The Cynical Economist

You Paid for It! Stimulus Dollars Fund Studies into Sexual History and Erectile Dysfunction

The NBC Investigative Unit has raised questions about two grants totaling nearly $1.5 million dollars distributed to the University of California San Francisco. The money was part of the federal stimulus program and went to studies into the erectile dysfunction of overweight middle aged men and the accurate reporting of someone’s sexual history.

HHS Sends $5.9 Million to Program Run by Obama Buddy

The Department of Health and Human Services last week announced it had awarded a $5.9 million grant to a University of Chicago Medical Center program tied to Michelle Obama and run by Eric Whitaker, one of President Obama’s closest friends.

The Urban Health Initiative, which received the award, was originally based on a smaller program launched during the last decade by Michelle Obama, who was an executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center before she departed to become first lady. The UHI is headed up by Obama basketball and golf buddy Whitaker, who has known the president since Obama’s days in law school and who also vacations with the first family

Barack Obama’s convenient Wall Street hypocrisy

PUBLIC EMPLOYEES SECOND ONLY TO FINANCIAL PROS IN FRAUD, STUDY SHOWS

Government workers are among the employees most likely to cheat their employers, according to a new study.

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the world’s largest anti-fraud organization, found that public-sector administration employees are responsible for more than 10 percent of fraud cases, ranking behind only financial professionals. In 141 cases examined, the group found that a crooked employee costs taxpayers a median loss of $100,000.

Union Bosses’ Hypocrisy

The leaders of America’s unions have been very vocal lately in their criticism of Republicans and of business. According to them, Republicans care only about the wealthy and are unfairly targeting the workers of America with their reforms. These union leaders insist that only they can speak for regular Americans. In fact, their own salaries suggest that they have nothing in common with the average citizen. Here is a short list of some of the highest-earning, and most hypocritical, union presidents:………

DEVASTATING GRAPH REVEALS OBAMA’S UNEMPLOYMENT ECONOMY

Of the 13.3 million Americans who were unemployed in the first quarter of 2012, a staggering 29.5% have been out of work for 52 weeks or more (the official definition of long-term unemployment).   As the Pew Charitable Trusts point out, that works out to roughly 3.9 million people, or more than the population of Oregon.

The Fraud Of Austerity

When the current economic crisis began — largely caused by a government-created housing bubble — we were told that if the government spent an extra trillion dollars or so and ran up the deficit, all would be well. Did it work as advertised in the United States? No. In the United Kingdom? No. In France? No. In Italy? No. In Spain? No. And not even the left wants to talk about Greece.

The chart below shows that rather than the austerity the left is whining about, government spending has risen as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) in all of the major economies. Again, the left said unemployment rates should have come down by now, but the opposite is happening. The U.S. “official” unemployment rate has come down slightly, but the percentage of the labor force at work continues to decline, so the real unemployment rate is approximately 15 percent.

50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph

Of each dollar the federal government spends, how much goes to defense? How much goes to Social Security? How much goes to interest on the debt? And how has this sort of thing changed over time?

The graphic below answers these questions. It shows the major components of federal spending 50 years ago, 25 years ago, and last year.

Florida says 180,000 non-citizens may be on voter rolls

Florida election authorities are examining about 180,000 people who they say may not be U.S. citizens but are registered to vote in the state, an official said on Friday.

Project Veritas exposes non-citizens, dead people registered to vote in NC 

Federal Workers’ 2011 Salary Data Exposed Online

Can California Be Fixed?

To sum up why California has yet another deficit — this time a $16 billion whopper — is pretty easy: The number of demonized one-percenters who pay over 10 percent in their salary to the state has been shrinking, as thousands flee with their ideas, energy, business, and capital to nearby no-tax states, and others make less money due to more and more costs and regulations — while the number of those receiving all sorts of state housing, food, medical, education, and legal support is soaring

GEORGIA WELFARE DOLLARS SPENT AT CASINOS, LIQUOR STORES, SIX FLAGS

Obama’s Budget Would Double the Interest Rate on Student Loans–After the Election

President Obama’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal would double the interest rate on federally backed student loans from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent–eight months after the November presidential election.

The White House fiscal year 2013 plan calls for maintaining the current 3.4 percent interest rate for federally guaranteed student loans, but only through July 1, 2013, at which point it would automatically increase to 6.8 percent. Neither the president’s plan nor the Democrats’ legislation would extend the low rate beyond another year.

This Is Not a Joke: Government Issues Study of a Study About Studies

The study of a study of studies began in 2010 when Defense Secretary Robert Gates complained that his department was “awash in taskings for reports and studies.” He wanted to know how much they cost.

California Deficit Swells to $16 Billion, Governor Says

The shortfall has widened from the $9.2 billion Brown estimated in January, after lawmakers resisted the Democrat’s call for cost cuts, the federal government blocked other reductions and April income-tax revenue missed budget forecasts by $2 billion. On May 14, he’s set to unveil a revised spending plan and to say how he would erase the gap.

Après France, California?

After governments promise too much to too many for too long, the fiscal noose tightens, even if voters don’t like it.

California, which is crumbling fiscally, seems hell-bent on becoming France, which is collapsing.

High earners say au revoir to France

Their new president may block the eurozone austerity advocated by Germany’s Angela Merkel, but he is not opposed to his richer citizens feeling the squeeze.

Socialist Hollande owns three homes on the Riviera

Francois Hollande, 57, who “dislikes the rich” and wants to revolutionise his country with high taxes and an onslaught against bankers, is in fact hugely wealthy himself.

Facebook co-founder renounces US citizenship, escaping tax burden

Saverin’s exit from the U.S. is part of a larger trend of increasing expatriation. More and more people who earn income from foreign activities are choosing to turn in their passports. Hit with double taxation by both the country they reside in and the U.S., compliance with the complexities of the U.S. tax code increases their financial burden and disadvantages them while they live abroad.

Sweden’s secret recipe

Advice from a successful – and tax-cutting – finance minister

When Europe’s finance ministers meet for a group photo, it’s easy to spot the rebel — Anders Borg has a ponytail and earring. What actually marks him out, though, is how he responded to the crash. While most countries in Europe borrowed massively, Borg did not. Since becoming Sweden’s finance minister, his mission has been to pare back government. His ‘stimulus’ was a permanent tax cut. To critics, this was fiscal lunacy — the so-called ‘punk tax cutting’ agenda. Borg, on the other hand, thought lunacy meant repeating the economics of the 1970s and expecting a different result.

Three years on, it’s pretty clear who was right. ‘Look at Spain, Portugal or the UK, whose governments were arguing for large temporary stimulus,’ he says. ‘Well, we can see that very little of the stimulus went to the economy. But they are stuck with the debt.’ Tax-cutting Sweden, by contrast, had the fastest growth in Europe last year, when it also celebrated the abolition of its deficit. 

New High: 68% Would Vote To Replace Entire Congress

Here’s some bad news for Washington: More voters than ever would vote to replace the entire Congress rather than keep it.

Dow 100,000? One Analyst Says It May Happen 

Having gone back to the Great Depression to look for examples of major bull markets, Philippe Gijsels, the head of fixed income research and marketing at BNP Paribas Fortis, has come to a rather startling conclusion due to the amount of money being pumped into markets by the world’s leading central banks.

“If central banks continue to inject football field after football field into the markets and the economy, could this in the long-run lead to anything else than inflation? Or are the injections just enough to compensate for the massive deleveraging in the financial sector and with the over indebted American consumer? Time will as always tell,” Gijsels said on Monday.

“This being said, what is certain is that we are looking at the largest financial experiment in history. An experiment of which nobody can really guestimate the consequences. There is simply no point of reference” Gijsels said in an interview with CNBC.com.

GAO: Recoverable Oil in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming ‘About Equal to Entire World’s Proven Oil Reserves’

“USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions,”

The Coming Meltdown in College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Any Time Soon - by Mark Cuban

As an employer I want the best prepared and qualified employees. I could care less if the source of their education was accredited by a bunch of old men and women who think they know what is best for the world. I want people who can do the job. I want the best and brightest. Not a piece of paper.

IMHO, the biggest problem the economy has is the enormous student debt new college grads and those leaving college find themselves with. In the past leaving college meant getting a job and getting a used car and/or an apartment with some friends. Yes there was student debt, but it wasn’t any where near your car payment. You could still afford the car and the apartment. Now its the exact opposite. Today, the minute you graduate college you face the challenge of debt against a college education whose value is immediately “underwater”

Seniors take jobs typically filled by teenagers

If junior can’t get a job, blame grandpa.

Battered retirement investments have led older workers to stay in, or re-enter, the workforce. And the situation has caused a shift in the average age of workers, with the percentage of young people dropping to the lowest level since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics started keeping track in 1948.

Fat Future: 42% of Americans May Be Obese by 2030

By 2030, 42% of Americans will be obese and 11% of Americans will be severely obese, Duke University and CDC researchers predict.

These shocking numbers actually are conservative, note study researchers Eric A. Finkelstein, PhD, and colleagues.

Finkelstein’s team based its calculations on self-reportedweight and height from people participating in the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Obesity is defined by body mass index (BMI). People tend to underestimate their weight and overestimate their height. The researchers corrected for this. They also factored in state-by-state trends in factors affecting obesity, such as the number of fast-food restaurants per person and the cost of unhealthy, calorie-dense foods vs. healthy foods.

Check out the trailer for HBO’s documentary ‘The Weight of a Nation’

America’s Hidden 8% VAT: Sickcare 

From Of Two Minds 

by Charles Hugh Smith

American sickcare is sick for a number of reasons. One is that it is highly profitable to manage chronic lifestyle diseases such as heart disease and diabetes, while it is essentially profitless to encourage healthy lifestyles based on diet, fitness and positive mental health practices.

As a result, sickcare has zero interest (other than lip-service) in fostering (or emphasizing) prevention or in providing an integrated system of health which starts with what we do and eat every day.

This chart describes a few of the causal factors:

It’s also highly profitable to turn people into couch-potato media addicts who are also hooked on sugary, fatty, salty snacks, fast food and packaged food. Convincing people a handful of pills is all they need to restore health is also highly profitable.

The U.S. has seemingly intractable lifestyle-related health issues that sickcare simply isn’t dealing with effectively; it can even be argued that sickcare is actively making the problems worse in a multitude of structural ways. 86% of Workers Are Obese or Have Other Health Issue Just 1 in 7 U.S. workers is of normal weight without a chronic health problem.

If you don’t think chronic ill-health and the 8% sickcare VAT is a threat to national security, please consider this slideshow map of the U.S. which depicts the obesity epidemic on a state-by-state basis:

Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Obesity Trends 1985-2007

Here’s the key question: what else could we do with the $1 trillion that we currently squander every year on fraud, paper-pushing, duplicate/useless tests, highly addicitive prescription drugs, etc.? That $1 trillion is the 8% sickcare VAT. That’s enough to reduce the Federal deficit to a manageable level.

The second question is: is there a more effective way to spend the other $1.5 trillion we spend on healthcare? Answer: obviously yes. We could start by understanding health is integrated with lifestyle, diet, fitness and our environment, and that relying on quasi-monopolistic cartels and Federal agencies to provide “solutions” is what got us in this quagmire in the first place.

Our national security and fiscal viability both depend on radically transforming sickcare before it brings down the nation.

Read the entire article here… 

and

here is more data, statistics ,trends and graphs at the CDC web page

Yes, corporations are people - This is a must read article (watch video), by Steven Horwitz -Professor at St. Lawrence University…

Austerity Is Blamed

Denial is leading to collective economic suicide in Europe and the United States. The French on Sunday elected a socialist president who wants to raise taxes on those elusive rich and keep spending as if there is no tomorrow.

Many on the left, including European socialists, the New York Times and its economist Paul Krugman, are falsely claiming that Europe and even the United States are being saddled with austerity. Their claim is that governments are not spending enough to reduce unemployment. They want higher taxes on the most productive plus bigger government. They suffer from a collective memory loss. Don’t they remember that socialism did not work? Every time the big-government “solution” has been tried for the past two centuries, it has failed, but those on the left seem to be incapable of learning.

7 Reasons Liberal Economic Policies Don’t Work

Liberal economic policies just don’t work. In fact, the only time left-wingers have taken charge in the last 40 years without decimating the economy was during the Clinton years when Republicans in Congress balanced the budget and spent 6 years strong-arming Clinton to keep him from molesting the economy like one of his interns. This is no coincidence; it’s a natural consequence of the errant liberal view of economics…..list after the jump

Economy: Blue States Worse Than Red Under Obama

IBD compared average job growth, unemployment, changes in housing prices, per capita income and GDP growth, and gas prices for the 22 states that voted for John McCain in 2008 and the 28 states that voted for Obama .

On every indicator but one, blue states have done worse, on average, than red states.

The one measure where blue states outperformed was in gross domestic product growth, clocking an average 2.5% increase from 2009 to 2010 vs. red states’ 2.2%.

One in Three Young U.S. Workers Are Underemployed

Thirty-two percent of 18- to 29-year-olds in the U.S. workforce were underemployed in April, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment. This is up from 30.1% in March and is slightly higher than the 30.7% of a year ago

SMARTEST GUY IN THE ROOM - If you wonder who is “stealing” your dollars… The “Oracle” of Massachusetts 

……………..John Kerry is one of several lawmakers prominently featured in Throw Them All Out, Peter Schweizer’s landmark book on how elected politicians exploit their privileged positions to enhance their personal wealth.

The Massachusetts Senator’s most dubious trading activity coincided with two major political events—the financial crisis of late 2008 and the passage of President Obama’s controversial healthcare overhaul in March 2010.

Kerry was one of at least 10 Senators to trade financial stocks just days after a Sept. 16, 2008 meeting between Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, and leading members of Congress to discuss the increasingly dire state of the financial markets.

In mid-October 2008, as the Treasury was discussing which banks would be bailed out in the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP), Kerry bought up to $550,000 worth of Citigroup stock and up to $350,000 worth of Bank of America shares. Days later, the American public learned that Citigroup would receive $50 billion from the TARP fund and up to $277 billion in additional loan guarantees. Bank of America also received $50 billion from TARP.

During the contentious healthcare debate in 2009, Schweizer noted, Kerry loaded up on pharmaceutical stocks, purchasing close to $750,000 worth of shares in one company—Teva Pharmaceuticals—in the month of November alone.

Drug companies were viewed to be among the major beneficiaries of the Democratic healthcare legislation. Pharmaceuticals “kicked in $80 billion to help make the bill work, but stand to make 10 times that amount in revenues from added government and government-subsidized business,” liberal columnist Howard Fineman wrote in Newsweek.

Teva stock was trading at about $50 a share when Kerry started buying, but jumped to $62 a share after the healthcare bill was passed, an increase of nearly 25 percent. After Obama signed the bill into law, Kerry sold his Teva shares, realizing tens of thousands in capital gains………………

SMARTEST GAL IN THE ROOM - LOL Here is another one  ”smarter and better than you” democrat falling in her own trap

Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson, citing a genealogist, claimed Tuesday that Massachusetts Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren‘s ancestry includes a great-great-great grandfather who helped round up Cherokees in the days leading to the Trail of Tears.

Warren has struggled to prove her American Indian ancestry since it was revealed more than a week ago that she referred to herself as a Native American minority in the 1980s and ’90s.

“In what may be the ultimate and cruelest irony … it turns out that Warren’s great-great-great grandfather was a member of a militia unit which participated in the round-up of the Cherokees in the prelude to the Trail of Tears,” Jacobson wrote on his blog.

The Trail of Tears is the name given to the forced relocation of Native Americans after the Indian Removal Act of 1830. It led to the deaths of thousands of Indians.

Jacobson explained that this information was learned after Warren’s campaign claimed last week that her great-great-great grandmother, O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford, was herself a Cherokee Indian.

Citing writer and genealogist Michael Patrick Leahy, he reported that a review of that ancestor’s heritage revealed that her husband, Jonathan Crawford, apparently participated in the removal of the Cherokees from Georgia

State probes possible voting by foreigners in Florida

Florida’s elections rolls may include thousands of foreigners who might have illegally cast ballots. The state is trying to track them down.

Thousands of foreign citizens — particularly in South Florida — might be registered to vote in Florida and could have unlawfully cast ballots in previous elections.

The potential problem is largest in Florida’s largest county: Miami-Dade, where the elections supervisor is examining 2,000 potentially unlawful voters, WFOR-CBS 4 News reported Tuesday. Broward is examining 260 suspected foreign voters. One suspected noncitizen voter has been registered for about 40 years, CBS 4 found.

Fed clears China’s first US bank takeover 

The United States on Wednesday opened its banking market to ICBC, China’s biggest bank, for the first time clearing a takeover of a US bank by a Chinese state-controlled company.

Just days after high-level US-China economic talks in Beijing, the Federal Reserve approved an application from Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to buy a majority stake in the US subsidiary of Bank of East Asia.

The transaction will make ICBC the first Chinese state-controlled bank to acquire retail bank branches in the United States.

ICBC has been the most aggressive of China’s “big four” banks in expanding overseas.

According to the Fed the bank has total assets of roughly $2.5 trillion.

It will buy up to 80 percent of the US unit of the Hong Kong-based Bank of East Asia, which operates 13 branches in New York and California.

With Help of a ‘Bionic’ Suit, Paralyzed Woman Finishes London Marathon

You think running a marathon is tough? Try running a marathon wearing a 40-lb exoskeleton strapped to your lower body. And try doing it without the use of your legs.

It took her 16 days, but 32-year-old Claire Lomas has done it. On May 8, she crossed the finish line of a race that began on April 22, greeted by crowds of supporters as she emerged from under an arch of red balloons at the marathon’s end. Lomas, who is paralyzed from the chest down, wore a “bionic” suit designed to allow people with lower-limb paralysis to walk and stand, which helped her cover about two miles a day. The ReWalk suit, designed by Israeli firm Argo Medical Technologies, was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (and, as close TV watchers will note, featured on an episode of Glee). It costs about $70,000.

 Spend More on Education, Because It’s Worked So Well

My question is: WHY DO WE HAVE TO SUBSIDIZE COLLEGE EDUCATIONS THAT STUDENTS CAN PAY FOR WITH A SUMMER JOB AND SOME PART TIME WORK WHEN THEY DIDN’T LEARN ANYTHING IN HIGH SCHOOL?

‘Don’t Go To Law School,’ ‘Move To Asia,’ And 28 Other Pearls Of Wisdom For 2012 Grads

This month, a huge batch of 20-somethings will be loosed upon the country with shiny new degrees in hand. We’ve crowd-sourced advice for the graduates of 2012 from our host of writers based on their areas of expertise. Here are 25 pearls of wisdom from Forbes. Spend them wisely….

How Mitt Romney’s Campaign Put A Damper On Obama’s Big Day

Romney Deputy Press Secretary Ryan Williams was in the audience at the OSU rally, and tweeted a picture of the empty seats — which instantly got picked up by conservative blogs. After Obama’s remarks he was swarmed by local reporters, and after giving them a standard response to the speech, he commented on the empty seats.

OBAMA LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN IN EMPTY ARENA

Barack Obama launched his campaign in unspectacular fashion today at Ohio State University, the largest college in the crucial swing state.  A photo posted to twitter by Mitt Romney’s campaign spokesman Ryan Williams reveals sparse attendance.  The above image, according to Williams, was taken during the President’s first official campaign speech.

MSNBC Host Calls Half-Full Stadium For Obama Rally “Filled Stadium” - video after the jump

MSNBC host Alex Wagner, who once said she would like to get rid of the Second Amendment, claimed that Obama gave a speech in a full stadium in Ohio this past weekend WHILE an image of the not-so-full stadium was displayed on the screen. “We have talked about attendance rates at campaign events. Mitt Romney also had a speech in Detroit at an unfilled stadium. Now this is OSU, a filled stadium. Although it was a capacity 18,300, the president had 14,000 folks out there,” Wagner said.

The awful April jobs report: Is the ‘real’ unemployment rate 11.1%?

Forward

The Obama Promise: Five Million New Green Jobs - That is a post from 2008

• “We’ll create 5 million new, high-wage jobs by investing in the renewable sources of energy that will eliminate the oil we currently import from the Middle East in 10 years, and we’ll create 2 million jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads, schools, and bridges.”
• “It is time to protect the jobs we have and to create the jobs of tomorrow by unlocking the drive, and ingenuity, and innovation of the American people. And we should fast-track the loan guarantees we passed for our auto industry and provide more as needed so that they can build the energy-efficient cars America needs to end our dependence on foreign oil.”
• “I won’t pretend this will be easy or come without cost. We’ll have to set priorities as never before, and stick to them. That means pursuing investments in areas such as energy, education, and healthcare that bear directly on our economic future, while deferring other things we can afford to do without.”

Source: Red Green & Blue (http://s.tt/12A0w)

Obama campaign inflates job numbers by 40 percent for pricey electric car - That is the reality in 2012 

President Barack Obama’s deputy campaign manager got her facts wrong while she was trying to support the administration’s $193 million subsidy for a luxury automaker.

“Hi, I’m Stephanie Cutter, I’m the deputy campaign manager here at Obama for America, and I wanted to arm you with the facts about the latest attack from ‘Big Oil,’” Cutter said in her May 2 video. “Let’s get the facts out, because it is important that you guys know the truth.”

Cutter’s speech appears to have been aimed at a new attack ad by Americans for Prosperity (AFP) that dinged Obama for sending “half a billion [dollars] to an electric car company that created hundreds of jobs … in Finland.“

That company is Fisker, whose auto-factory in Anaheim, Calif. produces a trickle of $102,000 Karma electric autos. Those autos are quite popular among Hollywood stars and other wealthy Democratic donors. The car made headlines in March when its sports car died on a Connecticut runway during a 65 mile per hour Consumer Reports test

America’s costliest disease

The United States is rushing toward a health and economic catastrophe, with significant repercussions on our global competitiveness and national security. The emerging obesity epidemic has no real parallel with any other health crisis in our history. In the past, we have met the challenges of epidemics and other serious diseases and emerged with new knowledge, new technologies and superior tools to better our nation’s health. We need to take the same approach with obesity, coming up with tested and reasonable programs that both address the problem and help inspire new life-saving and wealth-creating technologies.

Obesity could affect 42% of Americans by 2030

 A new forecast on obesity in America has health experts fearing a dramatic jump in health care costs if nothing is done to bring it under control.

The projection, released Monday, warns that 42% of Americans may end up obese by 2030 (up from 36% in 2010), and 11% could be severely obese, roughly 100 or more pounds over a healthy weight (vs. 6% in 2010).

U.S. health care spending ‘dwarfs’ that of other countries

The United States spends more on health care than 12 other industrialized countries, a new Commonwealth Fund study finds – but that doesn’t mean this country’s care is any better.

The U.S. spent nearly $8,000 per person for health care services in 2009, the study found, confirming that “health care spending in the U.S. dwarfs that found in any other industrialized country.

Americans Paying More in Taxes than for Food, Clothing, and Shelter

In 2012, Americans will pay approximately $4.041 trillion in taxes, which is $152 billion, or 3.9 percent, more than they will spend on housing, food, and clothing

Millions of illegal immigrants are getting a bigger tax refund than you - THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!!!

One of the workers, who was interviewed at his home in southern Indiana, admitted his address was used this year to file tax returns by four other undocumented workers who don’t even live there. Those four workers claimed 20 children live inside the one residence and, as a result, the IRS sent the illegal immigrants tax refunds totaling $29,608.

13 Investigates saw only one little girl who lives at that address (a small mobile home). We wondered about the 20 kids claimed as tax deductions?

“They don’t live here,” said the undocumented worker. “The other kids are in their country of origin, which is Mexico.”

The Results Are In: Conservative States Prosper, While Liberal States Decline

 …the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has remedied that deficiency with its study “Rich States, Poor States,” the fifth annual edition of which was released earlier this month. Authored by famed supply-side economist Arthur Laffer,Wall Street Journal economic guru Stephen Moore and ALEC’s own Jonathan Williams, the 100-plus page report looks at economic competitiveness among the 50 states in exacting detail.

The conclusion of the most recent edition: States that embrace free-market principles are beating jurisdictions that prefer big government to within an inch of their lives. As the authors themselves put it, “If we had to summarize the findings of this publication and our comparative analysis of state policy in one sentence, it would be this: Be more like Texas and less like California.”

Riddled with data, “Rich States, Poor States” gives striking testimony to the virtues of unobtrusive government on nearly every page. A comparison between the nine states with the highest and lowest tax burdens, for instance, shows remarkable disparities.

The Best and Worst States in America to Do Business

Chief Executive Magazine has released its annual list of best and worse states to do business, and Southern and Mountain-West states dominated the rankings — to the detriment of the two coasts. The top five states in the survey, Texas; Florida; North Carolina; Tennessee and Indiana, are praised by the magazine for their governments’ and lax regulatory policies and low taxes. The 650 CEOs surveyed also apparently like states that have so-called “right-to-work” laws, which restrict union activity

WELFARE DOLLARS USED AT FLORIDA STRIP CLUBS, LIQUOR STORES

America’s Two-Faced Liberals

Loudoun County, Va., has a median household income of $119,540, making it the nation’s richest county. Virginia’s Fairfax County is next, with a median household income of $103,010; the median price of a house is $507,800. Third is Howard County, Md., where the median household income is $101,771. These three richest counties have seven nearby high-income neighbors, which include Arlington and Montgomery counties. The nation’s richest counties are close to Washington, D.C., where people come to do good and wind up doing well for themselves.

These 1 percenters are not wealthy right-wing Republicans; they are Obama’s liberals. How can one tell? It turns out that seven of the 10 wealthiest counties in the Washington area voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008. These liberals portray themselves as 99 percenters when they are really 1 percenters. They’re simply running a deceitful rope-a-dope, aided by the mainstream media, on the American people.

Lies, Damned Lies and Government Jobs Data

For 59 out of the last 60 weeks, the weekly jobless numbers have been revised, after the fact, always in the same direction: higher. That’s unheard of.

Those revisions higher make the present week’s unemployment number look better in comparison, more so since the markets often treat the prior week’s revision as an afterthought.

And there is statistical manipulation in the unemployment rate, too. The government’s reported unemployment number doesn’t include people who stopped looking for work, but who want jobs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the unemployment rate is dropping, and fell from 10% in October 2009 to 8.2% now. That’s got the White House and media pundits saying an economic recovery has taken place, and that the President’s stimulus bill, which cost more than $750 billion to date, has driven unemployment down towards 8% as promised.

However, the unemployment rate is the number of people out of work but who are actively looking. The government doesn’t count in that rate the now 6.3 million who have given up and stopped looking for work, but want jobs. That number has grown from 5.7 million in January 2009.

So, this “improvement” in the unemployment rate is artificial — it was due to workers giving up and dropping out of the labor force.

 Keeping Nature Exactly as Is … Forever

Obama boasted that his $2.3 billion plan would “help close the clean-energy gap between America and other nations.” But other nations now move in the opposite direction. “Countries are cutting these programs because they realize they aren’t sustainable and they are obscenely expensive,” says the American Enterprise Institute’s Kenneth P. Green. In Spain, economists at La Universidad Rey Juan Carlos found that each “green” job cost more than $750,000.

Obama claims that if we “invest” more, we can “create millions of jobs” – but only if we accelerate the “green transition.” What could make more sense? A little push from the smart politicians, and – voila! – an abundance of new jobs and a cleaner, sustainable environment. It’s the ultimate twofer. Except it’s an illusion, because governments do not “create” jobs.