No Offense, But Republicans Can't Be the 'Stupid Party' With Nancy Pelosi Saying Stuff Like This

Moronic, botox-addicted, Statist hacks hardest hit.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that extending unemployment benefits would add “600,000 jobs to our economy.”

She also said that the money from unemployment benefits creates a “safety net” for the U.S. economy because it “injects demand into the economy -- creating jobs.”

...“The unemployment insurance extension is not only good for individuals. It has a macroeconomic impact. As macroeconomic advisers have stated, it would make a difference of 600,000 jobs to our economy.”

Pelosi did not name those “macroeconomic advisers.”...

Of course not, because those -- ahem -- advisers' names all start with the letter K and end with rugman. You know, the same nincompoop who was lauding Europe's economic model just two short years ago.

Sorry, folks, RINOs are plenty dumb, but they can't compete with this trio of Democrat leaders:

• Harry Reid -- a man with a truly feeble, if not failing, mind. Each day he seems more and more likely to give an incoherent, rambling speech (remember "cowboy poetry"?). For that reason, he is prohibited from speaking to the public without Chuck Schumer standing next to him, usually with a hand up the back of Reid's shirt like a ventriloquist.

• Nancy Pelosi -- a woman who's had so much work done on her face that her eyes appear ready to pop right out of her head -- has made tens of millions of dollars over the last few years thanks to insider trading crony capitalism savvy investing. And she's going to teach us how to create jobs.

• Finally, Barack Obama -- a man who has no transcripts from Occidental College, no transcripts from Columbia University, no transcripts from Harvard, no thesis papers, no law practice client list, no state senate records, and no ex-girlfriends -- but he's going to tell us how much electricity is going to cost, what kind of health care we should receive, what kind of cars we need to drive, how much our credit-card fees must be, why we shouldn't drill or refine oil, and why we should borrow trillions of dollars from the Chinese government to give to his public sector union boss buddies (hint: so it goes back into his reelection campaign coffers).

No, my friends, you can call the establishment Republicans many things, but only a claque with Pelosi, Obama and Reid in charge can be called "the Stupid Party".

Tales From the Obamaconomy: Debtors' Prisons Make a Comeback

The perfect complement to today's report that "1 in 2 Americans are now poor or low income" is the fact that Dickensian debtors' prisons are returning to America.

As if life wasn't already tense enough for Americans who can't pay their debts, collection agencies are now taking advantage of archaic state laws to have some debtors arrested and sent to jail. More than one-third of US states allow debtors to be arrested and jailed, says Jessica Silver-Greenberg in the Wall Street Journal.

...Of course, the reason debtors have failed to make court-ordered payments is often the same reason they didn't pay their debts in the first place: They don't have any money... In September, a 53 year-old woman named Vivian Joy was stopped for a broken tail-light in Champaign, Illinois. And then, because the cops discovered that she still hadn't paid $2,200 to a collection agency, she was cuffed and carted off to jail.

Joy's excuse? She doesn't have any money.

Jailing debtors for not paying their debts is apparently especially popular in Illinois...

Since the state of Illinois itself is months late paying $4.8 billion to its vendors and suppliers, my question is this: when does Governor Quinn and the rest of the Democrat machine get thrown in the clink to share cells with Bubba and Rodney?

The Horrifying Chart That Democrats and RINOs Don't Want You to See

It has now been nearly 1,000 days since the Democrats last passed a federal budget. This unprecedented act of fiscal irresponsibility -- one that no other Congress in generations has committed -- allows the most profligate administration in American history to continue racking up more than a trillion dollars in deficit spending each year.

What Democrats and big-government Republicans aren't telling you is this: the Obama-Pelosi-Reid "one-time Stimulus package" was built into the baseline, which means each year that the Obamacrats can avoid writing a budget is another year that this cash furnace can continue burning your children's money.

John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, decent human beings though they may be, haven't even raised this issue with the public. They don't have the spine to enact the drastic cuts this country requires to survive.

This chart illustrates why we Tea Party activists must nominate and elect the most conservative candidates possible in 2012. We have two missions: to politically obliterate the Marxist Left that has subsumed the empty husk of the Democrat Party; and to continue our hostile takeover of the Republican Party, in order to return it to its Reagan-esque roots.

We have no choice if we are to save this Republic.

Just in time for Christmas, President Obama gives the gift of unemployment to more than 100,000 Americans

He's the gift that keeps on taking!

In an environment where jobs are hard to find, the Obama administration has thrown more than 100,000 health insurance agents and brokers under the bus and given them the gift of an unemployment line just before the holidays. To make matters worse, a large number of insurance agents, known in the trade as producers, are self-employed and under the prevailing laws may have difficulty receiving unemployment insurance.


It all stems from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), known colloquially as Obamacare. PPACA dictates [price controls for insurers including commission payments]... Insurance agents were recently able to get backing from National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) to exclude their commissions from [these price controls].

...Led by National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU), which claims to represent 100,000 health insurance agents, brokers, and related professionals, the Obama administration was lobbied hard to provide relief to insurance agents. The hope of the insurance agents had risen because of the recent backing by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

In a recent ruling, the Department of Health and Human Services dashed all hopes.

Merrrrrrrrrrryyyy Christmas!

Oh, and as an added bonus, the president's decision to delay the gigantic Keystone XL pipeline not only prevents the creation of 20,000 jobs in 2012, it is already costing jobs today.

"Layoffs and a brief company shutdown is what employees face at Welspun Tubular Company, which makes steel pipes for the oil industry."

Rest assured, citizen, that the the president will not rest until every American has a job. That is, while he enjoys his 37 Christmas trees in the White House, prior to leaving this weekend for a 17-day Hawaiian vacation.

Obamas somehow make do with only 37 Christmas trees in White House before they leave on 17-day Hawaiian vacation

Like the movie Fletch, I can imagine President Obama ordering all of these extravagant parties, vacations and over-the-top celebrations and, when the tab comes, he says: "Put it on the Underhill account."

And we're the Underhills.

The economy may be weak, unemployment strong and the first family soon to vacate the White House for another half-month of vacation in Hawaii.

But the Obamas have gone all out in decorating their house this year, including a nearly quarter-ton gingerbread White House.

They have also installed 37 different Christmas trees. Thirty of the trees are live, or were, including one nearly 19-feet tall from Wisconsin. Seven of the three dozen Christmas trees are artificial or homemade including, of course, one from recyclables.

"We have 37 Christmas trees here at the White House--37!" Michelle Obama excitedly told a recent group of visitors. "That's a lot, right? Yes, that's a lot of trees. And we also have a 400-pound White House gingerbread house."

Yeah, and I'll bet the ginger for the gingerbread house was grown by Michelle in her organic garden.

You know, the only members of the "one-percent" I know are the Obama family, Congress and the rest of the overpaid paper-pushers in Washington.

Faux Journalist Steve Kroft Interviews Obama, Forgets to Ask About Calls to Impeach Holder, Kagan Recusal, Corzine, Solyndra, etc.

President Obama received another in-kind donation from CBS News tonight in the form of a fawning 60 Minutes interview by "journalist" Steve Kroft. If that is his real name.

Kroft apparently had a brief case of amnesia and forgot about a few mildly important issues:

• The increasing calls for Eric Holder's resignation and/or impeachment for Operation Fast and Furious, etc.

• The newly revealed Obamacare emails that appear to show Elena Kagan lied under oath

• The catastrophic failure of MF Global, headed by none other than one of Obama's leading fundraisers, John Corzine

• The billions in "green energy" funds that went to Obama's fundraisers and political cronies, Solyndra being only the most visible example

• The "historic" $4.2+ trillion budget deficits thanks to Obama's disastrous stimulus debacle and the Democrats' failure to pass a budget for 1,000+ days

Obama has blamed the weather, earthquakes, ATMs, and the Internet -- among other things -- for the bad economy. In the Kroft interview, he said, "I'm being judged against the ideal. And, you know, Joe Biden has a good expression. He says, 'Don't judge me against the Almighty, judge me against the alternative.' "

There he goes again, comparing himself with God.

No, Mr. President. Our ideal is Ronald Reagan who, having inherited a far worse recession than you, had the economy rockin' and rollin' at the exact same point in his presidency.


Hat tip: BP.

Telegraph: 'Eurozone banking system on the edge of collapse'

But no amount of facts, history, logic and reason can convince the Democrat Party that their Utopia, the European social welfare state, is dead.

The eurozone banking system is on the edge of collapse as major lenders begin to run out of the assets they need to keep vital funding lines open.

10:01PM GMT 09 Dec 2011

Senior analysts and traders warned of impending bank failures as a summit intended to solve the European crisis failed to deliver a solution that eased concerns over bank funding.

The European Central Bank admitted it had held meetings about providing emergency funding to the region's struggling banks, however City figures said a "collateral crunch" was looming.

"If anyone thinks things are getting better then they simply don't understand how severe the problems are. I think a major bank could fail within weeks," said one London-based executive at a major global bank.

Many banks, including some French, Italian and Spanish lenders, have already run out of many of the acceptable forms of collateral such as US Treasuries and other liquid securities used to finance short-term loans and have been forced to resort to lending out their gold reserves to maintain access to dollar funding. [And] lenders are increasingly distrustful about funding one another.

... [Some] think the eurozone banks are heading for a catastrophe and the worry is growing that a major bank could collapse within weeks... Moody's on Friday downgraded France's three largest banks, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole and Societe Generale in light of what the US rating agency said were "liquidity and funding constraints"... Two weeks ago, rumours abounded that it was the near failure of a major French lender that had been the trigger for a massive co-ordinated intervention by the world's largest central banks to shore up the banking system.

The delusional politiconomist Paul Krugman hardest hit.

Why Barack Obama Chose Osawatomie For His Speech Attacking Capitalism

The reactions to Barack Obama's speech in Osawatomie, Kansas this week were, if nothing else, consistent:

• It "sounded like what you'd expect to hear in Caracas or Buenos Aires."
• "Those who pride themselves on belonging to the party of smart people should be embarrassed."
• The speech "was deceitful, inaccurate, revisionist, and demagogic... a recreation, a fabrication if you will, of history, economics, and philosophy into a Pandoran construct of collectivist statism whereby society can demand the individual’s obedience and obeisance."
• The speech was "a thick coat of whitewash layered all over it, and the failure of the last three years lies underneath."
• The "elected president of the United States said in Osawatomie, Kansas, trying to be Teddy Roosevelt, that the United States of America has never worked. That is a quote, 'has never worked.'"
• A "Marxist attack on America."

Why did Obama choose, of all places, Osawatomie? One of the new media's living legends, Trevor Loudon, explains:

Why would Barack Obama choose to give a controversial speech attacking American capitalism in Osawatomie, Kansas? Hang on? Where have I heard that name before? Osawatomie? ...back in the ’70s? Weather Underground terrorists… Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn. Didn’t Obama used to hang out with those guys?

I remember! Osawatomie was the publication of the Weather Underground!

No, surely it's a coincidence...

I'm certain Mr. Loudon wrote that sentence with a wink at the end. The choice of Osawatomie was a signal, a coded message, a symbolic flag-raising for the progressive Left.

The Marxist class-warfare rhetoric, which divides one American against the other and which is utterly foreign to this nation, is going full-bore for the Obama reelection campaign. 2012 is our last chance to save this Republic from the Fabian counter revolution.


Update: Osawatomie: the Weather Underground newspaper

Leading actuarial firm: health care premiums to rise up to 85% thanks to resurgence of deadly Bubonic Plague and Obamacare but mostly Obamacare

Milliman is one of the world's leading actuarial firms. One of its specialties is helping insurers appropriately and competitively price their products. And its latest report on the effects of Obamacare on health insurance premiums is decidedly problematic for "the middle class". And the rich. And, of course, the poor. That is, all Americans, irrespective of class, religion, race, creed or other arbitrary segments Democrats use to divide us.

The report, conducted by Milliman, Inc., projects the impacts of the federal health care reform law starting in 2014, when most of the law's provisions go into effect. The report shows significant changes that will increase premiums while expanding government programs.

Specifically, Milliman's report projects that individual premiums in Ohio could increase by as much as 55 to 85% in 2014, not including the current medical trend which has been an average increase of 7 to 8% nationwide each year. Moreover, some individuals may see their premiums increase by 90 to 130% depending on their current health status...

...In addition to significant changes to premium rates, more than one million Ohioans are expected to join the State's Medicaid rolls in 2014 and more than 500,000 are expected to join the government-subsidized individual exchange. Consequently, as many as half of all Ohioans could be enrolled in some type of government-subsidized health coverage, including Medicare, when the law is fully implemented.

...[Worse still,] small businesses offering health insurance to their employees will see their premiums increase 5% to 15% in 2014 with the Health Insurance Tax (HIT)... The HIT is part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and will be levied on health insurance companies that operate in the fully-insured marketplace, where nearly all small businesses purchase their premiums. It will reduce take-home pay for the average employee with a family plan by $500 every year over the next decade, impacting the 12 million employees and self-employed who purchase insurance in the individual market and the 26 million employees who are covered by their employer.

I could have imagined it, but didn't the president promise that -- when Obamacare passed -- our health insurance premiums would immediately drop by an average of $2,500 a year?

Or was that only for union bosses?

It's another Obama record! Feds run deficit for 38th straight month

Of course, when you blow $840 billion on a "Stimulus" package -- and then never pass another budget -- this news really can't come as much of a surprise.

The federal government ran a $139 billion deficit in November, marking the 38th straight month in the red, according to a preliminary estimate the Congressional Budget Office released Wednesday.

...That suggests the deals President Obama and Congress struck in April and again over the summer to limit spending are not having much effect in actually reducing outlays.

Interest payments on the debt continue to rise at the fastest rate of any category of spending, jumping 12.4 percent this year. Social Security and Medicare spending were also up.

Meanwhile, defense spending is down nearly 7 percent, driven by lower procurement. And spending on unemployment benefits is down markedly, nearly 26 percent lower at this point than it was last year. Education spending also has declined after the expiration of parts of Mr. Obama’s 2009 stimulus.

...The government hasn’t run a surplus since September 2008 [Bush!], just before the Wall Street collapse near the end of the Bush administration. That is by far the longest streak in records dating back to the 1980s. Before the current streak, the government had never gone an entire year without running a surplus in at least one month.

I have a few questions for John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and our other feckless GOP leaders.

How freaking hard is it for you to share the above chart, which depicts the Democrats' calamitous spending plans?

How hard is it to mention a shocking, double-digit rise in interest payments -- a sure recipe for disaster -- every time you open your mouths?

How hard is it for you to discuss this outrageous monthly deficit record in every single press conference?

Folks, if we don't elect the most conservative candidates possible in 2012, men and women who believe in and honor the Constitution, I fear the grand American experiment may be at its end. Not from Nazism, Communism, Islamism or any other external enemy, but from within -- at the hands of insidious counter-revolutionaries dedicated to dividing us by race, income, religion and class.

Investment Tip: Make 343% On Your Money With Easy-to-Buy, Low-Risk Greek Bonds*

*Of course, I'm not an investment professional, so your mileage may vary.

Word from Europe is that its central bank (the ECB) is prohibited from buying the massive amounts of PIIGS debt that will soon need refinancing, the latest rumour-o-the-week (gratuitous limey spelling) that had ramped equity prices.

The main news in today's European roundup is the reiteration by ECB president Mario Draghi EU Treaty Prohibits "Monetary Financing":

At a news conference in Frankfurt, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said on Thursday that the European Union treaty prohibits "monetary financing." He was responding to a reporter's question about why the central bank doesn't ramp up its bond-buying program...

...The market has rallied for weeks on expectation the ECB would eventually get around to a massive bond buying program. The irony is Draghi personally fueled rumors the CEB would step up purchases...

So Draghi got out of this what he wanted: A big plunge in Italian and Spanish debt yields, by doing nothing more than yapping.

The second irony is that Draghi is in essence a liar. He cannot come out and say the ECB is providing "monetary financing" with its bond purchases, even though that is exactly what the ECB is doing.

The bond market is saying that the PIIGS' debt -- incurred by the massive social welfare states that the Obama Democrats are duplicating here -- will never be paid back.

The equity markets have yet to admit defeat.

One is wrong and one is right. I leave that choice as an exercise for the reader.

Tragedy for Legacy Media: 'Income Inequality' Straw-man Transformed Into Smoldering Pile of Ashes By Cato's Alan Reynolds

Over the past few months, you've probably read a series of propaganda pieces articles describing America's increased 'income inequality'. You know the template: the rich keep getting richer at the expense of everyone else; America has a static class structure in which no one moves up or down; and zero-sum economics idiocy promoted by the likes of the execrable Paul Krugman. A series of propagandists, including Krugman, have used this chart to illustrate how the top 1% are ripping everyone off.

But the Cato Institute's Alan Reynolds wondered, "Why did the report stop at 2007?"

A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office says, "The share of income received by the top 1% grew from about 8% in 1979 to over 17% in 2007."

This news caused quite a stir, feeding the left's obsession with inequality. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, for example, said this "jaw-dropping report" shows "why the Occupy Wall Street protests have struck such a nerve." The New York Times opined that the study is "likely to have a major impact on the debate in Congress over the fairness of federal tax and spending policies."

But here's a question: Why did the report stop at 2007? The CBO didn't say, although its report briefly acknowledged—in a footnote—that "high income taxpayers had especially large declines in adjusted gross income between 2007 and 2009."

No kidding. Once these two years are brought into the picture, the share of after-tax income of the top 1% by my estimate fell to 11.3% in 2009 from the 17.3% that the CBO reported for 2007.

The larger truth is that recessions always destroy wealth and small business incomes at the top. Perhaps those who obsess over income shares should welcome stock market crashes and deep recessions because such calamities invariably reduce "inequality." Of course, the same recessions also increase poverty and unemployment.

The only thing I can conclude is that crackpots like Paul Krugman want more stock market crashes and deep recessions. Which perhaps explains his affection for Barack Obama.

And why he must believe that countries with the least income inequality -- like North Korea -- are just swell.


Hat tips: TaxProf and Mark Levin.

Report: How Open Borders Policies Led to the Mortgage Meltdown

A little-publicized article in the Norfolk Crime Examiner two years ago featured a startling interview with a mortgage auditor. This man "personally audited thousands of sub prime loans."

The auditor found that "[o]ver 50% of the subprimes were for cash-out refi’s. Regardless of the loan criteria used to pull random samplings for audits, the majority of the last names were Hispanic. The loans I audited were primarily in CA, NV, AZ, FL, CO, compare those to the states with the highest number of foreclosures [and] illegal aliens."

Are these figures plausible? It appears so. A June 2007 MarketWatch article confirmed that "...[m]ore than half of subprime loans are actually cash-out refinance loans... we see subprime offers all-over the place: 'consolidate your debts' or 'tap you home's equity,' the ads read. As Lee puts it, why not pay off credit cards with 18% annual interest rates with a 9% loan?"

"Cash-out refi's" -- for those unfamiliar with the term -- are situations where a loan is refinanced and cash taken out of excess equity in the home. The excess equity could have been provided by a massive run-up in prices or simply a fraudulent appraisal.

The auditor observed that, "[o]ne borrower stole the [social security number] of a retiree and took out $3.5 million in loans, turned around and did cash-out refi’s, then fled the country. The retiree was left with ruined credit, $3.5 million in loans and trouble with the IRS."

Interestingly, cash-out refi's hit a 16-year high in late 2006.

Because subprime cash-out refi's were known to have higher default rates well before this, a reckoning could have been predicted by regulators.

"During the bailout, I called my Congressman and other leadership including Barney Frank and asked if there was a provision within the Bill that prohibited illegal aliens from being bailed out…..the answer was no. I asked if there was a provision in the Bill that helped homeowners that did not take out subprimes but are faced with losing their home due to the negative impact of subprimes and was told... no. So in other words, those that committed crimes to obtain the loans will get a helping hand to bail them out, compliments of the US [t]axpayer!"

"Of course, we all know that, on October 26, 2001, President Bush signed the USA Patriot Act. However, I would wager to say that almost no one knows that contained in section 326(b) of the USA Patriot Act is a provision that allows US banks to accept Mexican Matricula Consular cards (MCCs) as a valid form of ID for opening bank accounts."

"It should be noted that while... Congress ordered American banks to recognize these Mexican-issued cards, there is not one Mexican bank which accepts their own government’s Matricula Consular card as a valid form of ID, because the bearer’s identity is basically untraceable."

In fact, members of the House Judiciary Committee confirm that Mexican banks do not accept Matricula Consular cards as valid identification.

In 2004, a Congressional effort to limit the use of MCCs was defeated by a consortium of financial institutions, immigrants’ rights groups, consumer groups, and many others. These organizations had formed a loose coalition to defeat, again, limitations on the use of consular ID cards by banks, credit unions, thrifts and other financial institutions.

By a vote of 222 to 177, the House passed a bipartisan amendment (HA 754), introduced by Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA), Pastor (D-AZ), Hinojosa (D-TX), Oxley (R-OH) and Kolbe (R-AZ). It prohibited the Treasury Dept. from implementing regulations regarding the acceptance of FCCs by financial institutions.

But prior to that hearing, the FBI was adamantly opposed to the use of MCCs as valid identification. Assistant Director Steve McCraw's testimony before Congress in 2003 was blunt: "...consular ID cards are primarily being utilized by illegal aliens in the United States. Foreign nationals who are present in the U.S. legally have the ability to use various alternative forms of identification -- most notably a passport -- for the purposes of opening bank accounts..."

The FBI identified a variety of problems with MCCs:

* There was no centralized database of MCCs
* There were no interconnected, local databases of MCCs and, therefore, no way to authenticate the validity of a card
* MCCs could be obtained with little -- and sometimes -- no documentation whatsoever
* MCCs were easily forged (90% in circulation had no security features at all)

In 2003, Gabriel Manjarrez, Senior Vice President and Hispanic Marketing Executive of Bank of America testified before the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit. He explained, "...The first program I want to discuss is our initiative to accept the use of the Mexican consulate ID, the Matricula Consular. We developed this initiative [in 2001] because we wanted to make it easier for Mexican citizens living in the USA to have access to banking services from Bank of America... Today, every single Bank of America banking center recognizes the Matricula Consular as a valid form of identification."

At least a dozen U.S. banks and mortgage insurers offered home loan programs targeted at illegal aliens.

And anecodotal evidence would appear to confirm alarming abuse of the system; the infamous $720,000 mortgage to two pairs of illegal immigrants with a combined annual income of less than $50,000 comes to mind.

Consider the findings of the auditor: "Over 50% of the sub primes were for cash-out refi’s. Regardless of the loan criteria used to pull random samplings for audits, the majority of the last names were Hispanic. The loans I audited were primarily in CA, NV, AZ, FL, CO, compare those to the states with the highest number of foreclosures & illegal aliens."

* * * * * * * * *
Those who have supported open borders policies -- on either side of the aisle -- seem to have contributed mightily to the mortgage crisis. And someday we might actually get legacy media to tell the entire story of the mortgage meltdown.

'Income Inequality' is just another form of diversity: so why do liberals hate diversity?

President Obama's speech in Kansas yesterday was breathtaking for its level of dishonesty. Over and over, with a cadence not dissimilar to that of a used-car salesman, the president decried the lack of "fairness" in our society.

The word "fairness" and its derivatives were mentioned by the president more than a dozen times.

But life itself is unfair. And no one and nothing on Earth can change that, even if you tried to create a totalitarian police state like North Korea's.

• It's not fair that I don't play basketball like LeBron James.

• It's not fair that I can't play a guitar like Eric Clapton.

• It's not fair that I didn't invent Google like Larry Page.

• It's not fair that I haven't invested as well as Warren Buffet.

• It's not fair that I've never worked as hard as Tesla.

• It's not fair that I'm taller than most people.

• It's not fair that most people sing better than me.

• It's not fair that Al Gore invented the Internet first.

To be human is to be unique, to be different than everyone else. It is your uniqueness that makes you special, whether Barack Obama thinks that is unfair or not. For liberals to place you -- a unique, wonderful individual with God-given talents and shortcomings -- in some sort of bucket, in some made-up class, so he can manipulate you or secure your vote, well, it's not just cynical. It's un-American.

And what is "fair" when it comes to society as a whole?

Say I am a businessman about to invent a cancer-fighting drug, but the money I was going to use for that research was ripped from me by the government in the name of "fairness"; how is that fair for the people who could have been saved by that drug?

Is it fair for the government to steal money and claim they're able to use it more efficiently than thousands upon thousands of entrepreneurs, businesspeople, investors, scientists and engineers?

Is it fair for the government to create arbitrary classes of people based upon their income -- and then decide who should have their money confiscated and who should receive that money as gifts to buy their votes?

And who are these geniuses -- these masterminds of humankind -- who can decide what's "fair" and what's "unfair" for all of humanity?

They are Marxists, following the template of all of the failed Statists who've come before them, dividing us, building straw-men and, ultimately, obliterating the civil society. Which is why we must crush them and their vessel -- the Democrat Party -- at the ballot box in 2012.


Hat tip: Mark Levin.

It begins: bank runs break out in Greece, following the contours of the sovereign debt crisis

Following the path of the sovereign debt crisis, the Eurozone's bank runs have begun.

Anxious Greeks Emptying Their Bank Accounts

Many Greeks are draining their savings accounts because they are out of work, face rising taxes or are afraid the country will be forced to leave the euro zone. By withdrawing money, they are forcing banks to scale back their lending -- and are inadvertently making the recession even worse.

Georgios Provopoulos, the governor of the central bank of Greece, is a man of statistics, and they speak a clear language. "In September and October, savings and time deposits fell by a further 13 to 14 billion euros. In the first 10 days of November the decline continued on a large scale," he recently told the economic affairs committee of the Greek parliament... the outflow of funds from Greek bank accounts has been accelerating rapidly. At the start of 2010, savings and time deposits held by private households in Greece totalled €237.7 billion ... [but] the Greeks today only have €170 billion in savings -- almost 30 percent less than at the start of 2010.

...Nikoloudis has detected a further trend. At first, it was just a few people trying to withdraw large sums of money. Now it's large numbers of people moving small sums. Ypatia K., a 55-year-old bank worker from Athens, can confirm that. "The customers, especially small savers, have recently been withdrawing sums of €3,000, €4,000 or €5,000. That was panic," she said.

For those who insist it couldn't happen here, a word of caution: it can and it has, as recently as 2008.

The 2008 financial crisis displayed characteristics of a classic bank run, but people holding bank accounts weren't the ones scrambling to get their cash. It was lenders demanding their money from other financial institutions.

Indeed, today's panics are more likely to involve major financial institutions and are largely hidden from plain sight until they are severe enough to trigger plunging stock prices, bankruptcies, layoffs and rising unemployment. And the current European crisis is a reminder that some of the vulnerabilities exposed in 2008 still exist.

These panics often originate in the shadows of the banking system, where major financial institutions do business with one another... [and] the size of shadow-banking activities [are] roughly $60 trillion as of 2010—a sum that represents 25% to 30% of the total global financial system.

At best, shadow banking offers financial institutions a source of funding and liquidity on a day-to-day basis. At worst, it allows the buildup of leverage and systemic risk, as the 2008 financial crisis revealed. Gary Gorton, a Yale University professor and leading researcher in this field, has documented that the crisis was effectively "a run by banks and firms on other banks."

...Given the speed that Europe's debt crisis is unfolding, however, any measures that could help fend off future shadow-banking panics risk coming too late.

The propagand-conomist Paul Krugman -- a proponent of the debt-ridden European social welfare state -- hardest hit.

Oops! Chart Proves Obama's Housing Policies Have Been a Complete and Utter Cluster-Fail

This is why the President runs around the country -- when he's not golfing or vacationing -- talking about how great the future will be if only Congress would stop blocking his agenda. Because, like all liberals, he can never, ever look back at the past, the results of his previous decisions, which are uniformly disastrous.

A few days ago we presented an analysis by ConvergEx showing that due to the very close historical correlation between home prices and employment, it is the Fed's view that the only way to stimulate employment (aside from such BLS shennanigans as pretending that despite the natural growth of the labor force by 90k a month to keep up with population, those willing to work are in fact declining) is to raise home prices. Raising home prices by definition means either reducing supply - an event which is proving impossible with shadow inventory in the millions and rising, even as thousands of new delinquent mortgages appear each day... or increasing demand. It is the latter that the Fed targets, by attempting to make mortgage rates ever cheaper via LSAP, Operation Twist or other Treasury curve interventions that attempt to push down long-dated yields ever lower. This works in theory. In practice, however, as the chart below demonstrates, the Fed's entire [Zero Interest Rate] policy over the past several years has been one abysmal failure (for everyone expect those with immediate access to the Fed's zero interest rate capital - i.e., the Primary Dealers)...

...What appears very clearly on this chart is that despite ever declining mortgage rates, there is simply no interest in home turnover, and sales are at record low levels due to lack of demand, and lack of desire to sell into a bidless market, in essence causing the entire housing market to halt.

...And this makes intuitive sense: the bulk of home owners who can take advantage of cheap credit are those who already have a mortgage and at best will refi into a cheaper one. For everyone else, either the bank's admissions criteria are too stringent, or the potential borrower is simply convinced that a year from today, the 30-year mortgage rate will be another 1% lower (most likely with 100% justification). As such there is absolutely no drive to naturally restart the housing market (one can commence here a discussion of how central planning destroys every market it infect like a lethal virus, but we will spare that for another, more preachy night). For now we will leave you with this chart which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the Fed's primary mandate: to lower the unemployment rate (by boosting home prices) has been a failure...

Oh, for the love of...! Now I'm gonna have to add another item to The Complete List of President Obama's Historic Firsts™.

A picture from President Obama's post-Constitutional America

I'm shocked. SHOCKED, I say.

I was strolling around the waterfront fish market in DC on Saturday, admiring the whole octopi, the squid, lobsters, jumbo crab legs and Maryland blue crabs for sale.

Imagine my surprise when I spotted this sign above a pile of crabs.

...But this is all good news, according to this administration. Remember, food stamps stimulate the economy!

Say, did someone mention another Obama record?

...according to the latest update from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), some 423,000 Americans found their way to minimum way subsistence, courtesy of Food Stamp handouts from Uncle Sam. Since the start of the Second Great Depression, food stamp participation has increased by 18.7 million, and is now at an all time higher 46.3 million.

All Bush's fault, or something. At least the chart below appears to be plateauing... Actually, sorry, no. It isn't.

Not to worry, folks.

At least the USDA has an excellent handle on how food stamps are being used.

Sorry. I couldn't restrain my chortle.


Hat tip: Occam's Razor X.

Bizarre Coincidence: Right-to-Work States Superior In Every Way for the 'Workers'

Why, this must be some sort of statistical -- how you say in English? -- anomaly. Turns out that states which force employees to join unions against their will are inferior to right-to-work states using about any economic measure you can think of.

The term 'Tax Freedom Day' was coined by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think thank. It translates to "the day when Americans... finally have earned enough money to pay off their total [federal, state and local] tax bill for the year."

Notice the eight-day difference between right-to-work and forced unionization states. For those of you who live in the latter, you spend eight days every year working for the unions.

Which is the way the self-professed Marxist union bosses like Andy Stern and Dick Trumka want it.

America's Problem

Doug writes:

If you don’t already believe we’re headed for a potential disaster in America, just take a look at this Kleiner Perkins chart.

I blame Bush. Plus Millard Fillmore. But mostly Bush.

And definitely not the Stimulus package of 2009 that has been built into the baseline budget every year since.

Euro-Bomb!

Guess the one word that describes the Eurozone (hint: it starts with 'S' and ends with 'crewed').

In simple terms, this is the stark reality: now that debt and risk have been repriced, Europe's debts are completely, totally unpayable. There is no way to keep adding to the Matterhorn of debt at the old cheap rate of interest, and there is no way to roll over the trillions of euros in debt that are coming due at the old near-zero rates.

Never mind actually paying down debt, sovereign, corporate and private--the repricing of risk and debt mean even the interest payments are unpayable. Consider this chart of one tiny slice of total EU debt:

There is no way to push the repricing genie back in the bottle, and so there is no way to roll over this debt and add to it--and to support the high-cost structure of Euroland's welfare-state governments and their astounding debt, then debt must be added, and in staggering quantities.

...[The] repricing has already occurred, and cannot be revoked or shoved back in the bottle. The Great European Debt Bubble has already burst, and so now it boils down to a simple choice: debt serfdom or open rebellion against the banks that profited so handsomely from the euro-fantasy.

There is no middle ground, as the debt cannot be repaid, not now and not in the future. It cannot be reshuffled, masked, or hidden; it can only be renounced.

It's your choice, Europe; choose wisely. If you want a model for sanity and growth, look to Iceland. They renounced their unpayable debts and debt-serfdom, and let the market reprice their currency, debt and risk. The nightmare is past for them; they chose wisely. Now it's your turn to choose.

The debt-serfdom will fall to you, not the banks or your Elites.

And if you find yourself mildly amused by the collapse of Europe's social democrat welfare states, a word of warning. We're next.