Jeb Bush doth protest too much.

Jeb Bush appears on five or six shows on Sunday and accuses the media of being obsessed with politics.

Uh huh.

Only Kooky People Say America Is Hurtling Toward Tyranny

So says, who else?, Bill Kristol, here:

"On the other hand, Paul’s political genius strikes us as very much of the short-term variety. Will it ultimately serve him well to be the spokesman for the Code Pink faction of the Republican party? How much staying power is there in a political stance that requires waxing semihysterical about the imminent threat of Obama-ordered drone strikes against Americans sitting in cafés? And as for the other Republican senators who rushed to the floor to cheer Paul on, won’t they soon be entertaining second thoughts? Is patting Rand Paul on the back for his fearmongering a plausible path to the presidency for Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz? Is embracing kookiness a winning strategy for the Republican party? We doubt it. ...

"And while Obama’s a bad president, and America’s got many problems, it isn’t, as Paul sometimes seemed to suggest, hurtling towards tyranny."

A substantial part of the English speaking world in 1776, notably in America itself, found the following sentiments from the Declaration of Independence equally hyperbolic:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. ... In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

It's good to know who's the loyalist, and who the patriot.

Rep. Amash Is A Fake Conservative

Rep. Amash is getting increasingly bold in his use of code words which show that he is a fake conservative. I think he's triangulating in this way in order to get ready for a Senate run.

He stresses "independence" to distance himself from the Republican brand discredited among the young and to find support among people who thus vote Democrat by default.

He stresses "moderation" to distance himself from conservative social issues which are increasingly viewed as extreme, rebranding them as "federal" issues to escape criticism from the Christian right.

The past has nothing to teach us, especially "positions that were popular in the 1990s". Will he soon repudiate the Two State Solution? I'm sure that will please voters in Dearborn.

"Individual liberty" is code for moral license, which includes same sex marriage and legalized drugs, flying under the banner of states rights.

And perhaps most importantly, what better way to get some street cred with Democrats and liberals than to play the race card against Sen. John McCain? A wise man might have let the senator simply self-destruct. But an ambitious, grasping man, on the other hand, sees an opportunity in piling on. Who is the has-been Sen. McCain to the lowly Rep. Amash, anyway? Wouldn't Justin Amash be happier in the Democrat Party where race is at the center of politics? That's where libertarianism comes from, after all. Success to libertarians is defeating Republicans, and taking over the Republican Party and not the Democrat Party from which they came. When's the last time a libertarian defeated a Democrat, anyhow? But in 2012 libertarians gloried in defeating a number of Republicans.

If Republicans were smart they'd wise up and realize they have a little fifth column problem. But they won't. They're the stupid party, after all.

February Unemployment Rate Drops To 7.7%

The full BLS report is here in pdf.

The official number of the unemployed has dropped from 12.8 million a year ago to 12.0 million in February 2013.

Multiple job-holding is up 4.5% year over year. Full-time with an additional part-time job is up 10% year over year. Part-time with another part-time job is up 5.6% year over year.

Total non-farm employment remains 3 million off the January 2008 peak of 138 million even though today the country is larger by 11 million souls.

The depression in employment continues.

Sen. Lindsey Graham Must Be A Prophet: He Is The Wrong Guy

The prophet, Sen. "Illegal Alien" Grahamnesty, speaks, here:

“If I can’t go have dinner with the president of the United States to talk about the problems that face our nation, I shouldn’t be running,” Mr. Graham said. “If you want to elect me and for me to promise you I’ll never talk to any Democrats or to the president about solving our problems, you’re voting for the wrong guy.”

For all his faults, Sen. Rand Paul's filibuster over the drone threat to America was right, and Sen. Graham's and Sen. McCain's opposition to it was wrong.

While Sen. Paul was on the Senate floor doing his job, his Republican colleague squishes were yucking it up with Obama.

FoxBusiness Is Full Of Baloney About The Monetary Base

Throughout 2007, when the stock market reached its previous all time high in October of that year, the adjusted monetary base of the United States was very stable and averaged just $851 billion.

During the financial crisis month of September 2008, however, the base leaped up from that vicinity between September 10th and September 24th to $949 billion, and by Thanksgiving 2008 had skyrocketed all the way to $1.5 trillion, near which level it remained even as late as March 2009, when the stock market plummeted to its historic lows since 2002-2003.

The increase in the monetary base was a whopping $718 billion, most of it in response to bank failures and panic on Wall Street during a narrow window of two months in the fall of 2008, but the stock market tanked 56% from the October 2007 highs anyway by the following spring.

Now FoxBusiness is arguing, here, that the increase in the monetary base from March 2009 to today, $1.3 trillion, is somehow responsible for "juicing" the stock market's remarkable 134% rise since that low.

Nevermind the stable and relatively low monetary base had nothing to do with the 2007 highs, nor did the rapid expansion of the base by $718 billion forestall the dramatic collapse of the market in 2009, but FoxBusiness wants you to believe anyway that piling up the monetary base since March 2009 by $1.3 trillion is the reason the stock market is at its lofty heights today, $11.2 trillion higher in total market cap than in March 2009.

That's embarrassingly wrong. The expansion of the monetary base has been irrelevant to the stock market, but it is an important part of keeping the banking system solvent, which is what this entire episode has been about but no one really wants to discuss anymore even as the velocity of money makes new lows, for the obvious reason that if the banks go under, everything goes under, so ixnay on the anksbay, OK?

This Is Obama's Driver For Jobs

Rush Limbaugh Still Blames The Republican Base, Not The Candidate

Here, yesterday:

"That's why we're losing, 'cause we keep nominating moderates.  You know, Mitt Romney is one of the most decent men ever to run for the presidency in my lifetime, and probably in many people's lifetimes, a totally decent guy.  But four million Republicans didn't vote in 2012.  Four million fewer than did in 2008.  The Republican conservative base stayed home.  Had they voted, we wouldn't be talking about Obama's second term.  There wouldn't be one."

Why blame conservatives for not voting for liberals, Rush?

The margin of victory wasn't 4 million. McCain lost the election in the swing states, by 1.4 million votes. Romney cut that in half, losing by 770,000 votes.

If anyone is to blame, it's the libertarians, the followers of Ron Paul and Sean Hannity, who were not on board, not the conservatives. And we haven't heard one conservative pundit say so yet even though libertarians were responsible for big losses for Republicans in Senate and House races in 2012. 

Have FoxBusiness And EMAC Gone Just A Little Bit Nuts?

Elizabeth MacDonald writes here that FoxBusiness has proof, proof!, that the Fed is juicing the markets.

Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy?

We're supposed to believe that the value of the total stock market is up $11.2 trillion since March 2009 because the Federal Reserve expanded the monetary base by . . . $1.2 trillion during that time?!

Talk about a money multiplier. That's a ratio of 9.3:1. Obviously the Congress should get us on this program right away. They could have taken our nearly $3 trillion in the Social Security Trust Fund and turned it into $28 trillion by now. Pikers.

Between Sequester Cuts And Payroll Tax Hike, Expect 41% Hit To Nominal GDP

Between the sequester spending cuts and the payroll tax rate going back up by 2 percentage points, I'm expecting a decline in nominal GDP of as much as 41%.

The sequester cuts come to $85 billion.

The payroll tax hike will remove conservatively $96 billion from American paychecks. Based on payrolls in 2011 of $6,239 billion, about $1,459 billion was exempt from Social Security taxation. Taking 2% of the remaining $4,780 billion yields a payroll tax hike of $95.6 billion using 2011 payrolls, the last available from SocialSecurity.gov.

Nominal GDP increased between October 2008 and October 2012 by $1,769.5 billion. That's been an average of $442 billion a year, nominal, over the last four years.

Subtracting the sequester cuts and the payroll tax increase (conservatively $181 billion) from that means cutting nominal GDP by about 41%.

Radiation Conditions Near The Fukushima Reactors Almost 2 Years Since The Accident

Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company) here provides a useful summary of daily radiation conditions at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant complex.

A series of 8 monitoring posts recently measured an average air radiation level of just over 5 microsieverts per hour along the perimeter from north to west to the south end of the facility.

On March 4, 2013, the level in the air at the west gate was measured at 6 microsieverts per hour.

At the main gate, the level increased to 20 microsieverts per hour.

On the south side of the main building for the power station, the level leaped to 200 microsieverts per hour, varying little throughout the day, between 191-201 microsieverts per hour. Working at that last location outside for 8 hours a day for just under 4 days would give an American a typical ANNUAL dose of radiation.

Radiation In Namie Town, Japan, Almost 2 Years After Fukushima Meltdowns

The pdf of the latest readings of radiation in the areas surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (marked with an X on the map inset) may be viewed here.

Namie Town remains the hardest hit with one startling sampling point as high as 21.1 microsieverts/hour, which totals to about 185 millisieverts/year. Normal there is 1 millisievert/year.

Americans typically get about 6 millisieverts/year from all sources environmental, travel- and medical-related. In a long lifetime of 80 years one wouldn't accumulate 500 millisieverts, but in Namie you could have theoretically already come close to that if you had stayed there for the two years since the accident because the levels were much higher in the immediate aftermath. 

The Bush/Obama Depression In Electricity Consumption

Between 1990 and 2000, US electricity consumption per capita grew at a rate of almost 17%.

But since then, between 2000 and 2010, electricity consumption actually FELL at a rate of 2% despite growth in population at a rate of nearly 10%.

By 2010, consumption was still 2.3% below the 2005 peak achieved under George W. Bush.

The trend is probably due mostly to the transfer of manufacturing capacity to China, and to some extent to energy efficiency efforts in the US.

Meanwhile in China, the decade of the 1990s witnessed growth in electricity consumption per capita of 94%, and in the decade to 2010 of 196%. Overall, since 1990 Chinese growth in electricity consumption has outstripped the US growth rate by 33 times.

The House Should Pass A CR Of $2.983 Trillion And Drive The Blade Home

Now that Republicans have Democrats off balance with a small spending cut, the up-coming vote on a continuing resolution to fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year presents an opportunity to drive the blade home.

I propose going back to the status quo ante in 2008 when outlays were at $2.983 trillion, and freezing spending at that level until revenues have in fact caught up. In 2013 revenues are estimated to be just under that level, at $2.902 trillion.

Since it was Democrats who abandoned the statutory budget process after 2009 and funded the government through continuing resolutions at the new much higher level laid down that year, nearly 18% higher in 2009 than in 2008, two can play at that game.

If Democrats in the Senate, and Obama, don't like the new diet of $249 billion a month, they can say no and be responsible for shutting down the government.

Just don't telegraph the plan. Keep Democrats off balance as before, demanding Senate action on a budget. We all know they won't pass one, and when they don't, just pass a continuing resolution to fund the government at the last second and adjourn. The procedure will probably have to be done monthly, and probably indefinitely.

There will be wailing, weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Table of federal receipts and outlays here. 

Barack Obama: Chester The Sequester Taxpayer Molester

According to The Des Moines Register here, Pres. Obama told two of its editors just two weeks before the 2012 election that he was COUNTING ON the sequestration cuts which he now says are going to hurt middle class Americans, and that he was COUNTING ON the expiration of the Bush tax rates, in tandem "to implode the partisan gridlock" referred to by his interlocutor at The Register (full transcript at the link), to which the following was part of the reply by the president:

"In the short term, the good news is that there’s going to be a forcing mechanism to deal with what is the central ideological argument in Washington right now, and that is: How much government do we have and how do we pay for it?

"So when you combine the Bush tax cuts expiring, the sequester in place, the commitment of both myself and my opponent -- at least Governor Romney claims that he wants to reduce the deficit -- but we’re going to be in a position where I believe in the first six months we are going to solve that big piece of business."

In other words, Obama said he was counting on the sequestration gambit and the expiration of the Bush tax rates gambit to accomplish his "balanced approach", which is tax rate increases combined with spending cuts "to reduce the deficit". Notice how he likes "force" especially when he can distance himself from it, and how that force can impose an ideological conclusion for which he otherwise is reticent to take responsibility. The man isn't really up to being the tyrant.

President Obama all along has wanted this sequestration event to occur, and any tax increase he could get along with it. The forced spending cut idea was his idea from the beginning according to Bob Woodward, but Obama could only welcome the forced expiration of the Bush tax rates idea. He's just sorry he was not the author of it. As it turned out, he got some tax increases on the rich in the year end tax deal ($60 billion annually), but more importantly he got the reset of the Social Security payroll tax ON EVERYBODY without so much as a shot being fired by anyone in Washington. The latter comes to about $100 billion annually. Add in a few spending cuts now on the backs of all these people he's been parading as victims, and Obama is as happy as a clam.

Yes, some of the American people are being actually molested by the president's policies, but they just don't know who the perp is because the creep can make himself invisible. Unfortunately for them, because they are mostly denizens of government, private sector Americans who have been living in greatly reduced circumstances for four years now because of Obama's on-going depression just aren't sympathetic to their plight.

The trouble is, neither is Obama.

I Know! Let's Get The Sequestration Cuts From The Banks!

In an editorial on February 20th, here (which has caused quite the hubbub), Bloomberg.com maintained that most big banks are not profitable because their preferred rate to borrow from the government amounts to a gift roughly equal to their stated profits:

The top five banks -- JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. - - account for $64 billion of the total subsidy, an amount roughly equal to their typical annual profits . . .. In other words, the banks occupying the commanding heights of the U.S. financial industry -- with almost $9 trillion in assets, more than half the size of the U.S. economy -- would just about break even in the absence of corporate welfare. In large part, the profits they report are essentially transfers from taxpayers to their shareholders.

No one seems to be inquiring too deeply, however, why the banks are not profitable without continuing massive taxpayer support ($83 billion annually -- remind you of anything beginning with the letter "s" and starting today?).

Gee, could it be because of all those bad mortgages on and off the books which are not performing and cutting into their capital? Ya think?

And maybe, just maybe, the Fed's policies are trying to repair this one thing only, while telling us it's to help with employment, housing, the stock market even, blah, blah, blah, pissing down our backs and tellin' us it's rainin'?

If this were really a free market economy with a private banking industry, we'd have had the equivalent of $85 billion in sequestration spending cuts for years already by not subsidizing these losers.

And another thing we wouldn't have is these big banks. They would have failed already.

Warren Buffett, Amoral Crony Capitalist, Bought An Indulgence From The Left

So says Daniel Mitchell of The Cato Institute, here:

"If you’re an amoral person with political connections, it’s possible to make a lot of money.

"Warren Buffett lined his pockets by making a government-subsidized investment in Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis.

"The rest of us suffered and he got richer, but the left seems to be okay with that perverse form of redistribution because he supports class-warfare tax hikes. Sort of like buying an indulgence in the Middle Ages."

I really like that analogy with the church because it speaks to the failure of all idealist conceptions to deliver on what they promise. This is as true of socialism as it is of capitalism, of fascism as it is of Christianity. All offer a promised land which never seems to arrive, but you have to ask yourself who thought this stuff up.

Like beer to Homer Simpson, it is we who are the cause of and the solution to all of life's problems.

The Founders Got Many Things Wrong, Especially The Role Of Their Own Rationalism

Here:

"American politicians and those who serve them think that they’re ducks, and although they aren’t, they are likely to continue to quack ideologically. [I]t is doubtful that a non-ideological politics, which emphasizes both the limitations and the necessity of political activity—the need for real consensus, the need to address actual not 'potential' problems, etc.—could succeed in the United States."

Not to mention the rise of political factionalism, the declining influence of religion and morality, and the power of parchment.

Even In September 2009 Obama Showed He Didn't Understand The Size Of The Country

From his speech to Congress, here:

"First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have."

Well, what if you are not among those "hundreds of millions", eh? Then you are out of luck in his mind, evidently. Who could he possibly be referring to?

It is customary to speak of tens of millions when speaking of up to 100 million.

It is customary to speak of a couple hundred million when speaking of up to 200 million.

It is customary to speak of a few hundred million when speaking of up to 300 million.

But "hundreds of millions" refers to far more than 300 million, especially if you are not lucky enough to be among them. By analogy with 100 million, you could be speaking of up to 1,000 million. That's 1 billion for those of you in Rio Linda.

Anyway, all those extra people in the "hundreds of millions" category must be those people you didn't know about from the 57 states Obama says he visited during the campaign "with one left to go", not counting Alaska and Hawaii! Densely populated states, those in excess of the 50 states, they must have been, too, which begs the question why he hadn't visited them yet!

The US population at the time of the speech was about 307 million. So by September of 2009, seven months after having been sworn in, Obama had had plenty of time to figure out the size of the country, but he hadn't.

The guy's a moron, and you know it. He wasn't even "learning on the job". Toking on the job is more like it.

Rep. Maxine Waters Is A Complete Moron, Just Like Rep. Hank Johnson

Rep. Maxine Waters obviously has no idea about the size and scope of the American working population. She states here that 170 million jobs will be lost if tomorrow's spending cuts go through.

If you simply check here, you'll discover that there are fewer than 152 million Americans working at all jobs as far as the Social Security Administration is concerned. Pretty shocking for an elected US representative not to know that, and pretty shocking that she thinks we'll all be without jobs in an instant because of a puny spending cut. By her reckoning, the WHOLE DAMN COUNTRY will become unemployed tomorrow because we cut 2% from federal spending. Even more shocking is it that this gets reported with a straight face. But then you remember that we have a congressman from Atlanta who thinks Guam might tip over if we station too many troops on one side of it, the estimable Rep. Johnson.