Thursday, August 19, 2010

Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, August 19, 2010


No newsbites yesterday; perhaps not many today. (We'll see...)

Anyway... apropos...
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4 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38768328

New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed to a nine-month high last week...

* WHAT IS THIS "UNEXPECTEDLY" CRAP? (JUST REPORT THE GOD DAMNED NEWS...!!!)

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 500,000 in the week ended August 14, the highest since mid-November... The four-week average of new jobless claims, considered a better measure of underlying labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, rose 8,000 to 482,500, the highest since early December.

* SO... IN OTHER WORDS, HOWEVER THEY TRY TO PARSE THE DATA, THE BOTTOM LINE IS... THE AGE OF OBAMA AIN'T A VERY HAPPY TIME.

August 19, 2010 at 11:37 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/2010-budget-deficit-at-1342-rb-1122983085.html?x=0&.v=1

The U.S. economy faces even more difficult times ahead with chronic high unemployment rates and slow manufacturing growth hurting the recovery, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf said on Thursday.

* NO SHIT SHERLOCK!

Without significant changes in U.S. tax and spending laws, the U.S. government will struggle to dig its way out of a fiscal deficit hole, the CBO said...

(*SMIRK*) (*ROLLING MY EYES*) TELL US SOMETHING WE DON'T ALREADY KNOW...

CBO, the non-partisan budget analyst for Congress, forecast the U.S. budget deficit will hit $1.342 trillion this year...

* HOPE AND CHANGE, BABY, HOPE AND CHANGE...

CBO also forecast a $1.066 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2011, which begins on October 1...

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

The U.S. budget deficit last year was a record $1.413 trillion...

August 19, 2010 at 11:43 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/08/18/morning-bell-end-crony-capitalism/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

At 300 East 23rd Street in the exclusive Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan, where to get into parts of the park you need a key granted just to residents, a new 98-unit luxury apartment complex has been built with an outdoor movie theater and panoramic city views.

The problem is that not enough buyers are coughing up the $820,000 to $3 million the project’s developers are asking for the privilege to own a unit in the building.

But don’t worry, the Obama administration is coming to the rescue[!]

Last December, the Federal Housing Administration loosened its financing rules so that U.S. taxpayers would have the honor of backing loans with downpayments as low as 3.5%.

Now rich Manhattanites can better afford condos in buildings with pet spas, concierges and rooftop lounges like the one in Gramercy Park, all on the taxpayers’ dime.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

* FOLKS... I COVERED THIS SITUATION AWHILE BACK. THIS IS THE KIND OF NEWS THAT BEARS REPEATING THOUGH.

You read that correctly: the FHA, created in 1934 to make homeownership attainable for low- to moderate-income Americans, is now subsidizing Manhattan luxury condominiums.

Since taking office the Obama administration has used the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and other initiatives to buy one car company, give another to union allies, punish non-union workers, undermine the bankruptcy code, enrich Wall Street at the expense of Main Street, bail out Mickey Mouse, keep unionized zombie firms from dying and generally terrorize the world economy. That is why, for the first time ever in 2010, the United States fell from the ranks of the economically “free,” as measured by The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom.

(*SIGH*)

On Monday, President Barack Obama visited the ZBB Energy battery factory in Menomonee Falls, Wis.

Last January, the Obama Energy Department invested $14 million in the company, and President Obama was on hand to claim credit for every employed person there. But The Wall Street Journal did some homework and found that since going public in June of 2007, ZBB has been hemorrhaging money.

* ANOTHER SCANDAL I'VE COVERED IN PAST NEWSBITES BUT WHICH BEARS RETELLING...

The firm lost $4.9 million in fiscal year 2008, $5.5 million in fiscal year 2009, and has a “cumulative deficit” of $44.1 million.

ZBB has admitted that its ability to continue as a “going concern” depends on securing additional investment.

* MEANING MORE GOVERNMENT BAILOUTS... (*SIGH*)

In a free market economy, private investors would provide those funds, reap the rewards if ZBB prospered and suffer the losses if ZBB failed. But under President Obama’s crony capitalist economy, ZBB is the big winner if the company survives, and if they fail, it is you, the taxpayer, who loses.

August 19, 2010 at 12:05 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/544233/201008181842/Frank-Fannie-And-Freddie-Must-Go.aspx

After years of dissembling and denial, Rep. Barney Frank...now says bankrupt government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "should be abolished."

'There were people in this society who for economic and, frankly, social reasons can't and shouldn't be homeowners," Frank said in an interview with the Fox Business Network and sounding a lot more like an elephant than a donkey. "I think we should, particularly, stop this assumption that you put everybody into homeownership."

(*AMEN*)

After years of blaming "heartless Republicans" and "Wall Street" for the crisis caused by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - and their predominantly Democratic supporters in Congress - it's refreshing to hear a member of the Democratic Party admit his mistakes.

(*NOD*)

It's especially true of Frank, who, more than any other elected official, championed the cause of the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Indeed, Frank is most responsible for stopping GSE reform in the early 2000s, at a time when such a move might have prevented the financial meltdown.

* YEP. AND LET'S BEAR THIS IN MIND! BARNEY FRANK IS ONE OF THE KEY PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MESS WE'RE IN. SAYING WHAT AMOUNTS TO "OOPS" JUST DOESN'T CUT IT IN TERMS OF GIVING OL' BARNEY A CLEAN SLATE.

In 2000, when Rep. Richard Baker proposed more oversight for the GSEs, Frank called concerns about Fannie and Freddie "overblown," claiming there was "no federal liability whatsoever."

In 2002, again, Frank said: "I do not regard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as problems. I regard them as assets."

In 2003, he repeated himself in opposing reform, saying he did not "regard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as problems."

Even after a multibillion dollar accounting scandal hit Freddie Mac just a month after those remarks, Frank insisted nothing was wrong. "I do not think we are facing any kind of crisis," he said.

By 2004, Fannie had its own accounting scandal. Frank again insisted it posed no threat to the U.S. Treasury. Even if the two went belly-up, he said, "I think Wall Street will get over it."

As late as 2008, after the tide of losses and foreclosures washed away Fannie's and Freddie's remaining capital, Frank was adamant that it was all Wall Street's fault: "The private sector got us into this mess ... the government has to get us out of it."

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

Of course, he had it exactly backward. We've already spent $148 billion of taxpayer money on the two losers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it will ultimately cost taxpayers $389 billion to bail them out. Even that may be too little; at least one private estimate put the final toll at $1 trillion.

August 19, 2010 at 5:47 PM

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