Tag: economy

The way we were

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In a turning point of the 1980 Presidential campaign, the Republican challenger asked:

“How many of you are better off now than you were four years ago?”

Examining some unemployment rates:

Nov, 1976:  7.8% – Carter elected.

Nov, 1980: 7.5% – Reagan elected.

Nov, 1982: 10.8% – Mid term elections

Mar, 1989: 5.0% – Best value under Reagan/Bush

Nov, 1992: 7.4% – Clinton Elected

Apr, 2000: 3.8% – Best value under Clinton

Dec, 2000: 3.9% – Bush appointed

Nov, 2008: 6.8% Obama elected

Summarizing:

o More were better off in 1980 than 1976.

o Things got much worse under supply side economics, before they got better

o The lowest unemployment rates were after the Clinton administration edged up the tax rates on the highest incomes.

It might be mentioned that:

o These are national – they might have been better or worse in some areas than in others.

o The rate always understates the true unemployed.

Industrial output lowest since WW II

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From an article in Yahoo finance,  “…a 0.7 percent fall in manufacturing output, which pushed the operating rate at the nation’s factories down to 67.4 percent of capacity last month, the lowest level on records that go back to 1948. ”

If anyone tells you the economy is not slow…

see: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Industrial-output-drops-in-apf-14648351.html

The ideologies that failed

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Frank Schaeffer – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Schaeffer – a former religious right Republican, addresses his former party:  “You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America. Now you have thenerve to criticize the “architect” America just hired — President Obama — to rebuild from the ashes. You do nothing constructive, just try to hinder the one person willing and able to fix the mess you created.

I used to be one of you…. Today no actual conservative can be a Republican. Reagan would despise today’s wholly negative Republican Party. And can you picture the gentlemanly and always polite Ronald Reagan, endorsing a radio hate-jock slob who crudely mocked a man with Parkinson’s and who now says he wants an American president to fail?!

With people like Limbaugh as the loudmouth image of the Republican Party — you need no enemies. But something far more serious has happened than an image problem: the Republican Party has become the party of obstruction at just the time when all Americans should be pulling together for the good of our country. Instead, Republicans are today’s fifth column sabotaging American renewal.

President Obama has been in office barely 45 days and the Republican Party has the nerve to blame him for the economic and military cataclysm he inherited.” 

Thank you Mr. Schaeffer, and here we hope the  GOP ignores you & continues its current path…

see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/open-letter-to-the-republ_b_172822.html

A Ponzi Scheme for all Americans vs real wealth for all Americans

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We have been warned!

In todays Times ( New York, not London), Tom Friedman writes: “What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”

We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese …

We can’t do this anymore.”

“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,” said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog climateprogress.org. We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks — water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land — and not by generating renewable flows.  ““You can get this burst of wealth that we have created from this rapacious behavior,” added Romm. “But it has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate …’ Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”

see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/opinion/08friedman.html?ref=opinion

Comrade Greenspan wants us to seize the economy’s commanding height

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“O.K., not exactly. What Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman — and a staunch defender of free markets — actually said was, “It may be necessary to temporarily nationalize some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring.” I agree.”

Times are indeed changing, when a Princeton economist suggests in the NY Times that we might nationalize our banks…

see more:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/opinion/23krugman.html?ref=opinion

A New Day for Government’s Role in the Economy

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No – NOT Morning in America-

“WASHINGTON — The Senate’s vote on — and the likely approval of — an $838 billion economic-stimulus plan Tuesday will signal a decisive new expansion of the government’s role in the economy.

The package will include tens of billions of dollars to help states pay for health-care, education and highways. It’ll provide tax breaks for new car and home buyers. It will help to computerize health records and invest heavily in 21st-century renewable energy technology.

“Just think about Rosie the Riveter manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., describing the bill’s long-term impact.”

(McClatchy)

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/economics/story/61844.html

A Proud Centerist

chasdarwin1 Comment

“What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses?  A proud centrist. For that is what the senators who ended up calling the tune on the stimulus bill just accomplished.”

Krugman

NY Times today http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/opinion/09krugman.html?_r=1