Obama's Version Of Afroman's "Because I Got High"

It's like I don't care about nothing man

Roll another joint, ooh la da da da la da da la la da da

I was gonna start an economic boom, until I got high

I was gonna stop and end the doom, but then I got high

This country is still a tomb and I know why

(Why man?)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I was gonna cut the price of gas before I got high

I coulda drilled and kicked some ass, but I got high

(Uh uh la la da da)

Now the voters are takin' a pass and I know why

(Why man? Hey hey)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

(Go to the next one, go to the next one, go to the next one)

I was gonna git down to The Oval, but then I got high

(Oh oh)

I was gonna work on a campaign slogan, but I got high

(La da da da da)

So it's jus' "Forward" from Joe Stalin and I know why

(Why man?)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I was gonna find me a new church before I got high

I was gonna drop that Muslim lurch, but then I got high

(No you wasn't)

That Arab Spring won't bear research and I know why

(Why man? Yeah)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I wasn't gonna bail out the bankers, but I was high

(Uh, I'm serious man)

I was gonna jail all the wankers, but I was high

(Uh)

Now I'm just an old Dodd-Franker and I know why

(Ha ha ha, why man?)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I was gonna pay for the bills I wrote until I got high

(Say what? Say what?)

I wasn't gonna gamble all our gold, but then I got high

(Uh uh)

Now the debt load's sinkin' the boat and I know why

(Why man?)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I was gonna give you the public option, but then I got high

(Ooh, I'm serious)

I was gonna make it much cheaper too, but then I got high

(Oh)

Y'all'll be screwed before I'm through and I know why

(Ah, trying to shut off, ha ha ha)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I transformed the entire country because I got high

(Go go go)

I made every last road bumpy because I got high say

(What? Say what? Say what?)

It'll soon be third-world-dumpy and I know why

(Why man? Yeah yeah)

Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high

I'ma stop singing this song because I'm high

(Raise the ceiling baby)

I'm singing this whole thing wrong because I'm high

(Bring it back)

And if I don't sell one copy, I'll know why

(Why man? Yeah)

'Cause I'm high, 'cause I'm high, 'cause I'm high

La la da da da da la da da da shoobe do be do wa

Skibitty do da da da la get jiggy with it scubbydooby wa

(original video here)

Colorado Election Model v. Rasmussen

The latest and last prediction before the election from a state-level economic model by The University of Colorado, here, shows Romney winning in November with 330 electoral college votes to Obama's 208:

The model foresees Romney carrying New Mexico, North Carolina, Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. Obama is predicted to win Michigan and Nevada.

Rasmussen differs in that he has Obama strongly carrying New Mexico, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania, as of tonight, and Romney strongly polling in none of the states he's supposed to carry according to the Colorado model.

Rasmussen also shows Obama narrowly polling ahead in Wisconsin, Ohio and Nevada.

Assuming those 6 states go for Obama, along with Michigan, that would put North Carolina, Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Florida in Romney's column (narrowly), totaling 267 electoral college votes, just shy of the needed 270 if the rest of Rasmussen's map is correct.

Obama taking Wisconsin and Ohio and Nevada would give Obama 271 to win if the rest of Rasmussen's map is correct.

That result would mirror the year 2000 contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore, only flipped this time favoring the incumbent Democrat Obama.

Why Should Government Support Home Ownership? Babies Need Nests!

America should support home ownership because babies need nests. Babies are future taxpayers. Babies are the future.

Is it any coincidence that in the wake of the housing debacle and the employment depression birth rates have now tanked to record lows?

No nests, no jobs, no babies.

Time has the story here:

[I]n 2011 . . . the general fertility rate (63.2 per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44) was the lowest ever recorded; the birth rate for teenagers ages 15 to 19 declined; birth rates for women ages 20 to 24 hit a record low; and rates for Hispanic and non-Hispanic black women dipped. Some birth rates remained unchanged, like those of women in their late 40s. Only women ages 35 to 39 and 40 to 44 are more likely to have babies now than in the past.

The Gold To Oil Ratio Is 19.79

Meaning relative to gold, oil is STILL on sale.

They don't think so in California this weekend, but it's true.

Gold would need to fall to $1,350 the ounce to right the ratio at the current price of oil, a 24 percent decline.

Or oil would need to go to $118 the barrel at the current price of gold to right the ratio, a 31 percent increase from the current price near $90. 

Rasmussen Polling Shows Romney Improving, Obama Still Winning

Rasmussen's electoral college map shows Romney now polling slightly ahead in Florida and Virginia, but Obama is still ahead in Nevada, Wisconsin, Ohio and New Hampshire to win it.

Ohio is key in that math, where Romney is narrowing the gap. Everything else remaining equal, Romney capturing Ohio would snatch victory away from Obama.

Romney's strong debate performance already seems to be shifting narrow polling in his direction.

RCP Puts Ohio Back Into "Toss Up" Moving Obama Back To 251 EC Votes

See the map here.

Private Sector Employment Has Fallen 2% In Four Years

Data and graph available here.

In other words, 2,260,000 fewer work in private industry than did four years ago.

Four Years Ago, Total Non-Farm Employment Was Higher By 2.832 Million

Data and graph available here.

The 2% decline in total non-farm employment is the nominal decline which ignores the growing size of the US population, and thus of the workforce, over the period. A healthy economy grows sufficiently to absorb new workers added to the population. Since 2008 US population has grown by over 3%.

The Number Forced Into Part-Time Work Exploded 38% In Last Four Years

View the data and graph here.

In other words, 2.4 million more work part-time today because they must than four years ago.

Four Years Ago, Part-Time BY CHOICE Was 2.7% Higher Than Today

View the graph and data here.

In other words, there are about one half million fewer working part-time by choice compared to four years ago.

Four Years Ago, Full-Time Employment Was 3.7% Higher Than Today

View the data and graph here.

In other words, 4,470,000 full-time jobs existed on September 1, 2008 which do not exist today.

Part-Time Employment Surges Over 7 Percent In One Month

Part-time for economic reasons surged from 8.0 million in August to 8.6 million in September.

Unemployment Drops To 7.8 Percent, Just In Time For The Election

After 43 straight months of unemployment over 8 percent, and an average of monthly reports of 9.0 percent for the entire Obama presidency, the absolute worst record in the post-war period, unemployment has suddenly fallen by 0.3 points in one month from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September.

Just in time for the election!

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here:

The unemployment rate decreased to 7.8 percent in September, and total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 114,000, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in health care and in transportation and warehousing but changed little in most other major industries.

The unemployment rate declined by 0.3 percentage point to 7.8 percent in September. For the first 8 months of the year, the rate held within a narrow range of 8.1 and 8.3 percent. The number of unemployed persons, at 12.1 million, decreased by 456,000 in September.

Romney Last Night Actually Embraced Martin Feldstein's Deduction Cap

Here:

"And I'm going to work together with Congress to say, OK, what -- what are the various ways we could bring down deductions, for instance? One way, for instance, would be to have a single number. Make up a number, $25,000, $50,000. Anybody can have deductions up to that amount. And then that number disappears for high-income people. That's one way one could do it. One could follow Bowles-Simpson as a model and take deduction by deduction and make differences that way. There are alternatives to accomplish the objective I have, which is to bring down rates, broaden the base, simplify the code, and create incentives for growth."

You can read Martin Feldstein's argument for capping deductions, here, from which this excerpt:

Limiting the revenue loss from the itemized deductions and the exclusion of employer payments for health insurance to two percent of each individual’s adjusted gross income would raise more than $275 billion at current income levels and more than $3 trillion over the next decade.

Romney Isn't "All-In" With Free Market Capitalism

Romney can talk all he wants about helping small business, but his is the voice of big business:

"Regulation is essential. You can't have a free market work if you don't have regulation."

Economies of scale favor larger corporations over smaller ones with respect to compliance with regulations, which gives them a significant advantage. It's another way of "picking winners and losers", which is what he's accusing Obama of doing.

Sorry Gov. Romney, We're Not Spain

Romney, last night, in another odd coincidence with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"Spain -- Spain spends 42 percent of their total economy on government. We're now spending 42 percent of our economy on government. I don't want to go down the path to Spain. I want to go down the path of growth that puts Americans to work with more money coming in because they're working."

A little dyslexia is going on here, I think. Whatever Spain's expense is as a percentage of GDP, America's is not 42, it's 24.

Here's US News and World Report, in June:

Federal spending was close to 20 percent under the Carter administration, dropped to 18 percent under Clinton, and is currently at an incredible 24 percent of GDP. According to the Congressional Budget Office, federal spending may hover around 22 percent for the next decade.

It's a little disturbing Obama didn't catch this mistake. It's a little disturbing Jim Lehrer didn't catch this mistake. In fact, I've heard the soundbite repeated on the radio this morning without anyone referring to the mistake, and that's pretty disturbing, too.

Does anyone really know what time it is?

Romney Is Half Right: One Tax Proposal Is New, And Alarming

And it is amazing no one has taken this seriously:

"My plan is not like anything that's been tried before. My plan is to bring down rates, but also bring down deductions and exemptions and credits at the same time so the revenue stays in, but that we bring down rates to get more people working."

Romney is threatening to reduce the value of exemptions and credits which exist under the existing tax code.

This amounts to major fiddling which the preoccupation with "deductions" obscures.

Deductions we have lost before, as in the 1986 tax reform. That he wants to reduce the value of more deductions is bad enough. But the truly alarming thing is the proposal to do the same to exemptions, and to a lesser extent to credits. That is new, and alarming.

That can only mean the whole set of assumptions involving the system of personal exemptions, and perhaps also the time-honored "married filing jointly" status itself, and credits such as the Earned Income Credit and the Child Tax Credit and the like. I can well imagine a President Mitt Romney eliminating the favoritism of the tax code toward married people, and toward their housing and their children, to make gay and unmarried people equal to them in the tax code. Remember, in Massachusetts Gov. Romney had a reputation, deserved, for being a tax equalizer.

I also expect he will propose capping the value of deductions and credits by using something like Martin Feldstein's plan, in order to preserve the deductions and credits for lower income individuals but phasing them out as one climbs the income ladder. In other words, the progressive tax code stays, but progressivity of tax deductibility goes out the window. That may be fair to a liberal like Romney, but it isn't maintaining progressivity, it is steepening it.

Mitt Romney is not a social conservative. And if he gets his way with the tax code, I suspect he's going to prove it, unless conservatives in the US House stop him.

Good luck, America. You're going to need it.

Romney Should Know Better: The Rich Will Suffer Under More Of Obama

Mitt should know better than to say the rich will do just fine whether he's president or Obama:

"But I'm not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people. High-income people are doing just fine in this economy. They'll do fine whether you're president or I am."

Taxes on the rich will rise under ObamaCare alone, not to mention in other ways if Obama gets his way.

It's politically incorrect to defend equality of treatment under the law for the rich today, and Romney is wrong to concede this ground. Obama's belief that the rich don't presently pay their fair share is unjust when they pay not only the largest sums but at higher rates.

The robbery continues only because there are more Obamas in the country than there are rich people. Mitt shouldn't join them.

Rep. Paul Ryan's So-Called Conservatism Won't Roll Back Anything

He's about preserving Medicare, not ending it.

He's for abortion in certain circumstances.

And now he's about preserving the status quo on DADT, too.

Conservative in name only.

Story here:

One year after the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that barred openly gay and lesbian service members from serving in the military, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said in an interview with WPTV NewsChannel 5 that the controversial policy should not be reinstated.

"Now that it's done, we should not reverse it," Ryan told WPTV NewsChannel 5 during a visit to Miami. "I think that would be a step in the wrong direction because people have already disclosed themselves."

Rasmussen Moves North Carolina Into "Toss Up", Leaving Romney With 181 EC Votes

See Rasmussen's map, here.

He had shown North Carolina leaning Romney for quite some time.