Sunday, March 31, 2013
How Obama Goosed the Jobs Numbers
There have never been more people (net number or as a percentage of any ratio you can think of) on disability. It’s simple, if you don’t want to work or can’t find work, but want to collect a check, just claim you’re disabled. In this economy, where the only jobs are crappy ones, you can appreciate why people are incentivized to do this. If you don’t believe me, just read about the facts – it’s a giant scam. There’s an example of a whole county in Alabama where 1 in 4 (yes, a full 25% of the population) receives disability checks. That is insane. And the states love it. They actually pay firms to find people they can shift off their own welfare rolls into the federal disability assistance system. It’s shocking, shameful, and it’s in full-swing. If people were already not counted, no change, but when people see everyone around them living off disability, they decide to throw in the towel and join up as well – after all, it pays about the same as a crappy minimum wage job anyway. So, by jumping onto the bandwagon, these people all drop out of the numerator of the equation, artificially improving the reported jobs number as well.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Friday, March 29, 2013
Why Walmart's shelves are empty - The Week
Taxing employers to provide health care is, for example, a very good way to make sure that fewer people get hired. We aren't saying that revenue isn’t needed for some of these purposes, but the tax system should if anything be encouraging employers to take on more workers rather than punishing them.
Articles: The Dog Ate My Exit Strategy
From Bernanke's July 2009 WSJ article:
We are confident we have the necessary tools to withdraw policy accommodation, when that becomes appropriate, in a smooth and timely manner.
First, the Federal Reserve could drain bank reserves and reduce the excess liquidity at other institutions by arranging large-scale reverse repurchase agreements with financial market participants, including banks, government-sponsored enterprises and other institutions. Reverse repurchase agreements involve the sale by the Fed of securities from its portfolio with an agreement to buy the securities back at a slightly higher price at a later date.
France destroys its own economy
French President Francois Hollande may have finally found a way to tax the really rich: by making their companies pay.
In a televised interview Thursday night, he said he wants companies that pay their employees more than 1 million euros ($1.3 million) to pay 75 percent payroll taxes on those salaries.
Weekly Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected | Fox Business
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, but probably not enough to suggest the labor market recovery was taking a step back.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 16,000 to a seasonally adjusted 357,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Still, they remained in the middle of their range for this year.
The prior week's claims figure was revised to show 5,000 more applications than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had expected first-time applications last week to rise to 340,000.
Weekly Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected | Fox Business
No Abortions for 800 Miles: North Dakota's Only Clinic Might Close - ABC News
The Center for Reproductive Rights announced plans to challenge North Dakota's new law in court. The group successfully challenged Idaho's 20-week abortion ban, which a federal judge overturned earlier this month, citing the Roe v. Wade ruling that states cannot prohibit abortions before a fetus reaches "viability," the point at which it could survive outside a mother's womb, which typically happens between 24 and 28 weeks.
No Abortions for 800 Miles: North Dakota's Only Clinic Might Close - ABC News
No Abortions for 800 Miles: North Dakota's Only Clinic Might Close - ABC News
On Tuesday, North Dakota enacted the nation's most restrictive ban on abortions, prohibiting them as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. The state overtook Arkansas, which passed a 12-week ban earlier this month, as the nation's least abortion-friendly state, and it's one of four states -- including Mississippi, South Dakota, and Wyoming -- with only one abortion provider.
No Abortions for 800 Miles: North Dakota's Only Clinic Might Close - ABC News
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Examiner Editorial: Obama's great high-speed train robbery | WashingtonExaminer.com
Asked whether he was disappointed at the failure to build a single high-speed rail line anywhere in America, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood tried to reassure CNN's Drew Griffin by reminding him how much money the government has spent on it. "In four years," he said, "we've invested $12 billion."
When Griffin refused to settle for this dubious measure of success, LaHood argued that the $12 billion (which is more than three times Amtrak's annual budget) had improved Amtrak's on-time service record. He added, "I think people like the investments we're making. There's so much enthusiasm in America for high-speed rail."
But California now has the only remaining high-speed project on the table. You can judge for yourself how much enthusiasm remains.
Examiner Editorial: Obama's great high-speed train robbery | WashingtonExaminer.com
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
STDs
According to new data
released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
there were 19.7 million new venereal infections in the United States in 2008, bringing the total number of existing sexually transmitted
infections (STIs) in the U.S. at that time to 110,197,000.
Study: Health overhaul to raise claims cost an average 32 percent : page all - NorthJersey.com
Insurance companies will have to pay out an average of 32 percent more for medical claims on individual health policies under President Barack Obama's overhaul, the nation's leading group of financial risk analysts has estimated.
That's likely to increase premiums for at least some Americans buying individual plans.
The report by the Society of Actuaries could turn into a big headache for the Obama administration at a time when many parts of the country remain skeptical about the Affordable Care Act.
Study: Health overhaul to raise claims cost an average 32 percent : page all - NorthJersey.com
Europeans Planted Seeds of Crisis in Cyprus - NYTimes.com
He was in Brussels as European leaders and the International Monetary Fund engineered a 50 percent write-down of Greek government bonds. This meant that those holding the bonds — notably the then-cash-rich banks of the Greek-speaking Republic of Cyprus — would lose at least half the money they thought they had. Eventual losses came close to 75 percent of the bonds’ face value.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
disability insurance
Just as the bar for disability fell, the economy turned on the working
class. Factories laid off their assembly workers. The service sector
picked up the slack. Wages stagnated for anyone without a college
diploma. These changes have made disability more attractive for reasons
both obvious and subtle. Although program's payments are small -- the
average benefit is a bit over $1,000 per month -- they're not much worse
than a minimum wage job. Better yet, they're indexed to inflation,
meaning they sometimes rise faster than wages, and come with generous
government healthcare. For former blue-collar workers who feel they've
lost all hope of finding employment, or who don't want to spend their
last years leading to retirement standing all day at McDonald's,
disability isn't a bad offer.
Blog: Lifestyles of the Rich and Unionized
at
According to county pay records, in addition to her $301,000 base salary, Muranishi receives:
- $24,000, plus change, in "equity pay'' to guarantee that she makes at least 10 percent more than anyone else in the county.
- About $54,000 a year in "longevity" pay for having stayed with the county for more than 30 years.
- An annual performance bonus of $24,000.
- And another $9,000 a year for serving on the county's three-member Surplus Property Authority, an ad hoc committee of the Board of Supervisors that oversees the sale of excess land.
Like other county executives, Muranishi also gets an $8,292-a-year car allowance.
Muranishi has been with the county for 38 years, and she's 63. When retirement day comes, she'll be getting a lot more than a gold watch.
That's because, according to the county auditor's office, Muranishi's annual pension will be equal to the dollar total of her entire yearly package - $413,000. She also has a separate executive private pension plan, for which the county chips in $46,500 a year.
National Editorial: Soaring Social Security disability rolls headed for collapse | WashingtonExaminer.com
In 2011, on average, one net person has been added to Social Security's Disability Insurance rolls (and 3.3 to its retirement program) for every five net new jobs created. Since 1970, the number receiving DI has grown sixfold (from 1.4 million to 8.8 million), and the program expenses have grown tenfold, which is unsustainable. The federal government now spends more on disability than food stamps and welfare combined. In 2009, DI began paying out more in benefits than it took in from payroll taxes. By 2016, it is set to run out of money.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Color Them Blind by Heather Mac Donald - City Journal
McCormack’s remarks on the tape show a commander fiercely committed to protecting the almost exclusively black and Hispanic residents of his precinct. “The point here is that 99 percent of the people in this community are great, hardworking people who deserve to walk to the train stop, walk to their car, walk to the store [without fear of getting shot],” he tells Serrano. But Serrano’s work effort is not bringing them the safety that they deserve, McCormack admonishes: a 23 percent rise in robberies and a 12 percent rise in grand larcenies last year means that “to stop two people, you know, to see only two things going on, that’s almost like you’re purposely not doing your job at all. . . . You’re not going out there and being proactive in helping these people try to better their lives.” McCormack emphasizes the tragic toll of each shooting:
PJ Media » The Eighteenth Brumaire of Barack Obama
To Marx’s disgust, Bonaparte ruled by creating dependency on the state, by expanding the machinery of government. The organs of the state, the bureaucracy, and their ever-growing tentacles expanding into private life were Bonaparte’s substitution for a class or transcendent interest.
Birth before marriage: perilous trend—Editorial - NYPOST.com
Forty-eight percent of first births in America are to unmarried women.
We did a double-take when we first saw the figure. Turns out that it’s just one of the startling numbers in a new report sponsored by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, the Relate Institute and the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.
Birth before marriage: perilous trend—Editorial - NYPOST.com
Isaiah 50 NIV - Israel’s Sin and the Servant’s - Bible Gateway
Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,
I will not be disgraced.
Therefore have I set my face like flint,
and I know I will not be put to shame.
8 He who vindicates me is near.
Who then will bring charges against me?
Let us face each other!
Who is my accuser?
Let him confront me!
9 It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me.
Who will condemn me?
Isaiah 50 NIV - Israel’s Sin and the Servant’s - Bible Gateway
Sunday, March 24, 2013
US bank-bailout swindle is war on poor - NYPOST.com
Take Jamie Dimon’s whale of a bank, JPMorgan Chase, where accounts below $100,000 yield between .05 percent and .25 percent. Or Citibank, where accounts yield the same demoralizing rate. This is a direct byproduct of the Fed’s policy of ZIRP.
Isaiah 49 NIV - The Servant of the LORD - Listen to me, - Bible Gateway
They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground;
they will lick the dust at your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord;
those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”
Isaiah 49 NIV - The Servant of the LORD - Listen to me, - Bible Gateway
NYC Gays Warned About Deadly New Strain of Meningitis Outbreak | The Guardian Express
The New York City Health Department has issued new vaccination recommendations today for persons who may be most at risk for developing an newly discovered strain of invasive meningococcal disease – commonly known as meningitis – after an increase in cases.
Vaccinations are now advised for men that have sex with men (MSM), regardless of HIV status, who regularly have intimate contact with other men met through a website, digital application (“App”), or at a bar or party.
NYC Gays Warned About Deadly New Strain of Meningitis Outbreak | The Guardian Express
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Lucianne.com News Forum - Thread
A bill advancing through the Texas Legislature could drastically decrease the number of legal abortion facilities in the state. Supporters of Senate Bill 537, which would increase regulations for abortion facilities, say it will improve women’s safety. But abortion rights advocates say that the bill is a thinly veiled effort to close 37 of the state’s 42 abortion facilities, and that it would reduce women’s access to legal abortion. “I understand the suspicion, but this really is about improving health care for women getting abortions,” said the bill’s author, State Senator Bob Deuell, a Republican
Fed's Raskin concerned how banks serve poor - MarketWatch
Raskin said in a speech to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition annual conference. Raskin said that community groups and bank supervisors must improve their communication. "If banking practices are undermining the ability of the economically marginalized to become financially included and to access the credit they need in an affordable way, regulators must move in quickly to stop the disorder and repair the broken windows of financial intermediation," Raskin said.
Bosch to abandon solar energy business
German engineering company Bosch said Friday that it is abandoning its solar energy business, because there is no way to make it economically viable amid overcapacity and huge price pressure in the industry.
The solar power industry has been hit by falling subsidies, weaker sales and increasingly stiff price competition, especially by Chinese manufacturers. Robert Bosch GmbH's move came after German industrial conglomerate Siemens announced last October that it would give up its loss-making solar business.
Late Marriage and Its Consequences - NYTimes.com
That 48 percent of overall first births, and 58 percent of first births to what the report calls “Middle Americans” — women with a high school diploma and maybe some college, but no 4-year degree — now take place outside of marriage, a trend whose negative consequences for children probably don’t need to be rehearsed here.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Articles: Eleanor Roosevelt talks about her husband and the Holocaust
FDR told a prominent Jewish Democrat who urged him to ease the restrictions on Jews trying to flee Europe:
"The Jews in America should know that they are tolerated here, but not more than that. American issues come first."
My second memory was of a memo that Treasury officials, in an effort to counter the endemic anti-Semitism of the State Department, wrote in 1943. Entitled "The Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews," it said that "Unless remedial steps of a drastic nature are taken, and taken immediately, no effective action will be taken by this government to prevent the complete extermination of the Jews in German controlled Europe, and that this Government will have to share for all time responsibility for this extermination."
Articles: Eleanor Roosevelt talks about her husband and the Holocaust
Articles: Eleanor Roosevelt talks about her husband and the Holocaust
"I constantly raised the matter with the President, as did British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, both in his cables from London and when he was our guest at the White House.
"My husband's answer was always the same: 'Later." He would always give us the same lecture: 'Winning the war comes first, of course, and bombing those railroad tracks are not a top air force priority. But the war is not the only thing on my mind. I also have to deal with domestic affairs. To get things done, I must have the support of the committee chairmen in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
"'Most of these men are Southerners and many of them are anti-Semites. They do not like Jews and have made it clear that they don't want any more of them let into this country. That's the reason I haven't pushed for the admission of larger numbers of Jews.
Articles: Eleanor Roosevelt talks about her husband and the Holocaust
Blog: Franklin Roosevelt, Ibn Saud, and American Jews
The President [Roosevelt] replied that there was only one concession he thought he might offer and that was to give him the six million Jews in the United States. {February 10, 1945]
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Best of the Web Today: Boys Hardest Hit - WSJ.com
Boys in female-headed households "appear to fare particularly poorly on numerous social and educational outcomes," the authors note. "A vicious cycle [sic] may ensue, with the poor economic prospects of less-educated males creating differentially large disadvantages for their sons, thus potentially reinforcing the development of the gender gap in the next generation." Boys, it seems, suffer more than girls do from the absence of a father.
Best of the Web Today: Boys Hardest Hit - WSJ.com
Authors David Autor and Melanie Wasserman make the case that the decline in male achievement is almost exclusively reserved for males born into single-parent households; while females in single-parent households do OK, boys seem to suffer.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Best of the Web Today: A Defeat for Demagogy - WSJ.com
Some see group appointments as a way to ease looming physician shortages. According to a study published in December, meeting the country's health-care needs will require nearly 52,000 additional primary-care physicians by 2025. More than 8,000 of that total will be needed for the more than 27 million people newly insured under the Affordable Care Act.
Charles Lane: Why should food stamps pay for junk food? - The Washington Post
What really caught my attention, though, were the photographs that showed what some SNAP recipients bought with their government-funded debit cards: Cheetos Puffs, a one-ounce handful of which contains 10 grams of fat; a box containing two dozen 12-ounce cans of Fanta Orange soda, each of which contains 44 grams of sugar; a carton of six-ounceCapri Sun drink pouches, each of which contains 16 grams of sugar.
Charles Lane: Why should food stamps pay for junk food? - The Washington Post
Indian legislators pass strict anti-rape law - The Washington Post
As lawmakers discussed the new law in Parliament on Tuesday, a British tourist fractured her leg when she jumped from the balcony of her hotel room in Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal, to escape being molested by the hotel owner, police said.
Last week, a Swiss tourist was gang-raped while on a bicycle tour of central India.
Indian legislators pass strict anti-rape law - The Washington Post
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Back in the Saddle - Betsy Woodruff - National Review Online
Stockman is a freshman member from Texas, but this isn’t his first rodeo. He won his first congressional election in 1994, won reelection in 1996 even though his district had been made more Democratic via redistricting, and then lost it again that same year when the Supreme Court invalidated the redistricting process and his district became even more Democratic. He basically just hung out for 16 years until redistricting created a new, redder-than-red district, on the eastern side of the Lone Star State, that he couldn’t not win if he made it through the primary and runoff elections.
Back in the Saddle - Betsy Woodruff - National Review Online
Monday, March 18, 2013
The Rape Of Cyprus By The European Union & The IMF | Zero Hedge
"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence."
-John Adams
The Rape Of Cyprus By The European Union & The IMF | Zero Hedge
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
Isaiah 40 NIV - Comfort for God’s People - Comfort, - Bible Gateway
27 Why do you complain, Jacob?
Why do you say, Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
my cause is disregarded by my God”?
28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40 NIV - Comfort for God’s People - Comfort, - Bible Gateway
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Is Discrimination History Provision of Voting Rights Act Still Relevant? | PBS NewsHour | Feb. 27, 2013 | PBS
But what do you do in a circumstance in which the polling place, as happened in a native Alaskan village just in 2008, that the jurisdiction decides to move the polling place out of that native Alaskan village to a location that would require those villagers to take either a plane or a boat to vote?
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Want to Reduce the Debt? Cut the Billions a Year In Nuclear Subsidies | Zero Hedge
Time noted in 2008:
Lovins [a veteran energy expert and chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute] notes that the U.S. nuclear industry has received $100 billion in government subsidies over the past half-century, and that federal subsidies now worth up to $13 billion a plant — roughly how much it now costs to build one — still haven’t encouraged private industry to back the atomic revival. At the same time, the price of building a plant — all that concrete and steel — has risen dramatically in recent years, while the nuclear workforce has aged and shrunk. Nuclear supporters like Moore who argue that atomic plants are much cheaper than renewables tend to forget the sky-high capital costs, not to mention the huge liability risk of an accident ….
The conservative Cato Institute reported in 2003:
With federal government spending through the roof and projected deficits setting new records every day, it is perhaps surprising that the Bush administration and Congress want to use billions of taxpayer dollars to single-handedly resurrect the moribund nuclear industry. Old habits, however, die hard. The federal government has always maintained a unique public-private partnership with the nuclear industry, wherein the costs of nuclear power are shared by the public but the profits are enjoyed privately. [crony capitalism, anyone?]
Want to Reduce the Debt? Cut the Billions a Year In Nuclear Subsidies | Zero Hedge
Articles: Another Hockey Stick?
The only warming that's sure is from 1910 to 1940. Although that warming is certainly genuine, only a few fanatic scientists believe that it is human-caused. Not even the IPCC considers the warming up to 1940 as anthropogenic.
On the other hand, the large surface warming claimed from 1979 to 2000 may not even exist. Opinions are divided on this important question. The warming is certainly not seen in the satellite data, the best global temperature observations we have.
Of course, the authors ignore the fact that there has been no warming for at least a decade - while anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been increasing more rapidly. According to Philip Jones, the IPCC's guru on Global Temperatures, there hasn't been any significant global warming for 17 years!
Richard Cohen: FDR’s moral failure on the Holocaust - The Washington Post
Both FDR and his wife, Eleanor, were genteel anti-Semites — although the president had Jewish aides and one close Jewish friend, his neighbor Henry Morgenthau Jr. Eleanor, a woman not afraid to confront her own prejudices, later became a champion of Jewish causes, but the record for the president on this score is hardly as redeeming. As late as 1943, at the Casablanca Conference, he sympathized with a French general’s observation that the Jews were overrepresented in the professions. FDR referenced the “understandable complaints which the Germans bore towards the Jews.”
Richard Cohen: FDR’s moral failure on the Holocaust - The Washington Post
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
federal spending
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $1.5 million to
study biological and social factors for why “three-quarters” of lesbians
are obese and why gay males are not, calling it an issue of “high
public-health significancehttp://cnsnews.com/news/article/feds-spend-15-million-study-why-lesbians-are-fat."
out of wedlock births
The illegitimacy rate among black Americans began to reach troubling
levels even before the pill and the sexual revolution. "Both white and
Negro illegitimacy rates have been increasing, although from
dramatically different bases," observed Daniel Patrick Moynihan
in his famous 1965 report. "The white rate was 2 percent in 1940; it
was 3.07 percent in 1963. In that period, the Negro rate went from 16.8
percent to 23.6 percent." The black illegitimacy rate now approaches
75%; the white rate is higher than the black rate was in the 1960s.
Dylan Grice Explains How "Crackpot" Central Bankers Are Destroying Society | Zero Hedge
Bernanke has monetized about a half of the federally guaranteed debt issued since 2009 (see chart below). The incoming Bank of England governor thinks the UK’s problem hasn’t been too much monetary experimentation but too little, and likes the idea of actively targeting nominal GDP. The PM in Tokyo thinks his country’s every ill is a lack of inflation, and his new guy at the Bank of Japan is revving up its printing presses to buy government bonds, corporate bonds and ETFs. China’s shadow banking credit bubble meanwhile continues to inflate…
Dylan Grice Explains How "Crackpot" Central Bankers Are Destroying Society | Zero Hedge
Dylan Grice Explains How "Crackpot" Central Bankers Are Destroying Society | Zero Hedge
When the government raises revenue by selling bonds to the central bank, which has financed its purchases with printed money, no one knows who ultimately pays. In the abstract, we know that current holders of money pay since their cash holdings have been diluted. But the effects are more subtle. To see just how subtle, consider Cantillon’s 18th century analysis of the effects of a sudden increase in gold production:
If the increase of actual money comes from mines of gold or silver… the owner of these mines, the adventurers, the smelters, refiners, and all the other workers will increase their expenditures in proportion to their gains. … All this increase of expenditures in meat, wine, wool, etc. diminishes of necessity the share of the other inhabitants of the state who do not participate at first in the wealth of the mines in question. The altercations of the market, or the demand for meat, wine, wool, etc. being more intense than usual, will not fail to raise their prices. … Those then who will suffer from this dearness… will be first of all the landowners, during the term of their leases, then their domestic servants and all the workmen or fixed wage-earners ... All these must diminish their expenditure in proportion to the new consumption.
In Cantillon’s example, the gold mine owners, mine employees, manufacturers of the stuff miners buy and the merchants who trade in it all benefit handsomely. They are closest to the new money and they get to see their real purchasing powers rise
Dylan Grice Explains How "Crackpot" Central Bankers Are Destroying Society | Zero Hedge
Blog: Mr. President: Instead of harming the troops, cut here instead
Instead of using the troops for dishonorable political ends, the president should look to a recent op-ed and interview by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), who outlined billions in cuts the president could look at to eliminate wasteful spending.
Blog: Mr. President: Instead of harming the troops, cut here instead
Monday, March 11, 2013
An Easier Fix For Medicare
The Wall Street Journal has been trying in the courts to overturn the injunction, and congressional members have floated many bills to do the same, but to no avail. The American Medical Association is the main defender of the injunction -- its Florida chapter initiated that suit in 1979 -- and continues to do so today. The Wall Street Journal, and others, believe that if third parties were allowed to review Medicare data, investigative journalists could throw more bodies against the fraud problem and help the feds uncover more improper payments.
As for that 1979 injunction:
Has the Supreme Court reviewed this injunction? No.
Calvin Coolidge's faith was the secret to his success | Fox News
Coolidge’s piety gave him an understanding of what we call natural law, the idea that some laws come not from jurists but from above. “Men do not make laws, they do but discover them,” he told fellow lawmakers in Massachusetts while he was still a young politician
Calvin Coolidge's faith was the secret to his success | Fox News
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Sen. Jeff Sessions: 'We need to grow the economy, not the government' by Andrew Malcolm - Investors.com
We have a moral duty to balance the federal budget and bring the deficit down to zero. This is the great challenge of our time. And you may be surprised to learn that we can achieve this goal if we simply hold the annual growth of spending to 3.4 percent each year.
Look at the graph to see the evidence of global warming - Telegraph
there was a modest temperature rise in the 20th century, as a continuation of the warming that began 200 years ago as the world naturally emerged from those centuries of cooling known as the Little Ice Age. But the 0.5C rise between 1976 and 1998 was no greater than the 0.5C rise between 1910 and 1940 (with 35 years of cooling between them, so that the net rise in the past century has been only 0.8C).
Look at the graph to see the evidence of global warming - Telegraph
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Job Growth Continues to Be Outpaced By Those Leaving The Workforce - Investors.com
Because of all this, the economy is still 3 million jobs below its previous peak. When you factor in population growth, the jobs deficit is more like 10 million.
Job Growth Continues to Be Outpaced By Those Leaving The Workforce - Investors.com
Job Growth Continues to Be Outpaced By Those Leaving The Workforce - Investors.com
The economy added 236,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 7.7%, the lowest it's been since December 2008.
It was also one of those rare occasions under President Obama when an economic indicator actually outperformed expectations. But while everyone welcomes good news on the jobs front after years of sluggish-to-nonexistent growth, the country is still a long, long way from "mission accomplished."
If anything, there are still some deeply troubling signs in the labor force that the February numbers have not dispelled. While the country gained 236,000 jobs, the ranks of those not in the labor force — people who don't have a job and stopped looking — swelled by 296,000.
Job Growth Continues to Be Outpaced By Those Leaving The Workforce - Investors.com
The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever Isn't Scary Enough : Planet Money : NPR
In previous postwar recoveries, the number of jobs was about 7 percent above its previous peak by this point, on average.
In other words, if this had been a typical recession and recovery, the U.S. economy would now have roughly 10 million more jobs than it did at the previous peak. In fact, there are now three million fewer jobs.
The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever Isn't Scary Enough : Planet Money : NPR
Why the unemployment rate is so misleading - Page 3 - MarketWatch
Unfortunately, this data isn’t published by the government in the monthly employment report, and it isn’t seasonally adjusted, so it’s harder to analyze. But it is available on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. In 2012, the participation rate for the working-age population was 77.5%, down about three percentage points from the peak of 80.2% in 1997. Find the data yourself.
It means that the vast majority of working-age adults, men and women, are working or looking for work. But it also means that many millions have given up hope of finding a job. Some of them will never work again.
If the participation rate were where it was in 2007, about 3 million more working-age adults would be in the labor force, and the unemployment rate for that group would be about 9%, instead of 6.8%
Why the unemployment rate is so misleading - Page 3 - MarketWatch
Friday, March 8, 2013
Amazon.com: Ascension: John Coltrane: Music
What's the music like? Sound, sound, sound, a vast enveloping texture of brass. Look out for Sanders' solo - it's unlike anything you've ever heard (unless you've been deep in the jungle). It might be useful to follow the order of the soloists: Coltrane (tenor sax), Dewey Johnson (trumpet), Pharoah Sanders (tenor sax), Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Archie Shepp (tenor sax), John Tchicai (alto sax), Marion Brown (alto sax).
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Obama Ignores Human-Caused Climate Change A Lot Less Than Thought - Investors.com
The earth's average temperature has largely remained unchanged over the past 16 years. During this same period, the annual global emissions of greenhouse gases have increased by nearly 50%.
Together, this combination is straining the credibility of climate change alarmism predicated on the idea that the earth's climate is extremely sensitive to greenhouse gas emissions from the consumption of fossil fuels to produce our primary energy supply.
Obama Ignores Human-Caused Climate Change A Lot Less Than Thought - Investors.com
Obama Ignores Human-Caused Climate Change A Lot Less Than Thought - Investors.com
When Stott and his colleagues forced the amount of global warming predicted by climate models to equal the amount of warming that has actually been observed, the future temperature rise projected to accompany human greenhouse gas emissions dropped rather substantially. In other words, the better climate models match the past, the less scary the future looks.
Obama Ignores Human-Caused Climate Change A Lot Less Than Thought - Investors.com
Astronomers gain new tape measure for the universe | TG Daily
By tracking these changes in brightness very carefully, and also measuring the stars' orbital speeds, it is possible to work out how big the stars are, their masses and other information about their orbits. When this is combined with careful measurements of the total brightness and colours of the stars, remarkably accurate distances can be found.
Astronomers gain new tape measure for the universe | TG Daily
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
DHS Buys Armored Vehicles, Bullets And Assault Weapons - Investors.com
The sequestration question du jour is why the Department of Homeland Security, busy releasing hundreds, if not thousands, of deportable and detained illegal aliens due to budget constraints, is buying several thousand Mine Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles?
DHS Buys Armored Vehicles, Bullets And Assault Weapons - Investors.com
PJ Media » Obama and the Media: Old Policy Resurfacing
After filing her pool report, Marinucci uploaded a video of the a capella protest to S. F. Gate, the Chronicle’s web site. A senior reporter with impeccable liberal credentials, Marinucci found that she was not immune to the wrath of the White House. The White House communications office issued a heated warning that Marinucci was banned from all future presidential events and that if the Chronicle went public with the story of her banishment, the entire Hearst chain, of which the Chronicle is part, would find all its reporters banned.
PJ Media » Obama and the Media: Old Policy Resurfacing
When Amory Gutierrez from the Pleasanton Weekly wanted to do a puff piece on the Obamas’ helicopter, “Marine One,” the White House put out the welcome mat. After all, Pleasanton is a very upscale bedroom community attached to Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Democrats outnumber Republicans there more than two to one. Gutierrez, however, did not keep to the anticipated script. Her piece gushed over the helicopter flown by a Marine crew, but then went on to repeat what the Marines had told her. In nearly four years of flying the Obamas, Michelle Obama had never so much as verbally acknowledged the crew’s existence.
Goodwin: Bloomberg’s campaign to combat teen pregnancy - NYPOST.com
The numbers are staggering. Out of 120,000 live births in New York City in 2010, more than 54,000 babies were born out of wedlock.
Goodwin: Bloomberg’s campaign to combat teen pregnancy - NYPOST.com
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Articles: The Anatomy of Climate Science Hype
It starts with Al Gore announcing a correlation of several sudden temperature rises and carbon-dioxide increases during the recent ice age, as judged from analysis of Antarctic ice cores. He of course declares that this proves that CO2 has caused 20th-century warming. To his great embarrassment it was then later discovered that the increase in carbon dioxide actually follows the temperature increase by about 600-800 years. And even a non-scientist must realize that the cause must always precede the effect: so the temperature increase must be the cause of the carbon-dioxide increase -- and not the other way round. The mechanism is really quite simple: When the ocean warms, it releases much of its dissolved carbon dioxide -- similar to warming soda pop or champagne releasing CO2 bubbles
Voting rights: Voting rights in a changed America - chicagotribune.com
In seven of the nine states, it found, blacks were more likely to be registered than whites. The Shelby County lawyers noted that, since 1982, Illinois has had more of these voting rights lawsuits than most of the covered states. Likewise for New York. It's rare for the Justice Department to actually reject a change submitted under preclearance — which suggests that the pattern of defiance has been irreversibly demolished.
No doubt there are instances where governments in these states try to keep blacks from going to the polls or electing minority candidates. But the same thing happens in other states as well.
Voting rights: Voting rights in a changed America - chicagotribune.com
Michael Boskin: Larger Spending Cuts Would Help the Economy - WSJ.com
The $825 billion stimulus program did little economic good at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars per job, even based on the administration's own inflated job estimates. Cash for Clunkers cost $3 billion merely to shift car sales forward a few months. The PPIP (Public-Private Investment Program for Legacy Assets) to buy toxic assets from the banks to speed lending generated just 3% of the $1 trillion that the program planners anticipated.
And now? Mr. Obama proposes universal preschool ($25 billion per year), "Fix it First" repairs to roads and bridges, plus an infrastructure bank ($50 billion), "Project Rebuild," refurbishing private properties in cities ($15 billion), endless green-energy subsidies, and a big hike in the minimum wage. The president and Senate Democrats also demand that half the spending cuts under sequestration be replaced with higher taxes.
Michael Boskin: Larger Spending Cuts Would Help the Economy - WSJ.com
Obama’s Thirteen Words | Power Line
“Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods – all are now more frequent and intense.” That statement was demonstrably false, as SEPP’s The Week That Was points out:
The claim is so factually challenged that it is a wonder it got by the White House staff. Looking at the weather stations that have 80 years of data shows heat records were set in the 1930s, the Palmer drought index shows the 1930s and the 1950s were hotter and dryer with the 1930’s dust bowl lasting a decade. … Increased floods are not supported by the data, and, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, wildfires are declining.
Obama was wrong about Hurricane Sandy, too:
“We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy….a freak coincidence…” Sandy was neither unique nor extreme. Hurricane direct hits on NYC occurred in 1815, 1821 and 1893 in prior active periods.
Fed’s Yellen: Full steam ahead on QE3 - MarketWatch
Yellen’s comments add weight to the idea the Fed will maintain an $85 billion-a-month bond purchase program at its next meeting on March 19-20.
There has been vocal criticism of the Fed’s ultra-easy stance, from inside and outside the central bank.
Some, like Kansas City Fed President Esther George, have expressed concern that the low rates and asset purchases will foster overheating in some markets and lead to inflation.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Boy, 12, dies after Philly-area school altercation - seattlepi.com
Bailey O'Neill, who had just turned 12, died Sunday morning, family members said.
He had suffered a concussion, a broken nose and other injuries during the encounter with the boy at Darby Township School, in suburban Philadelphia, on Jan. 10. He later began having seizures, and doctors induced a coma.
Bailey told his mother, Jina Risoldi, that he had been at recess when the boy, who was taller, challenged him to a fight.
Boy, 12, dies after Philly-area school altercation - seattlepi.com
Regulator Directs Fannie, Freddie to Merge Some Operations - WSJ.com
The FHFA also directed the firms to reduce their backing of loans for rental apartments by 10% from last year's levels and to sell a portion of the whole loans or other illiquid securities that sit on the firms balance sheets. The companies are already required to shrink those portfolios by 15% annually, but they have largely met those targets simply through the normal maturity of various mortgage investments.
Regulator Directs Fannie, Freddie to Merge Some Operations - WSJ.com
Regulator Directs Fannie, Freddie to Merge Some Operations - WSJ.com
The two mortgage giants collapsed as the housing sector deteriorated five years ago, and their rescues have cost taxpayers $131 billion so far. They were taken over by the U.S. Treasury in 2008, and the FHFA was tasked with conserving the firms' assets until Congress and the White House decided what to do with them.
Until now, few steps have been taken toward any overhaul. Fannie and Freddie, together with federal agencies, are responsible today for backing nearly nine of 10 new mortgages, with taxpayers on the hook if those loans default.
Regulator Directs Fannie, Freddie to Merge Some Operations - WSJ.com
father freezes to death japan
Mr Okada was hunched over his daughter, cradling her in his arms and
apparently using his body and a warehouse wall to provide shelter, the
Yomiuri said.
He had taken his jacket off to give to the child, a broadcaster said.
Rescuers said she was weeping weakly in his arms, the paper said.
He had taken his jacket off to give to the child, a broadcaster said.
Rescuers said she was weeping weakly in his arms, the paper said.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Biden: 'Can't let guard down' against voting limits
The section requires certain states and regions with a history of voting discrimination to have the U.S. Department of Justice or federal courts preclear voting laws and maps for voting districts before they are implemented. The nation's high court heard a lawsuit last week brought by Shelby County, Ala., over the provision known as Section 5; attorneys for Shelby County argued the South had changed since the law was implemented, removing the necessity of the provision.
The Hostess Shuffle: Feds put the ‘dough’ in this doughnut - Daily Inter Lake: Frank
You see, according to the Department of Labor website, the Trade Adjustment Assistance program is actually money that Congress has allocated for “trade-affected workers who have lost their jobs as a result of increased imports or shifts in production out of the United States.”
But wait a minute! Didn’t Hostess go out of business in a well-publicized blaze of glory because union workers refused to accept concessions that would have allowed the bakery to stay open?
The Hostess Shuffle: Feds put the ‘dough’ in this doughnut - Daily Inter Lake: Frank
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Where Does the Money Go? | Power Line
Currently, 36% of immigrant-headed households receive benefits from at least one major welfare program. And many illegal immigrants, too, receive federal welfare benefits. In fact, as we have noted repeatedly, the Obama administration recruits illegals to sign up for the food stamp program.
Blog: Many Questions, No Answers
In 2007, the government was 40 percent smaller than it is today. Were poor people sleeping under bridges? Were elderly starving? Were planes grounded? Was food unsafe to eat? Here's another question: Are Americans really this gullible?"
Friday, March 1, 2013
Moody's: Negative outlook for US student loan ABS remains
Fiscal challenges for the US government and its credit standing will continue to be the key risk for securitizations backed by loans originated with under the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). Ten to thirty percent of all cash in FFELP securitizations comes from the US government in the form of a default and minimum yield guarantee.
The overall performance of FFELP student loans will remain week in 2013.
"Defaults on the loan pools backing most FFELP securitizations will continue being high because the new college graduates will be looking for a job during a weak economy characterized by high unemployment rates," said Irina Faynzilberg, Moody's Vice President- Senior Credit Officer. "Net losses on the pools, however, will continue being low because of the US government guarantee of defaulted loans."
How The Private Student Loan Industry Resembles The Subprime Mortgage Market | ThinkProgress
The default total has risen over the last decade because of industry practices that are similar to those that led to the subprime housing collapse. A large portion of the student loan boom that took place from 2005 to 2008 was financed by Asset-Backed Securities (ABS), and because more money could be made off such loans, lenders became more aggressive in their lending practices. Increased profits gave lenders “an incentive to increase loan volumes” with “less incentive to assure the creditworthiness of those loans.” Lenders relaxed their lending requirements, lowering the minimum credit score required to secure a loan.
How The Private Student Loan Industry Resembles The Subprime Mortgage Market | ThinkProgress
Securitizing student loan debt | Reuters
The multi-billion-dollar market for securitized student loan debt, a financial mainstay supporting U.S. higher education, is facing new stresses as Congress moves to reshape the troubled student loan industry.
With concern over the subprime mortgage crisis roiling the credit markets, a group of financial industry groups said on Monday that several new student loan financings have been put on hold, while loan financing costs are up.
More Americans struggle to repay student loans - Yahoo! News
More Americans are falling behind on student loans, threatening their ability to obtain mortgages and other credit in the future.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York says more than 31 percent of people with student loans at the end of last year were 90 or more days delinquent. That compares with less than 25 percent at the end of 2008.
Student loans were the only type of credit to increase through the Great Recession and afterward. Student debt amounted to $966 billion at the end of last year, up 34 percent from four years earlier
More Americans struggle to repay student loans - Yahoo! News
The Mysteries of Fargo - NYTimes.com#more-18364#more-18364
How does North Dakota do it? “It’s not by having such great sex ed, contraception access, and abortion providers,” Guttmacher senior researcher Laura Lindberg told me, listing off solutions favored in more liberal states. No—North Dakota has one Planned Parenthood in a 700,000 square-mile state. Seventy-five percent of North Dakotans live in counties with no abortion provider. State law mandates abstinence-only education in its schools. And just this month, North Dakota State University president Dean Bresciani attempted to freeze federal funding for two of his own professors to stop them from starting a comprehensive sex ed program for at-risk Fargo teens.
The Demise of Section 5? - John Fund - National Review Online
The reality today is that Section 5 has become a politicized weapon wielded by the Justice Department, which last year, for example, used it to block South Carolina’s adoption of a voter-ID law. A federal court found Justice’s objection to be without merit and based on dubious evidence of discrimination; the court ordered that South Carolina be reimbursed for its legal costs.
The Demise of Section 5? - John Fund - National Review Online
The Demise of Section 5? - John Fund - National Review Online
Back in 1966, the Supreme Court ruled that Section 5’s extraordinary intrusion into state sovereignty was justified by the “unique circumstances” of Jim Crow and the blatant discrimination in voting that was occurring in some jurisdictions. But it noted that Section 5 was enacted as a temporary measure, and would expire after only five years — in 1970. That was over four decades ago.
The Demise of Section 5? - John Fund - National Review Online
The Demise of Section 5? - John Fund - National Review Online
As Rick Pildes, an election-law expert at New York University’s School of Law, noted on Election Law Blog: “The House did not even consider evidence comparing race and voting issues in the covered and non-covered jurisdictions; it did not seem to consider these comparisons necessary or relevant. The Senate Judiciary Committee was certainly told in 2006 that the failure to update the Act would put it in constitutional jeopardy . . . [but] it was politically easier for Congress to simply reaffirm the status quo, rather than confront the difficult policy and political questions posed by making judgments about where problems of race and voting rights were most acute today (are Ohio and Pennsylvania similar today to Virginia and North Carolina?).”
The Demise of Section 5? - John Fund - National Review Online
Massachusetts official challenges Chief Justice Roberts’ claim about voting - News - Boston.com
“In the state of Massachusetts, we’ve seen a great increase in voter participation in communities of color, particularly among African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians,” said Boston city councilor Tito Jackson, who served as political director for Governor Deval Patrick’s most recent campaign.
Massachusetts official challenges Chief Justice Roberts’ claim about voting - News - Boston.com
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