Obama’s First Year Spending Shatters Record

It should come as no surprise, but at least now it’s officially documented. From Fox News:

The federal government spent $3.5 trillion during President Obama’s first year in office. This far exceeds the spending for any other first-year president.

This is double what George Bush spent on his first year in office and light years ahead of all previous Presidents… even when adjusted for inflation.

In fairness, this includes the final 3.5 months George Bush was President and, therefore, includes the TARP bailout which was Bush’s blunder.

That still leaves close to $3 Trillion – with a “t” – spent by the President and what Nancy Pelosi described as  ”the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history,” as they proceeded to shove through (in the middle of the night and week-end)  a stimulus bill packed with more pork than you’ll find at Honeybaked Ham’s Headquarters.

As the President’s On-The-Job Training proceeded, he continued to act as if the way out of a recession is to spend more money that we don’t have. Maybe after his visit to China, he will have a better idea what we’re facing a couple of years down the road: An economic Tsunami he won’t be able to lay at the feet of George W. Bush.

Please, people… don’t anyone tell President Obama what comes after “Trillions.”

Gerry Ashley

Chrysler: It’s All About the Unions

 

I just read a great article by Megan McArdle, explaining — in case anyone didn’t already get this — why the Chrysler bailouts have to do almost exclusively with the unions. She makes her case eloquently, by examining other possible motives and subsequently discarding them, for good reasons:

Chrysler is a good company caught in a bad situation.  Chrysler has been a bad headache for years.  Daimler bought it for $36 billion in 1998, and actually paid $650 million to have Cerebrus take the company off their hands in 2007.

Clearly, that dog won’t hunt.

The administration isn’t kowtowing to the unions; it’s trying to prevent massive job loss.  Chrysler employs about 60,000 people.  This is a rounding error in the number of jobs that have been lost since this recession began. 

Nope, try again. Ms. McArdle lists out other possible opportunities and explains why she finds them all lacking, and ends with an elegantly simple coup de grâce:

I am unaware of any evidence that a single industrial failure has ever precipitated the kind of massive, widespread hardship that followed, say, the failure of Jay Cooke & Co.  Intervening to prop up a company that has been struggling for a decade is almost textbook bad economic policy. [emphasis mine]

And she’s right.

Stoutcat

Ousted by Obama (And All I Got Was This Lousy Tee Shirt)

 
Bill Dupray at the Patriot Room is of the opinion that ousted-by-Obama GM CEO Rick Wagoner is a sissy:

Let’s just get this out of the way right up front: The former CEO of General Motors, Rick Wagoner, is a spineless, gutless, cupcake. Not only did he run General Motors into the ground (from the time he took the reins as CEO in 2000, until the time he was fired by President Obama at the end of last month, GM stock lost 98% of its value), which means he sucked at his job as a car executive.

But Wagoner is guilty of an even bigger crime than that.

He allowed the United States government to take control of America’s largest privately-owned auto manufacturer. He allowed Barack Obama to kick in the door, and in one fell swoop, nationalize one of America’s oldest and greatest companies.

Dupray goes on to discuss why this happened, and is of the opinion that it’s because Mr. Wagoner took the bailout money from the government rather than making the hard decision to declare bankruptcy. It’s a good article, and well worth reading, especially this:

So Wagoner’s spineless decision to take the bailout not only resulted in a pile of wasted taxpayer dollars, Wagoner also lost his job, the company will file for bankruptcy anyway, and worst of all, Barack Obama is now the CEO of the company. All because Wagoner didn’t have the guts to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

My take, however, is somewhat different. Had Mr. Wagoner taken the hard step in the first place and declared bankruptcy, not only would he have lost his “golden parachute”, but he would also have lost the “reserve chute” he activated when President Obama kicked him to the curb. I think Wagoner’s decision to take the bailout money (and subsequently bail out) was based soley (or in large part) on his own self-interest, rather than spinelessness.

By sticking around as long as he could, he guaranteed himself a long comfortable retirement, thanks to GM, President Obama, and especially we the taxpayers. Or as Ed Morrissy at HotAir put it, “GM gets to pay Wagoner a fortune for not working.”

Ultimately, how many other CEOs will qualify for the “Ousted by Obama” tee-shirt, and what will the final cost to the country be?

Stoutcat

Bernanke’s Magic Show: Watch Me Make $300 Billion (and What’s Left of Our Economy) Disappear

In a little-publicized move yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made a decision that will likely have a profound impact on the US Economy and anyone foolish enough to still be holding US dollars. 

From Bloomberg.com: 

U.S. central bankers decided yesterday to buy as much as $300 billion of long-term Treasuries and more than double mortgage-debt purchases to $1.45 trillion, aiming to lower home- loan and other interest rates. The Fed kept its main rate at almost zero and may keep it there for an “extended” time.

The moves sparked the biggest drop in 10-year Treasury yields since 1962, rallies in the stock market and gold and a plunge in the dollar against the euro. Economist Richard Hoey said Bernanke has created the “Rambo Fed,” referring to the Sylvester Stallone character skilled with weapons.

“This is a very powerful and aggressive move,” Hoey, chief economist at Bank of New York Mellon Corp., said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “One of the reasons I’ve been arguing we won’t have a depression is we’ve got a Fed chairman who understands the problem and is going to come with the right diagnosis and the right medicine.”

With the purchases of Treasuries and housing debt, Bernanke is effectively using the Fed’s powers to print money and aim it where he and other officials believe it will have the greatest impact in lowering borrowing costs.

Is there, perhaps, another way of looking at this? Could it be the US is no longer able to find lenders willing to loan us money? Has China “cut us off?”  Or have they raised the interest rate out of fear we can no longer (or will soon no longer be able to) pay our bills? Michelle Malkin refers to Bernanke’s move as straight out of the “David Copperfield School of Economic Recovery.”  Yes, but at least with Copperfield you get some cool background music.

I get nervous whenever I hear the solution, “Let’s print more money! LOTS AND LOTS OF IT!” and then “aim it where (they) believe it will have the greatest impact in lowering borrowing costs.”

The literal translation, as I see it, is we are simply going to print more of our money to pay our bills.  Now while that’s a luxury we would all like to have, it does not come without a cost. The value of the dollar will plunge even further. That will weaken our economy and will likely trigger inflation. If, indeed, that trigger has been pulled, watch out, boys and girls. The value menu at McDonald’s could soon be a luxury item.

But hey… let me be the first to admit I am not an economist.  I DID balance my checkbook once back in the ’80s, so I’m not totally without an eye for the economy. But I decided to skip lunch today and eat antacids instead when I continued reading the Bloomberg article:

Yesterday’s decisions will add $750 billion in purchases this year of mortgage-backed securities issued by government- sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, for a total of $1.25 trillion. The Fed has already announced $217.1 billion in net purchases out of $500 billion planned through June, under a program unveiled in November.

The central bank will also double to as much as $200 billion this year its planned purchases of debt issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Federal Home Loan Banks. The Fed bought $44.4 billion of the so-called agency debt as of March 11.

But then I saw what might just be a ray of hope (and, as hope goes at times like this, even a ray is worth checking out):

The $1 trillion Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, which is opening this week to jumpstart consumer and business lending, “is likely to be expanded to include other financial assets,” the FOMC statement said, without elaborating.

“Our objective is to improve the functioning of private credit markets so that people can borrow for all kinds of purposes,” Bernanke said at a Feb. 24 Senate hearing. “We are prepared, and we want to keep the option open to buy Treasury securities if we think that is the best way to improve the functioning or reduce interest rates in private markets.”

Oh, wait… so you mean this may loosen up credit to make it easier for people to get loans to buy new cars and keep the auto industry afloat in this country? Well whaddya know! That would be a GOOD thing, right? Right? The ray of hope turned out to be the lit end of the joint whoever thought of this plan must have been smoking…

“Don’t get your hopes up” according to Doug Dachille, chief executive officer of New York-based First Principles Capital Management:

“The Fed is ‘naive’ if officials think the move will lower borrowing costs,” Dachille said. “The ‘historic precedent’ of when the Treasury Department was buying back debt amid the budget surpluses of the Clinton administration show it may fail to do so,” he said.

I’d love to think this is a bold brush stroke by Bernanke, one where his years of experience and his study of the great depression will steer us carefully through troubled waters. More likely,  this is a move based on desperation. I hope it’s the the former, but any time I see them installing a turbo-charger on the treasury’s printing press, I get concerned.

Very concerned.

 Stay tuned.

Gerry Ashley

New Mantra: “Trust In Obama. He is a Harvard Graduate.”

 

These days, I spend the greater amount of my leisure time in deep meditation.  My personal Guru, the Maharishi Haban-a-gud Dai, assigned me a sealed mantra which I was to open when I felt the stress of current events closing in on me. Then,  I was to read the mantra, commit it to memory, go to a dark, quiet place and repeat it slowly over and over again until calm.

Upon returning home, I went on-line and read about the bailout stimulus Golden Porkulus  package authored by Nancy Pelosi and hyped by President Obama as the ONLY way out of this economic quagmire.  A friend of mine who is good at math explained how the $800 Billion being spent now, with the interest accrued, amounts to trillions of dollars. He then went into graphic detail to illustrate how, if you laid $100 bills end to end, a trillion dollars would stretch from here to Tiera del Fuego…

I excused myself and immediately proceeded to my walk-in closet. There, with a stack of MREs (Meals Ready-To-Eat) that would enable me to stay, if necessary, through 2011, I pulled out the sealed envelope containing my Mantra.  I ripped open the envelope containing my mantra and unfolded the paper. All it said was, “Trust In Obama. He is a Harvard Graduate.”

A week later, I had to come out of the closet to check on my dog. He was gone, but left a note that said I would be hearing from his ASPCA lawyer. I think it’s safe to say that the material he used to secure the envelope wasn’t sealing wax.

“Trust in Obama He is a Harvard Graduate!”

I decided to catch up on the news I had missed. First thing I see on the Internet is how horribly Obama has insulted England in regards to the return of the Winston Churchill statue and  Gordon Brown’s visit which was the biggest diplomatic slap-in-the-face since Bill  Clinton asked Prince Charles, “How’s the marriage going with Diana? I mean, have I got a shot here, or what?”  Oh wait. That wasn’t Bill. That was Beetlejuice.  But he was probably thinking that.

“Trust in Obama He is a Harvard Graduate!”

Then, I read that Obama now wants to negotiate with moderate members of the Taliban… I injured my jaw on the tile floor. Do you want to tell him or should I?

“Trust in Obama He is a Harvard Graduate!”

My share of the bill for the StimulusPorkulus package comes to a little over $25,000.

“Trust in Obama He is a Harvard Graduate!”

Today, I found out that it’s official: My pension virtually no longer exists, and by the time I’m ready to retire, Social Security will either be gone or reduced to “So-So Security” which means, I get to work until I drop (assuming I can find someone to keep me on as I wither away). Welcome to “Change.” In fact, change is all I’ll have left of my savings and pension.

“Trust in Obama He is a Harvard Graduate!”

 I’m trying to figure out my budget to see if I’m going to have enough money (after new taxes) to include food in my budget. I called the White House to see if Obama has any suggestions, only to be told he can’t be interrupted… he’s having a few guests over for a dinner of Wagyu-Beef  while Earth Wind and Fire entertain. Oh, and coming next week? Tina Turner!

 He’s beginning to seem less like a Harvard Graduate and more like George Jefferson every day.

“Trust in Obama He is a…”

Aw, screw it. I’ve always said that Harvard is greatly over-rated. I’m gonna go back into my closet and open up a nice MRE and maybe have a nice bottle of water with it.  I think a bottle of Whitewater will do just fine. Hey, do MRE’s come with Wagyu-beef ?

Gerry Ashley

Breaking News: Obama Switches To Stand-up Comedy

This just in from the TIC (Tongue-In-Cheek) News Network:

Washington DC – (TIC) President Barack Obama, in a move some Republicans are calling “calculated to counter his “Doom & Gloom” speeches recently, has decided to add Stand-Up Comedy to his speaking style.

The day after the Senate House of Reps (just wait) approved his pork-riddled $410 Billion, cluttered to the gills with earmarks, Obama announced he will be outlining his proposal for cutting wasteful spending.

(Cue laugh track)

From the AP news story on Foxnews.com:

Obama’s directive would order Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, to work with Cabinet and agency officials to draft new contracting rules by the end of September. Those new rules, officials said, would make it more difficult for contractors to bilk taxpayers and make around $500 billion in federal contracts each year more accessible to independent contractors.

Oh, the sweet irony! One way contractors could be prevented from bilking us out of $500 Billion in federal contracts is to stop passing “Stimulus Packages” costing hundreds of billions of dollars. Simply put, those packages are loaded with over 8,000 slabs of pork. (Do we REALLY need a high-speed rail linking Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Harry Reid?).

Remember the good old days when if politicians wanted to shove a bill down the taxpayers’ throats (and down our wallets), they actually had to do it LEGALLY by presenting a bill with a single point project and pass it in both houses plus get the President to sign it? I think way back then they called that a system of Checks & Balances. Now, all you have to do is have the Congressional Cheerleaders join the President in declaring dire emergencies that can only be solved by spending more trillions of dollars, then attaching all your porcine projects to this emergency legislation and, Voila!  up to 8 Years of Lobbying is now reduced to ONE BILL.

There’s your CHANGE, Obama fans. All that lobbying and screwing of the taxpayers, reduced from 8 years down to 6 weeks!

But wait! There’s More! Act before midnight tonight  and here’s what you’ll get (at a phenomenal extra charge):

No doubt ACORN will receive a $20 million grant to study how to change the whole procurement system.

Gerry Ashley

Dow Closes Below 7,000

It was well over a decade ago (April 1997) that the Dow closed this low: 6,763 as of the bell this afternoon. Ugh! It seems clear that the latest AIG bailout had at least something to do with it. The market is down 23% since the beginning of the year, and it’s only the beginning of March.

But consider this: It seems like every time President Obama opens his mouth the Dow plunges even lower. Is it possible that he has recognized this and his intent is to crash the market on purpose? Perhaps in order to enact even more socialist progams?

I don’t know, I’m just asking.

Stoutcat

Bailout Explodes! $9.7 TRILLION

 

Ummm… Errr… Was just watching Fox News. They’re reporting from Bloomberg that this bailout is going to rocket to $9.7 trillion.

The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages.

What happened to $800 billion ($0.8 trillion?)

I’m at a loss for words. More later.

Alan Speakman

You Can Help

 

Yes, you. If only you’ll reach out and help… sponsor an executive.

The money you give won’t just save a life; it’ll save a lifestyle.

Stoutcat 

Blowing $300,000 to Create a Job

 

Hey! $900 billion for 3 million new jobs! Cool!

Let’s see that’s 900,000,000,000/3,000,000…

Wait… Ummm… That’s $300,000 per job creation… (Somebody please check my math and tell me that I’m just cross-eyed!)

And if you think that we’ll actually get 3,000,000 jobs, you’re nuts…

Alan Speakman