We also view this as a major plus for the people of Arizona.  Giffords was by no means the picture of “bipartisanship” that Nancy Pelosi paints in the linked ABC article, she was a hard left acolyte of the Obama/Reid/Pelosi axis that has spent the last three years working to remake the country in an image that must be causing the Founders to spin in their graves while making Karl Marx smile in his little corner of Hell.

Giffords resignation will require Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to schedule a special election before the November general election to replace Giffords.  The date has not yet been announced, but this is an opportunity to replace one of Nancy’s robots with a strong conservative voice.  Jesse Kelly was a first time candidate in this district in 2010.  He defeated a Republican machine candidate in the primary and lost to Giffords by less than 2%, about 4,100 votes.  Jesse is a former Marine, Iraq vet, a businessman in the Tuscon area and he ran a really solid campaign against Giffords in one of the more liberal areas in the State of Arizona.  He’s obviously not said anything about Giffords retirement, but a year ago, just before Giffords was shot, he was gearing up to make a “major announcement” that was expected to be an announcement that he would again oppose Giffords in 2012.

Let me be the first to say: Run Jesse Run!  You’re exactly the kind of representative we need in the House.

Image via Wikipedia

Some interesting snippets on matters of the economy at the end of the week.

Reuters lets us know that the economy in the fourth quarter of last year grew a tad stronger than was initially thought.

(Reuters) – The U.S. economy grew more quickly than previously thought in the fourth quarter…

Gross domestic product rose at an annualized rate of 3.1 percent, the Commerce Department said in its final estimate, revised up from 2.8 percent.

Several thoughts on this, first of all, even though 3.1% growth isn’t particularly anything to write home about, it’s better than 2.8% so you’d think that the Administration would be crowing about it.  After all, it’s moving in the right direction.  So why’d they release the news on Friday?  Maybe it could be the rest of the information in the article, ya think?  What could be wrong?  Well…

…first-quarter GDP is shaping up to be on the soft side,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

According to Sweet, data so far suggests growth in the first three months of 2011 was between 2.5 percent and 3 percent.

Oh, first quarter will likely be less than the fourth.  Oh. And what, pray tell, could be the reason for the “pull back”?

Rising fuel prices, boosted by unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, are largely blamed for the expected pullback in growth, although economists expect it will be temporary.

Temporary?  Did I sleep through the headlines that the Obama Administration has lifted the “moratorium” on drilling for oil?  Or that they are doing something that is going to ease the unrest in the ME?  I didn’t think so and apparently neither does the Pentagon since they have no clue when we’ll be out of Libya.  What sort of assumptions are required to reach this sort of a conclusion?

“Assuming that oil prices stabilize and fall a little and that Japanese reconstruction and recovery will begin in the next few months, this softness in growth is likely to be short-lived,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Got that?  Oil prices fall, no impact from Japan.  I’ve learned something through this exercise.  Economists are no smarter nor are they any more honest than realtors.  You know, those guys who were telling us in 2005 that there was no housing bubble.  OK, so the bottom line for this part of the exercise is that economic growth will be falling in the first quarter and even that guess requires assumptions that are off the chart stupid.  And then there’s this…

Several Fed officials on Friday described the economy as being on a firmer footing and said the U.S. central bank was unlikely to extend its $600 billion government bond buying program when it ends on June.

Let’s remember that the Fed has been printing $$ like crazy and buying T-Bills in order to hold down the yields.  Holding down the yield keeps the interest rates lower and has a direct impact on the cost of interest in the budget.  If the Fed stops buying there is every probability that the auctions will fall short and the fit will hit the shan.  If the auctions start falling short a bunch of bad things happen:  the debt limit votes won’t matter because if we don’t sell the Ts there’s no debt to worry about.  Oh, and there’s no money to spend, which will take care of the debate about that $100B reduction in the budget and then some.  And then, in order to not run out of money, yields will go up.  So will rates.  So will the cost of our debt.  You get the idea.

Now then, just to restore your faith in mankind, Reuters has another article on a tangential subject.  Consumer confidence.  Now, before reading the following paragraph go back and take a quick glance at the National Association of Realtors economists said about the coming turnaround.  OK, now then, let’s see what we common folk are thinking.

(Reuters) – Consumer sentiment in March fell to its lowest level in more than a year as gasoline and food prices rose, a survey released on Friday showed.

There’s more drivel in the article related to interpretation of the data by “professionals”.  I’ll leave you to read that at the link and draw your own conclusions.My conclusions, FWIW, are that we are headed for deep do-do in the second half of the year.  Very deep.  In addition to food prices and fuel prices, the housing sector will be continuing deeper into the tank.  I think things are going to get really ugly, not just in the economy on the street, but in the halls of Congress and State Legislatures.  The snow ball has started and it’s getting bigger.  And will be soon rolling much faster.

Image via Wikipedia

Let me start with a basic statement of facts.

• I favor legal immigration and I favor increasing the number of people allowed to legally immigrate into the US.
• Immigration must be managed in a way that brings people based on their ability assimilate and be productive citizens.
• I am unalterably opposed to illegal immigrants, from whatever their home country.
• I favor laws, at the state level if necessary, that makes housing, employment and education as close to impossible as we can make it.  I favor the use of e-Verify or a similar system to validate the right of every individual to housing, employment and education and I favor harsh penalties aimed at employers, landlords/property managers and school administrators who allow illegal aliens to live, work or attend school.
• I favor an interpretation of the concept of “birthright citizenship” that grants US citizenship to children born of parents who are legal immigrants to the US and disallows citizenship to the children of illegal aliens.

It’s worth noting that I live in Phoenix, AZ.  I have more than a passing exposure to the effects of a flood of illegal immigrants on the economy and the culture of my home state, and on my country, and it is devastating.  The United States is subject to an invasion from Mexico, an invasion that is defacto organized and supported by the Mexican Government.  In the US, there is a significant faction made up of high profile members of both major political parties who are complicit in enabling this invasion, who are complicit in doing everything in their power to stop the enforcement of long existing immigration law and who have stopped efforts to secure our southern border.

Illegal immigration is costing our state more than just billions of dollars.  Illegal immigrants – from Mexico – are systematically destroying our culture and the foundation of the nation in our educational system.  K-12 classes are typically crowded with students for whom English is a distant second language.  These students, some if not many of whom are actually US citizens, come from families who have illegally immigrated from Mexico.  By and large they have no intention or inclination to assimilate into US culture. They, and their families are nothing more than an occupation force in this country.

Recently, a substitute teacher recounted his experience in a metro-Phoenix eighth grade classroom in a letter to state Senator Russell Pearce.  Pearce is the Senate Majority Leader and was the driving force behind SB1070.  He has also introduced additional legislation this year aimed at denying “birthright citizenship” to the children of illegal aliens.  His letter wasn’t meant for publication but it found its way to the pages of the Arizona Republic.

I currently work as a substitute teacher in the west valley areas of Phoenix, Glendale, and Peoria. I was called upon to teach history and language arts for 8th grade at a Glendale public school. The number of students I had in each class ranged from 28 to 38 children, which were almost all Hispanic and a couple of Black children. The day started out as usual turning on the television listening and watching the announcements and saying the Pledge of Allegiance. During the Pledge of Allegiance I notice the vast majority of students refusing to stand and say the pledge. I asked the students why they refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance and they responded by saying, “we are Mexicans and Americans stole our land.”

The teacher’s instructions were for the students to read a few pages and answer the questions regarding Mark Twain in their history textbook and to finish their final drafts to Senator Steve Gallardo thanking him for his position on Illegal Immigration rights. Their teacher apparently had showed them a video with Senator Steve Gallardo and Lou Dobbs. Most of the students came unprepared for class not possessing paper and pencil. I provided the students with paper and pencils only to have them wade-up the paper and throw it at each other along with their pencils.

The students’ final drafts that I read were basically the same. Most of them stated they were in the country illegally, White Americans are racist…

It’s worth a minute or two to read the whole letter.  The bottom line is pretty obvious though.  Classrooms that are out of control from a discipline perspective, assignments that are designed around the racist and Mexican nationalist perspectives of its pathetically ignorant students and in general, a school that is allowed to ignore the real educational needs of its students.

Mexico has, covertly, declared war on the US.  There are about two million criminal illegal aliens in the US.  Given that the illegal alien population is estimated to be between 12 and 20 million, a very significant proportion of the illegal population are criminals.  Numbers like that should put to rest the clap-trap that they are just “good, hardworking families seeking a better future for their children”, especially when taken in context with the attitudes expressed by the eighth graders above.

In addition to being able to displace a significant proportion of their population – and their criminal element – north of the border, money sent by wire transfer from the US to Mexico represents the second largest segment of the Mexican economy, behind oil revenues.  The Mexican government has a serious vested interest in keeping up the flow of illegal Mexicans into the US so the flow of US dollars south can continue to prop up their economy.  From Newsmax…

A Mexican-based financial company is forecasting $22 billion in remittances for 2010 making it Mexico’s second highest revenue maker behind crude oil.

In terms of cost to US taxpayers, FAIR – the Federation for American Immigration Reform – found in a study done last year, the cost at the federal, state and local level is $113B per year.  The cost to most states happens to coincide with structural deficit in those states.  For instance, the cost of illegal aliens to the state of Arizona is $2.5B, the structural deficit is about $3B.  In California, cost of illegal aliens is $21B, deficit is $33B.

So, what to do?  I’ve said this before, but not for a while so I’ll repeat it.  We need to do what works to secure the country.  The solution is really quite simple – not necessarily legislatively simple, but structurally simple.  We don’t need to call out the National Guard for round-ups in the barrios, we just need to take appropriate administrative steps to make life a very in-hospitable thing for illegal aliens.

• Require e-Verify forms proving legal right to work in every employee file.  This is similar to the current requirement of an I-9 form.  Use of the e-Verify system is free and requires only access to the internet and less than a minute to input the personal information supplied by the employee or potential employee.  It is NOT an onerous or expensive burden on business.
• Require e-Verify forms on every resident of rental housing.
• Institute criminal penalties – a $10,000 per person fine and a lowest class felony charge for either employing or renting to an illegal.  The fine has to be big enough to entice law enforcement to actually enforce it.
• The fine must be attached to the business owner/ranking officer of the business if it’s a public company and not be dischargeable in bankruptcy.
• The felony charge can’t be able to be pled down to a misdemeanor and it should require a modest amount of jail time, maybe two months per head.  The reason for the felony is simple, most states deny liquor, contractor’s and business licenses to felons.
• End the practice of granting US citizenship to children born of illegal aliens.  And, deport the mother and the baby when they are released from the hospital.

Efforts like these will work.  Illegal aliens are like a water leak in the house.  They will find the path of least resistance, and coincidently, like a water leak they will ruin the house.  Both Arizona and Prince William County, Virginia have discovered that when laws are passed that make address the problem, illegals will go elsewhere.  That’s why about a dozen other states are considering laws similar to Arizona’s SB1070.

Related Articles

• The American Dream – Illegal Alien version – Tea Party Nation (gds44.wordpress.com)
• ‘Gang Members and Gangsters’: Teacher’s Letter on Hispanics Sparks Immigration … – ABC News (news.google.com)
• Illegal immigrants disguised as U.S. Marines latest border ploy, officials say (latimesblogs.latimes.com)

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — New construction of U.S. housing units plunged in February, erasing a sharp gain in January and coming close to an all-time-low level.

A sharp gain in January!  That should be cause for celebration.  The key is “should be”.

Starts fell 22.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 479,000, the Commerce Department said. This is just 0.4% above the record low of 477,000 units set in April 2009.

The decline in starts in February was the largest since March 1984.

January starts were revised higher to a 618,000 pace from the 596,000 previously reported. The 18.4% jump in January was due to an 87.4% surge in apartment starts, which analysts attributed to special factors.

So let’s take a look at this and we really need to work backwards.  The article in the Journal notes that economists were expecting a decline but were surprised by the actual drop.  Needless to say, it was MUCH bigger than they thought it would be.  We are about 18 months into the Administration’s program to resusitate the housing market and the result of their economic malfeasance is a 29% drop in single-family home starts and a 55% drop in multi-family starts.  February has given us a new low in homes under construction on an annualized basis.  Now I want to be both clear and fair about this.  I do not blame President Obama for the current housing “crisis”.  The bubble happened before his watch, even though his party has a huge hand in the foundation for the problem, but he didn’t cause it.  What I do blame him for is doing not only nothing effective, but for throwing money down a rat hole trying to spend our way out the problem and that only exacerbates the problem and what could have been a crash that we are on the way out of, because of the Administration policies we’re now two years into a depressed market that will most likely be with us for another six to eight years.

Let’s take a peek at the January “good” numbers.  The upward revision was due to an 87% surge in apartment starts.  An increase in rental housing units.  Now then, why in the world would be be seeing a surge in the constructiion of rental housing?  Well, maybe because the folks with some skin in the game are thinking that the purchase side of the housing market won’t be picking up any time soon.  And that is a really good assumption, in my opinion.  I’ve noted this before, but it bears repeating.

• At the current rate of sales for existing housing, the MLS in most major markets represents 10 to 14 months of inventory.  A healthy housing market is around five months.
• Sales is dropping (along with prices) every month.
• It is significantly more difficult to qualify for a mortgage than it was a year ago and it’s likely to be more difficult this time next year.
• A significant portion of potential buyers are out of the market because they have homes they can’t sell because they owe more than the house is worth so they can’t sell.
• Lenders are holding “real-estate-owned” on their books at about the  same levels as the current listings of MLS.
• Lenders have loans in default – that are not going to cure – at about double the current MLS listings.  Those houses will end up on their REO inventory.

The bottom line is that we have a multi year housing inventory in the US.  That’s existing homes.  If construction stopped for two years, nobody would notice.  And let’s not neglect the fact that home prices are still about 25% too high in major markets.  Just a couple of simple facts.  BofA just created a “bad bank” and they’re transferring 13 million questionable loans off their books into the bad bank.  In congressional testimony, an Administration official who is trying to save the HAMP program that is throwing huge amounts of money down a rat hole, the Administration admitted to five million delinquent mortgages.  Given their record, they’re probably underestimating by triple.

It’s time for Congressional Republicans to get off the dime and stop this foolish spending that is doing nothing but stretching out the problems in the market.  The only way for the market to rebound any time in the next decade is for the Federal government to stop trying to fix “problems”.  By doing so they simply make them worse.  Significantly worse.

My bet is that Democrats and unions will “win” on the issue of contracts, wages, benefits and pensions.  Please note the scare quotes.  They’re gonna “win” in court and in the short term, in the court of public opinion.  The reason they’ll win in court is because the judiciary is stacked, roughly right up to the SCOTUS, where eventually they’ll lose.  Eventually.  Public opinion will sway their way because they are a lot like Chinese water torture, constantly repeating lies until people believe them.  People will believe them because for the most part, they are products of the US unionize education system and can’t do independent research or put two rational thoughts together in the same month.  So, the Unions “win” and keep their money.  Democrats “win” and keep their number one source of funds, taxpayer money passed through the hands of union members to their bosses to the DNC.  I used scare quotes because, while they will almost certainly be able to work the courts and the voters for a while, they won’t beat the fundamental laws of mathematics and economics.

That brings us to Costa Mesa, California.  Costa Mesa is a city of about 117,000 people 37 miles southeast of Los Angeles.  The median family income is a little more than $55,000 and three of the top five employers are colleges.  I’m guessing that in nary a single one of those schools do they teach math, economics or reality.  Costa Mesa is discovering the latter of these concepts.  The City of Costa Mesa employs 472 folks serving the residents including police officers, fire fighters and all those other kinds of city workers.  Oh, make that “employed”.

In all, more than 210 of Costa Mesa’s 472 employees received notices that they might get pink slips.

Now let me be clear, the key word in that sentence is might.  But for sure, there’s going to be a fight.  But the rubber has the possibility to meet the road big time.  Remember those Costa Mesa residents?  The ones who pay the taxes so those 472 “hard” working city employees salaries.  And pony up for their health care benefits and their pensions.  Their pensions.  Gee, I wonder what kind of pension plans those taxpayers have.  Hmmm.

According to city figures, for every dollar the city pays a police officer or firefighter, it must also set aside more than 40 cents to fund the employee’s pension. For every dollar paid a general employee, it must set aside 27 cents.

The average Costa Mesa police officer earned $105,000 in base overtime and certification pay in 2010, according to city records. The average firefighter earned $109,000 in base, overtime and certification pay last year.

You can read the rest of the article, it contains the standard level of whining that you’d expect on this issue.  Actually, I’m shocked that they are only writing about cops and firefighters, there’s not a single word about teachers in the piece.

I can’t wait to see what happens.  One interesting thing is that in the last election the Mayor Pro-Tem campaigned on getting the pension issues under control and bringing both reality and the laws of economics to bear in the city’s finances.  We’ll see what happens, but that happens to be a good start.  And, surprise surprise, the police and firefighters unions poured tons of dough-re-me into losing the election.  I’m guessing they aren’t done.

This issue is way bigger than Costa Mesa.  In 2009 almost six in ten state and local pension funds were underfunded.  You can bet that number isn’t lower two years later and you can count on one hand the number of states, counties and cities that are actually doing – or trying to do – something about the big freight train headed through the tunnel right at us.  That light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight on the train, not the sun.

Frankly, I can live with the concept of the truce.  Mostly because in the real world, social issues – primarily abortion – isn’t going to come off the table, it’s just not going to be front and center but there will still be ongoing legislative actions to curtail the practice when the opportunity presents itself.  See the Congress working to defund Planned Parenthood as an example.

I’m not real fond of his opposition to making Indiana a RTW state, his rationale seems really weak and basically says, “We can’t possibly work on more than one thing at once.  Oh well.  If he gets the rest of his labor agenda passed, I can live putting off RTW too.

Now then, all that said, today Mitch crossed the line.

Turning toward Hoosier State politics, Daniels offered hearty support
to Sen. Dick Lugar, who is facing Tea Party opposition in the run-up to
the 2012 GOP Senate primary. “I’m for Dick Lugar, he’s the role model
I’ve had,” he said.

Daniels, who once served as Lugar’s chief of staff, emphasized that he
would not meddle in the primary. Voters, though, will know where he
stands. “Folks in Indiana know that I am for him and that I admire him
and think if he wants another term, he ought to have one,” he said.

The Washington Post had an excellent article on my Great White Hope!

Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock will launch his primary challenge to Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) on Tuesday with the support of a majority of both the state’s 92 Republican county chairmen and its state party executive committee, he told the Fix in a recent interview.

“I feel bad that he’s going to be humiliated by this list,” Mourdock said.
[...]
That such a large contingent of the party establishment should come out against or withhold support from an incumbent senator is highly unusual and reflects the difficult path ahead for Lugar in advance of the May 8, 2012, primary fight. It also suggests there is a clear path to victory for Mourdock.

Sorry Mitch.  If you can’t back a known quantity like Mourdock who is head and shoulders better than Lugar, who is arguably worse than either my Senator John McCain or Lindsey Graham, if you can’t stand with the majority of the Republican Party leadership in your own state against a guy who is an out-and-out liability then your complete lack of judgment renders you unqualified to be President.  And just so there’s no mistaking how pissed off and disappointed I am by that pile of crap you left on the floor of the studio with that non- endorsement, I wouldn’t be writing this if you’d said Charles Manson was your role model, you’d still be in the running for my vote.

You’ve had some bad days recently Mitch, but today was just pathetic.

Related Articles

• Lugar Faces the Tea Party Music (themoderatevoice.com)
• Mitch Daniels’s Truce (redstate.com)

A bigger fish, film director Michael Moore, announced on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” on Wednesday that, “This is war. This is class war,” and that a national walkout of government school students would happen Friday. Jesse Jackson told Fox News that public unions will retain collective bargaining or “you’re going to have it through the streets. People here will fight back because they think their cause is moral.”

And President Obama, the guy the Nobel Committee tossed a Peace Prize to for having been born half black, is utterly silent on the subject now that it’s Ayers & Co in the streets, taking over buildings and making overt death threats to Republicans, and not Tea Parties talking about winning elections and cleaning up after themselves.

We are, of course, talking about the assault by the Right Wing on the “right” of socialist and anarchist unions to forcibly extract cash from taxpayers via a conduit called “union dues” so they can reach an agreement with the Democratic lawmakers that they pass a goodly chunk of aforementioned cash to in return for ever more generous pay, benefits and work rules.  Which, of course, comes along with a demand from said toadies for increased taxes to pay for evermore in the way of Democrat defined “services”.

So, here’s Reuters’ take on what happened this week in Wisconsin…

(Reuters) – The Wisconsin state Assembly on Thursday approved sweeping restrictions on public sector unions in a stinging rebuke of the labor movement that critics fear will encourage other states to follow.

After a short debate, the Republican-dominated Assembly voted 53-42 to limit government union bargaining rights to wages only and impose a series of other restrictions. Four Republicans joined Democrats in voting against.

… critics fear will encourage other states to follow.

And supporters of the legislation sincerely hope will encourage ALL states and the government to follow and expand upon to the point of eliminating unions from government at all levels.
To Reuters credit, the do a good job – and I think a very fair one – of laying out what’s really at stake over the next few months and will ABSOLUTELY come to a head next year.

What began a month ago as a Republican effort in one small U.S. state to balance the budget has now turned into a national confrontation with unions that could be the biggest since then President Ronald Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers nearly 30 years ago.
[…]
The stakes are high for labor because more than a third of U.S. public employees such as teachers, police and civil service workers belong to unions while only 6.9 percent of private sector workers are unionized. In Wisconsin, 46.6 percent of government workers are union members.

Unions also are the biggest single source of funding for the Democratic party.

OK, got that?  Please note, that last line – written by people at Reuters who are certainly less conservative that me – is exactly the reason public employee unions are nothing less than a criminal enterprise.

If Republican Governors – for starters – will stand and fight on this issue they’ll accomplish a couple of very powerful things.  First, they’ll discover that the American people will stand behind articulated conservative principle backed by action; second, they’ll watch as the Left alienates the people and probably even the press with both their rhetoric and especially their actions in coming months; and third, they’ll cut the financial underpinnings from beneath the Democratic Party.

Now then, we’ve got to understand that this isn’t a one inning baseball game.  It’s not even a nine inning game.  It’s a multi-season slugfest.  The Left, for all their idiocy and failings, never gives up.  We will need to be in this fight for the distance, and “the distance” is well beyond any current horizon.

The next skirmish, now that there’s not much to fight over in Wisconsin – although the lawyers should be showing up on Monday I would guess – is in Indiana, likely followed by Iowa.  The unions have access to buses and people who don’t have to show up for work for a living.  Oh, and that unwashed mass is funded by your tax dollars.  Here’s Reuters on Round 2…

Over 8,000 workers converged on the Indiana statehouse on Thursday to protest proposed legislation they say would weaken unions and public schools.
Most Indiana House Democrats left the state over two weeks ago to avoid giving the majority Republicans the two-thirds quorum needed for a vote on the legislation.
[…]
Democrats object to bills they see as anti-worker. Their main targets include a bill that would create a state-wide school voucher system, allowing public funds to pay for private school tuition, and a bill that would prohibit bidders on public works projects from entering into labor agreements, Schorg said. A third bill would mean that public employees don’t have to pay union dues.

Read the whole thing, Reuters is doing a good job of reporting on the issues at hand and, at least in my opinion, a good job of reporting the facts related to the positions of the parties.

Note the money paragraph.  School vouchers – private/charter schools are seldom union; allowing non-union construction workers, saving millions; and eliminating “mandatory” union dues, again cutting unions and Democrats off at the purse.

A word of caution here folks.  So far things have been very quiet, at least in terms of the history of the Left.  They will not stay that way.  If the Left continues to lose, you will see violence escalate and escalate rapidly.  The fact that serious death threats are being made both publically and by public figures is significant.  The real frightening thing is that the President hasn’t uttered one word in an attempt to calm down his base and in fact, it’s HIS campaign organization “Organizing for America” who are at the forefront organizing and leading these demonstrations.  It won’t be long before Barack brings Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn out of retirement.

Related Articles

• UPDATE 3-Wisconsin lawmakers pass bill to curb union rights (reuters.com)
• Wisconsin governor signs into law union curbs (reuters.com)
• General Strike: Because Wisconsin Needs More than a Recall by Billy Wharton (dandelionsalad.wordpress.com)
• Wisconsin Vote Will Energize And Mobilize Unions (alan.com)
• Wisconsin at epicenter of drive to curb unions (reuters.com)
• Factbox: Several states consider union limits (reuters.com)

Well gosh, guess what we found yesterday?  Would you believe housing news?  Yep.  Let me provide a tad of recent history.  Last month we got a trumpet concert because housing sales were up.  The Administration and the National Association of Idiots Realtors were howling at the moon about an increase in sales.  Well, here’s the other side of the coin, courtesy of Associated Press.

Underwater mortgages rise as home prices fall
Underwater mortgages rise as home prices hit post-bust lows in 11 of 20 major US cities

Nice headline, huh?  And, that’s the most optimistic part of the story.

About 11.1 million households, or 23.1 percent of all mortgaged homes, were underwater in the October-December quarter, according to report released Tuesday by housing data firm CoreLogic. That’s up from 22.5 percent, or 10.8 million households, in the July-September quarter.

The number of underwater mortgages had fallen in the previous three quarters. But that was mostly because more homes had fallen into foreclosure.

I’m sensing a trend here.  Unemployment is down, perceived as a good thing, except the real reason it’s down is people have quit looking for work.  Underwater mortgages are down, except the real reason is more homes in foreclosure.  I wonder what the next story about gas prices will be.

Well, I don’t know about gas prices, but I do know a thing or two about the housing market and when you read the next paragraph, please keep the following in mind:  no matter what you hear, houses in major real estate markets – CA, AZ, FL – are still overpriced by about 25%.  There is a current inventory listed on MLS in these markets of 10+ months, a “typical” inventory would look more like five months.  In addition to the current MLS listings, lenders are holding about the same number of homes in their Real Estate Owned (REO) inventories that are not listed.  And then there are those houses where a notice of default has been issued to the homeowner – the first step in the foreclosure process – and that’s another 1 to 2 times the current MLS inventory.  Bottom line, in the major markets the inventory is more like three years of current sales.  Prices have a long way to fall folks.

The one story that simply amazes me is the buoyancy in consumer confidence.

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index®, which had increased in January, improved further in February. The Index now stands at 70.4 (1985=100), up from 64.8 in January. The Present Situation Index improved to 33.4 from 31.1. The Expectations Index increased to 95.1 from 87.3 last month.

For the life of me I can’t rationalize those numbers without resorting one of the following:

• A dramatic increase in alcohol sales.
• Gross stupidity.
• Consumers patently ignoring what’s going on in the real world.
• All of the above.

I’m hearing lots of people saying “buy gold” or “buy silver”.  Personally, my recommendation is “buy ammunition”.  Things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better.  A LOT worse.

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UPDATE 3/10 7:42am mst

With a HT to Instapundit, from the Washington Business Journal…

Bank of America Corp. is segregating almost half its 13.9 million mortgages into a “bad” bank comprised of its riskiest and worst-performing “legacy” loans, Bloomberg News reported, citing Terry Laughlin, who is running the new unit.

13.9MM “bad” loans.  Don’t expect very many of these to be cured.  Feel free to add these 13.9MM properties into the housing inventory total.

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It’s a direct assault on out culture – “Press Two for English”. It’s a direct assault on our heritage, the concept of the US being a melting pot where immigrants seeking freedom can assimilate into our culture, “Out of Many, One”, the famous quote from the Great Seal of the United States that Al Gore got exactly backwards. And illegal immigration is an assault on our financial stability and resources.  According to the Center for Immigration Studies, states with the biggest budget problems also have the biggest “immigrant financial” problems, specifically California and Arizona.  In fact, the cost if illegal aliens is about equal to the budget deficits in most financially strapped states

Some states and localities are doing something about this invasion of law breaking leeches even though the federal government, whose responsibility is happens to be to control the borders, in the last four Administrations – two Republican and two Democrat – have done either nothing to secure our borders (Bush1 & Clinton) or everything they can think of to welcome illegals (Bush2 & Obama).  And in fairness, the current Administration is doing both more to find and deport illegals as well as make them feel welcome by fighting localities efforts to stem the tide.  If I were a psychiatrist I would probably diagnose this Administration’s efforts as bipolar.  We’ve written about the efforts of our home state, Arizona, with legislation requiring employers to have e-Verify records on all employees and the passage last year of SB1070.  We’ve written about the efforts of Prince William County in Virginia.  The interesting thing about the localities that are addressing the problem of illegal aliens is that in every instance there is documented evidence that the illegals don’t stay in those localities, reducing the cost of addressing the problems created by them.  This flies in the face of the mantra by the open borders crowd who insist that the problem (they don’t use the word “problem”) can’t be solved.  As usual, the liberal mantra, while it may feel good to them, is demonstrably wrong in practice.  Common sense is such an uncommon trait these days, at least among the intellectual Left.

We’ve noted how costs in general in PWC are down and violent crime is dramatically down as a result of their efforts.  We’ve noted how at least one school district in Phoenix has seen their attendance numbers for students needing ESL programs has dropped dramatically because of the efforts of the State Legislature here.  And today we have more proof that addressing the problem works.  This from an article in the Arizona Republic.

In the past three years, the number of county-jail inmates whom
deputies suspect of being in the country illegally has dropped by nearly
40 percent, from 16,337 in 2008 to 9,894 in 2010.

The trend in Maricopa County is at odds with a national trend that has shown an increase in deportations of undocumented immigrants in the same time frame.

And why might that be, you ask.  Well, let’s consult the “experts”…

The number of immigrants living in Arizona without authorization has
decreased, meaning police encounter fewer “criminal aliens” –
undocumented immigrants who, after crossing the border, have committed
serious crimes that would land them in county jail.

In other words, Arizona immigration policy with respect to illegal aliens works.  And maybe that’s why as many as a dozen other states are considering laws similar to Arizona’s SB1070.  While I agree that states and localities passing laws to control the problems caused by illegal immigration may not make much of a difference nationally, it can have a major impact locally.  I am perfectly happy to see to financial drain as well as the increase in violent crime caused by illegal aliens in Arizona move along with them to “friendlier” climes like California or Utah.  When things get bad enough maybe they’ll take an affirmative action to fix the problem in their locales.

Remember back a couple of years when oil prices went over a hundred dollars a barrel and gas prices broached $4 a gallon. You will also remember the screeching from Democrats and their media slaves about how George W Bush and Dick Cheney were profiting from the suffering of American families who were paying big prices at the pump. In March of 2008 the Washington Post ran a story – one of thousands, so yes, I’m cherry-picking but it’s not much different than of the ilk they published on this subject – where they made the following note…

Democrats seized on the price increases to hammer President Bush for his threat to veto an energy tax bill that would eliminate a tax break for the five biggest oil companies and extend tax breaks for solar and wind projects.

“How many records does the price of oil have to set and surpass before President Bush stands up for hardworking American families and stops taxpayer giveaways to Big Oil?” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asked in a statement.

Analysts blamed the relentless increase in petroleum prices on an influx of investors fleeing sinking and unsteady financial markets and those searching for hedges against inflation.

Unsteady financial markets? Inflation? Sound familiar? Well, sounds to me a whole lot like 2011 but you won’t be reading that scenario in the WaPo. There is another difference as well. Screecher Pelosi linked GWB to “BigOil” In today’s market, no one will be linking Obama to those nasty guys, nope, not BigOil. Obama is in the pocket of BigGreen™ He won’t come out an say it, but $4 – or $5 or $6 – gas has been on his agenda all along. The difference between the parties on the subject of oil is clear. Republicans – most of them anyway – want to drill in proven US oil reserves, expand refinery capacity and build nuclear reactors. Democrats want to tap unproven and expensive technology – see the Chevy Volt – and build wind farms. Well, as long as they don’t spoil John Kerry’s view of the ocean. Republicans favor proven technology and known resources. Democrats favor spending money on stuff that has no return on investment – just ask the Spaniards about the cost of “green jobs”.

So, what portends for the 2012 election cycle with respect to gas prices?  Well, we can’t be sure, but it’s a fair guess that the WaPo, The New York Times and their ilk in both print and broadcast media will give President Obama a pass on oil prices even if they have to manufacture it.  After all, he IS OurSavior isn’t he. We’ll be once again respected in the World. The oceans will stop rising. There won’t be any more homeless or hungry. Etc, etc, etc. We do have a hint at what the next year will look like, thanks to The Caucus at The New York Times.

Nearly three years later and with a new presidential campaign looming, oil prices are surging again on fears of instability in the Middle East and uncertainty about the future of drilling off the United States coast. The prospect of a return to $4 gas — and the angst that could create in an electorate already frustrated about the economy — has the potential to become a new headache for the president as he gears up for his re-election. 

But the political dynamics surrounding oil exploration are very different in 2011 than they were in 2008, making it less obvious that Mr. Obama’s Republican challengers can use the issue to their advantage.

And despite the consumer pain, most economists from across the political spectrum say that they do not yet expect the price of oil to do significant damage to the economic recovery in the coming months.

Just a couple of notes.  Recovery? What recovery? The Administration is cooking the books on unemployment numbers. The housing market is in a continuing downward spiral despite the best efforts of both the Administration and the National Association of Realtors to spin it otherwise. The federal deficit is a time bomb with a long fuse only because the Feds can print money (shhhh [inflation] shhhhh) and the state budgets are a short term time bomb – like over the next couple of years – because they can’t print money.  There may well be a civil war brewing between the entitled class – public employees – and the taxpayers who pay for their castles.

And then there’s the “political dynamics” of oil exploration.  The difference is that the people attempting to define the news cycle are in Obama’s pocket.  The other difference is a real question about whether Republican challengers will have the spine to actually challenge this President on the failure of his energy policies.  That is an open question and I’m not comfortable that they will be.

As the Gulf oil slick recedes from memories, some coastal politicians have urged a return to increased drilling as part of an effort to help the Gulf economy recover. 

That message has not yet become part of the larger national conversation about the economy.

“[S]ome coastal politicians…” That’s a small slice of life in Republican circles. They tend to be a group the Republican leadership doesn’t pay much attention to. And people like the WaPo and NYT will do their darnedest to make sure that “[t]hat message” never becomes a part of the national conversation.

Folks, in case you might have missed it, we’re in a war for the soul of the nation.  You are beginning to see the skirmishes break out all over.  It’s time that we demand that the leadership of our Party recognize that we ARE at war and start acting like it.  It looks like there may be a bright spot or two in the states, specifically Ohio, Wisconsin, New Jersey and Florida.  Let’s hope those sparks of liberty, freedom, a reduction in scope of government and basic sanity will grow to a wildfire.