We would have left tonight for our fun-filled weekend on the Golf Coast, but first we have to ram a Ramadan meal into tonight’s Big White schedule. It’s in celebration of all of Islam’s contributions to America (in addition to that urban renewal project in lower Manhattan). So we can’t leave till morning.
Here’s the rundown. Saturday morning: departure on Air Force Won for Tyndall Air Force Base in order to summarily execute Lady M’s commitment to the little people of Panama City to return and promote tourism in their pathetic-excuse-for-a-vacation coastal town.
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Then we meet for a roundtable with area small business owners and elected officials to discuss the recovery from the BP oil spill, in order to demonstrate both Big Guy’s and Lady M’s sincere and heartfelt concern for their white-plight. Butt seriously, what else is there to discuss? Big Guy already plugged the damn hole.
Then we’ll have some lunch, ice cream, photo-ops, dinner and nightcaps. Then, after brunch on Sunday, all aboard Air Force Won for our return to D.C. for a very busy week of packing for our real vacation coming up on the Vineyards.
Meanwhile, the economic news hasn’t been exactly great this month.The unexpectedly high loss of jobs in the private sector (131 thousand!) led to a cautionary warning to expect higher job losses in the coming months. That can only mean that someone on the team has stopped listening to our Pollyanna sycophants and instead has been talking to someone who knows what’s going on. That’s unlikely to last.
Pending home sales also unexpectedly fell in June. We don’t know why our Pollyanna’s were surprised by that one, since we stopped making you pay the down payment for people who still can’t afford to buy homes (aka,”first time home buyer tax credit,” ) at the end of May.
Bankruptcy filings were also up 9% and are now on pace to set a historic record topping 1.6 million by yearend. Meanwhile consumer spending is down, as is personal income. Hmmmm. Let’s see if we can connect the dots. Personal income, down; personal bankruptcies up: stalled consumer spending? I’m not sure that makes sense: shouldn’t they have gone out and run up their credit cards before filing for bankruptcy? That’s what we were expecting.
And then, factory orders dropped 1.2%, while GDP growth dropped 65%.
Oh, oh! All this has fomented talk of a double-dip recession and long-term deflation. This is not good news. Not for Wall Street, Main Street or K-Street. And according to our polling, our “Just Blame Bush” defense is running out of steam too. But not to fear. Big Guy has found someone new to blame: Europe. From the WaPo:
When Obama spoke Wednesday in the East Room about American manufacturing, he placed the inflection point at "last spring," when he said "events in Europe roiled the markets and created headwinds for our economic recovery."
Big Guy reacts to the breaking of an ill-wind
Well, I think I’ve located the locus of that ill-wind in the person of one Nile Gardiner from the U.K. Telegraph. You may remember him, he’s the one who previously wrote that the O’s presidency resembles a modern-day Ancien Régime? Well, today he’s come up with a list of why Big Guy’s popularity ratings keep falling, or as the Brits might say “not so much falling, as plummeting.” See for yourself, from know-it-all Nile’s column:
The top 10 reasons for Big Guy’s epic plunge (Per Niles, the ill-wind from Europe):
10. The Obama presidency is out of touch with the American people
9.Most Americans don’t have confidence in the president’s leadership
8.Obama fails to inspire
7.The United States is drowning in debt
6.Obama’s Big Government message is falling flat
5. Obama’s support for socialised health care is a huge political mistake
4. Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill has been weak-kneed and indecisive
3. US foreign policy is an embarrassing mess under the Obama administration
2. President Obama is muddled and confused on national security
1. Obama doesn’t believe in American greatness
‘Nuf said, Niles. Now take your ill-wind and go away.
Here’s the problem: when Big Guy said this was going to be the Recovery Summer, you all probably thought he meant “economic recovery.” Butt what he really meant was “Michelle and I are going to spend the summer recovering from all the heavy lifting and sacrificing that we’ve done in our first historic 15 months in office.”
Martha’s Vineyard: get ready, because here we come!
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