Nemo me impune lacessit

No one provokes me with impunity

____________________________________

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Article 1, Section 9, Constitution of the United States

If this is the law of the land...why in a republic (little r) and as republicans, do we allow mere POLITICIANS to the right to use a "title of office" for the rest of their lives as if it were de facto a patent of nobility. Because, as republicans, this should NOT be the case...just saying...

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Showing posts with label Economic Stimulus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economic Stimulus. Show all posts

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Millions of Green Jobs...NOT!

Barack Obama promised us millions of "green" jobs.  He "invested" billions of dollars of 'stimulus' funds in those businesses.  Most of these are owned by cronies of Obama.  Here's the list.
The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:
  1. Evergreen Solar ($24 million)*
  2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
  3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
  4. Beacon Power ($69 million)*
  5. AES’s subsidiary Eastern Energy ($17.1 million)
  6. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
  7. SunPower ($1.5 billion)
  8. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
  9. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
  10. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
  11. Amonix ($5.9 million)
  12. National Renewable Energy Lab ($200 million)
  13. Fisker Automotive ($528 million)
  14. Abound Solar ($374 million)*
  15. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
  16. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($6 million)
  17. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
  18. Schneider Electric ($86 million)
  19. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
  20. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
  21. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
  22. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
  23. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
  24. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
  25. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
  26. Thompson River Power ($6.4 million)*
  27. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
  28. LSP Energy ($2.1 billion)*
  29. UniSolar ($100 million)*
  30. Azure Dynamics ($120 million)*
  31. GreenVolts ($500,000)
  32. Vestas ($50 million)
  33. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($150 million)
  34. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
  35. Navistar ($10 million)
  36. Satcon ($3 million)*
*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.
The problem begins with the issue of government picking winners and losers in the first place. Venture capitalist firms exist for this very reason, and they choose what to invest in by looking at companies’ business models and deciding if they are worthy. When the government plays venture capitalist, it tends to reward companies that are connected to the policymakers themselves or because it sounds nice to “invest” in green energy.
The 2009 stimulus set aside $80 billion to subsidize politically preferred energy projects. Since that time, 1,900 investigations have been opened to look into stimulus waste, fraud, and abuse (although not all are linked to the green-energy funds), and nearly 600 convictions have been made. Of that $80 billion in clean energy loans, grants, and tax credits, at least 10 percent has gone to companies that have since either gone bankrupt or are circling the drain.
 All of these companies have gone belly up. Not one has produced any real jobs...and all of them have laid off  their production staff.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

August Unemployment

Here's the chart showing unemployment under the "stimulus" package...



and another graphic:


Thursday, November 17, 2011

Congression Budget Office: Stimulus Hurts Growth

According to the CBO, Obama's "stimulus" hurts economic growth in America. Via Newsalert.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

Graph That Sinks Obama

Here's a very simple graph that very well could sink Obama's reelection campaign...but only if enough of us on the right side of the political spectrum get the message out.  After all, the MSM is in the tank for Obama and has been from the very start.  Does anyone believe that POLITICO.com would have published an unsourced story that could hurt Obama....????


Just one simple graph that not just argues against his failed economic agenda, but absolutely shouts down his arguments for his "jobs plan" which is only a smaller version of the "stimulus" that wasn't.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Obama Flip-Flops Again

In the summer of 2009, Mr. Obama clearly states that you don't raise taxex in economic down-turn. 

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In 2011, with his new lazer-like focus on jobs, he's proposing $400 billion dollars in new taxes to off-set his $447 billion dollars spending spree which he wants to bolster SEIU membership by giving huge sums to state and local governments, and maybe do a little construction on the side...Reuters is reporting that,
President Barack Obama is proposing a series of tax increases, mainly on the wealthy, to help cover the cost of a $447 billion economic stimulus proposal, budget chief Jack Lew said on Monday.  Lew said Obama's plan would raise $400 billion over 10 years by placing new limits on itemized deductions for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and families earning more than $250,000.  The rest of the $467 billion in savings would come from raising a smattering of other taxes, including those on corporate jet owners and the oil and gas industry. [emphasis is mine, Ed.]
The definition of insanity is continuing to do an action while expecting the get a different reaction.  The "Stimulus Package" was basically configured much the say way as this "jobs plan" yet was a dismal failure, except to SEIU.  Yet, here Mr. Obama is proposing to do pretty much exactly the same thing.  Keynesian economics has failed in every instance it's been used to "jump start" an economy...why does he think it'll be different this time around?

HT:  GatewayPundit

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Pass This Jobs BIll Now

Valerie Jarret said today on Rachel Madcow's show, "Pass this jobs bill now."...unfortunately, it's not been written yet.

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Now that worked out well, didn't it?

The 1st Stimulus failed to keep unemployment below 8%.  Now, Mr. Obama expects us to believe that his plan that's only half that amount will do any more?  Nope...just a drop in the bucket...good money after bad.  The true definition of insanity is to continue doing an action, and the same result time after time, all the while hoping it will change.

What part of "government doesn't create jobs" doesn't his economic advisors understand?  I guess the part where they have actually worked outside of academia and government and had to produce something other than words, or a teaching plan,  or as for a budget increase from gullible politicians, who understand economy theory even less than they do.

Wealth just doesn't grow on trees, unless you're a politician or academic who hasn't a clue about the real world.  Then it does grow on trees, or government printing presses.  They've run out of other peoples money, and those people are getting pissed.  That's called the Tea Party movement...but as the first genuine grass roots movement in over a century, the politicians have under estimated the anger voters feel.

I think that the election of 2012 will run about how the election in NY9 is going...and that will shock the powers that be to their core.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Obama's Records

Mr. Obama has set a number of records in the 32 months since he was elected president. Here there are:


Unfortunately these aren't records to be proud of...as he attempts to turn America into a 2nd world country...we're very nearly there.  Tonight, he asked (demanded really) Congress to give him another "stimulus package"...which is an admission of sorts, that the 1st one failed miserably. 

The classic definition of insanity is torepeatedly continue doing an action expecting to get a different answer...but getting the same result as the 1st time around.  Borrowing $300 billion dollars to give to states and municipalities so they can avoid layoffs isn't creating jobs.  It's the opposite...government doesn't create jobs, business does...and government isn't either efficient or nimble enough to react well to adverse economic climates...such as today.  Government can only place a brake on business, through heavy handed regulations (such as the Obama administration has implemented.).  This has the effect of detering business from either hiring or spending on new equipment or construction...

Thanks Barack...now will you leave us alone?  Go home already.

Hat Tip for the Pic:  JammieWearingFool

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

It's The Economy Stupid: Chapter 312

Barack Obama, again has refused to take responsibility for the failing economy.  The trillion dollar "stimulus package" that his Democratically controlled Congress rammed through along party lines in 2009 has utterly failed in it's declared goal to keep unemployment below 8% (even the biased "politifact.com" finds that Obama said so...and failed misserably. 

Even that being said, with regulations as welll as currently existing ones costing the economy $1.5 trillion dollars per year, the EPA is set to ramp up even more costly carbon emissions standards. This will cost at least an additional half trillion dollars. So...

Who does Mr. Obama blame for the economy that he and his party have driven over the cliff?  Why you and me! 
A cascade of bad economic and political news knocked President Barack Obama off his game today, and prompted him to revive his 2008-style criticism of his predecessor, and also to suggest that investors, consumers and even the media are responsible for today’s stalled economy.

The blame-game rhetoric – which pollsters say is counterproductive – came during the White House’s joint press conference with Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel. “It is just very important for folks to remember how close we came to complete disaster,” he told the watching TV cameras and reporters.

“The world economy took a severe blow two and a half years ago, and in part that is because of a whole set of policy decisions that had been made, and challenges that have been unaddressed over the course of the previous decade,” he said, standing alongside Merkel, whose economy has rebounded during the last two years.
Of course, it's not his fault, or that of his party...it's ours...you and me. It's the voters fault! That's the ticket, yeah...

Even James Carville, who thought up "It's the economy, stupid," thinks Mr. Obama is in for a rough time.


“[L]ook, I don’t think anybody — if 54,000 new jobs is the new standard, it’s going to be a very, very rough 2012 for President Obama,” Carville said. “But the three-month average was 160,000. If that is the case, then he will do OK. I can’t tell you what will happen. But yes, if this, if this last jobs number is an indication of future job numbers, it’s going to be very, very rough.”
Things are so bad in this administration ecnomic team, that Austan Goolsbee, who lead the Council of Economic Advisors for only 9 months has resigned to return to academia...where he can teach  progressive ideas (that don't work) to future progressive leaders.   Mr. Obama in 2009 formed a "dream team" of economic advisors who would "turn the country around." 
With Goolsbee’s departure, the collapse of the president’s economic team is nearly complete. The first to leave was the president’s original chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, University of California-Berkeley economist Christina Romer. She holds the distinction of predicting an $800 billion stimulus program would bring joblessness down to 8%. Also gone is Jared Bernstein, the actual architect of the stimulus, and the man who was behind Vice President Biden’s “Summer of Recovery.”


Mr. Obama is out of ideas, and almost out of time, while we're almost out of money.  I suspect that he'll keep trying to redistribute it until he's out of office.

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Explosive Video Reich, Obamas economic advisor no "White Male Construction Workers"

Here's how Robert Reich feels about "white construction workers"...and the wasted stimulus package:

Sunday, January 09, 2011

How The Stimulus Package Works...

I received this the other day and didn't get around to posting it for one reason or another...this is what Congress and our state legislatures for that matter are doing to the country...
It is a slow day in the small Saskatchewantown of Pumphandle and Streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.

A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms Upstairs to pick one for the night.

As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.

The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the Local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to Offer her "services" on credit.

The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel Owner.

The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything... However, the whole Town thinks that they are now out of debt and there is a false atmosphere of optimism. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a "stimulus package" works..
This is what government does...it merely  moves money around from one place to another without actually creating anything.  That's the fundamental error of Keynesian Economic theory.  To create wealth, you have to MAKE SOMETHING, not merely move money around.  It'd be nice  if our political masters understood this, but they don't because few of them have ever actually worked for a living.  Most have only known "government service," serving themselves to the public trough.
.

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Friday, December 03, 2010

Keynesian Economics Is Wrong: Economic Growth Causes Consumer Spending, Not the Other Way

Herbert Hoover, Franklyn Roosevelt and Barack Obama have all tried to use an Keynesian economic model to restart failing economies...all three have failed.  Here's why:

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Stimulus Payments...

This is rather amusing...
Sometime this year, we taxpayers will again receive another 'Economic Stimulus' payment.

This is indeed a very exciting program, and I'll explain it by using a Q & A format:

Q. What is an 'Economic Stimulus' payment ?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q.. Where will the government get this money ?
A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money ?
A. Only a smidgen of it.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment ?
A. The plan is for you to use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China ?
A. Shut up.

Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the U.S. Economy by spending your stimulus check wisely:

* If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart, the money will go to China or Sri Lanka .
* If you spend it on gasoline, your money will go to the Arabs.
* If you purchase a computer, it will go to India , Taiwan or China .
* If you purchase fruit and vegetables, it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala ..
* If you buy an efficient car, it will go to Japan or Korea .
* If you purchase useless stuff, it will go to Taiwan .
* If you pay your credit cards off, or buy stock, it will go to management bonuses and they will hide it offshore.

Instead, keep the money in America by:
1) Spending it at yard sales, or
2) Going to ball games, or
3) Spending it on prostitutes, or
4) Beer or
5) Tattoos.
(These are the only American businesses still operating in the U.S. )
Conclusion:
Go to a ball game with a tattooed prostitute that you met at a yard sale and drink beer all day !
No need to thank me, I'm just glad I could be of help.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Obama's Stimulus As Seen In North Dakota

Here's a couple of pictures of Mr. Obama's Stimulus Package...as viewed in Bismark, ND





As they say a picture is worth a thousand words...

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Obama's Failed Stimulus Package Cost More Than Entire Iraq War

Here are some facts about Mr. Obama's spending when compared to the cost of the Iraq War, but first, a graph showing the costs of both:



  • Obama's stimulus, passed in his first month in office, will cost more than the entire Iraq War -- more than $100 billion (15%) more.
  • Just the first two years of Obama's stimulus cost more than the entire cost of the Iraq War under President Bush, or six years of that war.
  • Iraq War spending accounted for just 3.2% of all federal spending while it lasted.
  • Iraq War spending was not even one quarter of what we spent on Medicare in the same time frame.
  • Iraq War spending was not even 15% of the total deficit spending in that time frame. The cumulative deficit, 2003-2010, would have been four-point-something trillion dollars with or without the Iraq War.
  • The Iraq War accounts for less than 8% of the federal debt held by the public at the end of 2010 ($9.031 trillion).
  • During Bush's Iraq years, 2003-2008, the federal government spent more on education that it did on the Iraq War. (State and local governments spent about ten times more.)

  

Friday, July 23, 2010

Us vs Them

By
JP Bender

An age old proven method, to attain and control the political agenda of arrogant, elite, propagandists in their pursuit to control a nation.


In dictatorships like Adolph Hitler, Idi Amin, Benito Mussolini, Kim Jong Il, Fidel Castro, etc., the Us vs. Them philosophy was used to demonize those not in the inner circle and to sway the citizens into a frenzy for hypnotic support.

It has always been an effective way to seize power in dictatorships. Blame others for past problems, constantly hammer away that we know better than the common man and we will make your life better from the cradle to the grave. Once in power the common man is quickly forgotten and is no longer a factor.

Now the Us vs. Them approach has gained a newfound foothold, not in a dictatorship in a foreign country but in a democracy – right here in America.

Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, along with a host of whore “journalists,” have successfully convinced America that it is Us vs. Them.

The mantra that it was all ‘George W. Bush’s fault’ started the demonizing within hours of Obama’s swearing in ceremony. You remember that day – when millions of Americans were told that hope and change was now a reality. That mantra continues to this day and if you don’t hear it five times a week you must be in the Antarctica.

We were assured that the new administration would be open and transparent and would operate on a bipartisan basis, after all this was a new dawn and Americans would come first.

We quickly were told, by Pelosi and Reid, that bipartisanship was not possible because the president had a congress with a majority to stop filibusters and he didn’t need minority support. The republicans were obstructionists because they wouldn’t support the White House’s agenda.

We soon learned that trillions would overshadow wild spending by Bush; but it all started when Bush wasted a mythical five trillion surplus handed to him by Bill Clinton. Radical programs, unpopular with Americans, were rammed through Congress, without reading them to find faults and their true costs. Step by step, Obama is building a record of major legislation that's equal to that of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Obama has given us the most sweeping financial regulation since the Great Depression, provided the expansion of health care, which Democrats have wanted for more than six decades. A $862-billion stimulus package that locked in long-sought Democratic priorities.

Despite the fact economy remains shaky. Obama went further with a big-government, big-deficit approach than some voters wanted, notably independents, who now have turned against him. Obama has broken some of his own promises in the process thus becoming a backroom deal-making politician to get his health care reform package. But the loyal members of the liberal media don’t cover this part of the news.

Americans give the president mixed reviews. According to the latest Gallup Poll, only 44 percent approve of his performance in office, while 48% disapprove.

Obama’s biggest problem is that unemployment remains high and people are worried about their jobs, their paychecks and, if they have any, their savings.

The White House reported last week that the economic stimulus had saved or created about 3 million jobs. Some tout that success while others don’t think it is a reasonable estimate. The liberal news media accepts that finding equal to the word of God. But most don't buy hypothetical conclusions, because Obama said that unemployment would stay below 8 percent, if Congress enacted his stimulus package; instead, it jumped past 10 percent and is now hovers at 9.5percent.

Many question benefits yet from such major initiatives as healthcare, which is being phased in over several years. The price tag has already risen by $250 billion according to the Office of Management and Budget. It seems in their haste to provide data, some issues were overlooked.

The White House is preparing to launch a new summertime campaign to turn that around. This past Friday, senior White House adviser David Axelrod stressed the president's achievements, and said the political benefit would take care of itself.



"Obama’s motivation was not politics. Someone once said that good government is good politics, and it's certainly true," Axelrod said, referring to a quote from the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.



Axelrod cited the new financial regulations that will protect credit card users and mortgage borrowers, the health care law's guarantee of insurance for people with pre-existing medical conditions and the student loan overhaul's expansion of aid to college students. The news media reported all of this without questioning or verifing.



If we have learned anything in the first 18 months of the Obama administration, there are two important points to remember; it is all George W. Bush’s fault and it’s Us vs. Them. What happened to the We as in We The People?

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Bailouts Reach $3.7 Trillion Dollars

The federal government has spent $3,700,000,000,000.00 on bail outs so far in this presidency...from Reuters,
"Indeed, the current outstanding balance of overall Federal support for the nation's financial system...has actually increased more than 23% over the past year, from approximately $3.0 trillion to $3.7 trillion -- the equivalent of a fully deployed TARP program -- largely without congressional action, even as the banking crisis has, by most measures, abated from its most acute phases," the TARP inspector general, Neil Barofsky, wrote in the report.  The total includes Federal Reserve programs and a myriad of asset guarantees, including Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. protection for bank deposits.
...so much for the recovery summer.  Eventually, the government will run out of our great-great grandchildrens money and stop throwing good money after bad.  Keynesian economics doesn't work.  It didn't work during the depression, and it hasn't worked now.  By all measures, except those used by this administration, the stimulus spending has utterly failed to do what it was designed to do...and is only making matters worse.

It's time for the government, and the US Congress to stop spending money like drunken sailors.  We can't afford it, and our decendants whom will ultimately end up footing the bill can't afford it either.  Ours will be the first generation who leaves the country in significantly  worse shape than we received from ourt parents generation.  That should be enough of a reason to stop such profligracy, but I doubt it will.

Friday, July 02, 2010

Stimulus Package Failed To Help Economy

Just 25% of voters nationwide believe the economic stimulus package created jobs and voters are counting on decisions made by business owners more than government officials to create the jobs needed by the nation.  The new survey found that just 29% believe last year’s economic stimulus plan has helped the economy while 43% believe it hurt. Not surprisingly, there is little appetite for another round. By a 69% to 15% margin, voters believe tax cuts is a better way to create jobs rather than more government spending.  Ultimately, though, voters are looking to the private sector to create jobs. Sixty-five percent (65%) say that decisions made business owners seeking to grow their business will do more to create jobs than decisions made by government officials. Just 23% expect the government officials to have a bigger impact.
This just goes to show that very few Americans  believe that the government can do anything economy to grow the economy.  On the other hand a majority believe that the government can actually hurt the economy by spending more money.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Study Shows Government Spending Slows Job Growth

A new research study by Harvard's Business school professors, Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval, and Christopher Malloy shows that when government spends money in a Congressional district or state, that businesses stop growing. Imagine that, when your government spends money in your state business don't invest money in either capital improvements or in hiring new employees.
companies experienced lower sales and retrenched by cutting payroll, R&D, and other expenses. Indeed, in the years that followed a congressman's ascendancy to the chairmanship of a powerful committee, the average firm in his state cut back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent, according to their working paper, "Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?"

"It was an enormous surprise, at least to us, to learn that the average firm in the chairman's state did not benefit at all from the unanticipated increase in spending," Coval reports.
Now, what effect did the "stimulus package" and the various bailouts have upon the economy as a whole? When the government, in a 5 month period spent a minimum of $1.5 trillion dollars to, first prop up failing corporations (banks, investment firms, and GM/Chrysler) and then in the hugely ineffective porkulus package, it literally sucked the life out of the credit industry by taking those funds that would have been used by business to grow and expand and sank it into long term government bonds. That had the effect of stifling the ability of small business and then the construction industry who need easily available credit in order to conduct day to day business operations.

Small business need credit for operating capital in order to purchase necessary materials. The construction industry does so even more...for example, a housing construction company (as well as commercial firms) need to borrow money to purchase materials to build homes...when that money is available in much smaller increments, fewer houses are built. It's the same for large construction firms as well. When you build/manufacture less, you need fewer workers...fewer workers mean fewer available jobs, that means less taxes are raised...smaller tax revenue means municipalities/counties/states have less money to operate on...

Their conclusion is simple. The government shouldn't spend money to stimulate the economy. Reducing taxes and the increase in available money for loans will...have a much more positive effect.
Our findings suggest that they should revisit their belief that federal spending can stimulate private economic development. It is important to note that our research ignores all costs associated with paying for the spending such as higher taxes or increased borrowing. From the perspective of the target state, the funds are essentially free, but clearly at the national level someone has to pay for stimulus spending. And in the absence of a positive private-sector response, it seems even more difficult to justify federal spending than otherwise.