Images of the day

This sums it up quite nicely, I think.

pic.twitter.com/Rc9OXmKxqY

— TJ Helmstetter (@TheTJHelm) July 31, 2018

Scotty playing dress-up for Foxconn might even edge out this iconic image from his last campaign.



This guy is flailing and LOSING, both on the Fox-con, and in the election as a whole. It's also funny how this guy's campaign latches its ads about Foxconn onto my site because it thinks I'm interested (you views may vary). It's almost like they're trying to convince themselves AND any rubes who might be suckered in by their spin that the Fox-con somehow helps the rest of the state (it doesn't, in fact it takes away jobs and projects from the rest of the state).

It's toime time to bury this guy's career in that ditch 14 weeks from tonight, and stop the constant embarrassment that results from having this dimwitted grifter Dropout represent the state of Wisconsin.

Stock buybacks up, wages not so much. Just the way the GOP Tax Scam's oligarchs want it

Bloomberg’s Noah Smith wrote an article in Bloomberg News a couple of weeks ago that seems to have been ahead of the curve when it came to evaluating the GOP's Tax Scam. The article is title "Trump’s Tax Cut Hasn’t Done Anything for Workers", While Smith concedes that the tax cut has only been in place for a few months, it's not too early to start seeing if it's having any immediate effect.

But it’s also important to evaluate policies like Trump’s tax reform as quickly as possible. Not only is this critical for deciding whether to change course, but as more time goes on, the effects of a policy can become harder to assess. Two years from now, plenty of other things will have had time to affect the economy, including Trump’s trade war and natural economic forces. And now that the tax cut has been in effect for a half-year, the results are starting to trickle in.

First, the tax reform hasn’t yet resulted in appreciably higher wages for American workers. Real average hourly compensation actually fell in the first quarter after the tax reform was passed:

Smith also includes this next chart in the article, which is based on Pay Scale’s index of real wages, You may have seen it make the rounds in the last couple of weeks.



And this reality reflects the choices made by many corporations to “reinvest” their windfall from lower tax rates by sharing it among their fellow executives and other stockholders.

Some have expressed dismay that stock buybacks seem to have taken precedence over boosting capital investment. Since the tax cuts passed, companies have been using buybacks to return record amounts of cash to shareholders — more than $700 billion in the first two quarters. That naturally raises the possibility that companies don’t have good projects to invest in. If companies pass their tax windfall on to shareholders, those investors can choose to react by increasing consumption — meaning more of society’s resources go to the wealthy. They can also choose to invest the money in other companies with better growth prospects — but if those companies are also reacting by returning the money to their shareholders, rather than making capital expenditures, not much is getting accomplished.

Politico had an article out yesterday along that same vein, where evidence continues to point to the GOP Tax Scam resulting in "eye-popping" amounts of self-enrichment by CEOs.

A POLITICO review of data disclosed in Securities and Exchange Commission filings shows the executives, who often receive most of their compensation in stock, have been profiting handsomely by selling shares since Trump signed the law on Dec. 22 and slashed corporate tax rates to 21 percent. That trend is likely to increase, as Wall Street analysts expect buyback activity to accelerate in the coming weeks.

“It is going to be a parade of eye-popping numbers,” said Pat McGurn, the head of strategic research and analysis at Institutional Shareholder Services, a shareholder advisory firm….

Following the tax cuts, roughly 28 percent of companies in the S&P 500 mentioned plans to return some of their tax savings to shareholders, according to Morgan Stanley. Public companies announced more than $600 billion in buybacks in the first half of this year — already toppling the previous annual record.

Year to date, buybacks have doubled from the same period a year ago, Merrill Lynch said in a July 24 report, citing its clients’ trading activity. “Last week we noted that buyback activity [was] poised to accelerate over the next six weeks, and indeed, corporate clients’ buybacks picked up to a two-month high and the 6th-highest level in our data history,” the company said.

The correlation between corporate buybacks and insider sales is clear, according to SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson, a Democrat. He studied 385 buybacks since the beginning of 2017 and found that after half of them, at least one executive sold shares within the next month.

In fairness, one area that has seen an uptick in growth since the tax cut has been discussed seems to be in capital investment for items like equipment and buildings. Non residential fixed private investment (which reflects most business equipment and buildings, and is shown in yellow in this chart) has been a consistent source of growth to the economy in each of the last 3 quarters,



But note that residential fixed investment (homes and apartments, generally) has been basically flat if not declining in the last few quarters. That may be another sign of stagnant wages not translating into home sales, although diminishing affordability also seems to be a factor (which of course, reflects the stagnant wages).

Noah Smith notes that part of the reason tax cuts don’t add to the economy in the US the way they might have 40-50 years ago is simple - We’ve cut taxes numerous times since then, so we’re starting from a lower tax rate. Which means future tax cuts offer little bang for the bucks.

In the postwar period, with top marginal income tax rates at more than 90 percent, it made sense to cut taxes as a way of improving the economy’s long-term health. A series of big tax cuts, under presidents Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan, might have boosted economic activity in their day. But the later tax cuts by George W. Bush were followed by years of underwhelming growth, implying that income taxes were no longer doing much damage to economic efficiency.

Corporate taxes were really the last hope for the tax-cutting strategy. But if even that doesn’t provide more than a small momentary fiscal stimulus, then we’ve reached the end of that approach’s usefulness.

My question is- when do enough people say “Time’s up” and start to reverse this hazardous funneling of money to the pockets of CEOs and other idle rich, and get the money into the pockets of the individuals with real jobs that are barely staying afloat? Because it needs to happen soon.

I know this song is about S&M, but I've long thought it to be a metaphor with how our corporatist economy really works. "It's a lot like life", and it's certainly what the Kochs and other oligarchs want as their endgame.

So how would this reinsurance thing work in Wisconsin anyway?

Over the weekend, the Walker Administration got good news from their allies in the Trump Administration, as the GOPs in DC signed off the Wisconsin plan to try to reduce premiums for Wisconsinites who receive their health insurance through the Obamacare exchanges.

Thanks to a federal waiver from the Affordable Care Act, the state will use $200 million in state and federal funds to cover some insurer costs.

The federal waiver was approved by the Legislature in February and then approved by the federal government. It will create a reinsurance program for people on the individual market and will cover some insurer costs.

"We just wanted to fix as much as we could. The problems that people face today and so presumably five years from now, there will probably be some changes we can adapt to, but in the meantime we want to give people meaningful relief so that premiums will go down," Walker said.

The idea is that the $200 million to the insurers would (hopefully) not have them put insurance premiums be as high as they otherwise would be, and much of that would be paid back by the Feds (I’ll explain that “Fed vs State” cost breakdown later).

When the bill was being debated in February, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau gave this summary of the reinsurance plan, and explained that this would replace the ACA’s original nationwide program that was done away with in 2016.

The ACA's transitional reinsurance program paid a portion of the medical costs (called the "coinsurance rate") above a certain threshold (an "attachment point") up to a maximum threshold (the "reinsurance cap"). DHHS was required to set the program parameters such that the total amount of estimated reinsurance payments would equal the amount of funding available for that purpose each year. The amount of funding available for reinsurance payments nationwide was set by the ACA at $10 billion in 2014, $6 billion in 2015, and $4 billion in 2016. This program was primarily externally funded, since the funding for making the reinsurance payments was collected using per capita assessments of all health coverage plans, including fully-insured and self-insured employer plans in the individual, small group, and large group market.…

The transitional reinsurance program under the ACA had the effect of reducing a participating insurer's risk exposure associated with high-cost individuals. But the program's externally-funded structure also had the effect of reducing the share of total costs paid by insurers and by individuals covered in the individual market. That is, a portion of the medical costs of high-cost persons in the individual market was, in effect, spread across the entire insurance market. Because the ACA's transitional reinsurance program was temporary, all costs associated with high-cost individuals within the individual market must now be funded internally within that market, through premiums paid by persons in the individual market. Current gross premiums in the individual market have increased in 2017 and 2018 in part because of the end of the external subsidy effect of the transitional reinsurance program.

So how does the waiver interact with the ACA? Here’s how the LFB explained it.

Section 1332 of the ACA includes a provision allowing states to experiment with alternative methods of providing for healthcare coverage. Under Section 1332, states may request a waiver of various insurance market provisions established by the ACA, and also request pass-through federal funds that would otherwise be spent for premium tax credits. In order to be approved, state proposals must not increase the federal deficit, must provide coverage that is at least as comprehensive and as affordable as plans offered through the exchange, and must provide coverage to at least a comparable number of state residents. States are required to pass a law implementing provisions of a waiver plan.

In addition to the Wisconsin proposal, other states have already or are considering the possibility of establishing a state reinsurance program to lower premiums and encourage insurer participation in the individual market. So far, Alaska, Minnesota, and Oregon have established programs under a Section 1332 waiver. Of these three, Minnesota's program is most similar to the Wisconsin proposal, with parameters that are also similar to the first year of the ACA's transitional reinsurance program. In 2018, the Minnesota reinsurance program uses an attachment point of $50,000, a reinsurance cap of $250,000, and a 80% coinsurance rate. In addition to federal pass-through funds, Minnesota designates state funding sources for the program, including proceeds of a health insurance premium assessment.

Basically, the Feds give the state a portion of the money they would otherwise have given to individuals for tax credits that help people buy insurance on the ACA exchanges, as a “thank you” for having the premium increases not be so high (and therefore, the federal government's subsidy isn’t so high).

Oddly, there is little change to the net cost of many people that make up to 400% of poverty for insurance they buy on the Obamacare exchanges, because they’d get that money paid back through subsidies anyway. It’s just less to pay up front with the tax credit being smaller (in theory). The biggest beneficiaries are contractors and others who make too much money to qualify for the subsidies, and now hopefully get their premiums lowered as a result of this reinsurance plan.

Of course, Citizen Action's Robert Kraig notes that there was a better way for Walker to reduce premium costs and would cover more people. If Scotty had just CHOSEN TO GO ALONG WITH THE ACA FROM DAY ONE, and put in other public insurance options for Wisconsinites would save more money than whatever people might save in premiums with the reinsurance plan.

1. Opening BadgerCare to everyone in Wisconsin as a public option would reduce premiums and deductibles by an average of 38%. It would also help people who buy insurance on their own and small businesses, most of whom cannot afford to provide coverage to their employees.

2. Reversing Walker’s decision to turn down the Medicaid expansion money in the ACA could reduce premiums by about 7%.

3. Reversing the Walker Administration's decision in May to continue to allow the sale of substandard “lemon” plans in Wisconsin could reduce premiums by as much as 10%.

In addition, although Walker has decided to tout what he is doing to stabilize the ACA, he approved the filing of a lawsuit by the Wisconsin Attorney General that would strike down the law, taking health care away to nearly 200,000 Wisconsinites.

Instead of acting like a governor and doing the right thing for his constituents, Scott Walker chose to impress the Kochs and other right-wing oligarchs, and messed with the ACA in Wisconsin once he took office in 2011 (he was also seen sticking it to the Black Man in the White House. Win-win!). Now that Walker is trailing the Democratic competition for re-election, with Wisconsin falling from 7th to 15th for having its residents have health insurance, and with the specter of new ACA prices rolling out right before the November election, he knew he had to be seen doing something.

So we have this reinsurance plan. Hey, maybe it will help for a year, and maybe we won't have 2.1% of our population lose health insurance this year. But we deserve a lot more than this one-time Band-Aid that is being putting out to try to cover the wounds caused by Republicans like Scott Walker and their willful sabotage of the Affordable Care Act.

The other side, how Foxconn takes away from the rest of WIsconsin

Over the last couple of weeks, the Scott Walker campaign team has continued to try to improve bad poll numbers on the Foxconn project by claiming the company's plant (and tax funding) in Wisconsin will help the rest of the state. I even see digital ads from Walker pop up on this and other sites I visit trying to spread this claim, which underscores how vulnerable they think they are on this issue.

However, a closer examination shows that the voting public has been right all along - the Fox-con and its funneling of resources to that one company and the SE corner of the state really is taking away things from the rest of Wisconsin. Bruce Murphy in Urban Milwaukee called out the photo ops Walker and Foxconn have done in the last month where Foxconn says they plan to (key word - PLAN TO) buy buildings in Green Bay and Eau Claire and hire a few hundred people in "innovation centers"

All of which left me with some questions for the company. What is the economic advantage for Foxconn of having three different innovation centers spread around the state? And what is the company paying for these buildings in Green Bay and Eau Claire and when will they be closing on the purchase? Will it be after the November election when Walker hopes to be reelected?

Foxconn responded with a long email, declining to disclose the purchase price on the buildings, their owners or whether the purchase will occur before or after the November election. Most of the email offered a description of why so many mini-Foxconns are spreading across the state, and I must note their PR writing is getting better.

“Having a presence in different parts of the state helps us recruit potential employees, strengthens our ability to collaborate with entrepreneurs and start-up companies and gives us more opportunities to find value-added suppliers who can contribute to the project’s success,” the company wrote. “Not all the knowledge, expertise, talent and suppliers that will be associated with our significant project, and that are found in Wisconsin, reside in the south-eastern part of the state.”

No doubt there are potential employees and suppliers to be found in other parts of the state, but are we living in the age of plank roads and mule teams? Or are these potential partners too shy to use computers, email and cell phones or simply drive along those highway connections to Foxconn’s massive Racine campus that we taxpayers are financing. Why must the company instead create satellite connections all over Wisconsin in order to coax these elusive workers and companies from getting aboard the gravy train of the most publicly subsidized foreign company in American history?

Given the massive subsidy Foxconn is getting, it can probably afford to throw a little money at Eau Claire and Green Bay, even if those satellite centers are completely unnecessary. And Foxconn has every incentive to ensure that Walker wins reelection, given that all eight Democratic candidates for governor have condemned the deal and one, Matt Flynn, has promised to fight the deal in court. Foxconn, moreover, has a long history of backing out of projects it announces. If it could back out of deals in India, Vietnam, Brazil and Pennsylvania, why can’t it walk away from Eau Claire and Green Bay? It can merely explain, a couple months after the November election, that economic conditions have changed, or that it is having no problem getting the suppliers and employees it needs for its Racine plant, and so it won’t need those political outposts — sorry, innovation centers — that helped reelect their generous benefactor.

Don't worry, Foxconn is thriving in this Wisconsin town

What also needs to be noted is that with Foxconn using a tax-subsidized work force (and likely using the freed up cash from that and other tax writeoffs in these transactions), it limits the ability of other established and unsubsidized businesses from getting the same opportunity to locate in those facilities in Eau Claire and Green Bay. And that looks even worse if Foxconn is making an empty promise of job growth that never appears, because that's several months wasted on this charade instead of having actual business activity being generated.

Meanwhile, the construction at the the "main plant" in Racine County is clearly detracting from opportunities in the rest of the state. Terry McGowan is the president of the construction-heavy Operating Engineers 139 union, and told TMJ-4 that his workers in other parts of the state aren’t doing as much in their home areas because so much is being sent down to the Foxconn-sin region.

“Well the impact for us as a statewide union means that all this money, all the resources from the state have been pulled down to Southeast Wisconsin, I mean if I get north of HWY 21 my members aren’t real happy,” he said. “They feel like a lot of their infrastructure is being ignored up there.”

Motorists have definitely noticed the detours, slowdowns and upgrades on I-94, it might be a headache but it’s also a boom for the economy.

The union is working with its members in Northern Wisconsin to find work in the Southeastern part of the state….

There’s no timetable on when things will pick back up on fixing the infrastructure in other parts of the state.

The union says it all depends on when the next transportation budget comes out.

This is part of the analysis of the Fox-con that keeps getting missed – the added activity in and around Racine County is taking away activity in other parts of the state.



The reduced activity can take many forms. It can mean that investments in other parts of the state go by the wayside, as McGowan’s comments indicate and as shown by as much as $90 million in road projects not being done in this biennium to pay for Foxconn work.

Related to that, there’s only so many people that live in this state, and in a time of near-full employment, having a new project in one area makes it even more likely that it takes away from projects in another area (which makes the Fox-con an even dumber move to happen when it did), unless you think that the project is going to motivate a bunch of new people to move to the area permanently. And given the de-investment that Walker and WisGOP have done for schools, other services and quality of life, many people aren’t going to go for that.

There also is the prospect of higher taxes and/or spending cuts that we will all have to take on as a result of the subsidies given to Foxconn - deficits that are likely to be higher than projected, since it's increasingly likely that there will be fewer workers at the Foxconn plant, especially in the earlier years). This will cut into the ability for more work to be done in other parts of the state in the coming years, but that’s never mentioned when GOP hacks and corporate media talk about “the impact of Foxconn”.

Lastly, having Foxconn and the Walker Administration tied at the hip reveals that the GOP's talk about "free markets" is a complete fraud. They are using tax dollars to give Foxconn an edge over current Wisconsin businesses and projects time and again, and in addition to the taxpayer costs, the decisions to funnel so many limited resources to Foxconn is coming at the expense of many other people in Wisconsin who have often played by the rules and done things without a need for special exemptions and giveaways. And once Foxconn leaves us in the lurch before the state gets back its costs for this boondoggle, there might be fewer firms and resources available to pick up the slack. Which is why it's best that the Fox-con gets short-circuited and diminished ASAP, before the rest of Wisconsin ends up missing out even more.

Budget Guy: Paul Ryan has "checked out" and it could mean a shutdown in 2 months

Foe Sunday reading, I wanted to again recommend Stan Collender's writings in "The Budget Guy" blog, and yesterday's entry that illsutrated how "House Republicans are in Almost Total Disarray as Summer Recess Begins."

Collender rightfully notes that House Speaker Paul Ryan has "increasingly checked out" in a time when he needs to get to work, given that there is little time set aside in the House session to get a budget done.

The House only has 11 legislative days left before the start of fiscal 2019 but doesn’t seems to have any agreed-upon plan on how to avoid a government shutdown on October 1 except to hope that Trump doesn’t veto the continuing resolution that will be needed to prevent it....

When the House reconvenes, the GOP plans to devote a significant amount of the limited time it has left before fiscal 2019 begins to three tax cut bills that have no chance of being enacted any time soon because…wait for it…the Republican-controlled Senate has already said it’s not interested.

And none of this even begins to anticipate what the House Republicans who are running for reelection and think they will need to energize the Trump base will do in September as the Manafort trial and Cohen investigations continue and as the Mueller probe moves forward.

In other words, this year’s legislative crunch time is about to get very real but House Republicans have little leadership, no plan, a very divided caucus, are very likely to be distracted and are relying on a notoriously unreliable Donald Trump to do the right thing.

This is almost a textbook definition of political and legislative chaos.

Instead, Collender points out that GOP House members like Jim Jordan (aka "The Biggest disgrace to the UW Athletic Hall of Fame") are spending more time trying to shield President* Trump from the Mueller probe than they are in doing base duties like funding the government. And it's done with a wink and a nod from Ryan, who gives mealy-mouthed "I wish they didn't do that," type responses but does nothing behind the scenes to make those Bagger dimwits stand down and focus the agenda beyond obstructing the rule of law.


Sooo punchable. And sooo incompetent.

Dems should do nothing to bail these dingbats out in the next 3 months. There are plenty of reasons to boot out the Republicans in November, but the incompetence of Paul Ryan and the rest of the House Republicans should be near the top of the list. A government shutdown 5 weeks ahead of the midterms would cement that image of "these clowns don't know what they're doing" into people's minds.

Walker down 13? May be too good to be true, but Scotty's still in BIG trouble

I had an idea that the Marist/NBC News poll for Wisconsin would look very good for Dems when it showed Donald Trump's approval rating falling to 36% in the state, and a heavy preference for Dems to control Congress after November's election.

But when Marist/NBC followed up with polls on the two big statewide elections for November, I wasn't expecting to see this.

Striking anti-Scott Walker sentiments on display in new NBC/Marist poll:

Poll says @Tony4WI would beat the governor 54-41.

Only 1/3rd of Wisconsinites now believe that Walker deserves to be re-elected.

Details: https://t.co/TLFPumgxpq pic.twitter.com/8H0sLohftO

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) July 26, 2018

To me, the bigger story is that only 34% of those asked think Walker deserves to be re-elected to a third term. And that's why I think only concentrating on Evers in head-to-head matchups is a big error by Marist/NBC. I really would have liked to have seen what the other matchups looked like, given that Evers is as close to "generic Democrat" as you can get, and it would have been intriguing to see if someone was an even better matchup, or if someone wasn't.

As the Wisconsin State Journal's Matt DeFour notes, Evers had the mpost support of Wisconsin Dems in this poll, but he has far from a majority of ironclad support for the August 14 primary.

New Marist/NBC News poll on Democratic primary:
Undecided: 41%@Tony4WI: 25%@McDenimRebel: 7% @VinehoutK: 7%@Paulsoglin: 6%
People no longer running: 4%@ForwardWFlynn: 3%@MahlonMitchell: 3%@keldahelenroys: 3%@JoshPade: 1%

— Matthew DeFour (@WSJMattD4) July 26, 2018

Given that 40% of those asked by Marist/NBC gave no preference to a specific candidate, if one the other candidates catches fire and consolidates a lot of support, he/she could overtake Evers by Aug 14. And I think I'm far from the only voter that would like to see "head-to-head vs Walker" comparisons to help me finalize my choice.

As for the NBC/Marist poll itself, here's how they arrived at those shocking numbers.

Within each landline household, a single respondent is selected through a random selection process to increase the representativeness of traditionally under-covered survey populations. Assistance was provided by The Logit Group, Inc. for data collection. The samples were then combined and balanced to reflect the 2016 American Community Survey 5-year estimates for age, gender, income, race, and region. Results are statistically significant within ±3.6 percentage points. There are 906 registered voters. The results for this subset are statistically significant within ±3.8 percentage points. There are 355 voters in the potential Republican primary electorate. The potential Republican primary electorate in Wisconsin includes all voters who prefer to vote in the August Republican primary and those who identify as Republicans or Republican leaning independents without a primary preference. There are 466 voters in the potential Democratic primary electorate. The potential Democratic primary electorate in Wisconsin includes all voters who prefer to vote in the August Democratic primary and those who identify as Democrats or Democratic leaning independents without a primary preference. The results for these subsets are statistically significant within ±6.1 percentage points and ±5.3 percentage points, respectively. The error margin was adjusted for sample weights and increases for cross-tabulations.

So with that sample, here's what Marist/NBC had as a party ID and ideological breakdown.

Democratic 33%
Republican 25%
Independent 41%

Liberal/Very liberal 30%
Moderate 31%
Conservative/Very conservative 39%

Now compare it to those same statistics for the most recent Marquette Law School Poll.

Democratic 26%
Republican 28%
Independent 44%

Liberal/Very liberal 25%
Moderate 31%
Conservative/Very conservative 38%

So that 10 point difference in projected turnout from Dem +8 in the Marist Poll vs the GOP +2 in the Marquette Poll goes a long way toward explaining why those polls have seemed so different. The question is – who’s right about what that electorate will be like?

Well, let’s look at the recent history of the most recent heavily Blue Wave year in Wisconsin, and then the most recent midterm.

In 2008, a 14-point blowout for President Obama in Wisconsin, the electorate identified as Dem +6.

In 2014, a pro-GOP midterm that Walker won by 5.7%, the electorate was R +1.

In both polls, Dems held a slight edge in a question about enthusiasm, which is always a big deal in a midterm, when voter turnout isn’t as large.

How enthusiastic are you about voting in this November’s elections?

Marquette Law
Very enthusiastic
Democratic 65%
Republican 61%

Do you think November’s election for Congress is very important?

Marist/NBC Poll
Very important
Democratic 78%
Republican 76%

With that in mind, I'd say it is conservative to assume that the electorate will be halfway between the 2014 one and the "Dems killing it" figure in the 2018 poll. Which would leave us around Dem +3.

But the telling breakdown (and sign of change) to me is this one.

2014 exit poll
Independents Walker 54%, Burke 43%
Moderates - Burke 52%, Walker 46%
White Women - Walker 50%, Burke 49%
White college graduates - Walker 53%, Burke 46%

Compare that to the Marist Poll that had Walker down 13 to Evers.

2018 Marist Poll
Evers vs Walker
Independents Evers 53%, Walker 39%
Moderates – Evers 59%, Walker 36%
White college graduates Evers 56%, Walker 41%
Small city/suburban women (in Wis, this translates to a more-GOP sample of white women) Evers 64%, Walker 28%

And it looks even worse for Walker on the more generic "re-elect" question, which indicates people are in general sick of Governor Dropout.

Does Walker deserve to be re-elected governor of Wisconsin?
Independents No 61%, Yes 32%
Moderates – No 67%, Yes 26%$
White college graduates No 60%, Yes 34%
Small city/suburban women No 71%, Yes 24%

That is serious erosion in the constituencies that Walker can’t afford to lose any ground in, given that we can expect higher Dem turnout than in 2014, making things pretty near even before we even consider these swingier voters. It also shows a serious drop for Walker in those consituencies from July's Marquette Poll.

Marquette figures on Walker approval
Independents 33-46
Moderate 40-52
Women 42-50

Marquette didn’t break it down into WHITE women, but given that Walker performed better with white people in general, assume his approval rating was close to 50-50 with that group.

So if even half of that erosion across those demographics is true, that would likely put Walker down 5-10 points as a baseline. It also seems worthy to mention that between the more GOP-favorable Marquette poll and the pro-Dem findings in the NBC/Marist poll, we saw this.

“Days after @ScottWalker’s photo was taken with #MariaButina and Torshin, Our American Revival received $250,000 from Access Industries, a company founded by Ukrainian-born billionaire Len Blavatnik https://t.co/P2iWeSwBtw @onewisconsinnow pic.twitter.com/rPuW6PHgyZ

— David Crowley (@DavidCCrowley) July 20, 2018

Is it possible that stories connecting Walker and other Wisconsin righties like David Clarke to the NRA-Russia laundromat are having an effect? I think we should have more people in the field in America’s Dairyland to see if that’s the case.

And if Trump-Russia and its related corruption is rubbing off on Scott Walker and all other GOP candidates, any Dem not wrapped up in scandals involving pedophile priests (COUGH) will emerge from the August 14 primary in great shape to take out a badly damaged Scott Walker and Wisconsin GOP in November.

2nd Quarter GDP good, but we've been here before. In fact, Obama era was even better than we knew

A lot of attention was given to yesterday's first look at GDP for the 2nd Quarter of GDP. And it came in well, as the growth of 4.1% was the best in one quarter in nearly 4 years, and was largely the result of everyday Americans spending more in the Spring after a slowdown for the first 3 months of the year.

Friday’s report also showed that personal consumption in the second quarter grew at an annualized rate of 4%, a major jump from the 0.5% pace of consumption growth seen to start the year.

Meanwhile core PCE prices, a measure of inflation, grew 2% quarter-on-quarter, less than expected and a slight deceleration from the 2.2% pace of price growth seen to start the year.

The acceleration in real GDP growth in the second quarter reflected accelerations in PCE and in exports, a smaller decrease in residential fixed investment, and accelerations in federal government spending and in state and local spending, the BEA said in its release Friday.

These movements were partly offset by a downturn in private inventory investment and a deceleration in nonresidential fixed investment. Imports decelerated.

Interestingly, forecasts were for even stronger growth than 4.1%, and the lower-than-expected inflation number would have led you to think the real GDP number would be even higher. But it seems to have been limited by two main reasons.

1. A major shrinking of inventories (shown in pink on the chart above), reducing 1% from growth in Q2. This could also give a little support to GDP in the 2nd half of this year as shelves will need to get restocked.

2. The previous years and quarters were noticeably better, particularly during the Obama Administration.

We know this because today’s report also included several years of revisions to prior years and quarters of GDP results. And we found out that the US economy’s recovery from the Great Recession was a bit stronger and quicker than what was previously known (particularly in office buildings and equipment).



Interestingly, even though 2017 had an increase in the current dollar GDP, because the previous years were even stronger, the real annual GDP growth rate for 2017 actually dropped to 2.2% with these revisions.

In addition to the increased strength of the Obama Recovery, the part that jumped out at me in these revisions was notable upward revisions in income, not only for the mid-2010s under Obama, but also last year under Trump.

Personal income was revised up $95.0 billion, or 0.7 percent, for 2012; was revised up $107.4 billion, or 0.8 percent, for 2013; was revised up $173.6 billion, or 1.2 percent, for 2014; was revised up $166.6 billion, or 1.1 percent, for 2015; was revised up $196.4 billion, or 1.2 percent, for 2016; and was revised up $401.9 billion, or 2.4 percent, for 2017.

From 2012 to 2017, the average annual rate of growth of real disposable personal income was revised up 0.4 percentage point from 1.8 percent to 2.2 percent.

And because people had $205 billion more in income than we knew of last year, but actually consumed slightly less than the original figures showed, it means that the savings rate stayed high in 2017.

The personal saving rate (personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income) was revised up from 7.6 percent to 8.9 percent for 2012; was revised up from 5.0 percent to 6.4 percent for 2013; was revised up from 5.7 percent to 7.3 percent for 2014; was revised up from 6.1 percent to 7.6 percent for 2016; was revised up from 4.9 percent to 6.7 percent for 2016; and was revised up from 3.4 percent to 6.7 percent for 2017.

The reported drop in the savings rate that we had seen throughout 2017 and 2018 was one reason I was fearing that we were back in 2006 in our economy, right before the housing Bubble popped under a mountain of debt. That take of mine now looks way off with this new information, because If the savings rate is maintaining at a decent level, then our economy is fundamentally stronger, and is less at risk of having our current housing Bubble being blown too far out of proportion.

But those improved income stats from 2017 also make the GOP’s Tax Scam all the more absurd, especially the tax cuts on the corporate side. Things were in decent shape at the end of 2017, with far from any need for extra stimulus. And so far, the Tax Scam has barely change the rate of growth of total compensation than we saw over the last 2 years.

6-month growth, total compensation Q2 2016-Q2 2018
2nd half 2016 +2.22%
1st half 2017 +2.28%
2nd half 2017 +2.21%
1st half 2018 +2.37%

The 1st half of 2018 also saw a pickup in inflation, so the real change in compensation is, if anything, less than it was when Trump was elected. So why blow up the deficit and encourage more profit-taking and job-killing “efficiency” moves by corporations through a lower tax rate? Well, other than pay-for-play corruption, of course.

The question going ahead is whether the tax cuts lead to a spiral of growth from increased consumer spending, or if this just pushed a few purchases forward. In addition to the tax cuts, another Trump move gave a slight bump to Q2, but likely will cost us in later quarters. Exports contributed more than ¼ of that 4.1% growth rate, and financial analysts indicate that those added exports may indicate a rushing out of items ahead of the Trump tariffs that were to hit in Q3.

"Anxiety around a global trade war has fueled a jump in U.S. exports ahead of tariffs," LPL Financial wrote in a note. The imposition of broad-based tariffs in early July created a deadline that many U.S. exporters raced to beat, as the narrowing trade deficit shows. "The increase in exports is primarily from increased demand as purchasers try to beat retaliatory tariffs, evidenced by soybeans and civilian aircrafts comprising almost all of the jump in exported goods in May," LPL Financial wrote.

While this boosts the second-quarter number, the increase is somewhat misleading, because it's essentially moving up activity that would have occurred later in the year.

And just like with the bump in exports, this “fastest growth in 4 years” seems likely to be a blip that fades in the near future with the higher deficit raising interest rates and cutting demand.

"That's likely to be a one-time deal," said LPL Financial's [Ryan] Detrick. "We think the second half the year is likely to be around 3 percent [GDP growth]. The exports are going to be a wild card that's going to make [the 2nd] quarter stick out like a sore thumb."