That said, how do you know it was done explicitly for political purposes?

Timing for one.  The word was out that big donors who happened to be gay were withholding big bucks.  Declare. Problem solved.

Additionally – and this is no surprise – the bonus of declaring not only freed up that money (which apparently isn’t as easy to raise this time around) but it offered another distraction from the economy, the debt and the dismal Obama record.  Every day that the economy, debt and the rest of his record isn’t being discussed is a good day for Obama.

But here’s the real reason you know it was all for political gain and he plans to do absolutely nothing about it in reality:

Strange, too, that Obama declared gay marriage a civil right, but insisted it should be left to the states. His political allies are scratching their heads over that one — it’s a civil right or it’s not — but the media haven’t pursued that incoherent angle either.

That’s right, he declares it a “civil right” but then shunts it off to the states to “decide”.  Really? Obviously we can argue all day about whether or not it is a civil right, but that’s irrelevant to the point here.  He declared it a civil right.

And he also said that what we call ‘civil rights’ should be decided at the state level. 

“No civil rights for you!”

Uh, okay.

George Wallace and Orville  Faubus were within their rights as the heads of their states to deny blacks their “civil rights” if that’s what the people of their state wanted?

We all know the answer to that.

So this is how our resident “Constitutional Scholar” makes some political hay without any intention of actually doing anything to back up his declaration (even while offering an incoherent reason that should be the talk of the media … uh, yeah, that’ll happen).

Nada.

Zip.

Zero.

As worthless a gesture as Syria signing the UN’s “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.

But politically, it’s worth big dollars just when he needs big dollars.

Forward!

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

The Fed reports industrial production rose 1.1% in April, while capacity utilization increased to 79.2%.

A dip in mortgage rates is causing an increase in refinance applications. MBA reports applications rose 9.2%, with purchases down -2.4%, but refinance applications up 13%.

Housing starts rose 2.6% in April, erasing March’s decline of -2.6%, coming in at a 717,000 annual rate. Building permits were at a 715,000 annual rate.

~
Dale Franks
Google+ Profile
Twitter Feed

And what would define that public safety risk?    Well that’s kind of up in the air.  Take the expected riots in Chicago for the NATO summit.

Apparently that qualifies. 

According to the Daily Beast, a little known Bush era regulation gives law enforcement the ability to jam cell phones … you know like they did in Tehran when the people attempted to stand up to their government.  Or Syria?

Not only do the FBI and Secret Service have standing authority to jam signals, but they along with state and local authorities can also push for the shutdown of cell towers, thanks to a little-known legacy of the Bush administration: “Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) 303," which lays out the nation’s official “Emergency Wireless Protocols.”

The protocols were developed after the 2005 London bombings in a process that calls to mind an M.C. Escher work. First, the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) formed a task force— composed of anonymous government officials and executives from Cingular, Microsoft, Motorola, Sprint, and Verizon—that issued a private report to President Bush. Another acronym-dragging committee, also meeting in secret, then approved the task force’s recommendations. Thus, according to NSTAC’s 2006–07 annual issue review, SOP 303 was born.

"In time of national emergency," the review says, SOP 303 gives “State Homeland Security Advisors, their designees, or representatives of the DHS Homeland Security Operations Center” the power to call for “the termination of private wireless network connections… within an entire metropolitan area.” The decision is subject to review by the National Coordinating Center, a government-industry group responsible for the actual mechanics of the shutdown. The NCC is supposed to “authenticate” the shutdown via “a series of questions.” But SOP 303 does not specify, at least not publicly, what would constitute a “national emergency,” or what questions the NCC then asks “to determine if the shutdown is a necessary action.”

“[T]he termination of private wireless network connections …”.  That should send a chill up your spine.  This is the realm of dictatorship. 

What if I have nothing to do with whatever the disturbance in the area might be?  What if I have an emergency?  What if I can’t get to a land line?  Who in the hell are these people to deny me access to a private service I pay for and they don’t?

And all for their convenience, because that’s the point.  Protesters use wireless services and social media like Twitter to organize.

Instead of Law Enforcement learning to monitor that and react sufficiently well to blunt its effect, they prefer to use the sledge hammer approach and shut down service to all in an area.

I have a contract with a provider.  That provider agrees to provide me uninterrupted service for payment.  I pay.  Government decides to void that contract at its own whim and possibly endanger my life and safety by doing so.

Oh, and here’s a little ground truth:

“It’s the nature of law enforcement to push the envelope,” said Eugene O’Donnell, a former New York City police instructor and professor of police practice at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “It’s act first and litigate second.”

Understatement of the year.  For instance:

While it’s against the law for individuals or nongovernmental organizations to sell or use jammers, the devices are easily found online. The U.S. military was among the first to use communications shutdowns, and local government demand for the technology has been building for years, even as the legal rules for its use have remained ill-defined. Prison wardens want to snuff out the use of smuggled cellphones by inmates; school officials hope to disable students’ phones; the National Transportation Safety Board wants to disable all “portable electronic devices within reach of the driver” while cars are in motion.

I’m sure you can dream up many more rights abusing nanny state scenarios (yeah, jamming illegal prison cell phones actually seems legit) than those listed.  Imagine a state banning cell phone use in cars and installing jammers along all major highways.  Imagine a car wreck with injuries.  Imagine the law suits to follow.

For once the ACLU and I are on the same side:

The ACLU, Verizon, and a coalition of public-interest groups noted that cellphone blackouts would, with few exceptions, violate the Constitution and federal communication law, as well as threaten public safety by eliminating the means to share vital information or call 911.

But:

Now other efforts to cut through the legal haze have emerged. In response to the wireless shutdown in San Francisco last summer, California State Sen. Alex Padilla introduced what would be a first-of-its-kind bill stipulating that to cut off service a judge must sign off that the move is necessary to avert “significant dangers to public health, safety or welfare.” If approved, the bill, which has the backing of the American Civil Liberties Union, could become the gold standard for state policy. San Francisco transit officials codified their own policy, which remains quite vague, after the public backlash to their shutdown. It calls for “strong evidence” of dangerous and unlawful activity, a belief that an interruption will “substantially reduce the likelihood of such an activity” and that the interruptions are “narrowly tailored.”

No.  That agrees to the premise that government should have that power and then tries to define it “narrowly”.  I don’t agree with the premise of government’s right to do this.  If they want to talk about an exceptional power in time of a declared National Emergency, I’m willing to listen.  But we all know how wide “narrowly” becomes when law enforcement is given an ability to use such a power.  They’ll use it for their convenience, screw your rights.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

Ultimately, reality tells you whether what you believe is true or not. And if reality conflicts with what you believe, it isn’t reality that’s got it wrong.

The Stimulus Cheerleaders

Basically, it’s the unreconstructed Keynesian crowd. Popularly led by Paul Krugman—who is a Nobel Laureate economist—they continue to argue that the problem with the economy is that the government simply didn’t spend enough to properly stimulate the economy.

There’s so much wrong with that, it’s hard to know where to start.

First, let’s accept that in a range of circumstances, it actually is true that the government can stimulate the economy via deficit spending. As long as there’s not too much debt in the economy as a whole, you can prime the economic pump through deficit spending, especially if you have a fiat currency. We’ve done it lots of times since WWII.

So, up to a point, even if you have a credit bubble that collapses, you can re-inflate it by essentially transferring that debt to the Government via deficit spending.

Up to a point.

As I’ve mentioned previously, the newest ECB research indicates that, in developed economies, once you reach a government debt load of about 100% GDP, it begins to drag on the economy, reducing economic growth by about 1% annually. So, what should be 3% annual GDP growth becomes 2%. And as the debt gets bigger, the drag gets bigger, faster.

Now, ever since Reagan and Congress began serious, constant deficit spending in the 80s, there have been worries that the government debt would begin to crown out private markets, and slow the economy. But it never happened.

Well, until now, as we crossed that 1:1 GDP to debt ratio.

Moreover, the idea that we haven’t spent enough to stimulate the economy is simply farcical. In 2008, the total national debt was less than $10 trillion. Now it’s over $16 trillion. So no matter whether or not we spent X amount of money marked "stimulus", we’ve spent so much money that we’ve added more than $6 Trillion in debt in just 4 years. That’s a lot of stimulus.

Arguing that we needed to spend more is…counterintuitive. If $6+ trillion won’t do it, then it probably can’t be done.

Besides, we already learned there was a fundamental problem with Keynesian economics when we had stagflation in the ’70s, which was supposedly impossible.

The Greeks

Here’s the thing about looting the system. Once you’ve looted it…it’s been looted. The Greeks seem utterly incapable of understanding that the system can’t continue to dole out benefits once you’ve looted it. It’s not the Germans that are making life difficult for the Greeks, by refusing to give them more money. It’s the Greeks that have made life difficult for themselves by spending themselves into a 1.28:1 Debt to GDP ratio.

Austerity, of course, isn’t pleasant—at least not the way they’ve implemented it. What they needed was public sector austerity, i.e., spending cuts, not private sector austerity, i.e., tax increases. Instead, they got both. What they needed were massive spending cuts, and debt repayment.

But, of course, in a country where practically every cop, teacher, and fireman is a unionized employee of the state, and half of the private citizens get some sort of cushy government benefit payment, much public sector austerity was a political non-starter. So they gave themselves a little public austerity and a lot of private austerity…and the economy collapsed. I mean, no matter what they did, they were in for a tough time, but they chose the most destructive path possible, then blamed it on the Germans.

The thing is, the Germans are historically…impatient with foreigners that they find troublesome. But the Greeks have decided that, having looted their economy completely, it’s the Germans’ fault somehow. The Greek position is, "We want to stay in the euro without worrying about our deficits, borrow money from Germany, never pay it back, and tell anyone who questions this to go screw."

The Germans, as are their wont, are unamused.

Californians

The list of odd things Californians believe that are directly contradicted by observable reality is, of course, far to long to be described here. A representative sample, however, includes:

• Maintaining a permanent class of illegal immigrants in modern-day helotage will not reduce employment among the minority citizenry. Giving them full access to state benefits and education will not strain the schools, medical system, or state budget.
• California must have the strictest environmental, tax, and employment regulation possible. This will not result slower economic growth, or a business exodus to another state. Similarly, stringent environmental regulation for the benefit of small fish or birds, and significantly reducing the water available for irrigation, will have no effect on farming in the central valley, and, hence, agricultural prices paid by consumers.
• It is completely possible to allow state employees to retire as young as 50, with an annual pension payment 85% of their highest salary, and fully meet our pension obligations, because the Dow will be at 24,000 by 2009, and 24,000,000 by 2099, thus making the latest round of pension increases perfectly sustainable through investment.
• If we’re taxing California workers 10% of their income, and we have a $16 billion budget deficit, the problem is that we obviously aren’t taxing enough. We should, therefore, tax higher income earners much more, because they can never leave California and move to Arizona. Or Texas.

California is just Greece with movie stars.

Conclusion

I could go on and on, but, you probably get the point.

The problem with reality is that it doesn’t care what you believe. It just is. The longer you ignore it, the more forceful it is when it re-asserts itself. But if I could point to one thing as the worst modern problem we have today, it would be an absolute refusal to acknowledge reality, accompanied by a steadfast refusal to recognize any of the warning signals it obligingly gives before it’s assertion becomes horrific, rather than merely unpleasant.

If you make the decision to ride this thing down in flames, reality will be perfectly happy to let you do it.

~
Dale Franks
Google+ Profile
Twitter Feed

The Heritage Foundation’s Rory Cooper tweeted that Obama had casually dropped his own name into Ronald Reagan’s official biography on www.whitehouse.gov, claiming credit for taking up the mantle of Reagan’s tax reform advocacy with his “Buffett Rule” gimmick. My first thought was, he must be joking. But he wasn’t—it turns out Obama has added bullet points bragging about his own accomplishments to the biographical sketches of every single U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge (except, for some reason, Gerald Ford).

Even the biographies of other Presidents aren’t sacrosanct to this guy if there’s a glimmer of political gain to be collected by inserting himself.  Examples:

• On Feb. 22, 1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first president to make a public radio address to the American people. President Coolidge later helped create the Federal Radio Commission, which has now evolved to become the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). President Obama became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google+,LinkedIn, etc.

• In a 1946 letter to the National Urban League, President Truman wrote that the government has “an obligation to see that the civil rights of every citizen are fully and equally protected.” He ended racial segregation in civil service and the armed forces in 1948. Today the Obama administration continues to strive toward upholding the civil rights of its citizens, repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, allowing people of all sexual orientations to serve openly in our armed forces.

• President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare signed (sic) into law in 1965—providing millions of elderly healthcare stability. President Obama’s historic health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, strengthens Medicare, offers eligible seniors a range of preventive services with no cost-sharing, and provides discounts on drugs when in the coverage gap known as the “donut hole.”

• On August 14, 1935, President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. Today the Obama administration continues to protect seniors and ensure Social Security will be there for future generations.

• In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.

I’ve been hesitant to buy into the label "narcissistic personality disorder" that many attribute to this guy, but it is getting harder and harder to resist.

I’m not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but I can read and analyze.  When I look at the symptoms, a lot of things jump out at me that ring true. 

The symptoms of Narcissistic personality disorder can be similar to the traits of individuals with strong self-esteem and confidence; differentiation occurs when the underlying psychological structures of these traits are considered pathological. Narcissists have such an elevated sense of self-worth that they value themselves as inherently better than others. Yet, they have a fragile self-esteem and cannot handle criticism, and will often try to compensate for this inner fragility by belittling or disparaging others in an attempt to validate their own self-worth. It is this sadistic tendency that is characteristic of narcissism as opposed to other psychological conditions affecting level of self-worth. ^[5]

In children, inflated self-views and grandiose feelings, which are characteristics of narcissism, are part of the normal self-development. Children are typically unable to understand the difference between their actual from ideal self, which causes an unrealistic perception of the self. After about age 8, views of the self, both positive and negative, begin to develop based on comparisons of peers & become more realistic. Two factors that cause self-view to remain unrealistic are dysfunctional interactions with parents that can be a lack or excessive attention. The child will either compensate for lack of attention or act in terms of unrealistic self-perception.^[6]

The CNS, Childhood Narcissism Scale, measurements concluded that narcissistic children seek to impress others & gain admiration but do not have any interest in creating sincere friendships. CNS researchers have measured that childhood narcissism has become more prevalent in Western society: any types of activities that focus on overly praising the individual, can raise narcissistic levels. More research is needed to find the reasons that promote or protect against narcissism.

Yes, that’s a Wikipedia definition, but it conforms with most others you’ll find on the net.  Examination of the symptoms should give pause.  I’m not saying he might be the only politician with this problem or that he’d even be diagnosed with NPD. I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV (although I have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express before).  However, there are so many examples of similar behavior in his past that it is hard to ignore what is right in front of your eyes.  And while he may not personally do everything (this probably being an example) he has a staff which knows their President and does what he would approve.  That’s why they’re where they are.  They play into the personality and feed it.

This is the “me and I” President.  There is rarely a time he isn’t trying to praise himself, even if no one else will.  Make of all of this what you want, I’m just sayin’ …

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

ICSC-Goldman reports mixed retail sales, with a weekly sales decrease of -0.8%, but a sharp increase of 4.5% in the year on year rate. Meanwhile, Redbook reports a year on year retail sales increase of 3.7%, the strongest in six weeks.

The Consumer Price Index was unchanged for April, as energy prices declined. Ex-food and energy, the core rate of inflation rose 0.2%.

The government’s report of retail sales shows a 0.1% sales increase in April. The same rate holds ex-autos and ex-autos and gas.

The New York Fed reports the Empire State Manufacturing Survey’s index on general business conditions rose more than 10 points to 17.09.

March business inventories rose a bit slower than in February, rising by 0.3%. A rise in sales trimmed the stock-to-sales ratio to 1.27, making March inventories look quite healthy.

The Treasury reports net capital inflows of $36.2 billion in March on foreign purchases of $22.3 billion of US securities and $13.9 billion in sales of foreign securities.

~
Dale Franks
Google+ Profile
Twitter Feed

Walker, the target of unions since he tried to curtail their power in the state, is in a runoff election with the former mayor of Milwaukee, Tom Barrett.  This is a race the unions have made a “national election”.  They’ve poured money, time and effort into this recall election that has been unmatched in recent electoral history.  But it seems it isn’t enough.  At this point, with 3 weeks to go, Walker leads Barrett by 9 points.

Some of the strength of the base supporting Walker was evident in the primary.  Ace fills us in with some numbers:

You know those 626,000 Republicans who turned out in Wisconsin yesterday? Go higher. A LOT higher.

Big number, but if the Marquette Law poll released last Wednesday is to be believed . . . that number is actually low.

MU found that of the voters confirming they would be voting in the Democratic primary, 17% were Republicans.

We will never know the actual numbers per party since there was no exit polling.

Assuming that even HALF of that number stuck by their decision to cross over to cause some mayhem, that means that over 50,000 votes on the Democratic side were just devilish Republicans, bringing the total turnout to over 676k for our side.

If you go by the Marquette number, those "hidden Rs" swell to an additional 110k, bringing total turnout to 736,000: nearly matching Prosser’s share in 2011 for a primary.

There is no way to spin turnout Tuesday in the Democrat’s favor. . . .

Dane County gave the Democrats a massive edge in votes of about 80,000, but proportionally that did not materialize in Milwaukee, which is a big concern for anyone trying to unseat Walker. If you remember earlier discussions here at the AOSHQDD, depressed Democratic turnout in Milwaukee county relative to the rest of the state actually saved Justice Prosser. The Madison vote will show up. The pro-Walker vote will show up from the Milwaukee burbs. Will traditional Presidential-race Democrats in Wisconsin’s largest city bother for a special election, even one as hyped as this? So far, the little evidence we have points to a big fat nuh-uh.

Walker won the largest uncontested share of a primary vote for governor last night in 40 years. His base is behind him when they really didn’t need to show up at all.

If you don’t recognize the name “Prosser”, he was a Republican justice who most felt would fall to a pro-union Democrat.  But the election results most desired by the union didn’t materialize.  Prosser won.  The key graf in Ace’s analysis is the last one.  Walker was uncontested.  Yet, his base demonstrated their strength and intent.  And, if the Marquette poll is to be believed, you can add up to 17% more in June.

It looks like union effort is faltering.  How badly?  Well, they couldn’t even get their preferred candidate elected in the Democratic primary:

Kathleen Falk’s drubbing in Tuesday’s Democratic primary has some political insiders questioning the decisions, and influence, of the state’s major public labor unions.

Falk, 60, was the first Democrat to enter the recall election, announcing her candidacy even before the race was official. Major labor unions, including AFSCME and the Wisconsin Education Association Council, quickly endorsed her and then went on to spend nearly $5 million to help her win the nomination.

But on Tuesday, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett — a candidate for whom the unions initially showed very little love — defeated the former Dane County executive by 24 percentage points; a margin of victory all the more startling given that he entered the race late and was outspent 5-to-1. Barrett’s victory was even more pronounced in Dane County, Falk’s backyard, where he won by 30 points.

As Jim Geraghty asks:

So if the AFSCME and the Wisconsin Education Association Council couldn’t move votes in a Democratic primary, why should we expect them to move more votes in the general election?

That’s why they’re now whining about the DNC.  My guess is if they lose, the DNC will be the fall guy, the “if but for the DNC’s failure to throw good money after bad, we’d have won” assertions.  It’s time to become a victim.  Gov. Walker has returned Wisconsin to at least a semblance of fiscal sanity with a budget surplus this year.  His program of changes is working.  The voters in Wisconsin aren’t blind or stupid.  So victimhood is about all the recall proponents have left at this point.

In a last desperate attempt to salvage the effort, Wisconsin Democrats are trying to rewrite a little history:

“Scott Walker has made this a national election,” the Wisconsin Dem tells me. “If he wins, he will turn his victory into a national referendum on his ideas about the middle class. It will hurt Democrats nationally. The fact that [national Dems] are sitting on their hands now is so frustrating. The whole ticket stands to lose.”

Scott Walker had nothing to do with initiating a recall election, throwing collective temper tantrums in the state capitol or bussing in union members (and buckets of money) in from out of state.  Democrats and unions did.  It is they who have been appealing nationally.  It is they who have elevated the Wisconsin recall election a “national election”.  And, to this point, it is they who are fumbling the ball.

But they’re right about one thing.  Thanks to them, it has been turned into a national referendum of the sort they don’t want to lose.  And, unfortunately for them, at this point, they are.

Forward!

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

President Barack Obama told an audience in New York tonight that Mitt Romney is worse than his 2008 opponent Sen. John McCain.

Here’s the bad news for Obama.

So is he.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

If you’re not a denizen of Twitter, you may be unaware of the “streams” represented by hashtags.  Twitter followers know to follow certain streams to keep up on particular conversations/events even if they don’t follow everyone participating in that convo.

Literally thousands will watch a particular Twitter stream represented by a hashtagged word.  Think #Olympics2012 for instance.  Or #WorldSeries2012.  Dancing with the Stars has its own #DWTS hashtags. And fans flock to read what is said in that stream.  Hashtags are added to the end of Twitter messages and direct them to those particular streams for everyone to read.

That’s what the Obama administration and the left in general has been trying to use for some time to use to establish narratives or conversations they think will be beneficial to them.  And for the vast majority of them, it has blown up in their faces because almost immediately, the hashtag they publish becomes a target of the right and, frankly, it ends up being highjacked.

The most recent examples are given by John:

Maybe it’s because Twitter puts a premium on brevity and cleverness. I don’t know. But for some reason, it seems to be a natural medium for conservatives. We saw it when the Hilary Rosen interview (“Ann Romney never worked a day in her life”) prompted a Twitterstorm. We saw it again when #ObamaEatsDogs exploded, and when #Julia blew up in the White House’s face like an exploding cigar. Currently, the White House is promoting #AskMichelle, where loyal Democrats can go to ask the First Lady a question. Only nearly all of the questions have come from conservatives. A sampling:

-When you vacation in Hawaii, can you see the rise of the oceans beginning to slow?
-What’s up this week for the @BarackObama campaign and “Operation Change the Subject” (to anything except the economy)?
-Do you still exchange May Day cards with Bill and Bernadette?
-Do you think your daughters should request affirmative actions preferences?
-Do you still get Christmas cards from the Rezkos and Blagojeviches?
-So who succeeded you at that critical, highly important $300k/year community outreach job at UC hospital?
-I have several friends who specialize in relocation. Shall I give them your number so they can help you relocate in January?

You have to know that such attempts and the result must really frustrate the on-line types at the Obama Campaign headquarters.  It is like they set them up on a tee for the right.

One of the things I asked last night was how such a supposedly net savvy campaign staff could repeatedly do these sorts of things and expect different results?   How many times do you have to see the same thing happen before you figure out that the strategy is fatally flawed?

The answer?  When you figure out it isn’t 2008 anymore.  I’m not sure his staff has figured that out yet.  In 2008, they likely could have gotten away with this.  But 2012 brings us what?  Oh, yeah, a president with a record, something he lacked 4 years ago.

And, as we’ve seen, he’s reluctant to talk about it, certainly isn’t touting it and provides few venues for others to question him about it.

Except with his clueless Twitter gang.

Long may they continue to flail away trying to find some hashtag that won’t provide the usual .  They at least provide some comic relief to this travesty.

Forward.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

“USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions,” Mittal testified.

“The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, estimates that 30 to 60 percent of the oil shale in the Green River Formation can be recovered,” Mittal told the subcommittee. “At the midpoint of this estimate, almost half of the 3 trillion barrels of oil would be recoverable. This is an amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.”

Of course the 2% myth has been useful to deny the viability of “drill, baby, drill”.  President Obama has used it repeatedly (and I have no doubt he will continue to do so because he seems to come from the school that thinks if they repeat something that is untrue enough times, well, it becomes true, or something).  The entire argument has centered around the premise, given the 2% figure, that even if we were to drill everything, we’d still be dependent on foreign oil.  And so, the logic then goes, since that is “true” then it would seem we should instead concentrate on alternate energies, especially clean and renewable energies, to displace fossil fuel use, decrease our foreign dependence and replace oil with those alternatives (even if they’re more costly).

Naturally, this works perfectly into a further claim that we’ll also save the planet from warming, increase net job growth by creating domestic green jobs and everyone will live happily ever after.

None of it is true.  Myth after myth has been shattered.  Global warming, despite James Hansen’s insistence, is simply not happening the way he and his alarmists claimed.  He continues to beat the same drum he was beating years ago as if nothing has disputed his initial theories.  Just last week he doubled down with a NY Times op/ed piece that barely yielded a yawn.

Should we be pursuing alternate and so-called “clean” energy sources?  Of course we should.  And we will as necessity and markets guide entrepreneurs.  But this myth that we must be a net oil importer forever and ever and can’t find ways to fully secure our own supply (i.e. not have to import oil from unfriendly or potentially unfriendly countries or be subject to their whims) is a myth.

That is, unless we don’t exploit this resource.  And remember, the estimate Mittal is talking about covers one area in the US.  We’re not talking off-shore, where most of the off-shore area  also holds vast amounts of oil but remains off-limits.  We’re talking right here on dry land.

The Green River formation is near where the state borders of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming come together.  The unfortunate aspect of that is most of the land is owned by the Federal government.  And, under this administration, anyone who has been following the energy policy of the administration knows that’s bad news for Americans.

“The federal government is in a unique position to influence the development of oil shale because nearly three-quarters of the oil shale within the Green River Formation lies beneath federal lands managed by the Department of the Interior’s (Interior) Bureau of Land Management (BLM),” she testified.

Again, with this administration, most know what that means.  If history is a guide, little if anything will be done to take advantage of this petroleum windfall by Mr. “All-Of-The-Above”.

Look at the Bakken oil fields and their impact in this down economy for an example of what Green River could mean in real terms.  Here’s blurb published today from a Billings, MT newspaper:

Thousands of workers chasing quick riches by flooding into the Bakken oil field have helped jump-start home sales in Billings.

And the wave is starting to make Billings houses harder to find — and more expensive.

Well-site geologist Joe Hallgren works under contract for SM Energy of Billings. He and his family live in Williston, N.D., the oil boom’s epicenter. But, they’re building a house in Billings and when it’s finished in July they’ll move here and Hallgren will commute to the oil patch.

“I’ve seen a few boom-bust cycles. This one is crazy,” he said. “We got to the point where, for our family, Billings is just going to be better for us.”

Last week, Bozeman resident Doug Pezoldt, who surveys land for local engineering firm Sanderson Stewart, and his wife started moving into their custom-built Billings home.

“Really, in one year’s time, the boom in the Bakken has increased the volume of work and we just need more people in Billings to support that,” Pezoldt said. “My wife and I just feel like Billings is where we want to make our home long term.”

That is the reality of Bakken and the potential of Green River in a very down economy.

Question: Do you think the administration will bother to take advantage of it?

Forward.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

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He loses 41% of the Democratic vote in the West Virginia primary to a Texas jailbird and suddenly he’s all for “clean coal.”  Does he really, honestly believe that now West Virginia will rally to his cause because he put “clean coal” on his campaign web site where it has been conspicuously absent prior to the primary?  This is “smartest guy in the room” stuff?

After coming under fire for its consistent hostility to the coal industry, the Obama campaign quietly adjusted its energy policy website to include “clean coal” among the president’s energy initiatives.

The energy policy page of BarackObama.com now includes a section for “clean coal,” claiming the stimulus package “invested substantially in carbon capture and sequestration research.”

But until recently, that page made no mention of coal. Its Google cache shows a section for “energy efficiency” where “clean coal” now appears.

The change comes mere days after Obama lost 41% of the vote in the Democratic primary in West Virginia – a state heavily reliant on the coal industry – to a convicted felon and current federal inmate.

The chairman of the WV Democratic Party blamed Obama’s poor showing on his stance on coal energy. “A lot of folks here have real frustration with this administration’s stance on coal and energy,” said state Democratic chairman Larry Puccio. “They are frustrated and they are upset, and they wanted to send Obama a message.”

Of course everyone who has followed how Obama operates knows very well he’ll say anything.  It is what he does (or doesn’t do) that matters.  Just like being “for” gay marriage.  That doesn’t mean he’ll do anything to make it happen. It is about how he calculates being “for” something will benefit him politically.  The same holds true for “clean coal”.

Should he win re-election, “clean coal” will be removed as quietly as it was inserted onto the campaign web page.

Forward.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

The Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index rose to 77.8.

The Producer Price Index fell -0.2% last month, and is up 1.9% from last year. The core rate, ex-food and energy, rose 0.2% for the month and 2.8% for the year.

~
Dale Franks
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Americans are growing more pessimistic about the economy and handling it remains President Barack Obama’s weak spot and biggest challenge in his bid for a second term, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.

And the gloomier outlook extends across party lines, including a steep decline in the share of Democrats who call the economy "good," down from 48 percent in February to just 31 percent now.

And yet we’re engaged in discussions about whether Romney was a bully and Obama was bullied or gay marriage.

The economy is the No. 1 issue in the presidential race, thanks to the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression and one of the shallowest-ever recoveries.

While the recession officially ended in summer 2009, unemployment remains stubbornly high, at 8.1 percent in April. Some 12.5 million Americans are out of work.

The increasing skepticism toward the recovery tracks a weakening overall economy as measured by the gross domestic product, and matches economic growth downgrades by many economic forecasters.

We keep hearing the “economy is the No. 1 issue in the presidential race” but we rarely hear about it in that regard.

Instead we’re continually diverted and distracted by the latest “issue du jure”. 

You’d almost think it was a strategy.

Forward.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

April export prices jumped 0.4% for the month, and were up 0.7% over last year. Import prices fell -0.5% for the month, and are up 0.5% for the year.

The international trade deficit widened sharply in March to $–51.8 billion.

Jobless claims held fairly steady at 367,000. Last’s week’s claims were revised upwards slightly to 368,000 from 365,000. The 4-week moving average stands at 370,000.

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Dale Franks
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You guys talk among yourselves.

Suggestions: “flip-flop” is now “evolution”?  Really?

And, dealing with just the politics of Obama’s gay marriage announcement, guess what we won’t be talking about again today?

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

In wholesale trade, inventories rose 0.3% in March, and sales rose 0.5%, resulting in an unchanged stock-to-sales ratio of 1.17.

MBA reports mortgage applications rose 1.7%, with the purchase index up 3.4%, and refinancing index up 1.3%.

~
Dale Franks
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State Rep. Kathy Webb is seeking to have Arkansas declare a state of emergency due to people failing to scrape grease from their dishes or trap the grease in special grease collectors before washing the dishes in dishwashers or the kitchen sink.

Webb has submitted Interim Study Proposal 2011-201, an act “to declare an emergency” over the alleged crisis. Frying hamburgers is now The People’s Business of the Highest Order.

Webb’s bill claims food grease presents an emergency risk of sewer overflows that threatens the environment. “It is in the public interest to establish a Fat, Oil, and Grease Advisory Committee to study the recommended measures to better ensure that the collection, transportation, disposal, and recycling of fat, oil, and grease are done in a manner that is protective of the environment,” reads the bill.

Anyone want to guess what party Ms. Webb calls her own?

An emergency because of a grease “crisis”.  Damn people, who have been doing this for hundreds of years, have finally driven the state of Arkansas to the brink of Greaseageddon.  The environment is threatened because the sewers might, uh, probably will, uh, definitely will overflow if the state doesn’t step in and regulate it.

No.  Really.  She means it.  Gotta have state mandated “special grease collectors” so all that nasty grease can be collected before it hits those sewers.  No telling how Arkansas has avoided Greaseageddon  before now.  Thank goodness for Rep. Webb’s foresight (because you know, towns and municipalities would never be able to handle such an emergency)!

So how will government do what has to be done, Ms. Webb?

According to the bill, the state will appoint a 14 (!) member committee “with adequate staff and facilities” to study the frying-pan-grease emergency and recommend legislation, enforcement, and other emergency government action to fight food grease. Even after such action, the committee and its “adequate staff and facilities” will perpetually exist, convene, and soak up taxpayer resources.

Because that’s what government does.  It appoints “Grease Czars”, enthrones them in perpetuity “with adequate staff and facilities” and then wastes taxpayer money trying to enforce unenforceable laws passed by morons.

Forward.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

In fact, licensing seems to be more about fees for government and barriers to competition imposed by government (good old crony capitalism).

You have to ask yourself, as pointed out in the video, if forty something other states are seeing people safely shampooed in their states, why is such a license and cost necessary in the states licensing that?

Of course, that’s common sense, and we’ll have none of that when we discuss government.

Understand?

Forward.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

1. The left’s insistence that the Tea Party is just a bunch of fringe extremists with no real influence should have been shown for the wishful thinking it is by the Congressional elections in 2010. Of course, it wasn’t. Lugar’s defeat should demonstrate again that it was silly wishful thinking.

Not that the left will ever get it, because they can’t really face the reality of this situation. A mass movement around limited government is their worst enemy. The left exists as a parasite on the rest of society, with government as the way to extract sustenance from the host. Even the Tea Party, which advocates what I consider a mild form of limited government, could dry up some of the left’s nourishment, and they might well have to go into a Kilkenny cats resolution to that problem. Which, I admit, would be fun to watch.

2. Lugar was 80 years old. He would be 86 at the end of the next term. Like Byrd, he clearly wanted to be taken out of DC in a hearse. I’m sorry, but that’s sick. It’s an addiction to power and self-importance. That alone is a pretty good reason to get rid of him.

3. Lugar prattled that “Over 60% of my life has been serving others.” That kind of sanctimonious drool really gets on my nerves. So you’re serving us, Senator Lugar, but you’re the one being treated like royalty everywhere you go? The one being chauffeured around? The one being schmoozed by every lobbyist on K Street? Wow, what an incredible burden that must have been while you were serving us. Schmuck.

What if you could get a free phone with a calling plan whose cost was paid by the federal government? What if you could have eight free cell phones? You can, and people do, Rep. Tim Griffin told The Daily Caller. The annual bill runs over $1 billion, and he’s trying to stop it.

The federal government started the Lifeline program to provide phones to low-income Americans. It originally provided only landlines, but cell phones were added several years ago.

“That’s when the program absolutely exploded and has become a nightmare,” Griffin said in a phone interview with TheDC. Calling it “Uncle Sam’s unlimited plan,” the Arkansas Republican has proposed a bill that would scale back the program to its original form: landlines only.

“People are not only getting [one free cell phone], they’re getting multiples. There are reports of people getting 10, 20, 30 — just routinely getting more than one, selling them, storing them up, whatever,” Griffin said.

The phones come with 100 minutes or more of free air time.  And they’re not just basic models either, they’re smart phones, like that one you paid a couple of hundred dollars for along with the contract you are obligated to pay each month.

Silly you.  Playing by the rules and trying to make it on your own.  Ever wonder what that line on your bill that says “universal service fund” was all about?  Well, this is what its about.  Your government giving away cell phones with no apparent accountability and you paying for them.

And the companies filling the requests for these phones?  Much like what happened in the housing market, they’ve been given incentives by government to fill as many requests as they can.

This is an outgrowth of a program that was initiated to ensure that low-income people had a land line and access to emergency services.  Then came cell phones and somehow the yahoos in DC thought it was only “fair” (one supposes) to give those who qualify as low-income individuals access to them too (why, I’m not sure, if the intent was to have a point of access to emergency services, a land line serves that purpose).

The inevitable result is good old waste, fraud and abuse to the tune of a billion dollars a year – something for which government is justly famous.

Oh, and here’s my favorite part:

The Federal Communications Commission, the government agency that is in charge of Lifeline, has also called for an overhaul of the program to deal with fraud and abuse. The FCC’s proposed changes call for a database to keep track of who already has phones, to prevent any one person from gaming the system. The proposed overhaul would also institute “a one-per-household rule applicable to all providers in the program.”

Seriously?  Now they think they need a “database” of users?  Now?

Have they any idea of who has the phones now? 

And, most importantly, why wasn’t this done in the beginning?  You know, we do live in the computer/information age.  How hard would that have been?

Just another in a long line of well thought out, well run and efficient government programs.

Yeah, let’s campaign for even more, shall we?

Forward.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index jumped two points in April to 94.5, the best reading in a year.

In retail sales, ICSC-Goldman Store Sales fell -0.8% last week, and the year on year sales rate fell to 3.3%. Meanwhile, Redbook is also very soft, with the year on year sales rate falling to 2.6%.

~
Dale Franks
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Meh.  They should consult the numbers first before pumping out yet another false meme:

Hardly a picture of “drastic” spending cuts.  Hardly a picture of “austerity.”

As Joel Pollak at Breitbart points out:

Government spending has continued to rise across much of Europe, and even those countries that have made small cuts have not reduced government spending to pre-recession levels. Some Keynesians might believe that these policies are draconian relative to the massive spending that should have happened during a recession, but that shifting the austerity goalposts.

Veronique de Rugy at National Review Online points to the graph above, and also points out that "whenever cuts took place, they were always overwhelmed by large counterproductive tax increases." Higher taxes on the "rich" have led to uniform misery in Europe–and to political extremism among disenchanted voters.That is the real failure of European policy, and the lesson most relevant to Americans as we head to the polls to choose between an incumbent who wants to raise taxes and one who wants to reform them.

Or to distill this even further, the “blue social/political model” is dying and there isn’t much the left (or anyone) can do to save it.  Reality has again defined “unsustainable” for the left in terms they are finding difficult to deal with.

What’s the first stage of coping with grief?

Oh, yeah … denial.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

Well the new campaign slogan “Forward” is getting the treatment.  ScottonCapeCod starts us with this one:

I like this one as well:

And a couple by Herder Breeder:

I especially like this one of circling the drain:

Get them out there.  One effect weapon that can be wielded against the left is mockery.  And after these last 3 plus years, they deserve every bit of it.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

The 57-year-old Socialist has openly admitted that he “does not like the rich” and declared that “my real enemy is the world of finance”. This means taxing the wealthy by up to 75 per cent, curtailing the activities of Paris as a centre for financial dealing, and ploughing millions into creating more civil service jobs.

Add an explicit threat to renegotiate the euro pact to replace austerity with “growth-creating” spending, and you have one of the most vehemently left-wing programmes in recent history.

Of course reading through that helps one understand why, after learning of his victory, President Obama immediately invited him to the White House.  Let’s see, tax the rich, go after the financial sector, grow government jobs and borrow, borrow, borrow to spend, spend, spend.

Huh … sounds familiar.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

So we have college recruiting picking up – a good sign – and we have a buyers market.  Bottom left tells us all what they’re interested in and, more importantly, what they’re not interested in.   Of course that’s of the 160 employers surveyed.  That obviously doesn’t mean that the bottom five can’t and won’t find employment.  It’s just likely they won’t find it with those 160 surveyed.  They indicated, however, a trend we’ve talked about quite often.  Hard skills or business related skills. 

Bottom right shows us how the market for college graduates has changed in the last few years.  Only 25% are hired while still in college, most, one would suppose, in those top 5 categories.  The huge difference, however, comes in the last number for 2009-2011 graduates.  45% still have no “first full-time job”.  That means some are going on 3 years.  That adds more credence to the last chart on this post. 

As for this year’s college grads, they face even tougher prospects when it comes to finding a job.  They not only have to compete against their peers, but against the graduates from from previous years still seeking their “first full-time job”.

Which brings us to the politics of this situation.  In 2008, Obama charmed the college age crowd who treated him like a combination of a rock-star and the second coming.

With the sort of situation the chart depicts now being the reality and with the youngest demographic (which includes these college age job seekers) the worst hit by the still staggering economy, one has to wonder whether or not he can pull them back into his orbit again in any significant numbers with the promise of saving them $7 a month on college loans. 

I’m guessing the answer is “no”.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

On the occasion of a Socialist winning France’s Presidential election, Robert Reich, of all people, is out to reassure the masses in America that Socialism is not the answer, Capitalism is.

However, upon closer reading, well it’s not the Capitalism we’d recognize.  Here are his opening paragraphs:

Francois Hollande’s victory doesn’t and shouldn’t mean a movement toward socialism in Europe or elsewhere. Socialism isn’t the answer to the basic problem haunting all rich nations.

The answer is to reform capitalism. The world’s productivity revolution is outpacing the political will of rich societies to fairly distribute its benefits. The result is widening inequality coupled with slow growth and stubbornly high unemployment.

Note the focus – ‘“fair” distribution of its benefits’.  Anyone – what about Capitalism calls for the “fair distribution of benefits.”

And if you change laws and require such a thing, can what you end up with be fairly called “Capitalism”?

Back to Reich.  He claims that workers are being replaced by “computers, software and the Internet (damn that Al Gore).  Consequently, jobs are at a premium and, well, that’s just not fair.  Besides (prepare for tired old song):

In the United States, almost all the gains from productivity growth have been going to the top 1 percent, and the percent of the working-age population with jobs is now lower than it’s been in more than thirty years (before the vast majority of women moved into paid work).

Inequality is also growing in Europe, along with chronic joblessness. Europe is finding it can no longer afford generous safety nets to catch everyone who has fallen out of the working economy.

And, apparently, the top 1% a) bury the money in cans in the back yard and b) don’t pay 37% of all income taxes collected (the top 5% pay 59%).  That’s just not sufficient anymore to keep the bottom 50%, who essentially pay no income taxes, in the lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed.  And Reich thinks that’s wrong. However, and this is the whole point of his pitch, that’s not Socialism.

Really?  A “fair distribution of benefits” so neatly defines Socialism, I’m not sure what’s left to say.  Except Reich wants us to somehow swallow the premise that it is also a principle part of Capitalism (it’s not) and we must reform Capitalism to conform to this newly discovered, er, inserted principle.

So what does Capitalism do?  Well, you’ve heard it said many times that the tide of Capitalism “lifts all boats”.  I.e. the “benefits” are distributed by a system that makes life better for all.  It does that by rewarding innovators, risk takers and entrepreneurs.  And those rewards can be very rich.  But:

Consumers in rich nations are reaping some of the benefits of the productivity revolution in the form of lower prices or more value for the money — consider the cost of color TVs, international phone calls, or cross-country flights compared to what they were before.

Indeed, we live better now than we did 30 years ago because of what?  The “benefits” of Capitalism as they’re traditionally defined.  Even Reich has to admit that.

However, that’s not good enough for the left.   Those not in the 1% are apparently “victims” and due much more simply because they exist.  And those who do take risks and succeed are those that owe the victims this “fairness” by giving up what they’ve earned.

You see the left’s forte is class warfare and that, frankly, is the cornerstone of Socialism.  Their traditional enemy is,  you guessed it, Capitalism and Capitalists. 

What Reich is offering is a new sort of a smoke and mirrors approach.  It’s hard to fight their traditional enemy on the basis of performance – we are a very rich nation and even our poor live better than most nation’s middle class.  So that won’t work.

Instead, it’s the politics of envy that has been employed and the siren song of “fairness” or “equality” as the required (not desired) outcome.  Oh, and that there is only one entity that can enforce either or both – government (mostly through punitive taxation).

That’s Reich’s pitch.  That’s the snake oil he’s trying to peddle.  Reassure everyone that he’s a big Capitalist (he’s not).  Pretend the problem with our system right now is it is unfair because Capitalism has gone wrong (it hasn’t).  But, with a few tweaks and reforms via government we can fix that (and end up just like Europe).

Of course we can certainly do all of that, can’t we?  And when we do, it will be called “Socialism”, won’t it?

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

The direct link to the podcast can be found here.

As a reminder, if you are an iTunes user, don’t forget to subscribe to the QandO podcast, Observations, through iTunes. For those of you who don’t have iTunes, you can subscribe at Podcast Alley. And, of course, for you newsreader subscriber types, our podcast RSS Feed is here. For podcasts from 2005 to 2010, they can be accessed through the RSS Archive Feed.

8.1% of what?  Apparently, it is 8.1% as measured by those still receiving unemployment benefits, i.e. “actively” seeking work (a requirement to continue to receive the benefits).  Here’s the reality:

In April the number of people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 522,000 from 87,897,000 to 88,419,000. This is the highest on record. The flip side, and the reason why the unemployment dropped to 8.1% is that the labor force participation rate just dipped to a new 30 year low of 64.3%.

So, that means people have dropped out of the labor market and some have quit looking for work?

Yes.  All one has to do is look at this chart and understand that a huge piece of the labor market has simply vanished from the statistics used to compute the official unemployment rate.

The current labor participation rate is equal to that of January 1982.  From a high of 67.3% in January 2000, it has dropped 3% since.  That is huge.

Yet, we’re only at 8.1%?   Not bloody likely.  Not if history is any gauge.

So who are the missing workers?

The conventional wisdom out there likes to explain that huge drop away by claiming that the baby boomers are most likely choosing to retire rather than seek work.  They further claim there’s no reason to panic, it’s the old folks dropping out and they have their retirement to fall back on.

Really?

In fact, the older demographic has remained steady and, in fact, even seen job percentage increases among those thought to be retiring.

Job holders 55 and up have risen by 3.9 million — and fallen by 8.1 million among those under 55, Labor Department data show. It’s been 50 months and counting since payrolls peaked, a post-war record. Labor releases the April jobs report on Friday morning.

[…]

For the 65-69 and 70-74 groups, the employed shares are up 1.1 percentage points and 1.6 percentage points, respectively, over the past four years.

So much for that myth.  In fact the early retiree level (i.e. those who claim Social Security at the lowest possible age – 62) dropped to 26.9% last year, the lowest since 1976.

As that final chart points out along with the accompanying stats, it isn’t the baby boomers who are causing the labor participation rate to drop.  It is workers in the two younger demographics who’ve stopped getting benefits and still don’t have work.

Political implications?  Well one can fudge the official numbers all one wishes, but unemployment is a personal thing.  Official numbers don’t mean squat to someone without a job and is unlikely to convince them that things are better than they were.

Whether or not the official number drops below 8% before the election, the reality of unemployment to those 5 million without a job  and not carried in the official number remains.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

The Monster employment index rose three points in April to 146.

The headline numbers of the Employment Situation were that 120,000 net new jobs were created in April, well below expectations of 165,000 jobs. Added to that weak report were that both weekly hours and hourly wages were unchanged for the month, indicating no serious increase in pressure for hiring or demand for labor. (Well, actually, hourly earnings rose 1¢. Meh.) The unemployment rate, however, declined by 0.1% to 8.1%, which is anything but a good sign. That’s because, in the last month, the labor force again shrank from 154,707,000 in March to 154,365,000 in April, as 342,000 workers left the labor force. Likewise, the labor force participation rate declined to 63.6%, the lowest since December, 1981. Additionally, 141,865,000 people were employed in April, down from 142,034,000 in March, a decline of 169,000 in the number of people employed. So, once again the "decline" in the unemployment rate is nothing more than a decline in the labor force that is faster than the decline in employment. The headline number covers a lot of ugly details in the "A" tables of the report. As always, I’d point out that, if the labor force participation rate were at the historical average of 66.2%, the actual unemployment rate for April would be 11.73%, up from 11.56% in March. Overall, it’s a pretty negative report.

~
Dale Franks
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