The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.
The word from WisPolitics is that President Obama will be coming to a to-be-disclosed location in southeast Wisconsin on June 30 to talk about the economy. The lines are now open for suggestions on where he could hold that talk.
My choice – the being-torn-down former Delphi plant at Howell and Drexel in Oak Creek.
Is it just me or does President Obama’s hype around “Recovery Summer,” kicked off in this photo:
Feel an awful lot like how this event was received?
By the way, what’s the deal with the guy in the lab coat? Did the PR guys have some left over from the phony Doctor photo ops for Placebocare?
If there’s bad economic news, in this case a sharp increase in weekly initial jobless claims to 472,000, one can count on the likes of Reuters to term it “unexpected”:
Jobless claims unexpectedly higher last week
The number of workers filing new applications for unemployment insurance unexpectedly rose last week as the manufacturing, construction and education sectors shed employees, adding to worries that the economic recovery is slowing.
(Revisions/extensions, 10:05 am 6/17/2010) – Hot Air commenter mankai found that the first version of AP’s story (thanks to Breitbart for not sending the original down the memory hole like everybody else) also used the “unexpectedly” adverb. Also, in the main post, Ed Morrissey noted that, thanks to a revision of the prior week’s claims, this week’s increase wasn’t exactly followed by 3 weeks of drops as the AP would lead one to believe.
Since Ed Morrissey decided to link here, and he has the most-exhaustive list of the press terming bad economic news “unexpected”, let’s count the number of times this year he’s caught the presstitutes using their favorite adverb:
This is hardly an exhaustive list, but that’s 22 “unexpected” bad-news items, another 2 “unexpected-by-another-phrase” bad-news items, and 2 “unexpected” good-news items. That’s an average of every other week.
If you’re not reading American Thinker, you are missing out on some of the brightest minds in political thought. Most outfits would put their “B-side” blog as their front page. A pair of posts from Monty Pelerin and Vasko Kohlmayer on the American debt bomb that is about to go off are prime examples of that. First, Mr. Pelerin on a possible doomsday scenario:
It is likely that Greece represents the prototype for early US responses. Political denial and cowardice will defer hard decisions. Eventually external forces will force action. The US government will become the same Pavlovian dog conditioned to respond to riots and violence. California is likely to be the first “trainer.” If the US government resists bailing out CA, then the streets of CA will be the learning center for the US Pavlovian dog. When (and I believe they will) the US government bails out CA, there is no end to the beggars that will show up. Eventually we run out of money, at least money that can be raised in financial markets. (We may be at this point already.)
My guess, and it is only that, is that the US government will do everything it can to avoid the necessary cuts and the resulting violence in the streets. That implies massive monetization to fund commitments. Ultimately that will destroy the currency and result in an hyperinflationary depression that will cause markets to cease to function other than on a barter system. Savings and fixed income pensions will be destroyed.
While printing money might buy some time, it will worsen outcomes, including worse violence. A hyperinflationary depression will destroy the country and perhaps our mode of government.
Somehow, I think that’s the goal. All the Boomers who are running things need to do is keep the plates spinning for another 20 years or so.
Next, Mr. Kohlmayer explains the nature of the public debt (link to Wikipedia removed as I don’t trust Wikipedia as far as I can throw it):
If anything, Intragovernmental Holdings – the part Mr. Hall terms “soft” – would be far more difficult to renege on than the other portion of the debt, since it concerns retirement money of Americans. One can well imagine the outrage that would erupt if one day politicians announced that we were going to simply “forget” about it. Given that senior citizens are electorally most potent demographic, no politician would ever dare to suggest that we do such a thing.
If any portion of the debt will ever get repealed it would be the Debt Held by the Public. Given that most Americans do not own government bonds, initially this form of default would directly affect only a comparatively small portion of the population. Much of the immediate loses would be, in fact, borne by foreign central banks and governments that hold US dollars as reserve currency. There would, of course, be much anger and protestations on their part. Politicians, however, would much prefer to face the wrath of foreigners than of their own citizens, since the Chinese cannot participate in our elections (or at least they are not supposed to)….
I do have to raise a point of order or two at this point. First, attempts by governments to renege on foreign-held debt have historically been met with war. Something tells me that the ChiComs aren’t simply going to walk away from north of $2 trillion, even in the “kinder, gentler” Third Millenium.
Second, that day of reckoning on the Intragovernmental Holdings is coming. It won’t affect those at or very near retirement, but those of my generation (the aptly-named GenX) are already being conditioned to accept that government won’t be there for us, even as we’re being told that we have to pay and pay and pay and pay for the lack of foresight on the part of our elders by not producing enough of us to keep the SocSecurity Ponzi scheme going while blindly depending on pensions that for the most part died before they got to use them.
The question is, will the publicly-held debt bomb explode before the Boomers die off? Something tells me that the proverbial spinning plates are already wobbling beyond stability.
Back to Mr. Kohlmayer for his close:
The dire nature of our fiscal situation has been recently pointed out by the International Monetary Fund which explicitly warned that the US national debt is soon to exceed 100 percent of GDP. The Fund cautioned that if nothing is done the figure will rise dramatically in the years ahead. Paradoxically, the IMF recommended that the amount by which the US needed reduce its structural deficits was greater than that recommended for Greece.
With the deficit projected to hit 10.6 percent of GDP this year and with long-term unfunded entitlement liabilities of some 104 trillion, the United States is indeed quickly becoming Greece on the Atlantic’s western shore.
So, I’m reading through an AP article about the DOW’s wild ride today and come across this sentence:
Investors are questioning whether steep budget cuts in countries including Greece, Spain and Portugal will hinder an economic recovery in Europe.
Do “investors” not understand that each and every dollar that is spent by any government is appropriated from the private sector somewhere?
Even after the experience of Obama’s “stimulus”, are “investors” still delusional enough to believe that government spending actually stimulates anything?
Do “investors” not understand that without dramatic changes in most government spending that nations one by one will see defaults?
Do “investors” not understand that their desire for increased government spending is simply satisfying a short term thrill for long term, significant pain?
Real investors understand each of the items I outlined. However, the bunch of government, teat sucking sycophants that operate wall street don’t. Those “investors” are morons!
In his commencement address, Sunday, at Hampton University, Virginia, President Obama told the students that information and acting upon that information, was the key to a successful democracy:
“What Jefferson recognized… that in the long run, their improbable experiment — called America — wouldn’t work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out, and left democracy to those who didn’t have the best interests of all the people at heart.
“It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship.”
In what is as rare as Robert Gibbs’ ability to provide a lucid and logical explanation as to what the administration’s policy on terror man made events is, I agree with President Obama.
As you read stories of our country’s founding, you will find that even then, with the relatively rudimentary communication tools, at least as compared to today, information and debates about that information were key to the success of nearly every endeavor of the nation. Most especially one can see the import that information and debate had on the nation’s founding if you study any of the history of the creation and ratification of the Constitution.
Flash forward to today and you see information having the same place as the corner stone in democracy. While the tools for disseminating it have changed, information and the debate of information, remains the key to our democracy. One only need look at “leaders” like Hugo Chavez and how they all attempt to control the flow of information as one of their first acts, to understand how important information flow is to a free people. Can anyone imagine how a movement without structure could have the impact that the tea party is having, if it didn’t have access to and the means to distribute information in a free and rapid fashion?
Earlier in his speech, President Obama complained about
arguments, some of which don’t always rank all that high on the truth meter.
He added:
With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.
Really? Information becomes a distraction? I guess that might be true if your goal was not debate but to dictate “truth” and “fact” as you want it to be seen. In that case, conflicting information would certainly be a “distraction.” However, in any honest assessment of an issue, debate, which nearly by definition, means disagreement is the best way to find answers. Not to go all Biblical on you this early in the week but have you never heard of iron sharpening iron?
Unfortunately, with a political life that was forged in Chicago, President Obama is used to avoiding debate and only hearing the comforting, echoing applause of support for every socialist idea he puts forth. “Information” in President Obama’s world is just one more distraction on his way to a “transformed” America.
One last thought…in light of his comments and his knock on the newest information and technology gadgets, has anyone informed the President that we are an information age economy? Oh, my mistake, I was assuming for a moment that a robust economy was something that the President would want.
To say I’m an “avid” pheasant is a probably an over statement. I’m probably more in the category of “I really like it” and wished I had more time to pursue the endeavor. That said, each year for the past several, I truck off to the dead center of South Dakota for a week of chasing “ditch chickens.” When the weather is bad, it’s a lot of fun. When the weather is good, like it has been the last couple of years, there is nothing I enjoy doing more….at least not with a group of men!
In the past, I’ve been a tag a long on our trips. I can’t shoot well, I don’t own a dog, and frankly, I really had no idea how to work the fields properly. However, over the years, I’ve gotten better at working the fields but still can’t hit the broadside of a barn even though I’ve now got a semi automatic shotgun that allows me to put a lot of lead in the air in the general direction of said “ditch chickens.”
Last year I stepped up my hunting game. It was probably some form of a mid life crisis but I decided I needed a hunting dog. After searching some ads and online listings, I found a dog that had some hunting experience, whose owner needed to get him to a new home. Jake became my hunting partner last fall and after being together only three weeks, one of which included him going to the vet for his “special visit,” we went to South Dakota.
Jake and English Springer and is all nose. When he gets a scent, nothing can detract him. That’s a great trait for hunting and he proved it on our first trip. As an English Springer, Jake is also prone to not having all the synapses firing at the same time. The net is that Jake is singularly focused and successful in one area; smell and with everything else, he’s just a ditz. As long as we understand and use Jake’s strengths, we accept his shortcomings. We refer to Jake as not being very bright, but he’s happy!
On Friday, Vice President Biden was at a Pennsylvania fundraiser where he stated that the economy would soon be generating 500,000 jobs a month!
“Well, I’m here to tell you, some time in the next couple of months, we’re going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month.”
Good ol’ Joe! He’s the same Joe who recently told us that “JOBS” is a three letter word:
Joe’s also the guy who continues to tell people that the loss of 8 millions jobs was actually he and Obama being successful!
Like Jake, Joe has one purpose in life; his ignorant and gaffed filled statements give the media something to focus on other than Obama’s continued inability to execute. As such, Biden serves a useful if not, singular purpose. Also like Jake at our household, I’ve got to believe that each day Biden gets his face in the news, President Obama and other members of the White house say, “He’s not very bright but, he’s happy!”
The “coincidental” timing of the SEC charges of fraud against Goldman Sachs as Obama launched his effort to further control the banking industry, left many wondering whether there wasn’t a coordinated effort between the White house and the SEC to sway public opinion on the legislation.
Well, wonder no more!
CNBC is reporting that the SEC’s own investigation and interviews have uncovered evidence that will undercut the core accusation of the SEC’s case.
The SEC accuses Goldman of breaching its fiduciary responsibility and committing fraud by not disclosing that a hedge fund was planning to short its offering of mortgage backed securities. Unfortunately for the SEC, it’s own interviews show that the company who planned to short the CDO specifically met and told the impacted companies, that it was planning to do so.
If Perry Mason were on a murder case where his defendant had been accused of murder but had someone else admitting to the murder, I’ll be he would at least follow up on the lead. Of course he would because Perry Mason had principles, fought for the truth and wasn’t persuaded by political gain.
Last Wednesday, former Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, testified to Congress about his involvement in the financial wreck that we’re still living through.
Greenspan was question about his decisions and whether those contributed to the bubble burst. Through out his testimony, Greenspan refused to admit any responsibility or even allow that the Fed’s action may have been at least contributory to the creation of the housing and banking bubble. In fact, after being pointedly questioned about whether the Feds policy of keeping interest rates low for a historically long time, despite increasing economic activity, Greenspan deflected the accusation. Rather than the Fed, Greenspan pointed his long bony finger to Freddie MAC and Fannie MAE claiming that they were the cause of the bubble.
Without a doubt, Freddie and Fannie were major factors in the housing collapse. Without doubt, loaning into the marginal nth of home buyers drove prices up while creating even more risk in the loans that were allowing those purchases to take place. However, equally without doubt is that a key enabler for this activity was the historically low rates that Greenspan’s Fed maintained.
Had interest rates been allowed to rise, the marginal homebuyers would have been taken out of the market. Had interest rates risen, more monthly income would have gone towards interest which would have meant less for principle and in turn, less for the purchase price of the house. For Greenspan not to understand or admit the connectedness of these items saddens me as I had though him to be one of the few beltway folks who were able to rise above their own egos and actually hold to the ideal of “public service.”
At one point in his testimony, Greenspan conceded that he wasn’t always right:
In the business I was in, I was right 70% of the time, but I was wrong 30% of the time
The point that Greenspan misses is not how often you are right but rather, are you right about the important issues. In this case, he clearly wasn’t. I’d be willing to bet that if you had asked Edward John Smith how often he was correct in his business, he’d of likely told you a percentage much higher than Greenspan’s. Yeah, lots of good that did the folks on the Titanic and lots of good Greenspan’s batting average did us!
From Bloomberg:
Obama Paying More Than Buffett as Bonds Show U.S. Losing AAA
Yup, in short order, we the American taxpayer are paying more than Warren Buffet and his green companies for debt. Hell, we’re even paying more now than the Germans!
Haven’t the debt markets heard that the deficit problem has been solved? Yeah, you see, we’re going to pay for 30 million more people to have all the health coverage they want, none of them will pay a dime for it and yet it won’t cost the government an extra nickle. In fact, they’ve got this health thing so figured out that by paying for more people, we’re actually going to save money as a nation!
OK, to be fair, the article does say that part of the reason that the corporate debt yield is lower than the Treasury is that high credit companies don’t seem to be borrowing as much anymore. Huh, why do you suppose that is? Do they know something the Federal Government doesn’t? Yeah, probably one thing; any money they borrow they’ll eventually have to pay back without the ability to make wage slaves of their customers.
We’re so screwed!
Tom Blumer took a look beyond the “seasonally-adjusted” job loss of 36,000 in February, and it just doesn’t add up:
The red-boxed 473,000 jobs added in February was a really poor result. It trailed the 2004-2008 average of 714,000 by about 240,000. January’s actual result was only 72,000 worse than the 2004-2008 average. That’s 168,000-job swing in the wrong direction.
Even though February 2010’s +473,000 is less than 2008’s +516,000, the seasonally adjusted job loss for February of -36,0000 — the one number the press and everyone else will singularly focus on — is less than 2008’s -50,000. Why? Because the 2009 disaster is mucking up the seasonal adjustment calculations, making the +473K look better than +516K, when it obviously isn’t.
As Tom asked, “If, according to you guys, we were in a recession in February 2008 (an assertion I have disagreed with since NBER made the call that it began in December 2007), when the economy added a lackluster (by traditional February standards) 516,000 jobs, what do you call it when February 2010 sees 43,000 fewer jobs added?”
Lest one says that it’s because there were fewer jobs in 2010 than in 2008, let’s first take a look at the actual number of jobs in January 2008 (135,840,000) versus the number of jobs in January 2010 (127,606,000), and see what the percentage increases between January and February in both years were. The rate of job-number change between 1/2008-2/2008 was +0.380%. The rate of job-number change between 1/2010-2/2010 was +0.371%.
Next, let’s compare that to the “seasonally-adjusted” job-number change for the same time frames. In January 2008, there were 137,941,000 “seasonally-adjusted” jobs, with a drop of 50,000 “seasonally-adjusted” jobs in February 2008, for a rate of job-number change between 1/2008-2/2008 of -0.0362%. In January 2010, there were 129,562,000 “seasonally-adjusted” jobs, with a drop of 36,000 “seasonally-adjusted” jobs in February 2010, for a rate of job-number change between 1/2010-2/2010 of -0.0278%.
In short, despite what the chattering class says, the jobs market is not even at the point where it was near the “start” of the recession, much less its average between 2004 and 2008. Indeed, there were fewer jobs in February 2010 than there were in any other February since at least 2000 (note; the BLS statistics I’m relying on only go back to 1/2000).
To be fair, I do have to note that the February low in the 2000’s happened in 2003, when there were 128,660,000 actual (non-adjusted) jobs, and that month’s 412,000 improvement from January 2003 was weaker. However, unlike 2003, the immediate-future tax and regulatory climate is much worse now.
Revisions/extensions (3:00 pm 3/5/2010) – Corrected part of the quoted post from Tom since he corrected it on BizzyBlog.
It’s not often that I fisk an entire article but this one was so blatant it deserved a response.
Frank: Partisanship is out of control in Congress
Even the title is laughable. Other than Nancy Pelosi, I can’t think of anyone in Congress who is as arrogant, belittling, as drunk on their own power or as partisan as Barney Frank!
At a book signing at the University of Massachusetts, Frank commented on Evan Bayh’s retirement announcement:
“I don’t understand how you make things better from the outside. I share the frustration, but I would have hoped he would have stayed around and voted to change the filibuster rule,” Frank said.
Really? You can’t think of one way that it would be better to be on the outside than on the inside? Other than the obvious point that Frank being out would definitely lower the partisanship, how about if you were a Representative who actually had a conscience, a Representative who did not think driving the country into an inescapable black hole of debt? What if you thought that the far left of your party had become so partisan that they had severed themselves from all sense of reality? What if you were tired of being counted amongst those who were responsible for the destruction of the United States? What if you thought that your party leadership were part of the problem? What if you actually paid attention to your constituents and heard the anger, frustration and concern? If you were that person, wouldn’t you think that going to your constituents with a clean slate and removing your personal desires from the equation might be a good thing?
But partisanship was a theme to which he returned again and again, saying he believes a clear shift began under Republican Newt Gingrich’s tenure as House speaker in the second half of the 1990s.
Before that, he said, Democrats and Republicans could disagree but remain cordial and work toward compromise. Now, though, the pressure to please the party’s base to win primary elections has spawned a Congress in which the sides are “very ideologically differentiated,” he said.
“Compromise” has been a word that means we continually slide to the left. On days that Republicans are called “ideologues,” we slide just a bit to the left. On days that Republicans cosponsor legislation with Democrats, we run wildly to the left. While there may be some legitimate argument that the United States has moved left socially, moving left fiscally means a complete disregard for basic economics.
We are now “very ideologically differentiated” because fiscally, we are at a dire point. The Left wants to abandon any fiscal discipline of any kind. They want to spend with the belief that examples of economic stagnation of Europe and the demise of the Soviet Union’s economy were a result of not having people who were enlightened enough to create money out of thin air as the current Left believes they can. The Right, whether they actually believe it or it is now fashionable, want to stop the country from committing financial Harri Kari. The reason that people like Frank see this as partisanship is that the Left is incapable of seeing any issue in the terms of black and white or right and wrong. The core of the Left ideology is that everybody’s opinion is as valid as the next person. There is no right or wrong, just opinions. This thinking leaves them claiming that all issues should be negotiated and compromised. I don’t think anyone with a correct brain would believe that what Hitler did to the Jews was able to be compromised about. What the Left is looking to do the US financially has the potential to have consequences every bit as horrific.
Frank goes on to blame the partisanship in the electorate on where people choose to get their information:
He believes that’s also evident in the electorate, in which the most ardent liberals and conservatives are getting their news from such different sources that they often seem to be discussing completely different topics.
“People are almost in a parallel universe. They are not getting a common set of facts and most of the people they talk to are those who agree with them,” Frank said.
Barney, Barney, Barney, facts, by their very definition are, well, facts. There can not be more than one set of facts in a situation. “Barney says” is not fact. While it may (highly unlikely) contain facts, it is not all fact.
If Barney wants to complain about us getting information from the people we know who we agree with, perhaps Barney should look at the legislative process. If Barney listened to his own words, he would be much more open to opposing health care reform, shrinking or disbanding FREDDIE and FANNIE and avoiding additional spending of any kind!
Barney Frank is the worst kind of hypocrite. Not only does he not see his own failings, he actually views his failings as being the answer to the problem he sees as existing.
Much as been made of President Obama’s ego and his apparent lack of appreciation for reality. President Obama is Aristotle to Frank’s Peter Pan when it comes to living in reality. Who knows, with the election of Scott Brown, anything now seems possible!
Earlier this week, President Obama announced that he would hold a televised meeting that would include himself and leaders of both Congressional Chambers on February 25th. According to Obama, the purpose of the meeting is to hear ideas from all parties, forge them in a bipartisan bill and get health care reform passed.
Coincidental with the announcement of his desire to hear Republican input on health care, Obama has increased the volume and frequency of accusing Republicans of being the “party of no.” Last Wednesday, President Obama called Republicans “obstructionists” during a meeting with Democrat lawmakers. On Monday of this week, President Obama characterized the Republican desire to start the health care process over again as “doing nothing.” With this kind of rhetoric, some, including myself, wonder whether President Obama is sincere in is attempt to hear ideas or whether the health care meeting is a first step in an attempt to color the Republicans as the “party of no” in an attempt to save the sure November disaster waiting for the Democrats.
Today, President Obama had a closed door meeting with Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner. The meeting was set to discuss what was to be included in and how to pass a “jobs bill.” Reportedly, on the topic of credits for jobs created, Nancy Pelosi expressed skepticism of the bill and said that she knew of no one who believed the plan would actually create any jobs!
Hallelujah! I’m not sure that I’ve ever agreed with Nancy Pelosi before! Further, I think this may be the first time this session that Pelosi and Boehner agree, although they may not realize it!
Boenher has diagnosed the problem properly. Jobs are not returning because businesses have too many uncertainties. Health care costs, energy costs, capital gains, income taxes and many other items are currently being considered by the Obama administration. In each case, the administration is proposing legislation that would either cost businesses more or put further regulation on their ability to do business. When businesses see uncertainty that they have no ability to hedge against, they respond by taking less risk. Taking less risk translates to less hiring and fewer jobs.
Pelosi is also right, even though she doesn’t know why. Given the uncertainty described previously, jobs credits will have little to no effect on hiring. The issue, simply, is that employers are not hiring because they see high risk in expanding their business. Increasing hiring, even if it’s partially paid for by the government, does nothing to change the broader economic issues.
Who would have guessed that when it came to assessing a jobs program, Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner would be on the same side of the argument, neither party wants to pursue one.
So, who’s the “party of no” now?
Talking just days after the election as he talked about the challengesPresident elect Obama faced, Rahm Emanuel made his famous quote:
Never allow a crisis to go to waste.
Emanuel explained this quote by saying that extreme circumstances allow you the opportunity to do big things. The Democrat trilogy of Obama, Reid and Pelosi have spent the first 13 months of the Obama administration fulfilling Emanuel’s prophecy.
Health care “reform”, cap and trade, take over of portions of the financial and automotive industry, moving terror trials to New York and appointing Cabinet memebers and Czars who are out right Marxists are all examples of the Obama Administration doing “big things” because they thought they could.
The response to Obama’s action have been definite and specific.
Beginning as early as April of last year, people gathered in various parts of the country under the banner of Tea Parties. Initially, these gatherings were a general protest against ever growing government, the taxes required to support it and the freedom that it extinguished.
As time went on, the tea parties came to be a lead organization for protests against the attempt to take over the health care industry via the proposed health care “reform.” Later, they became a major driver in the near victory of Doug Hoffman in NY. Most recently, the financial support from those aligned with the tea parties allowed Scott Brown to be elected to the seat previously owned by Ted Kennedy and along with it, defeat Obama’s desire to control the health care industry.
It’s clear that much of the American population, including those affiliated with the tea parties, have grown tired of President Obama’s approach. Whether it is ideology, naievete or stupidity, it is clear that Obama’s policies are driving us quickly to the edge of a financial cliff.
This week, President Obama proposed a nearly $4T budget with a deficit of nearly $1.6T. These number are obscene by any definition. What makes the situation move beyond obscene to grotesque is Obama’s chiding that we must become fiscally responsible and that somehow these numbers are a result of President George Bush’s making.
Folks, this budget needs to be defeated. We need to do to it what was done to health care reform. We need to take it apart line by line, word by word and expose it to the American people. Unless Americans are unwilling to make any sacrifices, in which case we’re screwed, they will quickly see an audacity similar to that of health care reform and revolt against it. If we have any hope of reversing the coming fiscal disaster and possibly, the ruin of our country, we need to start now!
We’ve removed the super majority in the Senate and with it much of Obama’s political capital. We have the momentum, the American people and principle on our side. We have elections on the mind of every House member and many endangered Senators.
If ever there was a time to take on a challenge as large as fundamentally changing how budgets are viewed in Washington, now is the time. If we wait until the next budget, people may be lulled to sleep thinking that the newly elected Republicans will solve the problem.
Rahm Emanuel laid out our came plan perfectly: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. In extreme circumstances we have the opportunity to do big things. Doubt me? Ask the people of Massachusetts!
Happy Blogiversary to me! Two years ago I posted for the first time at Norunnyeggs. Thanks to you for reading, encouraging and correcting me. Thanks to Steve for his long suffering of allowing me to squat on his site!
Hopefully, the following is worthy of a 2 year blogiversary posting!
Quick, what do the following actors have in common?
Alan Alda, Carroll O’Connor, Ted Danson, James Garner and Kelsey Grammer.
Each of these actors, while having a varied and successful career having played numerous other characters, are immediately recognized for a single role that they played. Alan Alda is forever Hawkeye from MASH. Carroll O’Connor is immortalized as Archie Bunker. Ted Danson is Sam Malone, James Garner is Jim Rockford (or Bret Maverick if you’re of a certain age) and Kelsey Grammer was Frasier Crane across two long running sitcoms. These actors are victims of typecasting.
Typecasting occurs when an actor or actress becomes so associated with a type of role, or specific role that no matter how hard they try, they are never able to fully keep people from thinking of a new role as an extension of the role they were type-casted as. Typecasting varies in severity. Some people, like James Garner, while fondly remembered for a role, go on to have very successful careers with other roles and genres. In the most severe cases, typecasting can be so severe that actors or actresses are unable to get another role beyond the one that they were typecast in. The most notorious of this level of typecasting was George Reeves who once he became Superman, was Superman even on TV shows that had no connection to the character.
President Obama has released his budget proposal for the next year. His budget encompasess total spending of $3.8 trillion and a deficit of $1.56 trillion.
While President Obama has taken nothing from the Scott Brown victory, numerous Democrats in both the House and the Senate seem to be attempting to position themselves as aligned with the fiscal sensitivities of the populous. From the WSJ:
“I guess I don’t understand…the vision of the administration when it comes to putting in place economic policy that works for our nation in today’s economy and the economic climate today,” Sen. Lincoln said during the same hearing with Mr. Geithner.
and:
“I don’t know anybody in business who hires an employee because they’re going to get a tax credit,” said Rep. Thompson during the hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee.
There are scores of additional examples of Democrats now trying to convince their constituents that they aren’t aligned with those tax and spend liberals in Congress.
The problem for those Democrats now attempting to become the next Ron Paul is that nearly every one of them seem to have limits to their new found fiscal conservatism. From the Baltimore Sun:
A headline on the 2010 campaign website of Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), blares her opposition to Obama’s farm budget: “Blanche stands up for Arkansas farm families,”
And
Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), a recent party-switcher, questioned trade policies battering the steel industry. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) asked about health care for first responders involved in the Sept. 11attack. The message from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.): “California is hurting.”
And
Elsewhere around the country, Rep. Suzanne Kosmas — a freshman Democrat from a Republican leaning part of Florida — minced no words in complaining about Obama’s proposed cuts to the NASA budget. The space industry is one of the largest employers in her district.
“The president’s proposal lacks a bold vision for space exploration and begs for the type of leadership that he has described as critical for inspiring innovation for the 21st century,” said Kosmas.
And
In the swing state of Missouri, Democratic Senate candidate Robin Carnahan wasted no time this week denouncing Obama’s budget as profligate.
“I’m disappointed in the president’s budget recommendation,” she said. “Missouri families have to balance their checkbooks and our government is no different.”
Clearly, Democrats are trying to show their fiercer, budget hawk side. After all, it wasn’t just the threat of health care that got Scott Brown elected and has put a number of the Dem’s jobs in jeopardy. Equally, the ever ballooning spending and deficit has also gotten people’s attention. Also clearly, while they talk budget hawk out of one side of their mouth, the Dem’s hawkishness ends right at the end of the particular program or jurisdiction that they have their nose stuck into!
As hard as Democrats may try from now until November, to paint themselves as characters other than the fiscally irresponsible characters they are, it won’t work. The Dems have become victims of their own “success”. They were swept into office promising not one, but a whole flock of chickens in every pot, never considering how they were going to pay for those chickens. Now that they find that those chickens actually cost money, and they don’t have any, they are left with the choice of not providing the chickens or attempting to con the public into believing that continuing investment we get from China each month is not really anything to worry about.
The public is not buying a word of the Dems attempt to claim fiscal responsibility. Like George Reeves the Dems are irreversibly typecast. Try as they may, no one, at least not for this election cycle, will believe their claims that they can actually play a different role.
President Obama and Kathleen Sebelius were out touting a new study on the benefits of placebocare this weekend. The study purports to show that industries with higher health care costs grow at a slower rate than those with lower health care costs. In an effort to somehow draw an “OMG” from the reader, the Center for American Progress cites:
Over the period 1987 to 2005, for example, the workforce in the amusement
and recreation industry—where about 29 percent of workers have insurance through
their jobs—grew by about 2.1 percent. In contrast, in the hotel industry—where 54 percent
of workers have employer-provided insurance—the workforce grew about 1 percent.
And in the paper industry—where about 85 percent of workers have insurance—the
workforce shrank by 1.9 percent.
While this is not the point of this post, I can’t pass by without saying “no shit Sherlock!” The study claims to normalize the results for a whole host of factors but isn’t this one of those times where all the economic mumbo jumbo isn’t really necessary? Isn’t this handled with a good ol’ fashioned smell test?
Is it really so hard to understand that between 1985 and 2005, the amount of discretionary income increased significantly thus increasing money spent for “entertainment” and “hospitality?” Is it also so hard to figure out that those two industries are fairly labor intensive and that there doesn’t appear to be any immediate automation solutions for the ride operators at Disneyworld or housemaids at your favorite Motel 6. On the other hand, automation in nearly every manufacturing process has been replacing the need for DNA based humans at a rate multiple times faster than evolution can generate a human who never tires or needs sustenance. Is it really so hard to figure this stuff out?
Anyway, back to the point of the post.
Obama and Sebelius are touting that the Senate version of placebocare will dramatically slow the rise in costs for healthcare. They further claim that while lowering costs, it will dramatically increase “benefits” for all us schlubs. Their specific list of benefits are:
_People with illnesses or medical conditions will be able to buy affordable health insurance.
_Children with such conditions will no longer be denied coverage.
_Small-business owners who can’t afford to cover their employees will get tax credits to help them do so.
_Insurance companies will be required to offer free preventive care to their customers and will be prohibited from dropping coverage when someone becomes ill.
“In short, once I sign health insurance reform into law, doctors and patients will have more control over their health care decisions and insurance company bureaucrats will have less,” Obama said.
I’m not the PHD that the earlier study researchers are but I have a couple of questions:
Folks, while there has been plenty of happy talk about “hope and change” for reducing the cost structure of health care, I have not yet seen even one concrete example of where placebocare will enable that to happen. I have seen numerous examples, as the ones I just listed, where placebocare will force insurance companies to take on dramatic increases in costs. Somehow, the folks in Washington believe that they can force companies to accept new costs and prevent them from passing those costs on to their customers.
There has been considerable discussion about whether Barack Obama’s policies are leading us towards Socialism. Big government, all controlling, massive public programs all sound like the economies we see in Europe. In fact, I believe Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would like us to look like Europe. However, we’re not headed towards Europe of the 21st century, they are past that. we’re headed directly towards Europe, specifically, Italy of the first half of the 20th century. If you take a look at what is happening to industry after industry under the Obama administration, you will find something that looks surprisingly like Mussolini’s approach in Italy. Folks, with what has happened to banking, car production, healthcare and soon energy under the EPA’s threats, we have zoomed right past Socialism and are implementing on a full scale the economics of Fascism.
Throughout the campaign and regularly since his inauguration, now President Obama, has been telling us how “Green Jobs” will lead the way to prosperity in our economy. High pay, sustainability, friendly to the earth have all been arguments he’s made for the creation of “green jobs”. It appears he got at least a part of his promise right.
On Friday (how come they always announce these things when they think people are paying the least attention?) the White house announced $2.3 billion in tax credits to create ‘green jobs.” The plan is to create 17,000 green jobs. If they’re successful, those jobs will be worth over $135K each!
The median family income is around $50K/year. at $135K per job, the families that get this federal handout will earn better than 2X the average national income!
While I certainly favor tax credits as a means of market stimulation over direct government purchases, I don’t like credits that apply to specific industries or jobs. That folks, is thinking you know better than the market, where the money works best. As a second thought, at this level, one that is certainly not sustainable and highly subsidized, what will happen to these jobs in the second year when the tax credits cease? Who thinks these jobs are “sustainable” without lots of additional government help to sustain them?
I worked for a guy once who operated in a way that if he believed it to be true, it was. It didn’t matter what laws of physics or economics his “beliefs’ violated. He was not a well liked person and eventually failed as a result of his caustic, “nobody is as smart as me,” attitude. The only difference between he and President Obama is that President Obama can cause money to be generated to create the illusion that he’s right. In the end, he will be just as big a failure!
Listen my children and hear the drama of the one, the only Barack Obama.
Our story starts as President Obama leaves the golf course and returns to his family. As he approaches his house he is met by the Hawaiian god Pelee. Pelee tells Obama that he will has not been a good steward for America. He says that Obama has made a mockery of the term “fiscal restraint.” Pelee goes on to tell Obama that he must change his ways. He tells him that Obama will be visited by three spirits during the evening.
Obama, as all good scrooges including George C. Scott, refused to believe that what he had just seen was real. That said, he was unsettled from the experience. He entered his house, bypassed the reports authored by Janet Napolitano which attempt to show she has any competency, kisses the woman who is recently, just proud of her country and heads to bed.
At about 11 PM the first spirit arrives. As Obama peers out from under his blankets and four poster bed with all the trimmings, he can’t believe his eye. There stands the spirit of economy past; Ronald Reagan!
Reagan tells Obama that he’s mucked up the economy something terrible. He tells him that increasing the deficit and attempting to buy jobs via “stimulus” is the wrong way to go. As Obama begins a retort that included, “I inherited,” Reagan stops him with “There you go again!”
Reagan tells Obama that he too inherited a recession. One that had not been seen since the days of the great depression. On top of that, there was a malaise in the country that had seriously hindered the ability to harness any hope and optimism from the American people. Reagan told Obama that the only way to deal with a serious recession is through taxes. Reagan told Obama how through his tax reductions, the country was able to pull itself up by its bootstraps and right its economic self. Reagan pointed out to Obama that regardless of what you do, tax receipts will always hover between 8% to 8.5% of GDP. If you cant to spend more you have to grow the economy. There is no way to tax or spend your way out of a recession. To enforce his point, Reagan put the following graph up for Obama to study.
With the presentation of the graph, Reagan was gone. Obama was unconvinced and went back to sleep.
Barely an hour went by and once again, Obama was awaken. This time he was awakened be the spirit of economy present. This spirit greatly resembled Sarah Palin, although it couldn’t be, she hadn’t be done in by the left, was still alive.
Sarah, ah, the spirit, told Obama that despite his protestations, he and he alone has put the federal budget on a path where in just a few short years the budget will require the public portion of debt to be over 80% of the GDP. Of course, this doesn’t count the unfunded debts like social security, medicare etc. Sarah departed after leaving Obama the next graph and warning him that without changes, dire consequences will come.
Obama remained unmoved by the pleadings of Sarah and once again, went back to bed.
Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, Obama was awoken once again. This time, as he looked out from his bed linens he saw not one but many, many spirits. These were the spirits of the future economy.
Theses spirits were the faces, if not the bodies of all of our children, grand children, great grand children etc. They moaned and wailed as their leader approached Obama. This time Obama was taken aback. As he peered beyond his blankets, he looked into the face and eyes of his own daughter, Sasha.
Sasha began to explain that the reason for all the moaning and wailing was that these generations had become enslaved. Enslaved to the debt that Obama and others had left for future generations to deal with. These future generations have no hope, and expect no change as unlike her father and his administration, these future generations don’t get the ability to ignore and avoid realities. By the time Sasha is an adult, the annual taxes collected will no longer be enough to cover even the obligations of the entitlement programs that exist. This is a fact even before the enactment of placebocare which is sure to accelerate the date on which this occurs. Sasha left with the other spirits after telling Obama that if he doesn’t change, he will go down in history as the most reviled president ever for having eliminated the economic freedom of all future generations.
Obama was returned to his room just as the sun was dawning.
In all other versions of “The Carol,” the scrooge has a change of heart and immediately goes about to right the wrongs of his past and present. Will Scrooge Obama experience the same impact? It’s not the new year yet so we don’t know. Perhaps this version too will end like all those that are true to Dickens’ version. If not, we may well see a new version. This version will be one penned by the Brothers Grimm!
Happy New Year to all!
My thanks to Heritage.org for each of the graphs.
Since his inauguration, President Obama has explained away every negative facing him, economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, bank lending, unemployment, etc., etc., etc., as having “inherited it.”
From the AP yesterday:
The federal deficit for the first two months of the new budget year is piling up faster than last year’s record imbalance.
I only have one question: When will Obama’s inheritance run out?
That’s right; at the end of the business day on November 16, 2009, the national debt topped $12 trillion for the first time in history. Things only get worse when one looks at the growing rate of the debt:
No wonder why Obama is bowing, groveling, and otherwise licking the boots of any foreign leader perceived to have money.
Revisions/extensions (9:35 pm 11/17/209) – For more reading, head on over to Hot Air, where Allahpundit caught a whiff of the ultimate expiration date/red lips moment trial balloon of repealing every last Bush tax cut which, with all the other non-PlaceboCare tax hikes, would represent a $3 trillion/10 years tax hike (assuming, of course, that the money doesn’t just vanish). I wonder if the White House is paying attention to my last point of confiscating every last dime every last American makes in a year not eliminating the debt.
Also, stop on in CBS News’ Mark Knoller’s place, as it was his Tweet that launched my lenghty math exercise. I do have a math lesson for Mark – Bush’s $4.899 trillion increase in the debt was over 8 years, which makes that an 8.03% annual increase. Even the second term increase of $3.014 trillion represents only a 8.70% annual increase, far less than Obama’s 14.38% annualized rate. It is, however true, that Bush’s last-year increase of $1.438 trillion, which was a 15.65% annual increase, does top Obama’s current annualized rate (just wait for PlaceboCare to hit for that score to change).
(H/T – Fred)
Forbes reported on the case of the propreitor of STL Meal Deals, Karin. Karin, who had been laid off from her job at a law firm in New York and moved to St. Louis to try to find work in the paralegal field, started up the blog in April to write about local restaurant promotions. She signed up for Google’s AdSense, which sent her her first check, for $100 and change, 3 months later when she reached that amount. Up to the point where she took down the ads, she earned a total of $238.75.
That’s when the problems really started. She informed New York’s Department of Labor of the payment, as she was receiving unemployment compensation to the tune of $405 per week from the state of New York. Their rules state that if one works at least one day and receives any compensation for that work, benefits would be cut a minimum of 25%, and if that compensation exceeds the unemployment compensation, that week’s benefits would be cut to $0.00.
The DOL initially cut her unemployment compensation to $300, and sent her a form to fill out and send to her employer. Karin, unsure of whether Google qualified as the employer, asked for clarification, and was told that the AdSense payments were considered “residuals” and thus not reportable. She then re-filed her claim, saying that the AdSense payments, which was generated from her blog, were her sole non-governmental source of income. The DOL responded by launching an investigation of her “business”/blogging activities, suspending her unemployment benefits entirely, declaring her “self-employed” (with the AdSense income reportable), and directing her to delcare that she was “working” every time she updated her blog.
Forbes has yet to get an answer on whether the DOL considers AdSense payments “residuals” or “self-employment income”, though they did get a response that those payments are “uncharted territory”.
I’m a bit more comfortable with my decision to not have either ads or a tip jar at this place, especially since I have both a co-blogger and several guest-bloggers.
WisPolitics carried a press release from the Doyle administration claiming that just short of $680 million in 1st-reporting-quarter Porkulus spending “created” or “saved” 8,284 full-time jobs, including over 6,100 “essential” government jobs “saved” (e.g. firefighters, police offers and teachers). Doc over at The Autopsy hammers for effect on the “essential saved” jobs:
And let’s be honest, this is a little bit of legerdemain. Do you think Wisconsin would really lay off 6100 firefighters, policemen and teachers? Of course not. That would be political suicide for Democrats as each is unionized. (I’m a teacher in a public school, and I’ve lost 5% of my income.) So did the stimulus really “save” those jobs? No. What it did was allow the state to say they would have cut those jobs had there been no stimulus.
As an analogy, suppose I get $100,000 from a benefactor, then say, “Thank goodness I got the money, or I would have had to sell my kids for medical experiments!” Would I really sell my kids? Of course not. But that’s the impression I’m giving by saying they were “saved” by the $100,000 donation.
Not to be outdone, Republican Party of Wisconsin chair Reince Priebus said:
The Doyle Administration’s announcement that its use of stimulus dollars has lead to saving or creating 8,284 state jobs is an embarrassment to our state. Not only did these ‘jobs’ come at a cost of over $82,000 each, policies like combined reporting and higher taxes have cost Wisconsin over 130,000 jobs in the past year alone. Doyle and the Democrats are out of touch and out of ideas, and, sadly, Wisconsin is out of jobs because of their failed policies.
I’ll point back to something the Fond du Lac Reporter noted when the Fond du Lac County Board rammed home a massive tax increase for the benefit of Mercury Marine – for a tax subsidy to an employer to make economic sense, it should be somewhere on the order of $20,000 per job. Last I checked, $82,000 is well above $20,000.
The biggest laugh is White House-mandated math that allows the state to claim those over-6,100 jobs “saved” and less-than-2,100 jobs “created” (assuming that any were actually “created” as opposed to “saved”) as a direct result of Porkulus “created or saved” 22,100 jobs over 6 months and will “create or save” 70,000 jobs over the 2 years of Porkulus. There is no way that a government job creates almost 3 private-sector jobs over 6 months or 9 private-sector jobs over 2 years.
Even if that were the case, note how many jobs Wisconsin has lost over the last year with the various new taxes and the cratering of the economy – 130,000. That is what is called an EPIC FAIL.
According to Baron’s, there are several countries that are selling debt denominated in dollars. If your own currency isn’t the dollar, why would you sell debt that was? It seems the short answer to that question is: the dollar sucks, or at least that’s what these countries think.
After falling off a cliff during last years financial challenges, the dollar crawled back up to respectability by March of this year. From March on, the dollar has become the world currency version of the 98 pound weakling getting sand kicked in its face by every other major currency. You can see this pictorially in the following graph of the dollar against the Yen:
There are many things that influence a currencies value. Debt, security and GDP all play into the value. Unfortunately, many of those issues are moving towards the negative for the dollar, thus its decline. That said, the dollar has one thing going for it. As bad as things are in the US, there are many other countries that are in even worse situations. Look across Europe and you’ll generally find financial situations that make the US look great. Look to South America, the Middle East and much of Asia and you’ll find issues with security and stability. For that reason and others there are a number of analysts that are ready to call a bottom to the dollar’s slide. In fact, some are suggesting that we’ll see a rebound begin in the dollar.
One of the countries who have pulled the “debt for dollar” program is Venezuela. Venezuela is betting that their currency continues to do well against the dollar. So far the bet is working. The Venezuelan Bolivar is up 25% against the dollar in a little over a month.
I’m hoping the dollar analysts are right. A stronger dollar buys us some time to get people elected that can solve our budget issues before China decides to throw in their chips. A stronger dollar also wreaks havoc on Hugo Chavez’s piggy bank by making him have to pay more of his Bolivars to repay his bonds. A plus for the US and a minus for Hugo Chavez, what’s not to like. Consider it a twofer!
It’s been just over a year since Joe Biden called 95% of Americans unpatriotic:
“We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people. It’s time to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”
Apparently, Biden wasn’t the loan wolf that I thought at the time.
In a recent poll, Rasmussen found that 29% of Americans believe that you are selfish if you put the economy ahead of global warming. Fortunately, there are a whole lot more people, 49% who disagree with this assessment. Additionally, 65% believe jobs are more important than global warming. It’s good to know we still have a plurality, if not a majority of sanity yet in this country.
In case you missed it, the $1,761 annually per family that cap and trade will cost us will mostly go back to the government. While President Obama isn’t able to determine what is or isn’t a tax, I can. If you pay the government, you can call it what you want but it boils down to a tax.
Don’t like increased taxes? Want more jobs and a better economy? Not only are you unpatriotic you’re also selfish!
R&E part 2 (10:38 pm 9/24/2009) – How can I forget my hat-tips? Patrick and Huckleberry Dumbell were all over this before I got to it.
Shoebox reported on the Tax Foundation’s 2009 Business Tax Climate report, which put both Wisconsin (43rd) and Minnesota (44th) in the Doghouse Ten. Forbes has some relatively-good news for one of those states, and some really-bad news for the other:
– Minnesota, buoyed by its 6th-best quality-of-life and top-10 labor rank, ranked as the 17th-best state for business. However, the news isn’t all good; its growth potential was the only other of Forbes’ 6 criteria to rank in the upper half (20th), with its regulatory climate (30th), business costs (32nd) and economic climate (35th) below par. Worse; it slipped from 11th just last year.
– Wisconsin, on the other hand, is the third-worst state for business, behind only Michigan and Rhode Island. The only above-average item in Wisconsin is quality-of-life (11th), with business costs ranking 35th, labor rank 36th, regulatory climate 37th, economic climate 41st and growth prospects 45th. Like Minnesota, Wisconsin slipped from last year; unlike Minnesota, the fall was from 43rd to 48th.
Why do I get the feeling that weighed in on Ron Kind’s decsion to stay in Congress?
Revisions/extensions (10:35 pm 9/24/2009) – Corrected the 2008 Wisconsin rank.
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