Month: March 2010

Bloomberg: USA loses AAA rating

Posted by Chief Blogger – 23 March, 2010

Well not officially at least, but in practice:

The bond market is saying that it’s safer to lend to Warren Buffett than Barack Obama.

Two-year notes sold by the billionaire’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in February yield 3.5 basis points less than Treasuries of similar maturity, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Procter & Gamble Co., Johnson & Johnson and Lowe’s Cos. debt also traded at lower yields in recent weeks, a situation former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. chief fixed-income strategist Jack Malvey calls an “exceedingly rare” event in the history of the bond market.

What does this event say about Barnaby Joyce’s warning on the impact on the Australian economy from the US debt implosion, and the main stream media and ALP clowns that shouted him down? They got it wrong badly!

The great pretender

Posted by Chief Blogger – 20 March, 2010

Never a truer word spoken about Julia Gillard, a socialist wolf in sheep’s clothing:

When asked by ABC News Online whether she thought female voters would be in favour of a Gillard ascension to the top job, Ms (Bronwyn) Bishop replied: “I would see her being from the left wing of the Labor Party, truly a socialist who has taken to wearing pearls.”…

“I think Julia Gillard gets a lovely easy ride,” she said.

“Have you ever seen a tough interview with Julia Gillard? She’s been allowed to have a ‘can-do’ type of reputation without it really being challenged.”

Ms Bishop cites this week’s allegations of cost blowouts in the Building the Education Revolution (BER) program as evidence.

“If you started to interrogate her on the BER – this is a disaster, absolute disaster.”

I really fail to see the appeal of Julia Gillard to Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt, and other conservative commentators.  The BER programme is evidence of her ‘government knows best’ approach to taxpayers money. A $16 billion programme which is earning her union collegues and hence the ALP a nice little kick back:

UNIONS have exploited a loophole to have almost all schools stimulus upgrades in Victoria declared “major projects” in order to pocket site allowances estimated to total at least $80 million.

It seems the whole education building programme was set up from the very beginning with providing funding for the ALP’s re-election, via the CFMEU. I’ve blogged on a similar scam back in early 2009.

Taxpayer money – stimulus spending – construction project – shoddy legislated union fees paid from the project budget - ALP election funding

Gillard spinning it for Rudd

Posted by Chief Blogger – 18 March, 2010

Gillard does not really expect us to believe the following, does she?

JULIA Gillard has revealed she “chose” to be Kevin Rudd’s deputy, dismissing leadership speculation as a “grand distraction” as she confronts new questions over the Rudd government’s schools stimulus program.

Yeah right. Rudd is the family friendly face of what has become a radical and ugly ALP. Is Gillard saying that if she wanted to be leader she could?

Are you needed?

Posted by Chief Blogger – 17 March, 2010

US radio host Dennis Prager and what happens to the citizen when the state grows:

…the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. One can add: The bigger the government, the less significant the citizen — especially men….In order to feel significant, men not only need to have others depend on them, they also need to depend on themselves, on their own work and initiative. But that, too, is destroyed as the state gets bigger….As being needed and significant shifts from the individual to the state, the state increasingly determines who is needed and who has significance.

The ABC for instance, unions, obscure artists, writers and academics, etc… as if any of us are meant to care.

Welcome to comedy central

Posted by Chief Blogger – 16 March, 2010

Looks like the ABC is turning to Paul Keating to dent Tony Abbott. Apparently Rudd is not up to it. Want a good laugh? Then read on.

PAUL Keating today dismissed Tony Abbott as an “intellectual nobody” who he had regarded as the Coalition’s “resident nutter”…

I think this will back fire badly on the ALP. Keating is a greatly disliked figure, and it seems the ABC has turned to him to make the case against Abbott that Rudd seems unable to.

“(Malcolm) Turnbull had an articulated intelligent moderate thought-out conservative position. The fact is that Abbott does not have this.”

In other words, Abbott should just agree with the ALP and watch their election prospects dive. Under Turnbull the coalition had next to no chance of re-election. With Abbott they have a chance and by the virulent nature of Keating’s attack, the ALP and ABC recognise this and it scares them.

The evidence to support Barnaby keeps on rolling in – update

Posted by Chief Blogger – 16 March, 2010

Those unfamiliar with the background should go here first. Moody’s Investor Services has claimed that the US is moving ‘substantially’ closer to losing its AAA credit rating:

The governments of the two economies must balance bringing down their debt burdens without damaging growth by removing fiscal stimulus too quickly, Pierre Cailleteau, managing director of sovereign risk at Moody’s in London, said in a telephone interview.

Under the ratings company’s so-called baseline scenario, the U.S. will spend more on debt service as a percentage of revenue this year than any other top-rated country except the U.K., and will be the biggest spender from 2011 to 2013, Moody’s said today in a report.

“We expect the situation to further deteriorate in terms of the key ratings metrics before they start stabilizing,” Cailleteau said. “This story is not going to stop at the end of the year. There is inertia in the deterioration of credit metrics.”

Given the huge market expectation that the US could never ever lose its AAA rating, a downgrade could be almost as bad as defaulting on debt – at least in the short term.

US Republican Deputy Whip Peter Roskam, who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, recently noted the following:

How close are we to a default event that would without doubt drag down our bond rating?  Right now, we are approaching a point where our national debt is equal to our gross national product — the entire annual economic output of the United States.  A study by Brookings Institution researchers of 35 default events shows that 25 of them occurred when the defaulting country had a lower debt to GDP ratio than the United States has today.

UPDATE

The polls are stagnating, a bit

Posted by Chief Blogger – 16 March, 2010

Newspoll: Rudd is becoming less popular, but on 2PP the polls are stuck as 52-48 to the ALP. However the Coalition now leads on primary vote 41-39. The Greens are the key to the ALP 2PP lead. A change of tact to expouse the radical and freedom hating nature of the Greens is needed at this point.

Hilarious: Greens self-righteous anger

Posted by Chief Blogger – 16 March, 2010

It is with welcome relief that Tony Abbott has spoken out against Aboriginal welcome ceremonies. It is an infantile exclusionary paternalistic practice that should be done away with. Wilson Tuckey has also added his two cents:

Mr Abbott ignited debate on the issue when he accused Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his ministers of engaging in “tokenism” and unnecessary political correctness when they acknowledge traditional owners while speaking at functions.

“I certainly make these acknowledgements at what I think are suitable occasions. But to do it as a matter of course, to do it automatically – it does just look like formalism and tokenism,” he said.

Mr Tuckey went further, saying the acknowledgement of traditional owners was a “farce”.

“I have never thanked anyone for the right to be on the soil that is Australian,” he said.

Of course the Greens being freedom hating mongers are calling for any one that disagrees with the practice to resign.

But Liberal frontbencher Peter Dutton says Mr Tuckey has a right to speak his mind even if people disagree with the comments.

“I don’t have any issue with what Wilson said frankly or his right to say it.”

Go Cuba!

Posted by Chief Blogger – 16 March, 2010

The ABC is faithfully reporting a comment made by a GP to the PM: that Australia should follow Cuba’s lead on health care.

But the so-called picture opportunity didn’t quite go to plan, with Dr Jeannie Ellis, the GP in charge of the hospital’s emergency department, telling Mr Rudd to look to Cuba for a solution to Australia’s ailing health system.

“Maybe Australia should take a leaf out of the Cuban healthcare system’s book where they have something like $20,000 less per capita and they have exactly the same healthcare indicators as Australia,” she said.

“I’ve lived in Cuba for a long time and I can tell you that they run a very, very good healthcare system and they get a lot of bang for their buck over there.”

Yeah, that’s why so many risk life and limb to get out of the place.  Of the many horror stories that come out of Cuba, consider the following from Townhall journalist Humberto Fontova

Senor Marzo Fernandez, an economist who (until defecting in 1996) served as Secretary General of Castro’s Ministry of Nutrition, gets us started.

“The average height of Cubans has decreased by 8 centimeters in the past 25 years.” He reported on Miami television. “For the first time in Cuban history, thousands of Macrocepahlic children (abnormally large heads in proportion to their bodies) due to protein (primarily milk) deficiencies have been found in the eastern provinces.”

Fontova has documented the fall in many health indicators from the 1950s when Cuba was capitalist to the communist ‘paradise’ it is today. And training:

According to a report by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, more than 75% of “doctors” with Cuban “medical degrees” flunk the exam given by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates for licensing in the U.S. Most Cuba-certified doctors even flunk the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates’ exam for certification as “physician assistants,” making them unfit even as nurses.

Ironically, Rudd just announced another $600 million for doctor and nurse training.

US Republicans should do the world a favour

Posted by Chief Blogger – 12 March, 2010

I know it is not how it works in the US, but Republicans should just settle on Romney as the de facto opposition leader. From Politico:

Mitt Romney is the early favorite for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination among the party’s voters in Colorado and Florida. Romney also led recent polls in New Mexico and Texas, and was second behind Mike Huckabee in both Georgia and North Carolina. Sarah Palin has not had the lead in any of the six states we’ve polled over the last month.

Sarah Palin is Obama for Republicans.