EnviroLink Forum

This is what happens when you let the Tea Party run amok with power...

Oh, for heavens sake!

What do they call the tea-party up north? The beer-bellys?

They call them crazies, just like we do here .....

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

An ultra-conservative shopping at Walmart:

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/?p=46292

_________________
With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Really? Seems as though the newly elected politicians that won last fall spouting tea party ideals are towing the republican line pretty well and not rocking the boat. Apparently , the majority of them do not care about personal liberties....

" Twenty-six Republicans voted against the Patriot Act extension, but only eight were freshmen — Reps. Justin Amash (Mich.), Mike Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Chris Gibson (N.Y.), Randy Hultgren (Ill.), Raul Labrador (Idaho), Bobby Schilling (Ill.), Dave Schweikert (Ariz.) and Rob Woodall (Ga.).

Of those eight freshmen, it appears that all were Tea Party-supported candidates. It's encouraging to see these officials stick to their professed ideals. I hope that this is a continuing phenomenon. According to this article at MSNBC, though, at least forty house seats went to Tea Party-backed candidates. Cross-referencing the list at MSNBC and the outcome of the vote, the following is a list of Tea Party-backed candidates voting for the bill:

Tim Griffin (AR-2), Paul Gosar (AZ-1), Steve Southerland (FL-2), Allen West (FL-22), Sandy Adams (FL-24), Bob Dold (IL-10), Adam Kinzinger (IL-11), Marlin Stutzman (IN-3), Todd Young (IN-9), Jeff Landry (LA-3), Dan Benishek (MI-1), Tim Walberg (MI-7), Michelle Bachmann (MN-6), Vicky Hartzler (MO-4), Renee Ellmers (NC-2), Frank Guinta (NH-1), Joe Heck (NV-3), Michael Grimm (NY-13), Steven Chabot (OH-1), Bill Johnson (OH-6), Steve Stivers (OH-15), Jim Renacci (OH-16), Tim Scott (SC-1), Jeff Duncan (SC-3), Trey Gowdy (SC-4), Mick Mulvaney (SC-5), Scott DesJarlais (TN-4), Bill Flores (TX-17), H. Morgan Griffith (VA-9), Sean Duffy (WI-7), Reid Ribble (WI-8), David McKinley (WV-1)"

http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-did-tea-party-patriots-act.html

And how are they doing so far as the governmental over spending is concerned? Well, towing the line there too...

It turns out the $100-billion figure meant $100 billion from a budget that President Barack Obama proposed, which was never passed. And now that the fiscal year is nearly half over, well, there's just no way ...

Even some Tea Party types who are sticking to the original goal concede that it'll be hard to reach as long as the GOP exempts -- as it plans to -- funding for defense, homeland security, veterans and entitlements. "I still think it's realistic," freshman Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) said of the $100-billion target, "but the trick will be how we get from here to there."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/05/30-billion-budget-cuts-what-budget-cuts_n_804976.html

Uh yeah, real change there. They learn fast once they get to Washington and are indoctrinated by the elders and the lobbyists ,eh? Of course the tea party was in real trouble as soon as the likes of Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich infiltrated the cause.

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I can have oodles of charm....... when I want to.

SiberD-

I agree with the sentiment of what you wrote. While I really don't agree with most of the Tea Party's extreme stances on some issues, I do have respect for people who have strong beliefs and stand up for them politically. The biggest problem is that a real debate about those issues wasn't allowed to emerge because of extremists within the Tea Party doing things like shouting down real debate about issues like Healthcare and mediatards like Palin, Gingrich, etc. successfully infiltrating the "cause" with their absurd style of "leadership".

I really think a strong debate between Obama's view of the country and the deeper-rooted Tea Party would have been very positive for the country. Adding in all sorts of social issues, crackpots and false leaders/media pundits kind of screwed the possibility of a real debate on the issues.

-josh

That could be due to the tea-party folks made so much noise the GOP had to give them lip service to quiet them. It does not mean those claiming to be "true" tea-party supporters were dealing with reality in any sort. Like many of the Libertarians with which I have spoken, they seemed to have a fantasy approach to the world.



I disagreed with the Patriot Act even after it was toned down by the more liberal pressure.



I suppose that depends on whether you wanted a deeper economic depression or not. You cannot recover quickly with a balanced budget. You cannot even maintain the status quo with a balanced budget.



It was always in trouble, as there was no central plan, just a lot of various tacks called the same movement.

_________________
With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Do you consider us to be in a recovery?

_________________
I can have oodles of charm....... when I want to.

As opposed to the decline we were experiencing, yes. Has the economy recovered? No.

_________________
With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

To clarify a point, I do know about the long history of war causing the changes in laws we see in the Patriot Act, I just do not agree to the level of the adjustments.

2053+ years at 9/11 and 2063+ years now.

silent enim leges inter arma ("in times of war, the laws fall silent").

Marcus Tullius Cicero 52 BC

_________________
With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Well, I believe that we are NOT in any sort of recovery but are in a deep prolonged period of stagflation. Our inflation rate is high, thanks to the FED's money printing policies, while our economic output is low. The main growth in our GDP, what little there is, comes from Gov't spending. Unemployment is officially still close to 10% while unofficially its closer to 20%. The infusion of billions of dollars by the FED has not spurred employment or made credit available to encourage new businesses but has only further enriched the investment banks and propped up the stock market.

Certain asset classes, such as homes and electronics are experiencing deflation. The housing market is not in a double dip as it was never in a recovery mode. It only saw a slight increase due to the buying incentives doled out by the Gov't via our taxes. Same thing for automobiles....that cash for clunkers was a real clunker!

Then certain commodity prices, such as food staples and energy, you know, things people cannot go without, have seen tremendous inflation and is ongoing.

Recovery? Yeah, maybe for the bankers whom we bailed out so they may pass off their losses in the mortgage debacle and the securities that they knew were defective but passed off to pension funds as good as gold.

The FED is ending this round of quantitative easing on June 30th so we'll see how much of a recovery we're in shortly after that.

Oh, forgot to add....food stamps are at an all time high with 44.199 million participants out of a population of 310 million. Wow!

_________________
I can have oodles of charm....... when I want to.

You can believe anything you wish. There are those who believe we never landed on the moon and those who believe we did.



HighER than it could be, but not that high given the history and the impact of fuel costs.

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/in ... ion-rates/



Which will be the case until we have recoverED by definition. The Great Depression impacts were not completely overcome until the advent of spending for WWII.



Which would be called "priming the pump" type actions by those who understand the need for pumps to be primed.



It will not see an immediate drop either. It does not mean there is no recovery, just that we have not recovered.



http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 244,000 in April, and the private sector added 268,000 jobs. Employment rose in a number of service-providing industries, manufacturing, and mining. Since a recent low in February 2010, total payroll employment has grown by 1.8 million. Private sector employment has increased by 2.1 million over the same period. (See table B-1.)

In April, employment in retail trade rose by 57,000. Within the industry,
employment in general merchandise stores increased by 27,000, offsetting a decline of similar magnitude in the prior month. Elsewhere in retail trade, April job gains occurred in electronics and appliance stores (+6,000), building material and garden supply stores (+6,000), and automobile dealers (+5,000).

Employment in professional and business services continued to expand in April, with an increase of 51,000. Job gains occurred in management and technical consulting services (+11,000) and in computer systems design and related services (+8,000). Employment in temporary help services was little changed over the month, following an increase of 34,000 in March.

Health care continued to add jobs in April (+37,000). Within health care, job gains continued in ambulatory health care (+22,000) and hospitals (+10,000).

Employment in leisure and hospitality continued to increase in April
(+46,000). Over the past 3 months, this industry added 151,000 jobs, with nearly two-thirds of the growth in food services and drinking places.

Employment in both state government and local government continued to trend down, with April losses concentrated in the non-educational components.

Elsewhere in the service-providing sector, employment in information,
financial activities, and transportation and warehousing changed little
in April.

In the goods-producing sector of the economy, manufacturing employment rose by 29,000 in April. Since reaching an employment low in December 2009, manufacturing has added 250,000 jobs, including 141,000 in 2011. Over the month, employment growth continued in machinery (+5,000), primary metals (+4,000), and computer and electronic products (+4,000).

Mining added 11,000 jobs in April. More than half of the gain occurred in support activities for mining. Since a recent low point in October 2009, employment in mining has increased by 107,000.

Construction employment was about unchanged in April. This industry has shown little net movement since early 2010, after having fallen sharply during the prior 3 years.

It seems the governmental areas where balanced budgets are required were where the losses in employment offset the general upturn.



http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevent ... 10414a.htm

While credit availability seemed to improve for large companies throughout the past year, small businesses still complained of difficulty in gaining access to credit. Recent anecdotes lead me to believe that conditions are improving for small businesses, but data are scarce for this market. Today I will pull together information from a variety of sources, including surveys of small businesses and surveys of lenders, to paint a picture of the credit conditions currently facing small businesses.



Buying incentives which worked are not indicative of a recovery in that market?



Totally unrelated to the oil costs increasing signifcantly world wide, right?

_________________
With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Wayne, hate to destroy your conspiracy theory but we DID land on the moon.



Oh Wayne, never use statistics straight from the kool aid pitcher! Real inflation, as computed via the formulas before Clinton changed them all around, is over 10% annualized and the trend is still on an upwards basis. And, the higher fuel costs and grain costs(animal feed) hasn't fully manifested it's full effect.....yet.





Golly gee, I sure wish that I was one of those! So, are we getting our money's worth out of all this pump priming? Anything that is really sustainable without continued support of tax money?



Huh? Are you advocating another world war then? Would that rekindle another manufacturing demand? Too bad we've shipped out our manufacturing base to China and others, eh?


The general upturn? From your link:

Household Survey Data

The number of unemployed persons, at 13.7 million, changed little in
April. The unemployment rate edged up from 8.8 to 9.0 percent over the
month but was 0.8 percentage point lower than in November. The labor
force also was little changed in April. (See table A-1.)

You have to remember also that it takes over 120,000 jobs a month just to stay even with the population growth. Thank goodness McDonalds is helping out in that area via a hiring spree



Don't confuse a small uptick in employment anything but noise when you're bouncing around the bottom.





Well, lets look at housing....

New York, May 31, 2011 – Data through March 2011, released today by Standard & Poor’s for its S&P/Case-Shiller1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show that the U.S. National Home Price Index declined by 4.2% in the first quarter of 2011, after having fallen 3.6% in the fourth quarter of 2010. The National Index hit a new recession low with the first quarter’s data and posted an annual decline of 5.1% versus the first quarter of 2010. Nationally, home prices are back

I'd guess not. I wonder how the people feel that bought houses with those incentives now realizing their house has gone down in worth more than the incentives??

And automobiles? Yes, there actually is a very slow recovery going on there but until the housing crisis and unemployment improves, and coupled with tighter lending standards it will be a very long time before reaching the all time high of 16 million sold in 2007.

I don't think you can consider this a recovery until such time as this number starts to see a decline instead of steadily rising....

_________________
I can have oodles of charm....... when I want to.

Thanks for the charts Siber D. I agree with most of the Tea Party ideals, and hate to see RINOs hide on the bandwagon. They are for border security and control, but fail to realize that if all the illegals were deported after paying fines owed or doing hard labor equivalent building the border barrier, and if the millions in the minority who are encouraging them paid the fines they owe by law, it would be over 10 times the National Debt!! Just enforcing laws, and the Constitution, Art.4 Sec. 4, because we HAVE been invaded, is absolutely necessary. The jobs recovery will not happen until the illegals are deported, and immigration is stopped.
Conservatism has to get rid of the ridiculous compassion and tolerance of anti-Americanism in America. Gov't pay is up to double civilian, and has to come down. The budget must be balanced and the National Debt paid off. Those guilty of treason in Washington and elsewhere must pay, because they allowed the invasion and did not obey their solemn Oaths of Office to uphold the Constitution.

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"With every decision, think seven generations ahead of the consequences of your actions" Ute rule of life.
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”
― Chief Seattle

I feel that last one is rather telling. Any increase in employment has been from low paying, or part time, jobs. Jobs that don't pay enough to feed one's family.

_________________
I can have oodles of charm....... when I want to.