In an e-mail tip, Matt at Weapons of Mass Discussion “blames Bush” for this report (link is to PR release; actual PDF of report is here) about “the worst economy since Herbert Hoover”:

Capital Spending Up 10 Percent (in 2005), Reaches $1.1 Trillion

Has the rise continued since 2005? Almost definitely, according to the researchers extraordinaire at Global Insight, who said this in August of last year:

Last year saw the return of capital spending growth in the United States. Global Insight’s five-year capital spending forecast calls for average annual growth in fixed equipment investment to accelerate to 6.4% per year from now through 2010.

Corporations played cap spending very close to the vest in the first few years after 9/11 attacks, but they have finally loosened up. Perhaps this is because of a renewed confidence that the chances of another serious domestic terror attack have gone down (note that I’m not opining on whether that confidence is misplaced).

A subscription-only article in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week pointed out why enviros, most of whom can be counted in the anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-Republican, anti-capitalist camps, should consider switching sides:

As the country has grown wealthier selling oil and gas, Iranians have themselves become large consumers of energy. Government subsidies, which make energy nearly free to consumers and businesses, stoke the demand further.

At the same time, a combination of Western sanctions and Iranian policies has discouraged foreign investment in oil fields, causing production to stagnate. The result: Iran’s oil exports could dry up in as little as a decade, according to some who have studied the situation.

That’s a looming disaster for Iran, which derives about 85% of its export income from the sale of oil. “The industry is in a crisis,” says Mehdi Varzi, a former Iranian diplomat and national oil company official who heads a London-based consulting company, Varzi Energy.

The impact would be felt far beyond Iran. The country produced 3.8 million barrels of oil a day in 2006, almost 5% of the world’s total supply, according to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. It exported an average of about 2.5 million barrels of that each day. Should those sales decline, Iran’s largest customers, Japan and China, would scramble for other supplies, pushing up prices for everyone.

I believe that no matter how ugly Iran’s environmental offenses are, and no matter their impact on the environment in other parts of the world as users search for substitute oil sources, the true believers in the environmental movement will never switch sides, simply because they are first and foremost anti-capitalist, anti-free markets, and above all anti-US, regardless of the consequences.

_____________________________

UPDATE: I should add that I would welcome being proven wrong on this one. I’m not optimistic.

On Tuesday, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission does his part (link may require subscription) for efficient markets:

(Feb. 20) Starting today, the Securities and Exchange Commission will slice regulatory fees charged to public companies and other issuers for securities transactions and registrations by $700 million.

Fees to register securities with the SEC will be reduced by 71.3%, while fees on securities transactions will be reduced by 50.2%.

Fee rates for proxy solicitations and statements will fall to $30.70 per $1 million, down from $107 per $1 million.

Fees associated with transactions on exchanges and over-the-counter markets will be cut to $15.30 per $1 million, the SEC said.

The assessment on security futures transactions also will decrease to $0.0042 per round turn transaction, effective March 17.

“The investors who bear the burden of these SEC fees deserve this relief,” said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, according to a statement.

“It will mean that more of their hard earned savings will be available for important needs such as education, health care, and retirement — and less will be diverted to Washington.”

The SEC was never meant to become the profit center it has become. This is a very good move on Cox’s part.

From USA Today (HT Don Luskin):

A typical full-time state or local government worker made $78,853 in wages and benefits in the third quarter of 2006, $25,771 more than a typical private-sector worker, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. The difference was $7,604 in 2000. The compensation advantage holds true for all types of public workers, from teachers to laborers and managers. Better benefits for government workers is the biggest reason for the growing compensation gap.

Good thing we’ve had a Republican administration and (most of the time) Congress, or it might have been worse. (/ intense sarcasm)

From National Review, Kudlow’s wrap is rhapsodical:

In his brief tenure at the Fed, Bernanke has mopped up excess liquidity and reduced inflationary expectations; he has stuck to his free-market principles while targeting inflation and employment. Meanwhile, low tax rates have led to the availability of more goods and services, a growth cycle that makes the existing money supply less inflationary.

This is a supply-side model, and it’s very much in place right now: A combination of strong economic growth and newfound monetary control are working together for the betterment of investors, workers, and businesses — and even federal finances. According to Wall Street economist Michael Darda, surging tax receipts have reduced the federal deficit to only 1.4 percent of GDP, significantly below the 2.3 percent average of the last three decades.

The recessionists are wrong. The bears are wrong. The pessimists are wrong. The doom-and-gloom crowd is wrong. The Democrats who rule the roost on Capitol Hill are wrong.

We are witnessing the Bush-Bernanke boom, and it’s still the greatest story never told.

I think Don Luskin would say that inflation still looms. The Consumer Price Index report earlier this week also indicated that some inflationary caution is warranted. But it’s hard to argue with Kudlow’s central take on the state of the economy.

The good professor nails it:

According to the “vicious cycle of poverty” vision, the only escape is foreign aid. The only way this theory of Third World poverty would have any credibility is if every country were poor. There’s no country that wasn’t at some time poor, including our own. If poverty is so vicious, how did today’s rich countries escape it?

I believe the list of countries that emerged from grinding poverty without applying capitalist principles and policies is very short — regardless of the presence or absence of foreign aid.

That’s great. It will be especially entertaining to watch the ladies play best-of-five set matches.

….. They won’t? Whatever happened to equal pay for equal work?

From Australia:

Published: 25/01/2007 12:00 AM (UAE)

Sydney: A diver who was almost swallowed head first by a huge shark said yesterday he survived by poking the animal in the eye, and credited the lead-lined vest he was wearing with having saved him from being chomped in half.

Abalone diver Eric Nerhus, 41, described Tuesday’s terrifying attack by a shark estimated by witnesses to be 3 metres long off the fishing town of Eden, about 400 kilometres south of Sydney.

Nerhus was working with his son and other divers collecting the shellfish when the shark struck from nowhere at about eight metres below the surface, grabbing him by the head and shoulders, he said.

“Half my body was in its mouth,” Nerhus told Australian television’s Nine Network. Nerhus said he fought desperately.

“I felt down to the eye socket with my two fingers and poked them into the socket,” he said. “The shark reacted by opening its mouth and I just tried to wriggle out.

“It was still trying to bite me. It crushed my goggles into my nose and they fell into its mouth.” He said he managed to finally escape after jabbing at its eye with a chisel he used to chip abalone from rocks.

As he swam to the surface, Nerhus said: “It was just circling around my flippers, round in round in tight circles. … The big round black eye … was staring straight into my face with just not one hint of fear.”