Category Archives: Economy

Harvard: Just 6 in 10 Millennials have jobs, half are part-time | WashingtonExaminer.com

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A comprehensive new Harvard University report on Americans under 30, the so-called Millennials, shows that the economy is having a crushing impact, with just 62 percent working, and of those, half are toiling at part-time jobs.

The report, released by Harvard’s Institute of Politics, paints a depressing economic portrait of young Americans, many of whom are stuck with huge college tuition bills and little chance of finding a high-paying job.

But over half, or 59 percent of those aged 18-29, have gone to college and The report reveals that time in college is a better sign of social status than income, mostly because jobs aren’t available.

via Harvard: Just 6 in 10 Millennials have jobs, half are part-time | WashingtonExaminer.com.

Wizards of Smart Surprised by Shrinking Economy – The Rush Limbaugh Show

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From the priceless Rush Limbaugh:

RUSH:  I have a question, ladies and gentlemen.  The economic growth rate — reported, anyway — by our government, at the end of September, was 3.1%, at the end of the calendar third quarter.  So after September, of course, comes October, November, December.  That’s the calendar fourth quarter.  So from September to the end of the year the economy went from growing at 3.1% to contracting by 0.1%.  So the economy fell 3.2%.

Now, what happened between October, November, and December that might have had something to do with this?  Let me think.  October, November, even December you got Christmas and holiday season, that’s supposed to be big for the economy.  They told us, ladies and gentlemen, we were told that after Obama won reelection, the economy was gonna take off because uncertainty would be removed.  In fact, they said that one of the reasons the economy was sorta chugging, not really speeding along, was all the uncertainty over who was gonna win the election and what policies would then flow; but then after Obama won, that’s the end of uncertainty. Everybody would know what’s ahead and the economy would take off.

Well, obviously Obama won the election, and the economy tanked.  Hmm.  I wonder why. I looked over at TMZ, Entertainment Weekly, I didn’t see anything about the GDP contracting, by the way.  I’ve looked at the E! Entertainment website, a number of low-information sites, nothing there yet about the economy contracting.  The only thing that’s the big news over there right now is that Lindsay Lohan panicked on a first class flight to Los Angeles.

“Lindsay Lohan and her mom Dina took the last flight out of JFK last night and jetted to L.A. after being warned she’d be a wanted woman if she was a no-show in court this morning.  Lindsay — who is not just broke but deeply in debt — waited in her car at the airport until the last minute … then flew first class on American Airlines and landed at around 12:30 AM.”

TMZ broke this story.  This is huge.  Ahem.

“Lindsay had no intention of showing up in her lying-to-cops case and got a doctor’s note which was filed with the court.”

And then Kris Humphries is crying fraud regarding his so-called marriage to Kim Kardashian, and he’s refused a $10 million payoff.  This is the news over at TMZ and the E! Entertainment network.  Nothing about the economy yet over on those websites.  But the really big low-information news right now is that Lindsay Lohan is in court even as we speak.  It has ’em all captivated out there.

So I don’t know what happened between October and December to cause the economy to tank, but it did.

via Wizards of Smart Surprised by Shrinking Economy – The Rush Limbaugh Show.

Study: New E15 gas can ruin auto engines | WashingtonExaminer.com

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This week’s warm Washington temperatures had some thinking about rolling the Lawn-Boy out of the garage for the first cut of the year. And we all know what that means: Difficult starts due to E10 gas that gels when it sits.

Now, according to a new study, cars and truck may face the same fate thanks to President Obama’s demand for a higher ethanol in the new E15 gas.

The fuel industry’s American Petroleum Institute tested the 15 percent ethanol gas approved in 2010 and found it gums up fuel systems, prompts “check engine” lights to come on, and messes with fuel gauge readings.

“Failure of these components could result in breakdowns that leave consumers stranded on busy roads and highways,” said the industry report. Worse: API said the fuel problems–not found in E5 or E10 blends–aren’t always covered by auto warranties.

The industry prefers pure fuel to an ethanol mix, but the report isn’t likely to slow the administrations green push, according to a Washington auto lobbyist.

via Study: New E15 gas can ruin auto engines | WashingtonExaminer.com.

Review & Outlook: The State Tax Reformers – WSJ.com

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A new analysis by economist Art Laffer for the American Legislative Exchange Council finds that, from 2002 to 2012, 62% of the three million net new jobs in America were created in the nine states without an income tax, though these states account for only about 20% of the national population. The no-income tax states have had more stable revenue growth, while states like New York, New Jersey and California that depend on the top 1% of earners for nearly half of their income-tax revenue suffer wide and destabilizing swings in their tax collections.

via Review & Outlook: The State Tax Reformers – WSJ.com.

City Journal: Beware the Mickelson Effect by Tom Gray

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Jerry Brown is occasionally nuts, but less nuts than he could be.

Thanks to a tax increase, California’s supermajority Democratic legislature has access to roughly $6 billion per year in new revenue. Now along comes the governor—who did more than anyone else to cajole voters into approving that tax hike—telling legislators not to spend the money. “We have promises to keep,” Jerry Brown said in his annual State of the State speech last week. “And the most important is the one made to voters if Proposition 30 passed: that we would guard jealously the money temporarily made available.”

Brown retold the Bible story of Joseph’s counsel to Pharaoh, who had a dream in which seven lean cows devoured seven fat ones. Joseph explained that the fat cows represented seven years of plenty and the lean cows seven years of famine that were certain to follow. His advice: Set aside grain. Brown’s was to “pay down our debts and store up reserves against the leaner times that will surely come.”

He may be asking the impossible, and if the legislature can’t restrain itself, he will need to take much of the blame. The governor had stumped all over the state to win passage of Proposition 30, which sharply raised tax rates on high-income individuals for seven years and modestly raised sales taxes (by a quarter-cent) for four. Brown now takes pains to point out that the taxes are temporary, and that lawmakers should assume that voters won’t renew them. But it may be a little late for fired-up liberals to accept fiscal discipline. Brown is like the father who gives his 17-year-old son the keys to a 400-horsepower Corvette and tells him to drive the speed limit, forgetting that he’s the adult and the kid is a kid.

via Beware the Mickelson Effect by Tom Gray – City Journal.

College Degree, No Class Time Required – WSJ.com

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This is the future:

Wisconsin officials tout the UW Flexible Option as the first to offer multiple, competency-based bachelor’s degrees from a public university system. Officials encourage students to complete their education independently through online courses, which have grown in popularity through efforts by companies such as Coursera, edX and Udacity.

No classroom time is required under the Wisconsin program except for clinical or practicum work for certain degrees.

Elsewhere, some schools offer competency-based credits or associate degrees in areas such as nursing and business, while Northern Arizona University plans a similar program that would offer bachelor’s degrees for a flat fee, said spokesman Eric Dieterle. But no other state system is offering competency-based bachelor’s degrees on a systemwide basis.

Wisconsin’s Flexible Option program is “quite visionary,” said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, an education policy and lobbying group that represents some 1,800 accredited colleges and universities.

In Wisconsin, officials say that about 20% of adult residents have some college credits but lack a degree. Given that a growing number of jobs require a degree, the new program appeals to potential students who lack the time or resources to go back to school full time.

“It is a big new idea in a system like ours, and it is part of the way the ground is shifting under us in higher education,” said Kevin Reilly, president of the University of Wisconsin System, which runs the state’s 26 public-university campuses.

Under the Flexible Option, assessment tests and related online courses are being written by faculty who normally teach the related subject-area classes, Mr. Reilly said.

Officials plan to launch the full program this fall, with bachelor’s degrees in subjects including information technology and diagnostic imaging, plus master’s and bachelor’s degrees for registered nurses. Faculty are working on writing those tests now.

via College Degree, No Class Time Required – WSJ.com.

Tim Carney: If you want bigger government, you need to side with big business | WashingtonExaminer.com

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I’ve said before that conservatives need to be as suspicious of large corporations as they are of government.

Corporate-federal collusion was embodied in ObamaCare, largely written by drugmakers, vociferously supported by hospitals, and driving business to private insurers. Obama’s stimulus was a huge gift to corporate America, with its plethora of subsidies. In the fiscal cliff deal, Obama insisted on a raft of corporate tax extenders. Obama’s “New Economic Patriotism” is a dress for corporate welfare to wear to the prom. Obama supported TARP. He bailed out GM. He signed cash for clunkers. He has set new records in export subsidies. I could fill a book with this sort of thing.

via If you want bigger government, you need to side with big business | WashingtonExaminer.com.