Economic Update

Some disturbing news from Special Guests via Gateway Pundit:

Has the US reached the tipping point from a Recession to a Depression?

According to the latest poll, The New York Daily News reports that 55% say yes or are unsure and 45% of Americans say no.

But like in any election or poll you have a certain block of 'undecideds’ and with this poll there are 17% say who said they are not sure but a whopping 38% said: YES, that we are already in a Depression—and the numbers keep skewing toward additional yeses with each passing day.

So, what does this all mean? Are these mere numbers? What impact will the current daily onslaught of negative financial headlines have on the economy?

Many economists say there is one single word that drives the economy and that word is: CONFIDENCE.

The question is: Do Americans have confidence that the economy has bottomed out or do they believe it is about to get worse? And if worse, how much worse?

While the numbers aren't good, they're certainly not to the level of the Great Depression. So, the fact that 55% of Americans believe we're in one or are unsure is startling. Or is it? The obvious question, of course, is where are all those Americans getting the idea of already being in a Depression? Hmmm...

But don't worry...the Obamessiah will still save the day! Remember his campaign pledge to go 'line by line' through the budget and cut wasteful spending? Well, he's finally getting started on that:

President Barack Obama said on Wednesday the U.S. government was paying too much for things it did not need and ordered a crackdown on spending "plagued by massive cost overruns and outright fraud."

The Democrat, under fire from Republicans for the $3.5 trillion price tag for his 2010 budget plan, also took aim at predecessor George W. Bush and noted the cost of government contracts had doubled to more than half a trillion dollars over the past eight years.

...

"The days of giving defense contractors a blank check are over," Obama told reporters in a briefing on his reforms.

Whew! It's a good thing he's getting tough on those eeeeevil pork projects! That's right...let's cut that wasteful defense budget to shreds! Ace of Spades really nailed it when he said that "[w]e can spend millions on studying the correlation between estrus and flatulence in bi-curious gophers but talk about building an F-22 and suddenly it's 'wasteful.'"

But, that's just the beginning of the recovery plan. Also included is the disastrous cap-and-trade plan to force energy prices higher by punishing oil companies for the hoax of global warming:

Arctic sea ice growth finished the year in 2008 at the same level as 1979.
The oceans have been cooling since 2003.
Sea ice is growing at the fastest pace on record.
Greenland's glaciers are stabilizing.
There are growing fears of a coming freeze worse than the ice age.
Alaskan Sea Glaciers are advancing for the first time in 250 years.
And, for the second straight year the Earth is, in fact, cooling... not warming.
This US Climate Map October 2007-November 2008 showed that temperatures were well below normal throughout the US in 2008.

It looks like Al Gore was a bit off in his prediction that North Pole will be completely gone in 5 years.

But, it doesn't matter to the Obama Administration...
Today tax cheat Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced the Obama Administration intends to punish oil companies for non-existent global warming.

"We don't believe it makes sense to significantly subsidize the production and use of sources of energy (like oil and gas) that are dramatically going to add to our climate change (problem). We don't think that's good economic policy and we think changing those incentives is good for the country," Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing on the White House's proposed budget for the 2010 spending year.

And, of course, there's the overall stimulus plan to consider. Well, maybe you'd better not consider that, because Obama's own Congressional Budget Office is saying that his stimulus plan will reduce output in the long run. All told, the Democrats are rapidly bankrupting this country, a feat unmatched in American history:

Even with two wars, 9-11, Hurricane Katrina, and the Clinton Recession, Bush couldn't do that.
But, it took Democrats less than 40 days to blow over a trillion dollars.
That's some work.

Hey, he's the Obamessiah - he has superhuman powers! Apparently, one of them is spending money that doesn't yet exist in copious amounts that defy true comprehension.

Hope! Change!

Actually, I think we can hope that he'll leave us with more than a little change.

There's my two cents.