The Colonel's Forum

An Instagram Account Chillingly Documents The Sites Of U.S. Drone Strikes http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671238/an-instagram-account-chillingly-documents-the-sites-of-us-drone-strikes

Not sure why Mitt lost? Can't believe that a majority of Americans are stupid enough to vote for a deficit spending, big government, socialist ultra-liberal agenda? Well in that case you've been brainwashed by the CEC - the conservative entertainment complex. Remember, the primary interest of people like Fox News and Rush Wind-bag is to promote themselves and make money, not inform the electorate about reality. The truth is much less titillating than "Obama is a socialist from Kenya who wants to ruin America!" but you bought it hook line and sinker. He's a mediocre Senator from Illinois who saved us from a depression, hasn't started WWIII and is generally more palatable than Willard Mitt Moneybags III who thinks 47% of the country are a bunch of leeches. There are some real reasons that explain Romney's loss though, if you're interested. Deep down, Karl Rove knows these to be true, though he'd never admit it. The electorate is changing, considera...

Glad to see the GOP is still avoiding compromise. Wouldn't want them to be reasonable at the negotiating table just because Obama has a clear mandate and they lost a few Senate seats... Boehner Exclusive: Raising Tax Rates 'Unacceptable' but New Revenue on Table - ABC News

I had a fascinating addition to my list of life experiences this week: watching a US election from a foreign country. I was in Belgium this week for work, launching a new cloud computing project with our Europe, Middle East, and Africa account leaders. There were 30 people in total, from all over Europe plus Lebanon, Dubai, South Africa, Egypt, and Qatar. Quite a mixed crowd. We all went out for dinner on election night, and once the Belgian beers started flowing, the attendees quickly began asking us four Americans leading the meetings what we thought about the election, who we were voting for and who we thought would win. Does it matter what people from other countries think about our election process? Our President? Our nation as a whole? Chances are good that if you voted Romney, your answer is "no" and if you voted Obama your answer is "yes." If I won the lottery, I would load a plane up with some of the biggest isolationists and anti-interventionists in the ...

It's election day, and clearly I have not kept up with my 60 days 60 stats project. It was an ambitious project though, so I'm ok with making it to 50. Today's election is likely to be close, and also likely to see record turnout. I see both of these as good things. It has forced both parties to listen to the electorate. Anytime we increase the voter participation rate, our democracy strengthens. Here's what I can tell you about the next four years for the President, regardless of who wins: He will inherit an economy on the rebound We are in one fewer war than we were four years ago He will see 12 million jobs created, and he cannot take credit for any of them He will not end the ridiculous partisanship in Washington He will not balance the budget He will not end the fact that special interests have too much influence He will not fix entitlements Clearly, I am hoping that Obama wins. Mitt's pro-millionaire anti-middle class approach, combined with his pr...

3 = Number of Republican Presidents who would support Obama's decision to lower defense spending as part of a deficit reduction program. Why? Because that's exactly what they did: " Obama, in cutting defense spending, will be following in the footsteps of such Republican presidents as Eisenhower, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush, who significantly reduced military spending to deal with federal deficits that exploded during their presidencies. " http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/report/2010/09/23/8355/strong-and-sustainable/

50% = percentage of our current financial mess attributable to the Bush Tax cuts. Both Obama & Romney want to continue these cuts. Obama wants to limit it to those making $250,000 a year or less, Romney wants his fellow millionaires to get them too.

20 = the number of Grammys won by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, who have endorsed President Obama for a 2nd time.  I got to attend my first Springsteen concert last night, and I was blown away. He is a hero of the middle class, and Mitt Romney openly admits he couldn't care less about anyone other than the "job creators" who need bigger tax breaks.

If you ever find yourself in a position where airlines are buying you things, chances are good that something has gone wrong. Today, Delta bought me breakfast and free on board drinks (they were out of Woodford). Last month they bought me a new suitcase. No shit.

3% = average tax hike you can expect from Romney tax plan. NYT: Comparing the Tax Bite Under O

2003 = the most recent year that Mitt Romney supported a cap and trade system to reduce carbon emissions, and recognized that we need to tackle climate change. Romney On Cap And Trade In 2003: 'I Am Making Good On My Pledge' To Clean Up Carbon Pollution 'Harming Our Climate' | ThinkProgress

7.9% = current us unemployment rate. Not pretty but better than when Obama took office. Only 2.9% above NAIRU.

1 = number of focus groups the GOP held to determine which (anti Obama) conspiracy films they should send to voters 3 = number of conspiracy films they had to choose from. 0 = number of anti-Romney conspiracy films produced to date. Conservatives tested which anti-Obama conspiracy films to send to voters http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/27/1150168/-Conservatives-tested-which-anti-Obama-conspiracy-films-to-send-to-voters

51 = the percentage of Americans who now express explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in a similar 2008 survey. When measured by an implicit racial attitudes test, the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments jumped to 56 percent, up from 49 percent during the last presidential election. In both tests, the share of Americans expressing pro-black attitudes fell. This from a recent AP story. How sad that more than half the country is pre-disposed to vote for Romney just because he's white.  http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1027/Racial-attitudes-have-not-improved-in-the-four-years-since-Obama-took-office

Business Insider article with good candidate comparison on economic issues.

3 - the number of large groups you'd expect to support the Romney/Ryan ticket who are not doing so. 1) The state of Massachusetts - no former governor has ever lost the state where he was governor. If Mitt did such a bang up job "serving" the people of Massachusetts, why are they so firmly Obama? So much so that Mitt has abandoned all campaign efforts there? Sure, Massachusetts is a blue state, but the fact that Mitt won the governorship there is not irrelevant. 2) Wisconsin - the state where Paul Ryan is a Congressman is listed by almost every major media outlet as a "toss-up." 3) Salt Lake City - remember those Olympics that Romney so famously saved with his super powers, I mean business savvy?  They just endorsed Obama, because there are " too many Mitts ."  He's shape-shifted so much since the man who saved the Olympics, they don't trust him.

1 - the number of voting machine companies that Mitt Romney owns. No kidding. The machines in Texas, Colorado, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Washington state come from Hart Intercivic, which is owned by HIG Capital, which received over $10,000,000 in "seed money" from Solamere Capital, which is Mitt Romney's personal holding company. Here's a poorly written, yet factually accurate article on the topic from Forbes. If you can't win fairly, change the voter registration and ID laws, the early voting periods, and "fix" the voting machines.  Impossible? It's already happened.  In 2004, in the dead of election night, an electronic swing of more than 300,000 votes switched Ohio from the John Kerry column to George W. Bush, giving him a second term. A virtual statistical impossibility, the 6-plus% shift occurred between 12:20 and 2am election night as votes were being tallied by a GOP-controlled information technology firm on servers in a basement in Chattanooga,...

Several statistics to review for this installment. CNN had this info-graphic in an article on unemployment  last week. The article is a poorly written attempt to convince people that the unemployment situation is far worse than the 7.8% number that is officially reported. It worked on at least one of my friends - he bought it hook, line & sinker. The irony is that if you read the article with an open mind, and you look at what they "suggest" rather than "prove," they actually demonstrate that the official 7.8% number is too high! If you add the top 2 numbers here you get 92%, meaning that 92 out of 100 Americans either "have a job" or "don't have a job AND don't want one." This is a simple concept. So is the definition of unemployed - it means someone who doesn't have a job but is actively looking for one. If you're out of work and not looking for a job, you're not unemployed. It doesn't even matter WHY you'r...

86,859 - number of coal miners employed in the US the day Obama took office 89,423 - number of coal miners in America today. If Obama is waging a war on coal, he's doing a terrible job of it. Coal mining in Appalachia is at a 14 year high .  Kentucky has seen a net loss of roughly 1,000 jobs during Obama's 1st term, but West Virginia and Virginia have seen net gains of roughly 4,000. I am reminded of James Baker III's famous quote when asked if he was worried about alienating Jewish voters by talking to the Palistinians about peace when he said "@#$% 'em, they didn't vote for us."  Well, coal miners didn't vote for Obama any more than Jewish people voted for Reagan. The coal industry likes to talk about a war on coal being waged by the EPA and the President. That's a nice sound bite, but they're only lying to themselves (and their union members). The reality is that the free market economy is putting coal out of business. It's harder t...

30% - the percentage of Americans who Paul Ryan believes are "takers," the other 70% are "makers." Interesting that he disagrees with Romney on the low side of that number.  What's more interesting is that both of them firmly believe that at least 1/3 of our country is a bunch of freeloading losers. How does one arrive at this mentality? What could make someone so bitter? Here's the video , so you can see it in his own words. Of course there are freeloaders in this country, so what? It's not 30%. There are freeloaders at work, freeloaders when you go out to dinner in a big group, but to suggest that 30%, basically 1/3 of the entire country are freeloaders?! Think of your family - which 30% of them are freeloading losers milking the welfare state?  What about your friends?  Think of your 9 best friends, and now pick which three are societal leeches. These people are criticizing Obama for being "divisive" and failing to unite the country, yet...

40% - that's the amount of value that Iran's currency lost, in one week, which happens to be last week.  At tonight's VP debate, Paul Ryan seemed to suggest that these sanctions against Iran have been watered down too much and are ineffective. I think a 40% loss in currency value is, relevant, perhaps even significant. " Protesters shouted slogans like “Mahmoud the traitor – you’ve ruined the country!” and “Don’t fear, don’t fear, we are all together!” stated the website. Mr Ahmadinejad has blamed the crisis on the US-led economic sanctions on Iran and insisted the country could ride out the crisis. "

$2.6 Billion - amount of funding the Bush administration awarded to Amtrak, or 0.0006% of the Federal budget.  Number of dedicated high speed rail lines in America? Zero. 6 Billion passenger miles traveled and only 33% of Americans have ever ridden Amtrak. $41 Billion - amoung of funding the French government spends on the national rail service, or 3.15% of the total French budget. Number of dedicated high speed lines = 10. 61 Billion passenger miles traveled, 83 % of French people have taken a train. I present this along with #35 (the PBS/Big Bird/NPR stats) to ask a fundamental question that distinguishes the candidates. Both admit that the deficit is a problem over the long term. Neither candidate has laid out a detailed plan to address the issue.  But in general, Romney thinks Big Bird & trains are the problem, and more spending on fighter planes is what we need. Defense spending is our biggest single discretionary line item BY FAR, and Romney wants to increase i...

0.00014 = % of the Federal budget that goes to the Corporation for public broadcasting, which funds 40% of PBS (which airs Sesame Street) and a bunch of NPR stations, among other things.  Basically if you're mad about how much of our tax dollars go to Big Bird and NPR, you're going to be really pissed when you see Romney defense budget. 0.0003 = % of the British budget that funds the BBC, a proper news service. 100% of right wing nuts and 50% of independents complain that NPR news sucks. Perhaps if we give them 3 times the relative funding, like the Brits do, they won't suck as much.

Stealing this one from Foreign Policy magazine - picked up a copy in the Sky Club on the way home today. $300 billion = the amount of tax cuts in the stimulus.  That's in addition to extending the Bush tax cuts, a campaign promise that Obama kept. " To Republicans, the "failed" stimulus is a classic Obama exercise in big-government liberalism, fiscal irresponsibility, and incompetence. But those are all bum raps. The Recovery Act included $300 billion in tax cuts, just as Republicans had requested; ARPA-E was its only new government agency, and most of its spending went to priorities (from highways to electric vehicles to unemployment insurance) that had always been bipartisan until they were associated with Obama. The stimulus did increase the deficit -- that's the whole point of Keynesian stimulus -- but its impact on the long-term debt was negligible compared with the Bush tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and collapsing revenues during the Great R...

Mr. 3.75 Percent Paul Ryan wants to cut federal discretionary spending to the level of Equatorial Guinea. Yes, that's as crazy as it sounds .

Autumn of Discontent: Turmoil over Austerity Hits Spain and Greece - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International If you're not sure what austerity is, look it up. In economics, austerity refers to a policy of deficit-cutting by lowering spending via a reduction in the amount of benefits and public services provided.[1] Austerity policies are often used by governments to try to reduce their deficit spending[2] It's what Mitt Romney's plan is for America. And he's right, it's dramatically different from Obama's approach. Today's statistic is 2, the number of countries in Europe that are currently learning the hard way how austerity works in practice. You get riots in the streets and it doesn't fix your economy. But if you think the US is different, vote Mitt.

Romney Offers an Economic Stimulus Plan - New York Times Decided to take a look back at Mitt's 2008 economic views. He proposed a stimulus that was twice as large as his Democratic rivals. He pointed out that McCain's approach of "spending cuts only" is not a good way to stimulate the economy. And he pointed out that getting the economy back on track is more important than fixing the budget deficit. Well, since the economy still sucks, let's keep focused on it! "In early 2008, every Republican and Democratic presidential candidate proposed a stimulus plan -- in fact, Romney's was the largest. And Republicans still use Keynesian pump-priming arguments to push tax cuts, military spending, and other stimulus they happen to support. Of course, the most powerful argument for aggressive stimulus has been the experience of European countries like Britain and Spain that have turned back toward austerity and stumbled back into recession."

Energy lies from Romney http://grist.org/politics/debate-debrief-no-mention-of-climate-energy-lies-from-romney/ Also, see my 60/60 #11 on how government subsidies for new energy technology is a 200 year old American tradition that has consistently yielded positive returns.

Top 5 Obama contributors - University of California, Microsoft, Google Harvard, the Federal government. Top 5 Romney contributors - Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley.  You can't make this stuff up. Obama is supported by higher education, IT, and government employees who want to keep their jobs.  Romney is supported by Wall Street, who has done SO MANY AMAZING things for America lately! http://www.opensecrets.org/

A few events over the last weeks and months have received little news attention but are noteworthy for anyone looking to truly evaluate these candidates.  Here are a few examples Obama went around Congress to grant "amnesty" to certain children of illegal immigrants . Now, immigration is a whole mess, the Feds haven't done their job on it since Ellis island closed, but that's not my point here. My point is this - it's a classic example of a meaningless, temporary political gesture to get votes. It's stupid, because Obama already has the Hispanic vote. Some other examples from Obama's side include his sudden "tough" stance on China - what the hell was he waiting for?  They've been a shady trading partner for at least 50 years, but he waits until a month before the debates to take a stand?  A stand that's probably a stupid idea anyway?  As long as we Americans demand to get anything and everything we need from Target or Wal-Mart for $2...

$0 - total dollars Obama has received from political action committees $901,524 - total dollars Romney has received from political action committees Relative to the obscene amount of money that is flowing into this election cycle, $900K is a drop in the bucket.  And Obama definitely benefits from PACs, they're just advertising on his behalf rather than directly contributing to his campaign.  It is interesting as a matter of principle though. Obama was the first candidate (in 2008) to reject PAC money because of the obvious influence it has once you're elected.   You don't need to look any further than Kentucky's own Mitch McConnell to see that.  His biggest contributors are investment bankers and coal miners, and guess what two industries he's gone out of his way to support? Here's the problem though - those companies aren't based in Kentucky, the state he was sent to the Senate to represent.  http://www.opensecrets.org/  is a great site tha...

A couple friends have asked me what I think is going to happen in the debates, so I decided to write a post on it here. I have no experience predicting Presidential debates, so don't bet on any of this. Obama strengths: He's the current President, he's leading in the polls and he flew to the debate on Air Force One. Don't underestimate the power of incumbency when it comes to building up your confidence. If he's wise, he'll keep that in check. Mitt Romney is no idiot, as much as I'd like him to be one. Obama's biggest accomplishment is Obamacare, and America likes it. If you ask people about individual elements of Obamacare, the entire country supports it. It's only when you say "do you like the President's health care overhaul?" that people say "no way!," and that's typically because they hate the President anyway. "Should we deny health coverage to kids because they're sick?" "Should we allow open m...

How did Romney get $100 million in his IRA, a middle class retirement vehicle with a $6k maximum annual contribution? He lied, because that's what rich people do to dodge taxes.  In order to get that much money in there legally, he'd have to have given the max contribution for 16,666 years.  Read more here . Let me be clear - I have no problem with rich people, or the fact that they dodge taxes. Dodging taxes, legally or otherwise, is an American tradition that goes back to the founding of our country, literally. What bothers me is when they dodge taxes and then claim they need a tax cut.  They say this in the same breath that they complain about our budget deficit, and justify it by suggesting that the rest of us are all dumb enough to believe that "if you give rich people a tax cut, they'll go out tomorrow and create jobs." That's horse shit, and every tax cut since Carter confirms it.

Today's number is $4 Million.  That's how much Mitt Romney donated to charity in 2011.  Wouldn't it be nice if we all made so much money that we could all give $4 Million a year to charity and still maintain 3 very nice homes? Here's the problem Mitt made for himself though. Earlier this year, Mitt refused to release several years of tax returns.  Critics claimed that Mitt was hiding something. Senator Harry Reid went so far as to say that he had "strong evidence" that Romney had paid $0 taxes in recent years. Still waiting on Harry to back that one up. To silence these critics though, Mitt provided an extra tidbit of information; he said "I've never paid less than 13% in taxes."  He went on to clarify that he takes every deduction possible, and in a debate said  "I don't think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes."   You see, in Mitt's world, the fact that he maximizes his deducti...

Taxes are a big issue. They affect government revenue, which affects the budget. They also affect our bank accounts, so they have an influence on how we spend or save money, which affects the economy.  We pay lots of them:  income taxes to the federal, state, and sometimes city government. There's the payroll tax (which funds medicare and social security); sales taxes, property tax, capital gains tax. Today's statistic is a table of statistics (below). These show the effective federal tax paid based on income level. Your "effective" rate is what you pay after you take all the deductions - it's your net tax liability.  The chart shows a couple interesting things. It shows that the top 20% pretty much all pay a 20% effective tax rate.  It shows that the less money you make, the less you tend to pay in taxes. It also highlights that rich people tend to get their income from capital gains and interest, which is taxed at 15%.  We can change the top rate from 35% ba...

Today's statistic comes to us from "the horse's mouth" - 47%. Thanks Mitt. It's been several days since the now-infamous "secret" fundraiser video was released (even more by the time this scheduled post goes live), but I have to say I honestly felt badly for the guy when it came out. The man was making a sales pitch to rich donors, and without rich donors you literally cannot run a Presidential campaign these days. This is a point on which both candidates agree. What Mitt was trying to do is explain how he planned to court the "undecided" electorate. This is like that TV show "shark tank"; he was pitching his business plan to investors. What he forgot was a cardinal rule: know when to shut up. His point about how to win this election is spot on. The polls have clearly shown that this is a close race, the country is roughly evenly divided, and both candidates are trying to court the "middle" without losing the "base....

Today's stat is homemade: 3.  I see 3 key reasons that Obamacare helps the middle class. 1) Insurance companies can no longer deny working families insurance due to pre-existing conditions. Yes, it's ridiculous that we had to pass a law to specify this, but we did, and I think that law should stay on the books, as does the President. Romney & Obama agree on this. 2) The mandate. By requiring more people to have coverage and removing barriers to coverage, you increase the number of people in the risk pool with lowers premiums. Ask anyone who's ever worked in the insurance business.  Romney has said a mandate was "right for Massachusetts but wrong for the country." The people who say "I shouldn't be forced to buy insurance" because a) they say they won't get sick or b) they prefer to pay their own medical costs out of pocket demonstrate a profound level of ignorance. You're going to get sick, you probably won't be able to pay it a...

Ironically, health care is one of the issues where it's very easy to compare the candidates. Thanks to Romneycare, we know exactly where Mitt stands on this issue, unless of course he's changed his mind again. Today's stat is 33,000,000 - that's how many MORE people will have health insurance 10 years from now, thanks to Obamacare. In Massachusetts, companies with more than 10 employees must offer health insurance or pay a penalty. The federal approach imposes the requirement on companies with 50 employees or more. So Obamacare gives a pass to the smallest businesses, while still extending them an incentive (in the form of a tax break) to provide coverage for their employees. FYI more than 90% of small businesses in this country have fewer than 50 employees. Both plans restructure the insurance market. In Massachusetts, the reform law merged the individual and small-group markets (that is, the market serving individuals not covered by their employer's plan a...

Let's talk about Obamacare, and how it helps the middle class. Two numbers today: 141% and 1.5 years. This is a chart showing health care spending relative to life expectancy for the richest countries in the world (OECD member countries). I think it's probably the best way to begin a health care discussion because almost anyone can agree that life expectancy is a pretty good measure of the effectiveness of healthcare, and also that, as Americans, we love a good deal. We want to get the most for our money. We spend 141% more per person than the average country on this chart, and our life expectancy is 1.5 years less. We spend more than twice as much as Japan, and they live 5 years longer.  We are not getting a good deal, at all, and this represents a tremendous burden on our economy as a whole, and the middle class. $2,600,000,000,000.  That's $2.6 Trillion, the total amount we spent on health care in 2010. We're spending more and more each year as a percentage of ...

Today's statistic is zero.  That's the net effect of tax rates on government revenues relative to GDP. So it doesn't matter if we have Obama's tax hike for the top 2%, or Romney's tax cuts for everyone, the Federal government tends to bring in about the same amount of money (relative to GDP) regardless. Surprised? I was too.  By the way, that top tax bracket number is worth point out too - the richest Americans really did pay 90% in the 50s, and 70% up until the Reagan years. Romney wants to give a big tax cut, Obama wants to raise them on the rich. These are largely symbolic gestures that will have no real impact on solving our budget problems. Ryan has proposed closing loopholes, but he continually refuses to say which ones. That actually could affect the middle class, because, even more so than the top 1%, middle class families enjoy tremendous benefits from the current loopholes (mortgage interest, child tax credit etc.). At the same time, Ryan wants to e...

With part 20 in the series, I am starting a segment on the middle class. Today's number is 281% - that's the starting point for this discussion.  Since 1979, the top 1% have seen a 281% increase in their after tax income, 10 times what the middle fifth has seen, and triple what the top 80% of families have seen.  Put simply, the rich are getting MUCH richer while the middle class is getting screwed. The GOP will tell you that Obama and the Dems talk in terms of class warfare. That's an exaggeration of course, but it's not entirely inaccurate, and there's a reason. Take a look at this chart. The red line at the top is the income gains of the wealthiest 1% of Americans since 1979: Over the past 30 years, the wealth gap in this country has increased dramatically. We all know that money runs modern politics, and if you look at this chart and don't think that the top 1% are using their money to protect the status quo, you're just nuts. Of course they are...

What about the rate at which we're adding jobs?  Is that better than 4 years ago?  Yup.  Four years ago we were losing 800,000 jobs a month.  Now we're adding them at roughly 100,000 a month.  Obama's record month in 2010 added over 400,000 jobs in a single month, more than Bush ever added in a single month. Think it's a fluke?  Refer to part #7 in the series, where I compare Democratic vs. Republican presidents over the last 50+ years.

Obama has ballooned the size of government in just 4 years!  Not if you go by the headcount; in that case he's shrunk it by several hundred thousand.  Please note the trend during George W. Bush's tenure (2000 - 2008) - pretty steady increase, even during the recession.

"The way chosen by the United States was plainly marked by a few clear precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs.  First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.  Second: No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.  Third: Any nation's right to form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.  Fourth: Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.  And fifth: A nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations. ... "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold...

For the 3rd chart in this economic focus, let's start to get personal.  This one shows unemployment, which is absolutely worse than it was 4 years ago (8.2% today, closer to 7% in 2008).  There is also recent evidence that many people are giving up the search for jobs, which is terrible news. But look at the graphic.  Look at the turn around (late 2009), and the recent trend (downward).  Now I need to geek out for a moment and show off this shiny new MBA I have so we can talk about NAIRU - the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment.  Basically what you need to know is that there is a certain level of unemployment BELOW which you have so many people in the workforce, and such intense competition for workers that wages and prices are driven upwards, resulting in accelerating inflation, which is bad.  You almost always want a tiny bit of inflation, but you want the rate to be steady, not accelerating.  And what is NAIRU for the US?  Righ...

Yesterday we began our focus on the economy series with a look at GDP.  While that's an interesting measure and one that most economists use, it's actually the GROWTH (or decline) in GDP that is an indicator of the direction the economy is heading. Today's chart is the % change in GDP, and do note the zero line on the "y" axis here - anything above it is positive growth in the economy, anything below it means the economy is shrinking. GDP growth has also been frustratingly slow. This is better than four years ago, though, when GDP was tanking. The real GDP growth rate for the past three years, moreover, is similar to the most of the growth years of the Bush administration, and today it's growing at just about 2%.  More importantly, the positive trend would be interpreted by most economists to say that the economy is better off today than it was 4 years ago.

Today is the start of a series where I'll take a detailed look at the economy.  One of the common themes on both sides of this election is "are you better off than you were 4 years ago?"  I think that's pretty subjective, and it's typically a stretch to give the President either credit or blame for what's happened.  Still, politics is personal, voters love this framework, so I'll attempt to put some concrete numbers behind it. Today's chart tracks Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, which is a measure of the total output of the US economy.  The number is $13.6 trillion, which is our projected 2012 GDP.  It was $13.4 trillion in 2008, so that's an increase which is good.  So, based on economic output, we are better off today than we were 4 years ago.  That's just one measure though, so stay tuned in the coming days as we look at a few more.

Another ratio today, 10:1.  Romney was asked "would you agree to a deficit reduction program that offered $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases?" and his answer was "no."  I cannot think of a more clear example of how the GOP is not willing to compromise. 69% of the country favors some type of deficit reduction approach that includes a mix of spending cuts and tax increases.  Even billionaire Republican donor David Koch says the U.S. probably needs higher taxes to reduce the federal budget deficit.  Mitt Romney is among the 31% of Americans (and way too many people in Congress) who refuse to accept any tax increase.

Today's stat is a year: 2017.  That's the year Medicare will run out of money.  50,000,000 seniors depend on it, so we should probably fix it.  Medicare is also a major drain on our budget - right now 21% of our federal tax dollars go to support it, making it just slightly higher than defense spending. So how to the candidates differ?  Well, they both agree it's broken, and they both want to tie Medicare spending to a percentage of GDP, meaning as the national economy improves or declines, Medicare spending goes with it.  The key difference is this; Obama is a critic of premium support. He would retain Medicare's defined-benefit structure, meaning that the government will pay whatever it takes to cover a specified set of services.  Romney prefers a "defined contribution" approach, without actually fixing what's wrong with Medicare.  This means, rather than paying whatever it takes, he'll give you a check, and you're on your own if that isn...

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) yesterday released its advice to the President on sequestration . This document is as boring as its name suggests. This particular sequestration was passed into law as part of the debt ceiling compromise both parties agreed to in the summer of 2011. That deal called for a $1.1 trillion cut from federal spending during the next ten years and then called for a "super committee" made up of leaders from both parties to shave another $1.2 trillion off the budget. They failed, so the law mandates that $1.2 trillion be cut equally from domestic programs and the defense budget.  Remember, this law was agreed to by both parties in both houses of Congress - Republicans agreed to defense cuts that they never thought they'd have to make, and Democrats agreed to huge cuts in domestic programs that they never thought they'd have to make.  Both parties thought that the Supercommittee "could not fail." But it did, and...

Today's number is 70%. Based on his business record, there is a 70% chance Mitt Romney will not bankrupt the country.  That's pretty good. The Wall Street Journal , aiming for a comprehensive assessment, examined 77 businesses Bain invested in while Mr. Romney led the firm from its 1984 start until early 1999, to see how they fared during Bain's involvement and shortly afterward. Among the findings: 22% either filed for bankruptcy reorganization or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested, sometimes with substantial job losses. An additional 8% ran into so much trouble that all of the money Bain invested was lost .  22% + 8% = 30% in my book. He did great things at Bain, and made a lot of money for a lot of people.  Depending on which date you believe for his departure (Mitt is a little unsure when he stopped being CEO there , think about that for a moment), he hasn't been a business man for 10-14 years. As an IT guy with an MBA...

Today we're going to talk about Energy policy, because we're all sick of paying $3.50+ at the pump.  The statistic for today is a ratio, 5:1.  That's the ratio of US government subsidies for the oil & gas industry to those given to renewable energy (solar, wind...) during the first 15 years of each industry.  Or, for every $1 we're giving to renewables today, we gave $5 to oil & gas when it was getting started. Why is this relevant? 1) Romney thinks we're giving too much to renewables, Obama wants to give more. 2) Oil & Gas was a great investment, but they don't need subsidies anymore.  Romney wants to continue to subsidize a 100 year old industry that's making record profits, Obama wants to end those subsidies. A little history & context is important here.  Basically, the US has subsidized "startup" energy industries for over 200 years.  These subsidies come in all forms (tax breaks, R&D incentives, direct government assi...

Well, I guess #10 means we're 1/6 of the way there.  When I started this project, I wondered if I could actually find 60 relevant statistics, but maybe it's possible. Today's statistic is 608,000 - that's the number of government jobs lost or eliminated by Obama.  That's right, under his watch the government payroll (including state & local) has shrunk 2.7%.  At the same point in Bush's first term, public sector employment was UP 3.7%.  Are you noticing a theme here?  Republican Presidents absolutely do not shrink the size of government.  Here's a chart of just the Bush/Obama 1st term comparison .

Let's talk about the growth of government - 1.3% under Obama, 2.6% under "W."  Here's a chart showing the rate at which government spending has grown over the last 40 years.  Take a look at the Carter, Clinton, & Obama years relative to the Republican presidents.  Framing it as "per capita" is better than looking at the raw numbers because the size of our country has changed over the last 40 years . That's right kids, Obama and Clinton were the two most austere Presidents in recent history.

I attended Miami University, and I loved it.  It had its ups and downs at the time, but in retrospect I can't think of any way I'd have rather spent those four years. Not to mention Oxford, Ohio is a great town. I learned more about myself, and the world, inside and outside the classroom, in those four years, than I ever have learned before or after that period. Miami prides itself on liberal education. Your courses were more or less dictated by "The Miami Plan for Liberal Education" which basically said, regardless of your major, you need to take a variety of stuff. You had to take arts classes, science, humanities, and "a class presented from the non-dominant perspective of the US," affectionately referred to as the anti-rich-white-guy class. Sounds totally hippie, I know, but years later, I got it. I realized why this makes for a good education. The Miami Plan was built on principles, including critical thinking and reasoning (thank you, Dr. Bill Gracie...

In episode #7 we talked about jobs, but what about the economy as a whole?  Which party has a better history when it comes to economic growth?  Let me put on my financial adviser hat. Over the five decades since John F. Kennedy was inaugurated, $1,000 invested in a hypothetical fund that tracks the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) only when Democrats are in the White House would have been worth $10,920 in February of 2012. That’s more than nine times the dollar return an investor would have realized from following a similar strategy during Republican administrations. A $1,000 stake invested in a fund that followed the S&P 500 under Republican presidents, starting with Richard Nixon, would have grown to $2,087 on the day George W. Bush left office. So, if you like a good return on your investments, and I do, vote Obama/Biden.  Or to put it in terms my GOP leaning friends might better understand "If you vote Romney/Ryan, you're anti-business!"