Wasting Time With Alex
Economics
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The gravy train is gonna cost us more than they told us..
In the age of “Hope and Change” deficits no longer matter it seems. This even as a Tax Policy Center released a
detailed 40 page report of the key tax proposals in President Obama’s 2011 budget, and if you look at their numbers they are projecting a whopping $4.9 trillion shortfall, which eclipses the $1.1 trillion claimed by the Obama people. Here is the killer quote:
The budget assumes a baseline in which the 2001-2003 tax cuts are permanent (including the estate tax at its 2009 level), the exemption in the alternative minimum tax (AMT) is permanently indexed for inflation from its 2009 level, and that temporary expansions of refundability of the child tax credit and of the earned income credit are permanent. Those provisions would reduce revenues by $3.8 trillion over the 2010-2020 period. TPC’s analysis measures the impact of the tax proposals not against the administration baseline but rather against a current law baseline that assumes the 2001-2003 tax cuts expire as scheduled in 2011 and that the AMT exemption maintains its permanent level. Against that baseline, the administration’s tax proposals would cause much greater revenue losses than official budget estimates show [$4.9 trillion v. $1.1 trillion].
For those that are numerically challenged, this means that the difference between all the goodies that the collectivists want to farm out reported in this analysis and the tax intake of Uncle Sam in this business hostile environment are going to leave us with an unbelievable additional $4.9 trillion in new debt. Of course, knowing the way collectivists operate, they will simply raise taxes - and likely also spending - and then be flabbergasted when we end up with something close to a $7 trillion gap.
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Monday, February 22, 2010
Doubling down..
Well, as I suspected, the Obama Administration’s plan to revive the bloated and vile government takeover of healthcare money and decision making, isn’t about fixing the differences and actually fixing healthcare at all, because the WH strategy is to double down on the same crap. If you needed more proof that these leftist elitists think we are all morons and not smart enough to make our own choices, look at this. After the Scott Brown loss in MA, and the obvious looming disasters at the polls in the elections this coming November, you would figure that the collectivist would figure out they over played their hand and that the people didn’t want any more of the destructive stuff they have given us for the last year. You would expect them to work on getting the economy going and getting people employed. Instead they are using smoke and mirrors and hoping their partners in the MSM can make the republicans out like the bad guys without any ideas of their own. Talk about projection, huh? To me it is not clear that the democrat agenda is to pass this behemoth in order to so drastically shift the balance of those that work for a living vs. those that vote for a living in their favor that they are willing to take the hit for another decade or two, if it then buys them perpetual power. Of course, at this rate, there will not be much of a country in even a decade worth ruling, but then again, marxists think they can make it better when they never, ever, have done anything but the opposite. Don’t let the freak show that is going to come out of DC distract you. These collectivists are dangerous.
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Thursday, February 11, 2010
Job creation 101..
When Obama and crew saw the all but taken for granted Kennedy seat in blue state Massachusetts go republican, for the first time in almost 5 decades, over the abysmal economic situation, the terrible unemployment situation, the out of control government spending, the ridiculous stimuluspatronage bill, the record setting debt expansions, from people that ran on the previous administration’s lack of deficit spending discipline no less, only to then tack on in 1 year more than all the previous 8 years, and not to forget the ludicrous government takeover of 1/5th of the economy masquerading as healthcare reform, which the democrats continue to try and push for despite the fact that over 60% of the public is against it, and immediately tried to make like they suddenly cared about anything other than the massive expansion of government and introducing more marxism writ large, by pretending they had shifted their focus on jobs, I pointed out that all we would get was more of the same. I bet people that there would be a costly multi billion dollar government plan that would do nothing but create more government jobs and dig the debt hole deeper. I was lambasted for being negative, even accused of the usual bull. You know, you are a racist, and so on. Looks like I am yet again being vindicated. Now, I know that the collectivists writing this are coming at it from a different angle, but the facts remain the same:
WASHINGTON – It’s a bipartisan jobs bill that would hand President Barack Obama a badly needed political victory and placate Republicans with tax cuts at the same time. But it has a problem: It won’t create many jobs. Even the Obama administration acknowledges the legislation’s centerpiece — a tax cut for businesses that hire unemployed workers — would work only on the margins.
As for the bill’s effectiveness, tax experts and business leaders said companies are unlikely to hire workers just to receive a tax break. Before businesses start hiring, they need increased demand for their products, more work for their employees and more revenue to pay those workers.
The reason this bill will do nothing is that it is just way too little, way too late. This administration is considered the most hostile one ever to the private sector for a reason. And that private sector sees this “jobs bill” for what it really is: fluff. Obama is promising them some meaningless tax cuts to take on huge risks. And that’s precisely what hiring new people is under this administration, These morons are destroying the private sector, directly and indirectly, with their reckless and ridiculous fiscal policies, and everyone, but especially small business owners, are just hunkering down and praying this stuff blows over sooner than later. How much of an incentive is a tax break of any kind, when you are looking at drastic cost increases – from the healthcare bill to other stupid anti-business regulations that seem to be the only thing these collectivists like – that dwarf that break? The answer is none at all. What Obama and the democrats are doing parallels mobsters promising to pay for your nose job, to help you look decent again, after they get done breaking every bone in your body. Nobody is going to buy that.
Rys, of the National Federation of Independent Business, said the credit could speed hiring once employers need more workers. But, he said, NFIB members aren’t seeing many signs of improvement.
And that’s the problem. We are being told things are getting better when they are not. Couple that with the private sector not trusting the crooks in DC, and you can see why whatever moneys these morons allocate for job creation will simply result in a faster growth in deficit spending and debt and yield no jobs for anyone but government bureaucrats.
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Tuesday, February 09, 2010
If a private company did..
This, the government would screw them over. What’s the “this” in this case?
The Department of Health Care Services said Monday it has breached the privacy of 49,352 people who receive adult day-care services from the state. The department said that letters it mailed a week ago to 49,352 Medi-Cal beneficiaries wrongly included each patient’s Social Security number on their address labels. The department said the security incident took place Feb. 1, but it was only told about it on Thursday. It started to notify the 49,352 beneficiaries about the problem over the weekend.
I worked in the health insurance industry and such a mistake by a private company could cost them as much as $250K per incident. How are the bureaucrats in Cali reacting to their gross incompetence?
“At this point, there is no evidence that unauthorized parties have acquired or accessed beneficiary personal information,” the department said in a prepared statement. DHCS officials said they regretted the breach, which has so far cost the state $50,000. It blamed itself and a private vendor for the problem mailings.
These people will be lucky if they get a free credit report, and considering Cali’s financial situation, I would not be surprised the state tries to make money of this mistake. Of course, the big lesson here is that these are the people that the left wants you to believe will do a better job running our healthcare too. I am sure they can also pawn the blame off on some unamed “vendor” when they hose us over.
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Friday, February 05, 2010
The domino effect
Yesterday I discussed the fate of Greece and the collectivist culture that took over nad has gotten them where they are today. Today I will tackle the next likely domino, Portugal. d
Portugal moved towards a political crisis on Thursday night as its finance minister appealed to opposition parties not to defeat the minority Socialist government over a regional finance bill that he said would undermine the country’s international credibility. In a televised address, Fernando Teixeira dos Santos said opposition proposals to allow the Portuguese islands of Madeira and the Azores to increase their debt would have “grave consequences for Portugal’s public accounts” and send “the worst possible message” to financial markets. Fernando Teixeira dos Santos said opposition proposals to allow the Portuguese islands of Madeira and the Azores to increase their debt would send ‘the worst possible message’ to financial markets.
His warning came as Portuguese bonds and shares came under fire for the second day running as concerns over sovereign debt spread from Greece to other high-deficit countries in the eurozone. The Lisbon stock market fell almost 5 per cent on Thursday, the biggest daily fall since November 2008, and bond yields rose to new highs amid doubts over the ability of Portugal to consolidate its public accounts. The cost of insuring Portuguese debt against default also rose to a record high.
Like the economy of Greece, that of Portugal is living on borrowed time. The same problems that are threatening to bring down Greece are doing the same in Portugal. Only unlike the current socialist Greek government that has realized the fit has hit the shan, and is doing something to try and delay the inevitable, the current socialist government of Portugal is being accused of manufacturing a crisis to prevent their parliament, which is dominated by a coalition that actually wants to make change of direction and avoid the inevitable and complete collapse of the Portuguese house of cards, from doing anything.
The world is watching and reacting to the Greek and Portuguese meltdown going on. And I am sure that what is happening here in the US is influencing the run as well.
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Thursday, February 04, 2010
As Greece goes….
So the Greeks are pissed at their government and on a war path, and threatening more strikes because they do not like the bitter pill decades of communist and/or socialist economics is now forcing them to swallow.
Greek tax collectors and customs officers walked off the job on Thursday, kicking off a spate of strikes against government austerity cuts designed to halt a financial crisis caused by massive debt. Both groups embarked on a two-day walkout ahead of industrial action called by civil servants, doctors and Communist-backed workers on February 10 and a general strike called by Greece’s main umbrella union on February 24.
“We have already made sacrifices and will accept no more cuts,” the chairman of the customs officers’ union Argyris Sakellaropoulos told Flash Radio. The unions are on the warpath over a government austerity programme that they say has progressively become harsher under pressure from the European Union and market speculation that has hurt Greek finances and rattled the euro.
Anyway, for those that don’t know the issues facing the Greeks, it is one that Obama and democrats are hard at work recreating here. The country has been in love with collectivism for decades now and has lived large on borrowed cash and time. Over generous benefit packages, unrealistically low retirement ages, social spending run amok, people that are always ready to party but absent when it is time to work, and a system that can virtually be paralyzed by ultra powerful unions that can make the country grind to a screeching halt, have reduced the Greek economy to a joke. The country suffers from a staggering debt, but because it is part of the EU they can’t just devaluate the currency yet again, as it had done in the past, and pretend all is well. The Greek government has to take drastic & painful measures precisely because it waited until the last possible moment to admit that the pace of the existing scheme was unsustainable.
Greece’s debt stands at more than 294 billion euros ($412 billion), its 12.7-percent deficit is well beyond EU limits of three percent of output for eurozone members and it suffered a triple downgrade of its sovereign debt in December. The government hopes to economise over a billion euros ($1.4 billion) from benefit cuts and operational cost reductions in the public sector. Overall, Athens aims to save over 10.3 billion euros ($14.3 billion) this year with improved tax collection, state cost cuts and reduced arms spending to bring the public deficit to 2.8 percent of output by 2012. The programme also seeks to stabilise Greece’s debt burden—one of the highest in the eurozone—and reduce it to 117.7 percent of GDP by 2012.
Simply put, the socialist experiment has reached the inevitable conclusion - the proverbial brick wall - in Greece, and the house of cards is imploding. Those that have lived high on the hog however, don’t want the free ride to end. The unbelievable part in all of this is that these harsh measures are being initiated by a avowed socialist. Many say that it is all too little, too late. The place is simply now dysfunctional and not willing to do what it takes to even get out of the hole they are in. This same story is also repeating itself in other Eurozone countries like Portugal and Spain – whom had been actually making progress under Aznar a while back before electing Zapatero who literally destroyed all the positive reforms – and even France and Germany are wondering how bad things are going to get. The writing is on the wall.Sooner or later the “free ride” comes to an end.
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Tuesday, January 26, 2010
We are in great hands!
Remember all the hubbub starting way back in 2006 and carrying on all the way into the 2008 elections about how fiscally irresponsible and bad the people in charge were? How angry the democrats were that these evil people were creating more debt? Well it seems that some debt is better than others. The leftists were furious about the federal government spending what the constitution actually gave it permission to - defense and national security - and while there was also a ton of pork, it is nothing compared to what followed after the democrats took over congress in 2006. Of course the pork and social spending went through the roof, and with help from a willing MSM, these crooks convinced everyone that it was everyone but their fault. Angered, the American people turned to a smooth talking used car salesman whose lack of experience, marxist agenda and beliefs, and complete and utter stupidity, the MSM did a bang up job of protecting. While many fell for the “Hope and Change” bull, most of us that are not wowed by marxists in sheep clothing saw that what this idiot meant was that we could only hope to be left with some loose change by the time he was done plundering our pockets at both the personal and national level.
A mere year down the road, these collectivists are setting new spending records, with no end in sight, and have raised our debt to numbers previously unimaginable, with a lot more to come, as this post pointed out. If you dig deep enough you can see how well they are taking care of the trust people gave them, and find stories like this one showing we are in great hands. Many continue to push the meme that the democrats had no choice but to engage in these massive and all out Keynesian orgy of spending because of evil Bush, but that’s all tripe. Some of us pointed out that the whole fiscal responsibility claim of the democrats was simply tripe - based on historical behavior and the actions since they took congress in 2006 - but we were mostly ignored. Even when we pointed out that Obama himself had no desire to be fiscally responsible. Most of the American people are wising up and realizing these people just can not do otherwise, as the Massachusetts election were a republican walked away with the Kennedy seat, showed last week. Many of the rank and file democrats got the message, but the WH, which wanted to claim they passed this monstrosity in Obama’s forthcoming state of the union address, seems to remain oblivious to a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Unemployment-rose-in-43-apf-261347135.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=6&asset=&ccode=" target="_new">what people are worried about, and how what they are doing is fueling the problem.
Americans better get used to the current economic situation, because despite the soon to come talk about how the WH now gets that the main concern we have is the economy, and especially the massive unemployment, the solutions they will come up with will all be wrong. We are dealing with a bunch of characters that despise anything but government control of everything. They can not think outside that collectivist box, and consequently every solution come up with will involve either more borrowing and useless spending - stimulus patronage bill 2, despite the fact that most people see the first one as the waste it was – or other anti-business actions – like Obama’s attack on the financial sector – which will cause exactly the opposite of any kind of economic growth. The one good thing I see coming out of this whole mess though is that people will finally be shown that we have been lied and manipulated by those that pushed the idiotic idea that democrats were better for the economy. They are not unless your idea of a better economy is one that collapses and is replaced with one that mirrors for example Chavez’s Venezuela, Kim’s North Korea, or Castro’s Cuba.
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Monday, January 25, 2010
Surprise! Home sales drop drastically..
In another example of why Keynesian economics don’t work worth shit in the long term, we find out that, just like what happened with the “Cash for Clunkers” program, there was a drastic drop in home sales after the $8,000 tax credit expired.
WASHINGTON (AP)—Sales of previously occupied homes took the largest monthly drop in more than 40 years last month, sinking more dramatically than expected after lawmakers gave buyers additional time to use a tax credit. The report reflects a sharp drop in demand after buyers stopped scrambling to qualify for a tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time homeowners. It had been due to expire on Nov. 30. But Congress extended the deadline until April 30 and expanded it with a new $6,500 credit for existing homeowners who move.
“It’s ‘exit stage left’ for first-time homebuyers,” wrote Guy LeBas, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott. December’s sales fell 16.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.45 million, from an unchanged pace of 6.54 million in November, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. Sales had been expected to fall by about 10 percent, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters.
What is surprising to me is the media’s and left’s ability to connect the dots and realize this result was a given. Did they miss the massive slump that car manufacturers are now in after the “Cash for Clunkers” program ended? I know they tried to spin that story too, and that they are no longer reporting on that continued slump, but the writing was easy to see. Basic human nature 101, people. While there was an incentive to behave a certain way, people did it. Once that incentive went away, behavior changed. At the risk of being repetitive, that’s human nature. Why do the collectivists have such a hard time with this concept? Reward people for a certain behavior, or punish them for not doing it, and people will conform. The left knows this. That’s why they want gas to be over $4 a gallon and all energy to be expensive. When we have less freedom to move around, they can control us better.
Anyway, the best piece of this moronic article?
“We do not believe it is fair to consider this a double dip in the housing market,” Michelle Meyer, an economist with Barclays Capital, wrote last week. “The recovery is still under way, but hitting some bumps in the road.”
Yeah, sure! Except for the people without jobs. The people with jobs that still can’t make ends meet, and soon will have less income or purchase power due to a bunch of corrupt and stupid collectivist politicians. And the private sector in general. Otherwise, things are looking good....
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Friday, January 22, 2010
The more things change, the more they stay the same…
So, now that the government healthcare takeover agenda seems to be all bud dead, the leftists are setting their sight on taking over the financial sector. They are going to cripple the economy and get their hands on our money one way or another, because we are too stupid to understand that they know what’s best for us. Wall Street reacted appropriately, and from the looks of it, despite the concern by some, there will be more of the same to come. Before you start ranting about the evils of Wall Street remember that they are not able to do anything without the tacit and regulatory approval of a politician, and while the left has made a great case of convincing people that these favors are the acts of the right, the truth is that the real big and rewarding sweetheart deals – think AIG bonuses for example – come from democrats. They are the ones that are the easiest to buy. Anyway, I guess this is how Obama plans to help the economy create more jobs? How much longer do we have to endure this destructive economic crap before the next elections clean house?
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Thursday, January 21, 2010
Let’s get another credit card to pay off this old credit card debt!
In another move that shows you how fiscally irresponsible and disconnected the democrats - whom I hope I no longer need to remind anyone ran on the ridiculous notion they would be more fiscally responsible than republicans and are now proving the point that this was all lies from them - are now proposing to raise the debt limit allowed under law by another $1.9 trillion dollars. And this is coming a mere month after they already tacked on another $1.4 trillion just last month in 2009! It is now evident why they felt they had to pass that legislation in the dark of night and last year. A whopping $3.3 trillion increase just blows the mind.
Where is the outrage from the MSM and the left, which constantly blamed Bush for our fiscal problems (problems which in hindsight now seem minor), now though? These collectivists have in just a year and a month added more debt than the last 10 years of military budgets - both for annual defense spending and for the 2 conflicts we are involved with combined, the bugaboos the left blames for our fiscal problems - and yet, nary a peep from those that blamed Bush for much less, and then, even when practically all of the big spending of the Bush years happened after the democrats took over congress, and thus control of spending. The same bunch of democrats now adding another $3.3 trillion to the debt, I should add. Let that sink in please. Hopefully nobody will believe any damned democrat again when they flat out lie about their fiscal bonafides.
I am praying the 2010 elections come soon and the democrats get shellacked. Hopefully the republicans that come in will get the message and at a minimum reign in the out of control spending.
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Monday, January 18, 2010
Government healthcare takeover plan is doing so good that..
The democrats are now threatening to ignore the rules.
BOSTON (AP) - A panicky White House and Democratic allies scrambled Sunday for a plan to salvage their hard-fought health care package in case a Republican wins Tuesday’s Senate race in Massachusetts, which would enable the GOP to block further Senate action. The likeliest scenario would require persuading House Democrats to accept a bill the Senate passed last month, despite their objections to several parts. Aides consulted Sunday amid fears that Republican Scott Brown will defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in the special election to fill the late Edward M. Kennedy’s seat. A Brown win would give the GOP 41 Senate votes, enough to filibuster and block final passage of the House-Senate compromise on health care now being crafted.
I wonder if the leftists see the irony that this story originated out of Boston Mass., where we all know the democrats, whom took the Kennedy seat for granted, seem poised to lose that Senate seat in the special election to Scott Brown. Obama’s visit Sunday was a bust - AP reports mixed results because they are MSM shills, but barely 2000 - 2500 people showed up for that freakshow - while the Scott Brown meeting was a big win. And while democrats have plans for the 2010 elections and likely are counting on more of the same in MA., with some union thuggery thrown in for good measure. After all, the Obama Admin is likely to turn a blind eye to any kind of voter intimidation or fraud that helps them as the dismissed cases of blatant criminal activity in the 2008 election proves.
But, let us get back to the government healthcare takeover attempt by the collectivists. It looks like the troops are reading the writing on the wall, and many are not liking it much. Maybe they figure no amount of cheating or cover from the MSM will spare them a defeat in 2010. Lucky for us most of these hyenas will not simply go along with something that spells suicide for their personal political careers even if it helps their party cement a permanent hold on the American political landscape (when people need you for their benefits, they must keep you in power). Their problem is that the writing is on the wall. The democrats managed in but a single year to remind America why they should never be trusted with power. I hope that idiotic meme that democrats are better for the economy dies a painful and quick death. I never understood how anyone could take the collectivist’s view of the economy as anything good for anyone but the politicians. To quote Clinton: “It’s the economy stupid”. And the current approach of wrecking it permanently, isn’t doing well.
UPDATE: And if you doubt that the left thinks cheating is a fine thing as long as they are doing it, here is MSNBC’s Ed Schultz making a startling remark on his radio show yesterday about supporting voter fraud in Massachusetts. You got that right. The advice from the MSM cronies is to cheat. Not like they would ever report it if it hurt “the cause”.
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Friday, January 15, 2010
I think I know…
How the democrats plan to tackle their rampant deficit spending and the insane speed at which our deficit is going, at least in the short run, and I am scared, because it means they intend to confiscate our private investments.
Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive. House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, are looking at redirecting those tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute. A plan by Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic-policy analysis at The New School for Social Research in New York, contains elements that are being considered. She testified last week before Mr. Miller’s Education and Labor Committee on her proposal.
I guess they have the perfect vehicle to get them an easy and quick $ 3 trillion now, and trillions more to spend. Just like they have done with Social Security, where they raid the funds, leave IOUs for someone to pay back in the future, and then simply spend our money willy-nilly to prop up the massive and inefficient bureaucracy from which they get their power, these crooks now figure they can get their hands on a real large wad of cash. And have no doubt that this would be a confiscatory act. A law that does away with private accounts and forces you to move your money into whatever vehicle the government wants so it can then spend your money like it does with the SS income, amounts to a confiscation of your money any day of the week. We are doomed if these collectivists get their way. More of that hope and change I guess.
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Oh, how things change!
I am sure I do not need to remind anyone about how the democrats, and especially their top dog Obama, won the 2008 elections by promising to change things up. Big promises of not kowtowing to special interests and lobbyists were made, and the masses all luxuriated in the promise of hope and change. A year later and there isn’t much hope, because it is now becoming obvious that the change was to kow-tow even more to special interests, lobbyists, and special interests, as the disastrous government healthcare takeover crusade to get all moneys and decision making to go through DC masquerading as healthcare reform trudges on. Case in point the latest deal:
Big Labor got some big love from President Obama and congressional Democrats yesterday after they agreed to exempt union workers from the whopping “Cadillac tax” on high-cost health-care plans until 2018. The sweetheart deal, hammered out behind closed doors, will save union employees at least $60 billion over the years involved, while others won’t be as lucky—they’ll have to cough up almost $90 billion. The 40 percent excise tax on what have come to be called “Cadillac” health-care plans would exempt collective-bargaining contracts covering government employees and other union members until Jan. 1, 2018. In another major concession to labor, the value of dental and vision plans would be exempt from the tax even after the deal expires in eight years, negotiators said. Under the plan to help fund health-care reform, the tax would kick in for plans valued at $8,900 or more for individuals and $24,000 or more for families.
Look, can we all drop the pretense and admit that we are getting hosed by these crooks? They make all the fiscal irresponsibility and the DNC orchestrated campaigns that had the MSM tell us about cultures of corruption and special interests having their way in DC look insignificant. Funny how the MSM is also absent on this stuff, huh? No transparency, massive cronyism, deficit spending and debt accumulation at a rate that simply boggles the mind, encroachments on our freedoms – real ones, not the imagined ones the left constantly spoke of during the Bush years – and a continuation or expansion, at least lip service wise, of the Bush year policies that used to make leftists act like Linda Blair did in The Exorcist, and nary a peep from the usual suspects.
The American people are getting shafted royally, and the democrat special interests are making out even better than any of those shady rich fat cats did in the most perverse liberal Halliburton-eque fantasies ever. Hope and change indeed!
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Thursday, January 14, 2010
A little reality about our economic situation
Despite their best efforts to put a positive spin on how bad the economy is these days when democrats control everything - the “It’s Bush’s fault” or “The greedy Bankers/Wall Street/capitalists did this to us” copouts no longer are getting traction, as more and more people realize who the real guilty parties that set up the conditions that caused the collapse and then continue to make decisions that negatively drive the economy, are - even the progressive guardians of what should be news in the MSM can’t do a good enough job of keeping the talking points going. Case in point, this AP piece on foreclosures. First there is the bad news that things are not letting up as they have otherwise continuously claimed:
MIAMI (AP) - A record 2.8 million households were threatened with foreclosure last year, and that number is expected to rise this year as more unemployed and cash-strapped homeowners fall behind on their mortgages. The number of households that received a foreclosure-related notice rose 21 percent from 2008, RealtyTrac Inc. reported Thursday. One in 45 homes were sent a filing, which includes default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossessions. In December, more than 349,000 households, or one in 366 homes, were hit with a foreclosure-related notice. That represents a 14 percent spike from November and a 15 percent jump from December 2008.
The leftists keep telling us that the economy is on the right track for a recovery, but reality has a way of squashing those lies. We all know that we are still losing jobs at an alarming rate, that the only sector that has shown job growth is government - which has to rob even more money from the productive private sector to finance their expansion keeping the cycle spiraling downwards - and that millions are simply giving up look for jobs. The real unemployment numbers, those without jobs or only able to work part time despite their best efforts, are fast approaching the 20% mark, and according to some might even be over that. Couple the continuously rising unemployment with these massive foreclosure numbers - without jobs people can not keep paying for their homes no matter what government does in the short term - and that’s what these numbers show. Of course, the leftists can put a favorable spin on the story by laying blame on the evil capitalists, and AP does not disappoint.
Banks repossessed more than 92,000 homes, up 19 percent from November. That increase was likely due to lenders working to clear their books at the end of the year, RealtyTrac said.
Oh, those evil and insensitive lenders! How dare they! Don’t they know they are hurting innocents? Don’t they know that their actions hurt the economic recovery?
Stemming the tide of foreclosures is an important step for the real estate market and the economy to recover. Because foreclosures are usually sold at heavy discounts they can lower the value of surrounding properties. Cities lose property tax dollars from empty foreclosures and declining home values, straining local economies. Home prices have stabilized in some cities, but are still down 30 percent nationally from mid-2006. The foreclosure crisis isn’t letting up. Between 3 and 3.5 million homes are expected to enter some phase of foreclosure this year, said Rick Sharga, senior vice president of Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac, which began tracking the data five years ago.
Damned lending institutions! They are stealing tax dollars from municipalities and driving down the real estate values, all of which is preventing these brilliant democrats running the economy from straightening things out. How dare they! These numbers keep going up, and up. Don’t they know people need their homes and such? And it could have been much worse. I agree, and I suspect it will get much worse too, but not because of the same reason the AP wants you to believe. Hold on, here it comes..
High foreclosures forced the federal government and several states to come up with plans to prevent or delay foreclosures to help troubled borrowers. “It was bad, but it could have been much worse, and it probably should have been worse,” Sharga said. One plan intended to help homeowners is the Obama administration’s loan modification program known as Making Home Affordable. Lenders participating in the program have offered trial loan modifications to 760,000 eligible borrowers since it was launched in March. A loan modification changes the terms of the loan, such as lowering the interest rate, to make the monthly payments more affordable.
Oh heavens! Our collectivist government officials, feeling your pain, are doing things to soften the blow and help you out! Of course, the unvarnished and ugly truth is that if these democrats were less hostile to the private sector and actually allowed real capitalism to work, the private sector would actually do things that make it profit, and in the process create much needed jobs. The things that would actually help people pay the financial obligations they have entered too. Not to mention pay taxes too. The things that would actually help the economy turn around. Instead we get program after program from these leftists twits that literally disincentives anyone from doing anything that would create jobs. And they are not done yet. From the “Healthcare reform takeover” to “Cap & Tax”, the capitalism hating class warfare agents of envy driven politics are piling up program after program that guarantee the private sector will do anything but create jobs. Many small business owners I know are hunkering down, looking at how many people they will have to let go to cut cost and wait out Washington’s mad dash to destroy what has allowed American prosperity, and hoping they do not have to simply call it quits and let it all go. And it is not that these collectivists have a problem understanding this connection because they point it out right in the article:
Economic issues, such as unemployment or reduced income, are expected to be the main catalysts for foreclosures this year. Homeowners with good credit who took out conventional, fixed-rate loans are the fastest growing group of foreclosures.
However, the problem is in the solution they champion. Big daddy government will save you, not by helping create conditions to get you employed, but by burdening the whole system even more. We have not run out of paper and ink to print new money on, and that debt we kept harping about while first republicans ran the show, but forgot that along with the tax cuts, which did spur economic growth, and did so despite the impact of the 9-11 attacks, they needed to reign in spending, then followed by a democrat controlled congress which spent like there was no tomorrow and used the media to Blame Bush since he was stupid enough to sign the bill so he could get the stuff he really needed, isn’t that important. Who cares that the democrats have managed to create as much new debt in a single year as it took republicans and spend happy democrats to do in 8 years of Bush? And why bother or worry about the fact that it looks like their continuing plans will create so much more new in the next few years that it will make this past one look like it was a good one. Anyway, back to the government solution.
The Mortgage Bankers Association on Wednesday recommended changes to the government’s program to account for borrowers who’ve lost their jobs. The program, for example, should include a suspension of payments as the first step for borrowers with a temporary loss of income.
And how long will we give these people a break for? At the rate things are going there is no chance of any kind of job recovery in site. And anyone claiming otherwise is a lying moron. Maybe they will take it to the next step and just tell the lending institutions to hand over the titles to these properties to these poor people. I guess that lady that claimed Obama would pay for her house, new car, and even her food might have known a lot more than the rest of us idiots that still keep trying to do the right thing.
Look. This is real simple stuff. There will be no economic recovery without the creation of incentive in the private sector where wealth gets build. The collectivist might live in denial, but the truth is that wealth is only gobbled up by government. Unfortunately anything that would incentivise the private sector will not happen while the people in charge get their power and control from class warfare rhetoric, which requires profit to be seen as an immoral and dirty thing. No amount of fudging or slight of hand will make things better however. At this point we are left praying that November comes along sooner than later and the democrats simply get “Clintoned”.
All Things Government • Economics • News • Liberal Media • The Left • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
If it was republicans
Doing this, conducting business that affects us all and has massive economic impact on everyone, you can bet the left would be foaming at the mouth, and they would be right to do so. This is not any kind of national security issue - unless the fact that this stuff will bankrupt the nation is put into perspective - and this kind of secrecy is only necessary if you really want the American people to not find out how badly you are going to screw them over. The most ethical congress, owned by the party that promised to be the most transparent and forthcoming, as well as responsible and sensitive to the American people, has set a new record for secrecy. Hiding bills is now SOP for these criminals. Even the donkey shills seem to be catching on, and the crooks in DC are getting some pushback. The American people are about to get screwed hard, and the people doing so do not want us to know about it until we wake up at the camp with our behinds hurting and covered in vaseline.
All Things Government • Healthcare Reform • Economics • News • Liberal Media • The Left • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink