Fertility drops in 2013: Maybe some demographers are under the ILLUSION of economic recovery

They're puzzled by the total fertility rate dropping and staying below the replacement rate.

Reported here:

But the total fertility rate, or TFR, the average number of children a woman would have during her child-bearing years, fell to just 1.86 [in 2013], the lowest rate in 27 years. TFR is considered the best metric of fertility. A TFR of 2.1 represents a stable population, with children replacing parents as they die off.

Demographers expected the fertility rate to fall during recession, as financially strapped families put off childbearing. But what has surprised some demographers is both the depth of the decline and the fact that fertility has continued to drop even over the course of the country's five years of slow but steady recovery. The rate has fallen steadily each year since 2007, when it stood at 2.1 percent. ...

[T]he U.S. only reached a TFR above 2.1 in 2006 and 2007, at the height of the housing bubble years.

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The total fertility rate in the US has been below the replacement rate since 1971 except for the two years noted. This is the real reason behind the immigration liberalization push by Republicans, who didn't have enough children themselves and still don't understand as a political party that it's impossible for America to look like it did in the past, now or in the future, without having done so. They are as guilty as liberals in eschewing family.

It raises the question of what comes first: the GDP or the population which goes on to consume it. Arguably, just as banks create money by writing loans, not by the Fed printing dollars, people actually create future economic growth by having children in the present. It really isn't the other way around, but we haven't been smart enough as a culture to grasp this. Women naturally grasp this. They not only naturally want children on a time schedule dictated by human biology, but also grandchildren. But the liberal war on this natural instinct has succeeded in killing off the goose that laid the golden egg of American greatness. It should not come as a surprise that GDP was negative again.

We do not live. We just survive.

A little Larry Norman from 1973, from the not coincidentally entitled "Nightmare Number 71":

We kill our children swap our wives


We've learned to greet a man with knives


We swallow pills in fours and fives

Our cities look like crumbling hives

Man does not live he just survives

We sleep till he arrives


Love is a corpse we sit and watch it harden


We left it oh so long ago the garden

Globe and Mail columnist forgets to lump in Henry Kissinger with Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders as Putin's 5th column in the West

Doug Saunders, here:

In words widely reported in the Russian media, [Farage] added that the EU has “blood on its hands” for supporting the democracy movement in Ukraine. Rather than posing a threat to Europe, Mr. Farage said, Russia has fallen prey to Europe’s “activist, militarist and expansionist foreign policy.”

Henry Kissinger, here:

The European Union must recognize that its bureaucratic dilatoriness and subordination of the strategic element to domestic politics in negotiating Ukraine’s relationship to Europe contributed to turning a negotiation into a crisis. Foreign policy is the art of establishing priorities. ... Ukraine should not join NATO, a position I took seven years ago, when it last came up.

Lefties say America has 6 million not counted as unemployed

The extreme left Economic Policy Institute here puts the number of missing workers in the US employment statistics at almost 6 million, give or take, since October 2013.

This is premised on a 2007 government projection of labor force participation rates in a healthy economy to 2016 which already controlled for demographic change, including the burgeoning retirements of Baby Boomers and, evidently, emerging smaller workforce cohorts due to declining fertility rates. That can be used against the measurements of labor force participation rates and labor force levels which have actually filled the record over the period to derive discrepancies.

Currently EPI calculates the discrepancies to mean that unemployment is 9.7%, not 6.3%.

And you thought only wild-eyed kooks on the right thought unemployment was still that high.

Jimmy Carter appointee in Wisconsin overturns Defense of Marriage Amendment

As usual, the meaning of liberalism is to overturn by the decree of a single individual what the voters have passed into law. In other words, to impose what they can't pass. In this case the now 75 year old judge waited like a sleeper for many years until Barack Obama made it safe to unleash rulings against the people.

Barbara Brandriff Crabb, who has been inflicting herself on the voters since 1979 thanks to an appointment to the US District Court by Jimmy Carter, has previously ruled in 2010 the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional. A federal appellate court subsequently ruled she had no standing. She has also ruled in 2013 against the clergy exemption from income of housing allowances. In 2009 she ruled that Wisconsin's restrictions on judges against joining political parties, endorsing candidates and raising campaign funds violated their First Amendment rights.

Story here:

A federal judge in Madison on Friday overturned Wisconsin's gay marriage ban, striking down an amendment to the state constitution approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2006 and prompting an emergency action by the state to halt the scores of weddings that began in the state's two largest cities. ... In Wisconsin, voters in 2006 resoundingly approved the same-sex marriage amendment, 59% to 41%. Every county in the state except Dane voted for it.

The May 2014 unemployment rate is unchanged at 6.3%

Here.

Not seasonally adjusted, total nonfarm employment is up 199,916 monthly in the last 12 months to May 1, 2014

April 1, 2013 to April 1, 2014 the rate was 196,750 monthly.

During the Clinton presidency, which was without a recession, total nonfarm averaged a spectacular gain of 235,000 monthly. Under Reagan, who had one, jobs boomed at the rate of 250,000 monthly for six full years once it was over.

Presently job creation is 15% behind the Clinton rate, and 20% behind the Reagan rate.

After 76 months, the jobs recession ends no thanks to Obama as the liberals declare victory and go home

That's after 6 years and 4 months for those of you in Rio Linda.

From Calculated Risk here:

This [graph] shows the depth of the recent employment recession - worse than any other post-war recession - and the relatively slow recovery due to the lingering effects of the housing bust and financial crisis. Total employment is now 98 thousand above the pre-recession peak and at an all time high.  It is probably time to retire this graph - until the next recession.

Obama was first elected in month 12 of the jobs recession when its severity was still at -3.0% on this chart. Americans had no idea what was coming. Nearly 30 million Americans would go on in 2009 alone to file first time claims for unemployment compensation.

If Obama's election meant salvation from a looming crisis, businesses didn't think so. They proceeded out of fear of the most anti-capitalist president to be elected in the history of the country to cut their number one cost in order to survive what was coming. Arguably Obama's election made a severe downturn into the employment crisis that it became.

The longest and deepest jobs recession in the post-war is now over according to the seasonally adjusted figures published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the very least the Columbia and Harvard educated Obama did nothing effectual to end it in a timely manner as all his predecessors had done, even George W. Bush by comparison. The reason? Your choices are a) incompetence and b) malice aforethought.

Bringing America down a notch or two seems to have been the guiding principle for every problem Obama has had to confront during his presidency, whether in domestic or foreign policy. When it comes to jobs, the average middle class family which lost a good $50,000 income to long term unemployment is now in the 6th year of reduced circumstances. Such a family is easily $250,000 behind when you combine the effects of reduced wages and retirement funding. Such equality with the poor isn't what the middle class had in mind, but it sure looks like what Obama did.

Calculated Risk Blog retires its unemployment recession chart

This tracks seasonally adjusted figures, of course. Not seasonally adjusted total nonfarm employment still has not recovered to peak under Bush.

Discussion here:

This graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms - this time aligned at maximum job losses.  Employment is now back above pre-recession levels and this graph will be retired until the next recession (Of course this doesn't include population growth).

3 million more still work part-time for economic reasons under Obama than under Bush

Those usually working full-time are still 4 million fewer in number than in 2007 at peak under Bush

Despite all the crowing, total nonfarm employment, not-seasonally-adjusted, remains below 11/'07 peak

Monetarism on the rocks: TCMDO has grown less than 19% in 6.5 years

Deflation in today's economy is not a decline in the general price level but a decline in the expansion of total credit market debt outstanding, now unhelpfully called "all sectors credit market instruments liability level". The monetarists keep trying to get the borrowing engine going again, but to no avail, and the bottle of Viagra seems to be always in need of a refill. In six and a half years total credit market debt outstanding has grown by a paltry 18.7%. During the good old days of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan TCMDO twice doubled in as little time. At this rate it will take 35 years from 2007 for TCMDO to double again when the longest it has taken in the post-war is about eleven and a half.

Conservatives may well mock the flacid, shriveling manhood of our metrosexual economy, but in the absence of structural measures designed to reward savers in the form of strong currencies and honest rates of return and punish spendthrifts with budget disciplines, what we are witnessing is a crack-up of epochal proportions which threatens to wipe away the achievements of centuries.

Who could possibly be happy about that?

The best that we can hope for is an arrangement which will buy us time to pay back what we have borrowed from the future for the prosperity of the past. It will require us to sober up. It will require personal repentance. The alternatives are a long slow decline into poverty, bankruptcy and war if we do nothing, or a stimulation-induced heart attack if we keep on the present path. 

Shiller p/e hits 25.94 as total market index and S&P500 make the barest of new highs

The S&P500 floated up 0.19% while Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index Fund was up just 0.22%.

The Shiller p/e at nearly 26 is close to a level matched on the first of the month just 24 times going back to 1881. Valuation is presently 56.9% above the mean Shiller p/e of 16.53.

From John Hussman earlier this week, here:

On Friday, our estimate of prospective 10-year S&P nominal total returns set a new low for this cycle, falling below 2.2% annually. This is worse than the level observed at the 2007 market peak, or at any point in history outside of the late-1990's market bubble. 

Obama goes outside the experience of the enemy (you): swaps Muslim combatants for US deserter

To piss off the patriots and please his anti-Gitmo critics in one stroke.

And talk about using different tactics and actions and all events of the period to maintain a constant pressure:

FBI tries to shake down Phil Mickelson last Thursday on the golf course, a political spectacle aimed at the non-compliant rich.

Arizona is punished as a dumping ground for busloads of illegal immigrant children because it dared to enforce its border with Mexico.

With GDP negative the EPA moves forward with rules to make electricity more expensive for the already beleaguered masses.

Liberal Jonathan Turley says Obama's behavior in Bergdahl affair just adds to the pile of laws Obama's broken

Here:

CNN ANCHOR: Jonathan, did the White House violate federal law?

JONATHAN TURLEY: They did. I don't think the White House is seriously arguing they're not violating federal law. To make matters worse, this is a long series of violations of federal law this president has been accused of. I testified twice in Congress about this record of the president in suspending or ignoring federal laws. This is going to add to that pile. I don't think there's much debate that they're in violation of the law.

The Detroit News Explains To Obama How He Could Learn Something About Coal From Europe

Here:

Europe’s experience with such hardline carbon rule-making [as Obama's] would suggest the [US Chamber of Commerce's] claims are more credible than the administration’s. Clean energy investment among European Union members dropped 14 percent in the third quarter of last year, as governments reconsidered policies similar to the ones Obama is putting in place.

The reason: Electricity costs in Europe are the highest in the world, and are helping to drive away manufacturing jobs. Instead of shutting down coal plants, Europe is actually building them again as a way of dropping those crushing electricity costs.

Higher utility bills will hurt poorer Americans the hardest, and ultimately will necessitate even more wealth transfer schemes.

In addition, the resurgent U.S. manufacturing industry will be slowed. Energy is a crucial component of building things, obviously, and today American manufacturers enjoy a distinct advantage because of relatively low electricity costs. Raising those costs will hit industrial states, like Michigan, particularly hard.

Attention Mish: Dump Google Translate and learn a second language already

From the story here:

The participants were given an intelligence test in 1947 at the age of 11 and were retested in their early 70s, between 2008 and 2010. Of the participants, 262 said they were able to communicate in at least one language other than English. Of those, 195 learned the second language before the age of 18, while 65 learned the language after this age.

Researchers found that those who spoke two or more languages had significantly better cognitive abilities in later life, compared to what would be predicted from their performance in the tests at age 11.

How come Neil Cavuto of FoxBusiness is so misinformed about the average age of US vehicles on the road?

Here:

What’s surprising right now is that while auto sales are predictably sluggish, they could be a heck of a lot worse. Auto analysts tell me that’s because the average car on the road is so old – close to nine years. Many owners have no choice but to replace their vehicles. But they’re clearly taking their time and many are waiting for just the right time, and the right sale.

Wrong Neil.

As of last August the average age was 11.4 years and climbing.

You don't go from 11.4 years to 9 years in less than a year.

If we had done so, we'd be in an economic boom right now instead of GDP in the toilet at -1.0%.

White House wants it both ways: blames bad GDP on harsh winter, credits good GDP on increased utilities consumption

Doesn't utilities consumption go up because of bad winter weather, in which case bad winter weather is good for GDP, not bad?

From WhiteHouse.gov here:

1. Real gross domestic product (GDP) fell 1.0 percent at an annual rate in the first quarter of 2014, according to the second estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This drop follows an increase of 3.4 percent annual pace in the second half of 2013. Looking at the various components of GDP, consumer spending grew at a rapid pace, mainly reflecting sharp increases in health care and utilities consumption, while the other elements of consumer spending on net rose only slightly. Consumer spending on food services and accommodations fell for the first time in four years, one of several components that was likely affected by unusually severe winter weather. Exports and inventory investment, two particularly volatile components of GDP, also subtracted from growth. ...

3. The first quarter of 2014 was marked by unusually severe winter weather, including record cold temperatures and snowstorms, which explains part of the difference in GDP growth relative to previous quarters. The left chart shows the quarterly deviation in heating degree days from its average for the same quarter over the previous five years. By this measure, the first quarter of 2014 was the third most unusually cold quarter over the last sixty years, behind only the first quarter of 1978 and the fourth quarter of 1976. In addition, there were four storms in the first quarter that rated on the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale (NESIS). The right chart shows that no quarter going back to 1956 had more than three such storms.

Obama's policies caused the GDP decline, not the winter

From The Wall Street Journal, here:

Gross domestic product decelerated to an annualized 1.2% in the January through March period--the slowest pace since the fourth quarter of 2012--from a downwardly revised 2.7% in the final three months of last year, Statistics Canada said Friday. On a monthly basis, GDP in March slowed to 0.1% as expected, from 0.2% in February.

The consensus call was for first-quarter growth to slow to an annualized 1.8% from the originally estimated 2.9% in the fourth quarter, according to a report from Royal Bank of Canada. ... The central bank had forecast growth of 1.5% in its April monetary policy report. ...

Despite the poor showing, Canada's GDP outpaced the U.S. where latest figures showed output shrank 1% at annual rates in the first quarter, as severe winter weather exacted a major toll on the economy.

Statistics Canada didn't specify the reasons for the slowdown in Canada, but bad weather could have been a factor.

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So, bad winter weather supposedly caused US GDP to go dramatically negative while in Canada the same bad weather didn't cause GDP to go dramatically negative. We supposedly froze to a standstill and died because of it, while Canadians went on their merry way as they usually do, just at a little slower pace.

Let's put it all in perspective.

The Canadian consensus estimate was off by only 33%, but in the US by some 400% (the consensus for the US revision was down to -0.2% from +0.1%). Apparently the cold affects our reasoning ability, too.

In nominal terms, US GDP on an annualized basis was up just $11.7 billion in 1Q2014 to $17.101 trillion compared with 4Q2013 in the second estimate. But in real terms this was deemed a decline of $39.4 billion, hence the negative print.

Canada's much smaller economy, which in current US dollars is about $1.58 trillion in size, produced an increase of 0.29% in the first quarter as announced on Friday, which annualized comes to 1.19%. In terms of constant prices this was an increase of 5.1 billion dollars Canadian in the first quarter, about $4.7 billion US.

So Canada's tiny little economy, nearly ten times smaller than ours, had the temerity to produce about 40% of our nominal GDP in the face of one of the most brutally cold and snowy winters in the last 100 years.

Put that in your winter-caused-the-GDP-to-decline pipe and smoke it, Mr. Obama. The Great White North may be smaller, but it works harder than you and your Dreamer pals ever dreamed.

UPDATE: The proper comparison, because the Canadian figures are in constant dollars, that is, already inflation-adjusted dollars, is between Canada's positive addition of $4.7 billion US to their GDP vs. America's subtraction of $39.4 billion in real terms from their GDP.

So Canada's 10x smaller economy managed to produce net positive GDP in the extreme weather conditions which Americans to a man blame for their net negative GDP.

Frankly, I'M DISGUSTED WITH MY COUNTRY!