Last 2 weeks of News

I have been MIA the last two weeks, to much work and to do at home in the nice Spring weather to spend time on the computer.

1) California Supreme court rules Prop 8 is a “legal” amendment but stating the only the term marriage is what was made illegal for same sex couples in California. This is a ruling I actual agree with. Marriage is a religious term and should be taken totally out of the Governments hands. The government should create a mutual support contract to be filed with a government agency to give the “marriage rights” to any two people who want to enter such a relationship. Also a dissolution of the mutual support contract form and process would be needed. No need for lawyers or courts. Just a notarized form.
A good legal analysis can be found here.

2) Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, A normal far left wing hack job who thinks that they no better than anyone else what is “good” and “just” for all without any regard for the actual law.

3) Government Motors is now bankrupt. Big shock here, a poorly managed company for the last 30 years that has a huge union presence so short and long term costs can’t be controlled. To bad it will result in a motor company which is fascist in nature, supposedly privately owned by run by the government.

4) Obama stumping for his health care plans passage this summer before the bill is even written. The plan is here but there are no specifics. Normal politics, talk, give speech, no substance and rush through a plan in the darkness of night that nobody can read or comprehend since a true debate of the bill will result in it being something a vast majority of US citizen’s do not want.

5) North Korea leaves the peace Armistice, blows up a nuclear weapon and tests some long range missiles, the US response, maybe we can get a harsher worded letter to be considered at the UN but no passed. While this is going on make statements that this is not tolerable and North Korea is a rogue state, yada yada yada, nothing changed in 20 years on this front.

Searching for a silver lining but do not see anywhere that people are being told to be responsible for themselves and live with the consequences of poor decision making. Another couple of weeks on the road to fascism.

Effects of Stimulus Plan

1) As part of California’s attempt to balance its budget earlier this year there was an agreement to reduce some union labor rates that work for the government. Now the federal government (Obama administration) is telling California that unless it recedes the wage cuts, California will loose $6.8 Billion dollars in federal stimulus plan money.
California Officials Question Union’s Role in Federal Stimulus Ruling
Lawmaker angry over federal stimulus money decision

2) Spending the U.S. stimulus: states can’t afford it

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One of the greatest challenges U.S. states face in spending federal stimulus money is funding the burst in bureaucracy that accompanies the funds, a government watchdog said on Thursday, as the Obama administration pledged to give states more help.

Revenue has been dropping in most U.S. states for a year, and many governments have cut staff. But the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act flooded states with money for programs and required them to keep the public and federal government apprised of their spending, all of which requires more workers, said the Government Accountability Office.

“Due to fiscal constraints, many states reported significant declines in the number of oversight staff — limiting their ability to ensure proper implementation and management of Recovery Act funds,” the GAO’s nearly 300-page report on the stimulus plan said.
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3) STIMULUS WATCH: Jobs, but not where needed most

WASHINGTON – The billions in transportation stimulus dollars that President Barack Obama promoted as a way to create jobs shortchange counties that need the work the most, an Associated Press analysis has found.

The AP’s review of more than 5,500 planned transportation projects nationwide is the most complete picture available of where states plan to spend the first wave of highway money. It reveals that states are planning to spend 50 percent more per person in areas with the lowest unemployment than in communities with the highest. The Transportation Department said it will attempt to replicate the AP’s analysis as it continues pressing states to dole out money fairly.
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Results of the stimulus plan, direct political payback to unions that supported the Obama campaign, creating jobs where there is low unemployment and states can’t spend the money due to lack of resources.

As usual, the government is trying to help and puts resources in the wrong spots and the controls decisions which have nothing to do with the original area of concern.

Yup, just the new business as usual from the hopeychange administration.

Economy is OK if the news is NOT AS BAD AS EXPECTED

Recent news which is said to be good since it is not as bad as predicted.

Fed’s Bank Results ‘Reassuring,’ Show No Insolvency

…….
Federal Reserve stress tests on the 19 biggest lenders show Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. together require about $54 billion, said people familiar with the conclusions.
…….
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs yesterday suggested that the Obama
administration may seek management changes at some banks. Officials will want to “ensure that going forward they felt that the management was in place to remedy the situation and ensure long-term viability without continued government assistance,” he said.

Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Kenneth D. Lewis, 62, was ousted as chairman on April 29 ……….

Jobs Report Giving Investors Mixed Picture On US Economy

The pace of layoffs slowed in April when employers cut 539,000 jobs, the fewest in six months. But the unemployment rate climbed to 8.9 percent,………………..

Job losses in February and March turned out to be deeper, according to revised figures. Employers cut 681,000 positions in February, 30,000 more than previously reported.
They cut 699,000 jobs in March, more than the 663,000 first reported. The deepest job cuts of the recession —741,000 came in January.

Jobs: A little less bleak

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Wachovia senior economist Mark Vitner and Gilliam both say they’re worried about the impact on jobs in coming reports from the bankruptcy at Chrysler, which will result in a 30-to-60 day shutdown at all of its plants, and the possible bankruptcy at General Motors (GM, Fortune 500). The loss of jobs — not just at those companies but at their dealers and suppliers — will be substantial.

And Vitner said that while Wachovia is projecting that there will be economic growth by the fourth quarter of this year, it’s projecting that unemployment will continue to rise into 2010, topping out at 10.8% in April of that year.

“We are moving in the right direction, but the recession is not over, and even when it’s over that’s not an end of the tough times,” said Vitner.

Wow a bank stress test with an 8.4% unemployment shows the banks will be OK, current unemployment is 8.9% and expected to exceed 10% in the next year.

I wonder if a new stress test will be needed so that the federal government can take over the banks.

Europeanization of America

THE EUROPEANIZATION OF AMERICA

This article by Mark Steyn got me thinking about how America is becoming more and more like the Western Europe that America created after WWII as part of European reconstruction. America created western Europe under the Marshall Plan to go against the soviet union. A series of socialist democracies as a buffer between the total socialism of the USSR and the representative democracies of Great Britain and America.

The trend to a socialist democracy and away from a representative republic has been going on for decades in America, regardless of the party in power.

The American political class is getting their wish of America being more like Europe. With today’s reporting of a 8.5% US Unemployment rate we are no equal to the current EU number .

8.5% is a little higher than the normal EU unemployment rate but by less than 1%. The difference is that America has had much lower unemployment rates historically than Europe. US history here and EU history here (PDF).

The US federal government should be proud, we are equal to the EU now, both have unemployment rates of 8.5%.

tongue firmly in cheek.

Government to set Salaries?

One had to see this coming.

Take money from the government and you will have no idea what strings will be attached after the fact.

The jealous, take from successful, success is evil attitude of this country is against the principals on which this country was built and the people exposing these beliefs should be ashamed of themselves.

Beyond AIG: A Bill to let Big Government Set Your Salary

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the “Pay for Performance Act of 2009,” would impose government controls on the pay of all employees — not just top executives — of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

Not only will the federal government order companies what products to make and sell they are setting the salaries of the employees.

History is repeating itself, I fear we are in 1930 with progressive government activists in charge, today the all think the reason the depression was so bad is that government did not do enough soon enough. Since history is taught so poorly in the US now, everything I have read outside of school history books is that the government action made the economy worse than it would have been.

The number one reason for this is that the government started retro-actively throwing out valid private contracts without due process in a court of law. The resulted in people not believing in the validity of contracts since they were valid until one party of the contract complained to the government who then voided or made obsolete the contract.

Without valid private contracts, there can be no business, therefore a depression.

Obama Runs General Motors

This is such a terrible precedent but what does a private business expect when it looks to government to help.

GM Chief to Resign at White House’s Behest

The Obama administration has forced the longtime head of General Motors to resign and said yesterday that it would withhold additional federal aid to the auto industry unless the ailing companies undertake changes they so far have been unwilling or unable to make.

As badly as GM has been run over the last 30 years this is a horrendous event for those of us who want a limited government. As I have stated before GM should have gone into bankruptcy protection to change its long term prospect for success.

This is a sad day in America and is the culmination of decades of effort by communist/socialists to destroy the free markers. Welcome to the inefficient government run unionized auto company that will cost tax payers untold trillions of dollars.

Welcome to the Socialist States of America dominated by a strong federal government, week state and local governments, the end of personnel liberty which is exactly the opposite of the principals on which America was founded.

Good-Bye Capitalism, welcome socialism comrade.

Welcome to America, the World’s Scariest Emerging Market

Scary Washington post article

Welcome to America, the World’s Scariest Emerging Market

After experiencing a few emerging-market crises, I get the sense of watching the same movie over and over. All too often, a tragic part of that movie is the failure of the countries’ policymakers to hear the loud cries of canaries in the coal mine. Before running up further outsized budget deficits, should we not heed the markets that now see a 10 percent probability that the U.S. government will default on its sovereign debt in the next five years? And should we not be paying close attention to the Chinese central bank governor’s musings that he does not feel comfortable with the $1 trillion of U.S. government debt that the Chinese central bank already owns, let alone adding to those holdings?

good commentary on this article
The Biggest Banana Republic

America needs to live within its means and get back to a mining,manufacturing base. A service economy of people shuffling paper is destined to collapse on its own weight since there is not rock solid foundation.

Saturday’s cartoons – politics

from townhall.com

great video on original intent of US government

Found this on Youtube

Obama Plans to increase debt by 2.3x by 2019

Yes, if you are reading this, you heard that right. The current national debt is ~ $10 Trillion. It took 220+ years to accumulate this debt. Under the very rosy economic growth in the Obama forward looking budget the debt in 2019 will be $23 trillion dollars.

Obama launches message war

The White House on Sunday began harnessing every part of the Democratic Party’s machinery to defend President Obama’s budget and portray Republicans as reflexively political, according to party strategists.
At a time when Capitol Hill has begun to resist the sweep and cost of his agenda, Obama’s aides used the Sunday interview programs to launch an aggressive case that his bold budget for health care and other issues will help fuel an economic recovery
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The Obama grassroots network—now known as Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee—has launched an e-mail pledge drive on MyBarackObama.com in which supporters sign their e-mail address to the statement: “I support President Obama’s bold approach for renewing America’s economy.”
The pledge drive was announced with a video called “Ready for the Fight.” Plouffe e-mailed supporters over the weekend with a challenge labeled “The next few weeks”: “In the next few weeks we’ll be asking you to do some of the same things we asked of you during the campaign—talking directly to people in your communities about the President’s ideas for long-term prosperity.”
This is not an easy message war for Democrats. Obama’s budget calls for the largest deficit in U.S. history and a doubling of the national debt to $23 trillion in 2019.
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Read the entire article, the plan is clear, destroy anyone who actually wants to talk about the issue of fiscal responsibility by painting them as an obstructionist and politically motivated.

I am not sure about anyone else but how does one cut the annual deficit by 50% in the next 4 years while spending more money than every before an adding more to the national debt than the total accumulated in the history of the country.

Spend, spend, spend until debt free.
Change,Hope,Hope, Change, etc…