Pronk Pops Show 89: Segment 1, Where are the jobs? Obama’s 10,000,000 Jobs Gap!–Videos
Pronk Pops Show 89: October 22, 2012
Pronk Pops Show 88: October 7, 2012
Pronk Pops Show 87: September 7, 2012
Pronk Pops Show 86: August 29, 2012
Pronk Pops Show 85: August 2, 2012
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 88-89
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 84-87
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 79-83
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 74-78
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 71-73
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 68-70
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 65-67
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 62-64
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 58-61
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 55-57
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 52-54
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Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 45-48
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Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 01-09
Segment 1, Where are the jobs? Obama’s 10,000,000 Jobs Gap!–Videos
More Americans are unemployed today than when President Obama took office in Jan. 2009. Millions of Americans have become “discouraged workers” and have temporarily left the labor force because they have not been able to find a job. This is reflected in the labor force participation rate which has fallen from its normal range of between 66 and 67 percent to a 39-year low of 63.6 percent. The labor force has been shrinking.
In 1984 fast-food chain Wendy’s launched a television commercial campaign featuring a grandmother, Clara Peller, asking the question, “Where’s the Beef?” Today the American people are asking Obama the question, “Where’re the jobs?” Ironically, the answer to this question for many Americans is a low paid part-time job at a fast-food restaurant.
The American people hoped for change in 2008. They voted for Barack Obama expecting that millions on new jobs would be created and the unemployment rates would decline to under 5.5 percent. Under Obama’s leadership, the Democratic controlled Congress quickly passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) in February 2009. The primary goal of ARRA was saving and creating jobs. However, the stimulus package will also add over $833 billion to the deficit over the period 2009 through 2019, according to the latest Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) report of Aug. 23, 2012.
The stimulus package was also supposed to keep the official U-3 unemployment rate under 8 percent and by Oct. 2012 should have reduced the unemployment rate to 5.5 percent or less. The stimulus package failed to achieve these goals. For the first 43 months of the Obama administration, the official U-3 unemployment rate published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has been at or above 8 percent. Only this Sept. did the unemployment rate finally fall below 8 percent for the first time since Jan. 2009.
Official U-3 and Total U-6 Unemployment Rates
Credit: Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and shadowstats.com
When Obama began his presidency, the BLS reported that the Jan. 2009 official U-3 unemployment rate stood at 7.8 percent and the total U-6 unemployment rate was 14.2 percent. For Sept. 2012 the BLS reported that the official U-3 unemployment rate was 7.8 percent and the total U-6 unemployment rate was 14.8 percent.
In Jan. 2009 the estimated number of employed Americans was 142,187,000, the estimated number of unemployed Americans was 12,049,000, the total civilian labor force was estimated to be 154,236,000 with a labor force participation rate of 65.7 percent. In Sept. 2012 the estimated number of employed Americans was 142,974,000, the estimate number of unemployed Americans was 12,088,000, the total estimated civilian labor force was 155,063,000 with a labor force participation rate of 63.6 percent.
Just to keep up with population growth which results in new entrants into the labor force every day, the U.S. economy must create between 130,000 and 140,000 new jobs each month, according to Commissioner Keith Hall of the BLS. From February 2009 through Sept. 2012 the U.S. economy needed to create about 6 million new jobs for high school and college dropouts and graduates as they enter the labor force searching for their first job.
In addition, to reduce the unemployment rate by just .1 percent each month, the U.S. economy needed to create between 150,000 and 160,000 jobs per month. In order to reduce the unemployment rate from 7.8 percent in Jan. 2009 to 5.5 percent in Sept. 2012, the U.S. economy needed to create about 4 million new jobs. In total approximately 300,000 new jobs per month needed to be created from Jan. 2009 through Sept. 2012 to keep up with population growth and reduce the unemployment rate by .1 percent per month. In total about 10 million jobs needed to be created from the day Obama took office in Jan. 2009 until the end of Sept. 2012. Obama’s jobs gap is approximately 10 million.
Yet Obama insists that his stimulus package worked and has saved and created millions of new jobs. Under Bush the number of employed Americans peaked at 146,595,000 in Nov. 2007. The Great Recession began in Dec. 2007 and ended in June 2009, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s business cycle dating committee. However, the employment level did not hit bottom until Dec. 2009 when it was 137,968,000. Hence the Obama and Democratic Party claim that their economic policies are responsible for the creation of more than 5 million new jobs from the end of Dec. 2009 through the end of Sept. 2012.
Obama repeatedly blames the Bush administration’s economic policies for the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Did the so-called “Bush tax cuts” really fail? Is the Republican Party responsible for the Great Recession that Obama inherited?
In response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 that put the U.S. economy into a recession in 2002, the Bush administration and Republican controlled Congress cut the marginal tax rates for nearly all Americans. The “Bush tax cuts” were passed into law by the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001(EGTRRA) and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA). The “Bush tax cuts” or lower marginal tax rates are scheduled to expire on Dec. 31, 2012. Obama and the Democratic Party want to increase the marginal tax rates from 35 percent to 39.9 percent for the top 2 percent of all personal income taxpayers. Romney and the Republican Party want to make the Bush tax cuts or marginal tax rates permanent for all taxpayers. Romney points out that most small business owners file as individuals not as corporations. Furthermore, successful small business owners, that create the majority of all new jobs, are heavily represented in the top 2 of all personal income taxpayers. The last thing you should do is increase the tax rates on the job creators to pay for more government spending or to reduce the deficit.
From Jan. 2002 through Jan. 2009 the official U-3 unemployment ranged from a low of 4.4 percent to a high of 7.8 percent and the total U-6 unemployment rate ranged from a low of 7.9 percent to a high of 14.2 percent. Contrary to Obama’s often repeated statement that the “Bush tax cuts” or economic policies failed, they manifestly did not, if you actually look at the BLS unemployment statistics.
In the 2006 Nov. election the American people voted to give the Democratic Party control of both the House of Representatives and Senate. All tax and spending bills must originate in the House. From Jan. 2007 through Jan. 2011, Congress was controlled by the Democratic Party.
Starting with the Fiscal Year 2008 budget that resulted in a deficit of $459 billion, the Democratic Party went on a spending binge resulting in massive budgets deficits. It took Bush eight years to rack up budget deficits totaling nearly $4.9 trillion which were financed by adding to the national debt. In just four years Obama and the Democratic Party have exceed all expectations with budget deficits greater than $1 trillion every year Obama has been in office. This deficit spending has added more than $5.1 trillion to the national debt. In just 12 years, two presidents and their respective political allies in Congress have spent over $10 trillion beyond the means of the American people. This burdens both today’s taxpayers as well as future generations.
Out of control federal government spending by both political parties is responsible for the persistently high unemployment rates and Obama’s jobs gap. Most new jobs are created by small businesses, especially new small businesses. Business owners dislike uncertainty regarding the cost of doing business. Today, business owners find it difficult to estimate their future tax liabilities, energy and health care insurance plan costs. Also, the U.S. economy appears to be entering into another recession as the growth in real Gross Domestic Product slowed from an annual rate of 4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 to an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the second quarter of 2012. This adds more uncertainty as business owners find it difficult to estimate demand for their goods and services and future sales revenue.
Romney is running a television campaign promising to create 12 million new jobs in the next four years if he is elected president. Obama claims his economic policies have resulted in the creation of more than 5 million new jobs. Unfortunately for Obama, he has failed to close his 10 million jobs gap. On Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 6, the American people will be answering the question, “Where’re the jobs?”
Describing “Shadow Government Statistics” — John Williams
Unemployment Rate Falls to 7.8% on New Jobs Report
BREAKING: U.S. Adds 114,000 Jobs, Unemployment Rate Drops to 7.8
October 5th 2012 CNBC Stock Market Squawk Box (September Jobs Report)
Today’s report includes a surprise drop in the unemployment rate-but it is statistically questionable. Payroll numbers continued modest improvement. The unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped to 7.8 percent, following a decline to 8.1 percent in August. Payroll jobs in September gained about as expected with a modest 114,000 increase, following an rise in August of 142,000 (originally up 96,000) and an increase of 181,000 in July (previous estimate of 141,000). The net revisions for July and August were up 86,000. Market expectations were for a 113,000 boost for September.
Private payrolls advanced 104,000 in September after increasing 97,000 the month before. The consensus projected a 130,000 increase.
Wage inflation has been volatile and the latest number was on the up side. Average hourly earnings growth improved to 0.3 percent in September, following no change in August. Analysts forecast a 0.2 percent rise. The average workweek nudged up to 34.5 hours in September from 34.4 hours in August. Expectations were for 34.4 hours.
Turning to the household survey, the unemployment rate drop reflected an 873,000 spike in household employment versus a 368,000 drop in August. The labor force rebounded 418,000 after a 368,000 decrease in August. The household survey is much smaller than the payroll survey and is more volatile
September Unemployment Falls to 7.8%
Jack Welch Hardball w/Chris Matthews 10/5/12
Jack Welch, the lionized former chairman of General Electric Co, provoked cries of outrage in Washington on Friday when he appeared to accuse the White House of manipulating September job figures for political gains.
White House officials dismissed as “ludicrous” a tweet Welch sent to his more than 1.3 million followers that suggested U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration rigged the data as a way of recovering from a poor Wednesday night showing in a debate against Mitt Romney, his Republican challenger for the White House.
“Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers,” Welch said in a posting on Twitter, apparently referring to Obama, who formerly served as a senator from Illinois.
The tweet was repeated more than 2,000 times, with many mocking posts comparing Welch to New York real estate tycoon Donald Trump – who during his failed bid for the presidency loudly argued that Obama was not born in the United States – and Clint Eastwood, who gave a widely panned speech to an empty chair at the Republican National Convention in August.
Officials in Washington quickly dismissed the idea that the Labor Department report – which showed U.S. unemployment falling to a four-year low of 7.8 percent – could be rigged.
“That’s a ludicrous comment. No serious person believes that the bureau of labor statistics manipulates its statistics,” said Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. “The jobs report and all of their other statistics are prepared by career employees. They use the same process every month. They use the same process for Republican and Democratic administrations.”
The tweet was by no means Welch’s first criticism of Obama on his Twitter feed, where he has regularly spoken out in favor of Romney, as well as weighing in on sports. During the presidential debate in Denver, Colorado, on Wednesday night, Welch tweeted: “HOW can anyone vote for Obama after this performance..he has demonstrated his incompetence.”
Word of the Day: Unemployment (U3 and U6)
FACT CHECK: LABOR SECRETARY SOLIS MISLEADS ON JOBS REVISIONS
The AFL-CIO Reacts to the September BLS Jobs Report
Employment Level
142,974,000
Series Id: LNS12000000
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (Seas) Employment Level
Labor force status: Employed
Type of data: Number in thousands
Age: 16 years and over
Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Annual |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | 136559(1) | 136598 | 136701 | 137270 | 136630 | 136940 | 136531 | 136662 | 136893 | 137088 | 137322 | 137614 | |
2001 | 137778 | 137612 | 137783 | 137299 | 137092 | 136873 | 137071 | 136241 | 136846 | 136392 | 136238 | 136047 | |
2002 | 135701 | 136438 | 136177 | 136126 | 136539 | 136415 | 136413 | 136705 | 137302 | 137008 | 136521 | 136426 | |
2003 | 137417(1) | 137482 | 137434 | 137633 | 137544 | 137790 | 137474 | 137549 | 137609 | 137984 | 138424 | 138411 | |
2004 | 138472(1) | 138542 | 138453 | 138680 | 138852 | 139174 | 139556 | 139573 | 139487 | 139732 | 140231 | 140125 | |
2005 | 140245(1) | 140385 | 140654 | 141254 | 141609 | 141714 | 142026 | 142434 | 142401 | 142548 | 142499 | 142752 | |
2006 | 143150(1) | 143457 | 143741 | 143761 | 144089 | 144353 | 144202 | 144625 | 144815 | 145314 | 145534 | 145970 | |
2007 | 146028(1) | 146057 | 146320 | 145586 | 145903 | 146063 | 145905 | 145682 | 146244 | 145946 | 146595 | 146273 | |
2008 | 146397(1) | 146157 | 146108 | 146130 | 145929 | 145738 | 145530 | 145196 | 145059 | 144792 | 144078 | 143328 | |
2009 | 142187(1) | 141660 | 140754 | 140654 | 140294 | 140003 | 139891 | 139458 | 138775 | 138401 | 138607 | 137968 | |
2010 | 138500(1) | 138665 | 138836 | 139306 | 139340 | 139137 | 139139 | 139338 | 139344 | 139072 | 138937 | 139220 | |
2011 | 139330(1) | 139551 | 139764 | 139628 | 139808 | 139385 | 139450 | 139754 | 140107 | 140297 | 140614 | 140790 | |
2012 | 141637(1) | 142065 | 142034 | 141865 | 142287 | 142415 | 142220 | 142101 | 142974 | ||||
1 : Data affected by changes in population controls. |
Civilian Labor Force
155,063,000
Series Id: LNS11000000
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (Seas) Civilian Labor Force Level
Labor force status: Civilian labor force
Type of data: Number in thousands
Age: 16 years and over
Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Annual |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | 142267(1) | 142456 | 142434 | 142751 | 142388 | 142591 | 142278 | 142514 | 142518 | 142622 | 142962 | 143248 | |
2001 | 143800 | 143701 | 143924 | 143569 | 143318 | 143357 | 143654 | 143284 | 143989 | 144086 | 144240 | 144305 | |
2002 | 143883 | 144653 | 144481 | 144725 | 144938 | 144808 | 144803 | 145009 | 145552 | 145314 | 145041 | 145066 | |
2003 | 145937(1) | 146100 | 146022 | 146474 | 146500 | 147056 | 146485 | 146445 | 146530 | 146716 | 147000 | 146729 | |
2004 | 146842(1) | 146709 | 146944 | 146850 | 147065 | 147460 | 147692 | 147564 | 147415 | 147793 | 148162 | 148059 | |
2005 | 148029(1) | 148364 | 148391 | 148926 | 149261 | 149238 | 149432 | 149779 | 149954 | 150001 | 150065 | 150030 | |
2006 | 150214(1) | 150641 | 150813 | 150881 | 151069 | 151354 | 151377 | 151716 | 151662 | 152041 | 152406 | 152732 | |
2007 | 153144(1) | 152983 | 153051 | 152435 | 152670 | 153041 | 153054 | 152749 | 153414 | 153183 | 153835 | 153918 | |
2008 | 154075(1) | 153648 | 153925 | 153761 | 154325 | 154316 | 154480 | 154646 | 154559 | 154875 | 154622 | 154626 | |
2009 | 154236(1) | 154521 | 154143 | 154450 | 154800 | 154730 | 154538 | 154319 | 153786 | 153822 | 153833 | 153091 | |
2010 | 153454(1) | 153704 | 153964 | 154528 | 154216 | 153653 | 153748 | 154073 | 153918 | 153709 | 154041 | 153613 | |
2011 | 153250(1) | 153302 | 153392 | 153420 | 153700 | 153409 | 153358 | 153674 | 154004 | 154057 | 153937 | 153887 | |
2012 | 154395(1) | 154871 | 154707 | 154365 | 155007 | 155163 | 155013 | 154645 | 155063 | ||||
1 : Data affected by changes in population controls. |
Labor Force Participation Rate
63.6%
Series Id: LNS11300000
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (Seas) Labor Force Participation Rate
Labor force status: Civilian labor force participation rate
Type of data: Percent or rate
Age: 16 years and over
Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Annual |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | 67.3 | 67.3 | 67.3 | 67.3 | 67.1 | 67.1 | 66.9 | 66.9 | 66.9 | 66.8 | 66.9 | 67.0 | |
2001 | 67.2 | 67.1 | 67.2 | 66.9 | 66.7 | 66.7 | 66.8 | 66.5 | 66.8 | 66.7 | 66.7 | 66.7 | |
2002 | 66.5 | 66.8 | 66.6 | 66.7 | 66.7 | 66.6 | 66.5 | 66.6 | 66.7 | 66.6 | 66.4 | 66.3 | |
2003 | 66.4 | 66.4 | 66.3 | 66.4 | 66.4 | 66.5 | 66.2 | 66.1 | 66.1 | 66.1 | 66.1 | 65.9 | |
2004 | 66.1 | 66.0 | 66.0 | 65.9 | 66.0 | 66.1 | 66.1 | 66.0 | 65.8 | 65.9 | 66.0 | 65.9 | |
2005 | 65.8 | 65.9 | 65.9 | 66.1 | 66.1 | 66.1 | 66.1 | 66.2 | 66.1 | 66.1 | 66.0 | 66.0 | |
2006 | 66.0 | 66.1 | 66.2 | 66.1 | 66.1 | 66.2 | 66.1 | 66.2 | 66.1 | 66.2 | 66.3 | 66.4 | |
2007 | 66.4 | 66.3 | 66.2 | 65.9 | 66.0 | 66.0 | 66.0 | 65.8 | 66.0 | 65.8 | 66.0 | 66.0 | |
2008 | 66.2 | 66.0 | 66.1 | 65.9 | 66.1 | 66.1 | 66.1 | 66.1 | 65.9 | 66.0 | 65.8 | 65.8 | |
2009 | 65.7 | 65.8 | 65.6 | 65.6 | 65.7 | 65.7 | 65.5 | 65.4 | 65.1 | 65.0 | 65.0 | 64.6 | |
2010 | 64.8 | 64.9 | 64.9 | 65.1 | 64.9 | 64.6 | 64.6 | 64.7 | 64.6 | 64.4 | 64.5 | 64.3 | |
2011 | 64.2 | 64.2 | 64.2 | 64.2 | 64.2 | 64.1 | 64.0 | 64.1 | 64.1 | 64.1 | 64.0 | 64.0 | |
2012 | 63.7 | 63.9 | 63.8 | 63.6 | 63.8 | 63.8 | 63.7 | 63.5 | 63.6 |
Unemployment Level
12,088,000
Series Id: LNS13000000
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (Seas) Unemployment Level
Labor force status: Unemployed
Type of data: Number in thousands
Age: 16 years and over
Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Annual |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | 5708 | 5858 | 5733 | 5481 | 5758 | 5651 | 5747 | 5853 | 5625 | 5534 | 5639 | 5634 | |
2001 | 6023 | 6089 | 6141 | 6271 | 6226 | 6484 | 6583 | 7042 | 7142 | 7694 | 8003 | 8258 | |
2002 | 8182 | 8215 | 8304 | 8599 | 8399 | 8393 | 8390 | 8304 | 8251 | 8307 | 8520 | 8640 | |
2003 | 8520 | 8618 | 8588 | 8842 | 8957 | 9266 | 9011 | 8896 | 8921 | 8732 | 8576 | 8317 | |
2004 | 8370 | 8167 | 8491 | 8170 | 8212 | 8286 | 8136 | 7990 | 7927 | 8061 | 7932 | 7934 | |
2005 | 7784 | 7980 | 7737 | 7672 | 7651 | 7524 | 7406 | 7345 | 7553 | 7453 | 7566 | 7279 | |
2006 | 7064 | 7184 | 7072 | 7120 | 6980 | 7001 | 7175 | 7091 | 6847 | 6727 | 6872 | 6762 | |
2007 | 7116 | 6927 | 6731 | 6850 | 6766 | 6979 | 7149 | 7067 | 7170 | 7237 | 7240 | 7645 | |
2008 | 7678 | 7491 | 7816 | 7631 | 8395 | 8578 | 8950 | 9450 | 9501 | 10083 | 10544 | 11299 | |
2009 | 12049 | 12860 | 13389 | 13796 | 14505 | 14727 | 14646 | 14861 | 15012 | 15421 | 15227 | 15124 | |
2010 | 14953 | 15039 | 15128 | 15221 | 14876 | 14517 | 14609 | 14735 | 14574 | 14636 | 15104 | 14393 | |
2011 | 13919 | 13751 | 13628 | 13792 | 13892 | 14024 | 13908 | 13920 | 13897 | 13759 | 13323 | 13097 | |
2012 | 12758 | 12806 | 12673 | 12500 | 12720 | 12749 | 12794 | 12544 | 12088 |
Unemployment Rate U-3
7.8%
Series Id: LNS14000000
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (Seas) Unemployment Rate
Labor force status: Unemployment rate
Type of data: Percent or rate
Age: 16 years and over
Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Annual |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | 4.0 | 4.1 | 4.0 | 3.8 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.1 | 3.9 | 3.9 | 3.9 | 3.9 | |
2001 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 4.5 | 4.6 | 4.9 | 5.0 | 5.3 | 5.5 | 5.7 | |
2002 | 5.7 | 5.7 | 5.7 | 5.9 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 5.7 | 5.7 | 5.7 | 5.9 | 6.0 | |
2003 | 5.8 | 5.9 | 5.9 | 6.0 | 6.1 | 6.3 | 6.2 | 6.1 | 6.1 | 6.0 | 5.8 | 5.7 | |
2004 | 5.7 | 5.6 | 5.8 | 5.6 | 5.6 | 5.6 | 5.5 | 5.4 | 5.4 | 5.5 | 5.4 | 5.4 | |
2005 | 5.3 | 5.4 | 5.2 | 5.2 | 5.1 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.9 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.9 | |
2006 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.4 | |
2007 | 4.6 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.6 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 5.0 | |
2008 | 5.0 | 4.9 | 5.1 | 5.0 | 5.4 | 5.6 | 5.8 | 6.1 | 6.1 | 6.5 | 6.8 | 7.3 | |
2009 | 7.8 | 8.3 | 8.7 | 8.9 | 9.4 | 9.5 | 9.5 | 9.6 | 9.8 | 10.0 | 9.9 | 9.9 | |
2010 | 9.7 | 9.8 | 9.8 | 9.9 | 9.6 | 9.4 | 9.5 | 9.6 | 9.5 | 9.5 | 9.8 | 9.4 | |
2011 | 9.1 | 9.0 | 8.9 | 9.0 | 9.0 | 9.1 | 9.1 | 9.1 | 9.0 | 8.9 | 8.7 | 8.5 | |
2012 | 8.3 | 8.3 | 8.2 | 8.1 | 8.2 | 8.2 | 8.3 | 8.1 | 7.8 |
Unemployment Rate U-6
14.7%
Series Id: LNS13327709 Seasonally Adjusted Series title: (seas) Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of all civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers Labor force status: Aggregated totals unemployed Type of data: Percent or rate Age: 16 years and over Percent/rates: Unemployed and mrg attached and pt for econ reas as percent of labor force plus marg attached
Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Annual |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | 7.1 | 7.2 | 7.1 | 6.9 | 7.1 | 7.0 | 7.0 | 7.1 | 7.0 | 6.8 | 7.1 | 6.9 | |
2001 | 7.3 | 7.4 | 7.3 | 7.4 | 7.5 | 7.9 | 7.8 | 8.1 | 8.7 | 9.3 | 9.4 | 9.6 | |
2002 | 9.5 | 9.5 | 9.4 | 9.7 | 9.5 | 9.5 | 9.6 | 9.6 | 9.6 | 9.6 | 9.7 | 9.8 | |
2003 | 10.0 | 10.2 | 10.0 | 10.2 | 10.1 | 10.3 | 10.3 | 10.1 | 10.4 | 10.2 | 10.0 | 9.8 | |
2004 | 9.9 | 9.7 | 10.0 | 9.6 | 9.6 | 9.5 | 9.5 | 9.4 | 9.4 | 9.7 | 9.4 | 9.2 | |
2005 | 9.3 | 9.3 | 9.1 | 8.9 | 8.9 | 9.0 | 8.8 | 8.9 | 9.0 | 8.7 | 8.7 | 8.6 | |
2006 | 8.4 | 8.4 | 8.2 | 8.1 | 8.2 | 8.4 | 8.5 | 8.4 | 8.0 | 8.2 | 8.1 | 7.9 | |
2007 | 8.4 | 8.2 | 8.0 | 8.2 | 8.2 | 8.3 | 8.4 | 8.4 | 8.4 | 8.4 | 8.4 | 8.8 | |
2008 | 9.2 | 9.0 | 9.1 | 9.2 | 9.7 | 10.1 | 10.5 | 10.8 | 11.1 | 11.8 | 12.7 | 13.5 | |
2009 | 14.2 | 15.1 | 15.7 | 15.8 | 16.4 | 16.5 | 16.5 | 16.7 | 16.8 | 17.2 | 17.1 | 17.1 | |
2010 | 16.7 | 16.9 | 16.9 | 17.0 | 16.6 | 16.5 | 16.5 | 16.6 | 16.9 | 16.8 | 16.9 | 16.6 | |
2011 | 16.1 | 15.9 | 15.7 | 15.9 | 15.8 | 16.2 | 16.1 | 16.2 | 16.4 | 16.0 | 15.6 | 15.2 | |
2012 | 15.1 | 14.9 | 14.5 | 14.5 | 14.8 | 14.9 | 15.0 | 14.7 | 14.7 |
Background Articles and Videos
Employment Situation Summary
Transmission of material in this release is embargoed USDL-12-1981 until 8:30 a.m. (EDT) Friday, October 5, 2012 Technical information: Household data: (202) 691-6378 * cpsinfo@bls.gov * www.bls.gov/cps Establishment data: (202) 691-6555 * cesinfo@bls.gov * www.bls.gov/ces Media contact: (202) 691-5902 * PressOffice@bls.gov THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- SEPTEMBER 2012 The unemployment rate decreased to 7.8 percent in September, and total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 114,000, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in health care and in transportation and warehousing but changed little in most other major industries. Household Survey Data The unemployment rate declined by 0.3 percentage point to 7.8 percent in September. For the first 8 months of the year, the rate held within a narrow range of 8.1 and 8.3 percent. The number of unemployed persons, at 12.1 million, decreased by 456,000 in September. (See table A-1.) Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (7.3 percent), adult women (7.0 percent), and whites (7.0 percent) declined over the month. The unemployment rates for teenagers (23.7 percent), blacks (13.4 percent), and Hispanics (9.9 percent) were little changed. The jobless rate for Asians, at 4.8 percent (not seasonally adjusted), fell over the year. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.) In September, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs decreased by 468,000 to 6.5 million. (See table A-11.) The number of persons unemployed for less than 5 weeks declined by 302,000 over the month to 2.5 million. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 4.8 million and accounted for 40.1 percent of the unemployed. (See table A-12.) Total employment rose by 873,000 in September, following 3 months of little change. The employment-population ratio increased by 0.4 percentage point to 58.7 percent, after edging down in the prior 2 months. The overall trend in the employment-population ratio for this year has been flat. The civilian labor force rose by 418,000 to 155.1 million in September, while the labor force participation rate was little changed at 63.6 percent. (See table A-1.) The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) rose from 8.0 million in August to 8.6 million in September. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job. (See table A-8.) In September, 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, essentially unchanged from a year earlier. (These data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.) Among the marginally attached, there were 802,000 discouraged workers in September, a decline of 235,000 from a year earlier. (These data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.7 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in September had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities. (See table A-16.) Establishment Survey Data Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 114,000 in September. In 2012, employment growth has averaged 146,000 per month, compared with an average monthly gain of 153,000 in 2011. In September, employment rose in health care and in transportation and warehousing. (See table B-1.) Health care added 44,000 jobs in September. Job gains continued in ambulatory health care services (+30,000) and hospitals (+8,000). Over the past year, employment in health care has risen by 295,000. In September, employment increased by 17,000 in transportation and warehousing. Within the industry, there were job gains in transit and ground passenger transportation (+9,000) and in warehousing and storage (+4,000). Employment in financial activities edged up in September (+13,000), reflecting modest job growth in credit intermediation (+6,000) and real estate (+7,000). Manufacturing employment edged down in September (-16,000). On net, manufacturing employment has been unchanged since April. In September, job losses occurred in computer and electronic products (-6,000) and in printing and related activities (-3,000). Employment in other major industries, including mining and logging, construction, wholesale trade, retail trade, information, professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and government, showed little change over the month. The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged up by 0.1 hour to 34.5 hours in September. The manufacturing workweek edged up by 0.1 hour to 40.6 hours, and factory overtime was unchanged at 3.2 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 33.7 hours. (See tables B-2 and B-7.) In September, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 7 cents to $23.58. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen by 1.8 percent. In September, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees increased by 5 cents to $19.81. (See tables B-3 and B-8.) The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised from +141,000 to +181,000, and the change for August was revised from +96,000 to +142,000. ____________ The Employment Situation for October is scheduled to be released on Friday, November 2, 2012, at 8:30 a.m. (EDT). http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htmEmployment Situation Summary Table A. Household data, seasonally adjusted
Category | Sept. 2011 | July 2012 | Aug. 2012 | Sept. 2012 | Change from: Aug. 2012- Sept. 2012 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Employment status | |||||
Civilian noninstitutional population | 240,071 | 243,354 | 243,566 | 243,772 | 206 |
Civilian labor force | 154,004 | 155,013 | 154,645 | 155,063 | 418 |
Participation rate | 64.1 | 63.7 | 63.5 | 63.6 | 0.1 |
Employed | 140,107 | 142,220 | 142,101 | 142,974 | 873 |
Employment-population ratio | 58.4 | 58.4 | 58.3 | 58.7 | 0.4 |
Unemployed | 13,897 | 12,794 | 12,544 | 12,088 | -456 |
Unemployment rate | 9.0 | 8.3 | 8.1 | 7.8 | -0.3 |
Not in labor force | 86,067 | 88,340 | 88,921 | 88,710 | -211 |
Unemployment rates | |||||
Total, 16 years and over | 9.0 | 8.3 | 8.1 | 7.8 | -0.3 |
Adult men (20 years and over) | 8.7 | 7.7 | 7.6 | 7.3 | -0.3 |
Adult women (20 years and over) | 8.1 | 7.5 | 7.3 | 7.0 | -0.3 |
Teenagers (16 to 19 years) | 24.5 | 23.8 | 24.6 | 23.7 | -0.9 |
White | 7.9 | 7.4 | 7.2 | 7.0 | -0.2 |
Black or African American | 15.9 | 14.1 | 14.1 | 13.4 | -0.7 |
Asian (not seasonally adjusted) | 7.8 | 6.2 | 5.9 | 4.8 | – |
Hispanic or Latino ethnicity | 11.3 | 10.3 | 10.2 | 9.9 | -0.3 |
Total, 25 years and over | 7.7 | 6.9 | 6.8 | 6.6 | -0.2 |
Less than a high school diploma | 13.9 | 12.7 | 12.0 | 11.3 | -0.7 |
High school graduates, no college | 9.6 | 8.7 | 8.8 | 8.7 | -0.1 |
Some college or associate degree | 8.4 | 7.1 | 6.6 | 6.5 | -0.1 |
Bachelor’s degree and higher | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 0.0 |
Reason for unemployment | |||||
Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs | 8,028 | 7,123 | 7,003 | 6,535 | -468 |
Job leavers | 972 | 878 | 942 | 957 | 15 |
Reentrants | 3,484 | 3,380 | 3,318 | 3,306 | -12 |
New entrants | 1,323 | 1,311 | 1,277 | 1,247 | -30 |
Duration of unemployment | |||||
Less than 5 weeks | 2,743 | 2,711 | 2,844 | 2,542 | -302 |
5 to 14 weeks | 2,902 | 3,092 | 2,868 | 2,826 | -42 |
15 to 26 weeks | 2,029 | 1,760 | 1,845 | 1,860 | 15 |
27 weeks and over | 6,197 | 5,185 | 5,033 | 4,844 | -189 |
Employed persons at work part time | |||||
Part time for economic reasons | 9,270 | 8,246 | 8,031 | 8,613 | 582 |
Slack work or business conditions | 5,900 | 5,342 | 5,217 | 5,523 | 306 |
Could only find part-time work | 2,844 | 2,576 | 2,507 | 2,572 | 65 |
Part time for noneconomic reasons | 18,329 | 18,866 | 18,996 | 18,736 | -260 |
Persons not in the labor force (not seasonally adjusted) | |||||
Marginally attached to the labor force | 2,511 | 2,529 | 2,561 | 2,517 | – |
Discouraged workers | 1,037 | 852 | 844 | 802 | – |
– Over-the-month changes are not displayed for not seasonally adjusted data. NOTE: Persons whose ethnicity is identified as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race. Detail for the seasonally adjusted data shown in this table will not necessarily add to totals because of the independent seasonal adjustment of the various series. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data. |
Employment Situation Summary Table B. Establishment data, seasonally adjusted
Category | Sept. 2011 | July 2012 | Aug. 2012(p) | Sept. 2012(p) |
---|---|---|---|---|
EMPLOYMENT BY SELECTED INDUSTRY (Over-the-month change, in thousands) | ||||
Total nonfarm | 202 | 181 | 142 | 114 |
Total private | 216 | 163 | 97 | 104 |
Goods-producing | 33 | 20 | -22 | -10 |
Mining and logging | 6 | -1 | -1 | 1 |
Construction | 30 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
Manufacturing | -3 | 18 | -22 | -16 |
Durable goods(1) | 4 | 18 | -20 | -13 |
Motor vehicles and parts | 2.9 | 12.8 | -6.9 | -3.4 |
Nondurable goods | -7 | 0 | -2 | -3 |
Private service-providing(1) | 183 | 143 | 119 | 114 |
Wholesale trade | -3.0 | 8.8 | 7.0 | -1.6 |
Retail trade | 14.2 | 3.2 | 8.3 | 9.4 |
Transportation and warehousing | 1.8 | 14.2 | 7.7 | 17.1 |
Information | 34 | 8 | 1 | -6 |
Financial activities | -6 | 1 | 7 | 13 |
Professional and business services(1) | 59 | 41 | 19 | 13 |
Temporary help services | 23.7 | 13.0 | 0.1 | -2.0 |
Education and health services(1) | 58 | 40 | 25 | 49 |
Health care and social assistance | 47.5 | 27.7 | 22.2 | 44.5 |
Leisure and hospitality | 20 | 24 | 38 | 11 |
Other services | 3 | 9 | -2 | 9 |
Government | -14 | 18 | 45 | 10 |
WOMEN AND PRODUCTION AND NONSUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES(2) AS A PERCENT OF ALL EMPLOYEES | ||||
Total nonfarm women employees | 49.4 | 49.3 | 49.3 | 49.3 |
Total private women employees | 47.9 | 47.8 | 47.8 | 47.8 |
Total private production and nonsupervisory employees | 82.5 | 82.6 | 82.6 | 82.6 |
HOURS AND EARNINGS ALL EMPLOYEES | ||||
Total private | ||||
Average weekly hours | 34.4 | 34.4 | 34.4 | 34.5 |
Average hourly earnings | $23.16 | $23.52 | $23.51 | $23.58 |
Average weekly earnings | $796.70 | $809.09 | $808.74 | $813.51 |
Index of aggregate weekly hours (2007=100)(3) | 94.5 | 95.9 | 96.0 | 96.4 |
Over-the-month percent change | 0.4 | -0.2 | 0.1 | 0.4 |
Index of aggregate weekly payrolls (2007=100)(4) | 104.4 | 107.6 | 107.7 | 108.4 |
Over-the-month percent change | 0.7 | -0.1 | 0.1 | 0.6 |
HOURS AND EARNINGS PRODUCTION AND NONSUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES | ||||
Total private | ||||
Average weekly hours | 33.6 | 33.7 | 33.7 | 33.7 |
Average hourly earnings | $19.53 | $19.77 | $19.76 | $19.81 |
Average weekly earnings | $656.21 | $666.25 | $665.91 | $667.60 |
Index of aggregate weekly hours (2002=100)(3) | 101.5 | 103.5 | 103.6 | 103.7 |
Over-the-month percent change | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
Index of aggregate weekly payrolls (2002=100)(4) | 132.5 | 136.7 | 136.8 | 137.3 |
Over-the-month percent change | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.4 |
DIFFUSION INDEX(5) (Over 1-month span) | ||||
Total private (266 industries) | 57.9 | 54.9 | 51.3 | 52.8 |
Manufacturing (81 industries) | 53.7 | 48.8 | 38.9 | 39.5 |
Footnotes (1) Includes other industries, not shown separately. (2) Data relate to production employees in mining and logging and manufacturing, construction employees in construction, and nonsupervisory employees in the service-providing industries. (3) The indexes of aggregate weekly hours are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate hours by the corresponding annual average aggregate hours. (4) The indexes of aggregate weekly payrolls are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate weekly payrolls by the corresponding annual average aggregate weekly payrolls. (5) Figures are the percent of industries with employment increasing plus one-half of the industries with unchanged employment, where 50 percent indicates an equal balance between industries with increasing and decreasing employment. (p) Preliminary | ||||
NOTE: Data in this table have been corrected. For more information see http://www.bls.gov/bls/ceswomen_usps_correction.htm. |
Pronk Pops Show 78, June 20, 2012: Segment 1: Obama Flip Flops On Illegal Immigration and Fails To Enforce Immigration Law–Breaks Oath of Office–Back Door Amnesty–No More Years–Out Obama–Videos
Pronk Pops Show 78: June 20, 2012
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Segment 1: Obama Flip Flops On Illegal Immigration and Fails To Enforce Immigration Law–Breaks Oath of Office–Back Door Amnesty–No More Years–Out Obama–Videos
Obama Bribes Illegal Aliens for Votes – 6/15/2012
Flip
Flashback: President Obama says he has to use the legislative process to change immigration law
Flop
Obama: Young Illegals Are Americans In Every Way Except “On Paper”
Obama interrupted at ‘Dream Act’ speech
Should DREAM Students Believe Obama?
Charles Krauthammer calls Obama Lawless!
Rush Limbaugh on Illegal Immigration
Watch President Obama’s Remarks on New Immigration Policy
Mitt Romney Responds to Obama’s New Immigration Policy, Suggests Voting Romney 2012 to Stop it!
Romney says immigration decision complicates issue
Rubio Discusses the DREAM Act, Romney’s Immigration Policy, and the Latino Vote
Romney’s stance on immigration issues
Immigration by the Numbers — Off the Charts
Numbers USA – Immigration By the Numbers – Part 1
Numbers USA – Immigration By the Numbers – Part 2 of 2
2/23/12 Webcast – E-Verify Self Check
Background Articles and Videos
Support a Moratorium on All Immigration, Legal and Illegal
Stop Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants – Expert Reveals the True Cost of Amnesty
The Dangers of Unlimited Legal & Illegal Immigration
Ambassador Alan Keyes on Stopping Illegal Immigration
Dr. Alan Keyes – “Obama is a Radical Communist – Will Destroy America!”
Obama Vs. Keyes: Christianity
Obama on homosexuality
Jay Sekulow on Fox News Discussing Illegal Immigration at the Supreme Court
Supreme Court Reviews Arizona Immigration Law
Immigration law: an overview
“…Federal immigration law determines whether a person is an alien, the rights, duties, and obligations associated with being an alien in the United States, and how aliens gain residence or citizenship within the United States. It also provides the means by which certain aliens can become legally naturalized citizens with full rights of citizenship. Immigration law serves as a gatekeeper for the nation’s border, determining who may enter, how long they may stay, and when they must leave.
Congress has complete authority over immigration. Presidential power does not extend beyond refugee policy. Except for questions regarding aliens’ constitutional rights, the courts have generally found the immigration issue as nonjusticiable.
States have limited legislative authority regarding immigration, and 28 U.S.C. § 1251 details the full extent of state jurisdiction. Generally, 28 U.S.C. § 994 details the federal sentencing guidelines for illegal entry into the country.
By controlling the visa process, the federal government can achieve the goals of its immigration policies. There are two types of visas: immigrant visas and nonimmigrant visas. The government primarily issues nonimmigrant visas to tourists and temporary business visitors. The government divides nonimmigrant visas into eighteen different types, but for most types, does not impose a cap on the number that may be granted in a year. Only a few categories of non-immigrant visas allow their holders to work in the United States. Immigrant visas, on the other hand, permit their holders to stay in the United States permanently and eventually to apply for citizenship. Aliens with immigrant visas can also work in the United States. Congress limits the quantity of immigrant visas, which numbered 675,000 in 1995. Many immigrant visas remain subject to per-country caps.
Early history of American immigration law
Congress’s first attempt to set immigration policy came in 1790 with the enactment of the Naturalization Act of 1790. This Act restricted naturalization to “free white persons” of “good moral character” and required the applicant to have lived in the country for two years prior to becoming naturalized. In 1795 an amendment increased the residency requirement to five years. The five-year requirement remains on the books to this day.
Upon ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, all children born within the United States received citizenship at birth. In 1870 Congress broadened naturalization laws to allow African-Americans the right to become naturalized citizens. Asian Americans, however, did not receive such a right for many years. Xenophobia from an influx of Asians between 1850 and 1882 prompted Congress to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act, which restricted further Chinese immigration.
In 1921 Congress passed the Emergency Immigration Act, creating national immigration quotas, which gave way to the Immigration Act of 1924, capping the number of permissible immigrants from each country in a manner proportional to the number already living within the United States. The aggregate number from the eastern hemisphere could not eclipse 154,227 immigrants. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Administration essentially closed to the country to immigration essentially during the Great depression, drastically reducing the numbers per country that could enter the United States.
Modern immigration law
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA), also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, eliminated all race-based quotas, replacing them with purely nationality-based quotas. The INA continues to influence the field of American immigration law. To enforce the quotas, the INA created the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The INS served as the federal agency that enforced these caps for remainder of the 20th century.
When Congress passed the INA, it defined an “alien” as any person lacking citizenship or status as a national of the United States. Different categories of aliens include resident and nonresident, immigrant and nonimmigrant, and documented and undocumented (“illegal”). The terms “documented” and “undocumented” refer to whether an arriving alien has the proper records and identification for admission into the U.S. Having the proper records and identification typically requires the alien to possess a valid, unexpired passport and either a visa, border crossing identification card, permanent resident card, or a reentry permit. The INA expressly refuses stowaway aliens entry into the U.S.
The need to curtail illegal immigration prompted Congress to enact the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. The IRCA toughened criminal sanctions for employers who hired illegal aliens, denied illegal aliens federally funded welfare benefits, and legitimized some aliens through an amnesty program. The Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendments of 1986 sought to limit the practice of marrying to obtain citizenship. The Immigration Act of 1990 thoroughly revamped the INA by equalizing the allocation of visas across foreign nations, eliminating archaic rules, and encouraging worldwide immigration.
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 revolutionized the process of alien entry into the United States. The IIRIRA eliminated the term “entry,” replacing it with “admission.” An application for admission occurs whenever an alien arrives in the U.S. regardless of whether the arrival occurs at a designated port-of-entry. Applicants at either designated ports or otherwise must submit to an inspection by U.S. customs, even if the applicant possesses an immigrant visa. The IIRIRA also employs the term “arriving alien” to describe applicant aliens attempting to enter the U.S., regardless of whether they arrive at a designated port, a non-designated point on the border, or are located in U.S. waters and brought to shore.
Post-9/11 reform
On March 1, 2003, the Department of Homeland Security opened, replacing the INS. The Bush Administration had designed the Department of Homeland Security to foster increased intelligence sharing and dialogue between agencies responsible for responding to domestic emergencies, such as natural disasters and domestic terrorism. Within the Department, three different agencies – U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement (CBE), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – now handle the duties formerly held by the INS. Currently, the CBE handles the INS’s border patrol duties, the USCIS handles the INS’s naturalization, asylum, and permanent residence functions, and the ICE handles the INS’s deportation, intelligence, and investigatory functions.
Refugee and asylum seekers
The Refugee Act of 1980 defines the U.S. laws relating to refugee immigrants. Under the Refugee Act, the term “refugee” refers to aliens with a fear of persecution upon returning to their homelands, stemming from their religion, race, nationality, membership in certain social groups, or political opinions. Anyone who delivers a missing American POW or MIA soldier receives refugee status from the United States.
The United States, however, denies refugee status to any alien who actively persecuted individuals of a certain race, political opinion, religion, nationality, or members of a certain social group. As a matter of public policy, the government also typically refuses refugee applicants previously convicted of murderer. For refugees who have “firmly resettled” in another country, the United States will deny a request for refugee admission. The government considers refugees “firmly resettled” if the refugees have received an offer of citizenship, permanent residency, or some other permanent status from a foreign country.
Under international law, the Geneva Convention, or the laws of the United States, foreign citizens who have become disillusioned with their homeland cannot take temporary refuge within the United States. The Refugee Act of 1980 specifically leaves out temporary refuge as a form of refugee status that the U.S. government will recognize.
To qualify for refugee status under the persecution provision, the refugee applicant must prove actual fear. A proof of actual fear requires meeting both a subjective and an objective test. The subjective test requires that the refugee actually have an honest and genuine fear of being persecuted for some immutable trait, such as religion, race, and nationality. Seekers of asylum must show a fear that membership in a social or political group has caused past persecution or has caused a well-founded fear that persecution will occur upon returning. The applicant meets the objective standard by showing credible and direct evidence that a reasonable possibility of persecution exists upon the applicant’s return to the homeland.
The President retains the ultimate decision making authority when determining the number of refugees to allow into the country during a given year.
Deportation
Deportation refers to the official removal of an alien from the United States. The U.S. government can initiate deportation proceedings against aliens admitted under the INA that commit an aggravated felony within the United States after being admitted. An alien’s failure to register a change of address renders the alien deportable, unless the failure resulted from an excusable circumstance or mistake. If the government determines that a particular alien gained entry into the country through the use of a falsified document or otherwise fraudulent means, the government has the grounds to deport.
Other common grounds for deportation include the following: aiding or encouraging another alien to enter the country illegally; engaging in marriage fraud to gain U.S. admission; participating in an activity that threatens the U.S.’s national security; voting unlawfully; and failing to update the government with a residential address every three months, regardless of whether the address has changed. The last of these policies served as the grounds for the government to deport 2,000 Pakistanis following the September 11th attacks.
If the government brings a proceeding for deportation because of fraud or falsification, the government bears the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that alleged falsification or fraud occurred and that the falsification or fraud proved material to the granting of admission to the alien. Upon such a proof, the government has established a rebuttable presumption that the alien gained admission through material falsification or fraud. To rebut the presumption, the alien must demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that admission would have been granted even without the falsification or fraud. …”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/Immigration
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Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Pronk Pops Show 70, April 23, 2012: Segment 1: Tom A. Coburn–The Debt Bomb: A Bold Plan To Stop Washington From Bankrupting America–Videos
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“…Overview
In a nation whose debt has outgrown the size of its entire economy, the greatest threat comes not from any foreign force but from Washington politicians who refuse to relinquish the intoxicating power to borrow and spend. Senator Tom Coburn reveals the fascinating, maddening story of how we got to this point of fiscal crisis-and how we can escape.
Long before America’s recent economic downturn, beltway politicians knew the U.S. was going bankrupt. Yet even after several so-called “change” elections, the government has continued its wasteful ways in the face of imminent danger. With passion and clarity, Coburn explains why Washington resists change so fiercely and offers controversial yet commonsense solutions to secure the nation’s future.
At a time when millions of Americans are speculating about what is broken in Washington, The Debt Bomb is a candid, thoughtful, non-partisan expose of the real problems inside our government. Coburn challenges the conventional wisdom that blames lobbyists, gridlock, and obstructionism, and places the responsibility squarely where it belongs: on members of Congress in both parties who won’t let go of the perks of power to serve the true interests of the nation-unless enough citizens take bold steps to demand action.
“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” -John Adams
Throughout a distinguished career as a business owner, physician, and U.S. senator, Tom Coburn has watched his beloved republic careen down a suicidal path. Today, the nation stands on the precipice of financial ruin, a disaster far more dangerous to our safety than any terrorist threats we face. Yet Coburn believes there is still hope-if enough Americans are willing to shake the corridors of Washington and demand action.
With an insider’s keen eye and a caregiver’s deft touch, Coburn diagnoses the mess that career politicians have made of things while misusing their sacred charge to govern.
Coburn’s incisive analysis:
· Reveals the root causes of America’s escalating financial crisis
· Exposes Washington’s destructive appetite for wasteful spending, power grabs, backroom deals, and quick non-fixes
· Rises above partisanship to implicate elected officials of all stripes in steering the nation off course
· Lays out a commonsense guide to restoring order
· Concludes with a clarion call and sound advice for Americans who would dedicate themselves to defusing the debt bomb
Above all, Coburn believes the United States can continue as a beacon of opportunity for future generations-but how we act today will determine whether we deliver the nation to our children and grandchildren fully alive, on life support, or without a pulse. …”
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-debt-bomb-md-tom-a-coburn-tom-a/1106523522
U.S. Debt Clock
What is U.S. Debt? – P1: Intro to Debt
What is U.S. Debt? – P2: Comparing Debt to GDP
I’M TALKING TO YOU
Afterburner with Bill Whittle: Facing the Arithmetic
Bill Whittle Explains our Progressive Nightmare – Part 1
Bill Whittle Explains the Conservative Solution – Part 2
Default America: Interest Suppressed
Default America: Recession & Reallocation
Default America: Laurence Kotlikoff Excerpt
Default America: Influence & Impasse
U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don’t Even Know It: Laurence Kotlikoff
US National Debt Growing Faster Than GDP (4/9/2012)
U.S. National Debt Documentary Part 1
U.S. National Debt Documentary Part 2
U.S. National Debt Documentary Part 3
U.S. National Debt Documentary Part 4
U.S. National Debt Documentary Part 5
The award-winning documentary I.O.U.S.A. opened up America’s eyes to the consequences of our nation’s debt and the need for our government to show more fiscal responsibility. Now that more Americans and elected officials are aware of our fiscal challenges, the producers of I.O.U.S.A. created I.O.U.S.A.: Solutions, a follow-up special focusing on solutions to the fiscal crisis. Learn more at http://www.iousathemovie.com/.
IOUSA Solutions: Part 1 of 5
IOUSA Solutions: Part 2 of 5
IOUSA Solutions: Part 3 of 5
IOUSA Solutions: Part 4 of 5
IOUSA Solutions: Part 5 of 5
Krauthammer: Obama’s debt increase “radical, unprecedented”
Dr. Coburn on CNBC’s Mad Money discussing the budget deficit facing the U.S.
(Thursday, June 10 2010) Jim Cramer discusses importance of getting a handle on the national debt, the current budget deficit, and ways to expand Congress’ knowledge of economics and budgeting by cutting spending.
Coburn on CNBC’s Squawk Box: Healthcare Law Huge Contributor to Debt, Deficit
Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn Blasts Everyone in New Book: Buzz Politics 4.17
Coburn Urging the Senate to End Duplication, Pass Amendment that Saves $10 Billion
HSGAC Hearing on Reducing Duplication
(Wednesday, March 21 2012) Dr. Coburn stressing the importance of taking advantage of the GAO’s recommendations for eliminating duplication and savings hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars in today’s HSGAC hearing titled, “Retooling Government for the 21st Century: The President’s Reorganization Plan and Reducing Duplication”.
Coburn on The Kudlow Report on Problems w/ Obamacare & Gov’t-run Healthcare
Military spending, collapse of US empire
Deficits, Debts and Unfunded Liabilities: The Consequences of Excessive Government Spending
Four Reasons Why Big Government Is Bad Government
David Walker – America at a Crossroads
It’s Simple to Balance The Budget Without Higher Taxes
Eight Reasons Why Big Government Hurts Economic Growth
Free Markets and Small Government Produce Prosperity
Deficits are Bad, but the Real Problem is Spending
Paul Ryan on CBO’s Dire Economic Warning
Spending Restraint, Part I: Lessons from Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton
Spending Restraint, Part II: Lessons from Canada, Ireland, Slovakia, and New Zealand
Background Articles and Videos
Debt and Deficit in a Nutshell
“…Spellman, Lewis J. Professor, Department of Finance Lewis Spellman received his B.B.A. and M.B.A. from the University of Michigan and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. His research interests include the value of third party financial guarantees, market estimates of bank risk, bank survival, and banking development. His teaching interests include debt, equity, and foreign exchange price trends, market intervention by governments, and macroeconomics and business conditions….”
http://acsprod.mccombs.utexas.edu/facstaff/displayRecord.aspx?uid=82
US Sovereign Risk Part 1-1: Reality Bites Introduction
US Sovereign Risk Part 1-2: Reality Bites Introduction
US Sovereign Risk Part 2: Growth of Debt in the US
US Sovereign Risk Part 3-1: Political Economy of the Growth of Government Debt
US Sovereign Risk Part 3-2: Political Economy of the Growth of Government Debt
US Sovereign Risk Part 3-3: Political Economy of the Growth of Government Debt
US Sovereign Risk Part 4-1: Why the Financial Market Supports Treasuries Despite the Risk
US Sovereign Risk Part 4-2: Why the Financial Market Supports Treasuries Despite the Risk
US Sovereign Risk Part 5-1: How the Market Reins in an Out of Control Sovereign
US Sovereign Risk Part 5-2: How the Market Reins in an Out of Control Sovereign
US Sovereign Risk Part 6: Capital Safe Havens
Coburn book “The Debt Bomb” hits the shelf today
By Rick Couri
“…Senator Tom Coburn hates it when taxpayer money is wasted. Now he has a new book out that points directly at the people and organizations he thinks are the worst offenders. The book is called “The Debt Bomb” and he holds no punches. “We lack the courage to do what’s in the best long term interest of the country because we always put short term political considerations first” he explained.
The Senator says the book is easy to follow because it goes step by step “first of all we tell the story of where we are and how we got here” he said. So how did we get here? Coburn says it all stems from what he calls careerism. “Careerism tends to make members of congress do what’s best for their re-election and not what’s best for the country.” Coburn told us people who hold elected office are always careful to pick the timing of their battles “we’re always waiting for the right moment to fix things well guess what, that right moment doesn’t come.” …”
http://www.krmg.com/news/news/local/coburn-book-debt-bomb-hits-shelf-today/nMbXy/
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Segment 1: I Got The Obama Gasoline Price Blues–From $1.79 Per Gallon in January 2009 to $3.59 Per Gallon in February 2012–$5 Per Gallon By July 4, 2012!–Purchasing Power Plummets–Speculation Starves Society–Hope for Regime Change–Videos
Government Theft May 1, 1933
http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx
http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx
Quantitative Easing Explained
U.S. Inflation Calculator
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
U.S. Debt Clock
Ron Paul: The Worst Thing You Can Do For A People Is Purposely Devalue The Dollar
Obama’s Got America Singin’ the Blues
As Gas Prices Rise, White House Goes on Offensive, Defensive
Ron Paul tells the real reason for the oil prices in 2007 and today
END FED: Bernanke Explains How To Devalue the Dollar, Quantitative Easing AKA Asset Purchase
Glenn Beck – Devaluing The Dollar
Beck: Devaluing the Dollar
Iran Sanctions, War, Israel & Gas Prices
Ron Paul Doubles Down On War Stance
Armed Chinese Troops in Texas!
Why Gas Prices Are Rising
Playing the oil prices money game
Secret Exemptions Allowed Speculators to Distort Futures Markets
Regulations on Speculation Weak, But Better Than Nothing
The Price Of Oil
Bill Black: What I’d Demand of the Fed
Bill Black’s eye-popping opening statement at House FinServ hearing on Lehman Bros.
END FED: Goldman Sachs To Blame For Global Food-Oil Price Crisis; Speculators Outnumber Hedgers
CFTC Commissioner: “A Hair Trigger Away from Economic Calamity”
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Food Speculation
Oil Speculators
Oil speculation and oil prices
The Real TRUTH Behind The OIL PRICES
Banks Behind High Gas Prices?
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Ford O’Connell On Fox News – February 24, 2012
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Obama gas prices
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Blame High Oil Prices on Speculators and Bernanke
Seven Bucks A Gallon For Gas!
2012 Energy Prices
Ed Wallace
“…That’s right, we not only reduced our overall gasoline use in America, reversing a century-long trend, but in 2011 we dropped our demand for gasoline once again. This likely explains why in December WTI oil jumped by close to $7 a barrel, but the futures market for gasoline barely budged, moving just a few cents in either direction.
Another way to look at it is in the percentage of utilization of our refineries for this time of year. According to the government’s data, the last week of December our refineries ran at 84.2 percent of capacity. But if one compares that week to the same week in the boom years, 2003 to 2007, our refineries were running at 91.7 percent, 94.2 percent, 88.9 percent, 90.9 percent and 89.4 percent. For those who have forgotten, that last figure in that chain, marking the last week of December 2007, also denotes the month we officially slipped into a recession. Interestingly, data released by the International Energy Agency in September of 2008 showed oil and fuel demand falling worldwide starting in August of 2007.
And yet with our refinery utilization running at far below normal, we managed to have the all-time-record year for the exportation of refined fuels. While the media speculation on where oil’s price is going is almost solely based on “Asian Demand” or the prospect of a total embargo on Iranian oil, the real problem is something completely different.
What is it? It’s refiners trying to find ways to get the price of gasoline on the futures market more in line with the high price of oil. To this end it appears that three refineries in the Northeast, including Sunoco’s Marcus Hook and Philadelphia refinery, along with Conoco’s Trainer unit, will be closed. To be sure, both Conoco and Sunoco claim their first choice is to sell those refineries, but failing that they will be closed.
What does that mean to you and me?
Dow Jones Newswire quoted Gene McGillian, an energy analyst with Tradition Energy, as saying, “Gasoline futures prices are based on New York Harbor prices. When you start to see disruptions in that Northeast market, it’s definitely reflected in gasoline futures.”
Translation: Close refineries and you can bump the futures price of gasoline – and by extension the retail price – regardless of where the price of oil is.
How does oil speculation raise gas prices?
by Josh Clark
“…An oil futureis simply a contract between a buyer and seller, where the buyer agrees to purchase a certain amount of a commodity — in this case oil — at a fixed price
. Futures offer a way for a purchaser to bet on whether a commodity will increase in price down the road. Once locked into a contract, a futures buyer would receive a barrel of oil for the price dictated in the future contract, even if the market price was higher when the barrel was actually delivered.
As in all cases, Wall Street heard the word "bet" and flocked to futures, taking the market to strange new places on the fringe of legality. In the 19th and early 20th centuries it bet on grain. In the 21st century it was oil. Despite U.S. petroleum reserves being at an eight-year high, the price of oil rose dramatically beginning in 2006. While demand rose, supply kept pace. Yet, prices still skyrocketed. This means that the laws of supply and demand no longer applied in the oil markets. Instead, an artificial market developed.
Artificial markets are volatile; they’re difficult to predict and can turn on a dime. As a result of the artificial oil market, the average price per barrel of crude oil increased from $31.61 in July 2004 to $137.11 in July 2008 . The average cost for a gallon of regular unleaded gas in the United States grew from $1.93 to $4.09 over the same period .
So what happened? …"
"…What speculators do is bet on what price a commodity will reach by a future date, through instruments called <strong>derivatives</strong>. Unlike an investment in an actual commodity (such as a barrel of oil), a derivative’s value is based on the value of a commodity (for example, a bet on whether a barrel of oil will increase or decrease in price). Speculators have no hand in the sale of the commodity they’re betting on; they’re not the buyer or the seller.
By betting on the price outcome with only a single futures contract, a speculator has no effect on a market. It’s simply a bet. But a speculator with the capital to purchase a sizeable number of futures derivatives at one price can actually sway the market. As energy researcher F. William Engdahl put it, "[s]peculators trade on rumor, not fact" . A speculator purchasing vast futures at higher than the current market price can cause oil producers to horde their commodity in the hopes they’ll be able to sell it later on at the future price. This drives prices up in reality — both future and present prices — due to the decreased amount of oil currently available on the market.
Investment firms that can influence the oil futures market stand to make a lot; oil companies that both produce the commodity and drive prices up of their product up through oil futures derivatives stand to make even more. Investigations into the unregulated oil futures exchanges turned up major financial institutions like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. But it also revealed energy producers like Vitol, a Swiss company that owned 11 percent of the oil futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange alone .
As a result of speculation among these and other major players, an estimated 60 percent of the price of oil per barrel was added; a $100 barrel of oil, in reality, should cost $40 . And despite having an agency created to prevent just such speculative price inflation, by the time oil prices skyrocketed, the government had made a paper tiger out of it. …"
<a href="http://money.howstuffworks.com/oil-speculation-raise-gas-price.htm">http://money.howstuffworks.com/oil-speculation-raise-gas-price.htm</a></pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<h4></h4>
<h4>It’s no secret that speculators are driving up fuel prices. The surprise? It’s the Fed’s fault, writes Ed Wallace</h4>
<h4>"…The Fed’s Cheap Liquidity Flood</h4>
The problem starts with Ben Bernanke, no matter how many of his Fed presidents claim they are not to blame for the high price of oil. The fact is that when you flood the market with far too much liquidity at virtually no interest, funny things happen in commodities and equities. It was true in the 1920s, it was true in the last decade, and it’s still true today.
When Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve, spoke in Germany late in March, Reuters quoted him as saying: "We are seeing speculative activity that may be exacerbating price rises in commodities such as oil." Fisher added that he was seeing the signs of the same speculative trading that had fueled the first financial meltdown.
Here Fisher is in good company. Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig, who has been a vocal critic of the current Fed policy of zero interest and high liquidity, has suggested that markets don’t function correctly under those circumstances. And David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s former budget director, recently wrote a scathing article for MarketWatch, "Federal Reserve’s Path of Destruction," in which he criticizes current Fed policy even more pointedly. Stockman wrote: "This destruction is namely the exploitation of middle-class savers; the current severe food and energy squeeze on lower income households … and the next round of bursting bubbles building up among the risk asset classes."
Let’s not kid ourselves. Oil in today’s world is worth far more than the $25 a barrel it sold for over a decade ago. But the ability of markets to function properly, based on real supply and demand equations, has been destroyed by allowing ridiculous leverage and the unlimited ability to borrow the leverage at historically low interest rates.
Fortunately for our elected officials, they’ve got the public convinced that the biggest threat from government is taxation and deficits. In reality the public should be infuriated with the rising costs of nondiscretionary items such as food and gasoline, which current Fed policy actively enables. …"
<strong>Price of petroleum</strong>
"…The <strong>price of petroleum</strong> as quoted in news generally refers to the spot price per barrel (159 liters) of either WTI/light crude as traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) for delivery at Cushing, Oklahoma, or of Brent as traded on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE, into which the International Petroleum Exchange has been incorporated) for delivery at Sullom Voe.
The price of a barrel of oil is highly dependent on both its grade, determined by factors such as its specific gravity or API and its sulphur content, and its location. Other important benchmarks include Dubai, Tapis, and the OPEC basket. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) uses the imported refiner acquisition cost, the weighted average cost of all oil imported into the US, as its "world oil price".
The demand for oil is highly dependent on global macroeconomic conditions. According to the International Energy Agency, high oil prices generally have a large negative impact on the global economic growth.<sup>[1]</sup>
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was formed in 1960<sup>[2]</sup> to try and counter the oil companies cartel, which had been controlling posted prices since the so-called 1927 Red Line Agreement and 1928 Achnacarry Agreement, and had achieved a high level of price stability until 1972.
The price of oil underwent a significant decrease after the record peak of US$145 it reached in July 2008. On December 23, 2008, WTI crude oil spot price fell to US$30.28 a barrel, the lowest since the financial crisis of 2007–2010 began, and traded at between US$35 a barrel and US$82 a barrel in 2009.<sup>[3]</sup> On 31 January 2011, the Brent price hit $100 a barrel for the first time since October 2008, on concerns about the political unrest in Egypt.<sup>[4]</sup>
Price history before 2003
A low point was reached in January 1999 of 17 USD per barrel, after increased oil production from Iraq coincided with the Asian Financial Crisis, which reduced demand. Prices then increased rapidly, more than doubling by September 2000 to $35, then fell until the end of 2001 before steadily increasing, reaching $40–50 by September 2004.<sup>[5]</sup>
<h3>Price history from 2003 onwards</h3>
<div>Main article: 2003 to 2011 world oil market chronology</div>
<div>Further information: 2000s energy crisis</div>
<h4>Benchmark pricing</h4>
<div>Main article: Benchmark (crude oil)</div>
After the collapse of the OPEC-administered pricing system in 1985, and a short lived experiment with netback pricing, oil-exporting countries adopted a market-linked pricing mechanism.<sup>[6]</sup> First adopted by PEMEX in 1986, market-linked pricing received wide acceptance and by 1988 became and still is the main method for pricing crude oil in international trade.<sup>[6]</sup> The current reference, or pricing markers, are Brent, WTI, and Dubai/Oman.<sup>[6]</sup>
<h4>Market listings</h4>
<div>Main article: Commodities markets</div>
Oil is marketed among other products in commodities markets. See above for details. Widely traded oil futures, and related natural gas futures, include:<sup>[7]</sup>
<ul>
<li>Petroleum
<ul>
<li>Nymex Crude Future</li>
<li>Dated Brent Spot</li>
<li>WTI Cushing Spot</li>
<li>Nymex Heating Oil Future</li>
<li>Nymex RBOB Gasoline Future</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Natural gas
<ul>
<li>Nymex Henry Hub Future</li>
<li>Henry Hub Spot</li>
<li>New York City Gate Spot</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
Most of the above oil futures have delivery dates in all 12 months of the year.<sup>[8]</sup>
<h4>Speculation</h4>
The surge in oil prices in the past several years has led some commentators to argue that at least some of the rise is due to speculation in the futures markets.<sup>[9]</sup>
<h4>Future price changes</h4>
In 2009, Seismic Micro-Technology conducted a survey of geophysicists and geologists about the future of crude oil. Of the survey participants 80 percent predicted the price for a barrel of oil will rise to be somewhere between $50 and $100 per barrel by June 2010.<sup>[10]</sup> Another 50 percent saying it will rise even further to $100 to $150 a barrel in the next five years.<sup>[10]</sup>
Oil prices could go to $200- $300 a barrel if the world’s top crude exporter Saudi Arabia is hit by serious political unrest, according to former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Yamani. Yamani has said that underlying discontent remained unresolved in Saudi Arabia. "If something happens in Saudi Arabia it will go to $200 to $300. I don’t expect this for the time being, but who would have expected Tunisia?" Yamani told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference of the Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES) which he chaired on April 5th 2011.<sup>[11]</sup>
<h4>CFTC investigation</h4>
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced "Multiple Energy Market Initiatives" on May 29, 2008. Part 1 is "Expanded International Surveillance Information for Crude Oil Trading." The CFTC announcement stated it has joined with the United Kingdom Financial Services Authority and ICE Futures Europe in order to expand surveillance and information sharing of various futures contracts.<sup>[12]</sup> This announcement has received wide coverage in the financial press, with speculation about oil futures price manipulation.<sup>[13]</sup><sup>[14]</sup><sup>[15]</sup>
The interim report by the Interagency Task Force, released in July, found that speculation had not caused significant changes in oil prices and that fundamental supply and demand factors provide the best explanation for the crude oil price increases. The report found that the primary reason for the price increases was that the world economy had expanded at its fastest pace in decades, resulting in substantial increases in the demand for oil, while the oil production grew sluggishly, compounded by production shortfalls in oil-exporting countries.
The report stated that as a result of the imbalance and low price elasticity, very large price increases occurred as the market attempted to balance scarce supply against growing demand, particularly in the last three years. The report forecast that this imbalance would persist in the future, leading to continued upward pressure on oil prices, and that large or rapid movements in oil prices are likely to occur even in the absence of activity by speculators. The task force continues to analyze commodity markets and intends to issue further findings later in the year.
<h4>Future projections</h4>
<div>Main article: Oil depletion</div>
<div>Main article: Peak oil</div>
Peak oil is the period when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. It relates to a long term decline in the available supply of petroleum. This, combined with increasing demand, will significantly increase the worldwide prices of petroleum derived products. Most significant will be the availability and price of liquid fuel for transportation.
The US Department of Energy in the Hirsch report indicates that “The problems associated with world oil production peaking will not be temporary, and past “energy crisis” experience will provide relatively little guidance.”<sup>[16] …"</sup>
<strong>Gas prices soar on dollar devaluation even as consumption drops to 10-year lows </strong>
<strong>Written By Kenneth Schortgen Jr on Monday, February 13, 2012</strong>
"…One of the biggest misnomers in finance and economics today is that prices work according to supply and demand. This was true when America performed in actual capitalist system, but since we moved to both fascism and crony capitalism, where corporations, banks, and government all work together at the betterment of themselves and not society, prices are fixed due to other factors such as dollar devaluation.
<div style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong><em>U.S. drivers used 2.8 percent less motor gasoline last year and consumed the smallest amount since 1999, the U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday. Officials credited the decrease to more fuel-efficient cars and an aging population taking few trips.</em></strong></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong><em>Meanwhile, U.S. domestic oil production increased by more than 2 percent last year to 5.6 million barrels per day. – </em></strong><a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120209/BUSINESS/302090065/-1/TERMSOFSERVICE/Gas-consumption-lowest-since-1999"><strong><em>Des Moines Register</em></strong></a></div>
So… if consumption is way down, and production is actually up, should not gasoline prices be falling? They should, except if you take into consideration the amount of money printing and currency devaluation being done by the Federal Reserve over the past four years, the amount of inflation is being created by our own banking system, and not by a lack of products, or by higher demand.
In the end, Americans are being deceived by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. …"
<a href="http://www.thedailyeconomist.com/2012/02/gas-prices-soar-on-dollar-devaluation.html">http://www.thedailyeconomist.com/2012/02/gas-prices-soar-on-dollar-devaluation.html</a>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Gasoline Prices Are Not Rising, the Dollar Is Falling</h3>
<strong><a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/louiswoodhill/">Louis Woodhill</a></strong>
"…Panic is in the air as gasoline prices move above $4.00 per gallon. Politicians and pundits are rounding up the usual suspects, looking for someone or something to blame for this latest outrage to middle class family budgets. In a rare display of bipartisanship, President Obama and Speaker of the House <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/john-boehner/">John Boehner</a> are both wringing their hands over the prospect of seeing their newly extended Social <a href="http://www.forbes.com/security/">Security</a> tax cut gobbled up by rising gasoline costs.
Unfortunately, the talking heads that are trying to explain the reasons for high oil prices are missing one tiny detail. Oil prices aren’t high right now. In fact, they are unusually low. Gasoline prices would have to rise by another $0.65 to $0.75 per gallon from where they are now just to be “normal”. And, because gasoline prices are low right now, it is very likely that they are going to go up more—perhaps a lot more.
What the politicians, analysts, and pundits are missing is that prices are ratios. Gasoline prices reflect crude oil prices, so let’s use West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil to illustrate this crucial point.
As this is written, West Texas Intermediate crude oil (WTI) is trading at $105.88/bbl. All this means is that the market value of a barrel of WTI is 105.88 times the market value of “the dollar”. It is also true that WTI is trading at €79.95/bbl, ¥8,439.69/barrel, and £67.13/bbl. In all of these cases, the market value of WTI is the same. What is different in each case is the value of the monetary unit (euros, yen, and British pounds, respectively) being used to calculate the ratio that expresses the price.
In terms of judging whether the price of WTI is high or low, here is the price that truly matters: 0.0602 ounces of gold per barrel (which can be written as Au0.0602/bbl). What this number means is that, right now, a barrel of WTI has the same market value as 0.0602 ounces of gold.
During the 493 months since January 1, 1971, the price of WTI has averaged Au0.0732/bbl. It has been higher than that during 225 of those months and lower than that during 268 of those months. Plotted as a graph, the line representing the price of a barrel of oil in terms of gold has crossed the horizontal line representing the long-term average price (Au0.0732/bbl) 29 times.
At Au0.0602/bbl, today’s WTI price is only 82% of its average over the past 41+ years. Assuming that gold prices remained at today’s $1,759.30/oz, WTI prices would have to rise by about 22%, to $128.86/bbl, in order to reach their long-term average in terms of gold. As mentioned earlier, such an increase would drive up retail gasoline prices by somewhere between $0.65 and $0.75 per gallon.
At this point, we can be certain that, unless gold prices come down, gasoline prices are going to go up—by a lot. And, because the dollar is currently a floating, undefined, fiat currency, there is no inherent limit to how far the price of gold in dollars can rise, and therefore no ultimate ceiling on gasoline prices. …"
<strong>Why Gas Prices Are Actually Falling </strong>
<div><strong>By Gary Gibson</strong></div>
"…It’s not gold and silver prices that are volatile. Those have been incredibly consistent for thousands of years in terms of commodities they could buy. And because of the increasing standard of living being raised by free market economies, in a very real sense these eternal monies actually buy more. It’s the dollar that has been erratic in its overall declining trend ever since it’s been cut loose from gold (and silver).
Again, people looking at the cost of a gallon of gas, or of milk, or the cost of a nice suit, or rent from behind their piles of gold and silver are finding very little to worry about. In fact, to them, prices are lower than normal and declining.
Also the price of oil has tended to track the price of silver awfully closely for about as long as oil has been industrially useful. And so it’s no mistake that you can still get a gallon of gas for about about $0.20…as long as that $0.20 is composed of a pre-1964 90% silver dimes. …"
<a href="http://raymondpronk.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/silver_quarter.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55554" title="silver_quarter" src="http://raymondpronk.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/silver_quarter.png" alt="" width="544" height="195" /></a>
"…You see, the pre-1965 quarter is worth $6.38 as I type this. The pre-1965 dime is worth $2.55. These coins hail from a time when the dollar was still tied to gold (at the official price of $35 per ounce prior to Nixon nixing the gold standard). The dollar was still as good as gold — even though Americans themselves were forbidden to own gold bullion from 1933 till 1974 — and there was actual silver in the coinage until that content was reduced in 1964 and eliminated in 1965.
Those old silver coins shine the harsh light on the strength of the currency and the abuse that currency suffers from the feds and the Federal Reserve.
If you’d been saving in gold, then from your point of view gas prices have been coming down for the past few years. If you’d been saving in that old “junk” silver (pre-1965 quarters, dimes and half dollars), then gas prices are a downright bargain, too. …"
<a href="http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/why-gas-prices-are-actually-falling/">http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/why-gas-prices-are-actually-falling/</a>
<h4><strong>Consequences to Expect if the U.S. Invades Iran </strong></h4>
<h4><strong>By Whiskey Contributor<small>Feb 22nd, 2012</small></strong></h4>
<h4><strong>Exploding Oil Prices</strong></h4>
The U.S. has had a ban on Iranian oil imports since 1979, however, Iran still supplies about 5% of the global oil market. This might not seem like much, but Iran also has the means and ability to shut down the Straight of Hormuz, which is one of two major petroleum choke points in the world. Around 17 million barrels of oil per day are shipped through the Straight of Hormuz, or about 20% of all oil traded worldwide.
<img src="http://www.ezimages.net/WHISKEY/022212_pic2.png" alt="" width="363" height="208" />
"…In 2006, during the last major Iran war scare, experts predicted gasoline price increases in excess of <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/07/news/international/iran_oil/" target="_blank">$10 a gallon if Iran was invaded.</a>
This would devastate the U.S. economy, which is already hanging by a thin thread. Iran has announced this past weekend it will cease all oil shipments to Britain and France in protest of their support of economic sanctions. This alone is causing oil to spike today. A global energy crisis will financially decimate average citizens who will have their savings sapped by extreme price inflation, not just in gasoline, but in all goods that require the use of gasoline in their production and shipping. If you like this idea, then by all means, support an invasion of Iran.
<strong>War Domino Effect</strong>
In January of 2010, I wrote an article for Neithercorp Press entitled <a href="http://www.alt-market.com/neithercorp/press/2010/01/will-globalists-trigger-yet-another-world-war/" target="_blank">“Will Globalists Trigger Yet Another World War</a>“. In that article, I warned about the dangers of an invasion of Iran or Syria being used to foment a global conflict, in order to create a crisis large enough to distract the masses away from the international banker created economic collapse.
In 2006, Iran signed a mutual defense pact with its neighbor, Syria, which is also in the middle of its own turmoil and possible NATO intervention. Syria has strong ties to Russia, and even has a revamped Russian naval base off its coast, a fact rarely mentioned by the mainstream media. Both Russia and China have made their opposition clear in the case of any Western intervention in Iran or Syria. An invasion by the U.S. or Israel in these regions could quickly intensify into wider war between major world powers. If you like the idea of a world war which could eventually put you and your family in direct danger, then by all means, support an invasion of Iran.
<strong>Dollar Collapse</strong>
Make no mistake, the U.S. dollar is already on the verge of collapse, along with the U.S. economy. Bilateral trade agreements between BRIC and ASEAN nations are sprouting up everywhere the past couple months, and these agreements are specifically designed to end the dollar’s status as the world reserve currency. An invasion of Iran will only expedite this process. If global anger over the resulting chaos in oil prices doesn’t set off a dump of the dollar, the eventual debt obligation incurred through the overt costs of war will. Ron Paul has always been right; it doesn’t matter whether you think invasion is a good idea or not. We simply CANNOT afford it. America is bankrupt. Our only source of income is our ability to print money from thin air. Each dollar created to fund new wars brings our currency ever closer to its demise. …"
<a href="http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/consequences-to-expect-if-the-u-s-invades-iran/">http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/consequences-to-expect-if-the-u-s-invades-iran/</a>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">Background Articles and Videos</h1>
<h4 style="text-align: center;"></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center;"></h4>
<h4 id="watch-headline-title" style="text-align: center;">Introduction to Futures</h4>
<h4 id="watch-headline-title" style="text-align: center;">What is a Future?</h4>
<h4 id="watch-headline-title" style="text-align: center;">Investopedia Video: How Do Futures Contracts Work?</h4>
<h4 id="watch-headline-title" style="text-align: center;">Commodity futures margin accounts</h4>
<div><strong> Security Futures—Know Your Risks, or Risk Your Future</strong></div>
<div>
<strong>"…Margin & Leverage</strong>
When a brokerage firm lends you part of the funds needed to purchase a security, such as common stock, the term "margin" refers to the amount of cash, or down payment, the customer is required to deposit. By contrast, a security futures contract is an obligation not an asset and has no value as collateral for a loan. When you enter into a security futures contract, you are required to make a payment referred to as a "margin payment" or "performance bond" to cover potential losses.
For a relatively small amount of money (the margin requirement), a futures contract worth several times as much can be bought or sold. The smaller the margin requirement in relation to the underlying value of the futures contract, the greater the leverage. Because of this leverage, small changes in price can result in large gains and losses in a short period of time.
<strong>Example:</strong> Assuming a security futures contract is for 100 shares of stock, if a security futures contract is established at a contract price of $50, the contract has a nominal value of $5,000 (see definition below). The margin requirement may be as low as 20 percent, which would require a margin deposit of $1,000. Assume the contract price rises from $50 to $52 (a $200 increase in the nominal value). This represents a $200 profit to the buyer of the futures contract, and a 20 percent return on the $1,000 deposited as margin.
The reverse would be true if the contract price decreased from $50 to $48. This represents a $200 loss to the buyer, or 20 percent of the $1,000 deposited as margin. Thus, leverage can either benefit or harm an investor.
Note that a 4 percent decrease in the value of the contract resulted in a loss of 20 percent of the margin deposited. A 20 percent decrease in the contract price ($50 to $40) would mean a drop in the nominal value of the contract from $5,000 to $4,000, thereby wiping out 100 percent of the margin deposited on the security futures contract. …"</div>
<div><a href="http://www.finra.org/Investors/InvestmentChoices/P005912">http://www.finra.org/Investors/InvestmentChoices/P005912</a></div>
<div></div>
<div>
<h4>Futures Margins</h4>
<!– google_ad_section_start –>Participants in a futures contract are required to post performance bond margins in order to open and maintain a futures position.
Futures margin requirements are set by the exchanges and are typically only 2 to 10 percent of the full value of the futures contract.
Margins are financial guarantees required of both buyers and sellers of futures contracts to ensure that they fulfill their futures contract obligations.
<h4>Initial Margin</h4>
Before a futures position can be opened, there must be enough available balance in the futures trader’s margin account to meet the initial margin requirement. Upon opening the futures position, an amount equal to the initial margin requirement will be deducted from the trader’s margin account and transferred to the exchange’s clearing firm. This money is held by the exchange clearinghouse as long as the futures position remains open.
<h4>Maintenance Margin</h4>
The maintenance margin is the minimum amount a futures trader is required to maintain in his margin account in order to hold a futures position. The maintenance margin level is usually slightly below the initial margin.
If the balance in the futures trader’s margin account falls below the maintenance margin level, he or she will receive a margin call to top up his margin account so as to meet the initial margin requirement.
<h4>Example</h4>
Let’s assume we have a speculator who has $10000 in his trading account. He decides to buy August Crude Oil at $40 per barrel. Each Crude Oil futures contract represents 1000 barrels and requires an initial margin of $9000 and has a maintenance margin level set at $6500.
Since his account is $10000, which is more than the initial margin requirement, he can therefore open up one August Crude Oil futures position.
One day later, the price of August Crude Oil drops to $38 a barrel. Our speculator has suffered an open position loss of $2000 ($2 x 1000 barrels) and thus his account balance drops to $8000.
Although his balance is now lower than the initial margin requirement, he did not get the margin call as it is still above the maintenance level of $6500.
Unfortunately, on the very next day, the price of August Crude Oil crashed further to $35, leading to an additional $3000 loss on his open Crude Oil position. With only $5000 left in his trading account, which is below the maintenance level of $6500, he received a call from his broker asking him to top up his trading account back to the initial level of $9000 in order to maintain his open Crude Oil position.
This means that if the speculator wishes to stay in the position, he will need to deposit an additional $4000 into his trading account.
Otherwise, if he decides to quit the position, the remaining $5000 in his account will be available to use for trading once again. …"
<a href="http://www.theoptionsguide.com/futures-margin.aspx">http://www.theoptionsguide.com/futures-margin.aspx</a></div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div><strong>Federal Regulation of Margin in the Commodities Futures Industry: History and Theory</strong></div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<h4><a href="http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/bibarticles/markham_margin.pdf">http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/bibarticles/markham_margin.pdf</a></h4>
<h4></h4>
<h4></h4>
<h4>How does oil speculation raise gas prices?</h4>
<h4>by Josh Clark</h4>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div align="left">
"…The next time you drive to the gas station, only to find prices are still sky high compared to just a few years ago, take notice of the rows of <a href="http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/debt-management/foreclosure.htm">foreclosed</a> houses you’ll pass along the way. They may seem like two parts of a spell of economic bad luck, but high gas prices and home foreclosures are actually very much interrelated. Before most people were even aware there was an <a href="http://money.howstuffworks.com/government-bailout.htm">economic crisis</a>, investment managers abandoned failing <a href="http://money.howstuffworks.com/mortgage-backed-security.htm">mortgage-backed securities</a> and looked for other lucrative investments. What they settled on was oil futures.
An <strong>oil future</strong> is simply a contract between a buyer and seller, where the buyer agrees to purchase a certain amount of a commodity — in this case <a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/oil-refining.htm">oil</a>– at a fixed price
. Futures offer a way for a purchaser to bet on whether a commodity will increase in price down the road. Once locked into a contract, a futures buyer would receive a barrel of oil for the price dictated in the future contract, even if the market price was higher when the barrel was actually delivered. …”
“…What speculators do is bet on what price a commodity will reach by a future date, through instruments called derivatives. Unlike an investment in an actual commodity (such as a barrel of oil), a derivative’s value is based on the value of a commodity (for example, a bet on whether a barrel of oil will increase or decrease in price). Speculators have no hand in the sale of the commodity they’re betting on; they’re not the buyer or the seller.
By betting on the price outcome with only a single futures contract, a speculator has no effect on a market. It’s simply a bet. But a speculator with the capital to purchase a sizeable number of futures derivatives at one price can actually sway the market. As energy researcher F. William Engdahl put it, “[s]peculators trade on rumor, not fact”
. A speculator purchasing vast futures at higher than the current market price can cause oil producers to horde their commodity in the hopes they’ll be able to sell it later on at the future price. This drives prices up in reality — both future and present prices — due to the decreased amount of oil currently available on the market.
Investment firms that can influence the oil futures market stand to make a lot; oil companies that both produce the commodity and drive prices up of their product up through oil futures derivatives stand to make even more. Investigations into the unregulated oil futures exchanges turned up major financial institutions like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. But it also revealed energy producers like Vitol, a Swiss company that owned 11 percent of the oil futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange alone
.
As a result of speculation among these and other major players, an estimated 60 percent of the price of oil per barrel was added; a $100 barrel of oil, in reality, should cost $40
. And despite having an agency created to prevent just such speculative price inflation, by the time oil prices skyrocketed, the government had made a paper tiger out of it. …”
http://money.howstuffworks.com/oil-speculation-raise-gas-price.htm
Highlights
“…U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged just under 14.9 million barrels per
day during the week ending February 17, 170 thousand barrels per day
above the previous week’s average. Refineries operated at 85.5 percent
of their operable capacity last week. Gasoline production increased
last week, averaging nearly 9.0 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel
production decreased last week, averaging just under 4.3 million barrels
per day.
U.S. crude oil imports averaged nearly 9.1 million barrels per day last
week, up by 335 thousand barrels per day from the previous week. Over
the last four weeks, crude oil imports have averaged about 8.8 million
barrels per day, 211 thousand barrels per day above the same four-week
period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished
gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 845
thousand barrels per day. Distillate fuel imports averaged 122 thousand
barrels per day last week.
U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve) increased by 1.6 million barrels from the previous
week. At 340.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are in the
upper limit of the average range for this time of year. Total motor
gasoline inventories decreased by 0.6 million barrels last week and are
in the upper limit of the average range. Finished gasoline inventories
decreased while blending components inventories increased last week.
Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 0.2 million barrels last week and
are in the middle of the average range for this time of year. Propane/
propylene inventories decreased by 1.6 million barrels last week and are
above the upper limit of the average range. Total commercial petroleum
inventories increased by 3.3 million barrels last week.
Total products supplied over the last four-week period have averaged
about 18.1 million barrels per day, down by 6.7 percent compared to
the similar period last year. Over the last four weeks, motor gasoline
product supplied has averaged 8.2 million barrels per day, down by 6.1
percent from the same period last year. Distillate fuel product supplied
has averaged about 3.6 million barrels per day over the last four weeks,
down by 5.9 percent from the same period last year. Jet fuel product
supplied is 9.1 percent lower over the last four weeks compared to the
same four-week period last year.
WTI was $103.27 per barrel on February 17, 2012, $4.59 more than
last week’s price and $18.24 above a year ago. The spot price for
conventional gasoline in the New York Harbor was $3.023 per gallon,
$0.022 more than last week’s price and $0.483 above last year. The
spot price for No. 2 heating oil in the New York Harbor was $3.185 per
gallon, $0.002 less than last week’s price but $0.474 above a year ago.
The national average retail regular gasoline price increased for the fourth
week in a row to $3.591 per gallon on February 20, 2012, $0.068 per
gallon more than last week and $0.402 above a year ago. The national
average retail diesel fuel price also increased for the fourth straight week
in a row to $3.960 per gallon, $0.017 per gallon more than last week and
$0.387 above a year ago. …”
Inflation: Calculating the rate of inflation
Historical CPI-U data from 1913 to the present
“…For just current CPI data, see CPI page. The following table provides all the Consumer Price Index data CPI-U from 1913 to the Present.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) is compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is based upon a 1982 Base of 100. A Consumer Price Index of 158 indicates 58% inflation since 1982. The commonly quoted inflation rate of say 3% is actually the change in the Consumer Price Index from a year earlier. By looking at the change in the Consumer Price Index we can see that what cost an average of 9.9 cents in 1913 would cost us about $1.82 in 2003 and $2.02 in 2007.
To find Prior Consumer Price Index (CPI) data on this table (back through 1913) click on the date range links below the table.
For Inflation data rather than Consumer Price Index data go to the Historical Inflation page. If you would like to calculate the inflation rate between two dates using the Consumer Price Index data from this chart, use our handy easy to use Inflation calculator or you might prefer to use our Cost of Living Calculator to compare the costs in two cities. You can find links to Inflation and Consumer Price Index data for other countries HERE. A chart of Inflation by decade, Annual Inflation and Confederate Inflation is also available. Menu navigation is available on the menu bar on the left of every page. We have a complete listing of all of our Articles on inflation, including Inflation Definitions, Which is better High or Low Inflation, and How to Calculate Inflation.
You might also be interested in the wide variety of articles on our sister site Financial Trend Forecaster a complete list of the articles on Financial Trend Forecaster is at the FTF Article Archives.
Note Effective January 2007 the BLS began publishing the CPI index to three decimal places (prior to that it was only one decimal place). But InflationData.com is still the only place to get the Inflation Rate calculated to two decimal places.
Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Annual |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2012 | 226.665 | ||||||||||||
2011 | 220.223 | 221.309 | 223.467 | 224.906 | 225.964 | 225.722 | 225.922 | 226.545 | 226.889 | 226.421 | 226.230 | 225.672 | 224.939 |
2010 | 216.687 | 216.741 | 217.631 | 218.009 | 218.178 | 217.965 | 218.011 | 218.312 | 218.439 | 218.711 | 218.803 | 219.179 | 218.056 |
2009 | 211.143 | 212.193 | 212.709 | 213.240 | 213.856 | 215.693 | 215.351 | 215.834 | 215.969 | 216.177 | 216.330 | 215.949 | 214.537 |
2008 | 211.080 | 211.693 | 213.528 | 214.823 | 216.632 | 218.815 | 219.964 | 219.086 | 218.783 | 216.573 | 212.425 | 210.228 | 215.303 |
2007 | 202.416 | 203.499 | 205.352 | 206.686 | 207.949 | 208.352 | 208.299 | 207.917 | 208.490 | 208.936 | 210.177 | 210.036 | 207.342 |
2006 | 198.300 | 198.700 | 199.800 | 201.500 | 202.500 | 202.900 | 203.500 | 203.900 | 202.900 | 201.800 | 201.500 | 201.800 | 201.600 |
2005 | 190.700 | 191.800 | 193.300 | 194.600 | 194.400 | 194.500 | 195.400 | 196.400 | 198.800 | 199.200 | 197.600 | 196.800 | 195.300 |
2004 | 185.200 | 186.200 | 187.400 | 188.000 | 189.100 | 189.700 | 189.400 | 189.500 | 189.900 | 190.900 | 191.000 | 190.300 | 188.900 |
2003 | 181.700 | 183.100 | 184.200 | 183.800 | 183.500 | 183.700 | 183.900 | 184.600 | 185.200 | 185.000 | 184.500 | 184.300 | 183.960 |
2002 | 177.100 | 177.800 | 178.800 | 179.800 | 179.800 | 179.900 | 180.100 | 180.700 | 181.000 | 181.300 | 181.300 | 180.900 | 179.880 |
2001 | 175.100 | 175.800 | 176.200 | 176.900 | 177.700 | 178.000 | 177.500 | 177.500 | 178.300 | 177.700 | 177.400 | 176.700 | 177.100 |
2000 | 168.800 | 169.800 | 171.200 | 171.300 | 171.500 | 172.400 | 172.800 | 172.800 | 173.700 | 174.000 | 174.100 | 174.000 | 172.200 |
1999 | 164.300 | 164.500 | 165.000 | 166.200 | 166.200 | 166.200 | 166.700 | 167.100 | 167.900 | 168.200 | 168.300 | 168.300 | 166.600 |
1998 | 161.600 | 161.900 | 162.200 | 162.500 | 162.800 | 163.000 | 163.200 | 163.400 | 163.600 | 164.000 | 164.000 | 163.900 | 163.000 |
1997 | 159.100 | 159.600 | 160.000 | 160.200 | 160.100 | 160.300 | 160.500 | 160.800 | 161.200 | 161.600 | 161.500 | 161.300 | 160.500 |
1996 | 154.400 | 154.900 | 155.700 | 156.300 | 156.600 | 156.700 | 157.000 | 157.300 | 157.800 | 158.300 | 158.600 | 158.600 | 156.900 |
1995 | 150.300 | 150.900 | 151.400 | 151.900 | 152.200 | 152.500 | 152.500 | 152.900 | 153.200 | 153.700 | 153.600 | 153.500 | 152.400 |
1994 | 146.200 | 146.700 | 147.200 | 147.400 | 147.500 | 148.000 | 148.400 | 149.000 | 149.400 | 149.500 | 149.700 | 149.700 | 148.200 |
1993 | 142.600 | 143.100 | 143.600 | 144.000 | 144.200 | 144.400 | 144.400 | 144.800 | 145.100 | 145.700 | 145.800 | 145.800 | 144.500 |
1992 | 138.100 | 138.600 | 139.300 | 139.500 | 139.700 | 140.200 | 140.500 | 140.900 | 141.300 | 141.800 | 142.000 | 141.900 | 140.300 |
1991 | 134.600 | 134.800 | 135.000 | 135.200 | 135.600 | 136.000 | 136.200 | 136.600 | 137.200 | 137.400 | 137.800 | 137.900 | 136.200 |
1990 | 127.400 | 128.000 | 128.700 | 128.900 | 129.200 | 129.900 | 130.400 | 131.600 | 132.700 | 133.500 | 133.800 | 133.800 | 130.700 |
1989 | 121.100 | 121.600 | 122.300 | 123.100 | 123.800 | 124.100 | 124.400 | 124.600 | 125.000 | 125.600 | 125.900 | 126.100 | 124.000 |
1988 | 115.700 | 116.000 | 116.500 | 117.100 | 117.500 | 118.000 | 118.500 | 119.000 | 119.800 | 120.200 | 120.300 | 120.500 | 118.300 |
1987 | 111.200 | 111.600 | 112.100 | 112.700 | 113.100 | 113.500 | 113.800 | 114.400 | 115.000 | 115.300 | 115.400 | 115.400 | 113.600 |
1986 | 109.600 | 109.300 | 108.800 | 108.600 | 108.900 | 109.500 | 109.500 | 109.700 | 110.200 | 110.300 | 110.400 | 110.500 | 109.600 |
1985 | 105.500 | 106.000 | 106.400 | 106.900 | 107.300 | 107.600 | 107.800 | 108.000 | 108.300 | 108.700 | 109.000 | 109.300 | 107.600 |
1984 | 101.900 | 102.400 | 102.600 | 103.100 | 103.400 | 103.700 | 104.100 | 104.500 | 105.000 | 105.300 | 105.300 | 105.300 | 103.900 |
1983 | 97.800 | 97.900 | 97.900 | 98.600 | 99.200 | 99.500 | 99.900 | 100.200 | 100.700 | 101.000 | 101.200 | 101.300 | 99.600 |
1982 | 94.300 | 94.600 | 94.500 | 94.900 | 95.800 | 97.000 | 97.500 | 97.700 | 97.900 | 98.200 | 98.000 | 97.600 | 96.500 |
1981 | 87.000 | 87.900 | 88.500 | 89.100 | 89.800 | 90.600 | 91.600 | 92.300 | 93.200 | 93.400 | 93.700 | 94.000 | 90.900 |
1980 | 77.800 | 78.900 | 80.100 | 81.000 | 81.800 | 82.700 | 82.700 | 83.300 | 84.000 | 84.800 | 85.500 | 86.300 | 82.400 |
1979 | 68.300 | 69.100 | 69.800 | 70.600 | 71.500 | 72.300 | 73.100 | 73.800 | 74.600 | 75.200 | 75.900 | 76.700 | 72.600 |
1978 | 62.500 | 62.900 | 63.400 | 63.900 | 64.500 | 65.200 | 65.700 | 66.000 | 66.500 | 67.100 | 67.400 | 67.700 | 65.200 |
1977 | 58.500 | 59.100 | 59.500 | 60.000 | 60.300 | 60.700 | 61.000 | 61.200 | 61.400 | 61.600 | 61.900 | 62.100 | 60.600 |
1976 | 55.600 | 55.800 | 55.900 | 56.100 | 56.500 | 56.800 | 57.100 | 57.400 | 57.600 | 57.900 | 58.000 | 58.200 | 56.900 |
1975 | 52.100 | 52.500 | 52.700 | 52.900 | 53.200 | 53.600 | 54.200 | 54.300 | 54.600 | 54.900 | 55.300 | 55.500 | 53.800 |
1974 | 46.600 | 47.200 | 47.800 | 48.000 | 48.600 | 49.000 | 49.400 | 50.000 | 50.600 | 51.100 | 51.500 | 51.900 | 49.300 |
1973 | 42.600 | 42.900 | 43.300 | 43.600 | 43.900 | 44.200 | 44.300 | 45.100 | 45.200 | 45.600 | 45.900 | 46.200 | 44.400 |
1972 | 41.100 | 41.300 | 41.400 | 41.500 | 41.600 | 41.700 | 41.900 | 42.000 | 42.100 | 42.300 | 42.400 | 42.500 | 41.800 |
1971 | 39.800 | 39.900 | 40.000 | 40.100 | 40.300 | 40.600 | 40.700 | 40.800 | 40.800 | 40.900 | 40.900 | 41.100 | 40.500 |
1970 | 37.800 | 38.000 | 38.200 | 38.500 | 38.600 | 38.800 | 39.000 | 39.000 | 39.200 | 39.400 | 39.600 | 39.800 | 38.800 |
1969 | 35.600 | 35.800 | 36.100 | 36.300 | 36.400 | 36.600 | 36.800 | 37.000 | 37.100 | 37.300 | 37.500 | 37.700 | 36.700 |
1968 | 34.100 | 34.200 | 34.300 | 34.400 | 34.500 | 34.700 | 34.900 | 35.000 | 35.100 | 35.300 | 35.400 | 35.500 | 34.800 |
1967 | 32.900 | 32.900 | 33.000 | 33.100 | 33.200 | 33.300 | 33.400 | 33.500 | 33.600 | 33.700 | 33.800 | 33.900 | 33.400 |
1966 | 31.800 | 32.000 | 32.100 | 32.300 | 32.300 | 32.400 | 32.500 | 32.700 | 32.700 | 32.900 | 32.900 | 32.900 | 32.400 |
1965 | 31.200 | 31.200 | 31.300 | 31.400 | 31.400 | 31.600 | 31.600 | 31.600 | 31.600 | 31.700 | 31.700 | 31.800 | 31.500 |
1964 | 30.900 | 30.900 | 30.900 | 30.900 | 30.900 | 31.000 | 31.100 | 31.000 | 31.100 | 31.100 | 31.200 | 31.200 | 31.000 |
1963 | 30.400 | 30.400 | 30.500 | 30.500 | 30.500 | 30.600 | 30.700 | 30.700 | 30.700 | 30.800 | 30.800 | 30.900 | 30.600 |
1962 | 30.000 | 30.100 | 30.100 | 30.200 | 30.200 | 30.200 | 30.300 | 30.300 | 30.400 | 30.400 | 30.400 | 30.400 | 30.200 |
1961 | 29.800 | 29.800 | 29.800 | 29.800 | 29.800 | 29.800 | 30.000 | 29.900 | 30.000 | 30.000 | 30.000 | 30.000 | 29.900 |
1960 | 29.300 | 29.400 | 29.400 | 29.500 | 29.500 | 29.600 | 29.600 | 29.600 | 29.600 | 29.800 | 29.800 | 29.800 | 29.600 |
1959 | 29.000 | 28.900 | 28.900 | 29.000 | 29.000 | 29.100 | 29.200 | 29.200 | 29.300 | 29.400 | 29.400 | 29.400 | 29.100 |
1958 | 28.600 | 28.600 | 28.800 | 28.900 | 28.900 | 28.900 | 29.000 | 28.900 | 28.900 | 28.900 | 29.000 | 28.900 | 28.900 |
1957 | 27.600 | 27.700 | 27.800 | 27.900 | 28.000 | 28.100 | 28.300 | 28.300 | 28.300 | 28.300 | 28.400 | 28.400 | 28.100 |
1956 | 26.800 | 26.800 | 26.800 | 26.900 | 27.000 | 27.200 | 27.400 | 27.300 | 27.400 | 27.500 | 27.500 | 27.600 | 27.200 |
1955 | 26.700 | 26.700 | 26.700 | 26.700 | 26.700 | 26.700 | 26.800 | 26.800 | 26.900 | 26.900 | 26.900 | 26.800 | 26.800 |
1954 | 26.900 | 26.900 | 26.900 | 26.800 | 26.900 | 26.900 | 26.900 | 26.900 | 26.800 | 26.800 | 26.800 | 26.700 | 26.900 |
1953 | 26.600 | 26.500 | 26.600 | 26.600 | 26.700 | 26.800 | 26.800 | 26.900 | 26.900 | 27.000 | 26.900 | 26.900 | 26.700 |
1952 | 26.500 | 26.300 | 26.300 | 26.400 | 26.400 | 26.500 | 26.700 | 26.700 | 26.700 | 26.700 | 26.700 | 26.700 | 26.500 |
1951 | 25.400 | 25.700 | 25.800 | 25.800 | 25.900 | 25.900 | 25.900 | 25.900 | 26.100 | 26.200 | 26.400 | 26.500 | 26.000 |
1950 | 23.500 | 23.500 | 23.600 | 23.600 | 23.700 | 23.800 | 24.100 | 24.300 | 24.400 | 24.600 | 24.700 | 25.000 | 24.100 |
1949 | 24.000 | 23.800 | 23.800 | 23.900 | 23.800 | 23.900 | 23.700 | 23.800 | 23.900 | 23.700 | 23.800 | 23.600 | 23.800 |
1948 | 23.700 | 23.500 | 23.400 | 23.800 | 23.900 | 24.100 | 24.400 | 24.500 | 24.500 | 24.400 | 24.200 | 24.100 | 24.100 |
1947 | 21.500 | 21.500 | 21.900 | 21.900 | 21.900 | 22.000 | 22.200 | 22.500 | 23.000 | 23.000 | 23.100 | 23.400 | 22.300 |
1946 | 18.200 | 18.100 | 18.300 | 18.400 | 18.500 | 18.700 | 19.800 | 20.200 | 20.400 | 20.800 | 21.300 | 21.500 | 19.500 |
1945 | 17.800 | 17.800 | 17.800 | 17.800 | 17.900 | 18.100 | 18.100 | 18.100 | 18.100 | 18.100 | 18.100 | 18.200 | 18.000 |
1944 | 17.400 | 17.400 | 17.400 | 17.500 | 17.500 | 17.600 | 17.700 | 17.700 | 17.700 | 17.700 | 17.700 | 17.800 | 17.600 |
1943 | 16.900 | 16.900 | 17.200 | 17.400 | 17.500 | 17.500 | 17.400 | 17.300 | 17.400 | 17.400 | 17.400 | 17.400 | 17.300 |
1942 | 15.700 | 15.800 | 16.000 | 16.100 | 16.300 | 16.300 | 16.400 | 16.500 | 16.500 | 16.700 | 16.800 | 16.900 | 16.300 |
1941 | 14.100 | 14.100 | 14.200 | 14.300 | 14.400 | 14.700 | 14.700 | 14.900 | 15.100 | 15.300 | 15.400 | 15.500 | 14.700 |
1940 | 13.900 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 14.100 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 14.100 | 14.000 |
1939 | 14.000 | 13.900 | 13.900 | 13.800 | 13.800 | 13.800 | 13.800 | 13.800 | 14.100 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 13.900 |
1938 | 14.200 | 14.100 | 14.100 | 14.200 | 14.100 | 14.100 | 14.100 | 14.100 | 14.100 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 14.100 |
1937 | 14.100 | 14.100 | 14.200 | 14.300 | 14.400 | 14.400 | 14.500 | 14.500 | 14.600 | 14.600 | 14.500 | 14.400 | 14.400 |
1936 | 13.800 | 13.800 | 13.700 | 13.700 | 13.700 | 13.800 | 13.900 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 14.000 | 13.900 |
1935 | 13.600 | 13.700 | 13.700 | 13.800 | 13.800 | 13.700 | 13.700 | 13.700 | 13.700 | 13.700 | 13.800 | 13.800 | 13.700 |
1934 | 13.200 | 13.300 | 13.300 | 13.300 | 13.300 | 13.400 | 13.400 | 13.400 | 13.600 | 13.500 | 13.500 | 13.400 | 13.400 |
1933 | 12.900 | 12.700 | 12.600 | 12.600 | 12.600 | 12.700 | 13.100 | 13.200 | 13.200 | 13.200 | 13.200 | 13.200 | 13.000 |
1932 | 14.300 | 14.100 | 14.000 | 13.900 | 13.700 | 13.600 | 13.600 | 13.500 | 13.400 | 13.300 | 13.200 | 13.100 | 13.700 |
1931 | 15.900 | 15.700 | 15.600 | 15.500 | 15.300 | 15.100 | 15.100 | 15.100 | 15.000 | 14.900 | 14.700 | 14.600 | 15.200 |
1930 | 17.100 | 17.000 | 16.900 | 17.000 | 16.900 | 16.800 | 16.600 | 16.500 | 16.600 | 16.500 | 16.400 | 16.100 | 16.700 |
1929 | 17.100 | 17.100 | 17.000 | 16.900 | 17.000 | 17.100 | 17.300 | 17.300 | 17.300 | 17.300 | 17.300 | 17.200 | 17.100 |
1928 | 17.300 | 17.100 | 17.100 | 17.100 | 17.200 | 17.100 | 17.100 | 17.100 | 17.300 | 17.200 | 17.200 | 17.100 | 17.100 |
1927 | 17.500 | 17.400 | 17.300 | 17.300 | 17.400 | 17.600 | 17.300 | 17.200 | 17.300 | 17.400 | 17.300 | 17.300 | 17.400 |
1926 | 17.900 | 17.900 | 17.800 | 17.900 | 17.800 | 17.700 | 17.500 | 17.400 | 17.500 | 17.600 | 17.700 | 17.700 | 17.700 |
1925 | 17.300 | 17.200 | 17.300 | 17.200 | 17.300 | 17.500 | 17.700 | 17.700 | 17.700 | 17.700 | 18.000 | 17.900 | 17.500 |
1924 | 17.300 | 17.200 | 17.100 | 17.000 | 17.000 | 17.000 | 17.100 | 17.000 | 17.100 | 17.200 | 17.200 | 17.300 | 17.100 |
1923 | 16.800 | 16.800 | 16.800 | 16.900 | 16.900 | 17.000 | 17.200 | 17.100 | 17.200 | 17.300 | 17.300 | 17.300 | 17.100 |
1922 | 16.900 | 16.900 | 16.700 | 16.700 | 16.700 | 16.700 | 16.800 | 16.600 | 16.600 | 16.700 | 16.800 | 16.900 | 16.800 |
1921 | 19.000 | 18.400 | 18.300 | 18.100 | 17.700 | 17.600 | 17.700 | 17.700 | 17.500 | 17.500 | 17.400 | 17.300 | 17.900 |
1920 | 19.300 | 19.500 | 19.700 | 20.300 | 20.600 | 20.900 | 20.800 | 20.300 | 20.000 | 19.900 | 19.800 | 19.400 | 20.000 |
1919 | 16.500 | 16.200 | 16.400 | 16.700 | 16.900 | 16.900 | 17.400 | 17.700 | 17.800 | 18.100 | 18.500 | 18.900 | 17.300 |
1918 | 14.000 | 14.100 | 14.000 | 14.200 | 14.500 | 14.700 | 15.100 | 15.400 | 15.700 | 16.000 | 16.300 | 16.500 | 15.100 |
1917 | 11.700 | 12.000 | 12.000 | 12.600 | 12.800 | 13.000 | 12.800 | 13.000 | 13.300 | 13.500 | 13.500 | 13.700 | 12.800 |
1916 | 10.400 | 10.400 | 10.500 | 10.600 | 10.700 | 10.800 | 10.800 | 10.900 | 11.100 | 11.300 | 11.500 | 11.600 | 10.900 |
1915 | 10.100 | 10.000 | 9.900 | 10.000 | 10.100 | 10.100 | 10.100 | 10.100 | 10.100 | 10.200 | 10.300 | 10.300 | 10.100 |
1914 | 10.000 | 9.900 | 9.900 | 9.800 | 9.900 | 9.900 | 10.000 | 10.200 | 10.200 | 10.100 | 10.200 | 10.100 | 10.000 |
1913 | 9.800 | 9.800 | 9.800 | 9.800 | 9.700 | 9.800 | 9.900 | 9.900 | 10.000 | 10.000 | 10.100 | 10.000 | 9.900 |
To calculate inflation from a month and year to a later month and year, try our Inflation calculator
http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Consumer_Price_Index/HistoricalCPI.aspx
Pronk Pops Show 61, February 8, 2012: Segment 1: Catholics In Open Revolt Over Obama’s Anti-Catholic Mandate Of Birth Control, Sterilization and Abortion–Population Control a.k.a. Eugenics and Genocide–Violates Religious Beliefs and Freedom of Religion–Catholics Will Vote As Block To Defeat Obama and Planned Parenthood!–Videos
Pronk Pops Show 61: February 8, 2012
Pronk Pops Show 60:February 1, 2011
Pronk Pops Show 59:January 25, 2011
Pronk Pops Show 58:January 18, 2011
Pronk Pops Show 57:December 7, 2011
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 58-61
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 55-57
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 52-54
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 49-51
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 45-48
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 41-44
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 38-40
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 34-37
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 30-33
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 27-29
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 22 (Part 2)-26
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 16-22 (Part 1)
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 10-15
Listen To Pronk Pops Podcast or Download Shows 1-9
Segment 1: Catholics In Open Revolt Over Obama’s Anti-Catholic Mandate Of Birth Control, Sterilization and Abortion–Population Control a.k.a. Eugenics and Genocide–Violates Religious Beliefs and Freedom of Religion–Catholics Will Vote As Block To Defeat Obama and Planned Parenthood!–Videos
“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Religious Freedom and the Obama Administration | THE PLAIN TRUTH by Judge Napolitano 2/07/12
Ron Paul Exposes Obamacare on Freedom Watch
Ron Paul, Obama hires of IRS agents to enforce new Obamacare regulations
Ronald Reagan Warning of Socialized medicine Pt1
Ronald Reagan Warning of Socialized medicine Pt2
State of the Union: Is Obama losing the Catholic vote?
Trends in Party Identification of Religious Groups
http://www.people-press.org/2011/07/22/gop-makes-big-gains-among-white-voters/
Newt: Obama Has Declared War on Religious Freedom in America
Obama Administration, Catholic Leaders Clash Over Contraception Mandate
Catholic League Poised To Go To War With Obama
The Health Care Betrayal
Obama Birth Control Mandate Debate Heats Up
Citizenlink Report: HHS Draws Line in Sand
Becket Fund on Stossel discussing HHS mandate
Our President Who Art in DC
Obama’s Anti-Catholic HHS Mandate
Obama Promises Abortion in Public Plan
Abortion doctor: ‘Am I killing? Yes, I am’
Glenn Beck & Bill Donohue Discuss Obama Admin vs. Catholic Church Contraception Debate – Part 1
Glenn Beck & Bill Donohue Discuss Obama Admin vs. Catholic Church Contraception Debate – Part II
Fr. David interviewed about HHS mandate and the Church
Ave Maria University Will Fight HHS Mandate
Obama Admin: Birth Control Mandate is Final; Bishops Vow to Fight
We Will Not Comply’: Catholic Leaders Distribute Letter Slamming Obama Admin Contraceptive Mandate
Obama The Betrayer of The Constitution and The American People
Obamacare: Abortion’s Trojan Horse
For The Record : Obama’s Abortion Bailout
Barack’s Big Abortion Bailout
Planned Parenthood: Anti-Catholic
Planned Parenthood’s Roots
Planned Parenthood’s Victims
War on the Weak: Eugenics in America
Abortion and Black Genocide (Barack Obama and the Negro Project)
“…Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. 78% of their clinics are in minority communities. Blacks make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America. Are we being targeted? Isn’t that genocide? We are the only minority in America that is on the decline in population. If the current trend continues, by 2038 the black vote will be insignificant. Did you know that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a devout racist who created the Negro Project designed to sterilize unknowing black women and others she deemed as undesirables of society? The founder of Planned Parenthood said, “Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated.” Is her vision being fulfilled today? …”
http://blackgenocide.org/planned.html
Obama SUPPORTS Black Genocide. The Cover-Up!
Bill Gates on Overpopulation and Global Poverty
Alex Jones – The Real Story Behind Bill Gates And his Death Panels!
Maafa 21
Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 1/13)
Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 2/13)
Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 3/13)
Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 4/13)
Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 5/13)
Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 6/13)
Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 7/13)
Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 8/13)
Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 9/13)
Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 10/13)
Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 11/13)
Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 12/13)
Abortion: Black Genocide in 21st Century America (Part 13/13)
Repealing Obamacare and Restoring a Free Market in Healthcare
Precrime in Alaska – Eugenics Sterilization Courts in NC – Judge Andrew Napolitano (2012-01-11)
Alex Covers Full Spectrum Biological/Eugenics Program Against Humanity
The Elite’s Plan for Global Extermination(Depopulation Eugenics) Exposed by Webster Tarpley 1 of 4
The Elite’s Plan for Global Extermination(Depopulation Eugenics) Exposed by Webster Tarpley 2 of 4
The Elite’s Plan for Global Extermination(Depopulation Eugenics) Exposed by Webster Tarpley 3 of 4
The Elite’s Plan for Global Extermination(Depopulation Eugenics) Exposed by Webster Tarpley 4 of 4
GlennBeck Eugenics part1 Short History
GlennBeck Eugenics part2 Healthcare Czars
Glenn Beck Eugenics part3 Healthcare Tree
Obama’s Eugenics Hoax Exposed
Repeal ObamaCare
Ron Paul Exposes Obamacare on Freedom Watch
“Ron Paul slammed Obama’s unconstitutional healthcare package on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch. The Congressman announced that he will introduce legislation to stop the government from forcing people to buy health insurance.
Ron Paul is America’s leading voice for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies.”
Ron Paul – Life is Precious
New Ron Paul Ad (Pro-Life): Staying on the Right Path
Ron Paul or Rick Santorum: Whom Should Catholics Choose?
Obama doesn’t believe in Natural law
Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell on Obamacare, Swine Flu and Big Government 8.18.09
President Obama will lose the Catholic vote and any chance he had to be re-elected President.
The Catholics are organizing to defeat Obama.
People of all religious faiths should wake up to this state threat to religious freedom.
Vote Obama and his radical progressive socialists out of office.
Repeal Obamacare by supporting and voting for only candidates for public office who want the repeal of Obamacare.
Ron Paul is defender of the Constitution and for liberty.
Both young voters and independents are the biggest supporters of Ron Paul.
Catholics and grandparents are now seeing the wisdom of voting for a defender of freedom of religion and the Constitution.
Death panels to kill the old and birth control, sterilization and abortion to kill the young.
The radical progressive socialists are dangerous to your health and life.
Wake up. The life you save may be your own.
I am voting for Paul for President.
Obamacare vs. the Catholics
The administration’s breach of faith.
By JONATHAN V. LAST
“…As soon as Sebelius released this decision, the Catholic church panicked. The Conference of Catholic Bishops reached out to the administration to explain the position in which it had put them. But the tone of their concern was largely friendly: Most Catholic leaders were convinced that the entire thing was a misunderstanding and that the policy—which was labeled an “interim” measure—would eventually be amended.
The reason for this optimism was that more than a few important Catholics had previously climbed out on a high branch for Obama politically, and for his health care reform as a matter of policy. Despite what you may read in the New York Times, most lay Catholics are nominally at home in the Democratic party. (Remember that a majority of Catholics voted for Obama in 2008.) And what is true of the laity goes double for those in religious life. In 2009, Notre Dame president Father John Jenkins welcomed President Obama as the school’s commencement speaker in the face of a heated student protest. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops mostly kept its powder dry during the fight over Obamacare, and very few members of the church hierarchy actively, or even tacitly, opposed the bill. Others, such as Sister Carol Keehan, the president of the Catholic Health Association, actually lobbied in favor of it, early and often. So most Catholics took the president at his word when he met with Archbishop Timothy Dolan last fall and assured him that when the final version of the policy was eventually released, any fears would be allayed.
That was their mistake. Obama telephoned Dolan on the morning of January 20 to inform him that the only concession he intended to offer in the final policy was to extend the deadline for conformity to August 2013. Every other aspect of the policy enunciated by Sebelius would remain rigidly in place.
It’s unclear whether Obama anticipated the blowback which resulted from this announcement, or perhaps even welcomed the fight. The liberal Catholic establishment nearly exploded. Sister Keehan was so horrified she threw her lot in with the more conservative Dolan in full-throated opposition to Obama. Cardinal Roger Mahony, the spectacularly liberal archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles, wrote, “I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience. . . . This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic community can muster.” Michael Sean Winters, the National Catholic Reporter’s leftist lion, penned a 1,800-word cri de coeur titled “J’accuse!” in which he declared that, as God was his witness, he would never again vote for Obama. The editors of the Jesuit magazine America denounced a “wrong decision,” while the Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne called the policy “unconscionable.” When you’ve lost even E.J. and the Jesuits, you’ve lost the church.
The reason liberal Catholics were so wounded is twofold. First, this isn’t a religio-cultural fight over Latin in the Mass or Gregorian chant. The subjects of contraception, abortion, and sterilization are not ornamental aspects of the Catholic faith; they flow from the Church’s central teachings about the dignity of the human person. Second, Obama has left Catholic organizations a very narrow set of options. (1) They may truckle to the government’s mandate, in violation of their beliefs. (2) They may cease providing health insurance to their employees altogether, though this would incur significant financial penalties under Obamacare. (The church seems unlikely to obtain any of Nancy Pelosi’s golden waivers.) Or (3) they may simply shut down. There is precedent for this final option. In 2006, Boston’s Catholic Charities closed its adoption service—one of the most successful in the nation—after Massachusetts law required that the organization must place children in same-sex households.
Which means that what is actually on the block are precisely the kind of social-justice services—education, health care, and aid to the needy—that liberal Catholics believe to be the most vital works of the church. For conservative Catholics, Obama merely confirmed their darkest suspicions; for liberals, it was a betrayal in full.
As a matter of law, this decision by Obama’s health care bureaucrats seems unlikely to survive. Last month, the Supreme Court struck down another attempt by the administration to bully religious believers in the Hosanna-Tabor case. In that instance, Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission argued that a religious organization does not have the right to control its hiring and firing according to its religious belief. The Court struck down this argument 9-0 in a rebuke so embarrassing that Justice Elena Kagan came close to openly mocking her successor as Obama’s solicitor general during oral arguments. It was the kind of sweeping decision that should have deterred the Obama administration from forcing Catholics into complying with the health insurance mandate, because it suggested that the Court will very likely side against the administration once this matter comes before it. Presidents typically dislike being overturned unanimously by the High Court …”
“…While Catholics were blindsided by the January decision, the left had been paying close attention to the subject for months. In November, several leftist and feminist blogs began beating the war drums, warning Obama not to “cave” (their word) to the bishops. They were joined by the Nation, Salon, the Huffington Post, and the usual suspects. (Sample headline: “The Men Behind the War on Women.”) At the same time, Planned Parenthood and NARAL launched grassroots lobbying efforts and delivered petitions with 100,000 and 135,000 signatures respectively to the White House urging Obama to uphold the policy and not compromise.
In that sense, Obama’s decision might be thought of as akin to his decision halting the Keystone oil pipeline: a conscious attempt to energize his base at the expense of swing voters, who he concluded were already lost.
The other possibility, of course, is that Obama sees the dismantling of Catholic institutions as part of a larger ideological mission, worth losing votes over. As Yuval Levin noted in National Review Online last week, institutions such as the Catholic church represent a mediating layer between the individual and the state. This layer, known as civil society, is one of the principal differences between Western liberal order and the socialist view. …”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/obamacare-vs-catholics_620946.html?nopager=1
Catholic League Poised To Go To War With Obama Over Mandatory Birth Control Payments
Donohue Says 70 Million Of His Voters Ready To Alter Presidential Election
“…Catholic leaders are furious and determined to harness the voting power of the nation’s 70 million Catholic voters to stop a provision of President Barack Obama’s new heath car reform bill that will force Catholic schools, hospitals and charities to buy birth control pills, abortion-producing drugs and sterilization coverage for their employees.
“Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church,” said Catholic League head Bill Donohue.
Already Archbishop Timothy Dolan has spoken out against the law and priests around the country have mobilized, reading letters from the pulpit. Donohue said Catholic officials will stop at nothing to put a stop to it.
“This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets,” Donohue said. …”
Planned Parenthood’s Hostages
The abortion provider uses a vast media and political network to maintain its subsidies from government and private charities.
“…Planned Parenthood has spent millions fighting even those legislative initiatives that command extremely wide public support, such as laws requiring parental notification and informed consent for abortions, and those banning late-term abortions when the child developing in the womb is fully viable. Planned Parenthood even opposes a bill recently introduced in Congress to ban abortions for the purpose of sex selection.
It is easy to see why Komen might not wish to be associated with Planned Parenthood. Fighting breast cancer is something all Americans can and do agree on; promoting and performing abortions is something that divides us bitterly.
While Planned Parenthood’s target in the Komen case was new, its tactics are not. In the past two years, we have seen the abortion giant (and the politicians it funds) hold for ransom a diverse array of hostages.
In 2010, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress risked and narrowly averted the rejection of their signature health-care law in order to block the inclusion of provisions (such as the 1970s Hyde Amendment) that prevent federal abortion funding. At the 11th hour, a handful of “pro-life” Democrats capitulated, giving Mr. Obama and Planned Parenthood their victory.
Last year, in April, Mr. Obama risked a government shutdown over language in a resolution that would have defunded Planned Parenthood at the federal level. At the last moment, congressional Republicans gave way and allowed the federal money to keep flowing.
Also in 2011, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services threatened to withhold billions of dollars in Medicaid funds from those states such as Indiana that prohibit state funding of Planned Parenthood and other entities that provide elective abortions. Planned Parenthood strongly opposed Indiana’s attempt to cut off its funding and celebrated the federal government’s intervention. Indiana is currently litigating the matter in federal court.
Most recently, after intense lobbying, the Department of Health and Human Services did the bidding of Planned Parenthood by imposing a mandate on virtually all employers to provide insurance coverage (without cost-sharing) for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations and contraceptives. This threatens to force many religiously affiliated charitable institutions out of the business of providing education, health care and social services to the poor. …”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577206692451108960.html
Archbishop to U.S. Troops: Obamacare Reg ‘Is a Blow to a Freedom…for Which You Have Seen Your Buddies Fall in Battle’
By Terence P. Jeffrey
“…The regulation the archbishop spoke about was finalized by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Jan. 20. It mandates that all health-care plans in the United States cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions. A “religious” employer exemption included in the regulation only applies to organizations that primarily focus on inculcating the tenets of the church in question, primarily employ members of the church, primarily serve members of the church, and is organized under the section of the Internal Revenue Code used by actual parishes.
Catholic hospitals, universities and charitable institutions would not be exempt from the regulation, nor would Catholic individuals, business owners, or insurers.
Because the Catholic Church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception, and abortion are morally wrong and that Catholics cannot be involved in them, and because the Obamacare law requires that all individual purchase health insurance and that larger employers provide health insurance to their workers or face a penalty, the regulation would force Catholics to act against the teachings of their faith and against their consciences.
Archbishop Broglio’s letter opposing the regulation and describing it as a violation of the constitutional rights of Catholics was read verbatim at Masses served by Navy and Air Force chaplains around the world.
However, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains attempted to silence Catholic Army chaplains from reading it at their Masses—an effort rejected and resisted by Archbishop Broglio.
“On Thursday, January 26, Archbishop Broglio emailed a pastoral letter to Catholic military chaplains with instructions that it be read from the pulpit at Sunday Masses the following weekend in all military chapels,” the Catholic Archdiocese for the Military said in a statement.
“The letter calls on Catholics to resist the policy initiative, recently affirmed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, for federally mandated health insurance covering sterilization, abortifacients and contraception, because it represents a violation of the freedom of religion recognized by the U.S. Constitution,” said the statement by the archdiocese.
“The Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains subsequently sent an email to senior chaplains advising them that the Archbishop’s letter was not coordinated with that office and asked that it not be read from the pulpit,” said the archdiocese’s statement. “The Chief’s office directed that the letter was to be mentioned in the Mass announcements and distributed in printed form in the back of the chapel.”
On Saturday, Jan. 28, after the Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains issued this directive, Archbishop Broglio spoke with Secretary of the Army John McHugh, a political appointee of President Barack Obama.
Archbishop Broglio’s position was that, in trying to stop Catholic Army chaplains from reading his pastoral letter, the Army was violating his First Amendment rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion and the First Amendment rights of Catholic chaplains and Catholic service members. …”
http://edge.sharethis.com/share4x/index.24569cde2fd3a34049b2201e5f5f9bea.html
Religious Self-Identification of the U.S. Adult Population: 1990, 2001, 2008[63] Figures are not adjusted for refusals to reply; investigators suspect refusals are possibly more representative of “no religion” than any other group.
Group | 1990 adults x 1,000 | 2001 adults x 1,000 | 2008 adults x 1,000 | Numerical Change 1990- 2008 as % of 1990 | 1990 % of adults | 2001 % of adults | 2008 % of adults | change in % of total adults 1990- 2008 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult population, total | 175,440 | 207,983 | 228,182 | 30.1% | ||||
Adult population, Responded | 171,409 | 196,683 | 216,367 | 26.2% | 97.7% | 94.6% | 94.8% | -2.9% |
Total Christian | 151,225 | 159,514 | 173,402 | 14.7% | 86.2% | 76.7% | 76.0% | -10.2% |
non-Catholic Christian | 105,221 | 108,641 | 116,203 | 10.4% | 60.0% | 52.2% | 50.9% | -9.0% |
Catholic | 46,004 | 50,873 | 57,199 | 24.3% | 26.2% | 24.5% | 25.1% | -1.2% |
Baptist | 33,964 | 33,820 | 36,148 | 6.4% | 19.4% | 16.3% | 15.8% | -3.5% |
Mainline Christian | 32,784 | 35,788 | 29,375 | -10.4% | 18.7% | 17.2% | 12.9% | -5.8% |
Christian Generic | 25,980 | 22,546 | 32,441 | 24.9% | 14.8% | 10.8% | 14.2% | -0.6% |
Protestant – Unspecified | 17,214 | 4,647 | 5,187 | -69.9% | 9.8% | 2.2% | 2.3% | -7.5% |
None/ No religion, total | 14,331 | 29,481 | 34,169 | 138.4% | 8.2% | 14.2% | 15.0% | 6.8% |
Methodist | 14,174 | 14,039 | 11,366 | -19.8% | 8.1% | 6.8% | 5.0% | -3.1% |
Lutheran | 9,110 | 9,580 | 8,674 | -4.8% | 5.2% | 4.6% | 3.8% | -1.4% |
Christian Unspecified | 8,073 | 14,190 | 16,384 | 102.9% | 4.6% | 6.8% | 7.2% | 2.6% |
Total non-Christian religions | 5,853 | 7,740 | 8,796 | 50.3% | 3.3% | 3.7% | 3.9% | 0.5% |
Pentecostal/Charismatic | 5,647 | 7,831 | 7,948 | 40.7% | 3.2% | 3.8% | 3.5% | 0.3% |
Presbyterian | 4,985 | 5,596 | 4,723 | -5.3% | 2.8% | 2.7% | 2.1% | -0.8% |
Other Protestant Denominations | 4,630 | 5,949 | 7,131 | 54.0% | 2.6% | 2.9% | 3.1% | 0.5% |
Jewish | 3,137 | 2,837 | 2,680 | -14.6% | 1.8% | 1.4% | 1.2% | -0.6% |
Pentecostal – Unspecified | 3,116 | 4,407 | 5,416 | 73.8% | 1.8% | 2.1% | 2.4% | 0.6% |
Episcopalian/Anglican | 3,043 | 3,451 | 2,405 | -21.0% | 1.7% | 1.7% | 1.1% | -0.7% |
Mormon/Latter-Day Saints | 2,487 | 2,697 | 3,158 | 27.0% | 1.4% | 1.3% | 1.4% | 0.0% |
Churches of Christ | 1,769 | 2,593 | 1,921 | 8.6% | 1.0% | 1.2% | 0.8% | -0.2% |
Jehovah’s Witness | 1,381 | 1,331 | 1,914 | 38.6% | 0.8% | 0.6% | 0.8% | 0.1% |
New Religious Movements & Others | 1,296 | 1,770 | 2,804 | 116.4% | 0.7% | 0.9% | 1.2% | 0.5% |
Agnostic+Atheist | 1,186 | 1,893 | 3,606 | 204.0% | 0.7% | 0.9% | 1.6% | 0.9% |
Eastern Religions | 687 | 2,020 | 1,961 | 185.4% | 0.4% | 1.0% | 0.9% | 0.5% |
Seventh-Day Adventist | 668 | 724 | 938 | 40.4% | 0.4% | 0.3% | 0.4% | 0.0% |
Assemblies of God | 617 | 1,105 | 810 | 31.3% | 0.4% | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.0% |
Church of God | 590 | 943 | 663 | 12.4% | 0.3% | 0.5% | 0.3% | 0.0% |
Evangelical/Born Again | 546 | 1,088 | 2,154 | 294.5% | 0.3% | 0.5% | 0.9% | 0.6% |
Muslim | 527 | 1,104 | 1,349 | 156.0% | 0.3% | 0.5% | 0.6% | 0.3% |
United Church of Christ | 438 | 1,378 | 736 | 68.0% | 0.2% | 0.7% | 0.3% | 0.1% |
Buddhist | 404 | 1,082 | 1,189 | 194.3% | 0.2% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.3% |
Non-denominational Christian | 194 | 2,489 | 8,032 | 4040.2% | 0.1% | 1.2% | 3.5% | 3.4% |
Did Not Know/ Refused to reply | 4,031 | 11,300 | 11,815 | 193.1% | 2.3% | 5.4% | 5.2% | 2.9% |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
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Segment 1: ‘Three of a Kind’–Big Government Neoconservative Progressives: Newt Gingrich–Serial Hypocrite; Rick Santorum–Counterfeit Conservative; Mitt Romney–Flip Flopper–vs. Ron Paul–Libertarian Conservative–Videos
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“If the practice persists of covering government deficits with the issue of notes, then the day will come without fail, sooner or later, when the monetary systems of those nations pursuing this course will break down completely. The purchasing power of the monetary unit will decline more and more, until finally it disappears completely.”
~Ludwig von Mises, On the Manipulation of Money and Credit, page 5.
There are four neoconservative progressives still in the race for the Republican Party Presidential nomination–Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry.
Perry will be the next to drop out of the race, most likely in the next two weeks, if not sooner.
The only libertarian conservative in the race is Ron Paul.
Many progressives do not care who wins–Obama, Romney, Gingrich and Santorium– big government progressives are all acceptable to many progressive Democrats and Republicans.
The neoconservative progressives and the Republican Party establishment prefer Mitt Romney over the others.
The conservative base simply does not support Romney and many are waking up to the fact that Gingrich and Santorium are both big government neoconservative progressives as well.
Talk radio show hosts are divided as well.
However, most talk radio show hosts are united in their opposition to libertarian conservative Ron Paul.
It seems these so-called “conservatives” are Republicans first.
Actually these talk radio show hosts are neoconservative progressives forced out of the closet or bunker.
These hosts may talk “conservative” but support Republican Presidential candidates that are also talk “conservative” but walk big government neoconservative progressives.
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What’s the Modern Definition of a Conservative?
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This includes Bennett, Beck, Limbaugh, Levin, Hewett and Medved just to name a few.
These talk radio show hosts differ only as to which big government Republican neoconservative progressives they support.
True conservatives must either support and vote for Paul or once again see another big government neoconservative progressive in the White House–Teddy Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H. W.Bush and George W. Bush were all big government progressives and not conservatives.
I have been in the conservative movement since Barry Goldwater.
I will no longer vote for any progressive of either party.
I will never vote for a neoconservative progressives, they are war mongers that get Americans and the innocent in other countries killed.
The neoconservatives have blood on their hands.
The time has come for conservatives to form a new political party consisting of four types of conservatives: economic/libertarian conservatives, traditional conservatives, religious/social conservatives and national defense/anti-communist conservatives.
Party Name: American Citizens Alliance Party
Tag-line: Faith, Family, Friends and Freedom First.
For all practical purposes the progressives in both parties have won.
The progressives control the leadership of both political parties.
In the next three months both parties will again propose another unbalanced budget exceeding $3.5 trillion with a deficit greater than $1 trillion.
This is not fiscally responsible.
This is the victory of big government progressivism advocating warfare and welfare state intervention over limited government conservatism advocating a peace and prosperity economy with a non-intervention state.
The battle is between the collectivists vs. the individualists.
It will take at least 100 years to undo what the progressives have done to this country.
I will support and vote for Ron Paul.
Let the neoconservatives and progressives and their friends in the media and talk radio fool the ignorant in their audiences.
The American people will and are waking up and will revolt.
Abandon both the Democratic and Republican Parties that have been well penetrated and captured by progressive statists–collectivists all.
Focus on building a new political party.
Support and vote for Ron Paul
“An essential point in the social philosophy of interventionism is the existence of an inexhaustible fund which can be squeezed forever.”
“The whole system of interventionism collapses when this fountain is drained off: The Santa Claus principle liquidates itself.”
~Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, pages 854 and 858
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Neoconservativism
“…Neoconservatism is a variant of the political ideology of conservatism which rejects the utopianism and egalitarianism of modern liberalism but sees a role for the welfare state.[1] Their main emphasis since 1990 has been using American power to foster democracy abroad, especially in the Middle East. They were notably visible in Republican administrations of George H.W. Bush (1989-93) and George W. Bush (2001-2009).
Neoconservatism was developed by former liberals, who in the late 1960s began to oppose many of the policies and principles associated with President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs.[2]
Terminology
The term “neoconservative” was popularized in the United States in 1973 by Socialist leader Michael Harrington,, who applied it his opposition to the policy ideas of Daniel Bell, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Irving Kristol.[3]
The “neoconservative” label was embraced by Irving Kristol in his 1979 article “Confessions of a True, Self-Confessed ‘Neoconservative.'”[4] His ideas have been influential since the 1950s, when he co-founded and edited Encounter magazine.[5] Another source was Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine from 1960 to 1995. By 1982 Podhoretz was calling himself a neoconservative, in a New York Times Magazine article titled “The Neoconservative Anguish over Reagan’s Foreign Policy”.[6][7] In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the neoconservatives were driven by “the notion that liberalism” had failed and “no longer knew what it was talking about, ” according to E. J. Dionne,[8]
The term neoconservative, which originally was used by a socialist to criticize the politics of Social Democrats, USA,[9] has since 1980 been used as a criticism against proponents of American modern liberalism who had “moved to the right”.[4][10] The term “neoconservative” was the subject of increased media coverage during the presidency of George W. Bush,[11][12] with particular focus on a perceived neoconservative influence on American foreign policy, as part of the Bush Doctrine.[13] The term neocon is often used as pejorative in this context.
History
Through the 1950s and early 1960s the future neoconservatives had supported the American Civil Rights Movement, integration, and Martin Luther King, Jr..[14] From the 1950s to the 1960s, there was broad support among liberals to support military action to prevent a communist victory in Vietnam.[15]
Neoconservatism was triggered by the repudiation of coalition politics by the American New Left:
- Black Power, which denounced coalition-politics and racial integration as “selling out” and “Uncle Tomism” and which frequently gave rise to anti-semitic outbursts,
- anti-anticommunism, which seemed indifferent to the fate of Southern Vietnam, and which in the late 1960s included substantial support for Marxist Leninist movements, and
- the “new politics” of the New left, which upheld students and alienated minorities as the agents of social change (replacing the majority of the population and the labor movement).[16] Irving Kristol edited the journal The Public Interest (1965–2005), featuring economists and political scientists, focused on ways that government planning in the liberal state had produced unintended harmful consequences.[17]
Norman Podhoretz’s magazine Commentary of the American Jewish Committee, originally a journal of the liberal left, became a major voice for neoconservatives in the 1970s. Commentary published an article by Jeanne Kirkpatrick, an early and prototypical neoconservative, albeit not a New Yorker.
New York Intellectuals
Many neoconservatives had been on the left in the 1930s and 1940s, where they opposed Stalinism. After WWII, they continued to oppose Stalinism and to support democracy during the Cold War. Of these, many were emerged from intellectual milieu of New York City.[26]
Michael Lind’s view
Michael Lind wrote:
“Most neoconservative defense intellectuals have their roots on the left, not the right. They are products of the influential Jewish-American sector of the Trotskyist movement of the 1930s and 1940s, which morphed into anti-communist liberalism between the 1950s and 1970s and finally into a kind of militaristic and imperial right with no precedents in American culture or political history. Their admiration for the Israeli Likud party’s tactics, including preventive warfare such as Israel’s 1981 raid on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, is mixed with odd bursts of ideological enthusiasm for “democracy.” They call their revolutionary ideology “Wilsonianism” (after President Woodrow Wilson), but it is really Trotsky’s theory of the permanent revolution mingled with the far-right Likud strain of Zionism. Genuine American Wilsonians believe in self-determination for people such as the Palestinians.””The major link between the conservative think tanks and the Israel lobby is the Washington-based and Likud-supporting Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa), which co-opts many non-Jewish defense experts by sending them on trips to Israel.”[27]
Lind’s “amalgamation of the defense intellectuals with the traditions and theories of ‘the largely Jewish-American Trotskyist movement’ [in Lind’s words]” was criticized in 2003 by University of Michigan professor Alan M. Wald,[28] who had discussed Trotskyism in his history of “the New York intellectuals”.[29][30] Most were socialists, social-democrats, or liberal Democrats into the 1960s, when they were confronted with the New Left and rethought their positions. Many supported Senator Henry M. Jackson, a liberal Democrat in domestic affairs who criticized the human-rights violations of the Soviet Union in the 1970s.[31]
Rejecting the American New Left and McGovern’s New Politics
Kirkpatrick’s political evolution was similar to those of other socialists, social-democrats, and liberals who became neoconservatives. They rejected the counterculture of the 1960s New Left, and what they saw as anti-Americanism in the non-interventionism of the movement against the Vietnam War. When the anti-war element took control of the party in 1972 and nominated George McGovern, the democrats among them followed the lead of Washington Senator Henry Jackson and revolted. Historian Justin Vaïsse calls this the “Second Age” of Neoconservatism, with its emphasis on the Cold War.[32]
As the policies of the New Left pushed the Democrats to the Left, these intellectuals became disillusioned with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society domestic programs. The influential 1970 bestseller The Real Majority by Ben Wattenberg expressed that the “real majority” of the electorate supported economic liberalism but social conservatism, and warned Democrats it could be disastrous to take liberal stances on certain social and crime issues.[33]
Many supported Democratic senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson in his unsuccessful 1972 and 1976 campaigns for president. Among those who worked for Jackson were future neoconservatives Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Richard Perle. In the late 1970s neoconservative support moved to Ronald Reagan, the Republican hawk who promised to confront Soviet expansionism.
In another (2004) article, Michael Lind also wrote [34]
Neoconservatism… originated in the 1970s as a movement of anti-Soviet liberals and social democrats in the tradition of Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey and Henry (‘Scoop’) Jackson, many of whom preferred to call themselves ‘paleoliberals.’ [After the end of the Cold War]… many ‘paleoliberals’ drifted back to the Democratic center… Today’s neocons are a shrunken remnant of the original broad neocon coalition. Nevertheless, the origins of their ideology on the left are still apparent. The fact that most of the younger neocons were never on the left is irrelevant; they are the intellectual (and, in the case of William Kristol and John Podhoretz, the literal) heirs of older ex-leftists.
Leo Strauss and his students
Neoconservatism draws on several intellectual traditions. The students of political science Professor Leo Strauss (1899–1973) comprised one major group. Eugene Sheppard notes that, “Much scholarship tends to understand Strauss as an inspirational founder of American neoconservatism.”[35] Strauss was a refugee from Nazi Germany who taught at the New School for Social Research in New York (1939–49) and the University of Chicago (1949–1958).[36]
Strauss asserted that “the crisis of the West consists in the West’s having become uncertain of its purpose.” Resolution lay in a restoration of the vital ideas and faith that in the past had sustained the moral purpose of the West. Classical Greek political philosophy and the Judeo-Christian heritage are the pillars of the Great Tradition in Strauss’s work.[37] Strauss laid great emphasis on spirit of the Greek classics and West (1991) argues that for Strauss the American Founding Fathers were correct in their understanding of the classics in their principles of justice. For Strauss, political community is defined by convictions about justice and happiness rather than by sovereignty and force. He repudiated the philosophy of John Locke as a bridge to 20th-century historicism and nihilism, and defended liberal democracy as closer to the spirit of the classics than other modern regimes. For Strauss, the American awareness of ineradicable evil in human nature, and hence the need for morality, was a beneficial outgrowth of the premodern Western tradition.[38] O’Neill (2009) notes that Strauss wrote little about American topics but his students wrote a great deal, and that Strauss’s influence led his students to reject historicism and positivism. Instead they promoted an Aristotelian perspective on America that produced a qualified defense of its liberal constitutionalism.[39] Strauss influenced Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, editor John Podhoretz, and military strategist Paul Wolfowitz.[40][41]
1990s
During the 1990s, neoconservatives were once again in the opposition side of the foreign policy establishment, both under the Republican Administration of President George H. W. Bush and that of his Democratic successor, President Bill Clinton. Many critics charged that the neoconservatives lost their influence following the collapse of the Soviet Union.[42]
The movement was galvanized by the decision of George H. W. Bush and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell to leave Saddam Hussein in power after the first Gulf War in 1991. Many neoconservatives viewed this policy, and the decision not to support indigenous dissident groups such as the Kurds and Shiites in their 1991-1992 resistance to Hussein, as a betrayal of democratic principles.[citation needed]
Ironically, some of those same targets of criticism would later become fierce advocates of neoconservative policies. In 1992, referring to the first Gulf War, then United States Secretary of Defense and future Vice President Dick Cheney said:
I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We’d be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home…. And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam [Hussein] worth? And the answer is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we’d achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.[43]
Within a few years of the Gulf War in Iraq, many neoconservatives were pushing to oust Saddam Hussein. On February 19, 1998, an open letter to President Clinton appeared, signed by dozens of pundits, many identified with neoconservatism and, later, related groups such as the PNAC, urging decisive action to remove Saddam from power.[44]
Neoconservatives were also members of the blue team, which argued for a confrontational policy toward the People’s Republic of China and strong military and diplomatic support for Taiwan.
In the late 1990s Irving Kristol and other writers in neoconservative magazines began touting anti-Darwinist views, in support of intelligent design. Since these neoconservatives were largely of secular backgrounds, a few commentators have speculated that this – along with support for religion generally – may have been a case of a “noble lie”, intended to protect public morality, or even tactical politics, to attract religious supporters.[45] …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
Progressivism
“…Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes through the state. Progressivism is often viewed by its advocates to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.
The Progressive Movement began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in cities with settlement workers and reformers who were interested in helping those facing harsh conditions at home and at work. The reformers spoke out about the need for laws regulating tenement housing and child labor. They also called for better working conditions for women.
The term progressivism emerged in reference to a more general response to the vast changes brought by industrialization: an alternative to the traditional conservative response to social and economic issues and, despite being associated with left-wing politics, to the various more radical streams of communism or anarchism.
Political parties, such as the Progressive Party, organized at the start of the 20th century, and progressivism was embraced in the administrations of American Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson.[1] Moreover, in the United States and Canada, the term “progressive” has occasionally been used by groups not particularly left-wing. The Progressive Democrats in the Republic of Ireland took the name “progressivism” despite being considered centre-right or classical liberal. The European Progressive Democrats was a mainly heterogeneous political group in the European Union. For most of the period from 1942–2003, the largest conservative party in Canada was the Progressive Conservative Party. …”
“…United States
In the United States there have been several periods where progressive political parties have developed. The first of these was around the turn of the 20th century.[6] This period notably included the emergence of the Progressive Party, founded in 1912 by President Theodore Roosevelt. This progressive party was the most successful third party in modern American history. The Progressive Party founded in 1924 and the Progressive Party founded in 1948 were less successful than the 1912 version. There are also two notable state progressive parties: the Wisconsin Progressive Party and the Vermont Progressive Party. The latter is still in operation and currently has several high ranking positions in state government.
Today, most progressive politicians in the United States associate with the Democratic Party or the Green Party of the United States. In the US Congress there exists the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is often in opposition to the more conservative Democrats, who form the Blue Dogs caucus. Some of the more notable progressive members of Congress have included Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold,[7] Dennis Kucinich, Barney Frank, Bernie Sanders, Al Franken, John Conyers, John Lewis, and Paul Wellstone.[citation needed] ….”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism
Libertarianism
“…Libertarianism is a term describing philosophies which emphasize freedom, individual liberty, voluntary association and respect of property rights. Based on these, libertarians advocate a society with small or no government power.
Overview
Libertarian schools of thought differ over the degree to which the state should be reduced. Anarchists advocate complete elimination of the state. Minarchists advocate a state which is limited to protecting its citizens from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud. Some libertarians go further, such as by supporting minimal public assistance for the poor.[1] Additionally, some schools are supportive of private property rights in the ownership of unappropriated land and natural resources while others reject such private ownership and often support common ownership instead.[2][3][4] Another distinction can be made among libertarians who support private ownership and those that support common ownership of the means of production; the former generally supporting a capitalist economy, the latter a libertarian socialist economic system. In some parts of the world, the term “libertarianism” is synonymous with Left anarchism.[5]
Libertarians can broadly be characterized as holding four ethical views: consequentialism, deontological theories, contractarianism, and class-struggle normative beliefs. The main divide is between consequentialist libertarianism—which is support for a large degree of “liberty” because it leads to favorable consequences, such as prosperity or efficiency—and deontological libertarianism (also known as “rights-theorist libertarianism,” “natural rights libertarianism,” or “libertarian moralism”), which is a philosophy based on belief in moral self-ownership and opposition to “initiation of force” and fraud.[6] [7] Others combine a hybrid of consequentialist and deontologist thinking.[8] Another view, contractarian libertarianism, holds that any legitimate authority of government derives not from the consent of the governed, but from contract or mutual agreement,[9][10][11] though this can be seen as reducible to consequentialism or deontologism depending on what grounds contracts are justified. Some Libertarian Socialists with backgrounds influenced by Marxism reject deontological and consequential approaches and use normative class-struggle methodologies rooted in Hegelian thought to justify direct action in pursuit of liberty.[12]
In the United States, the term libertarian is commonly associated with those who have conservative positions on economic issues and liberal positions on social issues.[13]
Alternative definitions
Philosopher Roderick T. Long defines libertarianism as “any political position that advocates a radical redistribution of power from the coercive state to voluntary associations of free individuals”, whether “voluntary association” takes the form of the free market or of communal co-operatives.[14]
Etymology
The use of the word “libertarian” to describe a set of political positions can be tracked to the French cognate, libertaire, which was coined in 1857 by French anarchist Joseph Déjacque who used the term to distinguish his libertarian communist approach from the mutualism advocated by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.[15] Hence libertarian has been used by some as a synonym for left-wing anarchism since the 1890s.[16] Libertarian socialists, such as Noam Chomsky and Colin Ward, assert that many still consider the term libertarianism a synonym of anarchism in countries other than the US.[5]
History
Origins
During the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, “liberal” ideas flourished in Europe and North America. Libertarians of various schools were influenced by classical liberal ideas.[17][Full citation needed] The term libertarian in a metaphysical or philosophical sense was first used by late-Enlightenment free-thinkers to refer to those who believed in free will, as opposed to determinism.[18] The first recorded use was in 1789 by William Belsham in a discussion of free will and in opposition to “necessitarian” (or determinist) views.[19][20]
The first anarchist journal to use the term “libertarian” was La Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social and it was published in New York City between 1858 and 1861 by French anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque. “The next recorded use of the term was in Europe, when “libertarian communism” was used at a French regional anarchist Congress at Le Havre (16-22 November, 1880). January the following year saw a French manifesto issued on “Libertarian or Anarchist Communism.” Finally, 1895 saw leading anarchists Sébastien Faure and Louise Michel publish La Libertaire in France.” The word stems from the French word libertaire, and was used to evade the French ban on anarchist publications. In this tradition, the term “libertarianism” in “libertarian socialism” is generally used as a synonym for anarchism, which some say is the original meaning of the term; hence “libertarian socialism” is equivalent to “socialist anarchism” to these scholars.[21] In the context of the European socialist movement, libertarian has conventionally been used to describe those who opposed state socialism, such as Mikhail Bakunin. The association of socialism with libertarianism predates that of capitalism, and many anti-authoritarians still decry what they see as a mistaken association of capitalism with libertarianism in the United States.[22]
Twentieth century
During the early 20th century modern liberalism in the United States began to take a more state-oriented approach to economic regulation. While conservatism in Europe continued to mean conserving hierarchical class structures through state control of society and the economy, some conservatives in the United States began to refer to conserving traditions of liberty. This was especially true of the Old Right, who opposed the New Deal and U.S. military interventions in World War I and World War II. Those who held to the earlier liberal views began to call themselves market liberals, classic liberals or libertarians to distinguish themselves. The Austrian School of economics, influenced by Frédéric Bastiat and later by Ludwig von Mises, also had an impact on what is now right-libertarianism.
In the 1950s many with “Old Right” or classical liberal beliefs in the United States began to describe themselves as “libertarian.” Arizona United States Senator Barry Goldwater’s right-libertarian leaning challenge to authority also influenced the US libertarian movement.[23]
During the 1960s, the Vietnam War divided right-libertarians, anarchist libertarians, and conservatives.[citation needed] Right-libertarians and left-libertarians opposed to the war joined the draft resistance and peace movements and began founding their own publications, like Murray Rothbard’s The Libertarian Forum[24] and organizations like the Radical Libertarian Alliance[25] and the Society for Individual Liberty.[26]
In 1971, a small group of Americans led by David Nolan formed the U.S. Libertarian Party. Attracting former Democrats, Republicans and independents, the party has run a presidential candidate every election year since 1972. Over the years, dozens of capitalism-supporting libertarian political parties have been formed worldwide. Educational organizations like the Center for Libertarian Studies and the Cato Institute were formed in the 1970s, and others have been created since then.
Right-libertarianism gained a significant measure of recognition in academia with the publication of Harvard University professor Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia in 1974. The book won a National Book Award in 1975.[27][28] Nozick disavowed some of his theory late in life.[29] Academics as well as proponents of the free market perspectives note that free-market capitalist libertarianism has been successfully propagated beyond the United States since the 1970s via think tanks and political parties.[30]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
Libertarianism in the United States
“…Libertarianism in the United States is a movement promoting limited government and individual liberties.[1] Although libertarianism exists in two major forms worldwide, right-libertarianism and left-libertarianism,[2] right-leaning libertarianism tends to be the dominant form in the United States. The right-leaning Libertarian Party, the third largest political party in the United States[3] as of 2008 with 235,500 registered voters,[citation needed] asserts the following to be core beliefs of Libertarianism:
Libertarians support maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence. Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties.[4][5]
History
In the 1950s many with classical liberal beliefs in the United States began to describe themselves as “libertarian.”[6] Academics as well as proponents of the free market perspectives note that free-market libertarianism has been successfully propagated beyond the US since the 1970s via think tanks and political parties[7][8] and that libertarianism is increasingly viewed worldwide as a free market position.[9][10] However, Libertarian socialists Noam Chomsky, Colin Ward and others argue that the term “libertarianism” is globally considered a synonym for anarchism and that the United States is unique in widely associating it with free market ideology.[11][12][13]
Arizona United States Senator Barry Goldwater’s libertarian-oriented challenge to authority had a major impact on the libertarian movement,[14] through his book The Conscience of a Conservative and his run for president in 1964.[15] Goldwater’s speech writer, Karl Hess, became a leading libertarian writer and activist.[16]
The Vietnam War split the uneasy alliance between growing numbers of self-identified libertarians, anarchist libertarians, and more traditional conservatives who believed in limiting liberty to uphold moral virtues. Libertarians opposed to the war joined the draft resistance and peace movements and organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society. They began founding their own publications, like Murray Rothbard’s The Libertarian Forum[17][18] and organizations like the Radical Libertarian Alliance.[19]
The split was aggravated at the 1969 Young Americans for Freedom convention, when more than 300 libertarians organized to take control of the organization from conservatives. The burning of a draft card in protest to a conservative proposal against draft resistance sparked physical confrontations among convention attendees, a walkout by a large number of libertarians, the creation of libertarian organizations like the Society for Individual Liberty, and efforts to recruit potential libertarians from conservative organizations.[20] The split was finalized in 1971 when conservative leader William F. Buckley, Jr., in a 1971 New York Times article, attempted to divorce libertarianism from the freedom movement. He wrote: “The ideological licentiousness that rages through America today makes anarchy attractive to the simple-minded. Even to the ingeniously simple-minded.”[21]
In 1971, David Nolan and a few friends formed the Libertarian Party.[22] Attracting former Democrats, Republicans and independents, it has run a presidential candidate every election year since 1972. By 2006, polls showed that 15 percent of American voters identified themselves as libertarian.[23] Over the years, dozens of libertarian political parties have been formed worldwide. Educational organizations like the Center for Libertarian Studies and the Cato Institute were formed in the 1970s, and others have been created since then.[24]
Philosophical libertarianism gained a significant measure of recognition in academia with the publication of Harvard University professor Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia in 1974. The book won a National Book Award in 1975.[25] According to libertarian essayist Roy Childs, “Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia single-handedly established the legitimacy of libertarianism as a political theory in the world of academia.”[26]
Texas congressman Ron Paul’s campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination was largely oriented towards libertarianism. Paul is affiliated with the libertarian-leaning Republican Liberty Caucus and founded the Campaign for Liberty, a libertarian-leaning membership and lobbying organization.
Organizations
Well-known libertarian organizations include the Center for Libertarian Studies, the Cato Institute, the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), the International Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL) and the Ludwig von Mises Institute. The Libertarian Party of the United States is the world’s first such party.
The activist Free State Project, formed in 2001, works to bring 20,000 libertarians to the state of New Hampshire to influence state policy. In March 2009, the project website showed that more than 650 were resident there and more than 9,150 had pledged to move there.[27] Less successful similar projects include the Free West Alliance and Free State Wyoming.
Leaders
Politicians
United States Congressman Ron Paul and United States Senator Barry Goldwater popularized libertarian economics and anti-statist rhetoric in the United States and passed some reforms. United States President Ronald Reagan tried to appeal to them in a speech, though many libertarians are ambivalent about Reagan’s legacy.[28]
Intellectuals
Individuals influential to libertarianism in the United States include Ayn Rand, Ludwig Von Mises, William F. Buckley, Murray Rothbard, and Milton Friedman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_in_the_United_States
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