EckerNet.Com

The Commerce Department is apparently celebrating over…

The U.S. economy grew in the third quarter for the first time in more than a year as government stimulus helped lift consumer spending and home building, fueling an unexpectedly strong advance.

Signaling the end of the worst recession in 70 years, the Commerce Department on Thursday said the economy expanded at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the July-September period, snapping four down quarters with its fastest growth pace since the third quarter of 2007.

Problem is all the reason for the \”growth\” was extremely temporary.  Tax credits will provide a temporary boost, and it\’s already dropping off.  Cash for Clunkers is the same way, although it did the additional damage off removing perfectly good resources from the national inventory.  Both did little more than changing the timing of purchases that already would have been made.

It\’s the same game played by salesmen all over.  Delaying a sale close or pushing it up to meet a quota or reach the next commission hurdle.  It\’s not a new game, but when it\’s played with a single person\’s commission check it\’s harmless.  When it\’s played with our national economy it\’s a whole other ball game.  But then again I\’m not too convinced this administration doesn\’t think this is all a game.

Fact of the matter is that investment is still flat, which is pretty much required for sustained growth.  Inventories are still down.  And with Congress dragging out the health care debate, the economy must brace for a potentially huge tax increase being imposed on them.  This recession is far from over.  In fact expect an especially bad quarter coming up as purchases that would have been made, but were pushed up by tax credits and Cash for Clunkers, don\’t happen and the GDP drops as a result.

Amazing, President Obama has been accused of giving VIP access to donors.  Now on those specific accusation I\’m not overly stirred up.  I think every President in the modern era has had this charge flung at him, and to a certain extent it\’s been true.  But the amusing part is the defense that the Obama Administration decided to throw up.  They claim they\’ve \”instituted the toughest ethics and transparency rules of any administration in history\”.

Ethics? Transparency?  This administration could be called a lot of things.  Those two are not amongst them.

You\’ve got a tax cheat as a Treasury Secretary, and that\’s just the start of your trouble cabinet picks.  But heh, we should just be glad Congress had a say in them, because you\’ve created twice as many czars as the Russians and then you refuse to allow Congress to question them.  You promised to put bills up on the internet days before you signed them, you haven\’t done that.  You promised that the discussions on a health care bill would be broadcast on TV, instead you\’ve had backdoor meetings with Democrats only.  And when you\’re not doing that you\’re having secret meetings with the pharmaceutical industry.  And then there is your strange habit of making all sorts of statements and then later claiming you never made them despite the fact that the Internet exists.

Yeah, transparency and ethics have both been killed and buried by this administration.  But apparently they still like to use them to bludgeon their opponents with them.

If Obama spent half the time figuring out the troop situation in Afghanistan as he does whining about FoxNews, neither would be news.  Instead he demonstrates his lack of transparency by crying when someone asks tough questions.

The Oval Office is the biggest bully pulpit in the nation, and the fact that he\’s getting trounced by a single new network indicates just how little factual evidence they have to support their position and how badly they are botching everything they touch.

Thank God they found balloon boy, I was afraid that Michael Jackson was ordering take out from heaven.

- From Text From Last Night

Get out the way, we got a Woot Off
We’re pigging out down at the Woot trough
Ain’t gonna stop until the Woot Off is done

You figure you get one Woot per day
And if it’s junk then that’s just the way
But now an avalanche of Woots is released
And where there once was famine we feast

It’s giving me an F5 complex,
Refreshing just to see what’s up next
Checking back to shop for what’s new
I don’t want it but I hope that you do

Cause a new Item won’t come up
Until all of these are gone.

Those are the rules of the Woot Off
We’re pigging out down at the Woot trough
Ain’t gonna stop ‘till the Woot Off is done

Now there’s another item on line
A cell phone with a weird-ass design
How will this thing ever sell out?
This will start a new item drought

Who would ever buy this dumb thing?
The Woot Off is so frus-ter-a-ting
I’m posting in the blog to decry
This thing you couldn’t pay me to buy

Well you could ridicule and signify it
But someone’s gonna have to buy it

Those are the rules of the Woot Off
We’re pigging out down at the Woot trough
Ain’t gonna stop ‘till the Woot Off is done

Music

I think it\’s fair to say that I don\’t always get my most favorable coverage on Fox, but I think that\’s part of how democracy is supposed to work. You know, we\’re not supposed to all be in lock step here

- Barack Obama

Of course this is the same guy that\’s trying to shut down Fox News too.  Apparently hypocrisy is also how democracy works.