Seven Years And $3 Trillion Later Only 2% Of US Counties Have Recovered Economically

Of More Than 3,000 U.S. Counties, Just 65 Have Recovered From Recession, NACo Says

 

 

 

 

” Seven years after the recession began, only one in 50 U.S. counties has fully bounced back, according to a study the National Association of Counties released Monday.

  The 2014 County Economic Tracker shows that 65 of the nation’s 3,069 counties have met or surpassed prerecession levels in four measured categories: jobs, unemployment rate, economic output and home prices.

  Those places range from Anderson County, S.C., to McKenzie County, N.D., to Kodiak Island, Alaska.

  National employment surpassed 2007 levels during 2014 and the U.S. gross domestic product had fully recovered from the recession by 2011. But the national unemployment rate was 5.6% in December compared with 5% when the recession began seven years earlier. And housing values in much of the country have yet to fully return.

  The recovered counties are largely located in energy-rich areas and have small populations. Of the 65 recovered counties, 24 are in Texas and 16 are in North Dakota. The others are generally in the middle of the country, including nine in Minnesota and eight in Kansas.

  None of the recovered counties has more than 500,000 residents.”

 

     This article , more than any other demonstrates that the nearly $3 Trillion in government stimulus spending was nothing more than wasteful cronyism handed out to favored unions , interest groups and corporations . Little or none trickled down to benefit the taxpayers actually footing the bill .

Wall Street Journal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Peter Suderman On The Effects , Or Lack There-Of From The Stimulus

Why It’s So Hard To Figure Out What The Stimulus Did

 

 

 

 

” That’s why I think the best way to judge the stimulus as a whole is to say that we don’t really know how well it worked—but that it didn’t live up to some of the promises that were made when it was passed.

  In theory, fiscal stimulus juices the economy through a multiplier effect, in which one dollar of borrowed government spending produces more than a dollar of overall economic gain. With a multiplier of 1.5, a stimulus of $100 million would produce $150 million in economic activity. A multiplier of 2.0 would result in double the economic jolt of the initial cash infusion. The higher the multiplier, the bigger the boost.

  The problem, as I noted in my April 2013 story on the stimulus, is that no one really knows what multiplier effect of fiscal stimulus is. Reputable economists don’t even really agree about the possible range for the multiplier. Some economists think it could be in the range of 3.0 or even higher, given the right circumstances. The Congressional Budget Office puts the estimated multiplier for government purchases at somewhere between 0.5 and 2.5. A broad survey of estimates by University of California San Diego economist Valerie Ramey found that the range was usually between 0.8 and 1.5, although the data could support anywhere from 0.5 to 2.0.”

 

   The whole issue is quite confusing , even to trained economists , but one thing seems like a no-brainer to me . While the egg-heads debate the effective rate of the government “multiplier” and give it a possible effectiveness rating of up to 2.5 … meaning that every dollar the government spends produces as much as 2.5 dollars in economic activity , a simpleton like myself asks how can that possibly be ? 

 

  For every dollar the State spends is taken out of the economy by way of taxes , greases a few federal palms by way of wages and overhead and then is redistributed into the economy . By the time that original dollar is sent on it’s way to “stimulate” economic growth it’s value is not a dollar but probably less than fifty cents ( we could not locate accurate administrative costs , quickly enough for this post ) . 

 

 If it costs the tax payer 50 cents on the dollar for the Feds to be the middleman in a redistribution scheme of epic proportions how could said stimulus , which was nothing but redistribution , achieve ANY positive economic effects AT ALL  other than securing the jobs of the bureaucrats and administrators themselves ?

 

   I am not an economist but have been a businessman for thirty years and if I “stimulate” my vendors by paying more so they can keep their employees living in the comfort to which they’ve grown accustomed that lowers my profit margin and takes food off of my table . Who benefits ? Not the consumer/taxpayer that’s for sure .

 

 The idea that the State can “stimulate” growth is predicated solely on the notion that the government knows better how to spend the individual’s hard earned money and can do so more efficiently than the earner . If anyone believes that mail a letter , take a ride on Amtrak or visit your local VA hospital for much needed healthcare . Let us know how you make out .

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Another Confidence Inspiring Bit From Zero Hedge: Soros Sells America Short

“Soros Put” Hits Record As Billionaire’s Downside Hedge Rises By 154% In Q4 To $1.3 Billion

 

 

 

 

” A curious finding emerged in the latest 13F by Soros Fund Management, the family office investment vehicle managing the personal wealth of George Soros.

  The second one is that the “Soros put”, a legacy hedge position that the 83-year old has been rolling over every quarter since 2010, just rose to a record $1.3 billion or the notional equivalent of some 7.09 million SPY-equivalent shares. Since this was an increase of 154% Q/Q this has some people concerned that the author of ‘reflexivity’ and the founder of “open societies” may be anticipating some major market downside.”

 

   We’re not financiers but putting this together with the news of China and Japan shedding T-bills and bankers dropping like flies makes one wonder .

Tyler Durden explains

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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“Horrific, Awful And Ugly” Is How MSNBC Describes The Latest Jobs Numbers

MSNBC: December Jobs Report Is ‘Horrific, Awful And Ugly’

 

 

 

 

 

” Morning Joe’s crack news team did make a half-hearted stab at blaming “cold weather,” but you could tell they’re just not into the argument. The fact is there’s simply no way to spin this data as anything other than dismal. They even bemoaned the fact that the unemployment rate only went down because so many people left the workforce.  For MSNBC, that comes dangerously close to actual reporting.

  Probably the best part of the segment was the look on Mika Brzezinski’s face. Dour, downcast, and frustrated, she looks like her head’s about to explode. This may be because, like liberals everywhere, she treats each and every bit of negative news that stems from her political messiah’s administration as a personal assault.”

 

 

More at CainTV

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jobs: One Step Forward … Five Steps Back … 92 Million Out Of The Workforce

‘For Every One Job Added, Nearly 5 People Left The Workforce’

 

 

” Alabama senator Jeff Sessions responds to the latest jobs report:

” Today’s jobs report underscores a deeper problem facing our economy: a large and growing block of people who are chronically jobless and completely outside the workforce. In December, the economy added only 74,000 jobs – not nearly enough to keep up with population growth –and 347,000 left the workforce. That means for every one job added, nearly 5 people left the workforce entirely. ”

 

Continue reading

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From Pentagon Aide To Homeless

From The Pentagon To Life In A Van

 

 

” After a 30-year military career in which he earned three graduate degrees, rose to the rank of colonel, and served as an aide to Pentagon brass, Robert Freniere can guess what people might say when they learn he’s unemployed and lives out of his van:

Why doesn’t this guy get a job as a janitor?

Freniere answers his own question: “Well, I’ve tried that.”

  Freniere, 59, says that his plea for help, to a janitor he once praised when the man was mopping the floors of his Washington office, went unfulfilled. So have dozens of job applications, he says, the ones he has filled out six hours a day, day after day, on public library computers.

  So Freniere, a man who braved multiple combat zones and was hailed as “a leading light” by an admiral, is now fighting a new battle: homelessness.”

Continued …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Ongoing Evisceration Of The Middle Class… Courtesy Of The Fed

From Zero Hedge

 

1913 Just Happens To Be The Year Of The Fed’s Creation … Co-incidence ?

 

” The Fed claims it can generate a “recovery.” It cannot. The Fed’s devaluation of our currency is the very reason why the economy is a disaster.

According to the NY Times the average net worth for Middle class Americans in 2010 was 6% lower adjusted for inflation than their average net worth in 1989.

As the articles notes, housing costs 56% more than in 1989, our of pocket healthcare expenses rose 155%, college expenses are up in the double digits. 

The Fed is responsible for the Dollar devaluation that caused this. The Fed is the one that eviscerated the Middle Class. Its policies have lowered the quality of life for Americans. Period. End of story.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Recovery ? What Recovery ?

U.S. Disability Rolls Swell In A Rough Economy

 

 

 

” The fast expansion of disability here is part of a national trend that has seen the number of former workers receiving benefits soar from just over 5 million to 8.8 million between 2000 and 2012. An additional 2.1 million dependent children and spouses also receive benefits.

The crush of new recipients is putting unsustainable financial pressure on the program. Federal officials project that the program will exhaust its trust fund by 2016 — 20 years before the trust fund that supports Social Security’s old-age benefits is projected to run dry.

The growth of the disability rolls has accelerated since the recession hit in 2007. As the labor market tightened, workers with disabilities that employers previously accommodated on the job — painful hips, mental disorders, weak hearts — were often the first to go. Finding new work often proved difficult, causing many to turn to the disability rolls for support.

The migration of so many people from work to the disability rolls is raising concern among lawmakers in Congress that the program is being stretched beyond its original intent of providing a safety net for former workers whose medical problems make them unable to work.

Last week, the Government Accountability Office found that the program made $1.3 billion in potentially improper payments to people who had jobs when they were supposedly disabled. The allegedly improper payments represent less than 1 percent of disability payments.

While fraud remains a concern, policymakers say the program’s biggest vulnerability is the subjective criteria that create a large gray area for applicants. A worker with physical impairments that are difficult to document precisely, like a bad back, can tolerate the condition while on the job but claim it as a reason to go on disability if he falls out of work for a prolonged period.

Many recipients first go on unemployment, which can last a few months or even more than year. Disability, by contrast, can pay out benefits for decades. The vast majority of recipients never return to work.

“The disability program is increasingly becoming a long-term unemployment program,” said Richard Burkhauser, a Cornell University professor who co-wrote a book on disability policy and has testified before Congress about the program. “We see a lot of it now because of the effects of the recession.” “

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Government Seeking Billions From JP Morgan In Sub-Prime Meltdown

JPMorgan Facing $6bn in Fines over Mis-Selling Mortgage-Backed Securities

 

” US banking major JPMorgan Chase is facing another regulatory blow with an expected multi-billion dollar fine related to lawsuits over its selling of bonds backed by subprime mortgages. 

Housing finance authorities in the US are demanding fines up to $6bn (£3.9bn, €4.5bn) to settle lawsuits over mis-selling securities to state-backed mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to media reports.

The US Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has earlier sued JPMorgan along with several other banks and financial institutions for misrepresentation in selling mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the financial crisis. The regulator alleged that JPMorgan “significantly overstated the ability of the borrowers to repay their mortgage loans” while selling $33bn of mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The FHFA, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, noted that the mortgage companies suffered significant losses as the value of the securities declined sharply after borrowers started defaulting on their loans during the 2007 crisis period.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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“Phony Scandals” and “Distractions”

Obama Blames Five Years of a Bad Economy on “Phony Scandals” and “Distractions”

 

 

” President Obama did his best to shift his administration’s focus to the economy today during a speech at Illinois’ Knox College by blaming the anemic economy on Republicans and “phony scandals.” 

As predicted, Obama gave America the same speech he’s been giving for five years, saying the country needs more infrastructure spending due to crumbling roads and bridges, that we must fight poverty, that CEOs are making too much money while the poor suffer etc. He even went so far as to tout “saving the auto industry” one week after Detroit filed for bankruptcy.

Funny, I’m not sure the IRS targeting American citizens (with the help of one of Obama’s political appointees) for political purposes or four dead Americans killed in Benghazi count as “phony” but hey, “what difference, at this point, does it make?” “

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Obamanomics Explained

Courtesy Of Rightwing Art

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Zero Hedge Offers A Different View Of The Global Economy

Where Are We Now? – A World View

 

 

 

” Wondering why the money world got its knickers in a twist last week? The answer is simple: the global economy is breaking apart and its constituent major players are doing face-plants on the downhill slope of a no-longer-cheap-oil way of life.  Let’s look at them case by case.

     The USA slogs deeper into paralysis and decay in a collective mental fog of disbelief that its own exceptionalism can’t overcome the laws of thermodynamics. This general malaise precipitates into a range of specific quandaries. The so-called economy depends on financialization, since it is no longer based on manufacturing things of value. The financialization depends on housing, that is, a particular kind of housing: suburban sprawl housing (and its commercial accessories, the strip malls, the box stores, the burger shacks, etc.). Gasoline is now too expensive to run the suburban living arrangement. It will remain marginally unaffordable. Even if the price of oil goes down, it will be because citizens of the USA will not have enough money to buy it. Lesson: the suburban project is over, along with the economy it drove in on.

     But so is the mega-city project, the giant metroplex of skyscrapers. So, don’t suppose that we can transform the production house-building industry into an apartment-building industry. The end of cheap oil also means we can’t run cities at the 20^th century scale. That includes the scale of the buildings as well as the aggregate scale of the whole urban organism. Nobody gets this. For one thing, there will be far fewer jobs in anything connected to financialization because that “industry” is imploding. The recent action around the Federal Reserve illustrates this. When chairman Bernanke’s lips quivered last week, the financial markets had a grand mal seizure. He floated the notion that his organization might “taper” their purchases of US government issued debt and mortgage-backed securities — the latter being mostly bundled debt originated by government-sponsored entities and agencies. That’s the “money” that supports the suburban sprawl industry.”

 

 

 

Read the whole sobering article … if you dare .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Economic Situation : Facts Not Spin

The Economic Situation June 2013

” The US economy is creating new wealth and growing employment, albeit at a slow pace. But uncertainty is the key word that describes the economic situation at mid-2013.There are major unknowns with respect to Fed policy, taxing and spending, the effects of the Affordable Care Act on employment, the implementation of Dodd-Frank financial reform, regulatory policy affecting the production of electricity, and the prospects for Europe’s recovery from an extended recession. Add to this pallid picture reductions in growth in China,India, and the developing world taking some of the edge off the global boom, which, in spite of that growth haircut, is still tugging away on America’s export growth.

With the closing of the books on the 2012 economy, real GDP growth registered 2.2 percent. But the current picture suggests we will be lucky to break 2.0 percent in 2013 and a bit more in 2014. This compares with the results of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s Livingston Survey in December 2012, which predicted 2.1 percent growth in 2013’s first half and 2.3 percent in the second half of the year. It will be a while before Livingston speak again, but right now, Economy.com’s dynamic GDP growth meter indicates the economy is expanding at 1.8 percent.

As Goldilocks might put it, “It’s not just right.” Not by a long shot. We can see images of the slowdown in the Institute of Supply Management’s indexes for the manufacturing and non-manufacturing (service) economies shown below. Both indexes are headed south of the border. Recall that 50 is the magic number that coincides with zero growth.”

” Now the bad news. Consider the next chart. It shows in nominal terms the level of federal receipts and expenditures for 1Q 1990 through 4Q 2012. Even with progress being made, there is a yawning gap waiting to be closed.

If the gap is to be closed, there is no doubt but that it will take more revenue and less spending. But when it comes to getting revenue, there is a never ending political debate regarding tax-rate fairness and which taxpayer income group, if any, should pay the higher or lower tax rate. (After all, there could be a flat tax.)There is hardly any discussion of revenues, which seems odd, to say the least.

But of course, there is reason to be concerned about fairness. People understandably rebel when they perceive they are being treated unfairly by government. (Consider the current IRS controversy.) But if revenues are the chief concern, then how much revenue is collected may be an equally important consideration when politicians talk about taxes.

Writing in 1924, treasury secretary Andrew W. Mellon said this about the political manipulation of rates:

   I have never viewed taxation as a means of rewarding one class of taxpayers or punishing another. If such a point of view ever controls our public policy, the traditions of freedom, justice and equality of opportunity,which are the distinguishing characteristics of our American civilization, will have disappeared and in their place we shall have class legislation with all its attendant evils. The man who seeks to perpetuate prejudice and class hatred is doing America an ill service. 

But why pay attention to the thoughts expressed by Andrew Mellon? Does he have credentials that command attention? Yes, indeed. As Secretary of Treasury during the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover administrations, Mellon led a successful effort to reduce the size and debt of the federal government. In the earlier part of his government service, the nation was adjusting to a post–World War I environment, with lots of debt overhang. Sound familiar? His arguments about the relative merits of lower tax rates to produce higher revenues won the day. And he saw higher revenues when rates were reduced. He literally discovered the basis of what we now celebrate as the Laffer Curve. In all fairness, we should call it the Mellon-Laffer Curve.”

Read the whole thing for it’s glimmers of hope and dread .

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John Stossel On The “Austerity” Myth

Austerity Myth

 

 

 

 

” Europe’s struggles prove that “austerity” fails!

With a condescending sigh, they explain that Europe made deep cuts in government spending, and the result was today’s high unemployment. “With erstwhile middle-class workers reduced to picking through garbage in search of food, austerity has already gone too far,” writes Paul Krugman in The New York Times.

One problem with this conclusion: European governments didn’t cut! If workers pick through garbage, cuts can’t be a reason, since they didn’t happen.

Some European countries tried to reduce deficits by raising taxes. England slapped a 25 percent tax increase on the wealthy, but it didn’t bring in the revenues hoped for. Rich people move their assets elsewhere, or just stop working as much.

Iceland was hit by bank collapses — but government ignored street protests and cut real spending. Iceland’s budget deficit fell from 13 percent of gross domestic product to 3. Iceland’s economy’s is now growing.

Canada slashed spending 20 years ago and now outranks the U.S. on many economic indicators.

Around the same time, Japan went the other way, investing heavily in the public sector in an attempt to jump-start its economy, much as the U.S. did with “stimulus” under President Obama. The result? Japan’s economy stagnated.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Record Beef Prices Just In Time For BBQ Season

Pricey Beef Puts Heat On U.S. Grilling Season

 

 

 

” As Americans prepare for Memorial Day—the official kickoff to a summer grilling season of burgers and T-bones—rising beef prices have some consumers balking in the grocery aisles.

Retail beef prices are widely expected to set new records in coming weeks after wholesale prices, or the amount meatpackers charge sellers for beef, hit an all-time peak this past week.

After achieving new highs for three weeks, choice-grade beef, the most common variety in the U.S., jumped to $2.1137 a pound Thursday, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That level broke a decade-old record for wholesale prices set in 2003, when a case of mad-cow disease in Canada led to a spike in export demand for U.S. beef.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Homeownership Rate Continues To Plunge … Worst Since Mid 90’s

U.S. Homeownership Rate Falls to Lowest Since 1995

 

 

 

 

” The U.S. homeownership rate fell to the lowest in almost 18 years, reflecting rising demand for rentals and investor purchases in the housing market.

The share of Americans who own their homes was 65 percent in the first quarter, down from 65.4 percent a year earlier and the lowest level since the third quarter of 1995, the Census Bureau reported today. The vacancy rate for rented homes dropped to 8.6 percent from 8.8 percent a year earlier, while vacancies for owner-occupied houses fell to 2.1 percent from 2.2 percent.”

 

 

 

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Related articles

• Familiar Tune: Homeownership Falls to 1995 Levels (blogs.wsj.com)
• U.S. homeownership rate falls to lowest level since 1995; Portland among tightest rental markets (oregonlive.com)
• Homeownership Hits 17-year Low (mortgagenewsdaily.com)
• Why America Might Become A Nation Of Renters Yet (businessinsider.com)
• Do Rising Rents Complicate Inflation Assessment? (ritholtz.com)
• The American Dream Is Shifting Away From Home Ownership (businessinsider.com)

 

 

 

 

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The “Nerd Prom” Says What Recession ? Pass The Wagyu

Joblessness? Deficits? Wars? Let’s Party!

 

 

” Washington never looks more out of touch than it will this weekend, when movie stars, music moguls, media mavens and their advertisers join President Obama at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.”

 

 

 

 

” As we say in Washington, the dinner is “lousy optics” – rarely more so than Saturday night, when the backdrop will be joblessness, a budget deficit, the Boston Marathon bombing and a blood-red line in Syria.”

 

 

  While we were unable to locate the guest list and menu for the 2013 affair , we did come across both for last year . This should give the reader some idea of the sacrifice the first family is enduring for you .

 

 

The 2012 Guest List:

 

    The guest list seems to be lacking in actual journalists , doesn’t it ? Then again , the MSM is lacking in actual journalists as well .

 

 

The 2012 Menu :

 

” The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner menu is a selection of four courses, chosen by the board out of a total of nine. Here is the planned menu:

Salad: Black lentil terrine with lump crabmeat; tango green and red artisan greens; red and yellow tear drop tomatoes, paired with a dill vinaigrette. 

Break presentation: Seven-grain rolls; white and wheat rolls; sourdough rolls; flatbreads and butter.

Entree: Texas-rubbed petite filet with a calvados demi, paired with duo of jump shrimp seasoned with red curry, roasted haricot verts, baby pepper, patty pan squash, tasso mache choux risotto.

Dessert: The Galaxy–rich chocolate truffle mousse layered with chocolate genoise and almond macaroon; ganache truffle center finished in chocolate glaze, garnished with fresh raspberries.

Freshly brewed regular and decaf coffee: A variety of regular and herbal teas.

Wines: Estancia chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.”

 

As you can see things are tough all over . His Highness feels your pain .

 

 

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Congress’s Community Reinvestment Act Did Cause Housing Crisis … Buried News During The Christmas Season

 

Wait! Government Did Cause The Housing Bubble

 

 

 

 

” Regarding the latter example, however, there has been a persistent dispute among mainstream economists about the role of government housing policy, particularly the Community Reinvestment Act which was used, in the 1990s, to make banks increase their lending to particular low-income neighborhoods. Paul Krugman asserts, for example, that the “Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was irrelevant to the subprime boom.” Actually, no. A new NBER paper (gated) on the CRA is causing quite a stir. Authored by four economists from NYU, MIT, Northwestern, and Chicago, the paper is the first to use instrumental-variables regression to distinguish changes in bank lending caused by the CRA from changes that would likely have happened anyway. (The authors use the timing of loan decisions relative to the dates of CRA audits to identify the effect of the CRA on lending.) The results suggest that CRA enforcement did, contra Krugman, lead banks to make substantially riskier loans than otherwise. Raghu Rajan puts it in a very Austrian-sounding way:

The key then to understanding the recent crisis is to see why markets offered inordinate rewards for poor and risky decisions. Irrational exuberance played a part, but perhaps more important were the political forces distorting the markets. The tsunami of money directed by a US Congress, worried about growing income inequality, towards expanding low income housing, joined with the flood of foreign capital inflows to remove any discipline on home loans. And the willingness of the Fed to stay on hold until jobs came back, and indeed to infuse plentiful liquidity if ever the system got into trouble, eliminated any perceived cost to having an illiquid balance sheet.

I’d reverse the order of emphasis — credit expansion first, housing policy second — but Rajan is right that government intervention gets the blame all around.”

 

 

 

Related articles

• Obama: Let’s Start a New Financial Crisis (frontpagemag.com)
• Is It Time To Say Sayonara To CRA Funded Housing Agencies? (mfi-miami.com)
• Here We Go Again: Regime Pushes Banks To Make Mortgage Loans To People With Weak Credit (constitutionclub.org)
• ‘What Does the New CRA Paper Tell Us?’ (economistsview.typepad.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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An Underground Society Is Forming In Cities Across The US – Tunnel People

The Tunnel People That Live Under The Streets Of America

 

 

” Did you know that there are thousands upon thousands of homeless people that are living underground beneath the streets of major U.S. cities?  It is happening in Las Vegas, it is happening in New York City and it is even happening in Kansas City.  As the economy crumbles, poverty in the United States is absolutely exploding and so is homelessness.

The New York Post followed one homeless man known as “John Travolta” on a tour through the underground world.  What they discovered was a world that is very much different from what most New Yorkers experience…

 

 

In the tunnels, their world is one of malt liquor, tight spaces, schizophrenic neighbors, hunger and spells of heat and cold. Travolta and the others eat fairly well, living on a regimented schedule of restaurant leftovers, dumped each night at different times around the neighborhood above his foreboding home.

Even as the Dow hits record high after record high, poverty in New York City continues to rise at a very frightening pace.  Incredibly, the number of homeless people sleeping in the homeless shelters of New York City has increased by a whopping 19 percent over the past year.”

 

HT/THE INTERNET POST

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Related articles

• The Tunnel People That Live Under The Streets Of America (pakalertpress.com)
• Tunnel People (theburningplatform.com)
• The Tunnel People That Live Under The Streets Of America (janbein.wordpress.com)
• The Tunnel People That Live Under The Streets Of America (familysurvivalprotocol.com)
• The Tunnel People That Live Under The Streets Of America (gunnygblog.wordpress.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Recession ? What Recession ? You Can’t See It From My House

Washington D.C. Living In Economic Bubble Where Everything Is Great

” As mentioned before, there really are only two types of places doing well in this economy. States with their own energy booms, like North Dakota and Texas.

And Washington D.C.

D.C. is doing spectacularly well thanks to the green gold gushing out of the Treasury and into the pockets of a whole lot of bureaucrats and contractors making a ton of money for literally doing nothing. (See if you can find where all that Stimulus money went.)

So it’s not surprising that when D.C. people say that there is a recovery, they mean it. “

 

 

The fifteen richest counties in America :

 

No. 1: Loudoun County, Va.   Median household income: $119,540

100.0% Reporting	B. Obama (i)	Dem	51.6%	81,900
	M. Romney	GOP	47.1%	74,794

 

 

No. 2: Fairfax County, Va.   Median household income: $103,010

100.0% Reporting	B. Obama (i)	Dem	57.3%	6,636
	M. Romney	GOP	41.1%	4,762

 

 

No. 3: Howard County, Md.   Median household income: $101,771

100.0% Reporting	B. Obama (i)	Dem	59.5%	84,017
	M. Romney	GOP	38.3%	54,094

 

 

No. 4: Hunterdon County, N.J.  Median household income: $97,874

100.0% Reporting	M. Romney	GOP	58.9%	36,979
	B. Obama (i)	Dem	40.0%	25,148

 

 

No. 5: Arlington County, Va.   Median household income: $94,986

100.0% Reporting	B. Obama (i)	Dem	69.2%	81,178
	M. Romney	GOP	29.4%	34,433

 

 

No. 6: Douglas County, Colo.  Median household income: $94,906

100.0% Reporting	M. Romney	GOP	62.6%	93,930
	B. Obama (i)	Dem	36.0%	54,093

 

 

No. 7: Stafford County, Va.   Median household income: $94,317

100.0% Reporting	M. Romney	GOP	53.7%	32,429
	B. Obama (i)	Dem	45.0%	27,130

 

 

No. 8: Somerset County, N.J.  Median household income: $94,270

100.0% Reporting	B. Obama (i)	Dem	52.0%	70,168
	M. Romney	GOP	46.8%	63,159

No. 9: Prince William County, Va.  Median household income: $92,655

98.9% Reporting	B. Obama (i)	Dem	57.4%	103,161
	M. Romney	GOP	41.4%	74,371

 

 

No. 10: Morris County, N.J.  Median household income: $91,469

100.0% Reporting	M. Romney	GOP	55.3%	114,265
	B. Obama (i)	Dem	43.7%	90,313

 

 

No. 11: Nassau County, N.Y.  Median household income: $91,104

100.0% Reporting	B. Obama (i)	Dem	52.9%	243,649
	M. Romney	GOP	46.2%	212,882

 

No. 12: Montgomery County, Md.  Median household income: $89,155

100.0% Reporting	B. Obama (i)	Dem	70.9%	286,493
	M. Romney	GOP	27.4%	110,940

 

No. 13: Calvert County, Md.  Median household income: $88,862

100.0% Reporting	M. Romney	GOP	53.2%	22,413
	B. Obama (i)	Dem	45.0%	18,963

No. 14: St. Mary’s County, Md.  Median household income: $88,444

100.0% Reporting	M. Romney	GOP	56.9%	25,096
	B. Obama (i)	Dem	40.8%	17,982

No. 15: Charles County, Md.  Median household income: $87,007

100.0% Reporting	B. Obama (i)	Dem	65.0%	45,621
	M. Romney	GOP	33.7%	23,637

 

 

 Notice a trend ? It seems life for our “betters” just keeps getting better … 

Related articles

• Real Median Household Income in the 21st Century (ritholtz.com)
• What A Recovery … Down We Go (youviewed.com)
• Libertarians name North Dakota “most free” state (salon.com)
• Why you want to live in North Dakota (washingtonpost.com)
• US Household income continues to fall in midst of recovery (sgtreport.com)

—-

What A Recovery … Down We Go

HOUSEHOLD INCOME TUMBLES DURING THE OBAMA “RECOVERY”

 

 

” The New York Times delivers some news so grim that it had to cook the headline to hide it: “Median Household Income Down 7.3% Since Start of Recession.”

Well, yes, but as the Times reluctantly admits in the very last paragraph of the story, 5.6 percent of that decline has occurred since the Obama “recovery” began.  And median annual household income just fell by 1.1 percent in a single month – February 2013 – after the Obama “recovery” has supposedly been in progress for years.  That’s after $6 trillion in deficit spending to “stimulate” the economy, supposedly for the benefit of the average household.

What’s behind this decline in household income, which has become so drastically pronounced throughout the Obama era? ”

 

Related articles

• US Household income continues to fall in midst of recovery (sgtreport.com)
• US median annual income falls 1.1% in February, down 6% since the start of the recovery (aei-ideas.org)
• Since the recession started median household income is down 7.3 percent. (chasvoice.blogspot.com)
• UNEMPLOYMENT “TUMBLES” TO 7.7%. Happy days are here again! UPDATE: In February Multiple Jobhold… (pjmedia.com)
• Obama Job Approval Slips as Economic Pessimism Rises (people-press.org)
• McClatchy-Marist poll shows Obama tumbling in voters’ eyes (miamiherald.com)

 

 

 

—-

Who Does The Fed Serve ? Why Banks And Government , Who Else ?

Who Benefits From The Fed?

 

 

 

 

” In this article I want to point out who has benefited from the Fed’s operations over the past year.

There has been a lot of discussion about the large increase in reserves, and especially excess reserves, held by the banking system. Mostly this discussion is couched in terms of the increase in the money supply. While the increase in excess reserves—less than $2bn in August 2008 to almost $1.5 trillion at the end of 2012—does represent an increase in the money supply, some rule changes accompanying the crisis also signify that they are part of a bailout. One aspect of the Fed’s crisis response was to commence paying interest on required and excess reserve balances. (The required reserve is the amount of money banks must hold to meet the minimum reserve requirement on deposits, and excess reserves are any amount held in excess of this minimum.)

 

As we review the Fed’s operations in 2012 we see the usual outcomes. The banking sector has benefited from its operations (unusually so, thanks to the continued interest on reserve policy) and the government has received a free lunch by having a ready buyer for its ever-increasing debt, especially long-term debt, which might otherwise be susceptible to inflationary pressures increasing its interest yield. Let’s see what surprises the Fed has in store for us in 2013.”

Homeless In NYC

New York City Leads Jump in Homeless

 

 

 

” More than 21,000 children—an unprecedented 1% of the city’s youth—slept each night in a city shelter in January, an increase of 22% in the past year, the report said, while homeless families now spend more than a year in a shelter, on average, for the first time since 1987. In January, an average of 11,984 homeless families slept in shelters each night, a rise of 18% from a year earlier

“New York is facing a homeless crisis worse than any time since the Great Depression,” said Mary Brosnahan, president of the Coalition for the Homeless.”

 

 

See also :

 

Inside City Shelters, Looking for Ways Out

 

 

 

 

 

Related articles

• New York’s Homelessness Worst Since The Great Depression (zerohedge.com)
• NYC Smashes Homelessness Record (breitbart.com)
• Homeless Shelter Population Reaches Record 50,000 (nbcnewyork.com)
• New York’s Homelessness Worst Since The Great Depression (rvnewstoday.com)

 

 

—-

Joe Biden Idiot , Part ? … Oh Hell , We’ve Lost Count

Biden: Americans ‘No Longer Worried’ About Economy

 

” In remarks today at the White House, Vice President Joe Biden said that Americans don’t have the same economic worries they did when President Barack Obama came into office:

 

 

 

   He is right , to a degree … we don’t have the SAME worries … We have countless MORE since he and his boss took over .