The NEA is going to face the same knife as the British art scene is experiencing now. Here in Proggy Land, let the pompous and haughty Left scratch under their sofa cushions for the coinage to drop in the turnstiles at the Met, MOMA or the National Gallery. This will give them some measure of humility

The first program to cut is PBS. Let the Lefty swells pay for their precious Lehrer News Hour. The same goes for NPR; A Prairie Home Companion takes on real meaning when it’s your phone call during pledge week footing the bill. .Besides, paying for their own programming will give them a sense of accomplishment, heretofore lacking in their bereft lives.
The following is from the WAPO.

British government moves to dramatically cut public funding for the arts

[snip]
But now cash-strapped and desperate to slash the largest budget deficit in Europe, the new ruling coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats is moving to close the curtain on an era of what they describe as excessive government patronage. [snip]

The move underscores the profound changes in the role of government that are taking place from Greece to Spain to Britain. It happens as European nations scramble to rein in runaway spending, in part by slashing public funds to sectors that came to survive — even thrive — because of them. [snip]

Panicked curators, artistic directors and art critics are warning of London’s potential fall from the vanguard of the global arts scene. In danger, for instance, are the same government-funded institutions that helped produce such films as “The Last King of Scotland” and “The Constant Gardener” as well as Broadway- and Hollywood-bound stage works such as “Jerusalem” and “War Horse.” The Royal Shakespeare Company has warned that it might be forced to scale back or do away with international productions altogether.

Alistair Spalding, artistic director of London’s cutting-edge Sadler’s Wells dance theater, said it may have no choice but to abandon the kinds of projects that helped redefine London’s street art scene. Those include recent pieces like “Electric Hotel,” which turned an abandoned plot of land into a venue where passersby became voyeurs as dancers moved behind transparent walls. “There is a crisis and cuts need to be made, but the arts are being singled out,” he said. “This is going to seriously damage the image of London as a cultural hub.”

If this production is so moving, such a must see that travelers flock to London, just for that, put up veiled translucent walls and CHARGE ADMISSION!

The cuts are set to be so deep that some observers say even the famously free London museums might need to consider admission fees, potentially affecting the pockets of millions of tourists who flock to the British capital each year. [snip]He insisted that the best works, regardless of their subject matter, would find sponsors. He noted the case of “Enron,” a British play that started in government-supported theater before finding private backers for a commercial run in London’s West End. This, he said, despite what he called the work’s “anti-capitalist themes.”

“To be honest,” he said, “I think we should spend more time recognizing that [the private sector] is prepared to fund the arts because they believe it’s the right thing to do, and less time implying this will bring with it some form of censorship.”

If there is actually something of artistic quality produced, getting private funding isn’t all that difficult. Some of the-er-ah-performance art being foisted off as “brilliant-a phenom-strikingly forward” and all the other garnishes applied to the usual drek will die a deservedly quick death.

You know the kvelling mantra. If you don’t buy-look-fawn over-donate-approve-talk about the Left’s socially correct ART, you are guilty of CENSORSHIP.
TSK-TSK-TSK, You certainly are in need of re-education at one of the camps of a stricter regime.

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.

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.

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!

Candidate Obama was a very different person than President Obama when it came to the issue of raising taxes.  Candidate Obama says this at BarackObama.com:

Middle class families will see their taxes cut – and no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase.

Candidate Obama also had this to say when stumping on the trail:

Got that?  Not any form of tax increase if you make under $250K a year.  Of course, he’s already crushed this promise with health care reform, but he’s not done yet:

President Barack Obama suggested Wednesday that a new value-added tax on Americans is still on the table, seeming to show more openness to the idea than his aides have expressed in recent days.Before deciding what revenue options are best for dealing with the deficit and the economy, Obama said in an interview with CNBC, “I want to get a better picture of what our options are.”

Aw, aren’t politicians cute?  He’s not increasing our taxes; he’s enhancing the government’s “revenue options”.  Honestly, I was almost fooled by your vastly superior intellect, Mr. President.  But if I might offer a suggestion, next time you might want to try pig latin.  You could say “Ixna on the Taxieays until after the Electionay”.  I would have been totally baffled by that.All I want to know is how big a fool were you if you really believed that Obama wasn’t going to jack up taxes through the roof?

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.

So how is Obamacare going to work?  MA is giving you an early preview as the health insurance industry gets ready to sue the state over price controls:

Last week, the insurance division denied 235 of 274 rates proposed by health insurers.

Murphy said the rejected rates were “unreasonable relative to the benefits provided.”

Hmm…where have I heard this before?  Oh yeah, this is what the tea partiers are telling our politicians.  Taxes are too high compared to the pathetic benefits we receive.  Oddly enough, that didn’t stop them from ramming through a 25% sales tax increase.  But don’t let those private sector folks fool you, they’re costs never go up according to the insurance commissioner.

So what’s the over/under on when these companies start pulling out of Massachusetts?

Obama’s budget proposal will raise taxes by a trillion dollars:

The Obama administration’s plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.

In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year — effectively a tax hike by stealth.

But oddly enough, it’s apparently no longer a story:

The story Backdoor taxes to hit middle class has been withdrawn. A replacement story will run later in the week.

Now why do you suppose Reuters spiked the story?  I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact they’re in the satchel for the president.

Spending freezes,
WHO is for WHAT!

He was against it before for he was for it!

Is there any differences BETWEEN/AMONG JACKASSES?

“…that’s using a hatchet, I want to use a scalpel…” Obama during the debates with McCain.

During the Debates, four times Obama stressed he wouldn’t cut spending. Instead he blew up the deficit. NOW, he’s in favor of a spending freeze!

The Obama administration is more and more like Jimmy Carter’s every day.  Here’s Treasury Secretary Geithner making the case for economic malaise:

“But this is going to be a different recovery than in the past because Americans are going to have to save more. A lot of damage was caused by this crisis. It’s going to take some time for us to grow out of this.

“It could be a little choppy. It could be uneven. And it’s going to take awhile,” Geithner said.

I’m also calling for a “different recovery”–as in none, nada, niente, aucun, etc.  Just look at the macro economic policies this administration favors:

• Taxes, taxes, taxes—trillions for healthcare, global warming, bailouts, etc.
• Debt monitization
• Foreign debt sales
• Expiration of the Bush tax cuts
• Trillions in unfunded Medicare and Social Security obligations

I don’t know what the stock market will do on Monday, but I do feel pretty comfortable in saying the long-term looks bleak.  Geithner agrees with my assessment too.  He just uses words like “choppy” and ”different recovery”.

The Community Organizer-in-Chief doesn’t have the first clue about how the real economy works.  That’s why I’m not looking for a recovery or more jobs.  This guy simply isn’t up to the job.

California is the worst run state in the Union.  I’m not even sure MA is a close second with buffonery like this:

Starting Sunday, cash-strapped California will dig deeper into the pocketbooks of wage earners — holding back 10% more than it already does in state income taxes just as the biggest shopping season of the year kicks into gear.

Will CA be able to pay this interest free loan back to its citizens come tax time?  It’s highly unlikely.  Therefore, if you don’t want to get paid in Arnold dollars when the state is forced to default on the “loan” they’re stealing from your check, it’s time to change your withholding to something like 1000.  And it’s way past time to throw some of your encumbents out of office.

Why should any sane Republican helm any “Progressive” ship of State?

For years, the Progs/Socialists excoriated anyone trying to steer a judicious course as insensitive, uncaring of the children or robber barons.

In Vermont, by dint of veto override, the Progs/Donkeys/Socialists claim to have the seaman skills, let them have the helm. This blow is more than a winter nor’easter and they’re not heading to safe port.

[snip]
And people wonder why Governor Douglas has chosen not to run for re-election.

The Vermont State Employees Association (VSEA) made a final offer that would have involved four furlough days, four unpaid holidays and the elimination of a wellness incentive plan to save the money. The Douglas administration has long objected to furlough days – unpaid days off – to make up the budget gap caused by declining state revenues because they represent one-time savings while the weak revenue picture is likely to continue for several years, officials said.

Jes Kraus, head of the state workers’ union, disagreed.

Jes Kraus can disagree all he wants! The only businesses left in Vermont will be non-profit engaged in CO₂ reduction.
Carbon savings is going to kick this state in the butt so hard, everyone will have charcoal briquettes in their shorts.

The Coming Reset in State Government

My fellow governors and I are likely facing a permanent reduction in tax revenues.

Mr. Daniels, a Republican, is the governor of Indiana.
State government finances are a wreck. The drop in tax receipts is the worst in a half century. Fewer than 10 states ended the last fiscal year with significant reserves, and three-fourths have deficits exceeding 10% of their budgets. Only an emergency infusion of printed federal funny money is keeping most state boats afloat right now. [snip]

The coming state government reset will be particularly wrenching after the happy binge that preceded this recession. During the last decade, states increased their spending by an average of 6% per year, gusting to 8% during 2007-08. Much of the government institutions built up in those years will now have to be dismantled. [snip] (emphasis added)

The “progressive” states that built their enormous public burdens by soaking the wealthy will hit the wall first and hardest. California, which extracts more than half its income taxes from a fraction of 1% of its citizens, is extreme but hardly alone in its overreliance on a few, highly mobile taxpayers. Both individuals and businesses are fleeing soak-the-rich states already.

Those who remain in high-tax states will be making few if any capital gains tax payments in the years to come. Even if the stock market comes roaring back to life, the best it could do is speed the deduction of recent losses.

Sadly, the political impulse to protect government largess leads many states to aggravate their dilemma. Already more than half have raised taxes, often on businesses, serving only to chase them and their tax payments away and into the open arms of states like Indiana. Our traffic flow of interested investors is as heavy as it was in 2007. Since January we have welcomed the consolidation of more than 30 firms that closed up shop elsewhere and chose us as the low-cost, enterprise-friendly environment among their current locations.

Indiana was near bankruptcy five years ago but is relatively solvent today because we have spent the intervening years making hard choices. We have reformed state procurement, contracted out some jobs, cut costs, and relentlessly scrutinized expenditures in pushing for annual improvement in departments large and small. We’ve also reduced the number of state employees by some 5,000 from the 2004 level. [snip]

New England, brace yourselves, the real world arrives in 2011.

In a prior post I mentioned what N. Roubini’s concerns were about the recovery.
In exchange, an commenter posted  this brilliant bit of blather, from the consignment of cretins that brought you the mess.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) Aug. 23, 2009 “- The $787 billion stimulus package passed in February will fuel a recovery in the moribund U.S. economy this year, Congress’ non-partisan budget watchdog said on Tuesday.”

“Economic activity will begin to rebound in the second half of 2009, largely the result of fiscal stimulus,” the Congressional Budget Office said in its assessment of the federal budget and U.S. economy.

It’s always nice to see what passes for thought from the Obama camp.

Here’s someone whose creds are considerably more lofty, certainly recognized globally, unlike any of the 535 elected nitwits plus the congregated fools at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has covered world politics and economics for 25 years, based in Europe, the US, and Latin America. He joined the Telegraph in 1991, serving as Washington correspondent and later Europe correspondent in Brussels. He is now International Business Editor in London.

Can the soufflé really rise again?

Two facts that should give pause for thought.
1) Japanese data released on Thursday showed that exports fell yet again in July. They are down 39.5pc to the US, and 26.5pc to China.

Japan is the world’s second biggest economy. It lives on exports. It is also a key part of the supply chain for the Chinese economy. How can this hard data be reconciled with the extreme V-shaped recovery already priced in by the markets?

By the way, Toyota is suspending a key production line at its Takaoka plant in central Japan. It is cutting global capacity by 1m vehicles.

2) The Baltic Dry Index measuring freight rates for bulk goods and commodities has been falling almost continuously for eleven weeks, dropping from 4,290 to 2,778 on Thursday.

Is this just a glut of ships or is this telling us what the Shanghai market is also telling us, that credit tightening by the Chinese government is pulling the rug from underneath the latest commodity bubble? [snip]

I have no idea when stock markets and commodities – especially base metals – will reflect the hard facts on the ground (ie, an end to the Chinese construction bubble). Timing is not my forte. Nor is the market.

But I am absolutely convinced that those who think we can return to the status quo ante of the credit bubble as if nothing has happened are delusional. As almost every central banker in Jackson Hole reminded us over the weekend, it is going to be a very long hard slog.

You might wish to read the article for it is from person one more aware than the Obamatron who commented, particularly if you have MONEY at play.

Then again, if you’re a liberal/Prog, you believe in redistribution.
I recommend leaving it there!