Here comes the other economic shoe dropping...

[Coito ergo sum]

BUDGET DEFICIT TO REACH RECORD $1.47 TRILLION... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100723/ap_ ... _deficit_2

WH: A 'FISCAL SITUATION THAT REQUIRES ATTENTION'...

Understate much? Yes, why don't you give that a little bit of attention.....?

Bank failure tally passes 100 for year... 100 banks this year - and we're only half done - have failed. Unbelievable....

$30,000 price tag to attend Obama's birthday party -- http://www.suntimes.com/news/sneed/2526 ... 23.article DOUCHE!

Congress' tab for bottled water up to $604,000 in 9 months.... http://www.aolnews.com/house-money/arti ... g/19541719 -- Ummm....dickfaces.....STOP SPENDING LIKE DRUNKEN SAILORS! And, stop wasting time on piles of nonsense!!!! http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100723/ap_ ... ts_bills_1 Traitorous whores!!!!!

Yep, all lousy news.

One question keeps gnawing at me: where in Holy Hell were all the "We need small government and a balanced budget" conservatives during the last administration??? Locked in a Congressional broom closet, I suppose.

I asked the same question for 8 fucking years. There was no supposed "deregulation" - Bush did not veto one fucking spending bill, increased entitlements, and increased government regulations on banks, investment companies, and all other industries, and yet we hear nothing except how the Bush years were the pinnacle of laissez-faire capitlalism. News flash: Neither Bush the Elder nor Bush the Younger were fiscal conservatives. Bush the Elder, you'll recall, heavily criticized Reaganomics - supply-side economics - he called it Voodoo Economics.

What irks the FUCK out of me are the Congresspeople - Republicans and Democrats alike - that just fucking WASTE MONEY. You know what happens in a business when times are lean. Bonuses are reduced or cut. Parties go away. Extravagances are limited or cut out completely. They save fucking pennies. You never hear private business say, "oh, it's only a few hundred thousand dollars..." - what they do is they cut the stuff that can be cut - cut the waste - if you're spending $600,000 on bottled water, you figure out how to cut that to $300,000 - somebody actually works to drill down the costs, negotiate better deals, etc.

But, these shit-heels don't fucking care. It's not their money. Saving on any particular item doesn't have an impact on their jobs, and they ignore it because any given item is such "small percentage of the total debt." News fucking flash: Every dollar owed is just a "miniscule percentage of the total." But, you start fucking cutting. The first thing you do is cut the "low hanging fruit" - the easy stuff. You save every penny. Cut the fucking waste.

Sit down and figure out how to spend 1/2 as much next year as this year for Congressional office budgets. Figure it the FUCK out! That's what we have to do. I saved money the other day by finding a new source for printer ink that is 20% less. It's a small percentage of my total budget, but it's 20% of my ink budget. When I take 50 other items, and try to drill those down 10 or 20%, it fucking damn well does effect the total budget. And, when times are lean, I don't throw fucking parties and spend $165,000 on Congressional Pages' catered fucking lunch!

Mother fuckers!

God this pisses me off. And, I'm not picking on the Demoshitheads. The Republicrapfaces are JUST AS MUCH TO BLAME. They suck major ass. I'm sick of this shit. They don't know what they're doing. That, I could even deal with, except that every time I read up on the news it becomes more and more apparent that they don't even fucking care. They are both incompetent and apathetic, and they are grasping, self-interested, fucking thieves.

Rant over.

[Ian]

Rant accepted.

[Coito ergo sum]

Some American cities giving away public land to cut on maintenance, and to increase the property tax revenues: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/us/26revenue.html

[Coito ergo sum]

AP survey: A bleaker outlook for economy into 2011 WASHINGTON – The U.S. economic recovery will remain slow deep into next year, held back by shoppers reluctant to spend and employers hesitant to hire, according to an Associated Press survey of leading economists.
The latest quarterly AP Economy Survey shows economists have turned gloomier in the past three months. They foresee weaker growth and higher unemployment than they did before. As a result, the economists think the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates near zero until at least next spring.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100729/ap_ ... V5YWJsZQ--

Those tax hikes in January can't get here soon enough....gotta get this shit fixed!

[Coito ergo sum]

Recession was deeper than gov't previously thought
Recession inflicted more damage on economy than previously thought, government data show

Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer, On Friday July 30, 2010, 8:34 am
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The recession was deeper than the government previously thought.

The Commerce Department, in revisions issued Friday, estimates the economy shrank 2.6 percent last year -- the steepest drop since 1946. That's worse than the 2.4 percent decline originally estimated.

The economy's plunge underscores why the unemployment rate surged to 10.1 percent in October, a 26-year high.

The revisions in gross domestic product, or GDP, now show zero growth in 2008. That compares with a 0.4 percent gain previously estimated.The economy also grew less in 2007 (1.9 percent) than earlier thought (2.1 percent).

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Recession ... l?x=0&.v=3

[Coito ergo sum]

The U.S. financial system remains fragile and banks subjected to additional economic stress might need as much as $76 billion in capital, according to the results of International Monetary Fund stress tests.

The findings, released today as part of a broader IMF report on the U.S. financial system, suggested that while the nation’s banking system is stable, it remains vulnerable. Home prices, commercial real estate loans and economic growth have the potential to cause shocks that could expose banks to more losses.

Under one scenario, small and regional banks as well as subsidiaries of foreign banks would need $40.5 billion in additional capital to meet a benchmark capital ratio of 6 percent Tier 1 common equity from 2010 to 2014. Under the adverse scenario, those needs rise to $76.3 billion, according to the report.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-3 ... pital.html

End the corporate welfare, please!

[Coito ergo sum]

Unemployment rate in the US to go up -- http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/treasury-secr ... d=11308157

[Coito ergo sum]

New claims for jobless benefits rise to 479K
New requests for unemployment insurance jump to 479K, highest level since April http://finance.yahoo.com/news/New-claim ... l?x=0&.v=6

Good thing we got that economic stimulus package together to keep unemployment from rising above 8%....

I used to hear, when Bush was President, an almost daily harangue of "Unemployment is 5%! And, that's just Bush cooking the books! If you counted the people who had given up looking for work, it would be 10%!"

So....now unemployment is about 10%....let's count the ones that have given up looking for work....and call it 20%.

[Coito ergo sum]

US Post office posts $3.5 billion loss! http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/05/news/co ... _earnings/

Sooooo.....since they're so good at transporting paper from one place to another.....I know! Let them run banks, auto companies and the health care system!

[Coito ergo sum]

We are in a depression, not just a recession (in the US): http://www.cnbc.com/id/38831550

Hindenburg Omen projects high likelihood of US market crash: http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2010/08 ... ped-again/

New US home sales sink to lowest on record: http://www.cnbc.com/id/38847828

Dow Industrial Average will lose half it's value and drop to 5,000: http://www.cnbc.com/id/38826988

Government debt defaults are inevitable, says Morgan Stanley: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-2 ... t-if-.html

Senator Michael Bennett (Democrat) says, regarding spending during his time in office he said, “We have managed to acquire $13 trillion of debt on our balance sheet” and, “in my view we have nothing to show for it." http://www.nationalreview.com/battle10/ ... l-sandoval

Intel CEO says that government policies are killing the tech industry.... http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20014 ... g=mncol;1n

But, it's all good because Biden says "we're headed in the right direction:" http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/polit ... e_bef.html

From his latest vacation, Obama says, "I'm having a great time,” the president said. “Doing a lot of reading" http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch ... ation.html

[Warren Dew]

One question keeps gnawing at me though: where in Holy Hell were all the "We need small government and a balanced budget" conservatives during the last administration??? Locked in a Congressional broom closet, I suppose.

The "small government" conservatives never had enough of a majority to overcome Bush, who wasn't one of them, and then they got voted out of Congress in 2006.

It can be instructive to look at actual congressional votes. TARP was pushed by Bush, and passed even though a majority of Republicans in the house voted against it. Same with the votes on the GM bailouts and the stimulus bill.

They are, however, winning a lot of Republican primaries this year. Of course that doesn't mean they'll win in the fall.

[Coito ergo sum]

One question keeps gnawing at me though: where in Holy Hell were all the "We need small government and a balanced budget" conservatives during the last administration??? Locked in a Congressional broom closet, I suppose.

The "small government" conservatives never had enough of a majority to overcome Bush, who wasn't one of them, and then they got voted out of Congress in 2006.

It can be instructive to look at actual congressional votes. TARP was pushed by Bush, and passed even though a majority of Republicans in the house voted against it. Same with the votes on the GM bailouts and the stimulus bill.

They are, however, winning a lot of Republican primaries this year. Of course that doesn't mean they'll win in the fall.

And to consider GW Bush a fiscal conservative is ridiculous. He vetoed nothing.

A myth was built up that somehow the 8 years under Bush were some sort of libertarian wet dream, free of all regulation and free wheeling. They just weren't. There was an increase, not a decrease, in regulations and whatnot, and the "free market" was not to blame for the collapse and the real estate bubble. Yet, that's the conventional wisdom.

[Coito ergo sum]

Many economists expect the government Friday to revise lower its growth estimate for the April-June quarter to below 2 percent. That's weak in normal times and even worse after such a steep recession.
The housing sector, which usually helps power economic recoveries, is now acting as a drag. New home sales fell 12.4 percent in July to the lowest level in nearly a half-century, the government reported Wednesday. And another report this week showed that sales of previously occupied homes fell to their lowest level in 15 years. Sales are plummeting after a popular homebuyer's tax credit expired April 30.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_economy

[Coito ergo sum]

US AAA bond rating at serious risk: http://www.cnbc.com/id/38861560

[LaMont Cranston]

Coito, I think that many of us recognize that the US economy is fucked. Many of the indicators, including high unemployment and the housing situation, point to the obvious conclusion that much more serious shit is likely to hit the fan. I wish I had more faith in either the Democrats or the Republicans to actually remedy the situation, but it appears to me that what they are mostly involved in is finger pointing at each other. Would you agree that there is no quick fix to this situation, and politicians who are in denial only make the problem worse?

What I'm more interested in, and I think it is absolutely relevant to this thread, is what you and others think it is going to look like when it really hits the fan. Without getting overly personal, do you have a strategy for you and your family? Do communities around the country have any kinds of plans in place to deal with something like a 25% unemployment rate and long lines of hungry people?

History seems to indicate that severe economic problems can lead to reforms in the society (i.e. The New Deal), but they also often lead to repression, greater involvement of the military and, ultimately, to war. So, what do you think is going to happen?