The US Economy and Current Financial Crisis

[At Home 0]

So many things wrong I'm just not going to start.

[Nightwing 0]

Yes, with all her oil money drying up, I'm sure Sarah Palin is going to turn down free cash.

[EricMM 0]

Palin is actually apparently pressing for a lot of renewable energy for Alaska, since they have to import all their natural gas over such long distances.

 

If she had run on something like that it would really be interesting (renewable energy = local energy) but sadly she did not.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

Palin is actually apparently pressing for a lot of renewable energy for Alaska, since they have to import all their natural gas over such long distances.

 

If she had run on something like that it would really be interesting (renewable energy = local energy) but sadly she did not.

 

Drill Baby Drill!!!

 

Also, I wonder how the residents of these states are going to take losing out on job-creation money so that their governors can make a political point and suck up to their party machine in anticipation of a run for national office in 2010 or 2012.

[snuffbox 0]

When did the GOP lose its once-vaunted political skill? 2005?

[Nightwing 0]

Palin is actually apparently pressing for a lot of renewable energy for Alaska, since they have to import all their natural gas over such long distances.

 

If she had run on something like that it would really be interesting (renewable energy = local energy) but sadly she did not.

 

That's all good and fine, but with the price of oil falling like a rock, she's looking at a serious budgetary problem.

 

When did the GOP lose its once-vaunted political skill? 2005?

 

Katrina. I think that was the last straw for many people.

[Art Sandusky 0]

We have a winner! It took New Orleans being annhilated, but that's what got the country to wake up and see what the rest of the world was seeing for years.

[SuperJerk 0]

Exactly.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

We have a winner! It took New Orleans being annhilated, but that's what got the country to wake up and see what the rest of the world was seeing for years.

 

I dont know how you can blame Republicans for that, sorry.

 

The levies in NOLA needed to be fixed/enhanced/maintained for YEARS but whenever NOLA got money for it, they always found some other use for the money instead of actually putting it towards the levies. While I know that Bush cut the funding almost in half to cover Iraq spending, they could have had it fixed well before that.

 

Oddly enough, even after Katrina, the levies were rebuilt but most of them are no better than the ones that were destroyed by Katrina and some are only 1 more bad Hurricane away from failing again...

 

 

This same principle can be applied to our road system and why it takes a few bridges collapsing and people getting killed to suddenly make people in government go "uh..maybe we should be spending money on the roads/bridges?"

[EricMM 0]

...

 

Marvin you don't WANT to spend money on roads/bridges.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

We have a winner! It took New Orleans being annhilated, but that's what got the country to wake up and see what the rest of the world was seeing for years.

 

I dont know how you can blame Republicans for that, sorry.

 

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/20...fema/index.html

[NoCalMike 0]

This same principle can be applied to our road system and why it takes a few bridges collapsing and people getting killed to suddenly make people in government go "uh..maybe we should be spending money on the roads/bridges?"

 

 

That's odd cause you seem to be the one complaining about infrastructure spending that will create jobs!?!

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

This same principle can be applied to our road system and why it takes a few bridges collapsing and people getting killed to suddenly make people in government go "uh..maybe we should be spending money on the roads/bridges?"

 

 

That's odd cause you seem to be the one complaining about infrastructure spending that will create jobs!?!

 

The states already get federal gas tax and their own gas tax money for roads. Now, if they had doled out all the stimulus money and repealed the federal gas tax..we'd be talking. But the gas tax is actually going to be raised eventually, but not because we want to generate more revenue for roads.

[snuffbox 0]

Keep the oil companies taxpayer subsidized, though, right?

 

Don't you ever think, "Christ, do I really need a disengenuous retarded drug addict on tv/radio to tell me how to think? I can do this stuff on my own!"

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Keep the oil companies taxpayer subsidized, though, right?

 

Don't you ever think, "Christ, do I really need a disengenuous retarded drug addict on tv/radio to tell me how to think? I can do this stuff on my own!"

 

In a few years after the government is done with them, the oil companies are going to need a bailout just like the Big 3 and the Banks but Im not holding my breath on them getting it.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

FOX NEWS is exposing Maryland's great Governor for the dumbass that he is.

 

10,000 jobs @ $32,000 a year (avg road construction worker salary) = 87% of the funds MD is getting just in their wages, leaving very little money to by the materials to actually do the construction.

 

Maybe these are just really cushy jobs where they sit around for 8 hours a day like the Maytag repairman?

[Gary Floyd 0]

Because Fox News is the first place to go for when it comes to unbiased, truthful reporting.

 

Why did I even bother to respond to him?

[At Home 0]

Because Fox News is the first place to go for when it comes to unbiased, truthful reporting.

 

Why did I even bother to respond to him?

 

Let's just not then.

[Gary Floyd 0]

Because Fox News is the first place to go for when it comes to unbiased, truthful reporting.

 

Why did I even bother to respond to him?

 

Let's just not then.

That's what I've been saying for a while now. He's clearly doing this as a menas to bait people into reactions, so let's just put him on ignore and let him talk himself into insignificance. It's for the best.

[SuperJerk 0]

It is actually good for Palin, Sanford, et. al., to refuse the stimulus money. I'm not actually IN FAVOR of any of any of them getting re-elected, of course.

 

Or they can do whatever mental gymnastics they need to do in order to justify it, I suppose.

 

 

 

Here's a clip from new CNBC show "Rich Stock Brokers Hate Obama."

 

[BruiserKC 0]

Another American icon takes a hit...courtesy of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

 

Hershey’s Reading plant closing today

By Christopher K. Hepp

 

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

 

The Hershey Co. closed its Reading plant today, shutting down production lines that for 23 years have produced such storied sweets as York Peppermint Patties and 5th Avenue Bars.

The production lines at the plant are being moved to Monterey, Mexico, and other facilities in the United States as part of a restructuring of Hershey's, the nation's largest candy manufacturer.

 

About 300 jobs are being lost at the Reading plant. A total of about 1,500 jobs are being eliminated company wide.

 

According to Dennis Bomberger, business manager of Chocolate Workers Local 464, workers had received a severance package that included two weeks of pay for each year of service, up to 65 weeks.

 

Along with the loss of jobs comes the closing of a small chapter of Pennsylvania's candied past.

 

York Peppermint Patties were first manufactured by the York Cone Co. of York, Pa., in 1940. They stood apart from competitors in that they featured a soft, dark chocolate shell around a soft peppermint center. Similar candies at time featured hard shells.

 

Fifth Avenue Bars were created by William H. Luden, a Dutch immigrant who in 1879, at age 20, started a candy "factory" in the kitchen of his family's Reading home. He went on to develop a cough remedy, Luden's Menthol Cough Drops.

 

Company shares were down 60 cents (1.71 percent) to $34.43 in early-afternoon trading.

 

[At Home 0]

Am I mistaken in saying that the financial bailout is not a round-'em-up and buy-'em-at-premium-prices plan? I haven't read the plan myself, but that's what I've gathered from everything I've read.

 

Paul Krugman, "Against Stupidity"

The most valuable lesson I learned from the year I spent in Washington (1982-1983, on the staff of the Council of Economic advisers — I was the senior intl economist, the senior domestic economist was a guy named Larry Summers. What ever happened to him?) was the extent to which senior government figures have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.

So when I read something like this:

 

“Why should we reward Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with $200 billion in taxpayer dollars without first reforming these housing entities that were at the heart of the economic meltdown?” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.

 

and people ask what on earth Boehner might mean when he talks about taxpayers “rewarding” institutions that are owned by taxpayers, I go for Occam’s Razor: Boehner doesn’t have some complicated notion in mind, he either doesn’t know that the government took over F&F months ago, or he just doesn’t get this “government-owned” concept.

 

 

[SuperJerk 0]

The third option: If it makes a good soundbite, it doesn't matter if it is true.

[Crimson G 0]

Here's a clip from new CNBC show "Rich Stock Brokers Hate Obama."

 

But, Santelli's spot-on in his analysis here. What do you disagree with in the clip, other than the fact that the man manages stocks?

 

BTW, Rick Santelli is one of the people who has been consistently correct with his coverage of this financial meltdown. He's rather pragmatic in his answers to the problems we've got right now, but there are plenty of other people in the media who are ideologically and philosophically opposed to the way the government has been "fixing" the economy: Peter Schiff, Glenn Beck, pretty much an Austrian economist, many libertarians and pretty much all Objectivists, along with a slew of other people.

[At Home 0]

And then there is the massive tidal wave of actual economists (not ideologues) who agree that something needs to be done.

 

Let's not talk about Glenn Beck, thanks.

 

There wasn't any points that were made there. He gave 30 seconds of yelling to fellow stockbrokers about how the government shouldn't buy up these bad mortgages (which it isn't) and "paying the losers." Great.

[Crimson G 0]

And then there is the massive tidal wave of actual economists (not ideologues) who agree that something needs to be done.

 

A bunch of asshats like Paul Krugman do not practice economics. They give credence to political agendas with the way they scheme up data or manipulate history in order to present what they'd like. Their economic policies do not work in downturns, but only help to inflate bubbles, like the housing one which just burst. They are bubble economists, at best. Keynesian economics are discredited by common sense.

 

Let's not talk about Glenn Beck, thanks.

 

Glenn Beck was a single name cherry-picked from my list. If you disagree with his politics, fine. But, his program presents accurate and shocking forecasts for the economy because his show is one of the few which allows people with other opinions than "mainstream economists" to contribute. Larry Kudlow on CNBC Kudlow & Co. is another, but his show tends to put a rosier glow on the economy than I think even he thinks is realistic. Say what you'd like about Faux News, but Beck's handling of the economic concerns has been pretty good, in my opinion. I tend to just watch FBN, for the most part, to get my economic news, but use Beck for more of a talking head perspective on where the news might take us tomorrow. It's not serious journalism.

 

There wasn't any points that were made there. He gave 30 seconds of yelling to fellow stockbrokers about how the government shouldn't buy up these bad mortgages (which it isn't) and "paying the losers." Great.

 

His point is made in some of his first sentences. I'll transcribe his argument for you:

 

"The government promoting is bad behavior... have people vote on the internet... to see if people want to subsidize losers' mortgages or at least buy cars and house in foreclosure and give them to people who might actually prosper down the road and reward people who could carry the water instead of drink the water."

 

Then later:

 

"How many of you want to pay for their neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills."

'Wolfman' chimes in: "How about we all stop paying our mortgage? It's a moral hazard!"

 

Even later:

 

"You can go down to -2% [on the interest rate on the mortgage], they can't afford the house!"

 

 

It's pretty clear that his argument is that we're throwing good money after bad. We're rewarding poor choices and encouraging more poor choices through the people we're choosing to support in this economic downturn and the decisions coming down from the White House and the Senate. Upholding the housing market that's broken and keeping people in houses who shouldn't have got them in the first place is to the detriment of people who've done the right thing and to the nation as a whole. Ultimately, and he hints at this later on in this particular rant about this, the government's policy of simply printing money to solve a problem cannot work. If it could, then we should just print trillions of dollars every second because we'd be the richer for it.

 

Seriously, the axioms behind the science of economics do not take a break because of the situation that our economy is in, no more than the laws of motion alter for a man who has jumped out of an airplane. The policies of the current and the previous administrations are leading us to hyperinflation of the money supply and extreme poverty for everyone in the country. We've already heard rumors and indications that foreigners are no longer willing to invest in Treasury bonds, so the next plan is to have the Federal Reserve purchase them. The only way they can accomplish this is by printing money or selling gold, with both options devaluing our currency and thus making us all poorer than we were before. Nominally we can maintain the previous housing prices, however it will only be the illusion of the same price in US Dollars. The value of the US Dollar will have to drop dramatically in order to do this, especially considering the amount of poor judgment they're showing in taking the same steps that led to this catastrophe in credit in the first place.

 

There's no reason to pay your debts anymore. There's no reason not to take advantage of every credit card offer or house or car for sale. If you can bilk the bank into letting you buy it, the government will find a way to allow you to keep it, provided that you did not have the capitalization to do so in the first place. That is, if you could not afford it it is now the government's responsibility to see that you keep it.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Oh, that's rich. Anyone who's had a home foreclosure is a "loser." Chicago floor traders are a "pretty good statistical cross section of America--the silent majority." And suddenly derivatives traders are really concerned about moral hazard.

 

A bunch of asshats like Paul Krugman do not practice economics.

 

lol

 

Also, Glenn Beck & objectivists!

[SuperJerk 0]

Here's a clip from new CNBC show "Rich Stock Brokers Hate Obama."

 

But, Santelli's spot-on in his analysis here. What do you disagree with in the clip, other than the fact that the man manages stocks?

 

There was nothing in that clip I agree with.

 

He was yelling about irrelevant things like Cuban history, how he was going to start a revolution with the average guys who work in the commodities business, and rewarding bad behavior: i.e. blaming the victims of the economy rather than the people who have always benefitted from it.

 

Basically, it was the same conservative noise we've been hearing since the late 70s.

 

Keynesian economics are discredited by common sense.

 

Common sense like if you tax the wealthy at 38% instead of 32%, somehow the extra money will be spent on creating jobs for the other 90% of society? You mean that kind of common sense?

 

Or the kind of common sense that says you have to have at least some policies that look at the demand-side of the economy, because that's where most of individual economic decisions are made?

 

Hmmmm.

[Crimson G 0]

Oh, that's rich. Anyone who's had a home foreclosure is a "loser." Chicago floor traders are a "pretty good statistical cross section of America--the silent majority." And suddenly derivatives traders are really concerned about moral hazard.

 

A bunch of asshats like Paul Krugman do not practice economics.

 

lol

 

Also, Glenn Beck & objectivists!

 

Once again, you've missed my argument about Glenn Beck, etc. entirely. I'm not arguing that they're sound economists, though Objectivists usually are pretty learned on the subject since it was a key point of Ayn Rand's philosophy.

 

Also, Santelli's point is not that anyone who's had a home foreclosure is a loser, but anyone who got themselves into this problem even though they didn't have the amount of income to justify purchasing a home is finally receiving the natural punishment of a bad investment. Certainly the bankers and the politicians are also to blame for creating the atmosphere that led to the sub-prime lending crisis, but blame also falls on the people who believed their distortions as well. The moral hazard point was clearly a joke from 'Wolfman', but the point remains that people are suffering the consequences of their own decisions. No one forced them to get a house, but now we should force people who are able to afford these things or were smart or lucky enough not to get involved in this housing mess to prop up those who did?

[Crimson G 0]

Common sense like if you tax the wealthy at 38% instead of 32%, somehow the extra money will be spent on creating jobs for the other 90% of society? You mean that kind of common sense?

 

Or the kind of common sense that says you have to have at least some policies that look at the demand-side of the economy, because that's where most of individual economic decisions are made?

 

Hmmmm.

 

I have no idea what you're talking about in your first point. It's certainly not Keynesian economics. It sounds like Obama's graduated tax rates for the rich, which can be shown to be either good or bad through the Laffer curve. More taxation is not always the answer as it sometimes brings in less revenue for the state and can encourage people to work less. (see: Communism, for the extreme)

 

You always have to look at the demand side of the economy. However, you cannot artificially stimulate that demand by printing money without suffering through inflation. The demand side of the economy is what's tanking it right now because people are waiting for prices to come down to where they're affordable or else they cannot purchase them. They've been taught this by the severe punishment the market has given people who bought at the peak of prices in both the real estate and stock markets, but the government is trying to convince them that what they're seeing is not reality and these things are still good investments. Keynesians would proclaim this problem a liquidity trap, but it's really just common sense. People are waiting for the appropriate levels to buy and the only thing you can do to change that is pump more money into the system, which doesn't really solve the situation in real dollars (though it might in nominal dollars.) Watch any video on Peter Schiff to see his point on this matter since he generally repeats the same arguments every time he's on TV, most panelists agree with him, and then continue pretending they can fix the situation.