DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Stimulating the Economy..

I've been contemplating starting a thread about this for awhile now but I have been slacking...mainly due to a lack of time. HOWEVER the short and sweet version:

Another Federal Theatre Project would be ideal. Only do it right this time and don't corrupt it. Did you know that we are one of the only nations in the world that doesn't embrace theatre? It's kind of weird and probably best explained due to the nature of our separation from the rest of the world. You see, it was a major force, and still is, all across Europe. In fact, we are one of the few industrialized nations that does not designate a EDIT-WE DONT ALLOW THE POSTING OF ONLINE PETITIONS.
Why theatre? There are jobs for everyone in the theatre industry. Instead of focusing in one field, I've taken a wide range of art classes, history classes, electrical engineering classes, structural engineering classes, etc etc. Acting isn't the only side of the theatre that goes on.

An unfortunately unused position in America is the Dramaturg. Any critic, writer, researcher, etc can fill this role. Meanwhile, a nation such as Germany has at least 2 or 3 in every theatre no matter how small it is thanks to their government.

There are also the obvious positions such as electricians working as electricians in the theatre. Mechanical engineers could work in areas that involve rigging. There are all sorts of mechanisms built everyday in theatre spaces as well as high powered motors and equipment that desperately need attention (it is becoming a growing safety issue as they go unattended), Structural Engineers working in the scene shops to build the scenery. After all, do you expect someone to walk out onto that balcony of the set without making sure that it is built to handle the weight? Artist make great scenic painters once they are broken of their habit to go into fine detail (remember our paintings are usually viewed from about 20' away and beyond).

There are also a lot of administration positions that a lot of venues lack. There needs to be publicity, record keeping, budgeting, Executive Directors, etc etc etc.

Now, not only are we creating a lot of jobs, we are also bringing back something desperately needed when times are down...an out. The big reason behind the past, failed FTP was that it's main goal was to bring cheap entertainment to the masses. This provided an opportunity to get away from their normal lives and escape into a new world. When the economy rebounded, people stopped going again. However, by creating a lot of new jobs, we can get new people interested in the theatre again. You really can't go wrong by creating a venue for entertainment for the masses and thousands of new jobs.

Sorry if this is a bit choppy, it's not as detailed as I would have liked it to be and I'm sure I missed some points that I wanted to make. But I'm sure you get the point

The "OR" part is something that I caught and kept repeating to myself.

With that statement we could say, we already "saved" 4 million jobs. The truth is, how would you know, speculation that there were 4 million more jobs to be lost and didn't?

Overall I think his first address went well, he is articulate. He does seem to drag answers out a little long, and I suspect they will bring that up and correct it.

The baseball question. For a minute I thought it was a Howard Stern hoax reporter, what a lame question to ask the President at a time like this, who gives a damn about baseball, and what does the government have to do with it?? Nothing.

Quote:

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Obama seems to think there is no pork in this bill and is insulted by someone who would say there is wasteful spending in the bill.

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Pork is defined in Washington as money spent in somebody else's region.. so since he's President of the entire US, you are probably right. It's all his region so there is no pork.

Well, it may be reality for some and in some ways it might be good for people. It's certainly not what most of us want but, it may become much more common place and unfortunately, absolutely necessary.

It's funny, I was looking through the home sale ads in my local paper this weekend. There was a duplex for sale that one half was the owner's suite, the other half was the rental. I said to the hubs that if we had the money right now, that's what we should do. The owner's suite is larger than my current house and the rental half is about the size of my house. So it'd be a good rental. But, the property was about $50K out of our price range.

The ultimate goal would be for us to buy something like that and the rental half would go to my in-laws (and yes, I'd charge them rent). My f-i-l needs to live near people that he knows/trusts since he can't see well enough to drive and my m-i-l works as a nurse (long hours, erratic schedule). Especially when she got sick at Thanksgiving. Dad didn't have anyone to drive him to the hospital to see his wife. (Hospital is about 35 miles from their home). Mom can be a nurse anywhere, why not here? That way we can help out with Dad.

I know people complain about what a pain it is to own rentals, but it does seem like an opportunity right now that should pay off. Who knows though. Your situation sounds like that would work out very well.

The real question is, do I want to live that darn close to my in-laws! LOL!

You know you'd love it!!







_________________________


SC Governor: We're moving close to 'a savior-based economy'
Posted: 11:04 AM ET

From CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart


Watch John King's interview with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – As many state and local officials clamor for their share of the billions of dollars in federal aid in the stimulus bill under consideration in Washington, South Carolina’s Republican governor is sounding a note of dissent about federal efforts to help the economy.

“A problem that was created by building up of too much debt will not be solved with yet more debt,” Gov. Mark Sanford said Sunday, making a reference to the federal deficit spending that will likely finance the federal stimulus package.

“We’re moving precipitously close to what I would call a savior-based economy,” Sanford also said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

The South Carolina Republican said such an economy is “what you see in Russia or Venezuela or Zimbabwe or places like that where it matters not how good your product is to the consumer but what your political connection is to those in power.”

“That is quite different than a market-based economy where some rise and some fall but there’s a consequence to making a stupid decision,” Sanford said after pointing to the powers granted to the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve to help deal with the current economic crisis.

“A lot of people who’ve made some very stupid decisions are being bailed out by the population at large,” he added.

Instead of bailing out failing companies, Sanford told CNN’s John King that the government should let the economy work through the current challenges without intervention.

“We’re going to go through a process of deleveraging,” Sanford said. “And it will be painful. The question is: Do we apply a bunch of different band aids that lengthen and prolong this pain or do we take the band aid off? I believe very strongly: let’s get this thing over with, let’s not drag it on.”

Although Sanford was critical of the federal government’s efforts to get the economy back on track, he equivocated when asked whether he would turn down money in the stimulus package intended for South Carolina which he would control.”

“I think that ultimately we’ll decide that question when we get to it,” the governor said.


http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/200...-based-economy/

Showing my ignorance here people! How is a rental property a good investment if the value of the property continues to fall?

As a long term investment it is good, as property values will again rise. That is assuming a property is bought at or below what would be considered realistic current value.

Will property continue to fall? In some areas yes, in others it has stabilized to 5-7 years ago prices. We actually are already seeing a minor increase, as more baby-boomers decide now is the time to buy in Florida, as they approach retirement.

Quote:

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For what it's worth, with the impending collapse of the bond market, a number of people have already been talking about the exact inflationary scenario he points out in that video. It is beginning to get a bit terrifying, actually.


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That guy makes me look like an optimist.

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He has the nickname of Dr. Doom, but he is one of the few realists that keep saying that we can not keep growing our economy on deregulation, service sector jobs and debt. Here is an interview on Fox's Bulls and Bears on 12/16/06 where he is talking about housing and he is being laughed at like he is a fool.
Schiff on Fox Bulls & Bears

Senate passes Obama's economic recovery plan

February 10, 2009 01:05 PM EST AP

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan has passed the Senate and is on its way to difficult House-Senate negotiations.

Just three Republicans helped pass the plan on a 61-37 vote and they're already signaling they'll play hardball to preserve more than $108 billion in spending cuts made last week in Senate dealmaking. Obama wants to restore cuts in funds for school construction jobs and help for cash-starved states.

Those cuts are among the major differences between the $819 billion House version of Obama's plan and a Senate bill costing $838 billion. Obama has warned of a deepening economic crisis if Congress fails to act. He wants a bill completed by the weekend.

The bill backed by the White House survived a key test vote in the Senate Monday despite strong Republican opposition, and Democratic leaders vowed to deliver legislation for President Barack Obama's signature within a few days.

Monday's vote was 61-36, one more than the 60 needed to advance the measure toward Senate passage on Tuesday. That in turn, will set the stage for possibly contentious negotiations with the House on a final compromise on legislation the president says is desperately needed to tackle the worst economic crisis in more than a generation.

The Senate vote occurred as the Obama administration moved ahead on another key component of its economic recovery plan. Officials said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner would outline rules on Tuesday for $350 billion in bailout funds designed to help the financial industry as well as homeowners facing foreclosure.

Monday's vote was close but scarcely in doubt once the White House and Democratic leaders agreed to trim about $100 billion on Friday.

As a result, Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania broke ranks to cast their votes to advance the bill.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., battling a brain tumor, made his first appearance in the Capitol since suffering a seizure on Inauguration Day, and he joined all other Democrats in support of the measure.

"There is no reason we can't do this by the end of the week," said Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. He said he was prepared to hold the Senate in session into the Presidents Day weekend if necessary, and cautioned Republicans not to try and delay final progress.

He said passage would mark "the first step on the long road to recovery."

Moments before the vote, the Congressional Budget Office issued a new estimate that put the cost at $838 billion, an increase from the $827 billion figure from last week.

"This bill has the votes to pass. We know that," conceded Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican who has spoken daily in the Senate against the legislation.

As if to underscore its prospects for passage, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a prominent and powerful business group, issued a statement calling on the Senate to advance the measure.

Even so, in the hours before Monday's vote, Republican opponents attacked it as too costly and unlikely to have the desired effect on the economy. "This is a spending bill, not a stimulus bill," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

All 36 votes in opposition were cast by Republicans.

The two remaining versions of the legislation are relatively close in size _ $838 billion in the Senate and $819 billion in the House, and are similar in many respects.

Both include Obama's call for a tax cut for lower-income wage earners, as well as billions for unemployment benefits, food stamps, health care and other programs to help victims of the worst recession in decades. In a bow to the administration, they also include billions for development of new information technology for the health industry, and billions more to lay the groundwork for a new environmentally friendly industry that would help reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

At the same time, the differences are considerable.

The measure nearing approval in the Senate calls for more tax cuts and less spending than the House bill, largely because it includes a $70 billion provision to protect middle-class taxpayers from falling victim to the alternative minimum tax, which was intended to make sure the very wealthy don't avoid paying taxes.

Both houses provide for tax breaks for home buyers, but the Senate's provision is far more generous. The Senate bill also gives a tax break to purchasers of new cars.

Both houses provide $87 billion in additional funds for the Medicaid program, which provides health care to the low income. But the House and Senate differ on the formula to be used in distributing the money, a dispute that pits states against one another rather than Republicans against Democrats.

There are dozens of differences on spending.

The Senate proposed $450 million for NASA for exploration, for example, $50 million less than the House. It also eliminated the House's call for money to combat a potential flu pandemic.

On the other hand, the Senate bill calls for several billion more in spending for research at the National Institutes of Health, the result of an amendment backed last week by Specter.
web page

We knew it was going to go this way.


Sheep following the lead.

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/con...TT.html?sid=101

U.S. should look north for a fiscal model
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 3:02 AM
By Fareed Zakaria


The legendary editor of the New Republic, Michael Kinsley, once held a boring-headline contest and decided that the winner was "Worthwhile Canadian initiative." Twenty-two years later, the magazine was rescued from its economic troubles by a Canadian media company. Now there is even more striking evidence of Canada's virtues. Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors. Yup, it's Canada. In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada's banking system the healthiest in the world. America's ranked 40th, Britain's 44th.

Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto-Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn't grown in size; the others have all shrunk.

So what accounts for the genius of the Canadians? Common sense. Over the past 15 years, as the U.S. and Europe loosened regulations on financial industries, the Canadians refused to follow suit, seeing the old rules as useful shock absorbers. Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1, compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1 and European banks at a frightening 61 to 1. This reflects Canada's more risk-averse business culture, but it is also a product of old-fashioned rules on banking.

Canada also has been shielded from the worst aspects of this crisis because its housing prices have not fluctuated as wildly as those in the U.S. Home prices are down 25 percent in the United States, but only half as much in Canada. Why? Well, the Canadian tax code does not provide the massive incentive for overconsumption that the U.S. code does: Interest on your mortgage isn't deductible up north. In addition, home loans in the United States are "nonrecourse," which basically means that if you go belly-up on a bad mortgage, it's mostly the bank's problem. In Canada, it's yours. Ah, but you've heard American politicians wax eloquent on the need for these expensive programs -- interest deductibility alone costs the federal government $100 billion a year -- because they allow the average Joe to fulfill the American Dream of owning a home. Sixty-eight percent of Americans own their own homes. And the rate of Canadian homeownership? It's 68.4 percent.

Canada has been remarkably responsible over the past decade or so. It has had 12 years of budget surpluses and can now spend money to fuel a recovery from a strong position. The government has restructured the national pension system, placing it on a firm fiscal footing, unlike our own insolvent Social Security. Its health-care system is cheaper than America's by far (accounting for 9.7 percent of gross domestic product, versus 15.2 percent here), and yet does better on all major indexes. Life expectancy in Canada is 81 years, vs. 78 in the United States; "healthy life expectancy" is 72 years, versus 69. American car companies have moved so many jobs to Canada to take advantage of lower health-care costs that since 2004, Ontario and not Michigan has been North America's largest car-producing region.

I could go on. The U.S. has a brain-dead immigration system. We issue a small number of work visas and green cards, turning away thousands of talented students who want to stay and work here. Canada, by contrast, has no limit on the number of skilled migrants who can move to the country. They can apply on their own for a Canadian Skilled Worker Visa, which allows them to become perfectly legal "permanent residents" in Canada -- no need for a sponsoring employer, or even a job. Visas are awarded based on education level, work experience, age and language abilities. If a prospective immigrant earns 67 points out of 100 total (holding a Ph.D. is worth 25 points, for instance), he or she can become a full-time, legal resident of Canada.

So the brightest Chinese and Indian software engineers are attracted to the United States, trained by American universities, then thrown out of the country and picked up by Canada, where most of them will work, innovate and pay taxes for the rest of their lives.

If President Barack Obama is looking for smart government, there is much he, and all of us, could learn from our quiet neighbor to the north. Meanwhile, in the councils of the financial world, Canada is pushing for new rules for financial institutions that would reflect its approach. This strikes me as, well, a worthwhile Canadian initiative.

Fareed Zakaria writes for Newsweek and the Washington Post Writers Group.

comments@fareedzakaria.com

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/con...TN.html?sid=101

President plays politics of fear
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 2:58 AM
By Charles Krauthammer

A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe.

-- The president , Feb. 4.



Catastrophe, mind you. So much for President Barack Obama, who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high positions. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.

The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.

He'd been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he's not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don't get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.

At least Timothy Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning nonstratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal's private-equity firm, represented everything Obama said he'd come to Washington to upend.

And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill, the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress' own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.

Not just to abolish but to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the "fierce urgency of now" includes $150 million for livestock insurance.

The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports The Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting planted for ready to market would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took 2 1/2 weeks.

Charles Krauthammer writes for the Washington Post Writers Group.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/9/234340/6189/142/695504

USA was 3 hrs away from Economic, Political Collapse in September 2008
by Magnifico

Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 08:58:22 PM PST

According to Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D) (PA-11), in mid-September of 2008, the United States of America came just three hours away from the collapse of the entire economy. In a span of 2 hours, $550 billion was drawn out of money market accounts in an electronic run on the banks.

Rep. Kanjorski: "It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it."

Kanjorski's bombshell begins to detonate at roughly 2:10 into the video.


Partial transcript below the fold.

Magnifico's diary :: ::
I was there when the secretary and the chairman of the Federal Reserve came those days and talked to members of Congress about what was going on... Here's the facts. We don't even talk about these things.

On Thursday, at about 11 o'clock in the morning, the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous drawdown of money market accounts in the United States to a tune of $550 billion being drawn out in a matter of an hour or two.

The Treasury opened up its window to help. They pumped $105 billion into the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks.

They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts, and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic and there. And that's what actually happened.

If they had not done that their estimation was that by two o'clock that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States, and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed.

Now we talked at that time about what would have happened if that happened. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.

Hat tip nicta.

On the day the electronic run on the money markets happened, September 18th, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 11,019.69. This was roughly two weeks before the huge market collapse during the first week of October 2008. As an aside, I wonder how many members of Congress got cashed out their stocks that day?

In a blog post at The Motley Fool, TMFSinchiruna describes this clip as "The One Jaw Dropping Video that Every Fool Must See".

He first gives some background to what is known about that fateful day on Capitol Hill.

Fools who read my blogs regularly know I have been fascinated by what may have been included within the dire warnings issued to members of Congress by Paulson and Bernanke behind closed doors on Thursday, September 18, 2008. As the debates lingered on over the week that followed, several members voiced their sense of shock over the severity of the warnings, while refusing to divulge the details to a public that deserves to know.

Representative Sherman later revealed that members were warned that Martial Law would result if the $700 bailout plan was not passed, and Iguadland10 posted another video ascribing that particular warning to Paulson.

The New York Times quoted Senator Dodd as jumping in when Charles Schumer described the meeting as 'somber': “Somber doesn’t begin to justify the words,” he said. “We have never heard language like this.” Also from NYT: Although Mr. Schumer, Mr. Dodd and other participants declined to repeat precisely what they were told by Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson, they said the two men described the financial system as effectively bound in a knot that was being pulled tighter and tighter by the day.

He notes the only thing that has changed since the money market run in September is "that more money has been thrown at the problem, but the problems have continued to mount in the meantime. I hope financial disaster can be averted, but judging by what I've witnessed so far that hope is muted at best."

Wow.

The final word goes to Rep. Kanjorski though:

Ya know, we're not any geniuses in economics or finances... We're representatives of people. We ought to take our time, but let the people know this is a very difficult struggle.

Somebody threw us into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean without a life raft and we're trying to determine what's the closest shore and whether there's any chance in the world to swim that far. We. Don't. Know.

Yikes.

And just to state, Cafferty was the biggest Bush basher/ Obama supporter on CNN.

Commentary: You can blame Pelosi for Democrats' stumbles

By Jack Cafferty
CNN


Jack Cafferty says House Democrats got the economic stimulus plan off to a poor start.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Well, that didn't take long. Three weeks into the new administration and the Democrats are squandering their advantage and threatening to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Credit House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for getting the ball rolling. Under her leadership, House Democrats excluded Republicans from having any voice in crafting the stimulus package.

Acting like children who hadn't seen Santa Claus for eight years, House Democrats busily loaded up the bill with stuff they had been unable to get for eight years. It was payback time.

Contraception, funding for the arts, restoration of the national mall, stop-smoking programs. All while Americans lose their homes, their jobs, and their savings. It was both childish and disgraceful.

Apparently tone deaf to the disgust and disappointment of Americans with the bailout package for Wall Street and the banks last year, as well as the voters' strongly stated desire for change as represented by the election of Barack Obama, House Democrats set the table for failure -- again.

Not a single Republican in the House voted for the bill, despite efforts by our new president to reach out to the other side. Nancy Pelosi strikes again.

When asked if the lack of Republican support was at least partly her fault, she gave some snotty answer about not being partisan but working for the American people. Right.

My guess is President Obama is busy these days sticking pins in his Nancy Pelosi doll. To his credit, Obama argued against a lot of the pork while stressing that time is our enemy. Pelosi could care less.

As the legislation headed for the Senate amid cries for more stimulus and less pork, the Republicans pounced. Sensing yet another Democratic miscalculation, the Republicans seized the advantage in the debate.

They want more tax cuts and more real stimulus -- stuff that will create jobs now. Not some pie in the sky proposal that may pay dividends years down the road. And they're right.

The real game starts if and when the Senate passes a bill devoid of a bunch of the garbage the House Democrats stuffed into it. Then it goes to a conference committee where the drama will be whether, in a grand twist of irony, President Obama and the Republicans wind up aligned against members of the Democratic Party in an effort to get something realistic on the table before the economy simply slides the rest of the way into a deep crevasse.

Meanwhile, angry voters are jamming Capitol Hill phone lines screaming about the politics as usual that is so far the hallmark of the new administration. Welcome to Washington, Mr. Obama.

When it comes to the Democrats under Nancy Pelosi, what was it Pogo used to say? "We have met the enemy and it is us."

I dig Cafferty.

Pelosi is one of the scariest people on earth...

With Bush gone, I would have to say that the scariest boils down to Pelosi and Boehner.

Two of the biggest morons in the bunch...and they're both leaders.

this guy cracks me up....

Mogambo guru


Silver and Gold Will Make You More Attractive

By The Mogambo Guru
leadimage

02/11/09 Tampa Bay, Florida SilverForecaster.com announces that “silver has done well” recently, as far as its price is concerned, which is almost certainly explained by the old demand-versus-supply market-clearing pricing mechanism, which means that since the price went up, then demand must be up, too, and more than supply is up; or it means that supply is down more than demand is down; or it means something else entirely, maybe, since I have seemingly confused myself.

But since the recent moves in price are not that spectacular, my attention wavered and I casually looked around the press room, and I noticed that there was a pretty new reporter who was young and cute, which is such a depressingly stark contrast with my being, you know, old and ugly.

I sighed and began to daydream when I suddenly realized the cosmic universality that demand and supply applied even to pretty girls! We testosterone-besotted males of the species ensure a constant high demand for them, yet with a low supply of the little cuties, the price is high! Hahaha!

And, to balance things out, I realized that pretty young girls constantly demonstrate that there is no demand for creepy old men, but yet since we exist in such huge supply, we have zero value, or perhaps even negative value, considering the phrase, “I would rather eat poison and die a horrible painful death rather than even feel your bad breath touching my skin, or even acknowledge your foul existence, Old Mogambo Creep (OMC)!”

But, as with silver and pretty girls, it is this selfsame mechanism of balancing supply with demand that determines the prices of everything else in the Whole Freaking Universe (WFU), so why not this, too?

So, I was about to interrupt to lecture GoldForecaster.com about my little revelation, perhaps to garner a little of the attention that I so desperately crave, when I realized that they had anticipated my observation that silver going up in price meant that demand is greater than supply when they verified it by saying, “Investment demand for silver leapt a huge 309 tonnes last week, a tonnage we have never seen before in such a short time!”

I notice the phrase “never before!” which includes an exclamation point to indicate special emphasis, as seems befitting of “never before”, not only because of this sudden huge demand for silver, but the cute little reporter had just coincidentally used that very phrase when she said to me, “Begone, Mogambo! Never before have I felt such revulsion! I feel soiled and sickened just from being in the same room with you!” which, alas, also contains an exclamation point.

Mr. Phillips and Mr. Spina both pretend that they did not hear me get insulted, and go on to suggest that despite being completely humiliated by this conceited girl, if I buy silver now, I will soon be rich as hell and I will have beautiful ladies hanging all over me all the time, every one of them so beautiful that they will make this little bit of fluff look like a pig, as they conclude from the data that “heavy investment demand is flowing into silver [and gold] in quantities sufficient to ensure this trend is long-term.”

And I agree with them, as inflation in prices is going to be roaring soon, and for the long-term, as the laughable Obama administration is firmly united in announcing grand plans for years and years of huge amounts of new spending and huge amounts of new debt that is supposed to save us (pardon me for laughing right in your face “hahahaha!”) from the collapse caused by the preceding “too much new debt, too much new money and too much new spending” over the last few decades that produced the inflationary booms in the prices of stocks, bonds, houses and size of government that are now going, predictably, bust and causing all the headaches

That is why it is so alarming that Total Fed Credit last week actually went down by a gigantic $149.1 billion in ONE FREAKING WEEK (OFW), instead of increasing in the same OFW, which it must do if all of this deficit-spending is going to be accomplished!

And as if this $149 billion in OFW was not enough to make your heart start fibrillating and make you start puking your bloody guts out in fear, this is, I remind you, Total Fed Credit, which is that magical, out-of-thin-air money that appears, thanks to the Fed arbitrarily creating it in the accounts of the banks, ready for lending to somebody at huge multiples of the amount of additional credit originally deposited in the banks.

In short, we’re talking HUGE amounts of money! HUGE! Huger than huge! FREAKING HUGE!

And what makes it all the scarier is that this TFC is, even with this $149.1 billion drawdown, still totals a hefty $1.84 trillion, which is DOUBLE what it was last year, which demonstrates a huge, huge, HUGE increase in the monetary base, which is now at $1.7 trillion, which is ALSO double what it was last year! Yikes! We’re freaking doomed!

If you buy gold, silver and oil, then you will not personally be doomed, understand, but everyone else soon will be. Bummer for them, huh?

Quote:

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US Taxpayers who are losing their jobs in an economy second only to the Great Depression.

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This statement is not true. The economy was actually worse than it is now during the Carter years. double digit unemployment and massive inflation. Just because left wing hacks proclaim this is the worse since the depresssion doesn;t prove it;s true.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090212/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/retail_sales_7

WASHINGTON – U.S. retail sales jumped 1 percent in January, reversing a six-month declining trend and defying economists' expectations by posting the biggest increase in 14 months.

But higher gasoline prices and sales, and buyers snapping up other items on post-holiday discounts appeared to aid last month's results. Analysts cautioned that the relief is unlikely to last.

The same guys that were wrong...making more predictions. Should ask them how this years hurricane season will be.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that January retail sales rose 1 percent from December after having fallen for six straight months. Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected January sales to show a drop of 0.8 percent. They plunged a revised lower 3 percent in December, which marked the weakest holiday selling season since at least 1969.

"This is a big surprise, though the net rise in sales is less impressive than it looks because (December and November) were revised down by 0.3 percent each," Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a research note. "The headline relief today is welcome but it is unlikely to last."

The January report shows strong increases in sales of automobiles and in general merchandise stores — the "big box" outlets — though sales by department stores, carrying fewer varieties of items, posted a decline. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, is an example of a discounter that has benefited from strapped consumers' focus on necessities like groceries and on bargains for other items.

Sales at gas stations jumped 2.6 percent in January — the biggest increase since June, while sales of autos and parts rose 1.6 percent.

Total retail sales excluding autos and parts still rose 0.9 percent, which again easily beat estimates by economists who expected a decline of 0.5 percent.

Nonstore retailers, such as Internet and mail-order shopping, advanced 2.7 percent in January, while sales of food and beverages rose 2.1 percent. Health and personal care stores registered flat sales last month.

Despite the leap last month, retail sales were down 9.7 percent from January 2008, amid the ravages of the recession, thousands of job losses and falling home prices.

Many of the nation's retailers last week reported sales declines for January. The Labor Department said retailers slashed about 45,000 jobs last month as they closed stores and tried to preserve cash while consumers curtailed spending.

Wal-Mart said Tuesday it will cut 700 to 800 jobs at its Arkansas headquarters as it builds fewer new stores this year and makes other operational changes. The cuts are coming in Wal-Mart's real estate, apparel, and health and wellness departments.

Macy's Inc. last week said it will eliminate 7,000 jobs, or almost 4 percent of its work force, while Bon-Ton Stores Inc. and apparel maker Liz Claiborne Inc. also disclosed major job cuts.

A lot of people are finding "hope" in the stimulus package, and are loosening up the purse strings a little. There is still a lot of folks out there with money to spend, they just have been no the sidelines, watching and waiting.

D'oh! Caterpillar CEO Contradicts President on Whether Stimulus Will Allow Him to Re-Hire Laid Off Workers
February 12, 2009 6:16 PM

EAST PEORIA, ILL. -- President Obama today repeated the claim we asked about yesterday at the press briefing that Jim Owens, the CEO of Caterpillar, Inc., "said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off."

Caterpillar announced 22,000 layoffs last month.

But after the president left the event, Owens said the exact opposite.

Asked if the stimulus package would be able to stop the 22,000 layoffs or not, Owens said, "I think realistically no. The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again"

"It is going to take some time before that stimulus bill" means re-hiring, he said.


http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/doh-caterpillar.html

The sad part is Jules ... and I just clicked on U ... not saying this is your belief ...

The sad part is that ANYONE actually thinks this is good .... its a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE PLAN ... and it has been since our REPS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ISLE STARTED DOING IT ....

Our gov't has been "massaging" our economy for the last 20 years ... actually more like 30 but who's counting ... ...

this stimulus bill will help in the short term ......(and as stimulus bills go this is a HORRENDOUS ONE .... the BS in here is amazing and yet u have morons that think it's OK ... and it shows all the MAJOR PROBLEMS that exist in out gov't today .... BOTH SIDES have put nothing but pure spending in for there little pet projects that HELP VERY VERY FEW .... ie: there SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS that line there pockets ...)

anyhow it will help in the short term .... MAYBE .... IT WILL HELP IN THE SHORT TERM ...... its gonna help but not near as much as folks think ... but Long term ... and by long term I mean in about 2 or 3 years ... were gonna be WORSE OFF THAN WE ARE TODAY ....

every time they have done this and every time they continue to do this it just keeps HIDING the PROBLEMS and allows them to get even BIGGER AND BIGGER ...

the best descreption I can come up with is comparing this to a plane crash ... lets say that is we never started to "massage" the problems and actually let them take there natural course we would have had a rocky, bumpy, skidding to a stop landing that would have scared the crap out of everyone on board and 3/4's of them would ahve never wanted to fly again ....

we've gone from that to what we now have is a plane plummeting out of control, nose first from 10,000 feet and no one will ever have the option of flying again cause there gonna die from the crash ... but some of the remains will be able to be identified and parts of the plane will be in tact ......

and after this stimulus/bail out package is passed and the next 2 or 3 the plane is going to be plummeting from 40,000 feet and everything is just going to evaporate upon impact ....

I can't believe how many of US actually think this is a good idea and will HELP IN SOME WAY ... it just shows how truely ignorant we really are as a population .... and that to me is just very very sad ... I feel very very sorry for ALL OF US .... but since it is our own faults ... I guess were getting what we deserve ....

You are preaching to the choir with me, Diam. We've created a giant, ugly monster with our government.....and now it's too big to kill.

JC

What I find interesting is, for 800 billion.

The government could buy up 4 million foreclosing loans at $200k (Used that an an average), and if I recall properly there is around 2 mill foreclosed home in the US.
Also, make it a stipulation that it must be a primary residence to qualify. Investors are just SoL.

Then turn around and offer the homeowners a refinance at a better "sale price", say 100-125k with a 6-7% interest. Payments would be more manageable for the folks that needed it, they keep their homes, and over 30 years the payback would total close to 300k per refinance. So the government helps people, yet makes back the money and more.

Seems like a better idea than this stimulus, but at this point it's too late for something so simple.

67% Say They Could Do A Better Job On The Economy Than Congress

Wednesday, February 11, 2009


When it comes to the nation’s economic issues, 67% of U.S. voters have more confidence in their own judgment than they do in the average member of Congress.

Nineteen percent (19%) trust members of Congress more, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Fourteen percent (14%) aren’t sure.

Republicans and unaffiliated voters by double digits have more confidence in themselves than Democrats do, but even a majority of the party that controls Congress trust themselves more than the average legislator.

Forty-four percent (44%) voters also think a group of people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job addressing the nation’s problems than the current Congress, but 37% disagree. Twenty percent (20%) are undecided.

The new Congress fares worse on this question that the previous Congress. Last October, just 33% said a randomly selected group of Americans would do a better job than the Congress then in session.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? Sign up now. If it's in the news, it's in our polls).

Although an $800-billion-plus economic rescue plan has now passed both the House and Senate, the overwhelming majority of voters are not confident that Congress knows what it’s doing with regards to the economy. Fifty-eight percent (58%) agree, too, that “no matter how bad things are, Congress can always find a way to make them worse.”

The Senate and House versions of the stimulus plan will now be the subject of a joint conference to work out a package that both chambers can agree on.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of male voters have more confidence in themselves than the average member of Congress. Sixty-one percent (61%) of female voters feel that way.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of GOP voters, 73% of those not affiliated with either party and 58% of Democrats say they know better.

Whites and investors are more confident of their economic know-how compared to the average congressman than are African-Americans and non-investors.

Since they no longer control either the Senate or the House, it’s no surprise that a majority of Republicans (51%) say a group of people picked at random from the phone book would do a better job than the current Congress. But even more unaffiliated voters (56%) agree.

Democrats take the opposite view--49% of those in Nancy Pelosi’s party say Congress today is better than a random group from the phone book. Just 28% disagree.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of voters say Congress is doing a poor job these days.

While Congress grows the country’s budget deficit by historic amounts in an effort to help the economy, the majority of Americans don’t even believe most legislators pay all the taxes they owe.



http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_c...y_than_congress

I always thought they were baaaaaaad.