Archive for the ‘gross domestic product’ Category
Obama Is Out Of His Depth And Drowning
It’s becoming clearer every day that more and more Americans believe that the Obama administration is trying to do too much too fast, and that much of what the administration wants to do, is not want the majority wants it to do.
American’s attitudes and behavior have changed significantly over the last two years, and the consumer culture of buy more now and pay for it later, which historically drove the U.S. economy is fast being replaced by one of pay off debts and save more.
A Rasmussen poll dated September 21, shows that;
a) 39% believe that cutting the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term should be Obama’s number one priority.
b) 27% rate health care reform as the most important issue.
c) 15% put their emphasis on development of new sources of energy.
d) 14% believe that ensuring that every child has access to a complete and competitive education should get the most attention.
The Administration apparently has little interest in giving the majority of Americans what they want, which is what democracy is all about, and is determined to ram its mostly extremist left wing policies down a more and more unwilling America’s throat.
What Don’t The Majority Of Americans Agree With?
1) The Stimulus Package.
2) Health Care
3) Cap On Trade
4) Cash For Clunkers
5) Afghanistan
6) Iran
7) The Betrayal Of Poland And The Czech Republic.
N.B. #6 will most likely start and arms race, and we might even see Japan developing nuclear weapons within a few months. If allies can no longer depend on the U.S. then they’d better start protecting themselves and who can argue with that?!
Not bad for a new kid on the block, and his latest move which was to add a 35% tariff on tires from China has not only upset the Chinese, which America depends on right now, but will most likely trigger a global trade war, and all to please a union.
Is Obama Out Of His Depth?
You can almost hear the glug, glug, glugs!
So Back To The Deficit – And The Administration’s Solution
The U.S. deficit quadrupled from $459 billion in 2008 to $1.85 trillion in 2009 and it has gone from 3.2% of gross domestic product to 13.1%. which is twice the post-World War II record of 6% in 1983 under President Reagan.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the deficit will run for a decade and will exceed $1.2 trillion in 2019.
If they’re right, and it will probably be worse, by 2019, the United States will have almost doubled its national debt which will be over $17 trillion.
And it might be better not to even look at what happens after 2019, because 2019 is when the peak wave of baby boomers move into their retirement years, and when costs will soar for the major entitlements, namely Social Security and Medicare.
If Obama and his Czars don’t understand the implications of the above, then maybe they should read what the, Government Accountability Office estimates, "That by 2040, interest payments will absorb 30% of all revenues, and entitlements will consume the rest, leaving nothing for defense, education or veterans’ pensions"!
The Obama administration’s seemingly crazy answer to the problem, is to spend much more money that it doesn’t have in the hope that the Chinese, Japanese and others will continue to bail it out, which of course they won’t.
A recent Chinese delegation to the U.S. surprised Congressman who thought that the Chinese had come to talk about trade, which was not the reason.
They asked about Health Reform, and when asked, "What do you want to know about it?’, the reply was, "Who’s going to pay for it?", which caused a shockwave, because the Chinese had never questioned internal U.S. policies before.
Seems like China isn’t ready to fund Obama’s health care to the tune of $1 trillion plus, on top of the $2 trillion that they’re already owed, and who can blame them.
The bottom line is, that most of Main Street believes than the U.S. government must do what it is doing, reduce its debts and tighten its belt, and if the Administration doesn’t listen then it will be taught a strong and growing lesson next year.
Americans have recently learned that too much mortgage debt on their homes, and too much credit card debt means that you end up getting buried, or drowned, and it now seems that politicians must play catch-up and understand it too!
If they don’t then the U.S. is looking at,
1) Skyrocketing interest rates.
2) A crash in the value of the dollar.
3) A dramatic erosion of America’s financial standing.
4) Even higher deficits.
5) Higher taxes.
Only 35% of Americans now say that the U.S. is heading in the right direction, 59% say they are angrier now than under Bush, and 67% say that they could do a better job on the economy than Congress.
And given the facts, one would have to agree with them!
Updated – 09/23/09 6:53 AM EDT
The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll asked respondents, "Would you prefer to see next year’s elections result in a Congress controlled by Democrats or a Congress controlled by Republicans?".
The result?
48% said they would prefer Democrats in control, and 45% said Republicans, and that three-point Democratic lead is down from seven points lead in July and nine points from April.
In June 2008, the Democrats held a massive 19-point lead held over Republicans, so in less than a year and a half, the Democratic margin has fallen from 19 points to 3!
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Latest reports show that America’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) shrank my 6.2% in the last quarter which was not only worse than government projections but made it the biggest drop since 1982, and separate figures showed further drops in consumer confidence and business activity.
GDP had been predicted to fall by 3.8 in the last quarter and the 2.4% adjustment was close to five times the size of the average adjustment.
Consumer spending dropped by a 4.3% annual rate last quarter which was the worst since 1980 and it fell at a 3.8% pace during the previous three months making it the first time that purchases dropped by more than 3% in successive quarters since record-keeping began in 1947.
The U.S. economy expanded by a meager 1.1% during 2008 helped by exports and government tax rebates during the first six months which offset the huge slump in consumer spending that took place in the following six months.
Companies trimmed their inventories by a $19.9 billion annual rate during the last quarter instead of expanding them by $6.2 billion as had been predicted, and business purchases of new equipment fell by 29% which was the biggest reduction since 1958.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “The GDP figure denotes that the economy continued to deteriorate throughout the quarter and that acceleration got even greater”, and ‘Fed Chairman’ Ben S. Bernanke said earlier this week that, ” the U.S. economy is in a severe contraction” and added that, “the recession may last into 2010 unless policy makers can stabilize the financial system.
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