From Zero Hedge:

At 64.2%, the labor force participation rate (as a percentage of the total civilian noninstitutional population) is now at a fresh 26 year low, the lowest since March 1984, and is the only reason why the unemployment rate dropped to 9% (labor force declined from 153,690 to 153,186). Those not in the Labor Force has increased from 83.9 million to 86.2 million, or 2.2 million in one year!

If you were to add even half that 2.2 million back in to the labor force, the unemployment rate would probably be above 10%. And even with such a huge reduction in the number of people looking for work, the best Bernanke can promise us is that employment will get back to normal in two or three years.

Of course, I don’t entirely trust the number – it seems odd that we’ve had so many straight months of declining labor force participation. Keep in mind that the keepers of the stats say the recovery began in 2009…surely by now we’d have an increase in participation, wouldn’t we? I mean, if there really was any genuine increase in wealth creation as opposed to a “wealth effect” created by massive amounts of fiat money.

And that, ultimately, is my worry – that we’re buying this “recovery” with fake money and mountains more debt and we’re not getting any net increase in national wealth for it. This means at the end of the day, even more debt will have to be supported by relatively less actual wealth. This is a recipe for complete economic collapse. Time will tell how this comes out, but if one wishes to bet, don’t bet that a printing press and borrowed money leads to prosperity.

UPDATE: More information on the unemployment numbers. “Bogus” seems an accurate description.

Here’s the story at NRO’s The Corner:

Despite the recent repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the drive to reinstate the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at Stanford University is facing resistance.

In March 2010, the Faculty Senate appointed a committee to investigate whether to allow ROTC back on campus after an almost 40-year absence. The committee will report back in May 2011.

In the meantime, anti-ROTC groups have been making their opposition known. One group, Stanford Says No to War, created a website at the misleading domain name http://rotc.stanford.edu to air its displeasure. (Earlier this month, the university revoked the domain name to avoid further confusion.) Unsurprisingly, the anti-war group believes ROTC’s presence is antithetical to the university’s purpose. It cites Professor Cecilia Ridgeway, who once said in Reading Eagle: “Universities are about solving problems through discussion, not military approaches.”…

Well, ok. Here’s what we do – we move Stanford (buildings, professors, student body, the whole shebang) to, say, Tehran. There the wonderful people of Stanford (especially the worthies at American Indian Gays, Black and Queer at Stanford, Feminist Collective and Queer and Questioning Asians And Pacific Islanders) can go and discuss their issues with the Mullahs. I’m sure that a group of unarmed, earnest college students and professors will have no trouble at all in convincing the Iranian government, by discussion, that there is a place for Black and Queer in the Islamic Republic.

Talk about ivory tower! These fools really don’t seem to understand that they are able to sit around doing hardly anything of importance while giving themselves airs of superiority because rougher men and women are willing to carry a weapon in their defense. There probably won’t be too many ROTC types at Stanford – or any other of our elite universities – but there will be some, and simple common sense and a desire for self-preservation would get rational people behind such a such a group of people. Sadly, common sense is what is most lacking in American “higher education” these days.

Of course, we really can’t ship Stanford to Tehran. But there is something we can do – if they don’t immediately allow ROTC back on campus with full access and no problems from faculty, then we cut them off. No student loans, no grants – no nothing; not another penny of taxpayer funds. That’ll make them squeal like stuck pigs – and get them to stop being quite so stupid.

Hat Tip The American Catholic – and a second on the wonder why Fox would block such an ad…let’s face it, a good part of Fox’s Superbowl audience will be people delighted with John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.

Not exactly the most controversial statement one can make – though bound to offend the usual collection of anti-religious pinheads who get upset about such things. But, on balance, offending people like that usually works to your advantage.

Very strange action – I’d like to hear a rational explanation from Fox about it.

From Bloomberg:

The Obama Administration acted in contempt by continuing its deepwater-drilling moratorium after the policy was struck down, a New Orleans judge ruled.

Interior Department regulators acted with “determined disregard” by lifting and reinstituting a series of policy changes that restricted offshore drilling, following the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, U.S. District Judge, Martin Feldman of New Orleans ruled yesterday.

“Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance,” Feldman said in the ruling…

Obama and his liberals don’t care about our national energy situation – that we are importing massive amounts of oil from enemy States; that gasoline looks to be heading towards $4 a gallon by summer. All that doesn’t matter – what matters is if Obama can keep part of his liberal donor base happy; and they are kept happy by a drilling ban. Regular folks? Who care? Especially as Obama knows he won’t win any of the Gulf States in 2012, anyways…they can go get stuffed.

Liberalism is laid bare here – the complete disregard for law; the hatred of any activity which actually creates wealth; the contempt for so-called “bitter clingers” who won’t vote for them. As long as Obama is President, policy will be subordinated to whatever is thought best to maintain and expand the political and economic power of the liberal Ruling Class.

We’ll see where this case – and the ObamaCare case – go…but my bet is that Obama will just defy the courts and keep at it, secure in the knowledge that as long as Reid is Majority leader, no Congressional efforts to call him to account will go anywhere.

More of that “new tone” our liberals want…

To be asked by Ron Paul – from the Committee on Financial Services:

Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Ron Paul announced today the Subcommittee will meet for a hearing to examine the impact of Federal Reserve policies on job creation and the unemployment rate. The hearing will be held on Wednesday, February 9th at 10 am in room 2128 Rayburn.

Subcommittee Chairman Paul said, “I’m very pleased to hold our first subcommittee hearing in the new Congress on a topic that could not be more critical, namely unemployment. Despite enormous amounts of monetary and credit expansion by the Federal Reserve in recent years, the nation’s unemployment picture remains bleak. While many focus on the impact of fiscal policies on employment, the effect of monetary policy often goes unexamined. In my view we are now experiencing the bust that inevitably results from the misallocation of capital and human resources in a period of artificially cheap credit. It is important to understand the Federal Reserve’s role in creating today’s unemployment crisis, while also highlighting that high unemployment and low economic growth can persist even in the face of tremendous monetary inflation.”

The Federal Reserve has taken unprecedented action to provide liquidity to financial markets and some U.S. corporations; however, unemployment remains above 9 percent. The hearing, entitled Can Monetary Policy Really Create Jobs?, will focus on the Fed’s recent actions, the likelihood those actions will reduce unemployment, and the critical role of the private sector in job creation…

Long time readers will recall that I’ve not often had kind things to say about Ron Paul – I disagree with him heartily in matters of foreign and defense policy, as well as in some areas of social policy where he takes far too libertarian a view. But in matters of monetary policy, Ron Paul and I see pretty near eye to eye. I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather have looking in to the actions of the Federal Reserve than Ron Paul. The Federal Reserve has been uniformly baleful to the American economy since it was first created in 1913 – it has been the instrument of our currency devaluation, our de-industrialization and our massive debt. The tough thing about the Fed, however, is that most Americans are only slightly aware of it – a good series of hearings about what it is up to can go a long way towards educating the people about the Fed, and thus setting it up to be dissolved.

Don’t expect immediate revolution – this is the opening shot. This is where we just start the process of getting rid of the Fed and eventually getting ourselves back to a sound money economy. This effort will be fought tooth and nail by all those who stand to lose – the gigantic banks, the bureaucracy and every grafting politician out there who looks at the Treasury as a means of buying votes for re-election. They’re already a bit worried but if it starts to look like their fiat money cash cow is going to be pole-axed, they’ll rise in fury. Be ready for it – with your best defense being a presumption of “BS” on any story which asserts that without the Fed things will completely fall apart (we had no Federal Reserve from 1776 until 1913 – during which time we rose from agrarian backwater to global powerhouse…a century on in to our Federal Reserve and we’re being out-competed by the Chinese, for crying out loud).

Onwards to revolution, my fellow Americans – the beast is cornered and we will have it down.

From the AP:

Bursts of heavy gunfire rained into Cairo’s Tahrir Square before dawn Thursday, killing at least three anti-government demonstrators among crowds still trying to hold the site after an assault by supporters of President Hosni Mubarak, according to a protest organizer.

Sustained bursts of automatic weapons fire and powerful single shots rattled into the square starting at around 4 a.m., and was continuing more than an hour later.

Protest organizer Mustafa el-Naggar said he saw the bodies of three dead protesters being carried toward an ambulance. He said the gunfire came from at least three locations off in the distance and that the Egyptian military, which has ringed the square with tank squads for days to try to keep some order, did not intervene…

Which tells me that there is a lot of force in Egypt which, while perhaps not wanting to keep Mubarak, doesn’t want to lose power and position. Got to remember that the way a Mubarak maintains himself in power is only partially through brutality – the other half the the equation is bribery of select parts of society. Those bribed parts don’t want to lose their place at the trough. The army is standing aside while thugs are killing and robbing – and some strong indications that the thugs are police officers; this could be a ploy to intimidate the crowds and thus allow a reassertion of Ruling Class control.

To be sure, a complete return to “normal” is probably out of the question – new forces are rising and they’ll want their piece of the pie (seen lots of “man on the street” quotes to the effect of “I’ve got a college degree and yet I only earn a pittance”; meaning that the problem isn’t Mubarak’s dictatorship, but the lack of material advancement, at least for some of the people out in the streets). Adjustments and accommodations will have to be made and Mubarak is almost certain to be gone some time soon (I doubt he’ll be allowed to hang around until the next election; but we’ll see). In the end, however, those who have appear to be doing quite a lot to ensure they continue having.

The sorta good news about this is that it might end up freezing out the Moslem Brotherhood. There might rise a coalition of people who are willing to slowly loosen the chains while keeping a lid on the Islamists. On the other hand, the MB seems pretty popular at least in some quarters and they might demand a share of power in return for getting off the streets…and even a small share of power is enough for a tightly organized, committed group to eventually take over the whole thing. Bottom line, this still doesn’t look to be coming out as a good result for the world.

And his name wasn’t Barack Obama – from Commentary:

…It’s worth comparing what is happening in Egypt with what happened in the Philippines during the Reagan presidency.

In his book An American Life, Reagan writes about how Ferdinand Marco had stolen an election and that an uprising of Filipinos on behalf of Corazon Aquino, the legitimate winner, was inevitable.

On February 23, Reagan was at Camp David and told that Marcos and a loyal general, Fabian Ver, had amassed a force of tanks and troops to attack army units of two military leaders who had resigned from the Marcos government and given their support to Aquino. Ver’s tanks were turned back by hundreds of thousands of civilians — “but the next time,” Reagan wrote, “the result might be huge casualties.”

Reagan drafted an appeal to Marcos not to use force and attended a meeting in the Situation Room on February 23, 1986. “We agreed that it was inevitable that Marcos would have to give up power,” Reagan wrote. “He no longer had the popular support to remain in office. … Everyone agreed that we had to do everything possible to avoid bloodshed in Manila; we didn’t want to see it come down to a civil war. I also wanted to be sure we did not treat Marcos as shabbily as our country had treated another former ally, the shah of Iran. At the same time, I knew it was important to start off with a good relationship with the new government of the Philippines.”

On February 24th Reagan noted that Marcos would have to be told to step down, some negotiations went on about what would happen and on the 25th, Marcos and family presented themselves at the then-US airbase in the Philippines and out the dictator went. The situations are not, of course, exact – but here we have Reagan acting with courage and conviction, not wanting to harm a man who had been a loyal ally yet understanding that a new day was dawning. Obama has been floundering around trying to figure out if he should stick with Mubarak or go with revolution.

There is an indecisiveness in American policy these days; no hard center – nothing which you can identify as an “Obama Doctrine”. With Reagan it was “not one more square inch falls to communism”; with Bush the Younger it was “freedom is God’s gift to mankind”. What is it for Obama? Given this, we’re already starting to see us getting the short end of the stick in Egypt – the regional tyrants are not pleased with us while the revolutionaries are increasing the anti-American rhetoric. We stand to lose friends on both sides of the equation.

Getting ready for the long battle – from The Daily Caller:

TheDC Exclusive – The Obama administration snubbed top GOP oversight official Rep. Darrell Issa on his first major document deadline as new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sending a short letter promising to comply in response to a major information request that was due Saturday at noon.

But Issa is hitting back Tuesday with a demand key documents be sent in two days…

We’ll see how this plays out, but Obama’s Chicago-style Administration doesn’t really want a lot of scrutiny.

Nevada’s new governor calls for a review of all 183 State boards and agencies to determine if they are worthy of tax payer funds. 183 – and that is in a libertarian-conservative State.

Governor Cuomo declares New York bankrupt. Liberalism in action.

Democrats cave in on an earmark ban; the revolution continues.

Things are looking good for the GOP in 2012.

Senate GOP looks to force a vote on ObamaCare repeal. With 15 Democrat Senators vulnerable in 2012, this might actually work. Even though it has been correctly ruled as unconstitutional, we should still press repeal…repealing ObamaCare is, along with budget cuts, the way to conservative victory in 2012.

In 1983 a poor girl came up pregnant and, at her wit’s end, turned to Catholic Social Services. At that place, she didn’t get advice to have an abortion. The other day, she went back to CSS and expressed her gratitude for what she did receive – Christian charity.