recession (2)

A Mortal Wound for America and Americans?

http://www.swifteconomics.com/2009/08/03/if-only-barack-hoover-obama-was-barack-harding-obama/

The worst has happened . . . the 10th Amendment, the most important and unappreciated of our Bill of Rights, may have just been beheaded and America as we know it KILLED. Does Rajjpuut exaggerate? You be the judge . . . .

While Boobus Americanus could NOT be bothered to leave his sitcoms and reality shows and pay attention to the needs of America, the Obama to Pelosi to Reid dance with the devil just fired potentially the final shot of the WAR going on right in front of Boobus Americanus’s eyes and potentially won that war to institute a communist-like socialism upon America. Here’s what happened:

Patriotic and informed Americans thought we had at least a month to relax because the tax-and-spend-and-bend-and-urinate-on-the-Constitution-and American-tradition-parade was ended while congress went on summer vacation. But no, suddenly, Harry Reid found himself voluminously and astoundedly thanking the two Maine** Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins for betraying you, betraying the Constitution and our founding fathers and betraying America . . . for betraying America, perhaps to death . . . . it’s a short story but extremely ugly. Miraculously (ugh) a $26 Billion spending bill was passed in the Senate. If you ever thought that progressives (“we must progress beyond the outdated and imperfect U.S. Constitution”) were just “well-intentioned” blundering idiots who really did love America the Republic born in 1776, think again. This bill, sent back to the House (once Pelosi rallied the troops back from their vacations) for quick approval and back even more quickly to the Senate (officially, only the House can originate spending bills) before heading to Obama’s desk . . . does three despicable things:

1) It raises a minimum of $45 million dollars for unions to immediately bring to the rescue of Democrats running for office this November. Nifty how that works out, eh, your tax dollars and your DEBT are financing the election of Democrats who’ve spent the last nineteen months undermining everything patriotic Americans have believed in for the last 234 years . . . but that’s just the tip of the icing on the cake to mangle a few appropriate metaphors . . . .

2) It does potentially provide some money for a very few teachers etc. that would have lost their jobs in 47 states (IF state governments decided they’d rather fire essential workers than get rid of non-essential wasteful spending in their budgets). Mostly it’s a bailout for California, Michigan and New York so that their fiscal stupidity won’t be punished and the other 47 states will be punished instead. So it rewards three states that ran themselves into bankruptcy and penalizes 47 other states . . . but that’s not so bad . . . .

3) Most importantly, it does indeed potentially behead the 10th Amendment of the United States by FORCING all fifty states to act irresponsibly and against the best interests of themselves and their citizens for the next several years and instead willing bankrupt themselves, because . . . here’s the rub . . . states who take part of this new bailout money will be forbidden by the provisions of the $26 Billion bailout bill itself from reducing their state budgets in coming years . . . that is, they will be forbidden from saving themselves from bankruptcy by the sensible measure of reducing spending.

Now Boobus Americanus doesn’t get it, but you, the loyal Rajjpuut reader already smell a huge rat don’t you? Economies are saved from severe financial collapse in states and at the federal level when one of two things happens: the country goes to war^^ (WWII provided 16 million jobs effectively ending$$ the Great Depression); or somebody gets the great idea of simultaneously cutting spending and cutting taxes.

History has several good examples for us of what’s works and what fails miserably. The link at the top and bottom of this blog will give you the ugly details . . . in a nutshell@@, however: When government gets involved economic downturns, turn sharply downward and endure much longer. When government gets out of the way (taxes are cut, government spending is slashed or both) economic slumps disappear.

So this bill prevents states who receive this money from acting sensibly. Why in hell, would anyone pass such a law? It’s our old friend Cloward-Piven&& Strategy.

You remember C-P, the “we can fundamentally transform into socialism by creating crises to undermine the capitalist system” strategy . . . the strategy Cloward, Piven, and George Wiley bragged about using when a manufactured welfare crisis bankrupted New York City in 1975 (it took them eight years) and almost bankrupted the entire state of New York. You remember, the strategy that created ACORN and set them about using poorly thought out mortgage guarantee legislation to undermine the country by creating the sub-prime lending crisis (that took them thirty years) that almost bankrupted the nation, but did get their own ACORN lawyer and Saul Alinsky activist Barack Obama voted into the Oval Office). And, of course, loyal Rajjpuut readers know that when the NWRO bankruptcy of New York City worked, Cloward and Piven and Wiley called for moving into housing and voter registration.

What? You forgot about voter registration? In 2006, ACORN registered 1,800 new voters in Washington state. All but six of the names submitted were bogus. The secretary of state called it the "worst case of election fraud in our state's history."

According to Fox News, “ACORN workers told state investigators they went to the Seattle public library, sat at a table and filled out the voter registration forms. They made up names, addresses and Social Security numbers and in some cases plucked names from the phone book. One worker said it was a lot of hard work making up all those names and another said he would sit at home, smoke marijuana and fill out the forms.”

ACORN explained this was an "isolated" incident, yet similar stories have been reported in Missouri, Michigan, Ohio and Colorado — all swing states by the way. ACORN members have been prosecuted for voter fraud in a number of states.

www.rottenacorn.com

But now the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped a clear voter intimidation suit against the black panthers and Obama appointee (Deputy Attorney General) Julie Fernandez has instructed a roomful of DOJ employees not to prosecute Black on White hate crimes or voter intimidation; and not to involve themselves at all with violations of the Motor Voter Act. Are we starting to get the picture here? Let’s wrap it up.

What’s going on? The most important and least understood and appreciated of the Bill of Rights amendments, the 10th Amendment has just had its legs cut out from under it. States who take the money are forbidden from exercising fiscal responsibility. Short of almost immediately tens of thousands of Boobus Americanuses and TEA Party folks demonstrating on their own State Capitol steps demanding that their own state legislators REFUSE their part of the $26 Billion . . . short of that and short of that strategy succeeding in about 37-38 states . . . the deepest and most lethal wound so far from the progressive dagger has just been inflicted.

In addition, the most crucial election in American History since the Civil War is coming in November and the DOJ has just told its employees to ignore enforcement of the ultra-weak (yep, that was Richard Cloward and Frances Piven standing right behind Bill Clinton in the 1993 picture when he signed the Motor Voter Act into law) Motor Voter Act that conservatives in ’93 called a “license to commit voter fraud.” So your vote in November is liable to be cancelled out and superseded by votes from the dead, duplicate voters, illegal felons, and other fraudulent voters . . . are we happy now?

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

** It sounds “noble” doesn’t it? Saving the jobs of teachers, firefighters, etc. (and Obama’s successfully used that ploy upon taxpayers nine different times) . . . but the devil is, as always in the details. That $26 Billion will incidentally dramatically increase the war chests of the teachers’, firefighters’, etc.’s UNIONS and that money will immediately funnel to the Democrats that UNIONS support 100% and hit the air waves to save the real jobs, Obama-Pelosi-Reid plan to save . . . those of Democratic congressmen. OUCH!

Virtually all of the misery since Republican Scott Brown’s election to the Senate seat once owned by Ted Kennedy has come from the failure of three “Republicans” (Brown himself and the two Maine senators) to actually read and understand the proposals that Harry Reid was presenting in the Senate. Instead of standing strong with the Republican filibuster, one or two or all of this threesome joined Reid to pass some monstrous-sized evil bill forcing greater government and greater debt upon us. It started with Obamacare and continued to the new $26 Billion bailout.

In each case, since February, a big-government big-debt bill whose real purpose had nothing in common with the noble-sounding name of the bill was stymied by a Republican filibuster and America was far, far better off because of it . . . and then, oops, one or more of this triumvirate caved in and the country was stabbed in the chest.

^^Yes, yes we know . . . this is the “Broken Window Fallacy” hiding under the “Blessing of Destruction” disguise . . . .

http://jim.com/econ/chap02p1.html

http://jim.com/econ/chap01p1.html

http://jim.com/econ/chap03p1.html

http://jim.com/econ/

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/broken-window.html

And, yes, besides all the human misery WAR brings, there is a huge economic downside, even for the victors. But the fact, is that, before you get into all the 75-80 evils of war and the 20-21 economic evils of wars . . . it does tend to solve unemployment (regardless of the litany of other evils that ensue)! Rajjpuut is guessing, Mr. Obama won’t be using that ploy anytime soon, however.

$$ There was, indeed, a speculative bubble which burst nastily, but the real damage from the simple panic that hit Wall Street in October, 1929, was created by the reactions of the two progressives Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt that turned a simple recession into a 12+ year Great Depression. Months earlier Hoover immediately upon taking office had proven himself the greatest “economic tinkerer” in American History when he abandoned the low tax, low spend policies of Harding and Coolidge (he assumed office upon Harding’s death) which ended the “Invisible Depression” of Wilson very quickly and set about with social re-engineering. The economy was definitely NOT broken when Hoover became president, but he proceeded to fix it . . . .

FDR’s campaign painted Hoover as a socialist for all his government interference and government spending and promised to return to the successful recipe of Harding-Coolidge and dramatically cut taxes and cut government spending. In any case the economy was rebounding in July 1933 before FDR’s own interference set things spinning badly the other way. Among other measures, FDR created 40 new government agencies (Obamacare, one law, created 390 new agencies just this year); and he confiscated all American gold; then a few months later the gold he’d confiscated at $20.76 an ounce was proclaimed worth $35.00 an ounce, effectively stealing 61% of the America’s private wealth and putting it into the government’s hands.

http://www.swifteconomics.com/2009/08/03/if-only-barack-hoover-obama-was-barack-harding-obama/

@@ Some of this is repetition, but here’s the history of the last 93 years of severe American recessions-Depressions . . .

A. Progresssive Woodrow Wilson’s “Invisible Depression” was handed off to Warren G. Harding but (despite Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover’s insistence upon draconian interference measures) simply dried up and blew away when Harding did three things, he paid down the debt 33%; he cut taxes and cut government spending. Notably the cuts in taxes and spending were between 45-49%.

B. Coolidge continued Harding’s policies and boom times resulted

C. Coolidge chose “not to run” and Hoover was elected and immediately began fixing the economy with higher taxes, higher spending and the creation of a whole litany of new government agencies. The Wall Street bubble burst, a financial panic ensued and Hoover (despite the lies of progressive historians who say he did nothing and just fiddled while the economy “burned”) ran around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to intervene in any way possible to stop the bleeding (you have heard of the Hoover Dam, eh?

D. FDR after promising to follow the Harding-Coolidge model made Hoover look like a thumbsucker and nine more years of bad times ensued ended finally by WWII.

E. In more recent times, the stock market collapse of 1973-74 was actually proving rather benign because the whole country was consumed by Watergate and almost no government interference took place. Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford introduced Draconian measures which along with the inflationary policies of the Viet Nam era caused prices to rise across the board. Ford is given the boot (more for pardoning Nixon then anything economically) and inflation got worst under Jimmy Carter (who among other things gave us the Community Reinvestment Act, CRA ’77 which started us on the path to four more mortgage-guarantee expansions and our 2007 collapse) and then much worse and became “stagflation” a stagnant economy during an inflation. Reagan is elected.

F. Reagan with the Democratic congress cuts taxes like madmen. Eventually 20 million new jobs are created and inflation and stagnation are ended. Not a pure example because Reagan wanted his military buildup and the Dems wanted their social programs buildup so spending was high . . . but taxes were cut deeply and the economy boomed.

&&

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy

http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2008/10/acorn_obama_and.html

http://investigatingobama.blogspot.com/2009/01/barack-obama-and-strategy-of.html

http://www.swifteconomics.com/2009/08/03/if-only-barack-hoover-obama-was-barack-harding-obama/

Read more…

Taxpayers paid GM and Chrysler $14,000 per car$$, but during “Cash for Clunkers” GM, Ford and Chrysler received an additional $24,000 per sale from the taxpayers.

GM and Chrysler Still

More Than $50 Billion in the Hole

The numbers are terrible but many Americans seem to have forgotten the simplest facts about the takeover of the auto industry and are instead buying into the administration’s line that “He’s saved the U.S. auto industry.” Imagine being able to sell a car while knowing that the first $14,000 of underlying costs were POOF! Magically gone . . . How in hell, can these two auto companies continue to sputter and cough in recovery?

To date the facts are these: Chrysler received $15 Billion in loans; GM received $50 Billion in loans of that $65 Billion total in auto industry goals to-date $15 Billion has been repaid by GM and Chrysler . . . neither company looks particularly healthy and, indeed, Chrysler seems to be on the verge of collapse.

By the way, Chrysler received an auto bailout in 1979 in addition to the 2008 bailout both companies were given. Is there a simple lesson here? You think? Meanwhile, the only viable American auto company, Ford Motors, finds itself between the sword and the wall. On the one hand Ford like all of America is mired in a recessionary environment in which major purchases like cars and houses are not popular decisions. On the other hand that $14,000 safety net below each GM and Chrysler car is a tough nut for a company that received no bailouts to overcome. In short, the American auto industry is facing a crucial year as the 2011 models emerge onto the lots. The likelihood is that Chrysler goes under despite all the government interference and Ford, competing against the two bailed-out entities is also threatened.

One thing, Barack Obama doesn’t want you to think about is this: his “Cash for Clunkers” program achieved the brief pinnacle in sales for the three American auto makers. But what was the cost? Without going into the economics of unnecessarily removing many viable automobiles from the nation’s roads, the cost of Cash for Clunkers (CFC) came to at least $24,000** per car. So between the bailouts and Cash for Clunkers, GM and Chrysler during that two-month period had $38,000 paid them by the government for each car sold. Obama and his people, naturally enough, called “CFC, a wildly successful program.” Much akin to saying the President “saved us^^ from Depression,” it sounds like someone is seriously stretching the truth. Rajjpuut remains highly UNimpressed by the auto bailout and so should any thinking American, like you!

Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

$$ Actually, by orchestrating and manipulating the two bankruptcies, Barack Obama personally diverted huge amounts of taxpayer money into the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) by giving them a large chunk of ownership of the two ailing auto makers.

** http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/28/autos/clunkers_analysis/index.htm

^^ History will show that Obama’s policies like those of FDR (which extended the dying July, 1933, recession about 8.5 unnecessary years) have done just the opposite: guaranteed a depression
Read more…