Of the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their kinsmen were at their command — 1 Chronicles 12:32
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. employment recorded a second straight month of solid gains in March and the jobless rate fell to a two-year low of 8.8 percent, marking a decisive shift in the labour market that should help to underpin the economic recovery.
Nonfarm payrolls rose 216,000 last month, the largest increase since May, the Labour Department said on Friday. January and February employment figures were revised to show 7,000 more jobs than previously reported.
The strong job gains come amid indications the economy suffered a minor setback early in the year as bad weather and rising energy prices dampened activity.
“All the evidence is pointing to a strengthening labour market,” said Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services in Boston.
First of all, remind me never, EVER to do business with John Hancock Financial Services.
“We were expecting to celebrate New Year’s and instead got slapped with a pink slip,” said Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services.
The subtitle of that CNN Money article was “Jobs grow by just 1,000 in December, although unemployment rate drops to 5.7%.”
So, for those who are keeping score, when liberals are allowed to have a voice, 8.8% unemployment is good; 5.7% is bad.
I’m just saying: this couldn’t be more biased, full-of-crap propaganda by people who write the news based entirely on their leftwing ideology. And they manage to track down economists who do the same thing. And voilà: a expert-confirmed news story.
Here’s an interesting factoid that doesn’t seem to get any mention in the mainstream media: Unless I’m seriously mistaken, the unemployment rate has gone down every month since Republicans took control of The House in January:
Unemployment was if anything going UP. And then Republicans took over, and whammo. It started going down. But Republicans didn’t receive so much as a scintilla of credit from the mainstream media. It’s just amazing.
Still, the job gains haven’t led many people who stopped looking for work during the recession to start again. Fewer than two-thirds of American adults are either working or looking for work — the lowest participation rate in 25 years. […]
The unemployment rate has fallen a full percentage point since November, the sharpest four-month drop since 1983. Stepped-up hiring is the main reason. But a more sobering factor is that the number of people who are either working or seeking a job remains surprisingly low for this stage of the recovery.
People without jobs who aren’t looking for one aren’t counted as unemployed. Once they start looking again, they’re classified as unemployed, and the unemployment rate can go back up. That can happen even if the economy is adding jobs.
Just 64.2 percent of adults have a job or are looking for one — the lowest participation rate since 1984. The number has been shrinking for four years. It suggests many people remain discouraged about their job prospects even as hiring is picking up.
This magnificent unemployment rate success largely reflects the fact that more and more people are just dropping out of the employment picture altogether. And three of the four years this has been going on have been going on under Obama.
Here’s a graph of the labor participation rate:
Note how it skyrocketed under Ronald Reagan. Note how it went DOWN under Bill Clinton until the Republicans OWNED the Democrats in 1994 and took over both the House and the Senate. Note how it went down under Bush following the Dotcom bust (and the 9/11 attack) that Bush inherited from Bill Clinton.
Something just seems so wrong with this picture. It makes that 216,000 jobs being added during the entire month of March just seem really, really sucky.
Somewhat similarly, the replacement rate due to population growth, etc. is 300,000 jobs a month:
Meaning, we need to create 300,000 jobs a month just to stay even. But we created 216,000 jobs in March, which caused the unemployment rate to drop. How’s that?!?!?
What is truly being heralded here as a giant success is that millions of Americans are simply giving up and abandoning the work force altogether in Obama’s God damn America.
Are you sick of Obama and the left unrelentingly blaming Bush for everything that is happening going on two years after he left office? Do you think that Obama will ever man-up and actually become responsible for his presidency?
Me too, and me neither, respectively.
I went more than a little off on a liberal who dredged up this demagogic rhetorical garbage:
In Europe people laugh at us leaving in false dreams, wall streets spending false money, Bush starting a false war etc.
America is the land of dreams, how come? Idiots like George Bush can get elected to president. If he can Become president, then what can the smart people do? Jump to pluto?.
Do you really expect Obama to fix the worst recession in 80 years in a bit more than 18 months? Which was created by 8 years of Reagan, 4 years by bush, Clinton’s last period and 8 years by Bush? What is he some kind of god?
I didn’t vote for Obama but I expect him to put us in the right direction in this 6 years (he most likely) has left. in 2007-2008 they estimated that the recession will peak in 2012, so there is still a lot left. Just imagine how it would be with Palin/McCain. McCain who wanted to keep Bush’s politics moving and Palin who thought Africa was a country.
Here was my response:
First of all, I must pause to mock you for making Europe the gold standard of measurement. I guess if you like Nazism, fascism, Marxism, socialism, and genocide up the wazoo, Europe must be the coolest place on earth. I can see why you lefties love it so much.
What was it that Jefferson said? “The comparison of our governments with those of Europe, is like a comparison of heaven and hell.” Not that you give a damn what Jefferson said about anything.
Let me assure you that the Iraq War – which 60% of Democrat Senators voted to authorize (just for the record) – was a REAL war indeed.
Here’s a record of how Democrats were for that war before they were against it:
Now, you want to see a REAL idiot in action? How about a guy running for president who thinks there are 58 states? This is a man who is so fundamentally ignorant he doesn’t even know jack squat about his own country.
“It is wonderful to be back in Oregon,” Obama said. “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it.”
So let’s talk about what a total and absolute ideologue you are to condemn Sarah Palin for a bogus fabricated quote that she didn’t even say, and to then defend a guy who is on video saying something about 20 times as stupid. Because that’s how the Democrat Party operates, in a nutshell.
For the factual record, Obama actually called Europe a country. How is that not just as stupid as calling Africa a country?
“One of the things that is a huge advantage for America compared to countries like Europe is, actually, we’re constantly replenishing ourselves with hungry, driven people who are coming here, and they want to work, and they start a business, and our population is younger and more dynamic, and that’s a good thing!”
Which is to say that Obama is unfit to be president by your own deceitful example.
And as for Bush being an idiot, at least he didn’t need a pair of damn teleprompters to say his name right. Maybe Bush would have sounded more “intelligent” to you if he read absolutely everything he said at every venue he went to off his teleprompters.
Which is why he needs to bring one everywhere – even to sixth grade classrooms – to not sound like the gibbering idiot he truly is.
So, oh, yeah, the country is much better off with its “Genius-in-chief,” isn’t it?
You don’t give one damn about the truth; you live in your own self-created reality in which Sarah Palin is stupid for something that she never said, while Barack Obama who said something stupider than Sarah Palin ever said in her life is still brilliant.
You would be completely ashamed of yourself, if you were capable of that attribute of moral character.
I write an article that shows how BY THE DEMOCRATS VERY OWN STANDARD OF MEASUREMENT Obama is the worst president in American history. And you’ve got nothing to say about that. Nothing but more “blame Bush.”
Another demonstration of your rabid leftist ideology that will NOT be fair: the economy goes into an absolute TOILET under Obama, but he’s not responsible for any of his policies.
Why is it that you refuse to hold Obama to any kind of standard at all – even the standard he set for himself? The Obama administration said this was a terrible economy, but he had the solution, that his stimulus would keep unemployment from going over 8%. And by his own administration’s standard did he not utterly fail? Wasn’t he elected to make the economy better, instead of far worse?
And what do we say about the fact that unemployment is going up, rather than down? Wasn’t Obama supposed to make things better rather than worse?
WASHINGTON – Employers appear to be laying off workers again as the economic recovery weakens. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits reached the half-million mark last week for the first time since November.
It was the third straight week that first-time jobless claims rose. The upward trend suggests the private sector may report a net loss of jobs in August for the first time this year.
Initial claims rose by 12,000 last week to 500,000, the Labor Department said Thursday.
Construction firms are letting go of more workers as the housing sector slumps and federal stimulus spending on public works projects winds down. State and local governments are also cutting jobs to close large budget gaps.
The layoffs add to growing fears that the economic recovery is slowing and the country could slip back into a recession.
Isn’t Obama kind of going the wrong way, Mr. “Blame Bush”???
We’ve got all kinds of measures showing that things are far worse than they ever were under Bush. But you, total rabid fundamentalist leftist ideologue that you are – can only shout “blame Bush!” all the louder.
With consumers and businesses keeping a lid on expenses, more and more small and mid-size restaurants are throwing in their dish towels and closing up shop. […]
Nationwide, the number of restaurants dropped in 2010 for the first time in more than a decade, according to NPD, falling 5,202 to 579,416.
So, wow. That means that things haven’t been this bad since Bill Clinton was president and the Dot-com bubble he created blew up. That means that things were NEVER this bad under George Bush.
Bush inherited a terrible economic situation, too. First of all, the Dot-com bubble that Clinton passed to Bush created huge economic upheaval – to the tune of Nasdaq losing 78% of its value. Trillions of dollars of Clinton economic growth were just blown away like a fart in a hurricane. The mainstream media didn’t report the facts of Clinton’s recession because they are shockingly biased liberal propagandists. Which is why so few Americans trust them anymore. Clinton took all the credit for the Dot-com build-up; Bush got all the pain when it blew up, suffering a huge recession that was all on Clinton’s tab. Then you add to that the 9/11 attack, which crippled the airline and tourism industry for months, and you should understand how bad Bush had it. But he didn’t blame Clinton a gazillion times; he manned up and solved the problem. He took an economic lemon and made 52 consecutive months of job growth. In contrast, Obama hasn’t solved anything. All he’s done is blame and demonize.
In the wake of news about a spike in new applications for unemployment benefits comes another potentially troubling sign: A record number of workers made hardship withdrawals from their retirement accounts in the second quarter.
What’s more, the number of workers borrowing from their accounts reached a 10-year high, according to a report issued Friday by Fidelity Investments.
Wow. Again, things haven’t been so bad since the last time a Democrat was president. Again, it was NEVER this bad under George Bush’s presidency.
WASHINGTON: The US trade deficit widened in September by an unexpectedly large 18.2 per cent, the most in more than 10 years, as oil prices rose for the seventh straight month and imports from China bounded higher, a US government report showed on Friday.
Hey, again, things weren’t so bad since a Democrat president last ran things. And it was never so bad under George Bush.
How about all the foreclosures? Surely Obama has made that better? Oops. Again, things were NEVER this bad under Bush’s presidency:
Foreclosure crisis doesn’t seem to be loosening its hold on the housing sector. After declining for the last three consecutive months, foreclosure activity is back up in the United States.
As per the ‘Foreclosure Market Report’ released by RealtyTrac, an online marketplace, giving insights into foreclosures, 325,229 houses received foreclosure filings in the nation, 4 percent up from June.
Not only there has been a jump in the number of houses receiving filings, the foreclosures have exceeded 300000 for the 17th straight month. One in every 397 houses received foreclosure notice from the lenders in July.
Hmmm. Obama’s been president for all of those 17 months. And Bush was president for none of them. But it’s all Bush’s fault, anyway, isn’t it? At least if you’re a hypocrite liberal, it is.
Under Obama, and ONLY under Obama, foreclosures are up 75% in the major metropolitan areas:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Foreclosures rose in 3 of every four large U.S. metro areas in this year’s first half, likely ruling out sustained home price gains until 2013, real estate data company RealtyTrac said on Thursday [in its midyear 2010 metropolitan foreclosure report].
Unemployment was the main culprit driving foreclosure actions on more than 1.6 million properties, the company said.
“We’re not going to see meaningful, sustainable home price appreciation while we’re seeing 75 percent of the markets have increases in foreclosures,” RealtyTrac senior vice president Rick Sharga said in an interview.
Has Obama done anything to solve this problem – which was why our economy blew up in the first place? Absolutely not.
Obama failed – because he is a failure, and failing is what he does:
WASHINGTON – Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration’s flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.
The program is intended to help those at risk of foreclosure by lowering their monthly mortgage payments. Friday’s report from the Treasury Department suggests the $75 billion government effort is failing to slow the tide of foreclosures in the United States, economists say.
More than 2.3 million homes have been repossessed by lenders since the recession began in December 2007, according to foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc. Economists expect the number of foreclosures to grow well into next year.
“The government program as currently structured is petering out. It is taking in fewer homeowners, more are dropping out and fewer people are ending up in permanent modifications,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
There’s “hope and change” for you. A failed president with failed policies.
As an update (August 24), I add the following headline:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sales of previously owned U.S. homes dropped in July to their lowest pace in 15 years, implying further loss of momentum in the economic recovery.
Existing home sales dropped by a massive 27% in July. And, again, omigosh. We haven’t seen terrible numbers like this since the last time a Democrat was president. We NEVER saw anything like this during the Bush era.
How about budget deficits? Bush never had a trillion dollar deficit in his entire presidency, and the Democrats still blamed him for his spending; but the CBO now says that Obama will run a trillion-plus dollar defict next year, making it three years in a row. And we will have massive trillion-plus dollar deficits for as long as the eye can see because of Obama’s reckless unsustainable spending programs and the debt they will create. How about this? Obama’s deficit for July alone was more than Bush’s entire 2007-year deficit! And how about this one? Obama outspent Bush’s entire eight-year presidency’s deficit in just 20 months – after demonizing Bush for his spending!!!
From The Wall Street Journal, which, unlike the New York Slimes, the LA Slimes, the Chicago Tribune, and other major liberal papers, ISN’T actually financially and morally bankrupt:
Mr. Obama cannot dismiss critics by pointing to President George W. Bush’s decision to run $2.9 trillion in deficits while fighting two wars and dealing with 9/11 and Katrina. Mr. Obama will surpass Mr. Bush’s eight-year total in his first 20 months and 11 days in office, adding $3.2 trillion to the national debt. If America “cannot and will not sustain” deficits like Mr. Bush’s, as Mr. Obama said during the campaign, how can Mr. Obama sustain the geometrically larger ones he’s flogging?
Bush’s deficits were 2-3% of GDP. Obama’s are at 12.8% of GDP – which is five to six times higher and bringing us closer and closer every day to the point of collapse.
Are the people better off under Obama than they were under Bush? I don’t think so:
How about bank failures? We kind of need banks for a healthy economy unless we want to go back to the barter system, you know:
Banks are failing at double the rate of last year. During 2009, which the government claims was the peak of the recession, the total number of bank failures at this point in the year was 40. It is already 83 for this year.
For the record, only 25 banks failed under Bush in 2008. That number soared to 140 banks under Obama’s watch in 2009. And now we’re already past 118 bank failures this year in 2010 with four more months to go.
Do I want to go back to Bush’s “failed policies” when unemployment never got above 7.6% and averaged 5.2% for his presidency? As opposed to “moving forward” with Obama and his 10%-and-rising level? Pardon me, but I’ll take Bush.
Democrats are currently saying, “Do you want to go back to the way things were when Republicans were in control?”
So, yeah. I WOULD like to go back to the way things were when Bush and Republicans were in control. And I frankly want to know what idiot wouldn’t?
As for your question as to whether Obama is some kind of a god, I can’t help but point out that it wasn’t conservatives who kept putting the halo on Obama’s head:
A funny video provides a giant montage of Obama halos.
Nothing was more responsible for the economic implosion of 2008 than the mortgage industry. So it is somewhat illuminating that – to go along with the European Union government spending crises and yesterday’s corresponding bloodbath in the Dow (down 376 points) which officially put Wall Street into “correction territory” – we now see that, if anything, our mortgage woes under Obama are actually worse than ever.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — A dubious distinction was reached during the first three months of 2010: More than 10% of all mortgage borrowers are now behind on their payments.
The delinquency rate hit a record of 10.06% in the first quarter, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The seasonally adjusted rate accounts for all mortgages on properties that have up to four units and that are at least one payment late.
The rate has been inching steadily toward this record. In the previous quarter, 9.47% of borrowers were behind on payments; and one year ago, 9.12% were late. […]
Nearly all varieties of loans suffered increased delinquencies compared with 12 months earlier. Prime fixed-rate loans hit 6.17%; prime adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) tipped 13.52%. Subprime fixed-rates jumped to 25.69%; and subprime ARMs are a whopping 29.09%.
So, to put it bluntly, a full year and a half later, Barry Hussein hasn’t done anything to fix the biggest component that created the economic collapse of 2008. Not a damn thing.
The problem is actually worse than ever.
A significant factor contributing to this crisis is unemployment. But, again, Obama hasn’t done a damn thing (all failed predictions and promises aside) to create jobs:
WASHINGTON – The number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week by the largest amount in three months. The surge is evidence of how volatile the job market remains, even as the economy grows.
Applications for unemployment benefits rose to 471,000 last week, up by 25,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. It was the first increase in five weeks and the biggest jump since a gain of 40,000 in February.
The total was the highest since new claims reached 480,000 on April 10. It also pushed the average for the last four weeks to 453,500.
“Although no one expects this volatile series to go in one direction every single week, this is clearly a disappointment,” said Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.
Stocks slid as investors’ already bleak view of the world economy worsened with another drop in the euro and the disappointing U.S. employment news. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 250 points in early afternoon trading.
“Unexpectedly.” The propagandists adverb of choice.
After a newspaper or news station has used the word a thousand times, you’d think they’d grow tired of making excuses for the numerous failures of the White House. But, noooooo. They never weary of describing bad news as “unexpected” as a device to imply that it was really nobody’s fault.
Now, mind you, they liked to use the word “unexpected” a lot when Bush was president, too. But then it was to reduce the credit that Bush should have received for successful policies. Take the result of his tax cut, which boosted revenue. The New York Times wrote:
“For the first time since President Bush took office, an unexpected leap in tax revenue is about to shrink the federal budget deficit this year, by nearly $100 billion.
On Wednesday, White House officials plan to announce that the deficit for the 2005 fiscal year, which ends in September, will be far smaller than the $427 billion they estimated in February.”
When a Democrat is president, bad news is always “unexpected” to the mainstream media. When a Republican is president, it’s always GOOD news that’s “unexpected.”
What is the Obama message that continually keeps being falsified by “unexpected” actual results?
“We can say beyond a shadow of a doubt today we are headed in the right direction,” Mr. Obama told an audience of about 230 workers and local business leaders. “All those tough steps we took, they’re working, despite all the naysayers who were predicting failure a year ago.” ….
“Last month we had the strongest job growth we had seen in year, and by the way, almost all of it was in the private sector, and a bunch of it was manufacturing,” the president said, referring to last week’s report that found that the economy added 290,000 jobs in April. “So this month was better than last month. Next month is going to be stronger than this month. And next year is going to be better than this year.”
Only it’s a load of crap from a pathological liar.
The AP article cited above continues with this paragraph:
In a separate report, a private research group said its index of leading economic indicators dipped slightly in April. It was the first decline in more than a year. Six of the 10 components on the Conference Board’s index deteriorated. Among them: U.S. residents filed fewer applications to build homes; vendors were slower in delivering supplies to companies; the unemployed filed more claims for jobless aid; and consumers’ confidence dropped.
Ah, but I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the drop was “unexpected.”
May 20 (Bloomberg) — The index of U.S. leading economic indicators unexpectedly declined in April, a sign the economic expansion may slow in the second half of the year.
NEW YORK (Associated Press) — A private research group’s index of leading economic indicators unexpectedly slipped in April, its first drop in more than a year and a sign that growth could slow this summer.
I knew it!!! You clearly can’t blame Obama for any of that. I mean, duh, who could possibly have “expected” it???
Why don’t we just keep believing more of Obama’s constant stream of lies, instead???
Let’s see. Month of May. Major market correction, with the Dow down 900 points this month. Check. Mortgage delinquencies up. Check. Unemployment up. Check. Leading economic indicators down. Check.
We are now able to see that from the very beginning of the Obama administration, the Republican Party has again and again demonstrated that they were completely right and Democrats were completely wrong. Whether you look at the stimulus, cap-and-trade, bogus climate change claims, health care, or terrorism, Americans now solidly agree that Republicans were represent the people; and that Democrats do NOT represent the people.
When Obama was elected, unemployment was at 6.6%. He promised that his stimulus would prevent unemployment from reaching 8%. And now it’s at 10%, and it’s going to get higher.
Obama demagogued Bush’s spending. But Bush deficits -bad as they were – were only 2-3% of GDP. Obama’s deficits are 12.8% of GDP – which is five to six times higher.
Now that your eyes are finally beginning to open wide and see Obama and the Democrats for who and what they truly are, let me point out a few things about the past collapse.
What Americans – and particularly Americans who actually vote – need to realize is that Democrats were trying to do this kind of crap and play these kind of games all along. They were trying to do it throughout the Bush years, when George Bush tried 17 times to regulate the out of control and Fannie-Mac-and-Freddie-Mae-dominated housing mortgage markets – and Democrats thwarted him over and over again.
Why do I mention the Government Supported Enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Because they were at the very heart of the mortgage meltdown.
Lenders also have opened the door wider to minorities because of new initiatives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–the giant federally chartered corporations that play critical, if obscure, roles in the home finance system. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages from lenders and bundle them into securities; that provides lenders the funds to lend more. . . .
LaVaughn M. Henry, Ph.D. Director, U.S. Economic Analysis The PMI Group, Inc. December 9, 2008, pointed out:
The Role of the GSEs is to provide liquidity and stability to the U.S. housing and mortgage markets. Step 1 Banks lend money to Households to purchase and refinance home mortgages Step 2 The GSEs purchase these mortgage from the banks Step 3 GSEs bundle the mortgages into mortgage-backed securities Step 4 GSEs sell mortgage-backed and debt securities to domestic and international capital investors Step 5 Investors pay GSEs for purchase of debt and securities Step 6 GSEs return funds to banks to lend out again for the issuance of new mortgage loans.
It was steps 3-5 that messed us up. Fannie and Freddie bought mortgages – including many mortgages that poor and minority homeowners couldn’t begin to afford under the mandate of the Community Reinvestment Act – bundled them such that no one could assess their risk, and then sold them to private companies such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Fannie and Freddie were exempt from SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] regulations. The GSEs could bundle up mortgages, which would then be rated AAA, with no requirement to make clear what was in the bundle. Private companies believed that the bundled securities were guaranteed, since they were essentially being sold by the federal government.
But there were many who predicted that this system – created and maintained by Democrats – could explode.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s.“
”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.” . . .
And that is precisely what happened. There was a downturn (and there will ALWAYS be downturns, won’t there?), and Fannie and Freddie were so leveraged that they collapsed and caused the collapse of the entire industry. Financial experts anxiously pointed out that a decline of only 1.3% would bankrupt Fannie and Freddie because they were leveraged to the tune of 60%? to 78%.
Democrats were the priests and acolytes of the GSE system. They protected it, and they were the ones who pressed all the buttons and pulled all the levers.
Now that the collapse has occurred, the roadblock built by Senate Democrats in 2005 is unforgivable. Many who opposed the bill doubtlessly did so for honorable reasons. Fannie and Freddie provided mounds of materials defending their practices. Perhaps some found their propaganda convincing.
Watch this video showing how Goerge Bush and John McCain repeatedly warned of the economic collapse (length=4 min):
Watch this video of Democrats protecting and covering for Fannie Mae (length=8 min):
Here’s a video entitled “Burning Down the House: What Caused Our Economic Crisis?” (length=11 min)
And then we find that Barack Obama was in bed with Fannie and Freddie and their shockingly risky policies:
Who really exploded the economy in 2008, liberals or conservatives? Who do you think? The liberal mainstream media allowed Democrats to blame George Bush simply because he was president at the time, never mentioning that the Democrats who controlled both the House and the Senate relentlessly opposed everything Bush tried to do; and it allowed Democrats to not have to account for the fact that they’d been in complete control of both the House and the Senate. But remember that the economy went from outstanding to collapsed during the two years (2006-2008) that the Congress was under Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. The unemployment rate was 4.4% when Republicans last ran Congress. What is it now, three years of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid later?
I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
But he was ignored.
When George Bush first tried to regulate an already out-of-control liberal bastion of Fannie and Freddie, Barney Frank led the united Democrat opposition and said:
”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
And just before Fannie and Freddie collapsed and brought down the entire housing mortgage industry with it creating the economic meltdown, Barney Frank – continuing to stop any regulation of Fannie and Freddie – said this:
REP. BARNEY FRANK, D-MASS.: I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investments these days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went completely bankrupt, and had to be bailed out by the government. It had been Fannie and Freddie which had the sole authority to buy mortgages, bundle them into the mortgage-backed securities which ultimately exploded, and sell those securities to private companies (as I have already shown). Just as it was Fannie and Freddie which had been the seller of subprime loans.
Democrats demonized and demagogued Republicans by blaming them for a mess that DEMOCRATS created. And Republicans were to blame primarily because they didn’t do enough to stand up and courageously oppose the disaster that Democrats had created
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy and resell mortgages, have used $112 billion — including $15 billion for Fannie in November — of a total $400 billion pledge from the Treasury. Now, according to people close to the talks, officials are discussing the possibility of increasing that commitment, possibly to $400 billion for each company, by year-end, after which the Treasury would need Congressional approval to extend it. Company and government officials declined to comment.
But it turned out that that was wrong. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weren’t going to get $800 billion. That won’t be nearly enough. They are going to get an unlimited amount of funding (potentially in the trillions):
The Obama administration’s decision to cover an unlimited amount of losses at the mortgage-finance giants Fannie MaeFreddie Mac over the next three yearsand stirred controversy over the holiday.
A Newsbuster article, entitled, “Relief Without Limits,” provides an excellent resource of facts and commentary on this incredible and terrifying development.
The monster rises yet again, and larger and uglier and more dangerous than it has ever been before. And just like the first time it collapsed, Democrats are in total control of it. Fannie and Freddie stock went up significantly as the news was announced. Watch it dwindle back to zero by the end of 2010.
Just how badly is President Obama’s $75 billion foreclosure program working out? Consider these newly-released numbers: Out of every 100 homeowners who came to JPMorgan Chase for help under the program, just 15 have or will likely receive a permanent payment reduction.
What happened to the other 85? For every 100 trial plans initiated from April through September 2009 under the Home Affordable Modification Program:
29 borrowers did not make all required payments under their trial plan;
20 borrowers did not submit all documents required for underwriting;
31 borrowers submitted all required documents but the documents did not meet HAMP underwriting standards, due to such things as missing signatures or nonstandard formats;
4 borrowers were or are likely to be rejected for undisclosed reasons;
1 borrower will not or is not likely to get their payment lowered.
The data comes from the prepared remarks bank officials plan to make Tuesday before the House Financial Services Committee. The testimony was posted Monday on the committee’s website.
It adds up to a brutal illustration of just how the HAMP program, which is supposed to reduce troubled homeowners’ monthly payments to 31 percent of their income, is failing.
Failing. As in “failing grade.” As in failed Obama presidency.
You still don’t know the half of it. Obama’s $75 billion mortgage modification bailout is costing taxpayers an average of $870,967 PER HOUSE when the average house is worth only $177,900.
Unemployment is likely to rise to 13 percent or higher and will weigh on the economy for several years, countering government efforts to stabilize the banking industry, analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC. […]
“We underestimate how much the whole economy is dependent on the mortgage industry, and that has to change,” Whitney said. “This is what happens when you delay the inevitable. We’re buying time here, but we’re not restructuring the economy.”
Under the radar, and against the objections of Republicans that was primarily covered only by C-SPAN, Democrats implemented and then fiercely protected policies that were almost guaranteed to doom our economy. When the meltdown finally occurred, the same Democrats who created the black hole in the first place flooded the airwaves and blamed George Bush – whom they had already vilified and brought down through unrelenting attacks using the Iraq War as their main foil.
The propaganda worked, and Barack Hussein Obama – a politician who is more beholden to corrupt and frankly un-American entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, ACORN, and the SEIU than any president in history.
And now we’re truly paying for our stupidity.
Obama is taking the same policies that imploded our economy, and multiplied them by a factor of ten. It’s only a matter of time before his policies create a rotten floor for our economy to plunge through all over again — only this time far, far worse than before.
Someone might say, “But look, Obama is rebuilding the economy. He’s brought back the stock market, and things are getting better.”
First of all, they really aren’t getting better, and the Dow can drop a lot faster than it can rise (history lesson: there were several rises and crashes of the stock market during the Great Depression). And second of all, if you loan me a few billion dollars to spread around, I can temporarily bring up the production of my local economy, too.
Just don’t expect either me or Barack Hussein to repay the loan when it comes due.
Henry Morganthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary, said in May 1939, after nearly seven years in office:
“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong… somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises… I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started… And an enormous debt to boot!”
In believing the propaganda and lies of the Democrats and Barack Obama, Americans may have well placed the nation in a hole that it very may well not be able to climb out of.
