Yes, John Edwards, There Are Indeed ‘Two Americas’
John Edwards was right: there are two Americas. No, I am not talking about the one with the hedge funds and the one with the girl with no coat. The real divide is between the political and economic, between those obsessed with politics and those determining our economic future.
In the former realm reside the politicians, political pundits, and the MSM reporters. In their world, Barack Obama is unblemished and riding “sky-high,” the stimulus was a political triumph, and the front page stories are the signing ceremony for the stimulus bill, Roland Burris’ potential perjury problems, and the prospects for new commerce and health and human services secretaries.
In the economic realm all of this is piffle. To recap: the ABC Consumer Comfort Index hit its lowest level in over 20 years this month and the Rasmussen Consumer Index also hit rock bottom (the day after the stimulus bill passed). Unemployment is at 7.6% and may well climb for at least another year. Even before yeaterday’s 300 point drop in the Dow, the markets had been diving. Since Election Day the Dow has plunged from 9600 to below 7600 (more than a 20% drop). And gold prices are soaring, a continued signal that confidence in the dollar and U.S. economy is waning.
In the print or TV political news the reporters ponder whether it was smart to have allowed Nancy Pelosi to draft the stimulus bill and whether the Republicans blew it by not climbing on the stimulus bandwagon. Watch the business news and the discussion is whether the markets have entirely lost faith in Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and if there is any place other than gold to park your money.
As an occasional guest to America (tourist) and a friend to the fundamental American values, I’m following these events closely, although of course that doesn’t give me an inalienable right to comment.
It is all too easy to bemoan the way things are going, and yet we must, because without sufficient motivation to alter course, the shining example that America has been could be tarnished beyond recognition. Have there been faults and stumbles? By all means, yes, as in every country, yet for decades the overall example that the United States has set has been – and you will forgive the naive expression – a force for good. I wish the people of the United States of America a better future than the one that currently seems most likely, and for my children, I hope the America they will live in the world with will be one to respect, not the horrible warning (again I say it sadly) the dis-United Kingdom – no longer Great Britain – is now.
There is a political America where those in power conficate the wealth from the unconnected to reward their connected cronies.
My car broke down because my mechanic lost confidence in Obama and is now charging more than I can afford to pay for the necessary repairs.
To be clear, my car did not break down because I drove it for 10 years without changing the oil or getting a tune-up, or because I used the wrong kind of gas or left it sitting in the driveway for three months in the middle of winter. And while it is true that my car has been making funny noises, stalling out at stop signs and spewing smoke from the tail pipe for the better part of two years, it didn’t start to have real problems until right around last November. And now it doesn’t run at all.
It’s not because of anything I did or didn’t do, and it’s not because I refused to invest in maintaining it properly. My car broke down because my mechanic lost confidence in Obama.
You guys are geniuses.
Thank you, Open Roads, for your sentimental comment. This country has led the way for many decades, one might say many centuries, onto the path of greater human achievement, prosperity, and happiness. Upon that path, many boulders have been stumbled over. Many different paths have been suggested. The paths that have subsequently been found too rocky have been plowed under as fertilizer and used, in an historical sense, as foundations to build upon. I, as an American (I’m just a good-old-boy hillbilly), welcome your comments and criticisms concerning our system, our capitalist mentality, and our society. Please voice your opinions freely!
ic: The real problem in this country is greed. Have a look at Tom Daschle. Personally, I just can’t get my head around rich folks who cheat on taxes. Nor can I get my hands around their necks! Why cheat on your taxes if you’re rich? Answer: Greed! Capitalists are greedy sonsabitches!
The whole mentality of, “I’m gonna get mine” is destroying this country.
A summary of Wall Street malefactors of great wealth:
John Thain:
From Wikipedia: “In December 2003, interim chairman John Reed at the New York Stock Exchange told The Wall Street Journal that Thain would be paid “a plain vanilla number”, about $4 million a year including bonus, with no “strange retirement” program like the one former NYSE CEO Dick Grasso was given.
Upon joining Merrill Lynch, Thain received a $15 million signing bonus. The firm announced that Thain would receive at least $50 million per year in compensation and could be paid as much as $120 million a year, based on the company’s stock price. The Associated Press in 2007 identified Thain as the best paid among the executives of S&P 500 companies, as he had received $83.1 million in compensation.
Thain suggested to directors that he receive a bonus in 2008 of as much as $10 million, because he “saved Merrill” by selling it off to Bank of America. After the compensation committee at Merrill resisted the request, Thain reportedly dropped his request on December 8, 2008″
HonestJon says: So, how much did this jackwad actually receive in “compensation?” How much was he worth to you? I’d just bet a little that it wasn’t a whole lot. What was he worth to our country?
From Wikipeida: “In the New York Times John Steele Gordon wrote an opinion criticizing Raines’ contribution to the 2008 financial crisis caused by the failure of Fannie Mae. “He cooked the books at Fannie to increase his compensation (more than $90 million).”
So Franklin Delano Raines made $90 million.
I propose that Mr. Raines wasn’t worth a used rubber on the side of the road!
Richard Fuld:
From Wikipedia:
“According to Equilar, an executive pay research company, Fuld earned about $45 million in 2007. From the years 1993 to 2007, he is reported to have received nearly half a billion dollars in total compensation. CNN named Fuld as one of the “Ten Most Wanted: Culprits of the Collapse” of the 2008 financial collapse in the United States, Fuld was number 9 on the list.”
“Salary: About 37,500,000 USD per year”
“In 2007 he received a $22 million bonus.”
“On November 10, 2008 Fuld sold his Florida mansion to his wife Kathleen for $100; this may protect the house from potential legal actions against him. They had bought it only 4 years earlier for $13.56 Million.”
“Religious beliefs: N/A” No shit!?!?
This whole episode in the inhumanity of man just makes me personally ill. I question how so many of these extremely avaricious “capitalists” can conceivably deign to bring the whole system of capitalism down with their unabashed greed. The economic systems of our country cannot function whenever some few deem themselves so valuable that they are worth more, individually, than some small countries.
So Mr. Fuld made more money for himself than I would in 100 years in one year. I hereby state that capitalism has gotten competely and totally out of hand and that no one is worth the kind of “compensation” that these “malefactors of great wealth” have been rewarded with.
I have a $2.00 rifle shell that could bring one of these jerks down at a time. (.300 Weatherby) If it comes to me standing in a bread line, or me Xing one of these jerks, I’m not just exactly sure who would come out ahead.
“And it is certainly true that the president’s own gloom and doom rhetoric has not helped matters.”
The shabbily educated and narcissistic Barack Obama is probably too ignorant to realize the damage he is causing. The man is gifted and possesses a high I.Q. Nonetheless, he could have cared less about reading and studying economic matters. Obama instead focused on how best to manipulate guilt-tripped whites and embittered blacks. He is merely a better looking and more sophisticated race hustler like Al Sharpton.
Please note that I am describing Obama as a narcissist. It finally has dawned on me that Obama is a very selfish individual. At the end of the day, he is concerned only about one thing: what’s in it for him? He is a Bill Clinton on steroids.
Capitalists may indeed be greedy, but never forget that capitalism allows you, the individual, to be greedy as well. The greatest fallacy of socialism (and there is a lot of competition for that), is that every fool assumes that the government will decide who is “deserving” in the same way that he does. It never does.
Perhaps, as one says above, capitalists “deem themselves valuable”, but at least they got to decide anything for themselves. Here’s a hint, why don’t you just decide that you are deserving of wealth, and then do something about it?
Naw, that would make you a capitalist.
This article makes incredible sense.. all I read on the blogs is Obama this and Obama that.. no one is talking about the economic crisis.. hell folks, when the dollar crashes (which it certainly looks like it is ready too) we are all done.. it is depression time. What irks the crap out of me is I think the Democrats take joy in this.. then I heard Peter Schiff (I am not plugging him just commenting) answer a caller asking this question and Peter said, “I don’t feel the Democrats don’t care, they are just horribly ignorant.” They simply do not understand economics. How could they understand? They are all products of Keynesian economics.. what a waste. I liked what Gerald Celente had to say about the coming depression. “We haven’t seen anything yet as far as an economic meltdown.. wait till we have a COMMERCIAL Real Estate crash.. it will make the Housing Mortgage market crash look like peanuts.” He is right. The commercial banks and REITS are up to the eyeballs in bad paper on these monster properties.. enough! Sorry to babble. Obama had better look out if he ignores the economy. He will be stupidest one-timer on record, possibly a candidate for an impeachment.
Dear Democrats,
Please let us know when you are done persecuting CEO’s and changing the business environment (spending, taxes, banking rules, regulations, monetary policy, etc…). When you are finished, we will assess the situation, create new plans, and start investing again. If you have screwed things up, those plans will include foreign investments and offshoring.
Thanks,
The Business World
Um…the economic troubles precede Obama’s election by at least a year.
Although, I agree there are two Americas. There’s the America where you work hard for your five-figure salary…
And the America where you can bankrupt your company and walk away with a multi-million dollar compensation package.
That’s not capitalism. That’s rip-offism.
“…the economic troubles precede Obama’s election by at least a year.”
Indeed they do. But that’s not a valid rationale for piling on yet another trillion dollars of debt.
If you woke up tomorrow with 80,000 dollars in unsecured credit card debt, what would your response be? To sign up for as many new credit cards as you could, max them out and start buying more stuff you don’t need?
Well, this is exactly what our nation has just done. Our nation is awash with debt, and the answer isn’t to go further into debt. The day China decides it doesn’t want to buy any more of our debt, and they’re tired of buying oil in dollars, the wheels are going to come off this economy. A tsunami of devalued dollars is going to come ashore and collapse the economy.
We should be cutting spending, and rolling back debt. It also means we can’t afford any more tax cuts.
“That’s not capitalism. That’s rip-offism.”
And it’s going to get much worse in the age of Obama. The political class is increasingly deciding the business winners and losers. This dramatically opens the door to massive corruption.
Jarhead91, where ya been for the last…oh, ten, fifteen years, brother? The business world already does the foreign investment/offshoring thing and has been for a long time.
Hell, I remember Public Enemy rapping about Nike back in the Clinton years.
“I like Nike but wait a minute/
The neighborhood supports so put some money in it.”
That’s from 91, dude!
I propose revising your letter to read the following:
“Dear Business World,
Stop screwing us over.
Love,
America”
Joshua, you’re missing the point. Yes, many mistakes have been made in the past, and our economy is in bad shape because of those mistakes. Obama was supposed to try to make things better, not worse. He bullied through a “stimulus” plan (using some pretty harsh scare tactics) that appears to be more pork than stimulus, and will increase our deficit spending to record depths for many years to come. The “economic” class in America has passed judgment on Obama’s “stimulus” plan, and it’s not good. Maybe they are wrong, maybe things will get better. Like the author says, though, what’s happening now with consumers and the market is predictive of future behavior. It doesn’t look good.
Liberals love jobs but hate the companies that create them. Oxi-Morons
Yes, there are two Americas.
One beleives in earning.
The other beleives in taking.
Can anyone explain to me why Obama’s poll numbers remain in the 60′s after this stimulus debacle? His questionable cabinet picks, and other missteps?
“It’s not because of anything I did or didn’t do, and it’s not because I refused to invest in maintaining it properly. My car broke down because my mechanic lost confidence in Obama.”
Not a good analogy, Joshua. I know people, and I am one of them, who are afraid to go out and spend money, thanks to our president and vice president who constantly remind us how the economy is tanking. I work for a company that is cancelling travel, again, because the higher ups are worried about the economy. Confidence in the economy DOES affect people’s behavior. And, once people stop buying and spending, there’s a cascading affect.
Maybe a better analogy would be that you don’t get needed repairs on your car because you don’t want to spend the money unless you have to, due to the poor economy. Your mechanic loses business and may have to lay off workers.
And, hey, I just learned that the stimulus package will encourage states to provide unemployment benefits to people who QUIT their jobs for a “compelling family reason.” We should expect to see a HUGE increase in the unemployed once word of this gets around, with people all of a sudden leaving work to care for a sick child (okay, he’s just got a cold…but, it’s a BAD cold). Still, a year on unemployment (26 weeks state, and 33 federal) is not bad, especially if you qualify for the maximum of about $600 per week. Why work if the government is willing to give you $600 a week for not working?
“Can anyone explain to me why Obama’s poll numbers remain in the 60’s after this stimulus debacle? His questionable cabinet picks, and other missteps?”
I submit those numbers have the same approximate veracity as the Treasury Department’s indicies. CPI, GDP, inflation, unemployment, etc. They’re all bogus, cooked-up numbers.
RE writes: “Yes, there are two Americas.
One beleives in earning.
The other beleives in taking.
You must be talking about the Red States who steal my Blue State’s federal taxes every April? Talk about spreading the wealth.
IlikeIke: Sure offshoring has been going on for a long-time. Americans are the best in the world at complex / intellectual jobs so those jobs stay here. But we are far too expensive to use for unskilled / semi-skilled jobs like assembly. Companies would go bankrupt if they hired thousands of unskilled union workers to assemble things like cars in the U.S. – woops.
If you have ever endured a SOX audit or seen the state and federal government seize 40% of your profits, you might think about greener pastures too. The Kennedy’s sure did when they moved their trusts offshore.
“Can anyone explain to me why Obama’s poll numbers remain in the 60’s after this stimulus debacle? His questionable cabinet picks, and other missteps?”
It’s all about white guilt and the black “it’s our turn” mentality. There is no sense in overcomplicating matters. It really is that simple.
Mary @13:
First of all, thank you for telling me that I’m missing the point.
This is a fiction that people are going to subscribe to by choice.
The economic health of the nation is not a brand, and it’s not a piece of modern art. An economy is an actual system of trade for goods and services, with a credit component. It’s like a car. Unlike brand names or the value of modern art, you can’t just destroy an economy by talking shit about it; in order for an economy to collapse it has to be broken.
The part of an economy that isn’t actually based on trade, the part that’s based on pure speculation above and beyond any rational growth projection, is a bubble — or a lot of bubbles, in which case it’s called fizz. Our economy has been getting fizzier every year for about 20 years. We’ve been mishandling our response to that situation since about 1994.
There is a hard bottom here — there’s a machine under all this fizz — and we need to find it. At the same time, we need to start repairing it with meaningful economic growth — as opposed to more fizz. I’m not actually convinced that Obama’s plans are going to be effective toward that goal.
But the notion that John McCain or a third Bush term or the resurrection of Ronald Reagan or whatever would do anything other than delay the inevitable and, essentially, necessary collapse of the fizz part of our economy is totally divorced from reality.
Honest Jon, I can’t believe you think Tom Daschle is a capitalist. The guy is a member of the political elite who has never made an honest buck in his life. He doesn’t refuse to pay his taxes because of greed. He refuses to pay his taxes because paying taxes is for little people. It’s his way of expressing his power and his contempt for ordinary Americans.
Yes, two Americas . . . one that does this kind of stuff
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/18/new-york-post-chimp-carto_n_167841.html
and one that doesn’t.
NY POst . . . tell me again, who owns that?
I was born in 1938 and this is what I feel, the only thing that can save America is the U.S. military.
There sure are two Americas, look at all those useful idiots cheering the signing of the largest pork spending bill in the history of this country. Then look at the stock market going south.Scary!
Steve P @ 19 says:
Why Steve, that’s not very enlightened of you. I mean this is a classic underlying philosophy of the left: taxes go the way they do, because government is moving it from those least deserving, to those that deserve more. Why are you so bitter about that? Let me remind you that it is Obama that wants to spread the wealth around. Funny how your kind likes this sort of thing when you are on the receiving end of the largesse (and also enjoy the schadenfruede when see others more successful than you fleeced), but gets pissed when it is you whom has to pay huh? envy & jealousy are truly crappy emotions to live your life by.
AlexinCT writes: “Why Steve, that’s not very enlightened of you. I mean this is a classic underlying philosophy of the left: taxes go the way they do, because government is moving it from those least deserving, to those that deserve more. Why are you so bitter about that? Let me remind you that it is Obama that wants to spread the wealth around. Funny how your kind likes this sort of thing when you are on the receiving end of the largesse (and also enjoy the schadenfruede when see others more successful than you fleeced), but gets pissed when it is you whom has to pay huh? envy & jealousy are truly crappy emotions to live your life by.
Bitter? I might be bitter if I had to live in that festering sore between New York and Rhode Island.
I’m just making the keen observation that the Republican politicians that seem to be blathering the loudest about “spreading the wealth” are those that represent states which benefit the most from the wealth being spread. But of course, hypocrisy is bread and butter to you folks.
It’s not just two Americas, it’s two worlds. The (political) “world” pretends to love 0bama for political (read: fashion) reasons, and the world markets, of which the American markets are among, don’t. The investors of the world are voting no confidence.
As for the political (read: fashion) world, they’ll get bored with their new superstar soon enough. He’s probably 9 minutes into his 15.
#16 jb
Of course his approval ratings are high. When discussing his ‘stimulus’ plan, BO and our one-party media only mention the benefits, but never the risks of the plan. If they mentioned trillion $ deficits, the risk of hyper-inflation, falling dollar, higher taxes real soon and oh yeah more bank bailouts are coming, his approval ratings would be in the tank. As the average person hears it, the plan will solve everything with no downside.
“Can anyone explain to me why Obama’s poll numbers remain in the 60’s after this stimulus debacle? His questionable cabinet picks, and other missteps?”
I recommend Rasmussen’s Obama Approval Index for a closer look. Obama’s overall approval is still in the sixties but has dropped from 65% to 61%.
More interestingly, though, is difference between those who strongly approve and those who strongly has dropped from 28 to 14. This means that those who approve of Obama no longer do so as strongly, and those who disapprove are shifting to strong disapproval.
Ms. Rubin:
” But perhaps the chattering political class would do well now to turn off Hardball and Anderson Cooper 360 and watch the business news for a few hours each week. There they will see the people who, to a much larger degree than they ever imagined, control the progress of the economy. And they will see that those people — investors, CEOs, and economic analysts — are giving thumbs down so far on both the rhetoric and the “accomplishments” of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress.”
True enough…but to be fair about it, weren’t these same business networks a few years ago ready to cough up a kidney to slobber all over Citibank and others of their ilk’s, knobs?
You know that they were.
So now instead of broadcasting “Irrational Exuberance”, they bleat “Unreasoning Despair”.
The business networks are as full of sh*t as the rest of the media.
That was one of the problems that got us into this mess.
None of those financial news types ever seemed to ask the latest “Great Man of Business” to share exactly who would be buying a house whose price kept increasing by 20% a year.
So a business reporter who can’t dope out a real-estate based Ponzi scheme when it’s staring him in the face ain’t much use to anyone, other than as a cautionary tale.
Wanna discuss the dot-bomb?
Steve P. – Easy solution – stop voting for wealth spreaders.
the pollsters are obamabots as well…..manipulated like the rest of MSM.
#33 Jarhead91:
“Steve P. – Easy solution – stop voting for wealth spreaders.”
Easier solution- emigrate.
“He will NOT be missed”
Jarhead91 says: “Steve P. – Easy solution – stop voting for wealth spreaders.”
Well, the easy solution is usually the wrong one; i.e., tax cuts and tax credits alone will fix the economy. I have no problem giving my tax money to Red Staters if it will result in a more perfect union. I do have a problem with a bunch of slack-jawed morons screaming “Stop spredding tha welth!!!!1!”, when, if they actually sat down and reviewed their own state’s taxation structure (a tall order, I know), they would realize that far and away it is they who are benefiting.
As far as I am concerned, BHO is content to say, “I do not see life the way Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan and Bat Yeor, sees it”. Well, why then is he content in using the same approach in Afghanistan to effect changes?
Military means, as well as diplomacy and development have been tried in Afghanistan. Well, frankly they are not enough to wean the bulk of Afghani’s from hatred of where Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan and Bat Yeor are coming from.
Has is occurred to anyone that the race card figures into the approval ratings? How many do you suppose don’t like what’s going down, but don’t want to appear “racist” when talking to a stranger? How else do you explain that 0bama’s numbers are so much higher than Reid and Pelosi’s, when they’re all on the same exact page?
Bilgeman:Easier solution- emigrate.
“He will NOT be missed”
Emigrate?? Are you kidding? I have a great job in the private sector, a great home in an awesome city, but more than that, we have a Democrat President and a Democrat-controlled congrss! These next few years are going to be a blast for me!
Jennifer, with all due respect….I disagree. From my viewpoint in the cf bleachers, there are three Americas.
1)Stealth Overthrow America. This consists of people who intentionally abuse the truth, distort facts, create an underground “refiltering” of news and then feed it to the masses through the Holy Trinity of Slander (entrenched media, Hollywood, academia). Once they have seized power through their duplicity, deceptions and distortions…they move with all due speed to expand that power base and to manufacture the “need” for their expansion. There are people in this country who live to trash it, who love to berate it…it makes them feel so alive…to be counterculture and revolutionary. The high art of hating your own country and wanting to destroy it. There are others who want so badly to be metrosexual, metropolitical, metrosocial…that they wish to impose Euro-elitism upon the great unwashed.
Sort of Bill Ayers meets Coco Chanel.
2)Dupes, Dopes and Dips. These are the poor lost fools who want to sit at the cool kids’ lunch table. They would rather be regarded as being on the “approved” side of an issue than to think for themselves. When forced to defend a position they clearly don’t understand, their responses are vacuous and stupefyingly dim. Which is why they resort almost immediately to stereotyping, puerile and crass ad hominem attacks, and often find themselves hog-tied in a noose of hypocrisy of their own making. Useful idiots on steroids, these mindless lemmings would regurgitate anything that was fed to them by the Stealth Masters through the Trinity of Slander.
3)The Resistance. There are a number of people who have decided to try to fight for truth, try to “unfilter” the propaganda. Conservatives are the target of the derision of the two groups above…but there are a number of independents, moderates, centrists, libertarians and “issue-ists” who simply see the Stealth Overthrow movement for what it is and they have joined the resistance. Not enough, though. We are currently losing ground. Slander is winning. We are in a fight for the heart of America, for freedom from ONE PARTY rule. From rampant leftism and a loss of our information stream. We are facting for honest facts. And we are losing.
There are three Americas…and if Stealth Overthrow wins…there will be none. We will have lost America and what comes after her…will be unrecognizable.
Steve P @ 28 says:
Bitter indeed! If I might console you, let me point out that I feel the entire north east has become a sore on this nation. Just like every other place where the left has held constant power.
Steve P @ 28 says:
And I was pointing out that leftist twits like you, whom are defending the idiots that want to spread the wealth and the ideology that is responsible for spreading the wealth, seem to be the ones to show the basest and vilest of emotions: anger, greed, envy, and jealousy. Yet, you tell us we should trust your kind with power.
Stop worrying about the splinter in other people’s eyes, and pull that beam out of yours, dude. In case you do not know what I mean, it is me ridiculing your accusation that it is the other side that are the hypocrites, when leftists have been giving Nobel prizes for their hypocrisy. If you truly believed in your flawed ideology, you would not be begrudging these states that get money, from as you put it, your blue states, but actually happy to be a contributor. After all, Biden told us that’s our duty as patriots!
GED @ 34, I had a pollster call me, but when I began correcting their biased and loaded questions, intend of course to force you to answer in the positive for Obama, democrats, and this patronage bill, they hung up. All you need to do is look at the questions that they ask – how they are constructed and what response they basically are driving to – and you can predict the result of the poll. It is obvious to me why Obama’s numbers are staying high after dealing with that poll.
Calss clown: No capitalist ever had the greed ot the power lust of an empowered totalitarian clique of seated politicians.
Actual unemployment rate 13.9%
The figure, which largely accounts for people who have stopped looking for work or can’t find full-time jobs, is the highest since the Labor Department started the data series in 1994.
the “U-6″ for its Bureau of Labor Statistics classification.
.
Is dissent still patriotic?
#39 SteveP:
“Emigrate?? Are you kidding? I have a great job in the private sector, a great home in an awesome city, but more than that, we have a Democrat President and a Democrat-controlled congrss! These next few years are going to be a blast for me!”
Then why do you sound as though your hemorrhoid ointment is no longer cuttin’ it?
“Can anyone explain to me why Obama’s poll numbers remain in the 60’s after this stimulus debacle? His questionable cabinet picks, and other missteps?”
The majority of idiots still get their news from CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, NYT, LAT, etc., who are nothing but Obama apologist and cheerleaders. Those same idiots will start to ‘get it’ when all the free stuff, courtesy of government borrowing, begins to disappear.
Slathering:
We get it – that is why the majority voted for Obama and continue to support him. You are the one who does not get it
4. “The real problem in this country is greed. ”
The real problem in this country is the mainstream media. They made Obama. Only their overwhelming propaganda, lies by omission and disinformation could have enabled this left-wing radical with virtually no executive experience to become President. Just as bad, they keep the majority of the U.S. ignorant as they focus exclusively on the “polictical realm” instead of the economic as Ms. Rubin effectively describes. This allows the left-wing radicals that are now running this country to turn it into a bankrupt, banana republic. They are just getting started. It is happening as we speak and cannot be stopped.
cfbleachers @40. Exactly, and well said.
Re #15 – obviously, neither of your two Americas “believes” in spelling.
16. jb: “Can anyone explain to me why Obama’s poll numbers remain in the 60’s after this stimulus debacle? His questionable cabinet picks, and other missteps?”
Take a statistics course and you will see how easily numbers can be manipulated to show what you want them to. Most samplings for these polls are from very few people and they pick and choose who they will sample.
The simple statiscal sampling of pulling socks from a drawer to see how many blue socks you will get for every 100 you grab can be skewed if you load the drawer with blue socks!
%): Cheap shot. Why do you not address his point? Typical.
jcrue – I think I’m going to go to hippytown and see if I can still find a “dissent is the highest form of patriotism” bumper sticker. And put it next to my “nobama” bumper sticker.
Steve P @ 19 says:
You must be talking about the Red States who steal my Blue State’s federal taxes every April? Talk about spreading the wealth.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/election/uscounties.html
As you can see there is red all over this nation! The blue is the big cities and where does most of the “spread the wealth” money go? You guessed it–cities.
Left Far Left:
You are correct about one thing, you are already “getting it”. Whether you’re bright enough to realize what you are “getting” may be quite another matter.
\
Ms Attitude. Using truth on a idiot still leaves Steve P an idiot as he is a mindless drooling leftest and does not care about the truth.
MS. Attitude: How right you are. Brava.
And this is the game:
!) Regurgitate some fabricated straw man or a non sequitur created by Left Wing propagandists and circulated by the MSM, one fabricated just for tools like this. The straw man is generally either a outright lie or a misstatement of facts.
2) Throw it out to obscure or hijack the discussion–a defection or distraction technique.
3) Completely avoid the topic at hand.
4) Strut around like they actually have had an idea or know something about logic, febate or critical thought.
5) When called on it, start with the invective and personal attacks. The lefty then projects his self loathing on the anyone that calls him on it. This is usually accompanied by this bizarre narcissistic attitude that their opinions about people have any meaning to anyone but themselves.
Rinse and repeat, and in the next iteration, move the goal posts if you have to.
Standard MO of the Left and their useful idiots. Only the propagandists that actually generate the straw men in step #1 seem capable of any other rhetorical ploy, abd these ploys are just as dishonest.
We need to start calling them on it at every opportunity. They have gotten away with it for far too long.
The sad thing about people like this, as per cfbleachers’ comment at #40, is that they will never get a place at the table. They imagine that they will win something from the elites for the subservience, but they will just get table crumbs. They will lose what is left of their self respect. It will just take them until middle age to figure it out.
I have seen this happen for decades now. It is so predictable.
febate-debate
J. Rockford: “This allows the left-wing radicals that are now running this country to turn it into a bankrupt, banana republic. They are just getting started. It is happening as we speak and cannot be stopped.”
The last eight years of Republican ineptitude already ran this country into becoming a bankrupt banana republic. Now even Alan Greenspan is saying we’ve got to nationalize the banks because of the Bush admin’s collosal screw ups. And yet moronic Republicans are still screaming “Stop tha Soshulizum!!11!! as if they weren’t the ones resposible for getting us into this catastrophe and as if they have a better plan. I can’t wait until the Stimulus starts creating jobs. You won’t see a Republican get elected until 2050.
What happened to turn the 1960′s “anti-establishment” youth and rock bands into such big-government Obama supporters?
There was a brief capital investment and small business expansion “strike” at the beginning of Bill Clinton’s first term due to fear that a new Democratic President, and a Democratic Congress, would do what President Obama and the current Democratic Congress are doing now. This fear was reasonable given their experience with the Carter administration.
This 1993 capital investment/small business expansion “strike” was only brief because President Clinton’s policies and statements showed that he would not let the Democratic Congress inhibit returns on capital and small business entrepeneurial sweat investment.
Clinton did not face a major economic downturn just as he was taking office.
President Obama is facing such a downturn right away, but he and the Democratic Congress are both sending every possible signal that they will penalize capital investment and small business expansion, through bad-mouthing, dramatic increases in regulation, diversion of available capital into economically useless but politically rewarding government spending (which drives up the cost of capital for productive investment), and ultimately higher taxes.
The major slammer on unemployment this month has not been due to workers being fired, but to workers not being hired. There is normally considerable turnover with new hirings replacing terminations, but new hiring has really gone down such that a relatively small increase in terminations seems to be, but isn’t, driving greatly reduced unemployment. The real factor here is that new hiring has dropped off a cliff.
And this will be the pattern for Obama’s first term. Hiring by private employers, aka large and small businesses, will go down and, even when it evens out, not resume at Bush adminstration levels.
Small businessmen and capital investors simply will not risk their capital, or their own sweat equity, at pre-Obama administration levels because of government policies that reduce or inhibit their potential return on investment.
Obama is making the mistake that Bill Clinton avoided. His unwillingness to confront the excesses of a Democraatic Congress makes things worse.
This looks very much to me like a return to the Carter administration’s record of economic failure.
After Clinton and Bush I didn’t think it would get worse, but this is worse. Obama and Congress can only be described as delusional. I have concluded and am preparing for the hyper inflationary depression disaster that is now certainly our fate.
23. Cousin Dave: Tom Daschle certainly “capitalised” on his political connections to the tune of $5 million. Personally, I’ve hated that guy for years. I saw him on Meet The Press years ago and the way he spoke was so condescending (he was talking like he was speaking to a class of fourth-graders) made me permanently despise him.
48. J. Rockford:
I respectfully disagreee that the main problem is the media. Sure, it is a problem (let there be no doubt).
But here’s the way I look at it. Part of this financial disaster was government’s fault for attempting social engineering in teerms of forcing banks to lend to unworthy borrowers; part was the greedy corporations fault for not paying their employees enough to keep their homes; part was the fault of the greedy people who wanted (or felt like they were entitled to)a McMansion that they couldn’t afford. With all of that in mind, if just a few waves hit the boat from the side, the whole boat gets rocked. And we’re all in the same boat.
regards
Steve P:
I wish well in your great private sector job, and great house in a great city when they all tank because there isn’t enough energy to go around because your Democratic President and Congress have financially ruined all of the energy sector. This conservative rube who could at least read the writing on the wall will be laughing all the way to his “arcs and sparks” building to check on the amount of energy his solar panels and wind turbine produced for the day. When that task is done I’ll go out to my four season green-house and pick what vegetables I need and then visit the orchard for fruits. I’d invite you over for a visit but I figure I’ll have to take care of some of my family who thought I was nuts moving to the out back when their city lives crash because of your great Democratic President and Congress.
59. Steve P.:
You fail to mention that the WSJ mentions that Greenspan’s book states, “Mr. Greenspan returns repeatedly to the far-reaching importance of communism’s collapse. He says it discredited central planning throughout the world and inspired China and later India to throw off socialist policies.”
Yet you voted in a president that is for socialism.
And you fail to see that just because Bush did not “veto some bills to curb “out-of-control” spending while the Republicans controlled Congress” does not mean that the voting Republicans were for the bills. You like to lump all Republicans into a pile and call us the same. Many Republicans call Bush the most socialist Repbulican President ever. But just because he was doesn’t mean we are, get it? We do not support socialism from any President and now we have one that is 100 times more socialist than Bush ever dreamed of being.
You try to make Obama look good by pointing out flaws in Bush. This approach does not make sense. If Bush made such bad decisions why does Obama make the same decisions x10? And why does Obama keep harping on Bush? Obama is the President now, he should just shut up and work, stop campaigning. That’s what we are paying him to do.
The last eight years of Republican ineptitude already ran this country into becoming a bankrupt banana republic.
As usual, you have your facts completely wrong. This is mostly a Democrat debacle.
This “crisis” is due to the stealth Marxist redistribution policies and legislation that the democrats hatched up in the 1990′s through today, the primary one of these being the CRA, and the derivatives (called Mortgage back securities or MBS) and the psuedo-insurance instruments (really almost derivatives in and of themselves) called credit default swaps (or CDS) that were used to “insure” CDS’s. Some mechanism had to be used to mitigate risk, after all.
Add to this the outrageous behavior of Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac, and the stage was set. Note that Freddy and Fannie are notorious Democrat strongholds and patronage networks, as are all most all government and semi government institutions. Democrats elites rarely work for a living, that is for the taxpayer. Goerlick was there as a very senior exec. Rahm was a director. In fact he was there when they outright lied about their financial positions. These subprimes almost all went to Democrat, minority constituents in key democrat fiefdoms (BTW, Obama himself was part of a law suit against Citi to force them to make subprime loans)
Now, add questionable legislation that repealed barriers like the Glass Steagsl Act which had previously set up a wall between banks, investment brokers and insurance companies in the securities and derivative instruments markets. The Clinton administration pushed hard for this, employing Robert Rubin, the former Sec. of the Treasury as a lobbyist. Sandy Weil, the major share holder and head of CitiGroup push hard for this. (note that Rubon got a top job at Citi when he left the Clinton administration and made millions down there over the last decade. This was his reward from Citi for his help, one imagines.) This placed a lot of capital at risk. (BTW, conservative were not as a group very happy about this at all repealing Glass-Steagal when it happened, they predicted something like this would happen). To be fair, Phil Gramm was also involved in this.
Now add some very dubious and apparently corrupt regulators for the SEC and the self regulating trade organization in the securities industries (and almost all of these folks are Democrats by the way). Somethings were overlook, and the mark to market rules were reinstated. (and why woudk they do this?)
Now, you must remember that most of the management in these firms are Democrats, some of them high level insiders in the national Democrat political machine. Wall St. is a big Democrat playground. They gave Obama hundreds of millions of dollars. It is not true that it is dominated by Republicans. That is just Democrat lie. The regulators are mostly Democrats, the Government side execs are mostly Democrat. OH, and no one really knows what Greenspan;s real political affiliation, but his wife is a hard core liberal Democrat in the MSM. Most of the firms that are getting the bailout funds on wall st. have a huge contingent of Democrat insiders on their executive teams, or former employees that are now in the government.
Now, “mysteriously” this whole mess gets triggered by an abrupt withdrawal of over half a trillion dollars and the whole ponzi scheme comes apart. Weirdly, Obama was down in the polls when this happened.
Anyway, irrespective of whether or not this crisis was actually triggered for Obama’s political gain, this is the point:
1) It is mostly a Democrat affair
2) Bush and GOP senators tried to reform the whole mess several times. They were rebuffed by the Democrats, and they were particularly stall by them from2006 onwards when they had controlling majorities in both houses. Even when they did not the political climate nade it almost impossible to do something about it. Remeber, this requires Congress to act.
3) There certainly is some opportunism on the business side of this (and at Fannie and Freddy) but these people and institutions are mostly Democrats or have Democrat tilted managers.
4) The main immediate benefactors are these elite, mostly democrat, intitutions who are essentially having the taxpayer take bad assets off their hands
5) Obama has way overblown this crisis for political gain, most particularly ramming through this stimulus bill. This has furthered destroyed billions of dollars of capital. He has also refused it change some simple accounting rules that would stem the tide.
So this is all mostly the fault of the Democrat party, not Bush. Bush, however, is to blame for letting Paulsen and Co. spook him into the first bailout. This is squarely on his shoulders.
So, yet again, you put out a fabricated straw man, fabricated by one of your “socialist Masters”, and you do it to deflect blame from the Democrats, their corruption and their Socialist policies.
This is intellectually dishonest of you and thus immoral.
It is typical of your ever utterance on PJM.
#61 Tom Holsinger:
“This looks very much to me like a return to the Carter administration’s record of economic failure.”
Aye…though it’s been rebranded as “HOPE for CHANGE We can BELIEVE in!”
It’s not as catchy as “Stagflation”, but let’s face it, Carter didn’t have any “bling” whatsoever, so he needed all the help he could get.
40. cfbleachers:
Close; But as I see it; North America, South America, and an emerging Obama Religion of worshipers that are comprising the third America. These new militants are positioning for takeover on what’s going to be left of North America. It’s jihad for Obama.
#66 Mongoose:
“Now, “mysteriously” this whole mess gets triggered by an abrupt withdrawal of over half a trillion dollars and the whole ponzi scheme comes apart. Weirdly, Obama was down in the polls when this happened.”
Are you alleging a financial equivalent of a deliberate Reichstag Fire?
Don’t blame me, I voted for the American!
Republicans have almost no credibility given the last eight year they’ve managed things. Republicans had their chance and they screwed up big time.
Yeah, the big investors of the world really showed how smart, wise and responsible they’ve been the past several years…..
Bilgeman: No not really, or no more than the discussions that have been going on around financial sites. I beilieve that there are pen questions, and so it is still “mysterious” until those questions are answered..
I think it is an open question though, given the timing.
It should be formally investigated, but I am sure that will not happen.
Something is odd about it all.
Joshua, I think a better analogy is that you took your car to the mechanic because the engine was sputtering and he told you that you need a new set of tires.
Wouldn’t you lose confidence in your mechanic?
Mongoose–
The repeal of Glass-Steagall had diddle to do with the mortgage lending crisis. At the time of its final, very belated, demise banks were already in every securities business worth mentioning through subsidiaries. All the repeal of G-S did was unencumber banks from a lot of needless red tape and structural impediments to moving capital around. Since the Thirties, banks have been separately capitalized, regulated and administered. That is still the case today. Don’t buy the Mediacrat meme about “laissez-faire capitalism”; it’s total B.S.
If you blame media for bad stuff that has happened or is going to happen to you, fight back. Cancel your print and cable media. You won’t believe how much freerer you will be and how much it will help your cause.
16. jb:
Can anyone explain to me why Obama’s poll numbers remain in the 60’s after this stimulus debacle? His questionable cabinet picks, and other missteps?
jb: your answer: kool-aid and the media
I have to shake my head at the people that, falsely mind you, blame the 8 years of Bush for our current economic crisis. Our economy tanked just a year after the 2006 elections when democrats took over Congress. They then, in preparation for the 2008 election, said and did things that helped precipitate another item of their make: the Freddie & Fannie mortgage loan repackaging disasters. Because of PC (collectivist social engineering) regulations passed by democrats starting back in the Carter years, compounded during the Clinton years, and protected with accusations of racism for anyone that pointed out their potential for an economic collapse during the Bush years, banks where forced to loan an enormous amount of money to people that basically could never pay it back. I do not believe that we ended up with this economic crisis by accident and in an election year where all the democrats had was “we hate Bush”. Remember that democrats do a lot better at the poll when the economy is bad for some unexplainable reason.
They might pretend that the problem was deregulation, Wall Street, or even the spending during the Bush years, but this is all smoke and mirrors. For one it is obvious that the Freddie & Fannie catastrophe was because of PC regulation, not any lack of regulation or deregulation. In fact Franks & Dodd played goal keeper, with help of the MSM of course, and made sure no regulation that would affect their ideological cash cow was passed. And the big fat cats the democrats complain about on Wall Street, by huge percentages, contributed and continue to contribute to democrats. When you are a giant conglomerate and make a ton of cash, the dirty little secret the left hides real well, is that you go to democrats to get them to pass legislation to crush your competition and keep you raking in the cash. Of course, they expect big donations in return as I already mentioned. Finally, congress during the Bush years spend like democrats would, pissing off conservatives, because they felt it was needed to counter act the economic effects of the 9-11 attacks.
Anyway, now all these democrats do is complain that Bush spend money like they would have, and pretend that’s why the economy tanked. And the crazy thing is that they are telling us that the solution to the bad economy they claimed was caused by the overspending during the Bush years isn’t to tighten our belts, but to borrow (meaning print new money) in one shot more money than the Bush congress tacked on to the annual spending bills they passed, and to then have that money funneled to democrat favoring causes & people masquerading a patronage bill as an economic stimulus bill! And they then bristle and get angry when you point that out. How big of a hypocrite do you have to be to pull this kind of stuff off?
The problem we have is that liberals think our economic problems are caused because government has not taxed the people they dislike enough and spread that wealth in a way that levels the field, while real conservatives think government taxes too much and should be spending less. Republicans threw away a perfect chance to cut government spending when they ran things, but democrats are now selling us a sh*t sandwich when they claim that the economic solution, this faux stimulus, is to print trillions of dollars (they are not done yet), not to address the economy, but to help them use that cash to buy elections.
Bush and the republican congress might have been irresponsible, but what the democrats are doing now will make people pine for the Bush years soon. Those of us that lived through the Carter years are about to be reminded why he is the worst president of the last century.
Mongoose, your loose grip on the facts and reality continues to amaze.
CRA regulated loans had virtually nothing to do with the current crisis. Despite CRA-regulated banks doing the bulk of regular loans, 50% of sub-prime loans – which make up the bulk the “toxic mortgages” – were issued by banks entirely free of CRA regulation, and a further 20-25% were issued by departments of CRA-regulated banks that were free of CRA regulations. The remaining 25-30%, while performed by regulated banks, were almost certainly illegal given the strict nature of the CRA and the requirements for collateral it imposes.
C’mon now. Don’t tell me that “lusting in my heart” wasn’t the most brilliant political turn-on invented to date then. That phrase got him elected. I mean, who wanted bald, bland, clumsy Ford, when you could have Dr. Lust?
A better analogy yet would be that you took your car to the mechanic because the engine was sputtering and he handed you a skate board, and a bill for it, and told you you didn’t have a choice but to “buy” it. And oh, btw, he’ll keep the car.
Mongoose 66
That is one of the best descriptions of the current mess I have read and will re-read.
Thanks.
Great article but you need`nt have written the last paragraph.
The dems will only propose more `stimulus` bills to cover their collective a**es.
Communism`s only goal is to crush the masses and kill the human spirit. That`s what Pres Teleprompter is all about.
Go ahead, laugh. You`ll see what he has in store for us.
American voters are such dopes
CAPITALISM = FREEDOM and PROSPERITY
SOCIALISM = POVERTY and DESPAIR
Steve P. writes:
“Mongoose, your loose grip on the facts and reality continues to amaze.
CRA regulated loans had virtually nothing to do with the current crisis.”
Huh? Pot, kettle, black, grip on the facts, In touch with reality? Near-verical rise in housing 2002-2006, attendant ensuing “slide” because housing soars out of sight? Put down that Kool-aid and step away from the counter.
Sorry, but reality is a bitch.
..er, that should be “..because housing fails to continue to soar out of sight..”
Fresh air: you are not quite right about that.
First, if prior to the repeal they were moving capital or other asset around between their banks, insurance conpanies and their ” broker subsidiaries” to trade, or back or market derivatives, or as part of some sort of securities lending/custodial scheme, or to otherwise deal in the securities or capital market they were breaking the law. Several. Those deposits on the banking side are FDCI insured deposits. The insurance side had its own restraints and firewalls too when it came to pension annuities, etc.
But apropos of this crisis, the scope of the assets that were spread out in those derivatives, explicitly or implicitly in other related instruments, and the huge size of in general of the portfolios and capital pools greatly exacerbated the crisis when some assets had to be redeemed to cover positions. Thus the kerfuffle on that huge draw down in mony markets that we are told was the trigger. But it also had to be an issue when all that shorting started too. Also, the notion of the CDS itself, particularity out insurance, or insurance like firms added to the lack of transparency. In general, the regional consolation during that period did not help matter much either. Grant the latter two are indirect effects.
So I feel you are taking a narrow view here, and perhaps miss the point of the repeal as far as the big, money center banks go. Remember it was not just banks getting into the pool, it was insurance companies too. Citi (with the former Travelers Ins group.) and AIG are examples of this.
It is a profound more hazard to take FDCI deposits and use them in your arbitrage pool on the brokerage/trading desk side. If we are going to be “laissez-faire” then let us do so across the board. It is rather absurd to talk about laissez-faire capitalism in what after health care is perhaps the most regulated sector in the world, paritcuarly with the implied rescue by the taxpayer of these lare insitutions that are “too big to fail”
The repeal of GS had a great deal to do with some of them getting “too bug to fail”.
Good article Ms. Rubin. I just want to point out a few things in regards to gold and the dollar.
Gold is being bought as a safe haven. The recent rally really took off as European banks have melted down. The dollar has risen a ton against the euro.
IN context when gold made it high of 1043. Which is 1050. in the current front month april gold future. the price of Gold in euros n the same contract hit a high of 696 euros. Todays april gold future closed at 982.10 dollars. It closed at about 784. euros. 88 euros higher than last year when the old high was made while the april gold in dollars is still 68 dollar lower than that same high.
The world is running to gold more thna anything. Though the US even under the enept polital culture is not going to see a lower dollar.
The reality is the dollar will bounce arouund but it is going higher against the major currencies over the net year at least.
SO i guess as a journalist you should include yourself in the not understanding the markets.
I am continually amazed at the oft repeated line, “Obama’s so intelligent”. What I have read lends credence to his IQ being between 120 and 140, probably more to the low side. This makes probably only 30 or 40 million Americans more intelligent than he is. He does read a teleprompter well and he certainly has been coached by the liberal left well, but highly intelligent, smarter than Bush, etc.; I suspect not. I suspect that Sarah Palin is much more intelligent than BHO and she has actually worked for a living and held an executive position.
CRA regulated loans had virtually nothing to do with the current crisis.
A few months ago when the wheels were coming off the economy my wife and I decided to apply for a loan at the bank (Wells Fargo). The guy explained to me that even though WF made less risky choices than some other banks, they still had a policy of fulfilling racial quotas for loans.
Can you posit a plausible explanation for this (other than that the lender was lying, give me a break). I can. CRA or no, the banks were politically pressured by Communitay Activists into making loans they would not have otherwise made (also known as a ‘shitty investment’). And thus the mess we are in today.
Stece P:
CRA regulated loans had virtually nothing to do with the current crisis. Despite CRA-regulated banks doing the bulk of regular loans, 50% of sub-prime loans – which make up the bulk the “toxic mortgages” – were issued by banks entirely free of CRA regulation, and a further 20-25% were issued by departments of CRA-regulated banks that were free of CRA regulations. The remaining 25-30%, while performed by regulated banks, were almost certainly illegal given the strict nature of the CRA and the requirements for collateral it imposes.
At best that is wishful thinking. but what you are doing is just parroting some lying of propaganda coming out of the Democrat to obscure the issue.
You completely ignore the MBS derivatives that were used to cover the risk, or the CDS scam that was used to cover them. You ignore all the regulatory hanky panky at the GSE’s. I do not know where you even get what you present as “facts” but i am sure there is some sort of misstatement or omission.
Steve_P, the banks fought like tooth and nail to avoid this before the CRA was out. The government litigated or threaten to litigate. You assertion are not even common sensical. No bank makes bad loans unless it has too. The toxic asset people are talking about are not just the loans themselves. How could 5% of real estate loans in the country in and of itself cause these sort of problems? Use your brain. what we are talking about are massive shocks to capital markets that causes huge solvency and credit problems way in exceed of the original actual sub prime loans themselves. And these are a result of government intervantion.
You have not the slightest idea how capital markets work. And your rebuttal is completely off the mark. It is comic. What else caused the crisis?
This is not even debatable, go onto technical financial sites without political discussions and have a look. What do your think all the government intervention this fall is about? Do you even listen to what the finacial people are talking about? What do you think these “toxic assets” are that they are talking about? Bad loans they just made on their own? Seriously. They are MBS derivatives and CDS used to cover that subprime loan risk. And even on the straight loan portfolios, Fannie and Freddie put pressure on those other banks.
Honestly, you live in some 20 something dream world. You have not the faintest idea how this stuff works. You are just repeating talking points without understanding the issues at all.
To imagine that this has nothing to do with the CRA is just absurd, No one can be that stupid. What on earth do you imagine cause this? Why is there now a similar crisis in the EU that comes from government intervention in real estate and capital markets. This ine was pushed by the EU “colleagues” to win over the E. European countries. What about that? there are alot of American MBS over there too.
CRA created a whole ponzi scheme far larger than just the immediate real estate portfolios. Banker just do not go out and make bad loans like that on their own. What, you avtually believe Obama’s lie that this was caused by “greedy bankers”? It was caused by “greedy Democrat Politicians” as most all of the problems in this country are so caused.
You yet again push out a straw man, one that is mostly a willful misstatement and when you get called on it you start with the invective and project you ignorance on to people that actually know what they are talking about.
In almost evey post you make you have not the slightest idea what you are talking about and you are almost always wrong.
You get call out on this garbage of your almost every time you post something.
You do not put out facts or cogent argument, you put out talking points and straw men that the media has put in your mouth.
And you never learn from people when they correct you. Instead you attempt to insult them. It is bizarre. It is infantile. It is morally dishonest. It is narcissistic. Steve, you are just a 20 some kind in a little job somewhere, you do not grasp all of this stuff. Just admit it.
You need to wise up while you are still young enough to improve your character.
called credit default swaps (or CDS) that were used to “insure” CDS’s
should read
called credit default swaps (or CDS) that were used to “insure” MBS’s
I know that correlation is not causation, but… The stock market really started to drop almost exactly to the day that Obama retook the lead after the Republican convention and has dropped ever since, with notable drops on inauguration day and the day Obama signed the “Stimulus” bill.
What this coincides with is the realization that the Democrats would be increasing their hold in both Houses of Congress along with gaining the Presidency, and then seeing how they reacted once they had that power.
Finally, such economic gurus as Nancy Pelosi and numerous other Democratic politicians have been repeating the mantra about a 1.5 or so Keynesian multiplier for whatever the Democrats decided to spend money on, whether it was for family planning, building unneeded schools, a high speed train by Harry Reid’s land in S. Nevada, etc. This is the fundamental basis for the “stimulus” bill recently signed into law, to the tune of more than a trillion dollars, including interest.
I always found such a high multiplier for whatever was spent, regardless, to be incredulous. I think that the better economic view is that it is, often at least, less than one. My guess is that the forward seeing markets are viewing this economic theory of the ruling Democrats as I do – wishful thinking economics.
What is scary to me, and I would suggest to those markets, is that the Democrats in power in the country have stated a willingness to double down with another similar “stimulus” bill if this one doesn’t work, as many expect it won’t.
Also, how many out there with much money at risk truly believe that the Democrats in power won’t allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, esp. in view of the huge deficits now being created? That would, of course, greatly increase the cost of capital, at probably the worst time for the economy, through de facto tax increases on dividends and capital gains.
Mongoose: thanks for taking the time to explain all this. I really appreciate it. Also thanks to AlexCT for additional context. And, strangely, thanks to Steve_P for prompting Mongoose to provide further details. Keep up the good work, all!
I feel your pain, Joshua. So did your mechanic tell you the only way to fix your car is to buy 200 brand new Ferrari’s from him at 150K plus? And that once you paid for them, he would be giving them to people who he likes and not to you? Make that 2000 of them. No wait, better make it 20,000 of them.
The problem with this country is that few distinguish between money as a form of wealth and currency , a claim or note redeemable in wealth as money. We no longer have money, just currency .
A fiat currency, one which is not backed by wealth , always eventually depreciates to it’s intrinsic value, nothing.
There have been hundreds of fiat currencies throughout history. None lasted 50 years.
The USA has had some itself (continentals, greenbacks). Our current experience wont be any different and that is why gold is rising.
We need to unroll the monetary errors of the past century and return to what worked. A commodity based currency and money issued and managed by the US government and not a private bank. Socialism cannot tolerate such a currency/money so the reversion will not come easily.
Federal reserve delendum est
MOST OF US KNOW THE MEDIA IS LYING… AGAIN!
The Dominant Negative Media has lost all credibility with most voters.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/02/media-lies-public-sighs.html
Good take. I rarely read or watch the pseudo-news as it is of little use to me. I do read and watch economic news and your assessment is correct, Obama is basically perceived as the modern Nero, fiddling while the economy burns. It’ll be almost 2 years before this will show up at the ballot box but right now, the markets are voting with their feet.
Don’t forget the day after (or maybe “morning after” would be more fitting) the election. In fact, IIRC it tanked every day for the rest of the week.
#80 Pee Wee Herman, Community Organizer:
“C’mon now. Don’t tell me that “lusting in my heart” wasn’t the most brilliant political turn-on invented to date then.”
Ummm, the thought of a lustful Jimmy Carter?
The answer be….NO! I know he was a bubblehead, and those North Atlantic patrols are LOOOOONG mofos, ( I know scores of bubbleheads, and t’ain’t a one of ‘em that doesn’t exhibit the deleterious signs of repeated deep-sea compressions).
“That phrase got him elected. I mean, who wanted bald, bland, clumsy Ford, when you could have Dr. Lust?”
Yeah…but Carter running along a beach topless would have had his polls “blow negative”…even back in the dope-addled Age of Disco.
#73 Mongoose:
” No not really, or no more than the discussions that have been going on around financial sites. I beilieve that there are pen questions, and so it is still “mysterious” until those questions are answered..”
Ah, I ask because it would be a well-worn page out of the CIA playbook, if it were true.
Economic destabilization through financial market manipulation to influence an election.
(And NO, I’m not laying ’08 at Langley’s door…anyone with the resources can run that play too).
Let’s not talk about the “Financial media” within the context of MSM…The financial media missed the biggest story of their collective existence!…Instead of “digging deeper”, this group is STILL reporting while editorializing in true “fiscal conservative” fashion…They’ve accepted and RUN WITH the banking lobby/GOP “talking points” which associate today’s financial mess with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977!…The financial media pass this along as a profound reality without questioning the fact that it’s not even “Conservative principal” to MAKE such a guilt-by-association-30 years-removed, commentary…Associating today’s banking greed with the CRA is like accepting that a murderer’s actions are justifiable due to being raised in a “broken home”…The financial media is too cozy with the inside players to “report” on the financial crisis…That lack of professionalism has cost all of us. This is not a Democratic game or a Republican game. This is a clusterf**k of gargantuan proportions..The Wall st Journal, CNBC, Forbes et al are too busy spinning the news to actually report it…The “two Americas” are fully encouraged by those who are suppose to “report the news”.
Post #43:
you wrote:
<<>>
Shall we subtract the number of illegal aliens that have jobs?
That figure is in the millions. Go refigure the equation please.
Question, those that have stopped looking for jobs and no longer receive unemployment benefits exactly how are they surviving? How many jobs are NOT on the books? Still more refiguring. Yeah, things are a little down but it is not close to the 25% unemployment of the great depression. Also, how many women were there in the work force in 1933? Furthermore, recent articles reveal that even after several years of the New Deal over 13% remained unemployed. FDR’s policies doesn’t seem quite so successful. Consider also there weren’t many illegals in 1939 to lower that figure. Numbers don’t alleviate the problem but don’t try to exacerbate the problem with faulty equations.
But..but…but…Obama can’t tell people to ‘go shopping’ because that’s what the liberals criticize Bush for saying.
I mean, well, obama would be a hypocrite if he said that.
One America thought Obama was great and loved having the opportunity to “stick it” to those white Republican bastards. Some of them, the smarter ones, are now beginning to doubt the wisdom of taking that opportunity.
The other America knew Obama was a lying racist promoted by the liberal MSM. They saw the kid glove treatment he got and the “racist” accusations thrown at anyone who dared question his banal platitudes or lack of experience.
Those people bought guns, ammo, gold and food, and they hate the Democrats and the MSM with a bitter and unabiding hatred. That hatred grows by the day.
I’m fully expecting to see a day in the very near future when people sporting Obama/Biden bumper stickers start reporting that other people have put a 12 gauge charge of 00 buck through their back window as an indication of their dislike for people who voted for Obama. It’s coming; bet on it. The left threw out the rules of political civility during the last eight years and payback is going to be a bitch.
The main article never mentioned the exodus of capital from the USA since Nov 4th.
LMAO “Emigrate?? Are you kidding? I have a great job in the private sector, a great home in an awesome city, but more than that, we have a Democrat President and a Democrat-controlled congrss! These next few years are going to be a blast for me!”
I have am comfortable in assets. Have a beautiful home. Live in a wonderful city. But, anyone saying that the next few years is “going to be a blast” is ignorant to the extreme.
What is going to be such a blast? More people getting unemployed? More small businesses closing? The rise in crime, specifically, murder, which comes hand-in-hand with a poor economy?
I don’t have to work. Never-the-less, I
CONTINUED…
Never-the-less, I am concerned with my fellow man. I am concerned for our Nation as a world power. I am concerned with other world countries. All the poor, who are suffering horribly.
Yet, *you* are ignorantly glib. All because of politics. What are you???
Take a look at this in the February 20, 2009 Financial Post:
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Check the numbers
Posted: February 19, 2009, 8:01 PM by NP Editor
Ross McKitrick and Bruce D. McCullough, research practices
From the U.S. subprime crisis to global warming, bad research is driving disastrous public policy
By Ross McKitrick and Bruce D. McCullough
Empirical research in what are commonly called “peer-reviewed” academic journals is often used as the basis for public policy decisions, in part because people think that “peer-review” involves checking the accuracy of the research. That might have been the case in the distant past, but times have long since changed. Academic journals rarely, if ever, check data and calculations for accuracy during the review process, nor do they claim to. Journal editors only claim that in selecting a paper for publication they think it merits examination by the research community.
But the other dirty secret of academic research is that the data and computational methods are so seldom disclosed that independent examination and replication has become nearly impossible for most published research. In a new report we wrote for the Fraser Institute, we review a series of efforts in recent years to replicate empirical studies published in economics journals. Over a thousand papers have now been examined. In over half the cases the data were not archived. When the authors were asked for their data, the majority reported being unable or unwilling to provide it. Where data was provided, the computer code used to generate the results was almost never released, greatly complicating the task of replicating the statistical results. Overall, the vast majority of economics papers could not be independently verified, even in some cases where the authors agreed to assist the replication efforts.
A set of interlocking problems in the peer review system have become pervasive throughout academia: authors do not release their data, journals do not ask for it, thousands of papers get published each year that nobody checks for accuracy and independent replication has become so costly and difficult that it is rarely attempted.
In researching this issue we have noticed two inconsistent opinions: Some non-academics are surprised to find out that peer review does not involve checking data and calculations while academics are surprised that anyone thought it did.
Our report also explores numerous examples from other academic disciplines, such as medicine, history, environmental science and forestry, in which prominent or policy-relevant research was shielded from independent scrutiny by withholding data and/or computer code. In some cases the research was exposed as faulty only years later, sometimes only through government intervention to force data disclosure, and sometimes after laws had already been passed based on the faulty research.
Non-disclosure of essential research materials may have deleterious scientific consequences, but our ultimate concern is the growing negative effects on public policy formation.
One striking example in the context of the current U.S. housing meltdown concerns a 1992 study by economists at the Boston Federal Reserve, published in the prestigious American Economic Review, that purported to show statistically significant evidence of racial discrimination in U.S. mortgage lending practices. Based on this study, federal regulations were rushed into place that forced banks to loosen lending standards and threatened them with severe financial penalties for failure to correct the alleged discrimination.
It took nearly six years, and a Freedom of Information Act request, for independent economists to discover coding errors in the data that invalidated the original conclusions. But by this time the new lending rules were in place that ultimately contributed to the buildup of bad mortgage debt now ravaging the U.S. financial system.
A related feature of this problem is that when a study becomes prominent in a policy debate, academics can end up forming a protective cheering squad around it, defending it from independent scrutiny. In 2006, a U.S.-appointed expert review panel looking at a controversial global warming study noted that when the issue became politically heated, scientists working in the area formed a “self-reinforcing feedback mechanism” that made it effectively impossible for them to critically assess the work in question, while dismissing the efforts of outsiders who were trying to do so. It should not be assumed that the scientific process will reliably correct erroneous research: The sociological process within science is just as likely to protect false results from scrutiny.
Users of academic research must recognize that scientific findings in journal articles are not checked for accuracy and, unless proven otherwise, are likely not independently replicable. In our report, we spell out a simple checklist of conditions that government policymakers should be prepared to verify before basing public-policy decisions on the claims in an academic journal article. These are not complicated or contentious matters, they are things long assumed to be true: that the data described in the paper were actually used in the analysis, that the data are available for independent inspection, that the calculations described in the paper match those in the computer code, etc. If these things can’t be shown to be true, the paper should not be relied on.
Academics rightly insist on the freedom to do their research without public or political interference. But when that research influences policy, the public has a right to demand independent verification. Researchers might want to influence policy but if they plan to keep their data and computer code to themselves, they should keep their results to themselves too.
Financial Post
Ross McKitrick, an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Guelph, and Bruce D. McCullough, a Professor of Decision Sciences at Drexel University in Philadelphia, are authors of “Check the Numbers: The Case for Due Diligence in Policy Formation,” published by the Fraser Institute.
There are two americas: those who work and those who complain.
109. Are you complaining, Wildman?
President Barack Obama needs someone (other than himself) who can travel throughout America and report back to him concerning: (1) what the people need, and (2) whether his administration’s new initiatives are working. During the Great Depression, Eleanor Roosevelt fulfilled this role for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. No, I don’t believe Vice President Joe Biden can do it. I believe Senator John Edwards would be a good candidate to fulfill this role for President Obama.
John Edwards is committed to fighting for the middle class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90kiOdnkw3Y&NR=1
He has provided a forum for the stories of people who:
work hard in chicken processing plants:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y510mj5J99I
are employed in the new renewal energy economy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50yOR5bvMV0
who are having their homes foreclosed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i_GWrYkcCI
who have in New Orleans been left devastated from the effects of Hurricane Katrina:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAqktFnA4nk&feature=PlayList&p=EB1EC8919DC5DC52&index=0