One of Obama’s ‘best economists around’ his chief economic advisor Lawrence Summers FELL ASLEEP during yesterday’s fiscal responsibility summit. Yes, I said FELL ASLEEP at the summit that Barry himself hosted.

The new era of change indeed. Here’s also some hilarious but common sense quips about Barry’s attack on those real leaders who are not taking the porkulus blindfolded while OINK!ing to the One with delight (via Political Crave).

Obama also stated that just because a few GOP Governors don’t like 2% of the bill doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t do what is right for the American People. WELL, I GOT A QUESTION OR THREE:

• Would you suggest that I not meet with someone who hits me in the face 2 out of every 100 times I come face to face with them?
• Should I do business with a bank who short changes me $2 out of every $100 of my money?
• Should I drink a glass of water that has only 2% arsenic in it?

You inherit a few trillion in debt and the path to being fiscal responsibly to cut that debt in half is to propose spending another $2 trillion not even 30 days into office. Hmmmmm….And everyone gets a unicorn by 2012 too!  (Image source – www.obamacorn.com)

So last night while I’m cooking dinner I open up my latest Social Security statement. And it TOTALLY picked my spirits up! Oh, not in a good way, more like a “this is so sad I don’t know what to do besides laugh” kind of way.   I know – good times.

Here’s the deal, liberals act like Social Security is a grand, successful legacy of FDR’s big New Deal programs, etc.  But even though time after time it’s been proven that Social Security, to put it mildly, SUCKS, for some reason any attempt to reform it is met with such disdain and hesitation from the far left. It’s so perplexing to me the type of backlash Bush got when he suggested privatizing it. Bottom line, Social Security is failing because it was never designed right to be a long-term retirement program. The first clue should be that the program is on the Autobahn speedway to bankruptcy. How soon? Try in anywhere from 8-20 years. Because that’s when the revenues of Social Security will actually start to dry up (via the Constitutional Conservative).

While the Social Security trust fund will have resources until 2041, the more critical date in terms of government revenues will occur in 2017. In that year, Social Security, which has been providing billions of dollars in surpluses to the government for over two decades, will start having to pay out more in benefits than it will receive that year in payroll taxes.

At that point, the government will have to start replacing the money it has borrowed from the Social Security trust fund. It can do that only by increasing borrowing from the public, raising taxes or cutting other government programs. The elimination of the Social Security surplus is a key reason that experts are projecting sizable budget deficits in future years.

Okay, so let us take a look at a real-world scenario of how “well” Social Security is working – it’s my own example.

I’ve been contributing to my Social Security trust fund since 1994. My current contribution is that 6% of my paycheck goes to Social Security and it’s been this percentage most of my income-earning years.  From 1994 – 2009 YTD my contributions have totaled $14,000 and my employers have “contributed” (i.e. paid a Social Security tax that would otherwise go to my salary) another $14,000. That’s a total of $28,000 for over 15 years, averaging to about $1,866 for the growth of the fund.   Let me break that down:

Now, let’s look at my privatized, personal 401k. I’ve been contributing to my 401k since 2005 at 6% for a couple years and most recently 8% (increased percentage resulted in about an extra $60 a month). My company matches $.50 on the dollar up to 6%.  My employer also does a profit sharing plan, so at the end of each year I get a bit more put into my 401k like every employee at the company. In total, between 2005 – 2009 YTD my contribution to my portfolio’s growth is $9,000 and my employer’s is also around $9,000 for a total of $18,000 over 4 years, which ends up at an average growth of $4,500 a year.  Also, keep in mind that this is my 401k during the current financial crisis. Prior to the crisis my retirement fund had grown to around $23,000.  So it would be outperforming SS even more in that scenario. In this one, SS clearly has the handicap advantage.  Here’s the visual breakdown of my 401k’s average year growth:

Is it starting to get clear? Here’s the liberal’s stance myth – Social Security works and we should not reform it except raising payroll taxes on people with higher incomes to sustain the funding of the SS trust (which would then equal to those same people having less money to put in their 401k accounts if they so choose to). Here’s the reality – Social Security is a failing entitlement program on its way to bankruptcy and even if it didn’t go bankrupt it pales in comparision in regard to the performance growth of privatized retirement funds.  Privatized retirement accounts are much better and as a responsible government we should find ways to enrich citizens to take control of their own retirement trusts, not scheme to keep them on limited/fixed-income entitlement programs. Why oppress citizens to stay under a trust that only grows at 2-3% a year (SS) when they can have a fund that grows at 8-10% a year?

There’s no reason we cannot reform Social Security into a privatized fund – anyone who tells you otherwise doesn’t know jack about 401k accounts. But you know, stocks and Wall Street are evil! (Rolling Eyes.) Riiiight – I’ll be sure to keep that in mind when I have the choice to retire at 59 on $5,000/month from my 401k and then see those who will rely on Social Security being forced to retire only starting at 62 on $1,300/month.  And that’s betting on the idea that Social Security will still be around then.

Obama’s stance prior to the stimulus porkulus vote  (Also, try to just bypass the fact that in his quote he’s getting an F- in economic history when he makes the argument with the 90s Japan debate point – and, uh, I thought this guy went to Harvard):

Obama defended the role of government in the recovery process, saying that “with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life.”  “I think that what I’ve said is what other economists have said across the political spectrum, which is that if you delay acting on an economy of this severity, then you potentially create a negative spiral that becomes much more difficult for us to get out of.” He compared the situation to that of Japan in the 1990s, saying the Japanese, failing to act quickly enough, suffered a “lost decade.”  “This is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill recession.”

Now Obama change in tune this week after signing away our future earnings:

Things are not as bad now as they were in the 1930s or even the early ’80s when, Obama reminded us, he was still in college. Young people — by which he did not seem to mean the columnists aboard — are simply unfamiliar with hardship, he said.  “So for a huge number of people out there, they’re just not accustomed to seeing a bad economy with really high unemployment and very bearish markets. . . . What we’re going through now is nothing compared to what our grandparents went through during the Great Depression.”

There, there, there…now everything is okay.

Oh, but wait a minute, Barry – I thought on the campaign trail it was that this was “the worst time in the U.S.’ economic history since the Great Depression.” Pleeeeeeeease – that was just “campaign rhetoric.” No shit sherlock.

Most conservatives out there already knew this was a recession but that it was not on the verge of needing $1 trillion shot of govt. pork straight to the heart. My husband would constantly comment “If we’re in such a depression, how come I still have to wait an hour to get seated at any restaurant on a Thursday night?”  Ain’t that the truuuuuuuuuuf! 

But here’s what is going to happen to our economy now that we’re full of pork and having to PAY for it the rest of our lives (and our children, and probably grandchildren). I’ve illustrated it with as a heart getting clogged with more and more cholesterol.  Hmmmm – PORK it’s what for dinner for the next 25 years!

 I’m not saying there were not huge issues of credit and capital malpractice that needed to be fixed. But coercing, with fear tactics, support for the passage of a bill which will double our national debt only to provide a miniscule percentage of job growth makes you a manipulative politician praying onto people’s fears of the unknown, not a leader of the new bipartisan era. On the flipside, buying blindly into this politician’s facade makes you equally as guilty and possibly insane.

Then clips to the realists from today will be plastered on the front pages of the dailies, debating why the administration and Congress just didn’t listen to the public’s voice. If you’ve got the stomach for it, here’s video of the worst spending plan in history going into law. OINK! OINK! OINK!

Uhhh….shudders.  Quick question: It is ironic at all that I had planned on fixing PORK chops for dinner tonight???   Perhaps I am psychic after all…hmmmm.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wish some of our representatives would get some instead of just relying on “the best economists around” according to Obama. Check the vid – love it that she interviews Obama supporters yet their ideal is different than the kool-aid man they voted into office.  Can anybody say – Told.You.So.??? 

But you know those Congressmen and women are too busy not reading the actual stimulus plan and showing real leadership by rushing votes so they can get back to planning trips to Italy.  Oh wait, at least one read the bill. Name that party – Republican. Heh, no big freakin’ surprise.  [Side rant: I'd be willing to be $1,000,000 (if I had it) that I read more of the stimulus bill than half of the people in Congress. And it's not even my job to do so - ridiculous.]

I think that what I’ve said is what other economists have said across the political spectrum, which is that if you delay acting on an economy of this severity, then you potentially create a negative spiral that becomes much more difficult for us to get out of.

We saw this happen in Japan in the 1990s, where they did not act boldly and swiftly enough, and as a consequence they suffered what was called the “lost decade,” where essentially for the entire ’90s, they did not see any significant economic growth.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-!

Countered straight from his advocacy newsletter, The New York Times:

Economists tend to divide into two camps on the question of Japan’s infrastructure spending: those, many of them Americans like Mr. Geithner, who think it did not go far enough; and those, many of them Japanese, who think it was a colossal waste.

Among ordinary Japanese, the spending is widely disparaged for having turned the nation into a public-works-based welfare state and making regional economies dependent on Tokyo for jobs. Much of the blame has fallen on the Liberal Democratic Party, which has long used government spending to grease rural vote-buying machines that help keep the party in power.

So I may not have a crystal ball, but let me take a wild guess that if that same situation plays out here like it did in Japan, geeeee, which party is going to be ousted they way my dad would through our cat out if it peed on the carpet???  Secretary (ehhh, shudder) Geithner, who said this kind of massive spending would work while failing to pay his fair share in avoiding, err, cheating his taxes.  Or will the actual citizens be right? You know,  like the ones who have to live through the failures of these policies, like in Japan, who probably are still cursing those politicians who turned their economy into a “welfare state.”  

Office pool question: Does Geitner get ousted in 2010 or 2011?

Side question: Does this qualify Obama for a Governance FAIL on the fail blog? Probably not but a girl can dream.

It’s like I work in marketing so if I sense that people are catching on to the fact I cannot do my job effectively, as I promised when they hired me, then I’m going to stop trying to work harder getting the job done. I’m now going to spend more time in my boss’ office kissing ass and throwing up smoke and mirrors to convince her I’m doing a good job or what is “necessary” for our dept. to be successful in the company. Ed at HotAir.com has the scoop.

During the campaign, critics and opponents noted that the only real track record Obama had built in thirteen years of politics was campaigning for something else.  Three weeks into his new administration, he’s found governing to be difficult, especially when trying to shove a partisan porkfest down the throats of an increasingly skeptical public.  Time to go back to campaign mode!  It apparently beats pulling the bill back for a chance to offer Republicans some input to get a bill that would generate easy support and passage.

I can’t get over this. Scratch that – YES We Can! We can believe that our president would do this because he is an inexperienced political leader who’s main experience has been campaigning and not standing up to make decisions in the name of bipartisanship. I’m growing tired of these speeches. It seems more like a pathetic attempt to try and convince people you’re doing the right thing instead going back to work with Congress to actually DO the right thing.

And since we’re talking about campaigning, let’s take a minute to remember what our president promised:

SCHIEFFER: But you’re going to have to cut some of these programs, certainly.

OBAMA: Absolutely. So let me get to that. What I want to emphasize, though, is that I have been a strong proponent of pay-as- you-go. Every dollar that I’ve proposed, I’ve proposed an additional cut so that it matches…We need to eliminate a whole host of programs that don’t work. And I want to go through the federal budget line by line, page by page, programs that don’t work, we should cut. Programs that we need, we should make them work better.

You read that right – “pay as you go” “programs that don’t work, we should cut.” Umm – can someone explain to me how the proposed porkulus is “pay as you go” or how $160 million for “volunteers” at the Corp. for National and Community Service is “a program we need” OR why are we giving $850 million for Amtrak, a failing program???  I thought if programs don’t work under President Obama we would cut them, not reward bad management with $850 million of taxpayer’s money during a time when they may need it. But why am I getting caught up in facts and stuff – we’ve got mortgages and gas bills to pay, right:

UPDATE: Press conference just got done – big surprise no real questions were answered, just the same old talking points. Like why can no top ranking Democrat or the President answer how do can you justify spending $600,000 per job created with this bill? Or what measures will be put in place to make sure the stimulus is actually creating jobs? Will there be incremental measurements that will make Congress retreat on the bill’s spending if jobs are not being created at the rate originally projected?

Honestly, if you’re going to spend so much time supposedly answering the questions of the American people, then get around to actually answering the questions folks have. Otherwise, you’re just putting on a charade, insulting everyone’s intelligence and wasting people’s time. Hope ‘n Change!

But at least McCain (R-AZ) and Pence (R-IN) are starting to be more vocal in their opposition (via HotAir.com) with logical debate points. On a side note, where was THIS McCain on the campaign trail? I would have liked to seen more of this, but I think he was fighting such a huge uphill battle as is. McCain did warn us in the debates about Obama’s spending habits with example after example of Obama’s history with proposed pork projects. Obama retorted back that he’s a “pay as you go” legislature. Heh.

In the first clip I love how Pence shuts down the commentary on the economist “supporting” the porkulus. Turns out economists are able to change their mind or that some liberal-biased media were trying to skew context to illustrate support where there is none. Is it me or I thought the campaigning/advocacy ended months ago. Honestly, when are the media going to get back to objective, investigative journalism? Or should we start calling Medill School of Journalism at Northwesterm Medill School of PR???

And McCain brings up a good point about what are we going to do when the bill comes due. Passing this down the line to the next generation doesn’t make us a very responsible nation. It’s like how the older generation of politicians put funding of the failed Social Security system on my generation and I don’t know one person my age who speaks favorably about that topic.

So what will our children and grandchildren think of our generation down the line knowing we purposely put them in a corner forcing them to pay off $1 trillion debt we didn’t need???  If it’s to create jobs, I don’t see justifying paying $600,000 – $200,000 per job created, the estimate on the ROI of job creation through this porkulus. That doesn’t make sense even from a business standpoint.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if this boondoggle extravaganza actually passes.

Also, TryingtoGrok had Tom Coburn hitting the nail on the head with some of this frivolous spending.

We are going to spend $448 million to build the Department of Homeland Security a new building. We have $1.3 trillion worth of empty buildings right now, and because it has been blocked in Congress we can’t sell them, we can’t raze them, we can’t do anything, but we are going to spend money on a new building here in Washington. We are going to spend another $248 million for new furniture for that building; a quarter of a billion dollars for new furniture. What about the furniture the Department of Homeland Security has now? These are tough times. Should we be buying new furniture? How about using what we have? That is what a family would do. They would use what they have. They wouldn’t go out and spend $248 million on furniture.

Bottom line – this porkulus plan is going to cost an average of $10,000 from each household in America. Do you have an extra $10,000 you’d like to just hand over to the govt. and never see any of the benefit of it? I find it hard to believe if any people would be happy with that scenario. And if you need a lesson in how govt. spending doesn’t cure economic woes, then take a look at Japan in the 1990s.

The recession that happened in 2001/2002 was helped by the 2003 Bush tax cuts, the roaring US economy in the late 90s was helped in part to the driving interest of dotcom stocks but also the 1997 Tax Reform bill. I don’t think tax cuts are the only answer but at least we should have temporary ones put in place to give immediate and direct relief to families as well as business to help them keep employees or create new jobs. Not spending $500 million on the National Endowment for the Arts or HIV testing.  If we’re going to have to spend money under this administration let’s make it about funding more manufacturing, infrastructure and technology. 95% of that bill should go toward those initatives – not just 5%!

Here’s Peter’s latest interview on Yahoo! Finance where he discusses the current proposal to get us out of this mess – the Porkulus.  Also with the article is a great video interview where he explains how pertinent for our economic policy to focus on freeing up capital and saving.

The problem, he says, is the government is trying to perpetuate a “phony economy” based on borrowing and spending. With the U.S. consumer tapped out, the government is “now taking on the mantle” of consumer of last resort, he continues, predicting the bond bubble will soon burst – if it hasn’t already – ultimately leading to a collapse of the dollar and an “inflationary depression worse than anything any of us have ever seen.”

If nothing else, Schiff is an nonpartisan critic of American policymakers, comparing President Bush to Herbert Hoover and President Obama to FDR, and neither in a favorable way.

The reason I listen to someone like Schiff is because if you see in the video he’s stuck to his guns for nearly 3 years even while everyone else in the room was demanding he was wrong and some even laughing at him. Well, look who has the last laugh I guess. This is why I think the most humble/confident guy, not the loudest or arrogant,  is usually the right guy. Why because he’s done his homework and he gives it to you straight. He’s not looking to sound super-smart or to get that zinger sound-bite. He’s just presenting it like “here are the facts, folks. It may not be pretty but it is what it is so we’ve got to own up to it and deal.”

But I think govt. is too busy looking at reality to understand we’ve just got to accept that we’re not going to get out of this right away and that spending like we have been the last decade is not the answer. It’s the American way though. I think Americans are too scared to go through “tough” times – you know times where they have to save their paycheck, not spend their entire income, take out multiple lines of credit to stay above water and keep debt at bay.  So instead of owning up to it and chinning up to go through a more fiscally responsible time, they vote in politicians who’s policy is “having a financial crisis – we’ll here’s the solution, let’s take more money out of the economy (or borrow an insane amount of debt that we’ll have to pay back for years and years through higher taxes) and spend even 10x the amount of money.”

If you were a credit counselor and you had a client that was to the point of suicide because they couldn’t get a hold of their finances. To the point that what they made didn’t even cover the interest, let alone the principle, of their credit/debt lines. What would you advise them to do? Spend more? Yeah right.

It’s time for Americans to realize that we’re in a recession. It’s time to focus on saving  and paying down our debt. It’s time for the govt. to start giving temporary income tax cuts to taxpayers so that they have a chance to save that money. It’s time to give business temporary tax cuts to reinvest in their businesses or so that they don’t have to layoff more workers. The current porkulus does not equal production and will only make things 1,000x worse down the line. Buckle up I think it’s going to be a bumpy ride.