Middle class brick wall: Obama ends his presidency with new housing starts down 34% overall compared with 1959-2008

Not seasonally adjusted, new housing starts averaged 1.28 million per year from 1959-2008, but under Obama they averaged just 0.84 million per year, according to the December data out today, completing his eight year record down 34% from the post-war average.

The monthly average for 2016 annualized is 1.17 million starts, which will end up being Obama's best year but only just above the post-war average cyclical low of 1.13 million per year.

So under Obama all we have done is climb back to the average cyclical low point for new housing starts.

Housing booms have been marked by an average cyclical high of 1.97 million new starts per year in the post-war, but Obama's best performance in 2016 is over 40% off that average high.

2009 marked the low point since 1959, with just 0.55 million new starts, sliding all the way down from the 2005 cyclical high of 2.07 million, a collapse of over 73% for the new housing industry.

Since September 2008 through November 2016 there have been approximately 6.5 million completed foreclosures according to Corelogic here. That means that over 16 million people have been displaced from their homes during the Obama era based on the average household size of 2.5 people.

The homeownership rate in the second quarter of 2016 fell to its lowest point in five decades at 62.9%, the same rate which prevailed in 1965.

Pew reported in December 2015 that after more than four decades as the economic majority in the United States, the middle class had become out-numbered by the combined number of the rich and the poor. Pew reports that in 1971 middle class adults were 61% of their fellows vs. only 50% in 2015. The underclass has grown by 25% while the richest tranche has grown by 125%.

At least some of the decline in the relative size of the middle class has to do with the enormous number of illegal aliens flooding the country since Bill Clinton was elected in 1992, and with a large number of Baby Boomers moving on up in an era of credentialism while eschewing larger families for themselves than they came from.

Births per 1,000 women fell to their lowest point since 1909 in the first quarter of 2016 at 59.8. The rate was 122.9 in 1957.

You can't have a decent country unless you give birth to it.

Laugh of the Day: Jake Novak at CNBC says Obama helped us emotionally recover from the Great Recession

Sure he did, Jake, sure he did.

Here:

"President Obama's cheerleading for the economy did help people recover emotionally from the Great Recession."

In case you didn't get it the first time, Vladimir Putin thinks the CIA behind the Trump smear . . .

. . . is the same CIA which overthrew the democratically elected but pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych, president of Ukraine, in 2014.

Not coincidentally, John McCain was the US point man in the overthrow effort: "John McCain backs opposition leaders telling Ukraine protesters: 'America stands with you - Ukraine will make Europe better'".

Democracy is only OK if it's pro-Western, you see.

When Chelsea Bradley Manning gets out in May . . .

. . . who knows, maybe the third time will be a charm?

Obviously, if Snowden had really wanted a pass from President Obama . . .

. . . he should have changed genders.

Too late now bro!

Obama The Ignominious releases a tranny traitor and FALN and Taliban terrorists

There are still 53 hours left. Who knows what other parting shots Obama has in store?

Who is dumber, Sheila Jackson Lee of flag on Mars fame, or the people of Texas who keep reelecting her since 1995?

The flag on Mars story from 1997 was reported here.

For Lee's more recent embarrassments of Yale University, the US Congress and Texas, see here.

A caller to Steve Gruber this morning incorrectly attributed the flag on Mars remark to Maxine Waters.

Joe Biden wants to plunge Europe into war if dictator Erdogan's TURKEY is attacked

The dangerous illogic of NATO overreach is completely lost on Joe Biden, here:

At a time when Trump and his advisors are talking about shaking up NATO, Biden said, we must "support our NATO allies. An attack on one is an attack on all, that can never be placed in question." ... "We need to tap into the big heartedness [and raise taxes on the 1%]," Biden said. "This is a moment to lead boldly."

Then why didn't you run, Joe?

Some leader.

Liberal progressives. All talk. No action.

Vladimir Putin likens Trump opponents to the revolutionaries who deposed Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine in 2014

Quoted here:

'People who order such fakes against the U.S. president-elect, fabricate them and use them in political struggle are worse than prostitutes,' Putin said. 'They have no moral restrictions whatsoever, and it highlights a significant degree of degradation of political elites in the West, including in the United States.' 'He wasn't a politician, we didn't even know about his political ambitions,' Putin said. 'Do they think that our special services are hunting for every U.S. billionaire?' Trump is a 'grown man, and secondly he's someone who has been involved with beauty contests for many years and has met the most beautiful women in the world,' he said. 'I find it hard to believe that he rushed to some hotel to meet girls of loose morals, although ours are undoubtedly the best in the world.' He said Trump's foes are ready to go as far as to 'stage a Maidan in Washington to prevent Trump from entering office,' in reference to the alleged U.S. role in organizing protests in the main square of the Ukrainian capital, the Maidan, which forced the nation's Russia-friendly president from power in 2014. 'People who are doing that are inflicting a colossal damage to the interests of the United States,' Putin said.

Trump to whack DC with 10% cut to discretionary spending, 20% cut to personnel

Obama's most recent discretionary budget estimates

The hive is buzzing.

A 10% cut to 2018 projected discretionary would come to about $115 billion.

There are 2.824 million federal employees, but the discretionary departments do not by any means exhaust them all. But just a 5% cut to this total would mean 141,200 would be going bye-bye.

Lots of homes would be going up for sale! 

Story here.

Obama will be president for only 3 more days, but in the hearts of his countrymen he will always remain . . .

There's your magic negro, your mediocre negro, and then there's your bottom of the barrel negro like elitist negro Marc Lamont Hill

Mark Lamont Hill, quoted here:

LAMONT HILL: Yeah, it's a bunch of mediocre negroes being dragged in front of TV as a photo-op for Donald Trump's exploitive campaign against black people. And you [Bruce LeVell] are the prime example of that.

Boo hoo: Prominent Never Trump letter signers surprised to be on Trump's enemies list

What the hell did they expect? Front row seats?

And you thought Trump was arrogant.

Story here.

John Lewis' boycott of the inaugural isn't unprecedented, nor the reason for it: He also boycotted G. W. Bush

WaPo reported this Sunday, Jan. 21, 2001, here:

Some members of the Black Caucus decided to boycott Inauguration Day; John Lewis, for instance, spent the day in his Atlanta district. He thought it would be hypocritical to attend Bush's swearing-in because he doesn't believe Bush is the true elected president.

Legitimate fighter

MLK Jr. is an illegitimate American who opposed our economics, our middle class and our religion

"I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic. ... So today capitalism has outlived its usefulness. ... [R]eligion [can?] so easily become a tool of the middle class to keep the proletariant oppressed. ... It is probably true that capitalism is on its death bed, but social systems have a way of developing a long and powerful death bed breathing capacity. Remember it took feudalism more than 500 years to pass out from its death bed. Capitalism will be in America quite a few more years my dear. Yet with his basic thesis I would concur. Our economic system is going through a radical change, and certainly this change is needed. I would certainly welcome the day to come when there will be a nationalization of industry." -- July 1952

Rand Paul: John Lewis isn't immune from criticism just because he's a civil rights icon

No, he's immune because he's BLACK, but Rand Paul won't say that.

Rand Paul, quoted here:

[B]eing a civil rights icon ... I would also say that that doesn't make us immune from criticism or debate. So, John Lewis isn't in a position where there can't be a healthy debate back and forth. Because he's a civil rights icon shouldn't make him immune. ...  I should be able to honestly disagree with him, and not have it all come back to, I have no appreciation for a civil rights icon because of this. And I think that's the part that I think is sometimes unfair in this.

Laugh of the Day: WaPo calls MLK Jr. a conservative

Here:

“My friends,” Dr. King said in his Detroit sermon, “all I’m trying to say is that if we are to go forward today, we’ve got to go back and rediscover some mighty precious values that we’ve left behind. That’s the only way that we would be able to make of our world a better world, and to make of this world what God wants it to be. . . .”

Spoken like a true conservative, and a truly great one.

Conservatives think people who think it's possible to make this world what God wants it to be are seriously mistaken.

Complete and utter rubbish from Real Clear Markets on "free market" Martin Luther King Jr. who said "capitalism has outlived its usefulness"

Here in "Martin Luther King's Free-Market Legacy":

Martin Luther King proclaimed that he had a dream that “…my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”  His dream was far more powerful than it is given credit for.  It is a general call for freedom and free-market prosperity.

The real Martin Luther King Jr. was a self-confessed socialist as early as July 1952:

By the way (to turn to something more intellectual) I have just completed Bellamy’s Looking Backward. It was both stimulating and fascinating. There can be no doubt about it. Bellamy had the insight of a social prophet as well as the fact finding mind of the social scientist. I welcomed the book because much of its content is in line with my basic ideas. I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic. And yet I am not so opposed to capitalism that I have failed to see its relative merits. It started out with a noble and high motive, viz, to block the trade monopolies of nobles, but like most human system it fail victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. So I think Bellamy is right in seeing the gradual decline of capitalism.

The CIA chief John Brennan voted Communist in 1976, which is the real reason he takes umbrage with Trump calling him Nazi

"What I do find outrageous is equating intelligence community with Nazi Germany," Brennan said. "I do take great umbrage at that."