Sunday, January 29, 2017

Noah Millman at The American Conservative discovers the inverse of "Employment Population Ratio: 25 - 54 years"

Here, excitedly writing about the inverse of this chart which has been around for a long time:


















The problem with measuring employment with this chart, or unemployment with its inverse as Millman advocates, is that this cohort (25 to 54 years of age) has been shrinking due to declining birth rates. The meaning it conveys has changed over time for this and other reasons.

Rising birth rates of the Baby Boom until 1964 help explain the dramatic upward movement in the chart thereafter in the first place, along with the entry of Baby Boom women into the workforce at the same time, a second most important variable.

Additionally, at the peak of the Baby Boom in 1957, the birth rate was 25.3. Twenty years later in 1977 it was only 15.1 and has remained thereabouts and even lower ever since.

The lower birth rates have been winding their way through the employment statistics while female employment was peaking at the same time, like the inverse of a goat going through the belly of a snake but undetectable because of the female phenomenon. The peak in the employment population ratio of this cohort notably coincides with the 1957 peak of the Baby Boom hitting 20 years in the workforce in January 1999, shown above. They hit 30 years in the workforce in 2009, right in the middle of the Great Recession.

Ask how many 52 year olds lost their jobs that year (29.5 million of all ages lost their jobs in 2009), and then passed out of the range of this chart within two years, only to be replaced by . . . not enough people born after 1964.

Interestingly, employment for women in this cohort, while still not fully recovered, is off only 600,000 from the 2007 peak, but for men is off 1.8 million, both on an average basis through 2016. That's a deficit of 2.4 million, but based on declining birth rates I'd estimate most of them won't ever materialize in the future . . . because they never existed.

During the Baby Boom between 1946 and 1964, births per year averaged 4.0 million. But between 1965 and 1992, today's 25 to 52 year olds, births per year averaged just 3.6 million per year.

That's 11.6 million fewer people to take up today's slack.

This is probably as good as it gets.

Never Trumper David French calls Executive Order on refugees "a dramatic climb-down from his worst campaign rhetoric"


Trump’s order isn’t a betrayal of American values. Applied correctly and competently, it can represent a promising fresh start and a prelude to new policies that protect our nation while still maintaining American compassion and preserving American friendships. 


Ann Coulter v Obama judge from the Cow College of Law

Trump overwhelms the enemy just like the Alinskyite Obama, except Obama was lazy

With an outrage a day (to the left), sometimes two or three, Trump is overwhelming the enemy in the MSM and Democrat Party (but I repeat myself) just as Obama did us. Most of us were busy working jobs at the time, if we still had them, or trying otherwise to survive the transformational diktats with which that tag team of codependents sick with liberalism tried to subvert the country. We had no allies except ourselves.

The difference now is that Trump is the Energizer Bunny Obama could only dream of being. Trump isn't doing this just from 10AM to 2PM Monday through Friday hyphenated by lunch, content to have organized the hive to do the heavy lifting so that he can head for the links or the next soirĂ©e with the rich and famous. Which is another important difference between Trump and Obama. Trump is already rich and famous, and owns the golf courses. Been there. Done that. He doesn't need the presidency to gain access to that life. He has bigger fish to fry.

Trump's vigor has already made Obama's legacy the size of a golfball in the sand trap Newt Gingrich predicted, but after only one week in office not three months.

And he works weekends.

It's going to be a long eight years for the left.

And I hope the right can keep up.

Saturday, January 28, 2017

FOMC minutes from November 2011 show Federal Reserve presidents laughing at us, quick to blame unemployment on the unemployed

Including at the time Dennis Lockhart, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Charles Plosser, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and Jeffrey Lacker, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Story here.

Plosser
Lockhart


Lacker

Alan Blinder's alternative facts about the politics of GDP

Alan Blinder, Bill Clinton's Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, quoted and discussed here:

“Here is an interesting historical fact. Since Harry Truman, the growth rate has fallen every time a Republican president replaced a Democrat and has risen every time a Democrat has replaced a Republican.”

No, not every time, in either case.

Nixon/Ford current dollar GDP growth (Republican) was better than previous JFK/LBJ GDP (Democrat), up 100% vs. 80%.

And Obama current dollar GDP growth (Democrat) was worse following Bush GDP (Republican), up 30% vs. 39%.

For best growth of current dollar GDP in the post-war, Democrat presidents own positions one and four covering 12 years, but Republicans own positions two and three covering 16 years:

Carter: 13.5%
Nixon/Ford: 12.5%
Reagan: 10.1%
JFK/LBJ: 10.0%.

Four Republican administrations lasting 8 years each have averaged 8.2% in the post-war, and four Democrat administrations lasting 8 years each have averaged 7.5%.

Democrat Carter's 4 years at 13.5% easily beats Bush 41's 4 years at 6.0%, but this hardly offsets the better Republican performance over the long haul compared with the Democrat (see here for the figures).

Current dollar GDP growth by president in the post-war shows Obama in last place as the Baby Boomers fizzle

Obama:   29.6%
Bush 43: 39.0%
Clinton:  56.3%
Bush 41: 23.8% (4 years)
Reagan:  80.9%
Carter:    54.1% (4 years)
Nixon/Ford: 100.0%
JFK/LBJ:       79.6%
IKE:       42.1%
FDR/Truman: 72.7%

Ranked by performance divided by years in office:

Carter: 13.5
Nixon/Ford: 12.5
Reagan: 10.1
JFK/LBJ: 10.0
FDR/Truman: 9.1
Clinton: 7.0
Bush 41: 6.0
IKE: 5.3
Bush 43: 4.9
Obama: 3.7





Thursday, January 26, 2017

Gallup poll finds Americans most want the same old same old two incompatible things: Government spending and tax cuts


George Will excommunicates himself from the Republican Party

Yippee.

Story here.

Mickey Kaus is right: Stop adding new Dreamers


'Trump could focus on stopping any new work permits to undocumented “Dreamers,” while giving existing Dreamers whose work permits are expiring an extension of two or three months — or 6 months — while he tries to cut the “deal” he says he wants'

Trump doesn't need to end DACA for those already approved under Obama's unconstitutional amnesty . . .

. . . but he does need to stop approving new cases immediately.

He can show discretion to illegals under the program already, as he calls them and which they are, by continuing to grant temporary extensions pending his policy finalization.

But he must stop approving new cases, immediately. Otherwise this is a magnet for continuing illegal immigration.

Turn it off.

DACA cases still being approved despite Trump promise to stop program immediately

From the story at Bloomberg two days ago here:

The program, created by former President Barack Obama in 2012, has allowed more than 700,000 people brought to the country as children to obtain renewable two-year work permits. It can be reversed at any time by the president. On his campaign website and at rallies, Trump said he’d cancel it, decrying it as “unconstitutional.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Tuesday in an unsigned e-mail from its media office that it has continued to issue new work permits since Trump’s inauguration. The agency said it is still processing applications, as the Obama policy remains unchanged.

“We can confirm that DACA cases have been approved, and some denied, since 1/20/17,” the agency said, using an acronym for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

How Mexico will pay for THE WALL: OK collects $11m from its 75k illegals sending money home by wire transfer

That's about $147 per head.

With 11 million illegals in the US, that's about $16 billion, enough to pay for THE WALL in a year or two. 

Story here. Map of illegals by state here.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

The turnout for Hillary's inauguration: 0


The sexism and vulgarity of the Women's March on Washington is more equal than everyone's

CNBC and AP report here with a straight face in "Sexist, vulgar posts on women's marches rebound on officials":

A school board member in Hillary Clinton's hometown resigned after making a derogatory reference on Twitter to the female anatomy in describing women marching against President Donald Trump. An Illinois teacher was pulled from the classroom for a tweet deemed sexist. And a freshman Indiana lawmaker was inundated with criticism over a Facebook post mocking "fat women."



Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Female Secret Service agent in Denver defies the Hatch Act, says the Hatch Act be damned

And you thought the swamp was in a low area in DC.

Obama lawlessness has bred lawlessness everywhere, not just in Ferguson, Missouri, Dallas, Texas, . . ..

Story here.

The men's march against fascism didn't get a permit first, and didn't need no stinkin' signs


Non-violent drug offender whose sentence was commuted by Obama hunted down and assassinated in Saginaw

Though thought defunct, Saginaw's Sunny Side Gang strikes again, apparently.

Story here.