Some headlines from the past few days

 

"POLICE, GUNMEN OPEN FIRE IN SOUTH BEACH"

 

"VIOLENT CRIME EXPLODES IN MYRTLE BEACH"

 

"BIDEN CURBS PRESS FREEDOM"

 

"85 YEAR OLD WOMEN SEXUALLY ASSAULTED"

 

"CHURH FINED FOR PRUNING OWN TREES"

 

 

AND FROM THIS WEEKS BARRON’S

 

"9%  UNEMPLOYMENT-20 MILLION UNEMPLOYED OR

UNDEREMPLOYED"

 

“HOUSING IS ONE OF THOSE FESTERING SORES

ON THE ECONOMY THAT WILL BE WITH US FOR

QUITE A SELL”

 

 

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO OUR COUNTRY??????????

Certainly kudos go out to the military and administration for the successful engagement

of Osama.  That being said why any liberal would think it will give Obama a significant

boost or make him unbeatable in the forth coming election is a curious assumption to me.

 

 

Had the information got out, and it certainly would have, that this administration knew

where Osama was hiding and did nothing about it, the consequences would have been

fatal.  There would have been calls for impeachment at one extreme, and he certainly

would not have gotten reelected at the other.

 

And even now we have conflicting reports of what happened during the raid, and more

importantly who was the driving force behind the decision to go forward.

 

Most of this will be ancient history by election time and the issue will still be

 

“It’s the economy stupid”

Represenative King has received a significant amount of criticism for his hearings

on radical Islam in the US.  It is my feeling that most of it is from political correctness

run amuck.  Too many Americans are content to bury their heads in the sand and

ignore the actual possibility that there are elements of radical Islamists in the US

who really do harbor animosity towards us.

 

I have a friend who is from Jordan. he is an American citizen as well as a Christian.

He spends some of his time monitoring Muslim web sites and from time to time he

shows me interesting videos, sometimes having to translate for me.  There are so many

videos of radical preaching that it is scary.   Most are from Europe, and if you spend

enough time going through them you will quickly come to the conclusion that Western

Europe has a huge problem on their hands and only a fool would think that “that is not

happening in the US”.

 

These people preach that they will take over Britain and the US. Do yourself a favor and

watch the short video that you can get at the following site-

 

http://islameyat.com/post_details.php?id=3659&cat=35&scat=169&

 

This man is not pulling any punches, and this is a mild tirade compared to other videos

that you can view at Islameyat.com, just click on the English option on the home page

and there are pages and pages of videos, some mind boggling.  One might also ponder

why he is using English to speak, perhaps because he is addressing an audience of converts.

 

I have also been reading a book titled Militant Islam Reaches America by Daniel Pipes.

He delivers a detailed and concise picture of what the problems are and the history and

brought us to this point.  While it is probably out of print, if you can find a copy in the

library or used book store it is a worthwhile read.  In fact I’d like to have 600 copies to

send to members of the House and Senate.  Of course if they can’t read the bills they turn

into law why would I think they would read a book.

 

each of us must be aware of what is happening or we will lose all that we have and our

children will be faced with living in a United States which is no longer united.

How can any person with an ounce of rational observation say the economy is

doing well and recovering.

 

Unemployment-  Well lets see, first time applicants dropped by 5,000.  Well

hooray, the number was still 300,00+ and after 2 years of 400,000+ numbers

maybe we are just running out of people to layoff.  Well still not the case,

unfortunately people are not spending beyond the basics for half the population.

In my neighborhood a convenience store is about to close, he has stayed open for

2 years while not selling enough to cover expenses, he is tapped out now, and

three more people will join the unemployed.

 

Housing-In the Sarasota area 23% of homes are empty.  In a local paper this week

the following ad for a high profile condo building.

 

PH303   originally   $1,417,900  now  $789,900

 

And for this building there are 4 Pent Houses available with the same type pricing.

 

Food-  Go into any food market and walk up and down the aisles.  Pay attention

to how many pricing signs you see the say  “buy one get one free”.  They exist

in every aisle.  To me that says “oops not selling very well”  And with the soaring

price increases for food I can understand why items are not selling.  What is in a 12

pack of Coca-Cola that has caused it to double in price in the last 18 months?

 

Fuel-The administration is going down a path which will do more to stifle the

economy by not quickly pursuing means to increase our domestic production of

oil.  There is no responsible explanation  for their direction except to deliberately

 attack the economy with a negative effect.

 

Stock Market-Of course the market is doing well with all the Fed’s help, companies

are making money because they are not spending it on expansion and hiring.  What does

it say when Dollar Tree is doing so well.  No one is making money except the Wall

Street players with there high capacity trading programs..

 

We are in a sad state of affairs and the Federal government is doing nothing to correct

it.  Lord help us all.

 

Over the weekend Steve Chu was explaining that his task is to “ease the pain”

of rising gas prices. Once again this administration is on the wrong side of the

issue. Secretary Chu should understand that his task is to provide reasonable

gas prices by insuring that we are exploiting the vast resources of this country and

not supporting foreign interests, such as the 2 billion dollars that went to Brazil.

The airheads of this administration live in a cloud of deceit and ignorance of what

is happening on main street America. 

Within the last week Walmart has reported that it has had 7 quarters of falling sales.

When I pass a Walmart or Sam’s Club in my area the parking lots are full, and so

are the stores. As I observe this reality I only draw one conclusion. People are

shopping at Walmart because of the prices, however they are only buying what they

need.

This country has between 7 and 10 million homes empty or in foreclosure, 10%+

unemployment, and many families who are wiped out financially. These people

are not buying new fuel efficient cars, they are buying necessities only, and the

more money that goes into the gas tank, the less for anything else.

To the dolts in Washington, get your heads out of the sand and understand what

is happening in America because of your lamebrain agenda.

 

Mr. Dudley’s attempt to explain why there is no real inflation is a perfect

example of what is wrong with our out-of-touch government officials.

First is the fact that they have 6 figure incomes along with expense accounts

so that they never are exposed to the costs of the average individual on the

street.

In most cases I would venture to guess that they have staff to fill the gas tank,

and someone else to do the shopping. I recently saw a report that said that half

of the population lives on $500.00 a week. If both the husband and wife work and

the income is $1000.00 a week that is not enough to raise a family, cover bills, and

have discretionary income left to fuel the economy.

Many people today are balancing their income to cover housing, gas, and food with not

much left. Here are a few food cost examples from Florida. Publix butter went from

$2.50 to 3.50 a pound a 40% increase. Recently a popular brand of frozen pizza went

from $6.00 to $7.00+ a 17% increase. Fish and steaks have jumped from $6.99 a pound

to 11.00-13.00 a pound., a 57% increase. And now we are pushing $4.00 gasoline.

Our government officials have quickly forgot what happened the last time we had

$4.00 gasoline. Over the road truckers were parking their trucks on the side of the

road, and airlines were cutting back schedules.

No one really cares if an Ipad 2 is cheaper than an Ipad. What they care about is

choosing between gas in the tank and food on the table.

 

 

In my original post I mentioned that I thought that part of the car companies on going

problems included the fact that they had given up on leasing which was a significant part

of their business.  This week there was a article mentioning that Cadillac was going to

begin leasing again in an effort to bolster their sales.  So at least in part I was on the right

track.  But on to other items.

 

How much trouble will the Democrats find in next years elections?

 

My observation is that it will be significant if current events continue as they are.

 

16 million when you consider those whose benefits have expired and those that have

just given up.  The issue is that the administration is doing nothing to foster the

creation of new jobs.  The shovel ready jobs they have funded have only created work for those people in the industry who come and go as work is started.  What about the

tens or hundreds of thousands of jobs that were lost in the financial services area.

Those jobs are for the most part gone forever and there is nothing filling the void.

So come election time unemployment will loom large over the ballot box.

 

2.      Another factor will obviously be the debt which will only be larger my then.  The

vast majority of the populace is outraged at the direction the administration has taken

with spending and incurring debt which goes far beyond our ability to manage or

retire.  We are destroying those values which made this country strong.  Between the

assault on capitalism,  individual freedoms, and the unwanted expansion of government into our lives a majority of voters will display their displeasure at the

polls next November and a large number of incumbents of both parties will find themselves out of a government job.

 

3.      Prior to the presidential election I made the following remark when asked about

Obama “as an individual I have no problems with him, however the Democratic

party agenda will destroy this country”. Now I do have problems with him and

the agenda is doing just what I predicted.  Among the things that a vast number of

people are upset over are the arrogance, hypocrisy, and bold lies that we see

demonstrated each day in Washington D.C.  President Obama stands in front of

the American people and believers we will believe him and follow like sheep, and

when tens of thousands amass in Washington in protest he shrugs it off as and few

kooks.  He needs to be reminded that for each person who showed up that day there

was a thousand more at home watching and supporting those individuals.  We hear

from Congress each day speeches which wallow in hypocrisy, and we hear it and

see it for what it is and will remember nest November.

 

So as we go forward it would be wise for the residents of the Senate and the House to

listen to their constituents who are telling them that they are out of touch with reality.

Let them go forward with Cap and Trade, Medical insurance reform, and the rest of

their agenda with fair warning that come November they are out of work.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Much has been said recently about the goings on at Chrysler and GM, none of which has been flattering or confidence inducing.
The battering of the principle of contract law by the administration would leave one to believe that only the foolish would invest
in the corporate bonds of these companies.  On the same train of thought what financial institution would lend money to these
corporations at any interest rate?  What good is a high, profitable rate if you cannot count on the administration keeping hands off.

It is also questionable just how good Obama was to the unions, after all  is said and done, with the unions owning 50% of
Chrysler they will be the ones making the decisions to lay off their own members, and deciding what plants to close.  The rank and
file will not be happy either way.

These however are the larger, out in front issues.  There are a couple of points worthy of discussion.  The first, which has been in
the back of my mind for several months and is important to the idea of whether or not these companies can survive.  If you will
recall, back in the summer of 2008 the Detroit automakers announced that they were terminating all in house leasing programs
because they have been losing millions of dollars each year leasing.  If I recall the numbers were between 20-30% of reported sales
were from leasing.  There was an article in the WSJ at the time that quoted one west coast dealer who said he "sole 200 cars" in
the last days of the program.  The point here is that somewhere in the range of 3-4 million cars sold by Detroit each year are gone
because people who could not afford large car payments used the lease program to drive new cars.  And now that credit is tight and
unemployment is rampant, there is no demand.

On the West coast of Florida is an auto group which has 21 brand offerings across 19 stores.  I have been told that last month
they sold 500 cars over the entire operation.  I do not believe that this is nearly enough to support such a large organization.  The only thing that is helping is that most of the sales are from Cadillac, Infinity, Porsche, Audi, and VW.  The wealthy are not supporting the
domestic market.

And we have not begun to discuss what Detroit will build in the future that people will  want to buy as well as be able to afford.
Certainly not a $50,000.00 Volt.

And lastly, while Detroit certainly did most of the damage themselves, the folly of the sub prime debacle was the tremor that
brought it all crashing down.

B. Dod