Lipstick for the Deficit Pig
By Barry Ritholtz - January 9th, 2009, 5:51PM
Enjoy your weekend!
"Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy." —Groucho Marx
Macro Notes
Jobless ClaimsPeter Boockvar
Initial Jobless Claims totaled 614k, 1k less than expected but the prior month was revised up by 3k to 630k. Continuing Claims fell by 53k from last week and was 38k less than expected. There has been a big discussion of late over the expiration of unemployment insurance and how the recent drop in Continuing Claims is due to people losing it rather than finding a new job. While there is no question benefits are expiring without one finding a job, as evidenced by the rising exhaustion rate, many losing those benefits now started getting them when initial claims were...
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January 9th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
that’s one big pig.
January 9th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
(Matthew 19:24)
Camel is obvious, but implying the rich congress passing through the eye of the needle is a brilliant twist!
January 9th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
“If there’s a bustle in your hedgrow
don’t be alarmed now.
It’s just a spring clean for the May-queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by.
But in the long run
there’s still time to change the road you’re on.”–Zeppelin
Not if you don’t understand and time to make the turn runs out.
January 10th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Yes I’d say there may be some precedent here for setting some sort of sliding scale for when the reigns of power should change hands. Obama has rightly pointed out that there can not be two presidents at one time, but what if the old one was in Guantanamo?
Along similar lines any Bagolabbull’s appointment is what it is, garbage. Allowing hearings to determine if anything was promised should only be preliminary findings for grand jury proceedings to nail him.
January 10th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Both cartoons are silly. Economists from both left and right think the a big rescue bill is needed.
A needed cartoon would point out the disgusting hypocrisy of Republicans that complain about the deficit. Obama has nothing to do with current fiscal year’s deficit.
Moreover, the Republicans doubled the deficit from under bush. Until 2006, they had both houses of congress; after that, they had a veto in the house. They worshiped deficits while their party’s pres was in office. Once Obama comes in, all of a sudden, they remember they are the “little govt” party.
The bigger point is that Americans are so incredibly screwed up about government spending. Reduced government spending is not necessarily beneficial. A smaller government is not necessarily better than a larger government. The government is neither the solution nor the problem.
IT’S ALL ABOUT HOW THE MONEY IS SPENT AND WHAT IT IS SPENT ON.
Bush had wasted every penny of his deficits on two moronic and unnecessary “wars,” while ending taxation for the richest folk that ever have existed in human history. Imagine how much better off we would be now if he had kept taxes on the very rich where they were and spent money instead on bullet trains and urban trams with the goal of being able to go from anywhere in the US to anywhere else on comfortable, rapid, and low-fare transit. Voila! No $4 gas ever again.
Here’s three sane suggestions on how to cut the deficit.
Bring every US “troop” back to the US. Cut military spending by 85%. The US does not need to spend more than any other county on earth combined for the military. We don’t need planes that cost $5 billion each.
End all federal spending on education. As for eduction, we should end all public funding of education, which has led to a nation of illiterates. But ending federal speeding would be a good start.
Outlaw either the government or any corporation keeping statistics by race for any purpose (including marketing). That would end affirmative action, which makes everything the government does cost at least 25% to 50% more. Government contracts should be awarded to the least costly contractor that can do the job. There is no evidence that folk with dark skin or folk that speak creole Spanish do better work than other folk.
January 10th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Well, I wanted to comment on the NFP from yesterday’s discontinued thread. Long day at the salt mine, and didn’t get to go over the numbers until this morning.
http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
This is the government release. From near the end of the release we see a change in definition reproduced below:
| Changes to Household Data Table A-13
|
| Effective with this release, the wording was changed in one of
|the categories in table A-13. “Searched for work and available
|to work now,” was changed to “Marginally attached to the labor
|force.” This is strictly a change in title, and not in definition;
|the data shown are not affected. This change is being made to cor-
|respond with the text in the release.
And then note the following…also copied from the release:
About 1.9 million persons (not seasonally adjusted) were marginally attached to the
labor force in December, 564,000 more than 12 months earlier. These individuals wanted
and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months.
They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks
preceding the survey
Take a very good read of the data. I think you will find that the numbers are much worse than reported…
|
January 10th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Bruce,
way to Read, as you know, it’s Fundamental.
I think we should be aware that ‘most’ of the #’s, coming from the ‘Gov’t', are c(r)ooked..
leaves open the Risk that, after peep get their ‘inaguration on’, of an FDR-style declaration of “National Emergency”–replete w/ “Bank Holiday” and, other, associated ills..
as some background:
“Once an emergency is declared, there is no Constitution.”- From Senate Report 93-549, written by Congress in 1973, as stated in the very first sentence. It continues- “Since March the 9th, 1933, the United States has been in a state of declared national emergency. Under the powers delegated by these statutes, the President may: seize property; organize and control the means of production; seize commodities; assign military forces abroad; institute martial law; seize and control all transportation and communication; regulate the operation of private enterprise; restrict travel; and… control the lives of all American citizens”
See the work of Dr. Gene Schroeder and others on the “War Powers Act.” Or, look up “Banking Holiday” in Black’s Law Dictionary and see that pursuant to 12 U.S.C., Section 95(b) we are under martial law via the Banking Holiday Act. ..”
http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=web&lng=&q=FDR+March+9%2C+1933
the day that led-off the, know cliche`,’ first 100 days’..
January 10th, 2009 at 11:34 am
this: know cliche`, should be now–no “k” needed..
IOW, nice spelling..