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Even within the construction industry, which stood to benefit most from transportation money, the AP's analysis found there was nearly no connection between stimulus money and the number of construction workers hired or fired since Congress passed the recovery program. The effect was so small, one economist compared it to trying to move the Empire State Building by pushing against it.

"As a policy tool for creating jobs, this doesn't seem to have much bite," said Emory University economist Thomas Smith, who supported the stimulus and reviewed AP's analysis. "In terms of creating jobs, it doesn't seem like it's created very many. It may well be employing lots of people but those two things are very different."

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The 400-page stimulus law contains so many provisions — tax cuts, unemployment benefits, food stamps, state aid, military spending — economists agree that it's nearly impossible to determine what worked best and replicate it. It's also impossible to quantify exactly what effect the stimulus has had on job creation, although Obama points to estimates that credit the recovery program for creating or saving 1.6 million jobs.

It is also becoming more difficult to obtain an accurate count of stimulus jobs. Those who receive stimulus money can now credit jobs to the program even if they were never in jeopardy of being lost, according to new rules outlined by the White House's Office of Management and Budget.

The new rules, reported Monday by the Internet site ProPublica, allow any job paid for with stimulus money to count as a position saved or created.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., complained in a letter sent last week to the government board monitoring stimulus spending that the new policy would make job counts "even more misleading."

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The road money ripples through the economy better than other spending because it improves the nation's infrastructure, said Bernstein, the White House economist.

But that's a policy argument, not a stimulus argument, said Daniel Seiver, an economist at San Diego State University who reviewed AP's analysis.

"Infrastructure spending does have a long-term payoff, but in terms of an immediate impact on construction jobs it doesn't seem to be showing up," Seiver said. "A program like this may be justified, but it's not going to have an immediate effect of putting people back to work."

From 2007 to 2008, 23 states, mostly in the Intermountain West and Southeast, showed reduced in-migration or a switch from in- to out-migration. Thirteen states, mostly on the coasts, showed lower levels of out-migration. The migration fortunes of three Sun Belt states— Florida, Texas, and California—showed distinctly different loss and gain patterns in various population groups.
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The next decade promises massive growth of the senior population, especially in suburbs unaccustomed to housing older people. As the first wave of baby boomers reaches age 65 in less than two years, the senior population is poised to grow by 36 percent from 2010 to 2020. Their numbers will grow fastest in the Intermountain West, the Southeast, and Texas, particularly in metro areas such as Raleigh, NC; Austin, TX; Atlanta, GA; and Boise, ID that already have large pre-senior populations (age 55 to 64). Because the boomers were the nation’s first fully “suburban generation,” their aging in place will cause many major metropolitan suburbs— such as those outside New York and Los Angeles—to “gray” faster than their urban counterparts.

Why is vastly increasing immigration a 'no-brainer'?

You are quite the comedian. Because they respect the law? Because Democrats do?

Because it will no longer be this culture softening the human impulses that have produced the horrors of this century and the last.

This country won't last forever. In fact it won't last very long at all. I'm in no rush to meet the new boss.

Demonizing businessmen as fat cats is Obama's signature move. He'll find someone at random to demonize everytime he is in trouble.

Stuff like Cap-n-Trade and Obama-care are in reality some of the bigest tax inducing moves ever contemplated. The idea of Obama as tax cutter or tax neutral is ridiculous. Illinois has been tax hiking for decades in the form of every imaginable surreptitious fee they could dream up. His moves are so familiar to us in Illinois.

Every president brings the mafia style of his state to the oval office.

The Hindenburg Omen is a technical analysis pattern that is said to portend a stock market crash. It is named after the Hindenburg disaster of May 6, 1937, during which the German zeppelin Hindenburg was destroyed.

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These criteria are calculated daily using Wall Street Journal figures for consistency. (Other exchanges may be used as well.)

1.The daily number of NYSE new 52 Week Highs and the daily number of new 52 Week Lows are both greater than 2.2 percent of total NYSE issues traded that day. Based on approximately 3100 NYSE issues, the 2.2% threshold is 69.

2.The NYSE 10 Week moving average is rising.

3.The McClellan Oscillator is negative on the same day.

4.New 52 Week Highs cannot be more than twice the new 52 Week Lows (though new 52 Week Lows may be more than double new Highs).

The traditional definition requires each condition to occur on the same day, and be repeated within a 36-day period. The occurrence of all criteria on a single day is often referred to as an unconfirmed Hindenburg Omen, because the indicator has a high false alarm rate.

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Recent occurrences

August 20, 2010: The second confirmed Hindenburg Omen in August, 2010 with 3,143 NYSE issues traded, with 83 New Highs and 95 New Lows. The McClellan Oscillator was negative.

August 19, 2010: An unconfirmed Hindenburg Omen with 137 new highs and 69 new lows were recorded (2.2% of issues traded), and the new highs number was not more than double the new lows (although it was close). McClellan oscillator was negative at -83.6, and the 10 week moving average rose, which were the two remaining conditions.

August 12, 2010: A confirmed Hindenburg Omen occurred, the first since the market lows of 2009. One nearly occurred on August 11, but only 67 stocks hit new lows, less than 2.2% of issues traded.

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The answer becomes clearer when one recognizes, as the book stresses, that politics is largely about organized combat. It’s a form of warfare. “It’s a contest,” said Professor Pierson, “between those who are organized, who can really monitor what government is doing in a very complicated world and bring pressure effectively to bear on politicians. Voters in that kind of system are at a disadvantage when there aren’t reliable, organized groups representing them that have clout and can effectively communicate to them what is going on.”

The book describes an “organizational revolution” that took place over the past three decades in which big business mobilized on an enormous scale to become much more active in Washington, cultivating politicians in both parties and fighting fiercely to achieve shared political goals. This occurred at the same time that organized labor, the most effective force fighting on behalf of the middle class and other working Americans, was caught in a devastating spiral of decline.

Thus, the counterweight of labor to the ever-increasing political clout of big business was effectively lost.

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This hyperconcentration of wealth and income, and the overwhelming political clout it has put into the hands of the monied interests, has drastically eroded the capacity of government to respond to the needs of the middle class and others of modest income.