Saturday, March 17, 2018
Friday, March 16, 2018
For the cost of California's LA to San Fran bullet train, we could have THREE border walls
One with Mexico, one with Canada, and one with DC.
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Hillary blames married white women for her loss, and James Comey's re-opening the investigation into her
In India, quoted here:
"Democrats, going back to my husband and even before, but just in recent times going back to Bill and our candidates and then President Obama, have been losing the vote, including white women. We do not do well with white men and we don't do well with married white women," Clinton said.
"All of a sudden white women, who were going to vote for me and frankly standing up to the men in their lives and the men in their workplaces, were being told, ‘She's going to jail. You don't want to vote for her. It's terrible, you can't vote for that.' So, it just stopped my momentum and it decreased my vote enough because I was ahead. I was winning, and I thought I had fought my way back in the ten days from that letter until the election. I fell a little bit short," Clinton said.
Trump to name the brain dead Kudlow to replace Gary Cohn at National Economic Council
The brain dead Kudlow, who served during the Reagan Administration but can't remember a better month for jobs than the 313,000 reported for February 2018, is reported to be Trump's choice to head the National Economic Council.
The story is here.
Once again the libertarian pests throw an election to the Democrats
They live for this sort of thing.
If it were a jobs boom we wouldn't STILL have a deficit of 6,437,680 jobs in February 2018
The difference between civilian employment at 60% of civilian non-institutional population in February 2018 and the 62.6% average before the Great Recession is 6,437,680 jobs.
Call me when Trump gets it up.
Hooah Jim Geraghty!
Here:
Government doesn’t louse up everything, but it sure louses up a lot of what it promises to deliver:
from the Big Dig to Healthcare.gov;
from letting veterans die waiting for health care to failing to prioritize the levees around New Orleans and funding other projects instead;
from 9/11 to the failure to see the housing bubble that precipitated the Great Recession;
from misconduct in the Secret Service to the IRS targeting conservative groups;
from lavish conferences at the General Services Administration to the Solyndra grants;
from the runaway costs of California’s high-speed-rail project to Operation Fast and Furious;
from the OPM breach to giving Hezbollah a pass on trafficking cocaine.
The federal government has an abysmal record of abusing the public’s trust, finances, and its own authority. Now some people want it to take on a bigger role? If you want to enact a massive overhaul of America’s economy and government to redistribute wealth, you first have to demonstrate that you can accomplish something smaller, like ensuring every veteran gets adequate care. Until then, if you want to live like a Norwegian, buy a plane ticket.
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Trump acts like he had nothing to do with appointing the people who oppose his own policies . . .
. . . just like Obama acted like he had nothing to do with country's unemployment, low GDP and home foreclosures for years after he was first elected.
Monday, March 12, 2018
There is no jobs boom: Full-time in February 2018 is still 6 million behind where it ought to be
For the ten years before the Great Recession, full-time averaged 51.4% of civilian non-institutional population.
In February 2018, we're still down in the basement trying to climb our way out. After ten years! Currently just 49.1% have full-time jobs.
The pre-recession rate applied to the present population level would yield six million more working full-time than there really are. We should have 132 million working full-time. Instead we have 126 million.
There is no jobs boom, just more of the same slow recovery. At this rate it'll still take many more years for full-time to recover to pre-recession levels. The odds of a recession intervening first are high.
Sunday, March 11, 2018
So-called National People's Congress of China votes 2,959-2 to remove term limits for Xi Jinping, with 3 abstentions
The story is here.
So, our two main rivals in the world are now each ruled by perpetual dictators, as they were in the past.
And to think from 1992 some in the West foolishly accepted the idea of the end of history, "that the worldwide spread of liberal democracies and free market capitalism of the West and its lifestyle may signal the end point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and become the final form of human government."
Not even Francis Fukuyama believed it for more than three years.
Unfortunately the George W. Bush administration, in its ignorant hubris, did.
But here we now are, having squandered the intervening years, and Trump is just fine with the new dictatorships. He admires them no less than Obama did. They are grandiose, like he is, like Obama is. He wishes he could be one of them, too.
When was the last time you heard a statesman from the West call on these rival powers to throw off their chains and embrace freedom?
I can't remember, either.
Freedom as we have known it in the world is in great peril, and we hardly care.
Therefore we will lose it, sooner rather than later.
Freedom as we have known it in the world is in great peril, and we hardly care.
Therefore we will lose it, sooner rather than later.
Laugh of the day: Trump's goal is reportedly 208,333 new jobs every month for 10 years
So says the story at The Daily Caller here.
Har har HAR........dee har har.
After 16 months (November 2016 inclusive through February 2018) the actual monthly rate of gain has been 182,500.
If you prefer from inauguration month instead of election month (January 2017 inclusive through February 2018), 14 months, the actual monthly rate has been 177,214.
February 2017 inclusive, first full month of presidency, through February 2018, 13 months, the rate has been 175,461.
From the post-recession low in February 2010 (not inclusive), exactly 8 years ago, through February 2018 the actual monthly rate of gain has been 192,197.
So by no measure of Trump's performance is he yet anywhere near the actual average performance post-recession of 2007, let alone near his own goal.
The best overall performance in living memory was under Bill Clinton when monthly gains averaged over 242,000 monthly over 8 years. But this coincided with the peaking of the Baby Boom in 1957 clocking in 20 years in the labor force by the end of the Clinton era, in 1999. The Baby Boom fueled the Clinton boom in every way, from jobs to housing to GDP, and also the stock market.
It's been all downhill from there.
Since peak total nonfarm employment in February 2001, just before the recession of that year through February 2018, the economy has added only 75,500 jobs a month.
Good luck to Mr. Trump, but the demographic odds are not in his favor, on top of the headwinds from his own immigration policy.
In this context Trump's stated goals do not reflect knowledge of reality or self-knowledge, only hubris.
Saturday, March 10, 2018
Larry Kudlow is brain dead and he's on the radio
Like Rush Limbaugh, Larry Kudlow doesn't accurately remember the Reagan era.
It's embarrassing coming from these self-appointed spokesmen for Ronald Reagan.
Unlike Limbaugh, however, Kudlow actually served in the Reagan Administration so he really ought to know better, but today on the radio he kept saying that the jobs created in February 2018 (313,000) don't get any better than that.
Flashback to February 1984: jobs added 481,000. Or February 1988: jobs added 453,000.
Need more?
June 1983: +379,000. July 1983: +418,000. September 1983: +1.115 MILLION.
1.115 MILLION!
IN ONE MONTH!
Do I need to go on?
Yes, I think I do.
November 1983: +353,000.
December 1983: +356,000.
January 1984: +446,000.
April 1984: +363,000.
June 1984: +379,000.
July 1984: +313,000.
November 1984: +349,000.
March 1985: +346,000.
July 1986: +318,000.
September 1986: +347,000.
April 1987: +338,000.
July 1987: +347,000.
October 1987: +492,000.
June 1988: +363,000.
September 1988: +339,000.
November 1988: +339,000.
The current jobs boom isn't a boom, not yet, not by a longshot, and is NOTHING like the Reagan era, and Kudlow is doing a disservice to the historical record in which he played a part.
You've become a political hack, Larry.
Pace Ann Coulter and The NY Times, core employment in February 2018 still hasn't recovered to the 2007 peak
In February 2018 core employment, ages 25 to 54, is 100.1 million, peak was 100.7 million, 11 years ago.
Count 'em.
Spare me the Rah! Rah! Trump! until there's something significant to cheer about.
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