Tuesday, January 3, 2017

BloggeRhythms

During the governmental transition presently taking place, much has been mentioned here about how Democrat politicians never seem to learn from their mistakes. Most often, if not always, they choose to remain rigid in their approach regardless of the cost to them, their party and their constituents.

And now, today’s news provides two more examples of their selfish theorizing outweighing basic fundamentals of common sense.

The first concerns, the POTUS considering an opportunity created by a five minute gap in time when the outgoing Congress is replaced by the new one. During that time an “intersession recess” appointment could be made to put liberal Judge Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court to fill the currently vacant slot. Although highly unprecedented and only temporary, it would certainly be typical in light of everything else being done to disrupt Trump's transition in any way possible. 

A similar display of negativity was reported on by Fergal O'Brien @bloomberg.com, who writes that former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said “investors are being far too sanguine about the risks associated with Donald Trump’s incoming administration.”
Summers is a Harvard professor who served as Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary. His claim is that the possibility of U.S. protectionist measures along with changes to foreign and domestic social policy create “extraordinary uncertainty.” 

Summers told Tom Keene in a Bloomberg Television interview Tuesday: “This is probably the largest transition ideologically and in terms of substantive policy that we’ve seen in the U.S. in the last three quarters of a century. Those kinds of transitions have to be -- given the central role of the U.S. in the global system -- matters of enormous uncertainty. I don’t think that’s fully recognized by markets.”

Summers went on to criticize a paper “jointly written by economist Peter Navarro, who will lead a newly formed White House National Trade Council, and Commerce Department head Wilbur Ross.” 

Saying the Navarro-Ross paper is “well beyond voodoo economics,” Summers went on to disparage a September report on Trump’s growth plans. “The logic of it, the arguments made, are so far out of the mainstream of any kind of responsible economic thinking that they are the economic equivalent of creationism,” he said.  

Summers proselytizing, following Obama’s last gasp Supreme Court possibilities, stirred memory's of recent information posted here which factually refutes their arguments quite clearly.


Only two weeks before Trump’s inauguration the S&P 500 is close to a record high, based on optimism over fiscal stimulus and stronger economic growth. At the same time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is soon to reach the 20,000 level. 

Meaning that, significant numbers across the nation anticipate an uptick in the nation’s economy although Trump's not even been sworn in as yet. 

By comparison, actual numbers show that the U2 unemployment rate for November was 4.6%, which covers those out of work for 30 days or less. However, every prior president used the U6 rate which applies to those workers who are part-time purely for economic reasons. As of November 2016 the U6 rate was 9.3%, the same as it was under “W” Bush, indicating that for the past 8 years there’s been no change for the better in hiring. 

At the same time, the number employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers), was 5.7 million. While down by 416,000 over the year, this still-large group would have preferred full-time jobs, were working part-time because their hours were cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

The overall civilian labor force participation rate, was 62.7 percent in November, the all-time low since Jimmy Carter’s disastrous economy management in 1978, while the employment-population ratio held at 59.7 percent.

Further harm to employees resulted from ramifications of the health care tax whereby 30 hours per week now constitutes the full time employment threshold for determining benefit eligibility. For many, that means a 25% reduction in hours worked as employers seek ways to curb the additional burden, expense-wise.   

Thus, it seems that if there truly are those practicing “voodoo economics” and the logic of it, as well as the arguments made being “so far out of the mainstream of any kind of responsible economic thinking that they are the economic equivalent of creationism,” the ones perpetuating that fraud are Democrats. Including Summers and his party head, the current POTUS.  

It also seems certain that despite Summers claims that Trump’s economic thinking is “creationism,” many business leaders aren’t in agreement with Summers at all.
Just this morning, Heather Long and Poppy Harlow reported @cnn.money.com, that Ford’s canceling plans to build a new plant in Mexico, investing $700 million in Michigan instead, creating 700 new U.S. jobs.

Ford CEO, Mark Fields, specifically called the investment a "vote of confidence" in the pro-business environment president-elect Donald Trump is creating. 

That followed Wednesday’s news that Sprint Corp. will move thousands of jobs back to the U.S.—a development triggered by the “spirit and the hope” surrounding Trump’s election.

And then, at 10 AM this morning, cnbc.com reported: “U.S. construction spending rose more than expected in November, reaching its highest level in 10-1/2 years. 

“The Commerce Department said on Tuesday that construction spending increased 0.9 percent to $1.18 trillion, the highest level since April 2006. It was boosted by gains in both private and public sector investment.” It was also up 4.1 percent from a year ago in November. 

And then, just to add some icing to what the numbers above show, there's this from Lydia Saad a Gallup pollster @gallup.com also this morning: “Many more Americans have considered themselves politically conservative than liberal since the early 1990s. That remained the case in 2016, when an average of 36% of U.S. adults throughout the year identified themselves as conservative and 25% as liberal.” 

All of which raises a different kind of point about Harvard educators such as Summers. Because, virtually all of these scholarly titans living in their ivory towers continually publish volumes of paper in the form of articles, treatises, papers books, theses and tomes for the great unwashed.

However, considering how little they apparently know about what actually goes on around them, in the world, the economy or anywhere else, one has to wonder if they ever read anything or attempt to gain any other kind of input from the real world at all. 

That’s it for today folks. 

Adios

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