Before you get to excited, however, consider some underlying distress points and opinions of experts that may not share Obama's optimism:
- David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor's, speaking about the housing industry: "After a prior three years or accelerated decline, the past two years has been a story of a housing market that is bottoming out but has not yet stabilized. The pick-up in the economy has simply not been strong enough to keep home prices stabilized. If anything it looks like we might have reentered a period of decline as we begin 2012."
- Sean Remona, economist at 4Cast Ltd., also speaking about the housing industry: "House prices are continuing to be very weak even though we have seen some leveling off on the activity side of the data. It will take some time for that relatively positive activity to filter in to prices, but at the same time we are still looking at foreclosure issues, distressed properties and low absolute levels of activity. It is really a tough market for these prices to make any progress."
- Nouriel Roubini, famous New York University economist, on the Iran crisis: "If there's an effect on the supply of oil and gas from the Gulf, and production and exports from Iran go for a while to zero, oil could go to $170, $180, $200 a barrel. If you think about the last three major global recessions, they were all caused by a geopolitical shock in the Middle East that led to spike in oil prices. The higher those oil prices are, the higher the chance that has a negative effect on consumer confidence, on disposable income, and on the economy. And it's not just in the U.S. — the price of oil is very high in Europe and in many other parts of the world."
- Meredith Whitney, Wall Street analyst: "You have Stockton (Calif.) that is on the brink of bankruptcy. You have five cities, including Detroit, which are on the brink of insolvency. It's fascinating, because there's been so much back-room political maneuvering to keep these cities from going bust. So there's been every effort on the part of the states to prevent this tidal wave of defaults, which is going to happen sooner or later. It's happening at an accelerating pace."
- Charles Goyette, author of 'Red and Blue and Broke All Over,' on the high potential of inflation: "I'm afraid the stage is already being set right now and it's certainly a high inflation crisis. You can see the incipient signs of rising prices in all kinds of areas. A good portion of that excess liquidity has ended up in commodities markets, which has sent crude and food prices rising. These things don't start going up because of the phases of the moon or because of the weather. The rises in commodities prices across the board is a result of the Federal Reserve trying to monetize the deficit and give the politicians cover for their irresponsible spending by printing the money to cover it up so we don't have to go out and borrow it."
- Congressional Budget Office findings from its latest economic reviews find that: 1) Federal spending will consume record levels of resources as a share of the economy, reaching nearly one-quarter of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022 and 2) without tax increases, tax revenue would still reach its historical average, but uncontrolled spending would outpace revenue. This would push Federal debt to levels that the CBO calls “unsupportable.”
- David M. Walker, former U.S. Comptroller General and current CEO of the Comeback America Initiative, on the United States' debt problem: "We’re about two years away from where Greece was when it had its debt crisis."
- Mort Zuckerman, publisher, on the apparent good news on stock market and other "illusions: "The prospect of prosperity all this engenders is an illusion. The U.S. economy has never really emerged from the Long Recession. Despair has opinion in its grip — despair about leadership, especially the no-no, party-line Congress, which has no room for an independent-minded centrist like Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who recently announced her retirement. Nor does the public have the faith it had nearly four years ago in the ability of the man with the ultimate responsibility: the President."
Which really was not that great when it comes to the unemployment rate estimates. In the month of January, every week the government reported that over 350,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits for the first time. Official government numbers, not Republican numbers, not Fox News numbers, not tea Party numbers. Thus, at least 1.4 million American filed for unemployment benefits for the first time in January.
The government also reported that about 240,000 jobs were created in January. It is probably a safe assumption that most of the 1.4 million first time filers had recently lost their jobs. Somehow, though, the Obama administration computed that the nation's unemployment rate actually went DOWN significantly in January. Makes no sense that you can have almost six times as many people file for unemployment benefits than get a newly created job but have the unemployment rate go down.
So even the good news about the economy might not be good news, it might just be election year shenanigans. Compare this illusion with the hard bad news listed above and you cannot but conclude that the political class in Washington has no clue to how to manage the economy. That is why we have over 40 million Americans on food stamps, we have well over 10 million Americans unemployed or under employed, anemic overall economic growth, and almost default levels of national debt.
If you put together the numbers cited above, stir in the landmines the experts foresee, and sprinkle in the failed economic programs of this administration (Cash For Clunkers, Economic Stimulus Program, Solyndra, etc.), you realize that we, as a nation, are in a serious economic hole, a hole determined and dug out by our current political class. An old sports saying goes, "You are only as good as your record." And this is the record of this administration in particular and the American political class in general.
To start climbing out of this hole, the following steps should be the first rungs on that ladder:
- This November, vote out all incumbents. They are only as good as their lousy fiscal and economic record and it is time to start anew with fresh people in Washington. New faces could at least give us a hope of true economic change, a reality we will not get with the incumbents who are "only as good as their abysmal record."
- Longer term, we need to implement Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." Step 39 would implement term limits for all Federal politicians. Allowing our current politicians to stay in Washington ten, twenty, thirty years or more is obviously not working.
- We also need to implement Step 1 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." This step would reduce government spending by 10% a year for five years in order to quickly reduce out of control government spending in an orderly way. We have previously shown how to get $9 TRILLION (see the following link for the details: http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/02/united-states-of-purple-presidency-plan.html) of debt out of our lives so 10% reduction a year is very doable. Unless we get our economic and fiscal affairs in order and reduce our debt, the country's demise is all but determined. (what could happen under this plan already happened after World War II and it was prosperity, details at http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/03/why-obamas-economic-policies-are-dead.html)
- And finally, we need to implement an independent audit of the Federal Reserve Board. The Fed is basically accountable to no one, a situation that could certainly be abusive to the concept of freedom, a government agency answerable to no one. We need to more fully understand the workings and secrets of the Fed since their actions probably have the most potential for disaster, especially in the area of inflation.
We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:
http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/
The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.
The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/
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