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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (105050)	12/1/2011 2:29:42 AM
From: bentway	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

Let MM vote for Ron Paul. Let ALL the Libertarians vote for Ron Paul! It will just split the Libertarians off the (R) vote and help Obama. Ron Paul has as much chance of becoming president as the tooth fairy.

To: tejek who wrote (105050)	12/1/2011 9:48:11 AM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 149317

Nope. There's more like 180 degrees separation from Ron Paul and Bush. What's funny is that there is another 180 degrees separation from Ron Paul and Obama. You see, Obama and Bush are two sides of the same coin. Ron Paul is from a different currency altogether.

To: tejek who wrote (105050)	12/1/2011 10:21:15 AM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Increasing Evidence of a Global Industrial Recession By DoctoRx, on December 1st, 2011 dailycapitalist.com It’s too early to be definitive, but it’s getting to look a lot like global industrial recession. Reuters is out today with a good summary article, Factories stalling worldwide. Manufacturing activity is contracting across Europe and most of Asia, data showed on Thursday, and a Chinese official declared that the world economy faces a worse situation than in 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed. Factory activity shrank even further in the euro zone, reinforcing the view that the debt-strapped region is in recession, while British manufacturing contracted at the fastest pace in two years, raising the risk the UK economy may suffer the same fate. China’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) showed factory activity shrank in November for the first time in nearly three years, while a similar PMI showed Indian factory growth slowed close to stall speed. Naturally, the inflationists are out: China’s official purchasing managers’ index for November fell to 49, dipping below the 50 mark that separates growth from contraction for the first time in nearly three years. . . “The manufacturing engine has run out of steam,” said Rob Dobson, senior economist at Markit, which compiles the surveys. . . “It’s time to start reflating China’s economy,” said Qu Hongbin, co-head of Asian economics research at HSBC. No surprise about what HSBC desires. One might however spill some digital ink and quibble with Mr. Dobson. I would not say that any “engine” has “run out of steam”. That was partially true during the oil embargo of 1973-4. There’s plenty of energy and raw material inputs to produce more. What is lacking for the nonce is a growing amount of demand from end users who can actually afford the products. In a classic fashion as described by Ludwig von Mises many years ago, the central authorities have led their societies to draw down capital rather than accumulating it. A principal and crucial mechanism of accomplishing this involved captive central banks’ underpricing of the cost of capital. This, teleologically, is why we see so many European countries experiencing massive interest rate increases in almost no time once traders began to reassess the value of the countries’ debt in view of their deteriorating economies. We are seeing increases in a matter of months that took the U.S. almost 20 years to achieve, from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. Here at The Daily Capitalist, we have no problem accepting the world as it is. That is what we have done in our professional careers. If too many unsound loans have been made, for whatever reasons, that’s in the past. Deal with it and concentrate on a framework where the merits of the loans to be made in the future are made without government/central bank subsidy. (For projects “for the public good”, let them be paid for by government out of taxes.) To accept this reasoning is not to be in favor of either the “1%” or the “99?. It is not being an “Austerian”. It is common sense. It is the way almost everyone ends up acting in their personal life and any business they might be involved in. I don’t like to “honor” today’s money-printers with the term “Keynesian”, largely because he emphasized near his death that his policy prescriptions were of their time, so there is no telling what he would recommend now (though of course he was a “big government” advocate). Nowadays it appears that the mere existence of an “output gap” even during periods of economic expansion is enough to justify massive government spending “funded” by unrealistically low interest rates in the minds of “Keynesians”. This policy is proving to have quite the credibility gap, however. Look: Britain has been running monetary policy rates of 0.5% ever since the financial meltdown. This is the lowest in the history of the Bank of England (founded in 1694). And despite this “stimulation,”, the country may be in or going into recession. So what good did ultra-cheap money do? None. Probably it did net harm. People are increasingly seeing the many flaws of the economic orthodoxy that has been preached to them by academics and governments alike. Where this ends no one knows, including the keepers of the orthodox flames. Our hope here is that there will be a reversion back to what was simply considered normal for large periods of human history, including most periods of great improvement in standards of living, which is that sound money is a linchpin of a fair and sensible economic system.

To: tejek who wrote (105050)	12/1/2011 10:35:38 AM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Very interesting ISM report. It shows that activity and NEW ORDERS is up a good clip. That's great news! BUT...the employment index is down. Uh oh. That means productivity should be going up and corporations getting more profitable, but the CONSUMER is earning the same or less. Given that the Consumer is 75% of our economy now, that is not good. One other thing to note. ISM is a LAGGING indicator. LEADING indicators include PMIs from the big manufacturing countries like China. If you recall, China's PMI that just came out was dismal. They are contracting. That means our GDP and Consumer spending data over the next few months should also start to look dismal. Not good.... ISM Prints At 52.7 On Expectations 51.8, Up From 50.8 Previous; Employment Index Drops Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/01/2011 10:02 -0500 Chicago PMI China Toyota Modest beat with prices paid in line with expectations at 45, New Orders rising from 52.4 to 56.7, but the employment index mirroring the Chicago PMI decline and dropping from 53.5 to 51.8: taken in conjunction with today's Initial Claims, probably not the best way to enter the NFP number, yet we are somehow convinced the final NFP print will be 4 std devs above the mean Wall Street consensus. In other news, the headline number is the highest since June. Curiously, and as always happens in strange times, exports increased and imports decreased. One wonders just how realistic an export surge to imploding Europe or China really was in the past month really was. The breakdown is as follows: As for the global decoupling theme, we all know what a joke it is, but here it is visually courtesy of John Lohman: And the always interesting survey respondents: "Business still holding its own. Some growth in margin now that some of the raw materials prices have abated. Oil is pushing $100 so that has not been favorable." (Chemical Products) "Orders for the remaining two months have increased after an extended 'summer dip' in sales overall. We expect to finish the year approximately 10 percent above 2010." (Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components) "Seeing a slight slowdown in orders; could be related to the holidays." (Primary Metals) "Material lead times are getting longer. Seems like no one is hiring. Trying to do twice the output with the same amount of people." (Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products) "Japanese auto production has returned to 100 percent, and domestic manufacturing continues to increase." (Fabricated Metal Products) "Oil exploration seems to be really picking up. Government is permitting again, so business is the busiest we've ever seen." (Computer & Electronic Products) "The EPS ruling about higher fees for coal-generated electricity can have a huge, negative impact on our business if implemented in January 2012. We are at the peak of our seasonal demand push." (Plastics & Rubber Products) "Thailand flood impacting our business. Honda and Toyota cut production forecasts, and we are chasing some components made in Thailand." (Transportation Equipment)