GDP For Q3 2013 At 2.8% Annualized In The First Estimate, Released Today

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The report in pdf from the Bureau of Economic Analysis may be found here.

The average report of GDP in 2013 now stands at 2.13% (1.1%, 2.5% and 2.8%), while growth measured in the 3rd quarter on an annualized basis is running at 2.8%.

Assuming GDP in the third and fourth quarters finishes sufficiently strongly enough to lift the year to a growth rate of 2.8% overall when next year's final estimate of GDP for Q4 2013 is complete, Obama's five year record will be an average report of 1.4%, still the lowest in the post-war behind George W. Bush's 2.1%.

But that assumption may be too rosy.

The GDP range for 2013 projected by the Federal Reserve in its June report is just 2.3% to 2.6%, so it remains very possible that 2013 GDP will finish the year at something less than the current 2.8%, especially as the ObamaCare Tax, in the form of higher health insurance premiums and other taxes, whacks the only people with the spending money in this economy.

Kathleen Sebelius Does The Mussolini During Senate Testimony

Bill Kristol Says Cuccinelli Ran Better In Virginia Than Romney

This morning on the Laura Ingraham Show.

He's right.

Romney lost to Obama in Virginia by 149,000 votes, less than 4% of the total cast, with just 60,000 votes going to third party candidates, not enough to have made a difference.

But Cuccinelli lost to the Democrat in Virginia by 55,000 votes, only 2.5% of the total cast, with 146,000 votes going to the Libertarian, more than enough to have made the difference.

As a social and economic conservative, Cuccinelli more vividly drew the distinction between himself and liberalism's fellow travelers, including those in the Republican Establishment who turned their backs on Cuccinelli after September, as did also Chris Christie, who couldn't find the time to stump for a fellow Republican in a close race in a nearby state.

But there Christie was, protesting his conservatism on election day, here:

The GOP governor, who's seriously considering a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, also distanced himself from his moderate label.

"I'm a conservative," Christie said. "I've governed as a conservative in this state, and I think that's led to some people disagreeing with me in our state, because it's generally a left-of-center, blue state."

Cuccinelli was the real deal. Chris Christie is not. 

Libertarians Spoil Another One For Republicans In Virginia Gubernatorial Race

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When are Republicans going to wake up and get rid of their fifth column?

The 5.5% spread between the Democrat and the Republican represents just 55,000 votes and only 38% of the total garnered by the Libertarian whom Ron Paul basically denounced at the last minute.

But if Ron Paul really meant it, wouldn't he have said so a little earlier?

More here.

What If Obama's Insurance Policy Got Canceled?

Hm.

Vanguard's VTSMX Now The World's Biggest Mutual Fund, Edging Out PIMCO Total Return

From the story here:

For the year, the Pimco Total Return Fund has had outflows of about $33.2 billion. The fund, which is managed by Pimco co-founder and co-chief investment officer Bill Gross, is still the world's largest bond fund [at $248 billion], Morningstar said.

The Vanguard Total Stock Market Index now holds the title of world's largest mutual fund with $251.1 billion, according to Morningstar.

Federal Reserve GDP Projections For 2013 From June 2011, 2012, 2013

In June 2011 the Fed's forecast for 2013 GDP was for between 3.5% and 4.2%.

In June 2012 the forecast was reduced to between  2.2% and 2.8%.

And in June 2013 the forecast has narrowed to between 2.3% and 2.6%.

Quarters one and two in 2013 have reported annualized GDP at 1.1% and 2.5% respectively.

Quarter three reports on Thursday for the first time, delayed from late October due to the government shutdown.

The comprehensive revision of GDP going back decades which came out this last summer reported average annual real GDP at 3.3% between 1929 and 2012, and at 3.4% from 1959 to 2002.

Current GDP of 2.5% is therefore running about 24% below the long term trend.

Justin Amash Is Consistently Pro-Life . . . Except For The First Three Days Of It

When Amash was asked about the appropriate time frame limit [to] abortion rights, he said, “I think that where we have it now is not correct. It should be closer to the point of conception, and whether it’s instantly or the first three days, I think that’s more sensible. That’s what I think would be correct.” (March 2013, here)

To Representative Justin Amash, Abortion Is OK Only When You're Just A Little Bit Pregnant

Sometimes you can't hide it when you gotta go.

Seen here (source here):

When Amash was asked about the appropriate time frame limit [to] abortion rights, he said, “I think that where we have it now is not correct. It should be closer to the point of conception, and whether it’s instantly or the first three days, I think that’s more sensible. That’s what I think would be correct.”

So much for libertarian consistency, the hobgoblin of little minds.

Like most libertarians, the schizophrenia gives way either as you mature, or when you're thinking about running for Senate in a liberal state, revealing the beating heart of a liberal underneath.

The phenomenon works in reverse, too: John McCain ran as a conservative in Arizona to keep his Senate seat ("President Obama is on a left-wing crusade to bankrupt America"), and then promptly went right back to being the turd in the Republican punchbowl.

When We Said Both America And China Had Fascist Economies, It Didn't Make News Like Tom Easton Made Wednesday

2nd generation type 094 missile boats can now threaten US

OK, call us early (here and here).

Tom Easton, American Finance editor for The Economist, here:

... [H]e declared that he had recently moved to the U.S. from China, but “didn’t leave a state-run economy. ... Everyone talks about how all-pervasive the Chinese economy and government is inside of it,” he says. The Chinese government “directs capital, controls the banking system and the ‘highlands’ of important industries. I’m still in China when I came back to America.”

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The next war will be like the last war, a clash between iterations of socialism, but there won't be a more or less free market economy around afterwards, as there was last time, to pick up the pieces.

The Number Of Wage Earners Is In The 5th Year Of Depression, Still 1.95 Million Fewer In 2012 Than In 2007

The jobs depression is now 5.67 years in length.

The number of wage earners counted by the Social Security Administration reached a peak in 2007 at 155.57 million, and the long-awaited number for 2012 is just out here in the last couple of days: 153.63 million.

2012 marks the fifth consecutive year we have fallen under the 2007 record high for the number of employees earning income subject to Social Security taxation.

The 2012 figure is just under the 2006 figure of 153.85 million wage earners, so you might say things were closer to 2005 levels in 2012 than to 2006.

Bank Failure Wednesday

Bank of Jackson County, Graceville, Florida, is bank failure number 23 in 2013, costing the FDIC $5.1 million.

FDIC insured institutions now number 6,940.

Obama Lied About His Own Mother's Insurance History, So Why Be Surprised He's Lied To You?

Byron York, back in 2011, here:

Dunham unquestionably had health coverage. "Ann's compensation for her job in Jakarta had included health insurance, which covered most of the costs of her medical treatment," [Janny] Scott writes. "Once she was back in Hawaii, the hospital billed her insurance company directly, leaving Ann to pay only the deductible and any uncovered expenses, which, she said, came to several hundred dollars a month." ... the story Obama told, Scott writes, was "abbreviated" -- the abbreviation was to leave out the fact that Ann Dunham had health insurance that paid for her treatment. "Though he often suggested that she was denied health coverage because of a pre-existing condition," Scott writes, "it appears from her correspondence that she was only denied disability coverage."

Former Rep. Barney Frank's Favorite Guaranteed Benefit In Obamacare

Free mammograms, even for "men"!

The Anger Will Spread: 80 Million Won't Be Able To Keep Their Employer-Based Insurance, Either

The hubbub over the loss of health insurance coverage in the individual market, affecting some 13 million, will grow into quite a wail when 80 million additional people lose their employer-based healthcare plans, which is why Obama delayed the employer mandate, dummy. Better to let the country get used to the idea by screwing the few, the proud, the responsible, you know, the ranks where the Tea Party comes from, first. But the rest of you are going to get it in the shorts later, no question about it.

From Avik Roy at Forbes, here:

Obamacare’s disruption of the existing health insurance market—a disruption codified in law, and known to the administration—is only just beginning. And it’s far broader than recent media coverage has implied. ...

60 percent of Americans have private-sector health insurance—precisely the number that Jay Carney dismissed. As to the number of people facing cancellations, 51 percent of the employer-based market [80 million of 156 million Americans] plus 53.5 percent of the non-group market (the middle of the administration’s range) [13 million of 25 million Americans] amounts to 93 million Americans.

President Obama’s famous promise that “you could keep your plan” was not some naïve error or accident. He, and his allies, knew that previous Democratic attempts at health reform had failed because Americans were happy with the coverage they had, and opposed efforts to change the existing system. ...

Obamacare forces insurers to offer services that most Americans don’t need, don’t want, and won’t use, for a higher price. 

You can keep your insurance, healthcare.gov hasn't crashed, and . . .

. . . blackwhite.

"The Mechanism That Ended The Crisis"

John Hussman, here:

Rather, the crisis ended – and in hindsight, ended precisely – on March 16, 2009, when the Financial Accounting Standards Board abandoned mark-to-market rules, in response to Congressional pressure by the House Committee on Financial Services on March 12, 2009. The decision by the FASB gave banks “substantial discretion” in the values that they assigned to assets. With that discretion, banks could use cash-flow models (“mark-to-model”) or other methods (“mark-to-unicorn”). ... The misattribution of cause and effect in 2009 created the Grand Superstition of our time – the belief that Federal Reserve policy was responsible for ending the financial crisis and sending the stock market higher. By 2010, this narrative was so fully accepted that the Fed’s announcement of further “quantitative easing” was met by equally great enthusiasm by investors.

The People Who Most Need ObamaCare

The people who most need ObamaCare are the designers of it, who will now be able to (and should) get their heads examined under it for making sure people who are almost 60 pay four times the cost of their old plans and get maternity coverage and pediatric dental care in the bargain.

So-Called Conservative Supporters Of Illegal Alien Amnesty To Meet Tonight In DC

Bloomberg has the story, here, naming the following so-called conservatives and right of center groups in attendance to launch a lobbying bomb on Washington for an illegal immigration amnesty bill from the Senate which is dead in the US House:

US Chamber of Commerce

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg

NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson

News Corp's Rupert Murdoch

Southern Baptist Convention

American Conservative Union

Americans for Tax Reform's Grover Norquist.

You have met the enemy, and it ain't us.

NBC News Suddenly Discovers Obama Has Known For Three Years He's Been Lying

NBC isn't fooling anybody who's been paying attention to its long record of shilling for Obama, but now that he's safely in place for his second term what are people going to do about bad news for the president, impeach him? NBC has already moved on to 2016. 

For what it's worth, from the top:

[M]illions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.

Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.” ...

[T]he administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.

Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.” 

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"Tea Party" never comes up in this story. That's who's being targeted in the individual market under ObamaCare, the responsibles who buy their own coverage. Just think of it as IRS intimidation, but in a different form.