The Demorats just don’t get it, so let me make it plain:

The layoffs will continue until morale improves.

From Yahoo’s The Daily Ticker:

Putting pressure on an already lousy job market, the mass layoff is making a comeback. In the past week, Cisco, Lockheed Martin and Borders announced a combined 23,000 in job cuts. (See: Another Retailer Bites the Dust: Borders Doomed by Amazon Deal, Davidowitz Says)

Those announcements follow 41,432 in planned cuts in June, up 11.6% from May and 5.3% vs. a year earlier, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Meanwhile, state and local governments have cut 142,000 jobs this year, The WSJ reports, and Wall Street is braced for another round of cutbacks. This week, Goldman Sachs announced plans to let go 1000 fixed-income traders.

If these trends continue, we may soon be talking about losses in the monthly employment data — not just disappointing growth, says Howard Davidowitz, CEO of Davidowitz & Associates

“Everything in business is confidence,” Davidowitz says. “You lose confidence and businesses can’t deal with that [and] who could have confidence with what’s going on in Washington?”

Davidowitz is bipartisan in his criticism, calling the U.S. political system “dysfunctional and deranged.” (See: “A Bunch of Morons in Washington”: Howard Davidowitz Handicaps the Debt Ceiling Debate)

Revealed here for the first time, and for the first time in any print or digital form:

The stock market is ephemeral. It is smoke, mirrors, rumors, half-truths, outright lies and — mostly — emotions.

There is no plan. There is no “system.” There is no planning. There are no hard and fast “facts.” There is no “prognostication.” There is no guaranteed, steely insurance. There are only emotions. Literally. Poorly done.

It isn’t about what is; it’s about what you think about what might be. What you fear. How confident you feel. Or may not feel. To continue:

Still, the restructuring expert is a longtime and vocal critic of President Obama: “There has never been in a situation in my lifetime where a guy increases the debt by 40%, GDP growth is on the way down, Food Stamps are up, millions more are unemployed — and to accomplish this we spent $4 trillion.”

But it’s an open question whether any president or policy mix could do much to revive the economy after the bursting of the credit bubble.

In This Time is Different, co-authors Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart demonstrate that financial crises are typically followed by severe recessions, slow recoveries, subpar growth and greater frequency of recessions in the decade following the crisis. (See: Bernanke In Denial About Economy’s Fate, Vincent Reinhart Says)

“No one believes the economy, Obama or not, is going to improve,” my Breakout colleague Jeff Macke says in the accompanying clip. “Time [is] the only thing that heals.”

Insanity rules. You can’t legislate morality. Or common sense. Or logic. Or proportion. Or reality.

Welcome to your new precipice.

Send lawyers, guns and money.

BZ

God bless Warren Zevon. One of my favorites musical artists of all time.

Mr Obama recently allowed us to see just a fraction of his true self, for merely a momentary fragment in time. However, to me, it peeled away years of historical layers of multisyllabic obfuscation and cut to some of his fundamental core. He actually revealed a bit of foundational political truth.

No one has yet given, in my opinion, the proper interpretation of Mr Obama’s words from Friday, July 22nd. This insight has been horribly missed by any and all forms of media, including blogs of all shapes and sizes. I seek to right this mistake and reveal that, if only for a moment, the president truly had no clothes.

From DMNews.com:

The president and House speaker have been seeking a “grand bargain” of around $4 trillion in deficit reduction, but have faced stiff resistance from lawmakers in both parties. House Republicans say they will not accept revenue increases in the deal, while Democrats say any deal must include revenue increases as well as spending cuts. Despite rumors of a deal in recent days — the alleged contours of which fueled anger from lawmakers — Boehner said in a letter to colleagues before Mr. Obama spoke that “a deal was never reached, and was never really close.”

Toward the end of his remarks, Mr. Obama grew particularly animated when he suggested that lawmakers were putting what “some funder says or what some talk radio host says or what some columnist says or what pledge we signed back when we were trying to run” ahead of the concerns of the American people. He called that attitude “inexcusable.” “You know, at some point I think if you — if you want to be a leader, then you’ve got to lead,” he said before leaving the podium.

Mr Obama excels at leading from the rear and posing behind the review stand. He excels at Monday Morning Quarterbacking.

But he also said that whatever pledge, promise, or platform a given candidate proffers before the electorate means nothing. It’s just a sham in order to acquire an appointment via election. After that, the gloves are off. The candidate and/or Mr Obama owe you nothing because, after election, they have theirs. That you should honor your commitments is, in the words of Mr Obama, inexcusable.

Just mull that around in your Wheelhouse for a few moments. Go back and re-read the paragraph.

You’ll soon come to realize that revelation is, at once, massively refreshing and simultaneously hideous.

BZ

P.S.
Newest Rasmussen Poll indicates Mr Obama acquires 41% of the vote, whilst Ron Paul garners 37%. That’s about even with Roy (of Siegfried & Roy) vs Tiger.

Watch this official Homeland Security video.

You tell me.

BZ

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, whilst expecting different results.”

A quote attributed to both Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin.

With that in mind, I have only one quite serious question for Mr Barack Hussein Obama:

Why is it, sir, that you are so incredibly and vehemently opposed to balancing the budget of the United States of America?

That, to my way of thinking, is THE question that should be put to the President of the United States.

This president is only concerned with spending. He has historically resisted all cuts, and history indicates his intransigence in terms of making any spending cuts whatsoever.

Mr Obama clearly lacks the capacity to make the tough spending decisions. Any tough spending decisions.

On that basis, however, he holds his water in terms of Demorat/Leftist platform. Everyone must be taxed, and there can be no cuts in spending.

Taken in retrospect, it is an age-old axiom. Tax and spend, tax and spend = Demorats and Leftists. They are, of course, nothing if not predictable in their consistency.

Let’s review in brief:

• TARP didn’t;
• The “Stimulus” didn’t;
• Bailouts of fiduciary institutions didn’t put us on the path to recovery;
• Bailouts of vehicle manufacturers didn’t put us on the path to recovery;
• The ONE US vehicle manufacturer (Ford) refusing to take bailout money is the MOST successful;
• “Cash For Clunkers” stimulated nothing;
• Unemployment is at roughly 10%, up to 25+% in some areas;
• The housing market is further tanking;
• The Demorats have done nothing budgetarily beneficial in 800+ days;
• Housing contract cancellations have surged;

On the other hand, the Gang of Six deal looks remarkably similar to the Pelosi “we’ll have to pass the bill in order to see what is in it.”

Despite some strong pushback from liberal groups and labor unions to the proposed changes to entitlement programs, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi seemed to leave the door open to the plan, telling reporters, “We haven’t seen it but it has some good principles in it.”

And that is its own intrinsic kind of separate Demorat/Leftist insanity.

The debt plan from the so-called Gang of Six includes two very shocking aspects:

1. Tax deduction removal (where Mr Obama “gets” his so-called tax “cuts”;
2. A constructive insertion of a Constitutional balanced budget amendment;

Let me be, again, please, incredibly and perfectly plain, with an emphasis on clarity:

Tax deductions will be placed on the backs of the Middle Class. There simply are NOT enough “rich” people to enable the cash that Mr Obama wants. The FIRST proposal on the line is the mortgage deduction.

Again, to be plain: there is roughly a 10% cost factored into every house for this.

You eliminate the mortgage deduction? You have, positively, absolutely, GUARANTEED a depression that will make the 1929 Great Depression look like child’s play. Housing values will further plummet and incentives will be slaughtered. At best.

And opening the Constitutional for revision, enabled by Article V, for a so-called “Balanced Budget Amendment”, is a loser at best. At very best.

The Constitution already exists. SCOTUS has already set it aside in any number of important cases, deciding that current memes are more important than a charred, flaky, doddering document.

What makes anyone think SCOTUS, stacked by a future administration, simply won’t strip the Constitution when and while it will, as it will, by fiat?

You open a Constitutional Convention these days and every Bill and Amendment is up for grabs. I won’t have it. I thought the GOP asking for a Flag-Burning amendment was clearly stupid, as it was. Opening up our core, founding document for Leftists during this particular administration is, likewise, beyond stupid.

Right.

You want to know what tyranny looks and sounds like, kids? Just look around. Check your DEM/MSM. These people are not about liberty or freedom. They’re about an agenda. A Stalinist Show Trial. And Mr Obama, in His Infinite Wisdom, isn’t responsible for any accountable portion of anything.

Like trying to nail Jello to a wall.

BZ

I’ve known it for years, and those persons who work in law enforcement, the fire service, EMS response, welfare fraud investigations, probation, parole, know one very important and salient thing:

Those persons deemed “poor” and who have been generationally not only dependent and expectant, but normed and standardized on welfare, aren’t really poor. It’s a lifestyle. A lifestyle they have purposely chosen, inculcated and interwoven into their families and friends, and a lifestyle that not only pays well but enables some families to live in better conditions than you and me. And a lifestyle choice that the governments — federal and state — have promoted with wild abandon over the years.

When Liberals started paying women for welfare babies, and greater amounts of money for more babies — absent fathers — then fathers became superfluous and costly. Liberals, frankly, killed the once-solid nuclear black family and denigrated black males. Black males became disenfranchised and unnecessary. So black males turned to each other. And thence to gangs.

And the gangbanger was born. Thanks to Liberals and Leftists across the nation.

And that gangbanging, defeatist, non-achieving, damaging mindset was embraced by all other then-minority classes, to include Mexicans (though Mexicans have a history of gangs — witness the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles), Asians and finally Caucasoids.

I still think there’s nothing funnier than some white cracker kid with his pants below his butt, exposing dotted boxers, hat turned backwards, tatted-up with Olde English script, unlaced shoes, pierced eyebrows, saying “yo” and “know what I mean?” Dude, your future includes cleaning some of the finer bathrooms in a local county jail. Know what I mean?

And, in truth, what does modern American “poverty” truly denote (and I use the word “poverty” loosely and, clearly, in quotes)? From the National Review Online:

Modern Poverty Includes A.C. and an Xbox

July 18, 2011 10:39 A.M.

By Ken McIntyre

When Americans think of poverty, we tend to picture people who can’t adequately shelter, clothe, and feed themselves or their families.

When the Census Bureau defines “poverty,” though, it winds up painting more than 40 million Americans — one in seven — as “poor.”

Census officials continue to grossly exaggerate the numbers of the poor, creating a false picture in the public mind of widespread material deprivation, writes Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Robert Rector in a new paper.

“Most news stories on poverty feature homeless families, people living in crumbling shacks, or lines of the downtrodden eating in soup kitchens,” Rector says. “The actual living conditions of America’s poor are far different from these images.”

Congress is tying itself in knots figuring out how to cut spending and bring down a $14 trillion national debt. Lawmakers might well take a much closer look at the nearly a trillion dollars spent each year on welfare even though many recipients aren’t what the typical American would recognize as poor and in need of government assistance.

There is no widespread deprivation in the United States of America. There are no people living in cardboard boxes who aren’t single, male, mentally unbalanced and — still — some of them purposely choose to live like that. It’s a concept that many people can’t fathom but it’s true. A large percentile of the “homeless” choose to live their lives like that.

Each city and county has any number of publicly-funded programs (courtesy of your local, state and federal tax dollars) directly targeted at layer after layer of the “poor.” Only the truly insane don’t take advantage of those programs because they can’t comprehend them. And those persons comprise an infinitesimal percentile of the concerned population.

The “poor” in my county drive a Lexus, a Mercedes-Benz or the ever-popular BMW. 740s are quite popular with the “minorities” who are now a majority in my state. And funded by MY tax dollars. They live in rental multi-bedroom homes, condos, duplexes. Most do not live in high-unit apartment complexes because that’s beneath them.

To continue:

What is poverty? Americans might well be surprised to learn from other government data that the overwhelming majority of those defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau were well-housed and adequately fed even in the recession year 2009. About 4 percent of them did temporarily become homeless.

Data from the Department of Energy and other agencies show that the average poor family, as defined by Census officials:

● Lives in a home that is in good repair, not crowded, and equipped with air conditioning, clothes washer and dryer, and cable or satellite TV service.

● Prepares meals in a kitchen with a refrigerator, coffee maker and microwave as well as oven and stove.

● Enjoys two color TVs, a DVD player, VCR and — if children are there — an Xbox, PlayStation, or other video game system.

● Had enough money in the past year to meet essential needs, including adequate food and medical care.

You want to see actual squalor? You only have to watch the introductory minutes of the 2008 movie “The Incredible Hulk” starring Edward Norton. Those minutes introduce the slums of Rocinha, an “upscale” favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Americans historically and currently languishing in abject poverty? Bullshit. Unmitigated bullshit. Been there, done that, seen it all. And it’s a load of Leftist crap.

Above, a Shantytown in Kiberia, Kenya. Yes, these people live beneath paper and fabric and carpet and burning material in a public dump.

However, with this very important caveat:

When (not if) the federal and state governments pull back their rations of monthly Free Cheese to include physical support as well as monthly checks, there will be riots — by so-called “minorities” — who believe they are clearly entitled to Free. Generation after generation after generation.

They are the Lexus/iPhone welfare itinerants.

Except that they’re not itinerant, and they’re not poor.

Federal government statistics already prove this.

BZ