The Least Serious President in the History of the Republic™ and His Contribution to Our Booming Economy

On Monday, at the White House press briefing, there was a report on the nation's economy. (Video below) When questioned about the timing of the report, after the blustering bit of boasting last Friday by The Least Serious President in the History of the Republic™, claiming responsibility for our growing economy.

"Coincidence", they said. Well, if there is one thing Leroy Jethro Gibbs has taught us is that there are no coincidences! The report torpedoed, sent to the bottom and scattered the wreckage of any such claims. May I draw your attention to Exhibit A: Small business optimism.

Note the dotted blue line. Those are the trends of small business optimism under (forgive me for uttering the name) Barack Obama. See how dramatically they all jumped after the election. Technically, the Temp Agency President can claim the recovery started "during his administration", but it was primarily the last two months of his administration, after it was clear that the economic stranglehold B.O. represented was going away.

Next, note the trend in business investment. The dotted blue line is plummeting downward in each case, like a SCUD missile over Tel Aviv.

In each case it is a nearly 90 degree pivot upward. Like Michelle on a beeline to a taco. Note, too, that the projection was going to "zero" or negative numbers.

Next chart is "Capital goods orders", with the dotted blue line trending down like Colin Kaepernick jersey sales at the NYC policeman's ball.

How The Hell Do You Know The Skunk Farted?

Short 4 foot 9 inch wombat, Robert Reich who was Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor, made an astonishingly confusing analogy about skunks yesterday.

Trump is to business what a skunk is to a dinner party. He makes a stink and people pay him. When he owes money he hides in the bushes.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) October 2, 2016

And Popehat asked the salient question:

.@RBReich what kind of weird-ass dinner parties do you go to

— (((Popehat))) (@Popehat) October 2, 2016

And then there's Cuffy's snark: 

[menacing skunk passes hat around dinner party]

"OK, losers, pony up. Oh, and if China calls, I'll be in the azaleas." https://t.co/Mz2ql99New

— Cuffy (@CuffyMeh) October 2, 2016

Reich has been notoriously wrong-headed for decades regarding the economy while espousing his socialist drivel in support of an activist government that raises taxes in order to redistribute the money.  He has not, nor will he ever, be able to explain the precipitous decline in the American economy.  He smugly contents himself with denouncing the “myth of the free market”.

His line of propaganda employs scare tactics declaring that the elderly won’t receive their Social Security checks or be able to procure their much-needed medical care.  He has demanded in his never-ending tripe that those of us who faithfully pay our taxes, abide by the rule of law, keep our noses clean and get up every day and go to work should continue to allow the government leeches a steady stream of freebies and the politically entrenched to feed at the government trough.

The little polecat doesn’t understand the skunk party theory and he certainly doesn’t understand the most basic concepts in economics. 

Never Go Full Krugman

The financial geniuses at the New York Times are puzzled over what they call the "Economic Mystery" of 2016.  As Adam Davidson just put it in the New York Times Magazine, "financial experts" cannot figure out why American corporations are sitting on $1.9 trillion in cash, "just sitting around."  From Davidson:

The notion that a corporation would hold on to so much of its profit seems economically absurd, especially now, when it is probably earning only about 2 percent interest by parking that money in United States Treasury bonds. These companies would be better off investing in anything — a product, a service, a corporate acquisition — that would make them more than 2 cents of profit on the dollar, a razor-thin margin by corporate standards. And yet they choose to keep the cash.

According to Davidson, this "strange vogue" for corporate hoarding seems to have begun after the turn of the Millennium and has only accelerated in recent years.  Heh.  It really seems to have not occurred to these economic prodigies that confidence in the current economic conditions are at nearly all-time lows.  It seems equally impossible for them to believe that this could be linked to nearly eight years of a lawless and politically vindictive regime administration.  And, with the very real possibility of an even more extreme leftist administration replacing it within the year, one can not escape the harsh truth that no one expects to make an honest profit any time soon.

But it gets better.  Davidson expresses intense frustration with this trend, because: "These numbers are maddening on their face. If the companies spent their savings, rather than hoarding them, the economy would instantly grow, and we would most likely see more jobs with better pay."  What???  I just watched the President's State of the Union address just days ago, and I distinctly heard him say that the economy has never been stronger.  Is somebody not being truthful with us?

After all, the two American companies holding the most cash, GM (half their value in cash) and Apple (more than a third in cash), are politically strong backers of the current administration in Washington, so one would expect them to believe what the administration tells us.  Yet they act in exactly the opposite direction.  Why should the public, with their own money, act any differently?

This corporate behavior should send us a strong signal, then.  We should hang on to what savings we have, and prepare for very bad times, indeed.  And above all, believe nothing that this administration tells us about the economic future, and certainly believe nothing the New York Times tells us, because the very smartest of corporate America is believing none of it.

* Title reference is to Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics and writer for the NY Times.

Meet Gil Fulbright (AKA) Phillip Mamouf-Wifarts: The Senate Candidate Who Thinks The People Of Kentucky Deserve The Best Representation Money Can Buy

Photo courtesy of Represent.us

Isn’t it time politicians were honest with you?

He's running for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, but he's not going to talk to you about “jobs” and the “middle class.” People without jobs can’t afford to donate to his campaign. And the middle class, well, they’ll be gone soon anyway.

His opponents Mitch McConnell and Alison Lundergan Grimes will spend $100 million to show the people of Kentucky how much they care.

Honestly, he doesn't care about Kentucky. He cares about that sweet, sweet cash.

Find out what Gil thinks about net neutrality, healthcare costs, and the economy.  You can also follow Gil on Twitter.  Just remember, it’s not about you sweety.  It’s about your money.

Barack Obama, Economic Genius

From Obama's State of Confusion speech:

We know our economy is stronger when we reward an honest day’s work with honest wages. But today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong. That’s why, since the last time this Congress raised the minimum wage, nineteen states have chosen to bump theirs even higher. 

Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families.

First, let's consider Obama's imaginary worker: "...full-time...making the minimum wage". Does such a creature even exist?? One of my predictions for 2014 was:

The 29 hour work week will become the de facto standard for the majority of new hires in 2014

According to a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), some additional 2.5 million full time jobs will be lost, liberating them from the need to work, according to most good liberals. As more and more jobs become part time, my prediction is well on its way to coming to pass.

He goes on...

"a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong."

Yeah it is! Who in their right mind would start a family and have children if they are working a job only pulling down minimum wage? And if there is such a thing as a full time worker, making just minimum wage, sole provider for the family, the percentage of workers meeting this criteria must be approaching zero. And before I hearing the bleating about a lack of compassion, we have welfare, food stamps and any number of programs to assist those unfortunate few.

Workers (and I use the term loosely) who receive minimum wage are primarily unskilled, without experience, possibly someone's first job. Employer paid health care benefits were originally devised as a way to get around wage controls and to reward valuable employees with the equivalent of a higher wage. The reality is today, that employers are reducing the ranks of those paid lower wages in order to avoid the expense of government mandated health care (for less productive employees).

Employers want to pay productive workers as much as they can. When I was a hiring manager, I sought to start my people at the highest possible salary, and grant raises and provide bonuses to retain the workers I trained. The idea that all businesses want to do is exploit their workers and pay them as little as possible, is a liberal old wives' tale. Those unfortunate enough to work for such an employer are free to improve their education and skills, as they garner experience, making them more desirable to those enlightened employers who know that they succeed along with their employees.

According to the US Dept. of Labor,

"In 2012, there were 3.6 million hourly paid workers in the United States with wages at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. These workers made up 4.7 percent of the 75.3 million workers age 16 and over who were paid at hourly rates.".

Less than five percent? Weren't the Obamabots recently all bleating about how insignificant the five million people who were losing their private insurance because they were 'less than five per cent' of the work force?

Closed captioning for the Irony (and Math) Impaired: If five million people losing their insurance are insignificant, then 3.6 million is less significant than that. You can't have it both ways!

So, if an insignificant number of people, according to good liberals, being caused financial hardship because their affordable insurance was cancelled, why should we be more upset over a lesser and transient number of people who will be paid minimum wage until such time as they have the experience and skills to earn more?

Also, working less than full time increases...what was it the President calls it? "Income inequality"! Seems to me that even if we raised the minimum wage, there's going to be 'income inequality' between those working forty hours a week and those only working twenty nine! And between those working twenty nine hours a week and those who are unemployed... That whole pesky math thing again!

As Obamacare crashes and burns, the old minimum wage canards are being hauled out to distract people from the real economy killer, as government tries to take over one sixth of the economy. It is an election year, and the Democrats have nothing to run on but fear itself. They are counting on their supporters being math impaired enough to believe all the doublespeak they utter. That and trying to pull as many un-Constitutional extensions and delays of Obamacare mandates out of their hats, at least until after the midterm and 2016 elections.

Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

Cross posted at Proof Positive

President Obama Finally Takes Responsibility For the Abysmal State of the American Economy

By Proof

I know! I wouldn't believe a headline like that either! Here's what the lying weasel* President actually said:

But although the economy has been growing, and we've been adding new jobs, the truth of the matter is, is that the financial crisis was so devastating that there's still a lot of people who are struggling, and in fact if we don't provide unemployment insurance, it makes it harder for them to find a job.-Barack Obama

Aside from the fact that extended unemployment makes it easier for some people to avoid looking for a job, consider: "the financial crisis was so devastating..." Which financial crisis was that, Mr. President? Back in 2010, according to you, the Bush recession came to an end in 2009.

(Reuters) - The recession ended in June 2009, making it the longest downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the National Bureau of Economic Research said on Monday. 

The NBER, considered the arbiter of U.S. recessions, said its declaration did not mean the economy had "returned to operating at normal capacity" and cautioned that economic activity sometimes remains below normal well into expansion. 

President Barack Obama, under pressure to speed up the pace of recovery and drive down unemployment as November congressional elections near, said the official end of the recession did not change the grim reality for many people.

So, the Bush recession "officially ended" in June 2009, then the financial crisis you refer to, which is so devastating, must be the "Obama Recovery", right?

You keep trying to imply, after five years with your hands on the levers of power, the first two with Democrat majorities in both the House and Senate, and trillions of dollars of spending, that somehow you aren't responsible for the worst recovery in the history of the Republic, still bitterly clinging to "some other dude did it".

Your signature accomplishment is the healthcare debacle that you had to sell with some of the biggest lies ever told. You continue to campaign, as if you were still running against an imaginary incumbent, but there's more to being president than campaign stops, hobnobbing with celebrities, playing golf, and selfies with blonde PM's. You've treated your entire tenure as president as one long vacation. Governing is hard work, but you asked for the job. Astound your enemies, Mr. President. Make the headline come true.

Update*: It was admittedly not the correct choice of words. The original was little weasel. Given the president's stature, we regret the error. -Editor

Cross posted at Proof Positive

The Statue Of Liberty Is Shaking Her Fist

Ross Kaminsky opined at American Spectator:

“While the most anti-American president in American history might not be too unhappy at the downward spiral of his nation’s international standing and economic strength, it is not by his design but rather a result of the sad accident of having (twice) elected a naïve, petulant, self-obsessed non-leader.” 

[One potential caveat: While Obama is not clever enough for his apparent incompetence to be anything but real, some of his advisers/puppet-masters, like David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, are. For those enemies of America, Obama is just their front man, their very own Billy Mays, hawking a radical leftist vision in a pleasant container. The question then is what percentage puppet is our president.]

The day of reckoning is coming.

The Senate Chaplain, Barry Black, had to use the morning invocation to publicly dress down the members of the Senate:

“We acknowledge our transgressions, our shortcomings, our smugness, our selfishness and our pride.  Deliver us from the hypocrisy of attempting to sound reasonable while being unreasonable.  Remove from them that stubborn pride, which imagines itself to be above and beyond criticism.  Forgive them the blunders they have committed.” 

Putting personal politics ahead of what is best for this nation is egregious. These stupid bastards must grow up.

Innocent people are paying the price for their dithering.

Don’t Forget To Flush Your Oceans Of Tomorrow

Everybody needs to whip out their Clint Eastwood empty chairs again after yesterday’s highly anticipated economics speech by The Insufferable Airhorn at Knox College.

The errand boy sent by grocery clerks considers himself an excellent judge of his own speeches.  “I’m going to talk about where we need to go from here, how we need to put behind us the distractions and the phony debates and nonsense that somehow passes for politics these days, and get back to basics,” Obama said Monday as he addressed Organizing for Action, the non-profit group backing his agenda.

At that meeting he told OFA staff and volunteers, “As we’ve learned, I’ve given some pretty good speeches before. And then things still get stuck here in Washington, which is why I’m going to need your help.”

After nearly five years in the Oval Office, the perpetual campaigner-in-chief attempted to bullshit Americans into believing that he is “making the economy his top priority.”

And by bullshit, I mean this:

“One of America’s greatest writers, Carl Sandburg, was born right here in Galesburg over a century ago.  He saw the railroad bring the world to the prairie, and the prairie send its bounty to the world…he saw something more on the horizon.” 

“I speak of new cities and new people,” he wrote.  “…The past is a bucket of ashes…yesterday is a wind gone down, a sun dropped in the west…there is…only an ocean of tomorrows, a sky of tomorrows.” 

“America, we have made it through the worst of yesterday’s winds.  And if we find the courage to keep moving forward; if we set our eyes on the horizon, we too will find an ocean of tomorrows, a sky of tomorrows—for America’s people, and for this great country that we love.”

Jarret Stepman encapsulated this speech beautifully:

“In essence, Obama has twisted the government “of the people, by the people, for the people” into a government that owns you.”

I especially loved Nile Gardiner’s take:

“This was a highly defensive speech, with President Obama in full campaign mode. There were no fresh ideas, just a tired rehash of earlier campaign rhetoric. It was also another love letter to big government, with a clarion call for yet more federal spending on environmental measures, infrastructure, manufacturing, and a laundry list of liberal pet causes. There was not a word about reducing the burden of government regulation, and getting bureaucracy off the backs of entrepreneurs. His speech promised more government spending at a time when America’s national debt is approaching a staggering $17 trillion. He rejected tax cuts, and bashed the rich, at times sounding more like Francois Hollande than the leader of the free world.” 

[SNIP] 

“President Obama’s message will do nothing to reassure a skeptical American public. With unemployment still above 10 percent in 27 major US metropolitan areas, and nearly one in six Americans living on food stamps, the economic record of this administration leaves much to be desired. Today in Illinois, President Obama spoke the language of decline, promising more of the same left-wing policies that have weakened US competitiveness, eroded economic freedom, and have saddled the world’s superpower with historic levels of debt. Americans deserve better than the failed statism that has bankrupted cities like Detroit, and threatens to do the same to the rest of the country.”

Seriously, sorority girls have done the Walk of Shame home from frat parties feeling more satisfied than we feel after this gobbledygook speech.

Don't forget to flush your "ocean of tomorrows."

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) July 24, 2013

I would like to thank David Burge (Iowahawk) for providing the title of this post.

Here’s A Pen, Sign Your Surrender

I loved that line so much; I pinched it from John Gordon Steele’s piece at Commentary Magazine for the title of this post.

Steele concludes his post with this pearl of wisdom: 

“Obama’s utter disdain for any ideas but his own is going to be the ruin of this president and that ruin might not be that long in coming. Too bad it is the country, along with his place in history, that has to suffer for his hubris.”

Obama’s budget plan is “mainly tax hikes,” House Speaker John Boehner told reporters today in Washington. “We’ve got some serious differences,” he said. During a phone call yesterday, Boehner said, he and the president were “frank” about “how far apart we are.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), said Obama’s focus on higher tax rates for top earners has made a deal tough to reach.  “The president and his allies have taken so many things off the table the only thing left is varnish,” McConnell said.

When I conceived this Photoshop™, I considered Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol because he loved money more than life itself.  Obama loves money; your money—my money—our children’s’ and our grandchildren’s money.

The second character in the ‘shop is of the bitter, grouchy, cave-dwelling Grinch who had a heart two sizes too small.  He’s there because Obama “seems to think that if all he talks about are taxes, and that’s all reporters write about, somehow the rest of us will magically forget that government spending is completely out of control.”

The third character, Uncle Sam wearing handcuffs, represents a helpless country unable to fend off the significant negative economic, employment, and social consequences of going over the fiscal cliff—the effects of which, in many cases, would mean long-lasting if not permanent damage.

And finally, the errand boy sent by grocery clerks himself, laughing his ass off as he warns Republicans against using the debt ceiling as a bludgeon in this debt battle.  In the spring, when the Chicago Messiah seeks to raise the debt ceiling, we can only hope they refuse to pay him any attention.

Obama Hiding Behind Big Bird

The owners of the children's show "Sesame Street" have asked the Obama campaign to pull down an ad released Tuesday that shows an image of Big Bird and mocks Republican nominee Mitt Romney for holding up the popular children's character as a symbol of unnecessary government spending.

"We have approved no campaign ads and, as is our general practice, have requested that both campaigns remove Sesame Street characters and trademarks from their campaign materials," said Sesame Workshop, a nonprofit educational organization that produces and owns the show, in a statement.

The Obama campaign is reviewing Sesame Workshop’s request.

A reporter traveling with the Obama camp asked Jen Psaki aboard Air Force One, “Thinking back to the last campaign of ‘08 and this time, too, the President has bemoaned at times the focus on trivial things.  And even though you made the point about cutting the deficit, a lot of people will read about it, hear about this ad—we‘re a month away from the election and we’re talking about Big Bird.  Is this the kind of focus that the campaign should have?

And from the Left:

And from the brilliant mind of an American Weasel in darkest England:

That’s Some Fish Tale

"Unbelievable jobs numbers...these Chicago guys will do anything...can't debate so change numbers," tweeted Welch, the former CEO of General Electric.

Welch wasn't alone in raising questions about the jobs numbers. Americans for Limited Government, a conservative group that has been a steady critic of the Obama administration, issued a statement that said the numbers the Bureau of Labor Statistics "used to calculate the unemployment rate are wrong, or worse manipulated. Given that these numbers conveniently meet Obama's campaign promises one month before the election, the conclusions are obvious...Anyone who takes this unemployment report serious is either naive or a paid Obama campaign adviser."

Conn Carroll, a senior writer at the conservative Washington Examiner suggested a slightly less nefarious form of manipulation of the data.

"I don't think BLS cooked numbers. I think a bunch of Dems lied about getting jobs. That would have same effect," he tweeted. "Would love to see the partisan breakdown of the 873,000 Americans who say they got new jobs."

BLS denied there was any manipulation of the data or anything out of the ordinary about the unemployment rate calculation.

"This must be an anomaly," former Congressional Budget Office director Doug Holtz-Eakin said in a snap analysis of the numbers. "It is out of line with any of the other data...” 

Holtz-Eakin noted the household survey is smaller, suggesting it is not as reliable. He called estimate of 873,000 new jobs "implausible." 

He said the report was otherwise "solid," but reflected "the economy is merely moving sideways." 

Convincing millions more adults they don’t need or want a job has been the Obama administration’s most effective jobs program, despite trillions in new stimulus spending, industrial policies, targeted tax cuts, and social programs intended to boost demand. 

Photoshop™ Of The Day: Mr. Fix-It VS Mr. Broke It

Photoshop™ Of The Day: Business Experience