What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

So, Richard.

Do you vote?



Who is your favorite economist when it comes to your reading material?
__________________
"The more consistently Austrian an economist is, the better a writer he will be."
Murray N. Rothbard

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

...

Something about Project Gunrunner (gunwalker, fast and furious) has been bugging me but I just couldn't put my finger on it.

This morning when I woke up I remember seeing Project Gunrunner in a bill that was discussed here. The original thread about it was a rumor thread that HR45 had been rolled into the stimulus package.

In that thread I scanned the text of H.R.1 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for gun, firearm, etc and came up with a hit.

I posted in the thread: "Only time “gun” or “firearm” appears is in the part that give $10,000,000 to the ATF for Project Gunrunner. That was H.R. 495, asking for 15,000,000 for Gunrunner".

H.R. 495 that I mentioned never made it out of committee, but it looks as it was to specifically fund Gunrunner.

Instead portions of it were rolled into the stimulus package a month later. That text found in H.R.1 is:

For an additional amount for ‘State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance’, $40,000,000, for competitive grants to provide assistance and equipment to local law enforcement along the Southern border and in High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas to combat criminal narcotics activity stemming from the Southern border, of which $10,000,000 shall be transferred to ‘Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salaries and Expenses’ for the ATF Project Gunrunner.

Notice that's $40,000,000 for Southern border enforcement, $10,000,000 of which specifically for Project Gunrunner. What does $10 million pay for here? It didn't hire any new agents that I am aware of.

What this tells me is that several congressmen also had knowledge of what Gunrunner was going to entail. This isn't just the ATF and DOJ. This is all levels and areas of government. Even members of the House and Senate knew what Project Gunrunner was

Source?

No one can say they knew anything in an age where you first pass the bill, then you discover what was in it...

 

[RightField]

I just find that particular statement to be laughable. I hear it all the time from Republicans but they don't make a case for it. Not a real one. I get the "American poor people have televisions and playstations!". Well such a thing didn't even exist a generation ago and televisions (as long as you don't throw rocks at them) have this habit of living for a while. There are two televisions (and a microwave and a slow cooker) in my house that are older than me. That doesn't make me rich. Find me some numbers on poor folks with HD tvs and maybe. I hear our poor live on par with European Middle Class. Please deliver facts and figures. Anything aside from we own more cars and more land. We don't have functional mass transit and our country is as big as their continent. Us being spread out a bit more isn't a case in and of itself. Present your argument please.

I think the more important fact is that "being poor" is a transient thing...that very few people remain "poor" for as long as 2 years. This is based on census figures. The old wisdom that Bill Cosby used to impart was that if you finished high school and waited until you were married to have children, you wouldn't be poor" which implies there's some level of choice in the matter. While Bush was President and there were jobs to be had, including entry level jobs, I believe that the figure was that 98% of the "poor" (lowest quintile) were "poor" for less than 2 years, or, conversely, only 2% remained in the lowest quintile for as long as 2 years.

Things have certainly changed in the Obama economy and there are many more long-term "poor" now because he's significantly retarded the economy and made jobs much more scarce. The irony is that Obama was overwhelmingly supported by the black vote (95%) and yet the black population has probably suffered more as a whole under Obama than they have in any administration in the last 40 or 50 years (the black unemployment rate and the black teen unemployment rate is scandalouls).

Typically, being "poor" only lasts as long as unemployment lasts or getting a couple years past an entry level jobs for healthy and non-substance abusers. Experience, reliability and a proven track record bring financial benefits to those who show some level of industriousness. Of course, with the democrats trying to "help the poor" by promising to tax everyone to cover their irresponsible spending, punishing business and creating investments in dead-end efforts like windmills, is making jobs scarce and contributing to the creation of long-term poor who can't find jobs.

Doh!

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Lessons on maintaining a Lost Decade.

Focus on goals, like the automotive and oil industries...

Run the price of gas up to save the environment at the expense of the economy...

From the beginning of his appearance on the national stage, Obama has focused on the goal of driving up energy prices with the idea of "weaning" America off fossil fuels. He has succeeded in driving up prices, all right, but not in reducing dependence on fossil fuels. According to "The Outlook for Energy 2011," fossil fuels now supply 80% of global demand. That percentage will remain unchanged through 2030 despite hundreds of billions in subsidies squandered on wind and solar.

Nor has Obama succeeded in reducing our dependence on foreign sources of oil. According to the American Petroleum Institute imports now amount to some 11 million barrels per day or 56% of deliveries. That compares with 35% in 1973 and 42% in 1990. Despite imposition of strict mileage standards and the burden of higher prices on the consumer, the level of imports has not declined significantly under President Obama.

In fact, Obama's energy policies have created the worst of all possible worlds for American consumers: higher prices and continued dependency on imported oil.
Now, in the ongoing deficit reduction talks, the President is insisting on cutting $45 billion of incentives for oil and gas companies over the next decade. The Democrats like to portray these incentives as "special breaks" for Big Oil, but in fact they are no different from expensing and depreciation allowances enjoyed by most manufacturing businesses. In reality, Obama's proposal has nothing to do with "special breaks" for oil companies. Instead, it is a "special tax" aimed specifically at oil and gas.

The proposed $45-billion tax on America's oil companies would be in addition to the excessive and disproportionate taxes already paid by the industry. The oil majors already pay $35.7 billion in taxes annually. That's 41.1% of net income, far more than the average of 26% for S&P500 companies outside the energy sector (2009 figures). Between 1980 and 2009 American oil and gas companies paid $1 trillion in taxes, and at current levels American producers will be paying another $714 billion in taxes over the next decade.

No unbiased observer can say that the American oil and gas industry is under-taxed. And yet Obama wants to pile on more taxes with the aim of bringing some of our nation's greatest corporations under the heel of government control.

Oil and gas is one sector where American companies still enjoy a distinct advantage over foreign competitors in the form of superior management and technological know-how. It is one area, in other words, where American workers are able to compete effectively with foreign workers. A $45-billion tax would go a long way toward destroying that advantage. Obama's energy tax would also reduce funds available for exploration and production, thus reducing output and raising the cost of energy for American consumers. It would reduce domestic production, thus exacerbating our balance of payments problem. It would put American energy companies at a disadvantage to foreign competitors, thus reducing the number of jobs for American workers in the oil and gas sector.

This, of course, is exactly what the President wants. By driving up gas prices, Obama hopes to force Americans to purchase hybrid and electric vehicles. And by reducing the size and influence of America's oil and gas companies, Obama plans to make these companies even more susceptible to government control and de facto nationalization.

Just how high gas prices will go is a matter of serious debate at the present time. Despite recent declines and futures prices that suggest the possibility of further declines in the near term, the price of oil may be headed up. Respected energy analysts have suggested that oil may hit $170 a barrel by spring 2012. That would translate into $7 a gallon at the pump.

If American drivers are angry at paying $4 a gallon, they would be furious when gas hits $7. But Obama knows that their fury will be directed at oil companies. At that point he could score points by proposing another windfall profits tax, enough to drive prices up even further.

For this President the goal all along has been $10 gas, and he is closer to achieving it than most observers realize. If Obama manages to negotiate $45 billion of new taxes on oil companies, those taxes will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. Combine that with the spike in global oil prices that many predict and further "windfall" taxes on oil companies once they have been forced to raise prices at the pump, and you have $10 gas.

The best part for Obama is that he gets to pretend he had nothing to do with it. After all, he has been a leading critic of "greedy oil companies." He has supported one proposal after another for "punishing" Big Oil. Despite the fact that oil companies have been pleading with the Obama administration for the chance to drill offshore and bring down prices, they are the guilty ones, and he is somehow on the side of the struggling middle class.

Yes, and he is also the chief architect of $10 gas.

That's what Obama is trying to do with his $45 billion in new taxes. Since America's oil companies already pay 41% of their profits in taxes, piling on more taxes has nothing to do with "fairness." It is merely a step toward one of the left's cherished goals: Chavez-style nationalization of the energy industry and ultimately of the entire economy.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/obamas_plan_for_10_gas.html

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

The Stimulus Was a Success
...unless you wanted it to stimulate anything.
Tim Cavanaugh
July 7, 2011

Here's a billion-dollar piece of news that's shuffling right by while the best minds of our generation debate whether the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) did or did not create a private jet tax break:

The state of California is getting a cool $838,680,283 in ARRA cash—not to save, create, or fund any jobs but to maintain the unemployment program in a state Standard & Poor’s says still hasn’t got its budget house in order.

This fraction of the total stimulus demonstrates an essential truth about the $787 billion Recovery Act, one that the perpetrators of President Barack Obama’s economic policies have just begun to mention in guarded, gingerly terms: The ARRA, either by design or by evolution, ended up functioning as a budget stopgap for existing government programs, not as Keynesian stimulus.

Though you can’t call it stimulative, you can say some other things about California’s unemployment windfall. Many studies, such as this one [pdf] from JPMorgan, have argued that enhancing unemployment benefits increases the unemployment rate in two ways: by subsidizing idleness, thus driving up the average duration of a person’s unemployment; and by discouraging people from dropping out of the labor force entirely.

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the union-backed Political Economy Research Institute question the first part of that disincentive equation—the money-for-nothing part. But the second part—the false elevation in the rate of labor force participation—seems to be supported by Labor Department statistics that show the U.S. rate of labor participation dropped 4 percent over the last 10 years, but has been absolutely flat, at 64.2 percent, since Congress approved $57 billion in extended jobless benefits in December 2010.

The implications for California’s continuing viability are even less ambiguous. Being able to offload payment of unemployment insurance (UI) to the Federal government might give Sacramento the appearance of having gained a cost-free inbound migrant. (Using Brown’s estimate of 26,000, the DOL’s contribution amounts to $32,256.93 per person.) But the reality is that another non-working person has just moved into a state with an 11.7 percent unemployment rate and an accelerating departure rate of productive business.

In their May study, “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: Public Sector Jobs Saved, Private Sector Jobs Forestalled” [pdf], economists Timothy Conley (University of Western Ontario) and Bill Dupor (Ohio State University) try to provide the mechanism to explain a phenomenon seen throughout the country during the period of maximum ARRA stimulus: As unemployment continued to climb, public-sector jobs grew in number and salary. Here’s the brief explanation:

ARRA created/saved approximately 450 thousand state and local government jobs and destroyed/forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs. State and local government jobs were saved because ARRA funds were largely used to offset state revenue shortfalls and Medicaid increases rather than boost private sector employment.

Conley and Dupor use more equations than a simple-hearted soul should trust, and the necessary data are not all there. (“It is important to note that we do not have enough precision in our estimates to conclude that number of jobs lost/destroyed was (probably) greater than the number created/saved.”) But they detail the nitty gritty of ARRA handouts. Some ARRA funds were relatively fungible, allowing states to use them to boost general funds rather than engage in stimulus. But even when federal payments were legally committed to be spent in a certain way, this allowed states to reduce their own spending in this area. Texas, for example, reduced its spending on highway, bridge, and street construction from $3.38 billion in 2009 to $2.82 billion in 2010—the period when it was receiving $700 million in ARRA infrastructure stimulus.

In some cases funds came with a requirement that states match federal spending, but the number of states that responded to ARRA funding by diverting spending to other areas is striking. It also makes more sense than anything else we have learned about the stimulus. The states were in, and remain in, the most severe fiscal crisis of the postwar period, and stimulus funds helped cover some of the shortfall. Jared Bernstein, the failed former economic advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, hints at this achievement when he says, “That ain’t nothing” to describe the ARRA’s achievement.

Of course, it also ain’t what the voters were told to expect from the stimulus. And it turned out to be only a temporary solution, as state and local governments have again run out of other people's money and are laying employees off anyway. But Bernstein's right: By the strictest possible definition, the stimulus was not nothing.

It will take years to figure out where the entire $787 billion went, but the evidence that keeps coming in suggests it went to tide over broke state governments; backfill unfunded commitments to public employees; extend rent control and homeowner assistance; and support film schools in a moviemaking backwater called Hollywood. But more than any of those, it went to tide over broke state governments.

http://reason.com/archives/2011/07/07/the-stimulus-was-a-success

 

[busybody..]

U.S. nonfarm payrolls expand by 18,000 in June; jobless rate 9.2%


AWESOME, great job NIGGER


Yesterday, ADP reports 147K jobs "created" and now 18K?

ADP is owned by teh JEW, NNIGGER PROTECTOR and DUMOH Senator, Lautenberg,

SO DID HE LIE TO PROTECT TEH NIGGER?

Questions are being axed

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

That means the economy is recovering and people are looking for work!




The lagging indicator is a positive sign no matter WHICH way it points...

Watch, wait, we've been here before...

CSN&Y

We know just what to do, wouldn't you?

 

[busybody..]

so yesterday, WHITE GUY and NIGGER PROTECTOR, D Pouloffe, the NIGGER chief campaign strategist

said

Unemployemnt WONT be an issue in 2012


He sounds like LOON POON

 

[busybody..]

9.2% and teh economy is improving,

5.2% under Bushco it was THE WORST economy since H Hoover


Wonder how many of teh 18K were at McDonalds?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

It won't be an issue; next year we'll have a summer of recovery...

 

[busybody..]

SO IS THIS THE HOPE, OR THE CHANGE? Unemployment rises to 9.2 pct. in June, employers add only 18,000 jobs.

Bloomberg’s got the inevitable take: “U.S. employers added 18,000 workers in June, less than forecast and the fewest in nine months, while the unemployment rate unexpectedly climbed, indicating a struggling labor market.” Plus this: “The so-called underemployment rate — which includes part- time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking — increased to 16.2 percent from 15.8 percent.”

And: “By a 44 percent to 34 percent margin, Americans say they believe they are worse off than when Obama took office, according to a Bloomberg National Poll conducted June 17-20.”

Conclusive proof

POON LOON

is

Anti

American​

 

[busybody..]

POON LOON, I gave you MOODY's contact, didya call em????

[Fill In Blank] Industry Furious At Obama

Another week, another sector of American industry angry at the president.

This week, it’s the jet industry, according to the Daily Caller:

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPO) President Craig Fuller told The Daily Caller that Obama’s comments have cast a pall over the industry, causing many who were considering buying a plane to back away from making a purchase.

“The industry has suffered terribly in the last two and a half years and it has just started to recover. Most of the signs were starting to look good,” said Fuller. “We are so angry as an industry and we have all come together to try to bring a more fair and balanced description to the debate.”

In response to Obama’s press conference, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) and International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) issued a letter to the president. The two organizations challenged the administration’s rhetoric and recalled a similar instance in which 20,000 IAM workers were laid off as a result of “ill-informed criticism of corporate jets and business aviation” and the 2008 downturn.

“Words have consequences and, in this industry, a few misguided words can put at risk even the ever-so-modest recovery we have experienced,” said IAM International President Tom Buffenbarger. “What this industry and its workforce requires is more time to recover, a chance to book more orders and the opportunity to recall more workers.”

The president himself saw a benefit in providing tax breaks for corporate jets just in the past couple of years, signing two pieces of legislation that contained such provisions: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the Small Business Lending Fund Act.

Indeed, one of of the greatest perks of being president is flying in the most private jet of all, Air Force One. According to Fuller, Obama has flown Air Force One more than any other president in history.

Nevertheless, the industry has felt Obama’s wrath.

So starting as a presidential candidate, Obama has:

•Called for bankrupting the coal industry.
•Raised gas prices by forcing domestic production to a crawl.
•Demonized bankers and automatic teller machines.
•Went to war against Fox News, talk radio, and Twitter user Kevin Eder.
•Alienated Wall Street, which backed him in 2008 — and will probably do so again.
•Nationalized the car industry.
•Forced Chrysler to terminate 25 percent of its auto dealers.
•Demonized Las Vegas.
•Alinskyized the Chamber of Commerce.
•Blocked Boeing from expanding into a Right to Work State.
•Is busy transforming the insurance industry into the equivalent of quasi-government utilities.
•Created an uncertain (to say the least) regulatory environment, making new hiring a challenging proposition.
•And is now Alisnkyizing private planes, despite having temporary custody of the greatest “private” plane of all.​

Other than ambulance-chasing trial lawyers, leftwing, uber-PC Hollywood, Silicon Valley (where Al Gore sits on the board of Apple), and the would-be builders of the Ground Zero Mosque, is there any sector of American business who isn’t furious with Obama? But of course, because of social issues, unionization and sheer inertia, they’ll all vote for him next year, right?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Sideshow Barry Barker 2012 Says: "It's NOT the economy, Stupid!" It's the Birthers! The Tea Party! SARAH PALIN!
RACISM!!!
ATMs & CORPORATE JETS!!!
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/files/2011/04/obama-wide-grin80.jpg

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

[Fill In Blank] Industry Furious At Obama

Another week, another sector of American industry angry at the president.

This week, it’s the jet industry, according to the Daily Caller:

...

So starting as a presidential candidate, Obama has:

•Called for bankrupting the coal industry.
•Raised gas prices by forcing domestic production to a crawl.
•Demonized bankers and automatic teller machines.
•Went to war against Fox News, talk radio, and Twitter user Kevin Eder.
•Alienated Wall Street, which backed him in 2008 — and will probably do so again.
•Nationalized the car industry.
•Forced Chrysler to terminate 25 percent of its auto dealers.
•Demonized Las Vegas.
•Alinskyized the Chamber of Commerce.
•Blocked Boeing from expanding into a Right to Work State.
•Is busy transforming the insurance industry into the equivalent of quasi-government utilities.
•Created an uncertain (to say the least) regulatory environment, making new hiring a challenging proposition.
•And is now Alisnkyizing private planes, despite having temporary custody of the greatest “private” plane of all.​

Other than ambulance-chasing trial lawyers, leftwing, uber-PC Hollywood, Silicon Valley (where Al Gore sits on the board of Apple), and the would-be builders of the Ground Zero Mosque, is there any sector of American business who isn’t furious with Obama? But of course, because of social issues, unionization and sheer inertia, they’ll all vote for him next year, right?

You have nothing to fear economically but fear itself!

 

[busybody..]

Sideshow Barry Barker 2012 Says: "It's NOT the economy, Stupid!" It's the Birthers! The Tea Party! SARAH PALIN!
RACISM!!!
ATMs & CORPORATE JETS!!!
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/files/2011/04/obama-wide-grin80.jpg

DUMMY

You forgot

M Bachman is a LOON

and

H Cain is a RACIST

 

[unregistered]

 

[Sean Renaud]

I think the more important fact is that "being poor" is a transient thing...that very few people remain "poor" for as long as 2 years.

Typically, being "poor" only lasts as long as unemployment lasts or getting a couple years past an entry level jobs for healthy and non-substance abusers. Experience, reliability and a proven track record bring financial benefits to those who show some level of industriousness. Of course, with the democrats trying to "help the poor" by promising to tax everyone to cover their irresponsible spending, punishing business and creating investments in dead-end efforts like windmills, is making jobs scarce and contributing to the creation of long-term poor who can't find jobs.

Doh!

Seeing how somewhere between 48 and 51 percent of Americans (It seems to vary from source to source) are so poor they don't pay taxes I gotta call BS that the poor don't remain poor for two years or more. I mean the idea that sucess is so fleeting in America that bottom half is constantly moving through the upper ranks only to return to the poor or send new poor down sounds like bullshit on its face to me. Doesn't it sound like bullshit to you?

Unless cars, car maintaince (including gas), clothing, rent, food and people maintenence is irresponsible spending you need to rephrase that as: Democrats try to create opportunities for the poor by freeing what little money they have to spend either on starting businesses or at least supporting them.

Even if windmills were dead end (and I'm of mixed feelings) investing in them wouldn't and couldn't make jobs scarce. Investing in people dressing up like Spiderman in the hopes that we could capture the villian Electro and us him to power a city would create jobs. Stupid jobs but jobs for as long as that money held out.

 

[busybody..]

Just as Obama begins to come, BusyBody rushes into the room crashing together two trashcan lids like big cymbals.

you can count on Ole Loon, BusyBody to crash a party with HO!

Wherever

Whenever

 

[busybody..]

I suspect, LOON POON is busy getting talking points from teh "WHITE" House

how to spin this shit

Or he is in the ARMED FORCES saving

America

From our enemies

All the while

Managing and creating 12 billion jobs

and

Posting on LIT

POON LOON=DA MAN!​

 

[busybody..]

did I say 12 billion?

yup,

hell

if teh "WHITE" Hiuse can make shit up

why cant BUSYBODY make shit up

 

[koalabear]

Hiring slowed to a near-standstill in June


And the number of jobs added in May was revised down to 25,000. The nation’s unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2 percent.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43682716/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

 

[richard_daily]

So, Richard.

Do you vote?



Who is your favorite economist when it comes to your reading material?
__________________
"The more consistently Austrian an economist is, the better a writer he will be."
Murray N. Rothbard

ALL OF THEM!

 

[busybody..]

Hiring slowed to a near-standstill in June


And the number of jobs added in May was revised down to 25,000. The nation’s unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2 percent.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43682716/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

MSNBC is NOT credible

MOODY'S and POON LOON said all is well

 

[koalabear]

MSNBC is NOT credible

MOODY'S and POON LOON said all is well

Moody's says it's all cool if we agree to go deeper in debt.

 

[busybody..]

From Todays headlines


WH: Jobless rate can drop to 8.2% -- by the end of 2012!..........How teh fuck do they know, they have been 100% wrong so far

OBAMA: 'Things can get better'...Yes, when you are out of office, NIGGER

Now Ready to 'Roll up Sleeves'...NIGGER been saying that for 2 years, Go on another vaction, NIGGER and STFU

REPORT: Obama Planned Montana Vacation This Weekend...This after telling Congress to stay in Wash and WORK

FLASHBACK: Pelosi vows health care reform will create 400,000 'almost immediately'... BITCH LIED!!!!!!!!!! IS ANYONE GONNA CALL HER ON IT?