Category Archives: Jobs

2016, Jobs, True Talking Points, Trump, Uncategorized

New York Post: Trump already helping the working class

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Carrier employee: Donald Trump saved my job. These are the real people that the Hollywood Stars and the “global elite” treat as if they do not exist:

New York Post:

It’s not uncommon for a Republican to be pro-business. But President-elect Donald Trump showed Tuesday night he’s pro-worker, too, by saving 1,000 jobs at the Carrier plant in Indiana.

His standing up for the blue-collar workers who helped get him elected is no small feat, even for the very accomplished billionaire, who has a long record of delivering under budget and on time.

Sure, it’s unusual for a president-elect to interject himself in the economic mechanizations of a specific company — let alone the economy writ large — but everything about Trump being the next president is unusual.

Granting tax breaks to keep jobs here in America may not be the purview of the president, but who can dispute the optics: While announcing his economic team of Steve Mnuchin for Treasury and Wilbur Ross Jr. for Commerce, Trump was keeping his promises to working Americans — and proving their trust in him wasn’t misplaced.

The brutally battered blue-collar voters, long played for suckers as supporters of the Democratic Party’s false promises and phony hope, are no longer looking to their union bosses to tell them how to vote.

Mike Pence and Donald Trump Speak at Carrier Plant in Indiana!

2016, Clinton, Dirty Tricks, Jobs, Lies, True Talking Points, Uncategorized

Hillary pays men at Clinton Foundation MUCH more than women. Massive pay gap.

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Hillary’s own campaign staff, in emails provided by WikiLeaks, talks about how there is a $112,000 pay gap between men and women at the Clinton Foundation. Read the email for yourself HERE.

The Washington Times summarizes:

Hacked emails belonging to Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta show her inner circle admitting to a “huge” $112,000 pay gap at The Clinton Foundation between the highest-paid men and women.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign website says “women earn less than men across our economy.” Stolen documents released by WikiLeaks demonstrate that her own foundation — as recently as February 2015 — was guilty of the same.

“Guys — Given the story yesterday about pay equity at the State Department,  I wanted to flag something that came out of our research on pay equity at the Foundation,” future Clinton campaign staffer Ian Mandel said in an Feb. 24, 2015 email. “There are huge discrepancies, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they went here next. See a summary below from Karuna.”

Karuna Seshasai, another future addition to the Democrat hopeful’s campaign, then addressed The Clinton Foundation’s “huge” gender pay gap.

“3 out of the 11 highest paid employees of the Foundation are women. Avg salary of the highest paid men is $294,157.50, while the avg salary of the highest paid women is $181,576.66 ($112K difference),” Mrs. Seshasai said in an email seen by campaign manager Robby Mook and Cheryl Mills, Mrs. Clinton’s State Department chief of staff. “Median salary of the highest paid men is $346,106, while the median salary of the highest paid women is $185,386 ($190K difference).”

Mrs. Seshasai’s analysis came just one day after a report by The Washington Free Beacon that detailed Mrs. Clinton’s gender pay gap for staff during her time as a New York senator.

 

Border, Corporatism, Dirty Tricks, Jobs, True Talking Points

Americans Lose More High-Tech Jobs: Rubio, Hatch, Flake Co-Sponsor Bill to Increase H-1B Guest Workers Visas

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This is not theory. This very writer has watched as tech companies fired hundreds of Americans and replace them with foreign workers who are flown in, crammed in tiny apartments, paid very little, and sent home when their time expires.

This is a big part of the reason why IT wages have stagnated and why so many Americans who graduate with hi-tech degrees are not finding work.

US News – STEM Grads Can’t Find Jobs

DML – Majority of IT Jobs Given to Immigrants

PBS – The Bogus High-tech Worker Shortage

Sen. Jeff Sessions: No Shortage of High-tech American Workers

There are law firms and companies that specialize in showing companies how to make it look like they are trying to hire Americans, but have no intention of doing so.

Breitbart News:

On Tuesday, three Republican Senators joined three Democrats to introduce legislation that would expand the number of guest-workers for the tech industry even though there is a surplus of American high-tech workers.

The Immigration Innovation (“I-Squared”) bill, introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), would also enable companies to hire an unlimited number of workers with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions in science, technology, engineering and math, which critics have said would turn some universities into diploma factories for foreign students. Currently, the first 20,000 H-1B applications for those with advanced STEM degrees are exempted.

Hatch said he hoped the bill could be a gateway to “more progress” on a broader immigration bill.

“I’m calling on everyone — the President, members of both parties, and stakeholders in the tech community – to support this bill and help make it the first step towards real immigration reform,” he said in a statement. “We must find make concrete progress to solve some of the many critical problems facing our nation. I-Squared is an obvious solution to an undeniable need, and I want to work with everyone to get it done now.”

In addition to increasing the annual cap on H-1B visas from 65,000 to 115,000, the bill would reform student visas, “authorize employment for the dependent spouses of H-1B visas holders, and allow a grace period for foreign workers to “change jobs and not be out of status.” It would also, among other things, allow for the recapturing of green cards “that were approved by Congress in previous years but were not used” and dependents of employment-based immigrant visa recipients, U.S. STEM advance degree holders, “persons with extraordinary ability,” and “outstanding professors and researchers” would be exempt from cap on green cards.

The high-tech industry, like Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us lobbying group, has pushed for massive increases in guest-worker permits even though companies like Microsoft have been laying of thousands of U.S. tech workers. As Breitbart News has documented, “despite evidence to the contrary, the tech industry has spent millions trying to get massive increases in the number of H-1b guest-worker visas, claiming that they ‘can’t find’ Americans to do various tech jobs” even though there is a proven surplus of America high-tech workers.

House Republican leaders are expected to introduce similar legislation.

But as Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) noted in his immigration roadmap for the new Republican Congress, “a stunning 3 in 4 Americans with a STEM degree do not hold a job in a STEM field—that’s a pool of more than 11 million Americans with STEM qualifications who lack STEM employment.” In a chapter titled, “The Silicon Valley STEM Hoax,” Sessions cites Rutgers public policy professor Hal Salzman, who has calculated that 100% of new hires in the tech industry could be guest workers if Congress continues to increase the number of H-1B visas, which would hold “down wages for both them and new hires.”

 

Border, Jobs, Lies, Millhouse, Obama, Social Security, Taxes, True Talking Points

Obama is wrong, most illegals do not pay their “fair share”

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The numbers just don’t add up. Most illegals would not earn enough to have to pay the income tax anyways….

Via American Thinker:

Last night’s presidential address on decreeing that millions of illegal aliens can stay here in violation of the law contained a deep deceit, buried in words that were, on the surface, true. President Obama’s rhetoric left the impression that at last, illegal immigrants would “pay their fair share.” From the official transcript:

We expect that those who cut the line will not be unfairly rewarded. So we’re going to offer the following deal: If you’ve been in America for more than five years; if you have children who are American citizens or legal residents; if you register, pass a criminal background check, and you’re willing to pay your fair share of taxes — you’ll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily without fear of deportation. You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law. That’s what this deal is. (snip) (emphasis added)

…millions of people who live here without paying their taxes or playing by the rules while politicians use the issue to scare people and whip up votes at election time.

The problem with this rhetoric is that very few illegal immigrants make enough money to actually pay taxes. Instead, their “fair share” will amount to a substantial gift from American citizen and legal immigrant taxpayers who have played by the rules.

Avik Roy writes:

 …the vast majority of undocumented aliens don’t make enough in income to have a net income-tax liability. As I note in Forbes, a 2006 analysis by the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, concludes that “we can be virtually certain that illegal immigrants earned less than $24,000 per year, on average, probably much less.” That amounts to around $29,000 in 2014 dollars, well below the threshold where an American has a net income-tax liability.

Not only will they not pay income taxes, many are likely to get a check from the IRS, thanks to the Orwellian-named Earned Income Tax Credit, which send a gift from taxpayers to low income families.

Neil Munro explains in the Daily Caller:

…once illegal immigrants are enrolled in the tax system, they’re would be entitled to EITC payments

The payments may be huge, and will rise each year.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, two parents with three or more children would receive up to $6,143 in 2014 if they earn less than $46,997.

A family with two kids, and an income of $20,000, would receive $14,590 in taxpayer funds this year alone. Parents who earn less than the threshold would get $3,305 if they have one child, and $5,460 if they have two children.

The EITC program is already poorly monitored and may be subject to large amounts of fraud, according to critics.

Another study says that 47 percent of legal and illegal immigrants and their children are classified as living in poverty or in near-poverty, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors reduced annual immigration.

In addition, the Social Security trust fund will lose billions. Roy explains:

…many illegals have fake Social Security numbers that their employers use to pay payroll taxes on their behalf. Century estimates that “about $6 billion in annual payroll taxes are allocated to non-existent Social Security accounts. . . .

Instead of subsidizing Social Security, these illegals will now be in a position to claim benefits, likely far in excess of what they will pay into the system.

Border, Jobs, True Talking Points, Vote Fraud

House Democrat Leader Pelosi: Obama must stop deportations, allow entry to millions more illegal immigrants

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With schools and resources stretched to the limit and foreign workers now getting most new jobs and one working aged adult in four is not working the only reason to do this is to try and import a new poverty class that Democrats can buy votes with using welfare….that is until they stop lending us money and it all crashes.

Washington Examiner:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called on President Obama to issue a “bold” executive order that would stop the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants, including farm workers, families of people allowed to remain in the country under the administration’s “Dream Act” policy, and many others.

In an op-ed published by Univisión, Pelosi, along with Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Luis Gutiérrez, called on Obama to legalize immigrants who would have benefited from a comprehensive immigration reform bill the U.S. Senate passed in 2013.

The trio of lawmakers said the president should go even further by permitting close relatives of citizens and lawful permanent residents to gain entry into the United States, and blocking the deportation of relatives who are here illegally.

 

Border, Jobs

New Hampshire: 71% of New Jobs Go to Foreign Born Legal, Illegal Immigrants

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…and New Hampshire isn’t exactly a Southern Border state.

Via CNS News:

A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) shows that the state with senators who both voted for the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill, which cleared the Senate in June, has 71 percent of its job growth going to foreign-born workers, including legal and illegal immigrants.

Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) both voted for Senate Bill 744, which CIS calculated would have roughly doubled the number of new foreign workers allowed into the country and would have given legal status to millions of illegal aliens already in the country had the legislation been passed by the House and become law.

A CIS analysis using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey showed that since 2000, 71 percent of the net increase in the number of working-age (16 to 65) people holding a job in New Hampshire has gone to immigrants (legal and illegal), even though the native-born accounted for 65 percent of population growth among the working-age.

As a result, the share of natives holding a job in the state has declined significantly. Natives without a college education were affected the most by this trend, according to CIS.

“Job growth in New Hampshire has not been very strong,” Steven Camarota, CIS director of research and co-author of the report, said in a statement issued with the report. “The situation for natives without a college education has been particular bad.

“Thus it is surprising that many of New Hampshire’s politicians supported the Gang of Eight bill, which would give work authorization to illegal immigrants and dramatically increase the number of foreign workers allowed into the country in the future,” Camarota said.

CIS explained the methodology for the report this way: “The analysis is based on the ‘household survey,’ collected by the government. The survey is officially known as the Current Population Survey (CPS), and is the nation’s primary source of information on the labor market. Many jobs are created and lost each year and many workers change jobs as well. But the number of people employed reflects the net effect of these changes. We focus on the first half of each year 2000 to 2014 in this analysis because comparing the same part of the year over time controls for seasonality. Also combining six months of the CPS allows us to have more robust estimates for a small state like New Hampshire.

“This analysis focuses on those 16- to 65-years-old, so that we can examine the employment rate (share working) of native-born Americans. The employment rate is a measure of labor force attachment that is less sensitive to the business cycle compared to the often-cited unemployment rate. Immigrants or the foreign born (legal and illegal) are individuals who are not U.S. citizens at birth.”

Other findings include:

• Because the native working-age population in New Hampshire grew significantly, but the share working actually fell, there were nearly 41,000 more working-age natives not working in the first half of 2014 than in 2000 — a 25 percent increase.

• The supply of potential workers in New Hampshire is very large: In the first half of 2014, 205,000 working-age natives of all education levels were not working (unemployed or entirely out of the labor market) as were 16,000 working-age immigrants.

• All of the decline in the employment rate (share working) among working-age natives in New Hampshire has been among the less educated. The employment rate for natives in the state without a college degree declined from 77 percent in 2000 to 70 percent in the first half of 2014. In contrast, it increased from 85 to 87 percent for natives with at least a bachelor’s degree over the same time period.

The CSI concluded from its analysis of the government data the employment picture in the state of New Hampshire as follows:

•  The long-term decline in employment for natives in New Hampshire and the large number of working-age natives not working clearly indicates that there is no general labor shortage in the state — especially among the less educated. Thus it is very difficult to justify the large increases in foreign workers (skilled and unskilled) allowed into the country in a bill like S.744, which many of the state’s politicians support.

• New Hampshire’s working-age immigrant population grew 70 percent from 2000 to 2014. Yet the number of working-age natives working in 2014 was only slightly above the number in 2000 and the share with a job actually fell. This undermines the argument that immigration on balance increases job opportunities for natives.

 

Jobs, Lies, Obama, True Talking Points

Obama Sec. of Labor: Bringing in more immigrants will raise your wages! (Whopping Lie)

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There are lies, damn lies, statistics and holy cow man gimme a break lies. This one falls into the latter.

The idea that bringing in record numbers of skilled and unskilled labor when one adult of working age in four is out of work and/or is only working part time because of the economy and Obamacare…. it is beyond ridiculous.

Via  Breitbart News:

This week at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., President Barack Obama’s Labor Secretary Tom Perez claimed immigration reform which would flood millions of foreign workers into the United States workforce to compete for employment with citizens would in fact put an, “upward pressure on wages.”

Perez said, “Adding jobs, putting upward pressure on wages, helping to stabilize the Social Security trust fund.”

See the video HERE.

 

Econ, Health Law, Jobs, Obama, Taxes, True Talking Points

Obamacare and the New Economics of Part-Time Work

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Via the Mercatus Center at George Mason University:

Starting this year, the United States’ working population will face three major employment disincentives resulting from the very benefits the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides: (1) an explicit tax on full-time work, (2) an implicit tax on full-time work for those who are ineligible for the ACA’s health insurance subsidies, and (3) an implicit tax that links the amount of available subsidies to workers’ incomes.

A new study published by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University advances the understanding of how much these ACA taxes will reduce overall employment, and why. It concludes that the reduction will be nearly double that projected by previous analyses. Labor markets ultimately will reduce weekly employment per person by about 3 percent—translating to roughly 4 million fewer full-time-equivalent workers.

Below is a brief summary of this important update. Please see “The Affordable Care Act and the New Economics of Part-Time Work” to read the entire study and to learn more about author Casey B. Mulligan, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago.

__________ Key Findings  __________

Much of the ACA’s tax effect resembles unemployment insurance: both encourage layoffs and discourage people from returning to work. The ACA’s overall impact on employment, however, will arguably be larger than that of any single piece of legislation since World War II.

  • The ACA’s employment taxes create strong incentives to work less. The health subsidies’ structure will put millions in a position in which working part time (29 hours or fewer, as defined by the ACA) will yield more disposable income than working their normal full-time schedule.
  • The reduction in weekly employment due to these ACA disincentives is estimated to be about 3 percent, or about 4 million fewer full-time-equivalent workers. This is the aggregate result of the law’s employment disincentives, and is nearly double the impact most recently estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.
  • Nearly half of American workers will be affected by at least one of the ACA’s employment taxes—and this does not account for the indirect effect on others as the labor market adjusts.
  • The ACA will push more women than men into part-time work. Because a greater percentage of women work just above 30 hours per week, it is women who will be more likely to drop to part-time work as defined by the ACA.

Continue reading for the details.

Mercatus Mulligan-ACA-Employment-infographic

Health Law, Jobs, Obama, Taxes

McDonald’s Franchisee: ‘Obamacare Will Negatively Hit Us Like Nothing Else’

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Previously McDonalds Corp said that they expect Obamacare to cost $30,000 per store per year.

Huffington Post:

Here’s one thing you likely won’t find a McDonald’s franchise owner happy to ask his employees anytime soon: “Would you like a side of health care with that shake?”

That’s because some of the fast food chain’s franchisees say that the costs associated with President Obama’s health care reform law will cut deep into profits, according to a recent survey of 25 McDonald’s owners conducted by Janney Capital Markets obtained by The Huffington Post.

One franchisee even went so far as to say, “Obamacare will negatively hit us like nothing else,” according to the survey.

Some franchisees said they’re suffering from McDonald’s overemphasis on discount deals. Others claimed the chain’s new product, the McWrap, isn’t a sure bet. McDonald’s has seen slumping sales since last summer and Obamacare, some franchise owners say, is only going to make things worse.

“Obamacare is going to destroy already low profits, [and] McDonald‟s Corporation does not seem to care,” adding, “the future looks BLEAK.”

Budget, Jobs, Obama, True Talking Points

More Americans on disability than the population of Greece.

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CNS News:

The total number of people in the United States now receiving federal disability benefits hit a record 10,962,532 million in April, which exceeds the 10,815,197 people who live in the nation of Greece.

According to newly released data from the Social Security Administration, the record 10,962,532 total disability beneficiaries in April, included a record 8,865,586 disabled workers (up from 8,853,614 in March), 1,936,236 children of disabled workers, and 160,710 spouses of disabled workers.

According to its latest census, Greece had only 10,815,197 residents.

April was the 195th straight month that the number of American workers collecting federal disability payments increased. The last time the number of Americans collecting disability decreased was in January 1997. That month the number of workers taking disability dropped by 249 people—from 4,385,623 in December 1996 to 4,385,374 in January 1997.

As the overall number of American workers collecting disability has increased, the ratio of full-time workers to disability-collecting workers has decreased.

In December 1968, 1,295,428 American workers collected disability and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 65,630,000 worked full-time. Thus, there were about 51 full-time workers for each worker collecting disability. In April 2013, with a record 8,865,586 American workers collecting disability and 116,053,000 working full-time, there were only 13 Americans working full-time for each worker on disability.

Health Law, Jobs, Obama, True Talking Points

Multiple Reports: Number of Uninsured To Rise Under Obamacare

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Not just because of skyrocketing premiums due to all of the federal mandates and taxes, but because most those who will enroll in any existing health care exchanges will be from those who were previously insured by their employer. Employers are being forced to dump health coverage for employees because Obamacare rules and costs discourage employers from insuring their employees.

National Center for Policy Analysis:

It is cruelly ironic, but the massive law that was enacted to solve the problem of the uninsured in America is more likely to worsen it. This would be true even if the program is perfectly implemented and all the provisions come online on time and within budget.

How could this be? It is a multistep process. Stay with me for a second.

First, the simplest and most direct form of expanding coverage — Medicaid expansion — is likely to have very little effect. I’m not talking here of the states that refuse to do it after the Supreme Court made it optional, but of the entire program.

Remember that one-third of the uninsured have always been eligible for Medicaid and/or SCHIP coverage but don’t bother to sign up. Actually, it is worse than that. A few years ago, William Sommers wrote in Health Affairs that one-third of all uninsured children had been enrolled in Medicaid or SCHIP within the previous year but their parents found so little of value that they didn’t bother to re-enroll them.

Nothing about ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion is likely to change this dynamic. Yes, there will be more advertising, and yes a larger number of people will be eligible, but quite of a few of those newly eligible people are already getting coverage on the job, so any expansion of enrollment is likely to be a crowd-out of private insurance. One of ObamaCare’s architects, Jonathan Gruber, has done extensive research on this subject and concluded that as much as 60% of the enrollment in expanded public programs is from people who had been privately insured. No doubt this effect grows bigger the higher up the income scale you go.

By the way, a recent example of this crowd-out phenomenon is revealed in a new study by the Robert Wood Johnson-funded State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC). Much has been made of the numbers of adult “children” covered under ObamaCare’s mandate allowing people up to age 26 to stay on their parent’s policies. This study shows that the number of such people covered as dependents on employer plans rose from 30.2% of the population group in 2009 to 36.5% in 2011. Sounds like a great success until you realize that the percentage of that age group that had employer coverage in their own names dropped from 21.8% in 2009 to 16.5% in 2011. So, virtually all of the people now covered as dependents were previously covered on their own.

Less studied is the stark reality that many of the people who might be eligible for Medicaid are simply too dysfunctional to enroll. They might be functionally illiterate, drug addicted, mentally ill, outlaws, or in the underground economy and not want to bring attention to themselves. They can’t understand an insurance contract or make and keep appointments for services, but they know where the doctors are 24/7 — the hospital emergency department. When these people have a health problem they don’t need insurance coverage. They need direct care.

Continue reading HERE.

2012 Primary, Budget, Econ, Jobs, Obama, Taxes, True Talking Points

Jeep starting Cherokee production in China

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Bailouts rock….

Cherokee China

Truth About Cars:

The 2014 Cherokee could be the first Jeep produced in China in nearly 6 years. Jeep CEO Mike Manley said that the Cherokee was an “obvious choice” for local production, as Jeep looks to expand its customer base in China.

Manley noted that the Cherokee could double Jeep’s current 46,000 unit sales. Local production would allow Jeep to avoid import tariffs on the new model, which according to Jeep, has proved overwhelmingly popular in consumer clinics. Currently, the Compass accounts for just over 70 percent of Jeep sales in the country.

More from Chinese Car Times – LINK.

And while China has tariffs on our goods, they are suing us in the WTO to stop all of our tariffs (another treaty we should never have gotten involved in because international enforcement would be pretty much one way against the United States).


Washington Post:

China asks WTO to block U.S. tariffs

China has turned to the World Trade Organization to help block U.S. tariffs on 22 types of Chinese products, including solar panels, pipes for oil wells, coated paper and steel wheel hubs.

The Chinese appeal to the WTO takes aim at the U.S. Commerce Department, which has recently imposed stiff duties on Chinese products. The department has cited Chinese subsidies, especially those funneled through state-owned enterprises, that it says give Chinese firms an edge over American competitors.

Budget, Elite Media, Jobs, Obama, True Talking Points

90 million drop out of labor force, lowest since 1979

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So what does this make the real unemployment rate, our guess is at least 19%. Yet the elite media keeps saying that the economy is improving as is the job market, none of which is true.

Zerohedge:

Things just keep getting worse for the American worker, and by implication US economy, where as we have shown many times before, it pays just as well to sit back and collect disability and various welfare and entitlement checks, than to work .The best manifestation of this: the number of people not in the labor force which in March soared by a massive 663,000 to a record 90 million Americans who are no longer even looking for work. This was the biggest monthly increase in people dropping out of the labor force since January 2012, when the BLS did its census recast of the labor numbers. And even worse, the labor force participation rate plunged from an already abysmal 63.5% to 63.3% – the lowest since 1979! But at least it helped with the now painfully grotesque propaganda that the US unemployment rate is “improving.”

People not in labor force:

Labor participation rate:

Clinton, Econ, Elite Media, History, Jobs, Obama, True Talking Points

If There’s No Inflation, Why Are Prices Up So Much?

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If the official inflation rate is next to zero, how come prices are going up so much?

Sarah Palin was blasted by reporters and the Wall Street Journal in 2010 for pointing this out and explaining how food and fuel prices would soon skyrocket.

As this very writer explained in 2010. under Clinton the Consumer Price Index was changed so that government would never have to face the “misery index” and a proper measure of inflation again. They removed “Food & Fuel” from the index, you know, because nobody ever buys that stuff anyways, and they weighted the formula towards housing….. that’s right folks, housing.

When the economy turns south or hits a bump new housing starts talk and housing prices fall, thus showing negative inflation. So when the economy is in trouble and inflation is going up, the government reads it as zero inflation. If we still measured inflation like we used to it would be about 9.3% every year for three years. Of course, every shopper knows this as they see the prices for themselves.

A year later, investment guru Jim Rodgers weighed in, confirming the wisdom of Sarah Palin and this very writer:

U.S. government inflation data is “a sham” and is causing the Federal Reserve to vastly understate price pressures in the economy, influential U.S. investor Jim Rogers said on Tuesday.

The U.S. central bank uses inflation data that relies too heavily on housing prices, Rogers told the Reuters 2011 Investment Outlook Summit, and he criticized the Fed’s $600 billion bond-buying program.

“Everybody in this room knows prices are going up for everything,” Rogers told the Reuters Summit.

Micheal Sivy:

Price hikes for a particular item here or there don’t qualify as inflation. If one thing gets more expensive but something else gets cheaper, that’s what economists call a relative price change. Inflation is a simultaneous increase in prices across the board. Some measures of inflation, such as the GDP Deflator, track price changes that affect businesses as well as those that affect consumers. But the Consumer Price Index is supposed to focus on inflation at the consumer level. And the CPI has recorded minimal increases over the past four years. Since the recession ended, the 12-month change in consumer prices has averaged 2% and has never been as high as 4%.

There are lots of other ways to gauge inflation, however, that give very different signals. Gold was $930 an ounce when the recession ended, and today it’s $1,583. So if you believe in the gold standard, prices have increased 70% in four years – or an annualized rate of 14.2%. Of course, many economists dismiss the gold price as an archaic indicator. So it may be more meaningful to look at price increases over a broad range of commodities. The Reuters CRB Commodity Index, which tracks the prices of coffee, cocoa, copper, and cotton, as well as energy, is up 38% over four years, or 8.6% at a compound annual rate.

Perhaps the most telling indicator – albeit a slightly facetious one – is the Big Mac index, popularized by the Economist magazine. McDonalds hamburgers are available in many countries and their prices reflect the cost of food, fuel, commercial real estate, and basic labor. The price of a Big Mac, therefore, can be used to compare the economies of different countries – or serve as a bellwether of inflation in a single country. Since the recession ended, the cost of a Big Mac in the U.S. has risen from an average of $3.57 to $4.37, or 5.2% a year.

So why haven’t these more rapid increases shown up in the Consumer Price Index? One reason is that the index itself has been modified in a variety of ways over the past 35 years. Fluctuations in home prices have been smoothed out, for example. And the index has been adjusted periodically to reflect changes in what people buy, particularly if they shift from more expensive items to cheaper ones. Such revisions to the CPI have tended to reduce the official inflation rate, on balance. Various estimates of what the annual rate would have been over the past four years if earlier methods of calculation had been continued come up with numbers in the 5%-to-10% range.

Several conclusions can be drawn from all this. First, there is no absolute and objective gauge of inflation. Any particular measure is simply one way of making the calculation, based on a host of assumptions. Second, a number of the costs that middle-class households face are going up considerably faster than the CPI.

Elite Media, Jobs, Lies, True Talking Points

Associated Press: increased jobless “the latest sign of stability”

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THIS is the degree the elite media will go to spin for this president.

Remember when they said that the Bush recovery was a jobless recovery and his unemployment rate was 1% better than Clinton’s, which the press reported as “a booming economy”?

This is exactly the kind of press that Eastern Europeans used to make jokes about.

Associated Press:

WASHINGTON –  Weekly applications for U.S. unemployment benefits ticked up slightly last week, the latest sign of stability in the job market.

The Labor Department said Thursday that applications rose 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 371,000, the most in five weeks. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, increased 6,750 to 365,750, after falling to a four-year low the previous week.

 

Alarmism, Energy Policy, Gangsta Govt, Jobs, Obama, True Talking Points

Obama Administration kills 3,900 power plant jobs in Texas.

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The Obama Administration has been using the EPA and the permitting process to make easy permitting for friends and campaign donors, but a GOP state like Texas gets the hand. This is the type of bnana republic abuse of power that is so typical with this administration. Welcome to Chicago.

Washington Examiner:

Chase Power, the parent company behind the $3 billion Las Brisas coal power plant in Corpus Christi, Texas, announced yesterday that it was cancelling the project.

“Chase Power … has opted to suspend efforts to further permit the facility and is seeking alternative investors as part of a plan of dissolution for the parent company,” Chase CEO Dave Freysinger told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Freysinger made it very clear who was responsible for the projects death. “The (Las Brisas Energy Center) is a victim of EPA’s concerted effort to stifle solid-fuel energy facilities in the U.S., including EPA’s carbon-permitting requirements and EPA’s New Source Performance Standards for new power plants,” he said.

The Las Brisas power plant had been part of a larger Las Brisas Energy Center project planned for Corpus Christi’s Inner Harbor. Economists had projected that in the first 5 years of construction and operation the project would create as 1,300 direct and 2,600 indirect jobs. Now none of those jobs will exist.

Budget, Communications Theory, Dirty Tricks, Econ, Elite Media, Jobs, Lies, Obama, True Talking Points

73% of new jobs created are government jobs…..

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John Nolte is on a roll lately with columns that are just home runs as far as content and quality of analysis. Read this one carefully.

John Nolte:

While the media pants with exhilaration over a dip in the unemployment level that was created by over a half-million people giving up and dropping out of the workforce, a deep-dive into the employment numbers also reveals that it’s mainly government workers benefitting from what meager job growth we are seeing. Over the last five months, 73% of all jobs created were government jobs. Moreover, the unemployment rate for government workers plunged to 3.8% in November — which is considered full employment.

Even though deficits rule the day at every level of government, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the 847,000 new jobs created since June, a full 621,000 were government jobs. In November alone, 35,000 new government jobs were created.

In other words, as the labor participation rate plummets to a thirty year low — which means we have fewer taxpayers — we’re not only increasing the number of taxpayer-funded jobs, but the government is using the creation of these jobs to juice the employment numbers in a way that makes it look as though the job situation is actually improving.

Naturally, none of this would be possible without a compliant media working overtime to bring out the pom-poms and cover up what’s really going on.

Let me tell you something, if Obama had an “R” after his name and creating the exact same economic results, the media would make damn sure the public was familiar with what “labor participation rate” means. [Emphasis ours – Political Arena]

Econ, Jobs, Obama, True Talking Points

Youth Unemployment Highest Since WWII

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Ben Shapiro:

Barack Obama has made quite a hubbub over the course of his presidency about education for young students, and jobs for young workers. Unfortunately, it seems he’s failed on both counts. According to a recent study produced by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Children Now, there are now 6.5 million “disconnected” young people in America – “disconnected” being defined as neither in school nor employed, and “young people” being defined as 16-24 years of age. Young people now have the lowest employment rate since World War II.

In California alone, there are nearly a million young people who are “disconnected”: 850,000. Since 2000, that number has jumped a staggering 35 percent. Meanwhile, California’s overall employment rate for people aged 16-19 clocks in at just 18 percent; its high school graduation rate is a paltry 76 percent.

2012 Primary, Culture War, Dirty Tricks, Jobs, Obama, Taxes, True Talking Points, Unions

Adam Carolla on Samuel L. Jackson’s Gross Hypocrisy (video)

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Samuel L. Jackson is a very talented actor to be sure, but this is about how his political activism and his actions are exactly the opposite, as is the case with limousine liberals in general.

samuel-l-jackson

Jackson sticks up for the most extreme in the Democratic Party, their taxes, the excessive regulation, the union over reach and thuggery, right down the line. But when Jackson wants to make a movie does he make it in Los Angeles where he will pay the taxes, deal with the regulations and pay the union labor with all of their rules? Nope. He goes to Canada so he can make the movie cheaper up there and increase his already ridiculous profits and wealth; all while the working man in America is losing work.

2012 Primary, Budget, Communications Theory, Econ, Editorial, Elite Media, Health Law, Jobs, Obama, Treason, True Talking Points

One month after the election the job losses are staggering…..

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As reported by the Daily Mail, Florida restaurant owner John Metz says he will offset the costs of Obamacare by “adding a five percent surcharge to customers’ bills and will reduce his employees’ hours.”

Obamacare is so filled with senseless mandates, bureaucratic overhead and taxes that it has already driven up the cost of family health insurance by $2,500 a year and this will just get worse as more of Obamacare is implemented.

Obamacare requires businesses or franchises with more than 50 workers must offer an approved insurance plan or pay a penalty of $2,000 for each full-time worker over 30 workers.

The program mandates that only employees working more than 30 hours a week are covered under their employers health insurance plan, chains like Olive Garden and Red Lobster are already considering reduced worker hours.

“Obviously, I’d love to cover all our employees under that insurance,” said Metz.

“But to pay $5,000 per employee would cost us $175,000 per restaurant and unfortunately, most of our restaurants don’t make $175,000 a year. I can’t afford it.”

From March of 2010 – John Deere: We will take $150 million hit from healthcare reform; Caterpillar: We will take $100 million hit just this year. UPDATE AT&T says ObamaCare bill will cost $1 billion per year!

Democrat campaign operatives had tried to paint those businesses reacting to as just a few actors disgruntled by the election and tried to fool people into believing that Obamacare makes healthcare more affordable.

A new web site called The Daily Job Cuts is attempting to catalogue the layoffs and business closings and even though they are making a worthy full time effort to list them all, they are still only able to report a fraction of the actual job losses.

In the last month:

Aside from the evil Papa Johns, Democrat political operatives need to be prepared to also ‘boycott’ these companies who are laying off thousands of people due to Obamacare and associated taxes: Olive Garden, Applebee’s, Red Lobster, Domino’s Pizza, Pizza Hut, Burger King, McDonald’s, Longhorn Steakhouse……

…..Google, Martha Stewart Living, Pepsi, PayPal, Groupon, Best Buy, Cisco Systems, Kraft Foods, Lockheed Martin, Sears, Lexmark, Yahoo!, Dupont, Boeing, Bristol-Myers, Cummins, Smithfield Foods, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, NBC/Universal, American Airlines, United Continental Holdings, JC Penney, Wausau Paper, Procter & Gamble, Texas Instruments, Pierce Manufacturing, Panasonic, Xerox, Citigroup, Atlantic City Casinos, Majestic Star Casino, RIM (Blackberry), Vestas Wind Systems, Utah American Energy, Turkey Point Nuclear Plant FL, United Technologies, Gamesa Energy, Wingspan Portfolio Advisors, Stryker Corp (A big Obama Donor), First Solar, Solel Solar Systems, LuLu Publishing, New Energy Corp, Supervalue (Albertson’s), Dana Corp, American Coal, Gamestop, Commercial Appeal, Patriot Coal, Archer-Daniels-Midland, SAS, CIGNA, 169 Shaws Supermarkets, Judson University, ATI Career Training Centers,  …

But boycotting these companies may be tough if you get sick or injured:

Nebraska Medical Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Aveo Oncology, Kaiser Permanente, St Jude Medical, Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, St Lukes Cornwall Hospital, Emanuel Medical Center, GE Healthcare, WPS Health Insurance, Lower Bucks Hospital, United Blood Services Gulf Region, NY Center for Hospice/Palliative Care, CVPH Medical Center, Ameridose, Crouse Hospital Syracuse NY, San Diego Hospice, Glens Falls Hospital NY, Wake Forest Baptist Medical NC, Southwest Vermont Health Care, St Mary’s of Michigan Hospital, Orlando Health (hospitals), Carney Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital, Englewood Hospital, LSU’s 7 Hospitals, Westchester Medical Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, UMass Memorial Medical Center, NCH Healthcare System, Peace Health, Northwest Community Healthcare, Cooley Dickinson Hospital, E.J. Noble Hospital, Health Alliance of the Hudson Valley, St. Joseph Hospital, St. Josepth Hospital East, Community Memorial Health System, Danbury Hospital, New Milford Hospital, Marian Regional Medical Center, Inland Hospital, Lawrence General Hospital, Blue Hill Memorial Hospital, Hutchinson Regional Medical Center, Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center, St Vincent Health System (hospital), Mercy Health Partners’ Hospital, St Mary’s Hospital, Jordan Hospital, Brattleboro Retreat (psychiatric hospital), CVPH Medical Center Pittsburg, Western Maryland Regional Medical Center (hospital), Cook Medical.

Unfortunately, you will not be able to boycott Hostess or the closings of 10 Boston area Upper Crust Pizzas, or the 200 Gamestop outlets. All are closing. There are so many closures that we just don’t have the space…

MORE:

Abbott Labs, Activision, Adventist Health, Airlines SAS, AMD, American Cotton Growers, Arcelor Mittal, American Independence Museum, Ameridose, American Airlines, American Coal, Atlantic Lottery Corporation, Assc Milk Producers, Aveo Oncology, Bankia, Bechtel Power Corp, Bigpoint Games, Boston Scientific, Brake Parts, Brattleboro Retreat,
Career Education, Cigna, Commerzbank, Consol Energy in W.V., Covidien, Crouse Hospital Syracuse NY, CVPH, DEP in Tallahassee FL, DuPont, Eagle-Tribune, Emanuel Medical Center, Energizer Holdings, Ericsson, Exide Tech, First Energy, Gameforge Berlin, GenOn Energy Inc, Groupon, GT Advanced Tech, Harris’ Broadcast, Hawker Beechcraft, Hill Rom,
Hills Holdings. HMX Group, Iberia Airlines, ICM of Colwich, ING, Juniper Networks, Kinetic Concepts, Kratos Defense Security, Lightyear Network Solutions, Lonza, Majestic Star Casino, Major Wind Company, Medtronic, Mills Manufacturing NC, Momentive Inc, Monitor Group, Montco Behavioral Health, NBC, Nebraska Medical Center, Neovia Logistics Services, New Energy, Ormet, Panasonic, PayPal, Penn Refrigeration, Penske Logistics, Pepsi, Philips Electronics, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Research in Motion, Rheem Manufacturing, Sentry Foods, Shaw’s Supermarket, Shawano Foundry WI, Smith & Nephew, Smithfield Packing Co., Southeastern Container, SpaceX, SRA Intl Inc, St. Jude Medical, Sulake, Sun Media, TE Connectivity, TECO Coal Corporation, The Providence Journal Co, TMX Group Ltd., Turbocare, Oce North America, UBS, US Cellular, Volvo Trucks Pulaski County, West Ridge Mine, Westinghouse, World Media Enterprises Inc, WPS Health Insurance, Wright Patterson AFB, Wyodak Coal Mine, Yakima Reg Med Ctr Washington.

Special thanks to C. Steven Tucker for helping me to build this list.

Econ, Europe, Jobs, Stuck on Stupid, Taxes, True Talking Points

Two-thirds of millionaires leave Britain to avoid 50% tax rate

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It is an undeniable truth of life that wealth, capital and labor go where they are treated well. It is this economic truth more than any other that prevents socialism, communism, fascism, and kleptocracy from yielding positive economic benefits in the long term.

When you raise the tax rate, people will modify their behavior to avoid paying the tax, even if that means halting economic activity. As Ronald Reagan said:

The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

UK Daily Telegraph: 

Almost two-thirds of the country’s million-pound earners disappeared from Britain after the introduction of the 50% top rate of tax, figures have disclosed.

In the 2009-10 tax year, more than 16,000 people declared an annual income of more than £1 million to HM Revenue and Customs.

This number fell to just 6,000 after Gordon Brown introduced the new 50% top rate of income tax shortly before the last general election.

The figures have been seized upon by the Conservatives to claim that increasing the highest rate of tax actually led to a loss in revenues for the Government.

It is believed that rich Britons moved abroad or took steps to avoid paying the new levy by reducing their taxable incomes.

George Osborne, the Chancellor, announced in the Budget earlier this year that the 50% top rate will be reduced to 45% from next April.

Since the announcement, the number of people declaring annual incomes of more than £1 million has risen to 10,000.

However, the number of million-pound earners is still far below the level recorded even at the height of the recession and financial crisis.

Last night, Harriet Baldwin, the Conservative MP who uncovered the latest figures, said: “Labour’s ideological tax hike led to a tax cull of millionaires.

Far from raising funds, it actually cost the UK £7 billion in lost tax revenue.

“Labour now needs to admit that their policies resulted in millionaires paying less tax and come clean about whether they would reintroduce this failed policy if they were in power.”

Mr Osborne argued earlier this year that the 50% rate was deterring entrepreneurs from coming to Britain.

2012 Primary, Alarmism, Communications Theory, Editorial, Health Law, Jobs, Obama, Taxes, True Talking Points

Poll shows most people blame GOP for the “Fiscal Cliff” when much of it is due to Obamacare taxes

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Where is the establishment GOP? Where is anyone in the GOP to make the case?

Where is the GOP telling people that Taxmageddon, also known as the Fiscal Cliff, is largely do to 13 new Obamacare taxes, and the Democrats desire to raise taxes not on the rich, but on the productive middle class and small business S-Corps?

Where is the GOP to lambaste all of the wasteful spending and corrupt crony green energy boondoggles?

No one in the GOP is even defending themselves much less making a fight of it (please correct us if I we are wrong).

Robert Davi
Robert Davi

Famed actor Robert Davi said recently that he believes that elements in the establishment GOP and the Democratic Leadership are in a conspiracy to bring the country down. It is nonsense like this that make him correct.

It is nonsense like this that will finally push those who care about good policy to form a new party to replace the Republican Party because its brand is damaged and it’s establishment doesn’t seem to even really believe what it preaches.

I bet many in the GOP wishes they had Newt Gingrich right about now to make the case.

Via Breitbart News:

A new poll from CNN/ORC shows that President Obama remains Teflon despite the fact that he designed the upcoming fiscal cliff to speculation. Even though Obama insisted on massive defense cuts and huge tax increases as the two alternative parts of the fiscal cliff, the American public will apparently blame Republicans if the fiscal cliff isn’t stopped. A full 45% of respondents said they would blame Congressional Republicans – even though the Democrats control the Senate – while just 34% would blame President Obama.

The public, by and large, sees Republicans as obstructionist. That’s due to a combination of messaging failure on the part of the GOP — nothing new, in that they seem incapable of explaining the simple fact that low tax rates, particularly on job creators, spur economic growth and thereby raise tax revenues — and a media concerned only with saving its flailing president. The Republicans’ mixed messaging on the fiscal cliff has been astounding to watch. They signed off on the sequester, which put a fiscal gun to their heads, forcing them to choose between raising taxes partially or watching tax rates skyrocket and defense get slashed. Then they turned around and complained about the gun being put to their heads. Now, they’re standing for the principle that we need more tax revenue, but it can’t be raised by raising rates. No wonder the public is confused.

Poll numbers like this could be the reason that Republicans are looking to cave on tax increases, or ending tax deductions. 25% of the country says that the nation would undergo a crisis if we hit the fiscal cliff; 44% expect major problems. 25% say that it would cause minor problems. A full 77% of the public believes the fiscal cliff would hurt them personally.

Republicans have done such a poor job of informing the public about why taxes shouldn’t be increased that even Republicans, by a margin of 52%-44%, say they want both spending cuts and tax increases. An unbelievable 56% of Americans say they want high taxes on higher income earners, despite the fact that higher income earners pay a vastly disproportionate share of all tax revenue.