Nonfarm payrolls increased 156,000 for the month and the unemployment rate ticked up to 5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Economists surveyed by Reuters had expected 176,000 new jobs and the jobless rate to hold at 4.9 percent. The total was a decline from the upwardly revised 167,000 jobs in August (compared with the original number of 151,000).
A broad measure of unemployment and underemployment was 9.7% last month, holding steady from August and July but down from 10% a year earlier. The gauge known as the U-6 includes unemployed Americans, workers who are stuck in part-time jobs because they can’t find full-time work, and people who are marginally attached to the labor force.
The report is as expected: mediocre for Americans after more than eight years.
The long-forgotten IRS scandal has continued to limp along largely unnoticed. Unfortunately, the IRS has not entirely curbed its behavior of discrimination, despite assurances. Some tea party groups still have not had their applications approved; the longest seems to be nearly seven years (Dec. 2009). And that’s not all.
Incredibly instead of finishing the process, more questions and information has been requested in some instances. Yet even more incredulously, the “IRS has taken the unprecedented step of publicly filing actual return information,” putting taxpayer return information in the public realm; it released on of the sets of questions it sent to a tea party group in Texas. Here’s more:
“The IRS has taken the unprecedented step of publicly filing actual return information,” said Edward Greim, who is handling the case on behalf of more than 400 groups targeted by the IRS.
Still, the move to release the information has inflamed an already tense class action legal battle between the IRS and tea party groups who feel the agency is still targeting them more than three years after it promised to cease.
Mr. Greim said releasing the letter is proof that the IRS can’t be trusted to fairly handle the cases.
“The IRS‘ conscious decision to attach this Section 6103-protected request to a public filing makes it even harder to believe that the IRS can treat TPTP and similar groups fairly and neutrally. This is, and will continue to be, a core focus of our litigation in the coming weeks,” he said.
Both the IRS and officials at the Justice Department, which is acting as the tax agency’s lawyer, declined to comment, citing the ongoing legal battle.
But the tax agency said in court papers that Mr. Greim has been misleading the court, and said the documents were designed to prove that the IRS has been dealing fairly with the TPTP. The IRS said the information it requested focuses on the tea party group’s activities and whether they would be illegal for a tax-exempt group to engage in.
“It is more of the same: spurious attacks on the IRS and mischaracterizations of the facts,” the Justice Department said in its briefs.
The IRS admitted in 2013 that it singled tea party groups out for intrusive scrutiny, including crossing lines by asking questions about the groups’ associations, meetings and even members’ reading habits. Some groups received multiple letters, each time further delaying their applications.
After being dinged by its inspector general, the agency promised it would stop asking inappropriate questions, and insisted it canceled the use of secret targeting lists to single out groups.
But a federal appeals court this summer ruled that as long as some groups are still stuck in the backlog, the IRS is still conducting illegal targeting.
The tax agency, which had been blocking processing, claiming it couldn’t do anything while the court cases were proceeding, quickly kicked into gear and announced they would process the three remaining cases.
In a letter last week to the TPTP, the IRS fired off a new set of questions — the fourth inquiry the group has received since it applied for nonprofit status in 2012. In the new questions, IRS agent Jerry Fierro said he looked over the group’s website and spotted potential trouble spots, including “rallies, parades, educational workshops, speaking events, voter registration drives, fund raisers and straw polls.”
The IRS says those activities could squelch a group’s application.
Mr. Greim, the lawyer for the TPTP, said in making its letter public, the IRS was showing how aggressive its tactics are toward tea party groups. He said the agency, which has held up the TPTP’s application for 41 months, only gave the organization 30 days to respond, and said if the questions aren’t all answered, it could derail the application again.
“The IRS‘ conscious decision to attach this Section 6103-protected request to a public filing makes it even harder to believe that the IRS can treat TPTP and similar groups fairly and neutrally,” Mr. Greim said.
Section 6013 of the tax code prohibits sharing of information from taxpayers’ returns.
Tax experts said the IRS letter is likely considered protected information, but they said the IRS is probably on safe legal ground because the law allows for information to be filed if the taxpayer is a party in a lawsuit and the filing directly relates to an issue in the case.
In addition to the TPTP, two other tea party groups that were targeted by the IRS are still awaiting approval. Unite in Action, a Michigan-based group, applied in 2010, and the Albuquerque Tea Party applied nearly seven years ago, in December 2009.
Jay Sekulow, chief counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice, which represents the other two groups, said they have not received a new set of questions similar to the list sent to the TPTP. But he said he’s been prodding the
IRS for a final decision.
“We again demanded that they review their applications and process them in a fair and expeditious manner,” he said in a statement.
The New York Times has admitted the failures of Obamacare: loss of insurers in many marketplaces, high premium costs, the collapse of many co-ops, overreaching federal mandates, and more. The Times suggests that change is necessary in order to ensure Obamacare’s survival, but seems to endorse even more government participation, not less.
There is a renewed push for a public option. One of the more ridiculous justifications from the article comes from the charge that “private insurance companies could not be trusted to provide reliable coverage or control costs” and that “the shrinking number of health insurers is proof that these warnings were spot on.” To suggest that it is the collapse of many markets is the fault of the insurance companies themselves is absolutely ridiculous.
And another laughable observation on the structural and technical problems of Obamacare: “The subsidies were not generous enough. The penalties for not getting insurance were not stiff enough. And we don’t have enough young healthy people in the exchanges,” essentially blaming everyone else for the failures. The insurance companies didn’t offer cheaper enough plans. The taxpayer didn’t pay enough in penalties/fines/taxes. Too many sick people and too few healthy people enrolled. The solution: offer more government money, paid for by extracting more penalties/fines/taxes for those who chose not to purchase insurance, and spend more money trying to convince more healthy people to buy trust Obamacare and buy into the exchanges. You can’t make this up.
What’s more, many of the same champions of Obamacare are not calling for even more drastic, government-centered, expensive alternatives. “On Sept. 15, Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, introduced a resolution calling for a public option. The measure now has 32 co-sponsors, including the top Senate Democrats: Harry Reid of Nevada, Chuck Schumer of New York and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois.”
The public option could take a couple of different forms. One would be a government sponsored health plan available as an option in every market. The other option would be that a single payer option, championed by Sanders, which would be essentially Medicare for all. Unfortunately, such ideas would only compound the problem, which, as its root, is money.
Any public option would drive up medical costs, and Obamacare now is financially unsustainable. A government sponsored plan “would have an unfair advantage if it both regulates and competes with private plans,” while a single-payer plan would be even more egregiously expensive as it would shoulder the costs for everything.
While completely repealing Obamacare is probably not a viable solution or possibility anymore, other changes such as making insurance portable across state lines, widening the use and availability of health savings account should also be explored, not shunned. Merely throwing more money after bad money will only worsen Obamacare for everyone.
Yet another insurance regulator — this time in Minnesota — is sounding the alarm on the insurance market in their state, specifically describing it as “an emergency situation” with regard to rate increases next year and availability of competitive companies offering plans.
“Department of Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman said Friday that the five companies offering plans through the state’s exchange or directly to consumers were prepared to leave the market for 2017. He said big rate increases were the tradeoff to convince all but one company to remain for now. Rate increases finalized this week range from a 50 percent average hike for HealthPartners plans to a 67 percent jump on average on UCare.”
We’ve seen the same scenario playing out in many states across the country companies have withdrawn from the marketplace exchange or from the state all together, leaving many citizens with little to no insurance option from which to choose and purchase a plan. Obamacare continues to collapse, leaving everyday taxpayers to bear the burden and cost of the reckless policies that have hurt, rather than help, the American people.
The New York Post had an article the other day regarding the continuous stream of New Yorkers leaving the state. An analysis found that “in 2014, 126,000 tax filers moved out of New York,” more than any other state in the nation. Also significantly, “The Empire State also lost the most “high earners,” who reported making more than $200,000 a year.”
This particular phenomenon has been going on for years, as I have written about in previous articles. But it seems like some people are groups want to downplay the exodus. The executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, Ron Deutsch, was sure to point out “that those who earn at least $1 million per year are more likely to stay put.”
It was a curious observation from the The Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI), which purports to be “an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit research and education organization committed to improving public policies and private practices to better the economic and social conditions of all New Yorkers.”
Now, let’s stop for a minute. Of course those who earn more than one million a year would be more likely to stay put. They are the ones who can afford to be abused by the government and put up with it because they don’t want to give up their luxuries — the theater, the restaurants, all that New York has to offer. They can afford to stay. That $200,000 threshold? It’s really New York’s middle class, the backbone of the city. Because of the extremely high cost of living, they can’t afford to stay and put up with abuse.
If Texas ever did to their oilmen what New York does to its taxpayers, they’d be run out on a rail.
A couple of days ago, I wrote about my theory that as long as the interest rates stay low, the stock market will remain high — because no one has any other place for investment. The rates have stay historically low for nearly a decade now, so investors have seen little-to-no return in many usual places.
Just today, we hear the the Fed has rejected yet another rate hike, and furthermore, has “downgraded its forecast for economic growth in 2016 for the third time this year. It now projects growth this year to be 1.8%. In June it forecast growth of 2%.
As the Fed has hesitated to raise rates, there is a growing debate about its credibility. Many economists and investors say the Fed’s hesitancy to raise rates — and conflicting messages from its top leaders — has eroded public confidence in the central bank.”
It is unlikely that a rate hike will happen on November 1-2, so close to the election. If a rate hike is to happen, it would be more likely to be in mid-December. It will be interesting to see how both the markets, and the Fed, react to the outcome of the November elections.
Did you even notice that whenever the economy issues bad results (a weak jobs report, etc.), the stock market goes UP? Logic would seemingly have it be the opposite. If the economy was weak, one would assume the stock market would respond negatively. But that’s not really the case.
For years, I couldn’t understand it — how stupid could the market be? Why would the market do well? And why is it so important for interest rates to stay low? I think I have figured it out. Low rates are not good for the economy, but they ARE good for the stock market. See, the stock market and economy are not necessarily affected the same way. When rates stay low, investors have to put their money in the stock market because there is no alternative.
Think about it — with non-existent interest rates, you don’t get an return on investment (ROI) anywhere. People have no alternative avenues for investing their money except to put it in the stock market. So even though this economy is performing very sluggishly, the Feds can point to the strong market as evidence that their policies are succeeding, because most people consider the economy and stock market to be fairly synonymous with each other — but they are not.
The economy is still underperforming because of so many terrible policies: over-regulation, increased business fines, higher taxes, Obamacare, Dodd-Frank — these are all major reasons why businesses are struggling, but that doesn’t necessarily affect the stock market; that’s why the stock market doesn’t react the same way when business data is terrible.
Keeping interest rates low is not helping the economy at all — but it does help the stock market, which mask the inherent policy problems. Virtually every part of Hillary’s economic plans are terrible, for the economy, jobs, etc. The economy will never really recover until the systemic problems are fixed.
We’ve all seen the video which raises new questions about the health status of Hillary Clinton. I’ve largely left these questions alone because I try to avoid reckless speculation. However, the video does raise some new questions:
The Hillary press team was largely silent for 90 minutes after the video. Later, it emerged that Hillary was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday. “But just after 5 p.m., a campaign official said Mrs. Clinton’s physician, Dr. Lisa R. Bardack, had examined the candidate at her home in Chappaqua, and Dr. Bardack said in a statement that Mrs. Clinton was “rehydrated and recovering nicely.”
“Secretary Clinton has been experiencing a cough related to allergies,” Dr. Bardack’s statement said, adding that on Friday morning, after a prolonged cough, Mrs. Clinton was given a diagnosis of pneumonia. “She was put on antibiotics, and advised to rest and modify her schedule,” Dr. Bardack added. “At this morning’s event, she became overheated and dehydrated.”
Now, if she was indeed diagnosed with pnuemonia, why was she subsequently at a fundraiser with Barbra Streisand later that same evening? This is the same incident that Hillary used the now famous term “basket of deplorables” in reference to Trump supporters.
According to reports on the event, “tickets for the gala start at $1,200, with limited availability, and go as high as $250,000. Donors who raise six figures get a meet-and-greet reception with Clinton.”
Does this mean that Clinton engaged in a private meet-and-greet while sick with pneumonia, and didn’t disclose her illness? Was she contagious then? How does one get told to “rest and modify her schedule” and then proceed to a high dollar fundraiser.
“Hillary Clinton will meet with a bipartisan group of former national security officials on Friday, a group that includes ousted former CIA Director David Petraeus and former George W. Bush Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff.”
According to a tweet by MSNBC captured by The Gateway Pundit that Friday, at 5:13pm in New York, MSNBC urged its followers to “Watch Live: Tune in to @MSNBC to watch Hillary Clinton speak after attending a major national security meeting.”
Watch Live: Tune in to @MSNBC to watch Hillary Clinton speak after attending a major national security meeting. pic.twitter.com/RzX9YRiWs4
This briefing was post-meeting, and pre-fundraiser. Did she notify any of the distinguished guests at the meeting that she was sick with pneumonia? The press at the briefing? Anyone she may have come in contact with? If not, why not?
She’s either lying about actually having pneumonia or she’s did not disclose a serious, and potentially contagious illness with the hundreds of people with whom she came in contact on Friday: national security folks, press, donors, supporters. Which one is more deplorable?
Data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that government employees in the United States outnumber manufacturing employees by 9,932,000, according to data released today. CNS news has the highlights:
Federal, state and local government employed 22,213,000 people in August, while the manufacturing sector employed 12,281,000.
The BLS has published seasonally-adjusted month-by-month employment data for both government and manufacturing going back to 1939. For half a century—from January 1939 through July 1989—manufacturing employment always exceeded government employment in the United States, according to these numbers.
Then, in August 1989, the seasonally-adjusted employment numbers for government exceeded the employment numbers for manufacturing for the first time. That month, manufacturing employed 17,964,000 and government employed 17,989,000.
Manufacturing employment in the United States had peaked a decade before that in June 1979 at 19,553,000
From August 2015 to August 2016 seasonally-adjusted manufacturing employment declined by 37,000–dropping from 12,318,000 last August to 12,281,000 this August.
The 22,213,000 government employees in August, according to the BLS, included 2,790,000 federal employees, 5,120,000 state government employees, and 14,303,000 local government employees.
