July’s bad news in new home sales is even worse than it first appears.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of 276,000 units is bad enough. That is an all-time low since records have been kept and 12% lower than June’s annual rate. It’s also lower than what analysts predicted by about the same percentage. The lazy business press is running with those figures.

But, as has been the case so many other times, it takes a trip to the raw (i.e., not seasonally adjusted) data, this time at the Census Bureau (large PDF), to fully comprehend the extent of the new-home market’s collapse during this big, fat failed “Recovery Summer.”

The raw data shows that 25,000 new homes were sold in the U.S. in July. That’s not a typo, and it really is the figure for the entire country. Worse, that figure, the lowest July since records have been kept, is down by over one-third from July of last year, when the economy supposedly bottomed out, and by 42% from July 2008. I don’t think you’ll see those facts reported today.

Here is a graphic cap of a 10:07 a.m. report at Reuters carried at CNBC.com. It contains a jaw-dropper of a quote from an economist (red box is obviously mine):

You have to wonder how widely reported Mr. Porcelli’s in-your-face to the government will be, or if it will even survive future Reuters revisions.

As would be expected, no similar quote is present at the Associated Press, which used its time-honored business-reporting strategy of downplaying the awful news inside of two larger stories, one about the stock market’s reaction and the other about the not as bad news about durable goods orders, instead of giving it the separate treatment it deserves.

Here are a few paragraphs from the two reports. To their credit, the authors of the first cited the lowest-on-record nature of the past three months’ results, but without indicating the degree of the cratering:

(Daniel Wagner and Alan Zibel, “Recovery in danger as firms, homebuyers cut back,” as of 12:09 p.m.)

The economic recovery appears to be stalling as companies cut back last month on their investments in equipment and machines and Americans bought new homes at the weakest pace in decades.

… Separately, Commerce said new home sales fell 12.4 percent in July from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 276,600. That was the slowest pace on records dating back to 1963. Collectively, the past three months have been the worst on record for new home sales.

… The two reports are likely to stoke fears that the economy is on the verge of slipping back into a recession. They follow Tuesday’s report that showed sales of previously owned homes fell last month to the lowest level in decades. Unemployment remains near double digits and job growth in the private sector is slowing.

… Housing has never fully recovered from the recession. Builders have been forced to compete with foreclosed properties offered at significantly lower prices.

(Stephen Bernard, “More bad news on home sales sends stocks lower,” as of 12:04 p.m.)

The Dow Jones industrial average fell about 16 points in midday trading Wednesday following news that sales of new homes fell last month to the lowest level on record. It was the latest indication that home sales are stagnating after the expiration of a homebuyer tax credit this spring.

… New home sales fell 12.4 percent in July to an annual rate of 276,600, the Commerce Department reported. That was the slowest pace on records dating back to 1963 and worse than the pace forecast by economists polled by Thomson Reuters. A day earlier, the National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes, a far greater proportion of the housing market, fell to a 15-year low in July.

… Despite the ultra-low borrowing rates, home sales have been weak since a home buyer tax credit expired at the end of April. High unemployment has kept people from buying homes, and banks still reeling from the crisis in the mortgage-backed securities market have been cautious in making new loans.

Note how the last excerpted sentence dodges Porcelli’s contention at Reuters that “There is also little demand for lending.” Banks are being cautious, but there’s plenty of mortgage money out there for people who want to borrow (listen to the constant barrage of lender radio ads if you don’t believe it). There’s just little interest in doing so.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Note: This post went up at the Washington Examiner’s OpinionZone blog and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Monday.

_______________________________________

Related: A new example of panic — “Bennet Bombshell: Trillions in Debt, ‘Nothing to Show for It.’” The trouble is that Colorado Senator Michael Bennet voted for all of it, and can’t rationally run away from it now. But what else can a panic-stricken incumbent do?

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(original post)

Three seemingly unrelated stances taken by well-known Democratic politicians during the past week have one thing in common.

The first came courtesy of Nevada Senator and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Out of the blue, he announced that he opposes the Ground Zero Mosque — or, if you’re the Associated Press, “the mosque near ground zero” (note the lowercase on “Ground Zero,” which, despite the PC AP, is a place every bit as deserving of uppercase letters as, say, “Pearl Harbor”). He says that “the mosque should be built somewhere else.”

Then came Congressman Barney Frank. The Massachusetts congressman, who spent well over a decade defending government-sponsored mortgage behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from anyone and everyone who questioned their dangerously burgeoning role and ever-shakier financial situation, went on a TV tour telling the world he now wants to abolish them.

Finally there was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who announced on Thursday her belief that those who oppose the Ground Zero Mosque should be investigated to see where their funding is coming from.

This is all pretty bizarre stuff, but it all comes down to one word: Fear.

Harry Reid is afraid of losing in November to Sharron Angle. The concern is justified.

Incredible as it may sound, Barney Frank, assuming he dispatches Rachel Brown in the Democratic primary, is afraid of losing in the general election race to a Republican, either Sean Bielat or Earl Sholley.

It’s a fair bet that Frank has taken note of a survey of 12 Eastern state congressional districts current held by Democrats. In the generic party ballot, “voters in these districts prefer a Republican to a Democrat as their next congressman by a 38 to 31 percent margin.” Frank’s district is bluer than most, but many of its voters may be seeing red after experiencing Commonwealth Care, the Bay State’s precursor to ObamaCare, for a couple of years, and Obamanomics for the past 19 months.

Pelosi isn’t afraid of losing her seat. (Of course not. That could never happen … could it?) She’s just afraid she won’t be House Speaker much longer, and is trying to go to on the offensive in the misbegotten belief that doing so will benefit her Democratic colleagues.

All three seemingly diverse actions give off a distinct aura of panic. Reid and Frank believe their sudden conversion to semi-sensible positions will garner favor with voters who have until now been disengaged (sad to say, despite the Tea Party, that’s still most Americans). Pelosi believes that she can turn the tables and distract a bit of attention away from her party’s monstrously poor handling of the economy and federal finances.

Watch for more Democratic politicians to engage in desperate, out-of-character antics in the next 70 days or so. Now you know what they’ll all have in common.

Why the coverage of the Ground Zero Mosque at the New York Times reads like it was written by a CAIR apologist: One of its reporters on the story is a former CAIR apologist –

As Alana Goodman of the Business and Media Institute reported earlier this month, Sharaf Mowjood is a former lobbyist for the Council on American Islamic Relations, an interest group that strongly supports the mosque.

Last week (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that Mowjood co-authored an online December 8, 2009 Times story that had this critical quote from Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf scrubbed before it went to the front page of the print edition

“New York is the capital of the world, and this location close to 9/11 is iconic.”

This interpretation by NB commenter “OxyCon” credibly explains why the quote disappeared:

… building a mosque as close as possible to Ground Zero is the true ambition of taqiyya practicing Imam Rauf. It is his mission.

“New York City is the capital of the world”

+

“this location close to 9/11 (ground zero location) is iconic”

=

“Victory Mosque”.

Perhaps Sharaf Mowjood knew exactly what it meant, and didn’t want it in the story. Too bad for him that a few bloggers excerpted the online original before it too was changed.

______________________________________________

This AP video (HT Rusty Weiss) of convicted 1970 University of Wisconsin bomber Karleton Armstrong outs him as essentially remorseless, even though what he did, besides inflicting millions in damage, killed physicist Robert Fassnacht, husband and father of three.

Lowlights from the video:

• He’s happy that people walk up to him and say, “Karl, so glad to meet you. You really did the right thing.”
• He thinks his accomplice, who has been on the run for 40 years, should be given amnesty, because “being on the run is probably punishment enough.”
• He “regrets” the death of Fassnacht and the people injured in the bombing, “but not the bombing per se. I think it was the right thing at the time.”

For decades since his release, Armstrong has run a juice stand on Library Mall at the Wisconsin campus where he committed his terrorist act. Watch him, and you get the impression that the stand is the rough equivalent of his own personal Ground Zero Mosque.

Read the excerpt at the right from a long Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report in 1986, and you’ll realize that he has felt that way for alt least a quarter-century, and that his late brother agreed with him while he was alive.

______________________________________________

Megan McArdle — “Housing Market Stuck in a Rut.”

We should be so lucky. It’s still in decline, as shown in June’s housing starts and new home sales (both since-records-kept lows), July’s housing starts and building permits (ditto), and yesterday’s news that existing home sales plunged 27% in July to a 15-year low.

Update: Told ya — “US New Home Sales Sink to Lowest Pace on Record.” It’s even worse than that, which I’ll address later. Update 2: That post is here. That’s three worst-ever stats, a true trifecta of trauma.

______________________________________________

Politico goes after blogger — again. I agree with Patterico’s call to avoid linking to the Politico, and will do so henceforth. This is vindictive bullying by lawyers with way too much time on their hands.

______________________________________________

Lachlan Markey at NewsBusters — “Media Nearly Silent as ObamaCare Proponents Drop Deficit, Cost Savings Claims.”

Nobody who studied it carefully ever believed those claims.

So there’s nothing left but an overreaching, statist monster. It uses the health insurance system to redistribute wealth on a scale that no socialist European country has ever gotten anywhere near. Virtually no one knows this.

From New Orleans (the video blog is here):

Aug 25, 2010 / 01:07 am

Archbishop of New Orleans Gregory Aymond has launched a video blog to deliver weekly messages to area Catholics. His first message reflects on his hopes for the future and what he has learned in his first year an archbishop. His next video will mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

“On most days it’s hard to believe it’s been a year already,” Archbishop Aymond says in his first video. He added that it was his “humble privilege” to serve as archbishop, especially since he is the first native son of New Orleans to hold the office in over 200 years.

He also admitted that he has not been to all the parishes of the archdiocese as he had hoped he would, but he intends to fulfill the promise he made.

Speaking of the state of the archdiocese, he said “the Catholic Church is alive and well” and continues to be a “strong, strong presence” in New Orleans and beyond.

The archbishop has said he has been “overwhelmed” by the fraternity of the priests and by the “wonderful welcome” he has received from the priests, religious and laity.

Turning to the challenges facing the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Archbishop Aymond cited rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina, responding to the effects of the Gulf oil spill, and addressing those hurt by the archdiocese’s pastoral plan to reorganize its churches. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

The theater of the Sherrods continues.

Earlier today, Shirley Sherrod, who, according to the current version of ruling class wisdom, was prematurely evacuated from the USDA by Director Tom Vilsack, decided not to accept an offer to return to the agency.

Instead, according to Politico’s Matt Negrin, “she hasn’t accepted the department’s offer to work there again, but that she wants ‘some type of relationship’ with it later.” We wouldn’t closure or anything, would we?

Five weeks or so have intervened since Andrew Breitbart posted a video excerpt of Sherrod’s speech at an NAACP event. (It should be noted USAactionnews.com actually posted the video earlier; though their link has been taken down, their original July 15 tweet is here.)

In that time, the establishment press has either seriously downplayed or totally ignored the several important items relating to the background and outlook of Ms. Sherrod and her husband Charles.

The earliest discovery was Shirley Sherrod was appointed to her position as Georgia Director of Rural Development on July 25, 2009. That appointment came mere days after her former co-op farm New Communities, Inc. (NCI) “won a thirteen million dollar settlement in the minority farmers law suit Pigford vs Vilsack.” This settlement included “$150,000 each to Shirley and Charles for pain and suffering.” How odd, to say the least, for a victorious plaintiff to end up working for the losing defendant.

Then, about a week after Breitbart’s video drop, another video surfaced, this time of Charles. Delivering the keynote address at a “race and law conference” at the University of Virginia School of Law, Sherrod his audience:

(To young African-Americans in the audience) “Please find a way, find a way that we can trust each other. So that our monies can work for our total liberation. … Our labor and our monies and our contracts usually end up in white folks’ hands and pockets. When will we trust our own?”

“… we must stop the white man and his Uncle Toms from stealing our elections. We must not be afraid to vote black.”

Charming.

Finally, there were the shocking accusations by black activist and Cal State professor Ron Wilkins at Counterpunch that during at least the late 1960s and early 1970s, NCI “under-paid, mistreated and fired black laborers–many of them less than 16 years of age–in the same fields of southwest Georgia where their ancestors suffered under chattel slavery.” Wilkins cited tangible, same-time evidence that NCI was struck by the United Farm Workers. An article in a September 28, 1974 UFW publication (“Children Farm Workers Strike Black Co-op”) leveled the following accusations directly at Charles Sherrod (the first word in the original is “through,” which is erroneous):

Though several of the cooperative’s funding organization’s are pressuring Charles Sherrod, the farm’s manager, to reach a settlement with the strikers, he remains unwilling to negotiate.

With so few scabs left in New Community’s (sic) fields, the UFW first strike in the southeast area (outside of Florida) may bring the first of many UFW contracts to these fields that were once harvested by slave labor.

NCI employed scab labor, and somehow that’s not worth reporting. Uh-huh.

Wilkins makes it clear that Shirley Sherrod was also heavily involved in NCI’s operations: “Shirley Sherrod was New Communities Inc. store manager during the 1970s. As such, Mrs. Sherrod was a key member of the NCI administrative team, which exploited and abused the workforce in the field.”

For this, the Sherrods and NCI deserved $13 million?

As of about 3 PM Eastern Time, a Google News search on “Sherrod Vilsack” (not in quotes; sorted in date order) returned 290 items (search results saved at my host for future reference). A search on “Sherrod Vilsack Wilkins” (not in quotes; sorted in date order) returned one result (also saved) — my August 3 Washington Examiner blog post about NCI’s alleged worker exploitation. Update: As of 6:20 p.m., the search results (sherrod vilsack; sherrod vilsack wilkins) were virtually identical.

If the non-coverage of the items raised above continues, this journalistic dereliction of duty will end up at or near the top of the list of the most disgraceful establishment press cover-ups I’ve ever seen. I’d love to be proven wrong.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

They’ll have all sorts of excuses (but only if asked) about why it happened: It’s because they had a lot of guest anchors last week, it was hot, summer vacation season is still on (though lots of kids in Greater Cincinnati were already back in school by last Wednesday), cable is killing us, blah-blah, etc., etc.

But the Big Three networks won’t be able to avoid the fact that their ongoing decline reached a painful low last week of 18.82 million average viewers. Here is the graphic that appeared this morning at ABC’s lipstick-on-a-pig blog post:

I don’t know whether that’s an all-time low, but Kevin Allocca at Media Bistro, who hadn’t posted the full numbers as of the time of this post, has noted that one of those networks indeed scraped bottom last week:

‘CBS Evening News’ Ties All-Time Low

The network newscast ratings for last week are in and “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” tied its all-time low in total viewers with an average of 4.89 million tuning in during the five days.

The low was set last June, when ABC also hit its own low. (Ratings records date back to the 1991-’92 season.)

It’s not unreasonable to believe that the Perky Ms. Couric’s pathetic performance might have more than a little to do with her compulsion to lecture us.

Here is how the overall numbers compare to those from one and two years ago:

• Week of August 18, 2008 — 21.44 million
• Week of August 17, 2009 — 19.76 million
• Week of August 16, 2010 — 18.82 million

This past week was down 4.8% from a year ago, and almost 14% from two years ago. NBC’s audience, which was a whisker shy of 9 million two years ago, has fallen 17.5%. Gee, do you think that might have something to do with Brian Williams’s open contempt for the Tea Party Movement?

Though the comparison isn’t apples to apples because the 2010 numbers are for a summertime week, the nets’ average audience during calendar 2005 was about 27 million. There’s little doubt their 5-year decline is in the neighborhood of 20%-25%, and possibly much more. The U.S. population grew by about 4% during that five-year period.

As Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds might say, though usually in a more positive vein: “Faster, please.”

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

It’s here.

Subheadline:

Worst economic slogan since Herbert Hoover — for what really is the worst economy since Herbert Hoover.

It will go up here at BizzyBlog on Thursday morning (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires.

From Washington:

Aug 23, 2010 / 06:19 pm

Pro-life groups lauded the decision of a federal court ruling on Monday which prevents the Obama administration from carrying out its embryonic stem cell research policy. One legal fund reacted by saying, the “American people should not be forced to pay for experiments – prohibited by federal law – that destroy human life.”

The ruling comes after the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued new guidelines last year that permitted federal funding for research on stem cell lines that had already been created.

On August 23, however, a federal judge concluded that the policy likely violates a federal law known as the “Dickey/Wicker Amendment.” The amendment has been part of the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every year since 1996.

The amendment bars federal funding for the creation of a human embryo for research purposes as well as for research in which a human embryo or embryos are “destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth temporarily blocked the Obama administration on Monday from using federal dollars to fund expanded human embryonic stem cell research while a lawsuit against the NIH policy – filed last year by the Christian Medical Association (CMA) and Nightlight Christian Adoptions – proceeds.

Pro-life groups praised the ruling on Monday.

The Alliance Defense Fund, which helped represent CMA and Nightlight, saying that the “American people should not be forced to pay for experiments – prohibited by federal law – that destroy human life.”

“The court is simply enforcing an existing law passed by Congress that prevents Americans from paying another penny for needless research on human embryos,” continued ADF Senior Legal Counsel Steven H. Aden. “No one should be allowed to decide that an innocent life is worthless.”

“Experimentation on embryonic stem cells isn’t even necessary because adult stem cell research has been enormously successful,” Aden said. “In economic times like we are in now, it doesn’t make sense for the federal government to use precious taxpayer dollars for this illegal and unethical purpose.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Here’s the latest, from Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs. Read the whole thing.

Because I’m rushed and have just discovered that Pamela is the original source (I should have known), I haven’t liked to Jason Mattera at Human Events, but I’ll let his narrative stay until I can excerpt portions of Pamela’s monster post later this evening.

(updated at about 6 p.m.) Okay, here goes, from Pamela:

GROUND ZERO MOSQUE IMAM FEISAL’S EXTREMISM EXPOSED: IN HIS OWN WORDS

The media frenzy to destroy good, decent Americans who oppose a 15-story mega-mosque on Ground Zero is rabid. Even for them. Despite red flags everywhere and the nationwide grief caused by this grotesque act of Islamic supremacism, why isn’t the media doing its job, investigative journalism?

Instead, the morally ill media is in full-on operational smear machine mode in the raging war of ideas, the information battle space, the objective of which is to erect the Ground Zero mega mosque. Tolerance is a crime when applied to evil (Thomas Mann). Whilst the NY Times front page spins interfaith yarns into PR gold faster than Rumpelstiltskin and accords godlike status to Imam Feisal Rauf, new audio surfaces.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf: “We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non Muslims. You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the United Nations. And when Madeleine Albright, who has become a friend of mine over the last couple of years, when she was Secretary of State and was asked whether this was worth it, said it was worth it.

No mention of the 270 million victims of over a millennium of jihadi wars, land appropriations, cultural annihilation and enslavement. No mention of the recent slaughter by Muslims of Christians, Hindus, Jews, non-believers in Indonesia, Thailand, Ethiopia, Somalia, Philippines, Lebanon, Israel, Russia, China……………. no candor, no criticism of Islam.

Imam Feisal: “The West needs to begin to see themselves through the eyes of the Arab and Muslim world, and when you do you will see the predicament that exists within the Muslim community.”

On the question of reforming Islam and expunging the texts of the threat doctrine and mandated violence and conquest:

Imam Feisal: On the issue of the reformation, in terms of what is again intended by it, Islam does not need a reformation.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf: “So men will say: women, you know, they’re emotional, ….. whatever, whatever, and women will say: men, they’re brutes, insensitive, etcetera, and you have the beginning of a gender conflict. If gender is not what distinguishes us we’ll look at skin colouring and say: n#####s or whities, or whatever.”

Geez, Dr. Laura got in hot water discussing how other people use the N-Word. This guy just flat-out let it rip.

If this were a Christian heading up a church project, he’d be out on his ear — and deservedly so. Yet some of Feisal’s closest confidants surely know of this statement at this event, and … oh well, nothing to see here, move along.

Listen for yourself (direct YouTube link):

Oh for crying out loud, Rauf is treating Fahrenheit 911 as a legitimate documentary, instead of the pack of at least 59 deceits it really was, and still is.

Flashback: Almost three years ago, Imam Ahmed Alzaree, who was on the verge of becoming the new Imam at a Cleveland mosque, was outed by yours truly as a promoter of the “kill the Jews” hadith at his old mosque in Omaha and a person who associated with known terrorist and terror sympathizers.

Alzaree held firm after the first round of criticism, but folded like a cheap suit and resigned before he even started after Patrick Poole piled on with more evidence of his Omaha mosque’s clear sympathies with Hamas and Palestinian terrorists.

His parting shot was — “I leave the field” to the bloggers. “I have peace now.”

Yeah, it was all our fault that he said what he said, and all our fault that his Omaha mosque did what it did.

Although he claimed to have a half-dozen job offers when he resigned, the best info as of a while ago is that he went back to the Middle East, probably Eaypt.

If we’re all lucky, this latest hit at Rauf will cause him to similarly take his vindictive, in-your-face Ground Zero Mosque idea off the table. It definitely should. The mask is totally off. He has nowhere to hide.

____________________________________

UPDATE: I’ll bet the LA School District has $100 mil to spare in its $20 billion building fund. They’re certainly spending money like there’s no limit. Build it out there, Imam Rauf.

____________________________________

UPDATE 2: While we’re at it, let’s go back to President Obama’s speech 10 days ago –

And let us also remember who we’re fighting against, and what we’re fighting for. Our enemies respect no religious freedom. Al-Qaida’s cause is not Islam – it’s a gross distortion of Islam. These are not religious leaders – they’re terrorists who murder innocent men and women and children

But according to Rauf, what we have done over history is worse than what Al Qaeda and radical Islamofascism have done.

Rauf, no matter what other criticisms he might level at Al Qaeda, is, by comparison, lionizing it compared to the U.S. That makes Rauf, by Obama’s definition, “not Islam.” That makes Rauf’s project “not Islam.” Logically extending, that makes his project not a “mosque,” where only followers of legitimate Islam worship.

If the Ground Zero Mosque really isn’t a “mosque” in that sense, what is it? Logically extending Obama’s own words, it’s a vindictive end-zone dance for terrorists, their supporters, and their sympathizers.

More like the graph of the next 70 days (HT Mark Tapscott at WashEx and Instapundit):

Tapscott’s supporting title: “Little-known fact: Obama’s failed stimulus program cost more than the Iraq war.”

Graph creator Randall Hoven at the American Thinker is using data straight from the Congressional Budget Office:

Now that it’s over, what did the Iraq War cost?

… The correct answer to my question, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is $709 billion. The Iraq War cost $709 billion. Why (James) Carville, (Linda) Bilmes, and Nobel-winning economist (Joesph) Stiglitz thought the answer was $3 trillion is anybody’s guess. But what’s a 323% error among friends?

… Just for grins, use the above chart to dissect Christopher Hayes’ statement that our current and future deficits are caused by “three things: the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush tax cuts and the recession.”

Two of those three things — the wars and tax cuts — were in effect from 2003 through 2007. Do you see alarming deficits or trends from 2003 through 2007 in the above chart? No. In fact, the trend through 2007 is shrinking deficits. What you see is a significant upward tick in 2008, and then an explosion in 2009. Now, what might have happened between 2007 and 2008, and then 2009?

Democrats taking over both houses of Congress, and then the presidency, was what happened. Republicans wrote the budgets for the fiscal years through 2007 (he means September 30, 2007 — Ed.). Congressional Democrats wrote the budgets for FY 2008 and on. When the Democrats also took over the White House, they immediately passed an $814-billion “stimulus.”

… I’ve written elsewhere that the Iraq War was totally justified and even executed reasonably well. But even if you believe otherwise, there is no reasonable case that can be made to say it caused grave economic woes then or now.

For hard-of-comprehension Democrats who otherwise might not know it, $814 billion is a bigger number than $709 billion.

Relatively new readers here may not realize that during the last year of their control, and after five years of letting spending grow way too quickly, Republicans got a bit of too-little, too-late spending religion. When Harry Reid and Nancy Pelois took over, there was an abrupt reversal of fortune, and an opening of the spending spigots:

By the time what would normally be considered Bush Year 8 began on October 1, 2008, the economy had already been hijacked completely for well over three months by Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid. As noted here when it happened, that’s when the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy began. We’ve been virtually at their mercy ever since. It has been ugly. Though he could have put up more resistance than he did (and should have) there really was no “Bush Year 8″ in terms of having any guiding control or influence over the economy.

Relatively new readers here also may need to be informed that we achieved victory in Iraq roughly 21 months ago (Zombietime’s original detailed treatment).

It’s here.

It’s about Harry Reid, Barney Frank, and Nancy Pelosi.

It will go up here at BizzyBlog on Wednesday afternoon (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires.

Enjoy.

Well, it didn’t take to much digging to find people who think that the $578 million cost of the new Taj Mahal complex known as the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Los Angeles (pictured at right; noted last night at NewsBusters and BizzyBlog) isn’t that big of a deal.

What I found makes me wonder why it took so long for waste of this magnitude to become a national story.

On July 9, at LA’s Daily News, Connie Llanos chronicled much of the story behind how costs spiraled out of control. Readers will have to go to the link to get that detail. In terms of the project’s final cost, Llanos found plenty of people willing to say that spending over $135,000 per seat is okey-dokey (bolds are mine):

RFK is LAUSD’s most costly campus – and it needs more cash

… District officials say the cost of the Robert F. Kennedy complex is more than justified if you consider its urban location, historical significance and expected community role.

“It has all the modern amenities, like an underground garage, a pool, a state-of-the-art auditorium…,” said James Sohn, LAUSD’s chief facilities executive. “In that context, cost of the schools is appropriate.”

The 23-acre Wilshire Boulevard lot will bring the park-starved neighborhood much-needed green space, including soccer fields and a state-of-the-art swimming pool. It also includes public art pieces and a marble mural memorial to Kennedy, who was running for president when he was gunned down in the hotel’s kitchen.

Still, some of the items purchased for the school have caught the attention of top district officials, such as talking benches designed by artists to commemorate the historic significance of the Ambassador Hotel and its famous Cocoanut Grove nightclub.

… But the schools chief said small extravagances shouldn’t detract from seeing the school as a centerpiece for the community and the city.

From its inception, the Ambassador schools were intended to be one of the most elaborate campuses, funded through the district’s $20 billion voter-approved construction bond program.

… School board member Steve Zimmer said he will look closely at the change orders that have been requested for the project. But he added that “if the true cost were $250,000 a seat, it would be worth every penny.”

… Charter school officials, however, said LAUSD’s construction costs were exorbitant.

“If you look at that cost per seat, that is three or four times what many charter schools are delivering in the Los Angeles area,” said Jed Wallace, president of the California Charter School Association.

Some context: The end of Llanos’s report contains comparative cost figures for other facilities in the LA area. Here are a few, and when they were built:

• Staples Center: $375 million, 1999
• Walt Disney Concert Hall: $274 million, 2003
• Universal Studios backlot: $200 million, 2010
• Downtown cathedral: $190 million, 2002

More context: Earlier this year, New Trier, a relatively well-off school district in suburban Chicago, “known for its large spending per student,” proposed building a new high school for its 3,100 students at a cost of $174 million. Even though that figure is about 60% less per seat than LA’s RFK, locals characterized it as a “Taj Mahal” project. One Chicago TV station covering the proposal simply asked: “Are you kidding me?” Voters resoundingly rejected the new high school by a margin of 62%-38%.

Keep in mind that all of this is occurring as both California and Los Angeles are on the verge of financial collapse.

Yet another shocker: Llanos writes that RFK’s cost is “40 percent higher than the average school built in the central Los Angeles area over the past two years.” That’s all?

From here, it looks like LAUSD got its $20 billion in bond money and immediately set out to burn through it all as quickly as possible.

Prediction: Ten years from now, if not less, we’re going to be seeing stories about how high building maintenance and energy costs are stretching the district’s finances. Cry me a river.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.