Give the administration kudos, they just stole the GOP’s thunder by dangling a carrot (and key precedent for future Presidents) that will be a game changer in the election:

President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for greater power to shrink the federal government, and his first idea is merging six sprawling trade and commerce agencies whose overlapping programs can be baffling to businesses, a senior administration official told The Associated Press.

Obama will call on Congress to give him a type of reorganizational power last held by a president when Ronald Reagan was in office. The Obama version would be a so-called consolidation authority allowing him to propose mergers that promise to save money and help consumers. The deal would entitle him to an up-or-down vote from Congress in 90 days.

…

Not in decades has the government undergone a sustained reorganization of itself. Presidents have tried from time to time, but each part of the bureaucracy has its own defenders inside and outside the government, which can make merger ideas politically impossible. That’s particularly true because “efficiency” is often another way of saying people will lose their jobs.

The GOP House dare not deny his request, since this is the exact kind of administrative efficiency the Tea Party and Libertarians see as the path to right-sizing government. They can reject his proposed solutions if they have a serious problem, but not the general idea and approach.

It will be interesting to see how the GOP primary field and House leaders respond. My guess is they will blow it and lose this powerful tool in the future. The smart play is to embrace it and hold hearings and explore how it can be used across the board.

So now begins the test.

Major Update: And while Obama fights Congress to shrink government, Romney is fighting a losing battle concerning his image as a corporate raider who aligns with taking over and gutting businesses. See here and here for examples of how Romney has lost the message battle.

Update: BTW, I posted many times on how to shrink government without losing the next election. And this is to let attrition shrink the roles of government. At the current size, a lot of people leave every year. When slots become available, people in organizations being eliminated or downsized can move to fill positions in organizations that are steady or growing. There is no need to be brutal about shrinking government – a key aspect of the Obama Administration’s proposal:

The official said 1,000 to 2,000 jobs would be cut, but the administration would do so through attrition; that is, as people routinely leave their jobs over time.

If the GOP fights this, kiss this election cycle good-bye in terms of the White House.

Update: As I watch the Romney Short by I assume team Gingrich I see why Newt is so adamant about stopping Romney. Mitt clearly went to the school of ‘get rich quick at any cost’. I always suspected he was not a real small business type, and now I can see it. Businesses DO NOT succeed when profit is the driver. They ONLY SUCCEED, when quality and the betterment of the employees is the driver. Only then do you unleash the creative power of the team.

Romney comes from the failed Haarvhaard school of business. And trust me, it is a complete failure. Those fools at Harvard don’t have a clue how to create a dynamic and successful team.

Today we are blessed with two harsh examples of how the GOP took a growing wave of anti-government anger in the electorate in 2010 and are about to blow it by nominating a big government GOP candidate (Mitt Romney) to go up against a big government liberal Democrat (Barack Obama).

A lot of this has to do with how these people see the engine of our economy and the heart of America. President Obama just recently stuck his foot into his mouth by claiming America did not get where it is at by being competitive:

“We are not a country that was built on the idea of survival of the fittest,” Obama said, invoking populist undertones. “We were built on the idea that we survive as a nation. We thrive when we work together, all of us.”

The man is truly ignorant of history and the private sector. This country was built by pioneers and explorers. As Mary Katherine Hamm said on the radio this morning, Obama is claiming we did not prosper unless we had a government run program to make us a community.

Pure liberal nonsense. We survived by exploring an untamed continent. In most cases by establishing communities with no government for 100’s of miles. Are ‘communities’ are all grass roots, as is our charity and support. And we very much thrive on competition, winning the race and gaining the spoils. We do not execute the losers (which is the implication by using a Darwinism here – where the losers die off).

But Romney is not much different. His bain is Bain Capitol, which is also not representative of the engine of our economy. Bain Capitol was a vulture-like endeavor, looking at failing companies and trying to fix them or liquidate them. Romney has his Bain, Obama his Solyndra. In both cases, the wealthy fat cats walk away a little richer and the employees suffer. Everyone likes to fire the small folks.

Bain was not a entrepreneurial effort like a new product or consumer service. It was not like our own small company, looking to meet a need and fill it with the best solution in the industry. Yes, Bain helped right companies and save some from oblivion, but let’s not go crazy here and lift that element of the free market above its foundation – the small business competing to be the next wild success.

In another foot-in-mouth moment, Romney came out and compared himself Obama and how the President created Government Motors:

Romney’s critics have accused him of destroying jobs in order to increase profits for his investment firm, Bain Capital, but speaking Wednesday on CBS, Romney said that what he did was no different from the Obama administration’s auto industry bailouts.

“In the general election I’ll be pointing out that the president took the reins at General Motors and Chrysler – closed factories, closed dealerships laid off thousands and thousands of workers – he did it to try to save the business,” Romney said Wednesday on CBS.

Great. So Romney plans to bring Bain to the Federal Government. He sounds like he is supporting the government take over of the US car industry. Like I said before, the man should be called Robamaney, since he is just a slight shade of liberal Obama on many issues (Health Care, Global Warming, apparently government take over of the private sector).

This is the blind spot both Obama and Romney have. They don’t see Main Street or the pain and suffering the cold, green-eye-shade efforts have. How does Romney attack all the Solyndra’s out there when he makes statements like this?

Romney is not as smart as people think, and he is not shoe-in against Obama. Today’s dueling quotes clearly show this to be the case.

Tags: Bain, Obama, Romney, Solyndra, Survival of The Fittest

Live blogging some of the early returns in the NH primary and there are some surprises (or maybe it is better to say confirmation that the voters are not following the script being spewed by the Political Industrial Complex). I was wondering if NH would up end the conventional wisdom, as Iowa did.

So far the exit polls are simply sunning. In a state that has below average unemployment (~5.5% compared to the national 8.5%) the number one concern among GOP primary voters is the economy. 69% are very concerned with the economy, another 24% slightly. 5% are apparently oblivious.

Also, the number of independents has grown in NH, now larger in number than either party. They represent over 50% of the voters.

With 6% of the vote in Romney has 36%, with Ron Paul on 11% back at 25%.  If you compare the ‘anybody but Romney’ numbers they tally 75% – an amazing number. Will these numbers hold? Way too soon to know since we don’t know which precincts are reporting. But Romney could really take a hit tonight.

7:56 PM Update: Interesting numbers from Concord: 31% Romney, Paul 25%, Hunstman 23% (I think, trying to keep up with CNN. If Mitt drops to 35% I think we can say he is limping out of NH heading into SC.

9:00 PM Update: 33% reporting and Romney’s lead has bounced back to 37% against Paul’s 24%. Speeches given and the nation goes ‘ho hum‘. Something like 97% of the delegates are yet to be won in primaries across the country. Here in VA we only have two candidates – Paul and Romney. I like neither, but I would not be surprised if VA sends Paul to the winner’s circle so no one can win the necessary delegates and we go to a brokered convention.

BTW, it really is time for Perry to bow out now. He is not hurting anything, but there is a time to admit your time will never come.

I always marvel at people who think PR is more powerful than reality. The bureaucrats in DC are a prime example of this weird belief system. They put out dodgy unemployment numbers and expect everyone suffering from a poor job market to suddenly think everything is OK! It’s clearly magic wand time in DC again.

Sort of like those global warmists, who fail to recognize there has been no significant warming over the last 2-3 decades. Their statistically manipulated, cherry-picked and ‘hidden’ data claims all the diversity of weather we see around us is due to warming they only see in their unmaintained computer models. Yet a review of raw measurements shows nothing of the kind. Fantasy over fact.

When the liberal news media hailed the December unemployment rate of 8.5%, like good little journalist majors (who are mathematically stunted to middle school level math) they missed the critical details behind the number. They once again fell down on the job. But this kind of analysis is not taught in schools anymore. To think is a lost art. Today we regurgitate information.

I have been doing this analysis for months now, showing how the work force size used to compute unemployment is the real number shrinking. Not the number of people out of work or not working in their career field (i.e., working part time or lower wage jobs to get by). We may be adding jobs, but we are losing people in the work force. Fewer workers means slower growth, less consumer demand, less revenues. It is a vicious downward spiral. Ignoring it will be catastrophic. Coming back out of it will take years.

Since 2000 we have the numbers for the labor force, and unlike the general population which has been growing over the last decade, the number of people “COUNTED” as the workforce has leveled off. See the blue area in the chart below (click to enlarge):

The only reason the labor force took a dive in 2008 (not surprisingly, the year the Democrats took over in DC) was due to the Great Recession caused by the housing market debacle (in turn caused by liberal shenanigans with respect to lending rules). Our population has not declined, just those the government decides to count as the pool of workers. This is where the fiction begins.

If the historic trend of workforce size to population size had remained in place (the red line), we would see almost 18,000,000 more people employed. A far cry from the supposed 200,000 added to the employment roles in December.

Worse yet, there was no typical increase in the seasonal job numbers as one would expect. From October to November the workforce SHRUNK by 315,000 workers! From November to December the workforce added back a paltry 4,000. The January numbers are going to look brutal when the seasonal jobs are lost.

So why would the government compute unemployment rates without taking into account the normal workforce size as a percentage of the population (a number that is very stable during periods of low unemployment – and therefore well known for our economy)?

As Obama and the Dems learned, the government bureaucracy is lethargic and pathetically slow to act. If you think ‘shovel ready jobs’ are a myth, wait until you try to change a buggered statistic in the government. Even though it is horribly inaccurate, it can take decades to fix!

Which is why strong economies are based on the free-wheeling, innovative and nimble free economy – not large and ponderous bureaucracies. Even this simple fix would be made at lightening speed outside government.

If we wanted to measure reality – the reality being felt on the streets of Middle America – we would adjust the workforce to reflect where really is. The number of people available to work is 158,5 million, not the 141 million the Department of Labor is using. When we compute the fraction of people on the unemployment roles out of this larger, more accurate pool, the actual unemployment rate is 11.2%.

So, do the people in DC and in front of the TV cameras (completely insulated from the economic downturn) think this fig leaf is going to make everyone love this administration and ignore the damage done by its incompetence and liberal policies? I don’t think so. These are the same people who missed the 2010 backlash election wave coming.

Denial is not something that is contagious folks. Outside those pretending reality does not exist, is a the 99% of us living the reality. And who will be voting the reality come November.

Tags: December Unemployment Rate, Department of Labor, Obama

With the Christmas season now over, I expect to see the weekly jobs picture start to slide back into the danger zone as the holiday part time work load disappears. And we can see that already in this week’s job data (which data reports through 12/24/11):

In the week ending December 24, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 381,000, an increase of 15,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 366,000.

The four week average looks flat for now. But this is only going to get worse as the post Christmas data starts pouring in.  I would be surprised if December does not look pretty good tomorrow, but then when January’s numbers hit in early February we will still be in the Obama-Reid-Pelosi economic doldrums.

What you want to do is read past the first paragraph (something the news media is too intellectually lazy to do):

WEEK ENDING

Dec. 10

Dec. 3

Change

Prior Year1

TOTAL

7,231,514

7,152,129

+79,385

8,846,629

80,000 additional people on unemployment in one week (and this is 12/10/11, not 12/24/11). Think this will rival the entire months jobs gains? Keep an eye on the details folks, the news media just spoon feeds the spinnable numbers.

Finally, what does his Obamaness think will happen if he puts tens of thousands of ground troops out of work??? Does he have any clue about what he is doing or is this all classic liberal-panic flailing?

As I predicted yesterday, Iowa has really shaken up the GOP primary and demonstrated how weak Romne is. In a true surprise result, Rick Santorum has jumped to the head of the ‘anybody but Romney’ pack and tied the former Massachusetts Governor in the Iowa caucuses:

Romney won 30,015 votes, compared with 30,007 for Santorum, out of 122,255 cast.

Each of the men won 25 percent of the vote and proclaimed victory.

Ron Paul was third, followed by Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Jon Huntsman.

That 8 vote winning margin means nothing in this non-binding caucus. What is important is how my predictions from yesterday proved to be accurate:

Whoever wins will win by such a small margin it will be seen as the one who was most popular among all the bad alternatives. It hopefully will not be Romney (Obama-lite)

Absolutely true in the sense we have no clear winner. And a tie is not a win. Romney would be crazy to try and play it as a win (it would show another pol who is deaf to voter concerns). Santorum is the latest to hold the mantle of ‘anybody but Romney’. Gingrich, Perry, Bachman and Cain all played the role. We are truly sifting through the list of bad options to find the least bad.

Romney’s total support (win or lose) will be a third of the combined “anyone but Romney” vote, continuing to illustrate how little support the man has among conservatives.

Again, absolutely true. Romney got 25% of the vote. So did Santorum. But the ‘anybody but Romney’ tally is 75% to Romney’s 25%. 25 is exactly one 3rd of 75%. The head wind against Romney among conservatives (fiscal and social) and tea party/libertarian voters is enormous. It will still be there in South Carolina, and may be building in New Hampshire

The GOP will look like a weak and possibly worthless alternative to Obama

Yep. Santorum, like all the other ‘anybody but Romney’ candidates before him, is weak in a lot of ways. His obsession with gay marriage is his Achilles’ Heal (another politician wanting to use the government to tell us all what to think, what is good or bad, etc). He has little organization and when the lights hit him, he will begin to stumble.

But a new dynamic is going to start up to help him – the drop outs. Perry and Bachman should be close to dropping out this week (Bachman maybe within hours). They know their presence in debates and primaries is only diluting the conservative cause. When they do drop out the anti-establishment conservative masses will probably go to Santorum.

I know, everyone says its Newt, but its clearly not Newt – as shown in Iowa. Newt’s job is to continue to tear down Romney so he can’t grab momentum. He will play the spoiler from 3rd place.

I get a lot of comments about how Romney is better than Obama, and I am not sure I buy it. Romney is Obama-lite. He thinks ONLY in terms of government solutions (see Romneycare). He has naively bought into the Catastrophic Global Warming mythology (as did Newt). He is not for the dramatic change required to reign in the Imperial DC.

I doubt his Supreme Court candidates will be any better the Bush the First’s moderate selections – as opposed to W’s selections and priorities which were as or more conservative than Reagan’s. George W Bush was willing to push to the right as far as it made sense to go without imploding his political capitol. I argue his two terms brought in more conservative wins than even Reagans.

• He stopped the development of embryonic stem cell lines, but realized the genie that was out of the bottle could not be returned so he let the private research continue, but without federal funding. Not a bad compromise.
• He pushed through massive tax cuts many times over, and kept them in place.
• He deployed the first successful health care program that relied on free market competition (the Medicare/Medicaid drug program) as proof free market solutions could save money over government managed health care (a success only few understand since the GOP establishment in DC called it a failure – which it is not).
• He did submit balanced budgets (the GOP Congress blew the bank).

I don’t think Romney would be much better than Obama, because a GOP Congress would be hesitant (or unwilling) to challenge a GOP President and his moderate ways. As if to underscore this concern, it seems McCain is going to come out and endorse Romney this week. And I am not sure Romney can beat Obama since he is so close to Barack. He hardly seems like enough of a option to create an up-swelling of voters willing to brace all to get to the polls. He is a deflating candidate in my mind.

Again, a GOP Congress using Obama as the epitome of liberal madness over 4 years of investigations into his failures would be educational – and set the stage for a real outsider to run in 2016.

Tags: Iowa Caucus, Rick Santorum Mitt Romney

OK, so the Iowa caucuses are being held today and everyone is atwitter (literally) about who will win.

The short answer is no one. The result of Iowa will be as follows:

1. Whoever wins will win by such a small margin it will be seen as the one who was most popular among all the bad alternatives. It hopefully will not be Romney (Obama-lite)
2. Romney’s total support (win or lose) will be a third of the combined “anyone but Romney” vote, continuing to illustrate how little support the man has among conservatives.
3. The GOP will look like a weak and possibly worthless alternative to Obama

These are unavoidable results, no matter what spin is applied by the GOP-establishment spinmeisters.

Worse yet, more and more voters will be looking at gridlock in DC as the best answer to a GOP field dominated by the same-old-same-old, life-long politicians. The answer to the DC conundrum is NO MORE DC insiders. Got a surplus of these.

The Tea Party movement wants a sea change in DC. And without an outsider running at all, the next option is to take more ground in the House and Senate and use Obama as a Pinata for 4 more years.

One thing that would be worthwhile is to let a GOP/Tea Party congress stymie Obama, Obamacare, Obama-deficits, and liberal dogma for 4 years. There is now a liberal administration with the following albatrosses to be put on display in congressional hearings:

• Obamacare debacles (numerous, from loss of current insurance to waivers to bankrupting Medicare/Medicaid)
• EPA’s high on CO2 fumes (including the Climategate claims by skeptics, the white wash investigation, the snake oil science, the story of the complete scientific record)
• Obama/Holder pulling back on terrorism threats (leaving us multiple attacks and near misses)
• Gun Runner debacle
• Solyndra/Green Energy scams
• Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac coverup
• Failure of Government Trickle-down stimulus

And there is much more. I am rapidly concluding that having the Obama administration basically on trial for the sins of liberal madness for four years will build the case for an outsider, business-type GOP run in 2014. We have a massive education process to enjoin (both for the voters and the DC Political Industrial Complex).  A GOP Congress that begins by cutting our expenditures to fit within our revenues and then suspends all major actions until we review the overall role of government is in the best interest of this country.

The GOP either figures this out or is replaced.

I know planet-wide science is still very much in its infancy, since we have only in the last 40 years really started exploring our solar system in detail and understanding how planets might work. But one thing you begin to realize rapidly when dealing with space is the issue of scale. A global scale is very hard to get your head around. And sometimes our graphical representations can confuse or mislead us – instead of enlighten us.

For example, the radius of the Earth is on the order of 6,353 – 6384 km (3,947 – 3,968 miles). Another fact is that at the end of 2004 (which is the year for which I found the image I was looking for) there were 367 Geosynchronous Satellites orbiting the Earth. How are these two facts relate? This is a fairly standard representation used for GEO satellite orbital slots around the globe:

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Major Update At End!

I have struggled with whether to post this or not, but as I contemplated my assessment of who the FOIA.org is (the person or persons behind the release of CRU emails and documents in 2009 and 2011) I decided the person(s) behind Climategate is/are probably known to authorities and protected. In fact, my suspicion is the document releases may be another CRU attempt to try and slip past the public scrutiny they so fear.

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Tags: Climategate, CRU, David Palmer, FOIA, FOIA.org, Phil Jones, UEA

Added a new site to the blog roll. For those skeptical of the AGW industrial complex and its media spin machine check out the Cranky Old Crow and their list of pertinent articles.