#1
Every conceivable metric for economics has gone sideways. We have a trade deficit and a declining dollar (meaning we aren't exporting anything thanks to the regulations which is chasing jobs by the MILLIONS out of the country.) We have rising energy prices (Global warming is a scam, Solydra should make that clear) and we have millions of people out work due to a choking blizzard of paperwork and regulations that has brought most businesses that want to remain in the US to a standstill.
Do we have to mention Obamacare and the disasterous effects that is having on the jobs market.
Everything this administration does is counter intuitive. It has to be deliberate. There is no way they are this incompetent.
Putting on my conspiracy theorist hat, it is almost as if they want riots in the streets. Then they can declare martial law and try to stop the elections and put Obumble up as a North American Chavez.
You do not spend your way out of a Depression and you don't tax your way to prosperity.
Most of Europe has found that out.
Let's call a spade a spade, this is a DEPRESSION. By any economic definition, the combination of inflation, joblessness, and lack of economic growth in our economy, its a depression.
And for the life of me I don't understand how you can have a shrinking economy, high unemployment AND high inflation.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
09/16/2011 10:56 Comments ||
Top||
#2
(meaning we aren't exporting anything thanks to the regulations which is chasing jobs by the MILLIONS out of the country.)
There's a worldwide food shortage, but we're converting ours into fuel rather than drill our own oil. If we did drill our own, there'd be less import and more export. Dysfunctional ruling class can't grasp the basics.
#3
Dysfunctional ruling class can't grasp the basics.
Sure they are:
"It will belong to everybody, but somebody will have to take care of it for everybody. That will be you and me."
H. Beam Piper A slave is a slave
#4
We have a trade deficit and a declining dollar (meaning we aren't exporting anything thanks to the regulations which is chasing jobs by the MILLIONS out of the country.)
It's due to the huge wage disparities and wide open borders. You can zero regulations and it would have little effect on the merchandise and services trade deficit. Why would an international minded capitalist pay an American 20 or 30 times someone in China when you can ship the same production equipment (or telecoms or computing equipment), pay a 2% import tariff and keep the difference as profit? The question is why are there any jobs that are not directly tied to location remaining in the USA at all? And there are countries with even lower wages, like India, Vietnam or Bangladesh to exploit.
According to research published in the Monthly Labour Review of the US Bureau of Labour Statistics in April 2009, compensation of Chinese manufacturing workers was only $0.81 per hour in 2006just 2.7% of comparable costs in the US, 3.4% of those in Japan, and 2.2% of compensation rates in Europe. While these figures are now out of date by nearly four years, they underscore the magnitude of the gap between China and the developed worldand how difficult it would be to close that gap even under the most excessive of Chinese wage inflation scenarios.
Where it would help is energy, where there laws and regulations in effect deny certain forms of domestic energy production.
#6
At what rate of increase and for how many years would it take for Chinese wages to equal, say, 50% of US? Then do we repeat the whole cycle w/ India?
WASHINGTON (The Press Association That Can Not Be Named) -- The Obama administration ignored repeated warnings about a clean-energy loan program that has become an embarrassment for the White House amid the collapse of a California solar energy company that received more than $500 million in federal loans.
At least three reports by federal watchdogs over the past two years warned that the Energy Department had not fully developed the controls needed to manage the multibillion-dollar loan program that provided more than $528 million to Solyndra Inc., a now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer.
Emails obtained by The Press Association That Can Not Be Named show that a White House official dismissed reports about Solyndra's gloomy future. An email from Greg Nelson, a White House official who had been involved in the planning of Obama's May 2010 trip to Solyndra's headquarters, to a Solyndra executive downplayed a July 2010 news story in a trade publication that criticized the company's financial health.
"Seems B.S.," Nelson wrote. Coming up next on "Under the Bus"...Make Room For Greg.
#1
Interesting political note. Bloomberg National Poll is a Clinton friendly pollster, so this is likely a trial balloon to see if Hillary can get away with challenging Obama in the Democrat primary.
Noteworthy that Hillary has consistently polled with exactly the same 47% negative rating for over a decade, then suddenly a pollster comes with a weirdly phrased question of "Would it have been better if she had been elected president?"
"You're currently being tormented by Belphegor. Would you in retrospect have preferred being tormented by Leviathan?"
In a new study at Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance, we discovered why the Obama administration is so interested in helping out the states. States with a bluish hue--that is, states with legislatures that are heavily Democratic and have a highly unionized public-sector work force--must pay interest rates that are often an extra half a percentage point higher than states with a reddish coloring.
Our new study shows that under the Obama jobs bill, debt-ridden states will get another big handout.
Specifically, a 20 percentage-point increment in either the Democratic share of the state legislature or a comparable increase in the share of the public work force that is unionized drives up interest rates by nearly a half a percentage point on a five-year security note. That amount is nontrivial. In Obama's home state of Illinois, it is costing governments over $700 million annually.
The impact of these political factors on interest rates is in addition to the impact of standard economic factors, such as a state's unemployment rate, its gross domestic product growth, and its debt-to-GDP ratio, all of which are themselves shaped in part by the state's political climate.
In short, the bond market has concluded that the more unionized the state and the bluer its political coloring, the riskier it is to hold bonds marketed by that state.
#1
In a somewhat related blue state kind of way, I read today ( forgot source, sorry) that the Michigan House approved a bill that would prohibit the gov't from taking union dues from teachers' salaries. Seems they determined that the gov't was paying for all the admin expenses, which is another way of saying WE are paying to do work for the unions. Remains to be seen if the Michigan Senate will do anything with it.
In a further indication just how badly the White House fumbled the jobs bill, The Hill reports that administration officials had to meet with opponents in Congress to convince them to back the plan. Unfortunately for Barack Obama, those opponents weren't House Republicans. They were Senate Democrats -- and so far, it's still no sale:
Senior administration officials met with Senate Democrats for an hour and a half on Thursday to answer their complaints about President Obama's jobs bill.
Democratic lawmakers voiced objections to several of the president's proposals to pay for the $447 billion stimulus package, including an elimination of tax breaks for the oil-and-gas industry.
David Plouffe, a senior adviser to the president, acknowledged after a marathon meeting in the Senate's Mansfield Room that not all Democrats are sold on the plan. ...
"I think the vast majority of them are excited about it," Plouffe said after the meeting.
"The vast majority"? It only takes four of them to keep it from passing on a floor vote, as Democrats only have a 53-47 advantage in the Senate. In the news report itself, there are already enough Democrats objecting to derail it entirely. Mark Begich, Jim Webb, Mary Landrieu, and Barbara Mikulski are all named in this report as opposing the bill. None of them face voters in 2012, having to explain backing tax hikes, massive new spending, and a rerun of the 2009 Porkulus flop. If Mikulski objects to the bill, will Ben Nelson in Nebraska back it? Claire McCaskill in Missouri? Mark Pryor, who has to stand for re-election in Arkansas in 2014? None of the endangered Democrats in the next two cycles will dare vote for $450 billion in new spending to do the exact same thing that didn't work in 2009.
Chuck Schumer hosted the meeting, according to the report, which is curious in itself. Why not Harry Reid? Isn't he the Majority Leader? Why not Dick Durbin, who is Reid's second in command and presumably a backer of the jobs bill from his fellow Illinois politician? Schumer tried to paint a picture of unity on the way out of the meeting:
"There were some disagreements on different parts here and there but the overall feeling was that the administration is open to suggestions from members about different policy issues on jobs and strategic ways to deal with jobs," he added.
"Open to suggestions" means "back to the drawing board." This is why a competent White House would have asked their allies in the one chamber of Congress their party still controls for input before writing the bill. Their failure to engage with their allies had Senate Democrats publicly blasting the plan earlier this week, ruining Obama's strategy of blaming Republicans for stalling on his jobs bill. If the White House can't even convince Democrats to take the plunge with Porkulus II: Economic Boogaloo, Republicans will argue, then why should they?
We can also count Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey as an example of what battleground-state Senators will do when presented with Obama's jobs bill. In an interview with KDKA, Casey says he won't go for the package as presented -- and instead backs the idea from House Republicans to break up the bill into a series of votes on each component:
"I'm afraid if we tried to pass one big bill, I think there's a lot of skepticism about big pieces of legislation with all kinds of different component parts. We should break this up", said Casey. He later stated, "Why not have a series of votes on job creation strategies -- five votes, 10 votes, I don't care if it's 25 votes."
So that's five Senate Democrats on the record as opposing the bill so far, which is why Reid won't schedule it for a vote. The AJA has become a complete debacle for Obama and his team. If the Senate can't move it -- and I doubt it will ever come to the floor -- then Obama will have made himself as irrelevant as he possibly could have on jobs and the economy, and painted himself as a man with no clue as to how to boost the economy ... or even get a bill passed. Did teh 0ne even talk to the dhimocrats in the Senate before putting this bullshit together? I see more and more his incompetence arrogance of dictating things and expecting everyone to fall in line with him. Then when they don't he looks like a fool. Why talk to them? The current plan is just like the last one, just half the size. The Democrats voted for the last one, why wouldn't they vote for this one?
#1
CNBC TV PRO-DEMOCRAT PERT > opined that a "BADLY ORGANIZED, BADLY-MANAGED OBAMA STIMULUS PROGRAM" IS MUCH BETTER OR ACCEPTABLE THAT TYPICAL WASHINGTON = GOP-DEM "SPEND, SPEND, SPEND".
IIUC, BETTER AN INCOMPETENT, BUNGLED PROG THAN NONE AT ALL???
versus
* SAME > RICHARD SYLLA = US WILL SEE 20,000-POINT DOW BY 2020, however imperfect iff US Govtcritters stick to historical policy behaviors. DESPITE SEEMINGLY BAD 2011 ECON CRISES, THE OVERALL US ECON IS ACTUALLY IN A GOOD POSITION FOR NEW MASSIVE EXPANSION.
Oh, no! Another Democratic senator in possible election trouble for 2012.
And from California already?
A new Field Poll just released this morning brings news that California's Sen. Dianne Feinstein is -- how can we put this in a liberal kind of way? -- approved by 41% of voters who want to see her reelected next year.California Democrat senator Dianne Feinstein 9-11
Unfortunately for her, more voters (fully 44%) disapprove of her continued employment in the U.S. Senate after 2012. In blue California that makes for about a magnitude 5.2 quake.
The same poll finds that only 41% approve of Feinstein's job in Washington, while 39% disapprove. That 41 approval number is the lowest the former mayor has ever had in her 20 years of no longer really living in California.
Another recent Field Poll showed many Californians are falling out of love with the teleprompter guy from Chicago. His California approval has slid below 50% for the first time ever, down to 46%.
That's a decline of about two points per month recently. Doesn't translate into a Republican winning the seat... but it does show a lot of disgust with the base and left leaning independents which could translate into low turnout on election day. Keep inspiring your troops guys!
#2
That and the fact that there are not enough trunks left to fill the open positions. But it will be a good opportunity for MEChA. Maybe they can run against MS-13.
#3
...good opportunity for MEChA. Maybe they can run against MS-13...
Rim SHOT!
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
09/16/2011 13:19 Comments ||
Top||
#4
No worries, DiFi.
The alleged Republicans of this state will just nominate another legend in his/her own mind (see: Michael Huffington, Meg Whitman), and the result will be pre-ordained. Again.
(CNSNews.com) - House Minority Leader Nancy San Fran Nan Pelosi Congresswoman-for-Life from the San Francisco Bay Area, born into a family of politicians. Formerly Speaker of the House, but it's not her fault they lost. Really. Noted for her heavily botoxed grimace... ...and, apparently, heavy crack usage.
(D.-Calif.) said on Wednesday that the Democrats' loss of the special election in New York's 9th Congressional District--which was formerly represented by Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner--was actually a "good day" because it made Democrats realize they needed to intensify their efforts to prevail in next year's elections.
"In terms of New York, yeah, that was a disappointment. We would have preferred to win," said Pelosi. Since we have won there every year since 1923...
"It was a good day because it was something where other people realize we have to buckle down in order to win this," she said. Let's hope she sees many more "good days".
"It does not alter our plan for taking back the House," she added. Since no plan was going to work anyways... I WANT MY AIRPLANE BACK!!!
Posted by: Fred ||
09/16/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"we still have to look at the elections to see what they contain...oh shit!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/16/2011 0:18 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Early in the day, FrankG, but you just might get "The Snark of the Day" award
#4
GETTYSBURG,PA (July 3, 1863) -- General Robert E. Lee said that today was "a good day for the Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederate States of America," despite suffering heavy casualties in an attack across open ground earlier this afternoon. "General Pickett lost his division," Lee said, "and that was a disappointment. We would have preferred that they had not become casualties, but it made our surviving troops realize we have to buckle down in order to win this. It does not alter our plan for secession."
Posted by: Mike ||
09/16/2011 9:36 Comments ||
Top||
#5
"Every day we make retreat after glorious retreat, before an enemy that advances in utter disorder!"
from Wasp by Eric Frank Russell
Posted by: Joger Oppressor of the Lichtensteiners9577 ||
09/16/2011 9:48 Comments ||
Top||
h/t Instapundit
University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Art Caplan is so confident that Michele Bachmanns claim that a young girl was made mentally retarded by injections of the Gardasil vaccine against human papilloma virus is false that he is offering to donate $10,000 to the charity of Bachmanns choice if she can produce such a patient.
#4
I suggest the counter argument that she offer $10,000 to these "bioethicists" that they prove "to her satisfaction", that they have never, ever engaged in sexual relations with cantaloupes.
Of course, "proving" such a thing would be impossible.
Even if a million children suddenly developed mental retardation after having been given this HPV shot, it would still not amount to "proof", until a scientific determination, based on technology we don't have yet, could "prove" it.
Heck, we cannot even "prove" that cigarettes caused a given lung cancer.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
WASHINGTON (
In a new study at Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance, we discovered why the Obama administration is so interested in helping out the states. States with a bluish hue--that is, states with legislatures that are heavily Democratic and have a highly unionized public-sector work force--must pay interest rates that are often an extra half a percentage point higher than states with a reddish coloring.
In a further indication just how badly the White House fumbled the jobs bill, The Hill reports that administration officials had to meet with opponents in Congress to convince them to back the plan. Unfortunately for Barack Obama, those opponents weren't House Republicans. They were Senate Democrats -- and so far, it's still no sale:
Oh, no! Another Democratic senator in possible election trouble for 2012.
(CNSNews.com) - House Minority Leader 
