HOPE AND CHANGE?

Remember the chant by the Democrats during the 2006 elections? Are you better off than you were six years ago? Well , I ask today, are you better off than you were two years ago? What happened to all the hope and change? Here is what I have found and the change doesn't offer much hope. You decide!

HOPE AND CHANGE?

Is your home, or your market investment, or your retirement account worth more today than it was last November, when the election of BHO ushered in the era of "hope 'n' change"?

For some reason, both the housing and equity markets began declining after Democrats regained control of the Senate and House in 2006. Since Obama's election, the bottom has dropped out. We as Americans have not only lost income and jobs, but also some 35 percent of the value of our homes and market/retirement accounts.

MORE CHANGE WE CAN DO WITHOUT

What I'm looking at is not the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market but the long-term, uh, ability for the United States and the entire world economy, uh, to regain its footing. Uh, and, y-y-you know, the stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day to day, uh, and if you spend all your time worrying about that, you're probably going to get long-term strategy wrong. ... What you're now seeing is profit and -- and earning ratios are -- are starting to, to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it. Uhhh, I think that consumer confidence, as they see the American, uh, Recovery and Reinvestment Act taking root, uh, businesses are starting to see opportunities for investment, uh, and potential hiring." --Barack Obama

"The comparison to daily tracking polls is ... inapt. Whereas those polls serve only a predictive function, stock values (and dividends, which are also plummeting) do measure real wealth. Further, if a candidate's performance in tracking polls had been declining steadily for three months, surely it would be time to change strategy or drop out of the race. A 30% decline is a heck of a fit, and Wall Street hasn't had anything that can be called a start since before Obama's election. ... As for the so-called stimulus as confidence booster, suffice it to note that the Industrial Average closed at 7933 on Feb. 12, the day before Congress passed the bill. [Thursday] it closed at [6594], a decline of [17%] in ... three weeks." --The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto

STILL THINKING HOPE AND CHANGE?

According to the Associated Press, "The number of people who were late making their mortgage payments shot up 53 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 from the same period in 2007." We're sure this is unrelated to Obama's plan, but we thought it was worth a mention.

Also noteworthy is that Obama failed to save 651,000 jobs in February, hampering his efforts to "save or create" 3.5 million jobs. The monthly loss was the worst since 1949. The economy has now lost 2.5 million jobs since Obama's election and 4.4 million since December 2007. The unemployment rate is 8.1 percent. So this is hope and change?

How Reassuring - NOT

Back in the Great Society era, Social Security was expanded to include Medicare. When the program was introduced, Americans were assured that it would not become a costly drain on the federal budget. But almost every year for the past 40, the cost of Medicare has increased at a faster rate than the cost of private insurance. The federal government now is responsible for 47 percent of all health care costs. The $634 billion promised by they Chief Occupier, to pay for his ambitious health care plan won't cover its estimated $1 trillion cost over the next decade. And as we have seen before with both Medicare and Medicaid, projected revenues and cost savings are viewed by federal bean counters with the rosiest-tinted glasses available.

STILL LOOKING FOR CHANGE?

Cap-and-trade is a bad idea

The Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade approach to greenhouse gases makes us think derivatives. Analogous in more ways than one to the vaporous quality of financial derivatives, this new "market" depends on the underlying "value" of carbon and the ability to trade it as an "offset." One difference is that we already know this sort of program is an economic nightmare in Europe.

If undeterred by Europe's failure, our congressional best and brightest should note the impact as determined by a recent report by the Marshall Institute: The new regulations would be the equivalent of a permanent tax increase for the average American household, estimated to be $1,100 in 2008, rising to $1,437 by 2015, and $2,979 by 2050. Hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost, while electricity and natural gas prices would increase by anywhere from five to 50 percent over the next five years. Gasoline could increase as much as 145 percent. So much for President Obama's promise of "a tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans." “There will be those who will be disappointed” Barrack Hussein Obama

In summary, Congress and the Obama administration have proposed a program that addresses an unproven climate change problem by implementing a program proven to bring higher energy costs, job losses, and is every bit the financial scam that many financial derivatives have proved to be. The "underlying asset" is nothing but a government-imposed regulatory scheme designed to enrich the traders, depress Western economies and promote the myth of man-made climate change.

NOT YET – MORE OF THE SAME

After three "bailouts" for AIG since September totaling nearly $180 billion in squandered taxpayer funding, all the taxpayers have to show for their purchase is a company locked in a death spiral. So, naturally, the Federal Reserve is throwing more money at the problem. Now that the government owns 78 percent of AIG, there is no end in sight for the ever-declining insurer. On Monday, AIG reported a $61.7 billion fourth-quarter loss, all of which was incurred under the new federalized stewardship. And yet some still believe that the government can run anything when the truth is they can sure RUIN anything they touch.

Hat Tip Patriot PostUS

US Housing Crisis 'Exaggerated'

So much for the Doom and Gloomers from this administration who have constantly lied. Yes, I use lied because "stretched the truth" would be to gentle and I am not in a gentle mood.
I wrote some weeks ago about the fact that we are constantly being told that we are in recession and on the brink of depression because of the housing crisis and I called it as it was at that point a pile of barnyard bovine excrement which shall in the future just be called a pile of pelosi since she is as responsible for these lies as the Occupier in Chief and I believe it to be fitting and not insulting to our bovine friends.

Today's blaring headlines , at least on- line , at saying that the new spending will help 9 million homeowners to stay in their homes. I have yet to see the numbers presented in any realistic fashion by this administration. The tax dodging head man,Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a statement : "It is imperative that we continue to move with speed to help make housing more affordable and help arrest the damaging spiral in our housing markets," What spiral? As you will see in the following paragraphs that spiral is not a nationwide problem but yet the doom and gloomers of this administration continue to use scare tactics to push this country further down the road into total socialism. They need to SHUT UP about how bad it is and do as Reagan did and talk about the ingenuity of the American people to pull the country out of recession through hard word, less government interference and more money in their pockets.

The next headline was 1 in 5 US mortgage borrowers are underwater. I will give this article credit for presenting the same facts that I found in the Australian News this morning.

So far I have heard nothing in the LSM (Lame Stream Media) that gives the full overview as does this article. Of course they are in the tank with the administration and only report what they are told to report and that is doom and gloom. It keeps the Chief Occupiers poll numbers looking good which otherwise would be tanking as fast as Wall Street every time he opens his mouth or passes another useless spending bill.

Here is the article. Judge for yourself and you will see that the American people are being constantly lied to about the so called housing crisis in this country in order to advance the socialistic agenda of this administration.


US housing crisis 'exaggerated', focused on only four states



Geoff Elliott, Washington correspondent | March 05, 2009
Article from: The Australian

THE breadth of the US housing crisis for the average American is being overstated, according to a study released yesterday.

While foreclosures have booted millions of Americans from their homes, the study from the University of Virginia shows the trouble is mostly focused on four states -- California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada -- where home prices were the most overheated in the US housing boom.

Although there are pockets of substantial declines,claims that overall housing values have plummeted nationwide are exaggerated, they say. "In the Washington, DC metropolitan area, for example, prices have barely changed," the authors wrote.

In the University of Virginia study of 50 states, 35 metropolitan areas and 236 counties, the analysis indicated that "66 per cent of potential housing value losses in 2008 and subsequent years may be in California".

Then there was another 21 per cent in Florida, Nevada and Arizona -- meaning those four states made up about 87 per cent of national declines.

"California had only 10 per cent of the nation's housing units, but it had 34 per cent of foreclosures in 2008," say the report's authors, William Lucy and Jeff Herlitz. They say California was vulnerable to foreclosures because the median value of owner-occupied housing in 2007 was 8.3 times the median family income, while the 2007 national average was only 3.2 times higher than median family income.

Another vulnerability to foreclosures was seen in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, where over 20 per cent of mortgage-holders in each county were paying at least 50 per cent of their income in housing-related costs.

They add that the number of foreclosures usually were lower in central cities than in some suburban counties, probably due to less demand in those suburbs.

The study notes the huge run-up in housing prices in California created opportunities for large gains for home buyers if price increases continued. "Thus, more households may have been attracted to potential gains, worried, perhaps, that they would be priced out of the home buying market if they did not act quickly," they said of the speculative bubble that emerged. They added that lenders such as former US mortgage giant Countrywide, which specialised in no-principal, interest-only and no-income check loans, got their start in California and focused there.

"But even in California, enormous variations existed among jurisdictions, such as in the San Francisco area, where (the outlying) Solano County had 3.69 per cent of housing units in foreclosure in November 2008, while only 0.24 per cent of housing units were in foreclosure in the City of San Francisco -- a 15 to 1 difference," Lucy and Herlitz say.

And of the financial crisis, the authors note that potential losses in housing values from 2008 foreclosures in all 50 states -- if values decline to 2000 levels -- were less than one-third of the $US350 billion provided to banks and insurance companies to cope with losses in mortgage-backed securities, Lucy and Herlitz add.

"Damage to the balance sheets of large banks and (insurer) AIG occurred not mainly from losses on foreclosed residential mortgages, but because of borrowing short-range to buy long-range derivatives and from selling credit default swaps insuring derivatives backed by mortgage payments," they write. "These financial manipulations had high-speed forward gears, but when the housing bubble burst, the banks and AIG discovered they had neglected to create a reverse gear with which they could separate foreclosed properties from some forms of mortgage-backed securities."

So now in tribute to the passing of a great man and news journalist, Paul Harvey, Now you know the rest of the story.

Anyone Else Feel the Urge to Scream ENOUGH !

There is more going on than I can or really even dare to attempt to keep up with. Listening , watching, reading of the goings on in Washington is like watching a house burn down and wondering when the fire department will arrive to extinguish the inferno that is enveloping this entire country. We have watched the predicted inevitable occur when the Detroit auto loans (spelled bail out) occurred. Most intelligent thinking people predicted that the car makers would be back within 90 days asking for more. Well, the time line might be a day or two off but here they are again with hat in hand and begging for more dollars to throw down a rat hole. Don’t get me wrong, I would like to see the automakers come out of this deal and start making a viable product once again but they have three strikes against them already.

One, they have the Unions with their “life time benefits” built into every contract and they are not willing to concede one bit. Guess they will wonder what happened to the “life time” benefits when the plant closes and as we use to say on the farm the cow goes dry.

Second, the federal government’s regulations on the automakers give them really no incentive to produce beyond the level that they have been doing.

Thirdly they are now being saddled with more regulations on how and what kind of engines can be produced all based on one State, California. It is not profitable to have to make a dozen or more different engines just to suit the eco-kooks in certain states and now resting in cabinet positions in DC.

The only way I see to get from under all this mess is to just go ahead and say, we are broke and here it is. We declare bankruptcy and we are closing the doors until we can come up with a plan to make us viable again. Just what does this accomplish?

First of all it rids the auto makers of the Unions and the cost related issues there. I have heard it put at around $1500 per vehicle just for Union heath care and pension plan . That does not include the hyper inflated wages these folks have been drawing for years. Of course they claim these wages are needed to live in areas like Detroit. I have news for these folks. It is the inflated wages that keep the inflated prices going in the area you live in. Cut wages, the prices will drop accordingly.

I use to live in coal mining country (UMWA world). My former father-in-law was a coal miner and had been a union member since he went to work in the mines but he saw the handwriting on the wall long before most did. He claimed the Union was a dinosaur whose time had come to disappear from the face of the earth. When it came contract time, he and many of the older miners would go to the Union meeting and say, look, we need to plan for tomorrow and our health care because right now it is good but when we retire it won’t be good enough for us to afford the medical help we will need due to Black Lung. Yes, the majority of the miner have Black Lung issues and many die early from complications of such. Did the Union listen? No, it was we want more on the hour wage increases! The younger guys, according to my father-in –law, only wanted to make enough money to afford them a big pick up truck with a gun rack in the back, a double wide and time off to go deer hunting each year. If they were lucky they’d have enough for a 12 pack on Friday. They actually made enough to afford more but his was as far as their vision went. Each year at contract time, they got their raise and the grocery store raised its prices accordingly as well as the local bars, the truck dealers and the sporting goods store.

So with that example I will say, auto makers rid yourself of the mill stone around your neck first.

Next go back to work making good vehicles but at the same time be retooling for a newer more efficient vehicle. The unions have made this impossible with the restraints placed on the individual trades within the auto industry. There will be no cross over according to union officials. Sorry, but cross over skills are exactly what is needed to bring down cost and prices and make the auto industry viable again.

Next, don’t ask for money, ask for , no demand a moratorium on the ridiculous regulations that are now placed on the industry and build a car that people want and that people can afford. Sorry but $30K plus is not an affordable family car. While you are at it put the same tariff on foreign automakers as is placed on US auto’s entering their countries. That will put a dent in their fender! All the talk about a level playing field, well that is the way to do it. Forget the infusion of money into a broke system.

Well that’s got the auto makers problem solved.

You can be assured that next will be the bankers and Wall Street wanting more money to fix the unfixable. Of course anyone with the sense God gave a goose knew that Wall Street and the banks would be crawling back begging for more money. That was this administrations plan. Naturally they have the solution. We will give you more money but we will own you as well. That folks is called Nationalization of the banks and given the manner in which the government runs anything this is a disaster before it even starts. Best solution. Allow the weak to close up or be blended in with a stronger bank in order to give both a chance to survive. If they do, fine, if they don’t, so be it. The strong will survive and be better for the experience without the government interference. People will not lose their life savings if these weak banks close but to hear the doom and gloomer’s talk that is exactly what is happening today. I have yet to hear of anyone losing their savings due to a bank closing. I am hearing of people loosing their retirement savings due to government interference and the gloom and doom talk being blown about by the occupier in chief and his cabinet of know nothings. Every time this pretender opens his mouth or passes another budget the market falls and people can watch their IRA’s , the 401K’s and other retirement tools vanish at an astounding rate. The young will survive because this administration will end, sooner than later because folks are waking up, but the older folks such as myself will have to just make do on what we have left over after this administration finishes all their “fixes”. People in my age group watch as their few stocks drop like rocks each and every day. Those who tried to invest in clean energy such as gas and wind see their investments being blown away in the hurricane of hurry up and “fix it” ideology of this administration. We won’ have time to recover even if the “stimulus” should happen to work only 12%. Joe, foot in the mouth, Biden, says maybe 30% but listening to Joe we know to cut his predictions in half and then some.

That doesn’t worry this group for they have their excuses already in line for failure that they knew would come. Will we get apologies from the Pretender and the stimulus advocates in Congress? Not a chance. Their excuse is already prepared: The stimulus was too small. On the day the Pretender signed the bill, his aides put out the word that another may be needed. The blame will not be put on the folly of stimulus, only on the meagerness of the spending. Heads -- big government wins. Tails -- free people lose.

Well as you can see Washington does not have solutions, the fire department is not going to arrive and it will do you no good to attempt to extinguish the conflagration by peeing on it. That’s the truth but at least you will feel better and the need to keep your legs crossed tightly will have passed.