Obama Is Lighten Rod After Electoral Drubbing, At G-20 Conference

Well what did you expect? The defeated former leader now sees the consequences of what he has purposely done to the American economy thrown in his face:

President Barack Obama defended US efforts to promote growth Thursday as he faced a test of his leadership mettle at a G20 summit heralded by fierce global criticism of American economic policy.Entering the most contentious economic summit yet of his crisis-scarred presidency, Obama was playing the unusual role of lightning rod for foreign anger soon after he was weakened at home by a mid-term election defeat.

The president vowed to continue efforts to ignite the slumbering US economic engine, despite lashing foreign critiques of the Federal Reserve’s plan to pour 600 billion dollars into the US economy.

“In a prudent, stable way, we want to make sure that we are boosting growth rates at home as well as abroad,” Obama told reporters ahead of a summit that is exposing widely differing views on how to sustain the global recovery.

China has led criticism of the Fed’s move, branding it indirect currency manipulation, returning fire after complaints from US officials at what they argue is the artificially low value of the Chinese yuan.

Recovery Summer, Bust

GDP revised down — The Commerce Department on Friday will revise its estimate for economic growth in the April-to-June period and Wall Street economists forecast it will be cut almost in half, to a 1.6 percent annual rate from 2.4 percent. Allegedly, the economy grew 3.7% in the first quarter 2010. And then they revise those estimates again next month, so that is three revisions/estimates that they get to fiddle with, this is the second, before they are supposed to put out the real numbers … We’ll have to wait and see… But with this bunch, don’t count on it.

BTW, 1.6% is barely above tread water. It’s what the socialist-Communist economies of Europe do, 12% unemployment forever, and GDP growth around 0% — year after year.

Communists like Obama are so smart aren’t they? At least they think they are…

Did you know that young people are the most gullible to the Commie Obama sales pitch? Do you know what Keynesian Economics is? Did you know Venezuela is running about a 30% inflation rate? Did you know that in Venezuela, crime is skyrocketing, so high in fact the Hugo Regime forced the state run media in Venezuela to stop reporting on it?

Hey look, I voted for Jimmy CArter, and watched him destroy the economy, so I have some history on how it works.

Meanwhile, here is a look inside at how Keynesian Economics works — it’s not working.

Unexpectedly, Unemployment Stays Low AT a Whopping 9.7% With An Asterisk At the End

The Obama administration was leaking the 9.8% number for days, so we could have an unexpectedly lower ‘rigged number’ of 9.7% to show the dummy people so they rush out and buy stocks. All is fine. Nothing to see here folks, move a long.

I didn’t notice, did the entire world get blizzards, looked to me like it was just focused on the hoaxers home towns.

Let me see, add the unexpectedly revised upward January number of 26,000 to the unexpectedly high February number of 36,000 and we get no change after losing 62,000 more payroll jobs total for two months. I note how unemployment revisions, January is not yet revised to it’s ‘final number’ like the AGW temperature hoax is always biased downwards … But real total unemployment went up 0.3% to now stand at a whopping 16.8%.

Tell me, how does all this magic work when this just happened in February: The U.S. will lose 824,000 additional jobs when the BLS releases its annual revision to employment data on Feb. 5, showing the labor market was in worse shape last year than known at the time.

Here is the U6 numbers now in table on page A-15: Dec – thru Feb 17.3% 16.5% 16.8%. I note the 0.3% increase in February for total unemployed of 16.*%. I bet they hope you don’t. The U-6 number includes everyone in the official rate plus “marginally attached workers” — those who are neither working nor looking for work, but say they want a job and have looked for work recently; and people who are employed part-time for economic reasons, meaning they want full-time work but took a part-time schedule instead because that’s all they could find.

The full BLS report is here.

I see Hugo Chavez at work in Obama’s BLS. It’s strange how the CBO numbers went down right after the Dir met the Chicago thugs in the White House. Weird.

Additional news:

• 9.7%... 36,000 JOBS LOST IN FEB...
• Unemployment Rate Including Discouraged Workers Rose To 16.8%...
• Federal pay ahead of private industry...

Greece: Greek Strike Halts Transport, People Back Reforms

Where America is heading? In two years our debt to GDP will top Greece’s.

A one-day general strike crippled Greece’s transport and public services on Wednesday but is unlikely to halt government austerity measures to tackle a debt crisis that has rocked the euro zone.

As tens of thousands of strikers marched through Athens to protest against EU-prescribed tax hikes and pay cuts aimed at reducing a double-digit deficit, Athens and Berlin traded accusations about World War Two reparations.

And credit ratings agency Standard and Poor’s said it may downgrade Greece’s rating within a month if a deeper than forecast recession makes the government’s steep deficit-cutting target appear hard to achieve.

But what about cuts to government spending, which is the source of the problem.

Obama, Epic FAIL

Just 6% of Americans believe the $787 “porkulus slush fund” boondoggle created or saved any jobs according to a recent New York Times/CBS poll.

Jobs Bill: ie Porkulus II: Reauthorizes The Patriot Act, as is

You never know what is tucked inside the ‘Jobs Bill’. Catchy title, not sure how more government spending is equivalent to more private sector jobs. Too me it’s porkulus II.

PAGE 125–26

18 (a) USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHOR19
IZATION ACT OF 2005.—Section 102(b)(1) of the USA
20 PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005
21 (Public Law 109–177; 50 U.S.C. 1805 note, 50 U.S.C.
22 1861 note, and 50 U.S.C. 1862 note) is amended by strik23
ing ‘‘February 28, 2010’’ and inserting ‘‘December 31,
24 2010’’.

25 (b) INTELLIGENCE REFORM AND TERRORISM PRE26
VENTION ACT OF 2004.—Section 6001(b)(1) of the Intel126
MAT10087 S.L.C.
1 ligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004
2 (Public Law 108–458; 118 Stat. 3742; 50 U.S.C. 1801
3 note) is amended by striking ‘‘February 28, 2010’’ and
4 inserting ‘‘December 31, 2010’’.

I say no, the Patriot Act as is needs to die and be replaced with another re-authorization of something less intrusive. Stimulus Spending II pdf is here.