The IRS Is Obstructing The Investigation Into Its Crimes

Peggy Noonan here:

House investigators this week said they have in fact received less than 1% of the documents they have been asking for from the agency. The IRS itself at one point identified a whopping and rather intimidating 65 million documents that might be relevant to the tea-party scandal. To date—almost three months since the scandal became public—the House Ways and Means Committee says the IRS has turned over only 13,000 pages. And some of them were duplicates. It's gone beyond what staff aides were, last month, calling "slow walking." Chairman Dave Camp said in a statement the IRS's actions look "a lot like obstruction." One aide said: "Patience is wearing thin."

Presidents Ranked By Change Of Income Gini Ratio Of Families In Post-War

1. JFK/LBJ       -6.6%

2. Truman       -5.0%

3. Clinton       +1.3%

4. Obama        +1.5% (to date)

5. Carter         +1.6%

6. Bush2          +1.8%

7. Nixon/Ford +4.0%

8. IKE              +4.1%

9. Bush1          +6.9%

10. Reagan      +8.6%

Inequality of market income decreased most under Kennedy/Johnson and increased most under Reagan. The measure is before taxes and transfers, however. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development figures after taxes and transfers for certain periods may be observed here. See the helpful discussion by Tim Worstall, here, including this:

"[E]ven in the post-tax and post-benefit numbers the US is still an outlier in the statistical methods used. In looking at inequality, poverty, in the US we include the cash that poor people are given to alleviate their poverty. But we do not include the things that people are given in kind: the Medicaid, SNAP, Section 8 and so on. It’s possible (I’m not sure I’m afraid) that we don’t include the EITC either. We certainly don’t in the poverty statistics but might in the inequality. All of the other countries do include the effects of such policies. Largely because they don’t offer benefits in kind they just give the poor more money and tell them to buy it themselves. This obviously turns up in figures of how much money the poor have."

That said, inequality of market income hasn't gone up very much in the twenty years since 1993, contrary to President Obama's recent comments here. 

The president might want to consider that Bill Clinton did a better job of reducing income inequality than he has. But, then again, Bill Clinton did a better job than Obama in most everything, and ranks number two behind Truman overall for the best economy in the post-war.

Dangerous Libertarian Appears On David Letterman Show

If QE Is Helping Only The Financial Sector, Maybe It Was Meant To

Robert Skidelsky in The Economist here, referencing John Kay in the Financial Times:

"All of this led John Kay to wonder why so much attention was given to unconventional monetary policies ‘with no clear explanation of how they might be expected to work and little evidence of effectiveness?’ His answer: they are helpful to the financial services and those who work in them."

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QE is medicine for sick banks, not sick economies.

Corporate Cash Sets Another Record At $1.093 Trillion, Liabilities Climb To $5.9 Trillion

Bob Pisani reports here:

"Cash set a record in the first quarter of 2013 on an absolute basis: $1.093 trillion in the S&P 500. It has set a record for 18 of the last 20 quarters."

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Yeah, but nonfinancial corporate business sector bond liabilities have climbed, too, from $3.7 trillion in 2007 to $5.9 trillion in the latest report.

Financial business sector bond liabilities have declined from $6.2 trillion to $4.9 trillion over the same period.

Hey, Democrats Defunded The Vietnam War, So Republicans Can Defund ObamaCare

Did Bernanke Honestly Think Employment Was Improving Significantly On May 22nd?

The more I think about the first time claims for unemployment data this year, I think it's very possible Ben Bernanke got a little ahead of himself on May 22nd with his admittedly mere hint of tapering, thinking there was real improvement in the unemployment picture. And there seemed to be.

In the run up to his May 22nd comments, there had been a string of 13 weeks averaging 320,538 first time claims per week, which translates into an annualized level of 16.6 million, something this country hasn't seen since 2006-2007 under George W. Bush, two years which were the best this country had seen the whole decade, and remain so. In other words, Ben Bernanke may have felt free to hint at tapering bond purchases later in the year if the numbers over the three months which he had just witnessed carried forward through the rest of the year. Entirely understandable.

Everybody went nuts over the tapering remark, which was really just a response to  Rep. Brady's question. But Ben must have been seeing what careful observers were seeing: some of the best first time claims data of Obama's presidency. That said, the number of careful observers are few, and most people do not think much about the not-seasonally-adjusted numbers, let alone the long term comparisons.

Things have deteriorated since then, of course, but in the late winter and early spring, first time claims for unemployment were in fact looking much better.

QE-Induced Savings On Interest Expense Accounts For 47% Of S&P500 Earnings Growth Since '09

So says Robbert van Batenburg, quoted here:

"People underestimate the extent to which quantitative easing has benefited the S&P," said Robbert van Batenburg, director of market strategy at brokerage Newedge USA LLC in New York. He called the effect akin to "an athlete on steroids." The Fed's effect on corporate earnings is difficult to quantify. Van Batenburg estimates that corporate savings on interest expense after rates fell to historic lows has accounted for about 47 percent of S&P 500 earnings growth since 2009. At the end of 2009, quarterly earnings per share for the S&P 500 were less than $20, and companies in the index paid about $4 a share in interest, van Batenburg said. Now the S&P 500 is generating about $26.70 a share in quarterly earnings but pays just $1.50 a share in interest.

Revenues Show Global Economy In Full Retreat

Jeffrey Snider, here:

What feels like a still-recovering recovery to so many looks far different in comparison to the real recession that was already in full swing in 2008 – the fact that so many companies and so much of the economy is running below 2008 rates is very revealing and startling in its implication. It should be even more remarkable aside the fact that QE 3 & 4 are right now being pushed into “markets”, and that a renewed housing bubble is building next to myriad other asset bubbles.

There is no hiding the fact that the global economy, including the US, is in full retreat. Investors and observers may choose to ignore it, but that just makes their game of waiting for recovery all the more curious.

Finally, A Caption For That Weird 2008 John McCain Photo

John McCain, creepy ass cracker

Economic Stress: Almost Half Of TARP Funded Mortgage Mods Redefault

As reported here:

While HAMP has helped about 865,100 homeowners avoid foreclosure over the lifetime of the program through permanent loan modifications, more than 306,000 homeowners had redefaulted on their modified mortgages as of the end of April, the report stated.

Supremes Slap Down Imperial Obama 3x In Last 18 Months In Property Cases 9-0

Story here:

"Horne was the administration's third unanimous defeat in a property rights case in 18 months."

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It's not just the Fifth Amendment which has been under attack by the Obama regime, either. The Supremes also handed down two unanimous defeats in First and Fourth Amendment cases in 2012.

America, are you listening? Your president hates your constitution.

How Bernanke Moved Mortgage Rates Up Nearly 25% On May 22nd

Quoted here May 22nd:

“If we see continued improvement [in the labor market] and we have confidence that that is going to be sustained, then we could in -- in the next few meetings -- we could take a step down in our pace of purchases.”

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The rate was 3.51% on May 16th. On July 18th it's 4.37%.

IRS Political Targeting Scandal Goes All The Way To The Top

pappastax.com April 2009

Peggy Noonan, last week here:

The IRS scandal was connected this week not just to the Washington office—that had been established—but to the office of the chief counsel. That is a bombshell ... Mr. [Carter] Hull told House investigators that at some point in the winter of 2010-11, Ms. [Lois] Lerner's senior adviser, whose name is withheld in the publicly released partial interview transcript, told him the applications would require further review:

Q: "Did [the senior adviser to Ms. Lerner] indicate to you whether she agreed with your recommendations?"

A: "She did not say whether she agreed or not. She said it should go to chief counsel."

Q: "The IRS chief counsel?"

A: "The IRS chief counsel."

The IRS chief counsel is named William Wilkins. And again, he is one of only two Obama political appointees in the IRS.

John Kass: Obama Played The Race Card On Purpose To Divide America

John Kass, Greek-American, channels Aristotle here in the Chicago Tribune:

Obama pronounced the killing as racially motivated, though he didn't use the words. He didn't have to, such is his prowess. It was so smooth that few noticed. He put the killing in a racial context, and that was enough. ... Race was established by the president of the United States, and by other political and media actors. It's a cynical business, about money and power, about keeping divisions between American tribes. There are the black tribes that see Martin in the context of the old civil rights struggles and leverage, and white tribes that see Martin being used to pummel them with racial guilt. ... Yet none of this tribalism has anything to do with what happened the night Martin was killed. Politicians don't worry about that. They're experts at the game of tribes, and a tribal America is what nourishes them.

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"The tyrant should endeavor that the whole community should mutually accuse and come to blows with each other." -- Aristotle, Politics V 

Obama's Response To Zimmerman Verdict Divides His Own Supporters

Currency In Circulation Under Obama Is Increasing By A Factor 31% Higher Than Under Bush

Currency in circulation under George W. Bush increased nearly 51% between November 2000 and November 2008, according to the Federal Reserve, here. Over the course of his 96 months in office, that's a factor of .529. The measure of currency under Bush went from $571 billion to $861 billion.

Currency in circulation under Barack Obama increased nearly 39% from November 2008 to July 17, 2013. Over the course of his 56 months in office, that's a factor of .696. The measure of currency under Obama so far has gone from $861 billion to $1,196 billion.

That means the increase in the currency in circulation under Obama is 31.6% higher than it was under George Bush.

Currency in circulation includes coin and currency held in vaults of banks in addition to coin and currency held by the public.

Why did M1 have its largest drop ever the week ending June 10th?

weekly change in $billions

June 3, 2013 to date

Did you know that the largest negative weekly change ever in M1 money stock in nominal terms occurred just recently on June 10th?

$109.4 billion was pulled from M1 the week ending June 10, 2013, which is money in circulation and the money on deposit in your checking account.

The swings in M1 money stock in June have been as dramatic as the swings were when America was attacked on 911.

Here are the figures from September 2001:

9-10-2001 + $001.2 billion

9-17-2001 + $124.5 billion

9-24-2001 -  $086.1 billion

10-1-2001 -  $034.1 billion

But look at what just happened in June:

6-03-2013 + $085.0 billion

6-10-2013 -  $109.4 billion

6-17-2013 -  $014.4 billion

And a measly $10 billion net has been added to M1 in the interim to July 8th.

So what terrible cataclysmic, earth shattering, civilizationally-threatening event occurred the week ending June 10th, 2013?

Baccalaureates everywhere?

Actually, as a percentage of total M1 the 911 addition to M1 represented nearly 10% of total M1 on the same date. In June 2013 the decline in M1 wasn't even 4.5% of M1.

Still, it's a disturbing indication of turbulence at the most basic level of the economy, the money in your pocket and in your checking account.

Inflation-Adjusted Hourly Earnings Up Just 2.5% Over 8 Years, But Down 1.8% Since 2011

average annual figures shown

Real hourly compensation is up just 2.5% from 2005 through 2012, but down 1.8% from the 2011 peak.

Manufacturing Jobs Remain Down 8.3% Under Obama

Manufacturing jobs remain down 8.3% since Obama was first elected in November 2008, nearly five years ago.

The decline under almost eight years of George W. Bush was a whopping 22.7% (this data series begins in April 2001).

Recovery of manufacturing jobs under Obama began to flat-line in February 2012, over a year and a half ago.