Obama was Dead Wrong,

Illegals Cost California Solvency

            A recently revealed lowball study of the state’s budget problems shows that withdrawing services from California’s 2.5 million illegal aliens in the state would save the state roughly $4.5 Billion annually.  The breakdown of the savings was:  $2.5 Billion from the cost of education; $1 Billion from prison budgets; almost $780 Million from medical expenses; and other cost savings amounting to roughly $300 Million yearly.  In short, paying for the illegal aliens who have been welcomed into California (the state has more “Sanctuary Cities” than the rest of the country combined) over a typical period of five years would account for the total California shortfall at its 2009 cited $21 Billion maximum.  Later in this blog, you’ll discover why Rajjpuut used the term “lowball” to describe this recent study.

            How surprising can this statistic be?   A mid-2008 study by FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) showed that 60% of the nation’s illegal aliens were concentrated in six states mostly in the Southwest.  California’s almost 3.5 million illegals in that study easily topped the list.  That figure you’ll notice is a full one million fewer illegals than found in the more recent lowball study mentioned earlier.  Poor methodology?  Deliberate undercounting?  Probably neither.  Every year that the state’s abysmal Sanctuary City situation has existed, it’s become much harder to accurately count the illegals, never an easy proposition in the best of scenarios.  

            Two years later when FAIR updated and expanded its study in 2010 it found that nationally illegals cost America $113 Billion yearly.  The study then was called “extremist” and compared to a study that said that rather than costing us, illegals raise the nation’s GDP by $245 Billion.  Certainly if that were true, the answer to our budget woes would be to throw open the borders to everyone.  This infamous Perryman Report, rumored to have been funded by “Open Society Initiative” founder George Soros, has been cited by all those seeking further amnesty and even citizenship to all illegals.  The Perryman Report is suspected of flawed, perhaps even deliberately flawed, methodology because “it fails to fully account for the cost to individual counties, cities and towns” which absorb a huge percentage of the cost of accommodation for illegal aliens.

Are illegals really such a big problem?  Ex-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger once said that it would be a “big mistake” to blame California’s huge illegal immigration population for the state’s long-enduring budget crisis.  Any sane review of the figures seems to cough up only one conclusion:  the Guv’s been in deep denial.  The average yearly budget deficit in California is slightly less than the average cost of illegal immigration to the state over 365 days according to the recent figures.

            California, with the other five big alien states, together face a cost of $36 Billion annually for K-12 education, criminal incarceration and health care costs.  Some studies show that the cost to California is NOT the $4.5 Billion recently touted, but rather, almost $12 Billion yearly to accommodate illegal aliens, roughly $3,400 per each man, woman or child LEGLLY residing in the state.  Other studies call even this figure into doubt and indicate the cost could be much, much higher.  Besides the monetary price, there is also the matter of sociological cost . . . .

A recent Supreme Court decision is forcing the state to release “up to 46,000 inmates” before their prison terms are concluded.  California is only expected to release roughly 30,000 “low-risk inmates” from prisons, the biggest release of lawbreakers in American history, as a measure to combat the state’s deficit.  Among ALL the California convicts an estimated 20,000 are illegal aliens about one-seventh of the entire prison population.  The state has deliberately given no indication how many of the projected “parolees” will be illegal aliens.  Nor has the state answered questions about how many illegals might be turned over to immigration officials for deportation or if any will just be allowed to walk freely back into California society.

Schwarzenegger, of course, has infamously guaranteed there was NO connection between the state’s large illegal alien population and its budgetary woes.  The ex-governator, it seems, has been in denial for eight long years. 

His predecessor, Pete Wilson commissioned two separate studies which each reached the same conclusions:  illegals were bankrupting California.  The 1994 Philip J. Romero study showed that illegal immigrants and their American-born children received $3.6 Billion more in state services than they paid in state taxes.  The vast majority of those taxes are sales taxes, not income taxes which few illegals pay.  In 1997 the Jordan Commission’s study conducted under the National Research Council put that figure at a $3.463 Billion cost to California.  But Schwarzenegger even willfully ignored far more up-to-date information:  Romero’s 2007 update of his earlier study.   Because of the state’s Sanctuary City situation, Romero found it far more difficult to pin down the full extent of the problem.  His shocking results:  illegal aliens were now costing California between $9.6 and $ $38.2 billion more in state services than they generate in state taxes. 

Everything about the illegal alien question is debatable.  Recent estimates of their population have used the numbers 12-18 million illegals with 13 Million the most commonly cited figures.  President Obama has used the numbers 11 million and even 10 million in describing them and suggested, in line with the Perryman Report that they constitute a huge NET POSITIVE to the nation’s economy.

Regardless of which figures are used, the logical conclusion is obvious.  California, Texas and other border states are being negatively affected by huge illegal alien populations.  California itself has been bankrupted by several huge policy boondoggles.  The Sanctuary City program in that state is definitely the most costly in the nation and the state’s welcoming of illegals has contributed mightily to California’s ongoing financial meltdown.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams are used to being called “Racists” and “White Supremacists” by people who hear them on radio or read their words or hear their writings quoted.  The two rather dark-skinned Blacks often get a good belly-laugh when it happens.  So it was natural when Sowell wrote a column praising William’s latest book “Race and Economics,” that both men received scathing online attacks from the Progressive fringe of the political spectrum; and even got called “Uncle Toms” from many Blacks well-informed of the two men’s identities. 

This is not a new experience for either man.  Like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Florida Representative Allen West; Republican Presidential contender Herman Cain; Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and famous General Colin Powell . . . fiscal-conservative and Constitutional-conservative Blacks often pay a huge price  and are often labeled “traitors” by large segments of the Black community as a whole.  Williams and Sowell first met back in 1970 when both men were working on the same research project back in Washington, D.C.  A new book that year entitled “The Poor Pay More” was proving to be scandalous press fodder for the liberal media . . . in a very short article, Williams destroyed that book’s argument and it quickly fell out of print.  How did he do it?

Williams agreed, yes, prices were higher in low-income minority neighborhoods. But he unequivocally rejected the book's claim that this was a result of “exploitation” or “racism.”  He simple referred to the common-sense logical approach he’d used to write his doctoral dissertation on the question.  Williams documented that the costs of doing business in many low-income neighborhoods (insurance; no economy of scale; greater shoplifting and other theft threat; etc.) was usually significantly higher and these costs were simply passed on to the consumers there.  That was, according to Thomas, the first time that Walter Williams was called a “White Racist.”

Thomas lauds Williams’ new book Race and Economics and especially loved a couple of its chapters.  In Chapter 6, Williams returns to the original question raised by The Poor Pay More argument.  The clinching bottom-line argument is:  despite higher markups in prices in low-income neighborhoods, there is a lower than average rate of return for businesses there” which, of course, is presumably the main reason why so few businesses choose to operate there.  Thomas continues, “my own favorite chapter . . . is Chapter 3, the most revealing chapter in the book.”

Williams begins Chapter 3 thusly, "Some might find it puzzling that during times of gross racial discrimination, black unemployment was lower and blacks were more active in the labor force than they are today." Moreover, the duration of unemployment among blacks was shorter than among whites between 1890 and 1900, whereas unemployment has become both higher and longer-lasting among blacks than among whites in more recent times.

“None of this is explainable by what most people believe or say in the media or in academia. But it is perfectly consistent with the economics of the marketplace and the consequences of political interventions in the marketplace.”

The book "Race and Economics" explains how such interventions impact blacks and other minorities, whether in housing markets, the railroad industry or the licensing of taxicabs-- and irrespective of the intentions behind the government's actions.

Both Thomas and Williams see minimum wage laws as classic examples of the harm done by government interference. “The last year in which the black unemployment rate was lower than the white unemployment rate was 1930. That was also the last year in which there was no federal minimum wage law.”  Besides the minimum wage laws, the impact of the Unions upon Black employment was also huge.  Throughout labor’s history, the Black worker has been the least welcome in the union halls.  When the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 was passed in 1931 it required that “that "prevailing wages" be paid on any government construction projects-- "prevailing wages" almost always meant union wages. Since Blacks were kept out of construction unions back then, and for decades thereafter . . . many black construction workers lost their jobs.  The stated purpose of the law was to protect the workers . . . what it did instead was to marginalize even further the poor and minorities.  Before the law was passed an awful lot of non-union Black construction crews were able to underbid union White contractors.  After the bill, the haves prospered while the have-nots suffered.  These problems expanded after the true minimum wage laws were required by the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.  After those laws the negative consequences for black employment across a much wider range of industries was absolutely devastating.  Today young Blacks are unemployed at a 52.7% rate compared to young Whites at 27.2%, but back at the turn of the century before minimum wage laws came on the scene young Whites were much more employable than older ones and young Blacks had lower unemployment rates still.

Thomas concluded his review this way, “The factors that cause the most noise in the media are not the ones that have the most impact on minorities. This book will be eye-opening for those who want their eyes opened. But those with the liberal vision of the world are unlikely to read it at all.”

One thing that Williams said recently on FOXNews’ Stossel show was that “government intervention over the last seventy years did something that no amount of slavery, Jim Crow or discrimination was able to do:  it destroyed the Black Family” citing statistics that roughly 72% of Black children in the 20’s lived in two-parent homes and less than 30% do so today.  “After the Black mother tells Dad to move out, because she might lose her checks . . . the Black father becomes disposable in the community.”

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

       If Barack Obama were caught on camera raping . . . how much support, if any, would he lose in the liberal mainstream-lamestream media?   Would the headlines read: “Obama Makes Outreach to . . . ?”

G.S. Spent $27 Million Anti-Bush 2004

$1.8 Million with NPR Last Year

Wants Progressive World without Borders

            When you’re a megalomaniacal multi-billionaire, what’s $45 million more or less anyway?  Well one thing that George Soros’s $45 million definitely is . . . is confirmation that inflation is rampant in this country.  Last year’s bribes, er’ donations, to over thirty major American news organizations only cost “Spooky Dude” Soros $27 million . . . so the cost of attempting to control America’s opinions by controlling our media outlets has risen 67%.  Of course the purse strings are always open when it comes to defeating Conservative candidates; Soros donated almost $20 million for President Obama’s 2008 campaign.  Mr. Soros who funds more than 50 progressive (We must ‘progress’ beyond the ‘out-dated and ill-conceived U.S. Constitution’ if we’re ever to make ‘progress’ toward our earthly utopia) foundation aligned with his “Open Society Initiative,” is looking for a world without borders headed up by the United Nations.

            On occasions too numerous to count, Mr. Soros  has said “the biggest obstacle” -- to progressive desiderata like radical environmentalism; to his version of peace around the planet; a borderless enlightened society; etc., etc. -- “is the United States.”  Known as “the Man who Broke the Bank of England,” Soros won his multi-billions by deliberately undermining and then wrecking currencies in Thailand, Malaysia, England, Russia, the Balkans and Japan.  He has recently taken an ultra-aggressive stance (including making speeches to progressive American groups in New York) toward getting the Chinese Yuan to replace the American Dollar as the world’s reserve currency and will profit mightily if and when the Buck takes a serious hit such as that one.

            When it was revealed, in the middle of the recent National Public Radio (NPR) controversies over progressive-biased reporting, that Soros had contributed 1.8 million to NPR, the already strident calls for cutting off NPR’s $455 million in federal funding were multiplied greatly.  One of the most embarrassing revelations came from citizen-journalists playing the role of wealthy Arab sheiks interested in funding NPR, but only if Jews were not involved.  Not surprisingly, NPR-funder Soros was born into a family of semi-practicing Jews and at age 16 under the guise of being a Gentile in his native Hungary, young George assisted the Nazis by playing the role of messenger and Judas goat to the Budapest area Jewish population.  In several interviews since becoming rich, he’s denied any regrets and called those times “some of the most exciting days of my life.”  You’ve undoubtedly heard him comparing G.W. Bush to Hitler and FOXNews to the Nazis.  Here’s a partial interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes program where Steve Kroft asks Soros about working for the Nazis as a boy and wrecking currencies:

http://www.sorosmonitor.com/absolutenm/templates/news.aspx?articleid=33&zoneid=1

Soros not only has no guilt about deliberately working toward destroying the currencies of millions of people; he also has no regrets about helping the Nazis (“if I didn’t do it someone else would have”).  Soros, who spent $27 million trying to defeat President Bush in 2004, has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets – including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press, NBC and ABC.  Prominent journalists like ABC’s Christiane Amanpour and former Washington Post editor and now Vice President Len Downie serve on boards of operations that take Soros cash. This despite the Society of Professional Journalists' ethical code stating: “avoid all conflicts real or perceived.”

Soros’ Open Society Foundations is funded by www.soros.org. It is a network of more than 30 international foundations, mostly funded by Soros, who has contributed more than $8 billion to those efforts.  He funds and more or less runs another 24 or 25 (who’s counting?) progressive foundations just in America.  Even though almost all the newspapers associated with Soros are going broke because readers don’t like to have yellow journalists telling them what to think, the left-wing so-called mainstream press considers Mr. Soros’ millions and billions a well-deserved windfall year after year.  How far does Soros’ influence go?  According to an investigation by FOXNews which Rajjpuut will quote in detail:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/05/11/dont-hear-george-soros-ties-30-major-news-organizations/

“Among the supposedly “neutral press” Soros OWNS a 14-person Journalism Advisory Board, stacked with CNN’s David Gergen and representatives from top newspapers, a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal and the editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster. Several are working journalists, including:

“Jill Abramson, a managing editor of The New York Times; Kerry Smith, the senior vice president for editorial quality of ABC News; Cynthia A. Tucker, the editor of the editorial page of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.”

Soros’ “Center for Public Integrity” is another great example. Its board of directors is filled with working journalists like Amanpour from ABC, right alongside blatant liberal media types like Arianna Huffington, of the Huffington Post and now AOL.  The CPI board is a veritable Who’s Who of journalism and top media organizations, including:

“Christiane Amanpour – Anchor of ABC’s Sunday morning political affairs program, “This Week with Christiane Amanpour.” A reliable lefty, she has called tax cuts “giveaways,” the Tea Party “extreme,” and Obama “very Reaganesque. And . . . Paula Madison – Executive vice president and chief diversity officer for NBC Universal, who leads NBC Universal’s corporate diversity initiatives, spanning all broadcast television, cable, digital, and film properties.  AND Matt Thompson – Editorial product manager at National Public Radio and an adjunct faculty member at the prominent Poynter Institute.  The group's advisory board features: Ben Sherwood, ABC News president and former "Good Morning America" executive producer.”

So what? Journalists, we are constantly told, are neutral in their reporting. According to FOXNews’ investigation:  “In almost the same breath, many bemoan the influence of money in politics. It is a maxim of both the left and many in the media that conservatives are bought and paid for by business interests. Yet where are the journalists raising concerns about where their own money comes from?”

And also according to FOXNews, that “$48 Million number is an understatement. It is gleaned from tax forms, news stories and reporting. But Soros funds foundations that fund other foundations in turn, like the Tides Foundation, which then make their own donations. A complete accounting is almost impossible because one media component or another is part of so many Soros-funded operations.”

            According to the Media Research Centers Business & Media Institute which has been looking into George Soros and his influence on the media.

“ Soros’ influence doesn’t just include connections to top mainstream news organizations such as NBC, ABC, The New York Times and Washington Post. It’s bought him connections to the underpinnings of the news business. The Columbia Journalism Review, which bills itself as ‘a watchdog and a friend of the press in all its forms,’  lists several investigative reporting projects funded by one of Soros foundations.”

Additionally, the “News Frontier Database” includes seven different investigative reporting projects funded by Soros’ Open Society Institute. Along with ProPublica, there are the Center for Public Integrity, the Center for Investigative Reporting and New Orleans’ The Lens. The Columbia School of Journalism, which operates CJR, has received at least $600,000 from Soros, as well.  None of this is new news, however.

The book “Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire,” he has been fascinated by media from when he was a boy where early career interests included “history or journalism or some form of writing.” As one of the world’s richest men (No. 46 on Forbes’ list), he gets to indulge his dreams. Since those dreams seem to involve controlling media from the ground up, Soros naturally started with Columbia University’s School of Journalism. Columbia is headed by President Lee Bollinger, who also sits on the Pulitzer Prize board and the board of directors of The Washington Post.  Not strangely, Bollinger, like many of Soros’ other funding recipients, is pushing for journalism to find a new sugar daddy or at least an uncle – Uncle Sam. Bollinger wrote in his book “Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century” that government should fund media. A 2009 study by Columbia’s journalism program came to the same conclusion, calling for “a national fund for local news.” Conveniently, Len Downie, the lead author of that piece, is on both the Post’s board and the board of the Center for Investigative Reporting, also funded by Soros.

Soros funds more than just the most famous journalism school in the nation. There are journalism industry associations like:  The National Federation of Community Broadcasters; The National Association of Hispanic Journalists; Committee to Protect Journalists; Investigative News Network (INN), a collaboration of 32 non-profit news organizations producing what they claim is “non-partisan investigative news; the James L. Knight Foundation also backs the network and is possibly the most-well-known journalism foundation. Knight President and CEO Alberto Ibargüen is on the board of directors for ProPublica a Soros-funded entity.

            Also according to According to the Media Research Centers Business & Media Institute, INN includes the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, the liberal web start-up MinnPost, National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, National Public Radio, and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. The network had included the liberal Huffington Post investigative operation among its grants, but HuffPo investigations merged with the possibly even more left-wing Center for Public Integrity, on whose board Arianna Huffington sits.  The Soros corruption seemingly never stops, liberal academic programs, left-wing investigative journalism and even supposedly neutral news organizations all paid for by a man who spends tens of millions of dollars openly attacking the conservatives, the Constitution, and fiscally-concerned citizens in this country.   Is it any wonder that only one news organization in the country is trusted more than distrusted?  (FOXNews +12% with 49% trust; 37% distrust; while the next closest, CNN, is distrusted by 3% more than trusted; NBC -9%; CBS -12%; and ABC is distrusted by 15% more than those who trust it) . . . Our Founding Fathers counted on an unbiased journalist corps to serve as watchdogs.  It looks like the watchdogs are working with the bad guys and the public knows it!

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

       General Motors a.k.a. “Government Motors” (henceforth referred to as GM) in late 2010 agreed to sponsor a propaganda film celebrating the 90^th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP):   your bailout cash hard at work!  The now completed film, whose title literally translated into English is “The Great Achievement of Founding the Party,” will open all over China on June 15^th.  The film produced by the Cadillac division of GM glorifies the CCP, which under their patron saint, Mao Tse Dong, sent some 60 million Chinese souls to heaven a bit earlier than planned.  Young Mao and his lover are featured in the film paying homage to the author of The Little Red Book, he of the face so often seen on T-shirts these days.

       According to an announcement posted on Shanghai GM’s official web site yesterday, the film will discuss events that led up to the formation of the CCP following the 1917 Russian Revolution. When the movie first went into production GM signed up Cadillac as the “chief business partner” with the Communist Party, stating: “Cadillac whole-heartedly supports the making of The Birth of a Party.”

       In the same way that the CCP has married totalitarianism with capitalism; and fools the Chinese people and her guests with entertainment extravaganzas like the recent Olympic Games . . . so too the Obama administration has married the American Communist Party with progressive Democratic political correctness so that today only those songbirds among us echoing the Obama dogma 24-7; or the most abject imbeciles can prosper in the Brave New World of Barack’s Crony- Capitalism.  That the once proud General Motors eagerly takes part in creation of such a shameless propaganda output shows you how easily one loses integrity in the shadow of the Obama White House.  Of course, based on the high quality of GM products like its electric car the Volt, there’s a good chance that the great film will start with a series of snippets from the Usama Bin Laden porn cache with a voice-over of Barack’s most inspiring speeches all served with popcorn and chop suey – phooey!

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

     “The president of the United States, Barack Obama, doesn’t seem to have chosen the right model to copy for his “green economy,” Spain. After the government of José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero demonized a study of different experts about the fatal economic consequences of renewable energies, an internal document from the Spanish cabinet that it is even more negative has just been leaked. 

     PajamasMedia.com

Green-Tech Model Advocated by Obama

Destroyed the Prosperous Spanish Economy

Undisclosed Debt Revelations Startle Voters

     First Greece, then Ireland and Portugal, now Spain, next America?  Two reports by the every vigilant Pajamas Media (PJM); and numerous other revelations from Spain are painting an ugly picture of political corruption, stupidity and rampant cronyism in eastern Iberia.  The Spanish Socialist government has issued a secret report showing that their green-tech jobs program destroyed the country’s once prosperous economy. 2011’s 21.3% UNEMPLOYMENT  figure confirms their confession as did the PJM’s uncovering of the original story.

     In 1997, Spain was the most prosperous European economy and one of the strongest in the world:  unemployment stood at less than 4%.  The country’s most popular political power, the Socialist Party began movement toward a green economy at that time.  Today, unemployment is five and a half times as high.  The elections in Spain in 2010 sent the ruling Socialists out of power; but people are today none too happy with the traditionally weaker Conservative Party either.  Most people believe that all the politicians in Spain pass laws to benefit themselves and do little for the people.  The country’s tiny Moderate Party made big gains in the 2010 elections and is expected to do even better in the 2012 ones.  The Socialists, however, are truly under-the-gun since recent revelations of heretofore huge unacknowledged debt has dealt an angry surprise to the voters and may force the nation to follow in the footsteps of bankrupt Greece, Ireland and Portugal and require a bailout from the international monetary fund (which American voters largely finance).

     Piles of undisclosed debt in local government associated with the operation of the country’s green-tech jobs programs are shaking up a political scene that was pretty much in chaos to begin with.  Spain, which had been doing everything it could to avoid becoming the next European bailout recipient, is far worse off than its people had been led to believe.  The huge debt revelations in 2010 seemed to indicate that the Socialists were waiting for the Conservatives to discover it after the election so the voters might “shoot the messenger” in the next election.  Unfortunately for the Socialists, the truth emerged and anger has remained rampant along the Costa del Sol and throughout the Spanish countryside over the last year.   Even today Spain has had trouble eradicating the debt and regaining a firm economic footing because of contract disputes with green energy companies created by the Socialist’s green energy programs.

     It all began with the first “offseason” government change earlier in 2010 in Catalonia which revealed a budget deficit there more than twice what had been reported earlier.  Piles of “hidden debt” are still being revealed to the new government related to the green program and to health clinics and other suppliers . . . in short, economists and analysts and numerous anecdotal reports from companies that supply local governments in Spain indicate widespread, unrecorded debt.  Companies complained that the Socialists when in power pressured them to do business off-the-books rather than immediately bill for goods and services according to  Fernando Eguidazu, vice president of the Circulo de Empresarios business lobby group in Madrid.  This chicanery continues to add tens of billions of euros to the official debt figures reported by local and regional governments.

     Undermined by a 21.3% unemployment rate and a perceived slowness in reacting to the country’s economic crisis, the Socialists lost control of the municipal governments of Barcelona and Seville, the country’s second- and third-largest cities.  Young people are protesting everywhere including the main plazas of Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.  Unemployment among those in their 20’s and 30’s reached 50% in many areas at the height of the Spanish crisis. 

      Pajamas Media’s exclusive original story about the leaked Spanish government report in 2010 was confirmed later by several Spanish newspapers.   Yes, the very same Spanish “green economy” policies  that Barack Obama has modeled his administration’s green-jobs programs upon . . . have been cited by the Socialist government that created them as an “expensive, ineffective and unworkable disaster.”  The first Spanish newspaper on the scent was La Gaceta, a Madrid daily.  At about the time the story “went viral” the Socialist government came out with an admission that it was true. 

For Americans the shocker has to be that the headline in La Gaceta (the Gazette) seemed to be aimed squarely at a USA target audience as it screams out (English Translation Provided by Rajjpuut):

“Spain admits that the green economy

Sold to Obama is a disaster.”

http://pajamasmedia.com/files/2010/05/economia_verde_ruina.pdf

     The Spanish public is still up in arms.  An academic team in Spain revealed all this in 2007 and was treated monstrously by the country’s media and by the ruling Socialists trying to discredit the survey’s purpose as purely political and without merit (Americans will recall that when the results of the Spanis study were brought up in a press conference, Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made fun of the questioner).  Dr. Gabriel Calzada, the Spaniard who first exposed the disaster in 2007 was finally vindicated despite taking mountains of flack from the progressive academic establishment at his own and other universities across the country. 

     Professor Calzada is today often still  featured on all the nation’s most important news and business talk shows.  Despite all the nasty attacks he received, the good professor had enough integrity to stick by his guns these last four years and a year ago even wrote praise for “The dissection of ‘free-ice cream green jobs economics’” on the book jacket of Power Grab:  How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America by American author Christopher C. Horner, a Pajamas Media watchdog whose book bears this enscription on the inside flap:  “Barack Obama’s ‘Green’ Policies Start With Controlling Your Energy…and End With Your Life.”

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Grab-Policies-Freedom-Bankrupt/dp/1596985992

     This scandal associated with deliberately villifying Calzada and covering up the truth for three years, however, pales in contrast with the undisclosed debt still popping up everywhere in the country.  But Spaniards and Americans would do well to remember that the problems associated with our own financial meltdown** and with Spain’s collapse began years ago with misguided and deliberate progressive policies (more later).  For now remember this, in Calzada’s study:

       A)   2.2 real jobs in the real economy were lost for each green-tech job subsidized by the Spanish government. 

       B)   The average subsidized green tech job there (although counted equally with all the lost permanent jobs in the real economy) lasted less than a year. 

       C)   Only 10% of all the Spanish green-tech jobs proved permanent.

       D)  So, in reality, 22 real jobs in the real economy were lost for every permanent green job created in Spain

       E)   The average green tech job there paid roughly $12.20.

       F)   The owners of Spanish solar plants make 12 times more than what they pay for the energy coming from fossil fuel combustion. The majority of this profit comes from subsidies charged to the consumer via taxes.

     The long-run numbers are even scarier for Spain.  The government itself in recent revelation says that the alternative energies sector are stil scheduled to receive 126 billion euros in the next 25 years.  And things bode very badly for America:   Pajamas Media put it like this: 

      “The president of the United States, Barack Obama, doesn’t seem to have chosen the right model to copy for his “green economy,” Spain. After the government of José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero demonized a study of different experts about the fatal economic consequences of renewable energies, an internal document from the Spanish cabinet that it is even more negative has just been leaked.

     To one of the authors of the first report, Gabriel Calzada, “the government has leaked it intentionally in order to turn the media against renewable energies and to be stronger in negotiations with businesses.”  On eight occasions, the occupant of the White House referred to the Spanish model as an example to follow.  Barack Obama wants us to enjoy the same success the Spanish have known from green energy.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut 

** In America, the second wave of progressive sabotage began with the progressives in the Carter administration in 1977 passing the CRA ’77 legistlation that first forced private sector home lenders to make knowingly ill-advised loans to unqualified home loan applicants.  This travesty was multiplied four times by Bill Clinton (Bush, Sr. has a bit of the guilt on his resume as well); attacked this ridiculous law and exposed its weaknesses using Cloward-Piven Strategy by ACORN which controlled Bill Clintons electoral destiny for eighteen years.  Even ACORN lawyer Barack Obama did his part.  Overall the suspect loan rate in 1975 0.24%; became 0.51% in 1985; 14.2% in 1995 (after a Clinton regulatory expansion and two legislative expansions); and 34% in 2005. 

Thanks to ACORN many of these suspect loans after Clinton’s 1998 steroid version final expansion of CRA’77 put people without jobs; with abysmal credit ratings; with only food stamps to declare as “income” into $250,000 to $450,000 homes at zero downpament.  Bush, Jr. who is getting all the blame now . . . in January, 2005 (one of 19 such speeches and vote efforts) tried to repeal CRA laws and only succeeded thirty months later in getting a very weak version of his law passed in July, 2007.  It all proved too little too late, but did help some.  Today, much of the CRA legislation is still on the books waiting another ACORN push.  Of course, the mainstream media runs with the progressive line that “the conservatives and the free market put our economy into the ditch.”

By the way, the First Wave of sabotage ended when the federal government bailed out bankrupt New York City in 1975.  New York State and many states and other large cities were also driven near the point of bankruptcy and the stock market suffered its biggest losses (46%) since the Great Depression (sound familiar?) . . . thanks to the progressive-left’s implementation of Cloward-Piven Strategy and Alinsky tactics to deliberately double the welfare rolls from eight to sixteen million people in seven years and overload the system as promised. This also was a deliberate sabotage by the progressive left.  Rajjpuut has explained the matter in deep detail in numerous blogs.   Find another take on the Cloward-Piven Strategy history leading to the bankruptcy of NYC, here:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html

“No amount of throwing money at such problems (as the $787 Billion Obama stimulus attempted) is going to magic-a booming economy or viable green technology into existence.  No amount of word-magic is going to assure that 8% unemployment will never be reached if real economic principles are ignored.  It is capitalism and inventors that create goods and services and advances technology; NOT the childish dreams of progressive politicos.  In short, Emperor Obama, you’re not wearing any clothes."

Rajjpuut

Common Sense Vindicated AGAIN!

Obama-Stimulus Killed REAL JOBS

http://web.econ.ohio-state.edu/dupor/arra10_may11.pdf

            The (PDF) link above documents a study by economists Timothy Conley and Bill Dupor on the impact of the nearly $800 billion stimulus package passed early months in  the Obama Administration: the stimulus which we were guaranteed would ensure that the nation’s unemployment never would rise above 8%.

            Conley an Dupor’s exhaustive and detailed study (36 pages in summing up) results suggest that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) created or saved approximately 450,000 thousand state and local government jobs and destroyed or forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs.  The common sense verdict that government spending kills private sector jobs was vindicated by the study.  In other words, the most clear-cut principles of good economics from Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson still hold true.

“The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks  also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economistsees only what the   effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups.”

          According to the study, state and local government jobs were saved because the ARRA funds were largely used to offset state revenue shortfalls and mandated Medicaid increases.  Boosting private sector employment seems to have been an afterthought, if it ever occurred to anyone involved with ARRA at all.  The majority of destroyed/forestalled jobs were in growth industries including health, education, professional and business services.

Conley an Dupor suggest the possibility that, in absence of the ARRA, the vast majority of government workers (on average relatively well-educated) would have found private-sector employment had their jobs not been saved.  And across the board roughly 215 such jobs in the private sector were lost or forestalled for each government job saved or created.  Again these findings are consistent with other such studies done in the past four decades.  For example, a study of the impact of the green jobs program in Spain found that the government stimulus (subsidies) cost 2.2 real jobs in the private sector for every new green job created (more on this later).  All of this ties in with the famous Hazlitt “Broken Window Fallacy.”

http://www.fee.org/library/books/economics-in-one-lesson/

illustrating another common sense adage:  Government cannot create jobs.  When the government (through taxation) seeks to create jobs, these government-created jobs typically cost 2-3 real jobs in the real economy and sometimes more.
            Meanwhile foolish Keynesian economists (excuse my redundancy) such as the New York Times’ Paul Krugman have suggested that the problem with the stimulus is that it wasn’t big enough.  Krugman infamously has never been known to criticize a progressive (we must ‘progress’ beyond the ‘outdated and ill-conceived U.S. Constitution’ in order to ‘progress’ toward our Marxist-Socialist earthly utopia) boondoggle so long as sufficient debt is incurred.  Let us return to the well-documented Spanish green economy example.  In 1997 Spain had the most vigorous economy in Europe with less than 4% unemployment.  When the study was conducted it had the fifth worst and today it has the third worst economy in Europe with more than 20% unemployment.  What happened?  And what does that mean for the United States here and now?

            What happened was Spanish government interference in the up-to-then relatively free market Spanish economy.  Their government decided that 1998 was the time to begin a transformation to a green-jobs dominated lifestyle to ensure that Spain’s economy remained vigorous and strong.  As mentioned, on average 2.2 real jobs in the real economy were lost for every government-subsidized green job created. 

The average cost of each green job in American dollars was $676,000.  But the story gets worse.  Just as in America, the Spanish government is known for counting subsidized jobs of eight-week and four-month duration just as if they were real permanent jobs in the real economy.  At the end of the day the average green job lasted very little time.  Only 10% of them proved permanent.  Thus 22 real jobs in the real Spanish economy were lost for each of the rare permanent green jobs created.  By the way the average green job created paid $10-$14 per hour.  That’s what happened, that’s why Spain is in the doldrums now.  What it means to us, can be divided into two scenarios.

            First of all, some jobs were created in the private sector by the Obama 

stimulus . . . and a whole lot more private sector jobs were lost.  Just as in Spain among all the jobs in the private sector created by the stimulus, a lot of two-week jobs were counted by the Obama people as if they were real bona fide jobs in the real economy.  The only blessing is that a larger percentage of the government jobs created or saved here in America might prove permanent.  Secondly, the Spanish example is right on in another respect:  Barack Obama has promised/threatened to create five million new green-tech jobs in America.  Taking the Spanish example at its face that means the loss of eleven million real jobs in the private sector . . . and eventually it means only half-a-million permanent green jobs created to show for devastateing the economy.  What’s going on in Barack Obama's mind?

            What’s going on is that arrogance, ignorance and childish “word-magic”  have replaced adult common sense.  When we are children we discover that words have power and virtually every child enters a stage where he believes his words are magical and if he can only find the right words, express them the right way, repeat them the right number of times while shaking one’s fist or stamping one’s feet or lying on the ground turning blue . . . OPEN SESAME, Ala Kazam, PRESTO!  We’ll then be able to make the whole world respond to us and bring us what we want.  The green technology that Obama and the lunatic environmental fringe want is not yet available.  No amount of throwing money at such problems (as the $787 Billion Obama stimulus attempted) is going to magic-a booming economy or viable green technology into existence.  No amount of word-magic is going to assure that 8% unemployment will never be reached if real economic principles are ignored.  It is the sweat and effort and risk-taking of capitalists and inventors that create goods and services and advances technology; NOT the childish dreams of progressive politicos.  In short, Emperor Obama, you’re not wearing any clothes.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

               “Besides the ignorant things he said, however, Gingrich suggested that the G.O.P. symbol might be an elephant riding on a magic carpet which (if you look closer) proves to be a paycheck; while the Democrat’s symbol would be a Donkey living in a food stamp book teepee.  Gingrich also said that it was wrong for Republicans to talk about cutting Medicare since it left them open to being demagogued for the next decade and Medicare had only increased 14% under Obama while the federal side of Medicaid had risen 54% and food stamp costs had risen 60% under Obama, then he cited a food stamp increase from 33 million to 47 million Americans now on food stamp rolls an amazing 39.4% jump” in just two years.

Trump, Huckabee Drop-outs and Ex-Speaker’s

Implosion Puts Romney in Catbird Seat

For 2012 G.O.P. Presidential Nomination

               In a dramatic turn of events, the last three days marked climactic upheaval in the ranks of the Republican presidential candidates to replace Barack Obama in the Oval Office starting January, 2013.

               ITEM:  Mike Huckabee cited “spiritual reasons” for deciding NOT to contest the 2012 primary waters in an announcement made at the end of his Huckabee show on FOXNews channel Saturday.  With no effort at all, Huckabee was #2 in the polls among all candidates.  This is a huge game-changer among Republican and many other conservative voters.

               ITEM:  Pressured by his television network, NBC, Donald Trump announced today that he would NOT be running for president either.  Trump said “Business is my greatest passion and I’m not ready to leave the private sector.”  He also cited all the money that his hit show “Celebrity Apprentice” had been making for charity as a reason NOT to run.  Most pundits do NOT believe the Trump announcement changes much in the battle for 2012.  Most conservatives believed “The Donald” was moderate or even liberal; and had very little to offer conservative voters.  Especially after his recent foul-mouthed tirade, he’d lost a lot of his standing as a potential “statesman.”

               ITEM:  Only short days after announcing his decision to be a candidate for 2012 -- saying the election was the most important in America since Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 -- Newt Gingrich seemingly committed political suicide and greatly muddied the waters of the debate on Capitol Hill over raising the national debt ceiling and the Ryan Budget.  Gingrich (imitating Joe Biden??) offered not one but two terrific gaffes:

1)      He appeared to say that Obamacare was not so bad and that he personally supported something like it.

2)    He criticized Paul Ryan’s budget.  The Ryan budget which passed in the House with 238 Republican votes, Gingrich said was “radical.”  He continued, “I don’t support social-engineering from the right anymore than I support social-engineering from the left. 

               Unless Gingrich’s ploy will be to run as a Democrat and contest Obama in the primaries, his candidacy can no longer be regarded as valid.

               At this early stage these three key recent developments seem to put Mitt Romney in the driver’s seat.  He’ll presumably emerge with somewhere between 30-35% of the G.O.P. vote in upcoming polls.  He could have a lead of 2 ½ to 1 over his next closest rival presumably Gingrich (who had 15-16% in recent polls but hurt himself recently.  Rajjpuut believes that Mitch Daniels, Indiana Governor; Michelle Bachmann, Minnesota Representative; and businessman Herman Cain would benefit even more than Romney will from the three news items mentioned above.  The big winner, however, might just be the TEA Party.  Let’s look a bit closer at Romney and Gingrich and the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party . . . .

               Discussing Romney, DickMorris.com put it this way, “Romney was having a terrible week.  His speech on health care was terrible.  With Massachusetts up in arms over Romney-care and Republicans dead set against the individual and employer mandate, his failure to repudiate his program would have cost him dearly.  But now he is sitting on top of the world.”  Much truth there but perhaps a bit too rosy a picture painted for Romney . . . .

               Morris later made a personal appearance on the Hannity show on FOXNews and opined that Gingrich had not actually hurt himself, but rather that people just got the out of context version from the mainstream media.  NOT HARDLY, Richard!  However, in Gingrich’s favor these things must be said.

               Besides the ignorant things he mentioned, Gingrich suggested that the G.O.P. symbol might be an elephant riding on a magic carpet which (if you look closer) proves to be a paycheck; while the Democrat’s symbol would be a Donkey living in a food stamp book teepee.  Gingrich also said that it was wrong for Republicans to talk about cutting Medicare since it left them open to being demagogued for the next decade and Medicare had only increased 14% under Obama while the federal side of Medicaid had risen 54% and food stamp costs had risen 60% under Obama.  Then he cited a food stamp increase from 33 million to 47 million Americans now on food stamp rolls an amazing 39.4% jump in 28 months.

               Michelle Bachmann, Morris told Hannity, would benefit because she might get a lot of the social-conservatives favoring Huckabee.  Since Bachmann is a TEA Party favorite and the emphasis of the TEAs is on fiscal- and Constitutional-conservativism, that does not compute . . . . Rick Santorum and possibly Sarah Palin would be more likely to gain in Rajjpuut’s not-so-humble opinion, with Bachmann and Herman Cain getting some lift as well.

               Morris said that “for Daniels, the withdrawal of Trump opens the way for him to become the main establishment business community rival to Romney.  And Huckabee's withdrawal opens the door for conservatives to support him as well.”  Morris thought that both Daniels and Bachmann needed to enter the race very soon.  Pawlenty, already in the tussle, was another one who Morris said would benefit greatly . . . but he left no doubt that in his view Romney might right now be the presumptive nominee.  Rajjpuut believes there’s a huge long way to New Hampshire not to mention the Oval Office and he doubts that Romney will get 30% of the Republican vote in Iowa or 25% in South Carolina.  Besides, who knows . . .  Chris Christy might just wind up running.

               Mitt Romney is the unquestioned early leader, that’s obvious.  But, the millstone of the Romneycare program in Massachusetts hangs heavy upon him.  His biggest worry has to be the TEA Party.  Romney has already pleaded with some TEA Party leaders for the TEAs NOT to run a third party candidate in 2012; some TEA Party folk recently took the opportunity after Romney’s weak Romneycare speech to call him “a walking hypocrite.” Surely  1) Michelle Bachmann, 2) Herman Cain, 3) Mitch Daniels and 4) Tim Pawlenty (after the three shake-ups this weekend) have to be considered far more compatible with the TEAs than Mitt Romney who is at best a moderate Republican and may because of his failure to repudiate Romneycare be looked upon by some as progressive (like Obama).  We’ve a long hot summer ahead of us . . . if one of these four separates himself or herself from the pack, Romney may be in jeopardy . . . then there’s the specter of a locked convention choosing Chris Christy as everyone’s favorite dark horse . . . we do live in exciting times.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

               "It’s all GASP been put off!   Damnation, are our beloved Revolutionaries just procrastinators at heart?  Hope this blog puts you in the pink!"