Posted by Joseph Y. Calhoun, III

This just makes my blood boil:

WASHINGTON — Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands.

The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records. Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That’s a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago.

The cost of so-called congressional delegations, known among lawmakers as “codels,” has risen nearly 70% since 2005, when an influence-peddling scandal led to a ban on travel funded by lobbyists, according to the data.

Lobbyist can’t pay? No problem, we’ll just steal it from the rubes…er, taxpayers.

Of course, they claim all kinds of benefits from this travel:

Lawmakers say that the trips are a good use of government funds because they allow members of Congress and their staff members to learn more about the world, inspect U.S. assets abroad and forge better working relationships with each other. The travel, for example, includes official visits to American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Forge better working relationships with each other? Are you freaking kidding me? These hypocrites are traveling all over the world on the taxpayer’s nickel and that’s the best excuse they can come up with? And hey, just a thought, but maybe if we didn’t have troops all over the damn planet you wouldn’t have to visit them.

And it isn’t just the politicians who get this perq; their family members get to come along too:

The Journal analysis, based on information published in the Congressional Record, also shows that taxpayer-funded travel is a big and growing perk for lawmakers and their families. Some members of Congress have complained in recent months about chief executives of bailed-out banks, insurance companies and car makers who sponsored corporate trips to resorts or used corporate jets for their own travel.

Although complete travel records aren’t yet available for 2009, it appears that such costs continue to rise. The Journal analysis shows that the government has picked up the tab for travel to destinations such as Jamaica, the Virgin Islands and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Lawmakers frequently bring along spouses on congressional trips. If they take commercial flights, they have to buy tickets for spouses. If they fly on government planes — as they usually do — their spouses can fly free.

Who are these people who we’ve elevated to these positions? Who do they think they are? Where do they find the gall to pretend they’re on official business on trips like these:

In mid-June, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D., Hawaii) led a group of a half-dozen senators and their spouses on a four-day trip to France for the biennial Paris Air Show. An itinerary for the event shows that lawmakers flew on the Air Force’s version of the Boeing 737, which costs $5,700 an hour to operate. They stayed at the Intercontinental Paris Le Grand Hotel, which advertises rooms from $460 a night.

The lawmakers were invited to a dinner party at the U.S. Embassy and had cocktails at a private party at the Eiffel Tower. Mr. Inouye attended a dinner sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association, a U.S. trade group. Another senator on the trip, Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, took a cruise on the River Seine with defense-industry executives and elected officials from Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.

Daniel Inouye doesn’t know anything about airplanes except how to call the stewardess. Why the hell does he need to go to the Paris air show?

Often, lawmakers combine trips to war zones with visits to more tranquil spots. In February, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation of Democratic lawmakers to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a day. Before landing in Kabul, the eight lawmakers and their entourage of spouses and aides spent eight days in Italy, spending $57,697 on hotels and meals.

A spokesman for Ms. Pelosi says that she was working in Italy, meeting with U.S. troops at Aviano Air Base, laying a wreath at the Florence American Cemetery, giving a speech to Italian lawmakers and visiting the Pope, among other things.

Eight days in Italy and one in Afghanistan? Incredible. And by the way, I’m not Catholic. Why am I paying for Pelosi to visit the pope? If she wants to kiss his ring, she can damn well do it on her own dime.

We are in a recession, running a record budget deficit. Is it too much to ask for these morons to at least pretend to care? Or do they consider this stimulus too?

Posted by Joseph Y. Calhoun, III

Factory orders rose in May:

New orders for manufactured goods in May, up three of the last four months, increased $4.1 billion or 1.2 percent to $347.9 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. This followed a 0.5 percent April increase. Excluding transportation, new orders increased 0.8 percent. Shipments, down ten consecutive months, decreased $3.1 billion or 0.9 percent to $353.3 billion. This was the longest streak of consecutive monthly decreases since the series was first published on a NAICS basis in 1992 and followed a 0.5 percent April decrease. Unfilled orders, down eight consecutive months, decreased $1.8 billion or 0.2 percent to $747.3 billion. This was the longest streak of consecutive monthly decreases since November 2001-July 2002. This followed a 1.1 percent April decrease. The unfilled orders-to-shipments ratio was 6.15, up from 6.04 in April. Inventories, down nine consecutive months, decreased $3.2 billion or 0.6 percent to $513.3 billion. This was the longest streak of consecutive monthly decreases since March 2003-January 2004 and followed a 1.2 percent April decrease. The inventories-to-shipments ratio was 1.45, unchanged from April.

The economic data continues to give mixed signals with some reports showing no sign of recovery and others, like this one, indicating the opposite. That’s pretty typical of an economy making a bottom; the problem is that we don’t know how long any recovery will last and that restrains hiring and investment.

Posted by Joseph Y. Calhoun, III

California is broke and the legislature appears unwilling to take the necessary actions to balance and pass a budget. As a result the state will start to issue IOUs to pay the bills:

SACRAMENTO (AP) — California’s controller will start paying many of the state’s bills with IOUs as soon as Thursday after lawmakers failed to close the state’s worsening budget deficit, adding a new measure of indignity to a state sinking deeper into dysfunction.

Lawmakers’ failure to act on Tuesday, the end of the fiscal year, also widened California’s deficit from what already had been a whopping $24.3 billion — more than a quarter of its general fund.

The failure to balance the state’s main checkbook and the looming IOUs prompted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday to declare a fiscal state of emergency.

Under the declaration, state offices will be closed three days a month to conserve cash. If the Legislature fails to solve the deficit within 45 days, it cannot adjourn or act on other bills until the crisis is resolved.

Not everyone will have to make do with an IOU; the state will continue to pay some in cash:

People who get California IOUs	People California pays in cash
Grants to aged, blind or disabled persons	University of California
People needing temporary assistance for basic family needs	Public Employees’ Retirement System
People in drug prevention, treatment, and recovery services	Legislators, legislative employees, and appointees
Persons with developmental disablities	Judges
People in mental health treatment	Department of Corrections
Small Business Vendors	Health Care Services payments to Institutional Providers

Remember this the next time someone tells you that government takes care of “the people”. What government does it take care of its own. It’s called public choice theory and this should be enough to lay to rest whether it is just a theory. The people who work for government are no different than the rest of us. They act in their own best interests.

Posted by Joseph Y. Calhoun, III

From BLS:

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in June (-467,000),
and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.5 percent, the Bureau
of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. 
Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with
large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business
services, and construction.

Unemployment (Household Survey Data)

   The number of unemployed persons (14.7 million) and the unemployment
rate (9.5 percent) were little changed in June.  Since the start of the
recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has increas-
ed by 7.2 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 4.6 percentage
points.

There is nothing good in this report. The small rise in the unemployment rate was due to more people dropping out of the workforce. Hours worked fell and average hourly wages were flat.

Jobless claims came in at 614,000, down from a revised 630,000 last week. The drop in claims has stalled around the 600,000 level and that doesn’t bode well for the future either.

Yesterday, I opined that the numbers today would be better than expected because the administration needs to start showing some progress on the jobs front. Obviously, that was wrong for this report, but just as during the Bush administration the birth/death model over reported jobs created, this administration will eventually find a way to make the numbers look better.

Posted by Joseph Y. Calhoun, III

Walmart has come out in favor of an employer mandate for healthcare insurance:

Wal-Mart joined with a large union and a liberal think tank on Tuesday to endorse the idea of an employer mandate in health care reform, setting the major retailer apart from most other businesses.

“We are for shared responsibility,” Wal-Mart Chief Executive Mike Duke said in a letter sent to President Obama on Tuesday. “Not every business can make the same contribution, but everyone must make some contribution.”

The letter was also signed by Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, and John Podesta, chief executive of the liberal group the Center for American Progress, who served as the head of Mr. Obama’s presidential transition team.

Hmmm, not exactly the crowd Walmart normally hangs around with. Why are they endorsing the employer mandate?

A couple of years ago, I shared a cab to the airport with a Wal-Mart lobbyist, who told me that Wal-Mart supports an “employer mandate.”  An employer mandate is a legal requirement that employers provide a government-defined package of health benefits to their workers.  Only Hawaii and Massachusetts have enacted such a law.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  Wal-Mart is a capitalist success story.  At the time of our conversation, this lobbyist was helping Wal-Mart fight off employer-mandate legislation in dozens of states.  Those measures were specifically designed to hurt Wal-Mart, and were underwritten by the unions and union shops that were losing jobs and business to Wal-Mart.

But it all became clear when the lobbyist explained the reason for Wal-Mart’s position: “Target’s health-benefits costs are lower.”

Not to mention by the way that healthcare costs for all their other competitors is likely lower as well. Walmart is endorsing an employer mandate because it will be good for their bottom line. In fact, the same can be said about most large businesses, so the effect of an employer mandate is that big business gets bigger and small business gets….well, small business gets screwed and so does the American economy. Small business is where most job growth in the US happens. It’s also where we get the most innovation. Oh well, we don’t need no stinking job growth or innovation. We got big bidness and big gubment.