“Europe’s prospects brighten as U.S. fades.” Thus a headline in Reuters this morning.
German business confidence is soaring while U.S. consumer sentiment sinks.
Britain’s second-quarter economic growth was almost twice as fast as expected, the strongest in four years.
Meanwhile, economists have steadily marked down forecasts for Friday’s U.S. gross domestic product report.
Thanks a lot, Mr. President. And thanks to you, too, Secretary Geithner. You inherited the richest, most productive country in history. And you have set it firmly on course for economic stagnation.
It’s all part of your effort to “fundamentally transform the Untied States of America,” isn’t it, Mr. President? That’s what you promised in October 2008: to change America fundamentally. Who would have predicted you were really serious? (Well, some of us did, but you know what I mean.)
You’ve made it clear that, deep down, you really don’t like the United States. In that, you are like many of your Ivy confrères, all those Harvard-Yale-Princeton types who find the spectacle of individual freedom playing itself out irredeemably vulgar. You all are beyond allegiance to anything so parochial as an individual nation. And when it comes to what (even now) is the world’s nation of nations, the United States, you are more than embarrassed: you are downright impatient.
Samuel Huntington was right to call you “deconstructionists.” He wasn’t talking about the reader-proof theories of Jacques Derrida but something much more practical. The sort of deconstructionists he had in mind were politicians and academics and policy makers who
promoted programs to enhance that status and influence of subnational racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. They encouraged immigrants to maintain their birth-country cultures, granted them legal privileges denied to native-born Americans, and denounced the idea of Americanization as un-American. They pushed the rewriting of history syllabi and textbooks so as to refer to the “peoples” of the United States in place of the single people of the Constitution. They urged supplementing or substituting for national history the history of subnational groups. They downgraded the centrality of English in American life and pushed bilingual education and linguistic diversity. They advocated legal recognition of group rights and racial preferences over the individual rights central to the American Creed. They justified their actions by theories of multiculturalism and the idea that diversity rather than unity or community should be America’s overriding value. The combined effect of these efforts was to promote the deconstruction of the American identity that had been gradually created over three centuries.
Taken together, Huntington concluded, “these efforts by a nation’s leaders to deconstruct the nation they governed were, quite possibly, without precedent in human history.”
Of course, you are a special case, Mr. President. Your dislike of America has the added ingredient of what, for lack of a better term, I’ll call metaphysical ambivalence. At its core, as Samuel Huntington pointed out in Who We Are, the United States is based upon certain “Anglo-Protestant values” that generations of immigrants had absorbed and made their own in the process of becoming American citizens. (Oh, how the left hated to have that pointed out!) Your filiations lie elsewhere, which perhaps explains why you bow to Saudi princes, why you forbid the conjunction of the adjective “Islamic” with the noun “terrorist,” why, to take an example from the day before yesterday, you pretended to criticize the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi — all Americans, you said, were “surprised, disappointed and angry” that the Scots released him. But then it turns out that your State Department explictly, if secretly, told British authorities that you preferred his release for “compassionate” reasons. “All Americans” — did that include you Mr. President? I’m not asking about where you were born: I am asking about where your fundamental allegiance lies.
I believe that question is going to be on the lips of more and more people as the devastating effect of your radical social and economic programs is felt by more and more ordinary Americans. Consider: You are running far and away the largest deficit in the country’s history: $1.7 trillion. “Deficit,” “$1.7 trillion”: it all sounds so abstract, so far away. What is a “deficit,” anyway? And who can make sense of that number: 1,700,000,000,000?
What we need is a new Mr. Micawber who can dramatize the prospect of want, of penury concealed in the little word “deficit.” Quoth Micaber: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” Who is the cannier economist, Wilkins Micawber or John Maynard Keynes? Keynes never got his big brain around the fact that as the zeros multiply, a yawning vista of impotence, of incapacity, of paralysis stretches out before us. “Misery,” indeed.
It’s quite clear — you’ve already announced — that you are going to use this mind-numbing deficit as an excuse to raise taxes—another abstract phrase worn smooth by repetition. The power to tax, Chief Justice Marshall observed long ago, is the power to destroy. How much of the American dream are you preparing to dismantle by depriving people of the means to fulfill it? Do you want to rein in the deficit? Stop spending. But you won’t do that while you can continue depleting the substance of the country by draining away the economic life blood of its citizens. Ultimately, the issue is not the deficit but the spending. That is, the horrendous deficit is a product of incontinent spending. You won’t admit that because both spending and taxing are instruments for the consolidation of your power — no matter that the potency of the country as a whole is diminished in the process. Raising taxes diminishes revenue: that has been shown again and again.
Bravo Roger. How do you tell the difference between those who genuinely love peace and liberty, and those who merely pretend to do so? Those who wish the US well are the genuine article.
Roger:
Nail. Head.
‘Nuff said.
November and January:
The bidding done, and the Dummy’s hand laid down;
The Constitution will not be trumped; How’s Tricks ?
I disagree with you on the Bush tax cuts. I am an economist by training and I have no great love for Pres Obama – I think he has made some very, very bad choices on national security and on the economy but I think on letting the cuts lapse he is correct. The two biggest drivers of today’s deficit are Pres Bush’s prescription drugs program and his upper bracket tax cuts. Obviously a democrat is never going to touch the first one so the second one had be allowed to lapse. Republicans cant run on a platform of deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility on one hand and ask for an extension of the upper bracket tax cuts on the other without looking like complete hypocrites and further adding to the deficit. There are very few things that can be sacrificed to give us the same improvement in our deficit – the defense budget and medicare are the only current items big enough (Obamacare wont really start costing us money till 2018) and cutting either one by that much would be far worse.
Do you, mister economist, understand how jobs are created and how prosperity develops ? I think not.
Ian: I don’t know what school you attended to study economics, but if you could post it I can write that school off my list of colleges to consider for my son.
What! As Ryan said most of the ‘rich’ are actually small businesses and taxing them continues the economic free fall; paraphrasing. Obie-care will start it destruction in ’14.
Facts are not inconvenient!
An “ecomnomist by training” says:
“The two biggest drivers of today’s deficit are Pres Bush’s prescription drugs program and his upper bracket tax cuts.”
After the buyout of the auto companies, the money lavished on insolvent banks, the money sunk into various state and local government bailouts, I find a whopper like this very difficult to believe. Folks must be using an awful lot of prescription drugs.
You need some more training.
Ian, I see both advantages and disadvantages to letting the tax cuts expire; the current mess is above my pay grade and I don’t have a strong opinion. However, I have known from the get-go that the Bush administration lied to Congress about the cost of the drug program and threatened to fire Medicare’s chief actuary if he revealed a more accurate cost estimate.
While I agree with Roger Kimball’s criticism of Obama, I don’t pay attention to exhortations from the Right unless they say why the smug incompetence of the Bush/Rove/DeLay/Trott era will not be repeated.
I grant that Bush Republicans were wrecking the country more slowly than Obama Democrats are doing. Unfortunately the GOP is behaving as though that means they should be returned to power.
Ian, as a “trained economist” I have to wonder where you went for your “training”…
First, the lapsing of the Bush tax cuts will affect ALL Americans, not just those in the “upper bracket.
And, just watch and see…as the economy goes into the
“double dip” recession next year, as those in the “upper bracket” shelter their income, and businesses don’t invest and don’t hire…the deficit will only get WORSE!
The expected income will not be there…
Too many “going Galt”, too many hoarding their cash, too many NOT spending, too many STILL unemployed…
The GREAT RECESSION will pick up steam…and those who thought TAXING THE HELL out of the economy during a recession will sit there and wonder…”WTF, it wasn’t supposed to be like this…I’m an ECONOMIST!”
Talk of allowing the top marginal rate to increase a few percentage points is moot. The deficit cannot be brought under control through increasing the top rate by 5%, 10%, or 95%. Economy-killing and evasion-encouraging aside, even if you eliminated all spending except military and entitlements, the bloated beast in Washington will still run incredible deficits.
Increasing taxes on corporations? Nothing but a hidden tax on citizens, who will pay through higher prices and persistently high unemployment. It will still result in a stagnant economy but it has the benefit of shielding the real villain (government) from blame.
No, the only way to bring deficits under control is to touch what both parties consider untouchable, namely military and entitlement spending. We’re talking about paring down the federal government to within its constitutionally defined restrictions, which means the complete elimination of Medicare and Social Security, the immediate withdrawal of troops stationed overseas, and the ending of hundreds of government bureaucracies and programs. The political class will not give any of this up willingly. The only way I see this actually happening is through violent revolution, state secessions, or through the collapse of the bond market.
Wow. Someone else has seen the 800 pound gorilla sitting in the corner. I think others have seen it, but are afraid to acknowledge…
We’ve gotten to the point we can’t tax our way out of the deficit. Only massive changes to entitlement programs will work. Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission is just a bunch of politicians covering for Obama who wants tax increases and the power and dependency on gov’t that that creates.
Hey! I have an idea!! Why don’t we start by getting rid of all of Michele’s twenty-some “attendants/advisors”, whose salaries exceed two and a half MILLION a year???
I’m onboard with the elimination of Medicare and Social Security as long as everything I paid into the pot is returned to me with the appropriate interest. For 40 years Democrats put these payments into the general fund to finance the Great Society and now the chickens have come home to roost. Quick, let’s call someone a racist and divert the conversation.
Ain’t gonna happen. Social Security withholdings are classified as a tax, meaning you have no legal recourse to recoup it. It’s gone, all sucked in by the Black Hole of the Potomac. At this point I’d be happy to forfeit what they’ve taken in return for a permanent opt-out of Medicare and Social Security, with the permanent cessation of those withholdings.
Why, oh why, do people take a basic course in arithmetic and claim to be trained economists?
I tell you what, Mr. Economist, let’s make it an arithmetic calculation … you take away my tax cuts (or, more accurately, allow the temporary policy of returning some fraction of the money that has been stolen from me to end,) and I’ll reflect that amount a thousandfold in salaries for actual value-producers I no longer pay.
How’s your deficit now?
too bad you don’t know how stupid your remarks are if you did there would only be one option left to you.
an economist …that’s rich (or very sad).
Putting more money in the hands of politicians will not help grow the economy.
One thing for sure is taking money from a profitable segment of the energy economy (oil and coal) and give it to unprofitable (solar) will not help grow the economy.
‘Economist by training’ – did you study goat’s entrails or oracular smoke trails?
You sure don’t know feces about the real world. Oh, BTW, please give me the details on when you predicted the big crash, your detailed analysis of why….oh, yeah – you missed it.
Lemme help you out economist. This government is over. It’s too late. The money it now owes cannot be repaid, except by inflation. CANNOT BE REPAID. It is going down. Now, looking at other governments that are ‘over’ sometimes it still takes 100 years to die, other times just one day.
I see that you are one of those economists who try to convince people that tax changes have absolutely no impact on economic activity.
You probably also believe that deficit spending is good for the economy.
Economist (pffft). Yeah right.
Anybody why cannot tell that we’re well to the right side of the Lauffer curve obviously has a poor grasp on sentience. Forget any economic training.
You are repeating the lie that the democrats have successfully kept alive: the Bush tax cuts were only for the wealthy. The tax cuts were across-the-board cuts for everyone, not just the wealthy. To perpetuate the democrat lie is immoral.
You do not seem to understand that when taxes are lower, businesses have more money to invest in the growth of their businesses: expansion, equipment, new employees–wealth creation. Please research the tax cuts of Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush 43. They all resulted in MORE revenue coming into the federal government and booms in the economy.
Your education in economics obviously was inadequate or severely skewed to leftist thinking.
No nation ever taxed itself into prosperity. Lower tax rates ‘mysteriously’ seem to contribute to greater tax revenue. This, of course is a mystery only to socialists, communists, fascists and collectivists.
Isn’t it amazing how you continually hear them surprised when the numbers come back worse than they expected. You’d think they would understand that this is a tipping point in which people don’t feel it’s worthwhile to try harder. But, like other idiotic ideas like Socialist Medicine, proof of past failure “tells them” only that the idea wasn’t implemented quite right.
You are an economist? So. Not all economists understand what it takes to create a business, and create wealth. Many of them have PhDs from costly colleges, and spend their lives teaching others the theory of what they have never practiced. There are some economists that are communists (Barack’s father, for one). I am sure that we can all agree that communism does little to create wealth. The problem with what you are saying is that whenever tax cuts have been implemented the tax revenues have increased. There were greater tax revenues under Bush then at any other time in US history. Why is that? Because when you penalize production you get non-production, and when you reward production you get increased production. What we need is spending cuts, and we need to dismantle all of these bloated, costly entitlement programs. You want to see an economic boom? Unleash business, and un-tether the creativity of the entrepreneur.
Another concept that seems to elude our collectivist totalitarians on their way to Utopia and the New Man is:
“You will get more of whatever you subsidize.”
You are an economist? That is great! I am Princess Diana.
Welcome back, Princess! I am Han Solo, not an economist.
And here I was hoping for Princess Leah…damn.
You are not an economist.
Don’t try that stuff here, little guy. It does not work with this audience.
And yet today’s Rasmussen poll indicates that there are still 25% who “strongly approve” of the job he’s doing. We had better get back our commitment to protect our sovereign nation from enemies foreign and domestic (toot sweet) or it won’t matter any more.
the population of african americans (you wonder why they doin’t consider themselves americans, victimhood I guess) in the USA is roughly 30% so don’t expect that number to change much more.
What statistics have you been reading? Blacks make up about 12% of the US population, which means that more than half of his current approval is from those other than Blacks. By the way, Obummer could not have been elected without a significant number of White voters that are either fellow travelers or drank copious amounts of koolaid…
Actually the black population in the US based on 2008 estimates was 12.4 percent. If the census could ever get a realistic count of Hispanics, the comparative percentage of blacks would likely fall significantly. If the Rasmussen poll is correct, those numbers are likely coming from blinkered Socialist ideologues. (As in, just about everybody who works for a college or university.)
Can’t forget anyone who works for govt. Especially the federal govt. They love the way he’s taking other people’s money to ensure that their raises and pensions are guarenteed forever.
These are estimates but probably the total is accurate plus or minus 5%:
Blacks, Hispanics and other groups who have traditionally felt threatened by conservative politicians: 27%
Government and Public Service workers of all types along with consultants and grantees whose paychecks derive directly from government: 17%
Other recipients of entitlements: 10%
This means that over 50% of US citizens have no personal incentive to vote against the Progressives or to support a public policy that reduces government, regulation or taxation. In fact they want it all to grow. Freedom and economic realities do not matter. All past failures of collectivist forms of government will be justified as “different this time around”. We are so screwed.
In the strongly approve you have blacks, like Sherrod. This is the OJ-was-framed vote (those so blinded by race or so deeply self identified they can never admit Obama is bad.)
That 25% is a not bad approximation of the “entitled”, those who live off the government – and for them “he” is doing well. It is the rest of the population who maintains a semblance of personal responsibility who might not be so happy with those who wish to enslave all of us. That 25% will be enslaved as well – but one questions if they work at all, so it won’t effect them, they think.
Our political class need to receive the message loudly and clearly that they work for us, we don’t work for them. I’m sick and tired of their condescending arrogance. I’d love to walk up to one of our overlords and ask point blank “who the He!! do you think you are?” These people believe their overrated ivy league educations give them the right and duty to manage our lives, to make decisions for us, to ignore us and do things for us. Most of us, not on the government dole, just want to be left alone to take care of ourselves and our families without government meddling. I want to know when a governor or state legislature will finally put their foot down and say “no, that is an unconstitutional violation of the 9th and 10th Amendments and we will not enforce that legislation within our borders.” The states CAN take back their powers from the federal government if only they would act. If enough refused to comply with the diktats of the Politburo then the federal programs would collapse. How would Obamacare fare if 10 states refused to comply? We MUST demand a return to Constitutional government, we MUST demand that these people LEAVE US ALONE.
Our political class need to receive the message loudly and clearly that they work for us, we don’t work for them.
Agreed. Public hangings of the worst offenders should prove isntructive to the rest.
Oh goody, I like that idea! Can we start with Slobbering Barney Frank, Nancy “Frankenstein” Pelosi, Barbara “Bad Hair Day” Boxer, Harry “I really am a moron” Reid, and Joe “Big Bird” Biden?
Man, that would be a great day, wouldn’t it?
If we offered Obama a beeel-yun dollars and a 10,000 square foot villa in Cannes to to “just go away,” do you think he’d accept the deal?
Nah, me neither. When it comes to Obama, we’re dealing with an “apres moi le deluge” level of narcissism and sense of indispensability.
When it comes to 0bama, we’re dealing with a malignat narcissist, an individual whose pathology makes him the perfect sock puppet for those behind him.
And that’s who should concern us. They are monsters – killers without conscience. They regard us as little more than chattel. Their policies are monstrous and their ideas have the same pedigree as those of Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin and Chavez.
Eloquently said, and I agree with all. But Obama has not been the greatest danger to the nation. The greatest danger has been the American voters and their shameful display of gullibility. To their everlasting disgrace, they permitted a cheap little huckster like Obama,a patently corrupt media, and a culture of celebrity and glamour to mesmerize them into merrily signing away three hundred years of desperately hard-won freedom, prosperity and quality of life. The American voters have permitted themselves to be programmed and manipulated, cheerfully believing the sweet lies of the Obama campaign like hapless children.
Many seem to be awakening to the catastrophe they have brought on themselves? Well, bully, and let’s hope so. But the damage done, at a time of historic vulnerability (never let a good crisis go to waste) may never be undone, particularly since it will still lurk with all its powers in our schools and universities, our public employee class, the world of “nonprofits” and “charitable” foundations, nearly all TV media and most print media, most of the entertainment sector, and so many more of our institutions and opinion-forming infrastructure. The poison is very deep now; it’s in the marrow of our culture. It’s not only Obama we must wake to, but ourselves, our entire culture, led by the Pied Pipers of the elite class. It took unimaginable courage, heartache, character, genius and sacrifice to build this greatest of nations. And we are pissing it away in short order. It’s not Obama, people. As Pogo famously said, the enemy is us. Time to grow up now.
Right you are, Victor, but I think the shame and tragedy goes a bit deeper: it’s not just Obama, but perhaps even more (or at least equally) it is the Democrat-controlled Congress that is the problem. And how did that come to pass? Largely because the Republicans spent their time in power with their snouts as deep in the trough as they could bury them. It was significantly in reaction to this shameful behaviour that the current disaster has been visited upon us.
Let us hope that if the next few Novembers rectify things, the Republicans learn their lesson and remember what brought them back into government — once and for all.
Victor, you are correct.
You are absolutely correct. My husband is fond of saying that we get the government we deserve, and he’s right.
We must take control of our schools and colleges, as this cancer won’t go away as long as these people are educating our kids. In the meantime, make whatever sacrifices are necessary to homeschool your kids or send them to Christian schools. Don’t allow the indoctrination of our kids to continue. The best way to fight back is to think for yourself and teach your kids to do so as well. Our country can’t afford to mindlessly elect any more obamas.
Absolutely right Victor, this generation has earned a title, the Worse Generation.
How anyone could vote for anybody with obvious delusions of grandeur, a world view of a twelve year old and a moral compass defined by associates like the Rev. Wright is beyond me.
Emma, for months I’ve been looking in disbelieve at the Rasmussen Presidential Approval poll being stuck at the 45% mark, not understanding why despite everything that’s been said and done it won’t go any lower. Then I remembered that a conspicuously similar percentage of voters don’t pay income tax.
think you hit the nail on the head..interesting isnt it that those 2 percentages are so close?
#3: “The two biggest drivers of today’s deficit are Pres Bush’s prescription drugs program and his upper bracket tax cuts.”
As an economist, Rule #1 ought to be “check your figures.” Don’t have the $ value, on the tip of my tongue, of the prescription drug program, but the “upper bracket tax cuts” amounted to all of 4% of the swing from the surpluses projected in 2000 to today’s staggering deficit. (*All* of the tax cuts together, including the child tax credit, etc., come to 13%.) The rest is all (1) new spending, and (2) economic suckitude.
Mr. Kimball writes very well and makes strong points. Two things bother me in these sorts of pieces, and they are related: 1) The sense of outrage and nearly desperate (theoretical) appeal to Mr. Obama to change his stripes; 2) the derivation of this outrage in part from a naivete, self-willed, about Obama, his origins, personal history, sealed records and ideological affiliations. Sorry, but many people distributed much ‘informational skepticism’ about Barry-Barack during the campaign. The ideological upbringing, and the Davis-Ayers-Wright-Khalidi-Said etc. associations made it clear who he was.
What we really see at work is a very late awakening of American conservatives as to what has happened to the Democratic base, the Democrat Party and to the reality of Barack Obama.
Okay, now everybody is ‘woke up.’ Good.
“The ideological upbringing, and the Davis-Ayers-Wright-Khalidi-Said etc. associations made it clear who he was.”
Exactly; tell me who your friends are and I can tell you who you are, as all of our grandparents either did or should have told us.
We can shout all night and day that these politicians work for us but our actions are more in align with those of a subservient class. Our words, with no show of force behind them, mean very little to the ruling class. And if we do vote a significant number of them out of office, so what. They leave with a good deal of accumulated wealth, great pensions and still very useful connections. These grifters and parasites will never be made to pay a real price for the willful damage they inflicted on our country in their lone pursuit of power.
“our actions are more in align with those of a subservient class”
April 15th, 2011 might be an interesting day.
Americans voted for Bill Cosby and elected Eldridge Cleaver.
Very well put.
For some excellent and accessible analyses of combat effectiveness of the F22, F35, Pak-FA (Russian) and SU35S (Russian) go to this website.
http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-NOTAM-300310-1.html
http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-NOTAM-230210-1.html
Note especially this one that discusses the effectiveness of the F35 vs current Russian technology.
http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-NOTAM-05072010-1.html
Note Australia was a potential F-22 customer before the foreign sale of the F22 was banned by the US Congress (Obey Amendment). Ref: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,106513,00.html
“For some excellent and accessible analyses of combat effectiveness of the F22, F35, Pak-FA (Russian) and SU35S (Russian) go to this website.”
While these analyses may be accessible in the sense that the links work, they certainly aren’t accessible in the sense of “easily comprehensible to the lay reader.” I started to read the article on the F35 and couldn’t make head nor tails of it.
Here are just the first two paragraphs:
“How will the intended 2,443 F-35s JSF impose air dominance for the USA and its Allies? That is the question to ask.”
“Search the Internet for material on the JSF and you will find terabyte after terabyte of articles, pictures, Powerpoint presentations, PDFs, tables and laudatory Blogs. And how much relates to how the JSF will deliver this capability? You will find assertions and statement such as ‘six times better Relative Loss Exchange Ratio than legacy aircraft’ [1], or ‘The operational arguments focus on combat effectiveness against top foreign fighter aircraft such as the Russian Su-27 and MiG-29. Lockheed Martin and USAF analysts put the loss-exchange ratio at 30-1 for the F-22, 3-1 for the F-35 and 1-1 or less for the F-15, F/A-18 and F-16’[2].”
What exactly is a “JSF” and where is this term defined? It seems to be crucial to understanding the article so some sort of definition should be supplied if this is intended for a non-technical audience.
And this little gem: “You will find statements such as ‘six times better Relative Loss Exchange Ratio than legacy aircraft.” What exactly is a “Relative Loss Exchange Ratio” and is it a good thing or a bad thing that the ratio is 30-1 for the F-22 and 3-1 for the F-35? This seems to be a very important aspect of the aircraft but I have no idea what it means or what numbers constitute good or bad values.
I could go on at length but I think I’ve made my point.
In future, if you’re going to recommend a site, give some thought to who you audience is and either point people to sites that will be self-explanatory or identify where the cryptic information from the main article can be deciphered. Please!
Henry,
I haven’t read the linked articles, but will answer your questions in light of the excerpts you posted:
The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program selected Lockheed Martin’s F-35 as the winner of its development contest. For a time, the F-35 was known (at least to the public) as the Joint Strike Fighter; now it is designated the Lightning II.
Relative Loss Exchange Ratio refers to the number of aircraft shot down by each side in combat. In combat between the F-22 and Su-27/MiG-29, the projections suggest the F-22 will shoot down 30 of the opposing aircraft for every one F-22 lost. In contrast, the F-35 is projected to shoot down three enemy aircraft per loss, and the F-15, F-16, and F/A-18 are likely to suffer as many (or more) losses as the enemy.
Excellent post.
“German business confidence is soaring while U.S. consumer sentiment sinks.
Britain’s second-quarter economic growth was almost twice as fast as expected, the strongest in four years.”
yeah, but what about their banks ? he, they prefer to hide misery then !
Spain shines on stress test, Germany flunks http://tgr.ph/auTAg2
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLM17535620090122 Germany working on new rescue for banks-paper
what do you expect from a retard as president.
good luck with that.
The Erosion of the US economy didn’t occur in the last 2 years, or the last 20. It has been slowly eviscerated since 1913, when the graduated income tax structure was created, and the Federal Reserve was installed to manage the US economy. However the greatest decline in the US dollar started in 1972, the year after President Nixon took the US dollar off Gold and replaced it with the Petro Dollar system.
From 1900 until today, 90% of the US dollars loss has taken place from 1971 through 2000. Once the US dollar was taken off the gold standard the Federal Reserve was free to print dollars wildly. This is the root cause of the US economy troubles.
We had much higher tax rates in the 50′s-60′s, but the Dollar had value then, Americans could work at a Gas Station and purchase a House. As soon as the Dollar was free to be manipulated, all hell broke loose.
Looking at who occupies the White House has nothing to do with the Root cause of the US Economies problem, We need to have control of our monetary system, which is why the Constitution explicitly states in article one, section Eight that Congress shall have the power to coin and regulate monies.
When congress gave this right to a Private corporation, it lost all control and has been paying Interest to European Banking Families ever since.
Indeed. To go a little further.
The IRS is an agency of the Federal Reserve System, NOT a US government agency. It used to be that they weren’t even in the phone books with US government agencies, but that may have changed to hide the fact.
So, to whom do you pay your taxes? Right. The IRS; which puts the money in their owners accounts: the Federal Reserve System – which is owned by? Private banks. So, essentially, the US taxpayer is paying the Federal Reserve System and not the US government as the government is running off money borrowed from the money printers and you are paying it back for them. The FED owns you, not the government.
Has the other shoe dropped, yet?
I have to be in full agreement The two citical economic items to understand is the function of currencdy and the parts of the Laffer curve. The peoplewho lie about these thing are either liers or hostile. In all cases thy are dangerous.
Obama and his cabal do not perceive what they are doing as “deconstruction”, but as a form of “Slum Clearance”, essential to their positive, Progressive establishment of a Socialist Republic. And not a soft Euro-style Socialism, but an uncompromising Stalinist, Maoist, Castroist, Chavezist, Ayersist nomenklatura version. How else do you account for: total disregard for popular opinion, total disregard for the change of course Canadian and European governments, total abandonment of two-party political practices, total and unrelenting pressure to ram legislation through, total commitment to expanding bureaucratic controls, total imposition of top control by a Kommissariat answerable only to a dictator.
Everybody sees it, regardless of party, but – like Mr. Kimball – NONE of those who post articles and blogs on PJM are willing to use the words “Socialist” or, God forbid “Communist”! The threat to our Nation is not “leftism” or “Progressivism” – it is ideological, doctrinaire SOCIALISM, led by tightly organized cadre of give-no-quarter neo-Communists, trading on the awareness that American Conservatives are so eager to avoid being dubbed “McCarthyites” by the Socialist media that their counter-attack is confined to euphemism and milquetoast.
The rallying call for this fall should be “A vote for Obama is a vote for Socialism” …and we’re already halfway there.
This timely article echoes many of my own thoughts.
Ian needs to look at a pie chart of actual federal spending, and he will see that he’s mistaken as to the nature of what drives the deficit. Spending borrowed money to fund unsustainable programs of dubious nature and benefit is driving the deficit. Any deficit Bush contributed to is miniscule compared to current and proposed spending.
Also, the “Bush tax cuts” reduced the rates for every taxpayer, not just the “upper bracket”. Increasing taxes during a recession is destructive, don’t you know?
Ian also must not know that Obamacare is already costing us money in many ways, even though we conservatives and Google know that already. 2018 my butt!
As to deficit reduction, I suggest that we could begin by eliminating entire federal departments and functions that are not directly authorized by the Constitution, or do not serve the people. Every layer of big government that we can peel away becomes a pay increase for every taxpayer. I’ll vote for anybody that wants to get radical on this bloated monster and hack it down into something we can live with again. I’m with you Eric, Return the Constitution!
IpsoFacto
Eric states that he’s sick and tired of government interference in our lives but his entire argument is unconvincing.
In a word, you’re going to have to do a lot better than what you wrote to win me over to your side (I know, I know….you don’t give a hoot if I’m on your side).
And it’s not just Eric – it’s all those of like-minded frame of mind, who leave me totally skeptical not only as to their arguments but of their understanding of the basics. Eric’s rant comes across not only as irrational…..it positively smacks of infantilism. But it is a very common stance among those with his points of view.
Take for example his deprecation of Ivy League educations. Fact of the matter is, many of Obama’s “inner circle” have never even been near an Ivy League college or university (just looking at the way they dress is proof positive of this), and the vast majority of government employees, even those in the upper echelons of government bureaucracies wouldn’t recognize an Ivy League school if they crashed into its main campus gate while on a drunken binge.
Take for another example, Eric’s plea that he just wants “….to be left alone to take care of ourselves and our families without government meddling…”. Ok, let’s do that.
First, we’ll cancel all government subsidies to higher education. That would mean – instantly – the complete collapse and shut-down of most colleges and universities country-wide.
Second, we’ll cancel all government subsidies allocated to “health and welfare”. That would mean, among other things, the complete collapse and shut-down of all major hospitals country-wide. And this would happen overnight…..not 2-3 years down the road.
Hoping to get your child or ageing parent vaccinated against next season’s flu outbreak? Forget it. It won’t have been developed…after all, the National Institute of Health will have had its doors shuttered long since and its employees scattered to the winds like so many bed bugs.
Expect to send out Xmas cards this Yule Tide? Good luck. You’ll have to hand-deliver them yourself from Alaska to the Florida Keys. After all, the Postal Service will be but a memory.
Anxiously awaiting the latest information on the whereabouts and diabolical schemes of Osama Bin Laden and epigones? Well, you better brush-up on your Arabic and pay close attention to the Al-Jazeera daily broadcasts out of Doha. Because the National Security Agency will have been dismantled and it’s high-tech equipment sold on ebay for a song.
And so on. Gimme facts, gimme genuine arguments. Not twisted illogical and non-sensical rants and raves about the “Constitution” and “States’ rights” and all that malarkey.
You’re tired of government interference? I’m tired of hearing arguments from both sides but especially from the “right” that sound like the squawking and squealing of a major Dodo bird as it flaps its useless wings in futility.
So in your ignorant opinion, without govt subsidies, the world will end?
Pray tell, how did colleges and hospitals survive before govt subsidies? You are aware that such subsidies are a very new phemonmena.
the “Constitution” and “States’ rights” and all that malarkey.
Unbelievable.
Well, if you think that freedom’s overrated, just wait until you see what your new masters have in store for you.
Let me see if I have this right.
You actually believe that because the govt has subsidized health delivery, this proves that without govt, there would be no health care.
You are aware that health care existed for hundreds of years, before govt got into the business of subsidizing it.
You actually believe that the fact that the Post Office exists, and the fact that it is illegal for anyone other than the post office to deliver first class mail, proves that there would be no mail delivery if the govt didn’t do it?
I’ve seen some stupid leftists in my day, but you most certainly take the cake as the dumbest I’ve seen so far.
This one was too good to ignore ;o)
>In a word, you’re going to have to do a lot better than what you wrote to win me over to your side (I know, I know….you don’t give a hoot if I’m on your side).
And it’s not just Eric – it’s all those of like-minded frame of mind, who leave me totally skeptical not only as to their arguments but of their understanding of the basics. Eric’s rant comes across not only as irrational…..it positively smacks of infantilism. But it is a very common stance among those with his points of view.Take for example his deprecation of Ivy League educations. Fact of the matter is, many of Obama’s “inner circle” have never even been near an Ivy League college or university (just looking at the way they dress is proof positive of this), and the vast majority of government employees, even those in the upper echelons of government bureaucracies wouldn’t recognize an Ivy League school if they crashed into its main campus gate while on a drunken binge.Take for another example, Eric’s plea that he just wants “….to be left alone to take care of ourselves and our families without government meddling…”. Ok, let’s do that.First, we’ll cancel all government subsidies to higher education. That would mean – instantly – the complete collapse and shut-down of most colleges and universities country-wide.<
No, it would be the collapse of an artificially stimulated higher education economy, grown fat an lazy on subsidies. Best thing that could happen to higher ed.
<Second, we’ll cancel all government subsidies allocated to “health and welfare”. That would mean, among other things, the complete collapse and shut-down of all major hospitals country-wide. And this would happen overnight…..not 2-3 years down the road.Hoping to get your child or ageing parent vaccinated against next season’s flu outbreak? Forget it. It won’t have been developed…after all, the National Institute of Health will have had its doors shuttered long since and its employees scattered to the winds like so many bed bugs.Expect to send out Xmas cards this Yule Tide? Good luck. You’ll have to hand-deliver them yourself from Alaska to the Florida Keys. After all, the Postal Service will be but a memory.Anxiously awaiting the latest information on the whereabouts and diabolical schemes of Osama Bin Laden and epigones? Well, you better brush-up on your Arabic and pay close attention to the Al-Jazeera daily broadcasts out of Doha. Because the National Security Agency will have been dismantled and it’s high-tech equipment sold on ebay for a song.And so on. Gimme facts, gimme genuine arguments. Not twisted illogical and non-sensical rants and raves about the “Constitution” and “States’ rights” and all that malarkey.<
The facts have been there all along. The twisted logic is emanating from you.
You’re tired of government interference? I’m tired of hearing arguments from both sides but especially from the “right” that sound like the squawking and squealing of a major Dodo bird as it flaps its useless wings in futility.
Dear Sir:
Please drop the “Soda” part of your name from now on.
Thank you.
He is a monster, no doubt, but quite by design; a large scale design of a rotted culture that makes him (and a rather large handful of other control-freaks) a fitting figurehead. Could he really wield all of this destruction on his own? I think not, he has a majority of the house carrying it along – that is what they don’t outright hand over to him (CO2 reg, for example). The courts push back, the other branches (of the city/state/fed) just re-write their pragmatic chains onto our collars.
Fundamentally, I think they are mostly Kantians. The more frequent they run into the un-moldable minds and reality, the more belligerent they will get.
The facts are that every tax cut since the second world war, (Kennedy,Reagan and Bush) led to faster growth in tax revenue over the following five years, than any other comparable time period. I challenge our “economist” to refute that statement.
The president is in freefall and he seems determined to take America down too. Dare we call him…Suicide Obama?
~~in response to Randy Chandler’s excellent comment:
“The president is in freefall and he seems determined to take America down too. Dare we call him…Suicide Obama?”
I believe more appropriately we should call him “Kamikaze Obama” He’s dead set on taking us down with him!!
I Stand on two Freedom Corners two nights a week each and one night a guy stopped and took me to task for my sign criticizing the President’s policies. I mentioned that, IMO, President Obama has a problem with the US since he spent many of his formative years, 6-10, with a Indonesian Muslim stepfather and a Leftist mother in a predominately Muslim country, Indonesia, while going to a local school. He yelled I was a racist and sped drove off with no explanation why my opinion, based on publicly known information, was incorrect. I was just a racist for having such an opinion. I do know for a fact that a very good teacher, when I was 10 years of age, turned my life around assisted by an improvement in my home life. Children are greatly influenced by those around them.
Additionally, when Obama came to live with his grandparents at 10, his grandfather was not exactly right of center in thinking and later Obama fell under the influence of his grandfather’s friend, Communist Frank Marshall Davis. And his association with Bill Ayers and his anti-America preaching pastor during his later adult years certainly shows that he associates with people who despise America. Need I say more.
I am a small business owner, hanging on by our fingernails. I employ 17 people, I just laid off 9 good employees. Sales are down and stagnant. After making payroll and payroll taxes, I don’t have much left. I need inventory to keep going but I still can’t get any money. There isn’t one ounce of fat in my budget and the bills pile up. I am just like every other small business person in our community. The anger is building and the idiocy of these so called economists is mind numbing. Yea, I’m rich alright, I lived on 22K last year while working 60-70 hours per week. Small business is doomed and Mr. Economist can’t see it for what it is because he is surrounded by other idiots in ideology. It’s simple really, Mr. Economist, give me a 6 month moratorioum on payroll taxes and I will keep employees plus buy inventory. See how that works? People who stay in business contribute to local community bottom lines, my vendors make money, none of my employees will be an unemployment statistic and I will be able to pay my mortgage and feed my family. See, now that wasn’t so hard.
I wish some of these business owners would tell us what their businesses are so we could give our business to them. If I’m going to spend my money somewhere, I’d much prefer to give my money to some of the business owners I see posting on the sites I frequent.
Very well written. This should be reprinted as manifesto for the ages.
” Raising taxes diminishes revenue: that has been shown again and again.”
And how do we explain the balanced budget and robust growth after the 1994 tax-hikes?
That’s easy, for anyone who has actually studied the data.
Republican’s took control of congress and restrained spending.
Additionally, there never was a surplus during that time period. Creative accounting techniques were used to hide the deficit. If there truely was a surplus, please explain how the total debt continued to grow during that time.
Where is the data that refutes the statement I made in #23 Clark?
It’s not rocket science. You prioritize your spending. You do without what you can’t afford. Blame is futile. We’ve let the government spend money we don’t have.
Shame on us.
We’re not going to tax our way to prosperity. We need spending cuts. We will have spending cuts, one way or another.
“And how do we explain the balanced budget and robust growth after the 1994 tax-hikes?”
Easy. The Contract with America.
Second look at The Fiscal Responsibility Act?
Wonderful job. Just yesterday two local senators up for election, Gillibrand (NY) and Menendez (NJ) were trying to make political hay over denouncing BP for the release of the “terminally ill” Lockerbie bomber. I have just written to Sen. Gillibrand to let her know I expect her investigation to include asking the president what he knew and when he knew it.
So….um, like you went into a coma in 1999 and then woke up in 2009? Or something like that? Must be since that would be the only excuse for this laughably confused article.
I wonder how many years the far left will try to peddle that particular lie?
bc,
You obviously did not own a business between 1999 and 2008. Business was good and unemployment was low, at least by today’s standard. You were probably on the street with a placard whining about how the world is unfair. No kidding Sherlock, it is.
You obviously have no idea what caused the financial implosion.
There is plenty of room to go around just to site a few: with government(Thank Freddie and Fannie and thank there leader “Everyting is just fine” Barney Frank, thank the bank gawd ‘everybody deserves to own a house and the banks will give them loans by God” Chris Dodd ), thank banks and financial institutions who through greed and being forced to give loans to people who couldn’t pay them back, thank two wars approved and funded bi-partisan by both houses of congress, thank medicaid drug legislation, thank big debts (at that time, but now lillipution [sp] in comparison), thank arrogant repubs and dems equally for their seemingless endless belief that they can print money forever and they know more than you (which they probably do) and the America people what is best for all of us (which they don’t). Much, much more, but gotta go gotta run, much work to do and thanks to Mark the Great, he gets you.
Ladies, Gentlemen, and Others:
Please Do Not Feed The Troll.
Ignore him, and he’ll go away.
Well, judging from the random way some of my cleverer responses don’t get posted, the editors seem to be on an off/on diet of pure right wingery.
It comes down to two questions:
Q #1: What country is the richest and in my view (having travled extensively) greatest country that has ever existed in the world?
A: The United States. (This of course does not include those who believe that we are not and that we are evil and the source of untold attrocities and that other countries are and have always been benevolent and would still be that way if left alone and that we have no good reason to do much of anything when arroused economically or with threats or actual violence….Fine with me, believe that if you wish).
Q #2: Has the United States become the richest and in my view the greatest country in the history of the world because of:
1. Big government initiatives that guided and taught the American people how to actualize their dreams. A big government that controlled the economy and directed entergy to the most promising new businesses and technologies.
OR
2. A limited govenrment that generally cleared certain paths for the greatest expansion of an economy in the hisotry of the world by individuals (NOT GOVERNMENT) but otherwise stayed the hell out of the way.
You choose. (Yes this is simplistic, but NO Human Nature HAS NOT CHANGED whether the progressives think it or not and NO you can’t change it or at least not willingly, but only through a heavy hand or a feeding hand and then only for a limited time as history proves over and over again.)
How refreshing to the reality, Obama is doing nothing wrong considering what he really desires and you let Americans know it. I congratulate your perception on professing the whole gory picture!
OK, enough already. How many of you eloquent, angry, sick and tired of being sick and tired folks are retired, out of work or can devote free time to action? Plan now to do what you can, when you can, to marshalling your brains and talents toward getting your favorite candidate elected and together we can blunt or stop this cascade of disasters in this, the most consequential election of my 64 years on this earth.
The Journolist, now the Cabalist, were successful in pulling off their coup d’état in November, 2008. The sudden overthrow of a free-market economy ruled by somewhat limited government by a small group of journalists, whose intentions are to rule by collectivism, was accomplished right in front of the nation’s nose. Thereby enabling our “three easy steps” to bankruptcy. Newspeak and silence substituted as a knife in the back of Caesar. Using the Four Horseman of the Teleprompter, rather than exhibition of fiscal leadership, as usual, the infamous leader of the administration’s squadron of habitual incompetence leads the band of the teleprompter with mounts named Demagoguery, Straw-man, Blame-game and Ad Hominem. In reserve, the Alinsky tactic of distraction is represented by Diversion, a young colt standing by if one of the four main charges can’t twist the truth enough. Nevertheless, Atlas will have the last say; his shrugging will affect everyone, even the cabal—stagnation will be with us for some time. Investors are patient for success, and impatient at failure. The bull and the bear serve them well. Economic anarchists are void of human empathy; nihilism is their being. As a lower form of existence, self-destruction has been with the human species from its beginnings. If Progressives want real progress, then get beyond the hedonism, narcissism and especially, the national self-destruction. It would be inspiring if the hubris, another primitive trait that continues to impede human economic and political development, was removed from at least public display.
I know the answer to this one.
1. Repeal Glass–Steagall Act
2. Let a incompetent republican be President
3. Spend all our money on two wars.
Then have conservative convince people it was Obama and his team that turned a surplus into a deficit. Also, that Obama somehow was in charge when the financial melt down happened. Convince populace that big business republicans actually care about poor and middle class.
If you think that the current banking problems were caused by the repeal of the Glass-Steagal, then you are dumber than you look.
Compared to Obama, Bush is Nobel material. (Or at least pre-modern Nobel, when it still meant something.)
If you think that there was a surplus under Clinton, then you are even dumber than your first comment made you look.
I love the way the liberals look at Bush’s 100B deficits and declare them to be so much worse than Obama’s 2T deficits. There are some that claim that liberals can’t do math. And they are apparently correct.
You are mistaken on a couple of things:
There was no surplus under Clinton. There has been no surplus for a lot longer than that.
It is not Obama that is the direct cause of the outlandish and crushing deficits. His policies require them, but it is the Democrat controlled legislature that is directly responsible for spending bills, not Obama. Obama is used as the catchall event producer, by don’t think that the PJM readers don’t realize who controls spending.
If you can understand the above distinction, you’ll also understand that the start of the financial meltdown occurred on the Democrat controlled legislature’s watch. Bush’s fault was not getting out his veto pen when the Senate was still proof against the Democrats overriding his veto.
Financial legerdemain is historically part and parcel of every spending bill, no matter which party controls the legislature or what presidential policies are pushing them. The issue is not that you can find guilt all around in the past and in the present, but rather the brazen disregard for public opinion and business/producer welfare while overtly courting entitlement group support with public money by fiat that the current crop of legislators has made their trademark.
The wars under Bush were started by other entities. You can make the argument that the US could have and should have fought them differently – I would agree insofar that the US should have gone in and out of both Iraq and Afghanistan. But Bush II did not start them. There were and are a lot of US politicians and pundits from both sides of the aisle sharing the responsibility for 40 years of a Munich style response to the rise of Islamofascism in a direct line from Carter to Obama.Bush I sowed the seeds for those wars when he stopped short of ousting Saddam (and both Reagan and Bush I ignoring Afghanistan after the Soviets left). Clinton let the problem grow unabated.
Competency in an executive position is directly related to experience, training, and resume. Businesses realize this and appoint executives. Instead of appointing our highest state and federal executives, we elect them. When the voter mistakes image for substance but recognizes experience, we get a Bill Clinton. A competent enough president in good times when all things are considered. When the voter is put off by the image, but recognizes both substance and experience, we get a Bush II. A very competent president in bad times when all things are considered. When the voter mistakes image for substance but also mistakes rhetoric for experience, we get an Obama. An incompetent president in bad times.
I know, its all Bush’s fault. Let’s look at facts though, Bush’s administraion spent more during the Republican controlled years during 2003, and 2004, then spending went down in 2005 and 2006, spending increased dramatically in 2007 and 2008 when Democrats controlled congress.
During the Clinton administration, after the Republicans took control of congress, the Contract with America had them balance the budget, not create a surplus, nor pay down any of the debt that was incurred. There were 10 items that the reublicans had in their Contract, only 1 was not passed by congress, term limits, amazingly we wouldn’t be hearing about Rangel’s ethics if it was passed.
Something that confuses me is that we have a group of people who continually disrespect America,who will tell anyone that listens about how cruel and criminal we are,they demand that the rich be soaked with taxes so that the “poor”can live like they do. But if you look at these people,and actually see how they live,where they live you will find that they don’t adhere to their own rhetoric. They are the same ones who cheat on their taxes,have off-shore bank accounts,live in white majority neighborhoods.
In other words,TALK IS CHEAP.
Let’s just call a spade a spade, shall we?
Progressives = Neo-Comms (alt: neocomms, neocoms, neocommies).
Matters not that the spots are somewhat in different places than 50 years ago. “By their spots thou shall recognize them.”
They are competitive, though, participating in an un-aired game “Who wants to be Nomenclatura?” As Jay D. Rockefella would put it, “Ain’t a collective great?”
If more taxes are the answer then lets all pay more in taxes, a lot more. Certainly we will all agree the government can spend our money so much better than we can. Just because the Bush tax cuts were for those who paid the most in taxes and used that money to invest in income producing endeavors is no reason to let those tax payers keep their money.
Wow, this was everything I feel but cannot put into words. Well done, Mr. Simon, on the best critique of Obama’s wide range of destruction, or shall I say “decontruction”, that I have read in quite some time.
The message for fiscal conservatives should be simple this fall. Economic security IS national security, and the Obama administration along with 99% of the democratic congress have failed us miserably in its one basic charge. Simple dereliction of duty. Given Obama’s disdain for the very idea of individual nations, does it really come as a surprise that national security in any form is not his forte?
Without a healthy economy all of these distractions – racism, class envy, torture, health care – are irrelevant. Military security? Kiss it goodbye. Social security? See ya. Job security? What does that even mean anymore? It all starts with the economy.
The stimulus and the unemployment rate should be used as two boat oars with which to bludgeon the statists into submission – from now, repeatedly and incessantly, until November. Nothing else matters.
Oops, meant Mr. Kimball. Sorry Roger, and again – excellent piece.
With regards to tax cuts, two things:
One, at this point keeping the Bush tax cuts is as much a psychological reprieve for the economy as it is a long-term revenue enhancer. Letting them expire will only further prove to businesses that, quite simply, they are not very well liked by the people in charge. There is no way for the CBO or any other economist to quantify this effect.
Second, the left is trying to frame the expiration of the Bush tax cuts as fiscally responsible and keeping them in place as some sort of benevolent gift from those on high. Conservatives are once again armed with the truth as return-fire: that we don’t suffer from lack of taxation (2nd-highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world) and that the Bush tax cuts are allowing taxpayers to keep their own money, which is not a gift to the taxpayer. They earned it before Fedzilla collected it.
Taxes… you know, during feudalism a serf paid 10% to church, and was require to participate in harvest for the feudal in lieu of rent. I mean, whopping 10%! What a robbery! (Also a poll tax on the sale of livestock, that would be comparatively again 10%).
So, how much we surfs are paying now? We don’t do the harvest thing and can move around, yea, I hear you…
“Thanks a lot, Mr. President. And thanks to you, too, Secretary Geithner. You inherited the richest, most productive country in history. And you have set it firmly on course for economic stagnation.”
-I like Roger’s carefully worded statement that leaves out the part about how poor of an economy Obama inherited from his predecessor.
I suppose he wants more of the same that took the worlds “richest, most productive country in history” and wrecked it’s economy. Can’t anyone remember two years ago?
You mean, no doubt, after DemocRat party got a majority in the House in 2006, right? At that time, the unemployment was a horrible, abyssmal 5.4%!
The only blame to Bush is attributable to the fact that he was signing bills coming from the (D) congresscritters.
Oh, you mean… you did not know Bush was not a dictator?
A small democrat majority in the House killed our economy? True unemployment was low in 2006, the bottom fell out in October 2008 and is due to the housing market collapse. And that collapse is because of FannieMae and FredieMac i suppose you’ll retort.
If that is the case, then do this….
Add up the value of ALL the failed Freddie and Fannie mortgages. Then find the value of the TOTAL number of failed mortgages. Freddie and Fannie only make up a fraction of those. The majority come from sub-prime loans. This is a DIRECT result of Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. Authored by “Phil” Gramm, was the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. The GLBA broke down the firewall (DeRegulated) between banking, investing and insurance. How it caused the sub-prime meltdown is it allowed banks to makes sub-prime loans. They could then enter into the investment banking field and sell those loans as derivatives. These were traded on the open market. The kicker was this: It didn’t matter if a mortgage holder could pay it back or not, because it was to be sold as soon as it was written! The banksters got to make money twice off of one loan. This fueled an epidemic of loans that began to fail in 2008.
I have noticed for quite some time now — and well before Obama — that there are many people, “Americans” and foreigners alike, that assume that because the origins of Americans are from everywhere, that we must act like we’re still from “everywhere” rather than as one people of a sovereign nation. What has happened is that, as with Israel, the narrative is that America has been “delegitimized” as a nation.
Sadly, we have to reclaim our legitimacy not just from the world at large, but from our own President. This is a disgrace, as is our current “President.”
Thanks for getting it over faster?
“Well done, or well said” is an understatement, Roger! This is a must read for anyone caring about this country.
May God bless you with even more insight! The best I’ve ever read!
Great piece. Now, if November really brings out the best in Americans my faith in people will be restored. If, however, dramatic change does not come in November I think it will be time to kiss this beautiful place we call home good-bye.
President Obama = Anti-America, Terrorist supporting, Racist Wise Ass, skinny little man with a big mouth that has yet to do anything he promised during his Tell-A-Lie campaign. He truly needs to be relieved of his presidential duties. He is the enemy and proves it every single day, a president is to be the steward of the people and he does not live up to that repeatedly.
Baloney. “You inherited the richest, most productive country in history.” If you look at productivity per hour worked, the most productive countries are Norway, the U.S., and France. Compared to the unquestionable damage done by the Bush Administration, Obama has come a long way in dealing with the massive mishandling of the economy. You can’t fix something of this magnitude over night. Obama will go down as one of the greatest presidents. Bush will go down as the absolute most spectacular failure.
So taking a stimulus package from a black man does hurt more than from a white man.
For what reason all of the sudden do we seem to have an outbreak dilemma of bed bugs in the united states I previously worked at a nearby College for 30 years and didn’t have trouble till two years ago?
The amount of people commenting here that forgot their medication is frightening. I wonder how many of you arguing economics with an economist actually WENT to college? Mark hit the nail on the head. The absolute train wreck Bush left behind isn’t going to be fixed over night, it was 8 years in the making.