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

Friday, September 04, 2009

Gee, Nancy, I wonder which works best: tax cuts or 'stimulus'?


Compare and contrast: the results of across-the-board tax cuts (the Bush tax cuts after the economically devastating 9/11 attacks) versus the Obama deficit-spending frenzy.

Unemployment just hit 9.7% and most economists are predicting 10%+ in 2010.

And don't forget: we're all due for a major tax hike come January 1st when the Bush tax cuts expire. That should really put the cherry on the top of the economy.


Hat tip: Chart of the Day.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Harry Reid's Bullying Tactics Called Out By Nevada's Largest Newspaper


The publisher of Nevada's largest newspaper, Sherman Frederick, unleashed a scathing account of an incident involving Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

On Wednesday, before he addressed a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Reid joined the chamber's board members for a meet-'n'-greet and a photo. One of the last in line was the Review-Journal's director of advertising, Bob Brown, a hard-working Nevadan who toils every day on behalf of advertisers. He has nothing to do with news coverage or the opinion pages of the Review-Journal.

Yet, as Bob shook hands with our senior U.S. senator in what should have been nothing but a gracious business setting, Reid said: "I hope you go out of business."

Later, during his public speech, Reid again referenced the Las Vegas Review-Journal and his hopes that it suffers an economic calamity.

The paper's perceived crimes? It published public opinion polls that show Reid trailing GOP challenger Danny Tarkanian by double digits.

Frederick refuses to be bullied by Reid:

Such behavior cannot go unchallenged.

You could call Reid's remark ugly and be right. It certainly was boorish. Asinine? That goes without saying.

But to fully capture the magnitude of Reid's remark (and to stop him from doing the same thing to others) it must be called what it was -- a full-on threat perpetrated by a bully who has forgotten that he was elected to office to protect Nevadans, not sound like he's shaking them down.

No citizen should expect this kind of behavior from a U.S. senator. It is certainly not becoming of a man who is the majority leader in the U.S. Senate. And it absolutely is not what anyone would expect from a man who now asks Nevadans to send him back to the Senate for a fifth term.

If he thinks he can push the state's largest newspaper around by exacting some kind of economic punishment in retaliation for not seeing eye to eye with him on matters of politics, I can only imagine how he pressures businesses and individuals who don't have the wherewithal of the Review-Journal.

It goes without saying that the unaccountable, "ethically challenged" leadership of the Democrat Party is capable of anything when it comes to getting their way. This, remember, is the party of ACORN, dead voters, and paying for votes with crack cocaine.

To his credit, Frederick is having none of it.

For the sake of all who live and work in Nevada, we can't let this bully behavior pass without calling out Sen. Reid. If he'll try it with the Review-Journal, you can bet that he's tried it with others. So today, we serve notice on Sen. Reid that this creepy tactic will not be tolerated.

We won't allow you to bully us. And if you try it with anyone else, count on going through us first.

That's a promise, not a threat.

And it's a promise to our readers, not to you, Sen. Reid.

People of Nevada, Harry "Land Deal" Reid no more represents your interests than he does the life forms on Betelgeuse. You need to kick his butt out of office in 2010 and find someone who actually cares about Nevada... and the citizens of the United States.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Conor Friedersdorf can't see the Statists for the Forest


Writing at The Atlantic, journalist Conor Friedersdorf reviews Mark Levin's bestselling Liberty & Tyranny. I'll give him credit; at least Friedersdorf has dared to tread where virtually every mainstream media outlet has not: in a direct exchange of fire with a towering intellect.

Friedersdorf (or 'Dorf' as I like to call him, mainly because I get tired of typing his full name) argues that Levin's argument is flawed at its core. Dorf says that the "Statist" is a straw-man -- a mirage created out of whole cloth by Levin for the purpose of advancing his argument. By the way, I just saved you from having to read the entire review.

Dorf's assertion is that, "Hey, the Democrats can't be Statists, because most of the people who vote for them are independents or just left of center!"

Now, consider, Dorf: had Obama actually described his agenda -- that he would escalate partisanship to an exquisite form of art; that he would nationalize the auto companies; that he would employ dozens of lobbyists in his administration; that he would destroy the full faith and credit of the U.S. currency; that he would quadruple the national debt in six months' time; that he would send billions to criminal front groups like ACORN; that he would send his SecTreas, hat in hand, to beg the Chinese to continue purchasing our debt...

Well, Dorf, had Obama told the truth, we'd be hearing weekly radio addresses from President John McCain and watching his Secretary of State, Lindsay 'Goober' Graham, deplane in Geneva.

Amazing: Dorf can't see the Statists while Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Waters, Feinstein, Rangel and the like -- the most corrupt federal government since the Clinton era -- nationalize industry after industry.

Dorf can't find any Statists while the Democrat leadership positions themselves to take over the coal, gas and oil companies with Cap-and-Trade.

Dorf can't find any Statists while the Democrat leadership proposes to ram socialized medicine down the unwilling throats of the American people even though it has been exposed as a transparent payoff to the trial lawyers and the public sector unions.

Why did so many everyday Americans support Obama? Because the Democrat lies, incessantly and masterfully, throughout each of his campaigns.

But that's too difficult a concept for Dorf to understand. So there is no joy at The Atlantic, because pathetic Friedersdorf has struck out.


Update: Reader CJ emails, "I posted the following comment at Balloon Juice, the whack-a-doodle National Socialist Democrat site who couldn't squeeze out even a thimble's worth of intellectual honesty in reviewing (no, not Levin's book), the Friedersdorf review of the book. Now there's one thing I most respect about your site... everyone is allowed to comment! So check out my Balloon Juice comment that was so offensive, so radical, so outrageous, that the authors refused to even allow to appear."

Interesting thread.

Mark Levin's book, should any of you actually bother to read it, describes the philosophers who influenced the founders of this country. Why?

Because starting with Cicero, Montescue (sp?), Burke, Locke, Smith and others, the framers (Madison, Jay and many others) carefully constructed a constitution that would balance the powers not only between the three branches but also between the states and the federal government.

It is easy to forget that the states created the federal government... not the other way around. And the founders had just revolted against (and defeated) an unchecked, authoritarian, unaccountable centralized government.

The framers' central task was simple: protect the God-given rights of the individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness... from a government similar to the one they had warred against.

Consider what James Madison might say today, having observed the liberals' casual attempts to control virtually every aspect of our lives at the federal level: your health care; your toilet's water tank; your car; your home heating bill; your light bulbs; ...

The framers and today's conservatives are ideologically aligned.

The framers and today's liberals are ideologically opposed.

And it takes a great deal of hubris to discard Levin's argument without a whit of analysis. But that's what passes for intellectual honesty around these parts, I suppose.

Ballon Juice, eh? That's the same crew that couldn't add straight.

Update: Stacy McCain says Friedersdork's attack on Levin isn't worth the seventeen minutes of my time: "It's as if a gnat [Friedersdork] were attempting to rape an elephant. Why bother defending the elephant against an assailant whose ill-considered attack the intended victim probably won't even notice?" Uhm, because it's there? Further update: Dan Riehl and Jimmie open a can of you-know-what on poor Conor, who won't be revisiting these parts anytime soon.


Friday, August 28, 2009

British patients sue over 33% failure rate for operations


Today's London Daily Mail reports:

Patients suing hospital botched ops horror

A hospital which flew in Scandinavian surgeons to reduce waiting times is being sued after it was alleged that one third of the operations carried out were botched.

Surgeons from Sweden, Denmark and Finland were flown into Britain between 2003 and 2006 as part of a £3million scheme to speed up hip and knee replacements... But concerns were raised about the quality of the work carried out and many patients fear the surgeons were insufficiently trained or skilled...

Gee, grandpa -- I can't wait for government-run health care, can you?

Look on the bright side: it was only one in three!


Update: Government health care is not moral.


Hat tip: Tiger.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Government Spending: Please Sit Down Before Reading This One


To put the Obama-Pelosi-Reid spending frenzy into historical perspective, I turn to this graph, culled from Grant's Interest Rate Observer, dated August 21, 2009:


No government in the history of the world has engaged in this kind of orgiastic spending spree. The results thus far?

Prime mortgages (those issued to borrowers with the highest qualifications) are defaulting at an unprecedented rate.

And, in every loan category, losses are demolishing the balance sheets of financial institutions.

Over the last two years, mutual fund assets under management have diminished by 20% annually.

On the February earnings call, James E. Rohr, PNC’s chairman and CEO, sounded as cheerful as Barack Obama used to before he took office. “We’ve been open for business throughout this period by adhering to our business model and leveraging our success at building long-term relationships with our clients, and by allocating capital based upon risk-adjusted returns, we’ve delivered significant value to the shareholders over time.”

So far as the dividend is concerned, there will be 85% less of it, PNC disclosed on Monday, suggesting it was the regulators’ idea. Up til then, the Pittsburgh-based super-regional had been on the offensive. At the end of December, it doubled its customer base by swallowing Cleveland’s National City Bank for $5.6 billion of stock and an odd lot of cash. The combined entity shows $291 billion in assets, $175 billion in loans and $193 billion in deposits. It has a 33% ownership stake in Black-
Rock, a capital-markets business and a custody business. Nonperformers stand at 74 basis points of total assets, and the allowance for bad loans covers 236% of known duds. National City was choking on bad loans, home-equity credits among others, and PNC was able to mark some of these assets as low as 42 cents on the dollar.

Come the turn, shareholders will thank CEO Rohr for his courage and foresight in buying low. Pending that happy event, however, they will have to live with the possibility that Rohr did not, in fact, buy low, but rather, like so many others on Wall Street, mistook a calamity for a business cycle. As the regulators count capital, PNC is amply covered, with a so-called Tier 1 ratio of capital (equity and preferred) to assets of 9.7%. But the market puts no more stock in the bank regulators these days than it does in the ratings agencies, and the market is focused on tangible common equity. Preferred doesn’t count. “Owing to the National City acquisition,” colleague Ian McCulley observes, “PNC has a tangible common equity ratio of just 2.9%. Asked on last month’s call if another capital raise is in the offing, management was noncommittal...

But don't worry, the vast amount of real world, executive experience among the likes of Frank, Obama, Pelosi, Rangel, Reid and Schumer are certain to lift us out of this mess.

Just trust 'em. They insist they know what they're doing.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

To The Congress


Thanks to GM Roper for forwarding an email that inspired this post:

To the Congress:

The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775 - you have had 234 years to get it right; it is broke.

Social Security was established in 1935 - you have had 74 years to get it right; it is broke.

Fannie Mae was established in 1938 - you have had 71 years to get it right; it is broke.

The "War on Poverty" started in 1964 - you have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor"; it hasn't worked and our entire country is broke.

Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 - you've had 44 years to get it right; they are broke.

Freddie Mac was established in 1970 - you have had 39 years to get it right; it is broke.

Trillions of dollars were spent in the massive political payoffs called TARP, the "Stimulus", the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009... none show any signs of working, although ACORN appears to have found a new b***h: the American taxpayer.

And finally, to set a new record:

"Cash for Clunkers" was established in 2009 and went broke in 2009! It took good dependable cars (that were the best some people could afford) and replaced them with high-priced and less-affordable cars, mostly Japanese. A good percentage of the profits went out of the country. And the American taxpayers take the hit for Congress' generosity in burning three billion more of our dollars on failed experiments.

So with a perfect 100% failure rate and a record that proves that "services" you shove down our throats are failing faster and faster, you want Americans to believe you can be trusted with a government-run health care system?

20% of our entire economy?

With all due respect,

Are you f***ing crazy?




Linked by: SondraK and Cold Fury. Thanks!

Obacalypse Now


Gee, Nancy Schumer-Reid, your secret plan to bankrupt the country is working!

Just add socialized medicine and KA-F***ING-BOOM!!! The end of the line for the United States -- well done!

Gateway Pundit has all of the salient details. And then some.


Sunday, August 23, 2009

Two Perspectives: U.S. Public Debt


Any questions?

I confess to not having read Keynes. I have merely looked at the 11 recessions since World War II, as well as the Great Depression. In that data, there is zero evidence that government spending helps, and some evidence that it hurts...

...Bush's average level of debt was a hair below average, at least up until the beginning of this recent recession. At the end of 2007 it stood at 36.8% of GDP, pretty much where it had been for the previous several decades.

If you want to get really picky, Bush inherited a debt of 35.1% of GDP from Bill Clinton in 2000, and left Obama a debt of 40.8% of GDP in 2008 (per the CBO). There you have it -- the smoking gun! An extra 5.7% of GDP in federal debt held by the public. But most of that came in 2008, a full year of recession.

Per [the Keynesians], President Bush should have spent a lot [more] in 2008. It's the only way to get out of a recession...

...the deficit was $459 B in 2008, the largest in history up to that point in nominal dollars.

Now here is where it gets fun: Obama steps in. The very first year under Obama, 2009, the deficit is expected to be about $1.84 trillion. Here are some fun facts regarding Obama's budgets from 2009 through 2019.

* Obama's first-year deficit, the largest in history, is over four times bigger than George Bush's last deficit, which had been the largest in history up to then.
* Obama's first-year deficit is more than Bush's first seven deficits combined.
* The smallest deficit predicted under Obama's budget from 2009 through 2019 is $658 B, or 43% bigger than Bush's largest deficit, the largest in history up to then.
* Under Obama's budget, deficits exceeding one trillion dollars will occur in four years: 2009, 2010, 2018 and 2019.
* The 10-year cumulative deficit (2010-2019) under Obama's budget will be $9.3 trillion, or an average of almost one trillion per year, more than doubling what it would have been under the laws left by Bush.
* The debt held by the public in 2008, or that left by Bush for Obama, was 40.8% of GDP. In just one year under Obama, after 2009, it will be 56.8%, or the largest since 1955. By 2019 it will be 82.5%, the largest in our history except for the three years of 1945-47, the end of World War II.
* From 2000 to 2008, or the Bush years, the debt held by the public went from 35.1% of GDP to 40.8% -- a 5.7% of GDP increase. By 2016, or a similar period under Obama's budgets, it is expected to reach 77.5% -- a 36.7% of GDP increase.
* Under Obama's budget, the debt held by the public will reach 82.4% of GDP in 2019. That is more than double the average level since 1960 and more than double what Bush left in 2008...

Worse yet, these numbers ignore the "off-the-books" entitlement deficits that, by some estimates, are nearing $100 trillion.

This reckless administration and this reckless Congress are bankrupting the country and endangering the American way of life for our children and grandchildren. The "Stimulus" was a failure. The "special budget appropriations" were a disaster. The Clunkers program was a catastrophe. Health care? Should they get their hands on 20% of the economy, I think we can predict what will happen.

There is no valid, rational argument to explain Democrats' behavior. Think about that statement for a moment. And wait for 2010. Every Democrat must go.


Thursday, August 20, 2009

Pew: Democrat Chickens Come Home To Roost


The disconnect between the Democrats' radical left leadership and American taxpayers becomes more apparent by the day. The latest from Pew Research confirms other recent polls that show the National Socialist Democrat agenda is just a tad less popular than sand-flavored ice cream.

Democrats' favorable ratings are sinking faster than Rosie O'Donnell skinny-dipping in the Marianas Trench.

The decline in the Democratic Party's favorable ratings has come across party lines, but the change is especially large among independents. Only 40% of independents give a favorable rating to the Democratic Party, down 12 points since April.

As for the job approval ratings for the Pied Piper of Chicago -- they look like a goose deposit hurtling onto the tarmac.

Although the Obama administration and some economists have touted the early signs of an economic recovery, the public is, if anything, more gloomy about the economy than it was two months ago. Ratings of the national economic situation remain dismal, with 52% saying the economy is in poor shape, and 38% saying its condition is "only fair."

I'm no poll-watcher, but the radical Democrat agenda of quadrupling the deficit, passing the Waxman-Markey energy tax and a massive system of socialized medicine have poked the hornet's nest one too many times.

Should another whack hit the taxpayers, there will be a political backlash the likes of which America hasn't seen in decades.


Hat tip: Patriot Room.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Health Care Trading Cards: Collect 'em all!


Wondering who gets what out of the Democrat Party's push for single-payer, socialized medicine? Keep tabs on all the cash changing hands with this exclusive collection of Health Care Trading Cards™!

The AARP gets some serious coin: millions in taxpayer funds to help build their various businesses, which have little to do with looking out for seniors: "What Obama didn’t say is that AARP receives millions in federal funds, and hopes to get even more by becoming a vendor under his plan. In January 2007, NLPC published Special Report documenting taxpayer support for AARP. The study found that federal funding accounted for $83 million, or about 10 percent, of AARP’s then-annual revenue of $878 million."

Trial Lawyer Tycoons look to get about a $1.6 billion payoff and an unlimited amount of rope to pursue malpractice lawsuits. That is to say, ObamaCare takes tort reform completely off the table.

ACORN and other community agitators (whom, in part, are responsible for the entire mortgage meltdown) are slated to receive billions in Stimulus funds and billions from Obamacare. Consider it a quid pro quo for their, eh, energetic support of the Obama campaign.

Union Bosses aim to get a direct $10 billion payoff from Obamacare, millions injected into their pension funds and, best of all, millions of new, dues-paying members as public-sector unions replace the evil insurance companies. And try getting one of those bureaucrats fired, I dare you!

Unaccountable politicians -- who have come out and said they don't give a crap what their constituents think -- will amass more power, further breakdown the firewalls in the Constitution and then walk away. And where will Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid 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 care and denying care to the elderly? They will be retired as very wealthy individuals -- with their very own private health care -- having imposed their Marxist ideology upon this society and then walked away from it.

Leaving the massive deficits for our children and grandchildren to worry about.

You? You get bupkis, which is to say: nuttin'. Oh, you will get called Nazis, thugs, racists, mobsters, and terrorists for having opposed socialized medicine.

But, as a bonus, you'll also lose your liberty -- you'll lose control of your very physical well-being -- to a useless, faceless board of unaccountable, numbskull bureaucrats who couldn't even run a cash-for-clunkers program.

But look on the bright side: you won't have that pesky Constitution and Declaration of Independence to worry about any more!


Update: "Huge pro-ObamaCare Ad Campaign Underway. Gee, I wonder who's funding that?

Hat tips: Evergreen Freedom Foundation and Ann Coulter. Linked by: Don Surber. Thanks!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

One Chart to Rule Them All


I spotted this chart (courtesy Larwyn, of course) at The Jacksonian Party. It explains a great deal about our current situation; one in which the people find themselves pitted against their elected officials.

Prior to 1902, Congress had never reached a 70% reelection rate.


Jacksonian argues that when the Senate became a directly elected body and no longer represented Statehouses, taxation and other federal usurpations of Constitutional bounds became rife. In other words, the federal government could and did use its power to begin punishing the states, regulating local affairs and interfering in every sort of arcane transaction.

That change triggered an ever-increasing federal budget that went far beyond national defense. Budget-busting initiatives, politically motivated in nature, purported to help retirees, the sick, the elderly and so on, while concentrating ever more power in Washington.

The federal government now consists of a body of lifetime bureaucrats, many of whom couldn't power a flashlight with all of their brainpower combined, who are reelected automatically through their use of federal tax funds. They reward, they punish, they anoint.


And they continue to aggregate more power at the federal level -- and to build their own personal wealth -- ignoring and flouting the law. Dodd, Rangel, Feinstein, Frank, Reid, Waters, Conyers, Mollohan, Murtha -- to name but a few -- have repeatedly thumbed their noses at financial disclosures, ethics violations, criminal complaints, FOIA requests, and the like.

If government worked as Obama and the National Socialist Democrats say it will, then why would we care about separation of powers? Why would we care about different levels of government?

Why would we care about the Constitution?

Why was this nation founded in the first place?

If government is so beneficent, so effective, so humane and compassionate, how is it that throughout all of human history, the great philosophers and thinkers were so fearful of it?

Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Montesquieu, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and so many more.

Were they all wrong about government and Obama right?

Were they all wrong about limiting, balancing, placing checks on government? Were they all wrong about liberty?

Is human history all wrong and Obama right?

Is human history all wrong and Nancy Pelosi right?

Is human history all wrong and Harry Reid right?

Do you really think Obama, Pelosi and Reid hold a candle to the greatest thinkers civilization has ever seen?

Because for Obama to be right; and for his party, now in the hands of the radical left, to be right; the Founders had to be wrong.

For Obama to be right, the Declaration of Independence has to be wrong.

For Obama to be right, the Constitution has to be wrong.

For Obama to be right, Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Montesquieu, Burke, Smith and the founding fathers all had to be wrong.

And so it is clear how all of this will end.

Government-run health care will be used as a tool by government officials. As these programs always are. It will be used to punish political enemies, to reward friends, to entice supporters and -- always -- to aggregate more power.

It must be defeated.


Hat tips: The Jacksonian Party, Thirty Thousand and Mark Levin (8/14/2009, 44:30 - MP3). Linked by: Stacy McCain. Thanks!

Monday, August 10, 2009

Green Jobs, Green Shoots... Brown Economy


While the Associated Press and NBC excitedly report on an incipient and miraculous economic recovery, the real signs of a turnaround have yet to be seen by those outside Washington. Consider:

Bankruptcies just hit their highest monthly total in four years, 126,434 in July. This represents a 34% increase year-over-year and an 8.7% increase from June.


Unemployment is rising, despite the slight drop in the official U-2 rate (9.5% to 9.4%). As the accompanying Calculated Risk graph illustrates, the employed percentage of the population continues to drop like Michael Moore in freefall.

Job losses continue at a horrific pace: "Over 400,000 people disappeared from the workforce last month - they gave up, dropping the participation rate. That's where the 'improvement' in the jobs number came from."

Government Spending Has Skyrocketed: "Annualized, the $181 billion deficit increase in July alone is approaching one half of the full year 2008 deficit - in one month - and Treasury has announced it is going to sell almost half that much again this week in new Treasury issuance - that is, yet more deficit."

Meanwhile, Tax Revenues Have Plummeted: "Tax revenue for the first three quarters of 2009 has fallen by approximately $350 billion, or 17 percent compared to the same period last year... Unemployment benefits have more than doubled, Medicaid spending has grown by a quarter and Medicare spending has increased by 11 percent."


The S&P 500 is wildly overvalued using any conventional measure: The S&P 500's price-to-earnings (PE) is over 140 today. It was over 100 during the first quarter of 2009, "a level never before reached in the index's history".

'Cash for Clunkers' is a Disaster: While the sycophants of stimulus are crowing about an 11.5 million unit annualized sales rate for (for July and August), 80% of the top-selling models are foreign. Typical of Politburo-style, centralized planning efforts, the unintended consequences of the program have yet to be felt; "..what of the lower-income Americans who depended on those cars - the clunkers - to be able to afford any transportation at all? Are they supposed to walk - or starve? When I was younger I was one of those individuals; today, this program would have left me unable to afford a car so I could get to work. I'm sure all the college students and recent grads, struggling to find a job, are saying 'Thanks Mr. President for destroying all the cars we could afford to buy.'"

The 'Green Jobs' Myth: "...experts in economics and the energy industry say having more people work in alternative energy will actually lower our standard of living, by making energy more expensive." James Hamilton, a professor of economics at UC San Diego, calls the assertion that funding green jobs will improve employment a "pretense".

The following is not an overstatement: the current Democrat leadership is on course to bankrupt the United States of America.

No cuts in the size of government: it keeps growing. No cuts in federal spending: all of the programs just keep growing. No cuts in federal hiring, salaries, bonuses or benefits: their workforce just keeps growing, on the taxpayer's dime.

Democrats are destroying the economic future of this country, piece by piece; mortgaging the next generation without permission of those affected; nationalizing industry after industry; spending like drunken liberals; and issuing edict after edict, regulation after regulation through dozens of unaccountable 'czars' who are literally strangling the real economy.

The hard left wing of the Democrat party must be politically punished in 2010 if we are to save this country.


Related: America's NOD. Linked by: BizzyBlog. Thanks!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Fitting Accoutrements for Obamacare


You can avoid long lines for medical care with Self-Treatment Kits, available only from Government Pharmacies™.




Hat tip: Reliapundit.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

"We are now in the early stages of a depression"


More uplifting news from Sprott Asset Management in a report entitled "It's the real economy, stupid" (via Zero Hedge). Highlights (eh, lowlights, I mean):

"We are now in the early stages of a depression. The economic indicators we follow to track real economic activity are all signaling a slowdown of massive proportions. You wouldn’t know it reading the mainstream papers of course – they all focus on the relative decline in the slowdown’s intensity."

In short, the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Stimulus package that was passed, sight unseen, is an unmitigated Keynesian disaster:

Government Tax Revenue Declining:
· 32 of the 46 states whose fiscal year ended midnight July 1, 2009, did not have budgets signed by their Governors. States are grappling with deficits totaling a collective $121 billion...
· Personal income tax, which accounts for more than a third of state revenues, dropped by 26% in the first four months of 2009...
· The US government has spent $2.67 trillion thus far in fiscal 2009, but has only collected $1.59 trillion...
· The US government collected $685.5 billion in individual income taxes so far this year, a 22% drop from the $877.8 billion the government took in during the first nine months of 2008...
· US corporate income taxes plunged 57% to $101.9 billion in 2009, down from $236.5 billion in the first nine months of fiscal year 2008...

Retail Sales Slump:
· The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)/Goldman Sachs same-store sales tally for June was down 5.1% from June 2008, worse than the latest forecast for a 4.5% decline.
· Privately held luxury department store Neiman Marcus Group Inc. posted a 20.8% drop in same-store sales. Abercrombie & Fitch Co.'s same-store sales fell 32%, even more than the 26.6% decline Wall Street had projected. 6

Unemployment Catastrophe:
· The June 2009 jobless rate reached 9.5%, the highest since 1983.
· 4 million Americans have been looking for work for more than 26 weeks, representing 29% of the unemployed – the most since records began in 1948.
· During the last 30 years, Americans who lost their jobs took an average 15.8 weeks to find new positions. In June 2009, the average duration of unemployment was 24.5 weeks, the longest since records began in 1948.
· The number of people collecting unemployment benefits reached a record 6.88 million in the week ended June 27, 2009.
· Approximately six people are seeking work for every job opening, the most since the government began keeping such records...

US Housing Market Failure:
· The annual pace of new home sales is now 342,000, a whopping 32.8% below the rate in May 2008. At the current sales pace, there is 10.2 months worth of inventory overhang sitting on the market, dragging down prices and encouraging potential buyers to wait it out as prices deflate...
· New home sales are down 73% from the all time high of 1,283,000 new homes sold in 2005 (mild recession?)...

Rail Car Loadings Suffering:
· For the first 26 weeks of 2009, US railroads reported cumulative volume of 6,806,892 carloads, down 19.2% from 2008. An excellent quote included in the June report from the Association of American Railroads stated: “Whenever Americans grow something, eat something, mine something, make something, turn on a light, or get dressed, freight railroads are probably involved somewhere along the line. Unfortunately, right now there’s not enough mining, manufacturing and buying going on. So railroads, like most other business sectors, are suffering because of it.”
· Carloads are down 22.5% from the all time high set in the first 26 weeks of 2006.

Stock Market
...at the end of June 2009, the S&P 500 traded at an inflation adjusted P/E ratio of 16.08, implying that investors were willing to pay an average of 16 times earnings for a share in the S&P 500 index. Sixteen times earnings is well below the all time, inflation-adjusted high of December 1999 (44 times), but also well above the lows of 1932 (5.57) and 1982 (6.64). As it turns out, 16 times is almost exactly at the 109-year monthly average P/E ratio – so stocks are trading at their long-term average P/E level in the current environment.

...If this is average – how low is low if investors turn their backs on stocks? There’s the real economy which generates the earnings, and then there’s the investor sentiment/perception which dictates the multiple they are willing to pay for those earnings. We already know that the real economy is in severe decline. What happens if investor sentiment changes?

Sprott foresees one of three stock market scenarios: S&P 500 at 378, 506 or (depression scenario) 189. For comparison's sake, the S&P closed at 954 today.

So the Obama Democrats just rammed through a giant Porkulus package, sight unseen, because it was going to keep unemployment from hitting 8%. It was a complete, abject failure -- just like every other socialist experiment that has ever been tried. Because a central planning model simply can not compete with the free market.

And now the Democrats want to destroy healthcare by nationalizing it.

Shouldn't only one multi-trillion dollar failure be the limit for this vintage of Democrats?



Linked by: Hot Air, Ace, BizzyBlog, Ed Driscoll, Behind Blue Lines, Black Republican, Gina Cobb, Ghost of a Flea, Right Rainbow, Novus2 and Secular Apostate. Thanks!