Many of us have been affected by the economic downturn of the last few years. I had been unemployed for about half of the year in 2010 and had been paying fairly close attention to jobless numbers and the spin with which officials and media put on the numbers. Officials use interesting and in my mind deceptive tactics (allegedly) to report the bad news in a more positive light.
I have to confess that I am embarrassed by being fooled by Obama last week and his tax “deal.”. I felt a sense of relief when he annouced an agreement with Republicans for an extension of the Bush Tax Cuts for ALL Americans. The far left went nuts over letting the “wealthy” keep their own money as if not stealing it through government dictate is something to give thanks. The official Republican spin was that this was a good deal. As the week wore on, however, we come to find that this deal contained a good deal more crap. As usual the Republicans gave a lot more than they got and the Democrats are still trying to load this bill up with their wish list or more realistically to buy votes so the measure can pass. Here is a partial list of the pork, but none of this is in writing and has all been done behind door number three:
I am not sure whether “Demonomics” is Demon Economics or Democrat Economics. It is probably a distinction without a difference as some of the recent comments by leading Democrats defy logic. I have to wonder how these people not only got as far as they did, but stay in positions of power. Perhaps the biggest example has been how the Democrats have been hawking another extension of Unemployment Compensation payments. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi postulated that,
“It injects demand into the economy. It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name.”
No this is not a post about the American peoples’ rejection of Obama/Pelosi/Reid/Washington politics. Many others are having fun welcoming the Republican wave that swept away many notable Democrats…though not nearly enough. Jerry Brown as governor? California you have got to be kidding me. I am holding in a wait-and-see position having been sorely disappointed by Republicans far too many times.
Unbeknownst to many Americans the Federal Reserve (The Fed) had scheduled a meeting today to decide future monetary policy. I find it interesting that they chose the day after a hotly contest mid-term election to meet and announce their policies. The centerpiece of their plan is Quantitative Easing 2 (“QE2″). The Wall Street Journal describes QE2 as:
News briefs are a collection of interesting news stories…
Brief 1: Finally some decent news for those of us men on the higher end of the weight scale. We cannot really wear tight Lycra bike shorts, Speedo swim briefs (no one except for competitive swimmers should anyway), or vertical stripes, but it seems that heavier men actually have heavier paychecks than their skinnier counterparts. Of course the thinner guys get more women since they don’t care about how much a man makes. The news is not so good for women whose paychecks are inversely proportional to their weight.
A while back I was dismayed by an editorial/comment by one of the editors of the Costco magazine regarding Al Gore and Glenn Beck. I took exception to a membership magazine disparaging Beck while hoisting Gore on a pedestal to schlep his most recent book. My post, Costco Disconnection was perhaps my most read and certainly most commented on article. You can follow the link if you want to read the original posting.
Exxon Valdez, Hurricane Ivan, Ruby Ridge, Monica Lewinsky, Iranian U.S. Embassy take over, Bay of Pigs, and Hurricane Katrina were all disasters faced by White House different administrations. Besides the worst economy and near 10% unemployment Obama has his first “natural” disaster.
So what has Obama done so far? Not much. Over a week after the disaster he has promised to escalate the federal response to the spill. The citizens of the Gulf coast should feel pretty good as Eric Holder has sent a team of lawyers to “monitor” the oil spill. That’s really what the wildlife, citizens, fishermen, and responders need is a bunch of lawyers. My guess is that there are plenty of ambulance chasers there already. This move should tell you all that you need to know about this administration. Lawyers! Really?
If you have worked anywhere you have probably run into that guy (or girl) sometime in your career. Terry was the name (name changed to protect the innocent) of “that guy” at one of my recent jobs. I would describe him as young, well dressed, very good looking, very personable, great to talk to, funny, a good listener, and someone everybody likes. Terry started in our sales department.
About a year ago I was asked to participate on a committee (I know yikes a committee) from our local school district. The idea was to pull together the community to work with district personnel to better prepare students for college and working life. Our district has an outstanding track record in academics and that is one of the main reasons that we moved here long before we had children of school age. At one of the first meetings we brainstormed about topics where more emphasis was needed to better prepare our children.
Once again, I could not make stuff up this good. This series is all about Joe Biden, arguably the smartest vice president in United States history according the the main stream media.
Joe on the economy:
December 2008: Joe Biden gave a speech after the election and spoke about the economy. Now faced with actually doing something rather than just campaigning he made this statement:
