Monday, April 25, 2011
Barker's Newsbites: Monday, April 25, 2011
So... as the end of April rolls around I'm finally finishing up Rick Springfield's autobiography "Late, Late At Night."
Pretty interesting book! Seriously! For those who didn't know, Dr. Noah Drake's real name is actually Springthorpe and he's an Aussie by birth and upbringing; except for the time he spent in England as a child.
Anyway... the guy is still going strong... hard to believe he's 61.
(Yeah... the guy was born in 1949!)
You wanna know something interesting? The guy actually took part in a band tour to entertain the troop... in Vietnam... in 1968!
He also dated then-15 year old Linda Blair (with her mom's approval!), who was at the time a young "star" courtesy of "The Exorcist."
Anyway... here's something from 2008. Not half bad!
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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/imf-bombshell-age-of-america-about-to-end-2011-04-25?link=MW_home_latest_news
For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China.
* THE AGE OF OBAMA COMES... THE AGE OF AMERICA ENDS... (*SIGH*)
According to the latest IMF official forecasts, China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 - just five years from now.
According to the IMF forecast, whoever is elected U.S. president next year...will be the last to preside over the world’s largest economy.
Most people aren’t prepared for this.
They aren’t even aware it’s that close.
Listen to "experts" of various stripes and they will tell you this moment is decades away. The most bearish will put the figure in the mid-2020s.
But they’re miscounting.
They’re only comparing the gross domestic products of the two countries using current exchange rates. That’s a largely meaningless comparison in real terms [since] China’s exchange rates are phony. China artificially undervalues its currency, the renminbi, through massive intervention in the markets.
Just 10 years ago, the U.S. economy was three times the size of China’s.
* THANK YOU PRESIDENT BUSH... THANK YOU RINO CONGRESS 2001-2006... THANK YOU PELOSI/REID CONGRESS 2007-2010... THANK YOU PRESIDENT OBAMA...
The rise of China, and the relative decline of America, is the biggest story of our time. You can see its implications everywhere, from shuttered factories in the Midwest to soaring costs of oil and other commodities. ... Chinese interests [are] snapping up farmland and food stuff supplies from South America to China and elsewhere. This is the result of decades during which China has successfully pursued economic policies aimed at national expansion and power, while the U.S. has embraced either "free trade," or, for want of a better term, economic appeasement.
[Says] Ralph Gomory, research professor at NYU’s Stern business school, "What we have seen is a massive shift in capability from the U.S. to China. What we have done is traded jobs for profit. The jobs have moved to China. The capability erodes in the U.S. and grows in China. That’s very destructive. That is a big reason why the U.S. is becoming more and more polarized between a small, very rich class and an eroding middle class. The people who get the profits are very different from the people who lost the wages."
* IN THE MEANTIME...
The U.S. is now spending gigantic sums - from a beleaguered economy - to try to maintain its place in the sun. Pentagon spending is budget blind spot. It’s a lesson we could learn more cheaply from the sad story of the British, Spanish and other empires. It doesn’t work. You can’t stay on top if your economy doesn’t.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Oil-near-113-as-damaged-apf-1544555609.html?x=0&.v=5
Oil prices rose to near $113 a barrel Monday... Benchmark crude for June delivery was up 52 cents at $112.81 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
In London, Brent crude for June delivery was up 37 cents to $124.36 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704415104576250521930069848.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
This month, one year since the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the Noble Clyde Boudreaux - an ultra-deepwater semi-submersible drilling rig - will start operations off the coast of...
(*DRUM ROLL*) WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...
Brazil.
(*SIGH*)
Until a few weeks ago the Noble Clyde Boudreaux was stationed in the Gulf.
(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)
Moving the Noble out of U.S. waters is one of the adverse consequences of the Obama administration's overreaction to last year's Gulf spill.
(*BANGING MY FISTS ON THE DESK*)
Despite the president's repeated claims that he's been "encouraging" domestic oil production, administration policies have been driving drilling rigs out of the Gulf (six deepwater rigs in addition to the Noble have left the Gulf, with two more possibly on the way out).
In the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill, President Obama announced a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling.
In the months after "lifting" the ban, the administration slowed drilling permits to a crawl, effectively creating what some have called a "permatorium."
In December, the White House reversed course on its own five-year plan to open portions of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Mid-Atlantic and the South Atlantic to offshore exploration. This effectively locks up an estimated 7.6 billion barrels of oil and 36.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
* YES, FOLKS... WISE UP... IT'S NO EXAGGERATION TO NOTE THAT OBAMA APPEARS TO BEING DOING EVERYTHING WITHIN HIS POWER TO HURT THIS NATION... TO MAKE US WEAKER, POORER, AND MORE RELIANT UPON FOREIGN POWERS.
This year, the Energy Information Administration forecasts a 240,000 barrels-per-day drop (13%) in the Gulf, and another 200,000 drop next year.
(*SIGH*)
As the Noble Clyde Boudreaux starts drilling for Brazilian oil - and gasoline prices rise past $4 a gallon - the...effects the White House could have foreseen from its war on oil are becoming clear to everyone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/26/world/asia/26afghanistan.html?_r=1&hp
The Taliban staged an audacious prison break here early Monday, freeing at least 476 political prisoners through a long tunnel, according to the warden, Gen. Ghulam Dastagir Mayar.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
* WINNING, BABY...! DUH...! TIGER BLOOD...!!!
The governor of Kandahar, Wesa Toorylai, sharply criticized the security forces. “This is absolutely the fault of the ignorance of the security forces,” Mr. Toorylai said. “This was not the work of a day, a week or a month of activities, this was actually months of work they spent to dig and free their men.”
* YEP... ALL THAT TRAINING IS REALLY SHOWING RESULTS...! LET'S INCREASE SPENDING EVEN MORE!
(*SMIRK*)
It was the second time there has been a major prison break at the Sarposa prison, the largest and most substantial prison in southern Afghanistan. ... On June 13, 2008, the Taliban orchestrated the freeing of 1,200 prisoners, of whom 350 were Taliban members...
* OUTSTANDING...! YEP... THE NEXT TIME A YOUNG AMERICAN IN BLOWN TO HELL SERVING IN AFGHANISTAN HIS LOVED ONES CAN TAKE... er... COMFORT IN THE FACT THAT HILLARY AND BARAK KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEY'RE DOING!
A Taliban spokesman for the south and west of the country, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, said that a total of 541 prisoners had escaped and that among them were 106 Taliban commanders. “Now they are all in safe havens,” he said.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/04/25/energy-america-oil-drilling-denial/
Shell Oil Company has announced it must scrap efforts to drill for oil this summer in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska.
The decision comes following a ruling by the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board to withhold critical air permits.
* FOLKS...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Shell has spent five years and nearly $4 billion dollars on plans to explore for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The leases alone cost $2.2 billion.
(*STILL SHAKING MY HEAD*)
The closest village to where Shell proposed to drill is Kaktovik, Alaska...70 miles away from the proposed off-shore drill site.
* AND YET... (WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...)
The EPA’s appeals board ruled that Shell had not taken into consideration emissions from an ice-breaking vessel when calculating overall greenhouse gas emissions from the project.
* YEP... YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY, FOLKS...
(*SIGH*) (*HEADACHE*)
Environmental groups were thrilled by the ruling.
* MEANWHILE...
Alaska officials are blasting the Environmental Protection Agency.
At stake is an estimated 27 billion barrels of oil. That’s how much the U. S. Geological Survey believes is in the U.S. portion of the Arctic Ocean. For perspective, that represents two and a half times more oil than has flowed down the Trans Alaska pipeline throughout its 30-year history.
Production on the North Slope of Alaska is declining at a rate of about 7% a year. [The Trans Alaska] pipeline is getting dangerously low on oil. At 660,000 barrels a day, it’s carrying only one-third its capacity. If the volume gets much lower, pipeline officials say they will have to shut it down.
* FOLKS... DOES ANYONE SERIOUS BELIEVE THAT THE EPA ISN'T AWARE OF THIS... THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA ISN'T AWARE OF THIS... THAT THESE ACTIONS AREN'T PURPOSEFUL...???
“It’s driving investment and production overseas,” said Alaska’s DNR Commissioner Dan Sullivan. “That doesn’t help the United States in any way, shape or form.”
The EPA did not return repeated calls and e-mails.
The Environmental Appeals Board has four members: Edward Reich, Charles Sheehan, Kathie Stein and Anna Wolgast. All are registered Democrats and Kathie Stein was an activist attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund.
(*LITERALLY FEELING SICK TO MY STOMACH*)
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://blogs.forbes.com/peterferrara/2011/04/22/americas-ever-expanding-welfare-empire/
America’s welfare state is...a vast empire bigger than the entire budgets of almost every other country in the world.
[O]ver the past 2 decades, total welfare spending has been growing faster than Social Security and Medicare, about twice as fast as education, and nearly 3 times as fast as national defense.
Just one program, Medicaid, cost the federal government $275 billion in 2010... (Counting state Medicaid expenditures, this one program cost taxpayers $425 billion in 2010, soaring to $800 billion by 2018.)
Under Obamacare, 85 million Americans will soon be on Medicaid, growing to nearly 100 million by 2021, according to the CBO.
* BUT, WAIT...! THERE'S MORE...!
[T]here are 184 additional federal, means-tested welfare programs, most jointly financed and administered with the states.
In addition to Medicaid is the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Also included is Food Stamps, now officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Nearly 42 million Americans were receiving food stamps in 2010, up by a third since November, 2008. President Obama’s budget projects spending $75 billion on Food Stamps in 2011, double the $36 billion spent in 2008.
(*SIGH*)
There is the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which targets "assistance" to [some] pregnant women and [some] mothers with small children.
* THE REST OF US HAVE TO PAY FOR OUR OWN FOOD.
There is the means tested School Breakfast Program and School Lunch Program.
* AGAIN... I HAD TO PAY FOR MY KID'S BREAKFAST AND LUNCH WHEN SHE WENT TO SCHOOL; I'M SURE YOU PAID FOR YOUR KIDS TOO.
There is the Summer Food Service Program for Children.
* AS OPPOSED TO THE REST OF US PROVIDING FOOD FOR OUR CHILDREN DURING THE SUMMER... WINTER... SPRING... FALL...
(*SIGH*)
There are the lower income components of the Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Emergency Food Assistance Program, and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP)...
* To be continued...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
By 2010, Federal spending for Food and Nutrition Assistance overall had climbed to roughly $100 billion a year.
* NEXT...
[F]ederal housing assistance, totaling $77 billion in 2010.
* OH... AND DON'T FORGET...
Besides medical care, food, and housing, the federal government also provides cash. The old New Deal era Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) is now Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which pays cash mostly to single mothers with children. There is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which sends low income workers checks even though they usually owe no taxes to be credited against. The Child Tax Credit similarly provides cash to families with children. In 2010...income security programs accounted for nearly another $200 billion in federal spending.
The best estimate of the cost of the 185 federal means tested welfare programs for 2010 for the federal government alone is nearly $700 billion, up a third since 2008, according to the Heritage Foundation.
* BUT, WAIT...! THAT'S NOT ALL, FOLKS...!
Counting state spending, total welfare spending for 2010 reached nearly $900 billion, up nearly one-fourth since 2008 (24.3%).
The soaring welfare spending since 2008 is not a temporary increase reflecting the recession, as it is not projected to decline after the economy recovers. By 2013, total annual welfare spending will have grown still more, to nearly $1 trillion. Over the 10 year period from 2009 to 2018, federal and state welfare spending will total $10.3 trillion. This does not include ObamaCare’s massive expansion of Medicaid, or the massive new entitlement providing subsidies for families making close to $100,000 per year, and beyond. Together, this abusive entitlement spending will add trillions more.
(*SIGH*)
Social Security spending for 2010 was $721.5 billion, with Medicare spending totaling $457 billion for the year, for a combined total of $1.179 trillion.
Adding in federal welfare spending for the year leaves a combined total for entitlement spending of $1.879 trillion.
The total federal budget for that year was $3.720 trillion.
* ARE... YOU... FOLLOWING...?!?!
[E]ntitlement/welfare state spending overall for that [2010] was just over 50% of the entire budget[!]
* AND FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS AREN'T FACING THIS REALITY. (READ ON...)
Ryan’s ["roadmap"] only slows the growth of this welfare/entitlement empire. All of those commentators weeping, wailing and gnashing their teeth over Ryan’s budget are not living in the real world.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/04/22/the_truth_about_the_debt_ceiling_and_default_109633.html
* BY SENATOR PAT TOOMEY (R-PA)
[D]elay in raising the debt limit will in no way cause a default on our national debt.
* CORRECT!
[The Obama] administration has resorted to repeatedly mischaracterizing and exaggerating the consequences of a delay in raising the debt limit.
* ALSO CORRECT!
As we have been approaching the $14.3 trillion statutory limit to federal borrowing, I and many of my colleagues have insisted on real spending reforms now as part of any agreement to allow still more government borrowing. Unfortunately, the administration has insisted instead that we should simply raise the debt limit unconditionally.
(*NOD*)
If [a Republican House stand firm and] Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling, the federal government will still have more than enough money to fully service our debt.
* FOLKS... HERE ARE THE NUMBERS:
Next year, about 7% of all projected federal government expenditures will go to interest on our debt. Tax revenue is projected to cover at least 70 percent of all government expenditures. So, under any circumstances, there will be plenty of money to pay our creditors.
* IN OTHER WORDS, FOLKS, 70 MINUS 7 EQUALS 63. IT REALLY IS JUST THAT FRIGG'N CLEAR CUT!
[A]s the Congressional Research Service has noted, [Obama's Treasury Secretary, Tim "the Tax Cheat" Geithner] has the discretion to decide which bills to pay first in the event that a cash flow shortage occurs.
* WHAT DOES THIS MEAN...?
Thus, it is he who would have to consciously, and needlessly, choose to default on our debt if the debt ceiling is not promptly raised upon reaching it.
* FOLKS... THE BALL IS CLEARLY IN OBAMA'S COURT. (*SHRUG*)
To be sure, absent an increase in the debt limit, the resulting sudden, drastic spending cuts would be very disruptive and undesirable. (That is why I have always argued that we should raise the debt limit once we have adopted the needed spending cuts and budgeting reforms.) But disruptive and undesirable spending cuts are not the same thing as a catastrophic default on our debt.
(*NOD*)
If the secretary truly wanted to eliminate any specter of default, then he would have supported my legislation, the Full Faith and Credit Act. This bill would require the Treasury to prioritize payments on our debt in the event the debt ceiling is not raised, thus ensuring the U.S. government does not default.
(*SHRUG*) MAKES SENSE... (*ANOTHER SHRUG*)
Instead, the administration has ratcheted up its demands for an unconditional increase in the debt limit, while offering to "consider" spending cuts and reforms detached from the debt limit vote.
(*SMIRK*)
There is simply no reason to believe this administration will agree to any meaningful spending cuts or budget reforms except under pressure. But America desperately needs these reforms, as S&P recently reminded us. Congress must ignore the administration's scare tactics and refuse to raise the debt limit until the administration agrees to put the federal government on a sustainable fiscal path.
* HEAR! HEAR!
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265503/end-defined-benefit-michael-barone
The defined benefit is dying.
Barack Obama is struggling to keep it alive, but it’s apparent that it’s something that even as bounteously rich a society as ours can’t afford.
(*NOD*)
Yes, I know that “defined benefit” is not a common household phrase. But most people know what a defined-benefit pension is. It’s when your employer promises to pay you a certain amount of money, pegged to your salary or according to some other formula, when you retire.
* OF COURSE, THE PROBLEM WITH THIS IS THAT THERE'S OFTEN NOTHING BEHIND THE PROMISE - NO ACTUAL GUARANTEE BASED UPON HARD, COLD CASH OR NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENTS... OR GOLD... OR SILVER... (*SHRUG*)
Some 30 years ago, most big employers had defined-benefit pension plans. Some private-sector employees still have them, and many government employees do.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
[A] 1978 tax law, "Section 401(K)," [dealt with the above noted reality by authorizing] companies to offer defined-contribution pensions.
Instead of [making potentially empty promises] to pay workers specific amounts years later when they retired, companies would put certain amounts in the employees’ 401(K) accounts.
(*NOD*)
The employees would own the money and choose among investment options. The money wouldn’t be taxed until it was removed from the 401(K) accounts years later.
* THERE MADE A MISTAKE WITH THAT. WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE INSTEAD WAS TAX THE MONEY WHICH WENT DIRECTLY INTO 401-K CONTRIBUTIONS AT HALF OF THE REGULAR TO TAX RATE THE INDIVIDUAL WAS SUBJECT TO AND CALLED IT A DAY THERE IN TERMS OF TAXATION. (OF COURE, THE EARLY WITHDRAWAL PENALTIES WOULD STILL REMAIN.)
It’s easy to understand why employers prefer defined-contribution plans. Once they’ve paid the employees, they don’t have any further obligation.
(*NOD*)
Many employees like them, too. They have actual money, not a claim on some fund someone else is managing. They can move from one job to another rather than stay with one employer for many years until their defined-benefit pension is fully vested.
(*NOD*)
The people who put defined-benefit plans and policies in place assumed there always would be someone able to pay for them.
(*SNORT*)
Defined-benefit policies assume a static society. But we live in a dynamic society, and defined-benefit policies cannot keep up with constant change.
(*NOD*)
Social Security and defined-benefit pensions assumed that people wouldn’t live very long after turning 65. Now we do. Medicare didn’t provide a prescription-drug benefit, because prescription drugs weren’t a big deal in 1965. It took 38 years before a prescription-drug benefit was added.
(*NOD*)
We need to adjust defined-benefit public policies to shift some short-term risk to individuals while reducing toward zero the huge systemic risk that exists now.
http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/thoughts_from_the_frontline/archive/2011/04/23/the-miracle-of-compound-inflation.aspx
[L]et’s look at nominal GDP over the last 11 years, from the beginning of 2000.
(The data only goes through the third quarter of last year, [but] sometime this year it is quite likely that GDP will top $15 trillion.)
So, [between 2000 and now] the [U.S.] economy has grown by roughly 50% - [according to official U.S. government numbers].
Give or take, that’s close to 4% growth...
(*DRUM ROLL*) WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT... (*HOLDING MY BREATH*)
But what if we took out all the growth that was due to inflation?
* BINGO...!!!
The economy would only have grown to $12.5 trillion. And in fact, “real” or inflation-adjusted GDP growth was just 1.9% on an annualized basis for the last decade, the lowest growth rate since the ’30s.
* BOTTOM LINE...
What cost on average $1,000 in 2000 is now $1,250.
(*SIGH*)
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/consumer-index/april-2011-raiding-retirement-fund.aspx
Nearly one-fifth of full-time employed Americans have raided retirement accounts in the past year to cover emergencies, according to a national Bankrate survey.
* NOT GOOD, FOLKS... NOT GOOD...
Despite [media spin touting] a [supposedly] "stabilizing" U.S. economy, 19% of Americans - including 17% of full-time workers - have [felt] compelled to take money from their retirement savings in the last year to cover urgent financial needs, the Financial Security Index found.
Though 80% of full-time workers didn't dip into retirement funds, far too many consumers are ill-prepared for emergencies, says Kim McGrigg, manager of community and media relations at Money Management International, a credit counseling agency. "Perhaps the most alarming thing about these numbers is that they suggest a lack of other options," she says. "Consumers generally consider using retirement funds only as a last resort."
* YEP. THINK ABOUT IT, KIDS; WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE 81% WHO DIDN'T TAKE A HIT VIA PENALTIES BY DIPPING INTO THEIR RETIREMENT FUNDS INSTEAD FURTHER INDEBTED THEMSELVES BY BORROWING FROM OTHER SOURCES? (*SHRUG*)
[W]ith penalties and taxes an early $10,000 withdrawal may only yield $6,500 if you're in a 25% tax bracket.
The potential consequences of tapping retirement funds include early withdrawal fees, taxes and the loss of compound earnings - not to mention the prospect of being unable to retire.
(*CHUCKLE*) YEAH... "NOT TO MENTION..." (*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/04/25/4312/newt-gingrich-faces-questions-about-consulting-job-and-support-biofuels
* SUBTITLE: "NEWT GINGRICH... PIECE OF HUMAN GARBAGE"
“I am not a lobbyist for ethanol,” Newt Gingrich declared in a mid-winter spat with the editors of The Wall Street Journal over his support for government subsidies for alternative fuel.
But Gingrich was a hired consultant to a major ethanol lobbying group - at more than $300,000 a year.
According to IRS records, the ethanol group Growth Energy paid Gingrich’s consulting firm $312,500 in 2009. The former House Speaker was the organization’s top-paid consultant, according to the records. His pay was one of the group’s largest single expenditures, as it took in and spent about $11 million to promote ethanol and to lobby for federal incentives for its use.
In a Growth Energy publication, Gingrich was listed as a consultant who offered advice on “strategy and communication issues” and who “will speak positively on ethanol related topics to media.”
Ethanol is “very, very important from an environmental standpoint…if you’re concerned about global warming, not supporting ethanol makes absolutely no sense, and if you’re concerned about carbon loading of the atmosphere, supporting ethanol is a major step in the right direction,” Gingrich told a Growth Energy event in January 2009.
Gingrich [also] supported ethanol as Speaker. In March 2009...he boasted that he and [former Iowa Rep. Jim] Nussle had “helped save ethanol” from those in Congress who wanted to end the federal subsidy for the fuel.
(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)
Growth Energy raised and spent some $11 million in 2009 on public relations, lobbying and promotion, according to its IRS report. It has hired several Washington insiders, including former aides to Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to lobby on Capitol Hill.
* BOEHNER... NO SURPRISE THERE.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/oil-rises-near-113-asia-libya-rebels-output-090123869.html
Gasoline pump prices climbed for the 34th straight day, to a national U.S. average of more than $3.86 per gallon according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
The U.S. average price is now a dollar more per gallon than a year ago.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan/8470172/America-appears-to-be-sleepwalking-towards-disaster-does-no-one-care.html
* AS YOU ALL KNOW...
There is now, according to S&P, "at least a one in three chance" that American debt will be downgraded from its top-notch status over the next two years - which would be a first in modern times.
A New York Times/CBS News opinion poll has also suggested the U.S. public is now more economically pessimistic than at any time since President Barack Obama's first two months in office in early 2009 - when the country was still caught in the "Great Recession".
Amid renewed talk of a "jobless recovery", the number of Americans who think the economy has deteriorated spiked by 13% points over the past month. Congress, meanwhile, is locked in a bitter dispute over the federal government's ability to make ends meet.
These are the stark realities facing the world's largest economy. They are set, furthermore, against Europe's sovereign debt turmoil, Japan's nuclear crisis and ongoing violence in the Middle East.
Yet despite all this bad news, this veritable litany of woe, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended last week at a three-year high.
(*BLOOD SHOOTING OUT OF MY EYES, EARS, NOSE, AND MOUTH SIMULTANEOUSLY*)
U.S. equities are now at levels not seen since mid-2008 - before the credit crunch really took hold.
(*EYEBALLS LITERALLY MELTING - ALA RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK*)
On top of that, despite S&P's announcement, the price of Treasuries kept rising, as their yield - the cost the US government must pay to borrow - fell to its lowest level in a month.
(*CHEST PAINS*) (*PAIN SHOOTING THROUGH MY LEFT ARM*)
Has the world gone mad?
* OBVIOUSLY A RHETORICAL QUESTION... (*SIGH*)
* FOLKS... YOU SHOULD READ THE FULL COLUMN. THE LINK IS PROVIDED UP ABOVE. (*SHRUG*)
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