What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[unregistered]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Our intellectual class, following the path of Europe, Asia and Africa have been for decades working to destroy the individual and the institutions built by the epistemology of self-interest in order to replace it with the epistemology of sacrifice for the group convinced that then, they would be swept into the leadership of the nation...

It never works out in the manner of their theories, they never deliver Utopia and more often than not, find themselves allied with a strong man.

It galls them to no end that they, the smart ones must toil in relative poverty while stupid, uneducated men of action roll in riches.

 

[fadetoblack2011]

i gotta dmit im not great on politics lol

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

i gotta dmit im not great on politics lol

How r U on economics?

 

[RobDownSouth]

Our intellectual class, following the path of Europe, Asia and Africa have been for decades working to destroy the individual and the institutions built by the epistemology of self-interest in order to replace it with the epistemology of sacrifice for the group convinced that then, they would be swept into the leadership of the nation...

It never works out in the manner of their theories, they never deliver Utopia and more often than not, find themselves allied with a strong man.

It galls them to no end that they, the smart ones must toil in relative poverty while stupid, uneducated men of action roll in riches.

Good ole AJ, always bashin' intellectuallism.

He won't stop until everyone comes around to his way of thinking, mainly that socialism=fascism=communism and one dollar, one quarter and one nickel equals....91 cents.

 

[patrick1]

Our intellectual class, following the path of Europe, Asia and Africa have been for decades working to destroy the individual and the institutions built by the epistemology of self-interest in order to replace it with the epistemology of sacrifice for the group convinced that then, they would be swept into the leadership of the nation...

It never works out in the manner of their theories, they never deliver Utopia and more often than not, find themselves allied with a strong man.

It galls them to no end that they, the smart ones must toil in relative poverty while stupid, uneducated men of action roll in riches.

These are harder economic times than we've known for a while - we've been led over the cliff of the credit crunch by a set of believers in the self-correcting of the free market.

Over the previous 60 years Europe and North America have been good places to live, on the whole. I used to tire of the Left making everything into a problem. Now it's the Right. You are inventing a recent supposedly problematic past that didn't exist. Blimey, 'for decades working to destroy the individual and the institutions built by the epistemology of self-interest' - you sound like an anti-Communist of the 1940's. Who in the last 60 years has found themselves 'allied with a strong man'? - this is a crazy chimera. Just show me a Western democracy where this has happened, for goodness' sake.

 

[unregistered]

 

[RobDownSouth]

March 8, 2012
U.S. Unemployment Up in February
Underemployment is 19.1%, up from 18.7% in January
by Dennis Jacobe, Chief Economist
PRINCETON, NJ -- U.S. unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, increased to 9.1% in February from 8.6% in January and 8.5% in December.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/153161/Unemployment-February.aspx

Let's wait for the official seasonally-adjusted figures from the government later this week. Then, if unemployment is up, you can celebrate your perceived decline of America like you usually do, you America-hating son of a bitch.

 

[Sean Renaud]

The adjusted numbers are almost always worse than the initial reports.

 

[koalabear]

Should you worry about rising jobless claims?
No, the economists say, even if claims were up for the third straight week.

The Labor Department said the number of Americans seeking first-time unemployment benefits rose 8,000 to 362,000 in the week ended March 3, from a revised 354,000 in the prior week. Economists had expected claims to fall to 350,000 from an originally reported 351,000.

The four-week moving average is still under 360,000, and claims are down 10.6% from a year ago.

"The underlying trend in claims is very strongly downwards," wrote Ian Shepherdon of High Frequency Economics wrote clients today.

Inspite the fact more people are added each week. Revise! Revise!

 

[koalabear]

Employment data may be too good to be true

On Friday, the Labor Department is expected to report that the economy created more than 200,000 jobs in February with the unemployment rate holding steady at 8.3 percent.

It's that last number - the portion of the workforce still out of work nearly three years after the recession ended - that remains stubbornly elevated

"The labor market is still fundamentally weaker than five years ago," said Craig Dismuke, chief economic strategist at Vining Sparks, a Memphis brokerage firm. "We are still in a big hole."

http://economywatch.msnbc.msn.com/_...79-employment-data-may-be-too-good-to-be-true

 

[mercury14]

Let's wait for the official seasonally-adjusted figures from the government later this week. Then, if unemployment is up, you can celebrate your perceived decline of America like you usually do, you America-hating son of a bitch.

The unemployment rate will tick up and down as it trends downward. But these chuckleheads will hold up a month of +.2% unemployment as proof unemployment is getting worse, even as it drops -1.5% over a year.

The ADP report says we put on 216k jobs in Feb and January was adjusted upward slightly. Note that these are strictly private sector jobs.

Private-sector jobs rise 216,000 in February, ADP says

MARKETWATCH/NEWSCORE

Last Updated: 8:36 AM, March 7, 2012

Posted: 8:36 AM, March 7, 2012

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/busine...february_pMWCP2spcNHLHqHtXDBGmK#ixzz1oYzBupMC

ROSELAND, N.J. -- US private-sector payrolls increased 216,000 in February, led by the service-providing sector and small businesses, according to the ADP employment report released Wednesday.

The January gain was revised to 173,000 from a prior estimate of 170,000.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires were looking for a February increase of 215,000.

Markets look to ADP's report on private-sector payrolls to provide some guidance on the US Labor Department's jobs estimate, which will be released Friday and includes information on both private- and public-sector payrolls.

Economists polled by MarketWatch expect the Labor Department to report Friday that nonfarm payroll employment rose 213,000 in February, compared with 243,000 in January. They also expect the unemployment rate to hold steady at 8.3 percent.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/busine...february_pMWCP2spcNHLHqHtXDBGmK#ixzz1oYz3pM2T

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/private_sector_jobs_up_in_february_pMWCP2spcNHLHqHtXDBGmK

 

[RobDownSouth]

The unemployment rate will tick up and down as it trends downward. But these chuckleheads will hold up a month of +.2% unemployment as proof unemployment is getting worse, even as it drops -1.5% over a year.

The ADP report says we put on 216k jobs in Feb ans January was adjusted upward slightly. Note that these are strictly private sector jobs.



http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/private_sector_jobs_up_in_february_pMWCP2spcNHLHqHtXDBGmK

So what have we learned?

Private Sector jobs are UP
Public Sector jobs are DOWN
...and Vetteman thinks this is a BAD thing.

 

[mercury14]

So what have we learned?

Private Sector jobs are UP
Public Sector jobs are DOWN
...and Vetteman thinks this is a BAD thing.

Correct, the same report estimates -3000 public sector jobs

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Hitler did arise from nothing; he came from an intellectually established framework of Kantian thought that dominated 18th century Germany which markedly felt the same way about the State and its goodness as does the modern Liberal/Democrat/RINO...

Reductio ad Hitlerum

When you can't make an actual argument, start comparing your enemies to Hitler.

Godwin's law.
"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

 

[RightField]

http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-gaseous-policies-of-barack-obama/?singlepage=true

The Gaseous Policies of Barack Obama
March 5, 2012 - 12:05 pm - by Victor Davis Hanson

“They” Did It (Again)!

There are no “oil men” in the White House. So the Obamites cannot, as in the past, blame Halliburton, BP, or Exxon for rigging gas prices out of the Oval Office. Which leads to the question: why then are prices now climbing when the Bush-oil company connection is no longer the narrative? The new answer? “Wall Street” (e.g., the fat-cat bankers, corporate jet owners, those who don’t know when not to profit, etc.) raised prices.

But if true, who let them get away with that? The Chinese, who are scrounging every barrel they can on the world market? The Indians, who follow suit? Maybe it’s the Obama administration Treasury that has borrowed $5 trillion in three years, not only eroding the buying power of the world-traded dollar but also sending a message to oil producers that even more debt is coming and their petrodollars will only be worth less and less?

Or perhaps it is growing world tension, as in Iran, that caused the panic? But then who snubbed the Green revolution in Iran in the spring of 2009, sought “outreach” and “reset” with the theocracy, and leveled five serial demands to stop Iranian enrichment (or else!) to the point that Iran no doubt understood 2009-2012 was a once-in-a-lifetime exempt window of opportunity to get the bomb and to control the Gulf?

To paraphrase William Tecumseh Sherman, Obama might as well rail at the wind. The administration’s current panic mode arises because we are nearing $5 a gallon. (I just filled up two miles away in West Selma, with a supposed 21% unemployment rate and a per capita income of about $14,000, and the price today was $4.27.) It is only early March. Obama may blame Wall Street, but he is savvy enough to do the following calculus: by August, people will want to drive more than they do in March; the Chinese will suddenly not wish to buy less oil this summer; he has no federal leases that he approved in January 2009 that will be coming on line after three-and-a-half years; Volts will not be going into hyper-production mode; and prices will only go up just as the campaign and the weather heat up. There is about an hour’s worth of Obama administration past quotes on gas prices that should make some interesting campaign ads.

High Gas Prices Are xGoodx no Bad

So what exactly is the administration’s reaction to skyrocketing gas prices? That should be an absurd question — except that we know administration officials are either on record as indifferent to the high cost of gasoline, or in fact hoping for higher prices.

Consider also the cancellation of the Keystone pipeline; the restrictions of new federal oil leases in the West, Alaska, offshore, and in the Gulf; Obama’s prior promises that energy prices would skyrocket because of his efforts to enact cap and trade; his boast to help Brazil out by importing its new offshore oil finds; his worries only over the abrupt rate of gas increases in 2011 rather than his desire for gradual, steadier escalation; Energy Secretary Chu’s various statements that high prices were not such a concern and indeed that he wished to see gas reach European levels (e.g., $8-10 a gallon); Interior Secretary Salazar’s insistence that even $10 gas would not open up new federal oil lands; and on and on.

I think that such words and deeds translate into some technocratic “never waste a crisis” dream in which we adapt to mass transit, begin to pile into Smart cars and subsidized government Volts, arrange our power use around the cycles of the Sun and wind, and in general consume far less as dictated by those in the technocratic overseer class, the waiting-Escalades-on-the-tarmac bunch who by needs must consume far, far more to save us from ourselves. The financiers of Solyndra and other failed subsidized firms are somehow exempt from the sorts of invective leveled at those who produce oil, as if we like those who lose our money and end up producing nothing but despise those who make a profit, pay taxes, and get us to work in the morning.

“Skyrocketing” for Thee, “Orchid-Growing” Temperatures for Me

I say technocratic because only those who work for government or live in larger cities or do not depend on driving vans, pick-up trucks, tractors, or semis could think it was wise for an oil- and natural gas-rich nation not to exploit fully its own natural resources. (Can any of you readers recall a civilization that in the past voluntarily chose not to exploit a valuable natural resource when it could be done safely, without damage, and to great profit?)

Whatever the level that the price of gas reaches, Barack Obama and Steven Chu and the technocracy won’t feel it all that much. Do you remember Obama’s first day in office when he abruptly ordered the temperature in the White House dialed up? (Had that “oil man” Bush been too energy-conscious?) David Axelrod himself complained that one could grow orchids at Obama’s new presidentially mandated heat: “skyrocketing” prices for us, but orchid growing for the president?

Think of some of the ramifications of this faculty lounge policy (I use that term empirically rather than as invective, given I taught among faculty for 21 years). Americans must borrow even more billions to import ever-higher priced oil that enriches many of our enemies, all of which will be pumped abroad under far more lax environmental conditions than had we developed our own resources here at home. (What happened to “Planet Earth”?)

Increased gas costs will also simply transfer lots of dollars that might have been spent in America to foreign governments, and will curb consumer consumption of other goods in an economic downturn. Is the driving force then some philosophical desire to restrict crass American materialism in order to return to a preferable pre-carbon dioxide Golden Age past? And if so, are the president’s sudden complaints about high gas prices and considerations to draw again from the strategic petroleum reserve entirely cynical, in the sense that once reelected, he and Secretary Chu will accelerate their restrictionist policies in hopes of keeping gas prices even higher? (We are already halfway on the road to “European levels.”) Or of making subsidized Solyndra- and Volt-like projects at last viable?

Why would the president consider tapping the strategic oil reserve, but not start a breakneck effort at developing new sources? Is previously pumped oil less polluting; does it increase supply and lower prices in a way that freshly pumped oil does not? Does his mockery of “drill, drill, drill” suggest that “not drill, not drill, and not drill” is a wiser alternative? Does Obama realize that even an extra 3 to 4 million barrels a day produced here would earn the U.S. billions in extra revenue and help to stabilize world prices by taking a commensurate amount of American demand off the world market?

The Strange Case of Dr. Chu

Give credit to Steven Chu. He’s not backing down and most recently reiterated to Congress that high prices are not much of a concern of this administration. (But Mr. Chu: if they go up any more, you will soon be out of a job, yes?) In contrast, and faced with reelection, the president now brags that we are using less fuel and pumping more of it than when he took office. Again, examine that surreal logic: because unemployment is high and GDP growth low, there is less demand for gas, and that is suddenly a good thing? (Note how — for the first time? — Obama does not blame Bush for lowering gas demand as he had serially for causing the economic doldrums: “Bush wrecked the economy but I was smart enough to make it far worse to lower gas demand.”)

Then the president boasted further that domestic production is at an all-time high. Consider that weird reasoning as well: although he curtailed production on federal lands where there are now record levels of known oil and gas reserves, private industry has developed horizontal drilling and fracking — despite, rather than because of, the president — on mostly private land in the Dakotas and elsewhere. Is the reasoning, then, something like: “Congratulations to the oil industry for ignoring me”?

In sum, from January 2009 to January 2011 — in the pre-Climategate days before Al Gore was a “sex poodle” and when the Himalayan glaciers were to be swamps and polar bears extinct — new gas and oil production was considered “bad,” given that Obama was pushing wind, solar, and “alternative” energies. In those giddy cap-and-trade days, he could afford to pontificate because he was not up for reelection and world demand was sluggish, dropping oil prices at the wellhead. When the world economy began rebounding, demand picked up, prices spiked, and now Obama is in campaign mode: suddenly high gas prices are bad and he claims not that he wants his House-approved cap-and-trade bill pushed through his Democratically controlled Senate, but rather that all along he has encouraged private enterprise to drill while successfully persuading us to cut back our consumption (as if we did so because of the impressive oratory of Barack Obama rather than because he had managed to ensure millions of Americans now had no jobs to drive to work to).

The Omnipotent Mr. Obama

Why is it that Obama takes credit for the rebound of the stock market after the historic drops in September 2008, but sees the price of gas as extraneous in a way speculation on Wall Street is not? To say that gas prices have doubled under his watch is considered by sophisticates simplistic and reductionist, given all the factors beyond his control that contribute to such increases; to say that Wall Street has improved under his watch is to appreciate the brilliantly subtle and clever manner in which an omnipotent Obama has restored financial confidence and restored some of our lost 401(k) plans.

Obama keeps claiming that the oil companies are gouging us. Some of them may well be doing that; after all, they can profit well enough at the old $40-$50 a barrel levels on about 45% of our supply produced domestically, and “need” not receive $110 for their Texas or Dakota oil at the world price. But such thinking assumes that we all should sell our product at less than we might to help fellow Americans. The farmer who produces almonds need not sell his crop at $1 a pound off the tree because he does not “need” such profits, even though he realizes that world demand has forced the price up (from the old $.75 a pound) that he could receive by exporting his almonds. In other words, everything produced in the United States that has the potential to be exported has a “world” price in this globally interconnected world, and the fact that oil does too does not make its producers inherently evil. We might as well try to convince this new generation of gold miners to sell their product to fellow Americans at $500 an ounce to help lower the deficit rather than to “gouge” us at demanding a “world” price of $1500 an ounce that is well beyond what they “need” to profit from mining.

So here we are: as gas keeps spiraling the secretary of energy simply cannot any longer remark on the resulting deleterious effects since he is on record that they are not deleterious. And the president has urged us to consider, in lieu of Neanderthal drilling, our sizable algae reserves (does algae grow in the U.S. more abundantly than elsewhere?) in a manner that he once urged us to inflate our tires and “tune up” our electronic ignition cars.

 

[mercury14]

Do you think cross posting the same C&P will make people care what your spam says?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I know why the private sector is adding jobs while first-time unemployment claims went up...

All of Obama's Crony Capitalists are falling like dominoes...

There’s no escaping Solyndra Syndrome. Here in my home state of Colorado, citizen journalists have uncovered our own gaping government-green-loan sinkhole. The stench of Chicago-on-the-Potomac is fouling the fresh Rocky Mountain air.

Meet Loveland-based Abound Solar, the lucky winner of a $400 million federal loan guarantee from the Obama administration. Earlier this month, the thin-film cadmium-telluride solar-module maker announced layoffs of nearly 300 employees (70 percent of its work force). In addition, the firm froze plans to build a new factory in Indiana. Abound says it will ride out bad market conditions and “hopefully” survive until the market recovers.

But White House hope-a-nomics is what got Abound and taxpayers into trouble in the first place.

Back in 2010, President Obama promised America in his weekly radio address that Abound would “manufacture advanced solar panels at two new plants, creating more than 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs.” Energy Secretary Steven Chu waved his green pom-poms, too. “Not only is this investment creating thousands of jobs, but it is also increasing our renewable energy manufacturing capacity and putting us on the path for our future prosperity.”

Like the rosy projections Obama and Chu used to justify pouring half a billion dollars in eco-subsidies down the now-bankrupt Solyndra solar drain, Abound’s financial outlook was based on mathematical make-believe. Hope plus change equals fail. Turns out Abound raked in green government funds despite big red flags from Fitch Ratings.

GOP House Oversight and Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa wrote: “Fitch describes Abound as lagging in technology relative to its competitors, failing to achieve stated efficiency targets, and expecting that Abound will suffer from increasing commoditization and pricing pressures. DOE’s willingness to fund Abound, despite these concerns, calls into question the merits of this loan guarantee.”

The financial mess was reported by ABC News, but the Obama administration has so far escaped real scrutiny of his crony venture socialism.

Michelle Malkin, NRO

One only wonders what could have happened, the recovery we could have had had that money not been added to the record deficit and that Capital left in the private sector without the positive interference of government.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

From same article:

How were Fitch’s warnings ignored? Thanks to the intrepid investigative work of Colorado’s Todd Shepherd at CompleteColorado.com, Amy Oliver at the Independence Institute, and Michael Sandoval at the People’s Press Collective blog, the crass political science driving this latest Department of Energy loan scandal has been exposed. The loan deal appears to be textbook “pay-for-play” between Team Obama and one of Colorado’s wealthiest progressive activist scions, Pat Stryker. She’s a billionaire heiress whose family founded a medical-device and software company. Her investment firm, Bohemian Companies, dumped nearly $500 million into Democratic coffers between 2008 and 2012. Bohemian also invested considerably in Abound.

Colorado Democratic Congresswoman Betsy Markey, a backer of job-killing cap-and-trade policies and other stifling environmental regulations, pushed for the massive Abound DOE loan. As CompleteColorado.com noted, Stryker donated personally to Markey’s campaign, and Abound ran ads thanking Markey for her eco-radical voting record. Like Solyndra chief investor George Kaiser, Stryker has visited the White House on more than one occasion. Like Kaiser, Stryker is a top Obama bundler.

This week, CompleteColorado.com obtained a new set of documents revealing “that Abound Solar created an unexpected, and previously unreported 10 day production shutdown over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, and then went on to tell employees, ‘Don’t let the rumor mill create false purposes for this shutdown.’ The shutdown was announced to employees just after Thanksgiving by company president Craig Witsoe.”

On Thursday, Chu refused to tell House lawmakers and the public how many more DOE solar boondoggles are at risk of going under. He couldn’t “recall the exact number.” Funny how fraudulently exact they can be in cooking up jobs numbers, but how chronically amnesiac they are when it all blows up.

MSM won't print any of this...

Too busy hunting for Republican contraceptive prevention...

 

[patrick1]

I know why the private sector is adding jobs while first-time unemployment claims went up...

All of Obama's Crony Capitalists are falling like dominoes...


Michelle Malkin, NRO

One only wonders what could have happened, the recovery we could have had had that money not been added to the record deficit and that Capital left in the private sector without the positive interference of government.

The Abound Solar project is an abject example of crony capitalism.

I think you're misunderstanding how capital works though if you think that a loan guarantee that might go wrong has somehow used up capital that could have been used elsewhere in the private sector. Our Tories peddle an idea like that, that restricting public expenditure will somehow 'make room' for private investment.

Really your and our major companies are awash with cash they could invest, and are choosing not to, whatever our governments do. An old neo-Keynesian like me would call it a liquidity trap. Indeed our Tories have a specific plan to try and get infrastructure investment going, using some of the surplus cash.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

NRO has hired Michelle Malkin as an OpEd writer now? Where's the *laughing my ass off* emoticon?

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

From same article:



MSM won't print any of this...

Too busy hunting for Republican contraceptive prevention...

The "MSM" won't print bullshit like that, which is why you have to reply on the likes of Michelle 'anchor baby' Malkin for your "news".

 

[RobDownSouth]

The adjusted numbers are almost always worse than the initial reports.

Yes, but we're talking about three things here:

• Gallup's guesstimates not seasonally adjusted
• The initial BLS numbers which are seasonally adjusted
• The final adjusted BLS numbers which are seasonally adjusted.

Vetty wants to compare this month's Gallup to last month's final BLS, because it reflects the worst on the Negar President.

Edited to add: Oops, Sean, we're both wrong...
The past two months, December and January, the BLS final adjusted numbers were adjusted UPWARD substantially.

The job market is starting to look better now, and it's also starting to look better in hindsight. Every month, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the jobs figures, it takes another look at the numbers it reported in the previous two months. Looking back, BLS has determined that more jobs were created in December 2011 and January 2012 than originally thought. The December jobs gain, originally reported as a 200,000 gain in January, was revised up to 203,000 last month, and has been revised up again to 223,000. January's job total, originally reported as a gain of 243,000, was revised upwards to 284,000. In other words, BLS discovered an extra 61,000 jobs. Compared with February 2011, 2.021 million more Americans have payroll jobs. In the past two years, the private sector has created 3,938,000 jobs.

LINK

 

[mercury14]

What happened to the conservatives predicting an increase in the unemployment rate this month?

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 227,000 in February. Private-sector employment grew by 233,000.

In 2011, government lost an average of 22,000 jobs per month.

Manufacturing employment rose by 31,000 in February. All of the increase occurred in durable goods manufacturing, with job gains in fabricated metal products (+11,000), transportation equipment (+8,000), machinery (+5,000), and furniture and related products (+3,000). Durable goods manufacturing has added 444,000 jobs since a recent trough in January 2010.

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for December was revised from +203,000 to +223,000, and the change for January was revised from +243,000 to +284,000.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

 

[mercury14]

Oh and about that massive stink conservatives pitched last month regarding 1.2 million discouraged workers, well that number ticked down to 1.0 million. And your 2.8 million "marginally attached" workers? Well that figure ticked downward to 2.6 mil.

This is pretty funny though... After last month's positive report Lit's righties moved the goalposts and said that the REAL measure of job growth was going to be an improvement in the two figures above.

So where do the goal posts get moved to this month? You've already burned through such the following obviously unusable, meaningless measures:

1) The actual unemployment rate
2) The number of jobs added per month
3) The number of discouraged workers

Next up: "The employment situation isn't improving because the price of radish seeds is up across 28 states!"