The “robust economy” claim they were clinging to.
JOE BIDEN LAST WEEK: “I cured the economy.”
pic.twitter.com/oBAajoVSuO
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 5, 2024
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KAMALA HARRIS: “That is called Bidenomics! Ha ha ha! That is called Bidenomics and we are very proud of Bidenomics!”
pic.twitter.com/JwXWeePr1m
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 4, 2023
They’re hell on wheels at admitting they were wrong — three years later.
Wonder if those who voted for Biden will follow suit.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Walks Back Transitory Inflation Claims: ‘I Regret Saying It’
Fox News via MSN | 3/14/24 | Kristen AltusAs Americans have continued to sound off over sticker shock on retail and grocery shelves, the U.S. Treasury secretary admitted Wednesday that her public predictions were wrong.
“I regret saying it was transitory [inflation]. It has come down, but I think transitory means a few weeks or months to most people. And it’s lasted longer than that,” Janet Yellen told FOX Business’ Edward Lawrence in an exclusive interview.
In early June 2021, Yellen had tamped down inflationary concerns, claiming rising costs and the contributing factors were “transitory,” a term used to describe temporary market conditions.
. . .
Fauci FINALLY coughs up to Covid failures: Admits lab leak is credible, reveals HE told schools to impose vaccine mandates and even praises Trump on China!
Daily Mail | 1/10124 | Cassidy MorrisonDr Fauci said social distancing ‘six foot rule’ was not based on scientific data
Despite efforts to silence lab leak theorists, Fauci admitted it is not a conspiracy
Dr Anthony Fauci admitted that the lab leak Covid origin theory was credible as he shed more light on the chaotic decision-making process behind the scenes of America’s pandemic response.
During his second day of marathon grilling by Congress, the former White House advisor confessed that the lab leak – the idea Covid was engineered and accidentally released from a lab in Wuhan – was ‘not a conspiracy theory’.
Nobel Economist Paul Krugman Gets Trolled for Saying Inflation Is Over if You Just Exclude Most of What People Buy
Business Insider | October 13, 2023 | Theron MohamedPaul Krugman was widely trolled on Thursday for saying that if you just ignore food, energy (including gasoline), housing, and used cars — unavoidable costs for many Americans — then the period of surging prices has passed.
“The war on inflation is over,” he posted on X, attaching a chart showing the Consumer Price Index (CPI) dropped from 7% last summer to below 2% in September if you exclude those four items. “We won, at very little cost.”
“. . . food prices are up 20% since December 2020. Talk about destruction of middle class wealth!”
Confounded Interest | 10/14/2023 | Anthony B. Sanders
U.S. National Debt Hits $33 Trillion for the First Time
CNBC | 19 September 2023 | Chelsey CoxThe debt, which equals the amount of money borrowed by the federal government to cover operating expenses, hit $33.04 trillion Monday, according to the Treasury Department. A roughly 50% increase in federal spending between fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2021 contributed to the debt topping $33 trillion, the department said.
Biden Administration To Put $4.6 Billion Toward State and Local Climate Plans
The Hill | 09/20/2023 | Rachel Frazin
Exclusive: American Citizen Journalist Sitting in Ukraine Prison, State Dept. Confirms, as Biden Begs for Billions More to Protect Ukrainian ‘Freedom’
Breitbart | September 19, 2023 | Kurt Zindulka and Kristina WongWhile lawmakers on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. debate sending billions more in military aid to Ukraine, an American citizen journalist, Gonzalo Lira, is languishing in a Ukrainian prison on allegations of spreading Russian propaganda, throwing into question the status of free speech in the supposed democracy the Biden administration argues is worthy of more taxpayer dollars.
The Biden administration is asking Congress to approve another $24 billion for Ukraine for now through the end of this year, which would add to the $113 billion that Congress has committed to the country since its war with Russia began in February of last year.
Biden Administration Announces $600M to Produce No-Cost COVID Tests
Time | 09/20/2023WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is providing $600 million in funding to produce new at-home COVID-19 tests and is restarting a website allowing Americans to again order up to four free tests per household.
HOLD ON THERE: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Says Not ALL Deposits at ALL Banks Are “Insured”
Hotair | 03/16/2023 | Beege Welborn
i.e., Your deposit in Your bank.
Well, quit your grinnin’ and drop your linen – there’s been a rules change.
Apparently, the Biden administration has decided to pick winners and losers.
…“I’m concerned about the precedent of guaranteeing all deposits and the market expectation moving forward,” Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, the committee’s ranking member, said in his opening remarks.
Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma pressed Yellen about how widely the uninsured deposit backstops will apply across the banking industry.
“Will the deposits in every community bank in Oklahoma, regardless of their size, be fully insured now?” asked Lankford. “Will they get the same treatment that SVB just got, or Signature Bank just got?”
Yellen acknowledged they would not.
EXCUSE ME, WHUT?
…Uninsured deposits, she said, would only be covered in the event that a “failure to protect uninsured depositors would create systemic risk and significant economic and financial consequences.”
Lankford said the impact of this standard would be that small banks would be less appealing to depositors with more than $250,000, the current FDIC insurance threshold.
“I’m concerned you’re … encouraging anyone who has a large deposit at a community bank to say, ‘we’re not going to make you whole, but if you go to one of our preferred banks, we will make you whole.’”
“That’s certainty not something that we’re encouraging,” Yellen replied.
Just so the Biden Admin’s stance is clear:
If you’re a Silicon Valley VC, a Chinese foreign national, or an unprofitable green start-up – you’ll be bailed out.
But if you’re a farmer, a factory worker, a small business owner or a local bank that supports them – wait and see… pic.twitter.com/mpghONOYHS
— Will Hild (@WillHild) March 16, 2023
I feel sick that I now live in the Soviet Union (of the preferred elites, who are only those proven to contribute to approved causes). Constant benefits for them, unceasing punishment for everyone else. A Politburo counting election returns and announcing the winners. The KGB suppressing dissenters, and spying on not only citizens, but on the highest government officials — Congressmen, Senators, Justices — to whom they are not answerable, and blatantly refuse to answer.
Physically ill.
If inflation is running at 8.5 percent over last July’s prices, the White House giddily announces inflation is “zero” because it did not climb at 9.1 percent over 2021 prices—as it did in June.
That’s like saying someone entombed in a sinkhole 10 feet below ground is no longer trapped at all since he floated up one foot since falling.
In California, when $6.50 a gallon gas dipped last month to $5.50 a gallon, Biden pronounced the end of high energy costs. He forgets that during his watch, gas prices doubled and remain $2.50 a gallon higher than they were on Inauguration Day.
— American Greatness | 24 Aug, 2022 | Victor Davis Hanson
Governor LePedophile will start wildly signing more spending bills:
Biden To Announce Up To $4 Trillion Infrastructure Plan With Massive Tax Hikes
New York Post | March 30, 2021 | Emily JacobsPresident Biden will outline his massive $3 to 4 trillion infrastructure plan Wednesday, which will create four tax increases worth around $1.8 trillion, the White House revealed.
The commander-in-chief’s “Build Back Better” proposal, a centerpiece of his post-COVID campaign message, will be split into two packages for Congress to pass.
The first, the White House said, will focus on infrastructure investments specifically.
The second will focus on funding domestic policy areas of Democratic concern, such as providing universal pre-kindergarten and tuition-free community college, as well as health care.
“The time has come,” the Belarus-led said,
“To talk of many things . . . “
The cartoon I posted this morning kinda hits a nerve with me.
I thought I told this story earlier, but I can’t find that I did. So, you’re gonna have to put up with it now. And you have no one to blame but yourself for reading it.
Anyway, I was driving into work one day — this was a couple of years ago — and I got behind a car with a Michigan tag. It also had an Obama sticker on it.
I prepared to turn at a light, and the vehicle in front of me, with the Michigan tag and Obama sticker, turned the same way. Next light, same thing. And, sure enough, drove into the parking area at work just ahead of me.
Now, I’m thinking, sure, our company is doing good, and hiring people from all over. But this is going too far.
Somebody from Michigan been voting Democrat, and then they’re having economic issues because, and then they need to move 800 miles south to get a job?
Okay, I’m fine, so far. They screwed up — screwed up bad — and now know better, right? No, they dumb as ever. They brought their Obama sticker with them.
That politics that screwed up their state, they’re bringing to my state, and now they’re going to screw it up, too.
Anyway, that’s why the cartoon last hour kinds resonates with me. The image of the dominoes falling worries me, if they make my state one of those dominoes, too.
Maybe something will fall on them. The most appropriate thing for what to fall on an Obama voter? Dorothy Gale’s house.
I don’t have anything personally against Big Bird, or Bert and Ernie, or any of the Sesame Street crew. And, I’m not happy about the latest bit of news to hit the Sesame Workshop, which makes the show. However, I wonder if they’ll finally come to realize that Obama isn’t their friend.
You see, Sesame Workshop just cut their staff by 10%.
“We at Sesame Workshop are not immune to the challenges of today’s economic environment. After careful review, we have concluded that we must operate, and achieve our strategic priorities with fewer resources. Therefore, we have reluctantly determined that we must reduce our workforce by approximately 10%,” said CEO H. Melvin Ming in a note sent to staff this afternoon.
Oh, in case you forgot, this isn’t the first layoff for the company. A dozen were let go last year. And another 60 were let go in 2009. That’s 102 of the 355 that were employed when Obama took office. That’s right, 29% of the company’s workforce has been downsized since Obama moved into the White House.
I just hope that they remember that today’s layoff’s are brought to you by the letter “O.”
But they won’t.
You’ve heard that phrase — “the beatings will continue until morale improves” — in comics or on signs or in statements made by coworkers.
Well, you’re about to live it. Or, if you already are, others are, too.
Government regulations are the beatings on the economy. And when the government regulations cause the economy to falter, the government will simply issue more beatings, in the form of regulations.
Obamacare is one of the major problems. It’s causing business expenses to increase, and businesses are cutting where they can. That includes wages.
Some businesses are reorganizing internally and reclassifying some positions so that jobs that were salaried are now hourly. Businesses are also cutting back on hours for some employees; some cuts to simply reduce wages, others to exempt those employees from full-time status and the requirement to cover them under Obamacare. Those employees get to pay the Obamacare tax — they call it a fee or a penalty, but it only passed Constitutional muster because it’s actually a tax — so they are covered, as required by law.
When this impacts people, particularly people who voted for Obama, two things will happen.
What will the new regulations do? Make it worse. And then more regulations. And more problems with the economy.
Now, everyone on the left will say how great the economy is because of all the number of people with jobs, even though more of those jobs will be part-time, and even though more and more will stop looking for work because it’s not worth it.
The numbers, because of the way they arrange them, will look good. Well, not all numbers. The numbers on people’s paychecks and in their bank accounts won’t look so good.
But rest assured, the government has a plan to deal with the economy: the beatings will continue until morale improves.
Hunter (who you should remember from his previous appearances) offers this updated version of the Parable of the Talents.
Please note that the “ruler” in this piece is not Obama, but rather more along the lines of the imaginary President who Hunter recently had lecturing Congress on fiscal restraint.
By the way, I’m pleased to announce that, after some encouragement (and maybe a TINY bit of waterboarding), Hunter has taken my advice and started his own blog:
Stop by and wish him well on his new adventure.
______________
The Parable of the Talents, 2012
(with deep apologies to Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:12-28, and with no claim or attempt to represent this version as being strictly biblical)
…Therefore stay alert, for a nation turning its attention to its own affairs and not being mindful of its elected representatives is like a wealthy ruler going on a journey, who summoned his bureaucrats and after drawing up a contract between he and them, placed into their keeping the divisions of his government. To one he gave oversight of five departments, to another two, and to yet another one, each according their popularity and personal appeal, saying “promote and enable the nation’s businesses with these so that they flourish and grow until I return, drawing responsibly from my Treasury only what you need”. Then he went on his journey.
The bureaucrat who was given five departments went off right away and began hiring additional staff, diversifying and expanding his influence, spinning off narrow oversight functions into separate departments, building his scions up into full-fledged divisions, constructing beautiful, ornate, and highly-secure premises within which to office his staff, requisitioning soldiers to guard all his facilities, showering largess upon all who looked in his direction (most heavily upon his subordinates), and institutionalizing his expansion policies until the number of offices and sub-bureaus under his control could only be drawn as an increasing geometric curve, with each org chart only as stable as the sand in which it was inscribed, giving chronic nightmares to the royal actuaries.
The bureaucrat who had been given two departments did likewise.
The bureaucrat who had been given one department feared his master, so he did all he could to support the kingdom’s merchants with his meager staff, and yet he refused to expand his authority. Quickly realizing that no amount of under-spending on his part could make up for the actions of the other two, he counseled them to reverse their course and return to the contractual boundaries in place with their king. When they didn’t listen, he found he could not get his message to the people because the Heralds’ Union was now highly regulated, and happily so, and they did not wish to endanger their new pension plans.
After a long time, the ruler returned and summoned his bureaucrats to settle accounts.
The one who received five departments came and said “Master, you entrusted me with five departments, and now they are as many as the stars in the sky!” The one who received two departments came and said “Master, you entrusted me with two, and now they are more plentiful than the sand along the sea!”
Then the one who had received just a single department came and said “Master, I know you are a hard man, and will not wish to harvest what has been sown! I was afraid, and I and my staff worked tirelessly day and night to facilitate trade, and to enact as little restraint upon business as we could ethically manage, so that the economy might not be stifled! But the public has been turned against me. For trying to keep the kingdom on the path you decreed, I have been accused of wanting to slay children and the elderly, and hating those who look different than me, and of being insensitive to the endless needs of our invaders (this last I will admit is true, but feel that it is a strange accusation nonetheless).”
“I have had to fear for my life, the lives of my family, and for my diligent servants because my reluctance to, for example, provide public funding for the arts is now equated with attempts to both censor and enslave the citizenry! These others have rendered for naught all of my efforts!”
The ruler sat quietly on his throne, aghast in the dawning realization of what had been done in his absence. Turning to the first bureaucrat, the one who had received five departments, he asked “How stands my Treasury?” Seeking to dissemble, the man replied “My lord, there is some disagreement among the royal accountants, what with different accounting standards, closing schedules, and economic schools of thought…”
The ruler asked again “How stands my Treasury?”
Continue reading ‘The Parable of the Talents: 2012 Version’ »
Thanks, Nancy Pelosi.
Without her brilliance, I would be a simple conservative Neanderthal that thought that more people getting unemployment meant that more jobs were being lost.
Silly me. And you, if you thought the same way.
Turns out that, according to Pelosi, when more people are paid unemployment, that means more jobs are being created, not lost:
Now, don’t you feel silly?
This new awareness got me to thinking. If more people getting unemployment checks means that more jobs are being created, what else having I been wrong about?
I’ve compiled a partial list:
I wonder what other lessons are there for me to still learn?
If you’re following the health care debate, the CBO (I don’t know who they are) estimate that Obama’s bill will cost $940 billion over the next ten years which somehow saves us money ($100 billion over ten years, though Obama can easily fritter that away in a month). I don’t get government math. I had my own plan which involved shutting down all the government and exiling all of its employees to Antarctica, but the CBO told me that would actually increase the cost of government. The CBO also told me that if I gave them ten dollars, it would be like I was saving twenty. I didn’t understand that, and when I gave then ten dollars they just ran off giggling.
UPDATE:
Ed Morrisey and Allahpundit has a good explanation of how the numbers were fudged in this post. To make the 10 year estimate trillions less, they just wait four years to actually implement anything (only $17 billion of the estimated $940 billion is spent the first four years). So the cost is really $927 billion over six years, with those last four missing years being the greatest cost.
How can Congress possibly balance the federal budget without raising taxes?
It’s easy. Make Congress make up for any shortfall in the budget. Take it out of their pay. Cut Congressional pay (House and Senate) for every dollar the budget is in deficit.
What about the president? Well, if he vetoed the deficit budget, he’s off the hook. If he signed it, he’s liable. Dock his pay, too.
Now, what happens if the deficit is more than the pay of Congress? As is the current situation? Congress is on the hook for the balance. Personally. If Congressman A has twice wealth as Congressman B, he’s responsible for twice as much of the deficit.
When that still doesn’t cover the deficit, spread the debt around to other members of the government, exempting military pay only.
If Congress tries to get around it by raising taxes, count every tax increase as deficit money, and cut Congressional pay accordingly.
I learned a long time ago, that if someone had the solution to a problem, but had no interest in solving the problem, it was because it didn’t personally affect them; it wasn’t their problem.
Make it their problem.
