Under Obama, Things Keep Getting Worse

No matter what propaganda we see from the elite media or from Obama supporters, the American people will not be fooled. The May report by The Conference Board showed consumer confidence at its lowest point in the last five months.

That might shock those who swallow the Obama administration's argument that it has produced significant job growth and reduced unemployment. That's all wonderful until you run into someone who has been unemployed for years and is not even counted in the unemployment figures. The fact is that the American people can feel it when things are not improving, and despite being told that the nation is making the turn toward a strengthening economy, the public feels the squeeze at every turn.

Yes, we keep being told things are getting better, like the advance estimate of the first quarter's gross domestic product, which was originally reported at 2.2 percent. Oops, that number was revised at the end of May to be a tepid 1.9 percent. That is hardly news for celebration and additional reason not to trust any rosy projections that might arrive right before the November elections. Oh, and by the way, sales for existing houses dropped in April, shocking the experts who did not see it coming.

Of course we are all told, based on our antiquated way of measuring inflation, that the cost of goods and services in America is really not rising much at all. Perhaps that is the case, but it seems hard to leave a grocery store these days with any reasonable amount of products and not drop at least a hundred dollars. And all of this for food and other products that seem to be in smaller and smaller packages. I guess that's not inflation, it's just imagination.

As for the thrill we should all have over the decline in gas prices, well, many just are not so overjoyed. We are nowhere near the average price for gas on the day President Obama was inaugurated. That price, even "deemed" as correct under this new print media "judge and jury" known as "Politifact," was $1.79. While oil prices rise and fall (and, curiously, often fall when the public starts to really complain), the price in most areas of the nation is well into the three dollar plus range. Now, of course, that's not inflation, it's just imagination.

Let's just tell the truth: Our health care premiums are rising, interest rates on credit cards soared partially due to overreaction by the Obama administration, college tuition is getting out of hand, and the list goes on and on. Who wants to buy in an economy in which the statistics the government uses suggests costs are barely rising, but in which at the end of the week people have empty pockets or big additions to their credit cards?

What about the other side of the equation -- savings and investments? Because we allegedly have no real inflation, the Federal Reserve is giving money away, and their low interest rates also guarantee that you will get next to nothing for parking your money in a money-market account. In fact, about the only place the average American can make any real money is in the stock market. This is a market that has risen while the rest of the nation has been stalled out. Now does anyone really trust the stock market long term, in light of the high jinks we have seen surrounding just the new public offering of Facebook stock? The answer is, not likely.

Businesses are already building in the increased costs of doing business in America if Obama wins a second term. They have already been regulated to death, but the threats that come with four years, particularly if Republicans do not control both the House and Senate, have virtually every entity that employs people -- from the largest to the smallest -- preparing for the worst.

They know an Obama re-election means that the Bush tax cuts go away and that marginal rates will rise for virtually anyone who participates in our free enterprise system. Most deductions will disappear, and the natural reaction from businesses will be to trim more fat (is there any left to trim?) and try to charge more for a product or service.

If anyone doubts how desperate companies can get in a crunch, just look to the airlines. Most charge you extra for everything but the supply of oxygen and cabin pressurization onboard. If we don't look out, they may start charging us to breathe while in flight.

It appears President Obama believes in his own form of trickledown economics -- we just trickle down to nothing.

A reasonable “rule of thumb” is that stupid people who make a series of decisions get some of them right by accident. The percentage depends largely on how many possible choices there are, for instance in an either or choice even a coin toss should produce the correct decision in half the cases over a long period. It appears to me that Obama NEVER makes the correct choice, therefor it cannot be a case of incompetence or stupidity. He is not very smart but someone is making his decisions for him and that someone is bent on destroying America and that someone knows what the correct choice is every time because otherwise they could not feed him the wrong choice every time. Can you name one decision of any importance that he has gotten right?

I agree. It is by design.

The tightening of the credit markets
The explosion of regulation
The gutting of conventional energy
The ossification of the financial markets
The burden of Obamacare
The blundering in foreign policy

And the list goes on... So many wrong decisions cannot be an accident. It cannot be adequately explained by stupidity.

I think Obama means to shut down the means of upward mobility so that he can introduce the concept of static class structure to the United States. Then the underclass can, at last, be induced into action against the productive class, and the Revolution, so long dreamed of, can at last be achieved.

Fundamental Transformation.

On what looks like a book near his feet...what does it say?

I think the first two letters are “OB...”

Just curious...

“I think Obama means to shut down the means of upward mobility so that he can introduce the concept of static class structure to the United States. Then the underclass can, at last, be induced into action against the productive class, and the Revolution, so long dreamed of, can at last be achieved.”
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I think you are spot on, it would be hard to make a case against what you say. The effort to revert to a permanent class structure probably began shortly after the end of WWII, they apparently want to go back to the old way when someone born of peasants died a peasant with very near no hope of rising above that level.

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