Category: obamanomics

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House intel committee opens probe of eavesdropping on Congress

Congress

By NOLAN D. MCCASKILL

12/30/15 12:30 PM EST

A House panel on Wednesday announced it is opening an investigation into U.S. intelligence collection that may have swept up members of Congress.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s announcement of the probe comes after a Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. collected information on private exchanges between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of Congress during ongoing negotiations for nuclear deal with Iran.

“The House Intelligence Committee is looking into allegations in the Wall Street Journal regarding possible Intelligence Community (IC) collection of communications between Israeli government officials and Members of Congress,” Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said in a statement. “The Committee has requested additional information from the IC to determine which, if any, of these allegations are true, and whether the IC followed all applicable laws, rules, and procedures.”

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/house-intel-probe-wsj-217228#ixzz3vpcivzqX

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globalised anxiety

parismarch2_011215getty_0

Battered, bruised and jumpy — the whole world is on edge

Gideon Rachman

Not one global power is optimistic and even in America, which should be cheering, the mood is sour

In 2015, a sense of unease and foreboding seemed to settle on all the world’s major power centres. From Beijing to Washington, Berlin to Brasília, Moscow to Tokyo — governments, media and citizens were jumpy and embattled.

This kind of globalised anxiety is unusual. For the past 30 years and more, there has been at least one world power that was bullishly optimistic. In the late 1980s the Japanese were still enjoying a decades-long boom — and confidently buying up assets all over the world. In the 1990s America basked in victory in the cold war and a long economic expansion. In the early 2000s the EU was in a buoyant mood, launching a single currency and nearly doubling its membership. And for most of the past decade, the growing political and economic power of China has inspired respect all over the world.

Yet at the moment all the big players seem uncertain — even fearful. The only partial exception that I came across this year was India, where the business and political elite still seemed buoyed by the reformist zeal of prime minister Narendra Modi.

By contrast, in Japan, faith is fading that the radical reforms, known as Abenomics, can truly break the country’s cycle of debt and deflation. Japanese anxiety is fed by continuing tensions with China. However, my main impression from a visit to China, early in the year, is that this too is a country that feels much less stable than it did even a couple of years ago. The era when the government effortlessly delivered growth of 8 per cent or more a year is over. Concerns about domestic financial stability are mounting, as the upheavals in the Shanghai stock exchange over the summer revealed.

However, the main source of anxiety is political. President Xi Jinping’s leadership is more dynamic but also less predictable than that of his predecessors. Fear is spreading among officials and business people, who are scared of being caught up in an anti-corruption drive that has led to the arrest of more than 100,000 people.

https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c523a45a-a973-11e5-955c-1e1d6de94879.html#axzz3viP0CjOB

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Obamanomics: The rise and fall of the American middle class

Welcome_to_the_village_theridgewoodblog

Blog Editors Note : try increasing taxes, insurance and education costs , coupled with decline of the two parent household  , decline of work ethic, and regulating small business out of existence 

By John Aidan Byrne

December 27, 2015 | 2:34am

Downward mobility is catching on fast with America’s new economic underdogs — the emerging middle-class minority.

The ranks of the American middle class have sunk to a shocking new low.

After four decades as an economic majority, middle-class Americans are no longer in that admirable place. They’re down to 49.9 percent from 61 percent of the population in 1971, with the ranks of the poor and ultrarich growing to a majority in the US.

“The fabric of income distribution is stretching thin,” Rakesh Kochhar, lead author of the recent Pew Research Center study “The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground,” told The Post.

“There’s been a hollowing out in the middle, a bulking up on the edges. The gaps are at record highs,” Kochhar said, adding that the wealth of upper-income families is now about seven times that of the middle class, compared with three times about 30 years ago.

Meanwhile, the middle-class share of US household income has plunged from 62 percent in 1970 to 43 percent today.

And for lower-income families looking to move up to middle-class status, that accomplishment is getting harder to pull off, according to new analysis.

Analysts offer no single explanation for the decline of America’s middle class.

Years of wage stagnation, the decline of unions, a skills gap, economic malaise, taxation, debt and policymaking are often cited, as is technological efficiency in a more globalized economy that rewards outsourcing. Some analysts say the Fed’s trillions of dollars in quantitative easing ended up disproportionately in the hands and wallets of bankers and other upper-middle-class Americans.

https://nypost.com/2015/12/27/the-rise-and-fall-of-middle-class-america/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPFacebook&utm_medium=SocialFlow

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The Year Nothing Worked: Stocks, Bonds, Cash Go Nowhere

Wall-Street

Lu Wang
December 28, 2015 — 12:00 AM ESTUpdated on December 28, 2015 — 10:32 AM EST

It’s the worst year for asset allocation funds since 1937
A 2.2% gain in the S&P 500 is roughly the best anyone could do

The idea behind asset allocation is simple: when one market struggles, it’s OK because an investor can jump into another that is thriving. Not so in 2015.

In fact, if you judge the past year by which U.S. investment class generated the largest return, a case can be made it was the worst for asset-allocating bulls in almost 80 years, according to data compiled by Bianco Research LLC and Bloomberg. With three days left in 2015, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index gained 2.2 percent with dividends, cash is up less, while bonds and commodities show losses.

After embracing everything from Treasuries to high-yield bonds and technology shares amid seven years of zero-percent interest rates, investors found themselves with nowhere to run at a time when the Federal Reserve’s campaign of stimulus drew to an end. Normally it isn’t like this. Since 1995, practically every year has seen some asset deliver returns exceeding 10 percent.

“It’s been challenging from the point of view that the equity market and bond market are probably more joined at the hip than normal,” said Hayes Miller, the Boston-based head of multi-asset North America who helps oversee $35.8 billion for Baring Asset Management LLC. “We’ve had high cash exposure relative to norm because we felt cash provides one of the only good diversifiers against the risk-off trade.”

Bianco Research keeps track of the S&P 500, 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds, 3-month Treasury bills and the Thomson Reuters/CoreCommodity CRB Commodity Index to gauge performance in stocks, bonds, cash and commodities. The four are the most common asset classes considered by investors when an allocation strategy is designed, according to Jim Bianco, the founder.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-28/the-year-nothing-worked-stocks-bonds-cash-go-nowhere-in-2015

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Debt distress level at highest since recession

mother goose

Matt Krantz, USA TODAY7:31 a.m. EST December 28, 2015

Higher interest rates are about to hit companies – just when many are ill prepared to handle them.

The Federal Reserve this month took interest rates up for the first time in nearly a decade – ending the days of free money. It might take a few years for higher rates to hit companies – as they look to refinance debt. But the troubling part is many companies aren’t in great shape to eat the higher costs.

The number of companies with the lowest credit ratings and negative outlooks jumped to 195 in December, the highest level since March 2010, says Standard & Poor’s. The biggest culprit for the jump in these so-called “weakest links” is the oil and gas sector, which accounts for 34 of them. But financial companies are close behind, representing 33 of the weakest links, says S&P.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/12/28/debt-distress-level-recession/77882786/

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Guns topping Christmas lists thanks to terrorism concerns, fear over restriction

guns

by Taboola

The convergence of fears over terrorism, a perceived threat of gun laws being changed and the Christmas holiday have sent gun sales soaring in what is already the busiest month of the year for firearm purchases.

Guns are at the top of many Christmas lists, especially if November is any indication.

Last month, the FBI ran more than 2.2 million firearm background checks on potential buyers, a 24 percent increase from November 2014. On Black Friday, a record 185,345 background checks were processed by the FBI.

https://www.today.com/news/guns-topping-christmas-lists-thanks-terrorism-concerns-fear-over-restrictions-t63321

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U.S. economy set to grow less than 3% for the 10th straight year

US President Obama waves from a golf cart in Kailua

Published: Dec 22, 2015 10:08 a.m. ET

The economy expanded a touch slower in the third quarter than previously reported, revised government figures show, but the path of growth is still the same: The U.S. running well below the historical norm more than six years into a recovery.

Gross domestic product — the sum of all the activity in an economy — increased at a 2% annual pace from July to September, according to the government’s latest update. Previously the Commerce Department had said the U.S. grew at a 2.1% rate after a 3.9% increase in the second quarter.

The slight downgrade was triggered by a larger trade deficit and a smaller buildup in inventories than earlier estimates showed.

The U.S. expanded at a 2.2% rate through the first nine months of the year, and the economy is projected to grow at a similar pace in the fourth quarter that ends on Dec. 31. If so, the economy will have failed to reach 3% growth for the 10th straight year, marking the slowest stretch since the end of World War II.

Historically the economy has expanded at a 3.3% rate.

The government’s second update on GDP growth reflected a somewhat worse trade picture in the late summer and early fall. Exports rose a slower 0.7% instead of an earlier 0.9% estimate. And imports climbed 2.3% instead of 2.1%.

Companies also rebuilt inventories somewhat less than the government had tallied.

The value of inventories increased $85.5 billion, down from a prior $90.2 billion estimate. Inventories had jumped by $113.5 billion in the second quarter when the economy expanded at a much faster 3.9% clip.

Spending on home construction rose at a faster 8.2% pace in the third quarter instead of 7.3%, the revised Commerce Department figures show.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/third-quarter-gdp-growth-trimmed-to-2-2015-12-22

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Who Wrote the Omnibus? Four Lawmakers, Many Lobbyists

lobbyists_xlarge

by PETER SCHWEIZER18 Dec 20154,084

The ugly work that went into the massive pork-filled omnibus spending bill snaking its way through congress is now starting to be exposed.

And it’s not for the faint at heart. Members of congress had little input in the bill and didn’t even in many cases know what was in it.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Republican of Alabama, in a blistering interview Thursday night, shed some light on the details.

According to Sessions, lawmakers found out what was in the bill by talking to lobbyists, who had a better idea than they did as to what was being included in the bill. “No member of even the House and Senate knew what was going on,” he told Portland, Oregon talk show host Lars Larson. “Special interests did because we heard from lobbyists what some things were being considered.”

Sessions went on to note that basically four members of congress put the deal together without consulting their colleagues. “It’s not right for ultimately four members, in secret — for reasons we have no understanding of — to make critical decisions on things,” he said.

https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/18/who-wrote-the-omnibus-four-lawmakers-many-lobbyists/

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Diana West: Republican And Democratic Elites Moving America Towards Socialism

Communism

by MICHELLE FIELDS

17 Dec 2015

Conservative author Diana West says America is seeing a “lining up of Democratic and Republican elites,” working to move America towards socialism.

West told Breitbart News Daily host Stephen K. Bannon that the latest, trillion dollar budget deal reflects the priorities of Republican and Democratic elites, but doesn’t reflect real conservatism.

“It is the definition of what the party elites are, the people in power are, but I don’t think it’s the definition of what a conservative is.”

She also argued that they are sending America down a path to socialism.

“There has been this movement really for 80 years in our history, of socialization….in terms of introducing the tools and mechanisms and practices of socialism into our economy, into our thinking, into our culture” West said. “Even on the right side of the spectrum there is very little consciousness that theres anything else or that there ever was anything else. “
West also told Breitbart News Daily that there appears to be an awakening amongst the American people and that it’s time for them to choose whether America is going  be a country with, “sovereignty and with control over our representatives who are supposed to be working for us– the citizens, or whether we’re going to be sucked into the mob of the collectivist internationalist globalist enterprise.”
She added that it, “comes down to, again, this notion of are we citizens or are we subjects.”
Hear the complete interview:

https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/17/diana-west-republican-democratic-elites-moving-america-towards-socialism/

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Scott Garret Says NO to selling Out America

money-down-the-toilet

Garrett: New Jersey families are frustrated with Washington because of spending bills like this one
Dec 18, 2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05), a senior Member of the House Budget Committee, issued the following statement after voting against the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill:

“While I strongly support provisions that provide health care to 9/11 first responders and address key vulnerabilities in how we issue visas to foreign visitors, this bloated $1.1 trillion spending bill doesn’t do enough to address our nation’s crippling debt, protect civil liberties, nor strengthen our national security and, therefore, I could not support it. New Jersey families are frustrated with Washington because of spending bills like this that are 2,000 pages long, include new surveillance provisions which were inserted in the middle of the night, lack adequate security from the threat of terrorists seeking to cross our borders, and add to the nearly $20 trillion national debt that is hindering our economy.”

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Paul Ryan Betrays America: $1.1 Trillion, 2,000-Plus Page Omnibus Bill Funds ‘Fundamental Transformation of America’

paul ryan

by STEPHEN K. BANNON & JULIA HAHN16 Dec 2015 Washington D.C

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)’s first major legislative achievement is a total and complete sell-out of the American people masquerading as an appropriations bill.Too harsh, you say? Let the programs, the spending, and the implications speak for themselves.

(1) Ryan’s Omnibus Fully Funds DACA

Though much of the public attention has surrounded the President’s 2014 executive amnesty, the President’s 2012 amnesty quietly continues to churn out work permits and federal benefits for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. Paul Ryan’s bill funds entirely this 2012 executive amnesty for “DREAMers”—or illegal immigrants who came to the country as minors.

Specifically, Division F of Ryan’s omnibus bill contains no language that would prohibit the use of funds to continue the President’s unconstitutional program. Obama’s executive action, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), has granted around 700,000 illegal aliens with work permits, as well as the ability to receive tax credits and federal entitlement programs. A recent GAO report documented how this illegal amnesty program for alien youth is, in large part, responsible for the illegal alien minor surge on our southern border.

In 2013, Paul Ryan said that it is his job as a U.S. lawmaker to put himself in the shoes of “the DREAMer who is waiting” and work to find legislative solutions to his or her problems.

 

https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/16/paul-ryan-betrays-america-1-1-trillion-2000-plus-page-omnibus-bill-funds-fundamental-transformation-america/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

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The Paul Ryan Compromise, Christmas Gifts for All

Holiday gifts theridgewoodblog.net

The new speaker’s first big deal is just like all of the ones that infuriated conservatives under Boehner.

By Jim Newell

When Paul Ryan was handed the speaker’s gavel in late October, he pledged to restore normal order to the People’s House and eliminate the sort of backroom deals that rank-and-file members complain are shoved down their throats at the 11th hour. So, late Tuesday night, Ryan unveiled a few thousand pages of consequential tax, spending, and regulatory legislation costing roughly $2 trillion and gave Congress and the public two whole days to review everything.

JIM NEWELL

Jim Newell is a Slate staff writer.

To be fair to Ryan, the buzzer-beating legislating has more to do with the workload and deadlines John Boehner left him than anything he did wrong. The agreement Ryan reached with fellow congressional negotiators also looks much like one Boehner would have reached: Each side scores some points, but Republican congressional majorities again will fail to deliver a high-profile, base-pumping, ideological victory over some nefarious aspect of the “Obama agenda” on which conservatives had drawn a red line. Will this land Ryan in the same hot water that eventually cooked Boehner? He’ll get a pass, for now.

The two towering paper stacks are the 2016 omnibus appropriations package, which funds the government through next September, and a “tax-extenders” bill that, well, extends (and in many cases makes permanent) a bunch of tax breaks that were set to expire. Though they will be voted on separately, they were negotiated together. The omnibus is more favorable to Democrats, and the tax extenders are more favorable to Republicans.

https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/12/paul_ryan_s_first_deal_is_just_like_john_boehner_s_old_ones.html

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Obamanomics : Middle class Americans ‘no longer majority’

US President Obama waves from a golf cart in Kailua

Middle class Americans ‘no longer majority’

Anmar Frangoul | Special to CNBC.com
CNBC.com

Middle class Americans are now outnumbered by those above and below them and are “falling behind financially”, according to new analysis of government data by the Pew Research Center.

The beginning of 2015 saw 120.8 million adults living in middle-income homes, compared with 121.3 million Americans living in lower and upper income households, a significant shift that “could signal a tipping point.”

According to Pew’s report, the 21st century has seen “middle-income Americans” fall behind financially. The median income of middle income households fell by 4 percent between the year 2000 and 2014, while median wealth – assets minus debts – fell by 28 percent between 2001 and 2013.

In 2015, 9 percent of Americans were seen as being in the highest income tier, “more than double the 4 percent share in 1971.” The percentage of American adults in the lowest income tier has also risen, from 16 percent in 1971 to 20 percent in 2015.

In 2015 12 percent of adults were living in the upper middle tier, up from 10 percent in 1971. Nine percent were seen as being in the lower middle tier, unchanged from 1971.

https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/10/middle-class-americans-no-longer-majority.html

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Obama Administration : NO CHRISTIAN REFUGEES ALLOWED

Obama-Golf

No room in America for Christian refugees
January 07, 2015, 04:00 pm
By Abraham H. Miller

At the end of World War II, the Jewish survivors of Europe’s Holocaust found that nearly every door was closed to them. “Tell Me Where Can I Go?” was a popular Yiddish song at the time. Decades later, the Christians of the Middle East face the same problem, and the Obama administration is keeping the door shut.

America is about to accept 9000 Syrian Muslims, refugees of the brutal war between the Assad regime and its Sunni opposition, which includes ISIS, Al Qaeda, and various other militias. That number is predicted to increase each year.  There are no Christian refugees that will be admitted.

Why? Because the Department of State is adhering with all the rigidity of a Soviet era bureaucracy to the rule that only people at risk from massacres launched by the regime qualify for refugee status. The rapes of Christian women and the butchery of Christian children do not count. No matter how moved Americans were this Christmas season by the plight of their fellow Christ followers in Syria and Iraq, no matter how horrific the visuals of beheadings, enslavement, and mass murder, the Christians fleeing death do not engender the compassion of this president.

The Christians are being raped, tortured, and murdered by militias, not by the Syrian government. This technicality condemns them to continue to be victims without hope. And this technicality is being adhered to with all the tenacity with which President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s State Department manipulated quotas and created subterfuges  to keep out the Jews fleeing the oppression of Nazi Germany. Obama no more wants the Middle East’s Christian refugees than Roosevelt wanted Europe’s Jewish refugees.

We have seen in the last several weeks that President Obama has no difficulty using his “phone and his pen,” as he dramatically boasts, to circumvent the law. When it comes to immigration, he had no difficulty enacting an amnesty that a federal judge  subsequently ruled unconstitutional. He has had no problem circumventing Congress to change the relationship with Cuba. This president has shown that he will push back on the constraints of law when he wants to get something done.

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/228670-no-room-in-america-for-christian-refugees

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Scott Garrett Gets “Told You So” Moment on Iran Nuke Deal ,Calls on President Obama to Address Iran Missile Tests

scottt_garrett2_theridgewoodblog

Dec 8, 2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05), issued the following statement after Iran violated U.N. security council resolutions by testing ballistic missiles:

“Despite the opposition of the American people and the majority of Congress, President Obama signed a dangerous nuclear deal with Iran. As predicted by myself and my colleagues, we have seen little-to-no change in Iran’s behavior as they continue to break international agreements. Yesterday, we learned that the Iranian regime tested a ballistic missile—the second they’ve tested since the deal was signed. This clearly violates U.N. security council resolutions, including the same U.N. resolution that endorsed the Iran deal. In addition to these tests, a recent IAEA report found that Iran has pursued nuclear weapons as recently as 2009.

“The administration cannot sit idly by as Iran continues to violate international agreements, and I call on them to take these violations seriously. It’s obvious that Iran has ambitions to create nuclear weapons, and therefore the United States should continue the economic sanctions that successfully brought this tyrannical regime to the negotiating table.  The safety and security of the United States and its allies is my top priority, and I will continue to fight to keep nuclear weapons out of Iran.”

In July Garrett said , “As I’ve said since the beginning of these negotiations, any agreement that allows Iran to acquire, build, or proliferate nuclear weapons—now or in the future—is a threat to the United States and its allies. The Iranian regime has done nothing to prove that it has earned the trust or respect of the international community, and therefore should not be rewarded with good faith gestures or sanctions relief.

“With this deal, a timetable is set where Iran can organize, increase military capabilities, raise funds, and prepare for deadlines where they will be able to acquire ballistic weapons and continue their nuclear proliferation. This could create a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and further destabilize an increasingly volatile region. Congress must ensure the terrorist state of Iran never has a chance to threaten the world with nuclear weapons.”