GOVERNMENT DESTRUCTION OF THE DOLLAR AND CRAZY POLICIES FOR OIL EXPLORATION CAUSE HIGHER PRICES FOR EVERYTHING!!!!


First came higher food prices, thanks to heat in Russia and floods in China and Australia. Then came soaring gas prices as a result of the crisis in Libya. Now, imported consumer goods -- including almost everything from Brazilian orange juice to imported Toyota automobiles -- are going to be joining the upward price trend.

An additional factor is that OIL is literally present or a component of many daily use items we may not realize: lipstick, fabrics, plastics, lip balm, asphalt, tires, and countless daily use items...and oil has climbed thanks to our helpless and agenda driven POTUS.

The culprit is the U.S. dollar, which has fallen 5% in the last year. The inflation-adjusted, trade-weighted dollar, which is a measure of the greenback against the currencies of nations we trade with, now stands at its lowest level since the Federal Reserve began keeping records in January 1973.

As the dollar's value falls, the prices of imported goods grow. The falling trade-weighted dollar is closely correlated with higher import prices, explains Carl J. Riccadonna, senior U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank.

"The weakening dollar is driving up import prices and that is translating through to higher consumer inflation," Riccadonna says. "We're seeing it not only in imported goods, but in domestically produced goods that also contain foreign inputs."

Inflation Trickles Downstream

In other words, it's not just finished goods, like Audis and Volkswagens, that are rising in price as a result of the weak dollar. Imported components, such as automobile transmissions and computer chips, also are becoming more expensive. And that means that all the products that use those components, whether they're made in the U.S. or not, also will see their costs rise in turn.

"Those price pressures in the earlier stages are eventually going to be passed along down the line to consumers," Riccadonna says.
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Overall, import prices rose 1.4% in February, the fifth straight month of increases over 1%. Deutsche Bank expects the core producer price index, a measure of wholesale inflation, to rise to 3% by year's end, with consumer prices up more than 2.1%. That's double the current inflation rate.

The expected increase may seem to add insult to injury, considering that imported petroleum prices already have grown 20.6% over the last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While energy is excluded from the measure of inflation known as the core consumer price index, the higher fuel and transportation costs also end up increasing costs throughout the supply chain -- and leading to higher consumer prices as well.

Domestic Prices Likely to Rise Too

Can consumers avoid this inflation by simply buying products entirely made in the U.S.? Probably not. If you think you'll just give up French cheese and buy Californian instead, for example, consider this: When domestic manufacturers see competitors' products rise in price because of the weakening dollar, they tend to raise their prices, too.

"If Toyota's prices are going up because of an exchange-rate move, then Ford has a little more leeway on a domestically produced vehicle," Riccadonna says. "What this means is inflation is absolutely going to trend higher over the course of the year."

Logic -- and the rule of supply and demand -- would suggest that as import prices go up, American consumers would buy fewer of them. But that's not what's happening. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the country imported $166 billion worth of goods in January 2011, compared with $136 billion in January 2010.

Why? While imports are becoming more expensive as the dollar weakens, the U.S. economy is also on the mend. Both consumer spending and business spending is picking up, which has raised the demand for imports, even at higher prices.

Riccadonna says a more important metric than the dollar's value is disposable income. Incomes have been rising for the past year, and that has kept consumers' purchases up despite the higher prices for oil and food. If incomes were not increasing, the economy might have ground to a halt, he says, instead of merely experiencing inflation.

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/hEQpgp

LIARS, FOOLS, MORONS, "CRYBABY" BOEHNER, DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS... WE HAVE BEEN SOLD OUT BY ALL OUR LEGISLATORS AGAIN!!!




Can you believe it, after sending as clear a message as possible in the last election cycle that we the people, the taxpaying people, want to CUT SPENDING ( emphasis added!), our soft bellied congress again has found it impossible to cut any meaningful amount from the budget!

To put things into a layman's perspective, let's translate the budget into a consumer perspective for comparison.

The current Federal debt would be $14,500, the deficit this year of $1,650 would be added to that debt. But our congressional leadership is proposing that in order to reduce these numbers, they suggest that today we do without a $2.75 bagel!!!!!!

That is the equivalent of what they are proposing to cut!!!!

The country is about to go the way of the Weimar Republic...when their currency devalued so quickly, savings were wiped out and people needed wheelbarrows of money to buy a loaf of bread!

This irresponsible spending is something that can be stopped by the HOUSE..yet they are not doing the will of the people who elected them to the majority to accomplish just that!

John "crybababy" Boehner, the House Speaker should be ashamed of himself to propose this reduction of a single "bagel" in spending.

There is simply no need to have spending at these levels, bring it all back to the 2006 levels, and shut down the government!!!!!

The shutdown does not mean anything as all essential services will continue to be funded!

We will find out how we can do without the Federal government paper pushers!

In the next election let's elect a definite Republican majority in both houses of congress and VOTE OUT any of the present Republicans who refuse to vote against meaningful spending cuts!

“It was horrible. Horrible! Like lightning it struck. No one was prepared. The shelves in the grocery stores were empty.You could buy nothing with your paper money.

– Harvard University law professor Friedrich Kessler on on the Weimar Republic hyperinflation (1993 interview)

Some worried commentators are predicting a massive hyperinflation of the sort suffered by Weimar Germany in 1923, when a wheelbarrow full of paper money could barely buy a loaf of bread. An April 29 editorial in the San Francisco Examiner warned:

“With an unprecedented deficit that’s approaching $2 trillion, [the President’s 2010] budget proposal is a surefire prescription for hyperinflation. So every senator and representative who votes for this monster $3.6 trillion budget will be endorsing a spending spree that could very well turn America into the next Weimar Republic.”1

In an investment newsletter called Money Morning on April 9, Martin Hutchinson pointed to disturbing parallels between current government monetary policy and Weimar Germany’s, when 50% of government spending was being funded by seigniorage – merely printing money.2 However, there is something puzzling in his data. He indicates that the British government is already funding more of its budget by seigniorage than Weimar Germany did at the height of its massive hyperinflation; yet the pound is still holding its own, under circumstances said to have caused the complete destruction of the German mark. Something else must have been responsible for the mark’s collapse besides mere money-printing to meet the government’s budget, but what? And are we threatened by the same risk today? Let’s take a closer look at the data.

History Repeats Itself – or Does It?

In his well-researched article, Hutchinson notes that Weimar Germany had been suffering from inflation ever since World War I; but it was in the two year period between 1921 and 1923 that the true “Weimar hyperinflation” occurred. By the time it had ended in November 1923, the mark was worth only one-trillionth of what it had been worth back in 1914. Hutchinson goes on:

“The current policy mix reflects those of Germany during the period between 1919 and 1923. The Weimar government was unwilling to raise taxes to fund post-war reconstruction and war-reparations payments, and so it ran large budget deficits. It kept interest rates far below inflation, expanding money supply rapidly and raising 50% of government spending through seigniorage (printing money and living off the profits from issuing it). . . .

“The really chilling parallel is that the United States, Britain and Japan have now taken to funding their budget deficits through seigniorage. In the United States, the Fed is buying $300 billion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds (T-bonds) over a six-month period, a rate of $600 billion per annum, 15% of federal spending of $4 trillion. In Britain, the Bank of England (BOE) is buying 75 billion pounds of gilts [the British equivalent of U.S. Treasury bonds] over three months. That’s 300 billion pounds per annum, 65% of British government spending of 454 billion pounds. Thus, while the United States is approaching Weimar German policy (50% of spending) quite rapidly, Britain has already overtaken it!”

And that is where the data gets confusing. If Britain is already meeting a larger percentage of its budget deficit by seigniorage than Germany did at the height of its hyperinflation, why is the pound now worth about as much on foreign exchange markets as it was nine years ago, under circumstances said to have driven the mark to a trillionth of its former value in the same period, and most of this in only two years? Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar has actually gotten stronger relative to other currencies since the policy was begun last year of massive “quantitative easing” (today’s euphemism for seigniorage).3 Central banks rather than governments are now doing the printing, but the effect on the money supply should be the same as in the government money-printing schemes of old. The government debt bought by the central banks is never actually paid off but is just rolled over from year to year; and once the new money is in the money supply, it stays there, diluting the value of the currency. So why haven’t our currencies already collapsed to a trillionth of their former value, as happened in Weimar Germany? Indeed, if it were a simple question of supply and demand, a government would have to print a trillion times its earlier money supply to drop its currency by a factor of a trillion; and even the German government isn’t charged with having done that. Something else must have been going on in the Weimar Republic, but what?

Schacht Lets the Cat Out of the Bag

Light is thrown on this mystery by the later writings of Hjalmar Schacht, the currency commissioner for the Weimar Republic. The facts are explored at length in The Lost Science of Money by Stephen Zarlenga, who writes that in Schacht’s 1967 book The Magic of Money, he “let the cat out of the bag, writing in German, with some truly remarkable admissions that shatter the ‘accepted wisdom’ the financial community has promulgated on the German hyperinflation.” What actually drove the wartime inflation into hyperinflation, said Schacht, was speculation by foreign investors, who would bet on the mark’s decreasing value by selling it short.

Short selling is a technique used by investors to try to profit from an asset’s falling price. It involves borrowing the asset and selling it, with the understanding that the asset must later be bought back and returned to the original owner. The speculator is gambling that the price will have dropped in the meantime and he can pocket the difference. Short selling of the German mark was made possible because private banks made massive amounts of currency available for borrowing, marks that were created on demand and lent to investors, returning a profitable interest to the banks.

At first, the speculation was fed by the Reichsbank (the German central bank), which had recently been privatized. But when the Reichsbank could no longer keep up with the voracious demand for marks, other private banks were allowed to create them out of nothing and lend them at interest as well.4

A Story with an Ironic Twist

If Schacht is to be believed, not only did the government not cause the hyperinflation but it was the government that got the situation under control. The Reichsbank was put under strict regulation, and prompt corrective measures were taken to eliminate foreign speculation by eliminating easy access to loans of bank-created money.

More interesting is a little-known sequel to this tale. What allowed Germany to get back on its feet in the 1930s was the very thing today’s commentators are blaming for bringing it down in the 1920s – money issued by seigniorage by the government. Economist Henry C. K. Liu calls this form of financing “sovereign credit.” He writes of Germany’s remarkable transformation:

“The Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, at a time when its economy was in total collapse, with ruinous war-reparation obligations and zero prospects for foreign investment or credit. Yet through an independent monetary policy of sovereign credit and a full-employment public-works program, the Third Reich was able to turn a bankrupt Germany, stripped of overseas colonies it could exploit, into the strongest economy in Europe within four years, even before armament spending began.”5

While Hitler clearly deserves the opprobrium heaped on him for his later atrocities, he was enormously popular with his own people, at least for a time. This was evidently because he rescued Germany from the throes of a worldwide depression – and he did it through a plan of public works paid for with currency generated by the government itself. Projects were first earmarked for funding, including flood control, repair of public buildings and private residences, and construction of new buildings, roads, bridges, canals, and port facilities. The projected cost of the various programs was fixed at one billion units of the national currency. One billion non-inflationary bills of exchange called Labor Treasury Certificates were then issued against this cost. Millions of people were put to work on these projects, and the workers were paid with the Treasury Certificates. The workers then spent the certificates on goods and services, creating more jobs for more people. These certificates were not actually debt-free but were issued as bonds, and the government paid interest on them to the bearers. But the certificates circulated as money and were renewable indefinitely, making them a de facto currency; and they avoided the need to borrow from international lenders or to pay off international debts.6 The Treasury Certificates did not trade on foreign currency markets, so they were beyond the reach of the currency speculators. They could not be sold short because there was no one to sell them to, so they retained their value.

Within two years, Germany’s unemployment problem had been solved and the country was back on its feet. It had a solid, stable currency, and no inflation, at a time when millions of people in the United States and other Western countries were still out of work and living on welfare. Germany even managed to restore foreign trade, although it was denied foreign credit and was faced with an economic boycott abroad. It did this by using a barter system: equipment and commodities were exchanged directly with other countries, circumventing the international banks. This system of direct exchange occurred without debt and without trade deficits. Although Germany’s economic experiment was short-lived, it left some lasting monuments to its success, including the famous Autobahn, the world’s first extensive superhighway.7

The Lessons of History: Not Always What They Seem

Germany’s scheme for escaping its crippling debt and reinvigorating a moribund economy was clever, but it was not actually original with the Germans. The notion that a government could fund itself by printing and delivering paper receipts for goods and services received was first devised by the American colonists. Benjamin Franklin credited the remarkable growth and abundance in the colonies, at a time when English workers were suffering the impoverished conditions of the Industrial Revolution, to the colonists’ unique system of government-issued money. In the nineteenth century, Senator Henry Clay called this the “American system,” distinguishing it from the “British system” of privately-issued paper banknotes. After the American Revolution, the American system was replaced in the U.S. with banker-created money; but government-issued money was revived during the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln funded his government with U.S. Notes or “Greenbacks” issued by the Treasury.

The dramatic difference in the results of Germany’s two money-printing experiments was a direct result of the uses to which the money was put. Price inflation results when “demand” (money) increases more than “supply” (goods and services), driving prices up; and in the experiment of the 1930s, new money was created for the purpose of funding productivity, so supply and demand increased together and prices remained stable. Hitler said, “For every mark issued, we required the equivalent of a mark’s worth of work done, or goods produced.” In the hyperinflationary disaster of 1923, on the other hand, money was printed merely to pay off speculators, causing demand to shoot up while supply remained fixed. The result was not just inflation but hyperinflation, since the speculation went wild, triggering rampant tulip-bubble-style mania and panic.

This was also true in Zimbabwe, a dramatic contemporary example of runaway inflation. The crisis dated back to 2001, when Zimbabwe defaulted on its loans and the IMF refused to make the usual accommodations, including refinancing and loan forgiveness. Apparently, the IMF’s intention was to punish the country for political policies of which it disapproved, including land reform measures that involved reclaiming the lands of wealthy landowners. Zimbabwe’s credit was ruined and it could not get loans elsewhere, so the government resorted to issuing its own national currency and using the money to buy U.S. dollars on the foreign-exchange market. These dollars were then used to pay the IMF and regain the country’s credit rating.8 According to a statement by the Zimbabwe central bank, the hyperinflation was caused by speculators who manipulated the foreign-exchange market, charging exorbitant rates for U.S. dollars, causing a drastic devaluation of the Zimbabwe currency.

The government’s real mistake, however, may have been in playing the IMF’s game at all. Rather than using its national currency to buy foreign fiat money to pay foreign lenders, it could have followed the lead of Abraham Lincoln and the American colonists and issued its own currency to pay for the production of goods and services for its own people. Inflation would then have been avoided, because supply would have kept up with demand; and the currency would have served the local economy rather than being siphoned off by speculators.

The Real Weimar Threat and How It Can Be Avoided

Is the United States, then, out of the hyperinflationary woods with its “quantitative easing” scheme? Maybe, maybe not. To the extent that the newly-created money will be used for real economic development and growth, funding by seigniorage is not likely to inflate prices, because supply and demand will rise together. Using quantitative easing to fund infrastructure and other productive projects, as in President Obama’s stimulus package, could invigorate the economy as promised, producing the sort of abundance reported by Benjamin Franklin in America’s flourishing early years.

There is, however, something else going on today that is disturbingly similar to what triggered the 1923 hyperinflation. As in Weimar Germany, money creation in the U.S. is now being undertaken by a privately-owned central bank, the Federal Reserve; and it is largely being done to settle speculative bets on the books of private banks, without producing anything of value to the economy. As gold investor James Sinclair warned nearly two years ago:

“[T]he real problem is a trembling $20 trillion mountain of over the counter credit and default derivatives. Think deeply about the Weimar Republic case study because every day it looks more and more like a repeat in cause and effect . . . .”9

The $12.9 billion in bailout funds funneled through AIG to pay Goldman Sachs for its highly speculative credit default swaps is just one egregious example.10 To the extent that the money generated by “quantitative easing” is being sucked into the black hole of paying off these speculative derivative bets, we could indeed be on the Weimar road and there is real cause for alarm. We have been led to believe that we must prop up a zombie Wall Street banking behemoth because without it we would have no credit system, but that is not true. There is another viable alternative, and it may prove to be our only viable alternative. Main Street can beat Wall Street at its own game by forming publicly-owned banks that issue the full faith and credit of the United States not for private speculative profit but as a public service, for the benefit of the United States and its people.

Remember, vote them all out in 2012 and vote for those who WILL cut spending by 25% or more instantly!

DUMBEST GOVERNOR IN THE NATION, PAT QUINN OF ILLINOIS RAISES TAXES AGAIN, CAUSES JOB LOSSES AS WELL-STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES



After two-months of fence-sitting, feckless and clueless Illinois Governor Pat Quinn today signed controversial legislation requiring Internet retailers like Amazon.com and Overstock.com to collect Illinois’ 6.25% sales tax if they have affiliate sellers in the state. House Bill 3659, the Mainstreet Fairness Bill, was passed by the state’s lame duck legislature in early January. Since then, the bill has been the subject of fierce lobbying by traditional bricks and mortar retailers, who supported it, and Illinois-based Internet-only businesses, who warned that if Quinn didn’t veto it some of them would flee the state. Had Quinn done nothing, the bill would have become law tomorrow without his signature.

Amazon has already said it will terminate its Illinois affiliates, just as it has said it will drop 10,000 California based “associates” if similar legislation pending in that state becomes law. Affiliates are paid a fee by Amazon and other retailers for sales brought in through advertisements and links on the affiliates’ web sites. In an escalating PR war, Wal-Mart, Sears, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble have all issued public invitations to Amazon’s spurned associates to join their affiliate marketing programs instead. Yesterday, the Alliance for Main Street Fairness, a bricks and mortar retailers organization, even announced a new web site to connect affiliates “about to get thrown under the bus” by online-only sellers with retailers who already collect sales taxes on line. Quinn’s office said today that the affiliate matchmaking service had been launched at his request.

In a statement, Scott Kluth, founder and CEO of Chicago-based CouponCabin.com called the Governor’s approval of the bill “deeply disappointing” and said he is “actively exploring” moving his seven year-old business to Indiana. Kluth, a long time resident of Chicago, had previously threatened such a move, telling Forbes, “I can see Indiana form the roof of our business.”

But Quinn, a Democrat, described the law as necessary to put the state’s “main street businesses” on “a level playing field” with online retailers and to protect main street jobs. In a statement issued by Quinn’s office, David Vite, president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association praised the law as a matter of “fairness for retailers, fairness for the economy but most importantly, fairness for taxpayers.”

Under a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, only sellers with a physical presence (“nexus” in taxspeak) in a state are required to collect that state’s sales taxes. Just shipping into a state by say, FedEx or UPS, isn’t enough to establish nexus. Consumers buying online still owe “use” (meaning sales) tax to their states, but few bother to pay. The Illinois Department of Revenue figures it loses between $153 million and $170 million in revenue a year from Internet sales on which taxes are due, but not collected.

The new Illinois law is modeled on one adopted by New York in 2008. While Amazon has been challenging (so far unsuccessfully) the constitutionality of that law in court, it has kept its New York affiliates and now collects New York sales tax on purchases shipped to the Empire State. (It also collects for shipments to its home state of Washington, as well as North Dakota, Kansas, and Kentucky.) After Rhode Island and North Carolina adopted copycat “Amazon” laws in 2009, Amazon ended its marketing deals with sites based in those states. It also jettisoned affiliates based in Colorado, which adopted a law requiring Internet sellers who don’t collect sales tax to report sales to the state. (A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Colorado law.) In addition to California, the states of Arizona, Connecticut, Hawaii, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Vermont are all now considering Amazon laws.

As Forbes suggested here, Amazon’s days of sales tax collection free selling may be numbered for another reason: Amazon’s growing network of warehouse and fulfillment centers. Last year, the Texas Comptroller sent Amazon a bill for $269 million for four years of back sales taxes, based on an Amazon warehouse there. Amazon insists the warehouse doesn’t give it nexus. But last Month, it told its Texas employees that it would close the warehouse, throwing 110 of them out of work.

Thursday 10 P.M. update: According to Amazon spokeswoman Mary Osako, the retailer has now sent an e-mail to its thousands of Illinois associates stating Quinn’s signing of the law “compels” it to terminate them. The message reads in part:

“We had opposed this new tax law because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It was supported by national retailing chains, most of which are based outside Illinois, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. We deeply regret that its enactment forces this action.

As a result of the new law, contracts with all Illinois affiliates of the Amazon Associates Program will be terminated and those Illinois residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned prior to April 15, 2011 will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.”

Amazon’s e-mail also invites the Illinois associates to apply for reinstatement should they relocate from the state.

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MAKING PUBLIC SCHOOLS A GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY HAS CREATED THE EXPECTED INCOMPETENCE AND DISMAL RESULTS; 82% SCHOOLS FALING IN USA



Public education is a dismal failure in America due to the entire system being run as a government monopoly.

Allowing government to run anything is a mistake as readers of this blog will already know. There is NOTHING that the government is in charge of that operated well or profitably! Do you remember that story some time ago when the government could not make money running a Nevada brothel after taking it over by the IRS, AND THEN HAD TO CLOSE IT DOWN AND GO OUT OF BUSINESS???

If they could not make money running a brothel, what can they possibly make a profit or or run successfully...answer...NOTHING...education is just the latest casualty of government mandated processes.

An estimated 82 percent of U.S. schools could be labeled as "failing" under the nation's No Child Left Behind Act this year, according to Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

The Department of Education estimates the number of schools not meeting targets will skyrocket from 37 to 82 percent in 2011 because states are toughening their standards to meet the requirements of the law. The schools will face sanctions ranging from offering tutoring to closing their doors.

"No Child Left Behind is broken and we need to fix it now," Duncan said. "This law has created a thousand ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed." he should know as he destroyed the Chicago school system.

Duncan delivered the news in remarks to a House education and work force committee hearing, in urging lawmakers to rewrite the Bush-era act. The law was established in 2002 and many education officials and experts argue it is overdue for changes.

President Barack Obama has highlighted reforming the act as a priority for his administration ( and when will this start????), and both Democrats and Republicans have agreed that it needs to be changed — though disagreements remain on how.

The current law sets annual student achievement targets designed with the goal of having all students proficient in math and reading by 2014, a standard now viewed as wildly unrealistic. hey is we wait long enough, we can all be retired anyway and then it will be irrelevant as to who failed what!

Duncan said the law has done well in shining a light on achievement gaps among minority and low-income students, as well as those who are still learning English or have disabilities. But he said the law is loose on goals and narrow on how schools get there when it should be the opposite.

"We should get out of the business of labeling schools as failures and create a new law that is fair and flexible, and focused on the schools and students most at risk," Duncan said.

The Department of Education said its estimate was based on four years of data and the assuming all schools would improve at the same rate as the top quartile.

"Even under these assumptions, 82 percent of America's schools could be labeled 'failing' and, over time, the required remedies for all of them are the same — which means we will really fail to serve the students in greatest need," Duncan said.

Have you ever heard this guy actually talk??? He is clearly a product of the public education system...a dummy.

VOLT AND LEAF; THE DUMBEST AUTO CONCEPT PUSHED BY THE ADMINISTRATION WITH NO DEMAND AND REALLY POWERED BY COAL PLANTS GENERATING ELECTICITY!!!!



Peruse Chevrolet's February sales release, and you'll notice one number that's blatantly missing: the number of Chevy Volts sold. The number – a very modest 281 – is available in the company's detailed data, but it certainly isn't something that GM wants to highlight, apparently. Keeping the number quiet is a bit understandable, since it's lower than the 321 that Chevy sold in January.

Nissan doesn't have anything to brag about here, either (and it didn't avoiding any mention of the Leaf sales in its press release). Why? Well, back in January, the company sold 87 Leafs. In February? Just 67. Where does that leave us? Well, here's the big scorecard for all sales of these vehicles thus far:

* Volt: 928
* Leaf: 173

Ouch. The big questions, of course, revolve around one word: "Why?" Is ramping up production and deliveries still a problem? Is demand weak? Are unscrupulous dealers to blame? When will sales start to climb? And what are these numbers doing to plug-in vehicle work at other automakers?

This a great example of a government mandate being pushed down consumers throats, a car that nobody wants since it is not useful to any normal consumer.

They go 40 miles, they are expensive, there are no places to plug them in, people realize that though the Volt does not emit carbon into the atmosphere, the coal that burned to generate the electricity to charge them does, and, plain and simple, nobody wants them. This is really simple. One only has to look a little bit further on the whole "green" concept to realize that it is a sham. You have all fallen into the trap.

Oh, last week CONSUMER REPORTS after testing the VOLT, concluded that if one drives it at a higher speed ( as most people do) it may get a lot less range since the batteries get used up faster!!!! So you may not make it to the local store to get milk, and then may need a tow back home!

HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS WASTED BY PUBLIC TELEVISION AND RADIO: EXECUTIVE PAY BIGGER THAN OBAMA'S..WASTE GALORE!!!




By JIM DEMINT

When presidents of government-funded broadcasting are making more than the president of the United States, it's time to get the government out of public broadcasting.

While executives at the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) are raking in massive salaries, the organizations are participating in an aggressive lobbying effort to prevent Congress from saving hundreds of millions of dollars each year by cutting their subsidies. The so-called commercial free public airwaves have been filled with pleas for taxpayer cash. The Association of Public Television Stations has hired lobbyists to fight the cuts. Hundreds of taxpayer-supported TV, radio and Web outlets have partnered with an advocacy campaign to facilitate emails and phone calls to Capitol Hill for the purpose of telling members of Congress, "Public broadcasting funding is too important to eliminate!"

PBS President Paula Kerger even recorded a personal television appeal that told viewers exactly how to contact members of Congress in order to "let your representative know how you feel about the elimination of funding for public broadcasting." But if PBS can pay Ms. Kerger $632,233 in annual compensation—as reported on the 990 tax forms all nonprofits are required to file—surely it can operate without tax dollars.

The executives at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which distributes the taxpayer money allocated for public broadcasting to other stations, are also generously compensated. According to CPB's 2009 tax forms, President and CEO Patricia de Stacy Harrison received $298,884 in reportable compensation and another $70,630 in other compensation from the organization and related organizations that year. That's practically a pittance compared to Kevin Klose, president emeritus of NPR, who received more than $1.2 million in compensation, according to the tax forms the nonprofit filed in 2009.

Today's media landscape is a thriving one with few barriers to entry and many competitors, unlike when CPB was created in 1967. In 2011, Americans have thousands of news, entertainment and educational programs to choose from that are available on countless television, radio and Web outlets.

Event hough media has become more and more accessable to Americans over the years, funding for CPB has grown considerably. In 2001, the federal government appropriated $340 million for CPB. Last year it got $420 million. As Congress considers ways to close the $1.6 trillion deficit, cutting funding for the CPB has even been proposed by President Obama's bipartisan deficit reduction commission. Instead, Mr. Obama wants to increase CPB's funding to $451 million in his latest budget.

Meanwhile, highly successful, brand-name public programs like Sesame Street make millions on their own. "Sesame Street," for example, made more than $211 million from toy and consumer product sales from 2003-2006. Sesame Workshop President and CEO Gary Knell received $956,513 in compensation in 2008. With earnings like that, Big Bird doesn't need the taxpayers to help him compete against the Nickleodeon cable channel's Dora the Explorer.

Taxpayer-subsidized broadcasting doesn't only make money from licensing and product sales. It also raises plenty of outside cash.

Last year, for example, the Open Society Foundation, backed by liberal financier George Soros, gave NPR $1.8 million to help support the latter's plan to hire an additional 100 reporters. When NPR receives million-dollar gifts from Mr. Soros, it is an insult to taxpayers when other organizations, such as MoveOn.org demand that Congress "save NPR and PBS" by guaranteeing "permanent funding and independence from partisan meddling," as the liberal interest group did last month. It was even more insulting when PBS posted a message on Twitter thanking MoveOn.org—the group that once labeled Gen. David Petraeus as "General Betray Us"—for the help.

The best way to stop the "partisan meddling" in public broadcasting that MoveOn.org complains about is by ending the taxpayers' obligation to pay for it. The politics will be out of public broadcasting as soon as the government gets out of the business of paying for it.

Public broadcasting can pay its presidents half-million and million dollar salaries. Its children's programs are making hundreds of millions in sales. Liberal financiers are willing to write million-dollar checks to help these organizations. There's no reason taxpayers need to subsidize them anymore.

Mr. DeMint, a Republican, is a senator from South Carolina.

Every program now on PBS can and would be picked up by privately owned networks. The programs would also probably make money, such a SESAME STREET for instance.

What waste, and this is a great example of a program that is totally not needed to be funded by taxpayer dollars!!!!

GOVERNMENT MANDATED "VOLT" CAR, IS REALLY A PIECE OF WORTHLESS JUNK??? AMISH CARRIAGE GETS YOU JUST AS FAR FOR LOT LESS MONEY!




Consumer Reports offered a harsh initial review of the Chevrolet Volt, questioning whether General Motors Co.'s flagship vehicle makes economic "sense."The extended-range plug-in electric vehicle is on the cover of the April issue — the influential magazine's annual survey of vehicles — but the GM vehicle comes in for criticism.

As with most things mandated by the government, is is really totally useless as a transport vehicle no matter how much incentives are provided to buyers.

"When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn't particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it's not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy," said David Champion, the senior director of Consumer Reports auto testing center at a meeting with reporters here. "This is going to be a tough sell to the average consumer."

The magazine said in its testing in Connecticut during a harsh winter, its Volt is getting 25 to 27 miles on electric power alone.

GM spokesman Greg Martin noted that it's been an extremely harsh winter — and as a Volt driver he said he's getting 29-33 miles on electric range. But he noted that in more moderate recent weather, the range jumped to 40 miles on electric range or higher.

Champion believes a hybrid, such as the Toyota Prius, may make more sense for some trips.

"If you drive about 70 miles, a Prius will actually get you more miles per gallon than the Volt does," Champion said.

But GM has noted that most Americans can avoid using gasoline for most regular commuting with the Volt, while its gasoline engine can allow the freedom to travel farther, if needed.

The magazine has put about 2,500 miles on its Volt. It paid $48,700, including a $5,000 markup by a Chevy dealer.

Champion noted the Volt is about twice as expensive as a Prius.

He was said the five hour time to recharge the Volt was "annoying" and was also critical of the power of the Volt heating system.

Dis we forget to mention the coal powered electricity suppliers that are criticized by our naive president? He also said that OIL is a fuel of the past...!!! Another "smart" statement by a clueless ideolog who does not understand that the entire world runs on OIL...literally everything we use, has a OIL component!

"You have seat heaters, which keep your body warm, but your feet get cold and your hands get cold," Champion said.

Consumer Reports will release a full road test of the Volt later this year and will update it.

Champion praised the heater on the all-electric Nissan Leaf - which Consumer Reports borrowed from the Japanese automaker -- but said it also got very short ranges in very cold weather.

On one commute, his range in a Leaf was at 43 miles when he turned onto an eight-mile stretch of highway, but it fell from 43 to 16 miles after eight miles at 70 mph.

"If it keeps on going down at this rate, will I get to work," Champion said.

Champion said in an interview he thinks the Volt "will sell the quantity that they want to sell to the people that really want it."

Despite his criticism of the Volt, Champion praised its acceleration and acknowledged that under certain driving cycles, consumers could mostly avoid using gasoline. The magazine noted the Volt is nicely equipped and has a "taut yet supple ride."

But he said there are a lot of trade-offs.

"They are going to live with the compromises the vehicle delivers," Champion said. "When you look at it from a purely logical point of view, it doesn't make an awful lot of sense."

Conclusion, do not be a dummy and buy a totally useless car ( if you can even afford it). Instead, buy an AMISH CARRIAGE for $995, it will probably last longer and get better mileage anyway.
 
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