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Obama Recovery: US GDP Contracts in Fourth Quarter of 2012

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The U.S. economy posted a stunning drop of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, defying expectations for slow growth and possibly providing incentive for more Federal Reserve stimulus.

The economy shrank from October through December for the first time since the recession ended, hurt by the biggest cut in defense spending in 40 years, fewer exports and sluggish growth in company stockpiles.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that the economy contracted at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter. That’s a sharp slowdown from the 3.1 percent growth rate in the July-September quarter.

The surprise contraction could raise fears about the economy’s ability to handle tax increases that took effect in January and looming spending cuts.

Still, the weakness may be because of one-time factors. Government spending cuts and slower inventory growth subtracted a total of 2.6 percentage points from growth.

Read more from this story HERE.

45% of Americans Want to Skip Christmas

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Photo Credit: Mike LichtDespite a whittling away of consumer debt that has been underway since the recession, many Americans are still entering the holiday season unprepared to cope with the expenses that crop up around this time of year.

Think Finance, a provider of payday loans and other financial services for consumers with limited or no access to banking services, recently surveyed 1,000 Americans across all income levels who use various forms of alternative financial services — including payday loans, prepaid debit cards and direct deposit advances.

Although many of these consumers are on better financial footing and optimistic about their economic future this year, the holidays are still a source of stress and strain on their precarious finances, Think Finance said in the poll.

Some 45 percent of those polled said the holiday season brings so much financial pressure, they would prefer to skip it altogether. Almost half said their level of stress related to holiday expenses is high or extremely high.

That’s probably because nearly the same amount — some 45 percent — say they do not expect to have enough money set aside to cover holiday expenses.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Economy in Shambles: 40% of Americans Have Less Than $500 in Savings

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A survey of about 1,100 Americans finds that more than 4-in-10 respondents admit they don’t have more than $500 in readily accessible savings.

The survey is a kind of departure for CreditDonkey.com, a website that compares credit card deals. Not respondents all were poor. Some had big houses, big mortgages or 401(k)s, but still no more than five Benjamins to rub together right now.

Jill Michal, president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, reacts to the lack of liquid assets.

“It doesn’t shock me, but it does scare me. You know, we often say that the reason so many people fall off the edge in a tough economy is that they’re standing way too close to it, and I think this is a perfect demonstration of that.”

Michal says there’s a lack of training in personal finances.

Read more from this story HERE.

Michelle Obama Lies Again: “We Are in the Midst of a Huge Recovery” Because of Barry (+video)

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By Christopher Goins. First Lady Michelle Obama said in a radio interview on Friday that the United States is in the “midst of a huge recovery” because of what “this president has done.”

Pablo Sato, co-host of Pablo & Free on WPGC 95.5, a Washington, D.C.-area hip-hop radio station, asked the first lady: “Mrs. Obama, you know what, in your words, tell us what you think the state of the union is in right now?”

Mrs. Obama said, “I mean, we are seeing right now that we are in the midst of a huge recovery. Right? Because of what this president has done.”

Free: “Yes.”

Obama: “Pulled this economy from the brink of collapse when we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. Now were gaining every — throughout most of his presidency, we’ve been adding jobs to this economy because of what he’s been doing. The stock market has doubled. Housing prices are rising. Foreclosure rates are lowering. But in the face of that, you still have people trying to convince us that things aren’t better.” Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s the whole Michelle Obama radio interview. Her outrageous comments about the “huge recovery” start at about 6:10:

Cash-Strapped Farmers Feeding Candy to Cows

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Cattle farmers struggling with record corn prices are feeding their cows candy instead.

That’s right, candy. Cows are being fed chocolate bars, gummy worms, ice cream sprinkles, marshmallows, bits of hard candy and even powdered hot chocolate mix, according to cattle farmers, bovine nutritionists and commodities dealers.

“It has been a practice going on for decades and is a very good way to for producers to reduce feed cost, and to provide less expensive food for consumers,” said Ki Fanning, a livestock nutritionist with Great Plains Livestock Consulting, Inc. in Eagle, Neb.

Feeding candy to cows has become a more popular practice in tandem with the rising price of corn, which has doubled since 2009, fueled by government-subsidized demand for ethanol and this year’s drought. Thrifty and resourceful farmers are tapping into the obscure market for cast-off food ingredients. Cut-rate byproducts of dubious value for human consumption seem to make fine fodder for cows. While corn goes for about $315 a ton, ice-cream sprinkles can be had for as little as $160 a ton.

“As the price of corn has climbed, farmers either sold off their pigs and cattle, or they found alternative feeds,” said Mike Yoder, a dairy farmer in Middlebury, Ind. He feeds his 400 cows bits of candy, hot chocolate mix, crumbled cookies, breakfast cereal, trail mix, dried cranberries, orange peelings and ice cream sprinkles, which are blended into more traditional forms of feed, like hay.

Read more from the story HERE.

Recession Wiping Out Black Middle Class

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For months, the presidential candidates have been trying to court the middle class, extending offers of tax cuts, lower gas prices and better schools. The message: America does well when the middle class does well. The corollary: We feel your pain.

But much less attention has been given to the black middle class, which since the recession and slow recovery has suffered massive decreases in wealth and high rates of home foreclosures. Blacks overall are experiencing a 13.4 percent unemployment rate, according to figures released Friday, much higher than the national rate of 7.8 percent.

The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Mobility Project recently released a report projecting that 68 percent of African-Americans reared in the middle of the wealth ladder will not do as well as the previous generation.

In August, the National Urban League’s State of Black America 2012 report found that nearly all the economic gains that the black middle class made during the last 30 years have been wiped out by the economic downturn.

“This is a very dire situation,” said Valerie Rawlston Wilson, an economist with the National Urban League Policy Institute. “Even for blacks who have college degrees, we’ve seen a doubling of their unemployment (rate) between 2007 and 2010.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Romney Slams Obama’s New Unemployment Numbers

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Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney moved to undercut the latest U.S. jobs report showing unemployment at its lowest rate since President Barack Obama assumed office, saying the true number is much worse.

Romney’s comments to more than 6,000 people in Apopka, Florida, came the day after new Labor Department data showed an unexpected drop in the unemployment rate to 7.8 percent in September, the lowest since Obama took office in January 2009.

“If we calculated, by the way, our unemployment rate in a way that was consistent with the way it was calculated when he came into office, it would be a different number,” Romney said tonight. “You see, if the number of people — if the percentage of the American population who were in the workforce were the same today as the day he was elected, our unemployment rate would be above 11 percent. This is inexcusable.”

Romney appeared to be referring to the workforce- participation rate, which was 63.6 percent last month, compared with 65.7 percent in January 2009. That figure isn’t incorporated into the monthly unemployment number released by the government, and wasn’t before Obama took office.

The penultimate jobs report before the Nov. 6 election took on outsized significance in the presidential race, in which Obama’s economic record and Romney’s claim to have the business experience to do better at creating jobs are central themes.

Read more from this story HERE.

Is this Really What America Wants?

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On Wednesday U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton finally admitted al Qaeda in North Africa was behind the terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where the American ambassador and three others were murdered.

Clinton’s statements further muddied the administration’s fumbled explanations about exactly what happened on Sept. 11. For purely partisan political reasons, Barack Obama’s administration has denied terrorist involvement in the Benghazi attack.

To ever admit that the United States is still involved in fighting a war against al Qaeda flies in the face of Obama’s re-election campaign strategy of showcasing the killing Osama bin Laden and the debilitation of Al Qaeda.

Remember Vice President Joe Biden shouting from the Democratic National Convention stage: “Osama bin Laden is dead and GM is alive”?

To hear “progressive” politicians and their obedient sock puppets in the “progressive” Party Pravda tell it, to put two and two together and reason that al Qaeda had access to technology which allowed them to watch the DNC convention, hear what was said and plot a 9/11 revenge is angry, bigoted, conspiratorial racist hate speech from violent right wing extremists who cannot stand having a black man in the Oval Office.

It could not possibly have anything to do with the fact that his domestic and foreign policies can be defined as “man caused disasters”.

While taking care of extremely important, top priority re-election business on a daytime television talk show, Obama cautioned the ladies that describing the incident was impossible due to an ongoing FBI investigation. However, more than two weeks after the fact, FBI agents are still not in Benghazi, much less at the crime scene conducting an investigation.

The more America learns about the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate, the more it looks like a complete security failure and a calculated government cover-up.

This foreign policy sleight of hand deceit matches the consistent pattern of “evolving” economic news at home.

The latest economic reports reveal that second quarter GDP growth was revised down from 1.7 percent to 1.25 percent. New orders for U.S. manufactured durable goods fell in August by the most in 3-1/2 years, the biggest drop since January 2009. This clearly indicates a sharp slowdown in factory activity.

Fear that Washington will fail to reach an agreement and avoid the “fiscal cliff” has reduced businesses incentive to boost production.

From Benghazi to an Ohio manufacturing facility, the strategy and tactics are always the same. Make the news sound better that it is then enlist your multiple press secretaries within the “mainstream media” to put that “ news” on the front page of the paper, make it a magazine cover story, or put it on as breaking news television.

When far fewer people are paying attention, have those same media minions disclose the truth in a far less prominent place and in a far less spectacular manner.

Welcome to Obama’s America. Is this really what America wants?

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Michael Fell is a former MCA recording artist from the seminal punk rock era who toured America from coast to coast. Today, he’s a leading voice in the L.A. Tea Party movement, active since the February 2009 inception. Mr. Fell currently chairs the Westwood Tea Party, is a founding member of the L.A. Metro Tea Party Coalition, serves as the Vice Chairman of the Westside Republicans Club in L.A. CA, and is an elected Republican delegate to the L.A. 47th AD Central Committee. He’s been Campaign Manager for a primary winning Congressional candidate, as well as Santa Monica and L.A. City Council candidates. Mr. Fell is a contributing writer for https://conservativedailynews.com/, https://rightwingnews.com/, https://www.hollywoodrepublican.net/, https://beforeitsnews.com, https://www.redcounty.com/, https://www.uspatriotpac.com and, https://westsiderepublicans.com/. His opinions on today’s news events and political climate can be found on his blog: https://mjfellright.wordpress.com/

U.S. Median Household Income Down 8.2% Since Obama Took Office

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Median household incomes have fallen 8.2 percent since President Obama took office and continue to drop despite the official end of the recession, a new study shows.

Data compiled by Sentier Research found that since the economic recovery technically began in June 2009, median household income has dropped 5.7 percent. As of August, that median income was $50,678 — also down 1.1 percent from the month prior.

And since Obama took office in January 2009, the median income has fallen 8.2 percent, from $55,198 to its present figure.

“The August decline in real median annual household income is indicative of a struggling economy,” Sentier said in its report.

“Even though we are technically in an economic recovery, real median annual household income is having a difficult time maintaining its present level, much less ‘recovering.'”

Read more from this story HERE.

Spain’s Economic Implosion Pushing Outlying Regions to Consider Secession

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The government’s drive to rein in regional overspending as part of its austerity measures has prompted a flare-up in independence fervor in Catalonia, the wealthy northeastern region that generates one-fifth of Spain’s economic output.

Just as the euro zone crisis has strained relations between wealthier nations of the north and heavily indebted countries to the south, Spain’s crisis has aggravated tensions between the central government and its self-governing regions.

Catalonia needs a 5 billion euros bailout from the central state to meet debt payments this year, but Catalans are convinced they bear an unfairly large share of the country’s tax burden.

More than half say they want independence from Spain, the highest level ever.

Artur Mas, the conservative president of Catalonia, announced on Tuesday he would hold early elections in November after Rajoy rejected his call for more tax autonomy. Mas’s Convergence and Union, or CiU, party is likely to win an absolute majority in the regional parliament, which he can use to battle Rajoy over spending cuts.

On Wednesday Mas took things further, saying Catalonia should also hold a referendum on independence, which the central government says would be unconstitutional.

Although an independent Catalonia is a remote possibility, the political instability sends a worrying message to investors. Rajoy’s People’s Party has threatened to take control of the budgets of regions that fail to meet deficit reduction targets despite Catalonia already having made tough austerity measures.

Read more from this story HERE.