Unemployment

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The labor department just released unemployment figures. The media outlets scream: MORE UNEMPLOYED SINCE 1992, NEARLY 598,000 JOBS LOST.

So I looked at the Department of Labor's website.

Sure enough: their press release lead paragraph is:

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: JANUARY 2009


Nonfarm payroll employment fell sharply in January (-598,000) and the unem-
ployment rate rose from 7.2 to 7.6 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of
the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Payroll employment has declined
by 3.6 million since the start of the recession in December 2007; about one-
half of this decline occurred in the past 3 months. In January, job losses
were large and widespread across nearly all major industry sectors.

Then I took a look at Table A-1. Table A1

If I read it correctly, 5.643,000 people would like a job out of a non-institutional labor force of 153,716,000 workers.

I make that to be just under 3.7% of the workforce is seeking employment.

A year ago 3.3% of the non-institutional workforce was seeking a job.

It seems to me there is a difference between not choosing to work, and wanting to work.

Why does the DoL want to dramatize the higher number?

Something about the "Lying liars that lead them" maybe?

Obama Popularity

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The February 5th Rasmussen poll website reports that Obama's approval rating is slipping, and in fact is lower than George W. Bush's was at the same point in his presidency.

What is striking to me is not the high approval among people who consider themselves Democrats, nor the low approval among those who self-identify as Republicans ... it is his surprising low rating of about 30% among the non-aligned.

Obama likes to throw his weight around by telling those who oppose his ideas "I won," implying of course that somehow all American voters totally support any cockamamie idea he comes up with. While his attitude shows his arrogance, and hints at the totalitarian approach the left wants to take (Sen. Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi are also good models of this attitude), it simply does not "play in Peoria" with common Americans who still seem to be slightly right of center in outlook.

Remember this is a president who as a legislator built a reputation on voting "Present" - and accumulating political power through associations with former radicals.

U. S. Economy

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Yesterday's business news coverage was about the Madoff situation - and it certainly sounds like a Ponzi scheme. That's where the principal invested by new buyers is used to pay previous owners a "return on investment." Obviously at some point there are not enough new investors to keep the scheme going. If you ever thought your bank was a conservative place for storing your wealth, just notice that some of the big names who bought into the Madoff scheme were UBS, and Bank of America.

Hidden somewhat in the day's coverage were reports that the housing price collapse may have more distance to travel. I found this chart on the internet and added some trend lines.



With Congress in a mood to toss money at the problem, $900 billion in addition to the previous $700 billion, with all of the attendant pork Washington infamously adds to such legislation, its hard to see how we can work ourselves out of this problem in less than a year. Precious metals trader James Sinclair has written that Obama will very soon realize he has been "had" -- that there is no easy way out of the economic collapse and with the added "stimulus" he will "own the problem" politically. That may mean he is - at best - a one term president.

That will still leave the question open of 'where was the SEC during the Bush administration.' Many of us prefer a minimum of government interference in finances, but that does not mean we expect the regulatory arm in Washington to be asleep while predators like Madoff roam the markets. As one person told me: that's like having a room full of three-year olds without any discipline. Free markets should not be undisciplined markets.

Just how big is the $1.6 trillion dollars we have created from whole cloth to toss into the fray as stimulus? As Sen. Mitch Connell said, if one spent a million dollars a year since the birth of Jesus, we would only have totaled something just over $770 billion through 2,009 years. In short, the size of the so-called stimulus is mind-boggling.

U. K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown during Parliament's question time slipped and probably accurately said that the entire world is entering a depression. The scary thing is that with all the world-wide money being thrown out to solve the crisis, we may also be facing a period of hyperinflation similar to that of the Weimar Republic.

I'm making no investment suggestions here - I'm not qualified to do so - but I would suggest we all hang on to our hats for this ride over the next few years. As the Cole Porter tune goes "now I suppose, anything goes."

Why Not Buy American?

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A clip from the San Francisco Examiner:

House Democrats insisted on including “Buy American” provisions in the $825 billion economic stimulus bill. The provisions — which are mirrored in the Senate Democrats’ version of the legislation — require that federal funds for stimulus projects can be spent on steel and iron only from domestic producers.

That’s another way of telling foreign producers to keep out. Such trade barriers damage economic growth just like tariffs that make goods imported from overseas cost more

"Buy American" is one of those phrases that sound right, but the world's Free Traders don't like it at all.

Lets face it - Free Trade means finding the lowest cost producer in many cases. Its why we no longer have a textile industry in the United States. Labor was cheaper elsewhere in the world. So we put Americans out of work, in order that other Americans buy products which has a greater profit margin to corporations.

Instead of a open-ended free trade policy, why wouldn't we say that those countries who support our political objectives world-wide are automatically free trade partners, and those who oppose it are not. Oh yeah, we want Hugo Chavez's oil and gas.

We in the United States are allowing these policies to weaken our superpower status.

The Democrat Majority

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Yesterday the House of Representatives, along strict party lines, approved the expenditure of nearly $900 BILLION of our tax dollars (which do not exist by the way) to be used to 'rescue' the economy. While $335 million of that is for STD prevention, clearly unrelated to any economic issues facing us, we need to think about just how big this Democrat majority is.

Obama won the presidential election by a vote of 54% to 46%. How big was that majority?

Imagine yourself in a room with 50 people. 27 of them voted for Obama, and 23 of them voted for an alternative. If THREE people had voted the other way, the alternative, John McCain, would have prevailed by 52% to 48%.

So our country's financial future is being determined by three people in fifty. These three voters in our room of fifty are the reason this deficit spending plan is being steamrollered through Congress.

Three in fifty.

Is that what we wanted?

Obama attempts to split Republicans

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Some very interesting news reported yesterday.

During a conference on the bailout, Obama is said to have told the Republican conferees who objected to some points of his economic plan 'I won,' implying of course that they didn't. President Bush said something quite similar about spending political capital after his 2004 re-election. The press pilloried Bush, but has given Obama a free ride. Nothing new there, but worth pointing out -- as we know that at least MSNBC's political reporter Chris Matthews thinks the free press must do everything it can to make Obama successful.

The second point was that Obama told Republicans that if they thought they wanted to get anything into his economic recovery plan, they needed to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh. This too is getting plenty of press coverage.

Both of these points make a great deal of sense, and conform to the Republican malaise - the split between conservatives and Republican liberals like McCain.

Obama is merely doing what Democrats do -- he is trying to lead the consolidation of power not by cooperating with the opposition as far as possible, but trying to hasten its demise.

At the end of the month of January, Republicans will elect an RNC leader. They will demonstrate with their choice whether they wish to be conservatives, or what one pundit has called 'Democrats-lite." McCain is already signaling he will go along with some number of Obama policies.

Unfortunately, my view is that George Bush himself brought this split along in two areas: refusing to fund the War on Terror with even a symbolic tax surcharge, and ultimately (and more significantly) generating huge deficits by allowing the Treasury to print unbacked dollars to 'rescue' some companies, AIG - BAC - Citi - GM to name a few, and not rescue others, Bear-Stearns being the big name there.

If the Republicans choose to position themselves as Democrats-lite, it will leave many of us small government conservatives looking for a new home -- much as we did in 1992 with none other than George Herbert Walker Bush. Sometimes symmetry is striking, isn't it?

We await the end of January.

Its time to criticize Obama

In a recent Wall Street Journal column, African-American political commentator Juan Williams made the following point concerning criticism of the Obama administration:

“If his presidency is to represent the full power of the idea that black Americans are just like everyone else — fully human and fully capable of intellect, courage, and patriotism — then Barack Obama has to be subject to the same rough and tumble of political criticism experienced by his predecessors.”

Williams' implication is clear - to treat Obama as a 'fragile flower' is in itself racist.

I hear too many, particular on the right, saying they must help this president, they must stifle their criticism of his policies.

I do not think so.

In fact, I think the political discourse should be as vigorous now from the right, as it has been from the left the past eight years.

The re-education of reporters

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In private discussions I often argue that reporters need to be re-educated in American government. This example is from a Wall Street Journal piece about the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as president.

That's just one of the new policies symbolizing the change to come as Washington shifts from eight years of Republican rule under George W. Bush. Within days, Mr. Obama also is expected to issue executive orders to begin closing the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, one of the most controversial symbols of the Bush administration's war on terror; reversing Mr. Bush's restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, and restoring funding for family-planning programs overseas.

Lets look at the paragraph.

1. Republican rule - In the United States our politicians govern, they do not rule. Monarchs rule, Presidents govern. Its that simple, and seemingly not understood by the Fifth Estate.

2. Bush's restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research - the Bush administration really increased funding for stem cell research. What they did do is restrict the harvesting of new stem cell lines from aborted embryos. There is a difference.

3. Restoring funding for family-planning overseas - while the question should be asked why the United States is funding actions in other countries, the fact is that the restriction was on using U. S. funding to support abortion.

We need accuracy in language which will lead to accuracy in reporting. But I doubt we will get it.

Be open-minded

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I see that George W. Bush is reported to have advised Republicans to be "open-minded" on the issues relating to immigrants.

Let me see if I get this straight:

- to oppose illegally entering this country is closed minded?

- to suggest some sort of amnesty for those who are here illegally is open minded?

- to think that we need a "time out" on even legal immigration to determine just what our future policies should be is closed minded?

- to fail to secure our borders is open minded?

There is a limit to the resources available in the United States. We cannot allow legal immigration to stress those resources, let alone allow illegal immigration to overwhelm them.

Thanks George, but I'll just stay closed-minded -- as you see it. Your record on the economy is far from stellar anyway.

Why Franken Won

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As you probably know, after a long "recount" Al Franken holds the lead by some 225 votes in the Minnesota senatorial election. While Coleman has legally challenged this result citing something in the neighborhood of 2,500 ballots which were not counted, I have a theory about why the citizens of Minnesota would vote for a person as unqualified for office as Franken.

It is this: They thought they were voting for Garrison Keillor.

'Nuf said.