“Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.” Niccolò Machiavelli
Read More »The Associated Press reports that “federal revenue collections hit an all-time high in April, contributing to a further improvement in the budget deficit for the year.” Releasing its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Thursday that through the first seven months of this budget year, the deficit totals $80.8 billion, significantly below the $184.1 billion imbalance run up during the first seven months of | Read More »
As you all are probably aware, the Oscars were this past weekend, and as usual, the gift bag was huge. It was at a five year low $47,803, mind you, but by the standards of us poors, it was gigantic. So that got me thinking, what kind of gift bag would our beloved Congressmen and Senators get from President Obama for putting up with this | Read More »
On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech discuss the dread of Sequestration Day, whose fault it is, and how it will impact the average American.
Read More »The White House has an obligation to make sequestration cuts as nasty, painful, and inconvenient as possible. See, this fight has never been about what to cut, but whether to cut. If Americans see that Washington can be cut through sequestration without it being painful, Barack Obama loses. He must make it horrible on the public so that the public doesn’t ever want to cut | Read More »
Sequestration isn’t as bad as I exaggerated it to be yesterday. It’s worse. Out of the 143 Million people who work, Sequestration will cause 170 Million of them to lose their jobs. It’s Obamacare on steroids and it’s growing huge.
OK, so that’s a wee tad inaccurate. It could even be argued that Congresswoman Maxine Waters respects the truth about as much as Occupy Wall Street demonstrators respect police cars. She sincerely has no clue what Sequestration will do or will not do to U3, U6 or U235 unemployment rates. But hey, look! A microphone! Journalists!
Read More »I hate to admit that I work for our pathetic, whiny, pussified excuse for a Federal Government. I am a Civil Servant, but I promise not to whine about how much I’ve had to pay for tampons over the looming Sequestration !CRISIS! You see, Sequestration stands poised to invade our galaxy. Run for the Hills! Flee, you fool. DOOM is at hand. The bloodied Sword of Damocles hangs tenuously above the callow heads of our fair and innocent citizens. As Bill Paxton’s PTSD’d Space Marine put it in Aliens: “GAME OVER, MAN! GAME OVER!”(NSFW – language)*
Just how bad and how vile is the carnage? What could lay low the American Nation and strew the flotsam and jetsam of a lifetime’s worth memories across the fruited plains? We quiver like pillars of gelatin before a reduction of outlays totaling $44Bn out of $3,553Bn. Yep. We’re reducing the current year budget by less than 2%. $44Bn out of $3,553Bn roughly approaches a budgetary number equal to the left-hand limit of chicken-(expletive)! That’s how pathetically little this sequestration really cuts.
Read More »The military is starting to notify civilian employees of possible sequestration related furloughs. Below is part of one of the emails sent out this morning. Pay particular attention to the last bullet point: Furlough duration: First, enacting civilian unpaid furloughs is a measure of last resort. If it does occur, the most likely option is one day per week for the last 22 weeks of | Read More »
It’s easy to kick Detroit. The place just about roles over and begs for it. Now we learn that the City Henry Ford built is now eligible to be put under emergency management by Governor Rick Snyder. Michigan State Treasurer described the situation succinctly below.
“We believe there’s a financial emergency in the city and that there’s no plan in place to correct the situation … I do believe strongly Detroit is fixable,” he said.
I read this, nod in sad agreement and then think to myself that Detroit is just the symptom. Detroit is just the canary that died in the burning coal mine of American finance. Our country is going bankrupt and despite our heartfelt desire that this not happen, most of us are helping it occur. We are caught in what’s called a discursive dilemma. Gonzalo Lira gives us an explanation of how we made it to sequestration below.
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The fact that, in addition to the $16.5 trillion of debt we currently have, every man, woman, and child in America also is on the hook for nearly $400,000 in unfunded liabilities–or, over $1 million for every household.
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Today, Barack Obama spoke out about the pending sequestration flanked by first responders and others. What he did not mention was that sequestration was President Obama’s idea. Today, President Obama said: Emergency responders like the ones who are here today — their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded. But sequestration was his idea. Border Patrol agents will see | Read More »
Bend over Republicans, here they come again. Phil Klein is out with a column that I can only assume comes from House Republican Leadership talking points. I can only assume that because House Republican leaders and those close to them have been whispering about this scenario for about a month now to as many Republican strategists, pundits, and others as would listen. They want to | Read More »
On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Allysen Efferson are joined by David Patterson to discuss sequestration, the threats it poses to our military and David’s thoughts on the attack in Benghazi and the White House response.
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