SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:52 P.M. ET: 

WHOOPS – From The New York Times:  "WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Monday offered a surprisingly modest estimate of the number of people who would sign up for health insurance in the second round of open enrollment, which begins on Saturday.  Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, said she was working on the assumption that a total of 9.1 million people would have such coverage at the end of next year.  By contrast, the Congressional Budget Office had estimated that 13 million people would be enrolled next year, with the total rising to 24 million in 2016. In the past, the White House has used the budget office numbers as a benchmark for success under the Affordable Care Act."  Where are those 40 million Americans who were desperate for new health insurance?  I think that's a question the Obama press must answer.

WARM FRIENDS – President Obama is in China, wearing Chinese-style clothing at least some of the time.  And, during his visit, we learn this.  From Fox:  "Chinese government operatives reportedly are suspected of hacking the U.S. Postal Service, in a security breach that may have compromised personal information for more than 800,000 workers.  The breach was announced Monday, as President Obama arrived in Beijing.
The Postal Service confirmed the incident in a written statement, saying personal information that may have been obtained in the attack includes employees' names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, emergency contacts and other information."  I wonder if Obama is concerned about this.

WOMEN PESSIMISTIC ABOUT JOBS – From WaPo:  "The 'gender gap' typically refers to the difference between how much women and men are paid, the kind of jobs they tend to pursue or how well they're represented among a company's senior ranks. Yet a report released by Gallup on Monday finds there's also a big gap between how confident men and women are about the job market. And that gap is wider in North America than in any other major region of the world.  Fifty-six percent of North American men, according to the 2013 data set, thought it was a bad time to look for a job, compared with 62 percent of North American women. While Europeans were much more negative overall about their job outlook — 77 percent of European women thought it was a bad time to look for a job — the average gap between the views of men and women there was smaller (just three percentage points, compared to the six-point spread in North America). In Asia, there was also a three-point difference; but, in a flip, Asian women rather than men had the more favorable outlook."  Bottom line:  the job market is bad for both sexes.  Yes, we're creating jobs, but nowhere near enough, and not jobs of the quality Americans are used to.

November 10, 2014