So far today, I have:
You can’t get manlier than that!
Our friends on the left seem to think that if a government program isn’t working as advertised, then we obviously need to double the size of the program! Friday’s unemployment numbers will probably “inform” them that we need more and more stimulus spending, ’cause what’s been done so far hasn’t worked. From the editors of 
:
It Isn’t Working
Three years of spending and monetary stimulus haven’t helped jobs.
Another month, another mediocre jobs report from the Department of Labor. This is consistent with the rest of the economic evidence that this is a lackluster recovery that so far is not turning into a durable expansion.
The economy shed 131,000 jobs in July and the number of jobs created in May and June were revised downward to 221,000 lost jobs. The unemployment rate held steady at 9.5% but that does not reflect the fact that the number of discouraged workers is also up 389,000 from a year ago.
Private employment did inch up in July by 71,000 positions, with a nice 36,000 pick-up in manufacturing jobs, but even that number is deceptive. The vast majority of those jobs were in the auto industry. Alas, not every struggling manufacturing plant in America can have a lifeline to the federal Treasury.
The average work week lengthened by 0.1 hours and wages bumped up by 4 cents an hour in July to $22.59. This means things are getting better if you already have a job. The amazing thing is how weak the recovery remains after so much fiscal and monetary stimulus.
The problem is if you’re still looking for work, because the private sector isn’t feeling confident enough to create new jobs. The declines in the household survey tend to reflect small businesses better than does the payroll survey, and small businesses in particular aren’t creating new jobs the way they have in other recoveries. The shrinking size of the labor force is helping to keep the official jobless rate below 10%, but that’s mostly because some one million workers have dropped out of the labor force since April.
And here’s the most damning paragraph:
So far the Obama team has thrown the entire Keynesian playbook at the economy. We have paid people to buy cars, purchase homes, pay off their mortgages, weatherize their homes and put solar paneling on their roofs. And of course there was the original stimulus package of $862 billion, though some of that remains unspent. None of it has put America back to work.
Much more at the link. But the editors understand what President Obama and his advisors don’t: that economic recovery and job creation in the private sector requires confidence by private entrepreneurs and investors that they can make money by expanding their workforce.
One thing that the editors left out of their article is the health care reform bill. For all of the efforts by the Obama Administration to encourage businesses to expand payrolls, the great unknown is how much the health care plan is really going to cost business. An employee is supposed to be an asset to a company, but the government mandate that companies must provide health insurance, coupled with the restrictions which do not allow insurance companies to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions, coupled with the Administration’s tilt towards trade unions and laws which might make discharging employees more difficult, also turns every employee into a liability. If companies see additional employees as additional liabilities, they are going to be more reluctant to add employees. Additional efforts by the Administration to encourage private sector hiring would seem to me to be fruitless until employers have a better idea as to what kinds of increased liabilities additional hiring would bring.
If, as the editors wrote, the Obama Administration “has thrown the entire Keynesian playbook at the economy,” and it still hasn’t worked, the answer isn’t to just throw more (borrowed) money into the same Keynesian plays, but to do something else . . . or do nothing at all, and let the economy take care of itself. Politicians have a problem with doing nothing at all — or at least being perceived as doing nothing at all — but that is probably the wiser course. Borrowing more and more money, whether for more fruitless Keynesian attempts or some other method of attack means that there will be less money available for private enterprise once businesses do see an advantage in increasing production and payrolls.
Michelle Marie Antoinette Obama has taken the country for fools. While Americans are pinching every penney they have, wonder if they’ll have a job tomorrow, wonder if their wages will be cut, knowing their health benefits will be more expensive or lost, knowing their taxes will probably rise, maybe didn’t take a vacation to save the money just in case, these poseurs are shoving this vacation in our faces.
Of course when Marie Antoinette returns, they are off to Nantucket and basically telling us to Fu.. .t.Michelle Obama’s Spanish vacation draws critics
As the president preaches frugality in lean economic times, his wife and youngest daughter are vacationing at a luxury resort outside Marbella. Officials say the Obamas will pay for personal expenses.
By Peter Nicholas and Katherine Skiba, Tribune Washington BureauAugust 7, 2010
Reporting from Washington
As the economy endures high unemployment and a jittery stock market, President Obama has preached sacrifice and fiscal discipline. But the pictures coming out of a sun-splashed Spanish resort this week may be sending a different message.First Lady Michelle Obama is in the midst of a five-day trip to a luxury resort along with a few friends, her youngest daughter, aides and Secret Service personnel. Her office said the family will pay for personal expenses, but won’t reveal the taxpayer cost for the government employees.
Elected officials — Democrats and Republicans — were reluctant to weigh in, not wanting to appear critical of the president’s wife. But the trip provided plenty of fodder for television news anchors, talk-show hosts and bloggers.
Critics portrayed the foreign getaway as tone-deaf to the deep economic anxiety back home. Earlier in the week, the first lady was photographed walking through the streets of the Costa del Sol region wearing a one-shouldered Jean Paul Gaultier top.
Every first family takes vacations. The criticism aimed at Michelle Obama is that she chose to visit a foreign country rather than remain in the U.S. and support its fragile economy.
Last month the first lady flew to the Florida Panhandle, a tourist draw hit hard by the oil spill crisis, and delivered the message that for parents “looking for things to do with their kids this summer … this is a wonderful place to visit.”
The opulence of the European trip also has drawn scrutiny. The president has urged frugality in lean economic times. He once cautioned that families saving money for college shouldn’t “blow a bunch of cash in Vegas.”
Michelle Obama is staying at the Hotel Villa Padierna, a Ritz-Carlton resort in the mountains outside Marbella. The resort boasts two golf courses, a posh spa with Turkish baths, views of the Mediterranean Sea and a high-end restaurant specializing in avant-garde fare. Room rates start at $400 and rise to $6,500 for a two-bedroom villa with a private pool and 24-hour butler service.
The danger for the Obamas is that the trip may feed perceptions that they are elites, out of touch with struggling American families, said Chris Wilson, a Republican pollster.
“This in and of itself doesn’t hurt President Obama, but it plants a seed in voters’ minds that she’s not like me, that they’re not like me,” he said.
Get more pissed off here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-michelle-spain-20100807,0,7091802,print.story
Shame she couldn’t take all the taxpayers who funded her vacation. I haven’t had a vacation this year, wish I could have taken one of their many vacation in 2010. FLOTUS must be a grueling job. 
… the individual mandate will die. That’s right, the far-left liberal former governor of the only state that elected a self-declared Socialist (Bernie Sanders) to the US Senate, one Howard Dean, declared the individual mandate in ObamaCare will either die because the people reject it or because the Courts reject it.
Dean: The American people are not going to put up with a mandate. I have made this prediction before and I am going to make it again. By the time this thing goes into effect in 2014, I think this mandate will be gone–either through the courts or because it’s unpopular.
You don’t need it. There will be two or three percent of the people who cheat, that’s not enough to bring the system to a halt and people don’t like to be told what to do publicly…
Question: So, you expect them to drop the mandate?
Dean: Well, the courts may rule it unconstitutional.
My question: If even the DNC head says the Courts could easily call individual mandates unconstitutional, and the Oath of Office for Congress states that everyone will defend the Constitution against any and every person assailing it, why have so many Democrats in office declared it is not their duty to determine whether what they want is constitutional or not?
First, you start out with a large business…
Obama target game: Free speech or violent?
Attraction challenging players to ‘shoot’ president’s likeness creates political divides.
The target shooting game that appeared at the recent Big Time fair in Roseto. The game depicts what appears to be President Barack Obama, sparking a complaint. (Contributed photo, TMC / August 3, 2010)
By Christopher Baxter of The Morning Call
The coast-to-coast dust-up over a local carnival game in which players shot darts at an image resembling President Barack Obama has fueled political divisions and left many people wondering: When does free speech become a threat to the nation’s leader?
Goodtime Amusements of Hellertown created the game, called “Alien Attack.” Players fired foam darts at a painting of a black man with antennae. He wears a suit, holds a scroll labeled “Health Bill” and sports a belt buckle fashioned after the presidential seal. Those who hit targets on his heart and forehead got a stuffed animal.
Company President Irvin Good Jr. said he meant no harm by the game. It was not supposed to show Obama, he said, and was canned after a complaint from a visitor to a Roseto fair in late July. But the game led to a visit by the Secret Service, national media attention and hundreds of online comments from across the political spectrum.
A lot more at the link.
This game, though pretty stupid, hardly meets the “clear and present danger” test. To constitute such a threat, it would have to be something which directly threatened the president; this is no more a threat than some of our friends on the left hanging President Bush in effigy. It did meet the attention-getting test, which ws probably the goal all along.
The Secret Service will probably take this seriously, because it’s their job to take these things seriously.
