AP: US Economic Recovery Weakest Since Great Depression

By William Teach August 16, 2012 – 8:17 am

Exactly how bad is the current “recovery” when even the Associated Press feels the need to write an article telling us that it is really, really bad? The AP hasn’t been known for writing that many negative articles while Obama is in office. This one is horrific

(Washington Times) The recession that ended three years ago this summer has been followed by the feeblest recovery since the Great Depression, according an extensive review of the country’s economic ups and down over the past eight decades.

Since World War II, 10 U.S. recessions have been followed by a recovery that lasted at least three years. An Associated Press analysis shows that by just about any measure, the one that began in June 2009 is the weakest.

The ugliness goes well beyond unemployment, which at 8.3 percent is the highest this long after the end of a recession.

Economic growth has never been weaker in a postwar recovery. Consumer spending has never been so slack. Only once has job growth been slower.

More than in any other post-World War II recovery, people who have jobs are hurting: Their paychecks have fallen behind inflation.

The article points out that what has been so bad for this recession was the housing market crash, with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 seeing credit evaporate. There are obviously other issues, such as the economic issues in other countries, particularly Europe, which continues to prop up nations that are brain dead and on ventilators. And I’m sure it’s somehow Bush’s fault, even though he had a Democrat Congress when the poop deluged the fan. Obama’s poor policies surely couldn’t be at fault in any way, right?

America’s gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic output — grew 6.8 percent from the April-June quarter of 2009 through the same quarter this year, the slowest in the first three years of a postwar recovery. GDP grew an average of 15.5 percent in the first three years of the eight other comebacks analyzed.

The engines that usually drive recoveries aren’t firing up this time.

You’re shocked, right? Housing is down from an average of 34% to 8%. Consumer spending is at 6.5%, average being 14% in other recessions. Paychecks have shrunk. Savings are in the toilet. People have been out of work much longer than in any other post-recession phase. And there’s this

The economy shed a staggering 8.8 million jobs during and shortly after the recession. Since employment hit bottom, the economy has created just over 4 million jobs. So the hiring has replaced 46 percent of the lost jobs, by far the worst performance since World War II. In the previous eight recoveries, the economy had regained more than 350 percent of the jobs lost on average.

Team Obama can throw out all the blame on everyone and everything but themselves, but it comes down the notion that their policies not only didn’t help, they hurt. Rather than addressing the issues with the credit and housing industries, they passed legislation that avoids the base issues. Temporary credit programs result in temporary boosts in credit at best. Temporary programs for jobs produce temporary jobs. One of the problems with government has historically been a focus on the short term in order to win re-election, rather than doing the hard job and dealing with issues for the long term. And pretty much all of the Obama/Democrat policies were short term patches with no way to create long term economic growth. Add in policies and a political party that are hostile to the private sector, and you get the worst recovery ever.

Read: AP: US Economic Recovery Weakest Since Great Depression »

Posted in Barry Obama, Democrats, Economy | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Report: State Department Climate Change (Hoax) Program Is A Mess

By William Teach August 16, 2012 – 7:44 am

Is anyone surprised? The data (we are shown) is garbage, the computer models fail, the people involved fail to disclose their (taxpayer funded) methods and raw data, their prognostications are political and tend to not come to fruition, and the leaders and disciples rarely practice what they preach

(Fox News) Inadequate oversight, lax bookkeeping, sloppy paperwork, haphazard performance agreements and missing financial documentation have plagued U.S. State Department spending of tens of millions of dollars to combat climate change, according to a report by State’s internal financial watchdog — and the problem could be much, much bigger than that.

The audit report, issued last month by the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), casts an unflattering spotlight on a relatively obscure branch of the State Department that supervises climate change spending, and depicts it as over-extended in its responsibilities, unstaffed in critical monitoring posts, and more concerned with spending money than in monitoring its effectiveness.

The State Department branch is known as the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs and its Office of Global Change, or OES/EGC, which have become the nerve center of the Obama administration’s international climate change policy, and the epicenter of its foreign climate change spending, which continues to balloon despite serious economic problems at home.

Can’t blame this one solely on Obama, it’s been going on since at least 2006. In terms on money, it’s not a lot when compared to other Washington spending, a couple hundred million. Until we get into 2010, when the State Dept spent at least $5.1 billion out of country on “climate change” initiatives. The period in the study was 2006-2010

  • OIG looked at seven of 19 program grants totaling $34 million, and discovered they contained no specific plans for monitoring the results.
  • Oversight officers apparently didn’t do a lot of overseeing
  • Requirements that grant recipients submit quarterly financial statements were apparently ignored,

Those are a few of the major findings. I love that they didn’t bother with plans to monitor the results. Not surprising, since the climate change hoax was never about “reducing or slowing” global temps, but simply more Progressive programs where money is spread around and people’s lives controlled.

  • The only expenditures OIG could verify in all five inter-agency cases it examined were for travel costs.

Ah. Taxpayer funded vacations.

If they can’t control “minor” funding for programs designed to save the planet from combusting, how’ll that work for Obamacare?

You can read the whole report here.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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McKayla’s Not Impressed

By William Teach August 15, 2012 – 8:06 pm

President Barack Obama talks on the phone with members of the U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team during a phone call from Air Force One. The President called the women to congratulate them on their gold medal in the team competition.

Apparently, I’m not supposed to do anything mean to official White House photos which are owned by, you know, the public.

McKayla Is Not Impressed.

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Posted in Barry Obama, Humor | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Obama’s Little Beer Junket Could Have Cost Business Owner $25k

By William Teach August 15, 2012 – 2:41 pm

Look, I don’t begrudge Obama having a beer. That’s no big deal. But…..

(Des Moines Register) There are “two sides to this story,” said Mike Cunningham II, the third generation owner of the 65-year-old Bud Tent.

On one hand, Cunningham, 39, appreciated the historical significance of Obama’s visit: His great-grandfather, Lloyd Cunningham, was secretary of the fair board from 1942 to 1962 and was on hand to greet then-President Dwight Eisenhower when Ike visited the centennial fair in 1954 with Iowa’s own President Herbert Hoover in tow. (That was the first of four visits by sitting presidents, followed by Gerald Ford in 1975, George W. Bush in 2002 and Obama on Monday.)

On the other hand, the small business owner side of Cunningham fumes that the president “put a damper on what I’m trying to do here.” His Bud Tent was shut down at the most lucrative time of day, with a popular rock cover band, Hairball, about to perform at the Susan B. Knapp Amphitheater next door ­ with legions of thirsty fans.

“I was in a position to make a campaign donation against my will,” said Cunningham, a Republican.

Cunningham said that the more accurate figure for what he likely lost in sales Monday night is $25,000. He appreciated that fellow fair vendor Barksdale allowed him to set up a Bud beer station near the amphitheater stage and recoup some dollars from those Hairball fans.

Good job, Barry!

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If All You See…

By William Teach August 15, 2012 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil CO2 producing refrigerator that no one else should own, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Other McCain, with a post about Romney’s best speech of the campaign.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 3 Comments | Trackback URL

Nature: You Don’t Believe In Globull Warming Because Of Wharrharbl

By William Teach August 15, 2012 – 9:49 am

Latest attempt to circle the wagons (via Tom N)

(Nature) Studying things from a psychological angle does help to make sense of climate-change scepticism. But the true source of the problem, research suggests, is not that people are irrational. Instead, it is that their reasoning powers have become disabled by a polluted science-communication environment.

Or, it could be that people aren’t that stupid, and know mule fritters when they see it.

Read: Nature: You Don’t Believe In Globull Warming Because Of Wharrharbl »

Posted in AGW Idiocy | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

Romney Says Obama’s “Angry And Desperate”

By William Teach August 15, 2012 – 7:43 am

We’ve known this for quite a long time, Mitt. We also know Obama is sleazy, un-presidential, and a disgrace…oh, you’re going to get to that? Gotcha

(Washington Post) Mitt Romney lashed out at President Obama with some of the harshest rhetoric of his campaign at a Tuesday night rally here, accusing Obama of leveling “wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the presidency.”

The already divisive presidential contest took on an even uglier tone after Romney seized on the latest campaign-trail skirmish — a comment at a Virginia rally by Vice President Biden that Romney’s plans to loosen Wall Street regulations would “put y’all back in chains” — to go after his opponents.

Divisive? The majority of the nasty language is coming from the Obama camp, partly because Obama has nothing positive in his record to talk about, and partly because that’s simply the way Democrats act.

“This is what an angry and desperate presidency looks like. President Obama knows better, promised better, and America deserves better,” Romney told a roaring crowd of about 5,000 supporters in Chillicothe. “His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then try to cobble together 51 percent of the pieces. If an American president wins that way, we all lose.”

Romney added, “Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.”

One thing you have to admire about Romney: unlike McCain and Bush 43, he fights back, and he’s able to fight back without getting in the gutter. While negative campaigning has been shown to work, there comes a point where the voters realize that one person is a major league scumbag, particularly when the other refuses to get down in the gutter and is calling for civility, or at least as much as can be expected in politics. Come September, the negativity and all-around sleaziness of the Obama campaign will backfire.

Read: Romney Says Obama’s “Angry And Desperate” »

Posted in Barry Obama, Elections, Romney | 11 Comments | Trackback URL

Lapdog Slate Says Ryan Company “Didn’t Build That”

By William Teach August 15, 2012 – 7:09 am

It’s obvious that Slate writer Sally Kohn didn’t build her post: surely the Obama administration did

When Paul Ryan took to the stage in Mooresville, North Carolina, as Mitt Romney’s running mate, he attacked President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” remark about the role of government in supporting private innovation. But while Republicans have been clamoring to make this election a false dichotomy between the private sector and the public sector, Paul Ryan — heir to a private fortune made by building public highways — is a gaping pothole in that plan. Paul Ryan is a living, breathing GOP example of how public infrastructure and private entrepreneurship work hand-in-hand.

Paul Ryan’s great-grandfather started a construction company to build railroads and, eventually, highways. According to the Web site of Ryan Incorporated Central, the company was “founded in 1884 with a single team of mules building railroad embankments in Southern Wisconsin.” And in the 1800s, railroad construction was subsidized by the federal government. Mid-century, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act into law, providing taxpayer dollars to fund the construction of a transcontinental railway. All railroads thereafter connected to, and benefited from, that public investment.

At the turn of the century, Ryan Inc. turned to road building. A subsidiary family corporation, Ryan Incorporated Southern, states on its Web site, “The Ryan workload from 1910 until the rural interstate Highway System was completed 60 years later [and] was mostly Highway construction.” The $119 billion spent by the federal government on the Interstate Highway System was, by one account, “the largest public works program since the Pyramids.”

Except, the Ryan company did, in fact, build that. First, they were a privately owned company. Second, where did the money come from? She even mentions it: the taxpayer. Private citizens who had their money forcibly taken by the government. Mr. Ryan built the company, then used the company to make money by being involved with “public works” projects. Of course, Sally carries more water for the Obama administration

When President Obama said that we succeed in America “because of our individual initiative but also because we do things together,” he was actually speaking in more general terms — about manufacturing companies that ship their goods on our railways and highways and thus indirectly benefit from that public infrastructure. With a net worth of up to $3.2 million and ranking as the 124th richest member of Congress, Paul Ryan very directly and very significantly benefited from the federal spending he now rails against.

A couple points. First, Obama only attempted to position his “you didn’t build that” comment about infrastructure afterwards when he tried to “explain” the comments. It was quite obvious from the initial speech that he meant a company couldn’t be built without the super duper awesome hand of government. 2nd, Paul made his money before entering Congress, unlike others *cough Harry Reid cough* who somehow made themselves millionaires while in federal office. 3rd, Conservatives, including Ryan, do not have a problem with government itself, they have a problem with the size and scope of government, and how money is wasted on stupid projects, and wasted in general. If a road needs building or fixing, sure go ahead, let’s get that done (interestingly, who usually builds the road? A private company who wins the contract to build that road). But, if you take that taxpayer money and use it to, say, build a $10 million turtle tunnel, repaint bridges, repave roads that do not need paving, put a shrimp on a treadmill, yeah, we have a problem with that.

What we have is a difference of viewpoint: those on the Left believe things can only get done with the hand of government. Those on the right believe it’s about your initiative first and foremost.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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Posted in Elections, GOP, Liberal World | 4 Comments | Trackback URL

New Study Says No Real Proof “Climate Change” Causes Severe Weather

By William Teach August 14, 2012 – 3:08 pm

There’s a bit of spin by Jason Samenow, trying to link the two, but, eh, not so much

(Washington Post) The study (abstract): “Monitoring and Understanding Trends in Extreme Storms: State of Knowledge”, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, states its objective plainly:

Due to the intense media coverage of and great public interest in the 2011 disasters, we suspect that many [meteorologists] have received inquiries or have a personal interest about the nature of these events in the context of long-term trends and potential climate change. This paper is meant to present a clear record that can be used by meteorological professionals about what is known and unknown and why.

What’d they find out?

Summary: Good long-term records of thunderstorms don’t exist and there’s no clear physical reason why to expect they would have changed.

Summary: Records of past tropical storm and hurricane activity are likely incomplete. While the frequency of Atlantic storms has increased since 1970 when observations have been more reliable, the cause of this uptick is not agreed upon.

Summary: There’s indication big snowstorms have increased over the last 60 years but no clear explanation for the change. The increase in big snowstorms has occurred even while the number of years with very little snow has stayed the same or increased. And there’s no evidence of meaningful changes in ice storms.

Summary: Reliable data indicate heavy precipitation events are increasing and rising amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere due to human-caused warming offer a good, but not necessarily complete, explanation.

So, the only thing they saw an uptick on is heavy precipitation events, which may or may not have anthropogenic causes, but, hey, could just as well be explained by solar activity. Jason is not convinced

The time may well come when we can more reliably describe the causes for trends we see in severe weather. But, for the time being, we’re all on firmer ground when drawing connections between climate change and increasing warm weather, ice melt, glacier changes, sea level rise, etc. And this study – in combination with others – makes a strong case to include heavy precipitation on the list.

Except, none of those things are acting according to the models, and, if you read the section at the story about precipitation, you’ll see that there really isn’t a big reason to believe that precipitation is anthropogenic. There are many reasons, such as nature doing its thing.

Read: New Study Says No Real Proof “Climate Change” Causes Severe Weather »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Global Warming | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach August 14, 2012 – 1:00 pm

…is an older fossil fueled vehicle that probably has no catalytic converter, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Sister Toldjah, with a post smacking Debbie Downer around.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 2 Comments | Trackback URL
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