Fausta's Blog

Last Tuesday in Rick Moran’s podcast I mentioned that the flight of capital from the EU might make emerging markets very attractive.

Well, look at Peru:
Peru intensifies currency fight (emphasis added)

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For the eighth time in 10 months, Peru’s central bank has raised deposit requirements on dollar-denominated accounts to stem the flow of hot money into its fast-growing economy and dampen currency appreciation.
With the sol approaching a 16-year high, Peru’s central bank said that as of April 1, the reserve ratio will rise 0.25 percentage points. The bank, which has ruled out Brazilian-style capital controls, has also been aggressively buying dollars in the spot market to slow the trajectory of the sol.

So far, its strategy has worked, with the sol weakening 1.33 per cent against the dollar this year, after appreciating 5.7 per cent in 2012.

The Peruvian bank’s struggle to rein in its currency is shared by fast-growing neighbour Colombia, which last week said it was willing to double its spending on dollars, to $10bn, this year to take some of the steam out of the peso.

Both countries are enjoying the fruits of years of prudent economic management – but rapid economic growth and low inflation have come hand-in-hand with the kind of current appreciation that makes exporters squeal.

Hmmm. . . Prudent economic management.

Are you listening, Paul Krugman?

Read his post, and check out the graph:

(click on graph for large version)

No wonder Putin’s unhappy.

This is not going to make you happy: The Government Generously Offers To Help You “Manage” Your Retirement Account. But I digress.

Also unhappy, a London cabby, [LANGUAGE WARNING: DEFINITELY NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK]

(more…)

Tomorrow all bank deposits over €100,000 will have 10% expropriated in Cyprus, while

Goat herders, taxi drivers, et al. (what the New York Times calls“pensioners, workers and regulator depositors”) with less than €100,000 get whacked 6.75 percent.

What do they get for that? A €10 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund and European lenders.

Roger Kimball has the story.

In Ireland, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and France, the governments take over citizens’ pension money to make up government budget shortfalls.

In 2008, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard asked, Argentina seizes pension funds to pay debts. Who’s next?

My fear is that governments in the US, Britain, and Europe will display similar reflexes. Indeed, they have already done so. The forced-feeding of banks with fresh capital – whether they want it or not – and the seizure of the Fannie/Freddie mortgage giants before they were in fact in trouble (in order to prevent a Chinese buying strike of US bonds and prevent a spike in US mortgage rates), shows that private property can be co-opted – or eliminated – with little due process if that is required to serve the collective welfare. This is a slippery slope.

This is only the beginning, folks.

Record 89,304,000 Americans ‘Not in Labor Force’ — 296,000 Fewer Employed Since January

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) labels people who are unemployed and no longer looking for work as “not in the labor force,” including people who have retired on schedule, taken early retirement, or simply given up looking for work.
The increase marks the second month in a row, after rising in January from 88.8 million in December. Those not in the labor force had declined in December from 88.9 million in November.

The number of Americans not in the labor force increased by 296,000 between January and February, which means that the labor force participation rate, which measures workers and those looking for jobs, also fell, to a 32-year low of 63.5 percent.

Mr. Bingley has more.

This is what teen unemployment has been for the last six years:

With that dismal number, the President proposes a 25% increase in minimum salary to $9/hr. The result? The least educated, experienced and skilled will be priced out of the market.

In today’s WSJ:
The Minority Youth Unemployment Act
A higher minimum wage will hurt Obama’s most loyal supporters.

The damage from a minimum wage hike depends on the overall labor market. If the job market is buoyant, as it is in the fracking boomtown of Williston, N.D., fast-food workers may already make more than $9 an hour. But when the jobless rate is high, as it still is in California and New York, the increase punishes minority youth in particular.

That is what happened during the last series of wage hikes to $7.25 from $5.15 that started in July 2007 as the economy was headed toward recession. The last increase hit in July 2009 just after the recession ended, and as the nearby chart shows, the jobless rate jumped for teens and black teens especially. For black teens, the rate has remained close to 40% and was still 37.8% in January.

A study by economists William Even of Miami University and David Macpherson of Trinity University concludes that in the 21 states where the full 40% wage increase took effect, “the consequences of the minimum wage for black young adults without a diploma were actually worse than the consequences of the Great Recession.”

William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business, says that after the July 2009 increase 600,000 teen jobs disappeared in the next six months even as GDP expanded. In the previous six months, when the economy was still shrinking, half as many teen jobs were lost. The overall teen jobless rate was still 23.4% last month, which means demand for unskilled workers is low even at $7.25 an hour. Demand will be lower at $9.

As for that family Obama referred to,

But today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. Even with the tax relief we’ve put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong.

Wrong, indeed,

He left out that most minimum-wage earners are not the primary bread winner. Nearly 40% live with a parent or relative. The average family income of a household with a minimum-wage worker is about $47,023—which is far above the poverty line of $23,550 for a family of four.

Mr. Obama didn’t even tell the whole story about parents raising a family on a minimum-wage income. A full-time minimum-wage worker earns roughly $15,000 a year. But that worker also receives a cash supplement from the earned income tax credit of roughly $5,000, and many states provide benefits on top of that to reward working. That doesn’t count government benefits like food stamps, Medicaid, child care and more. According to data from the Employment Policies Institute, about two of every three minimum-wage workers also get a raise within one year.

There’s also the erroneous premise that people are forever stuck at minimum wage, when, in fact, minimum wage jobs are entry-level jobs where workers gain the experience they need to advance. More on that in the video:

If you thought you’d heard it before, yes, you’d heard the State of the Groundhog,

Ed Morrissey points out that a minimum-wage hike is the wrong way to lift working poor, but Ed misses the point: politicians don’t want to lift the working poor. Instead they prefer doom, despair and agony if it serves their purpose,

No doom, despair and agony for Obama. After a $900 Valentine’s Day dinner, Obama’s spending a few days on Florida’s Atlantic Coast

relaxing with friends he did not identify. Mrs. Obama’s office did not respond to a question about her plans for the weekend.

[Update: Michelle's going to Aspen.]
This will be his second vacation of the year. Back on 9/11/12 he did nothing on Benghazi, when he was President AWOL:

On the night of 9-11, after the US Embassy in Cairo was stormed, and after hearing that the US Consulate in Benghazi was under attack, Barack Obama did nothing.

After being briefed by his top security advisers at a pre-planned meeting in the White House around 5:30 PM EST, he never picked up the phone again to see how things were going. And four innocent Americans including the US ambassador to Libya, were slaughtered.

This email was sent to State Department officials, White House officials, Secret Service officials at 6:07 PM EST on 9-11, from Benghazi officials the night of the terrorist attack.

The email clearly blamed Al-Qaeda linked group Ansar al-Sharia for the attack on the US consulate.
This was before the lifeless body of Ambassador Stevens was dragged from the consulate ruins.

This was at least the third email sent to the White House on 9-11 from Benghazi.

Now that Lautenberg is finally(?) retiring – unlike the last time he retired, when he said “Just when i thought i was out, they pull me back in” -

everybody in NJ wants to be a Senator.

Why Should I Care About the U.S. Debt?

Name the party!

No biological clock for men: Cary Grant was a first-time dad at age 65, and now Steve Martin’s a first-time dad at 67.

Hugo Chavez? He’s aliiiive!

Why Was an Iranian Official Found with Millions in Venezuelan Money?

Meteorite Strikes Central Russia, Up To 500 Injured, not to be confused with the asteroid heading our way today.

You learn something new every day: Penises are called chubbies.

If you listen to the POTUS, you’d be thinking that because he’ll just keep raising taxes.

However, if you look at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the situation’s different:
CBO: Tax Increase Fails to Solve Spending and Debt Crisis

• With economic growth and President Obama’s two tax increases, the $1 trillion tax hike in Obamacare, and the $618 billion fiscal cliff increase, revenues will surge to 19.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2015, and will remain well above the historical average of 18.5 percent for the rest of the decade. These figures offer conclusive proof that—notwithstanding the assertions of the President and Senate Democrats—there is plenty of revenue flowing into Washington.
• Yet even all this new revenue fails to solve the government’s fiscal problems. Starting at $845 billion this year, deficits shrink somewhat through 2016, but then start rising again, returning to near the trillion-dollar range by 2023. The pattern proves that higher taxes cannot solve the deficit problem—only spending restraint can.

Read the whole thing.

Drudge has the juxtaposition,

Comes to show that when the Fed’s printing money like there’s no tomorrow, the stock market goes up.

And, while you’re at it, IRS: Cheapest Obamacare Plan Will Be $20,000 Per Family
UPDATE:
ObamaCare’s $20,000 Per Family Ticket Price will Wreck the Private Insurance Industry

That figure represents almost half the US median income in 2011, of $50,054. And median income is trending downward, as the laughably dishonestly named Affordable Care Act aka ObamaCare pushes prices up to $20,000 per year.

It’s not difficult to envision how this will play out. The upward pressure of insurance costs — some families can expect 85% increases — and the downward pressure of income will drive many Americans out of insurance altogether. Whey they need care, they can face a fine as high as $2,400. So many will opt out of insurance, knowing that they cannot be denied coverage for any pre-existing conditions under ObamaCare. They’ll pay the fine and get insurance if they have to, otherwise they will end up having their health care picked up by the government.

Before long, government will be the only payer, as private insurance companies go bankrupt.

It’s all part of the plan.

Rick Santelli is right, again:

“When you act like Europe, you get growth rates like Europe,” Santelli said. “Our discussions with economists sound like we’re in Europe. They’re always doing the right thing. They’re always thinking they know better, and this the kind of growth.”

“We have become Europe,” Santelli declared. “We are now Europe.”

Bestest recession ever!!!

Straight from that arm of the vast right-wing conspiracy,
US economy shrinks 0.1 pct., first time in 3 ½ years; deep cut in defense spending key factor

And it was unexpected!

Economists said the surprise decrease in the nation’s gross domestic product wasn’t as bad as it looked. The weakness was primarily the result of one-time factors. Government spending cuts and slower inventory growth subtracted a total of 2.6 percentage points from growth.

Looking good!

“Frankly, this is the best-looking contraction in U.S. GDP you’ll ever see,” Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, said in a note to clients.

Be happy!