The Week in PRE-view

It's Saturday! Time for the Week in Preview. Here is what is going to happen....

1. "Men Who Stare at Goats" tanks, but the program it is based on is real. Interestingly, the hottest toy this xmas season will also be a "mind flex" concept.

Interestingly, the actual program for the Clooney, et al. cine-bomb had this goal (really, I'm not making it up!): "One suggested application is a conception of the 'First Earth Battalion,' made up of 'warrior monks,' who will have mastered almost all the techniques under consideration by the committee, including the use of ESP, leaving their bodies at will, levitating, psychic healing, and walking through walls." YOUR. TAX. DOLLARS. AT. WORK!

2. HR 3962, the revised version of HR 3200, will not be voted on. Again. Even though it has been breathlessly scheduled for a vote every week for the past three. (To be fair, HR3962 itself is only about a week old. Here are the actions taken so far on 3962:

Oct 29th Introduced in House
Oct 29th Referred to House Natural Resources
Oct 29th Referred to House Rules
Oct 29th Referred to House Budget
Oct 29th Referred to House Oversight and Government Reform
Oct 29th Referred to House Judiciary
Oct 29th Referred to House Education and Labor
Oct 29th Referred to House Energy and Commerce
Oct 29th Referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Education and Labor, Ways and Means, Oversight and Government Reform, the Budget, Rules, Natural Resources, and the Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.

That's a lot of referring! No one has read it, but they refer it a lot)

(UPDATE: This prediction is ALREADY wrong. They voted, 220-215 to pass it...)

3. The House Ways and Means Committee will continue to sit on its own thumb, instead of voting on the Fair Tax. The form of the Fair Tax being considered in the 111th Congress is HR 25. How do I know it WON'T be voted on? Two words, the name of the chair of Ways and Means: Charles Rangel.

4. Tuesday, the 10th will be a big day in Washington, DC.
-Labor Department releases job openings and labor turnover survey for September, 10 a.m.;
-Senate Budget Committee hearing on bipartisan proposals for long-term fiscal stability;
-Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions;
-Senate Finance Committee hearing on climate change legislation and jobs;
-Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions subcommittee hearing on swine flu and paid sick days;
-Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on bank overdraft fees legislation.

The interesting event will be the Labor Department JOLTS report. Monthly job openings have been stuck at 2.4 million for a couple of months. That is about half, or less, the number you would expect even in bad times. As recently as January 2008 the number was 4.3 million. Nobody is hiring. If the number on the JOLTS report is not up from 2.4 million for September, Wall Street may catch cold.

And remember, you heard it here FIRST! KPC, your source for fabricated news.