tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77647177933648424802024-03-04T23:37:19.833-05:00My GDPThe economy and youTerry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.comBlogger128125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-85667244102022202112012-08-16T07:55:00.001-04:002012-08-16T07:55:24.419-04:00Bet you weren't thinking about these<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-mMeIyPtFCFfg5LU1BPrsKUuuAqDzGKkyjjQq1mD_RDLiW1V609PZ__vyCv997ypmajLfYH3k8YeGJLmtAMfh3YIrd7xSu-fMzXzlF_cgSFiT9605Pc5qAmee8sv7LS9X5TWhd-CNUMk/s1600/pallet2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-mMeIyPtFCFfg5LU1BPrsKUuuAqDzGKkyjjQq1mD_RDLiW1V609PZ__vyCv997ypmajLfYH3k8YeGJLmtAMfh3YIrd7xSu-fMzXzlF_cgSFiT9605Pc5qAmee8sv7LS9X5TWhd-CNUMk/s200/pallet2.gif" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><i>Used to deliver this post.</i></td></tr>
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Pallets.<br />
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For an invisible object, Tom Vanderbilt <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/business/transport/2012/08/pallets_the_single_most_important_object_in_the_global_economy_.html">writes</a>, they are everywhere.</div>
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There are said to be billions circulating through global supply chain (2 billion in the United States alone). Some 80 percent of all U.S. commerce is carried on pallets. So widespread is their use that they account for, according to one estimate, more than 46 percent of total U.S. hardwood lumber production.</blockquote>
Think Costco. Oh yeah, those things.<br />
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Companies like Ikea have literally designed products around pallets: Its “Bang” mug has had three redesigns, each done not for aesthetics but to ensure that more mugs would fit on a pallet (not to mention in a customer’s cupboard). After the changes, it was possible to fit 2,204 mugs on a pallet, rather than the original 864, which created a 60 percent reduction in shipping costs.</blockquote>
According to an article in a 1931 railway trade magazine, three days were required to unload a boxcar containing 13,000 cases of unpalletized canned goods. When the same amount of goods was loaded into the boxcar on pallets or skids, the identical task took only four hours.<br />
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Which allowed a well-deserved nap.</div>
Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-10797074129654282012-08-03T12:18:00.003-04:002012-08-03T12:18:34.769-04:00Figures lie, and liars figure<br />
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A new unemployment number was released today, and, as usual, Matt Drudge <a href="http://drudgereport.com/">nails</a> it:</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: monospace;"><b>THEY BOTH CAN'T BE RIGHT:</b></span> </div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: monospace;"><b><a href="http://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCABRE8720MP20120803">Reuters: Labor market slowed sharply after strong gains in winter, spelling trouble for Obama...</a></b></span> </div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: monospace;"><b><a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-unemployment-rate-rises-8-130044686.html">AP: Stronger job creation could help Obama's re-election hopes...</a></b></span></div>
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In addition to the political spin, we have the intricacies of statistics to wade through. The new unemployment rate is 8.3 percent. That's up from 8.2 percent last month. That's the number that gets all the notice and noise. So it's up, and that's bad for Obama, unless the media can spin the heck out of it.</div>
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But let's look behind the number. First of all, according to the Labor Department, 163,000 new jobs were created in July. Economists had expected only 100,000 -- so that's good, right? Well, no -- it's going to take a lot more than that to get the unemployment rate down.</div>
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And that number of new jobs is completely artificial. The Labor Department always adjusts the number to reflect seasonal issues, such as teachers not teaching in the summer. So ... <b>in reality, the <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/48480887">actual number</a> of Americans working dropped by 195,000</b>, with the net job gain resulting primarily from seasonal adjustments. They do that so the number doesn't jump around wildly, like some people I know.</div>
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You have to real careful reading the newspaper, if any still exist.</div>
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At the top of page one of The Wall Street Journal today we had:</div>
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<b>Economy Adds 163,000 Jobs</b> </div>
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U.S. payrolls increased by a seasonally adjusted 163,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday, but the unemployment rate ticked up one-tenth of a percent to 8.3%.</div>
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Then later in the morning it was changed to:</div>
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<b>Hiring Climbs but Jobless Rate Ticks Up</b> </div>
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The U.S. economy added more jobs in July than in any month since February, but the unemployment rate ticked up, suggesting the U.S. recovery remains too weak to bring down high unemployment.</div>
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See what I mean? Would you take one of those "seasonally adjusted" jobs? I wonder if you get seasonally adjusted coffee breaks.</div>
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Some groups in the population are suffering even more. Unemployment for blacks fell from 14.4 percent to 14.1 percent, while the rate for Latinos slid from 11 percent to 10.3 percent. The unemployment rate for teenagers edged higher to 23.8 percent.</div>
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And the people I'm always concerned about, because I'm one of them, are those who are underemployed or who have just given up looking. A measure that takes into account those who have stopped looking for jobs as well as those working part-time for economic reasons has hovered well above the headline rate that only counts the unemployed actively looking for jobs. That more encompassing rate edged higher to 15.0 percent.</div>
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It's an important number, because if you just give up looking for work, you actually contribute to making the basic unemployment rate look better. </div>
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Go figure.</div>
</div>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-21272537652360899522012-07-20T09:19:00.001-04:002012-07-20T09:19:16.863-04:00How bad is it?<br />
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<i>Here, hold my beer and watch this!</i></div>
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It's worse out there than you're hearing about in the mainstream media. Except for number 10, all the <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/07/19/Top-Ten-Bad-Economic-Data">bad economic news</a> below came out this week.</div>
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1. Weekly jobless claims <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/19/Jobless-Claims-Jump-Back-Up-to-386000" style="color: #0088bb; text-decoration: none;">shot up to 386,000</a>.</div>
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2. Foreclosures <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/48240142" style="color: #0088bb; text-decoration: none;">are hitting</a> our most vulnerable citizens.</div>
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3. Factory activity <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/48240333" style="color: #0088bb; text-decoration: none;">contracted for a second month</a> in a row.</div>
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4. Home sales dropped <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-home-sales-drop-5-140239145.html" style="color: #0088bb; text-decoration: none;">a whopping 5.4%</a> -- the biggest drop in nine months.</div>
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5. Retail sales dropped for <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/18/Poll-63-Believe-Country-In-Recession-Consumer-Confidence-Dropping" style="color: #0088bb; text-decoration: none;">the third straight month</a>.</div>
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6. Consumer confidence <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/18/Poll-63-Believe-Country-In-Recession-Consumer-Confidence-Dropping" style="color: #0088bb; text-decoration: none;">dipped to 84.7</a>.</div>
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7. U.S. business inventories <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/18/Poll-63-Believe-Country-In-Recession-Consumer-Confidence-Dropping" style="color: #0088bb; text-decoration: none;">increased by .3%...</a>8. …sales <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/18/Poll-63-Believe-Country-In-Recession-Consumer-Confidence-Dropping" style="color: #0088bb; text-decoration: none;">dropped .1%.</a>9. Food prices <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/17/Obama-economy-food-prices-skyrocketed-2011" style="color: #0088bb; text-decoration: none;">are skyrocketing</a>.</div>
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10. More Americans are getting <a href="http://news.investors.com/article/617233/201207061636/disability-climbs-faster-than-jobs-under-obama.htm" style="color: #0088bb; text-decoration: none;">federal disability than jobs</a>.</div>
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This is why the Obama campaign is focused on Bain, a company where Romney used to work.</div>
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</div>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-30138596623701494292012-07-12T07:48:00.002-04:002012-07-12T07:48:35.120-04:00Is the housing bust over?<br />
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The <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303644004577520414196790098.html">numbers</a> would indicate so.</div>
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Nearly seven years after the housing bubble burst, most indexes of house prices are bending up. "We finally saw some rising home prices," S&amp;P's David Blitzer said a few weeks ago as he reported the first monthly increase in the slow-moving S&amp;P/Case-Shiller house-price data after seven months of declines.</div>
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Nearly 10% more existing homes were sold in May than in the same month a year earlier, many purchased by investors who plan to rent them for now and sell them later, an important sign of an inflection point. In something of a surprise, the inventory of existing homes for sale has fallen close to the normal level of six months' worth despite all the foreclosed homes that lenders own. The fraction of homes that are vacant is at its lowest level since 2006.</div>
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The reduced inventory of unsold homes is key, says Mark Fleming, chief economist at CoreLogic, a housing data-analysis firm. For the past couple of years, house prices have risen in the spring and then slumped; the declining supply of houses for sale is reason to believe that won't happen again this year, he says.</div>
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</div>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-7416935928504913742012-06-21T10:42:00.000-04:002012-06-21T10:42:01.236-04:00Here comes the triple whammy<br />
Imagine if your taxes tripled — literally overnight.<br />
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The so-called Bush tax cuts are set to expire at the end of the year, Investor's Daily reports.<br />
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That means that all of the current income tax rates will rise to pre-2001 levels overnight. The lowest rate will jump from 10% to 15% and the highest from 35% to 39.6%. Although Congress extended all of the cuts at the end of last year, some Democrats have pledged to let the tax cuts expire for the "rich" — individuals making $200,000, and $250,000 for families.</blockquote>
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Pre-2001, dividends had been taxed at workers' income tax rate. The Bush tax cuts dropped the rate on dividends and capital gains to 15%. Thus, if the Bush tax cuts expire, the dividend tax for high-income workers will jump to 39.6%.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
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But there's more. The health care law imposes a new 3.8% tax on passive income, including dividends and interest. So the effective dividend tax rate for those at the upper end of the income scale would nearly triple, to 43.4%. Happy New Year!</blockquote>
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And don't forget that dividends have already been taxed as corporate profits — so they're taxed twice.<br />
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<b>Although proponents claim that these tax increases will only affect the wealthy, this looming tax grab will also have a significant impact on middle-class Americans who don't have to pay it directly. </b>And the impact could weaken America's fragile financial markets further and unintentionally erode the value of the savings of millions of Americans.</blockquote>
Companies looking to expand their operations and create jobs, of course, are likely to think twice before doing so in high-tax locales.<br />
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Heightened dividend taxes won't just hamstring overall economic growth. They'll also hit individual investors where it hurts — in their pocketbooks. <b>Dividend income for some investors could drop by 33%. And it won't affect only the high-income workers.</b></blockquote>
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For starters, higher dividend taxes will make stocks that pay dividends less attractive to investors. So those who currently hold dividend-paying stocks — everyone from middle-class folks with 401(k)s to union pension funds to non-profit foundations — would see the value of their investments decline substantially.</blockquote>
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Further, higher dividend taxes will likely cause companies to cut dividends in favor of deploying their cash in other ways, like re-purchasing their own stock. So individuals counting on their share of a company's profits for their income — which they'd normally receive via cash dividend — could find themselves out of luck.</blockquote>
That would be particularly bad news for retirees, many of whom depend on dividends as a staple of their fixed incomes. </div>
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According to the IRS, more than half of dividend payments go to Americans over age 65 — and almost 75% go to those over age 55.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
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"This is the first generation in history to retire depending primarily not on defined benefit plans but rather on contribution plans that are disproportionately comprised of dividend income," notes former New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></blockquote>
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"It will be a bitter pill to swallow for a lot of people whose only pathway to adjusting to their reduced income will be through a commensurate reduction in their standard of living."</blockquote>
Trust those thugs in Washington to do the right thing? Ha.</div>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-9787003720013545422012-06-09T08:38:00.003-04:002012-06-09T08:38:39.505-04:00How ya doin'?A couple of stories in the news this morning:<br />
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First, your <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201205/savoring-summer-vacation/why-your-brain-needs-break">vacation</a>: We Americans are collectively suffering from "vacation deficit disorder."<br />
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And we don't even admit we have a problem. Workers often compete to see who has less of a life than the next guy.</blockquote>
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Americans work more than anyone else. In fact, we work 100 hours more per year than the famously nose-to-grindstone Japanese. And we put in up to three months a year more than Europeans. </blockquote>
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America is the only country that does not mandate paid vacation leave. China gets three weeks. Europe averages six. </blockquote>
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Call it the incredible shrinking vacation. The average vacation in America now numbers a pathetic three to four days—a long weekend. And this year, according to a recent survey, one in seven Americans is taking no vacation at all.</blockquote>
Second, maybe the reason is, duh, <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/06/07/bill_clinton_median_income_now_lower_than_when_i_left_office.html">money</a>, from former President Clinton:<br />
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"Median income, after inflation, is lower than it was the day I left office. So those people who would be affected by that, many, many of them have had no income increases in a decade while their costs have gone up. So you really would have a contractionary economic impact. It would be very bad for the economy if those folks in the bottom 98% had to shoulder a tax increase."</blockquote>
That would be a tax increase advocated by your President, what's his name.<br />
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So where is your money going? How about the <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2012/06/07/uw-board-of-regents-approve-55.html">education/political complex</a>:<br />
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For the sixth year in a row, tuition at the University of Wisconsin’s four-year campuses will go up by the state’s legal maximum of 5.5 percent. Students at the four-year campuses can plan on budgeting an extra $400 for their tuition during the coming year, with no increase in financial aid.</blockquote>
Obamaman really did not mis-speak when he said "the privae sector is doing fine." He meant it in relation to the public sector, which has been losing unionized workers paid more than average non-union workers and who contribute to the Democratic Party. <i><a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/06/obamas-most-clueless-moment-yet.php">He meant it</a>.</i><br />
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The belief that the private sector is rich and the public sector is poor, so that transfers of wealth from private sector to public sector are endlessly justified, is embedded deeply in Obama’s ideology. Most everyone knows that times have changed. Government spending consumes an ever-growing share of America’s wealth, and study after study shows that public sector workers are paid vastly better than private sector workers. In today’s world, opulence is far more a feature of the world of government than of private industry. But this is a fact around which leftists like Barack Obama simply cannot wrap their minds. They cling bitterly to the old stereotypes, because to do otherwise would call into question their entire worldview. To them, the private sector is always “doing fine;” if anything, in their hostile eyes, too well.</blockquote>
Follow the money. <br />Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-31564132135863749922012-05-18T06:55:00.002-04:002012-05-18T06:55:26.255-04:00Succeed, leave<br />
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Buh bye, Simon.</div>
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A <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-regardless-what-propaganda-says-not-how-free-society-treats-people">commentary</a> by Simon Black, international investor, entrepreneur, permanent traveler, on how we treat successful people in the United States:</div>
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I’ve been in the US for a little more than 24-hours. And having flipped through the TV channels trying to figure out what useless drivel big media is passing off as ‘news’, I realized that I’m going to vomit if I hear the word “fair” one more time. </div>
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This concept of ‘fair’ seems to be dominating discussion of the US government’s dismal fiscal condition. The talking heads say that it’s ‘fair’ for wealthy Americans to pay higher taxes and bail the country out… or that everyone needs to pay his/her ‘fair’ share. </div>
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The whole logic is absurd: you do not ‘fix’ the country’s fiscal imbalances by giving the idiots in charge even more resources to squander… it’s like dumping gasoline on a forest fire. Somehow the debate seems to have missed this point. </div>
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This ‘fair’ nonsense is also very dangerous. Just ask any three-year old– ‘fair’ is completely arbitrary. It’s like a Wiki version morality… if enough people agree on it, it’s fair. </div>
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In this case, ‘fair’ is defined in the sole discretion of those who are the direct beneficiaries of confiscating other people’s money. But let’s look at the numbers: </div>
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According to the IRS statistical database, the top 1% of income earners in the United States pays roughly 40% of all US individual income tax. They also get audited at least 5-times more than anyone else. Fair? </div>
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The other major complaint seems to be that the wealthy are ‘abusing’ capital gains rules in order to pay a 15% rate instead of a 35% rate. Duh. That’s why they’re wealthy, and stay wealthy… they don’t WORK for a living, they OWN assets which are subject to capital gains. </div>
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It seems so bizarre that a country once regarded as the freest, most economically enviable in the world would treat its productive citizens with such hostility. </div>
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This is where Eduardo Saverin comes in. The Facebook co-founder, who finds himself a few billion dollars richer this week, recently renounced his US citizenship. And, to the intelligentsia, it’s not ‘fair’. </div>
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‘Saverin needs to pay his fair share! He owes America more,’ they whine, completely ignorant that the 30-year old is already forking over a $500+ million exit tax (which may end up in the billions). </div>
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Apparently it’s not good enough that the company Saverin co-founded has created tens of thousands of jobs, spawned entire industries, and produced oodles of new millionaires. Oh yeah, it’s also made things damn easy for the CIA, NSA, and FBI. You’d think Uncle Sam would pin a medal on his chest. </div>
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But no. Saverin left behind a lot of value and decided to move on to greener pastures in Singapore. Now the do-gooders in Congress are cooking up new legislation (the EX-PATRIOT Act) designed to permanently bar ‘renunciants’ like Saverin from re-entering the United States. </div>
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It’s interesting that, rather than change their ways of doing business and introducing legislation that provides incentives for productive people to come here and stay here, they maintain policies that chase people away, and introduce new ones to lock the door after they’re gone. </div>
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The lesson here (especially for natural-born citizens) is this: simply by accident of birth, you are born with a lifelong obligation that you never signed up for to finance the corrupt misdealings of the political class. And if you choose to abandon this obligation, they will bar you from ever entering your homeland again. </div>
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Regardless of what the propaganda says, this is not how a free society treats people. It might look and feel like a representative democracy on the surface, but under the hood it’s the modern day equivalent of feudal serfdom. </div>
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The land of the free has certainly fallen a long way.</div>
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When I make my billions, I'm going somewhere, too.</div>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-20833026102263762902012-05-08T19:05:00.001-04:002012-05-08T19:05:27.879-04:00The return of manufacturingDavid Ignatius of The Washington Post sees a pretty happy future for our economy. It has to do with energy independence, as I <a href="http://mygdp.blogspot.com/2012/05/things-will-only-get-better.html">posted</a> recently, and also a new future for <a href="http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/may/04/our-plentiful-future/">manufacturing</a><br />
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Energy security would be one building block of a new prosperity. </blockquote>
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The other would be the revival of American manufacturing and other industries. This would be driven in part by the low cost of electricity in the U.S., which West forecasts will be relatively flat through the rest of this decade, and one-half to one-third that of economic competitors such as Spain, France or Germany. </blockquote>
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The coming U.S. manufacturing recovery is the subject of several studies by the Boston Consulting Group. I’ll focus here on the most recent one, “U.S. Manufacturing Nears the Tipping Point,” which appeared in March. </blockquote>
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What’s happening, according to BCG, is a “reshoring” back to America of manufacturing that previously migrated offshore, especially to China. The BCG analysts estimate that by 2015, China’s cost advantage will have shrunk to the point that many manufacturers will prefer to open new plants in the U.S. In the vast manufacturing region surrounding Shanghai, total compensation packages will be about 25 percent of those for comparable workers in low-cost U.S. manufacturing states. But given higher American productivity, effective labor costs will be about 60 percent of those in America – not low enough to compensate U.S. manufacturers for the risks and volatility of operating in China.</blockquote>
In about five years, argue the BCG economists, the cost-risk balance will reach an inflection point in seven key industries where manufacturers had been moving to China: computers and electronics, appliances and electrical equipment, machinery, furniture, fabricated metals, plastics and rubber, and transportation goods. <blockquote>
The industries together amounted to a nearly $2 trillion market in the U.S. in 2010, with China producing about $200 billion of that total. </blockquote>
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As manufacturers in these “tipping point” industries move back to America, BCG estimates, the U.S. economy will add $80 billion to $120 billion in annual output, and 2 million to 3 million new jobs, in direct manufacturing and spinoff employment. To complete this rosy picture, the analysts forecast that in about five years, U.S. exports will increase by at least $65 billion annually. </blockquote>
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Hold on, Dr. Pangloss. Those are just economists’ estimates. What do real manufacturers say? Well, BCG has some new numbers on that, too. In late April, the consulting firm released a survey of executives at 106 U.S.-based companies with annual sales of over $1 billion. Thirty-seven percent of them said they were planning to reshore manufacturing operations or “actively considering” the move. Among larger companies with sales over $10 billion, the positive response rose to 48 percent.</blockquote>
So much for decline and a gloomy future.<br />
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</div>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-88951395527734955372012-05-07T17:20:00.001-04:002012-05-07T17:20:08.264-04:00Things will only get better<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Oh yeah, baby.</i></td></tr>
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With so much talk these days of America’s decline, it may sound strange to ponder the prospects for an American economic boom a decade or so from now. But that’s the thrust of two new studies, David Ignatius of The Washington Post <a href="http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/may/04/our-plentiful-future/">writes</a>.<br /><blockquote>
America is entering a new era of energy security: My expert here is Robin West, a friend who is chairman of PFC Energy, a Washington-based advisory group. He argues in a series of recent reports to clients that because of the rapid expansion of oil and gas production from shale, America is likely to become by 2020 the world’s No. 1 producer of oil, gas and biofuels – eclipsing even the energy superpowers, Russia and Saudi Arabia. </blockquote>
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West explains that the natural-gas boom will mean a dramatic change in energy imports and, thus, the security of U.S. energy supplies. He forecasts that combined imports of oil and natural gas will fall from about 52 percent of total demand in 2010 to 22 percent by 2020. The totals are even more impressive if supplies from Canada are included. </blockquote>
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“This is the energy equivalent of the Berlin Wall coming down,” contends West. “Just as the trauma of the Cold War ended in Berlin, so the trauma of the 1973 oil embargo is ending now.” The geopolitical implications of this change are striking: “We will no longer rely on the Middle East, or compete with such nations as China or India for resources.”</blockquote>
There you go, boys and girls. This is as big is the end of the Cold War threat of nuclear war, for those of us who lived most of our lives under that cloud. Go out and buy yourself an SUV.Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-15901782178120908272012-05-05T18:54:00.002-04:002012-05-05T18:54:52.758-04:00Obamaman is doing okay<br />
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Here's your president's record.</div>
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The unemployment rate is now 8.1 percent. Obamaman trumpeted that yesterday. You'll hear him do that until election day, with some variation of "It's getting better, but we have a lot of work to do."</div>
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The reason the rate dropped is that so many people just gave up looking for work. You have to look for work to be counted as unemployed.</div>
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In fact, the number of people who left the labor force in April amounted to 522,000!</div>
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See if A<a href="http://barnhardt.biz/">nn Barnhardt</a> explains it for you.</div>
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Once again, just making sure everyone understands the sickening farce that is the "unemployment figure." I said last year that the reported "unemployment number" would be UNDER EIGHT PERCENT no matter what in Q4 2012. Sure enough, it appears that I will be proven exactly right. Is this because unemployment is going down? HELLZ NO! Real unemployment is climbing consistently, and is probably north of 20%. </div>
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The entire Obama regime propaganda on unemployment is driven by the fact that they keep REDUCING THE SIZE OF THE WORKFORCE. People can only collect unemployment benefits for 99 weeks. As soon as a person goes beyond 99 weeks, the Obama regime declares that person as NO LONGER IN THE WORKFORCE. </div>
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There are people who have been unemployed for over two years who would work if they could find anything, but the rat bastards in the Obama regime and their propaganda arm, the media, just evaporate these people from existence, and they additionally reduce the size of the labor force arbitrarily, just so they can hit whatever predetermined number Valerie Jarret, David Axelrod, Timmy Geithner and Ben Bernanke decide it is going to be. </div>
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This is what they are doing on every single unemployment report. It is all as fake as a Thai Rolex. Eventually, the Obama regime will go full-Marxist stupid, drop the labor force to 52 million and declare that Great Leader Obama has delivered a FULL EMPLOYMENT ECONOMY. And anyone who dares disagree will be shot in the back of the head with one of those 450 million rounds of .40 cal that the Obama regime just ordered.</div>
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Wish I had one of them Thai rolexes.</div>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-90325212423582315482012-04-24T12:04:00.000-04:002012-04-24T12:04:29.608-04:00A man's home is his nooseA strong case can be made that the fundamental supports of the housing market-- demographics, employment, creditworthiness and income--will not recover for a generation, Charles Hughes Smith <a href="http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapril12/housing-done4-12.html">writes</a>.<br />
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It can even be argued that housing has lost its status as the foundation of middle class wealth, not for a generation, but for the long term.</blockquote>
Blame it on the Baby Boom.<br />
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We can stipulate that the Baby Boom (65 million people) will be downsizing their housing, i.e. selling for the next two decades. We can also stipulate that most of the Baby Boom no longer has the wherewithal to buy second homes; rather, they will be dumping second homes to pay for living expenses as earnings, interest income and housing equity have all cratered since 2007. </blockquote>
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Not only are there not enough younger workers to buy all these millions of homes that will be put on the market, few of those younger workers have either the creditworthiness or income to buy a house unless the Federal government gives them essentially free money and a no-down payment entry. With the Federal deficit skyrocketing, that sort of giveaway won't last long.</blockquote>
You might want to close your eyes here.<br />
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Meantime, people are <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/10/us-usa-communities-survey-idUSBRE8390M720120410">trapped</a> where they are by the lousy housing market.<br />
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Nearly 60 percent of Americans would move from their communities right now if they could, according to a new survey by the YMCA. But with economic and other financial considerations preventing them from doing so, nearly two-thirds said they will become more involved in their community in the coming year in hopes of improving quality of life.</blockquote>
It's not pretty out there.Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-13784730415470104592012-04-24T12:02:00.001-04:002012-04-24T12:02:33.709-04:00New ways of making things<br />
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The factory of the past was based on cranking out zillions of identical products, The Economist <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21553017">reports</a>. But the cost of producing much smaller batches of a wider variety, with each product tailored precisely to each customer’s whims, is falling. </div>
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A number of remarkable technologies are converging to let this happen: clever software, novel materials, more dexterous robots, new processes (notably three-dimensional printing) and a whole range of web-based services. </div>
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The old way of making things involved taking lots of parts and screwing or welding them together. Now a product can be designed on a computer and “printed” on a 3D printer, which creates a solid object by building up successive layers of material. The digital design can be tweaked with a few mouseclicks. The 3D printer can run unattended, and can make many things which are too complex for a traditional factory to handle. In time, these amazing machines may be able to make almost anything, anywhere—from your garage to an African village.</div>
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The applications of 3D printing are especially mind-boggling. Already, hearing aids and high-tech parts of military jets are being printed in customised shapes. The geography of supply chains will change. An engineer working in the middle of a desert who finds he lacks a certain tool no longer has to have it delivered from the nearest city. He can simply download the design and print it. The days when projects ground to a halt for want of a piece of kit, or when customers complained that they could no longer find spare parts for things they had bought, will one day seem quaint.</div>
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Like all revolutions, this one will be disruptive.</div>
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Digital technology has already rocked the media and retailing industries, just as cotton mills crushed hand looms and the Model T put farriers out of work. Many people will look at the factories of the future and shudder. They will not be full of grimy machines manned by men in oily overalls. Many will be squeaky clean—and almost deserted. Some carmakers already produce twice as many vehicles per employee as they did only a decade or so ago. Most jobs will not be on the factory floor but in the offices nearby, which will be full of designers, engineers, IT specialists, logistics experts, marketing staff and other professionals. The manufacturing jobs of the future will require more skills. Many dull, repetitive tasks will become obsolete: you no longer need riveters when a product has no rivets.</div>
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Read the <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21553017">whole thing</a>. Propping up a failed General Motors looks kinda stupid.</div>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-35194012976255118342012-04-23T13:44:00.001-04:002012-04-23T13:44:33.576-04:00Where you gonna live?<br />
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Californians are increasingly pursuing happiness <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304444604577340531861056966.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop">elsewhere</a>.</div>
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Nearly four million more people have left the Golden State in the last two decades than have come from other states. This is a sharp reversal from the 1980s, when 100,000 more Americans were settling in California each year than were leaving. Most of those leaving are between the ages of 5 and 14 or 34 to 45. In other words, young families.</div>
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Taxes are harming the private economy. According to the Tax Foundation, California has the 48th-worst business tax climate. Its income tax is steeply progressive. Millionaires pay a top rate of 10.3%, the third-highest in the country. But middle-class workers—those who earn more than $48,000—pay a top rate of 9.3%, which is higher than what millionaires pay in 47 states. And Democrats want to raise taxes even more.</div>
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We're going to see a lot more of these people migrations, and would be seeing more now except that so many people can't move because of the lousy housing market.</div>
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My own state, <a href="http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/Connecticut-last-in-nation-for-Tax-Freedom-Day-3489286.php">Connecticut</a>, is doing everything it can to encourage me to leave.</div>
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Congratulations, Connecticut residents. You're No. 1. </div>
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Unfortunately, it's a distinction most of us don't want. In this case, it means we have to work longer than the residents of any other state, until May 5, to reach Tax Freedom Day.</div>
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Tax Freedom Day varies from state to state because the tax burden in each state varies. It's the day when the average American has, theoretically, earned enough to cover his or her tax burden for the entire year. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
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According to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan educational organization with business links, Connecticut residents have to work the longest -- 125 days -- to cover all taxes at the federal, state and local levels.</div>
</blockquote>
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The big <a href="http://www.newgeography.com/content/002588-the-sun-belts-migration-comeback">winners</a> in terms of growth were in the South, with Texas, Florida and North Carolina as the leading in-migration states. </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia also ranked in the top 10. Overall, the Southern states reaped 95% of the inter-regional net domestic migration (people moving from one state to another). Arizona, another state widely written off, enjoyed an 11th place finish, with a net gain over 13,000.</div>
</blockquote>
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And the losers:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
As has been the case for most of the past few decades, California has once again been the biggest loser, not of pounds, losing 113,000 people. Following close behind are California and Illinois, all of which are once again losing people in large numbers to other places.</div>
</blockquote>
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People go -- have to go -- where the jobs are, and where they have the best chance of keeping their money out of the politicians' hands.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Follow the jobs. Here's where they're going:</div>
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<a href="http://madashelland.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/CaliLeaving1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312" src="http://madashelland.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/CaliLeaving1.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="400" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-16021989362874076872012-04-13T05:48:00.002-04:002012-04-13T05:48:51.227-04:00Here's your recovery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif061pO4YVIT_ZH16gWHwz8WOSmiUZcTgFB0G8ngy1XrqWspo3kAsurVIIj4g00NWFLrq0jkMQgZEeyLBwUTG0bh4-3AwtcIltdGplz4J285XDlq08mYgVOCRSz1YBLcUdY82mqZzAR_w/s1600/employment+pop+ratio.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif061pO4YVIT_ZH16gWHwz8WOSmiUZcTgFB0G8ngy1XrqWspo3kAsurVIIj4g00NWFLrq0jkMQgZEeyLBwUTG0bh4-3AwtcIltdGplz4J285XDlq08mYgVOCRSz1YBLcUdY82mqZzAR_w/s400/employment+pop+ratio.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
(<a href="http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2012/04/monitoring-so-called-recovery.html">Greg Mankiw</a> via Maggie's Farm)Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-70508011654261135522012-04-03T17:42:00.000-04:002012-04-03T17:42:50.456-04:00The amazing decline in employmentFrom <a href="http://www.transparencyrevolution.com/2012/04/two-scary-graphs/">Transparency Revolution</a>:<br />
<br />The rise and fall of employment in America, 1948-2012. (Source: Bureau of labor Statistics.) The trend line is the civilian employment to population ratio. Our current doldrums appear to be a kind of bouncing around at the bottom after a fairly steady 10-year decline. The drop is precipitous with the onset of our current troubles, but things have looked pretty bleak since the late 90′s, mitigated by a few years of partial recovery. How do we turn this line back the right way?<div>
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<a href="http://www.transparencyrevolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Riseandfallofjobs.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://www.transparencyrevolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Riseandfallofjobs.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Here’s a close-up. The past four years start with one of the longest and steepest drops in the past 50.<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.transparencyrevolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/fallandrise.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://www.transparencyrevolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/fallandrise.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div>
<br /><br />Especially in an election year, it’s easy to make this all about the current occupant of the Oval Office or his predecessor and current compatriots in Congress, depending on your leanings. But maybe that’s too easy.<br /><br />There could be <a href="http://www.transparencyrevolution.com/2012/02/robots-are-stealing-our-jobs/">other reasons</a> to account for <a href="http://www.transparencyrevolution.com/2011/12/keeping-up/">the drop</a>. (More thoughts on that <a href="http://www.transparencyrevolution.com/2011/11/fewer-jobs-from-now-on/">here</a>.)<br /><br />On Facebook, Wayne Radinsky comments: “It will be interesting to see what happens when the robotics revolution really takes off.” If that’s not what we’re already seeing, we’re in a lot of trouble.Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-26381499411904188832012-03-19T07:28:00.000-04:002012-03-19T07:28:08.550-04:00All that oil, and no place to go<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.investors.com/image/WEBoil0315_345.jpg.cms" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="http://www.investors.com/image/WEBoil0315_345.jpg.cms" width="320" /></a></div>
“With only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices,” President Obama has said. “Not when we consume 20% of the world’s oil.”<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
How true is that? Not very.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
The figure Obama uses — proved oil reserves — vastly undercounts how much oil the U.S. actually contains, Investor's Business Daily <a href="http://news.investors.com/article/604303/201203141303/oil-abundant-in-the-united-states.htm">explains</a>. In fact, far from being oil-poor, the country is awash in vast quantities — enough to meet all the country's oil needs for hundreds of years.<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The U.S. has 22.3 billion barrels of proved reserves, a little less than 2% of the entire world's proved reserves, according to the Energy Information Administration. But as the EIA explains, proved reserves "are a small subset of recoverable resources," because they only count oil that companies are currently drilling for in existing fields.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
All told, the U.S. has access to 400 billion barrels of crude that could be recovered using existing drilling technologies, according to a 2006 Energy Department report. When you include oil shale, the U.S. has 1.4 trillion barrels of technically recoverable oil, according to the Institute for Energy Research, enough to meet all U.S. oil needs for about the next 200 years, without any imports.</blockquote>
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</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To be sure, energy companies couldn't profitably recover all this oil — even at today's prices — and what they could wouldn't make it to market for years. But from the industry's perspective, the real problem with domestic oil is that the government has roped off most of these supplies.</blockquote>
"This is not a geological problem — it's a political problem," said Dan Kish, senior vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research. "We've embargoed our own supplies." <br />Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-36391866913378322492012-02-13T08:59:00.001-05:002012-02-13T09:02:44.555-05:00Don't believe everything you readSo the unemployment rate has dropped to 8.3 percent, so everything is getting better, right?<br />
<br />
Wrong.<br />
<br />
The unemployment rate is a mathematical calculation using: the number of people in the labor force and the number of people in the labor force who don't have a job. Reduce the size of the labor force -- as happens when people just give up looking for work -- and the unemployment rate automatically goes down.<br />
<br />
So now you have those who are "officially" unemployed -- plus those who would like to be employed but have given up looking.<br />
<br />
And you've got another group, too -- those who are "underemployed." They found a part-time job at Wal-Mart, but they'd rather be working full time. Probably their whole cost structure -- mortgage, food, gasoline, etc. -- was developed when they were employed full time, so they're in trouble.<br />
<br />
Peter Ferrara <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/02/09/dont-be-fooled-the-obama-unemployment-rate-is-11/">writes</a> in Forbes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the latest, much celebrated, unemployment report, the labor force participation rate had plummeted to 63.7%, the most rapid decline in U.S. history. That means that under President Obama nearly 5 million Americans have fled the workforce in hopeless despair. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The trick is that when those 5 million are not counted as in the work force, they are not counted as unemployed either. They may desperately need and want jobs. They may be in poverty, as many undoubtedly are, with America suffering today more people in poverty than in the entire half century the Census Bureau has been counting poverty. But they are not even counted in that 8.3% unemployment rate that Obama and his media cheerleaders were so tirelessly celebrating last week.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If they were counted, the unemployment rate today would be a far more realistic 11%, better reflecting the suffering in the real economy under Obamanomics.</blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/havenstein/Labor%20Force%20Participation%20Rate.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/havenstein/Labor%20Force%20Participation%20Rate.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Some additional facts highlight how misleading the reported unemployment rate, and the political rhetoric around it, can be.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One year ago, 99 million Americans were unemployed or otherwise not working, and the unemployment rate was 9.1%. Today, while the reported unemployment rate is 8.3%, over 100 million Americans are unemployed or otherwise not working.</blockquote>
Figures lie, and liars figure.Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-36612161730634558462012-02-09T11:33:00.000-05:002012-02-09T11:33:26.576-05:00Why the economy hurts so badWe know there was a housing bubble that burst and a financial panic, but something else was involved in the Great Recession we're still trying to recover from.<br />
<br />
And that was the price of gasoline, Derek Thompson <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/rick-santorum-is-right-gas-prices-caused-the-great-recession/252790/">writes</a> in The Atlantic.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In 2009, economist James Hamilton published a paper that retroactively forecast what an oil shock, like the one we experienced in 2007-08, would do to GDP. And guess what? His model accurately predicated much of the collapse in GDP that resulted from the Great Recession -- as if there had been no housing bubble or financial crisis! The oil spike was that bad.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Still, there was a housing bubble. And there was a financial crisis. How do we account for them and still hold onto the gas story? Here's a one-paragraph theory of the Great Recession that begins with gasoline. Cheap gas ruled in the 1990s. This encouraged families to settle down farther from the cities where they worked. In the 2000s, super-low interest rates, declining lending standards, and an appetite for mortgages on Wall Street (among other factors) further encouraged sprawl and residential development in the 'burbs. As the price of gas went up, families stopped buying homes 30 minutes from the city. For folks shacking up in the exurbs, higher gas bills ate into mortgage money. For companies, higher energy bills shocked productivity. Classic oil-shock + housing development arrested + financial crisis = Great Recession.</blockquote>
That's why President Obama's energy policy/religion matters so much. Here's what the White House itself has to <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy">say</a> about energy. This is the White House's <i>energy</i> page.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The President has taken unprecedented action to build the foundation for a clean energy economy, tackle the issue of climate change, and protect our environment.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs - but only if we accelerate that transition. Only if we seize the moment." -- President Barack Obama</blockquote>
Nothing there about filling your tank to get to the grocery store. What do we know about Obamaman's energy policy? Roadblocks everywhere to brining online more oil and gas. Corruption and mismanagement in wishful thinking boondoggles like Solyndra.<br />
<br />
If you approve of all this, go plug your car into a windmill.Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-77024703596759445002012-02-07T08:47:00.001-05:002012-02-07T08:47:56.589-05:00So ride your bike to a green rally<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Canada's prime minister and some of his cabinet -- including his minister of natural resources -- have traveled to China this week. There's no mistaking the message to the United States: your president said no to the Keystone pipeline that would bring Canadian oil into the United States. So we're going to talk to China about buying it.</div>
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Joe Nocera <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/opinion/nocera-the-poisoned-politics-of-keystone-xl.html">comments</a>:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Environmental concerns notwithstanding, America will be using oil — and lots of it — for the foreseeable future. It is the fundamental means by which we transport ourselves, whether by air, car or truck. Where do we get that oil? Mostly from countries that don’t like us, like Venezuela, which has the world’s second-largest oil reserves.</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
And here is Canada, a staunch American ally that has historically sold us virtually all of its crude exports. Over the past two decades, energy companies have invested tens of billions of dollars in the tar sands, so much so that Canada now ranks No. 3 in estimated oil reserves. Along with the natural gas that can now be extracted thanks to hydraulic fracturing — which, of course, all right-thinking environmentalists also oppose — the oil from the Canadian tar sands ought to be viewed as a great gift that has been handed to North America. These two relatively new sources of fossil fuels offer America its first real chance in decades to become, if not energy self-sufficient, at least energy secure, no longer beholden to OPEC. Yet these gifts have been transformed, like everything else, into political footballs.</div>
</blockquote>
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There's your stark choice, boys and girls.</div>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-868614902840493792012-01-24T05:46:00.001-05:002012-01-24T05:46:20.183-05:00How we spend in hard timesAccording to Wagner A. Kamakura of Duke University and Rex Yuxing Du of the University of Houston, who <a href="http://links.mkt3142.com/servlet/MailView?ms=MjgzOTEyNgS2&r=Mzc4OTQxOTE1S0&j=MzcwMjgyOTES1&mt=1&rt=0">studied</a> purchases by more than 66,000 U.S. households over two decades:<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In a recession that shrinks GDP by 2%, consumers increase their charitable expenses by 32%—about the same proportion by which they reduce their expenditures on jewelry and watches (35%). Consumers also increase their tobacco expenditures by 16%. People are more likely to start smoking (and resume smoking after quitting) in recessions than in good times, the researchers say.</blockquote>
Sounds good to me, except the charitable giving part.Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-55248124613744120222012-01-15T08:10:00.003-05:002012-01-15T08:10:37.009-05:00Do the math<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.omgforamerica.com/art/blog/the_real_99_percent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.omgforamerica.com/art/blog/the_real_99_percent.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(<a href="http://www.thelookingspoon.com/index.php/3084-iowntheworld-puk-award-semi-finals">The Looking Spoon</a> via <a href="http://americandigest.org/">American Digest</a>)</span>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-51490847480047245512012-01-02T16:20:00.001-05:002012-01-02T16:20:39.035-05:00Sizing up the economyIt's not very <a href="http://biggovernment.com/whall/2011/12/27/its-the-math-stupid-seven-devastating-facts-about-2012/">encouraging</a>:<br />
<ul>
<li>Every day, the U.S. government takes in $6 billion and spends $10 billion. This means that every day the federal government spends <a href="http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2011/may/04/national-republican-congressional-committee/gop-congressional-committee-says-us-borrows-4-bill/">$4 billion more dollars</a> than it has.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6327a7f4-21bb-11e1-8b93-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1gKY0EdGw">real unemployment rate</a> is a jaw-dropping 11 percent.</li>
<li><a href="http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/25/unemployment-job-skills-training/">Every fifth man</a> you pass on your way to work is now out of work.</li>
<li>College graduates are now <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/business/economy/19grads.html?_r=1">34% less likely to find a job under Obama</a> than they were under President George W. Bush.</li>
<li><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/21/news/economy/food_stamps/index.htm">Every seventh person</a> you pass on the sidewalk now relies on food stamps.</li>
<li>The ravages of the Obama economy now mean that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/14census.html?pagewanted=all">more Americans live under the federal poverty line than at any time in U.S. history</a> since records have been kept.</li>
<li>Under President Barack Obama, <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/0817/Report-Child-poverty-rate-hits-20-percent-in-US-as-families-struggle">every fifth child in America now lives in poverty</a>.</li>
</ul>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-33161869535140763322011-12-17T18:26:00.003-05:002011-12-17T18:26:51.183-05:00Some spooky economic numbersSome conversation <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/50-economic-numbers-about-us-are-almost-too-crazy-believe">fodder</a> for your merry Christmas party:<br />
<ul>
<li>If the number of Americans that "wanted jobs" was the same today as it was back in 2007, the "official" unemployment rate put out by the U.S. government would be up to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-the-real-unemployment-rate-is-11-percent/2011/12/12/gIQAuctPpO_blog.html">11 percent</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The average amount of time that a worker stays unemployed in the United States is now <a href="http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/UEMPMEAN">over 40 weeks</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>One recent survey found that <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/11/07/7-in-10-blame-economy-for-hiring-freeze">77 percent</a> of all U.S. small businesses do not plan to hire any more workers.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today <a href="http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzuckerman/articles/2011/06/20/why-the-jobs-situation-is-worse-than-it-looks">than there were back in 2000</a> even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Since December 2007, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-09-13/census-household-income/50383882/1">6.8%</a> once you account for inflation.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>A Gallup poll from earlier this year found that <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/06/underemployed-new-reality-american-job-market/">approximately one out of every five</a> Americans that do have a job consider themselves to be underemployed.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job. In July, only <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2011-08-25/obama-seeks-jobs-plan-as-u-s-workingman-status-further-erodes.html">81.2 percent</a> of men in that age group had a job.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>One recent survey found that <a href="http://www.dsnews.com/articles/job-loss-could-put-one-in-three-homeowners-out-of-their-home-2011-09-30">one out of every three Americans</a> would not be able to make a mortgage or rent payment next month if they suddenly lost their current job.</li>
</ul>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-80212866603606182852011-12-02T06:36:00.001-05:002011-12-02T06:36:50.805-05:00A hard lesson<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>"Universities won't survive. The future is outside the traditional campus, </i></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>outside the traditional classroom. Distance learning is coming on fast." </i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
</div>
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<i>-- Peter Drucker, 1997</i></div>
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One of the big changes you can look forward to in the near-term is how we get a college education. In an excellent summary of all the reasons why, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span>John Paul Cassil <a href="http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/conserving-freedom/2011/nov/30/looming-recession-higher-education/#.TtcNRTyW2P8.facebook">writes</a> in The Washington Times:</div>
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The average wages of new college graduates are declining. A college degree is no longer a guarantee of steady income growth, and there are actually organizations devoted to stopping the “college mentality.” <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/paypal-cofounder-peter-thiel-is-paying-24-kids-100000-to-drop-out-of-school-2011-5">Paypal’s Peter Thiel</a> feels so strongly about this that he is paying 24 students $100,000 each to not go to college.</div>
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Education costs have escalated rapidly, increasing over <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/education/03college.html">439 percent from 1982 to 2007</a>, while median family income has only risen 147 percent.</div>
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The cost of higher education for one student is rapidly catching up to the median family income in the United States. The working American family is not gaining assets fast enough to cover education costs, so students are taking on massive amounts of non-bankruptable debt to finance it. In fact, student loan debt has surpassed <a href="http://biggovernment.com/publius/2011/10/30/the-government-inflated-college-loan-bubble/">$1 trillion</a>, and exceeds Americans’ total credit card indebtedness.</div>
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It can't last, and it won't.</div>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764717793364842480.post-68413306155369458472011-11-16T07:43:00.001-05:002011-11-16T07:44:12.252-05:00Why you should care about Europe<br />
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If you're like me you have a hard time understanding what's happening in Europe. We we all need to. It's going to bite us sooner or later. This is a long post, but read it anyway and amaze your friends at the next backyard barbeque.</div>
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Niall Ferguson, a professor of history at Harvard University and a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/12/europe-s-financial-crisis-is-headed-to-america.html">notes</a> that for most Americans "places like Greece and Italy are primarily tourist destinations they’ll visit at most once. The finer points of Mediterranean politics leave them cold."</div>
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So why, he asks, should Americans care about any of this?</div>
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The first reason is that, with American consumers still in the doldrums of deleveraging, the United States badly needs buoyant exports if its economy is to grow at anything other than a miserably low rate. And despite all the hype about trade with the Chinese, U.S. exports to the European Union are nearly three times larger than to China.</div>
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According to the new president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, a “double dip” recession in Europe is now all but inevitable. And that’s lousy news for U.S. exporters targeting the EU market.</div>
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But there’s more. </div>
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Europe’s problem is not just that governments are overborrowed. There are an unknown number of European banks that are effectively insolvent if their holdings of government bonds are “marked to market”—in other words, valued at their current rock-bottom market prices. In our interconnected financial world, it would be very odd indeed if no U.S. institutions were affected by this. </div>
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Just as European institutions once loaded up on assets backed with subprime U.S. mortgages, so most big U.S. banks have at least some exposure to eurozone bonds or banks. One institution—MF Global, run by former Goldman Sachs CEO Jon Corzine—just blew up because of its highly levered euro bets. Others are biting their fingernails because it is suddenly far from clear that the credit default swaps they have bought as insurance against, say, a Greek default are worth the paper they are written on.</div>
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But here's the biggie:</div>
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The third reason Americans should care about Europe is more important even than the risk of a renewed financial crisis. It is the danger that what is happening in Europe today could ultimately happen here. Just a few months ago, almost nobody was worried about Italy’s vast debt, which amounts to 121 percent of GDP. Then suddenly panic set in, and Italy’s borrowing costs exploded from 3.5 percent to 7.5 percent. </div>
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Today the U.S. gross federal debt stands at around 100 percent of GDP. Four years ago it was 62 percent. By 2016 the International Monetary Fund forecasts it will be 115 percent. Economists who should know better insist that this is not a problem because, unlike Italy, the United States can print its own money at will. All that means is that the U.S. reserves the right to inflate or depreciate away its debt. If I were a foreign investor—and half the debt in public hands is held by foreigners—I would not find that terribly reassuring. At some point I might demand some compensation for that risk in the form of ... higher rates.</div>
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Yikes!</div>Terry A. Kirkpatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07279890436598967486noreply@blogger.com0