How about them bulls and bears?

MoonHowler

bear_bull_008

Holy bulls and bears, the stock market is like a run away roller coaster these days.  I thought this all was bad.   The drop in oil prices and China’s economy are seen as the main culprits.  Who knows.

Actually the stock market is pretty much like a giant roulette wheel in many cases.  You never know what really spooks it on some days.

A couple of my friends sell the instant they see a down turn.  That sure isn’t what the experts advise.  I hunker down.  It will stop falling when it stops.  Not much I can do about it.

Who has some sage advice to give?

(or just blame Obama)

Predicting Northern Virginia’s future

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

A pair of loud alarm bells sounded last week for the Washington area’s economy, and political leaders from Richmond to Annapolis should take them seriously.

The warning of immediate concern came Thursday at an annual conference of 750 business and civic leaders in McLean. Economics mavens led by George Mason University professor Steve Fuller presented eye-opening data showing that our region has trailed almost every other major U.S. metropolitan area in job growth for the past three years.

Evidence of sluggishness is all around us, although the public has been slow to take note. Vacant commercial offices in Northern Virginia are at their highest level since 1991. Average wages in the region have dropped for three straight years, an unprecedented decline.
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The US economy gets it right! Happy 4th!

MoonHowler

The Richmond Times Dispatch has an interesting article on the US economy and why it has prospered and out-paced the economies of Japan, China, and many  European nations.   We just haven’t heard tales of woe like one hears about Greece, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal and our pension funds haven’t been slashed nor have our civil servants been reduced to a near state of bankruptcy.

Sure, our joblessness rate needs to improve more.  Yes, people are out of work.  Yes we still have a rust belt and we have cities in decline.  Our infrastructure needs all its underpinnings overhauled, but some things we are getting right.

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President Obama: We aren’t a dead-beat nation

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

“Our message to the United States Senate is real simple: The American people don’t want the government shut down and they don’t want Obamacare.”

Friday’s vote was Step One in the GOP crusade to undermine the health law. Step Two comes next week, when House leaders hope to advance a separate measure that will demand a one-year delay in the law’s implementation in exchange for an agreement to avoid a first-ever default on the nation’s debts sometime next month.

Obama responded with an uncharacteristically angry speech in which he accused Republicans of “trying to mess with me” and “holding the economy hostage.”

“They’re focused on politics. They’re focused on trying to mess with me. They’re not focused on you,” he told a friendly crowd of about 1,000 autoworkers and their families at a truck manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Kansas City, Mo.

Three times, Obama used the phrase “deadbeat nation” to condemn Republican brinkmanship on the debt limit.

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Senator Tim Kaine: Shutting down the government is unthinkable

MoonHowler

From email:

Over a dozen Senators are pushing for a scenario that should be unthinkable: they want to use a government shutdown as leverage to enact an extreme, right-wing agenda that starts with defunding the Affordable Care Act.  And these folks are picking up more support every day.

A government shutdown would be disastrous.  Real people’s jobs are on the line.  The strength of our economic recovery is on the line.   The American people’s confidence in our political system could sink to an all-time low – and seriously jeopardize efforts to use the government to make people’s lives better.

We need to create the political will in Washington to confront our problems responsibly – where we roll up our sleeves, and approach our differences of opinion honestly so we can meet in the middle, find common ground and settle on real solutions.

Every elected official has his or her own favored policy positions.  But if folks dig in their heels and threaten to seriously damage the American economy if every one of their demands isn’t met, our government can’t function.  In fact, nothing could be more irresponsible.

This isn’t a game of chicken.  It’s governing.  When there are problems with our laws, individual representatives need to work together to fix them.

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Corey Stewart proposes ‘entitlement cuts’ rather than reducing defense spending

MoonHowler

Corey Stewart is apparently wants to save all defense spending while taking a chainsaw to Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.  His latest email blast in his bid for Lt. Governor is shocking!  His own words:

There is no question our Federal Budget has ballooned to epic proportions, but arbitrarily slashing defense spending is the wrong way to try and reduce the federal deficit.

90,000 civilian Department of Defense employees will be furloughed; this alone will be a $648.8 million hit to the economy of Virginia.

If Washington wants to get serious about reigning in spending, they must go after entitlements. Entitlement programs currently occupy 62% of our federal budget, with 44% of that being comprised of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Those programs are increasing beyond the rate of inflation and, when combined with Obamacare, will eat up 18.5% of our national economic output.

Did he really use the words “go after?”  Does he realize that many senior citizens have only Social Security  to rely on?   Is he declaring a war on senior citizens and the poor?  It sure sounds like it.

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The Tea Party takes credit for the Sequester

MoonHowler

tea crusaders

While many Republicans are trying to deny any part of the sequestration, many in the tea party see it as a great victory and celebrate whittling down government.  According to Washingtonpost.com:

Deep reductions in domestic and defense spending are set to begin Friday in a process known as sequestration, which will make progress toward the tea party’s goal of shrinking the government. What unfolds over the following months will be a high-stakes test of whether significant cuts in spending will help or hurt the economy — and the Republican Party’s brand.

The cuts, worth $1.2 trillion over 10 years, are slated to become reality after a period when the tea party — a movement, represented by a group of Republicans elected in 2010, whose goal is to radically cut the government — has struggled to have a lasting impact on Washington. The tea party saw President Obama win reelection and enact more than $600 billion in tax increases on the wealthy, while GOP leaders agreed to allow more federal borrowing without anything in return.

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Report indicates sequester will have heavy impact on DC area

MoonHowler

region

I keep reading that sequestration is greatly exaggerated and that the cuts coming from sequestration are really nothing to worry about.  Who is doing all this prediction?  Why Republicans of course.  The White House is being accused of fear-mongering  and creating hype and a sky is falling environment.  Why would Republicans say that?  Probably because they know what caused this impasse.  It all goes back to the brinkmanship of the debt ceiling crisis in July 2011.  The sequester was a compromise reached so budge the house Republicans who would not vote to raise the debt ceiling.  The alternative was to  default on our debts.

The defense cuts are just one side of the sequester.  There are also looming cuts that will impact our daily lives.

A state by state report warns of the following if sequestration happens this Friday.  According to the Washington Post:

In the Washington region, hub of the federal government, the upcoming automatic spending cuts the Obama administration detailed Sunday would strike a tough blow, with nearly 150,000 civilian Defense Department employees facing furloughs and an estimated average loss of $7,500 in pay.Read More

7 Legislative days until Sequestration

MoonHowler

navy

That’s right, in 7 Legislative days the Sequestration will take place. The Sequestration calls for $500 Billion dollar cuts to Pentagon spending and $700 Billion dollar cuts to non-pentagon spending.

How did we get to such a point with something so dangerous? The truth of the matter is, everyone expected that no one would let it happen.

The road to Sequestration started in July, 2011, when tea party Republicans attempted to block raising the debt ceiling, something which is done under every presidency. That catalyst set a series of unfortunate events into motion. First off, S & P down-graded our credit rating. Not by much, but a little. The stock market took an adverse reaction and many of us lost tens of thousands of dollars.

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Eat your heart out Silver Lake, there’s a new jewel in town (and it ain’t you)

MoonHowler

Prince William County has been ranked #8 in the nation in  job growth.  It falls behind Loudoun County which is ranked #1 and mostly Texas communities.  It supposedly has a job growth of 48.6%.  My question is, where are the jobs and do  those jobs support a livable wage in this county?

From CNN.com

Prince William County takes the crown when it comes to offering enticing perks to businesses. Expedited permits for companies in “targeted” industries that promise high-paying jobs and capital investment is just one of the ways it rolls out the red carpet.

Also behind the job boom: proximity to the D.C. Beltway, a smart workforce and competitive tax rates. Some 770 new jobs were announced last year, a nearly 14% increase from the previous year.

The jewel of Prince William County is Innovation Technology Park, a 1,600-acre corporate district whose tenants include the FBI, Comcast and George Mason University’s Life Sciences Campus. One of the newest additions is Vector Security, which last year announced it was moving into the park and bringing 130 new jobs with it.

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World Wide Protest: we still protect the wealthy

MoonHowler

Over the weekend, former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski spoke the following when he accepted the Jury du Prix Tocqueville Prize in France:

The foregoing observation is especially relevant to our understanding of the challenge facing contemporary America.  Though a democracy, it is becoming a country of socially ominous extremes between the few super rich and the increasingly many who are deprived.  In America today the top 1% of the richest families own around 35% of the entire nation’s wealth, while the bottom 90% own around 25%.   It should be a source of perhaps even greater concern that the majority of all currently serving Congressmen and Senators, and similarly most of the top officials in the executive branch, fall in the category of the very rich, the so-called top 1%.

At the same time, though still a unique super-power, America finds it difficult to cope with the consequences of the increasingly accelerating global changes that are spinning out of control, both on the socio-economic and on the geopolitical levels. Socio-economically, the world is becoming a single playing-field in which 3 dynamic realities increasingly prevail:  globalization, “internetization”, and deregulation. 

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Newster: The unemployed might just be con-artists?

MoonHowler

Huffingtonpost.com:

 [T]he former speaker suggested that benefits were being abused by people who were more interested in living off the government dime than in finding actual work.

“It is fundamentally wrong to give people money for 99 weeks for doing nothing,” he said.

Most studies of unemployment insurance have showed that lethargy is not a side effect of providing help to the unemployed. The money that is being distributed simply doesn’t cover the salary lost from not having a job.

The Newster sticks his foot in his mouth again.  Since when do the jobless get accused of being lazy.  On the one hand there is much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth over joblessness and unemployment.  Then there is the Newster who suggests that people are abusing being unemployed.  Help me understand this. 

Virginia Retirement System back on track…or is it?

MoonHowler

The VRS had a great year.  It had an 18.5% return as of June 30 for last year.  It has nearly returned to its all-time high water mark in 2007, before the crash of 2008.  The trust fund now has approximately $55 Billion dollars.  However, the VRS  board of directors warn that its still not big enough to keep promises made to teachers and local and state workers. 

After the crash, the fund dipped to $38.9 billion dollars in March 2009.  According to Roanoke.com:

But with more government workers and teachers retiring, the investment gains don’t erase the need for lawmakers to increase contribution rates, pension administrators told the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. Pension obligations represent just one of the pressures facing Gov. Bob McDonnell and lawmakers who must shape a new two-year budget next year.

“The fund is aging and will increasingly face the prospect of negative cash flows in years ahead as benefit payments exceed payments from payroll contributions,” said Diana Cantor, the chairwoman of Virginia’s retirement board.

The retirement system has nearly 340,000 active members, including state and local workers, teachers, judges and law enforcement officers. It pays out benefits to more than 156,000 retirees, a number that is increasing. Cantor noted that 5,368 teachers retired in July 2010, a 48 percent increase over the number reported the previous year.

“Recent investment gains notwithstanding, we continue to believe that contribution rates will have to rise to meet our pension obligations over the long term,” she said.

The retirement board will recommend new contribution rates after meeting with an actuary this fall. The state has underfunded the plan, routinely paying rates less than those recommended by the Virginia Retirement System’s governing board over the past two decades.

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Social Security makes $6.5B in overpayments

MoonHowler

USAToday.com

WASHINGTON — Social Security made $6.5 billion in overpayments to people not entitled to receive them in 2009, including $4 billion under a supplemental income program for the very poor, a government investigator said Tuesday.

In all, about 10 % of the payments made under the agency’s Supplemental Security Incomeprogram were improper, said Patrick P. O’Carroll Jr., the Social Security inspector general.

Error rates were much smaller for retirement, survivor and disability benefits, which make up the overwhelming majority of Social Security payments, O’Carroll told a congressional panel.

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