And Bernanke Didn't Think Unemployment Would Reach 10% 137 comments
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Friday’s unemployment report from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics is anything but a green shoot. The official U-3 unemployment number is 10.2%. The broader and more comprehensive official unemployment number, the U-6, is at 17.5%. The U-6 counts all the people that want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, and all the people who dropped off unemployment benefits because their unemployment benefits ran out. John Williams at Shadowstats.com suggests that real unemployment is actually running at 22%, which, by our calculation, is approaching Great Depression unemployment numbers.
The unemployment report may come as a surprise to those who have been following the Obama administration and mainstream economists like Paul Krugman. Here are some choice quotes from those we’ve entrusted with our economy:
President Obama (February 13, 2009):
"That’s a story I’m confident will be repeated at companies across the country — companies that are currently struggling to borrow money selling their products, struggling to make payroll, but could find themselves in a different position when we start implementing the plan,” Obama said. “Rather than downsizing, they may be able to start growing again. Rather than cutting jobs, they may be able to create them again.”
That’s our hope – that’s our hope. There’s no doubt that without it, that’s where we were looking: double-digit unemployment. That’s what we’re trying to forestall.
Nobel Prize Recipient and Economist Paul Krugman on the benefits of trillion dollar deficit spending (January 21, 2009):
I’m looking for the unemployment rate. I want to see the unemployment rate stay safely below 10 percent, which is by no means a foregone conclusion. And I want to see it coming down notably next year.
Larry Summers, Lead Economic Adviser to President Obama (January 18, 2009):
I don’t think so. I think while we’re going to see some substantial job losses, frankly what is important about the president’s program here is that it is going to contain what would otherwise be just a vicious cycle, people spend less, therefore they earn less. We’re going to contain this problem.
Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve testifying before Congress’s joint economic committee (May 5, 2009):
Currently, we don’t think it will get to 10 percent. Our current number is somewhere in the 9s.
So far, no good. The policies recommended by Messers Krugman, Axelrod, Bernanke and Summers seem to be having the opposite of the intended effect. Tens of thousands continue to lose jobs, credit continues to contract, spending continues to contract, and personal credit & mortgage delinquencies are on the rise.
Luckily, America has a President in office who is changing the way Washington works from the inside out and is holding strong to the commitment he made in April of 2008.
Presidential Candidate Barack Obama (April 3, 2008):
Today’s job news is the latest indicator of how badly America needs fundamental change from Bush-McCain policies that have been devastating for working families and catastrophic for our economy….
Our economy is struggling because the American people are struggling, and simply bailing out investment banks on Wall Street will not help Main Street.
Thank goodness that there’s at least one elected official in Washington that doesn’t believe in bailing out investment banks on Wall Street to help Main Street!
Recent developments in the economy suggest that the recession is over, recovery has started and for the consumer, it’s business as usual throughout America’s shopping malls.
All sarcasm aside, we ask our readers to consider recent statements from the public and private sector in regards to the economy. Are things really getting better? Given what we’ve been told so far, is it prudent to put our trust into the very officials who have gotten us to where we are today?
Sources and Hat Tips:
- For a more detailed breakdown of the (Un)Employment report, we recommend Karl Denninger’s article Employment Report: OUCH
- Hat tip to Mish for the U-6 definition provided in this article
- Visit Shadowstats.com to view John Williams Charts on U-3, U-6, and SGS Alternative unemployment statistics
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This article has 137 comments:
Happy days are here again!
Jobs you can recreate; lives you can't.
1. Residential Architecture has reduced by about 75% in terms of design efforts
2. Commercial Architecture billings are not much better
3. Booked future work, and the backlog of Design work is decreasing every month
4. There have been massive layoffs at firms like Gensler, HDR, MG2, MBH and most of the major players in the US.
So if one profession, which is clearly affected by the recession more sensitively than most all other professions is claimed to have a BELOW AVERAGE unemployment rate....what does that mean for the rest of the stats?
And they say the twelfth century was the age of faith.
On Nov 08 06:24 AM Steve in Greensboro wrote:
> Don't worry, Mr. Slavo. All we need to do is more of what we have
> been doing: print more money and have another stimulus or two. Plus,
> let's raise taxes by socializing medicine, taxing carbon dioxide
> emissions, allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2011, imposing
> a VAT, etc. Plus, let's impose massive tariffs like the G-20's "balanced
> trade" plan. Paul Krugman thinks these are all good ideas and he
> has a Nobel prize -- in economics!
>
> Happy days are here again!
Americans are drowning in debt as stimulus bloated banks, continue to give big Government the finger at the same time beating the taxpayers into submission with no credit, absurd rates on existing accounts, and no loan modifications. What has been accomplished, NO JOBS, FORECLOSURES, NO CREDIT FOR SMALL BUSINESS. While banks such as Goldman Sachs run the country, thanks to our taxpayer funded bailout.
The computer models use a "balanced economy" for projections (ie, service sector, manufacturing sector, government sectors, etc.), not this 75 percent consumer spending garbage that we have today, plus "building and selling homes to each other."
There is absolutely no reason why, without the unsustainable infusion of abusive credit (the drug of a consumer-based economy) from banks or government that goes on endlessly, that unemployment can't hit 30 percent or higher. The feedback loop will be horrific and I think we are seeing the start of the process now....
If you want to do something interesting... Do this simple test... Take unemployment reports from each of the states and territories, then divide them. Hint: The answer is a lot more than the U.S. Government reports... Em....
Where is the accountability for the decisions being made?
The last 10 minutes is the most sorrowful.
The Meltdownman
The question now is what are we going to do to stop this?
And author, read some economic history. There is no relation between the 'great' depression and what we have now. And do you know something, there never will be.
On Nov 08 08:26 AM Gary Pass wrote:
> I have been in business 30 years and We will not reopen next year.
> The stimulus package to the banks has all but finished most of the
> thriving small shops in my area and now this health plan is the end.
> I know at least 10 other businesses in my small circle that will
> do the same .
The alternative plan promoted by the Republican house was a tax cut bill that amounted to $400 billion split between individuals (2/3) and business (1/3).
The current stimulus has about $250 billion in individual tax cuts and very little business tax cuts.
However, since businesses lost money, last year, and since over 90% of small business file as individuals anyway, the effect would be about what we are seeing now.
Further, since most investments are in qualified plans, Capital gains taxes no longer have any significant effect, it is hard to argue that ANY cut in capital gains taxes would do much.
SO, I conclude that Obama administration underestimated the mess we were in, but they did a FAR better job than Bush and Republicans would have done.
If we would have followed the Republican plan, we would have decimated our capital stock FAR worse than we have already done. Creative destruction is one thing, but allowing whole industries to disappear, together with all the skills involved, is quite another.
As for the deficit, Bush was racking up trillion dollar deficits, but like all good politicians, he hid a third of it in Off Balance Sheet items.
While Bernanke and Paulson should have done more to prevent this mess, I would give them both Presidential Medals for avoiding a Depression.
By the way, when you compare today with the Depression, remember to include the fact that the unemployment numbers in the Depression INCLUDED unemployed farm workers.
Finally, I could find THOUSANDS of quotes that could embarrass either side of this debate.
Your analysis adds very little.
Again, the question is: what are we going to do to stop this?
On Nov 08 09:05 AM long_on_oil wrote:
> My God, we have been through this once before when Reagan got elected.
> For Petes sake politicians, swallow your pride and do what Reagan
> did. His plan set us on a path to recovery and prosperity that lasted
> over 20 years. We all know what he did now all we have to do is replicate
> it.
The government Reagan hated eventually became what we have today thanks to our liberal educational institutions.
However if you are a small business, self employed, the average hard worker trying to be a good American, retired and all others, simply bend over, grab your ankles and kiss your a$$ goodbye!
Thank you government for doing such a great job!
On Nov 08 08:26 AM Gary Pass wrote:
> I have been in business 30 years and We will not reopen next year.
> The stimulus package to the banks has all but finished most of the
> thriving small shops in my area and now this health plan is the end.
> I know at least 10 other businesses in my small circle that will
> do the same .
He's shocked ... just shocked. Who would have ever thought.
Gee ... he's good at passing bucks!
Clearly, Slavo is an Obama tit-sucker as with a majority of you.
There's not a single Obama policy that is either a shift from GOP mistakes or a shift in the right direction.
The Cash for Clunkers and homebuyers credit bullies the American public into buying - at a time when Americans need to save, not spend. Americans are too used to spending, forgetting the lessons that the WWII generation learned which was saving. It was that generation's thrift that helped pave the way for the greater prosperity since then.
"Sweeping" reforms in healthcare at a time when you can't prove its usefulness other than the political rhetoric that "we need it" (but with no specifics) does nothing.
Raising taxes at a time when the American public is tapped out is wrong. Cutting spending is what is right - even if that means gutting everything from transpo to military.
Don't think raising taxes on "corporations" is ever going to be "fair". They always find a way to pass that expense to us! And don't think taxing the rich is the answer. The rich will find a way to hide that money - just look at all the corrupt Democrats swept up by bribery and corruption charges.
You also just need to look as far as NJ to see what a mess taxing the rich is. The rich is never "rich". They have assets. And when the value of their assets diminish, their ability to pay your "rich taxes" diminish. NJ found that out the hard way when reliance on taxing the rich backfired with the most recent economic downturn.
If there's any real solution, it's the solution posited by Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and those like Peter Schiff and Ron Paul.
There needs to be more Libertarian financial policies. Your social and other policies can be Democratic - who cares. But finances have a RIGHT solution and neither party platform (Obama or GOP) works.
DeFazio (though I don't agree with everything) believes in infrastructure and transpo investment. Spending should be places on those kind of investments. Policy changes should be placed on reclaiming decayed urban centers (along the lines of those posited by Chris Christie). Investment in green tech and green transpo innovation to export to ROW as well as investment in SMBs is what is needed. The investment in SMB (mfg'rs, retail, etc.) will be slow for ROI but will build the foundation. They may employ 10 ppl but those 10 employed are still employed. Now do this for multiple SMBs and slowly you get a better and more stable economy.
For those of you who may gloat at this, I would say take a moment and reflect on the value any productive person adds to society. A job lost is a job lost.
Current studies indicate 3 jobs will be permanently destroyed for each green job "created" by government subsidy. All for energy resources that cannot support an ever increasing baseload power demands or products whose manufacture requires processes more toxic than the exploration, production, refining, and transport of liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
Now we know. Developers, contractors, in additon to mortgage brokers and lenders were all engaging in massive fraud. I remember asking the question "How can the health of our economy be gauged by a residential contruction starts when the manjority of the construction workers are illegal labor and a significant portion of the buyers as well"
For those who may cry racismo, I would ask how many times did you visit a construction site? From El Paso to Chicago and east to Atlanta, little English was spoken on worksites. Even the labor unions bought into the flood of un-skilled or low skilled illegals ready to work at any amount of hours at any wage.
Now the House of Cards has collapsed and many of the illegals have returned or plan to return home shortly. what did we get for the several billion in dollars repatriated to Mexico and Central America? I would venture that we got a temporary delay of an inevitable revolution in Mexico.
Not to worry... his wife is an architect and worked at a different big Boston architectural firm so they could get by for awhile on one nice paycheck.
Oooops, she got canned 6 weeks after he did.
On Nov 08 07:45 AM chris coonan wrote:
> The shadowstat's figures are probably a lot better than the BLS.
> In checking my own field, Architecture on the BLS, they are claiming
> a 9 percent rate in the Q3 of 2009....that would be BELOW the national
> average, which is against ALL known reason.
>
> 1. Residential Architecture has reduced by about 75% in terms of
> design efforts
> 2. Commercial Architecture billings are not much better
> 3. Booked future work, and the backlog of Design work is decreasing
> every month
> 4. There have been massive layoffs at firms like Gensler, HDR, MG2,
> MBH and most of the major players in the US.
>
> So if one profession, which is clearly affected by the recession
> more sensitively than most all other professions is claimed to have
> a BELOW AVERAGE unemployment rate....what does that mean for the
> rest of the stats?
And oh, by the way, as an American living in Europe, our quality of life is vastly superior to the American. In large part due to 'socialized medicine, a modern public transportation system, funding for the arts, restrictions on destroying magnificent old buildings, and laws that protect workers from being laid with a one month's severance.
Oh, and I choose my doctor d
On Nov 08 06:24 AM Steve in Greensboro wrote:
> Don't worry, Mr. Slavo. All we need to do is more of what we have
> been doing: print more money and have another stimulus or two. Plus,
> let's raise taxes by socializing medicine, taxing carbon dioxide
> emissions, allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2011, imposing
> a VAT, etc. Plus, let's impose massive tariffs like the G-20's "balanced
> trade" plan. Paul Krugman thinks these are all good ideas and he
> has a Nobel prize -- in economics!
>
> Happy days are here again!
On Nov 08 10:23 AM jdl51 wrote:
> What we're seeing is the result of eight years of republicanism.
> Seems like most posters here think that before January 22, things
> were just peachy. We came within a hair of a total financial meltdown.
> If we had let the banking system fail, there would have been total
> anarchy in the streets. Businesses everywhere would have shut their
> doors laying off tens of millions, that would have escalated until
> our economy would have suffered a crash that would make the great
> depression look like a tea party. That is the scope of the disaster
> that was unfolding last fall before any action was taken. Yet there
> are many here who seem to think that would have been the better path,
> to do nothing and let the whole system collapse. I do not like the
> fact that we have spent hundreds of billions to prop up the banking
> system but the alternative was far, far worse. Anyone who doesn't
> think so really doesn't have a grasp of what happened a year ago
> and its consequences or are so blinded by ideological hate that they
> don't care what happens to our country.
People tend to solve problems with the skills they have learned. Bernanke probably knows more about depressions than anyone on the planet. He also knows the academic economic theory as to why it happened and the theory of how not to let it happen again. When he saw our severe downtown, he saw a
depression and applied his skills to implement the economic theory. So here we are! Let's hope the theory works but it's not going to easy to overcome poor oversite of the government and the behavior of our financial institutions. Not in 8 months.
The economists always think they understand the workings of the economy until another Black Swann comes flying by.
I'm a big proponent of mental health counseling by the way, so if you see some black helicopters following you, well, maybe they SHOULD be following you...
On Nov 08 09:29 AM novelator wrote:
> To be quite honest about this matter, I believe Soros owns more of
> the democrats and republicans in House than the 220 yay votes on
> healthcare would indicate. I think Soros and company "engineered"
> the outcome to make the vote look "close." They threw those Democrats,
> and one Republican, they feel are expendable under the bus to further
> hoodwink the People of these United States into thinking their elected
> representatives as a whole aren't a bought-and-paid-for lot of despicable
> traitors. Appearances are everything in this game, but substance,
> like backbone, is next to nil. Look at the mainstream media. They
> caved to the money and control interests before Obama arrived on
> the scene to "save us" (sarcasm intended) with their help.
>
> Again, the question is: what are we going to do to stop this?
The problem is, when these companies are up against the wall, many of them pull out and move overseas to save a few $$$ to become "profitable" for their shareholders or investors. As theses moves take place, the United States economy declines further. I wonder how many jobs have fled overseas since this crisis has occurred; I know many professionals with dual citizenship who have hit the road back to their home country.
On Nov 08 09:53 AM jlodgesharonmp wrote:
> Despite the economic forecasts that still show job losses set to
> climb even higher, there are a few companies that are still experiencing
> growth. The J. Lodge Corporation, a quality call services company,
> has sustained profitability since 1999 and accredits its success
> solely to its unique employee model that consists of disabled business
> Americans. While other companies are outsourcing their jobs to foreign
> competitors, J.Lodge is striving to provide part-time careers for
> individuals who are interested in our company and who qualify for
> our positions. If anyone is interested please visit: www.jlodge.com/careers
>
>
> I am disabled and have been since August 2000. This is the first
> job I have been able to find that I can do from home. I found real
> at home work and you can too… Please go to the website and click
> on Employment at top and then click on Apply. It’s that simple.
On Nov 08 10:30 AM kmf wrote:
> Isn't a little scary the Bernanke didn't see the housing bubble coming
> and then didn't see the unemployment rising above 9%. I know he is
> in a position to hype the economy but sooner or later the fundamentals
> override the hype. Those of us that think Pres Obama and his staff
> can turn this economy around in 8 months are truly smoking something.
> Don't forget Mr. Paulson charging into congress with a one page document
> requesting 800 billion for the banks! At least he is out of the picture
> but the beat goes on with Bernanke.
>
> People tend to solve problems with the skills they have learned.
> Bernanke probably knows more about depressions than anyone on the
> planet. He also knows the academic economic theory as to why it happened
> and the theory of how not to let it happen again. When he saw our
> severe downtown, he saw a
> depression and applied his skills to implement the economic theory.
> So here we are! Let's hope the theory works but it's not going to
> easy to overcome poor oversite of the government and the behavior
> of our financial institutions. Not in 8 months.
>
> The economists always think they understand the workings of the economy
> until another Black Swann comes flying by.
Crossly incompetant, negligent, and shortsighted, he would have been fired years ago in the private sector.
On Nov 08 08:47 AM Oldfoxbob wrote:
> The Republican party stands for low or no tax's on the rich...Big
> oil company's can make more and more money with no rebate to the
> little guy...no insurance to the poor. No welfare for the poor, no
> unemployment benefits to the unemployed. Higher tax's on the lower
> income people. Hummmmm....that means no money to buy goods that the
> rich are producing. No one who gets sick can get well enough to return
> to work. Seems like a viscous circle to me. Yet the Democrats are
> pushing for more socialism...What we need is a good dictator for
> a 4 year stint and he has to be a good business man to get this country
> back on track. Throw the illegal aliens out, or in jail. Make those
> here legally speak English! Create jobs by creating government projects
> like new Dams, New Roads, New Libraries, New Schools etc. Make Congress
> ( both houses) have the same retirement plan as the rest of us have
> ( social Security) Make them have the same health plan as the poor
> have ( medicare and medicaid) and tax the hell out of the rich bast***s
> that are ruining this country. THEN we will have a good country once
> again. May be I should run for Congress to get this type of crap
> passed into law. What do you think?
On Nov 08 11:06 AM Beam me up Scotty wrote:
> Our problem(USA) is really our weak position as a producer of goods.
> We still lead the world in producing financial derivatives, pro football
> stars, making good movies and TV sitcoms, great weapons for Defense
> and other equally important things. But, other than those few leadership
> items, we fall woefully short. We need to get back into some form
> of manufacturing role in the world, and, instead of saying we're
> in the post industrial state, we need to start thinking of how to
> get out of it. When the dollar tanks, those $ 15 shoes from Walmart
> are going to $ 20-25, because China will have to play the game and
> revalue regardless of their dollar reserve position. We've become
> second rate and the world is beginning to smell it. What's the plan
> to get back into manufacturing aside from military goods? It'll take
> more than PV panels - China's already moved into a better position
> than the USA and Germany on that note and they started late. We need
> more politicians with a technical and management talent than the
> rhetoric repeaters we have now. Any way to resurrect Henry F.?
On Nov 08 08:47 AM Oldfoxbob wrote:
> The Republican party stands for low or no tax's on the rich...Big
> oil company's can make more and more money with no rebate to the
> little guy...no insurance to the poor. No welfare for the poor, no
> unemployment benefits to the unemployed. Higher tax's on the lower
> income people. Hummmmm....that means no money to buy goods that the
> rich are producing. No one who gets sick can get well enough to return
> to work. Seems like a viscous circle to me. Yet the Democrats are
> pushing for more socialism...What we need is a good dictator for
> a 4 year stint and he has to be a good business man to get this country
> back on track. Throw the illegal aliens out, or in jail. Make those
> here legally speak English! Create jobs by creating government projects
> like new Dams, New Roads, New Libraries, New Schools etc. Make Congress
> ( both houses) have the same retirement plan as the rest of us have
> ( social Security) Make them have the same health plan as the poor
> have ( medicare and medicaid) and tax the hell out of the rich bast***s
> that are ruining this country. THEN we will have a good country once
> again. May be I should run for Congress to get this type of crap
> passed into law. What do you think?
Less people saving means less money for investment. Less money for investment means declining stock market, etc. etc.
So the fifty million people who were removed from the population statistics by abortion, and who would have kept that average age significantly lower, are to blame (or those who exercised the right of choice).
Politicians cannot fix this in the short term.
If you include the children of those aborted since 1972, then you might be looking at something more like 60 million.
The excessive number of children during the 50's kept the lawns mowed in the 60's and 70's. Now that is mostly done by illegal immigrants.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
The law of unintended consequences.
There is no way out, short of a population boom.
We note that on June 18, 1998, in a letter to Betsy White, Senior Vice President at the NY Fed, we said:
"Finally, it is our continuing belief that the Federal Reserve Board should be designated a 'Superregulator,' with broad responsibility for overseeing the activities of banks, thrifts, pension funds, insurance companies, mutual fund companies, brokerage firms and investment banks. We note our belief that financial institution convergence, driven by recent advancements in financial and computer technology, requires the creation of such a 'Super-regulator.' "
We, and others, no longer believe the Federal Reserve independent or objective enough to serve as "Superregulator" or as "Systemic Regulator." They are, thus, unqualified for the role, which should be filled by an entirely new entity.
In fact, the IRS seems to be th big winner. It got ovr 2/3 of a BILLION extra, and with its enhanced audit budget it is already wreaking mischief through audits. The goal is to catch employers on technicalities in our obscenely complex employee benefits laws, and to grab penalty taxes. Better not to provide benefits is my advice quite often.
This is not a friendly country for employers, so unemployment should be no surprise, except to those who spin theories and do not have to deal with the real world.
Obama and Pelosi are connected to Soros...but traitors to America because they passed a health-care reform bill. I think you've got it wrong. If the Founding Fathers came back to America and saw our current Health Care system, they would be disgusted. The current system is a cartel for the rich. That's not what the Founding Fathers wanted America to be.
On Nov 08 09:16 AM novelator wrote:
> Bernanke is, like Obama and Pelosi, the front man for folks like
> George Soros who are engineering the economic collapse of this country.
> Soros said once that America was the stumbling block to one-world
> governance. So, his, and others, plan is to take down America from
> within. And yesterday, the 220 yay votes on that massive healthcare
> takeover were 220 votes in favor of George Soros and the Bilderberg
> Group--these are at least 220 representatives/traitors to America
> that have been bought by Soros, et al.
>
> The question now is what are we going to do to stop this?
He thinks inflating the money supply cures all evils. But inflating the money supply is THE evil that needs to be cured.
On Nov 08 11:26 AM MktMaven wrote:
> On January 17, 2008, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Mr.
> Bernanke, testified that "A recession is probably not on the horizon,
> but quick passage of an economic-stimulus package plus aggressive
> action by the Federal Reserve are the appropriate prescription for
> the ailing economy.."
>
> We note that on June 18, 1998, in a letter to Betsy White, Senior
> Vice President at the NY Fed, we said:
>
> "Finally, it is our continuing belief that the Federal Reserve Board
> should be designated a 'Superregulator,' with broad responsibility
> for overseeing the activities of banks, thrifts, pension funds, insurance
> companies, mutual fund companies, brokerage firms and investment
> banks. We note our belief that financial institution convergence,
> driven by recent advancements in financial and computer technology,
> requires the creation of such a 'Super-regulator.' "
>
> We, and others, no longer believe the Federal Reserve independent
> or objective enough to serve as "Superregulator" or as "Systemic
> Regulator." They are, thus, unqualified for the role, which should
> be filled by an entirely new entity.
The bubble was destined to burst.
On Nov 08 11:18 AM Judybird wrote:
> A sustainable economic recovery is no longer possible. For the past
> 30 years our Government has fostered the belief that a world market
> place would be good for America. Instead the chase for cheap labor
> never considered an equal playing field. Worldwide common labor laws,
> free currency markets, world wide environmental laws, A managed approach
> to ensuring essential US industries remain healthy. In effect the
> pursuit of world wide open market capitalism has given away so many
> plants and drained so many jobs from America that a sustainable US
> recovery is impossible. Just add up all the manufacturing industry
> and service jobs we gave away to Mexico, Japan, Korea, China and
> India. Then tell me how we are going to replace that loss.
The republicans have a good side and a bad side -- so do the democrats. We need to take the good side of each party and create a new party and throw away what's left over.
On Nov 08 09:38 AM novelator wrote:
> People loyal to one political party over another invite blindness
> to the larger picture.
On Nov 08 11:25 AM flakca wrote:
> A rising average age is the problem. Once our average age reached
> 37, then more people are thought to be withdrawing from savings,
> than are saving for retirement.
> Less people saving means less money for investment. Less money for
> investment means declining stock market, etc. etc.
> So the fifty million people who were removed from the population
> statistics by abortion, and who would have kept that average age
> significantly lower, are to blame (or those who exercised the right
> of choice).
> Politicians cannot fix this in the short term.
> If you include the children of those aborted since 1972, then you
> might be looking at something more like 60 million.
> The excessive number of children during the 50's kept the lawns mowed
> in the 60's and 70's. Now that is mostly done by illegal immigrants.
>
> Nature abhors a vacuum.
> The law of unintended consequences.
> There is no way out, short of a population boom.
In the 1930's:
1929-1932: depression wave.
1932-1935: recovery wave.
1936-7: depression wave.
1937-38: recovery wave.
1939-45: world war depression wave.
1944-46: recovery wave.
1946-47: depression wave.
Don't be surprised when the next wave hits: 2010.
Don't give any Nobel Prizes out just yet to Bernanke and Hank Paulson (Paulson will go down in history as the greatest Plunder Artist in the history of the world). He has his own place in Hell reserved for him, next to Crassus and Plutus.
On Nov 08 09:29 AM CaptainJJack wrote:
>
> While Bernanke and Paulson should have done more to prevent this
> mess, I would give them both Presidential Medals for avoiding a Depression.
>
>
> By the way, when you compare today with the Depression, remember
> to include the fact that the unemployment numbers in the Depression
> INCLUDED unemployed farm workers.
>
> Finally, I could find THOUSANDS of quotes that could embarrass either
> side of this debate.
>
> Your analysis adds very little.
We are also losing good jobs at higher and higher levels. Some companies are going into panic mode and they have to fire their expensive highly skilled employees. If you're the best and brightest, and happen to be mid career, its usually relatively easy to find a new job - but there are less chairs in the musical chairs game of the job market right now.
I have personally seen deals being set up but delayed on the bigger partners waiting for the economy to really improve, and for the money to come in. And when it doesn't, the smaller partners experience a bad quarter, they have to shed expenses, maybe run the company with just core management left and consultants/contractors who they won't work a full week and for whom they don't provide any benefits.
In essence, there are optimistic and bullish gambles set up which are falling flat. I think it might finally be catching on that the economy is in a long term downward slide.
The only folks making money now are exporters. The great American consumer is dead, and the unemployment numbers are a reflection of the excess and general lack of real productivity that has been taking place for 10 years.
America needs to turn into a services and manufacturing nation that doesn't solely incentivize one or two white collar areas like technology or finance. Those sectors can't live by themselves, in reality they exist to support business, for example to streamline manufacturing and expand profitable business.
Instead of taking smart steps like reducing overhead costs, making businesses more flexible, the economy went into a mode where it tried to scale everything up. A good example of some utter failures are the auto manufacturers. Their overhead and minimum production count just to break even are a joke. If you cannot manage periods of declining demand simply because you ramped up during increasing demand and set that in stone, you should not be in business.
I think ridiculous leverage practices got us to squander our time and energy away on more and more non-essentials all targeted at collecting money without work. In the end that is what we are getting. Printing presses running and no work to be found!
> sustainable US recovery is impossible. Just add up all the manufacturing
> industry and service jobs we gave away to Mexico, Japan, Korea, China
> and India. Then tell me how we are going to replace that loss.
Well stated.
Is it me, or does anyone else on Seeking Alpha feel like we have a "democratically elected Politburo." I mean it's one thing to have "democratic elections," but really something else to have a "representative democracy."
It just doesn't seem to matter which party or candidate you vote for, they get to Washington DC and do there own thing and it doesn't seem to matter what their constituents want. The health care program and the bailouts come to mind, but the list can go on forever.
We need to get back to the concept that our representatives actually represent the people of this country, not their own interest.
On Nov 08 11:34 AM Michael Clark wrote:
> Bernanke was a protege of Greenspan who was a lackey for Reagan-Bush
> republicans and both are Inflationist bankers who are lackeys for
> the big banks, nothing else. Bernanke and Greenspan don't owe Geroge
> Soros anything.
>
> Obama and Pelosi are connected to Soros...but traitors to America
> because they passed a health-care reform bill. I think you've got
> it wrong. If the Founding Fathers came back to America and saw our
> current Health Care system, they would be disgusted. The current
> system is a cartel for the rich. That's not what the Founding Fathers
> wanted America to be.
On Nov 08 07:10 AM resetplz wrote:
> That's OK, Republicans didn't think Social Security or Medicare would
> work..
>
> Jobs you can recreate; lives you can't.
Your U6 number of 22% unemployment is misleading when you compare it to the unemployment numbers of the 1930s, because you are comparing two very different economies. In the 1930s, we didn't have 3 million men in uniform, and 2 million in jail. For each of these men, there has to be a concurrent creation of jobs in the private sector for the economy to remain unchanged. The ugly truth is that state and local government grew by 2.175 million employees on a per capita basis since 1946. The federal government greatly exceeds those numbers. So if you want to compare U6 with the employment figures of the 1930s, you have to take into consideration that these jobs are not of the sort that contribute to the bottom line of the economy. They are a cost, not a benefit. Jobs in the private sector are a benefit. This also ignores the incredible explosion in private sector jobs that are designed to deal with the bureaucracy of government, like lobbyists, environments and labor lawyers, and payroll companies because the rules are so complicated that you have to hire an outsider just to pay your own employees.
If what I am saying is not true, then let the federal government hire everyone. Then our unemployment rate would be zero and we could all kid ourselves that this says anything about the real economy. The truth is that the unemployment problem, or more specifically, the lack of real jobs that contribute to the bottom line of the economy, is far worse than it was in the Great Depression.
Where we are going: The Labor Department published a report which was reported in the Wall Street Journal that asked the question, if the March 9 lows marked the turning point in the economy, how long would it take to rehire all the people out of work? Using the figures from the most recent recession, they reasoned that we could expect to add 94,000 jobs a month (11/01-12/07). They concluded that it would take 86 months to dig ourselves out of this mess. Assuming that we started to add 94,000 jobs a month, starting this month (which is a ridiculous assumption) we are looking at 167 months to find jobs for all the people out of work. That's 14 years or 2023.
This argument assumes we will add jobs at the same rate as the Greenspan bubble, which is undercut by almost two years of Greenspan like tricks which have resulted in no job creation. It is almost certain that monetary and fiscal tricks yield diminishing returns with respect to jobs. You can give money to banks, but you can't make them lend. You can stimulate the economy but you can't make employers hire new workers.
This says nothing about the 1.4 million temporary jobs hired by the Census that will soon be added to the 15.7 million unemployed. How's that affect your U6? Even if there are no other quirks to comparing today's economy to the economy of the 30s, rest assured we are in a much worse situation and our prospects for growing our way out of this mess are grim.
On Nov 08 10:23 AM jdl51 wrote:
> What we're seeing is the result of eight years of republicanism.
> Seems like most posters here think that before January 22, things
> were just peachy. We came within a hair of a total financial meltdown.
> If we had let the banking system fail, there would have been total
> anarchy in the streets. Businesses everywhere would have shut their
> doors laying off tens of millions, that would have escalated until
> our economy would have suffered a crash that would make the great
> depression look like a tea party. That is the scope of the disaster
> that was unfolding last fall before any action was taken. Yet there
> are many here who seem to think that would have been the better path,
> to do nothing and let the whole system collapse. I do not like the
> fact that we have spent hundreds of billions to prop up the banking
> system but the alternative was far, far worse. Anyone who doesn't
> think so really doesn't have a grasp of what happened a year ago
> and its consequences or are so blinded by ideological hate that they
> don't care what happens to our country.
The real deception in terms of population was the trick they pulled on the American family. First, they said women should be allowed in the workplace. Fair enough, but when they battered down these obstacles, there was more opportunity to squeeze the middle class. The next stage was where women had to be in the workplace. In a relatively short period of time, one income families went from being the norm, to being very rare. The next stage was two income families that lived off credit. The last stage was two income families that tapped their home equity to feed the credit monster.
So here we are. The system was able to convince mom and dad to work full time jobs and to have less children, and after years with a reduced home life they have nothing to show for it but piles of debt and an upside down mortgage. Worse still are the professional women who have lost their careers to the economy and who now wonder what they really got for all their sacrifice. Some don't regret that decision, but I'm sure some do. I sure wish I had more children, but it was easy to rationalize that two was enough with a 3 hour round trip into a major city and struggling to make ends meet. We were all had by a system that has destroyed the middle class, and now that middle class has been forced to bail out the ivy league thieves who benefited from the high rolling days. Many people who know enough to follow what's going on are very bitter. My sons didn't benefit from the gambling, why should their generation be saddled with the bill?
On Nov 08 11:16 AM flakca wrote:
> I am not and have not been involved in the abortion battle. The
> chilling effect of a declining population can be clearly seen in
> the Japan economic stagnation that occurred when the average age
> reached 37. At that point more people were withdrawing from savings
> than saving. That is the point we are at now. The 50 million plus
> people that were aborted would have kept the average age well below
> that 37 mark. There is no way out of this mess. No short-term
> way out. We need to have an increasing population to keep that average
> age below 37. That will not happen without a significant uptick
> in the birthrate. Those born today will not become wage earners
> for 20 years. That is how long this thing could take to work out,
> or longer.
You must be very rich. After all, since these waves come around so often, you must have been in short term Treasuries before this last crisis, and since it was a wave, you must have bought around the bottom knowing it will eventually turn up.
In 1982, Barrons ran story showing that if you bought a single interest rate futures contract in 1975, and ALL YOU DID was call the right DIRECTION of interest rates in each of the successive three months, and kept rolling over your gains, you would have been worth $3 BILLION.
They went on to say that since they didn't see a lot of 3 billionaires walking around Wall Street, it might have been harder than it looked.
By the way, when are we going to get the next wave?
On Nov 08 11:48 AM Michael Clark wrote:
> Check back in 2019 and we'll see if they really avoided the Depression.
> These things come in waves.
>
> In the 1930's:
> 1929-1932: depression wave.
> 1932-1935: recovery wave.
> 1936-7: depression wave.
> 1937-38: recovery wave.
> 1939-45: world war depression wave.
> 1944-46: recovery wave.
> 1946-47: depression wave.
>
> Don't be surprised when the next wave hits: 2010.
>
> Don't give any Nobel Prizes out just yet to Bernanke and Hank Paulson
> (Paulson will go down in history as the greatest Plunder Artist in
> the history of the world). He has his own place in Hell reserved
> for him, next to Crassus and Plutus.
Since the author provided a link to Krugman's interview, for example, you would probably think he actually read the interview in his own link.
Sadly, this doesn't appear to be the case. It's either that, or the author is cherry picking phrases out of the interview to support his pre-formed conclusion. In any case, Krugman says this in the interview linked:
Dr. KRUGMAN: When I try to do the numbers, I easily come up with a two-year program of a trillion dollars or more. The number they pulled up sounds rather like they sort of said, we need a big number, but it needs to be somewhere well short of a trillion because otherwise people say, you're spending a trillion dollars. And unfortunately, what the economic arithmetic says is a trillion dollars is in the right vicinity.
On Nov 08 12:34 PM rennert wrote:
> How do we know those high unemployment numbers are true. I can not
> find a handy man or tree trimmer anywhere at the moment. All have
> too much work piled up. They are trying to justify the low interest
> rates for Wallstreet while our food prices are going through the
> roof.
Almost all wars have been fought with borrowed money. If you look at history: the Napoleonic wars, the English and Spanish wars of centuries ago, the Roman Empire conquests, WW1, WW2, the Vietnam war, and virtually any war you can name was financed by borrowing, and the banking cartels have profited very handsomely from them and expanded their influence and power from the financing of wars. In fact the folly of war and the borrowed money to wage them has ultimately destroyed or marginalized virtually every regime and empire in history. And the US will likely be no different than it's historical predecessors, it is just a matter of when not if, and to what degree the US loses significant world influence and prosperity. In fact the only the only war that one can think of that might remotely be considered to not be financed by borrowed money might be the Gulf War 1, which the affected Arab states and the rest of the world basically agreed to fund.
On Nov 08 10:30 AM Slavak09 wrote:
> Au contraire! What we are seeing is 6 years of deficit spending to
> support a war without biting the political bullet to raise taxes
> or decrease entitlements. Name me any politician, left or right who
> has the cojones to cut entitlements no matter how much damage to
> the economy. Afghanistan and Iraq both were fought with borrowed
> money. Someone correct me but I think this was a first in several
> 100 years. Perhaps since the Roman Republic
Bernanke has done exactly what the private sector oligarchs, Wall Street, and the banking cartels wanted and demanded. Namely protect the wealth of the banks, the bondholders, and the wealthiest segments of society. That is his primary job and he knows it and so does everyone else. Zero interest rates, massive quantitative easing, dollar devaluation, etc. have done exactly what they were supposed to do ... protect the wealth of the most powerful and influential.
On Nov 08 10:53 AM psantos wrote:
> BTW Bernanke, didn't think the housing market would crash either!
>
>
> Crossly incompetant, negligent, and shortsighted, he would have been
> fired years ago in the private sector.
The way that things are going, there is more blood to be spilled per OBAMA's administration. Did anybody notice Anita Dunn spitting out her Mao crap?
David Axelrod is not too far behind Anita Dunn.
Then, we have Barney Frank going gaga is saying that there will be many deaths in businesses and who knows what else; if you looked at the original Healthcare Reform bill passed in the House (without anybody reading it) you would know that our government is trying to accomodate the Marxists in the OBAMA administration, when in reality CONGRESS was set up to crosscheck the PRESIDENTIAL Administration.
There have not been any constitutional lawsuits yet, and why? It's because the MARXISTS in the current Administration are keeping everybody off their toes and disoriented including the Treasury and Federal Reserve.
Its is all planned as part of the NEW WORLD ORDER.
Are visa immigrants hitting your field like they are in IT, health and education?
Colleges are laying off American citizens to keep from "jeopardizing" their Visa employees' status. Microsoft has more employees now, then they did a year ago (even with reduced revenue) mainly due to firing Americans and either bringing in immigrants or off shoring entirely. There are hundreds of accounts of Americans being forced to train their own replacements - even after years of loyal work.
We allowed it to happen in manufacturing and now it is pervasive in the "high tech" industries we were promised would hire those displaced from manufacturing. The same thing is happening with health care and energy. We will be taxed to death with the promise of big money jobs. Which will then go to the low pay countries as the only thing that matters is high tax revenues from mega-nationals, we don't count.
When are we going to get good and ticked and start recalling these abominations in Washington and our state capitals? When are we going to realize that EVERYTHING the government touches turns into an expensive, incompetent, harmful, paid for life, nightmare?
Guess after homelessness, food lines and mandatory shots.
On Nov 08 07:45 AM chris coonan wrote:
> The shadowstat's figures are probably a lot better than the BLS.
> In checking my own field, Architecture on the BLS, they are claiming
> a 9 percent rate in the Q3 of 2009....that would be BELOW the national
> average, which is against ALL known reason.
>
> 1. Residential Architecture has reduced by about 75% in terms of
> design efforts
> 2. Commercial Architecture billings are not much better
> 3. Booked future work, and the backlog of Design work is decreasing
> every month
> 4. There have been massive layoffs at firms like Gensler, HDR, MG2,
> MBH and most of the major players in the US.
>
> So if one profession, which is clearly affected by the recession
> more sensitively than most all other professions is claimed to have
> a BELOW AVERAGE unemployment rate....what does that mean for the
> rest of the stats?
Is this because of changing demographics (i.e. more youth and more retirees)? Regardless, relatively fewer people are supporting the total population. This is not a favorable trend for a country with massive Medicare and Social Security liabilities and a rising total debt to GDP.
www.planbeconomics.com.../
....
"Anyone who doesn't
> think so really doesn't have a grasp of what happened a year ago
> and its consequences or are so blinded by ideological hate that they
> don't care what happens to our country."
Vacuous. Utter Imbecility.
Has Obama changed Bush's leftist big government policies or not? He is expanding the warmongering and the size of government all with the approval of the Democrats in the House. The only improvement on Bush's abysmal leftist record I have heard of is a little better enforcement of the visa provisions for H1Bs. He is in favor of open borders during a job collapse and a population explosion with racial rights for nonwhites while pretending to be a post racial environmentalist.
Oh and it is Bush's fault that Obama agrees with his predecessor.....
On Nov 08 10:23 AM jdl51 wrote:
> What we're seeing is the result of eight years of republicanism.
> Seems like most posters here think that before January 22, things
> were just peachy. We came within a hair of a total financial meltdown.
> If we had let the banking system fail, there would have been total
> anarchy in the streets. Businesses everywhere would have shut their
> doors laying off tens of millions, that would have escalated until
> our economy would have suffered a crash that would make the great
> depression look like a tea party. That is the scope of the disaster
> that was unfolding last fall before any action was taken. Yet there
> are many here who seem to think that would have been the better path,
> to do nothing and let the whole system collapse. I do not like the
> fact that we have spent hundreds of billions to prop up the banking
> system but the alternative was far, far worse. Anyone who doesn't
> think so really doesn't have a grasp of what happened a year ago
> and its consequences or are so blinded by ideological hate that they
> don't care what happens to our country.
At the risk of igniting a firestorm by dragging religion into the thread, I sometimes wonder at what the long(er) effect of Mexican immigration (both legal, and otherwise) will be, given that the majority are "good" Roman Catholics, and don't believe in practicing birth control. There are any number of studies showing that Hispanics are the fastest growing minority in the US, a trend I suspect is due not only based on immigration, but birth rate.
One more way those in power are misleading us can be pointed out in the statement about needing to create 96,000 jobs a month. Does that figure take into account the importation of 150,000 foreign workers a month? If it does not then we would need to create 246,000 to get people back to work.
Sadly our reality is that many of the permanently unemployed have figured out ways to game the system and will never voluntarily leave it. No, or little, work plus big time government giveaways does not motivate someone to go and work for their food.
On Nov 08 12:31 PM Smiddywesson wrote:
> Sigh, this is getting tedious.
>
> Your U6 number of 22% unemployment is misleading when you compare
> it to the unemployment numbers of the 1930s, because you are comparing
> two very different economies. In the 1930s, we didn't have 3 million
> men in uniform, and 2 million in jail. For each of these men, there
> has to be a concurrent creation of jobs in the private sector for
> the economy to remain unchanged. The ugly truth is that state and
> local government grew by 2.175 million employees on a per capita
> basis since 1946. The federal government greatly exceeds those numbers.
> So if you want to compare U6 with the employment figures of the 1930s,
> you have to take into consideration that these jobs are not of the
> sort that contribute to the bottom line of the economy. They are
> a cost, not a benefit. Jobs in the private sector are a benefit.
> This also ignores the incredible explosion in private sector jobs
> that are designed to deal with the bureaucracy of government, like
> lobbyists, environments and labor lawyers, and payroll companies
> because the rules are so complicated that you have to hire an outsider
> just to pay your own employees.
>
> If what I am saying is not true, then let the federal government
> hire everyone. Then our unemployment rate would be zero and we could
> all kid ourselves that this says anything about the real economy.
> The truth is that the unemployment problem, or more specifically,
> the lack of real jobs that contribute to the bottom line of the economy,
> is far worse than it was in the Great Depression.
>
> Where we are going: The Labor Department published a report which
> was reported in the Wall Street Journal that asked the question,
> if the March 9 lows marked the turning point in the economy, how
> long would it take to rehire all the people out of work? Using the
> figures from the most recent recession, they reasoned that we could
> expect to add 94,000 jobs a month (11/01-12/07). They concluded
> that it would take 86 months to dig ourselves out of this mess.
> Assuming that we started to add 94,000 jobs a month, starting this
> month (which is a ridiculous assumption) we are looking at 167 months
> to find jobs for all the people out of work. That's 14 years or
> 2023.
>
> This argument assumes we will add jobs at the same rate as the Greenspan
> bubble, which is undercut by almost two years of Greenspan like tricks
> which have resulted in no job creation. It is almost certain that
> monetary and fiscal tricks yield diminishing returns with respect
> to jobs. You can give money to banks, but you can't make them lend.
> You can stimulate the economy but you can't make employers hire new
> workers.
>
> This says nothing about the 1.4 million temporary jobs hired by the
> Census that will soon be added to the 15.7 million unemployed. How's
> that affect your U6? Even if there are no other quirks to comparing
> today's economy to the economy of the 30s, rest assured we are in
> a much worse situation and our prospects for growing our way out
> of this mess are grim.
Wake up, the successful middle class (except for union/government -they are fine) is being intentionally eradicated.
There can be no more question about.
And BOTH parties, ALL Presidents have done this to us in their conquest to gain personal fame, fortune and legacies.
Keeping us divided over non-Constitutional bs is their MO.
It isn't hard to see how great of a job they have done, just read any post that either blames Obama, or blames Bush or Reagan.
FUBAR comes to mind.
On Nov 08 09:24 AM americanincanada wrote:
> One small manufacturing business I have an interest in is hanging
> on, but we have let go almost all of the employees and we are back
> to what we were as a startup fifteen years ago. No available financing
> is the culprit, even more than decline in revenue. Owners can't
> help either because credit lines they may have had have been cut
> or have disappeared. Interest rates on credit card purchase balances
> rising from 9% to 30% have hurt short term owner support as well.
> I have not seen any aspect of a stimulus package that has addressed
> financing issues.
Hey, here's a bizarre idea that just crossed my mind, LOL, maybe we can hope that all the unemployed will find gainful work counseling prospective Pimps and sweatshop operators how best to game the system at ACORN?
Oops. Forget I said that. An excited phone call to Chicago just started up somewhere...
On Nov 08 03:08 PM TeresaE wrote:
> Wonderful post.
>
> One more way those in power are misleading us can be pointed out
> in the statement about needing to create 96,000 jobs a month. Does
> that figure take into account the importation of 150,000 foreign
> workers a month? If it does not then we would need to create 246,000
> to get people back to work.
>
> Sadly our reality is that many of the permanently unemployed have
> figured out ways to game the system and will never voluntarily leave
> it. No, or little, work plus big time government giveaways does not
> motivate someone to go and work for their food.
I realize this is just more anecdotal evidence, but that is what grass roots movements are all about - the subjective, the personal, the real and present.
Human nature, as exemplified by America...
What's going on now is NOT a program of "reform" but a "counter-revolution", and the good guys are getting mowed down by what SHOULD be their own artillery.
On Nov 08 03:15 PM TeresaE wrote:
> We are all in the same boat. We are down to one employee, no personal
> credit left, bank yanking loans with stellar payment history and
> our customers shutting down in droves. I get to go to (another) auction
> Tuesday to see if I can benefit from the demise of one (again) of
> my customers.
>
> Wake up, the successful middle class (except for union/government
> -they are fine) is being intentionally eradicated.
>
> There can be no more question about.
>
> And BOTH parties, ALL Presidents have done this to us in their conquest
> to gain personal fame, fortune and legacies.
>
> Keeping us divided over non-Constitutional bs is their MO.
>
> It isn't hard to see how great of a job they have done, just read
> any post that either blames Obama, or blames Bush or Reagan.
>
> FUBAR comes to mind.
Term limits (2 terms) and ending the political parties (everyone independent) would contribute to a permanent solution, I believe.
jr007
On Nov 08 10:23 AM jdl51 wrote:
> What we're seeing is the result of eight years of republicanism.
> Seems like most posters here think that before January 22, things
> were just peachy. We came within a hair of a total financial meltdown.
> If we had let the banking system fail, there would have been total
> anarchy in the streets. Businesses everywhere would have shut their
> doors laying off tens of millions, that would have escalated until
> our economy would have suffered a crash that would make the great
> depression look like a tea party. That is the scope of the disaster
> that was unfolding last fall before any action was taken. Yet there
> are many here who seem to think that would have been the better path,
> to do nothing and let the whole system collapse. I do not like the
> fact that we have spent hundreds of billions to prop up the banking
> system but the alternative was far, far worse. Anyone who doesn't
> think so really doesn't have a grasp of what happened a year ago
> and its consequences or are so blinded by ideological hate that they
> don't care what happens to our country.
On Nov 08 07:10 AM resetplz wrote:
> That's OK, Republicans didn't think Social Security or Medicare would
> work...and Bush didn't think WMDs wouldn't be found in Iraq.
>
> Jobs you can recreate; lives you can't.
On Nov 08 08:47 AM Oldfoxbob wrote:
> The Republican party stands for low or no tax's on the rich...Big
> oil company's can make more and more money with no rebate to the
> little guy...no insurance to the poor. No welfare for the poor, no
> unemployment benefits to the unemployed. Higher tax's on the lower
> income people. Hummmmm....that means no money to buy goods that the
> rich are producing.......
.....
May be I should run for Congress to get this type of crap
> passed into law. What do you think?
From a speech regarding the rehiring of Bernanke.
"The man next to me, Ben Bernanke, has led the Fed through one of the worst financial crises that this nation and the world has ever faced. As an expert on the causes of the Great Depression, I’m sure Ben never imagined that he would be part of a team responsible for preventing another. But because of his background, his temperament, his courage, and his creativity, that’s exactly what he has helped to achieve. And that is why I am re-appointing him to another term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve"
On Nov 08 02:03 PM untrusting investor wrote:
> Wrong, Bernanke is the private sector. The Fed is not the US Treasury
> and is not a department of the federal government. Go back and read
> your history on the creation of the Fed if you do not believe it.
> Or ask Ron Paul or many others that are familiar with the Fed.<br/>
>
> Bernanke has done exactly what the private sector oligarchs, Wall
> Street, and the banking cartels wanted and demanded. Namely protect
> the wealth of the banks, the bondholders, and the wealthiest segments
> of society. That is his primary job and he knows it and so does everyone
> else. Zero interest rates, massive quantitative easing, dollar devaluation,
> etc. have done exactly what they were supposed to do ... protect
> the wealth of the most powerful and influential.
On Nov 08 02:42 PM Dieter Hohenhof wrote:
> "What we're seeing is the result of eight years of republicanism."
>
> ....
> "Anyone who doesn't
On Nov 08 10:27 AM American in Paris wrote:
> And oh, by the way, as an American living in Europe, our quality
> of life is vastly superior to the American. ...
...laws that protect workers from being laid with a one month's
> severance.
On Nov 08 09:46 AM long_on_oil wrote:
> Sunnsea you are apparently a young man and the product of your liberal
> education. You need to study what really happened during the 80's
> and early 90's instead of following your liberal professors like
> the lemmings to the sea. Reagan made it possible for small companies
> to create jobs by giving tax incentives to encourage capital spending
> and hiring. Enterprise zones were created, taxes were cut and inflation
> was tamed. The Berlin wall came down and the United States was respected
> around the world. We weren't loved but we were respected.
> The government Reagan hated eventually became what we have today
> thanks to our liberal educational institutions.
On Nov 08 10:30 AM Slavak09 wrote:
> Au contraire! What we are seeing is 6 years of deficit spending to
> support a war without biting the political bullet to raise taxes
> or decrease entitlements. Name me any politician, left or right
> who has the cojones to cut entitlements no matter how much damage
> to the economy. Afghanistan and Iraq both were fought with borrowed
> money. Someone correct me but I think this was a first in several
> 100 years. Perhaps since the Roman Republic
On Nov 08 04:00 PM psantos wrote:
> Bernake originally appointed by Bush, rehired by our current president.
> Not a lot of difference regarding fiscal policy in this country is
> there?
>
> From a speech regarding the rehiring of Bernanke.
>
> "The man next to me, Ben Bernanke, has led the Fed through one of
> the worst financial crises that this nation and the world has ever
> faced. As an expert on the causes of the Great Depression, I’m sure
> Ben never imagined that he would be part of a team responsible for
> preventing another. But because of his background, his temperament,
> his courage, and his creativity, that’s exactly what he has helped
> to achieve. And that is why I am re-appointing him to another term
> as Chairman of the Federal Reserve"
On Nov 08 07:10 AM resetplz wrote:
> That's OK, Republicans didn't think Social Security or Medicare would
> work...and Bush didn't think WMDs wouldn't be found in Iraq.
>
> Jobs you can recreate; lives you can't.
On Nov 08 04:32 PM I am not a number.. wrote:
> World War 2 was fought by England with money borrowed (And Repaid!!)
> from the USA. Don't for one moment think the US went to war because
> England was some sort of ally and wanted to Avenge pearl Harbor.
> .
IMO, the US under President Bush and his "loyal opposition" in Congress burned the candle at both ends: borrowing money to fight a 2 front war and at same time continuing to ramp up entitlements and social payments.
Perhaps this simply accelerated the inevitable or tipped the balance. At this point, it matters little as to why. The greater question is how do we get ourselves out of the current mess and prevent it returning for the foreseeable future.
The poiticians are no more to blame for this than a fool can blame a venomous snake for bititng him because he tried to play with it. We the people did this to ourselves by our own complacency and failure to ackowledge the consequences of our choices. We allowed government to grow and encroach on our liberties by abdicating our responsibilities.
I referred to the Romans in my previous statement. I study them because it seems they knew more than we have forgotten about the price of enriching the self over the good of the republic
On Nov 08 01:46 PM untrusting investor wrote:
> Slavak,
> Almost all wars have been fought with borrowed money. If you look
> at history: the Napoleonic wars, the English and Spanish wars of
> centuries ago, the Roman Empire conquests, WW1, WW2, the Vietnam
> war, and virtually any war you can name was financed by borrowing,
> and the banking cartels have profited very handsomely from them and
> expanded their influence and power from the financing of wars. In
> fact the folly of war and the borrowed money to wage them has ultimately
> destroyed or marginalized virtually every regime and empire in history.
> And the US will likely be no different than it's historical predecessors,
> it is just a matter of when not if, and to what degree the US loses
> significant world influence and prosperity. In fact the only the
> only war that one can think of that might remotely be considered
> to not be financed by borrowed money might be the Gulf War 1, which
> the affected Arab states and the rest of the world basically agreed
> to fund.
On Nov 08 06:24 AM Steve in Greensboro wrote:
> Don't worry, Mr. Slavo. All we need to do is more of what we have
> been doing: print more money and have another stimulus or two. Plus,
> let's raise taxes by socializing medicine, taxing carbon dioxide
> emissions, allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2011, imposing
> a VAT, etc. Plus, let's impose massive tariffs like the G-20's "balanced
> trade" plan. Paul Krugman thinks these are all good ideas and he
> has a Nobel prize -- in economics!
>
> Happy days are here again!
On Nov 08 07:10 AM resetplz wrote:
> That's OK, Republicans didn't think Social Security or Medicare would
> work...and Bush didn't think WMDs wouldn't be found in Iraq.
>
> Jobs you can recreate; lives you can't.
On Nov 08 10:44 AM ain't no fortunate son wrote:
> Paranoia runs deep, into your life it will creep, its starts when
> you're always afraid... step out of line, the man comes and takes
> you away... For What its Worth (Buffalo Springfield)
>
> I'm a big proponent of mental health counseling by the way, so if
> you see some black helicopters following you, well, maybe they SHOULD
> be following you...
On Nov 08 06:45 AM damienhaas wrote:
> Bernanke is wrong about the unemployment, I wonder whether he will
> be wrong about inflation too......
It sounds like you were brainwashed by your teachers to spout the same c**p that you were taught. Jimmy Carter drove this country in to the ground with his unemployment rate and stagflation. He could not even rescue our hostages in Iran. History is easily distorted by and for the convenience of the socialistic left. I find it very telling that the left wing is monitoring this site to spew their revisionist Progresssive lines. You can tell your party bosses that I am a Democrat and a union member but I do not subscribe to the destruction of our way of life. Reagan brought our country out of the decline that the Democrats put it in for your information. He did it by giving us hope and belief that we were still a great country. Thank you.
On Nov 08 09:17 AM Ferdinand E. Banks wrote:
> Funny long_on_oil, but I make a point of telling my students that
> Reagan was the dumbest president in the history of the United States.
> He also ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands - or maybe millions
> of Afghans.
>
> And author, read some economic history. There is no relation between
> the 'great' depression and what we have now. And do you know something,
> there never will be.
hoalantrangallery....
Dawn Wave: 1992-2001 (Golden Age)
Noon Wave: 2001-2010 (Silver Age)
Dusk Wave: 2010-2019 (Bronze Age)
Midnight Wave: 2019-2028 (Iron Age)
Dawn Wave: 2028-2037. (Golden Age)
The Dawn Wave represents the Golden Age, when everything goes right with expansion:
1992-2001.
1956-1965.
1920-1929.
1884-1893.
1848-1857
1812-1821 (1819)
1776-1785 (American Revolution).
The opposite age (Autumn, Bronze Age) is when everything goes wrong.
The Midnight Wave represents the Absolute Power of negativity, and the seed-idea (the Midnight is the seed planted in the soil, gestation) that will rise up to the light and sprout the next stage of rebirth. Rebirth is experienced in the Golden Age, when everything comes back to life.
2010-2019
1974-1983
1938-1945
1902-1911
1866-1875
1830-1839
1794-1803
The Golden Age represents the Unity of forces in a society, with a unified vision and quest. The Bronze Age represents the Unity splitting into two poles and fighting for power: this especially demonstrates as class warfare. We will begin to see more strikes again. Remember labor strikes and class divisions in the 1930s -40's, 1960's - 70's. Where did they go? They are coming back. Just wait. The power shifts from the rich to the working class in the Bronze Age.
Interest rate cycles:
2019: lower interest rates. Start the party.
2001: raise interest rates. Take away the punchbowl and turn out the lights.
1983: lower interest rates. Start the party.
1965: raise interest rates. Take away the punchbowl and turn out the lights.
1947: lower interest rates. Start the party.
1929: raise interest rates. Take away the punchbowl and turn out the lights.
1911: lower interest rates. Start the party.
1893: raise interest rates. Take away the punchbowl and turn out the lights.
1875: lower interest rates. Start the party.
1857: raise interest rates. Take away the punchbowl and turn out the lights.
1839: lower interest rates. Start the party.
1821: raise interest rates. Take away the punchbowl and turn out the lights.
1803:lower interest rates. Start the party.
1785: raise interest rates. Take away the punchbowl and turn out the lights.
On Nov 08 01:16 PM CaptainJJack wrote:
> Come in waves, do they?
>
> You must be very rich. After all, since these waves come around so
> often, you must have been in short term Treasuries before this last
> crisis, and since it was a wave, you must have bought around the
> bottom knowing it will eventually turn up.
>
> In 1982, Barrons ran story showing that if you bought a single interest
> rate futures contract in 1975, and ALL YOU DID was call the right
> DIRECTION of interest rates in each of the successive three months,
> and kept rolling over your gains, you would have been worth $3 BILLION.
>
>
> They went on to say that since they didn't see a lot of 3 billionaires
> walking around Wall Street, it might have been harder than it looked.
>
>
> By the way, when are we going to get the next wave?
On Nov 08 07:24 PM ExZonie wrote:
> Without the bailout last year, major banks would have failed, taking
> the financial system with them. However, there isn't enough money
> in the world to make them whole again. While we were playing musical
> chairs in the first decade of the twenty-first century, using our
> houses, cars, vacations, credit cards and 401Ks, someone came in
> and stole the chairs, the record player, and the referee!
On Nov 08 11:11 PM ralf38 wrote:
> The Fed buying treasuries to keep rates low is pumping money into
> the economy. The low rates push money into the equity markets. What
> we've experienced in the equity markets these past several month
> is equity inflation.
If the government won't reform the banks, let the lawsuits begin.
America has to sober up, get serious again, and focus on quality high technology research and production. The next generation of cars will probably fly and run on hydrogen... But to get there, we have to go down into the valley of the shadow of death -- and pay off our debts. Give up the consumer party or debt, debt, debt. The party is over. We're ready for the sober reality that leads to the next stage of rebirth.
On Nov 08 11:06 AM Beam me up Scotty wrote:
> Our problem(USA) is really our weak position as a producer of goods.
> We still lead the world in producing financial derivatives, pro football
> stars, making good movies and TV sitcoms, great weapons for Defense
> and other equally important things. But, other than those few leadership
> items, we fall woefully short. We need to get back into some form
> of manufacturing role in the world, and, instead of saying we're
> in the post industrial state, we need to start thinking of how to
> get out of it. When the dollar tanks, those $ 15 shoes from Walmart
> are going to $ 20-25, because China will have to play the game and
> revalue regardless of their dollar reserve position. We've become
> second rate and the world is beginning to smell it. What's the plan
> to get back into manufacturing aside from military goods? It'll take
> more than PV panels - China's already moved into a better position
> than the USA and Germany on that note and they started late. We need
> more politicians with a technical and management talent than the
> rhetoric repeaters we have now. Any way to resurrect Henry F.?
My thumbs up for the article, BTW, I also think that jobless recovery is a self-deceipt...
On Nov 08 01:17 PM Greg B. wrote:
> The Author of this article is being very disingenuous
>
> Since the author provided a link to Krugman's interview, for example,
> you would probably think he actually read the interview in his own
> link.
>
> Sadly, this doesn't appear to be the case. It's either that, or the
> author is cherry picking phrases out of the interview to support
> his pre-formed conclusion. In any case, Krugman says this in the
> interview linked:
>
> Dr. KRUGMAN: When I try to do the numbers, I easily come up with
> a two-year program of a trillion dollars or more. The number they
> pulled up sounds rather like they sort of said, we need a big number,
> but it needs to be somewhere well short of a trillion because otherwise
> people say, you're spending a trillion dollars. And unfortunately,
> what the economic arithmetic says is a trillion dollars is in the
> right vicinity.
I really want to thank you for this post!
Isn't it actually worse than your calculations here if you factor in the youth coming into working age and completing their university studies?
But this is really fascinating information and really we may be looking at 2030 - if ever?
Sad and grim, but a dose of reality none-the-less.
On Nov 08 12:31 PM Smiddywesson wrote:
> Sigh, this is getting tedious.
>
> Your U6 number of 22% unemployment is misleading when you compare
> it to the unemployment numbers of the 1930s, because you are comparing
> two very different economies. In the 1930s, we didn't have 3 million
> men in uniform, and 2 million in jail. For each of these men, there
> has to be a concurrent creation of jobs in the private sector for
> the economy to remain unchanged. The ugly truth is that state and
> local government grew by 2.175 million employees on a per capita
> basis since 1946. The federal government greatly exceeds those numbers.
> So if you want to compare U6 with the employment figures of the 1930s,
> you have to take into consideration that these jobs are not of the
> sort that contribute to the bottom line of the economy. They are
> a cost, not a benefit. Jobs in the private sector are a benefit.
> This also ignores the incredible explosion in private sector jobs
> that are designed to deal with the bureaucracy of government, like
> lobbyists, environments and labor lawyers, and payroll companies
> because the rules are so complicated that you have to hire an outsider
> just to pay your own employees.
>
> If what I am saying is not true, then let the federal government
> hire everyone. Then our unemployment rate would be zero and we could
> all kid ourselves that this says anything about the real economy.
> The truth is that the unemployment problem, or more specifically,
> the lack of real jobs that contribute to the bottom line of the economy,
> is far worse than it was in the Great Depression.
>
> Where we are going: The Labor Department published a report which
> was reported in the Wall Street Journal that asked the question,
> if the March 9 lows marked the turning point in the economy, how
> long would it take to rehire all the people out of work? Using the
> figures from the most recent recession, they reasoned that we could
> expect to add 94,000 jobs a month (11/01-12/07). They concluded
> that it would take 86 months to dig ourselves out of this mess.
> Assuming that we started to add 94,000 jobs a month, starting this
> month (which is a ridiculous assumption) we are looking at 167 months
> to find jobs for all the people out of work. That's 14 years or
> 2023.
>
> This argument assumes we will add jobs at the same rate as the Greenspan
> bubble, which is undercut by almost two years of Greenspan like tricks
> which have resulted in no job creation. It is almost certain that
> monetary and fiscal tricks yield diminishing returns with respect
> to jobs. You can give money to banks, but you can't make them lend.
> You can stimulate the economy but you can't make employers hire new
> workers.
>
> This says nothing about the 1.4 million temporary jobs hired by the
> Census that will soon be added to the 15.7 million unemployed. How's
> that affect your U6? Even if there are no other quirks to comparing
> today's economy to the economy of the 30s, rest assured we are in
> a much worse situation and our prospects for growing our way out
> of this mess are grim.
On Nov 08 12:01 PM Michael2343 wrote:
> Maybe the way we are going to replace it is to devalue the dollar
> so much that America becomes a source of cheap labor?
>
> We are also losing good jobs at higher and higher levels. Some companies
> are going into panic mode and they have to fire their expensive highly
> skilled employees. If you're the best and brightest, and happen
> to be mid career, its usually relatively easy to find a new job -
> but there are less chairs in the musical chairs game of the job market
> right now.
>
> I have personally seen deals being set up but delayed on the bigger
> partners waiting for the economy to really improve, and for the money
> to come in. And when it doesn't, the smaller partners experience
> a bad quarter, they have to shed expenses, maybe run the company
> with just core management left and consultants/contractors who they
> won't work a full week and for whom they don't provide any benefits.
>
>
> In essence, there are optimistic and bullish gambles set up which
> are falling flat. I think it might finally be catching on that
> the economy is in a long term downward slide.
>
> The only folks making money now are exporters. The great American
> consumer is dead, and the unemployment numbers are a reflection of
> the excess and general lack of real productivity that has been taking
> place for 10 years.
>
> America needs to turn into a services and manufacturing nation that
> doesn't solely incentivize one or two white collar areas like technology
> or finance. Those sectors can't live by themselves, in reality they
> exist to support business, for example to streamline manufacturing
> and expand profitable business.
>
> Instead of taking smart steps like reducing overhead costs, making
> businesses more flexible, the economy went into a mode where it tried
> to scale everything up. A good example of some utter failures are
> the auto manufacturers. Their overhead and minimum production count
> just to break even are a joke. If you cannot manage periods of declining
> demand simply because you ramped up during increasing demand and
> set that in stone, you should not be in business.
>
> I think ridiculous leverage practices got us to squander our time
> and energy away on more and more non-essentials all targeted at collecting
> money without work. In the end that is what we are getting. Printing
> presses running and no work to be found!
Or you believe in the saul elinssky socialist type of government which raises taxes and gives the power to government
Rev Wright and Obama rail against how unfair things are but live in million dollar gated properties
Like Mother Teresa and Gandhi,they would be taken more serious if they sold their homes and redistributed their own wealth first
But its do as i say not as i do
Or you believe in the saul elinssky socialist type of government which raises taxes and gives the power to government
Rev Wright and Obama rail against how unfair things are but live in million dollar gated properties
Like Mother Teresa and Gandhi,they would be taken more serious if they sold their homes and redistributed their own wealth first
But its do as i say not as i do
On Nov 08 09:51 AM RUOK2 wrote:
> #1 Thing NO economist, Government Big Wig, nor Wall Street is factoring
> into the Job loss Equation, that plays a big role, ( and has already
> for many years) is that Job Losses lost from Technology....Every
> company, industry, etc has lost jobs for years prior to the present
> economic mess we are now in. Technology's main function is to "Do
> more, with less" (Tech efficiency & cost reduction = Job Loss).....ALL
> industries have felt this, and with the present economic situation,
> companies and small businesses will try to be more "efficient" by
> using technology, and omitting people. The other part to this equation
> is that more jobs will be sent off to cheaper labor cost countries.
> The word "Jobless Recovery" originated in the Recession of 2000,
> ( due to Technology and Offshoring of jobs).....We will see another
> "Jobless Recovery"....
With regard to the line "John Williams at Shadowstats.com suggests that real unemployment is actually running at 22%, which, by our calculation, is approaching Great Depression unemployment numbers."
Actually, it isn't approaching Great Depression unemployment numbers...it is right in the thick of them, as I wrote about in this blog post:
www.economicgreenfield.../
For those interested, I wrote a blog series titled "Why Aren't Companies Hiring?" that can be found here:
www.economicgreenfield.../
On Nov 08 12:06 PM bottoms-up wrote:
> Michael,
>
> Well stated.
>
> Is it me, or does anyone else on Seeking Alpha feel like we have
> a "democratically elected Politburo." I mean it's one thing to have
> "democratic elections," but really something else to have a "representative
> democracy."
>
> It just doesn't seem to matter which party or candidate you vote
> for, they get to Washington DC and do there own thing and it doesn't
> seem to matter what their constituents want. The health care program
> and the bailouts come to mind, but the list can go on forever.<br/>
>
> We need to get back to the concept that our representatives actually
> represent the people of this country, not their own interest.
Inefficient gov't distribution of stimulus is wasteful. Too bad they didn't give people more directly.
Unfortunately, many of the unemployed are not needed.
On Nov 09 02:29 PM DonFurio wrote:
> fortunately, many of the unemployed are not needed. Company's have
> become more efficient and most could still cut more if they have
> to. Part of the problem is that people have made careers out of jobs
> that should be for teenagers / people working through school or college
> / or what should be just a short term job while you find something
> better ie retail jobs, grocery stores, restaurants, etc. You add
> in that people would rather watch 4 hours of gossip tv each night,
> eat crappy fast food, do not exercise, spend every dime they make
> even when the economy is strong and you wonder why certain people
> don't get ahead. Also, maybe part of the reason why healthcare costs
> are so high. A lot of these people just don't have the discipline
> for most things in life, let alone a college education with a real
> major (not philosophy, etc) or learn a valuable trade (ie plumbing,
> etc). I know several people that have lost their jobs, and while
> it was difficult, they were able to find new jobs that were close
> to what they had before or better, the big thing was that a lot of
> them had to move. They have been happy with their decision and know
> they can always move back when things are better in a few years.
" people spend less, therefore they earn less. "
This guy is an imbecile
We have to earn more than we consume (save), and here I blame the financial institutions that made all this possible and not the consumer.
America needs to work its butt out of recession, and this is to become possible once the whole economy is deleveraged and the US$ value falls to levels attractive to bringing back business to mainland USA.
We need to introduce tariffs and limit imports, promote local consumption and local products, screw the WTO and World Bank, reduce outsourcing and tax US corporations working outside the US. Give tax incentives ONLY to those bringing back business to the US and create jobs. This will immediately put the economy back on track.
Prolonging unemployment and unemployment benefits will make US workforce lazy, complacent and inefficient, and may lose skills that took years to learn.
Billions should be taken back from financial institution INVESTING the cash on Wall Street and commodities, and use it to go into partnership with companies willing to INVEST in people and US Jobs. Promote export and subsidies if need be, everyone else is doing it in a different form and guise.
For economic recovery, the administration should have three things on their priority list, 1. JOBS, 2. JOBS 3. JOBS.
On Nov 08 08:47 AM Oldfoxbob wrote:
> The Republican party stands for low or no tax's on the rich...Big
> oil company's can make more and more money with no rebate to the
> little guy...no insurance to the poor. No welfare for the poor, no
> unemployment benefits to the unemployed. Higher tax's on the lower
> income people. Hummmmm....that means no money to buy goods that the
> rich are producing. No one who gets sick can get well enough to return
> to work. Seems like a viscous circle to me. Yet the Democrats are
> pushing for more socialism...What we need is a good dictator for
> a 4 year stint and he has to be a good business man to get this country
> back on track. Throw the illegal aliens out, or in jail. Make those
> here legally speak English! Create jobs by creating government projects
> like new Dams, New Roads, New Libraries, New Schools etc. Make Congress
> ( both houses) have the same retirement plan as the rest of us have
> ( social Security) Make them have the same health plan as the poor
> have ( medicare and medicaid) and tax the hell out of the rich bast***s
> that are ruining this country. THEN we will have a good country once
> again. May be I should run for Congress to get this type of crap
> passed into law. What do you think?
On Nov 09 02:19 PM User 142933 wrote:
> another hit piece on President Obama...it was Bush and the Republicans
> that got us into this mess...and the spending this year is from Bush's
> last budget....not Obama's....the question is not how bad it is,
> but how bad it could be were it not for the actions taken todate.
> As for using alternative measures of the unemployment rate to show
> that it is a lot worse than the reported 10.2%...this has always
> been understood as an underreporting of the unemployed. Why is it
> being "headlined" right now? To further undermine Obama's administration.
> There are forces in America that would rather see Obama fail than
> see America succeed.
Perhaps living in the world of academia you shouldn't proclaim to know so much about the world of business, or the economics of business...
On Nov 08 09:17 AM Ferdinand E. Banks wrote:
> Funny long_on_oil, but I make a point of telling my students that
> Reagan was the dumbest president in the history of the United States.
> He also ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands - or maybe millions
> of Afghans.
>
> And author, read some economic history. There is no relation between
> the 'great' depression and what we have now. And do you know something,
> there never will be.
OnNov0809:05AMlong_on_...
> MyGod, wehavebeenthroughthiso...
For
> Petessakepoliticians, swallowyourprideanddow...
His
> plansetusonapathtoreco...
20
> years. Weallknowwhathedidnowa...
it.
On Nov 08 09:17 AM Ferdinand E. Banks wrote:
> Funny long_on_oil, but I make a point of telling my students that
> Reagan was the dumbest president in the history of the United States.
> He also ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands - or maybe millions
> of Afghans.
>
> And author, read some economic history. There is no relation between
> the 'great' depression and what we have now. And do you know something,
> there never will be.
This is what the liberals don't get, the more you make America uncompetitive, the less companies want to list here. Yea, they would probably still have a division or two here, but why you be incorporated here and have your headquarters here if you could move to a better place to do business.
On Nov 09 04:21 PM ecoco wrote:
> We are making too many complex irrelevant comments to explain the
> state of the economy and job market, and many are forgetting to mention
> the source of all evils for the present situation being irrational
> exuberance on part of the consumer for the past 15 years.
>
> We have to earn more than we consume (save), and here I blame the
> financial institutions that made all this possible and not the consumer.
>
>
> America needs to work its butt out of recession, and this is to become
> possible once the whole economy is deleveraged and the US$ value
> falls to levels attractive to bringing back business to mainland
> USA.
>
> We need to introduce tariffs and limit imports, promote local consumption
> and local products, screw the WTO and World Bank, reduce outsourcing
> and tax US corporations working outside the US. Give tax incentives
> ONLY to those bringing back business to the US and create jobs. This
> will immediately put the economy back on track.
>
> Prolonging unemployment and unemployment benefits will make US workforce
> lazy, complacent and inefficient, and may lose skills that took years
> to learn.
>
> Billions should be taken back from financial institution INVESTING
> the cash on Wall Street and commodities, and use it to go into partnership
> with companies willing to INVEST in people and US Jobs. Promote export
> and subsidies if need be, everyone else is doing it in a different
> form and guise.
>
> For economic recovery, the administration should have three things
> on their priority list, 1. JOBS, 2. JOBS 3. JOBS.