Happy Birthday, Barack Obama

Barack Obama has turned 50 years old this week and what has he gotten as a gift? I wouldn’t say that the “gift” is anything that the American people will be happy with, but, let’s just tick off a few things.

There was a report earlier that the U.S. economy had a positive gain of just over a 1% point of growth for the first quarter of 2011, but just within the last couple of days the Commerce department had to “revise” that number down to 0.4 percent.

Oh, and unemployment was initially reported recently to have dropped below the “magic” 400,000 unemployment claims for the week. Alas, the Labor department had to come back and “revise” those numbers up to where the unemployment numbers were more than 400,000 for the week. (Keep in mind that the weekly unemployment numbers are ONLY for those filing for unemployment. It does not take into account all of those that have been out of work for a while and are still getting unemployment benefits, or those that recently lost their benefits.)

Incidentally, the nincompoops running the government have to “revise” those numbers. It isn’t just a one-time deal. This system of them reporting a number for economic growth or unemployment and then having to revise those numbers to more negative numbers is a continuing affair. They report “good” numbers to get the news media to really tout the good information, but then the news media falls short in reporting the “revisions” to “bad” numbers.

We were told that if there wasn’t a bill to avoid the debt default, that the stock markets would take a serious hit. Well, guess what? They passed that bill and the stock markets took the hit anyway. Do you suppose that effect came about because the government just borrowed massive amounts of money again?

Just for the benefit of those with little or no knowledge of economics, Moody and S&P rating companies recently said that if the U.S. government didn’t cut spending by at least $4 Trillion that the U.S. would lose its AAA rating.

Are you aware of what will happen if the U.S. loses its AAA rating? For one thing, pension funds are required to be invested in AAA rated stocks and bonds, and if the U.S. loses its AAA rating, those funds currently in U.S. bonds will have to be liquidated in order to be invested in more secure ones.

Back when Barack Obama was campaigning for President, he said that he would “fundamentally transform” the United States. Well, with unemployment in the numbers that he said would never happen “if we passed the Stimulus Bill”, the stock marking crashing in spite of passing the bill he said we had to pass to avoid debt default, and with the reckless spending coupled with threatened credit ratings drops, I would say he is pretty close to achieving his goal.

He gets the present and the American people get the trashed wrappings.  News today about the oil priced dropping to below $90 a barrel is about the only good news that the people have gotten.  Maybe our fuel prices will drop some.