Hennessy's View

Maureen Dowd’s having trouble slathering make-up on her favorite pigs these days. Her President—the man for whom she surrendered all pretense of intelligence, wisdom, and self-control—is flailing.

And Maureen Dowd is going all wobbly.  Wobbly on Obama. Wobbly on America.  Wobbly on life.  Here’s an exceprt:

On the razor’s edge of another recession; blocked at every turn by Republicans determined to slice him up at any cost; starting an unexpectedly daunting re-election bid; and puzzling over how to make a prime-time speech about infrastructure and payroll taxes soar, maybe President Obama is wishing that he had thrown the game.

Maureen Dowd makes a big mistake in blaming Obama alone for America’s jobless carnival of mayhem.  It’s not all his fault.

Let’s not make the same mistake made by Dowd and her friends.  Barack Obama did not wreck the American Job Machine.

His Democrat Party did.

Face it.  When the Democrats took overwhelming control of Congress in 2007, unemployment was 5.5 percent.  When John Boehner pried the Speaker’s gavel from Nancy Pelosi’s dry, cold claw, unemployment stood at 9.9 percent.  (Source)

That’s a 44.4% increase in the unemployment number.

For two years, Democrats controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House.  What did they do with that power?

They created a new entitlement.  Even after admitting that the existing spending programs were unsustainable, Democrats invented yet another new entitlement.

Sure, George W. Bush and the Tom Delay Republicans had their problems.  But they’re not around THIS TIME.

We are living under a 100 percent Democrat economy now. The GOP’s grasp on 1/2 of  1/3 of the government can’t undo 4 years of Democrat damage.

We have a Democrat in the White House and Democrats running the Senate.  It’s not the Republicans in the House preventing Obama from moving the economy forward; it’s the Democrats in the Senate and White House frightening natural risk-takers into keeping their job-creating money in their pockets.

I can see only one solution to the continuing unemployment nightmare facing people in America. That’s to finish the work started in 2010 by turning over the Senate and the White House.

Popularity: 1% [?]

“It” could refer to anything. Anything at all. 
In this case, though, I’m referring to unemployment.  Well, maybe I’m referring to the economy overall.
Unemployment rate rises to 9.1%, 54K jobs added « Hot Air
Obama has increased regulation, seized entire industries (auto, student loans, commercial banking, medicine), and borrowed more money faster than all previous presidents combined. 
Obama is a one-dictator disaster.  And an incompetent one at that.
If you don’t have a job, Obama made it worse.
If you have a job, Obama made it worse.
If you live in America, Obama made it worse.
Unless you’re a communist college professor or union boss, Obama made it worse.

Technorati Tags: unemployment, debt, borrowing, economy, obama, peggy noonan

Popularity: 1% [?]

When Barack Obama became president in January 2009, he began a campaign to weaken America. I’m not talking about military cuts; I’m speaking of America’s stature.  Barack Obama famously refused to acknowledge American Exceptionalism in 2009. He bowed to kings and princes, then denied doing so, then bowed again and again. His White House has driven down the dollar. Timothy Geithner, Obama’s Secretary of the Treasury, warns that the world economy must “rebalance” with less reliance on America.

Barack Obama is short-selling America.

The results of a US President talking down his own country are stark.  America is losing prestige, and the office of our president loses prestige right along with the rest of us. 

Asian Embarrassment

In the last week, Barack Obama got a taste of the new, devalued USA.  In South Korea and Japan, Obama was no longer treated as first among equals, but us the kid at the far end of the table.  Having trashed America’s swagger and replaced it with a lilting prance, Obama learned that it’s not so fun to be a relatively young leader of relatively young nation whose prestige has taken a major blow.

From a Wall Street Journal editorial, we see just how far the USA has fallen under Obama’s presidency:

Has there ever been a major economic summit where a U.S. President and his Treasury Secretary were as thoroughly rebuffed as they were at this week’s G-20 meeting in Seoul? We can’t think of one. President Obama failed to achieve any of his main goals while getting pounded by other world leaders for failing U.S. policies and lagging growth.

For Obama, now, there is nowhere to turn.  American voters have rejected his domestic policy. His base has turned against his handling of Afghanistan. The world leaders, seeing him as weak, are planning world economic policy more or less over Obama’s head.

Stagflation

But there’s more. Obama’s economic policies promise to do two things: 1) perpetuate high unemployment and 2) increase inflation.  In fact, the Fed’s stated policy, which Obama defended twice in Asia last week, is to use Demand-Pull inflation to grow the US economy. 

We’ve seen this before.  In 1978 to 1982, America suffered a malaise brought about by bone-headed economic policies from a president who believed America had gotten too big for its breeches.  Jimmy Carter’s policies produced high unemployment, flat growth, and runaway inflation.  The term for this economic condition is “stagflation.”

True, Bernanke is a Bush appointee and the Fed is independent from the White House.  But Treasury Secretary Geithner and President Obama are full participants in an economic policy that threatens to revisit the disastrous years of 1978 through 1982.  Being unemployed, underemployed, or underpaid is bad enough. When the cost of necessary goods and services rise quickly, things get worse fast for the economically challenged.  And signs of stagflation are everywhere.

Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute wrote in a WSJ op-ed that several inflationary signals surfaced in October:

Producer prices rose at an annual rate of 5.5% in September and 4.8% in August. The broad price index for GDP rose at an annual rate of 2.3% in the third quarter, up from 1.9% in the second quarter and 1% in the first.

For ordinary folks trying to make ends meet, the prospect of inflation is frightening.  Already the weak dollar has driven up the price of gasoline and food—the two things we all need to survive.  The two things the government omits from its consumer price index.  In the past week, gasoline prices in the St. Louis area jumped $0.25 overnight. 

The Next Congress

There is little the 112th Congress can do to repair the economic damage, but it can lay the foundation for the next president and the 113th Congress. I encourage all members of the next Congress to follow Arthur Laffer’s prescription of extending the Bush tax cuts, repealing Obamacare, eliminating incentives for idleness, and push free trade. 

Popularity: 1% [?]

Each day, more economists jump onto the Double-Dip bandwagon. Signs abound that the natural economic recovery that would normally follow a deep recession won’t happen. Instead, the economy is now saddled with so much debt, so many regulations, and such onerous new taxes that the Obama Administration tells us to be happy with 9.5 percent unemployment.

Barack Obama is an economic disaster of the first order.

So why all the pessimism? 

Well, every week it seems we’re hit with wave after wave of bad news. At the same time, Biden and Obama tour the country telling the unemployed they never had it so good.  Here’s today’s top stories on Drudge:

Here’s a link to one of the stories—on CNBC—that says we have left recession and entered . . . economic DEPRESSION.

And that brings us to this week’s triple-play of disastrous economic news.

First, existing home sales fell by 27 percent in July to the lowest levels in 15 years. At the same time, inventories climbed and interest rates fell.  That means prices will have drop dramatically before the housing market can recover.

Second, durable goods orders, excluding transportation, fell by 3.8 percent in July. Economists and analysts expected a 12 percent rise.  That means businesses have abandoned hope of recovery.

Third, existing home sales plummeted 12 percent in July to the lowest level on record. 

Why can’t the economy find solid footing?  Because America can no longer afford the government in Washington.  With government workers earning twice as much as people who actually produce value in the economy, wage earners can afford only two things:  subsistence and taxes. Truly, the government has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

Either we cut the cost of government or die.  That’s a stark choice.  But it’s the one we’ve been given.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The only two people in the world who believe the economy is healthy and vibrant are Barack Obama and Joe Biden. 

Now, the Federal Reserve Board’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) is getting ready to announce that the economy is sicker than we thought.

Although Fed policymakers still believe the basic trajectory of the economy remains one of moderate expansion, there may be more attention given to heightened dangers of a sharp slowdown. “The FOMC will have to tone down its assessment of the economy in view of recent weak indicators on real growth, real consumption spending and employment,” said Brian Bethune and Nigel Gault, economists at Global Insight.

Last Friday, we got more bad news about the economy, particularly job growth.  The economy still is not adding enough new jobs to keep up with population growth. The 9.5 percent unemployment rate remains that low only because so many people have simply given up finding a job. 

Yet Barack Obama keeps telling audiences that we’re better off than we think we are.

The fact remains that the economy is getting weaker, not stronger.  Consumer confidence is falling, heading toward 12-month lows.  A swarm of bureaucrats and an avalanche of tax hikes are about to hit the country on January 1.  The Obama agenda includes measures intended to hurt businesses and the American consumer.

Obama is right to say that the economy is on track. What he’s not tell you is that the track he’s put it on is one that ends in tears for most Americans.

On November 2, most Americans will elect to switch trains.  A ticket to anywhere is better than Obama’s express to economic hell.

Popularity: 2% [?]