COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, January 25, 2010

Middle Class, Middle Class, Middle Class and by the way did I mention Middle Class?



More child care, more elder care, more defined entitlements tor people who have incomes up to $85,000.

Who pays for that? Where does this money come from?

Student loans, federal loan payments will be subsidized by taxpayers. Who pays for that?

What happened to jobs, jobs, jobs?

The government is going to add money to IRA's. Where does that money come from?

Do we borrow it from the Chinese or do we extract it from the productive part of the economy?

Let me make this simple. Any entitlement guaranteeing a payment to an entitled group is a tax on the economy and a transfer payment. It is a burden on production. Any financial burden on the private sector will have a reduction on the purchase of capital or the employment of labor.

Listen to Obama at the latter part of this clip.

He is burdening the economy with entitlements on top of entitlements.

Furthermore he is saying that for people to have real security, he will forgive student debt if they go into government service. He is giving economic incentives to create more government workers, a group that already makes more money than the so called middle class in the private sector.

I can already hear the industry planners rushing to create new jobs in India and China.

If Obama/Biden believe this, they are fools, more than likely they do not and are knaves. Either way Obama is heading a job killing, government expanding, economy wrecking machine. He knows nothing about the working of the American economy or private industry.

Obama talks in the Marxist dialect of class, seeing America in terms of class warfare with the downtrodden and the the middle class against the oppressors above them.

To Obama, it is no longer possible for Americans to get ahead without a government cushion. Better yet, to Obama, he wants special privileges for those that swell the ranks of government, something he actually does understand.

Obama does not have to figure out how to improve the middle class. He needs to understand that the best he can do, is to take away the government impediments to middle class people improving themselves.

Obama and his ilk do not see the long term harm done to people that are trained from pre-school to depend on government welfare. They do not see the connection.

Here is a prime example:

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. economic recession has taken a particularly heavy toll on young Americans, with a record one out five black men aged 20 to 24 neither working nor in school, according to research released on Tuesday.


Teenagers have found it significantly harder to get a job since the recession began in late 2007, with black youths and young people from low-income families faring the worst, wrote Andrew Sum of Northeastern University in Boston, a employment researcher commissioned by the Chicago Urban League and the Alternative Schools Network.

"Low-income and minority youth, who depended on part-time jobs as a significant stepping stone to future employment, have been forced out of the job market and economically marginalized," Herman Brewer of the Chicago Urban League said in a statement.

Overall, 26 percent of American teenagers aged 16 to 19 had jobs in late 2009, said the report, which was based on U.S. Census Bureau data. That figure is a record low since statistics began to be kept in 1948, the researchers said.

Employment counts the number of people with a job as a percentage of the entire work force. By contrast, the unemployment rate -- which stood at 10 percent in December in the United States -- does not include people who have grown discouraged and stopped looking for work.

Joblessness was particularly rife among high school dropouts aged 16 to 24 who were neither in school nor holding a job, the report said. Family income also had a influence on joblessness.

Only 13 percent of low-income black teenagers in Illinois held a job in 2008 compared with 48 percent of more affluent white, non-Hispanic teens.

The "disconnection rate" -- Americans aged 20 to 24 who were neither in school nor working -- jumped to 28 percent last year from 17 percent in 2007.

"If you included those in prison it would be a couple of points higher," the report's co-author Joseph McLaughlin of Northeastern.

Among the proposals the report supported were government-funded jobs programs directed at the young, additional funding to help re-enroll school dropouts, and government-funded expansions of work internships.



73 comments:

  1. The nation’s banks have suspended new lending since Jan. 19 across the country, according to Credit Suisse Group AG. The lending halt may trigger a “meaningful” decline in a gauge of manufacturing this month, Dong Tao, a Hong Kong-based economist, wrote in a note to clients.

    China - The Inscrutable . . . Inscrutable

    ReplyDelete
  2. How does a freakin' $5 Trillion Economy just say "We're not lending, today, prolly not tomorrow, either?"

    ReplyDelete
  3. Obama claims he saved two million jobs but the economy lost seven million. Here Obama may be right. I'll come back to that.

    David Axelrod claims Obama saved more than two million jobs.

    Valerie Jarret says they saved thousands of jobs, cops, teachers and firemen.

    Robert Gibbs, press spokesman for Obama, claimed they saved or created a million and a half jobs.

    This was done by spending $750 billion. Where did that $750 billion come from?

    Now let's do the math and take the most optimistic claim of 2,000,000 saved jobs. That means the government spent $375,000 per job.

    $750,000,000,000/2,000,000 = $375,000

    I don't know too many teachers, cops or firemen that make $375,000 a year do you?

    But let's get back to the scary part. Let's assume the private sector can create a job for $125,000. The $750 billion came from the private sector or was borrowed, both a burden.

    $750 billion/$125,000 = 6,000,000 jobs. In other words the opportunity cost of taking $750 billion from the private sector, reduces the ability of the private sector to create 6,000,000 jobs.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It could mean a lot of things Rufus.

    I'll give you two:

    China may have taken a look at their banks loan books and it scrared the living be-Jesus out of them.

    China may have taken a look at Obama's handling of the US economy and it scared the living be-Jesus out of them.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The part about forgiving the loans of those wanting to go into government "service" is bizarre. It makes my mind go blank. It IS like staring into the face of pure evil.

    That having been said, the student loan regime is going to be a very important program in America. Our industry going forward will, more and more, be unable to function with "high school graduates." They just don't have the skills.

    Along the same vein, 4 years at Penn State doesn't qualify one to "encode" medical records.

    Pell grants, and tecnical schools are, already, a big deal; and they're going to get bigger.

    ReplyDelete
  6. This thing from China is extremely unsettling. I wish I understood it. Maybe I'm just really tired.

    Good night.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The Chinese are worried about their own version of the credit collapse:

    Asset Bubbles

    The Shanghai Composite has slumped 7.9 percent this year, led by real-estate stocks, as the government reins in credit growth to avert bubbles in the property market.


    It sounds as though, throughout the crisis, the Chinese Real Estate market thought itself immune to the western credit crisis. It could be that the recession realities are beginning to be understood in this segment of Great Dragon Economy.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Washington Post -

    Britain and Japan have agreed to head an international fund, expected to total up to $500 million over the next five years, as part of a broad plan to help lure Taliban fighters away from the insurgency with the promise of jobs, ...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Cannot "create" jobs in our own countries, but we're going to, in
    Afpakistan, if we throw enough money at them.

    Money which we do not have.

    Sweet.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Britain and Japan have agreed to head an international fund.

    that's like saying that Moe has sent Larry and Curly out to start a bank.

    The US, Britain and Japan; not exactly the "young turks" in the whirled.

    ReplyDelete
  11. AP LONDON -- How can the hard war in Afghanistan finally be won? That is the perplexing question facing Afghan leaders and 60 foreign ministers when they meet at a London conference Thursday.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wall Street Journal -

    SHANGHAI (Dow Jones)--China shares dropped to their lowest level in nearly three months Tuesday, weighed by unabated concerns about the impact lending curbs may have on market liquidity.

    ReplyDelete
  13. BAGHDAD - Ali Hassan al-Majid, a symbol of the former government of Saddam Hussein, who ordered a poison gas attack on a Kurdish village in northern Iraq, was executed on Monday.

    NYTimes

    ReplyDelete
  14. You can go crazy trying to make sense of this whipsaw BS.
    World stock markets sink amid growth doubts

    China's efforts to slow the explosive growth in lending that underwrote its rapid recovery have unnerved investors, who fear such measures could be stepped up.

    The market can spook at the drop of a pin and the media has always reported drops apocalyptically.

    Here's another example of the nonsense trumpeted by the politicians and the media:

    Recession over: UK posts 0.1 pct growth Q4
    LONDON – Britain's worst recession since World War II is over, official statistics confirmed Tuesday, but the economy remains in the recovery room after managing only feeble growth of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter.

    Come on everybody, all together, now.

    "Happy Days are here again..."

    ReplyDelete
  15. I think everyone is clueless, flying by the seat of their pants.

    Wall Street pushes trades and the whirls liquidity seeks a return. Finding none elsewhere, it turns to siren call of the markets. A bubble develops...

    Politicians and bureaucrats are frantically and futilely jiggling wires under the hood. Running down the batteries in desperate attempts to restart their engines.

    Meanwhile, one street over, in a seedier part of the whirled, evil men, butchers and pirates, continue their mayhem.

    ReplyDelete
  16. whit,

    What was the margin of error on the reported 0.1 growth rate? 0.003

    ...smoke and mirrors...

    ReplyDelete
  17. Great post Deuce. The part about pushing people into government jobs is hard to believe.

    Well, not hard to believe, but you know what I mean.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  18. Obama believes that government is good and capitalism, at its core, is evil. Government service, therefore, is service for the public good. The American dream is based on greed and is bad. This is what Obama learned and during his twenty years in Reverend Wright's church.

    ReplyDelete
  19. And at that Ivy League university he went to, as well as on the streets of Chi-town, whit.

    That Church was, is, not a significant part of his life, never was. It was just a social outing, for political purpose. Which is why focusing so much upon the Preacher has always been an error. Especially if one is trying to sway the OprahNation.

    His connection to General Dynamics would have been more damaging to him, if it had been promoted half as much.

    Amongst those that did, actually, support and vote for him.

    ReplyDelete
  20. It still would be.

    The "Corporate" connections that he has, which are extensive, would further dispirit his base.

    It does play against the story line that the Republican Federal Socialists are trying to promote.

    That the Obamamericans are outside the "Mainstream" of Federal governance.
    Which they are certainly not.

    ReplyDelete
  21. obama tells America...

    Let me tell you what's in it for YOU...

    He ONLY understands bribes....

    But what is he destroying? What is he BUILDING?

    ReplyDelete
  22. Obama never had a paper route, never caddied, never drove a taxi, worked on a farm, worked in a factory, flipped hamburgers, had a second job to go through college, and never hired a person for profit.

    So he comes up with a jobs program to pay government workers and expand government workers. He pays $375,000 a job if you believe his numbers, when in reality he burned another 6,000,000 jobs.

    ReplyDelete
  23. It is an interesting paradox, deuce,, the same lack of "real whirled" economic experiences also applied to the last Republican candidate for the White House.

    Unless being married into a $300 million dollar beer distribution empire qualifies one as a "capitalist", rather than a gigolo.

    McCain being no more a capitalist than Obama or JFKerry

    Such are the Leaders of our political whirled, both sides of the aisle.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Rat says: Unless being married into a $300 million dollar beer distribution empire qualifies one as a "capitalist", rather than a gigolo.

    McCain being no more a capitalist than Obama or JFKerry

    Such are the Leaders of our political whirled, both sides of the aisle



    So Rat believes that there is no difference between Obama, Kerry & McCain...

    Why Vote?

    Why Care?

    Statements like that spell America with a K....

    shame shame shame...

    ReplyDelete
  25. "Obama believes that government is good and capitalism, at its core, is evil."

    Too complicated.

    Merely another sop and recruiting tool for the SEIU.

    If you don't have the votes to do away with the secret ballot, you've got to give them something.


    .

    ReplyDelete
  26. Mr Hotpants Bomber was refered to as a
    "Nigerian Student"
    by BHO!

    ReplyDelete
  27. "Obama only Ate and Shit in Menteng"

    Indonesia mulls tearing down Obama statue

    Barack Obama has yet to make a significant contribution to the Indonesian nation. We could say Obama only ate and s (expletive) in Menteng. He spent his subsequent days living as an American," the web page says.

    "For the dignity of a sovereign nation, Barack Obama's monument in Menteng Park must be removed immediately."

    The childhood connection and his knowledge of a few words of Indonesian made Obama popular in the mainly Muslim country of 234 million people.

    Obama said in November he would visit Indonesia this year along with First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Hell, Rufus only ate, shit and drank wherever he went.
    No big whups.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Obama wants congress "to start playing like a team". Would that be like the Chicago Black Socks?

    ReplyDelete
  30. Deuce wrote:

    "What happened to jobs, jobs, jobs?

    The government is going to add money to IRA's. Where does that money come from?

    Do we borrow it from the Chinese or do we extract it from the productive part of the economy?

    Let me make this simple. Any entitlement guaranteeing a payment to an entitled group is a tax on the economy and a transfer payment."

    Unfortunately it is not simple and you missed a third option; "money" is not a zero sum game, you can, to simplify, print it.

    Jobs, jobs, jobs is the mantra and the goal is to create them. The operative word is "create". On the one hand you have the urge to reduce government spending but on the other you want government to create jobs. What tools does the government have to create jobs? Not many, spending being about the only one. If the gov reduces spending jobs will continue to disappear and the danger of depression looms. So they are busy trying to reflate the beast.

    By the way, private corporations also print money, their own private money, called shares. Wanna do a take-over, why grease the wheels with new shares.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Lilith:

    I once had a girlfriend whose grandfather played for the Socks!

    Mom never forgave me for abandoning that relationship, as her family was loaded.

    Dad was an Admiral, she went to Barry's elite school, Punahoe, in Honolulu.

    Learned plenty that was pleasurable to me, for sure.
    Some kind of elite private school sex-ed, I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  32. "What tools does the government have to create jobs?

    Not many, spending being about the only one.

    If the gov reduces spending jobs will continue to disappear and the danger of depression looms.
    So they are busy trying to reflate the beast.
    "
    ---
    Fucking Moron!
    Reducing taxes and worthless regulation "creates" jobs!
    (get govt out of the way)

    Spending merely increases governmet intrusion into the productive segment of the economy.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Quoting our Bar Sage, Ashie.
    (who else?)

    ReplyDelete
  34. unfortunately doug any job creation by the government 'getting out of the way' would take quite a long period of time and you risk going into a deflationary spiral - see 1930's for historical precedent and the ensuing government spending to mitigate the depression. That precedent is what animates Bernanke actions in particular

    ReplyDelete
  35. Yeah, the amount of cash destined for "stimulus" would pay off EVERYONE'S Mortgage!

    Tell me that would not create IMMEDIATE stimulus!

    ReplyDelete
  36. ...as if paying off cronies is healthier than shielding citizens from further exploitation by the corruptocrooks in DC.

    ReplyDelete
  37. I agree the fat cat wall streeters are making out like bandits.

    ReplyDelete
  38. There are Some Good Things happening.

    "In the project we are announcing today with Growth Energy, we will be substituting a 3.2-liter V6 engine in a one-ton pickup truck usually powered by a 6.0l V8 gasoline or a 6.6l diesel engine. The reason we are doing this is that while the engine test results speak for themselves, there is no substitute for experiencing in a vehicle the benefits of uncompromised performance and extremely high fuel economy that can be achieved using a renewable fuel like ethanol in an optimal manner. Moreover, by using a truly flex-optimized engine such as EBDI, the best possible performance and fuel efficiency can be delivered from whichever gasoline-ethanol mix is selected by the driver when next stopping for fuel."

    The Watermelons are going to hate this. A True Flexfuel from Ricardo

    ReplyDelete
  39. You've gotta be careful with "1930's, and WWII" analogies.

    In essence, in the '40's we blew everyone else's assembly lines to smithereens, leaving us with a monopoloy on just about all manufactured goods, worldwide.

    I'm not sure we could do that this time.

    ReplyDelete
  40. First: The Good News - Ford is Hiring.

    But, at about $14.00/hr the wages are about half what the old workers hired in at.

    Good News, Bad News

    A job "on the assembly line" can no longer be the American Dream. Ya gotta bring more.

    ReplyDelete
  41. There's 2.5 Billion Chinese, and Indians that can work on that assembly line; and they'll do it for $2.50/hr.

    If you're going to make your $25.00/hr. you're going to have to be Ten Times as Productive.

    We can't get there by Forgiving Debts of those graduates that go to work for the "Government."

    ReplyDelete
  42. rufus said...
    You've gotta be careful with "1930's, and WWII" analogies.

    In essence, in the '40's we blew everyone else's assembly lines to smithereens, leaving us with a monopoloy on just about all manufactured goods, worldwide.




    Capacity has been on the rise for decades...

    However from earthquakes to war things change...

    What would the day look like AFTER the 3 gorges dam were destroyed by earthquake?

    How big a international threat would Iran be if, IN A SINGLE NIGHT, they lost all of their abilities to generate electricity, refine oil into gas & all communications until completely re-built?

    What is the outcome of a India-Paki nuke exchange?

    What if North Korea hits Seoul?

    All effect CAPACITY....

    ReplyDelete
  43. Doug: Learned plenty that was pleasurable to me, for sure.Some kind of elite private school sex-ed, I guess.

    A little hands-on training, eh Doug? Learning by doing. That's the reason I'm no longer a practicing homosexual. I'm so damn good at it now.

    ReplyDelete
  44. WiO wrote:

    "CAPACITY"

    Yes, all I see about me is excess capacity which leads me to think that inflation is not just around the corner. Stagflation (induced by oil price rises) maybe.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Here's a better article on the Ricardo engine with Numbers

    I think Detroit is quietly moving in this direction with their new eco-boosts, and ecotecs.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Doug: Yeah, the amount of cash destined for "stimulus" would pay off EVERYONE'S Mortgage Tell me that would not create IMMEDIATE stimulus!

    You're just shifting money around from people who make it to people who don't. 45% of taxpayers are net recipients of government largess. The money for a mortgage stimulus would come out of the economy somewhere, probably from businesses.

    ReplyDelete
  47. And I would state again, as I did many times during the campaign, the differences between McCain and Obama were hardly even marginal, at the very most.

    As to creating a government that violated both the spirit and letter of the Constitution, McCain's name is on the law that Obama thinks is all so important, that was gutted by the SCOTUS.

    McCain/Feingold.

    That tells the real tale, of both Johm McCain and Barack Obama, that McCain/Feingold was an important, nay vital, piece of US law.

    Both the Democrats and Republicans are Federal Socialists, there is no difference between them, there are a 1,000 points of light, funded by Federal largess, that prove the point.

    ReplyDelete
  48. The Wall Street cronies, making hay despite the market label of the politico behind the Resolute desk.

    The Boners are still playing the "middle class" for saps.

    As they have since at least 1913.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Re: McCain-Feingold

    Mr. Bush made statements to the effect that the McCain-Feingold law was unconstitutional. Instead of vetoing the "unconstitutional" act, as was his duty, he indicated his belief that the Supreme Court would strike it down. Sadly, Madame Justice O'Connor was having one of her "liberal" days when her clerks drew up her opinion and the constitutionality of the Act was affirmed.

    Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush's behavior on this piece of legislation cost them both any hope of my future support. We may be thankful that the Court has acted wisely, at long last.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Obama’s Credibility Gap
    Bob Herbert

    Americans are still looking for the answer, and if they don’t get it soon — or if they don’t like the answer — the president’s current political problems will look like a walk in the park.

    Mr. Obama may be personally very appealing, but he has positioned himself all over the political map: the anti-Iraq war candidate who escalated the war in Afghanistan; the opponent of health insurance mandates who made a mandate to buy insurance the centerpiece of his plan; the president who stocked his administration with Wall Street insiders and went to the mat for the banks and big corporations, but who is now trying to present himself as a born-again populist.

    Mr. Obama is in danger of being perceived as someone whose rhetoric, however skillful, cannot always be trusted. He is creating a credibility gap for himself, and if it widens much more he won’t be able to close it.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Allen,
    One of the most important, but just one of many instances in which W failed to carry out his responsibility to uphold our laws.

    Never prosecuting any of the biggest criminals from the Clinton admin, (leaving them employed in many cases) ACTIVELY SUBVERTING immigration laws, allowing innocent men to rot in prison to please his friend/lover Johnny-Boy Sutton,
    ...on, and on.

    ReplyDelete
  52. His core constituency will stick with him because, "He inherited this mess and the Republicans have obstructed every step of the way."

    ReplyDelete
  53. Ol Ruf, always chasing rainbows!
    Now he thinks Ricky Ricardo's gonna build an engine for us because he once wrote a song about his car!

    ReplyDelete
  54. The CATO Institute says Bush was biggest spender of all time.See Bush's Budget-Busting Binge

    ReplyDelete
  55. Not all of them by any means, Whit:
    The left wingnuts he brought out of the closet are seriously pissed that he has not succeeded (yet) in stuffing all their socialist wet dreams down our throats prior to ejaculating.

    ReplyDelete
  56. You're right, but when push comes to shove, they're going to vote for their only choice which will be Democrat and unless things go really, really bad, Obama in 2012.

    I remember when Bill Clinton's poll numbers tanked, David Gergen was placed in the White House, Clinton tacked back to the center and had no problem getting reelected. The same thing could happen for BHO.

    ReplyDelete
  57. I was wondering about this:
    The controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program that bailed out banks and automakers will end up costing taxpayers $99 billion, much less than originally expected, CBO said.

    ReplyDelete
  58. If it works out that way, it will be the first thing BHO does not blame on Bush, taking full credit for himself.

    ReplyDelete
  59. allen said.

    "handicap?"

    Tue Jan 26, 02

    It brought tears to my eyes, albeit an old man's tears.

    Thanks, Allen.

    ReplyDelete
  60. viktor,

    My lady sent it to me, this morning. It brought tears to my eyes as well.

    The strength of the unfettered soul is divine.

    The spirit of the father is as heroic in its own way.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Allen, as I watching your link, also with tears flowing down my cheeks, the State Farm commercial came on singing, I'll be there, and the moment I looked up there was your unfettered soul and his heroic father strutting around the football field. What a blessing.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Obama: Don’t blame me for backroom deals cut in White House backrooms "There's a legislative process taking place in CONGRESS..."

    It's those damn Democrats in Congress run amok. I wanted transparency all along, I even campaigned on that. Blame Congress.

    How can he tack to the center when he doesn't even acknowledge that he did anything wrong?

    ReplyDelete
  63. God bless you Allen for that link. Everything else is bullshit. I matched Melody tear for tear and reveled in all that is good in mankind.

    ReplyDelete
  64. Whit: His core constituency will stick with him because, "He inherited this mess and the Republicans have obstructed every step of the way."

    They are already saying that on "progressive" talk radio, when callers report buyers' remorse and wonder if Hillary would be better. Basically, the mean Republicans with their 40 vote majority in the Senate blocked socialized medicine until Scott Brown, as vote number 41, locked in their hegemony.

    ReplyDelete
  65. That kid's father is a hell of a man.

    ReplyDelete
  66. It's nice to know that we can still see all the good in mankind even if it's just for six minutes to forget about all that's bad in the world.


    My 3 year old granddaughter stops in her tracks and sings this song everytime it comes on.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Allen,

    Old saying...

    I cried because I had no shoes, until I saw a man without feet...


    In this case you showed us real men..... and I cried because so much of what we see are shadows compared to that father and son...

    ReplyDelete