Friday's Pile of Prep
WSJ: Debate Over 'Fiscal Cliff' Weighs on Growth
-------
What does "liberalism" really mean? Quite simply, it entails making wide interpretations of "words" -- most often the written word. That is, redefining and recasting specific terms chosen by originating authors. Hence to make a "liberal interpretation." It began with the Holy Bible, wherein liberals chose to reshape and rebuke specific vonacular recorded for millenia. Then the Constitution; again taking right to recasting and reshaping the Framers recorded sentences (not to mention their volumous explanations of those sentences in countless separate works such as the Federalist Papers and self-penned treatises) . As such, to the "liberal" there exists no absolute meaning. No fact. No virtue. No law. Everything is subject to relative interpretation of their own accord. Of course, the logical course of such behavior is the "lie" which becomes morally rationalized.
The latest incarnation: the Priorities USA (an Obama superPAC) commercial trying to blame Romney for a death to cancer. To counter, the Wall Street Journal's published research of the facts:
Bain bought the struggling company GST Steel in 1993 and held the investment in a turnaround bid throughout Mr. Romney's tenure as CEO, which ended in 1999. He had been gone from Bain for two years when the mill went bankrupt, in 2001, amid a larger competitive upheaval that reshaped the U.S. steel industry. Mr. Soptic's wife died five years later, in 2006. Mr. Soptic also revealed to CNN that when he worked at GST, his wife had her own health insurance policy through a thrift store job, which she lost after an injury in 2002 or 2003. By then he'd been hired somewhere else, but that plan didn't cover spouses.
Today's lesson: once you believe you have right to interpret God's Word, habit and practice will surely lead you to lies and falsehood everywhere else.
-------
Want More Tax Revenue? Increase Jobs Not Rates
-------
Unemployment Rates at Various Demographic Labor Pool Growth Rates
-------
Four Different Viewpoints on Employment; Reflections on Biased Reporting
-------
The Potential Gains from Tax Reform - academic research illustrating Romney tax plan would add 5.4 percentage points of growth versus current baseline over the next 10 years
-------
From Prof. Mankiw at Harvard
I have been looking through the Obama administration'smidsession review, which was released a few days ago. I found the comparison between the adminstration's economic forecast and the Blue Chip consensus of private forecasters noteworthy. (See the table called "Table 3. Comparison of Economic Assumptions.") Here is the projected growth of real GDP, fourth quarter to fourth quarter, of Team Obama in red, and private forecasters in blue.
2012 2.6 2.0
2013 2.6 2.5
2014 4.0 3.1
2015 4.2 3.0
2016 3.9 2.9
Of course, the Administration's optimistic forecast feeds directly into its budget projection. If we get the slower growth that private forecasters predict, we will get less tax revenue and larger budget deficits than the Administration projects.