Juggling Numbers

Is anyone surprised that our government has just announced ... 11 days before the elections ... that our economy grew much more vigorously ... at 2.9% in the third calender quarter of this year? This compares to roughly 1% growth in the first two quarters. This can easily be seen to be a cynical attempt to help Hellary in her bid for the presidency ... and to buff up Obummer's legacy. But I am again suspicious. Can not the federal number crunchers in Washington have stolen a smidgen of economic growth from each of the first two quarters of this year and dropped it into this quarter?

We are pretty sure that Obummer's Labor Department had previously juggled employment numbers for political purposes in 2012 right before his re-election ... so why not do it again ... but this time with the big Lubowski ... our whole economy?

On the breaking news that the FBI is reopening its investigation into the Hellary e-mail scandal, I suggest that Trump supporters not get too ahead of this story. The Clinton crime family is notoriously nefarious and I would not be surprised if other revelations come forth over the weekend that take two or three more turns in this affair. I am suspicious that there might be dramatic counter measures taken by the Clintonistas. The bacon might be in the fire ... but it is yet to be totally consumed by flame.

Obama, This Is a Tractor

In 1953, when I was 14, I worked on a farm in Newville, PA for a full summer.  I fed and milked cows; drove tractors and plowed fields (see: In Newville, PA); picked cherries and peaches; cleaned stables and chicken coops; stacked hay bales; killed chickens; scythed roadsides; helped build a silo; etc.  I worked ten hours a day, six days a week ... and two hours on Sunday ... for ten weeks ... all for $100 in compensation.  I think this works out to about 16 cents an hour ... yet it was one of my life's most meaningful and defining experiences.

Now our Federal government, in its nanny-state wisdom, is planning to stop farm children under the age of 18 from doing many agricultural chores (see: New Labor Dept. Proposals).  We all know that our government has done a lot of stupid things, but this takes the ten-tiered wedding cake.  Now a Washington bureaucrat, who probably can't tell a heifer from a Hubbard squash, wants to tell farmers how to run their businesses and their families.  This smacks of how well a senior lecturer in law from Chicago has been able to manage a nearly $15 trillion economy.

Balderdash!!  Please kind readers do your part this Fall to help repopulate our government with grown-ups.