This is what happens when you try to practice Keynesianism in the real world. I could do the same by maxing out all my credit cards. It would work really well as long as I had a perpetual ‘bailout’ to save me from bankruptcy.
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The US lost an additional 85,000 jobs in December bringing the yearly total of job loss to 2.5 million and increasing the unemployment rate to 17.3 nationwide.
With this news in mind, the Obama administration is pushing a 1 trillion government takeover of student loans through Democrat senator Tom Harkin’s HELP committee. This scheme will eliminate private lenders, in turn adding more citizens to the growing unemployment number and end up giving the government sole control over student loans. This will drastically impact everyone’s ability to decide how they will finance a university education. If it is anything like the healthcare bill, with politics trumping coverage, will some states benefit because their Senator held his or her vote in exchange for more goodies, leaving the other states to pick up their tab?
“My guiding principle is and always has been that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. That’s how the market works.” (Obama’s speech to Congress,9/9/09)
What happened to choice and competition? With the federalization of GM, banking institutions and healthcare, what real choices will American’s have available to them in the marketplace?
Dear readers – due to pressing personal issues I will be putting MidnightBlue on hiatus till December 22nd. No worries folks, the personal issues are good issues and I will be more than happy to share the news with you in a few weeks time. In the meantime, please check out the following blogs doing the job the MSM refuses to do:
There’s a lot of hot air in Copenhagen – Watts Up With That has the story covered.
Grossly mismanaged and 2 billion over budget, the results of the Cash for Clunkers has been released by the Dept of Transportation. The top 10 new vehicles purchased:
1. Toyota Corolla 2. Honda Civic 3. Toyota Camry 4. Ford Focus FWD 5. Hyundai Elantra 6. Nissan Versa 7. Toyota Prius 8. Honda Accord 9. Honda Fit 10. Ford Escape FWD
Note: Government Motors (GM) did not make the cut. We spent billions to bail out the company and we can’t pay people to buy the car? This is the same government asking Americans to trust them with their health care.
AOL Auto notes that in the same period, charities that provide a tax rebate for used cars saw a dramatic decrease in donated cars. This downturn made it more difficult for families that could have benefited from an inexpensive car.
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Via Fox News – Cash for Clunkers a success for foreign car dealers:
The Obama administration has declared the wildly popular ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program a success, saying it has revived the country’s ailing auto industry and taken polluting vehicles off the road.
But the data shows that the program, which ends Monday, has apparently benefited foreign automakers more than their U.S. counterparts.
Smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles like the Toyota Corolla are top sellers, while buyers are trading in SUV’s like the Ford Explorer to be scrapped, turning the already dwindling number of American car owners into the growing ranks of foreign car drivers.
Toyota vehicles accounted for 19.2 percent of the 489,269 sales, while General Motors had the second spot at 17.7 percent.
I will admit I love my Mini Cooper, so this comes as no surprise to me.
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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Sunday the government would release electronic records about the program, and President Barack Obama has pledged greater transparency for his administration. But the Transportation Department, which has collected details about 157,000 rebate requests, won’t release sales data that dealers provided showing how much U.S. car manufacturers are benefiting from the $1 billion initially pumped into the program.
The Associated Press has sought release of the data since last week. But the public and Senate Republicans demanding more information will have to wait for details because federal officials running the program don’t have time to turn over data delivered by car dealers, said Rae Tyson,National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. spokesman for the
LaHood said in an interview Sunday he would make the electronic records available. “I can’t think of any reason why we wouldn’t do it,” he said.
DOT officials already have received electronic details from car dealers of each trade-in transaction. The agency regularly analyzes the data internally, producing helpful talking points for LaHood, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs and other officials to use when urging more funding.
LaHood, the program’s chief salesman, has pitched the rebates as good for America, good for car buyers, good for the environment, good for the economy. But it’s difficult to determine whether the administration is overselling the claim without seeing what’s being sold, what’s being traded in and where the cars are being sold.
Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz (D-13), who bills herself as a fiscal paragon, was quick to spend another 2 billion of tax payer dollars to bailout this mess. A quick yes vote when the details regarding the first expenditure are kept hidden from the public is a hallmark of fiscal irresponsibilty. Has the Congresswoman mislead her constituents? What has Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz done for you lately – besides spend your tax dollars?
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Been busy this weekend – a family member underwent emergent triple bi-pass surgery, started repainting the master bedroom and begun training for a 5K charity run scheduled for September.
However, the world still turns and I’ve a few stories and videos I’d like to share with my readers.
CraptasticKlavan
Fast Eddie on Hannity pushing the stimulus coolaid, and giving no indication of permanent jobs being created by stimulus funds in Pennsylvania:
Obamacare and a dose of chemically induced reality:
Last night, President Obama appeared to have taken the blue pill before his press conference. How else could he convince himself, the Congressional Budget Office’s numbers notwithstanding, that his health care reform bill will not increase both health care costs and the federal deficit? How else can he continue to make the argument that a massive expansion of government spending on health care will solve rather than exacerbate the current problems?
Congressman John Fleming has proposed a resolution asking for those legislators who vote for Obama’shealthcare scheme to enroll in the program.
I have offered a resolution that will offer members of Congress an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is, and urge their colleagues who vote for legislation creating a government-run health care plan to lead by example and enroll themselves in the same public plan.
You can view the names of the Reps that signed on to HR 615 HERE . Note – every cosponsor has one thing in common – an “R” after their name. Why is there not one Democrat, armed with the courage of their conviction, stepping up to support Obamacare in this manner? Their silence is damming, don’t you think? Thank You Representative Joe Pitts - you make me proud to live in Pennsylvania.
President Obama is growing government outrageously, and it’s immoral and it’s uneconomic, his plan that he tries to sell America. His plan to “put America on the right track” economically, incurring the debt that our nation is incurring, trillions of dollars that we’re passing on to our kids, expecting them to pay off for us, is immoral and doesn’t even make economic sense. So his growth of government agenda needs to be ratcheted back, and it’s going to take good people who have the guts to stand up to him, stand up to him and debate policy, not personalities, not partisan politics, but policy to effect the change that we need there
Washington Post: U.S. spending in perspective. Take a good look at items F and G:
This is NOT factoring Obama care, Global Poverty Tax (.7% of our GDP) and a potential second spending bill that the Dems are polling.
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Has the Democrat “Stimulus” done its job? President Obama thinks so. House Republicans offered Real Solutions for a Real Recovery.
Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to ask Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa) to name ONE ’shovel ready’ project in Philadelphia County during a telephone conference. She could not name any, but assured me that there were ‘hundreds’ scheduled. Scrambling for an example, she pointed out that our SEPTA stations will be spruced up thanks to the spending bill. The problem with that is SEPTA already budgets for maintenance of the stations.
In a television interview Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden left the door open for a “second stimulus” that some economists think could be necessary, and a couple of polls on Monday suggested why that could be a heavy lift: Voters say they’re very concerned about the deficit and dislike the idea of more spending. ….. In a survey presented to the Aspen Institute last week, pollster Doug Schoen found that, by 56 percent to 37 percent, the public is opposed to the notion that government “should spend money to stimulate the national economy, even if it means increasing the budget deficit.”
It is okay, our financial future is in the hands of people who have trouble spelling Obama’s first name:
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