posted June 20, 2009 12:15 PM            

To those I say..."up yours"!

O'Bomber is doing exactly what every Marxist Socialist does when they get control of the economy of any country. They destroy the economy in short order.

Remember when O'Bomber said we had to have the 787 Billion dollar Porkulus bill and if we got it unemployment would top out at 8%?

And, if we didn't get the Porkulus Bill unemployment would rise to 9%, remember that nonsense?

Well, we got the 787 Billion dollar Porkulus Bill...which in reality was a stimulus of government instead of a stimulus bill for the private sector where all economic recoveries and wealth of nations/people are produced and guess what?

The latest unemployment number...with the Porkulus Bill intact is 9.4%.

Another guess what; O'Bomber is now forecasting unemployment to rise to 10%...with the Porkulus Bill fully operational.

When unemployment hits 10%, O'Bomber will blame Bush and raise the estimate of unemployment higher still.

But, even first year economic students know you don't raise taxes on individuals, raise taxes on business, restrict money to the private sector, restrict supply of anything at all to the private sector. They know if you do any of that you will prolong the recession put more people out of work, cause capital to flee investments in the private sector economy or worse bring on a depression.

So now, O'Bomber has seized the banks..providers of capital to the private sector, seized 2 US auto makers who supply millions of jobs directly and indirectly, closed auto dealerships across America, is threatening to seize the entire healthcare industry and ration healthcare, threatening to seize the energy sector of the economy using a "cap and tax" plan to fight off a non existent problem which will raise the price of everything in the US economy.

O'Bomber has also floated the idea of a VAT..Value Added Tax, in addition to income tax raises, floated the idea of soda taxes and soon, Kool-Aid drinkers will experience a tax on O'Bomber Kool-Aid too.

But wait, didn't O'Bomber promise he wouldn't raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year? Yep, he did, over and over. Suckers You're going to pay hidden taxes on everything you buy. O'Bomber plans to hand a tax increase of $3100-$4300 per household on electric rate increases alone...not to mention higher taxes on gasoline, transport taxes, taxes on agricultural food producers and an endless list of other "hidden taxes" passed along to consumers.

It's becomming more difficult to call all this simple stupidity. It's a lot easier to call it what it looks like; a plan to crash the US economy deliberately in preparation to a complete government command economy. Hello Soviet Union where grubby little Marxist planners attempted to manage every facet of the Soviet economy. Everyone knows how that turned out and it turned out exactly like command economies always turn out...disasterously.

Not long ago, I said I had O'Bomber proofed my life. I was premature with that statement. That was before O'Bomber decided what kind of cars would be available to US auto buyers. That was before O'Bomber put his Socialist thugs/Czars in charge of US auto makers, on auto commissions and on the boards of directors. Those who have never made a car, never designed anything at all, never been involved in the auto industry at all are now making decisions in the auto industry. I'm not having an O'Bombermobile in my driveway or garage. I doubt there will be much if any demand for the death traps O'Bomber has planned. It's a simple fact that these miniscule pregnant rollerskates kill occupants in auto collisions. None for me.

I'm dumping the Mercedes and dumping the Pontiac and buying a late 80s 4 wheel drive Blazer. Easy and cheap to maintain, parts are available and cheap and..when I'm finished I'll have a sufficient supply of oil, belts, hoses, spark plugs, filters and everything else needed to keep it serviced and running through the Marxist Socialist regime of THE ONE, THE MESSIAH, O'Bomber and his little band of Chicago Socialist thugs.

When the handwriting is on the wall, it behoves those who can read...to read it.

posted June 20, 2009 12:28 PM            

June 20, 2009
Obama's Worst Role
By Randy Fardal

Vice President Biden recently confessed that the administration "guessed wrong" on the stimulus bill. Even President Obama reluctantly admitted that unemployment is likely to reach ten percent this year, after promising in February that his stimulus package would keep it from exceeding eight.

The US economy is so large and globally dominant that it probably will recover at some point -- perhaps just in time for the 2010 elections. And once it recovers, no doubt Mr. Obama will stop blaming his predecessor and take credit for it. But his actions only worsened the economic recession, just as President Roosevelt's did in the mid-1930s. According to some studies, Roosevelt's policies prolonged the depression by seven years.

So what exactly is wrong with Mr. Obama's plan? The short answer is that he is attempting to stimulate demand, rather than stimulating supply. To make things even worse, he also is taking actions that will depress supply.

For the past three decades, the Federal Reserve Board was allowed to moderate America's money supply with an unprecedented degree of autonomy. Mistakes were made, but the Fed generally has been able to offset -- or at least delay -- the harm done by the looters in Washington.

However, Mr. Obama piled on spending and debt that even the most prudent monetary policies might not be able to counteract. Stagflation and other terms that haven't been heard since the miserable Carter years now are voiced again in economic forecasts.

Mr. Obama's so-called stimulus spending is counterproductive not only because of its unprecedented magnitude, but also because of its beneficiaries. As an inexperienced policy maker, Mr. Obama naively believes that supply follows demand. If mobs of greedy supporters at town hall meetings demand taxpayer-funded kitchens and free healthcare, Mr. Obama will try to find a way to supply them.

But good leaders aren't followers and supply doesn't follow demand -- not in a sustained prosperous economy. As successful entrepreneurs know, supply usually leads demand. For example, we all demand cheap cold-fusion energy, but if it ever becomes commercially viable, it will be supplied in some unexpected way that no consumer focus group (or president) could envision. Sustained demand then will follow supply.

That business principle applies to more than just atomic energy. Ordinary things like Bedford Falls housing developments work that way too. In the 1940s movie It's a Wonderful Life, guardian angel Clarence showed George Bailey, a successful building and loan entrepreneur, what life would be like without him:

Clarence: Are you sure this is Bailey Park?

George: No, I'm not sure of anything anymore. All I know is this should be Bailey Park. But where are all the houses?

Clarence: You weren't here to build them.

The movie dialog hints at the folly of stimulus policies that fund or promote consumer demand, such as those implemented in the past by Fannie Mae, and today by the Obama administration. Demand stimuli lead to inflation and boom/bust economies. They also eventually bankrupt the George Baileys and cause economic slowdowns and massive unemployment. Stagflation.

In contrast, supply stimuli -- investment tax credits, accelerated depreciation, and capital gains tax reductions -- lead to long-term capital formation. Small businesses are started. Big factories are modernized. The results are improved manufacturing efficiency, greater American productivity, more exports, and more jobs. And the jobs turn into productive careers, not temporary day labor.

More importantly, when supply leads demand instead of chasing it recklessly, a stimulus is not inflationary. Stimulated suppliers compete in a crowded market by improving their products and cutting prices. Bailey Park gets built to endure as a well-planned community, not an overpriced boomtown hastily carved into a cornfield.

Like another movie character, Ferris Bueller, perhaps Mr. Obama simply cut class when he was supposed to be learning basic economics. Or perhaps Mr. Obama is fully aware of the destructive consequences of his fiscal policies, but the lure of shifting money and power from individuals to government is irresistible.

If you're not a movie buff, a backyard way of understanding consumer demand stimulus is to think of it as lighter fluid with no charcoal. The temporary flash of heat and light can fool gullible picnickers into thinking they soon will be dining on steak, but of course they'll be stuck with cold potato salad.

Mr. Obama actually has addressed economic supply issues, but instead of stimulating supply, he restricted it further. His new CAFE regulations effectively ban the sale of most cars currently made by US auto companies. Mr. Obama is curtailing supply while stoking demand with his stimulus spending.

It's the automotive equivalent of giving $2000 to crackheads in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and then posting DEA agents on every street corner in town. Smuggling, bribery, price-hikes, and gang wars erupt.

Will Mexican drug mules enlarge their trans-border tunnels to accommodate black market SUVs? No, but freedom loving Americans naturally resist fascism, so they will find creative ways to get another Little Deuce Coupe and avoid buying an Obama Motors Little Il Duce Coupe.

Many simply will repair their old vehicles. In doing so, they will "smuggle" safe, comfortable, productive vehicles from the past to the present. As long as automakers and offshore aftermarket suppliers continue making every part, there's no reason a gardener's full-size pickup truck can't last for decades -- or at least until the state overreach is corrected.

Mr. Obama also wants to restrict the supply of affordable coal, oil, and nuclear energy with dramatic increases in taxes, exploration bans, and costly regulations. Energy costs have risen dramatically not because of increased economic activity, but because of supply reductions. More stagflation.

Ditto for nationalized healthcare: In that sector, Mr. Obama's policies will lead to skyrocketing demand while choking off supply, just as it has in every other country that already uses his proposed system. Inflation, rationing, favoritism, bribery, and offshore "medical tourism" will follow.

One might even argue that Mr. Obama is limiting the supply of skilled American labor by encouraging union expansion. Collective bargaining seeks to restrict the number of workers and artificially boost demand for them by reducing their productivity. That will lead to stagflation and more offshore manufacturing -- and increased illegal smuggling of non-union workers across the Mexican border to do domestic jobs that can't be exported to China.

posted June 21, 2009 10:33 AM            

In a Freudian slip, "Cash for Clunkers" is the latest Washington brainstorm to goose car sales while striking a fashion pose of being green. "Pimp my ride" would be more accurate. The legislation, which is passed and awaiting President Obama's signature this next week, offers up to $4,500 in vouchers to purchase a new car if it gets between 2 and 10 mpg more than the old car it replaces.

The industry, led by Undead Motors (formerly GM) and Zombie Motors (formerly Chrysler), is more than willing to grab a free lunch at our expense. Along for the ride are the Japanese car makers, the UAW, and everyone else dining off the US taxpayers' carcass. With apologies to the Eagles' Lyin Eyes, has Congress ever wondered how it got this crazy?

It got this crazy because we forgot about the employees, shareholders and bondholders of Ford, let alone those of GM and Chrysler and the taxpayers. Ford deserves to expand its market share because it fought its way to survival against competition. Now, prospectively, Ford will lose market share, and therefore, the full appreciation shareholders deserve in Ford's stock price, because the government is now a deep pockets partner of its competitors. I guess Ford, which has a stock market value of $ 18 billion, would be worth $26 billion today had the government let GM and Chrysler alone so the Ford shareholders have lost something like $8 billion (or more than $2.50 per share) courtesy of congressional wealth destruction.

How do I arrive at that number? The industry is roughly projected to have sales of 12 million domestically built vehicles next year, with Ford having about 2.3 million, GM 2.7 million, and Chrysler 800,000. GM and Chrysler are typically projected to have 30% of the post bankruptcy market. But with a real DIP lender lending only what they are sure they'd get back (IF they lent at all), perhaps the combined bankrupts might have had a projected market share of 15%.

Assuming Ford, with about 20% of the market, would have emerged with an additional 20% of the bankrupts' lost market share, Ford would have grown to 23% to 24% of the North American Market, with about 2.7 million vehicles projected sold in 2010, and incremental sales of about $10 billion. Some analysts think that Ford's equity is worth 16% to 18% of its sales in 2010, so an extra $ 10 billion in sales would indicate an extra $1.7 billion in market cap. Ford reached a deal with the UAW in March saving the company up to $3 billion, mostly on job banks, when it was clear that GM and Chrysler were getting up to $ 50 billion to stick around.

Assuming a normal GM bankruptcy, Ford's 40,000 UAW workers might have accepted an additional cut of $15 per hour, representing $1.3 billion dollars of cuts per year, all of which should have dropped to the bottom line. Using generic analyst valuations of 5x EBITDA in 2010, incremental EBITDA of $ 1.3 billion would have added another $ 6.5 billion to Ford's stock market capitalization today, for a rough total of $ 8.2 billion in equity value sacrificed by the Ford shareholders who are also taxpayers funding their competition.

What do we tell Ford's team? "You had them on the ropes, but now the government is on their side, so pony up to keep your competition alive so you can really give it your all the next time? "

And what do we tell the Indiana pension fund bondholders of GM? "Thanks for the money, sucker!" The Chrysler bankruptcy debt voting was as corrupt as the Iranian election, defying all prior norms. The TARP banks, compromised by government entanglements, hurt their non-government shareholders by ignoring their fiduciary obligations on how to vote their securities in bankruptcy. One unintended consequence of this will be that for businesses that want to borrow fresh capital, over time lenders will charge higher rates to compensate for the risk of unprecedented politically charged outcomes in bankruptcy. Eventually, non-government lenders may stop providing second chances when lending to union companies, particularly those approaching bankruptcy. Being on that bubble could be worse than 2008. And if that happens, the government, which has been loudly announcing its success in fighting deflation, will find out just how deflationary constantly changing the rules can be.

It got this crazy in part because of Federal mileage and other requirements that ignore what people really want in a car and in a fuel supply. As recently reported by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the death rate per million vehicles was 44 for SUVs and 35 for large cars, while for small cars it was 96, or more than double!

If 15,000,000 clunkers are turned in over the life of this program (considering there are 100,000,000 vehicles at least 10 years old still on the road and that government programs take on a life of their own), and we all start driving Fiats and instead of Chevy Tahoes, we could roughly project 4,000 additional deaths over the life of the program in order to pay for our gasoline savings. This would about equal our total fatalities in the Iraq War so far, to which many Democrats chanted "No more blood for oil!" Why is this blood for oil any different? And at least 43.3% of these predictable fatalities are likely to be Democrats based on current party affiliation statistics.

What eludes our mandarins is that many people, on balance, would often prefer to survive a car crash, and sometimes would also prefer to have their kids survive crashes, and actually don't care so much what their mileage is compared to feeling that their family is safer and prepared for any kind of weather. Certainly, based on his convoy of SUVs used when visiting Congress, Noble Laureate Al Gore would seem to have made the same choice in favor of safety.

It got this crazy also because in a decades long fit of self sabotage, the Federal government banned off-shore drilling for most of our coast line and on land in Alaska. The ban has been critical in keeping the price of gas high. When the market realized that the ban might expire in September, 2008 creating more supply, the price of oil fell from a peak of $147 per barrel to a low of $32 per barrel, over a 75% drop. Now that the Administration and Congress have effectively re-instituted the ban, the price of oil has more than doubled again. The real point of the legislation is to goose car sales. But rather than create unsustainable phony demand that requires a voucher, wouldn't we all be better off with a lower gasoline price so the average American had more money to spend? And wouldn't it be better to get our own oil out of our own ground and our own seabed, collect taxes on it, create American jobs by so doing, support the dollar in the process, enhance our national security and lower the price of gas for every US citizen?

posted March 24, 2010 09:51 PM            

Marxism & Communism are dead, the Cold War is over. You can sleep soundly now.

I guess it's more exciting to think an imminent communist coup d'etat is about to come knocking on your doorstep.

posted March 25, 2010 11:54 PM            

are you aware of the cost in human lives, health and destruction of the environment by the coal industry? ever met anyone with black lung disease? or seen a mining town? or heard about the conditions there before the unions?

did you know that deep water energy is more reliable and cheaper than oil in every way? and that done with the right protective structures it would not injure marine life the way oil spills, barges etc do?

i KNOW you have heard of solar energy but do you know how cheap it is now? it doesn't really matter if the sun comes out every day, anymore, either.

did you know that a GOOD defensive driver is much less likely to be hurt in a crash in a small, manouverable car than in a clunky suv?

and if those CLUNKY suv's weren't on the road the smaller cars would be even safer?

oh but we would rather spend everyone's money as well as our own to put ourselves in tanks than learn to drive or teach our kids to drive WELL. that's superior intelligence talking once again!

posted August 19, 2011 08:37 AM            

Don't think so and as the days go by, it appears lots of others don't think so either.

Everywhere one looks in O'Bomber's vision of America, there's only abject failure.

If one were to acess the failure rate of O'Bomber's initiatives, the only possible conclusion would be it's a failure rate of 100%.

Some of the more astute would begin to kick around the proposition that O'Bomber's Marxist Socialist Progressive initiatives were "designed to fail".

So, when O'Bomber attempts to say "Capitalism failed" the home boys aren't going to buy his nonsense.

Too bad we can't convince O'Bomber to stay on vacation until November 2012.

This is a piece on O'Bomber's "Green Jobs" initiative. It would be well to remember O'Bomber's "Green Jobs Czar" was Van Jones, a self identified "Revolutionary Communist" radical.

Obama's Green Economy Withers Under His Rotten Policies
Roger Hedgecock
8/19/2011

President Obama promises a "new" jobs program when he gets back from vacation. But he won't change his central idea that only debt and higher-tax-fueled government spending can lead the economy out of recession. Obama's existing jobs program was based on the same premise, and it is a failure.

The new Obama jobs program has already been leaked. Infrastructure investment, extending unemployment benefits, extending the reduction in withholding, and reflating the real estate bubble by more government mortgage subsidy.

This is more of the same old, same old "government knows best" approach that has prolonged the recession and brought us 16.1% un(and under)employment and a tsunami of public debt.

What happened to the infrastructure investment from the stimulus bill? Not "shovel-ready." Fannie and Freddie have been losing billions of dollars trying to reflate the busted balloon of real estate since Obama was inaugurated. Why are home values still declining everywhere but in Washington, D.C.? Withholding was reduced last January—where are the jobs? Nancy Pelosi​ said that extending unemployment benefits was "the best way" to stimulate jobs—that was two years ago. The benefits were extended—there are more unemployed Americans than ever.

Americans are demoralized as the purchasing power of their hard-earned dollar shrinks before their eyes while the government maintains, with a straight face, that there is no inflation. Business owners are demoralized by having to comply with myriad new federal regulations imposed by Obama appointees that eat up their time and money while the President calls for cutting regulations.

The "old" Obama jobs program promised a cornucopia of new jobs from going green. Green energy projects and companies got massive injections of capital from the stimulus bill. Government Motors, flush with taxpayer cash, pushed the Volt electric car as the wave of the (nonpetroleum) future, while Obama simultaneously promised to "skyrocket" electricity rates to cut carbon emissions. The Obama Pentagon promised biofuels grown by LGBT sailors would power half the Navy's energy needs by 2020.

The yellow brick road of change led straight to the Emerald City of hope.

Now even the small man behind the curtain admits that "the shovel-ready jobs were not shovel-ready" and begs American voters to understand that the transformation to a prosperous green economy creating jobs will take a little longer than he thought. Maybe a lot longer.

I have a solar power plant on the roof of my house. I recently replaced a dozen 170-watt-rated solar panels installed five years ago with new state-of-the-art 320-watt-rated panels. Made in China. Because they are not made in Obama's America.

The market for solar panels is exploding. Solar panel production worldwide doubled from 2009 to 2010. Obama policies are driving those jobs overseas.

Evergreen Solar was the poster boy company for the new Obama green economy. Its government-subsidized solar panel manufacturing plant in Massachusetts once employed 800 workers. The plant is closed, as is Evergreen's Midland, Mich., plant. Evergreen has opened a new plant in Wuhan, China.

Solyndra, a California-based solar manufacturer that benefited from a $535 million government loan guarantee, has closed its doors too. SunPower has closed U.S. operations to move to the Philippines. First Solar has moved to Malaysia.

While there are complex reasons for this exodus of green jobs, across the industry there are common concerns.

For these companies, Obama's promotion of green jobs came with strings. Unionized workforce. Compliance with expensive environmental technology in the manufacturing process. Promotion of politically correct benefits (e.g., gay partners). Uncertain cost of electricity. The conflicting parts of the Obama Agenda doomed these companies as they competed against countries with competitive workforce costs, minimum permit processing and government regulation, easy credit, and cheap land, water and electricity.

My family owns three hybrid cars, all built by Toyota. I'd love to buy American—but there isn't one to compare. The Volt is a joke, requiring eight hours of battery charging to go 25 to 30 miles on electric power. The Toyota-made hybrids charge the battery while the car is in operation and get better overall mileage. And don't criticize me for buying foreign—even the Obama "Magical Misery" bus was made in Canada!

All of what remains of America's manufacturing base (once the "Arsenal of Democracy") is poised to flee as Obama makes good on his promised jihad against coal, which produces about 50% of the nation's electricity. Under Obama's plan, either these plants would undergo retrofits costing billions of dollars or shut down. Because no new plants will be built, or if they are built, will cost significantly more, the campaign promise to skyrocket electricity rates looks like a promise that, unlike closing Guantanamo or stopping the wars, will be kept.

Finally, I don't really know if only LGBT sailors will produce biofuels for the Navy. I do know that millions of dollars will be wasted, and many around the world will go hungry, as Obama sticks ethanol in Navy gas tanks.

"New" jobs plan same as the old jobs plan. Time for a change.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=45624