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SCAF says it is going to end Egypt's state of emergency after 31 years
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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4 21:28 Dale [3]
Economy
CBO: Obama stimulus may have cost as much as $4.1 million a job
The Congressional Budget Office in a new report:

When [the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] was being considered, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that it would increase budget deficits by $787 billion between fiscal years 2009 and 2019. CBO now estimates that the total impact over the 2009--2019 period will amount to about $831 billion.

By CBO's estimate, close to half of that impact occurred in fiscal year 2010, and more than 90 percent of ARRA's budgetary impact was realized by the end of March 2012. CBO has estimated the law's impact on employment and economic output using evidence about the effects of previous similar policies and drawing on various mathematical models that represent the workings of the economy. ...

On that basis CBO estimates that ARRA's policies had the following effects in the first quarter of calendar year 2012 compared with what would have occurred otherwise:

-- They raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 0.1 percent and 1.0 percent,

-- They lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.1 percentage points and 0.8 percentage points,

-- They increased the number of people employed by between 0.2 million and 1.5 million,

-- They increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 0.3 million to 1.9 million. (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers.)

OK, so without the stimulus, there would be anywhere from 200,000 to 1.5 million fewer people employed right now? That means the current cost-per-job created is somewhere between $4.1 million and $540,000.
Posted by: Beavis || 06/01/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  unfortunately there is a major terminology problem

the ave employment is .2M to 1.5M per year
that is .6M to 4.5M job/years
so that's between $170k and $1.3M per job/year
but that is just in the late 2009 to late 2011 period

in the out years the impact depends on the B/C of the projects funded and we don't have any good information on this although given the political nature of the projects, the ARRA will probably a net loss of job/years beginning late this year
Posted by: lord garth || 06/01/2012 0:36 Comments || Top||

#2  I just wanted Infrastructure fixed and that was a $6 Bill at the time. Only .03% of this stimuli from leviathan octopi went to "fixin the bridges".

Temporary union status and voting front groups.
The American Dream - yay.
Posted by: newc || 06/01/2012 1:52 Comments || Top||

#3  Whoops - that's more like $6Tril, but a thousand is like a million these days.
Posted by: newc || 06/01/2012 1:53 Comments || Top||

#4  Fear not, "Shovel Ready" Utopia is at hand.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/01/2012 3:48 Comments || Top||

#5  Terminology again.

Of the $900B, about $100B went to public sector infrastructure. Of the $100B, about $80B went for transportation. The amount spent on structures (including both highway and transit) was about $20B (a bit over 2% of the ARRA). However some of that went to correcting safety problems, enhancing pedestrian access over bridges, removing asbestos paint, etc. so the amount of 'fixing' depends on what you think 'fixing' is.
Posted by: lord garth || 06/01/2012 7:50 Comments || Top||

#6  @4% bond yield to pay the debt each job costing 540,000 would need to pay 21600 EXTRA tax to break even with the debt funding costs...

Don't even ask if the job costs 4.1M!!

Solyndranomics.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 06/01/2012 10:45 Comments || Top||

#7  BP,

but the pathetic recovery has held the G bond rate way down; the 10 year has averaged under 3% (its been under 2% the past month or so) and the 30 yr G bond has averaged about 3.5% during the Obama presidency and
Posted by: Lord Garth || 06/01/2012 11:38 Comments || Top||

#8  I'm thinking the much of the stimulus went to Obumble's re-election campaign in one way or another--to the unions, to bundlers who supported him, to the solar companies, various pro-Democrat groups and organizations.
Posted by: JohnQC || 06/01/2012 14:42 Comments || Top||


The Grand Turk
Another Islamist maniac on his way to the Bomb?
Posted by: tipper || 06/01/2012 03:38 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I don't think we have to worry about particle accelerators. They're 1012 dimes a dozen.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 06/01/2012 7:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Building nuclear power plants won't stop Turkey from becoming a Kurdish nation within the next two generations due to differential birth rates...and the Kurds like Israel.

But really, why is Erdogan worried? Surely his BFF Iran will supply all the oil Turkey needs...
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/01/2012 8:52 Comments || Top||

#3  so was it an old style accelerator or a more modern one with superconducting magnets and walls?
Posted by: Water Modem || 06/01/2012 12:51 Comments || Top||

#4  First thingys come first, even for God + Neo-Ottomans, + maybe bikini-clad Miss Turkey in fast-food TV commercial ...

* WAFF > KEMALISTS THREATEN CIVIL WAR IN TURKEY.

and

* TOPIX > TURKEY + ISLAMIST NUCLEAR THREAT.

Somewhere in the distant horizon, you just know Iran is smiling.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 06/01/2012 20:08 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
National-security leaks must be plugged
By Dan Coats, Richard Burr and Marco Rubio

The problem stems in part from the media's deep pockets and insatiable desire for real-world information that makes intelligence operations look like those of filmmakers' imaginations and wannabee self-longings. That is understandable, but this hunger is fed by inexcusable contributions otherwise known as "leaks and security violations" in exchange for favour, cex, and payment, from current and former, but mostly current who certainly should be former, U.S. officials.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/01/2012 09:45 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Start with stuffing an apple into The Leaker in Chief's mouth.
Posted by: gorb || 06/01/2012 13:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Yet the real-world operations, and lives, that inspire such thrillers are highly perishable. They depend on hundreds of hours of painstaking work and the ability to get foreigners to trust our government.

Our country was designed by our founding fathers with the idea that we shouldn't trust the government. Currently, our MSM tends to screw up the process by spreading disinformation.
Posted by: JohnQC || 06/01/2012 14:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Hard to plug leaks when the leaker is the ultimate authority by law on what is and what is not classified. Just wait. That leak is likely to become a flood between November and January after Obama loses the election.

Posted by: crosspatch || 06/01/2012 16:05 Comments || Top||

#4  This was in the Washington Post?
Heh...
Posted by: tu3031 || 06/01/2012 20:24 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Drone strikes
[Dawn] EVEN as Pakistain and the US try to negotiate their way into a workable relationship, American drone strikes continue. The last few days have seen a flurry of attacks, with five strikes following the NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
summit at which the two countries failed to reach a deal on Isaf supply routes. Coming after Pak politicians called for their "immediate cessation", this is a snub that implies America respects neither Pakistain's illusory sovereignty nor the democracy it claims it wants to see flourish. More pragmatically, the continuing attacks are making progress on the relationship that much more difficult. Parliament's position could have been taken as a starting point from which to bargain. Pakistain has recognised the value of drone strikes in taking out some of its own enemies. A coordinated mechanism could be worked out in which Pakistain is given a role in the programme -- which should also help minimise civilian casualties -- in exchange for a promise not to disrupt strikes that target known hard boys. But as long as drone attacks remain a bone of contention between the two governments, continuing them only makes it harder to move forward with negotiations and gives Pak hardliners reason not to support a rapprochement and to incite already inflamed anti-Americanism. This isn't just a matter of a few hundred people protesting in the streets; it constricts the space available for parliament and the government to talk to the US.

Reports emerging from within the US administration indicate that it is not just Paks who question these attacks. The outgoing ambassador to Pakistain, Cameron Munter, appears to have disapproved of the handling of the programme here, and the Western media had earlier reported that the State Department is not as enthusiastic about it as the CIA. And despite reports that President B.O. himself approves many targets, in Pakistain drones also seem to hit those simply found in suspicious locations or around known hard boys. The tool is a deeply controversial one, and proceeding with disregard for Pak opinion will only make it more difficult to incorporate it into a functional US-Pakistain relationship.
Posted by: Fred || 06/01/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  I'm sorry - I'm know what "illusory sovereignty" specifically or definitionally means as per US, International Political Science + Govt. Affairs, but in this Artic + Others prior it seems the Author(s) want the same to mean "temporary/
false/subjective sovereignty"???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 06/01/2012 1:54 Comments || Top||

#2  I interpret the phrase as recognition of Pakistan, not as a modern nation-state, but more a geographic collection of ethnic tribes and governmental organizations, along with some non-state actors, all engaged in schemes and battles against each other in various combinations. Think South-Central Los Angeles, but with more players and without the stability.
Posted by: SteveS || 06/01/2012 2:23 Comments || Top||

#3  "Illusory sovereignty" is Fred's little joke, gentlemen. After all these years of reading such self-satisfied claptrap, he wrote a little automatic replacement program for such verbiage. The changes are indicated by a light grey underline. Click on the headline to open up the original article for comparison purposes -- Fred had fun with it. (It was also intended as a defense against Righthaven harassment, though I'm not sure it accomplished the purpose -- thank goodness that particular threat has been vanquished by the legal system eventually working as designed!)
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/01/2012 8:23 Comments || Top||

#4  I understood the phrase as part of Fred's Snark-o-tron, but in every good joke, there is a grain of truth. (or kilo-grain)

In the case of Pakistain, 'illusory sovereignty' is quite apropos. They may play dress-up in Islamabad and pretend to be the government (when they aren't trying to whack each other), but how much influence do they have over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas? (and by influence, I mean something other than smuggling, gun-running and bribery)

By the way, nice concise explanation, tw.
Posted by: SteveS || 06/01/2012 22:46 Comments || Top||


Dr Afridi's conviction
IN a fit of pique, our security establishment decided to punish Dr Shakil Afridi to make Pakistain look strong after the the late Osama bin Laden
... who now dances with worms...
raid made it look weak. Never mind the embarrassment of Pakistain being painted internationally as a country that regards someone helping track down the world's most wanted terrorist as deserving of years of punishment. But only in Pakistain can preposterousness be topped off with more of the same. According to documents accessed by this newspaper, it seems Dr Afridi was actually convicted by the Fata tribunal not for aiding the US intelligence apparatus in Pakistain, as was widely reported earlier, but for colluding with Mangal Bagh
...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency...
, leader of the Lashkar-e-Islam in Khyber Agency and a thorn in the side of the Pak state (though, like many bully boyz in the tribal region, the history of his relationship with the state isn't as straightforward as is now portrayed).

This abrupt change raises some difficult questions. First is the Pak government's silence in the face of the reaction provoked by Dr Afridi's sentencing. Not just was it condemned by some senior figures within the US government, the US Senate Appropriations Committee voted last week to cut aid to Pakistain by $33m -- a million for each year of detention handed down to Dr Afridi, generally regarded in the US as a hero that helped bring down the world's most wanted man. Given the shaky juncture at which Pak-US relations currently stand, it is curious that there was no denial from official quarters that Dr Afridi had in fact been convicted for links to a Death Eater group. If the reason behind his conviction was different, why was this not clarified earlier? And if the charges included treason, as this government also indicated, why was he not tried in an open court under the regular laws of the land? There are, after all, numerous legal precedents of people being tried and convicted for providing information for recompense to a foreign government.

Yet another question is that, quite clearly, bin Laden -- and numerous other known bully boyz -- lived and moved freely on Pak soil for several years. But despite the institution of an inquiry commission into the bin Laden matter, the only head to have rolled so far is that of Dr Afridi. Had the state been apprehending and convicting bully boyz or those responsible for bin Laden's undetected presence in the country, Dr Afridi would have little to complain about. But his case appears to be more the exception than the rule. Preposterousness heaped on preposterousness: it's never a good way for any country to manage its affairs.
Posted by: Fred || 06/01/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan



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In no particular order...
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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2012-06-01
  SCAF says it is going to end Egypt's state of emergency after 31 years
Thu 2012-05-31
  Somalia forces capture key al-Shabab town of Afmadow
Wed 2012-05-30
  19 Killed in Syria Violence
Tue 2012-05-29
  Western Nations Expel Syrian Diplomats
Mon 2012-05-28
  MNLA, Ansar al-Din declare Islamic state
Sun 2012-05-27
  Al-Shabaab vows Dire Revenge™ after fall of Afgoye
Sat 2012-05-26
  25 children among 90 dead in Syrian government 'massacre'
Fri 2012-05-25
  Thirteen die in suicide attack in Yemen
Thu 2012-05-24
  10 More Drone-zapped in North Wazoo
Wed 2012-05-23
  Paki Doctor jailed for helping CIA find Binny
Tue 2012-05-22
  Death Toll Rises to over 120 after Yemen Parade Bombing
Mon 2012-05-21
  AQAP leader urges militants to fight to last breath
Sun 2012-05-20
  Raging Battles on Edge of Militant Stronghold in Yemen, Dozens Killed
Sat 2012-05-19
  20 Dead as Syrian Forces Fire on Huge Protests
Fri 2012-05-18
  Syrian opposition leader says he's ready to step down


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