At $2.53/gallon, the national average price of gasoline now officially represents a "sale"

The very long-term average price of a gallon of gasoline in June 2013 dollars going back to 1918, as reported here, is $2.60.

Using all items CPI since then to date, up 1.682%, $2.60 a gallon would come to about $2.64 today.

So this morning's national average of $2.532/gallon, if not officially CHEAP, is at least ON SALE at a discount of about 4%.

Sustained for a year, and hopefully longer, that would definitely mean something helpful to the American consumer's bottom line. Republican control of both chambers of Congress means it is more likely to continue than not, but you never know about these things. After all, both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney were for the ridiculously expensive ethanol fuel program and subsidizing it with your tax dollars, which has only driven up the price of animal feed, fuel itself, and food.

Stay tuned.

Libertarian free-trade presidents named BUSH get the most blame for lost manufacturing jobs

Since Jimmy Carter took office in January 1977, during whose term manufacturing jobs reached their zenith of 19.5 million, 5.6 million net manufacturing jobs have disappeared, and with them the middle class lives to which they gave birth and from which other good-paying, middle class service jobs had been spawned.

Manufacturing jobs had risen steadily from their post-war low in February 1946 at 11.9 million to their 1979 height, just before Ronald Reagan brought us the Libertarian Revolution in the guise of conservative Republicanism. He gave us both Alan Greenspan in 1987, Fed Chairman and disciple of Ayn Rand, who steered the country right up to the rocks before jumping ship in 2006, and a quixotic message of freedom and free-trade which has made the investor class rich while middle class families have seen their lives wrecked under Reagan's libertarian successors who presided over the export of their good jobs to foreign countries. 

The two Bush presidents in particular, George Herbert Walker and his son George W., get the blame for most manufacturing jobs lost since the 1970s peaks. And George W. far and away gets more blame than anyone else, exporting fully 80% of the net jobs lost:

Carter +0.8 million

Reagan -0.6 million

Bush I -1.3 million

Clinton +0.3 million

Bush II -4.5 million

Obama -0.3 million.

The last thing this country needs in 2016 is a BUSH named Jeb, or a PAUL named Rand.

Despite big declines, completed foreclosures in October 2014 are still running 95% above normal

So says Corelogic here.

Completed foreclosures in October 2014 came to 41,000 nationally, 20,000 higher than the 2000-2006 average of 21,000 per month. Still, the level represents a big drop over the past year and is part of a consistent decline in houses reaching completed foreclosure going back 36 months.

4.2% of all mortgages were in serious delinquency in October.

FL, MI, TX, CA and GA alone accounted for 256,000 of 561,000 completed foreclosures in all states in the last twelve months, almost 46% of the total.

Michigan is still tops among non-judicial states in October for completed foreclosures in the last twelve months: 45,000.

Florida is tops in judicial states in the last 12 months: 118,000 completed foreclosures.

The half million plus completed foreclosures in the last twelve months represents the lowest level since October 2007 according to Corelogic. The relatively few additions since the September report mean that completed foreclosures since 2008 continue to hover around the 5.2 million level.

All figures are rounded.

Ted Cruz blows it again, big time: stalled appointments to make it through lame duck

From the Washington Post story here:

"As Democrats and a bloc of conservative Republicans jousted on parliamentary disputes on an unrelated matter, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) took advantage of the dispute to set up a string of votes on nominees that might have otherwise not made it to confirmation before the session adjourned. Once this session ends, the Republicans take charge next month and have vowed to block any nominee a vast majority of them oppose."

Suddenly it's important news to ABC that Republican superfunder Koch Brother isn't a conservative

Here from George Stephanopoulos:

“I’m basically a libertarian, and I’m a conservative on economic matters, and I’m a social liberal,” [David] Koch told ABC News’ Barbara Walters during an interview for her special “The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2014″ that airs at 9 p.m. ET Sunday on ABC.

Koch, who supports abortion rights and gay marriage, said he isn’t concerned with candidates he supports who don’t share some of his views. He said his primary concern when choosing a candidate to support is their fiscal policies.

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Koch's political affiliation before 1984 was Libertarian Party, according to his Wikipedia entry, which means he's a hard-boiled libertarian. The man is 2014's ninth wealthiest in the world.

In this sudden attention to Koch's liberalism I smell a new political effort afoot by the liberal media to highlight the differences between libertarianism and conservatism to split the right in the interests of Democrat liberalism in 2016.

Remember, it was also George Stephanopoulos who brought us the war on women in 2012. George is getting ready early this time.

It's a sign of self-perceived weakness in the Democrat camp that they are already thinking they must begin to divide the right to win in 2016.

Speaking of Grubers, this, from the things you thought were true but are not department

Adolf Hitler was not a Schicklgruber, and proven not to be already in the early 1950s, as recounted here in 1990 in the New York Times:

'Almost 40 years ago, however, in ''Hitler, A Study in Tyranny,'' which remains a standard biography of Hitler, Alan Bullock exploded this myth. Bullock noted that Hitler's father, Alois, had been born out of wedlock to Maria Anna Schicklgruber.

'Eventually, the acknowledged father, Johann Georg Heidler, married Maria, but he never bothered to legitimize his son.

'In 1876, however, the brother of Johann Georg Heidler, then dead, took the necessary steps to legitimize Alois and legally change his name. Thus, records Bullock, ''From the beginning of 1877, 12 years before Adolf was born, his father called himself Hitler, and his son was never known by any other name until his opponents dug up this long-forgotten village scandal and tried, without justification, to label him with his grandmother's name of Schicklgruber.'''

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

This letter to the editor of the Times points out that the Schicklgruber myth was perhaps the most successful propaganda victory of American psychological warfare experts, believed even by the Times in 1990.

I don't care what their first names are, all Grubers are banned from this site because . . .

. . . in the end they're all idiots.

US Senate votes 56-40 last night just before 10PM to approve Cromnibus spending bill

The 40 votes against this p.o.s. illustrate the minority which represents what passes for the extreme wings of the two political gangs which tyrannize this country:

22 Democrats

Blumenthal (D-CT)
Booker (D-NJ)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Franken (D-MN)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hirono (D-HI)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Levin (D-MI)
Manchin (D-WV)
Markey (D-MA)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Reed (D-RI)
Sanders (I-VT)
Tester (D-MT)
Warren (D-MA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)

18 Republicans

Corker (R-TN)
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Flake (R-AZ)
Grassley (R-IA)
Heller (R-NV)
Johnson (R-WI)
Lee (R-UT)
McCain (R-AZ)
Moran (R-KS)
Paul (R-KY)
Portman (R-OH)
Risch (R-ID)
Rubio (R-FL)
Scott (R-SC)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Vitter (R-LA)

Four senators decided showing up wasn't worth it:

Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Inhofe (R-OK)

These are the 24 Republican traitors to fiscal conservatism who voted for the bill:

Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Burr (R-NC)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Enzi (R-WY)
Fischer (R-NE)
Graham (R-SC)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kirk (R-IL)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Roberts (R-KS)
Thune (R-SD)
Toomey (R-PA)
Wicker (R-MS)

And these the 32 Democrats:

Baldwin (D-WI)
Begich (D-AK)
Bennet (D-CO)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Coons (D-DE)
Donnelly (D-IN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Hagan (D-NC)
Heinrich (D-NM)
Heitkamp (D-ND)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kaine (D-VA)
King (I-ME)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Leahy (D-VT)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murphy (D-CT)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Schatz (D-HI)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Udall (D-CO)
Udall (D-NM)
Walsh (D-MT)
Warner (D-VA).

Screwing the American people is a bipartisan affair, but leans Democrat 1.3:1.

L'affaire Lena Dunham disturbs libertarian P. J. O'Rourke

Here.

There is yet hope for our world.

Stupid things heard on the Steve Gruber Show radio program last week

Both the AM drive-time host, Steve Gruber, a libertarian for whom every opponent is taken as a challenge to his manhood, and his weekly punching bag guest, Liberal Lee, last Tuesday agreed that the middle class in America is basically . . .  intact!

Which just proves that ideologues are impervious to the destruction which has been all around them and that libertarians and liberals drink from the same cup. Both camps are too heavily invested in the political gangs they support to say otherwise, for if the one did it would mean George Bush and Alan Greenspan would have to be blamed, and if the other, Barack Obama, Larry Summers and the rest of the Clinton re-treads which steered the economy through the latest depression to give you . . . nearly $90 billion in costs for over 500 failed banks, over 5 million homes lost to foreclosure, full-time jobs still 4 million below the 2007 peak seven years ago, ObamaCare's lies, higher costs, poorer coverage and limited networks, the deaths of Americans at Benghazi, IRS targeting of conservatives, the most imperial presidency in our history, 30 million prime working age people not working, a lawless executive, and 1.8% GDP, the worst in the post-war.

For his part, Gruber basically gave over a segment on his show every week this fall to the reelection campaign of Congressman Tim Walberg, a conventional Republican who normally votes with the majority of his caucus, but who did vote against making the Bush tax cuts permanent for the vast majority of Americans. Walberg notably just rewarded his radio benefactor who opposed Cromnibus with a vote for it, in keeping with his past voting record for sweeping spending bills which avoid the traditional appropriations process in order to take the politics out of spending the people's money. Hey, thanks Gruber.

The Steve Gruber Show is unfortunately heard on many small market radio stations during morning drive throughout Michigan, which through August 2014 was the top state for completed foreclosures among non-judicial states for the prior twelve month period. But the show's best rank is only #3 in the Lansing market according to dar.fm, and #31 in the mornings overall, here. The best thing that can be said for it is that the stations it is on are typically low-power, like its commentary. 

Is the economy up because wine drinkers wake up and can't remember where they left their underwear?

It doesn't say if you can wear these home.

Both indicators are up, wine sales and underwear sales.

Stories here and here and here.

The best way to get John Boehner to do what you want him to do

Reduce the size of his congressional district to 30,000 as the framers of the constitution intended.

Crazy WaPo article portrays middle class as complete creature of government spending

Here, focusing on the anecdotal history of the middle class in Downey, California, where the removal of spending on the space program has hit particularly hard.

Just the sort of deliberate Keynesian propaganda you would expect from The Washington Post, where you will also find narry a word mentioned about how America's turnabout to free-trade fanaticism during the 1960s started the wholesale export abroad of good-paying middle class jobs, the dearth of which now is our present predicament.

The sickness of Republicanism in the present liberal era has been how ready it has been to participate in profiting from the export of these jobs, and by masking how the middle class was being gutted by providing transfer payments to them, for example, in the form of tax credits.

If there's every been a time for a middle class rebellion in America, this is it. Unfortunately, so many of the middle class are now in the lower class that, if a revolt comes, it will be studiously lied about by the profiteering elites of both parties as a dangerous, left-wing proletarian revolution.

There is a way to take the country back which is not violent, however, but it requires Americans to demand the representation which they do not enjoy. It requires a transformation of their vision in conformity with a constitution which never imagined there was anything sacrosanct about the number "435". 

Obama's war on growth: Per capita measure shows GDP didn't recover to 2007 level until 3Q2013

So says Ironman, here:

"Going by this measure we see that it wasn't until the third quarter of 2013 that the U.S. economy really recovered to its pre-recession level. And then, it has only been since the second quarter of 2014 that it has grown beyond that level.

"The interesting thing is that tracking the GDP per capita measure this way would more closely match the perceptions of the American people regarding the overall health of the U.S. economy. Say as measured by the University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index, which returned to its prerecession levels just a few months ahead of real GDP per capita.

"Contrary to what at least one particular economist [Jonathan Gruber] and his fellow travelers [Bill Maher/Kathleen Sebelius] might think about their cognitive abilities and financial literacy, regular Americans would seem to be pretty capable of collectively assessing the real condition of the U.S. economy."

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

Yes, self-perceptions matter.

Coincident with the extraordinarily long 6 year wait for the real economy to recover, the self-identification of the American people by lower class in January 2014 has swelled by 50 million since 2008, according to the results of a regular Pew survey, showing just how many people have died on the vine of a militant, leftist Obama administration and Democrat Party bent on destroying the middle class.

When the New York Times suddenly tells you after the election that 30 million prime-working-age Americans 25-54 aren't working, you know that where there's smoke, there's fire. With fewer than 5 million job openings in the country for those 30 million, legalizing 11 million illegal aliens isn't just an act of charity toward some, but a declaration of war against all.

Barack Obama has been burning down the house, one family at a time.

Gold is the last man standing: Gold/oil ratio soars to 21.21 as oil tanks to 57.56

Two men enter, one man leaves

Of all the commodities, it is gold which continues to hang on, averaging in the low 1200-range in recent months and closing tonight at 1222 and change.

It's looking like the last man standing.

S&P GSCI commodities indexes for precious metals, petroleum, agriculture and agriculture/livestock are all down year to date, and down significantly for the 1 year and 3 years. (Petroleum is down a whopping 37.99 year to date). But while the ags are virtually flat per annum over 10 years and petroleum is down 3.87 per annum over 10 years, precious metals alone remains up big over the last decade, 9.82 per annum, buttressed by gold. Pretty impressive.

This is somewhat surprizing given the six month surge in the dollar closing at 88.32 tonight, not far off the 89.55 high of a few days ago. In early May it was as low as 78.90. And 10 years ago, the dollar actually traded below 82 before embarking on an erratic history of ups and downs before stabilizing in the 80s after 2011, the year that gold peaked. But for the 1 year now the dollar is up over 10% while the average gold price to date hasn't retreated as much as 3%.

If a rising dollar is supposed to be killing off gold, we don't see it yet.

30 million prime working age Americans 25-54 do not work, and 10 million are men, competing for fewer than 5 million openings

The New York Times reports here:

"As the economy slowly recovers from the Great Recession, many of those men and women are eager to find work and willing to make large sacrifices to do so. Many others, however, are choosing not to work, according to a New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll that provides a detailed look at the lives of the 30 million Americans 25 to 54 who are without jobs. ... [S]ome men might choose to describe themselves as unwilling to take low-wage jobs when in fact they cannot find any jobs. There are about 10 million prime-age men who are not working, but there are only 4.8 million job openings for men and women of all ages, according to the most recent federal data."

Middle class revolution on hold, but CNBC commenter calls for military coup

Rick Newman says the middle class revolution is on hold here, but apparently spends less time reading the comments sections than he says:

"[A] populist threat to the plutocrats ... is years or even decades away. ... These days, all you have to do is read the blogs and follow the right Twitter ... accounts. If you do, you’ll encounter plenty of angst — but not much revolutionary zeal."

Oh really?

I've never seen anything on CNBC, of all places, like what I saw there this morning, here:

"There is only one entity that can stop the madness. ... There may be no option in the very near future but for the military to assume responsibility of running the country on behalf of the people and for the well being of the country. You must make it abundantly clear to the people (after you have commandered the MSM) that this is being done to preserve what was intended by the founding fathers - a free and just society that abides by the rule of law under all circumstances and does not change or abuse the law for convenience. For you military lawyers you would be wise to bone up on your Constitutional Law because if the Supremes do not play ball then they too must be unappointed. You are saying; 'but this would be treason'. Is it? When your Congress, President and Intelligence agencies arguably commit treason on a virtually continual basis who is exactly on the 'right' side. The time is quickly approaching where the glorification of Wall Street and the elitist classes that depend upon their treachery must end. How many more hard working Americans must have their potential prosperity irrepairably and irreversibly damaged by Wall Street's malfeasance before affirmative action is taken? Courage is one of the main tenets of the millitary ethos - prove it when the time comes."

139 Democrats vote against Cromnibus and make theirs look like the party of fiscal conservatism

Nine Michigan Congressmen vote for Cromnibus, five against

For Cromnibus:

Benishek

Huizenga

Camp

Upton

Walberg

Rogers

Miller (D)

Dingell (D)

Peters (D)

Against Cromnibus:

Amash

Kildee (D)

Levin (D)

Bentivolio

Conyers (D)

The roll call vote is here.

Despite trillion$ in Federal interventions, the homeowner piggy bank remains barely half full

Now THEIR kooks try to shut down the government!

The Heritage Foundation didn't repudiate the individual mandate until long after the Tea Party did

Ramesh Ponnuru here in March 2012 in the wake of both Romney and Gingrich putting the finger on Heritage for the individual mandate in October 2011:

"So yes, conservative opinion on the mandate has changed. But I don’t think it’s right to suggest that most conservative voters or conservative policy thinkers ever supported it. I think what happened is that as soon as grassroots conservatives focused on the mandate, they hated it—and they were right to hate it, in my view–and both the politicians and that one outlier think tank responded to their sentiment."

Timothy Noah pointed out here in 2013 that it wasn't until 2011 that Heritage formally opposed its own idea, meaning it took Heritage two years to join the Tea Party in opposing ObamaCare:

'Heritage, in a 2011 amicus curiae brief submitted in support of the legal challenge to Obamacare, stated, “Heritage has stopped supporting any insurance mandate.” Heritage also said it had come to believe the individual mandate was unconstitutional—an interpretation later rejected, of course, by the Supreme Court.'

Household net worth declines for first time since 2011

TCMDO expands at $1.27 Trillion annually 2007-2014 vs. $3.21 Trillion annually 2000-2007

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.

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.

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.

If only Congressional Republicans felt this way about Obama

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? 

Too bad he can't publicly govern, or privately for that matter

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."

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

One Laura Lorenzetti misinforms us here:

"[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."

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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.

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.

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

Well, what would you expect from a has-been empire which still isn't over its eclipse by the USA? They should have figured out how to keep us while they still could, but their hubris got in the way. Terribly sorry, old boy.

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.
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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.

View the recent CDC reports here and here.

No babies, no GDP.

How bad is it?

h/t Steen Jakobsen, Chief Economist for Saxo Bank

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."

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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.

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:

On 8 September 2011, Galliano was found guilty of making anti-Semitic remarks and sentenced to pay a total of €6,000 in suspended fines after a French court found him guilty of giving public insults on account of race.

Anna Wintour, Editor, Vogue Magazine, is one of the top five fund raisers for Barack Obama and the Democrat Party:

Wintour is a prolific fundraiser for the president, and was rumored last year as a possible ambassador pick. According to the New York Times, she raised the fourth-most of any Obama bundler during the 2012 campaign. 

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

That's an average monthly temperature of 3 degrees below normal for 11 months straight.

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.