada? Or engage in arm-twisting secretly, behind the scenes? And use brownshirts like ACORN and the SEIU to intimidate organizations and legislators alike?

They're going to rush socialized medicine through the system, without any debate or transparency... and it's going to be a complete disaster on multiple levels.

Call the so-called conservative Blue Dog Democrats now. Make your voice heard. Help us stop this rush to disaster.


Based upon: Mark Levin 4/24/09.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Financial Post Editor asks "Is this the End of America?"


Terence Corcoran is the editor of The Financial Post, the oldest of Canada's financial newspapers. Corcoran's most recent op-ed excoriates the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress, asserting that they are "riddled with slapdash, incompetence and gamesmanship":

[The] Federal Reserve is dropping trillions of fresh paper dollars on the world economy, the President of the United States is cracking jokes on late night comedy shows, his energy minister is threatening a trade war over carbon emissions, his treasury secretary is dithering over a banking reform program amid rising concerns over his competence and a monumentally dysfunctional U.S. Congress is launching another public jihad against corporations and bankers.

As an aghast world — from China to Chicago and Chihuahua — watches, the circus-like U.S. political system seems to be declining into near chaos. Through it all, stock and financial markets are paralyzed. The more the policy regime does, the worse the outlook gets. The multi-ringed spectacle raises a disturbing question in many minds: Is this the end of America?

...Reform of health care, environmental policy, education, energy, banking, regulation — every nook and cranny of the U.S. economy has been put on alert for major change. Expansion of government spending, plunging the U.S. into unprecedented deficits, is without parallel. In economic policy, through regulation and control of energy output, financial services and monetary expansion, the U.S. government has embarked on a fundamental reshaping of America. It is designed, in short, to bring on the end of America.

...The total monetary base, already at astronomical levels, is now expected to take another big hit with the new Fed policy of buying up U.S. longer-term treasury bills in a bid to drive down long-term interest rates... For the rest of the world, however, the worry is that America is at risk of becoming the fountainhead of a new inflationary outburst. The U.S. dollar is now in decline, gold is moving sharply higher, and new global currency turmoil is on the horizon...

...A paper just published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, source of the chart above, says that the Fed will have to be prepared to absorb all the excess money it has poured into the U.S. economy. It will be a technical and political challenge unlike any central bank has ever undertaken. The future of America is at stake.

Americans must stop Barack Obama and the Pelosicrats from their program of economic suicide. The alternative is too difficult to contemplate.


Related: St. Louis Federal Reserve: Deficits, Debt and Looming Disaster: Reform of Entitlement Programs May Be the Only Hope.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Above the Law: A Handy Guide to Democrat Corruption


It's getting more difficult by the day to keep track of which Democrats are involved with exactly what corrupt and/or ethically challenged activities. Earlier this week, YANSID (my handy new acronym that means "yet another new scandal involving Democrats") was discovered.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and her husband own as much as $500,000 in stock of the troubled OneUnited Bank. In a direct conflict-of-interest, she intervened with regulators on behalf of the bank. Ed Morrissey asks the rhetorical question: "Did Americans go deep into debt to send bailout money to politically-connected banks and to prop up the investment portfolios of elected officials? Apparently, yes we did."

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) engaged in a relationship with a Fannie Mae executive while supposedly overseeing the GSE. Fannie's meltdown -- amid repeated financial scandals and Frank's fierce fight to shield them from regulators -- played a critical role in the financial crisis.

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT), the powerful Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, threatened filibuster after filibuster over additional regulation of the mortgage market while accepting funds and sweetheart mortgages from the very organizations he was supposed to be regulating. In fact, Dodd has yet to disclose the nature of his personal loan deals, despite having promised to do so months ago.

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, appears to be the subject of 32 simultaneous ethics issues or investigations including 28 mysterious asset transfers (prohibited by House rules); undisclosed income from his Costa Rican rental property; multiple violations of New York City rent control statutes; killing a tax increase that would have hurt a contributor; and more.

Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), dubbed "the overnight millionaire," is in the news again. He received his nickname because in 2000 Mollohan had no portfolio to speak of while making less than $80K a year. By 2004, he reported having at least $6.3 million in assets that generated income of somewhere around $700K annually. Earlier this week, it was reported that a non-profit funded by Mollohan (with the taxpayers' money, of course) had provided his family with $75,000 in free rent and services.

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), an unindicted co-conspirator from the Abscam days, has had several ethical clouds hanging over his head for decades. The latest theft of taxpayer money is especially disturbing: Over the course of the past decade, Rep. John P. Murtha has earmarked millions of dollars for the Electro-Optics Center at Penn State University — money that has, in turn, gone to clients of the PMA Group, the Murtha-linked lobbying shop that was raided in November as part of a federal criminal probe..

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), a member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, helped award $3.7 billion to companies controlled by her hsuband. Despite an obvious conflict of interest, Feinstein voted for appropriations "worth billions to her husband's firms."

Sen. Harry "Land Deal" Reid (D-NV), the Senate Majority Leader, collected a $1.1 million windfall profit on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't owned the property for at least three years. Reid also did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company. The AP learned of the land deal from a former Reid aide who was concerned that the deal had been "hidden from Congress."

Just remember, peons: these jamokes are all still serving in Congress -- without a care in the world -- because they are above the law. They are royalty, not rabble (like you and I). Sure, if any one of us normal folks had pulled this type of chicanery, we'd be serving ten years in the big house. But these are our Lords, our betters. Remember that, peons.

Update: Culture of corruption: Michelle Malkin details Maxine Waters' egregious behavior.

Linked by: Jawa Report, Public Secrets and Carnal Reason. Thanks!



Thursday, February 26, 2009

The Wisdom of Crowds and Obamanomics


In the early twentieth century Francis Galton witnessed a contest at a county fair. Asked to estimate the weight of a prize ox, spectators and cattle experts alike submitted their guesses on slips of paper.

After the contest was finished, Galton collected the hundreds of submissions. He painstakingly added them up to determine the average of the crowd's estimates.

He was astounded to discover that the crowd's average was closer to the true weight of the ox than any single guess, including those of the "experts".

This anecdote is one of many related in James Surowiecki's bestselling book The Wisdom of Crowds.

The book's central assertion is that a diverse collection of individuals, each operating independently, is likely to offer better predictions and decisions than individuals, even so-called "experts".

Intrade.com, the well-known prediction market, selected the winner of every single U.S. Senate race in 2006. No "talking head" pundit was able to match this record.

The largest and best known prediction market is the stock market.

A 2007 study by Arnerich & Messina illustrated the stock market's efficiency in stark terms. Since 1994 there have been only two years in which more than 50% of professional money managers were able to beat the S&P 500 index. In 1997 only 11% of managers beat the index.

Over the last year most investors in the equity markets have taken horrific losses. In September -- just a couple of months ago -- the Dow Jones Industrial Average hovered near 12,000. Today it closed at 7,182.

What happened in September? Let's look at the Intrade presidential futures market. The blue line represents the Obama futures while red represents McCain.

If we zoom into the September-to-November timeframe, we'll see something very enlightening. By late September it was increasingly clear to Intrade.com bettors that Obama was going to win the election. From 9/28 to 9/29 Obama's Intrade price went from 57 to 61, which represented a huge jump.

Note what happened to the stock market at nearly the exact same time. Around September 29th the market began its collapse. Mapping the political events to the market's reactions make the effects crystal clear.


Click to zoom

09-29-2008 (Dow: 10365) - Obama takes final lead of race.
11-04-2008 (Dow: 9625) - Obama elected President of United States.
11-24-2008 (Dow: 8443) - Obama announces his economic team.
01-20-2009 (Dow: 7949) - Obama inaugurated.
02-09-2009 (Dow: 8270) - Word of TARP II released by the administration.
02-18-2009 (Dow: 7555) - Obama announces housing bailout plan.
02-24-2009 (Dow: 7351) - Obama announces FY09 budget (with 9,000 earmarks).
02-26-2009 (Dow: 7182) - Today

Put simply, the markets have reacted with expected fury to Obama's promises of economic "fairness", "spreading the wealth" and raising taxes on the job creators of society.

This thinly disguised form of class warfare, the policies of which many have termed socialism (fairly or unfairly), has had an indelible impact on the markets.

The markets represent the ultimate collective intelligence engine on the planet.


The markets continue to predict the outcome of Barack Obama's failed economic policies. That's why many now call him "The Depression President".

Sorry, drones. There are no do-overs.

Update: Denny says the future is dire. I'm not quite so pessimistic, but any recovery will be delayed and muted by the Marxist policies of today's MoveOn-dominated Democrats.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Getting ready for 2010


Did you know that both Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Harry Reid (D-NV) are up for reelection in 2010? Well, my posters are ready.




This pair of sewer trout need a serious plunging.