There’s the old conundrum about the wolf, the goat and the cabbage:
A farmer and his wolf, goat, and cabbage come to the edge of a river they wish to cross. There is a boat at the river’s edge that only the farmer can row. The farmer can take at most one other object besides himself on a crossing, but if the wolf is ever left with the goat, the wolf will eat the goat; similarly, if the goat is left with the cabbage, the goat will eat the cabbage. How can the farmer get all of them across?
There’s actually a solution to that problem.
Now we’ve got an even more intractable problem, involving a healthy job-creating economy, a Marxist president and a Marxist Democrat Party.
This one is unsolvable, because unlike the above dilemma involving the wolf, the goat and the cabbage, BOTH the Marxist President AND the Marxist Democrat Party will devour the economy unless it is somehow taken away from them. Like the goat with the cabbage, they will insatiably eat every job they can and turn those jobs into dead crap. Like the wolf with the goat, they will kill the economy and systematically devour it until only bones are left.
We are still over a year away from getting the chance to save ourselves from this insoluble dilemma.
And here’s the consequence:
Little Hiring Seen by Small Business
JULY 11, 2011
By SIOBHAN HUGHESWASHINGTON—The U.S. labor market could stay sluggish for a while, with small-business executives reluctant to hire amid the murky economic outlook.
A survey of small business owners shows a lack of
confidence in the U.S. economy. More than two-thirds indicated they do not plan
to add payrolls in 2011 or 2012. WSJ’s Siobhan Hughes reports. Photo: Justin
Sullivan/Getty ImagesAlmost two-thirds—64%—of small-business executives surveyed said they weren’t expecting to add to their payrolls in the next year and another 12% planned to cut jobs, according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report to be released Monday. Just 19% said they would expand their work forces.
This comes after a Labor Department report Friday showed employers added few jobs in June, and unemployment rose to 9.2%. The bleak figures joined other data showing the recovery losing momentum in recent months, which has caused many analysts and policy makers to lower their forecasts for economic growth in the second half of the year.
The Small Business Administration says small businesses, defined as companies with fewer than 500 workers, employ about half of the workers in the private sector. In the Chamber’s survey of 1,409 executives, conducted by Harris Interactive, small businesses were defined as firms with revenue of $25 million or less.
More than half of the small-business executives in the June 27-30 survey cited economic uncertainty as the main reason for holding back on hiring. About a third blamed lack of sales, while just 7% pointed to problems getting credit.
“I think it’s safer to stay on hold and not hire workers,” said Harold Jackson, chief executive of Buffalo Supply, a Lafayette, Colo., distributor of high-tech medical equipment used in operating rooms.
Mr. Jackson said he has halved his staff to 15 workers since 2009 and was unlikely to start hiring soon even if his business picked up. “I can handle a reasonably large increase in business without having to increase the staff.”
Many of the executives surveyed were gloomy about the economy’s prospects. About 41% see the business climate getting worse over the next two years, compared with 29% who expect the climate to improve.
The modest hiring plans of small businesses don’t make up for the job losses in the past year, when some 29% let go workers, far outpacing the numbers that now plan to hire.
![[JOBS]](https://i0.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NA-BM329_JOBS_NS_20110710171203.jpg)
As the wise philosopher Scoobert Doo once put it upon hearing dire news, “Roh-roh.”
Between ObamaCare and the massive $500 billion in taxes it’s going to take out of the private sector, along with the 158 government bureaucracies and the thousands of pages of regulations; between the trillion dollars in NEW taxes Obama is demanding as part of any debt ceiling deal; between the Obama EPA which is simply ruling by fiat and imposing regulations that were actually voted down by Congress; between the fact that Obama won’t let us drill for our own oil even as his green energy sends the cost of energy (in his own words) “skyrocketing”; between the Obama NRLB that is openly warring with companies like Boeing for creating jobs in non-union states; between the Obama Labor Department, which is putting together some 100 job-killing regulations to strangle businesses from further hiring as we speak; and between the Dodd-Frank legislation which will systematically cut businesses off from credit, we are pretty well screwed.
We can have jobs, or we can have Obama and his Democrats. But we’re not going to get jobs until we get rid of the people who are demonizing the job creators. And that should just be an obvious fact by now.
Tags: $12, 158 bureacracies, 64%, Boeing, cut jobs, Dodd-Frank, Economy, energy, EPA, growth, hiring, job losses, Marxism, NLRB, Obamacare, oil, planning to hire, small businesses, taxes, two-thirds, workers
Start Thinking Right 
October 7, 2011 at 5:55 am
Actually, Ecclesiastes 10:2 states “A wise man’s heart is at his right hand; but a fool’s heart at his left.” (NIV)
Furthermore, one must understand the context within which this statement is presented. It is clear that you here at “start thinking right” have an agenda and are merely attempting to contort Biblical scripture conform to that agenda – much the way slave owners in the old south did to defend their right to own human beings as chattel.
To be perfectly honest, I read no further into your diatribe. I find those who use their religion as a tool to spread fear and hate to be incapable of reasoned discussion on any topic. Perhaps in the not to distant future, as you are sitting in agony, contemplating where you failed, you will begin to understand the truth.
May God have mercy on your soul.
October 7, 2011 at 8:42 am
I think we forget who drove the economy off the cliff. It was was the Bubble Capitalists. Alan Greenspan was right that if the market is left to its own devices that will self-correct . . . and it has. The bubble burst back in 2008 and we are still feeling the pain.
October 7, 2011 at 8:45 am
Willie,
There are two things wrong with your criticism of the Bible passage I selected:
1) Is it actually your contention that the NIV is the only “authorized” version, such that if I cited any other English translation, it would be incorrect? Seriosly?
2) I am in point of fact actually using the NIV in my citation. You are in fact in error. You are citing the King James Version. I suppose I could ask if you think the KJV is the only authorized version, but if it is you “contaminated” it by calling it the NIV.
So you are getting up on your hoity toity high horse and correcting me when in fact you are demonstratedly wrong from the first moment you start to address me.
Rather like a fool, I might add.
Furthermore, after you directly compared me to a slaveowner, I went around and looked all over everywhere. You’re wrong there, too. Not one single slave on the property. The dog gets better treatment than any of the rest of us.
To be perfectly honest, I truly don’t care that you quit reading. I find it humorous that you demonize me as having a “diatribe” and as “spreading fear and hate” when in your very own quite hateful diatribe against me proceeds to literally send me to hell (and I thought God would be my Judge instead of Willie!T). To continue to state what ought to be painfully obvious, you scream, “I find those who use their religion as a tool to spread fear and hate to be incapable of reasoned discussion on any topic,” and then you proceed to directly threaten me with the fire of a very religious hell.
Which is to say you denounce me as evil for doing the very exact same thing that you yourself just got through doing.
Again, very much like a fool. And certainly exactly like a quintessentially foolish hypocrite.
By the way, I’ll stand before God and give an account for putting Ecclesiastes 10:2 on my site, and you’ll stand before God and give an account for the 54 million murdered innocent babies you directly participated in through your support of the Democrat Party.
October 7, 2011 at 8:54 am
Regarding Obamacare. . . Didn’t GW Bush create the Rx program for seniors? Does that make him a Marxist as well?
October 7, 2011 at 8:59 am
The “bubble burst” because Democrats created a condition that began with the Community Reinvestment Act which they then proceeded to push using Fannie and Freddie. It was only a matter of time for when the housing market naturally declined (it invariably goes up and down) for for the foolishness of the Democrats’ policy to truly devastate us.
We are still feeling the pain now because of Obama’s and the Democrat Party’s reckless and depraved policies. It will take us YEARS to recover from the Democrats’ control. That control began with their takeover of both the House and the Senate in 2006 and reached it’s zenith in 2008 when they took total control over everything.
October 7, 2011 at 9:14 am
The Community Reinvestment Act was started way back in 1977. Freddie and Fannie acted in a conservative and responsible manner for decades. Then they were spun out the government and became publicly traded corporations. Freddie and Fannie saw what Washington Mutual, Countrywide and other were doing, which was making vast sums of money in sub-prime lending and they wanted part of the action so they started doing it themselves.
Freddie and Fannie’s did this on their own because they thought they could make money (aka greed). It’s that simple. To say they were coerced because of the CRA act is a fantasy.
October 7, 2011 at 10:30 am
This maybe getting off-topic but I’ve been reading more about this CRA – Fannie / Freddie link. Its seems that all the Conservative think-tanks blame it on CRA and the Progressive ones just the opposite. Who is one to believe?
October 7, 2011 at 10:43 am
Wrong. Totally and completely wrong.
Fannie and Freddie alone had the unique and solitary power to bundle mortgages into the giant mortgage backed securities that ultimately turned toxic when nobody could know how much of the debt was bad. No one else could do that. That was NOT Washington Mutual, Countrywide, or anyone else. In fact, it was the private sector that BOUGHT these toxic assets.
Here’s the process:
Fannie and Freddie led the way. They were the de facto pied pipers that everyone else had to legally follow.
Even the Los Angeles Times acknowledged that it was Fannie and Freddie that were creating a bubble (albeit in a glowing endorsement of said bubble):
October 7, 2011 at 11:43 am
Well, I know for a fact that there was a thriving MBS private-label market which developed. The bank I used to work for bought a bunch of them.
October 7, 2011 at 7:27 pm
Again, the government creates all kinds of crony capitalist dung piles.
Solyndra and the solar power industry is a great recent example. You want to blame that obscene mess on private enterprise? It’s not their fault; it’s the damn government statist liberals’ faults. If you create all of these stupid programs, will there be slimeballs lining up to take advantage? Sure there will be!!!
But if you want to point a finger, point it at the government that is almost always behind every single one of these obnoxious abuses. And which is ALWAYS behind the giant colossal messes that destroy so many people’s lives.
October 8, 2011 at 2:12 am
None of the toxic assets were issued by Freddie or Fannie. Why? Because everything they issued was government guaranteed. It was all the private-label issue MBS that went belly-up. This is what lead to the failures of Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, etc. Freddie and Fannie were just a side-show in the debacle.
October 8, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Again, Stuboyle, you are simply factually WRONG.
Those assets that Fannie and Freddie sold were NOT government guaranteed! That was a presumption that many had that turned out to be false the moment the fecal matter hit the rotary oscillator.
It’s kind of like Social Security. Is it an entitlement? Are you guaranteed to get your check as long as you live? We like to think so. But in actual point of fact there is no guarantee to Social Security.
Fannie and Freddie bought up the mortgages, bundled them into giant mortgage-backed securities, and then sold those assets to private banks. ONLY FANNIE AND FREDDIE HAD THE LEGAL POWER TO DO THAT. There was always the sense that these GSEs (government sponsored enterprises) were government-guaranteed. But they WEREN’T. And when it turned out that there were all kinds of bad mortgages in the bundled securities – and there was absolutely no way to spit these securities apart and separate the bad mortgages from the performing ones – they started being called “toxic assets” because nobody could tell what was good and what was bad.
Fannie and Freddie collapsed FIRST before ANY other entity. They already had control of well over 60% of the entire mortgage industry in the country at the time they collapsed. You are simply wrong in asserting that Fannie and Freddie were not at the epicenter of the meltdown. And when Fannie and Freddie went under, every single security that Fannie and Freddie sold became an open question as to whether it too was toxic. The banks then collapsed because they had bought toxic crap from collapsed Fannie and Freddie.
And again, it was stupid and frankly immoral government policies that FORCED the private banks to do stupid things on the one hand, and ENCOURAGED them to do stupid things on the other, that brought these banks into the mess. THEY DID NOT WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS STUPID PROGRAM; THEY WERE FORCED TO PARTICIPATE. And those banks figured out a way to somehow make money by engaging in incredibly risky practices BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT FORCED THEM TO DO IT.
October 8, 2011 at 2:38 pm
I’m from Wikipedia here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae
“Following their mission to meet federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) housing goals, GSEs such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBanks) have striven to improve home ownership of low and middle income families, underserved areas, and generally through special affordable methods such as “the ability to obtain a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with a low down payment… and the continuous availability of mortgage credit under a wide range of economic conditions.” (HUD 2002 Annual Housing Activities Report) Then in 2003-2004, the subprime mortgage crisis began.[32] The market shifted away from regulated GSEs and radically toward Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) issued by unregulated private-label securitization conduits, typically operated by investment banks.
As mortgage originators began to distribute more and more of their loans through private label MBS, GSEs lost the ability to monitor and control mortgage originators. Competition between the GSEs and private securitizers for loans further undermined GSEs power and strengthened mortgage originators. This contributed to a decline in underwriting standards and was a major cause of the financial crisis. [33]
Investment bank securitizers were more willing to securitize risky loans because they generally retained minimal risk. Whereas the GSEs guaranteed the performance of their MBS, private securitizers generally did not, and might only retain a thin slice of risk. [33] Often, banks would offload this risk to insurance companies or other counterparties through credit default swaps, making their actual risk exposures extremely difficult for investors and creditors to discern. [34]
The shift toward riskier mortgages and private label MBS distribution occurred as financial institutions sought to maintain earnings levels that had been elevated during 2001-2003 by an unprecedented refinancing boom due to historically low interest rates. Earnings depended on volume, so maintaining elevated earnings levels necessitated expanding the borrower pool using lower underwriting standards and new products that the GSEs would not (initially) securitize. Thus, the shift away from GSE securitization to private-label securitization (PLS) also corresponded with a shift in mortgage product type, from traditional, amortizing, fixed-rate mortgages (FRMs) to nontraditional, structurally riskier, nonamortizing, adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), and in the start of a sharp deterioration in mortgage underwriting standards.[32] The growth of PLS, however, forced the GSEs to lower their underwriting standards in an attempt to reclaim lost market share to please their private shareholders. Shareholder pressure pushed the GSEs into competition with PLS for market share, and the GSEs loosened their guarantee business underwriting standards in order to compete. In contrast, the wholly public FHA/Ginnie Mae maintained their underwriting standards and instead ceded market share.[32]
The growth of private-label securitization and lack of regulation in this part of the market resulted in the oversupply of underpriced housing finance[32] that led, in 2006, to an increasing number of borrowers, often with poor credit, who were unable to pay their mortgages – particularly with adjustable rate mortgages (ARM), caused a precipitous increase in home foreclosures. As a result, home prices declined as increasing foreclosures added to the already large inventory of homes and stricter lending standards made it more and more difficult for borrowers to get mortgages. This depreciation in home prices led to growing losses for the GSEs, which back the majority of US mortgages. In July 2008, the government attempted to ease market fears by reiterating their view that “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play a central role in the US housing finance system”. The US Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve took steps to bolster confidence in the corporations, including granting both corporations access to Federal Reserve low-interest loans (at similar rates as commercial banks) and removing the prohibition on the Treasury Department to purchase the GSEs’ stock. Despite these efforts, by August 2008, shares of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had tumbled more than 90% from their one-year prior levels.
On Oct 21, 2010 FHFA estimates revealed that the bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will likely cost taxpayers $224–360 billion in total, with over $150 billion already provided.[35]
October 8, 2011 at 2:59 pm
I think everything you copied and pasted comes down to one short paragraph:
This is the same damn thing as student loans.
The government created the program. The government created the rules. The government made all the demands and forced lenders to do all the stupid things. The government encouraged all the private sector companies to become involved and created the incentives to reward those lenders for getting involved.
But when the program turns to crap, whose fault is it?
Why, it’s the private lenders, of course.
I mean, why would anybody blame the government?
Every single time – and I mean EVERY SINGLE TIME – the government creates these stupid programs, this is exactly what happens. Because a) the government doesn’t understand a thing about how the actual economy works; b) the government is incomepent and unable to administer its own bowel and bladder movements without messing itself, let alone administer billions of dollars and huge chunks of the economy; and c) because these programs are boondoggles that cannot possibly succeed to begin with.
This entire mortgage housing meltdown was the direct result of Carter and then Clinton, Congress, the government, and Fannie and Freddie. They set this entire mess up and it was invariable and inevitable that it would crash.
People should read my article here and watch the videos that demonstrate who did what when.
WE TOLD YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN. WE WERE TELLING YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN SINCE 1999 WHEN CLINTON PULLED ALL HIS SHENNANIGANS:
From the NY Times, Sep 30, 1999:
John McCain was one of many Republicans who BEGGED Democrats to allow the reform of Fannie and Freddie before it was too late:
What were Democrats saying? When George Bush was trying to reform Fannie and Freddie – you know, BEFORE IT COLLAPSED!!! – Barney Frank was saying this:
Less than TWO MONTHS before Fannie and Freddie collapsed and took down the entire economy, Barney Frank went on the record saying this:
We were completely right. You were completely wrong. What we said would happen because of this crap is exactly what did in fact happen. And now you’re trying to say it had nothing to do with your liberal crap.
October 8, 2011 at 6:21 pm
I think this really things boils down to 3 things.
1) The private sector was basically left unregulated.
2) The GSE’s were privatized and left unregulated.
3) The rating agencies have a fundamental conflict of interest.
The government didn’t force anyone to do anything. Everyone was motivated by maximizing shareholder return. You said it yourself, the Bush admin wanted to clamp down on Freddie and Fannie but the Democrats wouldn’t go along with it.
We went through a period where we deregulated many things and outsourced some government functions thinking that the free market was always more efficient. With the benefit hindsight, I think it clear that’s not always the case. Here is just a few examples: Enron and the rolling black-outs in California, the private defense contractors such as Halliburton and KBR, the privatization of Freddie and Fannie, and the repeal of the Glass-Steagal act. Look at the FHA program. It remained a government program, it wasn’t privatized and it didn’t have the problems of the GSE’s
October 9, 2011 at 7:52 pm
Okay, let’s see where your wrong this time.
First of all, George Bush and Republicans tried over and over again to regulate Fannie and Freddie (as I have already documented in my comments to you) – which ostensibly was ALWAYS under direct oversight by the House of Representatives. And the ONLY reason the GSEs were “left unregulated” is because Democrats pulled every single procedural tactic to prevent Fannie and Freddie from being regulated. And then they took over Congress and of course that GUARANTEED Fannie and Freddie would collapse.
Former Fannie CEOs Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson were both key Obama advisors. The three top recipients of Fannie and Freddie money were all Democrats, and received so much more than anyone else that it is positively unreal. And look to see that none other than Barack Obama was the #2 beneficiary of Fannie and Freddie money intended to keep regulation off their backs.
Here’s a video of a Fannie Mae CEO calling Democrats their “Family” and stating that they are the “conscience” of Fannie Mae:
Okay, so Republicans tried to regulate and reform Fannie and Freddie, but Democrats blocked them and Democrats staffed Fannie and Freddie with their people. Fannie paid out a bunch of campaign money to Democrats – and particularly to Barack Obama – to protect them from the regulation that Republicans tried to control them with. And top Fannie officials helped Obama get elected.
You keep saying things that are simply factually wrong, and I’m past sick of it. I’m going to block you as a troll at this time.
Quote: http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/18/fannie-freddie-regulation-oped-cx_yb_0718brook.html
Quote: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=809
“Sue them” such as Barack Obama did, btw.
Barack Obama personally sued banks to force banks to make loans under the government Community Reinvestment Act: http://www.mediacircus.com/2008/10/obama-sued-citibank-under-cra-to-force-it-to-make-bad-loans/
So when you say, “The government didn’t force anyone to do anything,” you are plainly and simply a liar. And this is the last time I am going to correct lies.
I have corrected the record again and again regarding your posts. You have never tried to refute the facts I provided; you simply keep restating them. I am not going to pretend that we are having a legitimate debate any longer; you continue to state lies as if they are facts. And you continue to ignore repeated refutations of the lies you keep telling.
So it’s time to say goodbye.
October 24, 2011 at 4:59 pm
Willie T’s statement holds more truth than you taking out of context the meaning of the verse Ecclesiastes 10:2. Check out this link before quoting the scriptures and you may not have people questioning your use or misuse of them.
October 24, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Sorry,, I left out the link, so here it is:
http://bible.cc/ecclesiastes/10-2.htm
October 24, 2011 at 6:55 pm
Well, let’s see.
Willie T (whom you say was spot on) wrote:
But the NIV actually says – and this according to YOUR OWN LINK:
Exactly as I properly quoted.
So Willie T was factually wrong to have “corrected” me as to what either the Bible or the NIV version of the Bible says. It in fact says exactly what I said it says. And you are in full agreement with a man who is factually wrong.
I, on the other hand, accurately cited the passage and in fact actually used the very same link that YOU did to copy and paste it in.
Wille T also said a number of other things, as people can read for themselves. And he was a pure hypocrite to say them – as I pointed out in my response to him – and YOU YOURSELF are a pure hypocrite to not acknowledge them in your defense of Wille T.
All I do is cite a Bible passage, you Bozo. I don’t provide a commentary to declare its exegesis or its meaning. I quite accurately cite a Bible verse. That’s it. You do all the inferring yourself because you clearly have a very guilty conscience and you KNOW that one day you shall stand to account for the 54 million babies that “the left” have murdered while you defended them. If you don’t like the Bible, please take it up with God, who shall surely one day take it up with you.