Drop It Like It’s Hot By Charles Payne

It becomes official today, the highly anticipated budget assembled by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan. It's appropriate the budget is dropped on the same day new music CDs are released. I checked it out as there are interesting album names that could actually be applied to our aspects of society. Last week, Britney Spears dropped her latest collection of tracks, and the bad girl of music didn't rile up a fraction of the controversy Ryan has this week. Someone needs to kick that hornet's nest we call Washington, DC.

Our government is borrowing $0.43 of each dollar it spends and in the process, mortgaging the futures of children and grandchildren already looking at living standards below their parents and grandparents. In this country, consumption from labor income has plunged to 61% of the total from 85% in 1970. One third of the nation is waiting for a check from the government in order to survive, and some think that's compassionate. Teach a man to fish and you have done the most compassionate thing possible.

Keep a man chained to the government's printing press and you snatch his soul, making him an indentured servant in the process. We see this more and more each day. Last month, the amount of people unemployed 27 weeks plus increased to more than 6.1 million people. How many were proud workers that contributed to this great nation? By the way, it's men that are drowning in this economy that chides and attacks big businesses even while bailing out banks and favored industries.

Women 20 years old plus gained 96,000 jobs, while men in the same category lost 31,000.

Even people with jobs are struggling as they dip into savings to keep up with inflation as real wages continue to drift lower. We must go on the offensive, unleash the power of people relegated to living check to check. Can anyone really see 50 million people on Medicare (with 12 million more to join under the new healthcare law), 4.4 million on welfare, and 17 million unemployed or underemployed as a growth strategy?

While Congressman Ryan force-feeds reality with his budget for FY12 aimed at cutting $4.4 trillion in debt over the next ten years, the Fed is facing internal turmoil not seen in a long time...if ever.

* Charles Plosser wants to sell $240.0 billion in securities.
* Hoenig admits the Fed is driving up commodities prices.
* Bullard, Fisher, and Lacker want QE2 to end ASAP.
* Fed President Narayara Kocherlakota sees interest rates going up this year.

They were speaking out last week and more this week, too. The hawks are dropping it like it's hot, but the doves aren't as Bernanke, Yellen, and Dudley have talons as sharp and menacing as any bird of prey. Speaking of which, we all better pray the Fed does the right thing sooner rather than later. In fact, I'm not sure the market collapses in June if that is when accommodation is removed. When Dudley, head of the all-powerful New York Fed, clings to the "dual mandate" as justification for not hiking rates, or at least stopping the printing press, I become very nervous.

I don't remember the Greenspan Fed being so outspoken. It's my guess the rebels want to be on the right side of history.

Don't look now but all the work being done in Wisconsin could come to a screeching halt today if incumbent state Supreme Court Judge Prosser loses to incumbent Joanne Kloppenburg. It would be an amazing turn of events, and would embolden the kind of entitlement nature permeating public sector unions and their belief that collective bargaining and other perks are divine rights.

I understand why so many well-intentioned people have simply dropped out of it all; caring, investing, and hoping. That thought brings me to the CD that is easiest to apply to everyday circumstances.

In real life you become clairvoyant by assuming the mistakes of the past will be made over and over again...sadly, it is that simple.