Obama hopes for economic collapse

For some reason it seems to me that Obama is hoping for another economic collapse. I'll try to keep it simple enough so that democrats can even comprehend this. If I'm wrong no big deal, but if I'm right, God help us all because the housing bust won't be anything compared to this.
First, he has declined to approve the Keystone Pipeline due to his slavery to the environmentalist and his desire to keep them happy, and their money. This decision, is going to have a two fold impact. One, it will allow the job creation associated with it's construction to go by the wayside for at least another year. Two, the lack of new energy production will allow oil prices to continue to rise.
The next decision he has made that will contribute to our demise is the refusal to confront Iran and the trouble stirring in the middle east. The unstable atmosphere in the region has caused a direct effect of oil price increases and in turn, a hike in gas prices in the past month. This is just the start of things to come.
The future for oil prices is looking bleak for the United States and the American public. The economy will start to slow again when Gas prices start to inch up toward $4.00 dollars a gallon again. People that live in rural areas and do not have alternate transportation means will simply sit home and save money to put into the gas tank. We have already seen this once before, right before the housing bust, gas hit $4.00 dollars a gallon and the economic push we needed stopped. People seem to think that the housing bubble started this crises, they have blinder on, the increase of gas prices started it all. When people couldn't meet their budgeted obligations due to the increase of transportation cost, it became a domino effect. They needed money for fuel, stopped any extra spending on unneeded consumer goods, this in turn slowed down the manufacturing sector, which started laying off people, then they couldn't pay their house note and it got worse from there.
Obama seems to be hoping for the same thing to happen all over again. With his refusal to do anything to make us energy independent from OPEC and middle east interest, it will only be a matter of time before gas prices will slow the economic engine of the US once again.
If the predictions of the experts are right, gas will hit nearly $5.00dollars a gallon by mid summer, just in time for the presidential political game to heat up. Gas prices when Obama took office was just below $2.00dollars a gallon and continued to rise since he has been in. The economic recovery started slowly when prices got lower, and we are just now seeing the result. We will see the economic slow down start again by summer, it will be directly related to gas prices and commercial property my see the next bust. When people have to stay home and quit shopping because they need the money for gas, business's will close and inflation will hit all sectors due to transportation cost.
We have to seek energy independence in order to save our economy. Obama will never let it happen, so vote for change you can live on, believe it.

Gas Prices To Kill the Economy

As it is right now, gas in the metro Atlanta area is hovering around $3.40 a gallon, with more increases on the way. There is no oil shortage, you can buy all you want at this price.
This is the way it all started three years ago, gas prices went up, spending on non essential items went down and business's started to suffer. The housing bust started at the same time, coincidence? I don't think so. I wrote about this very thing back then and people said I was imaging things. I said,"when gas hits $4.00 a gallon, the construction business is doomed and people will give up on mortgages that they can't afford anymore." Guess what? It happened just like I said it would.
The construction business hasn't recovered yet, unemployment in Georgia is still over 10%, and the glut of foreclosures hasn't went down. Nationally the press reports the unemployment rate at the present time of about 8.9%, however, this is misleading and the number is really bogus. They fail to take into account the number of people who have just given up looking due to fact that the job market is failing them. They also fail to recognize the formally self employed people that have lost their companies and are not eligible to file for unemployment benefits. You also have another segment of the population, the underemployed, people working two and three jobs just to make ends meat. If you take these people into account on a nationwide basis the number for the unemployment rate will be somewhere closer to 15 to 18%, which means that about 2 out of every 10 people right now are struggling to survive.
Gas prices are going to cause another prolonged recession to be even longer. The price at the pump will translate again to less spending on other products, just as it did in the past. The service station cashiers that I have talked to locally have already seen it happening again. People are paying just for gas and not coming in to purchase other goods. At a local BP station in Dawsonville, Georgia, Sam said,"in the past two weeks she has seen a 35% fall off of customer purchases for other than fuel. The only thing that has increased is Lottery ticket sales." This means as customers get more and more desperate, they are willing to take a chance on the lottery as a saving grace. No matter how stupid that sounds, people in desperate times takes desperate measures.
The Federal government seems to have no clue as to what is happening. They rich and the powerful in DC don't realize what is happening to the general public and the true effect this having on the lives of many.  They will continue to ride around in their private jets, limos and SUV's will the tax payers foot the bill for all of them. They don't seem to understand that that just like before, gas can be a budget buster for a lot of working people across the US.
Will we see $4.00 gallon gas in the next few weeks? If we do, watch to see what happens to restaurants and other local stores. Revenues will go down, just like before, people will loose jobs again and the unemployment rate will hit all time new highs. Then as people loose their jobs, mortgages will begin to fail again, just as before.
What can we do about it? Not much in the short term. We have more oil in the mid west United States that all of Saudi Arabia, but the environmentalist won't let us get it. We don't have any new refineries and haven't built any in over 20years, environmentalist again. We have capped well heads in the mid west that the government pays to keep capped, whats that all about? We have national oil reserves that we don't touch like it couldn't be replaced, that's a bogus argument.
Read my article "More Oil in Mid west" that will give you plenty of facts and then when you are spending $100 dollars to fill your tank, ask yourself, "do they even care at all about us?"

Can OPEC kill the economy?

If you think the housing bust was about bad loans, yes, a lot of the loans were made to low lifes that knew they could never pay the loan. But, the housing bust corresponded with what, the last rise in the prices at the pump. Most people live on a budget, when the budget is busted, it forces people to makes cut somewhere.
When gas prices hit $4.00 a gallon, not only did effect how much it cost to fill up a car, it did much more. Fuel cost increased the cost of shipping everything. Food went up, airline tickets went up and business's started to suffer. Restaurants and other establishments begin to layoff workers due to the business turn down.
When peoples disposable income began to disappear, their budgets began to get out of whack. Part of the  money they had allocated to help pay the bills started going in their tanks and to pay for the increase in grocery prices.
The economy seems to be slowly recovering now. Jobs are not readily available yet, but small business is seeing some growth, along with housing sales picking up. The American public is still vulnerable to rising gas prices, with a lot of blue collar workers dependent on independent travel to and from jobs, small increase hurt.
If OPEC decides to cut production to increase prices, who will stop them. Oil prices are on the rise again and will probably continue through the summer. This will coincide with summer travel plans with millions of Americans headed on vacation. With every price increase at the pump, they will have to cut something somewhere. One less night at the hotel, one less meal they eat out, multiply this by the amount of travelers and isn't hard to see where this is headed.
If we head into another economic turn down with the unemployment rate already at 9plus percent, around 20percent in the construction field, what happens then. Do we blame this on the financial institutes again? When prices at the pump go up the congress is quick to blame the gas companies and fail to mention the role of our foreign dependence on oil. Do we have a recourse against OPEC creating self imposed shortages, such as cutting production? Price at the pump depends on the price of a barrel of oil.

So, are we headed for another economic slow down, prices at the pump are up now over a dollar a gallon from last year, which is keeping the recovery in the slow mode. If we want to get the economy pumping again, slow down the cost at the pump.

Construction Unemployment reaches nearly 25%

With the housing market down and more people buying distressed properties in foreclosure, the new home industry in slow to recover. The sub-contract employees that once made a living working for home builders are suffering big in this economic climate.
While it is estimated that the unemployment rate in the construction industry is nearly 25%, this still doesn't take into account the layoffs and down sizing of the distributors. Home Depot, Lowes and other big chain home improvement stores have cut staff and even closed stores in outlying locations. That have cut staff back in stores, cut hours for the remain staff and restructured the operating headquarters to become more efficient in these lean times.
The remodeling business is remaining steady, however the people in this end of this business are reluctant to bring in new personnel. They are at this point trying to provide employment for the people who stuck with them through the housing boom and didn't leave to work for the builders, who are now out of business.
Talking to associates at Home Depot and Lowes, it seems that they seem to see the same faces that they always seen in the remodeling business, and according to people in the millworks division, business for these people seem to be steady.
With the government offering programs and incentives for home buyers, hopefully the housing market will begin to pick up come spring and summer of this year. Look for the unemployment rate to only fall slightly between now then. The only thing that may help the overall unemployment numbers, may be the rate that the illegals leave to seek opportunity else where. In the Atlanta market it is presumed that approximately 30% of the construction jobs that were filled during the last housing boom were by illegals.That means now, the competition for the available jobs will be less than before, and maybe people can get back to work to support their families.

Georgia reaches 10.4 unemployment rate

Figures just released show that Georgia has reached a 10.4% unemployment, the highest so far. This Obama administration has been in office for more than a year now and the first stimulus package that was, suppose to keep unemployment under 8% has failed miserably.
Now the Democrats and Obama are wanting to push another unpaid for bill to help with the growing numbers. The problem with this is, the first bill hasn't been completely spent yet, and there is no proof that another bill will do any good.
If they were truly interested in employment, they would cut taxes across the board to free up capital, so business could compete with other companies outside the US. The freed up capital, would allow these companies to hire more people once present day production couldn't keep up with demand. They will fight any type of tax cuts to the bitter end, play the class warfare game over and over and never give up any control over the private sector that they deed as theirs.
It's seems as if that they are really trying to keep unemployment at its current level so that they can continue doling out money in benefits. This way the more people that continue to seek government assistance, the power they continue to have.
This is just a big power game, and right now they think they hold all the cards. When the public wake up to whats going on and refuse to let the federal government spend this country into bankruptcy?

Predictions for Employment for the next 90 days

Employment for the next 90 days will continue to gain momentum, if the government will hold off on any future tax increases. The tax increases we could see coming would be primarily related to the health care bill or revenue shortfalls for state and local governments. The other factors will be the cost of doing business, such as fuel cost and other inflation factors. Right now fuel cost have risen about 15cents a gallon at the station, taking a bite into the operating cost of delivery of products. Employment will continue to be slow, but, should gain in the next few months. If you are trying to give credit to the Obama stimulus plan, don't, business will try to grow in-spite of it, not because of it. The free market is better left alone by the government, not controlled by it.