mendeleev

I've used DHL, UPS, and USPS to get parcels and documents to Novosibirsk. All three take similar amounts of time, roughly three weeks. USPS costs about 20% what the others cost. The others have superior tracking capability.

With USPS, I also use global express mail so there is some tracking capability. After about 5 days of waiting after the parcel leaves the USA, but before it arrives in Russia (on a direct flight) I call USPS to put in a search. For USPS, the bottleneck is unambiguously arrival into Moscow and clearance through customs. And USPS always says 3-5 days and by now the clerks at my post office laugh with me when they tell me that bit of misinformation.

We used to be the World Leader in such projects.

True ... but then the tax credits disappeared and we (re)entered the fools paradise of cheap fossil energy supported by invisible and legacy subsidy.

The Chinese government will support the solar sector just as this country subsidized the petrochemical sector a hundred years ago ... and it will grow to be dominant.

Danno loves a bit of bait and switch

Or is that bait and snatch?

Its clear there are several here (maybe he's one) unable to engage in any mental activity that requires the least bit of effort or subtlety...

On the way to work this morning, I heard a story that cracked me up.

There's a new effort at CIA to understand the damage caused by Wikileaks.

Its called the Wikileaks Task Force. At Langley, they're calling it #######.

You can't make this stuff up -- its too good.

For the K1, we used a lawyer. Didn't know any better and didn't know about VJ. We did the K3 ourselves.

Thanks, this helps!

I always found my jobs by myself, by contacting people doing research that was close to my area of expertise. I never put my resumes on any websites (I guess I am somewhat paranoid about it). Hence there was no way for the headhunters to know that I was available. And I could never find them, because it is not common for my colleagues to use headhunters. The rare ones who used them would not share... I guess I should try posting resumes next time around

But don't you get tons of junk mail that way?

Some headhunters found me through word of mouth. Others found me by looking at my profile at LinkedIn. My posting there has not led to much in the way of junk contacts.

+1'd for the Orville Pierson reference. Good luck on your new job. Which state are you in now?

Still in Colorado, didn't even have to move, surprisingly enough!

Thanks for sharing your experience.

BTW, how does one find headhunters?

In my experience, rika60607, they mostly find you. But you can also find them. Ask around with colleagues. Join LinkedIn, build your network there, and look for them there..

I had an interesting experience during the late summer and fall. For about 10 weeks, I was unemployed. I’m guessing that there are others in the VJ community who find themselves, either at this moment or recently, unexpectedly and undesirably unemployed. I cannot find a recent string on this topic, so I thought I’d open one to see what others in this situation experience and what they doing about it.

I had been working for an advanced biofuel company that was having difficulties, largely created by its own management, compounded by the financial crisis, the difficulty of the technology problem, and the fact that the Department of Energy is less than optimally efficient (to be polite).

Before I lost my job, the company had executed four reductions in force in the preceding 18 months. Needless to say, I had been looking for a job for a year or so, but not incredibly hard because I was working 50+ hour weeks trying to help the company succeed.

In August, the company had their fifth RIF that eliminated another 20% of the company and I finally found myself on the wrong side of that line. Since I was the last scientist in the company with skills critical to implementing stated objectives, an informed observer could make certain assessments about that company’s prospects. Whether the Department of Energy, who was considering another application for federal support of the company, catches on remains to be seen. But that’s another story whose ending is still unknown.

So, my full-time job morphed into looking for a full-time job. One thing I did was completely suspect VJ activities. While fun, it can be a way to spend a lot of time suboptimally. I needed to focus. I let my network know about my changed status, started working to use that network to reach further into the job markets, and broadened my acceptable job options very considerably. I fully expected to move. That was a prospect I didn’t relish: we love the Denver area and a lot of the chemical industry is located in places that are either really expensive (New Jersey), hot (Houston), or isolated and undesirable. Nonetheless, we considered a number of not-so-palatable opportunities, some of whom made job offers.

In ten weeks, I won five on-site interviews in three states and received four job offers. Most of those interviews resulted from knowing someone, although I got an interview through headhunters and, toward the end, was getting phone interviews by answering job postings. (Some of those might have turned into offers, but I got a job first.) On the whole, I found employers to be much less respectful than was the case before the crisis. I never heard of a prospective employer bringing a candidate half-way across the country for an interview and then refusing to reimburse customary meal, travel, and hotel expenses, but that happened to me. (When that prospect made a job offer, I evaluated it accordingly.) Several made offers with compensation considerably lower than I had received in my last job. I experienced a level of disrespect from both technical and HR professionals in candidate companies that were completely different from what my organizations practiced when we were recruiting in good times. It is unambiguously the case that employers are taking inappropriate advantage of current market conditions and this is already starting to hurt some of them as they continues their searches. My job market isn't that big, and reputation, on both sides of the table, matters. Although it was nerve wracking, I persisted in looking for the offer that provided fair (in my assessment) compensation and interesting work and, ultimately, I was rewarded.

I’ve been working in my new job for six weeks now and, by and large, am quite happy with this new position. The people and the chemistry (broadly defined) is good. I’m still in the renewable sector, which I hadn’t expected. Given what I read of news accounts of the unemployment situation, I count myself very lucky. The fact that I was unemployed for such a short period of time probably owes quite a bit to using effective job-hunting methods I quickly heard of from peers who had become unemployed earlier in the crisis. Orville Pearson and his approaches deserves special mention in this connection. I had never been unemployed before, although I’d been in the job market for over 30 years. It was a very interesting, at times frightening, experience that taught me a lot.

The poll has flaws -- but I'm not complaining.

I actually prefer FTF communication that is sometimes nonverbal. (Who doesn't? But that wasn't an option in this poll.) My wife, however, has this habit of needing to disappear from time to time to see her family-of-origin way over there. Its reasonable and, even if I don't like it, it is part of what I agreed to during courtship. At that time, its daily phone calls that keep us connected.

Let’s try to unpack and analyze Senator Graham’s statement and its implications. He wishes the USA was more like France when it comes to nuclear power.

Some historical (and contemporary) background is helpful. In the USA, the capital markets killed nuclear power after the Three Mile Island accident happened in 1979. (The Senator is under the mistaken impression that Greens killed nuclear power in the USA, but the sequence of historical facts are different. Perhaps the Senator watches too more FOX news, since this is apparently correlated with inaccurate understanding of historical facts?) As the capital markets became aware of just how close TMI came to a catastrophic meltdown, and digested the fact that the accident irretrievably destroyed will over a $1 billion in capital invested there, they demanded higher risk premiums for financing of future reactors. The USA electric power industry could not pay those premiums, and the nuclear power construction industry shut down in this country. A few later (1986, to be precise), the accident at Chernobyl merely ratified the decision taken by the capital markets.

Even though (or because?) the industry is pretty well understood by the capital markets, the present situation is that nuclear power plant projects are not financeable in the USA absent a loan guarantee from the federal government. Typically, the feds demand that banks put some of their own capital on the line when they finance loans guaranteed by the Federal Government in the energy sector. This isn’t an insurmountable problem for large scale concentrated solar power (CSP) projects, large scale photovoltaic projects projects, advanced biofuel projects, advanced battery projects, or other new energy technology projects. Constellation said, in effect, that it is a problem for them. The nuclear power plant Constellation wanted to build will not proceed because the offer of federal loan guarantees was not generous enough.

In this context, Senator Graham laments that the US is not more like France. I’m not 100% sure, but I’m pretty sure that the nuclear power plants in operation in France are all owned by Electricite de France, a state-owned company. Is Senator Graham suggesting that the Federal Government should build, own, and operate more nuclear power plants in the USA? I think not. But perhaps there are more socialists in the Republican Party than I realize.

There is (or was?) a bipartisan consensus in the USA that new energy (whether renewable or nuclear) projects were both in the national interests and that the Federal Government should guarantee loans to support their construction. Others may disagree, but I think this bipartisan consensus is correct.

Constellation says that the Federal guarantees (that are often sufficient for advanced solar, biofuel, and battery projects) are not adequate for their nuclear project. This raises interesting questions.

Should loan guarantee terms offered by the Federal Government for new energy projects be more generous, so that the likes of Constellation (and others) will accept them? Should loan guarantee terms be more generous for nuclear projects than for advanced biofuel, solar, or advanced battery projects? (I think not.) I nuclear projects deserve more generous support, just why is that the case?

One wonders what Senator Graham, and his Tea Party allies, think about these questions.

In the current environment, it seems the biggest barrier to increased use of nuclear power in the USA is the fact that this industry, in spite of about 70 years of governmental subsidies, cannot talk the government out of subsidies big enough to convince the private sector the risk is worth taking. That's why Constellation pulled the plug on a proposed new reactor in Maryland. Constellation simply could not build a business case that would allow it to accept a federal loan guarantee on terms similar to those that solar photovoltaic, advanced biofuels, or concentrated solar power project builders find quite acceptable.

OP might consider S7 from Kemerovo to Moscow-Domodedovo and then connect to Singapore Air to Houston. There are non-stops from Houston to Pittsburg.

Sibir (S7) will have restrictive luggage issues for the Russia domestic, similar to Aeroflot. But Aeroflot continues the restrictions (or at least, they did) for international flights coming out of Moscow and you won't have that problem with Singapore. You might find Singapore's prices attractive, too. An added benefit is that Singapore comes through Domodedovo and OP's finance will simply have to walk down the hall to get from S7 to Singapore. That's a whole lot better than dealing with the hassle of transfer from Sheremetovo 1 to Sheremetovo 2.

If at all possible, OP should make sure that the fiance has a credit card in order to address overweight luggage fees ... although perhaps the Kemerov airport, unlike other Siberian airports, won't be in a position to cope with a western credit card.

We ALWAYS use Express Mail to send parcels to Novosibirsk. Not one (over 40 so far) has been lost or stolen. All take an absurdly long time -- 3 - 6 weeks to get delivered. There's no Express in Express Mail. Typically there is a gap of a week after the parcel leaves the USA before it turns up in Moscow. We've known parcels to circle the North Pole for up to three weeks. Whenever a parcel doesn't have an update for more than a week, we call USPS and start a search. For the past 3 years or so, we call USPS 100% of the time.

We rely heavily on the tracking number that Express Mail provides. Its the only benefit of the increased cost. Next time my wife is in Russia, she's going to have a chat with the folks at the post in Novosibirsk on why there's no "express" in Express Mail. The problem seems to be more in Moscow, though.

Started to vote, then realized I was ineligible, since we didn't meet over the internet. We met in real life, got to know each other thru emails. Been married 4 years now ...

About 10 days ago, one of my bridesmaids told me she no longer wanted to be in my wedding after she and I had a huge fight. She and my fiance don't get along very well, and I have known this for a while, but until the beginning of last week she seemed to be able to just keep quiet about this and help us celebrate our wedding. However, she seems to have changed her mind now. She brought back the bridesmaid's dress and shoes I bought her and told me to find someone else. I couldn't believe it! She left me with about 2 1/2 weeks (our wedding is a week from this Saturday) to find someone new to be a bridesmaid. My mom made me choose my sister, which I had NOT wanted to do for any number of reasons (first off, she is too large up top to fit in the dress, so we needed to get her a new one and then have it tailored).

Now my sister is being totally unbearable, and is demanding that she be made maid of honor since she's my sister. What's worse is my mom agrees! I have already had the same friend as my MOH since I got engaged in the spring, and it seems cruel to demote her now. Especially since I never wanted my sister in my wedding party in the first place! I know if I don't "promote" Rachel (my sister) to MOH, I won't have any rest from her or my mom, but if I "demote" Jen I will be doing something I don't want to do and I'll hurt her feelings.

Since many of my close friends are involved already in the wedding planning, I feel like I can't get an objective point of view on this, so I thought I could ask people here. So -- what would you do? I feel like I should stand my ground, but my fiance thinks I should go along with my mother and sister. Help!

What would I (we) do?

Dual proxy wedding. Try Montana. (Actually, this is exactly what we did.) No mess. No fuss. We didn't even have to turn up! Conclude the contract and move on toward real life.

Isn't it great to see American conservative organizations stand up for traditional American values, like Freedom of Religion?

While everyone wants a faster recovery than we are seeing, temp firms are doing well -- and they are a good leading indicator for employment. In particular, Adecco points to strong temporary hiring in the US.

The following is from today's Financial Times (pg 12)

Adecco rejects fears of slowing world economy as demand holds By Haig Simonian in Zurich Adecco, the world’s biggest temporary employment group, yesterday rejected fears of a slowing world economy, saying demand continued to remain strong in key markets such as the US. As it reported second-quarter results, it cited a disproportionately high demand for workers in industries such as automobile and aerospace sectors as evidence of the health of the global economy. Revenues at Adecco’s industrial division were up 24 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter, compared with a year-on-year rise of 5 per cent in the first quarter. “To date there is no evidence of a slowdown of business in the third quarter of 2010,” the group said. “Despite current concerns about the sustainability of the economic recovery, developments in the staffing industry continue to signal healthy demand and management is confident of strong revenue development near term.” Like rivals Manpower and Randstad, Adecco is seen as a bellwether of the world economy, because companies generally hire temporary staff before taking on full-time labour. Adecco is watched particularly closely, as more than 20 per cent of sales derive from the US, where concerns about the health of the economy have rekindled fears about a “double dip” recession. Adecco said strong growth in the second quarter had continued into July, with June’s 16 per cent rise in sales repeated the following month. “Business conditions in the second quarter improved considerably. We delivered strong growth in our main markets France and North America,” noted Patrick De Maeseneire, chief executive. Mr De Maeseneire acknowledged that employers were remaining cautious, by turning to “temping” groups first. Adecco shares fell more than 4 per cent to SFr53.30. Sales jumped 29 per cent to €4.65bn ($5.99bn) year-on-year. Adjusted for takeovers of MPS and Spring, and currencies, sales rose 13 per cent. Net profits jumped to €97m, compared with a €147m loss last time.

Last year -- wanting to find a new way to express nerdiness, I guess -- I compiled four kinds of weather records for Denver, Colorado: record high, record low, record low high (like, say, 45F for a summer day), and record high low for each date of the year. It was pretty easy, the records themselves in disaggregated form are readily available at the National Weather Service website. I then bined the data into decades and made frequency plots.

The frequency of all time lows was just about the same since records began for Denver in the 1870s. That is, we were about as likely to have an all-time low in the first decade of this century as in the 1880s.

But the all-time highs showed a very strong increasing trend. Beginning in the 1970s, the frequency of all-time high temperatures started to increase. It was higher in the 1980s, even higher in the 1990s, and highest in the first decade of this century. The frequency if record low highs and record high lows did not show a trend with time.

The dataset doesn't say anything at all about whether average temperatures in Denver are increasing. It does show that variability is increasing here, due to more frequent record hot events. This is consistent with prevailing theories of global change. It was an amusing exercise. I started similar analyses for Chicago and Tulsa -- the results looked similar but I got bored and moved on. Subsequently, I saw an abstract for a paper from folks at the National Weather Service who conducted the same sort of analysis for the nation. The trend I saw in Denver is robust throughout the western part of the United States, according to that abstract.

All this is consistent with the observations of original post: the frequency of extremely hot events is increasing.

There's not been much good news concerning the global recovery. Today's Financial Times describes a real problem for manufacturing companies -- but its a better problem to have than most they've seen the past few years. Manufacturers will need to work out these problems before they can end their investment strike and start putting accumulating profits, that they currently hoard, to work.

Businesses warn they may be held back Suppliers battling to increase production By Hal Weitzman in Chicago Large industrial companies around the world are defying fears of a "double-dip" recession, reporting signs of increasing strength in demand and striking a cautiously optimistic note about the growth of the global economy. Many industrial groups reported better-than-expected profits for the second quarter and raised their full-year growth forecasts. However, big manufacturers could be held back by their inability to secure vital components from supply chains weakened by the downturn and unable to increase production fast enough to meet demand. Caterpillar, FedEx and Honey-well in the US, Honda and Hitachi in Japan, and Siemens in Europe all raised their outlooks last week, while results from companies such as Boeing, Nissan, BASF and VW exceeded analysts' consensus forecasts. Yet some suppliers to large industrial multinationals that cut costs sharply in the early part of the downturn are finding it hard to increase production capacity rapidly, while many report that financing remains expensive and difficult to access. Manufacturing supply chains in the US and Europe are showing signs of straining to cope with demand. "The problems that suppliers are facing in this upturn are noticeably bigger than in the comparable stages of the recoveries we saw after previous recessions," said Daniel Corsten, a supply-chain expert at IE business school in Madrid. Some 51 per cent of big US manufacturers said they experienced "significant supply chain disruptions" in the second quarter, while 42 per cent of small and medium-sized suppliers said they had received queries or work from larger companies in need of urgent assistance because of supply chain problems, according to a survey by MFG.com  , an online marketplace for manufacturers. Caterpillar, the US-based maker of earth-moving equipment, said last week that many of its most popular products were not being made as quickly as it would like because suppliers had not increased production fast enough. Boeing, the US maker of aircraft, suggested it could struggle to meet demand for commercial aircraft over the next decade because its suppliers might not be able to raise their output accordingly. Supply chain difficulties appear to be particularly affecting electronic components such as semiconductors. Audi and Porsche, the German carmakers, were forced to slow production in some plants last month because their supplier of car radios, Harman Becker, was short of microchips. "Anybody in the electronic supply chain has seen the tightness around certain components," said Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric, last week. Keith Sherin, GE's chief financial officer, said "around $50m of revenue maybe got hung up at the end of the quarter in the supply chain". In response, some companies are building up buffer stocks of components to make sure they have them on hand.

Isn't the write-off a one year only event? The set-aside to cover the spill remediation and compensation will occur in this financial year, so won't their tax-dodge only be a one-year event, too? If not, it should be.

Sorry, Pooky, reality is going to make you mad: under US (and also UK) tax law, BP will be able to take these expenses out for four years. That is, in all likelihood BP will not be paying any US corporate income tax (or its analog in the UK) for four years.

The Financial Times reported on this in some detail (front page news) a few weeks ago, right after Obama met with BP's Chairman.

The fact that BP will be able to write off all of what they spend on their oil spill against their tax bill -- which will let them pay a income tax total $0.00 for the next three or four years looks a bit like a subsidy to me, given that this company has profits of tens of billions a year.

I find it strange that no one is saying maybe the one thing that will help this country financially and that is to stop spending so much. Now the main thing to do to stop spending so much is to reduce the government to levels that is supportable. Ok ok I know it is radical and all but just imagine the outcome if the government reduces to a size where their is no deficit at all and even better to have some surplus and pay down some debt. What does anyone think will happen?

luckytxn, and I agree with you and apparently with Lord Infamous that firm action will need to be taken regarding the deficit in the coming few years. The chief questions are when and how.

This string involves scaremongering that allowing the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy to die, as they should die, would kill the recovery. This is unlikely. In fact, those tax cuts should expire and the sooner the better. As I mentioned above, the large increase in money supply that has gone almost exclusively to the banks and to the rich is doing the real economy no good at all, because they are hoarding that money rather than putting it to work in investments that would speed the recovery. Increasing tax on that idle money will be a good step toward economic recovery. For sure, additional steps need to be taken.

It is most relevant here to point out that we have nearly 30 years of experimental data in this country that shows that cutting taxes to decrease the debt load of government does not work. The ratio of debt to GDP increased very substantially under Reagan and Bush I, then decreased under Clinton (who raised taxes in his first year of office) and then exploded again under Bush II who cut taxes and put together huge spending programs that were not paid for.

Here's something of an aside: It is a strange fact that, in the past 80 years of US economic history, amongst Presidents who served two terms, those who raised taxes in the first two years of their first term saw much better economic results (in terms of overall GDP growth, especially, but also in terms of lower unemployment and GDP per capita) than President's who cut taxes. This is a peculiar fact because no economic theory that I know of explains it. The blogger who showed this correlation (I'm regrettably to tired to find him now -- if it turns out to be a point of interest, I'll dig up some links in the next couple days) suggests that the increase in taxes serves as an indicator regarding the tolerance of that Presidency to tolerate corporate corruption. Now, we know that there was a big explosion of corporate corruption under Bush II but I don't know how robust the trend is if we go back and look at Reagan, Nixon/Ford, and Eisenhower. But this is an intriguing suggestion.

But this fact also might encourage Obama to allow those tax cuts to expire and to get his first tax increase on the books.

One source sez you got everything backwards.

"Underlying the government's report was an unusual economic crosscurrent: Corporate America is flourishing, investing heavily on new computers and other equipment. Meanwhile, many consumers are cutting their spending as they try to pare debts in the face of weak income gains, high unemployment and a shaky housing market.

Consumer spending rose a meager 1.6% in the second quarter, down from 1.9% in the first three months of the year, according to the Commerce Department."

http://www.latimes.c...0,6482212.story

Alien, you need to be careful when you try to refute someone. You claim, erroneously, that the fact that consumer spending rose by 1.6% last quarter contradicts my assertion that consumer spending is leading this recovery. I would be embarrassed if my refutations were as consistently wrong as yours. But then, we seem to be different in many regards.

Consumer spending rose in Q2, not by much, but it rose. This is consistent with what I wrote. The consumer is in fact leading this expansion and business -- more specifically, business investment -- remains on strike. It is true that many consumers are paying off debt, and this inhibits their ability to spend more. As more of us get our balance sheets under control, things will get better. Regrettably, this will be a very slow recovery, largely due to the fact that the stimulus in January '09 was much too small compared with the size of the problem. I think everyone is surprised at the magnitude and consequences of this financial crisis that was caused by government adherence to horribly misguided orthodox Republican economic policy. Should they regain control this fall, much worse will probably befall the economy. This is the biggest domestic risk, going forward.

The fact that business investment is on strike is probably a manifestation of the liquidity trap into which the nation is falling. Even though banks and the wealthy are awash with dollars created by the Fed as a part of their brave quantitative easing policies, those banks and wealthy individuals who got a hold of those dollars are hoarding them and not putting them to work. The Japanese experience shows us that liquidity traps are really hard to get out of, especially when governments are too timid, as Obama, intimidated by an effective Republican minority, is intimidated, into not engaging in effective fiscal policy that might lead out of the trap.

Now, to review some basic things you should have learned in college. (I assume you went to college -- maybe you didn't and inadequate educational opportunities is part of the problem here.) Many of us learned, in college, that the economy is very fruitfully modeled as having three spending streams. Consumer spending, business investment, and government spending. GDP = C + I + G. Consumers are doing what they can in the face of excessive indebtedness and high unemployment. Their spending is increasing. Fortunately, we have sufficiently intelligent government that G has increased very substantially in the short term. Later on, it will need to come into balance -- and this could be done in a good way by spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy. Investment spending remains very depressed. There are plenty of investment opportunities in this country, especially those related to creating a clean energy economy, that go unfunded because banks and investors remain on strike. It is a real pity. Later, perhaps, they will remember why they exist and start to serve their social function that also goes right to their own financial self-interest. By now they seem, as a whole, do be a bunch of sorry little girls afraid of the dark -- or something like that.

It is true that corporations are reporting very strong earnings. This further shows that business has a lot of capital that they could invest. But they are not doing so. The "I" part of the GDP identity remains far too close to zero. And, because of that timidity, the recovery will be a lot weaker than it would be if business exercise courage. But we don't expect that, do we: it is only something we expect from the long-term unemployed who are supposed to move from wherever they are where they can't find a job to some other place that also doesn't have jobs.

As reported in yesterday's NYTimes: "So far, the recovery is remarkably normal for a postfinancial-crisis recovery," said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor at Harvard and co-author, with Carmen M. Reinhart, of "This Time Is Different," an economic history of financial crises." What Rogoff refers to is that the consumer leads, in an anemic way for sure but nevertheless leads, the recovery and that business remains on strike. This is a typical consequence of financial crises.

Hmmmm -- Mawlison, I read the document apparently differently from you. Over 2/3 of the Afghan operation is included in the as-submitted budget. After the strategy changed, more money was requested, as an increase to the original on-budget amount: the total is still on budget. This is completely different than in the Bush years, when 100% of the wars were funded off-budget.

Can you show me where? I'm not saying you're wrong, but why would they need this war funding supplemental if everything's in the budget?

Start here: http://comptroller.d...011_m1o1rf1.pdf, specifically pg 1 of the Operations and Maintenance budget. At the end of last year, the President decided to change strategy in Afghanistan that involved a surge of troops. That surge was not in the FY 2010 budget. (I'm not going to debate here whether the surge is warranted.) I think that's part of why the supplemental funding was sought. Probably also DOD is so big and bloated, they can't keep track of what they spend and need supplementals to cover all of the opp's.

Notice that the FY11 request for Afghanistan is larger than the sum of FY10 and the FY10 supplemental. Unlike Bush, Obama is doing his best to fund the Afghan was on the budget, not off the budget. That honesty makes Obama's deficit projections look worse though.