Is Trump Done? (Revised)

After much thought and deliberations I have decided to resind what I have written below. I don't think I wrote the post in anger. I did write with some despair. I watched us lose several elections that were very winnable. Probably taken via shenanigans. I also watched out GOP "leadership" fail in more ways than I can count.

They didn't provide the campaign funding necessary to win.

They have not, and will not, put forth any effort to overcome the strategies, both legal and illegal, that the progressives have honed to an art form.

They will not recognize the party has changed. Yes, we are still moral in how we live our lives. But no longer are we the party of big businesses. Take a look at the top 10 richest people in the USA. Eight of them donate solely to progressive causes and candidates. Only Peter Theil and Elon Musk donate to conservatives. And Musk is not fully on board. Nearly every company in the USA (and the world) have gone woke. Yet our party "leaders" continue to beg for table scraps.

Initially, my thoughts ran towards DeSantis. But the more I read about him the more I become concerned. That the McConnell/Romney branch have remained quiet regarding DeSantis says volumes. While I still feel, outside of Trump, DeSantis is our best options, I am no longer comfortable throwing my support behind him.

TRUMP 2024!!!!

I am going to say something that is going to be unpopular here. It is time we moved away from Trump. Not because I want us to go back to the old ways, but because he has become a bit of a liability. Before we go too far down the road here I will acknowledge that his track record endorsing candidates was nearly perfect. 93% of the candidates he endorsed won at all levels, including primaries, state level and national offices. The caveat here is nearly all of those wins were in districts that really weren’t all that competitive. In districts that were close, his track record wasn’t as good. In Washington state, his endorsed candidate lost. The previous District 03 representative was a republican. However, she made a mistake in voting to impeach Trump, which put her in the cross hairs. I’d bet a dime that she and her team tried to make a calculated decision for her upcoming 2022 campaign. In a purple district, sometimes one has to make decisions that MIGHT go against your normal stances. She was primaried and lost to Joe Kent who was endorsed by Trump. This district is and has been purple. A region that might not take to Trumpism. While I was in favor of taking down those republicans who voted to impeach Trump like Cheney and the putz from Illinois, Herrera-Beutler needed to be saved. Yes, she voted against Trump. But she was a reliable, if squishy, republican, and most importantly, represented a purple district. Incumbency has its benefits, and I have no doubt she would have won fairly handily. In Pennsylvania his endorsed candidate lost to a man who has the mental capacity of a 12 year old (just a guess, not a medical diagnosis). I wonder if Dr. Oz could have won if he didn’t have Trump’s endorsement. Considering how corrupt Pennsylvania elections can be, I do have my doubts. But maybe if Oz wasn’t endorsed by Trump, the cheating apparatus would have not swung into full gear. Who knows.

Some Random Thoughts

Here are a few random thoughts that I've jotted down over the past few months. Some if them are a little past due, but I still think they are relevant.

If aren't trying to destroy our republic what would progressives be doing differently?

• Killing small businesses.
• Destroying the middle class.
• Transferring wealth to the ruling class. These first were laid bare during covid-19. While stating covid was released on purposed approaches tin-foil hat territory, the is no doubting that the new world order folks took immediate advantage of the disease and the associated fear-mongering to institute measures to see how fat they could push their agenda. It saddens me to see how far they could push and how easily a lot of people accepted this push. I will also add that I firmly believe the current status of the economy is by design. They are attempting to finish off small businesses and to force the middle class into poverty. And we have all seen the numbers; the richest folks across the globe increased their wealth significantly during the covid-19 outbreak, while the rest of us have gone backwards.
• Dividing us with fear.

Ammunition

Haven't been posted much at all lately. New job is keeping me pretty busy plus I don't have ready access to a computer most days.

Ran across an article over at Legal Insurrection that I just had to link to. I will provide a few details here:

-Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich: 13%, for the middle class: 33%

-The top "1%" paid $84 billion more in taxes between 2001 and 2008. This despite an overall decrease in the tax rates. Funny how it works; when you let the people that spend money to make money keep more of that money (less tax), they tend to spend even more money to make even more money. Liberals pundits derisively call this trickle down. But let's face facts: When rich people spend money to create more money, it tends to create jobs for the rest of us. (More below)

-The bottom half of taxpayers paid $6 billion less from 2001 to 2008. This decrease occurred even though middle class wages were on the upswing. The decrease in middle class wages is only a recent development. Oddly enough, this wage decrease has occurred over the past four years. Lines very precisely with Obama's firsts reign of terror.

-Tax revenues went from $793.7 billion in 2003 to $1.16 trillion by 2007. Again, this was an increase in tax revenue despite a tax rate decrease.

Presidential "Firsts"

Over at Director-Blue, Doug has been running a post that he updates periodically that highlights all of the “firsts” that have occurred in the ongoing four-year disaster that we call Barack Obama’s first (hopefully only) term as President.

I love this post because it gives you great ammunition to take on those Obama-living liberals. Doug gives you facts, which is something that can completely befuddle a liberal and cause their head to explode. Oh, I’m sorry, was that a violent image? Of course, I am speaking figuratively, not literally. Because if actually exploding heads were really the outcome of fact-based arguments, it would pretty gory out there.

For some reason, the actual page is not loading properly on his site. It could be an issue on my end. So, in the interest of getting this to you I am going put a decent portion here. Hopefully Doug won’t be too upset with me. And here is the link to the entire page just in case it is an issue on my end or Doug is able to fix it.

Because the number of historic “first” keeps expanding by leaps and bounds, Doug has decided to break them down by category. As far as I can tell, this categorization is also a first. Without further ado:

LAW AND JUSTICE:

Barack Obama is the first President…

California Just Doesn't Get It

For those few of you have followed my blog over the past couple of years you are aware that California is a state which is not high on my list of places that I would want to live. There are some places that such as Yreka that catch my eye, but I temper my desires with the knowledge that it is still in the state of California and governed by the boneheads from San Francisco and the LA Basin.

Linked here is an excellent article by Victor Davis Hansen that pretty sums up how the boneheads in San Fran and LA have completely screwed up a state that at one time was the world’s fourth leading economy.

It also highlights, in my opinion, the hypocrisy of the leftist-led environmental movement. The left screamed that water rights to the Central Valley farmers needed to be cut drastically or eliminated completely over a tiny little three inch fish. I am not so heartless that preserving the environment is a worthwhile endeavor; I really do think there needs to be a balance. And we are smart enough to make it happen. But it seems to me that the leftist are never interested in working to achieve this balance; they are only interested in what they want, consequences to humans be danged.

8.3%: Is This Really Good News?

Today the President Obama and his administration received some good news. Job creation was way ahead of expectations and the unemployment rate dropped. The labor department had expected the economy to create about 150,000 new jobs; however, more than 200,000 new jobs were created. Couple that with the decrease of the unemployment rate to 8.3%, all in all, this is good news for Obama.

Of course, the lame stream media is not going to report that dark cloud that this silver lining surrounds. While 200,000 thousand new jobs really does sound good, that these new jobs are mostly low paying service industry jobs kind of puts a damper on things. (More on this in a moment)

Also lost in the hubbub over the unemployment rate decrease is really how this came about. It really isn’t about how many jobs were created but rather how many people have decided to no longer search for jobs.

A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented 1.2 million. No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation. (Source: Zero Hedge)

If I remember my statistics correctly, to get the unemployment rate to drop one tenth of a percent, monthly job creation has to be somewhere north of 340,000. The unemployment rate dropped two-tenths of a percent, which should mean about 680,000 jobs were created. Something is not adding up. And my brain is beginning to hurt thinking about it.

As I mentioned above, it looks like many of these new jobs created are of the lower paying service industry type jobs. These are the jobs that pay at or just above minimum wage. Federal minimum wage is currently at $7.25 an hour. While it is true that few employers actually pay minimum wage, especially to adult workers with experience, the wage paid is not all that high. It certainly is not enough to cover household expenses, especially for those who were earning considerably higher before the recession took hold.

Before you think I am going on a rant about how the minimum wage needs to increase to a “living wage” I do want to stomp that idea down. I believe that minimum wage jobs are for entry level positions, for people getting their first-ever job, or for folks who want to supplement the family income. This is more to point out that while unemployment might have seen a decrease, it isn’t all wine and roses.

Let’s say you were earning $45,000 a year before you got laid off. Not a particularly high wage, but decent enough to get the bills paid. After struggling to find work, you finally land that job working at Sears or K-Mart earning $12.00 an hour (this is high end for retail). Your annual income is now just short of $25,000 a year if you are lucky enough to get on full time. I am not including overtime because retail is notorious for highly discouraging overtime for its employees on wages. Retail also isn’t known for hiring full time employees.

So now you have this job and are no longer considered unemployed. BUT, you are now earning $20,000 less than what you were earning a year or two ago. There goes the family life style. Kids removed from soccer programs, phones cut off to a bare minimum, evenings out with the family or your significant other are reduced to nothing, improvements to the home and repairs put off, and other things you had enjoyed before are reduced or eliminated.

When you look at it closer, you see that this is $20,000 less each year that is entering the economy. For the sake of argument let us use the 200,000 jobs created as a baseline. If all of these people hired had the same story as the scenario developed above we are talking about $4,000,000,000 less in the economy than before all the layoffs and job cuts happened. Now I realize this is over simplifying the issue a considerable amount. I am sure there have been people hired at wage levels higher than $12 an hour, but on the flip side there were many people who were earning way more than $45,000 a year who have struggled to find work.

Maybe some people can get excited about the drop in the unemployment rate (like the Obama supporters in the Lame Stream Media) but I can’t. Where are the high paying jobs? They are not being created fast enough to help this economy recover robustly.

Is California Getting Smart?

Very interesting state of affairs in California. California has long lived up to its nickname, The Golden State, with golden-type welfare benefits, state-employee retirement and benefit plans, and a secondary education subsidized like no other.

The economy, which has hit California very hard with the nation’s second highest unemployment rate, has been extremely slow to recover. This means tax revenue have fallen well short of needs and projections.

It now looks like Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown has finally realize the state government can no longer afford to carry everyone who desires to be on welfare.

The friend who sent me this link is doing his retirement travels. He started in Washington, then down along the Oregon coast to California. He noted that once they crossed the Cal-Ore state line, the increase in homelessness was noticeable. While much of that can be attributed to the economic times, it should also be pointed out that with the great welfare benefits the state doles out, it is a mecca for those who wish to live off of taxpayer money. It looks like those days might be over.

Unemployment's Real Rate

Did you go “Yippee!” when the news broke last week that unemployment fell to 8.6 percent? Well if you did here is some sobering news that might interest you.

Since 2007, the percent of the population that either has a job or is actively looking for one has fallen from 62.7 percent to 58.5 percent. That’s millions of workers leaving the workforce, and it’s not because they’ve become sick or old or informed. It’s because they can’t find a job, and so they’ve stopped trying. That’s where Luce’s calculation comes from. If 62.7 percent of the country was still counted as in the workforce, unemployment would be 11 percent. In that sense, the real unemployment rate – the apples-to-apples unemployment rate – is probably 11 percent. And the real unemployment rate – the so-called “U6” – is near 20 percent (Source: Washington Post)

When calculating the unemployment rate, only people out of work and actually seeking employment are considered when developing the unemployment rate. Those who have given up the search for work are no longer considered.

US Wealth Drops

More bad news for the economy and our recovery. Household wealth has taken a very sharp drop.

Americans’ wealth last summer suffered its biggest quarterly loss in more than two years as stocks, pensions funds and home values lost value.

At the same time, corporations raised their cash stockpiles to record levels.

Household net worth fell 4 percent to $57.4 trillion in the July-September quarter, according to a Federal Reserve report released Thursday. It was the sharpest drop since the tumultuous period after the September 2008 bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers. And it was the second straight quarterly fall. (Source: Seattle Times)

We have entered the fourth (and hopefully, final) year of Barack Obama’s presidency. Over the course of that time, wealth in this nation has plummeted, jobless rate remains staggeringly high, and people, at home and abroad, have lost confidence in America. Please tell me again what makes this guy so wonderful.

One thing I would like you to notice is the second paragraph of the excerpt above. “…corporations raised their cash stockpiles to records levels.” Why is this? It shows me that there is money to be made out there, and that there is money to expand the economy. Yet why are corporations holding onto, and growing, funds? I really do think it can be all traced back to one man. Barack Obama. Business leaders from both sides of the political spectrum do not have confidence that he can lead us to a robust recovery. They are concerned how much Obama Care is going to cost them, they are concerned about new taxes to help feed the runaway deficit, and they are concerned about Obama’s ties to organized labor and his administrations attempts to appease labor.

If I had a fist full of money and was unsure how regulations were going to impact my invest of that money, I’d hang on to it like a baby does a rattle.

Home Sales Up, Values Down

Once again the real estate market is providing us both good and bad news. Sales continue to show slight upticks and home values continue to be depressed.

Homes sales did show an increase, but some of that might have been brought on as investors are snapping up homes.

Home sales rose 1.4 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.97 million, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. That is below the 6 million that economists say is consistent with a healthy housing market and slightly ahead of last year’s sales – the worst in 13 years. (Source: The Oregonian)

On the negative side, values continue to slide.

Most economist say home prices will keep falling, by at least 5 percent, through the rest of the year. Many forecast don’t anticipate a rebound in prices until at least 2013.

The medium sales price dropped roughly 2 percent to $162,500 in October.

The high rate of foreclosures has made re-sold homes much cheaper than new homes. The medium price of a new home is roughly 30 percent higher than the price of one that’s been occupied before – twice the normal markup. (Source: The Oregonian)

For those of us who own homes, this news can be a bit unsettling. Many have been counting on the value of our homes seeing us through retirement down the road. Now it looks like it might be years before the value is returned. But on the bright side, at least sales are moving in the right direction, which eventually will put pressure on the values, pushing them upwards.

Opposing Forces

If we are extremely lucky these two pieces of news will be able to coexist.

Jobless claims dip:

Fewer Americans filed for their first week of unemployment benefits last week, marking continued – but still slow – improvement in the job market.

About 390,000 people filed for initial unemployment benefits in the week ending Nov. 5, the Labor Department said Thursday.  The number of claims fell 10,000 from the revised 400,000 in the prior week, and is now at the lowest level since April 2.

…

“The passing of some of economic weakness is starting to show in a better labor market,” said Michael Gapen, senior U.S. economist at Barclays Capital.

The four-week moving average if initial claims, used to smooth out volatility, is teetering exactly at 400,000. While not an exact science, that number serves as a rough estimate for economists, who say claims below 400,000 could mean job growth has finally become strong enough to start bringing the unemployment rate down.

In a report last week, the government said the unemployment rate dipped to 9% in October, down from 9.1% the month before. (Source: Yahoo News)

Home foreclosures increases:

The number of foreclosures climbed in October, as mortgage lenders started to work through the paperwork that had delayed new filings for much of last year.

…
 

RealtyTrac said one in every 563 U.S. home had either a default notice, a scheduled auction or a bank repossession filing during the month.

“The October foreclosure numbers continue to show strong signs that foreclosure activity is coming out of the rain delay we’ve been in for the past year as lenders corrected foreclosure paperwork and processing problems,” said James Saccacio, RealtyTrac’s CEO. (Source: Yahoo News)

Considering that our economy is pretty much based on a health housing market, I am concerned these two numbers (declining unemployment and increasing foreclosures) are going to struggle against one another.  As long as unemployment stays high, people just aren’t going to buy homes. As long as people don’t buy homes because of fears the housing market still hasn’t reached bottom unemployment is going to have a difficult time recovering.

The final paragraph of the linked article on foreclosures says it best:

The best hopes for stopping foreclosures is an improvement in the overall economy, especially in the battered real estate and labor markets. But with so many foreclosed homes weighing on the market, and with unemployment still at 9% and consumer confidence low, even mortgage rates near record lows aren’t enough to fix the problem caused by the bursting of the housing bubble. (Source: Yahoo News)

Obama for the Middle Class? Not So Much

President Obama and the democrats have always put out the narrative that they are the party of the working man, or middle class while denigrating Republicans as only for the rich. I must say that I do take exception to that kind of talk, especially when that sentiment is not supported in anyway except for the rhetoric.

Let’s take a look at a few “for instances” and see what we can come up with.

Republicans only care about the rich. The other day Rep Henry Waxman said that Jews are starting to move over to the Republicans, not because of Obama’s (and the progressives) fierce opposition to Israel’s right to exist and defend herself, but because they want to protect their wealth. See, Waxman thinks that Republicans are so protective of wealth that they will bury all other classes.

As I was reading that line, I couldn’t help but think that some of the richest men in this country are Obama supporters. Warren Buffet, of Berkshire-Hathaway, has towed the democrat line when it comes to taxes. He has said many times over that he supports an increase in taxes on the wealthy. If that isn’t a democrat platform, I don’t know what is. Steve Jobs, basically the founder of Apple, has many times expressed his support of Obama and his policies. Same thing with Bill Gates. Heck, Gates’ dad was the most visible supporter of an income tax on the wealth her in Washington State.

July Home Sales Off

It is starting to look more likely that a double dip in the recession could be at hand. Home sales for the month of July took a dive, tumbling more than 3% from June sales. Tough lending policies and appraisals coming in under offers are reasons cited.

I think it is pretty clear to most folks that as long as home sales continue to lag, so will the economy. The crash in the housing market brought us in to this mess, and it will either bring us out, or it will keep us down. Right now, it is doing it’s dangest to keep the economy down.

I wonder if any the experts are willing to say that people are afraid of purchasing a home right now with the economy in turmoil. Consumer confidence, although up in recent weeks, is down pretty significantly over the past year.

Obama and Holder Going After S&P

The first time I read the headline in this linked story, I actually laughed. Eric Holder and the Justice Department are going after Standard and Poor, looking into possible misconduct related to mortgage securities. Raise your hand if you think this is in retaliation for S&P down-grading the US for AAA to AA+.

It is laughable that this administration would go after a group that rated mortgage securities, when Obama, as a Senator, backed continuing down the path of destruction when then-President Bush wanted to reign in Fannie and Freddie. It was democrats, led by Clinton, while he was president, and continually backed by Barney Frank, who should be the ones under investigation. This group of liberal politicians wanted everyone to be able to purchase a house. These risky mortgages were backed by Fannie and Freddie under the direction of Frank’s boyfriend. When banks and mortgage companies wanted to bring back and little sanity to the lending process, they were threatened by progressives and liberals with charges of racism.

As Usual, Dems Blame Someone Else

Someday, in the future, President Obama and his staff will actually take responsibility for their own actions and their own failures. From the very first day of his presidency he has sought to blame all that ails on someone else. Occasionally, he has been at least partially correct. The economic collapse did occur on George Bush’s watch. While the foundation of the trouble (housing crash) can be rightfully tied to democrat policies under Clinton, Bush had his chances to fix Fannie and Freddie. But after a year or so, the economic troubles belong to the current administration, no matter how much he tries to paint this otherwise. Obama and his spending policies have sent our national debt into the stratosphere.

Now his staff and his main stream media sycophants are attempting to place the blame for the S&P downgrade on the Tea Party. Never mind that the Tea Party and the representatives they sent to Congress tried to get a balanced budget amendment passed and also championed deeper cuts. The lack of both of these was cited by S&P officials as reasons why the downgrade occurred.

DOWNGRADED!!

As predicted, Standard & Poor’s has downgraded our credit rating. As long as the “big spender” is in the White House and leftist media bow to his every move and utterance, we are going to struggle to regain the trust of those who make these decisions.

Along with being the President who incurred more debt than any President in history, Obama now has the distinction of being the President that presided over our credit downgraded, the first in almost 100 years. We didn't get downgraded during the Great Depression, During WWII, Korea, Veitnam, or after 9/11.

Obama has certainly gotten the "Change" part done.

2012 can’t come soon enough.

Has the Double-Dip Arrived?

Now that all the hand-wringing over the debt ceiling has finally ended with the sell-out, the attention now turns to how well the economy is (not) doing. Recently, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report an anemic 1.3% gain over the previous quarter, a sure sign that the double dip recession has arrived.

Remember when good ol’ Uncle Joe said 2010 was the recovery summer? Well, that pretty much fell completely flat when unemployment stubbornly remained at or near 9% and home sales and values continued to plummet. A nine percent unemployment rate does not a recovery make. The debt continued to grow at an astronomic rate, which brought us to the last few days. And the housing market remains in an utter funk.

With these factors dragging on that supposed recovery summer, it was only a matter of time before the roof started to collapse. Here are ten reasons why the double dip recession is here. Condensed from and courtesy of 247WallSt.com. Read the report at the link, then read my commentary. Or you could do it the other way; no matter.

Whatever!

This is just further proof that Obama and his administration have their heads buried, umm, well, in the sand (This is a family blog after all).

The debt has tripled, the unemployment rate is standing a 9.2%, massive layoffs loom, the democrats have not passed a budget in nearly three years, fuel prices are at the highest sustained level in, like, forever, and the grow rate has stagnated at less than 2%.

This guy has the gall to say the economy is in wonderful shape. If you are a socialist heck-bent on reshaping how America ‘works’, then yes, everything, economy-wise, is just hunky-dory. However, if you are working stiff average-Joe then no, the economy is not “vastly improved.”

I am going to file this under stupid.

Geithner May Resign

Over the course of his eight years as President, I’m sure the number of senior-level (cabinet also) staff members who departed for whatever reason was easily in the double digits. People have lives, the pace of working for a President has to be staggering, and often times a better deal comes along (K Street?)

President Obama has just crossed over the 2.5 year point and the number of senior-level staff members has already passed into double digits. Today we learn the Sec of Treasury Tim Geithner is considering departing the Obama Administration. The list of departures is long, but one area was particularly hard hit; Obama’s economic team. Council of Economic Advisors Chairman Austan Goolsbee is scheduled to leave later this summer Goolsbee replaced Christina Romer left last year. Other members to depart were Lawrence Summers and Peter Orszag, who also left last year. This is a complete turnover of the Obama economic team.

Click here for more information on the devastation unleashed by tax cheat Geithner and his boss.

Rats from a sinking ship?

(via Drudge Report)

Jobless Claims Rise "Unexpectantly"

During our supposed period of recovery we continue to see news that just doesn’t support the contention that our economy is in fact recovering. The most recent news is jobless claims which rose unexpectedly (of course) last week by 9,000.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits climbed by 9,000 to 439,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday.  Economist had expected claims to come in at 415,000.

The claims report, which covers the survey period for the government’s closely watched data on non-farm payrolls for June, came a day after the Federal Reserve gave a downbeat assessment of the economy.