Ho hum, another month, another quarter million new jobs. Obama's job creation streak is a new record by what, a year? You don't hear that on the news, and if it's talked about at all the Conservatives who always say, 'but they're low paying jobs'. No actually they're replacing the same jobs lost by Bush, most pay pretty good. Of course the definition of 'pretty good' has been changing.

The median wage of hourly workers is a little over $22/hour, meaning half of Americans make less than that. The problem is that by 1968 standards $22/hour should be the minimum wage, you know like the kid slinging burgers was making at the Golden Arches while the latest Beatles hit played on the AM radi

In 1968 we still ran a Trade Surplus, you know like China does now to the tune of $700 billion/year. We still had tariffs then like China does now, we'd had them from 1790. It was no secret in 1968 that the US oil shortage was a problem, in five years it would be a huge problem. Solar technology had been developed 50 years before, but no one that could understand the math was listened to. Jimmy Carter would make some inroads into people's thinking but Reagan would erase that.

Those of us of certain age remember well the Reagan Democrats, mostly white guys with union cards who thought Reagan would be better at running the economy in their best interest. He'd cut their taxes, crack down on Welfare Queens, bring back the good old days, all that.   

Today we've got the liberal establishment that wants the good old days of the Clinton Administration back and would prefer that those pesky Progressives stop rocking the boat. There are Republicans circling in the water after all. (Be afraid, be very afraid)

It's hard for them to actually criticize Progressive goals, it's always what they say they want for everyone, but like Reagan Democrats they seem to only want these things for themselves and just choose to believe that things can't be changed. They keep trying to knock down the standard bearer but that turned out to be harder than they thought, so mostly they've been concentrating on disparaging his supporters for refusing to listen to them and saying mean things.

China marked its President's visit to the US by announcing a cap and trade program on the burning of carbon starting in 2017. Now the Right Wing Nut Jobs really can call Obama's Cap and Trade proposal a Commie Plot with some small measure of truth.

China's economic problems are likely to get somewhat worse, but it's hardly the global disaster the short sellers would like you to bet on. Literally bet on, Wall Street has instruments to sell you that will cover you against China's collapse for a small fee. Check out their Brooklyn Bridge penny stocks while you're at it.

It appears China's problem revolves around moving to a consumer driven economy. They have 600 million middle class people to serve and are planning for 400 million more over the next 15 years.

House Democrats lead by Nancy Pelosi have nixed a key provision of Obama's free trade Bill effectively killing it for the time being. In reality it was the failure of Republicans to pass it as they control the House, so it's probably just their way of embarrassing Obama before doing their Corporate Masters' bidding next week. Republicans seem to keep forgetting that Obama isn't running for a third term, and this will give Democrats a stick to beat job exporting Republicans with before next year's election.

Job creation was a robust 280,000 for May and the March number was revised upward by 32,000 to 116,000. Hourly wages rose by 8 cents to $24.96, and over the past year wages rose 2.3 percent. Considering that the minimum wage should be $22/hour,these positive numbers are rather lackluster and simply reflect the 'success' of Reagan's war on the Middle Class.