All that talk of GDP growth and corporate profits? Well, I’ve been telling you guys for months now not to believe it. Its all so much smoke and mirrors – the government fudging its numbers while corporate America plays fast and lose with its accounting. Here’s a bit about how one expedient is to rob the future in order to boost the current quarter’s profits:

…The trouble is that those GDP and productivity growth figures could be significantly overestimated—perhaps by one percentage point or even more.

That’s because the official statistics are not designed to pick up cutbacks in “intangible investments” such as business spending on research and development, product design, and worker training. There’s ample evidence to suggest that companies, to reduce costs and boost short-term profits, are slashing this kind of spending, which is essential for innovation. Without investment in intangibles, the U.S. can’t compete in a knowledge-based global economy. Yet you won’t see that plunge reflected in the GDP and productivity statistics, which are still too focused on more traditional sectors, such as motor vehicles and construction…

…Here’s a sobering sign that companies are robbing the future to pay for short-term profits: Over the past year, U.S. employment of scientists and engineers—the people who create the next generation of products and make the U.S. more competitive over the long term—has fallen by 6.3%, according to a BusinessWeek tabulation of unpublished data. Yet overall employment has fallen only 4.1%…

The “profits” of late come about a lot of ways – not buying as much inventory; cutting back on employee benefits and pay; not hiring temporary/seasonal workers; squeezing overhead expenses, etc, etc, etc. Boiled down, though, is that when you get a “profit” by such expedients you really haven’t accomplished anything.

This is, also, nothing new – do you really think that we can’t build a factory in the United States to compete with the Chinese factory your kitchen table came from? Sure we could – but it takes time and effort to build or renovate a factory, and that eats in to this quarter’s profits. Much better to just close the outdated factory you have, order the goods from China and beam with glee over your increased quarterly profits even as your firm makes less stuff and employs less people. Meanwhile, as you’re patting yourself on the back and offering huge bonuses to retain the “talent” which carried out this program, America’s economic base shrinks to the point where it can’t sustain the profligate lifestyle American’s have grown used to.

Pay no attention to the shell game Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Big Corporation and Big Government are playing. Until we start working our way out of this, we won’t get out. They’ll continue to fudge the numbers, print money, swap various toxic assets back and forth, increase taxes, increase spending and it’ll all amount to nothing, in the end. Except more debt for me and you, and a longer, harder task of working our way out of it.

Of course:

…On Thursday, October 22, J. Russell George, inspector general for the Internal Revenue Service, testified before a House Ways and Means subcommittee that the tax credit has been rife with inefficiency and fraud. Among those scamming the program, he believes, are more than 50 IRS employees. This interim report, George emphasized, if anything, understates the problem…

…As part of President Obama’s economic stimulus proposal, Congress this year transformed the program into a giveaway. Lawmakers extended the eligibility period through November 30, raised the credit to $8,000 and eliminated the repayment requirement on all purchases after January 1, 2009. What’s more, a “first-time” homebuyer actually refers to a buyer who hasn’t owned a home over the previous three years. Moreover, the law established income limits of $75,000 for single-adult households and $150,000 for married couples, with a phase-out (rather than elimination) of the credit at higher levels.

Liberalism would work just fine if we could repeal human nature. But, as we can’t, this is what we get – a boondoggle program which was never needed and which is being milked by the corrupt for their personal benefit. More and more of this sort of thing will come out as the Obama years advance, mark my words on that.

No, I’m not kidding – an excellent article on the subject of Detroit and the prospects of urban innovation in such dying cities. Especially fascinating are the pictures of “de-urbanization” over the past decades: areas of Detroit once fully urbanized are now nearly vacant – and not just of people, but of buildings. As the author points out, this opens up the prospect of all sorts of urban experimentation.

There are places all over our large, decaying cities just like that – places which have become the arena for rebuilding America. Now, to be sure, lots of these places have corrupt, liberal governments addicted to taxes and regulation (its why they’re blighted, after all), but the time will come when even the most obtuse tax-and-regulate liberal will have to see that the jig is up. Right now, you can buy a house in Detroit for about 2 grand – of course, given that the place is pretty crime ridden and has a shrinking employer base, its not such a good idea at the moment. But it can be made different.

If we can provide incentives for people to start or expand businesses (land is cheap in Detroit and jobs are scarce); if we can break out of the mindset that if its urban it must stay that way (why not put a strip a half mile wide between Detroit and any neighboring community and restore it to forest and farm land?); if we genuinely think anew and act anew, we can restore our cities – not, hopefully, to the soul less, concrete megalopolis of the past, but to places where human beings can live and work.

This is a very exciting time to live in – mindset which seized upon our nation in the 30’s are at last breaking down completely, and we now have a chance to re-forge the America our grandfathers knew, and our Founders intended.

Cultural spinelessness advances:

Producer Barrie Osborne cast Keanu Reeves as the messiah in The Matrix and helped defeat the dark lord Sauron in his record-breaking Lord of the Rings trilogy. Now the Oscar-winning American film-maker is set to embark on his most perilous quest to date: making a big-screen biopic of the prophet Muhammad.

Budgeted at around $150m (£91.5m), the film will chart Muhammad’s life and examine his teachings. Osborne told Reuters that he envisages it as “an international epic production aimed at bridging cultures. The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam”…

…In accordance with Islamic law, the prophet will not actually be depicted on screen…

Which, actually, tells us a lot about Islam – after all, put Mohammed on screen and people (including the producer) might get killed. And imagine what would happen if the film went in to Mohammed’s rather interesting married life!

Look, movies aren’t supposed to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth – they can’t. But there should be at least an approximation of it…and to bend the knee to Islam’s idiotic ban on the depiction of Mohammed is just craven. Moslems are free to not depict Mohammed till the cows come home – but non-Moslems are not bound by such strictures…and I doubt there’s a Hollywood producer out there who would be so sensitive to Christian or Jewish religious sensibilities.

I know, it isn’t news at all – completely “dog bites man”, but for the record:

The Democratic State Committee now admits paying for a robocall to Somerset County voters that slams Republican Chris Christie and promotes independent gubernatorial candidate Christopher Daggett.

A Democratic spokeswoman says the party’s chairman, Joe Cryan, was not aware of the robocalls when he denied that the state committee had anything to do with them yesterday afternoon.

Cryan, who told PolitickerNJ.com yesterday afternoon that the Democratic State Committee had “absolutely” nothing to do with the call, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The call angered Republicans and further fueled conspiracy theories that Daggett is in cahoots with the Corzine camp. A disclaimer at the end says it was paid for by Victory ’09, “a project of the NJDSC” (Democratic State Committee), and gave the committee’s Trenton address.

Daggett, for his part, disavowed the call.

Yeah, stuff like that just happens all the time…someone just accidentally recorded the robo-call and then the recording slipped and fell in to the phone system of the New Jersey Democrat party. The Democrats – and Daggett – are all just sweet, innocent bystanders. Anyways, its all Bush’s fault.

I’m confident that New Jersey voters will do the right thing tomorrow, and then Christie can get to work cleaning up this mess.

Jeremiah Wright strikes again. Here’s the video clip – according to Wright, Marxism and socialism are just not understood in America. I guess its hard to appreciate 100 million murders – and I guess Wright has found a way to believe such things are morally good.

We certainly don’t want the pencil-necked geeks to win this poll, do we? Head over and let NPR know how you feel.

Here it is:

Police in the Ohio city of Cleveland urged families of missing people to come forward with pictures of their absent relatives yesterday after the discovery of six badly decomposed bodies at the home of a convicted rapist, prompting a mass murder investigation.

Did you catch it? If you didn’t, I’ll give you another shot:

The bodies came to light on Thursday and Friday when officers visited his home to investigate an allegation of rape. Sowell has already served 15 years in prison for choking and raping a 21-year-old woman who was lured to his bedroom in 1989.

Get it? Ok, for those who are inattentive – key in on “convicted rapist” and “served 15 years in prison for choking and raping”. You see, if this man was still serving the life sentence without parole he should have got, then the six women in his home would still be alive.

There’s just something about a person who rapes – whether its a man raping a woman or an adult raping a child: once they do it, there doesn’t seem much chance they won’t do it again. Anyone who rapes, once convicted, should never be let out of jail. While good behavior might merit an easy prison, the fact remains that such people cannot be trusted around anyone they may be able to victimize.

Rape should not be a three strikes your out thing – once you rape, away you go, for good.

Geesh:

Company officials are banking that its novelty will help guarantee its success. Five times larger than the Titanic, the $1.5 billion ship has seven neighborhoods, an ice rink, a small golf course and a 750-seat outdoor amphitheater. It has 2,700 cabins and can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew members.

Accommodations include loft cabins, with floor-to-ceiling windows, and 1,600-square-foot (487-meter) luxury suites with balconies overlooking the sea or promenades.

The liner also has four swimming pools, volleyball and basketball courts, and a youth zone with theme parks and nurseries for children.

Oasis of the Sea, nearly 40 percent larger than the industry’s next-biggest ship, was conceived years before the economic downturn caused desperate cruise lines to slash prices to fill vacant berths.

Well, it might make a great troop ship if we ever had to go to war with China…other than that, I can’t see them filling the rooms unless a week starts to cost $250 a person, or some such. And, hey, I like cruises…but who had two or three thousand dollars to spend on a week’s vacation these days?

Mark Steyn over at NRO’s The Corner finds the perfect situation:

Two stories from The Times of India. One:

NEW DELHI: Prime ministerial lunches are rarely fun affairs. People sort of get on with it, and then get on with their lives. Not on Friday. Early in the day, former US president George Bush, on a pleasure trip to India, announced cheerily, “I’m off to have lunch with my old pal…”

Colleagues reported that Singh was rarely as “chirpy” as he was on Friday afternoon. The conversation was light and sparkling, there was a lot of laughter and banter. So when Singh talked about how much he appreciated the huge gesture of the nuclear deal, Bush quipped, “Yeah, it was a big deal and to get it we had to break a bit of china.”

Two:

Washington Gasps At Hillary Charm-El-Shake Offensive That Leaves Islamabad Stunned

Good thing those arrogant swaggering Texas cowboys aren’t blundering around the world screwing up America’s global relationships anymore.

Remember – the only thing “screwed up” in American foreign policy during the Bush Administration was that a whole bunch of hand-wringing, liberal bed-wetters were upset about it. Normal people thought things were going just fine – and they were. Now Obama is rapidly undoing all the good that was done…