Kevin Colby: News, culture, political blog

Democrats now want to attach student loan reform to the healthcare bill. I don’t know exactly how student loans go with healthcare but this is how your government works. The democrats continue to make backdoor deals, and add earmarks and pork to the healthcare bill.

These socialist pigs are not only trying to ram healthcare reform down our throats, but they also want to add in other parts of their agenda. We the people need to stand up and fight. Stop letting government dictate to us how we will live our lives and stop letting them bankrupt our country with all this wasteful spending.

Do you want to be in debt to China for the rest of your life? Well apparently the government wants this country to be.

If you’d like to read the entire article, be my guest.

Money strapped states are withholding tax refunds. I say that if you’re money strapped why not try withholding your taxes from the state. This is typical of our government to try and screw us out of money. We need to stand up against this and completely abolish the IRS.

Here are the states in question:
Arizona, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Virgina.

Want to read this in more detail? Here’s the whole article. If you live in these states I hope you are demanding your money now.

So I’m guessing the Obama administration has basically identified Toyota as a terrorist organization since it decided to send the FBI to raid three of Toyota’s electronics suppliers. Do you know what this is really about?

The government owns GM and Chrysler, this is about destroying your major competitor through the deadly force of government. And also Toyota’s factories in the U.S. are non-union which makes GM and Chrysler uncompetitive against Toyota.

We can’t let this socialism and communism continue to destroy the capitalism that has made this country great.

Here’s the disgusting news story.

While our fearless imperial federal government strives to take over the healthcare industry in our country, Great Britain is suffering with the consequences of its nationalized healthcare system. Just this week, an independent inquiry was released that found “shocking” standards of care at an NHS hospital. The deficiencies wereso wide-spread and fundamental that they are not considered isolated incidents.

Way to go nationalized healthcare. Keep failing in other countries while our American Communist Government tries to infiltrate the Unites States with it.

Here’s the horrible story.

This is just like our Federal Government to do. Pretend they care about the people only to take another opportunity to collect money from us. If you smoke you’re going to be punished, but not because they care about your health, but because the government just wants your money.

The Government of the United Stands stands to make billions by raising the price of a pack of cigarettes $1.00.

Read the details. It’s sick what this socialist government is trying to do to this great country.

So what’s the difference between Social Security and Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme? There is no meaningful difference between the two schemes except that one was operated by a private individual who is now in
jail, and the other is operated by politicians who enjoy perks, privileges and status in spite of their actions.

To make it simple, he talked people into investing with him. Trouble was, he didn’t invest their money. As time rolled on he simply took the money from the new investors to pay off the old investors. Finally there were too many old investors and not enough money from new investors coming in to keep the payments going. Next thing you know Madoff is one of the most hated men in America and he is off to jail. Some of you know this, but not enough of you. Madoff did to his investors what the government has been doing to us for over 60 years with Social Security. Ripping us off.

Come on people is it really that hard to figure out how to lower unemployment?

Lowering taxes
Deregulation of industry
Cutting government spending

All of these will increase jobs

In short, we need LESS GOVERNMENT. Obama wants to push more government down our throats and increase spending. All of this increased spending is bankrupting our country.

An article over at Yahoo is exactly what I’ve been talking about for years.

America is showing some slight growth, but, unemployment is at the highest level in decades. Housing prices are continuing on their downward spiral. Even rental apartments are sitting empty.  But yet, Americans feel optimistic and think the country is headed in the right direction:

Housing: The mantra behind every successful real-estate sale has always been “location, location, location.” But in the current recession, that “location” has turned out to be the reason home prices are circling the drain. However, there are tentative signs that the hardest-hit spots may be turning around.

Florida, California and the Las Vegas area are well-known as the ground zeroes of the housing bust. But BusinessWeek is reporting that home sales in some of these areas are actually surging as first-time buyers are taking the plunge, thanks to plunging home prices and low interest rates. Speculators looking to invest are also snapping up foreclosed properties.

Employment: Yes, unemployment has hit its highest level in more than two decades, but more and more employers are looking to the long-term and doing everything they can to avoid layoffs. In order to cut costs, companies are freezing salaries, cutting back hours or temporarily halting 401(k) matching. But some employers are recognizing that laying people off will actually cost them more down the road when they have to replace those workers. From AP:

“If you overshoot on the downside and lay off workers, it puts the company at a disadvantage when the economy comes back to life,” said Sean Snaith, economics professor at the University of Central Florida.

But if you do get laid off and you just bought a home, you might actually be in (a little) luck. Some builders are now offering “layoff insurance” to new home buyers. AP reports that Lennar Corp., a major U.S. builder, will cover the mortgage payments for up to six months if a buyer loses his or her job within two years of purchasing their home.

The perks: Now is definitely a good time to be a consumer. As retailers and businesses are forced to tighten their belts, many are doing everything they can to get people to buy buy buy. Can’t afford happy hour anymore? One enterprising D.C. clothing store is luring customers with free beer, scotch or soft drinks while they shop. Even colleges are getting in on the game: Some private colleges are now slashing their tuition to compete with much-cheaper public universities.

Southwest Airlines, known for its “cattle call” seating and cheap flights, announced it will now be flying in and out of New York’s LaGuardia Airport. JetBlue’s “Promise Program” will refund airline tickets if you lose your job after booking a flight. Mainstreet.com reports that many businesses — gyms, cable companies, even automakers — are offering refunds or reduced fees for the recently unemployed.

But before we get to excited, economists estimate that at least three years would pass before full employment returned and output rose enough for the economy to operate at full throttle.

While stock market investors have embraced tentative signs of improvement in the mortgage market and elsewhere, even a sharp pickup in demand for products and services will take considerable time to play out.

The mathematics are daunting. The shortfall is running at more than $1 trillion in annual sales and other transactions. Only once since the Great Depression has there been such a severe loss of output — in the 1981-82 recession — and after that downturn, it was seven years before the economy regained the lost production.

Recovery from the current recession could be similarly sluggish. New occupants have to be found for empty stores. Factory owners who are hesitant to ramp up production will wait until they are sure of demand. Hiring the right people for an operation will take time. And imports, entering the country in ever greater quantities, will slow any expansion by siphoning sales from domestic producers.

Then there is the growth rate itself. In the six years of recovery from the 2001 recession to the current one, the economy grew at an average annual rate of only 2.5 percent, adjusted for inflation. If that growth rate were to resume, just $350 billion a year would be added back, requiring three years to restore the $1 trillion in lost capacity. But getting the economy to grow at all after so much output has been lost, and so many jobs, is no easy task.

It shows up everywhere. Lawyers are booking fewer hours. Retail space goes begging. Tourism is down. So is cellphone use, airline bookings, freight traffic and household borrowing, which is less than half what it was on the eve of the recession, the Federal Reserve reports.

With orders dwindling, manufacturers are using less than 68 percent of the nation’s factory capacity, the lowest level since records were first kept in 1948. And while entrepreneurs are as inventive as ever, they may not be able to get venture capitalists to bankroll their creations.

President Obama’s solution was the recently enacted stimulus package that spreads $787 billion over two years. So even if every dollar of spending restored a dollar of output, President Obama would be nearing the end of his first term before output approached the level achieved just before the start of the recession in December 2007 according to Robert J. Gordon.  Mr. Gordon, an economist at Northwestern University,  specializes in tracking the gap between actual output and potential output, a k a full capacity.

Some interesting articles to read:

Now here is a real bright idea!  Subprime borrowers may now be able to get a car loan through GMAC thanks to federal bailout money, according to The Detroit News.   This is exactly what happens when your beloved government doesn’t let these companies file for bankruptcy, but instead handout billions upon billions of your hard earned income to these companies so they can make idiot decisions.

On 24 December 2008, the Federal Reserve accepted GMAC’s application to become a bank holding company in order to gain access to billions of dollars in government aid, a crucial attempt to ensure the survival of the company. GMAC is in discussions with the Federal Reserve on accessing TARP related funding to resume providing auto financing to the American consumer, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

I guess we haven’t learned our lesson yet.  You don’t give dirtbags any type of loans!  This is like going back to the future with the lowered lending standards that got us in trouble in the first place across so many credit markets.

Applicants with credit scores of less than 620 will now be considered. Of course, if you have terrible problems with credit, it’s probably not a good idea to take on a long auto loan.

It’s clear this is happening right now because car sales were absolutely decimated last month. GM sales were down 45%; Chrysler was down 39%; Toyota was down 39%; and Honda was down 36%. The auto market overall was down an average of 37%.

So the nearly $6 billion made available by the government is being used to make loans to people who may not be able to pay them back — all in an effort to try to move cars that aren’t selling off dealer lots.

This is a really bad freaking idea.  The answer to the lack of demand for these cars is not to go to the subprime market because these people in a very short time will not be able to make the payment and these cars will be coming back through repossession.