Reuters' Mike Dolan Gets It Wrong On Depressions

The relevant passage from his story here on the recent debate about whether we've had, face, or are in a depression makes a real hash of it:

But search for a precise definition of economic depression and you'll be hard pressed to find anything more specific than it's more severe than typical business cycle recessions, tends to cross multiple countries and lasts much longer.

Anecdotal rules of thumb -- cited in The Economist magazine and elsewhere -- center on a peak to trough drop in real gross domestic product of more than 10 percent or recessions lasting more than three years.

On that measure, the 1929-1933 Great Depression in the United States qualifies with a 27 percent loss of GDP and a peak unemployment rate of some 25 percent. The shorter 1937 and 1945 downturns qualify on the GDP measure alone too.

"Hard pressed"? The most useful rule of thumb learned way back in my childhood is not even mentioned: back-to-back years with GDP declines, on the analogy of recessions, which are back-to-back quarters with GDP declines. String out a recession long enough with annual GDP failing to surpass a previous high and you have a depression.

People may have to disagree about such definitions, but not about the data behind the theory.

The GDP decline of the 1929 depression is not correctly represented by the writer. Nominal GDP in 1929 was $103.6 billion, falling to its nadir in 1933 to $56.4 billion, a 45.56 percent drop, not 27 percent as the author states. It took until 1941 to surpass 1929 GDP.

Nor did GDP decline from 1937 to 1938 by more than 10 percent. It declined by 6.3 percent, from $91.9 billion to $86.1 billion. But GDP in 1939 exceeded that achieved in 1937, technically not a depression within a depression because there weren't back-to-back years of GDP decline.

And the GDP decline between 1945 and 1946 was a measly 0.36 percent, falling to $222.2 billion from $223 billion. The $1.9 billion decline between 1948 and 1949 was only 0.71 percent.

Missing from the story are the real 10 percent or greater depressions in the 20th century apart from The Great one: the depression of 1907-1911, when nominal GDP fell by 11.1 percent; and the depression of 1920-1925, when GDP fell almost 17 percent. Prohibition, dontchaknow. The roaring '20s were really a lot shorter than ten years.

If the 2008-2009 depression will compare to anything, it will be to 1937-1938's 6.3 percent decline, or to 1913-1916 when GDP fell 6.6 percent. The problem is the numbers are still fluid. The numbers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis still show a nominal decline in one year only, 2009, of 1.8 percent from 2008, despite reports of larger nominal declines in 2008 from 2007 and in 2009 from 2008 in the neighborhood of 3.8 percent.

If it's pretty clear we've had at most only a very small depression, we're technically out of it in 2010 due to government spending. It's equally clear, however, that current GDP is so anemic in the aftermath that we may well repeat the episode.

Prohibition: An Alliance Between Evangelical Christians and Criminals

So said George Will last year in his review of Daniel Okrent's book which details how the women's war on men's drinking inspired a chain of constitutional and social changes ills:

Women's Prohibition sentiments fueled the movement for women's rights -- rights to hold property independent of drunken husbands; to divorce those husbands; to vote for politicians who would close saloons. ...

Women campaigning for sobriety did not intend to give rise to the income tax, plea bargaining, a nationwide crime syndicate, Las Vegas, NASCAR (country boys outrunning government agents), a redefined role for the federal government and a privacy right -- the "right to be let alone" -- that eventually was extended to abortion rights. But they did.

Now the "darkly hilarious" story has been immortalized by none other than Ken Burns on none other than PBS.

Don't miss it.

You can watch it online, here.

Moochelle's June Vacay Flight Costs to Botswana and South Africa: Over $400K

As reported here.

There was no mention of any big game hunted while on safari in South Africa.

Admitting You Drive Drunk Declines 30 Percent Since 2006 Peak To Lowest Level Ever

In other words, the bad economy is producing more lying.

The AP has the full story here:

That led to a CDC estimate of more than 112 million episodes of drunk driving in 2010. CDC officials lamented that finding; still, it was the lowest estimate since the survey question was first asked in 1993, and down significantly from the 161 million incidents in the peak year of 2006.

Rep. Bachmann and Gov. Romney Support Obama's Murder of American Citizen

As reported here.

Rep. Ron Paul thinks it might be an impeachable offense.

Firing squad is more like it.

Are You Feeling Lucky? Well . . . Are Ya?

The Shiller S and P 500 p/e ratio stands at a still rich 18.9.

"It's a long way down . . . from number one." -- The (original) Highwaymen

On Third Anniversary of TARP, S&P 500 Closes at 1099.23, Same as it Did 3 Yrs. Ago

What are the chances of that?!

Spooky!

Pay attention to the hand in the following chart, and the dot under it, and the closing it signifies in small print in the upper right hand corner, which was a Friday three years ago, October 3, 2008, the end of a tumultuous week in American history on which President Bush signed the TARP legislation:

I remember this vividly, because Jim Cramer came on television the following Monday, October 6th, 2008 (after what seemed like a weeks' long freefall in the markets and sheer panic among the politicians trying to get TARP passed to save their donors' bacon on Wall Street) telling people to sell if they needed their money within five years.

Well, here we are, three years later . . . in the same place.

Do you still have your money? 25 million unemployed/underemployed don't.

You'll notice TARP, signed on this date three years ago, did nothing to stop the freefall in the markets. Obama and McCain both were for it. So were Sen. McConnell, Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor. And most Democrats. The real fight against TARP was in the Republican Party, and we lost, as did they.

TARP's final cost to the taxpayer may end up as much as $37 billion, an amount similar to the paltry one House Speaker John Boehner was proud to report to great fanfare that he and the Republicans saved in the spring of this year on the budget the Democrats never passed as required by law last year.

Nor are the banks really healthy after nearly $80 billion in FDIC payouts for 396 bank failures. And let's not even talk about the housing sector, the vast repository of the wealth of the American people squandered in the "let the good times roll" of HELOCs, refinancing, and flipping.

OK, let's talk about it: household net worth, which for many is all about their homes' value, is about $7.7 trillion off peak, or back at levels last seen in . . . 1997.

As for Jim Cramer, well, telling people to sell in a panic is just stupid, as is telling people to buy in a panic. Those who kept their heads and were patient and held on and invested new sums along the way made some big money in the markets right up to August of this year.

Don't fight the Fed, as the saying goes, until the Fed stops fighting, which it just did . . . sort of.

The significance of today's market is that the S and P 500 is back where it was after all the TARP intervention, all the Federal Reserve emergency lending (massive! trillions! to foreigners too!), stimulus spending and quantitative easing has run its course.

We've declined, we're moving sideways.

I expect more of the same . . . until we decide it is important to do otherwise.

Third Anniversary of TARP: Nearly 500 Banks Still Owe $19 Billion in TARP Bailouts, 160 Behind on Payments

Americans stand to lose $37 billion on TARP when all is said and done, as reported here.

But bank failures since January 25, 2008 now total 396.

The total cost of these failures paid by the FDIC to date is calculated here at $79.97 billion. 

Fran Tarkenton Imagines The NFL Run By The Teachers' Unions

Each player's salary is based on how long he's been in the league. It's about tenure, not talent. The same scale is used for every player, no matter whether he's an All-Pro quarterback or the last man on the roster. For every year a player's been in this NFL, he gets a bump in pay. The only difference between Tom Brady and the worst player in the league is a few years of step increases. And if a player makes it through his third season, he can never be cut from the roster until he chooses to retire, except in the most extreme cases of misconduct.

Let's face the truth about this alternate reality: The on-field product would steadily decline. Why bother playing harder or better and risk getting hurt?

No matter how much money was poured into the league, it wouldn't get better. In fact, in many ways the disincentive to play harder or to try to stand out would be even stronger with more money. ...

The only thing that might get done would be building bigger, more expensive stadiums and installing more state-of-the-art technology. But that just wouldn't help.

Read it all, here, at The Wall Street Journal.

Does Roseanne Even Know How Few People Make Over $100 Million Per Year?

The answer for 2009 was something fewer than 72, according to data published a year ago by socialsecurity.gov, here, which reveals only the aggregate number making beyond $50 million.

Just 72 individuals made in excess of $50 million in 2009, with an average wage of $84 million. In 2008 the number making in excess of $50 million was 131, with an average wage of $91 million. And in 2007 it was 151 people, with an average wage of almost $94 million.

The last time the average wage of the highest wage earners exceeded $100 million was in the year 2000 when 91 heavy hitters averaged $111 million in wages.

For a successful woman whose eponymous show went off the air in 1997 and is (conveniently for this discussion) worth $80 million, she sure doesn't grasp the difference between a wealth tax and a confiscatory income tax on high earners:

"I first would allow the guilty bankers to pay, you know, the ability to pay back anything over $100 million [of] personal wealth because I believe in a maximum wage of $100 million. And if they are unable to live on that amount of that amount then they should, you know, go to the reeducation camps and if that doesn't help, then being beheaded," Barr said with a straight face.

The video of the harridan is here.

The country has about 400 billionaires, but $1 billion invested conservatively at 3.0 percent nets just $30 million a year, and $3 billion nets $90 million a year, which could easily be the situation for 286 people on Forbes' famous list of the 400 richest Americans.

And by the way, in the top 100 this year, I count just two whose primary business is banking.

Greedy Little Monsters 'Occupy' This City and That, Seeking Forgiveness of Student Loans

In DC, the mostly leftist little monsters closest to the federal feeding trough were more careful to de-emphasize the fascist partnership between the current regime and the banks in hope of getting them to forgive their debts, too, and make the 1-percenters who already pay for almost everything pay for that as well. Stories here and here, and video here.

likes Obama, sees a bailout as reform

can't stay, has to go to class

Which just proves that greed is not the exclusive preserve of the rich and powerful. But cut off the student loan gravy train and the student protesters would be replaced by tens of thousands of unemployed PhDs, college administrators and support personnel from newly closed colleges and universities all across the land, which would be a good first step in improving education in America. 

Some worshippers at the altar of the great god have discovered that the religion is not all it's cracked up to be:

purportedly seen in Wall Street

Rules For Radicals

Bush's Patriot Act Has Paved The Way For Obama To Act As Judge, Jury and Executioner of American Citizens

And the numbskulls all around us, right and left, applaud, except, for example, for Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com, here:

[H]ow terribly upset so many Democrats pretended to be when Bush claimed the power merely to detain or even just eavesdrop on American citizens without due process. Remember all that? Yet now, here’s Obama claiming the power not to detain or eavesdrop on citizens without due process, but to kill them; marvel at how the hardest-core White House loyalists now celebrate this and uncritically accept the same justifying rationale used by Bush/Cheney (this is war! the President says he was a Terrorist!) without even a moment of acknowledgment of the profound inconsistency or the deeply troubling implications of having a President — even Barack Obama — vested with the power to target U.S. citizens for murder with no due process.

It is not sufficient, however, to prune the executive, overturn this deformity and return to the status quo ante in which Americans continue to sacrifice their right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, which is done all in the name of 50 million foreigners who we think must be allowed freely to visit our country each year while we pretend that they with us are all fellow citizens of one free world. This is the insane sickness of liberalism which threatens to kill us, that it is nearly a crime to believe that America is a distinct place with borders, a language and a culture which is ours and ours alone.

The dirty little secret here is that the more we embrace this horrid vision of global citizenship, the more we and our leaders become like the squalid tyrannies of Libya and Iraq than they become like us.

brothers in murder

  

Soc Gen's Albert Edwards Forecasts S&P500 at 400

I'm looking for a bear market decline to 575 because I think 800 is fair value and these things overshoot to the downside just as they do to the upside, but hey! 400 is in the same town as 575, just don't go there at night alone:

Edwards said he has been long government bonds for the same amount of time [since 1996] and now feels vindicated with the yield on the 10-year Treasury having fallen from 7 percent to 1.75 percent, "a hair’s breadth" from his longstanding ... 1.5 percent target.

He dismisses those who argue that stocks are cheap historically and believes US stocks are overvalued based on Tobin’s Q , or the ratio of firms' assets to their stock prices; Shiller, Graham & Dodd’s normalized price-to-earnings ratios; and cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings measures.

Read it here, if you dare.

For the record the Shiller p/e stands tonight at a still rich 19.45. Don't unleash all 100 Dalmatians until it's well below 10. The last time that happened?

1974-1984.

California AG Joins New York, Pulls Out of Negotiations to Settle Big Bank Abuses

Now there's some news worthy of being buried on a Friday evening where it can do as little harm as possible to the banks in question already down in the markets on a bad day and on a bad end to Q3:

California Attorney General Kamala Harris wrote in a letter on Friday that she will pursue her own investigation.

"California was being asked for a broader release of claims than we can accept and ... the relief contemplated would allow too few California homeowners to stay in their homes," Harris said in the letter to government officials leading the talks.

Read more about it here.

Herman Cain Comes Closest to a True Flat Tax

So says Stephen Moore for The Wall Street Journal, here, pointing out that FICA taxes do go in the shredder under Cain's 999 plan:

But the candidate who comes closest to a true flat tax is Herman Cain, the former Godfather's Pizza CEO. His argument for a "9-9-9" plan puts the current income and payroll taxes in the shredder and replaces them with a 9% personal income tax with no deductions, a 9% net business income tax, and a 9% national sales tax.

That would be rocket fuel for the economy, though the combination of a federal sales tax and an income tax is a big worry. But at least Mr. Cain has super-sized solutions to an economy with super-sized problems.

Solution? In 2008 Cain's 999 plan would have meant 900 billion fewer dollars in receipts for federal social insurance. I don't see how he could make up that difference, let alone an additional $300+ billion he comes up short compared to what was actually collected in 2008.

It looks more like a stealth plan to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare by ignoring it.

• A 9 percent tax on $8.50 trillion in adjusted gross incomes in 2008 comes to $765 billion (actual collected in 2008 was $1.03 trillion).

This is actually a huge tax cut on the wealthy and a big tax increase on everyone else. And does Cain intend to do away with deductions even for IRAs and 401Ks? If so that AGI number would be much higher, and the tax revenue higher, along with your tax bill. At least the billionaire will pay the same rate as the janitor, as Obama now famously says he wants.

• A 9 percent tax on $1.25 trillion in corporate profits comes to $113 billion (actual collected was $309 billion).

This is a huge tax cut on business, which is why Stephen Moore calls Cain's plan rocket fuel.

• A 9 percent tax on $4.40 trillion in total retail and food service consumer spending in 2008 comes to $396 billion. 

Does Cain intend this to be wider in scope than indicated? It is often said that 70 percent of the economy is consumer spending. In a $15 trillion economy, that's $10.5 trillion. A 9 percent tax on that would boost the receipts of a national sales tax to $945 billion.

But all told, Cain's plan would have collected only $1.274 trillion in federal revenue for 2008 when the government actually collected $2.5 trillion and still ran a deficit of close to $400 billion anyway.

We're currently spending $3.8 trillion in this country under Obama, $1 trillion more than in 2008. The 999 plan doesn't look up to the task.

Obama Executes American Terrorist in Yemen Without Trial

Your American citizenship means nothing, just as the War Powers Act means nothing. We live in a tyranny, where the rule of law is completely optional. You could be next:

Al-Awlaki's death is the latest in a run of high-profile kills for Washington under President Obama. But the killing raises questions that the death of other al Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden, did not.

Al-Awlaki is a U.S. citizen who had not been charged with any crime. Civil liberties groups have questioned the government's authority to kill an American without trial.

U.S. officials have said they believe al-Awlaki inspired the Fort Hood shooter, Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the November 2009 attack at Fort Hood, Texas.

In New York, the Pakistani-American man who pleaded guilty to the May 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt said he was "inspired" by al-Awlaki after making contact over the Internet.

Al-Awlaki also is believed to have had a hand in mail bombs addressed to Chicago-area synagogues, packages intercepted in Dubai and Europe in October 2010.

The complete story from CBS News is here.

Herman Cain's 999 Plan Would Have Cut Corporate Taxes in 2008 by 64 Percent

Average annual corporate profits for 2008, 2009, and 2010 were $1.47 trillion.

The average annual corporate tax paid on those profits was $331 billion for an average annual corporate tax rate of 22.5 percent.

How Herman Cain thinks he can lower the rate to 9 percent and still have enough revenue in combination with a 9 percent income tax rate and a 9 percent national sales tax rate is beyond me.

In 2008, those 9 percent rates would have yielded a mere $112 billion in corporate taxes (instead of the $309 billion actually collected), $400 billion in sales taxes, and $765 billion in income taxes, or $1.223 trillion short of the $2.5 trillion actually collected by the federal government.

If Cain leaves social insurance taxes in place, which would make it a 9997.65 Plan, not a 999 Plan, the $900 billion collected in 2008 in FICA taxes would still have left him $323 billion short of actual revenue collected in 2008.

See the corporate profits data in Table 11 from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, here:

Final Estimate of Q2 2011 GDP at 1.3 Percent

As reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, here.

With Q1 GDP at 0.4 percent, average GDP is at a paltry 0.85 percent so far in 2011.

Average annual GDP from 1930-2000 was 3.5 percent.

For the ten years from 2000 it averaged 1.67 percent (Europe was worse, at 1.5 percent).

A measly 0.85 percent in 2011 is stall speed, and that means less government revenue, which makes the deficit worse and the national debt grow, interest payments on which will exceed $434 billion this year, about one eighth of current spending of $3.8 trillion, or 12 percent.

Think of that as having to make interest payments on debts of $236,000 totaling $7,440 every year, $620 every month, on a salary of $62,000.

The implied interest rate of 3.15 percent won't last forever, but let's be generous and assume it does while what you owe keeps growing by 9 percent per year for the next decade because you keep spending and you never pay it down. Let's also assume you get a crummy annual raise of 1.7 percent every year for ten years.

Now you'll owe over $596,000 supported by a salary of nearly $74,000, but your interest expense will have grown to nearly $19,000 from $7,440 ten years prior, amounting now to 25 percent of your income as compared with 12 percent of your income then. More than doubled.

That's where America is headed . . . if interest rates don't rise and slow growth mirrors 2000-2010.  

Herman Cain's 999 Tax Idea is a Pipe Dream

Total retail and food services sales, according to the US Census Bureau here, in 2008 came to $4.4 trillion. (For 2010, the annualized estimate based on 8 months' of data is running at $4.6 trillion).

To replace the federal tax revenue of $2.5 trillion in 2008 solely on the back of consumption taxes, such as a national sales tax, would imply a national sales tax rate of . . . 57 percent. Unthinkable, unless you are Greece.

Herman Cain doesn't advocate that. But his idea of a 9 percent sales tax would have generated, at most, a paltry $400 billion in 2008. Coupled with about $765 billion from a 9 percent income tax on about $8.5 trillion in total adjusted gross income in 2008, the business community would have been on the hook for the missing $1.3 trillion in 2008 federal revenue, when it actually contributed only $300 billion in taxes that year.

A 333 percent increase in the tax liability of American business sounds like something only a commie like Obama would propose.

Herman Cain's numbers don't even come close to matching the problem which we are facing.

Tariffs on Imports at 100 Percent Wouldn't Be Enough to Cover Federal Spending

Here are the import numbers (rounded) for the last three years for all goods and services, according to the latest revision from the US Census Bureau, here:

2008 = $2.5 trillion

2009 = $2.0 trillion

2010 = $2.3 trillion.

Federal revenues in 2008 equaled $2.5 trillion, coming mostly from income and social insurance taxes, as well as a more modest contribution from corporate and excise taxes.

To completely replace that income from tariffs would imply a 100 percent tariff, which is unimaginable.

Presumably at least some of our trade with the world is reciprocally fair, excluding it from such a punishing rate.

At some point along the tariff scale as you rise toward that extreme level, otherwise off-setting import revenues will fall as retaliatory tariffs are imposed by the global marketplace.

A 25 percent tariff on Chinese imports, as The Donald recommends, in 2010 could have generated only in our dreams something around $91 billion in revenues.

At a minimum, a vigorous reliance on tariffs for federal revenues today implies a much reduced size of the federal state.

Vanguard's Jack Bogle Admits No Assets Are Undervalued

Well, that's putting the best construction on it.

What he means to say is, Most assets are dearly priced.

Dollar cost averaging into stock index funds right now is buying at very high prices with the Shiller p/e near 20, when the mean is more like 16.

Oil is about $80 per barrel vs. $20 in the go-go days, gold is $1,586 the ounce vs. its last peak of $800 in 1979, and the price of the Vanguard Total Bond Index is at historical highs around $11.

People who own these things are nervous because the prospect for considerable increase in price is improbable, for various reasons. Some wonder when to sell. Many more have bought and will hold as they have been taught to do. How many people do you know who ride it on up, and ride it on down? Well, can you afford to do that facing retirement? What if the next leg down is really big? Let's say a retest of the 600 region of the Standard and Poor's 500 Index, and we bump along down there like Japan for another seven years.

People who don't own these things are also nervous, because what they do own, if they own anything like cash and real estate, is declining in value and is returning nothing. They wonder when to buy the other things, and don't especially believe it when people like Mr. Bogle tell them they've got to invest in the markets at these prices.

What would you expect him to say, under the circumstances, Don't buy my funds?

He sells good stuff, but maybe you should wait for a sale, and be patient with what you do have, and try to find a way.

Read him, here.

Hallmark's New Unemployment Cards Are Flying Off The Shelves in Dallas

So, what does that tell you about Texas, Governor?

Story here.

High Tariffs Allowed Domestic Producers To Get Really Rich Off Captive Consumers

So says John Steele Gordon, who provides a short history of taxation for The Wall Street Journal, here:

After the Civil War, nearly all the wartime taxes—including the nation's first income tax—were repealed and the federal government relied mostly on the tariff for revenues. It provided the government with more than ample peacetime income. In 1882, the government had revenues of $403 million, but expenses were only $257 million, a staggering budget surplus of nearly 36%. The reason the tariff was so high was, ostensibly, to protect America's burgeoning industries from foreign competition.

Of course, the owners of those burgeoning industries—i.e., the rich—were greatly helped by the protection, which enabled them to charge higher prices and make greater profits than if they had had to face unbridled foreign competition.

But the tariff is a consumption tax, which is simply added to the price of the goods sold. And consumption taxes are inherently regressive.

Which ought to get more attention on the right when one considers that liberals like Paul Krugman, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama and so-called conservatives like Herman Cain, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney all seem to like consumption taxes in one form or another.

The move would raise more revenues off the rank and file, and preserve the fortunes of the rich, which is why so many politicians support them. The better to eat you with, my dear.

FORD = Fascist Obama Reelection Debacle

FORD Wimps Out Again, Pulls Anti-Bailout Ad After White House Intimidation

And Daniel Howes for The Detroit News sums it up this way, here:

Ford supported the bailouts before Congress, in public statements and still does today, despite the recurring snarkiness you hear around its offices in Dearborn that it "didn't take the money."

No, it didn't. But Ford did seek a line of credit from the feds, borrowed billions under a government program to "retool" its plants and effectively failed first. That's why it recruited a superstar CEO from Boeing Co. and gave him some $23 billion in borrowed money to save the Blue Oval from bankruptcy.

Or it would have taken the money, too.

Peter Orszag Comes Out For Less Democracy

Here.

But like everything else about liberalism, you'll have to pay just for the privilege of reading why.

Wolfgang Schauble Calls Tim Geithner's EFSF Leverage Idea STUPID!

It's about time someone did.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has the quotation from the German finance minister, here:

"I don't understand how anyone in the European Commission can have such a stupid idea. The result would be to endanger the AAA sovereign debt ratings of other member states. It makes no sense," he said.

Female Dem. Gov. of NC Gets Hysterical Over Growing Tea Party Power

As reported here:

I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that.

She calls herself Bev Perdue.

This is obviously a desperate ploy to short-circuit Tea Party anger and get it to go away out of sheer fatigue and get it accustomed to the idea of the increased power of the state under Obama. The outcome would be two more years of the status quo, with a divided Congress doing nothing because that's the way Sen. Harry Reid wants it.

What's next? Suspension of presidential elections? 

This is a small depression by comparison with historical depressions, but a woman governor of a southern state completely loses her mind and calls for a blatantly unconstitutional recourse to tyranny to get us over it.

Did FDR propose such a measure under far worse circumstances?

If ever there were an argument to deny the vote, and the right to serve in office, to women, this is it.

No more Sarah Palins. No more Michele Bachmanns. No more Hillary Clintons. No more Debbie Blabbermouth Schultzs. No more Nancy Pelosis. No more Laura Ingrahams. No more Tammy Bruces. No more Barbara Boxofrocks. No more Jennifer Granholms.

No more . . . Ann Coulters.

Radiation Hotspots South of Iitate Japan in Namie Range from 11-20 Microsieverts/Hr

Measurements in Iitate, Japan, are much lower by comparison at 2.6 microsieverts per hour, but are still far above normal of 0.11 per hour.

Libertarians WANT a Revolution, Real Conservatives are Trying to Prevent One

Rep. Ron Paul is at it again, here:

"The country is ripe for a true revolution".

If Republicans know what's good for them, they'll purge these cranks from the party.

Bing-Bing-Bing! Ricochet S&P!

The Incident at Fukushima Six Months Later

Bloomberg.com has a very affecting story about the aftermath of the earthquakes, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima.

A brief excerpt:

The area’s [Minami Soma's] biggest festival, Soma Noma Oi, a re-enactment of samurai battles, attracted 200,000 visitors last year. This year 37,000 came. Of the 300 horses typically used in the event, 100 were drowned in the tsunami and another 100 were evacuated due to radiation.

Read all of it here.

Rep. Maxine Waters Gets A Little Upset With Uncle Tom Obama

For saying this, as reported here:

“[T]ake off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We’ve got work to do, CBC.”

Video of Maxine here:

"I don't know who he was talking to because we're certainly not complaining," Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said on CBS' "Early Show" in response to President Obama telling blacks to stop complaining.

"I found that language a bit curious because the president spoke to the Hispanic Caucus, and certainly they're pushing him on immigration... he certainly didn't tell them to stop complaining," she said. "And he would never say that to the gay and lesbian community, who really pushed him on Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

The Cure for Drowning Victims: Ye Olde Smoke Enema

Particularly effective in cases of drowning in debt.

France Blows Smoke Up The World's Ass: French Banks Have No Toxic Assets!

HaHaHaHaHa!

That's the lie of the decade, at the very least, betrayed by just one phrase: loans to Greece Italy.

From Bloomberg.com here:

Noyer, who is France’s chief financial regulator, dismissed reports that foreign companies such as Siemens AG (SIE) have withdrawn an unspecified amount of short-term deposits from Societe Generale, saying he’s confident in the health of France’s lenders.

“It’s a bit of a nonsense to look after every move from one bank to another,” he said. “I’m extremely confident” in French banks because “we know them very well. We know their balance sheets, their risk assessments. We know they have no toxic assets.”

Yes, well, I'll bet he also knows madam, and uses protection.

It's a bit of nonsense alright. Kind of interferes with the rhythm of the good life, which is about to come crashing down around your ears.

Siemens withdrew 500 million euros from a French bank it judged unsafe and placed it on deposit with the European Central Bank, according to widely circulated reports.

But of course that's just the old Germany vs. France thing, right?

What are the French going to say when Deutsche Bank comes crashing down with Soc Gen? And Bank of America, too?

C'est la vie?

U.G.L.Y. You ain't got no alibi, you ugly!

Interest Expense on the National Debt Outstanding

Per the US Treasury, here:

Fiscal year 2011 will top $434 billion.

Radiation Readings 3km from Fukushima Plant as High as 68 Microsieverts/Hr on 9/22/11

As reported here:

Latest Fukushima Map Shows Four Radiation Hotspots NW of Nuke Plants

As shown on today's map from mext.go.jp/ here, air measurements continue to show values from 15 to 31 microsieverts per hour northwest of the crippled nuclear plants on the coast at four locations beyond the 20 km evacuation zone:

For comparison, note that Iitate, Japan, continues to post values quite a bit lower in the vicinity of 2.6 microsieverts per hour, but that normal values should be more like 0.11 in all areas.

Fukushima International Association Stops Reporting Iitate Radiation Figures

The air measurement of radiation in Iitate, Japan, which remains stubbornly high compared to other areas at 2.59 microsieverts per hour, was routinely published here at the English version of the Association's website through September 9, 2011:

As of September 10th, Iitate has been de-listed from the report, along with three other reporting points:

Rush Limbaugh Slams Obama's 'Peace is Hard,' Forgets Bush's 2004 'Hard Work' Remarks

"We don't elect presidents expecting them to tell us how damn hard the job is." 

-- Rush Limbaugh, Thursday, September 22, 2011, reacting to Obama's comments to the UN that Mideast peace is hard.

I guess Rush doesn't remember these lines from George W. Bush from the first 2004 presidential debate with Senator John Kerry:

"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard.

"I understand the serious consequences of committing our troops into harm's way. It's the hardest decision a president makes.

"There's a lot of good people working hard.

"I work with Director Mueller of the FBI; comes in my office when I'm in Washington every morning, talking about how to protect us. There's a lot of really good people working hard to do so. It's hard work.

"And now we're fighting them now. And it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. And I'm optimistic. See, I think you can be realistic and optimistic at the same time. I'm optimistic we'll achieve -- I know we won't achieve if we send mixed signals. I know we're not going to achieve our objective if we send mixed signals to our troops, our friends, the Iraqi citizens. We've got a plan in place. The plan says there will be elections in January, and there will be. The plan says we'll train Iraqi soldiers so they can do the hard work, and we are. And it's not only just America, but NATO is now helping, Jordan's helping train police, UAE is helping train police. We've allocated $7 billion over the next months for reconstruction efforts. And we're making progress there. And our alliance is strong. And as I just told you, there's going to be a summit of the Arab nations. Japan will be hosting a summit. We're making progress. It is hard work. It is hard work to go from a tyranny to a democracy. It's hard work to go from a place where people get their hands cut off, or executed, to a place where people are free. But it's necessary work. And a free Iraq is going to make this world a more peaceful place.

"You know, every life is precious. Every life matters. You know, my hardest -- the hardest part of the job is to know that I committed the troops in harm's way and then do the best I can to provide comfort for the loved ones who lost a son or a daughter or a husband or wife. You know, I think about Missy Johnson. She's a fantastic lady I met in Charlotte, North Carolina. She and her son Bryan, they came to see me. Her husband PJ got killed. He'd been in Afghanistan, went to Iraq. You know, it's hard work to try to love her as best as I can, knowing full well that the decision I made caused her loved one to be in harm's way.

"There are 100,000 troops trained, police, guard, special units, border patrol. There's going to be 125,000 trained by the end of this year. Yes, we're getting the job done. It's hard work. Everybody knows it's hard work, because there's a determined enemy that's trying to defeat us.

"I understand how hard it is to commit troops. Never wanted to commit troops. When I was running -- when we had the debate in 2000, never dreamt I'd be doing that.

"We've done a lot of hard work together over the last three and a half years. We've been challenged, and we've risen to those challenges. We've climbed the mighty mountain. I see the valley below, and it's a valley of peace."

Wasn't George W. Bush re-elected shortly after these debate remarks?

Feds Drop Short-Barreled Rifle Charge Against Hutaree Member

As reported here:

Federal prosecutors have dismissed a gun charge against Hutaree militia member David Brian Stone Jr. Prosecutors filed a motion Friday in federal court in Detroit that says "the ends of justice would best be served by this dismissal." It does not elaborate.

The charge alleged Stone Jr., who is the adopted son of Hutaree leader David Brian Stone, had a short-barreled rifle that wasn't registered.

"The ends of justice would best be served . . .."?

Uh huh.

If the Feds had a case you can bet they would have tried to make it.

They didn't have one. 

Smartest President Ever Says We Built The Intercontinental Railroad

Ah, that would be transcontinental.

Andrew Malcolm for The LA Times, here:

"We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad," Barack Obama.

That's what the president of the United States flat-out said Thursday during what was supposed to be a photo op to sell his jobs plan next to an allegedly deteriorating highway bridge.

A railroad between continents? A railroad from, say, New York City all the way across the Atlantic to France? Now, THAT would be a bridge!

It's yet another humorous gaffe by the Harvard graduate, overlooked by most media for whatever reason. Like Obama saying Abraham-Come-Lately Lincoln was the founder of the Republican Party. Or Navy corpseman. Or the Austrian language. Fifty-seven states. The president of Canada. Etc.

"[Obama's] probably the smartest guy ever to become president."

(Michael Beschloss, Harvard MBA, presidential historian, interviewed on Don Imus in November 2008, transcript and appropriate commentary mockery here.)

No wonder Obama keeps his college transcripts sealed.

"How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?"

Obama vs. Bush: Initial Claims for Unemployment Compared

Hundreds of thousands of people lose a job every week, year in and year out, and file a first-time claim for unemployment benefits. The federal government keeps track of that information and reports it weekly, here. You can examine it for yourself by following the link at the bottom of that page at the US Department of Labor.

What follows is the Obama record of such claims (150 weeks so far-November 2008 to present) compared with the Bush record (417 weeks-November 2000 through October 2008), showing the seasonally adjusted number of weeks in which 200,000 or more filed a claim for first time benefits, 300,000 or more, and so on up through 600,000 or more.

Generally speaking, first time claims in the 300,000s is consistent with an economy where people lose a job and find a new one within the usual period of benefits, which customarily has been limited to 26 weeks (6 months). Hence the usual advice of financial advisers to save money equivalent to 6 months' expenses. At the same time, net new workers enter the workforce as the population grows in size, and they also find work under those conditions.

200,000+ (Obama: 0 weeks; Bush: 14 weeks) -- longest consecutive streak: Bush with 7

300,000+ (Obama: 8 weeks; Bush: 304 weeks) -- longest consecutive streaks: Bush with 104, 61, 30, 24

400,000+ (Obama: 86 weeks; Bush: 98 weeks) -- longest consecutive streaks: Obama with 52, Bush 23

500,000+ (Obama: 35 weeks; Bush: 1 week) -- longest consecutive streak: Obama with 20

600,000+ (Obama: 21 weeks; Bush: 0 weeks) -- longest consecutive streak: Obama with 18

Unless initial claims soon recede below 400,000 per week and stay there, Obama will easily beat Bush's two term record of first time claims at the 400,000+ level in just one term. And so far, 60 percent of Obama's time in office has been spent with unemployment at catastrophically high levels week after week, whereas under Bush it was just 6 percent of the time.

James Altucher Talks Up Optimism, and Five Stocks He Doesn't Own!

Here.

Give me a break! Put your money where your mouth is, bro!

Apple, Exxon Mobil, Walmart, Amazon and Google: This year's dinosaurs are next year's tank of gas. It's happened before, and it will happen again. Maybe not right away, but Steve Jobs will die. The Arabs will try another embargo over Israel. Companies depending on relatively cheap transportation and distribution will experience tighter margins. And we can't predict the future, but a world where energy costs more is a world where electricity usage puts free operations like Google between a rock and a hard place.

On the macro side James Altucher really shows his colors: securitization without mark-to-market. You can't have the one without the other. He must be reading too much Steve Forbes.

Have fun stormin' the castle!

The Economy Is Not The Same Thing As The Market, Or Is It?

Mark Hulbert reminds everyone here that the DOW quadrupled between July 1932 and March 1937.

He thinks analogists should think about that when drawing doomsday scenario parallels. He's surely correct that smart investors could make a lot of money if today's market replays the DOW from that period in The Great Depression.

But that's one hell of a big "if".

I don't buy the analogy.

For one thing, the Shiller p/e ratio then had fallen way below 10 to the near rock bottom levels near 5 once seen in 1920-1921. Today we're still around 19.

And then there's the little matter of GDP.

Having fallen from $103.6 billion in 1929 to $58.7 billion at the end of 1932, GDP began to rise again in 1934, reaching $91.9 billion by the close of 1937. From the GDP low of $56.4 billion in 1933, GDP rose nearly 63 percent in just four years of the DOW's five year cyclical bull recovery in that secular bear during the 1930s. Today growth is mired in the vicinity of 1 percent, after a decade of average annual growth of 1.67 percent. That was a raging fire then. We've only lit a match.

The depression of 2008-2009 was much too small by comparison to 1929-1940 to draw any meaningful parallels: a 46 percent drop in GDP over four years today would mean reducing our $15 trillion economy by nearly $7 trillion. We didn't drop even a half trillion dollars from GDP in 2009. And the last time the p/e ratio got close to the low 1921 and 1932 levels was in 1982.

We've had a little depression. A little growth and a little gain in the markets would seem to follow.

But since government can screw up a two-car funeral, anything is possible. 

Michael Moore: Another Leftist Threatening Violence

As reported here:

"The smart rich know they can only build the gate so high. And, and, sooner or later history proves that people when they've had enough aren’t going to take it anymore. And much better to deal with it nonviolently now, through the political system, than what could possibly happen in the future, which nobody wants to see," Michael Moore said on Current TV's "Countdown" program.

Moore was alluding to riots, which he was discussing with "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann prior to his comment to deal with things nonviolently now.

He should be arrested and prosecuted for conspiracy to commit mob action.

Fukushima Radiation Hysteria Lives on at Naked Capitalism and Washington's Blog

The latest example is here.

For a self-described moderate, Yves sure does showcase a lot of left-liberalism, conspiracy theory, anti-capitalism and fear-mongering.

I can't take her claim to moderation seriously. I think it's meant to deceive. She's obviously working for the other side, so much so that for her, even socialist Bernie Sanders is a Quisling.

Maybe she's a moderate communist: Who else would link to Gorbachev's NYT defense of Russia's war in South Ossetia?

So, You Think You Should Buy On This Dip?

The Shiller S and P price to earnings ratio stands tonight at 19.42, as here, still way above the historic middling 16.

I can remember people calling it the buying opportunity of a lifetime, at around 15, in March 2009. Why isn't this the selling opportunity of a lifetime?

The S and P is down over 10 percent year to date, down less than one-half of one percent in the last 12 months when QE II got underway, and down 14 percent in the last five years despite QE I and II. Not counting (negligible) inflation on the negative side, nor (declining) dividends on the positive side.

Since 1881 opportunities to sell around 20 outnumber opportunities to buy around 10, but not by much: the ratio is roughly 11 to 9, in my post-prandial bliss.

This is still a selling opportunity.

Steve Forbes: Shill for the Banks, Defends TARP and Suspension of Mark to Market Rules

And just to be consistent, recommends the same to Europe now, here.

Why, if government can conjure $7 trillion in money creation from $700 billion in TARP investments, why don't we just dispense with private capital altogether and let governments do this all the time?

Then people all over the world can enjoy perpetual unemployment while Steve and his clones get filthy stinking rich because they're first in line for the easy money.

Great idea, Steve! Until your precious banks implode under their own weight.

It can't happen soon enough. 

I Don't Like Felix Salmon's Chart. I Like My Chart.

His chart here makes it look like what's been going on since 1995 has been part of one relentless long term uptrend, the sanguine implication of which is that we should stop worrying if we are long term investors:

My chart shows that since the beginning of 1995 the trend supercharged into what people call, for lack of a better description, irrational exuberance, so named by Alan Greenspan himself at the end of 1996, whose own Federal Reserve management arguably makes him the very author of it:

You'd entirely miss that from Felix's chart.

There is no reason why stocks should be down today, as Felix says, except that from the long term perspective an S and P 500 index in the vicinity of 800 looks like a more fair valuation than 1200. The market has twice tried to tell us that, in 2002-2003 at the 775 level, and again in 2008-2009 at the 675 level.

It may be getting ready to tell us something similar again.

What say 575?

Libertarians Are Nuts: Transparent, Principled Representation Is Easily Stopped

Usually by a pair of tits or testicles, or ambition, greed or personal animus.

"Transparent, principled representation—supported by grassroots networks and promoted through social media—is becoming an unstoppable force," says a Republican libertarian would-be star in a fundraising letter.

That's pretty transparent all by itself. Dangle hope, and raise money. Reminds me of a certain prominent Democrat's recent campaign, which is bumping up against the unstoppable force of failure and its discontents.

Like all good ideologies, the libertarian one assumes people are essentially good and will do the right thing more often than not, if the politician but sets a good example and gives everyone all the information. A child of his age is this one, worshipping at the altar of Education, which the more one has, the better one is.

Why, one wonders why the founders bothered separating the powers of government at all, seeing how history teaches us how good men are.

"But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."

-- James Madison, Federalist No. 51

At least my libertarian has declined to run for the Senate. For now.

Having gone from daddy's business to one term in the state House and one term in the federal House, that would be just too obvious.

Besides, it takes millions to run for the Senate, and right now, the coffers are looking a little light for another House run in a redrawn district which will be more Democrat than before.

Which explains statements like this: "I always vote for the side that increases our personal and economic freedoms—regardless of party."

Tracking left, where the votes are, where he belongs.

Shared Sacrifice: Moochelle Sports New Diamond Jewelry

Where else? At a fundraiser!

As reported here:

Moochelle's New $42K Diamond Cuffs

Two Big Reasons I Support Rick Perry

Here.

Federal Reserve Says 'Let's Twist Again, Like We Did Last . . .1961'

In another effort to reduce longer term interest rates, those from six years to thirty, evidently aimed at the mortgage market, which remains in ICU.

Expect short term interest rates to increase as short term instruments are sold by the Fed and replaced with longer term bonds on the Fed balance sheet.

Complete coverage here at Bloomberg.com.

And just for fun, here's Chubby Checker:

My Congressman, Rep. Justin Amash, Is Way Out There.

At least he's in right field, sort of:

Story here.

It was reported on Monday here that Rep. Amash has endorsed Rep. Ron Paul for president.

I see that mycongressmanisnuts.org is still available.

How Many Gay Sailors Does It Take To Screw In A Light Bulb?

One. However, it takes a whole emergency room to get it out.

While Warren Buffett Wants To Raise Your Taxes, He's Been Fighting His Since 2002

So says The New York Post here:

Billionaire Warren Buffett says folks like him should have to pay more taxes -- but it turns out his firm, Berkshire Hathaway, hasn’t paid what it’s already owed for years. ...

[T]he company openly admits that it owes back taxes since as long ago as 2002.

“We anticipate that we will resolve all adjustments proposed by the US Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) for the 2002 through 2004 tax years ... within the next 12 months,” the firm’s annual report says.

It also cites outstanding tax issues for 2005 through 2009. ...

Obama, and co-conspirators like Buffett, claim to want to slap only “millionaires and billionaires.” ...

Obama’s hikes on “millionaires and billionaires” actually start with folks earning as little as $200,000.

Buffett's annual report states he is fighting the IRS over $1 billion in unpaid taxes.

Obama's Lies on Taxes Obvious Even to the Associated Press

Today, in a fact-check piece by Stephen Ohlemacher :

President Barack Obama makes it sound as if there are millionaires all over America paying taxes at lower rates than their secretaries.

"Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires," Obama said Monday. "That's pretty straightforward. It's hard to argue against that."

The data tell a different story. On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.

The rest summarizes all the data, here.