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

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Obama's Debt Commission: Obama's Debt Will Destroy Us

Erskine Bowles is head of President Obama's "Deficit Commission". Populated mostly with academics, union hacks and other Statists, there's little doubt that the commission has a singular task. Its recommendation -- to solve America's burgeoning deficit -- will assuredly involve new and higher taxes. The commission is such a partisan farce that its recommendations are being deliberately delayed until after the November midterm elections.

So when Bowles got a chance to give his opinion on Sunday, he stunned observers with a frank assessment that -- truth be told -- was a harsh indictment of every Democrat President from FDR to BHO.

As a president, it's one thing to know you have a big fiscal problem. It's quite another when a panel you appointed tells you the policies you have in mind will only make things worse.

That's what happened Sunday, when leaders of President Obama's deficit commission offered up the darkest of outlooks for our financial future — calling current trends in U.S. budgets a "cancer" that will "destroy the country from within" unless halted soon.

Though Bowles further opined that higher taxes wouldn't be the answer, he did hint that "increased government revenue" -- a codeword for higher taxes -- could be in the cards.

Studies show that government spending should remain below 20% for optimal efficiency and highest growth rates. Problem is, the current Obama budget is already around 25% of GDP (versus a long-term average of 18%). By 2030, that figure will rise to an oppressive 32% of GDP. Americans would have to pay around 80% higher taxes -- nearly double what they pay now -- to fund the massive bureaucracies.

What Bowles is really saying is that: Democrat policies are dead in the water. Our society will collapse unless we get our fiscal house in order.

We've tried the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the Square Deal, Great Society, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Amtrak and every program in between. All are bankrupt. The Democrats stole the money and lied to you, the American public, about "trust funds" and "lock boxes".

They stole the money. If we give them more money, they'll steal that too. And remember: they're not just stealing from us. They're stealing from our children, grandchildren and generations into the future.

Bowles said, "This debt is like a cancer... It is truly going to destroy the country from within."

Whether he intended it as an indictment or not, his statement served its purpose. Bowles agrees with conservatives that the policies of Obama, Pelosi and Reid are disastrous. Dangerous. And they must be stopped -- the Democrats must meet political obliteration in November.

The alternative -- Democrats remain in power -- is too ugly a scenario to contemplate; but suffice it to say that the future would then look a lot like a place called Thunderdome.


Sunday, July 11, 2010

'Hell is on the way'

That's a sentence from a business owner in Florida, who emailed Mike "Mish" Shedlock of Global Economic Analysis:

"That's all folks" is correct and right on the money.

I have a vending business here in Florida. I service manufacturing and many general businesses. All are laying off workers. I have machines that were taking in 100.00 plus dollars a week that are now doing only 5.00 per week.

This drop off is now much worse than in autumn of 2008.

Mish, please tell people to save their money because hell is on the way.

Sure, you could write this off as just another anecdote -- which it is -- but the simple fact remains: many states are running on fiscal fumes and immense layoffs are imminent as a result. While public sector unions are still in denial -- even claiming raises as their due in many states -- suppliers and other business partners are S.O.L. Ever heard of "Chapter 66"?

A number of U.S. states are facing bankruptcy - in fact if not in name - with Illinois and California leading the way.

When an individual goes bankrupt in the United States, it’s usually a Chapter 7. When a business goes under, it’s Chapter 11. Farmers have a Chapter 12, and there is a more complex individual option known as Chapter 13.

But what do you call it when a U.S. state goes under? There’s no official “chapter” for that. But it’s looking more and more like there should be. Your humble editor proposes “Chapter 66,” in honor of a famed stretch of interstate.

U.S. Route 66, also known as “Will Rogers Highway,” “Main Street of America” and “the Mother Road,” was one of the original routes in the U.S. highway system. Opened up to cars in the year 1926, it originally ran 2,448 miles, from Chicago, Ill., to Los Angeles, Calif.

Route 66 was also a major path for westbound migrants, seeking relief from the “dust bowl” conditions of the 1930s.

It’s fitting that Illinois and California were the termination points of that iconic road, because “Chapter 66″ is a dark and looming reality for those two states now - with a number of others on the same path. As America endures a sort of new financial dustbowl, the “state of the states” looks grim.

Illinois is something of an idiot poster child for how bad things have gotten… and how tough the fix will be... “It is getting worse every single day,” the Illinois state comptroller laments. “We are not paying bills for absolutely essential services. That is obscene.”

Illinois is facing a $12 billion deficit and a $5 billion budget shortfall. To add insult to injury, the state’s pension system is 50% underfunded by conservative estimates.

It has reached the point where the state has, quite literally, stopped paying bills. This means that jobs are getting cut, paychecks are getting delayed, and businesses are being shut down. There is simply - and again, quite literally - no more money...

California is another poster child for impossible foolishness.

“People think we’re becoming a third world country,” says Arnella Sims, a Los Angeles County court reporter. “We are on the verge of system failure,” warns the executive director of the California Budget Project.

“California’s fiscal hole is now so large,” The Globe and Mail further adds, “that the state would have to liberate 168,000 prison inmates and permanently shutter 240 university and community college campuses to balance its budget in the fiscal year that begins July 1… Mass layoffs, slashed health and welfare services, closed parks, crumbling superhighways and ever-larger public school class sizes are all part of the new normal.”

...As Hunter Thompson once said: “The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”

We were bound and determined to find the edge. And now we are in the process of going over. Be prepared.

While legacy media continues to hype a "recovery" -- touting, for instance, improved state tax collection year-over-year -- the reality is quite different.

[Income tax hikes,] Same-store-sales, tax hikes, user fee hikes, special taxes, etc., all combine to paint a misleading picture of what is really happening with retail sales. Because of those tax hikes, state tax collection comparisons can be as misleading as same-store-sales unless you are very careful to factor in what is really happening.

Still think retail sales are up? If they are, it's not by much and it's only in comparison to amazingly weak numbers from a year ago.

The icing on the cake: Coto has published its list of the 50 most underreported (and ugliest) facts about the U.S. economy. Here's my selection of the most important issues:

#50) In 2010 the U.S. government is projected to issue almost as much new debt as the rest of the governments of the world combined.

#49) It is being projected that the U.S. government will have a budget deficit of approximately 1.6 trillion dollars in 2010.

#44) U.S. corporate income tax receipts were down 55% (to $138 billion) for the year ending September 30th, 2009.

#43) There are now 8 counties in the state of California that have unemployment rates of over 20 percent.

#42) In the area around Sacramento, California there is one closed business for every six that are still open.

#41) In February, there were 5.5 unemployed Americans for every job opening.

#40) According to a Pew Research Center study, approximately 37% of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 have either been unemployed or underemployed at some point during the recession.

#39) More than 40% of those employed in the United States are now working in low-wage service jobs.

#37) Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.  Not only that, more Americans filed for bankruptcy in March 2010 than during any month since U.S. bankruptcy law was tightened in October 2005.

#36) Mortgage purchase applications in the United States are down nearly 40 percent from a month ago to their lowest level since April of 1997.

#35) RealtyTrac has announced that foreclosure filings in the U.S. established an all time record for the second consecutive year in 2009.

#34) According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in March 2010, an increase of nearly 19 percent from February, an increase of nearly 8 percent from March 2009 and the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005.

#33) In Pinellas and Pasco counties, which include St. Petersburg, Florida and the suburbs to the north, there are 34,000 open foreclosure cases.  Ten years ago, there were only about 4,000.

#32) In California’s Central Valley, 1 out of every 16 homes is in some phase of foreclosure.

#31) The Mortgage Bankers Association recently announced that more than 10 percent of all U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment during the January to March time period.  That was a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago.

#30) U.S. banks repossessed nearly 258,000 homes nationwide in the first quarter of 2010, a 35 percent jump from the first quarter of 2009.

#29) For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.

#28) More than 24% of all homes with mortgages in the United States were underwater as of the end of 2009.

#27) U.S. commercial property values are down approximately 40 percent since 2007 and currently 18 percent of all office space in the United States is sitting vacant.

#26) Defaults on apartment building mortgages held by U.S. banks climbed to a record 4.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010.  That was almost twice the level of a year earlier.

#25) In 2009, U.S. banks posted their sharpest decline in private lending since 1942.

#24) New York state has delayed paying bills totalling $2.5 billion as a short-term way of staying solvent but officials are warning that its cash crunch could soon get even worse.

#23) To make up for a projected 2010 budget shortfall of $280 million, Detroit issued $250 million of 20-year municipal notes in March. The bond issuance followed on the heels of a warning from Detroit officials that if its financial state didn’t improve, it could be forced to declare bankruptcy.

#20) Two university professors recently calculated that the combined unfunded pension liability for all 50 U.S. states is 3.2 trillion dollars

#19) According to EconomicPolicyJournal.com, 32 U.S. states have already run out of funds to make unemployment benefit payments and so the federal government has been supplying these states with funds so that they can make their  payments to the unemployed.

#18) This ...recession has erased 8 million private sector jobs in the United States.

#17) Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of 2010.

#16) U.S. government-provided benefits (including Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs) rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.

#15) 39.68 million Americans are now on food stamps, which represents a new all-time record.  But things look like they are going to get even worse.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture is forecasting that enrollment in the food stamp program will exceed 43 million Americans in 2011.

#14) Phoenix, Arizona features an astounding annual car theft rate of 57,000 vehicles and has become the new “Car Theft Capital of the World”.

#13) U.S. law enforcement authorities claim that there are now over 1 million members of criminal gangs inside the country. These 1 million gang members are responsible for up to 80% of the crimes committed in the United States each year.

#12) The U.S. health care system was already facing a shortage of approximately 150,000 doctors in the next decade or so, but thanks to the health care “reform” bill passed by Congress, that number could swell by several hundred thousand more.

#11) According to an analysis by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation the health care “reform” bill will generate $409.2 billion in additional taxes on the American people by 2019.

#4) According to a new report based on U.S. Census Bureau data, only 26 percent of American teens between the ages of 16 and 19 had jobs in late 2009 which represents a record low since statistics began to be kept back in 1948.

#3) According to a National Foundation for Credit Counseling survey, only 58% of those in “Generation Y” pay their monthly bills on time.

#2) During the first quarter of 2010, the total number of loans that are at least three months past due in the United States increased for the 16th consecutive quarter.

#1) According to the Tax Foundation’s Microsimulation Model, to erase the 2010 U.S. budget deficit, the U.S. Congress would have to multiply each tax rate by 2.4.  Thus, the 10 percent rate would be 24 percent, the 15 percent rate would be 36 percent, and the 35 percent rate would have to be 85 percent.


Batten down the hatches, folks.

The real impact of letting hard left Democrats -- Obama, Pelosi and Reid -- control the levers of power are about to be felt by all of us. And it's gonna get ugly -- fast.


Wednesday, July 07, 2010

China's Threat to Obama: Listen to that Idiot Krugman at Your Own Peril

The message from China's Foreign Exchange Bureau (SAFE) couldn't be any more clear if it was flashed in blinking red letters on the President's teleprompter. China wants him to return to free-market capitalism. To stop the deficit spending. To stop borrowing. Because Papa Mao ain't gonna foot the bills much longer.

[SAFE} acknowledged that financial markets were very concerned at one point that massive U.S. government borrowing would drive the U.S. currency lower...

But it said economic conditions elsewhere were also a factor in determining the dollar's trend. The euro zone, for instance, was struggling with high government debt levels.

"We must recognize that any depreciation of the dollar is relative to other countries, and other countries or regions also have this or that problem," SAFE said.

Translation: you ain't the only dog in the hunt.

One of the prime concerns of Chinese Internet commentators is that a long-term decline in the dollar or euro will erode the value of SAFE's portfolio.

To that end, SAFE called on the United States and other major countries to take "responsible measures" to maintain the value of their currencies...

This meant withdrawing monetary stimulus in a reasonable manner and relying less on deficit spending.

"Responsible measures" == "no more stimulus packages == "stop deficit spending" == "look elsewhere for loans" == "Got that, Mr. Paul 'Douche-Nozzle' Krugman?"

Conclusion: The People's Republic of China is now officially to the right of Barack Obama.


Hat tip: Zero Hedge.

Monday, July 05, 2010

Who will step up and help me manufacture this breathtaking new product?

Now, if we can only bring it to market by November...



'Obama has created a wasteland of economic ruin and depression that looks much like... Mad Max'

Wayne Allen Root calls Obama "The Great Jobs Killer":

You won't find proof of the damage Obama is doing on Wall Street, but rather on Main Street. My friends are all part of the economic engine of America: Small business. Small business creates 75 percent of new jobs (and a majority of all jobs). I called one friend who was a wealthy restaurant owner. He says business is off by 60 percent. He's drowning in debt. He won't last much longer. His wealth is gone.

I called another friend in the business of home improvement. He says business is off 90 percent from two years ago. My contractor just filed personal bankruptcy. She won't be building any more homes. The hair salon where I've had my hair cut for years closed earlier this year. Bankrupt. But here's the clincher -- ESPN Zone just closed all their restaurants across the country. If they can't make it selling cheap food and overpriced beer with 100 big screens blaring every sporting event on the planet to a sports-crazed society, we are all in deep, deep trouble.

I've polled all my friends who own small businesses -- many of them in the Internet and high-tech fields. They all agree that in this new Obama world of high business taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, and workers compensation taxes, the key to success is to avoid employees. The only way to survive as a business owner today is by keeping the payroll very low and by hiring only independent contractors or part-time employees provided by temp agencies.

Over at CNBC, analysts say that Dow is repeating the "Great Depression Pattern":


The Dow Jones Industrial Average is repeating a pattern that appeared just before markets fell during the Great Depression, Daryl Guppy, CEO at Guppytraders.com, told CNBC Monday... “Those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it…there was a head and shoulders pattern that developed before the Depression in 1929, then with the recovery in 1930 we had another head and shoulders pattern that preceded a fall in the market, and in the current Dow situation we see an exact repeat of that environment,” Guppy said.

The Dow retreated 457.33 points, or 4.5 percent last week, to close at 9,686 Friday. Guppy said a Dow fall below 9,800 confirmed the head and shoulders pattern.

The view abroad confirms Guppy's observation: "The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10pc of GDP."

The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June actually fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. This is the real stress indicator. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost.

The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks. Nothing like this has been seen before in the post-war era. Jeff Weninger, of Harris Private Bank, said this compares with a peak of 21.2 weeks in the Volcker recession of the early 1980s...

...The housing market is already crumbling as government props are pulled away. The expiry of homebuyers' tax credit led to a 30pc fall in the number of buyers signing contracts in May. "It is cataclysmic," said David Bloom from HSBC.

Root concludes:

It has now become clear that, outside of the burgeoning field of Census takers, there will be no major increase in new jobs for years to come. Outside government, Obama has created a wasteland of economic ruin and depression that looks much like the landscape of Mel Gibson's first movie "Mad Max." Without a printing press in Obama's world, you're just plain out of luck.

What if, as some believe, this is all intentional? In 2009, James Simpson came to just that conclusion:

It is time to cast aside all remaining doubt. President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recovery, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite, in fact...

...The real goal of "health care" legislation, the real goal of "cap-and-trade," and the real goal of the "stimulus" is to rip the guts out of our private economy and transfer wide swaths of it over to the government to control. Do not be deluded by the propaganda. These initiatives are vehicles for change. They are not goals in and of themselves except in their ability to deliver power. They and will make matters much worse, for that is their design.

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to recognize the very real strategies advocated by Cloward and Piven. If you care about this country, you'll do everything you can to organize, raise money, and spread the word about the malevolent cabal that is systematically deconstructing America from within.

It's November or never.


Hat tip: Drudge. Linked by: Michelle Malkin and Gateway Pundit. Thanks!

Sunday, July 04, 2010

Everyone Do Your Jazz Hands: Stripping Out Bureau of Labor Statistics' Fudge-Factors Reveals Real Unemployment Rate is 11.8%, not 9.5%

The invaluable Tyler Durden untangled the usual BLS statistical skulduggery to reveal a labor market on life support.

The only reason for the decline in the unemployment rate to 9.5% was yet another decline in the labor force participation rate, which according to the BLS dropped another 652k people in the month of June. This resulted in a labor force to the civilian non-institutional population ratio of 64.7%: the second lowest number in decades of data... As the chart below shows, the double dip in the labor force participation is now very much pronounced.

What this chart implies is that if there was a mean reversion to the last 10 year labor force participation average rate of 66.2%, there should be another 3.5 million jobless added to the 14.6 million tally. And as this differential is the easiest thing in the world for the BLS to fudge, adding the two and dividing by the labor force of 153,74, we get an unemployment rate of 11.8%, leaving aside all other such fudge factors are government hiring, temporary workers, birth death, etc.

Is it any wonder that the "scariest job chart ever" just got uglier?

The American people are truly feeling the powerful thrusts of The Obama Recovery™.


Saturday, July 03, 2010

The Timeless Beauty of Democrat Governance: Illinois Owes Suppliers $5B, Takes a Mere 250 Business Days to Pay Bills, and the Hole Worsens Every Day

I just love to open the history books and read about Democrat success stories. You know, Social Security, Medicare, "Great Society", Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Amtrak, the FHA... and the list just seems to grow by the day.

Now that the fuse on their EconoPonzi Clusterbomb has burned to a nub, you can't open the newspaper without reading about another example of masterful Democrat governance. Like in Illinois, with emphasis on the "Ill".

Even by the standards of this deficit-ridden state, Illinois’s comptroller, Daniel W. Hynes, faces an ugly balance sheet. Precisely how ugly becomes clear when he beckons you into his office to examine his daily briefing memo.

He picks the papers off his desk and points to a figure in red: $5.01 billion.

“This is what the state owes right now to schools, rehabilitation centers, child care, the state university — and it’s getting worse every single day,” he says in his downtown office... Mr. Hynes shakes his head. “This is not some esoteric budget issue; we are not paying bills for absolutely essential services,” he says. “That is obscene.”

...“Their pension is the most underfunded in the nation,” said Karen S. Krop, a senior director at Fitch Ratings. “They have not made significant cuts or raised revenues. There’s no state out there like this. They can’t grow their way out of this.” ...

...“We are a fiscal poster child for what not to do,” said Ralph Martire of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a liberal-leaning policy group in Illinois. “We make California look as if it’s run by penurious accountants who sit in rooms trying to put together an honest budget all day.”

Perhaps someday the liberals who actually like America (a minority to be sure, if their representatives in Congress are any indication) will figure out the simple acronym many of us learned from our parents: TANSTAAFL.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

That concept, for the moment, appears to be too complex for the party of fiscal destruction to understand. Obama, Pelosi and Reid will be long gone by the time the misery they've helped inflict is fully felt. But one can hope that they will, someday, be held to account. They'll look good in orange jumpsuits.


Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Victor the Contractor: Incompetent Like a Fox

By Victor the Contractor

Lately I have been reflecting on why the Obama Presidency is so long on academic credentials yet so short on accomplishments. It has to do with the difference between doers and thinkers. The president has surrounded himself with stars of academia and political strategists who have an agenda to push in the process of governing but little in the way of management experience. Note that I distinguish between managing and governing. A governor, as described in the mechanical sense, guides a system that is already operational but requires minor adjustments to function optimally. A manager modifies that system to a greater or lesser degree to achieve a goal.

President Obama is barely able to govern, let alone manage when the need arises. A manager would have set up new guidelines for say, a national oil policy, instead of simply badmouthing fossil fuels and browbeating the corporate world into product reformulations that re-labeled existing technologies as new or green. A manager would have immediately set up a consortium of interests who had tangible experience with oil drilling and the attendant problems associated with it and not filled a room with academics and called it 'expert.' And lastly, a competent manager would not have ignored the whole mess for two months and lied about creating a panel that hadn't met nor had the expertise to deal with such a protracted problem a mile under water.

Even a governor who was worth his salt would have caught on, albeit late in the game, that you have to bring together people with real experience to deal with a developing environmental crisis. It may close beaches in four states for years. It may put a hold on a fishing industry whose workers already live hand to mouth. That BP decided to pay out unlimited funds, and we know that that is what it will come to barring bankruptcy, is small comfort to those who labored by the sea they are now barred from even dipping a toe into. Why the president waited two months to take control and even now is barring equipment and manpower from aiding the cleanup effort is secondary to the result of such incompetence: his neglect has resulted in a monumental environmental catastrophe.

You may say that the President needed time to formulate a plan or cull information from experts to engage in such a large scale enterprise, but there is little evidence that he paid any attention to the situation at all. His experts are accomplished authors and may even have received a Nobel Prize (of which he never tires of reminding us), but they live in pristine, oil-free ivory towers. They could no more stop a leak a mile down in the sea than I could convince liberals that budgeting helps you bounce fewer checks. No matter: President Obama can take time out from his various sporting activities to proclaim the spill solved while simultaneously giving a shout out to his intellectual 'soul brothers' in the New Black Panthers or some such nonsense.

I used to think that we were experiencing a sort of Jimmy Carter Redux: an incompetent president who enjoyed cloying press coverage while shaming the country for its superpower status and pontificating on our need to lower expectations. No more. I now feel that the far left splinter group of the Democrat Party is in fleeting control of the levers of power and will die on their collective swords to accomplish a fraction of the socialist agenda they have been advocating for a century. You've got to give them kudos for staying true to an ideology. They truly believe that most people need a government to care for them and protect them from themselves - even though history tells us otherwise. But I digress.

All agendas aside, and that is a big aside because I believe this catastrophe could have been avoided, the White House governs like a blindfolded sufferer of Parkinson's Disease serving high tea. It tramples the spirit of the Constitution while happily proclaiming the benefits of its high-minded efforts to grant the same 'rights' to Americans enjoyed by the Europeans. Those rights include a legal requirement to pay 60%+ taxes, the right to be free of moral restrictions like the rule of law or the maintenance of borders, the right to stay home and be provided for by 'evil rich people' and the right to limit the free speech of anybody who disagrees with them through the implementation of various 'Fairness Doctrines.'

Who can bemoan the loss of a few thousand acres of shore-front property in the effort to save us from Global Warming through legislation that restricts the use of fossil fuels. After all, oil is poisoning the environment, whether in crude form or as an oxidized greenhouse gas. This mentality is exactly the same as banning guns because they kill people. Or banning SUVs because they burn too much fuel. Assuming the human race is unable to control its lusts is key to understanding the Democrats' tendency to over-legislate and -regulate.

But I fear in the case of the oil spill the White House is simply in over its head. Yes, an environmental disaster might make unconstitutional bans on drilling more palatable to a skeptical public. And yes the argument for alternate energy sources is buttressed by our inability to guarantee flawless drilling a mile or ten undersea. And yes, the environmental calamity fits well with that sex-crazed poodle Al Gore's scenario of fossil fuels destroying the planet, if only it were true...

There is no excuse for incompetency in the White House. That's why the press is so adamant about blaming an oil company and not the regulators who are charged with ensuring safe drilling practices. And all the better if you can blame a past president of the 'evil' party. But the claims of the press can no longer shield the Democrats' inattentiveness and often brutal arrogance from public view. The liberal apologists who mouth approval every minute and with every printed word no longer protect its favored party. Perhaps they still believe that incompetence can be ignored by the public so long as it serves their chosen agenda.

I could mention our porous borders hemorrhaging illegals while the scandalously incompetent Janet Napolitano declares them as secure as ever. Or the financial condition of our economy, with Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd insisting the housing market is sound after they effectively bankrupted the entire world through their criminal undersight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But Janet Napalitano was incompetent before President Obama came along; he just put her in charge of homeland security, a grave mistake indeed. And as for Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, they have systematically planned for the ruination of the housing industry for decades. Yes, for decades. Under the guise of forcing banks to write mortgages for minorities, Messrs. Frank And Dodd have undermined the financial underpinnings for the entire world. They knew this would happen: they didn't care.

So when you refer to Obama as incompetent, you might want to think of it as, 'incompetent as a fox.' For even thought there is no management experience in the White House, there are many academics and failed revolutionaries who want to see our country burn. And they have until November 2nd to achieve their goals. After that, they will melt back into academia and become consultants and lobbyists. Think Harry Reid is worried about what he'll be doing on November 3rd? He's already got a lobbying gig lined up. Nancy Pelosi will be re-elected by the most liberal district in the union, or simply return to the Republic of California to mismanage her winery and hotel.

Management experience speaks volumes about style, substance and ethics. If President Obama had ever served as a Governor he would not now be President. But, as the press did not cover his wildly socialist stint in academia or his populist votes while in office, I wonder if experience would have mattered in his case. Incompetent like a fox: now there's a phrase.

Victor The Contractor



Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Behold the Crazed Economic Recovery Poodle

Can you tell what the difference is between America's prior major recessions and this one? No, I mean besides a Congress and President bent on the destruction of American capitalism.

Every other recession began to heal after sensible policies -- tax cuts or spending cuts or other mechanisms to enable the private sector to regroup.

Welcome to the Obama recovery!


Hat tip: Zero Hedge.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Paging Jonathan Alter--Joint Chiefs Chairman Slams Obama's Insane Spending: Says Nation’s Debt is Biggest Threat to National Security

Paging Mr. Alter... Mr. Alter... It's time for you to unleash your dogs of demagoguery...

Another member of the military's top brass has roundly criticized the President and the Democrat-controlled Congress; in this case, pointing to their catastrophic levels of deficit spending. Little-publicized were last week's comments by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, at a breakfast hosted by The Hill newspaper.

Adm. Mike Mullen... renewed his warning that the nation’s debt is the biggest threat to U.S. national security.

“I was shown the figures the other day by the comptroller of the Pentagon that said that the interest on our debt is $571 billion in 2012,” Mullen said at a breakfast hosted by The Hill. “That is, noticeably, about the size of the defense budget. It is not sustainable.”

Even under the rosy projections of the Obama White House, which thus far have proven to be worse than if you'd used a dartboard, the deficit is dangerously high.


The Obama/Democrat budget doesn't contemplate closing the deficit for as far as the eye can see.


Despite the utter failure of every spending program they've tried -- starting with the $860 billion "Stimulus" package -- the Democrats continue to shovel the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars into their cash furnace.


Worse still, they are creating deficits that endanger the ability of the country to survive: not simply from a national security perspective, but from the standpoint of risking a total economic collapse.


What happens when our interest costs become unsustainable? Barack Obama and his left wing sycophants in Congress will be long gone, having left their legacy of misery and destruction to our heirs.

Perhaps the laughingstock of a "journalist" -- Newsweek's Jonathan Alter -- can co-author another hit piece with David Axelrod similar to the one that took out General McChrystal.

Odds are Alter can get Mullen fired for the same offense -- for telling the truth.


Saturday, June 26, 2010

All you need to know about Democrats' "Comprehensive Financial Reform" bill: the multi-trillion dollar time-bomb called Fannie Mae isn't addressed

All of the reforms forced down the throats of the American people by Democrats in Congress are helpfully termed "comprehensive". Consider the terminology, casually tossed about while ignoring the fundamental failure of every, large-scale federal program in history: "Comprehensive Immigration Reform"... "Comprehensive Health Care Reform"... "Comprehensive Financial Reform"...

Of the latter, 2,000-plus pages are devoted to revamping the entire financial "sector". The result is an orgy of central planning, authoritarian controls, and Democrat skulduggery that Nikita Krushchev would love --- and James Madison would despise.

As for the effectiveness of the reforms: the Democrats have completely ignored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs), which were the lynch-pins of the 2008 economic meltdown. The reasons are many:

• Fannie and Freddie have been described as "job-shops for out-of-work Democrats"; during the Clinton era, they were tasked with subsidizing zero-documentation (no proof of income) loans under HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Janet Reno;

• Fannie and Freddie's executives were all loyal Democrat cronies -- from Jamie Gorelick, to Jim Johnson, to Franklin Raines -- who took a couple of hundred million in compensation while touching off a multi-billion dollar accounting scandal. All the while, they extolled the virtues of the GSEs' economic health, knowing full well that they were teetering on the brink;

• Fannie and Freddie were protected from Republican scrutiny despite numerous inquiries into financial shenanigans, outsized pay for executives, bogus audits and the like. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, in particular, threatened every sort of legislative roadblock if the GOP pursued investigations into the GSEs. The latter even conducted an 8-year sexual affair with a Fannie Mae executive -- a prototypical conflict-of-interest;

In short, the GSEs remain a multi-trillion dollar, ticking time-bomb. They own nearly $6 trillion in residential mortgages, with millions of individual bad loans that are still sitting on their books.

Yet the Democrats' "comprehensive financial reform" package completely ignores the critical, government-sponsored malignancies at the very epicenter of the meltdown.


Oh, goodie: Moody's Says Provisions Of Fin Reg Reform Bill May "Trigger Disruptions" In Credit Market


Related: The Fannie Mae testimony that will make you scream in anger.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

"We are in a Depression now and have been since 2008"

Karl Denninger lays down the law.

Purchases of new homes in the U.S. fell in May to a record low as a tax credit expired, showing the market remains dependent on government support.

The entire economy is dependent on government support.

But the government has no money. It is in fact borrowing nearly as much as it takes in via taxes.

If you made $20,000 a year, and borrowed another $20,000, for how long would your credit card company allow that to continue?

"Quantitative Easing", "Easy Money", "Zero down mortgages" and all the rest - it is all a scam designed to impoverish you by stripping you of every asset you have now and as much of your future earnings as they can get you to sign away... Housing, education, consumer credit, all of it. A scam. Every bit of it. Top to bottom.

The entire intent of these "programs" has been and is an attempt to get you to spend money you don't have and can't acquire. The Government has built it's entire "empire" over the last 20 years on the premise that it can continue to borrow more and more money, without any hope of ever being able to pay any of it back.

This was 3-4% of GDP, and is now 11-12% of GDP. It has been the latter now for more than two and a half years. It was mathematically impossible to continue at the former rate and obviously is impossible to continue at a rate three times the 2003-2007 borrowing pace.

We are in a Depression now and have been since 2008. A Depression is defined as a 10% contraction in GDP. But for the government borrowing 11% of GDP and spending it, GDP would have contract by at least the same amount borrowed and spent.

...Geithner and Obama have continued to insist that we "spend and borrow more", along with idiots like Krugman and Summers. Their entire model is predicated on what amounts to a claim of perpetual motion, which anyone with more than one hour of physics class knows is impossible... At some point it is inevitable that we will run out of the ability to continue to compound debt upon debt... This is not conjecture, it is mathematics... It is not open to debate, it is fact and cannot be avoided.

If you want to save this society for your children and grandchildren, I'd strongly recommend voting for the most fiscally conservative candidates you can in November. In other words: not Democrats.


Saturday, June 19, 2010

Outstanding: Fed Business Index Dramatically Slows, Hits 10-Month Low. Eh... I mean, 'Unexpectedly' Hits 10-Month Low.

See, I'm practicing to be a pro journalist, so I threw the word "unexpectedly" into the headline.

June's Fed Business Outlook Survey describes a small business picture that is, at best, grim.

The survey’s broadest measure of manufacturing conditions, the diffusion index of current activity, decreased notably from a reading of 21.4 in May to 8.0 in June. The index, which had edged higher for four consecutive months, fell back to its lowest reading in 10 months.

...For the first time in seven months, more firms reported a decrease in employment (18 percent) than reported an increase (17 percent)... The workweek index also declined into negative territory, its first negative reading in eight months.

Yes, all of this was unexpected:

The number of Americans seeking jobless benefits last week unexpectedly rose to a one-month high, indicating firings are staying elevated even as the U.S. economy grows.

Some companies are trimming payrolls to boost or maintain profits at the same time overall employment has grown each month this year. The figures show that bigger job gains needed to spur consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy, may be slow in developing, keeping the unemployment rate close to 10 percent.

“The labor market is not improving,” said Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities USA Inc. in New York. “If you really are going to have a sustainable recovery, you need the labor market to improve.”

Gee, really?

Perhaps someone could carrier-pigeon this report to our beloved President and Democrat Congress. Unless, of course, they're doing it on purpose as part of their grand plan to remake American society.


Friday, June 18, 2010

Repeat after me--Conservative Women are Stupid: Palin, Bachmann, Angle (never mind that Democrats have bankrupted the country and destroyed the Gulf).

Have you been re-programmed yet?

Conservatives are stupid. People who believe in free markets are stupid. The Constitution is stupid. Archaic even. I mean, that's what the radical Left would have you believe.

What is it about a strong conservative woman that so frightens liberals? You must admit, though, that Leftists are, if nothing else, consistent in their irrational hatred of strong women:

Gov. Sarah Palin is "amazingly stupid" and "advocates for a theocracy";

Rep. Michelle Bachmann "leads America's exploding extremism" and believes ObamaCare "will profane the Sabbath";

Now Sharron Angle, a true conservative candidate for Senate in Nevada, is under attack by legacy media and the leftist blogosphere (redundant, eh?).

A local Democrat news reporter stalked Angle at a campaign event, shrieking at her for advocating the reformation of Social Security. Or should I call it "the $30 trillion-in-the-hole Social Security" program?

Meanwhile, Harry Reid and his Democrat cohorts are bankrupting the country -- spending your great-great-grandchildrens' money -- while buying land for pennies on the dollar and supporting his lobbyist sons.

There's 14% unemployment in Nevada. Is that Angle's fault? A massive oil spill in the Gulf. Angle behind that? A nuclear Iran? Angle?

Isn't this theme getting a little tired? Are all conservative women stupid theocrats?

Or is the media just a bunch of propagandists advocating for Statism?

Oh, and final Jeopardy question: can we put the adults in charge now?

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

Got a few spare bucks? Support Sharon Angle in Nevada. You can help kick the despicably dishonest Harry "Land Deal" Reid out of office. Ahhh. Won't that feel good?


Related: Citizen Reid. Hat tip: Dan Riehl.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Community-Organizer-In-Chief announces comprehensive plan to plug Gulf spill -- involves complex sequence of shakedowns, taxation and union payoffs

Using the vast engineering, logistics and oil spill remediation knowledge assembled by the White House in only 57 days, the President has announced a comprehensive plan to address the massive oil spill in the Gulf. Three projects are operating in parallel:

The President performed a seemingly extra-legal shakedown of BP involving redistributing $20 billion from shareholders and pensioners to a fund managed by an Obama crony: "There is no legal basis for the Obama administration to induce BP to pay $20 billion into a kitty to be controlled by one of its political appointees."

The President will try to ram through a massive new tax on energy in the form of Cap-and-Trade, to be passed even if Americans vote out incumbent Democrats in November;

Finally, the President will stipulate an implicit payoff to unions from the BP slush fund. It will come in the form of "$100 million [to be set aside] in a separate fund to help oil workers". Presumably the funds will be dispatched to only those workers protected by collective bargaining agreements, as virtually all Obama dictates command.

What is the legal authority for these measures?

There is none.

The ecological disaster continues in the Gulf, 57 days in. Just as the President, once upon a time, promised a "laser focus" on "jobs, jobs, jobs"; and just as he once promised to repair the housing market; and just as he once promised to revamp the economy with new, clean energy technologies; and just as he promised to "fix" the health care system -- his effort here also demonstrates a profound lack of managerial experience. And, worse, his complete unwillingness to learn from experts.

Having spent trillions of dollars on Obama's initiatives, we have nothing to show for any of them except an enormous pool of oil washing up on the Gulf Coast, a broken fiscal system, and an utterly failed President.


Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Just when you thought Democrats had hit bottom: they plan on passing Cap-and-Trade Energy Tax during... wait for it... the Lame-Duck Session

Runner-up headline: Democrats show their respect for the people.

Even after the bribes, threats and skulduggery they used to jam socialized medicine down the American people's throats, it's hard to believe the latest news relayed by Jim Geraghty from Politico's Mike Allen:

EXCLUSIVE: Phil Schiliro, the White House congressional liaison, has told the Senate to aim to take up an energy bill the week of July 12, after the July 4 break (and after the scheduled final passage of Wall Street reform). Kagan confirmation will follow, ahead of the summer break, scheduled to begin Aug. 9...

The plan is to conference the new Senate bill with the already-passed House bill IN A LAME-DUCK SESSION AFTER THE ELECTION, so House members don’t have to take another tough vote ahead of midterms.

Geraghty offers advice everyone should read and memorize:

Every GOP candidate should demand their Democrat incumbent opponent pledge in writing they will not pass a massive energy tax in a lame-duck session if they are defeated.

Any Democrat who uses a lame-duck session to advance Obama's radical agenda is the lowest of the low. Anyone who does so is metaphorically urinating on the concept of representative government.

If I had a mean streak, I'd suggest that such an individual be roasted on an open spit. But Eric Holder informs me that such an action is against the law, except if performed by the New Black Panther Party. In that case, I recommend you shun them, boo them and scream "you suck" when ever you spot them in public.

It's the very least they deserve.


Hat tip: Ace of Spades.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Anyone know what you call it when heavily armed intruders cross the border into the U.S. unmolested by authorities? Oh, that's right: Arizona.

Say, is it a problem that heavily armed Mexicans are crossing into Arizona? Or that, according to Arizona law enforcement authorities, Mexican drug cartels are "in control" of large parts of the state?

Apparently not, according to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano who says the border is: "as secure now as it has ever been."

Thanks to the patriots at SecureBorderIntel.org and BorderInvasionPics.com, we have a true picture of the situation on the border. SBI has placed a series of hidden videocameras at known chokepoints where illegals, many of them human- and drug-smugglers, are entering the U.S. completely unaccosted by the traditional border niceties of, oh, I don't know -- maybe a freaking fence?

The videos are simply stunning.

In this video, taped several months ago, heavily armed point-men clear a path for drug runners.

Among their firearms: a full-auto AK-47...

...and a full-auto MAC-10.

The guards ensure that the "mules" will proceed deep into Arizona unmolested.

A series of mules follow close behind...

Each carrying as much as 75 lbs. of cocaine, heroin or pot.

But the illicit drugs don't represent the only cargo simply walking into the U.S.

Human-smuggling is rampant, with videos capturing hundreds upon hundreds of individuals -- many violent criminals and gang-members -- making the trip.

Consider that the entire federal government, with agency upon agency, can't seem to detect what a few patriotic individuals did with $500 worth of supplies were able to.

And these are the same dweebs who tell us they can run the health care system.

And another thing (I'm on a roll): remember how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the Mexicans were getting their weapons from the U.S.? In March, during a trip to Mexico City, she stated that, "Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the death of police officers, soldiers and civilians."

Of course, this statement had all the integrity of a typical Clinton statement, because the last time I checked, full-auto weapons aren't available anywhere in the U.S. without a Class III license (which is almost impossible to get).

But let's not let the truth get in the way of the Democrats' anti-gun agenda! They've got amnesty to grant and new voters to register: and if they're felons, so much the better. They'll be doubly in the Democrats' camp, as the Party of Treason has been lobbying for the felon vote for years.

The people of Arizona deserve better than the political hacks who seem to violate their oath of office on a daily basis. The one task they're supposed to do -- protecting the citizens of this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic, seems to be too much of a bother for them. But nationalizing industries... well, that's job one!