Tag Archives: Barack Obama

Shocker

Posted on October 22, 2009 | 1 comment

Because buying money isn’t any different than buying plywood it is no surprise that banks are going to change the way in which they sell plywood.

On Friday, Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, will join FDIC Vice Chairman Marty Gruenberg and others in a discussion of “new, safe and affordable credit options for America’s underbanked.”

The policy discussion on Capitol Hill comes as banks – reacting to new credit card rules imposed by Democrats – start pulling the plastic from current credit-card holders, a move that is sure to lead to even more “underbanked” Americans.

Press reports note that Citibank recently canceled a number of credit card accounts affiliated with the Shell, ExxonMobil, Citgo and Phillips 66-Conoco oil companies.

Citibank also has notified some customers that interest rates on unpaid balances are going up – to a whopping 29.99 percent APR, effective Nov. 30. As the new law requires, customers have been notified that they may reject the change to their accounts, in which case their accounts are closed immediately and they may continue paying off their balances at current rates over five years.

So, when people who have a track record of not paying back their loans no longer have to pay the price of not paying back their loans, banks are going to react by no longer loaning them money they have no hope of paying back, that’s news?

Stop.

But then again, maybe it is.

Dave seems to think that credit card companies are simply soaking the folks that use their cards and imposing new rules will not result in increased fees:

The new rules are likely to reduce some of those profits (that is, to the extent that companies don’t find new “gotcha” fees to replace the old ones). However, the rules are not likely to raise rates or fees for responsible card holders.

But that is not what we are seeing, in fact, it’s the opposite:

On Wednesday, USA Today noted that starting next year, Bank of America will charge a small number of customers an annual fee, ranging from $29 to $99 – an “experimental” move. Even card holders who have never carried a balance or paid late fees could be among those affected, the newspaper said. “You could be spanked for staying out of debt,” the article stated.

So once more, we see government stepping in and regulating where they have no business regulating.  The result?  Predictable.  Higher prices and reduced supply.

Go Obama!

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Posted in Economy, Education, Politics: National

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I Would Have Been Surpised If This DIDN'T Happen

Posted on October 22, 2009 | Leave a comment

And so it begins.

Obama led with tariffs on tires; ’cause, you know, it just SUCKS to give low priced tires to people who need low cost tires!

Now China is retaliating by imposing tariffs on nylon from the US and other countries.

BEIJING — China took steps to impose antidumping duties on certain nylon imports from the U.S., European Union, Russia and Taiwan, hitting companies in the U.S. with duties of as much as 36%.

Can you say FDR all over again?

Serious.  Try it.  F-D-R all-over-again.

Hat Tip Free Market Mojo

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Posted in Economics, Politics: International

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Depressing

Posted on October 22, 2009 | Leave a comment

I’ll never say that this is the worst economy since the Great Depression.  Never.  But its deep and it is going to be painful for awhile.

Further, I admit that I know very little of what made it that way.  So, I went out and bought some books, did some reading on line and just “followed this stuff” for awhile.  And, after awhile, you begin to get a gist for whats going on.  It begins to make some kinda sense.  You realize that things aren’t the way they are just ’cause.  They are the way they are for very specific reasons.  And when you realize that, you can begin to learn.

And that what depresses me tonight.

This interview has 3,050 views.  This one has 57,577,972 views.  No wonder we elected Obama.

If you want to begin to understand how things work without having to drop the time or cash on a college course, buy this book.

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Posted in Economics, Politics: National

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Obama's Numbers

Posted on October 21, 2009 | Leave a comment

The Democrats are reeling.  Support for the Leftist Congress is plummeting. Voters are ready to fire them with only 2 points to spare and closing fast.  {though if you ask Rasmussen, you get a different picture}.  Governors in two key Democratic states are going to flip.  Support for the health care bill is down and even Obama himself is seeing his numbers plummet.  {again, if you ask Rasmussen you will see a bigger decline}

But the real telling sign is the battle in the blogosphere.  Where once the debate wasn’t so much if the country loved Obama, it was about how many did.  The media was fawning all over the man what with men’s legs shivering in his aura.  Now?  Now the battle isn’t over whether or not CNN is biased, but rather if it’s biased to the left or to the right.

Wanna put into perspective how bad this President is?  His approval rating is lower than Carter’s.

Music.  Sweet music.

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Posted in Politics: National

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Because It Worked So Well The First Time

Posted on October 20, 2009 | Leave a comment

Unbelievable!

People often forget the lessons that history serves up to us.  We are destined to relive the errors of our past.  This happens in war, in love and, it seems, it politics.

You would think that with a recession just ending, an economy that won him the election and a financial crisis “the biggest since the Great Depression” Mr. Obama would know not to take these history lessons to heart.

But he isn’t, he’s going right back to the well that put us in this situation to begin with.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Monday launched a program to help the depressed U.S. housing market by effectively allowing state and local housing finance agencies to borrow from the U.S. Treasury.

The initiative, announced as new data showed a downturn in homebuilder sentiment, aims to restart a source of mortgage financing for first-time and low-income buyers that has been largely shut down by credit market gridlock.

Described as temporary by the U.S. Treasury, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the program will allow state and local agencies to issue bonds through government-sponsored mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those bonds would then be purchased by the Treasury.

“Through this initiative, the administration aims to help … jump start new lending to borrowers who might not otherwise be served and to better support the financing costs of their current programs,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a statement.

At the very root cause of this most recent crisis is the fact that it was easy for people to borrow money to buy houses.  Many of these people would not have been able to afford to borrow that money in the past.  With the added demand on the housing market, the price of homes sky rocketed.  This in turn caused further investment in that market and so on and so on.  Finally, when those folks who borrowed money they couldn’t afford failed to pay that money back, the wheels came off.  The rest, as they will say, is history.

So what are we doing?  Ignoring history and doing the exact same thing; borrowing money to people who can’t afford it.

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Posted in Education, Energy

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Canadacare in Action

Posted on October 20, 2009 | Leave a comment

Think the Government can handle health care?  Check again.

“The model predicts that there will be a significant wave in autumn, with 63% of the population being infected, and that this wave will peak so early that the planned [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] vaccination campaign will likely not have a large effect on the total number of people ultimately infected by the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus,”

You know what that means?

The authors said that this is the week, through Oct. 24, during which the greatest number of people would be infected. The vaccination program has barely started in the U.S.

“The model predicts that the peak wave of infection will occur near the end of October in week 42, with 8% of the population being infected during that week. By the end of 2009, the model predicts that a total of 63% of the population will have been infected,” the authors wrote in a conclusion that ignored the effects of a CDC vaccination program.

In other words, we are too late.  The flu will hit well before the country will get the vaccine.  Awesome.  But there IS good news:

Canada is in a much more dire straits on vaccination, Ms. Towers noted in her interview, because of relative slowness of the country’s equivalent of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve the vaccine.

“They are more cautious and conservative and sitting on at least 1 million doses waiting for delivery. They won’t begin vaccination until the first week of November,”

So, while the US Government is too slow and ultimately ineffectual, we can rest assured that Canada is worse.

Awesome.  Go Obama!

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Posted in Health Care

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At Least This is Honest

Posted on October 15, 2009 | 2 comments

Mr. Obama has announced that he would like to take money from me and give it to the elderly.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama called on Congress Wednesday to approve $250 payments to more than 50 million seniors to make up for no increase in Social Security next year.

The White House put the cost at $13 billion.

While it’s maddening that Obama continues the worst practices of the previous administration [all the while blaming them] at least he isn’t trying to trick me into thinking that he’s doing something brilliant.  You know, like legislating lower prices.  Here he is admitting that we’ll have to spend tax payer dollars, $13 billion of them, for his decision.

Thank you, Mr. President, for being honest.

Love,
-pino

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Posted in Economics

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Cause Ya Have to be Legal to Work in the White House

Posted on October 14, 2009 | 1 comment

I’m actually surprised they stopped at reduced penalties and no jail:

WASHINGTON – Some 7,500 international tax dodgers have applied for an amnesty program that promises no jail time and reduced penalties for tax cheats who come forward, the Internal Revenue Service announced Wednesday.

…

The program is part of a larger effort by the Obama administration to crack down on Americans who evade U.S. taxes by hiding assets in overseas accounts.

I mean, most of his staff fit this bill.

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Posted in Politics: National

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12,000 Jobs Created

Posted on October 13, 2009 | Leave a comment

Minnesota is reporting that they have saved or created nearly 12,000 jobs due to the stimulus package. That’s more than 1 per lake, and Minnesota has a lot of lakes!

So, how much stimulus money did Minnesota get? About $4.7 billion.
How much has Minnesota spent? About $1.6 billion.
So, at this rate, how many jobs is Minnesota predicting? 35,000.
And the White House, how many did THEY predict? 66,000.

So, even using their own numbers, the White House and Minnesota is falling short by 47% of the predicted total, or 31,000 jobs.

And the jobs that WERE created? Let’s see:

  • $16.6 million to put 5,800 youth to work over the summer.

So, let’s see.  The state spent $16.6 million to hire a bunch of kids for the summer?  And that counts as a job saved or created?  So, really, what Minnesota is saying is that they saved or created 6,200 jobs.  5,800 high school kids having summer jobs doesn’t count.

Way to go Minnesota!

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Posted in Economics, Economy, Politics: National

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Poor Democrats: Responsibility

Posted on October 12, 2009 | 8 comments

As we are beginning quarter 4, 2009, it is becoming clear that what we already knew was going to happen is, ahem, going to happen. That is, we are most certainly going to see the end of the recession between April and September of this year. Further, the unemployment rate is going to continue to rise and rise for quite some time.

As I mentioned, this is not surprising or new information.  What IS surprising, however, is that there is a group of people who find themselves in an uncomfortable position; the Democrats.

Job losses are expected to continue at least into the middle of next year, likely driving the unemployment rate above 10 percent from 9.8 percent last month. It could take three or four more years for it to fall to normal levels.

The longest and deepest downturn since the Great Depression has claimed 7.2 million jobs since it began in December 2007. Analysts figure 750,000 more jobs could disappear over the next six months.

And why is this?  It’s a perfect storm of sorts for the Democrats.  They are dealing with both long term and short term trends.  On the one hand, we are now paying the piper for the incentives given to banks, lenders and individuals to buy/sell houses to people who couldn’t afford them.  That’s the long term.  The short term?  The whole stimulus package including, to be fair, the Republican led TARP disaster.  And the medium term?  The rise of the minimum wage, which, by the way, is coinciding with a very bad labor market.  Right when we should be trying to incent people to hire other people, we instead are raising the cost of labor; even beyond what that labor is worth.

And what are the Democrats going to do to try to help us through this period of adjustment?  Why, a second stimulus perhaps?  Some are even considering raising that minimum wage even higher.  And the doubly whammy?  Cap and Trade along with Universal Health Care.

If you wanna implement policies that promise to rise the people up but in reality strip those same people of economic health and vibrancy?  Hire a Democrat; just remember that when their policies fail, it’ll get harder and harder to hire them in the next election.

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Posted in Economy, Politics: National, Politics: North Carolina

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