Meet the CENGAs

That’s how pollster John Zogby refers to the “college-educated, not going anywhere” youth. You know, the ones who voted for Hopenchange the last time? Via the Washington Examiner, some have wizened up:

For the first time since he began running for president, Republican Mitt Romney has the support of over 40 percent of America’s youth vote, a troubling sign for President Obama who built his 2008 victory with the overwhelming support of younger, idealistic voters.

Pollster John Zogby of JZ Analytics told Secrets Tuesday that Romney received 41 percent in his weekend poll of 1,117 likely voters, for the first time crossing the 40 percent mark. What’s more, he said that Romney is the only Republican of those who competed in the primaries to score so high among 18-29 year olds.

“This is the first time I am seeing Romney’s numbers this high among 18-29 year olds,” said Zogby. “This could be trouble for Obama who needs every young voter he can get.”

Oh noes! How to explain it?

Zogby speculates that Romney’s selection of 42-year-old Rep. Paul Ryan helped turn more younger voters to him. “It could be his youthfulness,” said Zogby of Ryan. Plus, he said, more younger voters are becoming libertarian, distrustful of current elected officials and worried that they are going to get stuck with the nation’s looming fiscal bill.

“They want change,” said Zogby.

They want jobs and to live independently. To build their own families. They can’t under the current economic climate. Thank goodness some are smart enough to realize it’s from the disastrous policies of this disingenuous president and his merry band of lackeys.

H/t: memeorandum

Laundry

I’ve followed the news of late, but not much has compelled me to post. I’d rather change diapers than comment on Obama et al these days. And the news from my home state of Colorado this weekend saddened me beyond words. So did this heartbreak.

This, however, caught my eye this morning.

Via Bryan Preston, witness change:

It found that 66 percent believe paltry job growth and slow economic recovery is the result of bad policy. Thirty-four percent say Obama is the most to blame, followed by 23 percent who say Congress is the culprit. Twenty percent point the finger at Wall Street, and 18 percent cite former President George W. Bush.

The results highlight the reelection challenge Obama faces amid dissatisfaction with his first-term performance on the economy.

The poll, conducted for The Hill by Pulse Opinion Research, found 53 percent of voters say Obama has taken the wrong actions and has slowed the economy down. Forty-two percent said he has taken the right actions to revive the economy, while six percent said they were not sure.

Indeed.

Moving along, also from Mr. Preston who has kept me entertained in late-night nursing sessions, this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heh. Obama owns this economy.

 

 

What a joke

Busy morning. Scanning the Memeorandum headlines, one thing becomes clear: the discussion at hand isn’t focused on what matters.

Number one headline spawning multiple articles and threads: a gay Romney aide resigns. So important.

Number two headline: a pastor says he was joking when he said gay kids need a punch or two. Of national strategic importance.

Buried waaaaay down on the list: Private-sector hiring slows in April.

Rabbit holes.

Ed Morrissey dissects the bad news.

“Underemployment rocks because it knocks out that sense of entitlement.”

So argues Don Surber brilliantly on yesterday’s AP boo-hoo article detailing underemployment among college grads, especially those with liberal arts degrees.

More:

I know. I am Mister Insensitivity but into each life a little rain must come. That is why an Associated Press story on the difficulties of recent college graduates facing joblessness or underemployment warmed the cockles of my heart. What a life lesson these 20-somethings are learning. The law of supply and demand trumps a sheepskin. Always has. Always will. I am 58 years old and no one has ever asked what my GPA is. People come to this blog and they don’t know whether I have a PhD or an eighth-grade education. They judge me on what I have to say and how I say it.

Underemployment rocks because it knocks out that sense of entitlement. People also learn what real work is.

Absolute truth.

I’m probably Mrs. Insensitivity after noting that the kid pictured bemoaning his Starbucks-barista fate with a BFA in Creative writing needed to lose the facial jewelry in order to get a real job. But such is life. Kids will learn. Eventually. Or else they’ll close out workin’ at Starbucks.

Change!

From the WSJ, this is surreal:

The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that 45 million people in 2011 received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a 70% increase from 2007. It  said the number of people receiving the benefits, commonly known as food stamps, would continue growing until 2014.

70% increase. How about a 70% increase in home sales? Or employment? Or oil production. Nope. We won’t get positive change until O is out of office. That’s change I can believe in!

Read the rest for a great dose of reality.

H/t: memeorandum

Obamanomics: a swing and a miss

Oh, yea! proclaimed the headlines. The unemployment rate has dropped! For those who don’t read beyond the headlines, there’s more to the story.

Behold:

James Pethokoukis:

Swing and a miss. A big miss. A really big miss. U.S. employers added just 120,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. That’s the smallest increase since October. Economists polled by Reuters had expected nonfarm employment to increase by 203,000. And as economist Robert Brusca points out, “The strong amazing run in household jobs came to a crashing halt as employment in that survey fell by 31,000 after rising by 42,000 last month and 847,000 the month before that.”

Then there’s the unemployment rate, which dipped to 8.2% from 8.3% the month before. That extends the longest streak of 8%-plus unemployment since the Great Depression. The U.S. economy hasn’t been below 8% unemployment since Obama took office in January 2009. And back in May 2007, unemployment was just 4.4%. (And keep in mind that average hourly wages are up just 2.1% over past year. But inflation up 2.9% (2.2% core). American workers are losing ground.) As Barclays Capital puts it: “Overall, the report had an undeniably weak tone and will raise doubts about the strength of the labor market. Given that the report reflects only one month of data and some of the underlying cyclical sectors registered payroll gains, we do not view it as conclusively signaling a shift to a lower trend rate of employment growth.”

Posted for all those besties who think our economy is just peachy keen. It’s… not.

Most striking: the unemployment rate if the size of the labor pool hadn’t shrunk so significantly. 10.9% Maybe Hope and Change was really Bait and Switch to get folks out of work and on the dole. It feels like it.

The effect of a free education?

Yet again, look at Greece:

Greeks attend university and vocational schools at a higher rate than students in Germany, Spain or Switzerland, with 43 percent of college-aged Greeks enrolled in 2007, the most recent year that statistics were available from the Organization of European Cooperation and Development in Paris. Yet only 18 percent graduate, one of the lowest rates in Europe.

Greek students pay no tuition, a fact enshrined in the constitution, so there’s no incentive to leave college, said Alan Ruby, a senior fellow for international education at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Emphasis my own. So many lessons can be distilled from one tiny fact, no?

Students pay no tuition, therefore have no incentive to leave.

Welfare recipients pay no taxes and receive never-ending benefits by sitting on their duffs, therefore have no incentive to find work.

Long-term unemployment collectors receive benefits for not finding a job, therefore have no incentive to find said better job.

I could go on.

As Greece heads off the cliff we’re facing. Is it possible to learn a lesson? Doesn’t look likely, does it, as folks scream for free contraceptives.

 

Headline: 10 Places Where a Gallon of Gas Is More Expensive Than in the US

Media hacks certainly weren’t as charitable to Bush back in the day gas prices were lower, but I digress. From the headline story on Yahoo Finance [emphasis my own]:

If it’s been a while since you filled up, you might be in for a rude awakening the next time you visit the gas station. Prices have been rising steadily in the past few weeks on skyrocketing crude oil prices; the cost of a gallon of regular gas stands at $3.57, up 19 cents from a month ago. The rise has given fodder to Republican presidential candidates seeking an angle of economic attack on President Barack Obama and put another wrinkle in Americans’ tight budgets.

Dammit, what can we do?! Assuage their angst! No, deflect their anger! Make ’em thankful they’re paying $4 a gallon!!

We can’t tell you things are going to get better in the near future, but we can tell you things could be a lot worse. While gas prices seem high in the U.S., other countries are saddled with prices at the pump that would give an American driver a heart attack.

Surreal.

What they  won’t tell you: Obama wishes gas were as expensive here as it is in Eritrea. He’s said so as has his Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Wonder where that free Obama gas is flowing now?

I do wonder why we’re not all being told how this is a teachable moment. Via Allahpundit, David Harsanyi:

Gas prices are spiking. That’s great news, right? We have to wean ourselves off the stuff. At least that’s what we’ve been hearing for years. Oil is dirty. We import it from nations that hate our guts (like Canada!). And moreover, we’re running out. Oil is “finite.” Finite much in the way water is finite.

So why aren’t Democrats making the case that the spike in prices is a good thing? Isn’t this basically our energy policy these days? How we “win the future”? If high energy prices were to damage President Barack Obama’s re-election prospects, it would be ironic, considering the left has been telling us to set aside our “dependency” — or, as our most recent Republican president put it, “addiction” — for a long time.

As Allahpundit cynically puts it, all is fair in an election year:

And yet, despite this being a golden opportunity for a “teachable moment” on why America needs to transition from fossil fuels to algae or whatever, some House Democrats are urging O to tap the strategic reserve to keep prices down and Obama’s whining about Republicans making political hay of it all. I wonder why. “$8 a gallon: Now more than ever” would make a nifty campaign slogan, but I suppose they don’t want to add any drags on the economy while it’s still recovering. Better to wait until it’s back to full blast and then start adding drags.

It cost nearly $50 to fill up my tank yesterday at Costco, and that’s after travelling a few weeks and seeing higher gas prices everywhere. Who says PCS moves can’t be fun with $5-a-gallon gasoline? Hooah!

Rick Moranis: “How much of this country’s economy am I personally destroying by my consumption preferences?”

He’s thrifty, like me, and wonders if he’s destroying the economy as a result. A snippet from the WSJ:

This morning, while I was grinding my blend of French, Colombian and Italian coffee beans, it occurred to me that I could be doing harm to the coffee shop and diner businesses in my neighborhood by making my own coffee at home. Might I have a responsibility and obligation to consume their product, either within their premises or brought right to my door by one of their speedy, undocumented-alien delivery men?

I also wondered whether still using my old, reliable German-brand coffee grinder, manufactured in China, might be an unpatriotic betrayal of American kitchen-appliance makers by choosing not to buy their Chinese-made grinder.

As I poured some house-brand almond milk into my homemade granola, I thought about the depressed demand and earnings on the higher-priced product manufacturers that I wasn’t patronizing, their resulting order and production declines, and the backlogged inventories and possible layoffs at their factories.

How much of this country’s economy am I personally destroying by my consumption preferences? I honestly never intended to do so much harm.

I ran a hot iron quickly over the front of a previously worn shirt, saddened at the thought of the jolly staff at my local dry cleaner who will suffer because of my thrifty initiative and tolerance for rumpled, mildly aromatic haberdashery.

Heh. I needed that this morning after wading through hundreds of rental houses online.

Moranis jokingly points out a simple truth, though: how much consumption is necessary to support the economy? Or could his thriftiness in some ways–homemade granola and coffee at home–lead to greater consumption in others, i.e. stock purchases? That’s my line and I’m sticking to it. We’ve forgotten how to save money because of the endless lines of credit available. Don’t have the money for those great jeans? Get a store credit card with a low introductory rate of 22%! Buy it anyway, even though you don’t really own it and will pay much more for it. Can’t pay for college? Go get that useless degree at the highly expensive liberal arts college best known for it’s marijuana reputation and finance the entire bit so that you’re never able to overcome the debt in your lifetime! It’s such a contrast from the attitude of my immigrant grandparents, who didn’t buy a thing they couldn’t pay for in cash, including cars.

 

 

Who needs credit cards, eh?

When you can pay for your jumbo crab legs with food stamps?

Unreal. From a seafood market in DC:

Makes sense from a retailer’s standpoint: if 15% of the national population uses a special government card, then why not garner some of that business? Especially if that population numbers higher in your specific area? Nothing like word-of-mouth advertising!