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The hope that fired up the election of Barack Obama has flickered out, leaving a national mood of despair and disappointment. Americans are dispirited over how wrong things are and uncertain they can be made right again. Hope may have been a quick breakfast, but it has proved a poor supper. A year and a half ago Obama was walking on water. Today he is barely treading water. Then, his soaring rhetoric enraptured the nation. Today, his speeches cannot lift him past a 45 percent approval rating.
There is a widespread feeling that the government doesn't work, that it is incapable of solving America's problems. Americans are fed up with Washington, fed up with Wall Street, fed up with the necessary but ill-conceived stimulus program, fed up with the misdirected healthcare program, and with pretty much everything else. They are outraged and feel that the system is not a level playing field, but is tilted against them. The millions of unemployed feel abandoned by the president, by the Democratic Congress, and by the Republicans.
The American people wanted change, and who could blame them? But now there is no change they can believe in. Sixty-two percent believe we are headed in the wrong direction --a record during this administration. All the polls indicate that anti-Washington, anti-incumbent sentiment is greater than it has been in many years. For the first time, Obama's disapproval rating has topped his approval rating. In a recent CBS News poll, there is a meager 15 percent approval rating for Congress. In all polls, voters who call themselves independents have swung against the administration and against incumbents.
And from there he REALLY let's on how upset he is
Eugene Robinson, WaPo, pulitzer, total supporter, and in the last few months chief complainer on the left that Obama is NOT about jobs, and if you read recognize he is NOT a member of the 'political class':
The Unemployment Emergency
By Eugene RobinsonWASHINGTON -- The good news is that unemployment has fallen to "only" 9.5 percent. The bad news is that the jobless rate is down only because so many people have given up hope of finding work. Perversely, the jobless who aren't actively looking for jobs are not counted as "unemployed."
Perhaps there should be a new category titled "mired in existential despair."
If anyone in Washington wants to know why people in the hinterlands are angry, one simple answer is that our political leaders seem to be so calculating and unmoved about the parlous state of the economy.
The disheartening employment figures released last Friday quickly became fodder for the kind of political to-and-fro that has become standard operating procedure. President Obama quickly put his spin on the numbers, noting that the private sector added 83,000 jobs in the month of June. The president's Republican opponents noted that overall, the economy lost 125,000 jobs -- taking into account not just the private-sector gain, but the end of 225,000 temporary jobs for census workers.
WSJ:
The Government Pay Bonus
Private employees toil 13½ months to earn what federal workers do in 12.
Nevertheless, salaries are only one part of total compensation. Government employees may also receive more generous health and pension benefits than Americans working for private enterprise. So are federal employees overpaid? Data from the March Current Population Survey (CPS) suggest they are.By ANDREW G. BIGGS AND JASON RICHWINE
Pay cuts, layoffs and the highest unemployment rates in decades have reignited a debate over the relative treatment of public and private workers. USA Today reported in March that federal workers earn substantially higher wages than private sector employees who work the same types of jobs.
White House budget chief Peter Orszag responded that these pay differences merely reflect the superior skills of federal workers, not government largess. Adjusting for education and experience, he said, federal workers make about the same salaries as private workers. Mr. Orszag also correctly pointed out that public and private job categories aren't directly comparable, so we shouldn't necessarily expect them to have the same pay.
Deroy Murdock:
All-American Light Bulb Dims as Freedom Flickers
By Deroy MurdockAs the U.S.A. celebrates its 234th birthday, the plight of a quintessentially American innovation says volumes about the state of the union.
As American as the grand slam, the Mustang convertible, and the constitutional republic, Thomas Alva Edison's incandescent light bulb is among this nation's most enduring gifts to mankind. Granted U.S. Patent No. 223,898 on January 27, 1880 (after some 1,200 experiments), Edison's "Electric-Lamp" essentially made night optional for most Earthlings. Days stopped ending at sunset. Simple, convenient, and cheap, Edison's greatest invention also was far safer than the flammable kerosene lamps they replaced.
Today's federal government, naturally, had to hammer something that has hummed along nicely for 130 years. In one of his most shameful moments, former president George W. Bush foolishly signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. EISA establishes performance criteria that Edisonian bulbs cannot meet. As the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) explains: "These standards, which begin in 2012, will eliminate low efficiency incandescent light bulbs from the market."
According to an April 14 fact sheet from General Electric, which Edison founded in 1876, 276 versions of its incandescent bulbs will start to vanish just 18 months from now. Few Americans realize that federal busybodies plan to snatch their traditional bulbs. Sylvania's December 2009 survey of 302 adults found that "awareness of the 2012 100-watt bulb phase-out" is just 18 percent (error margin: +/- 5.7 percent).
EISA has made more common compact fluorescent lights, those swirly bulbs with distinct pros and cons. Costlier up front, energy-efficient CFLs eventually save money. They also require less frequent replacement than do traditional bulbs.
To discover CFLs' negatives, try setting a romantic mood with a dimmer switch. This is, at best, a hit or miss proposition. Scarier still, just drop one onto your kitchen floor. Its internal mercury is highly toxic. If spilled, it requires something approximating a Superfund cleanup. The Environmental Protection Agencywarns that if a CFL breaks on one's apparel or bedspread, "Do not wash such clothing or bedding because mercury fragments in the clothing may contaminate the machine and/or pollute sewage" (emphasis added).
As we wathc the pontless, delayed actions, the apologies, attempts to restrict freedoms, end businesses, punish businessmen, demonize profit, reward govt power, ..... wonder
1 comment:
Interesting that it is the incandescent light bulb that goeth before the fall. In Ayn Rand's Anthem, it is the the tale, set in the not unlikely future, of outcast young man, too smart for his own good who discovers the necessary materials to relight an incandescent light bulb. He brings it before the elders to show them how electricity would send their world, and as a reward, he is given the job of janitor. Their reasoning is that the light bulb would put the candle makers out of business. They would table the idea for 5 years.....the future is now.
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