"Home Alone"

Writing on the new Ron Suskind book about Obama's economic team, the WaPo includes a chilling detail about dysfunction in the White House:

Meeting over dinner at the Bombay Club one night, [director of the National Economic Council] Summers told [budget director] Orszag that “we’re really home alone,” according to the book. “I mean it,” Summers said. “We’re home alone. There’s no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes.”

Obama, utterly lacking in executive experience?  Who could have seen that being a problem?

Mr. Suskind got a non-denial denial from Mr. Summers:

Suskind asked Summers about the comment. “What I’m happy to say is, the problems were immense, they came from a number of very different sources, they were all coming at once, and there were not very many of us,” Summers replied.

And the WaPo got a more vigorous non-denial:

In an e-mail Friday to The Post, Summers, who left the administration last year, said, “The hearsay attributed to me is a combination of fiction, distortion, and words taken out of context. I can’t speak to what others have told Mr. Suskind, but I have always believed that the president has led this country with determined, steady and practical leadership.”

Well.  I don't intend to re-read Bob Woodward's "The Agenda" about the early days of the Clinton Administration when they were dealing with the aftermath of the Bush 41 recession.  But I will note that, as Undersecretary for International Affairs, Summers was an outsider in those debates.  It was only later that Clinton's economic team became geniuses; in 1994, the portrayal of Clinton was not exactly that of an adult in charge. Here is our very own Andrew Sullivan:

It's page 289, and we still don't know [what this Presidency is about]. After listening to the Senator from Nebraska's subsequent demolition of the Clinton Presidency, the President's men simply parrot back that their boss agrees with everything Senator Kerrey says. At this point in the book, this is a credible statement. At this point in the book, Mr. Clinton seems to agree with everything anybody says.

And the Times book review by Christopher Lehman-Haupt:

Moreover, the President keeps having tantrums, so often and so violently that you come think of them as his way of keeping himself going. And his anguished indecisiveness can make Hamlet look like Fortinbras.

But eventually Clinton, Rubin and Sumers became the geniuses that gave us the Clinton tech bubble and dergulated financial services.

THE SUMMERS OF '93:  Per my Amazon search of The Agenda, Lawrence Summers was passed over for chair of the NEC (the controversial memo about pollution and Africa) and relegated to the Treasury; he appears in a big pre-inaugural briefing held in Little Rock, and then drops out of the story.

 

Comments

[Do you any Mama trying to get back home?]

Heh, flying off for a vacation, a small detail was forgotten.
==============

[narciso]

Consider that Clinton didn't have the benefit
of the stimulus, or passing health care, file
that under 'be careful what you wish for, you might just get it'

[peter]

What an insult to the Macaulay Culkin character in Home Alone to compare him to Zero. Kevin was resourceful, brave, stood up to evil, and ingenious.lun Zero? not so much.

[Clarice]

In D.C one becomes known as a great statesman by lying for various administrations before Congress and a great economist by effin up the economy.

[narciso]

He's much more the Daniel Stern or Joe Pesci
characters, hapless thieves,

[Cecil Turner]

I love "home alone," and your pointing up the ridiculousness of the "unexpectedly" refrain. How could we know that someone with no executive experience might not be a good executive?

And how could we possibly predict that simply pumping more government money into the economy might not fix it this time? I mean, the models said it would work, right? 9% unemployment? That just means it would've been really bad without Porkulus. So that means we really need Porkulus II. Right?

[Captain Hate]

Slick was at least smart enough to realize that a tanking economy would force the electorate to concentrate on what a lowlife grifter predator he was. I recall one period when the market was "correcting" itself that had him filling his pants from the rear for a change.

Speaking of grifters, FNS had Evan Bayh on their Sunday panel today, who was smart enough to remind the current crew of Repubs about Reagan's 11th commandment; although per Porch that wasn't about primary battles.

Speaking of primary battles, I wish whoever is challenging Boehner would use as his "single issue" that the big crybaby hasn't been banging on Bammycare being a major cause of the lack of jobs instead of reflexively just reacting to whatever lunacy comes out of the mouth of El JEFE.

[Danube of Thought]

Clarice, that lead sentence puts you in contention for a Pulitzer. Jesus.

[Ignatz]

--I love "home alone," and your pointing up the ridiculousness of the "unexpectedly" refrain.--

If to some group of people everything that occurs is 'unexpected' then at some point one has to conclude that group is composed entirely of irrational morons, not that it is impossible to have rational expectations about the consequences of certain actions.

[Benjamin Franklin]

"And how could we possibly predict that simply pumping more government money into the economy might not fix it this time? I mean, the models said it would work, right? "

Throughout my State(and yours) have ARRA signs posted around freeway and highway construction sites....Jobs..............Jobs

http://blogs.reuters.com/frontrow/2011/09/12/perry-says-stimulus-didnt-create-jobs-cbo-says-it-did/

"Texas Governor Rick Perry, front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, said on Monday President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus program created “zero” jobs.

Not so, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the non-partisan budget arbiter for lawmakers.

Congress in 2009 passed the $830 billion economic stimulus, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which included both spending measures and tax cuts.

According to the CBO:

As of June, between 1 million and 2.9 million Americans owed their jobs to the recovery act.
In the second quarter of 2011 the recovery act added or preserved 550,000 full-time jobs.
The recovery act brought down the unemployment rate by between 0.5 and 1.6 percentage points in the second quarter of 2011."

[Comanche Voter]

Well that's established. Captain Zero is not an adult, so his preferred meme of "I'm the only adult in the room" is a big lie.

[`]

None of the Sunday Talk shows addressed Solyndra - only Fox brought it up with the panel. It's as if LightSquared never happened and I see no pressure by the media at all.

[narciso]

Yes, it's par for the course, with Susskind,
file that under 'fake but accurate' along with
the apocryphal 'we make our own reality' that was his hallmark. He usually gets at least one major thing wrong, whether his ghosting of Paul O'Neil's memoir, where he misrepresented the Bush administration's case for war, getting details of the Mubtakkar incident wrong, accusing one CIA official of forging a document, in his last book. So it is probably true, but I don't trust Susskind's account, which serves the narrative,

[Danube of Thought]

Schadenfreude in the extreme:

Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" has experienced quite a comedown since leaving MSNBC.

After debuting to promising ratings on the Current cable network in late June, Olbermann's political commentary show posted its lowest numbers yet the week of Sept 5-11....

For the week of Sept. 5-11, "Countdown" attracted an average 142,000 total viewers and an average 46,000 adults aged 25-54 - the demographic category that advertisers consult when buying time on cable network news programs.

Those figures are less than half of the ratings "Countdown" posted in its debut week on Current. The show averaged 319,000 total viewers that first week; 114,000 in the key 25-54 demographic.

[narciso]

They are following the Spinal Tap 'more selective audience' strategy.

[Clarice]

as I told Ext, DoT, the food connections are from a hilarious piece by Rachel Abrams which I linked and which is certainly worth reading.

[Ranger]

According to the CBO:

As of June, between 1 million and 2.9 million Americans owed their jobs to the recovery act.
In the second quarter of 2011 the recovery act added or preserved 550,000 full-time jobs.
The recovery act brought down the unemployment rate by between 0.5 and 1.6 percentage points in the second quarter of 2011."

Posted by: Benjamin Franklin | September 18, 2011 at 12:17 PM

All is well...

BTW, how did they come up with those numbers? My understanding is they simply use the "multiplyer" method. As I recall, Obama's own economists predicted that if we had done nothing, unemployment would be down around 7% right now, rather than the 9.1% we are currently "enjoying" with Obamanomics.

[Ranger]

And today's Libya update:

Libya conflict: Gaddafi troops attack at Bani Walid

Troops loyal to ousted Libyan leader Col Mummar Gaddafi have launched fresh attacks around the town of Bani Walid.

Loyalists are holding strategic high ground and are firing mortars and using snipers to target anti-Gaddafi forces.

Anti-Gaddafi forces are making slow progress at another loyalist stronghold - the coastal town of Sirte.

Meanwhile the National Transitional Council, Libya's interim leadership, said announcement of a new cabinet had been postponed.

The number two in the council, Mahmoud Jibril, said last-minute haggling had "indefinitely" delayed the decision, AFP news agency said.

And I guess R2P only applies to the right kinds of people:

A teacher fleeing Sirte, Nouri Abu Bakr, told Associated Press conditions there were worsening, with no electricity or medicine and food supplies nearly exhausted.

[narciso]

Here is the link, to the Abrams piece:

http://badrachel.blogspot.com/2011/09/dreams-from-my-food-network-stars-on.html

[Chubby]

re-post from a previous thread ...

George Will:

((For two years, there has been one constant: As events have refuted the Obama administration’s certitudes, the administration has retained its insufferable knowingness. It knew that the stimulus would hold unemployment below 8 percent. Oops. Unemployment has been at least 9 percent in 26 of the 30 months since the stimulus was passed. Michael Boskin of Stanford says that, even if one charitably accepts the administration’s self-serving estimate of jobs “created or saved” by the stimulus, each job cost $280,000 — five times America’s median pay.))

LUN

[Clarice]

Here's a great piece on Erdogan (and US foreign policy, Egypt and the Arab spring)http://pajamasmedia.com/spengler/2011/09/18/erdogan-has-good-reason-to-be-crazy/

[Danube of Thought]

That's correct, Ranger. They used the same model retrospectively that they use predictively--a can't-lose proposition. You say, "if we inject X dollars into the economy, it will create Z jobs." Then after the fact you say "well, we injected X dollars, so we must have created Z jobs."

It's known as "predicting the past."

I think the Sooners would need luck to score a touchdown against Bama.

[Rick Ballard]

"BTW, how did they come up with those numbers?"

They are the best results of multiple runs of very sophisticated macroeconomic models developed by the most highly credentialed team of academic economists ever assembled. The only other models of comparable sophistication which exist in the world today are those used to determine the increase in temperature caused by the noxious pollutant, carbon dioxide.

I don't see why you are questioning matters which are settled, Ranger. It's akin to questioning the President's intelligence in naming yet another Ivy League economist as chief adviser.

[Gmax]

even if

Key words Chubby

I translate that to be: "who but a third rate professor from a fourth rate college would believe this shinola?"

[Benjamin Franklin]

"The only other models of comparable sophistication which exist in the world today are those used to determine the increase in temperature caused by the noxious pollutant, carbon dioxide."

Yes, the only acceptable math should come from Bible College Grads.

[Clarice]

Solar app I can believe in and it costs pennies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOl4vwhwkW8&feature=player_embedded

[narciso]

As long as they all come from the Alchemy department in the Ministry of Magic, it's all
good, Rick.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Yes, the only acceptable math should come from Bible College Grads.

Ben, even a Bible College math degree is enough to see that the CBO model doesn't produce any new information.

[Ranger]

Well, given how well the Porkulus worked out next time, maybe we should adopt the .6 multiplier that the modern generation of economists are taling about. Given how many jobs Obamanomics has destroyed, it seems much more accurate.

[narciso]

Yike, it looks like the Ivory Coast all over again,

[Benjamin Franklin]

"Ben, even a Bible College math degree is enough to see that the CBO model doesn't produce any new information."

Chaco; Even Rick Perry should know the new information won't
equal 'zero' jobs.

[jimmyk]

maybe we should adopt the .6 multiplier that the modern generation of economists are taling about.

I think that's generous. To paraphrase the famous cartoon: "How about zero--is zero good enough for you?"

0.6 still means that if you spend $1 Trillion, you increase GDP by $600 Billion, which would translate into several million jobs. I think zero may even be generous.

[Ranger]

My take was that you destroy 40 cents of private economic activity for every $1 of stimulus you spend.

[Benjamin Franklin]

"Solar app I can believe in and it costs pennies:"

What if Solar got the same subsidies as Fossil Fuels?

http://1bog.org/blog/what-if-solar-power-had-fossil-fuel-like-subsidies-infographic-b/

[Porchlight]

It's interesting that greenies think that the sun is powerful enough to solve all our energy problems, but not powerful enough to effect changes in climate.

[DebinNC]

Politico devotes 4 pages to Bill Daley's struggle to fix Obama's "slump". Lots of Hill and former/current WH folks weigh in on Daley, but mention of Obama's contributions to his slump and what he's doing..other than perhaps readying to blame Daley..are missing.

New to me is that Daley tried to broker his own debt-ceiling deal with Boehner. What in the world does that mean? Also new, that no one in the WH gave Hill Dems, not even Reid, a heads up on what was in Obama's "jobs bill" before Obama's speech, and the WH was stupified to see later that not all Dems were on board. And that's Daley's fault, not Obama's? Right.

It's inexplicable that WH sources, past and present, spoke so freely to Politico about Daley's supposed faiures, when doing so only highlights Obama's own lack of leadership and ineptitude.

[Danube of Thought]

Fossil fuels can be produced and sold economically without subsidies. Solar energy cannot.

If the Chinese want to produce cheap, subsidized solar panels (using dirt-cheap labor) and sell them to American companies, by all means let them do so.

Can we have a joint Solyndra/Anthony Weiner thread?

[Porchlight]

Daley will be exiting shortly, I guess, as evidence that the WH is getting its act together. But he's not the problem, just the momentary goat.

[MarkO]

"Can we have a joint Solyndra/Anthony Weiner thread?"

Only if the Solyndra you're talking about is that pole dancer on North Las Vegas Blvd.

[Captain Hate]

Right Deb; everything was Booooosh's fault but no blame ever attaches itself to El JEFe. Those meddlesome underlings are always letting the jugeared fellow down.

[Benjamin Franklin]

Foo Fighters give Westboro Baptist Church some of their own medicine. Not surprisingly, they are thin-skinned.

http://www.tmz.com/2011/09/17/foo-fighters-westboro-baptist-church-protest-concert-kansas-city-missouri/#.TnYxQHNqPu0

[`]

Bible College Grads.

Recently someone was telling me the talking point that altho they agree with republican policy, they fear the evangelical right. What I told him was, altho I am not religious the hate for people who are is much scarier to me than any person who has a strong faith.

[Ranger]

Also new, that no one in the WH gave Hill Dems, not even Reid, a heads up on what was in Obama's "jobs bill" before Obama's speech, and the WH was stupified to see later that not all Dems were on board. And that's Daley's fault, not Obama's? Right.

Actually, that is ValJar's fault, since her stated job is communications with The Hill. The fact that it was blamed on Daley indicates there is a great disturbance in the Dark Side of the Force.

[Rick Ballard]

Porchlight,

He's running two months late. I wonder if Chu is resisting falling on his Solyndra sword? It doesn't really matter - Moochele will pin him and ValJar will run him through if he becomes recalcitrant.

I can't quite nail down the MFM meme - the President is either surrounded and betrayed by incompetents or the President is incompetent in selecting advisers (as well as being an incompetent executive). ISTM that the MFM is displaying as much incompetence as the President.

[Yup, he's a Demoncrat.]

Look a little, and you can find a nice picture of Al Gore and Fred Phelps together.
========

[Cecil Turner]

"BTW, how did they come up with those numbers?"

That is explained in detail in the "models" link above. Basically they assumed a range of "multipliers" and multiplied by the amount of government money spent [wasted] in each category. It also links the CBO report, while explaining why the approach is faulty. (Which is also pretty obvious just from reading it, if you get past the part all the self-congratulatory lefties like to quote.)

[Benjamin Franklin]

" altho I am not religious the hate for people who are is much scarier to me than any person who has a strong faith."

So you are ok with the Jihadists, but fear the haters?

[Ranger]

Oh My... This looks like a real shot across the bow:

ChiTrib editor: Say, maybe it’s time for Obama to withdraw from 2012

The subtext of course is: 'We made you Barry, and we can break you if you don't do the right thing.'

[Tollhouse]

I think they are struggling with how to handle writing off an entire generation of Democratic up and comers that bought into the Obama administration. They did it to Carter, they made everything stick to him and Carter's people managed to keep their reputations largely intact. The main problem, is that Obama being black, if they push too hard on Obama being incompetent (which reaches into the AA meme) they risk alienating a huge block of Dem voters.

But they also have to preserve the ideology. So I think this is why you are seeing confusion on how to play it.

[A deep, deep hole, with liars @ the top.]

OK, Ranger, time for Bill to remember that CO2 is plant food. Wonder how much money his pals poured down the green hole in the ground.
================

[Porchlight]

OT,

This Texas Monthly piece is by an acquaintance and neighbor of mine. It's not very good, and one might wonder how such elementary and stereotypical notions about Texas history ended up in Texas Monthly (which has a fairly sophisticated readership).

Pioneer Up: Perry's frontier style

[Clarice]

Do you suppose it's Daley pressing the Trib? My guess is he cannot stand MO and ValJar and has given up trying to work with them. Just a guess, mind you.

[Porchlight]

Oh. Meant to add that author above is originally from Oakland, CA, so that might explain a lot.

[MayBee]

It's interesting that greenies think that the sun is powerful enough to solve all our energy problems, but not powerful enough to effect changes in climate.

Genius, Porch.

[Milhaud composes.]

Where there's no Jake there?
============

[Clarice]

Really excellent, Porch..

[Ranger]

Actually, I would bet the press against Obama running again is coming from Rham. We was always a Clintonista at heart, and I have a feeling that as much as he wanted to leave the White House, he resents being ignored over the press for Obama care. He is one vengeful SOB. And he really needs a Dem in the White House. The next few years are going to be very tough on Chicago financially, and havine Republicans controlling the White House and both houses of congress would end any hope of Federal help.

[jimmyk]

My take was that you destroy 40 cents of private economic activity for every $1 of stimulus you spend.

That's correct, but that still gives you a net increase of 60 cents, since government spending does count toward GDP if it involves actually buying stuff or paying someone to do something.

That's why all these multiplier numbers are dodgy: It has to matter whether they cut taxes, write someone a check, purchase weapons, etc.

[Ralph L]

Here is out very own Andrew Sullivan:
Was he ever in the closet?

[`]

Jihadists are as big haters as you are asshole.

[Ignatz]

--That's correct, but that still gives you a net increase of 60 cents......--

That's not how I read it.
The private sector has one dollar which by definition equals one dollar of economic activity or value.
The government then either taxes or borrows that one dollar preventing its private use.
If the multiplier is positive that taking results in more economic activity than would have occurred, which seems to me to be on its face absurd.
If the multiplier is below one then the resulting economic activity is less than would have occurred otherwise, giving you a net decrease.

[`]

I'm watching myself on TV and it is a really really weird thing to do. The lipstick is good.

[Captain Hate]

If JiB is reading this: I'm so impressed with how Shanny pruned off a lot of the dead wood on the Skins but still kept HOF London Fletcher (from John Carroll University within walking distance of moi) while adding young players from the draft, which has to be easily the best of the Danny era.

[Forget that it's a meme for enslavement. It's just not correct.]

Yes, porch, that paradox is quite an insight.

The earth receives approximately one million times as much energy as is needed to sustain the present human population. That means a tiny increase of efficiency of the use of that energy, such as Borlaug's Green Revolution, will allow the sustenance of increased population. The theoretic maximum human population, practically unobtainable, is in the quadrillions. Yes. Quadrillions.

This is the flaw in the whole 'sustainable' meme.
=============

[Army of Davids]

ACT NOW and the Obama's stimu....er..... "jobs" bill can be yours for $447 billion!!!

Can Harry even muster the Democratic Senate votes to pass anything remotely like it.

Probably not.

House Republicans probably best to let Democrats figure this out amongst themselves first.

[Sun worshippers unite. We have nothing to lose but our aura.]

I did the calculation way back in the mists of time when I first heard Erlich's delusion. The energy is there. We have the imagination to use it. And we have engineers who can't help but debunk politicized science.
===============

[Danube of Thought]

The Skins will never win diddly as long as Snyder owns them.

[::grin::]

Jane, I recognize you by the lips.
============

[Cecil Turner]

That's why all these multiplier numbers are dodgy: It has to matter whether they cut taxes, write someone a check, purchase weapons, etc.

To be fair, the CBO report had various multipliers for different spending (e.g., "One-Time Payments to Retirees" had a multiplier estimated between 0.3 and 1.0). What it didn't have was any connection to reality. The same models used to determine the spending were used to evaluate it afterward. So of course it was a resounding success. Except--surprisingly--it didn't work as advertised. This "backgrounder" paper has a lot of theory on why that's so, but perhaps the most compelling part is this:

This is no longer a theoretical exercise. The idea that increased deficit spending can cure recessions has been tested repeatedly, and it has failed repeatedly. The economic models that assert that every $1 of deficit spending grows the economy by $1.50 cannot explain why $1.4 trillion in deficit spending did not create a $2.1 trillion explosion of new economic activity.

It also points out that money spent by government is first taxed out of the populace or borrowed, so it does not add to economic activity by itself.

The bottom line is that we can question why the models didn't produce the desired result, or just assume the model is correct and the situation must've been worse than we knew. The funny part is the "reality-based" people on the side of "science" seem stuck on the latter variety of stupid.

[Clarice]

Jane, just so you are fully clothed. You saw what happened to Weiner.

[Jack is Back!]

Re: Jobs, Perry and CBO. I believe Perry is referring to "net" jobs. While there may have been any number of jobs saved or created with stimulus money, there were more jobs lost so that there are no net jobs but only losses. For example, just in the period between August 2010 and August 2011 only 331 jobs were added nationwide according to the BLS. In the same period the civilian labor force declined by 523 people while employment in one year grew by a total of 360 jobs. The participation rate went from 64.7% to 64.0% as the category "not in the labor force" grew by 2,295 people.

In other words, no new net jobs and that is all that matters. In fact, I have read that you need to create over 325K jobs per month to just break-even in terms of GDP growth.

[Captain Hate]

I think Danny has learned his lesson, DoT. I don't think Shanny would have come unless he was guaranteed a degree of autonomy that wasn't granted to any other head coach. That Ceratto was sent packing is a very good thing as was this past season's draft.

[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

The next round of stories should be about the sound of checkbooks being quietly closed. Who wants a piece of the action on a dead horse?

[Clarice]

Yes, indeed, Rick--Maybe they'll start offering french fry waivers with each contribution.

[jimmyk]

To be fair, the CBO report had various multipliers for different spending

True, I was being a bit casual, but as you say, none of them are connected to reality. Using somewhat different absurd numbers for different types of "stimulus" just adds a veneer of pseudo-science to an exercise more akin to alchemy or haruspex.

[Dead fish bet?]

I bet on the Gray Mare,
I bet on the Bay.
Had I bet on ole Stewball
I'd be a free one today.
========

[Jack is Back!]

CH,

Quite a game. Tale of two halves as usual in the NFL.

I have a strong feeling the Skins are going to pull this one out. Hightower is a horse and Fred Lewis - wow. Cooley is hurt and this guy with Helu make them much better I believe. Look at all that offense and they are behind but that is the nature of the beast that is pro ball. You may see two 100 yard runners on the same team from this game. Once they get the lead it will be run, run, run.

However, all that said - no one in the world of sports knows how to take a good team and make them a hexed team like Dan Snyder.

[Pops]

Ben, ""According to the CBO:

As of June, between 1 million and 2.9 million Americans owed their jobs to the recovery act.
In the second quarter of 2011 the recovery act added or preserved 550,000 full-time jobs.
The recovery act brought down the unemployment rate by between 0.5 and 1.6 percentage points in the second quarter of 2011."

Honestly Ben, you need about 30 years of study to figure out what BS those numbers are. Let me clue you in to how this works.

So local school boards and states have less tax money coming in and are looking to save money, and lets say some idiot goes and borrows 850 Billion dollars from China etc. and says, 'Hey, I got tons of money to burn, who wants some?'

Thus, jobs 'created' or 'preserved' were jobs that states and localities foisted on the Feds because they weren't critical to fund. Thats why those same people are losing thei make-work job when Obama runs out of his China stash.

I guess you and Obama believe the feds just should borrow 10 Trillion a year, put every unemployed person on the patroll and pay them to sit and watch Oprah, and shazamm - full employment.

Do you not grasp that no economy can forever stand with that amount of government borrowing and debt? That the government borrowing and spending is the OPPOSITE of stimulous because it takes resources AWAY from the private, actual economy that sustains the jobs that actually pay money to the government to keep it functioning?

[rse]

Kim-

Sustainability and diversity are created concepts to fuel that Gramscian march through the institutions. They both arise suddenly in the same year in 1987 along with other sudden memes with international aspirations.

What a remarkable coincidence, huh?

[Gmax]

Pops you are commiting an act equivalent to talking to a living room wall. A person who has lived off the government dole all his life, protected by tenure from the real world and never having created or "saved" a single job - ever. I suggest narcissolation in lieu of the extra CO2 for which you will no doubt get castigated in short order.

[Pops]

Update on Wall Street protest:

"I'm here, I'm tweeting," said one protester.

Apparently BF found his way.

[Jack is Back!]

CH,

:: Fred Lewis:: = ::Fred Davis:: I have no idea where the name Fred Lewis came from as I was watching Fred Davis make a catch. This one is going to be close. They need two scores and have to keep the Cards in check.

[daddy]

Enlightened Autocracy Update:

Hey, Maybe there's hope for Solyndra yet!

China: Villagers protest at Zhejiang solar panel plant:

"Hundreds of villagers in eastern China have held three days of protests at a solar panel plant over pollution fears."

"Four police vehicles were reportedly damaged in demonstrations on Friday, and dozens of police officers were seen being brought in to keep control of the situation."

"The company is a subsidiary of a New York Exchange-listed Chinese solar company, JinkoSolar Holding Company. Both firms have made no comment about the protests or pollution allegations.
In a separate incident, Shanghai on Friday ordered the temporary closure of two factories in the east of the city amid lead poisoning fears."

No word yet from Tom Friedman.

[RichatUF]

August(p)..131,132
2009...... 130,807

Wow, from the BLS, the Obama Administration has "created" a lusty total of 325,000 jobs. 830 billion/325,000jobs=2.554 million/job. Give me 2.554 million and I'm pretty sure I could "create" more than one job.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

one might wonder how such elementary and stereotypical notions about Texas history ended up in Texas Monthly (which has a fairly sophisticated readership).

I suspect that's exactly how it happened.

Back when I was at Duke and Stan Fish was the department chair in English, I used to see him, and his (then-?) wife Jane Tompkins, socially every so often. I actually liked them both, and Jane in particular was fun to talk with. During that time, she wrote a critical interpretation of Owen Wister's The Virginian, that I read with interest and some amusement. She clearly thought that those Western people were as far in the past and as basically mythical as the characters in Ivanhoe.

now, as I've mentioned before, my grandfather had a not very successful initial career as an Injun badman, following in the footsteps of my uncle John Reed and Aunt Belle Starr. Our head wrangler had been a deputy sheriff for Bat Masterson in Trinidad, and another of the hands, who kept the remuda and such, had ridden with Pancho Villa. (And yes, they were both older than dirt, even in 1960.)

In other words, they were young hands about the same time as Wister. To me the characters in The Virginian are, maybe, a little bit of hero-worship but basically naturalistic.

Jane could never quite buy it -- to her, a sophisticated Easterner, the laconic Western hero just couldn't be real.

So yeah, I'd bet the sophisticated readers of Texas Monthly don't quite get it.

[Jack is Back!]

daddy,

Friedman and all the progs and deems are so infatuated with solar and China that they are all growing their own crystals now instead of pot.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

You know, on Fox News Sunday today they quoted other government numbers that showed DoE loans like to Solyndra totaled about $39 billion and produced (rough order of magnitude) 5000 jobs -- nominally something like $8 million per job.

If that is a realistic figure across all the stimulus, that would imply (ROM) 100,000 jobs total. Without working all the numbers -- which are very loose already -- it sounds like that would pretty much make the difference between the estimated decrease in unemployment, and what was really observed.

I wonder what would happen if you totalled up post-facto the actual jobs produced with the $800 billion, and compared the count with the model?

[Captain Hate]

JiB, we're 2-0!!!

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Wow, from the BLS, the Obama Administration has "created" a lusty total of 325,000 jobs. 830 billion/325,000jobs=2.554 million/job. Give me 2.554 million and I'm pretty sure I could "create" more than one job.

Clearly I'm not the only one thinking along those lines.

(BTW, rule of thumb, $2.5 million is 25 engineers for a year.)

[Ignatz]

The civilian work force was 154,185,000 in January 2009 and now stands at 153,594,000.
Seems to me Barry has 'destroyed' 591,000 jobs, not 'saved or created' any.

[daddy]

Great news for Andrew Sullivan!

Another tell all book on Sarah Palin is due to come out this fall.

From The Alaskan Ear:

"ANOTHER ONE . . . Ear keeps vowing not to write about Sarah for a month but Alaskans keep writing books about her, so what's a lobe to do?

The next one, due this fall, is "Crude Awakening," by Amanda Coyne and Tony Hopfinger. Friendly reviewers used words like "verve," "genuinely frightening" and "riveting," so maybe it will be more readable than most of them. It purportedly stars Ted Stevens, Bill Allen and Sarah, so it could be fun."

[Ignatz]

And to be clear, the civilian work force did not drop persistently below the January 2009 number until October 2009, plenty of time for Barry's policies to take effect, which they evidently did.

[narciso]

Ah great, the guy who was detained by Miller's security team, what could go wrong there.

[Clarice]

Chaco, Belle Starr!You have to write these memories up in more detail for a broader audience. Belle Starr! Wow

[Jack is Back!]

ChaCo,

BTW, on my way down to Raton Pass once I passed through Trinidad. South of town (and this was before the Interstate) on the highway there was a little mexican joint where I ate the best tamales, tacos and burritos i have ever had anywhere including Mexico. I was famished and ate like a lion. All I remember was that it was like tucked into a fork in the road. Run by a Mexican lady. Incredible food to remember from about 35 years ago.

Do you know what I am describing?

[daddy]

Clarice,

I think in your dream you probably also came across the Exhibit of the "Unbiased MSM Reporter,"
but since it hasn't had any new additions to it since Ernie Pyle in 1945, I suspect you simply failed to notice it.

BTW, here's "pant-load" errr "pant-crease" David Brooks this morning telling us "“There has been a lot of talk about the Jewish vote — whether the Jews are sour on Obama. They are, but wait until they get a load of Rick Perry. I don’t think that will be a big problem in the Fall.”

http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/17/david-brooks-jews-are-sour-on-obama-but-wait-until-they-get-a-load-of-rick-perry/#ixzz1YL1AUYiR

[Danube of Thought]

It's my understanding that the Failed Stimulus called for $38 Billion in loan guarantees to green companies, but that not all of it has been allocated. I read somewhere that they're scrambling to get some $10 Billion out the door before the end of the fiscal year.

I also keep hearing that there are four other green companies that received loan guarantees and are going to go BK.

[Jack is Back!]

CH,

Don't get cocky. 2-0 means that there are now only 14 more games to screw up. At least the odds are improving for Dan.

When Kornheiser starts getting the bandwagon cleaned up and pulled out of the barn then I'll be more enthusiastic.

[Clarice]

daddy, when Obama goes I hope Brooks goes with him.

[Jim Miller]

Where did that $250,000 threshold come from?

For years, I have thought it was chosen to be just a bit higher than the salary received by a congressman or senator.

(And, of course, someone making that much may or may not be a millionaire.)