maddogs hideaway

Welcome to Maddogs hideaway, The poormans predictor. Somedays I just feel like ridin...!

Name: MADDOG10
Location: Beautiful Florida
Country: United States
Interests: restoring old cars, winning the lottery, avid football fan, and riding my motorcycles... Both (Harleys)...!!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

And you want to continue this charade?

Bobya, Louise, and Scorpio, read this in full before you put your foot in your mouth     again...!

Truth is a many splendor thing...!

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By HARVEY GOLUB

President Obama, in speech after speech, proudly makes the following point: Although we inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression, we have generated net new jobs every month, and while we need to do more, we are going in the right direction.

Of course, recoveries always go in the right direction—that is, things get better over time. But merely going in the right direction is an incredibly low performance standard. Moreover, since deep recessions are generally followed by more robust recoveries, this should have been one of the strongest recoveries ever.

So what went wrong? All the available Keynesian levers for achieving economic growth have been pulled, yet the recovery is one of the weakest since World War II. The problem lies with the way the "stimulus" was carried out, the uncertainty of looming higher taxes, and the antibusiness rhetoric and regulatory strong-arming of this administration.

First, exactly how weak has this recovery been? The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis tracks economic performance for each recovery and compares gross-domestic-product growth and job growth, the two most important indicators of economic performance. Over the past 60 years, there have been 11 recessions and 11 recoveries.

Sadly, this recovery is near the bottom of all 11. Cumulative nonfarm job growth is just 1.9% 34 months into recovery, the ninth-worst performance and well below the average job growth of 6.5%. Cumulative GDP growth is just 6.8% 11 quarters into this recovery, less than half the average (15.2%) and the worst of all 11.

But wouldn't things be even worse without massive fiscal and monetary stimulus? It's true that monetary policy by the Federal Reserve has resulted in extraordinarily low interest rates, almost zero for the past three years. Normally, low interest rates would result in increased borrowing by individuals and businesses, generating increased economic activity. Its positive effects in this recovery, however, have mainly been to help the government borrow more cheaply, large banks recapitalize quickly, and homeowners refinance at low rates.

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golub
golub
AFP/Getty Images

Uncertainty regarding ObamaCare and higher taxes on businesses and individuals has discouraged the type of borrowing and lending that low rates generally encourage. Near-zero interest rates have also resulted in historically low yields on savings and encouraged riskier investments. In effect, we have subsidized increased spending by penalizing savings.

Fiscal policy, under the control of the president and his party, increased expenditures by about $700 billion per year since 2008 and launched a spending package of about $800 billion (along with various "targeted" temporary tax reductions), all of which resulted in an increase in national debt of over $5 trillion. In other words, we borrowed $5 trillion, for which we will pay interest for who knows how long, in order to stimulate the economy now.

There's little doubt that this level of spending—$5 trillion in an economy with an annual GDP of about $15 trillion—has a temporary stimulative effect. The question is, was it a good investment? For the most part the money was spent poorly and we will get very little future value from it. Billions were spent to reward favored constituencies like government employees and the auto industry. Billions more were spent on training programs that don't work and unemployment insurance that reduces incentives to actually find work. Little went toward building infrastructure or other assets that will help the nation create wealth over time.

So, yes, we are going in the right direction—but far too slowly to create reasonable economic growth and needed jobs. By their very nature, recoveries involve people and businesses making investments and spending money and borrowing to do both. However, for rational people to spend or invest requires confidence in the future. The "animal spirits" so necessary for a true recovery have been dampened by this administration's policies and rhetoric.

Indeed, this administration has been overtly hostile to business across the economy except for progressive favorites like electric cars or wind and solar power. It has tightened regulatory screws on the coal industry and all other fossil-fuel providers, enacted health-care "reform" based on false estimates of its likely costs and effects, unleashed a hostile National Labor Relations Board on businesses, and passed financial regulations in the form of Dodd-Frank along with hundreds of other regulatory actions that put increased burdens on the private sector. Meanwhile, the president has yet to pass a budget or announce a plan to rein in government expenditures.

The president has said, over and over again, that he wants to increase taxes on businesses—small and large—and on financially successful individuals. He doesn't quite articulate the point that way, but that is the effect. After all, he says millionaires and billionaires aren't paying their fair share. He forgets, or simply does not know, that the top 1% of earners actually pay as much as the bottom 90%, and the bottom half pay no income taxes at all.

In this negative environment, businesses are less willing to invest in the future, and individuals are less willing to spend what they can. Meanwhile, savers and retirees have seen much of their income decline because of low interest rates. The massive costs of all the stimulus have been wasted because of the heavy counterweight put on the economy by the administration's antibusiness and pro-redistribution policies.

Mr. Golub, a former chairman and CEO of American Express, is the chairman of Miller Buckfire and serves on the executive committee of the American Enterprise Institute.

A version of this article appeared May 23, 2012, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: How the Recovery Went Wrong.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

His own party members are even talking about Him. ( Barry)

Taake notice:  Bobya, Louise,and scorpio>>>>>:

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He doesn't call. He doesn't write. He doesn't drop by for a visit.

That's what some of the most senior Democrats in Congress are experiencing from President Barack Obama these days.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) is trying to cut a deal on the nation's fiscal crisis, but he can't recall the last time he talked to the president. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is in charge of one of Obama's top priorities -- preventing a rate increase on student loans -- but he hasn't talked to the president in months. And Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is the go-to guy on high gas prices, but the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee hasn't spoken to the president much since the previous Congress.

"I think the reality is the current Congress is not constituted in a way that makes it likely that we can do very much," Bingaman said, "and that's reflected in what we wind up doing on the floor and understandably the president is not as engaged -- at least with me."

Obama is certainly in regular touch with the top Democratic leaders on the Hill -- Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid -- but when it comes to some key policymakers and chairmen in Democratic congressional politics, he's far less engaged than earlier in his presidency. The lack of communication not only reflects a gridlocked Congress in an election year, but it speaks to the president's personal style -- he's never been much of a schmoozing, back-slapping type in the spirit of Bill Clinton or Lyndon B. Johnson. And even though he came from the Senate, Obama wasn't there long enough to develop deep, bonding friendships with some of the old bulls in Congress.

This is an appalling state of affairs as America faces major problems in the days ahead-particularly the fiscal cliff that happens on January 1st (also known as Taxaggeddon-when major tax hikes, as well as spending cuts, are triggered absent any changes made in Washington). As Raju writes, "Some say the president -- along with congressional leaders -- needs to begin laying the groundwork now to avoid a catastrophic logjam that could ensue after the November elections".

When Democrats had a hammerlock in Congress the first two years of Obama's term, his aloofness was less noticeable. But now that Republicans control the House--and campaign season is in high gear - apparently Barack Obama has more worthwhile and self-centered ways to spend his time (fundraisers, for example).

He refuses to deal NOT just with Republicans but many Democrats as well. With Democrats no longer steamrolling legislation through Congress (it was so easy then when "soft despotism" was the rule in Washington), Barack Obama refuses to engage and work with others to deal with the nation's problems.  While his own needs to win reelection and his own oft-mentioned coldness may account for some of his distance, one should never underestimate Barack Obama's startling lack of a work ethic - a trait that has been noticeable for decades.

Maybe he is just too busy playing basketball with NBA stars, vacationing at  luxury resorts, playing golf with Chicago pals, listening to music in the East Room--after all why would he want to actually lower himself to talk with and work with Congressmen from "Podunk"  and "Pallookaville" - as he has characterized and complained about them in the past.

He promised to work across the aisle and to dissolve partisanship - to change things in Washington. He has to some extent. Every other President-be they Republican or Democrat-has actively worked with Congressmen from both parties on behalf of the American people.

President Obama HAS NOT..!

Thursday, May 10, 2012

We should all be proud of these, -- NOT.

President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts [Updated]

Yes, he's historic, alright.

• First President to Preside Over a Cut to the Credit Rating of the United States Government

• First President to Violate the War Powers Act

• First President to Orchestrate the Sale of Murder Weapons to Mexican Drug Cartels

• First President to issue an unlawful "recess-appointment" while the U.S. Senate remained in session (against the advice of his own Justice Department).

• First President to be Held in Contempt of Court for Illegally Obstructing Oil Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico

• First President to Defy a Federal Judge's Court Order to Cease Implementing the 'Health Care Reform' Law

• First President to halt deportations of illegal aliens and grant them work permits, a form of stealth amnesty roughly equivalent to "The DREAM Act", which could not pass Congress

• First President to Require All Americans to Purchase a Product From a Third Party

• First President to Spend a Trillion Dollars on 'Shovel-Ready' Jobs -- and Later Admit There Was No Such Thing as Shovel-Ready Jobs

• First President to sue states for requiring valid IDs to vote, even though the same administration requires valid IDs to travel by air

• First President to Abrogate Bankruptcy Law to Turn Over Control of Companies to His Union Supporters

• First President to sign into law a bill that permits the government to "hold anyone suspected of being associated with terrorism indefinitely, without any form of due process. No indictment. No judge or jury. No evidence. No trial. Just an indefinite jail sentence."

• First President to Bypass Congress and Implement the DREAM Act Through Executive Fiat

• First President to Threaten Insurance Companies After They Publicly Spoke out on How Obamacare Helped Cause their Rate Increases

• First President to Threaten an Auto Company (Ford) After It Publicly Mocked Bailouts of GM and Chrysler 

• First President to "Order a Secret Amnesty Program that Stopped the Deportations of Illegal Immigrants Across the U.S., Including Those With Criminal Convictions"

• First President to Demand a Company Hand Over $20 Billion to One of His Political Appointees

• First President to Terminate America's Ability to Put a Man into Space.

• First President to Encourage Racial Discrimination and Intimidation at Polling Places

• First President to Have a Law Signed By an 'Auto-pen' Without Being "Present"

• First President to Arbitrarily Declare an Existing Law Unconstitutional and Refuse to Enforce It

• First President to Tell a Major Manufacturing Company In Which State They Are Allowed to Locate a Factory

• First President to refuse to comply with a House Oversight Committee subpoena.

• First President to File Lawsuits Against the States He Swore an Oath to Protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN, etc.)

• First President to Withdraw an Existing Coal Permit That Had Been Properly Issued Years Ago

• First President to Fire an Inspector General of Americorps for Catching One of His Friends in a Corruption Case

• First President to Propose an Executive Order Demanding Companies Disclose Their Political Contributions to Bid on Government Contracts

• First President to allow Mexican police to conduct law enforcement activities on American soil

• First President to Golf 90 or More Times in His First Three Years in Office

All should be proud of the PUPPET performing these acts, Aren't you proud you voted for him?              NOT>>>...!

Saturday, May 5, 2012

He scores again>>!!

Obama Appeaser Enemies SC Spiking the terrorist is all Obama has to show for the last three years

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

And this is from a Black politician

Speaking at the Carmichael Arena, in Chapel Hill, N.C., last Tuesday, Obama displayed not just his commonality, he purposefully lied to a handpicked audience of students. And as he always does, he was belittling someone else to make himself look good. Said behavior is typical of someone who carries the scars of the type of parents he had, but such behavior isn’t the character trait of an emotionally stable leader.

In boasting about his plans to keep student interest rates on federal loans from doubling, he said: “One Republican congresswoman said just recently – I am going to quote this because I know you guys will think I’m making this up. She said she had very little tolerance for people who tell [her] they graduate with debt because there’s no reason for that.” He mockingly continued: “I am just quoting here, she said students who rack up student loan debt are just sitting on their butts, having opportunity dumped in [their] lap.” He finished with: “Now can you imagine saying something like that?”

Actually, Barry, what we have difficulty with is your dishonesty. The congresswoman he was referencing is Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and her exact words were: “I have very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt, because there’s no reason for that. We live in an opportunity society, and people are forgetting that. I remind folks that the Declaration of Independence says life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You don’t sit on your butt and have it dumped in your lap.”

Rep. Foxx, unlike Obama and his wife, didn’t have her education handed to her because she was Kenyan, black, Muslim, or because the school needed another black to make its quota. She worked as a janitor, and it took her seven years to get her undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But she graduated debt-free.

The next day, Obama swaggered up to another microphone with the same toothy leer and reprised his role as liar-in-chief. At the University of Iowa, he said: “You’ve got one member of Congress who compared these student loans [and] I’m not kidding here – to a stage-three cancer of socialism.” With a condescending grin, and preening before the handpicked crowd, he continued: “Stage-three cancer? I don’t know where to start. What do you mean? What are you talking about? Come on. Just when you think you’ve heard it all in Washington, somebody comes up with a new way to go off the deep end.”

I’ll tell you what I’m talking about Barry. I’m talking about you being a depraved liar. You were referring to Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., who in response to the student loan issue had harshly criticized the government’s taking over college loans.

Akin’s exact words were: “America has got the equivalent of the stage-three cancer of socialism because the federal government is tampering in all kinds of stuff it has no business tampering in. So first, to answer your question precisely, what the Democrats did to get rid of the private student loans and take it all over by the government was wrong. It was a lousy bill. That’s why I voted no. The government needs to get its nose out of the education business.” I’d say that is hugely different than what Obama claimed.

In an August of 2011 column, “Nero in the White House,” I wrote: “Mr. Nixon and Clinton lied to save their backsides … [but] in the case of Obama, he lies because he is a liar. He doesn’t only lie to cover his misdeeds – he lies to get his way. He lies to belittle others and to make himself look presentable at their expense. … His lying is congenital and compounded by socio-psychological factors of his life.”

The tragedy is that many of those students believed what he was saying, and others didn’t care one way or the other, as long as he was promising them something. In Chapel Hill, a girl seated behind Obama shook her head in disgust, wrongly believing his lies about Foxx.

But that student probably wasn’t thinking about finishing school with $25,000-$200,000 in student loan debt alone. Nor was she likely thinking about the credit-card debt and car payments she was going to have on top of that student loan debt.

In that same column, I wrote: “Never in my life, inside or outside of politics, have I witnessed such dishonesty in a political leader. He is the most mendacious political figure I have ever witnessed. Even by the low standards of his presidential predecessors, his narcissistic, contumacious arrogance is unequalled. Using Obama as the bar, Nero would have to be elevated to sainthood.”

Let me remind me you of something else I’ve been saying. Extending the lowered student loan interest rate is setting up another financial bubble because there is no way to pay for it.

But don’t look for Romney to bring relief to this madness – he agrees with Obama that the plan should be extended another year. But hey, like they say, anybody but Obama.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

For future reference, if there is going to be any..!

Source: The American Dream

The human capacity for self-delusion truly is remarkable.  Most people out there end up believing exactly what they want to believe even when the truth is staring them right in the face.  Take the U.S. economy for example.  Barack Obama wants to believe that his policies have worked and that the U.S. economy is improving.  So that is what he is telling the American people.  The mainstream media wants to believe that Barack Obama is a good president and that his policies make sense and so they are reporting that we are experiencing an economic recovery.  A very large segment of the U.S. population still fully supports Barack Obama and they want to believe that the economy is getting better so they are buying the propaganda that the mainstream media is feeding them.  But is the U.S. economy really improving?  The truth is that it is not.  The rate of employment among working age Americans is exactly where it was two years ago and household incomes have actually gone down while Obama has been president.  Home ownership levels and home prices continue to decline.  Meanwhile, food and gasoline continue to become even more expensive.  The percentage of Americans that are dependent on the government is at an all-time record high and the U.S. national debt has risen by more than 5 trillion dollars under Obama.  We simply have not seen the type of economic recovery that we have seen after every other economic recession since World War II.

The horrible statistics about the U.S. economy that you are about to read are not talked about much by the mainstream media.  They would rather be “positive” and “upbeat” about the direction that things are headed.

But lying to the American people is not going to help them.  If you are speeding in a car toward a 500 foot cliff, you don’t need someone to cheer you on.  Instead, you need someone to slam on the brakes.

The cold, hard reality of the matter is that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape than it was four or five years ago.

We have never come close to recovering from the last recession and another one will be here soon.

The following are 25 horrible statistics about the U.S. economy that Barack Obama does not want you to know….

#1 The percentage of Americans that own homes is dropping rapidly.  According to Gallup, the current level of homeownership in the United States is the lowest that Gallup has ever measured.

#2 Home prices in the U.S. continue to fall like a rock as well.  They have declined for six months in a row and are now down a total of 35 percent from the peak of the housing bubble.  The last time that home prices in the United States were this low was back in 2002.

#3 Last year, an astounding 53 percent of all U.S. college graduates under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed.

#4 Back in 2007, about 10 percent of all unemployed Americans had been out of work for 52 weeks or longer.  Today, that number is above 30 percent.

#5 When Barack Obama first became president, the number of “long-term unemployed workers” in the United States was 2.6 million.  Today, it is 5.3 million.

#6 The average duration of unemployment in the United States is about three times as long as it was back in the year 2000.

#7 Despite what the mainstream media would have us to believe, the truth is that the percentage of working age Americans that are employed is not increasing.  Back in March 2010, 58.5 percent of all working age Americans were employed.  In March 2011, 58.5 percent of all working age Americans were employed. In March 2012, 58.5 percent of all working age Americans were employed.  So how can Barack Obama and the mainstream media claim that the employment situation in the United States is getting better?  The employment rate is still essentially exactly where it was when the last recession supposedly ended.

#8 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs.  Today, less than 65 percentof all men in the United States have jobs.

#9 In 1962, 28 percent of all jobs in America were manufacturing jobs.  In 2011, only 9 percent of all jobs in America were manufacturing jobs.

#10 In some areas of Detroit, Michigan you can buy a three bedroom home for just $500.

#11 According to one recent survey, approximately one-third of all Americans are not paying their bills on time at this point.

#12 Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the price of gasoline has risen by more than 100 percent.

#13 The student loan debt bubble continues to expand at a very frightening pace.  Recently it was announced that total student loan debt in the United States has passed the one trillion dollar mark.

#14 Incredibly, one out of every four jobs in the United States pays $10 an hour or less at this point.

#15 Household incomes all over the United States continue to fall.  After adjusting for inflation, median household income in America has declined by 7.8 percent since December 2007.

#16 Over the past several decades, government dependence has risen to unprecedented heights in the United States.  The following is how I described the explosive growth of social welfare benefits in one recent article….

Back in 1960, social welfare benefits made up approximately 10 percent of all salaries and wages.  In the year 2000, social welfare benefits made up approximately 21 percent of all salaries and wages.  Today, social welfare benefits make up approximately 35 percent of all salaries and wages.

#17 In November 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, more than 46 million Americans are on food stamps.

#18 Right now, more than 25 percent of all American children are on food stamps.

#19 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, today 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that receives some form of benefits from the federal government.

#20 Over the next 75 years, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars.  That comes to $328,404for each and every household in the United States.

#21 During the first quarter of 2012, U.S. public debt rose by 359.1 billion dollars.  U.S. GDP only rose by 142.4 billion dollars.

#22 At this point, the U.S. national debt is rising by more than 2 million dollars every single minute.

#23 The U.S. national debt has risen by more than 5 trillion dollars since the day that Barack Obama first took office.  In a little more than 3 years Obama has added more to the national debt than the first 41 presidents combined.

#24 The Federal Reserve bought up approximately 61 percent of all government debt issued by the U.S. Treasury Department during 2011.

#25 The Federal Reserve continues to systematically destroy the value of the U.S. dollar.  Since 1970, the U.S. dollar has lost more than 83 percent of its value.

But the horrible economic statistics only tell part of the story.

In communities all over America there is a feeling that something fundamental has changed.  Businesses that have been around for generations are shutting their doors and there is a lot of fear in the air.  The following is a brief excerpt from a recent interview with Richard Yamarone, the senior economist at Bloomberg Brief….

You have to listen to what the small businesses are telling you and right now they are telling you, ‘Hey, I’m the head of a 3rd or 4th generation, 75 or 100 year old business, and I’ve got to shut the doors’ or ‘I’ve got to let people go. And if I’m hiring anybody back, it’s only on a temporary basis.’

Sometimes they do this through a hiring firm so that they can sidestep paying unemployment benefit insurance. So that’s what’s really going on at the grassroots level of the economy. Very, very, grossly different from what you’re seeing in some of these numbers coming out in earnings releases.”

All over the country, millions of hard working Americans are desperately looking for work.  They have been told that “the recession is over”, but they are still finding it incredibly difficult to find anyone that will hire them.  The following example is from a recent CNN article….

Joann Cotton, a 54-year-old Columbus, Mississippi, resident, was one of those faces of poverty we met on the tour. Unemployed for three years, Joann has gone from making “$60,000 a year to less than $15,000 overnight.” Her husband is disabled and dependent on medicines the couple can no longer afford. They rely on food stamps, which, Joann says, “is depressing as hell.”

Receiving government aid, however, has not been as depressing as her job search. Joann says she has applied for at least 300 jobs. Even though she can barely afford gas, she drives to the interviews only to learn that the employers want to hire younger candidates at low wages.

The experiences have taken a toll: “I’ve aged 10 years in the three years that I’ve been looking for a job,” Joann told us. “I want to get a job so I can just relax and exhale … but I can’t. After a while you just give up.”

Meanwhile, Barack Obama and his family continue to live the high life at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer.

Even many Democrats are starting to get very upset about this.  The following is from a recent article by Paul Bedard….

Blue collar Democratic voters, stuck taking depressing “staycations” because they can’t afford gas and hotels, are resentful of the first family’s 17 lavish vacations around the world and don’t want their tax dollars paying for the Obamas’ holidays, according to a new analysis of swing voters.

It simply is not appropriate for the Obamas to be spending millions upon millions upon millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars on luxury vacations when so many Americans are deeply suffering.

But Barack Obama does not want you to know about any of this stuff.

He just wants you to buy his empty propaganda one more time so that he can continue to occupy the White House for another four years.