July 30, 2009
- France moves ahead with “controversial postal reform” — Meanwhile, our postal service, which should be privatized, is on track to lose a record-setting $7 billion, and wants to cut back service.
- Thanks to Alo at Brain Shavings for e-mailing links to American Thinker’s ongoing series, currently up to four parts, called “What to Ask Your Congressman About Obamacare.” They are: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4. There are apparently more parts to come; they will be linked here. Update: Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7 of 7.
- James Pethokoukis at his Reuters blog — “Why ObamaCare is morphing into RomneyCare.” A 2012 electoral contest between the current alleged GOP front-runner and the current presidential incumbent would in many ways be Romney v. Romney. We have about two years for a candidate who supports sensible conservatism, which is actually a redundant term, to appear.
- Debra Burlingame in the Wall Street Journal — “Revenge of the ‘Shoe Bomber’; The terrorist sues to resume his jihad from prison. The Obama administration caves in.” Money sentence: “Meanwhile, in order to appease political constituencies both here and abroad, the Obama administration is moving full steam ahead, operating on the false premise that giving more civil liberties to (imprisoned) religious fanatics bent on destroying Western civilization will make a difference in the Muslim world.” Oh, it will make a difference, just not the one Obama naively expects. Or does he really understand what is really likely to happen, but okay with it?
- According to a just-received CNN e-mail, “Exxon Mobil’s second-quarter income tumbles 66% to $3.95 billion, falling short of analysts’ estimates.” Before statists carrying out their own virtual jihad against producers break out the champagne, they should recognize that this probably means that their beloved Uncle Sam will get billions of dollars a year less in corporate income taxes if this continues at Exxon and other oil companies. The disaster in federal corporate income tax collections, and federal tax collections in general, shows no sign of abating, as shown in these individual line items making up the vast majority of all money collected:
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Re: Exxon, it just goes to show you never really can have “too much money”. You never know what emergency or unforeseen incident might arise. Hopefully their income won’t drop too low. I have to wonder if the statists think trying to rob Exxon and other oil companies of their capital was such a good idea now? What if all those “excessive” and “windfall” profits turn out to be the difference between the oil companies, who help keep our industrial might going, (despite what the numbnuts say, “foreign” oil gives us the might to crush our enemies and NOT the other way ’round) staying alive or going bankrupt?
Or would they prefer for our civilization to collapse? Hmmm, better perhaps not to answer that…
Comment by zf — July 30, 2009 @ 11:47 am
I ask again, “Now that gas prices are $1.50 less than a year ago, and Exxon’s profits down, are Americans gouging the oil companies? Shouldn’t there be an investigation of us colluding to keep demand down?”
Comment by Joe C. — July 30, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
In a related note to #1 and 2,
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip_gasoline.html
The price of gasoline rose last week back to $2.50/gal but the kicker is demand was DOWN from the same period. Of greater concern for all the talk of the economy turning the corner because earnings reports were up is the fact that we are still using way less gasoline than last year at this time, which was also less than the previous year. Either the US has secretly instituted an energy saving technology that politicians are not willing to tout OR economic activity is still winding down.
I submit the only secret energy savings going on not touted by politicians is increasing unemployment. As I have mentioned before the economy seems to be hunting around the $2.50/gallon price point, where as soon as it gets above that point consumption starts dropping off and then prices slide a wee bit below and then consumption starts picking up with prices following suit. The unavoidable conclusion here is we have an energy constraint problem, a bottleneck in supply that won’t permit any further increase demand without a price increase. I think we all know who is to blame for that situation: the no drill policy by the incompetents running the country.
This brings me back to the so called rosy earnings reports of late which the stock market has used as an excuse to rally. It would seem to me this is another sucker’s rally. Better earnings are only sustainable if they are based on higher sales. Are these earnings based on that? Or are they based on efficiently cutting the workforce, increasing productivity and cutting other expenses? If it is the later then this is a sucker’s rally because by next quarter if there is no sales volume increase then earnings will be flat. You can not sustain earnings growth with no sales volume growth, period. Worse yet, this set of economic dynamics is the basis for Stagflation, the worst of all worlds. We have two of the three elements firmly set: 1. High unemployment, 2. Slow economic growth, now all we don’t want to complete the misery is inflation.
Where will the inflation come from? Any uptick in energy costs, any tax increases that business has to pass on to the consumer, any new cost of regulation and mandate the government saddles business with such as cap & trade or health care. The problem here is with all the massive unprecedented deficit spending going on by the incompetents running government, a tax increase is inevitable since as more people become unemployed, the government will be shelling out ever greater dollars in benefits to sustain them. If the Dems aren’t careful they will cause a self reinforcing spiral of unemployment and tax increases then we will all be like Cubans, 95% sustained by the government in a no growth stagnant economy. The only thing that saves Cuba from total third world conditions is tourism and since the Europeans are hurting, I can’t imagine things are going well for them.
Comment by dscott — July 31, 2009 @ 9:43 am
It seems CHANGE is happening at the BEA, they are not publishing the GDP estimates at this time: http://www.bea.gov/national/tables_releaseschedule.htm
Their excuse is found on http://www.bea.gov/National/nipaweb2009/Index.asp
With the release of the 2009 comprehensive revision estimates on July 31, 2009, BEA will change the layouts of many of the tables that present the NIPA estimates. Draft table formats for the updated NIPA tables are available by following the links below. These table formats are complete and up to date as of June 8, 2009, but are subject to revision with the July 31 release.
An article in the March 2009 issue of the Survey of Current Business discussed the changes in the presentation of the NIPA tables, along with changes in definitions.
How long it will take for this CHANGE to occur is anyone’s guess, but given your worrisome catch on the accounting gimmicks employed with the federal budget to minimize the deficit I am left to wonder if they found a way to finesse the GDP numbers as well to their advantage.
Comment by dscott — July 31, 2009 @ 10:02 am
#4, anything’s possible, but I don’t think there’s manipulation. They do this once every 5 years.
The data that had been in draft is now apparently in the real tables, because the drafts go to tables with nothing in them.
Comment by TBlumer — July 31, 2009 @ 10:13 am
#4, well it seems my question has been answered in #3, it’s a sucker’s rally. I see nothing but negative GDP numbers in Domestic durable and non-durable goods and the same for exports and imports.
A whopping -41% in the first quarter for imported goods has got to be a record. The rate slowed down in the next quarter.
Comment by dscott — July 31, 2009 @ 10:28 am