For many California areas, unemployment rates moved persistently higher in January, indicating that the national economic recovery hasn't yet translated into jobs for the Golden State.
New county-by-county figures released by the state Wednesday showed that in eight counties, more than 1 in 5 people were out of work. Moreover, revised numbers for last year show that fewer people were employed than was previously believed.
"The real mystery now is why we aren't getting job growth when the GDP has been positive," said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.
Hey Steve, here are a few clues; high taxes, high regulatory burdens, environmentalism gone wild, billions wasted on Green initiatives (and stem cell research), a welfare mentality and powerful government unions.
Here's an easy way to cut through the clutter of news today, anyone that labels themselves an "Environmentalist' is most likely a lying Piece of Shit. From MMGW to renewable energy, environmentalist have to use lies and deception to get at our money. Here is an example of how federal employees helped environmentalists spread more lies.
The e-mails obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request show how, starting last April, lobbyists at the American Wind Energy Association became alarmed that lawmakers were citing a study by Spain's King Juan Carlos University. The study found that Spain's massive investments in wind power cost 2.2 jobs for every "green" job created.
According to a Department of Energy inspector general report last month, "only 2 of the 10 highest funded recipients completed more than 2 percent of planned units." New York had completed 280 out of 45,400 planned units as of December, Texas had completed 0 of 33,908, and California 12 out of 43,400. That's 292 homes in three states with a total population of roughly 80 million.
So much for the 87,000 jobs the administration promised "right away." The inspector general report is unsparing: "The job creation impact of what was considered to be one of the Department's most ‘shovel ready' projects has not materialized," and neither have "the significant reductions in energy consumption."
There are rules of thumb for housing but I don't know of one for transportation. I'm thinking of getting a new ride so this has been on my mind. Almost every new vehicle has been the most expensive car I had ever purchased at the point in time. and this next one will be the same.
Sometimes I step back and look at the numbers and just think "Wow, that is a lot of money".
My trusty Gateway with a Centrino 2.0 GHz Duo Core with 4GB of RAM running Vista just can keep up anymore. I tried to upgrade to Windows 7 but the upgrade didn't work and I have too much stuff on the laptop to keep risking it.
I looked at the i5 machines at Best Buy that are around $900. Best Buy has a Blue Label program that seems to be what I need. Then there is a Sony laptop with an i7 chip set. It's the second fastest laptop in the store (After a Mac of course) and I'm thinking maybe I should go for it and get the fastest machine possible and hope to get 2 years out of it. The new 64-bit machines can handle 8 GB of RAM and have Windows 7 which should help speed things up.
Anyway, you guys are all geeks, so what do you think? I'll probably buy one next week.
The blood discussion reminded me of another issue where the scientists lied to the public.
AIDS is primarily a disease that affects homosexuals and drug users. This is a fact. Doctors knew this very early on. The odds of two healthy heterosexuals transmitting AIDS is very low.
In order to develop sympathy for AIDS victims and get millions in grant money for research, doctors lied to the public about the likelihood of heterosexual transmission of the disease. There isn't much debate about this as the heterosexual epidemic predicted never occurred.
"The three largest blood donation organizations in our country -- the American Red Cross, America's Blood Centers, and AABB (formerly the American Association of Blood Banks) -- all agree calling the ban 'medically and scientifically unwarranted,'" wrote Kerry.
Gay rights group have also decried the practice both in the United Kingdom and the United States. The Gay Men's Health Center reported last month that the ban was created at a time when the transmission of HIV was unknown and creates a stigma that is inconsistent because straight people who have sex with "commercial sex workers" only have to wait a year before donating blood.
The amount of lying I see on the left never ceases ot amaze me. I have long ago concluded not only they have no shame, but that assume that the American public is astindingly stupid.
U.S. House of RepresentativesSpeaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday she was confident of satisfying Democratic concerns about a Senate-approved healthcare bill and passing the measure.
I just realized the someone is buying me lunch every day this week.
I often find it interesting to think about what I'm doing now vs. where I was at some time in the past. I was a typical broke college student and I still remember one day I stopped at the Fowl Play and spent $7 on lunch. It was a treat, it was something I couldn't afford to do everyday. I remember thinking that someday I'd be able to afford to eat lunch out everyday. That was a big goal for me at that point in my life. That is what I defined as a marker of success.
Needless to say, I hit that milestone quite a few years back. I guess I'm now moving into a different phase where people buy me lunch. I'm not bragging, my life has had many twists and turns and I find that some of the small ones can be as interesting as the big ones.
The state of Minnesota has a $60 billion biennial budget, so the state spends $30 billion a year. Here is a link to a detailed budget for 2009. Dig and find your favor examples of waste. The liberals would have us believe that the MN budget has been cut to the bone when the exact opposite is true. Government spending has out paced inflation and population growth for years. Over sized government has stunted each of the last recoveries and is making the great recession far worse than it should be.
The Arts Board gets $20 Million, If the left is worried about throwing vets off of GAMC, how can they support arts spending over the health of people?
$851,711,000 in Property Tax Refunds. $331,618,000 of this money is wasted on renters credits. Why should renters get rebates on Property tax bills? The other $500,000,000 is refunds to home owners. WTF??? Why should some home owners get a break on property taxes? If you can't afford your property taxes, go down an bitch to your city council.
So I'm slaving away at my desk when I get an email from Jeff Teresi. My spam filter didn't catch it so I figured I'd see what they deal was. It was titled "The Poor in MN". It starts like this:
There are currently over 35,000 Minnesotans who are about to lose their health care (currently April 1). These are the poorest of the poor – most with incomes for single people between $76 and $600 a month (most around $200) and somewhat more for families depending on the number of children. (Blah, BlahBlah, waa, waa, WAAAAAA!)
Odin and I have been trying to discuss some taxation issues and we are talking past each other as we approach the issue from different points of view. I think this is one of the major problems liberals and conservatives have.
Odin likes to talk of the benefits to society that our taxes fund. I prefer to discuss the actual cost of the programs in dollars and cents.
Odin stated "Who do you think pays most of the property taxes in this country, if not the middle class?" I assumed that this was in response to the fact that most federal taxes are paid by the top 10% of wage earners who pay 70% of federal taxes.
President Barack Obama has signed a one-year extension of several provisions in the nation's main counterterrorism law, the Patriot Act.
Provisions in the measure would have expired on Sunday without Obama's signature Saturday.
The act, which was adopted in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, expands the government's ability to monitor Americans in the name of national security.
Yeah, I should be embarrassed of the massive amount of time wasted in clubs in my youth but to quote a great Irish Philosopher, "I spent 90% of my money on wine, women and song and the rest I wasted"
Our current president when speaking to 6th graders. Note the teleprompters and the Secret Service agent. You can never be too safe when 6th graders are involved.
I got a speeding ticket this morning. I speed every day so these things are to be to expected, I get one every 5 years or so and I drive about 50 miles a day. I was, of course, polite to the office and thanked him for his time. (I was going 78 in a 60 zone and he wrote me for 70) The cost of the ticket is $121. My dry cleaning that I dropped off after the ticket cost $76, so some perspective is in order.
I have been thinking that the future of taxes should be voluntary taxes. The left is adamant that we treat citizens differently. They want to punish those of us who work and reward crack-whores that breed with abandon. We effectively have scrapped the idea of equal taxation decades ago, so if we are going to admit that some have to pay more than others, why not look into rewards instead of punishments.
Currently my income group pays 90% of the taxes and gets no additional benefits from this. In fact, the current government benefits largely go to a group that pays less than 3% of the taxes. Not surprisingly, people fight paying more taxes as there is literally nothing in it for them.
It is a valid question. K-Rod correctly pointed out that our government discriminates every day in a variety of ways. We, as a society, should discuss what sort of discrimination we want and why.
I for one am perfectly fine having the government give aid to children and handicapped people but not giving it to able bodied adults. This is a form of blatant discrimination that I 100% support.
This issue came up in the context of civil unions and gay marriage. I support civil unions and I oppose gay marriage. Marriage is a religious ceremony that the government should have no say in. The left loves separation of church and state until gay marriage comes up, then they want the state to tell the churches to respect homosexual unions. This is anti-American in the extreme.
So I'm sitting at computer juggling client #2 and # 4 setting an appointment with client #5 when the cell phone rings and potential client #6 calls. I just hired two consultants. I bought an iPod Nano yesterday and have been having fun with the iTunes store. I figured this song about summed up my current work load.
