Friday, September 30, 2011

OBAMA’S JOBS BILL


CAN’T GET THROUGH DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED SENATE.


At least SOME on the Democrats know it wont work.

THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH


Obama and all the other Democrat politicians and the liberal media are still in the “blame Bush mode”.  They’re still babbling about Obama inheriting a huge deficit from Bush.  Amazingly enough,..... a lot of people swallow this nonsense.   For those of you who have, here is a short civics lesson.

The President does not control spending, CONGRESS DOES.

The party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democrat Party.  They controlled the budget process for FY 2008 and FY 2009, as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011.  In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.
  
For FY 2009 though, Pelosi & Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Obama could take office.  At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budgets..

And where was Obama during this time?  He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete FY 2009.  Let's remember what the deficits looked like during that period:

If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets. If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.

In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th, 2009.

There are very few places these days where you can find the TRUTH, so if you really care about knowing the truth, continue reading this blog.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Arizona Sheriff Fights Drug Cartels,


but Whose Side is Obama On?

By Katie Pavlich

Earlier today, I had the privilege of sitting down with National Sheriff of the Year Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu to discuss his reaction to Operation Fast and Furious and his ongoing fight against ruthless drug cartels. After our conversation, it became clear the Obama Administration is fighting him with lawsuits and by arming the very cartels he and his deputies are trying to combat in the Arizona desert.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu is fighting what he describes as the most ruthless criminals in North America, on American soil in Southern Arizona. In his county, cartels use look-out posts, or “spotters,” to detect and move around law enforcement, and shootouts with cartels members are a normal occurrence.

“We still have these look-out posts, intelligence gathering locations where they sit on top of a mountain or in a cave. At least 100 of them just in one smuggling route throughout our county and we have multiple routes,” Babeu said. “How have we arrived to this point where this has become okay from the federal government’s perspective?”

These spotters are working for ruthless, violent criminals who are armed to the teeth with AK-47s and .50 caliber sniper rifles, partially thanks to the Obama Justice Department and its Operation Fast and Furious. These cartels have destabilized Mexico and 42,000 people have been murdered since 2006, with 22,000 of those murders happening in the past 18-months. It is quite the coincidence that at least half of the murders in Mexico came at the same time Operation Fast and Furious was being implemented and carried out. But this is just the beginning. Years from now, our law enforcement officers and innocent citizens will face the barrels of guns put into the hands of the most vicious criminals in North America—by our own government.

“It’s not going to end, there are at least 1500 guns out there and we have no clue where they are,” Babeu said.

While Sheriff Babeu and his deputies are doing their best to fight these cartels with limited resources, the Obama Justice Department has been arming the enemy with weapons Babeu’s deputies don’t even have.

“Outrage and betrayal. This has never happened before in the history of our country. We may have given armaments and weapons to our allies who may have later become our enemy, but we’ve never given them directly to our enemy,” Babeu said when asked about his initial reaction to Operation Fast and Furious.
Babeu isn’t only outraged about the program, but also about how the Obama Administration has handled the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Terry was killed with a gun linked to Operation Fast and Furious.

“He’s a hero [Terry]. He was a police officer and a marine. He was murdered and what does our government tell his brother and his mother and his family? Even a sorry and an apology wouldn’t take away the responsibility or minimize the pain but they haven’t even apologized to their family. This is outrageous that our country could be a party to this.”

Up to this point, the Obama Administration officials have denied involvement in the program. President Obama denies authorizing it, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano deny knowing about it until April 2011, despite evidence suggesting otherwise. Why? Because they don’t want to be held responsible for the lethal consequences of the program.

“It is insanity that they could try and rationalize this and still withhold and try to cover up information that implicates them. What I learned just as a regular police officer is that any body who is involved in assisting other people in crimes, that drive the get away car or give guns to people who know they’re going to commit crimes, and even if they didn’t know they would end up killing somebody, guess what we call those people? Accomplices, and they’re charged as well with the same crimes as the people who pulled the trigger.”

In the end, someone must be held responsible for these crimes within the United States government, not only for the crimes committed in America with guns deliberately placed into the hands of violent criminals through Operation Fast and Furious, but also to serve justice for the crimes committed in Mexico as a result of this program.

“These are the most violent criminals in North America and we facilitated and gave weapons, weapons that my deputies don’t even have, to these cartels,” he said. “It’s more than insane, it is horrific to think that our own government did this.”

WHO IS Dr. Khalid al-Mansour


AND WHAT DOES HE WANT

He was born in the United States with the name “Donald Warden” – Before converting to a radical Muslim and becoming international front man for the Saudi Royal Family. 

He was the brains behind the Maoist Black Nationalist Movement manifested in the Black Panthers, the Afro-American Association, the Peace & Freedom Party, the Students for Democratic Society, and he set out to raise up a Black Nationalist President with the following platform he put in place in 1966.

He was a major player in Obama’s lifelong grooming, almost since Obama’s birth.  He was at the center of all decisions concerning Obama’s grooming from youth, including arranging Obama’s apparent Ivy League education and connecting him to known radicals like William Ayers, Professor Edward Said, Tony Rezko and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

To fully understand the agenda of the movement to seat Americas first Black Nationalist President, take time to review the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense 10 Point Program and Platform.

Monday, September 26, 2011

The Scary truth about Obamacare keeps seeping out


From The Washington Examiner





PRICE DEPENDS ON YOUR RACE


I have one question about this.  
If you are a conservative (don’t believe in affirmative action based on race) then why on Gods green earth would you choose to attend one of the most left wing universities on the planet.


Saudi Women get the right to vote


I wonder if they will ever get the right to actually have those votes counted.



THESE TROUBLE MAKERS SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN MORE THAN JUST COMMUNITY SERVICE.


Their first amendment rights do NOT give them the right to deny the scheduled speaker his first amendment rights.  I think they deserve a couple weeks in the slammer.


Sunday, September 25, 2011

Deja vu






I BELIEVE CAIN IS ABLE


Citizen Cain to President Cain No Longer a Reach

By Mark Baisley

Chris Christie just got a new reason to sit this one out: Herman Cain.

The New York Post is reporting that influential Republicans have convinced the New Jersey Governor to give renewed consideration to running for the White House.  As of Saturday, however, the nominating process is no longer predictably insipid.

It is common practice for party patrons to attempt to engineer victory by convincing a marquis name to run for office when they perceive a weak field.  And once the pace has been established in the big races, candidates who believe they can run even faster frequently accept the encouragement to jump in mid-course.  But the 2012 election does not seem to be following the usual route.

While Rick Perry and Mitt Romney were busy engaging each other in a falling eaglet flight fight, Herman Cain won the Florida straw poll.  He won big -- really big.  Cain’s 37% of the vote nearly equalled the next three candidate totals combined.  Perry took a distant second place with 15% and Romney is third with 14%.

Citing thirty-two years of history, Florida Governor Rick Scott predicted, “I believe whoever wins this straw poll on Saturday will be the Republican nominee and I believe the Republican nominee will be the next President.”

Is there any credibility in the candidacy of the former Godfather Pizza CEO?  He has no election experience and the words “Washington” and “Governor” do not appear on his resume.  GOP nominee Herman Cain may be a credible notion if we consider not only the competition, but the national mood.

The prevailing view among conservatives is that Jimmy Carter not only conducted the worst presidency since Woodrow Wilson, but he also got the nation good and ready to embrace the inspirational wisdom of Ronald Reagan.  Based on that reaction, Barack Obama is winding up our springs for a catapult to the right, beyond any safe and traditional talk from so called “first tier” candidates.  Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan may have just the right amount of revolutionary flavor to match American’s urgency for tax reform.

I only began to give Mr. Cain due consideration after seeing his very effective performance in the most recent debate.  Wondering whether he has mettle beyond that of a successful businessman, I researched Cain’s resume.  The guy is no lightweight, folks; Bachelors in mathematics, Masters in Computer Science from Purdue, ballistics specialist for the United States Navy, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and author of four books on leadership.  He also contributes his talents at his church near Atlanta.

I appreciated Mitt Romney’s humble statement near the end of Thursday’s debate, “There’s a lot of reasons not to elect me.”  That certainly seems to apply to most candidates (with the longest list of reasons racked up by President Obama himself).  But I am no longer dismissive of the idea of President Cain.  Much the contrary.  The Florida straw poll was validating.

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


I have liked Mr. Cain from the get-go, and he’s looking better each day.

I also like Mitt Romney but I’m not sure he’s conservative enough for me.  I do however believe he could easily beat Obama.

As for Rick Perry, he is WAY too soft on Illegal immigration.  Other than that, he would make a good POTUS.

I also like Michele Bachmann but she is totally unelectable, and will soon be dropping out.

I also like Chris  Christie but he ain’t running.




Friday, September 23, 2011

Dead federal retirees are paid $120 million annually


FROM THE WASHINGTON POST

By , Published: September 22

 

The federal government pays out millions of dollars to dead people each year — including deceased retired federal workers, according to a new report.

In the past five years, the Office of Personnel Management has made more than $601 million in benefits payments to deceased federal annuitants, according to the agency’s inspector general. Total annual payouts range between $100 million and $150 million.


Inspector General Patrick E. McFarland, who previously reported on the improper payments in 2005 and 2008, urged OPM to more closely track such mistakes.

“It is time to stop, once and for all, this waste of taxpayer money,” he wrote in the report. Improper payments to dead retirees increased 70 percent in the past five years, far higher than the 19 percent climb in overall annuity payments, the report said.

The payments are on the rise because OPM is doing a poor job of tracking potential cheats, McFarland said. In one case, a deceased annuitant’s son continued receiving federal benefits until 2008 — 37 years after his father’s death. OPM learned about the improper payments — which exceeded $515,000 — only after the son died. The agency never recovered the money.

An OPM spokesman said Thursday that the agency is reviewing the report and had no immediate comment.

The report said OPM is attempting to stop and recoup payments in several ways, by conducting weekly and annual matches of its data against the Social Security Administration’s death records and occasionally checking records for annuitants 90 years and older to determine whether they are still alive.

McFarland credited those checks, but called them “only partial remedies, at best.”

Overall, the government’s improper payments totaled about $125 billion in fiscal 2010 — a $15 billion year-to-year increase resulting from a growing number of unemployment insurance and Medicaid payments. Despite the jump, federal agencies recovered about $687 million mistakenly paid to delinquent government contractors and beneficiaries.

Last October, an investigation by the office of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) concluded that the government had paid nearly $1 billion to at least 250,000 dead people since 2000. That same month, a watchdog group reported that the Obama administration’s economic stimulus program had made 89,000 payments of $250 each to dead or incarcerated people.

Thomas Jefferson


Thomas Jefferson was a very remarkable man who started learning very early in life and never stopped.
· At 5, began studying under his cousin's tutor.
· At 9, studied Latin, Greek and French.
· At 14, studied classical literature and additional languages.
· At 16, entered the College of William and Mary.
· At 19, studied Law for 5 years starting under George Wythe.
· At 23, started his own law practice.
· At 25, was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses.
· At 31, wrote the widely circulated "Summary View of the Rights of British America ” and retired from his law practice.
· At 32, was a Delegate to the Second Continental Congress.
· At 33, wrote the Declaration of Independence ..
· At 33, took three years to revise Virginia's legal code and wrote a Public Education bill and a statute for Religious Freedom.
· At 36, was elected the second Governor of Virginia succeeding Patrick Henry.
· At 40, served in Congress for two years.
· At 41, was the American minister to France and negotiated commercial treaties with European nations along with Ben Franklin and John Adams.
· At 46, served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington.
· At 53, served as Vice President and was elected president of the American Philosophical Society.
· At 55, drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and became the active head of Republican Party.
· At 57, was elected the third president of the United States.
· At 60, obtained the Louisiana Purchase doubling the nation's size.
· At 61, was elected to a second term as President.
· At 65, retired to Monticello.
· At 80, helped President Monroe shape the Monroe Doctrine.
· At 81, almost single-handedly created the University of Virginia and served as its first president.
· At 83, died on the 50th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence along with John Adams

Thomas Jefferson knew because he himself studied the previous failed attempts at government. He understood actual history, the nature of God, his laws and the nature of man. That happens to be way more than what most understand today. Jefferson really knew his stuff. A voice from the past to lead us in the future:

John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: "This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe ." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."  -- Thomas Jefferson

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."  -- Thomas Jefferson

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." -- Thomas Jefferson

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." -- Thomas Jefferson

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."  -- Thomas Jefferson

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."  -- Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

I wish we could get this out to everyone. 
I'm doing my part.   
Please do yours.


CHANGES ARE COMING...


I received this via e-mail. 
The person who sent it does not know who wrote it.

1. The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.

2. The Check. Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.

3. The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

4. The Book. You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.

5. The Land Line Telephone. Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes .

6. Music. This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."

7. Television. Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.

8. The "Things" That You Own. Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider.
In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.
 
9. Privacy. If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. And "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again.
All we will have that can't be changed are Memories.

10. Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Will Blow Your Mind
The
United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing. It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II.

But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of
America .. Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little. Do you know what our biggest export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us. The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now just a shadow of what it once was. Once upon a time America could literally out produce the rest of the world combined. Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world. If the de-industrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children?

Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things. So if the
United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation? We have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere close to sustainable. Every single month America goes into more debt and every single month America gets poorer.

So what happens when the debt bubble pops?

The de-industrialization of the
United States should be a top concern for every man, woman and child in the country. But sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them.

For people like that, take this article and print it out and hand it to them. Perhaps what they will read below will shock them badly enough to awaken them from their slumber.

The following are 19 facts about the de-industrialization of
America that will blow your mind....

#1 The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation.

#2
Dell Inc., one of Americas largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.

#3
Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in November. Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.

#4
In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States? Zero.

#5
According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.

#6
As of the end of July, the U. S. Trade deficit with China has risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.

#7
The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.

#8
According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.

#9
In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.

#10
Ford Motor Company recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul, Minnesota. Approximately 750 good paying middle class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in Minnesota does not fit in with Ford's new "global" manufacturing strategy.

#11
As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.

#12
In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.

#13
The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

#14
In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th.

#15
Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.

#16
Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products. Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide.

#17
The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States .

#18
One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.

#19
The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept.

So how many tens of thousands more factories do we need to lose before we do something about it?

How many millions more Americans are going to become unemployed before we all admit that we have a very, very serious problem on our hands?

How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave the country before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing our economy?

How many once great manufacturing cities are going to become rotting war zones like
Detroit before we understand that we are committing national economic suicide?

The de-industrialization of
America is a national crisis. It needs to be treated like one.

If you disagree with this article, I have a direct challenge for you. If anyone can explain how a de-industrialized
America has any kind of viable economic future, please do so.

America is in deep, deep trouble folks. It is time to wake up!!



In God we Trust



We're Sinking Under Obama's Policies


From INVESTER BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 09/22/2011 06:59 PM ET 

Economy: The head-scratching continues as stocks take another leg down. Why, they ask, must the market be so negative? With an economy buckling under leftist incompetence, what, we ask, is there to be positive about?

Funny, because it's been going on for almost three years now, but hardly a day goes by without some bit of bad news the media calls "unexpected." But investors have noticed.

After selling off 2.9% on Wednesday, the S&P 500 dived another 3.2% Thursday. The Dow industrial average is testing a 52-week low.

Wednesday's drop came after the Fed unveiled its new plan for reviving the economy and as President Obama hit the road to sell his new but unimproved $447 billion stimulus.

Thursday's "unexpected" news was that the four-week moving average for jobless claims — a labor-market bellwether — rose to 421,000. Any number north of 400,000 is considered recession territory.
But should anyone really be surprised?

After all, we were promised in 2009 that $840 billion in stimulus would guarantee unemployment would not top 8%. Today, it's 9.1%, and has stayed above 9% for 26 of the last 31 months.

Since this president took office, U.S. businesses have shed 3.3 million jobs. We are still 6.9 million below our peak employment reached in January 2008. Ordinarily, more than two years after a recession has ended, well over a million jobs have been added to payrolls.


By any meaningful measure, then, our president has followed the least-successful economic policies of any U.S. leader since World War II. As recession seems ever more possible, the IMF warns of a U.S. "lost decade."

Whether it's jobs, economic growth, energy prices, incomes, regulation, weak foreign policy, or the quality of our lives and the nation's social fabric, America's current course looks questionable at best.

No wonder the markets are so volatile. They discount not the present, but the future. And the future for investors is murky at best and downright dark at worst.

So what's wrong? Here's a quick review of some of the federal policies launched in the name of "stimulus."

Failed Fed policy. For three years, we've kept interest rates at record lows, undergone two rounds of quantitative easing and created $2 trillion in new money. On Wednesday the Fed announced its next move: the $400 billion "Operation Twist" — modeled on a failed Fed bond-buying program from the '60s to push down long-term interest rates. With so much Fed meddling, the markets can't help but be confused.

Growing federal debt. In the European Union, debt-to-GDP ratios have hit an economy-crippling 140%. Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain all verge on default. But we have nothing to be smug about.

U.S. debt of $14.5 trillion already tops 100% of GDP, a level economists believe saps a nation's economic vitality. At the rate we're racking up deficits — $4 trillion in just three years — we'll soon join the EU in perpetual economic stagnation.

Unstimulating stimulus. Faced with the clear failure of his previous stimulus, which wasted $840 billion, the president's new plan spends another $457 billion and imposes massive new taxes on the middle class, small businesses and entrepreneurs. Some 1.9 million new jobs will be created, the president reckons. In fact, jobs will be destroyed.

Class warfare. The president relentlessly attacks "millionaires and billionaires," aided by the mainstream media's penchant for repeating his factually challenged assertions about who pays our taxes. In pushing the new "Buffett Rule" to raise taxes on the rich, the president absurdly claims that millionaires pay less in taxes than their secretaries.

But as blogger Noel Sheppard notes, IRS data disprove this canard: 99.6% of those earning above $1 million pay taxes at a higher tax rate than secretaries. And just over 200,000 wealthy taxpayers pay 20% of all federal income taxes. These are the very people who create new businesses and jobs.

Anti-business bias. The president's war on small business and entrepreneurs has devastated American job creation, once the envy of the world. A House committee estimates more than half the taxes under the new "stimulus" will be paid by small businesses.

Refusing to sign an already negotiated free-trade bill, proposing onerous new taxes and regulations, and pursuing a money-wasting and corrupt "green jobs" strategy are leaving a wake of economic destruction.

Regulatory siege. Federal regulation costs America $1.8 trillion a year — or roughly 13% of all our output. Whether it's the Environmental Protection Agency requiring power plants to shut down and others to be retrofitted with costly new equipment, or the National Labor Relations Board telling companies like Boeing where they can and cannot locate new facilities, or a moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, or foot-dragging on the construction of a new pipeline from Canada that could boost U.S. energy security and lower prices, the government is a barrier to growth.

ObamaCare. An estimated 4% of the U.S. chronically lacks health insurance — a serious, but manageable problem. Rather than address the real problem, the president and his allies in the Democrat-controlled Congress took over 17% of our economy. Now we're stuck with a health care program that studies show will provide lower-quality care at a cost of as much as $1 trillion over the next decade.

Health care reformers promised to "bend the cost curve down" and let Americans keep their current doctor if they wish. But a new study asserts that Obama-Care will raise premiums by 55% to 85%, while small-business surveys show that 30% or more will drop health coverage entirely — forcing employees into government-run health insurance "exchanges."

Such warmed-over leftist thinking, taken straight from the progressive playbook, is why markets are melting down. Not in 70 years have we had to deal with policies so ill-considered and poorly designed.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Why not pay back taxpayers first?


How about paying back the $15 billion first? 

I’m sure there are sophisticated arguments for why the UAW members shouldn’t pay back the taxpayers who bailed their employer out of bankruptcy before they negotiate a deal that gives them each a $5,000 bonus. I just can’t think of them right now. … Just from a PR standpoint, repaying the debt would seem like a good idea. …

Sure, as a going concern, GM has to pay to keep its employees from bolting to a competitor. But what are the odds that most of GM’s UAW workers (i.e, the ones not in the $14-an-hour Tier Two) could find jobs anywhere near as good as the ones they now hold? Almost all their leverage comes from the Wagner Act’s power to strike and not be fired. Without Wagner, they’d be free to quit, which they would not do. (Go ahead. Make GM’s day.) 

It’s one thing to give workers power to negotiate above-market wages through collective bargaining–hey, let them squeeze the bosses for all the bosses can bear. It’s another thing when they squeeze more than the bosses can bear, the bosses go broke, and ordinary citizens, many poorer than UAW members, have to make up the difference.  After that, why let the UAW continue to extract Wagner Act wages as if nothing happened? …

The $15 billion aside, if GM is so profitable it can afford to give its new hires a raise and all its UAW workers plush health benefits and a big bonus, that’s great. But why do I fear the economic assumptions underlying these numbers will prove to be unrealistic? Sure, GM’s doing OK now, with two of its major competitors (Toyota and Honda) crippled by the Japanese earthquake. Those two are now coming back online, while other GM competitors like Hyundai and VW are gaining market share. VW, at least, is explicitly pursuing a low-cost price-chiseling strategy, the better to exploit its non-union wage advantage. Plus the whole new car market may be shrinking as the economy stalls.

Maybe the UAW has taken this all into account. Or maybe they are whistling past the graveyard, Solyndra-style, hoping GM will remain profitable–or, barring that, that it will still be “too big to fail” the next time.


I will never buy another automobile unless it was built in a “RIGHT TO WORK” state.