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This page is graphically intense with long load times due to photos. However, the photos and narratives makes the wait well worthwhile. The opinions expressed are those of the author and in no way represents the opinions of others.

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If you wish to listen to some golden oldies from 1940s-1990s, click on the selection on the list below. There are about 80 full-length songs to choose from. (NOTE: Song audio degraded due to space limitations, but adequate for computer listening.) Click For Music 1940s: Billie Holiday_As Time Goes By 1940s: Kate Smith_God Bless America 1940s: Mills Brothers_Glow Worm 1950s: Big Bopper_Chantilly Lace 1950s: Bill Haley Comets_Youre Never Too Old To Rock 1950s: Coasters_Yakety Yak 1950s: Danny And TheJuniors_At The Hop 1950s: Del Shannon_Handyman 1950s: Doris Day_By The Light Of The Silvery Moon 1950s: Fats Domino_I Hear You Knockin 1950s: Freddie Canon_Palisades Park 1950s: Nat King Cole_Ramblin Rose 1950s: Pat Boone_Love Letters In The Sand 1950s: Red Skelton_Pledge Of Allegiance 1950s: Ricky Nelson_Listen To The Rhythm Of The Falling Rain 1950s: Ritchie Valens_Boney Maronie 1950s: Ritchie Valens_Donna 1950s: Ritchie Valens_LaBamba 1960s: Beach Boys_Surfin USA 1960s: Beach Boys_Barbara Ann 1960s: Beatles_Strawberry Fields Forever 1960s: Bobby Vee_Go Away Little Girl 1960s: Chubby Checker_The Twist 1960s: Chuck Berry_Johnny Be Good 1960s: Crosby Stills Nash_Teach Your Children 1960s: Dean Martin_Make The World Go Away 1960s: Elvis Presley_Blue Suede Shoes 1960s: Elvis Presley_Love Me Tender 1960s: Harry Belafonte_Day O 1960s: James Darren_Goodbye Cruel World 1960s: Johnny Mathis_Chances Are 1960s: Kingsman_Louie Louie 1960s: Marcels_Blue Moon 1960s: Marvin Gaye_Lets Get It On 1960s: Paul Anka_Put Your Head On My Shoulder 1960s: Harry Belafonte_Day O 1960s: Righteous Brothers_Youve Lost That Loving Feeling 1960s: Johnny Mathis_Chances Are 1960s: Peter Paul Mary_The Marvelous Toy 1960s: Roy Orbison_Only The Lonely 1960s: Roy Orbison_Pretty Woman 1960s: Sam The Sham_Wooly Bully 1960s: Shirelles_Soldier Boy 1960s: Silhouettes_Get AJ ob 1960s: Simon And Garfunkel_Bridge Over Troubled Waters 1960s: Thunderbirds_Hippy Hippy Shake 1960s: Tony Bennett_San Francisco 1960s: Ventures_Apache 1970s: Bette Midler_The Rose 1970s: Cher_If I Could Turn Back Time 1970s: Commodores_Three Times A Lady 1970s: Crystal Gayle_Ill Do It All Over Again 1970s: Dione Warwick_Ill Never Love This Way Again 1970s: Engelbert Humperdink_Release Me 1950s: Fleetwoods_Mr Blue 1970s: Lovin Spoonful_Rain On The Roof 1970s: Mamas And Papas_Age Of Aquarius 1970s: Mamas And Papas_California Dreaming 1970s: Mamas And Papas_Monday Monday 1970s: Tina Turner_Whats Love Got To Do With It 1970s: Tony Orlando And Dawn_Tie A Yellow Ribbon 1970s: Troggs_Wild Thing 1980s: Aaron Neville Linda Ronstadt_All My Life 1980s: Bruce Springsteen_Born In The USA 1980s: Kenny Loggins_Footloose 1980s: Kim Carnes_Betty Davis Eyes 1980s: Kris Kristofferson_Loving Her Was Easier 1980s: Lee Greenwood_God Bless The USA 1980s: LindaRonstadt_Desperado 1980s: Linda Ronstadt_Thatll Be The Day 1980s: Marie Osmond Dan Seals_Meet Me In Montana 1980s: Michael Jackson_Billie Jean 1980s: Michael Jackson_You Are Not Alone 1980s: Michael Jackson And Friends_We Are The World 1980s: Michael Jackson_Ill Be There 1980s: Phil Collins_In The Air Tonight 1980s: Ricky Nelson_Garden Party 1980s: Ronnie Milsap_Lost In The 50s Tonight 1990s: Kenny G_Auld Lang Syne 1990s: Luther Vandross_Id Rather 1990s: Ricky Martin_Livin La Vida Loca Free JavaScripts provided by The JavaScript Source

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OBAMANATION CHRONICLES BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA: TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM ECONOMY 2009 - 2010

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This is a work in progress. Graphic intensive with long load times because of photos.

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President-elect Barack Obama's economic team is considering an economic-stimulus program that will be far larger than the two-year, half-trillion-dollar plan under consideration two weeks ago, according to people familiar with the team's thinking. The president-elect is expected to be briefed on the broad parameters of the plan next week, with aides still hoping for Congress to pass a bill by the time Mr. Obama takes office Jan. 20.

With the unemployment rate now expected to hit 9% without aggressive intervention, Obama aides and advisers have set $600 billion over two years as "a very low-end estimate," one person familiar with the matter said. The final number is expected to be significantly higher, possibly between $700 billion and $1 trillion over two years.

Transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter denied any decisions have been made on the scope of the plan. "Any speculation on size or scope is premature at this time," she said. On the upper bounds, liberal economists in the team have staked out $600 billion in the first year and $300 billion to $600 billion in the second, depending on economic conditions in 2010. Incoming Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said early this week he had tasked National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers to sound out conservative and liberal economists on their views.

The general sense among economists being canvassed by the Obama team is that "every day there's a new bad number," one of the people familiar with the matter said. "And people's sense of what the appropriate stimulus is rises" with the news. (Source: Wall Street Journal.)

Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Laura Tyson, who served as Clinton's top economic adviser; former Fed Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson; Time Warner Inc. Chairman Richard Parsons; former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman William Donaldson and Xerox Corp. Chief Executive Officer Anne Mulcahy. Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and Roel Campos, an ex-SEC commissioner, and Warren Buffett are also on the advisory board.

Congressional Democrats are scaling back plans for an economic-stimulus package as partisan deadlock clouds chances for passage of either that measure or a proposed bailout of Detroit's auto makers until the party's enlarged majority convenes in January.Democratic leaders want to move legislation that would give a jobs-producing jolt to the economy. They also support proposals to toss a $25 billion financial lifeline to Detroit. But it isn't clear either of those steps can pass before January, when President-elect Barack Obama and a new, more heavily Democratic Congress take office. The biggest problem is in the Senate, where Democrats have only a 51-49 edge until year's end. The Bush administration is balking at the Democratic agenda, and Republicans in the House and Senate are growing more vocal about their concerns, especially concerning the auto package .... "We want to see more progress," Mr. Dodd said, adding he is prepared to legislate -- "now, if possible" -- to address the problem. Democratic leaders are discussing action on a stimulus package that would be less ambitious than the $61 billion proposal that failed in the Senate earlier this fall. The new measure would extend jobless benefits, but propose more-modest investments than previously sought for things such as road and bridge construction, aid to states and food assistance for low-income families.(Source: Wall Street Journal.)



Obama pushes economic plan (Nov 2008) President-elect Obama yesterday urged Congress to get moving next week on an economic rescue plan that would extend jobless benefits among other actions. "If Congress does not pass an immediate plan that gives the economy the boost it needs, I will make it my first order of business as president," Obama said in his Democratic Party's weekly radio address. Obama said he was pleased President George W. Bush brought world leaders to Washington to discuss turmoil in the financial markets, "because our global economic crisis requires a coordinated global response." He said that he was crafting an aggressive, two-year stimulus plan to revive the troubled economy, warning that swift action was needed to prevent a deep slump and a spiral of falling prices.

The president-elect emphasized the importance of creating U.S. jobs and helping to relieve the nation's economic distress. "Digging the country out of tough times will require people to pitch in and look after each other, in addition to long-term investments such as making health care affordable and rebuilding the nation's infrastructure," he said.

"Make no mistake: This is the greatest economic challenge of our times," Obama said. "And while the road ahead will be long and the work will be hard, I know that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis because here in America we always rise to the moment, no matter how hard." The radio address also was videotaped and posted online through a YouTube link to Obama's transition Web site, change.gov. Before Obama speaks directly into the camera, the words "Your weekly address from the president-elect" flash across the screen. (Source: Boston Herald.)

President-elect Barack Obama on 22 Nov outlined his plan to create 2.5 million jobs in coming years to rebuild roads and bridges and modernize schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars. "These aren't just steps to pull ourselves out of this immediate crisis; these are the long-term investments in our economic future that have been ignored for far too long," Obama said in the weekly Democratic radio address.

The economic recovery plan being developed by his staff aims to create 2.5 million jobs by January 2011, and he wants to get it through Congress quickly and sign it soon after taking office. However, critics say "big deal" -- that's as good as George Bush. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/ces/#tables, employees on non-farm payrolls numbered 131,785,000 in 2000 and 137,623,000 in 2007 (the last year of available data). That is an average of 834,000 new jobs per year, even through the 2001 recession, 9/11 and Katrina. If we use a base year of 2003 instead, at 129,999,000 jobs, the average number of new jobs per year was 1,906,000. .2011 is three years from now. Given Bush's rate of job creation, there would be 2,502,000 to 5,708,000 new jobs created by 2011. (Source: American Thinker.)

Facing an increasingly ominous economic outlook, President-elect Barack Obama and other Democrats are rapidly ratcheting up plans for a massive fiscal stimulus program that could total as much as $700 billion over the next two years. That amount, more than the nation has spent over the past six years in Iraq, would rival the sum Congress committed last month to rescuing the country's financial system. It would also be one of the biggest public spending programs aimed at jolting the economy since President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.

Hints of a hefty new spending program began emerging last week. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D), an Obama adviser, and Harvard economist Lawrence H. Summers, whom Obama has chosen to lead his White House economic team, both raised the possibility of $700 billion in new spending. Yesterday, Obama adviser and former Clinton administration Labor secretary Robert Reich and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) also called for spending in the range of $500 billion to $700 billion.

The plan would include new funding for public-works projects to repair the nation's crumbling infrastructure, as well as a fresh infusion of cash to promote green technology and alternative-energy sources. It also would include targeted tax cuts for working families, students, the elderly and job-creating businesses that Obama touted on the campaign trail. (Source: Washington Post.)

Obama Can't Double-Talk Us Out Of This

By Robert Samuelson | Posted Friday, March 06, 2009 4:20 PM PT

To those who believe that Barack Obama is a different kind of politician — more honest, more courageous — please don't examine his administration's budget.

If you do, you may sadly conclude that he resembles presidents stretching back to John Kennedy in one crucial respect. He won't tax voters for all the government services they want.

That's the main reason we've run budget deficits in 43 of the past 48 years.

Obama is a great pretender. He repeatedly says he's doing things that he isn't, trusting his powerful rhetoric to obscure the difference. He has made "responsibility" a personal theme; the budget's cover line is "A New Era of Responsibility." He says the budget begins "making the tough choices necessary to restore fiscal discipline." It doesn't.

With today's depressed economy, big deficits are unavoidable for some years. But let's assume that Obama wins re-election. By his last year, 2016, the economy presumably will have long recovered. What does his final budget look like?

Well, it runs a $637 billion deficit, equal to 3.2% of GDP, projects Obama's Office of Management and Budget. That would match Ronald Reagan's last deficit, 3.1% of GDP in 1988, so fiercely criticized by Democrats.

As a society, we should pay in taxes what it costs government to provide desired services. If benefits don't seem equal to burdens, then the spending isn't worth having (exceptions: deficits in wartime and economic slumps).

If Obama were "responsible," he would conduct a candid conversation about the role of government. Who deserves support and why? How big can government grow before higher taxes and deficits harm economic growth?

Although Obama claims to be doing this, he hasn't confronted entitlement psychology — the belief that government benefits once conferred should never be revoked.

Is it in the public interest for the well-off elderly (say, a couple with $125,000 of income) to be subsidized, through Social Security and Medicare, by poorer young and middle-aged workers? Are any farm subsidies justified when they aren't essential for food production? We wouldn't starve without them.

Given an aging America, government faces huge conflicts between spending on the elderly and spending on everything else. But even before most baby boomers retire (in 2016, only a quarter will have reached 65), Obama's government would have grown.

In 2016, federal spending is projected to be 22.4% of GDP, up from 21% in 2008; federal taxes will be 19.2% of GDP, up from 17.7%.

It would also be "responsible" for Obama to acknowledge the big gamble in his budget. National security has long been government's first job. In his budget, defense spending drops from 20% of the total in 2008 to 14% in 2016, the smallest share since the 1930s. The decline presumes a much safer world. If the world doesn't cooperate, deficits would grow.

The gap between Obama rhetoric and Obama reality transcends the budget, as do the consequences. In 2009, the stock market has declined 23.78% (through March 5), says Wilshire Associates. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page blames Obama's policies for all the fall. That's unfair; the economy's deterioration was a big cause. Still, Obama isn't blameless.

Confidence (too little) and uncertainty (too much) define this crisis. Obama's double talk reduces the first and raises the second.

He says he's focused on reviving the economy, but he's also using the crisis to advance an ambitious long-term agenda. The two sometimes collide. The $787 billion "stimulus" is weaker than necessary, because almost $200 billion for extended projects (high-speed rail, computerized medical records) take effect after 2010.

When Congress debates Obama's sweeping health care and energy proposals, industries, regions and governmental philosophies will clash. Will this improve confidence? Reduce uncertainty?

A prudent president would have made a "tough choice" — concentrating on the economy and deferring his more contentious agenda.

Similarly, Obama claims to seek bipartisanship but, in reality, doesn't. His bipartisanship consists of including a few Republicans in his Cabinet and inviting some Republican congressmen to the White House for the Super Bowl.

It does not consist of fashioning proposals that would attract bipartisan support on their merits. Instead, he clings to dubious, partisan policies (mortgage cram-down, union checkoff) that arouse fierce opposition.

Obama thinks he can ignore these blatant inconsistencies. Like many smart people, he believes he can talk his way around problems. Maybe. He's helped by much of the media, who seem so enthralled with him that they don't see glaring contradictions.

During the campaign, Obama said he would change Washington's petty partisanship; he also advocated a highly partisan agenda. Both claims could not be true. The media barely noticed; the same obliviousness persists. But Obama still runs a risk: that his overworked rhetoric loses its power and boomerangs on him. (Source: Washington Post: IBD.)

What caused our financial problems????

By Investor's Business Daily

Jimmy Carter became our 39th president at the young age of 52. He was a one-term governor from Plains, GA, where he managed the family peanut farm and taught Sunday school. He was also a graduate of the Naval Academy and served seven years in the Navy, leaving as a lieutenant.

He came to power in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the resignation of President Nixon. The public wanted change and someone new, and Carter was an ambitious, hands-on politician who promised better days. As good as his intentions were, however, the things he tried were not successful. In fact, he created far more serious problems than he ever solved.

The centerpiece of Carter's foreign policy was human rights, and he did achieve one noble success - a peace treaty between Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin.

Unfortunately, that later led to Sadat's assassination at the hands of Muslim radicals.

Many people felt Carter was a good man who worked hard and meant well. But he was naive and incompetent in handling the enormous burdens and complex challenges of being president.

He wrongly believed Americans had an "inordinate fear of communism," so he lifted travel bans to Cuba, North Vietnam and Cambodia and pardoned draft evaders. He also stopped B-1 bomber production and gave away our strategically located Panama Canal.

His most damaging miscalculation was the withdrawal of U.S. support for the Shah of Iran, a strong and longtime military ally. Carter objected to the Shah's alleged mistreatment of imprisoned Soviet spies who were working to overt hrow Iran's government. He thought the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, being a religious man, would make a fairer leader.

Having lost U.S. support, the Shah was overthrown, the Ayatollah returned, Iran was declared an Islamic nation and Palestinian hit men were hired to eliminate opposition.

The Ayatollah then introduced the idea of suicide bombers to the Palestine Liberation Organization, paying $35,000 to PLO families whose young people were brainwashed to kill as many Israelis as possible by blowing themselves up in crowded shopping areas.

Next, the Ayatollah used Iran's oil wealth to create, train and finance a new terrorist organization, Hezbollah, which later would attack Israel in 2006.

In November 1979, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Not until six months into the ordeal did Carter attempt a rescue. But the mission, using just six Navy helicopter s, was poorly executed. Three of the copters were disabled or lost in sandstorms. (Pilots weren't allowed to meet with weather forecasters because someone in authority worried about security.) Five airmen and three Marines lost their lives.

So, due to overconfidence, inexperience and poor judgment, Carter undermined and lost a strong ally, Iran, that today aggressively threatens the U.S., Israel and the rest of the world with nuclear weapons.

But that's not all. After Carter met for the first time with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the USSR promptly invaded Afghanistan. Carter, ever the naive appeaser, was shocked. "I can't believe the Russians lied to me," he said.

The invasion attracted a 23-year-old Saudi named Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan to recruit Muslim fighters and raise money for an anti-Soviet jihad. Part of that group eventually became al-Qaida, a terrorist organization that would declare war on America several times between 1 996 and 1998 before attacking us on 9/11, killing more Americans than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

On Carter's watch, the Soviet Union went on an unrestrained rampage in which it took over not only Afghanistan, but also Ethiopia, South Yemen, Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, Grenada and Nicaragua.

In spite of this, Carter's last defense budget proposed spending 45% below pre-Vietnam levels for fighter aircraft, 75% for ships, 83% for attack submarines and 90% for helicopters.

Years later, as a civilian, Carter negotiated a peace agreement with North Korea to keep that communist country from developing nuclear weapons. He also convinced President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to go along with it. But the signed piece of paper proved worthless. The North Koreans deceived Carter and instead use d our money, incentives and technical equipment to build nuclear weapons and pose the threat we face today.

Thus did Carter unwittingly become our Neville Chamberlain, creating with his well-intended but inept, unrealistic and gullible actions the very conditions that led to the three most dangerous security threats we face today: Iran, al-Qaida and North Korea.

On the domestic side, Carter gave us inflation of 15%, the highest in 34 years; interest rates of 21%, the highest in 115 years; and a severe energy crisis with lines around the block at gas stations nationwide. In 1977, Carter, along with a Democrat Congress, created a worthy project with noble intentions -- the Community Reinvestment Act. Over strong industry objections, it mandated that all banks meet the credit needs of their entire communities.

In 1995, President Clinton imposed even stronger regulations and performance tests that coerced banks to substantially increase loans to low-income, poverty-area borrowers or face fines or possible restrictions on expansion. These revisions allowed for securitization of CRA loans containing sub prime mortgages.

By 1997, good loans were bundled with poor ones and sold as prime packages to institutions here and abroad. That shifted risk from the loan originators, freeing banks to begin pyramiding and make more of these profitable sub prime products.

VIDEO: News report of who REALLY caused the crisis faced today and how George Bush and John McCain tried to warn America. However, Barney Franks denied the state of urgency to curtail Fannie Mae -- and the Democrats set up the current crisis.


VIDEO: VIDEO EVIDENCE that the Clinton administration admitting their policy of "BANK AFFIRMATIVE ACTION". Secretary Cuomo admits they forced banks to make BAD LOANS. (6 Apr 1998) The Obama admits his involvement.

VIDEO: 2004 Hearing where BLACK Democrats blame any failings of Fannie Mae on the Regulators -- but protecting Fannie Mae lending to unqualified loans. Regulators (OFAR) raising issue of Fannie Mae soundness -- including excessive bonuses. Barney Franks defends Fannie Mae saying there is nothing wrong with Fannie Mae. BLACK Frank Raines, Fannie Mae Chairman, cooked the books to line his pocket. BLACK Democrat Maxine Waters praises Raines. Republicans outrage amounts to nothing. (SITE NOTE: SEE Maxine Waters Answers Bank Bailout Questions Rep. Waters, D-Inglewood, denied any wrongdoing amid reports her husband had financial ties to a bank she helped request $50 million in bailout funds. The New York Times reported that Treasury Department officials were taken aback that Waters requested a meeting in September on behalf of executives at Boston-based OneUnited, because her husband, Sidney Williams, had served on the bank's board until early last year and has owned at least $250,000 of its stock. With branches in Los Angeles and Miami, OneUnited is one of the nation's largest black-owned banks.)

Under two young, well-intended presidents, therefore, big-government plans and mandates played a significant role in the current sub-prime mortgage mess and its catastrophic consequences for the U.S. and international economies.

Hardest-hit by the mortgage foreclosures have been the citizens that Democrats always claim to help most -- inner-city residents who fell victim to low or no down payment schemes, unexpected adjustable rates, deceptive loan applications and commission-hungry salespeople.

Now we're having to bail out at huge cost Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the very agencies that were supposed to stabilize the system. In time, this should improve the situation. But the party of Carter and Clinton that midwifed our mortgage mess now wants to be trusted to take over and have the government run our entire system of health care! And everyone is blaming Bush for our current problems. (Source: IBD.)

Today, Social Security’s revenues each year are greater than its outlays, but as the baby-boom generation (people born between 1946 and 1964) continues to age, growth in the number of Social Security beneficiaries will accelerate, and outlays will grow substantially faster than revenues. CBO projects that outlays will first exceed revenues in 2019 and that the Social Security trust funds will be exhausted in 2049.2 If the law remains unchanged, the Social Security Administration (SSA) will then no longer have the legal authority to pay full benefits.

This analysis shows that, based on historical data, the probability of a shock as severe as embodied in the riskbased capital standard is substantially less than one in 500,000 – and may be smaller than one in three million.20 Given the low probability of the stress test shock occurring, and assuming that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hold sufficient capital to withstand that shock, the exposure of the government to the risk that the GSEs will become insolvent appears quite low.

Given the extremely small probability of default by the GSEs, the expected monetary costs of exposure to GSE insolvency are relatively small — even given very large levels of outstanding GSE debt and assuming that the government would bear the costs of all GSE debt in the case of insolvency. For example, if the probability of the stress test conditions occurring is less than one in 500,000, and if the GSEs hold sufficient capital to withstand the stress test, the implication is that the expected cost to the government of providing an explicit government guarantee on $1 trillion in GSE debt is just $2 million.

Two other points are worth noting. First, analysis of the risks posed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must carefully consider the alternatives. In the absence of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, mortgage risk would likely be held by large banks and other types of financial institutions, which themselves benefit from the perception that they are “too big to fail.” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are among the largest financial institutions in the country. Even in the absence of a GSE charter it is likely that they would continue to benefit from their size, since the government has intervened on behalf of other large institutions in the past.21 …

To be sure, it is difficult to analyze extremely low-probability events, such as the one embodied in the stress test. Even if the analysis is off by an order of magnitude, however, the expected cost to the government is still very modest.

Who funded that incisive look into the risk of collapse at Fannie Mae? Er … Fannie Mae. How did that prediction work out? About as well as his Social Security projections from just seven months ago.

This is the quality of financial projections Democrats have provided over the last few years, and now we have Orszag in charge of the budget. Yesterday we pointed out the fact that even Orszag’s sunny predictions of the deficit over the next 12 years exceeds anything seen during the Bush administration — and now he’s lost the Social Security surplus for those years to mask even bigger deficits. (Source: Hot Air: ED MORRISSEY.)

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May 2009

Can Obama Be Called an Economic Facist? (May 2009) It is dangerous in this day and age to use the word "fascism" lightly. Liberals sling around the term "fascism" without regard to its meeting -- for the left, "fascism" applies to everything from religious social perspectives to conservative tax cut prescriptions. But economic fascism has a precise, defined meaning. And Barack Obama's economic policy fulfills that meaning in every conceivable way.

Economic fascism can be defined as government control over the four P's: Product, Price, Profit Margin, and People. When the government controls the product created by the market, when it controls the price structure for product and company securities, when it controls how much profit particular companies can make, and when it controls the people who are hired and fired, economic freedom has been banished, and economic fascism reigns supreme.

And economic fascism reigns supreme in Barack Obama's America. Just look at the recent government handling of Chrysler. In a series of press conferences this week announcing Chrysler's bankruptcy, Obama hit on all of the four P's. First, Obama stated that Chrysler's product had to be revamped -- and that he knew how best to do it. "For too long," Obama said, "Chrysler moved too slowly to adapt to the future, designing and building cars that were less popular, less reliable, and less fuel efficient than foreign competitors. That's part of what has brought us to a point where they sought taxpayer assistance." It's easy for Obama to criticize Chrysler -- he's never run so much as a lemonade stand. He's never had to produce a product for the market. And his ideas are routinely foolish: his first brilliant automotive move was touting the GM/Segway two-wheel idiotmobile, designed to navigate through traffic.

And yet Obama wants control of the car industry. "I'm not an auto engineer," Obama admitted on Wednesday. "I don't know how to create an affordable, well-designed plug-in hybrid. But I know that, if the Japanese can design an affordable, well-designed hybrid, then, doggone it, the American people should be able to do the same. So my job is to ask the auto industry: Why is it you guys can't do this?" Why is it his job to ask that question? Shouldn't the market be asking that question? Not in an economically fascist state, where the government controls the product.

Second, Obama announced that he would be setting prices on senior debt. Obama's proposed plan for Chrysler involved destroying senior debtholders, paying them a whopping $0.33 on the dollar for their loans. When the senior debtholders refused to abide by such a plan, Obama excluded them from the Chrysler bankruptcy negotiations altogether, then labeled them "speculators" and blamed them for Chrysler's downfall -- all the while kowtowing to the interests of four large banks (Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley) that own 70 percent of Chrysler's debt. All of them have taken government bailout cash.

The lenders who have not taken government cash, by contrast, were left out in the cold. "We have been forced to communicate through an obviously conflicted intermediary: a group of banks that have received billions of TARP funds," the lenders wrote in a press release. "In its earnest effort to ensure the survival of Chrysler and the well-being of the company's employees, the government has risked overturning the rule of law." There is no risk of overturning the rule of law -- the rule of law has already been overturned. And Obama celebrates the death of the rule of law, dancing on the corpses of the "speculators." The "speculators," announced Obama "were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices and they would have to make none ... I don't stand with them. I stand with Chrysler's employees, and their families and communities."

Posing as a populist, Obama undermined the very basis of free enterprise in this country: the power of investors to lend money at return. Instead, he says he stands with employees, families, and communities -- all of whom would be bankrupt without the power of private investment. Preaching economic fascism in the guise of warfare on "speculators" -- this is how freedom dies.

Third, Obama stated that he would henceforth control the profit margin for Chrysler. He did this by putting the unions in control of Chrysler -- the new majority owner of Chrysler is the union retiree health fund, which has a 55 percent stake in the new company. And yet Obama assures us that the unions have made "great sacrifices." The unions have made great sacrifices in the same way Agamemnon made great sacrifices. Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia for his own ends; the unions have sacrificed the America auto industry for their own ends. Meanwhile, Obama will set profit margins for auto executives in the same way he unilaterally set them for Wall Street. After all, Obama stands for the "employees," not for the bosses. Where bosses used to employ the employees, the government will now do the job.

Fourth, and finally, Obama has decided that the government shall control the people who are hired and fired at America's largest companies. After defenestrating the head of GM, Rick Wagoner, Obama forced out the head of Chrysler, Robert Nardelli. He then stacked the nine member board of the company with four government picks, three Fiat picks, one union pick, and one Canadian pick. Chrysler is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the federal government. And the same President who urged us to "buy American" in his Thursday speech handed over the levers of power to an Italian car company, Fiat. We are living in momentous times. There are many who question whether American capitalism will survive Obama. The verdict is in. It will not. It has not. We are already living under the rule of economic fascism. The jackboots are already in charge of Washington D.C. Obama's dictatorial command and control of the economy spell disaster for our principles and our prosperity. (Source: Human Events: Jerry Doyle.)

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White House: Deficit to top $1.8 trillion -- Recession, bailout, stimulus, budget plan combine for record-level red ink (May 2009) The government will have to borrow nearly 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year, exploding the record federal deficit past $1.8 trillion under new White House estimates. Budget office figures released Monday would add $89 billion to the 2009 red ink — increasing it to more than four times last year's all-time high as the government hands out billions more than expected for people who have lost jobs and takes in less tax revenue from people and companies making less money. The unprecedented deficit figures flow from the deep recession, the Wall Street bailout and the cost of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus bill — as well as a seemingly embedded structural imbalance between what the government spends and what it takes in.

Crisis inherited

As the economy performs worse than expected, the deficit for the 2010 budget year beginning in October will worsen by $87 billion to $1.3 trillion, the White House says. The deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps. Just a few days ago, Obama touted an administration plan to cut $17 billion in wasteful or duplicative programs from the budget next year. The erosion in the deficit announced Monday is five times the size of those savings. (SITE NOTE: We are getting tired of hearing that the crisis was "inherited" when the facts plainly show that Obama is digging the ditch even deeper. The mainstream media is continuing to hammer this home in their support of Obama.)

For the current year, the government would borrow 46 cents for every dollar it takes to run the government under the administration's plan. In 2010, it would borrow 35 cents for every dollar spent. "The deficits ... are driven in large part by the economic crisis inherited by this administration," budget director Peter Orszag wrote in a blog entry on Monday (11 May). The developments come as the White House completes the official release of its $3.6 trillion budget for 2010, adding detail to some of its tax proposals and ideas for producing health care savings. The White House budget is a recommendation to Congress that represents Obama's fiscal and policy vision for the next decade.

Biggest deficit since World War II

Annual deficits would never dip below $500 billion and would total $7.1 trillion over 2010-2019. Even those dismal figures rely on economic projections that are significantly more optimistic — just a 1.2 percent decline in gross domestic product this year and a 3.2 percent growth rate for 2010 — than those of private sector economists and the Congressional Budget Office.

As a percentage of the economy, the measure economists say is most important, the deficit would be 12.9 percent of GDP this year, the biggest since World War II. It would drop to 8.5 percent of GDP in 2010. In the past three decades, deficits in the range of 4 percent of GDP have caused Congress and previous administrations to launch efforts to narrow the gap. The White House predicts deficits equaling 2.9 percent of the economy within four years.

Polling data suggest Americans are increasingly worried about mounting deficits and debt. An AP-GfK poll last month gave Obama relatively poor grades on the deficit, with just 49 percent of respondents approving of the president's handling of the issue and 41 percent disapproving. By contrast, Obama's overall approval rating was 64 percent, with just 30 percent disapproving. "Even using their February economic assumptions — which now appear to be out of date and overly optimistic — the administration never puts us on a stable path," said Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan group that advocates budget discipline. "The president ... understands the critical importance of fiscal discipline. Now we need to see some action."

Contentious budget

For the most part, Obama's updated budget tracks the 134-page outline he submitted to lawmakers in February. His budget remains a bold but contentious document that proposes higher taxes for the wealthy, a hotly contested effort to combat global warming and the first steps toward guaranteed health care for all. Meanwhile, the congressional budget plan approved last month would not extend Obama's signature $400 tax credit for most workers — $800 for couples — after it expires at the end of next year. (SITE NOTE: The criticism is that the $400 credit does not offset the expected $1000 plus increase in the costs of utilities -- not to mention the unfathomable debt created by Obama's National Health Plan that can't repay for itself in ten years -- and the fuzzy math is falling apart to justify it.)

Obama's "cap-and-trade" proposal to curb heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions is also reeling from opposition from Democrats from coal-producing regions and states with concentrations of heavy industry. Under cap-and-trade, the government would auction permits to emit heat-trapping gases, with the costs being passed on to consumers via higher gasoline and electric bills. (SITE NOTE: This may not get off the ground as many Democrats are now turning against this measure -- with the possibility that the Obama strategy of using the Democratic sheer number of votes to pass the legislation by "reconciliation" may NOT work. Big and small businesses alike are against the measure -- and consider it a "tax" on the working class families in the form of increased utilities, as well as manufacturing costs passed on to the consumer.)

Also new in Obama's budget details are several tax "loophole" closures and increased IRS tax compliance efforts to raise $58 billion over the next decade to help finance his health care measure. The money would make up for revenue losses stemming from lower-than-hoped estimates for his proposal to limit wealthier people's ability to maximize their itemized deductions. (SITE NOTE: As a result even before it is to happen, donations are down. Shriner Hospitals said they may have to close seven hospitals. Everywhere Obama's announcement has dampened donations.) (Source: MSNBC.)

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VIDEO: Fox News Interview with Karl Rove of Obama's Stimulus Package failure (15 Jul 2009)

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July 2009

Stimulus has yet to really boost GDP (Jul 2009) The nation's economy is starting to rebound, but the Obama administration's massive stimulus package had little to do with it. The gross domestic product contracted at an annual rate of 1%, a significantly slower decline than the past two quarters. Economists had expected a drop of 1.5%.

While government spending at all levels increased in the second quarter, only a small amount of the $787 billion stimulus package had trickled out by June 30. As of July 3, only $60.4 billion of recovery funds had been distributed, the largest chunk of which went to help states cope with rising Medicaid costs. Much of the $43 billion in stimulus tax relief -- which includes the Making Work Pay tax credit for individuals -- also kicked in during the quarter. "I don't think the effect of stimulus has been very large," said Edward Lazear, an economics professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Business who advised former President George W. Bush. "Very little has gone out."

Non-defense federal government spending provided a 0.15 percentage point boost to GDP, while state and local government spending contributed 0.30 percentage points, according to the Commerce Department. Federal spending jumped nearly 11%, though much of it was in the defense arena, while state and local government outlays increased 2.4%.

To be sure, stimulus spending had some effect. Some of the early components of stimulus to be distributed have allowed people to spend more, said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Those who received the $25 increase in unemployment benefits have likely already put those funds into the economy.

And states did put the money they received to use, which contributed to the fastest growth in state and local government spending since the middle of 2007, according to Josh Bivens, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute. Some economists say that the GDP numbers would have been worse without the stimulus funds. Bivens estimated the recovery act money may have contributed as much as 3 percentage points of annualized growth to the quarter. But others expect the figures to be revised downward in the future. They point to an 8.9% contraction in business spending and a 7% decline in hours worked, which doesn't mesh with a mere 1% decline in GDP.

The true test of the stimulus package will come in the fall, when the government reports economic activity for the third quarter. The administration is working to get the money out the door quicker, as complaints mount that stimulus is not having its promised effect. "The third quarter will be a critical time period for assessing the stimulus package," said Mark Thoma, an economics professor at the University of Oregon. Friday's GDP report comes as some experts are calling for a second stimulus package to further juice the economy. They say the first was not enough to promote a recovery.

"It is preventing a collapse," said L. Randall Wray, senior scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. "I wouldn't say it is big enough to get us growing." Others, however, say that more government funding will not address the key issues -- such as the housing and financial markets turmoil -- holding back the economy. "You will feel better, but it won't really get at the heart of the problems driving the crisis," said Philip Levy, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who worked in the Bush administration. (Source: CNN.)

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August 2009

Obama Raises Deficit Projections by $2 Trillion -- Hope and Change is really a New Era of Irresponsibility (Aug 2009) The Obama administration will raise its 10-year budget deficit projection to approximately $9 trillion from $7.108 trillion in a report next week, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday. The higher deficit figure, based on updated economic data, brings the White House budget office into line with outside estimates and gives further fuel to President Barack Obama's opponents, who say his spending plans are too expensive in light of budget shortfalls. The White House took heat for sticking with its $7.108 trillion forecast earlier this year after the Congressional Budget Office forecast that deficits between 2010 and 2019 would total $9.1 trillion. (Source: Hot Air.)


Debt Rises Under DEMOCRATS -- Not Bush

VIDEO: Obama in the Presidential debates with McCain blasting George W. Bush's "orgy" of spending -- Obama blames Bush for debt that DEMOCRATS were responsible for (AND OBAMA HAS CONTINUED TO LIE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ABOUT THE TRUTH)


By the way, unemployment was less than 6% under Bush for 83 of his 96 months in office


Obama Six-month Report Card


Debts: Obama vs. Bush


Job Losses Under Obama


Jobless Rate in 15 States

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Millions face shrinking Social Security payments (Aug 2009) Millions of older people face shrinking Social Security checks next year, the first time in a generation that payments would not rise. The trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won't be a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the next two years. That hasn't happened since automatic increases were adopted in 1975.

By law, Social Security benefits cannot go down. Nevertheless, monthly payments would drop for millions of people in the Medicare prescription drug program because the premiums, which often are deducted from Social Security payments, are scheduled to go up slightly. "I will promise you, they count on that COLA," said Barbara Kennelly, a former Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut who now heads the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. "To some people, it might not be a big deal. But to seniors, especially with their health care costs, it is a big deal."

Cost of living adjustments are pegged to inflation, which has been negative this year, largely because energy prices are below 2008 levels. Advocates say older people still face higher prices because they spend a disproportionate amount of their income on health care, where costs rise faster than inflation. Many also have suffered from declining home values and shrinking stock portfolios just as they are relying on those assets for income. "For many elderly, they don't feel that inflation is low because their expenses are still going up," said David Certner, legislative policy director for AARP. "Anyone who has savings and investments has seen some serious losses."

About 50 million retired and disabled Americans receive Social Security benefits. The average monthly benefit for retirees is $1,153 this year. All beneficiaries received a 5.8 percent increase in January, the largest since 1982. More than 32 million people are in the Medicare prescription drug program. Average monthly premiums are set to go from $28 this year to $30 next year, though they vary by plan. About 6 million people in the program have premiums deducted from their monthly Social Security payments, according to the Social Security Administration.

Millions of people with Medicare Part B coverage for doctors' visits also have their premiums deducted from Social Security payments. Part B premiums are expected to rise as well. But under the law, the increase cannot be larger than the increase in Social Security benefits for most recipients. There is no such hold-harmless provision for drug premiums. Kennelly's group wants Congress to increase Social Security benefits next year, even though the formula doesn't call for it. She would like to see either a 1 percent increase in monthly payments or a one-time payment of $150.

The cost of a one-time payment, a little less than $8 billion, could be covered by increasing the amount of income subjected to Social Security taxes, Kennelly said. Workers only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,800 of income, a limit that rises each year with the average national wage. But the limit only increases if monthly benefits increase. Critics argue that Social Security recipients shouldn't get an increase when inflation is negative. They note that recipients got a big increase in January - after energy prices had started to fall. They also note that Social Security recipients received one-time $250 payments in the spring as part of the government's economic stimulus package.

"Seniors may perceive that they are being hurt because there is no COLA, but they are in fact not getting hurt," said Andrew G. Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. "Congress has to be able to tell people they are not getting everything they want." Social Security is also facing long-term financial problems. The retirement program is projected to start paying out more money than it receives in 2016. Without changes, the retirement fund will be depleted in 2037, according to the Social Security trustees' annual report this year. President Barack Obama has said he would like tackle Social Security next year, after Congress finishes work on health care, climate change and new financial regulations.

Lawmakers are preoccupied by health care, making it difficult to address other tough issues. Advocates for older people hope their efforts will get a boost in October, when the Social Security Administration officially announces that there will not be an increase in benefits next year. "I think a lot of seniors do not know what's coming down the pike, and I believe that when they hear that, they're going to be upset," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who is working on a proposal for one-time payments for Social Security recipients. "It is my view that seniors are going to need help this year, and it would not be acceptable for Congress to simply turn its back," he said. (Source: AP.)

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Obama's Spending Spree, Budget Numbers "Have All Gone Mad," Analyst Says (Aug 2009) (SEE Article for VIDEO) When retail expert and all-around economy watcher Howard Davidowitz appeared on Tech Ticker in February declaring the worst was yet to come for the U.S. economy and that Americans' standard of living has changed permanently, our comment boards lit up. But surely with the latest rally off the March lows, bearish Davidowitz is more bullish, right? Not a chance. Look at your financial history books.

Two of the biggest rallies of more than 40 percent occurred during the Great Depression, says Davidowitz of Davidowitz & Associates,a retail consulting and investment banking firm. "People were sucked in and ultimately were destroyed," he says. It's a warning to today's investors, who are hoping to extend the rally.

Don't get Davidowitz started on the economy or fundamentals. "Barack Obama's numbers have all gone mad," Davidowitz says. The Obama administration recently announced the U.S. budget deficit will be $9 trillion during the next decade; $2 trillion higher than the original forecast. And, the proposed price tag for health-care reform? "Minimum $3 trillion," Davidowitz says. "One trillion? Are you kidding?" Stimulus binges? Roller coaster equity performance over years? Stubborn consumers holding out for sales as deflationary pressures loom over the recovery? Sounds like the U.S. economy is turning Japanese, Davidowitz says. (Source: Yahoo.)

September 2009

Report: House health care bill would balloon deficit (Sep 2009) A new report that for the first time gauges the impact of health care reform two decades out shows the nation's budget imbalance would skyrocket after 2020. The House bill would increase the budget deficit by $1 trillion between 2020 to 2029, up from $39 billion from 2010 through 2019, says the Peterson Foundation study, conducted by the nonpartisan Lewin Group.

For "health care reform to be fiscally responsible, it must not just pay for itself over 10 years and beyond, it should also result in a significant reduction in the tens of trillions of dollars in the federal government's unfunded health care promises," said David Walker, president and CEO of the Peterson Foundation, which promotes fiscal prudence. President Obama has stressed that health care reform cannot and will not increase the nation's budget deficit, but all of the White House forecasts have looked only at the next decade.

Mr. Walker said the study, released Wednesday shows the top priority needs to be reducing total health care costs and the rate of increase in future costs. The Peterson Foundation estimates that the U.S. already has $56.4 trillion in unfunded obligations and promises over the long term, and said that "adding new benefit promises without adequate sources of financing will further threaten the nation's long-term financial stability." The White House declined to comment on a report it said it had not seen. (Source: Washington Times.)

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US Recession Ends, Jobless Outlook Bleak: Survey (Sep 2009) The U.S. employment picture will stay bleak well into next year long after the recession ends, but the worst of the labor market crisis is over, top private economists said on Thursday. Private economists polled for the Blue Chip Economic Indicators September survey say the unemployment rate will reach at least 10 percent in early 2010 and "recede from that level only grudgingly over the second half of the year".

More than 80 percent of the 52 private forecasters polled say the recession that started in December 2007 has ended. They look for gross domestic product to expand at a brisk 3.0 percent annual rate in the third quarter of 2009 and rise 2.4 percent in the fourth quarter. This compares to growth rates of 2.2 percent and 2.3 percent respectively forecast in the previous survey. For the year as a whole, the economy is expected to shrink 2.6 percent, the same consensus for July and August. In 2010 the economy will likely expand at a 2.4 percent pace, the survey said.

The latest survey was taken Sept 2-3, just before the release of the government's monthly report on jobs last week. In that report, the Labor Department put the jobless rate at 9.7 percent during August, the highest since June 1983, while employers cut 216,000 jobs, the smallest since August 2008. The private forecasters said they anticipate only a very gradual improvement in labor market conditions and that the economy will continue to shed jobs through the end of this year though at a diminishing pace.

The Blue Chip forecasters, including economists from major corporations, banks, business associations and consulting firms, say lengthening workweeks will give way to job growth, lifting household incomes and boosting consumer spending. "Firms will respond by beginning to rebuild inventories, accelerating growth in industrial production and eventually encouraging stepped up capital spending as excess capacity is eaten away," the panel of economists said. (Source; Reuters.)

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Burned by Obama -- Wall St. execs feel betrayed (Sep 2009) In the depths of the financial crisis last year, people like Morgan Stanley's John Mack, BlackRock's Larry Fink, Greg Fleming (then of Merrill Lynch), JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein were telling everyone that candidate Barack Obama was a "moderate," and moderation was what this country needed.

What a difference a year makes. They won't admit it in public -- but in private conversations, the top guys on Wall Street are feeling burned. The guy who seemed like such a steady voice -- vowing to curb runaway spending and restoring order to the banking system and the economy as a whole -- is instead so driven to achieve his big-government policy goals that he and his policy people are ignoring their own economic advisers on the severe economic costs that his agenda will cause.

O: Ignoring his own economic team?

I'm told that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers have both complained to senior Wall Street execs that they have almost no say in major policy decisions. Obama economic counselor Paul Volcker, the former Fed chairman, is barely consulted at all on just about anything -- not even issues involving the banking system, of which he is among the world's leading authorities.

At most, the economic people and their staffs get asked to do cost analyses of Obama's initiatives for the White House political people -- who then ignore their advice. It's almost the opposite approach, the Wall Street crowd complains, from the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, whose main first-term achieve- ment -- deficit reduction -- was crafted by his chief economic adviser, Robert Rubin.

Like Obama, Clinton and Rubin promised to raise taxes on the "rich," and they did. But Clinton didn't raise taxes to embark on a wild-eyed redistribution of wealth and massive programs. In the early Clinton years, Rubin convinced the president that he needed to avoid the grim consequences of runaway spending -- and after the Republicans took Congress in '94, it was no longer an option.

Of course, the Clinton tax hikes came at a cost -- before the tech boom ignited the economy in 1995, growth was mediocre at best. But government spending remained under control, and lower interest rates followed, as did an economic recovery. Obama, according to Wall Street people who regularly deal with his economic and budget officials, is acting as if he has a blank check to do what he wants, while ignoring the longterm costs of his policies.

As one CEO of a major financial firm told me: "The economic guys say that when they explain the costs of programs, the policy guys simply thank them for their time and then ignore what they say." In other words, the economic people feel that they have almost no say in this administration's policy decisions. Wall Street should have seen it coming. Obama was among the most liberal politicians in the country, despite his campaign rhetoric -- and his record in Illinois and the Senate showed it. He has spoken glowingly over the years of the need to redistribute wealth, a measure that always leads to taxes on small businesses, the economy's main economic engine.

The execs who had such hopes for the president are now wondering fearfully just how radical he really is. It's almost comical watching the Street's top players squirm when they hear "class warfare" rhetoric coming from the White House, and it forces them to act in ways they'd never imagined. In addition to recently giving phony speeches about the sins of large compensation packages that they had no problem taking just a few years ago, many Wall Street CEOs are so terrified of being outed as greedy capitalists that they no longer use the corporate credit cards to charge business lunches at their favorite New York restaurants.

The funniest story I've heard lately came from a former Wall Street executive and longtime Democrat who anxiously recounted a recent conversation with Obama. The executive said he told the president that he's at a disadvantage because he's relatively inexperienced in economic matters during a time of economic crisis. "That's why I have Valerie," came Obama's reply. "Valerie" is senior adviser Valerie Jarrett -- a Chicago real-estate attorney and one of Obama's closest friends, who has deep ties to the Windy City's Democratic political machine. Now you know why Wall Street is so nervous. (Source; NY Post.)

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Economic growth seen slowing by year's end -- Economy likely grew in 3rd quarter, but could tail off at end of year amid job, credit worries (Sep 2009) The unfolding economic recovery will probably lose some momentum in the final three months of the year as rising unemployment and still hard-to-get credit weigh on consumers.

The economy will grow at a pace of around 2.5 percent in the just-started October-December quarter, according to projections made by analysts at Wells Fargo, IHS Global Insight and Moody's Economy.com. If accurate, that would mark a slowing from the projected growth of at least 3 percent that many economists think occurred in the just-ended third quarter.

The economy shrank at a rate of 0.7 percent in the April-June period, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. "It's a recovery, but it is not a rapid recovery," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight.

The third quarter's performance is expected to mark a turning point for the economy, providing the strongest signal yet that the worst recession since the 1930s is over. Many economists say consumers likely came back to life in the third quarter, boosting spending at around a 2 percent pace. If they are right, it would be the strongest showing since the first quarter of 2007, before the recession started. But consumer spending, which supplies about 70 percent of economic activity, could turn out to be flat or post an increase of no more than 1 percent in the fourth quarter, according to economists' projections. People will be wary of splurging, given shrinking wages and rising unemployment. "We're fairly pessimistic about the holiday shopping season," said Mark Vitner, economist at Wells Fargo Securities. "Wages and salaries are down, meaning people don't have the means to spend."

Wages in the second quarter fell 4.7 percent from the same quarter last year, the government said Wednesday. Both businesses and consumers are still having trouble getting credit -- the oxygen of the economy, analysts said.Such forces are "likely to constrain the speed of recovery," Donald Kohn, the Federal Reserve's vice chairman warned in a speech Wednesday.

The Fed and most economists have grown increasingly confident that the recovery will be lasting. But the risk of a "double dip" recession, where the economy would slip back into negative territory, can't be dismissed, some analysts said. "It's not out of the question," said Gault, adding that much will hinge on the behavior of both consumers and businesses in coming months.

Higher auto sales, boosted by the government's now-ended Cash for Clunkers program, was a major factor behind the third quarter's expected improvement. People were offered rebates of up to $4,500 to buy new fuel-efficient cars and trade in old gas guzzlers. The government's first estimate of how the economy fared in the third quarter will be issued in late October. Fourth-quarter results won't be available until late January. The recession was winding down in the spring. The 0.7 percent dip in gross domestic product for the April-June quarter followed the 6.4 percent annualized drop in the first three months of this year, the worst slide in nearly three decades. In the final quarter of last year, the economy sank at a rate of 5.4 percent

The new reading on second-quarter GDP showed the economy declining less than the 1 percent pace previously estimated. It also was better than the annualized 1.1 percent drop that economists were predicting. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in September said the recession, which started in December 2007, was "very likely over." But he warned that pain will persist -- especially for the nearly 15 million unemployed Americans. Because the recovery is expected to slow to a more plodding pace in coming months, the nation's unemployment rate -- now at a 26-year high of 9.7 percent -- is expected top 10 percent this year. Economists predict it will have nudged up to 9.8 percent for September when the government releases that report Friday.

The economy has now contracted for four straight quarters for the first time on records dating to 1947. Economic activity shrank 3.8 percent since the second quarter of last year, marking the worst recession since the 1930s. "We all ardently want to believe the nation is on the economic comeback trail," Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said in a speech in Mobile, Ala. "In thinking about the recovery, I recommend for now a mindset of measured optimism." (Source: Yahoo Finance.)

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October 2009

Jobless claims drop more than expected -- New claims hit nine-month low; wholesale inventories decline (Oct 2009) The number of newly laid-off workers filing first-time claims for jobless benefits fell to the lowest level since early January, as layoffs eased a bit amid a fledgling economic recovery. The fourth drop in new claims in five weeks is a sign the labor market is slowly healing. But employers are reluctant to hire new workers and the unemployment rate is expected to keep climbing well into next year. Separately, the nation's retailers saw modest signs of life from consumers in September, resulting in the first sales gain since July 2008 and fueling some hope for the holiday shopping season.

The Labor Department said Thursday that new claims for unemployment insurance dropped last week to a seasonally adjusted 521,000, better than analysts expected and down from 554,000 the previous week. The four-week average, which smooths fluctuations, fell to 539,750, the lowest since Jan. 17. The number of people continuing to claim benefits declined by 72,000 to 6.04 million. Analysts expected continuing claims to rise slightly. "The downtrend in claims is encouraging and points to continued, albeit gradual, improvement in the labor market," Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank, wrote in a note to clients.

Economists closely watch initial claims, which are considered a gauge of layoffs and an indication of companies' willingness to hire new workers. Despite the improvement, initial claims remain well above the 325,000 that economists say is consistent with a healthy economy.

Meanwhile, a late Labor Day and delayed school openings helped boost back-to-school sales in September. The International Council of Shopping Centers-Goldman Sachs preliminary tally registered an increase of 0.1 percent for September, compared with a 1 percent drop a year ago. While still tepid, the results mark the first gain since July 2008, when the index rose 1.3 percent. As stores announced their results Thursday, J.C. Penney Co., Macy's Inc., and Target Corp. all reported smaller-than-expected declines in sales at stores open at least a year. Limited Brands Inc., which runs Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works, and accessories chain The Buckle Inc. both posted increases for the month.

Still, industry worries remain high heading into the holiday shopping season because shoppers, many of whom were afraid to spend a year ago, are now grappling with rising job losses, reduced hours or unavailable credit. The stock market rose in morning trading. The Dow Jones industrial average added about 61 points, and broader indexes also gained. In a third report, the Commerce Department said businesses reduced inventories at the wholesale level for a record 12th straight month in August. In an encouraging sign, sales jumped by the largest amount in 14 months.

Economists hope the rising sales will persuade businesses to begin restocking their depleted shelves, a switch that would boost factory production and help bolster broad economic growth in coming months. The jobless claims figures indicate that layoffs are slowing. Employers eliminated a net total of 263,000 jobs in September, the Labor Department said last week. Many economists expect that number to decline this month.

When federal emergency programs are included, the total number of jobless benefit recipients dropped by about 90,000 to 8.9 million in the week that ended Sept. 19, the latest data available. Congress has added up to 53 extra weeks of benefits on top of the 26 typically provided by the states, and is considering adding another 13 weeks. Many analysts expect the economy grew as much as 3 percent in the July-September quarter, but most employers are likely to hold back on new hires while they wait to see if such growth can be maintained.

The unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent in September from 9.7 percent, the department said last week, the highest in 26 years. The recession, the worst since the 1930s, has eliminated a net total of 7.2 million jobs. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week that even if the economy maintained a 3 percent growth rate for several quarters, unemployment would still be above 9 percent by the end of 2010. More job cuts were announced this week. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., which makes industrial and scientific equipment, said it will close a plant in Dubuque, Iowa, next year, costing 350 jobs.

Wholesale inventories decline

Businesses reduced inventories at the wholesale level for a record 12th consecutive month in August, although in an encouraging sign, sales jumped by the largest amount in 14 months. The Commerce Department said Thursday that wholesale inventories fell 1.3 percent in August, worse than the 1 percent drop economists had expected. That followed a 1.6 percent drop in July initially reported as a 1.4 percent decrease. But sales at the wholesale level rose a better-than-expected 1 percent, the fifth straight gain and the largest increase since June 2008.

Economists hope the rising sales will encourage businesses to begin restocking their depleted shelves, a switch that would boost factory production and help bolster broad economic growth in coming months. Analysts at Goldman Sachs expect the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, grew at an annual rate of 3 percent in the July-September quarter and will advance at a similar rate in the current October-December period, signaling an end to the country's longest recession since the 1930s. As businesses start restocking shelves, analysts said that will provide support for rising factory production and translate into a higher GDP reading. The concern is that consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, could falter as the impact of various government stimulus programs begins to wane.

Car sales soared in August because of the government's Cash for Clunkers program which provided car buyers up to $4,500 to trade in their old cars for more fuel efficient models. That program ended at the end of August and sales fell sharply last month. General Motors Co. reported that its sales plunged 45 percent in September from the previous year, while Chrysler Group LLC reported a 42 percent decline. Ford Motor Co. had a smaller decline of 5.1 percent.

Early reports from the nation's large retail chains showed sales rose last month for the first in more than a year. The International Council of Shopping Centers-Goldman Sachs preliminary tally registered an increase of 0.1 percent, compared with a 1 percent drop in September 2008. The modest increase is the first since July 2008, when the index rose 1.3 percent.

Wholesale inventories are goods held by distributors who generally buy from manufacturers and sell to retailers. They make up about 25 percent of all business stockpiles. Factories hold another third of inventories and retailers hold the rest. The decline in inventories is the longest stretch on government records that date to 1992. The previous record was nine straight declines during a period that covered the nation's last recession in 2001. (Source: MSNBC.)

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2012 forecast: Food riots, ghost malls, mob rule, terror (Oct 2009) A trends forecaster says the current economic "rebound" from last winter's Wall Street collapse of banks, insurance companies and automobile manufacturers is an artificial blip created by 'phantom money printed out of thin air backed by nothing." And Gerald Celente of TrendsResearch.com, says people right now should be bracing for "the greatest recession" which will hit worldwide and will mark the "decline of empire America." Crop failures could be among the minor concerns.

"Here we are in 2012. Food riots, tax protests, farmer rebellions, student revolts, squatter diggins, homeless uprisings, tent cities, ghost malls, general strikes, bossnappings, kidnappings, industrial saboteurs, gang warfare, mob rule, terror," he writes for a quarterly publication that is available through subscription on his website. He also talked about his forecasts with Greg Corombos of Radio America/WND in an interview that has been posted online.

The recent surge in Wall Street indexes back to near the 10,000 level, still far below the 14,000 prior to the crash, should be no reassurance for anyone, he said. "There's no recovery. This is merely a cover-up," he said. "The market crashed in March of 2009 and around the world they papered over the damage from the collapse with phantom money printed out of thin air backed by nothing," he said. This is "much bigger" than an economic collapse, he said. "This is the decline of empire America."


"Look what's happened to the dollar," he warned. "Gold prices are surging forward. That's the evidence. The rest that's coming from Washington and Wall Street is rhetoric." "This is the beginning of the greatest depression. We're telling our readers to take pro-active measures in anticipation of much worse to come," he said.

USA Today says Celente "has a knack for getting the zeitgeist right," and CNBC says, "The man knows what he's talking about." The Wall Street Jounral has said, "Those who take their predictions seriously … consider the Trends Research Institute." He said during the Radio America/WND interview that retail sales this coming Christmas season will be the "real nail in the economic coffin."

"The second American revolution has already begun; it just hasn't been announced yet by the mainstream media," he said. "Anybody waiting for hope to show up at the door with a big bag full of money is going to be in for a shock." Tim Barello in the Examiner noted that since 1980 Celente has made at least 40 accurate predictions about major world events, such as the 1987 stock market crash.

"Throughout the 1990's, many other forecasts came true, including the collapse of the Soviet Union, surges in global terrorism, the popularity of spiritual and new age philosophies, public backlash against globalization, upsurges in online shopping, and the 1997 Asian financial crisis, to name a select few," he wrote. Now comes his forecast for a global depression and for the United States, "Obamageddon."

"We want to make it very clear that the policies leading to the decline of 'Empire America' have been long in the making," Celente told Barello. "What has happened in the Obama administration is that they have taken policies far beyond even what Bush took with the TARP program; for example, with his stimulus package, with the buyouts, with the bailouts, the rescue packages, these are unprecedented in American history.

"Never before has so much phantom money been printed out of thin air, backed by nothing, producing practically nothing," Celente continued. "You don't even have to be a student of history to know the outcome of this. All you have to do is have your eyes open, and start thinking for yourself." In his conversation with the Examiner, Celente warned with the "bubble" bursts, U.S. taxpayers will be slammed because, unlike during the dot-com bubble, the stock market bubble and the real estate bubble, they are stockholders in a long list of major companies.

He forecasts the possibility of a civil war, and says if people want to see what Main Street America will look like, they should "drive around Detroit. Look at all the blown out houses and empty neighborhoods. Look at the violence that's increasing. … Look at the types of heinous crimes being committed by people – some blowing their whole families away…" (Source: WND.) (SITE NOTE: We saw him on a news commentary program and were astounded by his predictions. But we are in no shape to weather a great depression. We have no way to be pro-active. But if things are as bad as he predicts -- OBAMA is in the center of making this happen.)



Economists: The Great Recession is over, but ... Jobs will still be an issue and there are numerous questions about recovery (Oct 2009) Following the lead of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and the stock market, the nation’s top business economists, gathering here for their annual meeting, have declared “the Great Recession of 2008-09 is over.” But the forecasters aren’t exactly popping champagne corks about what they see coming next. After the deepest slide since the Great Depression, the economy looks like it has finally hit bottom, according to a survey of the National Association of Business Economists. The group sees the gross domestic product posting a solid 2.9 percent gain in the second half of this year.

That’s the good news. The group is less confident about the strength of the recovery, saying it is “likely to be more moderate than those typically experienced following steep declines.” And they see a long list of problems that could weaken that recovery.

The biggest worry: a prolonged period of high unemployment following the destruction of eight million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. The economists don’t see the jobless rate falling below 9.5 percent by the end of next year. They expect only weak job growth in 2010; an average of some 107,000 net new jobs created each month in 2010. That’s barely enough to keep up with the annual growth of the workforce. "You can have 2 or 3 percent GDP growth and not have job growth, and that in turn doesn’t help sustain economic growth,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services. “Economies are like gears — they all have to engage. And you can get one wheel spinning, but if it doesn’t engage, it eventually loses momentum.” With one in 10 workers without a paycheck, the level of consumer spending is also expected to be weak — inching up next year by just 1.6 percent. High levels of debt and trillions of dollars of lost home equity will continue to put a big crimp on spending.

Consumers may catch a break if the NABE is right about its inflation forecast, which calls for prices to rise by just 1.4 percent next year. The low inflation forecast is largely based on the conventional wisdom that the amount of slack demand and excess capacity in the economy — the so-called “output gap” — will keep pressure off price hikes for raw materials and force companies to keep their prices down.But James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, warned that given the Fed’s massive expansion of the monetary base to combat the financial meltdown, the economists may be too quick to dismiss the risk of higher inflation. “I am concerned about a popular narrative in use today — the narrative being that the output gap must be large since the recession is so severe,” Bullard told the economists at a luncheon speech. “And so, any medium-term inflation threat is negligible, even in the face of extraordinarily accommodative monetary policy. I think this narrative overplays the output gap story.”

With weak consumer spending expected to add little to growth, the hope is that businesses will begin to invest in rebuilding inventories that have been slashed during the recession and to buy equipment they’ve deferred replacing during the downturn. But those businesses may have trouble getting credit; just as employers are skittish about hiring, bankers say they’re having trouble finding enough solid businesses to lend to, according to Bullard. “They want to make loans because that’s how they make money,” he told reporters. “But they don’t want to make a bad loan because that’s how that’s how they got into trouble.”

With bankers pulling back, credit has also tightened in the so-called “shadow banking” market, in which loans are packaged into securities and sold to investors. Once a ready source of capital for mortgages, student loans and credit card debts, that market has largely shut down. “If you can’t get this market back, you’re not going to be able to finance most consumer loans,” said Gary Gorton, an economist at the Yale School of Management. (Source: MSNBC.)

U.S. deficit biggest since 1945 -- Obama administration closes the books on fiscal 2009: Falling revenue plus soaring spending leads to a $1.42 trillion deficit (Oct 2009) It's officially official. The Obama administration on Friday said the government ran a $1.42 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2009. That made it the worst year on record since World War II, according to data from the Treasury and the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Tax receipts for the year fell 16.6% overall, while spending soared 18.2% compared to fiscal year 2008. The causes: rising unemployment, the economic slowdown and the extraordinary measures taken by lawmakers to stem the economic meltdown that hit in fall 2008.Consequently, the annual deficit rose 212% to the record dollar amount of $1.42 trillion, from $455 billion a year earlier.

As a share of the economy, the deficit accounted for 10% of gross domestic product, up from 3.2% in 2008. As breath-taking as that may be, it's still not in the same stratosphere as the 1945 deficit, which hit 21% of GDP. Perfect deficit cocktail mix Fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, had all the right ingredients for a record-breaking deficit.

While tax revenue overall took a big hit, corporate receipts led the way, falling 55%. Individual income tax revenue fell 20%. At the same time spending jumped in large part because of the various economic and financial rescue measures undertaken. The Treasury and the OMB noted that the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program and the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, not all of which has been used, accounted for 24% of the deficit total.

As a result, the country is very near to breaching its so-called debt ceiling, currently set at $12.1 trillion. Lawmakers, however, are expected to vote to raise that ceiling this fall.

At the end of September, the country's total debt -- which is an accumulation of all annual deficits to date plus other obligations -- stood at $11.9 trillion. The long-term view In August, the OMB projected a 10-year deficit of $9 trillion, assuming President Obama's 2010 budget proposals are put in place. A deficit of that magnitude means the debt held by the public would approach 82% of gross domestic product. That's double the 41% recorded in 2008. 0:00 /6:16Deficit in critical condition Most budget experts blanch at the thought, especially given that the country's fiscal future was already a source of concern before the economic crisis because of expected shortfalls over time in funding for Medicare and Social Security.

The financial and economic meltdowns of the past year have accelerated the strain on federal coffers. So much so that now the 10-year forecast as well as the longer-term outlook are considered unsustainable, according to deficit experts William Gale and Alan Auerbach.

In a report this week, the Government Accountability Office noted that the deficits born from the financial crisis are not the biggest crux of the problem. "While a lot of attention has been given to the recent fiscal deterioration, the federal government faces even larger fiscal challenges that will persist long after the return of financial stability and economic growth," the GAO said.

The GAO further cautioned that the yawning deficit problems should be addressed sooner rather than later. "The longer action to deal with the nation's long-term fiscal outlook is delayed, the larger the changes will need to be, increasing the likelihood that they will be disruptive and destabilizing."

The Obama administration is promising to put a plan in place to lessen the deficit when the economy recovers. "It was critical that we acted to bring the economy back from the brink earlier this year. As we move from rescue to recovery, the president recognizes that we need to put the nation back on a fiscally sustainable path," said OMB director Peter Orszag in a statement. "As part of the FY2011 budget policy process, we are considering proposals to put our country back on firm fiscal footing." (Source: CNN.) (SITE NOTE: Others feel that the recession will become a full-blown depression. The reasoning is that Wall Street is making money, but the effects are not trickling down and jobs are still being lost. This global recession will turn into a "full-blown depression," Nicu Harajchi, CEO of N1 Asset Management, said Friday, adding that global stimulus hasn't come down to Main Street. Wall Street is making money, while consumers aren't, Harajchi told CNBC. "We have seen the G20 coming out with cross border capital injections of $5 trillion this year… But a lot of this money hasn't really come down to Main Street," he said. "When it comes down to corporate America, corporate Europe or even in Asia, in Japan, we are not seeing Main Street making any money," he said.)

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US Could Lose "AAA" Rating–Moody's (Oct 2009) Moody's (NYSE:MCO) lead analyst covering US debt said that the Amercan goverment could lose its "AAA" rating if it cannot cut the deficit and budget gaps in the next three to four years. Steven Hess told Reuters: "The Aaa rating of the U.S. is not guaranteed." The current rating should be stable for at least 18 months.
,br> It was only earlier this year that the UK government got a similar warning from credit agencies. China expressed concern to Secretary Geithner that it does not have an unending appetite for US Treasury paper. At some point the People's Republic will not be willing to risk a larger part of its $2 trillion reserves on debt that it believes has some risk, albeit a small one, of defaulting.

One thing that is nearly certain is the the US government will end up paying much higher interest rates for its debt as it needs to fund its own interest payments starts to join the need to fund the principal. There is also that very real risk that American debt will begin to crowd private debt out of the global capital markets, raising interest costs for all borrowers.

Both Ben Bernanke and Geithner have said that the deficit must come down, but government spending and stimulus costs are actually rising. Only yesterday, the Administration suggested a new program to help small businesses. With growing unemployment, it is unlikely the IRS receipts will rise. The Moody's comments may not mean much for three years, but they could start to roil the capital markets much sooner.

Moody's (NYSE:MCO) lead analyst covering US debt said that the Amercan goverment could lose its "AAA" rating if it cannot cut the deficit and budget gaps in the next three to four years. Steven Hess told Reuters: "The Aaa rating of the U.S. is not guaranteed." The current rating should be stable for at least 18 months.

It was only earlier this year that the UK government got a similar warning from credit agencies.

China expressed concern to Secretary Geithner that it does not have an unending appetite for US Treasury paper. At some point the People's Republic will not be willing to risk a larger part of its $2 trillion reserves on debt that it believes has some risk, albeit a small one, of defaulting. One thing that is nearly certain is the the US government will end up paying much higher interest rates for its debt as it needs to fund its own interest payments starts to join the need to fund the principal. There is also that very real risk that American debt will begin to crowd private debt out of the global capital markets, raising interest costs for all borrowers.

Both Ben Bernanke and Geithner have said that the deficit must come down, but government spending and stimulus costs are actually rising. Only yesterday, the Administration suggested a new program to help small businesses. With growing unemployment, it is unlikely the IRS receipts will rise. The Moody's comments may not mean much for three years, but they could start to roil the capital markets much sooner. (Source: 24/7 Wall Street.)

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Obama Taking Us On Path To Fascism (Oct 2009) During the last presidential campaign, I said there was a light whiff of fascism coming from the Obama campaign. That was based on its habit of improperly trying to repress criticism of every kind. Example: A Chicago radio station was planning on airing a critic of President Obama, who was publicizing the candidate’s close association with terrorist Bill Ayres. The Obama campaign organized a call-in campaign to flood the station with calls and prevent the critic from being heard. Anther example: The Obama campaign warned that any critics in Missouri would be subjected to prosecution there if they voiced criticism that was not true. There was a "Barack Obama Truth Squad” made up of prosecutors and sheriffs to keep critics in line, promising rebuttals and prosecution in appropriate cases (NewsBusters, September 29, 2008).
,br> Now that whiff has turned into a strong stench of fascism, as the Obama Administration uses the vast resources of the federal government to squelch criticism and silence and intimidate critics. Here are some of the recent examples of that:

• • The administration has organized a concerted campaign to marginalize, demonize, de-legitimize and destroy Fox Cable News simply because it, virtually alone among broadcast outlets, originates strong criticism of the Obama Administration and asks tough questions about what it is trying to do. Obama spokesmen, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senior Advisor David Axelrod have said, in effect, that Fox is just an arm of the Republican Party and is not a legitimate news organization. Obama spokesmen say the station has a perspective. There are several answers to this. First, its news programs (as opposed to its opinion and commentary programs featuring the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck) pre- sent both sides of issues in a fair and balanced manner, and that has been confirmed by the survey of a respected research organization. The Pew Research Center found, by a wide margin, Fox had the most objective coverage of the last presidential campaign. Second, it is true that opinion programs have a “perspective, ” but that is true of all opinion programs including those on other networks such as MSNBC. Third, the White House doesn’t complain about networks or broadcasters with a Democratic perspective, even though they dominate the dial. In fact, with the exception of Fox, all the major broadcasters have a liberal and Democratic Party perspective, admittedly some in much stronger form than others. The White House is not only trying to intimidate Fox but is clearly also trying to fire a warning shot at any broadcasters that might take the same path as Fox. This is the way Fox reported that development (October 19, 2009): “White House chief of staff Mr. Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that President Obama does not want "the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox." Obama senior advisor Mr. Axelrod went further by calling on media outlets to join the administration in declaring that Fox is "not a news organization."
  
  "Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way," Axelrod counseled ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "We're not going to treat them that way." The Obama campaign (thus referred to as they are in a campaign and not a governing mode), in the tradition of corrupt, thuggish, Chicago politics and fascism have also set out to destroy the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Rush Limbaugh, insurance companies and any other critics that stand in their way.
• • When a health insurance company that marketed Medicare policies tried to warn its policyholders that Obamacare would hurt seniors’ insurance programs, the Department of Health and Human Services issued on a gag order on such communications with policyholders. It also said that the warning was misleading, which it was not. The gag order was since revoked, but its initial promulgation tells you something about the mentality of the White House and its attitude toward criticism. The Washington Post reported on the “gag order” as follows: “The federal government has ordered health insurers to stop telling Medicare beneficiaries that proposed health reform legislation could hurt seniors and jeopardize their benefits. The government might take enforcement action against insurers that have tried to mobilize opposition to the legislation by sending their enrollees "misleading and confusing" messages, a senior official of the Department of Health and Human Services said in a memo…” Query: Who will take action against Mr. Obama for the countless lies he’s telling in an effort to sell Obamacare?
• • When segments of the health insurance industry turned against Obamacare, Mr. Obama threatened to have the antitrust exemption of the industry revoked. When the timing of the threat is taken into account, it is clear that this was revenge and payback for Obamacare criticism. For details see New York Times (October 17, 2008). Working in tandem with Mr. Obama, Congressional leaders also issued threats to insurance companies that dared to dissent.
• • Any criticism of Mr. Obama and Obamacare is met with harsh criticism and what Mr. Obama once described as “calling them out.” For example, a recent radio address from Mr. Obama accused the insurance industry of misleading and improper criticism of Obamacare. The address lasted a little over six minutes, but did not sight a single fact or bit of evidence indicating that the industry was using deceptive tactics. As usual, the Obama speech was long on name-calling but devoid of facts and information. Unless you accept the Obama program, you are almost immediately and automatically branded as dealing in illegitimate criticism and “politics as usual.”
• • Mr. Obama and his administration are willing to tell lies, and big lies, over and over again, perhaps on the Goebbels theory that if you tell a big enough lie often enough it will be believed. One of the Obama lies that I found particularly irksome was his claim after the Senate Committee passed a version of Obamacare that it was a bipartisan product. In fact, Obamacare had finally garnered one Republican supporter (Senator Olympia “Republican in Name Only” Snowe, R., Me.) out of a Congress with 535 members. What’s worse, in the legislative process, the Republicans were frozen out and “did not have a seat at the table” to use one of Obama’s favorite figures of speech.
• • The Obama administration is known to favor and is now maneuvering to get some version of the Fairness Doctrine on the books to wipe out conservative talk radio. If Mr. Obama’s people can’t get the Fairness Doctrine revived, they’ll try to kill conservative talk radio with some other device such as “diversity” or “localism” requirements in broadcasting.
• • Then there was the highly publicized attempt of the Obama Administration to use the National Endowment for the Arts to influence artists and others who received government grants to create “works of art” supporting the Obama program. This is not an isolated example of the illegal and improper use by Mr. Obama of the government to propagandize and campaign: “Senate Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley, R., Iowa, is raising concerns that a Department of Health and Human Services Web site that urges visitors to send an e-mail to President Barack Obama praising his health care reform plan may violate rules against government-funded propaganda.” That’s a report from Roll Call (Oct. 20). You will probably also recall the White House’s collection of e-mail names, addresses and comments of those making “fishy” comments about Obamacare.
• • Mr. Obama and Democratic Congressional leaders have expressed support for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would abolish the secret ballot in union elections. This shows the willingness of Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party leadership to do anything to satisfy the demands of one of their voting constituencies. In this case, it’s the labor bosses, who want to revive their fortunes by making it easy to organize new unions – without the need to pass the test of a secret ballot obtaining the right to organize a union.
• • Mr. Obama has had a long and close association with ACORN, the corrupt community organization that has specialized in intimidation and other improper tactics to force banks to lend and has long been in the business of election fraud. That kind of anti-democratic activity is part of the picture that emerges from Mr. Obama and his administration.
• • Mr. Obama and the Democratic Congress have been willing to indulge in outrageous anti-democratic techniques to get legislation passed: Not reading a bill before it is signed, not posting the bill on the Internet prior to voting on it, as promised, and keeping negotiations secret and one-sided, also in conflict with promises.

I’ve emphasized one aspect of fascism – its objective of the forcible suppression of opposition. But it also qualifies under the other elements, including the suppression of private enterprise and putting it under centralized government control. That is one hallmark of the Obama Administration, it expands government, contracts the private sector and places new and unprecedented power in the hands of a centralized, expanding government bureaucracy.

This government expansion also is a restriction of our freedom because as the government gets bigger, the individual citizen gets smaller. Consider some of the belief systems of his Czars. Ron Bloom, the manufacturing czar thinks the “free market is nonsense.”

He also agrees with Chinese tyrant Mao Tse Tung that political power comes from the barrel of a gun. Anita Dunn, a communications director, also a big fan of Mao, expresses those views even when speaking to young students. And there is Mark Lloyd, Chief Diversity Officer at the FCC, who views tyrant Hugo Chavez in Venezuela as his model. The White House is brimming with socialists, communists, radicals and hate-America types. The only ideology not found there is one that respects American values and believes in American exceptionalism.

Herb Denenberg has served as insurance commissioner of Pennsylvania, a member of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, and as the Loman Professor of Insurance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He can be reached at advocate@thebulletin.us. (Source: Bulletin.)

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On The Road To Economic Recovery Or On The Eve Of A Great Depression (Oct 2009) Remarkable similarities between where we stand today economically and where the Country stood in 1930, one year after the collapse of the Stock Market (DJIA) in 1929 ……. The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to World War II in 1942, 12 years in length. In nearly half of those years the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) recorded advances, in some years, subtantial advances. Did any of those advances signal an "economic recovery"? Of course not! The following claims can be confirmed at these sites: http://stockcharts.com/charts/historical/djia19201940.html http://seansrant.com/ive-said-it-before-and-ill-say-it-again-the-decline-still-isnt-over-and-heres-why-im-short-the-djia/

The DJIA high in 1929 was 381.17. After the 1929 "crash" the DJIA stood at 198.69, a 48% drop. The DJIA "rebounded in 1930 to a high of 294.07, a gain of 95.38 points, a nearly 50% recovery, a recovery very similar to our current recovery in 2009. The real "crash" of the Great Depression began in late 1930 when the DJIA began a decline to a level of 41.22 in 1933. Between 1930 and 1933 there were several sharp "spikes" upward, followed by precipitous drops of the DJIA.

Does our current "spike" indicate a recovery? Certainly not!

The toxic assets are still on the Bank's books, yet the financial marklets are leading the recovery. Commercial real estate is on the brink of collapse, home mortgage foreclosures continue to climb – while the Obama mortgage assistance program has resulted in less than 2000 permanently modified mortgages - the President pledged to help 9,000,000. Credit card defaults and personal bankrupties continue to climb and the unemployment rate – incorrectly called a "lagging indicator" – continues to climb. Unemployment doesn't lag – it is "current" – unemployment can only be said to "lag" other indicators which are actually "predicting" future activity. The DJIA current level is "predciting" that "profits" and associated dividends will be better six months from now -that "prediction" is based on a set of "assumptions", one of the assumptions is that unemployment will improve and not worsen. The unemployment rate predicts nothing – it is a number that "understates" a current condition.

The DJIA is not predicative of economic health. The following from: http://www.online-stock-trading-guide.com/great-depression-stock-chart.html If you changed the dates from 1929 – 1930 to 2007 – 2009 you'd have an almost identical set of charts. http://seansrant.com/ive-said-it-before-and-ill-say-it-again-the-decline-still-isnt-over-and-heres-why-im-short-the-djia/

The DJIA has "zero" value in predicting whether our economic health has "turned" the corner. To this mix we will now add a half trillion dollars in new taxes to pay for Health Care Reform ….. this is a recipe for disaster! What is the truth about the underlying fundamentals is our economy …… (Source: McAuley's World.)

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At foreclosure auctions, broken dreams on sale (Oct 2009) The seven-bedroom, three-bath house in this city’s West Garfield Park neighborhood had once been someone’s American Dream. But at a recent auction of about 100 foreclosed houses and condos, it was just Property No. 20 — and drawing no bids from a roomful of buyers despite its bargain-basement price.

“Any interest in this home at $7,000?” fast-talking auctioneer Renee Jones asked the crowd. “If not, we’ll move on.” (Yahoo: Reuters.)

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Foreclosures rise 5 percent from summer to fall (Oct 2009) US foreclosures keep soaring as unemployment remains main cause of housing woes

The number of U.S. households caught up in the foreclosure crisis rose more than 5 percent from summer to fall as a federal effort to assist struggling borrowers was overwhelmed by a flood of defaults among people who lost their jobs. The foreclosure crisis affected nearly 938,000 properties in the July-September quarter, compared with about 890,000 in the prior three months, according to a report released Thursday by RealtyTrac Inc. That puts foreclosure-related filings on a pace to hit about 3.5 million this year, up from more than 2.3 million last year.

Unemployment is the main reason homeowners are falling into trouble. While the economy is likely out of recession, the unemployment rate — now at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent — isn't expected to peak until the middle of next year. Charter.net.) This is after an 81% increase in mortage foreclosures between 2007 and 2008. (Source: The Standard.)

Housing sales drop "unexpectedly" (Oct 2009) Two economic indicators over the past week indicate that the recovery may have trouble getting off the ground. Today, the Commerce Department reported a sharp drop in sales of new homes after a few months of tepid increases fueled by a tax break. The previous month's figures also got revised downward by 12,000 sales, or almost 3%:

Sales of new U.S. homes unexpectedly tumbled in September, their first drop in six months, underscoring the hazards to an economic recovery that businesses appeared to be banking on.

New single-family home sales fell 3.6 percent to a 402,000 unit annual pace from a downwardly revised 417,000 units in August, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected sales to rise to a 440,000 unit pace from August's previously reported 429,000.

A separate report from the Mortgage Bankers Association on Wednesday showed demand for mortgages has fallen for the past three weeks as buyers move to the sidelines ahead of the November 30 expiration of a popular home-buyers' tax credit.

Employers took 2,561 mass layoff actions in September that resulted in the separation of 248,006 workers, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Each action involved at least 50 persons from a single employer. …

Among the 4 census regions, the Midwest registered the highest number of initial claims in September due to mass layoffs (38,137), followed by the West (37,480) and the South (28,943). (See table 5.) Initial claims associated with mass layoffs increased over the year in 2 of the 4 regions, with the Midwest experiencing the largest increase (+11,491). In 2009, the Midwest reported its highest September level of average weekly initial claims (9,534) in program history.

In August, mass layoff events increased 24.7% over July. The new number still represents an 18.7% increase over July. Furthermore, these are cumulative. Job losses have not been balanced by job creation, which means that further job losses stack on top of previous job losses, rather than replace the earlier numbers.

Large employers are still shedding jobs, which makes the new-housing sales slump entirely predictable. Instead of tax-credit gimmicks, the government needs to find ways to get out of the way of recovery and allow the private sector to invest and grow. (Source: Hot Air.)

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Credit card defaults up at major lenders (Sep 2009) Over the past few months, banks had been releasing some promising figures regarding credit card defaults – but new data suggests that any signs of improvement may not be lasting. The latest figures from major lenders implies that previous progress could be more accurately credited to seasonal factors and Americans paying down credit card debt with their tax refunds, according to Bloomberg.

Banks including JPMogan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Discover all reported an increase in credit card defaults – also known as charge-offs – during August. Charge-offs reflect credit card accounts that issuers deem uncollectable. In particular, BofA reported that charge-offs climbed from 13.8 percent to 14.5 percent last month, while Citigroup saw a rise from 10 percent to 12.1 percent during the same period. (Source: Credit.com.) 14.5%? 13.8%? That is more than twice a normal or healthy default rate.

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Personal bankruptcies hits a 4-year high -- Mounting unemployment and housing crisis push the filings to the highest level since 2005. (Oct 2009) Personal bankruptcies topped the 1 million mark in the first nine months of the year, the first time it has done so in four years, according to an industry research firm released Friday.

The personal bankruptcies were up 35% from the same period in 2008, according to the report from the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI).

How can you report that over 500,000 filed for 1st time unemployment benefits again - and claim that is good news – the 514,000 is the smallest number in how long – Gee, to me the story is we have had at least 500,000 file for 1st time benefits 12 consecutive months in a row. In October 2008, 533,000 filed first time claims, so 19,000 fewer have filed this October, but the total number of employed persons has dropped considerably, in other words the total pool of people who could potentially become unemployed is much smaller so that the number of people filing claims is a higher percent of the employed than it was a year ago.

I remember the reports from this time last year – “the worse economy of our lifetime” – when we had an unemployment rate of 6.5%. “The number of employed Americans has declined by 1.2 million over the first 10 months of 2008, with half of the loss taking place since August.1 The result is that the October national unemployment rate of 6.5 percent represents the highest level of unemployment since March 1994.“ (PRB.)

We have lost almost 3 times that many jobs in the 1st 10 months of this year. A total of nearly, 3.6 million jobs lost this year (2009). By Hibah Yousuf, CNNMoney.com contributing writer (Source: CNN Money.)

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November 2009

Obama Shatters Spending Record for First-Year Presidents (Nov 2009) The federal government spent $3.5 trillion during President Obama's first year in office. This far exceeds the spending for any other first-year president. President Obama has shattered the budget record for first-year presidents -- spending nearly double what his predecessor did when he came into office and far exceeding the first-year tabs for any other U.S. president in history.

In fiscal 2009 the federal government spent $3.52 trillion -- $2.8 trillion in 2000 dollars, which sets a benchmark for comparison. That fiscal year covered the last three-and-a-half months of George W. Bush's term and the first eight-and-a-half months of Obama's. That price tag came with a $1.4 trillion deficit, nearly $1 trillion more than last year. The overall budget was about a half-trillion more than Bush's for 2008, his final full fiscal year in office.

That's a big increase. But compared with other presidents' first years in office, Obama is running circles around them. Bush spent $1.8 trillion in 2001, according to government budget figures that have been adjusted for inflation based on 2000 dollars. Using the same formula, former President Bill Clinton spent $1.6 trillion in 1993.

The last president to clock in under $1 trillion was Gerald Ford, who logged a $982 billion budget in 1975. Post-war Dwight Eisenhower even brought Uncle Sam's tab down to $556 billion in his first year, 1953.

Obama's first-year budget, adjusted for inflation, is about five times that. His 2009 budget is also close to 21 percent of that for Clinton's eight years in office -- Clinton's spending added up to $13.5 trillion over his two full terms. Bush spent $16.8 trillion from 2001-2008. (Source: Fox News.)

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CHANGE: Hope that Recovery On the way Jobs, consumer spending data hint at recovery -- Reports: Jobless claims fall to lowest level in year, incomes grow modestly (Nov 2009) In a hopeful sign for the economy, the number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell below 500,000 last week for the first time since January. Consumer spending picked up in October, new-home sales hit their highest point in more than a year and shoppers' outlook brightened a bit ahead of the crucial holiday shopping season.

Combined, the news suggested that the economy should be able to sustain at least a modest rebound. Some economists have worried that the economy was at risk of slipping back into recession. The number of people filing first-time claims for jobless aid fell by 35,000 to 466,000, the Labor Department said Wednesday. That was the fewest since September of last year. And it was far better than the 500,000 economists had expected. Still, analysts noted that jobless claims would have to drop to near 400,000 for several weeks to signal actual growth in employment.

Economists estimate the economy will lose a net 145,000 jobs this month. It would have to add 125,000 jobs a month just to keep the unemployment rate from rising. Some economists sounded cautionary notes about Wednesday's positive news. They say the sluggish recovery could limit further improvements in jobless claims, new-home sales and consumer spending, which powers 70 percent of the economy "When taken all together, the reports still paint a picture of a slow economic recovery," said Mark Vitner, an economist at Wells Fargo.

Durable goods orders fell

One such sign was that orders for costly manufactured goods fell unexpectedly last month. Much of October's weakness came from a big drop for goods related to defense. Excluding those, orders for other types of manufactured goods rose slightly. Still, the overall performance was weaker than economists had expected.

Some analysts also cautioned against reading too much into the sharp drop in unemployment claims. They noted that part of the improvement reflected large seasonal adjustment factors, which smooth out changes that normally occur at certain times of the year. Excluding seasonal adjustments, claims rose. That's normal at this time of year when many construction workers face layoffs because of worsening weather conditions.

Most economists say the recovery will remain so weak and job creation so slight that the unemployment rate will keep rising. Many think the rate, which hit a 26-year high of 10.2 percent in October, could top 10.5 percent by mid-2010. Federal Reserve policymakers expressed concern at their November meeting that the rate could remain elevated for several years, according to minutes of the discussions released Tuesday. Analysts also noted that the surge in new-home sales was driven entirely by a 23 percent increase in the South. Sales in all other regions fell.

Encouraging signs

Still, taken together, the reports on jobless claims, consumer spending and home sales were encouraging, and stock prices rose in light volume on Wall Street. New jobless claims dropped below 500,000 for the first time since the first week in January. Weekly claims peaked at 674,000 in March and have since been trending lower.

Consumer spending rose a 0.7 percent last month, following 0.6 percent drop in September, the Commerce Department said. It was the best showing since a big 1.3 percent jump in August when the government's now-defunct Cash for Clunkers programs enticed people to buy cars. Incomes, the fuel for future spending, rose 0.2 percent for the second straight month. Consumers spent more on costly "durable" manufactured goods — such as cars and appliances. Such spending rose 2.1 percent. They also boosted spending last month on "nondurables," including food and clothes, and on services.

Double-dip

Wednesday's figures seemed to blunt some fears that consumers could clam up, sending the country into a "double dip" recession. Yet concerns remain that consumer spending will slow early next year. Consumer sentiment improved slightly in November from earlier in the month, but it was weaker than October as deep anxiety lingered over personal finances, a survey showed on Wednesday.

This uneasiness foreshadows another tough year-end holiday season for retailers, some of which already slashed prices to lure shoppers. The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said the final figure for its index of consumer sentiment in November stepped up to 67.4 from 66.0 in the first half of the month. Analysts had expected a final November figure of 67.0, compared with a final October reading of 70.6. "The decline in consumer confidence was due to grim assessments by consumers of their finances, the worst ever recorded in the 60-year history of the surveys," Richard Curtin, director of the survey, said in a statement.

Savings rate dips

With spending outpacing income growth, Americans' personal savings rate — savings as a percentage of after-tax income — dipped to 4.4 percent in October from 4.6 percent in September. Personal income from interest came to an annualized $1.23 trillion, ticking up 0.5 percent from September. People who rely on interest from savings, such as money in certificates of deposit, have been seeing their income fall for months, raising doubts about their ability to spend.

New-home sales rose 6.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 430,000 from an upwardly revised 405,000 in September. Economists had expected a pace of 410,000. Home shoppers were acting before lawmakers decided this month to extend a tax credit for first-time buyers and expand it to some existing homeowners.

Much of October's weakness in durable-goods orders came from an 18.4 percent drop in orders for goods related to defense. Excluding those, orders for other types of manufactured goods rose 0.4 percent in October, after a 1.8 percent rise in September. Orders for electrical equipment, commercial airplanes and parts, primary metals — including steel — and fabricated metals all rose last month. Orders for cars, machinery, computers and communications equipment fell.

A drop of 190,000 in the number of people continuing to claim jobless aid marked the 10th consecutive decline, leaving it at 5.42 million, the lowest level since the week of Feb. 28. The continuing claims figure, though, does not include millions who have used up the regular 26 weeks of benefits typically provided by states and are receiving extended benefits for up to 73 additional weeks. (Source: MSNBC.)

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VIDEO: Martin Gross calls Government of Deceipt and Liar who cook the books (Newsmax)

Economy gets tidings of hope for holidays (Dec 2009) Signs of a strengthening global recovery emerged Friday, with consumers boosting retail sales, companies restoring stockpiles and Chinese exports mounting a comeback. The reports heightened hopes that consumers are starting to feel more comfortable about opening their wallets after months of building savings and reducing debt. Consumer spending, which drives most U.S. economic activity, is vital to a sustained rebound.

The encouraging retail sales report for November was a surprise. U.S. retailers have been reporting generally lackluster results for the start of the holiday shopping season. But sales rose 1.3 percent last month, after a 1.1 percent October gain, the Commerce Department said. It was the healthiest advance since August. And it was more than double the increase economists had expected.

Excluding autos, retail sales rose 1.2 percent — triple the expected gain. A 6 percent surge in sales at service stations, partly reflecting higher gasoline prices, led the overall gain. But even excluding that jump, retail sales posted a solid 0.8 percent rise in November. Most economists have worried that high unemployment would depress spending and drag on the economy as it struggles to emerge from the worst recession since the 1930s. "The labor market is showing signs of stabilization, and this is giving consumers greater confidence to spend a little more than they were earlier this year," said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York.

A more upbeat outlook about the labor market showed up in consumer sentiment data, too. The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its preliminary index of sentiment for December rose to 73.4, just a touch below the year's high set in September. The latest figure was higher than the 67.4 for November. It was also higher than economists' median expectation of a reading of 68.5 according to a Reuters poll.

But analysts also cautioned that the economy still faces so many obstacles that consumer spending — and the economic recovery — are likely to be sluggish in the months ahead. "High unemployment, poor income growth, tight credit and the need to pay down debt mean that consumption growth is likely to slow," said Paul Dales, an economist at Capital Economics.

Stocks rose moderately after the sales report was released but were mixed in early afternoon trading. Retail stocks rose sharply, with Macy's surging nearly 6 percent and Saks up nearly 4 percent. Also sparking optimism was a report Friday that U.S. businesses unexpectedly increased their inventories in October, halting a slide of 13 consecutive declines. The small gain raised hopes that businesses will begin restocking their depleted shelves, helping support the economic recovery.

Businesses boosted inventories 0.2 percent in October — better than the 0.3 percent drop economists had expected. Total business sales rose 1.1 percent, the fifth straight gain.

Steadily rising sales could encourage businesses to restock shelves and boost factory production, bolstering a broader recovery. China's trade figures for November were the best in a year, with exports falling just 1.2 percent from the same month of 2008. Retail sales, factory output and investment also saw robust growth last month. The figures released Friday did show a return to inflation, though only at the modest level of 0.6 percent, after nine months of falling prices.

Asian markets rallied as investors were heartened by the signs of rising global demand that could lift other trade-reliant economies in the region as consumers in the U.S. and elsewhere begin spending more after months of holding back. A sustained improvement in Chinese exports could add to pressure from the U.S., Europe and other trading partners for Beijing to let its currency, the yuan, rise. But Chinese officials have shown they're in no hurry to alter their policy of keeping the yuan weak to boost the competitiveness of China's exports.

The November U.S. retail sales report showed auto sales rose 1.6 percent, a solid performance after a 7.1 percent surge in October. Sales at department stores rose 0.7 percent. And the broader category that includes big retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. posted a 0.8 percent increase. Sales also jumped 2.8 percent at electronics and appliance stores, and 1.5 percent at hardware stores. Sales did fall 0.7 percent at furniture stores, a surprise since analysts had expected a rebound in home sales to bolster demand for furniture.

After posting two straight gains after more than a year of declines, big chain retail stores earlier this month reported a dip in November sales. Those figures don't include Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, which no longer reports monthly sales. But a diverse group of stores, including Macy's Inc., Saks Inc., Abercrombie & Fitch Co. and Target, did post sharper-than-expected sales declines in November.

The overall economy rose at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the July-September quarter, the first increase after a record four straight declines. Analysts had forecast growth to sag a bit in the current quarter and the first half of 2010 because they expected consumer spending would weaken under the weight of 10 percent unemployment. (Source: MSNBC.)

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U.S. National Debt Tops Debt Limit (Dec 2009) The latest calculation of the National Debt as posted by the Treasury Department has - at least numerically - exceeded the statutory Debt Limit approved by Congress last February as part of the Recovery Act stimulus bill.

The ceiling was set at $12.104 trillion dollars. The latest posting by Treasury shows the National Debt at nearly $12.135 trillion. A senior Treasury official told CBS News that the department has some "extraordinary accounting tools" it can use to give the government breathing room in the range of $150-billion when the Debt exceeds the Debt Ceiling.

Were it not for those "tools," the U.S. Government would not have the statutory authority to borrow any more money. It might block issuance of Social Security checks and require a shutdown of some parts of the federal government.

Pending in Congress is a measure to increase the Debt Limit by $290 billion, which amounts to six more weeks of routine borrowing for the federal government. (The House just passed the increase, though the Senate has yet to act. It is expected to approve the measure.)

Republicans and conservative Democrats blocked moves by House leaders to pass a $1.8 trillion dollar increase in the Debt Limit so the Democratic majority would not have to face the embarrassment of raising the Debt Limit yet again before next November's midterm elections.

The Debt Limit has been raised about a hundred times since 1940, when it was $49 billion - about five days worth of federal spending now.

The White House projects a record $1.5 trillion dollars deficit this year alone, and a 5-year deficit total of $4.97 trillion. The Debt figure goes up and down on a daily basis based on government borrowing and revenue. Technically, not all of the National Debt is subject to the Debt Limit - a small percentage is exempt. (Source: CBS News.) (SITE NOTE: In an end-of-session nail-biter vote, the House passed a short-term increase of the debt limit Wednesday, setting the stage for a February showdown on deficit spending. It was not a popular measure with centrist and vulnerable lawmakers, who don’t want to be portrayed as allowing the nation to go deeper into debt. The $290 billion increase would set the debt ceiling at $12.394 trillion. The vote was 218-214, but Democratic leaders had to sweat it out. As the voting clock ticked down to zero, the bill was losing, 203-208. Thirty-nine Democrats rejected the measure and not one Republican voted for it. Three members, Reps. George Radanovich (R-Calif.), Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and Bill Young (R-Fla.), did not vote. Most of the Democrats who voted against the debt increase are expected to face challenging reelection races. (Source: The Hill.)

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China warns Obama deficit spending must stop (Dec 2009) One day after the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao snubbed President Obama at the United Nation's Copenhagen Climate Summit, the Chinese warned the United States that China's ability to continue buying U.S. Treasury debt was limited. Zhu Min, the deputy governor of the People's Republic of China, told the Shanghai Daily that it is getting harder for the People's Bank of China to buy U.S. Treasuries because the shrinking U.S. current account is reducing the supplies overseas.

This was dire news for the Obama administration that in 2010 and for the foreseeable future will be dependent on China to buy U.S. Treasury debt in order to fund the trillion-dollar federal budget deficits projected over the next decade. The Shanghai Daily reported that Zhu told an academic audience that it was inevitable the value of the dollar would fall in value given the increasing reliance of the Obama administration on issuing U.S. Treasury debt to finance deficit spending. "The United States cannot force foreign governments to increase their holdings of Treasuries," Zhu said. "Double the holdings? It is definitely impossible." Zhu's warning was clear. "The world does not have so much money to buy more U.S. Treasuries," he said.

China's warnings portend that the Obama administration's determination to expand the U.S. social welfare state will necessarily meet a limit when foreign nations lack the U.S. dollar foreign exchange reserves needed to purchase increasing amounts of U.S. Treasury debt. Zhu's comments were a warning to the Obama administration that China does not approve of the large and continuing deficits the U.S. is projecting into the future.

The current account is a measure of a country's current surplus or deficit in international trade, plus international borrowing and lending, plus transfer payments such as foreign aid. The largest component in a nation's current account is typically the balance of trade account. Specifically Zhu Min was referencing the diminishing magnitude of the continuing U.S. balance of trade with China brought on by reduced demand for consumer goods in the United States.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, foreign trade division, the U.S. balance of trade with China for the last decade is as follows:

By comparison, in 1990, the U.S. negative balance of trade with China was only $10,431,000; in 1985, the U.S. negative balance of trade with China was only $6,000,000. This year may end up being the first year in over a decade where the U.S. negative balance of trade with China has been smaller than the negative balance of trade in the previous year.



Thus, while China's foreign exchange reserves have gained dramatically over time, reaching a current level of $2.3 trillion at the end of September – the largest amount of foreign exchange reserves any nation has ever accumulated in the history of international trade – the rate at which China is accumulating foreign exchange reserves has slowed, reflecting a reduction in the United States' purchasing of goods from China during the current global economic downturn. According to the U.S. Treasury, China is the largest holder of U.S. Treasury debt, amounting to $798.9 billion in October 2009, with Japan second on the list at $746.5 billion.

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THIS INSPIRES CONFIDENCE: OBAMA'S CABINET HAS THE LOWEST AMOUNT OF PRIVATE SECTOR EXPERIENCE OF ANY ADMINISTRATION SO FAR -- What we have are the far-left radical elitist scholars and political hacks (like Obama)...and then they shun the American Chamber of Commerce advice because they know better.

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Obama drags his mess into the new year.

January 2010

AP: 2009 bankruptcies total 1.4 million, up 32 pct (Jan 2010) U.S. consumers and businesses are filing for bankruptcy at a pace that made 2009 the seventh-worst year on record, with more than 1.4 million petitions submitted, an Associated Press tally showed Monday. The AP gathered data from the nation's 90 bankruptcy districts and found 1.43 million filings, an increase of 32 percent from 2008. There were 116,000 recorded bankruptcies in December, up 22 percent from the same month a year before.

While experts believe some of the increase is due to a natural recovery as consumers and attorneys become accustomed to a recent overhaul of bankruptcy laws, the numbers indicate clear correlations to recession-weary regions. Arizona saw the fastest increase, a jump of 77 percent from the year before, followed by Wyoming (60 percent), Nevada (59 percent) and California (58 percent). Emile Harmon, who owns a law firm in Tempe, Ariz., said the firm has doubled its staff to handle the surge in bankruptcy filings. The lawyers have been steadily shifting away from their other areas of business, civil lawsuits and divorce cases. "Bankruptcy is kind of swallowing the whole practice." Harmon said. "There's little time to do other stuff."

There's also no sign that things are slowing down. Harmon said bankruptcies have been coming in waves, first with those 18 months ago who had adjustable-rate mortages, then with those who lost their jobs due to the housing downturn. Now he's finding wealthy individuals and business owners who have finally succumbed to lower incomes and shrinking home values. "A lot of the people we see were in a really good financial position two years ago," Harmon said. "People really look at you and say, 'I can't believe I'm here.'"

For three years, filings have been steadily rising back toward levels reached early in the decade before Congress overhauled the nation's bankruptcy laws. The 2005 alterations made bankruptcy filings more cumbersome, a move that followed fears from lenders that some consumers were abusing the system to wipe away debts. Bankruptcies surged to slightly more than 2 million in 2005 as consumers rushed to file before the new law took effect but then plummeted to 600,000 in 2006. They've been climbing ever since and in 2009 became the seventh-highest year on record, behind only the years 1998 and 2001-2005.

The 2005 spike had been preceded by a steady climb from 1.5 million in 2001 to 1.6 million in 2005. John Pottow, a bankruptcy professor at the University of Michigan, said the return to the highs of earlier this decade illustrates the failures of the 2005 overhaul bill. He said the measure largely made filings more costly and time-consuming by forcing consumers to undergo a paperwork-heavy test to determine eligibility for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and adding liability for attorneys who provide help. "It never made sense in the first place that you could change the laws and make all these bankruptcies go away," said Pottow, who would like to see the 2005 law changes repealed. "If people are encountering financial distress, you can only scare them away for so long before they come back again." While every state saw a rise in bankruptcies, Alaska (up 12 percent), Nebraska (12 percent) and North Dakota (14 percent) performed best. (Source: AP.)

VIDEO: Unemployment Rates under Obama Graphically Shown

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Shame On You Mr. President – Obama Administration Tosses "saved or created" job count – New Job Counts Complete Fiction (Jan 2010) Many of the third world countries who are ruled by dictatorships lie anbout their economic prowess … there is no hunger in these countries, no one is unemployment, these countries are a paradise for the workers or a "worker's paradise". Heath Care for all. Of course the truth has nothing to do with these exaggerated claims … the people wait in long lines for hours to buy poorly made shoes – when there are any shoes to be had at all, food – when it is available - is always short on quality and quantity …. health care is available – for the rich and privledged. The "leaders" of these Countries propagandize – they never admit the truth ……. Such was the case in the old Soviet Union and the Eastern Block countries. Such is the case in Cuba and Chavez's Venezuela today, Venezuela where electrical power is shut off to the people for up to 4 hours a day ….. Venezuela, one of the world's leading oil exporters can't provide electrical power to it's own people … power that the people had before Chavez took over the Country …… http://cbs4denver.com/wireapnational/Venezuela.announces.rolling.2.1420607.html

Sadly, the Obama Administration has adopted the tactics of these Countries and their oppressive leaders. Propaganda ….

I'm stunned that the Adminstration believes the American People will be duped by it's most recent actions and claims. A fundamental element of Democracy is the ability of the people to believe, is some part, what its leaders say ……..

Opinion polls show that we, The American People, overwhelming reject the Administrations claims of "stimulus related" job creation. We, The People, reject these claims because every independent organization to review the Adminstration's claims have rejected the accuracy of those claims.

Even ABC News, one of Obama's strongest supporters and the the first news organization in what is referred to as the Main Stream Media to endorse Obama, has noted that the stimulus spending has, to date, done nothing to curb unemployment. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9527995

ABC News, commenting on a story by the Associated Press noted, "President Barack Obama's first stimulus has had no effect on local unemployment rates, raising questions about his argument for billions more to address an "urgent need to accelerate job growth."" "With the nation's unemployment rate at 10 percent and expected to rise, Obama wants a second stimulus bill from Congress including billions of additional dollars" …….. "But AP's analysis, which was reviewed by independent economists at five universities, showed the strategy of pumping transportation money into counties hasn't affected local unemployment rates so far."There seems to me to be very little evidence that it's making a difference," said Todd Steen, an economics professor at Hope College in Michigan who reviewed the AP analysis. And there's concern about relying on transportation spending a second time. "My bottom line is, I'd be skeptical about putting too much more money into a second stimulus until we've seen broader effects from the first stimulus," said Aaron Jackson, a Bentley University economist who also reviewed AP's analysis.

"For the analysis, the AP reviewed Transportation Department data on more than $21 billion in stimulus projects in every state and Washington, D.C., and the Labor Department's monthly unemployment data to assess the effects of road and bridge spending on local unemployment and construction employment. The AP's analysis found there was nearly no connection between stimulus money and the number of construction workers hired or fired since Congress passed the recovery program. The effect was so small, one economist compared it to trying to move the Empire State Building by pushing against it. "As a policy tool for creating jobs, this doesn't seem to have much bite," said Emory University economist Thomas Smith, who supported the stimulus and reviewed AP's analysis. "In terms of creating jobs, it doesn't seem like it's created very many."

"It would be unlikely that even $20 billion spent all at once would be enough to move the needle of the huge decline we've seen, even in construction, much less the economy. The job destruction is way too big," said Kenneth D. Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America.

"Few counties, for example, received more road money per capita than Marshall County, Tenn., about 90 minutes south of Nashville. Obama's stimulus is paying the salaries of dozens of workers there, but local officials said the unemployment rate continues to rise and is expected to top 20 percent soon. The new money for road projects isn't enough to offset the thousands of local jobs lost from the closing of manufacturing plants and automotive parts suppliers."The stimulus has not benefited the working-class people of Marshall County at all," said Isaac Zimmerle, a local contractor who has seen his construction business slowly dry up since 2008. That year, he built 30 homes. But prospects this year look grim."

So what is the Administration's answer …. the same as always …. as we are learning …… this Adminsitration is a "one trick pony" – spend more, tax more and increase the deficit ….. Focus on "temporary work" created by Government spending and funnel our tax dollars to corrupt poltical cronies …… This is not new – this doesn't represent CHANGE ….. we will get the same old results ……

The Administration has now moved …. not to improve the economy but to change how the Adminstration counts the ficticious jobs created under the first stimulus package …. you remember the laughable "jobs created or saved" reports – you know, where the Administration claimed to have created jobs in fictious zip codes and in Congressional Disticts that did not exist, claims that inlcuded the creation of 50 jobs by buying one lawn mower at a cemetery that employed only 20 people …… The "created or saved" system needed to be eliminated. That system had two fatal flaws – flaws that the Adminsitration could no longer live with. The first flaw, the American People found it to be laughable - no one believed the numbers. The second flaw of the system, the phoney numbers being claimed were not "BIG ENOUGH" …… they needed a bigger lie … because they want more money to throw down this same rat hole. The spurious claim that 640,000 jobs had been created by the first stimuls, simply would not support a call for a second stimulus package.

Why actually put people back to work if all you need do is tell a bigger lie ……

In the dark of night this past weekend the "most transparent of all Adminstrations in the history of the Country" threw out its old "jobs saved or created" methodology and replaced it with a new means of "fudging the job count". This slight of hand was reported by the USA today online here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-01-12-stimulus-counting_N.htm?csp=34 .

Stimulus: White House changes job-count rule

The White House has abandoned its controversial method of counting jobs under President Obama's economic stimulus, making it impossible to track the number of jobs saved or created with the $787 billion in recovery money.

Despite mounting a vigorous defense of its earlier count of more than 640,000 jobs, to the stimulus, even after numerous errors were identified, the Obama administration now is making it easier to give the stimulus credit for hiring. It's no longer about counting a job as saved or created; now it's a matter of counting jobs funded by the stimulus. That means that any stimulus money used to cover payroll will be included in the jobs credited to the program, including pay raises for existing employees and pay for people who never were in jeopardy of losing their positions. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-01-12-stimulus-counting_N.htm?csp=34

How shameful …… giving lavish pay raises to Government employees, both in Congress and out, at a time of economic crisis like this and then classifying the pay raises as a "new" or "saved" stimulus job.

"Recipients of recovery money no longer have to show that a job would have been lost without the stimulus help, and they no longer are required to keep an ongoing tally of jobs saved or created. The new rules allow stimulus recipients to limit the job tally to quarterly reports, making it impossible to avoid double-counting a job that was created in one quarter and continued into the next." http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-01-12-stimulus-counting_N.htm?csp=34

Please note that the USA Today article cited in this post (above) was published yesterday, Sunday, January 12, 2010. USA Today, long a supporter of President Obama, cited the Administration's claim of 640,000 jobs created by the stimulus …. and now …. for the miracles of miracles …. an article from this morning …… Monday, January 13, 2010 ….

Associated Press: White House credits stimulus with up to 2 million jobs.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is trumpeting a new White House estimate that his top economist calls "stunning". His stimulus plan has already created or saved up to 2 million jobs.

The analysis is part of the administration's quarterly report to Congress on the controversial $787 billion package of spending and tax cuts he signed weeks after taking office. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100113/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_jobs

Stunning is an understatement …. when we went to bed last night the most incredibly optomistic estimates produced by the Administration, the estimates loaded with jobs in fake zip codes and non-existent Congressional Districts was set at 640,000 and now, presto chango …. nothing up my sleeve …… in less than 24 hours ….. we now have 2 Million Stimulus related jobs …………

This is beyond shameless …. lying about the success of a failed program, lies that won't put people back to work, put food on tables or prevent even one additional foreclosure …. lies intended to boost the approval ratings of the politicians in the next set of opinion polls ….lies aimed at funneling more money into corrupt Government spending programs ……

Mr. President, frankly I didn't expect much from you … I hoped for your success if your success was going to be good for our Country…….. I can only imagine how disappointed your supporters must be ….. especially those who thought that by voting for you they were voting for a positive change.

Mr. Presdient we are not stupid …. all we need do is look around to see the truth …… when you send someone out to lie on your behalf the lie still attaches to your reputation ……. take a look at your poll numbers – we are not buying your political double talk any longer ……. November is just 10 months away and we are counting the days …………

Stop the lies ….. stop the back room dealing ……. and keep your promises …. (Source: McAuley's World.)

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Dr. Krauthammer: Hammers Obama on Economy (Jan 2010) It's better to be paralyzed from the neck down, than to be paralyzed from the neck up... Dr. Krauthammer is on Fox News. He is an M.D. and a lawyer and is paralyzed from the neck down. A friend went to hear Charles Krauthammer. He listened with 25 others in a closed room. What he says here, is NOT 2nd-hand but 1st. The ramifications are staggering for us, our children and their children.

Last Monday was a profound evening, Dr. Charles Krauthammer spoke to the Center for the American Experiment. He is a brilliant intellectual, seasoned & articulate.. He is forthright and careful in his analysis, and never resorts to emotions or personal insults. He is NOT a fear monger nor an extremist in his comments and views. He is a fiscal conservative, and has received a Pulitzer Prize for writing. He is a frequent contributor to Fox News and writes weekly for the Washington Post. The entire room was held spellbound during his talk. I have summarized his comments, as we are living in uncharted waters economically and internationally.

Even 2 Dems at my table agreed with everything he said! If you feel like forwarding this to those who are open minded and have not drunk the Kool-Aid, feel free.

Summary of his comments:

1. Mr. Obama is a very intellectual, charming individual. He is not to be underestimated. He is a cool customer who doesn't show his emotions. It's very hard to know what's behind the mask. The taking down of the Clinton dynasty was an amazing accomplishment. The Clintons still do not understand what hit them. Obama was in the perfect place at the perfect time.

2. Obama has political skills comparable to Reagan and Clinton. He has a way of making you think he's on your side, agreeing with your position, while doing the opposite. Pay no attention to what he SAYS; rather, watch what he DOES!

3. Obama has a ruthless quest for power. He did not come to Washington to make something out of himself, but rather to change everything, including dismantling capitalism. He can't be straightforward on his ambitions, as the public would not go along. He has a heavy hand, and wants to level the playing field with income redistribution and punishment to the achievers of society. He would like to model the USA to Great Britain or Canada .

4. His three main goals are to control ENERGY, PUBLIC EDUCATION, and NATIONAL HEALTHCARE by the Federal government. He doesn't care about the auto or financial services industries, but got them as an early bonus. The cap and trade will add costs to everything and stifle growth. Paying for FREE college education is his goal.. Most scary is his healthcare program, because if you make it FREE and add 46,000,000 people to a Medicare-type single-payer system, the costs will go through the roof. The only way to control costs is with massive RATIONING of services, like in Canada . God forbid!

5. He has surrounded himself with mostly far-left academic types. No one around him has ever even run a candy store. But they are going to try and run the auto, financial, banking and other industries. This obviously can't work in the long run. Obama is not a socialist; rather he's a far-left secular progressive bent on nothing short of revolution. He ran as a moderate, but will govern from the hard left. Again, watch what he does, not what he says.

6. Obama doesn't really see himself as President of the United States , but more as a ruler over the world. He sees himself above it all, trying to orchestrate & coordinate various countries and their agendas. He sees moral equivalency in all cultures. His apology tour in Germany and England was a prime example of how he sees America , as an imperialist nation that has been arrogant, rather than a great noble nation that has at times made errors. This is the first President ever who has chastised our allies and appeased our enemies!

7. He is now handing out goodies. He hopes that the bill (and pain) will not come due until after he is reelected in 2012. He would like to blame all problems on Bush from the past, and hopefully his successor in the future. He has a huge ego, and Dr. Krauthammer believes he is a narcissist.

8. Republicans are in the wilderness for a while, but will emerge strong. Republicans are pining for another Reagan, but there will never be another like him. Krauthammer believes Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty & Bobby Jindahl (except for his terrible speech in February) are the future of the party. Newt Gingrich is brilliant, but has baggage.. Sarah Palin is sincere and intelligent, but needs to really be seriously boning up on facts and info if she is to be a serious candidate in the future... We need to return to the party of lower taxes, smaller government, personal responsibility, strong national defense, and state's rights..

9. The current level of spending is irresponsible and outrageous. We are spending trillions that we don't have. This could lead to hyperinflation, depression or worse. No country has ever spent themselves into prosperity. The media is giving Obama, Reid and Pelosi a pass because they love their agenda. But eventually the bill will come due and people will realize the huge bailouts didn't work, nor will the stimulus package. These were trillion-dollar payoffs to Obama's allies, unions and the Congress to placate the left, so he can get support for #4 above.

10. The election was over in mid-September when Lehman brothers failed, fear and panic swept in, we had an unpopular President, and the war was grinding on indefinitely without a clear outcome. The people are in pain, and the mantra of change caused people to act emotionally. Any Dem would have won this election; it was surprising it was as close as it was..

11. In 2012, if the unemployment rate is over 10%, Republicans will be swept back into power. If it's under 8%, the Dems continue to roll. If it's between 8-10%, it will be a dogfight.. It will all be about the economy. I hope this gets you really thinking about what's happening in Washington and Congress. There is a left-wing revolution going on, according to Krauthammer, and he encourages us to keep the faith and join the loyal resistance... The work will be hard, but we're right on most issues and can reclaim our country, before it's far too late. (Source: Email from Susan S. Stone.)

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Andrea Mitchell Tells Valerie Jarrett "People Are No Longer Willing To Blame George W. Bush" - Video 1/27/10 (Jan 2010) Here is video of Andrea Mitchell telling Valerie Jarrett, who was trying to blame Bush yet again, that "now people are no longer willing to blame George W. Bush, they're really putting it on Barack Obama." Valerie Jarrett started out by blaming Bush for the falling Obama approval ratings, she said, "First of all lets take a step back, and let's remember what the President walked into a little over a year ago, an economy that was literally on the brink of disaster, within a month he passed the largest economic recovery act in our nation's history, nearly $800 billion designed to help jump start the economy." Andrea Mitchell then jumped in and told Jarrett, "he inherited a total disaster and took some huge steps, what you're discovering though is that now people are no longer willing to blame George W. Bush for that, they're really putting it on Barack Obama." (Source: Freedom's Lighthouse.) (SITE NOTE: Obama wants the credit for saving the economy -- which hasn't happened -- but still wants to blame Bush for everything bad. Obama's poll numbers are tanking though his personal popularity remains relatively high. Bottom line: I like the guy, but he's doing a lousy job.)

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STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS: 28 Jan 2010

FACT CHECK: Obama and a toothless commission (Jan 2010) President Barack Obama told Americans the bipartisan deficit commission he will appoint won't just be "one of those Washington gimmicks." Left unspoken in that assurance was the fact that the commission won't have any teeth. Obama confronted some tough realities in his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, chief among them that Americans are continuing to lose their health insurance as Congress struggles to pass an overhaul. Yet some of his ideas for moving ahead skirted the complex political circumstances standing in his way. A look at some of Obama's claims and how they compare with the facts:

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OBAMA: "Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected. But all other discretionary government programs will. Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don't."

THE FACTS: The anticipated savings from this proposal would amount to less than 1 percent of the deficit — and that's if the president can persuade Congress to go along.

Obama is a convert to the cause of broad spending freezes. In the presidential campaign, he criticized Republican opponent John McCain for suggesting one. "The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel," he said a month before the election. Now, Obama wants domestic spending held steady in most areas where the government can control year-to-year costs. The proposal is similar to McCain's.

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OBAMA: "I've called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad. This can't be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline. Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans."

THE FACTS: Any commission that Obama creates would be a weak substitute for what he really wanted — a commission created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That idea crashed in the Senate this week, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Any commission set up by Obama alone would lack authority to force its recommendations before Congress, and would stand almost no chance of success.

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OBAMA: Discussing his health care initiative, he said, "Our approach would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan."

THE FACTS: The Democratic legislation now hanging in limbo on Capitol Hill aims to keep people with employer-sponsored coverage — the majority of Americans under age 65 — in the plans they already have. But Obama can't guarantee people won't see higher rates or fewer benefits in their existing plans. Because of elements such as new taxes on insurance companies, insurers could change what they offer or how much it costs. Moreover, Democrats have proposed a series of changes to the Medicare program for people 65 and older that would certainly pinch benefits enjoyed by some seniors. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted cuts for those enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans.

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OBAMA: The president issued a populist broadside against lobbyists, saying they have "outsized influence" over the government. He said his administration has "excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs." He also said it's time to "require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or Congress" and "to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office."

THE FACTS: Obama has limited the hiring of lobbyists for administration jobs, but the ban isn't absolute; seven waivers from the ban have been granted to White House officials alone. Getting lobbyists to report every contact they make with the federal government would be difficult at best; Congress would have to change the law, and that's unlikely to happen. And lobbyists already are subject to strict limits on political giving. Just like every other American, they're limited to giving $2,400 per election to federal candidates, with an overall ceiling of $115,500 every two years.

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OBAMA: "Because of the steps we took, there are about 2 million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. ... And we are on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year."

THE FACTS: The success of the Obama-pushed economic stimulus that Congress approved early last year has been an ongoing point of contention. In December, the administration reported that recipients of direct assistance from the government created or saved about 650,000 jobs. The number was based on self-reporting by recipients and some of the calculations were shown to be in error.

The Congressional Budget Office has been much more guarded than Obama in characterizing the success of the stimulus plan. In November, it reported that the stimulus increased the number of people employed by between 600,000 and 1.6 million "compared with what those values would have been otherwise." It said the ranges "reflect the uncertainty of such estimates." And it added, "It is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package."

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OBAMA: He called for action by the White House and Congress "to do our work openly, and to give our people the government they deserve." THE FACTS: Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign — to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN "so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it's acted upon.

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OBAMA: "The United States and Russia are completing negotiations on the farthest-reaching arms control treaty in nearly two decades."

THE FACTS: Despite insisting early last year that they would complete the negotiations in time to avoid expiration of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in early December, the U.S. and Russia failed to do so. And while officials say they think a deal on a new treaty is within reach, there has been no breakthrough. A new round of talks is set to start Monday. One important sticking point: disagreement over including missile defense issues in a new accord. If completed, the new deal may arguably be the farthest-reaching arms control treaty since the original 1991 agreement. An interim deal reached in 2002 did not include its own rules on verifying nuclear reductions.

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OBAMA: Drawing on classified information, he claimed more success than his predecessor at killing terrorists: "And in the last year, hundreds of al-Qaida's fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed — far more than in 2008."

THE FACTS: It is an impossible claim to verify. Neither the Bush nor the Obama administration has published enemy body counts, particularly those targeted by armed drones in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. The pace of drone attacks has increased dramatically in the last 18 months, according to congressional officials briefed on the secret program. (Source: Statesman.)

AP's ten whoppers from the SOTU speech (Jan 2010) Only ten? Maybe the Associated Press got as tired as everyone else listening to Barack Obama’s lengthy State of the Union speech last night and stopped paying attention after an hour. AP’s headline focuses on the “toothless commission” that Obama demanded, but the other nine fails on their fact-check test are just as interesting and revealing (via Geoff A):

President Barack Obama told Americans the bipartisan deficit commission he will appoint won’t just be “one of those Washington gimmicks.” Left unspoken in that assurance was the fact that the commission won’t have any teeth. …

OBAMA: “I’ve called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad. This can’t be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline. Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans.”

THE FACTS: Any commission that Obama creates would be a weak substitute for what he really wanted — a commission created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That idea crashed in the Senate this week, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Any commission set up by Obama alone would lack authority to force its recommendations before Congress, and would stand almost no chance of success.

Of course, even his first proposal was a rather dishonest dodge of accountability, especially for Democrats. A bipartisan commission that recommended tax hikes as a means of raising revenue would allow Democrats to shove part of the blame for raising taxes in a recession on Republicans. It would allow more of them to tell voters, “Well, we committed to doing what the commission demanded,” or “We had to accept the commission’s findings in toto based on the rules established for it,” or other such nonsense. We already have a bipartisan commission with 535 members to handle budgetary decisions — it’s called Congress.

The other whoppers:

• Spending freeze – The AP points out that it will save less than 1% of predicted deficits over the next ten years — and that Obama scoffed at such a plan when John McCain proposed it in 2008.
• Health care – Obama said the Democratic plan would allow people to keep their insurance and their doctors, but the bill doesn’t guarantee either. Their plan has massive cuts to Medicare Advantage, which would definitely affect coverage of a large portion of America’s seniors and disabled.
• Lobbyists – Obama has not “excluded” lobbyists from his administration; he’s hired over a dozen for key posts, and the AP notes seven of those waivers were for White House posts. Obama called for restrictions on lobbyist contributions, but those already exist.
• Two million jobs saved through Porkulus – The CBO puts the theoretical range between 600K and 1.6 million, but also cautions that the methodology of estimating jobs “saved or created” is “uncertain.” The last detailed numbers the White House produced totaled 650,000 — and were found to be highly inaccurate.
• Openness: “Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign — to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN “so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.” Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it’s acted upon.”

The last two are on the rate of killing al-Qaeda leadership and the status on START talks with Russia. In both cases, the AP suspects that Obama overstates his case, but also reports that it’s difficult to measure either. The US has never given body counts on fighting AQ in the Af-Pak theater, mainly because many of the operations are covert, and because enemy body counts fell out of favor with the Vietnam War and have been only reluctantly shared in other conflicts.

Let me add at least one other whopper that the AP doesn’t mention. Obama repeatedly insisted that he inherited massive budgetary problems from George Bush, but the Con Law professor may want to retake his high-school civics class. Congress passes budgets, not the President, and the last three budgets came from Democrats. In three years, they increased annual federal spending by $900 billion, while the admittedly profligate and irresponsible Republican Congresses under George Bush increased annual federal spending by $800 billion — in six years. And during the last three years before taking office as President, Obama served in the Senate that passed those bills, and he voted for every Democratic budget put in front of him. (Source: Hot Air.)

VIDEO: Supreme Court Justice Alito Mouthes "Not True" to Obama's comments





Alito's 'Not true' was correct (Jan 2010) (SITE NOTE: This time, Justice Alito shook his head as if to rebut the president’s characterization of the Citizens United decision, and seemed to mouth the words “not true.” Indeed, Mr. Obama’s description of the holding of the case was imprecise. He said the court had “reversed a century of law.” The law that Congress enacted in the populist days of the early 20th century prohibited direct corporate contributions to political campaigns. That law was not at issue in the Citizens United case, and is still on the books. Rather, the court struck down a more complicated statute that barred corporations and unions from spending money directly from their treasuries — as opposed to their political action committees — on television advertising to urge a vote for or against a federal candidate in the period immediately before the election. It is true, though, that the majority wrote so broadly about corporate free speech rights as to call into question other limitations as well — although not necessarily the existing ban on direct contributions. (NY Times.))

Much is being made of the president's peroration on the SCOTUS ruling last week permitting corporations to freely speak out on political matters in federal elections. As he spoke , attacking the Court, whose members but for Chief Justice Roberts and Scalia were present, observers saw Justice Alito shake his head and say to himself "not true." And he was right. President and purported constitutional scholar Obama was once again showing he has no idea about the law.

As Professor Bradley A. Smith observes in the National Review Online :

Tonight the president engaged in demogoguery of the worst kind, when he claimed that last week's Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, "open[ed] the floodgates for special interests - including foreign corporations - to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities."

The president's statement is false.

The Court held that 2 U.S.C. Section 441a, which prohibits all corporate political spending, is unconstitutional. Foreign nationals, specifically defined to include foreign corporations, are prohibiting from making "a contribution or donation of money or ather thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State or local election" under 2 U.S.C. Section 441e, which was not at issue in the case. Foreign corporations are also prohibited, under 2 U.S.C. 441e, from making any contribution or donation to any committee of any political party, and they prohibited from making any "expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication... ." This is either blithering ignorance of the law, or demogoguery of the worst kind.

Foreign contributions to Obama campaign should be investigated (Jan 2010) One of the oft remarked upon ironies of Obama's untoward attack on the Supreme Court ruling declaring unconstitutional the foreclosing of corporate and union contributions to political campaigns was his unwarranted claim that the decision opened up the floodgates for foreign contributions to US political campaigns.It doesn't. The section banning foreign contributions remains untouched by this decision.

The charge is ironic because Obama's campaign disabled a track back feature on its website which did permit such contributions to be made through pre-paid credit cards purchased around the globe. The campaign never was fined or otherwise disciplined for this because his party had blocked replacements to the overseeing Federal Election Commission and lacking a quorum, it could not act at the time.

A Cornell Law Professor calls the President out on this bit of rhetorical legerdemain:

Request Special Counsel As To Foreign Contributions. "That the Obama campaign received foreign donations as a result of this scheme may be the only thing agreed-upon by both Pamela Geller and Charles Johnson. Indeed, Obama for America has admitted receiving foreign contributions. The fact that the Federal Election Commission is not investigating the allegations necessitates a special counsel.

(Source: American Thinker.)

Sarah Palin: The Credibility Gap (Jan 2010) While I don’t wish to speak too harshly about President Obama’s state of the union address, we live in challenging times that call for candor. I call them as I see them, and I hope my frank assessment will be taken as an honest effort to move this conversation forward.

Last night, the president spoke of the “credibility gap” between the public’s expectations of their leaders and what those leaders actually deliver. “Credibility gap” is a good way to describe the chasm between rhetoric and reality in the president’s address. The contradictions seemed endless.

He called for Democrats and Republicans to “work through our differences,” but last year he dismissed any notion of bipartisanship when he smugly told Republicans, “I won.”

He talked like a Washington “outsider,” but he runs Washington! He’s had everything any president could ask for – an overwhelming majority in Congress and a fawning press corps that feels tingles every time he speaks. There was nothing preventing him from pursuing “common sense” solutions all along. He didn’t pursue them because they weren’t his priorities, and he spent his speech blaming Republicans for the problems caused by his own policies.

He dared us to “let him know” if we have a better health care plan, but he refused to allow Republicans in on the negotiations or consider any ideas for real free market and patient-centered reforms. We’ve been “letting him know” our ideas for months from the town halls to the tea parties, but he isn’t interested in listening. Instead he keeps making the nonsensical claim that his massive trillion-dollar health care bill won’t increase the deficit.

Americans are suffering from job losses and lower wages, yet the president practically demanded applause when he mentioned tax cuts, as if allowing people to keep more of their own hard-earned money is an act of noblesse oblige. He claims that he cut taxes, but I must have missed that. I see his policies as paving the way for massive tax increases and inflation, which is the “hidden tax” that most hurts the poor and the elderly living on fixed incomes.

He condemned lobbyists, but his White House is filled with former lobbyists, and this has been a banner year for K Street with his stimulus bill, aka the Lobbyist’s Full Employment Act. He talked about a “deficit of trust” and the need to “do our work in the open,” but he chased away the C-SPAN cameras and cut deals with insurance industry lobbyists behind closed doors.

He spoke of doing what’s best for the next generation and not leaving our children with a “mountain of debt,” but under his watch this year, government spending is up by 22%, and his budget will triple our national debt.

He spoke of a spending freeze, but doesn’t he realize that each new program he’s proposing comes with a new price tag? A spending freeze is a nice idea, but it doesn’t address the root cause of the problem. We need a comprehensive examination of the role of government spending. The president’s deficit commission is little more than a bipartisan tax hike committee, lending political cover to raise taxes without seriously addressing the problem of spending. (SITE NOTE: Glenn Beck added more to this "spending freeze." In effect, Obama RAISED the EPA budget by 35 percent, then he "freezes" it so that NO entity -- Congress or taxpayer -- can roll it back. There is something basically underhanded about this freeze that allowed Obama to RAISE the salaries of all the White House syncophants he brought with him -- and then 'FREEZES" the salary two months later so no one can reduce it. As Beck said, Obama believes the average American is STUPID.)

He condemned bailouts, but he voted for them and then expanded and extended them. He praised the House’s financial reform bill, but where was Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in that bill? He still hasn’t told us when we’ll be getting out of the auto and the mortgage industries. He praised small businesses, but he’s spent the past year as a friend to big corporations and their lobbyists, who always find a way to make government regulations work in their favor at the expense of their mom & pop competitors.

He praised the effectiveness of his stimulus bill, but then he called for another one – this time cleverly renamed a “jobs bill.” The first stimulus was sold to us as a jobs bill that would keep unemployment under 8%. We now have double digit unemployment with no end in sight. Why should we trust this new “jobs bill”?

He talked about “making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development,” but apparently it’s still too tough for his Interior Secretary to move ahead with Virginia’s offshore oil and gas leases. If they’re dragging their feet on leases, how long will it take them to build “safe, clean nuclear power plants”? Meanwhile, he continued to emphasize “green jobs,” which require massive government subsidies for inefficient technologies that can’t survive on their own in the real world of the free market.

He spoke of supporting young girls in Afghanistan who want to go to school and young women in Iran who courageously protest in the streets, but where were his words of encouragement to the young girls of Afghanistan in his West Point speech? And where was his support for the young women of Iran when they were being gunned down in the streets of Tehran?

Despite speaking for over an hour, the president only spent 10% of his speech on foreign policy, and he left us with many unanswered questions. Does he still think trying the 9/11 terrorists in New York is a good idea? Does he still think closing Gitmo is a good idea? Does he still believe in Mirandizing terrorists after the Christmas bomber fiasco? Does he believe we’re in a war against terrorists, or does he think this is just a global crime spree? Does he understand that the first priority of our government is to keep our country safe?

In his address last night, the president once again revealed that there’s a fundamental disconnect between what the American people expect from their government, and what he wants to deliver. He’s still proposing failed top-down big government solutions to our problems. Instead of smaller, smarter government, he’s taken a government that was already too big and supersized it.

Real private sector jobs are created when taxes are low, investment is high, and people are free to go about their business without the heavy hand of government. The president thinks innovation comes from government subsidies. Common sense conservatives know innovation comes from unleashing the creative energy of American entrepreneurs.

Everything seems to be “unexpected” to this administration: unexpected job losses; unexpected housing numbers; unexpected political losses in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey. True leaders lead best when confronted with the unexpected. But instead of leading us, the president lectured us. He lectured Wall Street; he lectured Main Street; he lectured Congress; he even lectured our Supreme Court Justices.

He criticized politicians who “wage a perpetual campaign,” but he gave a campaign speech instead of a state of the union address. The campaign is over, and President Obama now has something that candidate Obama never had: an actual track record in office. We now can see the failed policies behind the flowery words. If Americans feel as cynical as the president suggests, perhaps it’s because the audacity of his recycled rhetoric no longer inspires hope.

Real leadership requires results. Real hope lies in the ingenuity, generosity, and boundless courage of the American people whose voices are still not being heard in Washington.

- Sarah Palin

(Source; Facebook.)



Media Praise President Obama's 'Humility' In State of the Union (Jan 2010) Immediately following President Obama’s State of the Union address Wednesday night, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos got reaction from Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, who observed: “There were at least three moments where he expressed explicit humility. ‘I’m not – I know that people aren’t sure I can deliver this change. I take my share of the blame for not explaining health care.’”

At the same time, both Stephanopoulos and Meacham agreed that Obama’s speech was Reaganesque. Stephanopoulos argued: “What I saw there is the President not being contrite like Bill Clinton in 1995, much more defiant, more like Ronald Reagan in 1983.” Meacham replied: “There was a lot of Reagan here.”

On NBC’s Today on Thursday, Matt Lauer cited Obama’s “humility” to press former Florida Governor Jeb Bush on Republicans not supporting the President’s agenda: “...you said about the President quote, ‘if he does show humility and does try to find common ground, there are Republicans who will sign up for that.’ He showed humility....will you now get behind this president and will other Republicans?” Bush rejected the notion that Obama was humble: “I don’t think it’s humble to say that you didn’t communicate a message and that’s the reason why people opposed the health care plan in front of Congress right now by a dramatic margin.” The Washington Post’s Tom Shales promoted the same humble theme in a Thursday article:

Obama does have the ability to snatch humility from the jaws of hubris. While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pontificated about how honored and thrilled she was to be able to introduce the great and wonderful man, the expression on Obama’s face, even the cock of his head, suggested he was basking and glowing in the praise. But later on, in the speech itself, he showed himself to be capable of healthful self-mockery....There was humility but no remorse in Obama’s words or the way in which he delivered them. He hailed and commended American values and seemed also to personify some of them – directness, candor, neighborliness. At moments he was less the man in the White House than the guy next door.

(Source: MRC.)







SOTU "Bump" Occurs Late in January after Drop (Jan 2010) After the State of the Union, the President usually gets a bump up in ratings. It didn't happen immediately following his speech. The Gallup Daily polls showed Obama with a 47% Approve: -1; 47% Disapprove: +2. (Source: Gallup.)

Trouble is Obama has a serious credibility problem. The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 28% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -12. During his State-of-the-Union address Wednesday night, President Obama spoke about a deficit of trust between the American people and political leaders. New Rasmussen Reports polling on the president's speech shows just how deep that trust deficit has become. The president in the speech declared that his administration has cut taxes for 95% of Americans. He even chided Republicans for not applauding on that point. However, just 21% of voters nationwide believe that taxes have been cut for 95% of Americans. Most (53%) say it has not happened, and 26% are not sure. Other polling shows that nearly half the nation's voters expect their own taxes to go up during the Obama years. The president also asserted that "after two years of recession, the economy is growing again." Just 35% of voters believe that statement is true, while 50% say it is false. Obama claimed that steps taken by his team are responsible for putting two million people to work "who would otherwise be unemployed." Just 27% of voters say that statement is true. Fifty-one percent (51%) say it's false. (Source: Rasmussen.)

BUT on 31 Jan 2010 the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll showed that 33% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -7 . This is the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted since the State-of-the-Union Address and it reflects a bounce for the President. The number who Strongly Approve is the highest in more than four months (since September) and the overall Approval Index rating is the best in more than three months (since October).

The bounce comes almost entirely from those in the president's party. Sixty-four percent (64%) of Democrats now Strongly Approve, up from 50% before the speech. However, the speech appears to have had the opposite impact on unaffiliated voters. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 50% now Strongly Disapprove. That's up from 42% before the speech. The next few days should give an indication as to whether these changes will fade or if they signify the beginning of a new phase in the political environment. Most voters do not believe the President's assertions about tax cuts, economic growth, or job creation. Additionally, just 19% believe the President accomplished most of his first year objectives. (Source: Rasmussen.)

The "bounce" soon dissipated. The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday (6 Feb) shows that 26% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove which Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15. That matches the President’s ratings just before the State-of-the-Union Address. While Obama received a modest bounce in his ratings following the speech, today’s results suggest that the bounce is over …Overall, 44% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. That matches the lowest level of overall approval yet measured for this president. Fifty-five percent (55%) now disapprove. (Source: Rasmussen.)

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