Does NeighborWorks America really work? This is one more devious welfare program offering free money. But as the phrase “There are no free lunches” this applies to the taxpayers whose money is being used in one more scheme to redistribute the wealth.

What we have is one more government scheme offering free money (your money) to bail out homeowners who are under water for a variety of reasons. But why is this program necessary when the country is already in a financial crisis, on the bring of failure?

Called the Emergency Homeowners Loan Program, this is the latest in the federal government’s efforts to slow down the flood of foreclosures in what they term as a necessary step to a meaningful recovery in the housing market, says a Department of Housing and Urban Development official. For people who have lost their jobs, the $1 billion program offers loans of up to $50,000 that don’t actually need to be repaid, if applicants meet certain requirements.

Let’s see – the government loans someone money and maybe, under certain conditions, it doesn’t need to be repaid. This isn’t even a loan, it’s a giveaway program with taxpayer money. Remember, government money is your money, not Barack Obama’s, not HUDs, not any politicians or any Czar working in the background making irresponsible decisions that further sink the US economy.

If your spending and not saving like the US government, not watching your money, then you too are headed for foreclosure or at least food stamps. And it can happen quickly so wake up. Don’t be a spendthrift, sock some money away for that rainy day, or deluge and massive flooding.

The goal, says HUD, is to offer short-term aid to people who look like they’ll be back on their feet soon. But critics say the loans may leave homeowners worse off in the long run.

“This is a short run band-aid, a modest attempt to grapple with the severity of the situation,” says Stuart Gabriel, director of the Ziman Center for Real Estate at the University of California, Los Angeles.

What is NeighborhoodWorks America? It’s an advocacy group whose busy organizing the have-not’s to get some money from the have’s. Remember ACORN? This is one more group working to get free money so it can chase bad money down the rabbit hole and they’re in bed with the federal government. Here is how this program works:

1. Making loans with far better terms than anything on offer at a local bank.
2. Loans are interest-free.
3. Payments go directly to the lender for a portion of the borrower’s monthly mortgage, including missed payments or past due charges.
4. When the assistance period — which runs for up to two years — ends, 20% of the loan is forgiven with each passing year.
5. Qualified borrowers who stay in their home for at least five years after the assistance period and who don’t fall behind on their mortgage again, this money doesn’t have to be paid back.

This is like a criminal getting time off for good behavior. What if the person fails? Is the money going to get paid back then? If they don’t have money do they pay the loan back? NO, this money is gone as soon as it’s distributed because either way it isn’t going to be paid back – good behavior or bad.

What happens if the homeowner sells the home or falls further into debt?

1. Borrowers risk falling further into debt.
2. If they sell their home before the entire loan is forgiven, they’ll be on the hook for the remaining amount.
3. If they fall behind on their mortgage payments again they’ll need to repay the remaining balance of the loan when they sell or refinance their home.
4. Borrowers aren’t required to have equity in their home to receive this money.
5. Someone who has to repay this loan risks owing more on the home later than they do now.
6. Homeowners who are significantly underwater now, the loan may only delay foreclosure.

The loans will be made available to around 30,000 applicants — “a drop in the bucket,” says Stu Feldstein, president at SMR Research, a housing and mortgage research firm.

It’s helpful, he says, but it won’t be enough to seriously boost the ailing housing market. Roughly 4 to 4.5 million borrowers are behind on their mortgages by at least 90 days or are in foreclosure, accounting for roughly 8% of all mortgages. Housing analysts say the loss of income is the primary reason why borrowers are in danger of losing their homes. Those behind the program counter that the help will be significant for some.

If you’re from NeighborWorks America you don’t provide any substance while commenting for the program, you say something stupid:

“If you are one of those 30,000 people, I think you should be very excited to get this help,” says a NeighborWorks America spokesman.

So if you get free money on someone else’s dime you should be very excited. If you win the lotto you should be very excited too. In the first instance you take no risk, in the second you risk whatever you pay for a lotto ticket. In either case you’re a dunce.

Here is what you need for eligibility:

1. Homeowners must have lost income.
2. Homeowners must be at risk of foreclosure due to involuntary job loss, underemployment or a medical or other economic condition.

Those conditions could apply for thousands of people. Can we as a country, with trillion’s of dollars in debt, possibly continue to spend money or print new money to place band-aids on financial open chest wounds?

NeighborWorks America should be called “Your Neighbor Works So You Don’t Have To!”

Is America the next Greece? If government keeps greasing the skids and throwing money around frivolously and recklessly we will find out that the US is not too big to fail. It can happen quickly and then what?

We become a third world banana republic.Tyranny’s work that way!

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I suppose the title of this post could be – “Defending Conservative Women” – but for now I’m singling out Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) while I sprinkle in a little Sarah Palin for good measure.

On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace interviewed Ms. Bachmann and led off asking her if she is a flake. Yes, that’s the most intelligent question Mr. Wallace could find in his media bag of tricks and it was insulting and pathetic.

Chris Wallace’s questioning of Michele Bachmann, asking her if she is a flake is what we have now come to expect from the media, these types of ridiculous questions and statements to Conservative politicians. They do this so they can score points with others in the establishment media. When is Chris Wallace going to ask Barack Obama if he’s a Marxist since some people think he is, including me. Actually I don’t think Obama is a Marxist, I’m convinced as this site can prove.

Personally, I’m offended and so was Ms. Bachmann. She has better things to do while defending the US Constitution in Congress, defending the rights of American’s and now running for President of the United States. But Ms. Bachman is used to having a full to-do list as a quick view of her resume would indicate.

Participating in the Wall Street Journal op-ed forums I’m appalled at the vitriol that a Bachmann or Palin article causes. Most of the ilk making derogatory remarks can’t prove anything they claim, won’t provide links to support their remarks, they just hate Bachmann and Palin. I believe, without a doubt, this is a gender issue, unless of course the female is Hillary Clinton. No problem with Hilliary running for President. Of course, Barack Obama trumped her and the Democrats weren’t about to get in the way of a black, or half-black man running for the highest office in the land. No way! Real qualifications and background not withstanding.

Many wish to point out the gaffes or misstatements of Palin or Bachmann but that’s ridiculous. Barack Obama never got called on his belief there are 58 states in the United States. We could take up paragraphs with misstatements, gaffes and out right lies by Barack Obama but you won’t hear the media questioning him or his teleprompter.

I believe the media, and especially the women, don’t like Palin and Bachmann for their female attractiveness and their common personal and ideological characteristics. They are both fearless, combative, energizing and Conservatives. Don’t get me wrong; they are two very different people, but these shared qualities make them especially contemptible to the left and to certain elitists on the right.

The problem the so-called elitists have with Palin and Bachmann is they pull no punches in challenging the Beltway dogma that got us into our economic calamity and are quickly shunted aside by the elites. However, Palin and Bachmann are adored by mainstream Americans, who are unencumbered by the numbing realities of Washington DC that prevent far too many career politicians from taking immediate action to reverse our nationally suicidal course.

The fact is that both Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin are far more qualified and equipped to be president than Barack Obama. Both have acquitted themselves very well in debates; Palin has a very impressive executive record, with plenty of gravitas, and Bachmann has powerful academic credentials to match her extensive experience as a professional and in her personal life.

Here is a quick look at Michele Bachmann’s resume:

• Graduate of Anoka High School and Winona State University.
• Received her J.D. at the O.W. Coburn School of Law at Oral Roberts University
• Received her L.L.M. in Tax Law at the College of William and Mary.
• She has been married for more than thirty years
• She and her husband own a small business mental health care practice that employs nearly 50 people.
• Michele and her husbsand have five children.
• Bachmann family has opened their home to 23 foster children.
• Served in the Minnesota State Senate from 2000-2006.
• Worked on hundreds of civil and criminal cases as a federal tax litigation attorney.
• Started a charter school for at-risk kids in Minnesota.

*****

Conventional wisdom claims only a male centrist can be elected or even nominated by the GOP. 53-percent voted for a left-wing radical in 2008. If Obama was running under the GOP banner would the same Republicans want him nominated because he was “electable”? The same people who voted for Obama think Bachmann and Palin are extreme. The media and “elites” aren’t crying out over Obama’s extreme, radical ideology as he implements extreme socialism through Czars and regulatory agencies while conveniently bypassing the legislature.

Michele Bachmann has actually worked as a lawyer not spending her time occasionally lecturing and mostly community organizing more Saul Alinsky radicals.

Michele Bachmann has done considerably more with her life than Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and a whole host of Republican career politicians including many running for president.

In Minnesota, not considered anything but a very blue, liberal state, Michele Bachmann became the first Republican woman to be elected to represent Minnesota in the US House of Representatives.

Ms. Bachmann was called out for using the phrase “armed and dangerous” by the media but as most things Bachmann and Palin the context of the comments were parsed. In March 2009, Bachmann was interviewed by the Northern Alliance Radio Network and promoted two forums she was hosting the next month in St. Cloud and Woodbury regarding Obama’s proposed cap and trade tax policy to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Bachmann said she wanted Minnesotans:

“…armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back.”

Bachmann’s office had to quickly clarify that she was speaking metaphorically, meaning “armed with knowledge.” However, according to the Star Tribune, her quote went viral across the Internet. This is what happens when your not receiving favored status by the media and DC elites or simple facts.

Michele Bachmann is the real Conservative running for President thus far. Rich Perry may well enter the race but only Bachmann can legitimately stand up as a Reagan Conservative (unlike Jon Huntsman or Mitt Romney) and her whole record and life are an open book verifying that.

The only “flakes” are in the elitist media on TV, radio and in print, and Washington Beltway career do nothings, self-serving politicians who go along to get along only so they can get reelected.

I don’t fear Michelle Bachmann, I respect her. She is not a “flake”, she is well-qualified, a true Conservative who speaks up for American’s and the Constitution and she is more qualified to be President of the United States than anyone currently running for that office, on either side of the aisle.

Prove me wrong, you can’t! We’re taking the gloves off for Michele Bachmann!!

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Unions are not giving up – they want to organize, organize and do it until it hurts – not when it hurts them but business of all sizes. Big Labor failed to persuade a Democrat Congress to pass “card check” legislation, so now it has turned to Plan B: the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which this past week delivered a plan for “quickie” union elections designed to make organizing easier.

Current law provides unions an advantage with the ability to work covertly for months, quietly approaching employees to gather signatures for an election petition until they suddenly present the news to employers at the last minute. Companies then must make their own case to workers in the month or so it usually takes to hold an election. Unions typically win two out of every three elections.

Rules proposed this past week would “streamline” the election process by denying companies longstanding election rights. The rules would set shorter time limits for hearings and filings, robbing employers of valuable preparation time. New regulations would strip companies of the right to litigate issues such as whether certain employees (supervisors) qualify to vote—until after an election. They’d also curtail employers’ abilities to challenge pre-election rulings the agency makes against them, since those challenges also take time.

There is currently one Republican on the NLRB, Brian Hayes who estimates the new rules could allow elections to take place in as little as 10 to 21 days from petition filing.

“Make no mistake,” he wrote in his dissent, “the principal purpose for this radical manipulation of our election process is to minimize, or rather, to effectively eviscerate an employer’s legitimate opportunity to express its views about collective bargaining.”

Of course the Democrats on the NLRB disagree with Mr. Hayes assessment claiming the rules are necessary to “better insure that employees’ votes may be recorded accurately, efficiently and speedily.”

Rigging the system is what the NLRB and Barack Obama are all about. Union membership is down to 6.9% of private workers, the lowest number in a century. Unions claim this is due to unfair labor practices.

In 2010, more than 95% of all union elections were held within 56 days of a petition filing (with a median time of 38 days), and 86% of all representation cases had been closed within 100 days. The NLRB’s acting general counsel described these results as “outstanding.” The new rules could allow elections to take place in as little as 10 to 21 days from petition filing.

While unions are complaining of low membership and have the government stepping in to grow their forces Barack Obama is blaming unemployment  on technology. How refreshing it is that he stepped off from blaming George W. Bush.

“There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers,” Obama said. “You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”

Obama is really sad there are fewer people for the government to unionize and organize. Here is how a much smarter person than Barack Obama viewed progress vs more jobs.

Milton Friedman was once taken to see a massive government project somewhere in Asia. Thousands of workers using shovels were building a canal. Friedman was puzzled. Why weren’t there any excavators or any mechanized earth-moving equipment? A government official explained that using shovels created more jobs. Friedman’s response:

“Then why not use spoons instead of shovels?”

Dr. Friedman put new meaning into “shovel ready jobs.” While Barack Obama claims to see a structural issue really smart people like Milton Friedman see progress.

While Barack Obama was back in Chicago studying Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and busy teaching community organizing a new age hit the United States and the world. We call it the Information Age and it transformed the way we live and the way we work.

Dr. Russell Roberts, professor of economics at George Mason University and a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution provides some statistics on progress from technology.

Businesses relentlessly look for ways to replace workers with machines. The machines get better and smarter. We go from spoons to shovels to excavators, not the other way around.

Telephone switchboard operators lose jobs to automated switching. Toll collectors get replaced by E-ZPass. Auto workers get replaced by robots.

That’s a 120-fold increase in output per worker. When a worker is 120 times more productive, you usually don’t need as many workers as you did before.

Or look at eggs. Today, a couple of workers can manage an egg-laying operation of almost a million chickens laying 240,000,000 eggs a year. How can two people pick up those eggs or feed those chickens or keep them healthy with medication? They can’t. The hen house does the work—it’s really smart. The two workers keep an eye on a highly mechanized, computerized process that would have been unimaginable 50 years ago.

In 2007 the Washington Post reported:

“The textile industry has been particularly aggressive in replacing people with machines. A half-century ago, a typical North Carolina textile worker operated five machines at once, each capable of running a thread through a loom at 100 times a minute. Now machines run six times as fast, and one worker oversees 100 of them.”

YIKES – World Ends! Shouldn’t the dreaded profits be put behind people and jobs? The typical  union organizer, community organizer, liberal or Marxist might think so.

What is the end result of progress through technology?

When profits rise due to lower costs created from “progress” via technology we have an economic phenomena.

Savings from higher productivity doesn’t simply go to the owners of the textile factory or the mega hen house who now have lower costs of doing business. Lower costs don’t always mean higher profits.  Lower costs lead to lower prices as businesses compete with each other to appeal to consumers.

The result is a higher standard of living for consumers. The average worker has to work fewer and fewer hours to earn enough money to buy a dozen eggs or a pair of shoes or a flat-screen TV or a new car that’s safer and gets better mileage than the cars of yesteryear. That higher standard of living comes from technology. It isn’t just the rich who get cheaper TVs and cars, plus the convenience of using an ATM at midnight.

When old jobs disappear new jobs appear. This is called progress.

Government regulation and policy do more to hurt workers that lose jobs but they continue to regulate and manipulate the system which in the end will stifle progress in the name of organizing. Government “organized” the housing market with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They “organized” banks and mortgage companies forcing them to make loans to people who didn’t qualify.

When the housing bubble burst and people began losing jobs Barack Obama blames Bush, blames technology, but refuses to blame government policy because he won’t blame what he favors – a nanny state of big government policy that controls every facet of our lives, kills jobs, kill business and kills the American dream.

Businesses are uneasy about the future and when they see government setting up endless rules through regulation and forcing unionization on businesses who don’t want it government is killing the goose that lays the golden egg – business.

Doing less with more because of progress is what makes the world go round. Big Government and Marxist stifle innovation, shutter businesses, cost jobs and creates chaos.

Milton Friedman wrote “Free to Choose.” Unions and Barack Obama don’t want us to choose. They want to decide for us by force and coercion. That’s the way Third-World Banana Republics and dictatorships work.

Do wish to remain free to choose or do wet want government and Barack Obama to make those decisions?

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