Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Caroline Baum should be Treasury Secretary: She knows there's no reason even to think defaulting on the debt is possible
. . . unlike the rogues running the place currently, who are playing chicken with the full faith and credit of the US government.
Once again Caroline Baum cuts through the silliness and explains that there's plenty of revenue to pay what must be paid, here:
'The U.S. Treasury can’t cover all its monthly payments with incoming monthly revenue. But it can avoid default . . .. In any given month, the tax revenue flowing into the Treasury far exceeds interest payments — by a lot. Last month, for example, the Treasury took in $365 billion in tax receipts and made $21 billion in interest payments. For fiscal 2015, which ended Sept. 30, those figures are $3.2 trillion in tax receipts versus $402 billion in net interest. The U.S. government’s ability to service its debt — the principal can be rolled over — should not be an issue. But Treasury has made it one, claiming in 2011 and 2013 that it lacks the authority to prioritize debt payments, something households do all the time. ... [I]n written communications with the House Financial Services Committee in May 2014, the Treasury admitted that it would be “technologically capable” to prioritize debt payments.'
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Monday, October 19, 2015
Sunday, October 18, 2015
It's not just the satellite data showing a pause in global warming
The land record kept by NOAA does too. The decadal trend is actually slightly negative since January 1997: -0.19 degrees F per decade.
The warming models predict neither a pause let alone such a decline.
It's significantly warmer in Michigan, but it's nothing to get hysterical about
This graphic from Climate Central showing Michigan annual average temperature increasing 0.622 degrees F per decade 1970-2011 is pretty amazing.
I went to NCDC's Climate at a Glance page and reproduced that same result for myself just to verify it (0.6 degrees F per decade).
I went to NCDC's Climate at a Glance page and reproduced that same result for myself just to verify it (0.6 degrees F per decade).
But one has to ask, Why confine results to 1970-2011 (the terminus ad quem for the study, published in 2012, was 2011) when you can easily go back to 1895 and get a per decade trend result for a much larger sample?
The change in average temperature on a per decade basis for the whole available sample period 1895-2014 produces 0.2 degrees F per decade in Michigan, three times less per decade than for 1970-2011 alone. The result is identical also through 2011. Despite the significant warming since the year 2000, the long term trend remains unmoved and the current period of warming may actually have run out of gas.
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| Michigan average temperature is increasing 0.2 degrees F per decade 1895-2014 |
I thought it would be interesting to use the length of the sample period in question (42 years) and go back to the beginning of the record in 1898 and look at each 42 year period from then going forward to 1973 (which takes you through 2014) to see if there are any periods of decadal warming trend comparable to +0.6 degrees F per decade in 1970-2011. I chose 1898 to avoid some gaps in the record in some places in prior years in Michigan.
The results are graphed below.
It turns out there are five 42-year periods showing temperature trend of +0.5 degrees F per decade on the left side of the graph, beginning in 1903, 1912, 1914, 1915 and 1916. (Students of the Dust Bowl beginning in 1930, take note, as also those studying economics. Weak GDP of the era may be associated with warmer climate, as it also seems to be now.)
These correspond to six 42-year periods showing temperature trend of +0.5 degrees F per decade on the right side of the graph, beginning in 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1973.
If that were all that were to it, there would be no discussion of global warming today, despite the consecutive nature of the recent examples. The two data sets are almost a wash.
What is remarkable about the more recent data is the presence of four 42-year periods of +0.6 degrees F decadal trend (beginning in 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1970), and four of +0.7 degrees F (beginning in 1965, 1966, 1971 and 1972), all in conjunction with the +0.5 degrees F periods. It's a trifecta of warming data.
Still, overall the results show that there are two distinct periods where the decadal trend is consistently +0.2 degrees F or above: the 27 years from 1898 to 1924, and the 20 years from 1954 to 1973. In the former the average of the decadal uptrend is +0.3555 degrees F per decade. In the latter the average of the decadal uptrend is +0.4950 degrees F per decade. Clearly the latter period, contemporary with us, is significantly warmer than the former, by 39%, about which some of us have become hysterical.
The antidote to this is the trough of downtrend years in the middle of the graph which coincides with the period of the global cooling hysteria of the late 1960s and 1970s. The 42-year trend record went negative for 1928-1969 and stayed negative to flat until the period 1946-1987, nineteen years straight, twenty if you count the flat period 1927-1968. Year after year, the 42-year trends ended -.1 degrees F decadal trend or -.2. Many climate scientists predicted the return of an ice age while unbeknowst to them the seeds of a warming era were already germinating.
The record shows how quickly things can turn, for example 0.5 degrees F in trend in just seven years from 1923 to 1930, from above trend on net to well below it.
The decadal trend fell by a whopping 50% between 1917-1958 and 1918-1959, from +0.4 degrees F to +0.2.
More recently the decadal trend fell by 28.5% between 1972-2013 and 1973-2014, from +0.7 degrees F to +0.5. (It's entirely within the realm of possibility that decadal trend could revert to normal by the close of 2017.)
There was just one similar abrupt change to the upside. Between 1964-2005 and 1965-2006 the decadal trend shot up 40% from +0.5 degrees F to +0.7.
Otherwise the record shows incremental change in the trend from year to year, 0.1 degree F up or down at the most.
Don't be surprised when you see it.
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Surprise, The New York Times thinks Denmark, the land of the drunk, mean and discriminatory, is just wonderful!
Here, lying through its teeth, as usual:
'[Hillary] also said, “We are not Denmark.” Nope. Not by any stretch. Denmark has a slightly higher tax load on its citizens than the United States. But it also has budget surpluses, universal health care, shorter working hours, and was recently rated by Forbes magazine as the best country in the world for business.'
Hm, the same place as this:
"Yeah yeah, I’m being too harsh. Every country has problems, Denmark’s are just different from the ones I grew up used to. Overall, Denmark is quiet, introverted and socialist, my three favorite things. Also, if I ever want to spend a weekend being drunk, mean and discriminatory, at least now I know where to go."
The Danes lately excel at being in hock, in addition to being drunk, mean and discriminatory:
"Danish households owe their creditors 321 percent of disposable incomes, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That’s the highest ratio in the world and a level that’s prompted warnings from both the OECD and the International Monetary Fund to rein in borrowing. Danish authorities have argued that households aren’t at risk thanks to high pension and household equity levels."
Denmark has the top tax rate in the OECD in 2014, 60.4%, ahead of Sweden (56.9%), Portugal (56.5%), and France (54.5%). The rate for the US is listed at 46.3%.
Denmark's top tax rate is 30% higher than in the US. That's what The New York Times means by "slightly higher".
Denmark not coincidentally is a global frontrunner in depression and mental illness. It consumes 84 antidepressant doses per day per 1000 of population, second only to Iceland (101 doses).
Bernie Sanders call your office: The poor have higher incomes in the US in real terms in most cases
Bernie Sanders' debate claims about poor US children are eviscerated here by an adherent of Austrian economics:
"Thus, the fact that the US has higher poverty rates says very little about the actual living standards of the poor. The poor have higher incomes in the US in real terms in most cases. The countries that should really give us concern are the countries that have high levels of poverty and low median incomes. ... Greece, Mexico, Israel, Spain, Italy, Ireland, UK, and Portugal -- are the ones that have the least to offer the poor."
Friday, October 16, 2015
Obamacare's been fabulous . . . for investors in healthcare company stocks
Story here:
"Since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act took effect two years ago in the rockiest of rollouts, American health-care companies outperformed every industry in the U.S. Taken together, they are the best collection of stocks among worldwide peers."
Profiteering off of human misery is standard operating procedure in the United States of Crony Capitalism.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Bush W-2 employment 2004-07 narrowly beats Obama's 2011-14
Bush gains in W-2 employment:
2004 1.7 million
2005 2.2 million
2006 2.3 million
2007 1.7 million
total 7.9 million
Obama gains in W-2 employment:
2011 1.0 million
2012 2.2 million
2013 2.2 million
2014 2.4 million
total 7.8 million
The first six years of Bush: 5.8 million
The first six years of Obama: 2.8 million
Rush Limbaugh thinks the 46 million on food stamps are the U-3 "counted" unemployed, many of whom actually can and do work
Yesterday, here:
"Today, there are 46 million Americans unemployed, and 94 million not working. Now, these 46 million people, these are the counted unemployed. This is the U-3 number. The counted unemployed represent 14% of the population."
Limbaugh somehow gets this convoluted mess from here, which he cites but which clearly states the 46 million are those on food stamps, not the U-3 "counted" unemployed:
"The reason you don’t see huge lines of people waiting in soup lines during this Greater Depression is because the government has figured out how to disguise suffering through modern technology. During the height of the Great Depression in 1933, there were 12.8 million Americans unemployed. These were the men pictured in the soup lines. Today, there are 46 million Americans in an electronic soup kitchen line, as their food is distributed through EBT cards (with that angel of mercy JP Morgan reaping billions in profits by processing the transactions). These 46 million people represent 14% of the U.S. population."
In the latest Employment Situation Summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for September, those actually counted as unemployed are listed at 7.915 million (2.5% of the population) and the not counted as unemployed at 1.9 million:
"In September, the unemployment rate held at 5.1 percent, and the number of unemployed persons (7.9 million) changed little. Over the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons were down by 0.8 percentage point and 1.3 million, respectively. (See table A-1.) . . . In September, 1.9 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down by 305,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)"
U-3 is not a number in millions as Limbaugh says but a rate, the percentage of the labor force which is unemployed (7.915 million / 156.715 million), namely 5.1%.
Limbaugh doesn't understand that lots of employed people get food stamps. Individuals grossing up to $15,312 annually can still qualify for assistance.
Almost 49 million individuals made up to but not more than $15,000 annually in 2014.
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| The unemployed in Sept. 2015 numbered 7.9 million |
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| U-3 is a percentage |
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Democrat debate audience gave Hillary just 17 votes out of 233, coming in third behind Sanders the overwhelming winner and O'Malley
From the story here:
"Not everybody voted, but when it was all over, Bernie was the big winner, with 139 votes. O'Malley came in second with 67 votes."
Democrats win by circling the wagons while Republicans stage circular firing squads
Bernie Sanders rallied around Hillary Clinton tonight over her e-mail problems, admitting it wasn't in his political interests to do so. The two of them almost made love on stage. The crowd went nuts.
Democrats understand the principle: don't help your enemies, help your friends.
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