Sunday, July 21, 2013

Inflation-Adjusted Hourly Earnings Up Just 2.5% Over 8 Years, But Down 1.8% Since 2011

average annual figures shown
Real hourly compensation is up just 2.5% from 2005 through 2012, but down 1.8% from the 2011 peak.

Manufacturing Jobs Remain Down 8.3% Under Obama

Manufacturing jobs remain down 8.3% since Obama was first elected in November 2008, nearly five years ago.

The decline under almost eight years of George W. Bush was a whopping 22.7% (this data series begins in April 2001).

Recovery of manufacturing jobs under Obama began to flat-line in February 2012, over a year and a half ago.

Steve Clemons Of The Atlantic Discovers U6 Unemployment 5 Years Into The Biggest Story Of Our Time

Don't tell Steve Clemons U6 has been measured since 1994
Except he doesn't really discover it until the commenters clue him in to the fact.

Here's the relevant snip assuming Leo Hindery Jr. must be a god for discovering the truth about the real extent of unemployment:


"In other words, BLS reports that official unemployment stayed flat at 7.6% while Hindery's more extensive figures show that real unemployment increased by 0.4% to 14.3%."

Then two commenters, one of which is "dormilon" below, break the bad news to Clemons in the comments section:


"I was equally confused by what appears to be the author's lack of familiarity with the 'alternative measures for labor utilization.' The BLS doesn't just issue one set of unemployment estimates (U-3) as implied above (For decades, the only employment numbers that anyone would discuss were those issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).), it issues an array of estimates that are disseminated with varying degrees of acceptance or familiarity. And, yes, that U-6 number should definitely be much better understood and publicized."

Commenter "Dcoronata" then goes in for the kill:


"Once you start an article the way you did, sophisticated readers already know not to bother. If the rules have not changed, then there is no duplicity, just bad journalists."

Clemons took it personally:

"Your comment borders on ad hominem."

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No, I'd say it is most definitely ad hominem. Face it, Steve, you're a dumb shit, and a liberal who hasn't cared about the biggest story of our time until someone you esteem told you to care about it. There is no "Deception in Counting the Unemployed" as Steve's headline indicates, just bipartisan indifference about it.




Saturday, July 20, 2013

What A Coincidence. Mortgage Debt Outstanding Has Dropped $1.3 Trillion Since 2009 . . .

. . . and the Fed just happens to have $1.2 trillion of MBS on its balance sheet today, about a third of which the Fed has acquired in the last nine months. The Fed currently owns over 9% of the face value of all mortgage principal owed. The decline in total mortgage debt outstanding since 2009 is also just over 9%. Hm.

Gold/Oil Ratio Ends Week at 11.966, Advantage Gold

Gold is 1292.90 and WTI crude 108.05 (nearly at parity with Brent!). Gold remains a technical buy with the ratio 20% below 15, but that may be an illusion with the increase in the price of oil on unrest in Egypt and Syria.

Friday, July 19, 2013

Tonight's Balance Sheet Of The Federal Reserve: $1.2 Trillion In Shitty Mortgages

Look for yourself, here.

$1.2 trillion is the "remaining principal balance of the underlying mortgages". That's one third of the total balance sheet.

Acquired at the pace of $40 billion a month, it would take the Fed 2.5 years to acquire all that crappy mortgage paper, but of course the latest iteration of MBS acquisition at $40 billion a month has been going on only since last September. That means just $440 billion of the $1,200 billion has been acquired recently.

There's a whole lotta crummy paper out there, folks. And Ben Bernanke and the US Federal Reserve Bank have been buying it . . . just for you!

QE Is For The Banks, Nothing Else

Quantitative easing is for the banks and nothing else, despite the long-standing professorial deflections to the contrary by Ben Bernanke.

Oh, he can say it's to help housing recover, or employment, or whatever else happens to be languishing depending on the exigencies of the moment. But God forbid Ben should say what everyone ought to have understood from the beginning, that there's a huge pile of non-performing loans on the banks' books. Ben's various iterations of QE have kept him busy systematically transfering to the books of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States significant tranches of those bad loans, and it won't be until those transfers end decisively that you can be sure that the banks are finally in the clear.

Meanwhile, have you considered that when Keynes said markets can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent that Keynes never imagined how un-free markets were to become in the Western world? Five years out from the troubles of 2008, that the purchases of MBS continue apace should at once frighten everyone and galvanize support to reform the banking system and prioritize the commitment of its central bank to the integrity of the US dollar.

The voices warning us are out there. You just won't hear them on your television, which you should turn off at a minimum, and preferably execute loudly in your backyard with a shotgun, or drop on your driveway from a second story window. Please send film.

Consider this from Manuel Hinds, former finance minister of El Salvador and 2010 winner of the Hayek Prize, here:


"[H]igher interest rates would burst the bubbles in asset prices that monetary printing has created, bringing to the surface the losses that banks have accumulated by years of lending to unsustainable activities. Thus, the Fed is between a rock and a hard place. If it does not increase the rates of interest, excess demand will explode leading to high inflation, large current account deficits or both. If it increases interest rates, the activities that are profitable only with very low interest rates will collapse, including the equity and commodity markets. This would expose the banks to very large losses, which would trigger a serious crisis because the banks have accumulated bad assets for over a decade now and have cleansed them only partially because they trust that the government will save them without having to take painful write-offs. As a snowball going down a slope, the problem gets worse with time. ... The coming breakdown is likely to be much worse than that of 2008."


Or this from Joseph Calhoun of Alhambra Investment Partners, here, who doesn't consider that QE is so negative for present GDP growth because it is "financing" past growth now ensconced as bad debt:

"There are any number of reasons why QE might be negatively impacting growth, from high oil prices to the diversion of capital to speculative purposes to its effects through exchange rates on other countries with which we trade. I do not claim to know the full extent of the effects of QE but most importantly, neither does Ben Bernanke. That being the case and considering the evidence to date, why does Bernanke persist in pursuing the policy? Is there some other reason for the policy other than the stated one of spurring economic growth? If so, Bernanke sure isn't telling anyone what it is."

Or this from the ever-wise John Hussman, here:


"Meanwhile, with a monetary base of $3.27 trillion and an estimated duration of at least 7 years on present Fed holdings, the recent 100 basis point move in bond yields has created a loss of over $200 billion for the Fed. The Fed reports capital of only $55 billion on its consolidated balance sheet. but then, just like major banks, the Fed does not mark its assets to market. Most likely, the Fed is now technically insolvent. Moreover, the Fed is levered more than 59-to-1 even against its stated capital. The benefits of QE seem vastly overpriced and excessively trusted, particularly in an environment where the internal debate even within the Fed is becoming more pointed. Two members already want the Fed to taper in order “to prevent the potential negative consequences of the program from exceeding its anticipated benefits.” ... We don’t observe any material economic impact from quantitative easing, and continue to believe that the key event in the recent credit crisis was the FASB move to abandon the requirement for mark-to-market accounting among financial institutions (the Fed’s zero interest policy has merely allowed banks to recapitalize themselves on the backs of savers and the elderly on fixed incomes)."

QE is financial repression of the American taxpayer for the benefit of institutions which should be wound down and broken up. How long are you going to put up with it? Can you last another five years?

If Obama Had A City, It Would Look Like Detroit




















h/t Steyn

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Obama And Holder WANT The Country Divided Over Race Relations

It's one key to maintaining their power:


"What has been already mentioned is as conducive as anything can be to preserve a tyranny; namely, to . . . endeavour that the whole community should mutually accuse and come to blows with each other, friend with friend, the commons with the nobles, and the rich with each other."

-- Aristotle, On Tyranny


Wednesday, July 17, 2013

A Third Federal Court Strikes Down Obama's Recess Appointments As Unconstitutional

Reported here:


A third federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that President Obama violated the Constitution last year when he made recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, adding more weight to the case as it goes before the Supreme Court in the justices’ next session.

Rep. Paul Ryan Hasn't Been Conservative On Immigration Since 1994

From Boston.com, here:


Ryan is hardly a newcomer to the issue. In 1994, when he worked with Kemp, he wrote a 4,000-word rebuttal to proponents of Proposition 187, the California ballot initiative that denied benefits to immigrants in the country illegally. He backed the immigration overhaul bill crafted by McCain and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., that nearly became law in 2007.

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The demographic problem of Baby Boomer retirement didn't yet exist in 1994 as it does now but Ryan was still in favor of cheap illegal labor for American business at the expense of legal citizen labor then. Paul Ryan is not a conservative and never has been. If he were, he would stand for the rule of law against the ineluctable fact of illegality.

That betrayal of the rule of law, now enshrined in the Senate immigration bill which gives legal status to law-breakers, is no different from Obama's selective enforcement of American law, which means his deliberate breaking of the law himself, from deportation rules to his own ObamaCare law and the now defunct DOMA.

They are all, Republican and Democrat alike, unfit to serve in their present positions, let alone in any future position. They are traitors to their own country and what it stood for but no longer does.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Spineless Republicans Cave On Cordray Nomination, CFPB Spying On Citizens


Republican Sens. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), Susan Collins (Maine), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), John McCain (Ariz.), Rob Portman (Ohio), Roger Wicker (Miss.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Bob Corker (Tenn.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) voted with Democrats to confirm Cordray. ... Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee ... pointed out that Republicans want to replace Cordray's director position with a bipartisan “board of directors with staggered terms.” He also expressed concern over recent reports that the bureau is conducting “unprecedented data collection.” “The CFPB [Consumer Protection Financial Bureau] is collecting credit card data, bank account data, mortgage data and student loan data,” Crapo said ahead of the vote. “This ultimately allows the CFPB to monitor a consumer’s monthly spending habits.”

More here, if you need to puke.

Sen. Harry Reid wins.

So, George Zimmerman Was The Victim Of A Hate Crime . . .

. . . because Trayvon Martin picked a fight with what he thought was a homosexual rapist.

Video here.

There's Your Regular Run Of The Mill Cracker . . .










Jimmy Savile
. . . and then there's your pedophile cracker, affectionately known as the Crazy Ass Cracker.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Black Teens Assault Hispanic Man Shouting "This Is For Trayvon"

We're ALL Creepy Ass Crackers To Them
The Baltimore Sun reports here:


"They were just yelling and calling him names as they ran after him, but once they were hitting him and after that they started yelling, 'This is for Trayvon, [expletive],'" said Dudley, who heard the chant repeated multiple times.

Do Nothing Congress Increases Revenue, Spends Less

So says Molly Ball, here:


But the ironic thing is that, by virtue of its very do-nothingness, the do-nothing Congress got a big thing done. First, in the fiscal-cliff deal struck around the new year, wealthy Americans’ income-tax rates went up, a policy change long sought by the president and his party. Then, in March, the budget ax known as sequestration fell, chopping $1 trillion from federal spending over the next decade—a cherished goal for fiscal conservatives. More revenue plus less spending equals a lower deficit. A much lower one. Richard Kogan, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, estimates that these changes, combined with the domestic-spending caps imposed by the 2011 debt-ceiling deal (and counting savings on interest), will reduce the deficit by $3.99 trillion through 2023. That’s enough to stabilize the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio, meaning that the debt will no longer be growing faster than the U.S. economy. In short, the deficit has been tamed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

She doesn't mention that both ideas were Obama's. Funny, Obama doesn't mention it either.

"House Republicans are doing the people’s business by obstructing"

So says Jerry Shenk for PennLive.com here:


Reacting to Democratic overreach, American voters chose gridlock over “productivity” by awarding Republicans the House of Representatives following the 2010 mid-term tsunami and preserving their majority in 2012. House Republicans are doing the people’s business by obstructing the ambitions of President Obama and Washington Democrats.

Just 6% Think Immigration Reform Is Our Number One Issue

"barking up the wrong tree"
So reported Bloomberg a week ago, here:


In a June 1-4 Gallup poll, 43 percent of Americans named either the economy or employment and jobs as the No. 1 issue facing the U.S., while 6 percent said immigration topped their list of concerns.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

The Swiss Overwhelmingly Want To Be Home Owners But Aren't

And the famous Robert Shiller really doesn't care, here:


Consider Switzerland, which by several accounts has had one of the lowest rates of homeownership in the developed world. In 2010, only 36.8 percent of Swiss homes housed an owner-occupant; in the United States that same year, the rate was 66.5 percent. Yet Switzerland is doing just fine, with a gross domestic product that is 4 percent higher, per capita, than that of the United States, according to 2011 figures produced at the University of Pennsylvania. It’s not that the Swiss inherently prefer renting. A 1996 survey asked a sample of Swiss whether, if they could freely choose, they would rather be homeowners or renters. Eighty-three percent said homeowners.

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To hell with what people want, right? Just keep property values so high only the likes of David Niven, William F. Buckley, Jr. and Tina Turner can afford to own there.



Saturday, July 13, 2013

Krauthammer On Big Sis' Resignation: "Her Record Was The Underwear Didn't Explode"

The Price Of Gas Is 147% Higher Than It Was 11 Years Ago

The price of gasoline today is 147% higher than it was eleven years ago, but the CPI is up just 29.15%, May on May, 2002 to 2013 (latest available figures). So gasoline in Grand Rapids in July 2002 at $1.51 per gallon adjusted for inflation measured on "all items" arguably should be just $2.13/gallon today.

Instead gasoline's cheapest price today in GR is $3.73/gallon, 147% higher than in 2002.

What, oil companies weren't making a profit eleven years ago?

Friday, July 12, 2013

How A Good Central Banker Is Supposed To Behave

not like this under Greenspan and Bernanke
David Merkel, here:


A good central bank fights the politics of the nation of which it is a part and tries to preserve purchasing power, ignoring labor unemployment. It tries to be a paper "gold standard." That has not been the Fed for 25+ years.

Bernanke Contradicts Himself

So says Jeffrey Snider, here:


Chairman Bernanke stole the show yesterday, certainly by his accommodative and now contradictory stand. I suppose that is the danger in trying to talk “markets” toward “targets”, much like Greenspan in the late 1990’s. Toward that end, he made at least one prediction that will likely come true (in sharp contrast to the Fed’s history), namely that the unemployment rate understates the weakness in the jobs market. ... As to the potential for tapering, that has always been about the rock and the hard place; the rock being asset bubbles in housing, credit and, yes, stocks vs. the hard place of lackluster, at best, economic performance. Given the problems of real time economic tracking and the dubious record of ferbus and other econometric models in use it would make sense that the FOMC appears to subscribe to each and every possible outcome concurrently. The committee both backs the accommodative approach (employment might be weaker than indicated) and the taper approach (things are getting much better) all at the same time.
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Still, it's an odd way to behave if you are being shown the door in a few months.


Rep. Cantor Divines New Founding Principle Which Just Happens To Lead To Dream Act




"One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents."

-------------------------------------------------

Well, if anyone should know about founding principles, it's Eric Cantor:


"Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." -- Exodus 20:5


Thursday, July 11, 2013

Bernanke Reverses Himself With More "Accommodation", Tanks Dollar Over 2%

Someone must have found out something about The Bernank. Was it with the help of the NSA? In May bald Ben broached the topic of tapering just two days after Obama effectively fired him by saying Ben had been at the Fed too long just like Mueller has been too long at the FBI (a total slap in the face to Ben), and when Ben doubled down on the tapering again in June to show that he was really serious opinion broadly ridiculed him. Bonds took it in the shorts, and savers lost a lot of money. Now he's completely reversed himself all of a sudden, stocks are flying to new heights and the dollar erases its gains. He's either a manic depressive, or Obama's got something on the guy.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Obama Thinks He's King James II

Michael W. McConnell of Stanford Law School and the Hoover Institution says as much, here:


President Obama's decision last week to suspend the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act may be welcome relief to businesses affected by this provision, but it raises grave concerns about his understanding of the role of the executive in our system of government.

Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution states that the president "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." This is a duty, not a discretionary power. While the president does have substantial discretion about how to enforce a law, he has no discretion about whether to do so.

This matter—the limits of executive power—has deep historical roots. During the period of royal absolutism, English monarchs asserted a right to dispense with parliamentary statutes they disliked. King James II's use of the prerogative was a key grievance that lead to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The very first provision of the English Bill of Rights of 1689—the most important precursor to the U.S. Constitution—declared that "the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of parliament, is illegal."

To make sure that American presidents could not resurrect a similar prerogative, the Framers of the Constitution made the faithful enforcement of the law a constitutional duty.

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I'd say rather that this episode raises grave concerns about Obama's commitment to the role of the executive in our system of government. He understands it well enough, and wants to dispense with it. We therefore should dispense with him.


Yep, That Could Be Obama's Boy Alright

Monday, July 8, 2013

The (Loser) Republican Establishment Is Behind Immigration Amnesty, Not Conservatives

The newest ad campaign supporting the immigration amnesty bill from the US Senate is from American Action Network, according to the Chicago Tribune, here:


“This is the tough border security America needs,” said the television ad, the first to specifically target the House from American Action Network, whose Hispanic Leadership Network has sought to educate lawmakers about immigration. It notes that the surge is supported by conservative leaders, including what is essentially a who’s who of potential 2016 presidential contenders: Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the former vice presidential nominee. The ad will run nationally in prime time this week on the Fox News channel.

The founders of American Action Network are Fred Malek of Nixon administration Bureau of Labor Statistics "Jewish cabal" infamy and ex-Democrat Norm Coleman, who lost his US Senate seat to that formidable foe, Stuart Smalley. The sister organization to the Network is American Action Forum headed by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, of losing John McCain campaign fame. Evidently Messrs. Rubio, Bush and Ryan don't mind it one bit being mixed up with these retreads, but then again, Rep. Ryan knows all about hooking up with losers.

Malek managed the losing reelection campaign of Pres. George Herbert Walker Bush, and was co-chair of the John McCain presidential campaign finance committee. Oh yeah. In a civil fraud action brought by the SEC in 2003 Malek reportedly paid a personal fine of $100,000. Unlike President Obama, Malek has denied having any taste whatsoever for barbecued dog.

Obama And NSA Are The Equivalent Of The Stalinist Stasi, But Globalized

So says Daniel Ellsberg, here:


[Edward Snowden] found that he was working for a surveillance organization whose all-consuming intent, he told the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, was “on making every conversation and every form of behavior in the world known to them.” It was, in effect, a global expansion of the Stasi, the Ministry for State Security in the Stalinist “German Democratic Republic,” whose goal was “to know everything.” But the cellphones, fiber-optic cables, personal computers and Internet traffic the NSA accesses did not exist in the Stasi’s heyday. ... What he has given us is our best chance — if we respond to his information and his challenge — to rescue ourselves from out-of-control surveillance that shifts all practical power to the executive branch and its intelligence agencies: a United Stasi of America.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Temporary Employment Is No Worse Today Than Before ObamaCare

Temporary employment is lower today than it was at its peaks in 2000, 2005, 2006 and 2007. Temporary employment is no worse today than before ObamaCare.

Peak was 2.767 million in October 2006, and crashed below 1.8 million in the panic of 2008-2009.

The level of temporary employment today is 2.689 million. You could almost call that a recovery, and almost a full one.

Update: Oh yeah. You could almost call it a leading indicator of coming recession, too.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Forbes Contributor John Goodman Uses "Reactionary" Like A Marxist

John Goodman, here:

"[T]he topic du jour on the left these days is inequality. By inequality they mean inequality of income. And they want government to do something about it. ... [W]hy are intellectuals on the left so obsessed with money inequality instead of the inequality of life’s blessings that people value much more? Certainly in their own lives they don’t act as though money is the most important value. They’re all writers and professors when they could have earned a lot more by getting a law degree or an MBA. I believe the answer is that they are reactionaries. They’re living in the past."

Well, when else would the topic du jour be du jour if not "these days", hm? And if advocates of classical liberalism like Goodman aren't reactionaries by his own definition, I don't know who is:

"Throughout the entire 20th century, what did the left consider its intellectual rival? Classical liberalism. That was the political philosophy of our founding fathers. It was classical liberalism that eliminated slavery from the civilized world, gave us women’s suffrage, and extended economic and political freedom to people all over the globe. The contrast between these two worldviews could not be more stark. The classical liberals believed the state should be the servant of free men. The 20th century left believed that men should serve the state. The results are in. The 20th century was the century of economic instability, depression and war. The 19th century was the century of price stability, economic growth and relative international peace. The 20th century was the century of dictatorship and genocide on an unimaginable scale ― with 125 million people killed by their own governments! The 19th century was a century of liberation and increasing personal freedom."

The problem with our side in these discussions is that we continue to accept the redefinition of the categories foisted upon us by a victorious left. It was the Marxists who successfully made "reactionary" into a dirty word, despite attempts like Paul Elmer More's in the early 20th century to steal that weapon from the Marxist arsenal aimed against us. What the continued use of the term "reactionary" in the perjorative sense by the right shows is that the right, for all its vindication by experience, evinces a shared world view with the left which is mistaken, and because it is mistaken is impotent in face of the challenges facing the West.

The hostile pose of the present toward the past means it can never really accept anything from it, and perhaps more to the point can and will therefore be deceived by the promise of the future. As long as people believe that human nature can be changed for the better, that its progress is inevitable, and that arrangements to check it are no longer necessary, they will no doubt face as they have before a future brotherhood of man as fraught with fratricide as any past we have ever experienced. Worldviews are not imposed from above, they spring from the inner conception of the self, and unfortunately for us, the prevailing inner conception remains servile, not free. If we cannot throw off this illusion of the present, we are doomed to be ruled by others instead of by ourselves.

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"Look over the whole creation, and you shall see, that the bond or cement, that holds together all the parts of this great and glorious fabrick, is gratitude."

-- Robert South

Did We Really Lose 240,000 Full Time Jobs Between May and June Due To ObamaCare?

That's what all the organs of political opposition to Obama and ObamaCare are saying in the wake of Friday's unemployment report.

Investors Business Daily is an example, here:

"It's even worse when you consider all of the net addition to June jobs - repeat, all - were part time. Compared with the 360,000 part-time positions created, full-time employment shrank by 240,000. Year to date, only 130,000 full-time jobs have been added to our economy. The rest of the jobs - 557,000 - have been part time. ... The No. 1 culprit, though, is ObamaCare. The added costs this monstrous piece of legislation has imposed on employers of full-time workers encourages them to hire only part-timers, who get few benefits and no health care."

That is a very one-sided presentation of the "facts", cherry-picked from the seasonally-adjusted numbers from the government's models of what's happening. The seasonally-adjusted chart of full-time for 2013 to date, for example, clearly shows a sudden 240,000 decline in full-time jobs. But the chart of the government's own raw full-time data for 2013 to date, clearly shows that full-time is up well over 3 million jobs for the first half of the year, not "130,000" as Investors Business Daily says. This chart also shows that the current level of full-time is over 1.2 million higher than the seasonally-adjusted model says it is, and that instead of a month over month decline in full-time of 240,000 jobs, we've just experienced an increase of 757,000 full-time jobs in June.

Why the discrepancy? The model anticipates events based on past history which may or may not occur. A case in point is modeling auto manufacturing jobs in the summer, which I think is what the 240,000 drop in the chart is all about. This is anticipatory, an expectation of plant shut downs this summer for retooling, which may or may not occur. The model tries to anticipate these events based on past history. But given strong demand for autos recently I'm guessing the shut downs may not materialize to the extent the model expects them to, introducing more noise into the seasonally-adjusted chart as the summer unfolds. At any rate, I say the chart is already noisy for this reason and should be taken with a grain of salt.

I say stick with the raw data, and chill out with political rhetoric.

Wall Street Journal Falsely Blames Part-Time For Economic Reasons On ObamaCare

"Imagine how much better [the US labor market] might do if ObamaCare weren't encouraging employers to hire so many part-time workers", crows The Wall Street Journal here in "Part-Time America" by Steve Moore, the lead story at Real Clear Markets this morning.

Too bad it's all a lie. I say "too bad" because I'd like to blame ObamaCare for everything that's wrong with the labor market, too, but it just isn't so. Employers aren't hiring "so many part-time workers" any more now than they were before ObamaCare was passed in March 2010, but you wouldn't know that from the charts presented in The Wall Street Journal because they don't go back before the recession began. The Journal is cherry-picking the data to show that the swings in the metric have been wild since ObamaCare passed. There's a reason for that. The long term charts show that the high level of part-time for economic reasons is an artifact of the recession, and has been trending lower ever so slowly since it ended. Equally disturbing is the Journal's attribution of a recent relatively small surge in the metric to ObamaCare when we've had much larger drops in the measure after the bill's passage. ObamaCare has had nothing to do with either, and it's transparently political to carp in this way. And it's embarrassing.

Print your story, Steve Moore, when part-time for economic reasons hits 9.5 or 10 million, and we'll talk then.


Friday, July 5, 2013

Mish Is Crazy For Saying "Massive Increase In Part Time" Due To ObamaCare

Mish says it here:


Digging under the surface, much of the drop in the unemployment rate over the past two years is nothing but a statistical mirage coupled with a massive increase in part-time jobs starting in October 2012 as a result of Obamacare legislation.

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But there has been no massive increase in part-time, whether due to ObamaCare or something else, which, by the way, passed in March 2010, not October 2012. The raw numbers are actually down from the beginning of 2010 before ObamaCare was passed. Is part-time down due to ObamaCare?

Part time not-seasonally-adjusted is lower than it was before ObamaCare
















Measured with the government "model", part time is up since 2010, but you can't say massively so, as Mish does. The 300,000 to 400,000 increase in part time since the beginning of 2010 using this measure is a relatively modest variation given the wild swings in this category of a million or more.

What made this measure of part time decline for most of 2012? ObamaCare?
















Frankly, I think Mish has a meme in his head which is not supported by the data and is just phoning it in. Well, he did just get re-married.

Sorry Zero Hedge, Full-Time Is Up 0.65% From May To June, Not Down

full-time government model is down a smidge
If you use the seasonally-adjusted government "model", you'll get a different result: full-time jobs down 0.21%. Big whoop, I weigh less too after I poop. That may be politically expedient to Zero Hedge, here, but the raw numbers paint a different picture of full-time employment increasing a little bit in the last month. Yeah, full-time employment remains in depression. That's obvious from either measure, but no one wants to say the truth because the truth is politically incorrect and saying it gets you marginalized as an extremist kook, a racist, or a political partisan. People who deny the truth are the kooks. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery.






full-time raw measure is up a little

Sorry Zero Hedge, Part Time Isn't Unequivocally At An All Time High

The high not-seasonally-adjusted was in early 2010
It's an axe to grind at Zero Hedge, here, that usually part-time is at an all time high. In the seasonally-adjusted category, it is. But not according to the raw not-seasonally-adjusted numbers.

What are you going to believe, the government's "model", or the raw numbers? 

Clearly it is politically expedient for Zero Hedge to follow the government model because it gives them something to say against the government today.

We don't need a number to say Obama sucks, who has sucked from the beginning when Zero Hedge voted for him and then kept on sucking.

The seasonally-adjusted high from early 2012 is now barely beaten

Gold/Oil Ratio Plummets To 11.75 On Rising Oil Prices, Surging Dollar

1212.70 divided by 103.22 = 11.75, another very strong technical buy signal for gold. But the signal is distorted by rising oil prices on Middle East instability because of the military coup in Egypt.

DoDoDoDo DoDoDoDo . . . Only 47% Of Adults Work Full Time

Sorry, the 47% just keeps turning up like a bad penny. Saw it again, here:


"Of the 144 million Americans employed last month, only 116 million were working full-time. Friday's report showed that 58.7% of the civilian adult population of 245 million was working last month. Only 47% of Americans, however, had a full-time job." 

June Unemployment Unchanged At 7.6%, 47% Of Jobs Added Year Over Year Low-Paying

Hm. There's that 47% again. I thought the answer to everything was 42.

June unemployment is unchanged at 7.6%, and the average addition to payrolls is now up to 182,000 per month year over year, or 2.18 million.

The biggest job gains have been in professional and business services with 579,000 job gains year over year, with low-paying administrative and support jobs comprising a net 316,100 of that year over year.

Leisure and hospitality jobs are up 505,000 year over year, with low-paying waiting tables and bartending jobs up a net 392,600 of that year over year.

Education and health services jobs are up 360,000 yoy, with 343,600 coming from the health care and social assistance category.

Low-paying retail trade jobs are up 307,500 yoy.

Construction jobs are up 183,000 yoy, while manufacturing is essentially flat with gains of just 33,000 yoy.

Finance, insurance and real estate jobs are up 114,000 yoy.

Hourly earnings are up 2.2% in the last year, so you now average $828 a week instead of $808.

So, arguably, at the very minimum in the last year 1.02 million of the 2.18 million jobs added are low-paying jobs, or 47% of them. Way to go, Brownie!

Full pdf here.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

So When Will Obama Start Boasting He Just Delayed His Own Health Care Law Of The Land?

"I'm Barack Obama and I approved this message, ah, sort of, maybe in 2015"
After all, in 2010 Obama was boasting that health care reform was finally the law of the land:


"After a century of striving, after a year of debate, after a historic vote, health care reform is no longer an unmet promise," Obama said at an event after the signing ceremony at the Department of Interior. "It is the law of the land."

Funny how he doesn't like that law of the land enough now to let it go into effect come January 1, 2014.

Someone should make him eat a copy, all 418,779 words of it.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

US Postal Service Photographed Fronts And Backs Of 160 Billion Pieces Of Mail In 2012

Yeah, but don't use a return address when you write to me.
No wonder the mail is so slow. Timely coverage of ongoing US government spying on American citizens' mail through both Mail Covers and MICT, from The New York Times, here:


[M]ail covers ... is only a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images. ... In a criminal complaint filed June 7 in Federal District Court in Eastern Texas, the F.B.I. said a postal investigator tracing the ricin letters was able to narrow the search to Shannon Guess Richardson, an actress in New Boston, Tex., by examining information from the front and back images of 60 pieces of mail scanned immediately before and after the tainted letters sent to Mr. Obama and Mr. Bloomberg showing return addresses near her home. Ms. Richardson had originally accused her husband of mailing the letters, but investigators determined that he was at work during the time they were mailed. ... For mail cover requests, law enforcement agencies simply submit a letter to the Postal Service, which can grant or deny a request without judicial review. Law enforcement officials say the Postal Service rarely denies a request. In other government surveillance program, such as wiretaps, a federal judge must sign off on the requests. ... Law enforcement officials need warrants to open the mail, although President George W. Bush asserted in a signing statement in 2007 that the federal government had the authority to open mail without warrants in emergencies or foreign intelligence cases. ... Officials in both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, in fact, have used the mail-cover court rulings to justify the N.S.A.’s surveillance programs, saying the electronic monitoring amounts to the same thing as a mail cover. ... The program has led to sporadic reports of abuse. In May 2012, Mary Rose Wilcox, a Maricopa County supervisor, was awarded nearly $1 million by a federal judge after winning a lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known for his immigration raids in Arizona, who, among other things, obtained mail covers from the Postal Service to track her mail.

This Texas Senator's Democrat Supporters Threaten Pro-Lifers' Daughters With Rape

The contemporary face of violence, in or out of the womb

"Death threats, harassing emails and phone calls and calls for their daughters to be raped are among the hate targeted at pro-life lawmakers from the small contingent of abortion activists upset that Texas would consider banning abortions on babies at viability."

More here.

Inequality! Obama Delays ObamaCare Penalties For Big Business, But Not For You.

Time reports here:


The delay deprives the federal government of a year of penalties that would have been paid by companies that do not meet the law’s requirements, with as yet unknown budgetary effects. Republicans had warned of a downturn in hiring as a result of the mandate.

The so-called individual mandate is unaffected by the rule change. That provision requires the vast majority of Americans to purchase insurance or pay a penalty, with tax credits provided to those who can’t afford coverage.

Obama Exercises Blatant Arbitrary Rule, Naked Lawlessness

So said we, and so says Jeffrey Anderson for The Weekly Standard, here:

In a blatant exercise of arbitrary rule, the Obama administration announced this evening that it has unilaterally decided not to implement a key provision of Obamacare on schedule.  By law, Obamacare’s employer mandate — its requirement that businesses with 50 or more workers provide federally sanctioned health insurance — should go into effect next year.  By executive fiat, it won’t go into effect until 2015.

In addition to being a naked display of lawlessness, this action is an embarrassing setback to the Obama administration and — more importantly — to President Obama’s centerpiece legislation.  More than three years after Obamacare’s passage — a passage marked by such shady backroom deals as the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, and Gator Aid — the administration is now admitting it has failed to get Obamacare up and running on time.

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Anderson wants the Congress to delay the entire law, which certainly is the constitutional way of going about it, but the fact of the matter is the president is acting unconstitutionally and should be impeached, tried, convicted and removed from office for the two-bit petty tyrant that he is.

That's what Independence Day is all about.


Obama Suspends Part Of ObamaCare: Equality Under The Law? Try Arbitrary Rule.

We call it tyranny, and the tyrant must be removed from office.

Story here.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Lying Weasel DNI Clapper "Apologizes", But Not Really

What a contemptible, lying weasel coward. He sends a letter on June 21, and claims he was confused.

We don't pay Directors of National Intelligence to be confused. We pay them to be intelligent.

Story here and here.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Record Bond Outflows In June Nearly Double Old Record

The old record was set in 2008 with $42 billion extracted from bond funds and bond ETFs during the panic of October. Outflows in June 2013 now clock in just shy of $80 billion.

Story here:

The rush out of bonds could be about to get even worse, according to the research firm, which says that more bond investors could take flight after receiving their quarterly statements in the coming weeks, noticing that their "safe" bond funds are delivering losses instead of gains. ... TrimTabs call the liquidation "unprecedented" after indicating last Monday that bond outflows had already reached records with a figure of $47.2 billion. In just one extra week that number has risen to $79.8 billion which it says is reversing 73 percent of the $109.6 billion inflows seen earlier this year.

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It was clear on June 8 here that many bond investors were already then a month too late getting out.



Sunday, June 30, 2013

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Edward Snowden Visited Here Yesterday

Yeah, we had Kentucky Fried Chicken and watermelon, but then he had to go.