Tag: bankruptcy
Is GM headed for bankruptcy again?
Ahmadinejad: “How long can a government with a $16 trillion foreign debt remain a world power?”
Ahmadinejad: “How long can a government with a $16 trillion foreign debt remain a world power?”
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Though even here, Ahmadinejad isn’t quite right, as the debt of the U.S. is not all foreign.
Ahmadinejad: “How long can a government with a $16 trillion foreign debt remain a world power?”
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Though even here, Ahmadinejad isn’t quite right, as the debt of the U.S. is not all foreign.
The federal government has spent $27 million teaching Moroccans how to make pottery.
Your tax dollars at work: The federal government has spent $27 million teaching Moroccans how to make pottery.
Your tax dollars at work: The federal government has spent $27 million teaching Moroccans how to make pottery.
The U.S. government’s credit rating has been downgraded again.
The day of reckoning looms: The U.S. government’s credit rating has been downgraded again.
And we’ve only just begun!
The day of reckoning looms: The U.S. government’s credit rating has been downgraded again.
And we’ve only just begun!
The federal budget deficit has exceeded one trillion dollars for the fourth year in a row.
The day of reckoning looms: The federal budget deficit has now exceeded one trillion dollars for the fourth year in a row.
The day of reckoning looms: The federal budget deficit has now exceeded one trillion dollars for the fourth year in a row.
The debt of the federal government officially exceeded $16 trillion on Tuesday.
The day of reckoning looms: The debt of the federal government officially exceeded $16 trillion on Tuesday.
The day of reckoning looms: The debt of the federal government officially exceeded $16 trillion on Tuesday.
The long term credit rating of the United States was lowered today by Standard and Poors.
The day of reckoning looms: The long term credit rating of the United States was lowered today by Standard and Poors.
The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics. More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.
The day of reckoning looms: The long term credit rating of the United States was lowered today by Standard and Poors.
The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics. More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.
The war on children
A thank you letter to President Obama.
The modern leftwing disconnect from reality.
The modern leftwing disconnect from reality.
[L]ast week a man called Floyd Corkins shot another man called Leo Johnson, the security guard at the Family Research Council, a “conservative” group, according to the muted media coverage, or a “hate group,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, who spray that term around like champagne on a NASCAR podium. Mr. Corkins, an “LGBT volunteer,” told his victim, “I don’t like your politics.” In his backpack, he had one box of ammunition and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches. Had he had one Chick-fil-A sandwich and 15 boxes of ammunition, he might have done more damage. Or then again perhaps not, given that, as bloggers Kathy Shaidle and “the Phantom” pointed out, he reached his target and then started “monologuing,” as they say in The Incredibles….
I’m not blaming Floyd Corkins’s actions on the bullying twerps at the Southern Poverty Law Center or those thug Democrat mayors who tried to run Chick-fil-A out of Boston and Chicago. But I do think he’s the apotheosis of narcissistic leftist myopia. He symbolizes that exhaustion of the other possibilities — the dwindling down of latter-day liberalism to ever more self-indulgent distractions from the hard truths of a broke and ruined landscape. Our elites have sunk into a boutique decadence of moral preening entirely disconnected from reality: A non-homophobic chicken in every pot, an abortifacient dispenser in every Catholic university, a high-speed-rail corridor between every two bankrupt California municipalities.
Read the whole thing. Steyn once again notes the bankruptcy of modern liberalism and the Democratic Party, which — unless the American public rejects it — will lead to the bankruptcy of our country and probably the world.
The modern leftwing disconnect from reality.
[L]ast week a man called Floyd Corkins shot another man called Leo Johnson, the security guard at the Family Research Council, a “conservative” group, according to the muted media coverage, or a “hate group,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, who spray that term around like champagne on a NASCAR podium. Mr. Corkins, an “LGBT volunteer,” told his victim, “I don’t like your politics.” In his backpack, he had one box of ammunition and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches. Had he had one Chick-fil-A sandwich and 15 boxes of ammunition, he might have done more damage. Or then again perhaps not, given that, as bloggers Kathy Shaidle and “the Phantom” pointed out, he reached his target and then started “monologuing,” as they say in The Incredibles….
I’m not blaming Floyd Corkins’s actions on the bullying twerps at the Southern Poverty Law Center or those thug Democrat mayors who tried to run Chick-fil-A out of Boston and Chicago. But I do think he’s the apotheosis of narcissistic leftist myopia. He symbolizes that exhaustion of the other possibilities — the dwindling down of latter-day liberalism to ever more self-indulgent distractions from the hard truths of a broke and ruined landscape. Our elites have sunk into a boutique decadence of moral preening entirely disconnected from reality: A non-homophobic chicken in every pot, an abortifacient dispenser in every Catholic university, a high-speed-rail corridor between every two bankrupt California municipalities.
Read the whole thing. Steyn once again notes the bankruptcy of modern liberalism and the Democratic Party, which — unless the American public rejects it — will lead to the bankruptcy of our country and probably the world.
The gap between mainstream America and official Washington
The gap between mainstream America and official Washington.
The gap between mainstream America and official Washington.
Tomorrow will mark 1200 days since the Senate, led by the Democrats, passed a budget.
Time to party! Tomorrow will mark 1200 days since the Senate, led by the Democrats, passed their last budget.
Time to party! Tomorrow will mark 1200 days since the Senate, led by the Democrats, passed their last budget.
“Ignore the political prophets of doom – this is a golden age for the world.”
“Ignore the prophets of doom – this is a golden age for the world.”
Take global poverty, a subject we have heard plenty about from ministers justifying the £9 billion overseas aid budget. Britain has signed up to the so-called Millennium Development Goals, set in 2000 and accompanied by sermons from Gordon Brown about the “arc of the moral universe” bending towards justice. It was the beginning of boom times for the overseas aid industry, despite its woeful track record. The first goal was to halve the proportion of the world’s population living on a dollar a day by 2015 – an undeniably noble aim.
Earlier this year, the World Bank made an astonishing discovery: the target had actually been met in 2008, seven years ahead of schedule. This staggering achievement received no fanfare, perhaps because the miracle had not been created by Western governments but by the economic progress of China and India. Their embrace of capitalism had invited a flow of trade and investment, which was not halted by the crash. Capitalism meant that houses replaced mud huts and vast swathes of the Third World rose from their agrarian knees. British consumers buying cheap shirts in Asda were, in a very real sense, helping to make poverty history. [emphasis mine]
In other words, poor countries became wealthy by embracing freedom, not centralized government rule.
Sadly, the United States still faces economic disaster, and that is because, in the past half century, our culture abandoned its principles of freedom and capitalism and instead put our faith in big government. The result: we now face bankruptcy and economic collapse.
“Ignore the prophets of doom – this is a golden age for the world.”
Take global poverty, a subject we have heard plenty about from ministers justifying the £9 billion overseas aid budget. Britain has signed up to the so-called Millennium Development Goals, set in 2000 and accompanied by sermons from Gordon Brown about the “arc of the moral universe” bending towards justice. It was the beginning of boom times for the overseas aid industry, despite its woeful track record. The first goal was to halve the proportion of the world’s population living on a dollar a day by 2015 – an undeniably noble aim.
Earlier this year, the World Bank made an astonishing discovery: the target had actually been met in 2008, seven years ahead of schedule. This staggering achievement received no fanfare, perhaps because the miracle had not been created by Western governments but by the economic progress of China and India. Their embrace of capitalism had invited a flow of trade and investment, which was not halted by the crash. Capitalism meant that houses replaced mud huts and vast swathes of the Third World rose from their agrarian knees. British consumers buying cheap shirts in Asda were, in a very real sense, helping to make poverty history. [emphasis mine]
In other words, poor countries became wealthy by embracing freedom, not centralized government rule.
Sadly, the United States still faces economic disaster, and that is because, in the past half century, our culture abandoned its principles of freedom and capitalism and instead put our faith in big government. The result: we now face bankruptcy and economic collapse.
Borrow $164 million, pay back $1.25 billion.
Modern Democrat accounting: Borrow $164 million, pay back $1.25 billion.
Sadly, this is only one of several examples in California of school districts borrowing money that requires them to pay loan shark interest. No wonder cities in California are going bankrupt.
Modern Democrat accounting: Borrow $164 million, pay back $1.25 billion.
Sadly, this is only one of several examples in California of school districts borrowing money that requires them to pay loan shark interest. No wonder cities in California are going bankrupt.
Landslide on the horizon.
I lived through the 1980 election, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I was struck at the time by the fact that next to no one among the political scientists who made a living out of studying presidential elections, communism in eastern Europe, and Sovietology saw any of these upheavals coming. Virtually all of them were caught flat-footed.
This is, in fact, what you would expect. They were all expert in the ordinary operations of a particular system, and within that framework they were pretty good at prognostication. But the apparent stability of the system had lured them into a species of false confidence – not unlike the false confidence that fairly often besets students of the stock market.
There were others, less expert in the particulars of these systems, who had a bit more distance and a bit more historical perspective and who saw it coming. The Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik wrote a prescient book entitled Can the Soviet Union Survive 1984? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn predicted communism’s imminent collapse, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan suspected that the Soviet Union would soon face a fatal crisis. They were aware that institutions and outlooks that are highly dysfunctional will eventually and unexpectedly dissolve.
In my opinion, none of the psephologists mentioned above has reflected on the degree to which the administrative entitlements state – envisaged by Woodrow Wilson and the Progressives, instituted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and expanded by their successors – has entered a crisis, and none of them is sensitive to the manner in which Barack Obama, in his audacity, has unmasked that state’s tyrannical propensities and its bankruptcy. In consequence, none of these psephologists has reflected adequately on the significance of the emergence of the Tea-Party Movement, on the meaning of Scott Brown’s election and the particular context within which he was elected, on the election of Chris Christie as Governor of New Jersey and of Bob McDonnell as Governor of Virginia, and on the political earthquake that took place in November, 2010. That earthquake, which gave the Republicans a strength at the state and local level that they have not enjoyed since 1928, is a harbinger of what we will see this November.
I agree. However, the author misses one point. There is no guarantee that the American public will vote rationally. Obama might still win. However, the big government welfare state that he and the left believe in is still bankrupt and about to fall apart, no matter what happens in November. The only real question is whether we will honestly face the disaster brewing before us and begin the process of fixing it now, or we will make believe it isn’t there and allow it to overwhelm us in its collapse.
Either way, the federal government is about to go bankrupt, and if we don’t do something about it that bankruptcy will take everything else down with it.
I lived through the 1980 election, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I was struck at the time by the fact that next to no one among the political scientists who made a living out of studying presidential elections, communism in eastern Europe, and Sovietology saw any of these upheavals coming. Virtually all of them were caught flat-footed.
This is, in fact, what you would expect. They were all expert in the ordinary operations of a particular system, and within that framework they were pretty good at prognostication. But the apparent stability of the system had lured them into a species of false confidence – not unlike the false confidence that fairly often besets students of the stock market.
There were others, less expert in the particulars of these systems, who had a bit more distance and a bit more historical perspective and who saw it coming. The Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik wrote a prescient book entitled Can the Soviet Union Survive 1984? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn predicted communism’s imminent collapse, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan suspected that the Soviet Union would soon face a fatal crisis. They were aware that institutions and outlooks that are highly dysfunctional will eventually and unexpectedly dissolve.
In my opinion, none of the psephologists mentioned above has reflected on the degree to which the administrative entitlements state – envisaged by Woodrow Wilson and the Progressives, instituted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and expanded by their successors – has entered a crisis, and none of them is sensitive to the manner in which Barack Obama, in his audacity, has unmasked that state’s tyrannical propensities and its bankruptcy. In consequence, none of these psephologists has reflected adequately on the significance of the emergence of the Tea-Party Movement, on the meaning of Scott Brown’s election and the particular context within which he was elected, on the election of Chris Christie as Governor of New Jersey and of Bob McDonnell as Governor of Virginia, and on the political earthquake that took place in November, 2010. That earthquake, which gave the Republicans a strength at the state and local level that they have not enjoyed since 1928, is a harbinger of what we will see this November.
I agree. However, the author misses one point. There is no guarantee that the American public will vote rationally. Obama might still win. However, the big government welfare state that he and the left believe in is still bankrupt and about to fall apart, no matter what happens in November. The only real question is whether we will honestly face the disaster brewing before us and begin the process of fixing it now, or we will make believe it isn’t there and allow it to overwhelm us in its collapse.
Either way, the federal government is about to go bankrupt, and if we don’t do something about it that bankruptcy will take everything else down with it.
The actual debt of the U.S. federal government has now grown to $222 trillion.
The day of reckoning looms: The actual debt of the U.S. federal government has now grown to $222 trillion.
This is the actual difference between what the federal government will collect in the future and the actual amount of future fiscal liabilities the government is responsible for. It is not the mere $16 trillion or so of immediate debt.
The day of reckoning looms: The actual debt of the U.S. federal government has now grown to $222 trillion.
This is the actual difference between what the federal government will collect in the future and the actual amount of future fiscal liabilities the government is responsible for. It is not the mere $16 trillion or so of immediate debt.
A new budget report released by the Obama Administration on Friday projects the federal debt to rise to $16.2 trillion by the end of the year and $25.4 trillion by 2022.
The day of reckoning looms: A new budget report released by the Obama Administration on Friday projects the federal debt to rise to $16.2 trillion by the end of the year and $25.4 trillion by 2022.
The day of reckoning looms: A new budget report released by the Obama Administration on Friday projects the federal debt to rise to $16.2 trillion by the end of the year and $25.4 trillion by 2022.
The Democrats in the Senate have passed their tax plan.
The Democrats in the Senate have passed their tax plan, extending the Bush tax rates for families making under $250,000 for one year while allowing the rates for families earning above $250,000 to expire.
The big Democratic claim has been that in order to balance the budget richer people have to pay more of their fair share. Okay, so now they’ve made their point by law. If I were the Republicans I’d accept it, since we all know that this tax increase on higher income taxpayers will do nothing to lower the deficit. We could raise the tax rate for anyone earning more than $250K to 100 percent and we would still have a gigantic yearly deficit.
What will the Democrats next claim when this tax increase fails? It won’t matter. The problem is spending, and the failure of this tax plan will further demonstrate that point. The federal government has to learn to live within its means.
The Democrats in the Senate have passed their tax plan, extending the Bush tax rates for families making under $250,000 for one year while allowing the rates for families earning above $250,000 to expire.
The big Democratic claim has been that in order to balance the budget richer people have to pay more of their fair share. Okay, so now they’ve made their point by law. If I were the Republicans I’d accept it, since we all know that this tax increase on higher income taxpayers will do nothing to lower the deficit. We could raise the tax rate for anyone earning more than $250K to 100 percent and we would still have a gigantic yearly deficit.
What will the Democrats next claim when this tax increase fails? It won’t matter. The problem is spending, and the failure of this tax plan will further demonstrate that point. The federal government has to learn to live within its means.
“It’s the spending, stupid.”
Another California city, San Bernardino, has decided to declare bankruptcy.
The day of reckoning looms: Another California city, San Bernardino, has decided to declare bankruptcy.
The day of reckoning looms: Another California city, San Bernardino, has decided to declare bankruptcy.
A report released on Monday states that U.S. state and local governments have more than $2 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities.
The day of reckoning looms: A report released on Monday states that U.S. state and local governments have more than $2 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities.
Worse, the report notes that this number is three times higher than the number reported by those same state and local governments.
The day of reckoning looms: A report released on Monday states that U.S. state and local governments have more than $2 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities.
Worse, the report notes that this number is three times higher than the number reported by those same state and local governments.
Stockton, California, has filed for bankruptcy, making it the largest bankruptcy of any U.S. city in history.
We’ve only just begun: Stockton, California, has filed for bankruptcy, making it the largest bankruptcy of any U.S. city in history.
We’ve only just begun: Stockton, California, has filed for bankruptcy, making it the largest bankruptcy of any U.S. city in history.
The Social Security Trust Fund will start losing value in 2013.
The day of reckoning looms: The Social Security Trust Fund will start losing value in 2013, not 2020 as claimed.
In 2010, Social Security’s Office of the Chief Actuary projected that this interest income would keep the trust fund growing in real value through 2020. The 2011 projections moved this date to 2018, and the recently released 2012 projections pushed the date to 2012, meaning that the trust fund will start declining in real value next year. After 2013, the trust fund is projected to decline by greater amounts each year until becoming exhausted in 2033.
The day of reckoning looms: The Social Security Trust Fund will start losing value in 2013, not 2020 as claimed.
In 2010, Social Security’s Office of the Chief Actuary projected that this interest income would keep the trust fund growing in real value through 2020. The 2011 projections moved this date to 2018, and the recently released 2012 projections pushed the date to 2012, meaning that the trust fund will start declining in real value next year. After 2013, the trust fund is projected to decline by greater amounts each year until becoming exhausted in 2033.
The Senate has passed that pork-filled farm bill, with 16 Republicans and 46 Democrats voting for it.
The Senate has passed that pork-filled farm bill, with 16 Republicans and 46 Democrats voting for it.
The link above provides a list of Republican porkers.
Hopefully, this bill will die in the House.
The Senate has passed that pork-filled farm bill, with 16 Republicans and 46 Democrats voting for it.
The link above provides a list of Republican porkers.
Hopefully, this bill will die in the House.
The Obama administration spent $10 billion dollars to create 355 renewable energy jobs, according to testimony to Congress on Tuesday.
Your tax dollars at work: The Obama administration spent $10 billion dollars to create 355 renewable energy jobs, according to testimony to Congress on Tuesday.
Thank you Obama. That’s $28.17 million spent per job created.
Your tax dollars at work: The Obama administration spent $10 billion dollars to create 355 renewable energy jobs, according to testimony to Congress on Tuesday.
Thank you Obama. That’s $28.17 million spent per job created.
The House yesterday proposed a spending bill that would cut the EPA’s budget to $7 billion, 17% less than what it received in 2012.
Progress: The House yesterday proposed a spending bill that would cut the EPA’s budget to $7 billion, 17% less than what it received in 2012.
Considering the federal debt, this is a reasonable cut, as a $7 billion budget would be comparable to the EPA’s budget numbers in the early 2000s, and would hardly cripple that agency.
On a more depressing note, the Senate is moving forward on a bi-partisan deal to pass a massive farm bill, loaded with pork that would spend almost a trillion dollars over the next decade.
Progress: The House yesterday proposed a spending bill that would cut the EPA’s budget to $7 billion, 17% less than what it received in 2012.
Considering the federal debt, this is a reasonable cut, as a $7 billion budget would be comparable to the EPA’s budget numbers in the early 2000s, and would hardly cripple that agency.
On a more depressing note, the Senate is moving forward on a bi-partisan deal to pass a massive farm bill, loaded with pork that would spend almost a trillion dollars over the next decade.
The number of available job openings in April showed biggest drop in nearly 4 years.
Not good: The number of available job openings in April showed the biggest drop in nearly 4 years.
Not good: The number of available job openings in April showed the biggest drop in nearly 4 years.
The IRS’s budget has grown by almost a billion dollars due to Obamacare.
And you thought Obamacare was about healthcare: The IRS’s budget has grown by almost a billion dollars due to Obamacare.
And you thought Obamacare was about healthcare: The IRS’s budget has grown by almost a billion dollars due to Obamacare.
The debt of the federal government is projected to be nearly twice the size of the U.S. economy by 2037, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced Tuesday.
The day of reckoning looms: The debt of the federal government is projected to be nearly twice the size of the U.S. economy by 2037, the Congressional Budget Office announced Tuesday.
This CBO report actually supposed to be encouraging, as it indicates that the day of doom has been pushed back a whopping two years! Yowza! Let’s pop the corks on the champagne bottles and start celebrating!
Sadly, the article also has this ridiculous quote:
CBO’s latest prediction is similar to its 2011 report despite the $2.1 trillion in budget cuts enacted in last August’s debt-ceiling deal between the White House and Congress.
Nothing was cut by that deal. All they did was trim the rate of growth. For any journalist to continue to participate in this fraud is sickening.
The day of reckoning looms: The debt of the federal government is projected to be nearly twice the size of the U.S. economy by 2037, the Congressional Budget Office announced Tuesday.
This CBO report actually supposed to be encouraging, as it indicates that the day of doom has been pushed back a whopping two years! Yowza! Let’s pop the corks on the champagne bottles and start celebrating!
Sadly, the article also has this ridiculous quote:
CBO’s latest prediction is similar to its 2011 report despite the $2.1 trillion in budget cuts enacted in last August’s debt-ceiling deal between the White House and Congress.
Nothing was cut by that deal. All they did was trim the rate of growth. For any journalist to continue to participate in this fraud is sickening.
The day of reckoning looms:
The day of reckoning looms. Two stories:
“If you’re anxious, you sit on your hands.”
“The bad jobs report is just a very small taste of the nightmare that is coming.”
The day of reckoning looms. Two stories:
“If you’re anxious, you sit on your hands.”
“The bad jobs report is just a very small taste of the nightmare that is coming.”