Labor Participation Hit Record 34-Year Low

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disability, Employment, Labor, Participation, Record Low

The percentage of Americans who have a job or are looking for one, known as the labor force participation rate (LFPR), has plunged to a 34-year low, according to a new report from staffing company Express Employment Professionals.

“Following the Great Recession, we’ve entered into the Great Shift,” says Express Employment Professionals CEO Bob Funk, who previously served as chairman of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. “This is a period defined by the Boomer retirement, Millennial frustration, and growing reliance on government programs. All indicators suggest this shift is not sustainable.”

The New York Times reported on the study and suggested that “another cause [of the Great Shift] may be the rise in the number of workers on disability.”

A record 8,733,461 people now receive disability benefits, a figure greater than the population of New York City.

Today, nearly 90 million Americans are no longer in the labor force.

Source

HHS Secretly Hires 86 Criminal Investigators to Probe Obamacare Violators

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Criminal, Health and Human Services, HHS, investigation, obamacare, Violators

• Post-Obamacare law hiring at the Department of Health and Human Services included 86 ‘criminal investigators,’ but just two ‘consumer safety’ officers
• On the day President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, HHS received authority to make 1,814 new hires
  
• The authorization included positions for 50 criminal investigators. The agency increased that number to 86
  
• The agency was also authorized to hire  261 ‘consumer safety officers.’ Only two such employees were hired

More than 1,600 new employees hired by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources in the aftermath of Obamacare’s passage include just two described as ‘consumer safety’ officers, but 86 tasked with ‘criminal investigating’ – indicating that the agency is building an army of detectives to sleuth out violations of a law that many in Congress who supported it still find confusing.

On the day President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, HHS received authority from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to make as many as 1,814 new hires under an emergency ‘Direct Hiring Authority’ order.

The Obama administration ordered that employment expansion despite a government-wide hiring freeze.

Fed’s Ownership of U.S. Debt Breaks $2T for First Time

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debt, Federal Reserve, Ownership, U.S. Government

(CNSNews.com) – The Federal Reserve’s holdings of publicly traded U.S. Treasury securities—federal government debt—pushed above $2 trillion for the first time last week, hitting approximately $2,001,093,000,000 as of Aug. 14, according to the Fed’s latest weekly accounting.

The Fed’s accounting for the previous week showed that it had owned approximately $1,993,375,000,000 in U.S. Treasury securities as of Aug. 7.

Back on Dec. 31, 2008, before the Fed began its strategy of “Quantitative Easing,” the Fed owned only $475.9 billion in U.S. Treasury securities. Since then, the Fed’s holdings of U.S. government debt have more than quadrupled.

Launched in 2009, the Fed’s Quantitative Easing (QE) efforts have attempted to stimulate the economy.

THE AMATEUR: Obama’s Economic Approval Plunges to 35%

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Economy, Obama, Plunges, poll

PRINCETON, NJ — Despite President Barack Obama’s renewed focus on the nation’s economy this summer, he scores worse with Americans on the economy than he did in June. His approval rating on the issue, now 35%, is down seven percentage points, and his ratings on taxes and the federal budget deficit are each down five points. During the same period, his overall approval rating is down three points.

In fact, out of seven issues for which Obama’s job performance was rated in the new poll and in June, only the three economy-related ones fell significantly. These are also his lowest issue approval ratings of the nine total issues measured this month. Notably, these declines somewhat parallel the slide Gallup has seen in Americans’ economic confidence over the same period, although confidence picked up slightly this past week.

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OH YES HE DID SAY THAT!! Obama Says Top Tax Rate Should Be 28% for Corporations, 40% for Small Business

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Corporations, Economic, Genius, Idiot, Obama, Small Business, Tax Rate, Top

The New York Times reports that President Obama is reviving an old proposal to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent (and 25 percent for manufacturers). Obama’s push to lower the corporate tax rate to 28 percent comes less than a year after he raised the top individual income tax rate, paid by many small businesses, to 39.6 percent.

In a speech delivered Tuesday afternoon, Obama did not explain why he thinks it’s a sound economic idea to raise the top marginal tax rate on small businesses but lower it for corporations.

Nobody ever got a job from a welfare recipient!

“Right now, our tax code is so riddled with wasteful loopholes that many companies doing the right thing and investing in America pay 35%, while the corporations with the best accountants stash their money abroad and pay little or nothing at all,” Obama said, according to a the text of his prepared remarks. “I’m willing to simplify our tax code in a way that closes those loopholes, ends incentives to ship jobs overseas, and lowers rates for businesses that create jobs right here in America.”

Neither Obama’s Tuesday speech nor his February 2012 corporate tax reform plan explained in detail which loopholes would be closed. During the 2012 presidential campaign, the Obama campaign hammered Mitt Romney for not saying which loopholes he would close to pay for a proposed reduction in individual income tax rates.

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STIMULUS: Second-Largest U.S. Employer is a Temp Agency

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Employer, Largest, Second, Stimulus, Temp Agency, U.S.

Behind Wal-Mart, the second-largest employer in America is Kelly Services, a temporary work provider.

Friday’s disappointing jobs report showed that part-time jobs are at an all-time high, with 28 million Americans now working part-time. The report also showed another disturbing fact: There are now a record number of Americans with temporary jobs.

Approximately 2.7 million, in fact. And the trend has been growing.

Considering only 47% of Americans have full time jobs it would make sense that temporary agencies are booming. All the new job reports are showing the increase in jobs is part time and temporary. When will Americans learn that Obama and his administration are killing us one step at a time – Karen W.

Obama’s 2013 Air Force One Bill $24 Million — $6.5 Million for Africa Alone

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africa, Air Force One, bill, costs, flight, Obama, taxpayers

Still denying kids White House tours due to the “Sequester” Mr. President?

President Obama, already the most traveled chief executive in the modern era after internationalist former President George H.W. Bush, is expected to run up an Air Force One tab of at least $24 million this year alone, according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.

Already Obama, just back from a trip with his family and a huge entourage of staff to several African nations, has run up a $15.2 million bill just for Air Force One in the first six months of 2013. Security and hotel costs can dwarf the jet’s cost. Some estimates of the president’s Africa trip alone top $100 million.

NTUF’s Douglas Kellogg told Secrets that Obama’s Africa Air Force One bill to taxpayers was $6,654,345.

But unlike those costs which are hard to estimate and often kept secret, Air Force One costs can be calculated based on published hourly figures provided by the Pentagon.

So far, the president has spent 18 days abroad, is on a pace to surpass is 20 days abroad in 2010 and 2011 and is approaching his high of 40 days in 2009. Total costs so far for Air Force One calculated by NTUF are $15,219,433.

VIP: Biden’s $665,545 Hotel Bill in Moscow, Obama’s $450,000 Warsaw Tab

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Biden, Bills, Hotel, Limo Bill, Moscow, Obama, Paris, Poland, Russia, Tab, VIP, Warsaw

The Washington Times reports that the cost of Obama’s Africa trip, estimated as high as $100 million, is overshadowing President Obama’s agenda. If past VIP trips are any indication, lodging and local transportation would represent only a fraction of the $100 million, yet those costs would likely still dwarf those of the average citizen traveling abroad. In late March, Vice President Joe Biden’s $321,000 limo bill and $585,000 Paris hotel bill for his trip to Europe earlier this year were revealed.

While the amounts spent were deemed fairly ordinary by government insiders, the fact that the closely-held information was found on a publicly available government website had some speculating that perhaps the postings had been inadvertent.  Wolf Blitzer, who spent seven years reporting from the White House, even called it “an extremely rare glimpse.”  However, further investigation has revealed that the information is not as rare as previously supposed.

For example, Vice President Biden’s trip to Moscow in 2011.  The contract was awarded to the Moscow Ritz-Carlton on February 24, 2011 and , according to the accompanying Justification and Approval (J&A), the estimated cost for 1,778 room nights was $665,545.  As has been noted before, contracts for travel for high level government officials are not subject to the same requirements for competitive bidding as other government contracts due to security concerns:

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Amnesty Passes Senate 68-32

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'living in the shadows', amnesty, bill, Immigration Reform, mexico, Passes

WASHINGTON (AP) – With a solemnity reserved for momentous occasions, the Senate passed historic legislation Thursday offering the priceless hope of citizenship to millions of immigrants living illegally in America’s shadows. The bill also promises a military-style effort to secure the long-porous border with Mexico.

The bipartisan vote was 68-32 on a measure that sits atop President Barack Obama’s second-term domestic agenda. But the bill’s prospects are highly uncertain in the Republican-controlled House, where party leaders are jockeying for position in advance of expected action next month.

RELATED: Senator Sessions: ‘This must never become law…’

Spectators in galleries that overlook the Senate floor watched expectantly as senators voted one by one from their desks. Some onlookers erupted in chants of “Yes, we can” after Vice President Joe Biden announced the vote result.

EXCUSE ME???? Michelle Obama Likens Her Upbringing to that of Children of Senegal

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hypocrisy, lies, Michelle Obama, Senegal, Silver Spoon, Upbringing

In Dakar, Senegal, speaking at the Martin Luther King Middle School, First Lady Michelle Obama likened her upbringing to the upbringing of the Senegalese children at the school. Obama told the children of her “experience,” and how it was similar to theirs.

“I know that what you all are doing here isn’t always easy,” the first lady said to applause. “I know that some of you may be the first in your families to attend a school like Martin Luther King, so there might be people at home who don’t quite understand what you’re going through as you work to succeed here. And I know that for some of you, just sitting in these classrooms each day requires great sacrifices by your families.”

“I know a little bit about this from my own experience. See, like many of you, I didn’t grow up in a family with a lot of money. My parents had to work hard every day to support us, so they never had the chance to get the kind of education they wanted for themselves. But they had big dreams for me. And more than anything in the world, they wanted me to graduate from secondary school and attend a university. So they, too, made tremendous sacrifices to make that dream come true,” the first lady continued.