Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, April 16, 2014


So... looking out the window at snow... on April Friggin' 16th... what's a man to do but skip the gym, pour a slug of Irish into his coffee, and get bloggin'!

(*HUGE FRIGGIN' GRIN*)

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13 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/us/politics/kathleen-sebelius.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-thecaucus&_r=1

In her darkest hour last fall, Kathleen Sebelius suffered one of the deepest cuts from an old family friend who accused her of “gross incompetence” over the rollout of the Affordable Care Act and demanded that she resign as secretary of health and human services.

* AND... er... WASN'T THE ACCUSATION TRUE? CORRECT? ACCURATE...?!?! (RHETORICAL QUESTION... SEBELIUS PROVED HERSELF A TOTAL INCOMPETENT VIA HER TIME IN FEDERAL OFFICE. NO SANE, REASONABLE, RATIONAL PERSON COULD DENY THIS ESSENTIAL TRUTH.)

Ms. Sebelius is considering entreaties from Democrats who want her to run against that old friend, Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas.

* DEMOCRATS DON'T CARE IF THEIR CANDIDATES ARE INCOMPETENT. (REPUBLICANS... WELL... MANY SHARE THE BLIND PARTISANSHIP OF THE DEMOCRATS... BUT AT LEAST A LARGE SEGMENT OF THE GOP - THE TEA PARTY - BELIEVES COMPETENCE MATTERS.)

Several Democrats said this week that Ms. Sebelius had been mentioned with growing frequency...

* YEAH, YEAH, YEAH... AND HILLARY IS THE FRONTRUNNER FOR THE DEM PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION... AND OBAMA WAS RE-ELECTED BACK IN 2014...

* FOLKS... HOW CAN ONE RETAIN HOPE...??? IT IS WHAT IT IS. AMERICA IS BROKEN BECAUSE FAR TOO MANY AMERICANS ARE... FUCKING IDIOTS...

April 16, 2014 at 9:55 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://articles.philly.com/2014-04-15/news/49159231_1_order-executive-director-ice-holds#OwVXK5slCe7So2Qw.99

Philadelphia's Mayer Nutter...

* NO! SERIOUSLY! THAT'S THE GUY'S NAME! MICHAEL NUTTER!

...is expected to sign an executive order tomorrow that will significantly limit collaboration between Philadelphia police and federal immigration authorities.

* AND ERIC HOLDER WILL SMILE... NOT SUE.

* YOU SEE, FOLKS, IF A STATE OR CITY TAKES IT UPON ITSELF TO MIRROR AND THUS LOCALLY ENFORCE FEDERAL LAW THAT'S A PROBLEM... YET IF A LIBERAL DEMOCRAT GOVERNOR OR MAYOR WORKS... CONSPIRES IN BROAD DAYLIGHT... TO ASSIST ILLEGAL ALIENS IN THEIR ONGOING VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW... THAT'S OK.

* OBAMA'S AMERIKA, FOLKS... OBAMA'S AMERIKA...

The order is expected to preclude police from honoring detainer requests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement except in cases where a person is convicted of a first- or second-degree felony involving violence, and only when ICE secures a warrant to support the detainer.

ICE detainers or "holds" are requests by federal immigration authorities for police to hold a person who was detained for an alleged crime for up to an additional 48 hours. That would allow ICE to take the person - if suspected of being an undocumented immigrant or a non-citizen - into their custody for possible deportation.

April 16, 2014 at 10:07 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-16/fed-fabricating-loan-data

Is the Fed fabricating loan level data?

* IS THE POPE HISPANIC?!

One of the more bullish "fundamental" theses discussed in recent weeks, perhaps as an offset to the documented record collapse in mortgage origination (because without debt creation by commercial banks one can kiss this, or any recovery, goodbye) has been the so-called "surge" in loans and leases as reported weekly by the Fed in its H.8 statement.

Some, such as the chief strategist of retail brokerage Charles Schwab, Liz Ann Sonders, went so far as to note that this is, to her, the "most important chart in the world."

* GEEZUS... MARY AND I USE CHARLES SCHWAB!

This is indeed notable because as we have shown in the past, for nearly five years, total loans and leases within the U.S. commercial system remained virtually unchanged from a level of about $7.3 trillion - first attained when Lehman filed for bankruptcy.

And it doesn't take a PhD in monetary theory to figure out that this lack of credit revival (alongside the historic collapse in shadow bank liabilities) is precisely what the Fed's endless QE programs had been, at least on paper, trying to avert.

Now that the "Big Four" commercial banks - JPM, Wells, Bank of America and Citi - have reported their March 31 numbers, we can compile not only what the total amount of outstanding loans was as of the end of Q1, but more importantly, what the change in the quarter was. (After all, for Liz Ann Sonders it is this change that is "the most important" data in the world.)

What we learn is that the Top 4 banks held some $3.14 trillion in loans and leases at March 31.

So far so good. But what is not so good is that the change of this number in the first quarter is not an increase even remotely comparable to what the Fed makes those who read its H.8 statement believe it is.

Quite the opposite.

As the chart below shows, in the first quarter, of the "Big Four" banks, only Wells Fargo reported an increase - a tiny $4 billion to be exact - in its loans and leases portfolio. All the other banks... saw a decline in their loans and leases holdings.

We admit that we have taken a sampling of banks, even if it is the four biggest banks in the U.S., those which account for 42% of all loans outstanding, and a complete analysis would require complete data from not only regional banks, but also foreign banks operating in the U.S. However, if the four best capitalized banks, flush with trillions in Fed excess reserves, are indicating on their own that they are nowhere near lending at the level the Fed is telegraphing, and are in fact reducing their loans outstanding, why should the others be more generous in their lending activities?

Which brings us to the question: is the Fed fabricating loan level data?

Unfortunately, lending is not only not surging, it is contracting, if only among the Big 4 banks in the first quarter.

[W]e believe the people deserve an answer: just what is really going on here?

April 16, 2014 at 2:25 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/about-that-strong-march-retail-sales-bounce-good-thing-summers-coming/

* RECENT WSJ HEADLINE:

"Retail Sales Surge as Consumers Rev Up Growth: Indicator Posts Best Monthly Growth Since September 2012"

What would we do without the Wall Street Journal? Do people actually pay for this lame-brained noise?

In fact, we are now entering the fifth season of head-fakes about “escape velocity” acceleration in as many years. Yet the Wall Street stock peddlers and their financial media echo boxes are so fixated on the latest “delta” — that is, ultra short-term “high frequency” data releases — that time and again they serve up noise, not meaningful economic signal.

The WSJ headline writer quoted above might have at least noted the context in which the 1.1% seasonally mal-adjusted bounce for March was reported yesterday. It seems that even giving allowance to what the Fed believes to be the ”insufficient” level of consumer inflation in recent months that the February starting point for yesterday’s report was down nearly 1% from its level last September.

* DOWN... (DOWN... AS IN THE OPPOSITE OF UP...)

* OH... AND YOU FOLKS CAUGHT THAT BIT ABOUT HOW THE FED BELIEVES THERE'S "INSUFFICIENT" INFLATION...

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

So when the winter storms are all said and done and the inflation adjusted retail number for March is published, it will be back to about $183 billion on the graph below — a level obtained around Columbus Day last fall.

The larger point here is that the Kool-Aid drinkers keep torturing the high frequency data because they are desperate for any sign that the Fed’s $3.5 trillion of QE has favorably impacted the Main Street economy.

* IT HASN'T. THOUGH IT HAS MADE THE SUPER RICH RICHER AND IT HAS KEPT THE ECONOMY WHAT MAY NOT "TECHNICALLY" BE A RECESSION BUT SURE AS HELL FEELS LIKE ONE!

And that’s important not because it might mean some sorely needed income and job gains for middle America, but because its utterly necessary to validate the Fed’s financial bubble. Without ”escape velocity” thru and sustainably above 3-3.5% GDP growth, there is no chance of a corporate earnings re-acceleration or the 20-30% gain in S&P 500 profits that are baked into the current forward PEs ($130 per share vs. reported LTM of $100).

Keynesian economists’ almost maniacal focus on monthly releases and quarterly GDP numbers has always been a giant mistake — and not only because they are so consistently and significantly revised after the fact owing to plugs, guesses and imputations in the early releases.

(*SNORT*)

The real problem is structural because quarterly GDP numbers are based on 90-day rates of ”expenditure.” The latter contains huge oscillations in the economy’s inventory stocking and destocking function, and therefore can drastically mis-convey the underlying trends.

* BOTTOM LINE... GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT. THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM.

During the past 18 quarters for example, real inventory change has ranged from -$207 billion to +$127 billion, with points up and down the range during the interim. So a far more sensible use of even the flawed GDP data is to look at the year-over-year numbers for real final sales. That captures the trend and thereby filters out the four fake GDP accelerations that Wall Street has been gumming about since the [technical] "end" of the recession.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

April 16, 2014 at 2:47 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Here are the numbers: During the year ending in Q4 2010 — the first year of “recovery” — real final sales expanded at a 2.0% rate. The next year there was no acceleration. Real final sales in the year ended in Q4 2011 was 1.8% — then it slightly bounced to 2.5% in 2012. And then, despite the initially reported big GDP acceleration in the second half of 2013, no such thing actually happened. In fact, the four quarter gain in real final sales as of the most recent reporting on Q4 2013 was just 1.9%; and given the weak spending data already in for Q1 2014, its virtually certain to weaken even further during this quarter. In short, based on any reasonable and adult assessment of the numbers for the last 51 months, there has been no acceleration whatsoever. The economy is bumping along the bottom at 2% and that’s it.

Moreover, the problem with the 2% trend who’s name cannot be spoken is that it invalidates the entire bubble recovery scenario in which the inhabitants of the Eccles Building and their Wall Street overlords are completely invested. What has actually happened since the fall-winter 2008 crisis is that there was a drastic and unavoidable one-time liquidation of excess business inventories and phony jobs that had built-up during the Greenspan housing and credit bubble years, but that was nearly over by June 2009. This is documented in detail in Chapter 28 of my book, The Great Deformation (see pp 583-588, “The False Depression Call That Petrified Washington”).

Since then, the natural regenerative forces of our $17 trillion capitalist economy have been slowly inching output, income and employment forward at the aforementioned 2% rate — if you believe the official inflation data...

* WHICH OF COURSE NO ONE DOES... BECAUSE IT'S DELIBERATELY SKEWED DOWNWARD... BECAUSE FOOD AND FUEL AREN'T COUNTED...

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

...and well less than that in reality.

As I have repeatedly mentioned, once “peak” business and household leverage ratio where reached in 2007-2008, the Fed’s massive liquidity injections operated almost exclusively through the Wall Street speculation channel. And that is exactly what has lead to forlorn quest for “escape velocity.”

* WHILE ENRICHING THE OLIGARCHS... THE BANKERS... THE INSIDERS... WALL STREET... WHILE SCREWING THE MIDDLE CLASS AND MAIN STREET AMERICA!

The trailing 12 months reported EPS for the S&P 500 in Q4 2011 was about $90 per share, and today it is about $100. But while earnings have grown only 5%/year on a mechanical basis, and hardly at all after giving allowance to the massive, cheap-debt fueled stock buybacks in the interim, the broad market has bubbled upwards by more than 40%. In other words, it now extends out on the same peaks — about 19X trailing profits — that were obtained before the crashes of 2000-01 and 2008-09.

* GEEZUS...

Nevertheless, the Wall Street talking heads can’t help themselves with the constant ridiculous refrain that the consumer is back, and its soon off the races: "The linchpin of economic growth, the consumer, is back,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi." Oh, really?

* NO... NOT REALLY!

Real wage and salary income is only 2% above its level 73 months ago when the economy last peaked. And after a salutary rebound in the savings rate during the Great Recession, the household savings rate has been drawn down to its unsustainable bubble lows. But pettifoggers like Rupkey just keep pouring the Kool-Aid.

So the Fed sponsored Wall Street bubble inflates to its final asymptote. When the inevitable bust occurs, it will trigger a sharp retrenchment in business inventories, investment and consumer spending, but, the usual suspects will say it's time to restart the Keynesian Clock. (That being the one that is now permanently broken but never acknowledged by our rulers in the Wall Street-Washington corridor who long ago threw sound money and the laws of economics to the winds in a desperate attempt to hang on to ill-gotten power and wealth).

April 16, 2014 at 2:47 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-16/fed-policies-have-made-rich-much-richer-fed-president-admits

Despite Janet Yellen's meet-and-greet with the unemployed and criminal classes...

* I'M ASSUMING BY CRIMINAL CLASSES THE AUTHOR REFERS TO POLITICIANS AND WALL STREETERS...

...the absence of Ben Bernanke has seemingly empowered several Fed heads to be just a little "too" frank and honest about their views. The uncomfortable truthsayer this time is none other than Dallas Fed's Fisher:

1) FISHER SAYS FED POLICIES HAVE MADE THE RICH 'MUCH RICHER'
2) FISHER: UNCLEAR IF FED POLICIES WILL BENEFIT THE MIDDLE-CLASS

We wonder how President Obama, that crusader for fairness, equality and all time Russell 2000 highs, will feel about that?

In the meantime, just like the Herp, QE is the gift that keeps on giving.. and giving... and giving... to the 0.001%.

All of this, of course, coincides awkwardly with Bernanke's heartfelt "admission" that "my natural inclinations, even if it weren’t for the legal mandate, would be to try to help the average person."

* UH-HUH...

(As long as it helped to boost the wealth of the non-average billionaire, all is forgiven.)

(*SMIRK*)

"The result was there are still many people after the crisis who still feel that it was unfair that some companies got helped and small banks and small business and average families didn’t get direct help,” Bernanke said. “It’s a hard perception to break."

* "PERCEPTION," HUH...???

The truth, as again revealed by Fisher, will not help with breaking that perception.

U.S. Income Gap Soars To Widest Since "Roaring 20s"...

Record U.S. Income Inequality In One Chart...

Shopping With Bernanke: Where QE Cash Ends Up Tells Us Who Benefited...

* FOR THE CHARTS THAT GO WITH THE ABOVE HEADLINES, SIMPLY ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE VIA THE LINK PROVIDED UP TOP.

And just keep repeating to yourself, "The government is here to help... and Yellen is for the little guy..."

April 16, 2014 at 3:29 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304512504579493482915990804?mg=reno64-wsj

A $250-a-year subsidy for those who commute to work using New York's "bike share" program.

Breaks for Broadway plays like "Of Mice and Men" starring James Franco and Chris O'Dowd, up to $15 million per production.

A $71 million benefit for Nascar facilities.

Billions in credits for the wind-energy industry.

All that and more, coming soon to a taxpayer near you. It's once again time for the annual special-interest orgy known as the "tax extender" legislation, a giveaway bill that Congress plans to take up in the coming weeks.

Since the 1980s, when Washington last enacted comprehensive tax reform, Congress has passed extensions of ostensibly "temporary" tax breaks for interest groups. The package is referred to as "tax extenders" because the breaks are almost always extended by Congress without much opposition. The 2014 installment could cost $85 billion in the next two years, and legislators are piling on their pet projects since it's considered "must pass" legislation.

* EXPLAIN TO ME AGAIN HOW VIOLENCE ISN'T THE ONLY ANSWER...

This is all a mistake.

* APPARENTLY NOT! ACTUALLY, IT'S BIPARTISAN COOPERATION IN ACTION!

Congress needs to clean up the tax code and lower marginal rates across the board, but tax-extender legislation delays any serious reform. Congress should let the extenders expire permanently, and the Club for Growth, the free-market organization I run, intends to oppose the package. If a vote occurs, we'll likely include it on our annual congressional scorecard, which goes out to more than 100,000 of our members.

Many tax extenders are government spending disguised as tax breaks, such as a three-year depreciation for racehorses. Others amount to a kind of earmark: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) just added the credit for Broadway plays. Tax-extender legislation is also the occasion for campaign contributions, as lobbyists donate to ensure their special treatment continues. Recently, a reporter tweeted a picture of the Senate Finance Committee markup of the tax extenders bill. The room was packed. It filled up so quickly that some lobbyists had to watch the proceedings in the hallway on their iPads.

* DID SOMEONE SAY ANTHRAX...??? SARIN GAS...???

* TO BE CONTINUED...

April 16, 2014 at 4:20 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

The tax credit for research and development, which cost more than $6 billion in 2013 according to the Tax Foundation, exists to encourage companies to innovate. But R&D often takes longer than one year, and companies can't plan on such short extensions. And... the credit benefits already profitable companies. In 2012, the research and development credit cut Google's first-quarter income-tax liability in half, according to a 2013 Wall Street Journal report.

* GEEZUS... FRIGGIN'... CHRIST...

Other beneficiaries include Intel and Boeing.

* AND I'M SURE GE!

Allowing these credits to expire would do little if any harm to the overall economy. Specific industries that have too long considered the government a good customer would have to adjust. But the positive effects of ending capital misallocation would outweigh the temporary downsides. First Trust Advisors LP Chief Economist Brian Wesbury told me that "moving away from a lobbyist-oriented mentality of annual gifts to special interests will actually improve medium- to long-term economic prospects."

* OH... AND IF YOU ALREADY THINK THE FIX IS IN... THIS SHOULD REALLY INFURIATE YOU:

CBO projections already assume the revenue gains that ending the extenders would bring, even though that money doesn't exist. As Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) noted, "by pretending they will expire, Congress can claim the revenue their expiration would generate and disguise the true size of future deficits." Members of Congress benefit most by keeping the tax breaks temporary and extending them every year for eternity.

* NICE... HUH...?

Eliminating the extenders would increase government revenues, but that's not the reason for ending them. Pro-growth tax reform would likely also bolster government revenues — but would do so in a way that would benefit the economy. Getting rid of tax extenders might even motivate affected industries to lobby for real tax reform that would lower individual and corporate rates. That's what the country needs, and tax extenders are a distraction. They've stuck around because few have bothered to fight them. We're taking up the fight, in order to clear the field for real reform.

April 16, 2014 at 4:20 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304311204579505233620281364?mg=reno64-wsj

It's good to be the King...

...of investing.

And two events yesterday suggest that it's also good to be a close friend of President Obama.

Companies controlled by Democratic billionaire Warren Buffett are enjoying a relatively light touch from Washington.

On Tuesday the government's Surface Transportation Board announced some good news for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, owned by Mr. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. As Michael McBride, a partner at the Van Ness Feldman law firm, describes it, regulators "took a restrained action that should nevertheless help an important sector of the economy. Last week, the STB held hearings on critical problems involving railroad service. Compelling testimony was offered that fertilizer shipments, in particular, have been seriously delayed, perhaps especially on BNSF Railway and Canadian Pacific (which has lines in the U.S.). So, instead of trying to run the railroads, the STB ordered BNSF and CP to furnish fertilizer-service data once per week, thus sending a strong signal about the STB's concerns without actually telling the railroads what to ship where."

Mr. McBride doesn't have a dog in this fight...

And he hasn't raised BNSF's connection to Mr. Buffett.

And to be clear, at the Journal editorial page we are all for regulatory restraint.

But...

* BUT...

But it would be great to see such regulatory restraint when it comes to companies not owned by Mr. Buffett.

(*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)

Also on Tuesday a federal judge ruled the Department of Justice must turn over documents related to its decision to charge Standard & Poor's with civil fraud last year. The government sued S&P over its flawed ratings on mortgage bonds, but didn't charge rival Moody's, even though it had essentially identical ratings on the bonds.

* HMM... I WONDER WHAT "HE WHOSE NAME DARE NOT BE MENTIONED" WOULD MAKE OF THIS WERE HE TO BE MADE AWARE OF IT...?

Mr. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has long been a large shareholder in Moody's.

* YOU DON'T SAY...!

S&P has argued with some compelling evidence — including a threat made by former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner right after an Oval Office meeting with the President — that it was targeted because it downgraded the U.S. credit rating in 2011.

* HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN ME YOUR OPINION ON THIS ONE, BUD...? I MEAN... YOU DO AGREE THAT S&P WAS CORRECT IN DOWNGRADING THE U.S. CREDIT RATING... RIGHT? (JUST AS THEY WERE WRONG NOT TO DOWNGRADE THE ENTITIES INVOLVED IN THE MORTGAGE SCAM WHICH LED TO THE FINANCIAL MELTDOWN OF 2007-2008-2009?

Readers will recall that at the time Moody's maintained its top rating on U.S. Treasury debt while Mr. Buffett personally criticized S&P for yanking America's triple-A rating and opined that the U.S. government should be rated "quadruple-A."

(*RAISED EYEBROW*)

S&P may now be able to learn whether Mr. Buffett's endorsement had any role in the government decision not to include Moody's in the case. In truth, the case should never have been brought at all, because ratings judgments are merely opinions. The ratings only have such power because of government regulation that has forced companies to follow them.

* WHAT'S THAT, BUDDY...???

The ratings only have such power because of government regulation that has forced companies to follow them.

(*SMILEY SMIRK*)

But however misguided the government's legal theories are, they should be applied equally.

* WELCOME TO THE AGE OF OBAMA!

April 16, 2014 at 4:33 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-15/soaring-food-inflation-full-frontal-beef-and-shrimp-prices-explode

We previously noted that both beef and pork prices have been reaching new all time highs on an almost daily basis. It is time to update the chart. Below we show what a world in which the Fed is constantly lamenting the lack of inflation looks like for beef prices...

* CLICK ON THE LINK TO GET THE CHARTS...

Prices for shrimp have jumped to a 14-year high in recent months... In March, shrimp prices jumped 61% from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. At Noodles & Co., a chain with locations across the country, it costs 29% more to add the shellfish to pastas this year, and shrimp-heavy dishes at places like the Cheesecake Factory Inc. are going up as well. Restaurant chains, already struggling with shaky U.S. consumer confidence, are taking a profit hit as prices climb. Even worse, the surge is happening during the season of Lent, when eateries rely on seafood to lure Christian diners who abstain from chicken, beef and pork on certain days. “It’s coming at a tough time for the industry,” said Andrew Barish, a San Francisco-based analyst at Jefferies LLC. “With the Lenten season, what you’ll see out there is a lot of promotions with seafood, and usually shrimp is a big part of that.”

So for all those whose sustenance includes iPads and LCD TVs, or heaven forbid the pink slime known as fast food - you are in luck: the BLS' hedonic adjustments mean the rate of price increase in your daily consumption has rarely been lower. For everyone else: our condolences.

April 16, 2014 at 6:52 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jeffrey/86m-full-time-private-sector-workers-sustain-148m-benefit-takers

Buried deep on the website of the U.S. Census Bureau is a number every American citizen, and especially those entrusted with public office, should know. It is 86,429,000.

That is the number of Americans who in 2012 got up every morning and went to work — in the private sector — and did it week after week after week.

These are the people who built America, and these are the people who can sustain it as a free country. The liberal media have not made them famous like the polar bear, but they are truly a threatened species.

It is not a rancher with a few hundred head of cattle that is attacking their habitat, nor an energy company developing a fossil fuel. It is big government and its primary weapon — an ever-expanding welfare state.

First, let's look at the basic taxonomy of the full-time, year-round American worker.

In 2012, according to the Census Bureau, approximately 103,087,000 people worked full-time, year-round in the United States. "A full-time, year-round worker is a person who worked 35 or more hours per week (full time) and 50 or more weeks during the previous calendar year (year round)," said the Census Bureau. "For school personnel, summer vacation is counted as weeks worked if they are scheduled to return to their job in the fall."

* AND THAT'S BULLSHIT. INDEED, THE FAIREST AND MOST ACCURATE WAY TO MEASURE "WORK" IS VIA HOURS PUT IN. (YES... INCLUDING WORKING FROM HOME OR WHILE TRAVELING ON BUSINESS.)

Of the 103,087,000 full-time, year-round workers, 16,606,000 worked for the government. That included 12,597,000 who worked for state and local government and 4,009,000 who worked for the federal government.

The 86,429,000 Americans who worked full-time, year-round in the private sector, included 77,392,000 employed as wage and salary workers for private-sector enterprises and 9,037,000 who worked for themselves. (There were also approximately 52,000 who worked full-time, year-round without pay in a family enterprise.)

At first glance, 86,429,000 might seem like a healthy population of full-time private-sector workers. But then you need to look at what they are up against.

(*DRUM ROLL*)

The Census Bureau also estimates the size of the benefit-receiving population.

(*CYMBAL CRASH*)

This population, too, falls into two broad categories. The first includes those who receive benefits for public services they performed or in exchange for payroll taxes they dutifully paid their entire working lives. Among these, for example, are those receiving veteran's benefits, those on unemployment and those getting Medicare and Social Security.

* AND LET'S PUT THE KABASH ON UNEMPLOYMENT PAYMENTS WHICH CONTINUED AFTER "REGULAR" UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS (THE ONES PAID FOR... THE ONES PREMIUMS WERE PAID SO AS TO EARN) EXPIRED. THEY ARE NOTHING MORE THAN WELFARE BY ANOTHER NAME.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

April 16, 2014 at 7:04 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

The second category includes those who get "means-tested" government benefits — or welfare. These include, for example, those who get Medicaid, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, public housing, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Women, Infants Children.

* BUMS. NOT ALL. PERHAPS NOT EVEN HALF. BUT A GREAT MANY. WAY TOO MANY.

Let's examine this second category first, which the Census Bureau reports as "anyone residing in a household in which one or more people received benefits from the program."

In the last quarter of 2011, according to the Census Bureau, approximately 82,457,000 people lived in households where one or more people were on Medicaid. 49,073,000 lived in households were someone got food stamps. 23,228,000 lived in households where one or more got WIC. 20,223,000 lived in households where one or more got SSI. 13,433,000 lived in public or government-subsidized housing.

Of course, it stands to reason that some people lived in households that received more than one welfare benefit at a time. To account for this, the Census Bureau published a neat composite statistic: There were 108,592,000 people in the fourth quarter of 2011 who lived in a household that included people on "one or more means-tested program."

Those 108,592,000 outnumbered the 86,429,000 full-time private-sector workers who inhabited the United States in 2012 by almost 1.3 to 1.

* TO REPEAT...

Those 108,592,000 outnumbered the 86,429,000 full-time private-sector workers who inhabited the United States in 2012 by almost 1.3 to 1.

This brings us to the first category of benefit receivers. There were 49,901,000 people receiving Social Security in the fourth quarter of 2011, and 46,440,000 receiving Medicare. There were also 5,098,000 getting unemployment compensation. And there were also, 3,178,000 veterans receiving benefits and 34,000 veterans getting educational assistance. All told, including both the welfare recipients and the non-welfare beneficiaries, there were 151,014,000 who "received benefits from one or more programs" in the fourth quarter of 2011. Subtract the 3,212,000 veterans, who served their country in the most profound way possible, and that leaves 147,802,000 non-veteran benefit takers. The 147,802,000 non-veteran benefit takers outnumbered the 86,429,000 full-time private sector workers 1.7 to 1.

* ONE... MORE... TIME...

The 147,802,000 non-veteran benefit takers outnumbered the 86,429,000 full-time private sector workers 1.7 to 1.

How much more can the 86,429,000 endure?

As more baby boomers retire, and as ObamaCare comes fully online with its expanded Medicaid rolls and federally subsidized health insurance for anyone earning less than 400% of the poverty level the number of takers will inevitably expand. And the number of full-time private-sector workers might also contract.

Eventually, there will be too few carrying too many, and America will break.

April 16, 2014 at 7:04 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/jw-obtains-irs-documents-showing-lerner-contact-doj-potential-prosecution-tax-exempt-groups/

udicial Watch today released a new batch of internal IRS documents revealing that former IRS official Lois Lerner communicated with the Department of Justice (DOJ) about whether it was possible to criminally prosecute certain tax-exempt entities. The documents were obtained as a result of an October 2013 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after the agency refused to respond to four FOIA requests dating back to May 2013.

The newly released IRS documents contain an email exchange between Lerner and Nikole C. Flax, then-Chief of Staff to then-Acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller discussing plans to work with the DOJ to prosecute nonprofit groups that “lied” (Lerner’s quotation marks) about political activities. Lerner then “handed off” scheduling the issue to Senior Technical Adviser, Attorney Nancy Marks, who was then supposed to set up the meeting with the DOJ. Lerner also decided that it would be DOJ’s decision as to whether representatives from the Federal Election Commission would attend.

The documents also include email exchanges showing that before Lerner’s May 10, 2013, speech to the American Bar Association blaming “low-level” employees in Cincinnati for targeting tax-exempt organizations, the IRS Exempt Organizations division was scrambling to defuse the emerging targeting scandal.

The Judicial Watch FOIA requests came on the heels of an explosive May 14, 2013, Treasury Inspector General report revealing that the IRS had singled out groups with conservative-sounding terms such as “patriot” and “Tea Party” in their titles when applying for tax-exempt status. The IG probe determined that “Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status to (e.g., lists of past and future donors).” According to the report, the illegal IRS reviews continued for more than 18 months and “delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications” preparing for the 2012 presidential election.

Lerner, who headed the IRS division that handles applications for tax-exempt status, refused to testify at a May 2013 hearing before Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) House Oversight Committee, demanding immunity concerning her role in the targeting scandal. Lerner retired from the IRS with full benefits on September 23 after an internal investigation found she was guilty of “neglect of duties” and was going to call for her ouster, according to news reports. On April 9, 2014, the Ways and Means Committee referred Lois Lerner to the DOJ for criminal prosecution. On April 10, 2014, the House Oversight Committee voted to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress.

“These new emails show that the day before she broke the news of the IRS scandal, Lois Lerner was talking to a top Obama Justice Department official about whether the DOJ could prosecute the very same organizations that the IRS had already improperly targeted,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The IRS emails show Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is now implicated and conflicted in the IRS scandal. No wonder we had to sue in federal court to get these documents.”

April 16, 2014 at 7:23 PM

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