Rain lifts, vacationing Obamas dine out for lunch

It was the Obamas’ second straight year at Nancy’s. Joining them in an upstairs dining room were adviser Valerie Jarrett and Chicago friends Cheryl and Eric Whitaker.

Oh my, for Obama and friends, it’s lobster and shrimp, crabs with all the goodies.
I wonder if this vacationing Chamber of Commerce flack knows how the lobster and crabs are caught.

Obama deflected a reporter’s shouted question on Iraq while ordering. He replied with a smile: “We’re buying shrimp, guys. Come on.”

Here’s a set of pictures to help you understand…

Meanwhile, the idiot “Greens” in
Congress shove corn into our gas tanks

[snip]
…[]…Confronted with a severe drought, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, this week sowed panic in world commodity markets when he banned grain exports for the rest of the year. At a time when the global consumer economy is still in the doldrums, a surge in the cost of wheat, milk, meat, cocoa and other staples of the world’s daily diet is increasing the pressure on manufacturers and retailers to pass the rises on to cash-strapped consumers across the US, Europe and parts of Asia.

According to the British Retail Consortium, in-store food costs rose 2.5 per cent in July from a year earlier, up from a 1.7 per cent rise the month before. In the US, the deflation the Department of Agriculture was projecting as recently as July 25 for cereals and bakery products such as wheat will need to be put under review. It is forecasting inflation of 2–3 per cent this year for meat as well as sugar and sweets. For milk, cheese and eggs, which fell in price last year, it predicts 1.5–2.5 per cent increases.

Futures Markets Here are all the listings and the news.

Big producers are beginning to disclose mark-ups in some cases rather steeper than those. J.M. Smucker is, for instance, imposing an across-the-board rise of 9 per cent for its coffee sold to US supermarkets under brands including Folgers, Dunkin’ Donuts and Millstone. On Friday Kraft Foods followed with rises of more than 10 per cent in the US market on coffee brands including Maxwell House.
Will consumers countenance all these increases? “Household food budgets don’t go up,” says Paul Weitzel, managing director at Willard Bishop, a retail industry consulting firm in the US. Instead, “people change their shopping behaviour”. [snip]

The pricing increases will eventually be passed along to shoppers, predicts Susan Anderson at Citigroup, but it will not happen quickly. “There will be a six-month lag instead of a one- to two-month lag,” she says. If nothing else, that provides some reassurance for Christmas. (emphasis added)
Rising commodity prices in early 2008, led by oil, resulted in significant price boosts for a variety of food products, almost all of which were passed on to consumers two years ago.
But after the run-up peaked, the decline in input prices and the sharp economic downturn precipitated by the financial crisis led to stable and even deflationary pricing in the US and elsewhere. As a result, shoppers encountered something almost never seen in supermarkets and grocery stores: declining prices over an extended period of time.

But suppliers adjusted, leading to what we see now. Notably, flagging demand for beef in 2008, combined with high grain prices, led the large US cattle companies to reduce their herds over the past two years, which created an undersupply of beef and the consequent rise in price tags at supermarket meat counters. [snip]

Right at the time food costs rise, Obama figures to let the Bush tax cuts expire Jan 1 2011, giving the public colic.

In 2008, during the last big run-up in food prices, the price of pasta in the US jumped by more than 20 per cent. Nonetheless, unit sales crept up slightly, leading to a 22 per cent gain in the dollar value of pasta sales across most US supermarkets. “At the very bottom of the consumption chain there’s no place to hide,” Mr Rand says. “You end up with pasta or rice. People have very few alternative bulk products that are going to be cheaper than that. It doesn’t matter if the cost of spaghetti has gone to $1.19 from 99 cents. But if you take my beef from $6 to $9, that’s a different deal.” [snip]

So enjoy the ethanol in the gas even as corn prices drop for now.
That is only the vagaries of the weather moving prices lower. Some flooding, high winds or cold temperatures change prices fast.

Any translation has to contain some choice words about the economic direction like smelly, stinkeroo, Obamalike, horrible or deathly.

The Administration loses the chairwoman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers in early September. Bailing out, she is, despite the spin coming from the Ovful Office.

Christina Romer, Top Economic Adviser to Obama, to Step Down

[snip]
Romer, head of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, has been one of the administration’s most prominent voices on the economy, making frequent appearances on TV and at White House events to promote Obama’s policies. She also was reported to have butted heads with other members of Obama’s economic team, in particular Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council.

In December, the she sand Summers even seemed to contradict each other — in interviews conducted on the same day — on whether the recession had ended. [snip]

Lets see what the unemployment numbers look like, they’re due out today. And the numbers are:

Jobs Picture Worsens With 131,000 Losses; 9.5% Rate

[snip]
The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent in July, just below market expectations for a rise to 9.6 percent. The steady jobless rate largely reflected a drop in the labor force as discouraged workers gave up the search for jobs.Job growth has taken a step back after fairly strong gains between February and April, putting in jeopardy the economy’s recovery from its worst downturn since the 1930s. [snip]

Last month, the dominant service sector added 38,000 jobs after June’s 34,000 gain. More disturbing, temporary help services, seen as a harbinger of future permanent hiring, fell 5,600 after increasing 11,200. Temporary employment gains had averaged 45,000 per month from October 2009 to May.State and local governments, struggling with huge budget deficits, purged more workers last month, combining with mass layoffs of temporary federal census workers to push government payrolls down by 202,000 compared to a 252,000 drop in June. [snip]

So much for that Bull**it of jobs created or saved. Talk is cheap; Obama has lots of that, all of which starts BLAME BUSH.
We’re just about two years into his desire to change 234 years of U.S. existence into Zimbabwe.

Following in the Messiah’s footsteps isn’t going to get the U.S. back to any HOPE of future growth or CHANGE in economic fortunes.
You need a new God to follow, one that doesn’t carry a hammer and sickle and promise FREE LUNCH.

In the scheme of the working day, you put in the hours and expect recompense for your labors. Is it your money? Obama doesn’t think so. Neither does the Congress. Together they’ve spent your money faster than all combined can earn it to cover the incurred debt.
Obama’s belief is the government prints it so that makes it the owner of it anyway.

To prove this premise January 1, 2011, the roll back of the Bush tax cuts take place which absolutely rip the individuals making less than $50,000 a year. Their tax bill doubles.
Thank the Jackass Party for that, and yeah the RINO’s too. The GOP is as complicit in this mess as the Donkeys.
Brace for a real mess in the economy, even Bernanke said leave the Bush tax cuts in place.
Obama won’t. He wants to wreck the country.

The Tax Tsunami on The Horizon

Fiscal Policy: Many voters are looking forward to 2011, hoping a new Congress will put the country back on the right track. But unless something’s done soon, the New Year will also come with a raft of tax hikes — including a return of the death tax — that will be real killers.
Through the end of this year, the federal estate tax rate is zero — thanks to the package of broad-based tax cuts that President Bush pushed through to get the economy going earlier in the decade.

But as of midnight Dec. 31, the death tax returns — at a rate of 55% on estates of $1 million or more. The effect this will have on hospital life-support systems is already a matter of conjecture.

Resurrection of the death tax, however, isn’t the only tax problem that will be ushered in Jan. 1. Many other cuts from the Bush administration are set to disappear and a new set of taxes will materialize. And it’s not just the rich who will pay.
The lowest bracket for the personal income tax, for instance, moves up 50% — to 15% from 10%. The next lowest bracket — 25% — will rise to 28%, and the old 28% bracket will be 31%. At the higher end, the 33% bracket is pushed to 36% and the 35% bracket becomes 39.6%.

But the damage doesn’t stop there.

The marriage penalty also makes a comeback, and the capital gains tax will jump 33% — to 20% from 15%. The tax on dividends will go all the way from 15% to 39.6% — a 164% increase.

Both the cap-gains and dividend taxes will go up further in 2013 as the health care reform adds a 3.8% Medicare levy for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and joint filers making more than $250,000. Other tax hikes include: halving the child tax credit to $500 from $1,000 and fixing the standard deduction for couples at the same level as it is for single filers.

Letting the Bush cuts expire will cost taxpayers $115 billion next year alone, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and $2.6 trillion through 2020. [snip]

Not all Americans may fully realize what’s in store come Jan. 1. But they should have a pretty good idea by the mid-term elections, and members of Congress might take note of our latest IBD/TIPP Poll (summarized above).

Fifty-one percent of respondents favored making the Bush cuts permanent vs. 28% who didn’t. Republicans were more than 4 to 1 and Independents more than 2 to 1 in favor. Only Democrats were opposed, but only by 40%-38%.

The cuts also proved popular among all income groups — despite the Democrats’ oft-heard assertion that Bush merely provided “tax breaks for the wealthy.” Fact is, Bush cut taxes for everyone who paid them, and the cuts helped the nation recover from a recession and the worst stock-market crash since 1929.

Maybe, just maybe, Americans remember that — and will not forget come Nov. 2.

Things are not looking good for the midterms when you’re arguing that your economic stimulus package worked because at least unemployment isn’t like “12 or 13 or 15%”.  (H/T: Hot Air)

Allow me to retort:

• May unemployment was 9.7%, not 9.6% as Obama claims in the video.  Way to be engaged and armed with those facts, Mr. President.
• The real unemployment rate (U-6) was 16.6% in May.  So, let me amend your statement to say that at least it isn’t 20, 22, or 25%.
• Has anybody in the White House seen the stock market lately?  I wouldn’t be crowing about a market recovery after losing 1600+ points over the last 2 months.
• The economy continues to shed jobs as the weekly unemployment claims remains around 450K.

But, not one to let reality stand in his way, Obama will continue to celebrate “recovery summer” on every golf course in the country while the economy is on fire.  Mission accomplished, right Barry?

 It’s called deflation; it’s going to happen like a stone in a well.

RBS tells clients to prepare for ‘monster’ money-printing by the Federal Reserve

Entitled “Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn’t Happen Here“, it is a warfare manual for defeating economic slumps by use of extreme monetary stimulus once interest rates have dropped to zero, and implicitly once governments have spent themselves to near bankruptcy.

The speech is best known for its irreverent one-liner: “The US government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.” [snip]

There’s a cost; we’re experiencing it now. You know the terms, jingle mail, underwater mortgages, foreclosures, bankruptcies, unemployment, stimulus spending, government made jobs…

As Obama’s Chief Idiot  Paul Krugman, says,

[snip]
“We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.” [snip]

Of course, his solution is the same as more of the above which proved to be a disaster in the “Great Depression.”

President Obama’s plan for the economy–bailouts.  If that doesn’t work, there’s always plan B–more bailouts:

President Obama on Saturday implored Congress to provide more aid to states and cities to blunt “the devastating economic impact of budget cuts” by local governments that imperil the jobs of teachers, the police, firefighters and other public employees.

Why am I thinking that plans C, D, and E all include more bailouts for public sector unions too?  It’s a wonderful plan except for the fact that Keynesianism doesn’t work.  If government spending were a net positive for the economy, we should be sitting pretty given the last $13 trillion spent.

The simple truth is you can’t spend your way to prosperity, but don’t expect any effective answers from this crowd.

My wife and I are solidly parked in cash.  We sold every bit of our invested IRAs and 401Ks.  Now, that may sound radical, but I do firmly believe we’re heading for a disaster.Let me provide you with a consolidated list of reasons I believe the US is heading for a brick wall:

1. US debt will surpass its yearly GDP sometime this year, and I expect the European sovereign debt crisis to hit us too.
2. Even if you’re not concerned by the debt on our books, there’s a $100 trillion in off balance sheet promises, like Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, etc.  Effectively, the US is already bankrupt if we weren’t using Enron style accounting.
3. Keynesian stimulus is expensive,  ineffective, and will hasten the debt crisis.
4. Obamacare will be a disastrous drag on the economy.  It gets more expensive every day, and the administration can’t even publish the first batch of rules.
5. Democrats are still pushing Cap and Tax (AKA Cap and Trade).  Another drag on the economy.
6. Energy policy is a disaster too.  No drilling, no coal, no nuclear, and only idiots think green technologies can fill the gap.
7. Obama is raising taxes through the roof.  Example 1: Obamacare.  Example 2: Debt commission.  Example 3: Expiration of the Bush tax cuts.  Example 4:  Democrats pushing a national VAT.  Example 5:  Green energy policy.  Example 6:  Cap and Tax.  Example 7:  The continual bailouts (like the one being done for the states currently).

So, in short, if you show me an Obama policy designed to grow the economy, I’ll show you the first Obama policy designed to grow the economy. 

Now, when I combine all of the above with the European mess and a slowing China, the market has clearly priced in an absurd amount of growth.   It’s my contention that there’ll be far more favorable prices at which to invest in the near future.

That’s why I’m sitting in cash until I see macro changes that favor putting capital to work again.  Right now, things are a mess, and the rookie at the helm (AKA the community organizer) doesn’t have a clue.

If we were in the midst of a strong V-shaped recovery, would Chief Keynesian spendaholic Larry Summers be pushing for Son of Porkulus? Yes, the team, who promised that Porkulus would keep unemployment under 8%, are now asking for another $200 billion in “stimulus”.However, it’s not like Larry wakes up every day trying to devise new ways to waste our money.  According to the article, he’s very worried about the deficits that he claims will average $10 trillion over the next decade.  The funny thing about that is the deficit just passed $13 trillion so he’s only off by a third right as we speak.  I guess math isn’t his strong point.

Who said Economics had to be DULL? What’s going on with the world’s finances is more fun than watching “24″.
Far more entertaining too, since your balls are in the Obama Osterizer.

Nouriel Roubini said the bubble would burst and it did. So what next?

[snip]
Just three years earlier, Roubini had been the object of derision in the economics community as he prophesied a US housing market crash, financial crisis and partial collapse of the banking sector. Today, as an adviser to governments and central bankers and much feted in the media, he’s well aware of the power of being right.

“In my line of business your reputation is based on being right,” he says. “The publicity is just noise. Certainly with a global crisis, the dismal scientists are having some prominence, even if most of the economics profession actually failed to predict it.”

The 51-year-old, widely known as Dr Doom, is in town to publicise his new book Crisis Economics, a crash course in the financial crisis and what can be done to avoid another.

The book does little to suggest he is uncomfortable with his nickname. Where Roubini is concerned, the great recession has some way to run.

“The crisis is not over; we are just at the next stage. This is where we move from a private to a public debt problem,” he says, his speech the mongrel drawl of a man who was born in Turkey to Iranian parents, raised in Israel and Italy and lives in New York. “We socialised part of the private losses by bailing out financial institutions and providing fiscal stimulus to avoid the great recession from turning into a depression. But rising public debt is never a free lunch, eventually you have to pay for it.”[snip]

All that socialist crap chanted in college during those wonderful ’70’s are now here. Boomers, those idiots that YOU elected, to bring Peace, Light and Love instead delivered this vicious economic socialist mess that is biting you in the ass, right through your 101(k) and IRA, just in time for you to retire.
As a kiss off, they’re giving you a return of ½% to 1% return on short term deposits.

They collapsed you housing values, taxed your jobs overseas and then replaced you with illegal immigrants driving down wages on the rest of the employed. Oh yeah, the unions bought into it because they get sign-ups who won’t bitch, complain or strike over sweetheart contracts.

One false move in Europe could set off global chain reaction

[snip]
But the knife-edge psychology currently governing global markets has put the future of the U.S. economic recovery in the hands of politicians in an assortment of European capitals. If one or more fail to make the expected progress on cutting budgets, restructuring economies or boosting growth, it could drain confidence in a broad and unsettling way. Credit markets worldwide could lock up and throw the global economy back into recession.

For the average American, that seemingly distant sequence of events could translate into another hit on the 401(k) plan, a lost factory shift if exports to Europe decline and another shock to the banking system that might make it harder to borrow.

“If what happened in Greece were to happen in a large country, it could fundamentally mark our times,” Angelos Pangratis, head of the European Union delegation to the United States, said Friday after a panel discussion on the crisis in Greece sponsored by the Greater Washington Board of Trade.

The PIGS are the problem. Spending money they didn’t have, couldn’t raise through taxes, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy ran up unfunded pensions, public sector wages and early retirement.

Now they can’t pay for the excesses. Bailouts from the other EU countries are grudgingly forthcoming with stringent guides attached. Riots followed.

[snip]
The most vulnerable European countries — Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland — may represent only about 4 percent of world economic activity, but “the debt crisis and its ripple effects are bad news for all corners of the world,” said Cornell University economist Eswar Prasad. [snip]
But the fallout from Europe could still be widely felt. U.S. trade officials, hoping the country can dramatically boost its exports, are dismayed at the steep drop in the value of the euro — which is around $1.25, down from more than $1.50 in November. The decline makes American goods more expensive compared with those produced in Europe. The slide in the common European currency could also change the way China and a host of Asian countries approach their currency policies, possibly making them less likely to agree with U.S. demands to raise the value of their money. If they raised it, Asian goods would become more expensive in world markets, making it easier for U.S. products to compete. [snip]

So what, Corporations are bad, evil abusers of the poor, the downtrodden, the children and the third world emerging nations, right!

Get ready for higher unemployment numbers and another surge in foreclosures. 

To insure this happens, Congress put together a banking bill that does for credit cards, what Freddie and Fannie did for housing.
How did that work out for America.

This posting is for any Libertarian/Conservative reader.
Liberals, please ignore it, Obama is there to protect and save YOU!

A huge rush, these always come with a surge. Out of the cafes and idling spots, come the idiots, the believers in OPM as a style of living and the sustenance of LIFE.This time it’s too late, rioting, looting and burning can’t bring back what no longer exists.
The indolent style of the status quo has no status; it’s KAPUT!
(Posting this is so enjoyable BECAUSE it’s from the NY Times)

THERE IS NO MORE OPM!

Europeans Fear Crisis Threatens Liberal Benefits

PARIS — Across Western Europe, the “lifestyle superpower,” the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt. The deficit crisis that threatens the euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare, built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II.

Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism.

Europeans have benefited from low military spending, protected by NATO and the American nuclear umbrella. They have also translated higher taxes into a cradle-to-grave safety net. “The Europe that protects” is a slogan of the European Union.

But all over Europe governments with big budgets, falling tax revenues and aging populations are experiencing rising deficits, with more bad news ahead.

With low growth, low birthrates and longer life expectancies, Europe can no longer afford its comfortable lifestyle, at least not without a period of austerity and significant changes. The countries are trying to reassure investors by cutting salaries, raising legal retirement ages, increasing work hours and reducing health benefits and pensions.[snip]

 We have coddled them with military protection, which pumped money into their economy, allowed for egregious lawsuits over damaged lawns and cars and insufferable protests by the very bungholes sitting on their asses, retired at 28- swilling beer and coffee all day.

UP YOURS, COMMIE UNIONISTS. Now you’ll have to burn down everything while rioting; with luck, it’ll be your house. But the OPM won’t be coming back. The promises of the Collectivist Brotherhood of Unionists turned out empty. The Radiant Future of the Great Social Reform, put out by stale spilled beer. How f**king condign! The Muzzies will make them work!

Think you’re going GREEN?

Leaked Doc Proves Spain’s ‘Green’ Policies — the Basis for Obama’s — an Economic Disaster

Pajamas Media has received a leaked internal assessment produced by Spain’s Zapatero administration. The assessment confirms the key charges previously made by non-governmental Spanish experts in a damning report exposing the catastrophic economic failure of Spain’s “green economy” initiatives.  (emphasis added) [snip]

But today’s leaked document reveals that even the socialist Spanish government now acknowledges the ruinous effects of green economic policy. [snip]

The government report does not expressly confirm the highest-profile finding of the non-governmental report: that Spain’s “green economy” program cost the country 2.2 jobs for every job “created” by the state. However, the figures published in the government document indicate they arrived at a job-loss number even worse than the 2.2 figure from the independent study.

This document is not a public report. Spanish media has referred to its existence in recent weeks though, while Bloomberg and the Washington Examiner have noted the impact: Spain is now forced to jettison its plans — Obama’s model — for a “green economy.”

Remarkably, these items have received virtually no media attention.

An item which has been covered widely, however, is that President Obama is now pressuring Spain to turn off its spigot of public debt in the name of averting a situation similar to that of Greece. (emphasis added)

Also covered widely is Obama’s promotion of the American Power Act — the legislation which would replicate Spain’s current situation in the United States.

Put simply, Obama is currently promoting a policy in the U.S. which is based on a policy that he wishes to see Spain abandon. Welcome to Obamaland, the particulars of which are explained in a fashion grandly more illuminating than this Obama-Zapatero dance in Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America.

If any have watch the wild gyrations of the sovereign debt markets and the currency exchanges in the past couple of weeks, you know what has happened with the Euro and the Yen, the Yuan, the Ozzie and the Dollar.
Silver, which normally trades around $6/oz is at $19/oz USD. Gold up, copper down, stocks dropping and bank stocks really taking a hit.

Europeans are trading out of the Euro into Gold; they don’t buy it like we do. They use it as currency, they learned a long time ago paper money is just that, paper.

None of this is possible when Nations are on the Gold Standard. But that severely limits Socialists from spending, so we have Fiat Money and this current mess.

The world will go back on the Gold Standard.

The EU is undergoing the bombardment now; WE’RE next! OPM is DEAD!

When Other People’s Money runs out

Its culture of self-sufficiency, always at risk in a welfare state, broke down. In the U.S., too much credit and too little regulation revealed the flaws of our form of capitalism.
[snip]
Unlike capitalism, collectivization runs riot at a snail’s pace in democracies. But there, too, culture broke down — the culture of self-sufficiency, which is always at risk in a welfare state. And just as they did here, people there spent more than they earned, even if their governments did the borrowing and spending for them. In both places, elected leaders are loath to let creditors take a bad haircut for fear of dragging the entire system down. [snip]

Attitudes toward lenders, who in both Europe and the U.S. seem at last to have awakened from their greedy trance, are remarkably parallel. Over here, people are mad at bankers and investors for lending us so much in the first place. And over there, anger arises because lenders are increasingly unwilling to lend at all, potentially leaving Greece and God knows who else unable to finance their deficits. It’s remarkable that in both capitalism and socialism, the trouble is the same: Sooner or later you run out of OPM.

If the recent American financial crisis filled our European frenemies with delicious Schadenfreude, it now seems that it’s our turn to take pleasure and say “I told you so!” [snip]

U.S. Debt Shock May Hit In 2018, Maybe As Soon As 2013: Moody’s

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=532490
[snip]
The key data point in Moody’s view is the size of federal interest payments on the public debt as a percentage of tax revenue. For the U.S., debt service of 18%-20% of federal revenue is the outer limit of AAA-territory, Moody’s managing director Pierre Cailleteau confirmed in an e-mail.

Under the Obama budget, interest would top 18% of revenue in 2018 and 20% in 2020, CBO projects.

But under more adverse scenarios than the CBO considered, including higher interest rates, Moody’s projects that debt service could hit 22.4% of revenue by 2013.

“While we see limited risk of a U.S. sovereign debt downgrade in the next 2-3 years, beyond that we cannot be so certain,” wrote Societe Generale’s economics team in a recent report. [snip]

The U.S. economic recovery is on shakier ground.

The growing European debt crisis has sent stock markets on a wild ride. A weaker European economy could sap demand for U.S. exports and hurt sales by U.S. companies in Europe. U.S. banks that hold European government debt also could cut back on lending to conserve cash.
“The perception of risk has just changed in a major way,” said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities. “Business leaders now think there is more risk in the world economy than they did 30 days ago.”

Half of U.S. Home Loan Modifications Default Again

March 25 (Bloomberg) — More than half of U.S. borrowers who received loan modifications on delinquent mortgages defaulted again after nine months, according to a federal report.

The re-default rate of loans modified in the first quarter of 2009 was 51.5 percent by the end of the year, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision said in a joint report today. The figure, which measures payments at least 30 days late, climbed to 57.9 percent for changes made in the prior 12 months. [snip]

The Democrats during Carter and Clinton Regimes insisted banks lend to borrowers that could not meet normal borrowing requirements. The Congress kept this policy ongoing and thwarted Bush’s attempt to change the program.

Modifications are “clearly not working well and it’s not a surprise,” said Sam Khater, a senior economist at First American CoreLogic in Tysons Corner, Virginia. “It’s pointless to rewrite these loans because they’re underwater.”

Socialism doesn’t work.
One cannot run a State/Country on OPM without requiring repayment of all that money at interest on time.
Only very high taxes on every citizen of the population can give “free” benefits to the recipients of that entity. No exceptions!

Always buy low and sell high! In Venezuela, that’s easy to do!

All you have to do is buy something and wait a day; the price will go up. Of course the value of one’s money drops in proportion.
We’ll see this marvel of Progressive Economics here soon the way Obama and the Congress is printing and spending money.

Venezuela annual inflation rate hits 30 percent

[snip]
The Central Bank and National Statistics Institute on Friday reported a 5.2 percent increase in consumer prices during April, driving up the annual rate to 30.4 percent.

President Hugo Chavez’s government has been struggling against the highest inflation rate in Latin America and a weakening economy in general.

Prices increased 11.3 percent from January to April, up from 6.7 percent inflation in the same 2009 period. [snip]

The country imports most of its food, and Chavez on Friday announced the government will create an import-export corporation aiming to break with the private sector’s “hegemony.” It wasn’t immediately clear how the new state entity would operate.

You know how it will operate, as well as the rest of the economy in any socialist armpit country or state.

Chavez said wealthy Venezuelans involved in the import business “buy abroad, come here and ask for more than it really costs.”

It is ALWAYS THE RICH, but isn’t Chàvez rich?
Look at how well off he is and how he lives.

 
Anybody have family or friends caught in the Great Gaia Travel Stoppage. Wasn’t it just swell?
No freight shipping, FedEx and UPS stymied. BMW slowed the assembly line in Greer, SC. Gotta love it!

Polluting BIG AIR at least lost huge money. Screw the thousands of those swells stuck in Europe.
Welcome to Obama’s CAP & TRADE, the Gorite idea of alternative travel.
Go GREEN-Grow WINGS!

This is CAP & TAX travel with BIG AIR flying maybe twice a day and costing so much YOU cannot afford to use it. Fuel at 5X current price; taxes triple current with ticket prices to match. Think not; Obama betting on it.

KILL BIG OIL and petroleum based fuels.
GREEN IS RED!

I don’t know to whom to attribute this; it was sent to me in an e-mail. Got to love the content !

Obama administration economic guru Larry Summers may end up being best remembered for almost single-handedly destroyed the Harvard University endowment fund as a result of misguided instructions he gave the fund’s management during his tenure as Harvard University president from 2002 to 2006.Summers, currently director of the White House National Economic Council, called for an aggressive investment strategy in which Harvard’ endowment fund engaged in risky strategies, including derivative strategies that have burdened the nation’ largest university endowment with billions of dollars in toxic assets.

As a result, the Harvard endowment, which peaked at $36.9 billion in June 2008, has since lost some 30 percent of its value, dropping to $26 billion, according to Bloomberg News.

Are you wondering why the country is in debt? 

In October 2009, Harvard University paid $497.6 million to investment banks to get out from $1.1 billion in interest rate swaps that were intended to hedge variable-rate debt for capital projects, Bloomberg reported.

In what amounted to Harvard’s biggest endowment loss in 40 years, the university also agreed to pay $425 million over the next 30 to 40 years to offset an additional $764 million in credit-swap deals gone bad.

Citing failed interest rate swaps that forced Harvard to pay banks $1 billion just to terminate the junk contracts, Bloomberg reported the Harvard endowment’s investments have become so toxic that even Summers won’t explain what happened during his watch.

The Boston Globe squarely put the blame on Summers’ doorstep, noting he came into office with a bold vision to expand the size of its science facilities by more than a third.

Average yearly expenditures for facilities jumped from under $150 million in 1995-2000 at Harvard, to $495 million from 2001-2005, to $644 million in 2009.

“Summers told the faculty not to think small,” the Globe wrote. “Its ambitions were limited only by its imagination, he said. “Harvard could always come up with more money from its ‘deeply loyal fans.’”

The faculty was right, he should have thought small.

Unfortunately, deeply loyal fans and alumni with deep pockets were not enough to bail the university out from Sumner’s ill advised investment advice.

Bloomberg reported that cash-strapped Harvard recently asked Massachusetts for fast-track approval to borrow $2.5 billion.

This is like giving hooch money to a drunk; take a look at how they turned out!

The damage done to Harvard is not limited to plans to expand the science facility into blue-collar Allston. Now, the university is faced with slashing faculty and staff.

Last year, more than 1,600 of Harvard’s staff were offered early retirement, and more than 500 accepted.

“Loyal alumni have contributed generously to staunch the bleeding,” the Globe wrote, “but huge deficits remain in spite of all the reductions. Harvard will be a smaller place when the dust settles, with less educational and scholarly reach. It will employ fewer people and will contribute less to local and national prosperity.”

No problem, they still have a faculty slot for a Red Stripe drinking bunghole.