Golden Oldie

From Oct. 19, 2019 (Joe wasn't considered a front runner then)

(Remove the ten from the bottom wallet for Biden)

Why Empty Shelves are a Bad Thing (As if you didn't already know!)

Maybe you've heard Jen Psaki try to spin the supply chain crisis as no big thing. "Your new treadmill will be a week late." But it's more than tardy treadmills, Jen! From the Twitter:

I can’t get a compressor for my coolers. I’ve been waiting 6 months. Can’t sell food if I can’t fix coolers.

First, in general, what's the big deal?

Well, there's an opportunity loss involved. The producers, processors, and manufacturers lose the opportunity for you to see and purchase their goods. If they're not making money, they may be forced to lay off, at least temporarily, personnel. 

The products you don't see on those shelves are not going into your home to nourish your family or make your life more pleasant, at a reasonable cost. Empty shelves hurt you. 

The producers, processors, and manufacturers aren't making a profit. Apart from possible layoffs, part of the gross profit from those goods is often invested in their next order to replenish their stock, or to have the goods ordered and in the supply chain for their next sale.

The local grocer or vendor is not exempt from the pain. They're paying rent for every square foot  of that building, and turning a profit rellies on having that square footage occupied. I once sat in on a meeting between a grocery store manager and a sales rep for a food line. 

They were haggling about how much the product cost, and where it would be displayed in the store. The end caps of each aisle were premium territory. You pass them by even if you don't go down that particular aisle. They went back and forth over what kind of incentives the sales rep could offer for prime placement and what kind of guarantees he could get in return. 

Other retailers told me about the "turn". If they allocate a square foot of space to a product, how many times would it "turn" during a year? That is to say, how many times would it sell? That's why nearly every store that sells shoes has a heavy inventory of sizes 8-12 and maybe 13, but few 6-7 and usually no 14-15. Why. Do shoe stores hate people with small feet? Large feet? No, those sizes don't turn fast enough. They can make a larger profit on products that sell faster. 

Try to find 36" inseam jeans at your local clothing store. Do they hate tall men? No, there's just a lot more guys who are 5'10" than those who are 6'4"! They make more money on the turn.

Now ask yourself a very simple question: How many times does an item "turn" on an empty shelf?

Zero. 

How about tomorrow? 

Zero.

Day after?

Zero.

You're picking up a pattern here, I see! Conventional grocery stores have a profit margin of about 2.2%. How many empty shelves do you need to erode a 2.2% profit margin? How might you compensate, in order to keep the doors open? Raise the prices on the goods you DO have! We've been seeing a lot of that.

But what if your customers refuse to pay the higher prices, either because they object to higher prices or cannot afford them? You either raise your prices again, hoping that you will retain enough customers paying higher prices or you look to things like laying off personnel, cutting down on the number of hours you're open to minimize personnel costs. Reduce the number of full time employees so that you can reduce benefit costs. Not things that you want to contemplate if you want to encourage loyaty from long term employees.

But, it's just like ordering a treadmill and getting it a week later than you expected...right?

We're seeing the empty grocery shelves. What we're not seeing is the manufacturer, like the fellow above, who needed compressors to process his food orders. The factory that make the decision to source a part of the product overseas, that cannot continue production or ship product until they get the parts. A amanufacturer who cannot ship product will lay people off. 

Every day that the shelves remain empty (or grow emptier) brings the spectre of unemployment closer to more and more people. 

I wish I had some words of encouragement other than "hunker down". We are living in an age where the government seems to be accelerating the ship of state towards the iceberg. God help us all. 

How It's Going...

A key U.S. inflation gauge rose 3.1% year over year, higher than expected
Can you say "Misery Index"??

I Survived the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020 - And You Can, Too!

Just, not exactly the way I'd planned! I'm writing this in case I get hit by a bus or something in the next few years and my next of kin stumble across my remaining toilet paper holdings and think that I was carried away by the corona virus panic of 2020. I was not. It was more of a different kind of panic, which started maybe six years ago...

In the years leading up to my retirement, the economy sucked. (Thanks, Obama!) One of the uncertainties I faced was the cost of healthcare. I had a great plan at the company where I worked, but figured I would have to purchase coverage in the aftermath of the Obamacare apocalypse. Wasn't sure how much to budget for. Plus, investment opportunities matched the economy. Interest on savings accounts were less than one percent. CDs were maybe 3% if you wanted to tie your money up for five years, so I used a different strategy: I would invest in household goods and food.

I had raised five children on a single, sub optimum salary, so I know a little bit about shopping for value. I looked for purchases that would give me a better than 3% return on the investment. Plus, if my income really sucked in retirement, I still wanted to eat, have the luxury of TP and whatever else I could squirrel away. So let me tell you about my adventures and misadventures in investing for my retirement. (This was all in addition to my 401K contributions, so it wasn't completely squirrelly!)

First of all, you have to pay off all your credit cards. If you are paying 20% interest and making minimum payments, you need to buy everything at 20% off just to break even. The first month. With credit cards, compound interest is not your friend. All my credit cards were paid off and paid in full every month. That's the only way one should ever buy groceries with a credit card, if you can avoid it. With five kids, who expected to eat regularly, that wasn't always the case with me. Get there. Pay off the card with the lowest balance and then start applying that payment to the next lowest balance until you are out of debt. Rinse and repeat.

With that in mind, you need to know what a good price is for everything you buy. The store advertises its sale prices, but they probably mark up other things so they can make a good profit. If you're pinching the pennies until Abe squeals, you need to know the difference. Also realize that driving five miles to save a nickel a can on something won't save you money either!

So, scout a couple of markets if you need to. Compare the prices on stuff you normally buy. Consider buying stuff you DON'T normally buy. I'd never bought "wax beans" until about six months ago, but they were cheaper than green beans and taste about the same. Variety is the spice of life, right?

First, I would wait until the supermarket had a genuine sale on what I wanted to buy.

I would combine that with a manufacturer's coupon, if available, or a store coupon, or both.

I would buy at a market with a cash back incentive, a "club card", if you will.

And I would make the purchase on a credit card that gave me cash back.

When applicable, I would add items, that met the criteria, to obtain bonuses the markets would set for a minimum purchase.

There was nearly always a Manufacturer's coupon on my favorite brand of TP, and my local store was big on incentives to spend a minimum amount, so I'd often add a pack of toilet paper to my list to get the additional discounts. That's the good news! Multiple discounts on every purchase added up!

Now, the down side: inventory control. Or the lack thereof. I had a special place to store Kleenex. I would buy it at the lowest possible price and store it in the hall closet. Turned out to be about a two year supply. I've purchased Kleenex twice since running out. I bought a lot of canned pasta before I retired. Stored in my kitchen cabinets. Chef Boyardee ravioli. Heat up in the 'wave with some shredded cheese across the top. Ate canned pasta for about two years. All gone.

Toilet paper, on the other hand...storage was a little more casual. After I retired, I decided that all the TP should be in one place, so I started gathering it. Seems I'd placed it in at least six different closets, the garage and the family room. Much more than I remembered buying. I did not contribute to the panic buying of 2020, because I haven't bought TP in the last two years. And will not again in the immediate future!

Overall, I haven't had any money problems in retirement. I make my insurance payments on time and my mortgage payments ahead of time. I have not lacked for material goods and have had enough left over for giving to charity and gifts for my children and grandchildren and I was even able to buy a new car last December, all while eating regularly!

I would not typically recommend buying household goods and food as a cushion for your retirement, but sometimes, you have to make the best of a bad situation. I will continue to shop frugally, because then, that frees up cash for the things I enjoy. Just don't ask me if I need any toilet paper!

The Journey There and Back Again

So, yesterday, I left my Hobbit hovel to venture forth into the big, wide world. I had a prescription ready at Target, so I thought I would expand the search parameters.
I started off at a grocery store, where I bought some groceries and a few Christmas gifts for the grand kids. Across the street and down the block to the grocery outlet, that had the canned beets in stock that they were totally out of the week before. Bought some socks.

Then, to the pharmacy next door to pick up some more grocery items, then jump on the freeway to the department store where I picked up my prescription. Since I was there, I bought a few more groceries, a couple of odds and ends, and I passed by the sporting goods section. I noticed a display of two pound hand weights. A couple dozen of them, but no other weights. Every dumbbell over two pounds was out of stock. Now, I'd bought a few pairs a couple months back, when I realized I was going to need to do some more rehab on my arm. At that time,they had a wide variety of weights up to at least 25 pounds. One of two things come to mind: The weights are made in China (at least mine were) and the supply chain is running behind because of COVID-19. The other, that anticipating not being able to go to the gym in the immediate future, home fitness gear flew off the shelves.

Today, I went out to pick up a replacement screen for my bathroom window. I hadn't really thought of glass and window repair/replacement as an "essential" service, but there they were!
So, that was five attempts to stimulate the local economy, in addition to Amazon drivers, in the last two days. I kept my social distance, or what I now recognize as "spitting distance" and washed my hands when I came home.

Y'all keep cool hunkering in the bunker!

Ho, Ho, Hold the Phone!

A little Christmas cheer for your stocking! Note that the household income increase for Trump in three years is about five times what it was for Obama in eight years! Ho! Ho! Ho!

California - The New Rustbelt?

Back at the turn of the century, around 2001, my new job took me back to Ohio for an nationwide company meeting. We met in Akron. The hotel we were staying at provided a complimentary newspaper. I remember seeing for the first time, page after page of near microscopic type, listing all the delinquent tax bills of individuals and businesses, and statements that John Doe was no longer responsible for the debt of Jane Doe, etc.

On the way from the hotel to the meeting site, we'd pass by many closed and boarded up buildings on the main street of town. The Rust Belt, I thought. Being from California, I gave it little more thought than to feel sorry for the residents.

Fast forward two decades. You'll never guess what I've been seeing on the pages of my Dead Tree Newspaper. That's right! Today, there were two and a half pages full of near microscopic type, listing delinquent tax payments. And it wasn't the first time. Just like Akron, 2001.

The next time I hear Gavin Newsom or some other California Democrat crowing about how wonderful the California economy is, I've got a list two and a half pages long, microscopic type, who people who might want to disagree with them.

The Least Serious President in the History of the Republic™ and His Contribution to Our Booming Economy

On Monday, at the White House press briefing, there was a report on the nation's economy. (Video below) When questioned about the timing of the report, after the blustering bit of boasting last Friday by The Least Serious President in the History of the Republic™, claiming responsibility for our growing economy.

"Coincidence", they said. Well, if there is one thing Leroy Jethro Gibbs has taught us is that there are no coincidences! The report torpedoed, sent to the bottom and scattered the wreckage of any such claims. May I draw your attention to Exhibit A: Small business optimism

Note the dotted blue line. Those are the trends of small business optimism under (forgive me for uttering the name) Barack Obama. See how dramatically they all jumped after the election. Technically, the Temp Agency President can claim the recovery started "during his administration", but it was primarily the last two months of his administration, after it was clear that the economic stranglehold B.O. represented was going away.

Next, note the trend in business investment. The dotted blue line is plummeting downward in each case, like a SCUD missile over Tel Aviv.

In each case it is a nearly 90 degree pivot upward. Like Michelle on a beeline to a taco. Note, too, that the projection was going to "zero" or negative numbers.

Next chart is "Capital goods orders", with the dotted blue line trending down like Colin Kaepernick jersey sales at the NYC policeman's ball.

Again, check out the dotted blue line. That was the economic trend under the Temp Agengy POTUS. Nothing to write home to mother about.

The next chart is "business conditions". Although the trend was above the low point just prior to the election, the actual results went much higher than the trend. Speaking of "higher", maybe The Least Serious President in the History of the Republic™ benefited from some sort of chemically induced enhancement before speaking of his contributions to the current economy?

The next is new business applications, where for once, the trend was going upward. Still, the increase after the election looks like Air Force One taking off the trending runway.

Blue collar job growth:

Growth of private, nonresidential investment, as projected by CBO:

If you've got twenty minutes or so, the video is below. You can count how many times the presenter, in so many words said that anyone who would state the today's growth is in any way an "extension" of the policies or trends that went before is a gibbering, delusional lunatic...but, said in a nicer, more polite fashion.

Greece II

President Obama Finally Takes Responsibility For the Abysmal State of the American Economy

Made you look! I used that headline back in January before I realized what a great April Fool's headline it would make. Still hasn't happened. I'll let you know when it does...

Barack Obama, Economic Genius

From Obama's State of Confusion speech:

We know our economy is stronger when we reward an honest day’s work with honest wages. But today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong. That’s why, since the last time this Congress raised the minimum wage, nineteen states have chosen to bump theirs even higher.

Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families.

First, let's consider Obama's imaginary worker: "...full-time...making the minimum wage". Does such a creature even exist?? One of my predictions for 2014 was:

The 29 hour work week will become the de facto standard for the majority of new hires in 2014

According to a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), some additional 2.5 million full time jobs will be lost, liberating them from the need to work, according to most good liberals. As more and more jobs become part time, my prediction is well on its way to coming to pass.

He goes on...

"a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong."

Yeah it is! Who in their right mind would start a family and have children if they are working a job only pulling down minimum wage? And if there is such a thing as a full time worker, making just minimum wage, sole provider for the family, the percentage of workers meeting this criteria must be approaching zero.
And before I hearing the bleating about a lack of compassion, we have welfare, food stamps and any number of programs to assist those unfortunate few.

Workers (and I use the term loosely) who receive minimum wage are primarily unskilled, without experience, possibly someone's first job. Employer paid health care benefits were originally devised as a way to get around wage controls and to reward valuable employees with the equivalent of a higher wage. The reality is today, that employers are reducing the ranks of those paid lower wages in order to avoid the expense of government mandated health care (for less productive employees).

Employers want to pay productive workers as much as they can. When I was a hiring manager, I sought to start my people at the highest possible salary, and grant raises and provide bonuses to retain the workers I trained. The idea that all businesses want to do is exploit their workers and pay them as little as possible, is a liberal old wives' tale. Those unfortunate enough to work for such an employer are free to improve their education and skills, as they garner experience, making them more desirable to those enlightened employers who know that they succeed along with their employees.

According to the US Dept. of Labor,

"In 2012, there were 3.6 million hourly paid workers in the United States with wages at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. These workers made up 4.7 percent of the 75.3 million workers age 16 and over who were paid at hourly rates.".

Less than five percent? Weren't the Obamabots recently all bleating about how insignificant the five million people who were losing their private insurance because they were 'less than five per cent' of the work force?

Closed captioning for the Irony Impaired: If five million people losing their insurance are insignificant, then 3.6 million is less significant than that. You can't have it both ways!

So, if an insignificant number of people, according to good liberals, being caused financial hardship because their affordable insurance was cancelled, why should we be more upset over a lesser and transient number of people who will be paid minimum wage until such time as they have the experience and skills to earn more?

Also, working less than full time increases...what was it the President calls it? "Income inequality"! Seems to me that even if we raised the minimum wage, there's going to be 'income inequality' between those working forty hours a week and those only working twenty nine! And between those working twenty nine hours a week and those who are unemployed... That whole pesky math thing again!

As Obamacare crashes and burns, the old minimum wage canards are being hauled out to distract people from the real economy killer, as government tries to take over one sixth of the economy. It is an election year, and the Democrats have nothing to run on but fear itself. They are counting on their supporters being math impaired enough to believe all the doublespeak they utter. That and trying to pull as many un-Constitutional extensions and delays of Obamacare mandates out of their hats, at least until after the midterm and 2016 elections.


Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

Cross posted at LCR, Political Clown Parade

President Obama Finally Takes Responsibility For the Abysmal State of the American Economy

I know! I wouldn't believe a headline like that either! Here's what the lying weasel* President actually said:

But although the economy has been growing, and we've been adding new jobs, the truth of the matter is, is that the financial crisis was so devastating that there's still a lot of people who are struggling, and in fact if we don't provide unemployment insurance, it makes it harder for them to find a job.

-Barack Obama

Aside from the fact that extended unemployment makes it easier for some people to avoid looking for a job, consider: "the financial crisis was so devastating..." Which financial crisis was that, Mr. President? Back in 2010, according to you, the Bush recession came to an end in 2009.

(Reuters) - The recession ended in June 2009, making it the longest downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the National Bureau of Economic Research said on Monday.

The NBER, considered the arbiter of U.S. recessions, said its declaration did not mean the economy had "returned to operating at normal capacity" and cautioned that economic activity sometimes remains below normal well into expansion.

President Barack Obama, under pressure to speed up the pace of recovery and drive down unemployment as November congressional elections near, said the official end of the recession did not change the grim reality for many people.

So, the Bush recession "officially ended" in June 2009, then the financial crisis you refer to, which is so devastating, must be the "Obama Recovery", right?

You keep trying to imply, after five years with your hands on the levers of power, the first two with Democrat majorities in both the House and Senate, and trillions of dollars of spending, that somehow you aren't responsible for the worst recovery in the history of the Republic, still bitterly clinging to "some other dude did it".

Your signature accomplishment is the healthcare debacle that you had to sell with some of the biggest lies ever told. You continue to campaign, as if you were still running against an imaginary incumbent, but there's more to being president than campaign stops, hobnobbing with celebrities, playing golf, and selfies with blonde PM's. You've treated your entire tenure as president as one long vacation. Governing is hard work, but you asked for the job. Astound your enemies, Mr. President. Make the headline come true.

Update*: It was admittedly not the correct choice of words. The original was little weasel. Given the president's stature, we regret the error. -Editor


Cross posted at Political Clown Parade, LCR

The Alien Invasion of Detroit

I was toying with the idea of exploring my inner geek this weekend, while I try to share an impression I had this week, following the announcement of Detroit's declaration of bankruptcy.

Remember the TV series Stargate? Near instant transportation, across interstellar space, exploring strange new worlds...no, that was Star Trek! (See? I told you it would get geeky!) The images of the bleak Detroit landscape, looking like Dresden after the fire bombing, reminded me of an episode of Stargate, on planet P3A-194, home planet of a people called the Volians.

The planet was largely agricultural, sparsely populated and near idyllic - perhaps something Al Gore might envision? The Volians' main trading partner was a race called the Aschen, who had "saved" them from a pandemic some two hundred years before.

Spoiler alert: If you haven't seen it by now, don't blame me when you watch it on Netflix. As the episode develops, the SG-1 team discovers that 200 years before, the Volians had a thriving industrial society, perhaps a century advanced over 20th century Earth. The pandemic that changed their society was in reality a bioweapon, designed by the Aschen, who then conveniently showed up with a "cure", with a side effect, which caused sterility. Their population decimated, the Volians could no longer sustain an industrial economy, and devolved to a simpler agrarian economy, which, coincidentally benefited the Aschen, as the Volians became a de facto colony of theirs, unable to do anything except to accept the yoke their new masters had fitted for them.

The impression came from the fact that the great Volian cities, two centuries gone, had been buried beneath farm and pasture land, with only bits of "iron weed", the tops of the city's skyscrapers, poking up above the soil, providing impediments to the farmers who would then have to plow around them until they could be removed, with, of course, the help of their benevolent overlords.

And I thought of the tens of thousands of homes in Detroit, fallen to, or about to fall to the bulldozer. As the city shrinks, and some of the homes fall over of their own accord from neglect, I can envision Detroit becoming pasture land once again. The opportunity is there to build great swaths of parkland and green space, making Detroit an idyllic city and one of environmentalists' dreams...if the city only had the money for grass seed and landscaping and city workers to maintain them.

So, no great parks. No greenswards of land separating idyllic communities. Just a statue of an upraised fist, signifying the type of colonoscopy that investors could expect from the city of Detroit. Maybe when the price of land falls a little lower, agri-business can come in and buy up old neighborhoods and plow around the "iron weed"? At least there's still a market for food and other agricultural products.

I suppose, if there is a greater parallel, it would be that the once great city of Detroit had been infected with liberalism. Hard working men and women, and people with vision, created the foremost automotive manufacturing center in the world. The abundance of riches created by the sale of Detroit Iron, filled art museums with literally billions of dollars of works of art. If they have any sense, I would think that Detroiters (Detroitniks?) should swallow their pride and auction off the contents of their art museums so that they can pay for the promises they made to their employees and their families. I'd start with that huge fist. The time for defiance was when you had something someone else wanted to buy, and you didn't desperately need the money.

Liberalism came with a cure...out of wedlock children? Facing your parents' displeasure and and discipline over an unwanted pregnancy? No problem! We'll give you a small stipend from the public treasury, so that you can be independent of your parents. (But, not the government.) We'll even work with our PR division in Hollywood to come up with a new name for your condition. You can be a "baby mama". And forget the "I" word. It would be in poor taste to call your children "illegitimate", no matter how many kids you have from however many different fathers. We're from the government and we're here to help.

Of course, we won't be able to help you provide a strong male role model for your sons to emulate, but since they're plagued with absentee fathers, we can build prisons for them! Cradle to early grave coverage, just like "Julia"!

LBJ's "Great Society" did more to break up black and minority families than the Great Depression and the KKK combined. If a man has more than one "baby mama", he should be stigmatized, not lionized. There need to be harsher consequences for those who procreate irresponsibly. It doesn't mean eliminating welfare, it means reforming it, with a goal of building more stable families, who might one day lift themselves above welfare.

And don't get me started on tax reform and bureaucratic regulations that suffocate businesses great and small.

If the Aschen had descended upon Detroit, how could they have destroyed it any more fully than modern liberalism has done? At least the Aschen helped and taught those few who remained to become farmers, and bought their crops from them. Liberals will just move on to create another "worker's paradise" somewhere else.

Where's SG-1 when you really need them?


Cross posted at LCR.

NTSB: I-5 Bridge Collapse is Wake-up Call for Entire Country

NTSB says Washington state bridge collapse is wake-up call for entire country

The collapse of an Interstate highway bridge in northern Washington state is a wake-up call for the entire nation, the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board says. Investigators need to find out what happened at the I-5 span 60 miles north of Seattle and if it could be repeated at similar bridges around the country, Debbie Hersman said Saturday.

"This is a really significant event and we need to learn from it, not just in Washington but around the country," Hersman said after taking a boat ride on the Skagit River below the dramatic scene where a truck bumped against the steel framework, collapsing the bridge and sending two vehicles and three people falling into the chilly water. "At the end of the day it's about preventing an accident like this," she said.

As Yogi Berra once said, "It's Déjà vu all over again!". Doesn't this seem familiar somehow? Return with me to 2011. President Barack Hussein Obama:

"According to the Republican budget that was passed, for example, we would have to eliminate transportation funding by a third. We’d have to cut transporting funding by a third. You remember when that bridge in Minnesota collapsed with all those people on it? And there was a big hue and cry: How can this happen in America? Well, the National Society of Engineers, they’ve looked around and they give us a 'D' when it comes to infrastructure. Our roads, our bridges, our sewer systems are all deteriorating."

"We don’t even have a serious high-speed rail infrastructure in this country," Obama continued. "Our broadband lines are slower than places like South Korea. Well, so what, we cut transportation by another third, and what’s going to happen to America? We’re just going to have potholes everywhere? We’re just going to have bridges collapsing everywhere?"

And, of course, this was after the trillion dollars added to the budget in 2009 to shore up our infrastructure with those "shovel ready jobs" he admitted later weren't quite so "shovel ready", and an additional trillion dollars a year in the baseline budget for 2010 and 2011.

So, let's get the timeline straight:

*2007: A bridge collapses in Minnesota, which Obama blames on lack of federal spending. (Had he bothered to read the NTSB's report, he might have informed himself better.)

“The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the inadequate load capacity, due to a design error,” the NTSB states in its 2008 report on the incident.

In fact, the NTSB reported that on the day of the collapse, the bridge was in the process of being refurbished, further contradicting Obama’s claim that the collapse was evidence of a lack of infrastructure spending. “On the day of the collapse, roadway work was underway on the I35W bridge, and four of the eight travel lanes (two outside lanes northbound and two inside lanes southbound) were closed to traffic,” reads the NTSB report.

* 2008: Candidate Barack Obama, Toledo OH:

"We'll create 2 million jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads, schools and bridges."

(Raise your hand if you remember Obama creating 2 million jobs.)

*2009: A trillion dollar stimulus is implemented, presumably to rebuild crumbling roads, schools and bridges.

*2010: Because of Baseline budgeting, the trillion dollars spent as "stimulus" in 2009 now becomes a part of the federal budget baseline. That means in every year that Obama has been in office, he has had an addition trillion dollars a yar to spend along with the trillions in debt he's racked up.

*2011: Another additional trillion dollars. Obama says we have to spend more to prevent crumbling bridges.


*2012: Another additional trillion dollars


*2013: Another additional trillion dollars

Five trillion additional dollars above what the Bush administration had to spend, plus trillions more in deficit spending, and now, Sacré Bleu! We need to wake up to the fact that our bridges are in need of repair! Where has this administration been for the last five years?

May I make a modest suggestion? We hire George Hussein Onyango Obama, the fellow who's living in a hut for less than twenty dollars a year, to inspect and repair all our bridges. We could maybe double his salary and throw in Obamacare. He could go around the country with a big wrench and tighten all the loose bolts he finds.

Some might say that he isn't competent to do the job. Well, that hasn't stopped his brother!

Cross posted at LCR.

Should Average Americans Pay Higher Death Tax than Billionaire "Man of the People", Hugo Chavez?

Despite the weeping and wailing of the Hollywood Left, the world has at least the potential to become a better place with the passing of the dictator Hugo Chavez. Given the fact that even a toilet seat in Venezuela was considered a "luxury item" for taxation purposes by the government, and that the estate of the recently departed 'Man of the People' Hugo Chavez has been estimated at around $2 Billion (with a "B"), perhaps now is the time to get American liberals on board with some tax reform of our own?

Inheritance tax in Venezuela is around 25%. If you died tomorrow, the government's take from you would be about twice that, as a percentage. Ask your liberal friends if they believe that your passing should be taxed at twice the rate as a billionaire dictator? (Well, to be fair, you probably do have quite a number of those luxury toilet seats, now, don't you?)

"The Life of Pie" -Michael Ramirez on Sequestration

The incomparable Michael Ramirez:

The Demagogue-in-Chief's Shameless SOTU on the Minimum Wage

Dear reader, if you did not see last night's State of the Union speech, I will try to spare you most of its banality and hypocritical platitudes. But there was at least one more item I felt I had to touch upon, and that is the demagoguery of our president concerning the minimum wage.

I say "demagoguery", because I doubt that one could attain the highest office in our country and become the de facto leader of the free world* and be so ignorant as to make the statements he made innocently or without knowing better. From the speech:

We know our economy's stronger when we reward an honest day's work with honest wages. But today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. Even with the tax relief we've put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That's wrong.

Only the minimum wage was not designed to fulfill the needs of a single earner household with children. Minimum wage jobs are typically for those with few or no marketable skills. As the workers gain skill and proficiency, they leave minimum wage jobs behind. And unfortunately, if the minimum wage is set too high, it can keep unskilled labor out of the job market if it is impossible for them to produce what it costs to employ them.

Minimum wage laws effect the bottom rung of the ladder of success. If the price is too high for employers to pay, and remember, the employer is also paying half of the employee's Social Security taxes, and unemployment taxes, too, plus benefits, if any.

The president goes on to say:

Tonight, let's declare that, in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty -- and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour.

Again, if the minimum wage is designed to accommodate someone with no skills, say, a student still living under his parents' roof, it's not a question of living in poverty, but a temporary measure along the way. The first rung of the ladder. As the student gains skills, some of which are as simple as "showing up on time" and "showing up on time every day", most people are ambitious enough to prepare themselves to continue to climb the ladder.

In the unicorn and rainbow filled world of Barack Obama, what would this produce?

This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families. It could mean the difference between groceries or the food bank, rent or eviction, scraping by or finally getting ahead.

For businesses across the country, it would mean customers with more money in their pockets. And a whole lot of folks out there would probably need less help from government. In fact, working folks shouldn't have to wait year after year for the minimum wage to go up, while CEO pay has never been higher.

"This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families." Oh, really? This is a particularly pernicious bit of demagoguery. While it might raise the amount of dollars in a person's paycheck, those dollars become worth less and less. Inflation is whenever you pay more for the same goods and/or services. When the price of gas goes from $2.89 to $3.89, you pay more dollars to fill your gas tank, as if your dollars had suddenly become worth that much less. The same applies to labor. If McDonald's has to pay their employees more, that cost gets passed along to their customers. I notice that McDonald's now advertises their $4.00 Value Menu, which not that long ago was their $3.00 Value Menu.

Not only will those minimum wage workers receive a raise, but others, notably some unions, have their wages tied to the minimum wage: if the minimum wage goes up, union wages go up. Others, who may not be working under a contract are more likely to approach their bosses when minimum wage goes up, arguing that they are worth "X" more than minimum wage, therefore they should receive a wage increase, too.

And when wages go up, pretty much across the board, the cost of those goods and services produced by those people will go up (or in some cases, the size reduced), meaning that for the minimum wage worker, wages will go up, followed immediately by an increase in the cost of living. Or unemployment or underemployment.

One of the unintended consequences of Obamamcare, was that the regulations for mandatory insurance kicked in at 30 hours a week. This resulted in many, many companies reducing the hours of part time employees to less than 30 hours a week. So, a person working 39 hours a week with no insurance can now have his hours reduced to 29 hours a week, still no insurance, and the cost of that insurance has gone up as well. Thank you, Mr. Obama!

"For businesses across the country, it would mean customers with more money in their pockets." But not more disposable income, since everything you need or want to buy costs more money than it did the day before.

Would you like a few dirty little secrets to go on top of that? Aside from being a payoff to the Democrats' friends in the unions
whose wages (and union dues, with a direct pipeline to Democrat campaign contributions) go up, the employer's "contribution" to Social Security, that art of their compensation the employee never sees, will go up as well. As inflation forces wages up in more and more industries, some people could experience "bracket creep", where higher wages, but not necessarily more buying power, puts them into a higher tax bracket.

Obama throws in a gratuitous piece of class envy at the end, because however much the CEO is paid, doesn't reflect what the value of goods and services you would be, and thus, the value of your compensation.

Inflation is also a hidden tax on any savings you've been able to put away. If you have a $100 in a checking or savings account, and the cost of buying everything you need to live goes up 5%, that's like a hidden 5% tax on that cash. If you are a government with trillions of dollars of debt, the idea of paying those loans off with cheaper dollars that are not worth as much, is very appealing.

"working folks shouldn't have to wait year after year for the minimum wage to go up"

Most working folk don't. Some may wait for an annual review of their job performance, but they do not rely on government to slap a Band-aid on the problem and tell you that their cosmetic fix will cure your financial problems. Perhaps if Barack Obama would reduce the restrictions and taxes on businesses that keep them from prospering, they could afford to hire more people and pay higher wages to those already working for them. Perhaps if Barack Obama, his EPA and environmentalist wackos were not at war with energy producers, such as oil and coal, the dollars you are earning now would go farther, as the inflationary costs of high energy drive up the prices of nearly everything you buy?

The simple stroke of a pen, and energy producers hire 20,000 people, at well paying jobs, with the promise of more, once the Keystone pipeline is completed. The stroke of a pen and energy producers create more jobs drilling off our coast, mining within our borders creates new wealth, and the taxes generated by them goes to reduce our debt and pay for some of the programs Obama wants to fund and create.

Don't hold your breath waiting for him to tell you that.






*This may have actually fallen to Benjamin Netanyahu, in recent years, whose statesmanship and standing for freedom and the ideals of free and democratic people would seem to eclipse the pedestrian and self serving remarks and positions of our Narcissist-in-Chief.

Cross posted at LCR.

Welcome to all you visiting from Teri O'Brien, where she graciously made this her Post of the Day!

The Bamboozler-in-Chief's SOTU Tonight

Given Mr. Obama's penchant for recycling old speeches and old campaign promises, look for at least one reference to spending money on education, or at least on his fellow travelers in the teacher's union, as an "investment in the future". When he gets to this point, remind yourself that money spent is not always an "investment". Every time someone want to sell some big ticket item to my dear sainted mother, they would couch the expense in terms of "an investment". I remember one time, she told me she thought she was going to "invest" in new drapes. Now, I don't know about you, but of all the drapes, curtains and window coverings I have ever purchased, not one has ever produced a dividend over and above covering the windows I purchased them for.

The US Department of Education is one of the ugliest set of drapes you have ever seen. With a price tag of over 100 Billion dollars a year, hung upon the curtain rod of ever declining and failing test scores, if this were something you had to stare at every day, you would get rid of them in a heartbeat. Possibly burn them.

When Obama stands up once again, to tell you he wants to spend money we do not have, for full employment of his friends at the teachers' union, who obediently kick back a portion of those "investments" as contributions to the Democrat Party, because it is an "investment" in our country's future and necessary to turn the economy around, remember that every dime we spend on education, will take an entire generation to find itself into the workplace. Consider the billions upon billions spent since 1980 on the Department of Education: Did the generation that was supposed to benefit from that "investment" find themselves trained and prepared for the jobs of the late 20th and early 21st. centuries?

Beware! When Obama and his fellow Democrats speak of "investing" in the future, they think along the lines of balancing your risk from Enron with this up and coming new company called "Solyndra".

Caveat emptor.


Cross posted at LCR.

Nancy Pelosi: "It is Almost a False Argument to Say We Have a Spending Problem"

Is Nancy Pelosi the dimmest bulb to ever serve in Congress? The most dishonest?? Or both??? In less than fifteen minutes on Fox News Sunday, former Speaker of the House Pelosi said almost more stupid and dishonest things than Joe Biden has hair plugs. But, to preface Ms. Pelosi's lies, prevarications and outright whoppers, we have the dishonest statement from the White House that (federal) budget cuts will result in the "damaging layoffs" of teachers, law enforcement officers and food inspectors.

Really? How many teachers in your public schools are employees of the federal government as opposed to being funded by the cities and communities that their schools are in? And why, you might ask yourself, out of the hundred of thousands of government bureaucracies, departments, employees and expenditures, why it is that every time the public demands a little more financial responsibility from their city, state and federal politicians, that the first thing that happens in return, is a threat to cut police, schools and safety, such as fire, or in this case, food inspection? Let's see a show of hands of all you who think that unnecessary expenditures and waste have been eliminated at every level of government and the only places left to cut are those which affect you most personally? Anyone?? Anyone at all???

The US Department of Education, for example, "currently administers a budget of $68.1 billion in discretionary appropriations" alone. This is in addition to the mandatory budget, which in 2006 was $56 Billion. And to think that for hundreds of years, we educated our kids without sending a single dime to Washington to educate them or expecting Washington to send back a single for it either.

Since Jimmy Carter created the cabinet level Department of Education in 1980, have the nation's test scores improved or continued to slide? Thirty three years of ineffective bureaucratic spending, regulations and pork, with nothing to show for it, except more government intrusion, hundreds of billions of dollars later, and the federal government cannot find any place to cut the budget except food inspectors and the military?

And still, the gems of wisdom have not even begun to fall from Ms. Pelosi's lips! Put on your hip waders, folks, and let us begin!

The first thing I want to point out is the same phony claim that Obama made during the last campaign, that he and the Democrats had "cut $1.6 Trillion" from the budget. Ms. Pelosi repeats the talking point/lie:

"We've had plenty of spending cuts. $1.6 Trillion..."

There is one question that I have been dying to hear anyone in the MSM, or now Fox News, ask of Mr. Obama or Ms. Pelosi:

"You say you've cut the federal budget by $1.6 Trillion dollars. So, in real terms, how many fewer dollars will the federal government spend next year than it did this year?"

If these cuts were more substantive than Monopoly money, then cutting the budget by X amount of dollars should result in spending X amount less than the year before. Right? But all of Obama's budgets and projected budgets increase spending year after year after year. To paraphrase Ms. Pelosi, what she said is not the "gospel truth"*. And speaking of phony, Obama ran all through 2012 claiming we needed a "balanced" approach to the economy, with both spending cuts and tax increases. As soon as he was re-elected, he forgot all about "balance" and pushed for higher taxes, without even any lip service to specific cuts that could or should be made. Need I remind you that in 2008, candidate Obama promised to go through the budget "line by line"** to eliminate waste and unnecessary spending. San Fran Nan used the word "balance" over and over again (it must focus group nicely!), but shied away from actual spending cuts like Dracula from holy water.

Most of us who have or ever had a credit card or loan, know that the only way to decrease the amount of interest we pay is to reduce the balance. We certainly do not decrease interest by increasing spending. But, Ms. Pelosi doesn't think (you could just go with the bold part of this sentence) that we have a "spending problem". Her exact words:

"It is almost a false argument to say we have a spending problem"

This is despite Chris Wallace pointing out, that you could confiscate all the wealth of all the wealthy and still not cover our current rate of spending, which would at least imply, to most sane people, that when your spending exceeds your wildest expectations for income, that you have a "spending problem". Ms. Pelosi, despite all your phony budget "cuts", spending continues to increase, making this next statement you made (also without bursting into flames) that much more of a lie:

"We're sick and tired of paying interest on the national debt."

If you were truly sick of it, San Fran Nan, wouldn't you make genuine budget cuts that actually reduce the amount of federal spending, rather than increase it, so that we might some day have the money to pay off the principle, or at least not have to continue to borrow money every day to cover our current spending?

You pretend that all of the problems were inherited from Bush, despite the fact that the really profligate spending started when you became Speaker of the House, which grew exponentially during Obama's first term. You cite pretend jobs that were created by the stimulus spending, when the truth is the US has steadily lost more jobs than were "created" under Obama. And your only solution is to throw even more money at the same failed policies of the past and insanely hope for a different outcome this time? Or do you merely line the pockets of yourself, your family and your cronies, knowing that none of your "solutions" will work, but at least "you've got yours"?

Oh, and one more thing, Nanny Nancy: You claim that monies spent for education are "investments made for the future". We started making "investments" by the billions in 1980 for the Department of Education. We've been making billions of dollars of "investment" in the future for thirty three years. At what point in your personal portfolio do you stop wasting money on investments with no return? Any of them for 33 years? Why don't you accord middle class taxpayers the same courtesy?







*To be honest, I did not catch this the first time I heard the interview. When I did catch it the second time, I was quite frankly surprised that she did not immediately burst into flame.

**"Line by line": Code words for "Somewhere between the first tee and the eighteenth hole"

Cross posted at LCR. The video from the Fox interview posted at LCR, but not here.

Barack Constanza's (Unexpected) Incredible Shrinking Economy

Remember just before the election, when conservatives were telling you not to believe the rosy scenario being painted by the administration on things like unemployment figures? Unemployment dropped below 8% when the economic anchor that is (liberal) California failed to produce their unemployment figures in a timely manner, which just happened to bring the national average down...as if there had been some actual improvement?

And how many times have the economist flacks for this administration told you in the last four years, that each subsequent piece of bad economic news was "unexpected"? The absence of leadership from the top, combined with the absence of pro-growth policies, and reckless, out of control spending, have put this nation on a very predictable course for economic disaster. There should be nothing "unexpected" about it, at least for those who are paying attention.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy shrank unexpectedly late last year, a reminder of the biggest threat it faces in 2013: sharp government spending cuts and prolonged political budget fights.

A plunge in defense spending helped push the economy into negative territory for the first time since mid-2009. The contraction in the October-December quarter came in at an annual rate of 0.1 percent, according to a government estimate released Wednesday.

Note first, the use of the ubiquitous "unexpectedly" in the lead. Ever get the impression that Forrest Gump is the editor in chief of most major news organizations?

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

Sorry, Forrest, but, yeah, we do! The ones that look like nuts covered in chocolate are generally chocolate covered nuts! To be completely surprised at every turn of the economy takes a far simpler mind than Forrest Gump's. Or someone in the tank for liberal politicians.

Note secondly the role attributed to government spending in propping up the economy. In bad economic times, average people tend to cut back their spending to essentials, and try to squirrel a little away in case times get worse. Governments, on the other hand, feel an entitlement to spend whatever they please, knowing that they can always print more money or extort more from their subjects.

So when government spending is finally curtailed, (in this case, by cuts in the military, which perhaps should be the last on the cutting room floor, not the first), those segments of the economy dependent on government cut back on their inventories, salaries and expansion plans, which further shrinks the economy.

Now before you draw the wrong conclusion about government spending as a stimulant to the economy*, remember than in order for government to spend a dollar in the economy, it must first take that dollar from someplace else in the economy. Worse yet is the inefficiencies of government, both from the amount of overhead siphoned off that dollar to maintain the bureaucracy, but often spending those dollars in inefficient or counter productive ways. Can you say "Solyndra"? When a company or individual who is creating wealth spends money, it is often reinvested in ways which grow their enterprises, increase their wealth, and increase the coffers of both private and public sectors, in addition to creating new, self-sustaining jogs.

In short, to channel my inner Jeff Foxworthy,

If you are an economist and are constantly surprised by just how bad the economic news is...you might be a liberal!

*Remember Nancy Pelosi's claim that for every dollar spent on food stamps, $1.79 is put back into the economy? It must follow then, that every dollar in taxes that government takes out of your pocket depresses economic activity by $1.79, right? Again, made worse by the fact that government overhead for the food stamp program could mean that government has to tax us $1.80 to provide that one dollar for food stamps that yielded the $1.79.