What’s New Today
Story #1 is
about the less than great recovery. #2 is
what success looks like from Obama’s definition. #3 is today’s sign of desperation by the
Obama Administration. #4 looks at the
difference between an empire and a state.
#5 is a different look at global warming.
Today’s
Thoughts
Obama
saved Detroit or more specifically the UAW.
UAW autoworkers didn’t lose a
penny in hourly wages, even as their employers were driven into bankruptcy. In this case Obama is correct if you apply his statement to the UAW. “You didn’t make it yourself.”
This
week Obama announced, “I’m also very pleased that this week we are going
to be able to announce $70 million in
additional spending — $70 billion, excuse me, in additional spending for
‘Iron Dome.’” (million was correct). This is a gaffe. “You
didn’t build it,” is the truth slipping out.
In 2011, Obama’s regulatory agencies imposed 3,807
new rules on various sectors of the economy that Oversight staff expect to cost
over $105 billion this year alone. As of the fall of 2011, federal regulators were considering 133 new
“economically significant rules” — that is, regulations that would each cost over $100 million annually.
1. The
Less than Great Recovery
President Obama didn't comment on Friday's report of
declining growth in the second quarter,
and that's no surprise. The economic story of his Presidency is by now
familiar: a plodding recovery that has taken its third dip in three years and is barely raising incomes for most
Americans.
"We're still in a position
where we are pulling ourselves out of the very deep hole caused by the Great
Recession, and there is still—of course—a great deal of anxiety in the country
about the economy,'' said White House press secretary Jay Carney. He's right
about the anxiety, but if only we were "pulling ourselves out."
The reality is that the Great Recession ended three long
years ago. In this Less Than Great Recovery, the economy shows promise for one
good quarter then slows back down.
As the nearby chart shows, this is the third straight year of sputtering
recovery. Growth of 4.1% in the fourth quarter declined to 2% in the first and
now 1.5% in the second. The stock market rose as investors bet that the lousy
growth will inspire more Federal Reserve easing…
…
Housing
is also now less of a drag on GDP. But this makes the paltry 1.5% growth more
disconcerting,
because it means that other parts of the economy are growing less rapidly than
they ought to be.
Consumption
ticked up only 1.5%, for example, down from 2.4% in the first quarter. This may
reflect that wages and salaries are barely keeping pace with inflation. Another
negative is that business inventories climbed unexpectedly in the second
quarter, which often presages a decline in business spending in the next
quarter to clear the shelves.
It's important to understand how
unusual this kind of weak recovery is. Deep
recessions like the one from December 2007 to June 2009 are typically followed
by stronger recoveries, as there is more lost ground to make up….
The standard line for this administration is that we are
growing after losing (fill in the blank, jobs, growth, etc). It’s not enough, but we are moving in the
right direction. Its nonsense, but it is
the only thing the Administration can say.
We aren’t moving in the right direction.
Job creation is down, growth in down.
It’s up from the depth of the recession, but it is down from six months
ago and significantly down.
2. Here’s what success looks like to Obama
President Obama tells a group of
donors that "we tried our"
economic plan "and it worked." Even in politics, where
exaggeration is a way of life, that statement stands out as a lie for the ages….
…But, he said, "we tried our plan - and it worked," which is wholly
consistent with his June comment that "the private sector is doing
fine."
Some say Obama was merely referring
to Clinton policies. But he clearly said "our plan" and began to brag
about saving the auto industry and refusing to "let Detroit go
bankrupt." So "our plan" is actually Obama's.
So we ask: Has the plan of a man who
said his brief private-sector job
experience was like working "behind enemy lines" really worked?
Let's look at the evidence.
Unemployment:
The jobless rate in June was 8.2%,
the same rate for May. In April it was 8.1%, a tick better than the 8.2% of
March….
…GDP: The economy grew a
meager 1.5% annualized in the second quarter, down from 2.2% in the first
quarter. It grew only 1.7% for all of 2011…
…Stimulus: Obama signed a nearly $1 trillion stimulus plan shortly
after taking office. The administration vowed
unemployment would drop below 6%. Yet Americans can't find work, and the
economy remains sick.
Debt: The
federal debt rose more during Obama's first 38 months in office - a bit more
than $5 trillion - than it did under all eight years of George W. Bush. The CBO
says Obama's policies will add an additional $6.4 trillion over the next
decade.
Auto bailouts:
Obama hijacked a legal bankruptcy by
automakers to "save" the industry. GM and Chrysler are still in
business. But GM's stock has fallen to its lowest level since the bailout IPO.
The company's sinking value could cost taxpayers $23 billion.
Food stamps:
A record 14.8% of the country - 46
million Americans - are in the program, well above the 9.3% during George
W. Bush's final year in office and far in excess of the 1970-2000 average of
7.9%.
If this is what success looks like for Obama you shudder to
think what failure looks like. The only
mitigating factor in his defense is that he is a Chicago Cubs fan.
3. Signs of Desperation
A memo from
Democratic National Committee director Brad Woodhouse obtained
by Buzzfeed outlines how the reelection campaign of President Barack
Obama will continue to respond to Mitt Romney’s
attacks on the President’s “you didn’t build that” comments. The memo details how the Obama campaign will get off the
ropes and retake the offensive against the Republican’s presumptive
presidential nominee with a comprehensive list of attacks the campaign will
levy against Romney – one such attack line that stood out is the Obama
campaign’s intention to go after Romney for raising fees on milk while he was
Massachusetts’ governor.
The memo details how the Obama
campaign intends to take the gloves off against Romney to counter his “out of
context” attacks on Obama’s full-throated defense of the public sector as the
mother of invention.
If you’re the Governor that raised a fee on milk and
attempted to impose a $10 fee for a state certificate of blindness, it becomes
clear why Mitt Romney doesn’t want to talk about his record as Governor on jobs
or the economy or budget and taxes.
Say what??? This is
absolutely the weakest response that I can imagine and then connecting it to
Mitt Romney not wanting to talk about his record is ludicrous. However it give Romney a chance to ask Obama
about the almost $6 trillion in deficit spending or 1.5% growth last quarter. This screams desperation.
4. The Empire Strikes Back
Yale Prof. Charles Hill is often
called a "conservative." But he is one of the foremost students and
advocates of what he calls the "liberal" ("in the finest sense
of the word") world order. And he
is worried that Americans increasingly don't understand how special the modern
era has been or their own crucial role in developing and securing it.
To
some, the Obama's administration's desire to "lead from behind" and
seek United Nations approval for actions abroad represents an appropriate
retreat to a more humble American posture. Mr. Hill, by contrast, sees the possible end of a great era of
human rights and democracy promotion the likes of which the planet has never
seen.
Our world has "been
increasingly tolerant and increasingly trying to eradicate racism and
increasingly trying to expand freedom. And it can come to an end," he
says.
What might replace it? "Spheres
of influence." Or to use a more archaic term, "empire."..
This is a very interesting article tracing Professor Hill’s
view of empire vs states. His view of the United Nations is balanced and very
insightful. I recommend you read it.
5. Global warming
…IT
WAS FOUR YEARS AGO
that Dyson began publicly stating his doubts about climate change. Speaking at
the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston
University, Dyson announced that “all
the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated.” Since then he has
only heated up his misgivings, declaring in a 2007 interview with Salon.com
that “the fact that the climate is
getting warmer doesn’t scare me at all” and writing in an essay for The New
York Review of Books, the left-leaning publication that is to gravitas what the
Beagle was to Darwin, that climate
change has become an “obsession” — the primary article of faith for “a
worldwide secular religion” known as environmentalism. Among those he
considers true believers, Dyson has been particularly dismissive of Al Gore,
whom Dyson calls climate change’s “chief propagandist,” and James Hansen, the
head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and an adviser
to Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Dyson accuses them of relying too
heavily on computer-generated climate models that foresee a Grand
Guignol of imminent world devastation as icecaps melt, oceans rise and
storms and plagues sweep the earth, and he
blames the pair’s “lousy science” for “distracting public attention” from “more
serious and more immediate dangers to the planet.”…
…Climate models, he says, take into account atmospheric
motion and water levels but have no feeling for the chemistry and biology of
sky, soil and trees. “The biologists have essentially
been pushed aside,” he continues. “Al
Gore’s just an opportunist. The person who is really responsible for this overestimate of global warming is Jim
Hansen. He consistently exaggerates all the dangers.”
Dyson agrees with the prevailing
view that there are rapidly rising carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere
caused by human activity. To the planet, he suggests, the rising carbon may well be a MacGuffin, a striking yet ultimately
benign occurrence in what Dyson says is still “a relatively cool period in the
earth’s history.” The warming, he says, is not global but local, “making
cold places warmer rather than making hot places hotter.” Far from expecting
any drastic harmful consequences from these increased temperatures, he says the
carbon may well be salubrious — a sign that “the climate is actually improving
rather than getting worse,” because carbon
acts as an ideal fertilizer promoting forest growth and crop yields. “Most
of the evolution of life occurred on a planet substantially warmer than it is
now,” he contends, “and substantially richer in carbon dioxide.” …
An interesting look at climate change.
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