Saturday, August 07, 2010

'Smith, get a motorcade to take me over to Bethesda Country Club. I grow tired of the people's incessant complaints about unemployment.'

Tyler Durden once again lifts the veil on the real economy and finds the true unemployment (U-3) rate is roughly 14.7%.

The first chart below demonstrates the LFP [Labor Force Participation] rate, which a derivative of the chart we presented earlier, has now plunged to the lowest level in over 25 years, or 64.6% (gotta go back to December 1984 for the first time this was passed). So we decided to "normalize" the LFP by keeping it at the peak achieved at the turn of millennium, or December 1999, when it hit a peak of 67.1%. Now as everyone knows the US population has been soaring since then, and with the cost of living increasing ever more with each day, and as more and more family members are forced to join the work pool, it makes sense that in a normal economy, the LFP should continue rising instead of declining. We thus kept it constant at the 67.1% level (instead of doing the conservative thing and pushing it higher along the trendline), and ran the unemployment numbers through, assuming this part of the jobless equation was constant. To our surprise, we found that the U-3 rate (not the U-6), which today was supposed to be 9.5%, in fact turns out to be 13.0% as of July: an all time record save for the 13.6% recorded in December 2009. And if instead we use the trendline number of a 68.5% LFP rate, the unemployment rate today would be 14.7%. In retrospect we sympathize with Christina Romer's decision to get the hell out of Dodge... Reported and adjusted labor force participation rate:


Running these numbers through the actual unemplyment calculation, reveals the following: while assuming a declining LFP rate we obviously get the 9.5% unemployment rate, assuming a peak 67.1% LFP results in a 13.0% unemployment rate. And if the labor force participation rate were to grow according to trendline, the jobless rate in the US today would have been reported at 14.7%, just about where the U-6 was reported, but based on an entirely different methodology.


Pity the geniuses who work in legacy media haven't figured out that (a) this kind of story is newsworthy; and (b) it sells papers.

Because the logical follow-up question is: when will these jamokes figure out that the economic damage is intentional?


20 Grooviest Vintage Tech Ads

Jenny sent this one in.





Maine's Free-Spending RINOs Love Running Up the National Debt

Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, the twin "moderate" Republican Senators from Maine, have accumulated a troubling and inconsistent track record when it comes to upholding the Constitution. Their latest move: voting to confirm Elena Kagan when they know full well that the new justice is a political operative appointed with a single mission. Her job is to uphold the constitutionality of ObamaCare, the most intrusive federal over-reach in American history.

Snowe and Collins held the crucial swing votes for the Orwellian 'DISCLOSE Act', a blatant attempt by Democrats to squelch free speech. Thankfully, they voted the right way, but only after high drama (likely involving billions in bribes earmarks) in the upper chamber.

While Maine contributes only $6 billion annually to federal coffers, Snowe and Collins exhibit no qualms in spending the rest of the country's money. Or, rather, many subsequent generations' money, which will have to be repaid with interest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_tax_revenue_by_state

Federal tax revenue (2007)

Rank State Gross collections (2007) Population (2007) Revenue per capita
44 Maine $6,289,216,000 1,317,207 $4,774.66

http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/olympia_snowe.htm
  • Voted YES on $192B additional anti-recession stimulus spending.(Jul 2009)
  • Voted YES on modifying bankruptcy rules to avoid mortgage foreclosures. (May 2009)
  • Voted YES on additional $825 billion for economic recovery package. (Feb 2009)
  • Voted YES on $60B stimulus package for jobs, infrastructure, & energy. (Sep 2008)
  • Voted YES on $2 billion more for Cash for Clunkers program. (Aug 2009)
  • Voted YES on Congressional pay raise. (Jul 2009)
Missing is the latest state bailout bill.

This is how Collins and Snowe maintain their power. They play footsy with Democrats in order to spend more and more of the taxpayers' money -- Collins is directly responsible for $377 million in pork over the last couple of years; Snowe is at $368 million.

This is why "moderate" Republicans must be primaried and defeated. The country is bankrupt. It can't afford any of this garbage. Yet Snowe and Collins -- vote after vote -- flirt with the radical leftists who control the Democrat Party. That's the same Democrat Party which appears to have launched a Kamikaze attack on the entire U.S. financial system.

The welfare state is dead. And, despite their high positions, Collins and Snowe appear to be the last so-called Republicans in the country to have received the memo.


Hat tip: K.

Toon o' the Day: Road Rage

By PlanetKram.

In case you missed it, HillBuzz has the back-story.

Larwyn's Linx: Why ObamaCare Has Gaping Holes

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email. You can also install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget.

Nation

Why ObamaCare Has Gaping Holes: Patterico
Censorship --- Dhimmi Censorship: iOTW
Affirmative Action in Congress: Taxman

Lindsey Graham: My vote for Kagan inspired by Jesus: Hot Air
The Hiroshima Question: AT
McCain Blowing Up Colorado GOP: PJM

Economy

No Shady Banking Buddy Left Behind: Malkin
Summer of Recovery, Democrat-style: Virtuous Republic
Black Teenage Unemployment: 40.6%: HNN

Unions want baby sitters declared public employees: WashExam
Anger mounts over Michelle's £150k Spanish holiday: MoneyRunner
Interactive Visualization Of Russia On Fire: ZH

Climate & Energy

Global Warming, R.I.P.: AT
Electric Car Subsidies Boost the Rich: Post
Hey, let's hire some eco-scoundrels to create agitprop!: CBullitt

Media

Dismantling Joe Klein: Commentary
Bloggericide: Ohio Officials Charge Blogger With Campaign Violations: GWP
Putting the Ham Back in Alhambra: MOTUS

Time Magazine: Normal Americans Are Ignorant Bigots: RWN
Michelle’s “Excellent Adventure”: Another sign Obama doesn’t really want to be President: Simon
How's that Hopey Changey Working Out?: Boortz

Media Matters caught red-handed editing Beck audio: Mediaite
Benign Dictatorship and the Progressive Mind: AT

World

The Foundations of our World: Belmont
Nukes: Time For a Live Demo: AmDigest
The Word 'Superpower' Should Be Retired?: Dinocrat

Pawlenty Slams Ground Zero Mosque: Unpatriotic of Muslims to Build on “Hallowed and Sacred Ground”: WZ
Lord God, Free At Last: Rifqa Bary’s Victory in Ohio: Chesler
The Manhattan Mosque and Women: AT

SciTech

The Truth About Digg Patriots: RWN
What makes a tweet influential? New HP Labs social media research may provide answers: HP
Anthropologists unearth cozy Neanderthal cave sleeping chamber: TAB

Cornucopia

Contest: emails Journolist members will send each other if there's a November bloodbath: iOTW
Don't Click the Link!: Moe Lane (NSFW)
Boy Scouts Send Prez a Little Message: WZ

Images: DotPenn.
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Sick of Harry Reid? Support Sharron Angle for U.S. Senate

Friday, August 06, 2010

Correlation between a person's mind and his desk

Jasmine sent this one in:

Saw these photos on the Internet about the correlation between a person's mind and his desk...

(William F. Buckley)

(Nat Hentoff)

(Albert Einstein)

(Community Organizer)


RED ALERT: Unanimous Vote by AFL-CIO Group Demands Obama Administration Stop Setting Illegals Free

Are you tired of getting riled up by a new affront each day? So am I -- believe me. But gird your loins, dear reader, because the two of us are about to experience new levels of progressive depravity.

It was unanimous. That is, 259 of 259 representatives of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement arm of the AFL-CIO voted to demand the removal of President Obama's DHS immigration heads. 100%. And, surprisingly, you won't read it in your beloved daily fish wrap.

In an unprecedented move within the Department of Homeland Security, the detention and removal officers and agents responsible for and sworn to enforcing our nation's immigration laws issued an exhaustive, scathing letter simply titled "VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE IN ICE DIRECTOR JOHN MORTON AND ODPP ASSISTANT DIRECTOR PHYLLIS COVEN" on June 11, 2010. The letter, acquired through sources, provides a litany of examples of how ICE's mission is being skewed towards supporting an unflinching goal of amnesty by refusing to allow agents to do their job; allowing criminal aliens to roam free; depleting resources for key enforcement initiatives that preceded this administration; and misrepresenting facts and programs, demeaning the extent of the criminal alien problem and geared to support amnesty.


The letter, authored by ICE Union President Chris Crane, begins as follows, noting that all ICE union representatives have signed on to a unanimous "Vote of No Confidence" in ICE leadership:

On June 11, 2010, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council and its constituent local representatives from around the nation, acting on behalf of approximately 7,000 ICE officers and employees from the ICE Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), cast a unanimous “Vote of No Confidence” in the Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Morton, and the Assistant Director of the ICE Office of Detention Policy and Planning, (ODPP), Phyllis Coven.

Providing numerous facts the media and public have not been privy to, the letter relates ICE leadership dishonesty and failure to abide by their oath to uphold the law. The letter also outlines the importance of local law enforcement referrals to ICE, and the striking symbiotic relationship between local enforcement and ICE on immigration matters. Exemplary are these two bullets:

• While ICE reports internally that more than 90 percent of ICE detainees are first encountered in jails after they are arrested by local police for criminal charges, ICE senior leadership misrepresents this information publicly in order to portray ICE detainees as being non-criminal in nature to support the Administration's position on amnesty and relaxed security at ICE detention facilities.

• The majority of ICE ERO Officers are prohibited from making street arrests or enforcing United States immigration laws outside of the institutional (jail) setting. This has effectively created "amnesty through policy" for anyone illegally in the United States who has not been arrested by another agency for a criminal violation.


In one uncharacteristic note of sarcasm, the outcome of the Obama Administration new detention policy is described as follows, including dance lessons and hanging plants for criminal aliens in detention facilities:


• ICE Detention Reforms have transformed into a detention system aimed at providing resort like living conditions to criminal aliens. Senior ICE leadership excluded ICE officers and field managers (the technical experts on ICE detention) from the development of these reforms, and instead solicited recommendations from special interest groups. The lack of technical expertise and field expertise has resulted in a priority of providing bingo nights, dance lessons and hanging plants to criminals, instead of addressing safe and responsible detention reforms for non-criminal individuals and families. Unlike any other agency in the nation, ICE officers will be prevented from searching detainees housed in ICE facilities allowing weapons, drugs and other contraband into detention centers putting detainees, ICE officers and contract guards at risk.


Interestingly, ICE Director John Morton told the Washington Post, in regard to this letter and other interest groups that call for his resignation (apparently this is quite common for him), that such letters are just, "part of the territory here." Mr. Morton, may I suggest that a significant problem with dismissing a No Confidence Vote from your entire employee population is, when you run an agency of 7,000 officers and agents, you can't do your job unless they do theirs? Oh wait, that is the whole point, is it not?


Dereliction of duty?

Impeachment?


Not sure... but what did Obama know -- and when did he know it?


Related Reading Just to Tick You Off Even More:
The Shameless Duplicity of the Obama Administration: Napolitano Directly Contradicts Solis on Immigration Enforcement; Media Strangely Silent.
Killing the Nuns Americans Won't Kill
Four Border Stories Guaranteed to Make Your Blood Boil
Obama Administration Unveils Dramatic New Plan to Seal Massive Gulf Leak: Suing Arizona for Arresting Drug- and Human-Smugglers
Anyone know what you call it when heavily armed intruders cross the border into the U.S. unmolested by authorities? Oh, that's right: Arizona.

Let Them Eat Arugula: Are the Obamas Disconnected From Reality?

Tom Blumer sketches out the full contours of Michelle Obama's European vacation: 60 rooms in a five-star resort at $2,500 a night. Per room. That's $150,000 a night for a First Lady's vacation. Blumer's conclusion is discomfiting.

I... worry that what we are really witnessing is how people who can get away with it act when they know a collapse is coming (another example relating to Nancy Pelosi is here). That is, have fun and spend wildly while you can, because a few years from now all of this will be a distant memory. I hope I’m wrong.

Most liberals are simply too ignorant of history and too caught up in the pursuit of their own gratification to ever believe the merry-go-round can grind, quite suddenly, to a halt.

Exhibit A: A helpful chart and timeline explaining Michelle Obama's super-important job at the University of Chicago Hospital (UCH), a position coincidentally created just after her husband's election to the Senate... and dissolved moments after she resigned to move into the White House.

Sandwiched, of course, by Sen. Obama's $1M earmark to UCH.

In 2002, Michelle Obama was hired by the University of Chicago Hospital as its "Executive Director for Community Affairs" at a salary of approximately $120,000.

In January of 2005, Barack Obama was sworn in as a United States Senator.

In March of 2005, Michelle Obama was promoted to "Vice President for Community and External Affairs" and her salary bumped nearly $200,000 (from $121,910 to $316,962). This position was "newly created" for Mrs. Obama.

In February of 2006, Barack Obama requested a $1 million earmark for a new hospital pavilion at the University of Chicago. It's unclear whether additional favors were granted to those connected to UC. And days after she formally became the First Lady, effective 9 January 2009, Michelle Obama resigned her position at UCH.

Effective 14 January 2009, Michelle Obama's VP position was eliminated, its functions absorbed into another executive's position. This prompted writer Don Rose to ask "[If] that work can be folded into another guy’s, why was it separate in the first place?"

Excellent question. Some roguish wags might speculate that a quid pro quo arrangement was in effect; pay-to-play as it were. But that seems highly unlikely given Barack Obama's high ethical standards*.

The moral of the story is that the Obamas appear to be without moral or ethical underpinnings. The lessons of right vs. wrong, history vs. ideology, rationality vs. random action are lost on Michelle and Barack Obama.

Exhibit B: No one begrudges a Spanish holiday when Bill Gates blows a million of his own money on it. When Michelle "Marie Antoinette" Obama abuses the taxpayers' largess, however, it's another story completely. Patterns, it's all in the patterns.

• 26-Jul-2010: Obama Birthday Dinner Has $30K Price Tag
• 22-May-2010: As economic worries worsen, White House puts on the glitz
• 03-May-2010: NYMag: Michelle Obama Wears Prabal Gurung and Big, Expensive Jewelry to Correspondents’ Dinner
• 06-Apr-2010: Robert Amsterdam: Obama's Expensive Dinner at Prague Castle
• 11-Jun-2009: Obama girls fly to Paris: Another expensive private date, and this time it's a family affair
• 31-May-2009: Althouse: Obama takes his wife on a very expensive date

There is no right versus wrong, there are no ethical norms. There is no moral foundation. And that simple fact could very well be at the root of our problem.


* Ignoring, of course, Auchi, Ayers, Blagojevich, Jarrett, Jones, Rezko, etc.

Larwyn's Linx: Justice Department steers money to favored groups

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email. You can also install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget.

Nation

Justice Department steers money to favored groups: York
The shady Shorebank bailout revisited: Malkin
Border Agents Vote 'No Confidence' In ICE Leadership: GWP

Yeah, They Lied (x 10): LegalIns
Caddell: Country's Mood Is "Pre-Revolutionary": Ace
Federalism: if not now, when?: AT

Economy

The 'Social Security Trust Fund' Is Broke: Foundry
More 'Unexpected' Economic News: RWN
Geithner's SS report is much worse than it looks: Insider

Michelle Obama is not on food stamps: Surber
Government Motors Buying Off Democrats: BlogProf
Tone Deaf President Still Pushing 'Card Check': GWP

Slave-labor conditions at Sherrods’ farm?: Zombie
Homage to Bretton Woods: Sargen
AFL-CIO Chief Pleads for Union Support: RWN

Climate & Energy

Best Letter Ever: Texas To EPA — GTFO: CBullitt
Obama 'trying to dictate the powertrain... of the future': BlogProf
Texas tells the EPA to pound sand: RWN

Media

Don't Be Scared of Godwin's So-Called Law: AmSpec
The Magical Jesus of Soros and Pelosi: NewsReal
Outrage as Race Ignored in Hiring Decision: RWN

#rsrh Top Ten Signs of DOOM.: Moe Lane
Krugman Will Believe Anything That Makes Health Care Reform Look Good: JOM
We know who's to blame for Omar Thornton's murders of 8: RWN

World

Terror Alerts Confirm PJM Reporting on Hamas Fundraiser’s Scheduled Memphis Event: PJM
Niqab Security Outrages at Canadian Airports: Pipes
Michelle And Sasha’s Excellent Spanish Adventure…At Taxpayers Expense!: GWP

SciTech

Android Now Outselling iOS? Explaining the Game of Chess That Google Plays in the Smart Phone Space: Zero Hedge
Platinum-nanoparticle-based catalyst could lead to low-cost, stable fuel cells: Kurzweil AI
Ten Reasons to Love the Bomb: AT

Cornucopia

You Manga-nificent Bastards: Lurid Asian "News" Animation Now Does Lindsay Lohan: Ace
NBC Takes Olbermann Off Sunday NFL Broadcasts: SBB
Jefferson was right to fear the courts: AT

Images: People's Cube.
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Support J.D. Hayworth for U.S. Senate -- Defeat John McCain


Thursday, August 05, 2010

Rats now catapulting themselves off the SS Obama: administration's incoherent 'economic adviser' resigns

Christina Romer, President Obama's top economic adviser, just announced she's quitting.

Romer finally came to the conclusion that marketing the destruction of the economy as positive news was as inexplicable as a Treasury Secretary who cheats on his taxes.

Of course anyone who thought that any President would be more likely to listen to an academic, rather than a political handler (like Rahm) was always doomed to be mistaken.

We can't help but observe that the news comes out one night before the monthly job figures... It was part of her job to always write the post-release spin, and explain how a seemingly bad number was actually good.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Romer shoulda known better.

After all, how many freaking jobs did Saul Alinsky ever save or create?