Archive for January, 2010
Elizabeth Warren, “Middle Class America is Under Attack.”
From: Dateline NBC
“Middle Class America is under attack. It’s not only the next crisis, it’s the now crisis. None of these things are separated from each other. We are in debt crisis, not just mortgage crisis… To me it’s not about feeling sorry, it’s about understanding the economic realities. The median American family has tried to hold on to an American dream that their parents could easily afford on one income, and today’s family can’t pay for on two. They need to make it to the end of this month. And if plastic is the way to do that, that’s what families have been doing.”
Peter Schiff, “We have nothing to show for the Trillions of dollars the World has loaned us, except empty houses, Plasma TV’s and SUV’s.”
“When you’re talking about all of the problems around the world, remember the global problems are the result of America borrowing so much money and not being able to pay it back. The credit crunch is that we’ve been borrowing money, hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars, from the rest of the world, and now the world is finally beginning to realize that we’re not good for the money. We can’t pay it back because we’ve been borrowing to consume. Nobody has lent us money to build factories, to build infrastructure. We have nothing to show for the trillions of dollars that the world has loaned us except empty houses, Plasma TVs, SUV’s; we’ve blown the money on consumption. And this is the problem. Ultimately the solution for the rest of the world is to stop lending us money, let the dollar collapse, let the U.S. economy implode and the rest of the world goes about its business.”
You can learn more about Peter Schiff’s Senate Campaign at www.SchiffForSenate.com
Senate votes to Increase Federal Debt limit by $1.9 Trillion, to $14.3 Trillion (Yes, that’s 12 zeros to the right of the 14)
From: Bloomberg.com
The U.S. Senate voted to increase the federal debt limit by $1.9 trillion, to $14.3 trillion, which lawmakers said would be enough to accommodate borrowing for the rest of this year.
The vote was 60-39 for the measure, which now goes to the House. It would be the fifth time lawmakers raised the limit on government borrowing in the past two years. The vote is a win for Democrats who fended off Republican attempts to force them into repeated, smaller increases in the debt ceiling before the November elections.
In an effort to reduce spending, lawmakers amended the measure to enact Congress’s anti-deficit “pay as you go” rule into law. This year’s deficit, projected to reach $1.35 trillion, will amount to 9 percent of the economy. Senators defeated other anti-deficit amendments, including creation of a special debt commission and a rule to set binding caps on spending.
Ron Paul, “Government is Too Big to Succeed”
From: House.gov
It is big government that gives out tax breaks to engineer behavior, often creating large pockets of malinvestments. It is government that created the FDIC and the Fed as lender of last resort which all encourages moral hazard. It is big government that gives bureaucrats the ability to bail out cronies with taxpayer dollars while screaming that the economic sky is falling if they don’t. It is big government that every year adds new layers to the already labyrinthine regulatory code that smaller businesses can’t keep up with while simultaneously preventing new businesses from emerging. It is big government that misdirects economic productivity into bankrupt businesses that they consider to be too big to fail.
Peter Schiff on last nights State of the Union Speech
Peter Schiff on the State of the Union Speech:
“First of all, he started out by assuring us that the worst of the economic storm has passed. And I can assure you that that’s not the case. The worst of the storm is still in front of us because of the policies begun with Bush and continued with Obama, that not only created the problem but are actually exacerbating the underlying economic fundamentals that led to the problem, and we are now in the process of creating a far greater problem. He also talked about the fact that he hated the bailouts; he compared them to ‘root canals.’ If he hated them so much, why was he bailing everyone out? He didn’t seem to hate it at the time. It seems that now the public is expressing its outrage that he’s trying to express a similar outrage himself.”
You can learn more about Peter Schiff’s Senate Campaign at www.SchiffForSenate.com
One of the qualities we like about Peter Schiff here at The Daily Middle is his intellectual honesty. He readily acknowledges the colossal mistakes of the Bush Administration as well, which is highly unusual for most people in general, let alone someone running for office on behalf of the Republican Party or any Party. One of those colossal mistakes from the Bush Administration, of which there were many, included the boondoggle known as Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Part D. This will end up costing the American people approximately 8 Trillion dollars as you can see in the following clip from I.O.U.S.A. which was made prior to Obama taking office (Amazon | iTunes)
Ron Paul schools Congressman Paul Kanjorski
From CNBC’s Squawk Box:
“The American people want to know who the close friends are to the Federal Reserve and who they bail out and what is going on. I mean I think this is tremendous, and I don’t think Bernanke should be reappointed. But even if he is, he’s wounded…the attention is on the Fed, the economy is going down, the correction has not occurred. The American people will pay a lot more attention to the Federal Reserve now than ever before, and I consider that very very beneficial to all of us.”
ABC News Money Matters on The Art of Being Frugal and “The New Normal”
Question: “So in this economy, Jim, how much more important has managing our personal finances become?”
Response: “Well it’s sort of at the top of everyone’s agenda, and of course if you believe as I do, and have for years, most Americans would be happier; the quality of their life would actually increase if they spend and consume less. I think there’s a lot of silver linings to this downturn.”
“Arguably we’re eating healthier because of the recession and there is some debate on that, but here’s the thing: We’re clearly eating lower on the food-chain; for instance, sales on red meat are down and sales on poultry are up. We’re buying more staples and fewer processed foods. We’re eating more fruits and vegetables and we’re growing a heck a lot of those ourselves. Backyard vegetable gardens are up 40% this summer compared to two summers ago…if this trend continues, what’s the next dire headline out of the recession, maybe, ‘American obesity epidemic declines because of the recession?’ … I’ve written a lot about this and I like to think…that the market corrections that we’re going through may just foster some long overdue and very positive lifestyle corrections for a lot of Americans.”
The Daily Middle recommends the following books on this topic:
Roubini: Shocking Data Will Sink Stocks, Earnings
From: Money News
“If I’m correct, by the second half of the year, there’s going to be a slowdown of growth in the U.S., Europe and Japan,” he said.
“That could be the beginning of a market correction because the macroeconomic news is going to surprise on the downside.”
Commodities are likely to escape the decline thanks to strong demand from emerging markets, Roubini says.
But he sees trouble ahead for emerging markets too.
Asset bubbles brewing there, if left unchecked, could trigger an “unraveling and a significant correction of asset prices which will be damaging to global and regional economic growth,” Roubini said.
Families Struggle to Afford Food
From: The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Nearly one in five Americans said they lacked the money to buy the food they needed at some point in the last year, according to a survey co-sponsored by the Gallup organization and released Tuesday by an anti-hunger group.
The numbers soared at the start of the recession, but dipped in 2009 despite the continuing rise in unemployment. The anti-hunger group, the Food Research and Action Center, attributed that trend to falling food prices, an increasing use of food stamps and a rise in the amount of the food stamps benefit.
More than 38 million Americans — one in eight — now receive food stamps, a record high.
Elizabeth Warren, “Congress is about to write the rules of our economic system… If they get it right, we’re good. If they get it wrong, the country we knew will be gone.”
“Congress is about to write the rules of our economic system that will guide us for the next 50 years. If they get it right, we’re good. If they get it wrong, the country we knew will be gone…If we, the people, don’t insist that those who are in Washington represent us, then they’ll go back to the same rules that benefit the same large financial institutions and at that point, we’re all just working for the banks…
If you’re asking me if all hope is lost, the answer is no. Right now Congress has finally stepped up and is taking this up. They’re ready, they’re starting to act. Now, Wall Street is back in business and boy are the lobbyists in business. They are thundering in Washington in numbers that we’ve never seen before…
Congress is moving and they are going to write a new set of rules, and the only question is, ‘will those rules be written to benefit ordinary, hard-working American families, what I think of as the real economy, or will those rules be written to benefit a handful of giant financial institutions?’”
This is Part 3 of 3 of an Elizabeth Warren series. If you missed either of the first two parts, here is Part 1 and Part 2
