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Rajjpuut's Folly: S&P Rates Greece World’s Worst Credit Risk; USA Numbers Far Worse

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on June 13, 2011 at 11:30pm



 

 
Greece Rated World’s Worst Credit Risk
USA in Worse Shape Financially than Greece
 
 
Mere hours before Standard and Poor’s cut Greece’s credit rating by three levels and branded the debilitated Mediterranean nation with the world’s lowest debt grade for its bonds; Pimco’s Bill Gross told CNBC that the United States’ financial status was much worse than Greece’s. Pimco which manages over $1.2 TRillion in bond funds, according to Gross will NOT be buying U.S. Treasury bonds. The “CCC” credit rating for Greece was not unexpected; the evaluation by Gross of the United States’ fiscal ills is no surprise for regular readers of Rajjpuut’s Folly.  
For most of the taxpaying public, the news from Gross and Pimco, is a savage blow. Pimco, based in Newport Beach, Calif., runs the largest bond fund in the world. Gross confirmed a report Friday that Pimco has little interest in US debt and its low yields that are in place despite an ugly national balance sheet.   "Why wouldn't an investor buy Canada with a better balance sheet or Australia with a better balance sheet with interest rates at 1 or 2 or 3 percent higher?" he said. "It simply doesn't make any sense."
 
As we’ve mentioned many times herein, the combination of roughly $14.5 TRillion in acknowledged national debt; many TRillions more in entitlement debt (social security, Medicare and the federal side of Medicaid) which was never set aside by congress according to legal requirements but rather was spent on ever bigger and bigger government; and the crushing weight of UNfunded future liabilities (the average person paying into these programs over the year is now legally entitled to receive up to 3.1 times their pay-in on average) owed by all those entitlement programs . . . right now stands at roughly $116 TRillion. That is a number roughly 2.16 times the average gross domestic product (GDP) of the entire planet and roughly 7.7 times our American GDP.   And in case you’ve seen other figures . . . it’s simple: they are lies. $116 TRillion is the straight skinny.  In straightforward language, if these people were running public companies and pulled off what they've pulled off on you . . . everyone of them would be in prison for a long, long time. 
Government accounting of the situation has been abetting the lying progressive politicians in these manners for roughly 55 years in the same way that the government now tells us that unemployment is 9.1% in the country (the real figure is roughly 17.8% which includes all those who don’t have jobs that really want one but who don’t fit the government’s narrow definition); in the same way that the government gave us figures about how many jobs that the $787 Billion Obama stimulus “saved or created.” In case you haven’t figured things out yet, Pilgrim, your government is run by the “political class,” that is, by a special interest group whose main purpose in life is to keep the fat, cozy and often senseless bureaucratic jobs created in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere; and for the politicians who passed those laws creating those jobs to get themselves re-elected. They are NOT accountable to you and certainly feel no compunction to tell you the truth EVER. About 20% of the Republicans and 4% of the Democrats in Congress right now are working for you, that’s why those idiots in congress can’t get anything right, because their definition of “right” means “best for them and for the political class” NOT “best for you.”
Bill Gross’ appraisal should stand as an out and out warning to all taxpaying Americans as to the level of damage that the policies of Barack Obama’s administration; and those of Chairman Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve Banking System have inflicted upon our economy that so severely undercut the American dollar that unless . . .
1)     House Speaker John Boehner stands by his declaration that “Any increase in the national debt ceiling must be matched ‘dollar-for-dollar’ by a decrease in the budget (our 2011 budget expiring in October is $3.65 TRillion and increases the deficit by $1.59 TRillion)
2)    The house and the senate agree and pass such a program
3)    And President Obama signs it into law rather than vetoing it
 . . . unless such actions take place by roughly August 1, 2011, Rajjpuut predicts that the S&P rating for U.S. Treasury notes will drop very close to Greece’s.  Of course since Obama's handler, multi-billionaire currency-speculator George Soros, would benefit immensely and perhaps double his net worth if the American Dollar collapsed; lost it's 52-year seat as the World's Reserve Currency; and hyper-inflation hit America's shores, which way will the smart money** bet.
 
Moody’s cut its rating on Greece on June 1 to Caa1, leaving only Ecuador as a worse sovereign risk. The S&P rating abasement put Greece well below Ecuador. No other sovereign nation is graded as low as CCC by S&P, according to an S&P spokesman’s e-mail communications.  
“The ratings agencies are now playing catch-up with the market,” said Gianluca Salford, a fixed-income strategist at J.P. Morgan in London. “The market is pricing in a very high probability that there will be a credit event around Greece. The agencies are just catching up to the negativity that’s already priced in by the market, not the other way around.”
Moody’s gave a wake-up call to America when it recently refused to lower the country’s AAA rating but issued a warning that the USA was “trending negative.” The last time such an occurrence hit this country was on December 8, 1941, the day after the Empire of Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. It appears that Moody’s and S&P are waiting to see what happens in the upcoming congressional debate over raising the nation’s debt limit. President Obama is asking that the debt ceiling be increased by $2.7 TRillion to $17.0 TRillion. Boehner and congressional Republicans, as we’ve mentioned are saying that any increase in the debt ceiling requires a “dollar-for-dollar” reduction in the budget. IF, a huge IF, if Obama and the progressive Democrats have any sense, than Rajjpuut estimates that the most likely compromise would be a debt-limit increase of $1.7 TRillion (to $16 TRillion) and a 2012 budget of $1.95 TRillion. Those numbers might actually turn the economy around so markedly that they’d have a chance of surviving in power after November, 2012 elections. If, a teensy-tiny if, any other deal comes around, Rajjpuut believes that Moody’s and S&P will NOT compromise and will NOT endanger those who read their evaluations . . . but will severely downgrade the United States’ Credit ratings. So severely, perhaps that paying near loan-shark’s rates on our treasuries will NOT be out of the question. Enjoy your day, taxpayers!
 
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
 
 
 
** Soros' hedge funds and those run by progressives all over the world are buying up farm land like crazy apparently betting that the collapse of the American economy will lead to a worldwide famine.  Nice people, Rajjpuut bets they just want to put a lot of acreage in foodstuffs to help out in case anything goes wrong?!
 
 
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Rajjpuut's Folly: Is Obama-led American Economy Already at the Cliff's Edge?

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on April 25, 2011 at 11:30am


 http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=25965F12-6D1A-11E0-8CAB-00212804637C
 

 
Only government can take a perfectly useful commodity such as paper, print a few numbers on it and make it worthless . . .
 
 
American Economy Facing
Death by 10,000 Cuts
 
 
It's too early to calculate if the recent International Monetary Fund's projection (see link above) that the "Age of America" will end in five years when the Chinese Economy surpasses America's is accurate.  However, you don’t have to be a gypsy fortune-teller to read-between-the-lines well enough to see that the American economy is dying the death by ten thousand cuts. Of course, many (if not most) of our fearless leaders in Congress and the White House are proclaiming an ongoing recovery. We’re not talking the Mississippi here, but de-Nile, deep, deep denial. Until we’re willing to face up to the truth, no solutions are possible. The progressive leadership in this country over the last forty-eight years (only Ronald Reagan is exempt among presidents and both chambers of every single congress has been guilty with the verdict still out on our present House of Representatives) have destroyed the greatest economic machinery the world has ever known and substantially weakened and corrupted the greatest and freest society ever known. 
Except for producing reality TV series and useless TV networks, we almost don’t create or build anything any more . . . we certainly don’t create jobs. The American Dollar whose original symbol was a capital “U” with a capital “S” atop it has been led to a slow death. Thanks to our leaders we are almost literally drowning in debt: $14.3 TRillion officially; plus $115 TRillion in UNfunded liabilities (Social Security; Medicare; the federal side of Medicaid) or a total of almost $130 TRillion we purposefully ignore discussing; plus, oh yes, that Welfare State that just got Obamacare added onto it . . . .

www.prisonplanet.com/24-signs-of-economic-decline-in-america.html
In a recent article the Prison Planet website told a sad story . . . when we’re through examining their cataloging of the situation . . . besides some parenthetical comments you’ll see immediately after each item, Rajjpuut has three shocking insights to add to the picture, Prison Planet said . . . .

The Economic Collapse: 24 signs of economic decline in America
 
#1 Standard & Poor’s just altered its outlook on U.S. government debt from “stable” to “negative” and warned the U.S. that it could very soon lose its AAA rating (the last time this happened was during the three months following the December 7, 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor).

#2 China has announced that they are going to reduce their holdings of U.S. dollars (China, Brazil, Russia, and several other countries have openly called for elimination of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and China, Russia, Brazil and India have been moving out of Greenbacks into gold and silver).

#3 Hedge fund manager Dennis Gartman says that “panic dollar selling is setting in” and that the U.S. dollar could be in for a huge decline (the dollar has lost 24% of its value this last decade).

#4 The biggest bond fund in the world, PIMCO, is now short-selling U.S. government bonds.

#5 This cruel economy is causing “ghost towns” and “ghost neighborhoods” to appear all across the United States. There are quite a few counties across the nation that now have home vacancy rates of over 50% (Las Vegas, Nevada has one of the highest home vacancy rates in the nation . . . it’s so bad there that there’s a mini-construction “boom” going on . . . what? why? because rather than clients moving into the ghost neighborhoods for a bargain price they prefer to get into whole new sub-divisions with other people nearby rather than a seedy area over-run by kangaroo rats).

#6 There are now about 7.25 million fewer jobs in America than when the recession began back in October, 2007.

#7 The average American family is having a really tough time right now. Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010. The last time the employment level was that low was back in 1983.

#8 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.

#9 The average large company’s CEO made 343 times more money than the average American worker did last year.

#10 Gas prices reached five dollars per gallon at a gas station in Washington, DC on April 19th, 2011. Could we see $6 gas soon?

#11 Over the past 12 months the average price of gasoline in the United States has gone up by about 30%.

#12 Due to rising fuel prices, American Airlines lost a staggering $436 million during the first quarter of 2011.

#13 U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.

#14 Approximately one out of every four dollars that the U.S. government borrows goes to pay the interest on the national debt.

#15 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.

#16 Total credit card debt in the United States is now more than 8 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.

#17 Average household debt in the United States has now reached a level of 136% of average household income. In China, average household debt is only 17% of average household income (1/8 as high a percentage on a lot less earnings).

#18 The average American now spends approximately 23 percent of his or her income on just two items food and gasoline (forty years ago that number was about 7%).

#19 In a recent survey conducted by Deloitte Consulting, 74 percent of Americans said that they planned to slow down their spending in coming months due to rising prices.


#20 Over 59 percent of all Americans now receive money from the federal government in one form or another.

#21 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average length of UNemployment in the U.S. is now an all-time record 39 weeks.

#22 As the economy continues to collapse, frustration among young people will continue to grow and we will see more seemingly “random acts of violence”. One shocking example of this happened on a Metropolitan Atlanta Mass Transit Area (MARTA) vehicle recently. The following is how a local Atlanta newspaper described the attack . . . .
 
               Roughly two dozen teens, chanting the name of a well-known Atlanta gang, brought mob rule to
MARTA early Sunday morning, overwhelming nervous passengers and assaulting two Delta flight attendants.
 
#23 Some Americans have become so desperate for cash that they are literally popping the gold teeth right out of their mouths and selling them to pawn shops.

#24 As the economy has declined, the American people have been gobbling up larger and larger amounts of antidepressants and other prescription drugs. In fact, the American people spent 60 billion dollars more on prescription drugs in 2010 than they did in 2005.

            To understand the full picture, consider this: Barack Obama’s puppet-master, George Soros (the “man who broke the Bank of England” and owner of some 52 progressive-foundations that have been working to undermine the U.S. economy for the last nine years as well as funding Barack Obama’s campaigns) is openly calling for the Chinese Yuan to replace the Dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Soros, who has been called responsible for the destruction of at least six other currencies, is now heavily invested in the Dollar’s destruction. Every day that we refuse to emulate the British and adopt severe austerity measures, the closer Mr. Soros gets to adding another few hundred billion dollars worth of profit to his net worth. However, it’s not likely that Barack Obama will cut his own strings and act for the good of the American people against George Soros.
Real money, such as gold or silver, does not change in value over time although because of supply and demand considerations and new inventions, etc. it may be used to buy more or buy less of certain commodities. Paper money which is NOT backed by gold or silver (fiat money) always becomes worth less over time and eventually worthless. Right now Americans are shocked that the dollar has officially lost 24% of its value in a decade . . . but that’s only the official figure. The Federal Reserve Bankers under Fed Chief Ben Bernanke have not so much been “printing money” but merely creating it electronically. If the official figures took into account all Mr. Bernanke’s shenanigans and the world valued the Dollar accordingly then the 2011 dollar would be worth between 3-4 pennies from the 2001 DOLLAR.  Leave it to government to take a perfectly useful commodity such as paper, print a few numbers on it and make it absolutely worthless . . . by the way, gold prices have risen 45% in the last eighteen months; silver has risen 58% in the last four months as people and nations are abandoning paper currencies like the Dollar, Euro and Yen. 
            The combined U.S. National Debt and UNfunded liabilities and Welfare responsibilities of the American government right now is equal to about three and one-half times the Gross Domestic Product ($57 TRillion) of the entire world . . . and yet the highly visible film-maker Michael Moore, all the unions, and the Progressives in congress from both parties claim there is “plenty of money” and refuse to cut spending and are debating when and how and how much to increase the debt ceiling right now. They’re counting on higher taxes upon “the rich” (those married couples earning a combined $250,000 or more who create all our small business jobs) to solve all our problems while continuing to create higher deficits, the one thing NOT on their agenda: spending cutbacks.
 
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
 
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Obamacare – 8 Metrics They Don’t Want You to Know

Posted by Trent Derr on March 31, 2011 at 6:30pm

by: Trent Derr - American Exceptionalism

 

When you examine Obamacare in detail, you find that the facts of the legislation contradict most of the selling points that the Liberals used as their basis for voting for the bill.

 

#1 – 18 Million People Added to Medicare while Cutting $500 Billion from the Program

Obamacare claims to cover 34 million new individuals with insurance.  The primary approach that the legislation uses to cover the uninsured is to expand the number of people under Medicare.   Yes, Medicare.  The same Medicare that was already scheduled to go bankrupt by 2017 before Obamacare passed.   The new legislation will add 18 million people to Medicare while reducing funding for Medicare by $500 billion.  Thus there is no choice but to reduce benefits to the existing Medicare recipients.  Given that more than half of the doctors in the United States do not accept Medicare, the further constraint of doctor availability will be another form of institutionalized rationing.

 

#2 – 17.1 Million Individuals with Private Insurance Will Lose Their Existing Coverage

Although more people are covered under Obamacare, the plan also causes a major redistribution of how individuals are covered for health care.  1.4 million citizens will lose their employer sponsored coverage and 15.7 will lose their other private coverage while they are shifted to either Medicare, “exchanges” under the plan, or will become uninsured.  Yes about 1 million individuals with insurance today will become uninsured and have no coverage under Obamacare.   So the economics of Obamacare will cause at least 17.1 million Americans to lose their existing coverage under Obamacare although the President assured us all that we would be able to keep our existing plans.  Continue...
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Rajjpuut's Folly: "Absolute Wretchedness Index" Gallops under Obama’s Whip

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on January 29, 2011 at 2:30am

 

 

State of Union Speech Shows Obama

Seeking Utter Dominance of AWI

 

 

 

            In the good old days, the so-called “Misery Index” (MI) was achieved by adding the unemployment rate to the inflation rate. Notable, for example, was President Jimmy Carter inheriting Gerald Ford’s 13.45  misery index and then handing off a staggering 20.76 misery index to Reagan.   The term “stagflation” was invented to describe the particular type of mess that Carter had generated with his big government policies. Reagan in turn handed off a relatively low 9.57 misery index to his former Vice President G.H.W. Bush.  By the way, the only reason Carter got off so well is that the Democrats were keeping the stats and didn’t admit that inflation was 19% when he left office.

 

            Rajjpuut would like to submit for contemplation, however, the far more sensitive and indicative AWI or “Absolute Wretchedness Index” created by adding the weekly interest on the REAL NATIONAL DEBT (RND) to the Misery Index. Currently the nation’s REAL NATIONAL DEBT based upon a National Debt of $14.1 TRillion and UNfunded liabilities (just in Social Security, Medicare and the federal side of Medicaid) amounting to $114.6 TRillion equals a grand total of . . . (Drum-roll, Maestro please . . . ) $128.7 TRillion. Welfare costs are another huge UNfunded outlay which the nation is obligated to cover, but the math gets too complicated so let’s stick with a current RND of $128.7 TRillion. That means the weekly interest on a Real National Debt would amount to $ 73 Billion or about $250 per week per American man, woman or child . . . not the debt itself, just the interest we pay on it . . . so with 9.5% unemployment and .4% inflation and $73 Billion weekly RND interest rates Mr. Obama’s current Absolute Wretchedness Index stands at 82.9 easily the worst in history. His predecessor George W. Bush’s highest AWI reading was 72.6. The closest thing we see to Obama’s 82.9 AWI is Carter’s at roughly 76.6.

 

            For those who decry any measurement system which disparages the noble contributions of that stalwart statesman Barack Hussein Obama, perhaps a little deeper study is required. While we appreciate that it’s just not cool to talk about esoteric subjects like having revenues meet obligations, according to information found in a book recently written by a former Comptroller General of the United States (Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility by David M. Walker) at the time he wrote his book the National Debt was about 5.5 times our income (the revenues of the nation). So considering our UNfunded liabilities as well as the debt, our obligations are now more than fifty times our revenues. We have thus severely mortgaged the country’s future and our children’s, grandchildren’s and great grandchildren’s future all the while facing a markedly different world in which America no longer has a virtual monopoly on desired goods and services and technologies but every year faces more and more serious competition in the global marketplace. Current taxes are one thing, but if we don’t start reducing our debt and the interest on the debt, then deferred taxes will destroy the nation. Let’s be clear on this: future taxes could triple and we’d still have trouble paying off both the interest on the National Debt and our future now UNfunded liabilities. That is, unless we do something NOW, everyone in the future would be taxed 100% of earnings and we still could not pay off either debt interest or obligations . . . and, of course we would have zero dollars for Defense or any other budget item . . . and still would not be dealing with the debt itself (again, just the interest).

 

            How far in the future are we talking about? Within 12 or 13 years the interest on the National Debt will be the single largest item in the nation’s budget unless current trends change dramatically. And you get absolutely nothing in return for it, all this interest we pay . . . hence we’ve named this measure of problematical agony: the Absolute Wretchedness Index or AWI.   50% of this money is owed to foreign governments with China being #1 and Japan #2 in holding our debt; a bloc of oil producing nations combined hold’s the #3 amount.  This is a crucial factor. Why did we back Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae with $5 TRillion? Because foreign debtors demanded it, since they held so much of these U.S. debt instruments.

 

            The problem has two components, but despite all our current “pain,” only one of them matters. In the short term due to the economy, our two wars, and unemployment things are going to be painful . . . but this is a small drop in a huge ocean. The main component is the long-term structural imbalance. The budget and the deficits and the debt and the interest payments on the debt which are NOT sustainable.  Once the economy recovers we get out of the wars and finally see 5% unemployment again . . . things will be even worse because we’ll have continued on several more years increasing the debt; the interest on that new higher debt; and all our UNfunded liabilities as well. Huge unending deficits, year after year, as far as the eye can see will still loom ahead of us. It is this structural imbalance that threatens to destroy the country . . . hence our headline “State of Union Speech Shows Obama Seeking Utter Dominance of AWI.”

 

            Mr. Obama has, in real terms not in CBO configurations, increased the federal budget 41% if Obamacare and his other initivatives are considered. Now he talks about freezing discretionary federal spending at this super-elevated level for three years. What utter nonsense that pretense of his amounts to. We must begin to slash spending immediately towards 2006 or even 2004 levels. If we don’t we will lose the confidence of foreign lenders and find ourselves floating down the proverbial open sewer lacking a paddle or other means of locomotion other than our own hands as the dollar drops precipitously, interest rates and inflation soar, and our mild recession becomes a real depression and we see truly scary unemployment. Walker in his book called Washington “a lagging indicator” meaning that the politicians in their ivory towers and the political class who adore them aren’t getting the picture nearly as rapidly or as clearly as the people now do.

 

            It is the people, the voters, who are demanding something be done about these problems even if the solution is arduous and unpopular among politicians and their allies with a vested interest in the current unstainable structure. The current Obama administration and the Democratic majorities they had in Congress have called the TEA Party movement “astroturf” rather than a true grassroots movement; accused them of being merely a more rightwing version of the Republican Party; and shown them no respect at all.   Many of the current Republicans, such as John McCain’s daughter, lightweight pundit and columnist for The Daily Beast Meghan McCain, are proving just as blind about the TEA (Taxed Enough Already or Taken Enough Abuse?) Party as the Democrats. Ms. McCain objected to the TEA Party’s Michelle Bachmann commenting on Obama’s State of the Union address in addition to the Republican response so ably handled by Rep. Paul Ryan, saying, Bachmann was “at best a poor man’s Sarah Palin.”

 

            Ms. McCain, whose only accomplishment in life is being the daughter of a famous man, ought to show a little respect when she’s talking about her elders and about a woman of true accomplishment. As Walker’s book points out, the people are aroused now and Ms. Bachmann, Sen. Paul and Sen. DeMint recognize it even if she can’t.

 

            Let’s give you a real blast from the past when Time Magazine which loved Jimmy Carter finally had to admit things were none too rosy in their March 24, 1980 edition . . . .

 

                  "As Jimmy Carter stepped before the television cameras in the East Room        of the White House last Friday, his task was not just to proclaim another new anti-inflation program but to calm a national alarm that had begun to border on panic. Inflation and interest rates, both topping 18%, are so far beyond anything that Americans have experienced in peacetime—and so far beyond anything that U.S. financial markets are set up to handle—as to inspire a contagion of fear. Usually confident businessmen and bankers have begun talking of Latin American-style hyperinflation, financial collapse, major bankruptcies, a drastic drop in the American standard of living."

 

            We’ve heard plenty of talk about Obama’s and Bernanke sooner or later handing us a hyper-inflation and moving America toward Banana Republic Status so it appears history if it’s not repeating itself is at least humming the same rhyming song. Knowing that lesson in absolutely wretched history, let us pray not repeat it. Instead let us be pro-active in the Reagan sense and severely constraining the parasitic government, let us unleash the free market by cutting debt**; cutting spending; cutting taxes; cutting regulation; and ultimately under-cutting unemployment.

 

 

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

 

 

** actually Reagan’s negative legacy is the mountain of debt he handed us because dominated by Democratic congresses the welfare state continued to expand even during his eight years.

 
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Rajjpuut's Folly: G.O.P. “more trusted,” Obama at make-or-break with Chinese

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on January 18, 2011 at 3:58pm
   

Voters Losing Faith in Dem Politicians

 

 

     According to a Rasmussen Reports survey . . . American voters, who have recently acknowledged more faith in Barack Obama than they’ve shown in several months, are now apparently rapidly losing faith in his fellow Democratic politicians and trust Republicans more on all ten of the nation’s top issues.  Looking at the top-10 issues as selected by those surveyed: Voters trust the G.O.P. on the Economy (their #1 issue) by a 9% margin; on health care (issue #2) by 14%. Only on education (#3) was the matter much in doubt. The voters trusted Republicans by only a 2% margin on education while the minimum trust edge for all the other issues was 8% on ethics; and Social Security; and Iraq. The national security (#9) edge given to the G.O.P. was a whopping 15%; and the edge on handling taxes (#10) afforded to Republicans was a phenomenal 19%.

 

Issue

 Democrats

 Republicans

 Economy

 39%

 48%

 Health Care

 38%

 52%

 Education

 38%

 40%

 Iraq

 37%

 45%

 Immigration

 37%

 48%

 Social Security

 36%

 46%

 Afghanistan

 36%

 44%

 Government Ethics

 35%

 43%

 National Security

 35%

 50%

 Taxes

 33%

 52%

 

 

          As new House Speaker John Boehner and the G.O.P. take over the House of Representatives this month (the Dems still control the White House and Senate),  this marks the first time according to Rasmussen since August, 2009, that Republicans have been trusted more on all ten top issues. At this time two years ago, the soon to be inaugurated Obama and his Dems were trusted more than Republicans on almost every issue. Republicans have held double-digit or near double-digit leads on generic Congressional ballots over the last few months. Congress means both the House and Senate . . . so possible implications are that Democrats in the House and Congress need to respond to the people’s wishes for sweeping change in their handling of the nation’s business. The election results indicate that voters want that from both parties but perhaps are looking for even more marked change among Democrats.

 

 

            Meanwhile Barack Obama today meets with Red Chinese leader Hu Jintao. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has been even more INeffective on the world stage than he has been at creating jobs here at home.  Jintao's country has abused ours in trade agreement after trade agreement and now he's calling for the world to replace the dollar with their currency (the Yuan).  Mr. Hu Jintao is an enemy intent upon economic destruction of this nation and needs to be handled as such.  Of course, we've hurt ourselves much more than the Chinese have damaged us and it's about time Mr. Obama looks back in history to the last time a President actually made a difference in ending a serious financial downturn.

            Warren G. Harding in 1921 inherited a terrible recession from progressive President Woodrow Wilson, much worse than the one in 1929 Herbert Hoover caused for himself with his economic interference policies (raising tariffs in particular). Thanks to Harding’s decisive action the so-called “Invisible Depression was ended in fifteen months. What did Harding do? He cut taxes 49%; cut spending 48%; and reduced the national debt by 30%. He died in office before getting to see the country’s full rebound, but his Vice President Calvin Coolidge after being sworn in continued the policies and gave us the “Roaring Twenties” the decade in American History which showed us the most dramatic surge in prosperity the country’s ever known. How does Harding’s example relate to Obama’s visit with Hu Jintao? Rajjpuut would suggest seven steps for the country per se; and three more steps with regard to the Red Chinese:

 

A.    Internally

 

1. Reduce government spending by 40% and maintain it at that level for a period of 10-15 years depending upon progress in the economy; national debt and UNfunded liabilities.

2. Reduce taxes on individuals and businesses by 60% for a period of five years; by only 40% for years six-ten.

3. Pay down the national debt by 12% per year for the next dozen years.

4. Create a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. And an amendment requiring that each new Congress must in their first 90 days pass a budget.

5. Pass an amendment to the Constitution abolishing income tax for individuals and businesses and replacing it with an 8% Value-Added Tax (VAT) on all individual and business purchases; and a 12% VAT on all purchases of imported goods.

6. Eliminate all foreign aid.

7. Allow refineries to be built in the United States and drilling of oil inland and offshore to proceed and nuclear power plants to be built.

 

 

B.  Vis-a-vis China
      Until such a time as China agrees to 100% fair trade with this country in all aspects charge a 40% VAT on all Chinese goods entering the country, and . . .

 

1. Forbid all knowledge-sharing and technology-sharing with the Chinese.

2. Add a $1 million surtax upon any company doing business with the Chinese.

3. Forbid ownership or exchange of Chinese Yuans in this country.

 

Rajjpuut states unequivocally that the measures mentioned above will return this country to greatness and put us on the road to curing the worst 85% of our nation’s economic ills within a dozen years.

 

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

 
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Rajjpuut's Follies: Tough Times Demand Total Renewal of the American Dream

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on December 28, 2010 at 2:00pm

 

 
Repairing the American Republic
in Ten** Years
 
          Barack Obama is purportedly the “leader of the free world,” but all his political manipulations in the last two years have borne an ultra-socialist flavor and made America a much less free country; threatened the role of the American dollar as the “world’s reserve currency”; and done everything possible to kill the free markets’ abilities to return us to our natural position as the world’s leading economy. Here’s how we change all that and return the country to its former excellence:
 
 
  1. Immediately cut all federal salaries 15% and keep them frozen at this level until the budget is balanced and all UNfunded liabilities are funded.
  2. Otherwise cut all federal spending by 10% and similarly freeze it at those levels until the budget is balanced and all UNfunded liabilities are funded.
  3. Amend the Constitution to include a balanced budget amendment except in times of invasion of our country budget must balance and no future liabilities may go UNfunded.
  4. Amend the Constitution so that Unfunded liabilities are unconstitutional.
  5. Amend the Constitution so that the Federal Government has no power to demand state spending on Federal Programs.
  6. Initiate a flat very low income tax beginning at $30,000 earnings per person with no deductions allowed to anyone.  Every dollar earned above $30,000 by an individual is taxed at 16% by the federal government. For married couples every dollar earned above $70,000 is taxed at $16%.
  7. The corporate income tax for America is now the highest in the world. Drop it for ten years to a flat 5% on all earnings above $150,000 and jobs and businesses will flood back into this country.
  8. Put the country back on a hard money standard: one ounce of silver = $100 or (but NOT and) gold = $5,000 per ounce.
  9. Eliminate Federal Reserve banking and all the inflationary power that goes with it.
  10. Make unemployment insurance a purely federal program; cut unemployment insurance duration to 13 weeks.
  11. Set up a commission to eliminate duplicate or unnecessary programs or unconstitutional programs; and to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse of federal programs and require this commission to report to congress and the president every year two weeks before the State of the Union report by the president.
Eliminate Obamacare and
a.     Allow all citizens and businesses and states to shop across state borders for health care insurance
b.   Provide tort reform to eliminate nuisance malpractice suits and cap tort awards at $1,200,000
c.    Put the CDC (Center for Disease Control) in charge of improving Americans’ health and lowering medical costs.
d.   Reduce Medicare and Medicaid coverage to levels existing in 2000. There will be zero state Medicare or Medicaid coverage . . . only federal coverage at these new levels will exist.
 e.    Re-establish HSA’s as programs which people can use to responsibly plan their own health care funding protection
 
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
 
**It's too big a job for any "instant fix," so not all will be repaired in ten years but the government will be 100% on the right track within three years
By the way, you may recall President Obama telling us that too much information was a bad, even dangerous, thing and recommending that we just read the Huffington Post to avoid confusion . . . .    Well, get this the owner of the HP website Arianna Huffington has declared that the  leftwing progressives “are responsible for all that’s good in America, 100%”. Does she mean the shrinking dollar? $112 TRillion in UNfunded liabilities just courtesy of Social Security; Medicare; and the federal side of Medicaid (not to mention that the new Obamacare legislation will, via the state side of Medicaid bankrupt every state but Utah and Texas by 2022; and all fifty by 2024)? Government and unionized government pensions bankrupting 43 of our states right now?
 
“(By her description of the left), every single breakthrough in American politics from the Emancipation Proclamation onward was a left-wing initiative and espoused by the left,” Huffington declared this week on her website.
 
 
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Rajjpuut's Folly: MSR Data Shows Cretin Behind the Curtain for Certain . . . Obama

Posted by Bob VanDeHey on July 27, 2010 at 5:49pm

It’s said “there are lies, damn lies and statistics . . .” Another little homily goes “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” President Obama is now predicting 9% unemployment next year and full employment by 2016 . . . how much faith should you place in those projections? You do remember the State of the Union Address and all the Obama administration hoopla in early February, don’t you? The very first economic projections that went along with the President’s glowing economic predictions back then are approaching their early August due date. It’s called the “Mid-Session Review.” Not surprisingly, according to Obama's own standards, virtually every economic indicator in the MSR is worse or even much worse than the administration’s own February budget projected. Federal deficits are expected to be $8.474 trillion over the next ten years. That figure is, thankfully, only $150 billion more than Obama anticipated in February’s budget . . . and that is the sum of the “good news.”

Our Federal Public Debt was $5.8 trillion in 2008 an enormous burden brought upon us by both political parties. However, MSR now after 18 full months of Obama’s devastating economic policies projects that debt will grow to roughly 2.33 times its present size in five years to $13.3 trillion and to 3.19 times the present level to $18.5 trillion in ten years. That would then amount to over 68% of GDP and $440 billion higher than they estimated in February. In 2020 the United States will be $26.6 trillion in arrears. Out of control Democratic spending is driving these deficits and this national debt. Republicans have opposed every idiotic proposal along the way, for all the good it did them or us. An overall 84% increase in non-defense discretionary spending by Mr. Obama makes his projection for 9% unemployment in 2011 and full employment by 2016, utterly laughable especially since they’re recently added $31 Billion in new proposals (for the next ten years that were NOT in the February version of the unofficial budget (the administration has NOT created an official budget yet.

 Reality is a hard mistress who, if you don’t respect her, will surely make you life a living hell . . . so it with the MSR and ignorance of economic truth and history is no excuse . . . .

Item #1: The proximate cause for the financial debacle in late 2007 was the sub-prime lending crisis first mentioned as a future danger by James Stack of investech.com in November, 2003. The potential proximate causes of that disaster were linked to that meltdown potential in July, 2005, by the Bush administration which was unable to pass legislation undoing the five bad laws which brought us to the edge of danger – the first “bad-loan” mortgage guarantee law known as the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA ’77**) and the four expansions of CRA ’77 (in ’92 expansion to also embrace the requirement for mortgage guarantees by Franny Mae and Freddy Mac; two more expansions of CRA ’77 in 1995; and the steroid version expansion of CRA ’77 in 1998. All driven by progressive elements in the Republican and especially Democratic Parties. Our president was actually an ACORN lawyer from ’95-97 shaking down financial institutions as ACORN forced them to live up to the absurd letter of these four bad laws. After Obama was gone other ACORN lawyers had an even easier time forcing bad loans when the ’98 expansion of CRA ’77 occurred. The net result is that even after creating our 2007-2008 financial Armageddon, those laws are 98% still on the books so the next version of ACORN can force loans to people without ID; people without jobs; people without rental history; people with horrific credit rating and even loans to illegal aliens. So not only is our financial crisis not over . . . not only is our president creating programs to bankrupt us well into the future . . . not only has spending increased 84% . . . but also the seeds of the last financial crisis have been nurtured and are ready to bloom again. Those are the facts.

Item #2: Mr. Obama is really a communist, but since 55% of Americans call him a “socialist,” let us be content to understate the case and say, Mr. Obama is a socialist . . . and therefore his allegiance is to the labor unions and he harbors immense animosity toward business and toward the wealthy entreprenuers who create businesses and expand businesses and create jobs. He has in his bailouts and buyouts, in his manipulation of the two auto bankruptcies, in his stimulus plan, in his Obamacare, in his new Financial law, etc. gone out of his way to benefit the labor unions at the expense of the American people, the business leaders and the wealthy. And what fact is being violated here? Americans getting $20.00 per hour on the assembly line of a union company canNOT compete with desperate, hard-working foreigners who are content to work for 68 cents an hour over a thirteen hour day with minimal benefits. In large part the unions have made us uncompetitive. Most American jobs nows are being created in the service area rather than the manufacturing area . . . count on it, that means they don’t pay beans compared to what old GM workers were earning even back in 1984. So where are the Obama jobs “created or saved?” The bulk of them are in government or teaching or semi-civil service positions like police and fire-fighting . . . jobs that produce exactly ZERO! Jobs that create exactly ZERO PROFIT. Are we starting to get the picture here, Mr.

Obama believes that government throwing money around creates jobs, real jobs in the real marketplace . . . Mr. Obama has his head deep, deep up inside his lower intestine. Mr. Obama is anti-profit and doesn’t understand the most simple facet of economics . . . wealth creates real jobs, real jobs create real wealth and left to its own devices this is the engine of prosperity. You’ll never see a fire-fighter, police officer, teacher, union official, union member, or service worker creating jobs . . . real jobs come from real wealth and the real basis of real wealth is not the service industry but real production of real goods. Ultimately it comes to that and Mr. Obama is doing everything 100% bass-ackward and instead of building our economy is seemingly determined to undermine it so it will never create a single job again. Right now he’s about to raise taxes on the rich again . . . surprise, they’ve got the power to take their ball and go home and leave you without an economy, Mr. Obama.

Item #3: Everything Mr. Obama and the unions have done in their history have made America and American workers completely unattractive to investment and even to those who’d loan us money. The American workplace with all its anti-business regulations has become the least attractive jobs environment the world has ever known. The movement of American corporations to other jobsites in the world was a natural result of that UGLY-Anti-AMERICAN, Anti-business climate and under Mr. Obama that trend has grown into a galloping reality. The only place non-government jobs are being created is in low-wage retail and service jobs.

Item #4: Mr. Obama is so out of touch that he is seeking to pass legislation “creating” five million green-tech jobs. If the Spanish green-tech job experience is any judge, that means he’s talking first about losing eleven million real jobs from the real economy to subsidize those green-tech jobs. Then only about 1/10 of those green jobs will prove permanent so at a cost of eleven million real jobs he will have created 500,000 permanent green-tech jobs . . . a 22/1 ratio which is why Spain went from 3% unemployment in 1997 to 21% unemployment today. Mr. Obama doesn’t understand economics and still believes in the tooth fairy version of Keynesian Economics that purports that governments can create real jobs. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb in 1879. We have not yet seen a similar breakthrough in solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy or any electrical generation of energy more efficient than using fossil fuels such as coal, gas, natural gas, or even so-called “oil-shale.” We could abandon the rest and take the least advanced technologically of all these fossil-fuel industries (oil shale) and in ten years if government got completely out of its way, have America far better off than it is now energywise. We could, on the otherhand, subsidize solar, ethanol, wind and geothermal experiments for twenty years and most likely be not much further than we are now. There is a time, Mr. Obama, for every purpose under heaven and all your audacious hope won’t change that time one second.

Item #5: Barack Obama wrote the manual on how to lie with statistics, seemingly making up about 60% of those he spouts off in interviews. Certainly his “jobs created and/or saved” is total malarky. The number of people without jobs period is roughly 17.8% at present. The number of under-employed people with part-time work only is another 4.4%. The number of under-employed people with jobs paying far less than the jobs they lost is roughly 5.7%. The number of people still on the unemployment rolls is roughly only about 9.6% . . . . how do “jobs created or saved” fit in with those greater truths?

All the following are real, not Obama-generated, statistics and all of them were bad when he took office but have become much, much worse because of his hateful interference in the economy:

61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 almost a 25% jump under Obamanomics

36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.

24 percent of American workers over age 50, say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.


Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, a 32 percent increase over 2008.

For the first time in U.S. history, banks** own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.

In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector. Unionized federal workers earn about 112% more. That means that a lot of money that might be stimulating the economy is being wasted on government.


In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.


More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.


For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.


This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.

Thanks to Obama and union demands in this country, the rate of job outsourcing by major corporations, increased 18% in 2009.


Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.

As you look at what exactly Mr. Obama has done to you, here’s a good website to visit showing you what the brunt of your tax burden is in three scenarios:

http://mytaxburden.org/

for sure, one way or another tax increases are the #1 most likely scenario that Obamanomics has brought our way. $2.55 TRillion over the next ten years from “allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire” or “closing the loopholes in the tax code” or whatever spin they want to put on it. Life gets a bit harder.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

** From 1946 - 1998, America boasted by far the highest home ownership in the world 62 - 65%. So the CRA ’77 was fixing a situation that wasn’t actually broken, but now it truly, truly is busted.

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