There was a time when being American helped to instill a sense of self-reliance. If that time isn’t gone, Obama is doing everything he can to make it go away.
At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.
Bail-out, or buying votes, most know what Obama is up to with regard to student loans. What’s more shocking; the gross amount loaned, or the lack of quality for the investment given the state of academe?
Two weeks ago, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported the latest stats on student loan debt: The amount of loans taken out by students last year hit the $100 billion mark for the first time. What’s more, the total amount of outstanding student debt will reportedly pass $1 trillion for the first time ever this year.
Meanwhile, tuition costs soared this year, doubling inflation with an 8.3% jump.
Events are escalating quickly at #OccupyOakland, the Thunderdome of the #Occupy tantrum. Last night, hundreds of protesters (aka Kids with lots of student debt) attempted to defy a city order to vacate their protest site. Police used tear gas to disperse the mob. Tear gas. In Oakland. California.
Meanwhile, at #OccupyMissoula, a 27 year-old man has been charged with getting an 11 year-old drunk. This kind of thing happened all the time at Tea Parties, right?
If you aren’t paying attention to current economic news out of Europe, perhaps you should be.
If Europe were to be shaken by a series of nations defaulting on their government debt, I am convinced that the continent would plunge into a severe recession. Their recession would trigger a recession of our own, although a less severe one, through a number of links across the Atlantic. (Read: Greek default is just a matter of time)
Today is D-Day for the Eurozone. European politicians are meeting in Brussels to figure out a way to let Greece default without taking down the entire continent’s economy. It can’t be done, of course. The Euro was a fantasy from the beginning. Cheap money and a credit bubble made it work for a time, but that party is over. The mother of all hangovers is about to set in.
BigPeace: 26-Oct-11 World View–Wednesday’s Much-Hyped EU Finance Ministers’ Meeting Is Canceled
DOOM: When the feeling’s gone and you can’t go
Between 2007-2009, public pensions in the U.S. lost almost $1 Trillion in assets. Remember, they were underfunded before this loss. Forget entitlements, public pensions are the real financial crisis that no one will talk about.
California is moving forward with a statewide cap-and-trade scheme, apparently doubling down on economic suicide.
There are winners and losers in politics and then there are sore losers. This would be one. You know this guy had to have loser written all over him in the first place.
When voters in Ohio’s 1st Congressional District threw Democrat Steve Driehaus out of office after only one term, he did not bow out gracefully. No, he decided to get even. So he did what anyone does in today’s culture: he sued somebody.
Charging that its activities contributed to his defeat and thus to his “loss of livelihood,” Driehaus is suing the Susan B. Anthony List, a group that supports pro-life candidates for Congress and which has been one of the leading and most effective organizations involved in the fight to cut off federal funding to Planned Parenthood.
Of course, at least even sore losers have taken some kind of stand. Mitt “why-the-hell-aren’t-I-President-already” Romney waded into Ohio yesterday and declined to take a position on an initiative which would curtail the ability of public sector unions to extract higher wages and benefits from taxpayers:
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stepped into the middle of the charged battle over organized labor in Ohio on Tuesday, but he avoided weighing in on the contentious legislation that would dramatically limit the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions.
Leadership ain’t what it used to be.
Roger Stone looks at the GOP race.
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