Obama’s $529 Green Loan to Finnish Company That Made $100,000 Cars Is Linked to Al Gore

The Obama Administration gave $529 million in loans to a car company in Finland that made $100,000 lemons.

Now the company is in financial trouble and the cars are burning down garages. Oh… And the green company is linked to Al Gore.

Fisker Karma – Another Green Lemon

In 2009 the Obama Administration gave a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland. The company was promoted by Al Gore.
The Wall Street Journal reported on this curious investment:

A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.

The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Tesla is a California startup focusing on all-electric vehicles, with a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors that have contributed to Democratic campaigns.

The awards to Fisker and Tesla have prompted concern from companies that have had their bids for loans rejected, and criticism from groups that question why vehicles aimed at the wealthiest customers are getting loans subsidized by taxpayers.

“This is not for average Americans,” said Leslie Paige, a spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste, an anti-tax group in Washington. “This is for people to put something in their driveway that is a conversation piece. It’s status symbol thing.”

DOE officials spent months working with Fisker on its application, touring its Irvine, Calif., and Pontiac, Mich., facilities and test-driving prototypes.

Matt Rogers, who oversees the department’s loan programs as a senior adviser to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, said Fisker was awarded the loan after a “detailed technical review” that concluded the company could eventually deliver a highly fuel-efficient hybrid car to a mass audience.

Now the company is in financial trouble and the cars are burning down garages.
The Daily Caller reported:

Fisker Automotive isn’t the next Solyndra — it’s worse.

Nearly $200 million into a $529 million loan from the Department of Energy, Fisker’s yet to build a car in the United States. The current model they offer, the Karma, retails for a reasonable $103,000. And here’s the fun part. The Karma, produced in Finland, first suffered a recall in December. That recall expanded recently — in no small part due to a Karma in Texas lighting on fire and burning down the garage where it was parked. It appears that not only are these not American cars, but they’re not even particularly safe for American drivers. But don’t fret.

It was only a cool $200 million down the drain.

And, of course, no one will ever be held accountable for this green scandal. And liberals are laughing all the way to the bank.

Read More

Gallup Poll: More Than Twice As Many Americans Consider Themselves Conservative On Economic Issues As Those Who Say They’re Liberal…

Source

Via Politico:

There are more than twice as many Americans who consider themselves conservative on economic issues as opposed to liberal, according to a new Gallup Poll Friday.

Almost half of those surveyed, 46 percent, said their views about the economy are conservative, while just 20 percent said they were liberal. About a third, 32 percent, said they are moderate when it comes to the economy.

Americans are also more likely to be conservative than liberal on social issues — 38 percent said their views on social matters are conservative, compared with 28 percent who said they are liberal and 31 percent who said they are moderate.

From 2001 to 2008, an average of 42 percent of Americans identified themselves as being conservative on economic issues. In the past four years, this average climbed to 48 percent, along with a decline in people who said they hold moderate views on the economy.

Keep reading…

Read More

Obama's excuses

Read More

California : The Most Miserable State

Source

I know, I know, you’re shocked by the Forbes report via the BBC

A new survey of the “most miserable cities” in the US suggests that five of the 10 worst are in California. The BBC’s Peter Bowes considers whether life in the Golden State has really got that bad.

For many people, life should be much better than it is, and a new survey by Forbes magazine concludes that “the Golden State has never looked less golden”.

The region is at the epicentre of the foreclosure – or repossession – crisis, unemployment is way above the national average and high taxes are crippling business.

“If they can divorce themselves emotionally and psychologically from their problems, everyone seems pretty happy”

As a result, eight out of 20 spots on the publication’s annual list of America’s Most Miserable Cities are in California.

The ranking takes into account a range of factors – including the economy, crime levels, the climate and social factors, such as how the local sports teams are doing.

Stockton, Ca is ranked the worst, with Ca. cities also ranking 3, 4, 5, 9, 17, 18, and 20.

Surprisingly, Detroit ranks 15th. You’d think it would be higher, but, I guess the Red Wings save them a bit.

Obama’s hometown of Chicago hits #7, while D.C. ranks 16. Miami is #2. The only somewhat right leaning city on the list is Memphis, at #6.

Read More

They Just Hate Rich People

by Michael D. Tanner

If the debate over the tax deal between President Obama and congressional Republicans has shown anything, it is that the American Left really hates the rich. But why?

Politicians often divide Americans between "the rich" and "working people," implying that the rich don't work for their money. Complaining about the tax deal, Rep. Jim McDermott (D., Wash.) contemptuously referred to the rich as "trust-funders," suggesting that most had done nothing to earn their wealth. But in reality, roughly 80 percent of millionaires in America are the first generation of their family to be rich. They didn't inherit their wealth; they earned it.

In fact, several studies indicate that the rich work very hard for their wealth. For example, research by professors Mark Aguiar and Erik Hurst found that the working time for upper-income professionals has increased since 1965, while working time for low-skill, low-income workers has decreased. Similarly, according to a study by the economists Peter Kuhn and Fernando Lozano, the number of men in the bottom fifth of the income ladder who work more than 49 hours per week has dropped by half since 1980. But among the top fifth of earners, work weeks in excess of 49 hours have increased by 80 percent. Dalton Conley, chairman of NYU's sociology department, concludes that "higher-income folks work more hours than lower-wage earners do."

Research by Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman showed that those earning more than $100,000 per year spent on average less than 20 percent of their time on leisure activities, compared with more than a third of their time for people who earned less than $20,000 per year. Kahneman concluded that "being wealthy is often a powerful predictor that people spend less time doing pleasurable things and more time doing compulsory things."

The rich are not sitting by the pool, sipping their cocktails; they are sitting in their offices, working their behinds off.

And more important, their work often produces the goods, services, and technologies that make all our lives better. Nearly all of the modern technological marvels in our life, the things that help us live longer, reduce the amount of manual labor in our lives, or just entertain us, are the result of someone trying to become rich, and often succeeding.

We also hear constantly that the rich need to "pay their fair share." But the rich already pay a disproportionate share of taxes. The richest 1 percent of Americans earn 20 percent of all income in America but pay 38 percent of income taxes. The top 5 percent earn slightly more than one-third of U.S. income while paying nearly 59 percent of income taxes. One might suggest, therefore, that the wealthy already pay nearly double their "fair share." Of course other taxes, such as payroll taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and the like, tend to be more regressive, mitigating this somewhat. But even if you include all types of federal, state, and local taxes, the wealthy pay a higher proportion of taxes than their share of income would warrant.

The rich give back involuntarily through taxes and voluntarily through charity.

Households with more than $1 million in income make half of all charitable donations in this country. That totaled more than $150 billion last year.

The Left also makes two other contradictory claims about the rich and their wealth. On the one hand, we are told that the rich spend their money frivolously. Perhaps some do, but this ignores the fact that frivolous expenditures often provide jobs and income for the rest of us. Back in 1990, for example, Congress decided to impose a "luxury tax" on such frivolous items as high-priced automobiles, aircraft, jewelry, furs, and yachts. The tax "worked" in a sense. The rich bought fewer luxury goods — and thousands of Americans who worked in the jewelry, aircraft, and boating industries lost their jobs. According to a study done for the Joint Economic Committee, the tax destroyed 7,600 jobs in the yacht-building industry alone.

On the other hand, we are told that lower taxes on the wealthy won't help the economy because the rich don't spend enough of their money. That old-fashioned Keynesian economics — which assumes economic growth is driven by consumer demand — ignores the fact that money not spent by the rich is not simply stuffed under millionaires' mattresses. The savings of the rich provides the investment capital that funds new ventures, creates new jobs, and spurs innovation. The money that the rich save and invest is the money that companies use to start or expand businesses, buy machinery and other physical capital, or hire workers.

No doubt there are dishonest or unscrupulous businessmen who have gotten rich by taking advantage of others. And it's hard to feel much sympathy for the Paris Hiltons of the world, flitting through life with a sense of entitlement that they haven't earned. But most wealthy Americans have worked hard for what they have, pay more than their fair share of taxes, give generously to charity, and, most important, drive the economic growth that all of us non-rich people rely on.

That's something to remember the next time that politicians start to beat the drums of class warfare.

SOURCE

**************************

Read More

Raul Castro: Yeah, Socialism’s Basically a Complete Failure So We’re Going to Add Some Capitalism to Save it

Source

Comrade Obama hardest hit…

HAVANA (AP) — Cuban President Raul Castro told legislators Saturday that the future of the country’s revolution is at stake as the government tries to institute sweeping economic reforms, adding that the changes are meant to strengthen socialism — not replace it.

Cuba has announced it will lay off a half-million workers from bloated state-run enterprises, while simultaneously allowing more free enterprise. It has also begun to scale back many of the subsidies Cubans have come to rely on to compensate for salaries that average just $20 a month.

Castro has argued that the changes are needed to boost notoriously low productivity, and that once that happens, living standards will begin to rise. He urged his countrymen to embrace the changes, and warned that anybody who doesn’t will be left behind.

“The life of the revolution is in the balance,” Castro said in a two-hour speech closing out a twice-yearly meeting of the island’s national assembly. He repeated his contention that the dollop of limited capitalism being injected into the economy does not mean the end of the revolution’s ideal to create an egalitarian utopia.

“The strategic economic changes are being made to sustain socialism,” he said. “They are to preserve and strengthen socialism, so as to make it irrevocable.”

He also warned his countrymen that they’ll have to work in the new Cuba, and can no longer rely on the state for handouts.

“Many of us Cubans confuse socialism with freebies and subsidies, and equality with egalitarianism,” the president said.

Read More

The man who hasn't got a clue

Via "Dissecting Leftism"

All his simplistic policies have turned to ashes

Larry Elder

President Barack Obama walked into the Oval Office in January 2009 during a severe economic downturn led by a meltdown in housing prices -- and promptly made things worse.

By bailing out banks, insurance companies and auto firms -- done to a lesser extent by the previous administration -- Obama rewarded poor performers and punished their better-managed competitors. Prevented from pouncing on wounded rivals and thus increasing market share or buying the assets of the wounded at fire sale prices, Ford, for example, watched GM and Chrysler get a cash infusion from taxpayers. Despite GM's recent "successful" public offering, taxpayers lost billions of dollars.

Obama and the Democratic congressional supermajorities passed a nearly trillion-dollar economic "stimulus" package and then proceeded to award fiscally irresponsible states with "stimulus" funds, helping postpone the day of reckoning when states must meet their budgets by reducing spending and cutting the size of government. Stimulus supposedly "saved or created" 3.5 million jobs, but it merely succeeded in transferring money from the pockets of producer taxpayers into the pockets of others.

Obama spends billions to "invest" in mythical "green jobs of the future." Investing is the job of the private sector, which uses private funds to produce a product that addresses a need or desire. Success is determined by the willingness of the consumer to pay good money for said product. A bad bet means somebody loses his own money -- a possibility that the private investor weighed before he chose to risk his capital.

But government "investments" are driven by politics, with decisions made by bureaucrats operating under rosy scenarios with romantic wish lists. When taxpayer money goes down a rathole -- as is far more likely than with privately invested money -- nobody gets fired, but the country is impoverished a little bit more.

ObamaCare puts 30 million Americans on the rolls of the medically insured. Since its passage, insurance companies -- citing the cost of ObamaCare mandates, rules and regulations -- jacked up their premiums and cut coverage. Over 100 waivers have been granted to companies and organizations that, but for these waivers, would have had to drop coverage, increase copays or reduce medical benefits. Nice to have friends in high places.

The AARP, a staunch proponent of ObamaCare, announced a reduction in benefits for its own employees, lest the tax kick in for so-called "Cadillac plans." To "bend the cost curve," ObamaCare promised cuts in Medicare reimbursement. So doctors are dropping their Medicare patients.

The administration signed into law new banking and financial regulations that keep intact the very government agencies that helped precipitate the housing meltdown -- Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Under policies aimed at allowing everyone with a pulse and a dream to buy a home, these "government-sponsored entities" allowed the players in the housing market -- banks, borrowers, investment banks and buyers of "exotic securities" -- to play with taxpayer money.

The Obama administration's various government efforts to "keep homeowners in their homes" are floundering, serving only to postpone the necessary market re-pricing of homes that are now worth less than they once were. Cash for Clunkers induced people who were going to buy cars anyway into making their purchases earlier. When the program ended, car buying slumped. The result was more taxpayer dollars removed from the hands of producers and put into the hands of recipients.

The administration, with some Republican support, increased the minimum wage and several times extended unemployment compensation -- both well-intended policies, but job killers nonetheless.

Obama promised to raise taxes on the rich, who, under Bush, got tax cuts they "didn't need" and "didn't ask for." So the rich sit on their money, not knowing whether they will be allowed to spend or save or invest it -- or whether Washington has other ideas. Most Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of the year, and if not extended, rates will go up on income, capital gains, dividends and estates.

The recent Republican takeover of the House and loss of the Senate's Democratic supermajority likely mean that the rates will be extended for all -- including the dastardly, job-creating rich. But businesspeople cannot plan -- and are thus reluctant to hire -- until they know whether their taxes are going to increase.

Candidate Obama demagogued against trade agreements that "shipped jobs overseas," and promised to tweak the Bush administration-negotiated treaty with South Korea. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the pact would create 250,000 jobs in America and it would open up exports to a NAFTA-sized market. But during his recent trip to Asia, Obama failed to get the South Koreans to go along with his changes aimed at benefiting the American auto and beef industries. The South Koreans said no, insisting that they had a deal and that if the U.S. won't do business with them, other countries will.

For two years, Obama has practiced Obamalism: Spread the wealth; redistribute income; punish success; reward ineptitude; and encourage the victicrat-entitlement mentality by making the lack of health insurance the responsibility of others.

SOURCE

Read More

Religious North Dakota and Economic Sucess

In a few years from now, if North Dakota gets infested with atheism, atheists will claim that the economic sucess of the place owes itself to their religious worldview, just like they claim the same for the economic sucess of nothern european nations.

Conservative North Dakota still has the lowest rate of unemployment in the United States. The state unemployment rate is 3%.[1]

Another positive aspect of North Dakota is that according to a CUNY 2000 religious survey, it appeared to have the lowest per capita number of atheists in the United States (people who answered "no religion" on a survey).[2]

The Bible declares, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" (Psalm 23:1). North Dakota, which contains plenty of Conservative Christians, certainly seems to be a shining example of this Bible verse. North Dakota has more churches per capita than any state in the United States.[3]

Read More