Random Politics & Religion #00

Archaeologists have unearthed evidence that supports the sagas’ stories of the Norse expeditions to America. In 1960, Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad scoured the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland for signs of a possible settlement, and he found it on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland at L’Anse aux Meadows. An international team of archaeologists that included Ingstad’s wife, Anne, excavated artifacts of Viking origin dating from around A.D. 1000, and the remains of the Norse village are now part of a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Japan's economy contracted in July-September according to preliminary data released Monday, returning the country to recession and clouding the outlook for the global recovery.

The 1.6 percent drop in annual growth for the world's third-biggest economy was much lower than expected. It raises the likelihood that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will delay implementation of a sales tax hike planned for October 2015.

That will slow progress on Japan's effort to bring its government debt, the largest among industrial nations, under control — a commitment Abe made when he took office in December 2012, vowing to restore Japan's economic vigor after two decades of doldrums.

Abe was due back later Monday from the Group of 20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, where he and other leaders pledged to jolt the lethargic world economy back to life and boost global GDP by more than $2 trillion over five years.

Japan is struggling to regain momentum as its population declines and ages. Apart from its automakers, many of its manufacturers have lost their leading edge in innovation, while shifting production offshore. Japanese household incomes peaked more than a decade ago, and a growing share of workers struggle to make ends meet on part-time, contract work.

Most economists had forecast that the world's third-biggest economy would expand at about a 2 percent pace and the contraction in July-September took most analysts by surprise.

A recession commonly is regarded as two straight quarters of economic contraction, and the decline in July-September represented a 0.4 percent decrease from the previous quarter. The economy contracted 7.1 percent in April-June after the national sales tax was raised to 8 percent from 5 percent.

"The important thing is domestic demand has been really weaker than expected," said Junko Nishioka, an economist at RBS Japan Securities. "The impact of the sales tax was much more severe than expected."

Japan emerged from its last recession in late 2012, and saw relatively strong growth in 2013, as share prices rose and exporters like Toyota Motor Corp. logged a windfall from a sharp decline in the value of the Japanese yen.

Meanwhile, household spending has remained lackluster, as families and small companies tightened belts to meet higher costs while wage increases — mostly limited to a small share of workers in big-name companies — lagged behind inflation.

Abe is expected to make the dismal GDP reading the basis for calling a general election to underpin the public mandate for his "Abenomics" policies of lax monetary policy, fiscal spending and structural economic reforms.

"In light of the sharp fall in today's preliminary estimate, it now looks likely that (Prime Minister) Abe will call off the hike and announce snap elections," economist Marcel Thieliant of Capital Economics said in a commentary.

Tax increases are crucial for getting Japan's battered government finances into better shape, and putting off the hike slated for next year carries some risk that financial markets may doubt Japan's resolve to restore its ailing public finances. After many years of deficit spending the total public debt is more than twice the size of the economy and the largest among developed nations.

But Abe and his advisers appear to view the threat to Japan's recovery, which has limped along since the April 1 increase in the sales tax, as the more urgent risk.

In early 2013, Abe and Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda united in seeking to end the long spell of deflation that they say is discouraging companies and consumers from spending money.

So far, price increases have fallen short of their inflation target of 2 percent, with most of the increases coming from the sales tax hike and from higher costs for imports due to extreme monetary that has helped drive the value of the Japanese yen to seven-year lows against the U.S. dollar.

On Dec. 31, Kuroda announced the central bank would step up its asset purchases, accelerating Japan's "quantitative easing" just as the U.S. was ending its own asset purchases. Despite that surprise move, Kuroda has insisted that the economy is still in the midst of a "moderate recovery."

The BOJ's move, along with a government decision to shift a large share of the public pension fund investments out of government bonds and into higher yielding but riskier shares, pushed Japan's share benchmark to seven-year highs this month.

As of late morning, the Nikkei 225 stock index had fallen 2.2 percent, to 17,115.39.

Monday's data is preliminary, with a revision due Dec. 8. Since some of the decline was due to reductions in inventory, the actual trend may not be as weak as it appears, economists said.

Pierre Ellis, senior economist at Decision Economics in New York, said that consumer spending rose in the July-September quarter but the rebound was disappointing after such a sharp pullback in the second quarter.

And businesses have stepped up orders in the past three months for machinery, industrial equipment and other big ticket items, he said. That should boost output in the coming months.

Abe already was expected to announce additional economic stimulus this week. The dismal Monday morning data will probably lead him to announce a package worth about 3 trillion yen to 4 trillion yen ($26 billion to $35 billion), Nishioka said.

That could include subsidies to low-income families and help for small and medium size companies that rely on imported components and energy that have suffered as the Japanese yen has dropped from about 80 to the dollar to its current level of about 116 to the dollar.

Critics say Abe has failed to deliver on promises for drastic reforms of labor regulations, the tax system and the health industry, among other areas. Meanwhile, companies have largely refrained from passing windfall gains from share price gains and surging profits on to their workers in the form of higher wages.

If Abe dissolves the parliament this week for a general election in mid-December, work on some of those initiatives will be tabled, slowing progress still further.

For all of the Republican handwringing over President Obama's use—or overuse—of executive authority, there is one exclusive presidential power he has barely wielded at all: the veto.

Obama has rejected just two bills passed by Congress in his nearly six years in office. That's the fewest of any president since James Garfield, who didn't veto a single bill, but lasted only six months in the White House before his assassination in 1881. And when you look at presidents who have served as long as Obama has, you'd have to go back to James Monroe, the nation's fifth president, to find a chief executive who has formally clashed with Congress so rarely. Monroe vetoed just one bill in his two terms, according to records kept by the Senate.

That's about to change for Obama in January, when Republicans control both the House and the Senate. For the last four years, the president has issued dozens of veto threats, but Majority Leader Harry Reid has kept conservative House bills from reaching his desk.

Yet Obama could face a veto decision even before the new Congress takes office, thanks to the fresh post-election push to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The House passed legislation on Friday signing off on construction of the TransCanada project by a bipartisan vote of 252-161, as 31 Democrats joined all but one Republican in support. The Senate plans to vote on the bill next week following a demand by Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat who is fighting to retain her seat in a run-off election scheduled for December 6. Landrieu made a big push for the legislation during a floor speech on Wednesday, and with the support of moderate Democrats, she appears to be nearing the 60 votes needed to pass it. Even if it falls short next week, Republicans are sure to put it over the top in January.

The White House has not issued a formal veto threat on the bill, but spokesman Josh Earnest on Thursday noted the administration has taken "a dim view" on previous legislative proposals that have passed the GOP-led House but stalled in the Senate. At a press conference early Friday morning, Obama said both the legal challenges to the project in Nebraska and the ongoing State Department review of it should play out first, a position that Republicans have long equated to stalling.

"The president doesn’t have any more elections to win, and he has no other excuse for standing in the way," Speaker John Boehner said after the vote on Friday. "It’s time he start listening to the vast majority of Americans who support Keystone and help get more people back to work.”

The bill poses an interesting political question for Obama. He could choose to sign it as a way of helping Landrieu, but in a red state, even the passage of Keystone might not be enough to secure her victory over the favored Bill Cassidy, a Republican congressman who sponsored the House version of the bill. A presidential signature could also serve as an olive branch to Republicans and a modest gesture to voters who want the two parties to work together. But even if the president believes he'll eventually have to approve the project, a veto now would preserve the possibility of using Keystone to extract concessions from Republicans early next year. Signing the bill now, by contrast, would garner nothing in return, and it's unlikely Republicans would be able to piece together enough votes to override a veto even with their new members taking office in the new year. It would also anger environmentalists in the Democratic base who were cheering Obama's climate-change agreement with China, and who argue that the risks associated with Keystone's construction aren't worth the paltry number of permanent jobs that the State Department projects it would create.

So for the president, the political reasons for a veto probably outweigh the arguments for signing a Keystone bill this month. It would be only the third time Obama has used that power, but certainly not the last.

I think, until those things can be quantified beyond "it'll being some jobs", the environmental risks of pumping billions of barrels of oil across the country outweigh the theoretical benefits.

the environmental risks of pumping billions of barrels of oil across the country outweigh the theoretical benefits.

So, are you saying that it's more environmentally friendly to truck the billions of barrels of oil across the country than it is to use a pipe to do the exact same thing?

for some reason I don't think the "JOBS!" crowd is too into carefully reading dissenting opinions and reaching their own reasonable conclusions.

No, I'm questioning the benefit of moving billions of barrels of oil in general as well as the permanence of it. If, at some point, we determine that transporting oil has become inadvisable, we can stop driving trucks, or stop loading traincars, good luck turning off a pipe. Also, who's going to pay for the deconstruction and cleanup when the pipeline is either no longer needed or unservicable?

I look at how many people flipped their lid when the government fined BP a pretty low amount of money for Deepwater Horizon and I'm scared to death of what long-term economic and environmental consequences we might be in for with Keystone. I lived and worked within eyeshot of the valdez pipelines and saw the leaks and strip of dead oily landscape around it. Most people don't have a clue what an oil pipeline looks like a few years after it's built. They don't have a clue what kind of chemicals are used to keep the oil flowing through it, either. Crude, especially oil sands, is the consistency of strawberry jam, imagine pumping strawberry jam 2,000 miles... Sections of pipe frequently need to be opened and serviced, plugs are sent through to clear out blockage, chemicals used to lubricate, etc. Every one of those service sections is a potential leak, and there is even an accepted amount of loss per mile of pipe.

It's a possible environmental disaster. I'd like to know what actual benefits it offers, because we know fully the possible consequences, but nobody seems to be able to quantify the benefits.

No, I'm questioning the benefit of moving billions of barrels of oil in general as well as the permanence of it. If, at some point, we determine that transporting oil has become inadvisable, we can stop driving trucks, or stop loading traincars, good luck turning off a pipe. Also, who's going to pay for the deconstruction and cleanup when the pipeline is either no longer needed or unservicable?

So Gruber vid count is up to 5 episodes at the moment exposing the vast lies the administration told in order to sell the ACA.

Pelosi is out denying his involvement in the process (even though he's on the payroll).

It's about time for Obama to get in front of a camera and tell people how he's just finding out about it on the news and mad as hell right?

Called it!

Sorry, but history says otherwise, and unlike most people, a stupid 'murica speech isn't going to sway my concerns.

I have no clue what my post has to do with his speech, but whatever.

I think it's more of a symbolic issue. we're admitting openly that we're too dumb and lazy to move away from foreign oil, & won't even try until we've run every well, oil sand, and natural gas pocket dry & are totally ***.

oil is the real issue, not just foreign

Mastered the art of cooking bacon.

agreed.

I may not have been expressing that thought 100% clearly.

So basically what you are saying is..
We can send men to the moon.
Cruise around in mile long Air-craft Carriers and nuclear submarines.
Build buildings so tall you can see the curve of the earth.
Mastered the art of cooking bacon.

But we cannot build a pipeline that doesn't leak..

Watch his speech. Then read your post. Get that fat hamster in your head turning and maybe you could figure it out.

Watch his speech. Then read your post. Get that fat hamster in your head turning and maybe you could figure it out.

Right. Let's just start off with saying those are wildly varying in their technical difficulty, as well as cost, lifetime, acceptable failure, environments, materials, etc.
And also completely ignores the history of accidents and failures.

You won't get a pipeline that doesn't leak because it would be prohibitively expensive to build it. That, plus longevity of materials in corrosive environments, plus historic malfeaseance in adhering to maintenance schedules, all add up to problematic scenarios.

Again, i watched it and I have no idea what it has to do with my post.