A world leader has uncovered some new facts about history. In this interview, Van Jones Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tells us what we all already know:
The president described the September 11, 2001 destruction of the twin World Trade Center buildings in New York as a preconceived “scenario and a sophisticated intelligence measure” and emphasized that the 9/11 incident was a “big lie intended to serve as a pretext for fighting terrorism and setting the grounds for sending troops to Afghanistan.”
But here’s the real news:
Ahmadinejad reiterated that with the advent of the Islamic Revolution the materialistic mentality was challenged and Marxism was destroyed.
“Today,” he added, “With blessings from the Almighty, the Capitalist system, founded by the Zionists, has also reached an end.”
[Scratches head]
Mr. Jones Ahmadinejad didn’t explain how it was that Marxism, which was a reaction against capitalism, could have happened before the Zionists invented capitalism.
According to the Obama people, the problem is that too many people are watching Fox News! Expect another anti Fox dirve soon even though the last one was a flopping failure. I also do not think that the author really understands the success of Fox News – Fox is successful not because it is conservative leaning, but because it is populist. Obama’s problems are caused by Obama’s policies, not what Sean Hannity has to say about them. The Narcissist-in-Chief has got to be one of the dumbest people to ever sit in the oval office.
It is a universal political truth that administrations do not begin to fragment when things are going well: it only happens when they go badly, and those who think they know better begin to attack those who manifestly do not. The descent of Barack Obama’s regime, characterised now by factionalism in the Democratic Party and talk of his being set to emulate Jimmy Carter as a one-term president, has been swift and precipitate. It was just 16 months ago that weeping men and women celebrated his victory over John McCain in the American presidential election. If they weep now, a year and six weeks into his rule, it is for different reasons.
Despite the efforts of some sections of opinion to talk the place up, America is mired in unhappiness, all the worse for the height from which Obamania has fallen. The economy remains troublesome. There is growth – a good last quarter suggested an annual rate of as high as six per cent, but that figure is probably not reliable – and the latest unemployment figures, last Friday, showed a levelling off. Yet 15 million Americans, or 9.7 per cent of the workforce, have no job. Many millions more are reduced to working part-time. Whole areas of the country, notably in the north and on the eastern seaboard, are industrial wastelands. The once mighty motor city of Detroit appears slowly to be being abandoned, becoming a Jurassic Park of the mid-20th century; unemployment among black people in Mr Obama’s own city of Chicago is estimated at between 20 and 25 per cent. One senior black politician – a Democrat and a supporter of the President – told me of the wrath in his community that a black president appeared to be unable to solve the economic problem among his own people. Cities in the east such as Newark and Baltimore now have drug-dealing as their principal commercial activity: The Wire is only just fictional
[...]
“Obama’s big problem,” a senior Democrat told me, “is that four times as many people watch Fox News as watch CNN.” The Fox network is a remarkable cultural phenomenon which almost shocks those of us from a country where a technical rule of impartiality is applied in the broadcast media. With little rest, it pours out rage 24 hours a day: its message is of the construction of the socialist state, the hijacking of America by “progressives” who now dominate institutions, the indoctrination of children, the undermining of religion and the expropriation of public money for these nefarious projects. The public loves it, and it is manifestly stirring up political activism against Mr Obama, and also against those in the Republican Party who are not deemed conservatives. However, it is arguable whether the now-reorganising Right is half as effective in its assault on the President as some of Mr Obama’s own party are.
Mr Obama benefited in his campaign from an idiotic level of idolatry, in which most of the media participated with an astonishing suspension of cynicism. The sound of the squealing of brakes is now audible all over the American press; but the attack is being directed not at the leader himself, but at those around him. [...]
Something’s up with the FDIC. At this economic blog, a letter from a real estate developer:
I work in the construction business and something has been creeping to the forefront of my attention for the past few weeks and now it seems to be moving full steam ahead.
Banks are forcing developers/builders (especially smaller ones) to give up their properties (unsold homes and lots).
Banks say the reason is that the properties in question are no longer performing assets. I am sure there are some loans out there that are not performing and the owners are going under. I am equally sure that there are plenty of developers that are still selling homes – just not at the pace originally planned on the pro formas.
[...]
Down in the comments, we have this:
Your construction industry source raises an interesting issue. Since I work for a relative healthy bank, I don’t see that in my bank.
However, we have had federal auditors in the bank for the past couple weeks and I’ve noticed an interesting development. They are getting tougher on banks recognizing loans that they view as a problem and pushing for downgrades.
So, the very problem might be federal auditors are forcing banks to down grade loans to a doubtful status. In such cases as nonperforming real estate assets, this essentially forces the bank to do something more than wait and see if the developer can turn his investment and pay off the bank.
It forces banks to resolve the issue mostly by enforcing their rights on the collateral, which is why they are probably recommending the developer walk away, so they can their hands on the collateral sooner (maybe deeding it over to the bank) versus going through foreclosure and potential bankruptcy on behalf of the client, which can draw out the process for months.
[...]
So what does all of this mean? It means that the FDIC is turning the screws on the banks to get the non-performing loans off the books, even if it means trading something with a glimmer of hope of performing a ways down the road for collateral that has zip, zero, nada market.
Or does it? A large investor, with deep pockets (quite likely foreign) might be just waiting in the wings to snap up these distressed assets at fire-sale prices. Alternately, the banks with deep pockets may want to push the ones with less deep pockets over the edge (i.e. the ones choosing to receive TARP funds may want, with the connivance of the Feds, to push the ones who chose not to take TARP funds over).
In the long run, of course, a clearing of excess inventory is both a good and necessary thing. But pushing teetering banks over the edge, and taking marginally viable development businesses with them probably isn’t the best plan for the weak economy right now. But I can see no end of players, both inside and outside of the country, who would stand to gain from this.
Most transparent administration in history, my itching butt.
Barack Hussein Obama showed his 3rd World Dictator colors today. In a move that would make Mugabe, Idi Amin, Castro and Hugo Chavez proud, he is going to shove his Eugenics based Health Care bill down our throats. Ignoring the polls and the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, he is going ahead with reconciliation. This process cuts debate and allows passage of a bill with just 51 votes. This is used only for budget purposes, not a radical transformation of our Health Care system.
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama urged Congress Wednesday to vote “up or down” on sweeping health care legislation in the next few weeks, endorsing a plan that denies Senate Republicans the right to kill the bill by stalling with a filibuster.
“I don’t see how another year of negotiations would help. Moreover, the insurance companies aren’t starting over,” Obama said, rejecting Republican calls to begin anew on an effort to remake the health care system.
If there is any doubt about the Totalitarian nature of the Progressive movement, this is evidence of it. Barack Hussein Obama is living out his childhood fantasy of being a 3rd world tyrant. The problem is – he’s doing it here in America. With more debt and more government control, Obama is making sure we become the 3rd World nation of his dreams.
Chile, which was recently hit with a massive Earthquake and is dealing with some chaos in the aftermath, is no Haiti. Unlike Haiti, Chile is a modern 1st world country that has a thriving economy. This is due in large part to Augosto Pinochet who removed the Totalitarian Progressive regime of Salvador Allende. He realized the way to remove the appeal of Progressivism was to modernize Chile’s economy. He did this by putting Chilean Economists of the “Chicago School” in charge. Chileans who learned economics in the University of Chicago at the hands of Milton Friedman.
Milton Friedman has been dead for more than three years. But his spirit was surely hovering protectively over Chile in the early morning hours of Saturday. Thanks largely to him, the country has endured a tragedy that elsewhere would have been an apocalypse.
Earthquake magnitudes are measured on a logarithmic scale. The earthquake that hit Northridge in 1994 measured 6.7 on the Richter scale. But its seismic-energy yield was only half that of the 7.0 quake that hit Haiti in January, which was the equivalent of 2,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs exploding all at once.
By contrast, Saturday’s earthquake in Chile measured 8.8. That’s nearly 500 times more powerful than Haiti’s, or about one million Hiroshimas. Yet Chile’s reported death toll—711 as of this writing—was a tiny fraction of the 230,000 believed to have perished in Haiti.
Thanks to Pinochet’s strong leadership and Chicago Boys economic tutoring at the hands of Milton Friedman, Chile enjoys the highest standard of living in Latin America. Chileans once immigrated, now Chile is filled with Immigrants from Argentina, Peru and Bolivia. Their privatized Social Security has enabled many Chileans to retire wealthy and enjoy the fruits of their years of work. Chile is an example for all nations, even America, to model after.
There is something almost post apocalyptic about the city of Detroit. Up until 1962 Detroit was actually a pretty good town (I am told), but then the failures of liberalism (rising crime rates for instance) created the “white flight” that we are all too familiar with, combined with the race riots of 1967, confiscatory taxes, a hostile business environment, runaway welfare rates, poor city services, the failure of the auto industry and one party (guess which party?) rule -well you have late 20th century Detroit which is starting to resemble several of those destroyed European cities of world War II.
Rep Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is rapidly becoming my favorite Republican. He has offered a Blueprint called Move America Forward. The plan calls for a balanced budget and making America competitive again. Yesterday at the Health care summit, he really took Obama apart. While Obama appealed on fairness and emotion, Paul emphasized facts. He took apart Obama’s plan and made the case that the spending was not sustainable.
I hope Paul Ryan runs for President. He offers a clear contrast to Obama’s Totalitarian Progressive agenda. We don’t need another Compassionate Conservative. We need a Fighter!
I didn’t get to watch much of this summit. However in my Lunch Break, I did get see Eric Cantor and yes, even McCain take Obama to task. What I noticed is that Barack Hussein Obama the whole time was smirking at the Republicans. he seemed arrogant and also looking at them as they are inferior. His posture was that of a 3rd World Dictator feeling untouchable looking down at the Peasants.
What are the Netizen’s take on this?
Let’s have a discussion on this summit.
Update: below are some Clips showing Obama’s arrogance.
After a year in office, there is no doubt that President Barack Hussein Obama is a Socialist. He has taken over companies and bashes businesses as “greedy”. He is ignorant of market economics and believes the government knows better than the American people. He calls himself a Progressive. Well Socialism is a Progressive Ideology that believes the State should make economic decisions, not the people. There are various schools of Socialism and Obama belongs to the International variety also known as Transnational Socialism (Tranzi). As usual he lies when he claims he is not one.
President Barack Obama launched a vigorous defense of his economic agenda Wednesday, rejecting critics who call his policies “socialism” and insisting he aims to boost U.S. competitiveness abroad.
Speaking to the Business Roundtable, which groups some of the country’s top chief executives, Obama called for support of his administration’s efforts to overhaul financial regulation and create jobs.
How is printing money, creating more regulation, proposing new taxes and accumulating more debt making America competitive? Clearly he is ignorant of global economic forces or he is such an Ideologue that he would rather Americans be more poor and dependent big government. These policies are Socialist and have not helped America’s economic standing. Fidel Castro praised Obama as a Socialist and wouldn’t you think he knows?
The Obama illusion continues to collapse in the face of reality. Unemployment claims continue to go up. Only 25% of Americans support his Eugenics based Healthcare Bill. Now Obama is even coming up with a smaller bill that takes steps towards the Progressive goal of Eugenics based Healthcare. Clearly President Hussein doesn’t care about reality. He is a fanatic who will stop at nothing to achieve his Totalitarian goals. He will even lie about his Socialist policies when it is clear to everyone that’s what they are.
The Great Farm: Urban Forester Scores Job Measuring Barley Crop
Field Correspondent Bunk Strutts
[Tyler Stevenson, an urban forester, measures barley that is growing in the fields at the Great Park on Friday morning.]
Irvine, California (Strutts News Services, Opinion Section) –
Everyone knows that Urban Foresters are in great demand today (even though there is no such thing as an Urban Forest) and Tyler Stevenson is one who excels at his trade.
There are no forests or jungles within hundreds of miles of Irvine, California, so he gets to measure the height of a local field of barley, not just eyeball it. He measures it. And he gets paid to measure it with a tape measure and a cameraman in tow just to prove that he’s not exaggerating the growth.
[Stevenson's Tape Measure in action.]
Great Park workers have literally planted the seeds for the park’s first major round of construction, kicking off a $65 million development plan by attempting to reawaken more than 100 acres of once-fertile agricultural fields.
The sprouting of barley seeds planted just before the recent rainstorms marks the first stage in an agricultural plan that will eventually cost up to $1.4 million and encompass community gardens, a farmers market and rows of fresh-grown produce.
Maybe that’s just a typo. Maybe the “agricultural plan” will reap up to $1.4 million to offset $65 million, but remember, this was FRONT PAGE NEWS. No typos are ever allowed on the front page.
We were not able to contact Mr. Tyler Stevenson because we didn’t bother. We do not intend to disparage the integrity of Mr. Stevenson or the honorable legion of Urban Foresters (heh). But it seems silly to us that in pitiful economic times that the government, local or otherwise, should be getting into the farming business, and taking work away from the folks who need it the most: the illegal immigrant community.
The Totalitarian Progressive Media has been attacking the Republicans as the “Party of No”. They claim the Right has no ideas and just attacks their plans. With Barack Hussein Obama’s support continuing to fall, they are pounding this drum. However, this is absolutely not true. Rep. Pal Ryan (Wisconsin) has offered a plan to solve our fiscal issues, bring the budget into balance and make American economically competitive again in the global economy.
Imagine your family’s finances if you spent and borrowed like Washington: you’d owe $60 in credit-card loans for every $100 of income. Every month you’d pay back a little but borrow even more. In 10 years, you’d owe $87 for every $100 you made. At some point you’d hand off the debt to your kids. If they worked until 2035, they’d owe more than $180 for every $100 they earned. In 2050, your grandkids would owe more than $320. By 2080 they’d owe seven times their earnings. Of course, lenders would cut them off well before then, and your family would be ruined. But this is the path your government is on right now.
Today, our country faces a fiscal meltdown—and Washington’s continued cowardice is a big part of the problem. The social-insurance strategies of the 20th century—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—are driving our federal government and economy to collapse. It’s long been obvious that we’re ill prepared for the retirement of the baby boomers. Now, the recession and Washington’s recent spending spree have accelerated the day of reckoning.
After reading his plan, I believe it’s the way to go. When government spends less and runs a balanced budget, that allows for more capital in the market. More capital leads to more investments, which in turn creates jobs and higher living standards. It’s a simple concept, but the Progressives are against that. The reason the Left opposes a less government burden on our economy is because they want control. Their Ideology is totalitarian and government is the means they use to reshape society. Also with government involvement in the economy, they can determine winners and losers as opposed to market forces doing this. They will make sure they are the winners and we are the losers.
Make no mistake, Paul Ryan’s plan would deal Progressivism a fatal blow and they will stop at nothing to prevent this. It’s all about power and their Neo-Feudal elitist agenda.
Although not surprised, I think that this is probably the saddest news item I have read in a long time. The thought of being unemployed frankly terrifies me and I have decided to throw any extra money that comes my way (sub teaching, bonus, and tax refunds) into my “catastrophe” account i.e. my savings account where it will earn a whopping 1.5% interest (if I am lucky) but will be there for me if God forbid disaster strikes. I also have noticed in my own life that I have become in my personal habits rather “cheap” ex. I will go three extra blocks out of my way to save 40 cents for a gallon of milk, fear of unemployment will make you do that. I guess the stimulus plan has not created any jobs therefore the Obama administration is forced to come up with a smoke and mirrors statistic called “jobs saved”. Well if you are still working at the same job that you were doing last month I guess you can put it down as a “job saved”.
Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits.
Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.
Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come.
Yet the social safety net is already showing severe strains. Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration’s proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.
Here in Southern California, Jean Eisen has been without work since she lost her job selling beauty salon equipment more than two years ago. In the several months she has endured with neither a paycheck nor an unemployment check, she has relied on local food banks for her groceries.
She has learned to live without the prescription medications she is supposed to take for high blood pressure and cholesterol. She has become effusively religious — an unexpected turn for this onetime standup comic with X-rated material — finding in Christianity her only form of health insurance.
“I pray for healing,” says Ms. Eisen, 57. “When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got to go with what you know.”
There has been an awful lot of comparisons of the Obama administration with that of Jimmy Carter’s Presidency. Well, that got me thinking…(uptempo music starts while the scene fades out)
(Overpowering announcer voice) Come with us now as The Blogmocracy relives those heady days of yesteryear where Embassies were overrun, the Panama Canal was given away, left wing terror ruled Europe, where the American President complained about ‘national malaise’ and encouraged everyone to turn down the heat and wear a sweater, and where American ’street cred’ in the international community was lower than John Travolta’s neck line in ‘Saturday Night Fever’…Yes, Blogmocrats, come with us as we journey back to the days of the ‘Misery Index’. (End scene)
The Misery Index, indeed! This lovely little metric has been more or less forgotten about since Reagan knocked it out of the park some 20 plus years ago. But here at the Blogmocracy, we have the unblinking, all seeing eye. Its in the toolkit for Wordpress.
The Misery Index was first the simple equation of Unemployment + Inflation first coined by Arthur Melvin Okun . This is easy enough to grasp, but it does not paint the complete picture. Robert Barro expanded the Index to Unemployment + Inflation + Gross Domestic Product Change+ Bank Rate. This rounded out the Index and made it more accurate to reality. The difference between these two is that the Okun Misery Index is the like the informal English you use with your friends, the Barro Misery Index is the formal English you use in something like a job interview, both will get your point across. Definitions for the above terms are at the end, if you want to refresh your Econ 101.
While I don’t believe the Main Stream Media will troop out our Misery Index while President Obama is still in the White House, it is interesting to look at this historic comparison of Presidents by Prof Barro himself:
So, unemployment can be defined as the percentage of persons on unemployment compensation expressed as a percentage of total workforce. Yes, I know the real unemployment is 17% but the number used is 10%. This uses the official, Department of Labor announced rate, sorry that’s how it works.
Inflation: The inflation rate is the percentage rate of change of a price index over time. Since I am a monetarist like Milton Friedman,who stated that: “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” , I believe that inflation is too many dollars moving too quickly while chasing too few goods. Or that government action or inaction is at the root of inflation.
Gross Domestic Product is private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports-imports) or GDP= C + Inv + G + (exports-imports)
Bank Rate (discount rate) is the interest rate that central banks charge on the loans and advances it extends to commercial banks and other financial companies. Changes in this rate are often used as a tool to control money supply. This bank rate is the basis of the interest rate you pay on loans, its bank rate + profit margin interest and risk = the rate you pay.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has filed a petition to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. to overturn the EPA’s recent greenhouse gas “endangerment” ruling.
It’s interesting partly because the cattlemen, who produce one of the most organic agricultural products products on the market, feel more threatened than the coal producers and electricity producers and the oil companies.
The ruling states that gases believed to cause global warming pose a human health risk and is the first step toward their regulation by the EPA under the Clean Air Act. The NCBA and other producer groups fear the ruling could lead to lawsuits and new restrictions on the nation’s livestock industries.
But there’s another twist to this story:
“We are taking a position that we do not believe the science with regard to alleged manmade climate change is there,” Thies said. “The EPA has a responsibility to conduct a rigorous scientific analysis and look at all the science out there instead of just cherry-picking certain studies that agree with its position about manmade climate change.”
The cattle group points to Climategate, in which critics allege that e-mails stolen from Great Britain’s University of East Anglia show bias and manipulation of data by scientists on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Well. That’s an interesting legal theory. The EPA should withstand more scrutiny because of other documented monkey business in climate science, which has cast a pall of doubt over the entire “consensus”.
I wish them luck, because the EPA certainly did overstep their authority with this ruling, but the burden’s going to be on the cattlemen.
The EPA, for their part, are being disingenuous:
There would be “no basis whatsoever” to deny “a fact that is recognized by overwhelming scientific consensus” that the earth is warming, the statement said.
Nice strawman. I’m certain that the cattlemen are alleging no such thing.
The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies believes that the new regulation leaves little room for companies to cast doubt on widely accepted assumptions about global warming. Insurers are hamstrung to provide answers that dovetail with the perception of key regulators who believe climate change threatens the industry’s financial strength, said Robert Detlefsen, the group’s vice president of policy.
The regulators are apperently making sure that the insurers aren’t caught with unfunded liablilties when all the hurricanes and floods and crop failures and sea level rise claims come in. The industry could just go with the flow, and jack up their rates to accomodate the scenarios, start refusing coverage to waterfront property owners, and so on. But they understand that this will lead to a lot of people chosing not to insure.
It’s fairly obvious that certain regulators have made up their minds about what the answers to those questions are, and are just proceeding on the assumption that their answers, or the ones that they subscribe to, are correct and unimpeachable,” Detlefsen said in an interview. “There really is no room, as I see it, for any sort of legitimate, in their minds at least, for legitimate dissent.
Imagine that. Demanding that the insurers be prepared for the Great Pumpkin.
State insurance regulators adopted a white paper in 2008 that states “global warming is occurring.” That preceded the new regulated survey, which flustered many insurance officials during its drafting. But most of the opposition was rooted in concerns around revealing secrets to competitors and making companies vulnerable to lawsuits, not around doubts about climate science.
I think there’s something else in the mix, a move to force insurance companies to increase their reserves will increase the capital pool, which will in turn increase demand for treasury bonds. Here’s the part that should make any thinking person say “hmm”:
The insurers are perhaps the one group that is more concerned about climate change than the environmentalists,” Ario said. “If climate change does pose the risk that environmentalists say it does, then guess who’s going to bear that risk on their business? It will be the insurers.
Ya think? So why aren’t they? Because they have their own analysts, and they don’t have any reason for concern , and don’t want their business models taken over by regulators, maybe?
UPDATE: A couple of cow fart videos (hat tips, Beltfet and Huckfinn, respectively):
