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

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

The Obama Economic Death-Mobile Accelerates: February 2010 Federal Tax Withholdings Plunge To Multiyear Low

It's another Obama miracle!

February was not an auspicious start to Obama's record budget deficit-busting plans. The Daily Treasury Statement for the full month of February was just released, and it disclosed that while corporate tax withholdings, net of refunds, actually climbed marginally to $3.4 billion from $(3.4) billion in February 2009, individual tax withholdings plunged to a multi-year low of $30.7 billion.

Combined, the two items also posted a multi low of $34 billion, less than the previous recent low from February 2009 when the first leg of the Greater Depression was allegedly at its zenith. We can't wait to hear how the "recession is over" brigade will paint this particular data point.

Leave it up to the White House publicists at the Bureau of Made-up Labor Statistics to take care of that problem. Count on Census hiring, for instance, to drive the unemployment rate down to -3%.

Tax revenues are plunging. States are going bankrupt. The federal deficit is exploding. And the withholding numbers are even worse than they appear: for 2010, your withholding increased, though taxes haven't changed (yet). This gives the Treasury an interest-free loan, which you'll get back in 2011 in the form of a refund.

And what are Democrats fixated on? Nationalizing the health care industry. The entire economy is melting down, and they're trying to implement death panels and giant health care databases.

No wonder Americans are livid.


Hat tip: ZH commenters.

Restaurant Execs Explain the Disastrous Economic Environment: "Government [is] the greatest single threat we have"

Restaurant News Magazine explains why the industry is shrinking despite a growing population. Restaurant owners are afraid to hire, unwilling to invest, and incapable of expanding because they are terrified of what Democrats -- at every level of government -- will do next.

The increase of government legislation targeting the foodservice industry, on the federal, state and local levels, is one of the largest challenges restaurateurs face, industry executives and operators said Monday during the International Restaurant & Foodservice Show of New York.

Jon Luther, chairman of Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin Brands Inc., the parent to Dunkin Donuts and Baskin-Robbins, said the intrusion of government through such proposed legislative measures as menu labeling, card check and health care reform, would have the most profound effect on the industry’s future cost of doing business.

Government, that’s the greatest single threat we have,” Luther said Monday during a panel discussion at the New York State Restaurant Association’s trade show. "Every time something happens, it affects the bottom line... The venerable CEO of Coca-Cola... was once asked why [the company had] a huge government relations office overlooking the White House. He said, ‘government could put me out of business.’"

Rick Sampson, chief executive of the New York State Restaurant Association, also weighed in on the subject of increased legislation during a presentation on environmentally friendly restaurant initiatives within the New York restaurant community... “It’s coming,” he said. “We’re already starting to see [mandated] deposits and sales tax on bottled water. You will be paying higher taxes, fees and on and on. The last thing we want is mandates on how to run our business.”

He suggested that restaurants that work to initiate green programs now will get ahead of the legislation curve, as well as manage to do something good for the environment... [and] initiating green practices before many become law is the smartest way to circumvent future problems.

California is legislating left and right,” he said. “The question is, do you want to [make changes] now when you can or wait until 2013 when you have to do it? I don’t know of any restaurant [company] that wants to be mandated to by government.”

Here's another idea: keep government out of the restaurant business and let the free market decide. But, in the case of California, I recommend that the state continue creating new regulations, agencies, boards, commissions, fees and taxes. It's been working out so well for them thus far.


Little-used 'Staple-and-bind' parliamentary procedure will allow Democrats to pass health bill with just nine votes in House, three in Senate

(Washington DC - RNN) Democrat insiders say that an obscure parliamentary procedure known as "Staple-and-Bind" will be used as an alternative to pass a health care overhaul should reconciliation efforts fail. "Staple-and-bind" refers to the final act of preparing legislation, using an industrial-grade stapler and a three-ring binder, for shipment.

"We take a trivial piece of legislation -- a resolution to honor Vin Diesel for his lifetime acting achievements, for instance," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"At the very last second, the instant before we staple and bind the legislation, we can insert as many pages of new law as will fit in the binder," she said, "This will allow us to pass a meaningful, bipartisan health care reform bill that will benefit all Americans with just nine votes in the House and three votes in the Senate."

Politico's Mike Allen reported late this afternoon that Senate staffers were scouring the District for the largest American-made three-ring binder, the Avery Royale Deluxe. It is widely believed that the Royale is the only binder large enough to contain the entire 2,770-page health care reform bill.

Congressional Democrats have also purchased a Staple Jihad 5000 Nail Gun, the only street-legal stapler capable of binding the massive legislation. The propane-powered stapler can penetrate up to 3,000 8.5" x 11" pages, which leaves room for Democrats to nationalize other aspects of medical delivery including dentistry, veterinary medicine and crystal healing stones.


Sunday, February 28, 2010

Now is ze time on ze Obama Recovery vhen ve dance!

It's another Obama record! The Evening Tribune of New York headline says it all.

Sales tax collections worst in recent history


...the Office of the State Comptroller recently issued a report on the sales tax collection for all counties in New York state in 2009 [and] compares 2009 to 2008 collections, and found a 5.9 decrease in collections statewide.

Sales tax-declines were experienced by 53 of the 57 counties in the report. Only four — Chatauqua, Oneida, Schuyler, and Seneca — counties experienced a growth in sales tax revenue, but the report attributes it to other factors other than economic growth, like late payments and other technical adjustments.

“Unlike other recent downturns, 2009 was the first time in recent history that there was actually a decline in county sales tax revenue — a sign of the severity of the recent recession,” the report reads. “The sales tax decline in 2009 was one of the worst on record.”

“This is yet another sign that the Great Recession is having a continuing impact on our communities across New York,” DiNapoli said in a release. “These numbers are sobering. Fortunately, many local governments have taken sometimes painful budgetary steps to stave off disaster. It’s a struggle, but all levels of government have to make every taxpayer dime count.”

The report didn’t offer much room for optimism, stating that tax collections are largely driven by two factors — personal income and employment... “Both of these factors are expected to remain weak in 2010,” the report reads.

Indiana monthly sales tax collections tell a similar story.

As do Texas' receipts.

The entire economy is flat on its back, as businesses wait in terror to see what Democrats will do next. While the likes of Obama, Pelosi and Reid casually discuss nationalizing one-sixth of the economy, levying fees on all areas of production with the addition of VAT taxes, assimilating 401(k) plans, and levying massive new energy taxes in the form of "carbon cap-and-trade", individuals and businesses of every size are frozen, waiting to see how they'll be punished and tormented next.

This is the problem with having hard-core, leftist ideologues running the branches of government. Facts, logic and reason don't matter to them. Only the pursuit of more power over the electorate matters. And they will use any means necessary, including illegal legislative maneuvers, to accomplish their aims.


Hat tip: Mish.

Reconciliation: "If the American people find out that this bill is about giving health care to non-citizens, they will rise up against it."

Those thuds you hear in the distance are Democrats firing every bit of political artillery they can muster. They're trying to soften up the American people to the notion of using reconciliation to pass their amazingly unpopular health care bill. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder says the White House will announce their demand for reconciliation on Wednesday.

The White House and Democrats had one mission today: prepare the political class for the President's announcement, probably Wednesday, that he thinks the Senate ought to proceed with reconciliation to ****pass or modify**** a comprehensive health care bill (passed by the House or Senate first? Not sure.). But Democrats still don't agree: Kent Conrad, the budget committee chairman, says that the House must pass the extant Senate bill (with all the bad stuff in there) first; the House wants to see if the Senate has the votes for the Obama bill (with all the bad stuff taken out), and Conrad said today that reconciliation can't be used to pass #HCR.

On Fox News Sunday, Sen. Robert Menendez claimed that Senate Democrats would be able to muster 51 votes to pass the bill through reconciliation.

This is the same menacing supporter of the radical Hispanic separatist group La Raza ("The Race") who believes that a health care bill should offer "stealth amnesty" to illegal immigrants. A caller to the Mark Levin Show on June 25, 2009 described how Menendez and La Raza view "health care reform".

I want to tell you that last week I attended a conference on health care reform sponsored by La Raza. And I will tell you that what they had to say, Mark, is scarier than anything that's been said so far on the health care plan.

...someone from Menendez' office [Ed.: Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ] promised that he would make sure that "the useless barriers of citizenship would not be in this bill" and that he would make sure that they would use keywords like "streamline"...

...Yes [they said they would get free health care for illegal aliens], these are my notes, Mark. They actually got up and said "Latino children need health care more than whites". And then they would say things like "you must go out into your communities, use words like 'streamline', use phrases like 'all workers' and 'all families'," because they said -- and I quote -- "If the American people find out that this bill is about giving health care to non-citizens, they will rise up against it."

"If the American people find out?"

Gee, what a surprise. A Senator and a group that preaches racial superiority and divisiveness want to enact a stealth illegal immigration bill -- not dissimilar from their approach to chain migration. The bill will reward illegal immigration to the direct detriment of all American taxpayers and especially the elderly.

And Democrats are willing to pass this crap sandwich in complete violation of Senate rules -- that's according to Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), not me -- which demonstrates just how little interest the oligarchs in Washington have in representative government.

Every poll shows Americans overwhelmingly want to keep the hands of government -- which bankrupts everything it touches -- off of the finest health care system in the world.

I urge you to contact members of Congress this week (Senate contact page and House Contact Page) and urge them, politely and firmly, to reject this unconstitutional maneuver that defies the will of the American people. And, if they vote for this disastrous bill, tell them they had better have a good outplacement service.


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Radical Housing Proposal o' the Day

Reader Grrr over at Mish's site ("Obama's Micro-Mismanagement of HAMP Equates to "Can-Kicking Stupidity"") has a radical suggestion.

I've come up with a radical scheme that could possibly work to end the housing crisis:
1) People that can't or won't pay their mortgage lose the house.
2) The banks take the house and sell it to people who can afford it.

There are a few flaws:
1) It doesn't require massive amounts of government money.
2) It doesn't protect people from their mistakes.
3) It doesn't punish responsible people who are patiently waiting for houses to become affordable.
4) It could result in the banks that helped create this mess failing.

In spite of these issues, I believe we should give it a try.

That's just crazy talk.


Friday, February 26, 2010

What I learned about health care yesterday

If you took all -- all! -- of the annual profits of every health insurance company in the U.S., you could fund health insurance coverage for the entire American population for only two days. That's right: the profits of all U.S. health insurance companies equals two days of coverage for Americans. Yet these are the profits vilified by the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress.

The full ten-year cost of the Democrat health care bill offers taxpayers a $460 billion deficit. The second ten-year cost has a $1.4 trillion deficit. Dishonest accounting and hiding expenses doesn't make the bill reasonable.

14% of the population is on Medicare. 14% is on Medicaid. 9% receive government benefits. 4% are on military health plans. 43% receive coverage from their private employment. Only 6% of the population actually purchases their own insurance. Yet the Democrats want to destroy the insurance companies over this.

Five percent of the population uses 50% of all health care spending. These are the chronically ill, folks who suffer from multiple, serious health conditions. A study of 20,000 chronically ill patients was conducted recently. An intriguing discovery was made: because each patient took an average of 16 different prescription medicines, coordinated and holistic care could cut medication spending by 50% and save hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient.

Let me close by repeating: you could take the annual profits of the private health insurance companies and buy health insurance for people for two days.

Consider that the next time President Obama vilifies the 'obscene' profits of the insurance companies.


Hat tip: Excellence in Broadcasting.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

"Republicans opened a can of whoop-ass today"

Commenter Ann at Just One Minute:

Republicans Opened a Can of Whoop Ass Today!

News round up from Hot Air:

CNN’s WOLF BLITZER: “It looks like the Republicans certainly showed up ready to play.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

CNN’s GLORIA BORGER: “The Republicans have been very effective today. They really did come to play. They were very smart.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

BORGER: “They took on the substance of a very complex issue. … But they really stuck to the substance of this issue and tried to get to the heart of it and I think did a very good job.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
BORGER: “They came in with a plan. They mapped it out.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

CNN’s DAVID GERGEN: “The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

THE HILL’S A.B. STODDARD: “I think we need to start out by acknowledging Republicans brought their ‘A Team.’ They had doctors knowledgeable about the system, they brought substance to the table, and they, I thought, expressed interest in the reform. I thought in the lecture from Senator John McCain and on the issue of transparency, I thought today the Democrats were pretty much on their knees.” (Fox News’ “Live,” 2/25/10)

GERGEN: “He doesn’t have a strong Democratic team behind him.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

Gee, David, you mean the intellectual giants -- Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Schmucky Schumer -- aren't "strong"? What gave it away? The botox -- or the vapid expressions when confronted with multi-syllabic words?


Hat tip: Larwyn.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Grim Milestones: Lending Drops at 'Epic Pace', Past Due Loans at Record High, New Home Sales at Record Low, 30% of Mortgages at Risk

It's another Obama miracle!

The Big Picture points us to today's Wall Street Journal cover story ("Lending Falls at Epic Pace").

The highlights:

• U.S. banks registered their most severe declines in lending since 1942.

• The FDIC reports that the number of U.S. banks at risk of failure surpassed 700, which is a 16-year high.

• More than 5% of all loans are past due 90-days or more, the highest level ever recorded.

Calculated Risk adds more evidence of the miraculous Obama recovery.

• 11.3 million, or roughly one-quarter, of all U.S. residential mortgages were in negative equity (worth less than their loans).

• 2.3 million more mortgages were approaching negative equity at the end of the year. Together, these represent 30% of all residential mortgages at risk.

The icing on the cake? CNN alerts us to another catastrophic statistic:

New home sales fell 11.2% to a record low in January despite an $8,000 tax credit. It was the lowest rate since the feds began tracking the statistic and followed drops in November and December.

I really wish President Obama had held a real job before he took his current role. Like, running the cash register at a 7-11 or serving as the assistant manager of a LaserTag franchise. I think some experience in the real world would have helped.

It might have gotten him off of this bizarre health care obsession.


Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The Leftists Who Call Themselves the "Tea Party of Nevada" and How Patriots Can Thwart Them

Apparently it's fairly easy for a political party to appear on the ballot in Nevada. And a group representing itself as the Tea Party movement -- which is a movement and not a political party -- has done just that in the race for Harry Reid's Senate seat.

Of course, a third party run by faux conservatives would split the GOP vote and send the truly disreputable Harry Reid back to DC.

Research by the Nevada News Bureau -- via Flopping Aces -- turns up the background of the group's founders. And it's apparent that they're neither conservative nor Republican.

Here are some snippets from my research so far... Barry Levinson was part of the “Bush Lied, People Died” cabal (very strange creds for a Tea Party guy). 

...Not really core to the story but one of the principals, Larry Lathum, appears to be a 9/11 Truther...

But there is a way to thwart these jamokes and minimize the damage they can incur to a conservative Republican candidate.

The Chaff Approach

Nevadans who are so inclined are urged to file similar petitions to that of the "Tea Party of Nevada". I suggest the following names for these parties, who will all run a candidate for the office of Senate.

• The Nevada Tea Party
• Tea Parties 'R Us
• Give Me Tea or Give Me Meth
• Tea Baggers United Under Barney's Frank
• Tea Party O' Rama
• Rahm Emanuel's Disco Tea Party
• The Mister Tea Party
• The Iced Tea Party
• The Pit Tea Party
• Super Happy Fun Karaoke Party

Ten or so additional parties on the ballot should sufficiently dilute the impact of the traitorous "Tea Party of Nevada".

Who's with me?


Monday, February 22, 2010

It Should Have Been Enough

President Obama has presented his new health bill, which is a rehash of the old Democrat health bills. And rather than embracing his own rhetoric and advocating a bipartisan approach to solving the health care crisis, Obama has instead articulated threats, Chicago-style.

The Plum Line has the official White House position: "If the GOP filibusters health reform, Dems will move forward on their own and pass it via reconciliation."

In short, Republicans have no say in the bill and if they try to stop its more insane measures, Congress will use an illegal maneuver to nationalize one-sixth of the economy.

After This Threat...


After a threat like this, any Republican Who Attends The Obama Health Care and Public Sector Union Infomercial isn't operating with a full deck.

This direct threat from the White House invalidates any pretense of bipartisanship, collaboration and open dialogue.

We have an out-of-control federal government that is willing to break the rules of the Senate and ignore the will of the people -- even writing in clearly unconsitutional "one-way" laws that can't be reversed -- in order to install a Stalinist health care system.

It Should Have Been Enough


When angry voters, against all odds, elected a conservative Republican to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat because he'd explicitly campaigned on a pledge to block socialized medicine, it should have been enough.

When Democrats Evan Bayh, Patches Kennedy, Chris Dodd, Vern Tincher, Byron Dorgan, Brian Baird and Roland Burris abruptly announced they would not seek reelection -- because they knew the fate that awaited them -- it should have been enough.

When angry voters, defying every prediction, elected a fiscally conservative Republican as governor of New Jersey, it should have been enough.

When, on the same day, enraged voters swept Democrats out of virtually every state-wide office -- something that hadn't happened in a century -- it should have been enough.

When hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens showed up in Washington to protest socialized medicine and an out-of-control Congress, it should have been enough.

When tens of thousands of AARP members canceled their memberships in protest of their selling out senior citizens, it should have been enough.

When senior citizens, concerned voters and even young people showed up at town hall meetings last summer to ask their representatives why they wouldn't listen to them, it should have been enough.

When Bill Clinton lost Congress in 1994 after pushing his ill-fated HillaryCare initiative, it should have been enough.

When Harry Truman tried to sell national health insurance after the end of World War II, which Congress utterly rejected, it should have been enough.

When Franklin Roosevelt wanted national health insurance in 1935 but, despite his power over the Supreme Court and Congress, feared tying it to Social Security lest the whole package go down in flames, it should have been enough.

Enough! Enough!!!

Very soon now, the anger of the electorate will become palpable, resonating throughout the halls of Congress and echoing among the monuments of D.C.

We. Have. Had. Enough.

And that's change you can believe in.


Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Portrait of Harry Reid After Reconciliation Is Used to Cram Socialized Medicine Down Public's Throats

This is my prediction of what Senator Harry Reid will look like should Democrats participate in nationalizing one-sixth of the economy against the wishes of the American people. Apparently the message that was delivered in the election of Scott Brown to The Kennedy Seat -- wasn't quite clear enough. Perhaps this is.

Like I said a couple of months ago, as far as investing goes, I'm long in pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers.


Saturday, February 20, 2010

Constitutionality, the People's Will and Midterm Elections be damned: Dems Will Use Nuclear Option for Socialized Health Care Cramdown

In what would represent the greatest abuse of budget reconciliation rules in Congressional history, Democrats plan to execute a socialized medicine cramdown whether the American people want it or not.

...the plan is to have the President submit reconciliation legislation to be posted on the internet this weekend. The legislation will be crafted in a manner so that it can be passed using special reconciliation procedures created solely to enact laws to reduce the deficit as part of the annual budget. The next step is for the President to conduct his half day bipartisan summit at the Blair House on February 25th. With that faux-bipartisan stunt over with, the President will be free to pass legislation in a partisan manner that tosses aside the regular rules of business in the Senate...

Yet again, the Obama Administration has tossed aside transparency and has crafted this legislation behind closed doors. Not even all Congressional Democrats have been looped into this secret proposal...

According to the Grey Corpse (my pet name for The New York Times, and the one I hear they prefer), Rahm "Al Capone" Emanuel, Nancy "Stretch" Pelosi, Harry "The Body Odor" Reid and HHS Secretary Kathleen "Silly-us" Sebelius have set the stage for the legislative nuke.

The usually tame and nonpartisan Charlie Cook laid the smackdown on the dying Democrat Party.

...when unemployment numbers started proving to be much, much tougher and it started becoming more clear that the stimulus package hadn't worked properly, they just kept plowing ahead on health care. And this isn't a communications problem. This is a reality problem. And I think they just made some grave miscalculations and as it became more clear that they had screwed up, they just kept doubling down their bet.

And so I think, no, this is one of the biggest miscalculations that we've seen in modern political history.

...The thing that I think a lot of Democratic strategists are really concerned about is that some of these districts are going to be gone for a generation or more. I mean, they're not coming back. They're ones that had somehow managed to hang on in Democratic hands even after the Democratic Party fell out of favor in a lot of the South. But once they slip away, I'm not sure they're coming back.

Democrats are trying to leverage the news that health care premiums have exploded in California to market their incoherent and illegal cramdown. Wellpoint, for instance, raised premiums 39%, which set the village idiot of economists -- Paul Krugman -- into a predictable tizzy. Problem is, California's arcane regulations are entirely to blame: similar hikes did not occur in other states.

Wellpoint's rate hikes are the direct result of the Golden State's insurance regulations—the kind that Democrats want to impose on all 50 states. Under federal Cobra rules, the unemployed are allowed to keep their job-related health benefits for 18 to 36 months. California then goes further and bars Anthem from dropping these customers even after they have exhausted Cobra. California also caps what Anthem can charge these post-Cobra customers.

[Gee, who woulda thunk that price controls don't work?]

...This explains why Anthem lost $58 million in California on its post-Cobra customers in 2009. If WellPoint didn't raise premiums amid these losses, it would soon be under assault from its shareholders, if not out of business.

Government destroys any economic system it touches, which is why America's founders expressly forbade the insane Statist experiments in which the Soros-controlled Democrats now engage.

And, last I checked, 39% is almost order of magnitude less than the one-year increase in the federal deficit incurred since Barack Obama took office.


Massachusetts, with a state-controlled health care system, has the second highest health care premiums in the nation.

Thus, abandoning facts, logic and reason, Barack Obama and his Congressional sycophants appear ready to deliver a nuclear enema to the American people.

As Charlie Cook says, "It's a reality problem."

So when Barack Obama claims he's "not an ideologue", he's either lying -- or simply stuck on stupid, take your pick.


Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Obama Recovery In Action: Terrified Health Insurers Lay Off Thousands To Prepare for Socialized Medicine

The Obama administration loves to market fabricated estimates such as the number of jobs it's said to have "saved or created." Those numbers have varied by millions based upon which party hack you're talking to and how many drinks they've had.

What would be more telling is the millions of jobs the Democrats have provably destroyed: threatening businesses large and small with new Cap-n'-Trade energy taxes; penalties for too little or too much health insurance coverage; and forced unionization via "Card Check".

The unrelenting attacks on the private sector have deterministic results. The massive health insurer Humana, for instance, just announced that it's laying off 1,400 employees (five percent of its workforce) this year.

Call it preemptive, inevitable, cynical or reluctant, but this week’s announcement by Louisville, Ky.-based Humana Inc. that it will reduce its workforce... is also a reflection of reality.

Multiple realities, actually, including the prospect of some kind of U.S. healthcare reform, the continuing escalation of healthcare costs, the ability of technology and IT services to enable automation and reduce costs, changing demographics, and continued high unemployment...

...In a separate press release, Aite Group senior analyst Kunal Pandya pointed out that these cuts and additions may be part of a strategy to prepare the company for future changes brought on by healthcare reform.... Aite Group believes that when healthcare reform is enacted, early movers in focusing on elements that will be proposed by healthcare reform, like Humana, will find themselves positioned to benefit in the long-term.”

Clearly, Humana is trying to position itself for whatever the future might bring, in terms of regulation, competition and demographic changes. The “cautionary statement” text –- typically mind-numbing boilerplate –- that closed the February 17 press release illustrated this. For example:

“Humana's business activities are subject to substantial government regulation. New laws or regulations, or changes in existing laws or regulations or their manner of application, could increase the company's cost of doing business and could materially affect its business, profitability and financial condition. In addition, as a government contractor, the company is exposed to additional risks that could adversely affect its business or its willingness to participate in government health care programs.”

Within the last few weeks, health insurers like WellPoint, Aetna and United Health have announced thousands of layoffs. And pharmaceutical companies dropped around 8,100 employees in January alone.

If you're a business owner, it's virtually impossible to hire in the current environment. How can anyone forecast business conditions and contemplate hiring when the federal government pitches new taxes, new mandates, new regulations, new bureaucracies and new fees every day?

Maybe Kreskin is hiring, because no one else is good enough to predict what this out-of-control, authoritarian, centralized government will try next.


Monday, February 15, 2010

Great News: 5 Million Workers Exhaust Unemployment Benefits in June as Housing Market Melts Down With Added Bonus: Bush Tax Cuts Expire Soon

By June the number of unemployed workers who have exhausted their benefits will hit five million. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are a record 6.31 million workers who have been unemployed 26 or more weeks. This represents 4.1% of the entire civilian workforce, the highest level since 1948.

Housing starts have fallen off the cliff. Builders were rushing to close home sales by June 30th to take advantage of the extended tax credit. But they expect Q3 to be extremely challenging since the credit will have expired. Housing starts often are a leading indicator for unemployment; but the continued softness in these numbers "suggest unemployment will stay elevated for some time."

What little housing activity that actually is occurring is funded by -- wait for it -- the taxpayers. In Elkhart, Indiana half of all mortgages use federal support, which encourage tiny down payments (e.g., 3.5%) and use a $7,500 tax credit for first-time buyers. In short, the same interventionist policies that helped melt the financial system down -- central-planning and wealth redistribution, Politburo-style -- rather than freeing the private sector to innovate, create and adapt to changing market conditions.

The White House was supposed to introduce a plan to revamp Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this month with the introduction of its new budget. But it failed to do so, with little fanfare from the media. In fact, the Obama administration has been surprisingly mum about the GSE's even though it is dramatically "distorting the market", according to The New York Times. Denny Davis of Horizon Bank in Elkhart says that home buyers are actually purchasing homes to get $7,500 in cash as an emergency fund: "People are buying to get that tax credit, to get some reserve money. They’re saying, ‘If something happens, I will have a little bit of money to fall back on... That’s not healthy.”

In order to reduce retail vacancy rates, some cities have resorted to razing 'white elephant' malls. In Columbus, Ohio two empty malls were demolished, which took 1.1 million square feet of retail space off the market. As a result, the city's vacancy rate has dropped to 15.1% from 16.9%.

Effective March 31, the Fed is halting its purchase of mortgage-backed securities. Some experts believe that mortgage rates will jump a full 100 to 200 basis points, which would further damage the housing market.

All of these factors, however, pale in comparison to what will transpire at the end of the year.

We "are about to experience the largest tax increase in history" as the evil Bush Tax Cuts expire. For the so-called wealthy (an individual or business owner grossing $200,000 a year or a couple making $250,000 or more), taxes will skyrocket. Capital gains taxes will rise; itemized deductions will be capped; and the estate tax will also return.

In other words, the government will take even more money out of the hands of business owners, entrepreneurs and the middle class at precisely the worst time. The economy is flat on its back and those who would invest, innovate and hire are instead having the life choked out of them by an out-of-control centralized government that is addicted to spending money it doesn't have.

Don't look for any of this news to impact Democrat policy-making, however. That would require the use of fact, logic and reason -- not strong suits for the current crop of Marxist ideologues who currently hold the reins of power.


Saturday, February 06, 2010

Won't you please help grow our federal bureaucracies? President Obama wants you to receive your tax refund in Savings Bonds

I came across a news story from last September that makes a lot more sense today. President Obama then announced that, starting in 2010, tax refunds could be sent as government savings bonds, rather than as checks. Just mark a box on your return, and *voila!* -- you're helping fund the Democrats' out-of-control deficit spending.

What's next: a telethon?


We need Jim DeMint's balanced budget amendment now. Before it's too late.


Linked by: The Washington Examiner. Thanks!

Thursday, February 04, 2010

20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Can't Ever Recover As Long As Democrats Control the Levers of Power

Business Insider has the cheery analysis, listing 20 reasons we're in for a world of economic hurt. The most significant?

You want to see a hockey-stick graph? Try this unemployment chart, as businesses retract in fear over health tax mandates, cap-and-trade, card check, and heaven knows what else. In December, 6,130,000 workers had been unemployed for 27 weeks or more -- another Obama record. That's the highest total since they started keeping track in 1948.

In December, there were also nearly one million "discouraged" workers. Those are the folks who've given up looking for work and are therefore not counted in the official stats. You guessed it: it's another Obama record -- the highest level ever recorded.

25 state unemployment insurance funds are already broke and 15 more states are on track to go bust within 24 months. States are now borrowing tens of billions from the federal government, which also is guaranteeing all losses incurred by the "job shop for unemployed Democrats" called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

More than 37 million Americans currently receive food stamps with around 20,000 joining the club each and every day. Never mind that unchecked use of food stamps encourages dependency, single-parent families and crime. Those are facts, you see, and unimportant to Democrats.

Public-sector unions like the SEIU have rung up some unbelievably outrageous bills for states, counties and cities. And many locales are simply going broke, burdened with underfunded pension plans and overly rich compensation packages. For example, more than 6,100 retired California government workers receive pensions in excess of $100,000 from CalPERS. The states' unfunded liabilities: as much as $3.2 trillion.

The delightful Democrat inventions of Social Security and Medicare are doomed. Millions of baby boomers are retiring and the trillions they poured into the systems during their working years were stolen by bureaucrats -- swept into the general fund and spent. There's no way to make the math work. It's that simple.

The U.S. federal debt has exploded since 2006, doubling in three years to $12.3 trillion and headed much, much higher with the proposed Obama budgets. Who will purchase the debt? What will happen when interest rates inevitably rise, adding huge additional interest payments to the debt? Just thank a Democrat.

How has the government responded to this dire situation? Has it tightened its belt? Hell, no. Last week, Senate Democrats last week raised the debt ceiling, which will allow the U.S. national debt to reach approximately $14.3 trillion. That's $48,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

So how is the U.S. funding its operations? Why, through a massive Ponzi scheme that would make Bernard Madoff blush. The Federal Reserve bought nearly 80 percent of all U.S. Treasuries issued in 2009. In other words, the entire Democrat-controlled government is a pyramid scheme -- and taxpayers are the suckers at the bottom.

* * * * * * * * *

99 weeks of unemployment compensation. Unchecked welfare payments. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Disastrous socialized retirement and health care systems that are nothing more than gigantic Ponzi schemes.

And that's before socialized medicine, cap-and-trade, card check and other disastrous policies -- hawked incessantly by the Party of Economic Destruction -- that simply choke free enterprise.

Democrats must be crushed in November at the ballot box, before it's too late.


Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Great News! 824,000 Jobs Will Disappear on Feb. 5th. The Obamaconomy rolls on, crushing everything in its path.

Gee, you say the government overstated the number of jobs by nearly a million? Tyler Durden has the shiny pictures and text from Bloomberg (the news service, not the idiot mayor):

Last October the BLS announced it would revise historical payrolls lower by 824,000 on February 5 (this Friday's NFP release). While this number will not impact the actual January NFP report..., it will be prorated across all months in the 2008-2009 reporting period...

The reason for this adjustment has to do with a huge glitch in the birth-death model, which is exactly the same problem that the rating agencies faced when housing prices plummeted: the birth/death model assumes, in the long-run, jobs are created, not destroyed. Any period of excess volatility in the stock market therefore translates into major prior downward revisions to already disclosed payrolls.

And while we know what the current revision will be, the scarier prospect is that the next historical adjustment, due out in early 2011, will be even larger, at least 990,000. This means that the government has overrepresented running payroll data by over 1.8 million jobs over the past 20 months...

...In essence, a Moody's-like glitch has misrepresented the true payroll picture due to modelling error to the tune of over 1.8 million jobs. How that will impact the president's "jobs saved or created" calculation has yet to be determined. Unless of course all those jobs appear merely on the same excel file that the BLS uses for all it other erroneous calculations.

Related: the original Bloomberg presentation.

 

Saturday, January 30, 2010

I blame Bush -- "Iraq aims to be world's top oil producer"

Gee, and I thought Harry Reid told us that 'this war was lost':

BAGHDAD - Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said on Saturday he expected Iraq to become the world's top oil producer in six to seven years...

Iraq has signed a series of oilfield development deals with global oil firms -- which bid on prime fields at two energy auctions last year -- in a nation with the world's third largest crude reserves, emerging from years of conflict and sanctions.

...The OPEC oil producers group is likely to try to get Iraq to curb output rather than pump all its extra capacity onto the market, analysts say.

"We are not interested to flood the market with oil. Our future policy is to get higher revenues for Iraq rather than higher production and flooding the market," Shahristani said.

Had we listened to the likes of Barack Obama and Harry Reid, Iraq would have been surrendered to Al Qaeda long ago.


Sunday, January 24, 2010

Total Protonic Reversal: Dennis Kucinich Defends Tea-Partiers, Shreds Democrat Hacks and Chicago-style Politics

The New Ledger titles its coverage of two interviews with the uber-progressive Ohio Congressman using a distinct understatement: "Kucinich Shreds Democrats for 'Selling Out'."

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is not happy with the direction of his own party and he is telling them to wake up. In an interview with Rawstory.com, Congressman Kucinich blasted away verbally and shredded his fellow Democrats with his words for failing to follow through on the change they promised in Washington...

...He went as far as to mention the Tea Party movement in a separate interview, warning fellow Dems on the Ed Schultz Show not to ignore financial issues.

"I met with people who were, you know, unfairly ridiculed as being just a bunch of teabaggers and frankly they had basic economic concerns just like everyone else, they felt that government wasn't listening to them, and this is where the Democratic Party better wake up," he told the radio audience.

Now that we've established that Dennis Kucinich is to the right of the current Democrat Party leadership, I think it's safe to say that the country is in some really, really deep s***.

Although, to be fair, last June the American Thinker's Randall Hoven warned us what to expect. Executive Summary: I'll see you in the rice paddies, comrade.


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