President Obama spent more than $85 billion bailing out General Motors and Chrysler three years ago. Now he claims credit for saving the industry, noting GM’s recent return to the top sales spot among automakers worldwide, Ford’s record profits (albeit achieved without federal funds), and the recent revival of Chrysler, (though Italy’s Fiat owns it). Regardless whether you supported or opposed the government bailouts, the reality is the Big Three’s assembly lines are humming again. Too bad Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is preparing yet another killer hike in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, only this time instead of merely inflicting massive costs on the industry and consumers, the coming regulation could very well demolish the Big Three for good.
Here’s why: The CAFE rule is the fleet-wide average fuel economy rating manufacturers are required by Washington to achieve. The new rule — issued in response to a 2010 Obama directive, not to specific legislation passed by Congress — would require automakers to achieve a 40.9 mpg CAFE average by 2021 and 54.5 mpg by 2025. In case you’re wondering whatever happened to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, it has been supplanted in the CAFE process by the EPA. The proposed regulation was designed, according to the EPA, “to preserve consumer choice — that is, the proposed standards should not affect consumers’ opportunity to purchase the size of vehicle with the performance, utility and safety features that meets their needs.” But the reality is that consumer choice will be the first victim.
Getting from the current 35 mpg CAFE standard to 54.5 can be achieved by such expedients as making air conditioning systems work more efficiently. We have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to anybody who thinks that’s even remotely realistic. There is one primary method of increasing fuel economy — weight reduction. That in turn means automakers will have to use much more exotic materials, including especially the petroleum-processing byproduct known as “plastic.” But using more plastic will make it much more difficult to satisfy current federal safety standards. The bottom-line will be much more expensive vehicles and dramatically fewer kinds of vehicles.
Finish reading HERE.
###
Barack Obama: the Second Lady of the United States Very disturbing pictures at this site!
Just before Christmas, American workers got a rare gift from Washington politicians – the current payroll tax cut would be extended for two more months.
At the time, both President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner lauded the move to avoid a tax increase for millions of working Americans.
But there’s something the politicians weren’t bragging about – the fact that they’re paying for the two-month tax cut with what has turned into a brand new fee on home buyers.
The new fee is a minimum of one-tenth of 1 percent on Fannie Mae- and Freddie Mac-backed loans, and is likely to go much higher.
It will be imposed for the next 10 years on most mortgages and refinancings and it lasts for the life of the loan.
For every $200,000, it amounts to an extra $15 dollars a month.
It’s bad news for Patty Anderson, who’s buying a home in Virginia.
Anderson will save a couple hundred dollars from having her payroll tax cut extended but her mortgage broker told her the new fee would cost her almost $9,500.
“I was absolutely startled that it would add up to that much,” she said.
The $35.7 billion collected in fees won’t go into the Social Security fund to replace the lost payroll tax. It goes to the general treasury where Congress can spend it however they please.
Bill Burnett, Anderson’s broker and president of the Virginia Association of Mortgage Brokers, said you won’t see Congress’ new charge in the paperwork, but it’s there.
“It’s actually built into this [interest] rate. You would never see the fee as a cost to you,” he said.
Burnett said the fee will affect a “very large number” of homeowners.
“Your pocketbook is being raided in order to pay for a tax policy issue decided at the last minute by probably people who didn’t understand fully what they were legislating on.”
CBS News went to Capitol Hill ask what Congress was thinking when they passed the mortgage fee hike. Boehner pointed the finger at the Senate.
“As you’re well aware, this bill came over from the Senate. I don’t know how they justified it. We would rather have offset that two-month extension with reductions in spending,” he said.
But the Senate blamed the House. And Democrats and Republicans blamed each other.
One congressman, Florida Republican Allen West, said he tried to blow the whistle on the whole thing before Christmas.
Read it all HERE.
###
(NewsOK) — White House Press Secretary Jay Carney explained that the number of people dropping out of the work force, which artificially depresses the unemployment rate, can be regarded as an “economic positive.”
“A lot of that is due to younger people getting more of an education, which is an economic positive,” Carney said. He had been asked what would happen when people “inevitably” raise the unemployment rating with their return to the work force.
He also noted that “an aging population” going into retirement has contributed to the number of people dropping out of the work force.
Carney suggested that the focus on the number of people dropping out of the work force is politically motivated.
(does this guy have a freaking brain? or is he highly paid to spout what obama says to spout off?)
###
###
“Our Founders designed a system that makes it more difficult to bring about change than I would like sometimes.”
(see how this guy works? he is doing all he can to destroy our constitution and our country)
###
JERUSALEM — The rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas have agreed that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will head a joint government that will prepare for new elections, ending a prolonged stalemate over how to mend their bitter split.
The deal announced Monday removed a major stumbling block to implementing a reconciliation accord signed last year. The deal was reached during talks between Abbas and Khaled Meshal, the exiled political leader of Hamas, brokered in Doha, Qatar by Emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.
In a statement, both sides said Abbas would lead an interim government “of independent technocrats … whose task will be to facilitate presidential and parliamentary elections and begin the reconstruction of Gaza.”
Fatah and Hamas had been deadlocked for months over who would be prime minister for the interim government. Hamas rejected Salam Fayyad, the Western-backed prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, on the grounds that he had led a crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank.
Having Abbas at the helm of the joint government, holding the title of prime minister as well as president, means the Palestinians stand a good chance of preserving the Western financial aid and other support that the Fatah-governed Palestinian Authority currently receives.
(wait, hamas is a designated terror group. they can not get money from us. but i doubt that this will stop obama and the other islamics in his regime. now our tax dollars will again go to terrorists!)
###
Obama campaign releases new Web ad trumpeting “jobs growth”
Niall Ferguson Deconstructs Arguments Made For Not Attacking Iran
Vote for the Sexiest Bikini