[From article]
No sooner had the president charged that those who claimed the economy is in trouble were “peddling fiction” than U.S. stocks posted their worst ten-day start to a year in history. Walmart announced it was closing 154 stores in the U.S. putting 10,000 U.S. jobs on the block. [. . .] Macy’s announced it was closing 36 stores and 27 Kmart and Sears stores were also to be shuttered. [. . .] Consumers simply are running out of money to buy things.
To be sure, the global economy is shaky right now.[. . .] the global recession looks to be more severe than the last one.
1.[. . .] a lot of municipalities and states are already a lot more stressed than they were in 08 and U.S. gov[ernment] debt is much higher.
[. . .]
4. Policy makers and central bankers seem even more clueless than ever after having embarked on an even larger worldwide binge to cure the hangover, [. . .] from their last binge.
[. . .]
Amid all the factors behind the tailspin of our and the world’s economies it is obvious that the grand progressive schemes based -- as they certainly are -- on ignoring reality play a critical part. [. . .] Walmart, [. . .] responding to demands to raise the minimum wage, [. . .] raised wages above the minimum. Critics of raising the minimum wage argued that that would raise prices, negatively affect sales and reduce employment rolls. It seems that it did.
In economic terms, we are in the worst possible situation: politicians and bureaucrats with no respect for reality support programs which depend on an ever increasing supply of other peoples’ money at a time when there isn’t such money to be had [. . .]
Reason sets out the dilemma succinctly:
Sanders has built his popularity almost exclusively on promises to spend more money [. . .] Sanders hasn't been specific about where the money would come from, [. . .] his plans require massive tax hikes not just on the rich but on the middle class, meaning his efforts at offering everyone an education could not only increase inequality [. . .] but also actually redistribute wealth upward.
[. . .]
Puerto Rico is this week’s U.S. basket case with $70 billion in debt for which they have no means of repaying. Other states with unfunded enormous pension liabilities look to be lining up behind Puerto Rico [. . .] On a national scale, People (sic) who could add warned that ObamaCare would collapse with expenditures quickly exceeding revenue, and there’s no doubt that the death spiral is well underway.
This week Humana joined the list of insurers reporting big problems with Obamacare. PJ Media’s Stephen Green Commented:
As for the ObamaCare!!! cheaters -- well, it's not like the Democrats who authored this law weren't given plenty of warnings about the perverse incentives.
The net result is that more and more insurers can't afford to sell insurance to ObamaCare!!! customers -- the very people the law was ostensibly designed to help:
[. . .]
"'We expect Humana will exit Health Insurance Exchange marketplaces in 2017 in light of this data.'"
This thing is coming off the rails, and a LOT of people are going to get crushed when it does.
Mere glitches to the innumerate progressives. I don’t know what they are up to where you live, but in Washington D.C. they are proposing a massive new paid 16-week family leave program which it is estimated could cost over $700 million a year. [. . .] In any event, it is most likely that if this passes, employers will hire fewer people and pay them less to compensate for the cost. Once again the bottom of the economic pyramid would bear the burden of the virtue signaling of those at the top.
[. . .]
Walmart officials were more frank about the reasons the company was downsizing. He said the company cited the District’s rising minimum wage, now at $11.50 an hour and possibly going to $15 an hour if a proposed ballot measure is successful in November.
[. . .]
Math is so hard for progressives. I expect any day now some Democrat in Congress will introduce a bill repealing it.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/peddling_fiction_or_repealing_math.html
January 17, 2016
'Peddling Fiction' Or Repealing Math?
By Clarice Feldman
There are eight Republicans, three Democrats and two Independents currently running for the U.S. Senate that have bankruptcies, tax liens or criminal convictions in their past.
