How is that Hopey Changey thing working for you?
Filed under: economy, Obama Economy, Our Dear Leader, Politics
“Misery Index” Up 62% Since Obama Took Office.
The annual inflation rate for May climbed to 3.6% as price spikes spread beyond oil and food. At the same time, May’s unemployment rate edged up to 9.1%, yielding a Misery Index of 12.7.
That marks the fourth straight monthly increase in the index, which is now 62% higher than it was when Obama took office…
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Regulation: In just his first 18 months in office, Obama imposed 43 regulations that will cost, by government estimates, $26 billion. And that doesn’t count the avalanche of costly new rules headed our way courtesy of ObamaCare.
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Taxes: While Obama grudgingly acceded to keep all of Bush’s tax rates in force for two more years, he agitates endlessly for massive tax hikes on the “rich.” His debt plan calls for raising the top tax rates to pre-Bush levels and squeezing an additional $1 trillion out of them under the guise of “tax reform.” All of the tax cuts he has approved have been gimmicky and short-term.
Spending: Federal outlays have risen more than 25% since Obama took office, and they’re on track to eat up almost a quarter of gross domestic product for the foreseeable future — a spending level not seen since World War II. Annual deficits, meanwhile, have topped $1 trillion every year since Obama took office.
Debt: Gross federal debt has climbed more than a third under Obama, topping $14 trillion. His budget plan puts it on a course to reach $20 trillion by 2016.
Don’t expect any “change” in the path to self-destruction that our Dear Leader, Barack H. Obama is bound and determined to drag the country down from him. The American electorate is going to have to force change in November 2012.
Beware of Obama’s upcoming More of the Same
Filed under: economy, Obama Economy, Our Dear Leader, Politics
As noted before, our Dear Leader‘s economic policies, i.e. Keynesian economics theory that only really works in a classroom environment, has resulted in a noted and sharp increase in inflation, while doing little or nothing to spur real economic growth.
The lack of growth, is evident in these three figures pointing the change since our Dear Leader took office:
- Unemployment: up 25%
- Debt: up 35%
- Price of a galleon of gas: up 104%
The source for these numbers, that tool of the Vast Right Conspiracytm, NBC News’ own “Meet the Press.” Oh, sorry, NBC is a decidedly left leaning News organization, so these numbers must be pretty damn solid in order for David Gregory to rub DNC spokesperson Rep. Wassermann-Schultz’s nose in them.
There is also this informative graph.
As you can clearly see, the affect our Dear Leader‘s economic policies have had is to make things worse than if he and the Congressional democrats had done nothing at all! Also keep in mind, that it was in our Dear Leader‘s best interest to take the worst case scenario for the “Without Recovery Plan” numbers in this graph. Thus the odds are that if the federal government hadn’t done a damn thing, including not violating the rule of law and letting GM & Chrysler file Chapter 11 without making sure the UAW got paid off before the bond holders, the unemployment numbers would not only be lower than what they currently are, they would be lower than the “Without Recover Plan” projections the chart listed above. Not just lower, but probably closer to the “With Recovery Plan” numbers, which I can see the Keynesian addicted White House “economists” considered their “safe” number projections for economic performance based on their years of classroom experience.
The the democrat’s so-called “stimulus plan” failed came as surprise to nobody who was 1. Paying Attention, 2. could do some basic mathematics, and 3. ever held a job in the real world. Even if you take the White House numbers on faith, i.e “created or saved” jobs does not equal new jobs when you recount the same jobs as “saved” multiple times, the basic math doesn’t work. Economic Policies for the 21st Century points out one of principle flaws.
[E]ven if you buy the White House’s argument that the $800 billion package created 3 million jobs, that works out to $266,000 per job. Taxing or borrowing $266,000 from the private sector to create a single job is simply not a cost effective way of putting America back to work. The long-term debt burden of that $266,000 swamps any benefit that the single job created might provide.
In the face of the obviously failure of their policies, what do you think our Dear Leader and the Congressional democrats are offering? Yup, that’s right. More of the same. Yet another “quantitative easing” (i.e. printing money with nothing to back it, an inflationary tactic) is being planned. Despite that the results of such a policy were clear back in March of 2009, when this cartoon was published.
Hmmm….looks like the nice men at Cox & Forkum nailed it right on the head with that one. It makes one wonder, if the label on the outside of the box was our Dear Leader’s ultimate goal, and that he really didn’t care what the effect on the economy would be. He knew that he wasn’t going to be bothered by it, as Mark Steyn pointed out:
“I’m not concerned about a double-dip recession,” Obama said last week. Nor would I be if I had government housing, a car and driver, and a social secretary for the missus. But I wonder if it’s such a smart idea to let one’s breezy insouciance out of the bag when you’re giving a press conference.
To use a phrase our Dear Leader is fond of, he just doesn’t have any “skin in the game.” He has never worked a day in his life in private sector economy and he never will. Prior to running for President, he managed to go $300,000 in debt on a family income of half a million dollars a year. Is there any surprise in the fact that he has done the same with the US economy?
Obama administration’s monetary policies a major cause of rising gas prices
Not a surprise to anyone who has taken a graduate level economics class and pays attention, but since that is probably a small slice of the population, let’s review.
The Obama administration’s monetary policies have added approximately 56.5 cents to the price of every gallon of gas you pump, according to a report by members of the congressional Joint Economic Committee.
Estimates suggest that had the dollar maintained the value it had when Obama came into office, gasoline would cost approximately $3.40 per gallon instead of around $4 per gallon in many parts of the country.
Here is the short form for those who haven’t studied macro economics. Oil is traded on the open market with the US dollar being the standard currency used for for that commodity. Our Dear Leader’s monetary policy of just printing money to pay for his massive spending increases ( the so-called “quantitative easing” programs are good examples of this) has caused inflation, which means the US Dollar has less value than it did before. To make this even simpler, things cost more when you buy things using US dollars. Not because the value of the item being purchased has gone up. It is because the amount of goods and services a US Dollar can be traded for has gone down. This includes crude oil. Your dollar is worth less, so you pay more dollars for things like gasoline, a crude oil product.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke claimed this printing money scheme would actually “grow the economy.” Fed Chairmen Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan disagreed, stating that the Obama/Bernake plan would weaken US currency and result in inflation.
Clearly, Volcker and Greenspan were right, and Obama and Bernanke were wrong.
The Obama administration is calling for another round of “”quantitative easing” in spite of the clear and obvious facts of the matter.
Do The Math
Clearly our Dear Leader is hoping you don’t. He claims that “Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes the American taxpayer from the investment we made during my watch.”
Conn Carrol has done the math for you just in case you are one of those who think that Obamacare will actually reduced health care costs.
Total loaned to Chrysler: $14 billion
Total paid back by Chrysler: $7.56 billion
Total taxpayer loss on the Obama bail out of Chrysler: $6.44 billion
While you can argue if math is not one of our Dear Leader‘s strong points, it is pretty clear that he is betting that it isn’t one of yours.
Moving beyond “Blame Bush”
Now that his term in office is more than half over, our Dear Leader has finally managed to find someone else to blame for the poor economic performance the nation has been inflicted with since he and the democrats assumed power over the legislative and executive branches of government.
Not that he and his loyal minions are are going to stop blaming George W. Bush, they proved that yesterday after unemployment “unexpectedly” spiked back over 9% once again during the Obama Regime. At least he is branching out now.
During his weekly radio address yesterday, our Dear Leader raised some trial balloons that place the blame of the dismal Obama Economy on the Europeans and the Japanese.
Yup, it’s clearly the fault of Japanese and Europeans, not his dangerous addiction to the emperically discredited Keynesian economic theories. Yup, the American people clearly knew what they were doing when they elected a man who managed to go $300,000 in debt on an annual household income of just over $500,000 a year. OK, I’ll give the American people a pass on that one, since I’m betting the vast majority of voters who get their “news” from MSN sources like MSNBC, the NY Times, CNN or CBS News never heard that interesting, yet highly relevant fact.
For how well a sample of potential voters are ‘educated’ by the MSM, let’s roll some video.
I’m concerned that a vast majority of those who voted for our Dear Leader appear to absolutely no clue as to what a Keynesian is. Once again, let’s check the video.
OK, say we cut them slack on Keynesian theory, most people don’t know much about economics. This video shows a sample of Obama voters and quizzes them on some basic political knowledge. What is more interesting than what they don’t know is what they do know, and what they think they know.
Six Things The Mainstream Media Would Say About Obama If He Were A Republican
John Hawkins wrote this list in an article at TownHall.com. Go there for the details on each item. OK, sure, there are obviously more than six, but it’s good start.
1. This guy is way too stupid to be President of the United States!
Ok, this one is going to drive the Moonbats crazy since their religion is based on our Dear Leader being a “super-genius”, but seriously, check just about anything he says without a teleprompter. Plus, why are all of his college transcripts sealed? What is he hiding?
2. Obama’s an amateurish cowboy who’s wrecking our image around the world! Obama’s an amateurish cowboy who’s wrecking our image around the world!
3. Obama’s going to bankrupt the country by giving our money to his corporate cronies!
4. He’s the job-killing, gas-price-raising, economy-wrecking President!
5. Obama’s not an authentic black man.
I can hear the left’s shouts of “Racism” already. Stop and take a look at what Leftists say about any Black conservative. Pretty consistent with what Mr. Hawkins is proposing, and that isn’t counting the vile, racist slurs the left uses.
6. He’s an arrogant jerk who cares about no one but himself!
The number of full rounds of golf since taking office are current in the mid 90s.
Unemployment numbers snark
Filed under: economy, Obama Economy, Our Dear Leader, Politics
Andy has some prime snark going on over at AoSHQ. Here is money quote:
I’ll limit this quickie post to that nasty 3-letter word: J-O-B-S. Today’s unemployment report showed that we, Unexpectedly™, added only 54,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate shot back up to 9.1%. Backing out the 62,000 jobs added by McDonald’s leaves … a one-term president.
Additionally, coblogger emeritus Geoff pointed out that we’ve shed 430,000 full-time jobs in the last couple of months and are now back where we began the year. It’s as if the entire population of Reno cried out in terror and was suddenly silenced given a pink slip.
Share and enjoy…
Monday Book Pick: How The Obama Administration Threatens Our National Security
Filed under: History, Monday Book Pick, Our Dear Leader, Political Books, Politics
Victor David Hanson’s book How The Obama Administration Threatens Our National Security
A Memorial Day special edition Monday Book Pick.
Here is a video that summarizes the book nicely.
Obame Regime claims the War Powers Act doesn’t apply to them.
Filed under: Culture of Corruption, Our Dear Leader, Politics
Jake Tapper of ABC news reports on the latest whopper from the Imperial Obama Regime.
Our Dear Leader claims that his unprovoked war on Libya, which presented no immediate threat to the United States of America, does not require Congressional approval. Why, because it’s just a ‘little war.’ Things like the Constitution and the War Powers Act clearly don’t apply to the whims of Dear Leader under the rule of the Obama Regime.
Obama regime makes another move against States Rights
Regardless of your opinion of the ethics of the death penalty, it has alway been seen as a power legally exercised by the individual states. Some states have it, other don’t, but it is up to each state to decide.
Not so under the Obama regime. Our Dear Leader‘s “Justice” department has instructed the DEA to seize state government’s supply of sodium thiopental. That is part of a three drug cocktail typically used in lethal injection executions. By having the DEA seize this drug using rather sketch “concerns” about the way the drug was imported, which interestingly enough, the DEA/Justice department will no longer discuss.
If our Dear Leader doesn’t like the fact that some states still carry out the death penalty, he should have the guts to come out and say it, rather than hiding behind DEA raids where the agency refuses to discuss the reasons behind the agency seizing the property of state governments.