The pace of debt creation has contracted by over 60% in the most recent seven year period as housing and banking hit the brick wall.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Flashback to October 2011: Romney and Gingrich agree ObamaCare's individual mandate idea came from the Heritage Foundation
From the Western Republican Leadership Conference Presidential Debate interchange in October 2011 between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich about the individual mandate (see it here starting at the 29:00 minute mark):
ROMNEY: OK. Let me ask, have you supported in the past an individual mandate?
GINGRICH: I absolutely did with the Heritage Foundation against Hillarycare.
ROMNEY: You did support an individual mandate?
ROMNEY: Oh, OK. That’s what I’m saying. We got the idea from you and the Heritage Foundation.
GINGRICH: OK. A little broader.
ROMNEY: OK.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
People believing in the American dream at lowest level in two decades, despite so-called economic recovery
The New York Times reports here:
"The poll, which explored Americans’ opinions on a wide range of economic and financial issues, found that only 64 percent of respondents said they still believed in the American dream, the lowest result in roughly two decades. Even near the depth of the financial crisis in early 2009, 72 percent of Americans still believed that hard work could result in riches."
The Ayn Rand worshipper wearing the glasses went on to ruin the country in 2008, nobody else
And Michigan's 3rd Congressional District, once represented by Gerald Ford and now by Justin Amash, still reeks with the putrid smell of libertarianism's incoherent ideology.
Flashback to Feb. 2012: Newt Gingrich was mocked and worse by Obama and company for saying $2.50 gas was possible, but it's happening right now
 |
| Newt, deservedly doin' The Mussolini |
Obama called Gingrich's promise of $2.50/gallon gas a "phony election-year promise" in 2012 here. The White House spokesman lying shill Jay Carney chimed in calling it a lie, here. Pure projection syndrome.
Two and a half years later and everywhere across this country the price of gasoline is plummeting toward an average of $2.50 and lower because of the success of drill-baby-drill-fracking on private lands, and the Feds haven't had one damn thing to do with it.
The average price in Grand Rapids, Michigan, tonight is $2.539 with prices falling. Smart shoppers at Sam's Club here tonight can get gas for $2.469. Prices in many southern tier states of this great country are already paying well below $2.50, for example $2.20 in Texas City, TX, $2.25 in Memphis, TN, and $2.30 in West Monroe, LA. Go duck men, go.
Newt Gingrich was right. Obama and company are idiots.
About 20 million Americans have dropped out of the middle class under Obama as lower class explodes by 50 million
In 2008 53% of the population considered itself middle class, about 161 million Americans, according to the Pew data referenced here and here.
But in 2014 only 44% consider themselves middle class any longer, almost 140 million based on current population. That means about 20 million have dropped out of the middle class during the Obama presidency so far.
Where'd they go?
Well, not up. The upper class has also declined, about 16 million, from 21% of population in 2008 to 15% in 2014.
The only class seeing an increase is those self-identifying as lower class, and that has exploded from 25% of population in 2008 to 40% in 2014. That's up over 50 million, from 76 million in 2008 to 127 million in 2014.
Americans who say they are middle class has never been lower, falling from 53% in 2008 to 44% in 2014
Pew reported here in January:
The nationally representative survey of 1,504 adults conducted Jan. 15-19 found that the share of Americans who identify with the middle class has never been lower, dropping to 44% in the latest survey from 53% in 2008 during the first months of the Great Recession.
Independent voters overwhelmingly oppose Obama's illegal immigration cram-down
The middle class knows an obvious threat to its jobs when it sees it.
HotAir reports on the recent Bloomberg poll, here:
Obama gets a 37/54 on immigration a couple of weeks after his big “I’m gonna act alone” statement, which isn’t surprising, considering that Bloomberg respondents oppose executive action by a wide margin, 39/56. A bigger majority of independents oppose this (57%) according to their news report, although the data release didn’t include those breakdowns.
Interestingly, this isn’t a poll of registered voters, either. The survey sample was 1,001 adults, which should be the most favorable sample type for Obama and the Democrats. If it’s that bad with this kind of sample, imagine what the numbers would be among registered voters or likely 2016 voters.
Liberal Zachary Karabell gets it: Maybe in 2.5 years job levels will fairly resemble 2007
And in Politico of all places, here:
Statistically, with a labor force that the Bureau of Labor Statistics counts at 156 million, a few hundred thousand jobs created a month is not quite as large a number as it seems. And because of the low “labor force participation rate,” we would need two and a half years of job creation at this November rate’s before we got back to where the United States was in terms of jobs in 2007, and three and half years of such reports before we approximated the labor market of the late 1990s, at least according to an analysis done by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
In other words (which they won't and cannot say), Barack Obama will be out of office before the jobs levels return to their peaks achieved under George W. Bush. Barack Obama: eight years of speed bumps for American jobs.
If you don't think the middle class is in trouble under Obama, you are an idiot
The basis of middle class prosperity in America has always been a full-time job. With one you can get married, buy a car and a house, and start and raise a family. That's the basic economic unit which gives life to everything in our society, starting with a strong tax base of families in single family homes on which we depend for tax revenue to erect schools, build roads, fund fire and emergency services, and provide for police to preserve, protect and defend law and order. Under Barack Obama full-time jobs have gone into deep trouble.
Examine the record of full-time jobs since the 1960s and you can't help but see how serious this is.
After recessions, full-time jobs have always recovered their former peaks within 2 to at most 3 years . . . until now. Full-time jobs bounced back to their former heights in 2 years after the recessions of 1973 and 1980, and in 3 years after the recessions of 1969, 1981, 1990 and 2001.
Full-time usually peaks in the summer months when the workforce is supplemented by young people flooding the jobs market to earn money for school and other things they want. Just before the onset of the most recent recession in 2007, full-time jobs peaked at 123,219,000 in July of that year. But now 7 long years later, full-time has still not recovered. After seeming to peak this August at 120,110,000 we've had a little headfake in October with full-time actually peaking for this cycle at 120,176,000. If we are lucky and continue to add jobs at a clip of 224,000 a month like we have added in the last twelve months, even next summer or fall we will still fall short of the 2007 high by 355,000 full-time jobs. That'll make it 8 years and counting that full-time has not recovered.
But factoring in the growth of the civilian noninstitutional population since 2007, arguably full-time jobs should be 130 million by now, not 120 million. Almost 5 million prime-working-age adults 25 to 54 do not work today who did in 2007.
The hostility of leftists to the middle class used to be well-known in America when it was a better educated country. It's not a coincidence that with an actual leftist in the White House for the first time in history that the basis of middle class life in America is under attack like it's never been before.
Obama has promised many things which have turned out just the opposite, especially in the healthcare arena. Now the Gruber affair shows that it was in fact all by design. A subterfuge. A deliberate fraud. Many of us tried to sound the warning, but it got rammed down our throats regardless, and now you wonder why you can't keep your doctor, can't keep your insurance and have to pay much more for it.
How long will it take Americans to figure out that gutting the middle class is also by design?
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Speaking of jerks who drive Nissans, the automaker has 3 vehicles on the list of vehicles most to be shunned in future
CNBC reports here, but completely slaughters the story. Just four vehicles had owner satisfaction below 50%, meaning more than half their owners, not fewer, would ever go near one again. (If I were Nissan I would resemble the story, but frankly I could care less).
'[O]nly four models of more than 280 in the survey had fewer than half their owners not wanting to every going near a new one again, the magazine concluded "the unhappy car owner is rarer than you might think." Overall, owner satisfaction was about 70%.'
Would NOT buy again
Nissan Versa 58% (vs. 42% satisfied)
Jeep Compass 57%
Kia Rio 54%
Nissan Sentra 53% (vs. 47% satisfied)
Nissan Pathfinder 48% (vs. 52% satisfied)
Hyundai Tucson 47%
Why it seems like there are more jerks on the road than ever
Because Nissan/Infiniti sales hit an all-time high in 2013, reported here:
"Nissan continued its strong performance, posting its best annual U.S. sales total in the company’s history. Including Nissan and Infiniti, the automaker sold 1.25 million vehicles in 2013, including 109,758 in December."
And through November 2014 sales for Nissan only have hit 1.26 million, the most ever, reported here:
"With one month remaining in 2014, Nissan has now set a record for most U.S. sales in a year in the company's history with 1,269,577, up 11.5 percent for the year."
Sunday, December 7, 2014
How massive government debt remains the biggest impediment to growth
Nominal GDP increased $604.9 billion dollars in 2013. The interest payment on the debt for fiscal 2013 was $415.7 billion, consuming almost 69% of GDP.
So far in 2014 nominal GDP is up $787.1 billion. The interest payment on the debt for fiscal 2014 just ended on September 30th was $430.8 billion, consuming almost 55% of GDP to date. At least that trend is in the right direction.
Interest payments on government bonds do not count as government spending in the category of consumption expenditures because they are not related to production as they are in business.
Interest expense has exceeded $400 billion in seven out of the last nine fiscal years.
The national debt stood at $17.824 trillion on September 30, 2014. The fiscal year interest expense of $430.8 billion therefore represents an interest rate on the debt of 2.42%. The 10-year Treasury currently pays 2.31%.
Now you may understand the Federal Reserve's Zero Interest Rate Policy, and its never-ending message to Congress pleading for fiscal restraint. Interest rates cannot be repressed forever without social unrest. Democrats need reminding that such restraint involves spending, while Republicans need reminding that it involves both spending restraint and necessary taxation. They could make a start by recognizing that income inequality begins by treating some money more equally than other money.
It's a waste of time asking Democrats for prudent anything, which is why Republicans now run the show again. We'll see if the Republicans got the message this time. As always, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns.
Fortune article perpetuates ignorance about part-time jobs, undercounting them by half
"[T]he number of part-time jobs, while still elevated compared to pre-recession levels, have remained steadily (or stubbornly, one could argue) around the 14 million mark."
The error is inexcusable because the government goes to great pains in the Household Survey to collect the information on part-time and full-time, and anyone can look it up conveniently at the St. Louis Federal Reserve website. The number is double what she writes, and has hit a record high.
"Employed, usually work part time" is here.
It shows the current level at 28.225 million. Lorenzetti is right the level has been steady . . . but at about 27.436 million on average 2009-2013 inclusive, not 14 million, after taking a big jump up from the 25 million level in 2007.
A subset of these are "part-time for economic reasons", here, presently at 6.85 million, still elevated about 2.5 million from the autumn of 2007 and still tracking the sudden jump up in part-time during the late depression.
"Employed, usually work full time" is here.
Lest you think all is fair and rosy about full time as Ms. Lorenzetti wants you to believe because of Friday's headline jobs number and the full-time up-trend since 2010, the employment situation in the last report shows a decline of 735,000 full time jobs and an increase in part time of 465,000, not-seasonally-adjusted for your holiday cheer.
The gap between the last peak in full-time, in 2007, and now is 3.778 million, even as over the intervening seven years we have added on top of that 15.9 million to the civilian noninstitutional population, that is, people 16 years of age and older who are not in prison, the nut house, retirement homes or the military, who can work but don't.
Ho, ho, ho.
NY Times laments "tax uncertainty" over breaks which expired almost a year ago
 |
| As seen at Amazon |
This is like lamenting that the Bush tax cuts became permanent two years ago. The only uncertainty is for liberals who still hope to repeal them. When pigs fly.
Here:
"Absent congressional action, a host of business and personal tax breaks expires on Jan. 1. ...
"Negotiators have all but given up culling the government’s growing list of temporary tax measures, making some permanent and jettisoning the most egregious tax giveaways. Instead, the House will vote Wednesday on a measure to restore almost all the tax breaks that expired last year for one year retroactively. That would allow taxpayers to claim them on their 2014 tax returns while forcing Congress to grapple with the issue again early next year."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ahem. There's nothing temporary about a tax break which was allowed to expire many months ago. If you've been counting on getting any expired tax break back, you deserve to be disappointed. If Congress decides to reinstate any of them before the end of the year, you've received a gift.
And while we're at it, the New York Times isn't very helpful about telling you what expired. Here's a list:
Health Coverage Tax Credit
Deduction for Charitable Donations from IRAs
Educator Expense Deduction
Nonbusiness Energy Property Credit
Tuition and Fees Deduction.
But the real whopper of this story is that we're supposed to believe that
"Uncertainty alone raised corporate bond prices, lowered growth by 0.3 percentage points a year and raised unemployment last year by 0.6 percentage points."
Investors in popular corporate bond index funds know the first statement completely misrepresents history. Net asset values of intermediates and shorts fell dramatically in the summer of 2013 after Ben Bernanke's ill-timed remarks. That prices have recovered since then masks the fact that prices today are still almost 3% lower for intermediates than they were when the Bush tax cuts became permanent at the beginning of 2013, and a half percent lower for shorts.
As for lowering growth, how anyone is supposed to believe that is beyond me. Government revenues have SOARED to record heights in fiscal 2013 as a result of permanency in the tax code, allowing a positive contribution to GDP from government consumption expenditures for the first time in four years. The 3Q2014 contribution was 0.76, most of that military spending on the war against ISIS, and the 2014 average to date is 0.31. The average contribution from government spending for 2011, 2012 and 2013? -0.45, a subtraction from growth.
Meanwhile unemployment has been falling, mostly as a result of not counting over 6 million unemployed Americans who have given up on finding a job. Adding them back in would take unemployment up from 5.8% to 9.6%, and the New York Times thinks it can detect a 0.6 point contribution from "uncertainty". We should be so lucky.
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Food stamp recipient level declines again in September 2014
Those receiving food stamps in September 2014 declined to 46,459,998 according to Friday's report.
The decline is a statistically insignificant 17,000, but year over year the level is 1.8% lower than the 47.3 million who then received food assistance.
The peak month for food stamp recipients was December 2012 when 47,792,056 received assistance. The level has since declined from there by 2.8%.
Carnage in Commodities: Gold/Oil Ratio soars to 18.08
Gold continues to lose ground to plunging oil prices, making oil the preferred investment of the two, if you had to chose between them. Gold would have to plunge to 987.60 to restore the ratio to parity of 15 at the current price of oil, 65.84, or 17%.
Gold is presently about 200 off its 2014 high of 1385 (London fix), about 14%, while West Texas Intermediate Crude is down over 35% from its June close at 102.07.
The surging dollar in 2014 has been deflationary for commodities. Closing as low as 79.09 in early May, .DXY closed yesterday at 89.36, up almost 13% in just seven months.
Behind that no doubt has been the Yellen Federal Reserve's commitment to end QE, which it did in October, and the continued Republican stranglehold on spendthrift liberalism, creating positive fiscal conditions liked by markets. Federal revenues are at an all time high of $2.775 trillion in fiscal 2013 while outlays remain stabilized at about $3.5 trillion for each of the last five fiscal years in a row. At $3.4 trillion in fiscal 2013, the often ugly dance between a Republican House and a Democrat Senate and Executive has meant that federal spending has risen only 2.75% in nominal terms for each fiscal year since the 2008 baseline. The S&P500 is up over 12% year-to-date on top of last year's stellar 32% gain.
The permanency of the Bush tax cuts and the AMT fix which heralded in the new year in 2013 continue to work their magic in combination with the stronger dollar and Washington gridlock, for which neither John Boehner nor Barack Obama will ever get their due.
What a country.
Friday, December 5, 2014
The New Republic fired Tim Noah over a year and a half ago: the canary in the coal mine?
Tim Noah, as true a liberal as you'll ever find, has since landed at Politico, which tells you a lot about one Chris Hughes, the new owner of TNR since 2012. Evidently Hughes, a Facebook co-founder, couldn't abide the likes of Tim Noah.
Noah was fired under the new Hughes ownership already in early 2013. And now in late 2014 it appears the top editor and the veteran literary editor also have been forced out, and in protest more than two dozen additional editors and staffers have quit the magazine, which celebrates its centenary this year. The former employees have met instead to conduct the magazine's funeral.
The damn thing has literally blown up. Leave it to a 31-year old rich kid to wreck something so storied.
Politico reports here.
Leftist UK Guardian means to slam USA as fading empire in headline, backtracks in actual article to slam empire of NASA
Here:
The Empire, of course, is Nasa, a once noble but now creaky agency that has devolved from moonshots to renting rides from the Russians, all in the span of Buzz Aldren’s adulthood.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey commies! Learn how to capitalize. It's called NASA. And what exactly is notable in the history of British spaceflight, anyway?
Hm. Is there something called British spaceflight?
Usually part-time vaults 465,000 in one month to new all-time high of 28.225 million
Those who work usually part-time vaulted 465,000 month over month, not-seasonally-adjusted, in today's Household Survey data in the Employment Situation Summary for November 2014. That puts the metric at an all-time high of 28,225,000, about 100,000 higher than the previous peak reached in the wake of the late economic depression.
Meanwhile, those who work usually full-time dropped 735,000 from October to November.
Full-time usually peaks in the summer and part-time usually peaks in the winter, so the data coheres with past experience, except the new high in part-time is a little worrisome.
Voluntary part-time is up big month over month (536,000) while involuntary part-time is down (74,000). Is that a sign of acquiescence to a new normal of part-time work? Admittedly, involuntary part-time is still 2.5 million higher than it was in the autumn of 2007, but it has fallen 2 million between 2011 and 2014 even as today there are 2.5 million more full-time jobs than there were a year ago.
Full-time remains 3.8 million under the 2007 peak.
Meanwhile multiple job holding is down 224,000 month over month, and the total employed is actually down 270,000, as is the total number unemployed, down 50,000 not-seasonally-adjusted.
It looks as if the big jump of 321,000 in total nonfarm from the Establishment Survey is a phenomenon of part-time. Whether these part-time jobs become an enduring phenomenon in the form of permanent jobs won't be clear until after the new year.
The unemployment rate at 5.8% remains where it is as those not in the labor force continues ever upward, this time 536,000 higher from October to November. The metric hovers near the all-time high of 92.5 million reached in April. People dropping out means fewer people to count as unemployed.
The civilian labor force shrank in size 319,000 from October to November.
Birth rate in 2013 reaches new all time low under Obama
The birth rate per 1000 women in 2006 and 2007 had been 14.3, but in 2011 it fell to 12.7 and then to 12.6 in 2012.
Things have gotten even worse in 2013: the birth rate per 1000 women is now barely 12.4, a new record low.
In the late 1950s the birth rate per 1000 women exceeded 25.0, and fell through the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, stabilizing in the range of 15 for many years thereafter.
No babies, no GDP.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
WaPo's Robert Costa is nutty: says 2013 government shutdown damaged Republicans' reputation with voters despite historic Republican landslide in 2014
I kid you not. We always knew Costa's old home National Review was compromised in its conservatism, and Costa is proving it at WaPo.
Here:
"Boehner, who will hold a news conference Thursday to provide an update, finds himself in a familiar position one year after a 16-day shutdown damaged his party’s reputation with voters and led to fierce infighting over tactics among House GOP members. He is grappling with the many competing blocs in his caucus and is trying to build consensus in order to get the government funded, even for a short time."
----------------------------------------------------------
The voters should be so upset with the Republicans all the time.
Jobless claims average 303,000 weekly in November, not-seasonally-adjusted
That rate is the annual equivalent of 15.8 million claims.
Not-seasonally-adjusted claims have now totaled 14.494 million in 2014 through the end of November, or 302,000 weekly on average.
If that average prevails through December, total claims will come in at about 15.7 million for 2014, lower than ever achieved under George Bush's best years in 2006 and 2007 when claims totaled 16.2 million and 16.7 million respectively, and the lowest so far in this century.
Monday, December 1, 2014
Obama Devotee And Vogue Editor Anna Wintour "Rehabilitates" Fag Designer John Galliano But UK Independent Never Mentions From What
Well not from homosexuality! but from Anti-Semitism, that's what:
Anna Wintour, Editor, Vogue Magazine, is one of the top five fund raisers for Barack Obama and the Democrat Party:
The uninformative story in the UK Independent is here.
Just 19 of 24,365 students in the Paterson, New Jersey, school district are ready for college
MY9NJ.com here doesn't tell you how many students are in that school district, only how many are ready for college.
"[T]his number is truly shocking considering how large the school district is" is all the story tells you.
The district has 24,365 students according to Wikipedia. Divide that by 13 grades for all the students in the district and you get 19 of 1,874 seniors ready for college, or barely over 1%.
Hey! The new 1%!
Feminists derailed infrastructure stimulus spending in 2009
The liberal projectionists who brought you the War on Women have been waging war on the men.
Seen here:
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders . . . suggests that the government invest heavily in infrastructure, which would create a lot of blue-collar jobs.
That was actually an original part of Barack Obama's stimulus plan, but it was derailed by feminists within the Obama coalition who thought it would produce too many jobs for men. Christina Romer, then-chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, reported: "The very first email I got ... was from a women's group saying 'We don't want this stimulus package to just create jobs for burly men.' "
Enjoy the music here.
Grand Rapids, MI, 2014 total temperature anomaly through November is now -33 degrees F
The month of November, during which we had a record 31 inches of snow, added 5.8 degrees F below normal temperature despite the warming at the end of the month which melted all the snow.
Saturday, November 29, 2014
Ouch: March copper crashes through 2.88 to settle at 2.846
As recently as mid-October 2.88 had been considered support. Look out below.
ObamaCare's "wellness" mandate is under attack in the courts by the EEOC
Maybe this will wake up people to the injustice of taxing people for not buying something. Since when is a contract between buyer and seller still a valid contract when there is compulsion involved? "Hey buddy, buy this or else." That's not really buying anything. That's extortion. Similar compulsion in this case if recognized by the courts could be used as a precedent to overturn the individual mandate. Whoever thought George H. W. Bush's ADA would get us to that?
From the story here:
[R]equiring medical testing violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
That 1990 law, according to employment-law attorney Joseph Lazzarotti of Jackson Lewis P.C. in Morristown, N.J., largely prohibits requiring medical tests as part of employment.
"You can't make medical inquiries unless it's consistent with job-necessity, or part of a voluntary wellness program," he said.
The lawsuits are based on the view that it is no longer voluntary if employees face up to $4,000 in penalties for non-participation, loss of insurance or even their jobs.
Bonds still beat stocks over the last 15 years
 |
| "King Kong" 1933 |
Your average annual nominal return from the S&P500 with dividends fully reinvested comes to 4.61% from October 1999 through October 2014, per Ironman.
Your average annual nominal return from the Vanguard Intermediate Term Bond Index Fund (VBIIX) for the fifteen years to 11/28/14 has been 6.48%, per Morningstar.
That's a 40% better rate of return from bonds than stocks on average.
"Hey, what's this show about, anyway?
"I don't know — they say it's some big gorilla.
"Oh, geez — ain't we got enough of them in New York?"
Friday, November 28, 2014
Gold/Oil ratio vaults to 17.77
Gold just cannot fall fast enough to keep up with the decline in oil prices. As a consequence, oil remains the better investment relative to gold, but you'd be crazy to buy either in this environment, in my arrogant opinion. You might as well try to catch a falling knife, or two of them.
Oil is plunging on increased supply in tandem with flagging demand, which has been flat to barely rising in the US. Gold has been suffering price declines as the dollar ends trade close to its 52-week high of 88.44 at 88.22.
Looks like Ferguson "eyewitnesses" lie about as much as Obama does
 |
| Reverend Astroturf |
From a Breitbart story, here:
Still another witness told police he had “already told investigators from Saint Louis County Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he was not willing to formally discuss ... the incident, but he was willing to discuss his fears.” He said “threats… had been made to the residents of Canfield Green Apartment Complex. He said notes had been posted on various apartment buildings threatening people not to talk to the police, and gunshots were still being fired every night.” He said “there were at least 10 other people who were outside and saw exactly what happened. He was not willing to provide names of any of those individuals.” He said Wilson told Brown “no less than 10 times to get down” while they were both on the street. He said Brown never had hands raised. ...
At least 12 witnesses claimed that Brown was shot from behind, which was factually false. At least 16 witnesses said Brown’s hands were up when he was shot, which was factually false. One witness said Wilson used a Taser, then a gun: false. Another said she witnessed the events, but admitted she was blocks away when the events occurred. Still another witness said there were two officers involved in the shooting, and admitted she couldn’t tell what she’d seen and what she’d read about the case. One witness admitted in testimony to changing his story to “coincide with what really happened.” Another witness said that he was friends with Brown, and that Brown was shot while on his knees. When informed that such a story contradicted all physical evidence, the man admitted that he had not seen the shooting and then asked if he could leave because he was “uncomfortable.”
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Average GDP report under Obama after 23 quarters
1.8%
With 9 quarters to go, Obama will have to have an astounding economic performance going forward to overcome the 2.1% average report of the George W. Bush presidency.
Thanksgiving morning hack attack at popular news sites by Syrian Electronic Army
Visitors to sites such as CNBC and The New York Daily News this morning were treated to a hack by the Syrian Electronic Army redirecting them to i.imgur.com/qDS3RZY.png.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Total market cap/3QGDP2014 2nd estimate = 1.419
The ratio is effectively unchanged since the first estimate of third quarter GDP, falling from 1.421 to 1.419.
$24.9126 trillion market cap on 9/30/14 divided by $17.5552 trillion current dollar GDP = 1.419.
The ratio soared to 1.715 at the end of 1999, was .912 at the end of 2002 and fell to .740 at the end of 2008.
The market remains very expensive.
3Q2014 GDP revised up to 3.9% on surge in net exports (refined petroleum) and government spending (war on ISIS)
Today's second estimate of 3Q2014 real GDP surprised to the upside, rising to 3.9% from 3.5%. Consensus estimates had GDP declining to 3.3%.
Personal Consumption Expenditures contributed 1.51 points, hardly much above the average contribution for the three years 2011-2013 at 1.48. The people are spending about the same.
Likewise the contribution from Gross Private Domestic Investment was only slightly below average at .85 points. During the prior three years this had contributed to GDP annually on average just .94 points. So you could say investment activity is steady to declining.
No, the major contributions to GDP came from the huge reversals in net exports and government consumption expenditures. The former has contributed on average just .08 points annually 2011-2013, the latter -.45 annually. That's right, the net export category has been entirely inconsequential to GDP for the last three years, and that in a heretofore moribund dollar environment, while government spending has actually been a subtraction from annual GDP because the GOP takeover of the US House in 2010 arrested spending in its tracks.
But in today's report net exports contributed .78 points and government spending .76 points as 1) refined petroleum exports from the US shale boom help to pressure oil prices lower, making imported oil cheaper (imports thus are less of a subtraction from GDP at the same time), and as 2) the war on ISIS in Iraq and Syria ramps up military spending. Without those contributions to GDP and the other things being equal, growth was more like 2.36%.
Same old same old, except the dollar hit a 52 week high yesterday at 88.44. How long exports can help us in this rising dollar environment is anyone's guess, as is the tolerance of the American people for more spending on yet another foreign war.
Monday, November 24, 2014
How to stimulate the economy and deport illegal aliens in the United States at the same time
In 1954 the Eisenhower Administration employed 750 agents who rounded up and deported 1.1 million Mexicans illegally in the country in what was called Operation Wetback. It took them one year.
With full-time employment in the United States still flat on its back with 3 million fewer working full-time than at the 2007 peak at 123.2 million, there is a plentiful number of people here which could be usefully employed at the federal level in the effort to enforce current immigration law and help secure the border.
Those who say we could never round up 11 million illegals fail to appreciate that the ratio of the agents to the deported in 1954 was 1:1,466. A deportation force of 7,500 Americans employed by the federal government, therefore, should be able to round up and deport 11 million illegals today. And if you paid them $50,000 each, the cost to the Treasury would be less than a half billion dollars. Peanuts in a $4 trillion dollar government.
We just have to want to do it.
But why stop with just 11 million illegals when there may be as many as 30 million here illegally, from places like Ireland, France, Poland and you name it? Triple the budget to employ 23,000 and you could really start to clean the place up and restore law and order, once and for all, and JOBS.
We owe it to ourselves.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Who does Cosby think he is anyway, Bill Clinton?
Seen in the comments to the story here. WaPo articles have the best drive by shootings by conservatives almost anywhere.
Excellent visual gag from P.J. O'Rourke and The Daily Beast today about Senator Crockagewea
Here, and I made sure that I didn't ruin it for ya.
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Keith Koffler says Obama really went to Vegas to play golf: round number 204
Here:
Is This The Real Reason Obama Announced the Order in Vegas?
President Obama today is playing golf at the Shadow Creek golf club in North Las Vegas, reputed to be the nicest golf course in Vegas. It’s 55 degrees and mostly sunny.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The object of government in a tyranny is the good of one man only." -- Aristotle
Republicans sweep House and Senate, and suddenly the IRS finds the "lost" Lois Lerner emails
Hm, funny how that happens.
From the story here:
Up to 30,000 missing emails sent by former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner have been recovered by the IRS inspector general, five months after they were deemed lost forever.
The U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) informed congressional staffers from several committees on Friday that the [Lois Lerner] emails were found among hundreds of “disaster recovery tapes” that were used to back up the IRS email system. ...
In June [IRS Commissioner] Koskinen told Congress the emails were probably lost for good because the disaster recovery tape holds onto the data for only six months. He said even if the IRS had sought the emails within the six-month period, it would have been a complicated and difficult process to produce them from the tapes. ...
There are 250 million emails on the tapes that will be reviewed. Officials said it is likely they will find missing emails from other IRS officials who worked under Lerner and who said they suffered computer crashes [too].
Friday, November 21, 2014
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Last chance for Democrats to prove they are patriots ...
... by repudiating Obama's executive action, 8PM tonight.
More ObamaCare Lies: Enrollments inflated by a million by adding in dental plans
From the story here:
Blending dental and medical plans let the administration assert that enrollment was more than 7 million. The move also partly obscured the attrition of more than 1 million in the number of people enrolled in medical insurance.
News networks to help Obama by not broadcasting his unconstitutional plan to break the immigration law
There's no sense in riling up the people unnecessarily over such a trivial issue, after all. Note that this blackout includes so-called conservative Fox News Network, which is co-opted by its open-borders libertarian owner, Rupert Murdoch (Australian-American naturalized in 1985).
"If anyone assumes the government by fraud [hello ObamaCare] this is a tyranny. ... To preserve a tyranny ... guard against everything that gives rise to high spirits." -- Aristotle
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Obama to throw strapped Americans under the bus and help illegals instead: Too bad what's going to happen in Vegas isn't going to stay in Vegas
"Keep the people poor!"
"The guards of a tyrant are foreigners!"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)