News flash: most women in southeast Michigan want peters

Don't they everywhere?

Moochelle flubs Braley name in Iowa stump speech six times, Terri Lynn Land in Michigan ripped for similar number of mentions that she's a mom

Politico, here:

After calling him “Bruce Bailey” at least five or six times during her remarks at a campaign event, even directing people to ‘vote.BruceBailey.com,’ an audience member eventually corrected the first lady.

Breitbart, here:

“In case you were wondering, @TerriLLand mentioned she's a mom with kids six times during the #MICalling show,” Chad Livengood, a reporter for the Detroit News, tweeted.

The Faggot States of America (in passionate purple)

Notice that the non-gay-marriage states are all in yellow, the color of cowardice, as in homophobia.

Americans have been content to keep over $1 trillion in checking accounts for the last year

Or should I say they have been desperate, because they have been earning nothing on it? The feeling before August 2008 going back all the way into the 1970s, thirty-five years!, meant Americans felt comfortable with 3 to 4-times less cash on hand for immediate withdrawal. The panic of 2008 continues.

Net balances first moved above $1 trillion in October 2013, but notably have surged to that level since August 2008 out of all proportion with the historical record. 

Supremes let stand lower court rulings overturning state marriage laws, Rush Limbaugh misreports it

Rush Limbaugh opened the show today incorrectly saying the Supremes' ruling sent the matter back to the states when in fact allowing the lower court rulings to stand effectively validates the power of lower courts to strip the states of the power to define marriage for themselves. Someone in the office evidently told Rush he got it exactly backwards, and now he's been spending a few minutes correcting himself and beating a trail to put the focus on matters which are trivial by comparison, like the liberals' hypocrisy in ignoring Joe Biden's most recent offensive gaffes.

Combined with John Boehner's recent funding of openly gay GOP candidates, it is clear that real conservatives no longer have a home in the Republican Party, which is repudiating its former support for such laws in the states, and neither do they have a voice on the Rush Limbaugh radio program.

Conservatives who intend to vote for Republicans next month, or Democrats or libertarians for that matter, should have their heads examined, and their souls exorcised.

I didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me

Temperature anomaly for Grand Rapids, Michigan, through September 2014 rises to -27.0 degrees F

The September temperature anomaly for Grand Rapids, Michigan, came to -0.7 degrees F. Added to the cumulative anomaly of -26.3 through August, the annual anomaly through September now totals -27.0 degrees F. That's an average to date of -3.0 degrees F per month.

Hahahahaha: Obama decries income inequality after $50k/plate fundraiser

h/t John Kass

The New York Times speaks out against free-trade

Here:

Since the 1970s, economic orthodoxy has argued for low tariffs, free capital flows, elimination of industrial subsidies, deregulation of labor markets, balanced budgets and low inflation. This philosophy — later known as the Washington Consensus — was the basis of advice the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank gave to developing countries in return for financial help. The irony is that during the Industrial Revolution, today’s rich countries — Britain, France and the United States — pursued the very opposite policies: high tariffs, government investment in industry, financial regulations and fixed values for currencies. Trade expanded, and capital flowed anyway. ... Nations that have ignored the nostrums of the Washington Consensus — China, India and Brazil — have grown rapidly and raised their standards of living. Improvements in poverty and inequality occurred in Latin America only in the 2000s, after the I.M.F. and the World Bank reduced their grip on those nations.

46,486,434 Americans received food stamps in July

The figure is down 2.4% from a year ago, according to the report released today.

11.2 million fewer people contribute to the economy today than in 2007

You'll have to do the math.

Rick Newman, here:

... there are still more than 16 million Americans who are unemployed or working less than they want because they can’t find a good full-time job. That’s 4.2 million more than in 2007.

Many others have dropped out of the labor force, which shows up in the numbers as a 3.3 percentage point drop in the participation rate since 2007. That might not seem like a big number, but it represents something like 7 million people who would be working or looking for work if they hadn’t dropped out. Combined with all the unemployed and underemployed, that’s a lot of people who are contributing less to the economy than they would have in a 2007 scenario.

The other big bummer is hourly wages, which have barely risen since 2007 when factoring in inflation. And that’s just for people with jobs. If you included people who used to have jobs but no longer do, the earnings number would be negative, which is why median household income is still far below where it was in 2007. That means people with jobs are barely staying even with inflation, on average, while the ranks of the economically distressed have swollen significantly.

Dallas Ebola vomit wasn't cleaned off the sidewalk for four days, and then improperly

Meanwhile, things Duncan contaminated filled 140 barrels.

The UK Telegraph, here:

Q: Was the ambulance trip to hospital handled properly?

A: On Sept 28 [Sunday] the daughter of his girlfriend brought Duncan tea in bed and found him shivering and sick. An ambulance was called. When it arrived neighbours witnessed him vomiting on the ground outside the apartment as he was placed in the emergency vehicle. No extra precautions were taken for the ambulance ride despite the fact he was Liberian and showing possible symptoms of Ebola. The ambulance was used for another 48 hours before being taken out of service. After his eventual diagnosis the three ambulance workers were told to stay home until they get the all clear. Meanwhile, it took until Thursday for workmen ... using high-pressure water jets and bleach to clean the area outside the apartment where he had been sick.

Unemployment drops to 5.9%, September jobs added were 248,000

Jobs are being added at the rate of 213,000 per month in the prior twelve months according to the report from the BLS (In 2013 population increased 187,000 per month). The average workweek is up .1 to 34.6 hours. Average hourly earnings were down a penny to $24.53. Those working usually part-time are 900,000 fewer in number than at the peak first reached in March 2010. Those working usually full-time are 3.4 million fewer in number than in the peak year of 2007. People working part-time but who want to be full-time are 2.6 million more in number than in the same month in 2007. The percentage of the population working, after falling dramatically after the election of Obama in November 2008 from 61.6 to 57.6 by January 2011, remains subdued at 1973 levels, at 59.1%.

How to sell the S&P500 in a bull market using the "Cundill" sell point

The Peter Cundill Sell is the principle that you sell half of your investment once it doubles, recovering 100% of the principal you risked. 

Assume you invested at the last S&P500 closing low, which was on March 9, 2009, at S&P 500 676.53. You multiply times 2 = 1,353.06, and sell half your holdings when the S&P500 rises to that level, according to the idea.

But the S&P500, for example, hit that level way back on April 27, 2011 at 1,355.66. So you doubled your money a long time ago, sold half your stake and recouped your entire principal. But then what? Cundill thought you were free to do anything with the remaining amount invested (which are the profits). The principal has to be reserved for another doubling opportunity.

What would a conservative bet with just the profits have meant from there?

Say you were to wager that the S&P500 would increase not 100% more as before, but only 25% more, because the S&P500 would have to hit 2706.12 to do the former. You are not greedy, just optimistic, you say. Is that a conservative plan? Maybe compared to what has just happened since 2009, but not really, because since 1970 the median annual return only has been north of 12%, half as much as that.

So you decide to let the profits ride, hoping for just an additional 12% on the index going forward. Here are the milestones of 12% from 1,353.06 up to today's current market level (1,949) at each of which you presumably sold half of your stake, gradually exiting the market and its growing risk:

1515.43 (February 2013)

1697.28 (July 2013)

1900.95 (May 2014).

An initial $10,000 invested this way made you $10,000 by April 2011 (not counting dividends).

The remaining $10,000 made you $1,200 by February 2013.

The remaining $5,600 made you $672 by July 2013.

The remaining $3,136 made you $376 by May 2014.

Since then you've had only $1,756 riding the market, making an additional 2.5% to date, or an additional $44. Total made: about $12,292 nominal. And you sell today.

By way of contrast, the buy and hold investor over the same period is up about $18,700, assuming he bought in low like you did and sells . . . TODAY. But trust me. He didn't buy low. And he won't sell today, tomorrow, in time to escape the correction, or any other time. He'll just ride it on down right past the 35% down marker at which point he'd begin waving up at you as he's headed lower. 

Jobless claims in September, not seasonally adjusted, have averaged just 236,000 weekly

Jobless claims in September have now averaged just 236,000 weekly as of this morning's report, the equivalent of an annual rate of just 12.3 million first time claims for unemployment.

Claims in August had averaged 253,000 weekly, down over 18% from July's 310,000 weekly. The average for the whole first half of the year was 326,000 weekly, so the current low level well below 300,000 sustained for two straight months is very welcome news at least for job holders.

With claims averaging 266,000 weekly at midpoint in the second half, it is conceivable that total claims in 2014 could come in under the 16 million mark, which would beat the best performance for initial claims achieved since 2000 (under George Bush). That will require claims averaging no more than about 310,000 weekly for the last three months of 2014. The last two months show that that low level is possible.

Stock futures a half hour after the report are nonplussed.

At 10.01 VGPMX is tonight again below the March 2009 low of 10.04

Vanguard Precious Metals and Mining is looking attractive once again, revisiting the territory of December 2013 when the fund briefly dipped below 10.00 to 9.69 or so. If a real stock market correction of 10% or more makes an appearance at long last, I'd expect the fund to fall in price quite a bit more, this sector fund being a stock fund. A stock market bear of 20% or more might actually take the NAV much lower, with the vicinity of 5.00 being not inconceivable.

ABA survey finds internet banking declines from 39% of customers in 2013 to 31% in 2014

Branch banking is up from 18% of customers in 2013 to 21% this year in the survey even as the number of branches has fallen back to 2006 levels, at 94,715.

Reported here.

Obama's 2014 #LIEOFTHEYEAR?

Obama quoted here, in National Journal, September 16th, 2014, two weeks ago, before the first US Ebola outbreak, reported today:

Obama said Tuesday that the outbreak is "a potential threat to global security, if these countries break down," yet said that the chance of an outbreak in the U.S. is unlikely.

Liberal hubris two months ago about Ebola virus may mean death for many Americans

Flashback to late July when you were on the beach. At the time the mendacious CDC said Ebola wouldn't spread "widely" in the US, not that it wouldn't get here, and you went on with your novel and your drink (dateline NBC here):

“It is not a potential of Ebola spreading widely in the U.S. That is not in the cards,” Frieden told reporters on a conference call. “We are not telling people who are essential to leave.” ... “This is a tragic, painful, dreadful, merciless virus. It is the largest, most complex outbreak that we know of in history,” Frieden said. “We at CDC are surging our response along with others. Although it will not be quick and it will not be easy, we do know how to stop Ebola.” ... “We have quarantine stations at all the major ports of entry,” he said. People cannot transmit Ebola to others unless they are sick, and Ebola makes you so sick that it’s pretty obvious pretty quickly, Frieden said. A traveler will be flagged by the flight crew and if someone gets sick after arrival in the U.S. they will almost certainly seek medical care. “Ebola poses little risk to the U.S. general population,” Frieden said. “Ebola is spread as people get sicker and sicker. They have fever and may develop serious symptoms.” Ebola doesn’t spread through the air like measles. People who get sick are family members or healthcare workers in prolonged and close contact with victims. ... “This is a marathon, not a sprint,” he said. “This is going to take at least three to six months, even if everything goes well.”

-----------------------------------------------------

If they knew how to stop Ebola, then why is it here two months later? Maybe because liberals couldn't get past their first ideological barrier: their commitment to the idea of world citizenship and thus of nations without borders and of free travel between them. Kind of reminds me of free trade, which has infected America with a disease known as unemployment and underemployment.

Stopping the spread of deadly viral disease requires restrictions on international travel, and contact tracing by every doctor, two things no longer routinely practiced in America nor supported by the health authorities. The latter has been considered "discriminatory" since the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. And while AIDS has been more or less contained in the US for other reasons, sexually transmitted disease has not. Half the population carries one.

Your doctor is most likely part of the problem, not part of the solution.

US oil refining capacity is mismatched for our boom in light, sweet crude

So we either expand that capacity, or lift the 1975 ban on oil exports. Obama's decision to do nothing except take credit for production from private lands suggests he wants the oil boom to end.

Robert Samuelson, who has basically concluded elsewhere that Obama is lazy, in addition to being phony, tiny and small, here:

"The new oil consists mostly of "sweet, light" crudes, meaning they have a low sulfur content and are less dense than "sour, heavy" crudes. The trouble is that many U.S. refineries have been designed to process heavy, sour crudes and, therefore, aren't suitable for the new oil. At the end of 2013, the United States had 115 oil refineries capable of processing about 18 mbd, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. About half were fitted for sour and heavy crudes. That's especially true along the Gulf of Mexico coast where more than half of U.S. refining capacity is located.

"The result is that more and more new oil is chasing less and less usable refining capacity. Refineries' bargaining power rises. Producers have to accept price discounts to sell their oil. A second problem is that much of the new production is located in North Dakota with an inadequate pipeline network to transport the crude to refineries. To offset more costly barge and rail transportation, producers (again) have to discount prices.

"Some strains will be eased by refinery expansions and new pipelines. How much is unclear. But as a report from the Brookings Institution argues, producers will be discouraged by an oil market that seems rigged against them. They will react by slowing -- or possibly stopping -- new exploration. The oil boom will ebb or end. Global oil supplies will then be lower than they would otherwise be; prices will be higher. It's a bad outcome for the United States but a good one for Russia, Iran and other producers hostile to us."

The US Dollar Currency Index, .DXY, is up 8.26% since May 6th: Expect pressure on 2nd half GDP from rising imports

Bush GDP vs. Obama GDP, same point in their presidencies

GDP under George W. Bush 5.5 years into his presidency was up nearly 35% nominal. Under Obama GDP is up nearly 18%.

Based on that, evidently, Time Magazine's Rana Foroohar is calling Obama's a 3% economy, without mentioning that Bush's was a 6% economy, nor that these figures are nominal as opposed to the generally reported real, inflation-adjusted numbers, here (it's two ways of making the present less intelligible, not more):

"But we’re now in a 3% economy, and I’m writing the same column [as three years ago]. Only this time, the message is more disturbing. Growth is back. Unemployment is down. But only a fraction of the jobs lost during the Great Recession that pay more than $15 per hour have been found. And wage growth is still hovering near zero, where it’s been for the past decade. Something is very, very broken in our economy.

"It’s a change that’s been coming for 20 years."

---------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, wage growth has been flat since 2000. The difference is we still had our higher paying jobs with flat wage growth under Bush, but not now. But that, too, is only nominal. Add in inflation and we are 5.9% behind where we were in 2000, and Obama has done nothing to fix that, either. In fact, it got worse since the so-called recession ended in 2009, 3.1%. And dialing the blame back 20 years to further muddy the waters puts us in year two of the Clinton administration, when Clinton famously broke his promise and raised everyone's taxes, which precipitated one of the biggest and deepest waves of home equity borrowing ever to maintain disappearing lifestyles, helping to gut the basis of the American dream.

But that's not mentioned, either.

That's a lot for a financial journalist not to mention.

2Q2014 GDP, third estimate, comes in at 4.6%, 1Q still -2.1%

The third estimate of 2Q2014 GDP comes in at 4.6%, up from 4.2% a month earlier, mostly on revisions to exports and nonresidential fixed investment. Subtract 1.4 points for inventories and you've basically got 3.2%. Not too shabby but not gangbusters like it ought to be at this stage of the game.

Recall, however, that the export picture in 2Q reflects a dollar index trading in the range of 79, whereas the index has been on a tear since mid-July, marching upward beyond 85 today thus making exports very pricey in 3Q compared to then, portending rough news ahead on that front. Exports of goods are running at about $1.6 trillion nominal annualized in 2Q vs. $1.5 trillion a year ago. Imports of goods, however, which subtract from GDP, still swamp our exports by $800 billion net annually and are also up $100 billion year over year at $2.4 trillion nominal annualized in 2Q. To put that $800 billion in context, consider that total nominal GDP year over year is up only $700 billion. Think what we could be if we were an export powerhouse once again.

The Current Asset Allocation of The United States

Allocated to bonds of all types, through 2Q2014:   $38.17 trillion.

Allocated to stocks (current Wilshire 5000 X 1.2): $25.46 trillion.

Allocated to cash (MZM):                                               $12.72 trillion.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total:                                                                        $76.35 trillion.

That's 50% to bonds, 33% to stocks, and 17% to cash.

The trend since 2010 has been away from bonds at close to 59% to 50% now, mainly into stocks, while amounts allocated to cash have increased the percentage just a few points.

Total World Stock Market Capitalization Through 2012 Remains 17.5% Below The 2007 Peak

According to The World Bank, here.

Nigel Farage: The West is encroaching on Mr. Putin's space

"We should be viewing Ukraine as a buffer between East and West."

Interviewed here.

Freedom for me, but not for thee?

HEY HO LETS GO

Best reason yet to vote for Terri Lynn Land for US Senate from Michigan

Her Democrat opponent has been endorsed by former Republican governor, William Milliken. To moderate Republicans, like Milliken, compromising with Democrats is always more important than advancing the issues which matter to their constituencies. Republicans who vote for Peters are Republicans in name only.

Mish finally figures out why the part-timing trend caused by ObamaCare doesn't show up in the stats . . . yet

Here:

The BLS defines part time as less than 35 hours. Low wage industries had a lot of part-timers working 32 hours.

Under Obamacare, the threshold of part-time jobs is 30 hours. Obama made that change on purpose to force more businesses to offer healthcare. 

Instead, busiunesses [sic] cut hours. It was the hours of the already part-timers that got cut, and that explains why there was no spike in part time employment.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Average hours worked overall isn't affected much by part-timers getting their hours cut, since the part-time portion of the workforce is so small to begin with, about 18%.

On an average annual basis, however, average hours worked overall haven't made it above the 35 hour full-time threshold since 1984. Larger forces have been at work to drive average hours down, mainly social revolution leading to the addition of large numbers of women to the workforce in the 1970s, but also a free trade revolution leading to offshoring of manufacturing. The libertarian rout of America has been terrible for its workers.

The verdict on what ObamaCare may do to hours is still not in, however, and won't be for many years because so much of its implementation has been delayed by the regime itself, notably the employer mandate. For large firms mandates do not kick in until 2015, and for medium size firms 2016. 

Food stamp recipient level up 0.6% in June 2014

46,496,145 million Americans received food stamps in June 2014. The level remains down from a year ago, now by 2.6%.

The total cost in June was $5.77 billion.

For the years 2010 through 2013 the average monthly benefit per person has been $133 and change.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Richard Duncan gets creditism wrong three ways

Richard Duncan gets creditism wrong three ways here for The Daily Reckoning last July in "Creditism and the Threat of a New Depression".

The most egregious error occurs right in the opening paragraph:

"Once we broke the link between dollars and gold, all the constraints on how much credit could be created were removed."

This is simply untrue, for two reasons.

One: Total credit market debt outstanding (TCMDO) has been doubling like clockwork in the post-war every six to eleven years, both prior to 1971 and after. The doubling of TCMDO occurred at its fastest pace -- two episodes of six year doubling times -- under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, five years after the close of the gold window in 1971. Otherwise the doubling has never taken as much as twelve years, whether before 1971 or after.

And two: 1971 is irrelevant. It was not the end of the gold standard. The gold standard ended under Roosevelt. In fact, the close of the gold window under Nixon was the first patriotic act with respect to gold by an American president since Roosevelt. With the stroke of a pen, Nixon single-handedly stanched the outflow of America's gold reserves, which had dwindled under Democrat and Republican presidents alike from 20 tonnes to 8,134 tonnes.

Secondly, because Duncan doesn't understand just how often TCMDO has been doubling in the post-war, he completely misses its needed and now missing rate of growth, and the accompanying fact that under normal circumstances of creditism in the United States, TCMDO ought to be at least $81 trillion by now instead of $59 trillion:

'But at this point, the question is will credit ever begin to grow again enough to drive the economy? We now have such a large base, 59 trillion dollars. If we assume that the inflation rate is two percent, then we need total credit to grow by four percent so that total credit, adjusted for inflation, will hit this “two percent recession threshold”.'

The last time TCMDO doubled in the post-war was in 2007, at $50 trillion. At the slowest pace of its actual growth in the post-war, it should hit $100 trillion by 2018. We aren't going to make it. It is shocking that a former head of equity research for Salomon Brothers is so completely unfamiliar with the Rule of 72. When something doubles in six years, the implied annual rate is between 11% and 12%. When something doubles in eleven years, the implied annual rate is 6%. 4% isn't going to cut it, buddy, and the current rate between 1% and 2% is truly catastrophic by all historical norms.

Thirdly, because Duncan hasn't properly imagined our past, the future also eludes him:

"If you look at all the big sectors of the economy, there are just a few of them. You can see that none of them are going to expand their debt enough to make total credit grow by two percent."

That's right in its way. There is no sector currently capable of driving credit expansion as it did in the past. And the reason is because it was mostly housing in the past which drove the borrowing, and housing is effectively dead for such purposes now because of the way greedy Baby Boomers, whether as homeowners or bankers, fiddled with it to plunder the equity stored there or drive securitization. The effect has been to gut the basis of Americans' wealth and poison the balance sheets of the banking system.

The way out of this mess is so filled with trouble that it is little wonder neither John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama have made fixing it a priority. It is the glaring need of our time, a Goliath with no fear of a David anywhere. It is why the economic meltdown remains the leading story of our time. It is why our other over-commitments will be our undoing. Until we settle it upon a firmer foundation as was done in the 1930s, or find a different, surer basis for economic growth, many decades of economic shrinkage await, not just one or two:

"If this collapses now, we’re going to have an equally protracted crash, and it’s not going to be a matter of taking a pain for a couple of years. The consequences of it would, I think, be a replay of the 1930′s and the 1940′s, but this time with nuclear weapons involved."

Employment Situation report records 142,000 added to payrolls in August vs. 212,000 monthly in past year

That's a 33% decline in one month in the pace at which jobs have been added monthly in the last year.

From the report, here:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 142,000 in August, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 6.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. ... Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 142,000 in August, compared with an average monthly gain of 212,000 over the prior 12 months. In August, job growth occurred in professional and business services and in health care. ... The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for June was revised from +298,000 to +267,000, and the change for July was revised from +209,000 to +212,000. With these revisions, employment gains in June and July combined were 28,000 less than previously reported.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, hours have been flat for six months at 34.5 and hourly wages climbed at a 2.1% annual pace, meaning there is little sign of an uptick in inflation in labor costs.

Those who work usually part-time declined slightly below last year's summer nadir, another sign ObamaCare is NOT part-timing workers . . . yet.

Those who work usually full-time rose to their summer peak to just over 120 million, but this measure is still 3.1 million off the summer 2007 peak, SEVEN years ago.

The labor participation rate came in at 63.0%, not seasonally adjusted, a level we thought we had said goodbye to permanently in the mid-1980s. The level was first achieved in 1976 in the post-war.

The pace of job creation under Obama remains well below the rates under Reagan and Clinton.

CNBC's headline expectation of "likely" job growth collides with banner indicating terrible August payrolls miss of nearly 37%

Temperature anomaly for Grand Rapids, MI in 2014 falls to -26.3 degrees F through August

This updates the previous post here.

The August 2014 temperature anomaly for Grand Rapids comes in at +0.2 degrees F, which lifts the total temperature anomaly for the eight months January through August from -26.5 to -26.3.

Eleven days with high temps of 80 or above in the second half of August helped turn the anomaly positive from -1.4.

The average anomaly per month has been -3.2875 degrees F. 

Jobless claims in August fall to 253,000 weekly on average

Jobless claims have fallen in August 2014 to 253,000 weekly on average, not seasonally adjusted. The rate is equivalent to 13.1 million claims annually, a very low level. The level averaged 280,000 weekly in August 2013, equivalent to 14.6 million annually, meaning the current month is an improvement of 10% from one year ago.

Last month the average weekly level was 310,000 first time claims for unemployment, and in the first half of the year claims averaged about 326,000 weekly. So with the first two months of the second half of 2014 coming in well below that, the trend remains very positive, but it should be remembered that summer is peak full-time employment season and that many of the seasonal jobs will drop off with the start of the school year.

PIMCO's Bill Gross wakes up to the wall hit by TCMDO, but not fully

Others saw this in April 2013.

Here's Bill Gross in September 2014:

The current outstanding total [credit] approximates $58 trillion and has been expanding at an average annual rate of 2% for the past five years, and 3.5% for the most recent 12 months. Put simply, if credit needs to expand at 4.5% per year, then the private and public sectors in combination must create approximately $2.5 trillion of additional debt per year to pay for outstanding interest. They are underachieving that target in the U.S., which is the reason why GDP growth struggles at 2% real or lower and nominal GDP growth seems capped at 4.5% or lower. Credit creation is essential for economic growth in a finance-based economy such as ours. Without it, growth stagnates or withers.

-------------------------------------

What Bill Gross doesn't seem to appreciate is the gravity of this slowdown historically to total credit expansion of just $1.14 trillion annually. TCMDO, total credit market debt outstanding, in the post-war DOUBLED every 6 to 11 years until 2007. That implies that normal credit expansion until 2007 was between 6% and 11% PER ANNUM. At 8.5%, an average level, TCMDO should grow well in excess of $4 trillion annually at these levels. 4.5% isn't going to cut it. And the actual 2% or even 3.5% is a catastrophe compared with the historical record.

By 2013, according to historical norms, TCMDO could have already reached $100 trillion if it matched the fastest pace on record under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Instead it's stuck at $58 trillion in 2014.

The system has hit the wall. Decades of economic shrinkage, to borrow Chris Whalen's phrase, lie ahead, and we're already in the first one.

Incidentally, nonfinancial corporate debt has grown on average $567 billion annually between 2010 and 2014, accounting for about 50% of the average increase in TCMDO. And in 2013, corporations bought back something like $600 billion worth of their own stock. 

The broad US stock market presently is valued 58.5% higher than at the end of 2002

At the end of 2002, the Wilshire 5000 (x 1.2) divided by the nominal GDP for the year stood at 0.912. As of June 30, 2014, the same calculation yields 1.446.

You have been warned!

Total Market Capitalization To Nominal GDP Ratios, Selected Years

I have used the Wilshire 5000 level at year end multiplied by 1.2 as a proxy for total stock market capitalization (except where noted by the month), and the latest summer revisions for calendar nominal GDP, in summer 2014 for the period back to 1999, and in summer 2013 for the period back to 1971.

A ratio close to 1.0 indicates the market is fairly valued relative to GDP. A ratio less than 1.0 indicates the stock market is "on sale" to some extent (for example, a ratio of 0.48 indicates the market is trading at a 52% discount). A ratio of more than 1.0 indicates the stock market is expensive and may be considered overvalued for investment purposes (for example, a ratio of 1.72 indicates the stock market is as much as 72% too expensive).

1971   .975

1981   .480

1987   .595

1990   .622

1994   .745

1997 1.296

1999 1.715
2000 1.420
2001 1.209

2002   .912

2003 1.125
2004 1.170
2005 1.147

2006 1.234

2007 1.228

2008   .740

March 2009   .676

2009   .962

2010 1.071

2011 1.019

2012 1.113

2013 1.410

March 2014 1.407

June 2014    1.446

Historically considered, valuation of the stock market by the end of 2008 made then a much better investing opportunity than was late 2002 and early 2003, almost 20% better. And valuations have remained reasonable throughout 2010-2012 and only became expensive in 2013. The four year period beginning in late 2008 has been an excellent opportunity for those with cash to invest.

I maintain that a primary driver of conditions in 2013 was the midnight hour 2012/2013 resolution of tax uncertainty, in the form of making the Bush tax cuts and alternative minimum tax rates permanent, ending the tinkering with Social Security, and reaching a compromise on capital gains tax rates.

All hail John Boehner.

Brad DeLong believes we are in a depression

And calls it the true name for what we are experiencing, here.

Market capitalization to GDP for 1999, before the August 2000 high and subsequent crash

The Wilshire 5000 level at the end of December 1999 was 13,812.7. Multiplied times 1.2 yields a total market capitalization of $16.57524 trillion.

Nominal GDP for 1999 was $9.6606 trillion according to the latest figures from the BEA.

The former divided by the latter yields 1.72.

The ratio through March 2014 is 1.41.

The ratio through June 2014 is 1.45.

Rush Limbaugh says Rutgers survey which mentions Obama 5 times never mentions Obama while blaming Bush!

Ah . . .  no.

The survey never mentions Bush, mentions Obama 5 times, and two of those times are in questions from the actual survey. See for yourself here.

Rush Limbaugh transcript here . . . not just reliably getting it wrong, but lying about it. No wonder people are pessimistic about the future.

Dim bulb Rush Limbaugh doesn't know what an L.E.D. is

Transcript here.

Does anyone really know what is the level of stock buybacks?

The LA Times reported yesterday here that the level was $598 billion in 2013.

But The Washington Post reported last December here that is was $754 billion, not counting a big buyback announced by Boeing.

How do they know?

2Q2014 GDP, second estimate, at 4.2% vs. 4.0% in advance estimate and -2.1% in 1Q2014

If today's report of GDP holds up in the final estimate of 2Q2014 GDP about a month from now, Obama will have racked up just three quarters in his entire presidency with prints in the fours:

4Q2011  4.6%

3Q2013  4.5%

2Q2014  4.2%.

Here's Obama's full record incorporating the latest annual revisions from bea.gov at the end of July and the annual revisions from the summer of 2013:

2009: -5.4, -0.4,  1.3,  3.9

2010:  1.6,   3.9,  2.8,  2.5

2011: -1.5,   2.9,  0.8,  4.6

2012:  2.3,   1.6,  2.5,  0.1

2013:  2.7,   1.8,  4.5,  3.5

2014: -2.1,   4.2.

Average report after 22 quarters: 1.7%.

Pathetic!

Congressional Budget Office quietly predicts 1.5% real 2014 GDP one day before BEA.gov announcement

Is 2Q2014 GDP of 4% just a memory?

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (!) had the story here:

"The Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday forecast that the U.S. economy will grow by just 1.5 per cent in 2014, undermined by a poor performance during the first three months of the year."

Why S&P500 2000.02 isn't the all time high

Because adjusted for inflation the August 2000 high was 2048.10, so we remain 48.08 points away from the all time high, or another 2.3%.

S&P500 makes historic close above 2000 yesterday

The housing riot: Average time in mortgage delinquency is 2.7 years nationwide, 4 years in New York State

Lawlessness and mayhem isn't just for po folk in Ferguson, Missouri, where law enforcement was overwhelmed by the bad actors doing millions of dollars in damage on the streets. Same goes for freeloaders in judicial mortgage states like New York where the authorities do not have the capacity to deal with the widespread problem of non-payment.

From Michael Sincere, here:

Millions of homeowners are already seriously delinquent. “The average length of time that houses remain delinquent nationwide is 995 days,” [Keith] Jurow says. “The worst culprit is New York State. The average delinquency period there is four years.” Many homeowners are aware that banks are not in a rush to file foreclosures, so they stay in their houses mortgage-free. “The banks are not initiating foreclosure proceedings because once the servicer forecloses, the lender takes a hit on earnings,” Jurow says. “They also have to manage the property, and most banks don’t want to do that.”

Postmodernism at The Atlantic, continued, where the seven-day week is completely man-made

What's completely man-made is this account of the week, "Where the Five-Day Workweek Came From", in which long observation of four lunar phases of 7.4 days in length over millennia means nothing to an architect, who is, fittingly, cited as an authority, as in architects making stuff up.

The author, one Philip Sopher, an economics graduate from Princeton who should know his dates better, is completely ignorant of the Julian calendar reform of the Roman market day cycle of eight days to the more natural seven, which together with its other changes in 46 BC helped remove ever after in the West, not add, deliberate human meddling with the calendar, a common problem at the time of Caesar, here:

“Seven days,” wrote Witold Rybczynski in the August 1991 issue of The Atlantic, “is not natural because no natural phenomenon occurs every seven days.” The year marks one revolution of the Earth around the sun. Months, supposedly, mark the time between full moons.  The seven-day week, however, is completely man-made.

If it’s man-made, can’t man unmake it? For all the talk of how freeing it’d be to shave a day or two off the five-day workweek, little attention has been paid to where the weekly calendar came from. Understanding the sometimes arbitrary origins of the modern workweek might inform the movement to shorten it.

... At the very latest, the seven-day week was firmly entrenched in the Western calendar about 250 years before Christ was born.

---------------------------------------------

Little attention, indeed.

Federal Reserve banks rob the people a minimum $400 billion annually through ZIRP, so far have paid just $125 billion in fines for financial crisis crimes

Bank of America is a chief offender appearing in the lists. The latest fine against it, among others, is detailed here:

"The Bank of America deal announced Thursday, the government’s largest-ever settlement with a single company, means the nation’s second-biggest bank will shell out $16.65 billion over allegations that it knowingly sold toxic mortgages to investors. ... The sum surpasses Bank of America’s entire profits last year and is significantly higher than the $13 billion it offered during negotiations in July."

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The story doesn't mention the nearly $90 billion paid out by the FDIC Deposit Insurance Fund for the failed banks which have numbered over 500 since 2007, the funds for which are supplied by insurance premiums extorted from the honest banks. But it is the depositors who end up paying for that cost of doing business in the end. Nor does it ruminate on the effects of the Federal Reserve's Zero Interest Rate Policy, which allows those first in line for money to get it rock bottom cheap and speculate with it. The financial sector now rivals the household sector in stock ownership. Savers meanwhile get the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. Ten years prior to 2007 the country was finally beginning to recover from a decade long Savings and Loan crisis which witnessed over a thousand institutions fail, costing the taxpayers directly about $130 billion. No sooner was that over in 1995 when the wizards of smart conspired to abolish the Glass-Steagall banking regime in 1999, precipitating the recent panic less than a decade later. And, of course, the Great Depression after 1929 followed closely on the heels of the establishment of the Federal Reserve itself in 1913, signed into law by one Woodrow Wilson, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University. Over 700 banks failed in 1930, and 9,000 over the ensuing decade. The professionals have a long history of failure. The prudent avoid them.

S&P500 posts its 28th record close in 2014 at 1992

That's one new record high every 1.18 weeks to date, down from just slightly more than one per week in 2013, or one new high every 1.02 weeks.

Sentier Research: Real Median Annual Household Income Down 3.1% From 2009, 4.8% From 2007, 5.9% From 2000

The metric has recovered between 2011 and 2014 by 3.8%, so things could be a lot worse. But the report means incomes remain in a depression now fourteen years long and counting.

Read the full report here.

Missouri governor calls in the National Guard to protect . . . the police

The New York Times reports here in "National Guard Troops Fail to Quell Unrest in Ferguson":

"Early Monday, after a new spate of unrest, Gov. Jay Nixon said he was bringing in the National Guard. Hours later, he said that he was lifting the curfew and that the Guard would have only a limited role, protecting the police command post. ... at the police command post, National Guard members in Army fatigues, some with military police patches on their uniforms, stood ready but never entered the area where protesters were marching. State and local law enforcement authorities oversaw operations there."

The market crash is not coming with signs to be observed

John Hussman, here:

"Compressed risk premiums normalize in spikes.

"Those spikes will make it quite difficult to exit in the nice, orderly manner that speculators seem to imagine will be possible. Nor are readily observable warnings (beyond those we already observe) likely to provide a clear exit signal. Galbraith reminds us that the 1929 market crash did not have observable catalysts. Rather, his description is very much in line with the view that the market crashed first, and the underlying economic strains emerged later: 'the crash did not come – as some have suggested – because the market suddenly became aware that a serious depression was in the offing. A depression, serious or otherwise, could not be foreseen when the market fell.'"

Grand Rapids Community College students take less classes, learn fewer knowledge: VP for Finance and Administration copes with declining revenue

Story at mlive.com here:

Lisa Freiburger, vice president for finance and administration, didn’t have an estimate on the number of vacant positions the college will delay filling or leave unfilled altogether. ... Freiburger said an improving economy is likely one of the factors causing enrollment to decline. In addition to a declining headcount, students are also taking fewer courses. “We are seeing students take less classes, and I assume those students are perhaps working more than they might have been,” she said. “Clearly, we’re down farther than we anticipated, but we are managing that drop and related loss in revenue.”

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Maybe GRCC could save money by firing people who speak English goodier.

Gold bug Ralph Benko thinks Richard Nixon had to resign over the closing of the gold window!

I like Ralph Benko. Ralph Benko often makes important arguments on behalf of the gold standard. But when he tries to force everything in the universe to be interpreted through the lens of it you know you have met an ideologue who has become unhinged from reality. Which is why Forbes is a good place for him.

His latest screed here is a mere flight of fantasy, imagining Richard Nixon was forced to resign over the closing of the gold window in 1971. Had he presented it as such, it would have entertained and illumined, even pleased. Instead, its talk of correlation only annoys, the way a chart reader plots two things on a graph and yells 'See! See! They both go up together!' Against Benko, Pat Buchanan may be forgiven for ignoring what didn't exist, just as Nixon's enemies ignored it, except in the fever camps of utopianism.

Benko makes Thomas Paine's opinions about gold a prophecy reaching 200 years into the future where gold becomes Nemesis and the end of Bretton Woods Hubris. Covering up Watergate? Well, simply an instrumental little detail:

"The House Judiciary Committee’s charges and the Connally indictment uncannily fulfill a prophecy by Tom Paine. ... Connally was acquitted on the charges of graft and perjury.  Later he underwent bankruptcy before dying in semi-disgrace.  Nixon resigned rather than undergoing impeachment, also living out his life in disgraced political exile.   The spirit of Paine’s declaration was fulfilled in both cases. Connally and Nixon engineered this violation, abandoning the good, precious-metal, money contemplated by the Constitution. Nemesis followed hubris. The closing of the 'gold window' was based, by Connolly, on deeply wrong premises.  It was sold to the public, by Nixon, on deeply false promises."

Methinks Tom Paine himself would be a little embarrassed at the almost religious regard with which some of his present day followers come to what he has left behind for us on paper.

He'd probably call them Burkeans.

Missouri governor calls in National Guard, vindicating need for militarized police to stop riots in Ferguson

Reported here, with this excellent comment appended by a reader:

"Now we learn the National Guard is being called in. More than looking like the military, which the locals cops were accused of doing, these fellows 'are' the military. If this doesn't vindicate the local cops accused of being over the top in their response, nothing will."

Ross Douthat is insane, doesn't say a word about millions of dollars in damage done by rioters in Ferguson, MO

Ross Douthat in The New York Times calls for taking away the militarized components of police departments, here.

But Ferguson, MO, police effectively watched on the sidelines as millions of dollars in damages were inflicted on property owners by rioters there, and didn't use their hardware to stop it. They should have.

It would have sent a message across this country to cease and desist, or suffer the consequences. Law-abiding people everywhere want this in their hearts, but are afraid to speak up because of the intimidation they would suffer from an insane media allied with the race hucksters of this country. It's too bad Ross Douthat has joined them.

From the St. Louis Business Journal, here:

"QuikTrip, which saw its store at 9420 West Florrisant Ave. looted and burned, estimated Monday the damage total to be in the seven figures.

"More than a dozen other businesses along West Florissant Avenue were damaged and looted, including Zisser Tire & Auto, Wal-Mart, Taco Bell, St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store, and Toys R Us. Nu Fashion Beauty, Party City and Boost Mobile were also affected. The unrest spread beyond Ferguson Monday night, as a Shoe Carnival on Gravois near Grand was vandalized and looted."

In America, unfortunately, some property is more unequal than others.

German Bunds make history, yields fall below 1%, poor GDP blamed on MILD winter!

Germany now joins Japan and Switzerland in the below 1% yield club. The rush into the safety of government bonds driving down yields is a sign everywhere of lousy productivity.

Meanwhile yields below 2% exist in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Sweden, The Netherlands, Ireland, France, Finland, Denmark, The Czech Republic, Belgium, and Austria. Finland is the lowest of these presently at 1.14%.

CNBC reports here:

"Following disappointing growth data for the euro zone, 10-year yields finally broke through the 1 percent handle on Thursday—a first—dipping to an intraday low of 0.998 percent.  Yields then fell below 1 percent again on Friday, on reports that Ukrainian troops had attacked armed Russian military, which had crossed into the country near the border of Izvaryne. U.S. yields also declined, hitting a low of 2.333 percent, while the euro and European stocks turned negative."

German GDP fell in the second quarter from the first, at -0.6% annualized, which was, believe it or not, blamed on a mild winter there after poor GDP Stateside was blamed on an unusually harsh one.

The Wall Street Journal reported with a straight face here:

"Germany's economy, long Europe's growth engine, shrank for the first time in more than a year, a development economists largely attributed to a mild winter that boosted activity in the first quarter at the expense of the second. The bigger concerns, they say, are France and Italy, where respectable rates of growth aren't even in sight."

Oh well, at least they wrote "shrank".

Rex "The Nut" Nutting commits drive by shooting of American savers, misunderstands excess reserves

The resident communist at MarketWatch weighs in here:

Sure, people need to keep some money handy to pay their bills and some folks might have a few hundred or a few thousand in a rainy-day fund, but no one needs immediate access to the equivalent of 11 months of income. In essence, there’s $10.8 trillion stuffed into mattresses. That $10.8 trillion hoard represents a failure of Fed policy. Since the Fed began quantitative easing in September 2012, U.S. households have socked away $1.17 trillion in their low-yield accounts. That means that 95% of the Fed’s $1.24 trillion QE3 ended up not in bubbly markets but in a safe and boring bank account.

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The $1.17 trillion since September 2012 is nicely represented in "excess reserves of depository institutions", which are up $1.21 trillion since that time. So sorry, Rex, the banks are holding on to that cash, not households. The reason? They must, to help comply with increased capital requirements under Basel III rules in the wake of the panic of 2008. That's the reason for QE, but no one wants to call it the continued bank bailout that it is while the rest of us continue to suffer without bailouts of our own. People might actually revolt if they did that, so it's best to call QE and its evil twin ZIRP necessary measures to prop up housing, employment and the like. To call it a bank bailout would just give it away, and we can't have that, now can we?

Savings deposits, meanwhile, are up less than $1 trillion since September 2012, to which, by the way, no one has "immediate access". Savings deposits are not "demand deposits" like checking accounts. It can take up to 30 days to get all your money out of savings, which now totals $7.38 trillion. Demand deposits at commercial banks, on the other hand, are up just $220 billion since September 2012, to $1.18 trillion, and total checkable deposits are up just $320 billion to $1.66 trillion. Not exactly a lot of money in a $17 trillion economy.

These savings, such as they are, aren't a failure of Fed policy. They are actually a repudiation of it by a part of the population which still possesses a cultural memory of the basis of capitalism.

Wake up and join the revolution, Rex.

This country needs more law enforcement, not less

Video here.

Story here.

Moving averages for S&P500 haven't really shown any weakness since December 2012

Global Warming In Grand Rapids, Michigan: Cumulative Temperature Deficit of 26.5 Degrees Fahrenheit January-July 2014

Grand Rapids, Michigan has been building an impressive record of below average temperatures in 2014:

January -6.3 F below average

Feb.      -9.1

March  -9.0

April    -0.4

May    +0.6

June    +1.8

July     -4.1

That's 26.5 degrees F below normal for seven months, or 3.79 degrees F below normal on average for every month this year through July.

And August to date is already -1.4 degrees F.

Noted libertarian argues Ron Paul copied Fabianism, subverted the Republican Party from within with a veneer of Christian conservatism

Ben Domenech here:

It is absolutely ludicrous to argue that the momentum in our political sphere among the younger generation is not more libertarian. It’s obvious to anyone who’s paying attention to politics on the ground. Why is that? Well, it’s not because of the Libertarian Party. It’s because there’s a host of younger people, the children of George W. Bush voters or Bush voters themselves, who realized that libertarianism speaks more to their worldview than modern day conservatism. It’s because Ron Paul worked to build an army of volunteers and took the message of libertarian ideas to a generation of voters, with a focus on slowly taking over the Republican Party. It’s because the views of Ron and Rand, Mike Lee, Justin Amash, and other libertarian-leaning Republicans on the issue of abortion made them more palatable to a Christian audience (as opposed to someone like former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who takes the opposite view on the abortion issue). Why is the Token Libertarian Girl, pro-life Christian Julie Borowski, not just a typical Republican? The Pauls evangelized libertarian ideas to a young audience ready to hear them and eager to make them a reality; and then, with the rise of the Tea Party, they expanded that appeal beyond the youngsters, too. That’s why.

The 7 lean years (2007-2013) vs. the 7 fat years (2000-2006)

The lean, in GDP per capita:

2007 +0.8
2008 -1.2
2009 -3.7
2010  1.7
2011  1.1
2012  2.0
2013  1.1
---------------------------------

average = 0.26% / year



The fat, relatively speaking:

2000  2.9
2001  0.0
2002  0.8
2003  1.9
2004  2.8
2005  2.4
2006  1.7
--------------------------------

average = 1.79% / year

Heritage Foundation's Stuart Butler of ObamaCare mandate fame decides he's more comfortable at the liberal Brookings Institution

Conservatives seeking institutionalization. No wonder Robin Williams committed suicide.

Seen here:

Mr. Butler, 67 years old, said he was attracted to Brookings by the idea of working at a place that is not monolithic in its approach to public policy.

“Brookings is a different kind of institution. It’s a collection of scholars as opposed to a team-focused organization,” Mr. Butler said in an interview Thursday. “There’s an opportunity to sit around in the cafeteria to talk about all kinds of different issues from the theoretical to the practical.”

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Stuart Butler was the author of the original healthcare mandate idea at Heritage in 1989. He's been trying to walk that back ever since 2010, but what appears to have driven him into the arms of the liberals was the ascendancy of libertarian Senator Demented Jim to head up Heritage, who subsequently brought in Club For Growth founder Steve Moore, who was The Wall Street Journal's libertarian bad boy for many years.  

Avowed liberal and Democrat, actor Robin Williams, supposedly commits suicide

Nikki Finke here:

The actor suffered a lifelong struggle with depression, alcohol and drugs. After starting his battle with addiction in the 1970s he once explained it this way: "Cocaine for me was a place to hide. Most people get hyper on coke. It slowed me down." ... [A]vowed liberal and Democrat, Williams was a frequent supporter of and contributor to progressive causes and campaigns.

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Some people would say self-destructive behavior ending in suicide is the logical conclusion of liberalism, and that Robin Williams simply finally realized that.

We'll see if it really was suicide.

I for one think the liberalism is an artifact in this case. It's more an example of the tragic hero whose incredible gift almost depended on a deeply profound curse from which it derived its sheer magnitude and excellence, a bipolar extremism which few can imagine or understand who haven't experienced it for themselves.

Food stamps go to 46,225,054 Americans in May 2014

Down 3% from May 2013.

Libertarians are really about restricting people less, which makes them liberals not conservatives

From The New York Times, here:

[Nick] Gillespie [of Reason Magazine] was unimpressed by Ronald Reagan, who declared a new “war on drugs,” raised the national drinking age to 21, raised all sorts of taxes, preserved Social Security which Gillespie regards as federally mandated generational theft) and in general claimed to champion American individualism while squashing it every chance he got.

“I was never conservative,” he told me as we sipped our gin. “Republicans always saw libertarians as nice to have around in case they wanted to score some weed, and we always knew where there was a party. And for a while it made sense to bunk up with them. But after a while, it would be like, ‘So if we agree on limited government, how about opening the borders?’ No, that’s crazy. ‘How about legalizing drugs? How about giving gays equal rights?’ No, come on, be serious. And so I thought, There’s nothing in this for me.”

". . . Part of why I’m a libertarian is that if you restrict people less, interesting stuff happens.”

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Conservatives restrict themselves. If libertarians restrict anything, it just shows their incoherence.

Damn those speed limit and stop signs, and those cops, which keep me and my kid safe on the way to school, except less so now thanks to libertarianism in places like Colorado, where the interesting stuff which is happening is more traffic accident deaths due to marijuana legalization.

Libertarians. Malcontents. Sectarians. 

Obama is John Galt

"The problem is, Republicans in Congress keep blocking or voting down almost every serious idea . . .. This obstruction keeps the system rigged for those at the top . . .. And as long as they insist on doing it, I’ll keep taking actions on my own . . .." (Radio address, 6/28/14)

One important reason Brian Ellis lost to Justin Amash

You don't robocall Republican-inclined voters on election eve featuring a Democrat urging Democrats to cross over and vote for Ellis in the Republican primary, and then say you paid for it.

I don't think that endeared Republican-inclined voters to Ellis, who suspected there was no there there to begin with. Offering no alternative to radical libertarianism made Brian Ellis a lousy candidate. Who wants to vote for libertarian-light when you've got the real deal in Amash?

This seems to be all too characteristic of Republicans: they frequently portray themselves as moderate liberals, whether it's being for abortion in the cases of rape, incest and life of the mother, civil unions, DADT, smarter big government, or Heritage Foundation health care mandates.

Republicans need to figure out what conservatism is and whether they ought to believe in it. Until they do they'll continue to mistake libertarianism for conservatism. Even Nancy Pelosi is for "In God We Trust". Justin Amash is not.