Obama's "phony accounting"

Washington Post's "The Fact Checker" has an article about the President's recent trip to Ohio for a speech on the auto bailout.

Glenn Kessler calls Obama's speech

one of the most misleading collections of assertions we have seen in a short presidential speech. Virtually every claim by the president regarding the auto industry needs an asterisk, just like the fine print in that too-good-to-be-true car loan.

This isn't the first time Obama has been called dishonest or misleading, but that has usually been reserved for the editorial section of Republican leaning papers like the Wall Street Journal. It's the first time, to my knowledge, that a Democrat leaning paper said the same thing--and not in the editorial section.

Perhaps it's because Mitt Romney, who (in my opinion) in running against Obama is running against himself, edged ahead of Obama in a poll.

The economy is looking pretty bleak, despite what the President says to the contrary. If we don't have QE3 (it'll be called something else), it's likely we'll have another collapse. Housing prices have already fallen farther and long-term unemployment is worse than now than in the Great Depression.

If we have QE3, which will have to be even more massive than QE2 to work, prices for the things we use every day will continue going up. Maybe stocks will too. Not that long ago the most demanding homeless people on the subway asked for a quarter. Now there's a lot more of them, and they're asking for $5. As for rescuing the economy, I doubt it'll do anything.

Below is a video of the most concise explanation I've seen about why increased government spending (to offset a decline in private sector spending) doesn't fix the economy.



And if you like rap (and even if you don't) you might like this:

Florida Couple Forecloses on Bank of America

A Florida couple bought a house with cash. They didn't take out a mortgage or any other loans secured by the property. That didn't stop Bank of America (BAC) from trying to foreclose on their home.

The couple was lucky in not getting a "robo-judge" assigned to their case. The judge found in their favor and ruled that Bank of America had to pay their attorney fees. Five months after the ruling, despite phone calls and letters, Bank of America didn't pay. The couple foreclosed on the bank, coming with Sheriff's deputies and a moving truck. Only then did the bank manager draft them a check.

This isn't the first (or last) time Bank of America has tried to wrongfully foreclose on someone's home. See here, here, and here for just a few examples. And Bank of America isn't the only bank that does this. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) engages in similar practices.  See here and here, and so does Wells Fargo (WFC). These aren't the only banks, but you get the idea.