37 Reasons Why "The Economic Recovery Of 2013" Is A Giant Lie

By Tyler Durden
"If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it." Sadly, that appears to be the approach that the Obama administration and the mainstream media are taking with the U.S. economy. They seem to believe that if they just keep telling the American people over and over that things are getting better, eventually the American people will believe that it is actually true.
On Friday, it was announced that the unemployment rate had fallen to "7 percent", and the mainstream media responded with a mix of euphoria and jubilation. For example, one USA Today article declared that "with today's jobs report, one really can say that our long national post-financial crisis nightmare is over." But is that actually the truth? As you will see below, if you assume that the labor force participation rate in the U.S. is at the long-term average, the unemployment rate in the United States would actually be 11.5 percent instead of 7 percent.
There has been absolutely no employment recovery. The percentage of Americans that are actually working has stayed between 58 and 59 percent for 51 months in a row. But most Americans don't understand these things and they just take whatever the mainstream media tells them as the truth.
And of course the reality of the matter is that we should have seen some sort of an economic recovery by now. Those running our system have literally been mortgaging the future in a desperate attempt to try to pump up our economic numbers. The federal government has been on the greatest debt binge in U.S. history and the Federal Reserve has been printing money like crazed lunatics. All of that "stimulus" should have had some positive short-term effects on the economy.
Sadly, all of those "emergency measures" do not appear to have done much at all. The percentage of Americans that have a job has stayed remarkably flat since the end of 2009, median household income has fallen for five years in a row, and the rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen for eight years in a row. Anyone that claims that the U.S. economy is experiencing a "recovery" is simply not telling the truth. The following are 37 reasons why "the economic recovery of 2013" is a giant lie...

How Presidents Lie

It’s nothing new for a president to lie to us, but Obama’s style is unique.

By Victor Davis Hansen
... At your own job, if you promise the boss that you will do something and then don’t, you’re likely to get fired; when presidents do the same, it’s called politics.
...Unlike presidents who paid high prices rather quickly for their dissimulations, Obama kept getting away with serial deception. The result was similar to a reckless bluffer at the poker table who keeps upping the ante each time he wins with a bad hand — only to lose his enormous pile of bluffed winnings when finally called out. Obama was empowered by a compliant public and a press invested in his progressive agenda. He assumed that while others had had to atone for deception, he did not, given his utopian talk about lowering the seas and cooling the planet, his landmark racial profile, and his youthful charisma and scripted eloquence. Being hip and progressive, he assumed, exempted him from an accounting. Yet unless the economy is booming, even a cool president does not necessarily recover once the public ceases believing what he says. After five years of 7-plus percent unemployment, almost no GDP growth, and record debt, Obama now enjoys few extenuating offsets when he serially misleads.
When the president speaks now, few listen. He realizes that and so, like Richard Nixon, must add emphatics as a substitute for honesty. But by now we know ad nauseam all the banal intensifiers — “make no mistake about it,” “I am not kidding,” “in point of fact,” and “let me be perfectly clear.”
Obama is playing a strange game: The more he speaks untruthfully, the more he resorts to emphatic intensifiers that instead confirm that he is speaking untruthfully. In turn, Obama’s audiences play an even stranger game: The more they hear their president speak, the more they are impressed that he can sound so sincere in being so nonchalantly insincere and mellifluously misleading. When I first heard, “You can keep your doctor and your health plan,” I thought, “That can’t be true; he knows it can’t be true; and the American people must know it can’t be true” — and, then, I shrugged: “But he’s hit upon a winning lie.”
And so he did — until now.

How the ATF Manufactures Crime

A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation exposes the agency’s shameful tactics.

By Charles C W Cooke
...After a bungled sting attracted the suspicion of the Milwaukee press earlier this year, reporters started to examine similar enterprises in the rest of the country. What they found astonished them. Among the tactics they discovered ATF agents employing were using mentally disabled Americans to help run unnecessary sting operations; establishing agency-run “fronts” in “safe zones” such as schools and churches; providing alcohol, drugs, and sexual invitations to minors; destroying property and then expecting the owners to pick up the tab; and hiring felons to sell guns to legal purchasers. Worse, perhaps, in a wide range of cases, undercover agents specifically instructed individuals to behave in a certain manner — and then arrested and imprisoned them for doing so. This is government at its worst. And it appears to be standard operating procedure.
As with Fast and Furious, the primary objective of the ATF’s stings seems not to be to fight a known threat but instead to manufacture crime. Across the country, the agency has set up shops in which it attempts to facilitate or to encourage illegal behavior, and it has drafted citizens into the scheme without telling them that they were involved. It is fishing — nonchalantly, haphazardly, even illegally. And the consequences can go hang.

The Incorrigible President Obama

By Richard A Epstein
...But the expansion of the middle class just cannot happen through labor policies that work to keep people off the first step of the employment ladder. If the President is worried about giving everyone a “fair shot” at future opportunities, why does he adopt policies that impose the greatest toll on the most vulnerable portion of the population?
One of the many great vices of the minimum wage law is that it concentrates on the wage element of the labor contract. Yet for people down on the economic ladder, learning skills on the job, gaining experience, and establishing contacts often count for a great deal more than dollars, which is why young people often take summer internships for zero pay. It gives them a chance to work in a vibrant environment and they leave with a letter of recommendation. Entry-level workers start from a lower base, but they too acquire human capital that lets them climb the employment ladder.
Unfortunately, our visionary President knows little of the unintended consequences of legal intervention, so he continues to push hard on policies that fail. But he accuses everyone who disagrees with him of a form of “collective amnesia.” He caricatures them as believing that “we are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.” Both halves of that sentence grossly mischaracterize the opposition.
The laissez faire system does not mandate that people should not help each other. There is no nefarious cohort advocating the position that it is somehow wrong to give assistance to people in need. Indeed, voluntary forms of targeted assistance will generate more bang for the buck than government grants. Nor should any firm ever be “allowed to play by their own rules.” Rather, within the strong legal constraints that define and establish competitive markets, firms should be allowed to offer whatever package of wages and collateral terms they choose—knowing that they have to keep pace with the market in order to succeed.

How to Keep Workers Unemployed

Another 99 weeks of jobless insurance won't create more jobs.

House-Senate negotiators are close to a modest budget accord to avoid another government shutdown, but suddenly the White House is introducing a last-minute demand. Five years into an economic recovery that President Obama often hails as miraculous, he wants to extend unemployment benefits one more time.
Maybe it's time to consider whether the big expansion of unemployment insurance has increased joblessness. In 2009 the Obama Administration and Congress extended jobless benefits for up to 99 weeks. The point was to help people through the recession, but now the jobless rate is 7%, down from 10%, and the White House still wants another extension.
That would add some $25 billion to the deficit with no compensating economic benefit. The Administration claims that every $1 of jobless benefits creates $1.80 in economic growth, based on the notorious "multiplier" in Keynesian economic models. This is the theory that you can increase employment by paying more people not to work, and that you can take money out of the private economy by taxes or borrowing without cost. If that theory worked, the government should pay everyone not to work.
...Alan Krueger, President Obama's former chief economist, coauthored a 2008 study reviewing the amount of time that unemployed individuals in different states and countries spent looking for a new job and found, among other things, that "job search is inversely related to the generosity of unemployment benefits." Other studies have found that laid-off workers ineligible for unemployment benefits spend more time looking for a new job than those who get checks.

Obama’s Pattern of Appeasement

Around the world the U.S. is abandoning allies in the hope of reducing hostility from enemies.

By Michael Barone
...The American Interest’s Walter Russell Mead sees the emergence of an unlikely Israeli–Saudi alliance against Iran, Russia, and China, which he calls the “Central Powers” — the term used for Germany and its allies in World War I.Today’s Central Powers, he writes, are seeking to diminish U.S. power in the Middle East and East Asia, with some success. The U.S. is abandoning friends in the hope of reducing hostility from enemies.
Sudden reversals of policy, shifting alliances, secret negotiations — these are reminiscent of Christopher Clark’s statesmen who sleepwalked into World War I. Let’s hope that clashes over Asian islets or Iranian centrifuges don’t have the kind of consequences as that terrorist murder in Sarajevo did 99 years ago.

Podesta Hire Shows Obama Is Done Dealing With Congress

By Conn Carroll

....So just what will Podesta be doing for Obama this time around? The NYT reports:

Mr. Podesta will help [Obama’s chief of staff, Denis] McDonough on matters related to the health care law, administration organization and executive actions, said a person familiar with the plans, and will focus in particular on climate change issues, a personal priority of Mr. Podesta’s.

It is those "executive actions" that conservatives, and really anybody who claims to honor the United States Constitution, should worry about.
After Obama was soundly rejected by the American voters in 2010, Podesta penned a report for CAP titled, "The Power of the President," writing:

Concentrating on executive powers presents a real opportunity for the Obama administration to turn its focus away from a divided Congress and the unappetizing process of making legislative sausage. ... It would be a welcome relief from watching legislative maneuvering to see the work of a strong executive who is managing the business of the country through troubled times.

Since that report was published, Obama has completely ignored Congress on a wide variety of issues, from immigration to energy, instead asserting his own power as president to make law as he, and he alone, sees fit.
The move to hire Podesta now, as opposed to waiting till after the 2014 elections, is an admission by the White House that their second term legislative agenda (immigration reform, gun control, and climate change) is already dead.
If progressives are going to make any progress expanding government during the rest of Obama's presidency, it will only be through unilateral executive action. It will not be sanctioned by Congress.

Air Force Kicks Baby Jesus off Base

By Todd Starnes
....The Military Religious Freedom Foundation praised officials at Shaw Air Force Base for removing a Nativity scene located near Memorial Lake on Friday. The traditional Nativity included plastic statues of Mary, Joseph, the Baby Jesus and an assortment of animals.
Apparently, an undisclosed number of Airmen were so emotionally troubled by the sight of a manger scene that they immediately notified the MRFF.
...Hiram Sasser, the director of litigation for Liberty Institute, told me the military’s actions were unconstitutional.
“This was private speech,” he said. “The military can say no displays on a base but it cannot allow a display and then ban it simply because of its religious viewpoint.”
Sasser said the Supreme Court has ruled in the past that viewpoint discrimination even in a non-public forum such as a military base in unconstitutional.

Top 5 Things to Watch As Congress Wraps Up

By Mike Flynn
Congress is racing towards the end of its 2013 session with a full agenda of unfinished business. The House is scheduled to adjourn for the year on Friday, December 13th. The Senate comes back into session this week and is scheduled to adjourn on December 20th. Here are the top 5 things to watch and Congress winds down for the year.
1. Budget Negotiations
Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray, chairs of each chamber's budget committees, are negotiating a two-year budget deal that would push the budget debate until well after the 2014 elections. Officially, the talks are part of a conference committee on a budget resolution. A resolution is non-binding, however, and senior sources on Capitol Hill tell Breitbart News that Ryan and Murray are largely bypassing the conference committee and negotiating with each other on legislation that would put their spending agreement into law.
...
2. Farm Bill
Congress last passed a Farm Bill in 2008. Since then, the 5-year law has been temporarily extended. The current extension expires at the end of the year. While the Farm Bill has traditionally been chiefly about crop subsidies and other agricultural programs, the bill is overwhelmingly now about food stamps. Over the next five years, the Farm Bill will spend $500 billion, but 80% of that is consumed by the food stamp program. Spending on food stamps is currently the highest in history and cuts to the program are the main stumbling block to a final bill. Senate Democrats are looking for around $4 billion in cuts, out of around $400 billion in spending. House Republicans want $40 billion in cuts.
...
3. Defense Authorization
The Defense Authorization extends federal policy concerning all aspects of the military. It technically provides the legal authorization for all Defense programs. It also authorizes spending money on military pay and other items, although it doesn't actually provide the money for them. Without the authorization, though, any monies appropriated couldn't be spent. For 51 straight years, Congress has always passed a Defense Authorization before current law expired. This may be the only piece of legislation that is guaranteed to pass.
4. Misc. Spending, "Fixes" and Expiring Tax Breaks
Democrats have made extending long-term unemployment benefits a key demand for any end of the year legislation. On December 31st, 1.3 million unemployed individuals hit the 99-week limit of benefits. Democrats would like to extend the benefits, but the measure costs $25 billion over the next decade. They have backed off demands that the extension be included in any budget deal, because it would be difficult to offset that spending through that, but will push to pass something on the issue this week.
...
5. Nuclear Fallout
A couple weeks ago, Senate Democrats exercised the long-threatened "nuclear option," eliminating the filibuster for executive appointments and judicial nominations. These nominations can now pass by a simple majority. A few appointments and nominations to the DC Circuit have been blocked in the Senate. Democrats may push to have these nominees approved before the end of the year, when the controversy over the unprecedented procedure is obscured by the holidays.

Washington & Wall Street: The Death of Money

By Christopher Whalen
....In “The Death of Money,” however, Rickards turns the focus on the Federal Reserve System and how the US central bank is destroying the special role of the dollar in the international monetary system. He writes:

“The international monetary system collapsed three times in the past hundred years—in 1914, 1939, and 1971—and the next collapse is already in sight. This time the dollar won’t save us. In fact, the dollar itself will be the cause of the crisis.”

Rickards is near and dear to my heart because he understands that the “Keynesian Conceit,” a term coined by writers from F.A. Hayek to David Stockman, is actually killing working Americans. The socialist majority on the Federal Open Market Committee led by Janet Yellen pretend that keeping interest rates at zero and expanding the US money supply some 300% since the start of the subprime crisis in 2007 is somehow helpful to stimulating jobs and economic activity. He writes:

“Critics to from Richard Cantillion in the early eighteenth century to VI Lenin and John Maynard Keynes in the twentieth have been unanimous in their view that inflation is the stealth destroyer of savings, capital and economic growth. Inflation often begins imperceptibly, and gains a foothold before it is recognized. This lag in comprehension, important to central banks, is called money illusion, a phrase that refers to a perception that real wealth is being created, so that Keynesian ‘animal spirits’ are aroused. Only later is it discovered that bankers and astute investors captured the wealth, and everyday citizens are left with devalued savings, pensions and life insurance.”