Absolute Strategy Research Survey Finds 11% Think This Is Still A Depression, 25% A Recession

The survey may be viewed here.

Look on the bright side: Since February almost 20% fewer think the economy is still in recession, and over 30% fewer think the economy is in a depression.

I guess we'll have to try harder.

Average Weekly Hours Haven't Been "Full-Time" For 12 Back-To-Back Months Since 4/'80

The last time average weekly hours averaged full-time, that is, 35 hours or above, for 12 consecutive months or more was in April 1980.

ObamaCare's 30-Hour Full-Time Rule, A Depression Era Idea Going Back To 1937 And Hugo Black

In 1935, Black became chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, a position he would hold for the remainder of his Senate career. In 1937 he sponsored the Black-Connery Bill, which sought to establish a national minimum wage and a maximum workweek of thirty hours. Although the bill was initially rejected in the House of Representatives, an amended version of it, which extended Black's original maximum workweek proposal to forty-four hours, was passed in 1938 (after Black left the Senate), becoming the Fair Labor Standards Act.

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Even before Roosevelt was inaugurated, Black introduced legislation to establish a minimum wage and to limit work in most large industries to 30 hours a week in order to spread available jobs to millions of workers who lost their jobs in the Great Depression. Six years later, Black's substantially revised legislation became the Fair Labor Standards Act, America's first minimum-wage law. Black's Senate committee investigations prompted the reorganization of the nation's airline and utility industries. While most Southern members of Congress selectively supported New Deal proposals, Black usually voted for Roosevelt's policies and often complained that the administration did not go far enough to help the lower classes.

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Senator Hugo Black of Alabama, a champion of a 30-hour workweek, agreed to sponsor the Administration bill on this subject in the Senate, while Representative William P. Connery of Massachusetts introduced corresponding legislation in the House. The Black-Connery bill had wide Public support, and its path seemed smoothed by arrangements for a joint hearing by the labor committees of both Houses.

Generally, the bill provided for a 40-cent-an-hour minimum wage, a 40-hour maximum workweek, and a minimum working age of 16 except in certain industries outside of mining and manufacturing. The bill also proposed a five-member labor standards board which could authorize still higher wages and shorter hours after review of certain cases.

Proponents of the bill stressed the need to fulfill the President's promise to correct conditions under which "one-third of the population" were "ill-nourished, ill-clad, and ill- housed." They pointed out that, in industries which produced products for interstate commerce, the bill would end oppressive child labor and "unnecessarily long hours which wear out part of the working population while they keep the rest from having work to do." Shortening hours, they argued, would "create new jobs...for millions of our unskilled unemployed," and minimum wages would "underpin the whole wage structure...at a point from which collective bargaining could take over."

Government Statistics Will NEVER Capture The ObamaCare "Part-Timing" Trend

The long term trend in average weekly hours is down, down, down.

And the reason is simple and devious by design, in order to escape detection: Anyone working less than 35 hours is already part-time as far as the government statistical agency, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is concerned, so if hours are reduced from say 34 to 29 to comply with ObamaCare's new definition of part-time, that will never show up in the part-time numbers because that will not make the slightest bit of difference. People working 34 hours were already part-time as far as the BLS is concerned, so if they are cut back to 29 they will still be so. 

The BLS here defines full-time as 35 hours or more per week, and part-time as anything less than 35:

"[Part-time] Refers to those who worked 1 to 34 hours during the survey reference week and excludes employed persons who were absent from their jobs for the entire week."

This is a well known fact. But it is little appreciated that as ObamaCare deviously defines full-time as 30 hours or more, that will by definition not make a difference to the BLS' statistical presentation, which doesn't begin counting full-time until hours are 35 or more.

It's as if the 30 hour rule were designed to exploit the bureaucratic inertia behind the different definition and fly under its radar.

The only way we'll be able to observe the perverse scaling back of employee hours is in the hours statistics. Unfortunately, the long-term trend in hours is down, down, and down, and it will be difficult to detect the new downward trend within the old downward trend. Besides, average weekly hours are up since ObamaCare passed, obviously because the economy is slowly improving from a great deficit, ObamaCare notwithstanding. Average weekly hours are actually up 2% since ObamaCare passed.

The Senate healthcare bill, like the Senate itself since the passage of the 17th Amendment, is a Trojan Horse meant to destroy the country as we once knew it. It were almost better if the Senate no longer existed, and the House expanded to the proportions it had formerly before the Reapportionment Act of 1929, itself a grievous offense against the liberties of the people.

Average weekly hours are up 2% since ObamaCare passed.

The Workforce Depression Of 2007 Remains 4.19 Million In The Hole According To Social Security

The size of the workforce earning wages for Social Security purposes went into multi-year depressions since 1990 three times: 1990, 2001 and 2007.

The 1990 depression saw the workforce shrink by 1% and not recover in size until the third following year.

The 2001 depression saw the workforce shrink by 0.4% and not recover in size until the third following year.

The 2007 depression saw the workforce shrink by 3.3% and as of 2011 still has not recovered, four years later. The depression in workers through 2011 is 4.19 million, and since the bottom in 2010 982,000 workers have been added through 2011. 2012 figures will be available in mid-October 2013.

The depression in jobs designated "usually full-time" is 5.35 million, 4.3% below its 2007 peak. 

Sorry, But We Aren't Talking About A Lot Of People Not Counted In The Unemployment Numbers

I'd estimate the number not counted in the unemployment numbers to be between 1.5 million and 3.2 million, max.

9.784 million have left the labor force under Obama and are not counted as unemployed since he was elected 4.75 years ago. That's a lot of people, 75% more than left the labor force under George Bush. Not quite 9.5 million left under Bush, but that was over 8 full years.

Who are they who have left the labor force? And should any of them be counted as unemployed as many critics keep maintaining?

The people who should not be counted as unemployed from that total include the 1.1 million who retire every year, so subtract 5.2 million over the period, leaving 4.584 million. Those not in the labor force with a disability are up 1.4 million since 2008. Subtract them and that leaves 3.184 million.

As for the people who should be included in the unemployment number but aren't, they include the number leaving the labor force who wanted to work and searched for a job but were not counted as unemployed. But they were counted by the government. That number has increased by about 1 million since the beginning of the 2007 recession, as shown in the graph (h/t Mish). Then add in those not in the labor force who weren't discouraged workers but looked for work for other reasons and you add another 475,000. They weren't counted in the unemployment numbers either, but they were counted by the government.

So subtracting those 1.475 million from 3.184 million, you get 1.7 million unaccounted for who might or might not need to be included with those 1.475 million who perhaps should be. Many of those 1.7 million are probably like a lot of Americans who became sole proprietors in the aftermath of losing their regular jobs and involuntarily went into business for themselves, making lots less money than before in many instances, typically as contract employees and freelancers, supplementing their incomes from their savings and practicing frugality. The US Census Bureau might agree, having just reported here in May that between 2008 and 2011 alone the number of such "businesses" is up 1.2 million in the aggregate. That leaves you with a minimum expansion of the unemployed to 12.8 million from the current 11.3 million, and a maximum expansion to 14.5 million, but based on the Census data on sole proprietorships, I'll lean to the under.

The real unemployment rate would therefore be something a little higher than the current 7.3%,  between 8.3% and 9.4%, but probably closer to 8.3%. I'll go with 8.6% unemployment based on an additional 1.975 million not in the labor force who could very well be in it.

That's almost 18% worse than the government says unemployment is right now, but based on what I see regularly from government estimates of things, that's routinely good enough for them.

After all, hasn't it been called "good enough for government work" for decades for a reason?

Usually Full-Time Under Obama Has Nearly Recovered, Just 564,000 Jobs Short Of The 11/08 Level

The graph shows usually full-time from November 2008 to present. Full-time jobs, contrary to what you may have heard, have nearly recovered to the level they were at when Obama was first elected.

Full-time is cyclically higher in summers, so expect a decline in this metric by Christmas. If the pattern of shallower cyclical lows persists, expect a dip to 116 million.

The country is still a long way from a full full-time jobs recovery, however. Peak full-time in 2007 had been in excess of 123 million jobs.

The Part-Time Myth: Usually Part-Time Is Up Just 465,000 Since Obama Was Elected In 2008

Usually part-time is up barely 1.8% since Obama was elected in November 2008. The number goes up in the winter and comes down in the summer, with the school year. There are no dramatic higher highs after ObamaCare was passed in 2010, however, just higher lows, which is what you would expect from a growing population.

Drudge, repeater of stupid

Stupid Conservative Headline Alert: CNS News Says Unemployment Down Only Half A Percent Since 2009

The story is here.

A drop of .5 from 7.8% to 7.3%, of course, is a drop of 6.4%, not .5%.

Ignorant boob.

August Unemployment Ticks Down To 7.3% From 7.4%, Job Gains Now Averaging 184,000/month

Obama's job recession still going strong long after everyone else's ended

That's 4.75 years straight of unemployment above 7%, or 57 months.

Job gains averaging 184k/month are slightly higher on average than two months ago, despite revisions down to jobs added in June and July. Separately, not-seasonally-adjusted first time claims for unemployment in August were running 278,000 per week, the lowest yet under Obama.

The full report is here.

Two months ago the unemployment rate was 7.6% and we were adding an average 182,000 jobs a month. At that time hourly earnings were also up 2.2% year over year, and they still are in the August report.

Not-seasonally-adjusted, part-time for economic reasons is down 152,000 year over year while usually full-time (+35hrs/wk) is up 1,654,000. Usually part-time (-35hrs/wk) is up only 297,000 year over year, not-seasonally-adjusted.

If ObamaCare is supposed to be part-timing us all, I still don't see evidence of it. What it's really doing is helping to retard employment generally. We need to start viewing persistent, long-term employment deficits as a response by business to Obama administration policies. Otherwise full-time jobs would not have continued to decline throughout 2009 and 2010 the way they did. As late as February 2011 full-time was still at the 110 million level, only slightly off the low just under 109 million a year earlier in January 2010.

At just under 118 million now, full-time remains 5.35 million off the 2007 peak above 123 million. Factor in population growth and full-time should be trending close to 130 million by this time. We're 12 million full-time jobs behind where we should be.

The Bush jobs recession ended after 47 months, but the Obama jobs recession is still going strong at 67 months.

That's the real scandal of this so-called recovery.

When It Comes To Moral Obscenity, The US Takes The Prize For Indiscriminate Slaughter Of Civilians

That Red Line In Syria, Somebody Else Drew That

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

President Obama, quoted here:

“I didn’t set a red line, the world set a red line,” Obama said. “My credibility’s not on the line. The international community’s credibility is on the line. And America and Congress’s credibility’s on the line."

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When everyone's responsible, no one is.

Radioactive Water Tank Leaks At Fukushima Produce 2.2 Sv/hr

Reported here:

Readings just above the ground near a set of tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant showed radiation as high as 2,200 millisieverts (mSv), the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said on Wednesday. The previous high in areas holding the tanks, 1,800 mSv, was recorded on Saturday. Both levels would be enough to kill an unprotected person within hours. The NRA has said the recently discovered hotspots are highly concentrated and easily shielded.

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Normally, 2000 mSv/hr is enough to kill you, but because the story says the radiation is "easily shielded" after it's found, this must mean this is not deadly gamma radiation for the most part. Paper can block alpha and foil can block beta, but gamma requires 2.5 inches of concrete just to reduce intensity by 50%.

Constitutional parchment was no "practical security" against the US Senate's ObamaCare, was it?

After discriminating, therefore, in theory, the several classes of power, as they may in their nature be legislative, executive, or judiciary, the next and most difficult task is to provide some practical security for each, against the invasion of the others.

What this security ought to be, is the great problem to be solved. Will it be sufficient to mark, with precision, the boundaries of these departments, in the constitution of the government, and to trust to these parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power? This is the security which appears to have been principally relied on by the compilers of most of the American constitutions. But experience assures us, that the efficacy of the provision has been greatly overrated; and that some more adequate defense is indispensably necessary for the more feeble, against the more powerful, members of the government. The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex. The founders of our republics have so much merit for the wisdom which they have displayed, that no task can be less pleasing than that of pointing out the errors into which they have fallen. A respect for truth, however, obliges us to remark, that they seem never for a moment to have turned their eyes from the danger to liberty from the overgrown and all-grasping prerogative of an hereditary magistrate, supported and fortified by an hereditary branch of the legislative authority. They seem never to have recollected the danger from legislative usurpations, which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations. In a government where numerous and extensive prerogatives are placed in the hands of an hereditary monarch, the executive department is very justly regarded as the source of danger, and watched with all the jealousy which a zeal for liberty ought to inspire. In a democracy, where a multitude of people exercise in person the legislative functions, and are continually exposed, by their incapacity for regular deliberation and concerted measures, to the ambitious intrigues of their executive magistrates, tyranny may well be apprehended, on some favorable emergency, to start up in the same quarter. But in a representative republic, where the executive magistracy is carefully limited; both in the extent and the duration of its power; and where the legislative power is exercised by an assembly, which is inspired, by a supposed influence over the people, with an intrepid confidence in its own strength; which is sufficiently numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude, yet not so numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions, by means which reason prescribes; it is against the enterprising ambition of this department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions. The legislative department derives a superiority in our governments from other circumstances. Its constitutional powers being at once more extensive, and less susceptible of precise limits, it can, with the greater facility, mask, under complicated and indirect measures, the encroachments which it makes on the co-ordinate departments. It is not unfrequently a question of real nicety in legislative bodies, whether the operation of a particular measure will, or will not, extend beyond the legislative sphere.

On the other side, the executive power being restrained within a narrower compass, and being more simple in its nature, and the judiciary being described by landmarks still less uncertain, projects of usurpation by either of these departments would immediately betray and defeat themselves [don't laugh, he really wrote this]. Nor is this all: as the legislative department alone has access to the pockets of the people, and has in some constitutions full discretion, and in all a prevailing influence, over the pecuniary rewards of those who fill the other departments, a dependence is thus created in the latter, which gives still greater facility to encroachments of the former. I have appealed to our own experience for the truth of what I advance on this subject. ...

The conclusion which I am warranted in drawing from these observations is, that a mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.

-- James Madison, 1788 (Federalist 48, emphases added)

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Repeal the 17th Amendment.

Estimated Fair Value Of The S&P500 Today Is About 1000

Doug Short doesn't say "fair value", but about 1000 should be the fair value level of the index using regression analysis, here (where he has, as always, a vivid chart):

The peak in 2000 marked an unprecedented 152% overshooting of the trend — nearly double the overshoot in 1929. The index had been above trend for two decades, with one exception: it dipped about 11% below trend briefly in March of 2009. But at the beginning of July 2013, it is 62% above trend. In sharp contrast, the major troughs of the past saw declines in excess of 50% below the trend. If the current S&P 500 were sitting squarely on the regression, it would be around the 998 level. If the index should decline over the next few years to a level comparable to previous major bottoms, it would fall to the 450-500 range.

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Investors with a memory will remember that when TARP was signed on October 3, 2008, the S&P500 was at 1099 and then fell dramatically from there until early March 2009, and that on the third anniversary of TARP in October 2011 the index revisited 1099 exactly, in the wake of the summer debt ceiling brouhaha. But we haven't looked back since.

Unfortunately, the S&P500 has another date with the depths, but just hasn't set it yet.

Fed Tapering QE "In Part To Relieve The Collateral Scarcity"

Mentioned here by Peter Coy:

The abrupt shrinkage of the budget deficit this year caused the Treasury Department to cut back on issuance of debt in the shorter maturities that are sought after on Wall Street. Foreign demand has been strong, partly because some European government securities that had been used as collateral are no longer considered safe enough. Finally, the Federal Reserve, in its efforts to stimulate the economy, has been soaking up $85 billion a month of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. Some market participants argue that the Fed is planning to taper its bond purchases in part to relieve the collateral scarcity.

Stereotypical Federal Spending Wei Tu Hai

Federal outlays from fiscal 1985 through 2012 are up 274%, from $946.3 billion in 1985 to $3,537.1 billion in 2012. Federal receipts have lagged those outlays, however, up only 234% over the period, resulting in a net addition to deficits in nominal terms of $9.08 trillion as of the end of fiscal 2012, exploding the national debt. The political argument has been whether the taxes were insufficient to cover the spending, or the spending too high given the taxes. But in 24 of those 27 years there were annual deficits, each a message that Sum Ting Wong. Many Democrats shrugged and answered on taxes "Wi Tu Lo". Republicans looked at all that spending and said "Ho Lee Fuk, spending Wei Tu Hai". And now that we are $17 trillion in the hole the people say "Bang Ding Ow". But will they demand a cut to spending? No Fuk Hing Wei. Nao Tu Suun, they will say, as always. Po Ni up Tai Ni Sum later, maybe, but No Like Lee. Besides, Ri Li No Won Tu, anyhow. No Fun. Rather Tai Wan On.

London Grows By A Million 2001-2011, But 600,000 Native Whites Flee

Which helps explain why UKIP is winning elections in Great Britain: It just went from 7 seats in Parliament local elections to 147, with Britons fed up with regulations which come with EU membership and flood their country with cheap, foreign labor.

Stories here at The UK Telegraph, and here at Sky News.

(originally posted May 7th, corrected)

Got Gas? You Should.

The cheapest Grand Rapids gasoline price today is $3.64/gallon, while the average price is $3.75/gallon. The cheapest price is up 6.7% from just a week ago when gasoline was already expensive at $3.41/gallon. Truly affordable gasoline would be closer to $2.60/gallon, according to Tim McMahon at inflationdata.com.

After hearing reports on the radio this week that Michigan ranks 10th in number of miles traveled by car in the country, today Woodradio.com reports, more to the point, that travel miles are actually down in Michigan, all the way to 2005 levels, something I and some others have been reporting for over a year about the country in general. Travel miles actually have been stuck at levels first achieved 8-9 years ago as a consequence of the economic depression we entered in 2007, when travel miles reached their peak.

We haven't been the same since.

Home Buyers Using All Cash Hits All Time High

So says the National Association of Realtors, here:

Walt Molony, a spokesman for the National Association of Realtors, says that the association’s estimates of the share of the market made up by all-cash buyers are lower than the others, at 31% in July, but that they’re still at an all-time high. ... Molony says that investors make up 35% of all-cash buyers (70% of all investors pay cash), while retirees who’ve built up equity in their homes or paid off their mortgages account for 12%. The rest include vacation-home buyers and foreign buyers.

Obama's Appallingly Bad GDP Reports For The Last 3 Quarters Average +1.23%

Revised GDP Q2 2013 was reported this morning UP at 2.5% from 1.7%. Q1 remains at 1.1% and Q4 2012 remains at 0.1%

Truly abysmal figures, despite the revision.

The news release from the BEA is 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 2.5 percent in the second quarter of 2013 (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the "second" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 1.1 percent.

The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the "advance" estimate issued last month. In the advance estimate, the increase in real GDP was 1.7 percent. With this second estimate for the second quarter, the increase in exports was larger than previously estimated, and the increase in imports was smaller than previously estimated (see "Revisions" on page 3).

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A rate of 2.5% in Q2 is much better than 1.7% to be sure, but hardly commensurate with a recovery. The last three quarters now yield an average report of 1.23% instead of 0.97% prior to today's revised report. Woo Hoo! Compared to 2.8% for all of 2012, Obama's best year (cough), the 2013 figures which yield an average report of 1.8% to date are also appallingly bad.

This would be a good time for the president to begin doing his job, except he has no clue what it is. 

most recent quarterly figures

most recent annual figures

Ironman Arrives At The Same Conclusion Reached By The True Born Sons Of Liberty

TARP is fascism

At Real Clear Markets, here:

The United States would appear to be well on its way to adopting fascist Italy's political-economic system, favoring the politically-connected while starving entrepreneurs out of the economy. Although today in America, we call it "crony capitalism". And the people who practice it "progressives".

Do you think we should start calling it what it really is?

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This blog was born of the observation here in 2009, and I think first used the term in the specifically financial sense involving not just banking, but housing, a year later, here. Since those days, however, we've decided England invented fascism long before Mussolini did and founded America on the principle, but the English undoubtedly got it from the great old Roman idea of the patron-client relationship.

Fiscal 2013 Spy Budget Just Under $53 Billion

The heretofore classified figure is now known because Edward Snowden gave it to The Washington Post, which has revealed here.

Previously the best estimate was about $75 billion.

Since 911 more than $500 billion has been spent according to the lengthy WaPo story. Peak spending on spying was in the 1980s at $71 billion in current dollars, according to WaPo.

Jobless Claims Now Average Below 300k For Three Straight Weeks, A New Record For Obama

First time claims for unemployment have never looked so good in 4.5 years under Obama. In the last three weeks not-seasonally-adjusted first time claims have averaged monthly under the 300k mark because claims in the last five weeks have consistently printed below that level. This week's average for four weeks beats last week's by 1000, setting a new record under Obama of 282k average first time claims weekly in the last four weeks.

If ever there were good conditions for adding to the employment rolls under this president, these are those. Sustained for a year, the current average would mean just 14.7 million first time claims per year, not-seasonally-adjusted, a low level on an annual basis not seen since the 20th century ended.

The report is here.

Is The Cost Of College Really Up 538% Since 1985? Or 53%?

Gold averaged $317/ounce in 1985. Today it's knocking on the door of $1,430, up 351%. But the cost of a college education is up 538% since then, according to this story from Bloomberg:

"[T]uition expenses have increased 538 percent in the 28-year period, compared with a 286 percent jump in medical costs and a 121 percent gain in the consumer price index. The ballooning charges have generated swelling demand for educational loans while threatening to make college unaffordable for domestic and international students."

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I won't quibble about the inflation measure. I show the "all items" CPI July 1985/July 2013 up about 115%, but that just raises the question about what is the correct way to measure inflation.

Arguably the price of gold is the correct measure of inflation in the economy, not the CPI. And by that standard the cost of a college education has risen just 53% more than gold measured inflation has risen in 28 years, not 345% more, while medical costs have actually failed to keep up with inflation as measured by gold over the same period. Some maintain that most of the actual increased cost of college has to do with the increased costs of room and board, not with tuition. That seems entirely plausible. Tuition and fees where I went to school in 1985 are up 300% vs. 350% for gold.

People are finding college to be unaffordable in the same way that they are finding gold to be unaffordable. It's not that the prices are up. It's that the dollar has shrunk, the cruellest tax of all because it takes you 30 years to realize you've been robbed somewhere along the line, but just where you cannot tell.

Heresy.

Truth.

We report, you decide.

The Real Fascist Threat To America Comes From The Left, But Only Because It Won

Dennis Prager, here:

[I]f there is a real fascist threat to America, it comes from the left, whose appetite for state power is essentially unlimited. But because the left has so long dominated American intellectual, academic, artistic, and media life, it has succeeded in implanting fear of the right. ... First, it does not mean, or have anything in common with, Nazism. Nazism may have been a form of fascism. But Nazism was a unique form of fascism and a unique evil. It was race-based and it was genocidal. No other expression of fascism was race-based. And not all fascism is genocidal. So my fear that the American left is moving America toward an expression of fascism in no way implies anything Nazi-like or genocidal. ... Second, it is not liberals or liberalism that presents a threat of fascism. It is the left. Liberals of the 1940s to 1970s such as John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman, Hubert Humphrey, Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and so many others were not leftists. They were liberals.

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I beg to differ in most of the particulars while seconding the main point.

The advent of fascist elements in American life specifically as a phenomenon of the left has gone hand in glove with the advance of liberalism under Wilson, FDR and Lyndon Johnson, in addition to the fact that the left won World War II, not the "right", whatever that is. One can hardly explain the growth of the state to its current proportions nor its growing oppressive reach without that liberalism and its spokesmen's early admiration for people like Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin. Nor can one explain our alliance with left socialism in joining the war on the side of Stalin apart from a natural affinity for that form of it as opposed to the other. "Fear of the right" is an artifact of the victory of Stalin and FDR over Hitler and Mussolini, but should more correctly be styled "fear of right socialism". 

Nor is it conceivable to imagine the rise of liberalism in America without the revolution in theology which immanentized the eschaton in the social gospel movement. For Marx religion may have been the opiate of the people, but to Spengler it was the very grandmother of Bolshevism. Russia and Germany went to war as developed rival socialisms while the majority of Americans resisted becoming involved in a fight where they had not yet a dog. They were still children in the classroom of The State. But now that we have grown up we routinely invade in the name of "freedom" because we have come to believe it is our destiny to impose it everywhere we can while ensuring cradle to grave security for one and all at home.

That's not to say America hasn't been fertile ground for fascism from the beginning, quite apart from the dominating influence of a psychology derived from Christianity and its tendency toward totalitarian-like moral conformity. But that involves the economic history, which Prager doesn't address. The contemporary corporatist model lauded by Wall Street has its roots planted comfortably deep in our origins in English colonialism, going all the way back to the crown's banking operations on behalf of the sea-trading companies. Many of the original American colonial charters were patterned on this model of state sponsorship and were first and foremost state-capitalist business ventures. So it should come as no surprise that American capitalism after independence has become more crony than capitalist as it has gotten so very long in the tooth. You can take the Tory out of England, but you can't take the England out of the Tory. Jeffrey Immelt of GE in his admiration for the Chicoms is no different than Henry Ford in his for Hitler.

Lastly, it is troubling to me that a person such as Dennis Prager, who is a student of communism, doesn't mention the fundamental bloodthirstiness inherent in all socialisms, whether communist or fascist. The "unique" evil of Nazism shouldn't blind us to Stalin's anti-German crimes anymore than it should blind us to Stalin's crimes against Ukraine and the millions "disappeared" during his purges. And where is the serious reflection on left socialism's responsibility for the many millions of Chinese who perished at the hands of Mao, who specifically imitated Stalin? And perhaps more to the point for us, the fact that as fascist socialism advances in America millions of unborn children have paid and continue to pay everyday the price for it, all in the name of "freedom"?

Unlike Past Identifiable Tyrants, Today's Monsters Are Faceless Multinationals

So says Andrea Lunardelli, quoted here at CNBC.com:

"It's history, not propaganda," Andrea Lunardelli insisted during an interview on a warm August morning in his family's modest wine cellar where a lone employee was busy attaching labels — Hitler giving the Nazi salute; a portrait of Hitler with his autograph; another portrait with the motto "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" (one people, one nation, one leader) — on bottles waiting to be boxed and shipped. ... Bottles with labels from what Mr. Lunardelli, the son of the company owner, Alessandro Lunardelli, describes as the "historical line of products" occupied a shelf on a wall. The discriminating buyer could choose among Mussolini, Lenin and Stalin, indicating that when it comes to despots, Lunardelli wines are equal-opportunity merchandizers. ... These products "are a way of not forgetting history and the monsters it produced, ensuring that they never return," he said. At least the past had identifiable tyrants, he added. "Today's monsters are faceless multinationals." ... Only Che Guevara popped corks when it came to leftist figures. ... Nazi bottles, he acknowledged, are among the company's best sellers. "Eighty percent of the sales are Hitler," he said, or around 20,000 bottles a year, about a quarter of Lunardelli's total production, which consists mostly of table wines using local variety grapes. ... Despite years of complaints about his labels, Mr. Lunardelli pointed out that the law was on his side. Several lawsuits and investigations by public prosecutors have failed to prove in court that the wines are an apologia for fascism or Nazism, which is against the law in Italy.

Obama Draws A Red Line In Syria

Mortgage Securitization Only Works At The Expense Of Taxpayers And Banks

So says Arnold Kling for The American, here, who provides a useful summary of crony capitalist rent-seeking since World War II:

At this point, all signs point to victory by two of the biggest culprits in the mortgage crisis — the mortgage bankers (firms that originate loans to distribute, not to hold) and the Wall Street investment banks. Both depend on securitization if they are to participate in the mortgage lending process. However, securitization has only been able to compete with traditional bank lending when securities are backed by guarantees from the taxpayers and when bank capital requirements punish banks that hold their own loans.

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Arnold Kling is otherwise famous for his firm grasp of the obvious: "Most home owners are not libertarians."

Once Again, It's The Banks Doing The Money Printing, And The Bubble Blowing, Not The Feds

Jeffrey Snider, here:

That is not to say that paper dollars are issued by banks; they are not. Paper currency still takes the form of Federal Reserve Notes, but in the marginal monetary and banking system they are largely irrelevant. Dollars in the banking system, what is called liquidity, are created and dispersed by bank balance sheet accounting. These marginal liquidity units are digital representations of currency, ledger balances that shift daily, even by the minute. Bankruptcy and insolvency are not when you run out of Federal Reserve Notes in your bank vault, they come when you have to settle your accounts with the liquidity provider and there are no positive numbers on the right side of the computerized ledger (or when your ledger does not match your counterparty's, and that counterparty happens to be JP Morgan).

Given that global banks are the primary "money printers" in the dollar trade system (and the dollar swap standard), the Fed's role under interest rate targeting is to backstop the wholesale money markets where banks obtain short-term funding from each other. The implicit promise of interest rate targeting had been enough for the global dollar fraction to expand through accounting, regulatory and derivative leverage, providing the financing for the myriad bubbles of recent decades. The Fed did not create the bubbles directly, just provided the conditions for banks to do it for them.

Actually Obama's Been This Way Since He Was 25, Not 52

Don't you find that comforting knowing his finger is on the nuclear button?

To Hell With Negotiation: ObamaCare Wasn't Passed In A Bipartisan Manner, So Why Should Defunding It Be?

No Negotiation!

The Democrats held the country hostage to pass ObamaCare, so there's nothing to holding it hostage to defund it, especially since a clear majority doesn't want ObamaCare.

Erick Erickson here:

I have no fall back plan. Defunding Obamacare is not a starting position for negotiation. The Democrats did not negotiate with the American public before subjecting them to this law. I see no reason to negotiate now. The GOP has the power to defund Obamacare and if the Democrats do not agree, it is on them. ... The Democratic Party of the United States and the President himself were willing to sacrifice their majority in order to foist Obamacare on an unwilling populace. If the GOP is not willing to stake its position on repeal of a law most Americans oppose, that makes the Democrats far braver.

Al Gore's Latest Loose Screw Safely Removed From The Roadway By WaPo

To think this guy could have been president, or that some think he would have been an improvement over George W. Bush.

Story in The Washington Post, here.

Real Median Income Falls 4.4% Under Obama, 6% Since 2007

You talkin' to me?

Way to go, Brownie!

Story here:

The median, or midpoint, income in June 2013 was $52,098. That's down from $54,478 in June 2009, when the recession officially ended. And it's below the $55,480 that the median household took in when the recession began in December 2007. The report says nearly every group is worse off than four years ago, except for those 65 to 74.

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"It is also advantageous for a tyranny that all those who are under it should be oppressed with poverty, that they may not be able to compose a guard; and that, being employed in procuring their daily bread, they may have no leisure to conspire against their tyrants." -- Aristotle, Politics

Fewest Ever Lose Their Jobs Under Obama In Last Month

First time claims for unemployment have hit a new low under Obama this week. For four weeks in a row initial claims in the not-seasonally-adjusted category have come in well below the 300,000 mark, averaging just over 283,000 per week in the last month. That's the first time that's ever happened under Obama. The seasonally-adjusted figure completely misses the fact and is nearly 17% worse.

If kept up for a year 283k/week would be the equivalent of 14.7 million first time claims for unemployment. Under George W. Bush the actual annual level never got below 16 million.

You could hardly ask for better conditions under which to add jobs, if there were any to add.

In 2011 Head Of FISA Court Ruled NSA Had Already Lied To It Three Times

No wonder Snowden got fed up and blew the whistle.

The New York Times reports here:

The Justice Department had told Judge Bates that N.S.A. officials had discovered that the program had also been gathering domestic messages for three years. Judge Bates found that the agency had violated the Constitution and declared the problems part of a pattern of misrepresentation by agency officials in submissions to the secret court. ... “The court is troubled that the government’s revelations regarding N.S.A.’s acquisition of Internet transactions mark the third instance in less than three years in which the government has disclosed a substantial misrepresentation regarding the scope of a major collection program,” Judge Bates wrote.

350 Radioactive Water Storage Tanks At Fukushima Have Rubber Seals, Not Welded, Just Like The One That's Leaking

There's a line in Heartbreak Ridge which updates snafu. That's Fukushima, except there's nothing normal about pools of leaking radioactive water throwing off 100 millisieverts per hour. 

Story here, by Fukushima Diary, and here by the BBC, which regrettably didn't put Mochizuki on the radio.

Hillary Has More Sooty Baggage Than A 90-Car Freight Train

So says Camille Paglia, here:

'It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton (born the same year as me) is our party’s best chance. She has more sooty baggage than a 90-car freight train. And what exactly has she ever accomplished — beyond bullishly covering for her philandering husband? She’s certainly busy, busy and ever on the move — with the tunnel-vision workaholism of someone trying to blot out uncomfortable private thoughts. I for one think it was a very big deal that our ambassador was murdered in Benghazi.'In saying “I take responsibility” for it as secretary of state, Hillary should have resigned immediately. The weak response by the Obama administration to that tragedy has given a huge opening to Republicans in the next presidential election. The impression has been amply given that Benghazi was treated as a public relations matter to massage rather than as the major and outrageous attack on the U.S. that it was. Throughout history, ambassadors have always been symbolic incarnations of the sovereignty of their nations and the dignity of their leaders. It’s even a key motif in “King Lear.” As far as I’m concerned, Hillary disqualified herself for the presidency in that fist-pounding moment at a congressional hearing when she said, “What difference does it make what we knew and when we knew it, Senator?” Democrats have got to shake off the Clinton albatross and find new blood.'

Detained In London Limbo Land, David Miranda Didn't Have The Right To Remain Silent

Glenn Greenwald's "wife" detained to intimidate him

As explained here in the UK Guardian:

The reality about schedule 7 of the 2000 [British terrorism] act is that it is a legal power tailored to the half-world of ports and airports. It gives police powers to do things to people in that half-world that they could not do in the real one. In the real world, legal checks and balances apply – in America, ironically, some of these go under the name of "Miranda rights". In the half-world, people can be held and questioned, searches carried out and property confiscated without particular suspicion or legal safeguards. There were 69,000 such stops last year, only a handful of which led to arrests.

And here:

"They even asked me about the protests in Brazil, why people were unhappy and who I knew in the government," said Miranda. He got his first drink – from a Coke machine in the corridor – after eight hours [of detention and interrogation] and was eventually released almost an hour later. Police records show he had been held from 08.05 to 17.00. Unable immediately to find a flight for him back to Rio, Miranda says the Heathrow police then escorted him to passport control so he could enter Britain and wait there. "It was ridiculous," he said. "First they treat me like a terrorist suspect. Then they are ready to release me in the UK."

Sen. McCain Couldn't Find His Own Ass With Both Hands. Neither Could USA Today.

From the most ridiculous editorial about NSA abuses I've read yet, here, in USA Today Away, quoting the senator whom that dope Sarah Palin helped reelect:

"[W]e need more congressional oversight. We need more information."

You mean from Senator Feinstein who is in charge of the oversight in the Senate, who never even had the May 2012 NSA internal audit detailing its own abuses, let alone read it?

Both senators belong in a retirement community, far away from Washington, D.C., reading lifetime subscriptions to that birdcage liner.

UK PM Cameron Joins United Stasi Of America, Tells UK Guardian To Destroy Snowden Files

The Financial Times has the story, here:

"[I]f the material was not handed over or destroyed, the government would try to stop the Guardian’s reporting through a legal route."

30 seconds of truth

Kim Dotcom punks the US Embassy in Berlin July 2013

TBSOL: McCain Has No Credibility In The American World

(seen at Drudge)

Under Harry Truman Federal Spending Was Slashed More Than Two Thirds

Between fiscal years 1945 and 1948 inclusive federal spending declined 67.85%, from $92.7 billion in 1945 to $29.8 billion in 1948. By the end of fiscal 1952 spending increased back up to $67.7 billion, but still 27% lower than in 1945.

Real GDP declined 9.4% from January 1945 to January 1949, but rebounded 28% by the time he left office four years later.

Who says we can't cut the size of government dramatically and still grow like gangbusters?

Kudlow Is Right That Obama's Glorious Immediate Post-War Never Existed, But Completely Misses The Spending Cut Angle

Larry Kudlow, here:

[S]peaking in Galesburg, Ill., this summer, Obama served up a convenient historical fairy tale: "In the period after world War II," he said, "a growing middle class was the engine of our prosperity." Presumably he was thinking of a time when high taxes on the rich and industrial-union rule had the middle class soaring. The trouble is, Obama's history is wrong.

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Arguably, government spending cuts were the engine of post-war prosperity.

While Truman's record is second only to JFK/LBJ for real GDP growth in the post-war period, it occurred under special circumstances of extraordinarily deep government spending CUTS, which is little appreciated today when politicians and Keynesian and monetarist economists stress the importance of government spending for GDP. The truly remarkable thing under Truman is how the economy soared as spending decreased by TWO THIRDS from 1945 to 1947, as Arnold Kling reminded us here last year. Funny how Kudlow doesn't mention this. I guess they don't teach that at Princeton.

Under Truman's successor Eisenhower, real GDP growth slowed dramatically because of onerous levels of taxation maintained primarily to retire the war debts, but Eisenhower spent almost as frugally as Truman at the same time, making them the two best presidents we've had when it comes to small increases in the US public debt. That said, only the two Bush presidents and Obama have turned in poorer GDP performances than IKE. Funny also how Kudlow mentions only the one Bush. He leaves out the other one. You know, the "read my lips . . . no new taxes" Bush who ended up raising taxes.

Interestingly enough for US public debt growth, JFK/LBJ come in right behind Truman and Eisenhower while introducing the tax cuts which might have made Eisenhower's GDP record better than it was. Despite the guns and butter era under LBJ, the presidents occupying The White House between 1945 and 1968 were the most fiscally responsible we've had in the post-war, and it was a dramatic resetting of the baseline for spending LOWER under Truman which was the foundation of that period's economic growth.