"Comically Meaningless"

Econ prof Greg Mankiw considers a statement by the New York Times.

FYI: "The Shutdown Is a Sideshow. Debt Is the Threat."

Of course the shutdown is a cynical political sideshow. (But let's not forget who's culpable here, OK?)  Niall Ferguson has the grim reminder that the real problem is unsustainable debt.  Today's quote of the day comes from it:

"Only a fantasist can seriously believe 'this is not a crisis.'"

Unfortunately, the current political "leadership" is full of fantasists, fabulists, and willful deniers of reality.

Satire Alert: "Report: Economy Just One Speech Away From Recovery"

The Onion takes a potshot at Obama's now-tiresome windbaggery.

Satire Except It's Kind of Not: The Onion On College Grads

It's graduation season on college campuses all over the nation, so cue up "Pomp and Circumstance"!  Given that, along with my ongoing jeremiads about how the young are getting screwed and will go on getting screwed, this "satirical" Onion headline makes you laugh ... uncomfortably: "Study Finds College Education Leaves Majority Of Graduates Unprepared To Carry Entire American Economic Recovery."

"Saturday Night Live" vs. the Sequester

Well, whaddyaknow?  SNL was actually both funny and on point last night. Bonus points for the Village People reference.

Mark Steyn, Mark Twain, and the $ 1 Trillion Coin

Do read.  Now I want to read that Twain story!

LOL: The "Mercy" Demotivator

Sometimes it takes a joke to drive home a very serious point, doesn't it?

The 2013 Index of Economic Freedom

We're Number 10, which means we rank as "Mostly Free" instead of "Free" and got whipped by

1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore
3. Australia
4. New Zealand
5. Switzerland
6. Canada
7. Chile
8. Mauritius
9. Denmark

From the blurb about the US ranking:

The United States, with an economic freedom score of 76, has lost ground again in the 2013 Index. Its score is 0.3 point lower than last year, with declines in monetary freedom, business freedom, labor freedom, and fiscal freedom. 

Come on, people!  We have got to do better than this!

Rachel Lucas on the Fiscal Cliff Shenanigans

What do you think? Rachel's also running an impromptu poll, where currently the "let it burn" option is winning by a huge margin. 

An additional thought: everyone's howling about taxes, but the bigger problem is the government spending, and that does include entitlement reform.

Meanwhile, I'm sure we're all delighted that Obama's apparently scheduled a 20-day Hawaiian vacation over Christmas, so if we do go sailing over the fiscal cliff in fine Thelma and Louise fashion, he'll be off sunning himself in Oahu or whatever on $4 million of taxpayer money.  "Let them eat Hawaiian vacations"? 

Yeah, that really demonstrates how much he cares for the little guy, the unemployed guy, the people actually suffering from the toxic effects of this craptastic economy.  Hey!  I thought a bunch of people voted for him because you thought he was more "empathetic" or some touchy-feely nonsense like that.  O RLY?  I bet he'll really be feeling your pain when he's out there surfing for 3 whole weeks.  The optics are horrible, but nobody seems to mind. (No, I don't care if it's a habitual place to go for him. I'm talking about right now.)  Meanwhile, the closest your humble hostess is going to get to Hawaii any time soon is this.

RELATED POST: LOL, though it's not funny, not funny at all.  There's no way you can seriously propose $50 billion for another ill-advised round of stimulus spending, much less - well - any of the rest of it.

Fiscal Cliff LOL

I do mean an actual LOL. At this point, incredulous, derisive, "you have got to be freaking kidding me" laughter does seem a fitting response to this completely unserious administration.

Lessons From a 1956 Sears Catalog

Fascinating, actually!  For instance:

Sears’s lowest-priced 30″ four-burner electric range, with bottom oven, was priced, in 1956, at $129.95.  (You can find this range on page 1049 of the 1956 Sears catalog.)  Home Depot sells a 30″ four-burner electric range, with bottom oven, today for $348.00.

The typical American manufacturing worker in 1956, therefore, had to work 129.95/1.89 – or 69 hours – to buy an ordinary kitchen range.  His or her counterpart today must work 348.00/19.79 – or 18 hours – to buy the same sized ordinary range.

By the way, the numbers use the following: "[For 2012] ... the nominal average hourly earnings of nonsupervisory nonfarm private production workers in the U.S. [is] $19.79 (as of October 2012) ... For 1956 I instead use average hourly manufacturing earnings of production workers. That figure is $1.89."

An Open Letter to the GOP Leadership

Vodkapundit Stephen Green has something to say, and I love how he starts out with "Dear Speaker Boehner and Other Assorted Clueless Bozos on Capitol Hill ..." 

Elections Have Consequences: Layoff-a-palooza

Not a surprise.  More here.

It'd Be Funnier If It Weren't So True

Lemmings over the fiscal cliff.

Change You Can Believe In!

Hmmmm.  Well, that is certainly some change.  Oh, and at the end ... et tu, Canada?

Oh No They Di'nt!

OH YES THEY DID.  I know I said no more posting about newspapers, but I finally got around to reading this new editorial by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and I couldn't believe what I was reading.  It's basically a passionately infuriated rant, and it pulls no punches about what it thinks.  Even more surprising is the editorial plainly calling the Obama Administration out for the Benghazi fiasco - something that many media outlets are apparently not covering.  Oh, my!  

"Secretary of Business" as Symptomatic

I've already mocked this, but Ricochet points out that the President's whole risible (and clueless) "Secretary of Business" suggestion is actually (and grimly) symptomatic of Obama's entire approach to business:

This is really how President Obama sees the private sector. It’s just one more interest group in need of care and feeding by Big Government. And since we already have a Commerce Department, let’s just rebrand that sucker and subject it to a little technocratic tinkering. Given this administration’s love of industrial policy — picking winners and losers — Obama might as call the position Secretary of Crony Capitalists.

Do recall, gentle readers, that crony capitalism is not the same thing as actual capitalism.

UPDATE: Well, that took no time at all.  Add this.

One Last Thought on Newspapers Breaking For Romney

I've been looking at this for a while (the latest previous is here with the Los Angeles Daily News).  Now yet another paper that endorsed Obama in 2008 has publicly declared for Romney, the Nashua Telegraph in the swing state of New Hampshire.  As ever, the argument is about the economy.  Here's a piece of it:

True leaders also don’t wait until two weeks before Election Day – in the form of a 20-page booklet, no less – to lay out a specific agenda for the next four years. Coupled with the negative tenor of the campaign, that merely confirms the president and his strategists felt that attacking Romney’s agenda was more politically expedient than releasing one of their own. 

Some cynics have suggested, only partly in jest, that Obama-Romney is at its core a contest between a man with no plan and man with a plan that doesn’t add up, a reference to Romney’s own unwillingness to lay out details of how he would balance his campaign promises with his tax-and-spending plans. 

Nevertheless, we are confident Romney is the candidate who would tackle the serious issues facing this nation, starting with jobs, the economy and the debt. In the end, we couldn’t say the same about the president.

Investors' Business Daily has its own editorial about this trend of newspaper editorial boards changing sides this time around. As I've said before, this is in itself rather interesting because so much of journalism these days leans (or flat out runs) left.  It's a fascinating look at the editorial boards, and I think some credit must be due to them for being able to look at the real world outside and understand that policies have consequences. Of course, the actual effectiveness of newspaper endorsements on the voting public is another issue entirely.  Here's an opinion piece about why they don't matter.

Preference Cascade-rama: LA Daily News Endorses Romney

Well, whaddyaknow?  Another one.  Oh, California will go for Obama, but the fact that any Los Angeles paper at all would endorse Romney is some kind of news to me.  The second largest paper in the City of Angels, the Daily News endorsed Obama in 2008, just like the increasing hoard of other newspaper endorsements that I've found interesting lately, and like all the others, hammers Obama on the economy.

The Des Moines Register Endorses ...

Romney.  For the first time in 40 years, this Iowa paper backs a Republican for the Presidency.  Hope and change, folks, because it's about the ECONOMY.  Anyway, add this to the growing list of papers who went for Obama in 2008 and are now endorsing Romney.  I know, I know, newspaper endorsements in themselves don't really sway the undecided reader, but I find them fascinating this time around as an exhibit of a preference cascade among the editorial boards.  As for the Des Moines Register in particular, I think we all kind of saw this coming.  By the way, here's a piece of its official endorsement: