Posted on 04/26/2009 10:04:05 AM PDT by Schnucki
As he approaches 100 days in office, the President faces a grim reality check.
Buddleia has taken over large parts of downtown Gary, Indiana. The city, once home to 300,000 people, is down to just a third of that. There are mile after mile of deserted, derelict and abandoned homes; sub-zero winds blow in off Lake Michigan.
"Gary, Indiana is like an eagle poised to fly," mayor Rudy Clay tells me, "All we need is the air of the fiscal stimulus beneath our wings and we'll soar once again and make America proud."
The mayor has applied for $400 million out of Barack Obama's $787 billion fiscal stimulus plan. Top of his wish list are automatic weapons and Kevlar vests for the police, and some more police to tote them: last year, in this, the crime capital of the Midwest, he had to lay off police officers due to shortage of funds.
The city symbolises the scale of the economic challenge facing Obama as he approaches 100 days in office. If the president is to deliver something more than the "audacity of hype", homes will have to be built in Gary, health care delivered, and a way found for its inhabitants to live on something more than benefits and debt. But much of America is in revolt against what needs to happen for this to be achieved. And Obama's own momentum on the economic front looks weak.
There are three levers the federal government can pull in the face of this crisis: monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and bank recapitalisation. Obama has used all three but so far ineffectively. In each case, he has run into obstacles rooted deep in the US institutional set-up, indeed deep in the country's psyche.
On monetary policy, Obama has remained a bystander to the efforts
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Obama’s audacity of hype is exactly what it is.
And most of our fellow countrymen have bought the hype....and the lie.
Eric Hoffer has some interesting things to say about audacity in his Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. That came into print in 1951. The word audacity is unusual enough to have been borrowed by you-know-who, and that would be in keeping with the trend of plagiarism we have seen in the works of some of our lefty “thinkers”...Much too long to quote here, but this Hoffer book is remarkable and concise.
Just think they can make steel in India and ship it to the USA cheaper than we can make it here, and Jug Ears wants CAP Trade, and India is going to say...no.
It’s encouraging to know that the British press is not impressed and they know a naked emperor when they see one.
The author is counting on a gullible audience of foreigners to peddle blame for Gary’s destruction on the refusal of level headed people to fund their dysfuncional city any longer. Gary, and other rust belt cities, have been self destructing for decades, and any money spent now is completely wasted. If I were in Gary, I would open up a bus tour of the ruins for Europeans.
The rest of the world is way ahead of the Obamatrons in the US who think he is a god of sorts.
Gary now makes it’s annual budget by waiting to report election returns until the very end. Then, ballots magically appear, bought and paid for b y the Dem winners, just enough to give them the election.
Goebbels has been reincarnated.
The mayor is an idiot. He thinks a little government debt spending thrown his way will let his town fly again.
what an idiot
Rudy Clay Jr., who received a new $39,960 contract two weeks ago to provide video services to the Gary Sanitary District
Gov. Mitch Daniels slammed his contract last week, criticizing Mayor Rudy Clay for giving the contract to his son while asking the Indiana Distressed Unit Appeals Board for relief from new property tax caps
Mayor Rudy Clay’s TOYS FOR KIDS THAT SANTA CLAUS FORGOT INC.
Mayor Rudy Clay, who has been tweaked for hiring an around-the-clock, two-man security detail and using a Hummer as a security car on the taxpayers’ dime, is getting thwacked again.
*To wit: A group called GEAR http://www.cafepress.com/savegary , which stands for “Garyites Embarrassed About Rudy,” is selling everything from teddy bears to underwear emblazoned with the group’s name.
Detail on the detail: Clay’s so-called “world-class” security team is made up of James Matlock, reportedly known as “The General,” and Jesse L. McCoy, who sports a cowboy hat and vest pinned with a badge.
CLAY TRIPPED UP BY TRAVEL COSTS WATCHDOG CLAIMS HE SHOULD PAY TAB FOR WASHINGTON VISIT
Clay, D-Gary, made a much-publicized visit to the nation’s capital June 26 when South African leader Nelson Mandela addressed U.S. senators, representatives, diplomats and a host of VIPs, including Clay.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1N1-1085302E6500115A.html
well, my Mayor begged DC to buy his bonds. embarrassing
Quote corrected to reflect reality.
Seems he's yanking awfully hard on the "outright nationalization" lever, too. AND pushing terribly hard on the "appease our enemies" button.
And like a kid a few days after Halloween, they are still eating the sweet candy. In a "few days," they will be at the dentist with a mouthful of cavities!
This would all be ok if we had a latter day Ronald Reagan waiting in the wings. At this point, Ron Paul is looking better and better. Sure, the messenger is shrill but the message is pretty spot on.
We, as Americans had better face the fact that we are returning to the 1870’s. If you are waiting for the calvary to ride into this movie and rescue the fort, you’d better get used to the idea of copulating with Indians ‘cause they ain’t coming. The calvary in this movie spent their budget on dead horses.
Some things to note about the article:
1. These industrial cities are not coming back.
2. What does that mean? No more budgetary money. We as former once great cities need to determine what of our legacy we are going to preserve and bulldoze the rest. If there is 1/3 the residents then do we have 1/3 the police, administrative staff, schools, fire, roads, houses, malls, stores, etc.
3.These cities had better get used to downsizing. They should spend their money consolidating. That means less police and more bulldozers. Less fire and more landscapers. Read about Olmstead and return your vast unused neighborhoods into buccollic landscapes. Incent the few remaining citizens to move from their last hold out houses in largely abandoned neighborhoods into mixed use zones near the heart of the city or give them a park like setting around where they live.
We have to have a plan to reverse industrial cities into small towns again. Everything has its season. The high water mark does not have to be maintained. Just because Madison Avenue had us believing we needed a new Cadillac every three years doesn’t mean we did. Just because big city mayors want to continue being prince of a greater city doesn’t mean they should.
They want you to believe that.
Then the Mayor says...Top of his wish list are automatic weapons and Kevlar vests for the police, and some more police to tote them: last year, in this, the crime capital of the Midwest, he had to lay off police officers due to shortage of funds.
Gonna be the most well armed eagle in all of mankind.
Gary is a pit. Lots of reasons why. The liberal political establishment hasn't helped.
I note again: What a shame we have to read foreign publications to get the real skinny.
My grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all lived in Gary, Indiana. In the 50’s and 60’s we frequently would gather there for family functions - it was fairly nice.
Now I wouldn’t visit that place on a bet. It’s a slice of the third world that grew where a once thriving town existed.
GO CUBS GO!
Actually, I think they want you to believe that all things are the same, we’re just “in a cycle,” the majority have turned against Obama, and everything will return to the way it was after we elect someone else.
It’s just a different “they.”
I can understand the cycle. They keep saying we are not Christian but we are.
Somebody tell me just what four million would buy to start a new company to employ all the able-bodied residents of Gary, Ind., especially since it wouldn’t even pay for new police and their equipment for very long.
Ouch.
Double ouch.
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