What Is This World Coming To?

Obama said some of the job-seekers who may normally have gone to the financial sector would shift to other areas of the economy, such as engineering.

“Wall Street will remain a big, important part of our economy, just as it was in the ’70s and the ’80s. It just won’t be half of our economy,” he said.

“We don’t want every single college grad with mathematical aptitude to become a derivatives trader.”

For a guy whose mantra is ‘change’ he sure spends a lot of time looking backwards.  Somebody should point out to him that the defining events of the 70’s and 80’s were when Carter plunged the nation into recession by taxing income producers and when Reagan pulled the nation out by repealing them.

Part of Obama’s regulatory reforms include the creation of a new “systemic risk regulator” with broad powers to seize large non-bank financial firms, such as insurers, hedge funds or private equity companies, if they are deemed to threaten the stability of the financial system.

Some people might call this socialism.  But I think fascism is a better fit.

Days after GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner was forced out by the Obama administration, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner left open the possibility that such moves could happen again.

When asked if he would leave open the option to pressure a bank CEO to resign, Geithner replied: “Of course.”

“You’re gonna see the strongest consensus on coordinated global stimulus you’ve seen in generations,” he said. “A very powerful consensus on the kind of 21st century rules of the road for our financial systems.”

In a separate interview with ABC News, Geithner said there was no difference in the way the administration has handled the auto and finance industries.

In a separate, yet equally revealing story,  former Bush bogeyman Karl Rove noted in an op-ed that there is a price to be paid for independent thinking in the Obamanation.

It appears that Democrat Pete DeFazio voted against the administration’s ’stimulus’ bill.  (What was he thinking?)

“Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother,” Obama allegedly told him in a closed-door session.  Rove charitably characterized the remark as a “presidential rebuke” instead of the chilling warning of payback that it was.

Maybe DeFazio isn’t scared. Maybe the rest of the Democrats aren’t scared.  But I am.  And they ought to be.  This is like something out of a movie.

The Jewish Anti-Defamation League said that a survey it commissioned found nearly a third of Europeans polled blame Jews for the global economic meltdown and that a greater number think Jews have too much power in the business world.

The organization, which says its aim is “to stop the defamation of Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment to all,” says the seven-nation survey confirms that anti-Semitism remains strong.

The poll included interviews with 3,500 people - 500 each in Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain.

It says that in Spain, 74 percent of those asked say they feel it is “probably true” that Jews hold too much sway over the global financial markets. That is the highest percentage in the survey. Read the rest of this entry »

Consumer prices in November plunged by the largest amount on records going back 61 years as energy costs posted nearly double the decline of the previous month.

The Labor Department reported Tuesday that consumer prices fell 1.7 percent in November, surpassing the previous record decline of 1 percent set in October. The drop was the largest one-month decline dating to February 1947.

The huge decreases reflect the severe recession gripping the country and raise the pressure for the Federal Reserve to act decisively to guard against a debilitating bout of deflation.

In other economic news, the Commerce Department reported that construction of new homes fell in November by 18.9 percent, the biggest drop in a quarter-century. The steep decline pushed construction down to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 625,000 homes, the slowest pace on records that go back to 1959.

by Adam Lerrick

What happens when the voter in the exact middle of the earnings spectrum receives more in benefits from Washington than he pays in taxes? Economists Allan Meltzer and Scott Richard posed this question 27 years ago. We may soon enough know the answer. Read the rest of this entry »

The Democrats, having failed to convince America that the best course of action in Iraq is surrendering to the terrorists, got even more bad news when April’s employment figures shows the jobless rate dropped 0.1% instead of increasing 0.2% as forecast. Read the rest of this entry »