Obama has no interest in job creation...

With another 410,000 people filing first time unemployment claims and the "official" unemployment rate (I believe the true rate is much higher than that), one would think that Obama would want to do things that would help to create jobs.  President Obama and his administration's actions to stimulate job growth are like a gardener fostering growth in his or her garden by turning off the water.

The latest example of this comes from THIS story in the New York Times.  The headline reads that the Obama Administration objects to the Alaska Oil and Gas Development bill.  Never mind that such a bill would only help the US's issues with gas prices and US demand for foreign.  Never mind that the the environmentalist wacko's have hijacked this issue and are completely opposed to developing an area that is less than 1% of the Refuge.  Never mine that 75% of Alaskans support drilling in ANWR.  Never mind that using domestic sources of oil over foreign sources (from countries like Saudi Arabia and Libya) makes sense.

According to ANWR.org developing and drilling for oil in ANWR would create between 250,000 and 750,000 jobs.

Objecting or opposing this legislation makes no sense on so many levels. Look at the positives that this bill would bring:

1)  America's dependence on foreign oil would decrease.
2) A larger supply or even the expectation of a larger supply of oil would help to bring down the cost of oil traded on the stock market.
3) With advances in drilling techniques, the environmental impact on ANWR is tiny.
4) From this project alone as was stated above between 250 k and 750 k new jobs would be created.
5)  More people working means more people paying taxes, and more people spending which in turn will stimulate further economic growth.

High unemployment will continue to be a massive drag on any economic recovery.  The only real way that government can really affect the economy is through taxation and government regulation.  If Obama wants to have any chance at reelection, he is going to have to lower taxes and cut out regulations that hinder job growth.  Obama, however is a rigid ideologue who would rather sacrifice jobs to save the Caribou, than do what it take to get the American economy rolling again.  Obama's big ears seem to be deaf to the outcry from jobless Americans who are suffering.

Well at least Michelle, Sasha and Malia, will get to go to Botswana for their summer vacation, err "Official State Visit."

Why Obama's policies have not worked.

All of the left must be scratching their heads.  Most of them have been taught in the academic world that the Keynesian economic theory is the correct one.  What their liberal professors did not tell them was that Keynesian economics has never worked.  They were told that their hero, FDR pulled the US out of the Great Depression with is New Deal economic policies.  Shoot, I was taught that growing up in High School history.   However two UCLA professors (hardly a bastion of conservative thought) did a study and have concluded that his Keynesian policies did not work but lengthened the Great Depression by SEVEN YEARS. (click HERE to read more about this).  President Carter and his central planning policies led to something not thought possible in the Keynesian theory: Stagflation--a stagnant economy coupled with high inflation).

Flash forward to 2008.  The economy starts to tank, and the man in the White House and his party are blamed.  Should they be?  Well I say to some degree yes.  Because of loose monetary policy coupled with out of control spending that were at least to some degree contributing factors.  However these policies were not and should not be considered free market policies.  Obama sweeps into office under perfect economic and political conditions and starts a new round of Keynesian policies that would never and will never work.

:Lets look at the stimulus package that was passed when Obama first took office.  His $787 billion (an unheard of amount of money), we were told, would keep unemployment down.  In fact we were promised that the so called stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8%.  Unemployment went up past 10% for a time and has not dropped below 8.9% since (the rate is at 9.1% now).  As the rate continued to skyrocket the left wing Keynesian economists just shrugged their shoulders and blamed Bush, saying the economy Obama inherited was much worse than originally thought.

What should have been reported by the main stream press was that this stimulus had no way of working, and there is one simple reason, the stimulus money was spent on crap, and not on things that would stimulate the conomy. Take a look at recovery.gov.  They have a pie chart break down of what was spent.  There is so much in there that I don't have time to write it all here, but it is obvious that these yahoos in the Obama administration had no clue as to how to stimulate the economy.  Take a look at the breakdown of where the money was spent.  The only thing that translates to job growth was the money spent on infrastructure.  Considering all of this stuff was temporary, those jobs would eventually disappear.  A bunch of the money was spent on retraining of workers.  Great, retrain people, but if there is no one to hire them, then where are they going to work when they are retrained.

The only way to really stimulate the economy is by stimulating the private sector.  Somewhere around 70% of jobs in the US (still looking for confirmation of this statistic) are private sector jobs.  Consider the fact that if the private sector is stimulated, and the economy starts moving again, companies will pay more taxes (due to increased profits), people will pay more income tax (because more people will be working), and consumers will buy more products leading to more tax revenue.  It really is simple, but the left just can't see this.  They believe that profits are evil and that government bureaucrats can make these decisions better than the hard working Americans.

History has shown that these policies don't work, but it does not stop the central planners from continuing to try.  We must stop them.

National Debt and Deficit Spending

I have been politically minded for a long time.  It has taken me a long time however to understand the significance of deficit spending.  I should have known better.  My religion warns its members against debt.  I have seen how debt in my own life can inhibit my ability to be financially secure.  As I have attempted to right my own financial ship (a work in progress i might add), I have become more of a deficit hawk.

I must call myself to the carpet though.  I was and still am a supporter of President George W. Bush, but I have come to realize how much damage he did by being such a big spender.  While Bush 43 did the right thing by cutting taxes to keep the economy chugging along after 9/11, he did not adhere to the other equally important part of Conservative principals, that is to keep government spending in check.  Bush increased spending more than Clinton did, and he did it with a Republican congress helping him.  

Now some might argue that part of this spending was for the War on Terror and was necessary to keep America safe.  But Bush also spent gobs of money on things like No Child Left Behind and the Prescription Drug Benefit, two examples of new layers of Government bureaucracy that should never have been added to by a Republican president.  

I was not critical of President Bush.  I did not check the facts when conservative pundits said that it was because of the War on Terror, or I just was not listening when they talked about the skyrocketing debt. 

Well consider this person awoken to the perils of the deficit.  Bush may have increased the debt and should be greatly criticized for it, but Obama has gone crazy with it.  I will write more on this within the next twelve hours, but consider this.

Congress is debating whether or not to increase the debt ceiling by something like 2 trillion dollars.  If Obama continues to run deficits of 1.6 trillion dollars per year.  This debt limit increase will not get the US government two years before another debt limit increase has to be passed.

More on the deficit in a few hours.  

Hello....is this thing on?

I quote President Barack Obama from what he said yesterday.

"It is important though to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession."

I have to ask, did he keep a straight face when he said this? Yes President Bush left a deficit, when he left office. This is a fact that cannot be disputed. But President Obama came in and TRIPLED the deficit. T-R-I-P-L-E-D it. Now he says that adding more to the debt could weaken the economy? But he wants a universal health care plan that according to current estimates will cost 1.3 trillion over 10 years. And given the fact that Medicare has cost roughly 9 times more than originally estimated, this monster could easily cost 10 trillion dollars. And there are rumblings from congress that another "stimulus" package is needed. MORE DEBT.

Does Obama really mean what he said here? He keeps spending more and more money and the debt is so huge that it is practically unfathomable.

I actually agree with his statement, but how can can he say it with a straight face? His policies have set up this house of cards to fall. The dollar is weak and there is nothing being done to strengthen it. Inflation is coming. There is so much money sitting out there not being spent, that when it is, the economy could overheat causing massive inflation. If (in my opinion it is a matter of when) this happens say goodbye to the minuscule growth that is happening right now, and this depression (yes I think it is a depression) will worsen.

I think I have seen this movie before.

Happy Tax Day!

It is interesting to hear all of these liberals bad mouth the Tax Day tea parties that are going on all over the country. They are calling those who are attending a bunch of red necked backwards thinking hay seed hicks. But what they fail to do is to consider the real reasons and ideas behind these tea parties.

People are angry and scared. They fear for the future of their country. America was founded on the principles of limited government, rugged individualism, and the idea of American exceptionalism. These ideals, coupled with capitalism, is what has made this country the most successful and prosperous country in the world. President Barack Obama's ideas and policies that he wants to impliment are not only destined to fail, but will lead America down a path that it was not meant to go down.

But what the real crime here is that The Obama administration is implementing these policies without a single regard for fiscal responsibility. The fact is...is that America does not have the money for all of these programs and bailouts. The amount of debt being amassed could cause such massive inflation that it will destroy the value of the dollar as a world currency. The debt we are heaping on our children and grandchildren is horribly crippling.

But worst of all, the proposals by this administration could spell the end of capitalism, which is the end of freedom. The American dream is that anyone can come here (legally) and try to make their fortune, and pursue happiness. Is it a perfect system? No! But it is the only one that works and gives people true freedom.

As people consider what this President is doing, trying to take control of the economy, health care and education, I want you to respond to this question.

Name for five things(excluding the military) that the government does well .

Now tell those of us diggin in our heals about this stuff that you really honestly think that that government can do it better(whatever "it" may be)!

No Company is TOO LARGE TO FAIL!

The argument that companies like AIG and GM are too large to fail, has to be one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated by American Politicians in an attempt to grab control of large parts of the American economy.

As I kept hearing so many of the ruling class continually spew out this rhetoric, I started to think to myself, "Why are these companies too big to fail?" and Why should they be saved in the first place?" It does not make sense. Why should the government bail out these companies when they have been running their own businesses into the ground.

In the case of AIG, did anyone force them to go out on a massive limb and offer the credit default swaps to all of these financial institutions? Why would a company put all of its eggs into a basket that was in reality a ticking time bomb? I'm no business or economics expert, but I have heard many times that one should always diversify. It seems to me that what got a lot of banks and financial institutions into so much was that they had too much of one investment on their balance sheet and did not spread their investments around enough in case that one of these investments went in the tank.

In the case of GM? Who's fault is it that they went with a short term business plan and put all of their eggs into the SUV basket? Why was GM so short sided? Lets face it. Why would anyone buy an American mid sized car, from Ford, GM or Chrystler, when they can get a better car from a Japanese manufacturer for roughly the same price? But the biggest question is, why did these companies sign such ridiculous labor contracts with the UAW? It has been obvious that the Detroit car model has been flawed for years. Many of the so-called Japanese cars are made or assembled in America anyway. The Big 3 has been dying on the vine for years because they have refused to change their business model.

But why then would the government bail out these companies that have made so many bad decisions? Why would the government infuse these companies with piles of money. In both cases the businesses are failing. They are hemorrhaging money. Throwing money at these big companies has done very little. Now these companies keep coming back for more but continue to engage in the same business practices that got them into the mess they were in in the first place.

So why would the government do it? I suspect it has nothing to do with the economy, but rather these amount to massive quid pro quos. In the case of Detroit, it is payback to the union. In the case of AIG....it was a way to help out a bunch of executives that gave money to the right causes or right candidates...and also to funnel money to banks outside of the US. Whatever the real reason, the evidence supports that we should have just allowed these companies to fail (bankruptcy) and let the chips fall where they may. At least we wouldn't have mortaged the future of our country and its economic stability in the name "saving" companies that really did not deserve saving.

The free market corrects itself. This crisis has happened because so many in the industry did not look at the long ter, but rather only paid attention to the short term. The companies that were being prudent would still be around, and other companies would rise up and take place of the failed ones.