The Legacy

Today is Barack Obama’s final day as President.

Politicians like Mr. Obama have get out front to talk about their legacy because they fear more than anything else that even their True Believers might hear the truth. On his last full day as President, here’s the truth. It is a Legacy of Failure.

The Legacy of Shame
• Aleppo. Benghazi. China. Iran. Iraq. Israel. NATO. Russia …
• Mr. Obama drew the line in the sand to Bashar al-Assad over his use of chemical weapons, then ran away. He spoke forcefully to Vladimir Putin, then ran away. He spoke harshly to Iraq in 2011, then ran away (that precipitated the rise of ISIS).
• Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis said Mr. Obama will someday look back on his Syria policy “with deep sorrow and some shame.”


The Legacy of Broken Dreams
• “We [don’t have] an energy policy in this country that makes sense,” Mr. Obama said in remarks on the American Jobs Act in 2011. There is still no coherent energy policy. Sadly, the coherent energy policy is to bankrupt any energy producer not on the “friends” list. FAIL.
• The cost of college has increased faster than the rate of inflation. FAIL.
• China devalued their currency to make their goods cheaper and our goods more expensive. The Obama China policy was never to challenge them. FAIL.
• Health care policies have failed to lower health costs. FAIL.
• In 2008, Mr. Obama claimed his investments in green energy would create 5 million new jobs. FAIL.

The Legacy of Bankruptcy
• In 2008, Mr. Obama said that adding $4 trillion to the national debt was “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic.”
• On Jan. 20, 2009, the debt held by the public was roughly $6.307 trillion. Intragovernmental Holdings added 4.32 trillion bringing the total national debt to $10.63 trillion on the day of Mr. Obama’s own inauguration. The national debt stands today at 19,961,179,000,000 (>||< close to TWENTY TRILLION DOLLARS) and counting.

The Legacy of Ill Health
• About 9.1% of people in the U.S., or around 28.6 million, were uninsured in 2015.
• “If you’ve got health insurance, we’re going to work with you to lower your premiums by $2500 per family per year.” The average family premium increased by $3,065 from $12,680 in 2008 to $18,142 this year, a 43% increase.
• U.S. health care spending grew 5.8% in 2015 alone, reaching $9,990 per person. Health spending accounted for 17.8% of the Gross Domestic Product. It is now $10,384 per person.

The Legacy of Joblessness
• 86,591,000 men and women, young and old, either don’t have, don’t want, or can’t do a job. The Obama administration does not count them as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the BLS survey.

The Legacy of Lies
• “We will pursue the housing plan I’m outlining today. And through this plan, we will help between 7 and 9 million families restructure or refinance their mortgages so they can afford-avoid foreclosure.” Uh huh.
• “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan.” Okey dokey. (Obamacare alone is a legacy of deception unlike any previous government program.)
• “I cut spending by over a trillion dollars in 2011,” Mr. Obama said in 2012 on Meet the Press. Right. (Spending actually increased by $147 billion in that period.)
• “As president, I will work to solve this energy crisis once and for all.” How’d that work out for us?

The Legacy of Overreach
• The Environmental Protection Agency is the poster child for Administration overreach. The Supreme Court had to smack down the EPA over and over again including the EPA’s first limits on coal-fired power plant emissions, Sackett v. EPA, and more.
• EPA head Gina McCarthy was not concerned about the power plant emissions ruling. The regs went into effect “three years ago,” she said. “Most of [the plants] are already in compliance, investments have been made.”
• The EPA would send armed agents to incarcerate landowners for a spill similar to the Animas River in Colorado but now won’t pay $1.2 billion for the damages it itself caused.
• Now, the EPA has madly pushed through new regulations, not because they think they will work, but to create a mass that Mr. Trump’s EPA will have to correct, allowing the Far Green to decry a “rollback.”
• The EPA is not alone. In 2011, after Boeing had hired 1,000 new employees to work at its new factory in South Carolina, the Obama administration ordered the company to shut down the factory, because the factory was non-union.
• Armed SWAT agents raid the Gibson guitar factory, ordered the employees to leave, and seized guitars and other property from the factory, all without warrants or charges filed. It was later revealed that Gibson had not broken any laws.

The Legacy of Poverty
• In 2009, 42.9 million people had income below the poverty line. That was 14.3% of the U.S. population. The official poverty rate is now 14.5%. That means 45.3 million people in poverty, up by over 8 million since 2008.

The Legacy of Terror
• In December, Mr. Obama told us that “no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland.” Uh huh.
• He called the 2009 Christmas Day bomber an “isolated extremist.”
• The Fort Hood shooter who shouted “Allahu Akbar as he pulled the trigger” committed “workplace violence.”
• He called the 2013 Boston marathon bombing a “vicious attack” and directed the full resources of the government to Boston to find the source of that “terrorist act.”
No terrorist attacks?

The Legacy of Theft
• Mr. Obama stole General Motors from its stockholders — the government took a 60.8% ownership of the company and fired its CEO — then delivered ownership of the company to reward his voting block.

The Legacy of Wimps
• Even NBC’s Meet the Press questioned his manhood.


The Wrap Up
Mr. Obama brought a legacy of inadequacy and fear to America but he didn’t do it alone. There are still about 2,700,000 Executive branch civilians, 535 Congress critters, and about 65,000 people working for Congress in place and ready to keep on keeping on.

Mr. Trump has promised a clean sweep would start tomorrow but he has a lot to overcome.

 

Happy New Year – Here’s the Check

SANDERS PLAN: RAISE (U.S.) TAXES!*
SANDERS BACKS GREECE’S ‘NO’ (NEW TAXES) VOTE!**

Feel the Bern but also Feel the Pain.

It’s a pain that will come no matter whom we elect this year.

“Things are going ‘so well’ with the truth of how our system works that we are bankrupting ourselves,” wrote a concerned citizen.

Every politician since the wicked Nimrod has lied to us. Oh, some told little white lies but they lied to us nonetheless. “We know how to fix it!” they all say.

“We are not Greece, we are not Portugal,” Mr. Obama said in 2011 as Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s prepared to downgrade America’s top credit status.

Yeah, they fixed it alright.

Liar, Liar, Pants on FireAccording to a new report by Kotlikoff and Michel, U.S. government debt stands at $210 trillion, not at the official $13.1 trillion nor the almost $18.9 trillion of the US Debt Clock nor the $86.8 trillion calculated by Cox and Archer.

Even using the make believe $13.1 trillion debt, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the debt will be well over 100% of GDP by 2039. When CBO incorporates its estimates of the impact of the continuing large federal deficits on the nation’s economy, it estimates that the accumulated debt held by the public will reach 180% of GDP by 2039.

For homework, try to find out if any member of Congress or the President has ever read these CBO reports.

The Feds will tell you every man, woman, and child of the 326,387,900 people now alive in the U.S. owes “only” $40,136.29 of that debt.

The reality is far different. The real debt load works out to $643,406.20 per person in the United States, 16 times higher than the current official level and 2-1/2 times our total net worth.

In 2014 the net worth of all U.S. citizens was pegged at $80.7 trillion. Wealth is commonly measured in terms of net worth, which is the quite simple sum of all assets (what you have in the bank, the market value of real estate, like your home, any stocks and stuff you own) minus what you owe on all of that. which accountants call “liabilities.”

(Including human capital such as skills, the United Nations estimated the total wealth of the United States in 2008 to be $118 trillion. The United Nations has never been good at accounting or science.)

$210 trillion in debt <==> $80 trillion in assets.

Yeah, they fixed it alright.

Mr. Sanders isn’t the only financial nincompoop. He’s just the most obvious among the economic geniuses we’ve elected.

A record Federal Reserve “reverse repo” auction on the last day of business means credit markets and mutual funds are in trouble. Like the “credit swaps” and off-balance-sheet financing that caused the Great Recession, the financial markets are again playing with numbers none of the geniuses understands.

“It is government’s fault for offering a housing finance program without making an effort to maintain underwriting standards,” then-Rep. Barny Frank (D-MA) said of the Housing Crisis.

That would be the same Barny Frank who imposed “affordable housing” requirements on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Before he did that, the government lenders had been required to buy only prime mortgages. Mr. Frank forced Fannie and Freddie to meet a government quota for bad loans to borrowers who could never repay them.

Yeah, they fixed it alright.

The Dow fell 450 points this morning, on its way to the worst opening day in 84 years. The Fed figures it can’t head off or even contain the coming financial crises.

Meanwhile China’s government-managed stock market tanked again today, too. Looks like China’s politicians are about as good at this financial stuff as ours.

And none of this helps rein in the stampeding public debt.

The Demorat’s answer to the National Debt is “there is no national debt but we’ll raise taxes anyway so we can spend more.” The Repuglican’s answer to the National Debt is “there is some national debt so we need to raise taxes so we can spend more.”

“We know how to fix it!”

Yeah, they’ll fix us right up.


How to Avoid Bankruptcy — For Dummies tells us:

  • Get your financial house in order by spending less than you take in.
  • Sell your assets.
  • Take over a large foreign country with lots of natural resources and land.

OK, I added the last one but, hey! It worked for Genghis Khan, Rome, Great Britain, and Google, right?


* Let’s get specific. How high would Bernard Sanders go on tax rates?
“We haven’t come up with an exact number yet, but it will not be as high as … 90%.”

 

** “I applaud the people of Greece for saying ‘no’ to more austerity..
“In a world of massive wealth and income inequality, Europe must support Greece’s efforts” to loot the real European economies which create jobs and income.

 

Hit the Road, Jack

We go to the polls in just eight days. I’m on the road today, dodging politicians. They all want a piece of my wallet.

Let’s take a look at where we are now, thanks to the crowd in Washington, in Montpelier, in Sacramento, in Tallahassee, and in a capitol near you:

Fun
• I’ve been talking to people in the grocery aisles. “I hate my cow-orkers,” one woman said. “I still couldn’t refinance my mortgage.” “We wanted to go to Hilton Head this year but we couldn’t afford the gas.” People are more negative than ever.
• The Financial Times’ has this depressing air travel story: “Once upon a time, flying was fun. Most of you won’t remember.”
• From trust in airlines to trust in cable companies to trust in food producers to trust in government, doing business isn’t fun anymore. That’s not a political issue but it does contribute to the overall negative vibe. OK, trust in government is political. You know what to do.

Health
• California’s doctor networks will stay limited in 2015. Health Net is dumping its PPO network there and switching to a plan with 54% fewer doctors and no out-of-network coverage. Health Net said its cutbacks were necessary to avoid even steeper rate hikes in California. Obamacare where “if we like our doc, we can keep our doc!”
• Dropped or delayed or pooch-screwed coverage for about 30,000 Californians! The LA Times reported that Californians face enrollment delays, dropped coverage and more, thanks to the Unaffordable Care Act. “If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance!”
• In the People’s Republic of Vermont, another seriously blue state with a broken Health Exchange built by the same company the Feds used, premiums went up and coverage went down. Costs will go down, right?
• Staying in the People’s Republic of Vermont, the state’s largest employer (that would be state government) told workers that their health insurance premiums will rise 17.9% in 2015.
• News from the Veterans Administration to the CDC is of people dying, not people thriving while the agencies from Texas to Arizona “follow protocols.” Government care makes us healthier, right?

Money
• 46.5 million people now live in poverty up, up from when Mr. Bush was president, despite 6 years of “doing better.” Obamapologists keep trying to show how much better we treat our poor. Or to blame Mr. Bush.
• The national debt of $17.76 trillion is up more than a trillion dollars every year this Administration has remained in office, despite 6 years of “doing better.” Obamapologists keep trying to spin that into a smaller number. Or to blame Mr. Bush.
• Median household income fell again, down from when Mr. Bush was president despite 6 years of “doing better,” despite 6 years of inflation. Obamapologists can’t spin that.
• Premium increases for Obamacare policies and Medicare Part B won’t be released until after the election. Obamapologists can’t spin that, either.

Safety
• A man who posed as a congressman was allowed backstage at when Mr. Obama appeared at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation awards dinner, making us wonder, Who would fake being a congressman?
• Mr. Obama has doubled the number of Border Patrol agents and says “border security is stronger than it has ever been” making us wonder, How do so many millions of illegal aliens get in?
• D.C. Spirit killed his daughter, her six children, and then himself. They had had repeated interactions with the Florida Department of Children and Families. In Hardwick, Vermont, Isaac Robitille was 5 when he got a puppy from Make-A-Wish. The Vermont Department of Children and Families confirms that they’ve tracked Isaac’s problems at least seven years. The state removed Isaac from home in 2007 but a DCF expert sent him back in 2008. They “handled” a new complaint in May. His mom and her boyfriend are charged with his murder. Police say they put vodka in Isaac’s IV. Doesn’t that make you wonder?

Every politician in office today ran on a platform of change. Every politician running for re-election is running on a promise that they “know how to fix it.”

If they know how, why didn’t they?

Tell me again why you want to re-elect any of the liars who brought you to this?

 

Can You Sell That?

Mr. Obama says the country is doing better. I guess if he says it, it must be true.

“Can you sell that?” Steve Kroft asked on 60 Minutes.

Good question.

Mr. Obama says he doesn’t have to sell it because the data proves it.

Yeppers. Here’s the data:

  • Median household income fell again.
  • 46.5 million people now live in poverty.
  • Oh, yeah. And the national debt approaches $17.76 trillion.

Remember Little Mikey?

Mikey was the young boy in a television commercial for the breakfast cereal, Life. The popular commercial first aired in 1972 and stayed on the air for more than twelve years, ending up as one of the longest continuously running commercial campaigns ever aired.

Little Mikey would eat anything.

Quaker Oats ran the commercial to change kids’ perception that something they thought would be bad would taste good. Mikey liked it.

Let’s look at the data that proves we’re doing better.

Median household income fell again, but only slightly in a change the Census Bureau does not consider statistically significant.

Heh. I have a statistically insignificant smaller number of bucks in my wallet but everything I bought last week cost more than the week before. Yeppers, I’m doing better. The data proves it.

Of course, Mr. Obama’s federal government also says the US inflation rate is low, something anyone who has shopped for ground beef (up from to $1.99/pound six years ago to $4.79/pound today), or home heating oil ($2.21/gallon on January 16, 2009, $2.56 by that November, and $3.869/gallon today), chocolate chips (on sale at 99 cents in 2008 but $2.50 today), or a basic Internet connection (I paid !@#$%^Comcast $41.81/month for spotty Internet service six years ago and $61.14/month for it this month) might question. Could it be that the Consumer Price Index doesn’t track what real consumers “pay at the pump”?

46.5 million — that’s one out of every seven people in the USA — now live in poverty. That’s also the largest number in the 54 years the Census has measured poverty. (Worthy of note is the fact that the percentage of people in poverty has declined as the actual number has risen because the overall population has also climbed.) Yeppers, they’re doing better. The data proves it.

Oh, yeah. And the national debt to pay for social programs to eliminate poverty and other stuff is about $17.76 Trillion (the national debt stood at about $10.7 Trillion on this date in 2008). Yeppers, we’re all doing better. The data proves it.

There’s plenty more. The NYTimes reports today on ER costs skyrocketing in spite of Obamacare. The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that ATM fees keep climbing despite government banking watchdogs. The Chicago Tribune reports today that Americans are stepping up spending, but the home market is weakening, despite federal programs. Doing better.

The True Believers like it.

“Can you sell that?” Steve Kroft asked.

Of course he can. He can sell it to Mikey. Mikey will eat anything! The data proves it.