Blogs For Victory

From Mish:

…Digging deeper into the Household Survey, we see some more interesting data. In the last year, the civilian population rose by 1,817,000. Yet the labor force dropped by 1,099,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,916,000.

In January alone, a whopping 319,000 people dropped out of the workforce. In February another 87,000 people dropped out of the labor force. In March 11,000 people dropped out of the labor force. In April, 131,000 dropped out of the labor force. The 4-month total for 2011 is 548,000 people dropped out of the labor force…

Mish goes on to note that if people weren’t leaving the labor force at this pace, unemployment would be well over 11% – in other words, at Depression level. During a recovery, the labor force participation rate should be going up, not down – as usual, I go with my theory of ignoring what people say and referring to what they are doing. The Obama Administration and the talking heads on TV can say whatever they want, but what people are doing indicates a continued recession.

I also take note of the huge drop in labor force participation in April – after becoming small in February and negligible in March, the April number skyrocketed. Conveniently, just as we started to note rising new claims for unemployment. Is it number fudging? I don’t know – it could just be bureaucratic inertia. From what I understand, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has this statistical gizmo which calculates how many jobs should have been created as this or that point, presumptively based on past experience. As we are officially in recovery, my guess is that the gizmo says “at this month of recovery, history shows an average of X jobs being created”; presto, we get 244,000…but not a single person on earth can really tell you if that many jobs were created. Fundamentally, it is a guess and it will be many months before we know if the guess was right (though for the past couple years the guess has been fairly consistently wrong – with much fewer jobs being created than the original headline asserted).

Be that as it may, the bottom line is that our “recovery” is anemic, at best…and my view is that we’re heading straight back in to recession; led there by higher gas prices (and, yes, the collapse in oil prices will help, but I believe the damage has already been done).

From Worldcrunch:

…China’s labor age group of the 15-64 years old will reach its peak in 2013, and then start to decrease. Changes to the 19-22 years old age group are key to a country’s demographic health, because they are the most active part of the population and what business needs most. In 2009, this age group attained an historical high of 100 million but will rapidly decrease to 58 million by 2019, a drop of 43% over just 10 years.

This could result in serious labor shortages, the withdrawal of foreign companies, and a drop in university candidates. In 2009, the number of university applicants had already decreased by 400,000. In 2010, it decreased by 700,000. Numerous universities could be forced into bankruptcy. In terms of national defense, the percentage of the eligible male population drafted into the army could rise to 19% from 10% at present…

Here’s something to keep in mind as we discuss various ways forward: if your plan works out to an anti-human policy of both restrictions on child birth as well as rapacious, amoral economic greed, you’re not going to have a good outcome.

All the stories of China’s rise to global dominance are false. Given the fact that we can’t even get straight answers out of China about their inflation rate, we can’t even be sure that China’s economy – in dollar terms – exceeds the value of Japan’s. And when you take in to consideration that China is going to start rapidly running out of young people because they butcher their children in the womb, the real future of China looks increasingly bleak.

Life is the right answer; always and everywhere. It is always better to work and to build and engage in the hope which is called family. For all the trouble it can bring, it is still better than marrying Death, as China has.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As Allahpundit puts it, there is no series of re-hashes of Iraq which will convince the other side…but Rice pretty much chews O’Donnell up, spits him out and demonstrates that the liberal critique of Iraq is sheer political idiocy.

He’s new, he’s direct, he’s a fighter…just as in the Trump phenomena, Cain is tapping in to two things:

1. Our frustration with where we are.

2. Our burning, patriotic desire to see America be as great as she can be.

Will Cain be the GOP nominee? Probably not – but only “probably”; not “no way”. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we are in a revolutionary political period and anyone can sweep in and take it all…and my view is that the man or woman who shows the most fight against Obama and the most positive vision for America’s future will be the next President.

Zombie has that picture and a series of others – the normalization of communism on the left is complete in the United States as the rally included members of the SEIU who, at the least, have no problem with marching with the communists. Other pictures show images of Lenin (responsible for at least 5 million murders) and Guevera (Castro’s executioner) being proudly carried. More than likely, of course, the people carrying the banners don’t even know – communist crimes are not taught in our schools while the legend of the “good Lenin/bad Stalin” persists, as does the concept of Guevera as a revolutionary romantic.

It is both astounding and sad that such an evil lie can persist here in 2011. Socialism – of whatever stripe – is based upon the fundamental lie that mankind can be perfected by the actions of Man. That we don’t need a savior, we can save ourselves – and create the Kingdom of God without God. But the fact remains that even if we all agreed to work hard and diligently – without a single backslider – and share out the goods produced equally among all, it still would not work because (a) we die and (b) even with the best will in the world there never be enough to satisfy all desires. To put it in small, easily understood terms – in the Great Socialist Paradise, who gets to live in the houses with the great view of the beach? There is only a limited amount of beachfront view property and there is certain to be more people who want it than there is supply – and, so, someone is going to have to have their heart’s desire refused; and who gets to decide that, and by what criteria?

Because of this fundamental flaw, violence and murder is inherent in socialism. It can’t be otherwise – if the theory is that we’re all equal (meaning, in socialist ideology, that we’re all exactly the same) and should all have the same but, in practice, this can never be then those holding the levers of power will have to find some means of suppressing those who come up losers in the socialist crap shoot. This is not to say that a capitalist system gets it perfect – by no means; but in the free sale and purchase of property and labor the resources will be allocated more justly than in any possible socialist system (though, of course, the market has to be really free – no crony-capitalists having a rake-off and getting special privileges from government; nor can there be special privileges and rake-offs for government officials, either).

But there they were, on May Day in Los Angeles proclaiming their faith in a communist future. Their faith, that is, in Gulag; in punishment cells; in “loot the looters”…because if they get their way, that is what will come to America.

Jay Cost takes a look behind the headline data and notes that the “recovery” we’ve had under Obama is (a) weaker than any other recovery and (b) really only the result of government borrowing, printing and spending. It is a devastating critique of the reality Americans live under – and why Obama’s approval on the economy is cratering even while the MSM trumpets the recovery.

It is, as Cost puts it, a “food stamp recovery”. Our incomes aren’t growing – the alleged growth of such is the result of transfer payments. But how are those payments financed? By borrowing and printing…in other words, we’re putting ourselves further in debt and devaluing our currency in order to eke out a bit of welfare for ourselves. To put it bluntly, we’re stealing from both our back pocket and our children’s piggy bank in order to buy groceries.

When you add in the fact that the real fat cats out there – the super-rich the Democrats never tax in their “tax the rich” schemes – have made out like bandits thanks to Obama policies you get a political mix which could be devastating to the President. Cost, in his piece, boldly asserts that unless there is a rapid and vigorous increase in per-capita, real income, Obama is doomed in 2012 (with the proviso that the GOP nominate an acceptable alternative). That takes a bit of guts, but the plain fact of the matter is that things had better improve or Obama is going to have all sorts of trouble.

Our liberals are still convinced that all is well – but that could be because our liberals are concentrated in areas which have been least affected by the recession. Government work, education, financial services, etc; all have been only lightly hit by the trouble…and if you’re doing well it is an easy assumption that everyone else is, too. Meanwhile, for those of us out in the real economy, things really suck. Cost in his article says he knows 10 people on food stamps – I only know three, but I also know two or three who have filed bankruptcy and another two or three who are still jumping through the bankster hoops on modifying their home loan (which, as far as I can see, is just prep work for filing bankruptcy). I’m going to start doing Feeding God’s Children with the Knights of Columbus and from what I understand what was once a nice, little food distribution has become a major event…on Holy Saturday I spent a couple hours delivering food to impoverished elderly people, and they were so grateful…with food prices rising, the SS check/welfare check just isn’t doing the job.

People are hurting. No, not the political class. No, not the banksters. No, not the well-connected. But the people – those who do the work of America. And if Obama’s Food Stamp Recovery doesn’t become something better, then we could have a political revolution in 2012.

Sorry, boys and girls, just couldn’t get anything together for you for the AM – I’ll be on in a bit to put something up. Either be about how lousy the President is, or in a related subject, how rapidly we’re sliding back in to recession. But, we’ll see.

Have fun!

First quote:

…Let the deeds of your ancestors move you and incite your minds to manly achievements; the glory and greatness of king Charles the Great, and of his son Louis, and of your other kings, who have destroyed the kingdoms of the pagans, and have extended in these lands the territory of the holy church. Let the holy sepulchre of the Lord our Saviour, which is possessed by unclean nations, especially incite you, and the holy places which are now treated with ignominy and irreverently polluted with their filthiness. Oh, most valiant soldiers and descendants of invincible ancestors, be not degenerate, but recall the valor of your progenitors… – Pope Urban II, 1095, preaching the First Crusade

Second quote:

…I think the killing of an unarmed man is always going to leave a very uncomfortable feeling, because it doesn’t look as if justice is seen to be done in those circumstances… – Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, 2011, commenting on the killing of Osama bin Laden

Have we lost something over the past 1,000 years? Perhaps a bit of raw courage and determination?

Discuss.

From Hot Air:

Yesterday Hot Air was invited to sit in on a call with Congressmen Doc Hastings (chairman of the Natural Resources Committee) and Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam. The subject of the discussion was three bills being brought to the floor which may, if we can muster the support required, finally break the log jam.

They are:

H.R. 1229 Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act. To amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to facilitate the safe and timely production of American energy resources from the Gulf of Mexico.

H.R. 1230 Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act. To require the Secretary of the Interior to conduct certain offshore oil and gas lease sales, and for other purposes.

H.R. 1231 Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act. To amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to require that each 5-year offshore oil and gas leasing program offer leasing in the areas with the most prospective oil and gas resources, to establish a domestic oil and natural gas production goal, and for other purposes…

That is taking the fight to the President and the Democrats in a big way. It is time for a full court press – a maximum utilization of our oil and natural gas resources as we transition, over a couple generations, to a non-oil economy.

Each additional barrel of oil produced domestically is that much more employment for Americans, that much more American wealth remaining at home, that much less money heading to foreign enemies. The Democrat argument against a major push for oil development is asinine and, really, is only based upon an irrational animus against the use of oil. We dare not allow our nation to be further weakened and bankrupted just because some dimwit in the Obama Administration was snookered by a professor about “Big Oil” in college 20 years ago. It is time for America to turn around and start producing, again.

And this is yet another fight we can win – especially with Obama’s idiotic statement in Brazil about how he hopes the United States will become a big customer for Brazilian oil. We’ve got plentiful ammunition, right on our side and a weakened, dazed Administration to deal with.

From CNBC:

It’s official.

Home prices have double dipped nationwide, now lower than their March 2009 trough, according to a new report from Clear Capital.

It was inevitable, and it was predicted (by me for sure) that a surge in sales of foreclosed properties and a big push by banks to facilitate short sales would force home prices down dramatically.

Sales of bank-owned (REO) properties hit 34.5 percent of the market, according to the survey, resulting in a national price drop of 4.9 percent quarterly and 5 percent year-over-year…

Except in a few, government-funded markets (ie, DC and environs) if you are planning on buying a home, don’t. In the worst hit markets (such as Florida and Nevada), my guess is at least another 25% on the downside. I purchased my home in 2005 for $396,000.00; the exact same model just sold in foreclosure down the street for $149,900.00. I fully expect this house to bottom out at about $120,000.00…and then stay there for quite some time. One should not expect the home prices of 2007, in real terms, to be reached again in our life times.

Partially this is a reflection of just how over-blown the housing market became, but it is also because the demographics of the United States – aging population, and all that – simply will not provide the sort of demand for housing we saw from the 1950’s until the early 2000’s. This is not to say that home ownership is a bad deal, but it won’t ever again be the piggy bank it was from, say, 1995 until 2007.

Here is the really bad news – all that debt and money-printing we’ve gone through over the past three years? Designed to sustain and restore 2007 housing price levels. Completely wasted effort…and now we’re stuck with the debt and the devalued currency.