Anyways, maybe we are on our way out!

New report: Consumers spent modestly in January

“Rao said shoppers generally pulled back on discretionary items like electronics, but did buy clothes, which was borne out in January figures released last week by apparel chains. SpendingPulse estimates that women’s clothing sales rose 2.7 percent and men’s 2.5 percent in January 2010 from January 2009.”

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/New-report-Consumers-spent-apf-2981730659.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=7&asset=&ccode=

Here are the 2009 winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n..): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle, n.. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon, n.. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Crushing student debt, the short-term programs funded with long term tax dollars and the mirage of drug law enforcement are all culpable according to Brian Foglia’s smackdown of big government, The War on the Young.

From Mises.org:

We live in an age rife with oppression. No group of Americans is better aware of this than our nation’s youth. Young people today will most likely become the first generation in US history not to surpass their parents’ living standards. Consider the increasing proportion of young adults who are choosing to either remain living with their parents, or move back in with them. Rather than seek new opportunities on their own, they are choosing the security of home and hearth at the expense of their future.

Why is this so? There are many hidden causes, all of which corrode the economic prospects of the up-and-coming generation, and enrich a privileged few. This is not an isolated phenomenon. All across the globe, governments have discarded fiscal responsibility in favor of short-term spending on war, welfare, and bailouts.

It’s easy to see that this behavior will be costly, but not all groups are equally burdened. Government accounting wizardry and fiat money can hide the decline for a while, but the price must ultimately be borne by those who will inherit the inevitable crisis. The excesses of the older generations will come at the expense of the wealth and opportunity of the younger generations.
If you read nothing else today, be sure to read this. The Boomers and their interventionist policies look more hideous in the context of this article than they do in bathing suits…”
http://thereformedbroker.com/2010/02/03/mises-org-the-kids-arent-alright/

Try to find a better quote from a politician…

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-09/n-y-s-paterson-says-ballot-box-to-decide-his-fate-as-governor.html

The internet has finally achieved what I always thought it could.

This + legalizing mary jane might get the country through its mess with minimal civil unrest.

Ok, this + legalizing mary jane + an xbox 360 with free xbox live + cheap rentals in abandoned homes + food stamps + extended bennies + … oh, never mind.

Publisher of “The Washington Note”
Posted: February 7, 2010 12:05 PM

Financial Times Washington Bureau Chief Edward Luce has written a granularly informed insider account about those who hold the keys to the inner most sanctum of Obama Land — Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod.

It’s a vital article — a brave one — that includes “dozens of interviews with his closest allies and friends in Washington.”

Most are unnamed because the consequences of retribution from this powerful foursome can be severe in an access-dependent town. John Podesta, president of the powerful, administration-tilting Center for American Progress, had the temerity and self-confidence to put his thoughts publicly on the record. But most others could not.

-snip-

To hit some of the later highlights, Luce speaks with political giants ‘inside’ the Obama tent who suggest that Rahm Emanuel lost track of the importance of communicating to the public about health care, despite some success in legislative deal-making. While Luce doesn’t explicate this topic, I would also suggest that Rahm pulled the plug on shuttering GITMO, which had a good plan on paper, but was unwilling to move the political wheels to get that done — not understanding that this was a key pillar of progressive political support for Obama.

The article goes on to document how people like Health Secretary and former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius were kept off television — along with others like Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Add to this others that Luce does not name — including important voices like Paul Volcker and Austan Goolsbee on Obama’s economic team, who saw their public voices choked off by a media-dominating Lawrence Summers with support from Robert Gibbs and Rahm Emanuel.

More of an interesting read, with links to the “FT” and other articles…plus PIX here at…..

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemons/core-chicago-team-sinking_b_452664.html