Archive for the ‘The Economy’ Category

Obama’s lack of understanding is beginning to stand out on the world stage. And Timonthy Geithner, the US Secretary of Treasury, is showing his lack of understanding and his lack of independence from the Oval Office.

In a recent decision, the federal reserve has decided to buy $75 billion worth of bonds through mid-2011.

No Understanding of World Economics

Obama’s lack of understanding world economics has made itself obvious in a statement made in Seoul, Korea at the G-20 meeting.

From everything I can see, this decision was not one designed to have an impact on the currency, on the dollar…It was designed to grow the economy.

A basic economics course in international economics at nearly any college or university in the US will teach you that a decision, such as the one to increase the money supply by $75 billion, will make a major impact across the world economy.

Click here to read the Wall Street Journal Article.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Does Obama have anyone studying economic history?

It seems the most powerful man in the world could come up with the resources to review history and see what has pulled our economy out of downturns in the past. But, it is obvious that Obama has not taken such a step.

The administration’s stimulus program has failed. Growth is slow and unemployment remains high. The president, his friends and advisers talk endlessly about the circumstances they inherited as a way of avoiding responsibility for the 18 months for which they are responsible.

But they want new stimulus measures—which is convincing evidence that they too recognize that the earlier measures failed. And so the U.S. was odd-man out at the G-20 meeting over the weekend, continuing to call for more government spending in the face of European resistance.

The contrast with President Reagan’s antirecession and pro-growth measures in 1981 is striking. Reagan reduced marginal and corporate tax rates and slowed the growth of nondefense spending. Recovery began about a year later. After 18 months, the economy grew more than 9% and it continued to expand above trend rates.

Two overarching reasons explain the failure of Obamanomics. First, administration economists and their outside supporters neglected the longer-term costs and consequences of their actions. Second, the administration and Congress have through their deeds and words heightened uncertainty about the economic future. High uncertainty is the enemy of investment and growth.

Most of the earlier spending was a very short-term response to long-term problems. One piece financed temporary tax cuts. This was a mistake, and ignores the role of expectations in the economy. Economic theory predicts that temporary tax cuts have little effect on spending. Unless tax cuts are expected to last, consumers save the proceeds and pay down debt. Experience with past temporary tax reductions, as in the Carter and first Bush presidencies, confirms this outcome. – Allan Meltzer – Wall Street Journal – June 30, 2010

Obama’s first stimulus package failed. If it hadn’t, then he would not be seeking more stimulus measures. So it seems someone in the administration would borrow a play from a previous game plan that has worked in the past.

Uncertainty Halts Investment

“Temporary” doesn’t build confidence in anything. Investors need a reason to invest. And they don’t invest for the short term. They need assurance that they can invest money, balance risk and return, and get to keep a major portion of what they earn. And they need that assurance over an extended period of time.

A Challenge to Obama Supporters:

If you had $1 billion, how would you invest it? What kind of return would you expect to get?

Popularity: 6% [?]

Hope and Change Should Include Private Sector Jobs

Paying people to do nothing will not work forever. Eventually we run out of goods and services. Our economy must have jobs. It must produce. And if we want to remain a free nation, then those jobs must come from the private sector.

Extending Unemployment Benefits Will Not Work

We must give people the incentive to work. Otherwise, people will not work. Individuals are electing to take unemployment benefits vs. taking jobs.

Management Recruiters of Sacramento, Calif., says it recently had a tough time filling six engineering positions at an Oregon manufacturer paying $60,000 a year—and suspects long-term jobless benefits were part of the hitch.

“We called several engineers that were unemployed,” says Karl Dinse, a managing partner at the recruiting firm. “They said, nah, you know, if it were paying $80,000 I’d think about it.” Some candidates suggested he call them back when their benefits were scheduled to run out, he says. – Wall Street Journal 7-7-10

Businesses Need Incentive To Create Jobs

Business has over $2 trillion available to invest ( WSJ Video: Long Recession Ignites Debate on Jobless Benefits).   The questions is “Why aren’t they investing it?” Answer: They don’t know what will happen to their profits. Threats of taking money from successful businesses and investors have been made by Barack Obama since he started his campaign prior to the 2008 election.

National Leaders Must Promote Business

Obama and his followers must promote growth in the economy. That requires the growth of business. That requires an incentive for businesses to invest their money. We will not get businesses to invest their $2 trillion until they are assured that they will get a return on that investment. That will come when they are assured that their profits will not be taken by the US government. The real question is “Can this happen under President Barack Obama?”

Popularity: 2% [?]

While the Obama administration managed to get a $20 billion commitment out of BP to cover spill victims wages and clean up costs, they didn’t think it was enough. They wanted BP to pay the cost of Obama’s drilling moratorium.

BP successfully argued it shouldn’t be liable for most of the broader economic distress caused by the president’s six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. And it fended off demands to pay for restoration of the Gulf coast beyond its prespill conditions. – Wall Street Journal

Just another classic example of Obama trying to pass the buck.

Make Obama Follow His Own Rules

If BP should be required “to pay for restoration of the gulf coast beyond prespill conditions,” then Obama should be required to pay for the restoration of the economy beyond pre-Obama conditions. His threats of higher taxes and government handouts caused businesses to circle their wagons so they could wait and see what to do next. And that brought our economy to the greatest slow down since the Great Depression.

The cost of the damage Obama has caused to the US economy is many times the cost of the damages caused by BP.

Popularity: 8% [?]

What if?

Imagine someone had come to you in the spring of 2008 and told you we would be where we are today. You would not have believed such a transformation could occur. In less than 18 months we have added $2 Trillion to our national debt. Our economy is in it’s worst period since the Great Depression. Our political leaders are contemplating granting amnesty to illegal aliens. And a bill has passed to nationalize the health care system. But it will not be implemented until Obama has left office.

If someone had told you this is where we would be, you would have laughed. Well, here we are.

Obama’s Trip To Buffalo

Obama gives himself credit for saving us from another great depression. You can see it in the video below. He is too short sited to see that our economy didn’t start it’s free fall until he came on the scene in the political arena. The investors in our country saw a man on the way in early 2008. A man who was making promises that couldn’t be kept. Fear caused them to pull there assets our of the US economy. They took their money to China and India. Our stock market plummeted and employers started laying off workers.

President Obama complains about being left with a $1.3 Trillion deficit. But he has added more that $2 Trillion to the deficit in less than 18 months. Where will this be by the time he is thrown out of office in 2012?

Obama talks about keeping the American dream alive, but he is doing nothing to keep the American dream alive. Americans are more dependent on government than they ever have been. Our economy is growing again despite a President who has no experience in how the economy works. Why is it growing? It is growing because we are getting closer to his final days in power.

The Small Business Agenda

Obama tells us we are “on a course that is working”. He talks about the incentives and the loans small businesses are now able to get thanks to legislation he has signed. Factories, stores and other businesses have closed their doors as a result of Obama’s pre-election threats. He threatened higher taxes and he threatened tighter restrictions on businesses. As a result, large businesses with adequate assets took the route of caution. They stopped investing their money in growth. And this killed many small businesses.

Watch The Newly Clothed Emperor Praise Himself:

-

-

We ask you to connect us with businesses that are receiving the benefits Obama talks about. We can’t find them.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Or was Obama just telling ”lies”?

 The promise of change has been fulfilled. But it didn’t bring with it any hope. This nation has changed significantly. It is in the worst economic condition it has been in since the great depression. What will history label this period? Are the bad times even over yet? Who do you know that has entered the work force with a full time job lately?

Things were bad in May of 2009 when Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, said “We are getting what we voted for.” (CNBC 7pm – “Meeting of the Minds: The Future of Capitalism”). Today things are even worse.

Popularity: 4% [?]

In this 2008 video Obama expresses concern about the high gasoline prices that poor Americans are having to pay. So part of his solution to the problem is to tax the oil companies.

.

.
Higher taxes do not lead to lower prices. Giving a voter $1000 tax credit will purchase a vote, but it will do nothing to lower energy prices.

The Obama Administration is financing Brazilian Oil Exploration

From The Wall Street Journal, August 18, 2009:

“The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.”

If he is going to finance Brazilian oil exploration, why will he not do it here in the US?

What has Obama done to, in his words, to “move this country forward” concerning our needs for energy?

Where are we now? And where do we go from here?

Popularity: 3% [?]

James Carville

“It’s the economy stupid” were words spoken by James Carville in 1992 as he helped lead Bill Clinton to a win in the Presidential election over George H. W. Bush.

What should we say today?

If that was the appropriate statement for 1992 the what is the appropriate statement for 2010?

Popularity: 2% [?]