This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Economy

  • Interview with Thomas Sowell at RWN

    If you’re a fan of Thomas Sowell like I have been for the last two decades, there’s an interview that John Hawkins of Right Wing News did with him recently that you must read. Here’s a sample;

    John Hawkins: Now, in recent years we started to hear more people calling to get rid of the Federal Reserve. Good idea, bad idea? What are your thoughts?

    Thomas Sowell: Good idea.

    John Hawkins: Good idea? What do you think we should replace it with? What do you think we should do?

    Thomas Sowell: Well it’s like when you remove a cancer what do you replace it with?

    While I’m linking stuff, our buddy Zombie sent the latest post by Zombie at Pajama Media entitled “Human Rights Imperialism: Leftist Satire or Moral Collapse?”

    The Guardian recently published a wicked satire of moral relativism, a Swiftian send-up entitled “End human rights imperialism now” with the classic sub-heading “Groups such as Human Rights Watch have lost their way by imposing western, ‘universal’ standards on developing countries.” Brilliant! Hahahahaha! I didn’t know the Guardian had branched out into humor.

    But about five minutes after my laughter subsided, a horrible suspicion dawned on me: Could it be that the author was serious?

    Two good posts from two great blogger friends.

  • Crosshairs again?

    Old Trooper sends us link to an article on Townhall in reference to a protest that union activists are planning in front of the home of WalMart developer Dick Knapp who is about to sign a deal with WalMart at a recently defunct Chevy dealer several blocks from Walter Reed across the street from Metro Police’ 4th District Station.

    After putting up such a fuss about Sarah Palin’s crosshair map, you’d think someone in the unions would be a little more sensitive about putting WalMart’s smiley face in the center of rifle cross hairs, wouldn’t you?

    But almost as egregious is the fact that WalMart is willing to put a store on Georgia Avenue. Walter Reed, a few blocks north of the old Chevy dealer, is leaving for new digs in Bethesda and a few hundred local jobs are leaving with it. The area is already blighted. Blockbuster closed their franchise across the street because no one returned the CDs, but WalMart is willing to begin an enterprise that might employ a few people and provide shopping convenience for the neighborhood.

    But here are the unions stopping what may be the best thing to happen to the people living there. By picketing a private home.

  • Frank Rich might get his wish

    ROS sent me a link to this morning’s bladder venting from Frank Rich entitled “What Happened to Change We Can Believe In?“. It begins like he wants to praise Obama for the our recovering economy and he’s not getting enough credit for being the miracle worker that Obama is;

    PRESIDENT Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for averting another Great Depression, for saving 3.3 million jobs with stimulus spending, or for salvaging GM and Chrysler from the junkyard. And none of these good deeds, no matter how substantial, will go unpunished….

    But what Rich actually does is start bashing Bush and Wall Street and demanding that there be an investigation…that heads roll;

    Asked in “Inside Job” why there’s been no systematic investigation of the 2008 crash, [economist Nouriel] Roubini answers: “Because then you’d find the culprits.”

    We can blame much of this turn of events on the deep pockets of oil billionaires like the Koch brothers and on the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which freed corporations to try to buy any election they choose. But the Obama White House is hardly innocent. Its failure to hold the bust’s malefactors accountable has helped turn what should have been a clear-cut choice on Nov. 2 into a blurry contest between the party of big corporations and the party of business as usual.

    Yup, see it’s Obama’s fault because he didn’t go ahead with investigations…but Rich implies that the investigations would find the culpability in the nefarious circles of Bush/Wall Street cronies who plotted to bring down the economy. To what benefit we have yet to hear. Seems to me that a strong economy would be more beneficial to rich folks and corporations. And since when does “Hope and Change” include kangaroo courts and show trials for the political benefit of Democrats at election time?

    But Rich might get his way and the culprits may still get their just desserts. After all, we’ve already got rid of Chris Dodd in Connecticut, Barney Franks is floundering in Massachusetts. It seems to me that the voters have conducted their own investigation and are prepared to mete out some justice next Tuesday. Be careful what you wish for, Frankie.

  • No COLA again

    It’s expected that later this week the Social Security Administration will announce that thee will be no cost-of-living increase – which means there will be no COLA for military retirees for the second year in a row, too.

    The cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, are automatically set each year by an inflation measure that was adopted by Congress back in the 1970s. Based on inflation so far this year, the trustees who oversee Social Security project there will be no COLA for 2011.

    The projection will be made official on Friday, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases inflation estimates for September. The timing couldn’t be worse for Democrats as they approach an election in which they are in danger of losing their House majority, and possibly their Senate majority as well.

    As far as Social Security recipients are concerned, I’m pretty sure they feel the pinch of rising prices, as well as the increases in their Medicare payments. We’re all paying more for gasoline, food and property taxes, so I’m not sure what their formula is for arriving at this COLA, but obviously, it’s not working. It’d take an awful lot of evidence to prove to me that prices haven’t gone up since 2008.

    Of course, the Associated Press makes the point that it’s not Congress’ fault that COLA hasn’t kicked in for retirees over the last two periods and, of course, technically it’s not.

    It seems like the Obama Administration is cutting spending on the backs of retirees. The only real voice that retirees have as a bloc is AARP which seems to be strangely silent since heath care reform passed. I guess they’re too busy counting the commissions they’ll receive as a result.

  • Tax cuts for the rich, huh?

    For the last two years, I’ve been warning about the impending tax hike that was occurring simply because the Bush Tax Cuts were expiring the first of next year. Every time I mentioned it, one of our resident liberals would call the Bush Tax Cuts a “tax cut for the rich”. The Associated Press seems to have finally come down on my side;

    A typical family of four with a household income of $50,000 a year would have to pay $2,900 more in taxes in 2011, according to a new analysis by Deloitte Tax LLP, a tax consulting firm. The same family making $100,000 a year would see its taxes rise by $4,500.

    What they don’t mention, however, is that many families who’ve paid no taxes would pay taxes for the first time since 2001. Families who were in the lowest tax bracket, would have their taxes increased by 50%.

    Nancy Pelosi on extending the tax cut;

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wouldn’t commit to vote on any tax proposals before the election. She did, however, pledge to address them by the end of the year.

    “The only thing I can tell you is that the tax cuts for the middle class will be extended this Congress,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday.

    Yeah, I trust that she’ll extend the tax cut if she’s a lame duck in December. Don’t you? She’d let the cuts expire just to punish Americans for voting against her party.

  • Mo money, mo’ money, mo money

    Welcome to the Keynesian decade, if $800 billion in tax payer bucks won’t fix a problem throw some more at it. I’m talking of course about President Obama’s plan throw another $50 billion down the “shovel-ready” rathole;

    The Obama administration will work with Congress to ensure the plan is fully funded, and a “significant portion of the new investments would be front-loaded in the first year,” the White House said in a statement.

    In his speech, Obama said his proposed public-works spending “will not add to the deficit over time.”

    The program will focus on long-term modernization of transportation systems and create jobs starting in 2011, an administration official said today. The White House will propose to pay for the new spending by eliminating tax deductions for oil and gas companies, the official said.

    Yes, the same things we heard about the stimulus package they jammed down our throats last year. The same promises, word-for-word, and the program will miraculously create jobs next summer – after the elections. I heard predictions on the radio that Obama would propose tax cuts, I shook my head furiously, and some how I knew that Obama thinks we’re too stupid to remember that his spending policies aren’t working.

    Obama defended a string of policies, from the Democratic health-care overhaul and Wall Street regulation to the remaking of the college student-loan business. “We’ve given tax cuts, but we’ve given them to folks who need them,” he said.

    Who? Any employers out there get one I didn’t read about? He extended the house-buying tax credit – and as soon as it ended, the market declined. Any of you working-poor get a tax cut? Any of you working middleclass get tax cuts? We got that paltry ta cut last year – is that the one he’s talking about? The one that went away for retirees whose paychecks were lighter the first of the year because they got no COLA increase despite the rise in cost-of-living.

    Obama said. “If I said the sky is blue, they’d say no. If I said fish live in the sea, they’d say no. They just think it’s better to score political points during an election than solve problems.”

    He added, “We’ve tried what they’re peddling.”

    Yeah, we’ve tried what he’s peddling, too. Promising more jobs if we keep throwing money we don’t have after money we didn’t have isn’t scoring political points during an election?

  • A keen eye for the obvious

    The Associated Press, famous for their “unexpected” headlines over the last several months in regards to economic bad news, has a headline this morning warning of more bad news; “Snapshot of Economy About to Get a Lot Bleaker”. Notice that it’s not the economy that’s getting bleaker, just the “snapshot” of the economy.

    So why is the “snapshot” getting bleaker? Well, because the government is supposedly ready to admit that Joe Biden has been wrong and we’re in economic dire straits.

    The Commerce Department on Friday will revise its estimate for economic growth in the April-to-June period and Wall Street economists forecast it will be cut almost in half, to a 1.4 percent annual rate from 2.4 percent.

    That’s a sharp slowdown from the first quarter, when the economy grew at a 3.7 percent annual rate, and economists say it’s a taste of the weakness to come. The current quarter isn’t expected to be much better, with many economists forecasting growth of only 1.7 percent.

    Such slow growth won’t feel much like an economic recovery and won’t lead to much hiring. The unemployment rate, now at 9.5 percent, could even rise by the end of the year.

    “Could rise”? Yeah, no kidding. Meanwhile, how is the administration reacting? By sending Joe Bite-Me out to plug the “green jobs” they’re creating;

    Speaking in Washington, Biden said the United States is now on-track to achieve four major innovation breakthroughs thanks to last year’s nearly 800 billion U.S. dollar stimulus — modernizing transportation, including advanced vehicle technology and high-speed rail; jumpstarting the renewable energy sector through wind and solar energy; investing in medical research; and investment in broadband and the Smart Grid.

    “Our investments in innovation are creating jobs, creating new industries, making existing industries more competitive,” he said.

    “And, in the process, they’re driving down costs for new technologies that are badly needed, and helping our nation reassert our place as the world’s center for inventors and entrepreneurs.”

    Of course, there’s no evidence of this – there’s not even anything to replace existing fuel sources, but that doesn’t influence the crap flowing from Biden. No one has ever held him accountable for anything he says, so why start now?

    They’ve even got Time Magazine to chime in and make shit up;

    Politically, it’s awkward to argue that things would have been even worse without the stimulus, even though that’s what most nonpartisan economists believe. But the battle over the Recovery Act’s short-term rescue has obscured its more enduring mission: a long-term push to change the country. It was about jobs, sure, but also about fighting oil addiction and global warming, transforming health care and education, and building a competitive 21st century economy.

    Yeah, well all of that is an admirable goal, but lets put America back to work first and then we can eat all of the sky pie we want. If the Democrats want to fix the economy today, they’d have a press conference this morning with Reid, Pelosi and Obama joining hands and announcing that they’ll extend the Bush tax cuts for ten more years and lifting the drilling ban in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve.

    Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

  • Who are you going to believe?

    Yesterday, Ohio Republican John Beohner called for the Obama economic team to resign because of their dismal failure at rescuing the economy. From the Washington Times;

    “Endless spending sprees, entangled tax structures and bureaucracy run amok – these are all outgrowths of a tired, bloated and broken Washington,” Rep. John A. Boehner said. “Now, more than ever, we need a fresh start that puts power back where it belongs: in the hands of the people.”

    Mr. Boehner, an Ohio Republican who likely would become speaker of the House if the GOP wins control of the chamber, used the phrase “job-killing” 12 times to describe the Obama administration’s policies, but never mentioned former President George W. Bush in his morning speech to the City Club of Cleveland.

    Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Bite-me was out cheerleading the economy. Quoted by the UPI;

    “When the CBO, Congress’s top watchdog and an institution widely respected on both sides of the aisle, says that because of the Recovery Act as many as 3.3 million Americans are on the job today and the unemployment rate is as much as 1.8 percent lower, it’s impossible for even the most cynical, bent-on-rooting-for-failure critics to deny,” Biden said.

    Existing home sales were at their lowest mark in 15 years. The Fed is divided on a course of action rendering the money-governing body useless. The ten-year bond fell below 2.5% yield and gold rebounded to new highs.

    So who should we believe, Beohner or Biden?