| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| 20 Reasons the US Economy is Dying & Can't Recover under DEMS |
| 2010-02-07 |
| h/t: Doug Ross @ Journal (via Business Insider) 20 reasons we're in for a world of economic hurt. The most significant? Unemployment: businesses retract in fear over health tax mandates, cap-and-trade, card check, and heaven knows what else. In December, 6,130,000 workers had been unemployed for 27 weeks or more -- another Obama record. That's the highest total since they started keeping track in 1948. In December, there were also nearly one million "discouraged" workers. Those are the folks who've given up looking for work and are therefore not counted in the official stats. You guessed it: it's another Obama record -- the highest level ever recorded. 25 state unemployment insurance funds are already broke and 15 more states are on track to go bust within 24 months. States are now borrowing tens of billions from the federal government, which also is guaranteeing all losses incurred by the "job shop for unemployed Democrats" called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. More than 37 million Americans currently receive food stamps with around 20,000 joining the club each and every day. Never mind that unchecked use of food stamps encourages dependency, single-parent families and crime. Those are facts, you see, and unimportant to Democrats. Public-sector unions like the SEIU have rung up some unbelievably outrageous bills for states, counties and cities. And many locales are simply going broke, burdened with underfunded pension plans and overly rich compensation packages. For example, more than 6,100 retired California government workers receive pensions in excess of $100,000 from CalPERS. The states' unfunded liabilities: as much as $3.2 trillion. The delightful Democrat inventions of Social Security and Medicare are doomed. Millions of baby boomers are retiring and the trillions they poured into the systems during their working years were stolen by bureaucrats -- swept into the general fund and spent. There's no way to make the math work. It's that simple. The U.S. federal debt has exploded since 2006, doubling in three years to $12.3 trillion and headed much, much higher with the proposed Obama budgets. Who will purchase the debt? What will happen when interest rates inevitably rise, adding huge additional interest payments to the debt? Just thank a Democrat. How has the government responded to this dire situation? Has it tightened its belt? Hell, no. Last week, Senate Democrats last week raised the debt ceiling, which will allow the U.S. national debt to reach approximately $14.3 trillion. That's $48,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. So how is the U.S. funding its operations? Why, through a massive Ponzi scheme that would make Bernard Madoff blush. The Federal Reserve bought nearly 80 percent of all U.S. Treasuries issued in 2009. In other words, the entire Democrat-controlled government is a pyramid scheme -- and taxpayers are the suckers at the bottom. 99 weeks of unemployment compensation. Unchecked welfare payments. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Disastrous socialized retirement and health care systems that are nothing more than gigantic Ponzi schemes. And that's before socialized medicine, cap-and-trade, card check and other disastrous policies -- hawked incessantly by the Party of Economic Destruction -- that simply choke free enterprise. Democrats must be crushed in November at the ballot box, before it's too late. (Note: Charts and Graphs at Original Article) |
| Posted by:Tom- Pa |
| #18 WAFF > BRUSSELS JOURNAL > HOW MUSLIMS DEFEATED THE US [US Army Soldier's Letter from Iraq]. US is suppor + propping up anti-democratic regimes hostile to both Radical islam as well as the USA, + seemingly doing the work of the Islamists by projecting milforce everywhere in Muslim World + using scarce USD $$$ to train + educate local Muslims in lieu of their own Govts [Techs, econ transfers which can be used or turned agz US in time]. * NEWS KERALA > DOMINICAN REPUBLIC FEARS MIGRATION FROM HAITI. Approxi 30-50K Haitians are believed to had fled oer the borders into DR since the quake; up to 700K-1.)MILYUHN Haitians are believed to be undocumented + ilaready illegally resding in DR. THE DR NEEDS A BAMMER BAILOUT??? * ION, HAITIAN GOVT. OFFICIALS > are repor demanding CASH, BENEFITS FOR THEMSELVES before they will release vital quake assistance to the masses. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2010-02-07 22:53 |
| #17 Thank you for the summary, Moose. I will reread the article, thread, and wiki again tomorrow until I get the concept. In the meantime, this helps a lot. |
| Posted by: mom 2010-02-07 22:48 |
| #16 Mom: The writ of mandamus issue began in earnest with Marbury v. Madison, when a federal judge ordered the POTUS to follow his legal ruling, and the POTUS refused. This meant that ever since, the only way to force the president to comply was by impeachment. But since that time, the power of the president has so expanded, that he is both above the law, and answers to no one. It is coming to a head with presidential signing statements, where in effect the president says that he is interpreting a bill to say whatever he wants it to say, and that he is only going to enforce those parts he agrees with. In addition, presidential memos are used to create new parts of the executive branch at the whim of the president, and executive orders determine how the bureaucracy carries out their own extra-constitutional regulations and requirements that are effectively laws never voted on by congress. The bottom line is that there must develop some ordinary process by which the president can be prevented from carrying out unconstitutional actions, and required to carry out the law. This is because impeachment, like a constitutional convention, has become extraordinarily hard to bring about. The POTUS cannot remain above the law, and constitutional limitations on his power. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-02-07 20:24 |
| #15 Moose is saying that some element in American society can go outside the normal constitutional means of reining in presidential power by filing a writ of mandamus, essentially asking the court probably in the case SCOTUS, to order the POTUS to do something he doesn't want to do, or hasn't done. As far as I know no one has ever filed nor had approved a writ of mandamus ordering any constitutional element to do something. It would be unprecedented mainly because it would upset the constitutionally mandated scheme of checks and balances, handing the judicial branch much more power than the other two. In the event of a writ of mandamus against POTUS, most presidents' reaction would be: "Now,enforce the order." |
| Posted by: badanov 2010-02-07 20:07 |
| #14 Maybe I need new bifocals or more coffee, but I don't understand Moose's point about writ of mandamus. I read the wikipedia link and I'm not getting the connection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandamus Professors at Rantburg U, would you please explain a little further? Thank you. |
| Posted by: mom 2010-02-07 19:51 |
| #13 real dollars = undepreciated dollars Which is why I see hyperinflation down the road. There isn't any other way out except to depreciate the debts away. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2010-02-07 19:22 |
| #12 But they are real dollars. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2010-02-07 18:54 |
| #11 The last bit should have read, because the debt can never be repaid in real dollars except through further borrowing. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2010-02-07 17:44 |
| #10 So how is the U.S. funding its operations? Why, through a massive Ponzi scheme that would make Bernard Madoff blush. The Federal Reserve bought nearly 80 percent of all U.S. Treasuries issued in 2009. It's not a ponzi scheme when the government buys its own debt. That is printing money. It's a ponzi scheme when China, etc buy US debt or debt from any government whose debt is out of control (long list), because the debt can never be repaid in real dollars. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2010-02-07 17:31 |
| #9 Besoeker and badanov: Oddly enough, some of the constitutional changes being discussed today were actually put into the Confederate constitution, as they knew they were needed *then*, and are still issues today. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America It is downright amazing that out here, in Internet land, the ordinary public are debating constitutional issues in ways never done before except among scholars and legal experts. The 10th Amendment movement is in full swing, and to keep up the momentum, States are now being encouraged to create delegations to visit other States, to discuss the issues surrounding a convention. As time goes by, hopefully someone of consequence, like Sarah Palin, will publish a book of the issues and arguments, which will find its way into every State legislature, and other nook and cranny in the US. It goes beyond the typical left and right politics, and becomes an issue of "saving the United States", or "letting it collapse into a permanent depression corporate failocracy." |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-02-07 13:40 |
| #8 Excellent, excellent, excellent Anonymoose. Little need be added to your synopsis, but please permit to take it back a bit further if I may. "Any understanding of this nation has to be based, and I mean really based on the Civil War." Shelby Foote 1916-2005 |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-02-07 11:51 |
| #7 Anonymouse knows his sh*t. |
| Posted by: badanov 2010-02-07 11:17 |
| #6 Why we are Doomed - Politicians like John Kerry SENIOR Senator from Massachusetts. Nuts, Democrats are nuts. |
| Posted by: Albemarle Wheng7983 2010-02-07 10:13 |
| #5 The real problem, which can be agreed on by both the left and the right, is that the national government "is out of control". To a great extent, this is because of the 17th Amendment, the Direct Election of Senators, in 1913, which took away the ability of the individual States to balance the power of the national government. It was made worse by the 16th Amendment, the Income Tax, of the same year, which gave the national government extensive control over the people, as individuals. While the US has never had a particularly good means of funding the national government, this wasn't it. So the repeal and replacement of these two amendments, plus and awful lot of other administrative problems that have evolved over 200 years, need to be taken care of by a Constitutional Convention. While generations have been raised with the idea that such a convention would be "unthinkable" or radical, in fact, the opposite is true. It will be held because there is no other choice, and it will be remarkably conservative in character. Not seeking change, but a restoration of political and government balance. Two-thirds, or 34 States must agree to convene a convention, and three-fourths, or 38 States must approve any changes. This prevents radicalism in any way, shape or form. Some of the big possible measures being debated right now: 1) Other possible amendments: balanced budget; line item veto; flat Income Tax; commerce clause limitations; national debt controls and debt cancellation; a Posse Comitatus amendment; a War Powers act; a Martial Law and National Guard activation amendment; a State nullification act; and a national government reduction act--to disassemble unconstitutional parts of the US government at the direction of the convention. 2) A way to compel the POTUS with a writ of mandamus, other than by impeachment. Strict limits on presidential memos and signing statements (that are right now causing a constitutional crisis.) 3) Restructuring of the judiciary to a more modern table of organization. Limitations on federal appeal of State laws (especially death penalty). Limitations on resources and timetables of federal judicial actions. Criminal and tort reform. Prohibition of federal judges forcing States to appropriate funds or create "special masters" over State laws. 4) Establishing a constitutional review court underneath the SCOTUS, which reviews congressional acts, and can declare line item unconstitutionality, that congress must again vote to approve. A judicial line item veto, of sorts, that can be overridden by congress. Such a court might require a petition by 1/3rd of congressmen to review a law. 5) That any elected official, appointed officer, employee or agent of the national government who interferes with the convention, or refuses to carry out these directives by the convention after State approval, can be relieved from their duties and position of authority, with a temporary agent appointed by the convention to carry out these changes. The convention will have a one year time limit to reach an agreement on changes, or be dissolved unless 2/3rds of the States agree to its continuation. But once agreed to by 3/4ths of the States, the convention will remain seated until those changes are carried out, and can, by simple majority vote, relieve or even order the arrest of those interfering with or refusing to carry out their decisions. These arrests cannot be appealed with a writ of Habeus Corpus, and will remain in effect until the conclusion of the convention. 6) The convention may require new elections, or in the case of US Senators, State appointments. The sitting US government will be prohibited from submitting any of its own constitutional amendments for the duration of the convention. 7) By current law, no elected federal official can be a delegate to the convention, and States may choose to prohibit attendance by any federal official, officer, or appointee. The location, security, and provision of the convention are likewise solely under the control of the States. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-02-07 09:50 |
| #4 I'm not sure it can now "Recover" under anybody. It can recover, almost instantaneously, under anybody who puts Social Security, Medicare and Medicade on a rational, non-Ponzi-Madoff, basis. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2010-02-07 07:47 |
| #3 20 Reasons the US Economy is Dying & Can't Recover under DEMS Unfortunately, I'm not sure it can now "Recover" under anybody. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-02-07 05:22 |
| #2 Nop, There is only one reason we're in for a world of economic hurt: we buy a lot, non made in USA |
| Posted by: Anon 2010-02-07 01:47 |
| #1 Sing it to the choir, Brother! |
| Posted by: newc 2010-02-07 01:11 |