‘Jobs Created or Saved’ Is White House Fantasy

Well the White House keeps saying they have created or saved jobs with the recently passed “stimulus Plan”, even though Congress has only spent aroun 15% of the stimulus money. How do they know they have saved or created any number of jobs?

Last week, the chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers — a position that carried the title “chief economist” until Larry Summers took up residence in the White House — testified to the Joint Economic Committee on the economic crisis and the efficacy of the policy response.

When the government distributes lucre or loot, people spend it. If your interest is national income accounting, spending other people’s money is great. Spending is a back-door way for government statisticians to measure what matters, which is the real output of goods and services.

But the government has no money of its own to spend; only what it borrows or confiscates from us via taxation. Oops.

“Government job creation is an oxymoron,” said Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Business. It is only by depriving the private sector of funds that government can hire or subsidize hiring.

That’s why “jobs created or saved” is such pure fiction. It ignores what’s unseen, as our old friend Frederic Bastiat explained so eloquently 160 years ago in an essay.

Only 30,383 jobs were created or saved by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to Recovery.gov, the government’s once-transparent Web site that has become a complex blur of numbers, graphs and pie charts. These are only the jobs reported by federal contract recipients. The Obama administration will report the larger universe of ARRA-related jobs on Oct. 30.

An extrapolation of what would have happened without the fiscal stimulus isn’t much consolation to the 9.8 percent of the workforce that is unemployed. Nor is Romer’s prescription for the economy and labor market very comforting in light of the trillions of future tax dollars that have been spent, lent or promised by the federal government.

Bloomberg.com

 

Without Vaccine, Australia Shrugs Off Swine Flu without a H1N1 vaccine

Well to those of us who are keeping up with the truth about H1N1  were watching for the figures when they came in from Australia which being in the southern hemisphere just finished their flu season and has summer coming. Whereas here in the United States it is being hyped up more than anywhere else in the world. Even the UK just recently reduced their predicted deaths from H1N1 by 2/3 and Finland has downgraded the “pandemic” from a level 6 to a milder level because it is not as serious as is being hyped up in North America. I suspect there is a reason for this hyped up “emergency” that just isn’t there.

Without Vaccine, Australia Shrugs Off Swine Flu.

With no vaccine available for H1N1 flu, Australia recently ended its 2009 “Flu Season” (their Winter in our Summer), with 186 flu-associated fatalities of 36,991 Aussies confirmed having H1N1. (Instead of the predicted 3,000 deaths from H1N1)

The Australia 2009 stats for regular ’seasonal flu’ are not final yet, but their Health Dept literature cites annual flu-associated mortality historically has been between 2,500 and 3,000  in spite of universal  vaccination programs for regular flu long being established.  A logical review of these results strongly suggests next year Australia should initiate a “flu vaccination holiday,” promote vitamin D supplements, long known to be effective for preventing Wintertime flu disease, and then compare the outcomes.

Pertinently, experts have also stated that H1N1 was probably already in Australia for their 2008 flu season, but not tested for (which is the nature of the testing world; a great percentage of “flu” cases being presumptive, never tested).  In light of Australia clearly showing the pussycat nature of H1N1, can somebody explain why America’s media willfully ignores the news from Australia? However, despite the derelict media, I would think U.S. Health Generals would certainly be up on Flu news from Down Under, and certainly from Canada right next door.

Canadian front page news on flu vaccinations has transfixed Canada health authorities, prompting official suspension of regular flu vaccination programs until further notice. This comes from a sweeping study of Canada by research Doctors Danuta Skowronski of the British Columbia Centre of Disease Control and Gaston De Serres of Laval University in Quebec concluding Canadians receiving flu vaccinations have twice the risk of coming down with the flu, compared to those who do not take the shot.
In a bizarre five-hour worldwide teleconference held by the World Health Organization October 4 on the Skowronski/De Serres Study, U.S. doctors offered the opinion that the Canadian doctors’ flu vaccination study was certainly wrong and must have used flawed study parameters, though the U.S. doctors admittedly could not identify anything specific.  To paraphrase the U.S. attitude: ‘Damn the vaccination studies, flu speed ahead!’ (Let’s make that money by selling the vaccines to every American.)

In view of all this, America wakes up Sunday, Oct. 25 to headlines of President Obama proclaiming Saturday that H1N1 Flu is now under a National Health Emergency. Perhaps, Obama’s rhetoric is no coincidence as it is well known most Americans have been rejecting their invitations to show up for their shots.  And maybe, American mothers and fathers realize there are indeed catastrophic risks associated with vaccinations, particularly since CDC says their kids should be marched in for shots, regardless of CDC admitting the shots contain full amounts of mercury preservative.  And, I am not making this up: CDC astonishingly insists that the mercury in vaccines brings no risk whatsoever to kids. (Even though the H1N1 vaccine has 25,000 times more mercury in it that is safe in food. What sense does that make?)

Three related conclusions come to mind:

(1) My hat is off to the public, thinking for themselves.  Huraah!!

(2) Obama’s health advisor Harry Varmus, NIAID chief Tony Fauci, HHS Secretary Sebelius, CDC Director Thomas Frieden, CDC Commander Anne Schuchat are so zealously dedicated to Herd Control of Americans they willfully ignore the honest, financially independent, most available information on Planet Earth: Australia’s just ended Flu Season, and the study in Canada by Doctors Skowronski and De Serres (and other studies that reinforce their conclusion). U.S. health officials promoting unwarranted epidemic fears and manipulation of H1N1 flu deserve permanent mail room duty on the international space station – at best.

(3) President Obama illustrates perfectly the medically-ignorant political animal, craving to be seen as a Medical Hero in the national spotlight, while willfully ignoring abundant proof of brain damage and other permanent disabilities to millions of children by vaccines’ mercury and other toxic ingredients cavalierly injected in such as the H1N1 vaccine.

AgeofAutism.com

Government May Block Websites During Pandemic Emergency…WHY?

Well here we have another excuse for government control and takeover of something else…..using Obama’s  “emergency” declaration on a H1N1 pandmenic. I have to ask again….why an emergency in the United States and no where else in the world? As a matter of fact Finland has downgraded H1N1 from a level 6, Australia’s death toll from an already peaked flu season was around 150 instead of the predicted 3,000 and the UK has lowered their death toll from H1N1 by 2/3, then said the number of deaths could be even lower than anticipated. So what’s going on here in America? In late-July, the CDC advised US states to stop testing for H1N1 flu and the CDC stopped counting individual cases of “swine flu.”   The rationale touted for this was that is was a waste of resources testing for H1N1 flu when the US government had already established that there was an epidemic. But was there really, or were they aiming to conceal the truth in order to be able to mislead the public to legitimize the H1N1 vaccine program, and hype the phoney crisis to aid in the push for a World Government since the “pandemic” is worldwide ? I’m  sure in time we’ll see what Obama is up to later and we may not like it. It’s bound to be more government control somehow, but they need another excuse and this time it’s H1N1, that admittedly is highly contagious, but even more milder than regular seasonal flu. We have 1,000 deaths so far in the US from H1N1 and seasonal flu claims 36,000, so where’s the fire? By blocking websites, the truth may not be able to get out anymore……..maybe that is why they won’t an excuse to block websites ?

Securities exchanges have a sound network back-up if a severe pandemic keeps people home and clogging the Internet, but the Homeland Security Department has done little planning, Congressional investigators said on Monday.

The department does not even have a plan to start work on the issue, the General Accountability Office said.

But the Homeland Security Department accused the GAO of having unrealistic expectations of how the Internet could be managed if millions began to telework from home at the same time as bored or sick schoolchildren were playing online, sucking up valuable bandwidth.

Experts have for years pointed to the potential problem of Internet access during a severe pandemic, which would be a unique kind of emergency. It would be global, affecting many areas at once, and would last for weeks or months, unlike a disaster such as a hurricane or earthquake.

H1N1 swine flu has been declared a pandemic but is considered a moderate one. Health experts say a worse one — or a worsening of this one (In Australia where flu season if over, the H1N1 virus didn’t mutate into something worse) — could result in 40 percent absentee rates at work and school at any given time and closed offices, transportation links and other gathering places.

Reuters.com

 

Where Are the Jobs ?

With all the stimulus money we were promised 3.5 million new jobs and instead we’re down 3 million jobs.

more about “Where Are the Jobs ?“, posted with vodpod

 

Congressman Says He Now Has ‘About 40 Likeminded Democrats’ Who Will Vote to Kill Health Bill if He Doesn’t Get Floor Vote on Pro-Life Amendment

Looks like more truth about the Obamacare bill will be coming out one way or the other.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) told CNSNews.com yesterday that he has organized a group of “about 40 likeminded Democrats” who will vote to kill the health-care bill if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) does not allow a floor vote on his amendment to prohibit federal funds from going to insurance plans that cover abortion.Under Stupak’s plan, the approximately 40 Democrats in his camp would join with all House Republicans in voting to defeat the special House “rule” that would set the terms for debating and amending the health-care bill on the House floor when it is brought up for a final vote. If a majority of the House does not first vote to approve this rule, the health-care bill itself cannot be brought to the floor.“We will try to—we, there’s about 40 like minded Democrats like myself—we’ll try to take down the rule,” Stupak told CNSNews.com. “If all 40 of us vote in a bloc against the rule—because we think the Republicans will join us—we can defeat the rule. The magic number is 218. If we can have 218 votes against the rule, we win.”

more about “CNSNews.com – Congressman Says He Now…“, posted with vodpod

“If you hold all 40 of your guys, how many votes do you have?” asked CNSNews.com.

“About 220,” said Stupak.

“So, you’ve got a two-vote margin there?” asked CNSNews.com

“Correct,” said Stupak.

If Stupak’s bloc of Democrats holds together against a rule, Stupak said, “They cannot bring the bill to the floor.”

Stupak’s amendment was defeated by a vote of 28 to 30 in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, when that committee was drafting its version of the health-care bill. Stupak’s serves on the committee and is chairman of its Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Stupak said that House Rules Committee Chairman Louise Slaughter (D.-N.Y.) has told him there is “no way” her committee will write a rule that allows a floor vote on his amendment.  The Democratic majority on the Rules Committee, Stupak said, acts on the direction of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The health care bill approved by the Energy and Commerce Committee creates health insurance “exchanges” in each state. These “exchanges” would sell government-approved health insurance plans. The bill would also provide federal subsidies to people making up to 400 percent of the poverty level to use when buying insurance plans in the exchange.

The committee approved an amendment sponsored by Rep. Lois Capps (D.-Calif.) that would require that there be at least one health care plan in each exchange that covers abortions. People would be able to buy these abortion-covering insurance plans with federal subsidies, although they would also be required to pay an extra premium of at least $1 to theoretically pay for the abortion part of their coverage.  Stupak and other pro-lifers—including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops–argue that money is fungible and that any federal funds going to an insurance plan that covers abortions is in fact a federal subsidy of abortion.

Stupak’s amendment–which mirrors the language of the Hyde amendment that is incorporated each year into various appropriations bills including the Health and Human Services appropriation–would prohibit federal funds from paying for any part of a health plan that covers abortions.

Stupak told CNSNews.com that although he has about 40 votes now to kill the rule for the health-care bill if Speaker Pelosi does not allow a floor vote on his amendment, he said that situation could change when the rule is brought to the floor and the voting on it actually takes place.

When the vote is going on, Stupak said, the Democratic leadership will “twist arms” and try to persuade the 40 would-be defectors to fall back in line with the party.

CNSNews.com

 

Numbers don’t add up on insurance profit claims by Congress

Well this is just what I’d suspect from the bunch in Washington, D.C.

Quick quiz: What do these enterprises have in common? Farm and construction machinery, Tupperware, the railroads, Hershey sweets, Yum food brands and Yahoo?

Answer: They’re all more profitable than the health insurance industry.

In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making “immoral” and “obscene” returns while “the bodies pile up.”

Ledgers tell a different reality. Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That’s anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.

Profits barely exceeded 2 percent of revenues in the latest annual measure. This partly explains why the credit ratings of some of the largest insurers were downgraded to negative from stable heading into this year, as investors were warned of a stagnant if not shrinking market for private plans.

Insurers are an expedient target for leaders who want a government-run plan in the marketplace. Such a public option would force private insurers to trim profits and restrain premiums to compete, the argument goes. This would “keep insurance companies honest,” says President Barack Obama.

The debate is loaded with intimations that insurers are less than straight, when they are not flatly accused of malfeasance.

They may not have helped their case by commissioning a report that looked primarily at the elements of health care legislation that might drive consumer costs up while ignoring elements aimed at bringing costs down. Few in the debate seem interested in a true balance sheet.

But in pillorying insurers over profits, the critics are on shaky ground. A look at some claims, and the numbers:

The claims

“I’m very pleased that (Democratic leaders) will be talking, too, about the immoral profits being made by the insurance industry and how those profits have increased in the Bush years.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who also welcomed the attention being drawn to insurers’ “obscene profits.”

“Keeping the status quo may be what the insurance industry wants. Their premiums have more than doubled in the last decade, and their profits have skyrocketed.” Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, member of the Democratic leadership.

The numbers

Health insurers posted a 2.2 percent profit margin last year, placing them 35th on the Fortune 500 list of top industries. As is typical, other health sectors did much better – drugs and medical products and services were both in the top 10.

The railroads brought in a 12.6 percent profit margin. Leading the list: network and other communications equipment, at 20.4 percent.

HealthSpring, the best performer in the health insurance industry, posted 5.4 percent. That’s a less profitable margin than was achieved by the makers of Tupperware, Clorox bleach and Molson and Coors beers.

The star among the health insurance companies did, however, nose out Jack in the Box restaurants, which only achieved a 4 percent margin.

UnitedHealth Group, reporting third quarter results last week, saw fortunes improve. It managed a 5 percent profit margin on an 8 percent growth in revenue.

Van Hollen is right that premiums have more than doubled in a decade, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study that found a 131 percent increase.

But were the Bush years golden ones for health insurers?

Not judging by profit margins, profit growth or returns to shareholders. The industry’s overall profits grew only 8.8 percent from 2003 to 2008, and its margins year to year, from 2005 forward, never cracked 8 percent.

The latest annual profit margins of a selection of products, services and industries: Tupperware Brands, 7.5 percent; Yahoo, 5.9 percent; Hershey, 6.1 percent; Clorox, 8.7 percent; Molson Coors Brewing, 8.1 percent; construction and farm machinery, 5 percent; Yum Brands (think KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), 8.5 percent.

JacksonSun.com

FOX News 1, White House 0

Lord knows I don’t agree with 100% of everything coming from Fox News or CNN,ABC,NBC or MSNBC for that matter, but Obama is just making this worse on himself by trying to stifle dissent. You know Mr. Obama, we do have a 1st amendment still.  I am surprised as to what the TV pool did, but I give them  big thumbs up for this one.

Congressman Mike Pence had a few words to say about conservative commentators in radio and television and the White House antagonism toward their views.  You may watch the video below to hear what he said.

Yesterday the White House attempted to maneuver the other news networks into leaving FOX News out of the pool of reporters that share the cost and duties of daily coverate of the presidency.  The pool is a five-network rotation of reporters that cover Obama’s every move.  See FOX News.

However, the administration was going to make “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg available for an interview to every other member of the White House pool except for FOX News.

But the Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks consulted and decided that none of their reporters would interview Feinberg unless Fox News was included.

The administration relented, making Feinberg available for all five pool members and Bloomberg TV.

Media analysts cheered the decision to boycott the interview unless FOX News was included.  “I’m really cheered by the other members saying “No, if Fox can’t be part of it, we won’t be part of it,’” said Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik, who called the move to limit Feinberg’s availability “outrageous.”

“What it’s really about to me is the Executive Branch of the government trying to tell the press how it should behave. I mean, this democracy — we know this — only works with a free and unfettered press to provide information,” Zurawik said.

Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. pointed out that the administration was potentially in violation of the Constitution with its attempt to restrict access to the “eyes and ears” of the country.

“What was averted was a very serious Constitutional violation by the White House,” he said. “There cannot be selective and arbitrary access to the White House based on some subjective determination.”

Meanwhile, President Obama says that he’s not “losing a lot of sleep” over the whole controversy.  Good thing, because we wouldn’t want him to be troubled by restricting access to the press or attempting to control the media.  See the NY Daily News.

RightlyConcerned.com

United Nations Launches Investigation of Human Rights Abuses in the United States

Well this should get your dander up…We’ve posted articles about the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights before. Expect this investigation is in the United States. Where do they get the authority to probe anything in this country? I’ll go ahead and answer my own question….they probably get the authority from some treaty we’ve signed with them. But I have news for them….although according to the Constitution a treaty becomes “supreme law of the land”, that does not mean it overrides the Constitution and is above it. The Treaty still has to abide by the Constitution and can be unconstitutional. Next after this investigation ,  I’ll bet they try to tell us we have to do something to make things right like they have in other countries. Except this time it’s the United States. Sooner or later we knew this would happen didn’t we? And I’m sure Lord Obama will bow down to their every wish.

Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman reports that Raquel Rolnik, a Brazilian urban planner and the UN’s choice for the task, will be investigating issues of concern to the UN vis-à-vis the United States, including public housing, homelessness and foreclosures. As part of her fact-finding mission, she will visit New York City, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Washington, a South Dakota Indian reservation, and Wilkes-Barre, Pa. She will then compile a report on her findings, which will be submitted to the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council in March.

The UN Human Rights Council believes that housing is a human right, and, because housing (especially “affordable housing”) is so tough to come by in places like New York City, there is a strong likelihood that the United States Government is guilty of gross human rights violations.

Now, having the UN send an investigator to the United States to report on “human rights violations” due to a perceived lack of housing availability—when it turns a blind eye to real human rights violations in places like Communist China, Sudan and Venezuela—should be enough to raise some eyebrows. But Rolnik’s impartiality is highly suspect, as she appears to have already made up her mind as to the existence of these “violations .”

DemocracyNow.org

UPDATE: CBS Reveals that Swine Flu Cases Seriously Overestimated

Well this is no surprise when you considered the World Health Organization has told the CDC to consider everything the H1N1 (swine flu) without even testing for it.

CBS Reveals that Swine Flu Cases Seriously Overestimated

Before beginning their investigation, CBS News asked the CDC for state-by-state test results prior to their halting of testing and tracking. The CDC did not initially respond so CBS went to all 50 states directly, asking for their statistics on state lab-confirmed H1N1 prior to the halt of individual testing and counting in July. What did they find? CBS reported:

“The results reveal a pattern that surprised a number of health care professionals we consulted. The vast majority of cases were negative for H1N1 as well as seasonal flu, despite the fact that many states were specifically testing patients deemed to be most likely to have H1N1 flu, based on symptoms and risk factors, such as travel to Mexico.”

Part two here:                           Part Three here:

As you can see from this CBS News graphic, not only are most cases of suspected flu-like illnesses not H1N1, they’re not even the flu but more likely some type of cold or upper respiratory infection.

gather.com

President Obama declares national emergency over swine flu pandemic, but why?

Obama needs a distraction from his looming defeat on Health Care. Obama is up to something by doing this. There is no emergency here in the US. We have an estimated 1,000 deaths from swine flu and 36,000 annually from seasonal flu. “Many millions” of Americans have had swine flu so far, according to an estimate<  that CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden gave Friday. The government doesn’t test everyone to confirm swine flu so it doesn’t have an exact count.“ (So how can he say with confidence that one million have had the swine flu? He can’t)
So any figure we hear is a guess. By the directors own words…”we don’t test everyone”. There is no emergency….there is some other reason for doing this…NO other country worldwide has declared an emergency, as a matter of fact Finland has downgraded the H1N1 virus because it is mild worldwide including America. This is more insanity. Strange Obama waited until late Friday to do this. Well not really…..That’s the traditional day when the White House slips stories into the press they want to “soften.” They don’t want lots of flack, and the weekend gives them some cover.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency and empowered his health secretary to suspend federal requirements and speed treatment for thousands of infected people.

The declaration that Obama signed late Friday authorized Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to bypass federal rules so health officials can respond more quickly to the outbreak, which has killed more than 1,000 people in the United States.

The goal is to remove bureaucratic roadblocks and make it easier for sick people to seek treatment and medical providers to provide it immediately. That could mean fewer hurdles involving Medicare, Medicaid or health privacy regulations.

“As a nation, we have prepared at all levels of government, and as individuals and communities, taking unprecedented steps to counter the emerging pandemic,” Obama wrote in the declaration, which theWhite House announced Saturday.

He said the pandemic keeps evolving, the rates of illness are rising rapidly in many areas and there’s a potential “to overburden health care resources.”

Because of vaccine production delays, the government has backed off initial, optimistic estimates that as many as 120 million doses would be available by mid-October. As of Wednesday, only 11 million doses had been shipped to health departments, doctor’s offices and other providers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventionofficials said.

Swine flu is more widespread now than it’s ever been. Health authorities say almost 100 children have died from the flu, known as H1N1, and 46 states now have widespread flu activity.(But let’s keep this in perspective…36,000 die annually from seasonal flu in the United States alone…..so where’s the fire?)

Worldwide, more than 5,000 people have reportedly died from swine flu since it emerged this year and developed into a global epidemic, the World Health Organization said Friday.(Again let’s keep this in perspective……world wide 500,000 die annually from seasonal flu…….5,000 deaths is 1% of that total…..So I ask again…….Where’s the fire?)(The Fire is for Control….by declaring a level 6 pandemic the WHO controls how this “pandemic” is handled worldwide and this includes the United States.Of course allowing this (UN control)  is an act of treason.) Since most countries have stopped counting individual swine flu cases, the figure is considered an underestimate.(Or maybe overestimated as well.)

 

 

President Obama declares national emergency over swine flu pandemic, but why?