". . . and decrease the surplus population."

Creative Minority Report:

In economics, once people are no longer contributing to society there's very little economic case that can be made to extend their lives. When they talk about "quality of life" what they're really talking about is the cost/benefit analysis of you.

Our culture is happily shrugging off that old time religion but remember it will be replaced by something. And that something is economics. And more people have died in the name of economics than any religion. That's right communism, I'm talking to you. Take that Dawkins!

Yes, but what's the Fair Value?

Chart of the Day:

With third-quarter earnings largely in the books (96% of S&P 500 companies have reported for Q3 2010), today's chart provides some long-term perspective to the current earnings environment by focusing on 12-month, as reported S&P 500 earnings. Today's chart illustrates how earnings declined over 92% from its Q3 2007 peak to Q1 2009 low which brought inflation-adjusted earnings to near Great Depression lows. Since its Q1 2009 low, S&P 500 earnings have surged (up over 900%) and have just crossed above a level that occurred at the peak of the dot-com bubble. In fact, earnings have only been higher than current levels for a 29-month stretch that occurred at the tail end of the credit bubble.

Meh

Chart of the Day:

Today's chart illustrates rallies that followed massive bear markets. For today's chart, a 'massive' bear market is defined as a decline of greater than 50%. Since the Dow's inception in 1896, there have been only three bear markets whereby the Dow declined more than 50% (early 1930s, late 1930s until early 1940s, and during the very recent financial crisis). Today's chart also adds the rally that followed the dot-com bust during which the Nasdaq declined 78%. The current Dow rally has followed a path that is fairly similar to that of post-massive bear market rallies. The initial surge of the current rally lasted nearly 300 trading days and has been trading flat/choppy ever since. If the current rally were to continue to follow the post-massive bear market rally pattern, the current choppy phase would continue for another 200+ trading days.

Today's Nutshell

The Wall Street Journal:

To put it another way, the real roots of Mr. Obama's economic problems are intellectual and political. The Administration rejected marginal-rate tax cuts that worked in the 1960s and 1980s because they would have helped the rich, in favor of a Keynesian spending binge that has stimulated little except government. More broadly, Democrats purposely used the recession as a political opening to redistribute income, reverse the free-market reforms of the Reagan era, and put government at the commanding heights of economic decision-making.

Mr. Obama and the Democratic Congress have succeeded in doing all of this despite the growing opposition of the American people, who are now enduring the results. The only path back to robust growth and prosperity is to stop this agenda dead in its tracks, and then by stages to reverse it. These are the economic stakes in November.

Keep an Extra Pair of Undies Ready

Chart of the Day:

Except for a brief counter-trend rally in July, the stock market has struggled since peaking in late April. Investors are concerned. For some perspective, today's chart presents the Dow's average performance for each calendar month since 1950. As today's chart illustrates, it is not unusual for the stock market to underperform during the May to October time frame with a brief counter-trend rally occurring in July. It is worth noting that the worst calendar month for stock market performance (i.e. September) is fast approaching.

Parasites, leeches, and blood suckers

Public employee unions:

Public unions' traditional strength - the ability to finance their members' rising pay and benefits through tax increases - has become a liability. Although private-sector unions always have had to worry that consumers will resist rising prices for their goods, public sector unions have benefited from the fact that taxpayers can't choose - they are, in effect, "captive consumers."

At some point, however, voters turn resentful as they sense that:

-- They are underwriting, through their taxes, a level of salary and benefits for government employment that is better than what they and their families have.

-- Government services, from schools to the Department of Motor Vehicles, are not good enough - not for the citizen individually nor the public generally - to justify the high and escalating cost.

We are at that point.

Of course, the author, Peter Sheer, has to ruin a perfectly fine editorial with this complete howler for advice:

Public employee unions need to reboot. The old strategy of cynically buying political influence and excluding the public from decision making has run its course. Unions can rebuild public support by recommitting to an agenda of open government in the public interest. If they don't, they will be further marginalized.

Yeah, right, that will happen.

Crush them, shame them, banish them, soak them in salt.

H/T: Mish

Bear

Chart of the Day:

How is the stock market performing? It all depends on how you measure. When measured in US dollars, the Dow currently trades approximately 28% below its all-time record high. However, when measured with that other world currency (gold), the picture is even more bleak. To help illustrate the point, today's chart presents the Dow divided by the price of one ounce of gold. This results in what is referred to as the Dow / gold ratio or the cost of the Dow in ounces of gold. For example, it currently takes 8.5 ounces of gold to "buy the Dow." This is considerably less that the 44.8 ounces back in the year 1999. When priced in gold, the US stock market has been in a severe bear market for the entire 21st century.

"Assembled in China"

The iPad Lesson for China Trade:

The imported cost of the basic iPads, maybe US$250, will show up as another part of the U.S. "trade gap" with China that needs to be "rebalanced." In reality, as little as 5% of the import price is value added at assembly in China. The real content of an iPad, reports The Wall Street Journal, comes from South Korea's Samsung, Japan's Toshiba, Broadcom in the United States and (for batteries) Amperex Technology, a Hong Kong company owned by TDK in Japan. The touchscreen, processors, wireless gear and a score of other elements are created and manufactured around the world.

[...]

A study by iSuppli Corp. estimated the total parts and manufacturing cost of the mid-range iPad with 32GB and 3G capability at $287, but all of that is parts cost. The final "assembled in China" portion amounted to $11.20.

[...]

With so little of an iPad actually Chinese, iPad imports into the United States become important misleading indicators of the alleged underlying trade imbalance. The import data on a mid-range iPad will raise the U.S. trade gap with China by $287--even though China's role isn't worth more than $12.

[...]

The biggest beneficiary of the system is Apple, which analysts estimate could retain a gross profit of more than $200 per iPad. So here's the issue: The United States is launching a major trade and currency offensive against China which, in the iPad case, amounts to attempting to punish China for trade transactions that are a huge benefit to U.S. companies, investors and consumers.

In raw theory, if China were to revalue it's [sic] currency and raise the yuan by 20%, then the dollar value of an imported iPad would rise 20% from $287 to $344, thereby raising the price of an iPad in [sic] further increasing the trade deficit. But theory is unlikely to apply here, since the deep international Apple supply chain suggests that actual U.S. price of an iPad may not change at all. It would certainly not make sence [sic] for Apple to raise the import price of iPads by $57 to account for a currency shift when the actual yuan value added to an iPad is less than $12.

The iPad demonstrates that trade data are grossly inadequate as indicators of global trade realities. Products, resources, components, design and innovation are now global in nature while trade data are antiquated remnants of national data collections systems. Those systems essentially date from a century ago, when products were actually made in one country and shipped to another. Attempts to manipulate and rebalance global trade flows among countries through currency and other policies are deeply flawed and doomed to fail.

Today's Disturbing Chart of the Economy!

Chart of the Day:

Today, the Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls (jobs) decreased by 20,000 in January. Today's chart puts that decline into perspective by comparing job losses following the beginning of the current economic recession (solid red line) to that of the last recession (dashed gold line) and the average recession from 1950-1999 (dashed blue line).

As today's chart illustrates, the current job market has suffered losses that are more than triple as much as what occurs at the lows of the average recession/job loss cycle. It is also worth noting that 25 months after an average recession/job loss cycle began during the second half of the 20th century, the job market recouped all losses and was already in process of adding new jobs. At the same 25 month mark during the 21st century, the job market was still suffering losses.

And the Monkey Got Lucky

Chart of the Day:

The stock market has been rallying over the past 10 months. So, is the stock market performing well? It all depends on how you measure. When measured in US dollars, the Dow currently trades approximately 29% below its all-time record high. However, when measured with that other world currency (gold), the picture is even more bleak. To help illustrate the point, today's chart presents the Dow divided by the price of one ounce of gold. This results in what is referred to as the Dow / gold ratio or the cost of the Dow in ounces of gold. For example, it currently takes 9.3 ounces of gold to “buy the Dow.” This is considerably less that [sic] the 44.8 ounces back in the year 1999. When priced in gold, the US stock market has been in a bear market for the entire 21st century.

Next, we have today's "unexpected" announcement that 4th quarter GDP was a whopping 5.7 percent, a full percentage point above "Consensus" expectations of 4.7 percent. As with the last three quarterly reportings, we can expect the first revision of that number to knock it down a bit and then the final revision to bring it closer to or even lower than Consensus, if the behavior of the Data Moles at Commerce over the last year is any indication. According to Commerce,

"The acceleration in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected an acceleration in private inventory investment, a deceleration in imports, and an upturn in nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by decelerations in federal government spending and in [Personal Consumption Expenditures] PCE."

Oh, excellent, so we can expect some good news regarding that lagging indicator we call employment.

Wrong. According to the Congressional Budget Office:

Hiring rates remain very low, and CBO projects that the unemployment rate will average more than 10 percent during the first half of 2010, before beginning a gradual decline. That pattern is typical of recent recessions, where hiring continues to fall for 6 to 12 months after the economy begins to grow.

SBD is tempted to link to a number of other sucky indicators regarding the economy, the stock market, employment or lack thereof, finance, and investing, but he really doesn't understand any of it and suspects that neither do you. It's better to live in fear and alternately hoard gold and cash and spend like a trailer trash Lotto winner than delude oneself into thinking all these signals can be interpreted into anything resembling a plan that Dave Ramsey wouldn't tweet a small fart to if you called into his show.

More interestingly, and perhaps a better indicator of how to navigate the turbulant waters of this economy, other than getting a job with the government, news comes from the Anglosphere regarding another clown show:

Lusha the Chimpanzee Outperforms 94% of Russia Bankers with Her Investment Portfolio
By Will Stewart

A chimpanzee in Russia has out-performed 94 per cent of the country's investment funds with her portfolio growing by three times in the last year. Moscow TV reported how circus chimp Lusha chose eight companies from a possible 30 to invest her one million roubles - around £21,000. 'She bought successfully and her portfolio grew almost three times. She did better than almost the whole of the rest of the market,' said editor of Russian Finance magazine Oleg Anisimov.

[...]

And her trainer Svetlana Maksimova admitted: 'Money questions should be decided by financiers and politicians. If monkeys get into it, our economy will collapse at once.'

But Pavel Trunin, the head of monetary policy department at the Institute for the Economy in Transition in Moscow, said enviously: 'It shows that financial knowledge does not play a great role in giving forecasts to how the market will change.
It is usually a matter of more or less successful guessing. And the monkey got lucky.'

The monkey, owned by legendary Russian trainer Armando, split her investments between state-owned corporations and private companies.

Ms. Lusha, in a similar predicament to the idiot savant English singing sensation and Monster Susan Boyle upon worldwide recognition of her talents, remains without a fashion and hair waxing consultant.

SBD believes that with a bit of grooming, Lusha could easily replace CNBC's Rebecca Quick and become the new decade's "Money Honey." SBD, himself a hideous chimp, will be watching this gal closely.

Dow Performance - Blech!

Chart of the Day:

As the zeros decade concludes, today's chart presents the price performance of the Dow for each decade since 1900. So how do the 10 years just passed rank? As today's chart illustrates, the performance of the Dow from the close of 1999
through 2009 was the second worst performance on record. Only the Great Depression decade of the 1930s was worse. The current zeros decade also shares an unfortunate outcome with the 1930s in being a decade during which the Dow actually ended lower than where it started. Happy new decade.

Solving America's Obesity Problem

Under the direction of the Obama administration, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department is in talks with South American medical specialists on a new weight loss therapy for overweight Americans. Details of the new program can be found on page 1,789 of the Senate version of proposed health care legislation. It is one of the few instances in the bill where market forces are leveraged to solve a huge national problem.

This article describes it fairly succinctly:

Peruvian Police: Gang Killed People for Their Fat
Peruvian police says gang killed people for their fat,allegedly for use in cosmetics
By ANDREW WHALEN Associated Press Writer
LIMA, Peru November 20, 2009 (AP)

Police say a gang in the Peruvian jungle has been killing people and draining fat from the corpses to sell on the black market for use in cosmetics, although medical experts say they doubt a major market for fat exists.

Three suspects confessed to killing five people, but the gang may have been involved in dozens more, said Col. Jorge Mejia, chief of Peru's anti-kidnapping police. He said one suspect claimed the gang wasn't the only one doing such killings.

Mejia said two of the suspects were arrested carrying bottles of liquid human fat and told police it was worth $60,000 a gallon ($15,000 a liter). The fat was sold to intermediaries in Peru's capital, Lima, and police suspect it was then sold to cosmetic companies in Europe, Mejia said Thursday, but he could not confirm any sales.

Clown Show

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Federal Reserve Board has chosen Denis Hughes, president of the AFL-CIO in New York, to become chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to serve through the end of 2009. Hughes has been serving as acting Chairman since May.

The New York Fed chairmanship typically has gone to prominent Wall Street executives or academics. The ascension of a labor leader is a new twist for the New York Fed and a sign of the public pressure the Fed has been under to loosen its close ties to Wall Street.

The current brilliant financial tactician and Treasury Secretary Timmy Geithner honed his multiplication skills there.

Hughes is plainly and simply a hack. He is there to protect organized labor and shake down business. He has no history of acting outside of type. His appointment can do nothing but solidify the dysfunction and cynicism that has captured New York finance. He is the typical Obama appointee - a radical whose radicalism is somehow not indicative or emblematic of Obama's radicalism, who for some bizarre reason is still viewed as a go-go moderate. Oh, well Hughes represents organized labor, so he is not outside the mainstream. When organized labor represents but 11 percent of American workers, he most definitely is outside the American mainstream. He has no financial expertise to speak of. He's a shill and a jack boot.

Investor's Business Daily sums up the problems with this appointment:

Denis Hughes, president of the AFL-CIO in New York, has served as interim head of the New York Fed board since May. His ascent to one of the world's most important financial posts is another troubling sign of this administration's too-tight embrace of organized labor.

Understand, this is a time of great financial peril. That's the main reason why Bernanke was renominated. The idea of changing Fed leaders in the middle of a financial crisis was too much.

Bernanke has printed close to $2 trillion in new money to help refloat the economy. President Obama is no doubt happy — if for no other reason than it will let the White House claim its $787 billion "stimulus" is the real reason the economy's starting to grow again.

But the naming of Hughes as the top banker at the New York Fed is the real news. And it's quite astounding.

He has no significant finance experience. Nor does his educational background — "Brother Hughes," as the AFL-CIO's Web site calls him, has a B.S. degree from the Harry Van Arsdale School of Labor Studies at Empire State College — reassure us.

Of greater concern is his career as a bought-and-paid-for union official and political operative. The New York Fed chairmanship is hardly a place for a person whose entire career has been spent fighting and strong-arming the very people he'll now be regulating.

As American Thinker editor Ed Lasky put it, Hughes is someone "who may be more schooled in extracting concessions from corporate America than the intricacies of high finance."

Exactly. More to the point, can those on Wall Street who come before him in routine regulatory matters expect fair treatment? Will union issues become part of the New York Fed's agenda? Will banks find requests to expand or merge stymied because unions fear a loss of jobs somewhere?

These are more than just academic questions. The New York Fed is the primus inter pares, the first among equals, of all the Fed banks. It is the bank that executes the Fed board's will in the marketplace. It is the on-site regulator of Wall Street, playing, as its Web site says, "a leadership role in monetary policy, financial supervision and the payments system." Now it's headed by a union shill.

Putting this key Fed bank in the hands of a person whose experience suggests a bred-in-the-bone hostility to capitalism strikes us as bizarre at best and dangerous at worst. And it bears the unmistakable imprint of the White House. Just last week we wrote about plans to elevate former United Steelworkers adviser Ron Bloom from head of the auto task force to "industrial policy czar."

Putting so many union people in powerful positions of economic policymaking is a recipe for disaster. Since 1955, the share of the workers belonging to unions has plunged from 33% to about 11%. Still, though increasingly unpopular, unions have helped wreck two major industries: autos and steel. Not much of a track record.

But now, through politics, unions are getting rewarded with control of the economy — a very bad omen for American capitalism.

Perhaps there is hope in the limited nature of the appointment, as the Fed will choose 2010's replacement sometime in November or December. At the top of the list is the Fed's newly named Vice Chairman, Lee Bollinger. Bollinger is another leading financial expert and wunderkind, as evidenced by training as a lawyer, his tenure as Columbia University's 19th president, his abuse of affirmative action at University of Wisconsin, and his noted free speech advocacy, including ensuring that Iranian terrorist leader Mahmoud I'mmadinthehead was given a podium at Columbia University.

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around
And one who can't move
But where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns

Chart O' the Day

Says Chart of the Day:

One positive outcome of the financial crisis was that gasoline prices did plunge from their record highs – down 60% peak to trough. Beginning at the end of 2008, however, gasoline prices have surged and are currently 61% above their December 2008 lows. Today’s chart provides some perspective on the recent spike with a long-term view of the average US price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline. It is interesting to note that most gasoline price spikes were a result of Middle East crises and often preceded or coincided with a US recession. So while gasoline prices are currently well below the record high levels of 2007, this recent rally has brought prices to a level well above what was witnessed from 1984-2004 – a two decade span of relative energy price stability.

A Fishy Letter

Sydney Brillo Duodenum's Denver connection has forwarded to him an open letter from a private citizen - a Mr. J.T. Townsend - that was addressed to the Fishmonger-in-Chief. The letter concerns the Fishmonger-in-Chief's effort to sell his plan to socialize America's health care system, including requesting that the Fishmonger-in-Chief's supporters provide directly to the White House the names of Americans whom they believe are misrepresenting the President's plan to socialize America's health care system. This letter is very fishy. It smells like a freshly caught Red Snapper, filleted on deck, and dashed with lime and lemon juice, sea salt, cilantro, and minced garlic, onion and tomato. Delicious.

August 5, 2009, approximately 6 hours after learning of the existence of this link on the White House home page:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/


Dear Mr. President;

This morning, I learned of the existence of this link on the White House homepage: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/

I was surprised, that in support of legislation that addresses what you consider one of the most important crises facing our nation – the current state of our healthcare industry - that instead of encouraging debate over solutions, you would allow your staff to create a website encouraging Americans to report to your White House “fishy” e-mails from their fellow citizens. To me, the existence of this site, and your encouraging of Americans to “get in the face” of those who disagree with your current view and proposed solution confirms that rather than engage in an active, intellectual debate regarding healthcare reform legislation, you’ve chosen to suppress and vilify the opposition. This is in direct contrast to your campaign rhetoric regarding cooperation and tolerance, and beneath the behavior of any principled leader.

During your campaign, you took on the mantle of high-minded principle, espousing your belief that a good leader needs to include everyone at the table, to tolerate ideas contrary to his own, and drive opposing sides to a workable compromise. Broadly, I agree with these premises. In execution, though, this website and your “in their face” comment abide by none of these principles. There are valid concerns regarding the healthcare reform legislation currently before our Congress. How does asking Americans to report their fellow citizens’ comments in opposition of this legislation to their White House, or telling them to get “in the face” of those who disagree, coincide with “tolerance”? Your actions demonstrate you do not value others’ opinions or debate.

American citizens have valid concerns about the legislation currently before Congress that coincides with your proposed solution for healthcare in the United States. The “Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things” website lists and dismisses three such concerns 1) the elimination of private coverage 2) control of personal finances 3) end of life care. The site coolly, but incorrectly, states that you have addressed all of these concerns. Indeed, the letter of the legislation does not eliminate a citizens’ current coverage, but it does affect their possibility of future coverage by a private insurer if they change employers or if they are an employer not currently providing health insurance. The ramifications of these measures on employment and wages have not been publicly articulated by you, and are the true heart of the concerns expressed in e-mails and editorials circulating the country.

As far as the control of personal finances, the taxes necessary to fund this program and its effects on the budget deficit have not been articulated by you to the satisfaction of this nation’s citizens. Numerous economic studies have been published in contradiction to the economic value you suppose will be created by a more efficient system, and you have yet to provide an accurate (GAO approved and independent private accounting firm) financial accounting of how much the program will cost and where the money will come from. This is a control of personal finance issue for every American citizen, as funds for government programs do not come from accounts generated by government revenues, but from the pockets of hard-working Americans.

Finally, I do not believe that you have addressed the end of life care issue, which is outlined in the legislation, and which you – in a nationally televised interview - dismissively said was not something you were aware of. It is not surprising you do not know that this provision is a part of the legislation. In fact, this and many other facts would be apparent to Americans if not for the existence of what is the most offensive part of the legislation that the website does not address – the current legislation before congress regarding healthcare reform is 1,100 pages long, and inclusive of hundreds of provisions and articles that you have never addressed publicly. Would you hold any other professional to such a low standard? You have not read the legislation in such a manner that makes you familiar with a provision that directly affects the pursuit of happiness of the citizens whose rights you are charged with protecting? Do you expect your military commanders to know the content of their written orders to subordinates? Do you expect the Federal Reserve to understand the contents of its written financial and economic reports? Do you expect businessmen to know the contents of the contracts they are signing? Do you expect doctors to know the contents of their patients’ files? And yet you present (as an adequate answer around legislation you say to be so important) that you’re not familiar with every bit of this legislation’s content? It is inexcusable that a President or any other government official would vote for or sign legislation without reading and understanding it in its entirety. If a law is so insignificant that it doesn’t need read to be passed, then it ought not to be passed at all.

I am ashamed that my nation’s highest-ranking, elected official discourages debate and has not articulated the ENTIRE content of legislation that will have such an intimate effect on my family and the families of my fellow citizens. The mantle of leadership in a true Republic is not demonstrated when the position is the vehicle by which you or any other leader promote your idea rough-shod over differing opinions. Instead, like any leader (and more so given the sanctity of your position), your responsibility is to convince by the eloquent presentation of facts.

I believe strongly one ought not to criticize without being prescriptive, so this is what I suggest you do to remedy the errors highlighted by the existence of this website.

Prescription for you, the President

• Act as a true leader – not a politician – and encourage active debate and deliberate consideration of the resulting legislation before it becomes law. The current “my solution is the only one” and rushing of congress to pass it as law is beneath any principled leader.

• Remove the facts are stubborn things website and quit actively encouraging Americans to “get in each other’s faces,” both of which are in direct contradiction to your campaign promises and rhetoric.

• Explain how this program will be funded – not with economically realized “value” – but accounting figures integrated into the current national budget.

and

• Do what the President ought to expect from every professional – fulfill your job responsibilities by knowing every fact of the documents (legislation) of your profession.

• Replace the “Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things” website with a site containing the proposed legislation and a personal note on every aspect of the bill and why you support it.

or

• Simplify the legislation to a digestible document that every citizen should read and consider.

• Present to the American people (article by article) the healthcare reform legislation in its entirety, and promise publicly that the plan includes nothing more and nothing less than what you have articulated.

Indeed, Mr. President, facts are stubborn things. Thus far, the facts are that you have acted contrary to your campaign promises and dismissively admitted you do not know the facts around what you’ve said is one of the most important pieces of legislation of our time.

I invite you to surprise me, because given your recent actions, I expect none of this to be done. Your website and “in your face comment,” are not indicative of a leader who would take these bold and difficult steps to gain support for your position.

Please, Mr. President, make me look the fool and live by your word.

Sincerely;


JT Townsend

Citizen

Chart O' the Day

Says the Chart:

Today's chart presents the Dow divided by the price of one ounce of gold. This results in what is referred to as the Dow / gold ratio or the cost of the Dow in ounces of gold. For example, it currently takes 9.8 ounces of gold to “buy the Dow.” This is considerably less that the 44.8 ounces it took back in 1999. When priced in gold, the US stock market has been in a bear market for the entire 21st century and is currently trading 78% off its 1999 highs. The recent five-month rally, however, has the Dow (priced in gold) putting in a significant test of resistance of an accelerated downtrend that began in mid-2007.

The Silence of the Meat Bones

I picked up a meat order Sunday that I placed prior to moving. Our current freezer is smaller than our last freezer, so unfortunately I do not have room for my entire order. So I would like to give away three big meat bones to anyone who may want to make a soup or broth this week. These would also be great for a family with dogs who enjoy bones. The bones are from a cow organically and locally raised.

Let me know if you'd like them. I would love not to have to throw them away.

[Guilt Ridden Libtard]
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

The above e-mail was sent through SBD's neighborhood listserv. SBD's neighborhood is accurately described in Wikipedia as follows:

[Libtown] is one of the most affluent and highly educated locales in the country, placing first in Forbes list of America's most educated small towns [FN omitted] and eleventh on CNNMoney.com's list of top-earning American towns.[FN omitted] In April 2009, Forbes ranked [Libtown] second on its list of "America's Most Livable Cities." [FN omitted]

[...]

[Libtown] is a very wealthy and well-educated area. According to the 2000 Census, [Libtown] is the best-educated city in the United States of America with a population of 50,000 or more. 79% of residents 25 or older have bachelor's degrees and 49% have graduate or professional degrees. According to a 2007 estimate[7], the median income for a household is $117,723, and the median income for a family was $168,385.

From this e-mail, we learn much of the fate of [Libtown] and the larger liberal Washington metropolitan area during these lean economic times.

First, [Libtown] matrons have enough disposable income to order entire sides of beef. That's perfectly understandable given the present rationing of beef and near empty beef bins at the Whole Foods, Giant, Safeway, Super Fresh, Trader Joes and Wagshals Market that are all within a couple miles of the e-mail sender. Thus, there is no reason to believe that ordering the better part of an "organically and locally raised," and presumably locally slaughtered by Druids, cow, is any kind of vanity project. Just like there is no reason to believe that ordering too much vanity beef is any kind of ploy to demonstrate that you are in a position to order vanity beef, in fact to order more vanity beef than you can use, thus forcing you to appeal to the wider community to share your guilt at not being able to store all your vanity beef, and really to draw attention to the entire wastefulness of the non-organic and non-local beef industry.

Second, [Libtown] matrons are being forced to move into homes with smaller second freezers than those enjoyed during the go-go Bush years but taken away by the evil BushCo Inc. Such is the case when one has to move out of one's home for six months or longer into a rental while one's original home is gutted and doubled in size. Goddamn George Bush!

Third, [Libtown] matrons are establishing micro-soup kitchens to feed their families. Again, a reasonable response to the Bush Depression.

Fourth, [Libtown] matrons are plagued by a distinctly higher set of worries than your average suburban matron. It's a real testament to the need to judge every act of disposal and its larger morality. But these matrons are a beacon in this country, which is really nothing better than a reeking, offal layered landfill.

Fifth, dogs love a good bone! Can't argue with that. But the sender really should have made it clear that the bones would go only to families that have adopted and spayed/neutered shelter dogs. No AKC need apply.

Sixth, [Libtown] matrons are highly adept at dispersing their guilt over an excess of meat bones on to their neighborhood community. After all, if "sender" would "love not to have to throw them away," then surely you would not want her to have to throw away those meat bones and, from a community perspective, frankly you have a responsibility to find room in your second freezer in your rental that you're staying in while your real house is gutted and doubled to accommodate those meat bones and to make soup or broth (but apparently not consomme) and feed the meat bones you don't grind into garden fertilizer to your shelter dog(s).

The Silence of the Meat Bones is not the only naked story in little city. The other day this e-mail crossed the deli counter:

Teach me to weld?
I'm looking for someone in the neighborhood who might be willing to give me some rudimentary instructions about how to weld, nothing too technical.

Have got a creative itch to create yard junk from recycled steel but don't know where to start.

[Moron with too much time on hands]

Yes, indeed, if there is anything the neighborhood needs more of, it's hideous ersatz welded steel piles of crap sitting on peoples' front lawns.

SBD would much rather see an installation made out of meat bones.

Well, Our Numbers Don't Lie; They Don't Tell The Truth Either

With the table below, Political Math demonstrates how the Obama administration has been "horrifically, disastrously wrong" in the effectiveness of its "stimulus" policies.

Unemployment Rate	Unemployed Population
Predicted Unemployment without the Stimulus	8.7%	13,492,000
Predicted Unemployment with the Stimulus	7.9%	12,251,000
Actual Unemployment with the Stimulus	9.4%	14,511,000

So, in effect, the "stimulus" has resulted in the loss of 1,019,000 jobs than if there had been no stimulus, at least if we use the President's promise, which was based on a hopeful army of nerds running all sorts of impressive calculations in this new age of scientific inquiry and soulless application of reason and Keynesian quantification, all of it so unlike that crafty bastard George Bush, who used old Atari 64 bit computers to run his budgets and used his complete control of the mainstream media to drown a willing populace in his Deatheater lies. Now, other eggheads will argue that we can't predict what actual unemployment without the stimulus would have been, so why take Obama to task for being rosy about government manipulation of the economy. Oh, right, he's pointing us in the right direction with his government largesse. He promised to save or create 3 million jobs with his stimulus and while the bald facts seem to suggest a complete failure to create jobs and there's no way to actually claim they "save" any jobs, let alone a paltry 150,000 and not including any additions to government worker rolls, we just have to believe the government will take care of it sooner or later. But he really means it now and we can expect 600,000 jobs to be saved or created this summer. After all, the economy can't be allowed to work these problems out on its own. That's never worked, even though it's never really been tried.

As Keith Hennessey points out:

Less than 5% of the $787 B [stimulus] is out the door, and the bulk of the cash flow will not happen until mid-2010. The administration would like to claim credit for the so-called green shoots of good news, and they deserve some praise for the stress tests, but they cannot plausibly claim that stimulus spending is helping the economy now in any significant way. No made up calculation of jobs saved can obscure that the money is not yet flowing into the economy.

[...]

In addition to being inefficient and wasteful, the stimulus was poorly timed. By deferring to congressional desires to shovel taxpayer funds to slow-spending infrastructure projects, the administration got a stimulus law that isn’t helping GDP growth now, and won’t have a quantitatively significant effect until 2010. The administration is in a tough spot — if the economy is not healing, then at some point the president will take the blame. If instead the economy is healing before the stimulus takes effect, then maybe the stimulus was unnecessary or even counterproductive.

Well, what the hell does some right wing economist know? Let's ask the people on whose behalf all this rubbing and stimulating is being done.

According to Rasmussen Reports:

(f)orty-five percent (45%) of Americans say the rest of the new government spending authorized in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan should now be canceled.

Rasmussen has some other interesting tidbits about Hope and Change in your wallet:

• Only 31% of Americans believe the new government spending in the stimulus package creates new jobs.
• Forty-eight percent (48%) say the stimulus spending does not create jobs, and 21% are not sure
• Thirty-nine percent (39%) say the increased spending will be good for the economy, but 44% say it will be bad. Eight percent (8%) think it will have no impact
• A plurality of government employees believe speeding up the stimulus will be good for the economy. [SURPRISE!] However, those who work in the private sector strongly disagree. [Really?]
• Only 31% of U.S. voters believe the economic stimulus package has helped the economy. That's down from 38% when it first passed in February.
• For the first time in years, voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on the handling of the economy.
• Fifty-three percent (53%) of Americans believe that increases in government spending are generally bad for the economy.
  
• For nearly four-out-of-five U.S. voters, the unwillingness of politicians to control government spending is a bigger problem than the public’s resistance to more taxes.
• Most voters [52%] continue to worry that the federal government will do too much in reacting to the country’s current economic problems.

The chances are that Obama will review all of these bellwethers and decide that the best course of action will be to demonstrate his man of the street cred by gathering up Michelle and the kids and flying on Air Force One to a Costco in flyover country (maybe Nebraska where his buddy Warren Buffett lives) to try out the new Kirkland Signature Hot Dog in the Costco food court. He can buy a giant sized Grey Poupon Mustard to go along with it.

There Will Be Blood

It's hard to look at this CBO budget projection and not see it as a massive bloodletting.

Length of US Recessions

From Chart of the Day:

While the stock market has rallied nicely since bottoming on March 9th, the economy continues to struggle. For some perspective on the current economic recession, today's chart illustrates the duration of all US recessions since 1900. As today's chart illustrates, the five longest recessions all began prior to 1930. The length of the current recession (now entering its 16th month) is above average and equal to the longest recessions (1973 & 1981) since the Great Depression.