'The Five Myths About the U.S. Economy'

TIME:

Double dip is not a term that a government keen to extricate itself from the economic-crisis-management business likes to hear. A couple of weeks ago, the Obama Administration was poised to switch to growth mode. Then the ugly data started pouring in like the overflowing Mississippi. First-quarter GDP numbers showed a measly 1.8% increase, well short of the expectations of above 3%, and second-quarter estimates are not much better.

Read the whole story: TIME

 

 

Comments

[fortressfountain]

10:20 AM on 06/15/2011

Both the dims and republicans are trying to ruin the economy so they can have a slave labor workforce and issue vouchers so people will be forced to purchase corporate goods they want to do without.
You can not have an economy based on lying and cheating.

[nothingchanges]

09:06 PM on 06/12/2011

Perhaps the best sound bite I've heard in regard to our economy comes from a British Author, Douglas Adams.

It his series of books "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" Earth is colonized in our distant past by a group of basically useless mid level managers that were shipped off of their home planet for providing nothing of value.

One of the key characters asks "How can you have money if none of you actually produce anything? It doesn’t grow on trees you know! "

The Reply? "Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt leaves as legal tender, we have, of course all become immensely rich. But, we have also run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability. Which means that I gather the current going rate has something like three major deciduous forests buying one ship’s peanut. So, um, in order to obviate this problem and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on an extensive defoliation campaign, and um, burn down all the forests. I think that’s a sensible move don’t you?"

Is it a sensible move? Wall street made Billions in bonuses, for what? What do they produce? Our value system is just as messed up as those fictitious characters from a funny novel.

Why DO they make so much money, when they essentially produce nothing? How can you have an economy when those that make the most produce the least?

[Maarten Wentink]

11:05 PM on 06/11/2011

American exceprionalism can be a destructive factor in our culture. When you think you are the best you stop looking around and fail to see the success of others untill it is too late. America can be the best, but not by default.

[emma richmond]

09:48 PM on 06/11/2011

Love the Post 88, 749 and others. The Mess this Country is in was Created by All Republicans President, when Bill Clinton Came into the Seat, this country was Hemorrhaging, he did some Doctoring and Put the Legs back under it knowing it would take time to Heal, Bush came in and Open the Wounds started the Hemorrhaging again but Worst this time, President Obama had to do ER Surgery, this country had some really Serious Injuries, President Obama had to make some Serious Incisions the Wounds was Open and Hemorrhaging, 2 1/2 years he have close some wounds, and Swelling, it will take time to completely Heal, and we want President Obama to help it finish helping healing. The MEDIA won't say these Tornadoes, Storms and Flooding, is the Blame for the Set Back they don't Mention that and Fires. The MEDIA Flow with the Rherotic and Exaggerated Lies. We don't have many Reporters any longer. Do all these People Remember when the President Put his Job on the line with the BUSH Taxes Cut for them, now they want to throw him under the BUS for something he's not the Blame for Mother Nature. The One's you People Put Back in the seat, they haven't created a Bill in 30 years. OB 2012.

[vippy]

01:36 AM on 06/12/2011

Watch the documentary "inside job" and then re-evaluate what you are trying to say.  It does not match!

[JTCan]

06:51 PM on 06/11/2011

Has anyone even taken into account all the jobs lost and companies ruined due to floods,tornadoes and other natural disasters? Of course the numbers are higher....As people start to rebuild,get insurance money to replace their homes,businesses etc...it will create jobs and numbers will go back down.

[bk1]

12:05 PM on 06/11/2011

The truth is that most companies do not need to add headcount in the USA because the demographics of this country, combined with technology, limits hiring requirements. We have an aging population in this country with limited requirement for expanded consumption to meet core needs. Things last longer we buy like cars, appliances, clothes, computers. It should be noted that the successful approach taken by Germany with positive results are directly in conflict with Republican proposals and more closely related to steps taken by Democrats with the auto and medical industry in this country. We like to rip the European model and tout growth in China but both are heavily steeped in Government/Business unified engagement. Tax cuts and less regulation is an oversimplification that has lead us down a path of greater income disparity and stagnating opportunity for the majority of our populations. We tried that path with Bush and it has set us back by a decade in the world.

[sonoffestus]

01:25 PM on 06/11/2011

Excellent post!

[ljkcan]

02:34 PM on 06/11/2011

well said.

[fortressfountain]

11:29 AM on 06/11/2011

Another myth-privitizing ss or giving it to the states will make it better? How so when the money has already been spent.
The biggest myth is there is a free market.

[nothingchanges]

11:15 AM on 06/11/2011

As near as I can determine, perhaps the biggest myth about America's economy, is that our government either regulates it, or controls it in any way shape or form.

Looks to me like it's more the other way around.

[GloriaY]

12:13 AM on 06/11/2011

republicans don't want to see the economy improve since they believe that an unstable or rather poor economy, high unemployment, GDP tanking, high foreclosure rates homelessness etc, will result in the destablization of every state and consequently the entire country. It is their concerted effort to bring down the President, so they refuse to do anything to ease the suffering of the people who put them in office and everyone else. Americans are suffering and republicans are deliberately sitting on the sidelines. The writing is on the wall, middle class Americans who are manipulated and vote for these people,will be committing suicide.
Where are the jobs they campaigned on? They claimed to know how to create jobs, they were bringing jobs back, they were putting people back to work. They have not "created" one job, and are silent about jobs. Now their favorite topic is reducing debt ceiling and the economy, that tanked under their stewardship but blaming the President. My question is what have republicans done? Absolutely NOTHING to improve the situation. republicans only interests are to privatize social security, end medicare, tamper with education, give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, reduce or end services that benefit the middle class, destroy unions, and do everything in their power to destroy the middle class, at the same time turn the entire country over to the rich. Be forewarned,voting for republicans is voting to destroy this country and to commit suicide. The choice is yours.

[local21]

08:24 AM on 06/11/2011

G-L-O-R-I-A

fanned and faved

[codycap]

11:34 PM on 06/10/2011

History of debt since the right embraced the (Starve the Beast) strategy.

“Remember, the debt this country owed as of the day Obama took office took 234 years to accumulate, but 80% of it was under three republican presidents. And 100% of the post WWII debt burden increase, debt as percent of GDP, came under those three republicans.

All of the increase in the debt burden came under three tax hating republican presidents who follow the “Starve the Beast” philosophy.”

Just a couple of days ago;

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/03/236108/failing-to-raise-debt-ceiling-could-cause-bigger-gdp-drop-than-the-2008-recession/

If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, “the federal government will be forced to immediately cut nearly 40 percent from its budget,”

The Wall Street Journal found that failing to raise the debt ceiling for 95 days would wipe out all of the expected 2011 economic growth.

Republicans have posited that such a shock to the economic system could actually be a good thing. “By defaulting on the debt, in the short and long term, it could benefit us to go through a period of crisis that forces politicians to make decisions” on major policies that affect the budget, said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA).

[Peanut Santiago]

11:30 PM on 06/10/2011

The Time article was quite reasonable.

It pretty much tells it like it is....and makes both sides (political parties) look bad.
Which they both deserve.

[Karma2U]

10:02 PM on 06/10/2011

The greedy idiots in the insurance and wall street scams were so blinded by their money grabbing zeal that they forgot that their greedy cronies in charge of the corporations were also profit hungry - so they busted unions and fired and laid off all the paying customers.

The Midas touch - when you can't make anything but gold - you will starve to death.

The only way to get the attention of these criminals, is to stop buying what there selling.

Americans made them rich and they took their jobs out of the country and skipped out on paying their fair share of taxes.

It would get their attention if we the people could pull off a nationwide boycott of everything but the bare necessities for about a year - then you would see things happen.

[codycap]

09:58 PM on 06/10/2011

(Starve the Beast) strategy.

The Republican rhetoric about cutting taxes – all the talk about stimulating the economy and giving money back to hardworking Americans, there is another, deeper political aren’t.”

Growing deficits were entirely consistent with the long-term plan to reduce government. The hope was that soaring deficits and a rapidly growing national debt would eventually force policymakers to reduce government spending –

The Bush administration embraced deficits as a good way to reign in government. goal: to strangle government social programs. For decades, conservatives have sought tax cuts, not because they’re affordable, but because they

For decades, a key part of the anti-government agenda of conservatives has been to cut spending on social programs.

Targeted programs – Social Security, Medicare,health care for the elderly and poor, welfare and food stamps, military retirement, drug abuse centers, unemployment compensation, aid to education, college student loans, nursing homes, employment training, childcare centers, housing subsidies for the elderly and disabled, Head Start, and school nutrition.

The bankruptcy of this nation was intentiona­l.

[RunningBecky]

11:05 PM on 06/10/2011

This was actually a policy that was started during the Regan administration when their stated goal was to "make the government so small you could drown it in a bathtub." Well they have finally succeeded in their 30 year plan and the whole country is going down the drain with it.
Huggs Becky

[codycap]

09:55 PM on 06/10/2011

All of the increase in the debt burden came under three tax hating republican presidents who follow the “Starve the Beast” philosophy.”

Orrin Hatch (R) ..... "Six years ago under President ["W"] when we [Republicans] had the majority, it was standard practice not to pay for things,"

In August of 2001, as the federal budget surpluses began to disappear and new deficits began to loom, the president had an unusual fit of candor and described these developments as "incredibly positive news," arguing that this would now put Congress in a "fiscal straitjacket."

As conservative Rick Santorum explained it, he first hated deficits, but then came to like them because they made it harder to pass any new spending bills.

“I came to the House as a real deficit hawk but I am no longer a deficit hawk. I’ll tell you why. …Deficits make it easier to say no.”

The bankruptcy of this nation was intentional.

[cdhj12000]

07:07 PM on 06/10/2011

Apparently the US government hasn't learned from its or anyone else' previous mistakes, and corrections. Typical of youth, I suppose. With age comes wisdom.

[Ramon Moreno]

07:26 PM on 06/10/2011

Not from what I've seen.