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.

Fear and Loathing Re Tomorrow's BLS Estimate After Disappointing ADP report Today (119K VS. Expected 177K jobs created)

 

Fear and Loathing Re Tomorrow's BLS Estimate After Disappointing ADP report Today (119K VS. Expected 177K jobs created). Above chart shows that ADP and BLS are correlated 92% of the time, but lately the correlation has kind of sucked.

ADP:

    Employment in the U.S. nonfarm private business sector increased by 119,000 from March to April on a seasonally adjusted basis. The estimated gain from February to March was revised down modestly, from the initial estimate of 209,000 to a revised estimate of 201,000. Employment in the private, service-providing sector increased 123,000 in April, after rising 158,000 in March. Employment in the private, goods-producing sector declined 4,000 jobs in April. Manufacturing employment dropped 5,000 jobs, the first loss since September of last year.

Reaction to ADP Report by Reuters:

    Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast the ADP National Employment Report would show a gain of 177,000 jobs. The report is jointly developed with Macroeconomic Advisers LLC. ”This is an upsetting report,” said David Carter, chief investment officer at Lenox Advisors in New York. ”The strength of the U.S. economic rebound is clearly still uncertain. Hopefully we don’t get a third consecutive summer of weaker growth.”