Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category

Updated Unemployement Charts – How’s that Stimulus Bill Working Out?

Monday, May 10th, 2010

The unemployment charts (links on top of this page) have been updated with the most recent data.

The first chart shows that, for folks 20 and over, there is still a big gap between the unemployment rate of men and women.  Probably a logical explanation for this if you take the time to dig through the data…  types of work men typically do being hit harder? Men being targets because of higher salaries compared to women?

Second is a straightforward unemployment rate chart for 16yrs and older.

Third chart had to change this time around because of available data on the Bureau of Labor Statistics site.  The data I was using appears to be gone, but I did find data focused on non-farm jobs in the private sector… so I replaced all months with this new data.

This third chart uses February 2009 as the baseline, when we were promised the stimulus bill would create 3,500,000 new jobs by 2011.  This chart extends to December 2011 to give the folks in power the entire year of 2011 to accomplish this task.

Unfortunately, we have lost jobs since the start of the stimulus, so the stimulus now needs to create 6,871,000 jobs by the end of 2011 to reach the total of 3,500,000 promised. That is an average of 343,550 new jobs per month, every month, between now and the end of 2011.

Seems a bit unlikely…

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Remembering the good old days of “high unemployment”

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

Remembering the good old days when Dems criticized Bush for huge unemployment rates…

On the Hill – June 6, 2008 – The Democratic Congress is working to address the faltering economy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi charges, blaming President Bush for fiscal woes as the unemployment rate increased to 5.5 percent.

“The New Direction Congress will send the President legislation to provide urgently needed assistance to millions of Americans who have lost their jobs and are struggling to make ends meet,” Pelosi adds. “Just as we worked cooperatively in passing a stimulus plan to put $117 billion into the hands of more than 130 million Americans, we urge the President to support legislation to address the needs of America’s unemployed and struggling workers. Today’s unemployment numbers demonstrate that this is an urgent challenge.”

Wow!  5.5%… who wouldn’t take that today?  Good to see Pelosi was tackling this as an urgent challenge two years ago…  a bit strange that it is no longer an urgent challenge now that we are close to 10%… guess she met her goal.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi March 7, 2003 – “President Bush’s first $1.7 trillion tax cut came with a promise — that it would create jobs and grow the economy. We all know that it has not. The rhetoric was good, but the reality couldn’t be more different. Today’s unemployment numbers show that 308,000 jobs were lost last month, the biggest one-month job loss in 18 months. Overall, President Bush has the worst record on job creation of any President in nearly 60 years.

“We need policies that create jobs. It is that simple. Democrats have proposed an economic stimulus package that nonpartisan observers say will create 1 million jobs this year, five times more than the Bush plan. President Bush’s policies have produced record job loss — Democrats propose policies that will create jobs. The choice for the American people is clear.”

The unemployment rate was 5.9% in February and March of 2003, unacceptable to Mrs. Pelosi.  For the record, the average rate under President Bush was 5.3% over 8 years; amazing when you factor in the major hit to the economy on 9/11.

So… how’s the Obama record?  Perhaps too soon to tell.  So let’s look at the Pelosi/Reid record.

When Pelosi, Reid and the Democrats took over congress in January 2007, the unemployment rate was down to 4.6% with a Republican president and congress. Today it is close to 10% and likely would be over that if not for the temporary census jobs inflating the employment figures.

But jobs are not job one with Reid, Pelosi and Obama.  First we need health care legislation, “stimulus” bills that are laden with pork, cap and trade, denial of the right to a secret ballot for folks voting on unionization…

Maybe they should look to some of the “failed policies” of the Bush administration to see if we can at least get back to the good old days of high unemployment rates like 5.5%.

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What’s next? Posting the launch codes on Facebook?

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Interesting the things the Obama administration thinks should be kept secret and those that they think should be public knowledge.

  • Secret location of VP bunker… not a secret, slip of the VP tongue in 2009
  • True cost of the health care bill…  secret, at least until it was signed
  • Classified info on interrogation techniques…. not a secret, declassified in 2009
  • White House Social Secretary Desirée Rogers’ role in folks sneaking into presidential dinners… secret to the point of turning down a congressional invitation to testify because of the separation of powers
  • Classified US Cybersecurity Plan… not a secret, declassified in March 2010

And …  one of the most closely guarded secrets considered critical to our national security until now:

From AP - The Obama administration disclosed the size of its atomic stockpile going back to 1962 as part of a campaign to get other nuclear nations to be more forthcoming, and to improve its bargaining position against the prospect of a nuclear Iran.

“We think it is in our national security interest to be as transparent as we can be about the nuclear program of the United States,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters at the United Nations.

Is that kind of like how announcing we were closing the detention center at Guantanamo was going to make us safer?  Someone should tell the terrorists now that we’ve had yet another attempted attack.

The U.S. has previously regarded such details as top secret.

Gee.. wonder why….

Whether to reveal the full total, including those thousands of nearly dead warheads, was debated within the Obama administration. Keeping those weapons out of the figure released Monday represented a partial concession to intelligence agency officials and others who argued national security could be harmed by laying the entire nuclear arsenal bare.

I’m sure that concession was comforting…

But the administration is not revealing everything.

The Pentagon figure released Monday includes deployed weapons, which are those more or less ready to launch, and reserve weapons. It does not include thousands of warheads that have been disabled or all but dismantled.

Oooo.. now there’s a secret we want to keep.  Let’s not tell them how many broken or useless warheads we have.  Need to keep the mystery around those.

Exposure of once-classified totals for U.S. deployed and reserve nuclear weapons is intended to nudge nations such as China, which has revealed little about its nuclear stockpile.

Yeah, let us know how that works out.

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Liberal Vision: A Nation of Vampires

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

As the Reid/Pelosi/Obama vision of America continues to materialize before our eyes, one thing is already very clear… an America dependent on government is a sustaining source of power for those who feed that dependency.

In a warped perversion of the old “trickle down” economics, far-left liberals are accelerating the flow of wealth with high powered siphons and are doing so without even trying to hide their disdain of those who supply the life-blood of our economy.

Impatient with voluntary trips to the economic blood bank by those who live and thrive in our economy, they have turned to vampirism and will greedily feed off the hosts until they are bled dry.

When 40% of the country not only pays zero income tax but actually receives a check from the government at tax time (that’s right, 40% of the country actually makes a profit on April 15), when 10% of the country pays 73% of all income taxes collected by the federal government, what we have is a major redistribution of wealth.

But even that is not enough for the far left, they want to expand the number of available hosts (declaring more of us to be rich in the process) and ramp up the flow from all available hosts to feed more of the vampire class and expand their base so that, in their minds, perpetual power will be within their reach.

Vlad would be proud.

The problem is that this is not sustainable.  When all hosts are bled dry, the economy will collapse and all will suffer, the vampires, the hosts… and those of us caught in the middle.

What works best for our country?

The same thing that has worked, albeit cyclically, for decades.

  • Those of us with lots of money who invest in our nation and fuel the engines that creates jobs
  • Those of us doing fairly well, buying lots of stuff and keep the economy afloat
  • Those of us getting by and working hard for a better life for our families
  • Those of us struggling that need our help
  • And.. a government that protects those of us who struggle while staying out of the way of the rest of us

When the government becomes the economy, the economy will collapse from the top down as the rich stop creating jobs, the well off and those getting by have no money to feed the economy, and finally those who are struggling no longer have the rest of us to help them out because we are standing beside them instead of reaching out with a helping hand.

A nation of vampires is doomed to a life in the shadows…

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Quick Thought: Obama is right on Iran

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

President Obama has been right on Iran since way back… he’s also been wrong.  Just depends on which speech you recall.

Just wondering… do you think, as Iran is on the brink of developing a nuclear weapon and a delivery system… do you think he has locked into the view that Iran is a threat?  Even more than right wing Tea Party radicals and Arizona?

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Quick Thought: Reid/Pelosi/Obama Priorities the Same as Ours?

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

With the nation facing 9-10% unemployment, President Obama, Senator Reid, and Speaker Pelosi spent over a year pushing “health care reform” that we now know will put our economy further in the hole.

OK… health care bill passed, next up tackle the economy?  Well, actually yes.  In much the same way LT tackled QBs.

Up next on the Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda? Cap and Trade… which is essentially the selling of the rights to pollute from one company to another.  Not sure how that reduces pollution, but it certainly moves money from one company to another for nothing more than a right to pollute (assuming you agree that CO2 is a pollutant).  In the middle of all this? Traders who will skim profits from every trade.  This will drive up the cost of energy, which will drive up the cost of products, which will further cripple the economy and put increase pressure on employment.

But wait… what about securing our borders, or immigration reform, depending on your perspective on the issue?  Nope, gotta get that Cap and Trade thing going so Democrats who are voted out of office in November will have another corrupt institution to run to next year.

So.. what would you say our priorities are?

Unemployment/jobs?

National debt?

Securing our borders?

I don’t know about you, but I really don’t see how health care “reform” and “cap and trade” trump these issues… unless of course the rush is to push through an agenda that has no chance once balance is restored in our government.

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Mexican Gov warns Mexicans over travel to Mexico…

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

That certainly would make more sense than warning them about travel to Arizona… unless of course the warning is about illegal border crossing.

So Mexico, that bastion of due process and civil rights, is warning it’s citizens that travel to Arizona could be dangerous because, um… well, I’m not sure:

From AP - The Mexican government warned its citizens Tuesday to use extreme caution if visiting Arizona because of a tough new law that requires all immigrants and visitors to carry U.S.-issued documents or risk arrest.

And of course that arrest could lead to deportation back to Mexico, which is a very dangerous place these days… now it makes sense, that is clearly a high risk situation.  Totally justified.

Are they serious?  “Warning: Entering the United States illegally could lead to arrest”.  Really?  “Warning: Not having the appropriate identification when visiting the US could lead to detainment”…  right, that’s something worthy of warning.  Try visiting Mexico without appropriate documentation and see how that works out for you.

Certainly our president will stand up for the good citizens of Arizona who are victimized daily by waves of illegals crossing the border.  Certainly he can see why they need to do something to combat the abductions, killings, torture (no, not waterboarding, real torture):

From AP - Phoenix has also been dubbed the kidnapping capital of the U.S. amid a surge of extortion-related abductions tied to drugs and human smuggling. The city has averaged about a kidnapping a day in recent years — some resulting in torture and death. Victims’ legs have been burned with irons, their arms have been tied to the ceiling, their fingers broken with bricks.

That’s just one city.  One kidnapping a day! Torture… torture is bad right?  Our president will surely not stand for this.  He will recognize that their governor and their legislature had to act in the best interest of their citizens.

President Barack Obama also criticized the law, saying it could lead to harassment of Hispanics, and he called for bipartisan support to fix America’s broken immigration system. Two senior officials in his government said the Arizona law may face a legal challenge by federal authorities.

“Now suddenly if you don’t have your papers, and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you’re going to get harassed — that’s something that could potentially happen,” the U.S. president said of the measure. “That’s not the right way to go.”

Ah yes…  if you don’t have your papers you might get “harassed”.   Not unlike when you get harassed by the police if they catch you driving without a drivers license.  Perhaps we should repeal all laws that allow police to ask to see your drivers license.

But let’s go with that whole harassed thing for a moment since that is the focus of our president.  Does anyone recall him doing anything to assist Arizona address this crises? Yet he has no trouble weighing in on the side of the poor oppressed people who will need to carry a piece of paper to prove they are here legally.

Quick question:  Would you prefer to be “harassed” by a police officer asking to see some ID, or to be abducted, held for ransom, have your fingers broken with bricks, and killed?  That really a tough call for you?

I haven’t read this law, but if it is true that this law calls for checking IDs only after a primary violation (like speeding), how is this any different than asking to see your drivers license?

If it is true this law is essentially a state version of federal law, how can any of the protests by team Obama be anything but political?

I hope they do test this in the courts so we can all find out what is truth and what is propaganda.  In the meantime, maybe a bit less whining over folks being asked to produce ID and a bit more focus on catching the bad guys who are torturing US citizens might be a good idea.

As for that warning by the Mexican government about the risk associated with a trip to Arizona… right…  stay home where it’s safe.

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