"Gold is down. Silver is down. Oil is down....."

The euro is down. Mortgage rates are down. Mortgage applications are down.

The main thing that is up is mortgage payment skipping. At least 10% of American households missed a monthly mortgage payment during the first three months of 2010. This is an all-time high in the post-World War II era. The rate was 9.1% in the first quarter of 2009. It rose to 9.5% in the final quarter. The trend is ominous. Americans will stop making payments on every other category of debt before they skip a mortgage payment. The fact that they are skipping mortgage payments indicates that they are in very tight straits. _GaryNorth

And the future doesn't look a lot better -- not with the current crop of university students, graduates, and the monkey-minded professors who are lobbing balls of shite into their heads:

Universities are sending young achievers out into the world with the words of rabid leftists ringing in their heads. It's a dismal picture, given the future the [leftists] running Washington have created.

...universities are no longer places to question authority, but cheerleaders for the establishment. It's a sad sight, given that it is graduates who will in the end be forced to foot the bill for these big-government excesses and warped values. _IBD

We are living in a "dumbed-down" world from top to bottom, of course. Parents abdicate their duties to raise their children to popular media and a leftist-curricula government educational establishment. Children are pampered, indoctrinated, have their self-esteem pumped up -- and are never really challenged, never pass through a distinct rite of passage separating childhood from youth. A bumper crop of Peter Pans and Cinderellas are flooding into the world, with no idea how to think, or what to do with themselves.

And that is just the way Obama Pelosi wants it. Because now that they've got the system twisted into the shape they like, who is ever going to be able to challenge them now, with the dumbing down of all future generations assured?

And the Obama Pelosi establishment intends to milk the taxpayer and the productive sector for every penny. And they don't mind breaking a few laws or traditions to do it:

From the G.M. bondholders, to the Black Panthers at polling stations, to ACORN to these assaults on private citizens, Obama is running a Hugo Chavez-style thugocracy. Like Chavez, he gets non-official "allies" to act as his henchemen and do the intimidation work. Obama provides the narrative and tells the story of "greed" while the SEIU provides the muscle. This is about power, not prosperity. _AndreaTantaros

Obama Pelosi's friends in the public sector unions are very happy with the way things are going. To make sure that the unions keep all of their friends in congress where they can do them the most good, the unions plan to spend $100 Million to grease the "wheels" for the 2010 mid-term election.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) plans to spend in excess of $50 million during the 2010 campaign, part of which will fund “a massive incumbent protection program,” according to Gerry McEntee, president of the union.

AFSCME spent roughly $67 million on its political activities in 2008. But the $50 million slated for the 2010 elections is the largest expenditure the union will make in a midterm election, according to union officials. The money will go to help defend the union’s top tier of eight Senate seats and 34 House members.

“We have got to protect the incumbency in the House. We have got to protect the incumbency in the Senate,” McEntee said. “It is going to be hard. Those tea-baggers are out there. There is an anti-incumbency mood out there.”

…The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) plans to spend $44 million in total on its 2010 election program. The union spent $85 million on its 2008 campaign, according to union officials. _The Hill_via_Gateway

That $100 million will be money well spent for the public sector unions, since the largesse of government extends all the way down from the federal level to the states, and to counties and municipalities. All of these levels of government are sinking under debt and pension obligations to public sector employee unions. Thousands of bankruptcies would be inevitable if not for the ability to get federal bailouts. It's like one big happy (crime) family! Only the taxpayer suffers, and if you're the unions: who cares about the taxpayer?

The Obama Pelosi criminal way needs only one thing more: a steady supply of uneducated, untrainable, and highly manipulable future voters -- by the millions. And it doesn't have to look far to the South to find them.

Various estimates put the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. between 10 and 20 million. One argument says we can't round up and deport all those people. That argument differs little from one that says since we can't catch every burglar, we should grant burglars amnesty. Catching and imprisoning some burglars sends a message to would-be burglars that there might be a price to pay. Similarly, imprisoning some illegal immigrants and then deporting them after their sentences were served would send a signal to others who are here illegally or who are contemplating illegal entry that there's a price to pay.

Here's Williams' suggestion in a nutshell. Start strict enforcement of immigration law, as Arizona has begun. Strictly enforce border security. Most importantly, modernize and streamline our cumbersome immigration laws so that people can more easily migrate to our country. _WalterWilliams

WHOOOPS!!! Dreadfully sorry. I must have allowed that politically incorrect Walter Williams to insert his opinion, instead of printing the ever-so-correct opinion of Obama Pelosi on immigration. I'm running out of space, so I will just summarize: Obama Pelosi says "Let everybody in as long as they're impoverished, ignorant, and likely to stay that way. That way we can be assured that they will vote for us -- because we will always give them free goodies and take care of them."

Obama Pelosi happens. It happens because enough voters were stupid enough to let it happen. If you're part of the thugocracy or the idiocracy, you are happy with Obama Pelosi. If not, you will either fight back, go Galt, jump in a lake, or find somewhere else to live.