Friday, June 10, 2011

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, June 10, 2011


My future niece-in-law...?

(*CROSSING MY FINGERS*)

Go, Sean, Go...!!!
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4 comments:

William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=44073

* PAT BUCHANAN'S LATEST COLUMN

Seventy-one years ago this spring, after the German army had broken through the French lines, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill flew to France to consult his embattled allies on how to stop the advance.

"Where is the strategic reserve?" Churchill urgently asked the French commander in chief, Gen. Maurice Gamelin, and then he repeated himself in French: "Ou est la masse de manoeuvre?"

"Aucune," came Gamelin's reply. "There is none."

The French had no reserves to stop the Germans from overrunning their country. The Battle of France was lost.

The Obama administration, in its "grand strategy" to generate a rapid and strong recovery from the Great Recession, is at a similar pass. It has drawn and played all its cards: the $800 billion stimulus bill, three straight deficits averaging $1.4 trillion, the Federal Reserve's mass purchases of bad paper from the world's banks, and QE2, the monthly purchase of $100 billion in Treasury bills that ends June 30.

Yet, from the numbers that came in from May, Obama looks to be holding a losing hand. The anemic growth of the first quarter of 2011 seems to have stalled, and the prospect of a double-dip recession looms.

Though the administration anticipated perhaps a quarter-million new jobs in May, as April produced, May generated only 55,000. The unemployment rate ticked back up to 9.1%.

The rise in manufacturing employment went into reverse. Five thousand manufacturing jobs were lost. Consumer confidence sank.

Today 2 million homes remain vacant in the USA, putting immense downward pressure on housing prices. A fourth of U.S. homes are not worth the mortgages being paid upon them.

Says Federal Reserve Vice Chairwoman Janet Yellen, "Looking forward, I unfortunately can envision no quick or easy solutions for the problems still afflicting the housing market." Recovery is going to be a "long, drawn-out process."

A further decline in housing prices of 10% to 25% over the next five years, says Robert Shiller, the economist who invented the S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values, "wouldn't surprise me at all."

The economic malaise has now begun to affect the mood of the nation and its attitude toward the president.

Almost 90% of Americans think the U.S. economy is terrible or poor. 60% think the nation is headed in the wrong direction. 48% expect a second Great Depression next year. Fewer than 40% approve of Obama's handling of the U.S. economy.

* THE QUESTION IS... HOW CAN A NATION WHERE (TO LOOK AT THE FLIP SIDE OF BUCHANAN'S FIGURE) ALMOST 40% OF POLL RESPONDENT EITHER THINK OBAMA IS DOING A GOOD JOB OR JUST PLAIN HAVE NO OPINION SURVIVE?

* To be continued...

June 10, 2011 at 11:26 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)

The question Obama faces and, indeed, Congress and the nation face is: What do we do now?

Chairman Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve has signaled that there will be no QE3, no more Fed purchases of $100 billion a month in U.S. government paper. Buyers for that $1.2 trillion a year of U.S. debt will have to be found elsewhere.

* THANK GOD!

And with the economy stagnant or sinking, the Democrats on Capitol Hill are starting to back away from any deep budget cuts, even as Republicans are now even less likely to sign on to any tax increases to reduce the $1.5 billion deficit.

* WE NEED TO ENSURE THAT EACH AND EVERY AMERICAN HAS SKIN IN THE GAME. WE MUST EFFECTIVELY RAISE TAXES - THE FEDERAL INCOME TAX - ON THE NEARLY 50% OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY POPULATION WHICH NOW EFFECTIVELY PAYS ZERO FEDERAL INCOME TAXES.

Republicans are already holding out for $1 in spending cuts for every dollar increase in the debt ceiling. And the country seems to be behind the GOP position: If the Senate and White House don't agree to $2 trillion in spending cuts, we don't raise the debt ceiling by $2 trillion.

* NOT GOOD ENOUGH! I WANT $2 IN SPENDING CUTS FOR EVERY $1 IN DEBT CEILING INCREASE. (IDEALLY, I OPPOSE THE DEBT CEILING INCREASE IN AND OF ITSELF!)

The U.S. government does not run out of money to pay its bills until August. But markets probably will be making judgments upon the likelihood of a U.S. default well before then.

* WE'LL HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH CONTINUING REVENUE STREAM TO KEEP PAYING THE INTEREST ON THE DEBT (AND I'D SUGGEST CREATING A MECHANISM FOR FORCED PRINCIPLE REPAYMENT AS INTEREST IS PAID!), THEREFORE, THERE IS NO DANGER OF DEFAULT AS SUCH. WHAT THE POLITICIANS ARE AFRAID OF IS THAT THEY'RE ACTUALLY GOING TO HAVE TO DO THEIR JOBS AND PRIORITIZE SPENDING!

How did we get here? How did the richest and strongest country in history, triumphant in World War II and the Cold War, approach so soon the condition of the late Spanish and British empires as they began their precipitous declines?

Answer: We overextended ourselves. We bankrupted ourselves. We undertook the defense of nations all over the world having little to do with our vital national interests. We fought unnecessary wars. We doled out trillions in foreign aid to ingrates, incompetents, opportunists and thieves. We promised all our seniors Social Security and subsidized medical care for the rest of their lives and failed to put the money away to pay for it. We dropped half of U.S. wage earners off the tax rolls while creating a mammoth welfare state to dwarf anything Norman Thomas and his Socialists dreamed of in the 1930s.

Not only for the United States but also for the West, the days of wine and roses are over.

June 10, 2011 at 11:26 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304259304576377051184752240.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

Another dose of anguish about the global economic recovery sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average to the first close below 12000 since mid-March, capping the blue-chip index's longest weekly slump since 2002.

* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!

Two closely watched stock indexes turned negative for the year Friday. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 41.14, or 1.5%, to 2643.73. The small-capitalization Russell 2000 fell 13.10, or 1.7%, to 779.54.

* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!

Investors were dour after U.S. May import prices showed a surprise rise of 0.2%, hinting at an inflation push coming into the U.S. from abroad.

* AH, YES... (*PAUSE*)... MORE... er... SURPRISES... (*SNORT*) (*ROLLING MY EYES*)

June 10, 2011 at 5:10 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/06/09/3-stabbed-in-downtown-san-jose/

At least two people were stabbed and hospitalized, and three others injured after a massive brawl involving dozens of people broke out in the parking lot of a McDonald’s near San Jose State University in California.

* FOLKS... I'M NOT FRIGG'N KIDDING ABOUT GETTING TRAINED AND GETTING ARMED.

It’s not known what started the brawl, which witnesses said was so big it looked like a riot.

* JUST ANOTHER NIGHT IN AN AMERICAN CITY. MAKES YOU PROUD, HUH.

Police spokesman Jose Garcia said race may have been a motive in the brawl, and that about half the group was Latino, the other half black.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

“Some of the individuals who were involved in this disturbance are being uncooperative with investigators, as well as potential witnesses who were not being very cooperative. So that makes it very difficult for us to determine what occurred and the motive,” he told KCBS.

* FOLKS... WE'RE DEALING WITH ANIMALS. DEMOGRAPHICS MATTER!

Witnesses told CBS5 that the brawl was so big it looked like a riot. That kind of behavior isn’t surprising to some. One man, who only identified himself as “Julio,” said the area looks like a “war zone” late at night with groups of youngsters looking for trouble.

* DID I SAY AMERICAN CITY UP ABOVE? EXCUSE ME... I MEANT TO SAY A CITY IN AMERICA. THERE'S A DIFFERENCE.

“Little 21-year-old gang bangers trying to punk all the older people,” he said. “I feel like you come down here you gotta watch your back.”

This is the second time this year that violence has broken out in a McDonald’s parking lot in San Jose. In March, an 18-year-old man was shot to death outside the McDonald’s near San Jose City College.

* SHORT OF "PROFESSIONAL" VIGILANTE JUSTICE (COPS...) I SEE NO HOPE OF TURNING THE TIDE AND RECLAIMING AREAS LIKE THIS FOR CIVILIZATION.

June 10, 2011 at 7:27 PM

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