The Part-Timing Of America Has Been Slowing Down, Not Speeding Up

The part-timing of workers was a much more severe phenomenon from the 1960s . . . when teenagers used to bag groceries, for example.

That was a good thing. We should have more of it, not less.

Is it a coincidence that as the minimum wage rises over time part-timing decreases?

!

Usually Part Time Is Up Only 1.25 Million Since Obama Elected In 2008

That's a less than 5% increase in the size of this group over the period, and a less than 1% increase in usually part time compared to the total size of usually part and usually full time taken together in November 2008.

Full Time Jobs Are Almost Back To Where They Were When Obama Was Elected In 2008

That's not to suggest full time is back to the 123 million level as under Bush in 2007, but it is almost back to 118 million as in November 2008.

Did employers continue to shed full time jobs as a response to Obama and the Democrats taking over?

Full time is up over 8 million since 2010.

Obama Still The Worst For Unemployment: Above 7% For 56 Months Straight Since Elected

The average report of unemployment under Reagan was 7.58%, the absolute worst record in the post-war until Obama, who for the 57 months since his election in 2008 has had an average report of unemployment of 8.74%.

The Part-Timing Trend Still Hasn't Materialized In The Unemployment Report

The Bureau of Labor Statistics' employment situation report for July is here, where we learn that the unemployment rate has fallen two tenths of a point to 7.4%, and that jobs added monthly has fallen to 189,000 per month, or 2.268 million jobs added in the last year.

Since everyone is making a big deal of part-timing because of ObamaCare and generally moribund economic conditions, it is noteworthily absent in today's numbers.

The not-seasonally-adjusted numbers show those classified as part-time for economic reasons in all industries down 116,000 from June to July. Year over year the number is up only 8,000. In other words, there is no trend up to be seen there. For those part-time for noneconomic reasons the decline is much more dramatic month over month: 428,000. But year over year the number is up, but only 303,000 or less than 2% of the category.

Those classified as usually part-time are down 17,000 from June to July while those classified as usually full-time are up 288,000 from June to July in the not-seasonally-adjusted columns. Usually full-time also is up 1.557 million year over year. Usually part-time is up only 430,000 year over year or less than one half of 1% of all the workers in those categories combined, and just 1.6% of usually part-time workers from a year ago.

I don't call any of that "the part-timing of America."

Not yet.

The Redcoats Are Already Here: Proof Ordinary Americans Are Spied-On Online By The Police State Right Now

She googled "pressure cookers", he googled "backpacks". Weeks later the police showed up and interrogated him and searched their house for 45 minutes, without a warrant:

"45 minutes later, they shook my husband’s hand and left. That’s when he called me and relayed the story. That’s when I felt a sense of creeping dread take over. What else had I looked up? What kind of searches did I do that alone seemed innocent enough but put together could make someone suspicious? Were they judging me because my house was a mess (Oh my god, the joint terrorism task force was in my house and there were dirty dishes in my sink!). Mostly I felt a great sense of anxiety. This is where we are at. Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do."

I wonder what happens when you don't agree to let them search your house? Face down on the floor in handcuffs? The m/o of the tyranny is to intimidate you into relinquishing your rights. The Redcoats aren't coming. They're already here.

The story was related here in full, and here in part.

Rep. Mike Rogers, Ex-FBI Goon, Proven Wrong By Revelation Of XKeyscore

Chairman, House "Intelligence" Committee

The latest revelations from Glenn Greenwald here show Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan to be either ignorant or a liar:

The files shed light on one of Snowden's most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10.

"I, sitting at my desk," said Snowden, could "wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email".

US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."

But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.

Jobless Claims Plunge Over 60k To Lowest Level Ever Under Obama

For only the third time under Obama, first time claims for unemployment, not-seasonally-adjusted, have fallen under 300,000 and in today's report to their lowest level yet: 279,869.

On June 1 the raw number of claims had fallen to just under 294,000. And before that, on September 8, 2012, raw claims fell to just under 300,000. Those are the only two prior instances under 300,000.

Break out the party hats.

Full report here.

Rush Limbaugh Finds A GDP Conspiracy Where There Is None

When it comes to numbers, I have observed that Rush Limbaugh can be counted on to get something horribly wrong, and today was no exception. Today he has misrepresented the routine revision of the GDP data every five years as a revision of the numbers for only the last five years, as if it were designed specifically to make Obama look better. In actual fact, the revision of the numbers goes back not five years, but all the way back to 1929.

Truly incredible, and embarrassing in the extreme, since the truth is the revision occurs every five years, and this is the 14th revision in the series. This is why conservatives hope Rush retires soon, nevermind why liberals hope he retires. He's making us all look stupid when he carries on like this.

I have shown "five" in red below from today's Rush transcript so you can appreciate the thorough-going depth of Rush's misrepresentation of the facts: 

RUSH:  Here's what the Commerce Department is doing. 

They have "made changes to how it calculates gross domestic product," going back five years. "At the same time, the government also went back and revised data for the past five years, to reflect more complete as well as additional statistics from a variety of sources, such as the Internal Revenue Service and the US Department of Agriculture." They have made changes to how they're calculating the gross domestic product, or economic growth, and what they're doing now is they're going back five years. 

They have revised data for the past five years to, they say, "reflect a more complete, as well as additional statistics from a variety of sources, such as the IRS and the Department of Agriculture.  Why do you think they decided to go back the last five years to revise data?  To rewrite the horrible 4-1/2 years of Obama.  There's no question.  I don't know if it's fraudulent, but they're cooking the books -- and after cooking the books, after making it look as good as they can, it's 1.7% economic growth.

Here, however, is the statement from the BEA in today's official release about the routine revision every five years, which has been telegraphed to every reader of BEA GDP reports for many quarters running going back at least to last year (meaning Rush Limbaugh has never read even cursorily a single one of those GDP reports from the BEA in the interim, let alone today's):

Today, BEA released revised statistics of gross domestic product (GDP) and of other national income and product accounts (NIPAs) series from 1929 through the first quarter of 2013. Comprehensive revisions, which are carried out about every 5 years, are an important part of BEA's regular process for improving and modernizing its accounts to keep pace with the ever-changing U.S. economy.

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1.7% GDP in Q2 2013 is horrible enough, but the average report for the last three quarters comes in under 1%, 0.966% to be exact. So if there is some conspiracy to make things look better than they are, whoever's in charge of that ought to be fired, stat!

This country remains in deep trouble, and there is no conspiracy to hide it. 

George W. Bush Falls To Last For GDP Performance Using 14th Comprehensive Revisions

"I redefined the Republican Party"

The revised GDP figures going back decades came out today, and may be conveniently viewed here. Using these figures based on time frames which span January on January of presidential term, calculating percentage increase in GDP overall and dividing by the number of months in term to arrive at a factor, the rankings are as follows:

1) .533 JFK/LBJ [best performance]

2) .458 Truman (72 months, 1-1-1947 to 1-1-1953)

3) .357 Clinton

4) .323 Reagan

5) .300 Carter

6) .245 Nixon/Ford

7) .214 IKE

8) .180 Obama (51 months, 1-1-2009 to 4-1-2013) 

9) .173 George H. W. Bush

10) .142 George W. Bush [worst performance].

Don't forget that government spending is counted as GDP.  

First Report Of Q2 2013 GDP At 1.7%, Q1 Revised Down To 1.1% From 1.8%, Q4 2012 Down To 0.1% From 0.4%

The press release, excerpted below, from the BEA is here, the full pdf with the 14th revision of the comprehensive GDP data is here. The revisions lower in the prior two quarters combined with the low 1.7% first report in Q2 2013 should be extremely troubling to everyone. The economy is crawling.

"Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 1.7 percent in the second quarter of 2013 (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  In the first quarter, real GDP increased 1.1 percent (revised). The Bureau emphasized that the second-quarter advance estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see the box on page 3 and "Comparisons of Revisions to GDP" on page 18).  The "second" estimate for the second quarter, based on more complete data, will be released on August 29, 2013. The increase in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), exports, nonresidential fixed investment, private inventory investment, and residential investment that were partly offset by a negative contribution from federal government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased. The acceleration in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected upturns in nonresidential fixed investment and in exports, a smaller decrease in federal government spending, and an upturn in state and local government spending that were partly offset by an acceleration in imports and decelerations in private inventory investment and in PCE."

CNBC Falls In Love With Its GDP Jailer: Average Report Of GDP 0.966% Last 3 Quarters

The only thing GDP beat was poor expectations.

The average report of GDP in the last three quarters is now 0.966%, thanks to 1.7% in Q2 2013.

It feels good in its way when your killer stops stabbing you.

Moronic Shills For Obama At CNBC Call 1.7% GDP "Upbeat"

Only ignoramuses or liars would call GDP of 1.7% "upbeat", so take your pick. Charity demands the former, but I'm fresh out of it.

It is now four years to the day since Ben Bernanke pointed to the need for 2.5% GDP to reduce unemployment (here):

'Bernanke's core message was similar to that he delivered last week in congressional testimony: that the recession should end soon, but that considerable risks remain -- especially relating to the labor market. It takes GDP growth of about 2.5 percent to keep the jobless rate constant, Bernanke noted. But the Fed expects growth of only about 1 percent in the last six months of the year. "So that's not enough to bring down the unemployment rate," he said.'

The Bureau of Economic Analysis comprehensive revision of GDP and related measures going back decades, available here in pdf of 83 pages, now shows the last three quarters to be truly abysmal for this point in a so-called recovery: growth of 0.1%, 1.1% and 1.7% in the last three quarters. Obama's best year to date, 2012, now comes in at a measly 2.8%, far off the new post-war average of 3.4%.

There's nothing upbeat about any of it.

Presidents Haven't Done Their Job In 20 Years Reporting On Visa Overstays

So says a scathing report in The Washington Times here which says the General Accounting Office can somehow do an audit and find out that we've got 1 million overstaying visas right now, or that previously the number was 1.6 million, but the executive branch hasn't ever been able to figure it out in any year in two decades, nor has Homeland Security fulfilled its legal obligation to track exit compliance since 2004.

Maybe it's because presidents don't give a damn? Maybe it's because there's an unspoken agreement between the two parties to keep the flow coming despite what the people want? Because businesses want the cheap labor, and politicians want the extra votes? And oops, some terrorists get in, so sorry, so now we have to spy on everybody to fix that?

Excerpts:

"The GAO said most of the overstays came by airplane, but 32 percent came through land ports of entry, and 4 percent came by sea. The average length of overstay was 2.7 years. ... The executive branch is supposed to report annually to Congress on how many people have overstayed their visas but has failed to do so for the past two decades, saying the information isn’t reliable enough. ... The total of 1 million potential overstays in the country is an improvement from two years ago, when the GAO found Homeland Security had lost track of 1.6 million people. Homeland Security went back and looked at those names and found that more than half had either actually left the country unbeknownst to the government, or had gained legal status that allowed them to remain in the U.S. Of the others, the department decided most were deemed not to be security risks and so there was no need to track them down. But 1,901 of them were deemed significant national security or public safety threats, and 266 of those were still unaccounted for as of March."

Anthony Weiner's Wacky Gifts To Drudge: A Brief History Since 2012

And now a sampling of the treasure trove of innuendo* supplied by Anthony Weiner to Drudge's, er, headlines:

Weiner pulls out

Will Weiner rise again?

Can Weiner rise again?

Weiner's poll rising . . .

Weiner spotted shooting . . . video

Weiner plunges in

Weiner in

Weiner goes in

Cuomo flogs Weiner

Pre-mature Election: Cuomo slaps Weiner

Shumer shies away from Weiner

Poll: Weiner inside . . . margin of error

Weiner erupts after crowd confronts

NYT pulls Weiner . . . story

Shock Poll: Weiner spurts to lead

Poll: Weiner thrusts into lead

Weiner's lead peters out

Huma gathering women for Weiner

Poll: Weiner, Spitzer thrust to NYC lead

Erection Update: Weiner stays in

Erection Update: Pressure mounts on Weiner to pull out

Electile Dysfunction . . .

Poll: Weiner sags

Poll: Weiner goes soft

Dirty Dems: Weiner roasting

Weiner sticks it out

Poll: Younger women love Weiner

*Attention Rio Linda residents: an innuendo is not an Italian suppository

Obama's Jeffersonian Hero, Ho Chi Minh, Was A Mass Murderer

The pro-Hanoi Vietcong began a guerrilla campaign in the late 1950s to overthrow Diem's government. In the North, the communist government launched a land reform program, and executed between 50,000 and 172,000 people in campaigns against wealthy farmers and landowners, amid broader purges. In 1960 and 1962, the Soviet Union and North Vietnam signed treaties providing for further Soviet military support. In the South, Diem went about crushing political and religious opposition, imprisoning or executing tens of thousands.

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The 44th president conveniently forgot Vietnamese history and slandered ours by linking a founder of our democracy, Thomas Jefferson, to the mass murderer Ho Chi Minh. [Vietnamese President Truong Tan] Sang had brought Obama a copy of a letter sent to President Truman from Ho in which the communist dictator spoke hopefully of cooperation with America. Obama, stopping short of yet another apology, mused about what might have been, and noted "we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson."

Unemploy An Illegal: Bring On The Lettuce Bots!

Story here:

"Technology is about to take over America's fruited plains - robots, it seems, are all the rage down on the farm, and their introduction and spread will make human farm work a thing of the past."

Home Prices Still Too High: Nationally 24% Pay More Than Half Their Income On Housing

Case Shiller Home Price Index @multpl.com

Joel Kotkin reflects on the still expensive housing market here:

Ownership levels continue to drop, most notably for minorities, particularly African Americans. Last year, according to the Harvard study, the number of renters in the U.S. rose by a million, accompanied by a net loss of 161,000 homeowners.

This is bad news not only for middle-income Americans but even more so for the poor and renters. The number of renters now paying upward of 50% of their income for housing has risen by 2.5 million since the recession and 6.7 million over the decade. Roughly one in four renters, notes Harvard, are now in this perilous situation. The number of poor renters is growing, but the supply of new affordable housing has dropped over the past year. ...

According to the Center for Housing Policy and National Housing Conference, 39% of working households in the Los Angeles metropolitan area spend more than half their income on housing, 35% in the San Francisco metro area and 31% in the New York area. All of these figures are much higher than the national rate of 24%, which itself is far from tolerable.

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

Kotkin nowhere mentions that currently expensive housing is explicit Federal Reserve policy. ZIRP and QE are specifically designed to reduce long term interest rates to make home mortgages affordable. Instead those policies have re-inflated housing prices to their historical highs before the bubble and reversed the downward trajectory of price resetting those prices were on.

In June 2013 dollars, the Case Shiller Home Price Index reached its low point after the bubble at 126.30 for the quarter ended March 31, 2012. That level hadn't been seen since June 1998. But from the long term perspective prices should have reset to 120 on the index or lower as they have in the past. This expectation holds even more considering the excesses of the bubble which needed to be wiped out, but haven't been.

The Fed has done nothing but interfere with the free market in housing, creating the bubble in the first place and preventing its deflation now. To fix the problem, the Fed needs at a minimum to focus solely on price stability by maintaining a strong dollar. Markets will take care of themselves after that.

Dear Christopher Buckley: "Go Away" Is Not A Solution, Unless You're A WASP

Occupy Wall Street: The Mirror Image Of Congress

Reviewing "This Town" by Mark Leibovich in The New York Times, here, Christopher Buckley wishes in the end that most of the denizens of DC would just go home or, better yet, go away, citing the important fact that the lobbyists are really mostly just former elected officials:

'There’s a phrase in journalism-speak called “burying the lede,” which Leibo­vich appears to do by waiting until Page 330 to cite this arresting figure (previously reported by The Atlantic): in 1974, 3 percent of retiring members of Congress became lobbyists. “Now 50 percent of senators and 42 percent of congressmen do.” No one goes home anymore. Cincinnatus, call your office. ... By the end, one is left thinking that our country would be so much better off if, after putting in their years of “public service,” all these people would just go home. Or just away. But then what would we do for entertainment, being left with a mere Parliament of Bores?'

When the US Congress and the executive conspired way back in the 1920s to restrict representation to 435 in the US House to repress the growing political influence of the grown large immigrant population, mostly from Europe, which they also evidently wished "would just go home" or "away", it merely pushed on a string. So that today instead of worse representation we have representation of the worst sort: lobbyists whom we cannot dislodge at election time, and the 435 people who depend on them for campaign financing whom we cannot dislodge, either.

Today we should have a US House of Representatives of 10,490. Instead we had in 2012 12,411 registered lobbyists, and the 435 mopes the lobbyists, and we, routinely return to Washington, DC.

Representation is messy, but we desperately need more of it as the founders intended, not less.

Presidents Ranked By Level Of Income Inequality: Gini Ratio Of Families, End Of Term

1. .349 JFK/LBJ (least income inequality)

2. .359 Truman

3. .363 Nixon/Ford

4. .369 Carter

5. .374 IKE

6. .401 Reagan

7. .429 Bush 1

8. .435 Clinton

9. .443 Bush 2

10. .450 Obama, to date (most income inequality)