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Thank you for stopping by for a visit. You are invited to read and comment on anything posted on this blog. I advocate the maximum amount of Personal and Economic Liberty, consistent with the defense of individual rights. I am fiscally conservative yet socially tolerant, I favor lower taxes, free trade, individual rights, strong national defense and limited government. I subscribe to the Freedom Fighters Creed: I am an American Patriot, defender of the Constitution, First Principles and Essential Liberty.

I believe that buried deep down inside every Conservative you'll find a Libertarian - And Inside Every Liberal Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out.

"One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors" - Plato

FYI any crude or vulgar comments will be removed from the blog.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Economic Misery: The New Normal


The weakest recovery in the nation’s history continues. On Wednesday, payroll processing firm ADP reported that private sector businesses created a disappointing 119,000 jobs in the month of April. Once again, to use a word that should embarrass those who support the Obama administration’s Keynesian economic policies, this meager total was “unexpected.

Economic “experts” surveyed byReuters had predicted at least 150,000 new jobs. “Nearly every industry has seen slower growth since the beginning of the year,” said Moody’s economist Mark Zandi. “Smaller businesses are experiencing much weaker growth.”
Most of the jobs were created in the service industries, which added 113,000 positions, while goods production accounted for the other 6,000. Both figures represented 7-month lows in growth. Adding to the misery, ADP’s March total of 158,000 jobs gained was revised downward to 131,000, and the latest data show the manufacturing sector, which lost 10,000 jobs, has plateaued, or may be slowing down again.

The level of economic weakness is daunting. According to Bespoke Investment Group, the seven year stretch of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth below three precent, occurring from 2006 to the present, represents the longest one since 1929, the year which marked the beginning of the Great Depression.

Furthermore, despite a U3 unemployment rate of 7.6 percent, used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to calculate “official” unemployment, the U6 rate that far more accurately reflects reality, is 13.8 percent. The reason the U3 rate is misleading is because people who have given up looking for work aren’t counted as unemployed. Since America’s workforce participation rate is at its lowest level since 1979, reality is being manipulated to make the Obama administration’s dismal economic policies look better than they actually are.
Still more manipulation is being pursued by the feds. They are going to revise how GDP growth is calculated. Research and development spending, as well as the capital value of all “intellectual property,” such as books, movies, records, television programs and plays—produced since 1929—will be added to the total. Michael Pento, founder of Pento Portfolio Strategies, cut to the heart of the subterfuge. “When GDP numbers are chronically bad and the labor force participation rate is perpetually falling, our government will do the same thing they did for the inflation data—tinker with the formula until you get the desired result,” he explained. CONTINUE READING 
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