Obama- The Empty Suit With The Brooks Bros. Label!

I was eating lunch on the 20th of February with my 5-year-old granddaughter and I asked her, "What day is tomorrow?"

She said "It's President's Day!"

She is a smart kid. So, I asked "What does President's Day mean?" I was waiting for something about Washington or Lincoln ... etc.

She replied, "President's Day is when President Obama steps out of the White House, and if he sees his shadow we have one more year of unemployment."
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More than a year ago, as I began to understand the nature of Obama's economic policies and watch his press for legislation I believed wrong headed, I wrote we were in the eye of the hurricane and, down the road, we would be hit by the hurricane's back side, ie. there was a growing possibility we would experience an economic double dip.

Well it seems the housing aspect of that double dip is upon us and now we have evidence today manufacturing is slowing, unemployment is slowing and obviously consumers are retrenching.

The oppressive weight of oppressive debt is the culprit. This is debt we cannot pay off without belt tightening, something Obama must avoid at all costs because the public will not stand for it. Nor will Obama try to educate the public because he would rather attack Rep. Ryan, obfuscate and mis-characterize. That is what a president does who is focused on winning re-election at any cost. Damn the facts - full speed ahead!

Markets seem to finally be getting the message - Obama is an empty suit with a Brooks Bros label.
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Bill Gross sticks to his guns and warns investors about investing in U.S. paper. Meanwhile, according to this report, housing double dip statistics are not only worse than the '30's but also probably so because more people own or once owned houses.

That said, the market's action today was quite revealing and ominous for Obama and his economic gurus.(See 1 and 1a below.)
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Rep Weiner says it was not his 'wiener' that was shown on the computer and he was very 'hacked off' about the entire affair. (See 2 below.)
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Why is Sara Palin is the elitist's pin cushion?

As I reported about a year ago, I read Palin's autobiography, learned a great deal about what she accomplished as governor and gained more insight into her executive and political credentials. That is not to say she is qualified to be president but considering Obama's performance, the phrase I love:"when all else fails lower you standards" comes to mind and maybe if the shoe fits etc.

Ole Sara, refuses to kowtow to and be defined by the elites. Good for her spunky self! (See 3 below)
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Romneycare and Obamascare - two sick peas in a pod. (See 4 below.)
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Frosty White House meeting made some progress in that it allowed all the party's attending to hear each other out with respect to the 'bridge they must gap or is it the gap they must bridge?'

Republicans admit they will vote for increased debt limits but are standing firm they must be tied to spending cuts. Obama wants to score but is unwilling to present a 'Medicare Plan" that can be scored.

Compromise is in the air and it is all a matter of who folds first.

Republicans, historically are the ones to fold. Will this time be different? Stay tuned.(See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)Pimco's Gross: Treasury Investors to be Boiled Alive

Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross said investors in U.S. Treasurys are being lulled into a false sense of security by positive returns this year because yields aren’t high enough relative to inflation.

Gross, who oversees the world’s biggest bond fund, said bond investors face a similar fate as a frog that remains in a pot of water while the temperature is gradually increased until the amphibian is cooked.

Inflation erodes the value of the fixed payments of bonds over time.

“Much of the Treasury yield curve now rests in negative territory when compared with expected future inflation, and that should send our bond investors into a hopping funk,” Gross wrote in his monthly investment commentary today on Newport Beach, California-based Pimco’s website. “Prices are already nearing the boiling point.”

Treasurys have returned 2.6 percent this year as Gross reduced government and related debt in his $243 billion Total Return Fund to minus 4 percent of assets as of April 30. Gross said governments such as the U.S. are intentionally keeping interest rates lower than they should be to help reduce record debt levels. The fund has returned 0.56 percent in the past month, lagging behind the performance of 77 percent of its competitors, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“Bond yields at least have a mathematical zero bound below which they cannot journey for more than a few nanoseconds,” Gross wrote. “Monetary policy in developed countries has been lowering the temperature and absolute level of yields for the past 2 1/2 years post Lehman Brothers.”

Real Yield

The Federal Reserve has kept its target rate at a record low range of zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008 to help stimulate growth after the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Yields on 10-year notes fell below 3 percent today for the first time since December after ADP Employer Services reported that U.S. companies added fewer jobs in May than economists forecast. With the consumer price index rising 3.2 percent on an annual basis in April, the benchmark note offers investors a so-called real yield of negative 0.20 percentage point.

Gross recommends that investors buy “cheap bonds” and focus on “safe spread,” or buying more floating and fewer fixed-rate notes.

Investors should also add credit components that may include investment grade, high yield, non-agency mortgage, or emerging market related sectors, and increase the non-dollar emerging market currencies portion of their portfolios, he wrote.

Total Return Fund

The Total Return Fund has returned 8.13 percent in the past year, beating 78 percent of its peers, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Gross, the founder and co-chief investment officer at Pimco, has averaged returns of 8.93 percent on average over the past five years, topping 98 percent of his competition.

The fund can have a negative position by using derivatives or futures or by shorting. Shorting is borrowing and selling an asset in anticipation of making a profit by buying it back after its price has fallen.

The firm’s U.S. government-related debt category can include conventional and inflation-linked Treasurys, agency debt, interest-rate derivatives, Treasury futures and options and bank debt backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to the company’s website. Pimco, a unit of the Munich-based insurer Allianz SE, managed $1.28 trillion of assets as of March 31.

© Copyright 2011 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved.

1a)Housing's Latest Double-Dip
New data says it's even worse than the 1930s..Tweet Email Like Share
By BRETT ARENDS


It's official. The house price collapse is now worse than it was during the Great Depression.

That astonishing piece of information comes from the researchers at the think tank Capital Economics.

It follows Tuesday's news from Case-Shiller that house prices fell again in March, as the double dip gets worse.

Capital Economics' senior economist Paul Dales, "On the Case-Shiller measure, prices are now 33% below the 2006 peak and are back at a level last seen in the third quarter of 2002. This means that prices have now fallen by more than the 31% decline endured during the Great Depression."

Hmmm. Recovery? What recovery?

It's yet more proof that the nationwide financial bust is far worse than Wall Street is pretending, and it may be getting worse instead of better.

But try telling that to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, high as a kite in more ways than one above 12,000. What is Wall Street smoking?

Capital Economics says the latest double-dip in housing should come as no surprise. It's very much following a pattern seen in the early 30s, when a brief recovery also petered out. The same has also happened in other big housing busts around the world, the think-tank says. It believes prices are going to fall even further before we hit rock bottom, maybe sometime next year.

The double-dip in housing, which has left nearly 30% of homeowners in negative equity, increases the chances that the Fed may resort to Quantitative Easing III although they will probably call it something else, if only to save their blushes.

In some ways, the collapse in house prices is even deeper than Case-Shiller is telling you.

After all, the official data take no account of inflation. During the Depression we had deflation so while your home was worth fewer dollars, each dollar was more valuable.

Today we have (modest) inflation. If Fed chairman Ben Bernanke gets his way, we'll get a lot more. We probably need it. Compared to wages, housing is now back to levels last seen in the late 1990s (see chart).

And the Case-Shiller data masks huge variations in housing markets. Prices have collapsed many suburbs, exurbs, rural areas, and in well-known disaster sites like Miami, Las Vegas and Phoenix. Meanwhile the declines have been much milder in places like Manhattan or Boston. Some high-end real estate is actually selling well. The buyers have money.

Is there a silver lining to this? Well, maybe.

If you can get the financing, housing is now cheap. Really cheap. Capital Economics reckons housing is now 24% undervalued, and is the cheapest it's been in thirty-five years.

With mortgages rates on the floor, and inflation surely brewing down the road, housing in many parts of the country looks like a good deal. But you'll have to be patient to see the biggest rewards. Capital Economics says, back in the Depression, it took 19 years for house prices to recover to their previous peaks.
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2)Weiner's Penis Photo Dispute To Be Settled In Small Claims Court
By Ann Coulter

Sometimes I wonder if Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., is too nice for his own good.

An evil swine hacks into Weiner's Twitter account and posts an embarrassing photo of spindly legs topped by a small erect penis draped in dingy gray briefs no male over the age of 11 would wear -- and Anthony just wants to forget the whole thing!

Instead of angrily demanding an investigation like anyone else would, Anthony has gone all St. Francis of Assisi on us.

He doesn't want an investigation! How big-hearted is that? Talk about a forgiving nature! He's almost too magnanimous. I wish I had that kind of forbearance.

Maybe he's ready to live and let live, but speaking as one of Anthony's biggest Twitter followers, I am not. Otherwise, Weiner's hacker is just going to go out and hack and hack again.

So while I admire Anthony's selfless refusal to be "distracted" by this issue, I would urge him to reconsider.

Only a full and complete investigation will show that he had absolutely nothing to do with that humiliating photo of the tiny stub of a male organ sent to a 21-year-old coed from his Twitter address last Friday night
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3)Why The Elites Hate Sarah Palin
By Nancy Morgan

The media is in a frenzy and elite pundits are all atwitter. Why? Because Sarah Palin refuses to let them define her. As Palin puts it, "I don't owe the media anything."

The political and media elites on both left and right are rising up in anger at former Governor Sarah Palin. Stories abound, all negative, about this American citizen whose message resonates with ordinary citizens yet doesn't conform to the current political and media template.

By all rights, Palin should be kowtowing to the media. Doesn't she know that? Instead, this upstart dares to ignore the unwritten rules governing political behavior. Palin is playing by her own rules and that just isn't done.

In the elite world of the old media, any contender for public office must give due deference to the unwritten and ever-changing rules of political correctness. The sacred cows of diversity, multiculturalism and social justice cannot be ignored. And the media is the only one allowed to define the issues. (Thereby winning the debate by default)

But Sarah Palin has her own agenda. And whatever her agenda is, it most certainly doesn't fit into the template the media and political elites have insisted upon. This is not only unacceptable, it is downright dangerous.

When Palin resigned as Governor of Alaska, the media immediately defined her decision as a failure to fulfill the obligations of her office. That was only explanation the media allowed the American public to consider. Palin, seeing the writing on the wall after months of negative and scurrilous attacks by the media, rightly deduced that her remaining time in office would be spent countering frivolous legal and media attacks instead of governing. So she quit.

Palin understood that while in public office, one is constrained by politics and media. One must play by certain unwritten rules, rules that would have deliberately silenced or distorted her message. She rightly deduced that she was in a lose-lose situation. She exited the political arena. She refused to play the game, knowing the deck was stacked against her. I call her decision courageous and I applaud her.

Conservative columnist and author Ben Shapiro sums it up best:

"Television made Barack Obama. Television supported bigger and bigger government, from Welfare to health care; pushed abortion-on-demand and the radical gay agenda into the mainstream; it stumped against war and for meaningless buzzwords like diversity and dangerous buzzwords like multiculturalism. Television has done more to change the politics of our nation than simple politics has."


Sarah Palin realizes this. The media is not on her side. And she rightly refuses to give them the ability to define her. She is more than capable of defining herself, through her own words and actions. She has the courage of her convictions and, thanks to social media, the ability to convey them, unfiltered by a hostile press. No wonder the press hates her.

The media, like me, has no idea what Sarah Palin's agenda is. Lacking concrete facts, the media automatically assumes her motives include gaining political power. They have completely overlooked the fact that Palin already has more than enough influence and political power to participate in (and possibly prevail) in our national debate. That this influence is not subject to constraints from either politician or the media is unprecedented. And dangerous.

I believe Palin realizes that real change is almost impossible within the existing political system. It could be argued that right now, Sarah Palin has more ability to influence political outcomes than does the president of the United States. So why should she play by rules that have been set up by those already in power, rules that are designed to keep them in power? Rules that place her at a great dis-advantage.

Palin is like millions of Americans. Americans who are tired of the futile attempts to change the system from within. I believe Palin's goal is the goal of millions - to bring about positive change. And she has found that one does not have to be an elected official in order to do this. She directly threatens the status quo and the good old boy system. If she continues to prevail, she will prove it is possible to be effective working outside the system. And this can not be allowed.

Palin has rightly decided not to kowtow to the media and political elites. Her tactics and message resonate with a large segment of America. The segment that still believes in the greatness of America and the ability of individuals to accomplish the impossible.

Palin proves it is possible to change the system from without. She proves it is possible for one un-elected American to effect real change. Just think what would happen if others decided to follow her example. No wonder the elites hate her.

Nancy Morgan is a columnist and news editor for conservative news site RightBias.com. She lives in South Carolina.
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4) Romneycare Failure, Public Disappointment Bode Ill for Obamacare
By: John R. Graham


When Mitt Romney signed Massachusetts’ health care reform law in 2006, he surely didn’t realize the political consequences down the road.

Many conservative and libertarian observers have expressed frustration at his inability to recognize the negative outcomes that resulted from “Romneycare.” Taxes, costs, and political interference in medical decisions have all increased, while access to medical care has deteriorated.

Jeopardized Solvency

The 2006 reform jeopardized the solvency of private health plans in the Bay State. Unfortunately, insurers’ solvency is not something patients, physicians, and voters have reason to observe closely, so the political class suffers from perverse incentives once it starts micromanaging health insurance. As a result, higher costs have been passed on through higher per capita spending and premium growth.

According to the state’s 2010 annual report, today “per capita spending on health care in Massachusetts is 15 percent higher than the rest of the nation, even when accounting for wages and spending on medical research and education in Massachusetts.” Indeed, Professor John F. Cogan of Stanford University has concluded the 2006 reform led to premium growth 6 percent higher in Massachusetts than in the rest of the United States between 2006 and 2008.

Top-Down Price Controls

Because it was politically intolerable to allow premiums to rise in line with the costs of Romneycare, the state’s insurance commissioner denied 235 of 276 rate increase requests in April 2010. For a short time, no new policies were offered, and plans suffered significant losses. The next month, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state’s largest carrier, announced a $55 million provision for anticipated losses in the second quarter alone.

Of the 12 largest carriers, five were already operating at a loss. At this point, even if the state allows Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts to increase rates in line with medical costs, my analysis concludes the carrier will become insolvent in the vicinity of 2017. Other carriers will soon follow.

Public Disappointed in Romneycare

Five years after Romney signed his law to great fanfare, the people of the Bay State are beginning to recognize that more government control over health care in the name of universal coverage costs more than advertised.

An April poll conducted by Suffolk University and Boston’s WHDH-TV reported that 49 percent of respondents do not believe Romneycare has helped, while only 38 percent believe it is working. And 54 percent said Romney’s signing of the law likely hurt his presidential chances, while only 22 percent believed it helped.

This is a dramatic shift from a July 2008 poll, conducted two years after the law was signed, which showed 69 percent favoring the law and only 22 percent opposed.

It’s now apparent Romney did not give Massachusetts universal private health coverage. Instead, he put the state on a glide-path to a single-payer, government monopoly health system—the same path Obamacare now follows at the national level.


John R. Graham (JGraham@pacificresearch.org) is director of health care studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
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5)Obama, House GOP Talk Budget at 'Frosty' Meeting
By Alexis Simendinger

At the White House on Wednesday, a handful of notions drifted out into the wilting humidity, along with busloads of House Republicans who departed the East Room after a morning meeting with President Obama to discuss deficits and debt.

The lawmakers appeared in no rush to flee as they filed out of the mansion. They walked slowly down the driveway, searching for shade and joking to sweating reporters that they'd enjoyed the "frosty" air indoors. They had just spent 75 minutes squeezed into rows of gilt chairs, facing a head table lined with faces that looked uncomfortably like families at a shotgun wedding.

Obama, seated in the center with a pencil and some notes in front of him, did most of the talking. The House leaders sat to his right. The president's advisers, including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, sat to his left. The president restated his ideas about investing in domestic programs while lowering deficits, without upending Medicare now or later. When Obama paused to listen to his guests, his expression was stern, and he gripped his chin in his fist.

Not a thing was decided.

A separate process of quiet bipartisan budget negotiations continues under Vice President Joe Biden and involving House and Senate lawmakers. The president said the Biden talks have the best chance of producing compromises that will ease GOP resistance to raising the $14.3 trillion ceiling on federal borrowing authority by August. Republicans did not disagree. The Biden talks are to resume June 9 on Capitol Hill, the White House said.

Thanks to notes of the East Room session shared with RCP by Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, and the smart-phone camera skills of executive-branch watchdog Rep. Darrell Issa of California (distribution via Twitter), a rough account of the meeting emerged in short order.

The two sides indicated the following: First, it promises to be a long, hot summer before budget stalemates ease into solid compromises. Second, both sides thought it was useful for Americans to see them getting together. Third, the White House and the Republican majority in the House agree they expect to hike the nation's borrowing authority -- which will be necessary -- before an August deadline. In other words, they plan to agree. And fourth, all sides are worried about bolstering a weak economy and creating more jobs.

Policy agreements? None.

"Primarily, the president spent his time justifying his positions," said Bachmann, who consulted her notes on Obama's remarks, which she'd written with a red pen while sitting with her colleagues. Bachmann plans to announce from her birthplace in Waterloo, Iowa, this month whether she'll challenge Obama for the presidency, as her tea party supporters are urging her to do.

"He was asked directly if he would be putting together a Medicare plan," she continued in an interview. "We said we would not be negotiating with ourselves. We've put a plan out that's score-able. The president was asked directly, ‘Will you have a plan that can be scored by the Congressional Budget Office?' The president is not planning to do that. He is not."


Bachmann recounted an exchange between the president and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Ryan, the author of the CBO-scored deficit reduction plan that would overhaul Medicare, told Obama that the president "and others" had inaccurately described his proposals.

The president, Bachmann said, reading from her handwritten notes, "said that he never questioned Paul's sincerity. The president said the Ryan plan gets savings via subsidy, not keeping up with health care costs. He said you can solve government's problem by not giving the government enough money, but not the states' problem of the fact that the states will run out of money and health care costs will rise. He said that we have to figure out how to get more bang for our buck, and he essentially was re-arguing his ‘Obamacare' bill, and how he's going to find savings in health care."

Lawmakers did not challenge the president's assertion that the health reform law enacted last year will produce budgetary savings that will buoy Medicare's solvency in future years, Bachmann complained. "Even the CBO subsequently said that we won't be saving money in Obamacare; we'll actually be spending more, or [what about] the fact that $500 billion has been taken out of Medicare to go into Obamacare?"

Ryan, who addressed reporters a few feet away, said he told the president that Obama had publicly "mis-described" the Ryan budget plan and its Medicare component. "If we demagogue each other at the leadership level, then we're never going to take on our debt," Ryan said he told the president. "We're not applying the kind of political leadership we need to get this economy growing and get this debt under control."

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney declined to renounce the Medicare "voucher plan" label that so irks Ryan. "It is a voucher plan," Carney repeated. "The issue isn't what you call it, it's the impact that it would have on seniors, an impact that we think is unnecessary."

Despite the well-worn disagreements over health care for seniors, entitlement spending in general, the nation's debt ceiling, raising or lowering taxes, reducing regulatory burdens on small businesses, and the other fiscal land mines that detonated inside the East Room during the discussion, some House members pronounced themselves delighted with the whole experience.

Rep. Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania said his professional training affirmed that the White House tete-a-tete was indeed helpful, including the darts that flew between Obama and Ryan. "It was very good," Murphy said with a grin. "I'm a psychologist. Let me just say, I think it was good for them emotionally. It was good group therapy."

Bachmann said the White House visit was worthwhile (she appeared in one of Issa's Twitter photos, posing with a big smile at her seat before the program began). "We were grateful that the president gave us that opportunity," she told RCP.

Nebraska Rep. Jeffrey Fortenberry said he liked the session so much, he asked the president to invite them back. He imagined an endgame where they agreed in concept to agree on specifics in phases.

"There's no reason not to continue to try to communicate, even where there are key differences," he said. "We might be able to find . . . incremental progress on things like the debt-ceiling limit, where you actually begin to leverage to make structural changes to the budget process, and reduce debt. It would be better to have everything solved all at once, such as entitlement reform, but given the deep philosophical divides, that might be difficult."

Fortenberry said he, too, appreciated Obama's assurances to the Republican conference. "The president continued to stress that he's willing to be open and make compromises and be generous," he said. "Again there are some pointed differences in approach, particularly on entitlement reform. But he stressed, as we believe, the importance of getting the problem of the debt limit solved prior to a dramatic eleventh-hour conclusion."

It's a sure thing: more hot days ahead.


Alexis Simendinger covers the White House for RealClearPolitics. She can be reached at asimendinger@realclearpolitics.com.
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