Tip o’ the Hat to Art Pronin @ Taylor Marsh who introduces it thusly-

PPP polls have been dead on accurate for several years now. And boy does their latest show trouble for Obama 2012. Their latest has 54 percent disapproving of the president. I sure wish the folks in the WH would read real polls sometime.

Obama keeps hitting record lows

Tom Jensen, Public Policy Polling

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

In our national polling for Daily Kos Barack Obama has hit a record low approval rating 3 weeks in a row now. He’s gone from 43/53 to 42/53 to now 42/54 in our poll this week.

What might be most noteworthy is this week’s poll is how bad Obama’s numbers are with a few key and usually dependable Democratic constituencies. He’s under water in union households at 44/47. He’s also under water with voters under 30 at 45/48. The Northeast tends to a pretty dependable region for Democrats but Obama’s under water there at 47/49. Obama’s usually been able to hold his ground with female voters but he’s under water with them too at 45/49. And even with African Americans his approval rating’s down to 76%, about as low as we’ve ever found it.

…

(L)ast week … Democratic enthusiasm was at a year long low. Now it’s at a lower year long low with only 47% of the party’s voters ‘very excited’ about voting this year compared to 58% of Republicans.

…

Obama trails a generic opponent 48-44 on our national poll this week, including 51-37 with independents.

Public Policy Polling August 25 – 28

For readers who are allergic to orange I’ve done the best I could.  There are no comments at either link.

I’m sure those Independents and base voters are just champing at the bit to flock back to him after the spectacular cave on the timing of his clueless “Jobs” agenda speech, putting licking John Boehner’s boots before every Red Blooded ‘murkan’s love of the NFL.

You guys are so much smarter than all us serfs and peons.

“When people feel uncertain, they’d rather have somebody that’s strong and wrong than somebody who’s weak and right.” – Bill Clinton

Weak AND Wrong ain’t even in the game.  I’m afraid Archangel M is correct- Obama Concedes Election More Than a Year Before It Happens.

Electoral victory my ass.

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Barry Ritholtz is a contributor to Seeking Alpha and is notable for his insights on the housing market and his book Bailout Nation.

Now this video is quite long, 24 minutes, but it has a lot of insight and if (like me) your cable is still out and you’re desperate for anything slightly resembling TV you might find it interesting.

lambert at Corrente (the blog that everybody hates and nobody reads) was taken by the fashion statement.  I only hope orange becomes the ‘in color’.

I must admit on my system it’s pretty cranky and I had to goose it past the second break.  Try moving the slider forward if you get lost in buffer land, don’t forget to restart the video.

Title quote @ aboot 4:09.  lambert’s fave @ 4:46ish.  Folsom Prison Blues below.

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

It’s a topic I’ve addressed before-

How to feel poor on $500,000 a year

Mon Sep 20, 2010 at 06:46:14 AM EDT

In Which Mr. Deling Responds to Someone Who Might Be Professor Todd Henderson

J. Bradford DeLong, Department of Economics, U.C. Berkeley

September 18, 2010

Professor Henderson’s problem is that he thinks that he ought to be able to pay off student loans, contribute to retirement savings vehicles, build equity, drive new cars, live in a big expensive house, send his children to private school, and still have plenty of cash at the end of the month for the $200 restaurant meals, the $1000 a night resort hotel rooms, and the $75,000 automobiles. And even half a million dollars a year cannot (get) you all of that. … (W)hy does he think that that is the way things should be? … (H)ere is the dirty secret: Professor Henderson thinks that that is the way things should be because he knows people for whom that is the way it is. … Of the 100 people richer than he is, fully ten have more than four times his income. And he knows of one person with 20 times his income. He knows who the really rich are, and they have ten times his income: They have not $450,000 a year. They have $4.5 million a year. And, to him, they are in a different world. And so he is sad. He and his wife deserve to be successful. And he knows people who are successful. But he is not one of them–widening income inequality over the past generation has excluded him from the rich who truly have money.

I’ll note that Mr. Deling has respectfully redacted the name of the offending asshole, but I’m free to shout it from the roof tops.

So what has changed?  Things have gotten worse of course!

"Who rules America? Breaking down the top 1%"

by Gaius Publius, Americablog

on 8/29/2011 10:55:00 AM

(T)his article breaks down the top 1% of American wealth into strata, and talks about the differences. It’s a really instructive piece, and an easy read.

The Lower Half of the Top 1% The 99th to 99.5th percentiles largely include physicians, attorneys, upper middle management, and small business people who have done well. Everyone’s tax situation is, of course, a little different. On earned income in this group, we can figure somewhere around 25% to 30% of total pre-tax income will go to Federal, State, and Social Security taxes, leaving them with around $250k to $300k post tax. This group makes extensive use of 401-k’s, SEP-IRA’s, Defined Benefit Plans, and other retirement vehicles, which defer taxes until distribution during retirement. Typical would be yearly contributions in the $50k to $100k range, leaving our elite working group with yearly cash flows of $175k to $250k after taxes, or about $15k to $20k per month. Until recently, most studies just broke out the top 1% as a group. Data on net worth distributions within the top 1% indicate that one enters the top 0.5% with about $1.8M, the top 0.25% with $3.1M, the top 0.10% with $5.5M and the top 0.01% with $24.4M. Wealth distribution is highly skewed towards the top 0.01%, increasing the overall average for this group. The net worth for those in the lower half of the top 1% is usually achieved after decades of education, hard work, saving and investing as a professional or small business person. While an after-tax income of $175k to $250k and net worth in the $1.2M to $1.8M range may seem like a lot of money to most Americans, it doesn’t really buy freedom from financial worry or access to the true corridors of power and money. That doesn’t become frequent until we reach the top 0.1%.

…

(T)he people above, the “lower half of the top 1%”, still work for a living. I would put them at the top level of the “retainer class” – wealthy, but still servants.

In Roman times, these would be the very-well-off top-level administrators and professionals, many of them ex-Greek slaves, who service the real Masters (the emperor and wealthier senatorial families) and oversee the constant flow of peasant wealth upwards, from which they get a hand-me-down share.

For the author, the key American economic super-strata are:

• 99.0%-99.5%  –  The lower half of the top 1%
• 99.5%-99.9%  –  Most of the upper half of the top 1%
• The top 0.1%  –  The Big Boyz (and Girlz, but very few of those)
• The top 0.01%  –  Where most of the real wealth is concentrated

The first sub-group has a lot of retirement anxiety, as the article makes clear; and the second has some guilt. Guess where the power lies.

I like Gaius.  I like what he writes and I understand from TheMomCat who has met him that he’s a very nice guy.  He has another piece earlier that touches on the same subject-

$2 of every $3 in income growth from 2002-2007 went to the upper 1%

by Gaius Publius, Americablog

on 8/25/2011 08:21:00 PM

Not the upper 10%; the upper 1%. (2002 is the bottom of the tech crash; 2007 is just pre-the bank crash.)

Another bad stat – In 1967, 97% of prime age men with only HS diplomas were working. Today, the number is 76%. Stunning; the middle class (the real one, not the faux-middle class we see on TV) is collapsing hard from within.

All of this comes via Don Peck and his new Atlantic article, “Can the Middle Class Be Saved?“.

…

Peck makes several points that regular readers will be familiar with – in particular, the notion that the super-rich (Our Betters) have not only delinked their expenses from the U.S. economy – they’re started to delink their incomes from it as well.

…

The run-up in wealth inequality is the big story of this generation; in my view, a world-historical event that will have a world-historical outcome if we’re not careful. This wealth will be redistributed, one way or another, in this generation or a later one.

Fascinating stuff.  I encourage you to click the links.

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

I imagine that today one can hardly get away from reports about the aftermath of Irene.  I say I magine it because the most serious effects here in Stars Hollow were losing a chunk of shingles (pretty expensive but not devastating) and cable TV (an annoyance) so I cannot report from first hand knowledge.

It’s easy to forget what happened a mere 6 years ago.

Hurricane Katrina makes landfall

The New York Times

Published: Monday, August 29, 2005

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana – Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore early Monday and charged toward low-lying New Orleans with 150-mph (240-kph) winds and the threat of an extremely dangerous storm surge.

Katrina turned slightly to the east before slamming ashore early Monday with 145-mph (233-kph) winds, providing some hope that the worst of the storm’s wrath might not be directed at this vulnerable, below-sea-level city.

But National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield warned that New Orleans would be pounded throughout the day Monday and that Katrina’s potential 20-foot ( 6-meter) storm surge was still more than capable of swamping the city.

Has New Orleans recovered?  Not as much as you might hope.  As noted in last night’s Evening Edition–

42 6 years later, Lower 9th Ward still bleak

By CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press

5 hrs ago

And let’s not forget this-

Officers Guilty of Shooting Six in New Orleans

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, The New York Times

Published: August 5, 2011

NEW ORLEANS – In a verdict that brought a decisive close to a case that has haunted this city since most of it lay underwater nearly six years ago, five current and former New Orleans police officers were found guilty on all counts by a federal jury on Friday for shooting six citizens, two of whom died, and orchestrating a wide-ranging cover-up in the hours, weeks and years that followed.

The defendants were convicted on 25 counts, including federal civil rights violations in connection with the two deaths, for the violence and deception that began on the Danziger Bridge in eastern New Orleans on Sept. 4, 2005, just days after Hurricane Katrina hit and the levees failed.

“The officers convicted today abused their power and violated the public’s trust during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, exacerbating one of the most devastating times for the people of New Orleans,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said.  “I am hopeful today’s verdict brings justice for the victims and their family members, helps to heal the community and contributes to the restoration of public trust in the New Orleans Police Department.”

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

“Barack Obama’s a friend,” he said, “and when you place him in the context of those who are running against him right now, he is a giant.”

(h/t Art Pronin @ Taylor Marsh)

In context, the lesser of two evils is still evil.  Without making politicians and other elites pay for their failures there is no incentive for them to change behavior.

Economics calls this Moral Hazard.

Did I mention complicated episode structure?

Oh, yeah.

This weekend’s episodes originally aired September 13, 2003 and since I like cliffhangers you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for Part 2 of Duck Codgers.  It and Where’s Baby Smartypants were the 7th and 8th in production order respectively.