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

[Wat_Tyler]

Now that is what I call useful economic information.



Thanks!

You're very welcome. I depend on tools to find stimulus, and I hate buying shit.


I like to try to do things once, right, the first time.


Which reminds me, I need a new hammer drill. I killed the old one after 15 years. That was a Porter-Cable. I never liked it, but I had to admire its tenacity.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I once picked up this gem, back in the 60s from a book of country humor full of such truisms as, "When in a duck blind, a wool glove always beats a cotton bandana."


The definition of a lazy man is a man who gets the job done right the first time so he doesn't have to do it again.
Bob Owens (? citation needed )

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Colo(u)r me lazy then.


Same reason I hate punch lists - I hate going back.


Once is definitely enough.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

So, in summation, we see that once is twice the price!

Because twice is half the price.


Community College Economics 101

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I am better stimulated by one-trip working, especially if I priced a punch trip in.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I am stimulated by the thought of becoming Korean-style management.




All of the prestige and none of the responsibility!


Like being the POTUS!

 

[rosco rathbone]

rosco, if you drop by this morning, this one's for you:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/how_to_win_power_by_selling_out_your_own_union.html

Thanks for the article. Confirms my intuition that the times are ripe for a George Wallace type figure.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Thanks for the article. Confirms my intuition that the times are ripe for a George Wallace type figure.

You are very welcome sir.


Since it is my birthday, I am giving out presents.

 

[koalabear]

I'll never buy DeWalt again.



I had two drills for all of about six months each. I'd use them for a bit, they would get to smoking and then they would quit and that wasn't even with over-use or abuse.



I stick with Craftsman now, not for the quality, but for the warranty.

Stop trying to drill holes with the drill in reverse.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Stop trying to drill holes with the drill in reverse.

lmao...



But I drilled in the wrong place and I wanted the hole to go away...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Finally, a positive jobs report the country hasn’t seen since 2009. So, is this validation for the Obama Administration adding the equivalent of two Russias in deficit spending?

Think again.

"We've lost our ambition, our -- our imagination, and -- and -- our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam and unleashed all the potential in this country.” — President Obama, October 2011

Yes it sure sounds like good news from the Labor Dept., which announced that the unemployment rate fell to 8.5% last month, the lowest since March 2009, and that the economy added 200,000 new jobs in November. The trend is positive. December was the sixth month in a row in which the U.S. added at least 100,000 jobs.

But unscramble the eggs from this report, and you’ll find the caveats.

The U.S. added 1.64 million jobs to the economy last year, and yes, that's the most in a number of years.

But the 2011 monthly average of job creation is still at 137,000. It would take at least the next three years, and job creation of at least 360,000 jobs each month, to drive the unemployment rate down below 7.4%, the Maginot Line at which Presidents are re-elected.

The unemployment rate among college students is 23%; among African American men, 15.8%.The underemployed and the unemployed now stand at 20 million, or 15.6%. A huge 13.1 million people are still unemployed, with 43% of them having been out of work for more than six months.

About 350,000 people dropped out of the labor force in November. The labor force is lower now than it was ten years ago.

The unemployment rate would be about 10.5% if the size of the workforce were the same as when President Obama was elected. So the trend of the jobless rate going down is good, the trend of people dropping out is not good. Meanwhile, our war veterans are coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

“That’s why the American Recovery & Reinvestment Plan won’t just throw money at our problems, we’ll invest in what works.” — President Obama, January 2009, before green energy companies like Solyndra got federal money and failed.

Many of the jobs added were in transport and retail for the holiday season, some 50,000 in transport and warehousing, and about 28,000 in retail. Those are seasonal, temporary jobs that don’t pay well, and history shows the Labor Department tries mightily to adjust for seasonality, but it's been known to miss the mark with its adjustments.

Meanwhile, manufacturing job creation remains moribund, and state and local governments cut 20,000 jobs in the public sector.

"Our stimulus plan will likely save or create three to four million jobs, 90% of these jobs will be created in the private sector." — President Obama, January 2009

The U.S. lost 8.8 million jobs in the financial crackup, which truly was an historic event. The country has regained just 28% of the 8.8 million jobs lost--a far cry from the up to four million promised from spending $800 billion or so of your tax dollars on the President's stimulus plan.

“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." — President Obama, June 2008

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/2012/01/06/unbearable-rightness-being/#ixzz1ixndxgxy
__________________
I always tell Malia and Sasha, look, you guys, I don't worry about you. I mean, I worry the way parents worry, but they’re on a path that is going to be successful, even if the country as a whole is not successful.”
President Barack Obama, November 2011

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

A trend I spotted is state's contracting social service to non-profits, and the non-profits cutting employee pay about 40%.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

A trend I spotted is state's contracting social service to non-profits, and the non-profits cutting employee pay about 40%.

Yeah, we're contracting and we know it despite the efforts of the King's criers...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Good Economic News!

What does it take to get Democrats on the side of small business? Apparently, a threat to small business in their home states.

The New England fishing industry, one of the staples of the Northeastern economy for centuries, is now seeing small boats going out of business at an alarming rate because of the new regulations pushed by the Obama administration and the green lobby. Called “catch-shares,” the regulations are supposed to create an individual quota system to help fisheries stay viable by giving them a proprietary interest in the fish stocks.

Yet according to a story by the Washington Examiner, that’s not what’s happening:

The culprit is the “catch-shares” — i.e. individual fishing quotas — program started in May 2010 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Under the system, transferable vouchers entitle fishermen to a certain percentage of the total allowable catch of a given species of fish.

Implemented properly, catch-shares are allocated as individual fishing quotas, which give fishermen a property right in the stocks they fish. This gives them an incentive to ensure that fish stocks stay healthy and grow, as has happened in Iceland and New Zealand, for example.

However, that is not the model NOAA has followed. American fishermen have no property rights. Moreover, the total allowable catch has been set far below the level needed to sustain fisheries.

According to the Examiner, fisherman Daniel Bubb caught 220,000 pounds of codfish in the year before the system was implemented. In the first year of the catch-share policy, he caught 11,000 pounds, of which he was only allowed to sell 9,000 pounds. What he had to do with the ton of fish he wasn’t allowed to sell we don’t know.

Worse, according to the Examiner, it’s putting boats out of business by the job lot:

This is not an isolated incident. In those American fisheries that have been subjected to catch-share regulations (excluding recently affected New England), Food & Water Watch magazine found that only 37 percent of boats survived the transition.

New England’s fishing industry is similarly plummeting, despite being affected by the regulations for less than a year. In five months, over half of the Northeast’s fishing fleet had been lost.

The trend is likely to continue, as catch-share permissions are being consolidated into just a few, wealthy, well-connected hands. Of the 247 ground-fishing vessels (which catch fish that swim close to the sea floor) in New England that are still active, 55 boats accounted for 61 percent of the revenue.

The person who has been put in charge of the fishing industry through her directorship of NOAA, Jane Lubchenco, has no background in fisheries at all. In fact, she was vice president of the non-governmental organization Environmental Defense Fund, and has said that science would guide the agency and that she expects it to play a role in developing a green economy.

The problem: her “science” is apparently off.

According to the New York Times, while the scientists claim the fish are in worse shape than thought, the men who actually catch the fish are seeing more, and there are conflicting studies as well:

Federal regulators are considering the unthinkable in New England: severely restricting — maybe even shutting down — cod fishing in the Gulf of Maine, from north of Cape Cod clear up to Canada. New data suggest that the status of the humble fish that has sustained the region for centuries is much worse than previously thought.

Fishermen insist that there are plenty of cod and that the real problem is fuzzy science. They say the data are grossly inconsistent, pointing to a 2008 federal report that concluded that Gulf of Maine cod, though historically overfished, were well on the way to recovery.

The man in charge of the catch-share program who was responsible for the devastation to the Northeastern fishing fleet, Dale Jones, was abruptly reassigned back in 2010 amid bipartisan pressure. While no official reason for his departure as the head of NOAA’s law enforcement has been given, it apparently had something to do with a document-shredding scandal.*

According to an editorial in the Salem Times, everyone from Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown (R) to Representative Barney Frank (D) are dumbfounded by fishing policy at NOAA. They quoted Brown as saying:

Just a few weeks ago, Administrator Lubchenco told us at a hearing in Boston that the fishing industry is on the rebound. That incredible statement demonstrated a total lack of understanding of the situation in Gloucester, New Bedford and across New England. I hoped that she would stick around to get the real facts from the fishermen and scientists assembled to testify after her. Instead, she left early.

The editorial continued:

[Brown’s] statement echoes the sentiments expressed by his Democratic colleagues, Sen. John Kerry and Congressmen John Tierney of Salem and Barney Frank, along with many others in this region.

According to a letter obtained by PJ Media, Reps John Tierney (D-MA) and Elijah Cummings (D-MD) are both trying to find out exactly why Jones was reassigned:

“In 2010, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reassigned Dale Jones, the former head of the Office for Law Enforcement. We are writing to request a briefing regarding the rationale for this decision. Although the Privacy Act may prevent the Department from releasing some of this information publicly, the Department is authorized to release such information to Congress.”

...

http://pjmedia.com/blog/new-regulations-crush-new-england-fisheries/?singlepage=true

* Something in common with Kathleen Sebelius...

A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States...,
John P. Holdren
White House Office of Science and Technology Director

 

[koalabear]

Stocks rise ahead of KK report

Dow 12,393.56 +33.64

 

[rosco rathbone]

"You have to ask the question, is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and then walk off with the money?”

-Newt Gingrich




Newt Gingrich???????????

You guys better get your house in order. People are out of line, dissing capitalism!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

-Newt Gingrich




Newt Gingrich???????????

You guys better get your house in order. People are out of line, dissing capitalism!

How's that Rick Perry working out for you?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Ben Bernanke presided over his first meeting as Federal Reserve chairman in March 2006 believing the nation's economy could pull off a "soft landing" from falling home prices. Three months later, Bernanke had begun to grasp that he and others had underestimated the risk housing posed to the economy.

Newly released transcripts of Fed meetings during Bernanke's first year as chairman show that, among Fed officials, he often expressed the most concern about housing. But no official, according to the transcripts, recognized the extent of the damage a housing bubble would cause. A year later, the housing market's collapse helped send the nation into its worst recession since the Great Depression.

In fact, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, then a Fed official, expressed confidence in September 2006 that "collateral damage" from housing could be avoided. The transcripts released Thursday covered the eight meetings of the central bank's chief policy-making body, the Federal Open Market Committee, during 2006. That included the last meeting of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in January of that year and Bernanke's first meeting in March after he had succeeded Greenspan as chairman.

The Fed releases minutes of the FOMC discussions three weeks after the meetings but full transcripts do not come out until five years later.

Isn't that right after George Bush tried to blow the whistle?

Isn't that when Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Maxine Waters were trying to destroy Bush and proclaim Freddie and Fannie sound?

By contrast, Geithner, who was then president of the Fed's New York regional bank, expressed more confidence that the economy could weather the troubles in housing, saying the issue would be the impact on consumer and business spending.

"We just don't see troubling signs yet of collateral damage and we are not expecting much," Geithner said at the September FOMC meeting.

The discussion by the members of the FOMC, the Fed board members in Washington and 12 regional bank presidents, gave no indication that any of them foresaw the devastating impact that the collapse of the housing bubble would have. The country fell into a deep recession and severe financial crisis that led to the loss of more than 8 million jobs.

Bernanke and other Fed officials have said that they failed to see the severity of the shock waves from the housing bust. But the transcripts of their closed-door discussions in 2006 provide new details about how the central bank was responding to the unfolding crisis.

The transcripts of the final meeting of the year, in December, showed that Bernanke was still expecting that the economy would experience a "soft landing" in which growth would slow enough to cool inflation but not drop into a recession.

His comments came a year before the start of the Great Recession, which economists say began in December 2007 and lasted until June 2009.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120113/D9S7RM1G4.html

 

[koalabear]

Stocks fall on Europe worries...................yet again

Dow 12,348.49 -122.53

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I KNOW!!!



Let's try another round of general inflation!

If we print it, they'll spend it...

This time!

Federal Reserve officials are seriously considering giving the US economy—and especially the housing market—an added jolt with more quantitative easing.

Fed officials are likely to discuss such a move at their Jan. 24-25 meeting, when the central bank will issue its first quarterly forecast on interest rates under the new communication policy.

Two of the new voting members this year on the Federal Open Market Committee , which sets interest-rate policy, have recently suggested they would support more assets purchases.

San Francisco Fed President John Williams said that sustained high levels of unemployment, as forecast by many Fed members, "does make an argument that we should have more stimulus."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45977098

No idea too bad to double-down on in the world of Socialist Economics.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

In other Fed news...

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans said the drop in the unemployment rate to 8.5 percent may be partially reversed in coming months.

“I’m a little concerned that the most recent improvement is going to be transitory and it might move up above 8.5 percent,” Evans said in response to audience questions after a speech today in Carmel, Indiana.

Evans said he forecasts that “at the end of the year, we’re not going to be very different from 8.5 percent unemployment.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...y-risks-errors-of-japan-great-depression.html

But, hey, that's good news. It seems like just two years ago we were getting lectured on how an improving economy causes people to rush into the workforce raising the unemployment rate and the price of gasoline...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

There’s a very troubled company out there called U.S. Government, Inc. It’s teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. And it badly needs to be taken over and turned around. It probably even needs the services of a good private-equity firm, with plenty of experience and a reasonably good track record in downsizing, modernizing, shrinking staff, and making substantial changes in management. Yes, layoffs will be a necessary part of the restructuring.

A quick look at the income statement of this troubled firm tells the story. Just in the past year (FY 2011) the firm spent $3.7 trillion, but took in only $2.2 trillion in sales revenues. Hence its deficit came to $1.5 trillion.

Just in the first three months of the new year (FY 2012), the firm’s troubles continued. Outlays for all purposes came in at $874 billion, but income was only $554 billion. So the shortfall was $320 billion. No hope of a self-imposed turnaround here. Indeed, both the senior management and the board of directors show no signs of making major changes to their business strategy.

Hope for future profits? That’s out of the question. The firms only chance of survival is a takeover.

Worldwide employment for U.S. Government, Inc. is estimated to be over two million, a completely unmanageable number for a venture like this. Total compensation for this company is roughly twice the level of its private-sector counterparts. And its retirement and health-insurance benefits are so large in relation to contributions paid that its benefit plans are careening toward insolvency.

In fact, the total debt of this firm now equals its total income — an unsustainable position that suggests to many observers that future financing needs will not be met.

The product line of this troubled firm has been rejected over and over by growing segments of its customer base. And its product pricing (taxes) is not even remotely competitive. Even worse, heavily unionized work rules and regulations are so onerous that the prospects for even reasonable productivity and efficiency are long gone.

Its credit rating? That’s been marked down, with more downgrades expected in the future.

The very troubled U.S. Government, Inc. had long been either number one or in the top three worldwide in terms of economic freedom. But as a result of all these deteriorating conditions, it has fallen four years in a row in this category, slipping all the way to tenth. In fact, over the past ten years, the firm has barely grown and its share price has been flat. Without the kind of radical change that comes from a takeover and turnaround, more economic slippage is baked in the cake.

Restructuring this company seems a hopeless proposition. But wait a minute. There’s a highly regarded private-equity operation located in Boston that has a good (but not perfect) track record in turning around hopeless ventures. Though there have been failures for this firm, notable successes include Staples, The Sports Authority, Domino’s Pizza, and Steel Dynamics.

Anyone operating in business knows full well that even the smartest reorganizing firms are prone to failure as well as success in our free-market capitalist system. But the customer base of the troubled U.S. Government, Inc. seems like it is desperate enough to go the takeover route.

Some are concerned that private-equity specialists are too hard hearted. But in these tough times, people are willing to take a risk. That even includes the current CEO of the failed U.S. Government, Inc., one Barack Obama. He just announced plans to merge the Department of Commerce, the Small Business Administration, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. In other words, he’s borrowing a private-equity tactic.

Alas, this move is way too small and way too late. Much more radical surgery will be necessary.

Larry Kudlow
NRO

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

If French President Nicolas Sarkozy wasn’t the superstitious type before Friday, he surely is now after ratings agency Standard and Poor’s stripped France of its AAA credit rating.

Austria also lost its AAA rating, while several other eurozone countries for whom AAA status is a distant memory, including Italy and Spain, were further downgraded. The announcement reflects continued skepticism by financial markets that Europe is serious about tackling its debt crisis, or capable of doing so.

As if that news wasn’t bad enough, talks between Greece and its creditors broke down Thursday, raising the possibility that the next round of bailout cash for the country will be withheld, and increasing the likelihood of a “hard” Greek default which could spark a new banking crisis.

The rash of downgrades also further dents the fragile credibility of the European bailout fund, which depends on several of the affected countries, notably France, for funding. Announcing the downgrades, S&P said: “Today’s rating actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by European policymakers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully address ongoing systemic stresses in the eurozone.”

The downgrade of France is especially significant because it finally puts paid to the myth of France leading Europe as an equal partner with Germany — France is now well on its way to becoming just another euro basket-case. The news is a humiliation for Sarkozy, and it may well put paid to his dwindling chances of victory in April’s presidential election.

The probable winner, Socialist Francois Hollande, has already pledged to reverse Sarkozy’s modest pension and employment reforms, and renegotiate the deal to shore up the eurozone which was agreed in December of last year. His election would likely hasten the end of the eurozone in its current form.

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/01/13/a-eurozone-horror-show-for-friday-13th/

How much money has our Fed and Banks invested directly and by way of the IMF in this failing Socialistic Venture [in] "Capitalism?"

Someone ate my choc'lates...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The Leaf-Blower Paradox and the Fundamental Fallacy of Obamanomics
Posted By Zombie On January 13, 2012 @ 3:42 pm In Uncategorized | 18 Comments

Earlier this week President Obama articulated how he understands the concept of employment, explaining that, in his view of the universe, bureaucratic regulations are a good way to create jobs:

Obama Says ‘EPA regulations create jobs’

“When we put in place new common-sense rules to reduce air pollution, we create new jobs building and installing all sorts of pollution-control technology.”

Yes, seriously, he said that. The President of the United States said it.

Obama’s fundamental misapprehension of employment economics reminds me of an intriguing paradox I observed first-hand just a few months ago when I visited a relative who lived in a suburban tract:

Twice a week, my relative hired a “gardener” to clean up the front yard. I put “gardener” in quotes because this young hardworking immigrant didn’t actually know anything about plants or gardens; basically his only task was to get rid of the leaves that fell from the trees in front of the house. He achieved this very quickly and efficiently by using a gas-powered leaf-blower. Perhaps when he was first hired his technique was to blow all the leaves into a big pile which he would then load into his truck for removal. A few may have gone into the neighbors’ yards, but hey, they were out of my relative’s yard, so problem solved. I imagine that over time, as he got hired by more and more people in the tract due to his low rates, he worked quicker and quicker and sloppier and sloppier, until the day I observed him, when he no longer even made a pretense of gathering the leaves into a pile; instead, he just blew them all into the neighbors’ yards, and then hopped into his truck and drove off to his next client. At three or four yards per hour, he was (metaphorically at least) raking it in.

But here’s where the paradox begins. The neighbors would come back from their jobs at the end of the day, and see all the leaves on their lawns, and they’d call up their own gardeners who would proceed to do the exact same thing in reverse — blow all the same leaves back into my relative’s and adjacent neighbors’ yards. This cycle would go on across the entire tract, because the same leaf-shedding trees had been planted along every street: everyone would hire gardeners to blow the leaves back and forth from yard to yard. At the end of each week, exactly nothing had been achieved: all the leaves were back where they started. And then the cycle would begin again.

A normal person would look at this situation and say, “What a monumental waste of effort. So much human labor for no purpose whatsoever; after all those man-hours, nothing has changed. All the leaves are back in their original positions.”

Obama would look at this same situation and say, “How can you claim that nothing was achieved? Forty-seven gardeners are now fully employed!”

But I look at it and see what the radical theorists see: It’s not true at all that nothing has changed. Maybe the leaves are all in their original positions, but a great deal of money has been transferred from the middle-class homeowners to the immigrant gardeners.

If you think that “economic redistribution” from the middle-class to the “working poor” is desirable, then you see the Leaf-Blower Paradox not as a paradox at all but as a neat mechanism for extracting money from the more-well-off and giving it to the less-well-off.

But then the question arises: Why bother with the leaves at all? A simpler way to achieve the same thing would be for the “gardeners” to just drive very slowly through the neighborhood and each homeowner would toss $20 bills in the backs of their pickups trucks. The end result would be exactly the same.

Yet even this ludicrous scenario is not satisfactory for the true radicals. Why even bother with the pickup trucks? The Obamas of this world can (and do) produce the same result by instituting a tax — let’s call it the “Unemployed Gardener Tax” — and utilize the government as a middleman to transfer money from the employed to the unemployed. The gardeners can just sit at home watching TV all day, while the IRS collects extra taxes from the middle-class workers and doles it out as benefits to the would-be gardeners.

In fact, we can just drop the “Unemployed Gardener” part and just call it “Taxes” and — voilà! — we have Obama’s understanding of economics. In his view, the role of government is to transfer funds from the wealthy to the poor. And don’t imagine that this is just for the purpose of helping the poor; rather, the main purpose is to punish the wealthy, for the crime of, well, being wealthy.

Some mainstream economists have in the past argued in favor of the Leaf-Blower Paradox as a valid way to stimulate the economy. FDR and his advisors famously created millions of low-level government-financed manual labor jobs in the mid-1930s as a way to “put America back to work” during the Depression; while these “Civilian Conservation Corps” and similar jobs weren’t quite as useless as blowing leaves in circles, they were a sort of inefficient busywork whose main goal was not to get anything essential done but rather to get food in the belly of millions of unemployed Americans, and to get the money flowing in the economy again.

http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2012/01/1...ental-fallacy-of-obamanomics/?singlepage=true

... [Now] we have Obama, who takes us down to the absolute lowest level of counter-productiveness: He proposes that we “create jobs” by employing people to prevent the creation of jobs. Hiring people to implement economy-destroying EPA regulations — and then touting this dubious strategy as a way to “create jobs” — is the equivalent of hiring thousands of men to drive steamrollers over America’s farmlands. Not only have we lowered unemployment by creating thousands of new Steamroller Driver positions, but we’ve created more jobs in the agricultural sector as well, since the farmers now have to hire workers to re-plant all their crops!

In my admittedly primitive way of visualizing economics, there are two basic kinds of jobs: The first kind, which I call “productive jobs,” involve the creation of new things: manufacturing, inventing, designing, building, extracting raw materials, and so on. The second kind, which I call “maintenance jobs,” involve preserving a pleasant and safe civilizational environment: policing, service jobs, cleaning, health care, and so forth. These “maintenance jobs” are less glamorous but they are just as essential to the economy, because they create and maintain a status quo in which productiveness can be achieved.

Yet Obama and his crack team of economists have now dreamt up a third kind of job: The destructive job. Except Obama is more subtle than hiring Steamroller Drivers. No, instead, his destructive employment program involves the hiring of bureaucrats to stifle and crush entrepreneurialism and the free market; technicians to install machinery which makes doing business more difficult and expensive; IRS agents to squeeze more and more money from the dwindling number of productive Americans; and public servants whose job is to remove as many people as they can from the employment market by enslaving them to addictive lifelong entitlements like Food Stamps and unending unemployment benefits.

As always when it comes to discussing Obama and his economic policies, the question inevitably comes down to this: Is he trying to destroy the economy on purpose, or is it just an accidental side-effect of his well-intentioned ignorance?

I always try to abide by the aphorism “Never attribute to malice what can be more easily explained by stupidity,” but in Obama’s case his long history of “community organizing” and lifetime of devotion to redistributionist “economic justice” can only lead me to conclude that malice — or perhaps the cynical politics of envy — are behind his ruinous policies.

 

[rosco rathbone]

How's that Rick Perry working out for you?

His sudden fade is the great unexplained mystery of modern politics.