Dear Obama: It's the jobs, stupid!

 It's the jobs, stupid!

Remember that?  It was a slightly different slant, but it had the same ring; "It's the economy , stupid!"  That is all you heard when Clinton ran; and so I ask now, where are all those calls now?

One look at the following data and graph will give anyone all they need to know about how Obama has done on jobs and the economy.

This site has all the details, but I will detail the jobs and the nonexistent recovery.
Civilian Employment-Population Ratio (EMRATIO)

Look at this graph:

It shows you the Civilian Employment-Population Ratio (EMRATIO), which simply put, relates the number of people by the number of people that actually have jobs.  I have moved the graph from circa 2000 to today.

For anyone that wants to vote for Obama, I ask you to follow along and then ask yourself how you can still vote for this man.

-- the shaded areas are recessions.
-- note how there is no recovery at all
-- note that all other recoveries happened by this time already
-- note that the CBO sees deeper "fiscal cliff" recession next year

Any other president would be gone on these facts; so please tell me how you can still vote for Obama?  Only by putting your political ideology above the good of the country can you still vote his way.

It's the jobs, stupid!

Obama has to go and not a minute too soon.  Worse times are on the horizon and we need a President that will put jobs first!  I am not sure there has ever been a perfect president, but I do know that I will be voting against Obama based solely on the jobs and economy.

Watch the media left pitch a fit on this one...

Poll: Majority say Obama has made things worse

We Are Living in a ‘Modern Day Depression’: David Rosenberg

 If you are on the fence about Obama, please read this article.  In short, I believe it shows just how much he has failed.  Honestly, I do not want to hear that it's not his fault; history tells us that does not matter.  President Obama had his shot and he failed, period.  Time to elect someone else who will put jobs and the growth of the economy first...

We Are Living in a ‘Modern Day Depression’
 
"We are living in a modern day depression," he [David Rosenberg] declares.

This dramatic statement is based on several factors, including the record number of Americans living on Food Stamps — 46 million or 1-in-7 in 2011. Because these benefits are now given in the form of electronic debit cards, we don't have bread lines like in the 1930s, but they are there in virtual form. And that's just the most obvious form of government support for its struggling citizenry. (See: Marion Nestle on The (Big) Business of Food Stamps: "Here's Where the Profits Come In")

"Government transfers to the personal sector now makes up nearly one-fifth of total household income," Rosenberg writes. "Even Lyndon Johnson, architect of the 'Great Society', would blush at that."

Wealth Destruction: The Fed's recent report on the massive 40% drop in median household wealth from 2007-2010. (See: The American Dream Shrinks: Avg. Net Worth Falls 40% From 2007-2010)

The Housing Bust: Despite recent signs of stabilization, the national housing market remains depressed, with nearly 30% of mortgage holders under water. This is particularly troubling for Baby Boomers, who had viewed their homes as a major source of potential income for retirement but now wear them as a "ball and chain," Rosenberg quips.

Unemployment: As with housing, Rosenberg dismisses the job market's improvement in recent years. He cites the "real" unemployment rate — currently 14.8% -- and the fact the country is still down 5 million jobs from its 2007 peak.

While the economy has been growing for three years, the recovery is the worst in the post-war ear [era], he says. Growth is "pathetic" given the "gargantuan" support the federal government and Federal Reserve have provided, he declares, noting this is not a U.S.-only phenomenon.

AVG 2012 and Tunderbird 11 Broken

If you are using Thunderbird email, and AVG as your virus scanner, then you will find that the AVG plugin for Thunderbird is broken.  AVG has stated that they are retiring support for the Thunderbird plugin, and instead are pushing people to the "Personal email scanner."

If you want to keep AVG and Thunderbird the follow steps are highly recommended and what I did to fix the issue.

1) Install the "Personal email scanner" in AVG
-- In windows: Use the control panel
-- open programs
-- click AVG
-- click Change button
-- follow prompts to add "Personal email scanner" as an installed option.
-- You may also reinstall the AVG product if that does not work for you.

2) Configure AVG and Thunderbird to use the new email scanner

3) If you use SSL/TLS you will need to take additional steps, which can be found here:

http://free.avg.com/ww-en/faq.num-4387


4) To test you can use a page found via google.  Another method I found that I really like is found below, and uses telnet directly to the SMTP.
https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB55194

The telnet method avoids the issues you may find while attempting to test via email...


Good luck!

March 2012: Quirks in jobless data could bite Obama

I read an article I wanted to share while researching the formulas on how the jobless rates are calculated. 


SUMMARY:
Several Wall Street economists believe the government is mismeasuring seasonal shifts in the labor market, and suggest the jobless rate's sharp winter drop was partly an illusion.

"We think that the improvement over the last few months dramatically overstates the underlying improvement," said Andrew Tilton, an economist at Goldman Sachs in New York.

The government uses computer programs to filter out seasonal changes like the drop in construction jobs every winter. But because the computer programs make adjustments based on what happened in the recent past, the millions of jobs lost during the winter of 2008-2009 may have tricked the machines into expecting the winters that followed would be similarly bad.

And when the raw data for jobless rates did not rise as much as expected this winter, the computer programs appear to have over-adjusted the data downward, resulting in big drops in unemployment


Here is the article that goes into how the jobless rates are calculated:
Analysis: Quirks in jobless data could bite Obama

Quicken 2010 Broken by R10 Update (Replaced by MS Money)

I have been using Quicken 2010 since MS Money was declared defunct from Microsoft.  It was a sad day for me as I really grew to love MS Money.  However, it had to be done (or so I thought at the time), so I bit the bullet and got a copy of quicken.

Bottom line, my experience with Quick over two years was frustrating at best.  One of my biggest complaints is that it had SO much trouble matching downloaded transactions to those in the register.  Even if the difference was a day, or the amount was off even by a cent; the damn thing would not match properly.  Once you accept a wrongfully matched transaction, there is all manor of hoops to jump through to correct it.  Then your balance is off until you do. Grrr...

There are more complaints, but I will not go into them.  Update R10 for Quicken 2010 was released, and I applied it in March 2012.  Long story short, it broke Quicken to the point of uselessness.  I was infuriated, and anyone that has tried it knows, that Quicken support sucks donkey muffins.

So what was I to do?  I rely on a mechanism like Quicken to track my cash-flow, billing dates, and transactions.  I began a new hunt about 11:00 p.m. one night and looked for all the alternatives.  The choices are:

• Mint (online)
• Quicken (online)
• Quicken 2012
• others I would not use
• MS Money Sunset

 Wait.  What was that last one?  I thought MS Money (MSM) was defunct?  With more digging I found out that MS was kind enough to hand off a "sunset" version of Money.  This version is basically the last code version of Money, minus any online updates or transactions.

You can download it here:  Money Plus Sunset Deluxe (download)

You can still import your banking statements into MS Money (sunset), but you have to do it manually.  MSM also has a plugin that will automatically import any MSM formatted statement (.ofx or .ofc).  However, note that your bank must serve up the information in the correct format.  I have read a little about converting Quicken (.qif) formats into MSM format to facilitate imports...

I have used MSM for a few days now, and while it does not have as many features as Quicken, nor any online services; MSM is a great replacement.  I will forgo any update to Quicken until I find that I cannot use MSM anymore.

There are a lot of features I like about MSM over Quicken:

• Cash forecast more usable
• Bill reminders more functional
• Better automatic transaction matching (from downloads)
• Reporting is much more simplified
• Faster

 Give MS Money Sunset a try, you may just be pleasantly surprised!