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Time to Go for the Kill
May 22, 2013 | 67 comments
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Obamacare Implodes
May 15, 2013 | 41 comments
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Obama’s Rising Inequality
May 8, 2013 | 101 comments
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Downsize the Liberals
May 1, 2013 | 53 comments
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Fight Back! Privatize the FAA!
April 24, 2013 | 65 comments
The Obama Watch
The Incredible Shrinking Recovery
Only this president could brag about this economy’s anemic growth rate.
(Page 2 of 3)
Another Failure of Keynesian Economics
The reason for this pitiful economic performance is that from the beginning President Obama has addressed the economic downturn with Keynesian economics. Indeed, comprehensively following just the opposite of Reaganomics in every detail, he has play-acted as if Reaganomics never happened, or at least as if he was completely unaware of it. This public policy malpractice is why he does not deserve to be re-elected.
President Obama’s first act in office was his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package of wasted government spending and giveaways. That was supposed to stimulate the economy by increasing aggregate demand, under outdated Keynesian thinking rightly left for dead at the end of the 1970s. The reason such Keynesian economics never works is that borrowing a trillion dollars out of the economy to spend that trillion dollars back into the economy doesn’t do anything to increase the economy overall on net. I have been arguing in this space and elsewhere for more than two years that Obama’s Keynesian economics would fail for precisely this reason.
President Obama likes to pretend that a third of his trillion dollar stimulus actually involved tax cuts. But those “tax cuts” all involved temporary tax credits, which are economically no different from increased government spending. Indeed, a majority of the Obama “tax cuts” were “refundable” income tax credits, which involve sending a government check to people who do not even pay income taxes, economically indistinguishable from increased government spending. That is why even the federal government’s own official bean counters account for such refundable credits in the federal budget as spending rather than tax cuts.
Real tax cuts that promote economic growth involve reductions in tax rates, as under Reaganomics. President Reagan reduced the top tax rate from 70% when he first entered office all the way down to 28% by the time he left, with only one other rate of 15%, which applied to the middle class. That was the central factor in producing the historic 25 year Reagan economic boom.
Moreover, just the opposite of Obama’s wasted trillion dollar stimulus, President Reagan came into office with his much vilified at the time Reagan budget cuts. That involved a $31 billion cut in spending in 1981, close to 5% of the federal budget then, or the equivalent of about $175 billion in spending cuts for the year today. In constant dollars, non-defense discretionary spending declined by 14.4% from 1981 to 1982, and by 16.8% from 1981 to 1983. Moreover, in constant dollars, this non-defense discretionary spending never returned to its 1981 level for the rest of Reagan’s two terms! Even with the Reagan defense buildup, which won the Cold War without firing a shot, in Margaret Thatcher’s famous phrase, total Federal spending declined from a high of 23.5% of GDP in 1983 to 21.3% in 1988 and 21.2% in 1989. That’s a real reduction in the size of government relative to the economy of 10%.
President Obama’s monetary policies are just the opposite of Reagan’s as well. With the full backing, indeed urging, of Obama, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has returned precisely to the discretionary Keynesian monetary policies of the 1970s that produced the roaring inflation of that time. Nicknamed “Helicopter Ben” because his monetary policies are the equivalent of dropping dollars from helicopters, his policy is to run the monetary printing presses until the economy recovers. But the central lesson of the life’s work of Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman is that such discretionary monetary policy can only create inflation, not real growth. Consequently, instead of taming a historic inflation, Obama and Bernanke are re-creating one, while failing to produce a real recovery.
The Coming Crash of 2013
What too many commentators have failed to recognize is that President Obama’s tax rate policy is also the mirror opposite of Reagan’s. Already scheduled in current law for 2013 is the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, which Mr. Obama recently again vowed never to renew for single workers making over $200,000 a year, and couples making over $250,000, whom he disparages as “millionaires and billionaires.” Also scheduled to go into effect in 2013 under current law are all the tax increases of Obamacare. Together, these job-killing tax policies would result in a sharp increase in the tax rates on the nation’s small businesses, job creators, and investors for virtually every major federal tax.
The top income tax rate would increase by nearly 20%, counting the slashed income tax deductions Mr. Obama already proposed in his February budget. The capital gains tax rate would increase by nearly 60%, counting the new Obamacare taxes on investment income. The total tax rate on corporate dividends would increase by three times altogether. The Medicare payroll tax rate would also increase by 62% for these taxpayers. The Death tax would be restored with a 55% top rate.
That adds up to a top federal income tax rate of 44.8% on wage income. Counting state income taxes, the top marginal tax rate in Obama’s new Amerika would be over 50%.
But that is not all. What the President proposed in his April 13 national budget speech was an additional tax increase on these job creators of $1 trillion! And even then he was not done raising taxes, proposing in addition an automatic tax increase trigger that would raise taxes still further in 2014 if “our debt is not projected to fall as a share of the economy.”
In addition, American business currently suffers virtually the highest business tax rate in the industrialized world at nearly 40%, counting state corporate rates on average. Even in the left-leaning European Union, the corporate tax rate has been reduced from 38% to 24% over the last 15 years. In Canada, where the corporate tax rate is on its way down to 15%, voters last week voted for a dominant conservative majority in the Parliament. Both China and India enjoy lower corporate tax rates as well, leaving American business uncompetitive in the world. Yet, President Obama has remained oblivious to the job-killing result for America’s working people. Indeed, he proposed in his 2012 budget still more tax increases on American businesses, which are already built into the nevertheless still disastrous projections of deficits and debt in that budget.
But this is still not all. The President promises even higher prices for oil, gasoline, coal, natural gas, and electricity, with his EPA implementing by administrative dictate outside the democratic process the cap and trade tax policy. As the President himself has said, under these policies “the cost of electricity will necessarily skyrocket.” That is effectively still another, multitrillion dollar tax increase on the economy. While Reagan used to say that his energy policy was to “unleash the private sector,” Obama’s energy policy can be described as precisely to leash the private sector in service to Obama’s central planning “green energy” dictates.
Obama told us in the 2008 campaign that his tax policy was just to return to the Clinton era tax rates, and he and his propagandists still repeat this outdated talking point today. But President Obama’s proposed tax policies would now take us way beyond that, towards Swedish socialist tax rates.
About the Author
Peter Ferrara is Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy at the Heartland Institute, General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union, Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and Senior Policy Advisor on Entitlements and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (63) | Leave a comment
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oldfart| 5.11.11 @ 6:33AM
Welcome to the People's Democratic Republic of North America. A new economic union of the former United State of America, The United States of Mexico, The Republic of Cuba, and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
This new country is you Father, your Mother and will decide what is best of you - the common peasant.
oldfart| 5.11.11 @ 6:35AM
P.S. the people of the former United States of America will pay for everything.
Teaghan| 5.11.11 @ 8:09AM
And free cell phones for everyone! His highness will be sending out "emergency" messages to your cell when need be. Where the hell am I?
Missouri Dave| 5.12.11 @ 4:03PM
We need the Bible in our schools so that we have an absolute Morality. We can not be blessed with out the old fashioned values our grandparents had. Hardwork and thriftiness, with no government intervention, Gad life was simple then! Thanks and Merry Christmas ps When you leads the people around by the nose like sheep, You get Osama, er Obama
Wile| 5.11.11 @ 6:46AM
In Michigan we have unemployment of around 11 - 12% and gasoline at about $4.15 / gallon.
Great recovery boys.......
jd| 5.11.11 @ 9:21AM
Aren't most union deadheads there still blaming Engler for Michigan's mess? How they can ignore 8 years of Granholm who advocated anti-business and pro-regulatory policies which contributed to high unemployment, and keep on re-electing the likes of Levin and Stabenow who push cap and trade, financial reform, Obamacare, and anything pro-union is beyond my comprehension. As far as high gas prices go, why isn't there investment in natural gas and shale preserves from the Great Lakes that can lead to energy independence? I know the answer to that but God, when will the voters there wake up to what has been happening?
wodiej| 5.11.11 @ 6:48AM
Anyone who still thinks Obama is doing a great job is clearly absent of the slightest shred of intelligence.
SpiralArchitect| 5.11.11 @ 12:41PM
- or living high off the Gov teet... couple (hundred?) bucks a week & some other social/domestic bene's
Some living!
Clint| 5.11.11 @ 7:07AM
GDP Growth Rate .
"The US Department of Commerce has released some anemic economic growth number for the 1st quarter of 2011:
3rd Qtr, 2009: 1.6 %
4th Qtr, 2009: 5.0 %
1st Qtr, 2010: 3.7 %
2nd Qtr, 2010: 1.7 %
3rd Qtr, 2010: 2.6 %
4th Qtr, 2010: 3.1 %
1st Qtr, 2011: 1.8 %
Economic recovery? What economic recovery?"
Michael Tomlinson| 5.11.11 @ 7:55AM
Clint, the numbers speak volumes, but as bleak as they are they do not capture the pain and suffering of 25 million Americans unemployed or under employed, millions of home owners "underwater," working Americans struggling with real inflation (rising gas prices and food costs) and a foreign policy that is empowering the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and al Qaeda in Libya.
Clint| 5.11.11 @ 8:59AM
The U-6 Unemployment Rate for April was 15.9 Percent.
If this pathetic pace of job growth is maintained, unemployment rates will not return to pre-recession levels until 2016.
Americans will vote their wallets in The 2012 Elections.
The Tea Party Rebellion Escalates.
Carpe Diem.
Thom| 5.11.11 @ 4:59PM
And those living off your wallet will too.....
SpiralArchitect| 5.11.11 @ 12:52PM
Outside of our domestic concers nothing amazes me more than our support of the ousting of the leaders in N Africa - openly in support of the "rebel" forces. They are not shy about who they are; the Muslim Brotherhood.
The lack of media coverage is not surprising, just aggitating.
Kurt in S.L.C.| 5.11.11 @ 11:18AM
And if you reverse all those numbers,i.e.3rd Qtr 2009: 6.1% instead of 1.6% you could probably come up with an honest inflation number
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 5.11.11 @ 7:12AM
About half or more of the GDP growth under Obama has been due to government spending. That is about to end which should plant a firmly entrenched double dip recession just in time for a stock market pull back this fall.
No matter who pays for the drinks the bar must collect at some point, and at that point the party is over.
Or is it?
http://www.heritage.org/resear.....o-the-poor
While campaigning for the presidency, Obama lamented that "the war in Iraq is costing each household about $100 per month." Applying the same standard to means-tested welfare spending reveals that welfare will cost each household $560 per month in 2009 and $638 per month in 2010.
Most of Obama's increases in welfare spending are permanent expansions of the welfare state, not temporary increases in response to the current recession. According to the long-term spending plans set forth in Obama's FY 2010 budget, combined federal and state spending will not drop significantly after the recession ends. In fact, by 2014, welfare spending is likely to equal $1 trillion per year.
According to President Obama's budget projections, federal and state welfare spending will total $10.3 trillion over the next 10 years (FY 2009 to FY 2018). This spending will equal $250,000 for each person currently living in poverty in the U.S., or $1 million for a poor family of four.
Over the next decade, federal spending will equal $7.5 trillion, while state spending will reach $2.8 trillion. These figures do not include any of the increases in health care expenditure currently being debated in Congress.
In the years ahead, average annual welfare spending will be roughly twice the spending levels under President Bill Clinton after adjusting for inflation. Total means-tested spending is likely to average roughly 6 percent of GDP for the next decade.
TennesseeVolunteer| 5.11.11 @ 7:55AM
Peter, the taxes you mention are only a part of it.
My small business contribution to Unemployment is now up to 10.8% of the first $9,000 of each employee, an increase of 900%
I just started a new business that required workmens comp and my expense is 25% of each dollar spent on an employee. and that is for one of the safest jobs there is!
Everybody is being pushed and pulled by this government. there is no incentive to hire new people.
It would be different if all of us were in a growing and highly profitable environment but almost all of us are barely making it.
This is unsustainable!
Teaghan| 5.11.11 @ 8:12AM
Barry and his hechmen don't care about your business or mine. He wants the gubment to be the single and only employer in the nation. He hates our drive and our originality and that we have the gaul to not be dependent on him. It is indeed unsustainable.
Ned| 5.11.11 @ 11:17AM
You are correct - Barry Bull$hit does not care about businesses or employers. He cares only about the 51% or our society who no longer pay income taxes, who he presumes (probably correctly) will vote him another term. And that's ALL he cares about - buying the next election.
oldfart| 5.11.11 @ 3:23PM
My spouse had a business for 12 years!!! Obama gets elected and she goes under in a year. NO you can't blame it on Bush - it started with the Democratically controlled CONGRESS, the last 2 years Bush II was in office. Thank you Chris and Barney.
Pat Spooner| 5.11.11 @ 8:01AM
When will the working folks finally come to their senses. Obama and his administration need to be retired as soon as possible - his hidden taxes (high oil and gas prices, support and subsidies for ethanol) all drive food and transportation costs higher and higher. Most of the folks we have elected to represent us in Congress are too rich to feel and understand the havoc these higher costs have on us, the working folks.
Michael Tomlinson| 5.11.11 @ 8:01AM
Like Democrat icon Franklin D. Roosevelt Obama is miring the US in unnecessary suffering and pain, because of his allegiance to a failed economic theory, arrogance, inflexibility and narcissism.
Redstateboy| 5.11.11 @ 8:35AM
with a Subject title such as this - this is sure to draw some of your standard commenting Liberals to TAS like RCV and Alan Brooks only to hear them blather.... it's Bush's Fault - and I'm positive they and other Liber-uls like them consider themselves to be intelligent, thoughtful people but after 4 years of Nazi Pelosi, Harry-the-War-is-lost-Reid, 2+ Yrs. of Hussein and Slave Party (aka Democrat Party) political governance; to really believe this is ALL Geo. W. Bush's fault only confirms Liber-ul minds dwell in a land the fantasy.
Melvin| 5.11.11 @ 9:06AM
I posted this yesterday, "Killing Manufacturing"
Something to ponder, when a marriage (Union) becomes totally untenable, with no hope of reconciliation, or negotiation, what does a person do? The Union divorces, because both sides come to the conclusion that no matter what has been tried, it just won't work. And rather than go through the pain and torture of trying to make the Union work, it is dissolved.
Hence my theory on Secession. I've brought this up many, many times in the past. Some have agreed or some have quietly labeled me a loon.
By reading all of the above posts, the producers have but no choice but to secede to those states with like minded people want to prosper.
Look at many of the posts here. There are of what used to be in this Country. People, come now, we don't have to abide or suffer under a small percentage of bureaucratic elitists who want us to fund their vision of utopia.
As an American I'm tired of being pile driven into the earth. I, you, us, we don't have to live under these untenable conditions. We're suffocating, while be allowed just enough air to observe our demise.
We always pin our hopes on elections. "When we get our people in, things are going to change." Well, our people are in, and it doesn't make a tinkers damn worth of difference does it? Yes, the producers might win a few elections, but the Liberals own the Judicial Branch of the government, they wholly own the regulatory arms and appoint unelected bureaucrats who are charged with finishing off what few producers are left.
People we are so divided as a Nation right now, there are but two ways the producers have left. As I have noted Secession and join into new Republics with those like thinkers who want to produce, prosper and live from under the yoke of stifling regulation.
The other is Civil War. There are those that seem to think we are in the beginning of that phase now. There is but 20% of Americans who feel that government with stifling rules and oppressive heavy handed government that dictates income redistribution to those the government feels is less fortunate.
Why should the remainder 80% have to live under that already proven failed political philosophy.
Communism, Socialism, Socialism light, no matter what it is called is a destiny to failure. Our once proud and productive cities have been turned into rotten fetid cesspools of humanity that thrives on government handouts, crime, prostitution, drugs, and wanton feral violence.
Another seldom explained aspect is Crony Capitalism, to where the Free Market has been perverted by corrupt forces from the government and private sector to tilt economic favor into each others camp.
We don't have to live under these intolerable conditions people. We as proud producing Americans would be remiss in our duties as Americans to let this travesty of a Union to continue .
richard ryan| 5.11.11 @ 10:11AM
Option 1 may lead to Option 2 as in 1800s. You make reasonable points. I think that the folks who dismiss your ideas just haven't been pile driven enough yet, or don't realize what is coming in a few years. If things get bad enough, when there is REAL suffering, hunger, and Katrina-like disorder- then we will see who wants to consider other options. I hope we don't get there. I have said many times that 2012 is the last chance for our children and grandkids.
buckeyeman| 5.11.11 @ 11:43AM
Melvin, it is sad to have to agree with much of what you have said. I was born and raised and lived most of my life in Ohio, the heart of our nation. But every day I see the heart being ripped out of our still living country like some bizarre Aztec ritual.
The rationale of the left is absolutely unfathomable and cannot be changed no matter how much evidence that their evil philosophy can not, will not, and has never in human history produced anything but misery and oppression. We have now passed the "escape velocity" of cultural economics, where too many people are dependent on the handouts of the government which are confiscated from the producers at the point of a bayonet.
Secession of individual states is almost inconceivable (then again, the removal of the capital of the ROMAN empire from Rome to Constantinople would have been inconceivable to ancient Romans). Before we reach this point, what about civil disobedience, but at a state level. Suppose some brave state governor decided to tell Obama and his evil gaggle of Marxists to simply go suck an egg. Would the Evil One march federal troops into Texas (for example) and have the governor taken out of the Statehouse in chains? Bold acts of civil disobedience would be far easier to pull off than dissolution of the Union.
Another option would be a massive taxpayer strike. None of us individually want to follow Wesley Snipes to the slammer, but how would they deal with a massive refusal of citizens to permit government theft of our wealth? (Although in fact this might not impact them at all, since Judas Ben Bernanke would simply push the magic button and buy trillions more in worthless T-bills.)
In any case, Melvin, I fear you are hitting the raw nerve of realization that the traditional "democratic" approach can no longer save us. It just can't. Majority rule has now become majority theft and oppression. It's time to stop writing articles bemoaning Obamas's past, his hatred for this country, and his twisted vision of the future and to begin serious thought, discussion, and proposals for the producers ("makers") to weigh their options.
jolizoom| 5.11.11 @ 12:33PM
"It's time to stop writing articles bemoaning Obamas's past, his hatred for this country, and his twisted vision of the future and to begin serious thought, discussion, and proposals for the producers ("makers") to weigh their options."
YES! I visit AS and other political websites only occasionally now because I don't have time to waste reading loads of articles about how bad Obama is and how he is destroying the country. I already know that! When someone starts having discussions such as the ones you suggest, I will plug in every day to learn what I can and contribute what I can. In the meantime, I am busy raising independent thinkers so that the next generation can have some hope of climbing out of the cesspool of liberal thought and policies to a world where rationality holds sway.
SpiralArchitect| 5.11.11 @ 1:14PM
Could always start a new blog or a page on (dare I say) Facebook for discussion and info exchange - follow up here if anyone is interested in further discussion about taking action.
TennesseeVolunteer| 5.11.11 @ 5:24PM
PaRT OF OUR ECONOMIC MALAISE IS THE DECISION OF MILLIONS OF INDIVIDUALS TO GO ON STRIKE IN SOME WAY OR OTHER. Whether it is to not hire another person, barter, pay someone in cash...whatever. the producers are taking a "later" on a lot of risk until the saboteur in the WH is impeached or voted out.
I am all for a public showing of our mutual disgust but the party has already started when millions of people decide to do what is best for them and not for the government.
Pecos Pete| 5.11.11 @ 1:59PM
buckeyeman: Good post!
It would be "interesting" if Gov. Perry was hauled out of the Texas capital building by federal agents.
We are seeing some of this as the various states start to pass laws that "conflict" with federal law, or that attempt to redefine federal law. As more states move along this path the feds will have a lot on their plate.
russel| 5.11.11 @ 1:52PM
Agree Melvin , well put . The red states produce , not consume , commodoties and products . The rust belt is now a " cesspool " of welfarer's . Here in the Rockies out comes heat and food . Little room for a bum . I have no doubt it could come down to stay out of our lives and buy what you need from China , if you can scrounge the money . We hate blue staes and wouldn't miss them in the least . Nothing but parasites .
Redstateboy| 5.11.11 @ 9:12AM
I often write pieces to the Knoxville News Sentinel asking, pleading - Where!! Where! Point it out to Me, Where! Is Liber-ul Progressive governance producing vibrant economies, happy contented and prosperous people and the answer is obvious -No Where! yet the Liber-uls still persist that Progressive Liber-ulism is the true road to Social Utopia! If ever the old story of the "Emperor has no clothes" is appropriate it is here and illustrative of the blindness or shear stubborn stupidity of the those small minds still clinging to a demonstrably false philosophy.
Old Soldier| 5.11.11 @ 9:30AM
You really think we'll make it to 2013 before the next recession? I think it's a lot closer than that.
Going to work these days is depressing (still better than the alternative). Every day we try to figure out how to deal with shrinking revenue, increased fuel costs, inflation / pricing, etc... The general answer is to lay-off people and not back-fill open positions - making the remaining employees overworked and ticked off.
As for taxes - Obama doesn't have to raise the rates. Just keep printing money and he'll inflate us all into higher brackets.
Melvin| 5.11.11 @ 9:42AM
"Fishermen Say Regulations Destroying Industry,"
SEABROOK, N.H. -- Fishermen on New Hampshire's Seacoast are warning that new fishing regulations could destroy their industry and have already caused them severe emotional stress. WURM 9 New Hampshire
This industry strangulation is not just happening in the upper East Coast, it is strangling the industry on the entire Easter and Western Seaboard.
Here in North Carolina, in which I am close with individuals in the industry are telling me, Families who have been fishermen for generations after generations are having to sell their boats and go out of business.
"BY GOD! WE NEED TO STOP THESE BASTARDS IN THE GOVERNMENT, before we won't even be able to feed ourselves. We're already buying food from China are they now going to feed us?
SpiralArchitect| 5.11.11 @ 1:17PM
Yea, soon enough we are all going to be fitted for those nifty lil Mao caps too!
hunter| 5.11.11 @ 9:51AM
This country is no longer aproaching the cliff of financial doom, thanks to Obomba. The speeding financials car of dooms rear wheels have left the cliff. The silence you hear, the smooth ride you feel is the air beneath. Not to worry, the fall is painless. Its the sudden stop that gets you. But I know Obomba will be able to blame someone or everyone else that acted stupidly and caused this the greatest depression and fall the world has ever seen. Ok Nero begin playing...
TruthSayer| 5.11.11 @ 10:42AM
Good News! I opened the local paper this morning down here in Texas and looked at a FULL PAGE AD for FREE CELL PHONES. Of course, you have to be receiving MEDICAID to qualify. Texas has added a new benefit. Apparently, I am now paying for moochers/losers/deadbeats cell phones. John Gault is dead.
Al Adab| 5.11.11 @ 12:58PM
Not dead (Galt) he just went on strike. Maybe Boeing is about to do the same. The looters are indeed in charge.
SpiralArchitect| 5.11.11 @ 1:18PM
Google cell phones / gov / tracking (or gps) and you will be very amazed.
Big Bro wants to know where you are and what you are doing...
John | 5.11.11 @ 10:57AM
The author has some valid points on lower taxes, spending and stopping helicopter Ben for sure but only tells half the story. First of all the crash occurred under big spending liberal, president Bush, who along with the Dems & Gop (Bohner, Ryan & Cantor) bailed out the go-go global bank crooks under the guise of too-big-to-fail. Tarp also amazingly bailed out foreign banks. Now these so-called banks are even bigger and thus cannot fail again. Bush threw capitalism under the bus in so many ways and Obama is just Bush on steroids.
The multi-national banks are really gambling casinos, especially the investment firms that should not even be called banks. Job #1: Re-enact the Glass-Siegel wall and then put strict regulations like there used to be on the USA corner bank; they have sacred money -- - our hard earned savings. Secondly, the Fed needs to put pressure on legitimate banks, especially after giving them billions of our taxpayer money, to lend money for mortgages so housing can recover. Third helicopter Ben needs to be grounded.
Then the GOP should steer towards a LOW flat personal and corporate tax and reduce or eliminate many worthless federal departments.
But most important there must be an end to economic globalism where under suicidal sweetheart trade deals we send our vital industry to Communist China and other Third World countries or hostile powers under the guise of free trade ( trade is a movement of goods not factories for cheap labor).
Next, for the short term, is for GOP leaders to give a Trump-call to OPEC to reduce oil or else and insist on using more of our coal and natural gas. And then for the long term the GOP should push relentlessly to drill in the USA, and also continue to pursue for other fuel alternatives.
Real inflation on necessities is soaring and is not only due to helicopter Ben but also that we no longer produce things. Thus we are no longer a self-reliant nation and are held hostage to rising imports , including even food, from foreign powers. In addition, we cannot generate good-paying jobs until we bring our manufacturing base back from overseas, and a lower corporate tax rate alone will not achieve this since we cannot and should not compete with slave labor, especially from ruthless, corrupt, and lawless countries -- economic globalism is a suicidal race to the bottom. .
But alas the GOP and their talk radio pseudo-patriots will call you a protectionist, as they did the pro-American Trump who correctly recommended high tariffs as our Founders advocated. Meanwhile, multi-national corporation’s profits are soaring and the stock market is artificially on monopoly money helium while our industry and middle class of our beloved America is being decimated by BOTH parties & treasonus Wall Street globalists for cheap labor.
Looks like the only solution to save our country may be an American-first Third Party and a new pro-American media.
SpiralArchitect| 5.11.11 @ 1:20PM
At this point it could be said it is "my mom's" fault and I would still be more concerned about corrective action and the future - for all of us.
...I'll deal with mother later :)
Al Adab| 5.11.11 @ 11:34AM
This administration and the Dem party intend this current economy to represent the new norm, the baseline against which they will measure growth. Measuring against the bottom of a trough makes anything look like recovery. The statistics will never return to pre 2008 levels, but as long as it is above the bottom, they will claim success. We are all then left to suffer and be nothing more than wards of the state. That dear friends is in fact their agenda.
Who Knows?| 5.11.11 @ 12:58PM
In 2008, the perfect storm, in political terms, hit the USA, as the ALREADY dumbed down majority of voters, supplemented by ACORN fraud, elevated into the presidency the perfect con man for our times, BHO, and even swept to immense power in both houses of congress.
The PEOPLE spoke!
What Peter Ferrara regularly posts, in black and white irrefutable numbers, is simply the lawful outcome from the choices made in 2008.
We WANTED what they’ve done!
Actually, the clear insight plucked, today, from this article, is that Obama et al were elected ---
TO UNLEASH THE PUBLIC SECTOR!
Yes, the Manichean split serves us well, here.
It’s all about “government”.
What does it mean, “to govern”?
In 1956, I won a trip to the just-built Disneyland, by signing up many new subscribers at the University of Portland, to the Oregonian newspaper
Vernon O, a friend, and I drove these small “cars”, run by a lawn mower type engine.
Ol’ Vern, wiser than me, had us stop under a bridge, and he detached the GOVERNOR on the engine, and we ended up flying on the track, passing everybody---until the “cops” pulled us over and reset the GOVERNOR.
There you have it---
The GOVERN impulse, in too many people, is the felt need to SLOW DOWN other people, AND to make them pay the people who do the governing, to boot!
“Hold on, you move too fast.
Got to make the morning last.”
So, Obama et al, most assuredly including his supporters, are---
FEELING GROOVY!
As I bemoaned to this grossly fat old dude, at the local YMCA, when he celebrated the election of ANOTHER liberal senator for Oregon, replacing the Republican, Gordon Smith, in 2008, paradoxically---
THE LOSERS WON!
And, we all simply have to live with the lawful consequences of this choice, for a while.
After suffering through 8 years of slick Willie, I was almost certain America was kaput.
But, time wounds all heels, and with the even worse times we’ve had to endure with the even slicker Barack Hussein Obama, heretofore, I’m actually starting to become moderately optimistic.
America has been in limbo, for many years!
And, it’s always been a case of “How low can you go”, until enough pain is felt, by enough people, to exhibit its brilliant function---
America---CHANGE YOUR ACT!
SpiralArchitect| 5.11.11 @ 1:25PM
Americide seems the cure prescribed by the POTUS.
The crook has done so many unauthorized (as actions allowed by the POTUS) actions as POTUS he should be impeached.
Look at his actions. Realize his 'job description'.
Remove this villian.
Jobe| 5.11.11 @ 1:06PM
While it is true that obama is buying a second term, the fact that each year he is in office is a year that sees fewer people paying federal income taxes, thus, more obama voters, means that it will not be 51% but more like 60%.
This means that soon, the only way to break the left's grasp on power will be through an actual physical uprising. That is one frightening thought.
Who Knows?| 5.11.11 @ 1:21PM
We are suffering from liberals running wild.
What is a liberal?
A typical leftist has his hands gripping his own throat.
This has at least three deadly effects.
Firstly, the voice box, being choked, results in an inability to speak robustly, and in an unblocked way, resulting in myriad distorting words polluting the noosphere.
Secondly, since the hands are constantly engaged, such a sub-human can do no useful physical work.
Thirdly, by cutting off most of the air to the brain, clear thinking is impossible, so you end up with foolish thoughts, such as what Obama can’t help but spout, in his Narcissistic fashion.
All in all, leftists are essentially Shiva ot the Destroyer in action.
SpiralArchitect| 5.11.11 @ 1:27PM
Yes. A Liberal is akin to a parasite that lives off of itself, be it consumption of it's flesh or blood. Neither sustainable.
Even the ones that know it's dangers stay the course.
SpiralArchitect| 5.11.11 @ 1:27PM
Yes. A Liberal is akin to a parasite that lives off of itself, be it consumption of it's flesh or blood. Neither sustainable.
Even the ones that know it's dangers stay the course.
Redstateboy| 5.11.11 @ 2:20PM
Gas and Food prices I am convinced will spell the doom of Hussein.. there is Nothing on the horizon that indicates these two commodities will stablize and everyone - even Hussein's own syncophants - the one's Not on Welfare - will get disgusted with ... The One.
martin j smith| 5.11.11 @ 3:08PM
Here are questions I asked of another writer:
Do you support the idea of actually nominating a candidate that can and desires to actually WIN THE ELECTION--not a repeat of John McC ?
Do you support a candidate who will take on Obama in debate and hold him accountable for his policies and also challenge his effort to blame GWB ?
Do you support a candidate who will talk directly to the American people and show understanding of THEIR ECONOMIC PLIGHT AND OFFER IDEAS THAT CHALLENGE THE CURRENT OBAMA POLICIES ?
IF THERE ANYTHING OTHER THAN A FIRM yes on any of these three--the candidate is a loser.
Nunya| 5.11.11 @ 6:07PM
Martin, do you know of such a person?
martin j smith| 5.11.11 @ 3:09PM
Oh I forgot to ask one other thing: WHAT RECOVERY ?
Pat| 5.11.11 @ 5:16PM
Saints preserve us, another dreary sermon on the evils of Keynesian economics – except that Keynes has nothing to do with it. What we’re presently living under is Chicago economics – you remember that golden oldie, the one that goes your friendly “community organizer” shakes down the local banks by threatening lawsuits and pontificating on the need to help the “less fortunate” - and in order to give “his people” mortgages on homes they can’t afford – and, for his munificence, Mr. Community Organizer gets a piece of the action, both monetary and non-monetary. Sound familiar lately? Except that Mr. Community Organizer eventually goes to Washington, shakes down the entire nation’s working taxpayers in order to give “his people” money they couldn’t earn on their own and, for that, he and his political allies get a piece of the action – sure, the numbers have many more zeroes following the 1, but the so-called economic “principles” are the same.
Well-paid Directors of this or that think tank love to wrap themselves in abstract theory and deal out a manure wagon load of “it’s all the fault of a discarded and repudiated economic theory”. But we know Obama is personally growing wealthier, that’s not an abstract theory, Keynesian or otherwise. We know the trillion dollars of Recovery Funds weren’t scattered aimlessly to the four winds, the money went to specific special interest parties for specific reasons. Remember the auto company bailouts – the UAW is still sending FTD roses to the White House. Remember the majority Democratic states like California which received billions in recovery funds to pave roads which didn’t require re-paving or build new bridges to nowhere? Facts and figures flung hither and yon by a respected academic can’t disguise base motives regardless of how many abstract arguments are thoughtfully posed.
And Obama hasn’t changed his basic act by one new song or included one additional dance number since those glorious performances in Chicago. Instead of “community organizing” Chicago’s South Side, we’re seeing the same swindle on a much larger scale. Obama is getting a bigger piece of the action now than in his salad days. Instead of making the Rev. Wrights of the world wealthier, today’s recipients of Obama’s charity have titles like “Senator” or “Congressman”. Economic theories and their foibles are a useless distraction from everyday human nature, reality today is about personal greed and legally seeking a self-serving means to power – Chicago strong arm swindles or Keynesian economics, what’s the point in rationalizing butt ugly greed as practiced by our ruling Democrats?
WhiteBikerTrash| 5.11.11 @ 5:32PM
I have had discussions with real believers in Keynes's theory. and enjoyed telling them that I believe in the "Keynes Multiplier Effect" Then I explain, that Government takes a dollar from the open market, that equals -1 and then places it back in that market +1 then creates .70 of the multiplier effect. So -1 plus +1 = 0 and that dollar has lost 30% of real value in this transaction. Then they start on "Past" or "Future" removal of dollars then making my point much more sharp.
Nunya| 5.11.11 @ 6:09PM
Not a bad analysis WBT. Even a Keynesian economist should be able to understand that. :-)
axbucxdu| 5.11.11 @ 9:59PM
Alright, it seems we can now add Newt to the list of also-rans that the Rethugs are offering as "conservative" alternatives to Obama for the next silly season.
What's a conservative/libertarian to do? Vote for Obama...AND conservative firebrands for Congress. Of course it's a suboptimal decision, that's real life, but it's the least suboptimal solution.
In this scenario, the One would finally be cornered by solid opposition. On the other hand, it would take someone like the progressive-in-chief to keep the Rethugs from going soft in the head like they did under Bush, and who would no doubt do so again under the hacks now being trotted out for our "choice".
Louis Vuitton | 5.11.11 @ 11:39PM
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Dee See| 5.12.11 @ 1:25AM
-Reinstate Glass Steagall immediately
-Put an end to fractional reserve lending
-Open, audit, prosecute and end the FED
and the EUGENICS crazed ultra-rich, TAX FREE
foundations, NGO's and Proxies. They ARE
poison. The warmest propsecution possible
for the directors and prime servants of
stealth EUGENICS in our food, water, air
and meds.
-Immediate DEFAULT on the absurd trillions
of 'debt' to our US taxpayer created 'RED Chinese
Miracle'
-Immediate write-off of thed 1.4 quadrillion in
FAKE derivatives.
-Immediate defunding and exit of the EUGENICS
front globalist tool UN
-A full scale HUAC meets NUREMBERG for
2012 and RETRO-active IMPEACHMENT of
our past 4 CFR/RIIA/Rockefeller/Tavistock
set-up globalist front administrations and
nullification of ALLLL their illegal selloouts
--uh, we meant 'treaties'
-PROBLEM SOLVED-
MARCH on the New York Offices of the
illegal, criminal Federal Reserve AND the
headquarters of the EUGENICS driving
globalist 'benny violent' TAX FREE foundations
this July 4th.
And finally folks, as John Calvin and scripture
will tell you again, and again, and again ---the
self-willed 'Doctrine of Works' ---is 'benny violent'
indeed and eternally cursed by God himself,
as we are seeing.
--------ANY QUESTIONS?-------
Mookie| 5.12.11 @ 2:49PM
Complaining about the lack of strength in recovery is churlish. Let us not forget just what disaster (Bush administration) the country is recovering from. The fact that the economy is growing rather than shrinking as it did during the entire right wing credit party is a miracle in itself.
Dave| 5.13.11 @ 7:17PM
The inflation is just getting started. The economy is being artificially held up by the feds .75% interest rate. The banks borrow that money and are lending it out at mostly 4.5-6%. The fed borrows from these banks and is buying 70% of USA bonds. When interest rates start to rise,(will not happen while Obama is trying to be re-elected unless one of our creditors makes us) insolvency will again happen to the banking industry. Therefore, look for a QE3 in some shape or form soon after QE2 ends in June. Right now commodities are somewhat stabilizing because the market is anticipating the end of QE2. The dollar index is going up. It is a good time to buy commodities. In the next few years we will see millions of more foreclosures. How many of you know someone who is not paying their mortgage of thinking of walking away from their home? Many more jobs will be lost as interest rates rise and the housing business really tanks. Prices of homes will come down much lower. Rents will come down as well as the sea of homes come on the market. Good luck.
richard| 5.15.11 @ 11:23PM
No one, certainly not Wall Street wants to admit that what we are in, is the front porch of the next economic depression. The housing market tells us enough that this is not a recovery. It is merely a gap, a rest if you will, between the massive downturn that began in the 3rd qtr. of 2007 until it exhausted itself in March of 2009. The next major move will take us far below Dow 6469 beginning within the next several months.