$193 million for American ... layoffs.

Last we heard from the Fisker Karma, the electric vehicle in which US taxpayers sunk $193 million so far, the loans were paying off by creating jobs … in Finland.  As it turns out, even that report was too optimistic.  With Fisker having burned through about 40% of the stimulus funds guaranteed by the Obama [...]

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But don't take our word for it ...

Three years ago today, while Barack Obama demanded almost $800 billion in stimulus funds, he told NBC that the money would generate millions of net new jobs and a new period of growth in short order.  “If I don’t have this done in three years,” Obama told NBC, “then there’s going to be a one-term [...]

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The SOTU kiss of death?

In last year’s State of the Union speech, Barack Obama hailed the great investment he made with taxpayer dollars in the manufacturer of advanced solar panels, only to have Solyndra go down the tubes — taking more than a half-billion dollars in taxpayer money with it.  In this year’s SOTU speech, Obama bragged about having [...]

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And that doesn't even count the operational costs.

Few people probably noticed the absence of “high-speed rail” from Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech last night.  The issue took a prominent position in SOTU speeches in 2011, when Obama dedicated five paragraphs to pushing it, and in 2010, when Obama promoted the high-speed rail project in Florida that Governor Rick Scott killed.  [...]

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Plus, taking the long way home.

Governor Jerry Brown has insisted that he will go forward on the plan to sell billions of dollars of bonds to start the high-speed rail project that would eventually join San Francisco and Los Angeles, despite the fact that the estimated costs have tripled to $100 billion since voters first approved the project in 2008 [...]

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"Not even a good junk bond."

We already know that the Obama administration’s stimulus-funded subsidies of green-energy firms have been rather poor investments. Solyndra, after all, collapsed while taking over half a billion dollars in taxpayer money with it, after the Department of Energy illegally subordinated taxpayer risk for later investors — mainly an Obama bundler from 2008, George Kaiser.  CBS [...]

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The Minus touch.

In my first full-time job, I sold men’s clothes on commission for a small regional chain called Silverwoods in Southern California, a subsidiary in Hart Schaffner & Marx’ retail division (long since defunct).  Some days, I could meet my quota in a couple of hours, and on some days, I couldn’t have sold heaters in [...]

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And don't you forget it!

This new video from the Republican National Committee fills the woeful gaps left by MSM reporters in their coverage of the MF Global scandal and Jon Corzine’s connection to it. As Ed has pointed out, most major news outlets have taken care to not mention Corzine’s close connection to Obama. Not only is the guy [...]

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The government "pretty much fails at everything it does."

As a former resident of Silver Spring, Md., I was particularly interested to watch this video from Reason.tv, which makes my one-time hometown a case study for Obama’s stimulus failure. The vid is long, but well worth watching from start to finish because it reflects the reality of the stimulus rather than the theory behind [...]

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What. A. Shock.

When first proposed to taxpayers in 2008, the high-speed rail project in California that would eventually link Los Angeles and San Francisco had a projected cost of $33.6 billion and a delivery date of twelve years.  By May of this year, after the Obama administration tossed in $3.5 billion in stimulus money to get the [...]

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Includes the song, “They Are Both Clowns,” sung to the tune of, “Send in the Clowns.”

Well, golly gee… will you look at what’s going on in the media these last few days.  Apparently the foreclosures, free fall in housing prices and growing number of underwater mortgages, combined with an unemployment problem that’s even scaring the wealthy at Goldman Sachs, is apparently… possibly… maybe… they’re not quite sure, but it could be a problem.

This past weekend, Zachary A. Goldfarb, writing on hos Washington Post/Bloomberg blog wrote that Obama’s efforts to aid homeowners and boost the housing market have fallen short of their goals.  Really, Zach?  Pray do tell.

Zach points out that Obama promised to help save 9 million homeowners from foreclosure, but guess what?  He didn’t.

Zach says that, “nearly three years later, it hasn’t worked out.”  Ooopsie.  Sorry about that.  Not only that, but Zach has apparently learned that Obama has spent just $2.4 billion of the $50 billion he promised to devote to fixing things in the housing market.

Let’s see… if I’ve got my numbers right, that would be less than 5 percent… Obama spent less than 5 percent of what he said he’d spend on the foreclosure crisis.  And this from a president under whose watch the national debt increased by $4 trillion… the most rapid increase in our national debt of any president in U.S. history.

Of course, Obama blames policies he inherited, and there’s certainly some truth to that.  Two wars, a prescription drug program for seniors, tax cuts, the Great Recession, unemployment insurance payments, subsidies to farms and funding of infrastructure programs that were part of his stimulus programs, and a decrease in tax revenues resulting from… well, the recession again.

So, Zach goes on to say that Obama’s programs have helped on 1.7 million people, so that would mean that he only missed his goal by a little over 80%.  And with that, Zach points out:

“Housing prices remain near a crisis low. Millions of people are deeply indebted, owing more than their properties are worth, and many have lost their homes to foreclosure or are likely to do so. Economists increasingly say that, as a result, Americans are too scared to spend money, depriving the economy of its traditional engine of growth.”

Well, Holy Mackerel Zacheral, what’s a girl to do?

About the administration, he explains that:

“They consistently unveiled programs that underperformed, did little to reduce mortgage debts owed by ordinary Americans and rejected a get-tough approach with banks.”

Ooooh, that sounds pretty bad, Zach.  I sure hope the 7.3 million people that Obama didn’t help after promising that he would don’t find out about all this.  ‘Cause they sure could be miffed, I’d say.  And not only that, but since the nine million promise was made three years ago, and since nothing has worked or gotten better since then, why there might be even more than that in need by now.  Ya’ think, Zach?

And, guess what else Zach has figured out…

“Doing more to address the housing crisis may be crucial not only for an economy flirting with another recession but also for a president running for reelection.”

Whoa, there Zach… let’s not get carried away here.  You don’t mean to say that you’re thinking that some of those 7.3 million plus people might be voters, do you?  Good God, man… do you realize what you’re saying?  Why didn’t Obama win the presidential election 2008 by 9,522,083?  Why there could be that many who are kind of… just maybe… a tad upset with Mr. President.  Oh, this is not good news, is it Mr. Zachary Goldfarb?

Zach even takes notice that the president’s absolute failure to do anything right, as far as foreclosures are concerned, “has caused a rift” with the president’s “political allies,” including “black and Hispanic groups” whose members, Zach explains, “have been disproportionately hurt by the (foreclosure) crisis.”

See, I’ve gotta’ say something here.  I think Zach just pointed out something very uncomfortable here.

Since the people we don’t want to “bail out” are considered irresponsible borrowers.  And since blacks and Hispanics have been disproportionately hurt by the foreclosure crisis, doesn’t that say that black and Latinos are more irresponsible than white homeowners.  Yes… I think it does.

Well, I’m glad we got that settled once and for all.  I guess banks should start charging them more just because of their skin color, right?  Wow… the bankers are going to love this.

Zach goes on to say that Peter Orszag, the former White House economic advisor, you know… the one who headed up the Congressional Budget Office before splitting for a gig at Citibank… well, Peter apparently says that the administration “underestimated how much the nation’s massive mortgage debts would weigh the economy down after the financial crisis.”

Here’s what Orszag apparently told Zach:

“A major policy error has been to put too little weight on the long, hard slog following a financial slump.  That leads you to being much less bold with housing.”

Now, I don’t have a doggone clue what Mr. Orszag means by that, and I read the damn sentence three times.  But, no matter… you know what that makes Mr. Orszag, in terms of an economic advisor?  Why that makes him a moron, Mr. Zachary Goldfarb.

Now, Zach also talked to Treasury Secretary Tim “Transparency” Geithner, and Tim says that the administration did all that it could… under the circumstances.  As Zach put it…

“Spending large amounts of taxpayer money to bail out some homeowners — but not necessarily their neighbors — carried huge political risks and faced opposition in Congress.”

Well, sure it did… after all, how can you help the irresponsible ones without pissing off the responsible ones, right?  Everyone understands that.  The only fair thing to do is to let them all go straight down the drain together.

According to Treasury Secretary Geithner…

“We tried to operate at the frontier of what was possible and have continuously expanded and refined our programs in an attempt to reach as many homeowners as possible.  We do not believe that there were feasible alternatives available to us within our authority that were better.”

Well, okay then.  They did the best they could, so everybody stop your whining.  Heck, they could of not even spent the $2.4 billion, and then look where everyone would be.  Be grateful they spent less than 5 percent of what they promised, you’re lucky you got that much.  They did all they could.

You can’t expect Obama to risk his popularity with all those responsible borrowers who lived next door to the irresponsible ones.  I mean, look how popular his is with homeowners now?  You wouldn’t have wanted him to screw that up now would you?  Of course you wouldn’t.

Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do…

Zach provides us with a glimpse inside the inner workings of the Obama Administration, and this is exactly the kind of stuff I love these Washington Post guys for… get this… according to Zach, and for this he deserves to be called Mr. Goldfarb…

“Obama has rarely spoken publicly about his frustrations with the housing crisis, but in a private meeting with his advisers at the White House in December, his concerns boiled over. The president opened the meeting by saying how he had received letters from homeowners warning about problems with his housing programs. He pointed out that he had been assured by his advisers that banks would be able to step up, according to two people who attended.”

Ooooo… someone’s in trouble.  Can’t you just see Geithner sitting there, turning red, and thinking: “How the f#@k did those f#@king letters get to the president.  I expressly said no f#@king letters from the outside were to get through to the f#@king president.”

“But at the meeting, he said he was now frustrated to learn, by way of a conclusive new federal review, that banks were not providing required relief to many borrowers.”

“He was clearly disappointed,” said one participant in the meeting, “to realize the problem was worse than he thought.”

Well, I for one am happy to know that President Obama was frustrated and disappointed to learn that the bankers and those in his cabinet had made him a liar to twenty or thirty million of the American people.  You know, that a whole bunch of people had taken their own lives, had been unable to sleep for months at a time, that his inept staff had scarred untold numbers of children unnecessarily…. you know, that must be both frustrating and disappointing.

I know that I personally would be both frustrated and disappointed over stuff like that happening during the first term of my presidency.  Why I might even have been extremely frustrated and very disappointed to learn about something like that after it had been going on for more than two full years without my knowledge.

So, here’s the story… Zach… take it away…

“This story of the administration’s response to the housing crisis is based on interviews with more than 40 former and current administration officials and others familiar with housing policy, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential conversations.”

Come on, are you loving this or what?

He starts out by reminding us that Obama had promised to spend $50 billion to help homeowners at risk of foreclosures.  Okay, Zach we’ve got that part, go on…

“Obama’s top advisers faced difficult questions about how to spend the money. None favored using taxpayer money simply to wipe out all the bad debt. That would have required one of two things: handing out up to $700 billion to more than 10 million Americans so they could pay off part of their loans, or asking Congress to force banks, which had just narrowly escaped collapse, to tell borrowers they did not have to pay back their whole debt, which would lead to more financial losses for the firms.”

Okay, so the simple answer was ruled out right from the get-go… got it.

Zach says that Shaun Donavan, secretary of Housing and Urban Development wanted debt reduction.  He argued that, “it would play an important role in healing the economy given the depth of the crisis.”  Apparently, Donavan wanted a program offering large payments to banks that would cover part of the cost of reducing the debts of underwater borrowers.

Zach says that Donovan “pressed for large payments to banks to cover part of the cost of reducing the debts of underwater borrowers.”  He figured that if homeowners owed less, they “would be able to afford their mortgages,” which would be “the best outcome for borrowers and banks alike.”

Well, that plan obviously got nixed in a hurry… so, what happened Zach, I’m on pins and needles over here.

Zach explains…

“But the president’s inner circle of economic counselors — Geithner and White House economic advisers Lawrence H. Summers and Austan Goolsbee — did not favor a big program of debt reduction.”

“We made that choice because we thought [reducing debt] would be dramatically more expensive for the American taxpayer, harder to justify, create much greater risk of unfairness,” Geithner said later before a congressional panel.”

I see… so it was Geithner and Summers that f#@ked this up.  It was Geithner and Summers that caused me to write 500+ articles pointing out the administration’s insanity and apparent corruption, spending my retirement account to try to influence people to fight back against what was and is tearing the country apart.  Unbelievable.  Well, off with their heads, I say.

Zach goes on to explain…

“The advisers also worried about the problem of “moral hazard,” when forgiving debts could encourage borrowers not to pay back loans.”

Oh, they did, did they?  Did anyone there bother to apply that sort of reasoning to the trillions of dollars they were shoveling into the insolvent banking system?  You know… I’m really starting to hate these guys.

Zach says…

“Rather than targeting debt, the administration focused its efforts on making monthly mortgage payments more affordable — for example, paying banks to lower the interest rates on loans. At the end of the day, homeowners would still have as much debt.”

Yeah, good plan guys.  Brilliant work.  And you didn’t even make that stupid plan work, you realize that now, right?  But, wait… it gets worse…

“Even with this less-dramatic approach, Obama’s economic advisers worried about spending too much taxpayer money to help borrowers who still might not pay back their loans. So they excluded large categories of borrowers, including those who could not provide extensive documentation of a steady income.”

That’s funny… they worried about spending too much taxpayer money… these guys who pumped $13.3 trillion into the banks were worried about spending too much taxpayer money on something?  That’s rich… really… that’s hysterical.  And so what… they ended up spending $2.4 billion of the $50 billion they promised to spend?  Oh, come on… f#@K these guys.

Now get this… according to Zach…

“Donovan argued it was crucial to require banks that had received bailouts to take part in HAMP, to ensure aid was offered to eligible homeowners. Others argued they could get banks to participate only if it were a voluntary program — and that view prevailed.”

And now for a brief music interlude… “They are both clowns…”

Isn’t it rich?

Aren’t they a pair?

Geithner and Summers they both…

Love laissez faire

They are both clowns.

~~~

Isn’t it wrong?

That they should approve.

Causing house prices to fall

Till no one can move

They are both clowns.

Send in the clowns.

~~~

Just when I’d bought, my own front door…

They turned our economy into one that no one could restore.

Their friends made fortunes again with unlimited bail.

There was no choice…

They were too big to fail.

~~~

HAMP is a crime,

A program that’s feared.

When millions applied for relief,

Their homes disappeared.

So, where are the clowns?

Send in the clowns…

Don’t bother they’re here.

~~~

Ain’t it a bitch?

That a financier.

Robing America blind is his career.

But they are both clowns.

Not funny clowns,

Let’s fire them this year.

~~~

Okay, so the decision was made to make HAMP a voluntary program.  And, why not?  Banks love to reduce a borrower’s interest rate or otherwise lower a monthly payment, right?  Of course they do.  There’s nothing a bank likes more than to accommodate a delinquent borrower, everybody knows that.  So, go on…

“Days before the program’s unveiling, David Moffett, the chief executive of housing finance giant Freddie Mac, arrived at the White House with a last-minute warning: Freddie’s analysts had concluded that the proposals were unlikely to help the millions Obama hoped. But, he recalled, the White House didn’t want to hear it.”

A few days later, Obama would fly to Arizona to promise the nation that his program would, “give millions of families resigned to financial ruin a chance to rebuild.” Or, maybe not so much.

Zach says that the administration recognized that the housing crisis was so intertwined with the financial crisis and recession that Geithner should play the most prominent role in overseeing and formulating its housing policies. But, Zach says, “the secretary did not seem to embrace all aspects of this role.”

According to Zach…

“Generally, the Treasury secretary did not regard direct homeowner aid as the best use of taxpayer dollars. He favored expanding the economy by spending money on construction projects or programs to keep teachers and other workers employed, which would help the housing market. In meetings, Geithner would tell the president that if he suddenly had $100 billion more to spend, he would never advise spending it on housing.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner… the man charged with directing the world’s largest and most important economy during the worst financial crisis since The Great Depression.  Boo-yah.

Zach says that Geithner, “was worried that some steps to help homeowners could pose risks to the financial system, causing more harm than good.”

Okay, like what?  Give me an example.

“In 2009, for example, Obama officially supported a bill in Congress that would have made it easier for homeowners to obtain mortgage relief in court — a “stick” that would pressure banks to generously reduce homeowner payments.”

“Behind the scenes, Geithner had grave concerns that if courts could change the terms of mortgage loans after the fact, banks would be less likely to lend, reducing the availability of credit in the financial system.”

“Ultimately, political advisers decided the bill was unlikely to overcome the opposition of banks, Obama did not fight for it, and the bill died. There would be no stick.”

And there you have it… the death of bankruptcy reform.

Zach says that it was the summer of 2009 when the Obama White House started to hear from community groups that banks were foreclosing even when people were eligible for assistance under the program.

According to Zach…

“The president heard alarm bells in the often-emotional letters people wrote him.  His top economic advisers would remind him that even if the programs were working perfectly, some homeowners would not get relief.”

Oh, that’s just great… treat the President of the United States like a mushroom… keep him in the dark and feed him bullshit.

At this point, Zach explains that the data on HAMP’s performance in 2009 was not looking good.  Less than 70,000 people had been helped under HAMP, but 2.5 million had received foreclosure notices.  So, the administration started getting tougher on the banks and also started providing money to states to help homeowners through programs of their own design.

Zach says that according to former assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr, “A lot of his concerns and questions were about trying to figure out how we could do more on housing, while also being mindful of the costs and risks, and making sure our approach was fair to taxpayers and homeowners who were not going to directly be getting helped.”

But, the administration’s programs were off balance, Zach admits.  Although the administration’s advisors were saying that the debt problem should be addressed, “the administration’s programs have permanently reduced the debt on only one tenth of one percent of underwater borrowers.”

Wow, one tenth of one percent.  That’s more than I would have guessed.

Zach’s article goes on to talk about Fannie and Freddie and the new acting director, Edward DeMarco, who has been steadfast in his resolve not to allow Fannie or Freddie to participate in any debt reduction programs.  And he also discusses the more recent investigations that uncovered banks foreclosing when borrowers qualified for relief under various programs, and the administration’s efforts to negotiate a settlement that would ideally include some sort of debt reduction component.

Zach closes by recounting the admission made by the president this past summer, when he was asked what mistakes he felt his administration had made in handling the recession.  Obama said:

“We had to revamp housing several times to try and help people stay in their homes and try to start lifting home values up. Of all the things we’ve done, that’s probably been the area that’s been most stubborn in us trying to solve the problem.”

I’m not sure what to say to that, now that I’ve read Zach’s article and been shown more of what went on behind closed doors at the Obama White House.  That mistakes were made is abundantly clear, but even with such admissions, the depth and breadth of the crisis is just so staggering that it’s hard to feel anything but outright anger towards an administration that didn’t do more to stop what was happening to so many millions of American homeowners.

To win a second term, Obama must carry the states hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis.  To be sure, he’ll try to tell us that he’s still the right man for the job.  And even though the Republicans haven’t shown the slightest interest in addressing the foreclosure issue, it’s not going to be easy for the president to carry states where so much wrong was allowed to happen to so many families… people whose lives will never be the same.

So, even though Zach’s article did show me a side of the administration I hadn’t seen before, I’m still not sure that I see anything that resembles change I can believe in.

Mandelman out.

No kidding.

Barack Obama told Jake Tapper on Monday that “I believe all the choices we’ve made have been the right ones” on economic policy.  One of the architects of Obamanomics disagreed just a few days later.  Austan Goolsbee, one of Obama’s key economic advisers, admitted on Thursday’s Morning Joe that the gimmicky, short-term stimulus approach was [...]

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The president's plan is working.

Last night, the first individual piece of the American Jobs Act to face a vote in the Senate met defeat. I know, I know: Hard to believe Republicans would vote against giving $35 billion to states and cities to hire and retain “teachers and first responders.” Sure, we’re in debt and the last stimulus failed — [...]

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Karma.

The good news: One recipient of Barack Obama’s green-jobs stimulus subsidies figured out how not to lose $529 million in taxpayer dollars.  Even better news: The funds appear to have actually created manufacturing jobs.  The bad news: It’s going to be one long commute for American workers to clock in at the plant: With the [...]

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Enthusiasm gap.

After writing about Obama’s fundraising overhype, at least one commenter noted that at least Obama can direct his money straight to efforts to help him in the general election, while the GOP candidates will burn through much of their funds in the primaries. Although I addressed that point directly, the comment raises the question of [...]

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When you've lost Newsweek ...

We wondered whether the mainstream media would start connecting the dots on Solyndra and Barack Obama’s failed “green jobs” stimulus.  ABC News has done a great job reporting on the scandal itself, including its connection to an Obama campaign bundler and the remarkable manner in which taxpayer funds were subordinated to George Kaiser’s investment by [...]

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If you want a metaphor for where we are today, think of it like this…

We got onto this giant rollercoaster during the summer of 2007.  Since then, we’ve been circling around at the top, with only small dips, courtesy of the trillions in stimulus dollars being pumped into the economy.

But, the people in the front car just happened to glance ahead, and it’s just dawned on them that they can’t see the track… it seems to just disappear.  They look to see if the track makes a sharp right… but they see that it doesn’t.  Then it must turn left… nope, it’s not there either.  Ruh roh…

It’s not just that we’re about to realize that we’re going down, we’ve known that for a few years now.  It’s that we’re about to realize that we’re not coming back any time soon.  Hope is about to die, and that is about to change everything.

It was on Christmas Eve, 2007, during our annual holiday party, that I remember saying something about our nation’s economy to our guests.

The real estate bubble had been deflating since the summer of 2006, but the credit markets had frozen solid in July of that year and home prices were in free fall, and although most people didn’t know it yet, they were tightening their proverbial belts this holiday season and you could tell the difference by listening to the conversations and looking under the tree.

I remember quite clearly that while I was proposing a toast at that year’s party, I brought up the fact that, as compared with prior years, this past year had been a difficult one for most everyone, and I told the group that our country was in for some very difficult economic times ahead.

I said that even though everyone’s stress level increased significantly this holiday season, we should all take care to really enjoy ourselves, because this year was probably going to be the one that we all look back on someday, remembering it fondly when we think about what it was like in this country before EVERYTHING changed.

I realized that most of our guests that evening didn’t fully appreciate what I was telling them, and it would be eleven months before the National Bureau of Economic Research would tell us that the Great Recession had begun in December 2007.

Time sure does fly as you get older, and before I knew it I was ordering the Chinese food for our Christmas Party, 2008.  We cater our annual Christmas Party with a buffet of Chinese food because  I’m Jewish and my wife isn’t… so we celebrate Christmas, but with “Jewish soul food,” which in case you hadn’t heard, is Chinese food.

Of course, at the end of 2008, things were a lot worse economically speaking, and the difference was readily discernable… I could see it in the faces of our guests.  Television news had been talking about concerns that retail sales would be low, and people all knew they would be by virtue of their own shopping that year.  When it came time for me to once again make a toast, I talked about how we should all be very grateful for everything in our lives, because so many were suffering.

And, as I had said the year before, no matter how stressful this holiday season was, we should make sure we really enjoy it, because the years ahead were certain to be significantly worse.  And again, although I did notice a few heads nodding in agreement, there were still quite a few who weren’t at all sure that I was right. They all figured that Hillary (or maybe even Obama, although at that point few thought he’d win) would be in office next year, and anyone-but-Bush would be a good thing all-around.

Well, 2009 seemed like it went by two months at a time, and I was ordering Chinese food for our Christmas party before I could say, “Making Home Affordable.”

But this was year-end 2009, and it was a very different time than anyone had experienced.  For one thing, everyone was talking about and asking me questions about the economy throughout the evening… the recession was upon us and they wanted to know what I was seeing in my crystal ball.  Obama or not, it was clear that everyone there was worried about next year, that year.

Again, as I raised my glass to make a toast, I said that this year it was more important than ever that we make sure that we enjoy the holiday season, because the next would be that much worse.  And now three quarters of those in the room were nodding along in agreement, only one or two were not.  There are always a couple of Realtors in every crowd.

When our guests arrived in 2010, they were questions and comments about the economy from the moment they walked in the front door, some of which could be heard as they were hanging up their coats.  And, perhaps not surprisingly, this was the year that I would serve twice as many Manhattan cocktails as usual.

I knew that everyone was struggling financially, albeit to varying degree.  Among our friends there are many professionals… doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs too… but all in attendance had the economy on their minds.  But, after I delivered what had now become my traditional annual message… that no matter how difficult the current season seemed, it should be enjoyed as the ones ahead would be far worse… several approached me to ask how long I thought our economic downturn might last.

When I said that the way things stood at the moment, there would be no recovery for a decade or more, they were visibly taken aback.  But, the government said the recession had ended and we were already recovering, was the essence of their reply.  A few there that evening were even talking about buying a house sometime soon… now that prices had fallen so far, I suppose.

So, here we are today… and Halloween costumes hanging in stores have taken me by surprise.  It’ll be a few short weeks and I’ll be trying to recall how many steamed dumplings we went through last year.

This year my message will be more emphatic than ever… no matter how you feel now, revel in this holiday season, because what’s ahead will be will much, much worse.  In fact, it will be unlike anything we’ve experienced before in this country.  This year I’ll explain that now that the stimulus phase has ended, the pace of our decline will accelerate… you’ll be able to feel yourself falling.

The good news is that this year they’ll be hearing the same sort of thing from others as well.  And not just those on the fringe, but the main stream media too.

WSJ’s 50 Economists… Survey Says…

Yesterday, for the first time since the recession began, the Wall Street Journal survey of 50 economists now say that incomes in this country have been falling since 2000 and they don’t expect us to make up the lost ground before 2021.  How it is that these economists only now have realized that’s the case, I can’t explain, except to say that over the last few years I’ve learned that optimism is a difficult thing of which to let go.

“Standards of living in the U.S. will continue to decline as we deleverage and emerging markets take over as the growth engine of the global economy,” Julia Coronado of BNP Paribas says.

These economists are just now coming to terms with our new national reality, and they still have a ways to go before they’re forecasts are to be trusted.  For example, two-thirds of the economists surveyed still say they believe that today’s college grads will enjoy a higher standard of living than did their parents… only one-third disagree and as of today they’re right as rain.

The consensus among the group is that the U.S. will see economic growth of 1.5% in 2011, which is probably on the high side.  I’d be surprised to see us come in over one percent after the dust settles.  Then in 2012 they say that number will be 2.3%, which again is conservative for this group, but still likely wrong.  If we break 2.0% in 2012, I’d be shocked.  And they say in 2013 we’re looking at 2.7%, and I don’t see us growing from 2012 to 2013… in fact, I think we’re more likely to shrink.

The 50 economists also peg unemployment at the end of 2013 at 8.2%, and even though I realize that this headline unemployment statistic is heavily affected by methodology that is often not fully disclosed, I’m going to forecast unemployment in 2012 and 2013 to reach into double digits, and perhaps end up north of 12%.  The bigger problem by then will be that we could very well have over 10 million people unemployed over six months, right now we have 6.5 million officially plus a few million we’ve stopped counting.  And some percentage of those people are unlikely to find work ever again.

Of course, that’s assuming we remain no smarter than we are today.  The possibility does exist that our elected officials will become scared by data reported and populous rage, and they’ll actually manage to learn something, in which case we could sure-as-shootin’ do a lot better.

One way or the other, however, you’re about to see fear replacing hope among the populace, you’re about to see the national dialog change.  And without the artificial snuggle of stimulus unseen, and absent credit in a credit-based economy, you’re about to see the pace of our deflationary decline accelerate significantly.  Simply put, the pain felt is about to become more acute and that, in an atmosphere lacking hope and increasing fear is going to manifest itself in a myriad of ways.

Want it in a nutshell?  Okay… various behaviors and attitudes of people are going to change.  Some of that behavior that will seem odd, some will seem to lack focus or gravitate towards extremes and some is not going to be good.  Crime will likely rise, for example, so don’t leave things of value in your car.

Nothing goes down in a straight line, though, so there’ll still be ups and downs along the way in our race to the bottom. But, an entirely new phase in our economic decline starts now.

Mandelman out.

Hokum.

The Obama administration’s latest tactic for selling its jobs bill is to claim it will “support” 400,000 jobs (primarily in government). Ed Morrissey notes this metric is as unmeasurable as jobs “saved or created” by Obama’s failed stimulus law, which is a good springboard for underscoring a crucial point about the 2012 campaign. Ace — [...]

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Deeper.

We already knew that people in the White House were rushing OMB in August 2009 to approve Solyndra’s half-billion-dollar loan so that The One could get his all-important green jobs/stimulus photo op at the plant. Some OMB analysts complained at the time, in fact, that the time pressure might affect the diligence with which the [...]

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Time to give back the rest of the money.

It’s not as if we haven’t already learned what a failure Barack Obama’s green-tech stimulus has been in creating jobs.  Solyndra collapsed with over a half-billion in taxpayer money out the door, wiping out a thousand jobs with it.  After spending $17.2 billion of the $38.6 billion allocated for green-jobs stimulation, the programs have created [...]

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Regrets.

What happens when job-stimulus funds get spent on a company that reduces its workforce?  It looks like Barack Obama and Energy Secretary Stephen Chu made another “bad bet” in 2009, sinking $200 million into the non-profit National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.  NREL isn’t going under, but it’s cutting back staff after getting a [...]

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Including George Kaiser again?

Earlier today, I noted that one of the new loans approved by the Department of Energy for green-tech stimulus just happened to favor a company with connections to Nancy Pelosi’s family.  That’s not the only connection in the batch of new loan approvals from the DoE, as the Daily Caller discovered.  Digging into investment records [...]

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The power of over-suggestion.

Barack Obama has hit the road, trying to sell his new Porkulus II stimulus, er, job-creation plan, asking Congress for $450 billion for the usual government subsidies and “shovel ready” infrastructure projects that worked so well in keeping unemployment under control that we still haven’t seen it dip below 9%.  That’s obviously a tough sell, [...]

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Sunlight needed.

So far, the number of jobs created through Barack Obama’s green-tech stimulus programs have remained far below administration estimates, and at a far higher cost.  Instead of creating 65,000 jobs with $38.6 billion, the first half of the money has created less than 3600 jobs at a cost of $4.85 million per position.  Investors Business [...]

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Plus, today is Google's birthday!

Eric Schmidt says he wants more stimulus spending. A former Google executive, now voluntarily unemployed, asks Obama to raise his taxes. One more example of a Google bigwig using his prominence to prop up the president’s partisan proposals and I’d begin to wonder whether these Google employees even know how to conduct basic research. The [...]

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Another Obama crony.

Against the backdrop of the Solyndra bankruptcy, what might have seemed innocuous a few months ago seems more than a little sketchy now. Tom Carnahan is at the helm of Wind Capital Group, an investment firm that received a $107 million federal tax credit to develop a wind power facility in his home state of [...]

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Terrific.

Go figure. Remember, this is the same guy who was surprised to learn there’s no such thing as “shovel-ready projects” for public works after he signed a nearly $800 billion stimulus. Although some press accounts have described Brent Spence as “crumbling,” and the White House says it’s an example of “ur gently needed” repairs, the [...]

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Easy being green.

In 2010, as a part of the Treasury Department’s 1603 Renewable Energy Grant Program (a program created under the first failed stimulus package), the federal government dispensed $170 million of taxpayer money to Spanish energy company Iberdrola. To build a wind farm. In Illinois. In light of the president’s renewed calls for even more stimulus [...]

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Plus, a whole lot of Solyndra visits at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Barack Obama plans on talking about using stimulus funds for job creation tonight.  Think he’ll mention Solyndra, which his administration fast-tracked to $535 million in taxpayer-financed loan guarantees?  Naaaah: FBI agents armed with search warrants descended this morning on bankrupt solar company Solynrda this morning. The investigation comes after a request by the Department of [...]

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Bad bet -- or not?

Most poker players know that before going all in on a hand, it’s best to check your hole cards first. Barack Obama went all in on Solyndra, a solar-power technology company that Obama himself visited and heralded as an example of how his green-jobs stimulus would create “countless jobs” in the US. Here he is [...]

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