Monthly Archives: January 2012

Jan 31

Home Prices Drop, Consumer Confidence Plunges

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(Reuters) – Home prices fell more steeply than expected in November, and consumer confidence soured in January, highlighting the hurdles still facing the economic recovery.

The S&P/Case-Shiller composite index of single-family home prices in 20 metropolitan areas declined 0.7 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, a survey showed on Tuesday, a bigger drop than the 0.5 percent economists expected.

The decrease added on to the 0.7 percent decline seen in October from September.

Separately, a report from The Conference Board said an index of consumer attitudes fell to 61.1 in January from a revised 64.8 the month before, [...]

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Jan 31

New Congressional Budget Office Numbers Once Again Show that Modest Spending Restraint Would Eliminate Red Ink

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Back in 2010, I crunched the numbers from the Congressional Budget Office and reported that the budget could be balanced in just 10 years if politicians exercised a modicum of fiscal discipline and limited annual spending increases to about 2 percent yearly.

When CBO issued new numbers early last year, I repeated the exercise and again found that the same modest level of budgetary restraint would eliminate red ink in about 10 years.

And when CBO issued their update last summer, I did the same thing and once again confirmed that deficits would disappear in a decade [...]

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Jan 31

What’s Next? Occupy the Super Bowl, of Course

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While blowing all of the inappropriate anti-American, anti-capitalist dog whistles to incite the Left into reflexive action, Dave Zirin at The Nation casts the Super Bowl as basically everything the left hates about America.

Cue angry Union worker: “Upsetting the Super Bowl— I couldn’t care less. This is about my life and my family.” —Lou Feldman, IBEW local 668.” But that’s just the opening salvo. A good Leftist can never go wrong banging on the military, let alone capitalism.

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Jan 31

CBO Study: Federal Workers Compensated Much Better than Private Sector

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The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)released a study telling Americans if they want a raise, they should go work for the federal government, because federal workers are compensated much better than those in the private sector. The CBO did an apples to apples comparison of federal and private sector employee salaries and benefits from 2005-2010. The compared workers who were similar in the following characteristics:

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Jan 31

Allen West to Switch Districts, Hasner out of Senate Race

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In a deal with several moving parts, Conservative favorite Rep. Allen West will move over and run in Rep. Tom Rooney’s old district, as Rooney moves on to run in a newly created district. Additionally, Adam Hasner will drop his Senate bid, leaving a somewhat clearer path for Rep. Connie Mack to run for the Senate nomination.

U.S. Senate candidate Adam Hasner will likely leave the race and run for Allen West’s soon-to-be-vacated Congressional seat, a source tells us. West’s seat looks a lot like Hasner’s old legislative Delray Beach-based district.

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Jan 31

Sources: Exit Poll Shows Sunshine State Blow-Out For Romney

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Sources within one of the GOP candidates’ campaign tells Big Government that exit polling shows Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) nearing a majority in today’s Florida Primary.
As of 6:00 PM ET the poll results are as follows:

Romney  47%
Gingrich  34%
Santorum  11%
Paul  8%

Polls close in Florida at 8:00 PM ET.  Tune in to Breitbart.tv for live continuing coverage of the Florida primary all night with live interviews and reactions from news-makers and the Breitbart News editorial staff.

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Jan 31

Chevrolet Dealers Reject The Volt

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HA! HA! HA! LMAO!!!

[Hysterical laughter!]

Another big government boondoggle! So, what else is new? Forcing GM to make a car that nobody wants! That’s big, central government planning for you! Who the hell wants a 41,000 dollar base price golf cart that can only go 35 miles on a charge?

This thing is so bad, even the dealers don’t want them!

HA! HA! HA! LMAO!!!

[Hysterical laughter!]

The electric Chevrolet Volt has been touted by the Obama administration as a major step toward a green future of gas-free vehicles, but one key group is spurning the car: Chevrolet dealers.

“Dealer ordering is down,” acknowledged General Motors spokesman Rob Peterson, who said many dealers have been waiting for resolution of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s probe into the risk of fires in the car’s battery pack. Three packs caught fire last year following government test crashes.

GM sold just 7,671 Volts in the United States last year, short of its 10,000-sales target.

A dealer in Clovis, Calif., Brett Hedrick, sold 10 Volts last year but in the past two months he turned down the six Volts allocated to him by GM. He told Automotive News that GM “thinking we need six more Volts is just crazy. We’ve never sold more than two in a month.”

Another dealer on the East Coast said he agreed to accept the five Volts that GM allocated to him this month even though he has seen a “huge drop-off” in customer interest.

“I probably should have taken only one,” he told the News.

The Insider Report disclosed three weeks ago that the Volt won the dubious distinction of being named one of the “Worst Product Flops of 2011” by Yahoo! Finance.

Commenting on the Yahoo! report, the National Legal and Policy Center stated: “The Obama administrations’ favorite car has had a rough time of late with sales goals not being met” and “media exposure of the high cost to taxpayers regarding Chevy Volt subsidies.”

“Considering all the money spent by GM to hype the vehicle, the Worst Flop award is well-deserved.”

Volt buyers receive a $7,500 subsidy from taxpayers.

Text via Newsmax

Jan 31

Why GOP Politicians Sell Out

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By Publius Huldah
January 27, 2012
NewsWithViews.com

It is a cliché to speak of “spineless Republicans”-google spineless republicans and you will see. They talk “conservative” when they campaign; but once in office, they go along with the progressive agenda. That agenda is to grow the federal government until it controls every aspect of our lives.

Why don’t they oppose the progressive agenda? [1]

Rush Limbaugh says they don’t oppose it because they want to be invited to the right parties and praised in the liberal media.

But on this, our Rush is wrong. Rush is a man of Principles; but he doesn’t understand the Constitution. So he doesn’t see that the spineless ones also don’t understand it; and that their failure to oppose the progressives stems from their lack of any Standard to guide them.

In other words, the spineless Republicans don’t know what the alternative is to the progressive agenda. They don’t know that Our Constitution created a Congress with limited and enumerated powers. They don’t know that the President’s powers are “carefully limited; both in … extent and …duration” [2] They don’t understand that limited civil government is morally superior to a fascist dictatorship. Since they don’t understand these things, they are buffeted here and there by winds which progressives blow.

Spineless Republicans are “nice.” They are “patriotic.” And that’s it. But they are men of straw because they stand for nothing. They have no Standard to guide them. So they go with the flow.

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