Recent comments

  • A cold-snap? Where was this? Would you believe that between January 4th, 2018 and January 15th, 2018 that Metro-Denver averaged just under 16 F worth of anomaly on an average basis among more than 40 global trade competitors?

    Reply to: One cold snap uses 11.5% of US natural gas supplies; 8 more weeks like that and our gas storage will be totally empty   5 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • [Quote] In an interview with this writer, Laird Wilcox, (of) the University of Kansas, leveled this charge: “The dirty little secret behind the SPLC is that they actually need racial violence, growing ‘hate groups,’ and more racial crime to justify their existence and promote their agenda. With each violent act, additional ‘hate’ group, and racial incident, the SPLC’s status improves: fundraising goes up, they get more media exposure, their credibility increases, and their political usefulness to the far left surges.” [End quote]

    Wow, that is a lot like saying that with every school shooting or every false flag alleged-terror operation gun sales go way up. The SPLC doesn't promote racial disharmony as there is plenty of that already, including a sizeable minority percentage in America which would like nothing better than to repeal the Civil Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act. The question is why now more than a half-century after Lyndon Johnson signed both Acts into law is there still any percentage of Americans still trying to repeal both those laws.

    You know which political party hates other Americans the worst in the US? Is it the extreme right or the the extreme left? Neither. The political party that hates other Americans the worst are the center-right neoliberals posing as Democrats, who have more in-common with Richard Nixon than with Jimmy Carter. Don't take my word for it though, as this is what the NY Times said just 10 days ago:

    Centrists Are the Most Hostile to Democracy, Not Extremists: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/23/opinion/international-wor...

    So the SPLC does an admirable job of promoting equality and fairness for all Americans? What is so bad about that in a political environment full of haters as well as those who would like nothing better than to go back to 1948 and start over again. Remember that 1948 was the year that Strom Thurmond was elected as a member of the States Rights Party, which heavily-favored ongoing segregation and apartheid.

    What is so wrong with an America where all of its citizens are treated fairly and equally as allegedly-guaranteed under our Constitution?

    Just think, if the US could ever move fully away from apartheid and away from inequitable and racially-targeted blanket suspicion we might not need either the SPLC nor the NRA ever again.

    And then we could all get on with our lives in an environment bereft of hatred for our fellow man.

    Reply to: The Cost of Left-Wing hate   5 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • [Quote] In an interview with this writer, Laird Wilcox, (of) the University of Kansas, leveled this charge: “The dirty little secret behind the SPLC is that they actually need racial violence, growing ‘hate groups,’ and more racial crime to justify their existence and promote their agenda. With each violent act, additional ‘hate’ group, and racial incident, the SPLC’s status improves: fundraising goes up, they get more media exposure, their credibility increases, and their political usefulness to the far left surges.” [End quote]

    Wow, that is a lot like saying that with every school shooting or every false flag alleged-terror operation gun sales go way up. The SPLC doesn't promote racial disharmony as there is plenty of that already, including a sizeable minority percentage in America which would like nothing better than to repeal the Civil Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act. The question is why now more than a half-century after Lyndon Johnson signed both Acts into law is there still any percentage of Americans still trying to repeal both those laws.

    You know which political party hates other Americans the worst in the US? Is it the extreme right or the the extreme left? Neither. The political party that hates other Americans the worst are the center-right neoliberals posing as Democrats, who have more in-common with Richard Nixon than with Jimmy Carter. Don't take my word for it though, as this is what the NY Times said just 10 days ago:

    Centrists Are the Most Hostile to Democracy, Not Extremists: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/23/opinion/international-wor...

    So the SPLC does an admirable job of promoting equality and fairness for all Americans? What is so bad about that in a political environment full of haters as well as those who would like nothing better than to go back to 1948 and start over again. Remember that 1948 was the year that Strom Thurmond was elected as a member of the States Rights Party, which heavily-favored ongoing segregation and apartheid.

    What is so wrong with an America where all of its citizens are treated fairly and equally as allegedly-guaranteed under our Constitution?

    Just think, if the US could ever move fully away from apartheid and away from inequitable and racially-targeted blanket suspicion we might not need either the SPLC nor the NRA ever again.

    Reply to: The Cost of Left-Wing hate   5 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • This just seems inconceivable how all of the underlying structural problems which caused the financial crisis and great recession are just swept under the rug and all is rosy. Growth to me is being built on piles of rubble, complete with bodies.

    Reply to: Construction contribution to Q1 GDP under-reported by 47 basis points, despite 1.7% drop in March   5 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Do you have anything substantial than logical fallacies as are you trump?
    Otherwise keep with your idiotic comments.

    Reply to: The Cost of Left-Wing hate   6 years 2 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • Are you Donald Trump? You sound like him. (seriously)

    Reply to: The Cost of Left-Wing hate   6 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • First of all the what is mentioned here are easily verifiable by using Google and author site.Second of all these website act as aggregate also which is mentioned.
    Third nice logicall fallcies there is plenty of counter arguments there what you not bringing is any counter argument to the thread, rather than attacking the author than claiming he is attacking them.

    Reply to: The Cost of Left-Wing hate   6 years 4 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • "disposable personal income", as reported by the BEA, is a total national figure for personal income after taxes, so comparing how individuals might spend that income in different parts of the country is not even considered by this report...the phrase may be poorly chosen, as might the phrase "personal income" itself, which includes not just wages and salaries, but also passive income from dividends, interest and rent, proprietor's income, and transfer payments such as social security...take all those forms of payments going to individuals, subtract out what's paid nationally in personal income taxes, and you have a national figure for "disposable personal income"

    now, as far as changing costs of living is applied to that figure, in the computation of "personal consumption expenditures", also a national figure, the BEA adjusts each component item of expenditures for inflation individually, weighs those expenditures as a part of all expenditures, and thus comes up with a personal consumption expenditures price index...taking the change in that PCE price index and applying it to disposable personal income gives us a figure called "real disposable personal income", which is simply the purchasing power of that income indexed back to the value of 2009 dollars...

    Reply to: November Personal Spending Up 0.6%, Two Months PCE Adds 171 Basis Points to Q4 GDP   6 years 1 month ago
    EPer:
  • Very interesting! Thanks for the reply!

    Reply to: November Personal Spending Up 0.6%, Two Months PCE Adds 171 Basis Points to Q4 GDP   6 years 1 month ago
    EPer:
  • You are correct, but the problem is more in calling this "disposable" which people probably read as "free to do with as you wish".

    The term (as best I understand it) means "at your disposition".

    What you are looking for is what I would refer to as "discretionary income", that is, money you are free to spend as you wish. - you don't "need" to spend it on anything.

    Setting aside differences in location, consider two individuals - myself, I live in a modest home with a $749 mortgage payment, paid cash for my car, and have no consumer debt. Then consider the person who sits behind me, who has the same job, but recently bought a $50000 pickup truck on credit, has a house with a mortgage payment I estimate at $1500/month, and probably carries a typical consumer debt load of $10000 to $15000, and is currently vacationing with his wife for two weeks in the Caribbean somewhere.

    We have about the same disposable income, but I have a lot more discretionary income.

    So you can see, personal choices strongly affect how much discretionary income a person has.

    You could (I suppose) establish a baseline living expense per community, and subtract that from disposable income to see how much discretionary income people have, and if it is growing or shrinking. However, I'm not sure it would be meaningful, since most people spend all they have, and put the rest on their credit card.

    For most people the idea that they would have more discretionary income if they had mode disposable income is only true if they are managing their finances well with the income they currently have.

    By the way, this is one definition of being rich:
    A rich person is one who has regular discretionary income, and is accumulating it.
    You can be rich on $30000/year, if you are living within your means and regularly putting money away.
    Alternatively, you can be poor on $500000/year if you are leveraging your income with debt and spending more than you earn.

    Just my thoughts.

    Jon

    Reply to: November Personal Spending Up 0.6%, Two Months PCE Adds 171 Basis Points to Q4 GDP   6 years 1 month ago
    EPer:
  • Thanks for this article! Very interesting and raises some questions...

    Apologies if I'm being nitpicky, but the phrase "disposable personal income" seems like a misnomer to me. One needs to pay rent, utilities, and food (at the very least) to live in a modern society. So it seems to me that, once we subtract taxes, we should subtract rent, utilities, and food as well, and then determine what Personal Spending is?

    I understand that this probably makes the calculation extremely difficult (impossible at a national level?), given that someone from Glendora, CA pays a lot less in rent than someone from Palo Alto, CA; however I'm curious if, once we factor in costs that aren't "disposable", we find that Personal Spending hasn't gone up at all. Maybe it's gone down?

    In fact, does this number account for the situation where our income goes up but our rent goes go up even more, so that we have actually LESS "disposable" money to spend each month?

    Reply to: November Personal Spending Up 0.6%, Two Months PCE Adds 171 Basis Points to Q4 GDP   6 years 1 month ago
    EPer:
  • My own experience is quite different.
    Someone was trying to get a credit card using my identity, and the made a mess of my credit report, with credit applications, false addresses, etc.
    I contacted Experian and they straightened it up 100%.
    So I think it may be that there are a variety of experiences that people have.

    None of this significantly affected my credit scores, which have been above 800 for quite a while.

    I mention that because it is possible the credit agencies treat you differently if you have good credit than if you don't.

    It isn't a great accomplishment to have good credit. If you are blessed with more income than you need to survive, and pay your bills reasonably close to on time, and can avoid financial disasters like being unemployed, or having huge medical bills, your credit should be pretty good. It is more a matter of "luck" than anything.

    Reply to: Corrupt Consumer Credit Scoring Exposed   6 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • Honestly, this is a weakly written article. No counter arguments at all, which would provide some perspective other than the article's author's. For a site that prided itself on data and conclusions from data, I see somehow see no data. Really seems more like a smear attack than a thought out story.

    Reply to: The Cost of Left-Wing hate   6 years 3 months ago
    EPer:
  • It's 2017 and not a lot has changed. Equifax just lost pretty much everyone's data and there isn't much that can be done about it.

    Reply to: Corrupt Consumer Credit Scoring Exposed   6 years 4 months ago
  • I'm having a hard time justifying such "great" unemployment rates with such pathetic 2016 annual growth. But it seems everything is broken these days, including economic statistics. Thanks for this thorough overview.

    Reply to: Advance Estimate of 2nd Quarter GDP & Revisions From 2014 to Present   6 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • I did not know he tried to deny Sandy Hook and I agree, that is astoundingly atrocious if true. But on economics, trade he is of sound mind.

    Reply to: The Looting Machine Called Capitalism   6 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • you don't expect us to take this guy seriously, do you:?

    2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School attack[edit]
    In March, 2016, Roberts published an article claiming that many pictures associated with the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting were "doctored." He further claimed that he was unable to determine if the shootings had actually taken place or not.[67]
    2013 Boston Marathon bombings[edit]

    He thinks everything is a conspiracy, false flag, or rigged event.

    Americans are exceptional, and we see through your BS, Roberts.

    Reply to: The Looting Machine Called Capitalism   6 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • The propaganda drumbeat machine of the whatever they are political groups drowns out anything and everything off whatever message they wish to pound out.

    Reply to: The Great US Natural Gas Exports Myth   6 years 8 months ago
    EPer:
  • Ha! Tune in Wed for Mike Rogers testimony and Thursday Jim Comey (though Comey is likely testifying about obstruction of justice). This will be fun. I think Mueller will roll the hole lot them up. I hope they let Trump tweet from jail.

    Reply to: It’s Time for a Rant about this Trump/Russia Foolishness!   6 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Democrats and Clinton in particular are in complete denial as to why they lost the election. First off they haven't been building a bench at the state and local levels. The republicans have successfully done so starting at the dog catcher and school board level and working the way up. Democrats have had no such strategy, focusing entirely on national elections and ignoring the locals. In my district, the democrats didn't even bother field a warm body in 2/3rds of the local positions - republicans ran unopposed

    they have also focused entirely on coastal elites and kicked their traditional rust belt labor base to the curb - many of these voters went trump or third party, but would have supported Sanders or Biden

    And most importantly, Hillary was just a plain lousy candidate that failed to energize the base and turn out voters.

    So assuming if there is any fire to all the Russia smoke, they did do us one big favor and show us how undemocratic and corrupt the system has become, with the DNC clearly putting their thumb on the scale for Clinton over Sanders or any other candidate not named Clinton

    Reply to: It’s Time for a Rant about this Trump/Russia Foolishness!   6 years 10 months ago
    EPer:

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