Obama's energy jobs destroyed number

Obama: Frigging with Rigging

According to the Department of Energy, U.S. offshore oil production is going to drop by 11% in 2011.  The reason is the Obama administration's ban on deep water drilling that came about, conveniently, as a result of the Gulf Oil Spill.  What the President wants is green energy self-sufficiency - in other words energy self-sufficiency on his terms.  Setting aside the  President's hypocrisy on energy self sufficiency in the United States, there's the issue of the President once again, putting an agenda ahead of the needs of the American people.  In a time of economic trouble, shouldn't the President be doing as much as he can to mitigate the economic circumstances faced by the nation?

Jobs NOT Saved

Remember President Obama said that we had to pass his stimulus in order to save jobs?  Sure you do.  He promised unemployment would go above 8% unless government acted.  Remember when the unemployment rate went over 10% following the stimulus bill passing?  Oops.  I've got a number for you - the number of jobs the President didn't save.

No Matter How Hard It Tries, Government Won't Create Jobs

Ostensibly related, scary jobs graph.

No matter how hard it tries, government won't create jobs.  This is really quite simple.  

(1) In order for wealth to be created, value has to be added to something. Trees become wood, they become more economically valuable.  Bulk wood becomes pencils it becomes more economically valuable (thank you Milton Friedman).  Wealth has been added to the system.  In this example it is goods being created, but it could also be a service.

(2) In order to create a good or service some combination of three things is required.  Those three things are land, labor and capital ($).

(3) Government is typically not in the business of making goods, but it does, ostensibly provide services.  

(4) Normally these goods or services are created by people or businesses in response to a perceived need.   Jobs are a necessary by-product of wealth creation.  In order to create wealth, people need to do work. It is one of the 3 key ingredients of production.

(5) In the case of government, it has land, and labor, but it gets it's capital by taking it from businesses and people in the form of taxes. It requires that capital to employ it's labor and maintain it's land (and buildings) in addition to providing whatever services it can.  There is a significant use of capital required for this.

(6) By taking this money out of the hands of business and people it is reducing their ability to have the three resources needed to create wealth - specifically capital.  Essentially what government has done is move one of the factors of production from one player (the private sector) to another (itself).

(7) Assuming everyone can create wealth equally (and that's a flattering assumption for the government) by employing land, labor and capital, the government has not added any jobs that would not have been created elsewhere.  In fact, judging by the failure of the Keynesian ARRA stimulus pushed through by the Democrats, they likely provided less jobs than if they'd left that money with business to do it's thing.  All government can do is shift what those dollars help create.  Instead of iPods*, you might get more workers at the DMV.  Government has never been better than the free market at assessing what the public wants.  If it were, the government would be producing iPods. Since it is not, the government is producing less wealth, and less jobs than would have been created if they'd left that money where it originally was.

The government cannot create jobs, it simply can move around the existing job mix to suit itself.  I don't think I've ever heard any Keynesian economist argue that the government money goes further than private sector money (has a higher multiplier effect).  That erstwhile taxed capital, could have been put to more effective use by the private sector.  It would have created more jobs than ARRA did. That's a separate discussion that requires more time.

Keynesian adherents would argue that business has been sitting on the sidelines and that money would not have been spent anyway.  They might also argue that the money wasn't taxed, it was mostly borrowed, from China. That's an interesting argument but it is flawed.

Let's address China first.  Setting aside whether it's a good idea to borrow enormous sums of money from a global competitor, the money the government uses from China it WILL have to be paid back eventually.  With interest.  So it will still come out of the private sector in the form of a tax, except it will happen in the future, and it will be more than advertised. Oops.

Regarding private money sitting on the sidelines, there are a number of problems with that argument.  A lot of the money that the private sector is sitting on, it is doing so out of uncertainty.  That uncertainty has been brought on by a stalled recovery, which has been caused by the Keynesian tax and spend approach to government and the private sector is simply waiting for the dust to settle before it starts spending again.  Now instead of $3 trillion that the private sector is sitting on and waiting to spend, it's only $2 trillion.  The other trillion, plus interest, will be forfeited to China.  The money is gone - in exchange for what?  A 9.6% jobless rate (probably 9.7% by tomorrow) instead of the promised 8% cap.  Congratulations guys, you blew it.

Another problem with the money on the sidelines issue is that it will not stay there forever.  The Great Recession will not last forever either.  But without the unintended consequences of government intervention, perhaps that private investment would have already started to flow back into the economy.  Just like the Obama White House's fictitious jobs saved, one could argue that the number of jobs destroyed has been in the millions.

Keynesianism, is a flawed view of economics.  At least as it's being practiced today.  I would argue (and others have said that Keynes himself would to some extent agree with this) that the only time a government stimulus is a good idea is if the government has been prudent and was not sitting on a mountain of debt but rather a healthy surplus.  Keynes I believe might argue the surplus point, but I believe he would agree that systemic deficits are counter-productive and not how he meant the government stimulus in a recessionary period idea to be applied.

It's something to consider when you start thinking about who you are voting for in any election.  President Obama wasn't lying when he said as a candidate that he thought spreading the wealth was a good thing.  He's talking about it through a prism of how government will spend your money, and whom it would like to see benefit.  The one part he did forget to mention was that while the government can't create wealth, and while it's busy spreading it around, they're also hard at work spreading around the debt.  There's a lot more of that going around these days than wealth.

*Steve Jobs, unlike government, has created iPods, jobs (and more Jobs).

HuffPo Hypocrisy

No one expects every liberal to agree on every issue. But when they say one thing at one time and the opposite at another, that's hypocrisy. The can't even agree with themselves from 2009.  This time the hypocrisy is about the importance of jobs.

Huffington Post contributor Isaiah J. Poole opines today that jobs should be priority #1.

Jobs should be the first order of business of the 112th Congress. But when the new, Republican-led House of Representatives goes back to work on the week of January 18 its first agenda item will be the repeal of health care reform. Notwithstanding the labeling of their action as the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act," not one job will be created or saved by the House vote. (Likewise, there is no substance to the claim that the health care reform law is "job-killing.")

The focus for both parties will then quickly turn to budget-cutting and a showdown over the lifting of the debt ceiling. Absent from the discussion would be the most important action that Congress could take this year: a multibillion-dollar program of direct spending on jobs, one that would immediately put people to work on the myriad jobs that need to be done, from paving streets to staffing public libraries.

One could argue that perhaps some liberals are finally getting it. Where was this discussion when the Democrats were ramming the health care bill down America's throat? Oh yeah, liberals were too busy cheering or egging the Democrats on. They were willing to neglect 10% unemployment to get their health care reform passed.  Now that it's hopefully peaked and retreated a bit closer to 9% (again, for now), suddenly it has become what needs the focus of America's Congress.  That's just because the Congress is now controlled by Republicans.  In other words - leave the new 2300 page law alone! We passed it despite the wishes of the people, so just let it stand and look after what we neglected, would you?

Jobs was never issue number one when the recession was at its bleakest moments.  The ARRA was not about jobs, it was about the liberals' pet projects.  What happened to all that shovel ready talk from the President?  Oops.  And health care reform was never about jobs, despite the ravings of Nancy Pelosi.  Democrats simply missed the boat on jobs.  Obama claimed it was his number one priority (one of many), but in reality they dropped the ball. Now that they are out of power, claiming jobs is priority one is disingenuous.  Poole's argument is simply one of convenience, and I'm sure on some level he knows it.

As an aside, it's interesting how Poole casually tosses out the "there is no substance to the claim that the health care reform law is 'job-killing.'"  It isn't? You can't just say that without backing it up.  How?  Where?

CNN - Tea Party Express GOP Debate thoughts

The discussion around Social Security being a ponzi scheme is a healthy one but you can see in the CNN coverage that smart Republicans have to ensure that whenever they talk about it nothing can be taken out of context.  Every sentence has to include the points that it is future based reform (no one in the system will be displaced), that it is only about saving the concept of social security from ruinous failure and Social Security for no one.  Once you figure out how to distill all that down to 11 words, let me know.

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At 10:17 EST, CNN in it's truth-o-meter claimed Rick Perry was false in his assertion that the first stimulus under Obama created zero jobs.  CNN reverted to  the CBO's estimate that 1.4 million to 3 million jobs were "created or saved".  The fact that they would even consider scoring jobs saved is a ridiculous and disqualifying assertion.  That meme disappeared in 2010.  That it was presented as being more factual than Perry's assertion is in itself misleading.  While it's not surprising, it is still disappointing.

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It will be interesting to see if Bachmann's attack of Perry on vaccination and the implications a of government mandate gains traction.  I think it will require more repetition to move the needle on Perry.  I also think it's an important question that requires a better answer than Perry gave.

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Speaking of which, I'm completely unsold on Governor Perry.  In 1988, he apparently endorsed Al Gore, and of course he used to be a Democrat.  That in itself is no crime but I think I'm justified in feeling squishy on him, or at least unsold.  On immigration he needs to better explain himself than he has as well as the Bachmann question on vaccination and then there's the next point.

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While Perry did better than the previous debate, and he held his own, he is not the debater that Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich are.  The latter two came off as the most polished and while neither one has my endorsement, both are best positioned to run circles around President Obama in a head to head debate.  Gingrich will not be the nominee, and Romney isn't very soft on conservatism despite his concerted effort to run to the right in the primaries.  Perry has a lot of work to do to get more prepared for some tougher debates, especially when there are far fewer people on the stage.

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The best take on Perry's taxes came from Ron Paul.  It was both funny and poignant.  I don't think Paul is electable either but despite pundits' expectations, I think he will become much more polished as the debates go on.

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Michele Bachmann did better than the previous debate, but I don't know if she did well enough.

Obamusings, pontifications and platitudes

Obama's fierce urgency of now, as it relates to the stimulus package, is in full force and as misguided as a SCUD missile. There were some things that were passed off with nary raised eyebrow that should have, well, raised eyebrows. Herewith, a few notes on the love-in that was Obama's first prime time press conference.

First off, did he or did he not say that doing nothing would lead to greater deficits? Is that compared to an additional $800+ billion dollars in ADDITIONAL DEFICITS? Rinnnnnnnngggggggg! Wake up call for the Press Corp. Hello? And another thing, his solution to inheriting a trillion dollar deficit is to DOUBLE DOWN? The bill has been stripped of all pork? Really? Are there enough fact checkers to look into that before tomorrow morning?

By the time I peeled myself off the floor, the One had finished his divine proclamation and had started on his first of his 13 very carefully pre-selected questions. He WAS reading those names off of a notepad wasn't he? He's got screeners for his press conferences? This is not good Republicans, because there are a couple of things Obama happened to get right.

1. He remembered that his forte was speaking, and he stuck to that in many ways. He planned a prime time press conference, hoping to connect with the Average Joe (so long as he isn't a plumber) and convince them that this stinkulus package must get done. This is likely the first of many press conferences - it's easier to talk than govern and it looks like this could be his approach to a lot of things. He wanted to own the discussion by managing it how he saw fit. Things don't go his way, and you can count on a press conference.
2. He managed to turn 30 second answers into 10 minute answers, thereby eating up any opportunity for potentially grilling questions getting asked. In other words, he managed the clock. His basketball knowledge is serving him well - he ran the game clock and avoided a full court press. He did leave rebounds but the press corp was too lax to pick them up.
3. He did his own full court press on the urgency of the crisis. If he says it enough, the lie becomes the accepted fact. Is it a lie? Well, is it the 100% gospel truth? How do we know that this is the worst crisis since the sinking of Atlantis? Or, rather the Great Depression? We don't Mr. President and neither do you. Just a note on what many economists have said - job losses are a lagging indicator not a leading indicator.
4. He said he'd save/create 4 million jobs. Now with specificity like that, he can't get pinned down. Oh, sure we only created 50,000 jobs, but without this package, another 3.95 million would have been lost so we did as promised. How can you possibly tell how many jobs a stimulus package SAVED? He's set himself up for guaranteed success unless he gets called on the premise of his job efforts.
5. He's talking down the economy - it serves to reinforce the urgency of 'pass it now' and it also helps set him up to take credit for success no matter what happens. The ever-popular it would have been far worse if I hadn't intervened meme.

Dick Morris commented on the reference to Japan's lost decade of the 90's - they ran massive deficits. Obama also mentioned that he thought the issue of whether the Great Depression was solved by FDR was over. I guess he hasn't talked to enough economists. At Terrynomics, there's an interesting posting on the subject of both of these events.

As I've mentioned in an earlier post there are two popular lines of thought on
how to accomplish this and one unpopular line: monetarists who believe in
government manipulation of currency and interest rates (quantitative easing);
Keynesian who believe in government spending (fiscal stimulus), particularly
deficit spending; Austrian economists advise doing nothing and letting nature
work things out. It is a folk belief among Americans that the Great Depression
was ended by implementation of Keynesian deficit spending. Among economists
there remains great debate about whether this is true.

Geez, not in Obama's mind - that debate was won by the Keynsians. Too bad he's wrong. Oh well, don't let a little truth get in the way of a great story.

On the issue of US/Iran dialogue: The best word he can come up with is "unhelpful"? Oh wait, he said "destabilizing regime". Uh, oh Ahmadinejad be careful, he might break out the phrase 'Iran gets my goat!' Such terse, cruel verbiage. You should feel appropriately scolded. Now come talk (he did follow it up with words like "overtures", "diplomacy", "reviewing" and "looking for openings"). Come on, he's not really THAT mad.

In response to the Chip Reid (CBS) question on bi-partisanship, he launched into a speech-like answer that made it clear that he had no real answer or didn't know where to go to get to his point across. Or he was just killing the clock. An odd result seeing as he seemed to have pre-screened the questions. Then again, I think maybe he was just using questions as a jumping off point, rather than answering the question he was asked. Looks like you only get skewered for that if your name is Palin.

Jake Tapper, he of the humilate Press Secretary Gibbs fame, asked a reasonable question - what metrics will we measure your success by? While the answer sounded reasonable, in fact it was vague - 4 million jobs created/saved (define saved), effective credit markets, stabilized housing markets and growth. All except the last one depend on who is defining them. What's 'stabilized' mean?

On Ed Henry's (CNN) question about withdrawl from Afghanistan, there was a bit of ironic hypocrisy. Obama would NOT COMMIT TO A TIMETABLE. I guess you only get skewered for that if your name is Bush.

The Washington Post gets a question. A Rod on steroids? Just take away their press credentials. A softball question about baseball? What a waste of air.

Huffington Post gets a question. They use it to ask when Obama is going to get around to prosecuting that criminal Bush. I figure we've got at least another couple of years of this tripe. I know it took me a lot of time to get over Clinton. Then again, he did commit perjury, not some imagined violation of a fictitious right.

All in all, Obama used the speech to score political points - get the bill passed, get the approval ratings back in the right direction. That's understandable - it's a political town and a political game, but the lustre will wear off if he overplays that hand. I for one hope he does, because when it comes right down to it, this was nothing more than a distraction from the truth - the stinkulus bill still sucks, it still deserves no Republican support, it is still a partisan bill and no amount of eloquence can change the truth.

UPDATE: Hot Air has a couple of points that support my notes above, one supporting the Japanese Lost Decade and the spending associated with it. The other was my question about the supposed lack of pork in the bill - even the Associated Press calls the President's assertions into question. The added plus for me - I beat Hot Air to the punch by posting my rant last night. Speed doesn't always make for accuracy, but getting out something faster than Hot Air, I'll take that - it won't happen too often.

Obama is Moving the Goal Posts on Recovery

Remember the Democrats complaining that President Bush had supposedly moved the goalposts when the focus of the Iraq invasion 'switched' from weapons of mass destruction to countering an Axis of Evil regime and liberating the country? Supposedly. My rhetorical question is this; why wouldn't they bother to applies the same standard to President Obama, who has recently done some real re-definitions of his own?

SSOTU: Supposed State of the Union

Oxymoronic SOTU

A quick preview of the president's State of the Union.would be remiss if it did not include the notion that the president is going to take the opportunity to use the opportunity as a campaign speech.  Indeed, many see it as the president's kick-off of his 2012 re-election effort (aside from the myriad of fundraisers that have been going on for months).  The president's speech in that spirit will do three things.  It will argue that the country is hurting and it will require more of his efforts to fight income inequality.  Secondly, in an oxymoron destined to go mostly unchecked, it will call for more spending and lower deficits.  Finally he will work in there somewhere, a narrative that he hopes will hold is that the country is spinning its wheels because of a Do Nothing Congress.

What is that going to look like?

Janet Napolitano, otherwise unemployable

Talk about jobs saved or created - certainly the White House's continued employment of Janet Napolitano counts as one job definitely, though inexplicably, saved.

Janet Napolitano, throwing the entire Obama administration under the proverbial bus by saying everything worked as it was supposed to work during this crisis - apparently explaining away the lack of response from the President himself.



The problem is that the country wasn't buying it and the administration had to come back with the "systemic failure" talking points to prove that they are serious about threats to Americans. even if the President is in Hawaii.



The President's CYA response - blame the system, the agencies and the people.  In other words, throw someone else under the bus.  After all, it's all about nursing the approval rating through 2012, isn't it?

The real systemic failure is the employment of bad personnel in senior positions who think the important part of the job is to re-name terrorist acts 'man-caused disasters' instead of calling them what they are.  The real systemic failure is the new system that ignores the reality of the world and tries to paint rainbows on the enemies of freedom and democracy.  The real systemic failure is that even now, no reasonable recall mechanism exists for those in charge of national security.

Stuff that keeps me up at night

YJ-62: Part of China's arsenal.

Yikes. China might be beating the U.S. on the naval warfare front.

...a missile race going on in the Pacific, and one China might be winning.

The most muscular of these new Chinese weapons is the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile, which counts a range of over 1,700 miles. If in some future shooting war one of these missiles targets a U.S. warship, there might be no defense against it.

China has also been hard at work developing a navalized version of the DH-10 land-attack cruise missile, which can travel nearly 2,500 miles and strike ground targets such as American bases in Guam and Okinawa...

Beijing’s most powerful foreign-made anti-ship missile is the Russian SS-N-22 Sunburn, a terrifying Mach-3 devastator.

...There’s a destroyer-launched version of the YJ-62 with an operational range of nearly 250 miles, compared to the standard Harpoon’s 77 miles. All things being equal, in a head-to-head fight a Chinese destroyer could get the first shot against a U.S. vessel.

And there’s a big push underway in China to build even newer and better ship-killing missiles. Beijing has been observed ramping-up use of special test-bed ships fitted with new sensors that could be satellite communications or fire control systems, or something else entirely.

All this activity on the other side of the Pacific has put the U.S. off its balance. “Don’t be too surprised if the Navy is scrambling to deploy in a hurry, as [the Americans] are chronically behind in EW system fleet upgrades across all three services, due to funding being diverted into [the global war on terrorism] or whatever label is attached these days,” Kopp says.

That's the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.  They say you have to pick your poison.  In this case America has targeted terrorism ahead of national defense maintenance.  In fact the current administration has picked any domestic pork barrel spending over anything to do with national defense - terrorism or otherwise.  America has been fighting a two front war for over a decade.  Not Afghanistan and Iraq, but rather it has been fighting a war between geo-political national defense and trying to use resources to minimize and mitigate terrorism.

What's the right balance for those two competing needs?  The numbers are pretty clear - the amount spent on Homeland Security that has saved a questionable number of lives (remember jobs saved logic? It's being used here as well) versus keeping the entire nation safe the priority should be on the latter.  After all, the Boston Marathon wasn't prevented despite all of the billions spent on spying on Americans.  That's because you can't prevent everything.  The solution - focus on moving the big rocks.  China is a big rock.  Secondly, in the this-or-that decisioning, it's pretty clear that the public doesn't want to be spied upon anyway.

The decision seems to be pretty straight-forward at this point.  Focus the national defense efforts on China, North Korea, Iran and Russia.  Those are the real dangers.  Yes, terrorism must be dealt with but containing it is simpler if America has international respect as to what it might do to a nation that supports terrorism.  With that respect gone, it's open season on America. By focusing on geo-political foes, America gets a secondary benefit of discouraging support for terrorism.  The reverse case - fighting terrorism helping  contain potential Chinese aggression - is not going to happen.

Get ready to bash Obama

Not over yet.

There's a long history of  blame, misdirection and undeserved credit-taking from the Obama administration when it has come to the unemployment rate over the course of the Obama administration. Starting from the opening days of the administration when the president said their stimulus plan had to be passed or the unemployment rate would go above 8% (before it passed and then went up to 10.1%) things were either misunderstood or just full of obfuscation.  Later, the push was to use a made up metric of "jobs saved", something that could not be measured and therefore their statements of saving millions of jobs could not be contested. The problem there was that not contestable also meant unbelievable - especially since the numbers they claimed to 'save' were outrageously high. Next came the story line that this was much worse than they were led to believe and it was going to take much longer to get back out of the problem than they first though - that dovetailed well with the 'blame Bush' mantra and also the idea that the president still needs another four years to shepherd turning the country around.  After a couple of failed 'recovery summers' the latest spin is that since the economy has 'recovered' from a 10.1% unemployment rate down to 8.5%, the president's plan must finally be working.  Yeah, right.

The reason for revisiting this story line is because it is a perfect set up for taking the most recent talking points (we're recovering now) and weaving the Democrats story line into a tale of ultimate failure.  That's something that will help the Republicans to defeat Obama in November, since they are going to be hit hard with the supposed blame, and the tags of being crazy radicals come the fall.

Wake up (or shut up)

Going into tonight's State of The Union address by President Obama, one thing seems to be clear - he's going to try to portray himself as a fiscal hawk, and he will tout two things; action on jobs (to date and planned) and how this economic downturn is not his fault. Those of you still enthralled by style over substance might be prepared to swallow the Obama story whole, but my advice to you is wake up. And if you are unable or unwilling to rouse yourself from the blissful slumber that is Obama dreamland, then do the rest of us another favor instead. Rather than parroting the left's talking points, at least listen to a few facts before spouting dogmatic rhetoric. You don't really have to shut up, but just listen to a few things before you ramp up the memes again. Please.

There are two areas of contention that should be focused on at tonight's SOTU address. I'm going to put aside any reference to health care for now, because although I'm pretty sure he will mention it, discuss it or at least allude to it, I don't think it will be more than 10% of his address. I could be wrong, but I'll save that part of the analysis for the post game coverage.

The President is going to focus on two things - he's going to talk about an amalgam of the following points;

- he inherited the recession [True]
- he stopped it from being worse [False]
- he is going to focus on jobs [The question is how]
- he is going to focus on the deficit [This is outright deception]

With regard to the first point, the recession was well under way when Obama was inaugurated.  It does not reflect on him that there was a recession.  The argument that it was Democrat policies on the Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that caused the recession are even superfluous to an assessment of President Obama.  Those were not his decisions (whether he would have supported them or not).  The real concern here is not whether the recession was not his fault, but how did he deal with the crisis.  In that regard his response has not served the country well.

As supporters of the administration like to point out, the TARP program was started by President Bush, which is true.  What is also true is that (a) conservatives in large measure opposed both Bush and the GOP on the TARP issue prior to opposing Obama on it (b) President Obama upped the ante with the ARRA expenditures (his stimulus bill), the omnibus bill and tried to layer health care on top of it for another trillion dollars (c) In Bush's worst year for which figures are avaliable the total debt measured an outlandish 70% of GDP.  For fiscal 2009, for much of which the expenditures were compounded by Obama on top of the TARP issue, the figure is projected to be 90%.  For fiscal 2010 - all Obama now - it's projected to come it at 98%.  It's projected to peak at 101% before easing back to 100.6 for the 2012 election.  (d) Democrats also plan on taking the returned TARP money and plowing it back into the new jobs bill the President will proclaim tonight.

Did the President stop the unemployment rate at 8%? No, it's at 10% now and stuck in that neighborhood for the forseeable future.  The President's phoney 2 million thousands and thousands 1.5 million jobs created or saved doesn't stack up well against the 4 million new confirmed unemployed in 2009.  It's like saying never mind the car accident, if I hadn't acted we would have been mauled by a werewolf.  How do you disprove something so preposterous and yet not disprovable by any logical counter other than "I know you are but what am I?"

But there are other considerations about how President Obama fared in the face of the crisis.  He did refuse the banks repayment of TARP money.  He did then count it as debt reduction and he does plan to respend it.  That's only a little bit confusing.  But from an economic standpoint I'd have to say, foolish, misleading and then wrong-headed.  So he's got that going for him.

And then there's the fallout from his decision-making.  This is where I really take issue with the President.  Fiscal conservatism is my thing. Apparently, it's a lot of people's thing, and it's something the Tea Partiers and the reformed Republicans can agree upon.  That's where the President hopes to drive a wedge - GOP versus Tea Partiers. The speech is going to be pure political calculation.  So here's where I see the President taking his address tonight.  He's going to argue that he's got a new jobs program.  The GOP, the party of 'no', has no such thing (wait for the Republican pushed-well-out-of-prime-time reply to see that's a canard).  He's going to argue that his $15 billion spending freeze proves he heard America's message about spending over the summer and the last few months. For the math-challenged, $15 billion is 1% of the $1.5 trillion deficit for 2009.  The other thing to not is the freeze comes after artifical spending increases as part of the stimulus - so the freeze is at an artifically high level.  Charles Krauthammer explains here.

This does nothing to impact the debt-toGDP numbers below.  It's a farce.  It's a slap in the face and it's arrogant to think that people won't care or notice the fraud involved.

The purple bars show the mega-leap under the Democrat President, Congress and super majority Senate, based on legislation passed to date.  What is interesting is when the recessions are superimposed on the graph (excuse the "artwork"), you don't see the same type of recovery deficit-ballooning spending the way you do in the current recession.  Arguably the recovery would occur naturally, without the government over-reach.  But you'd never know that with all the hyperbole thrown at the recession by the White House and the media as cover for the President.  Worst recession since the great depression.  Is that so?  Highest unemployment?  Nope - that would be 1981-1982 at 10.8%.  Obama's peak was 10.2% so far.  Bigggest GDP drop? Nope 1945 was 12.7% (as a result of the government war spending coming to an end).  At 3.9% it certainly is high.  But 1973-1975 was 3.2% and 1958 was 3.1%. So certainly bad, but not Depresiion era - 26.7% worthy.  Duration? Now you're talking.  At 2 years (which is still not confirmed as the real number - that will take time), it is longer than the double dip recession of 1980 and 1981-1982.  Combined that was just under 2 years.

What's the point of the graph above?  Government spending does not correlate directly to recovery.  There are recessions that occur while government spending is dropping and ones that occur while spending is climbing.  Guess what, the government DOESN'T matter.  If they get out of the way they will allow recovery to occur. The Law of Unintended Consequences means that when the government tries to get involved, it distorts the economy, typically for the worse.  We see that here - more spending, more involvement, less freedom (Via CarpeDiem), and to show for it - more debt, and more unemployment.  That is just bad calculus by the Democrats:  Reality be damned - the agenda's the thing.

The President is going to blame Bush tonight  - Obama inherited the debt problem but he will fix it.  He's going to villify the banks, just like he did the GOP, Bush, the insurance companies, oil companies, mythical special interests, and countless others.  He figures blaming the banks and therefore taxing them to solve the debt problem, will play well in populist America.  He figures he can regain the popularity that has bled away from him by promising jobs, just like he and other did back in early 2009:



The American people have been "jobbed" alright. Obama will get away with this misdirection, if people don't pay close attention. Many people won't. For those of us who do pay attention, it's incumbent upon us to point out the hypocrisy and deceit on display. We need to shout about the truth. And we need to start doing it right away.

And for those of you who don't want to wake up, and don't want to listen either, you'll only have yourself to blame for your outcome.  Then again, as conservatives, we would have told you that anyway...

The Left hand and the Very Left hand

Democrats are bailing out the United Auto Workers, or rather the auto industry. They decry the loss of jobs if something isn't done, and they've got the added enjoyment of admonishing the evil, greedy, corrupt and stupid CEOs who are solely responsible for driving the American automotive industry into the ground. With reasonable success, they've managed to avoid allowing any blame to accrue to the unions, the dealership networks and to the CAFE standards. What a wonderful win-win situation for them. The unions have been saved and the Democrat votes have been secured for another decade, assuming the government well doesn't dry up on the bailout money should another crisis hit or this one go on further than anticipated.


But the Left hand doesn't seem to be aware of what the Very Left hand is doing at the same time.

Oops. According to the Detroit News, Obama's push for Cap and Trade to combat global warming (don't call it 'climate change'), will sink Michigan.

President Barack Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation's heartland -- particularly Michigan. It is a multi billion-dollar tax hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things, driving cars and burning coal.

The president is asking for a system of government limits on carbon emissions. The
right to emit carbon would be auctioned off to generate revenue for more government spending programs.

The president's budget projects receipts totaling $646 billion through 2019 from the sale of these greenhouse gas permits.

Whoop there it is - government revenues. It's not about a greener earth at all. But it looks good to the far left. It's very progressive you know.

The goal, according to the president's budget outline, is to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions such as carbon dioxide to 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Supposedly. In any case,

Michigan will lose as carbon tax money is shifted to states with a greater presence of high-tech and service businesses.

The proposed tax would take effect in 2012 and has the very real potential to throw the nation back into recession, if indeed the expected recovery has arrived by then.

It's impossible to raise costs for such basics as manufacturing and energy production by more than half a trillion dollars over a decade and not have the effects felt across
the economy.

The article doesn't even go into what effect it might have on the Big 3 automakers, but expect it to be burdensome on them too. And there's the latest example of the administration working at cross purposes with itself. The cap and trade system will burden the Big 3 as consumers of electricity and cost jobs. It will therefore reduce the market for automobiles and reduce carbon emissions, though not how it was intended to do so. On the other hand, the regular left hand, less auto worker jobs mean smaller unions, and less secured Democrat votes.

To every blue cloud, there's a red lining.

Democrats: anything but our record!

From outside spending, to John Boehner, blame Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Tea Partiers are crazy and jobs saved, the Democrats have thrown so many red herrings out there for public consumption that it's starting to look like a Gulf Oil Spill but in fish.

It's the ultimate Wizard of Oz 'don't look behind the curtain' approach to the election. Whether it is born of panic or not doesn't matter because it doesn't seem to be working. Misdirection is an indicator that Democrats have been more than unwilling to campaign on what they've done for the last two years. That shows a lack of confidence in their own agenda. Perhaps even a lack of faith. So really, why do they want to retain power? It must be for other reasons. Either personal or dogmatic, doing what was best for American economic malaise was not what was (or is) on their minds.

But that's what's on the public's minds. And that is why this will be a wave election. Not 40 seats in Congress. Likely north of 60. And possibly a Senate takeover as well. It's not even about a love of the GOP. It's about a voter lack of faith in those who have a lack of faith in their own ideas. It's about sharing that lack of faith in their approach.

The GOP may be the party of 'no' in Democrat eyes but right now that meshes well with the will of the people - Americans today are a people of 'no'. If the Democrats are thinking 'anything but our record', Americans are agreeing - anything but your record.

Darfur solved? Thanks Obama! Next Iran.

Jim Geraghty at Campaign Spot on National Review Online breaks the story President Obama has yet another notch in his belt of accomplishments. No more genocide in the Sudan. Apparently the administration has started referring to the situation in Sudan as 'the remnants of genocide'. Genocide over, just remnants left. Peachy.

Setting aside the fact that the phrase makes about as much sense as 'a little bit pregnant', clearly the Democrats are continuing with the modus operendi of style over substance. It's been working, so why not continue? The idea is that if you say something often enough it will become the conventional wisdom. Like global warming is a fact. Like Al Gore invented the Internet. Like President Bill Clinton balanced the budget not the Republican Congress in the 1990's.

The problem with that, is that it's just not true. It's deliberate deceit. We've come to expect that from the Democrats. But with the Obama administration, it's pathological. He's taken a page from the Hitler Germany fascist playbook - the page about the Big Lie. The idea is that the bigger the lie, the easier it will be to get people to believe it.

With Obama, it's not an art form, it's an obsessive compulsive disorder. With every new iteration of the unemployment figures in America, the figures that just keep on creeping upward, the administration ups the ante on the Big Lie. The rate of increase of unemployment is declining. Even better: We're saving more and more jobs. Saving jobs? It's a lie that can't be disproven. But it can't be proven either. Normally the onus would be on the White House to prove they saved 150,000 jobs. But with a compliant, drooling media, no one is asking the important questions.

Back to Darfur. Is genocide still happening? Yes.

Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration's comments yesterday that Darfur is experiencing only the "remnants of genocide," thus implying the troubled region's worst violence is in the past, have exposed a deep disagreement on the matter within the Obama administration.

Just two days earlier US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice described the situation as "genocide" and at a press conference in Germany earlier this month President Obama used the phrase "ongoing genocide."

[Emphasis added.]

The point here is to create a narrative that puts another notch on President Obama's belt. If they start saying in A.O. 2009 (Anno Obamani) the Great Caesar Obama solved yet another problem (the Sudan), they are hoping that by 2010 or 2012 it's become the conventional wisdom and keeps Democrat support up.

But there's a problem with or two with that. Firstly, the Big Lie is a flawed premise. Hitler's Big Lie was followed by a big fall. Now for the purpose of re-election, maybe they don't need to worry. The Big Lie is followed by a realization, a re-awakening. Witness the velvet revolution. Witness Tiannamen Square. The truth will eventually win out. But if it doesn't happen before 2012 it doesn't matter.

The bigger problem is how to tell the same tale about Iran. The lack of anything meaningful coming out of the White House on Iran is beyond incompetent. The silence is negligent and anti-Democratic. It's wrong, and it's bad. It gets worse. It turns out the actions being taken are actually anti-democratic.

So how does Obama take credit for solving Iran? He's left himself no room to spin this because he's acting like a little girl on this. Or worse, like Jimmy Carter.

The situation in Iran will far overshadow Sudan. That is reality. And it will be reflected in Obama's popularity ratings. No matter how much you spin, the truth is out there and it will descend upon the collective conscience eventually. The President's ratings are destined to fall, with all apologies to his success in bring peace and harmony to Darfur and the Sudan.

*loud cough*

Where is the stock market going next?

According to Stealth Stocks, the markets are in trouble, because the economy is in trouble;

This Friday, we will get the revised GDP report for the second quarter. Estimates are for this to be revised lower from 2.4% down to 1.2%. Next month, the final revision could below 1% and pushing near zero, so it should be no wonder the bulls are having a hard time mustering any kind of offense.

The Fed is under the belief that it’s ZIRP (Zero interest rate policy) will prevent a double dip recession from occurring, based on historical precedence.

“The economy has never contracted with the difference between short- and long-term Treasury yields as wide as it is now. That gap, at 2.11 percentage points for 2- and 10-year notes, signals a 15.5 percent chance of a recession in the next year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.”

This is deceptive and illusory.

It assumes that banks will lend money because rates are so low. The reality is banks are in terrible shape.

Banks are a canary in the coal mine for the broader stock market! Housing and commercial real estate loans continue to be a nightmare for them.

Whether or not you want to blame President Obama or President Bush or someone else entirely for the current state of affairs, there is clearly zero indication that the current policies have done nothing to mitigate the problems. It can be argued that the efforts of the recovery act ARRA (the stimulus) have exacerbated the problem. Certainly the anti-business agenda has not solved the problem and in fact over the mid term may deepen the problem.  No matter what your political stripe you can't argue that the Democrats have done the job on the economy.  They have failed.  They have failed by the standards they set for themselves, and they have failed by any reasonable measure that is used.  Jobs saved is illusory.  Imagine how bad it would have been if we hadn't acted, is not exactly a winning argument.  Imagine how great things would be if you stayed out of the way and let the economy correct itself.  Perhaps then a real recovery would be underway.

Is the nature of perception anathema to fiscal conservatism?

Wisconsin, where perception matters.

Today in the WSJ, there was an article talking about vindication for Wisconsin governor Scott Walker vis a vis the budget conflict he had had with teachers and their misguided students last year. The WSJ argues that the resulting recall election effort isn't going to work because Walker's budget has led to a decrease in property taxes that will cause voters to appreciate the Walker belt tightening effort in the state. Lower property taxes are indeed a rarity in Wisconsin.

“The public employee unions and other liberals are confident that Wisconsin voters will turn out Governor Scott Walker in a recall election later this year, but not so fast. That may turn out to be as wrong as some of their other predictions as Badger State taxpayers start to see tangible benefits from Mr. Walker's reforms—such as the first decline in statewide property taxes in a dozen years.

On Monday Mr. Walker's office released new data that show the property tax bill for the median home fell by 0.4% in 2011, as reported by Wisconsin's municipalities. Property taxes, which are the state's largest revenue source and mainly fund K-12 schools, have risen every year since 1998—by 43% overall. The state budget office estimates that the typical homeowner's bill would be some $700 higher without Mr. Walker's collective-bargaining overhaul and budget cuts.”

Some choice Obama words

President Obama is a master at finding the right choice words to position his presidency.  What he spoke about at his recorded interview at the Super Bowl pre-game, was his framing of the employment situation and his recovery.  I mentioned before that owning the conversation is critical to this election - indeed every election. Framing the argument is one of the most important factors in winning the argument.  Liberals excel at that.

The stimulus tour surprise

I finally get how the stimulus package is meant to work, and I have to admit I'm quite surprised by it.

Politico is reporting that Team Obama has travelled to 66 events to promote the stimulus package and it's wondrous and amazing brilliance at saving 72 million jobs (hey, there's no way of measuring how many jobs were saved, it's an asinine argument, so why not go with an asinine and outlandish number?).

No surprise.

They're out there on the taxpayers' dime trying to promote the amazing job they've done so far, even though it's too early to see any of those effects. Even though unemployment has risen to the worst levels since 1983. Even though any recovery that's happened since the apparent bottom this year are either illusory or else happening pre-stimulus impact. Never let a good news story go to waste either, right Rahm Emanuel? Party on Wayne! Party on Garth!

No surprise that they want to take credit for the stock market rally, even if the layoffs are worsening. (After all, the link above has Yahoo painting it as things getting better with 'but job losses slow' in the headline).

The Team has travelled predominantly to states that Obama won in 2008;

But the numbers tell the tale: 52 of the 66 events were in states that backed Obama. And taken together, the itineraries amount to a veritable map of Obama’s election-night victories — big-money states like California and New York, swing states like Ohio and Colorado that Obama turned blue and other solidly Democratic states Obama kept in his column.

The events were weighted to big cities that provided Obama some of his biggest election-night margins: Cleveland, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Of the other 14 events, Vice President Joe Biden and Cabinet officials often touched
down in places where Obama lost narrowly and that Democrats hope to pull into their column by 2012, such as Missouri, Arizona, Montana and North Dakota.

Only two Southern states were visited by Cabinet officials for stimulus-related trips: Georgia and Kentucky, according to information provided by the White House and an examination of news releases from all 21 Cabinet-level agencies.

Again, no surprise. Politics as usual.

The Team denied the location of the trips were political;

And the White House sharply denied that there was any political motivation to the travel. “Politics plays no role in implementation of the Recovery Act or highlighting its successes. Period,” said Liz Oxhorn, press secretary for the Recovery Act.

Yep, again no surprise.

But then it hit me. They've toured and toured but the stimulus money has barely begun to trickle out the door. Sure enough, Politico confirmed my surprise;

Still, the stimulus bill has the potential to be a publicity bonanza for the Obama administration for years to come — through the 2010 midterm elections and beyond. As of mid-May, the administration had spent only 6 percent of the money Congress allotted for the program, and the White House says officials will continue to travel the country until all of the money is spent.

[Emphasis added.]

6%? Really? Anyhow, what's the surprise? It seems like their plan to spend the stimulus money is just to tour the country until all the money is used up - apparently to be used up by the tour itself. That should be good for a dozen years. They're going to have to ramp up the trips, the Obama date nights and Hollywood galas to get all that money spent any sooner.

It will be like a Motley Crue tour by the end of it with debauchery and an out of control party atmosphere, but with the added bonus of Biden gaffes. It'll be a real hoot...

[NOTE: For those of you who don't understand parody or sarcasm, please disregard the entire above post. Clearly the stimulus money is not to be used for an Obama party tour. It's being used to pay off liberal sycophants and cronies. We all get that.]

President Obama - 100 Day Presser - Live Blogging

President Obama's 100 day press conference.

8:00 Updates - H1N1 flu virus. Utmost preparations. $1.5 billion. Where's the number from? Objectives are fine, but how did you arrive at the fund number?

8:03 Cover your mouth when you cough?

8:04 Budget resolution passed today.

150,000 jobs, 95% taxes cut. A spike in refinancing? How big?

New foundation for growth. This budget? New savings???

8:05 Foreign policy - ending war in Iraq, closing Guantanamo,

Good start. Just a start. Proud but not content.

More homes jobs will be lost. Tough times still ahead.

Deficits too high. Obama is high if he thinks that he isn't contributing to that problem.

Clean energy initiative.
New Wall Street rules.
Credit Card protection.
More savings.
Procurement reform.

8:07 I can see your eyes moving.

Q1) AP - close border? Concern not panic. Follow the scientists. Barn door after the horses are out? There's still more horses that can get out. Does it take $1.5 billion to ensure everything is in place? Bush created good infrastructure. OMG a compliment on Bush.

Uh, uh...blah, blah, blah. Answer too long again. Reminiscent of the first press conference.

Q2) Bankruptcy on option for Chrysler? GM plan sufficient?

Hopeful for a viable Chrysler. Unions have made enormous sacrifices. Debt holder concessions. Feeling optimistic.

GM - has a lot of good product. GM can emerge strong and competitive. Get government out of the auto industry as soon as possible. Moving in the right direction.

Chrysler was prudent to plan for bankruptcy but it might not be necessary.

Hardship for workers and families.

Q3) Jake Tapper - ABC. Previous administration sanctioned torture?

Water boarding violates our ideals and values. Could have got the info in other ways.

Trying to change the line of the debate. Invoked Churchill. Shortcuts corrode character. Will make us stronger and safer over the long term.

Uh, uh...uh, a uh....

Reiterated water boarding was torture. It was a mistake.

Q4) CBS Radio - Enhanced techniques saved lives. Could you authorize it if it was necessary to save lives.

Not declassified.

Doesn't answer core question. Which means he has admitted that the techniques did reveal information.

Judge me on if I keep you safe. I believe the best way is without short cuts.

Q5) Pakistan nuclear arsenal.

We can be sure it is secure. The Pakistani army understands. We are providing strong consultation. Gravely concerned, not of an overrun, but over a fragile government unable to deliver basic services and the rule of law.

Q6) Any change to scale of withdrawal?

Incidents of bombings remain low compared to last year. Political system is holding and functioning. More political work is required to isolate Al Qaida in Iraq.

Q7) Chip Reid - Arlen Specter switch. One party rule? State of the Republican party.

I respect Arlen Specter. He will remain independent. He will cooperate on health care. Democrats who don't agree with me on everything. Regional differences. Compromise on all issues.

Republican - reaching out to them has been genuine. Didn't work. Voted to change in a historic election. Don't oppose my every position.

Never as good or as bad as they seem - re Republicans. But opposing us on every front is not a good political strategy.

Q8) Notre Dame and Freedom of Choice Act. "Above my pay grade. "

A moral and ethical issue. Not only a women's freedom issue. But women are in a better position to make that decision than Congress.

Reduce unwanted/teen pregnancies.

Not my highest priority. Focus on what we can agree on. That's my focus.

Q9) NYT - what has surprised, troubled, enchanted and humbled you the most? Wow. Just go out of business.

Surprised - number of critical issues at the same time.7 or big problems instead of 2 or 3 that would be normal.

Troubled - sobered by change is slow. Posturing and bickering even in crisis.

Enchanted - service men and women - impressed and grateful.

Humbled - Just part of a broader tapestry of American life. I have a much larger time horizon then when I was a candidate.

Q10) Telemundo - What is your strategy on immigration reform? 1st year? McCain?

Procurement reform - McCain/Levin.

Want to move the process. Not good for anyone.

Noticing he's saying he wants to solve problems but he's not talking specifics in many instances.

Q11) Given unique circumstance, how are you targeting African American communities in the recession.

Designed to help all. Most vulnerable get help first, so that means African Americans and Latinos will see help first disproportionately.

Lift all boats???? He's quoting Ronald Reagan!

Q12) State Secrets views?

Modify it.

We were short-termed on the court filing. It serves a purpose but we don't want it to be a blunt instrument.

Q13) Chief shareholder of many companies - mortgages, car companies. What is the government role?

Looking to get out. The sooner the better. Want a functioning competitive auto industry. Restructuring help.