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2011
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August
(36)
- Thank God! Kenny's Gonna Be Fine
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, August 31, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 30, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 29, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., August 27 & 28, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, August 26, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, August 25, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, August 24, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: August 23, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 22, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., August 20 & 21, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, August 19, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, August 18, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, August 17, 2011
- I Despise Karl Rove With All My Heart and Soul
- Bushbama Crosses a Line - Taiwan is Betrayed
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 16, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 15, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., August 13 & 14, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, August 12, 2011
- Thursday Night's Republican Debate
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, August 11, 2011
- John Boehner (and Mitch McConnell) Strike Again
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, August 10, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 9, 2011
- Update re: Bill Barker "vs." Dr. Nan Hayworth (R-N...
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 8, 2011
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Aug. 6 & 7, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, August 5, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, August 4, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, August 3, 2011
- As for Republican Senators re: The Boehner-McConne...
- Dow Drops 265 Points After "Successful" Deal
- House Vote 690 - Sixty-Six Votes Too Little Too Late
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 2, 2011
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 1, 2011
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August
(36)
About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
8 comments:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-11/trade-deficit-of-u-s-unexpectedly-widens-to-53-1-billion-on-export-slump.html
The U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly increased in June to the highest level since October 2008 as a slump in exports exceeded a decline in shipments from overseas.
* THERE'S THAT "UNEXPECTEDLY" AGAIN!
* FOLKS... SERIOUSLY... YOU KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR BECAUSE I POINT OUT AND INDEED HARP ON COMMON JOURNALISTIC TRICKS USED TO SKEW "REPORTING." DO YOU REALLY THINK MOST PEOPLE PICK UP ON THESE "DETAILS" - "DETAILS" WHICH ARE INTENDED TO SLIP UNDER THE BRAIN'S CONSCIOUS RADAR AND INTO A PERSON'S SUBCONSCIOUS?
* FOLKS... EVERY FRIGG'N MONTH...!!! YOU CAN GO BACK THROUGH THE ARCHIVES! EVERY TIME IT'S MORE BAD NEWS DURING THE AGE OF OBAMA IT'S "UNEXPECTEDLY." GIVE IT A FRIGG'N REST...!!!
The gap widened 4.4 percent to $53.1 billion from $50.8 billion in the prior month, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
The deficit exceeded all estimates in a Bloomberg News survey of economists...
* THAT'S BECAUSE YOU MEDIA CLOWNS KEEP ON RELYING UPON THE SAME ACADEMIC CLOWNS WHO KEEP ON GETTING IT WRONG...!!! JEEZ, FOLKS... THIS AIN'T ROCKET SCIENCE! (AND IF IT WAS THERE WOULD BE A LOT OF DEAD ASTRONAUTS!)
Exports declined the most since January 2009.
* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
America’s deficits with China and the European Union widened in June...
* SO, FOLKS... TELL ME HOW "LOW EUROPEAN UNION WAGES" - IN FRIGG'N EUROS NO LESS - MIGHT (*SNORT*) "EXPLAIN" THIS WIDENING GAP?
(*SMIRK*)
* MUST READ THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2011/08/11/the_bernanke_fed_promises_two_more_years_of_economic_pain_99181.html
* BY JOHN TAMNY
Partisan Republicans love to point out that President Obama always blames his predecessor for the limp economic outlook, while never looking inward. They have a point about Obama being hopeless on economic matters, but the reality is far more nuanced. If honest they would acknowledge the greater truth that much of what ails us today actually is George W. Bush's fault.
Indeed, it was Bush's administration that instituted a bailout culture that tautologically restrains recovery for failed ideas being propped up at the expense of good ones.
* FAIR ENOUGH, JOHN; I MAKE THE SAME POINT MYSELF ALL THE TIME! THAT SAID... IT WASN'T AS IF THE DEMS OPPOSED ANY OF BUSH'S ASS-BACKWARDS IDEAS - EXCEPT IN THE SENSE THAT THEY WANTED TO SPEND EVEN MORE THAN BUSH DID!
* TARP... THE BAILOUTS... PELOSI, REID AND THEN-SENATOR AND CANDIDATE OBAMA WERE WITH BUSH ALL THE WAY!
Secondly, it was the Bush administration's jawboning of China, along with tariffs on steel, softwood lumber and shrimp that signaled to the markets its preference for a weaker dollar.
* YEP! THIS IS A CONSTANT THEME HERE AT NEWSBITES; BUSH WAS THE ORIGINATOR OF THE MODERN ERA LOW DOLLAR POLICES... YET... RATHER THAN REVERSE COURSE, THAT JACKASS OBAMA HAS GIVEN BERNANKE (AND GEITHNER) FULL REIN TO DOUBLE DOWN ON THIS DISASTROUS POLICY. INDEED, AS I WRITE THIS THE FED IS BUSY MONETIZING THE DEBT AND PAVING THE WAY FOR FAR WORSE INFLATION THAN WE'VE SEEN SO FAR.
Lastly, the Bush administration "gifted" Obama with Ben Bernanke. Bernanke, a walking talking economic fallacy holds powerful economic levers, and his machinations weigh more negatively on the Obama economy than anything else.
* HEY... AGAIN... I OFTEN POINT OUT THAT BEFORE OBAMA'S BERNANKE THERE WAS BUSH'S BERNANKE! THAT SAID... NO ONE PUT A GUN TO OBAMA'S HEAD AND FORCED HIM TO KEEP BERNANKE ON - REAPPOINTING HIM.
* AS A SIDE NOTE: EVERY REPUBLICAN SENATOR WHO VOTED TO RE-CONFIRM BERNANKE SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HIMSELF OR HERSELF. (SAME REGARDING THE HOLDER NOMINATION!)
* To be continued...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
Sadly for Obama, particularly given the looming elections, is that his Fed Chairman on Tuesday implicitly or unwittingly promised the American people at least two more years of economic pain.
The answer why is basic economics.
As most economists, and as most sentient non-economists know, price controls meant to hold down the natural price of anything lead to scarcity. Looked at in terms of apartments, when governments restrain rental costs they create a disincentive among apartment developers to build more of them. Why build more apartments if regulations will disallow profitable rental of same?
Considering the Fed, its control over the short rate for credit is a price control like any other. And the Fed, with its actions never restrained by basic economic logic, has promised to keep the rate it sets at "extraordinarily low levels" until 2013.
(Translated, the Fed will use its powers to keep interest rates below the natural levels that would prevail if the short rate for credit were floated.)
As William Ford (former Atlanta Fed president) wrote recently with AIER research fellow Polina Vlasenko, aided by Fed efforts to keep it low, the 10-year Treasury is yielding near 2% versus an average yield of 7% during the nine previous economic recoveries.
(Unnaturally low yields by definition drive away savers, not to mention that those foolish enough to save aren't being compensated with the income that they'd normally receive.)
There are no jobs without individuals saving first, and absent these artificially low rates that punish those who might provide capital to job creators, Ford and Vlasenko contend that the unemployment rate would be 6.8%.
* A CYNIC MIGHT NOTE THAT FROM THE LEFTIST'S PERSPECTIVE... HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT STOKES THE FIRES OF CLASS RESENTMENT WHICH SOME LEFTISTS BELIEVE WILL BENEFIT THEM IN TERMS OF ELECTION TURNOUT AND ENTHUSIASM.
(*SHRUG*) JUST SAYIN', FOLKS!
* To be continued...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Price controls on interest rates are serving as capital formation repellents, and with the Fed promising to maintain them for another 21 months, job creation will be subdued.
(*NOD*)
What the Fed misses here is that the best interest rate is one set by unfettered markets given the simple truth that a free interest rate matches the needs of lenders and borrowers. (Zero interest rates don't compensate lenders, thus once again making credit scarce.)
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... OBAMA AND THE STATISTS AREN'T INTERESTED IN "THE" TRUTH; WHAT THEY'RE INTERESTED IN IS ATTEMPTING (UNSUCCESSFULLY!) TO HAMMER A SQUARE PEG INTO A ROUND HOLE VIA DISCREDITED KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS.
Sadly, the story gets worse. In order to keep rates artificially low, the Fed will essentially have to conduct another round of quantitative easing that promises to weigh on the value of the dollar.
* FURTHER DEVALUING YOUR SAVINGS, PEOPLE... FURTHER INFLATING PRICES, FOLKS...
(*SIGH*)
Investors are by definition in the business of buying future income streams, but if their capital commitments made with an eye on returns are to be met with devaluations that will reduce the value of those returns, logic says they'll continue to seek out the hard assets of yesterday as an inflation hedge.
* GOLD... OTHER PRECIOUS METALS... ART... OVERSEAS INVESTMENTS...
(*SHRUG*)
When you combine the impact of Bernanke's actions, it becomes apparent that one man negatively weighs on our economic health more than any other policy, president, or Congress. For the Republicans who cheered his nomination back in 2005, they should hang their heads in shame.
* AS I WROTE UP ABOVE... (*SIGH*)
http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/08/10/the_congress_is_in_session_it_turns_out_in_israel
This week's reports that 20% of the U.S. Congress will be visiting Israel this month are stunning.
Eighty-one members of Congress - two thirds of them Republicans, 47 of them freshmen - apparently think it is more important to be visiting Israel than it is to be at home dealing with the worst economic crisis in modern memory.
* YEP... YOU GUESSED IT - MY OWN CONGRESSWOMAN, NAN HAYWORTH (R-NY-19) IS ONE OF THE MEMBERS HEADING TO ISRAEL.
America's economy is in flames and these guys are taking lobbyist-funded trips to what, watch Israelis take to the streets to protest the high-cost of living in that country?
* YEP... DR. HAYWORTH IS APPARENTLY TAKING HER TRIP COURTESY OF AN ISRAELI LOBBYING ORGANIZATION CALLED THE SHOMRON LIAISON OFFICE.
[I]n the midst of market turmoil that is directly associated with political dysfunction in Washington...no one who works in a leadership role in this city has the conscience or the awareness to recognize that this is not an August in which a recess should be taken.
These folks should be back at their desks and hard at work.
* YOU'D THINK SO, RIGHT...!!!
The president ought to take to his podium and demand they return.
* OH, PLEASE... (*SMIRK*).. THE PRESIDENT HAS THE POWER TO CALL CONGRESS BACK INTO SESSION ANY TIME HE FEELS THE NEED! (ARTICLE 2, SECTION 3, CLAUSE 2.) HE SIMPLY REFUSES TO DO SO!
* FOLKS... BOTTOM LINE... THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/11/us-afghanistan-violence-usa-idUSTRE77A41520110811?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
A roadside bomb killed five American troops in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, the U.S. military said, less than a week after American forces suffered their worst single loss of the Afghan war when Taliban insurgents shot down a helicopter.
* FEEL SAFER, FOLKS?
* PERHAPS INSTEAD OF GOING TO ISRAEL COURTESY OF LOBBYISTS, OUR MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE AND SENATE SHOULD EACH DO A WEEK WITH A FRONT-LINE COMBAT PLATOON IN AFGHANISTAN.
Violence is at its worst in Afghanistan since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001, with record civilian casualties and high levels of foreign troop deaths during the first half of 2011. At least 50 foreign troops have been killed so far in August.
* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/08/entire-u-s-stealth-fighter-fleet-grounded/
In past few decades, the U.S. Air Force has spent untold billions researching and developing a family of stealth fighter jets that are supposed to be generations ahead of any dogfighters in the sky. But after building more than 170 F-22 Raptors and a handful of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters...
(*DRUM ROLL*)
* WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...
...not a single one is available for service.
The Air Force currently has zero flyable stealth fighters.
None.
* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
The vaunted F-22 has been grounded with a possible faulty oxygen system since May.
* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
Production of the last few Raptors is even on hold, because the jets can’t fly from the factory.
* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
Last week, test flights for the newer F-35 were suspended, too, because of a valve problem in the plane’s integrated power package. It’s the third time this year that JSFs have been grounded. Tests may resume as early as next week. Then again, they may not.
* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/hhs-awards-85-million-obamacare-money-25
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Tuesday that it has awarded $28.8 million to 67 community health centers with funds from the ObamaCare health reform law.
Of that $28.8 million, "approximately $8.5 million will be used by 25 New Access Point awardees to target services to migrant and seasonal farm workers," Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Spokeswoman Judy Andrews told CNSNews.com.
Andrews said that grant recipients will not check the immigration status of people seeking services.
* WILL... NOT... CHECK... THE... IMMIGRATION... STATUS... OF... PEOPLE... SEEKING... SERVICES... PROVIDED... BY... THE... TAXPAYERS...???
“Health centers do not, as a matter of routine practice, ask about or collect data on citizenship or other matters not related to the treatment needs of the patients seeking health services at the center,” Andrews said.
* UMM... THEY SHOULD...!!! ESPECIALLY IF WE'RE TALKING TAXPAYER FUNDED SERVICES!
These Obamacare disbursements seem to contradict a claim President Obama famously made in a nationally televised speech to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 9, 2009.
“The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally,” Obama said then.
(*SNORT*) (*SMIRK*)
When Obama said these words, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouted out from the House floor: "You lie!"
* AND OF COURSE WILSON WAS CORRECT...!!!
[L]ed by then-Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D.-Md.), the [then-Democrat-controlled] House voted 240-179 to rebuke Wilson for his outburst on the House floor.
* TURNS OUT WILSON WAS "REBUKED" FOR TELLING THE TRUTH. (*SHRUG*)
Because the health care centers receiving $8.5 million in Obamacare money "to target services to migrant and seasonal farm workers" will not check the immigration status of the migrant workers who seek their services it is inevitable that they will serve illegal aliens. (According to the Pew Hispanic Center, illegal immigrants make up an estimated 25% of all migrant farm workers, with disproportionate amounts residing in California, Texas, Florida, and Georgia.)
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