Poll at lauraingraham.com.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Long Term Care Insurance Getting Harder To Get As Firms Exit The Business
So reported CNBC here last week:
Three major plan providers, Metlife, Prudential and Unum, have stopped selling individual policies within the last three years.
"Companies have had a very difficult time hitting profit objectives," said Marc Cohen, chief research and development officer at insurer LifePlans. "Many of the assumptions underlying the pricing of these policies didn't hold true."
Among the assumptions firms made when they began selling plans in the 1990s was that policyholders would let their coverage lapse at about the same rate they do life insurance products. The lapse rate for long-term care has proven to be much lower. Policyholders who buy coverage during their senior years tend to hold onto their coverage and collect on their claims.
"The largest claim that's still open is from a woman," said Slome. "She's been on claim for 15 years. Her insurance policy has paid out one point $8 million to date and it continues to pay. She only paid $881 for three years before her claim began."
The industry has responded to that kind of bad underwriting by tightening qualifications for the coverage, setting caps on benefits and raising prices.
With 76 million baby boomers reaching retirement age over the next decade, the need for long-term care services is expected to surge.
Total Public Debt Outstanding Stuck At $16.738 Trillion For Over Two Months
The normal explanation for this would be that redemptions of Treasury securities are running at precise equilibrium with issues, which might imply there has been a big shift away from note and bond purchases by the public since the end of May when Ben Bernanke first floated the possibility of a tapering of Fed purchases in the secondary market. Bond outflows in June of nearly $62 billion dramatically reversed a trend (albeit declining) of purchases in 2013 through May.
Theoretically total public debt outstanding occasionally goes down in the rare cases when redemptions exceed issuances, but the maintenance of a consistent level equilibrium is indicative of a deliberate policy, that is, a policy not to exceed the debt limit of $16.7 trillion. This is effected by recourse to extraordinary measures on the part of the US Treasury Dept.
Tax revenues are also running higher in 2013, helping remove pressure from the situation as is the sequester which is curbing outlays. Revenue has also increased from the GSEs, in excess of $59 billion according to Reuters, here. The Associated Press has reported here for July 18th that the current fiscal year deficit is projected to come in over $300 billion less than last year when all is said and done.
Now you know why Congress felt it could take the traditional August recess without doing anything about the debt ceiling. They'll just let Jack Lew sweat it out.
Now you know why Congress felt it could take the traditional August recess without doing anything about the debt ceiling. They'll just let Jack Lew sweat it out.
Monday, August 5, 2013
The Kookiest Jobs Story In Months: Republican House Ways And Means Tallies Just 270k Full-Time Since 1-09
Story here.
What's next, 911 really was an inside job? Paul McCartney did die?
To believe this number you have to believe all the numbers reported all the time by the Bureau of Labor Statistics have been wrong for 4.5 years and that everyone who works there is content to keep a secret, and can, but I'll bet you those are precisely the numbers House Ways and Means have been "crunching" to arrive at the "truth".
I realize John Crudele at The New York Post is fond of that skeptical pose now that a former BLS official has been talking to him about his skepticism about the numbers, but really, have we all gone off the deep end in order to drive home a political point about what ObamaCare is going to do to the nature of work in America when it's not really yet self-evident? For example, average hourly earnings should be plummeting if Ways and Means is right, but they are not. Wages are up nearly 1.9% in the last year. Nothing to write home about, but completely dispositive of the thesis.
As usual the devil is in the details, which in this case means the word "net", as in net total. Well, net from what benchmark? The all-time high of full-time at 123.219 million under George Bush? Full-time isn't anywhere near recovering to that level, so it's impossible that for the Republicans net means net above the all-time high by the paltry sum of 270,000, as in 123.489 million full-time jobs. Would that the Republicans were right!
Alas, they are not. Usually full-time is presently 117.688 million, 3.873 million above the January 2009 level when Obama took office, not 0.270 million above the January 2009 level. That's the nominal number. Doug Short at Advisor Perspectives could run the population-adjusted figures for us to show us just how far behind we really are in recovering to trendline at the Bush peak. Population has continued to grow causing employment-population ratios to plummet and labor participation rates to tank under truly dismal GDP conditions, so there is value in looking at it from that perspective. It's true. Obama is a total failure at job creation. When he turns his gaze to them, they seem to vaporize. Rush Limbaugh thinks this is on purpose.
Meanwhile the numbers continue to improve because this is a giant capitalist ship with tremendous inertia whose communist captain can't turn her on a dime for another go at the iceberg. He wishes we were China, but we aren't.
God bless the Republican House, but get off the number-of-angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin stuff. It's August, and we have gin to drink.
Colorado Democrat Faces Recall After Narrow Victory Courtesy Of Libertarian Spoiler
Ross Kaminsky has the story in The American Spectator, here:
Forty-five miles north, Senate President John Morse is in even bigger trouble. Although his senate district includes the quirky (and liberal) town of Manitou Springs, John Morse won his 2010 election by only 252 votes in a race in which a Libertarian candidate won five times that number. In other words, if not for the presence of a third party candidate, Mr. Morse would likely have lost; this is not a safe “blue” seat, despite redistricting since 2010 having made the district lean slightly more Democratic than its prior configuration. ... [P]erhaps most galling, even to Morse’s liberal constituents, were comments he made on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show in which he proudly said (while claiming the mantle of Abraham Lincoln) that he counseled fellow Democrat senators to avoid reading e-mails from constituents. To be fair, Morse probably assumed that nobody was watching the show.
"The current state of valuation is as clear as a bell. We're not cheap here."
Joshua Brown, here, who notes that value investors are raising cash:
"In the meantime, many famous value managers are husbanding their cash - either because they can't find compelling values or because they foresee better opportunities ahead."
Sunday, August 4, 2013
The Trend To Part Time Jobs Is A Myth, Otherwise Average Hourly Earnings Would Be Down
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| Earnings are up 1.87% in the last year |
So says Jim O'Sullivan, here:
Jim O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economist of High Frequency Economics . . . is not convinced that part-time, low wage jobs are driving the nation's employment growth. Average hourly earnings most of this year have been rising about 2% at an annual rate, notwithstanding a slight dip in July. That's consistent with the rest of the four-year-old recovery. If low-wage jobs were growing much faster than other positions, they should be pulling down average wage growth, O'Sullivan says.
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Not only are earnings up modestly year over year, the not-seasonally-adjusted figures for usually full time workers show a year over year increase of 1.55 million jobs, or 1.34%. Usually part time is up more, 1.59%, but that's only a net 430,000 workers.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
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.
Full time is up over 8 million since 2010.
Friday, August 2, 2013
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.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
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.
Rep. Mike Rogers, Ex-FBI Goon, Proven Wrong By Revelation Of XKeyscore
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| 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.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
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
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| "I redefined the Republican Party" |
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.
Don't forget that government spending is counted as GDP.
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