A Rare Rebuke, With Chunks

Rare, that is, in its source, to wit: How harebrained does a Barack Obama economic policy proposal have to be that Fannie f'ing Mae and Freddie f'ing Mac were driven to exclaim, "Have you lost your ever-scheming mind?!?":

A White House-backed effort to encourage home-energy improvements was dealt a blow Tuesday after a federal regulator said the program posed significant risks to mortgage lenders and investors.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, suggested the mortgage finance titans should avoid participating in the program or should tighten their lending standards where the initiative moves forward.

The move could effectively torpedo the fledgling program that lets homeowners borrow money from their local governments to finance the high upfront costs of energy-efficient upgrades, like solar panels or efficient furnaces.

City and state leaders say the decision could put at risk a program they had hoped would boost jobs and conservation efforts.

Let's pause to correct this filthy lie once again: The "green economy" is a complete and total fraud.  You know when we'll have a "green economy"?  When solar (forget wind) energy is "harvestable" and storable - which is the key technological impediment at the moment - in sufficient quantity to make resultant energy supplies from Sol available at a reasonable and affordable cost, at which time a market for said supplies from said source will arise all on its own, without any government program squandering billions of stolen dollars engaging in malevolent, impoverishing, economy-crushing flights of Faustian fantasy.

Are we square on that?  Good.  So here we have a new avalanche of bad debt from Red Barry's "green fraud" program competing for senior creditor status with what Democrat-Financial-Logic-Bomb-seared mortgage-backed-securities are left twitching and shuddering in the debris-strewn graveyard of the nationalized financial sector.  Like two hyenas tearing into each other for the last scrap of animal flesh at ground zero of a nuclear conflagration.  To employ a well-worn rightospheric phrase, "What could go wrong?"

As it happens, Niall Ferguson provided an answer to the bigger picture question that underlies this one, and he does not, shall we say, "hold back":

Reminds me of the scene in The Core where Josh Keys and Conrad Zimsky are explaining to government brass what will happen to humanity now that (in the movie) Earth has lost its magnetic field.  They speak of the loss of all electrical technology, of enormous magnetic storms with hundreds of lightning strikes per square mile.  Within a year, the ozone layer that protects Earth's biosphere from solar ultraviolet radiation and most cosmic rays will be destroyed, which they illustrate by creating a blowtorch flame incinerating a peach representing Earth.

Tossing the smoldering carbonized fruit into a water pitcher, Keyes quips, "Feel free to throw up.  I know I did."

Let's revisit the money Ferguson pull quote:

Is it going to be inflation or is it going to be default. Right now there is no sign of inflation. We have monetary contraction at an alarming rate, and zero inflation in terms of core CPI, so the option of inflating this debt away doesn't seem to be there right now. What you are left with is therefore default. And I think it is a fair bet that US will default at least on the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare at some point in the foreseeable future. What the Greeks discovered you are fine until you are not fine with the bond market and if you have a non-credible fiscal strategy of borrowing a $1 trillion a year for the rest of time, never ever again running a balanced budget, at some point the markets are going to get spooked, and I think that point is nearer than Paul Krugman  [or Barack Obama] believes. Nothing would spook the markets more than for Paul Krugman's advice to be accepted by the Obama administration. That might well be the trigger."

Krugman's advice?  Stay the Obama course.  Keep trying to spend ourselves rich, tax ourselves to prosperity, and borrow ourselves solvent.  Stay on the crazy train to economic disaster, and the ultimate exploitable crisis.

Who needs a lighter, an aerosol can, and a peach?  I'm ready to throw up right now.  Because there's no ifs, ands, or buts about whether the Obama administration will take Paul Krugman's advice:

“But what is absolutely clear is that we are headed in the right direction — and that the surest way out of these storms we’ve been in is to keep moving forward, not back,” the president said in prepared remarks set for delivery at Smith Electric Vehicles in Kansas City, Missouri ...

Obama made the trip to Kansas City as part of his “recovery summer” tour, promoting efforts by his administration to quell concerns that the United States has not added as many jobs as promised and could be slipping into a second recession. While the unemployment rate fell in June, the government estimated that a net 125,000 jobs were lost that month.

“All of our efforts, taken together, are making a difference. A year and a half ago, our economy was shrinking rapidly; now it’s growing,” Obama said. “The economy was bleeding jobs; it’s now adding private-sector jobs, and has been for six straight months.”

No, it isn't growing; the REAL economy has plateaued at a much lower level.  Same thing for private sector employment, where the number of REAL jobs "saved or created" is being lapped by the number of "discouraged workers" leaving the workforce altogether and joining the burgeoning indolent class, a demographic guaranteed to vote Donk sooner or later.

As if God had a sense of humor (and He most certainly does), the same day brought garish proof of this "right direction" toward which we are hurtling out of control:

The nation's debt leapt $166 billion in a single day last week, the third-largest increase in U.S. history, and it comes at a time when Congress is balking over higher spending and debt has become a key policy battleground.

The one-day increase for June 30 totaled $165,931,038,264.30 - bigger than the entire annual deficit for fiscal year 2007...

Daily debt calculations jump and fall, and big shifts are common. But all three of the biggest one-day debt increases have occurred under the tenure of President Obama...

"What matters is the overall trend line, and the overall trend line is shooting up," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan deficit watchdog group, who said it is one more reason for a fiscal wake-up call....

On Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office said the government has recorded a $1 trillion deficit for the first nine months of fiscal 2010, which began October 1. That's slightly down from 2009's record $1.1 trillion deficit at this point.

Don't wait up....