As is well known, I am an expert on practically everything. This is why I am obscenely wealthy, sought after by the major media, and am an object of desire even in my early 70s. And! I have a bridge to Brooklyn to sell you!

Despite my shortcomings, I can and I will share with you a bit of economic forecasting that takes no great genius to detect. The U.S. economy is going to flatline all the way through the next election in November 2012. It’s going nowhere and prospects thereafter are dim as well.

Millions of Americans, including those so deluded to think that a guy who had never run a business in his life could actually run a nation, put him in the White House. Let me rephrase that. He has run a nation…right into the ground.

It doesn’t matter if you think he’s a Marxist, a Muslim, a narcissist, a sociopath, or any other name for his behavior, the fact is no one is going to spend a dime more than necessary until he’s out of office and on a plane back to Chicago, Hawaii or Kenya as of January 2013.

Take, for example, the news on July 8th that unemployment had risen to a six-month high of 9.2%. Non-farm payrolls had risen to just 18,000 in June. Peter Ferrara, a senior fellow for Entitlement and Budget Policy at The Heartland Institute, responded to the news saying, “Since the Great Depression, recessions on average in America have lasted 10 months, with the longest previously being 16 months. Yet here we are 42 months, or 3 ½ years, after the recession started, and unemployment is still rising.”
Historically, noted Ferrara, “the deeper the recession the stronger the recovery. Instead, we are suffering no real recovery at all.”

No recovery!

If Obama and the moronic economic advisors he brought into office with him—only Treasury Secretary Geithner remains—wanted to turn the economy around all they had to do was cut tax rates, cut government spending, push for deregulation to reduce the costs of doing business, and exercise restraint with monetary policies. They did none of this. Instead, they doubled-down with a massive, failed “stimulus” program, cash for clunkers, and comparable measures.

Obama’s policies are mostly oriented toward public service unions and others that have been sucking billions out of public treasuries to such an extent that they have bankrupted entire states. Their private industry counterparts have virtually destroyed industries such as the auto manufacturers.

Then, too, there’s the regime’s preference to buy votes from the least productive elements of the population. On July 12th, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that it had awarded “more than $1.9 billion to public housing authorities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rice, and the U.S. Virgin islands.”

The money is allegedly intended to “build, repair, renovate, and/or modernize the public housing in their communities”, but Secretary Shaun Donovan asserted that “Housing Authorities need nearly $26 billion to keep these homes safe and decent for families, but given our budget realities, we must find other, innovative ways to confront the decline of our public housing stock.” Yeah, sure, but can we even afford the $1.9 billion being shelled out? No. It has to be borrowed just like 40 cents of every dollar the government spends.

The reality is that this government keeps shelling out billions at a time when the big debate is whether to raise the debt ceiling!

The U.S. government is leaking billions. Just watch C-Span on any given evening as the Senators and Representatives discuss and vote on the expenditure of millions for everything short of another trip to the moon. It’s like watching drunks ordering a new round of drinks for everyone in the bar.

The GOP is not going to allow the U.S. to default on our debts. There is sufficient revenue coming into the government to avoid that. The debt ceiling will be raised.
So long as President Obama keeps blathering about corporate jets, millionaires and billionaires, and all the usual efforts to blame “the rich” (now considered to be anyone earning $200,000 a year), those who generate jobs are going to keep as much of their earnings as possible and, for businesses, that means hiring as few people as possible.

There will be no chance of job growth until Obama is gone, but overall the U.S. is losing jobs by the thousands as industry moves manufacturing overseas. Since 2001 the U.S. has lost approximately 43,000 factories. Why? Lower corporate taxes, less regulatory drag.

The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are living in poverty, the highest number of poor Americans in the 5l years such records have been maintained. As of November 2010, 14% were using food stamps, 43.6 million Americans.

Look at any statistical chart about the U.S. economy today and these ugly truths leap out at you.

© Alan Caruba, 2001

 

WesternFront America

Something I never thought I would ever see in my former hometown, a wealthy New Jersey suburb of New York City, was a Dollar Store, but one opened recently in a former supermarket. Dollar Stores are giving Wal-Mart, Target, and similar outlets a run for their money and it’s not hard to see why. The local one has just about everything you could need and all for astonishing low prices.

In countless ways people are looking to save money these days. The looming problem, however, is the question of what happens when Americans wake up to learn that even a dollar can no longer buy anything?

“When Faith in U.S. Dollars and U.S. Debt is Dead the Game is over – And that Day is Closer than You May Think” is the cheery title of an article recently posted on EconomicCollapse.com.

There’s a reason why both the mental condition and the financial condition are called a Depression. It’s hard to be happy about anything when your nation’s currency is not worth the paper on which it is printed. The Federal Reserve’s answer, some fear, is to print more money and to continue to buy U.S. debt with it. It is doubtful, however, this Ponzi scheme will continue.

There isn’t a day that goes by when some U.S. government agency doesn’t send me a news release to announce that it is giving millions for something and, if our elected leaders are negotiating a solution to this insane spending and giving, there is precious little evidence of it.

New unemployment numbers are up. The administration continues to churn out thousands of pages of new regulations. It has stalled the energy sector from oil and gas exploration that could create thousands of jobs. And China is divesting itself of U.S. securities, anticipating a bad outcome for our economy.

Meanwhile, the so-called “entitlement” programs represent sixty percent of all the money the government spends. Without some changes, these programs are unsustainable. The Democrats’ answer is to depict Republicans as wanting to kill grandma.

The Gross Domestic Product

In a Mid-May article posted on American Thinker.com, Randal Hoven spelled out a number of facts that are overlooked in the political battles between liberals and conservatives. “The entire debate is about a difference that is less than 4% of GDP. According to International Monetary Fund figures, government in the U.S. is spending 41% of GDP in 2011. The current debate is about whether government spends 40% or 44% of GDP.”

The government is absorbing far too much of the Gross Domestic Product for its own purposes. We are in a league shared by Greece and other nations with a serious financial crisis.

While the federal and state governments plunders every cent they can extract from those still fortunate to have a job, any investments, or will die at some point, both Republicans and Democrats have participated in expanding government since the last Great Depression.

While President Obama’s constant blaming of George W. Bush for his first two years became a joke, Hoven notes that Bush expanded Medicare with a prescription program and many of the “liberal” programs we conservatives denounce occurred while Bush was president. “No Child Left Behind”? Bush. Outlawing light bulbs? Bush. Ethanol subsidies? Bush.

The absurdity of President Obama’s mantra that millionaires and billionaires be taxed more ignores the fact that such taxes, even if we took all of their money, would barely cover the rate at which government spends and wastes such income.

While negotiations, we’re told, are occurring or will, the greatest impediment is Obama’s open disdain and dislike for Republicans. This cannot be underestimated in terms of finding a solution.

At the heart of our current problems is that, having inherited a financial crisis, Obama devoted the last two years to a government takeover of both the health care industry and the financial sector with two bills, each of which exceeded 2,000 pages and vastly expanded government bureaucracy.

More government control of the economy is the last thing this nation needs at this time. Or any time.

Social Security will be insolvent by 2037 and, together with Medicare, they have unfunded liabilities of $107 trillion in today’s dollars. That is seven times the size of the U.S. economy and ten times the size of the national debt.

The real problem for the United States is the falling confidence and faith in the U.S. dollar. It is the default reserve currency of the world. Just about everything trades in U.S. dollars. It’s not only Americans losing faith in our government’s ability to maintain its value, it is everyone else.

In April, Standard & Poor’s downgraded its outlook on U.S. government debt from “stable” to “negative.” It warned that the U.S. could lose its prized AAA rating. Unless Congress and the current occupant of the White House take specific steps to fix Social Security and Medicare, the dollar compared to other major national currencies will continue to fall. It has fallen 17% since 2009. Moody’s rating service has also issued its own warning.

Pretty soon, nobody will want to buy U.S. securities used to currently borrow 41 cents of every dollar the government spends. The U.S. borrows about $168 million every single hour.

In April, CNSnews reported that “the federal government made $125 billion in ‘improper payments’ in fiscal 2010, more than eleven times the total 2010 spending by the U.S. State Department.”

That’s a government that doesn’t know what it’s doing and isn’t in a hurry to fix it.
That’s why a Dollar Store just opened in one of the most affluent suburbs of New Jersey.

I know the economists and others keep saying that the Recession that began in 2007, ended in 2009. I know they can and will cite all manner of good economic indicators, but if faith in the U.S. dollar continues to falter, it won’t matter.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

 

WesternFront America

..You better be darn scared

The damnable lies that continue out of lazy, corrupt media mouthpieces regarding the true state of the economy is nothing short of reprehensible. We expect politicians to lie every time they open their mouths. We expect ethically bankrupt crooks like Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner to lie every time they open their mouth to protect their banking interests. However, a free media is supposed to be the watch dog for government corruption and report the facts, not propaganda. Not so for a long, long time for what is known as the “mainstream” media. Fools they are because like tens of millions of others, they will also be reduced to penury. Lackeys for their corporate masters no longer question numbers; perhaps they are as ignorant as the majority of adults in this country when it comes to fiat currency and taxation.

The pathological liar camped out in the White House recently upchucked, “‘We’re digging ourselves out of a hole”‘ when the fake unemployment numbers allegedly show the jobless rate had dropped to the lowest level for 19 months. Bernanke, master in the art of deception, was pumping more false hope last month: “The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke says until the U.S. economic system is completely stabilized, the country will be slow to climb completely out of its latest recession and that could mean high unemployment rates for a few more years. A native of Dillon, Bernanke made the remarks during a rare interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” which aired Sunday night.”

Geithner says the U.S. government is broke, but look at his role in facilitating the coming collapse! Everything done by the private banking cartel [FED] with the full cooperation of Geithner is exactly the same destructive path taken by FDR. One of the most accurate and comprehensive writings on how the “New Deal” made the situation even worse back during the “Great” Depression is a piece by Lawrence W. Reed titled, Great Myths of the Great Depression. You will see the same programs touted by the communist in the White House are near twins of the failures promoted by FDR. While Lawrence’s piece is 16 pages, it is well worth the time to get a good education on what didn’t work and actually prolonged the depression by a decade. We are reliving history.

More lies from the media:

“The nation’s unemployment rate is 9.8 percent. South Carolina’s unemployment rate stands at 10.2 percent. Bernanke says what concerns him now is the length of time many America’s have been out of the workforce.”

Unemployment in this country is at depression levels. By 1933, unemployment peaked at 25%. The criminal syndicate out in DC (“our” government) claims unemployment is 9.8%. Really? The “official” unemployment number is 14, 443,867 Americans out of work. The actual number is 25, 684,164. Staggering numbers. 25.6 MILLION Americans have no jobs thanks to the Outlaw Congress and reckless spending by the states.

Stabilize the economy? Pray tell, Bernanke, how will do you that without jobs being created? How will you do that when ONE MILLION homes were foreclosed on last year and an estimated 20 MILLION homeowners will have underwater mortgages by the end of 2011? Someone tell me how you grow the economy with those numbers when the only real wealth for most Americans is their home?

“RealtyTrac® (www.realtytrac.com),  the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its Year-End 2010 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™, which shows a total of 3,825,637 foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on a record 2,871,891 U.S. properties in 2010, an increase of nearly 2 percent from 2009 and an increase of 23 percent from 2008. The report also shows that 2.23 percent of all U.S. housing units (one in 45) received at least one foreclosure filing during the year, up from 2.21 percent in 2009, 1.84 percent in 2008, 1.03 percent in 2007 and 0.58 percent in 2006.

“Foreclosure filings were reported on 257,747 U.S. properties in December, a decrease of nearly 2 percent from the previous month and down 26 percent from December 2009 — the biggest annual drop in foreclosure activity since RealtyTrac began publishing its foreclosure report in January 2005 and giving December the lowest monthly total since June 2008.

“December Default notices (NOD, LIS) decreased 4 percent from the previous month and were down 35 percent from December 2009; Scheduled foreclosure auctions (NTS, NFS) decreased 3 percent from the previous month and were down 20 percent from December 2009; and bank repossessions (REO) increased nearly 4 percent from the previous month — thanks in part to substantial month-over-month increases in some states such as Nevada (71 percent increase), Arizona (52 percent increase) and California (47 percent increase) — but were still down 24 percent from December 2009.

“Foreclosure filings were reported on 799,064 U.S. properties in the fourth quarter, a 14 percent decrease from the previous quarter and an 8 percent decrease from the fourth quarter of 2009. The fourth quarter total was the lowest quarterly total since Q4 2008.

“Total properties receiving foreclosure filings would have easily exceeded 3 million in 2010 had it not been for the fourth quarter drop in foreclosure activity — triggered primarily by the continuing controversy surrounding foreclosure documentation and procedures that prompted many major lenders to temporarily halt some foreclosure proceedings,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “Even so, 2010 foreclosure activity still hit a record high for our report, and many of the foreclosure proceedings that were stopped in late 2010 — which we estimate may be as high as a quarter million — will likely be re-started and add to the numbers in early 2011.”

More and more Americans have been forced to borrow from their retirement accounts. Wow, you can borrow your own money at a small interest rate! More borrowing, more debt. To buy food or keep their homes from foreclosure.

Stabilize the economy while the Outlaw Congress picks our bones in taxes while liars like John Boehner and Eric Cantor tout cuts in spending instead of reducing the size of government by abolishing unconstitutional cabinets like the “Federal” Department of Education which sucks down $66 BILLION BORROWED dollars a year? Same old rhetoric. America just reelected 82% of incumbents back to the Outlaw Congress! Now you expect them to reduce the size of government with more Band Aids?

Tell me how you’re going to stabilize the economy when we the people have been dragged against our will into global financial instruments sucking the lifeblood out of this country?

Tell me how you stabilize the economy when the cost of food is going through the roof and will continue to rise to the point where average working families will go hungry in a land so rich in human and natural resources? We are prepared with food storage, but tens of millions of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and have nothing left to stock up on food. The cost of everything is going up because the value of that paper “dollar” in your wallet continues to go down. As the price of oil continues to rise, so will the price at the grocery store. Because of failed crops due to weather (manipulation), the cost of healthy, fresh food will continue to skyrocket because that “dollar” in your wallet continues to lose value.

Think 25.6 MILLION unemployed Americans have money for spending other than bare life essentials? Tell me how you stabilize the economy when millions of Americans who have lost their homes have no disposable income, many living in tents or their cars?

Tell me how you can stabilize the economy when social security and Medicare are $99 TRILLION dollars in liabilities, not to mention prescription pill liabilities at $19.5 TRILLION dollars? 10,000 “baby boomers” are retiring everyday. There isn’t enough paper to print more debt currency to cover those debts. A thermonuclear bomb is ticking just waiting to go off.

To all the geniuses in the Outlaw Congress, Bernanke, Geithner and other liars, tell me how you’re going to stabilize the economy when faced with numbers that could out number the stars in the universe? Oh, I know! Spend your way out of debt! That is precisely how the planned destruction of our economy is unfolding. Make no mistake: The bankers are getting theirs first while the rest of us are being reduced to poverty.

Are you following the riots in countries like Greece, Italy and Ireland? Think it won’t come to America? Think again. Those socialist countries are buried in oceans of unpayable debt due to overspending and because they are socialist governments that will always go bankrupt. Their citizens are in an uproar because they see their “entitlements” on the chopping block. Think it won’t come to the states that are on the brink of total insolvency? Empty bellies make for angry mobs.

I know time is an issue, but everything you’ve ever worked for is being stolen by a system of corruption and greed facilitated by the Outlaw Congress, the fraud in the White House and all past presidents since 1913. All of them, including darling of the right, Ronnie Reagan, have lied to the American people about the income tax, have done nothing (except Rep. Ron Paul’s persistent campaign against the “Fed”) to correct the disabilities of our monetary system, have killed millions of jobs with unconstitutional treaties and the list goes on and on. Below are just a small sampling of the truth about what’s underway and can’t be stopped because the numbers are too big and so is the level of systemic corruption.

“It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts…Suffer not yourself to be betrayed with a kiss.” Patrick Henry, Speech on the Stamp Act, Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775
In many columns I have recommended people get their affairs in order because our situation is only going to get worse, not better. Not for a long time to come. I’ve been so fortunate to have learned from brilliant scholars like Dr. Edwin Vieira about our monetary system. While I’m not a financial analyst (and having nothing to sell), I’ve also learned why it’s so important to protect your assets with precious metals like gold. From personal experience I can tell you had I not listened to my good friend, Harvey Gordin, (my story here) we would be like the thousands in Natomas Park (Sacramento) with a underwater mortgage:

“I am just going to swallow my pride and walk out. I have to. The market for homes is not going up.”– Tasha McLaughlin, 33, of Sacramento, Calif. discussing with the Wall Street Journal her home, bought for $256,000 in 2004 and now worth less than $80,000.

Harvey began educating me back in 1998 about precious metals and I’m so glad I listened, not just to him, but also, Bob Chapman, who pens the International Forecaster.

What happens if (or, perhaps, when) states begin to default because they’re drowning in debt for public pensions and dried up tax revenues because millions in their state are unemployed? What happens when Uncle Sugar can no longer print enough confetti to satisfy debtors? Do even know where your 401(k) retirement is invested? Most people don’t have a clue nor do they even understand markets or investing. Will you let your 401(k) again hemorrhage thousands of dollars or will you take control of what you have left and put it into gold (and silver)? Besides bullets and seeds for a garden this year, are you going to protect your assets? Americans should be scared to death about what is underway because the lies coming out of the media and paid mouthpieces on cable TV are just that.

It makes me sick to my soul that so many Americans are either blind to the truth or simply don’t understand the threat to their future is very real. Many states will be introducing sound money bills and let us pray they get passed, but it’s almost too late. Again, I can’t recommend highly enough the 4 DVD set, The Purse and the Sword, featuring Dr. Edwin Vieira. It truly is the quintessential learning tool for Americans and state legislators. Forget the Outlaw Congress. With the exception of a few like Ron and Rand Paul, most are illiterate when it comes to economics and the rest are simply corrupt.

Back in February 2007, Edwin wrote a column titled, The Shearing is Nearing. He was spot on and so is Harvey Gordin when it comes to understanding owning gold. Too many Americans simply don’t understand it does no good to have $50,000 or $200,000 in their 401(k) or savings account if that paper is worthless. If you are worried about your assets, give Harvey a call at 602.228.8203 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 602.228.8203 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or visit his web site. Despite attempts over the past several years to suppress the price of gold by manipulating the market, the price will continue to rise as it has for the past decade. I hope the links below will drive home the urgency of self survival because that’s what it will come down to in this country. Not a pretty picture, but hiding from the truth won’t make the ugliness go away.

Savvy investors understand why owning gold is critical:

1 – Gold Versus Defective Economists and Delusional Leaders on Drugs
2 – John Williams Eyes Gold as Insurance Against Hyper-Inflation Armageddon
3 – Gold Is George Soros’ Biggest Holding
4 – Gold Will Outlive Dollar Once Slaughter Comes
5 – Demand for gold surges 36% in the second quarter
1 – Ignore DANGER Signs of The Coming Financial Catastrophe (2004)
2 – Are Monetary & Banking Crises Inevitable in the Near Future? (March 2005)
3 – Retirement account fantasy and middle class erosion – 1 out of 3 Americans has zero
dollars in a retirement account. From 1950 to 1989 top 1 percent earned roughly
7 to 8 percent of nationwide income. Today it is inching closer to 20 percent
resembling pre-Great Depression levels. (2010)
Fast forward. When I say the rooster has come to croak, believe it.
1 – Who’s Lying?
2 – “I Am Deeply Embarrassed By This IDIOT Who’s Totally
In The Service of the Bankers” (January 2011)
3 – Broke and Hungry: This Chart Says It All
4 – 2,000 show up at Tulsa food pantry; only 375 boxes of food
5 – An Avalanche of Liquidity Threatens Us With Inflation
Bob Chapman Report – January 5, 2011
6 – Confirmed: We’re Literally On the Brink of Catastrophic Collapse
7 – Home Prices Decline for Fourth Month
8 – America has ‘reached the point of no return,’
Reagan budget director warns (Jan. 2011)

Devvy Kidd authored the booklets, Why A Bankrupt America and Blind Loyalty; 2 million copies distributed. Devvy appears on radio shows all over the country. She left the Republican Party in 1996 and has been an independent voter ever since. Devvy is a constitutionalist who believes in the supreme law of the land, not some political party.

Visit Devvy’s website at: http://www.devvy.com. You may also sign up for her free email alerts.

 

WesternFront America

I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve read blogs, from both ends of the spectrum, that talk about African-Americans as if they are a monolithic voting bloc that will ALWAYS vote Democrat. We’ve all seen the videos of African Americans thinking that Obama will pay their mortgages, or that they are going to get “Obama Money,” from his “stash.” Since these are well-publicized cases, they are influencing our perceptions about an entire group of people. So, the question is, is that all true?

And, if is it really that way, will it change? You see, I question both of those assumptions. While the voting issue is true, what is the basis for it? History tells us that that after the civil war, most African-Americans were Republicans, and the first African American Congressmen from the south belonged to the GOP. We also know that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. It is also true that Democrats were responsible for the Jim Crow laws, and that the southern Democrats resisted the civil rights era legislation vehemently. So, that leaves us with something that bears examining; why did African Americans switch to voting over 90% Democrat in every election?

To answer this, I think we again need to go back into history, and see what happened in the 60’s. Let’s start with some quotes attributed to LBJ.

“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.”

LBJ, Democratic President of the United States.

“I’ll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.”

Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One according Ronald Kessler’s Book, “Inside The White House”

Those two quotes from LBJ are rather telling. For me, they point to a deception of action, as well as a deception of intent. Clearly, LBJ was suggesting that he could win the African American vote by making some promises, and delivering little…”just enough.”.

Obviously, these two quotes have been floating around for a long time, and many are going to suggest that they were never said at all. But, let’s take a look at what has happened, and see if what LBJ said has come to pass. After all, people can say many things, but it’s their actions that show their true intent.

Let’s take a look at some examples…

Welfare and the breakdown of the family:

The various welfare programs of the 1960’s had a tremendous impact on the African American family. Not long after the creation of these programs, the rates of fatherless families began to rise. They have continued to rise for decades, and now, over 70% of African American children grow up without a father living in the home. That was not the case prior to welfare, and the programs have been identified as the cause for this. As well all know, children raised in fatherless homes are many times more likely to have lower educational achievement, use drugs, and engage in other criminal activities. However, what has been done to correct it? Has the intervention of the government really made it better…or worse?

Or, was it, “…we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”

Education:

It is also well know that the educational system has failed our children. We also know that minority children suffer even more.

As for graduation rates…

The national graduation rate for the class of 1998 was 71%. For white students the rate was 78%, while it was 56% for African-American students and 54% for Latino students.

And for illiteracy…

September 2008

Graduation, Dropouts, and Preparedness

• African American high school students are notably falling behind their white counterparts in graduation rates, dropout rates, literacy rates, and college preparedness rates.
• In 2005, only 55 percent of all black students graduated from high school on time with a regular diploma, compared to 78 percent of whites.
• In 2005, the on-time graduation rate for black males was 48 percent nationally; for white males it was 74 percent.
• Nearly half of the nation’s African American students, but only 11 percent of white students, attend high schools in which graduation is not the norm.
• In 2002, 23 percent of all black students who started public high school left it prepared for college, compared to 40 percent of whites.
• On average, African American and Hispanic twelfth-grade students read at approximately the same level as white eighth graders.
• About half of poor, urban ninth graders read at only a fifth- or sixth-grade level.
• The National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that 88 percent of African American eighth graders read below grade level, compared to 62 percent of white eighth graders.

Now, we’ve seen successful alternatives, but “progressives” in the unions attack these, and when President Obama was elected, he shut down the DC waiver program, which greatly benefited mostly poor, African American kids.

Instead, the government makes many promises, and insists on spending more money on the same failed system. Essentially, they end up purchasing more failure.

Or, is it, “…we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”

Unemployment:

The U.S. Labor Department reported on Friday that unemployment for African Americans increased to 16.3% in August 2010 from 15.6% in July 2010.  The percentage point increase was greater than it was for Whites and Hispanics.  Overall unemployment climbed to 9.6% for the month of August from the July unemployment rate of 9.5%.

So, the unemployment rate is higher for African Americans as well. Of course, President Obama has promised to focus on this, but he has delivered nothing.

Or, is it, “…we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”

As you look at this, it is easy to conclude that not only has government action/programs made the situation worse, but they also seem intent on keeping it the same. I would hypothesize that there is a reason for this: If government can keep any group dependent, they can then extract support from that group. They create a circumstance in which a large segment of the population is keep poor and undereducated, effectively preventing that group from escaping poverty. Then, every election cycle, the Democrats come foreword and tell that group that the other party wants to kill them, jail them, and take away all of their benefits. By combining dependency, poverty, illiteracy, and hate, they can convince a group to vote for them every time.

In essence, I believe that the Democrats have intentionally acted in a way to “Cloward-Piven” a large segment of the African American community, by making them dependent on government assistance, and placing roadblocks for individuals in that community to be successful. After all, a person may want to succeed, but if they can’t get an education that provided even the most basic of skills, and they are penalized for any positive effort by a prohibitive loss of benefits, will that person eventually give up and not even try? And, what happens to that population of people after generations of the same? I think we can project the answer to that. As I suggested in the post, “Why Hope can Kill the Progressive Agenda,” people trapped in hopelessness for generations forget that there is any hope at all. In fact, we see the results of these policies on a tragically regular basis.

This is racist. Not the bed sheet wearing, ignorant redneck variety, but the soft racism of the nanny state and elites. Through all of this, I think the Democratic Party is just a racist as they always were. They simple present it differently (remember “calling it something else?”). They don’t believe that the African American can succeed, so they are content to “manage” him. Why provide good education if they can’t do well anyway? Why present opportunity and freedom when they don’t believe that the African American can use those to their own advantage? Just build housing, send in food stamps, and have horrifically inadequate schools, and leave them to poverty. Through the decades, it’s what they have done.

You know, “…we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”

So, I think the phrase “government plantation” is a completely accurate representation of the current relationship between our elitist government and the African American community. When you look at the totality of the problem, their actions show their true beliefs. In fact, the evidence becomes over whelming.

It seems like an insurmountable challenge, but I believe that there is incredible untapped human potential in the African American community. I say this because when good educational choices are available, African American children excel, just like any other group. Their scores rise to rival anyone’s, and all the negative outcomes start to decrease. So, it is safe to say that real education reform (ending government intrusion, union domination, and instituting real local control) would be the final nail in the coffin for the soft racist policies of the elitist left.

However, it wouldn’t end there. There are millions of people of all races that are caught in the poor education-poverty-crime-hopeless trap. To help them, or in some cases, encourage them, to escape, we’d also have to do a phase-down on the nanny state. Benefits would have to be restructured, yet again, to encourage success, and not penalize it. Caps and limits would need to be imposed to put an end to system-induced inter-generational dependency. That would be a difficult sell, but so worth it in the end.

The total effort would take nearly a generation to see tangible results, as it would take that long to begin reform, and educate a full generation of children. Once accomplished, however, the US would see a economic and cultural renaissance. As African-Americans, Hispanics, and other groups take their rightful place in our society, the US would be transformed. This would not be the “fundamental” government-forced change, but an organic one; based on ideas, innovations, merit, and creativity. Everyone would truly be able to advance to the limits of their own talents, skills, and persistence. We would cease to be a “hyphenated” society, as we would all be peers-truly equal in our opportunity, and respectful of the accomplishments of our fellow Americans.

Originally posted at Conservative Hideout 2.0 © Matt Ross

 

WesternFront America

As Congress debates yet another extension of Federal Unemployment Benefits, perhaps it is time to examine the system itself and gain a bit of perspective.

No one disagrees that Unemployment Insurance is a necessary safety net – providing a means to continue functioning when a job ends and to allow for a search for new employment. Unemployment Insurance is set up as a STATE run program, providing a minimal income for a set period of time. The maximum payout varies by state, but here in the heartland this maximum benefit is around $300 a week. The maximum term of benefits is 26 weeks, or 6 months.

This is true insurance. Premiums are paid by employers thru a tax, and benefits are paid out when circumstances warrant a claim – up to the maximum benefit.

Unemployment Insurance Benefits are not intended to be an income replacement for a job! They are a supplement to allow the unemployed worker some minimal income to allow him to eat while he seeks another job. After 6 months, the benefits are maxed out and expire.

This is a reasonable system. No one will starve while seeking work. And since the benefit amount is based on earned income over the previous x number of months… someone eligible for the maximum benefit will have earned significantly more than that benefit amount while working. There is INCENTIVE to seek to return to work to maintain the standard of living! (During my last short stint collecting unemployment benefits… the sum total of monthly benefits barely paid my monthly mortgage! I was INCENTED to seek another job, as my other expenses ate well into my savings!)

Things get muddled when the FEDERAL government steps in.

During times of high national unemployment, the Feds institute “extended benefits”. This is NOT Unemployment Insurance. No premiums are paid or collected for these benefits. The program is ADMINISTERED by the states but the benefits are simply expenditures of the Federal Budget.

The currently expiring benefits have run through SEVERAL extensions. For one’s benefits to be expiring now, they’d have had to be collecting unemployment thru nearly the entire Obama Presidency!

Remember, McDonalds is hiring, and pays more than $250 a week! If someone has been out of work for 2 years, they COULD get a job flipping burgers for about the same money that unemployment provides. But WHY WOULD someone who is content to live at that level of income work 40 hrs a week for the kind of money the Feds are giving away for them to sit on their cans?

To be sure, there are people who are NOT content to live on unemployment. Myself, for example! During that last stint of unemployment I mentioned, I was unable to find full time work in my field of expertise, but I DID find and ACCEPT a part-time position! Since I am an IT professional, my part time job nets me, after taxes, significantly more than unemployment benefits pay, though HALF the income I had been earning! I am one of the UNDER-EMPLOYED not recorded on the nations employment statistics… but I am a productive worker, paying taxes and meeting my obligations and expenses – though barely – as I continue to seek a suitable career enhancing position!

The Feds have done enough for the “long-term unemployed”. As they drain federal coffers, they have DIS-incented millions of potential CONTRIBUTORS to the nation’s economy. Workers will not take jobs they consider “below them” when they can continue to collect taxpayer funded subsidy. They will not work 40 hrs at a job that will only minimally improve their lot over what the Feds give them for nothing. The Feds CREATE the long-term unemployment problem!

Necessity is a great motivator. When the benefits expire, these people WILL go out and accept available employment to meet their needs and those of their families. It is time for the mamby-pamby spoiled brat children that make up a goodly portion of the American Population to find out what it is to take a menial subsistence job that is “below them” and be responsible for themselves. The Depression created innovation. The Depression created character. And the children of the Depression became the “Greatest Generation”.

The “Great Society” spawned the “ME Generation”… and these people have become spoiled, lazy, entitled and unproductive.

The Safety Net exists at the State Level. In extreme times, a single extension of an additional 26 weeks might be justifiable. But to extend these benefits ad infinitum is simply the creation of another Welfare program, without calling it so. It is another case of the productive funding and subsidizing the unproductive.

The time has come for Congress to say ENOUGH.

There should be no extension of Federal Unemployment Benefits. Congress must begin to show SOME accountability with the tax dollars they appropriate from the productive people of this nation. And it is time for the American People to start being accountable for their own actions, and responsible for their own outcomes

Copyright © 2010 by Doug Edelman

Doug Edelman is a conservative political analyst and commentator, and has been a contributing editor for The Conservative Voice. His work is also seen on Western Front American, Small Government Times, Western Journalism, News By Us, The American Daily, The Post Chronicle, New Media Journal, Capitol Hill Coffee House and more. Mr. Edelman is also an IT Consultant/Contractor and owner of a Computer Services Business.  He has taught PC Maintenance & Repair and Networking at his local Community College, and maintains a blog at http://starboard.blogtownhall.com/.

 

WesternFront America

Between the time that George Washington took the first oath of office as president and when Barack Obama did—1789 to 2009, the United States had borrowed nine trillion dollars. Since Obama took office, it has borrowed or imposed nearly three trillion more debt. Tell me he is not deliberately seeking to bankrupt the nation.

In an August 28 Wall Street Journal editorial it noted that “To no one’s surprise except Vice President Joe Biden’s, second quarter economic growth was revised down yesterday to 1.6% from the prior estimate of growth of 2.4% which was down from first quarter growth of 3.7%, which was down from the 2009 fourth quarter’s 5%. Economic recoveries are supposed to go in the other direction.”

I was born during the Great Depression of the 1930s and have lived long enough now to find myself in a new one. There are similarities between the two, but the first one led to the creation of a variety of government regulatory entities and programs that should have avoided or at least were expected put the brakes on the current one.

At the heart of the current Depression is the government’s intrusion into the nation’s housing market via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government “entities” that functioned to purchase the mortgages provided by banks and lending companies that, by law, were required to make “sub-prime” bad loans. They have since been seized and billions remain at risk until such time as they are removed from distorting the housing market.

The mortgages were then bundled and resold to banking and investment firms. When the housing “bubble” failed, it threatened the financial structure of the nation. It was a classic asset bubble as people used their homes as piggy banks, taking second mortgages to pay for lifestyles that often did not include saving money for a rainy day. If this sounds like infantile behavior, it is.

Despite the multi-billion dollar bank bailouts initiated in 2008 at the end of the second Bush term and “stimulus” bailouts continued by the Obama administration, the recession has grown longer and there is talk of a “second recession.” This is like saying the family drunk or druggie has a “consumption problem.”

Despite zero interest rates for banks borrowing from the Federal Reserve justifiable fears have slowed lending. Consumers have held off spending. Home sales reached a 15-year low in June.

If the Obama administration and Congress allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, it will deepen the current crisis. In 1932 President Hoover persuaded Congress to raise taxes and we know this led to a decade of a severe economic Depression.

Poor monetary policy drove the Great Depression and is being repeated in this one. Government does not create jobs. Its highest priority is to protect the U.S. dollar so that investment and growth can be maintained.

E. Ralph Hostetter, publisher of American Farm Publications, recently noted that “The federal government has been in control of the U.S. dollar since 1913 when the Federal Reserve Banking System was established.”

“The 130 years prior to 1913, going back to 1783, was the longest period of currency stability in U.S. history. Since the dollar came under control of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913, it has lost 90 percent of its original value. Eighty percent of that loss has occurred since President Richard Nixon took the United States off the gold standard in 1971.”

As Gerald P. O’Driscall Jr. recently wrote in a Wall Street Journal essay, “The solution lies in restoring balance sheets. For financial firms that means raising capital. For consumers and businesses alike, that means saving more of their reduced incomes.” He warned that “Low interest rates slow the process…by keeping asset prices artificially inflated.” The current Federal Reserve interest rate is zero.

The entire governmental and economic system depends on trust and the Obama administration has squandered that by constantly telling Americans that things were getting better when it was obvious to everyone they were not.

Claims that “shovel ready” projects would turn around the economy were false. Only 3.3% of the $814 billion stimulus was allocated to the Federal Highway Administration for highway and bridge projects. The bulk of the funds expended were directed at retaining civil service jobs of teachers and funds for police and firefighters. Union contracts, fat with pension and health benefits, have bankrupted many States.

In early August first-time claims for unemployment hit a nine-month high. Since the stimulus passed, 2.6 million Americans have lost their jobs and 1.2 million have given up trying to find a new one. Despite the 9.6% figure the government cites, the actual levels of unemployment are far closer to 20%.

During the Great Depression, unemployment was 25% and wages fell 42%.

The nation has reached a point where well-respected economists are now openly using the “Depression” word. David Rosenberg, writing in his daily briefing to investors, warned against interpreting the occasional blips of Gross Domestic Product and stock market gains as signs of recovery. Other economists from major investment and banking institutions are reducing their GDP predictions for 2010 to an anemic range of 1.5% to 2%.

The United States is not in “a summer of recovery” and is not likely to see any recovery if taxes increase. Massive “reform” of Medicare will drive up insurance and healthcare costs. Massive infusions of taxpayer money to keep states afloat to pay for Medicaid and other mandated costs are temporary at best.

Social Security, insolvent because successive Congresses have raped its so-called trust fund, will require a major overhaul to protect those who have paid into it and free new generations from its requirements.

Tax “holidays” are needed to allow businesses and consumers to keep their money instead of handing it over to a profligate federal government and to States that have failed to exercise fiscal sanity.

Get used to the word “Depression.” That’s what we’re in and the first step to get out of it will be to send people to Congress who will address these problems.

Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

 

WesternFront America

By: Daniel Sargis

From the Bizarro World come daily panic updates about the escalating H1N1 “Swine Flu” pandemic.

Half of the sane people in the country are becoming anxious over escalating pandemic risks and the other half of the sane population believes that this so-called pandemic is another Obamian subterfuge. The crazy people are sitting it out in Washington DC.

Nobody can be certain where the truth lies and {{ruffles & flourishes}}…it’s all Obama’s fault.

Obama (probably) didn’t create the H1N1 virus. And he (probably) would want to insulate the US population from the devastating effects of a pandemic.

But Obama and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcast of Liars have amassed a negative credibility function in record Beltway time.

About half of the US population doesn’t believe a thing coming out either Obama or his administration and the blame for that lies at Obama’s door.

This lack of credibility translates into a failing of leadership and could lead to a national disaster.

It’s no different from what happened to the color coded terror threat level scale of the Bush years.

As liberal “journalist” Michael Isikoff remarked, “It doesn’t mean that there weren’t genuine security fears…There were…But because of the highly politicized atmosphere, because of the track record the Bush administration had demonstrated…there were widespread suspicions as to whether or not these constant terror threat alerts were, indeed, genuine or whether they were influenced by politics.”

Just as the liberals pooh-poohed and ignored the warnings of any increase in the terror threat level as more Bush politics, Conservatives are justifyingly pooh-poohing pandemic warnings as more Obamian omnipotence.

That we have national leadership, at all levels, that can allow, or even create, such a distrust in the government of, by and for the People is an indignity to the United States and just purely dangerous.

The threat of a pandemic, just like the threat of a terrorist attack, is nothing to be politicized and nothing to be taken lightly.

We certainly don’t remember the 1918 pandemic but we do remember September 11, 2001.

The 3000 lives lost on 911 are a drop in the bucket compared to the 30,000 lives lost to a normal flu season.

But the 30,000 lives lost (from a population of over 305 million people) to a normal flu season are a drop in the bucket compared to the over 500,000 US lives claimed (from a population of 103 million) by the 1918 pandemic.

It might be comforting to reassure oneself that a 1918-variety pandemic was unique and could never happen again but that is nonsense. A pandemic, influenza-based or otherwise, will someday ravage the world again.

But “someday” is no reason to lie awake in a cold, panic-stricken sweat.

The What, Where and When of “someday” is why we pay taxes to our government and why that government spends so lavishly on creations like the Centers for Disease Control, The Department of Health and Human Services, The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology…you get the point.

It is the responsibility of the government to marshal the resources needed to accurately anticipate probable threats and credibly deal with them.

And credible is the operative word.

On January 9, 2009 Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers hyped a report (“The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”) projecting that the stimulus plan proposed by Obama would create between three and four million jobs by the end of 2010 and also predicting unemployment rates without the stimulus would reach about 8.5 percent in 2009 and then continue rising to a peak of about 9 percent in 2010. With the stimulus, the Obama team and leading Democrats predicted the unemployment rate would peak at just under 8 percent in 2009.

Remember…the Obama team stampeded US taxpayer into believing that we had to “immediately” spend about a $Trillion or unemployment would rise above 8%.

Today, about 9 months and more than $Trillion later, unemployment is at 9.8% and climbing.

And how is President Obama credibly explaining this to the electorate?

For your $Trillion and the highest unemployment rate in 26 years, the Obama administration crowed that, “its economic stimulus had saved or created 250,000 education jobs”. In fact, Vice President Biden boasted that the stimulus was “helping soften the blow of tough times, by keeping educators on the job and teachers in the classroom.”

Excuse me but I thought that we already paid taxes for “education jobs” and that the stimulus was supposed to create new jobs.

Where is the credibility?

On August 17, 2009, in a speech before the veterans of Foreign Wars, Obama asserted that the war in Afghanistan, “…is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity…So this is not only a war worth fighting…this is fundamental to the defense of our people.”

In that same speech, Obama promised that he would, “…equip our forces with the assets and technologies they need to fight and win….”

Today, Obama, to the dismay of his generals and their troops, still has no strategy for Afghanistan and is indecisive on providing our forces “with the asset and technologies they need to fight and win.”

Where is the credibility on these life and death issues?

And then, in April 2009, the H1N1 virus crossed the Rio Grande and entered the United States.

In fact, in April 2009, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, first declared the H1N1 virus a public health emergency.

So, what did Obama’s administration do?

The New York Times reported that, “…the Obama administration left little to chance. It built a new Web site…It staged role-playing exercises for public health officials and members of the news media…It commissioned public service announcements, featuring the fuzzy Sesame Street characters Elmo and Rosita singing in English and Spanish about ‘the right way to sneeze’…and (Obama) appeared in the Rose Garden to urge Americans to wash their hands.”

But where’s the beef? The above response is very nice but it’s all show and no go…if we are facing a real pandemic.

Between May and July of 2009, the US government ordered 250 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine and promptly pledged to donate 10% 0r 25 million doses to “poor” nations. So for a country with a population in excess of 305 million people, the government planned on 225 million does of vaccine to combat the H1N1 “pandemic”.

At the end of September 2004, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said there “will be plenty of vaccine for everyone who wants it…250 million doses have been purchased, and that will be plenty.” She omitted the fact that the US was only retaining 225 million does. But don’t fret.

As recently as late summer of 2009, the government “predicted that up to 100 million doses would be available this month (October) and then later cut that estimate to 40 million before slashing it again…to 28 million.”

As of today, the government has received 22.4 million doses of vaccine.

So what went wrong?

On October 21, 2009, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claimed that, “…federal officials had assumed there would be a lag in vaccine availability (and) are not surprised that H1N1 has spiked at a time when there is not enough vaccine available.”

Yet, on October 23, 2009, Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that “We are no where near where we thought we’d be now”.

Well, which is it?

And speaking of credibility….

Secretary Sebelius said, on October 21, 2009 that, “…government health officials anticipate a spike in both seasonal and H1N1 cases going forward, not a drop off…meaning that the vaccine will not reach the majority of Americans too late.”

Now I’m confused.

On August 24, 2009, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) released a report (Report To The President On U.S. Preparations For 2009-H1N1 Influenza) which the White House couldn’t stop crowing about.

On page 35 of that report, PCAST strongly advised an accelerated schedule for the H1N1 vaccine because, “plans announced in July by the HHS Secretary (Sebelius) would provide the first significant quantities of 2009-H1N1 vaccine in mid-October; an effective immune response would take another 2 to 4 weeks to develop after vaccination. Under the model scenario described in Chapter 3, the resurgence of the epidemic would start in September and peak in mid-October. If this model is approximately correct with respect to timing, a vaccination campaign would not begin to protect vaccinees until well after the epidemic had peaked.”

Pardon me, but…who the hell is telling the truth?

This is just a very small sampling of the kinds of half-truths and inconsistencies the Obama administration has represented to the US electorate in regard to the H1N1 virus that Obama himself declared on October 24, 2009 to be a “national emergency”.

Who can blame a very confused citizenry for being very confused when the leadership of this nation is, at best, very confused?

Bad government has always been a matter of lies and coercion and good government has always been a matter of truth and trust.

Perhaps Washington will realize this before there is a real national emergency and the citizenry is numb to leaders who are constantly crying wolf and telling other fables.

“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”

 

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