Geithner slams Brady.
November 22, 2009.
Mister Brady has nerve! Mr Kevin Brady is a republican, who told Tim Geithner at a hearing of the U.S. congress Joint Economic Committee, that he should step down, because the government's economic policy is a failure (oh well, that is Brady's opinion).
Let's have a look at reality now. Just before Obama became president, the economy was in a tail-spin. It is correct to state that the U.S. economy was falling off the cliff. The first responsible people here were George W. Bush (at that moment president of the U.S.A.), Alan Greenspan (a long-time supporter of unfettered capitalism and former chairman of the Federal Reserve), Christopher Cox (republican), chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission, Phil Gramm and most other republican members of congress, among them mister Brady.
Now, these guys, the guys who burned down the house, are complaining that ten months later, after Geithner and others managed to extinguish the fire, the house hasn't been totally rebuilt yet. It is outrageous.
If the republicans would be in power, we would be in the middle of the second Great Depression. That is why it is such a good thing that they are in the opposition. But even as an opposition party they are screwing up big time. The only thing that they have shown over the last ten months, is that the GOP has become an obstructionist party. They didn't deliver anything positive.
It looks as if they want the U.S.A. to fall off the cliff, because then Obama will fall too. It looks as if they like it when there are millions of people out of work. Maybe they think that what is bad for America is bad for Obama and good for the GOP. Do these people know what shame is?.
When will the moderates take back the Republican Party? Or do they have to start their own party?
FOX is not trying to mislead the public. It is just a regrettable mistake.
November 19, 2009
For the second time in about a week FOX news made the same "mistake". Again the "news" channel used old footage that gives the viewer the impression that there was a huge turn out. This time it was about Sarah Palin's book tour.
And this time they used 2008 campaign footage.
A week ago "Hannity " used old footage that showed huge crowds at the Bachman protest meeting in Washington.
Both times the channel had to apologize for the "mistake".
Take a look at this video from The Daily Show:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage | ||||
| ||||
Reagan's approval rate was lower.
11-9-2009
According to the republicans Obama has failed. The unemployment rate went up to 10.2 %, the highest rate since 1983 and Obama's approval rate was only 51% at the end of October (Gallup).
According to FOX News and the tea baggers ("WE THE PEOPLE"), everybody who voted for him is now sorry about that.
Now let's go back in time and have a look at the performance of their favorite president. In january 1983, the year that unemployment was even higher than this year, Ronald Reagan was two years in office.
His approval rate was 35% (Gallup). The unemployment rate was 10.5%. In the year before, 1982, the unemployment rate was 11%.
One more step. Will it pass? Or will it fail?
Don't worry about Joe Lieberman; he has a gold-plated health insurance paid for by the government.
LINK:http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/11/08/obama-now-up-to-senate-to-complete-work-on-health-care-bill/
Did Lieberman Just Kill the Public Option?-Slate
Maybe that will rally the angry mob one more time?
See:Palin returns to 'death panels'-Politico.com
Wisconsin Dells
Just a picture from a beautiful place in Wisconsin
Momentum for the GOP? Hmmmm...
11-6-2009
Some striking details in the off-year elections from last week were:
- Bloomberg won the race for mayor of New York city only with a small margin, despite spending one hundred million dollars in campaign money. Five times as much as his opponent, who hardly had any name recognition.
The polls predicted an easy victory for Bloomberg, but they were dead wrong. Bloomberg won 51% of the vote, and Thompson 46%. In fact Bloomberg bought the electoral victory. Quite disgusting
And then there was also the fact that he managed to have the term limit changed, which made it possible to get elected for a third term.
- In Virginia as well as in New Jersey, the winners were moderate republicans. Both were not stressing the social issues, but were mainly talking about the economic problems. - In New York district 23 there was a struggle between the moderate candidate Dede Scozzafava and the conservative tea party wing of the GOP. The tea partiers supported the conservative Doug Hoffman, who represented the Conservative Party of New York. Scozzafava stepped out of the race and threw her support to the Democratic candidate Bill Owens. Owens won the congressional election..
Two gubernatorial races won by the republicans.
November 3, 2009.
Well, Virginia was no surprise at all, and in New Jersey the race is always close.
In national elections New Jersey generally votes democratic. Since Clinton's victory in 1992 New Jersey has always voted for the Democratic presidential candidate.
The last time that a New Jersey republican won a U.S. senate seat was in 1972!
But yes, it is definitely a setback for Obama.
Link: GOP sweeps gubernatorial races, Democrat wins in N.Y. 23 - Politico.com
Economic stimulus plans work.
October 30, 2009
France introduced a stimulus plan of 26.6 Euro in februari of this year. At the end of June it had spent 25%. Half august it had spent 65% of the stimulus amount. The French economy also has the advantage of built in automatic economic stabilizers, because the social safety net in European countries is in general more generous than in the United States.
Germany's parliament approved a 50 billion stimulus package in februari 2009 after an initial stimulus package of 31 billion Euro in 2008. Both France and Germany came out of recession in the second quarter of 2009.
China is implementing a stimulus plan of almost 600 billion dollars, and reported a growth rate of 8.9 % over the third quarter.
In the USA real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the third quarter of 2009. An on-going problem is of course unemployment, which reached a rate of 9.8%.
Current-dollar personal income decreased $15.5 billion (0.5 percent) in the third quarter, in contrast to an increase of $19.1 billion (0.6 percent) in the second.
Link for the USA economic numbers:Bureau of Economic Analysis - National Economic Accounts
Right-wing forwards
October 29, 2009
There is someone out there who gets the same kind of mails from his right-wing dad. He started a right-wing forward web museum.
Myrightwingdad.net
Index of economic freedom
October 27, 2009
Iceland, wasn't that country ranked number five on the 2006 index of economic freedom published by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation?
MacDonalds closes in Iceland as economy shrinks - GhanaBusinessNews
Welcome to America!
October 19 2009.
And still many Americans are against health care reform.
He's in the Army now Wife�s cancer prompts man to enlist - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Free Market Capitalism.
October 14, 2009
"If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it." Woodrow Wilson
How big the power of the health insurance industry really is, became abundantly clear when the Medicare prescription drug bill passed congress. The bill was actually written by the lobbyists of the insurance companies.
See this CBS 60 minutes documentary from 2007
But not only the influence on congressional level is alarming.
In some states insurance companies have a near-monopoly, which gives them the power to set prices.
The health insurance market in the USA is NOT a Free Market.
According to an article on the Kaiser foundation web site about an AMA (American Medical Association) study from 2006 on mergers in the health insurance industry:
�(�) each of 43 states studied was measured as having a "high" market concentration. North Dakota was among the states with the highest market concentrations, with about 90% of its market controlled by the state's Blue Cross Blue Shield provider (Dow Jones/Baltimore Sun, 4/18). Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama controlled more than 90% of the market in parts of Alabama (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 4/18). AMA said there have been more than 400 health care insurance mergers during the past decade. Health insurers following consolidations have "presumably eliminated duplicative functions [but] they're not passing the savings in personnel and administrative costs on to consumers," Dow Jones/Sun reports. Rate increases are slowing, but they "are higher than ever and growing at a near double-digit pace," Dow Jones/Sun reports. AMA said it raised antitrust issues with DOJ, which it said did not express interest in pursing the matter, Dow Jones/Sun reports (Dow Jones/Baltimore Sun, 4/18).�
See: Mergers Among Health Insurers Limiting Consumers' Choice of Care, Providers, AMA Study Says
It is hard to be a right-wing republican these days.
October 12, 2009
Read: Heckuva Job, Barack.
Wasn't it George Bush who said that? Heckuva job, Brownie?
It's hard to get over it, isn't it?
Michael Steele seems to have a problem too: RNC, DNC feud over Barack Obama's Nobel Prize_Politico
Sarah Panel decides to try the fear-monger button again
Maybe that will rally the angry mob one more time?
See:Palin returns to 'death panels'-Politico.com
Wisconsin Dells
Ain't that nice?
Momentum for the GOP? Hmmmm...
11-6-2009
Some striking details in the off-year elections from last week were:
- Bloomberg won the race for mayor of New York city only with a small margin, despite spending one hundred million dollars in campaign money. Five times as much as his opponent, who hardly had any name recognition.
The polls predicted an easy victory for Bloomberg, but they were dead wrong. Bloomberg won 51% of the vote, and Thompson 46%. In fact Bloomberg bought the electoral victory. Quite disgusting
And then there was also the fact that he managed to have the term limit changed, which made it possible to get elected for a third term.
- In Virginia as well as in New Jersey, the winners were moderate republicans. Both were not stressing the social issues, but were mainly talking about the economic problems. - In New York district 23 there was a struggle between the moderate candidate Dede Scozzafava and the conservative tea party wing of the GOP. The tea partiers supported the conservative Doug Hoffman, who represented the Conservative Party of New York. Scozzafava stepped out of the race and threw her support to the Democratic candidate Bill Owens. Owens won the congressional election..
Two gubernatorial races won by the republicans.
November 3, 2009.
Well, Virginia was no surprise at all, and in New Jersey the race is always close.
In national elections New Jersey generally votes democratic. Since Clinton's victory in 1992 New Jersey has always voted for the Democratic presidential candidate.
The last time that a New Jersey republican won a U.S. senate seat was in 1972!
But yes, it is definitely a setback for Obama.
Link: GOP sweeps gubernatorial races, Democrat wins in N.Y. 23 - Politico.com
Economic stimulus plans work.
October 30, 2009
France introduced a stimulus plan of 26.6 Euro in februari of this year. At the end of June it had spent 25%. Half august it had spent 65% of the stimulus amount. The French economy also has the advantage of built in automatic economic stabilizers, because the social safety net in European countries is in general more generous than in the United States.
Germany's parliament approved a 50 billion stimulus package in februari 2009 after an initial stimulus package of 31 billion Euro in 2008. Both France and Germany came out of recession in the second quarter of 2009.
China is implementing a stimulus plan of almost 600 billion dollars, and reported a growth rate of 8.9 % over the third quarter.
In the USA real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the third quarter of 2009. An on-going problem is of course unemployment, which reached a rate of 9.8%.
Current-dollar personal income decreased $15.5 billion (0.5 percent) in the third quarter, in contrast to an increase of $19.1 billion (0.6 percent) in the second.
Link for the USA economic numbers:Bureau of Economic Analysis - National Economic Accounts
Right-wing forwards
October 29, 2009
There is someone out there who gets the same kind of mails from his right-wing dad. He started a right-wing forward web museum.
Myrightwingdad.net
Index of economic freedom
October 27, 2009
Iceland, wasn't that country ranked number five on the 2006 index of economic freedom published by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation?
MacDonalds closes in Iceland as economy shrinks - GhanaBusinessNews
Welcome to America!
October 19 2009.
And still many Americans are against health care reform.
He's in the Army now Wife�s cancer prompts man to enlist - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Free Market Capitalism.
October 14, 2009
"If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it." Woodrow Wilson
How big the power of the health insurance industry really is, became abundantly clear when the Medicare prescription drug bill passed congress. The bill was actually written by the lobbyists of the insurance companies.
See this CBS 60 minutes documentary from 2007
But not only the influence on congressional level is alarming.
In some states insurance companies have a near-monopoly, which gives them the power to set prices.
The health insurance market in the USA is NOT a Free Market.
According to an article on the Kaiser foundation web site about an AMA (American Medical Association) study from 2006 on mergers in the health insurance industry:
�(�) each of 43 states studied was measured as having a "high" market concentration. North Dakota was among the states with the highest market concentrations, with about 90% of its market controlled by the state's Blue Cross Blue Shield provider (Dow Jones/Baltimore Sun, 4/18). Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama controlled more than 90% of the market in parts of Alabama (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 4/18). AMA said there have been more than 400 health care insurance mergers during the past decade. Health insurers following consolidations have "presumably eliminated duplicative functions [but] they're not passing the savings in personnel and administrative costs on to consumers," Dow Jones/Sun reports. Rate increases are slowing, but they "are higher than ever and growing at a near double-digit pace," Dow Jones/Sun reports. AMA said it raised antitrust issues with DOJ, which it said did not express interest in pursing the matter, Dow Jones/Sun reports (Dow Jones/Baltimore Sun, 4/18).�
See: Mergers Among Health Insurers Limiting Consumers' Choice of Care, Providers, AMA Study Says
It is hard to be a right-wing republican these days.
October 12, 2009
Read: Heckuva Job, Barack.
Wasn't it George Bush who said that? Heckuva job, Brownie?
It's hard to get over it, isn't it?
Michael Steele seems to have a problem too: RNC, DNC feud over Barack Obama's Nobel Prize_Politico
Fortunately there are also other voices in the GOP: GOP's King: Let's Be Smarter