Busy as I have been with my "studies" as I work to make myself more employable, and using up free time countering goofy comments at my personal blog, I've missed some details of come current events. This "cash for clunkers" thing gives me pause. One billion smackers used up in ten days and they need another two? Barry calls it a great success. How is that exactly? Because a few cars were sold? Let's look at this thing.
First, if cars can't be sold without tax money being offered, how is that "fixing" anything? Assuming the same outcome with the first billion, after twenty days, then what? Will all be well with the auto industry? Or will everything come to a screeching halt?
Secondly, how is this going to stimulate anything? It is said that it is helping the environment by getting rid of polluting vehicles and saving money by the trade up to cars with better mileage. But what has better mileage gotten us thus far? More fatalities, that's what. Also more injuries that require medical attention. I'd prefer to pay a few thousand a year more in gasoline than lose a limb or family member. I'm totally unimpressed.
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Then, as the administration wets itself over the outcry against their health care proposals, the news is that union people will be showing up at townhall meetings to counter angry citizens the Dems are calling plants and/or angry mobs. Will they be wearing brown shirts?
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Barry is chirping about the jobs report for July. It is being billed as one of the best months in a while. No doubt Barry will take full credit. "His plan is working!" the syncophants will say. But there's two points to consider. I have heard that they have changed how they gauge the jobless situation. This is something I heard only today, but unfortunately was unable to get any details as yet. If anyone know what this is about, please comment. It supposedly accounts for the .1 percent drop to 9.4% unemployment (ooh! success!)
The second point is, how many jobs are left to lose? We don't usually hear about jobs created vs jobs lost. I know there are plenty over-the-road trucker jobs, there are health care jobs. But we keep losing other jobs. (I wonder where it will level off; 10%? 15% Higher?) At some point, the amount lost per month will drop simply because we're running out of jobs to lose. I don't think much of this particular statistic as far as judging the success of any policy.
Friday, August 7, 2009
17 comments:
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Seems to me that until the jobless rate becomes 100%, there are still jobs left to be lost. Or am I missing something.
ReplyDeleteObama is saying his policies are beginning to work because there were less job losses this month than last month.
ReplyDeleteSimple arithmetic can explain this.
If 100 million jobs were lost last month, that's 100 million less jobs to lose this month. If there are less jobs to lose, less people will lose their jobs. (duh)
This isn't brain science.
Not ten days, Marshall. FOUR days. And most of the trade-ins were going to folks who could afford to actually buy a car without the government deal.
ReplyDeleteThere were still 240,000 people who lost jobs last month. And Obama is celebrating. Wanting a deserved pat on the back for saving the economy. Nationally, the unemployment rate sits at 16.9%
ReplyDeleteAnd how's this for scary? Under ObamaCare the federal government would have "real-time" access to your back account via direct deposit. Perhaps the government wouldn't be able to tap your funds initially, but just as government has the power to reduce or do away with altogether-- by legislative fiat --Social Security, who's to say that at some point in the future, when tax revenues aren't coming in enough to cover government's spending (like now... tax revenues are abysmally low), that government won't just choose to rake a few billion off the top of everyone's bank account. Have you chosen NOT to participate in Obama's nationalized healthcare? Why the government'll just take its 2.5% fine right out of your bank account... without your authorization.
Say it can't happen? Don't be a fool. 5 months ago, no one would have thought that a sitting president would be stupid enough to sign a stimulus bill that he knew would further wreck our economy, adding 8 trillion dollars to the deficit in the next 10 years. Obama's popularity at present, at this point in his presidency, is the eighth lowest out of the last 10 presidents. Even the hated and vile George W. Bush scored higher than Obama at this point in his presidency-- with 9.11 looming large on the horizon, no less.
Obama himself is destroying his own presidency-- his legacy. That halo is showing a little tarnish. People are beginning to see that there's nothing particularly special about tinfoil wrapped around a clothes hanger.
Here's that link...
ReplyDeleteObama Health Bill Allows Government Real-time Access to Bank Accounts
Well, Eric. That's pretty freakin' scary. I wonder how that would have gone down if done during Bush's term? Aw, heck, they wouldn't have said nothin'.
ReplyDeleteI'm quite worried that this is the first I've heard of this particular aspect of the bill. This is just the type of thing that needs to be broadcast as loudly as possible. Chances are, few, if any of the bill's supporters even know about this.
Call your reps. Constantly.
I can answer EL's scaremongering.
ReplyDeleteWhat the house healthcare bill describes is generic electronic communication and function abilities pertaining to electronic medical records and communications.
So in the same section that generically describes making electronic payments by bill payers to medical service providers, it also describes ways of moving electronic data back and forth using a central databank.
ooooh scary.
Now if you are looking for conspiracies you can take those very basic generic ideas and spin them into world endangering scenarios. BUT THINK!!!!!
If the governement randomly starts taking money from people with no reason don't you think Congressmen will get off their ass and fix the problem.
IDIOTS!!!!
Whatever plan passes will be subject to continual change by Congress. If we the people don't like the new health reforms then Congress will change them.
It didn't happen with the Bush administration surveillance programs after 9-11, despite what a lot of people on the left feared. It won't happen after this health care reform bill.
If you want to know more check out politifact. But whatever happens the Congress will not be disbanded and the Supreme Court will not be adjourned. America will continue.
You could help though by having a constructive dialog about healthcare reform instead of just shouting NO like a child. What can we do to slow the rising costs of treatment in the US? Why are our health care outcome so much worse than other developed nations? Why do insurance rates increase three times faster than wage growth? These are serious questions that need constructive answers. They can't be put off much longer.
"Barry is chirping about the jobs report for July."
ReplyDeleteYou're just an out and out liar.
His statement was that true recovery is waiting for no job lose postings.
But you guys have no intent to be honorable, so carry on. You're just like the liberal crazies: unhinged from reason and maturity, never advancing anything, much less future generations.
I would also like to point out that the figure EL uses is called the U6 measure of unemployment. It is a bit more extensive than the measure usually used by news outlets.
ReplyDeleteThe U6 measure includes those unemployed and looking for work, as well as those who have given up looking, as well as those who work part-time and want full-time employment. The U6 measure before the recession was 10%
El is right that the cash for clunkers program caused many to by a car now who would likely have bought one soon anyway.
ReplyDeleteBut, the American economy needed the stimulation of lots of car sales now, not in 6 months or a year. Car sale lots are now empty and new production will have to be ordered to refill those lots.
All the secondary effects of these car sales are stimulating the economy.
Which is a good thing.
Here's the article from Politifact that adresses many of these health care reform claims.
ReplyDeleteBut it must always be stressed that so far there is only the house bill. No one has seen the Senate bill. And after both chambers hopefully pass bills and Pres. Obama signs them ,then those bills must still be reconciled. None of this stuff is in stone yet. And even once healthcare reform is enacted, Congress will maintain control over the program.
""Barry is chirping about the jobs report for July."
ReplyDeleteYou're just an out and out liar."
And you're an out and out buffoon. Are you honestly going to try and say that Barry wasn't using this as an indication that his policies are working? Are you that goofy that you would use my expression as a point of contention? You're pathetic. All that education, all those books...
"after both chambers hopefully pass bills and Pres. Obama signs the , then those bills must still be reconciled."
ReplyDeleteWrong. BenT has his bill procedure wrong. The House passes a bill then it goes to the Senate (or vice versa). The Senate passes its own version then it goes to committee to be reconciled. The president does not see or sign ANYTHING until the two bills are reconciled-- down to the crossing of a 't' and the dotting of an 'i' --whereupon each house votes once more to approve the final version of the bill-- each house's version must be identical! Only then is it sent to the president.
"...once healthcare reform is enacted, Congress will maintain control over the program."
Congress hasn't been able to control much of anything without ruining or mismanaging every program to which they’ve set their hand.
They couldn't run their own cafeteria, their own post office, they've failed to properly run Freddie and Fannie, they've fucked themselves into a corner on Social Security (all of us, in point of fact), AND Medicare. They've messed up the Cash for Clunkers, and now we're expected to believe they'll run healthcare any better?
You shout for us "THINK," call us "IDIOTS!!!", and frequently admonish us to not be sheep, but why can't you seem to think critically about Congress' ability to run healthcare? How much of an idiot are YOU for blindly (sheep-like) believing what YOUR handlers tell you about healthcare? Why is it you can't see their failures? But on the off-chance that you do, why is it you think they will succeed in managing 1/6th of our economy TOMORROW, when they've failed to manage all the aforementioned programs YESTERDAY.
Congress is responsible for the failure of Fannie and Freddie... responsible for the subsequent market crash, by insisting... no, DEMANDING, that banks make loans to people who can't afford them.
They've had their fat nasty hands in the Social Security till almost since its inception, and they're still running that Ponzi-scheme full steam ahead despite that looming brick wall ahead!
A few years back YOU balked... BALKED... at the idea of allowing folks to manage their own retirement; to opt out of Social Security if they so chose. Because, you said, it would cost some 3 trillion dollars to make it solvent enough for such a program to pay out to those whom government was obligated to remunerate. Now you're lauding the president and the Democrat leadership for sinking this nation into TEN TRILLION dollars of NEW debt? You can't possibly be that ridiculous! But if you are, God help us all, because if YOUR ideological bent is the future of this country, this country is screwed beyond any saving.
Explain to us why you think it's okay for government to have even a “generic” level of access to your bank account? Why should government be able to know, at any given moment, how much money I have in my account? Even the police and federal agents have to get a court order to look at my bank records, but you don't bat an eye at Congress-- whichever party has control --having the ability to peek whenever they want, or when some partisan bureaucrat desires to dig up some dirt on a rival? "oooh Scary!"
Yes, it is.
"If the government randomly starts taking money from people with no reason don't you think Congressmen will get off their ass and fix the problem."[sic]
Who do you think government is? CONGRESSMEN! From BOTH houses! And Bureaucrats, and Czars (44 at last count)! Congress will not "get off their ass" to fix anything (they haven't fixed Social Security, and they waited for Fannie and Freddie to collapse before they turned their attention toward THAT problem) unless, depending on which party is in power, the opposition party is responsible! Do you see Congress investigating Barney Frank and Chris Dodd for their roles in the collapse of Freddie and Fannie; and by no small measure the economy at large? Of course not. So why should we EVER expect them to police single-payer government-run healthcare?
And for the record, if you think that concerned citizens standing up and shouting “NO” to legislation that is by all accounts harmful to both our personal and economic well-being is childish, perhaps you've forgotten all the times your party did the very same thing. Allow me to also remind you that Democrats had a right to do what they did! Under the 1st amendment they had the right to free speech and peaceful assembly. But now that Republicans and conservatives are doing the same, you want to call them childish. How very immature of you.
ReplyDeleteAnd let me remind of you of one other thing. It was Obama that called in the unions to counter the tea party protesters. It was members of the SEIU that started fights in both St. Louis-- beating up a black man, no less --and Tampa, Fl. That's right, Obama... the man who was to heal racial divides, sicced union thugs on a black man.
"None of this stuff is in stone yet."
Thank God! But here's the Democrat's dilemma. The country is, by an overwhelming majority, opposed to Obamacare. Throughout this debate Congress has been crying for bipartisan support on legislation the nation doesn't need or want, on a bill that doesn't require a single republican vote in either house to pass. Why do Democrats want Republican support? So that when it fails they can point their fingers at Republicans. Democrats are trying to hedge their bets. But if Democrats pass this monstrosity in spite of an obvious national rejection, it will be Democrats who lose out. They will lose. (as an aside, our representative Bobby Bright—a DEMOCRAT –has said he will vote AGAINST this bill.
"Why are our health care outcome so much worse than other developed nations?"
Really? Tell us, BenT... if the American healthcare system is so bad, why do people from all over the world come to the United States for quality healthcare? If the American healthcare system is so abysmally poor, why didn't Ted Kennedy go to France, or Sweden, or Britain, or Canada for brain surgery?
Enact REAL tort reform, reign in the pharmaceutical companies, and you will reduce the cost of healthcare. Allow companies to shop healthcare out to the highest bidder, across state lines, and you'll reduce healthcare. The indigent ALREADY have access to quality medical care. It's called "The Emergency Room". BY LAW emergency rooms HAVE to treat anyone who walks through their doors. Even illegal aliens know that much!
There is no legitimate reason for our failure of a government to take over healthcare. They will only end up destroying healthcare. They will drive out competition and bankrupt private insurance companies. Government will eventually become the sole provider of healthcare. And they will end up rationing care to defray the rising costs. Seniors will be most adversely affected. Euthanasia will be preferred treatment for folks over 60… not the nefarious lethal injection, but the denial of lifesaving procedures and surgery based on age.
Do you not care about the Constitution? That’s a rhetorical question.. I know you don't. If you did, you'd rail against the Federal Reserve (unconstitutional), the Department of Education (unconstitutional), Social Security (unconstitutional), and so on and so forth. If you cared about the Constitution, you'd welcome those whose opinions differ from your own. Instead, you want us to grow up, wise up, and shut up.
Give us one good reason why we should.
wasted on you.
ReplyDeleteExcept for those on shifting. You took to that concept quiet well.
Over at my place, Lone ranger explains what's wrong with the government run health care proposal, in answer to Liberal Jim's question, "Which part of the bill is unconstitutional?":
ReplyDeleteThe 10th Amendment to the Constitution says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The part that is unconstitutional is that the constitution doesn't delegate control of health care to the federal government. Therefore, the health care bill is ALL unconstitutional -- EVERY part of it. The very concept of the government running health care is unconstitutional.
I blame the public schools for no longer teaching civics.
That says it better than I would.
If P-BO care is so awesome, why is Congress specifically exempting themselves from it? What would make these morons think that including illegal aliens in whatever monstrosity that passes is a good idea?
ReplyDeleteFinally, why does P-BO keep saying that X,Y, or Z, is not in the bill? It hasn't been written (in it's final form yet, which cuts both ways), and it sounds like no one has actually read the entire thing(s) anyway. Seems like it would be safe to assume that P-BO is just talking out of his backside, and projecting what he wants.
Anybody got a link to the Pelosi article encouraging dems to do the same kind of protests a few years ago.