Jonathan Kemp › Comments

"Given the improving economic outlook, ARRA now represents a significant and very expensive public policy mistake." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"Obama faces souring public opinion over his handling of the economy, which has shed 1.6 million jobs since the stimulus was signed in February. That total has far overshadowed White House announcements estimating the effort has saved 150,000 jobs, a figure that is so murky it can never be verified." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"But this and other big government spending programs are turning out to have the opposite effect. Rates for mortgages and U.S. Treasury debt are now marching higher as nervous bond investors fret about a resurgence of inflation." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

Vote Democratic and you get mainstream liberalism: a judicially mandated racial spoils system and a jurisprudence of empathy that hinges on which litigant is less "advantaged." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"The Obama administration's agenda of maximizing dependency involves political favoritism cloaked in the raiment of "economic planning" and "social justice" that somehow produce results superior to what markets produce when freedom allows merit to manifest itself, and incompetence to fail." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"Will this kneecap the Obama administration’s efforts to get Congress to impose a cap-and-trade system? Republicans and Rust Belt Democrats will jump to embrace an EPA report that casts doubt on global warming science. The question will be whether the national media stays on this story and reports it fully." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"Fleecing lenders to pay off politically powerful interests, or governmental threats to reputation and business from a failure to toe a political line? We might expect this behavior from a Hugo Chávez. But it would never happen here, right?" - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"Laying his plan for a President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Obama began to name the members of PCAST listed in his prepared remarks – before realizing he’d already introduced them, earlier in his speech." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

Worth a read. "King Barack the Mild." LOL. - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"The reordering of the American system will come not from these temporary interventions, into which Obama has reluctantly waded. It will come from Obama's real agenda: his holy trinity of health care, education and energy. Out of these will come a radical extension of the welfare state; social and economic leveling in the name of fairness; and a massive increase in the size, scope and reach of government." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"And this poor girl, the actress that Microsoft hired to play a person who is not an actress, is going to get a heavy, bulky slow Vista Home machine with a poor display, old networking equipment and weak battery loaded up with crapware." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"The Obama administration used the threat of withholding more bailout money to force out General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Rick Wagoner and administer harsh medicine to Chrysler LLC, marking one of the most dramatic government interventions in private industry since the economic crisis began last year." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

Obama sure does love that teleprompter. - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"Treasury officials have suggested that the New York Fed and the Federal Reserve Board in Washington failed to alert the Treasury staff until March 5. And Fed officials said that they not only alerted the Treasury staff weeks earlier, but discussed the issue with them via e-mail." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"Mr Obama is an accomplished orator but is becoming known in America as the "teleprompt president" over his reliance on the machine when he gives a speech." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"If you think this economy is a mess now, imagine what it would look like if the business community started to worry that the government would start abrogating contracts left and right." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"The economy as most people understand it was a second-order concern of the stimulus strategy. The primary goal is a massive re-flowing of "wealth" from the top toward the bottom, to stop the moral failure they see in the budget's "Top One Percent of Earners" chart." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"If this unidentified meal recipient is too poor to buy his own food, how does he afford a cellphone? And if he is homeless, where do they send the cellphone bills?" - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"BusinessWeek interviewed a wide array of investment professionals, and many said the first six weeks of the Obama Administration have soured their outlook on the stock market." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"Look at the incredible decline in the stock market, in all indices, since the inauguration of the president, with the drop accelerating when the budget plan came to light because of the massive fear and indecision the document sowed" - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

Good thing we bailed them out. - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"But despite the president's rhetoric, leading up to the bill passage and being signed into law, Schock told a group assembled at the Heritage Foundation's Blogger's Briefing on March 3 he did not hear from a single Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) employee urging him to vote for the stimulus bill, while hearing from 1,400 self-identified Caterpillar employees telling him not to vote for it." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"As 2009 opened, three weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama's policies have become part of the economy's problem." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"For the first time since Gallup began tracking Barack Obama's presidential job approval rating on Jan. 21, fewer than 60% of Americans approve of the job he is doing as president." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"What isn't average, however, is Obama's new disapproval rating -- 24%, or 50% higher than the 16% average for a month-old new presidency." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"The Obama administration and the new Congress are quickly handing over to Republicans the same "culture of corruption" issue that Democrats used so effectively against the GOP before coming to power." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"Thirty years ago last month, we witnessed a similar removal of a Tennessee governor. Ray Blanton was a politician of the same ilk as "Blago." He was a "man of the common man," a straight-talker, an attractive leader who appealed to female voters. His narcissistic personality paralleled his Illinois counterpart." - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet

"The conservative movement has a simple and almost certainly successful future if it does three things:" - Jonathan Kemp from Bookmarklet