This country will not recover until Obama’s boot is lifted from our throats [Reader Post]

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So you thought the economy was bad before? You ain’t seen nothin’.

After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill Interior Secretary Ken Salazar unveiled the Obama policy for businesses in the US:

So the administration has embraced the violent imagery of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar who said administration officials would keep their “boot on the throat” of the energy giant to make sure the company does all it can and more to address the problems caused by its uncontrolled ocean gusher.

Holding a “boot to the throat” of business has been exactly what this administration has done. Now Barack Obama transitions from President to dictator.

And here comes the deathblow for the United States economy. Obama is ruling by edict that which he could not achieve legislatively.

WASHINGTON — In the next weeks and months, Lisa P. Jackson, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, is scheduled to establish regulations on smog, mercury, carbon dioxide, mining waste and vehicle emissions that will affect every corner of the economy.

She is working under intense pressure from opponents in Congress, from powerful industries, from impatient environmentalists and from the Supreme Court, which just affirmed the agency’s duty to address global warming emissions, a project that carries profound economic implications.

Obama is proving that he has not learned from his failed stimulus, nor from his imposition of Obamacare, nor from his

knee-jerk over-regulation of banking.

Banks are less able or willing to lend than before the recession. Since the recovery started, banks have reduced money they make available through credit card lines from $3.04 trillion to $2.69 trillion and have reduced home equity credit lines from $1.33 trillion to $1.15 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Policy makers, meanwhile, are reluctant to do more to stimulate economic growth. The Federal Reserve has already pushed short-term interest rates to near zero. Two rounds of quantitative easing that including purchasing $1.425 trillion in mortgage bonds and $900 billion in Treasury debt helped to stabilize the economy but failed to spur a vigorous recovery.

He has not learned from his clumsy and obvious attempt to manhandle Boeing into obeying the demands of unions, even though unions have crippled Boeing repeatedly.

Boeing first sought to build the new plant near its existing facility in Puget Sound, but negotiations with the International Association of Machinists broke down when the union refused to agree to a long-term no-strike clause. The IAM had struck four times since 1989, costing Boeing at least $1.8 billion in revenue.

Barack Obama cannot issue new regulations fast enough, and those regulations are having a strong and negative effect on the economy:

“In fiscal year 2010, federal agencies promulgated 43 major new regulations,” the letter said. “These regulations ranged from new limits on ‘effluent’ discharges to new rules for Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations. The new limits on ‘effluent’ discharges from construction sites will cost $810.8 million annually resulting in the closure of 147 construction firms and the loss of 7,257 jobs.”

The Obama administration estimated the cost of the 43 new regulations to be approximately $28 billion — “the highest single year increase in estimated burden on record, resulting in thousands of lost jobs,” the letter said. “This new burden is on top of the $1.75 trillion estimated burden of existing regulations.”

Obama is determined to achieve his personal vision, no matter what the cost to the country.

Ms. Jackson said she intended to go forward with new, tougher air- and water-quality rules, including those that address climate change, despite Congressional efforts to override her authority and even a White House initiative to weed out overly burdensome regulations.

The first of these new rules is expected to be announced Thursday, imposing tighter restrictions on soot and smog emissions from coal-burning power plants in 31 states east of the Rockies. The regulation is expected to lead to the closing of several older plants and will require the installation of scrubbers at many of those that remain in operation. One former E.P.A. administrator, William K. Reilly, who served under the first President George Bush, is a sometime adviser to Ms. Jackson. He said she was taking fire from all sides.

Not enough fire, obviously.

Electricity costs will skyrocket, as Obama promised. Jackson is addressing climate change even though is far from a settled issue. A generation ago the same scientists were promising a new ice age.

Rep. Edward Whifield (R-KY) had this to say:

“It is unprecedented the number of major regulations this administration is putting out,” he said, “and I can’t tell you how many calls and meetings and letters I have asking, ‘Is there any way to slow E.P.A. down?’ “”What’s troubling to us, is that President Obama on the one hand is saying we have to be really careful about these regulations and consider the impact on jobs and the economy, but over at the agency they’re just going full speed ahead with minimal attention or analysis on job impact.”

Ed Lasky has characterized Obama’s actions as a “war on cheap American energy” and he is right.

Barack Obama’s EPA has been on a crusade to kill off efforts to boost America’s domestic energy supplies. We are now among the least attractive nations for energy companies seeking to explore and develop energy supplies. The American people are waking up to the man-made disaster that Barack Obama has created. Three quarters of Americans now think our oil and gas resources are under-exploited. Yet, Barack Obama and his Democratic allies are doing all they can do kill carbon and jam down our throats ruinously expensive and uneconomic green schemes that benefit their donors.

And John Hinderaker at Powerline defines the goal of Obama’s efforts:

The cornerstone belief of American liberals is that the United States is too rich and too powerful. And, if you want to make America poorer and weaker, the easiest way to do so is by preventing the development of our energy resources. Such a policy hobbles our economy and causes massive transfers of wealth from the U.S. to other countries, many of which are hostile. Liberals think this is all to the good, but pretty much every other American disagrees.

For your entertainment:

Obama promises to cut government imposed business regulations

President Obama published an article in The Wall Street Journal’s opinion column in its Tuesday edition calling for a government-wide overhaul of business regulations. Instead of giving a well choreographed and planned speech, the President wrote a declaration promising to cut unnecessary and outdated restrictions on businesses. Obama acknowledges in the piece that some of the government regulations in place have stifled growth and aided to a sluggish economy. The Administration, therefore, hopes to seek a balance with a designated review of what needs to be adjusted and removed so that the economy, and small businesses in particular, can thrive.

Obama blames everything and everyone else for the poor economy, including jet owners and ATM’s.

Businesses are pleading for relief

From rules on greenhouse gas emissions to labor agreements for construction projects, business owners and industry advocates testified on Thursday that federal agencies had imposed unworkable and excessive regulations that are eliminating American jobs and driving work overseas.

During a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, business representatives bemoaned a host of regulations the Obama administration had imposed during the past two years. Some witnesses criticized labor rules they claimed prevent companies from bidding on federal contracts. Others blasted the paperwork burdens associated with the new health care law.

But, no matter the rule in question, the complaints echoed a similar refrain — the cost and time associated with complying with federal regulations were strangling the private sector.

“If regulatory burden continues to grow we, along with all other private sector companies, will no longer be able to compete in the world market,” said Michael Fredrich, president of MCM Composites, a small Wisconsin business. “Jobs will not be created and new businesses will not be formed. You will suffocate the system that has produced everything we enjoy today. It is that simple.”

but no relief is in sight.

Obama has crushed the housing market. He has crushed the financial markets. Now he crushes the energy market.

There will be no recovery while Barack Obama is President.

There can be no recovery while Barack Obama is President.

Barack Obama is the reason there is no recovery.

Only when Barack Obama is gone will there be be a robust recovery. Obama’s boot must be lifted from all of our throats.

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Pretty slick. Significantly increase regulations to impose what you couldn’t get passed through Congress. When Congress objects and passes bills rescinding your regulations, veto the bills.

When the executive branch and federal agencies are able to impose regulations in lieu of laws passed by Congress, indeed in direct conflict with Congress, then what recourse do We The People have to returning legislating to the legislative branch?

Dictators do not need your permission.
Dictators need only their own sense of what is right, and they have no fear of being contradicted. Anyone contradicting them is shot. See? It’s easy. You just rule. And if you have no opposition, you are always right.
There is a nasty side-effect: everyone else suffers. Except your friends.
Aside from that, it is a slick system.
It always ends in total destruction.
But the feeling of unlimited power is ultimately intoxicating.

Obama ignores the courts as much as possible (remember his oil drilling moratorium).
Obama ignores and sidesteps Congress whenever he wants to.
Now Obama has gone beyond all of that.
Elizabeth Warren is creating her own bureaucratic monster despite the fact that she has NO POSITION in the government!
Obama wants her as head of a Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.
But why wait until she is?
Entirely free of interference from Congress Ms. Warren has built the CFPB largely to her specifications.
She has hired hundreds of people and rented two big buildings in DC.

The CFPB was created by the Dodd-Frank financial regulation reform legislation.
Liberals have been drooling to get this bureau up and running because at bottom, it gives the government unprecedented control of the nation’s consumer lending institutions.
It will almost certainly tighten credit for consumers because it criminalizes financial transactions where the consumer is either too stupid to understand the terms of the financial product they are buying, or too lazy to read the fine print.

America invented giving the middle class credit.
Participation in the markets by ordinary people was undreamed of 50 years ago.
This has come to pass because of the creativity of the financial industry whose drive for larger profits allowed the middle class to buy homes, finance vacations, and save for retirement through participation in mutual funds and other long term investments.

Elizabeth Warren is out to destroy this system.
Her minions will scrutinze transactions that end up with the consumer losing money and rather than forcing the consumer to take responsibility for their own stupidity or carelessness, blame will fall on financial institutions whose only crime was believing their client understood the terms of a loan or credit card.
It will make credit for young people especially a very hard thing to get.
This will slow new home buying and drive the value of existing homes down even further.

Obama ignores and sidesteps Congress whenever he wants to.

And, again, who’s fault is that? Who allows him to get away with not one, not two, but now THREE undeclared wars?????????????????????

That would be the Republican House (the Democratic Senate is as useful as teets on a bull).

All this “oh he abuses congress daily!” horseship is really tiring. I guess the only card the losers in the House have to play, and their blog shills, is the “Battered Housewife” card.


Vote for us because we enjoy not doing a DAMN THING ABOUT THIS CRIMINAL OBAMA.

Phuck, are you people for real?

This is the truely DO NOTHING CONGRESS.

@Ivan:

Congress Targets Food Police Program for Defunding

House GOP Moves to Defund FCC Net Neutrality Efforts

The House overwhelmingly passed a bill expressly prohibiting taxpayer money from going to ACORN

House Republicans Defund NPR

House of Representatives Votes to Defund Planned Parenthood

There’s plenty more.
Obama doesn’t have to sign anything that comes to his desk, however.

Edited to add:
Next Week: House Vote on Bulb-Ban Repeal

The unemployment chart is now so bad that we may soon see the Great Depression charted with it instead of only all of the recessions after WWII.

Here’s a link to the updated (including June’s numbers) chart.

DRJ Some of what you say is valid.But let’s be honest.”Crushed the financial markets”.The three major stock market indices are up over 35% since he took office.

@Nan G: Nan

Can you say “tokenism”? Come on, start eliminating some departments THEN I’ll be impressed.

@DrJohn: Dr. John.

Under OBAMA’S watch, he’s started 3. I limited it to his criminal conduct.

@Ivan:

What are you counting to get to three?

I can count only Libya as being a new conflict since Obie’s Immaculation.

Since Obama has doubled the number of wars, shouldn’t he be getting another Nobel Peace Prize?

Obama promised he had ”shovel-ready” jobs to spend $878 Billion of our money on.
Then he admitted he didn’t have any jobs ready.
Maybe if he had promised spoon-ready jobs he could have not had a lot more jobs ready.
At least then the numbers would have been more impressive.

Dr. John–

With all due respect, the economy is not going to recover when Obama is gone. The government octopus has been growing for almost 50 years under both political parties. Until the last fifty years of regulation and taxes has been rolled back, nothing much is going to change.

The bureaucracy doesn’t care who is in charge – it just cares about itself.

…but maybe I’m wrong. There’s Obama’s Catch-22

The only way for Obama to stimulate the enormous private sector job growth needed to ensure Obama’s reelection is for Obama to announce he is not running for reelection, which would unleash a wave of investment and economic activity not seen since the Great Depression.

@DrJohn:

Somalia and Yemen were both areas in which Bush conducted anti Al Qaeda raids via drones if I’m not mistaken.

The AUMF passed way back before Iraq, perhaps back to the time of 9/11 and Afghanistan (don’t remember for sure), gave the President (no matter who) wide latitude to conduct the war on terror. I cannot say that I’m outraged by efforts by either Bush or Obama in that regard. Shoot ’em in the head or blow ’em up whilst they sleep. Don’t matter to me.

Libya however is a completely different animal….

Dr J Ive noted you “appreciate” any anti-Obama statement whether inflated or outright false.It’s how you roll.
Fair minded authors like Mata and Aye bust you pretty regularly.It gives them a CREDIBILITY you lack.

@DrJohn:

I’ll accept your assertion if you can back it up.

I don’t generally make assertions I cannot back up. You’ve been bellied up to the bar here long enough to know that.

U.S. Strike in Somalia Targets Al-Qaeda Figure January 9, 2007

TOP BUSH AIDE DEFENDS STRIKE IN YEMEN ON AL-QAIDA SUSPECT November 11, 2002

Those are just two citations of actions by President Bush. There are many more out there that I didn’t cite.

As I said, the AUMF gave broad power to the President (no matter who he or she is) to conduct the War on Terror as he sees fit.

But Obama put boots on the ground in Somalia.

Yes, Obama put boots on the ground in Somalia…to fight the GWOT right?

And…he also put boots on the ground in Pakistan…which is why OBL is now fish food right?

Nothing to be outraged about in any of that.

DR J suggests current admin believes “no more terrorists or Jihadists” Was Bin Laden the last?
Says R.W. Always wrong BHO Always lies. Must be tough being you, so cocksure of your righteousness.

Semper Fi

@DrJohn:

Gosh, that’s been a long time ago…I’d have to go back and research it to find out for sure but I seem to recall that Reagan’s actions regarding Libya were in response to terrorism were they not?

Obie’s actions in Libya would be different in that the goal is/is not regime change depending on which day you ask him.

Also, Obie’s actions in Libya would be different because they are an ongoing issue rather than a very short term kind of thing like Reagan.

@DrJohn:

Yet there is no more GWOT.

Well, we can argue the semantics of what it’s labeled or whatever ’til the cows come home.

Truth is, you and I both know that there is still a GWOT.

The important thing, however, is that Obie has found out that there is still a GWOT…no matter what cute little label is attached to it. That’s one reason why he’s adopted and/or expanded every single one of Bush’s policies.

There are a couple of other things that Obie has found out too: Campaignin’ is easy. Presidentin’ is hard.

@DrJohn:

Couldn’t remember if it was the disco or if it was an airliner bombing…been too long ago man…I was either in high school or just beginning college then. That was before I woke up to what was going on around me.

Not sure that just changing the name of the GWOT to something else while still fighting it would qualify as hypocrisy. YMMV however.

#9 Rich w.
Hope you’re being sarcastic about stock market being up 35%. Notice they no longer show the volume on your tv screen. No business channel show volume anymore. ONly 30 big companines are involved in this market. Obammaramma adds zeros to everyones account every week .

they are all operating as banks so Obummer can give them loans at 0% interest and buy back the loans from them at 6% last i heard, may have changed by now not sure. this is why big banks have no need to loan to anyone but Obummer. A sure thing, backed up by the full faith and credit of all US taxpayers.

@ DrJohn

Once the bogeyman Obama is gone, and a Republican has the sense to settle the dust of fear out of the air, industry will seek to grow.

The fear of ObamaCare and an out-of-control EPA is clearly a factor, but IMHO, not the primary factor. The entire Country – and especially private industry – is up to it’s assets in debt and America no longer has the industrial base to produce our way out of the hole the politicians have dug for us. From Brent Arends, Ten reasons we are doomed to repeat 2008

1. We are learning the wrong lessons from the last one. Was the housing bubble really caused by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, Barney Frank, Bill Clinton, “liberals” and so on? That’s what a growing army of people now claim. There’s just one problem. If so, then how come there was a gigantic housing bubble in Spain as well? Did Barney Frank cause that, too (and while in the minority in Congress, no less!)? If so, how? And what about the giant housing bubbles in Ireland, the U.K. and Australia? All Barney Frank? And the ones across Eastern Europe, and elsewhere? I’d laugh, but tens of millions are being suckered into this piece of spin, which is being pushed in order to provide cover so the real culprits can get away. And it’s working.

9. We are levering up like crazy. Looking for a “credit bubble”? We’re in it. Everyone knows about the skyrocketing federal debt, and the risk that Congress won’t raise the debt ceiling next month. But that’s just part of the story. U.S. corporations borrowed $513 billion in the first quarter. They’re borrowing at twice the rate that they were last fall, when corporate debt was already soaring. Savers, desperate for income, will buy almost any bonds at all. No wonder the yields on high-yield bonds have collapsed. So much for all that talk about “cash on the balance sheets.” U.S. nonfinancial corporations overall are now deeply in debt, to the tune of $7.3 trillion. That’s a record level, and up 24% in the past five years. And when you throw in household debts, government debt and the debts of the financial sector, the debt level reaches at least as high as $50 trillion. More leverage means more risk. It’s Econ 101.

Dr.J:

We know the CRA triggered the housing collapse here in the U.S., but I make the distinction between the “trigger” and the “root cause”. As I wrote on another forum:

Pilots know that when the air is unstable, little things like plowed fields or asphalt parking lots can trigger a thunderstorm. But obviously it would be incorrect to say that plowed fields and asphalt parking lots cause thunderstorms; Unstable air causes thunderstorms. When conditions are right, just about anything will set them off. It’s the same with the 2008 crisis. When the financial system is unstable, just about any event will cause it to break down.

The root cause of the worldwide financial crisis is fiat money and too much debt.

Since the creation of the federal reserve, the entire American economy has become debt-based and the denizens of Wall St. and their enablers in government are the pushers of that debt. They make their living not by producing anything tangible, but by skimming fees and drawing interest on “money” that doesn’t really exist. Our former capitalist system where banks would loan out the savings of their customers to productive enterprises ceased to exist long ago. These days when a bank loans “money” (credit, actually), that “money” is created it out of thin air with the help of the federal reserve. That adds to the money supply and inevitably creates inflation.

Even when it has a velvet covering on it Obama’s boot is still on our thoats.
Who remembers the dire warnings from Govs Jindal, Palin and Perry about not accepting Obama’s stimulus money as a way to help states out of budget problems in 2009?
Sure, govs took the money, almost all of them.
But what has been the INTENDED CONSEQUENCE of doing that?
More state reliance on federal dole.
Much more.
And now the federal government isn’t being generous to some states, only to others.
Let’s look at Minnesota…..
REUTERS headline reads:

Minnesota shutdown seen to be lengthy, costly saga

_____________________________
Instead of addressing head-on Minnesota’s longstanding structural deficit problem, they kicked the can down the road by utilizing one-time money and accounting shifts……financial Band-Aids.

The biggest Band-Aid of all?
The federal stimulus funds that propped up state and local governments last biennium

$2.3 billion of ARRA funding included in the Minnesota 2010-11 state budget was not intended as an ongoing program or obligation. Still, some Minnesotans may recall that a number of observers nevertheless warned of the perils of dealing with the deficit the DC way.

“These one-time federal stimulus funds may have helped lawmakers avoid some very painful cuts, but essentially only delayed these difficult decisions,” explained Sen. Gary Kubly, DFL-Granite Falls, at the time. “If we want to help turn this economic relief provided by the ARRA into long-term economic recovery and job growth, lawmakers need to focus on responsibly balancing the state’s budget shortfall.”

Not only is Minnesota failing to reign in spending like the vast majority of other states, but we’re also laying groundwork for future budget cycles to be equally dysfunctional.
The state fiscal aid from the stimulus turned out to be more than just backfilling deficits to keep the lights on.
In some cases it was creating new positions that were supposed to be temporary.
As the federal financial support goes away, the state is left to pick up the tab for employees who are not necessarily getting laid off.

Minnesota taxpayers are being “jobbed” by the perpetuation of supposedly temporary state jobs created under ARRA included in the current 2012-13 budget.

An example, one of the smallest state agencies, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC), received $883,000 in ARRA funding to hire three “temporary electricity specialists.”
They came on board to manage “increased regulatory activity” associated with the uptick in green energy projects and requirements.
As expected, the federal dollars will run out on Dec. 31, 2011.
But at least two of the PUC’s “temporary,” stimulus-funded employees would be among eight “new” positions on the agency payroll under Gov. Dayton’s budget proposal for a $1.5 million increase in the PUC budget. (That’s a 14 percent increase.)

Then there’s the Minnesota Food Assistance Program (MFAP). After stimulus funding ended in 2010, the Legislature boosted the budget an additional $150,000 to continue providing the same level of service in 2011, a permanent expansion of MFAP from $407,000 to $741,000.

Minnesotans will continue to pay a considerable price for the one-time federal stimulus subsidies.
While it’s impossible to assign an exact figure, it’s probably safe to say that the funds necessary to fill the gaps created by the temporary stimulus spending would likely cover the current differential between the governor’s and Legislature’s budget proposals.

Nan G: You’re talking about those Build America Bonds where the federal government borrowed money from China to pay 35% of the interest on Municipal Bonds issued by states and localities. This Minnesota collapse was probably due in part to the termination of the BAB program last year. See: Build America Bonds’ End Poised to Batter Muni Market in Business Week.

Galloway #53 Do you have a clue what the Nasdaq is or the S and P 500? I assure you ALL major indices that gauge the performance of the U.S. STOCK MARKET ARE UP OVER 35% since 1 Jan. 2009.

@rich wheeler:

That’s a straw man rich.

You didn’t address Galloway’s point regarding trading volume.

AYE Straw man? How so ? Volume is heavy on all exchanges like it’s been for many many years. Not a major factor in this bull market. Why would one suggest otherwise?
BTW Felt his comments were very disjunctive. Volume IS READILY ACCESSIBLE on all trades.

@rich wheeler:

Have you looked at the volume figures since Jan ’09?

You might wanna do that because Holloway has a point.

And your argument was a straw man because it didn’t address Holloway’s point.

AYE checked it NYSE VOL per day (in billions) 5.5 2009 4.7 2010 4.6 2008

WOW Since I worked for MLPFS in early 70’S— 20 Million was a big day.

@rich wheeler:

Here’s a handy chart that will help you:

@rich wheeler: Of course they are, RW.
Where else are baby boomers going to tuck away their assets?
In their mattresses?
You can only own so much cash (which is NO HEDGE against inflation) and gold.
Property is a no-go zone.
Stocks are one place where you can hope to beat the bank’s less-than 1% interest rate.
(Oh, you could gamble on Greece with its 26% bond, but….you first.)
Here’s what one business newswire had to say about recent volume:

July 9th, 2011:
Program trading volume dropped steeply on the New York Stock Exchange previous week, to mark a close to halving from the week previous, in accordance with the unit of NYSE Euronext (NYX).

Daily program trading volume in the week finished July 1 summed 579.3 million shares, or 32% of the average daily total of 1.8 billion. A week previously, program trading volume summed 1.1 billion shares, or 45.6% of the average daily sum of 2.42 billion shares.

So, even baby boomers who automatically invest (through programed trading) are slowing their cash to stocks while bonds are looking better.

@ Dr.John & Aye

April 14 1986, Regan called in the airstrike on Libya in retaliation for the West Berlin disco bombing by Qaddafi’s terrorists. In 1988 Libyan terrorists struck again with the “retaliation” bombing of Pan Am flight 103. Three years later (1991) following the investigation by UK’s Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary (with support from the FBI,) indictments for murder were issued against Libyans Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah.

http://history1900s.about.com/od/1980s/a/flight103.htm