How bad is it?

It seems like every day we hear about how bad things are now.

"The worst economy since the Great Depression"

is something I heard just the other day. I wondered about this though. It seems like things are not great, but are they really "that" bad. I remember the 70's (I was pretty young, honest, but I do remember some of it), and I recall there being some pretty bad years. So I decided to do some research. I wanted to find out if this is really the worst economy since the Great Depression, or if just maybe, the media and politicians are hyping it a little.

The first measure of the economy I decided to look at was unemployment. The unemployment number for December 1008 (last reported) was 7.2%. That seems pretty bad, considering I remember us having numbers in the 4 and 5 % range. I looked at Data between 1970 and 2008. The 5 best years (lowest unemployment) are shown in the table below:

Year	Average Annual Unemployment Rate
2000	4.0
1999	4.2
1998	4.5
2006	4.6
2007	4.6

The worst 5 years (highest unemployment rates) are shown in the table below:

Year	Average annual unemployment rate
1982	9.7
1983	9.6
1975	8.5
1976	7.7
1981	7.7

As I mentioned before, the unemployment rate in December of 2008 was 7.2%. Not quite in the top 5 for worst of the last 39 years, but in all fairness, significantly worse than the best 5 years. So it is definitely not the worst economy since the Great Depression, at least not from an unemployment standpoint. The average over the last 39 years was 6.14% and the median was 5.8%. (Source of numbers: US Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/cps/)

The United States has traditionally had pretty low unemployment numbers when compared to many other countries. In Europe. For example, in the year 2000 when the US was at a 4.0% unemployment rate, the European Union was at 8.5%. In that year France was at 9.0% and Spain was at 11.1%. That makes 7.2% look pretty darn good. In fact the lowest unemployment rates in Spain or France since 1997 was 8.3% which both countries recorded in 2007. For the EU as a whole, 2007 was also the best year since 1997 with a rate of 7.1% (Source of European Numbers: European Commission Eurostat pages http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu)

During the Great Depression unemployment hit 25% in the United States. What we are going through now is obviously not in the same ball park. Hey, we can still afford to spend 170 million on a presidential inauguration.

By presenting this data I am not trying to say things are great. They are not. I am just trying to point out the facts that it is not quite as bad as everyone makes it out to be. So we should not panic. This too shall pass. As long as we don’t rack up trillions in government debt and socialize everything. Oh wait. Maybe we should panic. :)

Congrats to the New 2009 AYR Board!

I'd like to take the time to congratulate the new AYR Board for 2009 and tell ya'll that it's been a pleasure to serve you as your fearless tyrant/president for two long years. :)

Congrats go out to the new board:

President - Scott Specht
Vice President - Allison Miller
Treasurer - Will Franklin
Secretary - Cindy Mallette

Please take the time send them a polite hello or heckle them at meetings. 

With Liberty,
Eliza Vielma
Chairman Emeritus (2006-2008)

change you can count on

Cost of inauguration for Bush's 2nd term in good financial times (albeit wartimes): $70 million.

Cost of Obama inauguration during bad financial times (and wartime): $159 million.

This is beyond ridiculous....

First, let me tell everyone a belated Merry Christmas/Happy New Year, and then onto the ridiculousness that is the EPA, who apparently believe that stopping Green House gases is more important than people being able to eat meat.

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20081230165231.aspx

EPA 'Cow Tax' Could Charge $175 per Dairy Cow to Curb Greenhouse Gases Farm Bureau warns just this one rule may increase milk production costs up to 8 cents a gallon.
By Jeff Poor Business & Media Institute

Call this one of the newest and innovative the ways your government has come up with to battle greenhouse gas emissions.

Indirectly it could be considered a cheeseburger tax, but one of the suggestions offered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act is to levy a tax on livestock.

The ANPR, released early this year, would give the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas for not only greenhouse gas from manmade sources like transportation and industry, but also “stationary” sources which would include livestock.

The New York Farm Bureau assigned a price tag to the cost of greenhouse gas regulation by the EPA in a release last month.

“The tax for dairy cows could be $175 per cow, and $87.50 per head of beef cattle. The tax on hogs would upwards of $20 per hog,” the release said. “Any operation with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs would have to obtain permits.”

Kate Galbraith, correspondent for The New York Times, noted on the Times’ “Green Inc.” blog that such a “proposal is far from being enacted” and that the “hysteria may be premature.”

But Rick Krause, senior director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau, warned it’s certainly feasible – especially based on the rhetoric of President-elect Barack Obama and the use of the EPA to combat global warming. Such action by an Obama administration would take an act of Congress for livestock to be exempt.

“The new president has been on record as saying that he really supports regulating greenhouse gases out of the Clean Air Act,” Krause said to the Business & Media Institute. “So, we really have to keep an eye on it. Legislation would really be the only way to exempt it at this point – the cow tax.”

Krause said it is difficult to quantify the cost that might be passed directly to the consumer by farmers from the legislation, but predicted it would mean higher costs for dairy production.

“It’s hard to figure what it would do to consumer prices since farmers, unlike other industries, really can’t pass their cost along directly like utilities and things do,” “About the only thing we could realistically come up, in terms of any of this stuff – it would add between 7 and 8 cents per gallon of milk costs to farmers. So it would cost them 7 or 8 cents more to produce a gallon of milk.”

Even the Department of Agriculture warned the EPA that smaller farms and ranches would have difficulty with limits as much as 100 tons annually on emissions:

“If GHG emissions from agricultural sources are regulated under the CAA, numerous farming operations that currently are not subject to the costly and time-consuming Title V permitting process would, for the first time, become covered entities. Even very small agricultural operations would meet a 100-tons-per-year emissions threshold. For example, dairy facilities with over 25 cows, beef cattle operations of over 50 cattle, swine operations with over 200 hogs, and farms with over 500 acres of corn may need to get a Title V permit. It is neither efficient nor practical to require permitting and reporting of GHG emissions from farms of this size. Excluding only the 200,000 largest commercial farms, our agricultural landscape is comprised of 1.9 million farms with an average value of production of $25,589 on 271 acres. These operations simply could not bear the regulatory compliance costs that would be involved.”

Auto Bailout Explanation

My friend, Steven Crowder, had started a weekly political vlog.  This is the first one and it's a great explanation of the auto bailout situation.

Pay no mind to the fact that he's shirtless under his jacket. 

This is why everyone hates Congress...

Well, one of the many reasons I suppose:

With economy in shambles, Congress gets a raise By Jordy Yager (A few excerpts)
A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.

Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.

Currently the average lawmaker makes $169,300 a year, with leadership making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes $217,400, while the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100.

“It is probably never going to be politically popular to raise Congress’s salary,” he said. “I don’t think you’re going to find taxpayers saying, ‘Yeah I think I should pay my congressman more’.”

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/with-economy-in-shambles-congress-gets-a-raise-2008-12-17.html

I really, really wish I could have a job where I could do nothing I promised to do, irresponsibly spend someone else's money to no effect, and then have my salary automatically increase. Also, I'm sure that when Democrats decide the ceiling of what "rich" is, that it will be slightly above that $217K that Pelosi makes so that her taxes don't get raised, just everyone who makes slightly more money than her.

Here is my question: If Congress can admonish CEOs of failing companies for taking bonuses and forcing them to only make $1 a year, can't we as taxpayers demand that they do the same thing?

A Tale of Two Budgets...

I thought this is a good example of how choosing fiscally responsible leaders helps everyone. I'm sure that New Yorkers are wishing they had elected someone who believes the same as Governor Palin when it comes to managing the state ledger.


Posted by Josh Painter (Profile)

Tuesday, December 16th at 7:26PM EST

When things get tough, what kind of budget decisions do governors make? That depends on the governor, his or her governing philosophy and what those philosophies have done for their respective states.

In New York state, Gov. David Patterson wants the taxpayers to do the heavy lifting. His proposed $121 Billion budget for the coming year would increase state spending by 1.1 percent ($1.3 Billion) and impose 88 new taxes and fees. That’s a tax increase for every key on a piano.
Patterson wants to raise $4 billion in revenues with the plethora of new taxes and fees. He intends to tax clothes and shoe purchases under $110, downloads of music, movies or games from the web, movie admission, tickets to sporting events, taxi rides, hiring limousines, watching cable television, listening to XM or Sirius on the radio, smoking cigars, drinking beer and wine, and we’re just getting started.

Purchasers of luxury goods such as expensive cars, boats, jewelry and furs will be hit. Those who enjoy drinking non-diet sodas will have to ante up an extra 18 percent on top of the price of the drink. The governor also targets drivers by increasing the fees for driver’s licenses and automobile registrations. In addition, he wants to re-issue license plates to rake in another $25 from vehicle owners. Only New Yorkers who are bald, never cut their hair or do it themselves will escape Patterson’s new taxes on haircuts and hair stylists.

The governor also wants to increase tuition at SUNY by 14 percent and at CUNY by 15 percent. Hospitals, clinics and nursing homes will be hit with increased assessments and reduced funding. And he proposes to raise the ceiling on how much state tax can be charged on gasoline. New York state currently has a limit of 8 cents per gallon.

Recreating in the Empire State will become more costly, with additional fees for camping, cabin rentals, golf and marina use. And we’re not even up to Middle C on the piano keyboard…
Most of the money raised by Patterson’s new taxes will go to social programs.

Meanwhile, in Alaska, Gov. Sarah Palin has proposed capital and operating budgets that would cut state spending by 7%. No new taxes and no increases in the old ones are in the Palin budget. Not that are many taxes to raise. Alaska has no state income tax and no personal property tax. Historically, most state revenues have been generated in the 49th state by taxing oil and natural gas production.

But with oil and gas prices falling through the floor, how can the governor cut the budget? The answer is savings. By law, Alaska’s budget is required to be balanced, and the state has enjoyed budget surpluses in past years. Sarah Palin has wisely been depositing the money into savings accounts which were not affected by the recent financial meltdown. To the contrary, the funds have been modestly — but safely — drawing interest.

Palin critics will be quick to point out that comparing the budgets of New York and Alaska is like equating apples and oranges. That’s not the point. The point is that the two proposed budgets represent two completely different philosophies of governance. When things get tough in New York, the first thing that comes to the mind of its liberal democrat governor is how to soak his citizens and businesses for more revenues with new taxes. In Alaska, the first thought Gov. Palin had in the wake of declining revenues was how to cut spending by her government.

Not fair, the critics will also say. Palin had savings to fall back on, while Patterson did not. Well, that’s the point of fiscal responsibility, isn’t it?