But first...
Via Zero Hedge...
No, the economy is most definitely not
"recovering."
Despite what you may hear from the politicians and from
the mainstream media the truth is that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape
than it was prior to the last recession.
In fact, we are still pretty much where we were at when
the last recession finally ended.
When the financial crisis of 2008 struck, it took us down
to a much lower level economically. Thankfully, things have at least stabilized
at this much lower level. ... But things
are definitely not getting better, and there are a whole host of signs that
this bubble of false stability will soon come to an end and that our economic
decline will accelerate once again.
The following are 17 facts to show to anyone that
believes that the U.S. economy is just fine...
#1 The home-ownership rate in the United States has
dropped to the lowest level in 19 years.
* THOUGH I DON'T NECESSARILY BELIEVE THIS IS A BAD THING.
THE WHOLE HOUSING ISSUE NEEDS TO BE REEXAMINED IN LIGHT OF THIS FUNDAMENTAL
TRUTH: A HOME ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE A SHORT-TERM INVESTMENT, NOR INDEED AN
"INVESTMENT" AT ALL IN THE SENSE ONE'S PORTFOLIO IS. NO. A HOUSE IS
SOMEWHERE TO LIVE. A LOAN TO ONESELF IN A SENSE AND IF ALL GOES WELL A NEST EGG
AT RETIREMENT. IN ANY CASE, ALL THIS ASIDE, WE NEED TO REALIGN HOUSING PRICES,
TAXES, AND MAINTENANCE COSTS WITH INCOME. HOUSING IS SIMPLY WAY TOO EXPENSIVE
IN MANY PARTS OF THE NATION.
#2 Consumer spending for durable goods has dropped by
3.23% since November. This is a
clear sign that an economic slowdown is ahead.
#3 Major retailers are closing stores at the fastest pace
that we have seen since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
#4 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20% of
all families in the United States do not have a single member that is employed.
That means that one out of every five families in the entire country is
completely unemployed.
#5 There are 1.3 million fewer jobs in the U.S. economy
than when the last recession began in December 2007. Meanwhile, our population
has continued to grow steadily since that time.
#6 According to a new report from the National Employment
Law Project, the quality of the jobs that have been "created" since
the end of the last recession does not match the quality of the jobs lost
during the last recession.
#7 After adjusting for inflation, men who work full-time
in America today make less money than men who worked full-time in America 40
years ago.
#8 It is hard to believe, but 62% of all Americans make
$20 or less an hour at this point.
#9 Nine of the top ten occupations in the U.S. pay an
average wage of less than $35,000 a year.
#10 The middle class in Canada now makes more money than
the middle class in the United States does.
* FOLKS... THAT'S HUGE! HUGE!
#11 According to one recent study, 40% of all Americans
could not come up with $2000 right now even if there was a major emergency.
#12 Less than one out of every four Americans has enough
money put away to cover six months of expenses if there was a job loss or major
emergency.
#13 An astounding 56% of all Americans have sub-prime
credit in 2014.
#14 As I wrote about the other day, there are now 49
million Americans that are dealing with food insecurity.
* A HIGH PERCENTAGE GAMING THE SYSTEM, I'M SURE.
#15 Ten years ago, the number of women in the U.S. that
had jobs outnumbered the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps by more
than a 2 to 1 margin. But now the number
of women in the U.S. on food stamps actually exceeds the number of women that
have jobs.
#16 Sixty-nine percent of the federal budget is spent either on
entitlements or on welfare programs.
#17 The number of Americans receiving benefits from the
federal government each month exceeds the number of full-time workers in the
private sector by more than 60 million.
Taken individually, those numbers are quite remarkable.
Taken collectively, they are absolutely breathtaking.
Yes, things have been improving for the wealthy for the
last several years. The stock market has soared to new record highs and real
estate prices in the Hamptons have skyrocketed to unprecedented heights. But
that is not the real economy.
In the real economy, the middle class is being squeezed
out of existence. The quality of our jobs is declining and prices just keep
rising. This reality was reflected quite well in a comment that one of my
readers left on one of my recent articles...
"It is getting worse each passing month. The food
bank I help out has barely squeaked by the last 3 months. Donors are having to
pull back, to take care of their own families. Wages down, prices up, simple
math tells you we cannot hold out much longer. Things are going up so fast, you
have to adopt a new way of thinking. Example: I just had to put new tires on my
truck. Normally I would have tried to get by to next winter. But with the way
prices are moving, I decide to get them while I could still afford them. It is
the same way with food. I see nothing that will stop the upward trend for quite
a while. So if you have a little money, and the space, buy it while you can
afford it. And never forget, there will be some people worse off than you. Help
them if you can."
And the false stock bubble that the wealthy are enjoying
right now will not last that much longer. It is an artificial bubble that has
been pumped up by unprecedented money printing by the Federal Reserve, and like
all bubbles that the Fed creates, it will eventually burst.
None of the long-term trends that are systematically
destroying our economy have been addressed, and none of our major economic
problems have been fixed. In fact, as I
showed in this recent article, we are actually in far worse shape than we were
just prior to the last major financial crisis.
Let us hope that this current bubble of false stability
lasts for as long as possible.
That is what I am hoping for.
But let us not be deceived into thinking that it is
permanent.
It will soon burst, and then the real pain will begin.
* GUNS AND AMMO, FOLKS... GUNS AND AMMO...
13 comments:
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/04/30/226084/as-border-security-expands-complaints.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1
A series of lawsuits filed in recent months in federal courts along the U.S. border with Mexico highlight what advocates say is a growing list of complaints against two U.S. agencies that have expanded rapidly amid the clamor to secure the nation’s borders.
* THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS NO DESIRE TO SECURE THE BORDERS.
In one lawsuit, centered on events in Chula Vista, Calif., a Border Patrol agent is accused of leaping on the hood of a car driven by a mother of five and shooting her dead. She was unarmed. The agent had been fired from his previous job as a sheriff’s deputy for a variety of misconduct.
* AN AMERICAN MOTHER OF FIVE...??? (WHERE'S THE CONTEXT...??? IS IT ME...???)
In a second case, a Customs officer in Brownsville, Texas, violently pushed a disabled woman to the ground. She had a miscarriage the next day. Border officers also had to call firefighters to remove handcuffs that allegedly had bound her wrists too tightly.
* AGAIN... A DISABLE AMERICAN WOMAN...??? (WHY...??? AGAIN... WHERE'S THE CONTEXT?)
For a third woman, her return to the United States was intrusive and painful. She was pulled from a line at an El Paso, Texas, border crossing, apparently on the suspicion that she was carrying drugs. She was handcuffed. Over the next six hours, agents escorted her to a hospital, where they oversaw the probing of her anus and vagina, forced her to take a laxative and then watched as she moved her bowels. When no drugs were found, they ordered her to submit to an X-ray and a CT scan.
When the ordeal was over, the officers asked her to sign a consent form before they allowed her to return to her home in New Mexico. When she refused, the hospital billed her thousands of dollars for the procedures.
* WAS... SHE... AN... AMERICAN...?!?!
Critics say the lawsuits, all three filed by U.S. citizens...
* OK! THANK YOU! FINALLY...!!!
* NASA... WE HAVE A PROBLEM...
...are part of a pattern that’s become endemic to the nation’s efforts to secure its southern border. In addition to complaints that U.S. Border Patrol agents have used deadly force when their lives were not at risk, agents have killed 21 people since the beginning of 2010, most of them unarmed migrants.
* MY CONCERN IS FOR MY FELLOW AMERICAN CITIZENS AND THOSE FOREIGNERS ENTERING OUR COUNTRY LEGALLY.
Violent confrontations are only part of the picture. U.S. citizens who live along the border complain that U.S. agents have become a virtual interior police force, disrespectful of private property, looking for pretexts to search vehicles and detaining residents for hours at checkpoints.
* AND THAT IS INTOLERABLE.
“In the last three years, the Border Patrol has caused me more damage than the illegals,” said John Ladd, whose family has operated a ranch in southeast Arizona for the past 118 years. “They’ve abused private property rights immensely.”
* RANCHERS SHOULD MAKE CITIZENS ARRESTS WHEN NECESSARY AND LOCAL AND STATE POLICE SHOULD BE COOPERATING WITH STATE CITIZENS SO AS TO PROTECT THEIR RIGHTS.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Fueling the problems, critics say, has been the agencies’ rapid expansion, which has led to poor hiring and training and an institutional unwillingness to acknowledge agents’ mistakes that encourages the frequent use of physical violence. One lawyer who deals with the agencies accuses them of nurturing “an overly aggressive, bullying culture.”
It’s difficult to quantify the number of complaints of abuse that have been filed against the two agencies. The Department of Homeland Security releases no official statistics on complaints lodged against the agencies, both of which are part of the DHS: Customs and Border Protection, which staffs the nearly 50 official land points of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border, and the Border Patrol, whose agents monitor the border between points of entry.
One advocacy group, "No More Deaths," which provides food, water and medical care to migrants, said it had lodged 90 complaints in recent years with the DHS’s civil rights office, accusing agents of unlawful searches, excessive force and lengthy detentions at Border Patrol checkpoints and by roving Border Patrol units, which operate up to 100 miles from the border.
* LISTEN... I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH DEFENSE IN DEPTH, BUT MY CONCERN IS FOR THE RIGHTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS AND LEGAL VISITORS/RESIDENTS. (AND, YES, THAT INCLUDES LEGAL MIGRANT WORKERS.)
In nearly all cases, the DHS office hasn’t responded for months, then has dismissed the complaint “because there is no evidence in their records” pertaining to it, said "No More Deaths’" spokesman, Geoffrey Boyce, a doctoral candidate in geography at the University of Arizona.
“It doesn’t seem to be the case that they understand limits to their authority,” Boyce said. “There’s a general feeling that this is an agency that’s not only not interested in community concerns but often appears contemptuous of them.”
Others have filed complaints with the DHS over what they say is the routine violation of civil rights by Border Patrol agents. In January, James Lyall, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona, complained to the DHS’s deputy inspector general that some Border Patrol agents falsely tell U.S. citizens they’ve detained that they can’t make phone calls or take videos of searches of their vehicles.
* DOING SO WOULD BE A CRIME. HAS LYALL REPRESENTED AMERICANS WHO HAVE LODGED FORMAL COMPLAINTS/CHARGES?
“Multiple citizens have reported being told by agents, ‘You have no rights here,’ or that refusal to consent to a search gives agents probable cause for a search,” Lyall said in his Jan. 15 letter, which detailed the case of a 61-year-old retiree who was stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint one day last December. When an agent opened a car door and directed a drug-sniffing dog to enter, the retiree objected.
“Shut your f---ing mouth,” the retiree was told, according to the letter.
* I WONDER... IS THIS ARTICLE MEANT TO BE AN ATTACK ON THE CREDABILITY OF THE BORDER PATROL UNION WHICH HAS COMPLAINED PUBLICLY OF OBAMA'S UNDERCUTTING OF THEIR MISSION FOR THE PAST FIVE AND A HALF YEARS? IT'S SO HARD TO DECIPHER AGENDAS...
* IN ANY CASE... IF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND CERTAIN STATE, COUNTY, AND CITY GOVERNMENTS DIDN'T DISCOURAGE POLICE FROM ENFORCING OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS AND TURNING ILLEGAL ALIENS OVER TO THE FEDERAL AUTHORITIES THERE WOULDN'T BE A "NEED" FOR ALL THESE "ROVING" BORDER AGENTS "ROVING" OUTSIDE OF THE BOARDERS.
* HERE'S A GOOD COMPANION PIECE:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/04/30/226103/keep-beefing-up-border-patrol.html?sp=/99/200/111/
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/33-of-obamacare-enrollees-havent-paid-their-premiums-yet-why-not/
* CBS NEWS, FOLKS... (WHERE WERE THEY LAST MONTH...???)
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said as much herself: "You are not fully enrolled [in ObamaCare] until you pay your premium."
Yet data collected by the Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Committee shows that as of April 15, just 67% of enrollees in the federally-run ObamaCare marketplace had paid their first month's premiums.
* HMM... 100% MINUS 67% EQUALS... 33% - ONE-THIRD - OF THE SUPPOSEDLY "COVERED" BEING... er... UNCOVERED.
There are a variety of factors that explain why more than 30 percent of enrollees have yet to pay. To begin with, it's worth noting that millions of Americans waited until the final weeks and days of the open enrollment period (which closed on March 31) to sign up for ObamaCare. Many were allowed to finish the enrollment process after March 31, due to the flexibility the Obama administration granted. Consequently, many Americans on the new marketplace simply didn't owe any premiums by April 15.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
* FOLKS... DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME WITH YOUR AUTO INSURANCE... LIFE INSURANCE... OR ANY OTHER INSURANCE. WHEN HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF AN INSURANCE POLICY GOING "ACTIVE" UNTIL THE PREMIUM IS PAID?
"Americans are not in the habit of paying something earlier than they have to," said Tim Jost, a consumer advocate and professor of health law at Washington and Lee University.
* AGAIN... COVERAGE BEGINS UPON PAYMENT - NOT BEFORE. (AT LEAST UNLESS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN FORCING INSURANCE COMPANIES TO MAKE NO-INTEREST LOANS TO THOSE WHO SIGN UP FOR OBAMACARE! (FOLKS... YOU DO UNDERSTAND HOW CREDIT CARDS WORK... RIGHT? WHEN YOU PURCHASE SOMETHING WITH YOUR CREDIT CARD THE CREDIT CARD COMPANY PAYS THAT BILL... IMMEDIATELY... IN REAL TIME; YOUR PAYMENT SCHEDULE WITH YOUR CREDIT CARD COMPANY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MERCHANT SELLING YOU A PRODUCT OR SERVICE.)
Marc Boutin, executive vice president of the nonprofit National Health Council, said that getting nearly seven in 10 enrollees to pay just two weeks after the open enrollment period closed "seems quite positive."
* FOLKS... THIS IS ORWELLIAN! THIS IS TOTAL BABBLE!
While more comprehensive data will come in later, he called it "a really good indication of the direction we're going."
* FOLKS... 33% OF PREMIUMS OWED ARE... er... OWED! (NOT PAID!)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
"You have to recognize it's a new payment for many people, and it's not uncommon for people to miss that first payment or be confused about when to pay it," he said. From here, "I think the numbers are just going to go up."
* NOT UNCOMMON...?!?! MAYBE SO... AFTER ALL... 56% OF ALL AMERICANS HAVE SUB-PRIME CREDIT TODAY...
* BUT WE'RE TALKING INSURANCE! NOT CREDIT CARD BILLS! NOT LOANS! INSURANCE GOES INTO EFFECT ONLY ONCE THE INSURANCE COMPANY GETS ITS PREMIUM! (AT LEAST THAT'S HOW ALL MY INSURANCE WORKS...!!!)
* FOLKS... WHAT HAPPENS ONE SINGLE SECOND AFTER YOUR AUTO-INSURANCE PREMIUM IS LATE... (IT EXPIRES! YOU KNOW LONGER HAVE INSURANCE! YOUR INSURANCE WILL ONLY START UP AGAIN ONCE YOU'VE PAID...!!!)
Even so, it's unlikely the ObamaCare marketplace will ever get 100 percent of its enrollees to pay their first month's premium. In 2013, before the ObamaCare marketplace existed, about 90 percent of enrollees in the individual marketplace paid, Jost said.
* AND THE REMAINING 10% HAD NO INSURANCE! (BECAUSE THEY HADN'T PAID!)
"There's quite a bit of mobility between the individual insurance market and Medicaid and the employer-based market," he pointed out. Indeed, a recent study showed that before the ObamaCare marketplaces were implemented, just 42 percent of people on the individual market kept the same plan for more than a year. It's likely that a portion of ObamaCare enrollees found better coverage through an employer or somewhere else and decided not to make payments for their ObamaCare coverage.
* BUT NONE OF THAT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT! IF OBAMACARE ISN'T OVERLAPPING WITH ONE'S PREVIOUS COVERAGE THEN ONE ISN'T COVERED!
Those who do want to pay for their ObamaCare coverage may not have a convenient way to do so.
* ARE... THEY... FRIGGIN'... SHITTING... US...?!?!
The Affordable Care Act does require insurers to accept debit card payments, which should help customers.
* PAYMENTS...!!! PAYMENTS...!!! MEANING ONE HAS PAID...!!!
* FOLKS... APPARENTLY CBS FELT THAT THEY COULDN'T JUST SPIKE THIS STORY, SO, INSTEAD THEY WROTE IT AS IF IT WERE A MARKETING PAPER DIRECT FROM THE WHITE HOUSE!
Boutin noted that getting a higher portion of enrollees to pay premiums should be achievable: "You have to recognize the insurance companies obviously have a vested interest in having people pay," he said. "And obviously the people who enrolled have a vested interest" in keeping their insurance.
* BUT IF THEY HAVEN'T PAID... THEN THEY DON'T HAVE INSURANCE!
http://www.humanevents.com/2014/04/25/on-treating-putin-as-pariah/
* BY PATRICK J. BUCHANAN
“Mr. Obama is focused on isolating President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world … and effectively making it a pariah state.”
So wrote Peter Baker in Sunday’s New York Times.
Yet if history is any guide, this “pariah policy,” even if adopted, will not long endure.
Three years after Khrushchev sent tanks into Hungary, he was touring the USA and celebrating with Ike the new “Spirit of Camp David.”
Half a year after Khrushchev moved missiles into Cuba, JFK was talking detente is his famous speech at American University.
Three weeks after Moscow incited the Arabs in the Six-Day War, Lyndon Johnson was meeting with Premier Alexei Kosygin in New Jersey, where the “Spirit of Glassboro,” was born.
So it went through the Cold War. Post-crises, U.S. presidents reached out to Soviet leaders. For they saw Russia as too large and too powerful to be isolated and ostracized like North Korea.
These presidents also understood that the American people wanted constant efforts made to reduce tensions and avoid war with a vast country with thousands of nuclear weapons. And presidents being politicians, be they Democrats JFK or LBJ, or Republicans Eisenhower, Nixon or Reagan, responded to this political reality.
We may not have liked the Soviets. We could not ignore them.
But if throwing Putin out of the frat house and off campus is an unsustainable policy, what of the hawkish calls for a return to Cold War containment and military countermeasures against Russia?
Well, let us inspect them one by one.
We are urged to go back to building a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. But this is a project of years. And before this shield was ever up and operational, Moscow could deploy hundreds of new offensive missiles targeted on Central and Western Europe. How would that make our allies more secure?
How would Angela Merkel respond to that?
Among Reagan’s achievements was persuading Russia to pull its triple-warhead SS-20s out of Eastern Europe, in return for our taking our Pershing and cruise missiles out of Western Europe. Do we really want to reverse the Reagan triumph of 1987?
Some conservatives want to send arms to Ukraine. But given the performance of Ukraine’s army in the Crimean crisis, we would be provoking a war Ukraine could not win, while ensuring the casualty count would be higher. And as almost no Americans favor U.S. “boots on the ground,” the result of a Russia-Ukraine war our arms provoked would be a beaten Ukrainian army and an occupied country.
Others urge Obama to move U.S. troops permanently into Poland, the Baltic states and Romania. Will Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Britain be sending troops as well?
(Is there any time between now and eternity when the world’s richest continent will provide the soldiers for its own defense?)
Another idea gaining currency is that we should start shipping oil and gas to Europe to reduce its dependency on Russia.
Certainly, U.S. energy independence, and the restoration of our lately lost industrial independence, is a good idea. But weaning Europe off the Russian gas on which it so heavily depends is another project of years, if not a decade. Meanwhile, Russia could build pipelines to a fuel-hungry China and cement a Moscow-Beijing alliance, the rupture of which was Richard Nixon’s great achievement.
* YEP!
Henry Kissinger argues, “the demonization of Putin is not a policy. It is an alibi for the absence of one.” What we must recognize is that, Beltway bluster about U.S. troops in the Baltic and warships in the Black Sea aside, the United States is not going to war with Russia over Ukraine, or Estonia.
* YET TENSIONS BETWEEN CHINA AND JAPAN... BETWEEN CHINA AND THE PHILIPPINES...
* FOLKS... CHINA IS OUR ENEMY. RUSSIA SHOULD BE OUR ALLY.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376960/obamas-2-trillion-deficit-stephen-moore
What happens to an economy when you do just about everything wrong?
Say you spend $830 billion on a stimulus stuffed with make-work government-jobs programs and programs to pay people to buy new cars, you borrow $6 trillion, you launch a government-run health-care system that incentivizes businesses not to hire more workers, you raise tax rates on the businesses that hire workers and on the investors that invest in the businesses that hire workers, you print $3 trillion of paper money, you shut down an entire industry (coal), and try to regulate and restrain the one industry that actually is booming (oil and gas).
We made all of these imbecilic moves, and the wonder of it all is that the U.S. economy is growing at all. It’s a tribute to the indestructible Energizer Bunny that is the entrepreneurial U.S. economy that it keeps going and going even with all the obstacles. The problem is it isn’t going very fast. That’s what the Bureau of Economic Analysis told us this week when it reported that the GDP for the first quarter of the year grew an anemic 0.1% on an annual basis from January to March. The more meaningful measure of growth, private-sector GDP, rose by a still-meager 0.2%.
Sure, some of the slowdown was a result of lost output due to the severe weather in the Midwest and Northeast. But that might have knocked one percentage point off GDP. Even with that, the growth rate was rotten.
The most worrisome sign in the new report was the steep 6% annualized drop in private investment spending, which is usually a leading indicator of where the economy is headed. Higher taxes on capital gains and dividends as part of the 2013 Obama tax hike have clearly hurt such investment.
Five years into a recovery, the economy has grown by about 12%. That may not sound too bad, but over the first five years of the Reagan recovery, the economy grew 24%.
* IT GREW 24% WHILE INFLATION WAS SLAYED! IT GREW 24% WHILE THE DOLLAR APPRECIATED! IT GREW 24% WHILE OUR STANDARD OF LIVING ROSE!
* INSTEAD...
[T]he average family has lost nearly $2,000 in income over Obama's “recovery.”
The Left howls in protest over this comparison. Obama, they claim, inherited a financial crisis that was deeper than anything Reagan ever saw. Obama, by his own admission, saved us from a “second Great Depression,” blah, blah, blah.
Of course, the economy really was flat on its back in 2009 when Obama walked into the Oval Office. But how was that different from 1981? I would say the wreckage that Reagan inherited from Nixon-Ford-Carter might well have been worse: Obama didn’t have to deal with 14% inflation, 20% mortgage interest rates, an America that was rapidly deindustrializing, and a twelve-year bear market in stocks.
* WE HAVE CONTINUED TO DEINDUSTRIALIZE... ONLY REAGAN MISTAKENLY STOKED THE FIRES THROUGH A NAÏVE BELIEVE THAT "FREE TRADE" COULD BE FREE WITH NATIONS LIKE CHINA WHILE OBAMA SUPPORTS DEINDUSTRIALIZATION IN SUPPORT OF HIS INSANE "ENVIRONMENTAL" AGENDA THAT HINGES ON IDEOLOGY, NOT SCIENCE... NOT OBSERVATION... NOT EXPERIENCE!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Let’s just accept the proposition that both presidents inherited terrible economic crises. What was different was the policy remedies. Reagan cut tax rates, slashed regulations, trimmed excess money supply (with the help of Fed chairman Paul Volcker), and let the private businesses — the supply side — grow their operations less hindered by government interference.
Obama did, well, pretty much the opposite.
* I HOPE AND PRAY THAT "HE WHOSE NAME DARE NOT BE MENTIONED IS READING THIS." I CAN'T COUNT HOW MANY TIMES I'VE TRIED TO EXPLAIN THIS TO HIM!
At the time of the mighty economic recovery of 2003–09, liberals explained the ferocious burst of growth and employment by saying it was a “classic Keynesian recovery” financed by debt spending. Except if that was the case, why is it that after Obama borrowed twice as much money, this Keynesian recovery has proceeded at half that pace?
(*SILENCE*)
I’ve never heard an answer to that one. Never.
(*SHRUG*)
These kinds of counterfactuals are impossible to prove, but it’s a pretty fair bet that things would be a lot better today for middle-class families if we had done Reaganomics, not Obamanomics.
* PUT ME DOWN FOR "ALL IN" ON MY BET!
The problem for the Democrats is that the American public doesn’t buy their story and their spin anymore.
* I DON'T KNOW ABOUT THAT. (HOW'BOUT IT, BUDDY? HOW'BOUT IT, "YOU WHOSE NAME I DARE NOT UTTER?")
A majority of voters now say they want a Republican Congress that will block Obama initiatives rather than a Democratic Congress that will rubber-stamp them. It turns out there really is a statute of limitations on blaming Bush for today’s flatlined economy. And the far Left’s counterfactual line is that we should have borrowed even more money to get the economy firing on all cylinders stretches the realm of credibility. How much should we have borrowed? $8 trillion? $10 trillion?
What good that has come from Obamanomics is this: We have hopefully all relearned a painful lesson that government spending, congressional taxing, Treasury borrowing, and Fed printing don’t stimulate the economy.
* BUT NOT ALL OF US HAVE BEEN PAINED BY THE LESSON - THAT'S THE PROBLEM. SURE, THE MIDDLE CLASS HAS GOTTEN SLAMMED. BUT THE LESSON FOR THE RICH...??? THE RICH LOVE THE OBAMA ECONOMY! THE FIX IS IN! MARKETS ARE RIGGED! INSIDERS PROSPER!
* FOLKS... FIVE AND A HALF YEARS AND THE HEDGG FUND LOOPHOLE STILL REMAINS... EVEN AS OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATS HAD TWO STRAIGHT YEARS OF SINGLE PARTY GOVERNMENT 2009 THRU 2010!
* AS FOR THE POOR AND LOWER MIDDLE CLASS... OBAMA'S POLICIES WHICH RETARD GROWTH KEEP PEOPLE POOR... KEEP PEOPLE LOWER MIDDLE CLASS... ALL WHILE ALSO HURTING THE MIDDLE CLASS ITSELF!
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376861/fighting-ebt-fraud-maine-jillian-kay-melchior
In March, police busted an alleged sex-trafficking ring in Maine after a 19-year-old woman fled, claiming she was afraid of being sold to a Boston pimp.
Two of the accused remain behind bars — so it caught the attention of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services’ Fraud Investigation and Recovery Unit when the alleged sex traffickers’ electronic-benefits transaction (EBT) cards remained in use.
That’s just the latest in a series of sordid cases in Maine where welfare fraud and other criminal activity have mixed.
In the past year, the Androscoggin County Jail alone has confiscated more than 87 EBT cards that were in the possession of people not authorized to use the benefits. The Portland Press Herald has estimated that public-benefits fraud in Maine costs taxpayers around $3.7 million each year.
Nevertheless, the federal government has pushed back hard against a Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) photo requirement for EBT cards; the photo is intended to deter fraud and abuse by ensuring that benefits aren’t accessed by someone who’s not authorized to use them.
* YEP! YOU READ THAT RIGHT! OBAMA'S ADMINISTRATION OPPOSES PHOTO ID EBT CARDS!
Despite warnings from the federal government...
* "WARNINGS...???" (I'M GUESSING "THREATS" IS MORE LIKE IT.)
...on Monday the Maine DHHS launched a voluntary pilot program, which is being conducted to carefully weed out any glitches before July, when a statewide EBT photo requirement goes into effect.
(*SINCERE APPLAUSE*)
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) wrote a letter to the Maine DHHS, asking it to delay even the pilot program and warning that “given the risk of losing Federal financial participation, as well as the risk for litigation against the State should the State’s implementation of the photo EBT card violate the provisions of the Food and Nutrition Act or SNAP regulations, Maine should not rush into implementation.”
* ISN'T THIS ONE OF THE UNDERLYING POINTS - NAMELY, THAT THE FEDS SHOULD HAVE LONG AGO REQUIRED PHOTO AND/OR FINGERPRINT IDs...?!?!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
“It was nonsensical that [the USDA] would be opposing the use of a voluntary pilot program in Maine,” Maine DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew tells National Review Online. “We’re extremely perplexed by the reaction from the federal government given that it is, in fact, permissible to put photos on the EBT cards. We would have expected that [the USDA] would be grateful that we are implementing [the program] in this manner to ensure that beneficiaries are experiencing a smooth transition to the new photo-ID card.”
Mayhew is putting it diplomatically.
The federal government’s opposition comes as Maine’s Democrat-controlled legislature has voted down several other welfare-reform proposals Governor LePage supports, including a bill to curb the use of EBT cards on alcohol, tobacco, gambling, adult entertainment, and bail, as well as a bill strengthening the job-search requirement. Both were voted down along party lines, says Peter Steele, a spokesman for the governor.
* GEEZUS...
“Other than purely partisan politics, there is no earthly reason for Democrats in Augusta or Washington, D.C., to reject Governor LePage’s commonsense welfare reforms, which are widely supported by the people of Maine,” Steele tells NRO.
“Democrats in Maine even called welfare fraud and abuse a ‘victimless crime."
"Governor LePage has no tolerance for those who would spend a single taxpayer dollar on alcohol, cigarettes, lottery tickets, strippers, or bail when that dollar is supposed to go to help Maine’s neediest children and families.”
Mayhew was also dismayed to see these bills killed. “I am very concerned about the sincerity within the federal government and frankly among public-policy makers here in Maine regarding their commitment to prevent fraud and abuse within these programs,” she says. “We have significant concerns generally about the misuse, abuse, and fraudulent use of EBT cards, and specifically the misuse of government benefits that is taking away critical resources from vulnerable families and children.#…#Our view is that any amount of fraud is intolerable.”
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/01/benghazi-testimony-africom-general/8554559/
U.S. military personnel knew early on that the Benghazi attack was a "hostile action" and not a protest gone awry, according to a retired general who served at U.S. Africa Command's headquarters in Germany during the attack.
* WE KNOW ALL THIS!
While the exact nature of the attack was not clear from the start, "what we did know early on was that this was a hostile action," Retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Lovell said in his prepared statement Thursday morning to members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "This was no demonstration gone terribly awry."
Lovell's testimony contradicts the story that the Obama administration gave in the early days following the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. Consulate that left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. Back then the administration insisted that the best intelligence it had from CIA and other officials indicated that the attack was a protest against an anti-Islam video that turned violent.
Lovell's testimony is the first from a member of the military who was at Africa Command at the time of the attack.
* AND WHAT'S THAT TELL YA, FOLKS? YESTERDAY WAS APRIL 30, 2014 - THE BENGHAZI ATTACK TOOK PLACE ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2012!
Lovell was deputy director for intelligence at Africa Command.
* WAS LIBYA PART OF THE AFRICA COMMAND? IF SO... LEVELL SUCKED AS AN INTELLIGENCE OFFICER.
Lovell did not [see any need to] question the Pentagon claim that it could not have scrambled forces in the region quickly enough to have prevented the deaths of the Americans.
* BECAUSE...
Lovell said no one at the time of the attack knew how long it would go, so could not have determined then that there was no use in trying.
(*SMIRK*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
While people on the ground were fighting for their lives, discussions among U.S. leaders outside Libya "churned on about what we should do," but the military waited for a request for assistance from the State Department, Lovell said.
* BULLSHIT. ABSOLUTE TOTAL BULLSHIT. THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE IS NOT IN THE MILITARY COMMAND STRUCTURE. THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR FAILING TO EVEN ATTEMPT TO RESCUE OUR PERSONNEL UNDER FIRE FALLS DIRECTLY INTO THE LAP OF THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF - BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA. IF HE DELEGATED POWER THAT POWER WOULD HAVE GONE TO THEN-SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON PANETTA. EVEN IF OBAMA JOINTLY TOLD CLINTON AND PANETTA TO "TAKE CARE OF IT," PANETTA WOULD STILL BE THE ONLY CABINET OFFICER THE MILITARY BRASS COULD HAVE LEGALLY OBEYED COMMANDS FROM. (BESIDES THE PRESIDENT).
There were questions about whether the U.S. military could have responded to Benghazi in time, but "we should have tried," Lovell said.
* ACCORDING TO NBC NEWS...
“There are accounts of time, space and capability discussions of the question, could we have gotten there in time to make a difference,” Air Force Brigadier General Robert Lovell (Ret.) told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “Well, the discussion is not in the ‘could or could not’ in relation to time, space and capability. The point is we should have tried.”
Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the committee, cited the testimony of then-commander of AFRICOM Gen. Carter Ham and others who testified that the military moved a special forces unit from Europe to Sicily while the attack was ongoing, and sent a special anti-terrorism team of Marines to Tripoli within a day of the attack.
* AND...?!?! SO...?!?! (CUMMINGS HAS THE IQ OF A STONE.)
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., asked Lovell if he disagreed with Rep. Howard "Buck"s McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who told reporters last month that the military responded reasonably in Benghazi.
"I think I've pretty well been satisfied that given where the troops were, how quickly the thing all happened and how quickly it dissipated, we probably couldn't have done more than we did," McKeon said.
"We should have continued to move forward with whatever forces we had to move forward with," Lovell said.
* MCKEON IS FULL OF SHIT. EVEN IF WE COULDN'T GET U.S. TROOPS TO BENHAZI IN LESS THAN HOWEVER MANY HOURS, PRESIDENT OBAMA SIMPLY COULD HAVE CALLED UP HIS FOREIGN COUNTERPARTS WHO HAD FORCES CLOSER TO BENGHAZI AND ASKED THEM TO INTERVENE AND TRY TO SAVE OUR PEOPLE FOR US.
* BUT THAT ASIDE... BACK TO MCKEON BEING FULL OF SHIT... DO ANY OF YOU... ANY ONE YOU READING THIS... TRULY BELIEVE THAT IF AIRFORCE ONE HAD BEEN FLYING OVER BENGHAZI WITH THE PRESIDENT ON BOARD THAT NIGHT AND THE PLANE HAD EXPERIENCED CATASTROPHIC ENGINE FAILURE AND HAD GONE DOWN IN BENGHAZI THAT WE WOULDN'T HAVE HAD MEN AND EQUIPMENT THERE WITHIN HOURS? SERIOUSLY... FORGET AIRFORCE ONE... IMAGE A FLIGHT CARRYING MICHELLE... MICHELLE AND THE GIRLS... OR EVEN HILLARY CLINTON... OR EVEN BILL CLINTON... DOES ANYONE SERIOUSLY BELIEVE IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN 7-9-11-13 HOURS OR WHATEVER TO GET RESCUERS ON SITE...?!?!
He described a sense of desperation while attack unfolded when asked by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, how the military responded during the attack. "We sent a drone overhead," Lovell said, almost mumbling. "It was desperation.... There was a lot of waiting for State Department for what it was that they wanted."
* AGAIN, FOLKS, HILLARY CLINTON - LET ALONE ANY OF HER STATE DEPARTMENT UNDERLINGS - WAS NOT WITHIN THE MILITARY COMMAND STRUCTURE! SHE COULD NO MORE LEGALLY GIVE ORDERS THAN I COULD HAVE!
"Did they ever tell you to go to Benghazi?" Chaffetz asked.
"No sir."
* FOLKS... LOVELL IS CLEARLY A PIECE OF SHIT AS WELL. EVEN IF HE'S HAVING A CRISIS OF CONSCIEOUS NOW... TO MIMIC HRC... WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE NOW?
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Lovell is testifying in a week of other Benghazi-related news.
* INDEED, FOR ALL WE KNOW LOVELL'S "JOB" IS TO FURTHER MUDDY THE WATERS ON BEHALF OF OBAMA AND CLINTON. (NOTICE... NO ONE IS MENTIONING PANETTA BUT ME!)
Chaffetz also submitted a Sept. 12, 2012, email from then-Acting Assistant Secretary of State Beth Jones to then- State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland and others that attributed the attack to Ansar al Sharia, a militia in Benghazi associated with al Qaeda.
In the email, Jones said she told Libya's then-ambassador to the U.S., Ali Aujali, at 9:45 a.m. that morning "that the group that conducted the attacks – Ansar Al Sharia – is affiliated with extremists."
Some Republican lawmakers, such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and oversight committee chairman Darrel Issa, R.-Calif., have questioned whether the military did all it could to protect U.S. personnel as terrorists overran the State Department's compound in Benghazi and assaulted a CIA compound nearby.
Congress has heard from Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
* OH...! NOW WE GET TO PANETTA! (AS FOR DEMPSEY... HE'S A PIECE OF SHIT.)
They agreed with a State Department review headed by former Admiral Mike Mullen that said: "the interagency response was timely and appropriate, but there simply was not enough time, given the speed of the attacks, for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference."
* HOW COULD IT HAVE BEEN "TIMELY AND APPROPRIATE" WHEN LEVELL IS TESTIFYING, "While people on the ground were fighting for their lives, discussions among U.S. leaders outside Libya "churned on about what we should do," but the military waited for a request for assistance from the State Department, Lovell said.
(*SNORT*)
* FOLKS... LIE AFTER LIE AFTER LIE... STORIES CHANGED AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN... CREDABILITY STRETCHED BEYOND THE BREAKING POINT...
On Tuesday, a conservative watchdog group released an e-mail showing that White House aide Ben Rhodes wanted to blame the 2012 assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on a protest that never happened there.
* ANYONE REALLY BELIEVE RHODES WAS ACTING ON HIS OWN...?
Referring to Benghazi and Middle East unrest, he said that then-national security adviser Susan Rice should "underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy."
* AND THAT'S WHAT SHE DID. FIVE TIMES. IN ONE DAY. AND SINCE THEN...? SHE'S BEEN PROMOTED!
On Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said that sentence in the e-mail, which was among several provided to the oversight committee as related to Benghazi, referred to protests occurring in Arab capitals, not to the Benghazi attack.
* ANOTHER LIE. READ THE EMAILS. CHECK THE CONTEXT.
The White House later acknowledged the attack on Benghazi was a planned terrorist attack and not preceded by a protest.
* "LATER ACKNOWLEDGED..." EVEN THOUGH THEY KNEW FROM MOMENT ONE!
http://washingtonexaminer.com/obamacare-misses-target-on-younger-enrollees-despite-late-surge/article/2547961
* RE: OBAMACARE
Before the launch of the open enrollment process in October, White House officials were saying 2.7 million of an expected 7 million enrollees (or nearly 40%) should be from the younger demographic in order to offset the cost of insuring older and sicker enrollees.
Though there was [supposedly] a surge of 1.2 million signups coming from the ages 18-to-34 demographic (representing 31% of enrollees, an increase from earlier months), the final number of 2.2 million signups, out of 8 million total, was just 28%.
* OH... AND ABOUT EVEN THE ADMINISTRATION NUMBERS...
HHS did not release data on the number of individuals who completed the enrollment process by paying their premiums, noting that it “does not yet have comprehensive and accurate data about effectuated enrollment (that is, the number of individuals who have effectuated their enrollment and gained coverage through payment of the first month’s premium).
* WHAT WAS THAT FIGURE WE CAME ACROSS TODAY - AN ESTIMATE THAT 33% OF "ENROLLEES" HAVEN'T PAID THEIR PREMIUMS...?
* FOLKS... OBAMACARE IS AN UNMITIGATED DISASTER!
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