Housing Still In Depression, Home Prices Still Declining, While Obama Is Busy Executing People

Housing Still In Depression, Home Prices Still Declining, While Obama Is Busy Executing People

The above chart shows the annual change in the S&P/Case-Shiller Composite-10 home price index since 2000. According ot the index, home prices declined in March, and the Composite 10 index reached its lowest level since 2003.

The latest (5/29/12) release of the S&P/Case-Shiller home (CSI) price indices for March reported that both the Composite-10 price index (based on 10 selected typical cities in US) and the Composite-20 price index (based on 20 selected typical cities in US) both declined since February . This has resulted in the lowest level seen to on the Composite-10 since early 2003 and the largest peak decline seen since the nearly six year old housing bust began in 2006.

The 10-city composite index declined 2.85% as compared to March 2011 while the 20-city composite declined 2.57% over the same period. Both of the broad composite indices show significant peak declines slumping -35.21% for the 10-city national index and -35.07% for the 20-city national index on a peak comparison basis.

    – According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, 11.8% of homeowners with mortgages (i.e., more than 6 million homeowners) were either delinquent on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of the first quarter.

    – According to CoreLogic, about 22% of residential properties with mortgages are currently underwater. Add to this the currently high unemployment and underemployment rates, and tight credit conditions, one gets a recipe for further price declines.

    The Case-Shiller indices are expected to trend down a bit further, but that a bottom is in sight.

A Day In The Life Of A Leftist OWS Occupier

The Executioner-In-Chief Presidency: It's A War Crime, Dude

The Executioner-In-Chief Presidency: It's A War Crime, Dude

Mr. Obama has placed himself “at the helm of a top-secret ‘nominations’ process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, for which the capture part has become largely theoretical.” He “signs off on every [drone] strike in Yemen and Somalia and also on the more complex and risky strikes in Pakistan — about a third of the total.”

...Mr. Obama wants to authorize every drone strike...but even the president requires oversight (remember checks and balances?) which he won’t allow. The administration refuses to accept judicial review (from a FISA-style court, say) prior to a strike directed at an American citizen, and won’t deign to release the legal documents written to justify the targeted killing program. The Times and the ACLU have both sued to force disclosure of these documents. No luck yet.

...it turns out that even this hey-it’s-better-than-carpet-bombing justification is rather flimsy. The Times article says “Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.”

The logic, such as it is, is that people who hang around places where Qaeda operatives hang around must be up to no good. That’s the sort of approach that led to the false imprisonment of thousands of Iraqis, including the ones tortured at Abu Ghraib. Mr. Obama used to denounce that kind of thinking

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/president-obamas-kill-list/

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_20715069/chabad-house-construction-sherman-oaks-is-jeopardy

Once again, as has happened throughout our history, the biggest antisemites, such as Paul Koretz and the other self hating Jews supporting him in his demented effort, are...wait for it...yes, you guessed it - our fellow Jews. These particular idiots, along with the chief obese Koretzs, are the very ones leading the fight against construction of this synagogue. Why? Shul envy? To make Ethel Street Judenrein? Well, I am proud to say I saw through the phoney Koretz when he ran for City Council, and of course did not vote for him then. Call me vindictive, but I make it a policy not to vote for antisemites.

"Michelle, did I ever tell you abut the time I killed..."

Bill Clinton And The Blue Dress...Again

Digital Image Processing Experts: Obama Birth Certificat Is A Photo-Shop Fraudulent Document

Digital Image Processing Experts: Obama Birth Certificat Is A Photo-Shop Fraudulent Document

An image of Obama's alleged 1961 Certificate of Live Birth, released on the internet on April 26, 2011, has been shown to be a fraudulent, photo-shopped, multi-layered synthetic document that could not possibly have come from an original paper Birth certificate, based forensic expert examination of the image. Microfilm records of all births in Hawaii exist, but the Democrat Governor refuses to release it. Why, pray tell? Note the anomalies above in the registrar signature portion of the WH released Birth Certificate. These are only 2 of many anomalies found by forensic experts (including one of the creators of the Adobe Photo Shop Software) in detection of digital image processing frauds.

Picking Apart the Lies of Obama's Spending History: Actually Spent @ Drunken Sailor Gone Wild Levels

Picking Apart the Lies of Obama's Spending History: Actually Spent @ Drunken Sailor Gone Wild Levels

Obama fares well in imaginary futures; not so much in actual reality. So he says: "We've got to move forward to the future we imagined in 2008." Imaginary future from the past are so much better than the reality.

And then there's the imaginary history of past spending, being recounting lately by Mr. Obama, as if his first-term spending and debt boom never happened. To do such a thing does takes a lot of imagination, yes, imagination reminiscent of the imaginary Big Lies of Joseph Goebbels. So Obama actually says, with a straight face, mind you, that: "...federal spending since I took office has risen at the slowest pace of any President in almost 60 years." WHAT??

As you pick yourself up from the floor from the ROFL reaction to this whopper, it may nevertheless be worth examining the Big Lie and breaking it down into its constituent Little Lie pieces, for the sake of knowing the truth. So below are the creative manipulation details of the spending accountability on which are based the phoney claims of the spending manipulation troika. This troika consists of:

   Mr. Rex Nutting (a previously unknows writer for Market Watch),
   Mr. Jay Carney (a previously unknown reporter for Time magazine), and
   Mr. Barack Obama (a previously unknown community organizer in Chicago).
Here are the troika's spending manipulation details:

Creative Manipulation of Spending Accountability Correction #1:
In his first year in office in 2009, Mr. Obama is only credited with spending $140 Billion of stimulus spending. The remaining $865 Billion (which actually ballooned up to $940 Billion in full) of the 2009 Stimulus package signed by Obama, is erroneously credited by the troika to George W. Bush by an accoounting sleight of hand.

Creative Manipulation of Spending Accountability Correction #2:

Obama's spending growth rate in in 2010, 2011, and 2011 is measures against an inflated 2009 baseline that includes the spending Mr. Obama caused but which he attributes to Mr. Bush. This is like an alcoholic claiming that his rate of drinking has slowed because he had only 22 beers today and 25 beers yesterday.

Creative Manipulation of Spending Accountability Correction #3:

In actuality Mr. Obama's spending has increased by close to 5% a year. An apples to apples comparison by CBO says that the total federal spending was $2.98 trillion in 2008 and has risen every year to reach $3.72 trillion in Mr. Obama's fiscal  2013 budget.

Creative Manipulation of Spending Accountability Correction #4:

As as a share of GDP, Obama has spent:

         25.2% (2009)
         24.1% (2010)
         24.1% (2011)
         24.3% (2012 Estimated)

Note 1: Prior to Obama, between 1994-2008. federal spending as a share of GDP ranged between 18%-21%.

Note 2: To those who say this elevated spending is due to the lousy economy, it is worth noting that the recession officially ended nearly three years ago, in mid-2009 !

Creative Manipulation of Spending Accountability Correction #5:

The total national debt has increased $5 Trillion dollars in the last 4 years, on Mr. Obama's watch. Debt held by the public now stands at 74.2% of the economy, up from 40.5% at the end of 2008.

Summary

To say, as Mr. Obama does, that "...federal spending ...has risen at the slowest pace of any President in almost 60 years" is to do a full Monte Joseph Goebbels Big Lie performance.

Moreover, this Lie is a laughably transparent Big Lie, made in the face of available data on the increase in public debt, which increased from 40.5% (2008) to the current 74.2%, and an increase in the national debt from $10 Trillion (2008) to the current nearly $16 Trillion after Obama's ongoing spending spree. 

Catholic Church In Train Wreck With Obamacare As 60 Million American Catholics Look On.

Catholic Church In Train Wreck With Obamacare As 60 Million American Catholics Look On.

On Monday, May 21, 2012, forty three Catholic dioceses and organizations across the country--including the archdioceses of New York and Washington, D.C. and the University of Notre Dame and Catholic University of America—filed 12 different lawsuits against the Obama administration arguing that because the sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate would force Catholics to act against the teachings of their faith it violates the First Amendment right to freedom of religion.

The Catholic teachings on sterilization, contraception and abortion that Obama’s mandate would force Catholics to violate are based in part on the premise that man has no right to veto God’s decision to bring a new life into the world.

“It is to be anticipated that perhaps not everyone will easily accept this particular teaching,” Pope Paul VI said in the 1968 Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae. “There is too much clamorous outcry against the voice of the Church, and this is intensified by modern means of communication. But it comes as no surprise to the Church that she, no less than her divine Founder, is destined to be a ‘sign of contradiction.’ She does not, because of this, evade the duty imposed on her of proclaiming humbly but firmly the entire moral law, both natural and evangelical.

“Since the Church did not make either of these laws, she cannot be their arbiter—only their guardian and interpreter,” said the pope. “It could never be right for her to declare lawful what is in fact unlawful, since that, by its very nature, is always opposed to the true good of man. In preserving intact the whole moral law of marriage, the Church is convinced that she is contributing to the creation of a truly human civilization.”

Obama Slow Talks Joseph Goebbels Big Lie To Deny His Egregious Spending Record

 

Obama Slow Talks Joseph Goebbels Big Lie To Deny His  Egregious Spending Record

It is hard not to conclude that Obama has been studying the Joseph Goebbels playbook, per the following 3
quotes from the Nazi propaganda chief:

1) “Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”

2) “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

3) “The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”

These tactics, however, will only work if the state has complete control over all media, which so far is not yet the case  in America. Hence Obama's employement of the Big Lie tactic on his spending was doomed from the outset, because it was bound to be almost instantaneously exposed as fraudulent, biased, and a preposterous lie, albeit a big lie. So why would Obama proceed on such a bankrupt, doomed to failure, course? The answer is - desparation. He knows that on the present course he will lose to Romney, and lose big, and so he is throwing everything he can, cow-pies, vampires, contraceptives, Bain capital, women, Cherokee indians, and lies, lies, lies, into the mix. Hoping against hope that it will work out.

So let us examine the spending record of Obama as compared to previous administration. It is lead-pipe cinch obvious that Obama's spending exceeds all previous Presidents, as shown in the above chart. The chart is simply the annual federal spending, adjusted for inflation, based on info from the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Obama's claim of being a low spender was based on the now-infamous and discredited MarketWatch analysis.

What the chart shows is this: Obama took advantage of a big surge in spending in 2009 and made it a permanent spending floor rather than a ceiling. Notice, in 2017—eight years after the official end of the Great Recession—spending continues to be elevated.

 Until Barack Obama took office in 2009, the United States had never spent more than 23.5% of GDP, with the exception of

the World War II years of 1942-1946. Here’s the Obama spending record:

    – 25.2% of GDP in 2009

    – 24.1% of GDP in 2010

    – 24.1% of GDP in 2011

    – 24.3% (estimates by the White House ) in 2012

    What’s more, if Obama wins another term, spending—according to his own budget—would never drop below 22.3% of GDP. If that forecast is right, spending during Obama’s eight years in office would average 23.6% of GDP. That’s higher than any single previous non-war year.

Yo Betta Hope Yo Ass Not Detained, Suckah

Yo Betta Hope Yo Ass Not Detained, Suckah

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-judge-katherine-forrest-modern-american-hero

Judge Katherine Forrest last week struck down the indefinite detention provision (§1021) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Everything about this case is shameful; it should be obvious to anyone who can read the Constitution that indefinite detention without trial (just like assassination without trial — something else that Obama and his goons have no problem practicing and defending) is hideously and cruelly unconstitutional. It defecates upon both the words and the spirit of the document.

    "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

It is shameful that this law was proposed, it is shameful that any legislator would vote for it, and it is shameful that the President would sign it into law, albeit with a flimsy signing-statement claiming that he would not use the indefinite detention provision against American citizens.

More shameful still is the fact that when this challenge was brought that the Obama administration tried to dismiss it on a technicality — they tried to make the case that because none of the plaintiffs were to be indefinitely detained that they could not challenge the law. Judge Forrest’s investigation of this claim was revealing.

Naomi Wolf notes:

    "Forrest asked repeatedly, in a variety of different ways, for the government attorneys to give her some assurance that the wording of section 1021 could not be used to arrest and detain people like the plaintiffs. Finally she asked for assurance that it could not be used to sweep up a hypothetical peaceful best-selling nonfiction writer who had written a hypothetical book criticizing US foreign policy, along lines that the Taliban might agree with. Again and again the two lawyers said directly that they could not, or would not, give her those assurances. In other words, this back-and-forth confirmed what people such as Glenn Greenwald, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the ACLU and others have been shouting about since January: the section was knowingly written in order to give the president these powers; and his lawyers were sent into that courtroom precisely to defeat the effort to challenge them. Forrest concluded: ”At the hearing on this motion, the government was unwilling or unable to state that these plaintiffs would not be subject to indefinite detention under [section] 1021. Plaintiffs are therefore at risk of detention, of losing their liberty, potentially for many years.“"

Very simply, it is now obvious that the NDAA was written not to deal with terrorists or potential terrorists. After all, if the government has evidence that an individual or group is planning to commit a terrorist attack then they do not need an indefinite detention provision; all they need is to arrest such individuals and prove beyond reasonable doubt before a jury of their peers that a crime has been committed. That is how justice works — if the evidence exists you can bring a successful prosecution. After all if they do not have the evidence to prove that a group or individual was planning to commit an act of terrorism then they have no business arresting them or charging them with any offense. Suspects — lest we forget — are innocent until proven guilty.

These new powers have nothing to with combatting terrorism. If the government has no evidence that can stand up in a court of law it has no business detaining anyone. No, this new power grab has an entirely different target — like the plaintiffs in this case: writers, investigative journalists, bloggers, philosophers, dissidents, human rights activists, libertarians, free-thinkers, tax protestors, critics of fractional-reserve banking, whistleblowers — people like Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Jennifer Bolen, and Birgitta Jonsdottir. People like Congressman Justin Amash and Congressman Adam Smith who tried to amend indefinite detention out of the bill. People like me — and to some degree, if you are reading this, people like you.

The fact that the Obama administration could not give assurances about those who simply criticise U.S. foreign policy indicates very strongly that this power grab is about shutting-up and frightening critics of the U.S. government and the Obama administration.

But — for now —  §1021 of the NDAA, that implement of fascism, has been struck down and thrown out as “facially unconstitutional” as well as having a “chilling impact on First Amendment rights”.

We should thankful for this brave judge’s actions, and for the plaintiffs actions in standing up to tyranny, and vigilant against future incursions.

On the other hand, every politician involved in writing, legislating and authorising this hideous unconstitutional law should be reminded of the words of the Declaration of Independence — it is the right of the people to alter or abolish any government that becomes destructive to liberty.

Revolution In China is Nearer Than We Think

Revolution In China is Nearer Than We Think

The extreme fragility of the Chinese regime is being demonstrated in front of the eyes of the world as we speak. Since early February the Chinese Central government, headed by Hu Jintao, has been in the throes of managing a burgeoning crisis which threatened its very existence. In the months since then, things have settled down considerably.

But back in early February of 2012 fear of a military coup was running rampant in the upper strata of Hu Jintao's government in Beijing. Bo Xilai, then Communist Party chief of Chongqing city, had just visited a military complex in Kunming, some 400 miles from his political base. It was home to the 14th Group Army, a direct descendant of guerrilla forces his father led in the 1930s.

A waxwork model of Bo's father, Bo Yibo, is on display at the base. State media noted that Mr. Bo was there to "cherish the memory of revolutionary ancestors." But China's top political leaders saw it as something more alarming, according to Communist Party and military officials. They feared he was orchestrating a military coup. And they had good reasons.

Mr. Bo was in severe political trouble. On Feb. 2 he had fired his police chief in Chongqing, Wang Lijun. On Feb. 6, Mr. Wang had fled to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. Mr. Bo had breached his authority by dispatching his police far outside their jurisdiction in a failed effort to retrieve him. Mr. Wang wound up in Beijing, making allegations against the Bo family to state security officials, including that Mr. Bo's wife was involved in the murder of a British businessman.

By visiting the military base in Yunnan province, Mr. Bo appeared to be flaunting his revolutionary ancestry and courting political support from the People's Liberation Army at a time when his career was in crisis, according to Communist Party and military officials. "Bo's trip to Yunnan caught people at the highest level off guard," said one high-ranking military officer. They saw visions of mass arrests, imprisonment, and execution of the current ruling power elite. Panic time.

Responding to the perceived threat from Mr. Bo, the Chinese authorities acted swiftly. They began by summarily and quickly dismissing Bo from his party posts. They placed him under investigation for unspecified "serious disciplinary violations." He disappeared from public view. The government then arrested his wife as a suspect in the murder of Neil Heywood, a British businessman who was close to the Bo family.

High ranking allies of Mr. Bo also were dismissed from their duties. Certain curbs were placed on internet discussion of Mr. Bo's case.

Because of the turmoil, Hu Jintao, who is expected to step down as China's party chief this fall and president in March, is more likely to continue for another year or two as head of the Central Military Commission, which controls the armed forces, analysts said.

At the present time it appears that calm has been restored, and the central governement again is in full control. But the events of the past few months underscore more than ever the relative fragility of the Chinese regime. Much has been written and speculated upon, for example, regarding the inherent contradicitons in the Chinese economic system as opposed to its political system. On the one hand their economy is probably the most free market economy in the world, with the possible exception of Hong Kong and Singaporte. But sitting astride this economic powerhouse is the same oppressive dictatorial regime that brought us the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. We well recall that this regime did not hesitate to unleash deadly force on its own population in order to maintain power.

Similar to what is happening in Syria today.

The United States is in hock to the tune of over a trillion dollars to China, which is a veritable powder keg just waiting to explode. The trigger could be an internal power struggle, as was the case with Mr. Bo, and which was the most serious such case in over 20 years in China. Or the trigger could be increasing commodity prices, and specifically food prices, which would trigger popular demonstrations and possible serious unrest.

The average Chinese spends over 47% of his income on food. He is highly intolerant of any significant price inflation on food. It would mean hunger for him and his family. And hunger in the population is never conducive to stable government.

So perhaps the impending turmoil in China will provide an opportunity for the US and other countries to become scofflaws regarding the repayment of debt to China. Perhaps the CIA is busy as we speak fomenting instability there. As in all things, the question becomes: Will instability in China help or hurt Obama's re-election chances.

My Idea of a Funny New Yorker Cartoon

My Idea of a Funny New Yorker Cartoon

Is the Economy Improving? You Can Believe Obama or You Can Believe Your Lying Eyes (see Data & Charts below)

Is the Economy Improving? You Can Believe Obama or You Can Believe Your Lying Eyes (see Data & Charts below)

The top chart above shows the LPR (Labor Participation Rate), or the percentage of Americans working, out of the total number of Americans who are able and willing to work. Note that contrary to Obama's and Biden's bloviating lying claims, we are today only getting back to the LPR of 12 years ago, and have not improved over the year 2000. This continues to be the worst economic recovery in US history. Obama's policies: socialistic redistributionism, has made things worse.

The second chart shows the normalized real wages of workers who are full time wage earners or salaried workers. (Note: Incorporated self employed people are not included). Note that rather than getting better (as Obama and Biden are claiming) real wages are actually trending downward, and not getting better at all.

The third chart from the top shows that the labor force has shrunken and has stayed shrunken sinc e the Great Recession, and that there are no signs of improvement. Obama and Biden prevaricating again.

Even Europe is doing better than the US. German first-quarter GDP came in at 2.1%, compared to what many economists now think the U.S first-quarter GDP will be, i. e., below 2%.

The slow talking the news Preezy of the United Steezy Obama, and Vice Preezy "Bite Me" Biden have been touring the nation bloviating about how things are getting soooo much better, and that things are going about as well as can be expected after a financial crisis. Then again, a recent CBS-New York Times poll found that 67% of Americans think the economy is “bad” and gave Mitt Romney a 46-43 lead over the president.

So far voters don’t seem to be really buying Bite Me — or Preezy Obama’s — comeback story. They may not have seen the above  charts, but they sure are feeling them, unfortunately, in their everyday lives.

Revising and extending Martin Niemoller's famous homily to 2012 America...

Revising and extending Martin Niemoller's famous homily to 2012 America...

First they came for America's Health Care System, with the Obamacare government takeover,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't sick.

Then they came to legalize Gay Marriage,
and I didn't speak out because I thought it was harmless, and could never lead to legalizing polygamy and condoning bestiality.

Then they forced people of faith to violate their faith's tenets by providing free morning-after abortions and contraception,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't that religious.

Then they came for my house, my income, and my money,
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Private Sector Jobs Growth Is Up But Housing Is Worse Than Ever - Let Me Count The Ways

Private Sector Jobs Growth Is Up But Housing Is Worse Than Ever - Let Me Count The Ways

April 2012 marked 26 straight months of U.S. private-sector job growth. Obama (see above photo) was orgiasmic. And according to the NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research), an independent group of economists,the Great Recession started in December of 2007 and ended in June of 2009, the longesr (18 months) and deepest downturn in the US econmoy of the post WW II era.

But the Great Recession didn't end for a large number of Americans who continue to suffer economic hardship. Thirteen plus million Americans are still out of work. Millions of Americans are underwater on their mortgages. And when it comes to housing, the recession is not over by a long shot. How do we count the ways in which housing still is in the toilet? Below is a partial list of indicators:

1. Over 1 in 10 homes in America are standing vacant.

2. Housing prices have declined by the largest amount in more than 25 years.

3. There were a record 2.87 Million foreclosure filings in 2010.
     -> There are 4 Million properties delinquent on their mortgages and on the road to foreclosure.
          ->> 8 Million Americans have not paid their mortgage in 1 month or more.
          ->> 5 Million Americans have not paid their mortgage in 2 months or more.
          ->> 1.2 Million properties are in a stage of foreclosure.
          ->> 9.5 Million houses are currently at risk of being declared in default on their mortgages.
          ->> 364,000 of Miami, FL Homeowners are in foreclosure (since 2008).
     -> The 2011 robo-signing scandal put foreclosures on hold until February 2012.
          ->> It takes on average 674 days to process a foreclosure (three times longer than in 2007)
          ->> Foreclosure starts were up 28% in January 2012.
     -> Characteristics of the Average Foreclosure Victim
      ->> Middle Class, Suburban or Rural
          ->> Carrying a 30 year Fixed Rate Mortgage at a standard interest rate.
          ->> Unemployed
          ->> Insufficient income to carry the mortgage
    
4. 23% of US homeowners are:                   UNDERWATER on their mortgages.
     -> 47%  of Miami, FL homeowners are: UNDERWATER on their mortgages.
     -> Sacramento, California, the state capital, is one of 10 cities with the highest number of foreclosures.

5. Home prices in America fell by 33% fall in 2011 (larger fall than the 31% during the Gread Depression).
     -> Home prices were down 54% in Detroit, Michigan.
         ->> This was the worst price decline in the nation in last 3 years.
     -> Home prices were down 50% in West Palm Beach, Florida since 2006.

7. The number of home sales declined by 80% (between 2005 and 2011).

8. 775 abandoned homes were razed to the ground in Flint, Michigan (btween 2010 and 2011).

9. Banks own more than 900,000 residential properties in the US.
     -> But only 240,000 of the 900,000 owned by the banks have been listed for sale.
          ->> This means that there is a hidden backlog of over 600,000 unsold homes currently unreported as
                 being part of the unsold housing inventory
          ->> This means that the housing inventory is actually larger by over 600,000 than has been reported.

10. What does the near term housing future look like?
     -> Housing prices are predicted to hit rock-bottom in 2013.
     -> Housing prices are bredicted to stay at the bottom 2013 through 2016.

Jerry Brown's Brilliant Solution to California's Disastrous Deficit

Jerry Brown's Brilliant Solution to California's Disastrous  Deficit

    California Governor Jerry Brown was counting on a financial recovery to reduce California's humongous deficit. California is the world’s ninth-largest economy and was projected to have a deficit of $9.2 billion deficit. Instead, the news just got worse, and the the gap has now widened to $16 billion.

    Today, Jerry Brown, age 74 and showing every millisecond of it, will unveil his revised budget and explain what additional spending must be cut. Tax collections have run $3.5 billion below what he calculated only four months ago. Spending has grown $2 billion above projections. He blames the federal government and court rulings for blocking some savings, and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature for refused to cooperate and making the deficit worse.

    California has lost more than a million jobs in the Great Recession, costing the most populous U.S. state 24 percent of its revenue. Governor Moonbeam's solution for the new deficit estimate should surprise no one:  increase income taxes  to the highest in the nation, and boost sales levies that are now more than any other state.

    Brown's dead on arrival plan would "temporarily" raise the statewide sales tax, already the highest in the U.S., to 7.5 percent from 7.25 percent. It would also boost rates on income starting at $250,000. Those making $1 million or more, now taxed at 10.3 percent, would pay 13.3 percent, the most of any state.

What this shows is that not only is California bankrupt, but its Governor and legislature is bankrupt of ideas, and bankrupt of brains, and not only that, are criminally obstinately perverse and shockingly ignorant in refusing to learn from what has worked in the past. Jerry and his merry band of morons act like they never heard of Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, or Friedrich Hayak.

What is most mysterious about this perverse group of lemmings determined to embrace a disaster for California is: why in the world are they doing what even they must know not only will not work, and will make things worse. Stupidity? Unions? Inability to Break Knee Jerk habits? Denial of Reality? Alzheimers? It is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, surrounded by a paradox.

So taxes are rising and revenues are falling. What to do? Eureka, the obvious solution is even more taxes? Huh? Who’s running the show in Sacramento, the IMF? So the state with highest sales tax in America wants to have the highest income tax in America? As it is, California ranks 48th in the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index. The California Dream has truly become the Golden State Nightmare.

Governor What Me Worry has joined President What Me Worry, along with Vice President Bite Me. Hey, let's talk about Gay Marriage. No? Treyon Martin. No? Contraception? No? Romney is a bully? No? Romney is a  vampire. Let's talk about ANYTHING but the Economy. And isn't George Clooney a hunk? And how about that fund raiser? Cool.

Who Gets Hurt The Most by Inflation?

Who Gets Hurt The Most by Inflation?

As inflation rises, people make adjustments. So OK, I won't go see that idiotic movie. And OK, I won't go out to eat. (Anyway, I prefer my wife's cooking... Really...Wait...No, I really mean it.)

In truth we can forgo many things when prices rise too high. Except for food. Yes, there may be a little bit of wiggle room, but not much, in eating macaroni instead of steak. Or eating fatty hamburger instead of filet mignon. But the truth is, people like to eat what they like to eat, and eventually, after a few cheapo meals, they will go back to the foods they love. Why is this important?

Because it means that even as inflation goes up, the one thing people will nevertheless keep on buying is food. At whatever the price becomes. And so when we think about who gets hurt the most by inflation, the answer is: those who spend the most on food, i. e., those who spend the largest fraction of their income on food. And who is that? The Chinese. The Indian Indians.

Just take a peek at the above chart, entitled "Food Componenet As A Percentage of Overall CPI". If you are Chinese or Indian or Polish, you spend 47.3%, or 31.4%, or 24.6% of your income, respectively, on...yes...just...FOOD. WOW. The average American, on the other hand, only spends 7.3% on food.

So for example if food prices double (as has happened once or twice in history) a Chinese person suddenly has zero disposable income at all, aside from food. While an  American probably hardly even notices the doubling in price, being busy with his iPad, his iPhone, and eating iDog. Parenthetically, dogmeat historically has been a good hedge against food inflation, especially near the White House.

So you can be sure if there is a significant increase in inflation, then IN CHINA, there are sure to be riots in the streets, pitchforks, axes, the whole nine yards. Because the Chinese people, as all peoples (except N. Koreans), tend to insist on not starving. If there is significant inflation in China, then the leadership knows that they must act and act quickly, or they will be dragged unceremoniously from their opulent villas, dragged by  their pantalones and drowned in the rice paddies. And that is why the Chinese leadership clique pays exceedingly careful attention to inflateion, and always acts quickly to contain it, and to foster economic growth.

By contrast, in the US, inflation is really not feared very much. Deflation is feared more. So Ben Bernanke has QE1 and QE2 and soon QE3, all of which boost global inflation. He nevertheless smiles and smiles while remaining a villain. There will be no riots in the streets, or even occupyings, when inflation hits the US. Why? Because Americans are the most inflation tolerant economy in the world.

This is the secret weapon the US has over China. There is no fear that the Chinese will call in the debt of US Treasuries which they hold, to the tune of more than a trillion dollars. They know that the US can, whenever it wants, goose up inflation, and ruin them. So it is a Mexican standoff bethwee the US and China, and we can blithely continue to run up the debt for some time to come. US Treasuries will never go hungry for buyers.





The dire warnings we hear about the coming catastrophe of debt are all true. But they are far off. We still have years and years in which to wallow in more and more debt, secured by our 7.3% share of income which we are spending on food. This protects us.


And what is the impact of this on the Obama - Romney race? Its all in the near term optics. How scary things look ahead of the election. That is the challenge for Republicans. Talk up the horror show and catastrophe of the debt, all of which is true, but none of which is about to happen anytime soon.

Obama Administration has failed Blacks and Non-Hispanic Whites On Job Growth

Obama Administration has failed Blacks and Non-Hispanic Whites On Job Growth

Blacks constitute 13% of the US population of 313 million, or about 40 million men, women, and children, as of December 2011. Hispanics are 16% of thepopulation, or about 50 million. The percentage of blacks who voted for Obama in 2008 was about 96%, and Hispanics went for Obama percentage wise in the high 60's. So a reasonable question might be, "Well, Bubba, just how did Blacks and Hispanics fare in the last 3 1/2 years under an Obama Presidency?

This is not a rhetorical question, and we have to thank Ms. Julia Ro of NPR, and Roderick Harrison, of Howard University for doing theresearch to provide the answers to the above very relevant and interesting question. Are Blacks and Hispanics better off today than they were 3 1/2 years ago? Well, were they?

Hold on now, let's answer the question cautiously. To begin with, Blacks are 30 percent more likely than nonblacks to work in the public sector, according to the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education. MOreover roughly 21 percent of black workers are public employees, compared with 16.3 percent of nonblacks. Starting to sound good, right?

But government jobs, long considered the most secure form of employment in America, have rapidly disappeared since the start of the last recession in December 2007 — particularly at the state and local levels, where officials have cut budgets to cope with declining tax revenues and the rising costs of unemployment benefits, employee pensions and Medicare.

After the civil rights gains of the 1960s, blacks moved steadily into local, state and federal government jobs, particularly in civil servant and teaching positions. Since the collapse of U.S. manufacturing sector, started in the '80's, it is the public sector which has been the biggest employer for African-Americans.And not only have Blacks moved in disproportionally greater numbers than nonblacks into the  public jobs themselves, but also the their relativelycompetitive pay scales have lifted generations of blacks into the middle class. Berkeley’s labor center found that among industries that pay blacks the highest wages, the biggest proportion of those blacks work in the public sector.

It turns out, however, that those great public sector jobs were not so sustainable in bad economic times, where there are both rising budget deficits and a lack of productivity in a more competitive, more technological economy. Examples are the declines in workers for the U.S. Postal Service, when confronted with the competitive forces of the privat sector, email, FedEx and UPS.

But talk is cheap, lets look at the above chart, showing the growth in public sector jobs for Blacks, Hispanics, and Non-Hispanic Whites, for the period December 2007 to the present. The answer is:

1) Hispanics have done best,going from job growth of -4.2% in December 2007, to the current +10.5%, an increase of +15% !!

2) Blacks have done worse than Hispanics, going from job growth of -4.2% in December 2007, to the current -5.5%, a decrease of about 1.3%.

3) Non-Hispanic Whites have done worst of all, going from job growth of +4.2% in December 2007, to the current -3.0%, an decrease of 7.3%.

Based on these figures it would seem reasonable to expect a decline in Obama's support among Blacks and Non-Hispanic Whites, and an increase in the support of Obama by Hispanics. Recent polling data contradicts this however, and re-affirms the 2008 trends as being operative in the 2012 election. Obama sure hopes that is the case.

Obama Snarls LA Traffic (Again). Clooney Bash Nets $15M from Hollywood, While Millions of Working Class Angelino Commuters Sit in Traffic

Obama Snarls LA Traffic (Again). Clooney Bash Nets $15M from Hollywood, While Millions of Working Class Angelino Commuters Sit in Traffic

This is about the 12th time Obama and his egomaniacal narcissistic campaign has snarled LA traffic during rush hour, and that's only in the last year.

It is estimated that if you add up all the man & woman hours that have been lost because of Obama's fund raiser traffic snarlers in LA, and alsoinclude the agita and heart attacks in traffic, that you will come up with a pretty penny in dollars, and several lives that have been needlessly cut short.

For example, if we assume an average hourly rate for an LA commuter stuck in traffic is $25/hour (probably an underestimate in LA) then you come upwith about $1.5 billion (1 million people x $25/hr x 5 hours x 12 times) = $1.5 Billion.

Let's also try to address the cost in human life. Somewhere between 1 and 5 people may have died of heart attacks or stroke or missed dialysis appointments while sitting in traffic, in their cars, with the A/C off. They could have called for help, but were afraid to call for help on their cellphone because they didn't have a hands-free lcellphone, and the fine for that in LA is $500 (after a 1st offense fine of $150).

Or possibly these poor souls may have died after they finally limped home, hours late, exhausted and upset. They went into the house, got themselves a very cold beer and succumbed of a heart attack when the icy bear hit their stomach, right there on the living room floor.

Or perhaps they exhautedly dragged themselves in the apartment, pissed off as hell at Obama's shenanigans. So they kicked the dog, and yelled and screamed at their spouse or live in partner, possibly same sex. But the spouse or same sex partner was shocked, not used to being accustomed to being screamed and yelled at. So the latter also got upset and then stabbed, shot, or throttled the poor arriving tired commuter to death.

This type of event was rare, mind you, and occcurred only a few times in a million, yeserday. But a life is a terrible thing to waste for a fund raiser, no matter how you look at it. And how many dollars are these pitiful deaths worth? Incalculable, of course. But anyhow, we need to forget all sad tales. Who really cares, after all. - certainly not Obama. He is busy singing with Barbara. These deaths are invisible, buried in the LAPD files not as being caused by the Obama-Clooney fund raiser, which is the truth, but in some other convenient LAPD category., like "Accidental Death". Whatever.

But the phoney platitudes aside, the truth is, if the fund raiser will help get the desperately-falling-behind Obama get re-elected then they have served their purpose. Right?

So how much did Obamae collect in campaign contributions in all his LA fund raising trips, given the cost? Well, he got $15 million last night. Let's assume that Obama raised campaign funds of about (on average) half that, or $7.5 million the other 11 times he came to LA to romance the Hollywood stars and starlets. What is the Hollywood fund raising total to date? Surprisingly, only about $100 Million. Astoundingly, Obama only collected about 2% of the total cost of the inconvenience that he caused, not counting the lives lost due to illnesses such as heart attacks. But tragically for the country, Steve Jobs is dead, so who is left to admonish Obama about
always making excuses for not being able to do anything? Answer: Nobody.Very sad. Another reason to vote for Romney, no?

So the result is that Obama inconvenienced and cost the people of LA about $1.5 Billion's worth of their time and agita, along with several heart attacks. I would actually estimate a factor of 3 increased cost for the agita, upset, and heart attacks. So that makes it $4.5 Billion in cost to the PEOPLE of LA, compared to collecting $100 Million from the Hollywood Glitterati, Streisand, Spielberg, Neil Diamond, Clooney himself, and so on.

You'd think these less than 1/10th per-centers could have saved  a lot of time and trouble and simply written the Obama campaign a goddamncheck. These craven lowlife narcissists can easily afford it, don't you know. Clooney gets about $30 Million per film, Spielberg, Streisand collect about $20 Million a year doing absolutely
nothing, just royalties, plus their projects, figure $50 Million per year. Ridiculous. They each easily kick in for 1-2-3 million. Hell, Bill Maher kicked in for $1M, right? So Obama could have easily collected the same $15 million he collected last night, without inconveniencing a lot of working people in LA, including, parenthetically, a lot of Hispanics, Blacks, Women, Gays, and people who use contraceptives. Brilliant politician Obama, right? NOT.

If you look at the Obama campaign the way the crows did, I mean the crows in the great Hitchcock movie, "The Birds". Hitchcock's brilliant directorial camera shot has the crows  looking down coolly and dispassionately at the inferno below, the
burning gas station. Very similar, photographically, to looking down on the crashing and burning Obama campaign. The truth is, whether people wish to admit it or not, that Obama is way overrated as a politician. The kool-aid drinkers and fainters don't see that, but it happens to be true. So here in LA he is blithely uncaring about pissing off a million people, 12 times, over and over. Why, so he can sing a duet with the haggy Barbara Stresand? Are you kidding me. This is a dunce of a politician. A self indulgent, immature, egomaniacal narcissistic loser. Incompetent on the economy. Incompetent on the campaign. Just incompetent.

The Obama brain trust is running the dumbest campaign since Millard Fillmore. Their latest missive? Attacking Romney on a false charge that he bullied a classmate 50 years ago? And the story is a fabrication, slavishly printed in the supine Washington Post?  Wow. Needless to say, the story blew up into little pieces within a few  hours. The ineptitude just reeks.

At least Millard Fillmore got a music venue named after him.

When the votes are counted on Nov. 6, 2012, it will be a landslide for Romney, the likes of which we last saw in 1980 and 1984, when Reagan trounced Carter and Mondale, respectively, but not with a lot of respect.

The Obama campaign derives its energy and life from the overarching ego gratification Obama apparently feeds on. Hopefully he will enjoys it to the max. Right up to January, 2013, when the moving van backs up to the WH to move Barack, Michelle, Sasha, Melea, Bo, and Michelle's Mom, back to their Chicago home, to join Axelrod and Rambo. At that point Obama will become the youngest ex-President of the United States in history. Well deserved.

The Suppressed "Killing Osama bin Laden Day" SNL Opening of May 5, 2012

The following is an address from the President of the United States.

Good evening, my fellow Americans.

It was exactly one year ago last Tuesday, May 1, 2011, that US Navy Seal Team 6, acting on my orders, put
an end to the career of Osama bin Laden.

I hope you had a safe and joyous first anniversary of his killing, and that you were able to spend it with
those you love.

This is a special time of year, when we gather together with family and friends, to commemorate the shooting of  this terrorist, and the gutsy decision that made it possible. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be at home this
year, as I had to fly to Afghanistan, to remind President Karzai that, exactly one year ago, we killed Osama
bin Laden, and that the decision to do so was a gutsy one. And was mine.

To Michelle, Sasha, and Malia, I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you this time.

You know there’s no place I’drather be on Killing Osamabin Laden Day than with you. But I’ll be home for the next Killing Osama bin Laden Day. If only, as the song goes, in my dreams.

Now tonight, I want to talk to you about the economy. But first, a little more about the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Why is it that Mitt Romney refuses to join the rest of his fellow Americans in commemorating the first year anniversary? Does he think that killing Osama bin Laden wasn’t the right thing to do, or that it wasn’t "gutsy"? Why all this sympathyfor a terrorist? Could it be they shared some special bond, since Mitt and Osama were both members of the One Percent? He's weird.

Now I’ll get to the economy in a minute, but while I’m on the subject, there seems to be some confusion among the general public about when exactly we celebrate Killing Osama bin Laden Day.

Many of you apparently think it’s the first Sunday in May, whatever date that falls on. Wrong. He may have been killed on the first Sunday of May, but Killing Osama bin Laden  Day is always celebrated May 1st, the date of the actual killing, whatever day of the week that falls on.

Are we clear? Also, in response to numerous queries, here are the appropriategifts for each anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, according to the White House Office of Etiquette.

For the first anniversary: Paper. And the gemstone is opal.
For the fifth anniversary: Wood. Thegemstone is amethyst.
For the tenth anniversary: Tin. Really. Tin.
Many people think it’s silver, but it’s not. It’s tin. Remember that. You don’t want to be embarrassed.

But you can also add your own ideas. For example, I’ve already promised Michelle and the girls, for the Tenth Anniversary, I’m taking them to Orlando.

One more thing: I want to remind us all that, when sending a Killing of Osama bin Laden  anniversary card, or offering best wishes on Killing Osama bin Laden Day to a friend who happens to be Muslim,we should be considerate of Islamic cultural tradition.

To many Muslims, phrases like Osama bin Laden "went dirt-napping,” or “assumed room temperature,” or “sleeps with the fishes,” can be offensive. Especially the last one, since, as we all know, he was buried at sea. And of course, let’s all remember that heavy drinking, and Killing Osama bin Laden Day, are never a good combination. So please celebrate Killing Osama bin Laden Day responsibly. After all, it’s the“gutsy” decision.

Well, I’m afraid that’s all I have time for tonight. The economy, by the way, is looking fantastic. Thank you for listening, and Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night.

TOP X REASONS WHY YOU ARE STRUCTURALLY UNEMPLOYED:

Long-Term Unemployment is the most pernicious and the cruelest unemployment number of all. Why?  because it if you are among those who have not worked in  52 weeks (see above graph), then you  are permanently or structurally UNEMPLOYED. You are no longer a contributor to the nation's economy, and that makes you feel useless and depressed. Nor is it likely that you will ever again be a contributor to the nation, in your lifetime. That's depressing, too. As they say in Hollywood, you will never work in this town again. Or for that matter, in any any town, USA. Why? See the list of reasons below.

TOP X REASONS WHY YOU ARE STRUCTURALLY UNEMPLOYED:

1) Whatever skills you may have had when you lost your job a year ago, have now atrophied, gone unused for a year, like a muscle you haven't used in a year. You have to start afresh learning new skills. This makes you depressed.

2) When you start afresh learning new skills, you have to compete against people who are advantaged over you. "They" (below) refers to these people with whom you are now competing for  a job.
     a) They have worked more recently than you.
     b) They are younger than you.
     c) They can live on a lower wage than you, and they are willing to accept a lower wage than you, though
         you're getting kinda desperate, really.
     d) They have more marketable skills than you.

     --> Reasons a) through d) make you feel bad, and make you DEPRESSED. Which leads to another
           advantage "they" have over you: namely, THEY don't suffer from clinical depression, like you!

     e) So WHY are you depressed? You gotta be kidding. Here's why:
           i) Because you have been unemployed for a year !
          ii) Because you have been either on unemployment or on SSDI for a year
                1) Unemployment is making you depressed: Why?

                       a) You have been accepting the shameful unemployment benefit and feel very guilty about it.
                           It is making you depressed.
                       b) You will be running OUT of unemployment benefit in another 47 weeks or less.
                       c) You worry your unemployment benefit is expiring and this is making you even more
                           depressed.
                       d) You are becoming exhausted applying for idiotic jobs you will never get, which the State
                            Unemployment office (e. g. California EDD) requires you to do in order to keep receiving
                            the unemployment insurance benefit. This is making you tired AND depressed.
                       e) In order to keep receiving the unemployment payment you have to fill out the moronic
                           EDD Unemployment claim form every week, which apparently is especially designed to
                           make yo feel like a retarded monkey, and yes, this does make you more depressed.
                      f) When you have a problem with your unemployment benefit, there is NO WAY to talk to
                          anyone about it. Why? Catch-22, see below:
                                1) Because the phone number they give you to call is NEVER answered by a person,                                      ("because of the large volume of calls")
                                2) When you visit a "Comprehensive" State local employment office, they tell you you
                                    should have saved yourself the trip, and that you must call the phone number above,
                                    which, btw, NO HUMAN BEING EVER ANSWERS.
                                3) When you ask if there is an office you can go to, to discuss your problem, you are
                                     told there IS NO OFFICE TO GO TO. YOU MUST CALL THE NUMBER
                                     WHICH NOBODY EVER ANSWERS. GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING.
                               4) One guy actually asks you to explain what Catch-22 means (yes, you have been
                                   screaming "Catch-22 for several minutes). It turns out that the phrase "Catch-22"
                                  was not on the curriculum of the High School attended by the employment office
                                  clerk. Turns out he attended High School in a   foreign country - Turkey.

 (Back to WHY are you depressed? )
              2) SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) is making you depressed
                    a) You have managed to get approved for SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) by
                        cheating, lying, bribing or otherwise convincing doctors, nurses, lawyers, and others to 
                       support your claim. This has made you very upset and yes, has also made you depressed .
                    b) You feel terribly guilty for cheating in order to get the SSDI. It is making your depression
                        worse.

 (Back to "Why You Will Never Work Again)

3) The economy has moved on and left you in the dust in terms of marketable skills. Your skills are no longer marketable or useful in the economy. That's why you're still unemployed. You need to be re-trained. Either that or win the lottery. Or inherit from a rich relative, which you don't have.

4) But everybody knows that the moronic Federal and State training programs are nothing but patronage and graft for state and federal workers (of which you wish you were one). Re-training programs are a joke and to date have never yet ever helped anybody get a good job.  It is a government scam, lets face it.

SO: Where does this all leave things?

1) Where does it leave Obama? Well, Obama is busy with other issues: Contraception.  Missile sites in Poland. Gay Marriage. Celebrating Bin Laden's death again. (Yes, Bin Laden is still dead, just like Generalissimo Franciso Franco, and, btw, Abraham Lincoln.) Obama is also busy signing a treaty to keep the US in Afghanistan until 2024. He is busy eating dogmeat. Singing Al Green Songs. Going on Jimmy Fallen's show and doing Slow Walking the news or something (?), Having lunch with Warren Buffett, Having lunch with Jeff Immelt. Going to Hollywood and collecting $38,000 per plate for dinner. Accepting a $1M campaign contribution from the disgusting misogynist Bill Maher.And much much more. In other words, Obama is busy. Breaking records for fund-raising in general, and fund-raising on the taxpayer's dime in particular.

2) Where does this leave YOU? It leaves you wondering if you if there is such a thing as kosher dog food. I believe the answer is YES, whoopee. Cat food is definitely out. And it leaves you wondering what the suicide rate in Greece is today, and where it will be next week. Same for France, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, and last but not least, America. On second thought, forget Italy, those guys always know how to live life to the fullest, no matter what. Highest birth rate in Europe!!

The Out-Of-Wedlock Birthrate: "Julia decides to have a child"

The Out-Of-Wedlock Birthrate: "Julia decides to have a child"

Daniel P. Moynihan famously highlighted the decline of the American family — particular of black Americans’ families.  As of 1963, the out-of-wedlock birthrate had risen to  24 percent among black Americans (from 17 percent in 1940), compared to 3 percent among white Americans (from 2 percent in 1940).  Moynihan noted that this “breakdown” in the family structure “led to a startling increase in welfare dependency.”

Present day: the NYTimes reports that the out-of-wedlock birthrate now is 73 percent (for black Americans) and 29 percent (for white Americans).  Overall, 41 percent of American children are now born out of wedlock — including 53 percent of American children born to women under the age of 30. 

Fifty ways for "Julia (to) have a child" (via Parthenogenisis: sans a man, sans sperm, and With apologies to Paul Simon)

1. Plant lice can reproduce asexually, as well as a fish-carp species that was found in African lake where there were no males. In otherspecies of fish there is sex, but the sperm are physically prevented from entering the egg. The sperm, simply by their proximity and presence near the egg, stimulate cell division to begin and stimulte foetal growth simply by their presence nearby.

2. Note that the above process has also been observed in humans, where in certain highly romantic situations a man can get a woman pregnant by simply looking at her passionately and/or sitting next to her. It is thought that in that situation the man has what is called pre-ejaculatory sperm accumulating at the tip of his penis. This small pool of sperm somehow is transported, via air currents, or possibly finger contact, so that it manages to finds a path to the woman's vagina. This is a relatively rare process, which overcomes enormous obstacles of clothing and distance and more. For that reason this is thoght to be the original meaning of the phrase "Love Conquers All".

3. A woman can get pregnant without sperm, though this can only result in the birth of a girl (women do not posess the y chromosome needed to produce a baby boy).

4. Eggs can be fertilize without sperm by using somatic cells in the body. The cell has two sets of chromosomes, so need to separate the cell so it contains only one set of chromosomes to properly fertilze the egg.

5. Parthenogenisis is very rare in mammals - the rate of female humans born this way iS about 2 per million.

6. In Parthenogenisis the baby has the exact same, if not all, genetic material from the mother, and is like a clone.

7. For certain female species of the animal kingdom a small electrical charge is all that is needed to fertilize the egg.

8. Parthenogenisis has been performed in mice where two eggs were artifically fused to create a viable female fetus.

9. Animal kingdome examples of Parthenogenisis or asexual reproduction: Aphids & Whiptails (a type of lizard; genus: Aspidoscelis).

10. In a related form of asexual reproduction, called gynogenesis, the egg is stimulated to develop by the presence of sperm. However, none of the sperm's DNA is contributed to the offspring (for example, some salamanders in the genus Ambystoma).

11. A third type of asexual reproduction, called hybridogenesis is considered "hemiclonal"—1/2 the parents’ genome is passed to the offspring, i.e. the females mate w/ males & both contribute genetic material to their offspring, but when those offspring produce eggs, their father’s genetic material is discarded & the eggs have only their mother’s genes.

12. Flowers are NOT the only organisms that reproduce asexually. So can Fungi (NOT a plant), protozoans, bacteria, yeast, viruses, sponges (animals), some cnidarians, flatworms, etc.

(Reference: Firefly Encyclopedia of Reptiles & Amphibians, by Tim Halliday)

Unemployed Americans Who Can't Find Work Are Going On Disability To Survive, Further Milking the Entitlement State

The civilian labor force shrank again in April, this time by about 1/2 million workers, remaining below where it stood nearly 3 years ago (Bureau of Labor Statistics). What happened to those people? How are they going to survive, how are they going to eat and have shelter in this terrible economy.

Well, Bippy, not to worry your pretty little head.  Most of these folks are actually ahead of you. They have figured out a solution to the problem. What is their solution? Easy. Just go on Social Security Disability (SSI), which provides a pretty fair income IF YOU CAN GET IT!!. So in April,  guess how many people did that? The answer is: 225,000 workers applied for Social Security disability benefits, and nearly 90,000 were enrolled, according to new data from the Social Security Administration.

So it ain't necessarily easy, buster! 225,000 applied, and 90,000 were accepted, though note that the 90,000 were from previous months' SSI applications. But on average, one out of every 2.5 application is approved to get the Social Security Disability Benefit. so far this year, nearly 1 million workers have applied to get on the disability program, according to the Social Security Administration. More than a third will eventually be enrolled.

The total number of new disability enrollees in the first four months of 2012 is now above 333,000. Add in spouses and dependents, and the number of beneficiaries added to the program so far this year climbs to 539,000. That's about the number of people that dropped out of the labor workforce! Coincidence? No such thing, friend buster. As Investors Business Daily (IBD) reported recently, more than 5 million workers and their families have enrolled in the disability program since President Obama took office. Andb we are down about 5 million jobs since then, too. Grassy knoll coincidence. Zounds.

The Obama administration's economic advisers warned in a report last fall that the mass exodus of workers who can't find a job onto the disability rolls poses a long-term risk to the economy. Once enrolled, they almost never return to the active workforce. This can, the report said, result "in a loss to society of the economic contribution those workers could have made."

We are indeed turning into Europe, and the only question of interest that remains is: Are we beyond the point of no return? Are we doomed to spiral into chaos, just like the Roman empire, or will QE and Monetary Policy, and the ECB, and Germany and Angela Merkel and China, and Brazil, and the Emerging Markets save the world? Hold your breath, Bippy.

Note that the Roman Empire finally succumbed because it could not sustain the debt it incurred, even though they worked hard to avoid disaster, and tried a Roman version of Quantitative Easing (QE). By another name, what they did was the same as what everybody does, which was to print money like crazy and devalue the currency. This continued apace to the point where Christianity finally stepped in and picked up the pieces and foreclosed on the Roman Emprire, seizing all the assets for a song. The Romans were wiped out, and had no choice but to turn into Christians, which then started fresh from scratch. Literally scratch, mind you. Dark ages. Black death. Middle ages. Living the trogolodyte life style large.

So who will foreclose on the US and Europe and China and the rest of the current faltering world order? Who will pick up the pieces and start a new world from scratch? Probably the Islamofascist, aided and abetted and enabled by the Obamafascists, the Sarkozy fascists, the Cameron fascists, and the rest.

 That is the pessimistic view.

On the other hand, it is also possible that the animal spirits, native intelligence, Mark Zuckerberg, the Google twins, the Twitter guys, will survive the crushing onslaught of the SEC, the Fed, the DOJ, the FBI, the CIA, the DoD, and the rest. If so, which is highly doubtful, then possibly creativity, and freedom loving free enterprise may yet seize the day. If so, then we will miraculously grow out of the current disastrous financial sovereign debt crisis. Like the world previously  grew out of the crushing debt of past debt disasters: the Napoleonic Wars, the Civil War, WWI, WWII.

Nice to end on a positive note, what?

More SSDI facts from Bloomberg News:

– The number of workers receiving Social Security Disability Insurance jumped 22 percent to 8.7 million in April from 7.1 million in December 2007, Social Security data show.

– That helps explain as much as one quarter of the decline in the U.S. labor-force participation rate during the period, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley.

– Disability recipients may account for as much as 0.5 percentage point of the more than 2 point drop since the end of 2007, the economists calculate, and that contribution could grow when some extended unemployment benefits expire at the end of this year.

– More than 99 percent of all SSDI beneficiaries remain in the program until retirement age, David Greenlaw, a managing director in New York at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a March research note, citing government data. The program provides an average of $1,111 in monthly income to eligible workers with a physical or mental impairment that will last at least 12 months or result in death, according to Social Security.

– The number of people collecting disability surged as the economy contracted, with the share of the U.S. population between the ages of 25 and 64 on SSDI climbing to a record-high 5.3 percent in March from 4.5 percent in 2007. Applications per 1,000 working-age people rose to 18 last year from 8 in 1990.

– The program spent $132 billion last year, more than twice as much as in 2000. Once the trust fund dries up, the program’s incoming revenue will be enough to cover only about 80 percent of scheduled benefits, the trustees said.

So more people are disabled and can’t work even as a) the overall health of Americans improves, and b) fewer and fewer jobs require a great deal of physical exertion?

    Economists David Autor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and Mark Duggan at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in Philadelphia says SSDI “appears in practice to function like a nonemployability insurance program for a subset of beneficiaries. Also, less-stringent screening procedures, more attractive benefits and a waning need for less-skilled workers have bolstered SSDI rolls, they said. In addition, “difficult-to-verify disorders,” including muscle pain and mental illness, more easily qualify for SSDI under program reforms, Autor wrote in a 2011 paper.

Unemployment Below 8% Achievable If Obama Drives 1 Million More Americans To Drop Out of Labor Force

 Unemployment Below 8% Achievable If Obama Drives 1 Million More Americans To Drop Out of Labor Force

The number of people who are not counted in the BLS labor force soared by 522,000 in April 2012 as compared to March. This number rose from 87,897,000 (March '12) to 88,419,000 (April '12) and is shown in the St. Louis Federal Reserve Chart above.

As a result, the LPF (Labor Force Participation Rate) is now the lowest since 1981,  and is shown in the top chart above entitled: "Labor Participation Rate". The labor participation rate is defined as the percent of Americans working, out of total available labor work force, and is 64.3%,  the lowest point in the last 30 years. 88.4 Million Americans are not working out of a total US adult population of about 190 Million.


The drop in the number of people in the labor force, combined with the adding of 115,000 new jobs, resulted in a 0.1% drop in the  unemployment rate (from 8.2% in March to 8.1% in April). 80%, or 4/5 of the drop in the unemployment rate from the peak is due to people leaving the workforce, according to U of Maryland economist Peter Morici.

Unemployment is calculated by dividing a numerator "U" (total number of people who are unemployed) by a denominator "D" (number of people who are in the labor work force). Hence unemployment drops if the numerator drops,  which happens if new jobs are created. But the numerator also drops, along with the unemployment rate,  if the numerator is artificially made smaller, such as by removing some actual unemployed people from being listed or counted as unemployed, as the BLS currently does.




The current BLS method is based on the number of people eligible for unemployment benefits. The current BLS method does not count all Americans who are unemployed, yielding an artificially low percentage for the unemployment rate. People get dropped from being counted as unemployed when their unemployment benefits run out (after 99 weeks, currently), or when they stop looking for work and thereby become ineligible for unemployment benefits.

A comparison of the BLS unemployement rate with the real unemployment rate is shown in the above chart, entitled "Reported and Implied Unemployment Rate and Difference". The current BLS unemployment rate: 8.1%. The actual real unemployment rate is 11.6%.

The BLS (U. S. Bureau Of Labor Statistics) unemployment rate was 7.8% when Obama became President in January of 2009. It reached a high of 10.1%, and has fallen to the current value of 8.1% at the end of April, 2012.

115K new jobs were created in April '12, as compared to 154,000 jobs created in March '12. 7.8 Million Americans are part time workers.

The unemployment rate has exceeded 8% for 39 consecutive months, longer than the previous record of the Great Depression. Note that during the Great Depression in the 1030's the unemployment rate was calculated based on the total numer of Americans that were unemployed. The peak unemployment rate during the Great Depression was 25%. However, today we have 15 million Americans who are unemployed, which is more people that were unemployed in the worst days of the Great Depression.

The BLS unemployment rate would be 8.4% today if the same number of people were working in April as were working in March. It would be 11% today if the same # people were working today as were working when Obama became President in January of 2009.

The productivity (output divided by number of hours worked) of American workers fell in April by the largest amount in a year.

But never mind...

Let us instead celebrate:

1) The one year anniversary of the death of Bin Laden.
2) The fact that (per Bill Clinton's video ad) that Obama avoided a simply dreadful political liability which would have occurred had any Seal Team 6 personnell had been injured or killed in the mission. (Note that in this case the Seal Team 6 members would also have suffered liability had that occurred).
3) That Obama has a way forward to getting re-elected, namely by encouraging more people to drop out of the labor force, thererby emoving themselves from being counted as unemployed, and so helping the President's re-election chances by lowering the unemployment rate in this, admittedly perverse, manner.