Every month Steve Benen publishes a handy chart showing job gains and losses since January 2008. Looking at the latest dismal numbers for May, he concludes, “Any sane person should look at these numbers and conclude that the economy desperately needs a boost.”
But it's worse than that. As I mentioned yesterday, the U.S. economy needs to add about 150,000 jobs per month just to stay even with population growth. This means that you really need to look at how many jobs we gained above (or below) 150,000, not above or below zero. So here's Steve's chart, modified to show just that. As you can see, the last eight months, when the economy has supposedly been starting to recover, has actually been virtually flat. Relative to population growth, we've been generating no new jobs at all.
So yes: “Any sane person should look at these numbers and conclude that the economy desperately needs a boost.” Even the not especially sane ought to have figured that out by now.
DAY ONE: June 3-4, 2011 — DJERBA, TUNISIA — On Libyan-Tunisian border, it's back to the future with refugees
DAY TWO: June 4-5, 2011 — TRIPOLI, LIBYA. WMR Exclusive. Western Libya portrait is not what is being painted by the Western media
Phi Beta Iota: Details below the line. The public is being lied to by the US Government and its corporate media co-conspirators. The Honorable Cynthia McKinney, daughter of Georgia, is doing what professional intelligence and investigative media should be doing. We need more of this. “The truth at any cost lowers all other costs.”
Digital Black Market: The Silk Road. Uses bitcoins (the decentralized, but not anonymous, crypto-currency that's useful for transactions — see wiki for more) and eBay style reputation rating to grease the wheels of unrestricted e-commerce. Requires TOR (the anonymizing network) to connect to the site. “Right now you can buy an 1/8th of pot on Silk Road for 7.63 Bitcoins.”
Gliffy. The best online diagramming/wireframing tool I've found.
MyCube launches a beta. Built by a friend of mine with a team in Singapore. A facebook + microtransaction system (currently, the currency it's using internally is based on the Singaporean dollar). It would be pretty snazzy if used inside a company (the transaction system could be used for expense reporting). On the other hand, it's also got some useful capabilties for an alter or darknet. If you want access, ping me via e-mail.
Nationbuilder. VERY cool campaign management software.
al Qaeda planned to kill Lockheed Martin CEO as revenge for drone attacks. Piercing the corporate veil (a legal term for making executives liable for the actions of their companies) is a viable global guerrilla strategy. It has worked in previous instances. I suspect most planners assume that senior execs travel with bodyguards in the US like they do in many countries or that their homes are walled fortresses. They don't and they aren't. Everyone, even the most senior exec, is easy to find and access.
Statement and Senate Floor Remarks by Sen. Bernie Sanders
WASHINGTON – Congress and the White House are now focused on how we deal with our huge deficit — a crisis brought about over the last 10 years by two wars, tax breaks for the rich, the Wall Street bailout and a prescription drug program — all unpaid for. The deficit also increased as a result of the declining tax revenues during a current recession, caused by the greed and illegal behavior of Wall Street.
The debate over deficit reduction comes at an unusual moment in American economic history. While the middle class is in rapid decline and poverty is increasing, the wealthiest people in our country and largest corporations are doing phenomenally well. Over the last several decades almost all new income created in this country has gone to the top 1 percent, who now earn more income than the bottom 50 percent. Further, the United States now has the most unequal distribution of wealth of any major country with the top 400 individuals owning more wealth than the bottom 150 million.
Given the reality of record-breaking corporate profits and the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else, it should be a surprise to no one that every recently published poll suggests that the overwhelming majority of the American people want the deficit to be addressed through shared sacrifice. They do not believe that the deficit should be reduced solely on the backs of working families, the elderly, children, the sick and the poor — many of whom are already suffering as a result of the recession. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the Republicans have proposed.
Phi Beta Iota: The hypocrisy of the Democratic Administration is exceeded only by the hypocrisy of the Republican Party–one bird, two wings, same shit, just different colors. We await a knight speaking truth.
For months I have been reading in the press about Robert Gates “cancelling more than 30 [defense hardware] programs.” A May 24 Bloomberg article by Viole Gienger (“Gates Says Military Cuts May Protect F-35, Submarines”) came up quick on a Google search. Other articles credit Gates with “saving more than $300 billion” with these – presumably tough – decisions.
In case you are wondering where this imagery of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as a tough task master for out of control DOD procurement is coming, you need look no further than Robert Gates.
At a May 24 farewell speech to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, Gates repeated his own claim, made frequently earlier, that “All told, over the past two years, more than 30 programs were cancelled, capped, or ended that, if pursued to completion, would have cost more than $300 billion.” (See the speech at http//www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1570.) A bit later he hammered home the point in case any of the press present missed the legacy Gates seeks for himself: “when it comes to our military modernization accounts, the proverbial ‘low hanging fruit' – those weapons and other programs considered most questionable – have not only been plucked, they have been stomped on and crushed.”
Robert Gates did not reduce the number of hardware programs in the Department of Defense; he increased them. A term he has repeatedly expressed distaste for (“math”) proves him wrong. DOD keeps periodic records on these sorts of things; DOD's Selected Acquisition Reports (SARs) track the number of major hardware programs and their acquisition costs. (Find them at http://www.acq.osd.mil/ara/am/sar/)
They show the following:
In September 2008, just before Barack Obama was elected and selected Robert Gates as his Secretary of Defense, there were 91 Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAPs). They were projected to cost $1,648 billion dollars.
In April 2009, Gates announced the termination of various defense programs. The SAR that next came out, in December 2009, showed the number of MDAPs had indeed declined: to 87 programs, costing a little less ($1,616 billion).
Nine months later, after Gates took some more whacks at the defense budget – if that's what you want to call them – the SAR that came out in September 2010 showed the number of MDAPs had increased to 94. Their cost also increased – to $1,679 billion.
The most recent SAR, for December 2010, shows another increase, both in programs (to 95) and money (to $1,720 billion).
So, thanks to Secretary Gates “termination” of more than 30 programs “saving” us $300 billion, we now have an increase of four programs costing an additional $72 billion.
I have two questions:
1)Just what legacy should we be giving Mr. Gates?
2) What type of “math” will Leon Panetta use when he is made Secretary of Defense later this year?
Phi Beta Iota: This is public intelligence at its best. A methodical, deep, documented look at the corruption inherent in the Corps of Engineers that the politicians at all levels that enable that corruption with their own lack of integrity. Below from the producer:
