President Obama had a good laugh on us this week – he joked about how clueless he was when he threw away a couple trillion dollars in liberal fantasy spending to fix our economic woes:

Remember “shovel-ready projects.”

Those were construction projects in the 2009 stimulus bill that were supposed to get moving right away — but jobs council members told Obama today that some got held up because of elaborate government regulations and permitting procedures.

“Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected,” Obama said.

Ha, ha, ha … Funny – not!

Only the truly clueless did not realize government spending is a painfully slow, multi-year process. Here is what I predicted in February 2009, when the Spendulus Bill full of ‘shovel ready jobs’ was passed:

… there will be NO new jobs from the spendulous bill for at least a year. Since the bill is a spending bill and not a stimulus bill it will take the cumbersome federal government months (if not years) to just start the new projects. The proposal process alone will take 6-9 months, and then you have to plan, review plans, get the proper paperwork filled out, review designs, etc.

All this time between now and 2010 there will be no fix to the job market …

In April 2009 I had this observation:

So why hasn’t the Spendulus bill programs kicked in and starting creating all these wonderful new jobs the Democrats in DC promised? Simple, they will not be activated for many months to come. As the CBO stated when the so called “Stimulus bill” was being rammed through Congress by the Democrats, the job creation elements cannot kick in for months:

In fact, I monitored the stimulus spending and how slowly it trickled down from the government coffers for months, using the governments own numbers. By February 2010 only 11% of the stimulus money budgeted had actually made it out the doors to create jobs. A year later and nearly 90% of the ‘stimulus’ was still stuck in the government’s bureaucratic mess.

In March 2009 I had this to say about the future of Obamanomics:

The first graph is the annual [federal] debt – with an enormous spike in the two coming years from the spendulus bill (which will not add a single new job for about 12+ months). The 2nd chart is the Kool Aid chart. It assumes [federal] revenues will dramatically rise, even though all the policies are anti-economic growth. This is were fantasy meets reality.

If over the next 4 years the liberals screwed up, there will be no jump in revenues. No jump in revenues will mean that deficit spike will stay at historic highs for every year out to oblivion (which economically will be when Obama is up for re-election at the rate the dems are spending).

If, as is really happening, the consumers tighten their wallets and slow spending, and investors stay on the sideline and banks hold back lending, then the economy will continue to lag. As consumers hold back, more jobs will be lost and the price of land will continue to shrink as demand drops off and supply ramps up. As the economy lags the revenues will crash and not cover the spending.

These graphs are all rose colored to the extreme. They were developed by people drunk on liberal Kool-Aid.

The liberal democrats have gone ‘all in‘ on their belief government spending can direct a free market. It is their ‘come to Jesus’ moment. If they are right (and sadly for America they are not) then these wishful fantasies are about to come true. But if they are wrong (and the DOW says they are wrong) then revenues will drop and the deficits will balloon and the government will be seen (rightfully) as taking the money from a working economy and wasting it on liberal fantasies.

Here we are 2 years later and all this has come to pass. Next year we can pick up our shovels and kick these incompetents out of power, and begin the process of shrinking our bloated and useless government back down to its MINIMUM size.

Okay, I missed the debate last night (just too early to be getting into Presidential politics), but I am interested in what people thought were the highlights, lowlights and impact on a possible Palin run. Will also attempt to watch the moderation queue closely today.

Where to begin. My postings are way down because I am making sure I keep my contracts alive and have an income in this wonderful economy the Democrats have created.

But more than that, a malaise has set in that I wager is spreading throughout the country. A realization this sucky situation is not going to change because the Democrats are still in deep, deep denial – except they are scared to death of allowing the cost cutting the conservatives and Tea Party masses want passed. They know (subconsciously) if conservative reforms passed and the economy turned, the verdict on liberal, big-government-only solutions would be in.

Of course, they are naive to think delay will help them. It only digs the hole deeper, creates deeper and broader frustration in the electorate with their dug-in ignorance. By waiting until 2012 for whole sale replacement of Democrat control of the federal government, they only increase the penalty for their mistakes.

So the playing field is set and it is stalemate. No one is willing to go back to the mad spending of Obama, Reid and Pelosi – so kiss that plan goodbye for 2012. All you need to know is Obama is somewhere between 41-44% for reelection in PA to realize he has very little chance of a second term. PA is a swing, light blue state that the GOP has had trouble winning in the past. If Obama is low 40’s there, he has no realistic path to winning 2012. And I doubt he can gain support from here to November 2012.

So, we wait and hope the GOP can find a candidate from outside the beltway and not pushed by the party’s DC establishment (i.e., fuggatabowdit Mitt). Someone aligned with the Libertarian streak now running from left of center to the right of center and feeding the Tea Party movement. We need to dismantle government. There is no other priority out there.

And stay away from government run health care, bailouts, targeted tax cuts and the fantasy of man-made global warming cult. Those are now the new 3rd rails of politics.

Just a short post today, but not much needs to be said since Mitt Romney has proven himself to be nothing more than Obama-lite on Global Warming:

The early GOP presidential front-runner has broken with his party’s conservative ranks to declare global warming a real threat to the planet that merits some sort of action to curb heat-trapping emissions.

Sorry, but Romney does not have the IQ, science and math background to understand this issue – and he is wrong. I will not go into all the ways the global warming farce has been proven wrong over the last two decades. Suffice to say the sky is not falling as predicted. Worse yet, the IPCC predictions became so outrageous as to be laughable. We even learned data disproving the wild claims of runaway warming never before seen in a thousand years was covered up and we are no warmer now than in the 1930’s, Medieval Times or Roman Warm Period.

So for Romney to claim, without any evidence he actually grasps the technical nuances of the matter, Global Warming is real and we need to waste money on it is the final straw. No way, no how – and no need.

The guy is for government run health care and believes in the fantasy of Global Warming. So how exactly is this a better choice than Obama?

The last thing we need to do is hand to Romney a GOP run Congress in 2012 so he can do his version of Global Disaster Obama! Actually, I would rather have a GOP Congress with heavy majorities using the veto override on an impotent Obama than give Romney even as much as an inch to repeat Obama’s mistakes. Obama can do nothing with a GOP Congress, Romney could. So don’t think Obama could not win another term if what we need was a powerless figure head playing golf all the time.

Subtitle: Democrats’ Behaving Badly Reflects On Quality Of Government Solutions

Sorry for the light posting – again work is consuming all my waking hours. And in this abysmal economy it is imperative to keep your job – at a minimum. Let alone find a way to expand your work force by growing your business. In a flat economy, growth is only achieved by the marathon efforts. So my priorities are with my families (natural and company).

Watching Anthony Wiener implode, and take the Democrat Party with him, has been an interesting example of how Fate’s random events can conspire to turn the path of human history.

Anthony Wiener is human, with all the imperfections and self-absorbed obsessions that plague everyone. The major difference is those who indulge and those who exercise self control. Usually these two camps are separated by their selected priorities. The left, consumed by self indulgence that ranges from abortions to government handouts to demanding equal respect for debasing behavior, see the world as what can it provide them to do their thing. While their is a wide spectrum of behavior from the mild to the grotesque (pedophiles come to mind here) – the basic world view holds.

No controls, complete freebies, be supported to indulge one self without responsibility.

The conservative side tends to sacrifice for greater goods. This is why so many serve in the military – a social construct which frightens the daylights of those undisciplined lefties. This is where religion tends to take hold, family, community (both social and business). It is why most successful small businesses are run by selfless individuals who don’t mind being compensated for their efforts, as long as those efforts are desired and admired by their customers. I always thought educators missed their potential by competing for the respect of parents, instead of hiding behind the walls of mediocrity imposed by unions and bureaucracies. There are so many talented people who know how to inspire and teach children, and they are all bound by a broken system.

Again, there is a range here from those who deserve great honor to the despised. Killing and bombing in the cause of ‘life’ is one example of a reasonable and good trait gone bad.

In fact, if you look at the center of the electorate and society, there is a distinct mix of independence and responsibility, which merges and balances the two diverse trends. Only people who throw themselves to one side over the other cause issues and create chaos.

So what does this have to do about Wiener? Well Weiner is a classic liberal, self indulgent and believing rules (of behavior in this case) don’t apply to him. He is so off balance on the self indulgence he lied with practiced ease while blaming others for his own pathetic actions. He has gone down in history as another example of what not to do with your life and success. Sadly, many successful people have enormous amounts of time on their hands to discover ways to be this kind of example. Sadly, the sensational news media tends to bury the stories of quiet, brave success that are the norm in America.

The moral of the saga hit home when I watched a schizoid Democrat mouth piece on one of the evening shows start with sanity and end in the gutter. She started by admitting she was of two minds on the matter. She recognized the obvious discomfort of parents. Parents don’t want people in power using that power for self indulgence purposes, especially when that power comes from the people in a government leadership position. Even more so when the indulgence borders on the edge of sexual predator type behavior. Sending porn through email is just not something I want Congress doing to my daughters – I don’t care what the age. At this point she was making sense.

From this obvious and honorable perch, our Democrat operative pivoted to then admire Wiener. As a Democrat Party apparatchik, she felt his actions were minor and he did not need to pay any penalties. She was more worried his actions would undermine the fiction that only good emanates from the government – sullying the white knights fighting the private sector (i.e., the rest of the country).

And herein lies the problem for the Democrats. It seems we have been expecting the paragons of virtue and salvation in the government to be better than those evil corporate leaders. But they aren’t. Not only are they as greedy, corrupt and clearly distracted with personal indulgences which take priority over the needs of the nation, we cannot even object when they abuse their responsibility. Wiener says he did nothing wrong, which is laughable. He did so many things that were wrong it is mind boggling. But the protectors of the left’s flank claim it is wrong for us to require a standard of conduct. How conveniently confused.

But he did do one thing right – he tore apart the facade that government bureaucracies are run by wise saints, obsessed with doing for others. That is so laughable now, it is amazing the left has not seen how ridiculous their claims of bureaucrat solutions have become. Government is 80% incompetent. It wastes money by the mountain and produces failure. It experiments with societal balances (like who can responsibly own a home) and wipes out the savings of a generation. There are too few good jobs in America, and too many senior citizens working to stay afloat – all because liberals played God with home ownership (while lining their pockets with loan fees and bailouts). With their power over every aspect of society, the self absorbed and arrogant bureaucrat can do more damage than most private sector managers could ever do. Bernie Madoff was bad, but the left’s ponzi schemes like Medicare and Expanded Home Ownership destroyed millions of lives.

Wiener is the poster child for why Obamacare is going to destroy this nation’s healthcare. He is a leading voice in government run solutions. He is a leader in the government. He embodies the idea of government over the private sector. And look what he did with his time and energy. He was a sexual predator who destroyed his new marriage and clearly had little time for much else. He is mouthy and arrogant – not self sacrificing and able to produce a service or good of value.

The Democrat talking head also did us a favor. She showed us that she was willing to sacrifice her motherly concerns for the party’s power. She was willing to throw all of it away to help Anthony “the Package” stay in office. A choice almost no one else I would wager would be willing to make. Sorry, if it comes down to the health of my children, keeping them away from sex obsessed older men and women, or some pol’s job – the pol takes a hike into the dustbin of history.

We have seen not only the results of liberal policies run amok (deep and broad fiscal disaster, illegal wars, oppressive and intrusive government ‘authorities’), we have also seen their motivations. And these people are not saints – far from it. Neither are the people in the private sector evil incarnate.

These wildly exaggerated constructs from the left are what is required to sustain their delusion. They cannot be equals to the free market types – equally flawed, equally weak, equally morally handicapped. If this were true, then there is no reason to believe their world view, based on indulgence and handouts, is way better than hard work and sacrifice.

Because when you get down to it, that sounds like a bunch of immature nonsense. Only the idea that they sit at the right hand of goodness, and that corporations are equal to the Nazis, can over shadow such dribble. Which is why they continue to become unbalanced in their obsession with government running everything.

A truly eye opening and momentum changing epiphany – and the moral of the Wiener saga.

Listening to Tony “The Package” admit he obsessed with exposing himself (virtually of course) to women no one should think the guy is in the clear. To the contrary, one of the reasons Tony came clean and confessed is there is an x-rated version of this package out there, sent to someone who is clearly not impressed or happy. My guess is Mr. Wiener crossed a line and is now in someone’s cross hairs (there is good money to be made here ladies). Was he at one time after under aged girls? Would anyone be so gullible as to believe his denials now?

So riddle me this sports fans: How is exposing oneself in person a crime and exposing yourself virtually not? What happens if the pornographic image is naively opened up in front of kids or at work? This is easily sexual harassment and exposure if anyone wishes to make the charge.

Tony, you are so done. You should have really manned up and resigned.

Update: Oh the Humanity!

Anthony “The Package” Weiner is done. He has been caught apparently using government resources to send sexually explicit pictures and partake in sex-texts with women – even after the cad married his young bride. He seems to be on a mission to make John Edwards look good.

This is not the kind of example Americans want for their families or for the international community. So long Tony, you can wallow in your hormones on your own dime from here on.

Sarah Palin has discovered a great weapon against the left. Exclaim some little known fact (of which there are infinite varieties since the left’s knowledge is shallow, vague and all emotion and no fact) and then let the left implode in a fit of arrogant ignorance.

Sarah’s latest act of mental jujitsu was to exclaim a little known FACT about the ride of Paul Revere:

Palin’s short statement on the video was less than clear; that sometimes happens but the part of the statement which has people screaming — that Revere warned the British that the colonial militias were waiting — appears to be true.

I’ve learned something new today, about Paul Revere.

We all did. And we all should have been humbled to be reminded of a fact lost to our sound bite mentality. A quick look at Wikipedia would have answered any doubt as well:

evere did not shout the phrase later attributed to him (“The British are coming!”), largely because the mission depended on secrecy and the countryside was filled with British army patrols; also, most colonial residents at the time considered themselves British as they were all legally British subjects. Revere’s warning, according to eyewitness accounts of the ride and Revere’s own descriptions, was “The Regulars are coming out.”[8]

…

Revere was detained and questioned and then escorted at gunpoint by three British officers back toward Lexington.[10]

Some of the material I read noted that Revere was arrested and fed the British false information, including exaggerating the strength of the forces aligned to fight them. Palin was right, every left wing nut who used a Longfellow’s poem were wrong.

From Global Warming to 9-11 Truthers, the left is packed full of ignoramuses and their fictional beliefs. They don’t know the Earth has been cooling, or that outbreaks of Tornadoes are not from Warming, but due to cooling returning from northern latitudes (i.e., tornadoes spawn best when colder air dominates, not warm air). They don’t know most of the unrest in the Middle East was the result of energy policies that relied on food sources to fuel cars, resulting in higher food costs and protests in Egypt.

What the left does not understand is so long it would take years to list. So us poor dumb conservatives might as well begin, by laying one trap at a time and watching the fools rush in from the left.

Major Update – Missed this key report:

The labor force — those who have a job or are looking for one — is getting smaller, even though the economy is growing and steadily adding jobs.

…

By the government’s definition, if you quit looking, you’re no longer counted as unemployed. And you’re no longer part of the labor force.

…

The percentage of adults in the labor force is a figure that economists call the participation rate. It is 64.2 percent, the smallest since 1984.

…

Their decision not to seek work means the drop in unemployment from 9.8 percent in November to 9 percent in April isn’t as good as it looks.

If the 529,000 missing workers had been out scavenging for a job without success, the unemployment rate would have been 9.3 percent in April, not the reported rate of 9 percent. And if the participation rate were as high as it was when the recession began, 66 percent, in December 2007, the unemployment rate could have been as high as 11.5 percent.

– end update

One of the major problems with the way the US calculates its unemployment rate is it bases it on the active workforce, which excludes people who gave up looking or asking for unemployment insurance. The fact is, in a steadily growing nation like ours, the available workforce population expands every year with population growth. This expansion is driven by young workers and new immigrants entering every year, offsetting those who retire.

Since 2000, when the Baby Boomers began retiring, the workforce expansion was very steady – growing each year by a near linear rate. That is until the recession hit in 2008, at which point the size of the workforce began to nose dive like rarely ever seen. You can see this clearly in the following chart, which shows the US workforce size every May since 2000 (blue curve – click to enlarge). Note that it actually took a year before hope began to be lost and people gave up and started to abandon the monitored workforce the government tracks.

I did similar charts for February and for January. The trend is clear. As the US Census just completed notes, our population has not shrunk at all, so neither has the available workforce pool. What has shrunk is the portion of the workforce being tracked by the US Government.

So is our unemployment really at 9.1% in May? Actually it is not. Since the workforce size is a nicely behaving linear number which grows as the population does, we can extrapolate what the workforce would have been without the 2008 Great Recession. That is the red line on the chart and it shows where the workforce level should be.

When you recompute the unemployment number (which is those working minus the total workforce pool) the actual, on the ground unemployment is at 10.5%. This is not guess work, because we know the workforce pool grows with population, and we know the population grew from 2000 to 2010. This is not theory. The actual number of the workforce pool may be off by a few percent, but no more than the government’s number is (all numbers have margins of error).

Worse yet, the real underemployment number (U6) is a heart breaking 17.3%. This number indicates those working at jobs below their normal capabilities, earnings, etc. It includes those scraping by in part time or low end jobs, or on the verge of disappearing from the general workforce.

These unemployment numbers are averaged over all age groups. The reality is acutely painful in the hardest hit groups of recent graduates, minorities, etc.

In our recent Holiday trip to an amusement park we were stunned to see how many seniors were working in the park. Folks well into retirement age hosting food lines, picking up trash, running games. It was stunning to see. Obama’s economic disaster is far deeper and more painful than the government is willing to let on, and the left wing news media is too afraid to discover.

It matters not. The same voters who came out in a rage in 2010 will be back again in 2012. They are living the actual reality. And since there is no silver lining in sight due to the liberal policy screw ups, I feel secure in saying there will not be a Democrat led component in government come 2013. And probably for years afterwards if the GOP can stay right of center and not tip over their own fringe cliff.

Ed Morrissey has his usual good take on the numbers here at Hot Air

Tags: Obamanomics, Unemployment Rate

Obamacare, as with the silly left wing fantasy of ‘free’ government run health care, has an appointment with failure. Modeled after the UK’s failing National Health Service, Obamacare is guaranteed end up with the same medical disasters as the NHS:

In an article for The Daily Telegraph, Andrew Lansley says the core values of the NHS are under threat as never before from a “financial crisis” that will see annual health spending double to £230 billion a year without urgent reform.

While insisting he would never privatise the NHS, Mr Lansley warns that its future as a universal service, available to all and free at the point of use will be at risk “within years” if radical change is blocked.

Sounds eerily familiar to the financial diagnosis for Medicare – the crumbling foundation underpinning Obamacare. The pathetic and sad truth is that, despite the politician’s claim to contrary, the salvation of NHS lies on the shoulder of private health care providers in the UK (where all people with money actually get their health care).

the Health Secretary’s article will be seen as a clear reaffirmation of his belief in the reforms, which would abolish two tiers of NHS management and allow GP-led consortia to decide whether to buy treatment from local state-run hospitals or private providers.

Is anyone going to believe treatment will be most cost effective from the management and bureaucracy heavy NHS hospitals – or the free market driven private providers? The guy can pretend all day long salvation is not coming from the free market, but without the option to save costs outside the NHS there would be no salvation.

Remember, the UK is 1/5th the size of the US population, yet it is going to see it’s annual costs run at $377 230 billion. If the UK were the size of the US, that would translate into $1.88 1.15 trillion, for a program with lines months long in which people have been known to die from delayed treatment. When will people realize paying premium dollar for substandard service is not a sound judgement, in any fantasy world.

Tags: Medicare, NHS, Obamacare