Friday - January 06, 2012

TooDaze Stoopid Newz, Part 1

For once it wasn’t unexpected!

The nation’s unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in nearly three years at the end of 2011, as a burst of private-sector hiring helped sustain what has been a positive trend lately in the job market.

The rate, which dipped to 8.5 percent in December, has dropped for four straight months. The direction of the numbers could help soften the political blow of what remains a tough economy for President Obama, who is charging into a competitive re-election year.

“It’s good news that more Americans found work last month despite a sluggish economy, but both parties must come together and do more to address the ongoing uncertainty that small businesses face,” House Speaker John Boehner [aka Crybaby] said. “Today marks the 35th consecutive month of unemployment above eight percent, and too many Americans continue to struggle to find their next job.”

The December report painted a picture of a broadly improving job market. Average hourly pay rose, providing consumers with more income to spend. The average work week lengthened, a sign that business is picking up and companies may soon need more workers. And hiring was strong across almost all major industries.
...
Manufacturing added 23,000 jobs. Transportation and warehousing added 50,000 jobs. Retailers added 28,000 jobs. Even the beleaguered construction industry added 17,000 workers.

Don’t read this part:

The drop in the rate, the lowest since February 2009, was driven by a net payroll increase of 200,000 in December. The rate also came down in part because the size of the labor force shrank by 50,000. Many who are unemployed have stopped looking for jobs. The government only counts people as unemployed if they are actively searching for jobs.

When including those groups, the broader “underemployment” rate was 15.2 percent. That’s down from 15.6 percent the previous month, but still high. The figure has dropped for three straight months.

Also please don’t think about the stats: 28,000 new jobs in retail is 14% of the gain, yet this could be almost entirely seasonal help brought on for the holidays. If half of them get let go in January, we’re right back up to over 9% again. Grain of salt? No, a bucketful.

Personally, I’m glad the unemployment situation is improving, however the numbers may be diddled. Every new job helps us get back on our feet. And I’m rather proud that the American economy can show some signs of life no matter what the Commie In Charge tries to do to it. But even if it should catch fire tomorrow, and a record setting hiring spree go on all year long, I won’t give him or his policies a milligram’s worth of credit. Any economic good news is coming in spite of the government, not because of it.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/06/2012 at 11:32 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics • News-Briefs •  
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   Sunday - January 01, 2012

Another Reason New Jersey Sucks

"One of these things is not like the other ...” but all of them have something in common.

Spending a little time on the PC playing my wife’s favorite game, Let’s look at real estate.

Here are a few links to three stupendous, gigantic, homes in Greenwood Indiana, a very tony suburb of Indianapolis. Palacettes? McMansions? Call them what you will, I wouldn’t mind living in any of them.

http://www.homes.com/listing/146672855/1875_Dockside_Drive_GREENWOOD_IN_46143
http://www.homes.com/listing/153018054/4690_Waters_Edge_Wa_GREENWOOD_IN_46143
http://www.homes.com/listing/150875754/1188_Old_Eagle_Way_GREENWOOD_IN_46143

Lovely places, all of them; each home is at least 5600 square feet on at least half an acre, and most of them have every possible amenity and luxury feature built in. Nice.

Here is a condominium a couple miles from us, in the nice little town of High Bridge New Jersey.

http://www.weichert.com/40684422/?countyid=33675&ptypeid=28%2c21&maxpr=180&minbr=1&minba=1&exc=adc

There is nothing wrong with this place, nor with the condo park that it is in. I’ve been there before. They have a bit of extra parking out front, and a very small bit of grass (25 feet?) out back where a long concrete wall rises straight up 12 feet or so to carry the road behind the park. The units are around 1000 square feet, perhaps a little less. So the whole “park” is nothing more than a couple dozen units built into a little cutout between the roads, right off of downtown. Thankfully, High Bridge isn’t that busy or big of a town, so the traffic noise shouldn’t be too bad.

It should be noted that, in a healthy real estate market, if the above linked luxury homes were built in any of the nicer parts of New Jersey, they would all be in the 1.5-2.5 million dollar bracket. At least.

So, what does these McMansions in Indiana have in common with a decent but somewhat cramped condo in New Jersey? They all pay pretty much the same thing in property taxes. Actually, if you roll in the condo association fee (which is half that of other condos around here) and consider that another kind of tax, the place in NJ suffers from a much greater burden. Sure, sure, you can point to million dollar apartments in New York City that pay $20,000 in taxes per year, but are hardly better than slums. Different world; apples and oranges. All the homes linked to here are in nice suburban towns, with a moderate but not terrible commute to the nearby urban centers. My point is that NJ is being bled dry with property taxes, and this is destroying the upper-lower and lower-middle classes. $150K for a place to live isn’t too bad if you have a steady job. But the tax bite eats up a full third of your mortgage payment, making the place pretty much unaffordable.

There is no possible way that the tax burden here will be reduced either. Perhaps not ever. Too much government, too much waste, too many people with their hands out for generations.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/01/2012 at 11:27 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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   Thursday - December 29, 2011

Meanwhile, Back in the USSA

How ironic that it took the Republican Governor of the state of Maine to admit that his state is the first one provably belly up: Welfare Recipients outnumber taxpayers in Maine. Maine has never been a rich state, and they have had a lot of folks on welfare for a long time. On the other hand, there really aren’t all that many people up there, so it hasn’t amounted to much in total. Now? Maybe the numbers are getting steeper. Seems to me like there could be a really large Workfare labor force just sitting around up there, waiting for some shovels.

Paul LePage, the Republican governor of Maine, mentioned an uncomfortable truth in a radio address this month: Maine has more welfare recipients than income tax payers.

Democrats challenged the accuracy of this assertion.

The Bangor Daily News fact-checked LePage and discovered that 445,074 Mainers paid state income tax, while 453,194 received some sort of state aid.

In Maine, Medicaid, welfare, food stamps and subsidies for education have a combined enrollment of 660,000.

Not to worry, Lord O Bambam gonna save us all, right? I mean, when he’s done playing golf or back from his latest vacation. Right? Right? Oh right - Obama has a plan: let’s borrow more money to spend on my pals and their Green Energy scams:

Obama seeks $1.2 trillion debt ceiling increase

President Obama plans to ask Congress this week to raise the debt limit by $1.2 trillion, an increase that should get the government through most of next year, a Treasury department official said Tuesday.

Fortunately, though, the increase should come without the fireworks that accompanied this summer’s debt battle, as it comes in line with the deal struck back then.

That deal, signed into law in August, authorized a phased increase of the debt ceiling by up to $2.4 trillion, with $400 billion of that kicking in immediately and another $500 billion coming in September.

It’s pretty much a done deal. The thieves in DC may make all sorts of noise about cutting spending, but nothing happens. What the hell, let’s saddle the great-grandkids with even more bills to pay, and they aren’t even hardly born yet.

Not to worry, the employment situation is getting better, right? Um, well, maybe not. Even with the new and vastly reduced size of the official labor market, the numbers are creeping upwards. Hey, that’s really unexpected, isn’t it?

New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, a government report showed on Thursday, but the underlying trend continued to point to improving labor market conditions. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 381,000, the Labor Department said. The prior week’s claims data was revised up to 366,000 from the previously reported 364,000.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 375,000. A Labor Department official said that because of a public holiday on Monday, claims from seven states - including California and Virginia - had been estimated.

The four-week moving average — a better measure of trends — fell 5,750 to 375,000, the lowest level since June 2008.

So, with half a million or so folks now rolled off of the extended benefits train, the seasonally adjusted numbers can be tweaked to appear at under 9%. And the fact that the average number of new claims for unemployment is 375,000 PER WEEK is good news, because it could be higher? Really? Who is left at this point? But I digress ... yeah baby, look at that economy growing! Go go go! Why, (until next week’s unexpected upward revision) this week’s numbers all point in the right direction. Yee ha!

A question for any pilots out there: If your airplane is falling out of the sky, and the best thing you can do to remedy that is to decrease the rate of descent from 10,000 feet per minute to 2,000 feet per minute, is this still going to be good news an hour from now?

Posted by Drew458     on 12/29/2011 at 12:56 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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   Thursday - December 22, 2011

CHRISTMAS FUTURE?  not a good sign if it is.

OK first of all I think those leaders mentioned here are a bit OTT saying the stores are ashamed to sell religious cards.  But they should be for joining the oh so tacky and crude pandering to bad taste.  I might be way off base here. Maybe it’s age.  But I really see nothing witty, or clever or funny about these cards.

Last month I sent what many would think of as a crude birthday card to an old and dear friend in Franklin, Tn.  Since we’re both of an age and both experiencing those damnable things that accompany old age, the card addressed the funny side of aging (there really isn’t any) and although a bit crude it wasn’t vile and addressed head on our experiences.  It was a personal thing between friends. 

Somehow though, I see this in a different light altogether.  There’s something not right about it.  OK, free speech and free expression and some of it would be called art by some ppl. Which naturally makes it all okay.  Really?
I wonder if the ppl who produced this material would be so brave as to do a number on islam and the prophet.
Yeah. Sure.  When pigs learn to fly.

Stores ‘ashamed’ to sell religious cards… but obscene ones litter the High Street

By ANDREW LEVY
Supermarkets have become ‘ashamed’ of selling Christmas cards with religious themes, Christian leaders said yesterday.
They claimed a creeping ‘multicultural indoctrination’ had led to an aversion to Christianity, and that shops were worried about stocking cards that might offend other faiths.
The rebuke to Britain’s big four supermarkets – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons – came as a snapshot poll by the Daily Mail revealed the tiny number of religious cards on sale.

THE OBSCENE CARDS

Christmas cards emblazoned with obscenities are on sale across Britain’s High Streets.
One card showing a quintessential 50s family inside a wreath reads ‘Merry Christmas W*****’, while another depicts a pair of carol singers with the words ‘Merry F****** Christmas.’ A third says: ‘Merry Christmas You F****** F*****.’
In total, dozens of the explicit cards are on sale in branches of Scribbler. Each costs around £2.50.
Mike Judge, of the Christian Institute, said: ‘You don’t have to be a prude to see this is inappropriate at what is, after all, a special time for families.’
Christian Concern’s Andrea Williams added: ‘Christmas is a time when we remember the birth of Jesus, a message of hope and peace for all people.  It is a great shame if Scribbler use it to promote obscenities.’
In the branch of the store in London’s Kensington High Street, the filth-ridden cards are part of a large display containing other family-orientated festive greetings.
One shows Santa saying: ‘Shh! Nobody knows I’m gay’ while another shows him with a cigarette in hand and the words: ‘F*** off! I’m smoking.’
A third shows a cheery-looking Father Christmas with the phrase ‘YOU ain’t getting s***!’
But Scribbler’s managing director John Procter described the cards as having a ‘schoolboy’ sense of humour.
‘It’s our company policy not to use expletives or such words in a gratuitous way. If we think it makes a joke then we will use one,’ he said.
‘We do group all of these rather rude cards together and keep them at eye level so children can’t see them.
‘I understand why some people might find them offensive. But they really are our best sellers and in reality we get very few complaints.’

LOTS MORE TO SEE HERE

Could someone enlighten me on something please. You’d think at my age and having traveled a few places in the world, I might know every single swear word there is.  I’ve even made a few up induced by computer malfunctions.
But I am stymied by this in the article. Cos I haven’t come across it before.

The second line in the article says Merry Christmas W*****.  Well, I guess I’m way behind the cuss curve on this cos I can’t think of a bad word that starts with a ‘W’ can you?

What the heck. I guess this is the way of this new world. 

Posted by peiper     on 12/22/2011 at 03:14 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics • Holidays •  
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   Wednesday - December 14, 2011

Truly Unexpected News

Son of a bitch. I just heard this on Fox News ... I missed it yesterday ...

Data on sales of previously owned homes from 2007 through October this year will be revised down next week because of double counting, indicating a much weaker housing market than previously thought.

The National Association of Realtors said a benchmarking exercise had revealed that some properties were listed more than once and in some instances new home sales were also captured.

“All the sales and inventory data that has been reported since January 2007 is being downwardly revised. Sales were weaker than people thought,” NAR spokesman Walter Malony told Reuters.

“We’re capturing some new home data that should have been filtered out and we also discovered that some properties were being listed in more than one list.”

The benchmark revisions will be published next Wednesday and will not affect house prices.

Realtors: We Overcounted Home Sales for Five Years

... The depressed housing market is one of the key obstacles to strong economic growth and an oversupply of unsold homes on the market continues to stifle the sector.

Malony said the Realtors group had developed a new model that would allow frequent benchmarking instead of waiting 10 years for the population Census data to revise their figures.

There was some hint of this back in February, when an outside group ran the numbers and saw the problem. Looks like they were quickly hushed up ...

[02/15/2011] Decline in real estate sales greater than stated? CoreLogic: NAR methodology appears to inflate home sales by 15-20%

Statistics published by the National Association of Realtors appear to overstate sales of existing homes by 15 to 20 percent, mortgage and property data aggregator CoreLogic says in a new report that concludes home sales fell more sharply last year than previously thought.

A NAR spokesman said the CoreLogic claim “is premature at best,” and NAR will be making some benchmark revisions to its historic sales data later this year.

NAR’s figures—based on data collected from multiple listing services and large brokerages—show sales of existing homes fell 5 percent in 2010, to 4.9 million. But CoreLogic, which collects public sales records from county recorders and courts, estimates that home sales actually fell 12 percent, to 3.6 million.

The implications are not trivial: A slower rate of sales means that it will take longer to burn through unsold inventory, and a glut of homes for sale in a given market can undermine prices. CoreLogic says the unsold inventory on the market in November represented 16 months of supply, compared with NAR’s estimate of 9.5 months.

Weak sales following the expiration of the federal homebuyer tax credits, an excess supply of unsold homes, and the impact of sales of distressed homes is driving home prices down, CoreLogic said. A national, repeat-sales home-price index compiled by the company was down 5.1 percent in November from a year ago.

If that trend continues, national home prices will probably be down 10 percent year-over-year by spring, CoreLogic said.

Yeah that’s right, poo-poo their findings and sweep it under the rug. Nothing to see here, move along.

Let’s ask a simple question: How do you miscount an actual sale? A sale is a sale is a sale, right?  NAR gets its data from the various MLS systems and of course we the general public should trust the professionals and their data, yes?

In point of fact I was called all sorts of names by some of those professionals when I ran down a report sent to me in the fall of 2010 claiming that the MLS data was incorrect on sold price—a key element used when performing market analysis for clients who are interested in both buying and selling. At the time I made the audacious recommendation that nobody should trust Realtor data and should instead insist on a pull of the public records at the County level before performing any real estate transaction.

There was plenty of controversy at the time over the original claim and I spent a lot of time running down the facts, including calls to county tax authorities—and later posted a follow-up later to the original Ticker.

This issue of bad counts of sold homes is, in my opinion, much-more serious, as it’s damn hard to claim this is a result of misunderstanding between an industry professional and a naive client.

Let’s face reality here folks: Counting how many things sold is pretty simple if there’s any sort of verification and integrity in the process, especially when ownership changes are filed with county authorities in public records and thus a spot check should catch any material error almost instantly!

So I must ask—why now, some eight months after Corelogic first raised the issue?  Did it really take eight months to actually.... well..... count?  How many fingers do these people have again?

i am really starting to believe that i live inside the matrix.

Horry Clap.

Oh, and ... I could be wrong, as I’m not a Realtor, but I read on some realty forum that when a bank takes back a house in foreclosure it counts as a sale. Um, no, that’s a load of crap. But if that is part of the current “accounting method”, then even the downwardly revised figures are going to be upwardly inflated. Let’s all just join hands and say it’s time to cut the bullshit. We all already KNOW we’re in the shitter. Stop the lies, and let’s all work together to try and get out of this mess. And Socialism isn’t the answer, Professor Asshat.

PS - if the housing market is and has been 20% worse than admitted for the past 5+ years, what do you think the actual health of Fannie, Freddie, and the rest of the mortgage industry is then?

Posted by Drew458     on 12/14/2011 at 01:32 PM   
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   Friday - December 02, 2011

Crunchy Crunchy Numbers

Unemployment Rate Falls to 8.6 Percent, Lowest Since March 2009

WASHINGTON – The unemployment rate fell last month to its lowest level in more than two and a half years, as employers stepped up hiring in response to the slowly improving economy.

The Labor Department says the unemployment rate dropped sharply to 8.6 percent last month, down from 9 percent in October. The rate hasn’t been that low since March 2009, during the depths of the recession.

Employers added 120,000 jobs last month. And the previous two months were revised up to show that 72,000 more jobs added—the fourth straight month the government revised prior months higher.

Still, one reason the unemployment rate fell so much was because roughly 315,000 people gave up looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed.

Sure. Sure, I believe it. Riiight. Let’s ignore how many of those newly added jobs are seasonal retail; extra help hired for the Thanksgiving to Christmas surge. Then let’s merely note in passing that the numbers are so much better perhaps because such a huge crowd of folks have finally used up their super-extended unemployment benefits. But hey, let’s completely ignore the utterly flawed counting system that considers people who no longer get an unemployment check to not be part of the workforce any longer. Nonsense. And don’t go saying that they’ve given up. They may not have; they’re just out of benefits.

You want more realistic numbers? Go to Social Security, and find out how many people between the ages of 15 and 70 have an SSN. Then have the IRS count how many folks reported an earned income. Now hit up the VA and the other side of Social Security and subtract off the folks who are listed as permanently disabled. That’s still not a perfect accounting, but it’s closer to the truth. Then watch those numbers go up and down month after month, year after year. 

Posted by Drew458     on 12/02/2011 at 09:51 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics • work and the workplace •  
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   Friday - November 18, 2011

senior conservatives calls for ‘permanent, universal opt-out’ from European laws

If there is one things Europeans and most especially Germans do not want, it’s for the Brits to have any kind of referendum on any of this.
Cos it isn’t any closely held state secret that if given a clear choice .... I truly believe the majority of Brits would tell the Euros to, ‘Drop Dead.’
Well, not exactly.  Most Brits polite and would put it another way but heck, a rose by any other name .....

Merkel’s plot to scupper OUR referendum with ‘limited’ treaty change… as German colleague claims Britain will scrap the Pound and join the sinking Euro

Finance minister’s astonishing claim comes despite deepening crisis that threatens the existence of the single currency

Cameron and Merkel ignore disagreements over eurozone solution as they describe their ‘strong friendship’

German Chancellor says EU needs ‘limited treaty change’ which won’t trigger a referendum in Britain

PM was in Berlin today to discuss repatriation of EU powers

UK is pressuring Germany to allow euro bank to print more money

Senior Tory calls for ‘permanent, universal opt-out’ from European laws

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Germany’s Chancellor today denied the British people the chance for an EU referendum as as she said the eurozone crisis would be resolved without the UK’s involvement.

Angela Merkel called for a ‘limited treaty change’ for further eurozone integration - exactly as spelled out in a leaked German memo which outlines an attempt to prevent a British referendum that could lead to powers being clawed back from Brussels.

Her extraordinary announcement came on the day that finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble predicted that the UK will have to adopt the euro ‘faster than people think’, despite the ongoing crisis in the single currency.

Germany’s attempts to impose EU control on Britain, and the minister’s astonishing outburst, will have increased the tensions between David Cameron and Mrs Merkel as they met in Berlin this morning.

The leaders are have clashed over German plans for a new tax on bank transactions and treaty change to shore up eurozone finances.

But at a press conference this afternoon, the pair ignored their differences and insisted that Britain and Germany will work together in a spirit of ‘strong friendship’.

The leaders steered clear of most areas of disagreement and insisted they had had ‘very good discussions between very good friends’, but could not stop some evidence of discord slipping out.

When asked whether the European Central Bank should start printing money to guarantee eurozone debts, Mr Cameron said officials should ‘do what is necessary’ to defend the euro.

But Mrs Merkel warned that Europe’s resources were not infinite as she insisted: ‘One should not pretend to be more powerful than one really is.’

And when the pair were asked about the arguments over a European financial transactions tax, the German leader admitted they ‘did not make any progress’ on the issue.

In a blow to British hopes of a referendum on repatriating powers from Brussels, she also said that any move towards closer economic union in the eurozone would take place through ‘a limited treaty change, only for the members of the eurozone’.

This would mean that Mr Cameron could avoid fulfilling his pledge to hold a referendum on EU powers the next time Britain is required to sign up to a new treaty, and will outrage Tory backbenchers hoping to claw back sovereignty from Europe.

WHY NO REFERENDUM?
The Conservatives have long promised a referendum on repatriating powers from the EU, but have not yet delivered one.

Angela Merkel’s comments today make a referendum less likely, as her ‘limited treaty change’ will not have to be approved by countries outside the euro, including the UK.

The Coalition’s ‘referendum lock’ commits the Government to holding a public vote the next time Britain is supposed to sign up to a new treaty which would hand more power to Brussels.

But if the eurozone countries try to solve the debt crisis by closer economic integration, the UK will have no say - even though this could have a massive impact on Britain.

Although no referendum will be held, there is nothing to stop the Government from trying to repatriate powers by itself, but without a popular mandate it will be taken less seriously by other EU countries

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 11/18/2011 at 11:35 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics • EUro-peons • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • UK •  
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   Sunday - November 13, 2011

Nice Going Jon

Screw you, Jon Corzine.

All 1,066 employees of the bankrupt trading house MF Global got the boot yesterday in a pre-holiday massacre that left workers without severance and benefits—and they blamed only one man for their woes.

“Happy holidays, Corzine, from all your employees who’ve been fired without severance packages!” a worker fumed at her former company CEO as she left the firm’s building at 717 Fifth Ave.

“I have two little kids, it’s almost Christmas, the economy stinks—how am I gonna find a job?” said another worker who just cleaned out his desk.

The 1,066 employees will be paid through next Tuesday, and health benefits will run out at the end of November. Bonuses and other financial perks won’t be paid, workers said.

“It ended like this because of one man,” said Anthony DiMatteo, who worked for MF for 16 years. Corzine is “selfish, greedy,” he said.

If Corzine were around, DiMatteo told Bloomberg News, “I would punch him in the face.”

Another expressed his fury by donning a T-shirt that read: “F--k you, you f--kin’ f--k!”

The pink slips—which went out in New York, Chicago and other MF offices—were court-mandated in the wake of the Oct. 31 Chapter 11 filing of its parent firm, MF Global Holdings Ltd.

The $41 billion firm collapsed after Corzine’s disastrous high-stakes investment in foreign debt blew up in his face.

One man. One IDIOT. Jon Corzine, whose best buddy is Barack Hussein Obama. One step away from being the next top money guy for the entire nation.

A man who was Barack Obama’s #1 Wall Street bundler, and was on the president’s very short list to replace Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary.
...
Jon will survive - he’s a billionaire, and a friend of Barack’s to boot. His former employees at MF Global are not so lucky

And why haven’t the Republicans been all over this - a Democrat’s destruction of jobs, lives, and families, all in the name of Wall Street greed, all while working closely with Barack Obama, who is running his re-election campaign based on opposition to these very same themes?

If they can’t capitalize on this, we might just lose in 2012 after all...

Being out of the country last week, I missed out on the local elections. GOP did pretty well across NJ. An awful lot of people here in this True Blue state now understand the math that Democrats=Jon Corzine=Barack Obama=Loser.
Please bop over to my man in Old Bridge for some of that vote result goodness - Republicans SWEPT entire districts across the state.
http://jerseynut.blogspot.com/2011/11/republican-win-in-old-bridge-new-jersey.html
http://www.nj.com/sunbeam-news/index.ssf/2011/11/after_a_decade_republicans_tak.html
http://www.app.com/article/20111108/NJNEWS11/311080123&source=rss

Not a 100% sweep in my corner of the state, but local voters elected Republicans about 75-85% of the time in the 5 counties around here in the northwest corner:
http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2011/11/hunterdon_county_2011_election_1.html

Posted by Drew458     on 11/13/2011 at 12:54 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Economics • Stoopid-People •  
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   Saturday - October 15, 2011

Grab Your Shovel And Spread The WealthE

Hey, remember that civilian army Obama used to talk about?

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has offered his own $804 billion jobs plan that calls on the federal government to hire the nation’s 15 million unemployed Americans for jobs paying roughly $40,000 each, and bail out all the states and cities facing budget crises.

In an interview with the Daily Caller on Wednesday, the Illinois Democrat applauded President Obama for directing his staff to greenlight job-creating initiatives without congressional approval after his $447 billion jobs bill was defeated in the Senate this week.

“Now we’re making some progress,” Jackson said, comparing the legislative gridlock in Congress to the states that seceded from the union during the Civil War.

“We’ve seen Congress is in rebellion,” he said, “determined to wreck or ruin at all costs.”

Jackson said the government’s direct hiring of the nation’s 15 million unemployed Americans would cost $600 billion.

“It could be a five-year program,” he said. “For another $104 billion, we bail out all of the states. For another $100 billion, we bail out all of the cities.”

“We put people to work cleaning up communities. We put people to work through a civilian conservation corps, through a Works Progress Administration because the hour demands it,” he said.

“And as more people work, they pay taxes, they pay taxes into the 4th quarter, they buy wares, they buy homes, they meet their obligations and our economy begins to work its way out of this protracted recession,” he continued. “That’s the only way out of this crisis. And I hope the president begins to continue to exercise extraordinary constitutional means based on the history of Congresses that have been in rebellion in the past.”

Golly, the jobs part alone works out to only another $2,000 in debt for every single citizen in the nation. PER YEAR.

You know, this is pretty much what I expected Obama’s “shovel ready” plan to be, back in 2009. In some ways it would have made more sense than dropping a half billion here, a half billion there, to create a couple of dozen jobs at some phony “green” venture start up run by one of his bundlers. And let’s face it, this sounds almost exactly like FDR’s CCC from back in the 30’s. It even has the same name (Democrats: always thinking up something “new”, right?). We could call it the Civilian Conservation Corps Plan, or CCCP for short. Might as well be honest with the acronym, because most folks are too stupid to even realize what that means.

And of course you’d want the plan to be fair, so it would have to cover not just the folks who are unemployed now, but those who become unemployed in the near future. Unintended consequences coming in over the event horizon at Mach 7 sir!!!  By which I mean that every single person in the country working for less than $19.23 per hour would get themselves fired or quit and sign up overnight. Which means that the 15 million would be 60 million in a week, and 100 million the week after that. So the cost would multiply by 7 instantly. It would be the ultimate Cash For Clunkers program (in terms of an uncontrollable bailout, not in terms of denigration for the people that work those lower paying jobs). I don’t know the details, but I’m sure that such jobs, regardless of what the actual work would entail (work? hah!), would also come with government level health bennies, so add at least another 1 to the cost multiplier and go with 8. This week. And of course you’d need a huge bunch of managers and overseers to shepherd all those people, so let’s hire at least another half million government employees at a considerably higher rate than his $40,000 proposal to be the massahs bosses comrades of authority.

And any business that has low paying clerks, drivers, kitchen staff, cart boys, shipping clerks, cleaning staff, door greeters, ... you name it, they would have to immediately increase their pay rate to $20/hr to keep their workers aboard. And match or beat the benefits. Which would really cheese off the more skilled workers at corporate, so those folks would all need an instant $12,000 raise. And the only place that kind of money could come from is from the salaries of the big bad owners and executives. They would necessarily have to take a major pay cut; pretty soon none of them from the CEO downwards would be earning more than $100,000. That is, until they figured out how to outsource their entire company to India, where they could then pay all the workers 28¢ per week or whatever the prevailing slave wage over there is. $1? $5? Whatever, it ain’t much, even in India. But hey, no problem. All those extra 90 million Americans put out of work could then sign up for the $40,000 government jobs. But they’d be paying taxes right Jesse Jr? So it would all work out. Sure it would. At least until all those 190 million people all joined a union and demanded a “living wage” of $50/hr. Plus more bennies.

And this guy is a Congressman. This is one of our leaders. One of our “best and brightest”. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr (D-Illinois in case it wasn’t obvious) is up for re-election. Vote early and often!

UPDATE: Just to be clear, Jackson is calling for the POTUS to be a tyrant and do an end-run around the Constitution:

“do it through direct hire ... the hour demands it ... that’s the extraordinary constitutional means ... the Congress is in rebellion ... this Congress is completely disfunctional ... declare a national emergency ...”

“We’ve got to go further. I support what [Obama] does. Clearly, Republicans are not going to be for it but if the administration can handle administratively what can be done, we should pursue it. And if there are extra-constitutional opportunities that allow the president administratively to put the people to work, he should pursue every single one of them.”

No question about it: “extraordinary” is being used here as “extra-ordinary”, which means atypical. “Extra-constitutional” means beyond and/or outside of the Constitution. Put simply, it is rule by fiat, by the command of the King, the ukase of the Czar.

What the heck, King Charles I President Obama, if Parliament Congress is in rebellion, might as well just dissolve them. We know how that works out, right?

Posted by Drew458     on 10/15/2011 at 07:15 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Economics •  
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   Friday - October 07, 2011

Depressing

Housing market a bust; worst since Great Depression

The American dream of homeownership has felt its biggest drop since the Great Depression, according to new 2010 census figures released Thursday.
...
“The changes now taking place are mind-boggling: the housing market has completely crashed and attitudes toward housing are shifting from owning to renting,” said Patrick Newport, economist with IHS Global Insight.
...
The U.S. housing crisis is far worse than the experience in most Western industrialized nations, which, unlike the U.S., did not foster markets of subprime lending to promote homeownership.

Whole planet going to hell in a handbasket

World facing worst financial crisis in history
Sir Mervyn King [Bank of England Governor] was speaking after the decision by the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee to put £75billion of newly created money into the economy in a desperate effort to stave off a new credit crisis and a UK recession.

Economists said the Bank’s decision to resume its quantitative easing [QE], or asset purchase programme, showed it was increasingly fearful for the economy, and predicted more such moves ahead.

Sir Mervyn said the Bank had been driven by growing signs of a global economic disaster.

“This is the most serious financial crisis we’ve seen, at least since the 1930s, if not ever. We’re having to deal with very unusual circumstances, but to act calmly to this and to do the right thing.”

“This is the most serious financial crisis we’ve seen, at least since the 1930s, if not ever. We’re having to deal with very unusual circumstances, but to act calmly to this and to do the right thing.”

Announcing its decision, the Bank said that the eurozone debt crisis was creating “severe strains in bank funding markets and financial markets”.

Unemployment still abysmal despite 130K new jobs

The nation’s unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.1 percent in September despite an uptick in hiring, as the latest labor report fueled debate in Washington over how to jump-start an economy that President Obama acknowledges has weakened since the start of the year.

The Labor Department said Friday employers added 130,000 jobs in September. Nearly half of those gains, though, were due to the rehiring of 45,000 Verizon employees who had gone on strike.

The hiring did little to draw down the number of unemployed in America, estimated at about 14 million. Since April, the jobless rate has hovered between 9 and 9.2 percent.

The report quickly was pulled into the debate on Capitol Hill over whether to pursue Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill—a mix of tax relief, infrastructure spending and other measures—or pursue a different route.

House Speaker John Boehner said the “sad numbers” show the federal government cannot keep pursuing policies of “more Washington spending, threats of higher taxes on small businesses, and excessive government regulations.”

Another day full of downer news. Hey, let’s spend another trillion or five on BS projects run by big Obama bundlers. And WTH, let’s give those Occupy Wall Street protesters the free ride for life - in first class of course - that they’re demanding. Obama’s mindless minions, calling for communism, and they don’t even know what communism is.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/07/2011 at 10:29 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics •  
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   Sunday - October 02, 2011

Also In My Inbox

to introduce his American Jobs Act, exhorting them on national television to “pass this bill immediately”?  Obama used that phrase in various forms 17 times despite the fact that he didn’t actually *have* a bill to present to Congress until a week later.  And as far as all but two members of Congress are concerned, the bill itself may as well not exist. No co-sponsors have added their names to either the Senate or the House version even after more than a week, although readers have to dig a ways into the Washington Post report to find that out:

In the House, it has been introduced as a bill by Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.).

In the Senate, the bill has been introduced by Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).

Neither bill has attracted any co-sponsors.

And, earlier this week, Reid said that the Senate would not take up the bill when it returns from a short recess. Instead, it would first take up a measure to punish China and other nations for currency ma­nipu­la­tion. That bill, in keeping with the Democrats’ strategy, is meant to help several individual senators in manufacturing states, where competition from China is blamed for local job losses.

What about the jobs bill? “We’ll get to that,” Reid told reporters.

Despite early and regular pleas from the White House, Senate Democrats say they will not move immediately to take up President Obama’s jobs bill when they return next week from a short recess.

“We’ll get to that,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said Monday night when asked if the likely passage of a temporary spending bill to keep the government functioning meant the Senate could now consider the president’s package.

...

“There is work to be done,” Obama said. “There are workers ready to do it. So let’s tell Congress: Pass this jobs bill right away.”

Given his urgency, Reid’s position has Republicans chortling that it is congressional Democrats who appear to be standing in the way of a quick vote on the president’s plan.

h/t to Rich K

Posted by Drew458     on 10/02/2011 at 03:14 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Economics • Obama, The One •  
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   Thursday - September 29, 2011

Driving the Recovery?

Improve the Economy: Raise the Speed Limit to 80mph

Motorway speed limits could be raised to 80mph to shorten journey times and boost the economy

The current 70mph restriction is rarely enforced, police often turning a blind eye to anyone driving at up to 10mph faster than the limit.

Experts have argued that by having a higher speed limit that is enforced more readily, drivers are more likely to have respect for the rules.

A report in the Daily Mail suggests potential changes could be discussed as soon as this month’s Conservative Party conference.

It states that it is now only a matter of time before the change to the law is brought in, although speed restrictions on motorways will be better enforced.

But the Department for Transport refused to be drawn on the matter, describing the report as “speculation”.

“We need to make sure that we are looking at the right criteria when considering what level speed limits should be set at,” a DfT spokesman said.

“This means looking at the economic benefits of shorter journey times as well as considering other implications such as road safety and carbon emissions.

“Any proposal to change national speed limits would be subject to full public consultation.”

The latest figures from the DfT show that nearly half of cars exceeded the 70mph speed limit on motorways last year.

Sounds like a good idea to me for over here too. But I would want state vehicle inspection standards raised to check somehow if cars were stable at those speeds, had the properly rated tires, and had proper brakes. Then I’d want a major effort from the police to enforce safe following distances. People drive on the highways of NJ at 80mph or better all the time ... right on each other’s bumpers. That is not safe driving.

But it would be nice for many of us to get to work 15 minutes faster, and if such a speed limit were to stay around, new cars could be given a more appropriate top gear so that they’d get the same mileage at that speed as they do at 65mph.

Perhaps a bit better driver training could help us, and the UK as well:

The problem with driving is drivers. Not you, dear reader, obviously – your three-point turns are vehicular ballet. It’s the rest of them. As roads have become busier, and our society more self-centred, drivers have become more volatile. And a ton of speeding metal is a lot with which to entrust an angry idiot. Today, even being a passenger is stressful. Although trains can be unreliable, they rarely get cut up on wet motorways, or honked at impatiently by another train travelling three inches behind them. And I can count on no hands the number of times I’ve seen a train driver mouthing curses at a fellow train driver while attempting to run him into a bollard.

In short, our roads would be lovely places to drive if only people didn’t keep driving on them.

Hmmm, maybe. But on the gripping hand, meting out just punishment for offenses behind the wheel seems to be a universal problem ...

Saudi King Abdullah has overturned a court verdict that sentenced a Saudi woman to be lashed 10 times for defying the kingdom’s ban on women driving.

The revelation was made by a government official, who asked to remain anonymous, and who would not reveal the king’s reasons for intervening in the case.

A day earlier, a Saudi court found Shaima Jastaina guilty of violating the driving ban, and sentenced her to 10 lashes, igniting a firestorm in the conservative Muslim kingdom.

It was the first time a legal punishment had been handed down for breaking the longtime ban in the ultraconservative Muslim nation. No laws prohibit women from driving, but conservative religious edicts have banned it.

I bet the Saudis won’t let women drive because there is no peripheral vision in a burkha. That, and they’re all a bunch of 7th century misogynists. But I’m having a happy moment here, daydreaming of NJ having Sharia-esque traffic police ... tailgating? 10 lashes, right now! Didn’t use your signals? 5 lashes, right now! Pennsyltucky Left Lane Dick? 20 lashes, right now! OGB*? 3 lashes when you finally get to where you’re going!

Ach crivens, it’s pouring again. Our third thunderstorm of the day. I am turning into an amphibian, I swear.

See More Below The Fold

OGB stands for Old Guy, Buick. It denotes an old fuddy-duddy who can’t manage to proper his/her vehicle within 5mph of the speed limit, regardless of road or weather conditions. Most often you get stuck behind one of these passive-aggressive bastards when you’re late and are trying to get somewhere quickly.
OGB usually does drive a Buick, but sometimes a Cadillac too. They should not be confused with the regular fearful drivers of Volvos or ninnyvans, who are just overly cautious. Minivans are not always driven fearfully, whether they’re full of kids or not. The funny thing is, if you put a ninnyvan driver in a great honkin big SUV, she suddenly turns into Attila the Hun and becomes one of the more aggressive drivers on the road. It’s not something that I fully understand.

OGB should not be confused with DMD, which stands for Dead Man Driving. Like Dead Man Walking, it is a localized miracle. As in, it’s a miracle that they can find the gas pedal before the light turns red again. It’s a miracle they can get their $65,000 BMW sports car around a minor corner without first coming to a stop. It’s a miracle they’re doing merely 15mph under the speed limit, since there is nobody else on the road. And it’s a miracle that they can make the effort to give the wheel a whole half turn, which is why they need both sides of the road or parking lot lane to go around a corner, no matter how slow they’re going and no matte how small a car they’re driving. DMD is even worse than OGB, often younger as well, but both can easily be spotted at night by the line of cars stacked up behind them, and by their neurotic insistence on putting on the brakes when any car comes down the road from the other direction. Gramps, if you’re that afraid, or that blind, or that petulant, stay the heck off the roads.

GET ME OUT OF HERE ...

Posted by Drew458     on 09/29/2011 at 01:00 PM   
Filed Under: • Economics • planes, trains, tanks, ships, machines, automobiles • RoPMA •  
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   Thursday - September 22, 2011

Democrat Economic Ignorance 101

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody

This is Democrat Elizabeth Warren, running for the US Senate in Massachusetts.

Pardon me, Warren, nobody ever said that. People get rich because they have a product/service that others are willing to pay for. (unlike the government job you’re running for.) To get rich takes two things:

1) I have a product/service.
2) I have people willing to pay for said product/service.

The only people that get rich on their own are Democrats in the House or Senate. They steal from us the old-fashioned way: they use the IRS. They certainly do NOT provide a product/service I’d pay for!

Posted by Christopher     on 09/22/2011 at 02:59 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Economics • Government • Corruption and Greed • Obama, The One • Outrageous • Stoopid-People •  
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Fined for hiring too many people!?

His name is Peter Schiff. It sounded familiar. Didn’t take long to find out why. I read his 2007 book Crash Proof. He’s pretty much a doomsayer on the economy. He admits that in his testimony before the US House. He is a CEO and the most egregious part of his testimony is the following clip: He was fined for hiring too many people.

I’m stunned. For two reasons. The first, and most important, reason is that I cannot find anything in the Constitution that gives the Federal government the right and authority to tell a businessman how many people he can hire. The only limit is how many people a businessman can afford to hire. (Even then, I wouldn’t hire anyone unless I had a need to do so.) Secondly, of course, is that in this current economic slump, don’t we want businesses to be hiring? They shouldn’t be fined more than they already are under existing employer mandates. (healthcare, SocSec, other payroll taxes…)

“In my own business, securities regulations have prohibited me from hiring brokers for more than three years. I was even fined fifteen thousand dollar expressly for hiring too many brokers in 2008. In the process I incurred more than $500,000 in legal bills to mitigate a more severe regulatory outcome as a result of hiring too many workers. I have also been prohibited from opening up additional offices. I had a major expansion plan that would have resulted in my creating hundreds of additional jobs. Regulations have forced me to put those jobs on hold.”

Source here.

See More Below The Fold

Here’s some more from the same source. It’s a bit long–about 23 minutes–but he spells out his ideas for stimulating the economy.

GET ME OUT OF HERE ...

Posted by Christopher     on 09/22/2011 at 10:55 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Economics • Government • Insanity • Obama, The One • Outrageous •  
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