Given the fact that the S&P 500 is up over 18% since the last State of the Union address, we suspect the state of the Union will be "strong." However, a glimpse over the shoulder of Tom Perkins and his pals and one can't help but wonder how "strong" the Union is when there are 2.845 million more people not in the labor force than a year ago. [and for those who like excuses - this is higher than the working-age population growth of 2.4 million people - so we did "lose" jobs]
Last year's 6,990 words were strewn with "hope", "change", "jobs" and "wall street" - we suspect the term "inequality" pops up more than once this time along with the ubiquitous lambasting of the opposition for counterfactually buggering the whole "recovery" plan up. If only there was no 'opposition' - oh wait, we forgot to add "unilateral" and "executive order" as suggested words for tonight's show.
A chart to bear in mind when considering the state of the union...
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A reminder from last year's SOTU...
- *OBAMA CALLS FOR MINIMUM WAGE TO INCREASE TO $9/HOUR
And this year's
- *OBAMA USES EXECUTIVE ORDER ON FEDERAL CONTRACT WORKERS' WAGE
- *OBAMA RAISES MINIMUM WAGE FOR FEDERAL CONTRACTORS TO $10.10
Adding that:
- *OBAMA SAYS U.S. SHOULD REVERSE `TIDES' OF ECONOMIC INEQUALITY
- *OBAMA SAYS HE'S OFFERING `CONCRETE, PRACTICAL PROPOSALS'
- *OBAMA SAYS HE'LL TAKE EXECUTIVE ACTION WHERE HE CAN
And there waqs much rejoicing in the Democrat lands...
- *REID SAYS OBAMA NEEDS TO USE HIS EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY
The State of the Union tease...
The "enhanced" State of the Union - Live Feed
And the Republican's "Enhanced" fact-checking service... And Response to the President...
And here is how the market responded to last year's 'socialist' agenda...
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