"Recovery Remains the Weakest of the Post-World War II Era"

WSJ:  In terms of average annual growth, the pace of this expansion has been by far the weakest of any since 1949. (And for which we have quarterly data.) The economy has grown at a 2.1% annual rate since the U.S. recovery began in mid-2009, according to gross-domestic-product data the Commerce Department released Friday.

The current expansion remains smaller than the one during Richard Nixon‘s administration. And that 16% expansion lasted just three years. The economy grew 18% from 2001 through 2007. It grew 52% from 1961 through 1969.

So far, it has occurred entirely during Barack Obama‘s time in the Oval Office, making it the longest expansion under a single president. The growth streak would need to extend just a little more than halfway through the next president’s term to achieve a modern record. (read the whole thing)

How can Obama's approval rating is still over 50% with the economy so terrible. Worst recovery since 1949. pic.twitter.com/IoyVePU8Vu

— trumpnation2016 (@datrumpnation1) July 30, 2016

Some years back a frustrated Rush Limbaugh explained Obama's approval numbers, despite poor economy.

Drudge: Obama plays the race card on Trump.

New York Times: President Obama said in a radio interview airing on Monday that Donald J. Trump, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, is exploiting the resentment and anxieties of working-class men to boost his campaign. Mr. Obama also argued that some of the scorn directed at him personally stems from the fact that he is the first African-American to hold the White House.

Demographic changes and economic stresses, including “flatlining” wages and incomes, have meant that “particularly blue-collar men have had a lot of trouble in this new economy, where they are no longer getting the same bargain that they got when they were going to a factory and able to support their families on a single paycheck,” Mr. Obama said in the interview with National Public Radio.

“You combine those things, and it means that there is going to be potential anger, frustration, fear — some of it justified, but just misdirected,” the president added. “I think somebody like Mr. Trump is taking advantage of that. That’s what he’s exploiting during the course of his campaign.”

"The middle class is now less than half of the U.S. population"

"Middle class Americans now comprise less than half, or 49.9%, of the nation’s population, down from 61% in 1971, according to a new Pew Research Center report. For Pew, middle class Americans live in households earning between two-thirds to two times the nation’s median income. In 2014, that ranged from $41,900 to $125,600 for a three-person household."

And if a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation is true, the squeeze on the middle class is about to get tighter. "That Obamacare penalty will be bigger than you think"

Households that opt to go without health insurance in 2016 are set to get hit with an average Obamacare fine of $969.

That is 47 percent higher than the average $661 penalty per uninsured household for this year, a new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed Wednesday.

And households without insurance that earn too much to qualify for financial aid to buy Obamacare plans will pay an even larger fine for 2016 — an average of $1,450, versus the average of $1,177 for 2015.

Uninsured households that would qualify for Obamacare subsidies to help pay for coverage face an average fine of $738 — nearly double the $389 average for this year.

"It's a substantial increase," said Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, about the higher average fines.

Negative Recovery

This U.S. recovery has featured 3 contractions All others since 1981 have had none http://t.co/JuycFJ6G0p pic.twitter.com/Kn7AZl8v3d

— Nick Timiraos (@NickTimiraos) May 30, 2015

Reuters blamed the weather, the performance of the dollar on the worldwide stage and “disruptions at West Coast ports.”

“This isn’t the off-to-the-races kind of expansion we envisioned six months ago,” Scott Anderson of Bank of the West told the Times. “More and more folks are coming around to the view that the long-term growth rate of the American economy is 2 percent, at best. … It’s two steps forward, one step back.”

"White House Quietly Releases Plans For 3,415 Regulations Ahead Of Thanksgiving Holiday"

"The federal Unified Agenda is the Obama administration’s regulatory road map, and it lays out thousands of regulations being finalized in the coming months."

“It’s become an unfortunate tradition of this administration and others to drop these regulatory agendas late on a Friday and right before a holiday,” Matt Shudtz, executive director of the Center for Progressive Reform, told The Hill newspaper.

Not good news if you are a looted/burned out Ferguson business owner and you might be thinking of rebuilding. Obama just made it more expensive.

Report: "U.S. Wages Down 23% Since 2008"

"U.S. jobs pay an average 23% less today than they did before the 2008 recession, according to a new report released on Monday by the United States Conference of Mayors."

"Under a similar analysis conducted by the Conference of Mayors during the 2001-2002 recession, the wage gap was only 12% compared to the current 23%--meaning the wage gap has nearly doubled from one recession to the next," stated the Conference of Mayors in a statement.

The report also found that 73% of metro area households earn salaries of less than $35,000 a year.

In other news... if not related news. They are baaack. "Squeegee Man is making a comeback" ht/ EBL

Zero Hedge: "What Disposable Income Looks Like: With And Without Government Handouts"

While it is now undisputed by even the Federal Reserve itself, that all the "benefits" of QE have accrued exclusively to the wealthiest segment of society, those 0.01% whose wealth is mostly invested in financial assets which have inflated in direct proportion with the Fed's balance sheet, some have tried to suggest that because the disposable income of the average American has also increased in the past few years, then QE has been a success. There is one problem with that statement: it isn't true.

As Eric Sprott points out in his latest letter, "if one looks past headline figures, things are not really getting better. As shown in Figure 1, real disposable income per capita in the U.S. has increased only modestly since the Great Recession. However, all of this increase is due to Government Transfers, not from an improvement in the real economy. If we exclude those transfers from the numbers, disposable income per capita is actually lower than it was at the end of 2005 and has been painfully flat since 2011. Also, those numbers assume that the headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) accurately represents people’s purchasing power."

Presenting our chart of the day: disposable income with and without government transfers.

And it is not just disposable income: as Sprott explains, "the U.S. economy has been on life support, graciously provided by Central Planners. However hard they try, they will soon realize that no amount of money printing can cleanse the rot of the U.S. economy." (read more)

Study: U.S. businesses are being destroyed faster than they’re being created

"The American economy is less entrepreneurial now than at any point in the last three decades. That's the conclusion of a new study out from the Brookings Institution, which looks at the rates of new business creation and destruction since 1978."

"Not only that, but during the most recent three years of the study -- 2009, 2010 and 2011 -- businesses were collapsing faster than they were being formed, a first. Overall, new businesses creation (measured as the share of all businesses less than one year old) declined by about half from 1978 to 2011." (read more)

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"Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Tuesday blasted an Obama administration proposal to create up to 100,000 more guest worker permits for the spouses of foreign workers, calling it a plan that would keep 100,000 Americans from finding jobs."

“Fifty million working-age Americans aren’t working,” said Sessions, an outspoken critic of Democratic immigration plans. “Yet the administration is now going to immediately add almost 100,000 new guest workers to compete against unemployed Americans."

 

Washington Post, The Blaze

The NYT Reluctantly Delivers Bad Economic News

The single best gauge of the economic recovery — better than the headline unemployment rate — may be wage growth."

 

So ignore April’s sharp drop in unemployment. Pay no attention to the creation of 288,000 jobs announced on Friday. The most important number in the latest jobs report did not change at all."

 

Average hourly wages for American workers held steady at $24.31 last month. They have increased just 1.9 percent over the previous 12 months. But after adjusting for inflation, real wages have increased by something like 0.5 percent." (read more)

 

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How A Popular Two-Letter Word Is Undermining Your Credibility

 

3 of 3 - “So” demonstrates that you’re not 100% comfortable with what you’re saying.

Just as the “so” setup announces that this portion of the conversation will be very deliberate, it also demonstrates that you’re not as comfortable with your story as you think you are."

Rather than just plainly answering their question, you’re relying on the crutch of a practiced blurb. Usually, whatever follows “so” is a carefully crafted sentence, evolved over many iterations and audience reactions."

There’s a reason we do it. In psychology, it’s what’s known as a “marker.” It’s a little cue to our cognitive mind that says, “Quick, call up that part that we practiced.”
Just like a speaking coach will tell you not to fill empty space with “um,” you should avoid framing your answer as a rehearsed pitch by starting with “so.”

NYT, FC

Michael Snyder: "17 Facts To Show To Anyone That Believes That The U.S. Economy Is Just Fine"

"No, the economy is most definitely not "recovering". Despite what you may hear from the politicians and from the mainstream media (shrugging off today's terrible GDP print), the truth is that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape than it was prior to the last recession."

#1 The homeownership rate in the United States has dropped to the lowest level in 19 years.

#2 Consumer spending for durable goods has dropped by 3.23 percent since November.  This is a clear sign that an economic slowdown is ahead.

#3 Major retailers are closing stores at the fastest pace that we have seen since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

#4 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent of all families in the United States do not have a single member that is employed.  That means that one out of every five families in the entire country is completely unemployed.

#5 There are 1.3 million fewer jobs in the U.S. economy than when the last recession began in December 2007.  Meanwhile, our population has continued to grow steadily since that time.

#6 According to a new report from the National Employment Law Project, the quality of the jobs that have been "created" since the end of the last recession does not match the quality of the jobs lost during the last recession... (read more)

Lastly...

#17 The number of Americans receiving benefits from the federal government each month exceeds the number of full-time workers in the private sector by more than 60 million.

Taken individually, those numbers are quite remarkable. Taken collectively, they are absolutely breathtaking."

Yes, things have been improving for the wealthy for the last several years.  The stock market has soared to new record highs and real estate prices in the Hamptons have skyrocketed to unprecedented heights."

But that is not the real economy.  In the real economy, the middle class is being squeezed out of existence.  The quality of our jobs is declining and prices just keep rising."

BTW... If you are considering blaming the President of the USA, you better think again...

"White House delays Keystone XL pipeline decision indefinitely"

"According to White House officials, the decision to delay the presidential go-ahead comes as Nebraska lawmakers debate whether or not the 1,179-mile pipeline can be built through the state. US District Court Judge Stephanie Stacy overturned a law in February that originally approved the project, stating in her ruling that the law violated Nebraska's state constitution. If the ruling isn't overturned, the route of the pipeline may change, affecting future assessments of its environmental impact. The AP reports that the Nebraska Supreme Court isn't expected to hear an appeal until September or October, meaning that the administration will likely schedule their decision for after the congressional elections in November."

 

"The Keystone XL has faced considerable contention since it was proposed in 2008. Even though the State Department raised no major objections to it in January, the Environmental Protection Agency has long made its concerns known about the potential for heightened greenhouse gas emissions. President Obama, who previously stated that he'd veto the project if the State Department took issue with it, now has until the fall at the earliest to decide its fate."

 

U.S. Unemployment is at 7.3% (Oct 2013)

"What OT hike could mean in California"

"President Obama is expected to issue an executive order on Thursday that could increase overtime eligibility for millions of salaried workers across the country."

While the details haven't been released yet, the president is expected to raise a weekly wage threshold that determines whether an employee who is on salary can get overtime. The move would affect workers such as fast-food or convenience store managers, who aren't highly compensated but are treated as exempt from overtime.

Currently, the Department of Labor says salaried workers are exempt from overtime if they earn more than $580 per week, which is twice the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. That's an annual salary of $30,160. Obama is expected to increase that threshold, opening the door for more managerial-type workers to get overtime.

It's unclear whether the measure will have a large impact in California, where a salaried worker is exempt from overtime if they earn more than $640 per week, or twice the state minimum wage of $8 per hour. Many fast-food managers in San Diego already don't make enough to be exempt from overtime, earning a median $13.87 per hour, or $584 per week, the state Employment Development Department reports.

Also, in California, the qualifying threshold to be exempt from overtime will increase twice in the next two years. READ MORE 

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From the Weekly Standard.

"At a Democratic fundraiser last night (Tuesday night) in New York City, President Obama said, "I hope you will all step up because, although I'm very optimistic about our long-term trends, the notion that we would waste two years in further inaction rather than move boldly on a path that I think all of us in this room agree on -- we don't have time to waste."

"The president continued, "I don't have time to waste. The clock is ticking. There’s less than two years left -- less than three years left."

"I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone, and I can use that pen to sign executive orders"

"President Obama held a press conference a short time ago in the White House where he emphasized that he is not waiting for legislation, that he has a pen and he will use it to sign executive orders:

But one of the things I’ll be emphasizing in this meeting is that we are not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help that they need.

I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone, and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward in helping to make sure our kids are getting the best education possible, making sure that our businesses are getting the kind of support and help they need to grow and advance, to make sure that people are getting the skills that they need to get those jobs that our businesses are creating.

Obama is going to "fix it". Meaning the opposite. Obama has been president for 5 years now; doing more of the same is not going to fix anything. He is going to make sure things get worse.

"How Obama Blew the Entire Last Year"

"Obama's annus horribilis wasn't over, of course. Still to come was the badly botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act, a mess still awaiting a fix. The result, on the one-year anniversary of his reelection, is that Obama finds himself near a personal low point in his approval ratings. Gallup's daily tracking poll released Tuesday had him at 39 percent approval, only 1 point above his worst showing, in October 2011. In the past 60 years, only Richard Nixon (29 percent) and George W. Bush (38 percent) had lower ratings a year after their reelection. (Ronald Reagan was at 64 percent, Bill Clinton at 60, and Dwight Eisenhower at 58.)"

National Journal George E. Condon Jr.

"US Rents Rise To New All-Time High; Homeownership Rate Stuck At 18 Year Low"

"One quarter ago, when we performed our regular update on trends in US homeownership and rents, we said that "The American Homeownership Dream is officially dead. Long live the New Normal American Dream: Renting." What happened since then is that the American Dream briefly became a full-blown nightmare when in Q3 mortgage rates exploded, pummeling the affordability of housing, and ground any new mortgage-funded transactions to a complete halt (don't believe us - just ask the tens of thousands of mortgage brokers let go by the TBTF banks in the past 6 months). Which is why it was not at all surprising to find that the just updated Q3 homeownership rate has remained stuck at 65.1%: the lowest since 1995."

Read the rest of the Zero Hedge post here