US Economy

[Redeye]

There is also the oft overlooked point that industrial agricultural products are more healthy than starvation.

The problem, in the long term, remains sustainability. To grow, for example, the massive amount of (heavily subsidized) corn that is produced in the US, massive monocultures have been set up that require huge amounts of inputs, mainly fossil fuel inputs. So, what happens when the price of oil soars and the supply finally dries up? That's the interesting issue. There's all sorts of other issues as well. In the book I referred to, there's a great contrast between monocultures and more "traditional" agriculture like the fascinating Polyface Farm in Virginia. The problem, of course, is that the explosion in industrial agriculture has basically allowed populations to grow to the extent that sustainable agriculture probably couldn't feed everyone. Especially not in the way we've become accustomed to eating.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Are these the same heavily subsiduzed but broke farmers we're talking about here? ???

 

[Redeye]

Are these the same heavily subsiduzed but broke farmers we're talking about here? ???

Some interesting info on farm incomes - note sources of income:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/amberwaves/february05/findings/farmincomeless.htm

The subsidies paid to corn farmers seem to simply keep them above water, while most of them are dependent on other sources of income to make ends meet.

The book I've recommended anyone interested read talks a lot about how agricultural policy in the USA changed in the 1970s when the USA completely changed their farm income stabilization processes. It explains how that's impacted farmers' livelihoods and how it made corn such a business. It's fascinating, and has prompted me to get into a lot more reading on the subject.

 

[a_majoor]

Fiddling while Rome burns. I wonder what California is going to do once they run out of productive business and taxpayers?:

http://news.investors.com/Article/596620/201201031854/california-business-leaving-child-booster-law-arson.htm

The Great Golden State Business Exodus

Posted 01/03/2012 06:54 PM ET
States: California's in trouble. Businesses are leaving along with intellectual and investment capital and skilled workers. But rather than face up to serious problems, legislators pass silly laws.

One would think that given the serious nature of the state's problems, the legislature would focus on solutions at the exclusion of all else.

Instead, lawmakers — what would we ever do without them? — found the time in 2011 to trespass even deeper into Californians' personal lives.

Topping off Sacramento's monument to foolishness is a law requiring children younger than 8, except for those taller than 4 feet 9 inches, to sit in booster seats in cars. Previous law let kids leave their boosters at 6.

Now children who had moved out of cars seats are being forced back into them.

Actually, the law is more authoritarian — and offensive and infuriating — than it is silly. It assumes that wise lawmakers have a greater interest in children's safety than their parents do. It also expands the state's supervisory role over adults while decreasing their status as free citizens.

Next up is the law — one of 761 bills passed in 2011 that became California law — that bans the sale of over-the-counter cough medicine containing dextromethorphan to minors. That means popular brands such as Nyquil, Robitussin and Delsym that contain that ingredient are essentially controlled substances.

It is now also illegal in California for those under 18 to use ultraviolet tanning devices, and against the law for anyone, no matter what age, to buy alcoholic beverages at self-checkout lines. Nor can they import shark fins.

Beginning this year, the state requires schools to intervene if personnel see gay bullying. Meanwhile, it makes schools teach the historical achievements of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals.

And, no, we did not make up that last part. That's just how mad governance has become in California.

While the California legislature spent 2011 fiddling with nonsense legislation, the state's business environment continued to burn. Joe Vranich, a business consultant who monitors the Golden State's exodus, said in November that "large corporations, family-run companies and even startup enterprises in all industries continue to leave" due to high business taxes and excessive regulation "imposed on commercial enterprises of all types."

Vranich calls California the worst state in the nation to locate a business, Los Angeles the worst city. He estimates a business can save 40% in costs just by leaving.

And it's not just struggling businesses that quit. As the Orange County Register recently noted, even profitable ones are departing. Why? Though they make money in California, they know they can make more elsewhere.

Is Sacramento listening? Unfortunately, the legislature is concerning itself with lesser things.

 

[a_majoor]

Any wonder the US recovery is stalled? The 1937-38 capital strike was caused by overly intrusive regulation and taxation, expect the same response to the same conditions today:

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=48741

EPA Fines Companies Because They Didn’t Use A Fuel That Doesn’t Exist
Gosh, it’s tough to figure out why that recovery is stalled.by John Hayward01/11/2012

The Orwellian nightmare of running a business in the shadow of the Obama Administration is nicely captured in this story from the New York Times, which explains why motor fuel companies are about to be fined $6.8 million for failure to use a biofuel that does not exist:

In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallons this year.

“It belies logic,” Charles T. Drevna, the president of the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association, said of the 2011 quota. And raising the quota for 2012 when there is no production makes even less sense, he said.

Penalizing the fuel suppliers demonstrates what happens when the federal government really, really wants something that technology is not ready to provide. In fact, while it may seem harsh that the Environmental Protection Agency is penalizing them for failing to do the impossible, the agency is being lenient by the standards of the law, the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act.

Ah, so that’s what passes for “lenience” from the bureaucrats and czars these days.  Be thankful for our generosity, comrades!  We could have fined you much more heavily for failing to do something that was literally impossible.  Clutch every dollar we allow you to keep, and weep with joy at our munificence!

This is all part of an elaborate ritual fuel companies are required to perform, in accordance with the official state religion of “global warming.”  These biofuels are supposed to reduce “greenhouse gas” emissions by 50 percent.  Actually, I suppose the biofuels that don’t actually exist are reducing such emissions by 100 percent.  Such is the wisdom of the almighty State.

This kind of nonsense is a regular feature of Stalinist command economics.  Stalin himself was a bold pioneer in politically decreeing the impossible.  He ordered that corn should be grown in Siberia, even though corn cannot grow in Siberia.  The results were far worse than a $6.8 million tithe to the Church of Global Warming, so the fuel companies should consider themselves lucky.

How could anyone possibly defend this tyrannical lunacy?  Like this:

[Dennis V. McGinn] of the council on renewable energy defends the overall energy statute. Even if the standards for 2011 and 2012 are not met, he said, “I am absolutely convinced from a national security perspective and an economic perspective that the renewable fuel standard, writ large, is the right thing to do.” With oil insecurity and climate change related to greenhouse gas emissions as worrisome as ever, advocates say, there is strong reason to press forward.

Never mind that no one can prove any such “climate change” is occurring, let alone that it has any relationship to “greenhouse gas emissions.”  The commissars have spoken, and they are not to be questioned.  If it makes no sense to you… well, perhaps your sanity needs to be questioned, eh?

Remember, Big Government is much smarter than private industry, and far better equipped to handle the ever-changing challenges of a fast-moving, high tech world.  That’s why it raised the annual quotas for using a fuel that does not exist.

John Hayward is a staff writer for HUMAN EVENTS, and author of the recently published  Doctor Zero: Year One. Follow him on Twitter:  Doc_0. Contact him by email at jhayward@eaglepub.com

 

[cupper]

Interesting that nowhere in the article do they mention what the actual "biofuel" actually is.

Anyone want to take a guess as to what it is?

 

[Kirkhill]

Interesting that nowhere in the article do they mention what the actual "biofuel" actually is.

Anyone want to take a guess as to what it is?

the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs

Cellulosic Ethanol

a biofuel produced from wood, grasses, or the non-edible parts of plants

Not yet ready for prime time.

 

[a_majoor]

Falling demand  and underutilized capacity is dragging down wages everywhere, and the issues in the United States will affect us as well. London, Ontario is becoming ground zero for this as Caterpillar is offering a contract which essentially halves wages and benefits at the Electromotive plant. The alternative is the plant closes and the production moves to the US plant. What CAW and NDP supporters of the workers neglect to mention is that:

a. Locomotives can be manufactured anywhere, and
b. Caterpillar is beholden to its shareholders, not the CAW. Domestic politics may also be an issue, repatriating the Electromotive jobs to the US facility will provide some "goods news" to the US economy.

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/when-white-house-touts-falling-wages

When The White House Touts Falling Wages
Submitted by testosteronepit on 01/11/2012 21:34 -0500
 
Wolf Richter  www.testosteronepit.com

150 factory workers in China threatened to jump off the roof of an iPhone factory unless they received a raise. Similar stories are accumulating. Inflation, especially in food and other essentials, has been rampant over the last few years—and to make ends meet, desperate workers sometimes take drastic measures. These anecdotes underscore a major trend in China: skyrocketing cost of labor.

In the US, it’s the opposite. Since 2000, real wages (adjusted for inflation) have declined. The White House even touts this horrid statistic in its just released paper, Investing in America: Building an Economy That Lasts. Clearly, the paper is not intended for the rank and file. It outlines how current policies are making America competitive with low-wage countries like China. And one of the principal strategies is ... lowering wages:

The paper also touts the administration’s claim of having created 3.2 million jobs over the last 22 months. But these numbers are based on surveys, formulas, and statistical adjustments. The BLS’s Employment Participation rate, which the paper wisely leaves unmentioned, measures the percentage of people age 16 and older who have jobs. It’s the least corruptible employment number available—and at 58.5%, it's where it was in 1983.

BLS Employment Population Ratio

The long decline from 64.7% (April 2000) parallels another statistic in the paper: from 2001 - 2007, three million manufacturing jobs were lost. Those were the Bush years, obviously. But what happened during the Obama years? Unmentioned, but just as bad.

From the White House paper

The tiny hook at the bottom is the ballyhooed uptick. But during the next economic downdraft, the line will plunge again. And that slack in employment has contributed to the decline in real wages.

The problem for a high-wage country in a globalized economy is that jobs will be globalized as well. The decision whether or not to offshore production comes down to calculating the total cost of doing business overseas. This includes worker productivity, transportation, supply chain risks, legal and political risks, currency risks, intellectual property risks, expenses for expats, delays, flexibility, environmental issues, taxes, import duties, etc. Hence, for US manufacturing to be competitive, wages don’t need to match Chinese wages, but they need to be closer. That approach in wages has been happening—at a great expense to US workers. And now there are some results.

The paper mentions Ford and Caterpillar as examples of large companies that have announced investments in the US to ‘insource’ jobs from overseas. Those announcements, when they do occur, are made with great political fanfare.

Yet the same companies are still making massive investments in China and other low-wage countries, though no US politician takes credit for that. And there are many others. Merck disclosed from its headquarters in New Jersey that it would build a new facility in Beijing, part of its $1.5 billion investment in China. Nissan, which has large plants in the US, just announced that it would build a plant in Mexico. And government-subsidized solar panel makers, well, for how they just started a trade war, read... The Trade Debacle with China.

So the net of outsourcing and insourcing among large companies still favors outsourcing. But under certain circumstances and on a small scale, companies might try to insource. And that is a step in the right direction.

Smaller companies face different dynamics. It has always been expensive, difficult, and risky for them to offshore production. Many have done it, lured by cheap wages, only to learn costly lessons. And now anecdotal evidence is piling up that they’re having second thoughts. The paper lists KEEN, a footwear maker, and Master Lock as examples of companies that have brought back jobs. I personally know one consumer products company that shut down its manufacturing operations in China and relocated production back to the US (though it still operates plants in other parts of the world). And this is a trend that will likely accelerate.

But low-wage countries will continue to draw jobs away from the US. The numbers couldn’t be clearer: in 2011, the trade deficit with China hit another record north of $320 billion. So taking credit for a wave of ‘insourcing’ from China, as the paper does, has an aura of political grandstanding.

But you can't blame the Chinese. They're trying hard to get into the circle of developed countries. Even with products that, well.... Merde! Chinese Wines Did What to French Wines?

 

[a_majoor]

Maybe we should remind Apple Inc. that Canada's corporate tax rates are now among the lowest in the OECD:

http://www.tuaw.com/2012/01/11/most-of-apples-82-billion-cash-stockpile-is-trapped-overseas/

Most of Apple's $82 billion cash stockpile is 'trapped' overseas

by Chris Rawson Jan 11th 2012 at 7:30PM

Apple may have enough cash on hand to make Scrooge McDuck's money vault look like a kiddie pool by comparison, but according to SeekingAlpha, most of that cash is effectively trapped overseas. US$54 billion of Apple's overall $82 billion in cash is in offshore accounts, and Apple cannot repatriate that money to the States unless it wants to pay a huge 35 percent corporate tax on it.

If Apple attempted to bring that money into the States, right off the bat through the magic of taxes that $54 billion would transform into $35.1 billion, with the other $18.9 billion disappearing down the federal money hole. With that much cash at stake, it's no wonder that Apple hasn't been in any hurry to repatriate its huge foreign cash reserves.

SeekingAlpha's analysis of Apple's 10Ks shows that Apple's foreign cash and investments are growing far faster than those in the US, and with sales in China continuing to ramp up year after year, that pace is only going to increase.

Apple and other companies have lobbied for a repatriation tax holiday to temporarily lower the tax rate from 35 percent to something more palatable to corporations, in the neighborhood of 5 to 9 percent. That proposal has met with strong resistance from the current US administration, however, which has said that any corporate tax holiday must come as part of an overhaul of the entire corporate tax structure, something that's unlikely to happen in the near future.

Meanwhile, as Apple's foreign cash hoard grows, the money is effectively useless to Apple and its shareholders. They could build a stack of dollar bills 3400 miles tall, but can't they can't do much else with it for now.

 

[a_majoor]

One of the many and varied factors behind the Keystone XL cancellation:

http://www.freeenterprise.com/energy-environment/north-dakota-stuck-using-more-costly-railroads-move-oil

North Dakota Stuck Using More-Costly Railroads to Move Oil
by Sean Hackbarth
Jan 20, 2012
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8 Comments

Truck hauling 36-inch Pipe to build Keystone-Cushing Pipeline SE of Peabody, Kansas. Photo via Steve Meirowsky.
Robert Samuelson sure wasn't pleased with the President's decision to not issue a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, calling it "an act of insanity." I bet he won't be any happier after reading the news that North Dakota producers who planned on using the pipeline to move their oil to Gulf refiners will have to rely on more-costly rail:

North Dakota oil drillers increasingly will rely on trains to move barrels of crude to market after the Obama administration's decision to reject plans for a pipeline that would run from Canada to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico, state and industry officials say.

"Pipelines are by far the safest and most economically efficient way to transport oil, but we are left with a limited number of options if pipelines are off the table," said Tony Clark, chairman of the North Dakota Public Service Commission. "Once the oil is flowing, it has to go somewhere."
Obama on Wednesday temporarily halted the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline, saying an arbitrary deadline set by Republican lawmakers didn't give his administration enough time for review.

Calgary-based TransCanada Corp.'s 1,700-mile pipeline is designed to carry crude oil from tar sands near Hardisty, Alberta, through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. The pipeline also would move 100,000 barrels of crude daily, largely from North Dakota's burgeoning oil patch and some from Montana.

Billions of dollars of infrastructure improvements have been made in recent years to allow North Dakota's oil shipping capacity to keep pace with the skyrocketing production. North Dakota is the nation's fourth-biggest oil producer and is expected to trail only Texas in crude output within the next year.

Alison Ritter, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Mineral Resources, said the state's so-called takeaway capacity is adequate, though producers and the state were counting on the on the Keystone XL to move North Dakota crude.
Shipping crude by pipeline in North Dakota adds up to $1.50 to its cost, compared to $2 or more a barrel for rail shipments, producers say.
Right now, about 25% of North Dakota's oil travels by rail. According to the CBS News report that "will increase exponentially with increased oil production and the shortage of pipelines."

And noted in Instapundit:

And who has a big stake in Burlington Northern? A guy in Omaha named Buffett.

And by having TransCanada tie its Keystone XI to the border crossing approval you can’t get a segmented line from Montana to Port Arthur, TX that the Bakken field could tie into. That is the concept. A collector system named the BakkenLink runs down to Montana from ND and ties into Keystone XI (known as MarketLink). A twofer you might say.

So, in a way it is a Win-Win for Obama – He wins his Green base and his Crony Capitalism base. Pretty clever, eh?

 

[cupper]

Puh-leeze.

Nice leap of logic that the pipe line decision was a result of influence by Big Rail.  :Tin-Foil-Hat:

As I said before, the decision was made the day the obstructionists included the arbitrary deadline of February 2012, when they all knew that a new route required a new environmental evaluation, which would take months if not a year.

I go back to my previous post and say again wait for the "October surprise" when it will get preliminary approval.

The pipeline is not dead, and approval will eventually come through. But it will be done in a manner that follows all of the regulatory requirements, not some political expediency.

 

[a_majoor]

Or the Congress can force approval:

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/205579-report-congress-can-require-keystone-pipeline-approval

CRS report: Congress can require Keystone oil pipeline approval
By Ben Geman - 01/21/12 05:05 PM ET

Capitol Hill lawmakers probably have the Constitution at their back if they require a permit for the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline that President Obama rejected days ago, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Republicans are mulling bills that require approval of Keystone XL, which would bring oil sands crude from Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries.

The Jan. 20 CRS legal analysis notes that while the executive branch has historically handled the approval of border-crossing facilities, it doesn’t have to be that way. “f Congress chose to assert its authority in the area of border crossing facilities, this would likely be considered within its Constitutionally enumerated authority to regulate foreign commerce,” the analysis states.

Republicans are highly unlikely to have enough political support to win Senate passage of bills that require a permit, let alone Obama’s signature. But the CRS analysis may buoy Republicans rallying around the bills to attack Obama’s Jan. 18 denial of TransCanada Corp.’s permit application.

The four CRS attorneys write that their review “suggests that legislation related to cross-border facility permitting is unlikely to raise significant constitutional questions, despite the fact that such permits have traditionally been handled by the executive branch alone pursuant to its constitutional ‘foreign affairs’ authority.”

A House Energy and Commerce Committee panel will hold a hearing next Wednesday on Rep. Lee Terry’s (R-Neb.) bill that takes review of the pipeline away from the State Department and instead requires the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue a permit.

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), who is planning a separate bill to put approval in the hands of Congress, requested the study.

“I think this confirms what we have been saying all along – Congress has the authority under the Constitution to approve the Keystone pipeline,” said Ryan Bernstein, Hoeven’s deputy chief of staff and legal counsel.

“It gives great weight to not only our bill but any bill Congress considers,” he added.

Advocates of the project say it will boost energy security, create 20,000 jobs and support hundreds of thousands of others indirectly.

Republican leaders, GOP White House candidates and major business groups are pushing for the pipeline’s approval, and using the administration’s rejection to launch election-year attacks against Obama.

But environmentalists, citing a study by the Cornell University Global Labor Institute, call the job estimates vastly overstated.

Green groups oppose the project due to greenhouse gas emissions and other ecological damage from Alberta’s oil sands projects, and fear of spills along the pipeline route that could pollute groundwater.

The Obama administration rejected Keystone’s permit last Wednesday, ahead of a Feb. 21 decision deadline required under a GOP provision in December's payroll tax cut extension deal.

The State Department and the White House said the timeline prevented adequate review of TransCanada’s application, which was first filed in 2008. The administration, before the payroll deal, had delayed a decision until after the 2012 election.

The toxic process is certainly being influenced by everyone who feels they can benefit by the approval/disapproval of the pipeline, and numerous posters both here and in the blogosphere have noted the Administration is looking to win approval from their political supporters, and estimating which group(s) will provide more political and financial support based on the decision rendered.

Evidently, the "greens" and whatever crony capitalist support benefits from denying the pipeline seems to have more clout than the labour unions and small, medium and large business that would benefit from the go ahead, so you can expect this to be front and center during the campaign as both sides rally their supporters to the cause.

I perssonally tink this is a losing hand for the administration, since jobs and the economy are the clear issue among voters. Spending billions of taxpayer dollars on "green" energy companies without producing any visible jobs (or losing jobs with companies like Solyndra) and then blocking the direct and indirect jobs created by the pipeline is hardly a record to campaign on...

 

[a_majoor]

A great series of papers from a symposium. Well worth the look (even from the initial skimming):

http://mercatus.org/publication/us-sovereign-debt-crisis-tipping-point-scenarios-and-crash-dynamics

How a Default Might Play Out

The Bond Market Wins

Courting an Avoidable Financial Crisis

How and Why a U.S. Sovereign Debt Crisis Could Occur

Some Possible Consequences of a U.S. Government Default

 

[a_majoor]

Inflation of some basics. This is probably hurting as much (or more) as the high unemployment:

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/under-obama-price-gas-has-jumped-83-percent-ground-beef-24-percent-bacon-22-percent

Under Obama, Price of Gas Has Jumped 83 Percent, Ground Beef 24 Percent, Bacon 22 Percent
By Christopher Goins
January 20, 2012
Subscribe to Christopher Goins's posts
   
(CNSNews.com) – So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent.

When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the city average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.79, according to the BLS. (The figures are in nominal dollars: not adjusted for inflation.) Five months later in June, unleaded gasoline was $2.26 per gallon, an increase of 26 percent. By December 2011, the price of regular unleaded gas per gallon was $3.28, an 83 percent increase from January 2009.

The price of unleaded gasoline never reached the 10-year high of $4.09 back in July 2008 under George W. Bush’s administration, but it did get close.

By May 2011, gas prices hit a high under the Obama administration at $3.93, about four percentage points away from the July 2008 high.

The U.S. city average retail price for one pound of 100 percent ground beef was $2.36 in January 2009. As of December 2011, that price had risen to $2.92—a 23.7 percent increase and a new peak.  (Ground beef prices have risen every month since November 2009 – 26 months of price increases.)

Whole wheat bread prices from January 2009 to December 2011 increased about five percent (5.02 percent) from $1.97 to $2.07. (The inflation rate in December 2011 was 3.0 percent.)

Among the first 36 months of Obama’s presidency, the last four (September, October, November, December) showed the average price of one pound of whole wheat bread hovering slightly above two dollars.

Other refrigerated items like ice cream and bacon have increased by substantial amounts.

Ice cream prices, for a half-gallon, were $4.44 in January 2009 and $5.25 in December 2011, an increase of 19.1 percent.

One pound of sliced bacon in January 2009 was $3.73 and in December 2011 had climbed  $4.55, an increase of 22 percent. The price hit a high in September 2011 at $4.82 per pound.

Whole milk prices averaged above three dollars 33 out of the 36 months since Obama took office. In January 2009, the price for one gallon of whole milk was $3.58; but by December 2011, milk prices had slightly declined less than one percent (0.28 percent) to $3.57 per gallon.

The average retail price of Grade A eggs per dozen from January 2009 to December 2011 increased by less than two percent (1.30 percent) from $1.85 to $1.87.

 

[cupper]

Don't be blaming Obama for the rising WORLD price of oil. Blame the speculators in the market, the Gulf States and Saudis, and the Ethanol lobby.

And speaking of ethanol, you can blame the diversion of corn to produce ethanol for the rising price of food as well.

 

[exabedtech]

Obama has failed miserably at the one thing he claimed he could excel at - gaining consensus from opposing views.  His complete inability to manage pretty much anything has meant a lost opportunity to salvage something from the mess that is the US economy. 
Keystone is a nice little example of Obama politics...  Election is coming, 'dirty oil' is unpopular with many of his strongest supporters therefore pipeline decision needs to be delayed until after the election.  This despite the fact that the US desperately needs jobs, secure sources of oil and revenue.  Keystone offers all of this.
I did support this guy in the last election, but he has show a complete lack of either a strategic plan for his country or any ability to stick to one if it does exist. 
The US needs leadership desperately and currently seems to have none.  Looking at the republican lineup leads me to believe that their problems will be getting much worse before they get better.  If they get better at all.

 

[GAP]

I would like to think that most Republicans thought that the coming election would likely be a 2 for for Obama, so the only ones who ran were the B team, and it shows.....

 

[Redeye]

I would like to think that most Republicans thought that the coming election would likely be a 2 for for Obama, so the only ones who ran were the B team, and it shows.....

That suggests a hidden "A Team" though, and I don't know that they really have one.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I think a fair number of people believe Christie or Ryan could win a presidential election.

 

[GAP]

We'll see who runs in 2016