Here comes the other economic shoe dropping...

[Coito ergo sum]

On a positive note, gasoline prices are down -- I filled up for $3.01 per gallon today.

[Coito ergo sum]

Signs of a new recession: http://www.cnbc.com/id/48259674

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Signs of a new recession: http://www.cnbc.com/id/48259674

That must be Obama's fault.

[Coito ergo sum]

Signs of a new recession: http://www.cnbc.com/id/48259674

That must be Obama's fault.

No way. It's clearly George Bush's fault.

[Rum]

For fun as much as anything (as well as the best time to change my pounds) I have been keeping a daily record the the UK pound/Euro exchange rate since we decided to pop over there next month. So far so good - for us, if not those on the other side of the ditch!

[Coito ergo sum]

For fun as much as anything (as well as the best time to change my pounds) I have been keeping a daily record the the UK pound/Euro exchange rate since we decided to pop over there next month. So far so good - for us, if not those on the other side of the ditch!

Looks like austerity is working out.

[Atheist-Lite]

For fun as much as anything (as well as the best time to change my pounds) I have been keeping a daily record the the UK pound/Euro exchange rate since we decided to pop over there next month. So far so good - for us, if not those on the other side of the ditch!

Looks like austerity is working out.

They are scrambling for Plan B now they've realized we are really a nation of masochists.

[Coito ergo sum]

Jobless claims in the US rising: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... 07088.html

[Coito ergo sum]

August’s abysmally weak job growth proved yet again that President Obama’s economic policies are a miserable failure that will continue to undermine our country until he leaves office.
The government’s report that the economy added just a minuscule 96,000 jobs last month came at the end of the Democrats’ defensive national convention, where the president, Bill Clinton and other party luminaries made extravagant claims that things will get better if Mr. Obama is re-elected to a second term.
But analysts at the Federal Reserve Board, economists and business leaders say Mr. Obama’s declining economy is not going to get significantly better this year, next year or the year after that, until there are dramatic changes in the nation’s fiscal policies. Changes Obama Democrats refuse to make.
The deepening weaknesses in the employment picture also were underscored by revisions in the June and July job numbers, which found 41,000 fewer jobs were created than was reported previously.
Not only is the rate of job growth shrinking fast in the fourth year of Mr. Obama’s presidency; the economy’s growth rate also is slowing this year to a snail’s pace: 1.7 percent in the third quarter.

Read more: LAMBRO: Obama on track to have worst job record since World War II - Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... z26GCsnOGb
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

[Gerald McGrew]

CES,

I'm always curious to ask folks such as you...what exactly should Obama have done differently to help create jobs and stimulate the economy? Most economists agree the stimulus did what it was supposed to do (but should have been larger and perhaps better targeted) and the GOP flat-out rejected Obama's jobs bill/proposal.

So what else is a POTUS to do?

[Seth]

CES,

I'm always curious to ask folks such as you...what exactly should Obama have done differently to help create jobs and stimulate the economy?

Stopped spending federal money like a drunken sailor and proposing soaking the rich to pay for his socialist/progressive programs, that's what.

Money flows away from taxation like water flows downhill. When Obama created uncertainty in the markets by meddling with them directly (buying GM for example) and indirectly, and not just threatened to but actually put Cass Sunstein, the most dangerous man in America, in charge of "nudging" business down socialist pathways through massive expansion of federal regulations, and by proposing new taxes, venture capital and indeed capital of any kind vanished from the marketplace almost overnight because investors were rightfully afraid that their principal was going to be taxed or taken away from them by Obama. They wisely decided to sit out his administration by sitting on their money and investing it overseas, out of Obama's reach, in order to both secure their capital and deny Obama the money he needs to forward his Socialist/Progressive programs.

You can't persuade investors to invest at the same time that you're threatening to take their profits and principal away from them. They can afford to just sit on their capital and live off the principal for four years and let the markets decline and jobs be lost by the millions in order to help defeat Obama's socialist/progressive plan. And that's what they did. Good for them. I recommended that they do this when Obama was elected and I'm gratified to see they took my advice.

Most economists agree the stimulus did what it was supposed to do (but should have been larger and perhaps better targeted) and the GOP flat-out rejected Obama's jobs bill/proposal.

So what else is a POTUS to do?

That's because his "jobs bill" was just another socialist make-work public trough for the dependent class to slop from.

What he's supposed to do is respect the Constitution and the limits on his power therein, stop fucking with the free market economy of the US, support businesses, which is the goose that laid the golden egg, and stop borrowing astonishing and record amounts of money on the public's credit to pay for socialist/progressive welfare programs intended to wheedle the dependent class into voting for him again.

In other words, he was supposed to abide by his oath of office. He didn't. He never intended to. He's a pathological liar, a Marxist, a traitor and enemy of the Republic and we cannot be rid of him soon enough.

[Coito ergo sum]

It is not nearly as undisputed that the stimulus was advisable. Keynesian economists generally are in that camp. There is another camp that suggests lowering tax rates and/or making the tax code simpler and more efficient, coupled with a reduction in barriers to entry to business and industry, reduction in costly regulation, and the like, would be better for job growth. Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics winner Vernon Smith (PH.D. - Harvard) (taught at Brown, Stanford and U-Mass - did research at Univ. of Arizona and founded an Economics department at Chapman University in 2011). Many economists are not in favor of stimulus like the Recovery Act. Another is Steven Horwitz. There are many others -- see the Austrian school of economics, Von Mises institute, Cato Institute, and others.

And, secondly, assuming we are going to have a recovery act, I would have spent it on different thing -- I would have focused on industrial and technological development -- industries -- I would have suggested building nuclear reactors by the boat load, and doubling the budget of NASA for 10 years (say add $20 billion a year to NASA's manned space program and get us back to the moon, build a base, and get going to Mars.

The reason I would prefer pouring money into the energy and space sectors is because it is a better use of funds than what much of the money was spent on. The space industry is great, because it calls upon very high level brains -- engineers, chemists, astronomers, astrophysicists, pilots, technicians, designers, and requires development of many sciences and industries -- materials, metals, fluids, fuels, coatings, computers, robotics -- not to mention support industries to feed, clothe and manage all the personnel, etc.

So, initially, I don't agree with bailouts in principle. And, if we're going to do them, I prefer the stimulus dollars be spent differently than they were.

Thirdly, I didn't force Obama to make promises. He said his plan would reduce the deficit by 50% by the end of his first term. Nice goal. Whatever he did didn't work. Had he reduced the deficit at all, even 25%, rather than 50% as he promised, I would be more in favor of him. Similarly, he said that the Stimulus would keep unemployment below 8%. It reached 10.3% and is down to 8.3%, but now the job market is sputtering again. These were goals he set for himself, and he did not meet them. I don't expect him to fix an economy overnight, but it has been about 3.8 years now, and we are in a long period of stagnation.

Fourth, I don't agree with bailing out General Motors, and I think he should have let them file Bankruptcy Reorganization. They would have come out the other end, leaner and more competitive. Instead, we paid many billions of dollars to prop up the system that drove them into bankruptcy in the first place and we're subsidizing the Chevy Volt to the tune of $49,000 per vehicle now. It's not green, and nobody wants it.

What I would suggest to do with taxes now is to keep the rates about the same, and close loopholes for the higher income brackets. I would remove regulations on the coal and natural gas industries, and allow oil exploration in Alaska and off shore to a greater degree. I would want the President to figure a way to encourage nuclear research and nuclear plant development - if only to get regulatory barriers away. We need industry back in the US. Right now, the only thing keeping our industries alive at all is the military. Once we lose industrial capability, it would be nearly impossible to get it back -- it is a complex web of suppliers and small, medium and large sized industrial companies all doing different things.

Also, I would not have focused on Obamacare in my first year in office, and instead I would have focused on market driven reforms and economic recovery.

[macdoc]

So subsidizing the oil and gas isn't enough you want to deregulate fucking up the planet even more....oh well done...

I don't agree with Obama's approach on a number of points but the major barrier to achieving anything was the flat out traitorous actions of the Repuglies.....which you flat out ignore.....why am I not surprised.

•••

He's a pathological liar, a Marxist, a traitor and enemy of the Republic and we cannot be rid of him soon enough.

drew a sketch of you and your fellow travellers finest qualities did you Seth??
....you are a condensation of what makes the US a laughing stock.
We will exempt you from the knee jerk mandatory bit of repugly agitprop labelling what you don't like Marxist.

Beyond that you nailed a self portrait remarkably well. Some countries might be inclined to take the bulk of the Republican party in government out and charge them collectively with treason. Well deserved.

[Seth]

It is not nearly as undisputed that the stimulus was advisable. Keynesian economists generally are in that camp. There is another camp that suggests lowering tax rates and/or making the tax code simpler and more efficient, coupled with a reduction in barriers to entry to business and industry, reduction in costly regulation, and the like, would be better for job growth. Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics winner Vernon Smith (PH.D. - Harvard) (taught at Brown, Stanford and U-Mass - did research at Univ. of Arizona and founded an Economics department at Chapman University in 2011). Many economists are not in favor of stimulus like the Recovery Act. Another is Steven Horwitz. There are many others -- see the Austrian school of economics, Von Mises institute, Cato Institute, and others.

And, secondly, assuming we are going to have a recovery act, I would have spent it on different thing -- I would have focused on industrial and technological development -- industries -- I would have suggested building nuclear reactors by the boat load, and doubling the budget of NASA for 10 years (say add $20 billion a year to NASA's manned space program and get us back to the moon, build a base, and get going to Mars.

The reason I would prefer pouring money into the energy and space sectors is because it is a better use of funds than what much of the money was spent on. The space industry is great, because it calls upon very high level brains -- engineers, chemists, astronomers, astrophysicists, pilots, technicians, designers, and requires development of many sciences and industries -- materials, metals, fluids, fuels, coatings, computers, robotics -- not to mention support industries to feed, clothe and manage all the personnel, etc.

So, initially, I don't agree with bailouts in principle. And, if we're going to do them, I prefer the stimulus dollars be spent differently than they were.

Thirdly, I didn't force Obama to make promises. He said his plan would reduce the deficit by 50% by the end of his first term. Nice goal. Whatever he did didn't work. Had he reduced the deficit at all, even 25%, rather than 50% as he promised, I would be more in favor of him. Similarly, he said that the Stimulus would keep unemployment below 8%. It reached 10.3% and is down to 8.3%, but now the job market is sputtering again. These were goals he set for himself, and he did not meet them. I don't expect him to fix an economy overnight, but it has been about 3.8 years now, and we are in a long period of stagnation.

Fourth, I don't agree with bailing out General Motors, and I think he should have let them file Bankruptcy Reorganization. They would have come out the other end, leaner and more competitive. Instead, we paid many billions of dollars to prop up the system that drove them into bankruptcy in the first place and we're subsidizing the Chevy Volt to the tune of $49,000 per vehicle now. It's not green, and nobody wants it.

What I would suggest to do with taxes now is to keep the rates about the same, and close loopholes for the higher income brackets. I would remove regulations on the coal and natural gas industries, and allow oil exploration in Alaska and off shore to a greater degree. I would want the President to figure a way to encourage nuclear research and nuclear plant development - if only to get regulatory barriers away. We need industry back in the US. Right now, the only thing keeping our industries alive at all is the military. Once we lose industrial capability, it would be nearly impossible to get it back -- it is a complex web of suppliers and small, medium and large sized industrial companies all doing different things.

Also, I would not have focused on Obamacare in my first year in office, and instead I would have focused on market driven reforms and economic recovery.

Problem is that we bailed out the wrong people. We didn't need to bail out the banks or GM, we needed to let them FAIL. We needed to focus any money on the people who were losing their homes even though they made their payments on time but were thrown into foreclosure because the bank deemed itself "insecure" because of a sudden and unpredictable drop in local housing prices, placing the homeowner "underwater." Making a law forbidding any mortgage holder from defaulting a homeowner on that basis should have been the FIRST thing Obama proposed.

GM should have fallen and its bones picked apart by the secured bond holders. Instead, Obama spent our money so he could turn the whole operation over to the labor unions as a part of his socialist/progressive plan.

The foreign investors in toxic bundled mortgages are the ones who were REALLY bailed out. All that TARP money almost instantly went out of the country to cover THEIR losses, something that NEVER should have happened. They invested in risky derivatives schemes and they should have lost their investment.

If anybody should have gotten money, it's the homeowners who did nothing wrong. Those who lied on their credit apps and those who wrote them mortgages should be in JAIL, and there families should be what they should have always been and are now: Renters.

Oh, and Jimmy Carter, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd should be horsewhipped, tarred and feathered and run out of DC on a rail, because it's pretty much all their fault.

[Coito ergo sum]

So subsidizing the oil and gas isn't enough you want to deregulate fucking up the planet even more....oh well done...

I don't want the oil and gas industries subsidized. I just want business and industry to do well, because that's where people work and that is what creates income and prosperity to individuals, which allows them to live better lives.

Of course, more to the point is that the oil and gas industry does not receive "subsidies." That's a myth sold by the Obama Administration and the Center for American Progress. The oil and gas industry receives the same tax treatment as any other business and industry, and they don't receive subsidies.

I don't agree with Obama's approach on a number of points but the major barrier to achieving anything was the flat out traitorous actions of the Repuglies.....which you flat out ignore.....why am I not surprised.

I don't flat out ignore anything. I disagree with the stimulus and Obamacare and the 8000 new pages of federal regulations enacted under Obama. I don't agree with Cash for Clunkers, which was a waste of billions, and I don't agree with bailing out GM which should have gone through bankruptcy reorganization. Those are major barriers to achieving anything, and most of them harm the economy in the long run.

Your nonsense words like "Repuglies" and calling them traitorous reveals that you have an emotional stake in this, which clouds your ability to see more than one side. Those who don't agree with the guy you support -- traitors -- uglies -- repugnant -- I'm not at all surprised, though.