Chrysler pays off its government bailout loan – it’s all good, right?

Three cheers for the bailed out automakers! Today Chrysler joined GM in repaying its government loans early by paying off its $7.6 billion dollar debt. GM has already paid back its $8.1 billion dollar debt. This would seem to be validation that Obama and Congress did the right thing by bailing out the automakers who are now operating on much more stable ground. This would also seem to be another feather in Obama’s cap he can use during the upcoming 2012 election against the Republicans who doubted the wisdom of the move. Finally, big government has done something right everyone can get behind, right? WRONG!

Per usual, this is just smoke and mirrors from the administration, GM and Chrysler. In fact, the only reason these moves were made by the automakers was to get out from underneath the onerous hand of government control that appears to be so beneficial. They can’t get back to business as usual with the Feds monitoring their every move from with-in.

In the case of GM, they simply used an equity line from the TARP program to pay off their bailout. That’s just a shift from one government bailout program to another, however the latter doesn’t contain the strings the specified automaker bailout did. Then there is the separate case of the $50 billion dollar bridge loan based upon stock valuations as well yet to come.

Chrysler didn’t use TARP money, rather they simply swapped out the government loan with private investor equity lines with far preferable terms. They still owe the same amount, only with much less interest in the future.

In short, nobody has paid off anything. It’s merely been shuffling of debt and accounting sleight of hand in order to generate favorable publicity and remove the government from its oversight role. I have no complaint with the latter at all. Government shouldn’t be in this business whatsoever anyway, I just disagree with the sales pitch.

Liberals – don’t look here!

Remember Krista Branch with her “I am America” patriotic song? Here’s her latest-

Got some Obama “BS” bothering you? Here’s the cure-

Study finds the stimulus cost the private sector one million jobs

An Ohio State research team has released a study illustrating that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was the abject failure we knew it would be before it was ever implemented. Keynesian economics don’t work, have never worked, and are actually a negative. Let’s not forget the additional debt the American taxpayer has been saddled with to pay for this monstrosity of social engineering on top of the jobs lost.

We

estimate the Act created/saved 450 thousand government-sector jobs and destroyed/forestalled

one million private sector jobs. State and local government jobs were saved because ARRA funds

were largely used to o

set state revenue shortfalls and Medicaid increases (Fig. A) rather than

boost private sector employment (e.g. Fig. B).

Here is the direct link to the study.

It’s important to remember that even this type of ‘investment’ spending as Obama refers to it, is designed to be temporary as a boost where demand is lagging or credit is restricted. When conditions improve, the stimulus should be withdrawn. Instead, what we are witnessing is that this additional deficit spending is now a permanent part of the federal budget. Yet the states won’t receive the billions in handouts they did previously to temporarily salvage their own budgets.

Additionally, the stimulus cost needs to be extracted from the recovering economy and acts as a further anchor stunting any perceived recovery. It’s a vicious cycle with no hope of a positive outcome. None of this is any surprise to those of us who never bought into the sales pitch despite being denigrated at the time for not even giving the stimulus a chance. It’s not a new concept. It’s a tried and true proven failure. Hopefully, the American voter will pay closer attention next time at the ballot box.

Mr. Boehner, you must vote no on raising the debt limit

There really shouldn’t be many fence sitters left on the debt ceiling issue at this point. This should be one the few major issues that is not partisan driven as well. It’s really a very clear cut choice. Support raising it and you have zero credibility in my book. You are simply a sucker for the hyperbole and fear tactics in play.

The facts are that the U.S. will not default on its debt. Write it down, take it to the bank, bet the farm. At least not this year anyway. Servicing our $14 trillion dollar debt only requires approx. 6% of the tax revenue generated annually. The only feasible possibility for default would be if Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, at the direction of his boss the POTUS, does so intentionally. Not likely to happen. There is no option for doing so and gaining politically. All the threats being put forth are hollow. Certainly there will be some gamesmanship played with some high profile events the MSM media will eat up. How far is Obama willing to go and put us at risk in this game of chicken we just don’t know. I’ll admit that is a concern with an amateur in charge. The one thing that is for sure is that it’s not necessary.

What’s outrageous is that House Speaker Boehner is even negotiating a deal at all. Trading promises of spending cuts for raising the debt limit? Foolishness! Do you know what will happen should the debt limit not be raised? Forced spending cuts, that’s what. Why in the hell does Boehner need to bargain them away when they are guaranteed absent the debt limit raise?

The debt will be serviced first. After that will begin the process of prioritizing Federal programs. As long as Obama runs an unbalanced budget, the forced spending cuts will get dramatic by necessity. But that’s the point. He can’t avoid them. Of course, partisan politics will play a huge role at this stage as he tries to pacify his base as much as possible and make the cuts in GOP majority areas. But even minor cuts to union strongholds will bring out the venomous protesters en masse.

If you are at all unsure where you stand on this issue, please do your research. There simply is no merit to the administration’s threats at all. No double dip recession or tanking of the world economy. The cuts will be to government run or subsidized programs. These are not wealth creating programs. They will not restrict or remove investment capital from the markets. In short, nothing that would dictate a recession. A double dip is not even technically possible since we are nearly two years removed from the end of the previous one.

The administration only has the fear tactic on its side to sell. They can’t lay out the facts with our true options because it would defeat their premise. They cling to their hope that enough ignorance exists in the public arena that they can pull off their outright lies and distortions. Unfortunately, a large segment of our society falls into that category.

Make no mistake, the American public will bear the burden of the fallout if the debt limit isn’t raised. But it’s a necessary evil. Much like what is going on with the levees in the south. Picking and choosing the winners in the who gets flooded drama is extremely unpopular with those that will lose everything. But choosing a course that will protect the greatest number of people is the only real choice. Addressing the deficits and debt will chart a similar course. Many Americans dependent on the government machine will lose. But in order to address the cancerous debt issue, it has to be done.

This debt limit vote is only the beginning. However, it’s an absolute necessity. And a clear choice to boot.

Bin Laden killed, Obama creates another conspiracy theory ***UPDATED with graphic death scene pics***

Make no mistake, there is only one reason why conspiracy theories will be rampant today in the aftermath of the announcement of the killing of Osama bin Laden. That is due to the actions of our POTUS. Can’t this fool execute any operation without doing so? Just as with the birther issue, he is the only reason conspiracy theories abound. Don’t you think it’s more than a little convenient on the timing of this? The Obama birth certificate issue is only growing since he released his latest fake last week. What better way to get it off the front page than to pull off a worldwide coup and kill public enemy number one.

A four year operation with confirmation in August of 2010 on the whereabouts of Bin Laden results in the supposed killing of him at the time Obama needs political cover in the worst way with the birther issue and an imploding economy with $5 a gallon gas. To be fair, the theory that Bin Laden has been dead for years has nothing to do with Obama. But here he had the chance to put those stories to rest and what does he do? Buries the body at sea ASAP without confirmation from anybody. We’re left with confusion. What possible purpose would there be in rushing this at sea burial? They say nobody wanted the body so they had no choice. Please. If the reasoning is they don’t want to create a memorial for a martyr, burying him at sea is an excellent solution. But why couldn’t it have waited a few days? Get the photos and video out for all who want to see it and eliminate any conspiracies or questions of validity. But no, not Obama.

To go further, is it also interesting that a helicopter crashed into the compound and now they are purposely burning it? Now we have no body and also the site itself is being burned down. Coincidence? We’re told that we don’t want a chopper with our intelligence capabilities on it turned over to the enemy. Wait a minute, isn’t this a residential neighborhood in one of our allies cities? Didn’t the Navy Seals take the compound? Who exactly are we concerned is going to move in and get past the Seals to steal this chopper? The Pakistani authorities now control the compound, not Al Qaeda. Why does nothing about this story seem to add up? Likely it is nothing, but it sure seems strange.

Bill Clinton was the master at conducting newsworthy events to redirect attention from his transgressions. Obama will now remove the birther issue from the spotlight and also garner some strong political cache for his re-election bid. He will now get credit as the man who got Bin Laden. It seemed rather ironic to me listening to him as to how he sounded like Trump. Trump was all over the place taking credit for forcing Obama to confront the birther issue. Last night, Obama couldn’t trumpet his accomplishment enough. Listen to his statement and it’s chock full of I did this and I did that. Well, he simply took the advice of his national security team that had been conducting an ongoing operation started under Bush.

Was Bin Laden already dead years ago or was he killed yesterday in Pakistan? I have no idea and apparently we won’t ever find out now. Again, Obama could have easily and definitively settled the issue but chose not to. That leaves the door wide open for speculation. There was a time when nobody would even question the validity of an issue such as this. But the actions of this POTUS too often encourage the speculators.

One things for sure. Question whether or not Osama bin Laden was really killed yesterday and you are a racist. It remains to be seen what the implications will be for the war in Afghanistan. This would be the perfect cover for Obama to pull out if he so desired. The TSA has also been getting pulverized in the national media lately. Now they have a new mandate to exist to protect us against a retaliatory strike.

I will say I’m glad for those that lost people in 9-1-1 and other related terrorist incidents. If they get some closure out of this, good for them, they certainly deserve it.

***WARNING***-Very graphic photos after the break-All photos courtesy of Reuters. Make sure you notice the “weapon” the bad guy has lying under his shoulder!