Newt Gingrich has officially joined the 2012 presidential race. What's not clear is how Gingrich expects to actually foster Republican or Conservative votes.

On 05/15/11 Gingrich was on "Meet The Press" and said the following:

REP. GINGRICH: I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering. I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate. I think we need a national conversation to get to a better Medicare system with more choices for seniors. But there are specific things you can do. At the Center for Health Transformation, which I helped found, we published a book called "Stop Paying the Crooks." We thought that was a clear enough, simple enough idea, even for Washington. We--between Medicare and Medicaid, we pay between $70 billion and $120 billion a year to crooks. And IBM has agreed to help solve it, American Express has agreed to help solve it, Visa's agreed to help solve it. You can't get anybody in this town to look at it. That's, that's almost $1 trillion over a decade. So there are things you can do to improve Medicare.

Medicare itself is social engineering. Technically anything you do to change it, or even take it away could be seen as social engineering. Gingrich is trying to walk down the middle like Obama.

I don't think the American people have "improving Medicare" on their minds. I think most Americans are starting to realize that no matter what you do to bloated government systems, they are always going to become ever expansive and expensive.

When asked about the individual mandate question by Gregory, Gingrich went on to say.

REP. GINGRICH: Well, I agree that all of us have a responsibility to pay--help pay for health care. And, and I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I've said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond...

He doesn't want the individual mandate, he doesn't want to get rid of the individual mandate, he wants some variation of it. On this issue Gingrich is again trying to walk down the middle like Obama.

I think that Gingrich is trying to be all things to all people. The only problem is that he is going to be watched closely by Conservatives, not the Independents he is attempting to attract. In other words; Gingrich is going to loose his base while chasing those who pay little to no attention to politics anyway. How else could one be "Independent" or "Undecided" with the way things are going today.

Towards the end of the interview Gingrich criticizes himself.

REP. GINGRICH: One of my great weaknesses is that part of me is a teacher analyst. And part of me is a political leader. And I've--one of the most painful lessons I've had to learn, and I haven't fully learned it obviously, is that if you seek to be the president of the United States, you are never an analyst, you know, you're never a college teacher because those folks can say what they want to say. And somebody who offers to lead America has to be much more disciplined and, and much more thoughtful than an analyst. Analysts can say anything they want to because there's no downside. But the person to whom you're entrusting the leadership of the United States had better think long and hard before they say things. I think that's a fair criticism of me.

Either Gingrich learns when and where to say what, or this is going to be one of the shortest bids for the Republican nomination in recent history.

There are, of course, a few sides to this. Either Gingrich actually has wild ideas he needs to keep to himself, or he is just wacky. Perhaps he just wants to be president, and will say anything to get there. Only time will tell. But I will be watching...

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There are now reports of inflation, and job losses.

Another report on Thursday showed a surprise jump in the number of Americans claiming unemployment benefits last week, which could cast a shadow on expectations for a significant pick-up in output in the second quarter.

Growth in gross domestic product slowed to a 1.8 percent annual rate after a 3.1 percent fourth-quarter pace, the Commerce Department said. Economists had expected a 2 percent pace.

The GDP report underscored the pain that strong food and gasoline prices are inflicting on households.

A inflation gauge contained in the report rose at a 3.8 percent rate -- the fastest pace since the third quarter of 2008 -- after increasing 1.7 percent in the fourth quarter.

A core price gauge, which excludes food and energy costs, accelerated to a 1.5 percent rate -- the fastest since the fourth quarter of 2009 -- from 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter. The core gauge is closely watched by Fed officials, who would like to see it closer to 2 percent.

Walmart has said that it has experienced its 7th quarter of losses.

Wal-Mart has struggled with seven straight quarters of sales declines in its stores.

Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in.

Lately, they're "running out of money" at a faster clip, he said.

"Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year," Duke said. "This end-of-month [purchases] cycle is growing to be a concern.

What does all of this mean? It means two things. One the US economy is not getting better. Employment levels are not going up, the number of job losses might have decreased, but jobs are still being lost.

The reason, I believe, for all of this is the "Stimulus Packages".

Think about it for a minute. How did the housing bubble pop? It popped because the mortgages fell through, people couldn't afford their houses. Once prices reached a point that the average person could no longer afford them, people stopped buying causing home values to drop suddenly. It was a house-of-cards, the homes were never worth what they were selling for. Property is worthless if there is nobody to buy it. Remember Beanie Babies; how much can you sell them for now?

The government's answer, a Stimulus plan. The government borrows money and puts it into the economy. In the short term this might seem good, but in the long term it's unsustainable. The sheer act of borrowing against the future devalues the US Dollar now (it lowers our credit score). The more the US borrows the weaker the dollar becomes on the world market.

It's another bubble, another house-of-cards. The money pumped into the economy is no different than the housing bubble; IT'S FAKE. The money is not real, it's borrowed with interest upon repayment. These loans are based on future earnings. The problem is that the money the government is printing is not resulting in wealth creation. We are not creating future earnings, nor are there signs that there will be any future earnings anytime soon.

The fake money is only effective in the short term, before the value of the US dollar drops. Just like the housing bubble, it works until you reach the tipping point. For the housing market the prices reached their ceiling, housing prices were so inflated that people could no longer afford to buy. For the US there is a debt ceiling. Once we borrow up to that ceiling, or even close to it, we are on the very edge of having the value of the dollar collapse on the world market. Increasing the debt ceiling will only further devalue the dollar.

The government is going to raise the debt ceiling no-matter what they say now. Because they have to keep the "house-of-cards" (which is the US economy) up. The hope is that things will turn around and the economy will again start adding value to the dollar. The problem is that hope doesn't cut it in the real world. Foreign governments are quickly realizing that the dollar is about to become greatly devalued. Foreign investors are going to pull their money out.

I covered all of this before, but there weren't quite as many visible signs in the media then. Also the writing is on the wall and that's why foreign investment in the US is dropping.

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So, what did Trump do? Trump just "took out" one of the best Democrat political weapons.

Now that Obama's certificate of live birth has been released it can no longer be used as a weapon against Republicans.

The birth issue is often the first question posed by the media when interviewing Republicans. No matter the answer, Republicans were portrayed as fools because of their intellectual honesty.

Nobody could honestly look at the situation and think that something strange wasn't going on. I think that the Obama campaign knew well-and-good that they could count on the birth issue to hurt Republican candidates. I don't think that the Obama campaign wanted to out the document yet.

The Obama campaign wanted to keep the document hidden to use it against a Republican candidate with higher poll ratings, and much later in the presidential race.

What do you think?

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Obama's speeches are often too long to just listen to and get anything out of them. It's like trying to catch an audio book in a bar while music is playing.

In the speech Obama goes on to list all of the different areas of life that he believes government should be in inserted, or at least providing. Take a look at some of these quotes.

Obama on Ryan's 2011 budget...

Those are both worthy goals for us to achieve. But the way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we've known throughout most of our history.

A 70% cut to clean energy. A 25% cut in education. A 30% cut in transportation. Cuts in college Pell Grants that will grow to more than $1,000 per year. That's what they're proposing. These aren't the kind of cuts you make when you're trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings in the budget. These aren't the kind of cuts that Republicans and Democrats on the Fiscal Commission proposed. These are the kind of cuts that tell us we can't afford the America we believe in. And they paint a vision of our future that's deeply pessimistic.

It's a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can't afford to fix them. If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can't afford to send them. Go to China and you'll see businesses opening research labs and solar facilities. South Korean children are outpacing our kids in math and science. Brazil is investing billions in new infrastructure and can run half their cars not on high-priced gasoline, but biofuels. And yet, we are presented with a vision that says the United States of America – the greatest nation on Earth – can't afford any of this.

It's a vision that says America can't afford to keep the promise we've made to care for our seniors. It says that ten years from now, if you're a 65 year old who's eligible for Medicare, you should have to pay nearly $6,400 more than you would today. It says instead of guaranteed health care, you will get a voucher. And if that voucher isn't worth enough to buy insurance, tough luck – you're on your own. Put simply, it ends Medicare as we know it.

No Mr. Obama; this is the America you envision --not the America envisioned by those who love freedom. Obama envisions an America resembling that which the founders escaped from. Obama does not believe in personal responsibility or individual liberty. This speech puts it all out in the open.

People who use the terms "pessimistic" and "optimistic" when referring to matters of fact are trying to avoid the truth, or disguise it.

After saying, "It's a vision that says America can't afford to keep the promise we've made to care for our seniors". Obama later in the speech talks of how, "Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill came together to save Social Security for future generations". If Social Security need to be saved once before, how is it so hard to believe that its in trouble now?

This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone's grandparents who wouldn't be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down's syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we'd be telling to fend for themselves.

The Health Care Exchanges don't open until after 2014. How can 50 million people who don't have health insurance loose it? Where are these poor children who have health insurance right now, but are going to loose it if we stop Obama Care? Repealing Obama Care will result in people who don't have health insurance having the health insurance that they don't have taken away. This is nonsense.

Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can't afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can't afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about it. In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined. The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. And that's who needs to pay less taxes? They want to give people like me a two hundred thousand dollar tax cut that's paid for by asking thirty three seniors to each pay six thousand dollars more in health costs? That's not right, and it's not going to happen as long as I'm President.

How does 1 trillion in "tax breaks" cost the government? Will that 1 trillion not be spent and circulated through the economy? Obama wants the American people to believe that every penny a wealthy person earns is hidden away somewhere so as to be immune to any form of tax.

The America I know is generous and compassionate; a land of opportunity and optimism. We take responsibility for ourselves and each other; for the country we want and the future we share. We are the nation that built a railroad across a continent and brought light to communities shrouded in darkness. We sent a generation to college on the GI bill and saved millions of seniors from poverty with Social Security and Medicare. We have led the world in scientific research and technological breakthroughs that have transformed millions of lives.

Opportunity is being destroyed by this administration's policies and everyone with any ties to industry knows this.

Private inventors are the ones who come up with the ideas that improve our lives. Sure a lot has come out of the space program, but mostly from contractors not government administrative types.

This is who we are. This is the America I know. We don't have to choose between a future of spiraling debt and one where we forfeit investments in our people and our country. To meet our fiscal challenge, we will need to make reforms. We will all need to make sacrifices. But we do not have to sacrifice the America we believe in. And as long as I'm President, we won't.

Today, I'm proposing a more balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over twelve years. It's an approach that borrows from the recommendations of the bipartisan Fiscal Commission I appointed last year, and builds on the roughly $1 trillion in deficit reduction I already proposed in my 2012 budget. It's an approach that puts every kind of spending on the table, but one that protects the middle-class, our promise to seniors, and our investments in the future.

We'll he's right about one thing. As long as he is president we are not going to do anything about our fiscal crisis.

How are we going to reduce the deficit and still "Invest" in the future? "It's an approach that puts every kind of spending on the table". Remember, Obama says exactly what he means. Sure they'll put every kind of spending on the table, they just won't reduce any of it. Obama is the master of lying by omission. He says he'll address something, he'll change something, he never says how. You can address anything, it doesn't mean you'll take any action on it. You can change some things by leaving them alone --like the Bush tax cuts which will again expire. This is how Obama works.

I don't think that this was a very "presidential" speech.

What did you think?

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I find it a little strange that the media is propping up John Boehner. Before this most recent budget deal, Boehner has NOT been a media darling. This begs the question why now?

It has now been confirmed that establishment Republicans are not going to try to stop Obama Care, and will not move to reduce the deficit. Even the most generous efforts put the Republican budget cutting only about 38 billion from the national deficit.

The U.S. government, on course to reach a record annual budget deficit, posted a monthly shortfall of $188.2 billion in March, wider than a year earlier, Treasury Department statistics showed today.

Last month’s deficit was up from a $65.4 billion gap in March 2010, when the government marked down the cost of the Troubled Assets Relief Program by $115 billion.

The White House and Congress last week reached agreement on a spending plan for the current fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, and face another fiscal hurdle next month with the prospect of reaching the statutory debt limit of more than $14 trillion. Last week’s agreement averted a shutdown of government agencies.

“The last-minute agreement to cut government spending and avert a federal government shutdown is a start, but realistically the budget cut amount is just a drop in the bucket,” Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York, said before the report.

The establishment Republicans have to go! Obama Care is now off the table, and what is a 38 billion dollar cut (over nearly a year) when the debt increases at 6.5 billion each day?

If this country doesn't wake up soon and get rid of these elitist Republicans, we're all going down with the ship. I agree with Pat Caddell; I don't think that the Republicans want to get rid of Obama Care, they just want to be the ones to control it.

Keep in mind that the G20 has already announced that they are going to instate a new unit for global trade to replace the dollar.

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