Saturday, December 3, 2011

SAR #11335

Only the credulous find the future in the past.

Magic, Inc. The BLS reports that in November: Unemployment fell to 8.6% (way below the expected 9.0%) and U6 fell to 15.6%. Employers added 120,000 jobs, about 150,000 entered the workforce and 315,000 left the workforce. Labor Force Participation was down to 64.0%. [No, the math doesn't work. This is government economic data, what did you expect?] The the long term unemployed declined to 3.7% of the labor force, the lowest since October 2009, but the average duration of unemployment (for those still recognized as being unemployed) rose to a record 40.9 weeks. As Calculated Risk points out, This says nothing about the quality of jobs - as an example, a college graduate working at minimum wage would be considered "employed". The average hourly wage went down two cents.

Poor Habits: GOP Wannabe Newt Gingrich says that poor kids have no work habits, won't show up, won't stay at work all day and the only cash they get is illegally obtained. Or from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), which they use to take vacations in Hawaii.

Asked/Answered: Can the euro be saved? Yes. Will the euro be saved? Probably not. Europe's leadership is trying to solve the wrong set of problems by starving the beast, because their ideologies will not let them grasp the need to spend in the face of debt, to embrace inflation to defeat deflation. Forming a sustainable Central Bank of the Eurozone in a financially unified Europe would take too much political rearrangement and would take too long. The game seems over. The really scary thing is that the US is intent on following Europe down the austerity path to economic disaster.

Sign Up Here: Congressional candidate Ray Lutz was arrested in San Diego's Freedom Plaza for registering voters. Other #Occupiers filled in for him as he was lead away.

From Israel to Auschwitz: On the Israelification of America's SWAT police and their coordinated assaults on the #Occupy movement.

Coordination: The day after Fannie Mae evicted a police officer and his family from their suburban Atlanta home, the government-owned mortgage giant demanded the family turn over all its correspondence with members of Occupy Atlanta.

Vow of Silence: GOP wannabe Herman Cain implies that Divine Providence has sent him to preserve the Republic. Right after he preserves his relationship with his wife, who isn't speaking to him.

Machine Politics: The Election Assistance Commission was created in the wake of suspected GOP manipulation of electronic voting in the highly suspect 2000 presidential election. The EAC was charged with improving the safety, security, and accuracy of electronic voting systems. Obviously, those who fear fair and free elections would be against such an agency. That explains why the House, on a 235/190 mostly party line vote, has passed a GOP-sponsored bill to eviscerate “the last line of defense against fraud and tampering in electronic voting systems around the country.”

Lost & Found: Canada and the US are introducing a new entry/exit tracking system that will allow authorities to track the movements of everyone leaving either country.

The Map Is Not The Territory: A high-powered Brussels-based think-tank says the Euro-zone needs a finance ministry with the power to levy taxes and regulate the banks. And if I had some coffee I could have some coffee and dounuts, if I had some donuts.

Waiting: The opposite of progressive politics is no longer conservative politics, it is regressive politics, which is not a political belief so much as an emotional commitment made out of fear. It is those who believe in survival of the fittest and believe they are demonstrably the fittest. That the economic system creates immense suffering is, to their minds, simply the way God intended things to be, just as God wants them to be wealthy and powerful. Someone has to suffer, better you than they. We had best not sit about simply “waiting for the American Eagle to really spread its wings and straighten up and fly right.”

Ah, Then It's Okay: The FBI explains its unconstitutional surveillance of peaceful anti-war protesters as “an ill-conceived project on a slow work day.”

Porn O'Graph: Enthusiasm builds...

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Krugman is such a joke at this point it is impossible to take him seriously.

rjs said...

the ferlinghetti poem was a nice touch...i used to carry a small volume of his poems, coney island of the mind, in my hitchhiking sack...

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

Let me get this straight, Krugman, who has turned out to be right all along, is a joke?

ckm

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

rjs - yeah, my copy of Coney Island of the Mind is pretty tattered...

Anonymous said...

Ya he is. The cost of bailing out the banks to protect the few will lay waste to the citizens of the respective nations. It happens either way, inflating the way out which is also logistically and practically near impossible or simply shoving the bank and sovereign debt onto the tax payers. Both ways will also be met with riots and civil unrest which we are already seeing. The growth paradigm is dead, we won't be outrunning this by growing and inflating the debt away. A simple rebalancing or even more consolidation of the euro zone debts and US debt isn't gonna save this doomed to fail system either.

TulsaTime said...

NEWT SAYS- omfg, I continue to be amazed that an unrepentant Georgia racist, who was run out of DC in disgrace, can be taken seriously as a candidate for anything, much less president. And to actually mention foodstamps and Hawaii in the same breath, has he been asleep since then? So 90's.

As for the Euro being saved, the question becomes at what cost? The concept is insane to start with. Just one more game to assist the great bank feast on civilisation. Growth is over, it's time to grab as much as you can!

kwark said...

RE "Magic, Inc." So, how long does the BLS count you if you have the misfortune of being among the "long term unemployed"? Is the decline real or simply due to ignoring folks after enough time has passed?

RE "Poor Habits" I know it's silly to ask, but how would Newt the Tool know anything about poor kids and why doesn't any of the media ever question how he arrives at such a conclusion? I suspect that his opinion is a matter of faith for him and doesn't need trivial details as actual facts.