OUR ECONOMY: THE TIPPING POINT

The takers now far exceed the givers!

From CNS News:

86M Full-Time Private-Sector Workers Sustain 148M Benefit Takers

Buried deep on the website of the U.S. Census Bureau is a number every American citizen, and especially those entrusted with public office, should know. It is 86,429,000.

That is the number of Americans who in 2012 got up every morning and went to work — in the private sector — and did it week after week after week.

[...]

It is not a rancher with a few hundred head of cattle that is attacking their habitat, nor an energy company developing a fossil fuel. It is big government and its primary weapon — an ever-expanding welfare state....

HOW DO WE PUT A STOP TO THIS?

OBAMA'S WATCH AND THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

From the Washington Times:

Christmas spirit dies on Obama’s watch; ornament-hawking White House gift shop goes bankrupt

In another sign of the tough times in Washington these days, the White House Gift Shop, long run by a nonprofit group that helps uniformed Secret Service officers and their families, has gone broke.

The Secret Service Uniformed Division Benefit Fund, which traces its roots to the 1940s and for years did business as the official White House Gift Shop, lists more than $600,000 in liabilities in a pending bankruptcy petition in Washington....

It's no wonder. People in general are fed up with politics.

Just last week, I saw my liberal neighbor, long an Obama supporter, throw out lots of those official White House ornaments. An interesting symbolic gesture. Maybe he's gotten a look at what his 40-something son's health insurance premium will be under ObamaCare.

OBAMA'S STALE MESSAGE

Dana Milbank opines:

A warmed-over jobs message

“I don’t normally do this,” President Obama’s senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer wrote in the subject line of an e-mail blast to reporters Sunday night.

This was tantalizing. What would this top White House official be doing? Singing karaoke on the North Lawn? Getting a “POTUS” tattoo on his arm?

Reality was rather more prosaic. Pfeiffer was announcing the rollout of a series of economic speeches Obama would begin on Wednesday — roughly the 10th time the White House has made such a pivot to refocus on jobs and growth. What would set this one apart is that Obama would be reprising a speech he made eight years ago, when he first became a senator; Pfeiffer included a link to clips from that speech, set in part to mood music from the Canadian electronica group Kidstreet, the same music used in an Apple ad last year.

But even a reincarnated Steve Jobs would have trouble marketing this turkey: How can the president make news, and remake the agenda, by delivering the same message he gave in 2005? He’s even giving the speech from the same place, Galesburg, Ill....

Obama — epic fail.

DETROIT: PROGRESSIVE "DREAM" REALIZED

Asylum Watch has an excellent comprehensive post on the plight of Detroit. Money quote from that post:

Detroit said Friday [June 14, 203] it would stop making payments on about $2.5 billion in unsecured debt and ask creditors to take about 10 cents on the dollar of what the city owes them in a move to avoid what bankruptcy experts have said would be the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Detroit used to be a city and region to which people went to fulfill the American dream. No more!

The same kind of thing may be in progress in California: San Bernardino, Stockton, and, possibly, Los Angeles.

Democratic Party control of a city or region is economic disaster — time and time again.

UPDATE (RELIAPUNDIT):

YET ANOTHER ABSURD FEDERALLY-FUNDED STUDY

With a hat tip to Right Truth, citing this source:

Feds Spend $1.5 Million to Study Why Lesbians Are Fat

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $1.5 million to study biological and social factors for why “three-quarters” of lesbians are obese and why gay males are not, calling it an issue of “high public-health significance.”

Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass., has received two grants administered by NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to study the relationship between sexual orientation and obesity.

[...]

The project is being led by S. Bryn Austin, Director of Fellowship Research Training in the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. Austin is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health, and an Associate Epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), which is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School....

We are living in a parallel universe of the absurd! That universe is being funded by taxpayer dollars.

HERE'S THE JOB I WANT!

The President's chief of staff to the dog gets an annual salary of $102,000!

From this source:

...The executive mansion is not in that much trouble, of course. It’s certainly not in sufficiently dire straits for Air Force One ($181,757 per hour) to be grounded, or to see the executive chef ($100,000 per year) furloughed, or to cut back on the hours of the three full-time White House calligraphers ($277,050 per year for the trio), or to limit the invaluable work of the chief of staff to the president’s dog ($102,000 per year), or to trim his ridiculous motorcade ($2.2 million). If Ellen DeGeneres wants another dancercize session or Spain holds another clothing sale, the first family will be there before you can say “citizen executive.” Fear ye not, serfs: Austerity may be the word of the week, but the president is by no means in any danger of being forced to live like the president of a republic instead of like a king....

Millions of Americans are scrambling: low salaries, higher taxes, and rising health-insurance premiums. But those in the Obama White House are living like kings.

DETROIT: AMERICA'S THIRD WORLD CITY

The welfare state in all its "glory":

FEDERAL-POSTAL COALITION REQUESTS SPECIAL TREATMENT

From the National Journal, on November 21, 2012:

The Federal-Postal Coalition -- a group representing more than two dozen federal employee unions -- pleaded with Congress on Monday to spare their members in any deal related to the "fiscal cliff."

Federal workers, the coalition wrote in a letter, have contributed more than their fair share toward reducing the debt and are the only group that has been targeted so heavily.

“Federal and postal employees and their families are hardworking, middle-class Americans who are struggling during these tough times just like other Americans,” the group wrote. “No other group has been asked to financially contribute the way they have, and it is time our nation’s leaders found other ways to reduce the deficit than continually taking from those who have dedicated their lives to public service.”...

Oligarchy and the Nanny State are in full bloom.

Weep for America.

Weep for the American taxpayer.

YET ANOTHER THING THE MSM KEPT UNDER WRAPS

From this source:

The 2012 Legatum Prosperity Index found that the "American Dream is in jeopardy" and "The national ethos of the U.S. is under threat." The assessment of prosperity is based on material wealth and personal well-being. The Prosperity Index benchmarks countries in eight categories: Economy, Entrepreneurship & Opportunity, Education, Governance, Personal Freedom, Health, Safety & Security, and Social Capital.

The Unites States dropped out of the global prosperity ‘top ten’ for the first time to the twelfth position in the worldwide prosperity rankings and fell eight places in ‘Entrepreneurship & Opportunity’. The assesment found fewer US citizens agree that "hard work gets you ahead."

[...]

The report was first released on October 30, 2012, the group was hoping the report would have "electoral implications" but as always MSM remained silent....

The news media are anything but the news.

IS IT TIME TO RETURN TO REAGANONICS?

(Hat tip to Western Hero for the above graphic)
Those on the Left become apoplectic whenever anyone lauds Reaganomics. Wikipedia is as good a place as any to start if one doesn't recognize what Reaganomics entailed. The Library of Economics and Liberty also has information, information that is condensed and more reader-friendly.

In any case, consider the Daily Caller video below (with thanks to Mustang for emailing me the link):


A brief comparison of Obamanomics and Reaganomics from the Wall Street Journal, dated August 26, 2011, states in part...

Read the rest at Always On Watch.

OBAMA: OUTSOURCER-IN-CHIEF

Pardon me if this video has already been posted here at TAB, but the information does bear repeating:

OBAMACARE REALITIES

Let us understand some of what ObamaCare requires by 2014, unless, of course, one chooses to pay the tax instead of ponying up for health insurance.

 I did research on the topic of availing this household of the "cheap ObamaCare policies" in 2010, shortly after ObamaCare was thrust upon our nation by Congress and the Obama administration. At that point in time, Mr. AOW was paying $584/month, and I, in the same age bracket, was paying $256/month for our separate private policies. The difference in those premiums is attributable to Mr. AOW's having pre-existing conditions even before his stroke [We have had health insurance all of our married lives, some 40 years], whereas I do not have any pre-existing conditions. Each of our policies at that time had an in-network deductible of $2500/year with a maximum of $5000/year in-network out of pocket. No prescription coverage whatsoever was included. 

Those ever-touted-by-the-Left "cheap" health insurance policies" mandated by ObamaCare and subsidized by the government in 2010 went begging, that is, people were not signing up.  It's easy to understand why if one considers the above.

So, how do those "cheap ObamaCare" policies scheduled to go in force in 2014 work?  What I have gleaned so far about taking preemptive action in advance of 2014....

Read the rest at Always On Watch.

BEWARE OF THOSE COLLEGE LOANS

In all the uproar yesterday with the SCOTUS decision on ObamaCare, many interested and affected parties may have missed THIS:

...Starting Sunday [July 1], students hoping to earn the graduate degrees that have become mandatory for many white-collar jobs will become responsible for paying the interest on their federal loans while they are in school and immediately after they graduate. That means they’ll have to pay an extra $18 billion out of pocket over the next decade.

Meanwhile, the government will no longer cover the interest on undergraduate loans during the six months after students finish school. That’s expected to cost them more than $2 billion.

These changes have received little attention as lawmakers instead focus on preventing a spike in interest rates on federal student loans.

[...]

Students who take out these loans over the next year will receive the lower interest rate — but that amount will be charged to their bill as soon as they throw their graduation caps in the air. Students who apply for federal loans next year will be hit with a double whammy: a higher interest rate that begins after graduation.

[...]

As of Sunday [July 1], Uncle Sam will no longer pay the interest on new graduate loans while students are in school and for six months after they finish. The change comes as government data show that the average annual cost of a master’s degree and professional programs in law and medicine has jumped by double digits. Enrollment in graduate programs has risen by 33 percent since 2000, to 2.8 million students. ...

DELPHI AND OBAMA LAND

As the daughter of a mechanic and the wife of a retired mechanic/automotive-parts worker, I have known about garage matters all my life. In fact, I recall seeing boxes with the label "Delphi" on them in my father's garage. Therefore, this story caught my eye:

...When the Obama administration commandeered the bankruptcy process, it invited GM and UAW representatives to the negotiating table. But it left out Delphi’s salaried retirees. The upshot was that the UAW retirees got their full pension and health care benefits. But the benefits of 21,000 Delphi retirees – who had often worked right next to their UAW peers – were determined as per a Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) formula. Hence, some of them lost up to 70 percent of their pensions and all of their life and health insurance. Bruce Gump, a representative of the Delphi Retirees Association, testified before Congress last year that the Treasury could have covered 93 percent of the benefits of all employees for the same amount that it spent on full union benefits.

[...]

What all of this shows is that some workers are more equal than others in Obama Land.

Delphi is a leading global supplier for the automotive, computing, communications, energy, and consumer accessories markets and a sponsor of NASCAR.

EMPLOYMENT REALITIES

From Mike's America (click to enlarge):


Don't be fooled by today's headlines!

ANOTHER OBAMA-BACKED GREEN COMPANY GOES BELLY UP

From ABC News:

The parent company of an electric car battery maker that received more than $100 million in government funding from the Obama administration has filed for bankruptcy protection, the company announced Thursday.

[...]

EnerDel, a subsidiary of Ener1 dedicated to making batteries for electric cars, was awarded a $118 million grant from the Energy Department in 2009 as part of President Obama's economic stimulus package and green energy push...

More fleecing of the American taxpayer at a time when our economy is in dire straits.

Crony Capitalism

Government interference is indeed a huge part of the economic problems we face today:


Yet, so many Americans are looking to the government to solve the present economic crisis. Ain't gonna happen, folks!

Big government IS the problem!

OBAMA'S KEYNESIAN TWILIGHT ZONE

THE ESSENCE OF OBAMA'S SPEECH TO CONGRESS ON 09/08/2011

Pass the bill without knowing what's in it:



Obama said "Pass the bill" seventeen times!

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

Outrage!

From this source:

Reuters' Caren Bohan (via Weasel Zippers) alerts us to another judicious use of taxpayer dollars: employing Air Force One to fly a bunch of overfed union bosses to a Labor Day rally in Detroit. These are the same lugs who feed at the troth of the taxpayer and then declare all-out-war on us "sons-of-bitches".

Go HERE to see the screen shots.

And the mainstream media remain silent, with the result that most Americans don't know just how hideous the level of corruption under the Obama administration, an administration that harps on "shared sacrifice."

America has become an oligarchy.