The economy is in the tank. President Obama is struggling to save face after mismanaging the Gulf oil spill. Tensions continue to build in North Korea and Iran.
In short, the US is in big trouble.
Time for Michelle Obama to take a va-cay-cay!
Spanish media reports said Michelle Obama and her younger daughter Sasha, 9, would be on Spain's Costa del Sol between August 4 and 8.
...
Michelle Obama has reserved about 30 rooms for herself and her daughter, their friends and bodyguards at a five-star hotel in Benahavis near Marbella, hotel sources said.
The US first lady did not make any special requests, hotel owner Ricardo Arranz said, explaining that the hotel would function normally during her stay.
No special requests? Wow, that Michelle Obama is really a down-to-earth gal. What sort of special request could you possibly make when you have reserved 30 rooms in a 5-star European hotel?
Is Obama losing his appeal? Or have Obama's failed economic policies come back to bite Democrat voters in the wallet, thus reducing their ability to shell out $250 to watch President Bow n' Tax talk down America in person?
Pres. Obama is the best fundraiser the Dem Party has, but his drawing power is way down from its peak during the '08 campaign.
Obama is heading to MO and NV today to raise money for Sec/State Robin Carnahan (D), running for an open Senate seat, and Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid.
But Carnahan's campaign wasn't able to completely sell out the Folly Theater, where Obama will appear for a grassroots event on Carnahan's behalf, at the prices they wanted. Tickets once priced at $250 are now going for $99, while $35 tickets are half off.
The US economy lost 125,000 jobs in June, more than economists had forecast, as thousands of temporary census jobs ended and private hiring grew less than expected.
And though the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 9.5% from 9.7%, the lowest in a year, it was largely due to more people dropping out of the labor force.
The report was the latest sign that the economic recovery may be faltering.
Of course, this was bound to happen since the Obama administration has been propping up previous job reports with census job numbers that were fraudulently inflated.
Private hiring rose 83,000 after increasing only 33,000 the prior month, the Labor Department said on Friday. But nonfarm payrolls, dropped 125,000 -- the largest decline since October -- as census jobs fell 225,000.
"Overall what this does is it reinforces the market's view that the U.S. recovery is losing steam," said Greg Salvaggio, vice president of trading at Tempus Consulting in Washington.
The unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent, the lowest level since July, as people left the labor force.
Meanwhile, General Electric's CEO Jeffrey Immelt has singled out President Bow n' Tax as the culprit of this economic mess:
Mr Immelt also had harsh words for Barack Obama, US president, lamenting what he called a “terrible” national mood and expressing concern that over-regulation in response to the global financial crisis would damp a “tepid” US economic recovery. Business did not like the US president, and the president did not like business, he said, making a point of praising Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, for her defence of German industry.
In an op-ed titled, "Why Obamanomics Has Failed," economist Allan Meltzer explains what's wrong with the economic policies of President Bow n' Tax:
The administration's stimulus program has failed. Growth is slow and unemployment remains high. The president, his friends and advisers talk endlessly about the circumstances they inherited as a way of avoiding responsibility for the 18 months for which they are responsible.
Two overarching reasons explain the failure of Obamanomics. First, administration economists and their outside supporters neglected the longer-term costs and consequences of their actions. Second, the administration and Congress have through their deeds and words heightened uncertainty about the economic future. High uncertainty is the enemy of investment and growth.
Yeah, that sounds about right. But at least the Obama administration hasn't used the nation's economic troubles to advance its own political agenda...
Another defect of Obamanomics was that part of the increased spending authorized by the 2009 stimulus bill was held back. Remember the oft-repeated claim that the spending would go for "shovel ready" projects? That didn't happen, though spending will flow more rapidly now in an effort to lower unemployment and claim economic success during the fall election campaign.
President Obama's economic policies continue to fail:
U.S. private employers added just 13,000 jobs in June, according to a report published Wednesday that suggested expectations of a big drop in the government's upcoming nonfarm payrolls report were on target.
...
"There is really no way to characterize this number other than disappointing," said Macroeconomic Advisers LLC chairman Joel Prakken, whose firm jointly developed the ADP report. "The overall number tells you that the recovery in the jobs market is very, very sluggish at this point."
This follows on the heels of reports of lower consumer confidence:
U.S. consumers are increasingly worried about jobs and the economy, the Conference Board said Tuesday, as it reported that its consumer confidence index plummeted to 52.9 in June -- the lowest level since March -- from a downwardly revised 62.7 in May.
"Increasing uncertainty and apprehension about the future state of the economy and labor market, no doubt a result of the recent slowdown in job growth, are the primary reasons for the sharp reversal in confidence," said Lynn Franco, director of Conference Board's consumer research center. "Until the pace of job growth picks up, consumer confidence is not likely to pick up."
I can't wait to see how many times this clown sticks his foot in his mouth when he visits Louisiana next week:
Vice President Joe Biden gave a stark assessment of the economy today, telling an audience of supporters, "there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession."
Appearing at a fundraiser with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) in Milwaukee, the vice president remarked that by the time he and President Obama took office in 2008, the gross domestic product had shrunk and hundreds of thousands of jobs had been lost.
"We inherited a godawful mess," he said, adding there was "no way to regenerate $3 trillion that was lost. Not misplaced, lost."
President Bow n' Tax is at it again. This time, he's calling for more taxes while speaking on foreign soil. Classy.
Obama wants to slap a 0.15 percent tax on the liabilities of the biggest U.S. financial institutions to recoup the costs to taxpayers of the financial bailout.
"We need to impose a fee on the banks that were the biggest beneficiaries of taxpayer assistance at the height of our financial crisis -- so we can recover every dime of taxpayer money," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.
Obama, who is in Canada to attend gatherings with leaders of the world's biggest economies, also used the address to welcome a deal by congressional negotiators on a historic rewriting of U.S. financial regulations.
There's nothing quite like a pipsqueak talking down the US economy, especially when the pipsqueak is the US Treasury Secretary. If this doesn't project weakness to the world, what does?
"I think the world understands now that growth in the future around the world cannot depend as much on the United States as it did in the past." - Tim Geithner
President Bow n' Tax brought his socialist propaganda to Ohio this week. And he managed to wreak some havoc on the local economy in the process:
President Obama went to the groundbreaking of a road project in Columbus, Ohio, Friday to show that his massive stimulus package is still churning out jobs -- a "good news" story that was anything but for some construction workers who were trying to figure out how to make up for the payday they lost due to the president's visit.
The workers were told not to report to their construction project at a nearby hospital Friday, because the Secret Service was shutting it down for security reasons. They also were told that they would not get paid for the forced day off.
Obama notes that the economy has seen job gains for five straight months after devastating losses from the recession. He says the recovery is still in its early stages, and that it will be uneven in the months ahead.
The president says that even though the census jobs are only temporary, private sector hiring is growing, too.
Yeah, but, it seems that the new job numbers were propped up by 411,000 temporary census worker jobs. And that 411k number was inflated by hiring and firing and re-hiring census workers.
And when you take out the 411,000 temporary/inflated census jobs, that leaves only 41,000 private sector jobs.
Oh wow... this is a duesy. It seems Obama's Labor Department is working with the US Census Bureau to fudge the ol' "jobs created or saved" numbers:
You know the old saying: "Everyone loves a charade." Well, it seems that the Census Bureau may be playing games.
Last week, one of the millions of workers hired by Census 2010 to parade around the country counting Americans blew the whistle on some statistical tricks.
The worker, Naomi Cohn, told The Post that she was hired and fired a number of times by Census.Each time she was hired back, it seems, Census was able to report the creation of a new job to the Labor Department.
Kudos to John Crudele of the New York Post for breaking this story. It really ties a bunch of hanging storylines together - Rahm Emanuel's insistence that he run the census out of the White House, the unemployment numbers that seemed to level out and reverse course around the same time the census started and, well, the way everything the Obama administration touches turns into a scheme to further Obama's agenda.
Here's some more:
Each month Census gives Labor a figure on the number of workers it has hired. That figure goes into the closely followed monthly employment report Labor provides. For the past two months the hiring by Census has made up a good portion of the new jobs.
Labor doesn't check the Census hiring figure or whether the jobs are actually new or recycled. It considers a new job to have been created if someone is hired to work at least one hour a month.
One hour! A month! So, if a worker is terminated after only one hour and another is hired in her place, then a second new job can apparently be reported to Labor . (I've been unable to get Census to explain this to me.)
Here's a riddle: What do the SEC, Google Ad Words and Organizing for America have in common?
Answer: The Obama administration is using them to raise money! Hope! Change! Corruption!
President Obama is bringing his war on Wall Street to the enemy's turf.
He'll make his pitch for financial reform in the heart of lower Manhattan Thursday - even as his team make hay of the Goldman Sachs fiasco with a tech savvy appeal to Democratic donors.
Internet surfers who entered "Goldman Sachs SEC" into Google were directed to the president's campaign Web site via a sponsored link titled "Help Change Wall Street."
The White House's political arm paid for the keywords -- but would not say how much.
The tactic provided the latest evidence of how Obama and the Democratic National Committee are using the Securities and Exchange Commission's bombshell fraud suit against the financial giant to push financial-reform legislation through Congress.
But showing it, too, was gearing up for a political fight, Goldman Sachs hired Obama's former White House counsel, Gregory Craig, Politico reported last night.
Meanwhile, Democratic former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, speculated yesterday that there was "no coincidence" to the timing of the SEC suit.
And Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wrote in a letter sent to the SEC, "It must be nice for Democrats that the SEC's filing against Goldman Sachs so conveniently fits into their political agenda."
The White House denied any link between the legislative push and the regulator's charges.
"The SEC doesn't notify the White House of its enforcement actions, and certainly didn't do so in this case," presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs said.
"Quite honestly, there was plenty of evidence . . . before the SEC got involved of the need to create new rules of the road."
The White House's Internet ad campaign drew Goldman into a click-for-click clash of the search terms yesterday, with the financial house buying its own ads to compete with those purchased by the president's team.
Goldman's ad featured the company's statement in response to charges filed Friday by the SEC.
The president's political operation says the Internet push bought up numerous other relevant search terms and phrases and started days before the SEC action against Goldman. They say they bought the term "Goldman SEC" after the lawsuit was filed.
The links -- some titled "Fight Wall Street Greed" -- led to the Web site of the White House's political arm, Organizing for America.
So the administration is claiming the adwords were purchased AFTER the charges were filed. Yeah, riiight. Let's see some documentation... And even if the purchase occurred after, you have to marvel at the sliminess of the Obama machine to immediately think, "SEC + financial reform = OBAMACASH!"
A Google Inc. search of “Goldman Sachs SEC” yields an advertisement entitled “Help Change Wall Street” that is sponsored by Organizing for America, Obama’s official political arm outside the White House.
“Help Pres. Obama Reform Wall Street and Create Jobs,” the ad says. “Families First!”
... The ad link takes browsers to a page on my.barackobama.com that features a picture of the president and the following quote: “We’ve seen and lived the consequences of what happens when there’s too little accountability on Wall Street and too little protection for Main Street. It is time for real change.
This is just like when Obama's science czar John Holdren said Americans shouldn't expect to be #1 in everything... Or the many times Obama has apologized for American exceptionalism... It's sickening.
A small, but strategic strike at American corporations from President Bow n' Tax:
At a time when the unemployed are concerned about not only money but also loss of job skills, the Obama administration's top law enforcement officer at the Labor Department, M. Patricia Smith, is looking to come down on companies who give unpaid internships to young people.
From M. Patricia Smith's Washington Times editorial:
Basic economics teaches that if the price is raised, demand falls. If companies have to pay wages, they will take on fewer interns. If these youngsters were actually benefiting companies more than it costs to train them, companies would pay them. Profit-seeking companies compete against each other for employees. If untrained students were such valuable workers, firms would gladly offer money to beat out the competitor next door to get them.
Ha! Why don't you unionize interns while you're at it?
Of course, this little socialist joyride wouldn't be complete without a healthy dose of hypocrisy:
It is amusing to see the Obama administration creating the image of poorly treated unpaid interns, when Mr. Obama's Organizing for America offered internships to help elect the president during his presidential campaign and still is offering up unpaidinternships today. In fact, the summer organizing program also does not even offer food, transportation or housing stipends.
And you can bet they blame the snow on global warming... or something:
"The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics," he said during an interview with CNBC. "In past blizzards, those statistics have been distorted by 100,000 to 200,000 jobs."
"It's going to be very important ... to look past whatever the next figures are to gauge the underlying trends," Summers added.
Yeah, right. Keep in mind, no layoffs were attributed to the weather and dozens of tow truck and snow plow drivers made a good deal of money during these storms. Not to mention all the overtime pay of the crews who worked to restore power to millions of households. You might say the bad weather was an economic stimulus for many people.
President Barack Obama's demand Thursday that Congress clamp down on the size of banks and their investments got major blowback from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said it could cause layoffs and hurt the city.
The mayor was so upset about the move -- and a suggestion that Wall Street bonuses be put in escrow, which means the money wouldn't be spent here, wouldn't help the city economy -- he responded with a proposal of his own for members of Congress.
"Maybe we should hold back their salaries for a decade or so and see whether the laws they pass work out," Bloomberg said.
Warren Buffett opposes President Barack Obama’s proposed levy on financial institutions because firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. already repaid bailout funds.
“I don’t see any reason why they should be paying a special tax,” said Buffett, the chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., in an interview on Bloomberg Television today. Supporters of the plan to tax the banks “are trying to punish people,” he said. “I don’t see the rationale for it.”
Then Buffett dropped the double F-bomb. That's "F" for Fannie and and "F" for Freddie:
“Look at the damage Fannie and Freddie caused, and they were run by the Congress,” said Buffett. “Should they have a special tax on congressmen because they let this thing happen to Freddie and Fannie? I don’t think so.”
President Obama doesn't dither on economic policy. While he has consistently delayed decisions on the war in Afghanistan and foreign policy in general, the president has moved right ahead with a number of bold socialist programs designed to save the US economy - including the stimulus plan, Cash For Clunkers and the Making Home Affordable program.
And those programs are failing:
Employers cut another 85,000 jobs last month, dashing hopes of a turnaround in employment, even as the U.S. economy grows.
With December's losses, there were 7.2 million fewer jobs than in December 2007, when the recession began. Although the unemployment rate was unchanged at 10% from November, that's only because many workers stopped looking for work and weren't counted in the numbers. A broader measure of unemployment, including those who have quit job hunting as well as those working part time because they can't find full-time work, remained about the same at 17.3% in December from 17.2% in November.
It should be noted that although the unemployment rate is stuck at 10% it should not be taken as a sign of a stagnant economy. In fact, the economy is still sinking like a stone:
As has been the case for the past 6 months of unemployment rates, the rate is being suppressed by the number of people who have completely left the job market. In this case, the actual number of jobs is a better measure of how we’re doing:
Did you know Obama's economic plans have their own logo? (The logo is a failure too)
President Obama has spent so much time attacking mortgage companies that you would think he might be some kind of expert on the housing market. Not so much, apparently:
The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.
Since President Obama announced the program in February, it has lowered mortgage payments on a trial basis for hundreds of thousands of people but has largely failed to provide permanent relief. Critics increasingly argue that the program, Making Home Affordable, has raised false hopes among people who simply cannot afford their homes.
As a result, desperate homeowners have sent payments to banks in often-futile efforts to keep their homes, which some see as wasting dollars they could have saved in preparation for moving to cheaper rental residences. Some borrowers have seen their credit tarnished while falsely assuming that loan modifications involved no negative reports to credit agencies.
In other words, homeowners have been given false hope that they can hold onto their house, but they wind up throwing more money at a problem that is not likely to be fixed. In the end, their money is wasted, their credit score is ruined and their home is gone.
CNNMoney was on this story over a week ago and they went to great lengths to blame homeowners instead of the flawed plan:
Most troubled homeowners view President Obama's foreclosure rescue plan as a way out of their financial troubles.
But many don't realize that entering a trial mortgage modification can actually hurt their credit.
CNNMoney recently received a flood of e-mails from readers complaining about the impact of trial modifications on their credit reports.
To be sure, many people who apply for the president's plan are already delinquent in their mortgage payments, which wrecks their credit backgrounds. And obtaining a trial modification should affect borrowers' scores because it shows they cannot meet their original obligation, experts said.
Well, yeah, that's true and it makes perfect sense, but that was ALWAYS going to be the case. Obama either didn't understand that fact or he simply didn't care. In fact, the administration announce - on Christmas Eve, when nobody was paying attention - that they have eliminated the bailout caps on Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Joe Weisenthal at BusinessInsider.com posits several possible reasons for this announcement, including:
What the Treasury’s lifting of the bailout caps on Fannie and Freddie might portend for 2010
1.) Revisions to the flagging Homeowner Affordable Housing Program (HAMP). Any changes will likely increase near term bailout costs to Fannie and Freddie if HAMP’s current reliance on interest reduction is replaced in part by principal reduction. The losses associated with a modification of a loan using an interest rate reduction are spread out over time while a modification using principal reduction results in taking a more immediate loss.
2. Fannie and Freddie taking on a greater role in the near term to support their own mortgage backed securities (MBS). Now that the Treasury’s and the Federal Reserve’s own support programs are in the process of winding down, the administration’s actions may be preparing Fannie and Freddie as the vehicles for continuing this support. The Treasury’s December 24, 2009 announcement raises the portfolio limits to $900 billion each, thereby providing Fannie and Freddie with the ability on a combined basis to increase their portfolios by a total of $275 billion. At the current rate of the Fed’s MBS purchases, this new capacity would last about 4-5 months.
Is it starting to make sense? It's another one of Chef Barry's socialist omelettes with a side order of incompetence. Back to the NY Times article:
Some experts argue the program has impeded economic recovery by delaying a wrenching yet cleansing process through which borrowers give up unaffordable homes and banks fully reckon with their disastrous bets on real estate, enabling money to flow more freely through the financial system.
“The choice we appear to be making is trying to modify our way out of this, which has the effect of lengthening the crisis,” said Kevin Katari, managing member of Watershed Asset Management, a San Francisco-based hedge fund. “We have simply slowed the foreclosure pipeline, with people staying in houses they are ultimately not going to be able to afford anyway.
In the end, there is no way Obama takes responsibility for this massive failure. He will blame the "fat cats" and he will use his own failed plan as an excuse for another, bigger plan.
Ed Morrissey at HotAir puts it in perspective:
Just like Cash for Clunkers and the homebuying credit, the Obama administration did nothing but kick the can down the road. Rather than addressing the real problems of the economy, Obama attempted to mask the symptoms. Even the New York Times has noticed that Obamanomics is nothing more than smoke and mirrors, only really, really expensive smoke and mirrors. In the end, we will all pay. Source: HotAir
