Complete ‘Controlled’ End Of America! What Could Go Wrong?

By Susan Duclos

 Reading over at ZeroHedge leaves me with a single burning, very sarcastic question...... "what could go wrong?'

 It appears that the US government is about to fully crash the economy, deliberately, and the "geniuses" running the show, aka clowns, are about to attempt to "control the collapse," of our very nation.

 Think about it, the people who had three years to prepare healthcare websites to watch them crash and burn within days of launching, the people that have opened our borders to the point where now our military is preparing for a pandemic of epic proportions, the people that decided it would be a grand idea to hand over massive amounts of weapons in a sting operation called Fast and Furious and then LOST those weapons, the people that were so incompetent that an American consulate was attacked and four Americans were slaughtered while those that could help were told to "stand down," in Benghazi, as just a few examples........ this same Obama regime is now going to try to control an economic collapse that many believe will be the complete end of America as we know it.

 I repeat... what could go wrong? 

Via ZeroHedge:

So just maybe the Fed fully intends on heeding the advice of the BIS, and is strategically positioning itself as a stalwart dove to shield itself from the public fallout of it’s orchestrated financial calamity. A particularly sound play from a political perspective in the event that things don’t go as smoothly as planned.

One thing is certain at this point: An intentionally orchestrated crash is the direct recommendation of the BIS, per it’s annual report. That this action exists as a potential policy measure is now confirmed.

The remaining question is: Would the Federal Reserve pursue such a policy measure openly, or behind the same curtains from which most of their historic policies were enacted.

Is everyone feeling warm and fuzzy yet?


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Cross posted at Before It's News

Last Signal Economy Just Died – X22Report

By Susan Duclos

Dave from the X22Report has an excellent rundown of events from the escalation in the Ukraine crisis to the actions and rhetoric from both the US and Russia, but it is at the beginning of his show where he explains what is happening and how all eyes are being deliberately focused on the "stock market," which is totally separate from the "economy," and what is being ignored is the retail stores closing, the layoffs, the people leaving the workforce, the unemployment, etc..... and as happened in 1929, that is the "last signal" the economy just died.

For those that do not want to listen to the entire segment, this portion comes before the other topics at the beginning of the video below.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's words should send chills down everyone's spine when she promises to "do all that I can" to save the national economy.

If that doesn't project just how close we are to a total wipeout, what does?

Cross posted at Before It's News

ALERT! Debt Ceiling To Collapse 'Super-Leveraged' America (Video)

By Susan Duclos

AMTV's Christopher Greene explains why raising the US debt ceiling again when the spending is still so out of control will collapse America.

Greene explains the quick basics about how on October 17, 2013, if no deal is reached in Washington DC on the debt limit, America will default. He snarkily asserts it is likely Obama will come flying in like Superman in a cape and "save the day," but then goes on to explain how that won't save the US, but will instead destroy Her.

Cross posted at Before It's News

U.S. Citizenship Renunciations Surge Sixfold In Second Quarter From Year Earlier (Video)

By Susan Duclos

The number of U.S. taxpayers renouncing citizenship or permanent-resident status surged sixfold bringing it to a record high number of people fleeing the United States as the Obama administration prepares to introduce tougher asset-disclosure rules.

Via Paul L. Caron, Pepperdine University School of Law, "A total of 1,130 names appeared on the latest list of renunciations from the IRS, according to Andrew Mitchel, a tax lawyer in Centerbrook, Conn., who tracks the data. That is far above the previous high of 679, set in the first quarter, and more than were reported in all of 2012."

Even before this latest quarterly report the numbers were astoundingly high. From the first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2013 more Americans have renounced their U.S. citizenship under Barack Obama than the combined amount from the beginning of 1998 to the end of 2008.

While these former American  taxpayers will be forced to pay an exit tax, the money they take with them will be now spent elsewhere, helping another country's economy, opening businesses, buying homes, cars, etc....

According to experts, 2013 is on pace to see the highest number of citizen renunciations ever.

Temp Service Is The Second Largest Employer In America- Welcome To The Obama 'Recovery'

By Susan Duclos

According to statistics compiled from the Government Accountability Office, Bureau of Labor Statistics, S&P Capital IQ and iSuppli, the largest employer in America is Walmart and the second largest employer is Kelly Services, a is a temp service, which connects employers with temporary workers for a variety of needs.

Walmart and temp firms like Kelly Services employ about six in seven of the nation’s workers. Approximately 2.7 million Americans are working in temporary jobs.


In June, the household survey reported that part-time jobs spiked by 360,000 to 28,059,000, which is an all time high. Full time jobs are down 240,000.

According to the latest jobs report, unemployment stayed at 7.6 percent while underemployment, meaning part time or temporary jobs, rose to 14.3 percent.

Welcome to the Obama recovery. The  worst recovery in U.S. history.




(Video replacement found at Gateway Pundit)

The Illusion Of US Economic Recovery Fades, Stock Market Comes Unglued

By Susan Duclos

Consider this analogy before reading the excerpted quotes from a Washington Post article explaining why stock markets are "freaking out."

You have a business, run badly, spending more than it takes in and is going broke. An investor comes to the rescue and pumps a million dollars into the business, but the underlying management problems that caused it's failure aren't addressed. The business keeps it's doors open, pays their employees and generally gives the illusion everything is fine...... until the money runs out and the investor decides to not keep throwing good money after bad, and the business fails yet again.

Consider America the business and the Federal Reserve the investor.

Now, over to the Wonk Blog attempting to explain why global markets are "freaking out."

This isn’t a crisis like the ones that struck the United States starting in 2008 or Europe in 2010. Rather, it is a byproduct of the world’s central banks, having intervened on vast scale to deal with the economic travails of the last several years, introducing uncertainty and even a little chaos as they start to contemplate how and when the era of easy money might end.

Over the last five years, the Federal Reserve has injected more than $2.7 trillion in newly created dollars into the financial system and is continuing to add to that total to the tune of $85 billion a month. But in a news conference Wednesday, chairman Ben S. Bernanke made clear that the central bank expects to start pulling back the throttle later this year and ending the purchases entirely, if the economy cooperates, next summer.

That was enough to spark a sell-off on bond markets, which drove the interest rate the U.S. government must pay to borrow money to rise to its highest level since October 2011. Those higher rates will soon translate to higher home mortgage rates for ordinary Americans, putting one of the support struts of the economy, the housing rebound, at risk.  Home builders’ stocks fell particularly steeply on Thursday.

 [...]

The Fed’s actions — and now its potential unwinding of those actions — have had global ramifications, and Bernanke’s comments Wednesday triggered a flurry of activity in Asian markets overnight. As traders grappled with the possibility of a world less awash in dollars, borrowing costs skyrocketed across the globe, particularly in emerging markets. For example, the cost for the Indonesian government to borrow money for a decade rose more than half a percentage point, to 4.8 percent; similarly eye-popping interest rate increases occurred in countries including Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Russia, and Poland.

America's economic "recovery", determined to be the weakest and feeblest in U.S history, has been an illusion. Between the Obama/Democrats' $830+ billion stimulus package and the Feds so-called quantitative easing, the Feds keep printing money and pumping into the economy to give the illusion that it is recovering.

[Update] A quick PS here- I am not an economist, I am an ordinary America with bills to pay who understands that I cannot continuously spend more money than is in the bank. Eventually credit cards will hit their limits and the choice will be, either tighten my belt (stop spending so much) or lose my utilities and roof over my head and food on my table.

Too bad Washington has forgotten what the words "balanced budget" means.

Federal Study: Projected Slowing Economic Growth Due To Tax Hikes, Not Spending Cuts or Sequestration

By Susan Duclos

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco issued a study on the economic growth and slow recovery process as well as the projected slowing growth over the next few years and find that "surprisingly" the "excess fiscal drag on the horizon comes almost entirely from rising taxes."

While our estimates show that fiscal policy has held back the recovery slightly to date, the effect over the next three years looks much bigger. The CBO projects that the federal deficit as a share of GDP will drop 1.4 percentage points per year over the next three years. This projection would ease slightly to 1.2 percentage points per year if sequestration spending cuts were reversed. By contrast, our calculation of the historical-norm deficit decline through 2015 is 0.4 percentage point per year based on the CBO’s output gap projections. This implies that the excess drag from the rapidly shrinking deficit would reduce real GDP growth annually by between 0.8 and 1.0 percentage point, depending on whether sequestration is reversed. Thus, with or without sequestration, fiscal policy is expected to be a much greater drag on economic growth over the next three years than it has been so far.

Surprisingly, despite all the attention federal spending cuts and sequestration have received, our calculations suggest they are not the main contributors to this projected drag. The excess fiscal drag on the horizon comes almost entirely from rising taxes. Specifically, we calculate that nine-tenths of that projected 1 percentage point excess fiscal drag comes from tax revenue rising faster than normal as a share of the economy. As Panel B shows, at the end of 2012, taxes as a share of GDP were below both their historical norm in relation to the business cycle and their long-run average of about 18%. However, over the next three years, they are projected to rise much faster than our estimate of the usual cyclical pattern would indicate. The CBO points to several factors underlying this “super-cyclical” rise, including higher income tax rates for high-income households, the recent expiration of temporary Social Security payroll tax cuts, and new taxes associated with the Obama Administration’s health-care legislation.

As of January 2013, the Obama administrations economic policies have caused what is officially the worst U.S. recovery in history.

Seven charts showing comparisons to other recoveries can be found at Business Insider.

 H/T Washington Examiner

Quote of the Day From POWERLINE on "Surprise, Unexpected" Manufacturing Downturn

By Susan Duclos

RE: Bloomberg's Article headlined "Surprise Manufacturing Downturn Holds Back U.S. Growth: Economy," where the first paragraph says "Manufacturing (NAPMPMI) in the U.S. unexpectedly shrank in May at the fastest pace in four years, showing slowdowns in business and government spending are holding back the world’s largest economy."

POWERLINE points out why it isn't a surprise, nor unexpected news:

America’s slow-to-nonexistent economic growth, of which today’s manufacturing data are one of many symptoms, is the result of bad government policies: out-of-control regulations, excessive and inefficient government spending, rising tax rates and the impending disaster of Obamacare, to name the most obvious ones. Until observers are willing to acknowledge the extent to which poor government drags down the economy, they will continue to be surprised by unexpected bad news.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Gallup Polls Show Obamacare Really Bad For Businesses And Hiring

By Susan Duclos

A pair of Gallup polls, taken together, show some really bad news for the economy due to Obamacare and the unintended consequences of Obama and Democrats' heatlh care law.

Starting with poll results from Gallup released on May 10, 2013, half of U.S. businesses feel Obamacare will be bad for them and 41 percent are holding off hiring because of Obamacare.

It gets worse:

When asked if they had taken any of five specific actions in response to the ACA, 41% of small-business owners say they have held off on hiring new employees and 38% have pulled back on plans to grow their business. One in five (19%) have reduced their number of employees and essentially the same number (18%) have cut employee hours in response to the healthcare law. One in four owners (24%) have thought about eliminating healthcare coverage for their employees.

Implication, via Gallup:

However, more important for the U.S. economy in the short term is what small-business owners say they are already doing in anticipation of the new law's continuing implementation. About four in 10 say they are holding off on hiring and new growth plans. About one in five say they are letting people go or cutting employees' hours. Even after discounting small-business owners' political views, these actions suggest the ACA could be a significant drag on the U.S. economy -- at least in the short term.


The next poll result release from Gallup is from the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index survey, released on May 28, 23.

That survey shows that four in 10 small-business owners say they have held back on hiring, and one in five owners say they have let employees go, due to the healthcare costs associated with the Affordable Care Act. As implementation of the law continues, the number of small-business owners who take these steps could increase.

Recent related news:

CNN/ORC International Poll: 54% Still Opposed To Obamacare

Involuntary Part-Time Workers Increases By 278,000 to 7.9 Million

By Susan Duclos

Flashback to what I said on on   Saturday, December 01, 2012 in regards to Obamacare forcing businesses to cut workers' hours:

Here is what is going to happen, in a nutshell.

More people are going to be working, unemployment may even start going down, but those workers will not have enough hours at their jobs to support themselves and/or their families, which means food stamp usage which is already at historic highs, will surge even higher, poverty levels will also surge and median income which has just hit 43 year lows, is going to plunge even more.

Last but not least, families will have less money to live on, therefore less money to pump into the economy, and  GDP growth which is already at sustained lows, will stay low and possibly slow down even more.

Welcome to Obama's Economy.

 Now let's take a look at what is happening today:

As reported earlier unemployment dropped to 7.5 percent according to the latest BLS report, and the optimistic news was that the drop finally came from a gain in employment, rather than a drop in the labor force, although labor force participation is still down at 1979 levels.

AEIdeas notices a very concerning trend in that "gain"  in employment, being the increase of "involuntary part-time workers."

While the American economy added 293,000 jobs last month, according to the separate household survey, the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons — “involuntary part-time workers” as the Labor Department calls them – increased by almost as much, by 278,000 to 7.9 million. These folks were working part time because a) their hours had been cut back or b) they were unable to find a full-time job. At the same time, the U-6 unemployment rate — a broader measure of joblessness that includes discouraged workers and part-timers who want a full-time gig – rose from 13.8% to 13.9%.

What’s more, there wasa  0.2 hour decline in the length of the average workweek. This led to 0.4 percentage point drop in the index of average weekly hours, “equaling the largest declines since the recovery began,” notes economist Dean Baker of Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Let’s see, more part timers and fewer hours worked. Economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin says what we’re all thinking: “This is not good news as it reflects the reliance on part-time work. … the decline in hours and rise of part-time work is troubling in light of anecdotal reports of the impact of the Affordable Care Act.”

AEIdeas headlined the article quoted above with "Part-time Nation: Was the April jobs report really the Obamacare jobs report?"

Why yes, it is and many of us, like my own flashback from December 2012 shows , knew it would happen.


Related:

Estimated 2.3 Million Workers At Risk To Lose Hours Due To Obamacare

2008 Recession Rinse And Repeat: Obama Pushes Banks To Make Sub-Prime 'Toxic' Mortgage Loans

By Susan Duclos

"Obama administration pushes banks to make home loans to people with weaker credit" is the headline over at Washington Post today.

The Obama administration is engaged in a broad push to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place.

Skeptics say?

Takes less than a minute to come up with a variety of links to the cause of the 2008 recession.

Cause of 2008 Recession 

Irrational exuberance in the housing market led many people to buy houses they couldn't afford, because everyone thought housing prices could only go up. In 2006, the bubble burst as housing prices started to decline. This caught many homeowners off guard, who had taken loans with little money down. As they realized they would lose money by selling the house for less than their mortgage, they foreclosed. An escalating foreclosure rate panicked many banks and hedge funds, who had bought mortgage-backed securities on the secondary market and now realized they were facing huge losses.

By August 2007, banks became afraid to lend to each other because they didn't want these toxic loans as collateral. This led to the $700 billion bailout, and bankruptcies or government nationalization of Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, IndyMac Bank, and Washington Mutual. By December 2008, employment was declining faster than in the 2001 recession.

Those "toxic loans" are  sub-prime mortgages.

What is a sub-prime mortgage?

So glad you asked.

A sub-prime mortgage is a type of loan granted to individuals with poor credit histories (often below 600), who, as a result of their deficient credit ratings, would not be able to qualify for conventional mortgages. Because sub-prime borrowers present a higher risk for lenders, sub-prime mortgages charge interest rates above the prime lending rate.

 The result:

Many lenders were more liberal in granting these loans from 2004 to 2006 as a result of lower interest rates and high capital liquidity. Lenders sought additional profits through these higher risk loans, and they charged interest rates above prime in order to compensate for the additional risk they assumed. Consequently, once the rate of sub-prime mortgage foreclosures skyrocketed, many lenders experienced extreme financial difficulties, and even bankruptcy.

Read more about "The Fuel That Fed The Sub-Prime Mortgage Meltdown."

Banks making toxic sub-prime mortgage loans and the fallout, which led to the 2008 recession, and now seeing that Obama is pushing banks to do it all over again, makes it quite understandable why conservatives are using the word insane as they write about this Wapo article.

Insanity.

Insanity.

Insanity.

Insanity.

Insanity.

Rob Port over at Say Anything gets the quote of the day:

According to the article, banks are getting “assurances” that they won’t face consequences for making risky loans, but how did that work out last time? The federal government was all about making subprime loans, using Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac among other economic and regulatory carrots/sticks to push banks into making risky loans. But when the house of cards collapsed? All the politicians could talk about was “Wall Street Greed.”

It took decades for the effects of banks making sub-prime toxic mortgages to result in the country going into the worst recession since the Great Depression, which means Obama won't be the one forced to deal with the fallout from his latest bout of insanity. 

History

The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 and later liberalization of regulations gave lenders strong incentive to loan money to low-income borrowers. The Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 enabled lenders to charge higher interest rates to borrowers with low credit scores. Then, the Alternative Mortgage Transaction Parity Act, passed in 1982, enabled the use of variable-rate loans and balloon payments. Finally, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 eliminated the interest deduction for consumer loans, but kept the mortgage interest deduction. These acts set the onslaught of subprime lending in motion. 

Related:

Video- The Short and Simple Story of the Credit Crisis -- The Full Version

NOT An April Fools Joke: Obama Proclaims National Financial Capability Month

By Susan Duclos

Seriously???? I truly thought when I read the CNS News headline this was an April Fools prank, but it isn't.

Barack Obama has issued a Presidential Proclamation - National Financial Capability Month, 2013.

Let's break this down:

All Americans deserve the chance to turn their hard work into a decent living for their families and a bright future for their children. Seizing that opportunity takes more than drive and initiative -- it also requires smart financial planning. During National Financial Capability Month, we recommit to empowering individuals and families with the knowledge and tools they need to get ahead in today's economy.

Talk of smart financial planning  from a man who is late submitting his own budget to Congress by two months. From a man that has submitted four out of five budgets Congress late, meaning after the legal deadline as to when it was supposed to be submitted. Obama's last budget submitted did not receive one single vote when it went to the floor of the Senate after failing 414-0 in the House.

My Administration is dedicated to helping people make sound decisions in the marketplace. Last year, we partnered with businesses and community leaders to roll out new public and private commitments to increasing financial literacy. We released a new financial capability toolkit to help schools and employers as they launch their own initiatives. And with our College Scorecard and Financial Aid Shopping Sheet, we are working to give families clear, transparent information on college costs so they can make good choices when they invest in higher education. Together, we can prepare young people to tackle financial challenges -- from learning how to budget responsibly to saving for college, starting a business, or opening a retirement account.

Budget responsibly.

CNS News takes this one:

When Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, the total debt of the federal government was $10,626,877,048,913.08. As of the close of business on March 28, 2013, the total debt of the federal government was $16,766,988,432,792.62—an increase of $6,140,111,383,879.54 since Obama took office.

That means that under Obama the federal debt has increased $53,377 for each one of the 115,031,000 households the Census Bureau says there are now in the United States.....

Debt has increased by over $6 trillions since Obama took office in January 2009. The nation's deficit has been over a trillion for four straight years and he dares talk about budgeting responsibly?

Making sound decisions in the marketplace?

 This from a man that decided to gamble taxpayer money on 34 companies that have gone bankrupt or laying off workers or heading for bankruptcy.

Heritage provides a list of those companies and how much Obama's administration lost with his "sound decisions."

This list includes only those companies that received federal money from the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy and other agencies. The amount of money indicated does not reflect how much was actually received or spent but how much was offered. The amount also does not include other state, local, and federal tax credits and subsidies, which push the amount of money these companies have received from taxpayers even higher.

The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

1. Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
4. Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6. SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10. Amonix ($5.9 million)
11. Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12. Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
17. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
18. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
19. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
20. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
21. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
22. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
23. Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
24. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
25. Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
26. GreenVolts ($500,000)
27. Vestas ($50 million)
28. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
29. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
30. Navistar ($39 million)
31. Satcon ($3 million)*
32. Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
33. Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

 Next:

Our history shows that there is no economic engine more powerful than a thriving middle class. Reigniting that engine means giving ordinary citizens the tools to find prosperity, including strong financial capability. To learn more about managing money and navigating the 21st-century marketplace, visit www.MyMoney.gov and www.ConsumerFinance.gov, or call 1-888-MyMoney.

Once again CNS News addresses this point:

Listed among the “popular topics” on MyMoney.gov is “Managing Debt and Credit,” which includes a link to a page on the Federal Reserve’s website called “Getting the most from your credit card.” Tip 2 on that page is: “Stay Below Your Credit Limit.”

Stay below your credit limit says a site that Obama's proclamation points to, yet Obama prepares once again to demand Congress raise the debt limit, meaning the amount of money he can borrow  to cover the overspending the nation does.

 The Republicans position:

House Speaker John Boehner said he plans to negotiate from a principle that any increase is matched dollar-for-dollar with spending reductions and reforms, although he downplayed the risks he is willing to take in negotiations.

Obama and Democratic leaders position:

But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Boehner’s hard line on the debt limit is “a road to poverty” and House Democrats will continue to demand a clean debt limit increase.

The last person who should be talking about financial capability, budget responsibility, sound decisions in the marketplace, and financial planning, is Barack Obama.

It reads like an April Fool's day joke, yet it isn't.

Reuters/Ipsos Poll: Obama Approval Plummets Since Election To 43 Percent- Obama's Disconnect

By Susan Duclos

Confirming what other polling organizations have found, Barack Obama's approval rating has plummeted since the November 2012 elections, and has since fallen further amidst the sequestration battle, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Less than two months into his second term, President Barack Obama's approval rating has dropped and Americans blame him and his fellow Democrats almost as much as his Republican opponents for a fiscal mess.

A Reuters/Ipsos online poll released on Wednesday showed 43 percent of people approve of Obama's handling of his job, down 7 percentage points from February 19.

 Obama's approval ratings had ranged from 50 to 55 percent after his reelection, some of which is considered to be the election "bounce" which lasted until February, but recent polling by Reason/Rupe, Fox and now Reuters, all show the bounce is gone and Obama's numbers are falling fast.

The Reuters poll also shows Americans are paying attention to the budget discussions going on in Washington:

While the budget battle are complex, the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed many Americans are paying attention. The poll found 35 percent of those surveyed are paying a little bit of attention to the fight, 27 percent a fair amount and 9 percent a great deal. More than a quarter, 28 percent, knew nothing at all about it.

Those numbers are not surprising when you look at priority polling from a variety of organizations which show that Americans top concern, their priorities the economy, jobs, budget deficit and national debt, in every poll to date.

That focus on economic priorities is caused by gas prices once again on the rise and expected to continue to rise, unemployment at 7.9 percent, higher still than the day Obama took office in January 2009, U6, total unemployment at 15.4 percent unadjusted, 14.4 adjusted,  the GDP growth increased at a dismal annual rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, and the national debt having reached $16 trillion, six of which accrued in the last four years under Obama.

The Reuters' article also shows a severe disconnect between Obama's stated priorities and Americans' priorities.

Obama shot out of the gate in January at the start of his second four years in the White House, promising gun control and immigration legislation as well as efforts to tackle climate change and expand gay rights.

 0bama's issues aren't what Americans want to see addressed but his ideological and political agenda  is blinding him to the correlation of his speeches focusing on his issues while ignoring the issues that are concerning Americans, and his plummeting poll numbers.

Video- Peter Schiff: Obama Won’t Finish His Second Term Without The Bottom Dropping Out

By Susan Duclos

The video below has comments from Peter Schiff, where he states very bluntly "Obama won’t finish his second term without the bottom dropping out."

Why should anyone listen or believe Schiff's opinion on this? Who is Schiff? Easy enough to find his bio from his website:

Peter Schiff is one of the few non-biased investment advisors (not committed solely to the short side of the market) to have correctly called the current bear market before it began and to have positioned his clients accordingly. As a result of his accurate forecasts on the U.S. stock market, economy, real estate, the mortgage meltdown, credit crunch, subprime debacle, commodities, gold and the dollar, he is becoming increasingly more renowned.

He has been quoted in many of the nation's leading newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Investor's Business Daily, The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Dallas Morning News, The Miami Herald, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Arizona Republic, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Christian Science Monitor, and appears regularly on CNBC, CNN, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and Bloomberg T.V. His best-selling book, "Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse" was published by Wiley & Sons in February of 2007. His second book, "The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets: How to Keep your Portfolio Up When the Market is Down" was published by Wiley & Sons in October of 2008.

Mr. Schiff began his investment career as a financial consultant with Shearson Lehman Brothers, after having earned a degree in finance and accounting from U.C. Berkeley in 1987. A financial professional for over twenty years he joined Euro Pacific in 1996 and has served as its President since January 2000. An expert on money, economic theory, and international investing, Peter is a highly recommended broker by many leading financial newsletters and investment advisory services. He is also a contributing commentator for Newsweek International and served as an economic advisor to the 2008 Ron Paul presidential campaign. He holds FINRA Series 4, 7, 24, 27, 53, 55, 63 & 65 licenses.

[WATCH]



H/T InvestmentWatch

How Does Obama Justify Naming The Creator Of The Sequester He Hates, As Treasury Secretary?

By Susan Duclos

Barack Obama has spent million, if not billions, traveling around the country castigating the sequester, saying it will destroy the economy, harm American workers, will kill agencies, destroy our military, etc etc etc...... yet he nominates, and the Senate just confirmed it's creator, Jack Lew, as Treasury Secretary for the United States of America.

Reminder of who Lew is:

The White House chief of staff at the time, Jack Lew, who had been budget director during the negotiations that set up the sequester in 2011, backed up the president two days later.

“There was an insistence on the part of Republicans in Congress for there to be some automatic trigger,” Lew said while campaigning in Florida. It “was very much rooted in the Republican congressional insistence that there be an automatic measure.”

My extensive reporting for my book “The Price of Politics” shows that the automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors — probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government.

Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.

 How does Obama justify handing America's economy to the creator of the sequester, a sequester Obama has spent the last weeks speaking out against vehemently?

Is there any reporter or journalist with enough integrity and guts to ask Obama that simple question?

Plurality Feel Obamacare Hurts Economy More Than Sequester Spending Cuts

By Susan Duclos

Barack Obama is spending a lot of taxpayer money, flying around the country in a campaign style to scare Americans about the sequester cuts going into effect on March 1, 2013, pitching worst case scenarios, using facts and figures that have been disputed, even by the Obama friendly mainstream media, but his doomsday rallies haven't had the intended fear-inducing effect that he has been aiming for.

Polling News

Americans are far less concerned with the sequester cuts than they are over the negative impact to the nation's economy by Obamacare.

Despite the inside-the-Beltway warnings about the economic impact of the impending sequester spending cuts, voters are more worried about what President Obama’s new health care law will do to the economy. Forty-eight percent (48%) of Likely U.S. Voters think the health care law is more likely to hurt the economy than cutting government spending. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 29% believe spending cuts will hurt the economy more. Fifteen percent (15%) think neither will hurt economically. 

Here is Obama's problem in a nutshell.

Obama may have his media shills pushing his doomsday scenarios for him and his diehard supporters may be loud and vocal, but the majority of Americans believe Washington has a spending problem,  that includes 55 percent of Democrats, according to the latest polling.

Opposition to another round of stimulus runs two-to-one, according to the poll. This could be because 73 percent of voters polled say cutting government spending would be more likely to help strengthen the nation’s economy -- as opposed to just 15 percent who believe increasing spending would do the trick.

While Obama reportedly has said he doesn't believe the government has a spending problem, the poll showed that out of 13 issues tested, more voters are "extremely" concerned about government spending than any other issue.

Even a majority of Democrats -- 55 percent -- agreed that cutting spending is the way to help the economy. Ninety-one percent of Republicans held that view. 

Via Gallup, who tested Obama's approval and disapproval on nine key issues, large majorities disapprove of his handling of the federal budget deficit (65%) and the economy (60%) with only 31 percent and 39 percent approving of his job performance on those two issues, respectively.

In that poll Obama only saw a majority approval on just one issue out of nine, national defense, with a plurality and majorities disapproving of his job performance on the remaining eight issues.

In another poll, 72 percent believe the economy is a very important issue, 71 percent naming government spending and 68 percent naming job creation, making those three issues the top three out of 15 issues asked about.

The reason Obama's campaign by fear is not resonating the way Obama and his shills wanted it to is because in the end, when all is said and done, Americans know Washington has a spending problem and want spending cuts, even if they are leery of specific programs being part of those cuts.

The Obama Ecomomy Takes Another Hit

By Susan Duclos

As has been mentioned before, in the fiscal cliff deal, Barack Obama received his tax increases and additional tax revenue that he consistently and very publicly demanded time and time again. Taxes were raised on upper income Americans and the payroll tax holiday was allowed to expire, cutting in to 77 percent of workers' paychecks and sending them home with less to spend.

Retailers such as Wal-Mart, Burger King Worldwide Inc., and Kraft Food's, just to name a few, have all now lowered their forecasts and are adjusting to the reality of consumers spending less.

 The expiration of the payroll tax cuts that knocked 2% off consumers' take-home pay is having an impact, these companies say. It will ding a household with $65,000 in annual income $1,300 this year, and shift $110 billion overall out of consumers' hands, estimates Citigroup

Now, Wal-Mart is stocking more of its shelves with cheaper products, and smaller-size packages of diapers, toilet paper and snacks. Burger King is cutting its Whopper Jr. sandwich to $1.29 from about $2, and focusing advertising on its value menu items rather than higher-price salads or smoothies.

Kraft and meat supplier Tyson Foods Inc. TSN +2.03% are introducing more lower-priced products to help restaurants and supermarkets adapt to the consumer spending downshift.

These companies say the changes could be long-lasting and are revamping operations to better cater to consumers pinched by higher taxes, stagnant wage growth and rising gasoline prices, which jumped nearly 50 cents a gallon in the past month alone.

Less take-home pay is causing 45.7% of consumers to curtail spending, according to a survey released on Thursday by the National Retail Federation, a trade group. A quarter of consumers are delaying big-ticket purchases, a third are reducing restaurant visits, and about a fifth of shoppers are spending less on groceries, it said.

It isn't just the increase of taxes being taken out of paychecks that are affecting consumer spending, reports show that the high gas prices under the Obama administration's "leadership" are also affecting the bottom line.

Darden Restaurants Inc., which owns Olive Garden and Red Lobster, cut its fiscal-year profit and revenue outlook, citing "headwinds" from consumers pinched by higher payroll taxes and gasoline prices.

 Barack Obama was sworn in as president on January 20, 2009. In the week that ended on January 19, 2009, the weekly retail gasoline price in the U.S. was $1.90/gallon.

Two days ago, US News reported :  Prices have risen every day for more than a month now, with the current national average around $3.77 a gallon, according to AAA Fuel Gauge, 46 cents higher than it was just a month ago and jumping almost 16 cents in a week. Newser points out "gas prices have climbed almost 50 cents per gallon over the past month."

Welcome to the Obama Economy.

The Seven Million People Obama Lied To About Keeping Their Insurance Plans

By Susan Duclos

Unintended consequences continue to unfold as Americans find out what is in the mammoth Obamacare law that Obama and Democrats jammed through Congress. The latest consequences described by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is the estimated cost of Obamacare has once again risen and now carries a price tag of $1.3 trillion over the next decade.

Also included in the CBO report is confirmation of what conservatives predicted before Democrats passed Obamacare and Obama signed it into law.

First a quick flashback, via ABC News,  to just one of many times Barack Obama publicly claimed "Let me be exactly clear about what health care reform means to you. First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan.  Nobody is talking about taking that away from you."

President Obama's health care law will push 7 million people out of their job-based insurance coverage — nearly twice the previous estimate, according to the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday.

CBO said that this year's tax cuts have changed the incentives for businesses and made it less attractive to pay for insurance, meaning fewer will decide to do so. Instead, they'll choose to pay a penalty to the government, totaling $13 billion in higher fees over the next decade. (Source)

That estimate is up from 4 million that the CBO projected in a study last summer.

Another finding which should be concerning to every American, via the CBO report:

Nevertheless, the unemployment rate is expected to remain above 7½ percent through next year; if that happens, 2014 will be the sixth consecutive year with unemployment exceeding 7½ percent of the labor force—the longest such period in the past 70 years. 

 Heritage lists some bullet points of other CBO estimates:

While President Obama keeps calling for more taxes, today’s figures from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) show the tax hike he signed into law just last month will provide no lasting improvement in the federal government’s fiscal outlook. This is because spending continues to grow, driving deficits back toward the $1 trillion range by late in the decade. If the President is actually serious about solving the nation’s fiscal problems, he must move to the other side of his “balanced approach”: cutting spending.

The figures in the CBO’s The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023, show the following:

• Spending this year will reach $3.6 trillion and climb to nearly $6 trillion by 2023, or 22.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Government spending will continue to swallow up more than one-fifth the economy’s total output through the 10-year budget projection, reaching 22.9 percent of GDP by 2023, far in excess of its historical level of 20.2 percent. Even with taxes running above their historical average, spending persistently outruns tax revenue, resulting in chronic deficits that grow persistently after 2016. This report confirms, as have its predecessors, that the federal government’s fiscal woes are driven by its massive spending problem.
• With economic growth and President Obama’s two tax increases, the $1 trillion tax hike in Obamacare, and the $618 billion fiscal cliff increase, revenues will surge to 19.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2015, and will remain well above the historical average of 18.5 percent for the rest of the decade. These figures offer conclusive proof that—notwithstanding the assertions of the President and Senate Democrats—there is plenty of revenue flowing into Washington.
• Yet even all this new revenue fails to solve the government’s fiscal problems. Starting at $845 billion this year, deficits shrink somewhat through 2016, but then start rising again, returning to near the trillion-dollar range by 2023. The pattern proves that higher taxes cannot solve the deficit problem—only spending restraint can.
• Debt held by the public this year will be $12.2 trillion, or 76.3 percent of GDP. This debt will remain at around three-fourths the size of the economy or above throughout the decade. These are the highest levels of publicly held debt in 60 years, but unlike those of World War II, these are structural deficits that will persist and worsen over the longer term. Moreover, the projection is based on optimistic assumptions. If different policy outcomes occur (see below), debt held by the public could reach 87 percent of GDP by 2023. With debt at this level, economic growth would slow dramatically.
• Entitlements, which the President refuses to address, continue to drive the spending problem. These programs—led by Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—will cause entitlement spending to rise from 13.2 percent of GDP this year to 14.1 percent by 2023, and reach nearly 62 percent of the entire federal budget. Those who claim to be defending these programs by stubbornly resisting needed reforms are only ensuring they will collapse under their own costs. Obamacare makes matters worse, adding nearly $1 trillion in new spending over the next 10 years just for its insurance subsidies. The health care overhaul also will increase spending for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program by hundreds of billions of dollars. In dollar terms, spending on Social Security and the health entitlements will more than double in the next 10 years, from $885 billion this year to $1.85 trillion in 2023.

 Read the entire thing because it helps explain why the CBO estimates continue to change because of assumptions they make.

Obama/DNC Ends Year $27.2 Million In Debt, RNC Ends With $4.7 Million Cash On Hand

By Susan Duclos

With spending battles and budget fights on the horizon between the Republicans who feel the nation should not spend more money than they bring in and Obama and liberals thinking a nation can spend their way into growth and out of debt, it becomes particularly interesting to see the end of the year numbers for Obama and the DNC versus the RNC.

Two different news organizations with the competing headlines.

First ABC News with "Obama Campaign, DNC End Year in Debt"

Campaign finance reports filed Thursday show Obama's campaign ended the year with $5.8 million in debt while his party's political arm, the DNC, owed $21.4 million.....

The two groups ended the year with a combined $7.5 million in the bank, but they hadn't used it to pay off they massive $27.2 million ebt accrued as of the filing.

Next headline from Politico: "RNC ends 2012 in the black"

The RNC "ended the year with $4.7 million in cash on hand."

That’s a stark contrast to how the party began the presidential cycle, when it was saddled with $24 million in debt. The debt was mostly accrued under the leadership of former party chairman Michael Steele. The committee has now paid off that debt and is running a surplus — putting the party in a solid financial situation going into the 2014 midterms.

These numbers encapsulate the whole spending/cutting debate that rages between Obama-liberals and conservatives.

Previous examples from Texas to Wisconsin has shown that when leaders understand the basic concept of not spending more than you take in, in other words, living within a budget, not only does it prevent major deficits, it creates a surplus.

As of October 2012, FactCheck.org found that under Obama there had been a 52 percent increase in the nation's total federal debt. The debt held by the public had seen an increase of 79 percent under Obama.

The Obama years, just one term, saw the nation's debt rise more than it rose in George Bush's two terms and yet, Barack Obama was quoted as calling Bush "unpatriotic" for racking up the debt he did. (Video at the link)

What exactly does that make Barack Obama, using his very own words and standard?

Gallup: More U.S. Small Businesses Cutting Workers Than Hiring

By Susan Duclos

The Obama so-called recovery has been taking some serious hits with GDP growth going negative, Obamacare causing healthcare costs to rise, and news that Obama's regulatory spending has cost more than nearly double the cost of 16 years under Bush and Clinton.

Now Gallup reports, "More U.S. Small Businesses Cutting Workers Than Hiring "

The devil is in the details though, meaning their reasoning:

When owners who are not looking for new employees were asked to evaluate eight potential reasons they are not doing so, overall business conditions headed the list as usual, including not needing new employees at this time (with 81% indicating this as a reason), worries that revenues or sales won't justify adding more employees (74%), and worries about the current status of the U.S. economy (66%).

However, 61% of owners pointed to worries about the potential cost of healthcare, 56% to worries about new government regulations, and 55% to worries about cash flow or the ability to make payroll. Thirty-two percent point to it being hard to find qualified employees.

Reminder from a previous post:

The Hill, just three days ago, headlined with "Washington and business brace for an Obama wave of regulation."

Two more headline to round off the economic news.

First one by the AP, report via Fox News Insider: "Weekly Jobless Claims Rise at Higher Rate than Expected."

Second, via Gallup: " U.S. Payroll to Population Rate Drops in January"

No worries, Harry Reid has an idea........ We horrible Republicans have got to stop reporting Obama's failed recovery and the news showing it be worse that we thought.

Liberal's new motto- "The Obama economy, ignore it and it will go away. "

Reid must be going senile.