Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at intelligent and rational individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

"No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it." Ayn Rand

"Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not." Ayn Rand

"The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice', but integrity." Ayn Rand

For "a human being, the question 'to be or not to be,' is the question 'to think or not to think.'" Ayn Rand

09 July 2009

IMF Says Global Economy Shrinks in 2009

According to the International Monetary Fund, the global economy is expected to shrink by 1.4% in 2009 and will grow at a 2.5% rate in 2010. IMF says the U.S. GDP will contract by 2.6% in 2009, while it will grow at an anemic rate of 0.8% in 2010. The very low growth rate of 2010 will cause even more jobs to be lost. In June, the unemployment rate in the U.S. passed 9.5% and the Obama administration now admits that it will soon exceed 10%! When they passed the Stimulus Bill, which produced only de-stimulus, they swore it would keep the unemployment rate from exceeding 8%. Obama and crew are clueless about the economy and business. Nothing could be more clear.

Now they want a second stimulus bill, because the first stimulus bill was not big enough! Of course, the only thing the first stimulus bill was designed to stimulate was Democrat supporters who are to be given a huge influx of money just before the 2010 elections. The Stimulus Bill was simply designed to be a vote bribery bill, not a means to rapidly kick-start the economy as the public was told it was to do. No, the insiders with political pull understood it to be pure pork and good old-fashioned patronage. We can be sure that a Democrat Second Stimulus Bill will be more of the same patronage and also too late in being distributed to actual producers to help lift the recession economy out of the doldrums.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is predicting that the average U.S. unemployment rate in the four quarters of 2010 will be 10.1%. Generally speaking, this should be high enough to insure that many Democrats now in Congress will be thrown out in the 2010 elections. This is part of the reason why the socialists are in such a hurry to blow through carbon cap and trade energy taxes, to socialize medicine further, to get union card check, and to add to the many social engineering programs they started with the First Stimulus Package by enacting a Second Stimulus Package.

I wonder: Are the Democrats planning to provide employment to the unemployed masses by having everyone erect a printing press in their home (ala the Great Leap Forward in China) to print enough money that we can cart it in wheelbarrows to the grocery store for a loaf of bread?

As we all know, Obama wants the U. S. to be more like wonderful Europe, as do most people in the Northeast and on the Pacific Coast. The much admired Euro area will have a loss of 4.8% in their economies in 2009, or a loss 2.2% greater than the U.S. While the U.S. is to have a paltry 0.8% growth in 2010, Europe is expected to have a loss of 0.3% according to the IMF. So, why wouldn't we want to follow in the hallowed footsteps of Europe? After all, the United States of America is not Exceptionally Good. But Europe is, according to all of our best American socialists.

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