Obama to Save Economy by Employing Teens to Keep Them Off Your Lawn

Because Children are the Future

You're doing a heckuva job, Obama. Recent unemployment figures show that we are turning into a nation of hobos, and the reasons behind the economic collapse are, I admit, not all the fault of President O. But we could at least demand that he stop blowing smoke up our asses with hokey numbers from his spendulus plan.

Innocent Bystanders has some analysis on how the figures originally predicted by the administration were way too optimistic. See graph below to further your anxiety:
Now, to silence any criticism that maybe this monstrous $787B program was a lousy idea, Obama says that 600,000 jobs are going to be created this summer. Unfortunately, that number factors in teenage gigs working at the DQ and goofing off behind the cash register at the local Goodwill. CNS explains:

The biggest of the youth jobs program is in Cleveland, where 7,000 teens will be employed to work summer jobs through a $6.4 million program funded by stimulus money. About $3 million went to support 2,500 summer teen jobs in Riverside County, Calif., according to the report. Another 200 California teens will get summer jobs as a result of a $465,000 stimulus grant to Yuba County.

The Desert Sun out of Palm Springs has some more specifics on what kind of jobs the stimulus money created: minimum-wage jobs at state-run buildings so teenagers aren't making trouble during their summer break. Not that teenage employment is a bad thing, but using it to factor into the narrative about economic recovery for the American middle class is a bit sheisty.

Penny-Pinching Obama Offers Up a 0.5% Savings To Monstrous Federal Budget

The Prez held a press conference today outlining cutting federal spending on wasteful programs to a tune of $17 Billion. Sure that sounds like a lot of cash, but it ain't much when you're dealing with $3.5T budget. As an analogy, it'd be like if you were $150,000 in the hole to angry Chinese mobsters, living on $1000/week, and decided it was time to cut back on your Saturday morning bagel with cream cheese and lox. From Political Punch:

The president laid out a number of examples of the more than 100 programs that will face cuts or termination, saying that many of them were outdated or ineffective.

The $17 billion in cuts add up to roughly one half of one percent of the $3.55 trillion budget. Still, the president said the savings are significant.

"These savings, large and small, add up. The 121 budget cuts we are announcing today will save taxpayers nearly $17 billion next year alone. That’s a lot of money, even by Washington standards," he said.

The real problem with the budget is that entitlement spending (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) is out of control, rife with fraud, and will only get worse as the boomers approach geezerdom. In Obama's defense, it's difficult to have the political capital to take on these leviathans, because no politician has the mojo. If Jesus himself came down to become Messiah-in-Chief of America, he probably wouldn't be able to cut back on Social Security without fear of an AARP smear campaign.

When America is reduced to ashes being crushed by its exorbitant debt, remember that Democracy has it's own pitfalls as people tend to vote "What's in it For Me?" instead of any long-term viable strategy for the republic.

Obama's Economic Policies Really Kicking Ass!

Laidoffs in Michigan (the bad kind of laid)

Well, the left has been trying to say that Wall Street hitting the floor faster than a prom dress was not a good indicator of the economy, but what about all those jobs that The Obama promised? The first full month of Obama's America isn't looking to swell either. Dismal news from Reuters:

The U.S. unemployment rate rose to a 25-year high of 8.1 percent in February as employers, buckling under the strain of a severe recession, axed 651,000 jobs, government data showed on Friday.

Adding to the gloom, a combined 161,000 more jobs were lost in January and December than previously believed, the U.S. Labor Department said in its monthly nonfarm payrolls report.

Now, blaming the Prez for all the economic troubles is a bit disingenuous, but continuing to blame Bush & Friends for everything bad with the economy is going to wear very thin among lefty pundits. Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress have already passed multiple bills to "stimulate" the economy and free up credit, but they probably would've been better off spending $787B Taxpayer dollars on some magic beans. And we aren't even experiencing the hyper-inflationary period since we printed a bunch of funny money and dumped into unprofitable banks. Get ready for a wild ride...Wheee!

Stimulus Passes House

Not a single Republican voted for this turd. It's your problem, Democrats.

Geithner Limits Access for Lobbyists to TARP Funds...Then Hires Ex-Lobbyist as Chief of Staff!

It's Good to Be Connected

Geithner, the recently appointed Treasury Secretary who couldn't figure out TurboTax, has vowed to continue giving the imbeciles on Wall Street that ruined the American economy our taxpayer dollars. However, he has vowed to restrict lobbyist access to what's left of $700B TARP bonanza. From WaPo:

"American taxpayers deserve to know that their money is spent in the most effective way to stabilize the financial system," Geithner said in a statement yesterday. "Today's actions reaffirm our commitment toward that goal."

This sounds like a move in the right direction, since the American public has no clue how the first $350B of TARP funds was spent, and all we here from these greedy banks is that they want more. But Geithner is just putting on a dog-and-pony show, because he just hired a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist to be his Chief of Staff. From USA Today:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner picked a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist as a top aide Tuesday, the same day he announced rules aimed at reducing the role of lobbyists in agency decisions.

Mark Patterson will serve as Geithner's chief of staff at Treasury, which oversees the government's $700 billion financial bailout program. Goldman Sachs received $10 billion of that money.

So lobbyists might be barred from stealing your tax dollars under this bailout scam, but it's okay for former ones to be the go-to guy in the Treasury department...W-T-F.

It's long been known that DC is a cesspool of sleaze and corruption, but the Obama administration rode into power vowing to change all that and impose restrictions on former lobbyists working for its staff. But, already there's a Raytheon lobbyist at the DoD, this Goldman Sachs shill, and the "global warming" czar was on the board of directors for a carbon-offsets firm in 2008. Obama must think the American public and media are so stupid that they wouldn't notice these "minor details". Unfortunately, it's already too late to make a difference.

One humorous anecdote from the USA Today article:

Dave Wenhold, of the American League of Lobbyists, said lobbyists bring expertise to the job. "Just because you are registered to lobby doesn't mean that you are evil, " he said.

Maybe not "evil" in the Hitler sense, but having a career based on manipulating public funds to your private employers benefit certainly makes you an asshole.

Stimulus Bill a Big Sloppy BBQ

Obama's stimulus package has little to do with making long-term infrastructure investments and everything to do with dishing out money to keep the government afloat for a few more years while we go deeper into debt. Net Right Nation discusses the details of the stimulus to be voted on today:

But, of course, in the final analysis, that does not mean that the $825 billion legislation will be any less wasteful. Because, it will not matter to the American taxpayer whether the bacon was added to the package piecemeal—or if the entire pig was served up upon introduction, as appears to be the case here.

As ALG News reported yesterday in “The Top-Ten Bottom Feeders,” the debt stimulus has plenty of pork: $300 billion to bail out state governments from record deficits, $4.19 billion for “neighborhood stabilization” that’s really a disguised payout to groups like ACORN that are made eligible for said funds, $650 million for digital TV coupons, and $21 million for sod.

According to top Capitol Hill sources close to the process, instead of the typical earmark process—the Christmas tree decoration approach as described by Mr. Obama in the above quotation—pet projects have been inserted as specific sections of the bill itself. In short, why nickel and dime it, when you can just go whole hog?

Sleazy payday-loan type places are already trying to cash in on the Leskonomics that pervades the Democrat party by promising free government grants and loans. How much longer can our country sustain itself by going further into the stink hole? When we as a nation believe that the government should provide everything from free health care to digital TV coupons, we probably won't be able to last very long.

Guy To Oversee Obama's IRS Goobed Up His Taxes

Sorry we're a bit late on this story, but Obama's nominee for Treasury Secretary, the department that oversees the much-hated IRS, boned up his taxes a few years back. From Fox News:

But as a result of a 2006 audit, Geithner paid $16,732 in back taxes and penalties for the 2003-2004 period. Just before he was nominated, the Obama team found that he had failed to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for the 2001-2002 period as well. Geithner ended up paying to the IRS $25,970 in back taxes and penalties for a total of $42,702 in late payments.

Honestly, can you blame the guy? When even simple investments in mutual funds require complicated forms around the dreaded April 15th deadline (Foreign Tax Credit Deduction...WTF?!?), it's no surprise that even a person with a graduate-level education would goof it up. This should be a sign that Geithner should maybe consider simplifying the tax code. But phonebooks full of laws and regulations keep tax lawyers, DC bureaucrats, and other parasites who provide no value for society gainfully employed. Don't expect any "change" to come to that regulatory-industrial complex.

The Global Warming Commissar

During the campaign, The Obama took some well-deserved heat for having economic policies that reeked of the failed economic model of socialism. The Obamarama water-carriers in the media did everything they could to ensure the campaign wasn't derailed, and they were, of course, successful. That's why news that Obama's new Global Warming Czar was a member of a socialist umbrella organization will be met with yawns. Washington Times has some of the details (h/t GP):

Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama's pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for "global governance" and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.

By Thursday, Mrs. Browner's name and biography had been removed from Socialist International's Web page, though a photo of her speaking June 30 to the group's congress in Greece was still available.

Don't say we weren't warned.

Obama To Reneg on Promises of Massive Tax Cuts, Unicorns

Uh, The Country's Broke Dummy

Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of economics or an 8-year old with an allowance would have understood that Obama made way too costly campaign promises that could never come to fruition. Now, Obama is admitting that times are going to be tough for everybody and all the free shit you thought you voted for yourself isn't coming soon. From Politico:

"George, I want to be realistic here: Not everything that we talked about during the campaign are we going to be able to do on the pace we had hoped," Obama said in brief excerpts released by ABC.

Obama also hinted at future tax increases and spending cuts.

"Everybody's going to have to give," Obama said. "Everybody's going to have to have some skin in the game."

To his credit, I am pleased that Obama is being straight up with the American people and that he has stopped trying to buy the public's support with ridiculous largesse. But if you thought you were getting a pony by voting for your guy, you're a ma-roon.

-Famine

Pardon Us For Not Supporting the Government Gospel

In regards to Obama's big speech on big government spending, Reason is a bit skeptical about the following statement from our President-Elect:

Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy—where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending; where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit.

To parlay this crass intervention, progressive blogger John Amato writes at Crooks and Liars that the era of the "anti-government" mantra is over:

Good government is crucial in restoring this country to prosperity and as we have all witnessed, conservatism has indeed unleashed its destructive influence over every part of our society.

Sorry to not run with open arms into the "pro-government" aura there, Mr. Amato, but the last 30 years have seen the federal government turn our once great inner cities into war zones through misguided policies, run up an obscene national debt plus $50 Trillion in unfunded future entitlements, and scandal after scandal of politicians in the highest ranks of government. Can you blame the skeptics or the majority of Americans who think the federal government is doing a rotten job at managing and leading our nation? Is there any reason to believe that subsidizing the "zombie" banks by printing more money is going to work? Obama might talk a lot about "change", but the 111th Congress that decides on how money is spent is already off to a pretty shaky start. $3.5M in taxpayer money to celebrate St Augustine, FL 450th birthday might be a part of this economic stimulus. And, if it's not on the President's desk Jan. 21st, "More Dreams Will Be Deferred and Denied" according to our savior.

-Famine

Joe "The Terrible" Declares War on America! Evokes the Prose of Jimmy Carter

Why is this man trying to kill us all?

We may have been at war with Islamic extremism since 9/11, but, apparently, you ain't seen nothing yet. Channeling the legendary wisdom of Jimmy Carter's famous malaise speech, where an economic crisis was considered "the moral equivalence of war", our incoming vice prez has taken it a step further and simply declared "We're at War!" in regards to the economy. Politico has the scoop:

Vice-president-elect Joe Biden likened the country’s economic crisis to the attacks of 9/11 Monday in a private meeting on Capitol Hill.

“We’re at war,” Biden told congressional leaders of both parties during their sit-down with Barack Obama in the Capitol, according to two sources familiar with the exchange.

It’s not the first time the vice-president-elect has used stark language to underscore the perilous state of the economy. In an interview last month on ABC’s “This Week,” Biden said that a stimulus package was needed to keep the economy from “absolutely tanking.”

Since the meeting was private, the article is a bit terse on who will be the targets in this new begotten battlefield. Will it be gubernatorial boobs, like The Governator, who ruined their state's economy through irresponsible fiscal spending? Will it be sheisty banks that offered shady loans and made off like bandits during the housing bubble? Or will it be the emerging American tendency to saddle yourself so badly with debt that, in the old days, you would have gotten your legs broken on more than one occasion by the neighborhood loan shark.

Regardless of who we are at war with, Biden seems to be whipping up support for the Obamarama fiscal stimulus package, which promises to inject more funny money into the economy that the government doesn't have. Politico also had an article about the GOP predicting an Obama backlash. As a blogger, I welcome poor policy decisions wrought with bad ideas from the administration, strictly for entertainment value. But as Americans, we should all be shitting in our pants that collapse of the dollar will make America look like Germany in the 1920s, with kids flying around kites made out of Deutschemarks. We all know how that turned out in the end...

-Famine

Economic Devastator Barney Frank Needs Mo'Bama

A Sweaty Mess of a Man Needs a Public Makeover From The Obama

DC Area Boob and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank (D-MA), has his paws all over the economic apocalypse of 2008. After spending the better part of his career taking campaign contributions from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, he said there sheisty lending practices were "not facing a crisis". Since over-inflated housing prices helped pay bigger property taxes for the government to waste more money, Barney continued denying culpability in this modern day crime and even defended his shady policy decisions in a testy exchange with Bill O' Reilly. We all know how this disastrous corruption turned out, as most Americans wonder whether or not there is going to be a Christmas this year.

Now, Barney Frank is kissing the ring of the Messiah to try and salvage his shipwrecked career[AP]:

Democrats are growing impatient with President-elect Barack Obama's refusal to inject himself in the major economic crises confronting the country. Obama has sidestepped some policy questions by saying there is only one president at a time. But the dodge is wearing thin. "He's going to have to be more assertive than he's been," House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., told consumer advocates Thursday. Frank, who has been dealing with both the bailout of the financial industry and a proposed rescue of Detroit automakers, said Obama needs to play a more significant role on economic issues.

Of course, Barney might have trouble schmoozing with a beloved public figure like The Obama, since the guy is apparently a serious asshole according to the Washington Post. But, just getting a head nod from Obama will mean that incompetent yutzes like Frank continue to get elected. A good deal for those in inner DC circles, shitty for the rest of the country.

Funny Lede of the Day: Obama Vows to Cut Back on Bad Programs

Obama might've gotten a customary fist bump for picking Gates as his SECDEF, but his economic policies are still sketchy. A lede in Politico summarizes the mass confusion behind how he's going to pay for all the things he promised:

President-elect Barack Obama is vowing to watch spending carefully even as he plans to push for a stimulus package of $500 billion or more.

The article expounds on Obama's rhetoric that he's going to cut "wasteful spending" and hold back "special interests", but never provides an example. Cruising over to the NYT, they can't even justify their guy's politician-like distractions:

Mr. Obama cited, as an example of the sort of cuts he expects Mr. Orszag and Mr. Nabors to find, a recent government report showing that farmers whose incomes exceeded $2.5 million had probably wrongly been paid some $49 million in government subsidies over a three-year period.

But he did not offer any other specific targets, and by itself, correcting the problem with the farm program would make only a trivially small dent in the budget deficits the federal government will face for years.

$49 million is no small chunk of change, but considering that Obama's entitlement obligations are wracking up well into the trillions, he's going to have to start slashing and burning government spending a little further.

The Obama T-shirts are still selling well amongst college students, perhaps the President-Elect's advisors can start selling this wardrobe for the coming hard times to generate a little revenue.

Santa Claus Part of Obama's Economic Team

Melody Barnes, VP of the progressive think tank Center for American Progress, has been selected to chair the Domestic Policy Council. As the name implies she will be in charge of things like dishing out free housing, welfare, and education so that the new administration can stay in power. She survived being plunked in the drink while she was Ted Kennedy's adviser, so socialized health care is probably going to be one of her big issues. A review of some of her pre-Obama publishings may reveal what type of plans she has in store. She wrote a mock "State of the Union" address in January 2007, blaming everything wrong with America on the Iraq war (a popular sentiment at the time), before revealing her socialized health plan. From WaPo:

To restore fairness to our system, I will embark on a multi-faceted approach including increasing our investment in public education, promoting genuine health care reform, and backing a higher minimum wage.

Domestically, no need is more urgent than fixing our broken health care system. Today, nearly 47 million Americans have no health insurance. And those lucky enough to be insured are seeing the cost of their premiums soar. At the same time, the uninsured cannot afford screening for heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or even get a flu shot -- and our health care system as a whole places far more emphasis on treatment than it does on preventing disease in the first place. As a nation, we dedicate only three percent of our health dollars to health promotion, but over 20 percent of our health care dollars to care in the last year of life. We must guarantee affordable coverage for all Americans.

Just like when you asked Santa Claus for a pony, Americans put their confidence in Obama for outrageous promises, like free health care, that the government does not have the money to pay for. But there's not just going to be disappointed faces like on Xmas morning when The O takes power, it's probably going to be a whole lot worse. Get ready for a wild ride.

-Famine

When Americans do charity themselves...

While Americans seem to have bought into the idea that government can fix their problems and that those mean old republicans don’t care one bit about all those impoverished school children, some regular people continue to set an example for the rest of us.

I found this article my local paper, The Morning Journal, that tells the story of two regular people who left nearly a million dollars to a local public school.

The estate of Richard and Marian Cronowalt has bequeathed $937,253.67 to endow a new scholarship fund for Vermilion schools....
During World War II, Cronowalt served in the U.S. Army in a tank squadron in Africa, Latteman said. Mrs. Cronowalt worked in a defense plant in Lorain. After his time in the service, Cronowalt worked as a crane operator unloading ore freighters at the port of Lorain. They started saving money, quietly building what would become the gift to Vermilion schools.
"They were just hard workers and savers," Latteman said. "They were hard workers and conservative, especially her. She always wanted to pay her own way, she always wanted to be sure she had enough to cover her or him in the rest home."

Here are two people that clearly lived within their means, under their means, to save money to give away. They did not have kids, Mr. Cronowalt worked a blue collar job, and yet they managed this feat.
These are the kind of people I want to be like, and I believe more people would be like, if they didn't count on the government to do their job. They gave to others out of the good that is them, not because the government confiscated their money.
Below is an image from Bowling Green State University showing what the ore yards look like.
Here it looks way more glamorous than it really is. Up close it was a nasty place. They've since torn it down, it blocked the mayor's view of Lake Erie.
This is another example of a veteran who who served his country and proceeded to serve his community. Nice.

More 90s Retro on Obama's Transition Board

At This Rate, Vanilla Ice May Be Head of the Dept. of Energy

Following up on Obama's tendency to bring about a new age of politics by advancing far-left ideas from the 1990s, he has selected various Clinton-era relics for his Economic Advisory Board. Politico has a scoop that Robert Reich, former Clinton Secretary of Labor, and Laura Tyson, Clinton's Head Economic Advisor have all been tapped. These wonks have been safely sequestered at UC-Berkeley during the "rethuglican" rule of the last 8 years. Bu,t hopefully they don't run America into the ground the way the the lavish expenses for the UC system is making the CA state economy teeter on bankruptcy. The Obacalypse also hopes that Robert Reich's advice on Iraq isn't followed by The Obama. From his blog in January 2007:

Let’s be clear: Twenty thousand additional troops won’t quell the violence in Iraq. It will only lead to more American deaths. The civil-war bloodbath there is escalating and it’s out of our hands. The only practical issue here in the U.S., over and above the additional losses of life, is who will be blamed for this slaughter – and its repercussions throughout the region – especially during the runup to the 2008 election.

Luckily for those Americans that were there and the Iraqis, the violence was quelled with additional troops. However, Reich doesn't think much of our military in the first place, as he sees them as underskilled, undereducated rubes with no choice but to suck off the teet of Uncle Sugar. With a crack advisory team like this, Obama's off to a great start.

Obama to Hire Economic Advisor to Ruin America Like She Did Michigan

Everywhere in the U.S.A. To Now Look Like Detroit

Once upon a time, Detroit was a great metropolitan where people flocked to work in the auto factories that provided a decent wage and quality of life. Of course, that was before imbecile politicians like Gov. Granholm (and other union stooges who bankrupted the Big Three) began sending businesses fleeing to the hills with ridiculous tax policies to give away free iPods to students, thereby ensuring they bought the vote with someone else's cash. Since money doesn't grow on trees, the Michigan state government is now begging the feds for a bailout to disguise their gross incompetence.

If this were any kind of a country, Gov. Granholm would have to flee to nearby Canada, but instead she is getting rewarded with a seat on The Obama's economic transition team. From the Detroit Free Press (h/t Moonbattery):

Gov. Jennifer Granholm and former U.S. Rep. David Bonior will serve on a panel of financial luminaries and corporate experts advising President-elect Barack Obama on the nation’s hard-bitten economy, ensuring Michigan, its troubled auto industry and labor has a seat at the table.

Michigan, and its once proud city of Detroit, have been a sad model for what happens when you have high-taxes, high-regulation, political corruption, and handing out free goodies like health care without any concerns for unintended consequences. I suppose Obama is trying to emulate this greatness for the rest of the country.

-Famine