Where Are My Keys?

SWAT Teams?

Why are we sending SWAT Teams to oil rigs? 

Suttles said at a news conference on Thursday that the company has asked the Department of Defense if they can help with better underwater equipment than is available commercially. The company has specifically asked for imaging techniques and remote operating vehicles, he said.

Mr. Obama said SWAT teams were being dispatched to the Gulf to investigate oil rigs and said his administration is now working to determine the cause of the disaster.

The president promised to deploy "every single available resource" to the area and ordered his disaster and environmental leaders to go. The Navy is sending 66,000 feet of inflatable boom and seven skimming systems, and using its bases in the region as staging areas for the operation.

Was there foul play, Mr. President?  Is there a suspicion of foul play?

Was it "unexpected"?

Of course it was.

In January, Barack Obama and Democrats insisted that the 5.7% annual growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2009 showed that their stimulus plan had set the American economy back on track for rapid growth and job creation.  The administration needed a big number for 2010 to allay fears that unemployment would stagnate at the current high levels for the long term. Unfortunately, they didn’t get it, with the 3.2% annualized GDP rate for the first quarter of 2010 falling below analyst expectations:

The U.S. economy grew at a 3.2 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, evidence that the economic recovery continues to plug along but that growth is not accelerating in a way that would bring down joblessness rapidly.

The first-quarter gain in gross domestic product represents a deceleration from the 5.6 percent pace of growth in the final months of 2009, and is a bit below the 3.5 percent growth analysts were forecasting.

Neil Irwin at the Post manages to avoid using the word “unexpectedly” as part of his report. Maybe the Associated Press will employ its favorite adverb?

I see it as good news with the 3.2% growth, History tells us we need a much more robust economy to get things going:

The good news, however, doesn’t outweigh the bad. The last time the US suffered this kind of recession and unemployment, in 1982, it took several quarters of annualized growth of between 7%-9% in order to generate sufficient numbers of jobs to seriously lower unemployment. The long-term trend of the American economy is growth between 2.5-3%, which makes the 2010Q1 result barely a blip above average. It indicates that the current job situation may well become the “new normal,” with high unemployment remaining in place for years to come.

We are a long way from the end of this thing.

Hey Mr. President, is $5 million in 2009 "enough"?

Stop telling me how much I can earn, when you make considerably more than most of the people in this Country.

 

Don't tell GAT..

Over two years ago at the "old" WAMK, I floated the suggestion that Tiger Woods might be using some sort of performance-enhancing substances.  I used the example of Barry Bonds, and what drives both men to be successful.  I pointed out that the parallels were very similar, and every major sport (and some second-tier as well) had at least a failed drug test or two.  Surely golf isn't immune to the same siren's call from the pharmaceutical section?

Anyway, a Townhallblogger named Guy Arthur Thomas had/has a significant man-crush on Eldrick, and came firing at me with both barrels, sounding very much like a Barry Bonds apologist.

Today we learn Golf.com conducted a survey of 71 professional golfers, asking questions on all sorts of topics.  One of them centered around Tiger and PED's.

Do you think Tiger used HGH or other performance-enhancing drugs?
Yes: 24%
No: 76%
Loose Lips: "I don't know, but something's not right."

It's one thing when an unknown blogger in his basement raises the question.  It's another when 24% of your peers surveyed thing you are cheating.

GAT, your thoughts?

Would activity like this get Goldman in trouble?

Company issues a statement that they have paid back their loans to the Government in full, implying that business is booming, and there are blue skies ahead.

They make no mention of the part where the Government still controls 61% of the operation, and the business is hemorrhaging cash.

Last week, Government/General Motors Chairman Ed Whitacre went to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to crow about how well the company is supposedly doing. In “The GM Bailout: Paid in Full,” he told readers the following:

We’re paying back — in full, with interest, years ahead of schedule — loans made to help fund the new GM. Our ability to pay back these loans less than a year after emerging from bankruptcy is a sign that our plan for building a new GM is working.

Whitacre then took to the airwaves to announce the payoff as a done deal, saying we “have repaid” the loans.

There are two “little” problems with Whitacre’s presentation. First, the “Bailout Paid in Full” headline in the Journal doesn’t pass the truth test no matter how far you try to stretch it. As Forbes magazine’s Jerry Flint reminded readers:

That still leaves $43 billion. GM can say they paid us back because of the $50 billion in total support, only $7 billion was counted as a loan and the rest was traded for equity in the company that emerged from bankruptcy. But that is really an accounting trick so that GM doesn’t have to pay interest on that money.

That’s a great point. The government poured tens of billions into GM in return for a 61% ownership stake. Unless and until GM goes public and the government cashes out its shares for at least the $43 billion cited plus at least 5% for each year of delay to account for the time value of money, taxpayers will be getting the short end of the stick.

What’s more, the funds for GM’s loan “repayment” did not come from cash generated by operations. In fact, the company’s latest available financial information indicates that from September 30 (Page 2 at link) to December 31(Page 123 at link) it burned through $2.4 billion in cash and equivalents, while its working capital (current assets minus current liabilities) fell by $2.75 billion. TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky has asserted, as paraphrased by Fox News, that GM “only repaid the bailout money by dipping into a separate pot of bailout money.” Good luck finding that critical piece of information anywhere else in the establishment press.

The situation isn’t any better at GM’s fellow bailout recipient Chrysler — nor is the press coverage.

Chrysler lost $3.8 billion during the 205 days after it emerged from bankruptcy last year. It lost another $197 million in the first quarter of 2010. Here was the Associated Press’s headlineabout those contemporaneous announcements: “Chrysler Posts $197M Loss But Cash Balance Grows.”

One analyst is justifiably unimpressed: “Positive cash flow is being driven by dealer restocking and stretching payables.” The available information bears him out. Chrysler’s December 31 balance sheet showed negative working capital of over $6.5 billion, and a stunning in context $5.6 billion in trade liabilities. The company’s first quarter 2010 financial release included no formal financial statements, but given that its sales during the period trailed last year’s disastrous first quarter by over 5%, it’s hard to see how it generated $1.5 billion in cash without even more interest-free borrowing from suppliers and vendors.

The two bailed-out companies had better hope that industry-wide sales ramp up sharply, and soon. That’s because, despite the press’s attempts to minimize the impact, their competitors are eating their lunch in the U.S. market. A smaller piece of a fast-growing pie may be GM’s and especially Chrysler’s only hope.

The Obama Administration wants to crucify Goldman Sachs for their transgressions, yet seem to ignore that "their" auto Company is deliberately misleading the Public.

This example is Exhibit One of why it's a bad thing for the Government to be involved in the operations of a business.  Clearly a conflict of interest here.

Fun with Construction Guys..

I like what you have created, but can you just get my house finished on time?

Fear the Deer..

Lok out for the Bucks!

 

 

Settled science?

The Left points to the "overwhelming majority" of Scientists agreement that MMGW is real as rock-solid proof.  What will their reaction be when an overwhwlming majority of Economists say The Obama Stimulus™ had "no impact on employment to date"?

Conducted between March 25 and April 10 by the National Association for Business Economics, the survey of the nation's business economists found that a whopping 73 percent "reported the fiscal stimulus enacted in February 2009 has had no impact on employment to date." Similarly, the newly enacted, if misleadingly titled, "jobs bill" was viewed as ineffectual, too, with 68 percent of economists saying they thought there was no impact.

Overall, economists consider the economy to be starting to improve but say the improvement has nothing to do with the stimulus. Rather, any upturn is simply part of a normal rebound. Most economists forecast that the economy finally will grow this year. Of those economists surveyed, 70 percent said they think the economy will expand by at least 2 percent this year, but only 24 percent said they think the economy will grow by at least 3 percent.

This projected uptick would constitute a very low number for a recovery, especially following such a severe recession. After the Jimmy Carter recession ended in 1982, growth was much faster. In 1983, after accounting for inflation, gross domestic product grew by 4.5 percent. In 1984, it grew by 7.2 percent.

(emphasis mine)

Ahh, California..

Politically-created "drought" is killing jobs.

To win political points from time to time, federal officials announce short-term increases in allocations — most recently, to 30%. But these increments are so iffy and irregular that farmers can't plan their crops or arrange for bank loans.

Bureaucrats also do their part to ensure that drought conditions persist. Lake Shasta, which supplies the federal Central Valley Project though the Sacramento River, is so full that rice farmers upstream have plenty extra to sell. But Lake Oroville, which supplies California's State Water Project through the Feather River, while not in a drought state, is not full.

State regulations say that upstream farmers who get water from Shasta cannot sell their extra water to the Central Valley farmers because Feather River farmers along the state system must sell first. It matters not that there's a surplus on the Shasta side and a deficit on the Oroville side. Even with the orchards of about a third of the state's 6,000 almond farmers withering, state bureaucrats are hung up on pecking order.

There's no good reason to destroy California's most productive region, which turns out 85% of the world's almonds, or to coldly demonize its growers as "corporate agribusiness."