Someone Cue "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life"...

Reps. Jeb Hensarling and Paul Ryan take to the WSJ Op-Ed pages to tell us exactly what I've been telling the highly select audience of NBfPB for months now like a bloody broken record (like here for example). It is almost as if they've been reading this blog! That, or the conclusions are so self-evident that that normal, halfway intelligent people (but just not Democrats) can separately diagnose our economic ills and come to the same conclusion. Even annoying, liberal WSJ reporter Gerry Seib can see the yawning gap that has grown between Washington, the Obama administration and the business community and can figure out that businesses won't hire when they are getting crapped all over and massive uncertainty over damaging legislation hangs in the air. (Although Gerry goes on to draw some silly conclusions such as "Obama crapping on businesses hurts education" and "Obama crapping on business hurts the deficit." Clueless.)

I saw all this and made a prediction about 10% unemployment and I was right. Based on what I have seen the last few months I am upping the ante - employment will hit 12% in Obama's first term. It may even hit 11% by the midterm elections next year. By mid-year next year updates to the deficit picture will make the current horror show look rosy. Americans will be shocked to their core when they see the state of our nation's finances come the second half of 2010. Similarly, one or two large states (New York and California most likely) will have a fiscal crisis that is akin to bankruptcy, although states technically can't really go bankrput. Meanwhile the healthcare bill will have passed amid raging anger among the populace. Afghanistan will remain a stalemate and the KSM trial will be getting underway in NYC. I wish it were otherwise, but I fear Carter-era malaise will arrive in full force this time next year. Forget about the political ramifications, those are small potatoes. I fear social unrest. The clashes at UCLA earlier this week may be just the beginning. Hold on tight America.

N.B. I am a incurable optimist by nature and I have believed, up until now, that we would right our ship using the highly flexible corrective mechanisms of our democracy. I no longer feel that way. Metaphorically, I think we are having another national bout of alcoholism - drunk on unreality - and we'll need to hit rock bottom before we can reverse course. Sorry, folks, but when DB turns pessimistic, it's bad.

Cooking the Climate Books???

I have said that the current conventional wisdom about "global warming' - that the earth is warming due to man's activities and that this will be negative - is almost assuredly going to be proven wrong in time. I have every confidence that when I am a grey, old man, the world will simply not believe the AGW theory anymore and we will view our past obsession as a foolish daliance. News out today makes me that much more confident in my prediction. Question is, how much damage will have wrought between now and then.

Government War on Female Health

First mammograms and now this. Why does the federal government hate women?

But their won't be any "death panels" folks...just panels that won't let you screen for things that can kill you.

This puts me in mind of my predictably doctrinaire liberal neighbor who goes on on about all the great things Barack Obama has/is/will done/doing/do for women. Yeah, this is great for women!

Most Honest Man in America Strikes Again!

There has been no Big Blue gridiron glory worthy of recognition of late, but that doesn't mean we can't continue to honor this season's talisman, The Most Honest Man in America, Doug Elmendorf.

Elmendorf's Congressional Budget Office has exposed the fraudulent claims of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi's budgetary three card monty regarding the costs of the socialist healthcare takeover legislation that they are ramming through.

Don't Be Fooled

This statement by Obama can best be recast as "I am going to raise your taxes for your own good."

Buyer's Remorse Is The Buyer's Problem, Not the Product's

I will repeat, the shocker is not that he is alienating the public, but that anybody ever thought that he wouldn't alienate the public. If you thought otherwise, you need to reevaluate your political sophistication. The inferior and/or expensive product never regrets being bought. In our case the product is both inferior and expensive.

In So Many Words: Lying About Their Crappy Bill

Dean of Harvard Medical School: 'The Democrats' health bill is a disaster...oh, and they are lying through their teeth about it.' (Here.)

UPDATE: Roger Simon calls it a "haymaker" and it would be if our overlords hadn't already decided on how our lives ought to be based on their utopian vision of the world...so unfortunately one of the most knowledgable and relevant commentators we could possibly hope to hear from will go unheeded. This is your government, America. Enjoy it!

Rolling the Dice With Our Lives...

Hey Guys! No need to have wifey, sis or mom have one of those expensive mammograms! A federal panel says so and, really, just think of what we can do with all that money! WooHoo! Money Money Money MOE-NAY!

No Exemption For Having Good Intentions Kiddies

If having no job and no prospects and having to live at home with Mom & Dad doesn't get the Obama-loving college-age set to rethink their naive "progressivism", maybe a little petty tyranny that hits close to home just may. Perhaps this or this may prompt them to think what their adult lives may look like if they persist believing the naive utopian pap that they spout and keep electing socialists.

More Stimulus Propaganda

This is a clear example, not of deep-seated structural imcompetence, but just a mental error. Clearly they meant to say that stimulus spending saved jobs in Arizona's 9th arrondissement!

Green Euro Zealots Unfair to US's Dear Leader

I do alot of bashing of our less than amateur President on this blog, justifiably so in my opinion, but I will come to his defense in this instance. This is deeply unfair to him and a scandalous libel. The Europeans are blaming the failure of the world accepting their climate neuroses on President Obama as a matter of convenience because they cannot accept a) the preposterousness of their own desires, or 2) their own impotency to lead on the issue. The forces arrayed against the global warming (oops, climate change) zealots' desires to control us are too vast, too diffuse and too grounded in basic hard realities to be layed at the feet of Barack Obama. You can read my various analyses here. There is much much much to criticize Obama over, but his failure to make a success of Copenhagen is not a justifiable criticism. Still, I am enjoying the irony of Obama getting bitten by the forces of unreasonable, intolerant environmentalism.

The Job Market Vigilantes Show Their Faces

Here is another big time CEO (in case you missed the first one. Or hell, take your pick of these CEOs) telling us that he ain't hiring in the US anytime soon. It's all about overseas baby. There is a reason for that. I hit this theme as early as last July with my classic post "Job Market Vigilantes."

Wow, Who Woulda Thunk It?

Seems as if John Corzine had the most powerful person in the world in his corner before election day. Umm, that's gotta be worth something...

So Depressing You Have No Choice But to Laugh

"All that’s missing by way of red flags at this point is a Bin Laden tattoo on his ass. "

Amateur In Chief

Hey Genius, no war is "open-ended" that is won. It is only the stalemates that...oh, forget it.

Sheesh, this is our Harvard-educated President! Hardly a surprise though.

Obama Corporate Relocation Watch

1. Tim Horton's
2. ENSCO International

(and these are only the ones that come across my radar based on what I cover)

N.B. Told ya' so.

Finally...Big Time CEO: Washington Is Killing Jobs

This is EXACTLY what I have been saying for months. It is not about stimulus or interest rates, it is about government with its foot on the throat of American business and pressing down harder every day. Note Farr said they are looking to expand (that means "hire") overseas. Where have I heard that before? This is so patently obvious it is amazing that the press can still waste its time interviewing clueless academic economists who look at aggregates and metrics and yadayadayada. Business confidence drives employment in this country and it is at an all-time low right now because they are being attacked by a powerful, adversarial political class in Washington DC.

...and good for David Farr for speaking out. This, clueless liberals (or "progressives" or whatever the hell else you are calling yourselves these days), is speaking truth to power.

Hey Larry Kudlow (and I know you're reading), here is a suggestion: dispense with the annoying filler debates between Steve Leisman and Michael Pento and book David Farr on your show to reprise this truth-telling for your audience.

EXTRA: Here is a different flavor, an excellent one at that, of the same theme.

UPDATE: I wonder if CEO David Farr will be invited to Obama's "jobs summit" along with those labor unions and non-profits!!!??? I'll say it again, this is what we get and what we deserve having elected a man with no private sector experience to address a serious economic challenge. Why anybody thought Obama had what it takes to address our economic challenges is a bloody mystery of historical proportions.

Thoroughly Predictable News Item of the Day

Time for another "I told ya' so". Two in fact. Today brings news that the big guns brought in to rescue firms for the benefit of the taxpayers who are now on the hook, say that they can't attract anybody to work for them given the government's vindictive and shortsighted pay czar bullcrap. Both Whitacre at GM and Benmosche at AIG point out the problem - no one wants to work hard for less than they are worth elsewhere and no one wants to work where the government is questioning and overruling every little decision.

Distilling the Evidence and Concluding In Plain Language

It is really hard to get away from the creeping realisation based on mounting evidence - the latest being this, added to all this, oh, and THIS and many others - that our President has a towering ego and not just a lack of sensitivity but a programatic desire to avoid sensitivity. In other words, our President is a giant ass.

UPDATE: and now this. Nothing like this just slips out, it was released with the intention of showing what Obama thinks of all this Berlin Wall stuff. Like I said, giant ass.

Big Gas Find in Peru

Add Peru to the growing list of countries that suddenly do not give a shit about global warming.