Now, how does it taste?

…The program crafted by Obama and the Democratic Congress wasn’t engineered to maximize its economic impact. It was mostly a political exercise, designed to claim credit for any recovery, shower benefits on favored constituencies and signal support for fashionable causes.

As a result, much of the stimulus’s potential benefit has been squandered. Spending increases and tax cuts are sprinkled in too many places and, all too often, are too delayed to do much good now. Nor do they concentrate on reviving the economy’s most depressed sectors: state and local governments; the housing and auto industries. None of this means the stimulus won’t help or precludes a recovery, but the help will be weaker than necessary….

…There are growing demands for another Obama “stimulus” on the grounds that the first was too small. Wrong. The problem with the first stimulus was more its composition than its size. With budget deficits for 2009 and 2010 estimated by the CBO at $1.8 trillion and $1.4 trillion (respectively, 13 and 9.9 percent of gross domestic product), it’s hard to argue they’re too tiny. Obama and congressional Democrats sacrificed real economic stimulus to promote parochial political interests. Any new “stimulus” should be financed by culling some of the old.

Here, as elsewhere, there’s a gap between Obama’s high-minded rhetoric and his performance. In February, Obama denounced “politics as usual” in constructing the stimulus. But that’s what we got, and Obama likes the result. Interviewed recently by ABC’s Jake Tapper, he was asked whether he would change anything. Obama seemed to invoke a doctrine of presidential infallibility. “There’s nothing that we would have done differently,” he said.

And that, dear Liberals, is from Robert Samuelson – hardly a card-carrying member of the Vast, Right Wing Conspiracy. And here’s the real kicker – we done told you and we done told you. This is not in the least a surprise to us. We’re spending vast sums of money and none of it is really going to stimulate anything. And Obama and Co would not have done anything different because the whole point of the exercise was to reward those special interests who swung behind Obama during the primaries – and to cement their support for 2012. Obama doesn’t care if the economy gets better – he’s convinced he’s some sort of chosen one who will be re-elected come what may…and believes this because, after all, he managed to get elected even with someone like Wright hung ’round his neck. If Obama can carry that over the finish line, then he’ll easily convince himself that 15% unemployment in 2012 is no obstacle.

He is your man liberals – he is what you went to the mat for; he is the man you backed over and above far more experienced Democrats and then carried him to victory over the vastly more experienced McCain. He said he was going to control spending, lower taxes, rebuild America’s reputation abroad – hope and change everything to heck and gone and he never for a moment intended to do any of it. He suckered you and he fully expects you to remain suckered. I expect it, too. Critical thinking skills seem to be optional for liberals. I mean, if the fact that he’s chicken-poop hiding budget numbers until after a vote doesn’t move you to the GOP camp for 2012, nothing will.

The news story:

After some hesitation and a time shift, three major broadcast networks have agreed to carry Barack Obama’s latest primetime news conference.

The event was announced Friday afternoon as Obama battles to bolster congressional support for an ambitious health-care overhaul while facing dropping approval ratings.

But broadcasters are struggling with falling approval ratings of their own; Nielsen’s audience measurements show viewership in a summertime slump.

The conference will mark the president’s fourth primetime press event since he took office six months ago. Such interruptions tend to wreak havoc with network schedules and can cost millions in lost advertising.

CBS, which airs only repeats that evening, agreed early Monday to cover the conference.

But for NBC, Fox and ABC, the decision was tougher. During a summer that’s otherwise strewn with repeats, Wednesday includes all of their top-rated reality programs.

Fox declined outright to air the news conference. NBC and ABC fell into line late Monday after the White House shifted the event’s time from the previously announced 9 p.m. to the lesser-watched hour of 8 p.m.

No comment necessary.

Since we’ve been talking on this general subject a bit lately:

Nevertheless the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music. – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Well, the financial system failed. And so we bailed it out. But we bailed out the people who were a very large part of the problem to begin with…and so:

Banks have failed to make adequate provision for the losses on loans and securities they face before the end of next year, Moody’s Investors Service said.

U.S. banks may incur about $470 billion of losses and writedowns by the end of 2010, which may cause the banks to be unprofitable in the period, the ratings company said in a report published today…

…Any economic recovery is likely to be “weak and bumpy hook-shaped,” Moody’s said. Banks will also be challenged in an environment where government support is replaced by tighter regulation, the report said. Higher credit and funding costs may force a re-pricing of credit, Moody’s added.

“The fundamentals of financial institutions are still traveling on a downward slope,” Moody’s said. “No-one should consider recent improvements as assurance that the current rebound can be sustained.” (emphasis added)

Which is something I could have told anyone who asked – until banks start acting like stewards of wealth, the banks will continue make foolish decisions. Banks have to realize that they hold our money in trust – its not there for them to merely make profits, but for them to use wisely…if they use it wisely, they’ll make money…maybe not the huge profits short-sighted corporate leeches desire, but profits quite large, none the less.

We should have let them fail last year – we must let them fail when their day of reckoning comes again.

That is what TARP might cost us:

Some numbers are so large they simply become incomprehensible.

Remember when costs of the bailout were projected to be $0.5 Trillion, then $1 Trillion, then $3 Trillion.

Now, Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program says U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7 Trillion.

U.S. taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as $23.7 trillion to bolster the economy and bail out financial companies, said Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The Treasury’s $700 billion bank-investment program represents a fraction of all federal support to resuscitate the U.S. financial system, including $6.8 trillion in aid offered by the Federal Reserve, Barofsky said in a report released today.

“TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and complexity,” Barofsky said in testimony prepared for a hearing tomorrow before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

And if anyone is wondering why the financial institutions showed a profit this past quarter which is making Obamaniacs go nuts thinking there’s a recovery going on – well, when you dump that much money in to an industry, if you don’t show a profit then you’re pretty darned stupid. Give me a billion dollars next week and I’ll show you that Noonan, Inc. had increased profits on a grand scale. Now, the liberal/socialist theory here is that now that the banks have all this cash they’ll start to lend and otherwise invest it and, presto!, we’ll have an economic recovery. This isn’t just incorrect, its mind-bogglingly stupidly wrong, wrong, WRONG!

The money the banks got came out of some other part of the economy – what the Obama gives with one hands, the Obama takes with the other. We’d be lucky if it were a wash, but given the higher interest we’re going to have to pay on debt and the depreciation of our currency, we’re in for quite a large loss on the deal. Obama can pump up this bubble for a quarter or two, but eventually the bill has to be paid – and if we don’t find several trillion dollars under the White House mattress, it will have to be paid in lost jobs, lower wages, higher taxes, higher interest rate and inflation.

Welcome back, Carterism.

From Reuters – describing the report of lower profits:

Companies reporting declining profits outnumbered companies posting higher profits for the sixth straight quarter. However, the rate at which profits are shrinking is slowing.

Ok, does anyone want to challenge me and claim that the last sentence would have been included if a Republican were President?

In response to “Ham-Gate“:

…the contract in question purchased 760,000 pounds of ham for $1.191 million, at a cost of approximately $1.50 per pound…

Last time my father-in-law bought a ham (he does most of our grocery shopping), it was 79 cents a pound. This is a new era in government? Can’t even get a discount on ham?

We made one heck of a huge mistake in November, my fellow Americans:

The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today’s bleak landscape.

The administration’s annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama’s budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.

The release of the update—usually scheduled for mid-July—has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town Aug. 7 on its summer recess.

The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.

Anyone who defends this Administration is digging himself ever deeper in to the “sucker” hole – Obama knows his numbers are all screwed up, that his Obamacare can’t be paid for, but he wants to hide the budget numbers until after the vote…so that the numbers won’t show that passing Obamacare is national economic suicide.

Here’s the real problem – the greatest nation in human history has an inexperienced, cowardly socialist for a President…his VP is even more of an idiot, and the leaders of the House and Senate are partisan hacks. We’re stuck hoping that, some how, Clinton and Gates can keep things up on the rails until we can vote Obama and his Democrats out.

Its going to be a very, very long four years.

Here on the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, it is appropriate that some people are debating the pros and cons of the space program.

My view is that space exploration does offer us great opportunities to expand our knowledge and to develope new technologies – on the other hand, its rather a burden which we seem to have to keep up on lest some nation over take us in space power. The “space race” of the 60’s was to get to the Moon before the Russians did; now its a race to get back to the Moon before the Chinese do. And then on to various near Earth asteroids and then Mars and beyond. I used to be a lot more enthused about this than I am now – I do wish we could just leave it to private enterprise to do whatever it wishes with space, if there’s any market for it at all. But such is not to be.

If we are to do it, then we should do it “all in”. Whatever the cost is, we should carefully plan it out so that NASA can know with precision not just what it will have in 2010, but in 2020 and 2050. Missions to the Moon, Mars and further out aren’t just planned on a note book with a pencil. They take a great deal of time and a massive amount of preparation. Give NASA a budget and then tell them to get us there, where ever “there” turns out to be.

What do you think?

To touch upon reality:

When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” – Matthew 5:1-12