No, this isn't The Onion: Obama wants to use TARP to...reduce the deficit

Lost in the major headlines is something Mark Levin mentioned on his show tonight. Are we in an Orwellian nightmare, that government is now saying with a straight face that borrowed money, which already added to existing debt, can be used to reduce total debt?

White House Aims to Cut Deficit With TARP Cash
By DEBORAH SOLOMON and JONATHAN WEISMAN

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration, under pressure to show it is serious about tackling the budget deficit, is seizing on an unusual target to showcase fiscal responsibility: the $700 billion financial rescue.

The administration wants to keep some of the unspent funds available for emergencies, but is considering setting aside a chunk for debt reduction, according to people familiar with the matter. It is also expected to lower the projected long-term cost of the program -- the amount it expects to lose -- to as little as $200 billion from $341 billion estimated in August.

A $210 billion surplus in TARP funding could be used to reduced the U.S.'s towering national deficit. WSJ's Deborah Solomon says the move follows criticism of the Obama administration's approach to debt.

The idea is still a matter of debate within the administration and it is unclear how much impact it would have on the nation's mounting deficit levels. Still, the potential move illustrates how the Obama administration is trying to find any way it can to bring down the deficit, which is turning into a political as well as an economic liability.

This is all borrowed money, whether from foreign nations or the Fed creating money out of thin air. The federal government did not cut from any other spending to compensate for TARP expenditures, therefore TARP was using all newly borrowed money. The claim is that the money won't be spent, but who really believes that will happen? It will be quietly paid back to the lenders, giving Congress a mere several of weeks before they again approach that farce called a "debt ceiling"?

Let's look at the numbers. Last month, Reuters reported $138 billion left in TARP. The latest numbers I can find are from Scripps News, which agrees with the WSJ's figure of $210 billion. However, that's inflated: it's counting the expected $50 billion in repayments over the next 12 to 18 months. Sure, sure. And when you apply to a bank, hedge fund or other entity that asks for your net worth, do you think you can factor in the next year and a half of "expected income"?

The higher figure doesn't cover much past the October deficit alone ($176 billion), anyway. The national debt as of tonight is $11.99 trillion. That's 11,995.7 billion dollars. Even if this money had come from Santa Claus, it still wouldn't make a dent.

If a private company told its stockholders anything like reducing its debt via borrowed money that's part of the overall debt, any executives putting their names to those documents would be going to jail for accounting fraud. Why aren't we holding federal officials, and yes I'm including Obama, to the same standard?

The Scripps article concludes, "The whole $210 billion would probably not even cover the deficit we've run in the last six weeks but even a symbolic gesture is at least a start."

Symbolic? That's like Brad DeLong making a token gesture of dieting by ordering a burger without cheese...then adding a slice he bought elsewhere.

Finally, note that the Treasury expects that taxpayers will lose "as little as $200 billion" from TARP. So much for Bush's claims of taxpayers making a profit, and Barney Frank's own lies. Tim Cavanaugh debunked the Obama administration spin of last September, and on the flip side are absurd profit projections by the New York Times that that fool Yglesias gobbled right up.

Another mainstream media whitewashing

The original headline: "Obama's court pick to be shaped by his experience"

As of right now, Google searches show the headline once existed, but some news sites already sport the rewrite:



This isn't the first time I've caught the MSM rewriting their stuff.

The rewrite is because the original headline, of course, begets the question, what experience? Now, I'm not one to push "experience" as a qualification for someone to wield power over 300 million people. God knows there are some "inexperienced" people who know about true freedom, who'd do better in public office by not wielding the power that other people would. However, I'm showing liberals' hypocrisy by their own standard, because they tout Obama as some super-qualified messiah who will save us. "Community organizer" and all that, remember.

I guess Hitler was actually speaking...Austrian?

Petitedov, guest-blogging at Alarming News, links to Hot Air's and Ace's posts on Obama's reference to the "Austrian" language. This wasn't a reference to culture, but the language that the Austrians are speaking, as if someone from Dixie said to a bunch of Yankees, "I don't know what you call it in New Englander..."

"Mickey Finn" tried to justify it by talking about regional dialects. Liberal idiots like him will say anything to excuse or dismiss Obama's idiocy.

My comment:

Well damn it, Eric, Mickey is showing that we were wrong all these years. You know, all those old videos...Hitler was actually speaking Austrian, not German!

But wait a minute. Part of the justification for the Anschluss was that, after all, the two countries share the same language. So that means Germans...are actually...speaking Austrian?!

Right, Mick?

So much for our smart president. As a friend said, "I'll take my faith and guns any day over his type of pseudo-intellectualism."

Memo to Barack: learn your basic history, boy

I'll write more on his "Socialism be comin' and y'all ain't gonna stop me" speech tonight, but for now I'll debunk his historical ignorance. It's along the same line as Al Gore claiming he sponsored legislation that led to the creation of the Internet.

Sayeth Barack:

As for our auto industry, everyone recognizes that years of bad decision-making and a global recession have pushed our automakers to the brink. We should not, and will not, protect them from their own bad practices. But we are committed to the goal of a re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry that can compete and win. Millions of jobs depend on it. Scores of communities depend on it. And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.

His major lie there is denying that "giving" (meaning taking money from you and me to give to others) tens of billions of dollars to each of the Big Three is protecting them from their stupidity. Why should they bother to perform better when the American taxpayer will be forced

But the sheer ignorance is the last line of the paragraph: "And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it." Uh, look again, Barack, but an American did not invent the automobile. Look it up: if you want to talk about steam engines, the Scots did it. If you want to talk strictly about internal combustion engines, it was various Europeans until the German Carl Benz invented the first practical one.

It doesn't matter that he had paid speechwriters. He should have seen that gross historical error right away. I did, and I'm hardly an expert. Yet in the early 1990s, before college (let alone home) Internet access took off, I still had read enough to lay out the basic auto history for some Canadian idiot (Neil of Ontario, are you still around?). What sparked things was his Barackian claim was that we should move toward electric cars, since after all the first cars were electric.

From the Free Eidelbus Dictionary of Political Terms:

Main Entry: Barackian

Pronunciation: \bah-rack'-ee-yuhn\
Function: adjective
Etymology: derived from the name of politician Barack Obama
Date: early 21st century

On the surface seemingly true to most people but is in fact materially false. The noun being described is typically a false claim about a historical fact, made to sway the ignorant and/or uneducated.

— \Ba-rack-is-m\ noun

Never mind George Santayana's particular phrasing: when people are utterly ignorant of the past, how much worse will we all be when they wield power (either by majority vote or as elected officials)?

My preemptive rebuttal for those who think I meant "boy" as a racial insult: read this, shove your race-baiting up your asses, then come back when you learn that behind every blade of grass does not hide a racist.

Obama again demonstrated his childish ignorance. Maybe if he had paid attention in school, instead of dreaming about being president, if he had read a book or two instead of "community organizing," he could have immediately corrected his speechwriters. But keep vigilant, people: this will be among the least of his rewrites of history.

Barack Obama doesn't like white people! Or, "Obama dozed, people froze"

As someone so well put it, "Obama Dozed, People Froze?"

I noticed this yesterday when looking at the Kentuckians on the news, pleading for help after this awful storm. Clearly Obama's inaction is because they're predominantly white, and Obama just doesn't like white people. Right? Perhaps it's not a matter of race, but this is apparently Obama's first lesson for red states, i.e. those whose electoral votes didn't go to The One.

So far, all Obama has done is declare Kentucky a federal disaster area. Where are all the federal workers like there were with Katrina? If there are any, they're not exactly trucking in supplies, or restoring power, to any extent that the news would mention them. The truth is that "FEMA has been a no-show so far" in many places, yet you have moonbats praising Obama for this inaction while blaming this on Bush!

Note that I'm not calling for big government intervention. I'm merely applying the same standard to Obama that liberals applied to Bush after Katrina.

Yet another way Obama doesn't understand that things have costs

Obama thinks that D.C. residents should emulate "flinty Chicago toughness" during the recent severe winter weather. Like a true politician, he either doesn't know or willfully acts like he doesn't know that things have costs (remember that a cost is not necessarily monetary). The D.C. metro area doesn't frequently experience such conditions, so it overall costs less for schools to shut down or open late after bad winter storms, rather than the difficulty of shuttling students in such weather, not to mention the expense of maintaining and operating sufficient equipment to clear the roads soon after a storm.

Now, residents of Chicago, New York and Salt Lake City are accustomed to winter weather, so those areas have lots of trucks to plow and spread salt after an expected storm. After an overnight snowstorm, I commonly hear snowplows at 4 a.m., clearing the way for the morning commute. This costs money, naturally, but it's worth it when a place often experiences severe winter storms. So would Obama say that D.C. should have fleets of snowplows on hand, "just in case"? He probably would, because as a politician he hardly needs to worry about what something costs.

Another cost to consider is that snow and freezing rain are a bad combination anywhere, and for safety's sake it's sometimes better to stay at home instead of risking your neck. It isn't a matter of your own driving competence, but the stupidity of other drivers. What would Obama have said if his daughters had been involved in a car wreck? Well, you can bet he'd probably have proposed some sort of big government program.

A few days ago, the worshipful Huffington Post tried to portray him as Chicago-tough-enough to forsake his winter coat. Big deal. I'll take out the garbage without putting on a coat or sweater if it's 30 outside. It also shows another facet of Obama's hypocrisy. The next day, the New York Times admitted a wee bit more than it should have: who could use some "toughening up" in winter? Hmm?

It's in fact Obama's conduct that's more shameful

"Obama calls $18B in Wall St. bonuses 'shameful'" reads the headline.

Oh really?

First, he paints with an overly broad brush. My employer managed yet another quarter of profit and so paid out bonuses last month. We sure as hell didn't get federal funds, so why should we be called "irresponsible" or have our behavior attacked as "shameful"?

Second, Obama isn't admitting that, uh, these companies that received TARP funds and are paying bonuses could afford to because of...the TARP funds. Obama is right in the thick of that: he not only supported the original TARP but is now promising a second round. So he's an accessory by facilitating the companies' ability to be irresponsible.

Third, Obama is a hypocrite. If $18 billion is shameful, then what is a stimulus of over $800 billion that's effectively 100% pure pork? Actually, it's worse than that: it's 100% stolen money. It has to be stolen, otherwise people would have already voluntarily spent it on these projects, without government forcing them into it.

Shame on you, Barry.

Hundreds of billions of dollars more aren't enough - the feds have to use accounting trickery too

Obama's administration is looking to spend blow through hundreds of billions of dollars more than TARP's original $700 billion.

Who's surprised? Under the various guises of "ensuring liquidity," "unfreezing credit markets," "restoring confidence," "saving banks," "saving jobs" and "for the children," this is the ultimate giveaway. Everybody from union workers to preservationists to state governments is lining up with their hands out, and never forget that you are the main course.

In addition to more money, the feds' plan is to set up a bank specifically to hold bad assets, essentially a shadow holding company. This was already done with AIG. This actually wouldn't be necessary if the feds didn't impose mark-to-market accounting rules in the first place: some of a bank's assets plunge at current market prices, the bank's net assets fall below zero, and the FDIC forbids the bank from lending a penny. After all, government needs to create problems it says only it can fix, otherwise it would be out of business once people realize we can fix things our own damn selves.

Now, has it already been so long that most of us have forgotten that Enron and WorldCom engaged in the same practice of hiding liabilities on other ledgers? When they did it and were caught, no one trusted them afterward, and they went bankrupt.

When the federal government does it, few seem to bat an eye, and it's all perfectly legal. And why shouldn't it be as far as government is concerned? It wields its power purely by force, so it can make anything "legal" that it wants. When Nute Gunray asked whether something was legal, Palpatine merely replied, "I will make it legal."

Call them Obama-Jugend, call them Jungsturm Barack Obama, call them brainwashed

Think of the video of Obama-worshipping children I linked to last night. Now who do they remind you of?

I had meant to link to this instead, instead of the original video of the elementary schoolchildren.

What would they call it, Obama-Jugend or Jungsturm Barack Obama?

This loon, an "ethics professor" (meaning you can dismiss virtually anything he says as pure garbage), wants Obama to set up a youth corps.

Mandatory.

For all once they graduate from high school, for two years.

Paid at minimum wage, room and board provided. (I won't touch on the stupid economics behind this, because it's secondary. But briefly, think of how many billions of dollars this will waste. Young adults could be out there working at jobs they want, producing things of actual value.)

We shouldn't be surprised that Obama's worshippers are proposing such things. Parents were already all too willing to hand over their young children to The One, and various ghetto rejects were naturally eager to step up and pledge themselves. But that still isn't good enough. Your children must join The Movement to be indoctrinated, and that's that.

This is the sort of outright slavery that makes Selective Service look voluntary. During 2004, the false rumor was that Bush would reinstitute the draft. Now there are proposals for Obama to draft every child after high school for two years, and nobody bats an eye.

When your children are seized, don't ever say you weren't warned. People are already pledging themselves to be "servants" to The One. If this video doesn't creep you out, then either you belong to him, or you don't realize the gravity of the situation.



As I was telling a friend last night, I feel like Dr. Strangelove. After watching that video, I have to stop my right arm from doing a Nazi salute.

More cause and effect fallacies

As part of their Obama-worshipping, the Associated Press often employs the Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy to give credit to The One where credit is undue. Today we read:

"Wall Street extends big rally to 2nd session"

A stock market gaining in confidence shot higher for a second straight session Monday as investors bet that President-elect Barack Obama's plans to increase infrastructure spending will help lift the economy back to health. The major market indexes jumped more than 3 percent, and the Dow Jones industrials' nearly 300 point advance gave the blue chips their highest close in a month.

The truth about today's rally is that Obama's plan had nothing to do with it. He's been talking about this plan for weeks, so investors have had plenty of time to price it into the stock prices of any companies that might benefit.

Alcoa Inc., the world's third-largest aluminum producer, surged 18 percent on the news; while heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. jumped 11 percent.

[cough] What an idiotic short-term perspective. These weren't "rallies" on news of Obama's New New Deal, but fluctuations of the last several trading sessions due to bargain-hunting and profit-taking. Both Alcoa's and Caterpillar's gains merely brought them back to where they've been hovering for the last several weeks.




If either had exceeded their October 10th bottoming, then that might be something worth mentioning. But not this.

The major U.S. indices were up 3-4 percent today, but the simple explanation is bargain-hunting after Friday's plunge. Or if indeed The One is responsible for the rallies, what will we do when he runs out of appointees to announce and programs to propose?

Supposedly there was a "Geithner rally" on the day Obama named Tim Geitner to be the new Treasury Secretary. [cough] Obama named him on November 21st. November 21st was the third Friday of the month. Stock options expire on...the third Friday of each month. That is why you had your late-day rally, because everyone was scrambling to fulfill his contractual obligations at whatever price he could get. Not because Obama picked some anti-free-market interventionist twit, but you can be sure Obama chose that day for a reason.

With the help of the liberal media, Obama's deftly playing a sinister game of making people believe he's responsible for certain things that are in fact out of his control. Think of "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," specifically when the hero, during an eclipse, convinced everyone that it was he who made the sun disappear. The difference is that the Connecticut Yankee wanted to help people by destroying people's superstitions, allowing them to think for themselves so they could evolve beyond serfdom and enjoy the benefits of technological progress. Obama wants to be our king so he can "help" us, meaning keeping us well-controlled, all for our own good.

So if stocks fall tomorrow, can we then blame it on something Obama did? How about blaming Obama because his victory made Japan stocks fall immediately after his election victory?

Japanese stocks fall on Obama win

As U.S. television networks called the presidential election for Barack Obama at 11 p.m. on the East Coast and cued up celebrations in Chicago’s Grant Park and across the country, Japanese stock traders in the middle of their Wednesday afternoon workday had a very different reaction.

In trading in the half hour after the victory announcement, the Japanese Nikkei stock market declined steeply, falling from nearly 9,450 to below 9,250. Still, the index was up nearly 2 percent for the day on the strength of a rally earlier in the trading day.

Reuters quoted Tomomi Yamashita, a fund manager at Shinkin Asset Management, who noted that Obama’s tax proposals might have been behind the initial Japanese market reaction.

"His plan to tax higher income earners may dampen incentives a bit, and this might limit U.S. competitiveness,” he said, “and as far as the currency market is concerned, a Republican victory might have been better."

Did Obama's victory really make Japanese stocks fall? Probably not, but it's far more likely than any Obama announcements creating stock rallies.

Cause and effect, and perpetuating the lie about Shinseki

I'm constantly amused by headline writers' lack of ability to write clearly, and news editors' lack of ability to detect stupidity. The headlines below indicate that not only is the selection of Shinseki related to the economy, but the economy will get worse as a result of Obama picking Shinseki.



It's a tired old lie, repeated constantly this weekend, that Shinseki was "ousted" because he disagreed with the Bush Administration. He "left" in June 2003 exactly when he was scheduled to retire. Even the DailyKos nuts know it.

Shinseki's non-ousting disagreement with Rumsfeld was over additional troops needed to occupy Iraq. The liberal media is trying to portray Shinseki as somehow "foresighted" when in fact he said it would require "hundreds of thousands" more -- we now know that the successful "surge" didn't require as many. And the reason the "surge" worked was at least as much about refocusing our fighting strategy as increased numbers. Now just imagine if we had listened to Shinseki and deployed all those forces throughout Iraq: with our original mindset, it would have been a complete bloodbath.

In other words, USA Today is full of it. The New York Times was full of it (but what's new?). And James Fallow at The Atlantic is completely dishonest to ignore the real numbers that Shinseki proposed.

The irony of it all is that Obama is picking someone who supported an even larger Iraq occupation than anyone had envisioned, including McCain, when Obama himself opposed the surge from the start and still can't admit its success. (Note that I'm talking "success" from a tactical perspective, nothing more.)

And shall I say it again? So much for "change" in Obama picking yet another Washington veteran.

Our first affirmative action president will give us our first affirmative action Attorney General

It looks like Obama will nominate Eric Holder, a relic of the Clinton Justice Department, to be his Attorney General. Well, parents, you should have no difficulty explaining to your children the meaning of "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

After the campaign of faux outrage that attacked racism where it never existed, we have the news that just won't stop bringing up the non-issue of race:

If nominated by Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Holder, 57, would be the first African-American attorney general. President-elect Obama has made it clear that Holder is his choice to run the Justice Department, transition team officials say, and staff members have been reviewing Holder's background before he receives an official offer.

He served as the first black deputy attorney general, working under then-Attorney General Janet Reno during the Clinton administration.

Whatever happened to that bit about "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character"? Haven't we had enough of race being brought up in virtually every news article?

A curious admission on the local news channel

No link, but this is the precise quote from a piece on world celebrations: "Now this poor African nation [Kenya] can claim one of the world's most powerful leaders as one of its own."

Oh really? So are they saying it's true that Obama's not an American citizen? Or are they saying his loyalty is to Kenya?

Most likely they don't even care that Obama is of African descent. They're just full of "hope" about Obama's Global Poverty Initiative (and when you Google it, the search hint comes up with "global poverty initiative obama"), and though Obama being a mulatto means he'd probably support the program more than a white politician, Kenyans would be just as happy if it were a white president who pushed hard for it.

The GPI is pure socialism, just like everything else Obama champions: the U.S. will give 0.7% of its GDP in "foreign aid," which Kenyans outside government circles are stupid enough to think will be distributed to them. Even if the U.S. economy doesn't grow beyond the current $14.4 trillion annual output, the GPI means $100 billion a year that U.S. taxpayers must give to the rest of the world, or putting it another way, the 100 million of us who have significant tax liability will have to cough up $1000 each! And even if the money were willingly given, at best, look what happens when aid distributors actually make the deliveries (remember that virtually all government-financed "aid" is distributed through UN or UN-allied channels). At worst, it will be like North Korea, Zimbabwe or Saddam's Iraq: aid will be kept by the government, and distributed to the dictators' supporters and/or sold for ready cash.

And then news showed..."Obama as Che" T-shirts. Wunderbar. Will Obama try to exceed Che's body count?

The world congratulates Obama

Fidel Castro, Madhmoud Ahmadinejad (a.k.a. "Madman Mahmoud the Used-Camel Salesman of Tehran"), and even Burma's head dictator are congratulating Obama on winning the election.

Doesn't it warm your heart to think on how enemies of freedom, and an avowed enemy of America, love our president-elect?

Saudi columnist Dawood al-Shirian wrote, "Americans have struck a deadly blow to racism all over the world." Oh? So when Obama received congratulations from the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, Egypt, and Pakistan, we were merely following in their footsteps, right?

In all those countries, the highest-ranking blacks I know of are Rama Yade, France's junior minister for human rights, and Jean Léonard Touadi, who only this year was the first black man ever to be elected to Italy's Parliament. So to whosoever in these aforementioned countries wants to make our 2008 presidential election into a racial issue, perhaps you ought to look at your own governments first.

And when will South Africa overcome its racism by the overwhelming black majority electing a white man?

Note: I don't really care about any racial aspects of the election. I'm just pointing out others' hypocrisy.

And yet another libertarian falls for the race guff

Here.

How many times can I ask this? Why is Obama's skin tone a factor to any degree?

Libertarians, more than anyone, should believe in meritocracy. But I'm finding more and more self-professed "libertarians" who like the fact of our first affirmative action president.

OUCH

The photo is genuine, saved from Yahoo News last night. Thanks to my friend [name redacted to protect him from assured retribution by Obama supporters] for adding the ET-like glow.

You can make your own demotivational posters at Despair.com.

Again, just who is making it an issue of race?

Donovan McNabb is. Indeed he can relate to Obama -- it's true! Both are fine examples of someone not as talented as he or the general public thinks he is, but (Rush Limbaugh was right) the media so wanted a black man to "do well" that they made a mediocre one out to be more than he really was.

I previously linked to my comment at QandO, where I wrote,

But now we have our first affirmative action president, whose election is some sort of "reparations" for the past. And like any other affirmative action beneficiary, the person was completely unqualified but was "helped up" because of his skin tone. Moreover, I can’t believe you, or anyone else blogging here, has yet to pick up on this: Obama isn’t like most black Americans! His white mother met an African student during the Civil Rights days, but Obama doesn’t have slaves and sharecroppers in his family. He has nothing, NOTHING in his heritage in common with black Americans who did in fact endure the likes of Jim Crow. Well, nothing except attending a "black liberation" church for two decades.

Oprah said, "I was so, so, so excited and then just sort of a calm came over me. It feels like it actually is kind of real, so it feels great." I'm still scratching my head over this one. "It feels like it actually is kind of real"? So it's not real?

Then that dolt Beyonce said nothing as follows.

I'm sick and tired of hearing and seeing "first black president" everywhere. What I care about is what the mind inside the skin will do about my liberty -- which is to say, will he leave me alone with my personal liberty?

Libertarians falling for the race issue

See here over at QandO. Dale Franks attempted to play the age card against me, but I told him it won't work and is in fact irrelevant.

See also here at Radley Balko's blog, where I won't bother making the same reply.

"Democrats capture control of House by defeating incumbents"

More evidence of mainstream media's laziness combined with stupidity. They had probably prepared a "Republicans capture" headline, just in case, then put in "Democrats" but didn't realize the wording was completely inaccurate.

And the incoming HNIC's words about "change" are obvious, since there would have been "change" even if McCain had won. But it's further demonstrative of Obama's mentality that somehow George W. Bush was running for re-election.