Bad news:

More Americans unexpectedly filed claims for jobless benefits last week…Initial jobless applications increased by 18,000 to 460,000 in the week ended April 3, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington…

…Economists forecast claims would fall to 435,000 from a previously reported 439,000 the prior week, according to the median of 47 projections in a Bloomberg News survey.

Its still “unexpected”. Because the people who forecast simply lack the knowledge base necessary to make accurate predictions. In some cases, its simply a matter of the data being impossible to find – in other cases, it is because most people have been educated up in Keynsian ideology and simply believe the asinine view that government spending can spur genuine economic growth.

Until we start making, mining and growing things, we won’t get out of this. Period.

The news:

Consumer borrowing dropped in February, after increasing for the first time in a year during the previous month, according to a government report released Wednesday.

Total consumer credit fell a seasonally adjusted $11.5 billion, at an annual rate of 5.6%, to $2.448 trillion in February, the Federal Reserve reported.

Economists predicted a decline in total borrowing of $0.7 billion in February, according to a consensus estimate from Briefing.com.

“February’s decline reflects on the still dire state of the economy,” said Yasmine Kamaruddin, an economic analyst at Wells Fargo.

Yeah, no kidding, Yasmine. You figure that out all by yourself?

Anyways, not to get down on Yasmine – or any of the other “experts” who found this drop to be “unexpected” – we’re still in a bad way. And the January gain was just a mirage brought about by some screwy government action on student loans which made it appear that consumer credit grew in January when it really didn’t. Essentially, we’re now 13 months in to consumer credit decline.

In the long run, this is very healthy – the American people are de-leveraging and learning that they don’t really need instant gratification. Frills can wait, as it were. In the short run, however, this bodes ill for the Keynsian economic model we’re following. All these bazillions of bucks of government printing, borrowing and spending are supposed to ignite the economy – but it stubbornly refuses to catch fire.

I think its because we got badly burned in the housing bubble and we’d rather not torch up again. Slow and steady does get the job done – which means that we’ll only be able to spend money as we make it. The problem is that nothing in Obama’s policies encourage wealth creation – there is nothing in there to really encourage someone to open a mine, start a farm, build a factory. Until we start doing that, we’re just spinning our wheels – at best – or digging our economic grave – at worst (and I think its “at worst” – our debt is crushing us).

Going to be a long, hard road out of this – made harder by Obama and his Democrats. The good news is that they might wipe themselves out so bad that we need not trouble with them for a generation. And that’s a good thing because it will take us that long to clear up the mess.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

And puts the world in danger:

So one wonders—as Putin embraces Chavez and Karzai plays host to Ahmadinejad; as Russia asserts the right to repudiate any nuclear-arms reduction treaty and China gives us the bird on the yuan; as the alliance with India languishes and the one with Britain experiences unprecedented atrophy; as Israel expresses acrid disagreement with us and Japan seeks to rip pages out of its postwar rulebook—what all the pragmatism has really, truly accomplished…

…other than give our delighted adversaries a free pass and our friends a very rude wakeup call.

And, indeed, one does wonder – but not too much. This is just the way Obama was educated to view the world. This is liberal education over the past 25 years or so put in to practice. Obama likely really believes the stories – perhaps believes such things as the reason Iran is hostile is because we supposedly helped conduct a coup in the 1950’s, that Moslems hate us because we’re partial to Israel, and so forth. If you believe that American actions are a source – or, possibly, the source – of global conflict, then pretty much doing the opposite should reduce – or eliminate – conflict.

That it is all mind-bogglingly stupid and not based on a shred of fact is neither here nor there – Obama was taught it by people who asserted it stoutly, who had the apparent credentials to make such statements and, of course, made such statements without any dissenting views being allowed any where near. Obama’s mental view of the world is a product of a hot-house climate of liberalism.

So, what to do? Hunker down and wait for a new President – it is all we can do. Obama will continue to weaken the United States all through his Presidency and we’ll be at increasing risk of war until the day he leaves office. And let’s pray war isn’t thrust upon us while Obama is in office because he’d probably be worse than useless at that, too, as in all his education, there probably wasn’t even a moment when he considered military policy.

Long, rough few years ahead.

Cross Posted: Noonan for Nevada

Not surprising:

Acknowledging it would be a highly unpopular move, White House economic adviser Paul Volcker said yesterday the United States should consider imposing a “value added tax” similar to those charged in Europe to help get the deficit under control.

A VAT is a national sales tax that, like state and city sales taxes, would be collected by retailers.

Volcker, at the New-York Historical Society, told a panel on the global financial crisis that Congress might also have to consider new taxes on carbon and energy.

This won’t be instead of income and payroll taxes, my fellow Americans – this is in addition to. A gigantic, regressive, soak-the-poor tax on the productive economy. Naturally, it appeals to liberals because:

1. Super rich liberals can easily afford the extra charge.

2. It provides a vast revenue stream.

3. It can be easily jacked up without anyone really noticing it.

Its the perfect liberal tax – and thus Europe has had it for decades (and, you note, even during boom economic times Europe wallows in the doldrums). Its a hideous, un-American thing – and while this is just floating a trial balloon to see how much opposition there is, we can be assured that if we don’t win in November, Obama and his Democrats will impose this on us in the by and by.

Fight hard – don’t let them get away with this.

The news:

FBI agents say no explosives were found in the shoes of a Qatar diplomat who was subdued by federal air marshals on a United flight to Denver Wednesday night after allegedly telling the marshals, “I’m lighting my shoes on fire.”

Very strange. We’ll have to see how this pans out.

Veronique de Rugy fires back at the critics of her study showing that if you’re a Donk, then Barry is your sugar daddy:

…Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com has suggested that we control for the money spent in state capitals, since by design the stimulus bill funnels a lot of cash to agencies that are likely to be in state capitals (although it’s important to note that our original report dealt with money actually spent versus stimulus dollars allocated as a way to try to account for this). Other suggestions were incorporated as well.

As it turns out, when controlling for state capitals and a host of other potentially relevant variables, we find that the original findings still hold. We learn a few other things, too:

First, how and where the money is spent doesn’t seem to be related to unemployment or decline in employment in the district where it is spent.

Second, the district’s party affiliation matters in where the money is spent. (We still don’t know how much it matters compared to other factors.) The average Democratic district receives 81 percent more than the average Republican district. Even after taking out the money spent through state capitals, the average Democratic district receives at least 30 percent more than the average Republican district.

Here’s a link to her updated report. Have at it, if you’ve a mind, liberals…or wait until the DNC puts out your new talking points, whatever seems best.

It is clear, however, that Obama and Co dispensed the money with a mind towards ensuring that their side got the biggest slice of the pie. This is really indisputable and, also, very natural when you’re dealing with a governing class which (a) believes their supporters have unjustly suffered and (b) is given to using taxpayer money to purchase electoral support. The most surprising thing possible would have been for the money to have been used fairly – its just not in the nature of Democrats to do that sort of thing.

Very sobering facts:

The post 2007 recession has eliminated 8.4 million jobs and rendered 15.7 million American’s jobless.

…consider what it will take to simply get back to a normal unemployment rate of 5%. This is mind boggling.

The current labor force of 154 million will increase by about 1.8 million over each of the next five years because of ‘newbies’ entering the job market. By 2014, the labor force will be around 163 million. A 5% U-3 (not U-6) unemployment rate would equate to 8.15 million workers without a job.

7.55 million jobs will have to be created to reduce the number of job-less workers from today’s 15.7 million to 8.15 million. To accomplish this, there would have to be 125,833 jobs created each and every month over the next five years with no jobs lost.

The average monthly job growth over the past 10 years has been about 50,000. The average monthly job growth over the past 20 years has been about 90,000. Keep in mind that the 1990 – 2010 time frame hosted the biggest bull market and economic expansion in history. Do you see a 1990s and early 2000s bull market around you?

Even the most robust estimates don’t have us making nearly 126,000 jobs per month on average. Might meet or beat that number from time to time, but we’re not going to average it. This means that we can expect unemployment to remain in the 10% range indefinitely.

Some people might think that we’re in a bull market now and thus all will be made well. Perhaps; but I doubt it. My expectation is that we’ll see a major correction before too long. I expected it already, but failed to take in to account just how much money Uncle Sam would shove in to the markets nor did I consider just how incredibly stupid and herd-like some investors can be (the stupid are keeping it up figuring that all is well – the wise are carefully judging matters as to when to get out).

We’ll need sustained economic growth in order to get our unemployment back to normal. This will require a balanced budget. It will require very much lower taxes. It will require the termination or modification of reams of government regulations. It will require the government to disgorge and allow people to use our lands and resources. It will, in short, require a complete shift in the way we do business.

Obama and his Democrats will not do this. The bad news is that this will harm the economy and the people – the good news is that its political suicide on their part and it looks like they’ll keep right at it until 2012.

Is bankruptcy:

Mayor Dave Bing and the City Council must reduce the size of government and slash the city’s budget deficit to stave off bankruptcy or state receivership, according to a report released Monday.

Without draconian cuts and changes aimed at downsizing government, the city could end up with a “possible” general fund deficit between $446 million and $466 million to its $1.6 billion budget.

“Detroit city government must be restructured,” according to the report from the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, a nonprofit that has studied Detroit finances for decades. “The new structure must reflect both the reduced tax base and the limited ability of state government to provide shared revenues.”

This is the liberal heaven, boys and girls. There hasn’t been a Republican government in, I believe, more than 50 years in Detroit. The liberals had it all their own way. They took over one of the most prosperous cities in human history with a massive economic base – now, decades later, its a waste land on the verge of bankruptcy.

It is double-caught in a bind here because one of the hallmarks of liberalism is generous union contracts – and the unions don’t want to disgorge. The city is broke and there’s no one left to tax – but the public sector unions (there aren’t too many private sector union workers remaining in the city – you’d need a private sector to have that) are demanding to keep what they’ve got. Greedy and selfish – and these are supposed to be the “servants” of the public.

That is liberalism in a nutshell. It is where Obama and his Democrats are leading us – give liberalism 50 years of unchallenged rule in the United States and we, too, will be a bankrupt nation – and not just economically bankrupt: morally destroyed, as well.

We can stop this – we can prevent us from becoming the United States of Detroit. But time is running out and this November is crucial – keep that in mind.

This interesting poll shows the following:

Among TEA Partiers –

79% are white – and so are 75% of Americans.

16% are under 30 – and so are 17% of Americans.

15% have a post-graduate degree – and so do 16% of Americans.

The only place TEA Partiers are a bit out of kilter is among black Americans – 11% or so of Americans are black, but only about 6% of TEA Partiers…but, even then, its still hardly the lilly-white group of Obama-hating racists its made out to be.

Which, of course, anyone who attended a TEA Party could have said. These are just regular folks, fed up with the corruption and arrogance of government. Democrats will ignore or downplay this at their peril – and I do expect them to take the perilous route: too many Democrats are too deeply compromised by the current system. They are stuck – only a complete abandonment of what they are can cure – and that still means losing in November.

This isn’t going away – and it isn’t going to fade. Nor will even an improving economy halt it. People are furious – coldly furious. Determined to have done with it and start over. Now, the GOP wins and doesn’t do right, then they’ll be clobbered the next time out…this isn’t pendulum swinging. This is Revolution.

Cross Posted: Noonan for Nevada

What we’ll get if Justice Stevens retires:

Should pro-abortion Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens decide in the coming days or weeks to retire, three potential replacements have been named as the most likely candidates to replace him. Two of the potential nominees for President Barack Obama are longtime pro-abortion activists.

The most talked about potential nominees include U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan and federal appellate judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland.

Those names have been in the news before and a White House official confirmed Sunday to Bloomberg News that those names are prominent on Obama’s list of replacements.

The problem for the pro-life movement is Kagan and Wood are extreme nominees and pro-life groups would likely strongly oppose their nominations.

This is part of the cost of losing, fellow conservatives. While Stevens is a mindless, pro-abortion vote on the Court and thus his replacement won’t change the dynamic, what we’re going to get is a young, vigorous anti-constitutionalist fool to replace an old one. We’ll be burdened, essentially, with Stevens for several more decades. Keep that in mind the next time the GOP nominee isn’t conservative “enough”.

Of course, there could be a cure for this when President Pal….errmmm… I mean, when the next Republican President gets elected: pack the court. Sure, I know that FDR tried it and failed, but there really is no reason for 9 Justices as opposed to, say, 11 or 13. We have to drown out these judicial activists some how – what better way than to add four judges who obey the law?

With 13 Justices (and a rational argument can be made for a larger number of appellate courts to handle our vastly increased judicial workload) the four or five liberal justices could write all the dissenting opinions they want. They could assert there is a right to private, cherry ice cream in the Constitution, for all we’ll care – the 7 justices we’ll be sure are conservative will be too busy enforcing the law for us to care.

And the real beauty of it – the rationale for 13 Justices is the fact that we really do need more appellate courts to handle the vastly increased judicial work load. And why do we have this work load? Because liberal lawyers are suing everything to smithereens. We can make judicial liberalism the author of its own destruction.

Cool, huh?