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

[unregistered]

 

[phrodeau]

Thanks for quoting that Herpes fool. He seems to think Obama has America's best interests at heart. What a dunce.

Obama and his policies are by far the biggest threat to the American economy.

You aren't convincing anyone that you have intelligence.

 

[unregistered]

 

[RightField]

Yep, let's just turn a convenient blind eye to three years of Republican obstructionism and forget the LTGH/Vetty/AJ mindset of "Politics Before Country! Better America Fail Than Obama Succeed!"

The democrats had supermajorities for the first two years. They were screwing up pretty bad in the last two years of Bush's second term when they had control of both houses of congress too.

What you call 'obstructionalism' is what I call stemming the tide of ridiculous democrat policy...and I'm thankful for it. The democrats are causing this nation to fail and every bit of delay or obstruction that we can throw in their way should be praised.

 

[RobDownSouth]

The democrats had supermajorities for the first two years. They were screwing up pretty bad in the last two years of Bush's second term when they had control of both houses of congress too.

What you call 'obstructionalism' is what I call stemming the tide of ridiculous democrat policy...and I'm thankful for it. The democrats are causing this nation to fail and every bit of delay or obstruction that we can throw in their way should be praised.

A supermajority that contains the likes of Ben Nelson and especially Joe Lieberman is a supermajority in name only.

America should not have to rely upon "supermajority" rule. Majority rule should suffice in all but the most extreme circumstances.

 

[RightField]

A supermajority that contains the likes of Ben Nelson and especially Joe Lieberman is a supermajority in name only.

America should not have to rely upon "supermajority" rule. Majority rule should suffice in all but the most extreme circumstances.

When it comes to stopping the democrats from ruining the economy and destroying our country, I'll take any rule or procedure I can get to slow them down or stop them legally and ethically.

 

[Sean Renaud]

When it comes to stopping the democrats from ruining the economy and destroying our country, I'll take any rule or procedure I can get to slow them down or stop them legally and ethically.

And that's why you're scum. A simple majority51-49 should be enough for really anything. If we go the wrong way you shouldn't have a hard time getin 51 on yourside to unfuck things.

Have you ever considered what would happen if the Democrats evolve balls and block everything you attempt?

 

[richard_daily]

Have you ever considered what would happen if the Democrats evolve balls and block everything you attempt?

It will never happen.

 

[Sean Renaud]

It will never happen.

Derp derp. Democrats haven't evolved scrotums to hold said balls yet. Still can you imagine a world where they fillabuster breakfast the way the Republicans have?

 

[richard_daily]

Derp derp. Democrats haven't evolved scrotums to hold said balls yet. Still can you imagine a world where they fillabuster breakfast the way the Republicans have?

I don't think that democrats are so hell-bent on having america fail as the republicans have shown themselves to want.

That said; democrats are spineless wimps.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The head of the International Monetary Fund said on Monday the eurozone needed a bigger firewall to prevent Italy and Spain sliding towards default, underlining Europe’s responsibility in solving its own sovereign debt crisis.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/52dcc61a-459f-11e1-93f1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1kNKhRQqj

Wait a second, where's Patrick1?


Why would anyone lose confidence in their debt? The debt-to-GDP ratio's not that bad...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The Quid Pro Quo for recent political fodder...

Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.

With modest expansion, railroads can handle all new oil produced in western Canada through 2030, according to an analysis of the Keystone proposal by the U.S. State Department.

“Whatever people bring to us, we’re ready to haul,” Krista York-Wooley, a spokeswoman for Burlington Northern, a unit of Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), said in an interview. If Keystone XL “doesn’t happen, we’re here to haul.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...g-winners-in-obama-rejection-of-pipeline.html
__________________
When Government gets so powerful that its purchase price is cost effective, even imperative, to business, then business will purchase government indulgences.
A_J, the Stupid

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

“I am not here to cheer you up. The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career,” Soros tells Newsweek. “We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.”

...

It is “now more likely than not” that Greece will formally default in 2012, Soros will tell leaders in Davos this week. He will castigate European leaders who seem to know only how to “do enough to calm the situation, not to solve the problem.” If Germany’s Angela Merkel or France’s Nicolas Sarkozy nurses any lingering hopes of finding their salvation outside the continent, they are mistaken. “I took a recent trip to China, and China won’t come to Europe’s rescue,” Soros says. Despite all its woes, he nevertheless thinks the euro will—just barely—survive.

While Soros, whose new book, Financial Turmoil in Europe and the United States, will be published in early February, is currently focused on Europe, he’s quick to claim that economic and social divisions in the U.S. will deepen, too. He sympathizes with the Occupy movement, which articulates a widespread disillusionment with capitalism that he shares. People “have reason to be frustrated and angry” at the cost of rescuing the banking system, a cost largely borne by taxpayers rather than shareholders or bondholders.

Occupy Wall Street “is an inchoate, leaderless manifestation of protest,” but it will grow. It has “put on the agenda issues that the institutional left has failed to put on the agenda for a quarter of a century.” He reaches for analysis, produced by the political blog ThinkProgress.org, that shows how the Occupy movement has pushed issues of unemployment up the agenda of major news organizations, including MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News. It reveals that in one week in July of last year the word “debt” was mentioned more than 7,000 times on major U.S. TV news networks. By October, mentions of the word “debt” had dropped to 398 over the course of a week, while “occupy” was mentioned 1,278 times, “Wall Street” 2,378 times, and “jobs” 2,738 times. You can’t keep a financier away from his metrics.

As anger rises, riots on the streets of American cities are inevitable. “Yes, yes, yes,” he says, almost gleefully. The response to the unrest could be more damaging than the violence itself. “It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/22/george-soros-on-the-coming-u-s-class-war.print.html

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Rome Redux
By Michael Auslin, NRO
January 24, 2012 4:00 A.M.

Does Detroit’s fate foretell the end of American democracy? In becoming the first major American city to die before our eyes, Detroit is the prime case study of the destructiveness of the traditional liberal model of governance, public-sector-union rapacity, and the abandonment of any sense of civic responsibility by a governing elite that feasted like Roman senators while their city burned. And as in late republican Rome, a dictator may be appointed before long in Detroit; this has happened already in four bankrupt Michigan cities, including Flint (population: 102,000). The question is whether today’s dictators are a necessary means to save otherwise irredeemable places or whether they foreshadow an end to democracy in America’s dysfunctional states and cities (and perhaps in the country as a whole).

In both ancient Rome and modern Michigan, the dictator was appointed to restore order. Given the dangers facing both, the dictatorship seemed a prudent and necessary measure. The modern American dictators are Michigan’s state-appointed emergency managers (EM), each of whom has been named to his position by the state legislature after it has identified a locality that has defaulted on its debts or is in danger of bankruptcy. In Michigan, the EMs have sweeping powers — among other things, to hire and fire local government employees; renegotiate, terminate, or modify labor contracts (with state-treasury approval); revise contract obligations; sell, lease, or privatize local assets (with state-treasury approval); and change local budgets without local legislative approval. They can strip local elected officials of their power; indeed, according to Joe Harris, the EM of Benton Harbor, Mich., “the only authority that [local elected officials] can have is the authority that’s provided to them, or is given to them by the emergency manager.” Unlike in republican Rome, however, where the dictator could not rule legally for more than six months, Michigan’s nouveaux dictators have no term limit, and they are answerable only to the state government.

In Wisconsin and Indiana, elected governors are using democratic means to change ruinous labor contracts and balance budgets. But in Michigan, an apparently ingrained inability to fulfill basic governance duties at all levels has led to the governor’s supporting the erasure of local freedom in the name of expediency and urgency. Michigan’s example may appeal to other similarly dysfunctional and cash-strapped states.

In Rome, what began as a position with limited powers to respond to emergencies and to ensure the smooth running of elections changed into a far more powerful post whose holder directly made laws and altered the constitution. Under Julius Caesar, the dictatorship became a ten-year position — and ultimately a lifetime appointment for Caesar by a supine Senate. In Michigan, similarly, the persistent failure of local government led in the 1980s to the creation of a new position with limited powers: emergency financial managers. But the state’s endemic problems led to the replacement of this position with the far more comprehensive emergency manager, and that may not be the final iteration, either. For example, EM 2.0 was passed last year once it became clear that the original EM statute didn’t go far enough. Soon afterward, in April 2011, Benton Harbor’s Joe Harris issued an order stripping all city boards and commissions of their authority to take any action.

From the perspective of the liberal, technocratic state, creating American dictators makes perfect sense. What better way to ensure the welfare of the people than by taking away the powers of those elected officials who failed them? There’s a perverse logic to this style of one-man rule — accountable to a higher (elected) authority, but not to the people themselves. And there’s no question that numerous states are now being forced to recognize the failure of democratically elected local governments that have impoverished generations of city dwellers. Yet this is not a temporary measure: Given the extent of the collapse of Michigan’s cities, some may have EMs for years.

Is the dictatorial path the way of the future? What will happen when Illinois, New York, and California declare bankruptcy? Will legislatures believe the only way out is to appoint EMs for their own states? And how long before Washington, D.C., finds some pretext in the “penumbras” of constitutional powers to allow the federal government to appoint state dictators so as to ensure the equal rights of all citizens and the public welfare? After all, North Carolina governor Beverly Perdue recently suggested suspending congressional elections for two years in order to let Congress solve the country’s economic crisis, which was a result largely of the policies of . . . Congress.

Americans assume that political life in our country can never become so anti-democratic or dictatorial. And indeed, there are lawsuits in Michigan to suspend Public Act 4, which empowers the EMs. But today’s activist judiciary doesn’t seem the best bet to preserve limited government. In reality, the loss of government accountability is already happening, as Barack Obama’s recent unconstitutional recess appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and National Labor Relations Board highlight. Not to mention that the CFPB itself is all but exempt from congressional oversight, and it is by its very nature a move toward dictatorial control of financial markets. Yet the danger is more acute at the local level; one-party rule by state and local governments means fewer checks on attempts to suspend democracy. With Michigan showing the way, how long before more bankrupt cities and counties fall under the threat of emergency managers? The loss of local sovereignty is the thin edge of the wedge to a broader loss of liberty.

If you can’t imagine what could bring America to this pass, check out these stunning pictures of Detroit, which look like scenes from the apocalyptic films Mad Max and Beneath the Planet of the Apes. They terrify at the same time that they make understandable the desire to appoint a dictator — just as in ancient Rome. In truth, Detroit, with its $20 billion debt, may represent the Rubicon. If a city of 714,000 people, the largest in its state and a major American industrial area, can be taken over because of its inability to govern itself, then the mold will have been set for ever-larger entities to come under non-democratic control. Government engineering always seems to triumph during times of fear and crisis. What seemed like a temporary expedient may soon be relied on as the only means to keep some localities viable.

Rome lost its liberties when it lost the ability to govern itself, relying ever more regularly on strong men to instill order. Yet if you had asked a Roman in 46. b.c. if his city was at risk of changing forever, he probably would have scoffed. The lessons of the dictator still hold.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/288949/rome-redux-michael-auslin

 

[unregistered]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

That assumes the Canadians will still sell it to us instead of the Chinese. I'm not sure the same volume can be moved by rail in the same time frame either.

You think Buffett did all that political work for the Obama Administration without having his eyes dotted and tees crossed?



Not me.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The Obama team..., uses taxpayer money to inject capital into select firms to help them compete in the supply-demand market. Their criteria for selection, moreover, are centered not on whether there is a good chance that the firm can prosper and grow on its own, but whether the firm is engaged in fields that further Obama's vision of environmental justice. The companies of the green economy, so the story goes, will create jobs which will open the door for minority training and employment. This dovetails nicely with Obama's stated goals of social and economic justice.

Much has been made of the firms that get government capital having made contributions to the Obama campaign. That misses the point. Obama is motivated not just by kickbacks. His actions are consistent with his rhetoric. He states that the overarching principle directing his personal and political life is his sense of social justice. There is every reason to believe him. His actions and demeanor are consistent with a man who believes that his goal is of such high purpose that it justifies all manner of subterfuge and end-runs around Congress and the Constitution.

One cannot peer into the soul of one's fellow man, but certainly Obama's demeanor, rhetoric, and actions are consistent with an understanding of Obama as a man who is convinced that he has a superior vision for America. Obama seems every bit the moralist. He works for his just society with what appears to be moral conviction. During his years as a community organizer in Chicago, he saw the great inequities in American society -- inequities which, along with bigotry, he attributed to the American capitalist system. The people on the bottom rung, and especially their children, don't have a chance. Couple that moral conviction with the ruthlessness of Chicago politics, and you have a potent force. Add a suave, urbane, and articulate persona, and Obama is a formidable package.

Certainly the Obama administration will stoop to anything to get votes for the next election. The latest outrageous example is using the U.S. Export-Import bank (taxpayer-funded) to channel funds to attract business to the swing states of North Carolina, Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia.

So, yes, from crony capitalism to vote-buying capitalism, the Obama administration will use any siphoning of taxpayer funds to pump capital where it sees political advantage. But to leave it at that -- self-interest -- is to miss the narcissistic sense of moral superiority. Moreover, it is a narcissistic sense of moral superiority that is coupled with a disdain for the actual grunt work of implementing his moral vision. It is an aloof sense of moral superiority in which he provides the rhetoric and his minions do the work.

Obama may think he is on the right side of morality, but he is on the wrong side of reality. For Obama the cure is more government, more regulation, more intervention, and less individual freedom. The invisible hand of laissez-faire capitalism is just that for Obama -- invisible. Capitalism needs the Obama hand of social, economic, and environmental justice. But what do we see? Less opportunity -- not only on the economic front, but also on the educational front -- and increased class and racial hostility. During the Obama ("Spendulus Maximus") administration, the economic freedom rank for America has dropped from 9th to 10th. Our educational rank has also dropped.

It is important to close the opportunity gap between the haves and have-nots, and especially the latter's children. But taking money out of the competitive capitalist enterprise system and pouring it into firms to assuage carbon guilt has been a disaster ("Solyndra Just Tip of the Iceberg"). Misallocation of capital cannot help any policy of economic/job growth, much less social justice.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/obamas_social_justice_capitalism.html#ixzz1kNl2XhM5

 

[unregistered]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Just thinking about the words of the Canadian leader the other day. I think Buffet bought that railroad because he was banking on higher fuel costs shutting down a huge segment of the trucking industry.

All sorts of wins when you rely on Dagny Taggert!



Remember what I always say; I-70 killed the Pullman Car...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Most of our problems have been caused by government. The unintended consequences of poorly thought out legislation or legislation designed merely to garner votes for re-election is wreaking havoc on economic opportunity for our country.

For one, the regulatory burden by our government on economic growth is well-known. The regulatory impact of the Dodd-Frank bill, the Affordable Care Act, No Child Left Behind, and the EPA all influence costs but, concurrently, adversely affect productivity and our competitiveness in world markets.

The Social Security underfunding has been known since the mid-1970s, yet Congress has failed to enact any meaningful solution to the problem. The most recent extension of the 2% tax holiday on the FICA tax will only exacerbate the budget shortfall.

The cost of college education has continued to skyrocket such that student debt is at an all-time high. Many students now find it almost impossible to repay their student loans.

The cost of medical insurance and medical care is prohibitive for most Americans. The Affordable Care Act was passed with the intent of providing insurance for all Americans. In reality, all the Act does is reduce income for the medical care providers and increase costs for younger workers.

Concurrently, despite rapidly dropping home prices, homes are not appreciably more affordable for the average American. Increasing property taxes, pay freezes, and tighter credit standards have made home ownership seem less likely for today's generation.

When all of these issues and structural changes are reviewed, it should be no wonder that the millennial generation views work differently from how an older-generation worker does.

In a class that I recently presented to a group of CPAs, I mentioned these structural changes as a cause for concern in attempts to restart the economy. I indicated that my concern was that today's employee may not be taking a long-term perspective toward his career and their community.

A student suggested to me that her generation had lost hope. I was a little stunned by her remark. Her response was not that they have lost hope for themselves, but instead that they have lost hope in the system.

The student indicated that the people of her generation have no hope of receiving Social Security, yet they are paying into it. Furthermore, the people of her generation understand that they will have to provide for their retirement while attempting to pay off substantial student loans, thereby further cutting disposal income. She also indicated that her generation realizes that investing in equities for a better future has borne limited results, as seen by the decimated 401(k) plans and IRAs, such that continued investing makes little sense.

The student then went on to advise me that parents are living longer, and her generation expects to need to care for aging parents.

The student was convinced that all that she was taught by her parents -- to save, to work hard, to provide for another day -- is pure fiction. Her parents' American Dream is her generation's nightmare.

She and her generation have seen bad behaviors continuously rewarded by our government. They have seen the victimization of society in the minds of elected leaders with no one held accountable for his or her actions. The current generation has seen an unparalleled growth of entitlement behavior in many of their peers.

The net result of all of this is that the productive element of her generation intends to live for the moment. She and her friends intend to achieve a work-life balance that properly reflects this new understanding of what life will be like for her generation. In their minds, why plan for retirement if retirement is never an option?

My student received a rousing ovation. It turns out that my students, young and old alike, agreed with her completely.

Frank Ryan

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012...ring_of_the_american_dream.html#ixzz1kNnW6hK7

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

In case anyone hasn't noticed it yet, Europe is in crisis. Faced with violent protests and general strikes, European politicians seem unwilling to take the necessary steps of structural reform that would save their economies. With rigid labor laws, bloated government workforces, declining birthrates, and universal welfare schemes, Eurozone economies have experienced subpar performance for decades and are now sliding into recession once again. The model of the European-style welfare state simply does not work.

Unfortunately, when the percentage of those receiving government aid exceeds 50%, it is difficult to cut benefits. The threat of cutbacks in Greece has brought chaos to that country. The sight of thousands of left-wing thugs, marching in close ranks and armed with large batons and Molotov cocktails, is now a common one in central Athens. These blackshirted youths form a paramilitary force of a sort that has appeared in other European nations as well, adding a dangerous element of uncertainty to the future.

Government's response to civil unrest has been to appease the protesters. Greek officials have dragged their feet finalizing proposals for "voluntary" write-downs of 50% on their sovereign debt since those write-downs come with stringent conditions of structural reform. From all appearances, it looks like the Greeks are angling for debt forgiveness with no substantive change in the Greek welfare state. In other words, they are asking investors to continue subsidizing their enormous deficit spending.

If all this sounds a lot like what's happening in the U.S., it is. Like the socialists who govern Greece, Obama's left-wing administration depends on the support of left-wing activists, unionized government workers, radicalized students, and welfare recipients. All of these groups have been pressing for more government spending, and Obama has not disappointed them.

In just three years, discretionary spending has increased by 24% (not counting an additional trillion dollars of stimulus spending plus two rounds of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve), all of it funded with deficit spending. Obama's 2012 budget, which was rejected by every member of the Senate, called for continued spending at 2011 levels, even as his own budget supercommittee struggled to come up with $1.5 trillion in cuts.

It is clear that Obama's priority is not fiscal responsibility. In fact, the single-minded focus of this administration has been the expansion of government benefit programs designed to foster dependency. From the beginning, Obama's political strategy has centered on the restoration of "welfare as we know it." The clients of welfare are always reliable supporters of the Democratic Party.

If Democrats can expand the percentage of the population dependent on benefits above 50% of the population, they will have achieved a permanent grasp on power. If anyone doubts this, let him look to the European welfare states. In none of these countries have social welfare programs been eliminated once they've gained their footing.

Jeffrey Folks


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/takers_taking_over.html#ixzz1kNoLxB99

 

[NeverEndingMe]

and as obama continues to do zip about the economy, American Companies make foreign nations wealthier by moving asset to countries with reasonable income tax.

I think what we need to do, is create a charity organization that will hand out Business for dummies books to democrats as they seem to be clueless

Remember, only government can save us now....ship is sinking with obama at the helm (just like taking a cruise in Italy)

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

It's not the tax so much as the regulation and the environmental impact studies and lawsuits...


We could pay the tax for them and still afford their products; it's everything else that kills their ability to make sales.

 

[unregistered]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Democrats know all about the natural environment, but nothing about the business environment. They know all about the climate, but don't have a clue about the business climate.

I like that.

I might have to make it one of my quotables...