NEWS FROM THE GLOBAL ECONOMY FRONT

From Zero Hedge on September 6, 2013:

Poland Confiscates Half Of Private Pension Funds To "Cut" Sovereign Debt Load

While the world was glued to the developments in the Mediterranean in the past week, Poland took a page straight out of Rahm Emanuel's playbook and in order to not let a crisis go to waste, announced quietly that it would transfer to the state - i.e., confiscate - the bulk of assets owned by the country's private pension funds (many of them owned by such foreign firms as PIMCO parent Allianz, AXA, Generali, ING and Aviva), without offering any compensation. In effect, the state just nationalized roughly half of the private sector pension fund assets, although it had a more politically correct name for it: pension overhaul....

Such is the harvest of profligate government spending accompanied by profligate government borrowing.

IS IT TIME TO RETURN TO REAGANONICS?

(Hat tip to Western Hero for the above graphic)
Those on the Left become apoplectic whenever anyone lauds Reaganomics. Wikipedia is as good a place as any to start if one doesn't recognize what Reaganomics entailed. The Library of Economics and Liberty also has information, information that is condensed and more reader-friendly.

In any case, consider the Daily Caller video below (with thanks to Mustang for emailing me the link):


A brief comparison of Obamanomics and Reaganomics from the Wall Street Journal, dated August 26, 2011, states in part...

Read the rest at Always On Watch.

OBAMA: OUTSOURCER-IN-CHIEF

Pardon me if this video has already been posted here at TAB, but the information does bear repeating:

MICHAEL LEWIS, AUTHOR OF "BOOMERANG"

The following video is long, and I don't agree with every word. Nonetheless, the interview is interesting (hat tip to Mark Alexander of A New Dark Age Is Dawning):


More about Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World at Amazon "The New Third World" is Europe and the United States.

Wikipedia has this entry for author Michael Lewis.

Some large public library systems have Boomerang or have ordered it.

Despite some of his comments about Occupy Wall Street, I'll be reading his book once my name rises to the top of the library's reserve-list.

OBAMA'S KEYNESIAN TWILIGHT ZONE

Drowning

This is the only analogy I could come up with for the disastrous spending plans of the Obama Democrats.

Our descendants will be paying off these unforgivable mistakes for generations.

Economic Suicide and Revolution

Barack Obama's profligate spending programs, in aggregate totaling many trillions of dollars, translate to the act of printing money at a rate never seen in human history. Experts, from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to Democrat economists, believe that these plans put America on a glide-path to catastrophe over the next ten years.

President Barack Obama's budget would generate unsustainably large deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to new estimates released Friday... The [CBO] figures predict Obama's budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019. That's $2.3 trillion worse than the administration predicted in its budget just last month.

Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama's policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, figures that economists agree are unsustainable. By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level.

And consider the spending itself: a stimulus bill that sends billions of taxpayer dollars to a "criminal enterprise" like ACORN and spews hundreds of billions to pork-laden construction projects. A budget that includes 9,000 earmarks. Mortgage rescue packages for deadbeats and real-estate flippers. Trillions of dollars going out the front door and the back door of the Federal Reserve.

The full faith and credit of the U.S. financial system hangs in the balance. The dollar, once the strongest currency in the world, is on a trajectory to rival a third-world medium of exchange.

The national debt just hit $11 trillion, which reflects only the "on-the-books" amount. The true debt -- including Social Security and Medicare -- is now $56 trillion. This translates to:

$483,000 per American household
That amount of debt is, quite obviously, unsustainable.

Whether the outcome is rampant inflation (devaluation of the currency); an inability to sell U.S. debt to foreigners (China has already warned us about our spending); or the federal government's inability to make payments on the debt (bankruptcy), Barack Obama's behavior should come as no surprise. The urgency of destroying capitalism was baked into his upbringing.

* * *
Obama's mentor Frank Marshall Davis -- the veiled figure known only as "Frank" in Barack Obama's memoir Dreams from my Father -- was openly sympathetic to Communists. His affiliations with a variety of hard left groups were open. At that time, the Communist Party had tens of thousands of members, some of them clandestine Soviet officials who had penetrated government and industry. It received covert subsidies from the Soviet Union itself. In 1949, Davis himself predicted the collapse of Capitalism:

"Democracy today lies weak and slowly dying from the poison administered by the divident doctors in Washington and Wall Street who have fooled a trusting public into believing that they are the specialists who would save us from the dread diseases of socialism and communism. . . . They hope to hand us fascism disguised as the healed democracy." (Honolulu Record, July 28, 1949, p. 8)

Bill Ayers, who worked closely with Barack Obama on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and the Woods Fund, wrote an eerily similar missive in 2008. It plainly predicts the death of Capitalism:

"Capitalism played its role historically and is exhausted as a force for progress: built on exploitation, theft, conquest, war, and racism, capitalism and imperialism must be defeated and a world revolution—a revolution against war and racism and materialism, a revolution based on human solidarity and love, cooperation and the common good—must win."

Jeremiah Wright, Obama's self-described spiritual advisor, mentor and family friend, offered a similar theme over the two decades comprising their relationship. Hostility to capitalism and America itself make steady appearances in Wright's sermons and his writings.

Wright views the United States as a criminal nation... Implicitly drawing on Marxist "dependency theory," Wright blames Africa's troubles on capitalist exploitation by the West, and also on inadequate American aid: "Some analysts would go so far as to even call what [the United States, the G-8, and multinational corporations] are doing [in Africa] genocide!"

According to Wright, America's alleged genocide in Africa, as well as its treatment of "Africans in the Western diaspora," both leads to and flows from a single underlying truth: "White supremacy is the bed rock of the philosophical, ideological and theological foundations of this country." So for Wright, it's really not a question of correcting America in the spirit of a loving patriot. America, to Wright, is a kind of alien formation, scarcely less of a "cage" for "Africans in the Western Diaspora" than it was during the days of slavery: "...White supremacy undergirds the thought, the ideology, the theol-ogy, the sociology, the legal structure, the educational system, the healthcare system, and the entire reality of the United States of America.

In 2008, Wright, like Ayers, predicted that a revolution would destroy Capitalism as a force in the world.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, 'This is not just.'

* * *
This theme is the single immutable and consistent lesson taught by Obama's mentors and spiritual advisers: Capitalism is dying -- must die -- as an economic force for reasons of fairness and justice. America, as the world hub of capitalism, is evil. Therefore hastening the collapse of capitalism is an act of goodness.

If you concede that Barack Obama is a bright man -- and with Columbia and Harvard degrees under his belt, it's hard to dispute that notion -- then only one conclusion is possible. Barack Obama, at the helm of the world's strongest country, is fulfilling his promise to his mentors. Barack Obama is intentionally destroying the American economy.

The Revolution is Here.

AIG execs demand Senators "resign or commit suicide"

After reading this story, I fell asleep and had a dream...

AIG Vice Chairman and Chief Marketing Officer Robert G. Krebs suggested that Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Charles Grassley (D-IA) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) take a "Japanese approach" toward accepting responsibility for the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by resigning or killing themselves.

"In all candor, I don't know why they're so exercised by some bonuses. These pathetic excuses for politicians cost the taxpayers trillions of dollars and, worst of all, they're still in power."

"I suggest they ought to be removed," Krebs said. "But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide. And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide before they make any apology."

"And, frankly, suicide would appear to be the only way to get these recidivists out of office," Krebs added.

"From my standpoint, it's irresponsible for unaccountable bureaucrats to allow themselves to receive raises when they're sucking at the teat of the taxpayer," AIG Senior Vice President James Sullivan explained.

Krebs noted that Frank, Dodd, Maxine Waters (D-CA) and a host of other Democrats were largely responsible for the entire mortgage meltdown through their decade-long fight against regulation of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"Recall that in 2004, Alan Greenspan warned of a systemic risk to the economy and, even earlier, the White House tried repeatedly to rein the GSEs in. But, no, B-B-B-arneys Fwank and Kwistopha Dudd were protecting their donors," Krebs said, mocking the portly Frank.

Sullivan continued to express his displeasure with the federal government that is adding trillions of dollars to the national debt for "non-stimulating stimulus, better known as pork projects."

He said Senators and Congress in general should not be rewarded for "running the country into the ground."

The executives' remarks added to a chorus of public outrage over the disclosure that Congress continues to rape the American people with pork projects and massive unfunded liabilities that are bankrupting the country.

The world just doesn't understand the genius of Barack Obama

Barack Obama and the Wisdom of Crowds

Porkapalooza: The trillion dollar phony stimulus package

As Democrats prepare a trillion dollar so-called stimulus package, it's worth reviewing the last time the Feds used a Politburo-style, centralized planning model for reviving the economy.

History has a lesson for those who [would use] government spending to "stimulate" the economy and create jobs. During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs never drove unemployment lower than 20 percent. The jobless rate actually climbed during the second phase.

The onset of World War II, not government spending, prompted America's economic [resurgence].

Furthermore, we know in advance precisely what more government spending in the proposed sectors will do. We have California -- now bankrupt -- as an example of what occurs when unchecked Democrat control allows liberal special interests to run wild:

• Expensive and overly onerous emissions standards, implemented at the behest of the environmental no-growth socialists

• Ridiculously expensive workers compensation and other healthcare mandates including more red tape for Doctors, horrific expenses and regulations for employers, undermining of private health insurance, and denial of individuals' right to self-insure.

• Subsidies and freebies for illegal aliens.

• Out-of-control growth in social programs aimed at corralling special interests.

Gee, with all of these programs, "progressive taxes" and regulations, shouldn't California be a liberal utopia?

Hardly. It's bankrupt. It's a Califailure.

California has effectively eradicated small business and free enterprise. It now suffers from the third-highest unemployment rate in the land as it exacts an immense stack of regulations, taxes and paperwork on all businesses.

And let me repeat: California is bankrupt. Not only will its tax refunds be delayed, welfare checks and student grants will also be held indefinitely.

Why is the situation worse in California than in neighboring states? Because it has an oppressive regulatory regime and a burdensome tax structure that penalizes individual success and drives businesses out of the state. Writing in the San Francisco Examiner in 2006, Adam Summers observed:

Apple is hardly the first business to leave California for "greener" pastures. Numerous surveys in recent years have revealed that many California companies are moving to other states because of the high costs of taxes and regulations. According to the Nevada Commission on Economic Development, 37 businesses left California in favor of Nevada in 2004, at least in part because of the favorable business climate....


...Small business owners are particularly hard hit by California taxation. According to the California Taxpayers' Association, the richest 10 percent of earners pay almost 75 percent of the entire income tax revenue in the state, and most of these are small-business owners. Thus, under California's backward tax policy, the very entrepreneurs responsible for economic growth and prosperity are being punished the most severely.

You would think that with the utter failure of the New Deal and the recent government-sponsored disasters in California, the one trillion dollar phony stimulus proposal would be laughed out of the Beltway in favor of tax cuts.

Real tax cuts, not welfare programs, which are statistically proven to increase single-parent families, crime and economic misery.

But, no. Democrats have proposed the twelve days of a lobbyist's Christmas:

1. The House Democrats' bill will cost each and every household $6,700 additional debt, paid for by our children and grandchildren.

2. The total cost of this one piece of legislation is almost as much as the annual discretionary budget for the entire federal government.

3. President-elect Obama has said that his proposed stimulus legislation will create or save three million jobs. This means that this legislation will spend about $275,000 per job. The average household income in the U.S. is $50,000 a year.

4. The House Democrats' bill provides enough spending - $825 billion - to give every man, woman, and child in America $2,700.

5. $825 billion is enough to give every person living in poverty in the U.S. $22,000.

6. $825 billion is enough to give every person in Ohio $72,000.

7. Although the House Democrats' proposal has been billed as a transportation and infrastructure investment package, in actuality only $30 billion of the bill - or three percent - is for road and highway spending. A recent study from the Congressional Budget Office said that only 25 percent of infrastructure dollars can be spent in the first year, making the one year total less than $7 billion for infrastructure.

8. Much of the funding within the House Democrats' proposal will go to programs that already have large, unexpended balances. For example, the bill provides $1 billion for Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), which already have $16 billion on hand. And, this year, Congress has plans to rescind $9 billion in highway funding that the states have not yet used.

9. In 1993, the unemployment rate was virtually the same as the rate today (around seven percent). Yet, then-President Clinton's proposed stimulus legislation ONLY contained $16 billion in spending.

10. Here are just a few of the programs and projects that have been included in the House Democrats' proposal:

· $650 million for digital TV coupons.
· $6 billion for colleges/universities - many which have billion dollar endowments.
· $166 billion in direct aid to states - many of which have failed to budget wisely. [Can you say 'Taxation without representation?]
· $50 million in funding for the National Endowment of the Arts.
· $44 million for repairs to U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters.
· $200 million for the National Mall, including grass planting.
· $400 million for "National Treasures."

11. Almost one-third of the so called tax relief in the House Democrats' bill is spending in disguise, meaning that true tax relief makes up only 24 percent of the total package - not the 40 percent that President-elect Obama had requested.

12. $825 billion is just the beginning - many Capitol Hill Democrats want to spend even more taxpayer dollars on their "stimulus" plan.

It's the loopiest boondoggle since FDR's "New Deal" failures.

There's only one thing that works and it's been proven over and over and over again.

TAX CUTS
And as for you, RINOs and Blue Dog Democrats? We're watching you. And we'll be coming after you in the next election cycle if you vote with failures like Pelosi, Reid, and Obama, none of whom have ever created a real job in their entire lives.

Economic fairness: $80 parking to see the Messiah at Invesco

$80 parking at Invesco?

What, you thought it'd be free to see the Messiah appear in his temple?

The anointed one likes to talk about economic "fairness", but when it comes to the realities of making money, he's just as capitalistic as the rest of the corporate bigwigs.

Zombie's Kafka-esque report was filed last night from outside the stadium.

Chavez pitches Africa on Nationalizing the Oil Industry

Venezuela's deputy foreign minister has counseled African governments to emulate Venezuela and nationalize the oil industry.

...Reinaldo Bolivar speaking in Senegal has advised African nations to nationalize their oil resources in order to fight poverty and follow the example of Venezuela.

Africa currently produces 15% of the world’s oil and according to Bolivar “Africa's oil is plundered by multinationals: they sell it very expensively even here" he suggested that by pooling resources Africa could supply its own market.

Bolivar went on to say "There are some things for (African countries) to learn: the principal of nationalization of our basic industries, our natural resources in Venezuela, is something we consider necessary for our riches to benefit the people..."

Rather than look to Chavez' failed economy -- which has nationalized the oil, steel, and cement industries, to name but a few -- Africans should closely examine Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. Mugabe nationalized a far simpler enterprise than oil: land use for farming. The result was an utter disaster.

Mugabe's land reform program was supposed to redistribute among poor blacks large commercial farms owned by about 4,500 whites that covered 80 percent of Zimbabwe's best land. Instead, he used the farms to extend his patronage system, giving them to ruling party leaders, security chiefs, relatives and friends.

Zimbabwe had been a major food exporter until then, but its agricultural sector collapsed and the economy started unraveling. Today, a third of Zimbabweans depend on international food handouts, and another third have fled abroad looking for work or political asylum...

AlertNet adds:

Zimbabwe is in the grip of its worst humanitarian crisis since independence. Twenty years ago the country was hailed as an African success story and dubbed the "breadbasket" of southern Africa. Now its economy is in tatters and the World Food Programme (WFP) estimates a third of the population faces food shortages...

...Zimbabwe now has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world and one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates. Just under 25 percent of people aged 15-49 are HIV-positive, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

And with the economy in shreds, unemployment is running at an estimated 70 percent. Inflation is also rampant, standing at 164.3 percent in the year to June 2005...

Yes, it's another success story for socialism!

And remember: when Democrats advocate ever greater government control -- of the oil industry or increased taxes -- they are putting America on the road to economic disaster.

How many case studies do we need before Democrats get the point?

OIL CLOSES ABOVE $100/BARREL FOR FIRST TIME - and what we can do about it!

*******UPDATE - 2/20/08: AS I WROTE BELOW (YESTERDAY!) IT'S ALL ABOUT SUPPLY AND DEMAND - NYTIMES:

Supply Fears Push Oil to Triple Digits
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

HOUSTON — Crude oil closed above $100 a barrel for the first time Tuesday, vaulting through a longstanding psychological barrier amid persistent concern about whether production can keep up with rising global demand.

The day’s price rise of more than 4 percent capped a week-long run-up that began when President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela threatened to cut off oil exports to the United States over a legal struggle with Exxon Mobil. Crude oil fell from a record $100.10 a barrel in New York on speculation that a U.S. Energy Department report will show stockpiles rose for a sixth week, according to Reuters. Crude oil for March delivery dropped as much as 90 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $99.11 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

... World supplies have been trimmed by substantial cutbacks in production in Iraq and Nigeria in recent weeks. Nigeria alone has lost about 10 percent of its daily production since guerrillas stepped up their sabotage and kidnapping of oil workers in the Niger Delta at the end of last year. Some analysts fear that OPEC could cut production further when it meets next month to counter the prospect that a softening world economy may eventually weaken demand and push prices down.

Oil is expensive.

Expensive oil drives up costs, increases inflation, and decreases the discretionary income people have to spend - and so increases the threat of recession, too.

And a recession in the USA causes the entire world to go into a recession - because the entire world depends on US consumption.

ON ALL COUNTS IT IS BAD.

There is an easy solution: INCREASE SUPPLIES.

This can be dome easily: just let the oil companies drill for more oil in places they think there is a great chance of finding a lot; (their belief is what will incentivize them to invest billions - and it won't cost the taxpayer a single penny!).

All that is necessary to have this happen is for Congress to OPEN UP ANWR, and demand that FLA and CA open up the waters off their coasts for drilling.

THERE IS NO RISK TO THE ENVIRONMENT:

• Canada safely and cleanly drills for oil right next door the ANWR.
• Louisiana allows drilling in the Gulf - off its coast. NOT ONE OF THESE OFF-SHORE RIGS LEAKED DURING KATRINA - THE WORST HURRICANE IN THE GULF'S HISTORY.
• And the waters off of California are easier to drill in than the North Sea - where Norway and the UK have safely drilled FOR DECADES!

People who claim that burning oil creates too much CO2 and that CO2 is causing global warming are WRONG:

• there is no "man-made" global warming;
• the world is actually cooling; this winter (2007-8) is one of the coldest and snowiest in DECADES - for both hemispheres.
• And the prior warming trend was NOT outside historical norms/cycles.
• AND CO2 IS A LAGGING INDICATOR OR PRIOR WARMING PERIODS AND NOT A CAUSE.

Therefore, there is simply no excuse for NOT ALLOWING the energy companies risk their own capital and drill as much as they want.

The moratorium on drilling in ANWR and off the coasts of FLA and CA are a MUCH GRAVER RISK than global warming or leaks or any other risk of "damage" to the local environment.

Continuing the moratorium is IRRATIONAL, and SELF-DESTRUCTIVE.

It puts at risk the entire world's economy.

OVERLY EXPENSIVE OIL is one of the two or three MOST important issues facing the entire world.

The USA must lead on this issue and IMMEDIATELY take the necessary steps in Congress to increase supplies.

I PREDICT, THE DAY THE CONGRESS ACTS THE PRICE OF OIL WILL DROP 25%.

That would help the entire world's economy IMMEDIATELY.

And it would also mean the USA would NOT be sending as much money to the Middle East, not per barrel, and not as many barrels, either.

IT'S A WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN!

Oil Importing And Exporting: A Complex Of Shared Interests

It is often stated that, in order to reduce the power of the Arab/Islamic world, we have to reduce our dependence on oil imports from the nations of the Middle East. On the surface this seems like a truism. However, let us think this over.

First, sorry to be pedantic, but oil is a commodity sold on the world market. The price of oil is dictated by supply and demand. If America buys its oil from the Middle East, Venezuela, Canada, Mexico, or any other nation, it is still a bidder on the open market, and its bidding offer effects the price of oil on the world market no matter which country it buys from. In other words, if Saudi Arabia can charge $100 per barrel of oil, then so can Canada, and so can Mexico and any other country selling oil on the open market.

It is a little known fact that, comparatively, the United States gets far less of its oil from Middle Eastern nations, as a percentage, than do the other largest oil importers in Europe and China.

The United States currently gets about 17% of its oil imports from the Middle East.

Europe and China respectively gets approximately 31% and 44% of their oil from Middle Eastern countries.

Ok, so now think for a second what would happen if America were suddenly to make it its policy to buy all of its oil from non-Middle Eastern countries?

First, as America would be limiting the pool of oil suppliers from which it could prospectively buy, the price of oil would immediately go up for American buyers.

Second, since America would then no longer be an importer of Middle Eastern oil, the amount of oil available on the Middle Eastern market would be increased, and the price from those Middle Eastern suppliers, would then drop for Europe and China.

Third, and this is the most important point, to my mind; because the United States would then no longer be a buyer of oil from Middle Eastern countries, whereas the Europe and China would be, the United States influence in the Middle East would decrease, and the influence of China and Europe would increase.

Think of it this way, if you own a shop, the opinion of the customers who come through your door and make purchases matters very much to you.

It is a very crude understanding of economics which says, the seller has the power. The truth is, the buyer and seller have shared interests in the success of each others business. In fact, the buyer and seller are, indeed, partners in the promotion of each others interests.

Were the United States to discontinue buying oil from Middle Eastern nations, our power to influence political decisions in the Middle East would also decrease. In so far as the United States is a force for good on the world stage, it would be dangerous to the world as a whole for our power to decrease in the volatile world of Middle Eastern politics.

All economics, and all sectors of the business world, are composed of groups of organizations who have shared interests. The sum total of these shared interests composes the direction of the economic system on an economic as well as a political level.

Therefore, we must continue to buy oil from Middle Eastern nations until the day that oil no longer matters to the world's economy.

ONE SIMPLE MOVE BY CONGRESS CAN PREVENT A WORLDWIDE RECESSION

Our current economic jitters are caused by the sub-prime panic and the extremely high price for a barrel of oil.

The monetary moves of the FED have helped the situation, but that's just dealing with one part of the problem.

TO PREVENT A WORLDWIDE RECESSION, WE MUST ALSO GET ENERGY COSTS DOWN.

Oil prices are high because of supply-and-demand: demand is up but supplies are flat.

CONGRESS CAN CHANGE THIS.

All Congress has to do is expand energy supplies, and the price of oil will come down.

All we need to do is start oil drilling in ANWR, off the coasts of CA and FLA, and license a dozen clean-coal power plants and a dozen nuclear power plants, and the price of oil will drop the next day.

BUSH SHOULD DEMAND THIS OF CONGRESS IN HIS NEXT SOTU.

DECEMBER RETAIL SALES NUMBERS ACTUALLY BEAT EXPECTATIONS

BUT YOU HAVE TO READ THE FINE PRINT TO FIND OUT:

HTT:

"There was nothing much special about same-store sales performance by retailers as December pulled to a close, the Johnson Redbook reported today.

Discounters finished the month with a comp gain of 2.9%, missing the 3.3% uptick planned, while department stores saw comps drop 0.8%, easily beating the goal of a 1.5% comp decline.

Overall comps rose 1.3%, ending above the 1.2% goal for the five-week retail month, which ended Jan. 5."

THIS WILL NOT BE WIDELY REPORTED BY THE MSM, OR IT WILL BE REPORTED NEGATIVELY BY THE MSM -IN ORDER TO HURT BUSH/GOP AND HELP DEMS/LEFT/OBAMA.

"There ain’t no recession" - and there ain't gonna be one any time soon

HERE ARE SOME UNPLEASANT FACTS FOR THE LEFT:

The Recession Debate Is Over [Larry Kudlow]

There ain’t no recession.

Today’s ADP private jobs survey of 189,000 could produce a 200,000 non-farm payroll job gain for November. I don’t know — these wacky BLS numbers are subject to huge revisions. But the ADP was a huge number. In fact, jobs seem to be picking up major steam from their August low, rising in September and October. And now I’m expecting a good increase in November to be reported by the BLS this Friday.

Plus, profits are stronger than people seem to understand. The ISMs are fine. Productivity, reported out today, soared to over 6 percent annually in the third quarter. That’s the best number in four months for output per person.

On top of that, business inflation is zero. Flat. Nada.

The recession debate is over. It’s not gonna happen. Time to move on.

At a bare minimum, we are looking at Goldilocks 2.0. (And that’s a minimum). The Bush boom is alive and well. It’s finishing up its sixth splendid year with many more years to come.

THIS NEWS MAKES ME WONDER: WHAT WILL THE LEFT SCARE-MONGER US WITH NOW THAT THE IDEA OF A BUSH RECESSION HAS BEEN VANQUISHED?!?!

THE DEMS DON'T HAVE A LOT OF GOOD OPTIONS:

• WE'RE WINNING IN IRAQ.

• THERE IS NO MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING.

• AND THE ECONOMY IS SOUND.

HMMMM... DOES THAT LEAVE THEM ANYTHING??? I THINK NOT:

• THE HEALTHCARE/HEALTH INSURANCE "CRISIS" IS A LOT OF BS.

• IMMIGRATION DOESN'T CUT THEIR WAY - THE PUBLIC WANTS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION HALTED BEFORE WE MAKE ANY OTHER "INNOVATION."

• THE ENERGY ISSUES WON'T WORK FOR THEM BECAUSE THEY OPPOSE THE SIMPLEST AND BEST SOLUTIONS TO THE ENERGY COST CRUNCH - MORE EXPLORATION AND USE OF COAL AND NUCLEAR.

I THINK THAT THE DEMS ARE UP CRIT SHEEK WITHOUT A POODLE. AND THEIR BOAT HAS A LEAK...

CITIGROUP'S LARGEST SHAREHOLDER

From this article in the November 6, 2007 Washington Post:

Citi's largest shareholder, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, said on CNBC Monday that he would like to see Sanford Weill return to Citigroup on a temporary basis to help stabilize the situation....

Does the prince stand to win or lose with all the financial instability of Citigroup? And is Sandy Weill the right man for stabilizing Citigroup?

Excerpt from this article in the November 7, 2007 Washington Post:

Poor Chuck Prince. For the past five years, he thought his job was to clean up the ethical mess at Citigroup left by his longtime friend and patron Sandy Weill.

As Weill was taking his leave of the financial behemoth he had created, state and federal officials were moving to put the company into the equivalent of regulatory receivership. And the company was facing years of civil litigation by shareholders of Enron, WorldCom and who knows how many other bankrupt companies that claimed to have been misled by Citigroup analysts or investment bankers. As the directors pondered their choice, who better than Prince, a sober and trusted lawyer, to negotiate the settlements and make sure it would never happen again?

And what a mess it turned out to be! The subprime lending unit in Dallas that was cited for all manner of unsavory business practices. The bank's role in advising and financing Enron. The supposedly independent equity analysts who blew air into the tech and telecom bubble to curry favor with top management and help generate fees for the investment bankers. The private bank in Japan that misled customers about the risks of investments while helping other customers manipulate stock prices and hide trading losses.

As he moved from one scandal to another, Prince was forced to clean house, firing old friends and trusted allies who either knew, or should have known, about the misdeeds. To satisfy regulators and the demands of the new Sarbanes-Oxley law, he installed internal controls to make sure it didn't happen again. Employees were treated to a regular diet of ethics training.

What Prince never quite realized, however, was that Citigroup's problem wasn't that its people didn't know right from wrong....

THE ECO-HYSTERICS ARE WRONG

THE ECO-LEFT CRIES THAT THE SKY IS FALLING, THE WORLD IS GROWING EVER MORE POLLUTED AND WARM, AND WARNS THAT WE CANNOT SUSTAIN OUR GROWTH.

HOGWASH.

REASON HAS A DETAILED ARTICLE ABOUT HOW 20th CENTURY INDUSTRIALIZATION - WHICH LEFTIES AND LUDDITES AND GREENIES LOVE TO THRASH - ACTUALLY VASTLY IMPROVED THE HEALTH AND LIVING STANDARDS FOR THE INDUSTRIALIZED.

EXCERPT:

"... life expectancy increased from 47 years to 77 years. Onset of major disease such as cancer, heart, and respiratory disease has been postponed between eight and eleven years in the past century. Heart disease and cancer rates have been in rapid decline over the last two decades, and total cancer deaths have actually declined the last two years, despite increases in population. Among the very young, infant mortality has declined from 100 deaths per 1,000 births in 1913 to just seven per 1,000 today.

These improvements haven’t been restricted to the United States. It’s a global phenomenon.

Worldwide, life expectancy has more than doubled, from 31 years in 1900 to 67 years today. India’s and China’s infant mortalities exceeded 190 per 1,000 births in the early 1950s; today they are 62 and 26, respectively. In the developing world, the proportion of the population suffering from chronic hunger declined from 37 percent to 17 percent between 1970 and 2001 despite a 83 percent increase in population.

Globally average annual incomes in real dollars have tripled since 1950. Consequently, the proportion of the planet's developing-world population living in absolute poverty has halved since 1981, from 40 percent to 20 percent. Child labor in low income countries declined from 30 percent to 18 percent between 1960 and 2003.

RTWT. (VIA TIM BLAIR.) TO IMPROVE THE STANDARD OF LIVING FOR THEIR CITIZENS, THE NATIONS OF THE THIRD WORLD NEED MORE INDUSTRIALIZATION AND GLOBALIZATION - NOT CARBON CREDIT DUMPS AND INTERNATIONAL AID!

THE ECO-HYSTERICS WRONG: THE WORLD HAS NEVER BEEN BETTER FOR HUMANITY, AND THE PROSPECTS FOR CONTINUED ADVANCEMENT ARE GREAT - IF WE DON'T SQUASH ECONOMIC GROWTH WITH ANTI-INDUSTRIAL/ANTI-CAPITALIST/ANTI-GLOBALIZATION TAXES AND REGULATIONS.

WHAT IS THE WORLD'S BEST - AND ONLY PROVEN ANTI-POVERTY PROGAM? FREEDOM

FREEDOM ENDS POVERTY. THE FREER A NATION IS THE RICHER IS IS.

BECAUSE PROSPERITY IS A BY-PRODUCT OF LIBERTY.

CUBA WAS ONCE THE 2ND RICHEST NATION IN ALL THE CARIBBEAN - UNTIL CASTRO AND SOCIALISM. NOW IT IS THE SECOND POOREST - ONLY HAITI IS POORER.

ZIMBABWE WAS ONCE THE RICHEST IN AFRICA. NOW IT IS BASKET-CASE - DUE TO MUGABE AND SOCIALISM.

CHINA AND INDIA ONLY LIFTED THEMSELVES OUT OF POVERTY BY ALLOWING MORE FREE TRADE AND FREE MARKETS.

SEE A PATTERN? MORE FACTS HERE. (VIA THE JAWA REPORT.)