From an always compliant Reuters:

U.S. growth quickens in Q4, but speed-bumps ahead

By Lucia Mutikani
January 27, 2012

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in 1-1/2 years in the fourth quarter of 2011, but a strong rebuilding of stocks by businesses and a slower pace of spending on capital goods hinted at softer growth early this year.

U.S. gross domestic product expanded at a 2.8 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Friday, a sharp acceleration from the 1.8 percent clip of the prior three months and the quickest pace since the second quarter of 2010.

Yippee!

It was, however, a touch below economists’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 3 percent rate, and nearly 2 percentage points was due to the build-up in business inventories…

The experts were overly optimistic? How can that be?

And note that this minor fourth quarter bump is probably artificial

U.S. stock index futures turned negative after the data, while government debt prices pared losses. The euro held gains against the dollar…

What does that tell you, when the Euro gains on the dollar?

Growth in the fourth quarter got a temporary boost from the rebuilding of business inventories, which was the fastest since the third quarter of 2010, after they declined in the third-quarter for the first time since late 2009…

The robust stock accumulation suggests the recovery will lose a step in early 2012.

Also pointing to slower growth, business spending on capital goods was the slowest since 2009, a sign the debt crisis in Europe was starting to take its toll.

Expectations of soft growth led the Fed on Wednesday to say it expected to keep interest rates at rock bottom levels at least through late 2014.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank, which forecast growth this year in a 2.2 percent to 2.7 percent range, was mulling further asset purchases to speed up the recovery.

Translation: QE3.

The Fed warned the economy still faced big risks, a suggestion the euro zone debt crisis could still hit hard.

The economy grew 1.7 percent in 2011 after expanding 3 percent the prior year…

Notice how Reuters buried this detail in the 14th paragraph of their (unexcerpted) article. That is what is known as advocacy journalism. Which, of course, is the only kind of journalism there is any more.

The real news here is that last year’s GDP is half the rate from last year. When we were told by all the experts that it would be far better.

For the record, according to the US State Department, Cuba’s GPD was in 2010 was 2.1%. Which was considered to be so low it has caused Cuba’s dictators to begin to undertake radical economic reforms, which effectively amount to undoing their socialist system.

Meanwhile, back here at home, Mr. Obama is taking us in exactly the opposite direction.

From Germany’s Der Spiegel:

Inflated Incentive: Environment Minister Retreats on Solar Subsidies

01/26/2012

German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen has said he wants to cut subsidies on installing solar panels sooner than planned as the number of people taking advantage of the incentives continues to soar. As do costs to electricity customers.

Germany is set to cut incentives for installing solar panels faster than originally planned amid strong criticism of the current subsidy scheme. Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen has said he wants to bring forward the reductions by three months to April 1, with increasing numbers of Germans taking to solar energy.

Solar farm operators and homeowners with solar panels received more than €8 billion ($10.2 billion) in subsidies in 2011, but contributed only 3 percent of Germany’s total energy supply.

Meaning the cost was over $3 billion dollars a percent.

The incentives, which are written into the country’s renewable energy law known as EEG, are being newly scrutinized as Germany phases out its nuclear program and ramps up its production of renewable energy…

Which, coincidentally enough, is also what Obama is doing in our country. — But how are they going to ramp up their production of renewable energy without incentives?

The so-called feed-in tariff is the lifeblood for the solar power industry, at least until production costs fall to a level similar to those in conventional electricity generation. Germany has a total of 25 gigawatts of solar capacity — about half of the figure for the entire world. Producers of solar energy are guaranteed fixed rates for power for 20 years.

But the massive upsurge in photovoltaic installations, fuelled by the heavy subsidies, has seen pressure put on the government to make changes, as the cost of the incentives is passed onto energy consumers across the country…

You mean ‘green’ government subsidies aren’t free?

For some reason Der Spiegel never tells us how much these subsidies are actually costing German on the electric bills. They must be trying to emulate American journalism.

From the New York Daily News:

Treasury Department approves huge paydays for execs at firms who received TARP bailout money

Scathing audit: Government approved pay packages worth $5M or more for 49 executives

By Juan Gonzalez
Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Treasury Department approved pay packages worth $5 million or more for 49 executives at a handful of firms that received the biggest taxpayer bailouts between 2009 and 2011.

A scathing new audit this week by the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program blasted those payments, all of which occurred despite a $500,000 salary cap that President Obama and Congress established in 2009 at firms receiving “exceptional assistance” under TARP.

To be fair, Obama certainly never meant to put a cap on the salary of his donors friends.

Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Bank of New York officials joined behind the scenes with the bailed-out firms to repeatedly pressure Kenneth Feinberg, the special federal master overseeing the compensation packages, to approve higher salaries, the audit found.

So Treasury and the Federal Reserve were pushing for these salaries? Is there nobody on the taxpayers’ side?

Feinberg had the power to allow waivers to the cash cap, but the report found the program’s contradictory goals meant “he could not effectively rein in excessive compensation.”

The CEO of one bailed-out firm, Ally Financial, actually complained that one of his underlings, who was paying for private school for his kids, would be “cash poor” if relegated to a salary of just $500,000…

Well, if he lives in Manhattan, he could have a point.

AIG repeatedly insisted on the biggest pay packages and represented 80% of Feinberg’s “headaches,” the audit said. The company received more than $180 billion in federal bailout money in 2008, and even today, after paying back billions, it is still 70% owned by the federal government.

But at the recession’s height in spring 2009, AIG had the audacity to press Feinberg for raises ranging from 20% to 550% for its top employees, the report said…

What’s more, AIG wanted those salaries in cash, not stock. Company execs confided to Feinberg that the firm’s common stock was “essentially worthless,” the report said.

To his credit, Feinberg resisted the most outrageous salary demands, but he still approved dozens above the government’s $500,000 cash cap. In 2009, for instance, he approved a $10.5 million package for AIG chief executive Robert Benmosch, which included $3 million in cash.

The following year, Feinberg approved another $10.5 million for Benmosch, while signing off on packages of from $3 million to $7.6 million for 17 of AIG’s 22 top employees.

Ally CEO Michael Carpenter got approval for an $8.1 million package. General Motors chief Fritz Henderson got $5.1 million…

We sure are in the wrong business. Or, rather, we sure don’t know the right politicians.

From an unfazed Associated Press:

US new-home sales fell in Dec., finish dismal 2011

DEREK KRAVITZ – Associated Press
January 26, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer Americans bought new homes in December, making 2011 the worst sales year on record.

The Commerce Department says new-home sales fell last month to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 307,000. The pace is less than half the 700,000 that economists say must be sold in a healthy economy.

Total sales last year were less than the 323,000 sold in 2010, making it the worst year on records dating back to 1963.

The median sales prices for new homes dropped in December, as builders continued to slash prices. It fell 2.5 percent to $210,300.

The decline in sales comes as other signs suggest the depressed housing market is starting to recover. Construction picked up, sales of previously occupied homes are rising, and builders are slightly more confident.

Meanwhile, we have more housing news from the Associated Press:

Foreclosures made up 20 pct. of home sales in 3Q

By ALEX VEIGA | Associated Press
January 26, 2012

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Foreclosures made up a smaller slice of all U.S. homes sold in last year’s third quarter, as banks delayed placing properties for sale and home sales slowed.

Which is to say, this number is only down because banks are holding back to avoid flooding the market and driving down prices even more.

Despite the decline, foreclosures still represented 20 percent of all homes sold in the July-September period — about four times more than at the height of the housing boom, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday…

In 2005 and 2006, when housing was still flying high, foreclosures made up less than 5 percent of all home sales, the firm said. They peaked in 2009 at 37.4 percent.

As a portion of all homes purchased, foreclosure sales declined in the third quarter from 22 percent in the April-June period. They were down from 30 percent in the third quarter of 2010, RealtyTrac said…

Why isn’t any of this in the headlines? Why aren’t there even any Republican debate questions about this?

Where is the outrage?

From the Associated Press:

More seek unemployment aid, but trend is positive

CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER – Associated Press
January 26, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people seeking unemployment benefits rose last week to a seasonally adjusted 377,000, up from a nearly four-year low the previous week. But the longer-term trend is pointing to a healthier job market.

Applications have trended down over the past few months. The four week average has declined to 377,500…

By the way, you will be shocked to hear that the previous week’s new claims number was quietly revised up by 4,000. From 352,000 to 356,000.

Some economists say the figures suggest further job gains ahead.

Prosperity is just around the corner.

The nation has added at least 100,000 jobs for six straight months. And the unemployment rate has declined to 8.5 percent, its lowest in almost three years…

What is so wonderful about 100,000 jobs? We have been regularly told that the economy needs to add "150,000 jobs each month to keep up with population growth alone."

And, lest we forget, we were promised by Joe Biden that the economy would soon be adding 500,000 jobs a month, way back in April of 2010.

"There is more horsepower to this economy than most believe," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University, Channel Islands. "The stars are aligned right for a meaningful economic recovery."

The AP has to go to the Channel Islands of California to find someone who will say what they want said.

The number of first-time unemployment applications rose 21,000 last week, the Labor Department said. Applications had plummeted two weeks ago to their lowest level since April 2008…

Unemployment applications have been particularly volatile this month because employers have cut temporary workers hired for the holidays. The department adjusts for seasonal trends. But doing so accurately can be difficult…

Because ‘once you practice to deceive, you weave a tangled web.’

Economists forecast that the nation will gain about 160,000 jobs a month in 2012, according to a survey of economists by the Associated Press. That’s up from an average of about 135,000 last year…

And when have the economists at the AP ever been wrong before? Except continuously.

From Fox News Latino:

Spanish Ad By Obama Backers Labels Romney ‘Two Faced’

By Bryan Llenas
January 24, 2012

The SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, and Priorities USA Action, the super-PAC helping President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, have released a new Spanish language radio ad airing in Tampa and Orlando attacking Mitt Romney.

The ad is expected to run over the next several weeks at a cost of "six figures" that would be "split" between both organizations, according to Paul Begala, Senior Advisor of Priorities USA Action.

Priorities USA is an Obama campaign front. It was set up back in April by a pair of ex-White House staffers: Bill Burton, who was Obama’s first deputy press secretary, and Sean Sweeney, who served as a senior adviser to Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. And, as the article notes, former Clinton flack, Paul Begala is a Senior Advisor.

Their stated goal is to raise some $100 million dollars to re-elect Obama. The SEIU is a major contributor.

"We feel like Romney is misleading voters and we want to be there to correct the record," Begala said in a teleconference. "If elected President, Mitt Romney’s policies would be devastating to Hispanic families. In a Romney administration, the tax burden would shift onto middle class families in order to protect corporations and the wealthiest Americans."

The 60 second ad is entitled ‘Dos Caras’ or Two Faces. The commercial’s main purpose is to highlight, what organizers say, is Romney’s two-faced message to the Latino community.

"In Spanish [ads] he says he believes in us, and in English he says he would veto the DREAM Act and would deport immigrants," said Eliseo Medina, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer. "For Latinos immigration is a defining personal issue."

Apparently, having illegal aliens in the country doesn’t hurt the Hispanics who are in this country legally, and who pay taxes. And they don’t take jobs away from them, either.

Still, isn’t it funny how the economy is never a ‘zero sum game’ when illegal aliens are involved

The ad specifically mentions Romney’s embrace of his endorsement by Kris Kobach – the chief architect of the country’s most controversial state immigration laws…

Romney’s comment in Monday nights NBC Debate regarding self deportation has also fueled outrage from the SEIU.

"I heard about these candidates talk about self deportation and it clearly said to me what they think a bout the Latino community and immigrants," Medina said. "Make their life miserable so that they leave the country." …

"Right now, it’s the moment for Mitt Romney to feel the love," Begala said. "The ad will continue to run when Romney packs up and hits west."

[T]he SEIU and Priorities USA Action, say that this ad is just the beginning…

We are sure it is just the beginning.

But remember when US labor unions used to try to preserve jobs for Americans?

(Thanks to Canary for the heads up.)

From a hopeful Reuters:

Bernanke has "finger on trigger" for new bond buys

January 26, 2012

CHICAGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve has moved closer to embarking on a new round of its controversial money-pumping after the central bank and its chairman Ben Bernanke highlighted a grim outlook for the U.S. economy.

Bernanke on Wednesday opened the door a bit wider for the Fed to return to buying securities in the months ahead to buttress a weak recovery and keep inflation from slipping too far below its newly adopted 2-percent target.

"It sounds like the finger is on the trigger," said Thomas Simons, a money market economist at Jefferies & Co.

The Fed’s announcement that it was unlikely to raise interest rates until at least late 2014, more than a year beyond its previous guidance, immediately pushed down Treasury bond yields and Bernanke’s comments to the media raised expectations of a further round of so-called quantitative easing, or QE3…

is probably going to be the ‘October Surprise’ for this election. Obama is going to start another quantitative easing just in time to get the best stock market numbers before the election. And who cares what this does to the value of the dollar?

Even if the administration doesn’t actually implement a QE3, Bernanke will hint about it strongly enough to get people to buy stocks and drive up the market before November.

It remains to be seen if the potential political backlash proves too daunting.

Backlash from whom? The news media? They will ignore it?

The Republicans? The news media will ignore them, so nobody will hear anything they say, anyway.

Barring an unexpected pick-up in inflation or the U.S. economy suddenly kicking into a higher gear, Bernanke said it was logical that the Fed should look at ways to do more to help.

"The framework makes very clear that we need to be thinking about ways to provide further stimulus if we don’t get improvement in the pace of recovery and a normalization of inflation," he told a quarterly news conference…

"Stimulus" has been Bernanke’s code word for quantitate easing in the past.

From an unfazed Associated Press:

Taxpayers still owed $132.9B from bailout: report

January 26, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — A government watchdog says U.S. taxpayers are still owed $132.9 billion that companies haven’t repaid from the financial bailout, and some of that will never be recovered.

Luckily it is just taxpayers’ money. So who cares?

Still, haven’t Obama and the news media told us that almost all of the TARP money has been paid back? Now we are being told (below) that only 77% has been paid back. That $133 billion is still owed. And we might never get it all back.

The bailout launched at the height of the financial crisis in September 2008 will continue to exist for years, says a report issued Thursday by Christy Romero, the acting special inspector general for the $700 billion bailout.

Some bailout programs, such as the effort to help homeowners avoid foreclosure by reducing mortgage payments, will last as late as 2017, costing the government an additional $51 billion or so.

How many people even know about this mortgage reduction ‘bailout’? And it accounts for almost a third of the money that has not been paid back.

The gyrating stock market has slowed the Treasury Department’s efforts to sell off its stakes in 458 bailed-out companies, the report says. They include insurer American International Group Inc., General Motors Co. and Ally Financial Inc.

Did you know there were 458 companies bailed out?

If Treasury plans to sell its stock in the three companies at or above the price where taxpayers would break even on their investment — $28.73 a share for AIG, $53.98 for GM — it may take a long time for the market to rebound to that level, the report says. AIG’s shares closed Wednesday at $25.31, while GM ended at $24.92. Ally isn’t publicly traded.

It will also be challenging for the government to get out of the 458 companies as the market remains volatile and banks struggle keep afloat in the tough economy, it says…

Yes, it might take a while for GM to double the value of its stock. Meanwhile, we are constantly told that the government is no longer in the car business.

Treasury spokesman Matt Anderson said the department "has made substantial progress winding down TARP and has already recovered more than 77 percent of the funds disbursed for the program, through repayments and other income." …

So after all this time only 77% of the money has been paid back.

This article very carefully blurs the distinction between the bank bailouts and the auto and other bailouts. The banks have paid back almost all of their bailout money – with interest. GM has not. The mortgage foreclosures have not.

The auto bailout was inserted at the insistence of the Democrats, especially Senator Barack Obama. And the mortgage bailout was all Obama’s idea.

In Romero’s quarterly report to Congress, she said her office has uncovered and prevented fraud related to TARP. Investigations by her office have resulted in criminal charges against 10 people and three convictions, the report notes.

Funny how we never heard anything about these charges.

Of course, what is a little fraud in the face of such a huge fraud?

From Forbes magazine:

Warren Buffett’s Secretary Likely Makes Between $200,000 And $500,000/Year

Paul Roderick Gregory
1/25/2012

… Insofar as Buffet (like Mitt Romney) earns income primarily from capital gains, which are taxed at 15 percent (and according to Obama need to be raised for reasons of fairness), we need to determine how much income a taxpayer like Bosanek must earn in order to pay an average tax rate above fifteen percent. This is easy to do.

The IRS publishes detailed tax tables by income level. The latest results are for 2009. They show that taxpayers earning an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000 pay an average rate of twelve percent. This is below Buffet’s rate; so she must earn more than that. Taxpayers earning adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000, pay an average tax rate of nineteen percent. Therefore Buffet must pay Debbie Bosanke [sic] a salary above two hundred thousand.

We must wait for further details to learn how much more than $200,000 she earns. The tax tables tell us about average ranges. For all we know she earns closer to a half million each year, but that is pure speculation…

In other words, this reporter doesn’t know how much Ms. Bosanek makes. But in order for her to pay a federal income tax rate higher than Buffet’s 15% capital gains rate, she must have an adjusted gross income above $200,000. So her salary could be anything above that number.

But this article should point out that Mr. Obama calls individuals who make over $200,000 ‘rich,’ and he wants to raise their taxes. And, in fact, in New York State and other places, Ms. Bosanek would already have to pay a ‘millionaire’s tax’ surcharge.

So, if she is rich, why shouldn’t she have to pay the same thing or higher than millionaires and billionaires? Why shouldn’t she be punished?

Via National Public Radio:

Transcript: GOP Response From Gov. Mitch Daniels

January 24, 2012

"The status of ‘loyal opposition’ imposes on those out of power some serious responsibilities: to show respect for the Presidency and its occupant, to express agreement where it exists. Republicans tonight salute our President, for instance, for his aggressive pursuit of the murderers of 9/11, and for bravely backing long overdue changes in public education. I personally would add to that list admiration for the strong family commitment that he and the First Lady have displayed to a nation sorely needing such examples.

"On these evenings, Presidents naturally seek to find the sunny side of our national condition. But when President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true.

"The President did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight. But he was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse: the percentage of Americans with a job is at the lowest in decades. One in five men of prime working age, and nearly half of all persons under 30, did not go to work today.

"In three short years, an unprecedented explosion of spending, with borrowed money, has added trillions to an already unaffordable national debt. And yet, the President has put us on a course to make it radically worse in the years ahead. The federal government now spends one of every four dollars in the entire economy; it borrows one of every three dollars it spends. No nation, no entity, large or small, public or private, can thrive, or survive intact, with debts as huge as ours.

"The President’s grand experiment in trickle-down government has held back rather than sped economic recovery. He seems to sincerely believe we can build a middle class out of government jobs paid for with borrowed dollars. In fact, it works the other way: a government as big and bossy as this one is maintained on the backs of the middle class, and those who hope to join it.

"Those punished most by the wrong turns of the last three years are those unemployed or underemployed tonight, and those so discouraged that they have abandoned the search for work altogether. And no one has been more tragically harmed than the young people of this country, the first generation in memory to face a future less promising than their parents did.

"As Republicans our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life’s ladder. We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots; we must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves.

"In our economic stagnation and indebtedness, we are only a short distance behind Greece, Spain, and other European countries now facing economic catastrophe. But ours is a fortunate land. Because the world uses our dollar for trade, we have a short grace period to deal with our dangers. But time is running out, if we are to avoid the fate of Europe, and those once-great nations of history that fell from the position of world leadership.

"So 2012 is a year of true opportunity, maybe our last, to restore an America of hope and upward mobility, and greater equality. The challenges aren’t matters of ideology, or party preference; the problems are simply mathematical, and the answers are purely practical.

"An opposition that would earn its way back to leadership must offer not just criticism of failures that anyone can see, but a positive and credible plan to make life better, particularly for those aspiring to make a better life for themselves. Republicans accept this duty, gratefully.

"The routes back to an America of promise, and to a solvent America that can pay its bills and protect its vulnerable, start in the same place. The only way up for those suffering tonight, and the only way out of the dead end of debt into which we have driven, is a private economy that begins to grow and create jobs, real jobs, at a much faster rate than today.

"Contrary to the President’s constant disparagement of people in business, it’s one of the noblest of human pursuits. The late Steve Jobs – what a fitting name he had – created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew. Out here in Indiana, when a businessperson asks me what he can do for our state, I say ‘First, make money. Be successful. If you make a profit, you’ll have something left to hire someone else, and some to donate to the good causes we love.’

"The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy. It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.

"That means a dramatically simpler tax system of fewer loopholes and lower rates. A pause in the mindless piling on of expensive new regulations that devour dollars that otherwise could be used to hire somebody. It means maximizing on the new domestic energy technologies that are the best break our economy has gotten in years.

"There is a second item on our national must-do list: we must unite to save the safety net. Medicare and Social Security have served us well, and that must continue. But after half and three quarters of a century respectively, it’s not surprising that they need some repairs. We can preserve them unchanged and untouched for those now in or near retirement, but we must fashion a new, affordable safety net so future Americans are protected, too.

"Decades ago, for instance, we could afford to send millionaires pension checks and pay medical bills for even the wealthiest among us. Now, we can’t, so the dollars we have should be devoted to those who need them most.

"The mortal enemies of Social Security and Medicare are those who, in contempt of the plain arithmetic, continue to mislead Americans that we should change nothing. Listening to them much longer will mean that these proud programs implode, and take the American economy with them. It will mean that coming generations are denied the jobs they need in their youth and the protection they deserve in their later years.

"It’s absolutely so that everyone should contribute to our national recovery, including of course the most affluent among us. There are smart ways and dumb ways to do this: the dumb way is to raise rates in a broken, grossly complex tax system, choking off growth without bringing in the revenues we need to meet our debts. The better course is to stop sending the wealthy benefits they do not need, and stop providing them so many tax preferences that distort our economy and do little or nothing to foster growth.

"It’s not fair and it’s not true for the President to attack Republicans in Congress as obstacles on these questions. They and they alone have passed bills to reduce borrowing, reform entitlements, and encourage new job creation, only to be shot down time and time again by the President and his Democratic Senate allies.

"This year, it falls to Republicans to level with our fellow citizens about this reality: if we fail to act to grow the private sector and save the safety net, nothing else will matter much. But to make such action happen, we also must work, in ways we Republicans have not always practiced, to bring Americans together.

"No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others. As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat. If we drift, quarreling and paralyzed, over a Niagara of debt, we will all suffer, regardless of income, race, gender, or other category. If we fail to shift to a pro-jobs, pro-growth economic policy, there will never be enough public revenue to pay for our safety net, national security, or whatever size government we decide to have.

"As a loyal opposition, who put patriotism and national success ahead of party or ideology or any self-interest, we say that anyone who will join us in the cause of growth and solvency is our ally, and our friend. We will speak the language of unity. Let us rebuild our finances, and the safety net, and reopen the door to the stairway upward; any other disagreements we may have can wait.

"You know, the most troubling contention in our national life these days isn’t about economics, or policy at all. It’s about us, as a free people. In two alarming ways, that contention is that we Americans just can’t cut it anymore.

"In word and deed, the President and his allies tell us that we just cannot handle ourselves in this complex, perilous world without their benevolent protection. Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb!

"A second view, which I admit some Republicans also seem to hold, is that we Americans are no longer up to the job of self-government. We can’t do the simple math that proves the unaffordability of today’s safety net programs, or all the government we now have. We will fall for the con job that says we can just plow ahead and someone else will pick up the tab. We will allow ourselves to be pitted one against the other, blaming our neighbor for troubles worldwide trends or our own government has caused.

"2012 must be the year we prove the doubters wrong. The year we strike out boldly not merely to avert national bankruptcy but to say to a new generation that America is still the world’s premier land of opportunity. Republicans will speak for those who believe in the dignity and capacity of the individual citizen; who believe that government is meant to serve the people rather than supervise them; who trust Americans enough to tell them the plain truth about the fix we are in, and to lay before them a specific, credible program of change big enough to meet the emergency we are facing.

"We will advance our positive suggestions with confidence, because we know that Americans are still a people born to liberty. There is nothing wrong with the state of our Union that the American people, addressed as free-born, mature citizens, cannot set right. Republicans in 2012 welcome all our countrymen to a program of renewal that rebuilds the dream for all, and makes our ‘city on a hill’ shine once again."

It’s nice to hear from an adult now and then, isn’t it?

From CNN’s Money.Com:

The shrinking private equity world

Maureen Farrell
January 24, 2012: 3:41 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The notoriously private private equity industry can’t escape the glare of the spotlight these days, but the more immediate issue facing the industry is a lack of funding.

Private equity funding is drying up as investors have been seeing lackluster returns. And the trend looks likely to continue.

Obama-nomics is working. Actually, we should probably say ‘Democrat economics.’ Look at the chart and bear in mind that the Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007.

In 2011, U.S. firms invested just $32.1 billion in private equity, down nearly 79% from the industry’s peak year in 2007.

And 2012 is expected to be even worse.

"It’s taking a lot longer to raise funds," said Jeffrey Bunder, head of Ernst & Young’s global private equity practice. "The process isn’t like it used to be. They’re having to demonstrate why they deserve the money."

One solution might be to increase regulations and raise the tax on capital gains. We might also try taxing ‘millionaires’ more, too.

Pensions and endowments, which make up the bulk of private equity investors, have been casting a wary eye on the industry because of the combination of high fees, lackluster returns and generally erratic returns.

Keith Garrison, the director of alternative assets for Texas Christian University’s $1.1 billion endowment, said he’s been more cautious about investing in buyout funds since the financial crisis.

"The returns have been more drawn out than you would have originally anticipated," said Garrison. "We need to manage liquidity. I’m not the only endowment closely watching its allocation to private equity." …

Which means more businesses that are in trouble will just go belly up. There won’t be anymore Bain Capitals to rescue them.

Thank goodness!

In fact, current returns are at their worst level since at least 1990, when the California Public Employees’ Retirement System first started tracking the data.

Private equity funds raised in 2006 have returned just 4.2% to investors, according to the pension fund’s website. Funds raised in prior years generated double digit returns…

Meanwhile, the same firms are struggling to find companies to take private that could generate returns. The industry is sitting on roughly $400 billion of cash globally. Private equity managers haven’t found the right companies to put this so-called dry powder in.

All but the best performing firms are expected to shrink, as investors put a smaller amount of their portfolio into private equity firms.

Firms that have raised between $1 billion and $5 billion with so-so performance will have the most trouble raising new funds…

Well, to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, ‘we will always have fairness.’

Buried in the ‘Federal Eye’ section of the Washington Post:

Federal employees owe $1.03 billion in unpaid taxes

By Ed O’Keefe
01/23/2012

Congressional staffers owed about $10.6 million in unpaid taxes in 2010, a slight increase from the previous year and a growing slice of the roughly $1 billion owed by federal and postal workers nationwide.

The figures come as Republican efforts to pass legislation allowing federal agencies to fire tax delinquent federal employees have slowed and as the White House continues to crack down on improper payments made by agencies to delinquent government contractors and federal beneficiaries.

About 98,000 federal, postal and congressional employees owed $1.03 billion in unpaid taxes at the end of fiscal 2010, according to records provided by the Internal Revenue Service. The total number of delinquent employees dipped slightly from 2009, but the amount owed jumped by $32 million.

But you can bet their union dues are paid up. By the way, the number of delinquent employees is probably only down because there are a lot fewer Post Office worker since 2009.

The figures are “totally unacceptable and disrespectful to hardworking American taxpayers,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). “If you’re on the federal payroll, the very least you can do is pay your taxes.”

Chaffetz and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) have authored bills that would force federal agencies, the U.S. Postal Service and congressional offices to fire employees who purposely avoid paying taxes. Exceptions would be made for employees suffering from family turmoil or working to correct significant financial hardship…

This bill, if enacted, will just be window dressing, since intention is very hard to prove. And since almost anyone can prove family turmoil and financial hardship if they have to.

[O]n Capitol Hill, 684 employees, or almost 4 percent, of the 18,000 congressional staffers owed taxes in 2010 – a jump of 46 workers from 2009. Four percent of House staffers owed $8.5 million and 3 percent of Senate employees owed $2.1 million, the IRS said.

At the Executive Office of the President – encompassing 1,800 employees of the West Wing, the Office of Management and Budget, the National Security Council and the Office of U.S. Trade Representative, among others – 36 staffers, or 2 percent, owed a $833,970. The amount owed increased by almost $3,000 from the previous year.

Civilian employees of the Defense Department — the federal government’s largest employer — fared the worst. More than 25,600 workers at the departments of the Army, Air Force and Navy owed a combined $225.7 million, while another 4,600 civilian Pentagon employees owed $39.4 million.

Among uniformed military personnel, 2 percent of active-duty troops and 2 percent of reservists owed a combined $339 million. Three percent of the nation’s 2.1 million retired military personnel owed $1.6 billion, according to IRS records.

Delinquency rates topped 3.8 percent at the Department of Education, where 176 workers owed $4.2 million, and at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where 391 staffers owed $5 million.

At the U.S. Postal Service, 25,640 employees, or 4 percent of the 667,000-strong workforce, owed $269.6 million. Figures for USPS dipped from 2009, likely due in part to ongoing staff reductions.

That would be the only explanation, apparently.

More than 2,000 employees, or 3 percent, of the Social Security Administration owe $20.1 million in unpaid taxes. Five staffers at the U.S. Tax Court owed a combined $62,508 and another five at the Office of Government Ethics owed $22,160.

Fewer than 1 percent of Treasury Department employees, including the IRS, owed $9.3 million, the agency said.

Still, that especially galling?

Just under 2 percent of the 1.8 million federal retirees tracked by the IRS owed $470 million at the end of fiscal 2010…

Meanwhile, the rest of us keep being pestered because we don’t pay our ‘fair share.’

By the way, the persuasive argument could be made that federal government employees already pay nothing in taxes, since they are paid out of the US Treasury. So what they return to the government does not actually enrich the treasury in any way. Which is the purpose of taxes.

Meanwhile, just like in 2009, all federal workers are going to be given another raise, despite Obama’s earlier solemn promise to freeze their salaries.