posted September 07, 2010 06:15 AM         

LL was totaly dead here yesterday .. rest of net was super Sssssslow ..

just about anything that can go retrograde .. is .. ( at the moment )
pluto be going direct shortly .. maybe it's doing its stationary bit ..

posted September 10, 2010 03:25 PM         

do you want to know why i say that?

posted September 10, 2010 06:10 PM         

As Democrats grapple with the stagnant economy and President Barack Obama's crumbling approval ratings, expect to hear this comparison a lot: Barack Obama in 2010 = Ronald Reagan in 1982.

On the surface, the comparison is compelling. Reagan and Obama succeeded unpopular incumbents and rode a wave of goodwill into office. During their first two years, both presidents faced brutal recessions, and their approval ratings took big hits. Reagan's Republican Party ended up losing 26 House seats in the 1982 midterm elections (increasing the Democrats' majority). Yet only two years later, after the economy had regained its footing, Reagan won a landslide re-election victory.

Naturally, Obama partisans hope the same will happen in 2012.

So when we heard Mary Jordan, a longtime foreign correspondent with the Washington Post, use this analogy during the roundtable segment of ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour, we decided it was time for a fact-check.

Jordan said, "And remember, folks, that 1982, when Reagan just started out, it was exactly the same point. He was two years into his term. The unemployment was well over 10 percent, and it did come out of it."

We can't yet say how Democrats will fare in November compared with how Republicans did in 1982 and in this item we're only examining unemployment. So we turned to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency that calculates the unemployment rate.

In August 1982, two months before the midterm elections, the unemployment rate stood at 9.8 percent. In August 2010, it was 9.6 percent. So the numbers are remarkably similar. Even the comparative rise during each president's term was similar. The unemployment rate rose 2.5 points between Reagan's election and the last unemployment survey before the midterm election, compared with 3 points for Obama.

Case closed? Not really.

For one thing, in 1982, the unemployment rate only rose to "well over 10 percent," to use Jordan's words, in October 1982, when it hit 10.4 percent. However, this number was released after Election Day, meaning that it could not have been a factor on voters' minds. It peaked at 10.8 percent in November and December 1982.

So while Jordan's number is not far off, it does modestly exaggerate how high voters knew unemployment to be as they prepared to vote.

Here's another difference -- the average unemployed worker this year has been jobless much longer than in 1982.

In August 1982, the median length of unemployment was 8.7 weeks. In August 2010, it was 19.9 weeks -- more than twice as long. And that's not a blip. For nearly a year, the median duration of unemployment has ranged between 19 and 25.5 weeks.

So Jordan is right that there are some similarities between the recessions of 1982 and 2010. But she glosses over the fact that unemployment didn't go "well over 10 percent" in 1982 until after the election, and her use of the overall unemployment rate overlooks an important factor -- that workers this year are likely to have been without jobs much longer. On balance, we rate Jordan's comment Mostly True.

posted September 12, 2010 04:36 PM         

When you spot the word "triage" in a political news story, you know someone is in trouble.

Triage is the procedure by which medical personnel screening people injured in combat or disasters separate those who can be saved from those who can't. The first group is given immediate surgery in hopes of recovery.

The second is given painkillers to make the end bearable.

So it was startling to read last weekend in The New York Times that House Democratic leaders "are preparing a brutal triage of their own members in hopes of saving enough seats to keep a slim grip on the majority."

posted September 12, 2010 05:00 PM         

Say, I thought General Electric...an American company makes wind turbines. Oh yeah, now I remember...THEY DO. So why is O'Bomber permitting stimulus fund to be spent on "creating jobs" overseas?

'Green' jobs no longer golden in stimulus
Environmental projects fail to live up to hype
By Patrice Hill
The Washington Times
8:43 p.m., Thursday, September 9, 2010

.....
The Department of Energy estimated that 82,000 jobs have been created and has acknowledged that as much as 80 percent of some green programs, including $2.3 billion of manufacturing tax credits, went to foreign firms that employed workers primarily in countries including China, South Korea and Spain, rather than in the United States.

Peter Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland, said much of the green stimulus funding was "squandered."

"Large grants to build green buildings don't generate many new jobs, except for a few architects," he said. "Subsidies for windmills and solar panels created lots of jobs in China," but few at home.

In one of several embarrassing disclosures for the administration, a report last fall by American University's Investigative Reporting Workshop found that 11 U.S. wind farms used their grants to purchase 695 out of 982 wind turbines from overseas suppliers.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/9/green-jobs-no-longer-golden-in-stimulus/

posted September 12, 2010 07:35 PM         

i would think again if you think GE is a) an "american" company, even if this is where its roots are and

b) if you think that "american" company is not outsourcing to china.

what do you think the last many years of deregulation and outsourcing have been about anyway? do you not understand why there are so many unemployed workers here at home? partly outsourcing, partly automation, ALL about deregulation...

posted September 13, 2010 09:29 AM         

But the Porkulus Bill was passed to put Americans back to work.

What about that do your not understand?

Are you suggesting there are no US manufacturing plants which produce wind turbines in the United States?

Btw, I'm on record...here katatonic for putting American corporations on notice and with a choice.

Make it here...sell it here.