More grist from the economic mill:
Consumer spending: flat!
Personal income: up!
Real disposable income: up!
Consumer prices YOY: 1.2% up!
Gorilla says: “Messages: consumers are still saving and repairing household balance sheets, inflation is non-existent, and growth, such as it isn’t, doesn’t address 10% unemployment!”
BP keeps trying to plug up the oil well, but “top kill” is looking like the same old road kill…
Any lessons to be learned here?
*You can’t outsource oil drilling and the regulation of oil drilling to oil companies. The US should either develop a capability to handle these disasters, or, more preferably, ban drilling altogether.
*For all the crocodile tears shed by Gulf Coast politicians, there’s absolutely no support for getting the US off its fossil fuel addiction. A large tax on oil/gas and/or some sort of cap/trade system is the only way Americans will ever get serious about alternative energy production.
*When large corporations effectively control the political process through campaign contributions, and are able to spin a very ignorant media into doing their bidding, there’s not much hope for equality of opportunity, let alone serious policy debates. 10 million unemployed is barely registering on our elites’ radar, and the fossil fuel-generated poverty of Lousiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky has not changed for decades.
Gorilla says: “The body politic is being killed from the top down!”
Well, the Chinese are in with their response to North Korea, and it consists, as usual, of avoiding conflict through lip service…
In fairness, what else could be done?
The Chinese certainly will not cut off aid to North Korea, fearing that millions of refugees will stream across the border should the regime in Pyongyang collapse.
They certainly know that, for all the posturing by Seoul and Washington, nobody’s going to war over North Korea.
So a bit of easy rhetoric in the long waiting game suits Beijing just fine.
Gorilla says: “Except for the yuan, it’s all just swanning around!”
Expectations are less than expected:
GDP growth in Q1?
Expectation: 3.3%
Reality: 3.0%
Unemployment claims?
Expectation: 455,000
Reality: 460000
Continuing unemployment claims?
Expectation: 4.6 million
Reality: 4.607 million
Gorilla says: “Expectation: more stimulus, more QE? Reality: More deflation, more dunderheads!”
10% unemployment, a housing bust, an output gap in the trillions, very little economic growth, what’s a politician to do?
Become a deficit hawk and keep the funeral going!
It’s beyond depressing to see our leaders think that the solution to our woes is to keep people unemployed and encourage the states to fire even more workers, all in the name of tackling non-existent inflation!
Gorilla says: “Austerity is the new condescension!”
The tidetime folklorist wonders when we’ll all start ordering planes, since we’re not ordering much of anything else.
The Platter: Come Fly With Me by Frank Sinatra (Demand Takes A Holiday)
The Bait: Parachute Dry Fly (The Durability Of Unfriendly Skies)
From azcentral.com:
While the nation’s illegal-immigrant population doubled from 1994 to 2004, according to federal records, the violent-crime rate declined 35 percent.
More recently, Arizona’s violent-crime rate dropped from 512 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2005 to 447 incidents in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available.
So let’s not confuse the reality of a drop in crime in Arizona with the reality of Arizona’s racist public officials cynically fanning the flames of hatred to address a non-existent threat.
And let’s get serious about promoting more legal immigration, banning the sale of assault weapons, and legalizing soft drugs, so that we might for once stop funding both sides in yet another pointless, violent war.
Gorilla says: “Growing up is so hard to do when your head is in the sand!”
Hillary Clinton concludes her Asian tour with yet another fruitless call to the international community to do something about North Korea.
The difficulty is that nobody much cares about North Korea. The only two countries that do, South Korea and China, are on opposite sides.
The South Koreans want condemnation of North Korea for the sinking of the Cheonan, the Chinese want the whole mess to go away.
Seoul’s worried about a military invasion, Beijing’s worried about a refugee invasion.
As with Iran, the US seems incapable of cutting a bilateral deal with Pyongyang.
South Korea’s been a reliable partner for decades, but we aren’t about to go to war again to defend it against North Korea.
Everyone in the region knows this, so why not get it over with?
Some combination of recognition/security guarantees in exchange for nuclear disengagement is necessary, and it shouldn’t take another 50 years to make this happen.
Gorilla says: “It’s always bibimbap, never bulgogi!”
Not content with losing 2 wars, the Pentagon’s expanding further into intelligence gathering!!!
This of course begs the question: Isn’t that the intelligence community’s job?
Apparently not, so the Pentagon will task small, secretive military teams to set up networks to disrupt possible threats in places like Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen, or to have a look around in places like Iran.
And if these troops are captured, they’ll be tortured, since the Geneva Conventions won’t apply.
Gorilla says: “Guess they’ll cross that bridge when they find it!”
Larry Summers, senior White House economic advisor: “I cannot agree with those who suggest that it somehow threatens the future to provide truly temporary, high-bang-for-the-buck jobs and growth measures”.
Gorilla translates: “We should have proposed a stimulus package of $2 trillion or more in 2009, but we were then and are now political cowards!”
Gorilla’s Blog