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Healthcare and Government's Role in the Economy
The unsung dirge of this health care nightmare is that health care increased in pricing even while their customers paychecks did not increase. And that is the real issue.
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How's That Again?
Wasn't the fact that American consumers have been borrowing and spending their way into financial oblivion in recent years a major cause of the current economic collapse?
When Do We Take Action?
According to The Economist's report on aging, one in three Americans will be over 60 in the next 11 years. The impact of this number of older people on public spending will be unprecedented.
U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Challenged to Put Up or Shut Up on Contracting Abuses
I have talked to hundreds of Hispanic business owners and Hispanic chambers of commerce across the country that want nothing to do with the USHCC.
Green Shoots turning into Brown Weeds
The Green Shoots supporters accuse the Brown Weeds advocates of using charts that are too long and miss recent movements. So I've decided to dig up my own charts, looking at the last month or two.
Fight for the Health of Our Country
The president has been telling Americans that a public plan will create competition, lower the cost of private insurance, and improve care. The data from San Francisco is proving that he's right.
Next Economic Cycle: Virtuous or Vicious?
As the recession continues and perhaps even deepens, it is difficult not to wonder about the next cycle. It appears that the economy will continue to ...
The Economic Free Fall Is Over
Gloom and doom is the way of blogs lately. Nothing is good; everything is bad. Unfortunately, lost in this translation is a set of monthly trends that shows the worst is over.
Is The Third Time The Charm?
The dismal unemployment report released last week inspired renewed interest in a second economic stimulus, and economists, from Krugman to Feldstein, have led the charge for another injection.
Why Have We Abandoned Markets?
It astonishes me to see how quickly this country has embraced a socialist mentality and how readily it has accepted the belief that the source of our problems was an unfettered free market.
Pessimists on the Economy Don't Exist at the Post
The economy has absolutely not been "measurably worse than anyone expected." It has been pretty much following exactly the course that some of us predicted.
Are You a Victim of the Big Investment Con?
If you think you're going to get rich investing in the stock market, you are a victim of the biggest investing con.
How Long Before the Fed's Days Are Numbered?
The truth is that, aside from those periods when conditions and markets have set out a relatively easy path for central bankers to follow, the Federal Reserve has not lived up to its mission or its promise.
Waxman-Markey Property Rights to the Sky ? Part 3 Interview with Economist James Quilligan
Greening all of the world's businesses and our consumer habits through the economic signals of the marketplace will not change the energy base of civilization from fossil fuel.
The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear ... of Government
If we all weren't so afraid of big, bad government, we'd realize the obvious: expanding the public sector is the most efficient way both to create jobs and stimulate the economy.
Palin's Crude Awakening
Forget the Jackson 5, this was the weekend for the Palin 5.
California Cancels 2010
Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that his state "will skip directly to 2011." California faces a projected $26.3 billion budget deficit, and the state's controller began handing out IOUs last week.
How to Attract the Leaders to Rebuild our Economy
Offering CEOs big money to come and run companies does not guarantee great leadership. In fact, the practice may attract the wrong leaders altogether.
In Dependence Day 2009
We have never been more reliant on the generosity of others and less able to act like grown-ups and fend for ourselves than any time since the Revolution.
Sarah "Barracuda" Doesn't Sleep With The Fishes!
She is not a narcissist. She just has the good sense to realize she is better and more deserving than most people to rule the planet and prepare humanity for the end of days.
Three Reasons We Need an Economic Wake Up Call
Several events of the past week should be a wake-up call to the Obama administration. The bottom line: the medicine isn't working. Stronger stuff is needed.
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THOM HARTMANN: From the Great Depression until basically the ReaganAdministration, we had a national industrial policy where we made things in the United States. We no longer have that.
Combine the fact that we no longer protect our economy here in the United States with the fact that we've moved from a manufacturing economy to a service economy (and there's an absolute limit to how many times we can call "If you mow my lawn and I wash your car" 'creating wealth').
On top of that, what Reagan's chief economic adviser, David Stockman, said was overt: That they ran up a $3 trillion debt (tripling the national debt, borrowing more money than every president in the history of the United States combined specifically so that when the Reagan Administration left office there'd be so much debt that the Democrats wouldn't be able to expand social security or have a national health care program.
[And on top of that, Bush's wars, tax cuts for the rich, TARP, and the stimulus.]
I don't see a way out of this, do you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fff2t1IA1mQ&feature=channel_page
THOM HARTMANN: I don't see a way out of this with this kind of debt, do you (to William Engdahl)?
Engdahl's very interesting answer (about Summers and Geithner and Obama's economic team, plus the dollar, Nixon and the gold standard, etc.) at 6:35 minutes into the video clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fff2t1IA1mQ&feature=channel_page
Larry, you mean your neo-liberal policies that destroyed Russia don't work here either?
No, I think he meant that it will take 20 years to recover from Cheney/Bush.
Add another 10 years to that to recover from oduma/biden
Well thank you for making my worst Mr. Summers.
Bush: From March 2003 to October 2003, the S&P 500 went from 835 to 1034 or +23.8%. Obama: From January 2009 through July 2009, the S&P went from 932 to 879 or -5.2%. By way of comparison, I also reviewed the market returns a full year prior to these time periods and the results show a very similar situation. The S&P 500 return under Bush 1-year prior was -26.2%, hurt by the internet bubble collapse, 9/11 and corporate scandals. Trillions of dollars in lost wealth. The S&P 500 return under Obama 1-year prior was -35.9%, hurt by the housing bubble collapse. Also trillions of dollars in lost wealth.
You cite lagging indicator statistics which have no bearing on the admininstations in office at the time the statistics occurred. The January 2009 through July 2009 statistics are a direct result of policies in place for the prior 4 years at least, and the underlying fundamentals took that long for the policies to have their impact. The S&P bubble you describe in March to October 2003 is a direct result of legislation passed in 2000 that created new market realities which were not fully exploited until 2003 - 2004. This is largely due to the 9/11 and Enron/Worldcom and Dot.Bomb recession. Those legislative changes only saw marketplace fruition in 2003 at the earliest. And that was nothing more than the bubble which popped and created the numbers you are citing for 2009. Your attempt to lay blame on the current administration is sophomoric. And your attempt to make the former administration look good with those numbers is no better. Those "good" looking numbers are merely an indicator of a bubble whose time to burst would come, and those "Bad" looking numbers are the result of that burst. The fact that one administration claims credit for the "high times" is merely political maneuvering. Those "high times" are exactly what led to the "bad times" we are seeing now. The administration that wants to claim it existed during those high times and did nothing to forestall the coming disaster is the one that should be indicted in by history.
The Dems exploited the stimulus to ram through their wish list and insisted it would create jobs. The numbers don't lie. There is not even a faint sign of recovery, that is the issue.
They Dems missed the opportunity to inject 1 trillion dollars directly in peoples pockets such as suspending income tax for a year, mandated lowering of all mortgage loan rates to 3%, etc. The banks get 0% and billions of your money. The banks want you foreclosed; they can sell a new mortagage to the next familiy that will buy your house for half what you paid. Obama and Geithner made the banks whole and enabled them to hose homeowners on the brink.
You O=lovers say "this would create another bubble". Morons, we needed a real stimulus, not some bill to extend unemployment, and prevent civil servants from being laid off. Why should civil service people be immune? Keep firemen and EMS personnel, the rest of expendible.
The opportunity to inject those trillions of dollars? That was ORGINALLY proposed by Democrats. IT was Republicans who opposed those policies.
But you are right about one thing -- Obama and the Democratic leadership did make a very big mistake. The mistake of seeking bipartisanship. They should have told the GOP to shove off a cliff and they should have done exactly what you say they should have -- injecting that $1 trillion direcly into people's pockets, suspending the income tax for 95% of income earners, and MANDATED lowering of all mortgage loans. They should have just forced the Cram-Down provision back into the Banktruptcy Code (which was there pre-2005 for over 20 years). You are right about that -- Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress tried too hard to cowtow to win GOP votes, and ended up giving us crap for legislation. But the GOP opposed all the good provisions whose absence you lament, and for anyone in the GOP to now claim those provisions should have been included is merely engaging in deception and gamesmanship.
But, the Democrats had the opportunity, the mandate, and a very compelling premise upon which to do those very things. The fact that they didn't, and that they let the GOP push them around, only demonstrates how much of a failure the Democratic Party has become. They lacked the political will or backbone to do what they had spent the past 18 months promising the American people they would do.
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