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NY DailyNews reports the de Blasio administration has settled its first labor contract, a quick deal with 200 environmental officers that could signal a smoother period of labor relations after the cold war between the unions and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The officers, whose duties include patrolling the city's watershed upstate, had been working without a contract for an astounding nine years. Under the new agreement, they will receive an average of more than $50,000 each in back pay.

Kenneth Wynder, who represents the officers as head of the Law Enforcement Employees Benevolent Association, praised the de Blasio administration for its "fairness."

"We got treated with respect," he said. "We felt much better compared to the nine-year battle we had with the old administration," he told the Daily News.

Bloomberg left office on Dec. 31 without any of the city's 300,000 unionized workers under contract, creating a major challenge for Mayor de Blasio. The city's unions are demanding more than $7 billion in back pay, a sum that could break the city's budget.

The situation of the environmental officers, however, represented a special circumstance. Theirs was the only union that had not reached a contract with the city for the years 2005 to 2007. As a result, the terms of their settlement are not expected to set a pattern for the city's other unionized workers, whose contracts expired beginning in 2008.

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The following chart shows real GDP.


Click to enlarge.

Four exponential trend lines and their growth rates have been added.

Note that each time an exponential trend fails, it is replaced with an exponential trend of lesser quality. What doesn't kill us, doesn't make us stronger. Go figure.

The next chart shows the long-term trend of those growth rates. I'm using the midpoint of my hand-picked expansions as the x-axis.


Click to enlarge.

The most recent data point is open to serious revision. The growth rate probably won't change much, but the x-axis position may (it could move to the right on the chart). It really comes down to how long this expansion lasts.

Real yields have fallen because real GDP growth has fallen (and continues to fall). It really is just that simple. Put another way, it is becoming harder and harder to make money off of money (current lofty stock market valuations notwithstanding).

Those hoping for a return to normal better hope that the downward trend does not continue, because that's about the only normal thing going on right now.

The future's so bright I gotta werewolves.



See Also:
The Long-Term Death of Real Yields

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Real GDP

Mofo Politics reports Darrell Issa is an Obama regime plant– instrumental in stonewalling the Benghazi and IRS investigations.

Thanks to Issa’s incompetence and/or malfeasance, Lois Lerner now spends her days in relative luxury– drinking Mai Tai’s by her pool and taking charcoal sketching classes in between trips to tropical paradises around the world…
Speculation arose over how much Lerner could collect in federal pension benefits.

NY Daily News reports two teenage boys apparently working on a school science project involving model rockets were seriously injured after an explosion at a Seattle home, police said late Sunday.

The boys are cousins and suffered fragmentation wounds in the blast that knocked out windows in the living room and kitchen and shot debris into the backyard, Detective Renee Witt said in a statement.

Authorities received a report of the loud explosion at the home of one of the teens just before noon Sunday.

The injured boys were taken to a local hospital. Seattle fire Lt. Sue Stangl told the Seattle Times that the boys, who weren't named, were transported in serious condition.

The father of one of the teens was sleeping in another room but wasn't injured, Witt said. Police said he told them that his son and his nephew were working on a project involving model rockets.

Witt said he told police he thought the boys were trying to start a fire in a fireplace and used some of the rocket fuel to get it going or were testing the mixture.

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"...but I assure you the area will not be decided by Iran, or by Turkey, or by Russia, or by America, or Europe in the absence of the real power in this region which is the Arab World.  We are the majority of the population and Egypt is the biggest one!"
-Amr Moussa

The Hill’s JuanWilliams reports Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel (R-Ky.) are now in position to end the Tea Party’s death grip on the Republican Party’s political future.

Last week, Boehner and McConnell faced down the Tea Party’s threat to cripple the government when they supported raising the nation’s debt ceiling. That move prevented GOP political suicide.

If the nation’s credit rating, stocks and the recovery went down the sewer because of Republicans’ refusal to raise the debt ceiling, the GOP’s chances in the midterm elections would have been severely damaged.

Having successfully defied the Tea Party on the debt ceiling, now it is time for Boehner and McConnell to use that momentum to pass three bills: An extension of unemployment benefits for people suffering long-term joblessness; a minimum wage hike; and, most important of all, immigration reform.

The Tea Party caucus in the House and the Tea Party star in the Senate – Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — are never going to love Boehner or McConnell. Both Congressional leaders have tried for years to accommodate Tea Party passions but they can never do enough.

By standing up to the Tea Party now, the GOP congressional leadership can create a legacy. They may suffer attacks from right-wing talk radio. But they will go into history as the team that made it possible for future Republicans to win elections with the support of some working class and Hispanic voters.

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• Gays enjoy the highest per capita income 
• Gays live in the best neighborhoods
• Gays send their kids to the best schools
•  Gays are well place in world of government, entertainment, fashion, and the business world.