Wednesday, June 6, 2018
We have 16.1 million total unemployed in May 2018, and 16.8 million new legal immigrants since Bush 43 was elected
Legal immigration into the US has been out of control since Bush 41 succeeded Reagan
Kinder, gentler America, my ass.
More like multicultural hell.
Are you paying attention, Mr. Trump?
Brian Wesbury thinks job growth of 2.3 million to 2.4 million is great when we're really just treading water
Here, in "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs":
"[W]e’ve rarely seen a job market this strong. ... Nonfarm payrolls grew 223,000 in May and are up 2.4 million in the past year. Civilian employment, an alternative gauge of jobs that better measures small business start-ups, grew 293,000 in May and is up 2.3 million in the past year."
Where has Brian been? Living under a rock?
Between 1991 and 2000 annual average total nonfarm grew by 2.6 million a year for nine years straight.
How about between 1983 and 1989? Annual average total nonfarm grew then by almost 3 million a year for six years straight.
Payroll growth right now of 2.4 million a year is barely adding 100,000 net new jobs annually with population increasing at a rate of 2.3 million a year.
We have 16.1 million total unemployed as it is.
At this rate it'll take 161 years to put them all back to work.
What that means is the economy has effectively, and permanently, shrunk.
What that means is the economy has effectively, and permanently, shrunk.
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
Rush is right: On the eve of Election 2016 the American Bar Association Journal was speculating whether Hillary could pardon herself
The assumption was she would win.
The BS headline about jobs the open-borders fanatics keep repeating: Job openings outnumber available workers
The unemployment level is currently 6.06 million. The part-time who want a full-time job currently number 4.87 million. The number not-in-the-labor-force-want-a-job-now is 5.18 million in May 2018. Add 'em all up and there's 16.11 million people right here in America for the 6.55 million job openings. The employers don't fill the jobs because they can, otherwise the situation wouldn't persist.
Not enough workers? Like hell there aren't.
Euphoric employment headlines are absurd, signify an economic top
So says macromon, here:
Yikes! Those euphoric headlines signal an economic top to us, they always do. Furthermore, they are completely absurd.
Correctamundo.
Not one month in to his ambassadorship to Germany, Richard Grenell is throwing his weight around like Ernst Röhm
All of Trump's problems begin with personnel, because he picks them.
From the story here:
Richard Grenell had taken up his diplomatic posting in Berlin on May 8, and immediately irked Germany when he tweeted on the same day that German companies should stop doing business with Iran as Trump quit the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic.
He stoked further outrage over the weekend with reported comments to far-right website Breitbart of his ambition to "empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders".
Grenell also raised eyebrows with his plan to host Austria's arch-conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz -- who the US envoy describes as a "rock star", for lunch on June 13.
Monday, June 4, 2018
Sorry Jonathon Trugman, one month does not a full-time story make
Here he is, without data:
"Yes, folks, things really are looking better for full-time employment."
It's true that the percentage of the population working full-time in May 2018 is up, to 50.1%.
Unfortunately the average for the first five months of 2018 is only 49.3%, the same as for the whole of 2017. Despite the surge in May, the average indicates no progress over 2017, yet.
Full-time peaks every year in July or August, so we'll see what happens. But when all is said and done, I'm expecting the full year to average about 49.8%, up about a half point.
In any event, we're still down in the basement trying to climb back to 52.1%, the pre-Great Recession average. To do it, we'll need another 5.1 million jobs, right quick like. If using the averages, 7 million.
But there is no driver for such jobs in this country, because we threw out the old one: housing. The whole economy was based on housing in the post-war, and once the Baby Boom bankers and politicians got their grubby little hands on it under Clinton and Bush 43, they managed to screw that pooch right along with everything else they've touched. A bunch of spendthrifts and squanderers are we.
Laugh of the Day: Supremes rule 7-2 on behalf of Christian cake-baker, CNBC calls it "narrow"
I guess they don't want us to get too excited about the Supremes slapping down Colorado's anti-religious hostility, which violated the defendant's religious rights, according to the story.
Try again. I'm so excited, I'm about to lose control and I think I like it.
The gap in full-time employment has closed by 1.8 million in the last year, but we're still 5.1 million behind the pre-Great Recession average
Full-time employment before the Great Recession averaged 52.1% of the civilian noninstitutional population over a 12-year period through 2008.
In 2017, the average was still 49.3%, meaning relative to the period before the Great Recession, 6.9 million fewer full-time jobs existed than could have, assuming a real jobs recovery to pre-recession conditions.
In May 2018, the actual percentage has risen to 50.1%. The difference between that and full-time at 52.1% is still 5.1 million full-time jobs.
Things are looking better, but we still haven't recovered from the appalling conditions which ensued upon the Great Recession, not by a long shot.
We still live in a shrunken economy.
Sunday, June 3, 2018
China's pledge to maintain Hong Kong's freedoms and institutions is as worthless as Xi Zedong's promise not to militarize the South China Sea
Bloomberg reports the threat of a crackdown on June 4 vigil participants, here.
Xi Jinping broke his promise in the South China Sea, and will break the one to Hong Kong as well. It's just a matter of time.
Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for May 2018
Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for May 2018
Max temp 94, Mean Max temp 86
Min temp 40, Mean Min temp 32
Av temp 64.8, Mean Av temp 57.9
Precip 5.64, Mean precip 3.46
Snowfall 0, Mean snowfall .2
Heating Degree Days 105, Mean HDD 252
Cooling Degree Days 108, Mean CDD 39
The cooling season has started off like a rocket, 240% warmer than mean to date based on CDD. With one month left to go in the heating season, the heating season as a result has now been 3.1% warmer than mean to date based on HDD.
Lee Smith says the Democrat narrative that Mifsud was working for the Russians doesn't pass the smell test
Here:
In an official report, Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence asserted that “in their approach to Papadopoulos, the Russians used common tradecraft and employed a cut-out,” a “Kremlin-linked…Maltese professor named Joseph Mifsud.” ...
Conversely, if [the FBI] did know Mifsud and thought he was a Russian agent, why did the bureau continue to send agents to teach at Link, with which he had been affiliated for nearly a decade by the time of the Papadopoulos affair?
Both the bureau and the CIA were constant presences at the school; surely they’d run across Mifsud before.
Many others that the FBI worked with knew him — from high-level British intelligence officials to members of the Italian cabinet. If Mifsud was a Kremlin-linked cut-out, why didn’t the FBI warn the U.S.’s European partners, or even U.S. government agencies, about the man who was at the center of Russiagate? ...
So why did the FBI not arrest Mifsud? The State Department declined to comment when RCI emailed to ask why it did not prevent its officials from appearing at an event with a “Kremlin-linked” figure who was key to Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 election.
If Mifsud was a Russian spy, it’s unclear why after Papadopoulos’ July 27, 2017 arrest that no U.S. intelligence officials warned their European partners that they were hosting a foreign agent on their territory. ...
When asked if any action was taken to extradite Mifsud or even interview him further in Europe, the office of the special counsel declined to comment on an ongoing investigation.
The office also declined to answer why Mifsud has not been charged. Mueller indicted 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies for their involvement in a pro-Russian social media campaign during the 2016 campaign cycle. But the “Kremlin-linked” individual that is alleged to have passed the Trump team information about Russia’s interference in the election is at liberty.
Andy McCarthy is thinking about Joseph Mifsud, too
But not about his connections to Hillary, or how he might have been acting in concert with her campaign to subvert Trump's.
Someone really ought to find out where Joseph Mifsud is hiding.
Here.
Joseph Mifsud, whose meeting with Papadopoulos was the pretext for the FBI's counterintelligence investigation of Trump, admitted he was "With Her"
Here in November 2017:
Joseph Mifsud is the Maltese professor who, according to the rumors and anticipations of the Russiagate investigation, has approached George Papadopoulos, an aide of Donald Trump during his presidential campaign, to help him to contact Russian authorities in the Kremlin, even for organizing a meeting between Trump and Putin. Mr. Mifsud is said to have given to the aide “dirty information” on Mrs. Clinton collected by the Russian. ...
“I am a member of the European Council on Foreign relations”, he adds, “and you know which is the only foundation I am member of? The Clinton Foundation. Between you and me, my thinking is left-leaning. But I predicted Trump’s victory as well as Brexit. Everyone of us wants peace. If the governments don’t talk each other, we citizens must keep talking”.
Saturday, June 2, 2018
China is so full of crap, says US freedom of navigation patrols constitute "militarization" of South China Sea
Here:
Senior Col. Zhao Xiaozhou, of the People’s Liberation Army’s Academy of Military Sciences, suggested in a question to Mr. Mattis that the U.S. Navy’s maneuvers near the islands could also be called militarization.
Like the US, China is free to conduct freedom of navigation patrols same as the US. That isn't good enough for China. It lays claim, illegally, to the whole area, and seeks to prohibit freedom of navigation in the area to everyone else. Building islands out of reefs and occupying them illegally and then militarizing them is proof enough of that.
Military confrontation is inevitable.
You probably think the economy's great because, well, the stock market
It's a struggling swimmer, treading water.
Well whoop-de-do: Trump has "cut" federal employment by all of 0.6% since November 2016
It's statistically irrelevant, but Trump's cheering section is sounding it nonetheless.
Meanwhile the big-talkin' man had promised to cut the federal workforce by 20%.
Only 558,900 more federal workers to go there fella.
Like that'll happen, either.
Trump knows his own unemployment rate is fake, but touts it anyway. Sad.
Not-in-labor-force hit a new all-time high in May of almost 96 million.
President Trump used to think 223,000 jobs a month wasn't nearly good enough
Actually, to close the employment gap between today and pre-Great Recession America, we'd need 370,000 jobs a month for the next 50 months straight, four years.
Like that's going to happen.
Friday, June 1, 2018
If we had employment at the pre-recession percentage of population, we'd have 7.3 million more working in May 2018 than we do have
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| 162.7 million employed at 63.2% instead of the 155.4 million actual at 60.4% in May 2018 |
Like unemployment generally, black unemployment is so low because near record numbers of them aren't in the labor force
And presto! Down comes the unemployment rate when you stop counting them.
It's a numbers racket for blacks no different than for everyone else.
"Not working but still eating" soars to new all-time high of 95.9 million in May 2018, but don't expect Rush Limbaugh to talk about it
Not with a Republican in the White House, no sir.
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Mueller's worthless investigation is costing us millions, masking gargantuan increases for DOJ
"Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election has cost more than $16 million during its first year, according to the Justice Department."
This is small beer compared with what's really going on.
Trump's budget estimate for the entire Dept. of Justice for fiscal 2017 came to just $18 billion, but has swelled to $30 billion for both fiscal years 2018 and 2019, one of the biggest increases for any department. 67%!
What the hell are they spending the money on?
Trump's budget estimate for the entire Dept. of Justice for fiscal 2017 came to just $18 billion, but has swelled to $30 billion for both fiscal years 2018 and 2019, one of the biggest increases for any department. 67%!
What the hell are they spending the money on?
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
ABC should put Roseanne on The View next
She could reprise Ted Danson and see how Whoopi likes it now.
Laugh of the Day: Hollywood Reporter closes Disqus comments on Roseanne tweet story without showing even one
"This discussion has been closed".
What discussion?! (in my best Roseanne voice)
Cowards. You know everyone's laughing at Roseanne. Well, everyone with a sense of humor anyway.
What discussion?! (in my best Roseanne voice)
Cowards. You know everyone's laughing at Roseanne. Well, everyone with a sense of humor anyway.
Story here.
With every new story about JFK we hate him all the more, and his enablers and worshippers
From the story here:
“If the world had any idea how much of his time was focused not on NATO or Algeria or Vietnam, but on a hot date from Madame Claude, the perception of history would have been dubious, to say the least,” Stadiem writes.
Italy, the hysteria du jour
The Italian bond market, from the perspective of yields over the last ten years, is just shrugging. Yield on the short end is still negative:
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| 6-month |
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| 1-year |
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| 10-year |
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| 30-year |
Monday, May 28, 2018
Sunday, May 27, 2018
This guy's kidding about Amazon, right?
From the story here at CNBC:
Most people who cook and who don't leave the house often can probably get by pretty well using only Amazon services. You get can clothes, food and entertainment all from a single company, which is pretty wild. Who else offers that?
This guy obviously never heard of Meijer, a big box store where you can get your eyeglasses, prescriptions, haircut, banking, groceries, books, entertainment, electronics, hardware, automotive, pet supplies, flowers and on and on. And they deliver. There are others, and were.
Like Prange's.
Prange's was a department store in my hometown back in the 1960s. It had everything, from toys, sporting goods and groceries to shoes, clothing and furniture, and it delivered. My mom used it all the time. And for fun we went there, on the bus. It had a lunch counter where you could sit down and eat, and an express counter for fast food like foot long hot dogs, and right across from that a wonderful bakery, too.
What goes around comes around.
Trump has cut federal employment by a miniscule 0.3% November 2016 through April 2018
9000 jobs, a fart in a windstorm.
Federal employment peaked in 1990 at 3.2 million and hasn't averaged below 2.7 million since the mid-1960s.
As with ending abortion, cutting federal spending is only aspirational for Republicans in the same way that ending poverty and securing equal pay are only aspirational for Democrats.
Actually delivering on these promises would mean having to come up with new ones, which is too much like work.
Saturday, May 26, 2018
A Democrat is troubled by the FBI's excuses for Hillary's crimes
Saritha Prabhu in "I’m A Democrat, And The Left’s Russia Gaslighting Scares Me More Than Trump Does":
But I sense a bigger problem on the Democratic side, both among ordinary Democrats and prominent left-leaning pundits. In the Trump era, many seem unable to grasp irony and facts as it applies to their own side. For instance, when they talk about Trump violating the rule of law or obstructing justice, don’t they realize that some of us are thinking: Yes, but where were you when the FBI didn’t apply the rule of law to Hillary Clinton, and why didn’t you object when Hillary obstructed justice by deleting emails under subpoena? Shouldn’t the rule of law apply to everyone?
Despite what The New York Times now says, "Russia-Gate" has always been about the Steele dossier
So says Lee Smith for The Federalist in "How The Code Name ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ Undermines The FBI’s Russia Story":
After an October news report showed his dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, facts that further challenged the credibility of Steele’s research, the FBI investigation’s origin story shifted.
Friday, May 25, 2018
Trend for average temperature in Grand Rapids, Michigan, indicates warming of about +0.5 degrees F over the last 120 years
That's it.
The not-much-of-a-muchness of it suggests that the growth of heat island effects could easily account for the observed results.
How the failed North Korean summit is just like Election 2016
The North Koreans simply failed to show up, as did Hillary's voters.
But as with the election, everyone will go on interminably with other attempts at explanation.
The idiots at Politico call the Hermit Kingdom "hermetic" after North Koreans fail to show up in Singapore
Hermits are recluses, the followers of Hermes something else again. Apparently the editor never learned the difference at Carleton College, or is himself a hermit, employing himself elsewhere.
Here:
The scuttling of the summit, which had been scheduled for June 12 in Singapore, is a blow to U.S. efforts to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, as well as Trump’s desire to land a legacy-making deal with the hermetic nation. ...
A senior White House official said the [North Korean] statement was simply the latest in a “trail of broken promises“ that led Trump to abandon the talks. Last week, North Korean officials failed to show up in Singapore for a series of meetings to lay the groundwork for the presidential summit, the official said, declaring: “They simply stood us up.“
In recent days, the North Koreans have also been unresponsive to U.S. attempts to reach them. “We simply couldn’t get them to pick up the phone,“ the official said. In addition, the North Korean government did not keep its promise to invite experts to observe what it has said was the closure of one of its nuclear test sites, casting doubt on what really happened, the official said.
GE's Obama champion Jeff Immelt took its bonds from AAA to one notch above junk, just like its products
From the story here, which never once mentions the problem of declining product quality:
It’s a bad day for a CEO when he announces he’s retiring and the stock goes up. That was Jeff Immelt’s day on June 12, 2017. ... Its bonds, rated triple-A when Immelt became chief, are now rated five tiers lower at A2 and trade at prices more consistent with a Baa rating, one notch above junk.
Did Immelt run GE into the ground?
Look no further than its light bulb business. While GE-branded lightbulbs shifted to compact-fluorescent technology and then to LED with big promises of longevity which never panned out (trust me, I have BAGS FULL of expensive, failed examples of each), it somehow stopped knowing how to make incandescent lightbulbs which worked, too.
I discovered this with its appliance bulbs. A couple of years ago I had to replace an oven bulb after a few years of service from the original one. None of the GE replacement bulbs lasted more than a day. When I went online I discovered the problem wasn't mine alone. Customers all over the country were having the same problem.
I've had a similar experience with another GE appliance component: gas oven igniters. The OEM part lasted just six years. The OEM replacement? Less than two.
Additionally, GE's long-term care insurance business appears to be tracking the same history. It sold off some of that business not long after 911, and what business it has kept in that line has been in the (bad) news lately as well. GE over-promised on some plans it issued and undercharged for them, not realizing that claims would exceed expectations, making the plans unprofitable. I'm sure that's unsettling to policy holders who trusted GE. How long before the long-term care plans of older customers stop working altogether?
And is it just a coincidence that the Fukushima nuclear reactors were of GE design?
Yeah, sure. Just a coincidence.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Hooah: US disinvites Chicoms from Hawaii naval exercises because of South China sea militarization
From the story here:
“The United States is committed to a free and open Indo-Pacific. China’s continued militarization of disputed features in the South China Sea only serve to raise tensions and destabilize the region. As an initial response to China’s continued militarization of the South China Sea we have disinvited the PLA Navy from the 2018 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Exercise. China’s behavior is inconsistent with the principles and purposes of the RIMPAC exercise,” Logan said.
“We have strong evidence that China has deployed anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, and electronic jammers to contested features in the Spratly Islands region of the South China Sea. China’s landing of bomber aircraft at Woody Island has also raised tensions,” he continued.
“We believe these recent deployments and the continued militarization of these features is a violation of the promise that President Xi made to the United States and the World not to militarize the Spratly Islands.”
Andrew McCarthy wonders why the FBI didn't give the Trump campaign a "defensive briefing" in early spring 2016
Instead, Comey waited until early January 2017 to do this, on instructions from Clapper.
Here:
There are many different ways the Obama administration could have reacted to the news that Page and Manafort had joined the Trump campaign. It could have given the campaign a defensive briefing. It could have continued interviewing Page, with whom the FBI had longstanding lines of communication. It could have interviewed Manafort. It could have conducted a formal interview with George Papadopoulos rather than approaching him with a spy who asked him loaded questions about Russia’s possession of Democratic-party emails.
Instead of doing some or all of those things, the Obama administration chose to look at the Trump campaign as a likely co-conspirator of Russia — either because Obama officials inflated the flimsy evidence, or because they thought it could be an effective political attack on the opposition party’s likely candidate.
From the “late spring” on, every report of Trump-Russia ties, no matter how unlikely and uncorroborated, was presumed to be proof of a traitorous arrangement. And every detail that could be spun into Trump-campaign awareness of Russian hacking, no matter how tenuous, was viewed in the worst possible light.
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