Economy

Scary Charts

I don’t often write about stocks or the economy.. it’s just too difficult to know anything with any certainty anymore. We’ve been kicking this can down the road far longer than I thought would be possible at this point but a quick look around the world and you are seeing the wheels start to come off. Here are a few scary charts that when combined with the news coming out of Europe and Japan spell trouble.

Surely it's Time for Something Better: Ron Paul

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A few quotes come to mind when I think about what Ron Paul and the Tea Party ideals represent.  Churchill said: “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”  It seems the media is once again attempting to pick the Republican candidate much as they did last time around with McCain. The media is trying to focus attention exclusively on Perry and Romney… which reminds me a lot of the bit from Futurama where the two clones John Jackson and Jack Johnson were vying for the presidency. Both of these guys represent the old guard of the republican party.. much as McCain did in 08.  This is not 08 though.. this time the stakes are much, much higher and I for one think it’s time to stop settling for the lesser two evils.. it’s time for something better.

Spend Spend Spend Spend Spend

![](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4069/4564270555_aa6e489033.jpg =320x) For every 1 billion the federal government spends we (90 million who actually pay federal taxes) will get a bill for $11.11. That’s pretty easy math.. so for instance the additional 57 billion of new ‘stimulus’ last week cost us about $633 each. How much did you earn last week? If they were honest about what they were doing they would send out invoices to all taxpayers every month to cover the new ‘stimulus’.

A Streetcar Named Bankruptcy

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So our illustrious Charlotte city council last night voted to take 25 million of federal money to start a new uptown street car boondoggle.. er I mean transit system.  To avoid confusion with the multitude of pet rail projects around here they decided to end service on the uptown trolley that has been in operation for the last two years.. and which we spent a whopping 40-60 million to create and operate.  The real numbers there are a little hard to come by but we know it was at least 40.. and 60 is more likely.  This “free” federal money for the new street car will be paired with at least 12 million of local money that is going to come not from the 1/2 cent transit sales tax.. but from the general fund.. aka property tax which they promised never to do by the way.

It's a Gusher!

![](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4072/4627621919_088809c7e3.jpg =320x) It strikes me that this oil spill makes a pretty good metaphor for many things wrong right now. Lets see.. we have the treasury gushing new paper money… congress gushing deficit spending… Fannie May and Freddie Mac continuing to gush bad mortgages.. the border gushing with illegal aliens and wanted terrorists.. Europe is gushing bad sovereign debt and socialist anger.. and of course the literal gusher of the oil which the regime administration has done very little to mitigate.

Charlotte Giving Raises While Rome Burns

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Ok.. so maybe Charlotte isn’t Rome.. and while it’s not exactly burning it’s certainly not good out there.  Locally we still have a 12% unemployment rate and according to Civitas NC state government has grown over 12% while private employment has contracted by 1.6% between 01 and 09. Ouch. Tara talked about this during drive time today.. and there was a lot of anger coming her way by people who work for the city. It seems some city employees think they are entitled to yearly raises regardless of what’s going on in the real world and how dare we lowly citizens question that.

Top 10 Positive Things About The Greek Bailout

Free grecian formula for all Doing it ‘Greek Style’ now involves rioting First step in destroying the EU and the Euro Vacationing in Europe suddenly affordable Productivity of striking Greek workers not much different than usual Irony of the current biggest failing state bailing out the former seat of the Roman empire lost on most Turns the IMF into a leg breaking loan shark scapegoat Gap between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ getting smaller Giving investors who missed the rally another chance to buy at low prices Money given to Europe can be given back when the US needs bailed out in a few years.

Spill Impact Measured in Trillions?

Reading more about the spill over the weekend.. the situation looks much worse than it did on friday. The visible surface area of the spill has grown much faster over the last few days than it should have if it were leaking at the rate of 5k barrels a day.  The fear is that the piping will totally open up and release on the order of 165 – 250k barrels a day making it a bigger spill than the Valdez in as little as a couple days.  Worse.. there is a pretty good chance  at this point that the oil is going to migrate east and get caught up in the [gulf stream][2] which will carry it around to the east coast of Florida and potentially as far as NC affecting roughly half the east coast.