Global Warming In Grand Rapids, Michigan: Cumulative Temperature Deficit of 26.5 Degrees Fahrenheit January-July 2014

Grand Rapids, Michigan has been building an impressive record of below average temperatures in 2014:

January -6.3 F below average

Feb.      -9.1

March  -9.0

April    -0.4

May    +0.6

June    +1.8

July     -4.1

That's 26.5 degrees F below normal for seven months, or 3.79 degrees F below normal on average for every month this year through July.

And August to date is already -1.4 degrees F.

Noted libertarian argues Ron Paul copied Fabianism, subverted the Republican Party from within with a veneer of Christian conservatism

Ben Domenech here:

It is absolutely ludicrous to argue that the momentum in our political sphere among the younger generation is not more libertarian. It’s obvious to anyone who’s paying attention to politics on the ground. Why is that? Well, it’s not because of the Libertarian Party. It’s because there’s a host of younger people, the children of George W. Bush voters or Bush voters themselves, who realized that libertarianism speaks more to their worldview than modern day conservatism. It’s because Ron Paul worked to build an army of volunteers and took the message of libertarian ideas to a generation of voters, with a focus on slowly taking over the Republican Party. It’s because the views of Ron and Rand, Mike Lee, Justin Amash, and other libertarian-leaning Republicans on the issue of abortion made them more palatable to a Christian audience (as opposed to someone like former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who takes the opposite view on the abortion issue). Why is the Token Libertarian Girl, pro-life Christian Julie Borowski, not just a typical Republican? The Pauls evangelized libertarian ideas to a young audience ready to hear them and eager to make them a reality; and then, with the rise of the Tea Party, they expanded that appeal beyond the youngsters, too. That’s why.

The 7 lean years (2007-2013) vs. the 7 fat years (2000-2006)

The lean, in GDP per capita:

2007 +0.8
2008 -1.2
2009 -3.7
2010  1.7
2011  1.1
2012  2.0
2013  1.1
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average = 0.26% / year



The fat, relatively speaking:

2000  2.9
2001  0.0
2002  0.8
2003  1.9
2004  2.8
2005  2.4
2006  1.7
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average = 1.79% / year

Heritage Foundation's Stuart Butler of ObamaCare mandate fame decides he's more comfortable at the liberal Brookings Institution

Conservatives seeking institutionalization. No wonder Robin Williams committed suicide.

Seen here:

Mr. Butler, 67 years old, said he was attracted to Brookings by the idea of working at a place that is not monolithic in its approach to public policy.

“Brookings is a different kind of institution. It’s a collection of scholars as opposed to a team-focused organization,” Mr. Butler said in an interview Thursday. “There’s an opportunity to sit around in the cafeteria to talk about all kinds of different issues from the theoretical to the practical.”

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Stuart Butler was the author of the original healthcare mandate idea at Heritage in 1989. He's been trying to walk that back ever since 2010, but what appears to have driven him into the arms of the liberals was the ascendancy of libertarian Senator Demented Jim to head up Heritage, who subsequently brought in Club For Growth founder Steve Moore, who was The Wall Street Journal's libertarian bad boy for many years.  

Avowed liberal and Democrat, actor Robin Williams, supposedly commits suicide

Nikki Finke here:

The actor suffered a lifelong struggle with depression, alcohol and drugs. After starting his battle with addiction in the 1970s he once explained it this way: "Cocaine for me was a place to hide. Most people get hyper on coke. It slowed me down." ... [A]vowed liberal and Democrat, Williams was a frequent supporter of and contributor to progressive causes and campaigns.

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Some people would say self-destructive behavior ending in suicide is the logical conclusion of liberalism, and that Robin Williams simply finally realized that.

We'll see if it really was suicide.

I for one think the liberalism is an artifact in this case. It's more an example of the tragic hero whose incredible gift almost depended on a deeply profound curse from which it derived its sheer magnitude and excellence, a bipolar extremism which few can imagine or understand who haven't experienced it for themselves.

Food stamps go to 46,225,054 Americans in May 2014

Down 3% from May 2013.

Libertarians are really about restricting people less, which makes them liberals not conservatives

From The New York Times, here:

[Nick] Gillespie [of Reason Magazine] was unimpressed by Ronald Reagan, who declared a new “war on drugs,” raised the national drinking age to 21, raised all sorts of taxes, preserved Social Security which Gillespie regards as federally mandated generational theft) and in general claimed to champion American individualism while squashing it every chance he got.

“I was never conservative,” he told me as we sipped our gin. “Republicans always saw libertarians as nice to have around in case they wanted to score some weed, and we always knew where there was a party. And for a while it made sense to bunk up with them. But after a while, it would be like, ‘So if we agree on limited government, how about opening the borders?’ No, that’s crazy. ‘How about legalizing drugs? How about giving gays equal rights?’ No, come on, be serious. And so I thought, There’s nothing in this for me.”

". . . Part of why I’m a libertarian is that if you restrict people less, interesting stuff happens.”

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Conservatives restrict themselves. If libertarians restrict anything, it just shows their incoherence.

Damn those speed limit and stop signs, and those cops, which keep me and my kid safe on the way to school, except less so now thanks to libertarianism in places like Colorado, where the interesting stuff which is happening is more traffic accident deaths due to marijuana legalization.

Libertarians. Malcontents. Sectarians. 

Obama is John Galt

"The problem is, Republicans in Congress keep blocking or voting down almost every serious idea . . .. This obstruction keeps the system rigged for those at the top . . .. And as long as they insist on doing it, I’ll keep taking actions on my own . . .." (Radio address, 6/28/14)

One important reason Brian Ellis lost to Justin Amash

You don't robocall Republican-inclined voters on election eve featuring a Democrat urging Democrats to cross over and vote for Ellis in the Republican primary, and then say you paid for it.

I don't think that endeared Republican-inclined voters to Ellis, who suspected there was no there there to begin with. Offering no alternative to radical libertarianism made Brian Ellis a lousy candidate. Who wants to vote for libertarian-light when you've got the real deal in Amash?

This seems to be all too characteristic of Republicans: they frequently portray themselves as moderate liberals, whether it's being for abortion in the cases of rape, incest and life of the mother, civil unions, DADT, smarter big government, or Heritage Foundation health care mandates.

Republicans need to figure out what conservatism is and whether they ought to believe in it. Until they do they'll continue to mistake libertarianism for conservatism. Even Nancy Pelosi is for "In God We Trust". Justin Amash is not.

Justin Amash, arrogant little prick, ran to stop people he hates, not represent them

In his own words here:

"Brian Ellis, you owe my family and this community an apology," Amash said. "You had the audacity to try to call me today after running a campaign that was called 'the nastiest in the country.' "I ran for office to stop people like you." . . . "I want to say to lobbyist Pete Hoekstra, you're a disgrace," said Amash, noting the former U.S. representative who appeared in a TV ad for Ellis. "I'm glad we can hand you one more loss before you fade into total obscurity and irrelevance."

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In the political world imagined by the founders of our country, there would be just 30,000 people in Justin Amash's district, who would no doubt have some tar and feathers always at the ready for the likes of him.

Intermediate term bonds have beaten stocks handily over the last 15 years

Morningstar shows the total return from VBIIX for the last 15 years at 6.45% per annum to August while the average return from the S&P500 for the 15 years through June has lagged at 4.23% nominal.

Attention long term stock market investors: How's an average 1.53% per year since the last market high in August 2000 sound?

Cause that's all you've got.

The inflation-adjusted S&P500 market high was in August 2000 at 2048.89.

By their fruit ye shall know them: Sermon by MLK Jr. inspires "Christian" abortionist

Seen here:

Parker says his “come to Jesus” moment, persuading him of the “call” to abortion, happened when he heard a sermon by Martin Luther King Jr. on Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. By performing abortion, Parker sees himself as the Samaritan, caring for the beaten neighbor on the side of the road.

Uh huh.

Chicks still are shit: Society more receptive to gay rights than women's

Seen here:

For now, said Suzanne B. Goldberg, a law professor at Columbia, "the court's recent gay rights decisions seem to be catching up with women's rights cases of earlier decades."

"At the same time," she added, "we live in a society that now seems more receptive to gay rights than women's rights generally, so it is disheartening but not surprising to see that reflected in decisions like Hobby Lobby, which failed to see the link between contraception access and women's equality."

Ebola Virus Divides America: Alinsky's Rule of Polarization as practiced by Obama comes straight out of Aristotle

Most of these ordinary safeguards of tyranny are said to have been instituted by Periander of Corinth, and also many such devices may be borrowed from the Persian empire. These are both the measures mentioned some time back to secure the safety of a tyranny as far as possible [including] . . .  to set men at variance with one another and cause quarrels between friend and friend and between the people and the notables and among the rich . . ..

-- Aristotle, Politics, 5, 1313ab

Rule 13: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.

-- Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

A broad measure of market valuation flashes higher warning: 2Q2014 total stock market capitalization to GDP ratio

Now that 2Q2014 GDP is in, it's time to look again at the ratio of total stock market capitalization to GDP.

Using the Wilshire 5000 as a proxy for the whole market, you find it closed at 20862.74 on June 30, 2014, the last day of the second quarter. 20862.74 X $1.2 billion = $25.035288 trillion of total stock market capitalization on record date.

Current dollar (that is, nominal) GDP for the second quarter just came in at $17.2947 trillion in this week's report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The ratio of the capitalization divided by the GDP is thus 1.45, ticking up from 1.41 at the end of 1Q2014 (23.995212 divided by 17.044).

The ratio for 1Q2009 was 0.72, exactly half what it is today.

Buyer beware.

Jobless claims not seasonally adjusted now average 310,000 weekly in the last month

310k weekly annualizes to 16.1 million. Claims in the first half of the year annualized to about 16.95 million.

If the trend in the last month continues, 16.5 million actual claims is in the realm of possibility, a very good number.

CNBC laugh of the day: Report of booming economy lifts S&P500 0.12!

Here:

"Also on Wednesday, official data showed the U.S. economy expanded in the second quarter at a better-than-expected annualized 4 percent. This helped the S&P 500 and Nasdaq end higher."

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Evidently the GDP report helped lift only the NASDAQ. Uh huh.

Average report of GDP under Obama 43% worse than under Bush

For 2001 through 2008, according to today's comprehensive GDP revision from the BEA, George W. Bush had an average report of GDP at 2.1%. For 2009 through 2013, Barack Obama has had an average report of GDP at 1.2%, almost 43% worse on average than Bush.

2Q2014 GDP comes in at 4% in first estimate, 1Q adjusted again in the comprehensive annual revision to -2.1%

Reuters points out here that growth in the first half now comes to . . . 0.9%:

"The economy grew 0.9 percent in the first half of this year and growth for 2014 as a whole could average above 2 percent. The first quarter contraction, which was mostly weather-related, was the largest in five years."

Note that expectations at fxstreet had bumped up from 2.9% earlier to just 3.0% before this morning's BEA release, which will probably end up being closer to the truth two months from now in the final estimate than today's 4% print.

Recall the saga of the first quarter:

Advance estimate +0.1%

2nd estimate -1.0%

Final estimate -2.9%

Comprehensive revision released today -2.1%.

So now the terrible winter quarter to kick off the year was actually only 28% less bad than we thought a month ago, 110% worse than we thought two months ago, and 2200% worse than we thought three months ago.

That's progress!