Best. Response. Ever.

Just came up with a fantastic response to the green advisor to British PM Gordon Brown who is suggesting that the UK must drstically reduce its population in order to avoid a climate disaster.

"After you, sir"

Will Obama Ever Take Responsibility For Anything?

Judging from President Obama's presee conference last night, he's never going to assume responsibility for the Federal Budget. This is his response to Chip Reid's question about the federal budget.

"I suspect that some of those Republican critics have a short memory, because, as I recall, I'm inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit, from them."

The last time I checked, the Democrats have been in control of Congress since January 2007 which means that no budget could have been passed without at least some of them going along with it. Yet no reporter called him on it. For a man who keeps stressing that we need to assume greater responsibility in our lives, he certainly isn't acting like it. This budget just kicks the can down on the road to the next generation of Americans.

I guess Obama will continue to blame Bush for as long as he can, especially since he his new ideas are simply old ideas consisting of higher taxes on the rich and cuts in defense spending.

I also find it disingenuous that President Obama continues to repeat that this budget does not represent the same tired ways that got us into this mess. Well, nobody is proposing a budget like that, not even the Republicans. Say what you want about President Clinton, and I have my quibbles with him, but the man could at least govern and had executive experience and knew that you need bi-partisan legislation on certain aspects. He even had a little humility as well.

I don't think Obama has any humility. I think he just listens really well, so that people feel that they've been heard, and then he goes off and does what he was going to do in the first place. I think his statement during the stimulus bill "negotiations" of "I won so I'm going to trump you on that" is more representative of his viewpoint than all the speeches about how important bi-partisanship is in Washington. I was really hoping Obama would be smarter than this but so far, my worst fear - that all he can do is read a speech off a teleprompter - has been confirmed.

Laugh of the Day

Best thing I've heard all day about the President Obama / Treasury Secretary Geithner "new and improved" rescue plan for the economy:

An analyst on CNBC just said that the Geithner plan ought to be called the "Collateralized Rescue Asset Plan" just for the acronym.

I'd be laughing harder if we weren't in such a serious situation.

Check out the current Drudge headline

"Obama will call for increased oversight of 'executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies' as part of sweeping plan to 'overhaul financial regulation', NY TIMES reporting Sunday, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE... Developing... "

That sound you're hearing is the sound of thousands of brilliant future Wall Street executives frantically changing their majors.

Smart move Barry.

I mean seriously... we're all getting punk'd right? Any minute now he's going to call a press conference to say "just kidding"... right?

Something to keep you up at night

We were told by our government that without massive Federal bailouts, firms like AIG would collapse, and along with them, the entire economy. And yet now we find ourselves in a situation where, because of the way our government has behaved over the course of the last two months, firms like AIG are either refusing or returning their bailout cash.

Assuming our government was telling us the truth (and here I'll pause a second for you to get your giggles under control), there's only one inescapable conclusion to be reached from all this information.

These firms are volunterily choosing to face death rather than get into business with the Federal Government. What an unbelievable indictment of the decision-makers in Washington.

Shep Smith goes Howard Beale on Congress

I was going to write a post wherein I go Howard Beale on Congress and their AIG hearings. Turns out Shepard Smith of Fox News did that yesterday. So rather than write my post, I'm going to post his video since I couldn't have said it better myself. Enjoy!

North Koreans can't make pizza

Apparently.

10 years? 10 YEARS!?!?

That's just embarrasing. I'm fairly sure the Obama Adminstration could have gotten this done in 8 years... tops! And 7 of those years would have been spent searching for a cabinet-level secretary to run the whole program who WASN'T also a tax cheat.

My favorite quote is this one:

"Last year a delegation of local chefs was sent by Kim to Naples and Rome to learn the proper Italian techniques after their homegrown efforts to mimic Italian cuisine were found by Kim to contain "errors."

I just love that... "errors." Thank god Communism hasn't been completely banished from the Earth, else what would we do for comedy?

1/20/09 - End of an Error

Remember that stupid bumper sticker? I hated it because it was petty and not at all constructive. I thought that if you were willing to wear one of those you are probably the kind of person who sticks their fingers in their ears and starts screaming every time a conservative starts speaking lest ye have your innocence sullied by contrary ideas.

So anyway the point is, I would never go to the extreme step of printing (much less wearing) a button or bumper sticker like that, but I did just come up with a really funny answer to that most obnoxious of liberal sentiments, and so I present it here, for your amusement only, in a place where, let's be honest, hardly anyone will ever see it.

1/20/13 - End of an Obamanation

More AIG Bonus Nonsense

So it seems that Congress and President Obama are still up in arms over these contractually obligated AIG bonuses. Know what would have better - and was something I favored back then over the bailout but my Senators ignored me - was a managed and orderly Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Know what happens to contracts in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy? They can be rewritten! So these Senators and Representatives who are screaming bloody murder about these bonuses would not have had to pay them if they'd let or forced AIG into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

This is a prime example of why government should not be allowed to run anything in the private sector. Larry Kudlow has a great column about that today. I myself am outraged that Congress is so outraged at the bonuses when they consistently spend and spend and spend taxpayer money themselves and think nothing of it. And then they want to raise taxes so that they can spend more of our money. They would not strip the earmarks out of the last spending bill which total somewhere in the neighborhood of $8 -$18 billion, yet they are throwing a hissy fit over $165 million. The hypocrisy on display is just stunning. If they were so outraged at their own wasteful habits, then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess.

Senator Chris Dodd (D) wrote the amendment to the stimulus bill that placed no limits on bonus compensation for firms that took taxpayer money. And now he's predictably outraged. Well, Senator, then maybe you shouldn't have been the biggest recipient of campaign contributions from AIG.

And their latest solution - from people like Senator Chuck Schumer and Senator Claire McCaskill - is that if those AIG employees don't give back that money, well, they're going to pass a bill that targets those specific employees and taxes that money right back to the Federal government. At least, that is their plan. This is real proof that universities in America are not doing their job in educating people about the US Constitution and what it says. Check out Article One, Section Nine, Clause Three.

That section reads "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."

What is means is that you cannot pass a law after the fact and make an act that was legal into an illegal act and then punish those persons who were acting legally at the time. That section specifically forbids Congress from doing what they are proposing to do - punishing specific people at a specific company after the fact.

What the f**k is going on in Washington, DC? Is there anybody in charge anymore who actually knows the rules?

It's my opinion that if you help run your company into the ground, you don't deserve a bonus. However, what they are now attempting to do to recover those bonuses is illegal. And maybe I'm in the minority on this one but the US Constitution is the law of the land. You can't violate it this blatantly.

AIG Bonuses

So now Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, and President Obama are hopping mad over the $165 million in contractually obligated, performance based, bonuses given to certain AIG employees over the weekend. In fact, President Obama has ordered Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner to explore all legal avenues for getting that money back. Unfortunately, President Obama and the rest of Congress has no one to blame but themselves for this mess. As a member of the Senate in September 2008, Obama voted yes on TARP. There were no strings attached in TARP. It basically gave the Secretary of the Treasury czar like powers to bail out the financial system.

So now they're mad that $165 million of the taxpayers money is going to bonuses. Mr. President, $165 million is such a miniscule amount of the money that you've given AIG. Perhaps when you were in the Senate, you could have fought for some conditions under which companies had to abide by if they took taxpayer money. But you didn't.

Perhaps you also could have shown the same outrage when the $410 billion spending bill hit your desk last week filled with about $18 billion in earmarks. Instead of vetoing the bill, you signed it and rationalized that $18 billion was such a small number considering the final total of the bill. Well, according to that logic, you need to suck it up this week and stop pretending to be outraged at $165 million out of the $90 billion you've already given them. And if you try to take back that money, those employees will sue you. Can't wait to see that public relations nightmare.

Quote of the day

George Will on the underlying financial assumptions in Obama's ridiculous budget.

"Growth supposedly will cut the deficit in half -- growth and the $1.6 trillion "saved" by first assuming, and then "canceling," a 10-year continuation of the surge in Iraq. Why, one wonders, not "save" $5 trillion by proposing to spend that amount to cover the moon with yogurt and then canceling the proposal?"

Is The Stimulus Really Working?

President Obama took to the campaign trail, um, I mean the road today to speak (with his teleprompter of course) to a group of 25 police recruits who's jobs were "saved" by the stimulus.

"For those who doubt the success of the recovery plan, I ask them to talk to the teachers who are still able to teach our children" as a result of it," Obama said, also citing nurses, firefighters and police officers as among those helped by the plan.

"I ask them to come to Ohio to meet the 25 men and women who will soon be protecting the streets of Columbus because we passed this plan," he said. "I look at their badges today and know we did the right thing."

The police recruits will take their jobs thanks to a $1.25-million cash infusion from the recently passed stimulus package, a slice allotted after Mayor Michael Coleman personally pleaded his city's case to the White House.

Of course, if you read the whole article, you notice this little nasty bit of fine print.

The money Obama delivered will cover the officers' salaries for one calendar year, but police officials aren't sure where the funding will come from for next year's pay. They've halted all recruit training for the time being.

So by his own words, President Obama has said his stimulus package will save or create up to 4 million jobs. So, by my calculation, that's only 3,999,975 more jobs to go. Better get cracking Mr. President.

A victory for sanity

Happened to catch the first episode of a new season of America's Top Model last night (don't judge me)... and they spent a good portion of the episode interviewing all the models. One of the young women got up on stage and announced that she is a conspiracy theorist. When asked to explain, she went on a 90 second rant about how FDR engineered the attack on Pearl Harbor as an excuse to declare war.

Thankfully, she was later dismissed from the show.

I have to admit to being surprised... I'm not sure that, were Bush still President, she wouldn't have been kept around just for the inevtiable "Bush is evil" rant.

Regardless, America's young women won't be subjected to her diseased ramblings for the next three months, and for that, at least, we can be thankful.

Obama's "let them eat cake" moment.

From the President's press conference on the economy yesterday.

"The stock market is story of like a tracking poll in politics. It bobs up and down day-to-day," Obama said. "And if you spend all your time worrying about that, then you're probably going to get the long-term strategy wrong."

Obama said he is not measuring policies against "the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market," but by whether lending is flowing more freely, businesses are investing and the unemployed are going back to work."

What amazing tone-deafness you've got there Mr. President. I mean are you kidding me!? First of all, we have not see "bobs up and down"... we've seen one bob, and that bob has been down... WAY down for the entire Obama Presidency. and to call the greatest destruction of personal wealth in world history a "day-to-day gyration" is not just stupid, it's insulting.

And another thing... the market is not a "tracking poll" you collossally arrogant Prick, it's people's money! Their life savings in many cases.

This is money that people were counting on Mr. President, and it's gone... maybe forever. At least behave like you understand that, even if you don't.

UPDATE: Jim Cramer's response is devastating.

We're Financing a Different Bridge to Nowhere

Hey, so the first funds of the stimulus money have just been spent. Want to know where?

Somewhere in Tuscumbia, Missouri.

Where?

Tuscumbia, Missouri. Population 218. Yes, population 218.

Clearly, this is a great use of federal stimulus funds (insert dripping sarcasm here).

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if someone shows up at the White House and tries to sell President Obama the Eiffel Tower. Given how he's been spending the taxpayer money, he'd probably buy it.

Obama Declares War . . . on American Business Owners

Now that I've had a chance to digest President Obama's speech to Congress last week and read up on his budget proposal, it's pretty obvious to conclude that Obama has declared war on American business owners. The only thing missing from his pseudo "State of the Union" speech was him pulling out Mr. Moneybags from Monopoly with his top hat and monocle and hanging him in effigy right there on national television. It is stunning to see how much contempt Obama has for American businesses. According to him, they are all greedy and evil, and contribute nothing to society except misery for common man.

I happen to think that CEO's have lately been focused on short term gains rather than long term results. This must change and the pay schedule for CEO's must change in order to get them refocused on long term results, rather than just the share price of next quarter. But President Obama is forgetting, or maybe he never learned it, the basic principle of capitalist economy - the government creates no wealth. There is nothing they do to actually create money. The private sector creates money. They create jobs. The government then taxes the private sector in order to have money to actually run itself.

President Obama seems to be thinking that if we just expand government, everyone in America will have a job. Of course, that will never work. Anyone who has taken Econ 101 knows that won't work.

Has President Obama noticed that every time he or his Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner open their mouths, the stock market responds by dropping? Have they not realized that despite the passage of the stimulus bill and the TARP I & II bailouts, the investor class doesn't like what it's hearing? President Obama, do you think that maybe your policies are causing this to happen?

This is certainly change, but not the kind I can believe in.

Things it would have been nice to know... YESTERDAY!!!

Or even four months ago...

REUTERS: "Bailouts may worsen Recession"

Well it's nice to know that Reuters has finally figured out how an economy works, but this is another crack in the armour of those "layers of fact-checking" we always hear are so important in the news business.

I don't have to be a journalist to be unsurprised at how the market is reacting to Obama's bailout fever... but I guess it helps.