Bond Market Vigilantes to Supplement Job Market Compatriots

Bill Clinton's legislative agenda famously ran up against the forces dubbed the "bond market vigilantes." I posited that Barack Obama's agenda would run up against another potent force - a force that politicians consistently, and erroneously, think they can influence - that I dubbed the "job market vigilantes" (Here is the latest on the theme). Heretofore the job market vigilantes have done yeoman's work in building up a wall against the socialist regulatory assault coming from Washington DC and have kept Obama's agenda at bay. But it is not enough. With an administration, abetted by a hard left Congress, hell-bent on using an economic panic to reorder the US economy drastically and irreparably in favor of the state over private firms and individuals, we need more than the job market vigilantes. We need them and we need the return of the bond market vigilantes. Fortunately it looks like they are stirring, as witnessed by a few not so stellar treasury auctions of late. While this administration is showing no signs of retreating from its agenda in the face of overwhelming disapproval, disapprobation even, a strong showing by the bond market vigilantes ought to substantially drive up the cost of continuing our profligate fiscal policy. A 200 basis point whacking will drastically change the CBO scoring of spending proposals coming out of the Great Sausage Factory and highlight to the American public the direct effects of runaway spending. Frankly, if the global economy weren't in such tenuous shape, I believe the vigilantes would already be here in full force, but the fagility and fear that currently persist keeps them relatively muted. In time though, they will arrive...and loudly. It can't come soon enough.

Job Market Vigilantes

You've heard of the "Bond Market Vigilantes", the bond investors that reacted quickly and violently to the policies that would've led to outrageous government spending and put a newly installed President Clinton in his place. The Clinton agenda foundered on rising rates. Well, it looks like history is rhyming and President Obama is being put in his place by the Job Market Vigilantes. The Obama agenda is foundering on 10% unemployment. We all understand that unemployment should take a hit in an economic dowturn/recession, but the pace of job losses relative to the decline in the economy is well-documented. We should be doing better, meaning we should not be shedding this many jobs this fast given that there are clear signs the economy is improving.

What is going on? The most charitable explanation is that the Obama administration's far-reaching policy game plan represents such massive uncertainty for businesses and investors that they are holding back on making commitments until they can get more certainty as to what the operating environment will be in the coming years. This should not be surprising to anyone who understands basic financial analysis. However, I think there is more going on. The Obama policy agenda is not just large and sweeping, it is ragingly hostile to business. It begins and ends with business being untrustworthy and exploitative. So many levers of influence that the government holds over business - regulation, taxation, anti-trust, energy policy, labor law, healthcare policy - are trending aggressively anti-business (see here and here). This isn't a surprise, but it is a shock given how fast and heavy the assault has come. Business interests made a bet that a Democrat would win the White House and that if they got on board they could have a hand in the formulation of policy. American business now realizes it was had and they are doing the sensible thing, playing the levers that they have over the Administration, which are capital and jobs. While businessmen won't ultimately make decisions based on political spite, they will apply pressure where they can and they won't hand an advantage to their opponents in government for nothing. Business knows the $787 billion Obama-Pelosi-Reid stimulus will be viewed as a huge dud if it doesn't create jobs. Business knows that Obama can't plow ahead with cap and trade and healthcare reform if employment keeps rising rising rising. Business knows that they can give the minimum wage law a huge black eye if jobs go away. And guess what? Business holds most of the cards when it comes to how many jobs get created, and they are not playing the government's game. So while alot of the job losses are purely driven by economics, I am convinced that a decent sized percentage of them are the business community's way of reigning in Obama and our radical left Congress. Do I think that CEO are tacking on extra layoffs beyond what's needed in order to stick it to Obama? No. Do I think that businesses are adopting the most conservative business posture than necessary rather than take on risks where the reward could ultimately accrue to a hostile White House and the demonizers of business in Congress? Yes I do. Just call them the Job Market Vigilantes.

UPDATE: Wow, no less than Richard Posner is saying the same thing, although he clinically takes the most charitable view.

UPPDATE: I didn't mean to suggest that we have job market vigilantes in lieu of bond market vigilantes these days...we have them too. Guess you could say that Obama-Pelosi-Reid & Co. have brought out all the vigilantes!

Modest Discourse on Economic Vigilantism

I am generally a fan of Ed Yardeni but I disagree with his assessment of the recent sell-off in US government bonds, a so-called reappearance of the "bond market vigilantes." Dr. Ed attributes the reawakening of the Bond Market Vigilantes to the Obama-McConnell tax cut deal. I think this is totally off the mark. I have been expecting the BMVs reappearance for awhile now and I thought that seriously degraded creditworthiness would be the impetus for their return. I conceded that I misdiagnosed the BMVs' psyche, what really awakened them was inflation fears, more specifically, as Scott Grannis has posited, the combination of an improving outlook for economic growth combined with massively expansionary monetary policy. The problems with Yardeni's analysis are many but the first is timing. He doesn't notice the presence of the BMVs until just now. Granted the sell-off of a few days ago was quite something, but the BMVs' presence was more than noticeable well before the Obama-McConnell tax cut deal was struck. The second flaw in Yardeni's argument is one of magnitude. Dr. Ed thinks that the tax cut extensions putative negative effects on the deficit are the proximate cause of the BMVs' ire. Even conceding that the tax rate extensions will hurt the deficit (I disagree on this point) of all the profligacy that has emanted from the Obama White House and the Pelosi Congress, this tax deal is pure peanuts. Compared to all the other destructive fiscal policies that we've seen since 2006 and since Obama took office, this is the least of our worries. Basically, if creditworthiness were the true focus of treasury investors, no way could this have gotten them all worked up and into vigialante mode. If anything, the brightening prospects for growth that the tax rate extensions augur, placed against the background of QE2 and negative real interest rates, are what have accelerated the reemergence of the BMVs.

On another note, I have talked for nearly two years about the 'job market vigilantes" (see here, here, and here). My basic view is that a mix of policy and rhetoric emanating from the likes of Obama and the Pelosicrats has crushed the animal spirits of the economy and created a strong backlash from these job market vigilantes. While the toxic cocktail has been more parts policy than rhetoric, it is unwise to dismiss the role of rhetoric. While reality has forced Obama's hand on policy, he still clearly hasn't learned the role of rhetoric and you could make the argument that there is still enough poisonous rhetoric in the cocktail to make it toxic to the animal spirits of the economy. Dan Henninger notices this in today's column and wonders just how toxic the cocktail still might be... "But they've gone FDR and John Steinbeck one better. In the world of the Grapes of Wrath Democrats now gagging over Barack Obama's "sell-out" to the rich, the new economic royalists aren't limited to "the Ishmael or Insull." Now it's any single person or married couple in America with a pre-tax income at $200,000 or $250,000.

Will the nation's new economic royalists step forward, rope in hand, to produce enough economic activity to help Mr. Obama to a second term of retribution? Maybe not. According to the National Association of Manufacturers, some 70% of manufacturing concerns in the U.S. have owners whose business is taxed at the individual rate (S corporations and the like). These are the people expected to commit capital to new hires and equipment."

In thinking about the Obama-McConnell tax plan holisitically, which includes Obama's presser the next day, I am put in mind of an analogy from my principal hobby...if I give you a glass of fine wine and add some sewerage water, it matters not to its discreased appeal whether I add it via a beaker or a medicine dropper. Or in other words, an ounce of shit can be just as polluting as a gallon.

More On Economic Vigilantism

Holman Jenkins of the WSJ takes some time to psychoanalyze the bond market vigilantes, and throws in the concept of the "stock market vigilantes" for good measure. Frankly, I don't think the stock market plays a vigilante role, and, certainly as it pertains to Obamanomics, the more relevant group of vigilantes to take an interest in understanding is the "job market vigilantes."

Reality TV Idea: Real Lives of the Job Market Vigilantes

I've said it again and again...the job market vigilantes are actual, flesh and blood, real people...

Actually I suspect that the job market vigilantes are the people described in this book...

Job Market Vigilantes Graphed!

Remember my classic post "Job Market Vigilantes" and its siblings (here and here)? Well Mark Perry has found a graph that illustrates the work of the job market vigilantes - second graph here. The GDP trend would indicate businesses have cause to hire, but nope. Not with all the regulatory attacks, thuggery, rhetoric, extra-legal maneuvering, and two giant 2000+ page bills that nobody has read. They need to have confidence in the rules again in order to hire and look now further than yesterday's news out of the Gulf coast to tell you where business's confidence in the rules ought to be. I've said this in so many ways. The jobs won't come back until the entire modus operandi of the Obama administration and everything they stand for are things of the past.

They're Baaaaaccccckkkkkk...

I have talked about the role of the "job market vigilantes" but I have said that we need them as well as the "bond market vigilantes" to really put a brake on destructive government policy. Well, according to Scott Grannis, about as astute an observer that I am aware of, the bond market vigilantes are now officially back in action. I was wrong to focus on profligate spending, or creditworthiness, as the factor that would awaken the BMVs. It is inflation that gets them stirring or maybe the combination of the two. In any event, the BMVs are now calling the shots.

Did the Job Market Vigilantes Win?

We are still mired in the Robert Half Economy.  (h/t Carpe Diem)

Temporary and contract staffing employment increased 0.41% from the prior week. The index set a record, reaching 95 in week 16. This is the highest week-16 level since inception of the index

In a sense I have been correct that the "Job Market Vigilantes" have made a large contribution towards muting the presidency of the Worker of the Light.  (The Robert Half Economy is a corollary development to the phenomenon I call the JMVs.)  His administration's own incompetency and cynicism is most at fault, but it is hard to deny that the steady, ongoing jobs market misery has gone a long way to limiting Dear Leader's capacity to get things done.

Stuck In Keynesian Prison

Alan Blinder displays the Keynesian reductio ad absurdum that is plunging our world into financial chaos. Check out this lovely tidbit: "Unfortunately, the basic economic message about deficit spending today requires some subtlety: Most countries need fiscal stimulus today but a large dose of deficit reduction in the long run." OK, Alan, give us a date when we should start spending only what we can afford and assure us that there won't be other unforeseen circumstances that would make it hard to start being fiscally sound on said date. And convince the Greek people of that. Only an academic could say things like this. Somehow Blinder equates 20% of the Greek population getting paid for 14 months a year as fiscal stimulus. This isn't stimulus, it's welfare; and it's been going on for years, not just in the last few in response to crisis. There is no leeway to "stimulate" just a tad longer and then shift gears to a prudent stance. The Greek welfare state has reached the end of the line. The gig is up and the bond vigilantes are not bungling the subtle economic reality of a fragile situation. The carrion is festering in the Mediterrean sun and the stench is attracting the vultures, the vultures didn't cause the stench. Blinder has a small point in that the bond market vigilantes are now looking for anything in the "near dead" category and are showing no mercy. However, all of the contagion could be stopped dead in its tracks if problem countries cut their fiscal deficits to zero. The run on the Euro and sovereign debt would be over because investors are inherently betting on human nature, on the inability of politicians to act, act prudently, and act prudently in a big damn hurry. If they saw politicians acting prudently in big way, they'd unwind their bearish bets. But politicians, especially European ones, are shackled to a Keynesian Frankenstein of an idealogy that conflates welfare with stimulus - abetted by people like Alan Blinder - that is prolonging the current crisis.

Establishment Republicans, Nation Loses

This morning at the open when the cloud of doom and gloom was blackening out the sky, the 10 year Treasury was trading up.  Now that we have a deal that increases the debt ceiling, the 10 year is trading down.  Why?

Because we are broke and the pols just struck a deal to continue getting broker.  Default is not an issue.  A political system that can't reign in spending to save its life, a party in charge of two of three branches of government that wants absolutely unrestrained spending, and a media complex that propagandizes for bigger government to a low information voting public that can't do math and tell its fiscal ass from its budget elbow spells...

It spells "Holy Shit, we really are going broke unless the bond vigilantes save us."  The Bond Market Vigilantes, however, are scared of fighting Janet Bernanke's $85 billion per month money pumping Fed.  We are so f**ked.

Inflation is coming.  Higher interest rates are coming.  Brace.

Politics can't solve our fiscal woes, only going belly up can.  I've said it before and if this past few weeks' evidence isn't enough to convince you, well...

UPDATE:  $17 trillion.  Next stop $20 trillion and then let's elect Hillary, because we all know she's a real problem solver.  Enjoy it America.

The Job Market Vigilantes Show Their Faces

Here is another big time CEO (in case you missed the first one. Or hell, take your pick of these CEOs) telling us that he ain't hiring in the US anytime soon. It's all about overseas baby. There is a reason for that. I hit this theme as early as last July with my classic post "Job Market Vigilantes."

The Job Market Vigilantes Are Real People

Everything I predicted about unemployment is becoming mainstream thinking. I said the stimulus will fail to ignite employment, unemployment will easily hit 10%, and that companies just will not hire, they will sit on their hands either from the mere uncertainty of what pending liberal Democrat policy will do to them or outright frontal policy attacks on their business. I have said it a hundred times on this blog - Obama and the Pelosi Democrats have their boot on the throats of American businesses big and small. There will be very little hiring under those circumstances. Now, Nobel-winning economists are saying this, the Chamber of Commerce is saying this. Soon everyone will be saying this.

The Good Professor highlights a reader's comment:
"Glenn, in the unlikely event you publish this email, I’d ask you not use my name. As a partner in a midsize firm (annual gross about $50,000,000) I can give you our perspective on hiring: we’re not doing it. And we’ve always been in hiring mode in the past. We’re not struggling, but we simply are not willing to take on the risk of hiring people in this environment. Just look around: small businesses are still closing. How many “For Lease” signs do you see right now in front of empty commercial properties that used to house small and mid-size businesses? With taxes and interest rates expected to rise later this year or next, thus sucking even more cash out of the economy, and consumers still cutting personal spending, most businesses would be idiotic to go on the type of hiring sprees that would be necessary in order to create robust job growth. Instead, many businesses are still looking everywhere they can to slash expenses. Unfortunately, that includes payrolls.
I doubt anybody in the Obama Administration gets this. They’d have to take a break from their obsession with health care reform, and you know, actually talk to people who run businesses to understand what’s going on. But except for hobnobbing at fund raisers with the occasional fund manager or Fortune 500 CEO who’s so rich he can afford to be a liberal Democrat regardless of what happens, they don’t do that."

Sounds like this guy is one of the "Job Market Vigilantes" just like Big Time CEOs.

Sorry folks, the hangover lasts four years. Fluids won't help. Ditto a nice greasy breakfast. Four years.

John Galt Yields Stage to Robert Half

Going John Galt has become Going Robert Half.

In the depths of a recession and financial crisis that was being exploited by radical progressive politicians who found themselves with unfettered power, our creators, innovators and productive citizens embraced the notion of rebuting this assault on free enterprise and personal liberty with an economic boycott of sorts - a deceleration of their risk-taking/spending and a self-imposed restriction on offering their talents into the economy - that went by the phrase "Going John Galt" after the famous Ayn Rand character. See here (my own term for John Galtism is Job Market Vigilantes).

Well, we are two years out and we've made, well, er, um, progress if you can call it that. We're not going Galt anymore, we are going Robert Half. Robert Half is, of course, a company that will hook your business up with temporary workers. Judging by this (see #2) it seems that they are busy these days. With Nancy Pelosi defanged, Barack Obama sporting pedestrian approval ratings, and a global economy that decided it couldn't afford to indulge in the progessive rubbish that we Americans foisted on ourselves (here, here, and here), the business climate is looking less awful, so going the full Galt may not be justified. But going the full Milton ain't justified either, after all we are still living with the spectre of the regulatory blobs of ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, Obama's EPA is in overdrive trying to raise our energy costs, and the rule of law is still being flouted from on high. So how does one make a halting, tentative commitment to the prospect of better times? Hire temps. If Obamacare survives judicial muster (or if Kath Sebelius is ordered to just implement it anyway) or if the economy shows signs of weakness or if another regulatory push seems like it's making traction, as a business operator you'll want to have the flexibility to ratchet back your commitment in a hurry. With temp workers, you just say "bye-bye", no difficult firing procedures, no wrongful termination lawsuits, no pension obligations, no union goons protesting layoffs. Easy peasy Japanesey. Thus, we are now Going Robert Half.

Barone Picks Up on "Unexpectedly!"

This end of the blogosphere has enjoyed a delicious running joke for much of Barack Obama's presidency...the strange appearance of the word "unexpectedly" in MSM coverage of the anemic economic recovery. Of course, many of us knew that Dear Leader's economic policies would either amount to nothing and/or inhibit economic growth even as they were being debated, so there was nothing unexpected about the result. Still, the joke has only gotten funnier (sadder?) as time has worn on and it becomes clearer and clearer that the man-who-has-never-had-a-real-job-yet-occupies-the-White-House has no clue what he is doing when it comes to the economy. (For our purposes here, we ignore the not-so-outlandish notion that perhaps he knows exactly what he is doing, but that robust economic growth, if it is the result of typical laissez-faire American capitalism, is not his goal.) Anyway, this joke - and the point it reveals - has finally made it somewhat mainstream via the good offices of Michael Barone, who makes it the central theme of this Washington Examiner column. Barone also hints at some other themes that I've touched on: 1) the MSM kicking the propaganda machine into overdrive for Obama's re-election, and 2) the existence of the "job market vigilantes." RTWT.

BA of PIIGS

Speaking of Bond Market Vigilantes, what countries, after Greece, have the biggest exposure to foreign investors? Or put another way, what governments have been the least successful in forcing their banks to aid and abet the fiscally unsustainable social model? Answer: Austria and Belgium. Everyone simply assumes Portugal, Spain and Italy are next in line to cause trouble in the Eurozone. That may well be given their deficit/GDP ratios, but this assumes that a failure to impose enough austerity will be what triggers the next phase of the crisis. What if the bond markets impose a solution and differentiate little between peripheral economies. What if investors say, "Germany, UK, US...that's all that is really low risk, the rest is all just varying degrees of garbage." What if. Then throw Belgium and Austria right into the mix too.

We are a long way from this being over.

Oh, and just to give you a sense of what a bunch nimrods these Euros are...the city of Athens has 2,000 buses for its municipal system but they have about three times as many drivers on the payroll.

Yet Another "I Told Ya' So" on Economy

The employment report today is ripe for commentary - and I have commented on them - based on the details but they also merit commentary on what they say about the employment environment generally.  And what they say is not very good - that not only is the economy stagnating, but that the economy is switching away from full-time workers to part-time workers.  Charlie Martin at PJ Media has a quick parsing:

In fact, if you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, it’s unlikely that anything has been manipulated — which would be hard to do without being caught anyway — because you can see exactly how the change happened.  Here’s the net-net:

• net 114,000 new full-time jobs
• net 456,000 people who left the unemployed list — discouraged or whatever
• net 600,000 people added to part-time workers.

What distinguishes part-time workers from full-time? In general, part-time workers don’t get benefits — like health insurance.
 
What these numbers seem to be telling us is that it’s too expensive to pay for benefits.

 Of course, as is usually the case, Donny Baseball was prescient, insightful and early to this call...I talked about the part-timing of America many moons ago.

Going John Galt has become Going Robert Half.

In the depths of a recession and financial crisis that was being exploited by radical progressive politicians who found themselves with unfettered power, our creators, innovators and productive citizens embraced the notion of rebuting this assault on free enterprise and personal liberty with an economic boycott of sorts - a deceleration of their risk-taking/spending and a self-imposed restriction on offering their talents into the economy - that went by the phrase "Going John Galt" after the famous Ayn Rand character. See here (my own term for John Galtism is Job Market Vigilantes).

Well, we are two years out and we've made, well, er, um, progress if you can call it that. We're not going Galt anymore, we are going Robert Half. Robert Half is, of course, a company that will hook your business up with temporary workers. Judging by this (see #2) it seems that they are busy these days. With Nancy Pelosi defanged, Barack Obama sporting pedestrian approval ratings, and a global economy that decided it couldn't afford to indulge in the progessive rubbish that we Americans foisted on ourselves (here, here, and here), the business climate is looking less awful, so going the full Galt may not be justified. But going the full Milton ain't justified either, after all we are still living with the spectre of the regulatory blobs of ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, Obama's EPA is in overdrive trying to raise our energy costs, and the rule of law is still being flouted from on high. So how does one make a halting, tentative commitment to the prospect of better times? Hire temps. If Obamacare survives judicial muster (or if Kath Sebelius is ordered to just implement it anyway) or if the economy shows signs of weakness or if another regulatory push seems like it's making traction, as a business operator you'll want to have the flexibility to ratchet back your commitment in a hurry. With temp workers, you just say "bye-bye", no difficult firing procedures, no wrongful termination lawsuits, no pension obligations, no union goons protesting layoffs. Easy peasy Japanesey. Thus, we are now Going Robert Half.

Fiscal Cliff Confirms Post-Election Macro Call

Well, I guess I can't claim to run a 'markets/economics' blog without commenting on the "fiscal cliff deal," huh?  There alot of commentary out there already and the day job has me busybusybusy, but I'll say this...the fiscal cliff deal sucks for the country, but is awesome for me.  Well, not "awesome" but much better than I would have hoped (Thank You Democrats and Mitch McConnell for preserving most of my Bush tax cuts!).  My taxes will be going up, but not too much, and with an aggressive (but totally legal) tax avoidance strategy, I should come out relatively unscathed.  So, for all you OWS people, general libtards and any other such petty socialists, I am happy to say "Suck It!  This 4%er is raising his glass to maintaining at least some economic liberty despite your protestations."

As for the macro call in the wake of the fiscal cliff sh*tshow...it's the same call that I made post-reelection of the Lightworker:

- Treasuries: near term neutral, long term bearish - Treasury yields can't get much lower, Obama will tack on $5 trillion more debt in O2.0 and Bernanke will inflate, inflate, inflate.  You will lose your shirt loaning money to Obama 2.0's US of A.

- Equities: near term bearish, long term bullish - businesses will hunker down, hoard cash, avoid growth initiatives, but the prospect of losing your shirt in Treasuries will keep some demand under equities.  You will need a multi-year time horizon for returns in equities though.

- Commodities:  bullish - inflation is coming, good and hard.

- Real Estate:  bearish - property taxes are going up massively for everybody, the local fiscal imbalances will get pushed off and get worse, and the bill is going to be sent to people who can't react quickly.

Even if Obama got 500% of what he was asking for, we still couldn't pay our bills.  He got 37% of what he was asking for and spending is going up, not down.  Traveling down the road to national bankruptcy, we have just stepped on the gas pedal slightly more.  When we re-elected Obama, we all but cemented in stone four more years of $1 trillion+ deficits and $20+ trillion in debt; the fiscal cliff deal just confirms it.  Creditworthiness is not just not on the mind among the Obamacrats, they are actively laughing at and taunting the very notion of US creditworthiness.  It's a dangerous game.  I can't see the Bond Market Vigilantes standing for it much longer and Ben Bernanke only has so much juice.  The Treasury market is in for violence.  Inflation is coming and you hedge that via equities and commodities.  The name of the game is the same.

Party of Ideas

Or more accurately, "you pay for our ideas."  The Powerline guys express this powerfully and succinctly:

"It simply demands more money from the taxpayers, and spends all that and more."

The state is insatiable.  Full. Stop.

The recent rhetoric from the likes of Infinite Money Bloomberg and No Debt Problem Obama should only serve to highlight to the bond market that there is not a shred of concern over the creditworthiness of the United States.  I can't think of more irresponsibly brazen examples of taunting the bond market and double dog daring the Bond Market Vigilantes to show up.  No doubt they've been reluctant to come in and "fight the Fed", but you can't look at our nation's budget trajectory and listen to the public statements of our political leaders and conclude anything other than that the US is headed past the point of no return fiscally speaking. 

Shocker. Budget Deal Actually Pretty Lame

Surprise surprise. As with all things bipartisan, when you look under the hood we see the phoniness of it all. The the devilish details of the budget deal look lame. Like I said, don't sell that TBT yet, the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial may still be open, but the US of A's finances are still headed for the cliff ala Thelma & Louise at 90 mph. Actually, with fools like Eugene Robinson actually reinforcing the falsehood that these miniscule cuts were "painful", you might want to grab a little more TBT. The official MSM line is that even these phony, paltry, meaningless cuts will eviserate America as we know it. It will take fortitude and courage of a never-before-seen variety to actaully get America's finances in order and the Republicans don't have that kind of mojo, never have, never will. The Bond Market Vigilantes, however? Mojo comin' outta their ears.

What's the Economic Chart of the Year?

Mark Perry is showing off his submission for economic "graph of the year." It's a good one. It shows off the phenomenon that I call the "Job Market Vigilantes" or the hiring that has not been done under the unrelentingly hostile business climate created by the Obama administration. Notice how the relationship between the two variables is tight until just about the beginning of 2009...hmmm...what happened at the beginning of 2009...??














Personally, my submission for graph of the year, hell graph of all time would be this one, which I think sums up all of economics in one easy to understand relationship (and which Perry has highlighted before). Look at that correlation! That is TIGHT!! The bigger government is, the crappier the economy is. Pretty simple.












See, economics ain't that hard!