On Tuesday 258 Republican candidates are bought and paid for by the illegal-alien-amnesty-friendly US Chamber of Commerce

Reported here:

Democrats, though, have increasingly fallen out of favor with the Chamber in the Obama era. In 2008, it endorsed 38 Democrats. In 2012, it endorsed five. This cycle, the Chamber has issued 260 endorsements, a total that includes just two Democrats — Reps. Henry Cuellar in Texas and Jim Costa in California. It promises that more Democratic endorsements are on the way, but it will be telling to see how much money the Chamber devotes to saving Democrats in tight races. ... In 2010, with big business rebelling against Democratic initiatives like the Affordable Care Act, cap-and-trade environmental protections and union-friendly "card check" legislation, the Chamber raised and spent $33 million on political activity, winning 87% of the races in which it endorsed a candidate. 

Colorado Republican Cory Gardner running for Senate openly promises to cave on illegal alien amnesty

Breitbart reports here:

Gardner also came out in favor of what he called “earned status” as “part” of comprehensive immigration reform when asked whether he favored extending legal status to illegal immigrants, and that “Ultimately I think the DREAM Act is going to be part of the solution.” ... Gardner, who carried a conservative voting record in the House, has steadily moved left on the issue after entering the Senate campaign against Udall.

Wall Street Journal fears conservatives are winning: Trots out libertarian from Cato Institute to smear Laura Ingraham as nativist

You know Laura Ingraham. She hates foreigners so much she adopted three of them, one from Guatemala and two from Russia, and reportedly almost married a very dark-skinned man.

Here:

Many in the GOP are jockeying for the soul of the party ahead of an anticipated 2014 midterm election victory. Social conservatives are eager to reassert their influence after repeated defeats over gay marriage. Fiscal conservatives make the case for a greater emphasis on runaway spending. And then there are the nativists, who contend that the future of the Republican Party lies in opposing immigration reform. Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, for example, said last month that, “Immigration could be to 2016 what ObamaCare was to 2010.”

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Swine.

It used to be the conservative movement consisted of social, fiscal and foreign policy wings. The libertarians don't have a foreign policy because they believe in open borders, so they had to invent something they could caricature and toss in order to have a simpler, Manichean world in which they, the sons of light, fight us, the social conservative sons of darkness.

Two-front wars are too hard for libertarians.

Millions of skilled Americans are still without jobs, but Terri Lynn Land in Michigan wants to bring in more foreigners

Quoted here:

We should modernize visa tracking, increase high-tech visas to bring more highly-skilled workers here, make sure businesses have the tools to effectively verify the status of employees and shorten wait times for those who play by the rules.

If the US Chamber of Commerce endorses Joni Ernst in Iowa, you know she'll cave on illegal immigration

Everyone knows the US Chamber of Commerce holds a gun to the head of Republicans demanding they reach a compromise on illegal immigration with Obama and the Democrats. Joni Ernst obviously got the message way back in May.

When Laura Ingraham recently asked her about illegal immigration on the radio show, Joni Ernst immediately defaulted to the issue of worker visas. Ingraham had to remind her that many Americans are out of work and should come first before we consider importing workers. Joni Ernst reacted almost like she was ashamed she hadn't gotten the memo ahead of the interview.

Enough said.

Terri Lynn Land is basically a TARP Republican, not a capitalist who believes in bankruptcy

Terri Lynn Land quoted here:

I think that doing something to protect the auto industry was the right thing to do, but I would have preferred a plan with more private financing. However, if the options were choosing between going this route and doing nothing, I am glad the auto industry was preserved and is growing again.

Gold miners dive: VGPMX plunged to 8.91 yesterday, hasn't been that cheap since January 2002

The historical low for VGPMX was 5.05 on 8/31/98. The historical high was 40.02 on 5/19/08. The maximum NAV gain was 692.47%.

Alan Greenspan gave gold the kiss of death on Wednesday, suggesting it was a good investment idea going forward. Gold promptly fell out of bed, dropping $21.50 on Thursday and today is down about another $35 so far. Miners say they cannot remain profitable if gold departs much from the $1,200 range. Meanwhile the dollar is soaring toward 87 as the Fed has ended QE.

The maximum NAV gain for VTSMX, by the way, has been 414.31%.

Ebola nurse goes for a bike ride: Will she become Typhoid Kaci?

Why this stock market may have another 20% left in it

Simply stated, the market has another 20% in it because it hasn't yet reached the extremes of valuation which we witnessed in 1999. That's not to say that it must reach those extremes, but it is possible.

At that time, total market cap to GDP came to 1.72, using the Wilshire 5000 as a proxy for the total market (times 1.2).

Since current dollar GDP is $17.5354 trillion, the current ratio is only 1.42, but the level of the Wilshire 5000 implied by a ratio of 1.72 would be about 20% higher than where it is today (total market cap of $30.1609 trillion or Wilshire 5000 25,134.07).

The Wilshire 5000 starts the day at 21,005.50.

Good luck!

Falling oil imports/record rising refined petroleum exports account for today's startling trade contribution to GDP

The Oil and Gas Journal reports here that September petroleum imports plunged to the 1995 level while September was a record month for exports of refined products:

Total petroleum imports for September registered a 16.3% drop from the prior year, averaging just below 8.4 million b/d, which was the lowest level since February 1995. Crude oil imports averaged 7.4 million b/d, down 6.7% over the same period, to the lowest September level in 18 years. Imports of refined petroleum products dropped 52.5% to average 1 million b/d, the lowest level for US Energy Information Administration records dating to 1981. Meanwhile, exports of refined products increased 18.4% from last year to nearly 4.3 million b/d, the highest September level on record and the third-highest exports level ever recorded.

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Imports are a subtraction from GDP, so the big drop in imports coupled with a big surge in refined petroleum exports in September no doubt contributed significantly to the net plus to GDP in the trade column of today's report.

The American Petroleum Institute reports separately here that imports of petroleum in 3Q2014 were 11.4% lower than in the same period in 2013.

The stock market remains very expensive as of the end of 3Q2014

Nominal GDP rose to a level of $17.5354 trillion annualized for 3Q2014, according to the advance estimate of third quarter GDP released today.

Total stock market capitalization had an approximate value of $24.9126 trillion on September 30, 2014.

The ratio of total market cap to GDP on the record date therefore comes to 1.421, down slightly from the 1.445 level which prevailed in 2Q.

The ratio was as low as 0.74 as recently as the end of 2008.

The stock market therefore was about 92% more expensive at the end of September 2014 than it was at the end of 2008, and became just 1.7% cheaper between the second and third quarters of 2014.

3Q2014 GDP Advance Estimate comes in at 3.5%: Deliberately underreporting imports right before the election?

The share contributed to GDP in today's report breaks down as follows:

Personal consumption of goods and services: 34%

Private domestic investment: 4%

Net from export trade: 37%

Government consumption: 23%

I don't believe the import number in the report, which was -1.7%!

What, did the weather close all the ports of entry during July, August and September and we didn't know about it?

Imports, of course, subtract from GDP, so this negative import number boosts the contribution made by exports to GDP.

The last time the import number was negative was in the advance estimate of 1Q GDP, at -1.4%.

You remember 1Q, right, the terrible winter months of January, February and March? But as we all know, that negative number became +0.7% in the second estimate, and +1.8% in the third and final report.

Also note that a surge in defense spending in the third quarter for the war against ISIS all by itself accounts for almost 19% of GDP in this report and 80% of the reported share of government consumption contributing to GDP.

Backing out that government spending on the war means the GDP number is more like 2.8%.

And economists had expected GDP to come in at 3%. 

Jobless claims average 265K weekly, not-seasonally-adjusted, in October 2014

265,000 claims weekly in October is the equivalent of an annual rate of 13.8 million total claims.

Claims in the last four months are now averaging roughly 266,000 weekly compared with the first half of the year at 326,000 weekly.

This means total claims are on track with two months left in the year to come in at a record low in the 21st century in the vicinity of 15.4 million total claims. The best record had been under George Bush with 16.2 million claims.

Poverty thresholds for 2013

Poverty guidelines 2014

As seen here.

Completed foreclosures in September still 119% above normal

Corelogic reports here that completed foreclosure activity reached 46,000 nationally in September, 25,000 above the normal 21,000 level before the housing apocalypse began in 2007.

The report indicates there have been 5.2 million completed foreclosures since September 2008 and 7 million homes lost to foreclosure since 2004, ten years ago.

Florida, California, Texas, Michigan and Georgia alone account for almost half of all completed foreclosures in September.

Maybe Senator Jon "Tin Ear" Kyl really wants Republicans to lose next week

Here is the former Senator from Arizona Republican Jon Kyl in The Wall Street Journal (where else?) just days before the Republicans are about to take back the Senate PUTTING HIS FOOT IN IT, complaining about the Boehner/Obama tax compromise because in his view it really penalized the middle class. It's almost as if he doesn't want Republicans to win next week:

Most workers’ pay has not kept up with inflation for at least six years. ... Why aren’t wages rising? ... [O]ne factor is often overlooked: the tax increase on “the rich” at the beginning of 2013. How could higher taxes on the top 2% or 3% hurt the middle class? ... When the government takes more, there is less to plow back into the business or invest elsewhere.

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Weren't these tax rates the Bush tax rates? Weren't Republicans trying to get them made permanent for years, without success until Boehner came along? If they were so bad for the middle class, why did Republicans pass them in the first place?

Let's see, when we had these tax rates up through the late financial panic, including the lower capital gains tax rates, the first thing businesses did under them was fire everybody to save their sorry behinds. They didn't care about the workers then, and they sure as hell don't now. Millions have abandoned the workforce as a result and won't be returning.

Meanwhile, the all items CPI is up 8.8% over the last six years, while average hourly earnings of all private employees still working is up 12.75% over the same period. Note to Kyl: please pick a metric which makes your point without contradiction.

And then there's the tax rate he is so upset about, which affects the top 0.42% only, all single filers making in excess of $406,751 in 2014. That top tax bracket now pays a higher capital gains tax rate on long term gains at 20% instead of 15% under the compromise, but for some reason Kyl is too sheepish to mention this is a 33% tax hike. Apparently he's too embarrassed to be that specific, because in terms of individual wage earners in 2013 that might affect just barely 520,000 individuals, who are at the very top of the heap of 155.77 million wage earners.

Way to go, Kyl. Paint the Republicans as the party of the rich. The Democrats must love you because they will be more than happy to claim that wages are up because they raised taxes on the rich.

Average Effective Federal Funds Rate by chairman of the Fed in the post-war

William McChesney Martin (15 years)  3.62%
Arthur F. Burns (8)        6.49%
G. William Miller (2)    9.56%
Paul Volcker (9)           10.45%
Alan Greenspan (19)     4.86%
Ben Bernanke (8)          1.58%
Janet Yellin (less than 1) .09%

Average Effective Federal Funds Rates in the post-war by decades

1955-1960  2.62%
1961-1970  4.58%
1971-1980  7.72%
1981-1990  9.44%
1991-2000  4.96%
2001-2010  2.35%
2011-2013  0.12%
2014 to date .09%

Post-war average (six decades): 5.3%

Why do voting machines in heavily Democrat states always malfunction in favor of the Democrats, huh?

Just recently in Schaumburg, Illinois, here, and now in Maryland, here.