Obama Fiddles: It's Ugly

WH Press Corps Hammers Carney: What Is the President Doing to Help the Economy Besides Going to Fundraisers?

When 8.9% Unemployment Starts Sounding Good

The U.S. economy lost a less-than-expected 539,000 jobs in April and unemployment jumped to 8.9%, according to the Labor Department.

The fact that it is the highest since 1983, well ... So will the market go up on the news that only 539,000 people lost their jobs in April? Or will the numbers be revised when no one is looking next month.

Oh really -- The hype continues. Isn't it all about 'sounding good'. There are now about 6.4 million unemployed workers.

Most of the improvement came from the government hiring temporary workers for the White House run census. As I understand it, the voter fraud group ACORN is participating in the census.

Update: The Wall Street Journal made an this point in its coverage of this jobs report:

Still, even though the decline was the smallest in six months, a good deal of the improvement came from temporary government hiring in advance of next year's Census.

How many media outlets will report that 72,000 government jobs were added to the total?

2000-2008: What Low Fed Interest Rates Did

After 9/11 the fed drastically lowered their interest rates to near zero. The fed rate bottomed out about July 2002 and stayed there until about July 2005.

The mortgage crisis was preloaded into the system staring with the CRA of 1977. By 2003 the mortgage rates were so low, that buying houses with no money down, and very low adjustable mortgage rates(ARM). The credit checks were already removed from the system, allowing anyone to essentially buy homes. Including in our area, illegals aliens bought houses. In some criminal cases filed locally, illegals provided the 'warm bodies' to apply for the low interest no down loans, the racketeers used multiple illegal aliens to acquire large numbers of homes and condos.

The noise attracted more people to participate, some began buying more than one house, just making low INITIAL payments. Flipping became the buzzword which allowed people to 'buy into' instant profits. It didn't last.

Then came another ratchet up, equity loans. Don't know about your situation, but we used to get multiple calls a day for us to take out equity loans, cash in on the ever increasing value of our home. We didn't bite, but plenty of people did. They then spent the money and the rates started going up, the home values started dropping. Tell me you weren't tempted by the 'easy money sell' on home equity loans ...

I doubt we spent ‘all the money’ on consumer goods. I will acknowledge that the home equity market was going nuts in my area of south Florida, the pushing to borrow on your home equity at low interest rates, and spend, was insane. The condos of South Beach Miami is like a disaster area as a result of this, and the insane up up and away buying.

We have criminal cases in the Florida courts right now, where rings of scam artists were using illegals to buy many houses, at the no down, no credit check point. All they needed was a Spanish name and how to mark an X on the forms. And yes, some banks and mortgage companies were the ones behind the scamming. All the scammers wanted, and they were mostly fly by night mortgage companies, were the lending fees.

However, IMHO, the financial chaos all rests on the CRA and lending rules changes, which allowed the insane lending process to take place -- Without the “no credit report” borrowing allowed, the majority of the out of control home loans, which drove up home prices, would not have happened.

There is enough evidence in the public about the scams to know what was going on. It wasn't the lenders, or even the scammers, it was the enabling CRA, the lending rules changes, Fannie and Freddie, that caused the underlying problem.

One thing that is true and inviolate, you cannot spend and tax to a sustainable economy. The Acting President Obama is a financial disaster for America.

Keynesian Economics 101 : "If you won't spend your money WE WILL, and your kid's too!"

Brace For Impact

With Acting President Obama and Democrats at the helm, the economy is crashing. I it took only months, not years.

Brace yourself: The recession is projected to worsen this year.

The country stands to lose a sizable chunk of economic activity in 2009 as consumers at home and abroad retrench in the face of persistent economic troubles.

And the U.S. unemployment rate—now at 7.6 percent, the highest in more than 16 years—is expected hit a peak of 9 percent this year.

That gloomy outlook came from leading forecasters in the latest survey by the National Association for Business Economics to be released Monday.

The new estimates are roughly in line with other recent projections, including those released last week by the Federal Reserve.

And you thought reparations would be debated.

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