First Friday of the month means jobs numbers. We're looking at 103K jobs created in September, exceeding expectations. But unemployment rate stays at 9.1%. We've been between 9.0 and 9.2 since April with basically no movement.

Broader U-6 unemployment rate increased to 16.5% from 16.2%. And according to BLS, the number of long-term unemployed - those unemployed for six months or more - was 6.2 million, making up 44.6% of the total unemployed.

Frankly, this means weÂ’re just keeping pace with population growth. This is what a managed decline looks like.

Update: As commenters note, this number includes the 45k striking Verizon workers coming back into the fold. Also, Jim Pethokoukis has some thoughts.

Posted by: Guest Blogger at 04:56 AM | Comments (258)
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The career of Steve Jobs exemplifies the American dream.

While his illness was long a matter of public knowledge, it is still jarring that death strikes Jobs at a point so young - at 56, he barely had half the professional years of Edison, Ford, and Carnegie, who all died in their eighties. It means the world will miss out on the latter days of career, whether he would've stretched out for more incredible goals, or turned to more philanthropic pursuits. In his time, he touched so many areas of cultural life, not just through consumer products, his effect on communication and education, but also the creation of some of the best films of the past decade.

So much work in such a compressed period of time. In the beginning, he seemed so young. And at the end, he seemed old beyond his years. more...

Posted by: Guest Blogger at 04:01 AM | Comments (63)
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FRIDAY!!! more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:02 AM | Comments (117)
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I'd love to promise you 'rons and 'ronettes a redemption of the ... ummm ... weaker efforts put in during Maet's absence. But I don't want to get out over my skis on this thing.

First up, I'm happy to report that Ace has been located. Turns out this "vacation" was just a cover story though, as it looks like his pilot for Saffron: Intergalactic Space-Whore got picked up.

Yeah, I have a feeling he's not coming back. more...

Posted by: andy at 06:00 PM | Comments (751)
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Someone asked me yesterday: “How do consultants like John Weaver keep getting jobs?”

Well, think of it this way: there are only so many people who can play quarterback in the NFL at any one time, there are only so many political consultants who have the ability and resume and interest in killing themselves for less money than they'd make in the corporate game at any given time capable of running a presidential.

The difference is that unlike the NFL, staying the BMOC longer in college is more attractive, and so many of the real talented folks stay there. This is how it used to be in the days before the pros could offer any real money or fame. Back then, college football fed into community leadership roles and running for mayor, not the pros. Politics is still stuck in the days before the League.

Let me explain: Roughly half these guys on the national level are below average at their jobs and generally suck. The real talent - the once in a generation talent - is at the state level, where a lot of the best people do great work, but do it for governors or other statewides. Because unlike the national players, they can actually go home to their families at night and they don't spend 24 hours a day chained to their blackberries.

So if you're in that half that sucks, the best way to stay in business and pay the bills is to latch on to one of two categories: crazy people who think they need to be president to save the country, and rich people who think they might be presidential.

For the former category, let's just say I have a friend who's in a senior campaign position on a longshot effort, who cannot stand the views of the guy he's working for. But the candidate pays the bills on time, decently well, and it's a better job than anything else he could conceivably get. Join the Fight! It pays the mortgage.

For the latter, see John Weaver and Jon Huntsman, wealthy beyond his dreams because daddy invented the styrofoam thing your Big Mac used to come in, globetrotter, bored as a governor, plucks his eyebrows dutifully, thinks being president sounds cool and stuff. Sure! Let's try it. Here's ten million dollars. Make people love me!

(The ideal job, of course, is doing this for a guy who keeps on running for another four years.)

The latter type gets you a much nicer house, but the former is fine middle class work. Your work product is crap, but who cares given the weakness of the market.

So imagine an NFL where Peyton never left Tennessee... where Rodgers is still hanging around Cal growing increasingly impressive mustaches... where Drew Brees is the biggest car dealer in Indiana... where Staubach stayed in the Navy. Imagine what the league would look like in a situation where you were stuck deciding between Luke McCown and Chad Henne and Rex Grossman.

Can you win with these guys? Sure. But often, you win in spite of them.

And that's why Bob Shrum gets paid.

Posted by: Guest Blogger at 05:06 PM | Comments (127)
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This isn't even getting much local coverage.

AUSTIN — Texas tax revenues have bounced back to levels nearly equal to pre-recession levels, indicating that the economy is in recovery, the state's chief revenue estimator said Wednesday.

John Heleman said taxes on retail sales, motor vehicles and oil production are near 2008 levels, the last year before the recession. Only natural gas taxes are lagging, mostly because of low prices, he said during a quarterly briefing to the state House Ways and Means committee.

"The sales tax collection in 2008 was our all-time high, and then it went down in 2009," Heleman told the committee. "It's back up in 2011, and we're essentially back to where we were in 2008 in terms of sales tax collections."

Texas has no state income tax, sales taxes are the largest revenue generator in Texas. Oil production revenues are higher, even though the price per barrel trend peaked a month ago and is heading back down. These feed the Texas "rainy day fund", which is now projected to climb back up to $7BB in 2013.

People (and companies) spending more money, leading or lagging indicator?

UPDATE: We're not trouble-free in Texas

Yeah but they got this racist rock there or something so none of that matters.

Posted by: Bosk at October 06, 2011 08:09 PM (n2K+4)

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:00 PM | Comments (94)
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Above the post update:

Basically it seems the Democrats have stripped the GOP of the chance to offer amendments. This is going to bite the Democrats in the ass hard several ways once they find themselves in the minority.

Just got an email from someone in the Senate. It's not the filibuster but the ability to change the Senate rules by simple majority vote (instead of 2/3s vote). The rule they are trying to change has to do with the ability to close off the option of offering amendments.

Reid's maneuver works. The precedent has been set that Senate rules can be changed by majority vote.

This means the Senate rules can be changed by majority vote and the minority can't offer amendments without majority approval.

What this is about: Reid didn't want to let McConnell bring up Obama's job plan and force Democrats to vote against it. Pass This Bill Now (unless it would be an embarrassing to Democrats).

So, the GOP wins the Senate in '12, nukes the filibuster and then repeals ObamaCare?

Wow.

This is pretty crazy and it's going to take some time to sort out.

Original Post:
It's a little arcane and a lot inside baseball but something is going down in the Senate right now.

In a shock development Thursday evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) triggered a rarely-used procedural option informally called the “nuclear option” to change the Senate rules.

...

Reid appealed a ruling from the chair that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) does not need consent to force a vote on a motion to suspend the rules to consider an amendment after cloture has already been approved.

The maneuver is highly arcane but momentous. If a simple majority of the Senate votes to uphold ReidÂ’s appeal, the SenateÂ’s rules will have been changed by the unilateral action of one party.

From the Senate GOP communications shop (email, no link)

Sen. Reid just moved to change the rules of the Senate. By raising an unprecedented point of order against offering motions to suspend (a motion that both Democrats and Republicans have used in the Senate), he’s asking the Senate, with a simple majority vote, to end the practice altogether. After “filling the tree” and blocking all Republican amendments, Sen. Reid is now moving to be able to prevent any options available to the minority to have votes—even on jobs amendments.

Despite AGREEING to have seven motions a few minutes ago, heÂ’s now saying seven motions are too many and the practice must end.

Republicans are voting to appeal the ruling and to maintain a long-standing Senate rule that has been used by both parties.

Not sure what triggered this. Updates as it becomes clear.

Vote is going on right now but even Senators are confused which way to vote on the party line.

This escalated quickly.

Posted by: DrewM at 03:11 PM | Comments (275)
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Cloying blabbermouth Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is famous for saying the Democrats own the economy and just this week said we've turned the corner.

Yet while attending a fat-cat fundraiser in Virginia last night, this famed media whore suddenly turned mute when a guy had the temerity to ask her if "zero jobs in August means that the economy is turning around"?

A smug, dismissive eye-roll follows. Way to relate to the little people, Debbie Downer.

Warning: Several chilling seconds of tree stumps as she approaches the questioner. I momentarily was having HRC flashbacks before pantsuits were in style.

Ankles aweigh!

more...

Posted by: Guest Blogger at 01:55 PM | Comments (131)
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Unfortunately, many cable providers are still not carrying the Fox Business channel so some of you might not be able to watch Stuart Varney's Varney & Company. Which is a shame. It airs after Don Imus signs off around 9:20 AM. Frequent panelist Charles Payne was guest hosting the show this morning and interviewed “Our Time" President Matthew Segal.

I had never heard of "Our Time" before, so I looked it up. It apparently exists to "stand up for people under 30", whatever that means. Anyway, this chucklehead claims to represent the Occupy Wall Street crowd and he took several hilariously ridiculous positions throughout the interview. Positions like "this isn't anti-capitalism" and "we're trying to work". He even managed to somehow stumble into claiming they were down there to "mourn the death of Steve Jobs".

I'm a big fan of Charles Payne and he doesn't disappoint in this clip. It was a thorough dressing-down of fringe lefty loon. It was also the closest I've ever seen a guest come to being laughed off the air.

Payne is on Twitter, as well. Follow him here.

Posted by: Guest Blogger at 12:54 PM | Comments (213)
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In a Sisyphean effort, Gov. Rick Perry issues a flat denial:

“I think there were very much some strong inconsistencies and just misinformation in that story,” Perry told Fox News Channel reporter Juliet Huddy in an interview this morning. “I know for a fact that in 1984, that rock was painted over. It was painted over very soon, my family did that.”

“We painted over that rock and it stayed that way. I have no idea where or why people would say that they had seen that rock, because that’s just not the fact,” he added.

Video at the story.

And for the record? Democrats painted over a racist fossil for decades.

(you can follow me on Twitter at @CuffyMeh)

Posted by: Guest Blogger at 11:58 AM | Comments (370)
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