US Action News

Economic activity and lending are slowing down all over the planet, and fear is starting to paralyze the entire global financial system.

Best case, we could look back on the Great Recession as the era when Americans finally wised up and got the government OUT of the private economy. The Obama era might come to be known as America’s “hitting bottom,” kind of like a drug addict on his final binge of self-destruction before stopping for good.

[B]y now it is clear that, by any reasonable measure (including those set out by Obama himself at the beginning of his term), his presidency has been a failure. – Commentary Magazine

As Obama promised in 2008 he is killing the coal industry even though coal provides 50% of our nation’s electricity and does so at the lowest cost of any other energy source. That should help kill thousands of jobs and drive up the cost of everything that uses energy.

Students of democracy from Alexis de Tocqueville to Mancur Olson have pointed out that the greatest threat to self-government comes from the tendency of democracies to become barnacled with special interests that vote themselves more benefits than society can afford. This is the crisis of the modern entitlement state, which is unfolding from California to Illinois, Greece, Italy and even Washington. – WSJ

“Obama doesn’t have a single idea on how to change the economy.” Charles Krauthammer. Even the leftists have questioned if Obama has a clue about what to do. “The president who started off with such dazzle now seems incapable of stimulating either the economy or the voters. In some ways, he’s still finding himself , too absorbed to see what’s not working. But the White House is a very hard place to go on a vision quest, especially with a storm brewing.” – Maureen Dowd.

Stockton City Council announced Wednesday that they will look at bankruptcy contingency plans after Wells Fargo seized the new city hall building.

Homelessness [] is influenced by incentives. Unfortunately, government policy may actually be making the problem worse, particularly government-subsidized housing for the poor.

[S]ubsidy programs paid more than $1.3 billion to non-farmers in a six year period. .. As one example, billionaire Ted Turner has received more than $200,000 in subsidies. – Capitalism Magazine

Either the globe goes through yet another round of “extend and pretend” that won’t work, or we let some boats sink. A year after those boats and their captains sink, the world will be a much better place. If the decision is made to keep the sinking ships afloat, we will pay for it with another decade of deflation.