Friday, May 29, 2015

BloggeRhythms

The common theme for today's items is numbers. And what they add up to doesn't bode well for present and future hopes for Democrats in general.
 
Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer, reports: "The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.7 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, depressed by a severe winter and a widening trade deficit."

Noting that, "steady job gains are expected to fuel modestly healthy growth for the rest of 2015," Mr. Crutsinger explained that the problem was, "The harsh winter, which kept many consumers home and businesses closed."

Farther along in the article he added that, "Last quarter's contraction marked the first since a 2.1 percent annual drop in the first three months of 2014, a slump that was also due in part to severe winter weather."
 
As far as the future's concerned, Mr. Crutsinger writes, "Yet the outlook has brightened considerably since winter. Most economists expect lower gas prices eventually to accelerate consumer spending, the main fuel for the economy."
 
So, summing things up, the most significant blame for the nation's poor economic performance is severe winter weather, while the hope for the future rests with declining gas prices which will spur the economy back to good health.
 
By taking another step in analyzing the nation's economic problems, though, it becomes obvious that, if not directly caused by the administration, and particularly the president, things would certainly be better then they are without his direct interference. Because, much of those economic problems result from overregulation, taxation and penalties stemming from "global warming," which the past two "harsh" winters confirm doesn't even exist.
 
Additionally, compounding the economic problems, rising oil prices resulted from caps on domestic drilling and obstacles placed on attempts to become self-reliant in fuel production, causing citizens to spend far more than necessary on gas for their cars.
 
Therefore, it doesn't take much pondering to conclude that without the considerable political pandering and payback's extended to supporters, the nation would be in far better shape than it is at present. 
 
On the same subject, economic performance, nytimes.com's Nelson D. Schwartz, writes that, "While cloudy, the economic outlook is not necessarily dark. Unemployment has been falling steadily, and experts think it could fall to about 5 percent by the end of the year, from 5.4 percent now. The jobless rate stood at 8 percent a little over two years ago."
 
However, the trap Mr. Schwartz falls into, or perhaps realizes but goes along with nevertheless, is that dismal unemployment hasn't changed much at all. What's different is that the administration changed the criteria for publication of the monthly results, particularly omitting those who've given up searching for suitable work.
 
As reported by CNBC.com "The U-6 rate dipped in April to 10.8 percent, the lowest level since August 2008." The U-6 rate is defined as "total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of all civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers." In other words, the U6 rate includes everyone who wants a full-time job but doesn't have one.
 
Which leads into another employment trend mentioned here quite often. Because while politicians, especially liberals, try to garner votes by appearing to help minimum wage workers by raising hourly wages, they're actually forcing business-owners to automate as fast as possible. 
 
In that regard, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Martin Ford has written a new book, “Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future.”
 
According to Mr. Ford, "Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen plenty of blue collar jobs outsourced to machines — from auto assembly to customer service. Now, as computers, equipped with artificial intelligence, increasingly take over “information jobs,” tasks that were once reserved for skilled, college-educated white collar professionals are vulnerable."  
 
Selecting a particular vocation as an example,"Mr. Ford explains, "There is already a big impact on pharmacies. You have massive machines in hospitals that automate the whole process internally — and you’ve also got smaller machines about the size of a vending machine that are being deployed in pharmacies, so it’s already having a big impact."
 
And then he goes on to project an aspect of automation that should concern every employee performing a routine task. Because every single one of them is vulnerable no matter the industry. "Right now, it may be true that a lot of pharmacists still have their jobs because we have laws and regulations that require them to be there. It takes a great deal of training and education to be a pharmacist, but what they do is fundamentally routine and it’s really geared toward producing a very consistent reliable result and that’s the kind of work that’s ideally suited to automation.”
 
Which brings us to today's update on Bill Clinton's wife, who will likely be affected although the item's more about Bill himself.   
 
Deborah Sontag writes on nytimes.com: "To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Petra Nemcova, a Czech model who survived the disaster by clinging to a palm tree, decided to pull out all the stops for the annual fund-raiser of her school-building charity, the Happy Hearts Fund."
 
Planning the event, Ms Nemcova wanted it to be spectacular and therefore, invited Bill Clinton to attend and speak.
 
As a result, “The Clinton Foundation had rejected the Happy Hearts Fund invitation more than once, until there was a thinly veiled solicitation and then the offer of an honorarium,” said the former executive director, Sue Veres Royal."
 
And then not surprisingly, "The former president of the United States agreed to accept a lifetime achievement award at the June 2014 event after Ms. Nemcova offered a $500,000 contribution to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. The donation, made late last year after the foundation sent the charity an invoice, amounted to almost a quarter of the evening’s net proceeds — enough to build 10 preschools in Indonesia." 
 
Press officers for Ms. Nemcova and for the Clinton Foundation said on Thursday that the foundation had not solicited the donation and that the money would be used for projects in Haiti, as yet undetermined.    
 
While the foundations response that the use of the funds had not yet been determined seems typical for a personal slush fund, another comment came from Doug White, who directs the master’s program in fund-raising management at Columbia University, who told Ms Sontag, "This is primarily a small but telling example of the way the Clintons operate. The model has responsibility; she paid a high price for a feel-good moment with Bill Clinton. But he was riding the back of this small charity for what? A half-million bucks? I find it — what would be the word? — distasteful.”
 
Thus, here we have a double-whammy, whereas the story appeared in The New York Times, the Democrat paper of record that would bend over triple before exposing one of their favorite politicos. And then, a masters program director at Columbia, another liberal bastion denigrating Bill, although he used a mild rebuke, "distasteful."
 
So, while many pundits believe that  all the negativity surrounding the Clinton's at present will either be forgotten in time and ignored by the presidential campaign, and others are certain that the Clinton base will treat the exposures as Republican propaganda, the underlying facts remain what they are. And, with over a year to go, it remains to be seen what else is out here that hasn't been mentioned by Clinton foes yet.
 
That's it for today folks.
 
Adios

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