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2011
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February
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- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 28, 2011
- Thank you, Carl
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 26 & 27, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 27, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 23, 2011
- Remember...
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, February 22, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 21, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 19 & 20, 2011
- So This Is America.... in the age of Obama...
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 18, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 17, 2011
- Barak Hussein Obama: Math Challenged or Integrity ...
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 16, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: February 15, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 14, 2011
- Bush vs. Buchanan: Game, Set, Match... Buchanan!
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 12 & 13, 2011
- My Goddaughter Is The Greatest...!!!
- I've Asked My Congresswoman, Nan Hayworth (R-NY-19...
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 11, 2011
- About That Moron (Former) Rep. Christopher Lee
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 10/ 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 9, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, February 8, 2011
- Hey, Nan Hayworth (R-19-NY)... What's The Deal?
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 7, 2011
- Worst Superbowl Half-Time Show... EVER...!!!
- Happy Birthday, Mr. President
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 5 & 6, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 4, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: February 3, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 2, 2011
- Stock Market Gains...
- A Newsbite for Nan
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, February 1, 2011
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February
(36)
About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
14 comments:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0214/g20-business.html
France will help the transition to a global financial system based on 'several international currencies', the French Economy Minister said today.
France has previously said it wanted to see the global financial system reduce its reliance on the dollar for a more broad-based arrangement.
* AGAIN, FOLKS, AS BAD AS THINGS WERE UNDER THAT MORON BUSH... (*SIGH*)... THINK OF THE AGE OF OBAMA AS WHEN YOUR DRUNK TEENAGER HANDS OVER THE CAR KEYS TO HIS 4 YEAR OLD TODDLER BROTHER.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
http://www.ktvu.com/news/26854805/detail.html
The latest information about the salaries and benefits of each San Jose [California] city employee was posted online Friday... Former police Chief Robert Davis had the highest total compensation - more than $534,000 in salary and benefits - for the year, according to the report.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
City Manager Debra Figone - who made more than $276,000 in 2010 - said the release of the information is an example of San Jose's commitment to an open and transparent government.
* MORE THAN $276,000 IN 2010...
Mayor Chuck Reed said that sick leave payouts cost the city $14 million dollars last year...
* SICK TIME! $14 MILLION IN SICK TIME ALONE! IN ONE YEAR...!!!
San Jose has about 5,900 full-time employees in 19 city departments.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
* FOLKS... SERIOUSLY... HOW DO YOU SUPPOSE THIS IS GONNA END...??? THIS KINDA SHIT IS GOING ON ALL OVER THE COUNTRY.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/nyregion/14suspect.html?_r=1&src=twrhp
Mr. Gelman, 23, who had immigrated in 1994...was caught up in drugs, some people said, as both a dealer and a user.
Other people knew him for the graffiti he scrawled alongside a desolate freight line that runs between Brooklyn and Queens. They saw him as a short-tempered bully, who had come to the United States as a child from Ukraine and never found his way.
Mr. Gelman and his mother, Svetlana, had come to New York two years after Mr. Gelman’s father immigrated from Ukraine through refugee status, the police said.
The father later gained citizenship but returned to Ukraine. His son and wife became citizens around 2005, the police said.
* SOUNDS LIKE OUR IMMIGRATION POLICIES ARE WORKING OUT ABOUT AS WELL AS OUR ECONOMIC POLICIES!
Mr. Gelman had been arrested 10 times since 2003, several times for graffiti-writing, but most recently, in January, for possession of crack cocaine.
* DEFINITELY A PRIME CANDIDATE FOR U.S. CITIZENSHIP!
* HERE... READ ALL ABOUT "MAKSIM," FOLKS: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/02/12/2011-02-12_cops_continue_hunt_for_brooklyn_sicko_who_left_4_dead_2_injured_in_stabbing_carj.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703361904576143253522341850.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
The White House projected Monday that the federal deficit would spike to $1.65 trillion in the current fiscal year, the largest dollar amount ever...
* SOUNDS LIKE THE DEMS GOT THEIR LAST LICKS IN BEFORE LOSING CONTROL OF THE HOUSE.
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... "ALL OF A SUDDEN" WE'RE NO LONGER TALKING $1.48 TRILLION OR $1.5 TRILLION; WE'RE NOW TALKING $1.65 TRILLION - ANOTHER $150 BILLION ON TOP OF RECENT OBAMA ADMINISTRATION "ESTIMATES."
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
The projected deficit for 2011 is fueled in part by a tax-cut extension that President Barack Obama and Republican lawmakers brokered in December, two senior administration officials said.
* TWO SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICALS... (*SMIRK*)
* HEY... I'M CERTAINLY NOT PROVIDING COVER FOR REPUBLICANS - CHECK PAST NEWSBITES - BUT THE RECORD OF THE PELOSI/REID/OBAMA YEARS IS SET IN STONE. WE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. THE NUMBERS TELL THE STORY.
Mr. Obama is proposing $3.73 trillion in government spending in the next fiscal year...
* AND HOW MUCH REVENUE IS THE GOVERNMENT EXPECTED TO RAISE DURING THE NEXT FISCAL YEAR..???
[Supposedly,] the deficit would decline in fiscal year 2012 to $1.1 trillion...under Mr. Obama's plan...
* HMM! LET'S DO SOME MATH: PROPOSED SPENDING OF $3.73 TRILLION MINUS BORROWING OF $1.1 TRILLION EQUALS... ESTIMATED GOVERNMENT REVENUES OF "ONLY" $2.63 TRILLION OVER THE NEW FISCAL YEAR.
* FOLKS... OBAMA'S "PLAN" IS TO SPEND OVER A TRILLION DOLLARS MORE THAN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TAKES IN!
* OH...! BUT WAIT...! OBAMA HAS MORE "GOOD NEWS" FOR US!
By 2017, [Obama's] budget plan [assures us], the deficit would be shaved to $627 billion...
* BY 2017...?!?!
* BEYOND THAT NUGGET... ADDITIONAL DEFICITS IN SIX YEARS OF WELL OVER HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS DON'T SOUND ALL THAT "POSITIVE" TO ME! (NOTICE HOW WE'RE NOT GETTING OBAMA'S DEFICIT ESTIMATES FOR 2013, 2014, 2015, AND 2016...???)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-14/geithner-quietly-tells-obama-debt-to-gnp-cost-poised-to-increase-to-record.html
[Our federal spendthrifts] "may" lose the advantage of low borrowing costs as the U.S. Treasury Department says what it pays to service the national debt is poised to triple amid record budget deficits.
* FOLKS. I PUT THE WORD "MAY" IN QUOTES. THAT'S BECAUSE THERE IS NO "MAY." INTEREST RATES ARE GOING UP... IT'S JUST A QUESTION OF WHEN. (*SHRUG*)
Interest expense will rise to 3.1% of gross domestic product by 2016, from 1.3% in 2010...
* OH... GUESS WHAT ELSE?!
[And that's] with the [federal] government forecast to run cumulative deficits of more than $4 trillion through the end of 2015, according to page 23 of a 24-page presentation made to a 13-member committee of bond dealers and investors that meet quarterly with Treasury officials.
* BUY GUNS, PEOPLE. PISTOLS. RIFLES. SHOTGUNS. LEARN HOW TO USE THEM. STOCK UP ON AMMO. IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT THESE BASTARDS ARE "BREAKING" OUR COUNTRY... THEN JUST GO BACK TO SMOKING CRACK IN AN ALLY SOMEWHERE.
* OH... AND BY THE WAY... THESE ARE ONLY THE FEDERAL NUMBERS; JUST THE STRAIGHT BUDGET NUMBERS; THEY DON'T EVEN ADDRESS SOCIAL SECURITY OR STATE/MUNICIPAL DEBTS AND UNFUNDED OR (AT BEST) UNDERFUNDED FUTURE LIABILITIES.
While some of the lowest borrowing costs on record have helped the economy recover from its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression...
* RECOVER...? RECOVER...?!?! THESE PEOPLE ARE INSANE, FOLKS! THERE IS NO "RECOVERY!" WE'RE GETTING DEEPER AND DEEPER INTO THE HOLE! EVEN IF REPUBLICANS ARE ABLE TO SLOW THE DIGGING, NO ONE IS "FILLING" THE HOLE THAT'S ALREADY BEEN DUG! INDEED, AS THE PREVIOUS NEWSBITE NOTED, OBAMA'S LATEST "HAPPY FACE" ESTIMATE CALLS FOR CONTINUED DEFICIT SPENDING (ADDING TO THE DEBT; ADDING TO THE DEBT WITH INTEREST CHARGES ALMOST TRIPLING ACCORDING TO OBAMA'S OWN TREASURY DEPARTMENT!) OF WELL OVER HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS IN 2017...!!!
Net interest expense will triple to an all-time high of $554 billion in 2015 from $185 billion in 2010, according to the Obama administration’s adjusted 2011 budget.
* YOU THINK I'M KIDDING ABOUT THE F--KING GUNS, PEOPLE...?!?! WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO "COUNTERACT" ALL THE DISASTERS THAT MY DAILY NEWSBITES DESCRIBE...??? SERIOUSLY.... PRAYER...? SHOULD WE SIMPLE "HOPE FOR THE BEST?"
* FOLKS... THELMA AND LOUISE WERE FINE ALL THE WAY FROM LAUNCHING OFF THE CLIFF TILL... er... THE MILLISECOND BEFORE THEY HIT THE GROUND.
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... STOCK UP ON GUNS AND AMMO AND GET TRAINED.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41574051
The rolling real estate crash that ravaged Florida and the Southwest is delivering a new wave of distress to communities once thought to be immune - economically diversified cities where the boom was relatively restrained.
In the last year, home prices in Seattle had a bigger decline than in Las Vegas. Minneapolis dropped more than Miami, and Atlanta fared worse than Phoenix.
Seattle is down about 31% from its mid-2007 peak...
* I'M JUST THE MESSENGER, FOLKS...
(*SIGH*)
http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Produce-prices-skyrocket-overnight-115985429.html
Get ready to pay double or even triple the price for fresh produce in the coming weeks after the worst freeze in 60 years damaged and wiped out entire crops in northern Mexico and the southwestern U.S.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41575599
Cotton has more than doubled in price over the past year, hitting all-time highs.
The price of other synthetic fabrics has jumped roughly 50% as demand for alternatives and blends has risen.
http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/intelligence_breakdown_ofP24KmonR5VffymtMx5lM
No matter how things shake out in Egypt, one thing has become depressingly clear: Something is very wrong with the American intelligence services.
* AND THIS HAS BEEN THE CASE FOR A LONG, LONG TIME.
First it was CIA Director Leon Panetta, telling a House committee there was a "strong likelihood" that Mubarak would step down Thursday night - an erroneous prediction that, the CIA later admitted, turned out to be based on "press reports," not agency field work.
* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... YA CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!
Then it was Panetta's nominal boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, telling Congress that the violent pro-jihad Muslim Brotherhood is "largely secular"...
(*BANGING MY FOREHEAD ON THE DESK*)
Nor was this Clapper's first brush with ignorance. The DNI was blindsided in a December interview with Diane Sawyer, who asked him about the London bombing plot that had just been broken up. She got a blank look in return; Clapper hadn't heard of it.
(*WISHING I COULD BANG CLAPPER'S HEAD ON THE DESK*)
The larger issue here is the nature of the people Obama has appointed to these sensitive positions, so crucial to our national safety.
Panetta's 2009 appointment was widely opposed, not just by IC professionals but by fellow Democrats, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who felt the post required someone with a background in intelligence work - not a former congressman and White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton.
[Penetta's] selection signaled that henceforth the agency would be responding as much politically as professionally.
* AGAIN, THOUGH, FOLKS... WHILE IT'S TRUE THAT WE'RE NOW "IN THE FIRE," LONG BEFORE OBAMA WE HAD A "FRYING PAN" PROBLEM.
[Carter's] CIA failed to see the coming collapse of the Shah's government in Iran...
[Reagan's CIA failed to foresee] the fall of the Soviet Union...
[Then there's] the entry of Pakistan and India into the nuclear club.
* DON'T FORGET THE FIRST WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMBING!
Then came 9/11.
(*SIGH*)
* CONTINUING...
...the Fort Hood massacre, the attempted bombing of an airliner over Detroit, the deaths of seven CIA agents and contractors in Afghanistan in a security-lapse suicide bombing, and the Times Square near-miss.
(*SIGH*)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12445509
The heaviest snowfall in more than a century on South Korea's east coast is causing widespread chaos.
Hundreds of houses have collapsed under the weight of the snow. One newspaper described it as a snow bomb.
The South Korean government has deployed 12,000 soldiers to rescue stranded residents.
"I am 83 years old. It's the heaviest snow in my life. I am really grateful for the soldiers' help," said Park Chae-ran.
* JUST REMEMBER, FOLKS... WHETHER IT SNOWS OR DOESN'T SNOW... WHETHER IT GETS COLDER OR WARMER... IT'S GLOBAL WARMING!
The BBC's Nick Ravenscroft in Seoul says that although winters are colder than anywhere else at its latitude, with frequent frost and snow, this year has been different.
January was the coldest since the 1960s.
* CHANT IT WITH ME, FOLKS... "AL GORE...! AL GORE...! AL GORE...! AL GORE...!"
(*CHUCKLE*)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110214/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_budget_air_travel
The president's budget released Monday would raise the "passenger facility charge" to $7 from $4.50 per flight...
* I HAVE A BETTER IDEA: LET'S ABOLISH THE "PASSENGER FACILITY CHARGE." I SHOULD NO MORE BE EXPECTED TO PAY TO UTILIZE AN AIRPORT THAN I SHOULD HAVE TO PAY A "CUSTOMER FACILITY CHARGE" TO SHOP AT A MALL OR SUPERMARKET!
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/259528/federal-government-s-unspent-billions-deroy-murdock
Notwithstanding President Obama’s promise in his State of the Union address to freeze domestic discretionary spending for five years, Vice President Joseph Biden Tuesday proposed $53 billion in high-speed-rail projects atop $8 billion so previously “invested.”
* YEAH... GOOD POINT! OBAMA TELLS SO MANY LIES THAT YOU TEND TO FORGET ABOUT THE "LITTLE ONES" SUCH AS HIS SUPPOSED "FIVE YEAR DOMESTIC DISCRETIONARY SPENDING FREEZE."
For their part, congressional Republicans struggle to find $100 billion in budget cuts, even though their promise to do so fueled their historic election victories last November. So far, they have proposed just $74 billion in cuts for fiscal year 2011, $26 billion below this minimum threshold.
* HEY... I FOR ONE PLAN ON KEEPING RIGHT ON TOP OF THE GOP! (THING IS... PART OF "THIS YEAR'S" BUDGET WAS WRITTEN AND PASSED BY THE PRE-JANUARY DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS.)
* BTW... I PROPOSE MOVING THE GOVERNMENT'S FISCAL YEAR FROM WHERE IT STARTS NOW (OCTOBER) TO LET'S SAY A WEEK AFTER EACH "NEW" JANUARY CONGRESS IS SWORN IN.
Meanwhile, more than $700 billion gathers dust in accounts all around Washington.
* HUH...???
That’s right. An arcane budgetary category called “unobligated funds” includes money that Congress has appropriated for agencies and programs in every corner of the federal government. When that money goes unspent, it just sits there like an ancient wooden chest on a Caribbean island, just waiting to be pried open.
* WHY THOSE ROTTEN SONS OF... (*GRITTING MY TEETH*)
Senator Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) holds the treasure map. He and his team cite an Office of Management and Budget document with the riveting title “Balances of Budget Authority - Budget of the U.S. Government - Fiscal Year 2011.”
On page 8, Table 1 indicates in black and white that this fiscal year’s federal budget contains $703,128,000,000 in “unobligated balances.”
In fact, Senator Coburn’s office estimates that $82.4 billion of these funds are between six and 20 years old! (You read correctly: At this very second, the federal budget contains $82.4 billion that has hibernated in numerous accounts between FY 1991 and FY 2005.) Team Coburn reckons that at least $100 billion of these unobligated funds safely could be applied to budget reduction. This could be done without padlocking the Smithsonian, dismissing air-traffic controllers, or showing Granny to her new home atop a subway grate.
“Congress is approving increases in government funding faster than bureaucrats can spend it!” Senator Coburn told colleagues in January 2010. “While it is laudable that government bureaucrats are not spending every dollar that they are entrusted, this staggering amount of unspent money exposes the mismanagement of our national finances by Congress.”
If Washington budget cutters get lucky, trunks full of gold doubloons may start washing up on federal property in Key West. Until that happy day, they should squeeze federal balance sheets for the hundreds of billions in unobligated funds available right now.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/259705/nation-cowards-entitlements-daniel-foster
* FIRST... TO REITERATE THE SITUATION:
President Obama’s 2012 budget...[supposedly] cuts the deficit by $1.1 trillion over the next decade.
Wow, great news, right?
No, because Obama also increases the deficit by $1.7 trillion next year alone and sets spending-to-GDP ratio records like it’s his job.
(*SIGH*)
And speaking of pitiful attempts to use superficially appealing numbers to mask a nightmare fiscal reality, a confederacy of conservatives and tea-infused freshman GOPers last week completed an intra-party coup on spending as swift as it was decisive, getting the House leadership to agree to $100 billion in non-defense discretionary spending cuts in the current fiscal year (the number for Rep. Paul Ryan’s Budget Committee was initially $58 billion).
Good on them; $100 billion is a nice chunk of change.
* BUT HERE'S THE OTHER SHOE DROPPING:
Consider that total spending in FY2010 was about $3.5 trillion, including an annualized deficit of $1.4 trillion.
Of that, total non-defense discretionary spending - the focus of Republican cuts - was $660 billion.
* PUT YOUR MATHLETE HELMUTS ON, KIDS!
In other words, the tea partiers could have turned the House side of the Capitol into Tahrir Square and gotten leadership to zero out non-defense discretionary spending, and it wouldn’t have amounted to half of our current-year deficit.
* DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE HOLE THESE BASTARD POLITICIANS HAVE DUG, FOLKS...?
[T]he name of the game is entitlement reform, and the rules are simple: save the entitlements, save the world. Ignore them, and we’re Greece with better plumbing. But the president’s jokey budget does the latter, and the Republican response has been...
* LESS THAN WHAT IT SHOULD BE... LESS THAN WHAT FOLKS LIKE RAND PAUL CALL FOR...
(*SHRUG*)
The bottom line is this. If the Republicans can do the $100 billion cuts and make meaningful statement on entitlements in their own 2012 budget...
* THERE'S HOPE. IF NOT... (*SHRUG*)
* BY THE VERY HONORABLE CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL (R-TX)
http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1829:deception-at-the-fed&catid=62:texas-straight-talk&Itemid=1&Itemid=69
For the past three decades, the Federal Reserve has been given a dual mandate: keeping prices stable and maximizing employment.
* AS TO THE FORMER... THEY'VE GONE BEYOND SIMPLY IGNORING INFLATION; THEY'VE DELIBERATELY DONE ALL WITHIN THEIR POWER TO STIMULATE INFLATION! AS TO THE LATER... THE TIMING OF FED ACTION CAN EFFECT THE TIMING OF "BOOMS" AND "BUSTS," BUT ONLY A FOOL BELIEVES THAT IT'S WITHIN THE FED'S POWER TO CREATE TRUE ECONOMIC PROSPERITY AND THUS EMPLOYMENT.
According to the government's own CPI calculators, it takes $2.65 today to purchase what cost one dollar in 1980.
* NEXT TIME YOU'RE IN A CARD STORE OR OTHER STORE WHERE THEY CARRY THOSE FANCY BIRTHDAY CARDS MARKING THE MAJOR EVENTS AND TRENDS OF THE YEAR YOU WERE BORN, CHECK OUT THE CARD FROM 1980 TO SEE CHECK OUT PRICES OF KEY ITEMS AND SERVICES THEN VS. NOW.
[S]ince its creation in 1913, the Federal Reserve has presided over a 98% decline in the dollar's purchasing power. The average American family sees the price of milk, eggs, and meat increasing, while packaged household goods decrease in size rather than price.
* THE PACKAGING SCAM IS THE MOST INSIDEOUS AND UNDERHANDED.
* AS TO JOBS...
Consider that we had a $700 billion TARP program, nearly $1 trillion in "stimulus" spending, a government takeover of General Motors, and hundreds of billions of dollars of guarantees to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD, FDIC, etc. On top of those programs the Federal Reserve has provided over $4 trillion worth of assistance over the past few years through its credit facilities, purchases of mortgage-backed securities, and now its second round of quantitative easing. (Yet even after all these trillions of dollars of spending and bailouts, total nonfarm payroll employment is still seven million jobs lower than it was before this crisis began.)
Over $4 trillion in bailout facilities and outright debt monetization, combined with interest rates near zero for over two years, have not and will not contribute to increased employment.
What is needed is liquidation of debt and malinvested resources.
Pumping [borrowed foreign and created out of thin air fiat] money into the same sectors that have just crashed merely prolongs the crisis.
It should not be surprising that monetary policy is ineffective at creating actual jobs. It is the effects of monetary policy itself that cause the boom and bust of the business cycle that leads to swings in the unemployment rate. By lowering interest rates through its loose monetary policy, the Fed spurs investment in long-term projects that would not be profitable at market-determined interest rates. Everything seems to go well for awhile until businesses realize that they cannot sell their newly-built houses, their inventories of iron ore, or their new cars. Until these resources are redirected, often with great economic pain for all involved, true economic recovery cannot begin.
Until we learn the lesson that jobs are produced through real savings and investment and not through the creation of new money, we are doomed to repeat this boom and bust cycle.
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