•Irving Fisher, leading Yale economist:, just days before crash: “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. … I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months.” (Oct. 17,

Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon: “I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism … there will be a revival of activity in the spring … during this coming year the country will make steady progress.” (Dec. 31, 1929

•President Herbert Hoover: “The depression is over.” (June 1930)

In 2008 we had the following quotes:

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson: Tells Fortune magazine, “this is far and away the strongest global economy I’ve seen in my business lifetime.”

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke: “I don’t anticipate any serious failures among large internationally active banks.”

•Congressman Barney Frank: “Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are fundamentally sound.”

February 2009

President Barack Obama pressed Congress Monday night to urgently approve a massive economic recovery bill, using the first prime-time news conference of his presidency to warn that a failure to act “could turn a crisis into a catastrophe.”

April 2011

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Tuesday there is “no risk” the U.S. will lose its top credit rating amid a new analysis that revised its outlook on American debt to “negative.”

If you believe those in government, then you deserve the calamity they cause. Journalists have been played for ignorant fools. We would be better off if no one recorded a word uttered by a politician, bureaucrat, or even a superintendent of government schools.

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1. Government Investments How often have we heard the political and bureaucratic caste talk about government investment? As most realize, government does not invest but merely spends our...

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SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is raising more speculation about a possible presidential bid with a stop in Iowa during her national book-signing tour.

The Iowa caucuses have traditionally tried to launch the presidential nominating political; season .

Palin’s book – signing tour has been carefully controlled, and she has not spoken to reporters at most events .

Still, her appearance in Iowa is seen as significant.

Veteran Republican activist Tim Albrechtt says politicians don’t just happen to stop in Iowa and Palin must know that her visit is probably seen as a signal she is more than likely considering a run.

Another possible RINO Republican contender, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, also has visited the state recently.

Copyright 2009 The Associated [De]Press[ed]. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

So the AP media can copyright the previous and obvious 6 sentences?

They are also delusional.

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Then just today we learned of the sudden death of television pitchman, Billy Mays. Mr. Mays was fully engaged in bringing to market new and innovative consumer products; products with a level of appeal to just about everyone.

I can’t help but compare the reaction we’ll likely not see with regard to Mr. Mays verses the irrational orgy of collective grief we’ve been witnessing over Jackson. Mays life-work can be measured in jobs, revenue, and profitability for newly launched products by start-up companies competing in the marketplace, Jackson?

In our view Billy Mays is a much larger loss to humanity than Michael Jackson was, or ever would have been. While there is clearly something untoward in comparing people posthumously in this way, it is nevertheless the media in our faces that prompts reaction. None of these losses to those who are truly and immediately affected is really our business. An otherwise disconnected observer can be empathetic, but to go further is irrational. Yet, because some of these people impacted our daily lives we do feel some compulsion to have an opinon. So be it.

Our condolences go out to the Mays family – in our view, their loss is also our loss. Not in a personal way, but rather in the fact that Billy Mays was a productive part of society who profited handsomely while increasing the wealth of others.

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You want a real reason to be outraged – this is it!

Napolitano:
I was at a dinner last night (3/31/09) in Washington, D.C.. sitting next to me was a banker who was the Chair and CEO of one of the ten largest banking holding companies in the United States. They have $250 billion in assets, no bad debt of which they are aware, did not engage in credit default swaps, they have no sub-prime mortgages, and they don’t need any government assistance.

He informed me that the FDIC and The Treasury came to him and said ‘if you don’t issue a special class of stock just for us, which we can borrow, we will audit you publicly – it will cost you millions in employee time and bad publicity and in lost business. That’s your choice.’

Isn’t that extortion?

This successful banker begged the federal government to let him run his bank. Begged his board of directors to let him tell the FDIC to ‘go take a hike.’

The board caved, they issued a special class of stock, Hank Paulson bought the special class of stock (2% of the company’s stock). That was September…

Come March (knock, knock) Sheila Bair (FDIC head) comes knocking: ‘we own 2% of your stock, and here’s how you are going to structure your corporation’

So, A, if this story is true, and I have no reason to believe it is not true, this is extortion. Which is, B, a crime, and C, we have a 2% share owner of non-voting stock now trying to control management.

Stossel: Is this the banker that gives out copies of Atlas Shrugged ? The charity that does that?

Napolitano: Yes.

Napolitano: John, you would have been very comfortable at this dinner party…

Stossel: Yes, I would have.

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Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter — by peaceful or revolutionary means — into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.

Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws!

Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.

It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution — some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.

Frederick Bastiat

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Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After scrutinizing Roosevelt’s record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

“Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump,” said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA’s Department of Economics. “We found that a relapse isn’t likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies.”

In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933.

See Story Here

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Wisconsin school districts slammed by Wall Street meltdown

What makes one chuckle is the complaint from board members stating how, “They told us something different than what was put on paper.”

You’d think that if you were going to invest $200 million of taxpayer’s money you’d at least have a lawyer check the fine print. It would seem those running our educational system aren’t very educated themselves. And we wonder why we’re in the state we’re in.

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1. Why he signed a brief denying that individuals have the right to own guns?
2. Why he recommended that fugitive financier Mark Rich be pardoned?
3. Why he didn’t think that the Justice Department needed a court order before storming the home of Elian Gonzalez?

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The Church of England’s Church Commissioners have gone green, investing £150 million with former US Vice-President Al Gore’s environmentally minded investment firm, Generation Investment Management.

What is apropos about this story and has flashy raising the issue, is the name of the website, Religious Intelligence. That says it all.

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This ACORN b.s. is utterly incredible!!

(WSJ) … Here’s the exact, amazing language from the Democratic proposal, breaking out how the money would be divided and dispensed:

“Deposits. Not less than 20% of any profit realized on the sale of each troubled asset purchased under this Act shall be deposited as provided in paragraph (2).

“Use of Deposits. 65% shall be deposited into the Housing Trust Fund established under section 1338 of the Federal Housing Enterprises Regulatory Reform Act . . . ; and 35% shall be deposited into the Capital Magnet Fund . . .

“Remainder Deposited in the Treasury. All amounts remaining after payments under paragraph (1) shall be paid into the General Fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt.”

What we have here essentially are a pair of government slush funds created in July as part of the Economic Recovery Act that pump tax dollars into the coffers of low-income housing advocacy groups, such as Acorn.

Acorn, one of America’s most militant left-wing “community activist groups,” is spending $16 million this year to register Democrats to vote in November. In the past several years, Acorn’s voter registration programs have come under investigation in Ohio, Colorado, Michigan, Missouri and Washington, while several of their employees have been convicted of voter fraud.

details here (WSJ) – WARNING: This will piss you off.

So, why yell at the top of my slimpicken lungs about this? Read this for starters. When Barack Obama talks about being a community organizer, THIS IS WHAT THAT MEANS!

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