Should Chief Justice John Roberts Have Recused Himself On ACA Because Of Epilepsy?

Should Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts have recused himself from the ObamaCare case because he has epilepsy? He had a seizure as early as 1993, and another in 2007.

You know, a guy with a pre-existing condition like that may have felt compelled to help other people with pre-existing conditions by upholding ObamaCare. His own condition may have interfered with his judgment on the merits of the Affordable Care Act.

Striking it down would have meant that that provision of the Act guaranteeing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions such as his would have gone down with it.

The Rise Of Patents From The 1980s Is Basically A New Protectionism, Reducing Innovation

So says Jeffrey Snider, here:

Contrary to popular belief, again assuming I am correct in interpreting it, patents are not about innovation at all. The rise in patent applications was not a proxy for a new wave of innovation, but an era of protectionism. A patent is a legal form of destroying competition. Ostensibly, that is assumed to be a cost to the system worth bearing because we largely believe that patents encourage innovation by giving the innovator some protection to reap the benefits of trying to innovate. But is that really the case? Would innovation suffer from competition at the earliest stages?

Markets develop because market demand exists, and I happen to believe that innovation would be better served with competition right from the start. But to the question at hand, the sharp rise in patent applications starting in the 1980's was likely far more related to reducing competition than signaling the continued advancement of technology revolution.

"In blow to immigration reform, House ‘gang of seven’ bill looks dead"

Story here.

Bond Mutual Fund Prices Remain Expensive, Returns Negative: Cash Has Been King

Bond mutual fund prices remain expensive by historical standards despite the recent carnage, while returns have been negative. For a safe haven, cash has been the place to be over the last year, such as it is.

For example, the short duration bond index fund from Vanguard, VBISX, finished the week at 10.51, 1.05% above the high end of normal (10.40). Vanguard reports returns down -0.27% for this fund in the last year.

The intermediate duration total bond index fund from Vanguard, VBMFX, a mixture of short, intermediate and long bonds, finished the week at 10.61, 1.04% above the high end of normal (10.50). Vanguard reports returns down -2.77% for this fund in the last year.

The pure intermediate duration bond index fund from Vanguard, VBIIX, finished the week at 11.24, 2.18% above the high end of normal (11.00). Vanguard reports returns down -3.66% for this fund in the last year.

Meanwhile the long duration bond index fund from Vanguard, VBLTX, finished the week at 12.51, 4.25% above the high end of normal (12.00). Vanguard reports returns down -10.01% for this fund in the last year.

Add in the insult of all items inflation of 1.5% to these miserable returns over the last year and cash was the place to be for safety even though it is also down because of inflation (gold, by the way, has fallen, per the London Fix, from 1758.50 on September 20th, 2012 to 1349.25 on September 20th, 2013, a decline of 23.3%).

Clearly such bond funds have farther to fall before they become attractive safe havens once again.

WaPo Finally Demotes The Leader Of The Banana Republic To Lecturer

When you lose The Washington Post, you've really lost it.

The comment at the left was seen here in the comments section to an article in The Washington Post which, among other things, omits Obama's use of the term "Banana Republic" in his address in Kansas today, but does finally demote him to the mere lecturer that he was at the University of Chicago:

Obama at times sought to belittle GOP lawmakers. “The most basic constitutional duty Congress has is to pass a budget,” said the president, a former constitutional law lecturer. “That’s Congress 101.”

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The demotion from "professor" is interesting in the light of the omission of "Banana Republic" since America pretty much qualifies as one by the definition in Wikipedia if you remember that the bank and automobile maker bailouts enriched private enterprise by socializing the losses on the backs of the taxpayers:

In economics, a banana republic is a country operated as a commercial enterprise for private profit, effected by a collusion between the State and favoured monopolies, in which the profit derived from the private exploitation of public lands is private property, while the debts incurred thereby are a public responsibility. Such an imbalanced economy remains limited by the uneven economic development of town and country, and tends to cause the national currency to become devalued paper-money, rendering the country ineligible for international development-credit. Such government by thieves is a kleptocracy; such a kleptocratic government is manipulated by foreign (corporate) interests, and functions mostly as ceremonial government that is unaccountable to its nation. The national legislature is, in effect, for sale, influential government employees illegitimately exploit their posts for personal gain (by embezzlement, fraud, bribery, etc.), and the resulting government budget deficit is repaid by the country's working people who earn wages rather than making profits.

Better, apparently, to deflate his credentials than face his fascism.

Economic Stress: Middle Class Can't Eat Out On Friday Night . . .

. . . neither at Red Lobster nor at Olive Garden:

"Outside Darden's niche in casual dining, limited-service eateries that don't require tipping are gaining ground."

Read more, here.

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Tonight's menu at your blogger's home? Baked Steelhead lemon pepper trout filet, Jasmine rice, and steamed broccoli with butter. Serves three tonight for $10.

Nancy Pelosi Doin' The Mussolini

The World Has Learned Nothing Since The Crisis: Global Public Debt Is Up 63% 2008-2013

2008 global public debt $32 trillion

Global public debt, the amount owed by the world's governments, has risen by almost $20 trillion in the five years since the panic of 2008, an increase of nearly 63%.

Note the main offenders, none of whom has been practicing austerity in any sense of the term: America, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, The UK, Europe, India, China, Japan and Australia. Spendthrifts all.

See the data and charts, here.

2013 global public debt $52 trillion

None of this is ever going to be paid back. Chaos awaits.

Jobless Claims Plunge Again To A New Record Low Under Obama: 8 Weeks Under 300,000

Not-seasonally-adjusted first time claims for unemployment now average another new all-time low in the last four weeks under Obama, also marking the eighth week in a row below 300,000.

Over the last four weeks, jobless claims have averaged just 262,000 weekly, handily beating last week's old record 4-week average low of 273,000.

Over the last eight weeks, jobless claims have now averaged an astonishing 273,000 weekly.

Annualized these average levels would fall into the range of 13.6 million to 14.2 million per year. The best actual performance under Bush was 16.2 million per year, also not-seasonally-adjusted. So these are excellent numbers indeed, if they can keep them up. The difference, however, is that under Bush the low levels of claims occurred simultaneously with high levels of employment.

By the way, the advance estimate of 228,399 in last week's report for September 7th merely bumps up this week to a revised 229,485. Supposedly reporting problems were blamed for the low level. It appears any missing numbers from last week appear in this week's advance estimate, which is up +42,262 week over week, which means this week's advance estimate is significantly higher than it really is.

Read this week's report here.

If It's A Number And It's On Rush Limbaugh, You Can't Trust It

Here is today's Rush Limbaugh basic K-8 math error, which keeps him and his audience from appreciating the fact that high gasoline prices have been pummeling the American people for one year longer than he says they have:

"The number of people losing their jobs is up. The number of jobs lost, all of this, is up. The one thing that none of these stories cover is another thing that's going on, and that is the price of gasoline has been over $3 a gallon for 20 months now.  Now, Obamacare is gonna raise everybody's health care costs.  Premiums are gonna skyrocket. The cost of food is way up.  Gasoline is over $3."

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Actually the number of people losing their jobs is DOWN and down big in the last 2 months to a rate low enough to compete with George W. Bush, if it can be sustained. Usually part-time is not up significantly, and usually full-time is almost back to where it was on Election Day 2008. The real story there is the failure of full-time to recover to the 2006-2007 level.

But gas has been above $3 for 1000 consecutive days, according to The Wall Street Journal, not 600 days:

1000

------  = 33 months (not 20).

30

He read it, he flubbed it, boo hoo. And you people pay for that?

New Stock Market High Based On Nothing But ZI(R)P

The total stock market makes another new high today on mere words from the Federal Reserve.

So what does that have to do with fundamental analysis?

ZI(R)P.

By Not Tapering, Fed Devalues Your $ In One Day By Almost What It Takes A Year To Do

The dollar fell 1.2% today because the Fed decided not to taper bond purchases, while year over year the dollar is down 1.5% to 1.8% because of inflation, as reported yesterday by the Bureau of Lies and Statistics, here:

The all items [Consumer Price] index increased 1.5 percent over the last 12 months. The [core] index [Personal Consumption Expenditures] for all items less food and energy has risen 1.8 percent over the last year; the 12-month change has remained in the range of 1.6 percent to 2.3 percent since June of 2011.

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By all means the Fed should have tapered, and increased interest rates to boot.

The war on the citizenry continues.

End the Fed.

(As far as broken clocks go, Ron Paul is correct twice every 24 hours).

Best American Rifleman Cover Ever

Leave Them There

Rush Limbaugh Can't Even Divide 1000 by 30

33: That's how many consecutive months gasoline has been above $3/gallon, but Rush just said 20 months.

Nipplehead.

The Wall Street Journal, yesterday, here:

"A millstone has reached a milestone. On Tuesday, the national U.S. average gasoline price chalked up its 1,000th consecutive day above $3 a gallon, according to the AAA. That’s a landmark most Americans couldn’t have dreamed of a decade ago: Pump prices didn’t break above the $2 level sustainably until 2005."

American Businesses Have Saved $2.8 Trillion In Last Four Years Due To ZIRP

In the form of lower borrowing costs, according to this story from Bloomberg:

America’s companies, from Apple Inc. (AAPL) to Verizon Communications Inc., are saving about $700 billion in interest payments with the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented stimulus. ...

Savings of about $700 billion represents the difference between what companies that have sold bonds since Sept. 17, 2009, are paying annually based on an average maturity of nine years for securities in the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. Corporate & High Yield Index, versus what they might have paid before the crisis.

After rising as high as 11.1 percent on Oct. 28, 2008, it wasn’t until Sept. 17, 2009 that yields fell below the pre-Lehman average of 6.14 percent, the Bank of America Merrill Lynch index shows.

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Just another reason corporate profits after taxes have skyrocketed to another record seasonally-adjusted annual rate of $1.83 trillion for Q2 2013.

First Black President Brings Record High Poverty And Inequality As The New Normal

You talkin' to me?

Hm. Imagine that.

From the Associated Press story, here:

The nation's poverty rate remained stuck at 15 percent last year despite America's slowly reviving economy, a discouraging lack of improvement for the record 46.5 million poor and an unwelcome benchmark for President Barack Obama's recovery plans.

More than 1 in 7 Americans were living in poverty, not statistically different from the 46.2 million of 2011 and the sixth straight year the rate had failed to improve, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. Median income for the nation's households was $51,017, also unchanged from the previous year after two consecutive annual declines, while the share of people without health insurance did improve but only a bit, from 15.7 percent to 15.4 percent.

"We're in the doldrums, with high poverty and inequality as the new normal for the foreseeable future," said Timothy Smeeding, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in income inequality. "The fact we've seen no real recovery in employment and wages means we've just flatlined." ... 

"This lack of improvement in poverty is disappointing and discouraging," said John Iceland, a former Census Bureau chief of the poverty and health statistics branch who is now a Penn State sociology professor. "This lack of progress in poverty indicates that these small improvements in the economy are not yet being equally shared by all."

Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who specializes in poverty, agreed.

"Everything's on hold, but at a bad level; poverty and income did not change much in 2012," he said. "So child poverty is still too high and family income is still too low. The recession may be over, but try to tell that to these struggling families. Don't expect things to change until the American economy begins to generate more jobs."

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Way to go, Brownie!

Kook Fringe Republican Comes Out For Gun Control

David Frum, here.

Guns don't kill people, Canadians do.

Charlie Gasparino Gets It Right: America Lost Its AAA Because Of Debt, Not Debt Ceiling

Charles Gasparino for The New York Post, here:

In fact, economic growth is barely existent on [Obama's] watch; millions of Americans have stopped looking for work and the country lost its Triple-A bond rating because debt isn’t the settled matter Obama pretends it is.

5 Years Post-Lehman Bros. Bankruptcy, VTSMX Makes New All Time High

Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index Fund is up 163% since the March 2009 low of 16.43.

On the day Lehman Bros. failed in September 2008, VTSMX closed at 29.24 but proceeded to fall from there another 44% into 2009 despite the passage of TARP in early October 2008, and despite massive short-term discounted loans to just about the whole world by the US Federal Reserve Bank denominated in the trillions of dollars throughout the period.

From the 2007 high to September 15, 2008 this fund had already fallen from 37.80 or nearly 23%. The total decline of the fund from the 2007 high to the March 2009 low was nearly 57%.

A decline of that magnitude from today's new high would land the fund back at 18.81.