One Reality Of The Obama Adminstraiton, Two Different Views

I once read there is only one reality but everyone has a different view or perception of that reality. That is what causes two people to look at the same reality and come up with two completely different interpretations of that single reality.

That philosophical view of life seemed appropriate when I read a recent op-ed piece in a major Tampa Bay newspaper. I will not identify the writer of the piece. In the past when I disagreed with the writer's analyses, I tried to contact them through the email address always included in the writer's column. However, the writer never even had the common decency to acknowledge the writer received my communications, never mind engaging in an adult conversation of the writer's article contents. Thus, I will not give the writer the benefit of identification here.

The writer had some definite views on how well the Obama administration was going, views that myself and the majority of Americans do not currently agree with. Same reality, different interpretations. Consider:

- "The President saved the Detroit car industry." - The President did not save the Detroit car industry, his administration meddled in what should have been a straightforward bankruptcy proceeding. American companies, big and small, have successfully gone through bankruptcy proceedings in the past and emerged a healthier entity.

General Motors and Chrysler would have done the same since they each had assets worth value. They may have survived in a different form, they may have survived with different owners but they would have survived as a result of a regular bankruptcy proceeding. And they would have survived without costing the American taxpayer tens of billions of dollars.

- "The President secured health reforms that will bring health insurance to nearly everyone." - We have thoroughly reviewed how pathetically bad Obama Care is in this blog. The reasons are too numerous to review here so let's only address the writer's assertion that nearly everyone will get health insurance as a result of President Obama's efforts.

The writer seems to ignore the reports, analyses, and experts that have shown American companies are already terminating their own health care insurance programs for their employees as a result of Obama Care. The writer seems to ignore the Forbes article from last year that interviewed the chairman of AT&T. The chairman declared there was an excellent chance AT&T could stop offering health care insurance to its employees and retirees since Obama Care made it a better financial business deal NOT to offer health care insurance programs. Verizon, John Deere and Caterpillar executives have come to the same conclusions as have other American companies.

Thus, rather than getting health care insurance for nearly everyone, Obama Care is likely to lead to millions of Americans losing their current health care insurance coverage.

- "The President used a stimulus package to stop the hemorrhaging of American jobs and avoid a Depression." The writer seems to have several problems with reality here. First, it is asserted later in the article that the economic stimulus program cost $787 billion. This illustrates how loose and fast the writer plays with facts. The Congressional Budget Office has recently concluded that the American taxpayer actually paid out $830 billion on the stimulus program. Thus, the writer's  credibility takes a hit here, the writer did not even take the time to research the official government numbers before publication.

The second issue with reality is the writer conveniently passes over the fact that the President said that the unemployment rate could go as high as 8% if the economic stimulus package was not passed. It was passed and unemployment still soared well past 8%, hovering around 9% for lord knows how long.

The third issue I have with the writer is simple math. If you take the amount of money wasted by economic stimulus program, $830 billion, and divide it by the number of jobs the administration claims it created or saved, you find that the cost per job created or saved is well over $200,000 per job. You cannot claim you had a successful economic stimulus program if it costs you this outrageous amount of dollars per job.

- "The President put constraints on a reckless Wall Street." The bill the writer refers to is basically an empty shell of legislation, as pointed out by countless experts and pundits in the field. This bill punted/dodged the real work of reforming Wall Street, defaulting to nameless government  bureaucrats who have yet to write the reforms, guidelines, and regulation. Giving the President credit for reforms is a false conclusion. The reforms have yet to come into reality and existence.

- "The President got Congress to repeal the discriminatory "don't ask, don't tell" law." The writer ignores the reality that Obama showed absolutely no interest in this area for over a year and was moved to action only after a REPUBLICAN organization, the Log Cabin Republicans, successfully took "don't ask, don't tell" to court. Their actions and initiatives were the prime drivers to repeal, Obama was a late interloper into the legal action by the REPUBLICAN organization. The courts and the successful Log Cabin legal case would have led to the repeal in time with no help from Obama.

- "Obama has also kept Americans safe from another terrorist attack." This is just a blatantly wrong statement. I doubt that the Americans killed by the Ft. Hood shooter and their families would agree that the President has kept America safe from another terrorist attack. The Ft Hood shootings were a terror attack, plain and simple.

Also, being lucky does not constitute keeping Americans safe. America was only two defective fuses away from two other deadly terror attacks. If the Underwear Bomber's underwear fuse does not malfunction, we have dead Americans and debris reigning down on Detroit on a Christmas day. If a defective fuse actually ignites, we have an unknown number of dead Americans in Times Square. You should not get credit for being lucky.

"Then there was the other present that George W. Bush left behind for the new President: a whopping budget deficit." No disagreement here, the CBO is quoted by the writer as the source, something the writer did not take the time to research when discussing the cost of the failed economic stimulus program.

However, what the op-ed piece neglects to mention is two other facts. First, the Congressional architects of that budget deficit came about when both houses of Congress were controlled by Democrats. Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives and Harry Reid in the Senate were in control of those two chambers of Congress in the last two years of the Bush administration. They need to share equally in the blame with Bush for the high 2009 budget deficit that Obama inherited.

This blame has to fall hard especially on Pelosi since it is in the House where the Federal government's budgets are originated, according to the Constitution. Since the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, if they had serious objections to these budget deficit numbers, they should have taken action to reduce them. They did not and Bush accepted the final budget. Thus, all three are to blame, Bush, Pelosi, and Reid.

In fact, if the writer had delved a little more into the historical budget deficit numbers, the writer would have seen that Bush administration budget deficit numbers were declining up to the point that the Democrats took over control of Congress in 2007. At that point, deficits started to rise again. Thus, the accusation of Bush being the sole bad guy in the government's budget deficit disgrace is a little thin, given the Democrats' behavior in Congress from 2007 until today.

Furthermore, the writer again omits data in order to support her version of reality. Not only was Bush administration deficits declining until the Democrats took control of Congress, a CBO report last week estimates that the Obama administration will add the same amount to the Federal government's national debt in four years that took eight years for the Bush administration to attain.

Yes, the budget deficit was over $1 TRILLION in the first year of the Obama administration. That was hand Obama was dealt, for better or worse. However, a great leader does not constantly gripe about how bad things are and blame someone else like President Obama has done for the first three years of his term. A great leader deals with the hand and reality he was dealt and uses that position as a starting point to move forward to resolving problems. That looking forward has not happened under Obama.

The writer ignores the other failures or at least the other non-resolutions of this Presidency:

• Americans, such as myself, who have had legitimate, nonviolent, well thought out contrary opinions against some of the President's policies have been unmercifully denigrated by members of his party. We have been called un-American by Democrat Nancy Pelosi, racists by Democrat Charles Rangel, members of the Klan by Democrat Shelia Jordan, knuckle dragging Neanderthals by Democrat Alan Grayson, and terrorists by Democrat Mike Dolye (and possibly also by Joe Biden). In each case, with the exception of the Doyle comment, the President has stood mum as ordinary Americans were attacked for having an opinion. Hardly a way to unite a divided country.
• The President himself is guilty of verbally attacking ordinary Americans. While campaigning last fall and speaking to a largely Latino audience, he explained how their "enemies,"  i.e. Americans who disagreed with the President's policies, needed to be defeated. Calling American citizens "enemies" is also no way to unite a country. The President is supposed to represent ALL citizens of the country.
• The President promised during his campaign to close the prison Guantanamo Bay. He has failed to do that.
• The President promised a during his campaign to quickly get our troops out of Iraq. It was assumed that it would not be on the Bush timetable, three years into his Presidency. And now he is considering extending the amount of time and troops we have stationed in the country, very Bush-like.
• The President involved us in an illegal war against Libyan assets. I am sure that if Bush did the same action, without Congressional approval, this writer would have been beside themselves. Given that Democrat Obama got us into this illegal military action, the writer is silent.
• Three years into this Presidency, Iran and North Korea are three years closer to being nuclear armed powers.
• Three years into this Presidency and we are no closer to resolving the Israel/Palestinian issue.
• A recent (mid-August, 2011)  Zogby opinion poll of citizens in six Arab countries show that the United States and President Obama have never been held in such low regard. In fact, the poll found that President Obama is less popular in the Middle east than Iran's tyrant, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, truly an insult.
• Three years into this Presidency and our schools are still failing, our war on drugs is still being lost, we still have do not have a national energy strategy and policy, we still do not have a comprehensive and compassionate immigration policy, our borders still leak, our social net programs (e.g. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) still are rife with fraud and mismanagement, wasting hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and our health care costs are still rising dramatically.

Could McCain have done a better job? Probably not. But in my reality, or my perception of reality, President Obama has performed no better than Jimmy Carter who I consider one of the worst Presidencies of all time. We are so divided as a nation with politicians calling American citizens such derogatory names. Our economy is in ruins, in much worse shape than when the President came into office, from a jobs, growth, debt, and hope perspective, despite having a Democratic party friendly Congress in charge. The President has done no better or worse than any other President when it comes to the Middle East and his other foreign policies have been lack luster at best. No major issue that is facing the majority of Americans is on a path for improvement.

What is the reality? The op-ed writer who picks only certain issues to paint a rosy picture of this Presidency, using only selected data to make the point? Or my view of reality that looks at all aspects and issues of this Presidency, using as many facts and as much data that is available? You decide and contact me via the comment section below of what your reality is.

I promise I will at least have the common decency to engage you an adult conversation about what is the true reality of America today unlike the writer discussed above.



Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available, at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/

Shaky Economic Times Ahead, Lessons Learned From the Past

A bunch of economic news has occurred recently so I thought it might be a good idea to take a look ahead into 2011 and try to predict how well the year might shape up from an economic perspective. You might question my ability to do that since I have very little economic training. However, given that the best economic and political minds in the world did not foresee the coming of the Great Recession, the biggest economic downturn in about eighty years, I would humbly state that I cannot do any worse then the experts in predicting what will happen in 2011.

At the same time, we will try and take away some lessons from what is happening in the economy in order to not repeat the major missteps that the political class has done over the past few years. A person should always look at their own errors in order to not repeat those errors in the future, a life lesson that always seems to get lost on our politicians.

The basic prediction I would make for 2011 is that it is going to be a very rocky and difficult year for American households in 2011, worse than in 2010. Yes, the stock market has improved considerably over the past year or so. Yes, holiday spending was up considerably on a year over year basis. Ford said it would hire up to 7,000 more workers. Many in the political class are already trumpeting the coming good times. I would say not so fast, considering:

- Yesterday's unemployment report on initial unemployment claims was not good, rising 35,000 to 445,000 people compared to the previous week. Thus, for a very long time, we have seen almost half a million Americans a week file for first time unemployment benefits. The job market cannot be strong if that many Americans continue to seek relief from the loss of their jobs.

And although the unemployment rate recently dropped to 9.4%, that was due to the many Americans in despair who have actively stopped looking for work rather than growth in the available number of jobs. With many Americans losing their jobs every week and many others stopping their job searches out of frustration, tight consumer spending will result in low economic growth and continue to depress sales tax and income tax revenue streams for government operations, resulting in even more government budget tightening.

- The Associated Press reported on January 13, 2011 that 2011 will be the peak in home foreclosures for American families struggling with unemployment and plummeting housing prices coupled with weak housing demand. The foreclosure tracker Realty Trac Inc. predicts that 1.2 million American homes will be repossessed in 2011, up from one million homes in 2010. One out of every 45 homes in the country, more than 2%, received a foreclosure notice just in 2010. Thus, one of the previous drivers of economic growth, the housing industry, is unlikely to help the economy or homeowners that owe more to the bank than what their home is worth.

- An Associated Press article from January 14, 2011 reported that consumer prices rose in December by the largest amount since June, 2009. The primary cause for the jump was the continuing rise in gasoline prices. For some perverted twist of logic, many economists think this is a good thing since there was only one driver of the higher prices, gasoline. What I never understood is who cares what drove the higher prices, everyone needs to drive, that is the basis for much of our economy and country, so excluding the price of gasoline from the inflation measure and being happy never made any sense. In the real world, we cannot take gasoline out of the equation and look at "core inflation," we still have to drive and driving got more expensive.

- Unhappy about rising gas prices? Well, get ready for rising food prices also. According to a Wall Street Journal report from January 13, 2011, prices of all types of food are likely to continue going higher in 2011. After jumps in farm staple products this week, corn future contracts are up 94% from June, soybeans are up 51%, and wheat is up 80%. Three factors are driving the rising prices, according to the United States Agriculture Department:

1. Dry weather and floods in various countries around the world have suppressed world wide crop production.
2. There is basic rising demand for food around the world.
3. Corn and other crops are being diverted for ethanol production.

The situation has gotten so bad that many are starting to worry that food supplies might be a source of "social and political instability, geopolitical conflict and irreparable environment damage," according to the World Economic Forum.

 On expert cited in the article expects commodity food prices to rise between 3.5% and 4.5% in the United States this year compared to only 1.5% in 2010. Even worse, the same expert said that beef and pork could rise as much as 10% in 2011. All good news for America's farmers as China and other emerging markets buy up American farm output, bad news for American consumers who, in addition to higher gas prices, are likely to be paying more for higher food prices.

- More proof that the economy is in for a rough ride in 2011? The Associated Press reported yesterday that the price of gold surged above $1,400 an ounce this past Tuesday as a result of a weaker dollar. In times of economic stability, the price of gold usually goes down significantly as other investment options provide a better potential for investment returns. As long as gold stays high I always assume that some very smart people are out there with serious and probably accurate doubts about whether the world's economies are really that strong and growing.



The panel also concluded that while the company is on the path to stability, its future plans "raise concerns" due to a lackluster product array, a faltering restructuring in Europe and increased competition around the world. Looks like $53 a share is not going to arrive anytime soon.

- Remember all those dire bank failure stories and hysteria from just a couple of years ago? How the American taxpayer had to step in and prevent all of these banks from collapsing and taking the entire world economy with them? Well, according to an Associated Press report this week, it does not look like that fate awaits JP Morgan. They announced this week that their fourth quarter profit jumped a whopping 47% over the same quarter the year before. The bank earned $4.83 billion in one quarter.

So while many Americans struggle with long hours, no jobs, higher gas prices, and potentially higher food prices, JP Morgan, and I would bet most other banks, are getting along quite comfortably, in part due to the bank bailout debacle that cost the American taxpayer billions and billions of dollars for no reason whatsoever.

- Staying in the bank bailout arena, a report issued this week by the office of Neil Barofsky,who is the special inspector general for the entire bank bailout TARP fund, found that the decisions to save Citi Bank "wasn't made coherently, and seemed to be based on "gut instinct" and "fear of the unknown" rather than objective criteria.  In other realms of life, this kind of decision making is called Amateur Hour. How can a politician or government official give out tens of billions of taxpayer dollars based on nothing but gut and fear?

The fact that the Treasury Department claims to have made money on the Citi Bank bailout does not erase the fact that they got lucky. You cannot expect to do much in life as clueless as Mr. Barofsky claims the Treasury department and the government was and always be so plain lucky. Especially when billions and billions of dollars in taxpayer money are involved.

And the worst part of the whole deal, worse than the basic roulette bet that was made with billions of dollars? The article raises new concerns that despite all of the posturing of the political class, many U.S. banks are bigger than the were just a few years ago, making them still "too big to fail." Barofsky claims Treasury secretary Geithner stated that "while the government now has better tools to cope with future financial crises, in the future, we may have to do exceptional things again." This is basically code words for some of these banks, like Citi, are still too big to fail and we will have to bet huge amounts of taxpayer money again to save them from themselves. Thus, we have risked hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money, for no reason, under no logical processes and we are likely right back where we started prior to the Great Recession.

Thus, from all of this current and somewhat pessimistic news what should we have learned:

• We should have learned that government does not create jobs, the private sector creates jobs. After hundreds of billions of dollars wasted in so-called stimulus programs, unemployment is still very strong and very vibrant, not a good thing. All of the failed government-centric economic policies, Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Appliances, etc. have been utter failures except for their success in spending taxpayer dollars. In the future, find ways to let the market cure itself, not the government and the political class. These last two entities have proven beyond a doubt that they are useless in this area.
• We should have learned that the economy is always stronger than any government incentive program, it has to work its way back to health, the best thing that the government can do is let nature take its course and get out of the way. All of the government programs to help the housing market, foreclosure relief, first time home buyer rebate program, low interest rates, etc., have been total failures and have just wasted more taxpayer dollars while delaying the eventual cleansing of the market of excess inventory and bad credit risks.
• We should have learned, something our politicians never learn, that just about everything in the world is connected to everything else. Thus, by trying to fix the energy problem with a poorly thought out and failing corn ethanol program we not only fail to fix that energy program but we also cause economic troubles in food market. To solve any problem in life, one must understand the root causes and the interconnections within each problem. Our politicians have a very difficult time with that concept.
• We should have learned that it is never a good idea to step into the private sector to protect stupid executives and failing companies from themselves. General Motors never should have received any bailout money. They could have gone through bankruptcy proceedings like most other companies without government help, they would have emerged from bankruptcy and still have been a viable business without taxpayer help. Now, the American taxpayer will never see a positive return on that money, the Chinese government now owns more than 10% of the company as a result of how well the American taxpayer backed the company, and the company itself is on the verge of making more cars outside of the United States than within the country so we do not even get the benefit of more U.S. jobs for out taxpayer dollars. No company should ever be too big to fail. Let them fail, its called the free enterprise system.
• We should have learned, based on the GM example and the bank bailouts, that government should end all corporate welfare practices. GM's focus will not be on the American taxpayer in the future, it will be on the Chinese consumer. The major banks focus will not be on customer service and making loans to grow the economy, it will be on how to leverage interest rates and other exotic financial arrangements to make profits. American farms are swimming in profit potential, given tight world food supplies, wouldn't this be a good time to cut government farm subsidies to the large farm conglomerates in the country? Cut the corporate welfare practice, it perverts the true marketplace while it perverts the election process via campaign fund donations from corporate welfare recipients.

Some steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would help to implement these lessons:

• Step 6 would allow only individual citizens to contribute to election campaigns, eliminating the incentive for corporate welfare since the ability to reward welfare with campaign donations goes away.
• Step 23 provides a process to finally solve our energy crisis without screwing up the environment or food prices in the process.
• Step 34 provides a process to replace members of Congressional committees when the fail to perform to satisfactory levels, hopefully replacing them with people that can solve the problems facing the committees.
• Step 36 would require all elected officials to take and pass a course on basic economic theory so that they can understand how to solve some basic economic problems without making them worse, hopefully preventing us from reliving the nightmares of Cash For Clunkers, First Time Home Buyer Rebates, etc. in the future.
• Step 47 would eliminate farm subsidies, just one form of corporate welfare.

In summary, I predict we will pay more for gas in 2011 (given current gas rends), we will pay more for food in 2011 (given the three factors listed above), we will not see much price appreciation of our homes in 2011 (with all of these foreclosed coming on the market, the glut will suppress prices), we will not see a burst of job growth (not at the current high level of initial unemployment claims every week), we will not see any more tax breaks in 2011 (given the poor financial conditions of the Federal government and the states), we will not see any reduction in our national debt in 2011 (given that Pelosi, Reid, and Obama have already torpedoed the Deficit Reduction Commission without debate), we will not see GM repay its debt to the American taxpayer while it focuses overseas, and the banks are still too big to fail, probably taking too many risks but confident their friends in Washington will bail them out. Have a nice day! 



Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.


Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment

Almost A Good Idea

Although it does not happen often, a member of the political class sometimes has a good idea and it should be recognized. It has come to my attention recently that Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander recently proposed a bill that demonstrated some real outside of the box thinking and would have done a little good in restoring some freedom to this country's citizens. As you all know, the Federal government took over $60 billion of our taxpayer money and used it to bailout GM and Chrysler. In a previous blog we discussed this insanity in detail and how it was a total waste of our hard earned dollars. The result of this bailout and the accompanying bankruptcy proceedings has left the Federal government with about 60% ownership of GM.

Senator Alexander's idea is very simple: given that the American taxpayers paid for this bailout, the American taxpayer should own the 60% via a GM company stock distribution process, i.e. all of us who paid for the bailout would own stock in the new GM. Seems only fair, we paid for it, we should own it. Unfortunately, his proposal was defeated in the Senate. Apparently, the political class wants to hold onto the power of ownership even though they had nothing to do with financing the bailout.

Distributing shares to Americans would have a number of advantages:

1. First, it is only fair since we paid for it (the government did not pay for it, it just took our tax dollars and bought the companies). Our dollars, it should be our reward if the stock actually is worth anything in the future.
2. Second, being owned by many, many Americans would force GM management to be solely focused on running the company efficiently and profitably for the shareholders and not have to worry about the political class interfering in that drive for profitability by having the executives of GM and Chrysler scurrying off to Washington every time some vain politician wants to get his or her name in the paper. The company executives would be accountable to the shareholders, all Americans, and not the whims of the political class.
3. Third, do not think for a minute that the political class will not interfere with company activities. Consider two quotes from Obama in the SAME press conference regarding government ownership of GM as reported on Earthlink's news page on June 1, 2009:

• " What I am not saying, what I have no interest in doing, is running GM." He want on to say that auto executives "will call and make the decisions about turning the company around."
• Later in the press conference he said, "looking ahead, GM will be prodded at every juncture by the administration's top officials"."

HUH? In the same breathe he says he does not want to run GM and the executives will make the decisions and that GM will be prodded at every juncture. Makes no sense. You can bet that this administration will meddle in the ongoing efforts of GM, advocating and pressing its position for GM to make small, fuel efficient cars. Unfortunately, a whole lot of America does not want small, fuel efficient cars. Thus, in short order GM will fail again because it did not listen to the needs of the market (first time because of its own shortsightedness and second time because of political class dictates that were not consistent with market needs ands desires) and our billions of tax dollars spent on the bailouts will be wasted.

Nice try Senator Alexander, you gave it a shot for freedom, fairness, and sanity, too bad the rest of your cohorts did not see it that way.