Important News

Jerry Pournelle will be podcasting via TWiT.

That is all.

We Have Found The Solution

Businesses are leaving California at a record rate, mostly due to its unfriendly regulatory and tax regimes. California has a multiplicity of boards and commissions that make navigating the governmental maze to get permission to do something extraordinarily difficult.

The good news is that the elected officials are aware of the problem.

So they're forming an agency to study it and come up with a solution.

"Later this year, California will set up a new agency that will serve as a focal point for economic development and job creation, he said. Among its goals will be to reverse the perception that California is business-unfriendly."

California, where the jokes write themselves.

Whistling Past The Graveyard

I don't think David Plouffe is fooling anyone. He's throwing it out there because he is a deniable source and on the off chance a useful idiot will bite.

And for the record, one of the things that keeps biting the President in the behind is a little trick they've been playing with the unemployment statistics. Every month they announce the statistics, which typically show some slight improvement in unemployment. They also announce that they are revising the prior two months statistics downwards. That helps the current figures until the next month.

What makes me curious is whether they are relying on Mr Obama's acknowledged strengths as a campaigner to pull them through. I'm not seeing any good economic news on the horizon (jobs are stagnant, inflation recognized or not, is up, up up). My inner conspiracy theorist wonders if they will suddenly gin up some sort of political crisis near the election. The problem with that scenario is that the Iran hostage crisis really didn't help Mr Carter. By now no one thinks President Obama shines with foreign affairs.