Why aren't liberals screaming bloody murder that Obama wants to wiretap the Internet?!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/us/27wiretap.html?th&emc=th
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
CBS News Online Poll Results
A CBS News online poll currently shows 68% give Obama an F on the economy, 60% on foreign policy, 79% on health care, 32% on Afghanistan (not a majority but a plurality), 36% on Iraq (again a plurality), 58% on terrorism, 55% on energy and the environment, 59% on social issues, 78% on bipartisanship, and 64% on his overall job. These are staggeringly bad numbers, and the funny thing is that he gets his least-bad results for the one area on which liberals most oppose him--Afghanistan! Although I gave Obama an F in most areas, I did give him a D on Afghanistan because while he's been losing the war there (much as Bush spent years losing the war in Iraq before he agreed to McCain's surge) he hasn't cut and run like the John Edwards leftists want him to (when they're not too busy cheating on their spouses to care about foreign policy).
Given Obama’s imposition of fascist health care on us, it's no surprise that Obama scores worst on health care, where 79% give him an F, but note that an almost identical share (78%) gives him an F on bipartisanship. Obama made a big deal during the 2008 presidential campaign claiming he would govern with bipartisan support. The liberal media spread Obama's claim far and wide, even though Obama, according to the National Taxpayers Union ratings, has the most liberal voting record on spending, taxes and regulation of any member of the Senate. Mushy moderates tend to fall for such liberal media claims, but the viciously partisan imposition of fascist health care by Obama and his Democrat allies in Congress has, for the moment, revealed to mushy moderates (and even some mushy liberals who are wishing they'd supported Hillary in the Democrat primaries) the preposterous fraud behind Obama's claims to bipartisanship. Obama's fraudulent bipartisan claims should serve as a salient lesson to mushy moderates and mushy liberals not to believe liberal media propaganda about Democrats. People have short political memories, however, so I wouldn't count on mushies learning any long-term political lessons, although I'd be happy to have them prove me wrong.
To vote in the poll and see the results, you can go to http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-6116297-503544.html?tag= and then scroll down.
Given Obama’s imposition of fascist health care on us, it's no surprise that Obama scores worst on health care, where 79% give him an F, but note that an almost identical share (78%) gives him an F on bipartisanship. Obama made a big deal during the 2008 presidential campaign claiming he would govern with bipartisan support. The liberal media spread Obama's claim far and wide, even though Obama, according to the National Taxpayers Union ratings, has the most liberal voting record on spending, taxes and regulation of any member of the Senate. Mushy moderates tend to fall for such liberal media claims, but the viciously partisan imposition of fascist health care by Obama and his Democrat allies in Congress has, for the moment, revealed to mushy moderates (and even some mushy liberals who are wishing they'd supported Hillary in the Democrat primaries) the preposterous fraud behind Obama's claims to bipartisanship. Obama's fraudulent bipartisan claims should serve as a salient lesson to mushy moderates and mushy liberals not to believe liberal media propaganda about Democrats. People have short political memories, however, so I wouldn't count on mushies learning any long-term political lessons, although I'd be happy to have them prove me wrong.
To vote in the poll and see the results, you can go to http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-6116297-503544.html?tag= and then scroll down.
GM Used TARP to "Repay" Loan
You might recall that on October 3, 2008, Democrats in Congress passed a massive bailout of Wall Street investment firms called TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) optimistically (or disingenuously) estimated would cost "only" $700 billion of your tax dollars. Although President Bush supported the massive TARP bailout of Big Business, not a single Republican in the House or Senate supported it.
Seeing big financial institutions get a government bailout, the Big Three American auto companies, GM, Ford and Chrysler, went begging to the federal government on November 19, 2008 to get their own multi-billion-dollar bailout. Congressional Democrats and President Bush agreed to an auto bailout bill that the CBO again optimistically estimated would cost "only" $15 billion. Conservative Republicans in the Senate, however, filibustered the auto bailout. Of 41 Republicans in the Senate, only 10 liberal or mushy moderates ones voted to kill the filibuster, along with 40 Democrats and the Senate's two liberal "independents" (who caucus with the Democrats). A supermajority of 31 Republicans (just more than three-fourths) joined 4 Democrats in supporting the filibuster. Without 60 votes to kill the filibuster, the Democrats failed to bring this second Big Business bailout to a vote, and it died.
Not to be deterred by Congress, President Bush unconstitutionally used an "executive order" to amend the first massive bailout law, TARP, to allow himself to give to the auto companies some of the money intended to bail out financial firms. GM and Chrysler eagerly took the TARP money, but Ford executives, wanting to keep their jobs, changed their minds. (Once Obama became president, he used the Bush-Democrat bailout of GM to force the old GM CEO to resign.)
On February 18, 2009, GM and Chrysler again approached the federal government, hats in hand, begging for another bailout. On February 24, Obama announced in an address before the joint session of Congress that he would give GM and Chrysler another $15 billion of your tax money. (It amazes me that liberal Democrats still run around claiming that it's Republicans and not liberal Democrats who support Big Business.)
You might have noticed recently that the new CEO of GM has been running TV ads where he crows about how GM has paid back the billions of dollars of your tax money that the federal government gave GM so that the United Auto Workers could continue to be the most overpaid union workers in the world. As Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) reports in the two stories below, however, Obama's GM CEO should be eating crow instead: TARP's own inspector general, Neil Barofsky, reports that GM merely used more TARP money to "pay back" the subsidies, which came largely from TARP money in the first place! So GM's much-vaunted repayment is half like using your VISA card to pay off your MasterCard--and half like using your VISA card to repay your VISA card! I must say that the Democrats' capacity for blatant deception never ceases to amaze me.
http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/charles-grassley-gm-bailout/2010/04/23/id/356756?s=al&promo_code=9CE6-1
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/22/grassley-slams-gm-administration-loans-repaid-bailout-money/
Seeing big financial institutions get a government bailout, the Big Three American auto companies, GM, Ford and Chrysler, went begging to the federal government on November 19, 2008 to get their own multi-billion-dollar bailout. Congressional Democrats and President Bush agreed to an auto bailout bill that the CBO again optimistically estimated would cost "only" $15 billion. Conservative Republicans in the Senate, however, filibustered the auto bailout. Of 41 Republicans in the Senate, only 10 liberal or mushy moderates ones voted to kill the filibuster, along with 40 Democrats and the Senate's two liberal "independents" (who caucus with the Democrats). A supermajority of 31 Republicans (just more than three-fourths) joined 4 Democrats in supporting the filibuster. Without 60 votes to kill the filibuster, the Democrats failed to bring this second Big Business bailout to a vote, and it died.
Not to be deterred by Congress, President Bush unconstitutionally used an "executive order" to amend the first massive bailout law, TARP, to allow himself to give to the auto companies some of the money intended to bail out financial firms. GM and Chrysler eagerly took the TARP money, but Ford executives, wanting to keep their jobs, changed their minds. (Once Obama became president, he used the Bush-Democrat bailout of GM to force the old GM CEO to resign.)
On February 18, 2009, GM and Chrysler again approached the federal government, hats in hand, begging for another bailout. On February 24, Obama announced in an address before the joint session of Congress that he would give GM and Chrysler another $15 billion of your tax money. (It amazes me that liberal Democrats still run around claiming that it's Republicans and not liberal Democrats who support Big Business.)
You might have noticed recently that the new CEO of GM has been running TV ads where he crows about how GM has paid back the billions of dollars of your tax money that the federal government gave GM so that the United Auto Workers could continue to be the most overpaid union workers in the world. As Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) reports in the two stories below, however, Obama's GM CEO should be eating crow instead: TARP's own inspector general, Neil Barofsky, reports that GM merely used more TARP money to "pay back" the subsidies, which came largely from TARP money in the first place! So GM's much-vaunted repayment is half like using your VISA card to pay off your MasterCard--and half like using your VISA card to repay your VISA card! I must say that the Democrats' capacity for blatant deception never ceases to amaze me.
http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/charles-grassley-gm-bailout/2010/04/23/id/356756?s=al&promo_code=9CE6-1
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/22/grassley-slams-gm-administration-loans-repaid-bailout-money/
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Obama and the Working Poor
Thanks to the passage of Obama's fascist health care plan, my insurance company raised the premium on my half-hearted basic health insurance. Since the fascist health care plan imposes so many new regulations and taxes, however, my insurance company dropped the best of the three optional supplementary insurance plans, which I elected when I first started teaching at my online university, so with lower coverage my overall premium actually went down. So my paycheck actually contained an extra $12 today! So I'm paying a tiny bit less to get only one-third the health care benefits. And people say that Obama isn't helping the working poor!
Monday, April 12, 2010
Gallup: Obama & Democrats at All-Time Lows
With the majority of Americans opposed to Obama's imposition of fascist health care on us, it's not surprise that passage of ObamaCare hasn't stopped his downward slide in the polls:
Gallup: Obama Numbers at All-Time Low
http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/obama-gallup-poll-numbers/2010/04/12/id/355405?s=al&promo_code=9BC3-1
nor that Democrats have also reached their all-time low in the polls:
Gallup: Democrats' Approval at Historic Low
http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/gallup-democrats-approval-healthcare/2010/04/12/id/355438
and are trailing in reelection races for November--where they haven't already announced that (because they're trailing) that they're retiring. In the wake of Scott Brown's upset in the great state of Taxachusetts--arguably the most liberal state in the union--probably no seat is safe for Democrats in the wake of their imposition of fascist health care, with its taxes, cuts in medical care, regulations, and prison sentences. As the second story above indicates, Democrats on spring recess are scattering like cockroaches exposed to the light, largely refusing to meet with (angry) constituents who opposed ObamaCare. The real question right now is: how much more damage to American can the liberal Democrats do before those (angry) constituents throw the bums out in November? I think we can expect the Democrats to continue their slash-and-burn tactics to impose as much government control as possible between now and then, lying, cheating and stealing as they did when the House pretended to pass the Senate version of ObamaCare and Obama pretended he could amend legislation by executive order in promising to pro-life Democrats that despite the Senate version's funding of abortions, Obama wouldn't fund any abortions. But hey, welcome to the Democrats, the party of compassion!
Gallup: Obama Numbers at All-Time Low
http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/obama-gallup-poll-numbers/2010/04/12/id/355405?s=al&promo_code=9BC3-1
nor that Democrats have also reached their all-time low in the polls:
Gallup: Democrats' Approval at Historic Low
http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/gallup-democrats-approval-healthcare/2010/04/12/id/355438
and are trailing in reelection races for November--where they haven't already announced that (because they're trailing) that they're retiring. In the wake of Scott Brown's upset in the great state of Taxachusetts--arguably the most liberal state in the union--probably no seat is safe for Democrats in the wake of their imposition of fascist health care, with its taxes, cuts in medical care, regulations, and prison sentences. As the second story above indicates, Democrats on spring recess are scattering like cockroaches exposed to the light, largely refusing to meet with (angry) constituents who opposed ObamaCare. The real question right now is: how much more damage to American can the liberal Democrats do before those (angry) constituents throw the bums out in November? I think we can expect the Democrats to continue their slash-and-burn tactics to impose as much government control as possible between now and then, lying, cheating and stealing as they did when the House pretended to pass the Senate version of ObamaCare and Obama pretended he could amend legislation by executive order in promising to pro-life Democrats that despite the Senate version's funding of abortions, Obama wouldn't fund any abortions. But hey, welcome to the Democrats, the party of compassion!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Obama Tacking to the Right After Taxachusetts Defeat?
Last week's special election in Taxachusetts to replace the late Ted Kennedy in the US Senate served as a referendum on Obama's fascist health care plan, with its mandates, taxes, fines and prison sentences. A majority of voters in what's arguably the most liberal state in the republic came out and soundly defeated Democrat Martha Coakley and gave the seat to a Republican for the first time in decades. Scott Brown, the Republican victor, promised during the election to oppose Obama's fascist health care program.
A week later, according to liberal media outlet The New York Times, Obama plans to tack sharply to the right, pretending fiscal conservatism by proposing to freeze some discretionary domestic spending, while leaving defense spending and entitlements untouched. Since entitlement spending makes up the majority of (non-interest) spending in the budget, even Obama's wildly optimistic (some might say, "delusional" or "deceitful") show his alleged freeze reducing the projected $9 trillion in federal budget deficits by only $250 billion, or less than 3%. In the meantime, his budget for the coming fiscal year would actually increase spending even more with another $150 trillion of "stimulus" pork spending. Even the liberal New York Times admits in the story below that all of Obama's talk of freezing the budget would serve mostly as a symbol of fiscal conservatism--while leaving trillions of dollars of new pork on top of the trillions of dollars of continuing pork.
Keep in mind, too, that the federal government uses something called "baseline budgeting." Under baseline budgeting the Congressional Budget Office estimates next year's "need" for spending and then calls that the baseline. Somehow the "need" increases every single year, even after adjusting for inflation and population growth. So baseline federal spending increases every single year in real dollars per person. Obama's proposed "cuts," even if they did materialize, would simply represent reductions in the baseline projected rate of increase, not actual cuts in spending from one year to the next.
Worse still, Congress has shown repeatedly, particularly Democrat Congresses in the 1980s and early 1990s, that "spend more now, cut later" actually means "spend more now, spend even more later." Each time Democrats and mushy moderates like Bob Dole promised Reagan and the first Bush that they would "cut the budget" they actually authorized far more than even the baseline. I would expect Obama, who's first-year spending binge dwarfs anything under FDR or LBJ (or indeed the two combined) to accept let Congress get away with far more in spending increases than Reagan or even Bush did.
Still, while Obama's calls for a budget freeze probably consist of roughly have delusion and half deceit, it's good to see that despite some liberal media claims to the contrary, Scott Brown's victory does indeed signal that Americans are fed up with Obama's liberal policies of tax, spend, regulate and imprison.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/us/politics/26budget.html?th&emc=th
A week later, according to liberal media outlet The New York Times, Obama plans to tack sharply to the right, pretending fiscal conservatism by proposing to freeze some discretionary domestic spending, while leaving defense spending and entitlements untouched. Since entitlement spending makes up the majority of (non-interest) spending in the budget, even Obama's wildly optimistic (some might say, "delusional" or "deceitful") show his alleged freeze reducing the projected $9 trillion in federal budget deficits by only $250 billion, or less than 3%. In the meantime, his budget for the coming fiscal year would actually increase spending even more with another $150 trillion of "stimulus" pork spending. Even the liberal New York Times admits in the story below that all of Obama's talk of freezing the budget would serve mostly as a symbol of fiscal conservatism--while leaving trillions of dollars of new pork on top of the trillions of dollars of continuing pork.
Keep in mind, too, that the federal government uses something called "baseline budgeting." Under baseline budgeting the Congressional Budget Office estimates next year's "need" for spending and then calls that the baseline. Somehow the "need" increases every single year, even after adjusting for inflation and population growth. So baseline federal spending increases every single year in real dollars per person. Obama's proposed "cuts," even if they did materialize, would simply represent reductions in the baseline projected rate of increase, not actual cuts in spending from one year to the next.
Worse still, Congress has shown repeatedly, particularly Democrat Congresses in the 1980s and early 1990s, that "spend more now, cut later" actually means "spend more now, spend even more later." Each time Democrats and mushy moderates like Bob Dole promised Reagan and the first Bush that they would "cut the budget" they actually authorized far more than even the baseline. I would expect Obama, who's first-year spending binge dwarfs anything under FDR or LBJ (or indeed the two combined) to accept let Congress get away with far more in spending increases than Reagan or even Bush did.
Still, while Obama's calls for a budget freeze probably consist of roughly have delusion and half deceit, it's good to see that despite some liberal media claims to the contrary, Scott Brown's victory does indeed signal that Americans are fed up with Obama's liberal policies of tax, spend, regulate and imprison.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/us/politics/26budget.html?th&emc=th
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Is Bernanke In Trouble?
Two Democratic US Senators, Barbara Boxer of California and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, signaled last week that they would not support the reappointment of Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve System. While most people regard Boxer and Feingold as belonging to the left wing of the Democratic Party, Bernanke has been unpopular with the right wing of the Republican Party as well for his inflationary policies. (Apparently Boxer and Feingold want MORE inflation, if you can believe that.) With critics on both right and left then, Bernanke might well be in trouble so far as his reappointment goes. If he didn't get reappointed he apparently would be the first presidential nominee for Fed chairman whom Congress did not appoint.
With Bernanke's position as Fed chairman (but not as a Fed board member, for which his separate 14-year term doesn't expire until 2020) in at least some doubt, it's worthwhile to review how he, his successor Alan Greenspan, presidents Bush and Obama, and Congress got the economy into the worst recession since 1946 and possibly since the Great Depression itself. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I'll quote from messages I sent previously.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
"Greenspan actually started the mess by creating too much money which helped by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ended up going mostly into real estate, where it gave people the erroneous impression that it represented more wealth. If the new money had pushed up consumer prices instead of real estate prices, everyone would have recognized it for the inflation that it was. Bernanke tried to stop the inevitable bust that came from Greenspan's inflationary bubble--by creating another inflationary bubble. So instead of just suffering a recession we suffered recession AND inflation, with food and especially gasoline prices spiking sharply in 2008. The spike in fuel prices savaged both the auto makers and the airlines, ensuring an even deeper recession."
Saturday, January 9, 2010
"I've been saying for maybe a year now that the economy likely would get worse before it got better. The trouble started back in the middle of the decade when the Federal Reserve System, under Alan Greenspan, caused the money supply to grow substantially faster than the real economy was growing. Much of the excess money, driven by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac housing subsidies, wound up in real estate, artificially inflating real estate prices, creating a bubble that eventually had to burst. It did burst, as you probably know, starting in 2006 with the weakest borrowers in the so-called sub-prime mortgage market. The collapse of the sub-prime market led the bubble to burst in the rest of the housing market, dragging down the economy.
"Starting in late 2007 the Federal Reserve System, then (and now) under Ben Bernanke, tried to stop what seemed like a likely recession caused by the first monetary bubble by--yes, that's right, by creating a second monetary bubble. It's a bit like trying to stop a cocaine addict from going through withdrawal by giving him more cocaine. I thought back in 2007 that we might have avoided a recession, but once Bernanke started inflating the money supply drastically faster than the real economy was growing, I predicted that we would have the very recession that he was trying to prevent.
"Bernanke (and surprisingly, Greenspan) are Keynesian economists. Keynesian theory teaches that government can wave a magic wand and create new "aggregate demand" out of thin air. (We'll have more on Keynesian economics for those of you in my macroeconomics class.) By inflating the money supply, the government can create the short-term appearance that aggregate demand has risen, but when people figure out that it's just more money chasing the same level of goods and services, the monetary bubble bursts and rather than having more aggregate demand we actually end up with less of it. So by pursuing the fatally-flawed Keynesian polices to try to prevent the recession, Bernanke actually caused (or helped cause) the very recession he wanted to prevent.
"Fiscal policy has the same effect as monetary policy: all the trillions of dollars of "TARP" and "stimulus" spending passed by the Democrats in Congress and supported by Republican President Bush and Democratic President Obama simply helps circulate all the new money that the Fed creates, making the bubble--and the bust--even bigger. You might recall those skyrocketing oil and gas (and food) prices in 2007, which hurt the auto and airline industries. The skyrocketing prices came directly from the Bernanke-Bush polices of inflate and spend. The stock market bubble of 2007, which alas for John McCain burst right after the Republican convention, also came directly as a result of the Bernanke monetary inflation. Obama and Bernanke have followed the same policies of inflation and government spending that led to the real estate and stock market bubbles, so it's not surprising that more than two years after Bernanke started them to try to stop the downward spiral caused by Greenspan's earlier inflation, we remained mired in recession.
"Bernanke has testified before Congress because he's up for re-appointment and apparently he wants the job again very much. And has he learned his lesson, the lesson for which we paid so dearly in the 1970s and early 1980s, that government can't spend and inflate the economy into real growth? No. He sees his fatally-flawed policies, on the contrary, as having saved the economy from even worse. So more than two years after he started the current mess to try to clean up the mess caused by his predecessor, I'm still saying that I wouldn't be surprised if things get even worse before they get better."
So it sounds like reappointing Ben Bernanke would be a very bad idea indeed, and that if President Obama does reappoint him we could expect a continuation of the current ruinous Keynesian inflationary policy. The catch, however, is that if President Obama doesn't reappoint Bernanke, Barbara Boxer and Russell Feingold want the president to appoint someone even WORSE.
I suspect, when push comes to shove, that Boxer and Feingold, and perhaps a couple of conservative Senate Republicans, will ask Bernanke some embarrassing questions, and he’ll pat himself on the back and claim again he saved us from another Great Depression, and that a majority in the Senate will end up approving his reappointment. Did I mention that I expect the economy to get worse before it gets better?
You can read the full story in The New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/business/economy/23fed.html?th&emc=th.
With Bernanke's position as Fed chairman (but not as a Fed board member, for which his separate 14-year term doesn't expire until 2020) in at least some doubt, it's worthwhile to review how he, his successor Alan Greenspan, presidents Bush and Obama, and Congress got the economy into the worst recession since 1946 and possibly since the Great Depression itself. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I'll quote from messages I sent previously.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
"Greenspan actually started the mess by creating too much money which helped by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ended up going mostly into real estate, where it gave people the erroneous impression that it represented more wealth. If the new money had pushed up consumer prices instead of real estate prices, everyone would have recognized it for the inflation that it was. Bernanke tried to stop the inevitable bust that came from Greenspan's inflationary bubble--by creating another inflationary bubble. So instead of just suffering a recession we suffered recession AND inflation, with food and especially gasoline prices spiking sharply in 2008. The spike in fuel prices savaged both the auto makers and the airlines, ensuring an even deeper recession."
Saturday, January 9, 2010
"I've been saying for maybe a year now that the economy likely would get worse before it got better. The trouble started back in the middle of the decade when the Federal Reserve System, under Alan Greenspan, caused the money supply to grow substantially faster than the real economy was growing. Much of the excess money, driven by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac housing subsidies, wound up in real estate, artificially inflating real estate prices, creating a bubble that eventually had to burst. It did burst, as you probably know, starting in 2006 with the weakest borrowers in the so-called sub-prime mortgage market. The collapse of the sub-prime market led the bubble to burst in the rest of the housing market, dragging down the economy.
"Starting in late 2007 the Federal Reserve System, then (and now) under Ben Bernanke, tried to stop what seemed like a likely recession caused by the first monetary bubble by--yes, that's right, by creating a second monetary bubble. It's a bit like trying to stop a cocaine addict from going through withdrawal by giving him more cocaine. I thought back in 2007 that we might have avoided a recession, but once Bernanke started inflating the money supply drastically faster than the real economy was growing, I predicted that we would have the very recession that he was trying to prevent.
"Bernanke (and surprisingly, Greenspan) are Keynesian economists. Keynesian theory teaches that government can wave a magic wand and create new "aggregate demand" out of thin air. (We'll have more on Keynesian economics for those of you in my macroeconomics class.) By inflating the money supply, the government can create the short-term appearance that aggregate demand has risen, but when people figure out that it's just more money chasing the same level of goods and services, the monetary bubble bursts and rather than having more aggregate demand we actually end up with less of it. So by pursuing the fatally-flawed Keynesian polices to try to prevent the recession, Bernanke actually caused (or helped cause) the very recession he wanted to prevent.
"Fiscal policy has the same effect as monetary policy: all the trillions of dollars of "TARP" and "stimulus" spending passed by the Democrats in Congress and supported by Republican President Bush and Democratic President Obama simply helps circulate all the new money that the Fed creates, making the bubble--and the bust--even bigger. You might recall those skyrocketing oil and gas (and food) prices in 2007, which hurt the auto and airline industries. The skyrocketing prices came directly from the Bernanke-Bush polices of inflate and spend. The stock market bubble of 2007, which alas for John McCain burst right after the Republican convention, also came directly as a result of the Bernanke monetary inflation. Obama and Bernanke have followed the same policies of inflation and government spending that led to the real estate and stock market bubbles, so it's not surprising that more than two years after Bernanke started them to try to stop the downward spiral caused by Greenspan's earlier inflation, we remained mired in recession.
"Bernanke has testified before Congress because he's up for re-appointment and apparently he wants the job again very much. And has he learned his lesson, the lesson for which we paid so dearly in the 1970s and early 1980s, that government can't spend and inflate the economy into real growth? No. He sees his fatally-flawed policies, on the contrary, as having saved the economy from even worse. So more than two years after he started the current mess to try to clean up the mess caused by his predecessor, I'm still saying that I wouldn't be surprised if things get even worse before they get better."
So it sounds like reappointing Ben Bernanke would be a very bad idea indeed, and that if President Obama does reappoint him we could expect a continuation of the current ruinous Keynesian inflationary policy. The catch, however, is that if President Obama doesn't reappoint Bernanke, Barbara Boxer and Russell Feingold want the president to appoint someone even WORSE.
I suspect, when push comes to shove, that Boxer and Feingold, and perhaps a couple of conservative Senate Republicans, will ask Bernanke some embarrassing questions, and he’ll pat himself on the back and claim again he saved us from another Great Depression, and that a majority in the Senate will end up approving his reappointment. Did I mention that I expect the economy to get worse before it gets better?
You can read the full story in The New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/business/economy/23fed.html?th&emc=th.
New Jobless Claims Rise Instead of Falling
News organizations often report on the economic expectations of a "consensus" of economists. I'm never quite sure which economists the news organizations regard as forming the consensus, but the reports almost always illustrate that the consensus gets their economic forecast substantially wrong. I suspect that right now news organizations which support President Obama report on the consensus of pro-Obama economists who keep forecasting a recovery in hopes that simply by forecasting it they can make it happen, and then they can give the credit to Obama.
According to the liberal Associated Press, the consensus (in this case of "Wall Street economists" whomever they might be) expected initial claims for unemployment insurance to drop slightly. Instead of dropping, however, initial claims for unemployment insurance rose 36,000 to a seasonally-adjusted total of 482,000. Nearly half a million workers, in other words, lost their jobs last week--up 36,000 from the nearly half a million workers who lost their jobs the previous week.
It's frightening how quickly the failed Keynesian policies of the Bush and Obama administrations and the Democratic Party majority in Congress have caused the US economy to shed jobs. Instead of cutting marginal tax rates and reducing government spending to ease the deadweight losses government imposes on the economy, government has imposed Keynesian policies which have increased the deadweight losses and dragged the economy into what's now clearly the worst recession since 1946, and arguably since the Great Depression itself.
Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve System, has led the charge to try to trick the economy into real growth by inflating the money supply. Increasing the money supply at a rate faster than the rate at which the economy is growing causes inflation, which is a tax on every dollar that you hold. I predicted in the fall of 2007 that if he imposed inflationary Keynesian policies to try to avert a recession that he would cause the very recession he wanted to avert, and that's exactly what happened. Because Bernanke, Obama and the Democratic Congress have continued the policies that Bernanke (and his predecessor, Alan Greenspan) and Bush started, I've predicted that things will continue to get worse before they get better.
I see no sign that Obama, congressional Democrats, or Bernanke have learned their economic lessons, so alas I have to renew my prediction that things will continue to get worse before they get better. I think right now that the best hope for the economy lies in big Republican gains in the 2010 congressional elections, forcing Congress to make cut marginal income tax rates and reign in the federal government's vast multi-trillion-dollar spending binge that started when Bush and congressional Democrats got together in late 2008 to pass the so-called TARP bailout of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the private financial intuitions that they'd subsidized into making home loans to people who couldn't afford home loans. A big Republican congressional victory too might persuade Bernanke (or whoever replaces him as he's up for reappointment) to stop inflating the money supply too. Unfortunately the officials at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are using some of the TARP bailout (that came from your tax dollars) to pay themselves millions of dollars in bonuses. So expect things to continue to get worse before they get better.
There's not much to it, but you can read the original Associated Press (AP) story at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/21/new-jobless-claims-rise-expected/. I'd like to point out to those who still think it's Fox News that's the biased network that here we have another example of Fox balance, as it carries the liberal AP story. Fox in fact regularly carries liberal AP stories. I'll also point out that while Fox carried the full speeches of both Republican Scott Brown, and Democrat Martha Coakley, PMSNBC and the Commie News Network carried substantially more of loser Coakley's speech than of winner Brown's. Fox too was the only network to give Hillary Clinton a fair shake against Obama during the 2008 Democrat presidential primaries.
According to the liberal Associated Press, the consensus (in this case of "Wall Street economists" whomever they might be) expected initial claims for unemployment insurance to drop slightly. Instead of dropping, however, initial claims for unemployment insurance rose 36,000 to a seasonally-adjusted total of 482,000. Nearly half a million workers, in other words, lost their jobs last week--up 36,000 from the nearly half a million workers who lost their jobs the previous week.
It's frightening how quickly the failed Keynesian policies of the Bush and Obama administrations and the Democratic Party majority in Congress have caused the US economy to shed jobs. Instead of cutting marginal tax rates and reducing government spending to ease the deadweight losses government imposes on the economy, government has imposed Keynesian policies which have increased the deadweight losses and dragged the economy into what's now clearly the worst recession since 1946, and arguably since the Great Depression itself.
Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve System, has led the charge to try to trick the economy into real growth by inflating the money supply. Increasing the money supply at a rate faster than the rate at which the economy is growing causes inflation, which is a tax on every dollar that you hold. I predicted in the fall of 2007 that if he imposed inflationary Keynesian policies to try to avert a recession that he would cause the very recession he wanted to avert, and that's exactly what happened. Because Bernanke, Obama and the Democratic Congress have continued the policies that Bernanke (and his predecessor, Alan Greenspan) and Bush started, I've predicted that things will continue to get worse before they get better.
I see no sign that Obama, congressional Democrats, or Bernanke have learned their economic lessons, so alas I have to renew my prediction that things will continue to get worse before they get better. I think right now that the best hope for the economy lies in big Republican gains in the 2010 congressional elections, forcing Congress to make cut marginal income tax rates and reign in the federal government's vast multi-trillion-dollar spending binge that started when Bush and congressional Democrats got together in late 2008 to pass the so-called TARP bailout of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the private financial intuitions that they'd subsidized into making home loans to people who couldn't afford home loans. A big Republican congressional victory too might persuade Bernanke (or whoever replaces him as he's up for reappointment) to stop inflating the money supply too. Unfortunately the officials at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are using some of the TARP bailout (that came from your tax dollars) to pay themselves millions of dollars in bonuses. So expect things to continue to get worse before they get better.
There's not much to it, but you can read the original Associated Press (AP) story at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/21/new-jobless-claims-rise-expected/. I'd like to point out to those who still think it's Fox News that's the biased network that here we have another example of Fox balance, as it carries the liberal AP story. Fox in fact regularly carries liberal AP stories. I'll also point out that while Fox carried the full speeches of both Republican Scott Brown, and Democrat Martha Coakley, PMSNBC and the Commie News Network carried substantially more of loser Coakley's speech than of winner Brown's. Fox too was the only network to give Hillary Clinton a fair shake against Obama during the 2008 Democrat presidential primaries.
Scott Brown’s Win Called Victory for Netanyahu
In my blog (http://david-lifelibertyandproperty.blogspot.com/) last March and April I documented the 6 anti-Israel appointments that Obama made to his then-new foreign policy apparatus (and the 7th anti-Israel whose appointment we managed to kill), his funding of Hamas in the massive pork "stimulus" bill, and his agreement to do nothing to stop the mass-murdering Muslim monsters ruling Iran from developing nuclear weapons to exterminate Israel. So I thought maybe you'd like hear how nearly a year later we have a little good news for Israel: the election of Republican Scott Brown, who ran against Obama's fascist health care plan and solidly defeated liberal Democrat Martha Coakley in what's arguably the most liberal state in the republic, brings to Congress a solidly pro-Israel US Representative. I'm proud to say that I made a small contribution to Brown's campaign and persuaded a few family members and friends to do likewise.
You can read a little bit more about how Brown's triumph supports Israel again Obama's pro-terrorist policies in the NewsMax story below. Obama has been pressuring Israel to surrender to his Jew-butchering terrorist buddies, and despite liberal assurances to Jewish voters (74% of whom voted for Obama) in the last election, neither Rahm Emanuel nor Democrats in Congress have lifted a finger to protect Israel from Obama. Brown's victory over the Obama-backed candidate takes a tiny step in the direction of protecting Israel, but we need to keep watching Obama like a hawk, as he has conducted most of his anti-Israel machinations under the table. Still it's nice to have something good to report for a change.
'3. Scott Brown’s Win Called Victory for Netanyahu
'The election triumph of Republican Scott Brown in the race to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts is a “huge victory” for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.
'Netanyahu has been pressured by Obama to make concessions to the Palestinians to help restart peace talks. But with Republicans now holding 41 seats in the Senate, Obama will be more dependent “on the support of his Republican rivals, the supporters and friends of Netanyahu,” Haaretz reported.
'Netanyahu dragged out negotiations over a freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, then declared that a freeze would last for 10 months and end in September — “just in time for U.S. congressional elections in which Democrats are expected to suffer heavy losses,” the newspaper observed.
'“Netanyahu understood he must withstand the pressure until his right-wing supporters recapture a position of power on Capitol Hill and work to rein in the White House’s political activities. The election in Massachusetts . . . will from this moment on be a burden for Obama.”
'With the current political atmosphere in the U.S., “Netanyahu can rely on Republican support to thwart pressure on Israel.”'
You can read the full report in Haaretz ((in English) at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1143891.html.
You can read a little bit more about how Brown's triumph supports Israel again Obama's pro-terrorist policies in the NewsMax story below. Obama has been pressuring Israel to surrender to his Jew-butchering terrorist buddies, and despite liberal assurances to Jewish voters (74% of whom voted for Obama) in the last election, neither Rahm Emanuel nor Democrats in Congress have lifted a finger to protect Israel from Obama. Brown's victory over the Obama-backed candidate takes a tiny step in the direction of protecting Israel, but we need to keep watching Obama like a hawk, as he has conducted most of his anti-Israel machinations under the table. Still it's nice to have something good to report for a change.
'3. Scott Brown’s Win Called Victory for Netanyahu
'The election triumph of Republican Scott Brown in the race to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts is a “huge victory” for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper.
'Netanyahu has been pressured by Obama to make concessions to the Palestinians to help restart peace talks. But with Republicans now holding 41 seats in the Senate, Obama will be more dependent “on the support of his Republican rivals, the supporters and friends of Netanyahu,” Haaretz reported.
'Netanyahu dragged out negotiations over a freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, then declared that a freeze would last for 10 months and end in September — “just in time for U.S. congressional elections in which Democrats are expected to suffer heavy losses,” the newspaper observed.
'“Netanyahu understood he must withstand the pressure until his right-wing supporters recapture a position of power on Capitol Hill and work to rein in the White House’s political activities. The election in Massachusetts . . . will from this moment on be a burden for Obama.”
'With the current political atmosphere in the U.S., “Netanyahu can rely on Republican support to thwart pressure on Israel.”'
You can read the full report in Haaretz ((in English) at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1143891.html.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Petition to Seat Scott Brown Immediately
Now that Republican Scott Brown has won the US Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for decades, Democrats in the Senate have lost their 60-seat filibuster-proof majority and so can no longer pass Obama's fascist health care plan with its mandates, taxes, fines and criminal prison sentences. Or have they?
Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might try to delay the seating of Scott Brown until after the House-Senate Conference Committee sends back a fascist health care bill that reconciles the Senate version with the even worse House version. Reid doesn't care much that a majority of American people oppose the fascist health care bills and that even in Massachusetts, arguably the most liberal state in the republic, thousands of liberal Democrats who voted for Obama came out to vote against Obama's fascist health care bills. Reid himself now runs a serious risk of getting tossed out by the voters of Nevada in his 2010 reelection bid, so he's likely to conduct a scorched-earth policy and impose as much fascist government control on us as possible before Nevadans put an end to his legislative reign of terror and lop off his political head.
To help oppose fascist health care you can sign a petition to demand the immediate seating of Scott Brown at http://www.countryfirstpac.com/seathimnow/?initiativekey=3JTODVIZSRFF. Reid might not be listening, but some other Democrat Senators are: already last night, Virginia's US Senator, Jim Webb, a Democrat with a liberal voting record but a moderate reputation, stated that no vote should on health care reform should take place before the Senate seats Brown. Webb won his Senate seat in 2006 by only three-tenths of a percent against conservative Republican George Allen, and only because 1. The liberal media managed to turn Allen's non-racial "macaca" comment into a racial slur; 2. Voters sick of losing Bush's then-losing policies in Iraq wanted to win; 3. Enough voters were foolish enough to believe that Democrats would win rather than try to cut and run; and 4. The liberal media managed to paint Webb as a "moderate" or even "conservative" Democrat because he'd once served as an Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Reagan (but also called Reagan a fool, a fact that the liberal media loved but hid from you). Webb knows then that he's skating on thin ice. He routinely votes a liberal line, but without much media attention routinely gets away with it. On fascist health care (on which he voted to kill the Republican filibuster) though there's far too much media attention, and he knows that he's in serious danger of not getting reelected in 2012.
So while the petition probably won't affect Reid directly, it can certainly affect Democrat Senators like Webb and others from so-called "purple states" where voters could easily toss out the Democrat Senators with moderate reputations revealed to be liberal and not the moderates they pretended to be. So let's do everything possible to drive the wooden stake through the heart of Obama's fascist health care plan and sign the petition to seat Scott Brown immediately at http://www.countryfirstpac.com/seathimnow/?initiativekey=3JTODVIZSRFF. I've already signed it, and I hope you will too.
Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might try to delay the seating of Scott Brown until after the House-Senate Conference Committee sends back a fascist health care bill that reconciles the Senate version with the even worse House version. Reid doesn't care much that a majority of American people oppose the fascist health care bills and that even in Massachusetts, arguably the most liberal state in the republic, thousands of liberal Democrats who voted for Obama came out to vote against Obama's fascist health care bills. Reid himself now runs a serious risk of getting tossed out by the voters of Nevada in his 2010 reelection bid, so he's likely to conduct a scorched-earth policy and impose as much fascist government control on us as possible before Nevadans put an end to his legislative reign of terror and lop off his political head.
To help oppose fascist health care you can sign a petition to demand the immediate seating of Scott Brown at http://www.countryfirstpac.com/seathimnow/?initiativekey=3JTODVIZSRFF. Reid might not be listening, but some other Democrat Senators are: already last night, Virginia's US Senator, Jim Webb, a Democrat with a liberal voting record but a moderate reputation, stated that no vote should on health care reform should take place before the Senate seats Brown. Webb won his Senate seat in 2006 by only three-tenths of a percent against conservative Republican George Allen, and only because 1. The liberal media managed to turn Allen's non-racial "macaca" comment into a racial slur; 2. Voters sick of losing Bush's then-losing policies in Iraq wanted to win; 3. Enough voters were foolish enough to believe that Democrats would win rather than try to cut and run; and 4. The liberal media managed to paint Webb as a "moderate" or even "conservative" Democrat because he'd once served as an Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Reagan (but also called Reagan a fool, a fact that the liberal media loved but hid from you). Webb knows then that he's skating on thin ice. He routinely votes a liberal line, but without much media attention routinely gets away with it. On fascist health care (on which he voted to kill the Republican filibuster) though there's far too much media attention, and he knows that he's in serious danger of not getting reelected in 2012.
So while the petition probably won't affect Reid directly, it can certainly affect Democrat Senators like Webb and others from so-called "purple states" where voters could easily toss out the Democrat Senators with moderate reputations revealed to be liberal and not the moderates they pretended to be. So let's do everything possible to drive the wooden stake through the heart of Obama's fascist health care plan and sign the petition to seat Scott Brown immediately at http://www.countryfirstpac.com/seathimnow/?initiativekey=3JTODVIZSRFF. I've already signed it, and I hope you will too.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
US Loses 85,000 More Jobs in December 2009
I've been saying for maybe a year now that the economy likely would get worse before it got better. The trouble started back in the middle of the decade when the Federal Reserve System, under Alan Greenspan, caused the money supply to grow substantially faster than the real economy was growing. Much of the excess money, driven by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac housing subsidies, wound up in real estate, artificially inflating real estate prices, creating a bubble that eventually had to burst. It did burst, as you probably know, starting in 2006 with the weakest borrowers in the so-called sub-prime mortgage market. The collapse of the sub-prime market led the bubble to burst in the rest of the housing market, dragging down the economy.
Starting in late 2007 the Federal Reserve System, then (and now) under Ben Bernanke, tried to stop what seemed like a likely recession caused by the first monetary bubble by--yes, that's right, by creating a second monetary bubble. It's a bit like trying to stop a cocaine addict from going through withdrawal by giving him more cocaine. I thought back in 2007 that we might have avoided a recession, but once Bernanke started inflating the money supply drastically faster than the real economy was growing, I predicted that we would have the very recession that he was trying to prevent.
Bernanke (and surprisingly, Greenspan) are Keynesian economists. Keynesian theory teaches that government can wave a magic wand and create new "aggregate demand" out of thin air. (We'll have more on Keynesian economics for those of you in my macroeconomics class.) By inflating the money supply, the government can create the short-term appearance that aggregate demand has risen, but when people figure out that it's just more money chasing the same level of goods and services, the monetary bubble bursts and rather than having more aggregate demand we actually end up with less of it. So by pursuing the fatally-flawed Keynesian polices to try to prevent the recession, Bernanke actually caused (or helped cause) the very recession he wanted to prevent.
Fiscal policy has the same effect as monetary policy: all the trillions of dollars of "TARP" and "stimulus" spending passed by the Democrats in Congress and supported by Republican President Bush and Democratic President Obama simply helps circulate all the new money that the Fed creates, making the bubble--and the bust--even bigger. You might recall those skyrocketing oil and gas (and food) prices in 2007, which hurt the auto and airline industries. The skyrocketing prices came directly from the Bernanke-Bush polices of inflate and spend. The stock market bubble of 2007, which alas for John McCain burst right after the Republican convention, also came directly as a result of the Bernanke monetary inflation. Obama and Bernanke have followed the same policies of inflation and government spending that led to the real estate and stock market bubbles, so it's not surprising that more than two years after Bernanke started them to try to stop the downward spiral caused by Greenspan's earlier inflation, we remained mired in recession.
Bernanke has testified before Congress because he's up for re-appointment and apparently he wants the job again very much. And has he learned his lesson, the lesson for which we paid so dearly in the 1970s and early 1980s, that government can't spend and inflate the economy into real growth? No. He sees his fatally-flawed policies, on the contrary, as having saved the economy from even worse. So more than two years after he started the current mess to try to clean up the mess caused by his predecessor, I'm still saying that I wouldn't be surprised if things get even worse before they get better.
You can read more about the bad employment news at
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/economy/09jobs.html?th&emc=th
Starting in late 2007 the Federal Reserve System, then (and now) under Ben Bernanke, tried to stop what seemed like a likely recession caused by the first monetary bubble by--yes, that's right, by creating a second monetary bubble. It's a bit like trying to stop a cocaine addict from going through withdrawal by giving him more cocaine. I thought back in 2007 that we might have avoided a recession, but once Bernanke started inflating the money supply drastically faster than the real economy was growing, I predicted that we would have the very recession that he was trying to prevent.
Bernanke (and surprisingly, Greenspan) are Keynesian economists. Keynesian theory teaches that government can wave a magic wand and create new "aggregate demand" out of thin air. (We'll have more on Keynesian economics for those of you in my macroeconomics class.) By inflating the money supply, the government can create the short-term appearance that aggregate demand has risen, but when people figure out that it's just more money chasing the same level of goods and services, the monetary bubble bursts and rather than having more aggregate demand we actually end up with less of it. So by pursuing the fatally-flawed Keynesian polices to try to prevent the recession, Bernanke actually caused (or helped cause) the very recession he wanted to prevent.
Fiscal policy has the same effect as monetary policy: all the trillions of dollars of "TARP" and "stimulus" spending passed by the Democrats in Congress and supported by Republican President Bush and Democratic President Obama simply helps circulate all the new money that the Fed creates, making the bubble--and the bust--even bigger. You might recall those skyrocketing oil and gas (and food) prices in 2007, which hurt the auto and airline industries. The skyrocketing prices came directly from the Bernanke-Bush polices of inflate and spend. The stock market bubble of 2007, which alas for John McCain burst right after the Republican convention, also came directly as a result of the Bernanke monetary inflation. Obama and Bernanke have followed the same policies of inflation and government spending that led to the real estate and stock market bubbles, so it's not surprising that more than two years after Bernanke started them to try to stop the downward spiral caused by Greenspan's earlier inflation, we remained mired in recession.
Bernanke has testified before Congress because he's up for re-appointment and apparently he wants the job again very much. And has he learned his lesson, the lesson for which we paid so dearly in the 1970s and early 1980s, that government can't spend and inflate the economy into real growth? No. He sees his fatally-flawed policies, on the contrary, as having saved the economy from even worse. So more than two years after he started the current mess to try to clean up the mess caused by his predecessor, I'm still saying that I wouldn't be surprised if things get even worse before they get better.
You can read more about the bad employment news at
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/economy/09jobs.html?th&emc=th
Friday, October 23, 2009
2nd Quarter of 2009: Economy Shrank Faster Than Estimated
The economy shrank faster in the second quarter of 2009 (April, May and June) that originally estimated. The Bureau of Economic Affairs originally estimated that the US economy contracted by 0.7% in the second quarter. You might recall the Obama administration crowing about the smaller contraction (compared to the 6.4% contraction in the first quarter of 2009). Most likely a Republican administration would have crowed too, but a smaller contraction, while not as bad as a larger contraction obviously, means we're still in a recession.
As it turns out, the BEA now estimates that the economy actually contracted slightly more in the second quarter than initially estimated--by a full percentage point. Many economists predicted that the third quarter, which ended on September 30, will bring a 3% growth rate in the economy, which would be nice indeed after an already-severe recession. I suspect, however, that if we see any growth in the third quarter it will fall short of the 3% prediction. I wouldn't feel surprised to see continued contraction either. Keep your fingers crossed.
It will be interesting too, to see if one quarter of growth will lead the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private organization started by anti-market economist Wesley C. Mitchell, which declares the beginning and end of recessions, to declare the end of this one. In the past the NBER has always defined a recession as two consecutive quarters of contraction in the economy. By that measure the recession didn't start until late in 2008, a year after the Fed started its vain Keynesian attempt to prevent a recession by inflating the money supply. Suddenly, however the NBER changed it definition of a recession to something rather vague so that it could claim the recession actually started in 2007! I suspect that they made the change to make the Bush administration look worse. Will the NBER revert to the economic growth definition again to say it's over despite growing unemployment, in order to make the Obama administration look better, or will they stick to their new definition (whatever that might be) and wait until the employment picture improves? Stay tuned... :-)
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm
As it turns out, the BEA now estimates that the economy actually contracted slightly more in the second quarter than initially estimated--by a full percentage point. Many economists predicted that the third quarter, which ended on September 30, will bring a 3% growth rate in the economy, which would be nice indeed after an already-severe recession. I suspect, however, that if we see any growth in the third quarter it will fall short of the 3% prediction. I wouldn't feel surprised to see continued contraction either. Keep your fingers crossed.
It will be interesting too, to see if one quarter of growth will lead the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private organization started by anti-market economist Wesley C. Mitchell, which declares the beginning and end of recessions, to declare the end of this one. In the past the NBER has always defined a recession as two consecutive quarters of contraction in the economy. By that measure the recession didn't start until late in 2008, a year after the Fed started its vain Keynesian attempt to prevent a recession by inflating the money supply. Suddenly, however the NBER changed it definition of a recession to something rather vague so that it could claim the recession actually started in 2007! I suspect that they made the change to make the Bush administration look worse. Will the NBER revert to the economic growth definition again to say it's over despite growing unemployment, in order to make the Obama administration look better, or will they stick to their new definition (whatever that might be) and wait until the employment picture improves? Stay tuned... :-)
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm
Unemployment Rose in September
This report came out a while ago and I've been meaning to share it. Despite the claims by the Federal Reserve Board that the recession has ended, the official unemployment rate rose in September, and not because the number of people who reentered the workforce exceeded the number of new jobs the economy created. The economy actually lost 263,000 jobs in September, worse than the 201,000 loss of August.
I've been saying for more than a year now that the Fed's inflationary policies, a vain Keynesian attempt to trick the economy into real growth by inflating the money supply, were only making things worse, as are the trillion-dollar Bush-Obama big business corporate bailouts, which crowd out real investment in efficient businesses. I've predicted for months now that things would get worse before they get better, and the prediction certainly proved true in September. Notice that the real unemployment rate reached 17%, the highest ever since the BLS started measuring the rate.
If the government stops trying to "help" the economy with more bailouts, borrowing and inflation, it will eventually recover on its own, but government could speed the recovery by spending less and cutting marginal tax rates. Presidents Kennedy and Reagan both got impressive rates of growth after making large cuts in marginal income tax rates. I don't see the current president and Congress cutting marginal tax rates or reducing the growth rate of federal spending (much less actually cutting spending, which hasn't happened since the 1930s) so I think we're still in for a long, bitter recession.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/02/jobless-rate-climbs-percent-september/
I've been saying for more than a year now that the Fed's inflationary policies, a vain Keynesian attempt to trick the economy into real growth by inflating the money supply, were only making things worse, as are the trillion-dollar Bush-Obama big business corporate bailouts, which crowd out real investment in efficient businesses. I've predicted for months now that things would get worse before they get better, and the prediction certainly proved true in September. Notice that the real unemployment rate reached 17%, the highest ever since the BLS started measuring the rate.
If the government stops trying to "help" the economy with more bailouts, borrowing and inflation, it will eventually recover on its own, but government could speed the recovery by spending less and cutting marginal tax rates. Presidents Kennedy and Reagan both got impressive rates of growth after making large cuts in marginal income tax rates. I don't see the current president and Congress cutting marginal tax rates or reducing the growth rate of federal spending (much less actually cutting spending, which hasn't happened since the 1930s) so I think we're still in for a long, bitter recession.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/02/jobless-rate-climbs-percent-september/
Monday, September 7, 2009
But Liberals HATED The Taliban!!
Some liberals, apparently, don't feel too happy with Obama right now, even though he had the lowest (most liberal) rating from the National Taxpayer's Union of any member of the US Senate. Liberal Democrats, it turns out, now want ONLY the "public option" or communist health care, and don't want something with even a little less government, like the fascist health care plan proposed by Hillary a scant 16 years ago that they all supported.
If that's not bad enough, some liberal Democrats don't feel too happy about Obama actually trying to destroy the Taliban in Afghanistan. You might recall that it was Hollywood liberals who, in the 1990s, make such a big fuss over the Taliban and how they treat women as property. Well liberals, what did you THINK was going to get rid of the Taliban--singing "Kumbaya" and holding candlelight vigils? What do a bunch of mass-murdering Muslim monsters care about your songs and candles? They're MURDERERS. Really liberals, if you'd try to think rationally a little more and emote a little less we'd all be better off. So Obama is doing what you WANTED him to do--getting rid of the Taliban--and you want to dump him for someone even further left. Good luck with that.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/afghanistan/20_say_pull_all_troops_out_of_afghanistan_immediately
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/september_2009/does_obama_face_a_2012_challenge_in_his_own_party
If that's not bad enough, some liberal Democrats don't feel too happy about Obama actually trying to destroy the Taliban in Afghanistan. You might recall that it was Hollywood liberals who, in the 1990s, make such a big fuss over the Taliban and how they treat women as property. Well liberals, what did you THINK was going to get rid of the Taliban--singing "Kumbaya" and holding candlelight vigils? What do a bunch of mass-murdering Muslim monsters care about your songs and candles? They're MURDERERS. Really liberals, if you'd try to think rationally a little more and emote a little less we'd all be better off. So Obama is doing what you WANTED him to do--getting rid of the Taliban--and you want to dump him for someone even further left. Good luck with that.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/afghanistan/20_say_pull_all_troops_out_of_afghanistan_immediately
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/september_2009/does_obama_face_a_2012_challenge_in_his_own_party
Obama Reaches New Low in Daily Tracking Poll (-13)
Apparently accusing all the elderly, Medicare-receiving protesters of ObamaCare as unpatriotic, anti-religious right-wing radicals did not actually work for Obama and his liberal media proxies, and so his poll numbers continue to worsen, as Republicans widen their lead in the Generic Congressional Ballot. Members of the liberal media, who loved Scott Rasmussen when his polls showed Obama leading before the election and popular after it, have begun attacking Rasmussen for continuing to publish his polls now that they show Obama's growing unpopularity. I can't say I feel surprise, since liberalism, which simultaneously holds that all moral systems are equally valid and that a moral system that rejects homosexual marriage and abortion isn't valid, doesn't bother much with consistency anyway.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot
Official Unemployment Rate Always Understates Real Unemployment
Some of my friends on the right have made a great deal of hay over the fact that real unemployment exceeds the official unemployment rate calculated by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). I can't say I blame them, as people on the left made hay about the same thing during, for instance, the Reagan recession in the early 1980s. I want to stress, however, that because the official unemployment rate always includes only those actively seeking jobs, it always understates the real rate of unemployment (as students in my macro class will learn later this semester). So what's true now was true last year under Bush, during the early 1980s under Reagan, and for that matter during the Great Depression under FDR. Whatever its other faults, there's no plot by the Obama administration to use the BLS to hide the real rate of unemployment.
The official BLS figures understate the rate of unemployment not just during recession but even during economic expansion. Since people have a harder time finding a job during a recession, however, a recession produces more discouraged workers, and thus a larger share of unemployed who don't get counted in the official BLS unemployment rate. So the official unemployment rate clearly understates unemployment more during a recession, and the deeper the recession, the more the BLS rate understates the real rate of unemployment. Depending on which other measure you use, the real rate of unemployment now ranges anywhere from about 11% to about 16%. So there's not doubt that many Americans are feeling the pain of the recession. Just remember that you can't compare the 11% or 16% today to the official BLS unemployment rate in some previous recession; you need to compare the 11% or 16% to the real rate of unemployment in a previous recession. Even by comparison with the real unemployment rates of previous recessions, the current one looks bad--but again, not remotely as bad as during the Great Depression.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/us/07worker.html?th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1252317646-vapUsPyebG26pCq7UAoEnw
The official BLS figures understate the rate of unemployment not just during recession but even during economic expansion. Since people have a harder time finding a job during a recession, however, a recession produces more discouraged workers, and thus a larger share of unemployed who don't get counted in the official BLS unemployment rate. So the official unemployment rate clearly understates unemployment more during a recession, and the deeper the recession, the more the BLS rate understates the real rate of unemployment. Depending on which other measure you use, the real rate of unemployment now ranges anywhere from about 11% to about 16%. So there's not doubt that many Americans are feeling the pain of the recession. Just remember that you can't compare the 11% or 16% today to the official BLS unemployment rate in some previous recession; you need to compare the 11% or 16% to the real rate of unemployment in a previous recession. Even by comparison with the real unemployment rates of previous recessions, the current one looks bad--but again, not remotely as bad as during the Great Depression.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/us/07worker.html?th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1252317646-vapUsPyebG26pCq7UAoEnw
Unemployment rate surged to 9.7 percent in August
Toward the end of the Bush administration, President Bush and Congress started spending billions to bail out financial institutions and auto companies in a vain Keynesian attempt to "stimulate" the economy by taxing away more of your income and then giving some of it back to you. President Obama and Congress have continued the vain Keynesian stimulus efforts. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has cooperated in the Bush-Obama Keynesian efforts by printing new money like it's going out of style (which it often does, in the form of inflation, when the Fed creates too much of it). Yet we see that despite all of these Keynesian efforts to trick the economy into real growth--or perhaps because of these Keynesian efforts--the economy remains mired in the worst recession since the early 1980s, and, by some measures, since the Great Depression. While the economy isn't suffering anywhere near the contraction in the number of jobs or real incomes per person as it did during the Great Depression--and people shouldn't get hysterical that it will, either--we do have plenty of economic pain to go around.
We could, as both President Kennedy and President Reagan did, get Congress to slash marginal federal income tax rates, increasing the incentive to work, save and invest, thereby stimulating real economic growth as we saw in both the 1960s and 1980s. Obama and Congress, however, seem determined to hold on to as much of your hard earned income as possible, so it seems unlikely we will see cuts in marginal tax rates, much less large cuts. So the near-term prospect for the economy remains bleak.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/business/economy/05jobs.html?th&emc=th
We could, as both President Kennedy and President Reagan did, get Congress to slash marginal federal income tax rates, increasing the incentive to work, save and invest, thereby stimulating real economic growth as we saw in both the 1960s and 1980s. Obama and Congress, however, seem determined to hold on to as much of your hard earned income as possible, so it seems unlikely we will see cuts in marginal tax rates, much less large cuts. So the near-term prospect for the economy remains bleak.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/business/economy/05jobs.html?th&emc=th
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Dems Don't Realize How Leftist Their Leaders Are
This supports what said recently when I discovered that Democrats are evenly split over whether to cut taxes or increase spending to help the economy, even though Obama, Senate Majority Leader Reid and Speaker of the House Pelsoi have imposed literally trillions of dollars of additional spending but haven't passed a single tax cut. Democrats, although somewhat out of touch even on taxes and spending with the rest of America, are closer on spending and taxes to other Americans than they are to their own leadership. Democrats really need to start getting some information from other sources than the standard liberal media--it won't make them conservatives, but it might open their eyes to the extreme leftism of their party leaders.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2009/democrats_see_their_congressmen_holding_similar_views_to_democratic_voters
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2009/democrats_see_their_congressmen_holding_similar_views_to_democratic_voters
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Obama and Holder 'At War' with CIA
As I've been saying all along, members of the CIA are unsung heroes valiantly defending America from the mass-murdering Muslim monsters of radical Islam--the same monsters who, by the way, deliberately target the mosques of other Muslims--and we should be praising them (or at least letting them be) rather than attacking them, as Obama and Holder are doing. Now you can hear a little of the hidden story of how the CIA defends us silently from terrorists, like antibiotics fighting the latest lethal bacteria. Remember too that although the liberal media have been demonizing the CIA--excluding yesterday's remarkable article in the Post--the liberal career lawyers at the Justice Department signed off on the CIA's interrogation techniques, and Holder himself said he wouldn't do exactly what he's doing now. Do Obama and Holder really hate America SO much that they want to destroy our first line of defense again mass-murdering Muslim terrorists?
I fully expect Obama, Holder and their leftist pro-terrorist proxies to persecute Mr. Clizbe with all the powers at their disposal. To come forward like this Mr. Clizbe must have an extraordinary level of courage, but then we knew that from his CIA activities defending America.
I should add too that while the Obama-Holder prosecution represents in part an attack on the achievements of the Bush presidency, like no repeat of 9/11, it even more represents the culmination of decades of leftist hatred for the CIA, stemming from the CIA's dogged opposition to communism. The leftist hatred of the CIA goes back at least as far as 1953, when the CIA backed the Shah of Iran in a coup against a democratically-elected socialist prime minister, in order to prevent the possibility of the Soviets from having another puppet government in Iran, as they had when they'd left Iran after World War II. During the 1990s, with the Cold War over, the Clinton administration tied the CIA's hands by creating a "wall" between the CIA and the FBI, preventing the CIA from learning facts that might have allowed them to foil 9/11 as they have foiled ever terrorist attempt in America since. The Bush administration, whatever its other weaknesses (and it had many) made the wise move of dismantling the Clinton "wall" and untying the CIA's hands. For its success in stopping every single terrorist plot since 9/11, the CIA now faces the wrath of the left in the form of the Obama-Holder persecution.
It's ironic that the left so hates the CIA today. Harry Truman, who founded the CIA, actually leaned heavily to the left himself, as his unconstitutional efforts to seize control of the entire steel industry without even a law from Congress demonstrate. Back in Truman's day, however, it was possible to a leftist in America without hating America. Since Vietnam, however, the left in America has turned heavily anti-American. So as left as he was, I'd gladly take a Truman in exchange for an Obama and a Holder. Heck, I'd even give you an American-hating Michelle in the bargain!
I suspect that the CIA will survive the Obama-Holder war on it, but will it remain able to stave off constant terrorist threats with while defending itself from a pro-terrorist president and attorney general? Or will Obama and Holder, like Clinton and, well, Holder, so tie up the CIA that the terrorists succeed at another 9/11? We need a public outcry against the Obama war on the CIA to make sure it can continue to defend us from mass-murdering Muslim monsters who want to repeat 9/11.
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_holder_war_with_cia/2009/08/31/254698.html?s=al&promo_code=87B8-1
I fully expect Obama, Holder and their leftist pro-terrorist proxies to persecute Mr. Clizbe with all the powers at their disposal. To come forward like this Mr. Clizbe must have an extraordinary level of courage, but then we knew that from his CIA activities defending America.
I should add too that while the Obama-Holder prosecution represents in part an attack on the achievements of the Bush presidency, like no repeat of 9/11, it even more represents the culmination of decades of leftist hatred for the CIA, stemming from the CIA's dogged opposition to communism. The leftist hatred of the CIA goes back at least as far as 1953, when the CIA backed the Shah of Iran in a coup against a democratically-elected socialist prime minister, in order to prevent the possibility of the Soviets from having another puppet government in Iran, as they had when they'd left Iran after World War II. During the 1990s, with the Cold War over, the Clinton administration tied the CIA's hands by creating a "wall" between the CIA and the FBI, preventing the CIA from learning facts that might have allowed them to foil 9/11 as they have foiled ever terrorist attempt in America since. The Bush administration, whatever its other weaknesses (and it had many) made the wise move of dismantling the Clinton "wall" and untying the CIA's hands. For its success in stopping every single terrorist plot since 9/11, the CIA now faces the wrath of the left in the form of the Obama-Holder persecution.
It's ironic that the left so hates the CIA today. Harry Truman, who founded the CIA, actually leaned heavily to the left himself, as his unconstitutional efforts to seize control of the entire steel industry without even a law from Congress demonstrate. Back in Truman's day, however, it was possible to a leftist in America without hating America. Since Vietnam, however, the left in America has turned heavily anti-American. So as left as he was, I'd gladly take a Truman in exchange for an Obama and a Holder. Heck, I'd even give you an American-hating Michelle in the bargain!
I suspect that the CIA will survive the Obama-Holder war on it, but will it remain able to stave off constant terrorist threats with while defending itself from a pro-terrorist president and attorney general? Or will Obama and Holder, like Clinton and, well, Holder, so tie up the CIA that the terrorists succeed at another 9/11? We need a public outcry against the Obama war on the CIA to make sure it can continue to defend us from mass-murdering Muslim monsters who want to repeat 9/11.
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_holder_war_with_cia/2009/08/31/254698.html?s=al&promo_code=87B8-1
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