Rodger, The Real King of France:
Effective Jan 1, 2013, aspirin will be heavily taxed under Obamacare. The only explanation given was that they are white and they work.
Details here. Of course, even more enjoyable is the Obamacare tax on medical devices like pacemakers and knee replacements. Looks like some Democrats finally read the bill they voted for and are having second thoughts on that one.
146,000 Jobs Added In November, Beat Expectation Of 85,000, Unemployment Rate Lower At 7.7%
Confused why the unemployment rate dropped? The same, favorite BLS adjustment - a drop in the labor force participation rate which declined by 0.2% to 63.6% once again, as the number of people out of the labor increased by over 540K to 88,883,000.
146K jobs added while 540K gave up on finding a job and likely went on disability or welfare. That's Obama economics. And the 146K will be revised downward next month like the September and October numbers were this month.
From the always interesting Zero Hedge - When Work Is Punished: The Tragedy Of America's Welfare State:
for increasingly more it is now more lucrative - in the form of actual disposable income - to sit, do nothing, and collect various welfare entitlements, than to work. This is graphically, and very painfully confirmed, in the below chart from Gary Alexander, Secretary of Public Welfare, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (a state best known for its broke capital Harrisburg). As quantified, and explained by Alexander, "the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045."
I have to observe from the chart that there doesn't seem much point to even working at all since $0 income plus welfare works out to about the same as earning $55,000 without any government benefits.
That point hasn't been lost on the citizenry either:
But perhaps the scariest chart in the entire presentation is the following summarizing the unsustainable welfare burden on current taxpayers:
- For every 1.65 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance
- For every 1.25 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance or works for the government.
I like to think of it as uninvited guests at the nation's dinner tables. If you have a job and your spouse has a part time job, when you sit down to dinner you have a welfare moocher or a government bureaucrat sitting down with you. Pass the potatoes Barack, and don't scarf all the chicken!
There's lots of consternation in Washington and among the chattering class over the "fiscal cliff" and while the hype will whipsaw markets and keep the politicians busy, it really is a drop in the bucket:
I see the future: The politicians will meet and fret and hold press conferences and predict disaster. Then they'll reach a deal.
It will just postpone the reckoning, but they'll congratulate themselves, and the media will move on.
America, however, continues to go broke.
"They're not going to admit that we're bankrupt, and they won't admit that we're on the verge of a major, major change in our society," says Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. "So they'll keep putting it aside, but then we'll eventually probably destroy the dollar."
The across-the-board cut, or "sequestration," was designed to be so distasteful that Congress would be moved to cut more deliberately. If it doesn't act, $110 billion in projected spending will be automatically cut -- half from domestic spending, half from the Pentagon.
"They assume that they made it so bad that they wouldn't accept it, but I don't think they did," said Paul. "They're not even ... talking about real cuts. They're talking about cuts in baseline budgeting."
Right, the old baseline budgeting trick.
"If they propose, let's say, a $10 billion increase for next year and cut it down to $9 billion, they say they're cutting 10 percent. But they're not cutting anything, they're only increasing it $9 billion instead of $10 billion. It's done on purpose so that people get confused."
Even better, the amounts under discussion are miniscule compared to the across-the-board cuts that are needed:
"When government spending is about $3.8 trillion, you're going to cut $100 billion? That's a deck chair on the Titanic," said Russ Roberts of the Hoover Institution.
And the US budget is looking more like the Titanic every day.
Foodstamps Surge By Most In One Year To New All Time Record, In Delayed Release
While there had been speculation that the BLS may delay the release of its October nonfarm payroll number until after the election, it turned out there was no reason to worry. Perhaps this is because the number, while at stall speed, was not quite as horrible as some had expected (even if the change in average hourly earnings did tumble to new all time lows) and so boosted Obama's reelection chances. There was, however, another closely tracked number which perhaps is far more indicative of the economic "growth" in the past 4 years, which certainly had a delayed release. The number of course is that showing how many Americans are on foodstamps, and usually is released at the end of the month, or the first day or two of the next month. This time the USDA delayed its release nine days past the semi-official deadline, far past the election, and until Friday night to report August foodstamp data. One glance at the number reveals why: at 47.1 million, this was not only a new all time record, but the monthly increase of 420,947 from July was the biggest monthly increase in one year. One can see why a reported surge in foodstamps ahead of the elections is something the USDA, and the administration may not have been too keen on disclosing.
Look at the bright side - there are a lot more customers for Obamaphones now.
Our thanks to the veterans who have sacrificed so much to keep this country free and who remain our bulwark against tyranny, both the brazen foreign sort and the pernicious domestic variety.
Tired of seeing Obama the arrogant buffoon? Get out and vote Romney-Ryan:
(Hat tip: rdbrewer at Ace's place)
Deranged and sleazy is a heck of way to go through life.
