Blown Prediction Of Doomsday Award Goes To Republican TARP Author Sen. Judd Gregg

The blown prediction of doomsday award for 2012 goes to former Senator Judd Gregg, Republican author of TARP, who opined in July (here) that September was likely to be a month where we might again come close to total economic collapse.

Oh well. There's always Octember. After which comes Novonder.

As we all know:

MINISTER OF PROPAGANDA to DICTATOR HAILSTONE:

"Yah, you were gonna Blitz-Kreeg Great Mitten by the middle of August!"

FIELD MARSHAL HERRING to DICTATOR HAILSTONE:

"Then you said, Septober, then Octember, it's now in the middle of Novonder, and we ain't there yet!" -- The Three Stooges, "I'll Never Heil Again" (1941, here)

TARP averted nothing. And now nothing has averted nothing.

Aren't you glad he was in charge?

"I'll Turn Public Schools Into Food Deserts, You Take Care Of The Rest"

Two Years From Now Unemployment Will Still Be About 9.1 Percent

So the calculator here.

That must mean 2 years from now Obama will be the president.

Romney Isn't A Flip-flopper On Taxes, He's A Snake

During the primaries Romney ran as a conservative tax cutter who would cut taxes across the board by 20 percent.

Now that he's the candidate, in Ohio he has said not to expect much of a tax cut because he would be eliminating deductions and exemptions at the same time, evidently in continuity with his pledge to maintain revenue neutrality and the progressivity of the tax code. You'll be paying the same . . . for now.

The problem with this is that the deductions and exemptions are bulwarks against the effects of rising tax rates in the future, and once removed expose taxpayers to the full force of those higher tax rates. This happened to us once before between 1986 and 1993 when deductions were eliminated by Reagan in exchange for lower tax rates, only to be raised again by Clinton. (Sorry, folks).

Conservatives should be running away from Romney. He's not just a mere flip-flopper. He's a snake, and a liberal one at that whom the Democrats will be quite happy to have succeed with his tax program because it will make it easy for them to milk the middle class the next time they come to power.

Americans Are Pretty Much OK With The Fascist Police State

Poll here.

Do The Mussolini With Cabaret Voltaire

Video here.

UN Ambassador Susan Rice Does The Mussolini For Politico

Story here.

US Embassy Cairo Decides Religious Feelings Trump Free Speech

I'm sure the Supremes are amused by the attempt to assert the priority of one clause of the First Amendment over another clause of the First Amendment.

I saved the screen shot from 9/12/12.

Speaking of not abusing the right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others, the news reports that The Piss Christ is back on display.

So let me get this straight. Muslims do not believe in the deity of Christ, nor of Muhammad for that matter, but if you insult Muhammad you must die.  But Christians in America worship Christ as a god but its government does nothing to protect them from hurt religious feelings when he is insulted.

So therefore the government of the United States thinks Islam is deserving of superior treatment, for some reason.

Gee, I wonder what that would be?

Democrats Embrace "ObamaCare" Moniker On Bumper Sticker

Seen on a car in Grand Rapids this morning.

Tea Party Support Has Dropped 20 Percent Since Summer 2010

Gallup has the numbers, here.

30 percent of respondents supported the Tea Party in August 2010.

In August 2012 support is just 24 percent.

In the interim Republican operatives have worked to co-opt local chapters, assisted by Rush Limbaugh and Freedom Works in particular.

You know Rush Limbaugh, the guy who thinks President George W. Bush used the tax code to pander to the middle class.

Would Republicans have retaken the House in 2010 with 2012's level of support?

Just sayin'.

Video Of Romney Backtracking On Tax Cuts, Threatening Your Deductions

Romney will take away your deductions and exemptions

Romney the tax simplifier, tax leveler, tax back-tracker, tax flip-flopper, uncertain tax trumpeter was on display in Ohio this week, posing himself as a clear and present danger to the tax code's many indispensable props to middle class family life, including not just the mortgage interest deduction but also for the first time "exemptions".

The last time a Republican talked this way was in 1986 when Ronald Reagan took away deductibility of credit card interest in exchange for lower overall rates.

Those rates lasted until Clinton, when they were raised. But deductibility of credit card interest? That never came back, and never will.

The same thing is going to happen to the home mortgage interest deduction, and possibly to "married filing jointly" and other such provisions of the current tax code. You'll get lower rates . . . for a while, until they have to raise them.

And then the protections of the current provisions will be absent, exposing you to the full force of increased tax rates.

The fat cats from The Wall Street Journal and Forbes Magazine to Rush Limbaugh, Mitt Romney, the Libertarians and the Simpson-Bowles crowd all want their greedy little hands on more revenue from the middle class . . . so they don't have to pay as much. It's just that simple.

And they are betting you are so stupid that you will vote for that!

There is nothing wrong with the current code which spending cuts cannot fix.

Story and video here.

Jim DeMint And Rick Santorum Endorse Todd Akin

ABCNews reports here.

Now they support him, after the deadline passed for Akin to quit and after Akin had to go it alone for over a month against Romney and the entire Republican establishment telling him to "git out".

Spineless cowards.

8,692,638 Republicans Can't Be Wrong About Romney

Rush Limbaugh Indicts George Bush As A Panderer

I can't believe he left in the transcript, but here it is:

"But tax policy leading up to Obama... You know, politicians have pandered to the middle class forever, and there's a whole boatload of Americans not paying income tax right now. I think the numbers, depending who you talk to, is 47% or 49%. The top 5% number you're talking about, it's 59% of all tax revenue is paid by the top 5%."

Nice of you to pit your working class listeners against the middle, Rush.

Now what was that class warfare Obama engages in that you were complaining about?

"The Electorate Always Makes The Correct Decision"

Was Obama the correct decision?

This Is How Democracy Ends Up

"The correct decision, what's best for the masses," democratically elected.

Why is it that someone always must die for the sake of the masses? Jesus had to die for the sins of the whole world. The Jews had to die in the shtruggle for Lebensraum. 50 million abortions have had to be sacrificed for the American way of life.

It would be nice for a change if someone had to live.

Libertarianism is as insanely dangerous as any ideology:

[F]or all of the criticism the Right makes of Leftist-Statist-Big Government ‘knowing what’s best for the masses,’ there does exist a virulent strain of the same arrogance within its own ranks which is totally inconsistent with Wanniskian thinking, which as John Tamny beautifully points to in his piece, can be summed up as the electorate always makes the correct decision and/or the electorate as a whole is smarter than any individual (“…the electorate as a whole is wiser than any individual member in understanding its interests, it is wiser than any economist or group of economists.”).  Overt or subtle as it may be, the belief of most Conservative intellectuals I have met is that they (or their ‘bundle of ideas’) are wiser than the American electorate which suffers from liberal media bias or systemic ignorance.

I'll take my chances alone.

And We Said NO To King George III . . . Why?

Moochelle and the Mooch are milking the presidency for all its worth, according to this story in The Daily Caller:

Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks.

In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million on the royal family. ...

Aside from a salary, the president gets a $50,000 a year expense account, a $100,000 travel account, $19,000 entertainment budget and an additional million for “unanticipated needs,” he notes.

It's the worst economy since WWII, but the Obamas are costing us 24 times what a Queen would. A Constitutional Monarchy never looked so good.

Romney's Alarming Flip On Taxes: Expect Cuts To Deductions And Exemptions

The Wall Street Journal, here, is describing this flip as a shift.

I'll say, like a mountain shifting, or a Giant Foo Bird shifting its entrails over your house:

Mitt Romney on Wednesday told an Ohio crowd that while he would work to lower tax rates on businesses and individuals, they shouldn’t “be expecting a huge cut in taxes because I’m also going to lower deductions and exemptions.”

The deductions we all fear losing are relatively common knowledge, like the home mortgage interest deduction. Romney has been cagey about this, on again off again about reducing the benefit for higher earners only. But this outburst sounds like cutting the deduction for those farther down the income ladder is possible. 

Cuts to "exemptions" is an entirely new animal, however, and goes to the very heart of the tax code. Since Americans fought hard after WWII for the tax-filing category "Married Filing Jointly", the prop to families trying to raise children on one income has come under repeated attack, first under Nixon, and then from feminists who deplored the special tax status given to families. Gay and lesbian couples tirelessly work for recognition of their unions as marriages mostly because they want in on the tax preference.

It is extremely disappointing to hear Romney talk this way. It plays entirely into the hands of the opposition, who can use it to sow doubt in the minds of his would be supporters about whether Republicans will raise taxes on the middle class. I , for one, think Romney will say anything he thinks he has to in order to win votes, even if it is self-contradictory. But the fact of the matter is Romney was a tax equalizer in Massachusetts, which meant privileges for favored groups went out the window, and so fees went up on businesses and taxes went up on properties to adjust to his leveling programs. 

With Rush Limbaugh candidly letting it slip today that the middle class has been pandered to through the tax code, the drumbeat against the people grows in intensity.

And the dupes will vote for it.

Liberal Narrative Blames Drought For Poor GDP, As If 1.5 Percent Growth Were Good

GDP for Q2 is revised down today to 1.3 percent annual rate, from 1.7 percent a month ago, and liberals are blaming . . .  the weather.

They are blaming 0.2 points of the 0.4 point decline on declining farm inventories due to the drought, as if it makes a difference whether GDP is 1.3 or 1.5. Hell, GDP of 2.5 percent represents treading water. Anything less than that is an economy in real trouble. By their own admission, farming is 1 percent of the economy, but the article to the left is already blaming lousy Q3 GDP, which isn't out yet, on the drought, too. This is the lamest excuse we've heard yet, and that's saying a lot.

Last August it was the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Arab Spring, and financial turmoil in the European Union which were responsible for everything going wrong for Obama.

In 2010 it was his peeps' fault, whom he told to pull up their socks, get off the couch and go vote.

Before that everything was Bush's fault.

After November Obama gets to blame the American people for all his troubles, none of which are ever his responsibility.

The Blue Tie Club: The Enemies of the People's Money

Romney Would Replace Ben Bernanke

Read about here at USA Today.

Q2 2012 Annual Rate Of GDP, Third Estimate, Revised Down To 1.3 From 1.7

The BEA reports, here:

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the second quarter of 2012 (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the "third" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 2.0 percent.

The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the "second" estimate issued last month. In the second estimate, the increase in real GDP was 1.7 percent (see "Revisions" on page 3).

The third estimate indicates that the economy was growing in the second quarter 24 percent less well than thought in the second estimate, and 35 percent less well than thought in the first quarter.

As an annualized rate of growth, today's report of 1.3 percent represents more slowing since 2011, which represented slowing from 2010 after the depression of 2008 and 2009. Clearly the trend continues down despite unleashing the full force of economic stimulus, all of it borrowed and running up the debt in the process while monetary policy of the Federal Reserve has robbed savers in broad daylight, savers who depend on a free market in interest rates which Ben Bernanke, the appointee of George Bush and Barack Obama, has done everything he can to subvert. He is as much the enemy of the people as Bush and Obama have been. 

The Fed recently embarked on so-called QE To Infinity And Beyond because it knew what was coming in this report.

It is high time America shouted NO to this cabal. Mitt Romney is the most likely person to right this ship commanded by these pirates.

It Be Da Winker Night At Drudge

Ohio Poll Showing Obama +10 With "Likely Voters" Prepares The Way For The Lord

The Ohio poll by Quinnipiac/CBS/NewYorkTimes here showing Obama +10 over Romney is of "likely voters", not telling us how many Democrats are represented in the results. They could be legion, in view of the fact that Rasmussen's latest poll in Ohio showed the race to be +1 Obama just days before this poll. Has anything significant happened in recent days to cause such a dramatic swing?

Despite the significance of the auto bailouts for the prognostications of local Democrat officials in Ohio, the fact that early voting in Ohio begins next week helps explain why it is necessary for Democrat sympathizers to release a favorable poll now to prepare the way of the lord.

Bailout Takers To Give Obama The Margin Of Victory In Ohio

Is Romney wrong to write-off voters who depend on direct government assistance?

Alec MacGillis for TNR, here:

When I was in Toledo last week, I asked Lucas County Treasurer Wade Kapszukiewicz, a Democrat, what he made of Obama’s strong position, and he didn’t hesitate. “It’s the bailout," he said. "It’s not just the Jeep plant in Toledo and that they build the Chevy Cruze in Youngstown. But more than that -- we have 88 counties, and in 82 of them there are supplier plants to the larger ones. When you start talking about 82 of 88 counties that have some sort of direct, literal, positive impact from this rescue, I think that on the margins has the ability to tweak the numbers.”

The moral hazard of bailouts doesn't affect just the outcome for a business, but also the outcome for the politician responsible for it.

Gov. Romney should have considered that the contributions of bankers who were helped through TARP bailouts which he supported may be outnumbered by the votes of workers whose jobs the auto-bailouts he opposed preserved. 

Real Clear Politics Puts Ohio In Obama Column: He's 5 Votes Away From Victory

Real Clear Politics has put Ohio in the "leans Obama" column, here, which puts Obama 5 Electoral College votes away from clinching victory, according to the polling and math as presented.

Recent discussion of polling has included charges that polling is oversampling Democrats, that polling amounts to "in-kind contributions" to Democrat campaigns by news organizations biased toward liberalism, that polling is campaigning in another form, that polling is disinformation designed to suppress the turnout of the Republican opposition, etc.

So remember this map after the election is over, the only poll that counts.

Missouri Republicans Finally Stand Up For Rep. Todd Akin

So Reuters, here:

But the chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, David Cole, who had issued a statement soon after the rape remarks that questioned Akin's decision to remain in the race, said on Tuesday the state party supported Akin.

"We are confident that Todd will defeat McCaskill in November, and the Missouri Republican Party will do everything we can to assist in his efforts," he said.

Mike Huckabee has been there for Akin from the beginning. Newt has stepped up. Missouri Republicans are stepping up, following Newt's lead. Even Demented Jim's Senate Conservatives Fund is thinking about it.

What's to think about, Jim?

Meanwhile Reince Priebus of the Republican National Committee is still running away from Akin as fast as he can. That guy is as clueless as was his predecessor, Michael Steele.

Establishment Republicans are hopelessly clueless.

In Your Face, America!

Seen In Grand Rapids Last Week

Politics Is The Art Of The Possible

Madonna's Black Muslim In The White House

Reported here:

“Y’all better vote for f–king Obama, OK? For better or for worse, all right? We have a black Muslim in the White House! Now that’s some amazing s–t,” Madonna said. “It means there is hope in this country. And Obama is fighting for gay rights, so support the man, g-damnit.”

Good Soldier Newt Gingrich Campaigns For Todd Akin In Missouri

USA Today has the story here:

"If verbal mistakes mattered, Joe Biden couldn't be vice president," Gingrich said in the radio interview, adding he is supporting Akin because the congressman "admitted he made a mistake and apologized for it."

Republicans have cut-off funds for Akin, which tells the electorate all it needs to know about the Republican Party.

Republicans Still Don't Get It: Obama Is Not Carter Redivivus

Until the Republican Party comes to grips with the fact that the Bushes were two of the very worst presidents for the economy in the post-war period, it is never going to understand the current problem and offer America a decent alternative, which is that Obama is continuing in the Bushes' footsteps and is actually worse than them, if that were possible.

Obama is the second coming of George Bush, not of Jimmy Carter.

If only we had an economy like Jimmy Carter's, lousy as it was for its time. But total household net worth never increased more as a percentage than under his short tenure, and he ranked third best in the post-war period for increasing housing values. Those two categories, incidentally, were also where his successor Ronald Reagan shined the brightest as well.

Erick Erickson should know better:

"There are a lot of elitist Republicans who have spent several years telling us Mitt Romney was the only electable Republican. Because the opinion makers and news media these elitists hang out with have concluded Romney will not win, the elitists are in full on panic mode. They conspired to shut out others, tear down others, and prop up Romney with the electability argument. He is now not winning against the second coming of Jimmy Carter. They know there will be many conservatives, should Mitt Romney lose, who will not be satisfied until every bridge is burned with these jerks, hopefully with the elitist jerks tied to the bridge as it burns."

Mitt Romney is a fiscally conservative social liberal who doesn't really have a home in either of the two major political parties, which is why he's being attacked from all sides. It is not because of his social liberalism but because of his fiscal conservatism. Which is to say that both parties have expunged that idea from their lexicons since LBJ and no one really knows what it even means anymore.

But Romney may indeed know, and always gives the impression of knowing, which is why he is having a likeability problem. He comes off as the bad banker who won't increase your credit limit until you start catching up on your payments.

No one really likes a guy like that, but that is the kind of guy whom we most need right now, holding the veto pen. If he loses, fear of that will be the reason.

No one likes a spending party pooper.

The Worst Presidents For The Economy Club

1

2

3

4

4

5

5

On a scale of 7 to 70, 7 being best and 70 being worst, these guys score the following:

Obama 53, Bush the Younger 51, Bush the Elder 50, Nixon/Ford 48, Carter 42, Reagan 42.

The Best Presidents For The Economy Club

1

2

3

4

4

On a scale of 7 to 70, 7 being best and 70 being worst, their scores are:

Truman 21, Clinton 24, Eisenhower 26, JFK/LBJ 29.

Live Long And Prosper . . . Sans Nuts

Men supposedly live a lot longer, on average, minus the family jewels.

Story here.

Jeffrey Lord Doubts This Race Is Close

In The American Spectator, here:

After the election, Ed Rollins ran into the Washington Post's blunt-speaking editor Ben Bradlee and "harassed" Bradlee "about his paper's lousy polling methodology."

Bradlee's "unrepentant" response?

"Tough sh…t, Rollins, I'm glad it cost you plenty. It's my in-kind contribution to the Mondale campaign."

Got that? ...

How does one explain a president who, like Jimmy Carter in 1980, is increasingly seen as a disaster in both economic and foreign policy? How does a President Obama, with a Gallup job approval rating currently at 49% -- down a full 20% from 2009 -- mysteriously win the day in all these polls?

How does this happen?

Can you say "in-kind contribution"?

Election 2012: The Dilettante Radical Or The Conservative Liberal?

Can Liberals Count? Can Liberals Remember?

George Bush won Ohio in 2004 by 118,000 votes, but Andrew Sullivan remembers it differently, here:

"At this point in 2004, one recalls, George W. Bush was about to see a near eight-point lead shrivel to a one-state nail-biter by Election Day."

The real nail-biters were in Iowa, where Bush won by just 10,000 popular votes (7 electoral college votes), and in New Mexico, where Bush won by just 6,000 popular votes (5 electoral college votes), neither of which separately or together would have given victory to Democrat John Kerry.

Be that as it may, the real point of Sullivan's story is this:

"If Obama wins, to put it bluntly, he will become the Democrats’ Reagan."

Ah, no, he'll become the Democrats' W, or maybe their George H. W. Bush. Or if he's really really lucky maybe their Richard Nixon.

Obama's economic performance in the next four years would have to improve by 40 percent in seven key categories of economic measurement in comparison with all previous presidents to achieve the fair-to-poor record achieved by Ronald Reagan, whom I have shown elsewhere scored a lousy 42, just like Jimmy Carter.

President Obama's current score after 4 years is already 2 points worse than George Bush's score of 51 after 8 years, the worst two records in the post-war period. That means Obama would have to pull out  of his hat a veritable golden age to make him look as good as Reagan, which as I've said isn't saying much. To do it Obama would have to score a 32 in the next four years just to average out to a 42.

Can you imagine an Obama second term turning in an overall performance roughly close to that of JFK/LBJ, who rank 4th best out of 10 since WWII? Because that is what it would take.

Obama would have to go from worst for unemployment to 4th (think Clinton and W), starting tomorrow. He would have to go from worst to 4th for GDP (think Reagan and Eisenhower), for the next four years. He would have to go from worst to 4th for housing values (think Harry Truman). Only George Bush has been worse for the increase in Americans' total household net worth than Obama has been. To address that Obama would have to restore at least 1960s levels of prosperity to the country, if not Clinton era levels.

Fat chance.

Despite all the ruin which one man can rain down on a country through sheer incompetence and arrogance, the American people are a resilient lot and things will improve no matter who gets elected. The economy adjusts and moves on, and in many respects there is only one way to go but up. But if it's Obama who is elected again, I don't expect him to finish much better than a 48 after 8 years overall, because the first 4 have been such a disaster.

Romney Is Right: People Who Pay No Taxes Pay No Attention

Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.

The way to make them pay attention is to make them pay.

If America Can Re-Elect George Bush In 2004 . . .

. . . it can re-elect Barack Obama in 2012, the two worst presidents, back to back no less, since WWII.

Naked Capitalism Knows A Rival Ideology When It Sees One

It's an amusing attack on the libertarian ideologue Megan McArdle by the anarchist communist ideologue Yves Smith, here, at Naked Capitalism, if you think of it as a cat fight.

The comments are so disturbing to "Strelnikov" (appropriately continuing to use the pseudonym "Yves") that she's thinking of closing down free speech in the comments section for her "shaming" posts only. Call it perestroika.

(image source)

"Naked Capitalism" Supports The Occupy Movement

In your heart you felt she was nuts, but now you know it.

Those occasional protestations to being a middle of the road type of person never rang true when you observed all those posts she's had from Washingtons Blog, the 911 conspiracy theorist, who shows up, by the way, also at Barry Ritholtz' The Big Picture.

No one goes from being a moderate directly to anarchist communism unless they were something more extreme all along.

The first principle of all ideology is to lie in order to gain the confidence of the people, and if not the confidence, an opening.

Obama Replaces Bush For Worst Economic Conditions Since WWII

If you thought George W. Bush was the worst president ever, you were right . . . until now.

Compared to every president since WWII in seven broad categories of economic measurement, Bush came in dead last. But in just four short years President Obama has managed to mess up what it took George Bush to do in eight. Call President Obama "The Quicker Screwer Upper."

My readers know that I have been examining and ranking every president from Truman to Obama in recent days from best to worst in a variety of broad economic categories: increase in the national debt, control of the rate of inflation, growth of the economy, real stock market performance for investors, increase in housing values for savers, increase in household net worth and rate of unemployment. Follow the links to examine the results for each one.

When put all together, it's easy to see who has been the best president overall, and who the worst. The ideal president, naturally, would score a 7 overall on this scale, placing first in every category compared to his peers. The worst president would score a 70, placing last by every measure. That last number tells you how I have counted the presidents. JFK, who was assassinated in his first term, is grouped together with his VP LBJ. Nixon, who resigned in his second term, is grouped together with his VP Ford. That leaves eight others: Truman, Eisenhower, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton, Bush the Younger, and Obama, stretching from 1948 until 2012.

Here's the list showing them all, from best to worst, including the numerical ranking in each category, and the overall score. Democrat Harry Truman comes out on top, and Democrat Barack Obama comes up in dead last. Over time the economic difference between Republican leadership in the White House and Democrat has been infinitesimally small, a difference of just 0.13 percent, slightly favoring Republicans who average 6.03 compared to Democrats who average 6.04.

Otherwise the main take away is that the only president to score in the 20s like long ago Truman, Eisenhower, and JFK/LBJ has been Bill Clinton, who spent the majority of his term in office with Republicans in control of the Congress. Any president who can again score in the 20s like him will necessarily be two times better economically for the country than George Bush and Barack Obama have been. They've both been unmitigated disasters.

Ranking for Debt+Inflation+GDP+SP500+Housing Values+Household Net Worth+Unemployment = score

Truman 1+6+2+1+4+6+1                       = 21

Clinton 4+5+3+2+1+4+5                        = 24

Eisenhower 2+1+5+3+6+7+2                 = 26

JFK/LBJ 3+3+1+6+8+5+3                     = 29

Carter 5+10+7+8+3+1+8                        = 42 (tie)

Reagan 10+8+4+7+2+2+9                      = 42 (tie)

Nixon/Ford 8+9+6+9+7+3+6                  = 48

Bush The Elder 6+7+8+5+9+8+7           = 50

Bush The Younger 9+4+9+10+5+10+4  = 51

Obama 7+3+10+4+10+9+10                   = 53 

Compared To Gold, Oil Is Still The Better Value

The gold to oil ratio is 19.11, over 27 percent elevated from 15.

Kudlow Is Right: Real Private Investment Is At October 1999 Level

Larry Kudlow is right. When it comes to inflation-adjusted private investment, the current level of private investment is at a level first reached way back in October 1999. The peak in this metric, which Larry Kudlow likens to our seed corn, was reached at the beginning of 2006. The current level is nearly 16 percent lower than that. That's a depression in investment dating back 6 years, and arguably 13 years, and goes a long way to explaining why George  W. Bush and Barack Obama rank at the very bottom of the list of post-war presidents for economic performance. View the chart and data here. 

ABC News Reports Obama Makes "False Claim"

False because . . . he's just mistaken? False because . . . he's just misinformed?

Gee, how about because he's lying?

The lengths to which these people will go to protect this snake. They exonerate him even as they convict him.

Story here.

Unemployment Since WWII: Obama Worst, Truman Best

The following rankings represent average monthly unemployment as reported in the BLS database, using November of the year elected through the October of the election year defeated or concluding service. As per usual, I do not count Truman's service in wartime, just his term from 1948 to 1952. Overall Republican performance is slightly worse than Democrat, 5.88 v. 5.75 percent.

The irony of this list is that Democrats head it and end it, with unemployment under Obama (46 months) more than twice as bad as under Truman, who 60 years ago posted what was to be the best unemployment record of any president since.

Truman                    4.44 percent

IKE                          4.82

JFK/LBJ                   4.91

Bush The Younger   5.21

Clinton                     5.28

Nixon/Ford               5.75

Bush The Elder        6.22

Carter                       6.55

Reagan                    7.58

Obama                     9.00