Unemployment down to 8.5 percent

Good, but not great:

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 200,000 in December, and the unemployment rate, at 8.5 percent, continued to trend down, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in transportation and warehousing, retail trade, manufacturing, health care, and mining. — Via Employment Situation Summary

Ed Morrissey Notes:

There are a few interesting points to note.  Even though the rate of initial weekly jobless claims has declined over the last few weeks, ther has been an increase of 150,000 people unemployed for five weeks or less.  The numbers declined slightly in all other time frames, but that’s something to watch.  The civilian population participation rate hasn’t changed at all from the 64.0% of last month, which remains the lowest level since the Reagan years and which keeps the jobless rate artificially low.  The civilian labor force — all the employed and all those seeking employment — actually declined by 50,000 people since November.  However, the U-6 measure of “real” unemployment dropped from 15.6% in November to 15.2% in December, which is the lowest in three years.

It’s a pretty good but not spectacular result.  In order to gain jobs, we have to net more than 125,000 jobs added each month.  At this rate, it would take 40 months to add 3 million jobs over and above population growth.  I’d rather go in that direction than the opposite, but we need a lot more robust job creation than this to get people back to work.


Before I give my thoughts, you must remember this; I live here in Michigan, just outside of Detroit.  The Detroit area, along with the rest of the State has suffered under a one-State recession that started much before the big recession that hit the rest of America.  Now having said all of that, I say this.  All of these numbers mean nothing.  It is nothing more than window dressing; at least to me anyhow.  I have not had a job now in six years — other than the meager Ad profit that I managed to squeeze out of my old blog.  I hope that I will be able to continue that here with this blog.  Yes, I have a “small Businessthe emphases on small!  😛 😉 😀 😆

What happened was this; I took $120.00 out of my Christmas money and I bought a nice reseller-hosting package.  I hope that I can sell some shared hosting to some people.  If I sell a few packages and whip out a couple design jobs for a few guys over on Blogger, who want to get off there; and I happen to make my $120.00 back, I will be happy.  The rest is just happy profit.  I am not looking to become rich on this little venture.  I just would like to make a little money.  If it gets insanely busy — I will do my duty and go file the paperwork for a business.  (Yes, Liberals, I will pay my taxes, if I make enough warrant paying any!)

It is not that I really do not want to work for someone else — I would love to.  However, as any small business owner knows, it is somewhat hard to hire anyone at all.  When you have an idiot Government breathing down your shirt collar and keeping you from making any profit.

Another little side note; as the son of a UAW member and GM retiree and a member of a middle class family — it feels so weird to be writing from the standpoint of an actual small business owner.  I mean, I am not in an office and wearing a suit.  However, I am offering a service to people.  I do not know how good I will do in the business.  However, that is the beauty of a business; it is a real risk.  Sometimes, between you and I — risk can be a bit scary. Worried

WaPo: Haiti's Rich and Elite Spared the worst because they are really rich or something

Man, talk about a liberally biased article! 🙄

Check out this anti-wealthy article by the Communist Post AKA The Washington Post:

PETIONVILLE, HAITI — Through decades of coups, hurricanes, embargoes and economic collapse, the wily and powerful business elite of Haiti have learned the art of survival in one of the most chaotic countries on Earth — and they might come out on top again.

Although Tuesday’s 7.0 magnitude earthquake destroyed many buildings in Port-au-Prince, it mostly spared homes and businesses up the mountain in the cool, green suburb of Petionville, home to former presidents and senators.

A palace built atop a mountain by the man who runs one of Haiti’s biggest lottery games is still standing. New-car dealers, the big importers, the families that control the port — they all drove through town with their drivers and security men this past weekend. Only a few homes here were destroyed.

“All the nation is feeling this earthquake — the poor, the middle class and the richest ones,” said Erwin Berthold, owner of the Big Star Market in Petionville. “But we did okay here. We have everything cleaned up inside. We are ready to open. We just need some security. So send in the Marines, okay?”

Those dirty bastard rich business owners, how dare they not get hurt as bad, as the poor downtrodden bottom feeders?!?!

Unbelievable. 🙄

The Taste of Success!

Recession? What Recession?

There might be one; but I’m not participating in it. 😀

Since the last time that Google Adsense sent me a check. This Blog has made $217.83 as of today. Recently, I received a payment of $179.25. I know what some of your thinking. You are most likely snickering at the amount. 😛

To be quite honest, that is pretty darned good for a newer Blog and a Political one for that matter. Not to mention a Conservative Blog that is totally independent and not affiliated with any sort of special interest group and one that has not done any real advertising.

My Hosting provider; Ryan Yaple, of EWF Media will be getting a PayPal payment from me for giving me the hosting for all this time. Just as soon as it is released to me, to transfer it to him. 🙄 Funny how slow that is.

One of the biggest and greatest rules of success in small business or in building a business; is celebrating one’s accomplishments. Even the small ones.

So, I did. I drove over to the local Meijer’s here in my local city and bought me a nice whole round, boneless steak. I went out back and fired up Dad’s grill and this was the result:

steak001

(Click the picture to make the Photo Bigger)

Another shot:

steak002

In case you cannot tell, that is two different pieces of steak there, and not one big one. Yes, I ate it all and yes, it was quite tasty. 😀

The real awesome part about all of this is this; I did not need the Government to give me a hand out to achieve all this. I did it all by myself. (With the help of a good friend of mine as well…) I earned the money from the advertisements the right way and not though scams or deceptions. All Because I dared to put up a Blog that criticizes the socialist politics of the B. Hussein Obama Administration.

A Round of Thank You’s

Again, A big thank you to my hosting provider, Ryan Yaple of EWF Media, who hails from Brighton, Michigan. Who felt sorry for me; when I got jerked around by a guy who thought it would be cool to take my money and then renege on a verbal agreement. Ryan, again, I will say it. You are the best that America has young man. That money will be in your hands, just as soon PayPal lets me have it! 🙄 😉 😀 😆

Another Big thank you is to my faithful readers; you know who you are. I see the site numbers and I see who reads what. Thank you for clicking the banner ads. Every little bit helps. Please note, that there is a PayPal donation button on here; it is on the right, at the top. Also, please note, that I have 3 ad spots on BlogAds. and 4 ad spots on Project Wonderful. Please, keep up your readership, and tell your friends about this site!

To the restoration of Conservatism in America!

-Pat

Ezra Levant being sued by serial litigator Khurrum Awan

Once again, Canadian Conservative Blogger Ezra Levant is being targeted by Lawsuit happy Khurrum Awan.

The Story which comes from Ezra Levant via 5 feet of Fury: (H/T to Pamela Geller)

Khurrum Awan, the youth president of the Jew-hating Canadian Islamic Congress, has threatened me with a lawsuit. You can see the rambling, typo-ridden libel notice here. (Seriously, Khurrum: spell check. It’s free.)

Awan is an experienced practitioner in the soft jihad of “lawfare”, the abusive practice where lawsuits are filed against critics of radical Islam just to harass them and silence them, Erin Brockovich-style. He’s done it before: Awan fronted the CIC’s three identical “human rights” complaints against Maclean’s magazine for publishing an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s best-selling book America Alone. Awan wasn’t the actual complainant in those cases – the CIC’s president, Mohamed Elmasry, was. But Awan was the public spokesman for those nuisance suits.

[…]

That’s pretty much par for the course over at the CIC. A couple of years ago, they distributed Nazi-style anti-Semitic cartoons door-to-door as part of their election efforts. Personally, my favourite Elmasry moment is whenever he denounces the Canadian media as being run by “the zhoos” – a line he repeated again and again without a flicker of embarrassment at a convention of the Canadian Association of Journalists.

That’s the Canadian Islamic Congress. They’re a great fit for Saudi Arabia or Egypt. They’re just not really ready for prime time in a liberal democracy. And now their youth president, Khurrum Awan, wants a full public trial – in a real court, not a kangaroo court – about, amongst other things, whether or not they’re anti-Semites.

I’ll take those odds. With Elmasry as his mentor, I’m guessing Awan is just a wee bit tone deaf on the whole bigotry thing.

It’s nuttier than a Snickers bar over at the CIC, but that hasn’t bothered Awan one bit. The CIC championed the cause of terrorist groups including Hamas and Hezbollah, and opposed the listing of them as terrorists under Canadian law. They actually defended the Butcher of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe. And then there’s the hired help: the CIC publishes screeds from anti-Semites like Greg Felton, whose views are as diverse as supporting Iran’s nuclear program to praising Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for questioning the Holocaust.

That’s Awan’s crew: Jew-haters, terrorist-lovers, censors and nuisance litigants. So it’s no surprise, dear friends, that he has decided to come for me.

So, Mr. Levant is going to need some in the legal dept to keep this  Awan from getting anywhere. So, if you would; hop on over there and give the man some help money wise, please. Do it for me and for Liberty and Freedom of Speech. I would send Ezra a nice check myself; but I really do not have it to spare right now. So, I am doing the next best thing. I am blogging about it and passing the word around.

Please note: Last night, when I originally wrote this entry late last night. I went to into a rather nasty rant. While it might have been funny for some; and most of I wrote might be true. After thinking about it and sleeping on it. I woke up today and decided to yank it. Sometimes it’s best to keep your feelings to yourself and keep the damn peace. I wish Mr. Levant all the best and I apologize to any of his friends, if anything I wrote upset them.

Think the Mortgage Crisis is over? Think Again; round two is coming!

The Market Ticker has the ugly details.

(H/T to Freedom Phoenix)

John Stossel takes on Liberal Propagandist Michael Moore

I happen to like John Stossel; because he dares to take on the Liberals. Not in a mean or nasty way. But by simply stating the truth.

He writes about Michael Moore’s latest Movie:

Michael Moore has been working on another documentary.  This time, he’s taking on capitalism:

“The wealthy, at some point, decided they didn’t have enough wealth. They wanted more — a lot more. So they systematically set about to fleece the American people out of their hard-earned money.”

How ridiculous is that?  The wealthy, and everyone else, almost always decide that they don’t have enough wealth.  People ask their bosses for raises.  We invest in stocks hoping for bigger returns than Treasury Bonds bring.  “Greed” is a constant.  The beauty of free markets, when government doesn’t meddle in them, is that they turn this greed into a phenomenal force for good.  The way to win big money is to serve your customers well.  Profit-seeking entrepreneurs have given us better products, shorter work days, extended lives, and more opportunities to write the script of our own life.

He goes on…:

Moore also fails to understand is that it was not “capitalism” run amok that caused today’s financial problems.   In reality, it was a combination of ill-conceived government policies and an overzealous Federal Reserve artificially lowering interest rates to fuel a bubble in the housing market.  Then it was government that took money from taxpayers and forced banks to accept it.

Moore ought to understand that, because he makes a good point when he says his movie will be about “the biggest robbery in the history of this country – the massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions.”

That is indeed robbery.  It sure doesn’t sound like capitalism.

Nope, sounds more like socialized Healthcare or simply Socialism in general; to me.

Mike Tennant writing over at Lew Rockwell’s Blog chimes in:

According to the press release you linked, Chris, “Moore has made three of the top six highest-grossing documentaries of all time,” which presumably means he has accumulated a great deal of wealth.  Apparently, since he continues to foist his so-called documentaries on an unsuspecting public, Moore has decided that he doesn’t have enough wealth.  He wants more–a lot more.

Like most anti-capitalists, Moore has no problem personally profiting from his own endeavors while demonizing other successful persons and attempting to have them dispossessed of their wealth.  The good news is that Moore ultimately has to answer to the marketplace and thus may find himself begging for work from the very people he now condemns if enough of his audience members wake up to the fact that he’s a charlatan and stop shelling out their increasingly scarce cash for his celluloid propaganda.

Mike is right on point; that is exactly how the socialists in America are. The Socialist left wants to preach to America, how evil, rotten, nasty and no good the evil capitalist system is; all the whole pocketing a profit from their lectures, Movies and the books that they just happen to make a profit at.  It is more of that “Yea for me, but Nay for thee”, type of mentality and outright hypocritical nonsense that the Far Socialist left is known for.

The troubling thing about it, is this; these knuckle-headed socialists basically control the Democratic Party and it’s message.  Hence my reasoning for not wanting anything to do with them or their Party any longer.

Give me Capitalism, Freedom and Liberty or Give Me Death!

Others: Wake up America

Congress put the brakes on Obama's Cap and Trade bill

Looks like the Hope and Change will be slightly delayed.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s push for quick action by Congress on climate change legislation suffered a setback on Thursday when the U.S. Senate committee leading the drive delayed work on the bill until September.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer said her self-imposed deadline of early August for finishing writing a bill to combat global warming has been put off until after Congress returns from a recess that ends in early September.

“We’ll do it as soon as we get back” from that break, Boxer told reporters. Asked if this delay jeopardizes chances the Senate will pass a bill this year, Boxer said, “Not a bit … we’ll be in (session) until Christmas, so I’m not worried about it.”

But Boxer did not guarantee Congress will be able to finish a bill and deliver it to Obama by December, when he plans to attend an international summit on climate change in Copenhagen.

“I want to take this as far as we can take it (before Copenhagen). The more we do the better,” Boxer said.

via Obama’s drive for climate change bill delayed – Washington Post. (H/T to HotAir)

Contrary to what the Democrats are trying to tell the media, this here is why the bill has been delayed:

WHEELING – He is not yet back to work in the Senate chamber, but U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd is opposing “cap and trade” legislation pushed by the Obama administration.

The 91-year-old Byrd, D-W.Va., was released from an unidentified Washington, D.C. hospital last week after a month-long stay for a staph infection. He expects to return to the chamber before the Senate begins debate on “cap and trade” – which is tentatively set for this fall, according to Byrd’s office.

“I cannot support the House bill in its present form,” Byrd said in a statement. “I continue to believe that clean coal can be a ‘green’ energy. Those of us who understand coal’s great potential in our quest for energy independence must continue to work diligently in shaping a climate bill that will ensure access to affordable energy for West Virginians. I remain bullish about the future of coal, and am so very proud of the miners who labor and toil in the coalfields of West Virginia.”

Byrd grew up in the coalfields of Stotesbury, W.Va., in Raleigh County. Jesse Jacobs, spokesman for Byrd, said the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will begin marking up the “cap and trade” bill later this month, with floor debate scheduled for September or October.

I will give kudo’s to that old man. He might have been a Klan member at one point; something that he has profusely apologized for many times. He might be a democrat, but I cannot sit her and fault a man for looking out for his people. That is what Congressman are supposed to do, and I give all the credit due for that. Senator Byrd is of the old school Democratic Party. Before the stupidity of socialism took it over, he still believes in the principles of free markets and capitalism; in short, he has not sold out to the Socialist nonsense of the modern day Democratic Party.

God Bless Him for that. 🙂

Is America turning Japanese?

This comes via Reason.tv:

Article mentioned in this video is Here

Cue the Music!

The Southern Avenger says "Partisans Make Us Less Safe"

How support for both “financial security” and “national security” reveal partisan hypocrisy and make us less safe.

Local Auto News: Chrysler looking at Bankruptcy

A pretty sad thing to wake up today. However, I am sorry to say this, but I knew it was coming. Chrysler never was able to get their act together; unlike G.M. and get a resolution together.

The Report comes via the Washington Post, I won’t quote the whole thing and I kindly ask that you go over and read the whole thing. But rather, I will give some my impressions from the interesting stuff.

My impressions:

The Obama administration last night planned to send Chrysler into bankruptcy, replace chief executive Robert L. Nardelli and pump billions of dollars more into the effort, all in hopes the company can emerge from court proceedings as a reenergized competitor in the global economy.

Government officials clung to 11th-hour hopes last night that bankruptcy could be averted, but talks broke down with Chrysler’s creditors. A bankruptcy filing could happen as soon as today.

The U.S. government’s attempt to save the automaker amounts to another extraordinary intervention in the economy and a landmark event in the history of the American auto industry.

Under the administration’s detailed court strategy, ownership of Chrysler would be dramatically reorganized, the leadership of Italian automaker Fiat would take over company management and the U.S. and Canadian governments would contribute more than $10 billion in additional funding.

Company and government officials had feared that a bankruptcy would stain the brand, shake customer confidence and erode sales, but the administration said it would seek to use the process to create a new Chrysler company. Its ownership would be divided, with the company’s union retiree health fund receiving a 55 percent stake, Fiat would claim as much as a 35 percent share and the United States would take 8 percent. The Canadian government would receive two percent.

Basically this is what General Motors did voluntarily. Minus the Fiat equation, of course. It is a tough break that the creditors, bond holders, and company management could not come together to an agreement.  The main and good thing is, that the automaker, itself, will be saved, and that American jobs will be saved.

Now comes the part that will make people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, and the rest of the far right wing people howl at the moon:

The automaker’s current majority owner, the private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, would have its holdings wiped out.

Now, to be fair; I will report the truth about this holdings company. This company, from what I have read and have been told; is notorious for buying up struggling companies, like Chrysler and shutting them down and selling off the assets to make money. They have done this in past, from what I told. So, while I hate to see anyone lose their money. I actually am glad to see Chrysler being taken away from this company.

Let me also say this. As an Conservative, who believes in “America First”, and believes that business sometimes have to fail; I am not exactly jumping for joy, when it comes to fact that this auto company is having taxpayer dollars being pumped into it. Nor am I happy at the fact, that a US automaker is having a foreign auto company’s management taking over its operations. However, I believe we must be realistic about such matters. We are not living in the 1950’s any longer, we are in a economic recession of monumental proportions, and if we do not drastic measures quickly, we could see a total collapse of the American auto industry. I also know that there is a undeniable truth that “as Detroit goes, so goes America.” Pat Buchanan and I, have been saying this all along; if allow the big three or in this case, the big two to disappear our Nation’s economy would go into free fall. I shudder in absolute horror at the thought of the far reaching implications of such an event.

I will say, as a devout Paleo-Conservative; If we would have rejected the globalism of the Rockefeller-type conservative types and would have imposed strict trade restrictions on Japanese and other such foreign automotive products, these auto companies would not be in the position that they are today.  It is because of the Rockefeller-type, Madison Avenue, Neo-Conservatives, whose mantra is “screw the American middle class”, is the reason we are in this position today.  Further more, it is the reason that the world is also partaking in our recession as well.  Perhaps President Obama will see the state of our globalist economy and will rethink his position on NAFTA and TAFTA and the rest of those toxic free trade agreements that are in place; and impose strict tariffs on imports that are bleeding our economy dry.

Realistically however, I highly doubt that President Obama will do any of that, because he is trying to run as a centrist, or as I like to call it; he is sucking up to the Neo-Conservative right, as they are his biggest supporters, strangely, after trying so very hard to defeat him in the election. Of course, we Paleo-Conservatives know why this is; because the only difference between a Neo-Conservative and a Democrat is the letter next to the name.