The next Four Years

 

Most people have reconciled with the fact that Obama will be president for the next four years.  Obama is of course a raging narcissistic person where we can see it from his reactions to criticism in the debates with Romney (the rage) or the constant manipulation and lies he tells.  The largest question right now is, wow do we deal with this as a country?  It’s not going to be the end of the world as some claim, but knowing what is going to happen can help us all out.  Obama as a rule is going to stick to his initial thoughts on things.  Narcissistic people do not change their minds for rational reasons and will stick to a course no matter how illogical it is.  In the end, a narcissistic person does not reason at all and thinks the world revolves around himself or herself.  In this sense, we can expect more of the same.  Things won’t get worse as some people believe, but they won’t get any better in that sense.  Obama will continue to pile on the liberal agenda which he believes will save the country.  But he will do it slowly and sporadically as before.  A narcissistic above all else is arbitrary on what they do and say.  I am not sure exactly which part of the agenda he will focus on primarily to start or what will be done later because frankly a narcissistic person is not rational and will do what they want to do based on rather abstract reasoning that no one could ever hope to understand.  The truest way to deal with a narcissistic person is just to ignore them, but unfortunately in this case we have no choice as the president can not be ignored.

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Obama tells American’s: What deficit?

Well, I thought I was going to have an entire plan to show why it is wrong, but apparently President Obama And Krueger (Freddy perhaps) decided to release half a plan and promise to show “reductions in the budget later” while at the same time President Obama is stumping about passing it as it is.  So basically this new “super-committee” is going to balance out these costs at some later unspecified time and we will never hear about it again.

I am frankly personally disappointed in congress for setting up such a thing that will result in vague returns and will probably never be followed through on.  The compromise is now being used against them as the president drives the deficit up more without paying for it other than saying, well this committee will deal with it because they are “super.”

The plan simply put is another fantasy that shows that these two do indeed believe in unicorns as shown below:

Picture from: http://www.unicornlady.net/Gallery/gallery6-1.html

Does he think congress and likewise Americans are completely retarded?  He pulled this type of behavior countless times when he would promise a second plan to offset concerns and never delivers.  Sorry, release a full plan and go from there.  Not some magical plan based on fantasy and unicorns.  Give us some real plans instead of half a plan and platitudes to choke the above unicorn.

Let’s also not mention how he just basically ignoring months of battles over the deficit and his solution is to “trust me” I will make this balance but we first must pass this as it is.  The best part of all of this?  Today he had the gall to say this: “We spent a whole summer fussing about the deficit.”   So now that they fussed about the deficit all summer long we can piss into the wind and just add to the deficit?  This man is seriously arrogant to say the least.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/10/us/politics/10obama.html?_r=1&hp

Obama and Krueger attempt to save the economy, part Deux

First off, we were promised the “grand plan on how the president was going to save the economy” at the end of last week or “at the very latest by the start of this week.”  Being Wednesday at midnight I assume the plan is not being released anytime soon (although we are promised Thursday now).  So since nothing is being said, job numbers are still in the toilet and to boot every single one of President Obama’s initiatives have failed to add real jobs to our economy.  As I posted earlier, perhaps this time is different if you believe in unicorn farts saving your face from the effect of ageing and other weird stuff.

Photo source: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-jobs-20110906,0,3610220.story?track=rss

As this photo shows, the president is not having an easy time of things.  I will say one thing in defense of the president: there was nothing he could have done from the start to make our economy any better.  The entire QE (which I discussed in an earlier post to death) episode has probably just prolonged the recession and possibly made it worse.  The only purpose of QE ever is to stop a depression from starting and to “theoretically suffer a longer recession but avoid a depression.”  That is just one of the things the president has tried to turn things around.  And he has tried, but everything he has done has either had little effect or the opposite effect, and to boot instead of focusing on jobs which is what the people of this country care about, he has still maintained his other political agendas which actually as I showed take away from the job market.  The reason for this is that the primary purpose of the president’s political agenda has nothing to do with creating jobs, his purpose is to simply achieve his political goals regardless of the cost.

Alan Krueger and Obama attempt to save the economy

The man who is slated to save the economy as being the head of the jobs commission (CEA) with President Obama:

Photo from: http://swampland.time.com/2011/08/29/alan-krueger-obamas-new-top-economist/

Will he be able to save the country and still keep the president’s motivations and political ambitions as he wants him?  Or the better question I tend to seriously think that applies: Does any president ever believe they can actually “Create” more jobs than they destroy?  Whether you increase defense spending or stimulus spending, you end up in every case destroying more jobs than you could ever hope to create due to the fact that Government is ALWAYS going to be less efficient than private enterprise.

Economics of oil and the American Dream

A new hurdle has been passed for the Keystone Pipeline, as expected it was ran through on a Friday Afternoon when DC and New York City was evacuating for an incoming hurricane.  Seems they save “bad” decisions for the environment for when news will not report it.  Typical to say the least:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/transcanadas-keystone-pipeline-clears-hurdle-2011-08-26?reflink=MW_news_stmp

Picture courtesy of http://www.oilempire.us/tarsands.html

But let’s get out of the gutter and talk facts.  I like facts.  They are the bread and butter of reality and they paint a picture which will never be wrong.  For instance, in the above picture some people see evil.  I see jobs, taxes, and production.  Some people see hell.  I see human ingenuity, environmentalism, and above all else a work ethnic from Canada.  We can argue over the semantics all day long, but what you see in production is up to the person.  But the reality here is that these oil sands have produced a vibrant economy in a location in Canada that is exploding in population growth, and other jobs are making this the most prosperous of the Canadian provinces.   What is it that you see when you see that picture?  I will leave that for now and go on to explain how its irrelevant whether this pipeline is built, the oil will still be sold and someone will buy it.

We may be able to pick the reality we see from pictures such as this, but human ingenuity should never be questioned and the right of people to work should never be up to activists who spend their time just trying to take apart jobs and dismantling economies all in the name of the “Greater Good.”

Wind Power, figuring out the actual cost

First, a little explanation.  The costs of wind are very difficult and it took me at least 10 hours to come up with a reliable figure.  This is because the subsidies involved are built into cost estimates from official sources from both the Federal Government and Wind Turbine manufacturers.  In addition, you will see a very optimistic view on replacement costs of parts that break and on the O/M – that is operating and maintenance of wind turbines.  One worker can basically be hired for a farm of say 4 wind turbines after they are installed.  No, I do not have links, this is based on deduction and is an educated guess.  Its based on the premise that the amount of work needed fits what the Government says it should.  This is rather optimistic as things tend to go wrong.  But for the sake of argument, I take the Government figures as they are and assume they are correct.  Even overly optimistic, the Government figures do not figure in ALL the costs when figuring out the end cost to the consumer. Needless to say,  I do not like optimism without decent explanation, so yes, I was encouraged to dig and dig I did.

A discourse on the current recession and on economic cyles

Economics is one of my favorite subjects.  (namely macro-economics mind you.)  This is because trends can be found and you can use these trends to make numerous predictions and better yourself especially if you do not get too greedy and realize that above all else no matter how you invest money, it’s a risk.

Now we as a country (US) are in a recession that looks to be getting worse.  But I want to take a moment an analyze what recessions are in general and what causes economic activity to bottle up so to speak in cycles.  This will explain everything that we are seeing and I will explain to everyone what I think the future holds.

And the Elephant in the room is…..SS

Today,  both the US’s credit rating was down-graded and the stock market took a rather swift tumble.  Here is a news story (The first found by google on this subject.) to perhaps explain the daily events better than I care to.

http://www.kget.com/news/local/story/Stocks-fall-after-credit-downgrade/Y7EKi_p9w0y41YLgLOOhvw.cspx

This was rather expected.  After numerous countries around the world had their stock-markets take serious tumbles since the end of last week when the growth reports for Q2 were released, we have seen rather big drops.  Add to this the credit rating downgrade and you get the perfect scenario for a big drop in stocks.  This by all means probably shows that the next weeks is going to see overall a near reproduction of this over a 4 day period.  The question of the hour then is obviously what is the Government going to do about it?

Jevons’ paradox

As a note, parts of this post are from an older essay I wrote awhile back which was in reply to a recent Obama initiative at the time to put huge amounts of money into “making cars more efficient” or perhaps “increase their MPG” is the better way to phrase it.

Either way, it’s not that cut and dry.  Jevons’ paradox goes back to 1865 when economist William Stanley Jevons noted then that coal efficiency improvements had not just increased the amount of work done, but had actually increased the overall amount of coal used as well.  This process is rather well-known in that although increases in efficiency will result in more efficient usage of energy, it will almost always result in more usage of the said resource needed due to lower costs that in turn drives economic progress.

William Jevons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PSM_V11_D660_William_Stanley_Jevons.jpg

GE: A green company or just another crony corporation?

First, some basic facts about the CEO who has lead GE
down into the gulley of problems.  The data here is straight from ge.com as you can see by the link provided.

http://www.ge.com/company/leadership/ceo.html

Jeffrey R.
Immelt is the ninth chairman of GE, a post he has held since September 7, 2001.

Mr. Immelt has
held several global leadership positions since coming to GE in 1982, including
roles in GE’s Plastics, Appliance, and Healthcare businesses. In 1989 he became
an officer of GE and joined the GE Capital Board in 1997. A couple years later,
in 2000, Mr. Immelt was appointed president and chief executive officer.

Mr. Immelt has
been named one of the “World’s Best CEOs” three times by Barron’s,
and since he began serving as chief executive officer, GE has been named
“America’s Most Admired Company” in a poll conducted by Fortune
magazine and one of “The World’s Most Respected Companies” in polls
by Barron’s and the Financial Times.

Mr. Immelt is
the chair of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. He is also
a member of The Business Council.

Mr. Immelt earned a B.A. degree in
applied mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1978 and an M.B.A. from Harvard
University in 1982. He and his wife have one daughter.

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