Economy

The Effects of Applied Liberalism

Mark Noonan9 Comments

From CNN Money:

Buffeted by high taxes, strict regulations and uncertain state budgets, a growing number of California companies are seeking friendlier business environments outside of the Golden State…

…Companies are “disinvesting” in California at a rate five times greater than just two years ago, said Joseph Vranich, a business relocation expert based in Irvine. This includes leaving altogether, establishing divisions elsewhere or opting not to set up shop in California…

And this is also why, as a nation, we’re seeing a lot of businesses not just fleeing California, but fleeing the nation – when you have high taxes combined with capricious regulations and lawsuits, you just can’t do business.  Especially in a down economy when generating profits is hard, you seek every advantage you can…and if shifting from California to, say, Arizona will cut your costs by 20%, you do it.  You’d be insane not to.

Sorry, liberals, but you can’t successfully manage an economy…you can’t make a rule and a tax for every activity.  You have to, for the most part, just leave it be.  All government can do is prevent fraud and enforce some very basic health and safety regulations…and even in that area, local governing bodies should have vastly more authority than State or federal bodies.  If you are trying to make it fair and make it come out right – by your definition – all you’ll do is mess it up.  California is proof that liberalism is a complete failure – you liberals absolutely govern that State and pretty much have for the past 20 years.  It is your baby – and it is dying of liberalism.

Drill, Baby, Drill: For 190,000 Jobs

Mark Noonan5 Comments

From the Daily Caller:

Almost 190,000 jobs could be created by 2013 if offshore drilling returns to pre-spill levels, according to a study sponsored by two oil trade groups, the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) and the American Petroleum Institute (API).

The study, conducted by Quest Offshore Inc., found that if permits for exploration and drilling returned to historic levels, and if backlogged requests were granted, 400,000 jobs could be supported across the United States with a GDP increase of $45 billion by 2013…

Because Obama flies from one screw up to another we tend to forget the older ones – in this case, the absurd “permatorium” he put in place in response to the Gulf oil spill.  The chances of a repeat of that particular accident, even if no action was taken, are exceptionally small…and  nearly non-existent if a few, common-sense precautions are taken in that sort of drilling (ie, deep water).  But Obama, true blue liberal that he is, couldn’t pass up the chance to gut America’s offshore oil industry – and so he imposed his permatorium and simply will not lift it (by hook or by crook, he keeps it in place – just by going slow on new permits he puts a hammer lock on it).

While we are all gleeful at the prospect of using Obama’s speech in Brazil (where he stated he hopes America will become Brazil’s best customer), we really do need to break this log jam.  Some means must be found to force Obama to allow us to drill for oil – even if this report is wildly over-optimistic, it would still mean tens of thousands of new, high paying jobs…and jobs which produce actual wealth and which are within reach of regular, blue collar Americans (the American economy can never be a place where we merely write computer programs and shuffle fake money around Wall Street, you know?  Someone has to do some actual work).  Continual pressure must be applied – and ever legislative effort (including the debt deal) should include a legislative end to Obama’s drilling “permatorium”.

It is time for us to start working in the interests of the American people – and I can’t think of a better “step one” than to start drilling for oil.

Obamunism! Cisco to Fire 10,000

Mark Noonan65 Comments

Honestly, liberals, just how is that whole hopey-changey thing working out for you?  Because it is working out just lousy for us.  From Bloomberg:

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), the largest networking-equipment company, may cut as many as 10,000 jobs, or about 14 percent of its workforce, to revive profit growth, according to two people familiar with the plans.

The cuts include as many as 7,000 jobs that would be eliminated by the end of August, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t final. Cisco, based in San Jose, California, is also providing early-retirement packages to about 3,000 workers who took buyouts, the people said…

If printing up bags of money and borrowing like mad worked, then Cisco would not be firing people.  Period.  End of story.  Sit down and shut up, liberals.

Don’t get me wrong here – Cisco is being amazingly asinine; the talent exists in those they are about to fire to build Cisco out of the hole.  But that is not how things work in our Big Government/ Big Corporation world…Big Corporation fires people because it allows one more quarter of profits, Big Government puts them on welfare because it allows one more electoral victory for the Ruling Class.  No one ever thinks that the fundamental problem is the Bigs – and that if we treated them all to a round of tar and feathers, lots of things would work out better.

But, still, liberals – this is your mess.  Your man Obama said that his policies would prevent exactly this:  layoffs.  All that “free” money and all that borrowed money…it was supposed to get things working.  It hasn’t.  It never will.  You’ve failed.

Eurozone Meltdown

Mark Noonan9 Comments

Both Mish and Zero Hedge are keeping an excellent running commentary on the Eurozone crisis.  To nutshell it – the bailout of Greece has failed completely (with Greek bond prices rising above 30%) and the contagion is spreading to Italy, where they are doing financial backflips to stave off collapse.

We’ll see if they can pull it off – my view remains the same:  even if they manage to plug the leak here, the dam is so swiftly collapsing that it will just move to one of a dozen other places.  Collapse is inevitable – there isn’t enough money in the world, not if Bernanke and the ECB printed day and night for 100 years, to make up for all the garbage debt there is in the world.  The only question is how bad it will be – repeat of Lehman in 2008?  Or complete financial melt down?  Time will tell – but we have to get through the crash before we can start to rebuild – the bogus debt and fake wealth has to be liquidated so that everyone knows where they stand, then we can rebuild (and, hopefully, with a bit more wisdom).

Geithner: Sucks to be You, America

Mark Noonan9 Comments

That, at any rate, is my loose translation – from the AP:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says many Americans will face hard times for a long time to come.

He says President Barack Obama rescued the United States from a second Great Depression and will keep working to strengthen the economy. But Geithner says will be some time before many people feel like the country is recovering.

Geithner tells NBC’s “Meet the Press” that it’s a very tough economy. He says that for a lot of people “it’s going to feel very hard, harder than anything they’ve experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come.”

Staying loyal to his boss but also getting a little attack of the truth – it is absurd to think that Obama staved off the Great Depression because we’re still in it, it is just that the official (and manipulated) statistics don’t show it.  But we, the people, sure as heck feel it.  But it is almost refreshing to get a bit of honesty out of the Obama Administration – this will, indeed, be very hard to deal with.  But it doesn’t really have to go on for a “long time”.  We can cut the nightmare short in November of 2012.

Inflation Stalks China’s Economy

Mark Noonan19 Comments

From Market Watch:

China’s consumer prices accelerated to a-three-year high in June as food prices soared 14.4%, according to data released Saturday, reaffirming expectations that Beijing won’t be in a hurry to relax its monetary stance even if it may not aggressively pursue more interest-rate increases.

Monthly data released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China showed the consumer price index for June climbed 6.4 % from the same period the year before. Many economists had expected the rise to be between 6.2% and 6.4%…

When considering China, it is best to keep in mind one very important quote, as it explains it all:

…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

All that talk about China becoming predominant and having a vibrant economy and showing the world how it is done is so much nonsense.  All China has demonstrated is that if you allow free scope to unbridled greed you can get ahead for a bit.  Hitler did it, too – he allowed Germany’s industrial titans to do whatever they wanted in the pursuit of profits and, my goodness, how the money rolled it.  But because the government wasn’t by consent of the governed – and thus there was no freedom, including the freedom to check up on what business and government was up to – the whole thing became over strained.  A valid argument can be made that part of the reason Hitler struck in 1939 – rather than 1942, as he had originally planned – was because he was warned that the German economy was on the verge of collapse.  Too much government spending, too much sharp financial practice…the wheels were coming off.  It was either retrench (and have rising unemployment and resign all dreams of conquest) or attack.  It was only by plundering Europe that Germany managed to keep afloat during the war – hardly a valid economic model, but China’s is no different from Nazi Germany’s.

Evil can have its day.  Evil can astound the world.  Evil can look like a winner – but only over a relatively short period of time.  China got a bit lucky in that American economic policy during the past 20 years has essentially encouraged China to pick up our manufacturing capacity.  This gave an immense shot in the arm for China and allowed it to go on longer than it should…but now the patsy (us, that is) can’t resign any more wealth to China; now China’s bad debts have built up; now China’s fake money is under pressure; now China needs 9% growth and there is simply no way to obtain it…except by inflationary policies, which is what China did over the past two years.  But that comes with a price, too.  The financial chickens are coming home to roost in China.

To think that a horrific, corrupt and anti-human tyranny such as that which governs China could ever compete with a free people was, is and always will be absurd.  A temporary advantage is the most such a government could obtain.  All those idiots who have poured investment money in to China are about to find out just how dumb that idea was.  China is heading for a fall – whether it will result in revolution or some sort of foreign adventure as China’s government tries to hang on remains to be seen – but it cannot be sustained as is.  It will have to change – and how they get out of it remains a complete mystery:  in addition to dealing with a corrupt government and a false economic model, China is about to enter demographic decline as the anti-human “one child” policy bears it’s bitter fruit.

Really bad times are coming, folks; just get ready for them.

Obamunism! Consumer Confidence Drops

Mark Noonan11 Comments

From Rasmussen:

Following yesterday’s disappointing jobs report, consumer confidence has fallen to the lowest level in nearly two years.

The Rasmussen Consumer Index, which measures the economic confidence of consumers on a daily basis, fell two-and-a-half points on Saturday to 68.6. That’s the lowest level of confidence measured since July 24, 2009. Consumer confidence is down two points from a week ago, six points from a month ago and eight points from three months ago…

Have any of you noticed that some times it is hard to find things like Tylenol in the stores?  That if you go to a clothing store, there are fewer items for sale?  That when you used to go to a retail outfit a sales clerk was on you in a second and now you can stand jumping around the cash register for a minute or two before an over-worked clerk comes over to help?   Fewer things in the stores, fewer people to help you – not the sign of an economy on the mend:  very strong signs that retailers are barely holding on and are cutting costs everywhere they can.

The economy we have right now is at its current level because of massive money printing by the Federal Reserve and massive government spending.  The Federal Reserve is done printing and even if we wanted to, we can’t afford another two or three trillion dollars in borrowed stimulus spending.  We’re broke, the economy is on life support and for all the happy talk out of government and corporate America, the people see things as they are – which is why the confidence rate is going down.

No one is fooled any longer – the whole, rotten politico-economic system is broken and the people are fully awake to the scam.  2012 will be very interesting.

Chances for Budget Deal Fade

Mark Noonan12 Comments

From the New York Times:

President Obama’s drive for a supersize budget deal was further complicated on Friday by the release of unexpectedly weak employment figures, which Republicans seized on to bolster their arguments against possible tax increases and Democrats said were reason to limit painful spending cuts…

If this does create an impasse then that will probably be for the best – no tax hikes can be contemplated, and massive spending cuts must be done.  This is the requirement of common sense in this – we’re bankrupt and we must not spend as much as we have been; meanwhile, our economy is teetering on the edge of a new recession and so we don’t dare put even the lightest additional burden on it.  If Democrats can’t see their way to clear to merely roll back spending to 2008 levels – all that would be required – then there is nothing to discuss.

We’ll see how this comes out, but it does appear that the Congressional GOP has discovered a back bone (or had one implanted by the TEA Party) and at the very least any deal which does come out will be defensible on conservative/libertarian grounds.

Obamunism! Unemployment at 9.2%

Mark Noonan37 Comments

From CNBC:

U.S. employment growth ground to a halt in June, with employers hiring the fewest number of workers in nine months, dousing hopes the economy would regain momentum in the second half of the year.

Nonfarm payrolls rose only 18,000, the weakest reading since September, the Labor Department said on Friday, well below economists’ expectations for a 90,000 rise.

The unemployment rate climbed to a six-month high of 9.2 percent, even as jobseekers left the labor force in droves, from 9.1 percent in May…(emphasis added)

So, if the BLS hadn’t removed as many workers from the labor force this past month, it would have shot up even higher.  I do believe the data is being manipulated – not to the point of outright lie, but to the point of getting the rosiest data possible.  After all, the number of people who leave the labor force every money is really not known – experts estimate and there are probably several sets of estimates.  My bet is that among the various estimates the BLS is pulling out those that make it look best.  Imagine how it would look otherwise – I think that unemployment would be closer to 12% right now.

Aside from that, no matter how you slice it the economy isn’t recovering.  In fact, a strong case can be made that we’re already back in to recession it just hasn’t shown in the data.  But even if we are not and will not fall in to official recession, the economy simply is not doing well.  In order to get unemployment just down to 8% by November of 2012 will take a net gain of a couple hundred thousand jobs per month between now and then…anyone out there see that happening?

In other news, a top Obama adviser is asserting that people won’t care about unemployment in 2012…

UPDATE:  From Mish – “unmitigated disaster“.

UPDATE II:  More from Mish –

…Digging deeper into the Household Survey, we see some more interesting data. In the last year, the civilian population rose by 1,799,000. Yet the labor force dropped by 263,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,063,000.

Last month the labor force rose by 272,000. This month the labor force fell by 272,000. How’s that for symmetry?…

Symmetry?  More like bull.