SAr #11249

Time is money only if you have a job.

As Is Was: The biggest applause-getter at the GOP Reagan Library wannabe show was Texas' execution of 234 people under Perry.

Panderer: White House leaks are preparing us to hear Obama propose creating jobs through billions in tax cuts (including raiding Social Security and Medicare) and more billions in cash for the states to spread around among contributors. Oh, and a few million for infrastructure work here and there. He will pay for these useless gestures by cutting entitlements (ie. Medicare and Social Security. The only bold thing about the proposal is its effrontery.

Horse to Water: While mortgage rates are at their lowest levels in nearly forever, applications for mortgages are at similar levels.

Truth Hurts: "Whatever temporary or even longer- lasting tax incentives offered, it is terribly difficult to convince employers to add workers they don’t need." Citi's Tobias Levkovitch, who added, “polarization makes passage of bold new steps quite unlikely.”

Bad Day At Black Rock: The research arm of the world's largest money manager says that “the era of abundant consumer credit has ended... secular tightening in consumer credit markets will force US consumers to keep consumption growth roughly in line with income growth [a little investment humor here]... these trends, coupled with stubbornly high unemployment, higher commodities prices, and slower growth in wages and salaries, will likely contribute to a lower level of personal consumption growth over the next few years.”

Cart/Horse: “The European economic union has failed because European political union doesn’t exist.”

Pre-emption: Jeff Sessions, the ranking GOP member of the Senate Budget Committee, says that the GOP will oppose whatever plan President Obama proposes. As expected, even though nobody knows yet just what the presidential proposal to create "millions of jobs" will entail, we all know it's not going to happen.

Please & Thank You: Wisconsin's DMV has instructed its employees – in writing – that they are not to offer a free voter ID card to anyone who does not specifically ask for one. That'll speed up the line – both at the DMV and at the polls.

Burning at Both Ends: Have you noticed that the criminality of the most privileged and the lawlessness of the least privileged rise in parallel? Yet self-centered aggrandizement sought by both has radically different outcomes. The rich get richer, the poor get thrown in jail. Looting is an acceptable business strategy only in corporate boardrooms, not on street corners. But we have no fear of social unrest, for the surveillance state – developed to protect us from terrorists – will be deployed to protect them from us.

Location, Location, Location: After camping out payment-free for a year or two, that eventual foreclosure does not mean that Happy Days are over. At least in the Tampa area, banks put off auctioning off the properties for as long as possible, so they do not have to acknowledge the losses, and having someone living in the house helps slow its deterioration.

History Lesson: The end-game is at hand for the American Empire and the international economic system which sustained it. Charles Hugh Smith has a fine historical retrospective of how we got here, starting back in the days of acknowledged empires. No cures offered, just a framework for understanding what's really going on.

Compassion: Despite initial fears, the $25 “background check fee” required of visitors to inmates of Arizona's prisons is a one time fee – good for the length of this incarceration. It wasn't clear if minor children would be granted half-price admission.