Life in "Progress" Country - Greece edition

Don't look now but here is our future............

Greece is fast running out of cash while it awaits the next tranche of its 130-billion euro ($165.16 billion) international bailout that is keeping it afloat, a deputy finance minister said on Friday. 

"The situation with the state's cash reserves is borderline," Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras told a conference. 

"This fact creates a condition of asphyxiation in the economy." Athens is considering rolling over 5 billion euros in treasury bills when they mature next week due to a likely delay in receiving the 31.5 billion euro tranche, finance ministry officials told Reuters earlier on Friday.

Who bails out the bailoutor............

More.......

Life in Obamaworld

What do you think the vote count was for the attendees to this job fair?

Conservatism..... an attempt to save liberals from themselves

How's the job market looking right now?

Consider this............

• Energizer, which is restructuring its company, and as a result, announced it expects to lose about 1,500 jobs.
• Boeing, who expects to shrink their executive staff by roughly 30% at the Boeing Defense, Space & Security unit.
• US Cellular, who is moving manufacturing plants out of Chicago, and as a result will cut roughly 640 jobs in the area. Overall, the company estimates it will cut 980 jobs, about 12% of its workforce.
• Power tool giant Husqvarna, who is cutting around 600 jobs, a move that they expect will save them roughly $33 million per year.
• Darden Restaurants, which owns popular chains like the Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Longhorn Steakhouse. They are expected to cut back the hours their employees work to 28 hours per week. The Obamacare law defines full time employees as working 30 hours a week. The law requires full time employees to have employe-provided healthcare, or the company must pay a fine.
• Murray energy corp will layoff more than 120 employees to avoid expenses due to Obama regulations and taxes
• Welch Allen will layoff 275 employees (10% of their workforce) as a “pro-active response” to taxes in Obamacare
• Dana Holding Group – auto parts manufacturer will make numerous cuts in response to $24 million in costs due to Obamacare
• Stryker will be eliminating 5% of its workforce (1,170 jobs) due to additional taxes in Obamacare
• Boston Scientific will be dropping between 1,200 and 1,400 jobs and shifting operations to China to avoid Obamacare taxes
• Smith & Nephew will drop 770 jobs
• U.S. Cellular will eliminate 980 jobs
• UtahAmerican Energy will cut a huge number of jobs as “204 American coal-fired plants” are shut down by 2014 – basically maiming the coal-mining industry
• Lockheed Martin is expected to notify 123,000 employees of coming layoffs
• Consol Energy to layoff 145 employees
• much, much more coming…

Read the rest...........

Local Businessman Blames Obama Administration for Coal Layoffs

Life in "Progress" State - California edition

They called it Paradise.
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun
Sinking in the sea

Democrats gained a two-thirds majority in the California Senate following Tuesday’s election, bringing them close to the ability to pass tax increases without the need for Republican votes.

However, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown quickly cautioned that he already has pledged to take any further tax hikes to voters, as he did with the temporary tax increases that voters approved on Tuesday. And Democrat leaders in both the Senate and Assembly downplayed the idea that they would seek to further ratchet up tax rates.

It is the first time since 1965 that Democrats controlled a Senate supermajority, and the only time since California voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978, raising the legislative vote threshold to pass tax increases to two-thirds.

Another wager? How about what the unemployment rate in California will be duiring the next presidential election.

I'll take higher.

Wager

Anyone want to make a bet on the unemployment rate the day of the presidential election.

I'm willing to bet $100 the rate will be higher than it is today.

Who wants to take the other side?

The United States of Greece

Today will be all the post mortems on how Romney lost this race.

Frankly, I don't believe that there was ever anything that Romney could have done.

If anything, when he made his 47% comment, he was wrong. We have now reached the critical mass of 50% of this country who are in the wagon while the rest pull.

Consider........

How do you persuade a perfectly healthy, educated woman who believes that it's OK for others..... no..... it's her right for others to pay for her birth control?

That there are populations of people who believe that their cell phones are simply manna from Obama without cost to anyone and "that he's going to do more".

How do you get through to a population of people when media outlets won't even cover the planned assassination of a US ambassador and subsequent cover up by the administration?

How do you convince working collar types that excessive regulation hurts middle class job opportunities?

I was kind of surprised with my own emotions when I saw Ohio go down last night. Frankly, I was indifferent. I'm 50 years old. The Gekko's have no children. We've got plenty of savings and job opportunities. I'm old enough that I'll probably be able to get a social security check or two. We're going to do fine.

When gas prices spike, we'll just fill up as we always do. Just like we'll absorb tax increases and utility cost spikes. When groceries spike, we'll just grin and bear it. The Obamunists will never hurt me.

But when we want new carpeting or funiture in our home, we'll squeeze out another year or two on what we already have. We'll hold off another car purchase until our existing cars start following apart. Our vacations will be less luxurious. And who gets hurt when all those John Galts start tigthening their belt? Hint....... it's not rich people.

But as I've said repeatedly from the time I started this blog, I'm not a conservative for me. I'm a conservative for those who don't have the opportunities I have. In many respects, I'm a conservative because I'm trying to save liberals from themselves. Kind of like trying to protect your kids from their own stupid decisions.

Finally, I'm also a conservative because I don't want our country to look like Greece. We already have Greece. The world doesn't need another.

Unfortunately, our country has reached the point where too many people get too much free stuff to turn it around now. Now we can all just watch the clock for the coming implosion.

Romney...........the smart choice

Last week, I drove through my old neighborhood of Madisonville.

If you are not familiar with Cincinnati geography, Madisonville is a fairly shitty area of town. It was not unusual for me to go to my local convenient store and see a sign that would read "Closed, due to neighborhood unrest".

Needless to say, that area was peppered with Obama/Biden signs.

On my drive back to my palatial office in Loveland, I drove through Indian Hill. Now Indian Hill is probably the wealthiest area of Cincinnati. In this neighborhood, 90 percent of the signs were pro Romney.

Now it's easy to entertain the idea that rich people vote republican to protect their wealth from taxes. But consider that, because they've made the right decisions in life, they're rich and voting republican is just one of those good decisions.

Think about it.

How many rich people do you know with tattoos up their neck?
How many rich people didn't finish high school, college, etc.?
How many rich people have children out of wedlock?
How much money do rich people devote to booze, drugs, lottery tickets, cigarettes?
How many rich people, when they make a mistake, repeat that same mistake 2,3,4 or 5 times?

I went through the roster of the Gekko family. The Lovely Mrs. Gekko is one of 10 kids. I am one of five.

Along with spouses and significant others we have 25 workers.

During all this economic turn down, we have had three people hit the unemployment line. None for a prolonged period of time. Two of them were from reorganizations. One was employed during the Nevada real estate crash.

What makes this group special.

Nothing.

We all just did what we were told to do in life. We went to school. We didn't commit crime. We didn't knock up a bunch of honeys we couldn't afford. Only one has more than one tattoo (she's a democrat as well). I don't think we have a drug addict and/or alcoholic in the bunch.

In other words, we make good decisions.

And Romney will probably take this group of 25 by a 20-5 rout.

Keep in mind, that none of these people are rich. Lord knows that I'm not. We weren't born into wealth either. But what most of us realize is what works and what doesn't. And it's clear that democratic policies don't work and this group won't be supporting them.

Rarely in a group do I consider myself the smartest person in the room. But I make up for that by watching what smart people do and emulating it.

So if you want your country to look like Madisonville, feel free to vote for the candidate of dumb asses. If you want something different, you'll do what I did, move away from the dumb asses and vote for the smart choice.