Housing Prices Still Falling - Thirteen Trillion in Home Equity (Savings) Lost

The median price of a single-family house fell in 109 of 150 metropolitan areas in the second quarter as foreclosures devalued real estate. In 2005, owners' equity represented 58.5% of real estate values. According to most studies, people will increase their spending by about $5 for each $100 increase in their net wealth. Therefore, they will reduce their spending by $5 for each $100 reduction in their wealth as well. Unless we have increasing employment and rising incomes, there is no way to replace that lost savings. The attempt by individuals to replace this savings loss will only further reduce consumer spending. There is no way possible to export your way out of that trap.

Such a huge gap in demand can only be replaced by government spending on infrastructure projects or support for manufacturing that will replace imports. If you assume that people will save 7% of their income, it will take $100 Trillion spending to generate public savings lost in the housing debacle? How do you get out of that mess?

Good Morning Stupid

Thinking about waffels? "Ugh ugh ugh em, I havn't had lunch."  

Obama won the Democratic caucuses in Iowa in 2008. Johnny, Pretty Boy, Edwards, who is currently fighting a losing battle to stay out of prison, came in second and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton finished third.

Obama wants to get back to the people in Iowa, so he flies out in Air Force One, which costs $181,757 an hour to operate, and then gets on a custom-made $1.1 million bus, followed by another custom-made $1.1 million bus and a convoy of everything funded by you. All this is about Mr. Meathead's coming views about creating American jobs. In reality, it is cover for He-Who-Never-Rests and the Movingonup's to rest and play in Martha's Vineyard.
______________________

Even Left is Abandoning Obama as His Poll Numbers Continue to Decline

Barack Obama’s poll numbers in heavily Democratic New York have gone negative, with 49 percent disapproving of his job performance compared to only 45 percent who approve. The Quinnipiac University poll last showed the President with a 57 percent approval rating in late June, a drop of 9 points in six weeks. Among Republicans, the poll showed disapproval ratings of 86 percent, up from 74 percent in June, while among Democrats his approval rating dropped from 82 percent to 75 percent. Among independents 58 percent expressed their disapproval, up from 45 percent in June. “The evidence continues to mount,” writes Dan Weil at Newsmax.com, “that President Barack Obama’s re-election bid is in trouble.”

The latest daily Presidential Tracking Poll by Rasmussen Reports confirms those results, with their Presidential Approval Index rating at -22 approval index rating, the lowest of Obama's presidency, and down from a +22 approval index rating at the start of his presidency in 2009. Gallup tracks his job approval on a daily basis where 48 percent disapprove of his job performance, his weakest standing since December of 2009. NEW AMERICAN

We're Number One!

Fitch reaffirms top U.S. credit rating

By Jeanne Sahadi @CNNMoney August 16, 2011: 10:20 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Fitch Ratings on Tuesday reaffirmed the United States' AAA credit rating.
The move comes less than two weeks after Standard & Poor's downgraded the United States' long-term debt to AA+. "The key pillars of US's exceptional creditworthiness remains intact: its pivotal role in the global financial system and the flexible, diversified and wealthy economy that provides its revenue base. Monetary and exchange rate flexibility further enhances the capacity of the economy to absorb and adjust to 'shocks,' " Fitch said in a statement.

Fitch did add a caveat, however. It would likely revise its outlook on the U.S. rating to negative from stable if the congressional committee charged with proposing at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction fails to reach agreement, or if the economic recovery proves weaker than expected. That means there would be a greater than 50% chance that Fitch would downgrade the country within two years.

Family members leaning on one another for support

Vickers and his family pose for a photo last Christmas. Clockwise from left, Vickers, Noah Kala‘i Vickers, Nani Vickers, Malie Vickers, dog Honey Girl and Lisa Makahea Flores.



Maui native Kraig Vickers, a Navy explosive ordnance disposal specialist who died in combat, shows off his fun side while holding his children, Noah Kala‘i, now 7, and Malie, now 4, in bags.



Robert Vickers Sr. stands next to a portrait of his late son, Kraig Vickers, at the Vickers family home in Kokomo on Monday. Kraig Vickers, 36, of Virginia Beach, Va., was among 30 Americans who died after a U.S. military helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan.



Vickers Sr. and Vickers pose with lobsters they caught while diving in waters off Stable Road in Spreckelsville recently.



Vickers, 36, of Virginia Beach, Va., and a 1992 Maui High School graduate, was among 30 Americans who died after a U.S. military helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan. He was a Navy explosive ordnance disposal specialist attached to a Navy SEAL team unit.

Family members leaning on one another for support

KOKOMO
August 9, 2011

A photograph of Kraig Vickers in his Navy uniform hung on a wall beneath a cross alongside photos of other family members in his childhood home.

Asked if his son's photo was always under the cross, his father, Robert Vickers Sr., chuckled, before going to answer the phone, which has been constantly ringing of late.

The person on the other end of the line could have been a relative or friend offering condolences, someone planning his son's funeral, or a member of the news media.

On Monday afternoon, members of the Vickers family continued to see a constant stream of visitors to their Kokomo home, as they coped with the loss of 36-year-old Kraig Vickers, who was one of 30 American service members killed when a military helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan. The 1992 Maui High School graduate was a Navy explosive ordnance disposal specialist attached to a Navy SEAL unit.

"It doesn't feel real," said the serviceman's sister-in-law Lei Vickers, who teared up, off and on, as she sat with the family at the Vickers' dinning room table, reminiscing about the loved one they'd lost.

Her husband, Mark, an older brother, and Vance, a younger brother, were in Delaware with their sibling's widowed and pregnant wife, Nani.

They were there to receive Kraig Vickers' remains at Dover Air Force Base, possibly today. The two brothers went to be with Nani Vickers in Virginia Beach, Va., after learning Saturday about their brother's death. They all flew to Delaware on Monday.

"They have been helping (Nani) a lot," said Vance Vickers' wife, Liana, who gave birth just three weeks ago to a boy, Mason.

She said it was Nani Vickers' wish that her husband's brothers be with her in this time of grief.

Liana Vickers said her husband, a transportation security officer for TSA, thanked those who have prayed for them. She asked that people continue to pray, as that has helped the brothers and Nani Vickers get through the ordeal.

The brothers' wives on Maui were giving support to the family by greeting those who came to the Kokomo home.

Even as the family dealt with the sudden tragic death, Robert Vickers Sr. said they were doing "good."

"The Lord's grace is good to us," said the father, who is a devout Christian and a minister.

"I know Kraig's commitment to the Lord is the number one priority," he said later in the interview.

Asked about his son's dangerous career choice, Vickers said, "He was energetic, he was very adventurous. Those were the things he wanted to do, so we supported him."

The father, who recently retired as a civilian traffic reconstructionist with the Maui Police Department, added that he spoke to his son about the "consequences" of his military service, which he said his son understood.

Kraig Vickers was scheduled to be stationed at Pearl Harbor in May, his father said, adding that he was looking forward to diving with his son.

After graduating from high school, where he was a popular football and wrestling standout, Kraig Vickers attended Evangel College in Missouri on a football scholarship. But during his freshman year, he decided college wasn't for him and returned home, his father said.

He worked in jobs such as hotel security and then asked his father to teach him how to dive; the son remembered how his father learned to scuba dive while in the Air Force.

Kraig Vickers joined the Navy in 1996. He wanted to be a Navy SEAL, his father said, but instead became an explosive ordnance disposal specialist.

While stationed at Pearl Harbor, the elder Vickers said his son met his future wife, the then Nani Flores, online.

Flores was a former University of Hawaii Wahine basketball star.

The elder Vickers said his son called him up and said, ''I get this girl I like you meet.''

He told him that she would be the one he would marry.

"Kraig, how many times you told me that," the elder Vickers recalls telling his son.

" 'I know this is the one. She sounds like you and mom,' " his son replied.

Robert Vickers Sr. said the future Mrs. Kraig Vickers wanted his son to go to Bible study and be a good Christian, just like his parents.

The elder Vickers and his wife, Mary, went to Oahu to meet the former collegiate basketball star, who is 6 feet 2 inches tall. Kraig Vickers, the tallest in the family, was 6 feet 1 inch.

The elder Vickers said he laughed when he saw that Nani was taller than his son.

The two were married in 2003 at Nanakuli Ranch on Oahu. There was a luau. That same year, brother Mark Vickers also got married along with sister, Michelle, who is now Michelle Yarborough.

As for how his daughter-in-law is coping with the loss, the elder Vickers said: "She's hanging in there. She knows she had to be strong for the kids."

But the couple's son, Noah Kala'i, 7, keeps asking for his father, the elder Vickers said.

The couple also have a daughter, Malie, who is 4, and a baby on the way. They also are guardians of 18-year-old Lisa Makahea Flores, who just graduated from high school, the Vickers family said.

Robert Vickers Jr., the eldest of the four Vickers boys, was busy Monday scanning and printing photos of his late brother, who could be seen smiling with his family or posing with the fish and lobster that he caught diving.

"For all the years I've known him, I never seen him angry or upset," Robert Vickers Jr. said. "He always listened to what you had to say. And everything he did, he did graciously, and he did it because he wanted to do it, not because he had to."

One of his fondest memories of his late brother was when he received a letter from him while a freshman at Azusa Pacific University near Los Angeles.

In the letter, Kraig Vickers said he knew his older brother was having a hard time financially and so was the family, who was paying the tuition.

Kraig Vickers told his brother that the family was eating saimin and Vienna sausage each night, and they were getting tired of it.

When Robert Vickers Jr. looked in the envelope of the letter, he saw a bunch of loose change, no bills. Kraig Vickers said he had saved some money for his older brother.

Robert Vickers Jr., who is a football coach at Kamehameha Schools Maui and a manager for TSA, said the letter showed his brother's funny - and caring - side.

Mark Vickers, a police sergeant, wanted to share his sentiments about his brother even if he wasn't present for the interview. His wife, Lei, passed on the message.

"Kraig was someone who was loved by everyone. He was the best brother, friend and companion that anyone can ask for.
He always put others first before himself.

He had a spark for life that no one could match.
Kraig will be surely missed but never forgotten."

---

Vickers fearless in defending country, proclamation reads

August 12

WAILUKU - Mayor Alan Arakawa issued a proclamation Thursday honoring the late Kraig Vickers, who would have turned 37 on Thursday but died during combat in Afghanistan.

"Kraig is remembered for his bravery and fearlessness in defending his country," the proclamation read. Vickers was "someone who made everyone around him laugh well and often" and was also "a loyal friend and teammate who would sacrifice all to help someone in need."

Vickers, a 1992 Maui High School graduate and a football and wrestling standout, was a Navy explosive ordnance disposal specialist attached to a Navy SEAL unit. The 36-year-old Virginia Beach, Va., resident died when a CH-47 Chinook military helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan last week.

On Thursday, Vickers' father, Robert Vickers Sr., said he believed that his son's wife, Nani, along with his two other sons, Mark and Vance, were still at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The remains of the 30 American troops who died in the crash were brought to Dover on Tuesday.

"It's taxing for them. (But) they are getting things done," Robert Vickers Sr. said about his daughter-in-law and sons via phone from his Kokomo home.

He said the family plans to hold funeral services on Maui, although he wasn't sure because the military has not yet released the remains.

Reflecting on what would have been Kraig Vickers' 37th birthday, Robert Vickers Sr. said: "We know where he's at. Knowing Kraig, he says he beat us to the pearly gates.

"Everything he did, he tried to beat us," Robert Vickers Sr. said of his son's competitive spirit.

He said he knew about the proclamation beforehand and was "surprised" when he first heard about it.

All military personnel should be recognized, he said.

"Kraig would say that proclamation should be for all the vets, whether they gave their life, whether they gave the ultimate sacrifice or not; to serve the country, it's an honor. The mayor recognized this, and it is much appreciated."

The proclamation also quotes from the World War I poem "For the Fallen," by Laurence Binyon. It says: "They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them."

Vickers was born Aug. 11, 1974, at Castle Hospital on Oahu. He also attended Evangel College in Missouri to play football. He later enlisted in the U.S. Navy, where he served for 15 years.

He is survived by two children, Noah Kala'i Vickers and Mali'e Vickers. Nani Vickers also is expecting another child. Nani and Kraig Vickers are the legal guardians of Lyssa Makahea Flores as well, family members said.

---

Virginia surfers honor Vickers

200-plus paddle out to mourn him

August 11

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) - Red carnations and fluttering American flags lined the beach, forming a gateway to the surf Tuesday night. Sunflowers, daisies and red roses filled buckets, as more than 200 surfers picked up a flower, clenched it in their teeth and paddled out into the ocean off Sandbridge near one of Kraig Vickers' favorite surfing spots.

Just south of the Little Island Fishing Pier, surfers and stand-up paddlers formed a giant circle, interlocking hands and paddles in a ceremony called a paddle-out.

The event was a rare public display of mourning for victims of the crash in a city home to secretive, close-knit SEAL teams and those who work with them. Organizers asked that no interviews be conducted. Vickers'wife, Nani, on Tuesday was at the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the remains were brought home.

Vickers would have turned 37 today. Friends and family describe him as a standout high school football player at Maui High School, devoted to his family and as smart as he was strong. A picture of him displayed Tuesday showed him sitting on the beach, cradling one of his daughters in his massive forearms.

He enjoyed stand-up paddling, and last year he entered a Sandbridge race with his daughter, who wore a water wing, riding with him on the board.more »»

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August 8, 2011

Friends, family recall ‘fearless young man’

Maui native Kraig Vickers faced challenges head-on.

It came as no surprise to friends and coaches that Maui native Kraig Vickers had taken on a job that was dangerous and deadly.

The 36-year-old, who was a standout in football and wrestling at Maui High School, was among 30 Americans who died after a U.S. military helicopter was shot down Saturday by insurgents during fighting in eastern Afghanistan. Vickers, a 1992 Maui High School graduate, was a Navy explosive ordnance disposal specialist attached to a Navy SEAL team unit, family said.

"He was a fearless young man. His career doesn't really surprise me," said Lindsay Ball, Vickers' former wrestling coach who also taught at Maui High.

---

High school classmate and friend Sindylu Medeiros remembers a softer side of Vickers.

"He was very thoughtful, very kind, very respectful," she said.

Medeiros (at that time Sindylu Hamamoto) said sometimes people would mistake Vickers' kindness for weakness, but the latter wasn't the case.

"He was an all around good person," the former cheerleader said.more »»

---
Maui native among dead; ‘a great loss’

August 7

Kraig Vickers, a 1992 graduate of Maui High School and a Maui Interscholastic League defensive football player of the year, was among 30 Americans who died in a U.S. military helicopter shot down during fighting in Afghanistan, his father, Robert Vickers, confirmed by telephone Saturday night.

Kraig Vickers, 36, was a Navy Bomb Disposal Team member, said his father, who could barely speak of his loss.

---
"He was just one of those kids who was well liked by everyone, other students, the teachers, the administration," Lee said. "He wasn't one of those bullies. In fact, it was the opposite. He was a real leader. If someone was out of line and picking on someone, Kraig would step in and set them straight."

Lee said Vickers was the product of his parents' skill in rearing him and his siblings.

His other brothers are Robert Jr., a coach at Kamehameha Schools Maui high school; Mark, a Maui police officer; and Vance. His sister is Michelle. They all still live on Maui..

Lee said the news of Kraig Vickers' death had spread quickly, with parents of former players and cheerleaders spreading the word, which was announced by one of his Maui friends on Facebook.

"The war's been going on for a while, and it never hit home like this before," Lee said. "People die in wars, yes. And then this happens, and it brings it all home. What a great loss." more »»


Maui native Kraig Vickers in his 1992 Maui High School graduation photo. Friends and family remembered the 36-year-old Sunday as strong and kind, after he died Saturday during a military mission in Afghanistan.

What Would You Do to Improve Job Growth?

FROM REASON

What Would You Do to Improve Job Growth?

Reason asks economists, writers, and wonks for real ways to increase job growth

In an effort to produce real free-market ideas for boosting employment, Reason asked some of their favorite economists, writers, professors, and entrepreneurs for one concrete policy change they would recommend that would increase job growth. Here is an edited list. Link to Reason for more info:

Robert Higgs

Repeal of ObamaCare would probably do wonders to spur hiring, especially for permanent positions. Compensation for such jobs usually includes a benefits package with health care insurance, as well as a money wage or salary. Health care insurance often constitutes a major part of the employer’s cost of keeping a permanent worker on the payroll, and anything that makes this cost difficult to forecast makes employers leery to take on new workers. 

Deirdre McCloskey

"Jobs" are deals between workers and employers, and so "creating" them out of unwilling parties is impossible. The state, though, can outlaw deals, and has. So: eliminate the minimum wage for people younger than 25. The resulting boom in jobs for young people will amaze. Maybe it will inspire voters to get the state out of the job-outlawing business. Probably not, so sure are we that the state "protects" by stopping deals between willing parties.

Amity Shlaes

The single thing the U.S. could do to ensure long-term growth, including that of jobs, is to reform our Federal Reserve so that monetary policy is rules-based, not personality-based. Even a return to the gold standard would do, though it is also possible to fashion a monetary regime under which the currency is pegged to a basket of commodities. 

John Stossel

Close the Departments of Labor, Commerce, Agriculture, Energy, and HUD, then eliminate three fourths of all regulations.

Donald Boudreaux

My answer (within the realm of “remotely politically possible”) is: Replace all income taxes, including that on capital gains, with a consumption tax. But do this only if the Constitution is amended to prevent government from taxing incomes and capital gains.                     

A second, less radical, proposal is to eliminate capital gains taxes and amend the Constitution to prevent Uncle Sam from taxing personal and corporate incomes at marginal rates higher than 20 percent.

Bryan Caplan

Easy: Cut employers’ share of the payroll tax.

Bruce Bartlett

I don’t believe there is any way to increase employment significantly without raising the rate of economic growth. Therefore, the real question is how to raise economic growth. I continue to believe that the economy’s fundamental problem is a lack of aggregate demand.

I think a dose of inflation is just what the economy needs and libertarians should stop being so obsessive about it. Moreover, I think at some point they need to admit that the Fed cannot raise aggregate demand by itself when the economy is in a liquidity trap, which it obviously is based on the level of interest rates being close to zero.

Under these circumstances, I believe that some form of aggressive fiscal policy is necessary to get money circulating, raise the velocity of money, and get the economy out of a liquidity trap. I do not believe, under current circumstances, there is any type of tax cut that would achieve this goal; only direct spending by the government on purchases of goods and services will help. Therefore, the Fed will, somehow or other, have to figure out how to raise aggregate demand by itself.

Jeffrey Miron

Policymakers should stop worrying about job growth. Instead, they should focus on eliminating economic policies that impede economic efficiency—runaway entitlements, a horrendous tax code, excessive regulation, impediments to free trade, and more—and then let the job situation fix itself.

John Berlau

Repeal portions of the Bush-era Sarbanes-Oxley Act to make it easier for smaller companies to raise capital by going public, and thus expand and create thousands more jobs.

Repeal portions of last year's Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which has created hundreds of pending rules causing uncertainty and a halt in hiring for everyone from banks and credit unions to retailers and manufacturers that extend credit or hedge financial risks with derivatives.

Pass the bipartisan Small Business Lending Enhancement Act—S. 509 by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), and in HR 1418, by Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.)—to lift the aribitrary cap on business lending by credit unions. The Credit Union National Association estimates that easing this barrier would create over 140,000 jobs in the first year and thousands more in the years after that.

Walter Olson

If I could press a button and instantly vaporize one sector of employment law, I think I'd pick age discrimination.

Ira Stoll


Congress should stop extending unemployment benefits, and better yet, restructure the unemployment insurance program or block-grant it to the states to allow them to experiment with ways of doing so. The idea is to change the program so it creates an incentive for recipients to get a job, rather than an incentive for them to remain unemployed.

Alex Tabarrok

QE3: Fed should buy lots of long term T-bonds.

Fred L. Smith

Approve the Keystone XL Pipeline: 20,000 jobs created. The 1,700 mile Keystone XL Pipeline would link expanding Canadian crude production from tar sands with America’s first-class refining hub in the Midwest and along the Gulf. The $7 billion project would roughly double U.S. imports of tar sands oil from western Canada.

The Romance is Gone. But Don't Worry. It's Not Him; It's Us. We Failed Obama.

The Crumbling Cult of Obama

Sorry guys, there are no more kings

David Harsanyi | August 10, 2011 REASON

The romance is gone. But don't worry. It's not him; it's you.

It turns out we are the ones who failed Him. We weren't prepared for a mega-dosage of awesomeness. We were too dimwitted to grasp the decency of central planning. And the insistence of troublemakers to engage in debate and vote, in fact, is the most serious threat to this nation's future.

In a recent New York Times piece, Drew Westen, a professor of psychology and a Democratic strategist, wrote that the American public had been "desperate for a leader who would speak with confidence, and they were ready to follow wherever the president led." Do Americans really have some innate autocratic tendency that makes them desperately seek out a half-term senator "wherever" he may lead?

Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, recently echoed Westen's authoritarian sentiment in a Daily Beast piece, titled "Obama Is Too Good for Us," wherein he disparaged a system that allows mere simpletons to transfer their free market absurdity to Washington through elections. Similarly, Jacob Weisberg of Slate wrote that because of "intellectual primitives" on the right, "compromise is dead" and "there's no point trying to explain complicated matters to the American people. The president has tried reasonableness and he has failed."

"Reasonableness," you'll remember, is shoving a wholly partisan, Byzantine restructuring of the health care system through Congress in the midst of an economic downturn. But chipping a few billion off a $3.7 trillion budget in exchange for raising the debt ceiling is an act of irrationality that has, apparently, sucked the very soul from the American project.

The sight of a crumbling Cult of Obama—and with it the end of the progressive presidency—has many on the left so frustrated that they simply dismiss the very idea of ideological debate. To challenge the morality and rationality of Obamanomics only means you're bought, too stupid to know any better or, most likely, both. A slack-jawed hostage-taking saboteur.

Armed with this unearned intellectual and ethical superiority, it is not surprising to hear someone like John Kerry reprimand the media for even covering conservative viewpoints. It is predictable that the Senate would "investigate" a private entity like Standard & Poor's for giving an opinion on American debt that conflicted with its own. (Remember when not listening to the Dixie Chicks was a "chilling of free speech"?)

Obama himself blamed the volatile stock market on the "prolonged debate over the debt ceiling...where the threat of default was used as a bargaining chip." So it's not the job-killing policy or another $4 trillion of debt in two years that's problematic; it's the insistence of elected officials to represent their constituents that's really killing America.

Following the lead of the Environmental Protection Agency, Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently used this imagined "dysfunction" as an excuse to try to unilaterally implement comprehensive education "reform" by bypassing law and using a waiver system. Why? "Right now," Duncan explained, "Congress is pretty dysfunctional. They're not getting stuff done."

Hate to break the news to you, Arne; for many Americans, stopping this administration from "getting stuff done" is getting stuff done.

The Founding Fathers rightly feared that the purer the democracy the more susceptible voters would be to the emotion of the moment and the demagogues who take advantage of it. Needless to say, we are democratic enough to get the politicians we deserve.

But debate is not dysfunction. Feel free to bemoan the fact that the American people are not automatons, but "getting stuff done" is not the charge of the Constitution. Neither is having a king, though sometimes you get the feeling that a lot of folks who believe in power as the wellspring of morality are really annoyed by that fact.

David Harsanyi is a columnist at The Blaze. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi.

When it comes to curbing unemployment, President Obama "will not rest" until everyone looking for a job can find one, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday.

Rick Santelli Without a Teleprompter :: Barack Obama With a Teleprompter

Wouldn't you love to see Obama get his skinny stupid ass kicked is a debate with Rick Santelli?




Now we hear from Genius, the Dumbest US President Ever: