FedUpUSA

Archive for the ‘Obama Administration’ Category

Now I’ve seen it all.

The USSC upheld Obamacare by, basically, twisting the Constitution into a pretzel, crapping on it, whizzing on that and then eating it.

Finding first that the Commerce Clause bars the government from compelling one to enter into commerce, the analysis then turned to whether there was any way to save the constitutionality of the act.

The justices found one.

They re-interpreted the penalty clause as a tax.

And of course, Congress can levy taxes.

That’s the path taken by this tortured process — a path that could only be dreamed up if someone had already determined the outcome they sought instead of being an independent jurist.

The real surprise, however, is that Chief Justice Roberts, believed to be a strict constructionist on the court, managed to not only agree with this piece of tortured logic he found and constructed it as the opinion is his!

So much for judicial restraint and strict construction!

You really ought to read the dissent that starts on page 127 of the opinion.  Justice Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito eviscertate the majority, saying in part:

Here, however, Congress has impressed into servicethird parties, healthy individuals who could be but are not customers of the relevant industry, to offset the undesirable consequences of the regulation. Congress’ desire to force these individuals to purchase insurance is motivatedby the fact that they are further removed from the marketthan unhealthy individuals with pre-existing conditions, because they are less likely to need extensive care in the near future. If Congress can reach out and command even those furthest removed from an interstate market to participate in the market, then the Commerce Clause becomes a font of unlimited power, or in Hamilton’s words, “the hideous monster whose devouring jaws . . . spare neither sex nor age, nor high nor low, nor sacred nor profane.” The Federalist No. 33, p. 202 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961).

What little was left of The Constitution died today, June 28th, 2012.

And incidentally, the math on federal health spending coupled with this decision means that by the time a 55 year old man reaches 85 (his life expectancy, roughly) the Federal government will be attempting to spend roughly $15 trillion a year on health care.

(No it won’t, no we won’t get that far, and the detonation of our government on the fiscal side is now assured — or your health care will be sacrificed.  This is mathematics, not politics.)

At times it really is breathtaking how corrupted the U.S. government has become.  Government corruption has become so endemic in our society that most people have just kind of accepted it as “normal”.  But shouldn’t we all get hopping mad when we learn that the Federal Reserve sent billions of dollars in bailout money to addresses in the Cayman Islands?  Shouldn’t we all be furious when one of the leading candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, declares that he is “not going to spend my time focusing on the Federal Reserve”?  Shouldn’t we all be alarmed when Nancy Pelosi gives a speech in which she says that “elections shouldn’t matter”?  Shouldn’t we all demand that someone be held accountable when we find out that a CBO analysis shows that the “$38.5 billion” in spending cuts will only reduce the budget deficit for this year by $352 million dollars?  On top of everything else, shouldn’t we all be absolutely horrified when the TSA gropes little 6 year old girls and virtually none of our politicians demand change?

$38.5 Billion In Budget Cuts Is Really Just $352 Million In Deficit Reduction?

Yesterday I wrote about how a close examination of the “budget cut deal” reveals that the 38.5 billion dollars in budget cuts are largely illusory.

However, even I was not ready for what the Congressional Budget Office had to say about this deal.  What I read in the Washington Post today absolutely floored me.  According to the Washington Post,  the Congressional Budget Office is saying that the budget deal will only cut the budget deficit for this year by less than one percent of what was being claimed by Republican and Democrat leaders….

The Congressional Budget Office estimate shows that compared with current spending rates the spending bill due for a House vote Thursday would pare just $352 million from the deficit through Sept. 30. About $8 billion in cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid are offset by nearly equal increases in defense spending.

What a joke.

The reality is that U.S. government is increasing by over 2 million dollars every single minute.  So the entire “savings” from this “budget deal” will account for approximately 3 hours of government spending.

Look, the U.S. government ran a budget deficit of $188 billion dollars for the month of March alone.  We are in debt up to our eyeballs and it is getting worse at a mind blowing pace.

When are people going to wake up and realize that neither political party is the least bit serious about dealing with our debt problem any time soon?

The Federal Reserve Sent Billions In Bailout Aid To Millionaires and Billionaires In The Cayman Islands

Most Americans don’t even understand what the Federal Reserve is, and yet they get to throw trillions of dollars around while being more or less completely unaccountable the entire time.

In a new article for Rolling Stone (which is a must read), Matt Taibbi exposes some of the folks that the Federal Reserve has been sending money to….

The Fed sent billions in bailout aid to banks in places like Mexico, Bahrain and Bavaria, billions more to a spate of Japanese car companies, more than $2 trillion in loans each to Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, and billions more to a string of lesser millionaires and billionaires with Cayman Islands addresses. “Our jaws are literally dropping as we’re reading this,” says Warren Gunnels, an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. “Every one of these transactions is outrageous.”

How in the world does it benefit the American people to send billions of dollars to some ultra-wealthy people down in the Cayman Islands?

In light of what we have already found out, it is absolutely amazing that Congress is still refusing to authorize a complete audit of the Federal Reserve.

The corruption of the Fed is crying out to be investigated.

Unfortunately, many of our top politicians are openly declaring that they have no intention of going after the Federal Reserve.

Mitt Romney Declares That He Will Not Be Going After Ben Bernanke Or The Federal Reserve

In case anyone needs one more sign that Mitt Romney is just another shill for the establishment, just check out the two statements by Romney below.

According to Politico, Romney recently told CNBC’s Larry Kudlow that he is not concerned about the Federal Reserve at all….

“I think Ben Bernanke is a student of monetary policy; he’s doing as good a job as he thinks he can do,” Romney said when Kudlow asked what kind of job Bernanke is doing. “I’m not going to spend my time going after Ben Bernanke. I’m not going to spend my time focusing on the Federal Reserve.”

That’s just great.  The Republican candidate with perhaps the greatest amount of “establishment support” says that he thinks that Bernanke is doing a good job and he does not plan to spend any time focusing on the Federal Reserve.

So if Romney gets in the Federal Reserve will continue to be able to dish out trillions to their friends without any interference.

Nancy Pelosi Declares That “Elections Shouldn’t Matter”

How are we supposed to respond when the top Democrat in the House of Representatives declares that “elections shouldn’t matter as much as they do”?

During a recent speech, Pelosi implored establishment Republicans to “take back your party” so that elections won’t “matter” as much….

To my Republican friends: take back your party. So that it doesn’t matter so much who wins the election, because we have shared values about the education of our children, the growth of our economy, how we defend our country, our security and civil liberties, how we respect our seniors. Because there are so many things at risk right now — perhaps in another question I’ll go into them, if you want. But the fact is that elections shouldn’t matter as much as they do… But when it comes to a place where there doesn’t seem to be shared values then that can be problematic for the country, as I think you can see right now.

Apparently what Pelosi wants is for America to go back to a time when all of us just went along with the false left/right paradigm and when we were all content to sleep while the establishment agenda rolled right along.

Well guess what Nancy?  Some of us are starting to wake up.

6 Year Old Girl Molested By The TSA

How far have we fallen as a nation when a 6 year old girl has to have her private areas touched in public by the TSA before she is allowed to get on an airplane?

America is becoming a very strange place.

The following is video that was posted on YouTube of the recent incident involving a 6 year old girl….

So is this what we have become as a nation?

Will we subject ourselves to anything as long as the authorities insist that it will keep us a little bit safer?

Pretty soon America is going to be unrecognizable.

I have previously written about how in one town in Missouri, girls scouts have actually been banned from selling girl scout cookies in their own front yards.

How crazy is that?

In Cleveland, authorities haves announced plans to have “trash supervisors” go snooping through trash cans to ensure that people are actually recycling according to city guidelines.

The control freaks we keep voting into office seem to have an obsession with running ever detail of our lives.

In many areas of the nation we aren’t even allowed to do acts of kindness anymore.

For example, in Houston, Texas a couple named Bobby and Amanda Herring that had been feeding homeless people for over a year has been banned by the city from doing so.

So what is next?

Are they going to ban kids from taking lunches to school?

It is already happening….

At one public school in the Chicago area, children have been banned from bringing their lunches from home.  Instead, it is mandatory that they eat the food that the cafeteria serves.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve gets to create trillions of dollars out of thin air and they get to send it to whoever they want.

What a country we have, eh?

Our system has become corrupted beyond all recognition.  Government corruption is out of control and it is getting worse with each passing day.

So when are the American people going to get sick of all this nonsense?

When are….

Wait.

American Idol is on tonight.

Perhaps all of this can just wait for another time.

After all, who wants to miss what J-Lo and Steven Tyler are going to say tonight?

Those two are really a couple of characters!

Our leaders know what they are doing, right?

We can trust our politicians to act in our best interest, right?

So instead of writing about all of this “doom and gloom”, perhaps I should just lighten up and focus on fun things like American Idol a little bit more.

The Economic Collapse

Truth Peeks Out From Under The Blanket

Posted by Karl Denninger

Gee, you think?

From The Daily Capitalist.

Dear Santa:

Since you give away stuff for free, I hope you aren’t a socialist and ignore my wish list during the annual potlach. By the way, it seems that the Obama Administration is way ahead of you in giving out free stuff to everyone. I hope you can catch up.

I think I’ve been a pretty good boy this year. I have regularly bitten my tongue in my commentary so as not to be accused of being a flamer. I don’t think I’ve defamed anyone. And I try to write as much original material as possible to avoid being labeled a “scraper” (lifting stuff off the Net and publishing it under my own name). And, I haven’t sold out my opinions for mere money. For a blogger, that’s a pretty good record.

Here’s my wish list. I couldn’t find where to post it on Amazon, so here goes:

1. Kill The Bill

No, not the Uma Thurman thing. I’m talking about the health care “reform” bill going through Congress right now. If your magical powers extend that far, please put economic sense into our politicians’ collective heads that government control over the system is not a way to “save money” or create “efficiency.”

2. Put in the Fix

Instead of eliminating market forces in health care, please convince Congress to fix it by peeling back the convoluted rules and regulations that have screwed it up in the first place. Suggest these four little things we could try first that actually would work, save billions, and cover more people:

Give Medicare enrollees a voucher and the freedom to choose any health plan on the market;

Give workers control over their health care dollars with “large” health savings accounts which would allow them to purchase secure health coverage from any source;

Break up state monopolies on insurance and allow insurance companies to compete across state lines; and

Block-grant Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to prevent massive waste and encourage states to target resources to the truly needy.

3. Turn the Sausage Makers into Sausage

I understand it’s Christmas and it would be kind of negative to wish political ill fortune on someone, but, there’s this especially despicable sentator, Ben Nelson, that I would like for you to arrange to catch him with a hooker or taking a bribe. Whatever you think would work, Santa. Make sure there are tapes. I have lots more names, but I’d be happy with Ben.

4. Firing Suggestions

Please arrange for Obama to fire Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers, Timmy Geithner, and Christina Romer.

5. Hiring Suggestions

To replace the above, how about Ron Paul at the Fed, and the following economic advisers: Walter Block, Russ Roberts, and Joseph Salerno. They are all fine economic scholars and would steer our President in the right direction.

6. Freeze Congress

Don’t let Congress pass any more bills until they’ve all read, and discussed with the No. 5 guys, Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, the best little book on economics, ever. Televise it.

7. Bring Back the Real Constitution

Please have Obama appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court. Nominees who understand natural law, and that the Ninth and Tenth Amendments actually mean something. Maybe we’d get our individual sovereignty back.

8. Make Work is No Work

Let Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Reid see the folly of the American American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a useless $787 billion bill that is nothing other than intergenerational theft. Someone has to pay for it and I’m afraid it will be my children, grandchildren, and ten generations of my great-grandchildren.

9. Beautiful Sunsets

Require Congress to sunset every spending law they pass. You know how they promise that a program will be very effective and that it will only cost so much? Make them prove it, say every two years. If the bill fails to cure the perceived ill, get rid of it. If the program exceeds its budget, get rid of it. It will also provide us with a handy voting guide at election time.

10. Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom

Sprinkle some free market magic dust on the economics departments of our major universities. Maybe that will help the sheep break from Keynesian orthodoxy and actually begin to think.

Thank you, Dear Santa. I’m forever hopeful.

Econophile

From Dow Jones:

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a short-term $290 billion extension in the nation’s debt ceiling, delaying a decision until February about a larger increase in the borrowing cap.

The vote comes less than a week after House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) said he intended to seek a $1.8 trillion increase in the ceiling to support federal government borrowing through 2010.

A decision was made to seek the more modest increase after it became clear the larger increase may have failed to win support in the Senate.

The Senate must still take up the two month increase, which it is expected to do next week.

House lawmakers voted by a razor thing margin of 218-214 to pass the borrowing increase. On most major pieces of legislation, 218 votes are required for approval in the House.

Not a single Republican lawmaker voted to support the hike. They argued that increasing the debt ceiling was giving the Democratic majority and the Obama administration a license to spend more money.

The increase in the debt limit raises the total debt the federal government can hold to $12.394 billion from $12.104 billion.

Treasury officials have warned the current cap will shortly be hit, requiring the ceiling to be increased.

Increasing the debt ceiling is largely symbolic as the public debt is the accumulation of past deficits, or money already spent.

But were the U.S. to breach its debt limit, it would default on its obligations, potentially lose its prized top-shelf credit rating and have to pay significantly higher interest to its creditors

Such a scenario, albeit an extremely unlikely one, would have tremendous ramifications for the wider financial markets.

The federal budget deficit reached historic levels of $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2009. Through the first two months of fiscal 2010, the government is on pace to surpass that level.

From The Daily Capitalist

As my readers know, every so often I really get fed up with what comes out of Washington (Our Nation’s Capital) and feel the need to vent. My recent irritation is a letter Christina Romer, the president of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, published in the Wall Street Journal.

The letter is an apologia for the economic policies she and Summers and Geithner have been recommending to the president. She seems like such a nice lady, and she’s the wife of economist David Romer. Both were econ professors at Berkeley and both studied economics at MIT. But …

Here are some excerpts from her letter, with my comments:

Within a month of taking office, the administration had announced its Financial Stability Plan and signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Recovery Act helped stem the decline in spending caused by consumers and businesses reeling from the fall in asset prices and the drying up of credit. Real GDP, which had fallen at a 6.4% annual rate in the first quarter of 2009, began to grow again just two quarters later. …

She seriously believes this. But she has a slight problem with the cause and effect, post hoc ergo propter hoc*, thingie. That is, there is no evidence, theoretical or empirical, that the Recovery Act did anything positive or lasting. Even assuming Keynesian stimulus works, the government hadn’t spent enough money to make it work according to the Keynesian formula. At least that’s what Paul Krugman said. Whatever, no one has ever offered any proof that such stimulus works.

And, as far as I know, PCE (consumer spending) is still very low, asset prices are still declining, and credit is worse.

We’ve already seen from the Recovery Act that spending on infrastructure—everything from roads and bridges to schools and municipal buildings—is an effective way to put people back to work while creating lasting investments that raise future productivity. …

Yadda, yadda, yadda. Again more spending on things the government wants, not the things that the market wants. The jobs are already fizzling. See this excellent article in the WSJ, ironically published on the same day as Mrs. Romer’s piece. The gist is that when the government money ends, the jobs dry up.

Subsequently the president pushed for the Cash for Clunkers program that was successful in boosting demand and job creation. …

All this did was to junk a bunch of good cars, fill the pockets of auto dealers, and appease the UAW. Auto sales are already declining again. It just accelerated future sales of people who would have bought cars anyway.

[A]bout a month ago the president announced the latest in a series of measures to encourage banks to lend to small businesses. …

As we all know credit is still shrinking, not growing. They have tried every trick in the Keynesian book to loosen credit but to no avail. I’m sure this new legislation will be different.

[I]n early November the president signed into law a measure that would provide relief and spur job creation by adding additional weeks of unemployment insurance, cutting taxes for businesses, and expanding and extending the home-buyer tax credit. …

That must have worked really fast, because unemployment, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, dropped from 10.2% to 10% in November. Wow, that’s great legislation. But, as we all know, Things Are Not What They Seem. As David Rosenberg pointed out in one of his reports, the government stats look funny because they are so different from what ADP reported. 

Despite these positive developments, the job market remains very weak. … American businesses appear hesitant to hire, and are producing more with fewer workers. …

Didn’t she just say that things are getting better?

Tomorrow [the President] will convene a meeting of business and labor leaders, small-business owners, economists and community representatives to discuss our ideas and solicit others for accelerating hiring. … [W]e need to harness the private sector, bringing large and small firms in off the sidelines to boost job creation. …

This is the part that really upset me. First, this is a typical political move. “Let’s all get together and come up with some great ideas!” No offense to the community organizers out there, but getting a bunch of people in a room like this gets nowhere. The best thing they could do is cancel all meetings, and get the hell out of the way.

But what really got me was the “harness the private sector” comment. I hope she didn’t mean it in the way I’m thinking, but if she didn’t then it’s even worse because she doesn’t realize the implications of her policies. When government gets together with business and labor to create policies for political benefit, it is called fascism, or national socialism. The words she used were rather telling: a “harness” is not something I would want to be in. You know who has the whip.

While the words seem innocent, it is all about losing our freedoms. Here’s the conclusion from a piece I wrote about the takeover of GM (in homage to Ayn Rand):

Sometimes it’s hard to see what is happening in front of your eyes. It seems rather benign and logical when you read about it, but it’s not. Nationalizing GM is just good old fashioned fascism–just like what happened in Italy in the 1920s and ‘30s … And now us. If you think I’m exaggerating, it’s probably because you think everything the government does is OK because we’re having a crisis. As Wesley Mouch said in Atlas Shrugged, “We’ve got to act!” That’s how we are losing our freedom, by a thousand cuts.

*Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one.