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Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Monday, September 24, 2012
97 Days To Taxmageddon!
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Monday, August 27, 2012
The Republican Platform: Fringey Stupid
● Priority Number One: The Economy! Well, no. Of the 18 “ideas” listed, not one of them involves improving the economy. Why? Because the retarded chimps who put this platform together don’t care about the economy. What do they care about? Read on.
● Priority Number One: Repealing Obamacare! Well, no. That’s number six on the list, after such high priority issues like “making the internet family friendly.” Yes, you read that right. These dipsh*ts think it is more important to let people know that the Republican Party wants to censor the internet than it is to repeal Obamacare.
● The Homosexual Menace: So what is the first priority listed? This year’s most important priority, apparently, will be stopping gays from marrying. Why? Because “studies” show that children from married couples stay off drugs, get married and don’t commit crimes. Ergo, gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry. Don’t worry if that makes no sense, just accept the idea that Jesus hates gays. By the way, this same group of the self-righteous is opposed to civil unions too because gays are yucky.
● Fix Welfare. . . Somehow: Next our slow friends have decided that welfare doesn’t work, especially because Obama wants to discourage people on welfare from working. So they want someone, somewhere to fix the current system somehow to encourage people to work. . . which it already does.
● Internet “Freedom”: Apparently, the platform will include some highly technical sounding, yet utter nebulous plan to support internet freedom. Reading the definition will make your head spin, but the lawyer in me had to laugh at all the caveats and interest group sops already obvious in the definition. It sounds like the Republican “internet freedom” platform will be about protecting ISPs (who support Republicans) over net companies (who support Democrats). Any freedom resulting from this will be purely coincidental.
And just in case some freedom should accidentally result, the platform makes sure you can't misuse your freedom because it includes a nifty little section on censoring the internet to make it “family friendly.” See, the internet is EVIL. Apparently, “millions of Americans suffer from . . . pathological gambling” and “the Internet must be made safe for children.” So it’s time to shut down gambling sites, ban sex offenders from the internet, and force ISPs to save the children. . . all “while respecting First Amendment rights.” No, I’m not making this sh*t up.
● Americans with Disabilities: Forget the economy, it’s more important that we make sure Americans with disabilities are included in all aspects of our national life. Well, not all aspects. In fact, all we really care about is two things: (1) we need to force insurers and doctors to treat people with disabilities (I’m told doctors in particular like to tease the disabled with fake cures), and (2) when will somebody finally stop the government from taking children away from people with disabilities? Seriously! This national crisis just dominates the news and it's time someone had the courage to address this! Be brave Platform monkeys, be brave.
Oh, we should also support some nebulous sounding employment programs which we didn’t have the time to examine, but their titles sound nice.
● Repealing Obamacare/Abortion: Finally, we come to repealing Obamacare. Why repeal it? Well, because it’s not right. Also, “Through Obamacare, the current Administration has promoted the notion of abortion as healthcare. We, however, affirm the dignity of women by protecting the sanctity of human life. Numerous studies have shown that abortion endangers the health and well-being of women, and we stand firmly against it.” Yep, they talk about repealing Obamacare because it promotes abortion.
● Fixing Our Healthcare/Abortion: So how do we fix the nation’s healthcare? Simple: “health is an individual responsibility” and people need to take better care of themselves. That means you fatboy! “Chronic diseases [are] related to lifestyle [and] drive healthcare costs.” So we need to “promote healthy lifestyles.” No doubt, these will be based on being abortion-free and internet porn free. And lest you think I’m joking, two paragraphs into this one, they call upon states to stop “subsidies for abortion.” I guess abortion makes you fat.
Then they give the usual sop to insurance companies (big Republican contributors), which is the worst thing we could do other than what Obama did, and they want science to save us by making record keeping cheaper. Maybe we should ban 16 oz. drinks?
● More Abortion: Then we do two more “healthcare” related points – “supporting” research and protecting individual conscience in healthcare. The first involves banning stem cell treatments and stopping abortion, and the second involves stopping abortion. Are you starting to see a pattern here?
● Reforming the EPA: Oops, sorry, the EPA is cool. . . everybody likes the EPA. We need to reform the FDA. Why? Because drug companies are Republican contributors and they are having a hard time with the current EPA.
● Oops, forgot, more Healthcare: Yes, we’ve mentioned healthcare several times, but we forgot to mention that we want to reduce costs through tort reform. That should fix everything, even though Andrew pointed out that tort reform will only cut a couple billion dollars in a multi-trillion dollar system. Yep. . . problem solved! (Especially once we stop fat people from getting abortions.)
● Education: We’re opposed to “the crippling bigotry of low expectations.” Hell, who isn't?! So how do we fix that? We want reform! But we don’t believe in one-size-fits all, so we can’t really tell you what we want, but it must involve traditional values.
● “Fixing” College Costs: College costs suck. They are “unsustainable.” We should get private companies to issue student loans (fyi: they already do) and we should tell people more about what they are paying (fyi: they already know). Also, maybe not everyone should go to college? Problem solved!
● Prison Reform: Yes, this issue which just dominates the nation’s headlines day after day after day finishes this amazing platform. Basically, we support what we’ve been doing because liberals oppose it and that makes it reform. Yay reform!
● Other Points: Also, while we're at it, let's keep them dirty Mexicans out and let's think about the gold standard because the 500% inflation in the price of gold in the past decade sure makes gold seem awfully stable!
There you have it. A declaration of idiocy. This is the kind of document I would have written if I wanted to lampoon the Republican Party as being dominated by cultists. Gays, abortion, abortion, abortion, some stuff nobody cares about, abortion, stupidity and the status quo described as reform. Not only has this gang of fornicating monkeys completely missed the issues of the day, they’ve proven that (1) they remain obsessed with gays and abortion, (2) they are obsessed with controlling everyone’s private lives, and (3) they know NOTHING. At least they didn’t include Islamophobia or suggest that women get pregnant and stop taking jobs that belong to men. I guess that's something.
It’s time to purge the party of its moronic fringe and force the party hierarchy to at least join the 20th Century, if not the 21st. Fortunately, Romney doesn’t believe any of this crap and is more likely to wipe his butt with this document than he is to read it.
As an aside, if you want to know what the platform should have looked like, how about this:
1. Replace Obamacare with free market healthcare.
2. 10% across the board cut in federal spending and federal wages.
3. Flat tax.
4. Strict anti-lobbying/graft laws.
5. Repeal of all regulations not necessary for public safety.
6. Comprehensive immigration reform.
7. School choice using vouchers.
8. Internet Anti-Censorship Law plus Privacy Rights.
9. Banning government funding for abortion, imposing reasonable restrictions and otherwise leaving this decision to the individual.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Obama Was Sabotaged!!
Forget that Obama has saddled the economy with trillions in new taxes and regulations. Forget that he wants to shove Obamacare on the nation’s employers and terrorize the medical community. Forget that he’s adding more to the debt than all other presidents combined. Forget that he’s allowed too big to fail to get even bigger, that he’s done nothing to stabilize the housing market, and that inflation is out of control. Yeah, forget all that. The real reason the economy sucks is because. . .
(1) Corporate America is “sitting on vast piles of cash.” Yep. Although conditions are clearly right for Corporate America to be out there starting new businesses, launching new products, hiring like crazy, and making America the economic powerhouse it was meant to be, this cabal of Romney supporters simply refuse to do any of that.
Politico notes that according to the Fed, private companies are sitting on $2 trillion in cash. Reuters puts the number closer to $5 trillion. So why aren’t they spending that money on hiring people? Well, apparently, these evil business types site uncertainly, which Politico defines as there being “no guarantee there will be enough consumer demand to buy the product because not enough jobs are being created to put more money in people’s wallets.” Politico calls this a real “chicken and egg problem.”
Now think about this. What Politico is saying is that it is impossible to break out of a recession because business can’t hire people until they know the recession is over, but the recession can’t end until business starts hiring. If this is true, then how did we overcome the dozens of prior recessions the country faced? The fact of the matter is that the real uncertainty which bothers business is that Obama has imposed an incredible amount of new costs on businesses and consumers, and those costs aren’t known yet because of the way he did it, i.e. they are uncertain. No one in their right mind would commit to expanding their business if their costs could double any day or if consumers might find themselves socked with dramatically higher taxes and healthcare costs at any minute. That’s the real heart of the problem.
(2) Evil Congress wants to raise everyone’s taxes! They also want to slash spending, especially military spending. Yeah, right. Forget that Obama has been the one pushing for both things. Forget that the Democrats refused to negotiate the budget deal in good faith. Forget that Obama is the one who demanded the military cuts as part of the budget deal. Yeah, forget all of that and then you can blame the Congress because they have been unable to overcome the Democrats to stop these things.
It’s funny how Politico can miss the obvious. They actually worry that the nation is headed toward a “fiscal cliff” when these trillions in tax hikes and spending cuts will kick in on January 1, 2013 and they attack the Republicans for playing politics with this and for now leaving town on recess. They go back to the old MSM canard of calling the Congress “dysfunctional.” Yeah, ok, and who is to blame here? Nothing the House does gets passed in the Senate. Harry Reid won’t even bring Republican bills to a vote. Heck, he wouldn’t even allow Obama’s budget to be brought to a vote. And it was Reid and Obama who have been playing politics on the Bush tax cuts, first refusing to extend them long term and now using them for class warfare purposes. And it was Reid and Obama who pushed the idea of automatic spending cuts as part of the debt deal because they refused to agree to any responsible cuts. So if this is bad for Obama, it’s a problem of his own making.
(3) The evil central bankers around the world have refused to print more money! This gets rich. Politico notes that the Fed has a dual mandate to fight inflation and to “do whatever it can to boost employment” -- that’s actually not true, the dual mandate is to fight inflation and encourage growth, which is not the same thing as employment. Then they whine that all the Fed is doing is fighting inflation “despite no signs of any inflation.” Wow. First, inflation is soaring. Food and fuel inflation has run anywhere from 12% to 25% under Obama, not to mention that quality and quantity has been cut to try to mask price increases. It’s only if you look at official inflation, which excludes the things which inflate that you get to around 2%. Secondly, the Fed has done amazing amounts to promote growth. For one thing, it’s kept interest rates near historic lows since 2008. For another, it’s pumped vast amounts of new money into the economy through several rounds of quantitative easing. So what exactly hasn’t the Fed done?
Politico also blames Europe for being a drag on the world economy and the European Central bank for doing nothing to help. Total ignorance. They also specifically blame the Germans for not bailing out the other European countries, as if Germany was obligated to pay off the debts of Greece. Should we be paying Mexico’s debts?
ConclusionThis is low-grade economic idiocy and it’s premised on “facts” that are simply untrue. What interests me the most, however, is the attitude. The economy is bad because those evil capitalist who need to be put up against the wall have consciously tried to make us look bad and didn’t continue to do the things capitalists do when we started attacking them. The Fed owes us jobs and needs to keep spending to help Obama. Those lousy Europeans have sabotaged us by not fixing their damn problems and paying off debt that doesn’t belong to them. And that Congress. . . damn them, they didn’t overcome Obama’s policies enough to prevent Obama from being bitten in the ass by them.
Talk about whiny and talk about having NO grasp on reality. Do we really ever want to implement a policy put in place by people who think like this?
P.S. Don't forget, it is Star Trek Tuesday at the film site.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Crazy People
1. The Democratic Myths● Bane/Bain Capital. Team Obama believes the Bain Capital attacks will work. They think it worked for Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts and for Newt in South Carolina, so it will work for them. Politico, however, notes that the evidence is “not conclusive” and they site a recent poll which shows that, by a 34% margin, voters think Romney’s business background will make him a better decision-maker.
But frankly, there’s stronger evidence. After Obama spent a summer blasting away with millions in negative ads about Bain, Romney’s poll numbers have continued to rise while Obama’s have fallen. That’s pretty conclusive. And logic tells us these attacks won’t work in any event. For one thing, they are too esoteric for voters to understand. For another, Americans have grown accustomed to private equity financing and it doesn’t anger them. And for another, the longer Obama spends trying to attack Romney for being a businessman, the more he reminds people of his own lack of business acumen and the failure of his Keynesian economic policies.
As for this attack working before, Romney lost South Carolina because it’s an evangelical state. He lost to Ted Kennedy because no Kennedy will ever lose in Massachusetts. Bain had nothing to do with either.
● Party Like It’s 2008. Team Obama is clinging to the idea they can excite their base to get turnout similar to 2008. Politico refutes this with a recent Gallup poll showing that Democrats are 39% less likely to say they are “more enthusiastic about voting than usual.” That is solid evidence, but consider all the other evidence. Look how Obama’s fundraising is way down, how low Obama’s approval ratings have been for so long, and how few Democrats turned out in 2010. That’s the real evidence of a lack of enthusiasm. And then consider this: Obama’s 2008 victory required more than his base. He needed two-thirds of independents and even cross-over Republicans. All the evidence tells us that those people have abandoned him and aren’t going back. Nor is Obama doing anything to attract them, as he’s spending all his time working on his base. The idea that the electorate will mirror 2008 is a pipe dream.
● It’s Bush’s Fault. Team Obama thinks the voters will forgive his near total failure because they will remember how bad things where when he took office and will cut him some slack. But as Politico notes, there is no polling which reflects this. Moreover, Obama’s handling of the economy is routinely seen as a negative and Romney easily blows him away in poll after poll on economic issues.
But there’s an even simpler factor Politico has missed: the public may grade him on a curve because of the problems he was handed, BUT they will ultimately grade him on his performance since taking office in light of those problems. In other words, the bad start Bush gave him only means that people don’t expect him to reach the same heights he otherwise would have reached, it does not excuse his failure to progress. And on that point, Obama has progressed poorly: taking unemployment from a temporary 6% to a permanent 9%, taking a $450 billion deficit and turning it into five years of trillion dollar deficits, rampant inflation, etc.
2. The Republican Myths● It’s the Economy Stupid. Team Romney is entirely focused on the economy (except when they aren’t (LINK)). Politico thinks this is a mistake because “voters expect their presidents to be multidimensional.” But here’s the problem. First, Romney has proven to be very multidimensional all summer, as he went issue by issue through everything outside the economy. Secondly, what makes them think Obama is any more popular on any other issue? Obamacare, Fast and Furious, standing in the way of school vouchers, environmental failures, his pathetic foreign policy, inflaming racial tensions, failing to respond to disasters, a failed energy policy, a failed industrial policy, cronyism, confusion on social issues, attacks on religion, etc. Where exactly is it that voters will think Obama has an advantage?
● Can Buy Me Love. Romney believes that massive spending by outside groups like American Crossroads will crush Obama. But Politico warns that voters are starting to tune out ads because of their sheer volume. In other words, money doesn’t matter. . . so much for Democratic claims to the contrary. I can’t argue with this. By and large, money isn’t all that relevant, except to the extent it allows a ground game in key states. BUT this race isn’t about money in any event, it’s about Obama’s failures.
● You Don’t Have To Like Me. Romney continues to be not-liked. Romney thinks this doesn’t matter. Politico counters that this means that (1) Romney has no room for error, (2) Romney will have no defense when Obama starts attacking his character, and (3) his unpopularity will cause voters to interpret Romney’s missteps in a negative light. The problem with Politico’s analysis is that it’s not being borne out by the reality. Romney’s “gaffes” and Obama’s personal attacks have failed to influence anyone. And the reason is that voters aren’t weighing Romney v. Obama, they are deciding whether or not Obama deserves a second term. Romney only matters to the extent he’s either acceptable or unacceptable. In other words, they view Romney as simply YES/NO and then they spend their timing thinking about Obama. So all this talk of Romney’s likeability is misplaced. Not to mention, as I pointed out yesterday (LINK), there’s reason to think the disconnect between Obama’s personal popularity and his failure on every other point should be troubling.
● It’s Inevitable. Finally, Team Romney thinks that given the state of the economy, no president can be reelected. Politico agrees that the three presidents who went up for reelection during bad economic times (Ford, Carter, Bush I) all lost, but they also faced other problems -- Watergate, the Iranian hostage crisis, and a third-party challenge from Ross Perot. So Politico concludes that while bad economic times probably do matter the most, elections are more complex than that.
I agree. BUT again, what exactly is Obama offering? Outside of the economy, his only two achievements are ObamaCare, which a clear majority of the public wants repealed, and financial regulation, which nobody cares about. And don’t forget, the public had a chance to render a verdict on all of his “achievements” in 2010 and they gave the Republicans an historic win in the House. The economy may not be the only issue, but Politico is kidding itself if it thinks that Obama fares better on any other issue.
ConclusionIt strikes me that Politico is nervous. Even before digging into these issues and seeing how limited their analysis was, it was already clear they think Team Obama is much more delusional than Team Romney. Indeed, the best they can do with Romney is argue that his reasons might not be correct, but with Obama, they’re pretty darn certain he’s wrong. What all of this tells me is that Romney is using an effective strategy with few holes, not to mention that he addresses the holes when they appear. But Obama is using a delusional strategy that just won’t work and relies on things happening which just won’t happen. Bad news for Obama.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Poll-arama: Blow Out Ahead
● Yeah, They Built That: Obama’s “you didn’t build that” line continues to resonate with voters. We know this because people keep talking about it everywhere. Pollsters are even asking the public about it, which means it’s entered “the mainstream consciousness.” And guess what? The public isn’t on Obama’s side. According to Rasmussen:
● 77% believe small business owners work harder that other workers. Only 2% disagree.This is all really bad for Obama, whose campaign strategy is to attack business as a mere outgrowth of government. The public ain’t buying it.
● 57% believe that entrepreneurs do more to create jobs and economic growth than big business or government.
● 61% believe small business provides more valuable services to local communities than big business or government.
● And Gallup found there appears to be a fundamental shift in the public’s view of government as 61% now say the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and private business.
● It’s Not Bush’s Fault After All: Nor are they buying Obama's attempt to avoid blame. Riddle me this: who said in 2009, “Look, if I can’t turn the economy around in three years, I will be looking at a one-term proposition”? Here’s a hint: he’s spent the last three years trying to blame all his failures on George W. Bush. Well, according to a new poll taken for The Hill, that excuse has worn thin. The Hill found that 66% of respondents blame the slow economic recovery and total lack of jobs on bad government policy. Of those people, 34% lay the blame on Obama. Only 18% continue to blame Bush. Moreover, 53% of voters say Obama took the wrong actions and caused the economy to slow. None of this is good news for Obama.
What could be upsetting people? How about this. Who said in 2003 that George Bush needed to “fix up the economy” before he did anything else? Here’s a hint, it’s the same guy who decried Bush’s $300 billion deficit as “underscor[ing] the recklessness of the George W. Bush administration and the Republican Congress.” And it’s the same man who has now given us five straight years of budgets with trillion dollar deficits. If $300 billion was reckless, what does that make a trillion five times over?
● We’ll Take the Mormon over the Moron!: All of this is adding up fast. USA Today/Gallup asked people who they trust more when it comes to managing the economy, reducing the federal budget deficit and creating jobs. Despite all the time and effort Obama has poured into his Bain Capital attacks, Romney wins this in a blowout: 63% to 29%. And it gets worse. Despite all the attacks Obama has made, including record spending on negative ads, Romney’s popularity has gone up from 53% to 54%, and the number of people who say they share Romney’s views has gone up from 42% to 45%.
But even more importantly, 18% of Republican and Republican leaning voters report being more enthusiastic about voting than normal. This compares to only 4% of Democrats and Democratic-leaners who report the same. That’s an enthusiasm gap of 14%!! Enthusiasm will be key this year because the evidence suggests that less than 10% of voters are actually swing voters. These numbers suggest a blow out in the works.
● A Cold Day In Minnesota: Finally, we have this amazing bit of new. Mitt Romney is within striking distance of winning Minnesota. Yeah, Minnesota. Obama leads 46% to 40%, but the key here is that Obama can’t get to 50% and his 6% lead is half of what it’s been in the past. If Minnesota is in play, then Obama might as well quit right now. The last Republican to win Minnesota was Richard Nixon. Even Ronald Reagan never carried that bastion of idiotic liberalism.
How do you say “blow out” in Minnesotan, eh?
P.S. Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Romney's Great Speech At The NAACP
● What He Said: Romney made several interesting points in his speech, each of which fit into the theme of his policies making the lives of blacks better. This is an interesting choice because it sidesteps all the race-baiting stuff for which Republicans normally fall. Observe.
First, Romney noted that Obama has been horrible to blacks. Specifically, black unemployment is 6.2% higher than white unemployment and the average income and median family income is lower for blacks than whites. He then promised that his goal as president would be the creation of jobs, but he intends to do so without trying to target things for specific racial groups:
"If I am president, job one for me will be creating jobs. I have no hidden agenda. If you want a president who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him."This actually got booed, which tells you something about the audience, doesn’t it? Then he said something fascinating. He essentially told the audience that capitalism isn’t their enemy. Check this out:
"I’ve never heard anyone look around an impoverished neighborhood and say, 'You know, there’s too much free enterprise around here. Too many shops, too many jobs, too many people putting money in the bank.'"This is a brilliantly subtle point. What he’s doing is saying that no matter what other issues blacks may have vis-à-vis race in America, capitalism is not to blame. And subscribing to free enterprise, rather than the spoils system so popular in black circles, will make their lives better without them even having to give up the other issues which concern them. In other words, he’s trying to depoliticize capitalism and wealth.
Then he spoke about education, calling it the “civil rights issue of our era” and arguing that “mediocre schools” are setting black kids up to fail. To fix this, he pointed out that he supports school choice and won’t be beholden to the teachers unions, as Obama is. Here is how he sold this idea:
"If equal opportunity in America were an accomplished fact, black families could send their sons and daughters to public schools that truly offer the hope of a better life. Instead, for generations, the African-American community has been waiting and waiting for that promise to be kept. Today, black children are 17 percent of students nationwide—but they are 42 percent of the students in our worst-performing schools."Notice that again, he’s telling blacks that this is an issue which they should depoliticize and thus support his education policies, which have proven effective. He’s also tossing a wedge between blacks and the teacher’s unions.
Finally, he made a direct appeal for them to look past the ideology and take an honest look at him:
"I believe that if you understood who I truly am in my heart, and if it were possible to fully communicate what I believe is in the real, enduring best interest of African-American families, you would vote for me for president."That’s a pretty solid appeal across the board.
● Smart Move: Romney was never going to win over the NAACP because those people have blinded themselves to anything they don’t want and nothing Romney could have said or done would have won him their vote or endorsement. So was it smart to give this speech to a hostile crowd? Well, yes. Winning over the NAACP wasn’t Romney’s goal. Instead, Romney was speaking to several other groups:
1. White Moderates. By speaking to the NAACP, Romney shows himself to be inclusive and willing to hear from everyone, not just his most loyal constituents. That makes moderates comfortable.● He’s Racist: The moment Romney finished, the race baiters started whining. There was nothing in his speech they could attack so they turned him into an evil genius by claiming he designed his speech so he would be booed, with the intention of using that booing to win over racist whites. Clearly they don’t believe this, but they know that many of their followers are stupid enough and paranoid enough to think this is true. So it’s a decent strategy in that regard. In fact, the smears started yesterday when Romney was called "too white" to speak to the NAACP. But I think ultimately, this speech is the kind of speech which could shift the needle a couple percentage points over time. And if Romney’s message that blacks don’t need to fight us on all issues finds legs, then the race industry is in serious trouble.
2. White Conservatives. By refusing to pander, Romney continues to show that he has strong conservative instincts -- though this point will be lost at some blogs.
3. Hispanics. By being seen appealing to blacks, Romney demonstrates to Hispanics that he’s not a white candidate speaking to white audiences. Following his speeches to Hispanics, this will help soften Hispanic fear that Romney wants to make them second class citizens.
4. Average Blacks. Obama will need every black vote he can get. Last time Obama got 96% of the black vote, and he still polls at 92% now. By speaking to the NAACP and speaking honestly, while making it clear he wants to help blacks, Romney could peel off a few percentage of blacks, which could make a key difference in some states. In other words, he doesn’t need to win them all to be successful, every percentage point counts.
● Final Thoughts: Romney continues to impress, quite frankly. I have no doubt that if Newt or Santorum were the nominee, they would have told this group about all the laws they passed to give blacks spoils. Santorum would have promised some piece of civil rights legislation -- Newt would have promise seats on the new moon base. And in the process, both would have strengthened the liberal meme that everything related to blacks needs to be seen through the prism of race.
What Romney did here is give a speech which basically laid out how a color-blind agenda will help blacks too, and he suggested to them that it was all right to agree with us on issues like economics and education because they didn’t need to surrender their beliefs on other issues to do that. That’s incredibly smart.
Thoughts?
(P.S. Obama sent Biden to the same conference. He said racist things, told a sex joke and insulted veterans.)
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Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Zombiconomy
In normal times, an economic recovery following a recession will produce real economic growth of around 4-5% and will restore all the jobs lost plus add a few more. That’s not happening this time. Instead, growth has been an anemic 1-2%, and the economy has come close to dipping back into recession three times now. In effect, the economy is stumbling along at the edge of recession. How bad is it? Well, it’s the weakest recovery since 1948!
Moreover, the jobs numbers are horrid. Just to keep pace with population growth, our economy needs to produce 120,000-125,000 jobs each month. In June, this “recovery” produced only 80,000 jobs. In May, this was 77,000 jobs. In April it was 68,000. All told, only 2.6 million jobs have been created since June 2009, for an average of 72,200 per month. That means for the last three years, 50,000 people have joined the workforce each month without finding a job. And that is on top of the millions of people who lost their jobs when the recession began. Indeed, we still have about 5% fewer jobs than we had before the crash.
And it gets worse. As people are running out of unemployment benefits, they are trying to get onto permanent benefits like disability. Remember how the economy produced 80,000 jobs in June? Well, 85,000 workers left the economy that same month to go on disability. That’s right, and that wasn’t an unusual month. Since June 2009, the economy has produced 2.6 million jobs, but 3.1 million workers have gone on disability! That’s unsustainable.
These problems are going to get worse too. To get a genuine recovery, an economy must reach “escape velocity.” That’s the point where economic conditions become strong enough that the recovery sustains itself. In other words, the point where there is enough production that enough new workers must be hired that their incomes begin to spur demand, which requires more production and creates more jobs: a virtuous circle, where good things lead to more good things. If an economy can’t hit that point, then it will slip back into recession or stumble along at the edge of recession, like Japan has done for the past couple decades.
Right now, there are four things preventing the economy from reaching escape velocity:
1. There’s just not enough good news to make people believe the worst is over. Housing and factory orders are up, yes. BUT they are weak and consumer confidence is falling at the same time. The rental-market has hit an all time high in terms of number of people renting, meaning people aren’t buying. And China has slowed its buying.This is a recipe for stagnation and collapse before the election, not a recipe for growth and happiness. And that’s really bad for Obama. Now the Republicans need to work to make sure they know how to fix this once they take over. For that, I would recommend:
2. Uncertainty more than anything keeps people from acting, and right now everything is uncertain. Right now no one knows how much of ObamaCare will ever kick in, and until that’s clarified, people won’t hire. Add in the fact that a business would be foolish to act before the election, and you have a recipe for inaction. Inaction means recession.
3. Business has gotten hooked on handouts from the Fed and the other central banks over the past four years, and they are waiting for their next hit of free junk. Ditto on the continuing “stimulus” bills. Why buy anything when Santa keeps coming back to your house?
4. Finally, those banks Obama fixed. . . the ones who now control so much of the economy. . . well, they aren’t fixed. Dozens of them are being caught up in an interest rate manipulation probe across several countries. JP Morgan lost $2 billion in bad trades. Many of them still hold debt that will never be paid. And Greece and Spain and Italy hang around their necks like an inflated albatross.
1. Stopping the continuous stream of handouts through stimulus bills and Fed “quantitative easing.”Thoughts?
2. Repealing unnecessary regulations. But this needs to be done in one shot so business won’t keep waiting for more.
3. Killing ObamaCare with any means possible as quickly as possible.
4. Breaking up the big banks into component parts and keeping people’s savings (the money taxpayers guarantee) from being used for speculation.
P.S. Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site.
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Thursday, June 14, 2012
You're Doing It Wrong!
Alright, a couple points then we can all get on with our days. First up, Jimmy Carville is “worried” about Obama. Second up, we have some polls showing why Jimmy is right to worry. Finally, we have a reminder why we should be done with the Bush family once and for all. Let’s do this.● Jimmy Carville: James Carville is a partisan hack, so when he tells you that Obama is eeah, doin’ sumtin wrongg, you better believe Obama’s doing something wrong. And in this case, Jimmy C is upset that Obama is telling everyone the economy is great. Said Jimmy C on Good Morning America:
“I’m worried that when the White House or the campaign talks about the progress that’s being made, people take that as a signal that they think that things are fine and people don’t feel they ought to believe that.”In other words, by telling people everything is fine when the public clearly knows better, Obama is squandering what little trust he has left and is telling voters that he “doesn’t get it” and has no plans to address their concerns.
As proof that Carville is right, think back to last week when Obama said at a press conference that “the private sector is doing fine.” Really? Perhaps he forgot that four million private sector jobs have vanished under his Reign of Error? The Republicans (led by Romney) pounced on this so strongly that Obama had to “clarify” his comments a few hours later by telling reporters, “it is absolutely clear the economy is not doing fine.” Nice, complete reversal “clarification.”
Carville once famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Perhaps he was talking directly to Obama?
● Polls: I’ve said before that this election really comes down to Florida and Ohio. In Ohio, Romney leads Obama 46% to 44%. In Florida, Romney leads Obama 46% to 45%. With undecideds typically breaking for the incumbent, this tells us Obama will lose. Iowa, which I see as irrelevant, is also trending Romney over Obama 47% to 46%. And if that isn’t enough, get this. . .
Colorado, an Obama state, is tied 45% each. Michigan, a clear Obama state, has Romney leading 46% to 45%. Wisconsin, another Obama state, has Romney leading 47% to 45%. That’s 36 electoral votes slipping through his fingers. Winning will be virtually impossible for Obama if that happen.
● RINO-dynasty: It is time America was finished with the Bush clan. Two disastrous Presidents who did their best to tar conservatism is enough. Sadly, there’s one more out there and he’s no better. This week old Jeb reminded us again why we want no part of him. What did he do this time? Get this. . . despite the election coming up, he decided now would be a good time to call us all a bunch of extremists. Specifically, he said this:
“Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad — they would have a hard time if you define the Republican Party — and I don’t — as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement, doesn’t allow for finding some common ground.”In other words, Reagan and Bush Sr. couldn’t have been nominated if they ran today because the party is now too extreme to accept them.
First of all, this is false. This is the same party which just nominated Mitt Romney, who was viewed by conservatives as a RINO and whose record as a governor is clearly moderate. This is also the same party which has made RINOs like Chris Christie and, regrettably, Jeb himself into stars. Secondly, saying this now is disloyal as now is the time to rally around the nominee to defeat Obama. Finally, it’s ultra-disloyal to say this particularly because this has been a Democratic talking point for years now, and only true RINOs adopt Democratic talking points and lend them credibility.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again, I will never vote for another Bush.
OT: I was planning to do a book giveaway promo later in the year, but for various reasons beyond my control, it's moved. So next Tuesday, Without A Hitch will be FREE on Kindle. Please pick it up if you haven't and read it and then leave a review! :)
Also, if you have already read it or Wrongful Death, please do me a favor and try to leave a review before Tuesday. People judge books by the number of reviews these days so it would help me a lot if you all posted one (and no, they don't need to be 5s... be honest). Thanks! Here's the LINK
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Wednesday, June 13, 2012
A Double Dose of Failure
Let’s cover two short issues today. First, we have economic data which confirms the middle class is getting crushed under Obama. Secondly, the NRA and Indiana seem determined to set back the cause of gun rights.Issue One: The surest way to determine what chance a president has at being re-elected is to ask the question Reagan made famous: “are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Obama desperately needs to hope no one asks that. Why? How about these numbers:
● Unemployment: At 8.2%, unemployment is at one of its highest points in decades. In May, 12.7 million Americans were officially unemployed, with another 24 million unofficially unemployed or underemployed. Five million people have been officially unemployed for more than two years now.This tells us that the American public is taking a beating. Their savings have been cut by a third, their incomes are falling (those that are even employed), and inflation is eating away at all of it. So much for being better off today than anyone was four years ago. The exception, of course, is Club Fed which increased its spending 714% since 1979 and 33% since Obama took office.
● Falling Incomes: Since 2007, the median income for all American families has fallen 7.7%.
● Inflation: Inflation is eating away at spending power. A dollar today is only worth 32 cents of what it was worth in 1979. That means inflation has eaten 68% of the value of the dollar in 33 years. When you factor in wage increases, the middle class already took a 28% pay cut between 1979 and when Obama took office (the poor took a 50% pay cut). Official inflation under Obama has been minor, but that’s a fake number. Gas prices are up 83% and meat is up 24%, and real inflation is estimated at around 12%. Factor in the falling wages of 7.7% with the pay-cut of inflation at 12%, and you have a huge pay cut being taken year after year.
● Falling Net Worth: Since 2007, the median net worth of American families has fallen by 38.8% from $126,400 to $77,300. This is largely (but not entirely) the result of falling housing prices. In the West, this decline was 55%.
Issue Two: Indiana has passed a law at the behest of the National Rifle Association which allows residents to use deadly force against government employees, including law enforcement officers, who “unlawfully” enter their homes. Mitch Daniels signed this in March.
This is a HORRIBLE idea!
First of all, let me ask why we need this? Is there a problem with cops attacking people in their homes in Indiana? If not, then there’s no reason for this. Secondly, has anyone asked what this will cause? How do you decide if the police are there unlawfully? Doesn’t this give people a false belief that they have a right to shoot at the cops no matter why the police are there? This is a stupid bill which will get police (and civilians) killed. And there is no need for this bill because it doesn’t stop any real problem.
This is a classic example of the stupidity of activists. Some jerkoff at the NRA decided this would be a good idea for whatever reason and the other jerkoffs talked themselves into it without every stopping to ask someone with common sense if this was a good idea. By pushing this, the NRA has put the “responsible” gun lobby on the side of fringe politics and irresponsible laws. This is, in fact, the very type of law which turns people off the cause being promoted. This is Planned Parenthood defending partial-birth abortion or gay marriage activists suing churches to force them to perform gay marriages. This is stupid. This is the kind of bill guaranteed to bring a backlash. And this is yet another reason I won’t support the NRA despite firmly believing in the Second Amendment.
Thoughts?
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Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Fairness My Rear End...
I am sick of hearing Democrats and other leftists the planet over talk about wanting “a more fair society.” They don’t want a fair society. Far from it, they want a deeply unfair society. And their policies are crushing the very middle class they claim they want to treat so fairly.Whenever leftists want to get their spite on against the rich, they talk about “fairness.” They act as if somehow the rich have intercepted a gift meant for us all, and now the left wants to spread it around fairly. . . to redistribute it. But wealth is not gift. It does not fall from the sky, it must be created through hard labor or risk taking. So tell me what exactly is “fair” about taking away the value of someone’s labor or the benefits they have earned from taking risks? That’s called slavery, even if you don’t take 100%. In fact, I doubt very much the left would suddenly decide Southern slaveholders were morally justified if they’d only taken 75% of what the slave made.
In a truly fair world, everyone would have an equal opportunity to achieve their dreams. But that is not what leftists want. They care so little about equality of opportunity that (1) they stand in the way of school reform to keep kids from being educated, (2) they stand in the way of starter jobs through labor requirements and minimum wages, which keeps kids form learning the important skills they need, (3) they tax the heck out of success, which keeps all but the greatest risk takers from trying to achieve their dreams, and (4) they encourage a system that lets the powerful and connected run roughshod over the “have nots” using the government as a weapon. It’s no wonder they want equality of result with these policies, because there won’t be any opportunity. The fact is, they hate success and they want to cap how successful you can be. And in some instances, they want to stop you from even trying to achieve your dreams in the first place. How fair is that?
And how has all of this worked out? The middle class has been crushed. Check this out.
Using official inflation figures, a dollar today is only worth 32 cents of what it was worth in 1979. That means inflation has eaten 68% of the value of the dollar in 33 years. In that time, the Middle Class has seen their median income rise only 40%. That means they’ve taken a 28% pay cut over those 33 years -- almost a percent a year. The poorest 20% of Americans have taken a 50% pay cut.
Oh, but wait! This is all the fault of Republicans slashing government spending, right? No. Government spending increased 714% in that same period. That’s right, federal spending increased more than seven times in the same period where real people took a 28-50% pay cut. Are you starting to see the problem?
If you want to know how bad this is, consider this: in 2012, Americans will pay $4 trillion in taxes. That is $152 billion MORE than they will spend on housing, food and clothing combined. That’s right, Uncle Sam is now a bigger expense in our lives than the costs of food, housing and clothing combined. So when Obama talks about tax rates being low compared to what they used to be, laugh in his lying face. Sure, rates are lower, but rates don’t tell the whole story. Rates don’t cover tariffs, fees, excise, use and sale taxes, they don’t account for disappearing and fading deductions, they ignore the alternative minimum tax, and they don’t account for a million other hidden taxes and the cost of regulations. Remember this article (LINK) which showed how the number of “economically significant” regulations being issued has been souring. An “economically significant” regulation, according to the government, is a regulation that imposes at least $100 million in annual costs on the economy. Clinton issued an average of 56 per year. “Conservative” George W. Bush issued on average 62 per year. And now his downgrade-ness is issuing on average 84 per year. Here’s a handy chart:
This represents hundreds of billions of dollars in lost freedom. Combine that with the lost income and the excessive tax burden discussed above and is it any wonder that the Middle Class is getting crushed?
As a result of this, the economy stinks. The labor participation rate, i.e. the percentage of people working, is at its lowest level since 1981, with 30 million people unemployed. According to Paul Krugman, we are in a depression. And he’s probably right. . . for a change. If you look at how the Great Depression went from 1929 to 1940, you will see a series of crashes with each followed by a sucker rally. Basically, the economy would crash 70-80% in a year, then would appear to rally for a couple years recapturing almost exactly half of what it lost, only to give it all up again and more. We seem to be in the same pattern now unless something changes.
What needs to change? How about the elimination of these regulations strangling our economy or the taxes crushing our people? No one will hire or start a new business when they know Uncle Sam is lurking out there waiting to pounce.
But hey, at least it’s fair. . . we’ll all go down together.
Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site! (Politics of Trek)
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Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The Bad News Keeps On Coming. . . For Obama
The economy is a mess. We’ve technically been out of recession since May 2009, but growth has been anemic (slightly below the long-term average) and job growth has been nonexistent. This will hurt Obama come re-election time. But “top line” economic numbers don’t bother people. What bothers people are the things that hit them personally. And that is where Obama is really hurting:
● Unemployment: The unemployment rate in February was 8.3%. That means 12.8 million people are unemployed. The actual rate is closer to 16%, which means 25 million people are unemployed. Talk all you want about growth, but as long as most people in the country know one or more of these 25 million people personally, they won’t believe things are getting better.Beyond this, seniors are worried the pension system keeps getting closer and closer to bankruptcy and Medicare barely works anymore because it's broke, the budget is out of control which is crushing consumer purchasing power and causing massive inflation, and civil servants have transformed themselves into a permanent elite class of rich, protected jerks living high on the amounts stolen from poor and middle class taxpayers. . . who aren't happy about it.
● Inflation: The official inflation rate is 2.9% in the US. But unofficially, people are recording a 12% rate. That means everyone is taking a 12% pay cut each year right now, and that’s the worst it’s been since Jimmy Carter’s era.
● Home Values: It may not be fair to blame Obama for the housing collapse, but he will still feel the heat because Americans have used their homes as a form of retirement savings. And that means people are hurting. According to Case-Shiller, which provides housing price data to the stock market, home values are at their lowest level since 2003 AND they now suspect that suburban home prices may not recover in our lifetimes. Shiller says the shift toward renting and city living could mean “that we will never in our lifetime see a rebound in these prices in the suburbs.” That’s disastrous for Obama because it means that until things change, people will feel insecure and will spend less, which depresses the economy.
● Gas Price: The biggie is gas prices. Gas currently sits at a national average of $3.90 and is expected to hit $4.25 by mid-May. Some analysts think this will go as high as $4.50 to $4.70 during the summer. Indeed, everyone is now warning that gas will keep going up until the summer is over. And while the MSM has studiously avoided letting anyone blame Obama for this, a Reuters poll shows that 68% of Americans disapprove of Obama’s handling of the issue.
What “handling” could they be upset about? Well, people overwhelmingly favor the Keystone Pipeline, they overwhelmingly favor offshore drilling, and they overwhelmingly favor fracking for natural gas. Obama has stood in the way of each.
● Utility Costs: Obama’s EPA just issued rules forcing power plants to cut their carbon emissions. This means energy costs are about to go up again, just in time for air conditioning season.
All of this is disastrous for Obama. That’s the good news.
The better news is that all of this can be fixed. . . just not by Obama. Getting spending under control will solve the budget and inflation problems. Extending the retirement age and capping benefits or running them lower than the rate of inflation will fix the pensions and Medicare issue. Gas prices can be fixed by approving more drilling and switching to natural gas. Republican attempts to break public sector unions are changing the bureaucratic landscape, and Republicans are getting the credit for things like school reform -- an area that once belonged exclusively to Democrats in voter’s minds.
Moreover, one of the biggest imbalances in our economy, the “collapse” of manufacturing is starting to right itself. First, manufacturing never collapsed. The US is still the largest or second largest manufacturer in the world depending on how you count it. Secondly, with wage inflation in China, it is now more cost efficient to open a new plant in the United States than it is to open the plant in China. And with wage growth showing no signs of stopping in China, you will soon see manufacturing return to the US.
The moral here is simple. The Democrats are doing everything wrong and are causing people genuine pain. That will ruin their election chances. And the Republicans have a chance, after the election, to set all of this right and win over the American people probably permanently. Good times will be here again!
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Thursday, September 29, 2011
The Times They Are A Changing Back
Things aren’t going well for Obama’s economic policies, and people are starting to notice. In fact, things have gone so badly that a backlash has formed and a wholesale rejection of his policies is underway. But even more than that, there seems to be a serious attitude shift in the public.After three years bankrupting the country with futile “stimulus” spending and give-aways to Obama’s supporters, our economy stinks. In fact, it’s the worst economy since the Great Depression. How bad is it? Theoretically, the recession ended in 2009 and the Obama recovery began at that point. Indeed, Team Obama twice now has heralded “the recovery summer.” And yet:How Bad Is The Obamaconomy?
● Official unemployment remains at 9.1% in August.
● Unofficial unemployment remains around 17%.
● Official black unemployment remains at 16.7%.
● Median household income is down to $49,445, below 1996 levels. In other words, fifteen years of income growth are gone.
● Inflation is officially 3.2%, but it’s really closer to 12-15%.
● There are 46.2 million people living below the poverty line ($22,314 per family). This is a record since the statistic was first kept in 1959. The poverty rate of 15.1% is also a record.
● 13.7 million Americans receive unemployment.
● 16.3% of people still have no health insurance.
● Health insurance premiums are up 9% this year, following 2010’s rise of 14%. Thanks Barack!
In 2008, when Obama came to power, the conventional wisdom assumed the public was ready to move left and accept more government control over their lives. But that didn't last. People now see the government as the problem. Indeed, not only has the public rejected Obama's agenda, but they've moved further right than ever. Consider these numbers from Gallup (which typically shades about 5% to the left):About Face!
● 57% of Americans say the federal government has too much power and only 8% think it needs more.That means 60% of the public is ready to declare an end to the Pelosi/Obama Age of Big Government (Redux). But even beyond these numbers, something else has changed.
● 56% of Americans say the federal government “is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and business.” Only 39% believe the government should do more.
● 56% want lower taxes and fewer services and only 16% want more taxes and more services.
● 50% think the government regulates too much. 23% think it regulates about right and 23% want more regulation.
When Reagan came to power, there was a sense the government had gone too far. But there seemed little appetite for wholesale butchering of government functions and agencies. It was still a world of “the government should be smaller, but don’t cut any of it.” The left used this dualism for years to justify continued spending, by claiming that people don’t really want cuts because they can’t identify anything they are willing to give up. That’s changed. Suddenly, people want it all cut. Questions like “what agency would you wipe out,” are now common topics for discussion and were even asked by an MSM journalist at the last debate -- in the past, this would have been considered fringe stuff.
Also, Republican governors are slashing budgets, cutting taxes, demanding an end to regulation, and ending collective bargaining right, and House Republicans are in near revolt to make similar changes. . . yet this isn't hurting them with the public. In fact, many of their poll numbers are up (some Democratic pollster recently noted to their chagrin that the Democrats are doing even worse now than they did in 2010). Moreover, we just aren't seeing a popular backlash like we've seen in the past when sacred cows were touched. Where are the million old people who flooded the Capitol switchboard when Republicans first proposed changes to Social Security in the 1990s? They're silent. Instead, all we've seen is professional protestors, whose buffoonish efforts achieved nothing. Heck, this trend is so obvious that even Democrats are starting to adopt similar rhetoric, without the substance of course.
Obama wanted to be an historic President, and he has been in many ways: his deficits are historic, he lost our credit rating, he’s the least popular President ever, and he’s headed for an historic beat down landslide in 2012. But his most historic achievement may ultimately be that he brought to life a change in belief in the United States away from slowly expanding the welfare state to ending it. . . i.e. he may complete Reagan's legacy!
The only question now is will the public turn out in large enough numbers to overcome those with a vested interest in big government? Someone said the other day that this election will be between those who work for a living and those who vote for a living. Workers of the world unite! ;-)
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Friday, September 9, 2011
We're Number Five! We're Number Five!
"There's no substitute for victory." "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." Outdated notions like those should not be allowed to get in the way of America's slide into mediocrity. The Obama administration put America in fourth place last year in global competitiveness. Fearing it might offend other "lesser" nations, they have succeeded this year in dropping the US to number five.In its scramble to the bottom by way of rabid egalitarianism and bureaucratic control of business and free enterprise, the Obama administration has come up with a new mantra: "It's not whether you win or lose, but how you throw the game." Switzerland came in at number one in competitiveness, again. I guess if your major attractions are chocolate, anonymous banking, cuckoo clocks and Nazi stolen art, your competition isn't going to have much of a chance.
Singapore came in second (they cane you there if you don't produce), followed by Sweden (a socialist nation, no less) which had previously held the second-place spot. America got pushed out of fourth place by economic powerhouse Finland. The rankings come from the World Economic Forum which bases its conclusions on input from 15,000 global business executives analyzing complex economic data. Don't let the Forum's headquarters in Davos, Switzerland affect your opinion of the accuracy of the survey.
The Forum has been producing these rankings for about three decades now. In almost every instance, America ranked number one. As recently as 2008, America was still number one. Refresh my memory. Did something happen in 2008? Oh, yeah, now I remember. America elected a President who had no business experience whatsoever, no executive experience outside of "community organizing," and who surrounded himself with advisers who hate capitalism.
The Obama administration has modeled its economic program after that of Greece, which is currently holding its own in 90th place. Germany, which is quickly undoing its worst democratic socialist enactments is in sixth place, shooting to push America out of the fifth position next year. Also close on America's heels are Japan, Denmark, the Netherlands and England, all of which are rapidly abandoning the policies which the Obama administration has embraced and is shoving down America's throat through legislation and executive order.
While America continues to slide, countries which were considered hopeless just a few years back are gaining. Moving up are China, Brazil, India and Russia. Though none of those four would be considered paragons of enlightened capitalism, they are moving in the opposite direction from America. While the Obamists feed bureaucratic proliferation, over-regulation and over-taxation, each of those four nations is removing its own roadblocks from the path of competitiveness. At this rate, they'll be able to abandon slave labor, forced work, starvation wages and environmental ignorance in just a few years, making them true competitors.
When the premier of China, officially still a communist nation, has to lecture the President of the United States on fiscal responsibility, poor economic conditions, high unemployment, and low productivity, it should come as no surprise that America is on a downhill slide lubricated by foreign oil. This condition gives all-new meaning to the words "slippery slope."
Perhaps Barack Obama can solve this problem by making another speech, this time in front of a joint session of Congress and the United Nations General Assembly.
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Monday, August 1, 2011
Kicking The Economy When It's Downspiraling
Kicking an economy when it’s teetering on the edge of recession is stupid. And there is no doubt that our economy is on the edge: 9% unemployment, real inflation around 12%, and less than 1% growth make that obvious. So why are the Democrats so intent on doing so much economic harm? Consider these recent events.1. The Debt Ceiling Debacle: Let’s start with the 900 pound Eledonkey in the room. If the US gets downgraded, that could be very bad. If it defaults, that would be a disaster. Here are the likely consequences of a default:
1. The obvious problems: Soldiers, retirees, and government workers won’t get paid. Good luck paying your mortgages. Government contractors won’t get paid. Here come the layoffs. Doctors won’t get paid for providing medical services under Medicare. No more health care for you! (say in Soup Nazi voice) No regulatory permits will be issued and no inspections performed, grinding a lot of our economy to a halt.The fact that the Democrats and Republicans were even playing with this over something as gimmicky as a balanced budget amendment is just infuriating. And yeah, I think the BBA is a gimmick. First, it has zero chance of becoming law because there are enough liberal states to block it. . . they might as well have argued over banning the letter Z from our language. Secondly, even if it somehow forbade taxes (which it can’t), it can be cheated by just playing with the numbers. . . “oh, we’re expecting 14% growth this year!” This was all for show, and yet the Democrats and Republicans played chicken over it. And since the Democrats knew it was a meaningless provision, they played chicken over something of no value -- that's called "spite."
2. The dollar will collapse. This may not sound like a big deal until you realize this will cause the price of gas and food to rise. New mortgage rates will shoot up, as will ARM mortgages. This will kill the struggling housing market and cause more defaults. Credit card interest will go up too as will the rate on car loans. Think of all this as a likely $200-$300 a month tax hike on your average consumer.
3. The stock market lost 5% of its value last week. A real default would be much worse. Part of the problem is that if US debt is downgraded, then many pension funds (which actually hold most US debt) will need to dump those bonds because they are required by their charters to hold investments with certain ratings. Essentially, you would see a panic in the market as pension funds all dumped their bonds in a panic. This would cripple private sector pensions. A downgrade will also raise the cost of borrowing for the government, making our debt problems much worse.
What’s more, the Democrats initially held up this deal because they wanted to impose a trillion dollars in new taxes on the economy. W.T.F.? What do you think the effect of a trillion dollar tax hike would be on the economy? Idiots.
Fortunately, it looks less likely that we will default (he wrote optimistically the night before the vote), though considerable damage has already been done. Yet, there is still a high likelihood of a downgrade because not only were the idiots playing chicken with the default, but neither side even bothered to come up with a plan that is likely to stave off a downgrade. A downgrade won’t be as bad as a default, but it could still lead to numbers 2 and 3 above to various degrees. So if you find yourself paying $6 a gallon for gas, if your house continues to lose value, or if your retirement fund loses 1/3 of its value, that’s why.
2. CAFE Standards: In the middle of this insanity, Obama is moving to raise car fuel efficiency standards. Oh heck yeah! That’s just what I would have done. . . if I was an idiot. While we're busy raising the price of cars, maybe we can also impose a “you’re not dead yet?” tax on our car companies!
3. Medical Device Taxes: The new medical device tax in ObamaCare won’t kick in until 2013, but it’s got its first job casualty. Interestingly, when this thing was passed, the “experts” assured us that no one in the industry would ever try to avoid this tax. After all, it’s only a 2.3% tax. No one would try to avoid that, right?
Last week, GE announced that it’s moving its X-ray business headquarters to China. GE, you might recall, is run by Obama’s jobs czar Jeffrey Immelt, and has a track record of (1) shipping American jobs to China, (2) paying NO tax despite record profits, and (3) getting waivers from Obama for regulations GE itself lobbied for. Well, they agreed to this device tax and now they are moving their X-ray HQ. But don’t worry, they tell us, this has nothing to do with the tax and they aren’t killing any jobs here. No siree. . . but they are investing $2 billion in China including $500 million in research centers, including an X-ray R&D center. So while it’s true they aren’t killing any jobs here yet, they are instead making new ones in China instead of here. And you can be sure that avoiding the new tax was part of the equation.
As an interesting aside, GE makes a very cheap portable X-ray machine for the third world. However, they don’t sell those in the US. . . because it would hurt their more expensive products. Boycott GE.
4. The War With Amazon: Finally, I’ll talk more about this later in the week, but various states are at war with online retails. They desperately want to tax them. Now Senate Democrats are looking to impose national sales taxes on those retailers as a protectionist measure to help local retailers. They apparently think now is a great time to tax consumers.
Do you see a pattern here?
Keep this in mind the next time the Democrats talk about creating jobs or protecting the middle class.
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Wednesday, July 27, 2011
So Obama Must Be A Racist Then, Right?
Obama must be a racist. How do I know? Well, that’s what the MSM usually tells us about Republican Presidents when they find some indication that minorities didn’t do as well as whites while that President was in office. . . like now. Indeed, financially, blacks are getting killed under Obama. Hence, the MSM will soon declare Obama a racist, right?Here’s what I’m talking about. According to recent economic analysis, the “wealth gap,” i.e. the difference between the net worth of whites and the net worth of blacks has expanded greatly under Obama. It now stands at a difference of 20 times, meaning that whites are on average worth 20 times more than blacks. Under the evil Ronald Reagan, this was only 12-1, yet he was declared racist because of it.
What’s more, 35% of blacks have zero net worth, compared to 15% of whites. And black poverty has reached 14.3%, the highest number since the 1960s when LBJ began his Great (Destruction Of) Society program.
There are several reasons for this economic disparity, all having to do with the choices blacks make. For example, blacks are much more likely to work for the government. When this recession began, it was mainly white males who were laid off because they work in the kinds of fields that were hurt the quickest by the recession, e.g. trucking. But as the economy recovered, many of those white males found work again. But just as the honkeys were finding jobs, the budget crises experienced by the states caused them to start laying off government workers. These are predominantly women and blacks. Thus, what the MSM snickered at as the “mancession” has turned into something the MSM now considers horrible as women and blacks have (net) lost many more jobs than white males. . . over a million net.
Secondly, while blacks get more degrees per capita than any other race, they do it in fields that don’t lead to employment. They specifically avoid things like science and engineering degrees. Thus, they limit their economic potential.
Third, and most importantly in this case, blacks tend to invest all their savings in buying a home, whereas whites are more likely to invest in 401ks and other stock portfolios in addition to buying a home. Thus, while everyone was hit when the bottom fell out of the housing market, blacks were much more severely affected because that’s where all their assets were. By comparison, whites suffered when the stock market collapsed, but the market has returned to pre-crash levels. Homes continue to fall in value.
That’s really what’s going on here, not racism. But that never stopped the MSM from tarring Republican Presidents with the label.
And admittedly, Obama is not without blame. It’s Obama’s horrid job killing policies that have led to 16.2% unemployment among blacks. Black teenagers face an unemployment rate of 49.4%.
We also should not forget that blacks have stopped gaining on whites in schools under Obama. The achievement gap is about 28 points out of 500, and half of blacks still drop out before finishing high school. Of course, there are many causes for this too. According to some education nonprofit groups who have studied the issue, one of the big causes is that: “African-American students are less likely than their white counterparts to be taught by teachers who know their subject matter.” Still, that can hardly be blamed on Obama and his teachers unions friends, can it?
Nope, none of this is Obama’s fault.
Still, can you image what the papers would look like if Obama had been a Republican and these numbers were released?
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Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Dancing On The (Debt) Ceiling
I MAY owe Mitch McConnell an apology. I’m not sure yet. I’ve been looking into this whole debt ceiling thing and I’m actually starting to see the cleverness in his plan, especially compared to the alternatives. Wanna talk about the debt ceiling? You know you do. Don’t worry, I’ll make this as painless as possible.Ok, here are some basics.
1. The debt ceiling was first put in place by statute in 1939 by the Public Debt Act, which set the maximum amount the government could borrow. This number has been raised many times and currently stands at $14.294 trillion. . . roughly 4 trillion Big Macs.
2. The government will break through this ceiling on August 2 like a clown bursting out of a cake. . . hmmm, cake.
3. Everyone has a plan for dealing with this.
● the Do Nothing Plan: Do nothing. Kind of self-explanatory. Of course, this means that 80 million people won’t be getting their checks, and our cost of borrowing will go up, and a bunch of investment stuff with explode like a Congressman in a microwave.When I first heard the McConnell Plan, it sounded downright stooopid. As filtered by the press, McConnell was proposing to give Obama the power to raise the debt ceiling. If Congress wanted to stop him, they would need to pass a law stopping him. Since he could veto it, that meant Congress needed 2/3 support to stop him. . . and that ain't gonna happen.
● the Dumb~ss Plan: S&P and Moodys want Congress to eliminate the debt ceiling, which would be like parking your armored car at a thieves convention.● the Double Dumb~ss Plan: Bill Clinton thinks Obama should just declare himself king and say that he has the power to raise the debt ceiling. Clinton also thinks yer kinda sexy.
● The Tom Coburn Plan: Tom Coburn is ready to do some serious cutting. He proposes $9 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years. This would include a trillion from the Pentagon budget, modernizing military health care, significant reforms of Social Security and Medicare, and the elimination of “corporate welfare” through the elimination of subsidies (e.g. ethanol and targeted tax credits) and many deductions. Grover Norquist (which I swear is the name of a Muppet) says: “it is now clear Sen. Coburn’s plan all along was a trillion dollar tax hike. . . [I have you now Coburn, there's no escaping the Grovernator]!”
● The Gang of Six: This group of reprobates are proposing a $3.4 trillion plan that isn't a real plan. It goes a little something like this.(1) Find $500 billion in cuts now, mainly by reducing the cost of living increase for Social Security. Impose spending caps until 2015, freeze congressional pay and sell unused federal property. . . like Hawaii.● the Tea Party Plan: The House just passed a really cool bill (Cut, Cap and Balance Bill) that does a lot of cutting ($5.8 trillion), would require a balanced budget amendment, and doesn’t raise taxes and it’s really cool and I like it a lot and stuff. . . but it’s D.O.A. at the Senate. Move along, nothing to see here.
(2) Within 6 months come up with a plan to find more cuts.
They also suggest guidelines like simplifying the tax code by making three brackets (8-12%, 14-22%, 23-29%), setting the corporate tax at 23-29%, and eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax (which sucks when it hits you. . . “what do you mean my deductions don’t count?! Alternative what?! Did I step into an alternative reality? If that’s true, then where’s my beard Mr. IRS ‘you owe us’ letter?! Where's my beard?!”).
Beyond that, this is just a plan to work on things... kind of like the Underwear Gnomes on South Park.
● the McConnell Plan: Finally, we come to the McConnell Plan.
The purpose of this plan seemed to be to let Obama get his debt ceiling increase, while claiming the Republicans tried to stop him, without actually stopping him. I was not pleased. And seeing Nancy Pelosi clapping her hands over this like one of those monkey toys with the symbols made me even more suspicious. If Pelosi likes it, it can’t be good.Then I heard more details of exactly what McConnell is proposing. Apparently, to raise the debt ceiling, Obama also would need to recommend $1 of spending cuts for every dollar he wants to raise the debt ceiling. Now that is a horse of a different shade of green. That would mean for Obama to get a $1 trillion extension to the national credit line, he would need to propose $1 trillion in cuts. Wow! Me likely!
Not only would this mean Obama would be the one responsible for raising the debt limit (as he could avoid it by offering cuts instead), but he would also be forced to make cuts. Cuts which his peeps will absolutely hate! What’s more, the Republicans can vote against those cuts (claiming they would have made different cuts) because Obama has more than enough Democrats to let his veto survive!
Now, there are some caveats here. First, I think the Republicans need to send a series of budget cuts to him and have him veto those first -- as a showing to the public that they tried to get cuts. Secondly, they need to be very careful in how they write this. It better not include any chance of him raising taxes or this will go over like a lead balloon with the public (although... it might be a good way to let him do some of the dirty work of tax simplification to keep the Grover Norquists off Republican backs).
At this point, we don’t know exactly what the deal entails, but this may actually be a smart plan. Hence Obama and the monkey with the clap (Pelosi) are now rooting for the gang of six proposal instead (Reid doesn’t like it).
Stay tuned.
There... that wasn’t so bad was it? If you have any complaints, please leave them below.
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Thursday, July 14, 2011
Businesses Flee California!!
In the 1990s, Colorado found itself awash in Californians. It was like a flood and it did as much damage. In fact, we still haven’t recovered. What sent these people East was the horrible business climate California had created, which drove businesses from the state. Well, things have only gotten worse and now some of the hardest-core hard-core liberal companies are fleeing. . . tech companies.California has been ranked by Chief Executive magazine as the worst place to do business for seven years running. High taxes, insane regulations, aggressive regulators, and a failed “government” which couldn’t run a hot dog stand have contributed to what Chief Executive magazine describes thusly: “California, once a business friendly state, continues to conduct a war on its own economy.”
Says one relocation expert: “There is a feeling that the state is not stable. Sacramento can't get its act together and that includes the governor, legislators and regulatory agencies that are running wild.” So California gangs invented “wilding” and California regulators brought it into government.
As a result, companies are fleeing California at a rate five times greater than just two years ago. According to relocation specialists, the top states California companies choose are Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Virginia and North Carolina. Utah, which actively sends representatives to poach California companies, touts stable government, balanced budgets, a AAA debt rating, lower taxes, lower real estate costs, lower utility costs, lower living expenses and all around better quality of life. Arizona’s Commerce Authority is pushing its lower workers compensation and unemployment taxes and offers incentive packages to relocate.
Even those who aren’t leaving the state entirely are choosing to establish new division or facilities elsewhere rather than expand in California. PayPal just opened a new 2,000-job facility in Arizona. eBay sent 1,000 jobs to Texas and is expanding in Utah. Electronic Arts and Adobe are both expanding in Utah. Feel Golf, owner of Pro Line Sports, is moving entirely to Florida.
Said one CEO about California: “The whole state is a bureaucratic Santa Claus.”
BUT wait. . . . California isn’t going down without a fight. No, no, no. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsome is developing a plan. First, he intends to sit down with executives to hear their complaints. . . because he really has NO IDEA what could possibly be upsetting them. Then he’s going to study “the best practices of other states” to see how they taxed and regulated themselves to prosperity. He’s already visited Texas. Then he’s going to focus on the state’s “premier industries,” which he identifies as biotechnology, agriculture and digital media -- the rest of you can pound sand. Finally, he will “highlight the state’s strengths in innovation and research.”
Allow me to translate. Gavin Newsom doesn’t have a clue how business works but he needs to look like he cares. Forming a fact finding commission is a great way to waste time while appearing diligent. So he will meet with top contributors and fly to other states on junkets disguised as “fact finding missions,” where he will hear what he wants to hear. . . which is that the Democratic "tax, regulate and spend like the criminally insane" policy is the only way to bring prosperity. Then he will lecture the evil business community about how great California is and demand they swear allegiance to California. Finally, he’ll get some more money for “innovation” in the budget. Problem solved. California will bloom!
Yes, good things are coming to California. . . just you wait.
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