Dan in mpls

Why the Plutocrats Will Return

Wonderful theory and it makes sense and all but I think Obama and company are far more socialist than you would believe them to be. The real world problems with their theory will not stop them from working toward a more fair distribution of wealth - even if the result is that we are all more equally poor.

Recession, Depression, Deflation, Inflation, Collapse or Recovery?

For all the gloom an doom in the article, much of it justified to some degree, the item that jumped out at me as the most incorrect was the authors concern for the "psychological trauma" the country will suffer. I don't think 4 people in the nation's know that the current system is insane, The middle class is on the government dole more than the upper classes (social security, Medicare and Medicaid and even Welfare and food stamp programs to some degree). When they go, people will know it was to be expected though they didn't expect it as soon as it hut them. Not much point in rioting in the streets. There will be a few riots of some sort and the press will have a field day with them but by and large life will go on.

24 States Borrow Money to Pay Unemployment Benefits

I am so sick to death of seeing deadbeats I know sitting on unemployment ( in Minnesota where jobs are easily found even yet)waiting out their time before seeking employment. The losers have not adjusted spending nor changed lifestyles as they wait for the next government extension. This time around I'm sure things will change at some point as we do sink deeper into this mess the government has created. Of course, at some point the government may actually take a stab as stopping the unemployment claim fraud though that may be asking too much.
I see about zero chance that the government will relent in its insane spending orgy. There are so many simple and common sense solutions to so many problems but not one of them will gain a vote for a politicians anywhere. I fear that coming tax increases will crush us all before the whole thing turns around as the government is forced to stop burning money by our friends in China and around the world.

Another Crisis Looms Right Around the Corner

How odd that no one here foresees the possibility that at a not to distant time a good sized group of politicians will be replaced. At some point the Federal government is going to CUT SPENDING. Can you imagine how little it would be noticed if EVERY department of government took a 5 percent cut in one year and for several? Federal pay alone is a third above what the rest of the nation gets for similar jobs. I'm sick to death of seeing senior citizen discounts one everything when they have more money than most of us. The point is, there is so much slop in the bloated, State and Federal budgets that mega billions couldn't be cut without doing much damage to nation. I don't recall even one dead child found in the streets for the million starving children we were promised with welfare reform. This will get messy but we will go on though the press will have a field day telling us how terrible life is.

Bob Toll: 'Yesterday's Sub-Prime Is Today's FHA'

I know that sanity doesn't reign in Washington, but it sure would be nice if the tax credit didn't apply to new homes at all. Let that portion of the market sink like a rock for a few years while the used home market tightens up. The greater competition for used homes would forestall a few foreclosures anyway. This thing is just a bit too serous for us to be bailing out everyone across the board - even though I'm sure the big home builders have clout and campaign contributions like anybody else.

Faber: Gold a Better Buy than at $300/oz.

You stole my post. The nation will not elect a President who promises to balance the budget. McCain did and look where that got him.
It would take some totally out of touch outsider who had a ton of personal charisma and a great pair of legs to hijack the next election. Then out of total ignorance, but with common sense, start running the county like she, er, he or she, was not beholding to either party. That or Mitt Romney, who had actually made a few bucks in his life, keeps coming to mind.

U.S. Job Losses Demystified

Damn, I wrote about the same article in one of my bitch fest comments not long ago. I actually came on line today to see how I faired here. I built a mildly successful Hotel in this small tourist town I've adopted of late. Tourism is clearly up since I came to town. Two weeks ago the town passed a 5% hotel tax to thank me for it. Then I returned to Minneapolis to find a guy knocking on my door. He'd come test for gas leaks near my indoor gas meter. That was nice of him. He's being paid over 50K a year to do this union job as the company got sued when a home and a commercial building went up in smoke a few years back. To avoid future lawsuits the company is going to test every property in the city every three years and pass the cost on to the consumer, of course. Think of your own life. It just doesn't stop, yet is has to. When I read the anger in these brilliant posts here. I suspect that we will see "change" in the next election and for several after that one. I have never been one to toss my precious money around politically speaking but I suspect that the next round or two could be different. It's do or die time. Atlas is not shrugging, Atlas is being crushed under the weight of dung generated by the current economic and legal system.

Time for the U.S. Economy to Reindustrialize

Has anyone here ever tried to start a small business???? The government will be your partner from start to finish. They (the government bureaucrat, will tell you how big a building you need, how many bathrooms you need, how many inches the toilet must be from the sink, how large a sprinkler system to install. They will assist you in designing your packaging, requiring labels of all sorts. They will dictate who you hire and how much you pay them. They will enlighten you as to how many hours your employees will work. They will decide who get pregnancy leave and day care. The list of help your business partner will offer is endless. Finally, once you are done with your startup phase and when you are successful, they will take a growing portion of your profits to support the legions of poor people in America who cannot work as they don't begin to have the skills necessary to hold an entry level job.

It will take 20 percent unemployment, which will happen yet, before our business partner, the government, decides to butt out and let someone start a business on their own at a cost that will make American products competitive on the world market.

America does not have the wealth it once had. I hear daily how we have borrowed our way to an affluent life style. Yet I have never once heard any practical suggestions as to how we back of the government intrusions that have been suffocating new businesses. The government has not laid off a single worker in this opening salvo of what will be a Great Recession. Government employees are waltzing through this thing unphased and strengthened. Their every missed dance step is on the neck of some schmuck who has an idea and a dream.

The Global Oil Scam: 50 Times Bigger than Madoff

This is way over my head. Though I have found it to be incomprehensible that so many wall street insiders have found themselves a home in the administration that promised "change".

Obama was a total dark horse candidate who somehow captured the imagination of the nation - never mind the big money that was spent to get him to where he is today. He was outspending the Republican 3 to 1 in some states. Then I was honestly shocked to read that McCain had more small contributions than Obama. That seemed to be impossible given the story line in the press. Something like this sure would explain a lot. OK, it would explain everything. I guess I will step just a bit farther out on the conspiracy limb to comment that a wise, successful and very old stock market player I know believes that the fall crash was manipulated just a bit to hit before the election all but insuring a Democrat victory. I though he was nuts.

Corporations Win Again - This Time It's Healthcare

If the government lets loose of the insurance companies - aside from antitrust limitation to insure some amount of competition, health insurance costs would drop. I for one would chose the policy that does not cover smoking related issues, any transplants, any iron lungs beyond a short amount of time, any antidepressants nor viaga, nor any obesity related claims. The list of possible exemptions would be long. I'd pay extra to let them chose the time when I appeared to be terminal to spare my family that decision and if I died a few years earlier than I might otherwise it would not really matter. I'm enjoying my life wildly but none of us will live forever and I'd rather take a nice vacation with my savings. Most importantly, I'd chose the policy wherein I waived my right to sue for malpractice. If I did decide I wanted to have malpractice coverage, I'd expect to pay for my own policy and the hospital nor doctor would be required to carry any. My own policy paid for out of my own pocket would cover me. My guess is that my health insurance policy would drop by an easy third to a half overnight as my health care provider would have a free hand at reestablishing death panels all but wiped out by lawsuits so that I would not be able to have experimental treatments nor those that are not likely to save me. If my company had a poor track record of killing people off too early, I'd switch to another policy and pay a bit more for the privileged of better health care. I'd guess the poor would have an even more stripped down policy than mine - subsidized by our ever generous Federal government.

Employment: Neither Quality Nor Quantity

Odd that no one commented on the "next phase of the crisis" that Mr. Schiff mentions in the last paragraph of his article. I've been saying that that's coming and will there be hell to pay when it does! At some point the Federal government will sink under the weight of the deficit and will be forced to cut workers wholesale. Sadly, this won't come until after the economy is totally bled dry buy tax increases and a long recession/depression. I wonder if Reagan will actually rise from the dead or do you suppose someone can just act exactly like him and be able to take even more heat from his detractors than he did?
On another note. I am so totally sick of hearing Obama cheerleaders in the liberal media telling us that the economy will roll next year but slow after that as the stimulus wears off. If any measurable portion of that insane bill was actually stimulating anything beyond loyal supports of the Democrat Party, it would never wear off! The economy, once "stimulated", would benefit from the money spent for years or decades! Almost nothing in the bill was dedicated to building the long term economy of the nation.

10.2%

You may think that minimum wage is for kids but that is because you don't know many people who live on it and do survive. In many towns across America one can rent a 2 bedroom apartment for $400.00 very easily. I know that I have not been able to raise the rents on my rental housing in Minneapolis for the last 8 years. Apartment rentals are therefore getting cheaper by the year. Across the globe families do live in multi generational households. This will most probably become the norm as families pull together to fill the Mc Mansions that dot the countryside sucking energy and now commonly house two people.
Most of the millionaires who are reading this seem rather sure that our country isn't gong to be the same free spending country we have all grown accustomed to yet most here cannot fathom life at a five dollar an hour wage. It would be better for millions more people to be working and creating something than sitting out this great recession in depression and helplessness. I would expect that we will have to wait for inflation to lower the minimum wage before we will see hiring on a large scale. Vast swathes of the younger generations have no work ethic so they should not expect to have what their parents did, nor will they. At some point the free ride legions of the poor are getting from the government will have to end as America joins most other nations of the world in what we must call a more normal (poorer) lifestyle. We really are no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave. The current Administration is working desperately to mold the nation into one that is a lot more like Europe. This will have to include unemployment levels similar to what they have suffered unless we create a wage that matches the skill set of the poor and lower middle classes We need a lower minimum wage to help the newly employed build job skills like showing up to work the day after they get paid and staying sober and drug free.
At the current levels of Federal deficit spending, the lower middle class will be basically reduced to the living on the minimum wage that you think is so beneath the American worker as it stands now. It would be far better to put people to work than to create debt and and wait for inflation to do the job for us.

Have We Reached the End of the Private Sector Economy?

We have had a privatization initiative for the last 30 years?????? WHAT???? The federal government has grown wildly. They have sucked the blood out of all of us though few of us realize it as most citizens keep getting handouts from the government to keep them on board. The Republicans have tried to cut taxes but not spending as they know full well they cannot be elected if they do so. Nothing will stop this but the fast approaching crash we all know is coming. At some point I am guessing that the interest on the debt will become so vast that the Feds are going to be forced to go to the across the board spending cuts so that it cannot be said that they voted against anything in particular. Few would have the stomach for, say, closing the entire Department of Education.
I might add that I know plenty of people who use or have used food stamps and they aren't starving! I promise you. Many see food stamps as a birth right. One of my workers today complained to me that his energy assistance was not as generous as it had been. He was upset as he had "paid into it" like social Security. Food stamps should only be issued for American grown food products and only raw food stuffs should be included. The starving 50% would have to learn to cook. Then, to help them live healthy, they should have their allotment cut if they are overweight. Im sure that 50% number would drop quickly.

Policy Lessons from the Great Depression

"When Fox News sputters lies about him (i.e., Michelle Obama ordering expensive room service at the Waldorf Astoria, the "death panels", etc.) the Obama Administration SHOULD respond." see above

I am so very sorry to add this to a most fascinating article and intelligent comments but I cannot resist. Please skip over this one now if you want to remain on point today.

My doctor informed me that Medicare is no longer paying to remove benign tumors as the cost is so far in excess of the rewards. That decision was made by a death panel. It may have been a good call but it will lead to more deaths among the aged. That death panel of experts will be the first of many convened over the next decade as we bring our bloated and moribund government directed health care system into sync with economic reality. We got into much of the current health care mess when the courts effectively shut down the insurance company run death panels in the 80's as lawyers ran wild with lawsuits against them and won.
Liz, get over Sarah Palin. You will never like her because she is right - and speaks far too clearly for many to handle.

America Uncoupled: Wall Street and Main Street at a Fork in the Road

I suppose that I would be considered wealthy by any measure of the word. I certainly never have felt so nor, like the millionaire next door, do I live like one. ( I just have 3 homes like the next guy). Yet I run a small business in a small tourist town like any many other towns across the country. I love what I am doing here and never plan to make any money doing it - though I do add my monthly income up like any other small businessman, the only difference being that I know full well that what I take in has no relation to what I put out. My life time of experience in the housing market added to this new pass time has given me this crazy thought that I just can't shake. It seems to be at the core of everything I read. The minimum wage has to give. It is anathema to anyone in power today but as we as a nation seek rebuild the economy we have to come to grips with the reality that wishing we could pay the help 7 plus bucks an hour to the workers is not going to get us many new jobs for quite some time. America is a poorer nation than it appeared to be 2 years ago and the rest of the planet figured it out.
I know that small businesses like mine would hire if they paid wages that were in relation to what an employee could generated in income during the course of a work day. The two numbers are inextricably entwined yet not a soul seems to give it much thought.
The unions cry about a "living wage" yet a lot of people in this town get by on far less than any "living wage" would give them and many more of them would have jobs of some sort if the Federal Government plantation owners would get out of the way and let small businesses hire at a wage they can afford. I KNOW we'd get a million jobs overnight if only the employer and the employee were able to set the wage. I fear it will be a long time in coming before inflation pushes the current minimum wage through the floor boards where it belongs in this town and hiring begins anew.