Wasting Time With Alex
Economics
Friday, July 23, 2010
Taxes are for idiots!
In a general display of how the leftist elites really feel about all those taxes they love to levy on the “undeserving rich” and everyone else, we have this interesting story about the new Kerry yacht:
Sen. John Kerry, who has repeatedly voted to raise taxes while in Congress, dodged a whopping six-figure state tax bill on his new multimillion-dollar yacht by mooring her in Newport, R.I. Isabel - Kerry’s luxe, 76-foot New Zealand-built Friendship sloop with an Edwardian-style, glossy varnished teak interior, two VIP main cabins and a pilothouse fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage - was designed by Rhode Island boat designer Ted Fontaine.
But instead of berthing the vessel in Nantucket, where the senator summers with the missus, Teresa Heinz, Isabel’s hailing port is listed as “Newport” on her stern. Could the reason be that the Ocean State repealed its Boat Sales and Use Tax back in 1993, making the tiny state to the south a haven - like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Nassau - for tax-skirting luxury yacht owners? Cash-strapped Massachusetts still collects a 6.25 percent sales tax and an annual excise tax on yachts. Sources say Isabel sold for something in the neighborhood of $7 million, meaning Kerry saved approximately $437,500 in sales tax and an annual excise tax of about $70,000.
The senior senator’s chief of staff David Wade denied the old salt was berthing his boat out of state to avoid ponying up to the commonwealth.
Seriously, you don’t think this decision was done on advice from his accountants to avoid taxes? If you don’t I am also sure you think Charley Rangel is being unjustly persecuted. One set of rules for thee, another for me. But we are the party of the little guy and the people. Right..
On a lighter note, Biden is again showing us how lucky we are Obama is president.
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Thursday, July 22, 2010
CHA_CHING!
Well, it looks like the tax payer subsidized government bail outs are now at a record setting $3.7 trillion of tax payer dollars, with no end in sight. Seems that $4 trillion number we were supposed to hit at the end of Obama’s first term will come about long before we get rid of him. Some $700 billion has been forked out just in the last year.
WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - Increased housing commitments swelled U.S. taxpayers’ total support for the financial system by $700 billion in the past year to around $3.7 trillion, a government watchdog said on Wednesday. The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said the increase was due largely to the government’s pledges to supply capital to Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) and Freddie Mac (FMCC.OB) and to guarantee more mortgages to the support the housing market.
Now one can argue that it was necessary and Bush was not a moron for going along with the first $350 billion, but none of us, including GWB, liked it when congress - who controlled it back in 2008 again lefties - decided to up it to $ 700 billion, and most of us objected to it. Even though Bush was no longer running for office, republicans paid for this move in 2008, while the demcorats made a great show, even as they rigged the way the cash was being distributed to make it end up with their hobby horses, big donors, friends and lobbyists, of blaming Bush for the bad economy and the need to bail out corporations with tax payer money. Things have steadily gone down hill from there, as the TARP bailout funds became the perfect place for demcorats to hide their shenanigans, and that $700 billion number soon was nothing but wishful thinking. Here we are now closing in on the $4 trillion mark not even two years after the fact. And who, pray tell, did most of the $700 billion they spent this year go to? Why.. Nah, just read it yourself:
Increased guarantees for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, the Government National Mortgage Association and the Veterans administration increased the government’s commitments by $512.4 billion alone in the year to June 30, according to the report.
“Indeed, the current outstanding balance of overall Federal support for the nation’s financial system...has actually increased more than 23% over the past year, from approximately $3.0 trillion to $3.7 trillion—the equivalent of a fully deployed TARP program—largely without congressional action, even as the banking crisis has, by most measures, abated from its most acute phases,” the TARP inspector general, Neil Barofsky, wrote in the report.
So wait a minute? We aren’t bailing out banks anymore – the demcorats sure as hell are trying their best to pretend that the bailouts are for Wall Street – like before, so what did all that cash end up going to? Well you found out when you read deeper into the article, or if you had been paying attention, that the big money this year went to prop up government institutions and amongst them are none other than Freddie and Fannie, whose protectors also brought us that fun bill Hal has an awesome piece on right here. The banks in the mean time? Well, check it out:
The increased government commitments more than offset about a $300 billion decline in the U.S. Treasury’s TARP commitments in the past year as programs have closed and banks have repaid taxpayer funds.
They are paying back our money. So why are we still seeing such massive TARP expenditures still going on when the banks are paying back the cash, then?
“The fact that the Obama administration is treating TARP like its own personal slush-fund is beyond egregious and a complete betrayal of what the American people were told would be then when their tax-dollars were used to bailout Wall Street,” Issa said in a statement, adding that the housing efforts were “dumping good money after bad”.
Heh, must be more of the same game that has them avoiding both a budget before the 2010 elections and playing chicken with the Bush tax cuts that expire then too. “Hope and Change”, baby! Fiscal discipline the demcorat way....
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Tuesday, July 20, 2010
These are the people that are going to make your healthcare decisions too
Unless you live under a rock, you have heard about this story where some government bureaucrat from the Agriculture Department admitted on camera during an NAACP meeting that she had shafted a honkey farmer. While many are now coming out to condemn her for this, others are defending her, and even have the temerity to claim that it is the people that are pointing out how wrong what she did are at fault, thee real big deal that is going unsaid, is that this isn’t anything new for people working in government.
The people in government, at least the ones I have had to deal with, are with a few exceptions not even close to being as clever or unbiased as they would like you to believe they are. Your usual lefty has a lot of trust in these people, and maybe they are justified considering they share the same world view and ideas, but those of us that know better are not surprised to see these employees abusing their powers and office. In fact, I would be surprised if the opposite was the case. For every one you have on tape, I am betting there are hundreds of other that have done the same, but simply have not been caught or exposed. Heck, I dealt with such petty and vindictive losers with inferiority complexes and a giant chip on their shoulder practically every damned time I had to deal with government people. From the DMV to the IRS, they are smug and drunk with their own power. And they want you to know you have to go through them and are at their mercy.
While we should not ignore the racial component of this case, it is important to keep in mind that it is not just the only motivator of these kind of petty people. And just think how wonderful our healthcare coverage will be when these same types of people are in charge of it? That guy needed a heart transplant, and I just didn’t give him the full force of my abilities, cause I hate his guts. Of course, the only bad people are in the private sector and working for the insurance companies. Heh, our tax dollars at work.
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Monday, July 12, 2010
Climategate deniers are lying.
The AGW cultists have recently been up in arms about how an “independent review” of the Climategate scandal cleared the cultist, finding no evidence to question the “rigor and honesty” of scientists involved. Of course, as was obvious to anyone but the cultists, there wasn’t anything independent, and nothing much other than a political whitewash to continue to lend credibility to, and defend, the indefensible and incredible , as this WSJ article clearly points out.
The problem:
Last November there was a world-wide outcry when a trove of emails were released suggesting some of the world’s leading climate scientists engaged in professional misconduct, data manipulation and jiggering of both the scientific literature and climatic data to paint what scientist Keith Briffa called “a nice, tidy story” of climate history. The scandal became known as Climategate.
The setup:
Now a supposedly independent review of the evidence says, in effect, “nothing to see here.” Last week “The Independent Climate Change E-mails Review,” commissioned and paid for by the University of East Anglia, exonerated the University of East Anglia. The review committee was chaired by Sir Muir Russell, former vice chancellor at the University of Glasgow.
Mr. Russell took pains to present his committee, which consisted of four other academics, as independent. He told the Times of London that “Given the nature of the allegations it is right that someone who has no links to either the university or the climate science community looks at the evidence and makes recommendations based on what they find.”
The facts:
No links? One of the panel’s four members, Prof. Geoffrey Boulton, was on the faculty of East Anglia’s School of Environmental Sciences for 18 years. At the beginning of his tenure, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU)—the source of the Climategate emails—was established in Mr. Boulton’s school at East Anglia. Last December, Mr. Boulton signed a petition declaring that the scientists who established the global climate records at East Anglia “adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity.”
Heh, not much cause for all that “independent review” claim after this information about the ties of one of the panelists is gleaned, huh? The other 3 aren’t much better either, but we should seriously dispense with the pretense that this review was anything but an inside hack job to cover for the cult. There is big money here and the governments that want to control people’s lives and energy are quite willing to go along with the lies if it helps them get there. And those other “independent review”?
This purportedly independent review comes on the heels of two others—one by the University of East Anglia itself and the other by Penn State University, both completed in the spring, concerning its own employee, Prof. Michael Mann. Mr. Mann was one of the Climategate principals who proposed a plan, which was clearly laid out in emails whose veracity Mr. Mann has not challenged, to destroy a scientific journal that dared to publish three papers with which he and his East Anglia friends disagreed. These two reviews also saw no evil. For example, Penn State “determined that Dr. Michael E. Mann did not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community.”
This is like having the child molester investigate the accusations made against him, and say that the video showing him molesting the kid exonerates him of the charge because in his “independent” analysis it doesn’t look like he is doing anything wrong. Nobody interested in the truth should take that defense seriously. Same applies to the defense and supposed exoneration of those that fabricated and manipulated data and supporting systems to model their claims, to push an agenda, concealed that agenda behind a veneer of legitimacy by consensus science, and then investigated themselves and gave themselves a slap on the wrist but continue to claim that the whole house of cards is on solid foundations and still to be taken seriously.
It’s impossible to find anything wrong if you really aren’t looking.
That’s the magic quote right there. Evidence of criminal intent and absolutely unscientific behavior?
In a famous email of May 29, 2008, Phil Jones, director of East Anglia’s CRU, wrote to Mr. Mann, under the subject line “IPCC & FOI,” “Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report]? Keith will do likewise . . . can you also email Gene [Wahl, an employee of the U.S. Department of Commerce] to do the same . . . We will be getting Caspar [Amman, of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research] to do likewise.”
Mr. Jones emailed later that he had “deleted loads of emails” so that anyone who might bring a Freedom of Information Act request would get very little. According to New Scientist writer Fred Pearce, “Russell and his team never asked Jones or his colleagues whether they had actually done this.”
The Russell report states that “On the allegation of withholding temperature data, we find that the CRU was not in a position to withhold access to such data.” Really? Here’s what CRU director Jones wrote to Australian scientist Warrick Hughes in February 2005: “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it[?]”
Why should that matter? These guys are pure, and their agenda is good! They are trying to better the world. Save it from the capitalist pigs. Social justice and redistribution of wealth through an all knowing governmental entity. After all, the people opposing the church of AGW’s findings and “science”, are in it for the money!
Readers of both earlier reports need to know that both institutions receive tens of millions in federal global warming research funding (which can be confirmed by perusing the grant histories of Messrs. Jones or Mann, compiled from public sources, that are available online at freerepublic.com). Any admission of substantial scientific misbehavior would likely result in a significant loss of funding.
Heh, but only the people getting money form those evil bastards that oppose the church of AGW, should not be taken seriously. That the church itself is making billions, and proponents and supporters of this apocalyptic gospel stand to make trillions, drastically expand the powers of government if not outright create that one-world collectivist government the UN and the leftists so pine for, to control the lives of peasants through the regulation of the availability of energy and transportation, stand to gain big-time, should simply be ignored.
Of course, Mr. Russell didn’t look to see if the ugly pressure tactics discussed in the Climategate emails had any consequences. That’s because they only interviewed CRU people, not the people whom they had trashed.
This sort of stuff is referred to as an echo chamber. I have been caught cheating? Ask my fellow cheats to prove that I did so! Yeah, really. Independent review my ass.
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Wednesday, July 07, 2010
When you haven’t got a clue how to actually do anything right….
The democrats are in a world of hurt come the November elections. They won huge in 2008 by having the MSM help them overinflate the fact Bush was a wet noodle and that republicans were somehow fiscally less responsible than them. As if the Carter years and the demcorat controlled congress tripling spending while the Reagan tax cuts doubled revenue, never happened. Of course, as soon as they won they proceeded to make sure everyone knew that demcorats being fiscally responsible or able to actually lead us into any kind of prosperity was a myth, on par with the one about demcorats caring about individual freedoms. They took the low bar the stupid republicans let the demcorats set for them, and plunged it to new lows.
For a while there they were able to blame Bush for everything they did wrong. We passed a nearly trillion dollar stimulus patronage bill that served to only “stimulate” the growth of government, fill our campaign coffers and the wallets of our donors, operatives, lobbyists, and friends, at the expense of those working in the private sector? Bush’s fault! A democrat controlled congress first pushed TARP up to $750 billion, despite objections from the not insane during an election campaign nevertheless – and so they could blame “you know who” – and then when they won, literally made TARP a no limit slush fund for all things collectivist government expansion related. Blame Bush! Cap and Tax was not popular and temporarily had to be put on the back burner. But PB, a top Obama donor and well connected to their WH and green efforts, blows a well out in the Gulf, and the same people that accused Bush of conjuring up Katrina to kill blacks in NO, now have let months go bye without doing anything of significance – can’t piss off the unions or let this crisis go bye without taking advantage of it and all that – because now they can bring this economy killer back again. Blame Bush! Passed the most intrusive and massive government expansion program ever, masquerading as healthcare reform, but really intended to recreate something like the Cuban healthcare system over here, against the will of the American people, nevertheless, guaranteeing that the massive cost of this boondoggle will fiscally bankrupt the nation. Blame Bush! Can’t pass a budget because it would show that demcorats lied about being fiscally responsible and have already broken last years record deficit spending and debt growing budget busting shenanigans? Blame Bush! We are being overrun by an invasion from our “neighbor” to the south? Blame Bush! Ok yeah, Bush was a moron on this one too, so he does deserve some blame. Of course, he didn’t succeed at his amnesty attempt, and the ones trying now aren’t doing it because Bush is making them, for sure. The surge worked in Iraq? Blame Bush! Oh wait. Biden says Obama, whom I should remind people because the MSM won’t, was against the surge, gets credit for that one now.
You get the picture right? Everything bad they do is Bush’s fault. Of course, that has now worn thin, and is falling on deaf ears, as the polls showing a massacre come November make clear. Remember the collectivists telling us that it was the end of the age of American greed – because making money and wanting prosperity for yourself, is you know, evil – was dead and the right was gone for the next 50 years? Took them less than 18 months to squander away the support their well orchestrated campaign of lies garnered them, by actually doing what they believe in! As many of us predicted: once the left showed what they were all about, the American people would turn on them. Yeah, I am rubbing it in. Anyway, back to the point of this post: the demcorats are desperate. So what’s the new tactic they hope will help show the American people that they are better suited to be in charge?
More of the same:
The Democratic Party is moving faster and more aggressively than in previous election years to dig up unflattering details about Republican challengers. In House races from New Jersey to Ohio to California, Democratic operatives are seizing on evidence of GOP candidates’ unpaid income taxes, property tax breaks and ties to financial firms that received taxpayer bailout money.
Sounds solid. When you have zero successes to campaing on, all you are left with is demonizing the opposition, and hoping the people are too stupid to figure out that’s all you have. You aren’t fit to lead anyone, fiscally irresponsible, drowning the country in debt, destroying the economy, healthcare system, and the lives of millions, and looking like you are going to be hammered in the election for it – all because people have wised up and no longer buy the “Blame Bush!” meme, dang it! – so what you do isn’t square this stuff away. Nah, you go dig up dirt on those that are going to have you for breakfast, hoping the American people are stupid enough to leave you in charge. After all, as this WaPO post does, the MSM will repeat the talking points you want to get out there even as it is pretending to tut-tut at you for doing this idiotic stuff.
And if you can’t find enough dirt? Well, go make some up:
Democratic officials are advising campaigns to hire trackers to follow their Republican opponents to public events with video cameras, ready to catch any gaffe or misstatement. And the Democratic National Committee last week issued a call to the public to submit any embarrassing audio or video of Republicans, as well as copies of their direct-mail advertisements.
Party officials would not say how many staffers are working on opposition research. Such work used to be farmed out to campaign consultants, but the DCCC brought research operations in-house in 2008 to be more nimble. “It may appear to be more aggressive this cycle because what we’re finding on Republicans is so rich,” Vogel said.
Good luck you morons. If these bastards put in a fraction of the time they would doing this kind of stuff in actually doing their jobs to benefit the American people instead of themselves, I guarantee you they would not need to do this stuff. Like I said: I can’t wait for November.
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Friday, July 02, 2010
Told you so…
Well, it looks like some more truth about how disastrous and unlikely to really be possible the promises made by the left to push for the new government healthcare takeover will be is trickling out:
The Obama administration has not ruled out turning sick people away from an insurance program created by the new healthcare law to provide coverage for the uninsured. Critics of the $5 billion high-risk pool program insist it will run out of money before Jan. 1, 2014. That’s when the program sunsets and health plans can no longer discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. Administration officials insist they can make changes to the program to ensure it lasts until 2014, and that it may not have to turn away sick people.
So let me get this straight. First off, these collectivist are admitting that in order to keep the existing programs solvent and viable till 2014 when the big daddy takeover goes into high gear, they will need to likely deny care to “some” sick people? That is unless they can make some changes to the $5 billion high risk pool program to make it viable until 2014? Care to guess what the changes will be? Don’t need to man. It’s right there:
Officials said the administration could also consider reducing benefits under the program, or redistributing funds between state pools. But they acknowledged turning some people away was also a possibility.
So, in order to not have to turn away the expensive sick, the rest will have to do with less, subpar being the more likely case, coverage. Bet you get both. Less coverage, and people turned away. Of course, since government will do it now, it is still better than getting better care and less people turned away from the private insurers! Don’t worry though! The collectivists are coming to the rescue!
Leading health reform advocate Ron Pollack, founding executive director of Families USA, said the pools were a “very imperfect tool that could be implemented quickly” but were the best option available for the interim period before 2014.“The pools are going to be helpful for a significant number of people,” he told The Hill, “but nobody thought they’re the ultimate answer for helping people with pre-existing conditions.” Still, he didn’t rule out that Families USA could press lawmakers to allocate more money in a few years if it looks like the program needs it.
Well DUH! Just demand more cash! So, since there simply isn’t enough money to go around and pay for all of this, no matter what these bozos pretend otherwise, what we will get is this program costing twice, or more, as much as the allocates $5 billion, the coverage being piss poor, AND people still being turned away.
Not bad. Here is the kicker, though. Nobody seems to point out the obvious: that come 2014 when the big government healthcare takeover takes place, we will be left with a lot more of the same – they won’t turn people away, just drag their feet until they die and then save money – we are seeing here. Only then it will cost trice, if not more, as much to the same effect. Ain’t we lucky the collectivists managed to get government to take over healthcare? Fun, fun!
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Tuesday, June 29, 2010
The gravy train continues
While the political oligarchy in DC are trying real hard to stick it to Wall Street before July 4th session closes, in a nice Kabuki show intended to distract the dumb peasants from their role in the whole debacle have hit a snag, and the MSM does its best to help the demcorats blame republicans for the failure, the real story about how bad things are still to be is about Freddie & Fannie.
For American taxpayers, now on the hook for some $145 billion in housing losses connected to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans, that amount could be just the tip of the iceberg. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the losses could balloon to $400 billion. And if housing prices fall further, some experts caution, the cost to the taxpayer could hit as much as $1 trillion.
That $1 trillion quote will end up to be a low ball end number, I predict. These two government controlled and wholly DNC owned entities are likely sitting on far more than a measly $1 trillion in bad loans. It’s going to cost us a lot more to prop these monsters up. And I had to laugh at this:
Two things are clear: Taxpayers don’t want to foot the bill, and Fannie and Freddie, taken over by the government in 2008 to stanch the financial bloodletting, need a major overhaul.
Emphasis mine. Taken over? Please! Government has always owned these two, even if they pretended that was not the case, damn it. Stop the dumb propaganda already.
If these morons really wanted to put a halt at the problem they would chop up both Freddie & Fannie, get rid of the laws forcing lending to bad risk people, and let the morons that loan money to risky people go belly up. Just like the “Savings & Loans” crisis of the 80s we would see a slew of failure, and then things would get better. Of course that can’t ever happen when the ideological agenda gets in the way. Hey Franks, how is the health of Freddie and Fannie now? You going to step up and admit you called people racist for daring to say these two were behemoths that would because of the idiotic practices pushed cripple our economy some day, and that you were of course wrong? Nah, the MSM will continue to blame Wall Street and evil republicans for ya, so why bother.
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Friday, June 25, 2010
They are not just burrying us in debt..
They are also actively trying to rig the game in their favor. The “they” in question here is the most ethical ever promised Pelosi/Reed congress, and the stink here is another crooked bill that denies anyone but demcorats and their allies an advantage:
The resulting DISCLOSE Act, according to its backers, will ensure transparency in campaign ad funding. Thursday, the House of Representatives approved the bill 219-206, with 36 Democrats and 170 Republicans in opposition to the measure, which was written by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this year, and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who led the Senate Democrats’ campaign panel in 2008.
The bill is full of draconian restrictions on individual political speech expressed via corporations, but gives privileged status to the Democrats’ union masters. A provision pushed by Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Bob Brady, for example, allows unions to transfer unlimited funds among affiliated groups to pay for political ads with no disclosure whatever. That makes campaign funding more transparent?
I think the author answered their own question there. While the demcorats are trying to lay low and not let the people find out they are turning America into a third rate banana republic economically, they have certainly not given up on doing so with our freedoms as well.
As usual, DISCLOSE was rammed through the House after being introduced with only a few hours’ notice and too little debate allowed. Because Democrats have abandoned doing a federal budget for the year, couldn’t they find a little more time to allow Congress and the people it is supposed to represent to read and discuss this measure at greater length? Next we will see if Senate Democrats are as determined to throw out the First Amendment as were most of their House colleagues.
Why the hell don’t they cut to the chase and just tell us who can vote and how often they can? Scratch that. Just do away with the whole election charade. I mean that’s the end goal here anyway.
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Monday, June 14, 2010
Junk ratings and collectivist states
Here is what the future of those that adopt socialism looks like. No supposedly modern western nation has flirted as heavily with socialism – in fact there are is a large part of the population that is down with hard core communism – than the Greeks. And I say supposedly modern, because the Greeks sure as hell don’t show the productivity level of a modern state. Then again, when you get paid for 13 months during a 12 month year, have a couple of those months off, retire at 63 – that’s new and imposed as part of the austerity measures, btw – don’t work much when you are supposed to (I know this from first and second hand experience) and in general have an economy that is primarily based on ways of avoiding the normal and massive taxation with the least amount of work, some might think it is modernity, but most of us see is as slackers living off others.
The rescue package “effectively eliminates any near-term risk of a liquidity-driven default and encourages the implementation of a credible, feasible, and incentive-compatible set of structural reforms, which have a high likelihood of stabilizing debt service requirements at manageable levels,” said Moody’s senior analyst Sarah Carlson. “Nevertheless, the macroeconomic and implementation risks associated with the program are substantial and more consistent with a Ba1 rating,” Carlson added.
Yeah, that’s because basically everyone knows this stuff eventually fails and causes an economic implosion. If your Income is X and your expenditures are 1.3X, something has got to give. And more borrowing, like Greece was allowed to do, isn’t the answer. And keep in mind that the Greeks just got assurance that the other idiots that comprise the EU can’t afford to let them fail. Of course, their reaction will be to pretend they are fixing things, but we will be back at this exact same spot in a short time. After all, why do any kind of heavy lifting when the other suckers have to bail you out? Of course the Greeks won’t be the last ones needing a bailout. That’s just going to speed up the day when the Germans and other contributors - European countries and the US – will find themselves in the same boat only their money supply will have been wasted on the various Greek-a-likes.
Fitch currently rates Greece at BBB-minus, the lowest investment-grade level, with a negative outlook, which implies more than 50 percent possibility of a donwngrade.
That’s for those that are going to argue otherwise. Collectivism sucks. It is doomed to failure and causes nothing but suffering. One has to wonder why we think following these lemmings off the cliff is a good thing.
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Wednesday, June 09, 2010
It’s Bush’s fault that Obama is going to double the deficit!
Well, no, but that’s the surefire argument these morons that still believe this Kenysian stuff actually has a chance in hell of working are going to have to defend their policies with, because as this article points out, we are now looking at close to $20 trillion in U.S debt by 2015.Here is the relevant quote:
June 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015, according to a Treasury Department report to Congress. The report that was sent to lawmakers Friday night with no fanfare said the ratio of debt to the gross domestic product would rise to 102 percent by 2015 from 93 percent this year.
Yeah, good luck with that last bit. It’s great credit to the resilience of the American economy that the most hostile and destructive administration I have ever witnessed has managed to only drop our GDP to 93% with all their horribly costly and insane job and economy killing “tax & spend” policies. They have flushed $1 trillion down the drain through the stimulus patronage bill. They are presiding over the ever expanding largesse of our tax payer dollars for corporate fat cats – which they then promptly and successfully blamed on Bush and republicans while continuing to dole out the goodies – that have become too big to fail. And then under regulations they rigged to force lenders to give money to high risk entities anyone but people that live in the collectivist la-la land figured out would sooner than later come back to bite us, which they then promptly demanded the right to “fix”, while leaving the fundamental and underlying problem not just in place, but expanding the chance of more of the same. Don’t forget the healthcare takeover by government that is sure to cost us another healthy $1-3 trillion dollars a year as soon as the first 10 years are over. That gimmick of taxing us for a decade to provide 5 years of coverage will only work that once. After that, we are toast. And they are still looking to do more damage to those of us that make a living in the private sector. Be happy we are down to just 93%. It could have been worse.
And that brings me to that deluded 103% projection. Not going to happen with these people and their ideas in charge. In fact, if they do more of the same we are going to be lucky to keep the GDP the same. You can only funnel so much money from the productive to the unproductive sector before things go real bad. Of course they won’t blame their ideological beliefs and policies:
The U.S. debt has grown rapidly with the economic downturn and government spending for the Wall Street bailout, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the economic stimulus. The rising debt is contributing to voter unrest ahead of the November congressional elections in which Republicans hope to regain control of Congress.
Yeah, blame those evil Bush wars! After all, Bush is the one that went looking for them, and we could have avoided them completely, if you believe these morons. Even if they cost a mere pittance compared to the real pricy things, like that healthcare takeover or the massive increase in additional entitlement spending, which if you notice remain unmentioned. And nary a word of the insanity that these policies of addressing the rapidly growing debt by creating even more debt signifies. Go figure. This is what you get when the “progressives” talk about fiscal discipline. It never is about debt or deficits, just that they aren’t the ones robbing us blind.
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Friday, June 04, 2010
Sure the donkeys will pretend otherwise
The MSM will be abuzz with news of how employment is picking up or heading in the right direction. Of course, the devil is in the details, and my guess is they will play those details down big-time, but the irrefutable fact is that in the new age of expands socialism, the ability to earn a living is wholly dependant of government:
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch)—Nonfarm payrolls grew by a seasonally adjusted 431,000 in May, but virtually all the new jobs were temporary jobs at the U.S. Census, leaving private-sector hiring very weak, the Labor Department reported Friday. Excluding 411,000 temporary Census workers, payrolls rose by 20,000 in May. According to the survey of 400,000 business establishments, private-sector payrolls increased by 41,000, the fifth straight monthly gain. “A disappointing private payroll number to be sure,” said John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros of RDQ Economics.
Oooh! There was a gain in the private sector! Who cares that it was but a measly 10% of what the temporary government jobs that joke of a Census project has created and the near trillion dollar patronage bill has garnered so far. Maybe the donkeys can add another 400K people to the census pay roll every month until the November elections.
Watch them focus on this:
The nation’s unemployment rate fell to a seasonally adjusted 9.7% in May from 9.9% in April, according to a separate survey of 60,000 households.
And, like this CNBC article, try their best to downplay or misreport that this:
An alternative measure of unemployment, which includes discouraged workers and those forced to work part-time because of the weak economy, fell to 16.6% from 17.1%.
Only is happening because government is creating all these fake and totally temporary jobs. They are not fooling the people that know better, and this market drop is happening because the people that actually produce things know this is an unsustainable path we are on that will in the end come back to bite us all in the rear.
I also am noticing that the regulars in the MSM all seem to be currently be engaged in a campaign to pretend to be getting though with the WH and the democrats, for their innumerable and constant screw ups, across the board. I pondered if these collectivists that constantly see victory in the failures of the things they believe in, could really be turning the tide and realizing they are being had, but am starting to think this is all a ruse. Frankly I see a pattern where they now attack Obama and the demcorats for their ineptness at everything only to then reverse course, a month or so previous to the elections, and tell us Obama has saved the country! All just in time to minimize the onslaught and the massive losses I see the donkeys and their leftist beliefs taking but a measly 18 months into the new “progressive” era. Have no doubt that this will happen. If you want to argue, argue whether the MSM is in collusion with the WH and the donkeys on this, or being manipulated by them. In either case, I am willing to bet good money that the current reporting on the ineptness and stupidity of the Obama Admin and the donkeys, is going to take a 180 right before the elections, even as things get worse, because the usual MSM suspects simply can not bare to see their side go down in flames. The answer to everything, including their constant failures, after all, is always a bigger government of the elite.
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Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Keeping his promise…
Well, considering how many promises he has broken so far and how many more look like they will have to be broken to keep the scam alive, I feel I should give Obama his props for keeping at least one promise.When he told Joe the Plumber that he believed that the wealth should be spread around, he seems to have meant it. And the latest statistics seem to back his promise to do so up. Of course there is always a little twist, and when he spoke about spreading the wealth… Well don’t take it from me, here is the article’s take on it:
Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds. At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010. Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs.
| Other than the fact I get irked whenever the MSM refers to that government scam that funneled close to a trillion of our tax payer dollars to demcorat operatives & agents, past and future donors, friends and entities, and finally to the demcorat politician’s campaign chests, to “stimulate” their chances come the 2010 elections, as a “federal stimulus program”, I would say that they got the gist of what this new breed of statist collectivists are all about down pat. We are being led by the same kind of “intelligencia” groups that make up your usual liberal arts college academia, and it is not a coincidence that they feel the solution to all problems is a government led by them, that micromanages and relies on central planning and direct or indirect ownership & control of all aspects of the economy, to achieve their socialist Utopia. It’s no wonder then that the loathed private industry is being sucked dry while government spending grows drastically. It’s also no surprise to those of us that understand how economics work in the real world, that this practice is causing exactly the opposite effect these know-nothing nincompoops with overinflated egos and delusions of their own importance and wisdom thought it would, and wrecking our economy. Literally government is now in the business of picking winners & losers, not just as far as individuals go, but which businesses make it, what technologies or practices are adopted or avoided, and doing so not with any kind of scientific rigor or logic – they might claim otherwise but that’s just bull, and the demcorats are the ones that get to choose them. For a small fee, of course.
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The irony is that at a time when the socialist nanny state is clearly failing in Europe, our politicians are breaking all records recreating the same failed economic model in our country. And while the collectivists now running the US are downplaying the whole European crisis and unavoidable collapse of the whole socialist nanny state – wealth redistribution without the creation of new wealth, something the socialist state excels at, only works for so long, after all -the Chinese are worrying. The statists are taking us in the wrong direction. In their ever expanding need for cash, these demcorats are already looking at such “solutions” as taking over everyone that isn’t working for government’s retirement funds. Props to Obama, however, for keeping a promise....
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Monday, May 24, 2010
Show trail quietly dropped…
Remember all the feigned anger by the donkeys in charge at AIG, for those big bonuses they got Dodd to sign off on, after they took bailout money, back when? Well, as I predicted, all the hoopla and accusations and investigations of evil capitalists running amok and stealing from us, turned to be bull, and now the case has been dropped:
The criminal probe had focused on whether Joseph Cassano, who ran the financial products unit, and Andrew Forster, his deputy, knowingly misled investors about the company’s accounting losses on its credit default swaps portfolio. “Although a 2-year, intense investigation is tough for anyone, the results are wholly appropriate in light of our client’s factual innocence,” F. Joseph Warin and Jim Walden, Cassano’s lawyers, said in a statement.
Of course, if there was any justice we would be getting an investigation into the role Dodd and other demcorats played in this big pay-off scam, that diverted hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars to private industry, and which these demcorats still continue to pretend is all Bush’s making, when anyone that has been paying attention can figure out quickly that they have far surpassed the original $350 billion - which was already $350 billion too much - Bush asked for, but we all know that’s never going to happen.
Speaking of justice, when are we going to have an impartial investigation of and regulation of Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae? Want to know why we are in this economic mess? Demcorats and those two institutions play key and front & center roles. Instead we get tons of show trials, where haughty demcorats accuse evil capitalists of being the incarnation of Satan himself, and capitalism the cause of all our ills, while the vile truth and their own criminal behavior gets a pass. It’s not a coincidence that big companies donate the lion share of their cash to demcorats.
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The economy, government spending, and healthcare..
I have been busier than a one legged man at an ass-kicking contest the last month or so, and have not posed much, but today I have finally gotten some slow time and decided it was time to get back at it. And I think the appropriate place to start is with the current economic crisis gripping the world, and closer at home, this whole government healthcare takeover thingy, better know as Obamacare. Since everyone but the usual bureaucrats seem to understand the budgetary problems facing the great Western socialist paradises on the verge of economic collapse are caused because the parasites “working” in government have had a great run for the last few decades buying themselves both power and bennies with other people’s money, and are discussing the fact that we can’t keep spending at the rate we are, it should be obvious that this massive government expansion would remain unpopular and continue to get more unpopular as people realize the economic impacts associated with it. In fact, the numbers for those of us wanting it repealed, have climbed to 63%, and they are just going to keep going up as even the CBO now has to admit. I am sure the democrats are quite surprised that it now looks like Obamacare will not save us anything but actually cost more. And that is with a shameful slight of hand/scam used by those promoting this most massive government expansion since the first day of the Roosevelt socialist takeover, that allows the government to collect taxes for 10 years, but then only offer services for the last 5 or 6 years in a 10 year cycle. As I have pointed out repeatedly, it should be blatantly obvious that there is no arguing that even if the program doesn’t end up as I suspect it will deep in the red in the first decade, come the next 10 year cycle, the program is going to be short a trillion or more from the start.
The left made a successful run at power starting back in 2008 by pointing out the lack of fiscal discipline by the demcorats. Of course, many forget that despite the president’s best efforts spending is done by Congress, and that Bush’s worst years are those after the demcorats took over in 2006. The left of course blamed Bush’s “warmongering” for the out of control spending despite the obvious fact that this stuff was peanuts compared to the massive, bloated, and ever expanding social spending. Many like me laughed hard at the demcorats pretending to be fiscal hawks, and warned others that they were being lied to. Now but 18 months after they sweeped, we have tacked on, in a single year no less, more than all the Bush years combined. And we are going to tack on oodles more, even if we discount the disastrous Obamacare government takeover of the healthcare monies and decision making process (because that is really what this was about) masquerading as healthcare reform, because that’s what these people are about. Call me cruel or insensitive to my fellow man, but I still remain unable to quantify any benefits for society as a whole from all this social spending, and see it doing far more damage than good, but that’s neither here nor there. When we have created a whole new ever expanding class of serfs dependant on government for their daily subsistence – people that have trade freedoms in return for minimal security, and have as a result neither – that are akin to slaves, lacking in any desire to contribute to the advancement of mankind, other than by the means, I see very little good coming from all this spending. At least the money spent on the military provides decent and good jobs for hardworking taxpayers. Hey, maybe I am just biased that way…
The fact is that this collectivist stuff, past anything other than a family unit, is unsustainable. No, that’s not just my opinion, as the facts clearly prove. The people that see government and this socialist stuff as the answer to everything are trying to reverse course with actions like this one, or this one, all the while maligning and blaming the only system that has actually created new wealth and helped improve our standard of living on this planet, while the collectivists remain good, and that is me being generous because they even suck at that, at wealth redistribution and destruction schemes. The stuff that has gotten us where we are now (no, it was not Bush), and the people that know, are predicting even more bad times.
I often wonder why so many still do not realize or see how Obamacare is going to serve only to speed up our demise. And it isn’t even as if we are actually going to get something good from it. Oh, sure the usual morons have argued about the evils of private insurance and how this government takeover addresses that, but anyone making that argument is an absolute moron. If anything, you will see the very things that so concerned and angered them when done by private insurance companies, happen with more frequency now that a broke government looking to drag out the circling process that is taking us all down the drain as long as possible, will be in charge. You think those evil insurance people were bad? Wait until you have to deal with a spiteful and petty government employee that gets off on the power that their ability to make your life miserable by denying you services, gives them. At least when the insurance companies did it you were under the illusion that you could seek redress from government. Who will you turn to when it is government that is putting the screws to you? Other government employees? Yeah, good luck with that. Don’t worry though. At the rate we are going we might just implode and all end up without healthcare or anything else for that matter, returning to a 19th century standard of living. But in the eyes of these collectivist that would be a good thing – social justice has been served since we are all equally miserable – considering that the only evil they see is that life doesn’t guarantee equality of outcome.
UPDATE: Arthur C. Brooks has this absolutely awesome piece titled “America’s new culture war: Free enterprise vs. government control” over on the WaPO opinion pages. A must read to understand what is currently going on.
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Friday, April 23, 2010
Well Blow Me Down!
Ain’t it quite funny how all the usual morons in the MSM that propagandized for the Obama WH’s healthcare takeover are now finally coming out of the woods to admit the very same thing most of us that opposed this travesty did, namely that this bill would reduce quality of care and access to care and drastically increase cost. Well, it would be funny but when you remember that this usurpation of power by the federal government will cost us trillions more, mostly to pay bureaucrats and feed the new massive bureaucratic machine that will be created around this thing, and in that the government will now run healthcare with the same efficiency they run your DMV or for example the INS, then you just end up feeling like crying. Anyway, here is some fun new facts for ya.
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law is getting a mixed verdict in the first comprehensive look by neutral experts: More Americans will be covered, but costs are also going up. Economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department concluded in a report issued Thursday that the health care remake will achieve Obama’s aim of expanding health insurance — adding 34 million to the coverage rolls. But the analysis also found that the law falls short of the president’s twin goal of controlling runaway costs, raising projected spending by about 1 percent over 10 years. That increase could get bigger, since Medicare cuts in the law may be unrealistic and unsustainable, the report warned. It’s a worrisome assessment for Democrats.
Not so new I guess for those of us that had not drank the koolaid. So, now many more people will be covered, but the quality is gonna go down and cost is going to go up for all of us that actually work for a living! Yay! I am sure glad some lazy scumbag can now get free healthcare so he can make even more illegitimate babies that will then also be requiring government to support their needs, by stealing even more money from me first me, and then my children. Social Justice at its best. And that projected 1% raise? Its going to be more like 200%. That’s a historical fact with any and all of these social programs the government runs. The one and only outlier is Medicare Part D, and that’s because the private sector runs it. Don’t worry. Demcorats won’t let that stand for too long either.
There was a great laugh in this article though:
The report from Medicare’s Office of the Actuary carried a disclaimer saying it does not represent the official position of the Obama administration.
Well, they aren’t lying through their teeth then I guess.
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