Say Anything Blog

I posted about the increase in the number of unemployed foreign born Hispanics earlier in the week before the new unemployment numbers came out.  Gonna post this again:

The unemployment rate for Hispanic immigrants was 7.5 percent during the first months of this year, compared with 6.9 percent among native-born Hispanics. During the same period in 2007, the rates were 5.5 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.

“The unemployment rate has shot up because of the slump in construction and Hispanic workers had done very well finding jobs in the construction industry as it was booming,” said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director for research. “Having become somewhat dependent on this industry, they were more vulnerable to the downturn.”

An overwhelming majority of jobs lost in the construction industry were held by foreign-born Hispanics.

It isn’t just construction job losses for illegals, it is teens and high school graduates losing jobs, or more appropriately, new teens and high school grads trying to enter the job market for the first time and there are less jobs present because of the new minimum wage hikes:

The real story here is unemployment among entry-level workers to the employment system. In summer, teenagers and college students enter the marketplace looking for seasonal and part-time work. This accounts for the significant rise in job-seekers and the 0.4% increase in unemployment. Otherwise, an overall job loss of 49,000 jobs would account for a 0.04% increase in a market of 138 million workers.

Why have these new job seekers found it difficult to get jobs? One reason is that Congress made jobs costlier just in time for this economic slowdown. Congress raised the minimum wage last year by seventy cents an hour, from $5.15 to $5.85. It will rise again in July to $6.55 an hour, and next year will hit $7.25 per hour. That makes entry-level labor as much as 27% more expensive this summer, when consumers have already slowed down their spending. The natural loss of work from the slowdown amplifies the effect of the minimum-wage increase, because businesses now cannot afford to raise prices to maintain their entry-level positions.

Couple things to point out if we are indeed in a recession:

1.  You don’t want to raise the minimum wage.  Just a bad idea.  Raising the minimum wage causes businesses to raise their prices. 
2.  Considering how rapidly gas prices are rising, inflation is the last thing we need, especially inflated wages and raw materials.
3.  Fuel prices are behind a lot of the issues and all this talk about “alternative fuels” and “investing in the future” is a bullshit way of saying “blocking any new domestic production” and “raising taxes on oil companies”.
4.  Speaking of taxes on oil companies, “windfall profits taxes” sure are gonna help bring down gas prices.
5.  Speaking of taxes, raising the capital gains tax and increasing taxes on “the rich” is gonna help too.

The Democrats’ plan for the economy goes like this:

1.  Raise the minimum wage which has a ripple effect on union contracts that are indexed to it.  In essence, raise wage costs for all businesses, which is worst for low wage service businesses because the minimum wage is felt much more at the low end.
2.  Raise taxes on individuals and allow the tax cuts to expire.
3.  Halt any future domestic oil production ensuring no new oil sources come online.
4.  Raise taxes on oil companies which will no doubt be passed on to consumers.

Just as individuals are cutting back on discretionary expenses due to high oil prices, businesses are either cutting expenses or raising prices.  They are cutting jobs to deal with the minimum wage.  Add in new tax burdens on both income and capital gains and who the hell wants to invest in a new business.  Where is the profit?  And without profit motive, no economy works.

Policies matter and notice how all of this started when the Democrats took control and started with their economic agenda.

It is pretty clear that the housing industry has slowed considerably. This article paints an interesting picture of the economic and employment impacts of the slowdown:

WASHINGTON - As the construction industry has slumped, the unemployment rate among Hispanic immigrants has climbed, an analysis released Wednesday shows.

For the first time in five years, foreign-born Hispanics have a higher unemployment rate than do Hispanics born in the U.S., according to the Pew Hispanic Center’s analysis of census and Labor Department data.

The unemployment rate for Hispanic immigrants was 7.5 percent during the first months of this year, compared with 6.9 percent among native-born Hispanics. During the same period in 2007, the rates were 5.5 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.

“The unemployment rate has shot up because of the slump in construction and Hispanic workers had done very well finding jobs in the construction industry as it was booming,” said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director for research. “Having become somewhat dependent on this industry, they were more vulnerable to the downturn.”

An overwhelming majority of jobs lost in the construction industry were held by foreign-born Hispanics.

Mexican immigrants have been hardest hit; their unemployment rate jumped from 5.5 percent last year to 8.4 percent. The employment downturn added about 255,000 Hispanic immigrants, most of whom are Mexican, to the ranks of the unemployed.

Foreign-born Hispanics could have entered the country legally or illegally. The report does not divide the immigrant numbers along those lines although undocumented workers can be found in the construction industry. For that reason, stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws also has played a role in the job losses, Rakesh said.

Notice how they don’t come right out and tell the truth--

1. Stepped up enforcement is increasing the unemployment rate for illegals.

2. The unemployment rate for US Born Hispanics has “shot up” .2% over the last year while the unemployment rate for non-US born Hispanics has increased by 2%.

3. The unemployment rate for Mexican Immigrants has increased by 3%.

Let’s assume that legal immigrants with green cards and equal job skills, equal proficiency in English, and the same work ethic are as likely as their peers who are US born to obtain employment. Actually, this assumption is almost certainly fact given that until the last year, US Born workers had a HIGHER unemployment rate than foreign born workers. This gives us a few possible explanations:

1. Employers suddenly don’t like the skills and work ethic of foreign born workers.

2. The majority of foreign born Hispanics lack job skills that are needed since the construction slow down cut the demand for unskilled labor.

3. Stepped up enforcement and arrests at major companies by INS caused employers to think twice about employing illegals.

--or--

4. This is more evidence of the Bush Recession and not only does Bush hate black people (Kanye), but he hates Hispanics as well. And the rest of Americans are racists for not hiring them. And we need to vote Obama because he will ensure that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless.

Very well said.  This, combined with the Rev. Wright fiasco should start turning the tide.  McCain appeals to moderates and independents already, but Moderate and Conservative Democrats have to be scared shitless by the Obamamessiah.  This only plays to their fears and using the quotes from the other Democrats is exceptionally solid work.

Headline meets MSM’s agenda, facts and statistics, not as much:

WASHINGTON - The Army recorded 115 soldiers’ suicides in 2007, the highest total since it started counting in 1980, the service announced Thursday. That’s more than twice the 52 suicides in 2001, the low point reached as the war on terrorism started.

The five-year war in Iraq is driving up the number of suicides, said Col. Elspeth Ritchie, a psychiatric consultant to the Army surgeon general.

Army records showed that 65 percent of the suicides were related to broken relationships and that 37 percent of the suicides came within 30 days of the end of those relationships. Multiple combat deployments of up to 15 months hurt those relationships, Ritchie said.

The 115 deaths amount to an 18.5-per-100,000 rate, the highest rate since 1980, the Army said.

The civilian suicide rate was 19.5 per 100,000 in 2005, according to the latest statistics available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Among the 115, five were women, 22 were from the National Guard or Army Reserve, and 93 were active-duty Army. Thirty-two suicides occurred in Iraq and four in Afghanistan. About one in four of the victims had never deployed…

Suicide rates among Marines have also risen during the Iraq war, records show. Marine suicides rose from 23 in 2002 to 33 last year, or a rate of 12.5 per 100,000 to 16.5 per 100,000.

So by joining the military, going to war, enduring relationship trouble, extended deployments, and hell in Bush’s illegal war for oil… you are less likely to kill yourself than your average American.

Headline is a little misleading, don’t you think?

Proof offers that the biggest mistake Democrats made was their failure to unite behind Al Gore.  Perhaps it was failure to impeach Clinton and retain Al Gore as President, but ultimately, the failure to Elect Al Gore led to the abyss that they describe as the Bush Administration.

What if John McCain is our Al Gore?  What if instead of a person we in retrospect realize was infinitely better to choose than Obama is cast off into bearded oblivion and Obama screws up the world in our eyes as bad as Bush did in their eyes?  Gore would be president except for a little over 500 votes in Florida.  If Gore was president, how different would things be?  Would Liberals be happier or less happy?  Did they realize what they were doing voting for Nader at the time?

Obama is as bad for Free Market Conservatives as Bush was to Blue State College Professors that voted Nader.  Learn the lessons of recent history Whistler and others that are completely anti-McCain.  McCain is what we got and he is infinitely better than Obama.  Dems might have hoped Bush would usher in some Great Society LBJ or some New Deal FDR to save their party.  Perhaps it has in Obama eight years later.  Would they in retrospect sacrifice the last eight years to simply state how little they liked Al Gore as the nominee?

We don’t even know that after eight years of Bush screwing the country up (from a Liberal point of view) that even after eight years, Obama will win.  It might be 12 years of relative hell for lefties if they end up with four more years of Conservatives.  And all of it is because of the Nader vote by Liberals in 2000.

Are you guys Nader supporters?  By not voting, you elect Obama.  If you want to make a point that you are a true conservative, vote Libertarian.  They represent Conservatives.  Free Market folks.  But they consistently lose.  Republicans represent all the imperfections of needing to select the most free market and Libertarian candidate and that is why Ron Paul got his Libertarian ass kicked.

First, it was 11" of snow in Flagstaff on May 13, now it is the Memorial Day Weekend Weather in Phoenix that saw snow in Flagstaff and Eastern Arizona’s White Mountains.

The National Weather Service is projecting lower-than-average highs of 77 degrees today, 84 on Sunday and 87 on Monday. Historically, the temperature this time of the year hits an average of 97 degrees.

The mild weekend comes after an unusual week in which the Valley saw its first triple-digit temperature of the year, including a blistering 110 degrees on Monday, followed by showers Thursday and Friday that broke a three-month dry spell.

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, where weather officially is gauged, recorded 0.39 inch of rain between Thursday and Friday.

Chandler logged the most rainfall across the Valley, 1.34 inches… May is the second-driest month of the year (June is the driest) in Phoenix. This week’s showers surpassed the 0.16 inch of rain the Valley sees on average for the entire month.

Precipitation was minimal in Tucson where only .02 inch of rain fell on Thursday, but Mount Lemmon got dusted with about 3 inches of snow.

In Flagstaff, where more than 3 inches of snow had fallen by Friday afternoon, a winter advisory remains in effect until 6 a.m. today.

In Greenlee County in eastern Arizona, 12.5 inches of snow hit Hannagan Meadow.

We took my wife’s Passat up to Payson for the day instead of the Avalanche because at almost $4.00 per gallon, we need to get rid of the SUV.

Let’s think about that for a second. If indeed, Global Warming was the most dangerous threat to mankind since the Plague or SARS or AIDS or Bird Flu or… If it is the worst thing ever, we can argue the effectiveness of Cap and Trade policies or Kyoto or whatever other idiotic measures our leaders want to enact. But what IS ACTUALLY PRETTY DAMNED EFFECTIVE is gas in the $4-5 per gallon range. People actually make responsible choices and use less fuel. Sure, some folks don’t but lots of others start feeling the pain.

So let’s suggest that in order to save Polar Bears and Caribou and the Planet, we simply prevent investing any money at all into developing more fuel resources and we simply allow escalating price pressures to drastically cut the consumption of fossil fuels. If we raise prices enough, we can cool the Earth. And if Oil Companies do make a buck or two, we take it away from them because it is a “windfall profit” based on rising prices that we are using to cool the entire earth.

Unless fossil fuels are a completely insignificant contributor to the climate of Earth and drilling in ANWR will have a completely insignificant effect on Caribou and tundra. In which case, we will not have saved a single polar bear or caribou, had no effect on the temperature of the planet at all, but impoverished the entire plant by limiting their ability to move from place to place and escalating the cost of every single item that requires petroleum to make. And most specifically food which requires vast amounts of energy to produce and transport to the third world. But that is less of a problem since we have stopped growing Rice and Wheat so that we can grow Corn to make into Ethanol because of how profitable the subsidies are.

Don't let the same folks that tell you they care about the little man and the mill worker and the school teacher that are trying to make ends meet in middle America in the same breath tell you that Global Warming is a crisis of the utmost importance and we need to stop any oil development or drilling in order to save the earth. The two are completely incompatible.

I am betting Ted is begging to get some of the great medical care Michael Moore was talking about. Viva Fidel.

The World Health Organization ranks the United States 37th in healthcare:

The World Health Organization has carried out the first ever analysis of the world’s health systems. Using five performance indicators to measure health systems in 191 member states, it finds that France provides the best overall health care followed among major countries by Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan.

The findings are published today, 21 June, in The World Health Report 2000 – Health systems: Improving performance.

The U. S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds. The United Kingdom, which spends just six percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on health services, ranks 18th . Several small countries – San Marino, Andorra, Malta and Singapore are rated close behind second- placed Italy.

I could not resist.  Sorry Maria.

This just in--maybe we ain’t in a recession after all. How inconvenient. Next thing you know, we will find out that the earth is no longer warming. Makes your mind hurt trying to reconcile reality to an Obama speech or an MSM article. Don’t try.

May 19 (Bloomberg)—The index of leading U.S. economic indicators rose in April for a second month, the first back-to- back gain since October 2006, signaling that the current slowdown will be short-lived.

The Conference Board’s gauge increased 0.1 percent, better than forecast and matching the gain in March, the New York-based research group said today. The measure points to the direction of the economy over the next three to six months.

Stocks and the dollar rallied after the figure spurred speculation that tax rebates and the Federal Reserve’s interest- rate cuts will aid a recovery in the second half. Economists estimate the economy will expand just 0.1 percent this quarter as consumers rein in spending in the wake of falling house prices and a surge in fuel costs.

``The message on the economy is that activity is soft but not moving down sharply,’’ said Michael Moran, chief economist at Daiwa Securities America Inc. in New York, who accurately forecast the index’s gain. ``The economy is muddling along.’’

I just hope the recession lasts long enough to elect Obama. It is gonna be tough to stump if the MSM cannot claim a Bush recession every day in their articles.

.1% isn't exactly a robust economy, but the last two years, GDP growth has averaged well over 3%. Unemployment remains 5% or less. Wage growth continues to outpace inflation, even with the higher price of fuel. Now if we would just open ANWAR and the Oil Shale in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and the Dakotas.

What is funny is the MSM trying to claim that the stimulus helped. If it were tax cuts instead of handouts for a stimulus, you think the MSM would be claiming that they did any good?

BTW, I just got my stimulus check last week. Maybe it is a magical stimulus that affects April's numbers before consumers even get it.

Cross Posted at www.ski-blog.com:

From today’s Arizona Republic:

SCOTTSDALE - Police are searching for a man who shot and wounded a large dog in the 6800 block of East Almeria Street.

Police were called about 8 p.m. Friday by witnesses who said they heard a bang and the yelping of a dog.

The Rottweiler’s owner discovered the dog, blood streaming from its mouth, near his carport door shortly after the gun shot, Scottsdale police said.

A veterinarian confirmed that the Rottweiler was shot once in the head, with the bullet entering the side of the dog’s mouth and exiting though its tongue, police said.

The dog was unleashed and unattended when it was shot, police said.

Police said witnesses reported seeing a man in his mid-30s, 5-foot 8-inches tall, and 200 pounds with a dark mullet-style haircut running westbound on Almeria Street, away from the injured dog.

The dog is expected to survive, police said.

He was possibly driving a 1984 Firebird and wearing a Levis Jean Jacket with a AC/DC patch on it.

Damn that Global Warming… er… Climate Change: 

There were no April showers to bring any May flowers, but many Arizonans woke to snow, spotty rain and strong winds Tuesday morning during the typically warm month of May.

The low-pressure system that brought the wet weather had passed through the state just after noon, but a 30 percent chance of rain in the Valley still existed, according to the National Weather Service.

The Valley saw just trace amounts of rain throughout the morning along with wind gusts of up to 41 mph, according to the weather service. Meanwhile, the Flagstaff airport had about three inches of snow and around 11 inches of snow fell at Sunset Crater northeast of Flagstaff.

Climate Change, baby.  Man-made.  I drove my SUV to Starbucks today getting 15.6 MPG knowing that I am doing my part to cause Flagstaff snowfall.

Sanchez commanded the US military in Iraq from 2003-2004. The three-star general was relieved of his commander in 2004 following the Abu Ghraib scandal, and in 2005, was told his career was over and he wouldn’t be promoted to a fourth star.

The primary reason appears to be his involvement in authorizing harsh tactics for the treatment of Iraqi prisoners.

Bob doesn’t want to tell us that part of the story.  Gross incompetence accusations?  From the man behind Abu Ghraib?  The same Abu Ghraib that set us back a full year in the war due to the PR nightmare it caused?  Perhaps this wasn’t all Sanchez’s fault and perhaps he was scapegoated, but it certainly isn’t gross incompetence to fail to promote a general that presided over the disaster.

What this leaves open to question is whether the demotions, firings, lack of promotions, etc., went far enough up the food chain or went too far.  Most folks that hate the Bush Administration wanted to see Rummy punished.  It appears that Sanchez thinks he was punished unfairly and that the issue went too far up.  Some kind of Goldilocks effect.  It cost him a 4th Star but considering the damage it did to US international standing, I believe that the Bush Administration did the best that they could to hold people accountable.

And that is what is great about RBB.  He cuts and pastes a paragraph or two, but fails to ever tell the whole story.  Why not include the two paragraphs that I did?  Oh, if he did it wouldn’t be worth him posting because it wouldn’t paint the distorted picture of the Bush Administration and Republicans that suits his agenda.

He may not have invented the Internet, but Cubans don’t know that since they probably don’t have the Internet:

HAVANA - Cubans are getting wired.

Computers went on sale to the general public on the communist island on Friday and potential consumers were lining up outside store windows to gawk and consider buying.

President Raul Castro’s government had authorized the sale of personal computers to average Cubans more than a month ago, but they were not made available until Friday.

Computer sales are the latest of a series of measures Castro has taken to make life easier for ordinary Cubans.

The new government also has erased bans on cell phones and luxury hotel room rentals, and has made it easier for state workers to own homes they once rented as part of their jobs. It also is letting more private farmers and cooperatives take a crack at putting fallow government land to better use.

But they have great, free public healthcare, right Michael Moore?

Fox News Reports on the situation:

Arizona State University may have less cheerful sidelines at sporting events next season.

After racy photos of members of the university’s cheerleading squad were spotted on a campus blog called “The Dirty,” the school cut the squad completely, MyFOXPhoenix reported.

The school’s athletic director, Lisa Love, made the decision Thursday evening.The pictures on the blog feature 6 of the cheerleaders posing in nothing but their bras and panties.

Although only six members of the squad are shown in the photographs, the entire 16-member squad will suffer the consequences, MyFOXPhoenix reported.

The cheerleaders told MyFOXPhoenix that the photographs were a result of college kids goofing off, and they believe the decision to disband the team has been in the works for a while. The photographs are two years old, and were taken at a “cheer party.”

First off, GO DEVILS!  Makes me proud to be a Sun Devil myself.  And since I have this weird male quirk of enjoying looking at scantily clad 20 year old cheerleaders, especially ASU Cheerleaders, I did a little research and got the link to the post at the Dirty that contains all the pics.

The Media wants to ensure there is a recession even if consumers and the economy will not cooperate:

For practical purposes, the positive growth numbers are just a technicality. It feels like a recession to American workers, consumers and businesses. A period of significant weakness could persist for months to come, perhaps well into 2009.

What’s equally notable, however, is that this downturn is unfurling slowly and in a muted fashion despite the shocks of soaring energy and food costs and a plunge in real-estate wealth.

Some economists even raise the possibility of something unprecedented in records since World War II: that economic officials will declare a recession even as gross domestic product continues to rise.

In the current economic cycle, much of the direct impact of a consumer slowdown is being felt overseas rather than in the domestic economy.

“In some sense the recession has been outsourced,” as people postpone purchases of BMW cars and South Korean flat-screen TVs while still paying for rent or child care, says Mark Vitner, an economist at Wachovia Corp., a banking firm in Charlotte, N.C. “If you look at the composition of these numbers . . . it really begs the question of whether we’re going to see a decline of GDP at all in 2008.”

For a couple of years now, America’s hunger for imported goods has been cooling, generally rising but at a decelerating pace. In some recent quarters, the pace of imports has actually fallen.

One rule-of-thumb definition of a recession is two quarters when growth turns negative.

All recessions since at least the 1940s, for example, have seen some period of decline in the production of goods and services.

Some economists believe that this year will see such a decline. But they also add that, even without negative growth, a recession may exist based on other criteria such as jobs and income.

“It’s possible,” says Peter Kretzmer, an economist at the Bank of America in New York.

Recessions are officially declared by a committee of economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private organization in Cambridge, Mass.

Moral of the story-even if we are not in a recession, economists in Cambridge can make shit up and declare one anyway.

Consumer spending is not declining here at home, but imports are slowing.  Why is that?  It is because the American Dollar is weakening and imports are becoming more expensive. 

This is more Clinton crap.  “I feel your pain” even if there is only a little bit of pain.  Dems and the media will create fake pain that does not exist.

How is this any different than Dems being vested in Global Warming to the point that they will ignore the fact that since 1998, the Earth has cooled?  Call it Climate Change not global warming.  How do they ignore the fact that they want a recession, but none exists?  Change how they define a recession.  How do they ignore the real and tangible progress being made in Iraq?  Move the goal posts and talk about political progress and reconciliation.

Dems want a recession, the Earth to boil, and troops to die.  It suits their political agenda and when there is cause for some optomism and when things are actually going well for the American people, they lie about what is going on.