Obama Talks Again of 'Balanced Approach' Meaning New Taxes, Market Tanks

CBS News reported here at 2:36 pm on the president's remarks made today after the lunch hour:

Mr. Obama noted that S and P attributed its downgrade in part to doubts about the U.S. political system's ability to act to reign in the nation's ballooning deficit and debt, and called for a "balanced approach" to deficit reduction - one that includes both tax increases on high earners and "modest adjustments" to Medicare and other health care programs.

At 1:47 pm the S and P 500 was down 56 points. At 2:18 pm it was down 67 points. By the close it stood at nearly 80 points down for the day:

Democrats Still Play The Dictator, Commit Crime Against Democracy: Attack Tea Party Over Credit Downgrade

Pat Caddell last September, referring to ramming ObamaCare down our throats:

"The Democrats had a chance to do this right — most people supported aspects of reform — but because of the way it was passed, as a crime against democracy, the country has simply not accepted it. The lies, the browbeating, the ‘deem and pass’ — all of it was a suicide mission. ...

“Democrats used to be the voice of the common man in America, not his dictator.”

The whole interview, here, is as applicable now as it was then.

China Lectures America While Failing To Comply With The Rules

From Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, here, who points out there is a dwindling supply of growth to steal from the future:

China has already pushed credit to 200pc of GDP. It cannot repeat the trick. ...

As for China's bluster, it is chutzpah and self-delusion. We all agree that the US needs to "cure its addiction to debts", but so will China soon.

China buys US debt in order to recycle $200bn a quarter in foreign reserves, hold down the yuan, and continue its mercantilist export strategy. If China had not distorted world trade in this fashion, the US would not be in such a mess.

Obama is Engineering the Decline of the American Republic

Rush Limbaugh said it, right?

No, Pete Wehner, here.

Real Clear Politics' Image of Obama Doesn't Match The Video

Are they having just a little too much fun?

We do that, but should they?

Seen here:

'And the glory of the Lord shone round about him.'

The Permabulls' Latest Ploy

You know your leg is being pulled when steep market declines are just flash crashes to be blamed on high frequency trading, but buying on the dips couldn't possibly be pre-programmed to cause flash rallies.

Have fun at the casino!  

Recent Sell-Off Was Another Flash Crash? Why isn't the Opposite a Flash Rally?

A couple of people here are blaming the market meltdown last week on high frequency trading.

Gee whiz, what isn't to be blamed on high frequency trading when 75 percent of the trading, and climbing, is high frequency?

These explanations have become a distinction without a difference.

So movements are amplified, so what? People just aren't used to the increased volatility, which is just like turning up the volume on the stereo. The music is the same, just louder.

Obama's Defeated 2012 Budget Would Have Taken Public Debt to $24 Trillion in 10 Years

TheHill.com reported the CBO projection in March here:

CBO estimates Obama's plan would produce 10 years of deficits totaling $9.5 trillion. By 2021, it would increase the debt held by the public to 87 percent of gross domestic product.

On March 18, 2011 public debt stood at $14.225 trillion, to which add $9.5 trillion over ten years, and you get nearly $24 trillion, nearly 122 percent higher than the debt at the end of 2008.

Was that "a balanced approach"?

Was Standard and Poor's wrong at $22.1 trillion? It would be more accurate to call it generous, in Obama's favor. Brow-beaten by criticism from the regime, S and P dropped the number to $20.1 trillion.

I predict that if Obama is still in office in 2015, we'll have already hit that $20.1 trillion mark by then and won't have to wait for 2021. 

EU Growth Rate 2000-2010 at 1.56 Percent

Yeah! Let's be more like Europe!

Wait. We already are.

Data here and here.

Let's Play 'Who's The Bigger Liberal: Clinton, Bush or Obama?'

In January of 1993, the total public debt stood at $4.2 trillion. By the end of the year 2000, it stood at $5.7 trillion. So Bill Clinton increased the debt by 35 percent, about 4.4 points per year.

At the end of December in 2008, the debt stood at $10.7 trillion. So George Bush increased the debt by 88 percent, about 11 points per year, a rate 2.5 times higher than Bill Clinton's.

As of August 4, 2011, the debt stands at $14.6 trillion. So Barack Obama has increased the debt by 36 percent . . . in just over one half of one term in office, not two full terms like his predecessors, or 14.4 points per year.

George Bush is clearly a bigger liberal than Bill Clinton, but Obama is already topping him by a rate of 1.3 times.  

Standard and Poor's Estimate of GDP is Way Too Optimistic

From their downgrade report:

Key macroeconomic assumptions in the base case scenario include trend real GDP growth of 3 percent and consumer price inflation near 2 percent annually over the decade. ... our downside case scenario assumes relatively modest real trend GDP growth of 2.5 percent and inflation of near 1.5 percent annually going forward.

Real GDP in the first decade of the 21st century was a pathetic, anemic 1.67 percent.

If that continues (we're at 1.3 percent right now), the gap between spending and revenues will continue to widen, increasing the size of annual deficits and adding to the total debt.

Not Triple A

Thanks, Harvard.

Story here.

Israel Is Doomed: by a Mental Disorder Better Known as Liberalism

Because even its leading newspaper can't bring itself to condemn the virulent liberal-anti-Semitism of Norway which the Utoya shooter attacked, personified in the Labor Party's AUF and one Gro Harlem Brundtland, his real target.

The obsequious apology is noted here.

Why Did Californians Have Herpes While Coloradans Had Texans?

Because Californians had first choice.

(You had to be in Colorado in the summers in the 1970s before AIDS to really appreciate this).

Senator John Kerry: Enemy of a Free Press and Free Speech

Story here, about media reporting on the Tea Party:

"The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual."

In other words, free speech and a free press are only for some people.

Kind of like how stop signs are only for some people, right Senator? 

Unemployment to 9.1 Percent: 25 of 27 Months At Or Above 9.0

Story here.

The broader measure called U-6 which adds the marginally attached and the part-time for economic reasons has been above 12 percent for 33 consecutive months going back to November 2008.

Fannie Mae Follows First Quarter $8.7 Billion Loss With $5.2 Billion in Second

Bailouts to date: $104 billion.

Story here.

Time Magazine's Marxists Agree: Inequality Caused The Financial Crisis

Why, even Wall Street hates inequality so much it, too, dived in obeisance.

Read it here, if you must.

Debt and leverage are so bourgeois.

Today's DOW Drop Ranks 9th For Daily Point Losses. It's Not a 'Crash'.

Wikipedia has this nice chart, among others, here:

The percentage loss was big, but won't be truly significant unless it becomes part of a larger pattern of losses like we had in the fall of 2008, which dominates this chart.

For all we know, the decline today and Tuesday was the market's verdict on President Obama's and Senator Harry Reid's expressed resolve to raise taxes in the very near future in the wake of the debt ceiling deal.

Notice, however, that the historic market lows of February and March 2003, and March 2009 are absent from this chart. Those were incredible buying opportunities which did not reveal themselves precipitously. Those lows were achieved by grinding down to them.

Cash is King: US Banks Now Hold Nearly $2 Trillion

From a fascinating story at The Wall Street Journal:

The fastest-growing asset on bank balance sheets this year is cash. Since the beginning of the year, U.S. bank holdings of cash are up 83%, or $890 billion, to $1.98 trillion. ...

BNY Mellon said that customers that have deposited more than $50 million into their accounts since the end of July will face an annual fee of at least 0.13% of the excess deposits. ...

Holding cash comes at a cost to banks. Bank of New York and others pay fees of about 0.10% to the FDIC to insure their deposits, said people familiar with the matter. ...

One place banks have turned to put their cash is the Federal Reserve. Since late 2008 it has been paying 0.25% interest on funds banks hold ... in reserve with the Fed.

Learn all about it, here.