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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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BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA: TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM PART II ECONOMY 2009

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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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