Saturday, October 26, 2013

Average Hourly Earnings Up For Everyone 7% Since ObamaCare Passed

If ObamaCare has been cutting earnings for the workforce in sectors which have witnessed a trend toward part time work, it's not showing up overall. Average hourly earnings for all employees are up 7% since March 2010, when the bill was rammed down our throats in a completely partisan vote. The sectors impacted, like retail and fast food, simply aren't big enough to drag down the overall picture.

Average Weekly Hours For Everyone Up 1.5% Since ObamaCare Passed

If ObamaCare has been cutting hours for the workforce in sectors, it's not showing up overall. Average weekly hours for all employees are up 1.5% since March 2010, when the bill was rammed down our throats in a completely partisan vote. The sectors impacted, like retail and fast food, simply aren't big enough to drag down the overall picture.

Looks Like A Libertarian Is About To Spoil Another Race For The Republicans

In the Virginia race for governor the Libertarian's support is the margin of difference between Cuccinelli and McAuliffe.

Friday, October 25, 2013

Moochelle's 1985 Princeton Classmate An Executive At Firm Which Designed Failed Healthcare.gov

From the story here:

Toni Townes-Whitley, Princeton class of ’85, is senior vice president at CGI Federal, which earned the no-bid contract to build the $678 million Obamacare enrollment website at Healthcare.gov. CGI Federal is the U.S. arm of a Canadian company.

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Of four bids submitted, only the one from the firm of Moochelle's classmate was considered by the Obama regime.

Foreclosed New Jersey Homeowners Staying In Their Homes Rent-Free For YEARS!

From the story here:

"Its happening all over new jersey with Hudson & Cape May ranking the highest, 80% of people remaining in the home for years during foreclosure."

Kathleen Sebelius Should Forget About Resigning, She Should Be Fired: She Thinks She Doesn't Work For Us!

The arrogant bitch, quoted here:

“My goal is to actually get the website up and running,” she told reporters. “The majority of people calling for me to resign I would say are people who I don’t work for and who do not want this program to work in the first place. I have had frequent conversations with the president and I have committed to him that my role is to get the program up and running and we will do just that.”

Obama, healthcare Liar In Chief in 2009: “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are involuntarily losing their healthcare plans as we speak and being forced to sign up for ObamaCare on a website which doesn't work.

From the story here:

Hundreds of thousands of Americans who purchase their own health insurance have received cancellation notices since August because the plans do not meet Obamacare’s requirements.

The number of cancellation notices greatly exceed the number of Obamacare enrollees.

Insurance carrier Florida Blue sent out 300,000 cancellation notices, or 80 percent of the entire state’s individual coverage policies, Kaiser Health News reports. California’s Kaiser Permanente canceled 160,000 plans — half of its insurance plans in the state — while Blue Shield of California sent 119,000 notices in mid-September alone.

The Obama Regime Shut Out Private Online Healthcare Brokers For Over 3 Years

The Obama regime shut out help from private online health insurance brokerage firms for over three years, and it wasn't until July 31 that it finally relented and entered into partnerships with private online health insurance brokerages like ehealthinsurance.com, which routinely handles online traffic in a range up to 20 million, to facilitate ObamaCare's online presence.

CNBC reported the breakthrough here and the story was widely disseminated at the time.

But USA Today here featured a story earlier that month which highlighted the frustration of such brokerages over the way the regime had shut them out until the very last minute, when it was already way too late:

So far, none of the government exchanges being run by the federal government, individual states, or federal-state partnerships has given ehealthinsurance.com and other for-profit Web markets the green light to enroll uninsured individuals under the Affordable Care Act's subsidized coverage scheme.

"I'm just totally mystified, puzzled, flummoxed as to why the administration isn't using somebody like me to help," said eHealth CEO Gary Lauer, whose company is a leading industry player among a dozen or more Web-based markets that have sought to partner with various government exchanges.

Lauer noted that he had been an enthusiastic supporter of the new health law championed by President Barack Obama. But the stone-walling, foot-dragging and other inexplicable hurdles that he says his company has faced in offering subsidized insurance under that law has made him increasingly skeptical of the plan. ...

But Lauer and others think the delay on allowing participation by Web marketplaces may be a canary-in-the-coalmine indication of overall problems with the exchanges being ready for business by October.

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No one in America should have been surprised to see the rollout of Healthcare.gov fail spectacularly like it did when it made its appearance at the beginning of this month.


Thursday, October 24, 2013

Hypocrite Hillary Tells Heckler The Future Doesn't Include Yelling

Here, even though her past sure did, and even her very recent past.


"We have to be willing to come together as citizens to focus on the kind of future we want, which doesn't include yelling. It includes sitting down and talking with one another," Clinton said in response to the heckler to huge applause from the audience.

2003: 

HILLARY 2003 (screeching): I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic, and we should stand up and say, "WE ARE AMERICANS AND WE HAVE A RIGHT TO DEBATE AND DISAGREE WITH ANY ADMINISTRATION!"

Early 2013:

What difference does it make?!

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Doyle McManus Discovers That The Middle Class Is Becoming The Underclass

Here in the Los Angeles Times article "Poof Goes The Middle Class", in which the liberal Doyle McManus relies on a libertarian prognosis for the future where efficiency and economy is all:

. . . middle-class American jobs being eliminated by automation and outsourcing, downward pressure on wages for all but the most skilled, growing inequality between the wealthy and everyone else, and elected officials who don't seem capable of slowing those trends, let alone stopping them. … If people have decent low-cost housing, food and healthcare, they might even be happier in a middle-classless future, [libertarian economist Tyler Cowen] speculates.



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In other words, an impoverished, stratified society based on free trade which Marx welcomed because it would finally lead to the social revolution of the many have-nots against the few haves after eliminating the rung on the ladder between them, the middle class:

"Generally speaking, the protectionist system today is conservative, whereas the Free Trade system has a destructive effect. It destroys the former nationalities and renders the contrast between proletariat and bourgeoisie more acute. In a word, the Free Trade system is precipitating the social revolution. And only in this revolutionary sense do I vote for Free Trade."

-- Karl Marx, 1847

Funny how contemporary libertarianism is completely oblivious to its role in this preparation for revolution and the impetus given to it under America's first Marxist president, while liberalism lies prostrate before it asking, New ideas, anyone?

Libertarians don't just spoil elections for Republicans in favor of Democrats, they ruin conservative republics on behalf of communism no less than liberals do.


Chinese Bad Bank Debt Write-Offs Explode 188% Year Over Year

From the story here:

China's five major banks have written off 22.1 billion yuan ($3.65 billion) of debt in the first six months of the year that couldn't be collected, compared to 7.65 billion yuan a year earlier, according to the news agency [Bloomberg]. The report added that the move is more than likely a cleaning-up process ahead of what may be a fresh wave of defaults in the world's second-largest economy.

Republican Gov. John Kasich Pulls An Obama, Suspends Ohio Medicaid Law That Displeases Him

No doubt that will please Ann Coulter, who loves it when governors act like dictators.

The Wall Street Journal reports, here:

Mr. Kasich simply decided to cut out Ohio's elected representatives and expand Medicaid by himself. This week he appealed to an obscure seven-member state panel called the Controlling Board, which oversees certain state capital expenditures and can receive or make grants. Because the feds are paying for 100% of new enrollees for the next three years, Mr. Kasich asked the panel to approve $2.56 billion in federal funding, and then he'll lift eligibility levels via executive fiat. It's a gambit worthy of President Obama, who also asserts unilateral powers to suspend laws that displease him and bypass Congress. The Controlling Board, which Mr. Kasich and his allies in the GOP leadership stacked with pro-expansion appointees, approved the request 5-2 on Monday. Mr. Kasich's action is all the more flagrant considering the state legislature did not merely refuse to appropriate or authorize spending the federal money. The GOP majority passed a budget with specific language prohibiting the Governor from expanding Medicaid without its consent. Mr. Kasich used a line-item veto to remove that provision, but he's still violating the spirit of the law.

Since ObamaCare Passed In 2010, Involuntary Part-Time Has Slowly Declined

Since ObamaCare passed in 2010, peak levels of involuntary part-time work have slowly but actually declined from in excess of 9.2 million in 2010 to 9.1 million in 2011, to 8.6 million in 2012, to 8.2 million in 2013.

These levels remain extraordinarily high, but are an after effect of the depression of 2008-2009 and cannot be blamed on ObamaCare. You can blame Obama for not doing anything about it, but you can't really point to ObamaCare as the cause of high levels of part-time employment because those levels have actually declined about 10% since the law was passed. Things might be different had Obama not unilaterally and unlawfully delayed the employer mandate in ObamaCare, but it is what it is, and until the law takes full effect it is not possible to say much more.

There appears to be a lower bound at 7.6 million below which involuntary part-time has so far been unable to fall. If the metric doesn't break that barrier this winter, all it will tell you is that the lingering after effects of the depression are still with us, not that ObamaCare is part-timing the work force.

A real recovery in jobs would put this measure back in the 4 million range where it was before the crisis of 2008 hit, on the assumption that the roughly 4 million extra people in this category who work part-time would be the first to be elevated to full-time when employment conditions improve.

Usually Full-Time Work Has Steadily Increased Despite The Passage Of ObamaCare In 2010

Usually full-time work has steadily increased despite the passage of ObamaCare in March 2010. Although full-time work has not completely recovered to its level reached when Obama was first elected in November 2008, which is a pathetic performance taken by itself for which Obama deserves all the criticism he gets (but not on television), full-time has nevertheless steadily recovered in a rising pattern which peaks in the summers and falls in the winters, which is just what was shown by the most recent data in the delayed release of the September employment situation report. Only a fall of full-time below the 114 million mark this winter would break the pattern and suggest ObamaCare might be at work destroying full time employment in this country.  

Usually Part-Time Workers No More Numerous Now Than Before ObamaCare Passed In 2010

Usually part-time ebbs in summers, flows in winters, but is not up abnormally due to ObamaCare.
Usually part-time workers are no more numerous now than before ObamaCare passed in March 2010. Claims that ObamaCare is part-timing the workforce are so far unsubstantiated for the workforce as a whole.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The US Dollar Currency Index Low Was 71.58, Reached In April 2008

71.58 on the US Dollar Currency Index in April 2008 represented a decline of the dollar in excess of 40% from the 120 level which prevailed before the closing of the gold window in 1971.

Since 1967 The US Dollar Currency Index Average Is 97.76, But 120 Remains The Gold Standard Benchmark

The US Dollar Currency Index benchmark is really 120 since that is the level which prevailed before the closing of the gold window in 1971, after which the index declined to average 97.76 to date.

September Unemployment Falls To 7.2%, The Broadest Measure To 13.6%

Obama: Making this time different than all the rest
The BLS employment situation report is late, here, due to the government shutdown.

The number of unemployed remains high at 11.3 million, accounted for in the headline rate of 7.2%. The U6 measure at 13.6% includes those, plus the part-time for economic reasons and the marginally attached workers, which all together still number 21.5 million, unchanged from August.

Just 148,000 jobs are said to have been added in September, but the average number of jobs added monthly over the last year now comes in at 185,000, or 2.22 million. In August the figure was 184,000 and two months prior to that 182,000, so there has been very minor progress in job growth.

Average hours worked remains unchanged at 34.5 hours for private non-farm employment, and average hourly earnings are up 2.1% in the last year, or 49 cents, to $24.09/hour.

Don't spend it all in one place.

Obama's employment recession, already easily the very worst and deepest in the post-war, is now 1.75 years longer than Bush's at 5.67 years and counting. And unless things improve dramatically on the jobs front, it looks to me like it's going to take almost another year for Obama's red line in the graph to get back to zero.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Vindictive CNSNews.com blames Speaker Boehner for $3 trillion jump in total public debt



Thus, all spending and borrowing by the federal government are the de facto and de jure—n.b. constitutional—responsibility of the House of Representatives that John Boehner leads.


Well, yeah, and the Bible says "Judas went and hanged himself" and "go and do thou likewise".


The author of the posting, Terence Jeffrey, never once places the spending and borrowing in their broader historical context of the economic depression which ensued in 2007, long before John Boehner took the reigns as Speaker of the House in 2011.

Never once does Mr. Jeffrey mention the revenue side, which dried up like an old prune in consequence of the panic which saw home prices crash and a record 29.5 million people file first time claims for unemployment in 2009. Nor does he bother to mention the deliberate, bi-partisan decision taken to reduce revenues to relieve the American people in this situation by temporarily cutting their Social Security taxes by 33% for back to back years in 2011 and 2012 when nothing else seemed to be working to revivify the economy. Revenues constrained by declining tax receipts due to depression-like conditions all over the economy coupled with these tax cuts, after peaking in fiscal 2007 at $2.568 trillion, for the next five fiscal years never once got above that level after reaching their low in 2009 at $2.105 trillion. What did Mr. Jeffrey expect to happen given that, the debt to decline?

One suspects Mr. Jeffrey isn't interested, however, in any of the facts and their context, only in slamming John Boehner. Otherwise he'd have mentioned them, and that Boehner's predecessor Democrat Nancy Pelosi increased the debt at a rate 63% faster in 2009 and 2010 than Boehner has in his nearly three years as Speaker.

Really bad form, old boy.

Saturday, October 19, 2013

If profit margins were historically normal, the Shiller p/e would be about 29 here, not 24

So writes John Hussman, here, on Tuesday last:


Meanwhile, the current Shiller P/E (S&P 500 divided by the 10-year average of inflation-adjusted earnings) of 24.2 is closer to 65% above its pre-bubble median. Despite the 10-year averaging, Shiller earnings – the denominator of the Shiller P/E – are currently 6.4% of S&P 500 revenues, compared to a pre-bubble norm of only about 5.4%. So contrary to the assertion that Shiller earnings are somehow understated due to the brief plunge in earnings during the credit crisis, the opposite is actually true. If anything, Shiller earnings have benefited from recently elevated margins, and the Shiller P/E presently understates the extent of market overvaluation. On historically normal profit margins, the Shiller P/E would be about 29 here. In any event, on the basis of valuation measures that are actually well-correlated with subsequent market returns, current valuations are now at or beyond the most extreme points in a century of market history, save for the final approach to the 2000 peak.

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You have been warned.