Over at Publicola, Erica documents Rep. Dave Reichert’s many public statements in opposition to President Obama’s economic stimulus package, which, drawing upon his vast expertise as an economist sheriff, Reichert has repeatedly predicted would fail at its primary goal: creating jobs.
This week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report estimating that the stimulus package had created between 600,000 and 1.6 million new jobs, and raised the US gross domestic product by 1.2 to 3.2 percentage points above what would have been without the program.
Moreover, in the New York Times last month, several prominent economists argued that the stimulus had helped the economy, by creating jobs and hastening the end of the recession.
If only Sheriff Dave had the brains to match his brawn.
‘If only Sheriff Dave had the brains to match his brawn.’
Haha. Ironic. This coming from a limp dick twice obsessed with getting a totally unqualified, ditzy, air-headed blonde, named Darcy Burnout elected.
Ooohhhh, shiny! I do have a degree in economics damnit! I do! (stammers) B’deep, b’deep, that’s all folks!
Thanks for the Saturday laugh Goldy.
To match his brawn, don’t you mean sheriff Guido’s carefully coiffed hair.
If we pass the stimulus the unemployment rate wont pass 8%.
@3
It worked so good the first time, they’re going to go for v2.0.
lets see, 787 Billion created “an estimated .6 – 1.6 million jobs”.Meanwhile, the Obama economy shed 3.3 million jobs.
So the net is -1.7 to -2.7 million jobs gone under the Obama program.
And he only spent 787,000,000,000.00 to lose that many jobs… What a bargain…
As bad as today’s unemployment is, imagine how much worse it would be if McHooverism and his totally unqualified, ditzy, air-headed running mate had won the election.
@4: typical comments by someone who knows next to nothing about the economy:
The economy was in a free under Bush and was much worse that it was thought. Even though we are no longer in a recession – we are still not out of the woods and unemployment is still high.
Without the economic stimulus…..we sould have been in much worse shape and still in a recession.
The private ecomony has been firing not hiring. They would never get us out on their own. the stimulus was necessary and effective. Period.
The Bush recession led to the shedding of how many jobs? And it continued until the Obama recovery. The latest job report has showed that job losses have been less every month since last November when they bottomed out. Obama took over in January and every month job losses have been less.
Where was an idiot like right (Wrong) stuff when the economy was destroyed by the Bush policies of lax oversight, the republican backed “banking reform” led by Phil (deregulate) Gramm and the tax cuts for the rich?
Ooops – easy to criticize now when we are cleaning up the republican messes….you have no credibility, fool.
While the improving unemployment rate got all the attention and press this week, another important measure of labor market conditions — hours worked — also improved, with the average work week rising from 33.0 to 33.2 hours in November. Hours-worked likely will decline only 1% rate in the fourth quarter overall, compred to 2.5% in the third qwuarter, 7.8% in the second quarter, 8.9% in the first quarter of this year.
Hours-worked is an important economic barometer because it measures reduced income and consumer buying by the still-employed, who remain by far the largest component of the workforce and consumer demographic.
(Source of data: Business Week)
Re 6
As usual on the left you’re wrong on all points, or where not wrong espousing unsupported guesses by the left on how economies work.
Your first paragraph isn’t worth responding to. So far as I can tell the argument goes like this-‘We don’t know what might have happened if we hadn’t sucked billions out of the private sector where it does some good and borrowed our future from the Chinese. So I hate Bush and will say we would have been worse off, despite having no evidence to support this asanine claim.’
Your second is a corallary of the first and is answered the same way. NO government ever spent its’ way out of financial problems anymore than any family or business did. That’s not how the real world run by adults works. That only works in childrens books and left wing thought. Wait, they’re the same.
Third paragraph? I have nothing new to say so will repeat my silly claims from the first two paragraphs.
Fourth paragraph reprise. ‘I don’t like Bush so will blame normal cyclical economic activity on him despite having no policy or other reasons to believe he had anything to do with the recession. This is childish, immature and just blind stupid, but hey, I’m a leftie so these are par for the course!’
Cure for lax oversight? Let businesses and indiduals who made bad decisions fail. Big banks failing? Too damn bad. Not my problem. Family in a rental until Mom and Dad wise up and make good financial decisions? Oh well. I pay MY bills. No-one bails ME out when I screw up. And you know what? I like it that way.
I’m not trying to be rude but am dismayed by the disastrous policies pursued by your presidents’ insanity. Short term gains at the expense of the future of the country aren’t worth it.
By the way, where’s the outrage in HA about the hoax of global warming being proved by ‘scientists’ emails? I must have missed the long diatribe against intellectual dishonesty and the profanation of the scientific method. I must have missed the apology about believing hysterical claims using the report of one discredited scientific organization to help support the destruction of the US economy by cap and trade other such stupidities.
No, guess I didn’t. I guess leftist only believe what they want to, proof or not.
I am no fan ofSheriff Dave, but he comes out smelling like a rose on this. All he needs is this t-shirt:
Obama put us another $787 billion in hock, and all we got was this lousy 10% unemployment rate.
don’t you mean sheriff Guido’s carefully coiffed hair?
That’s not hair – it’s a sophisticated plastic cowling that hides the Karl Rove mind-control antennas.
lost @ 8 and 9
Whoa, dude, you seem to have hit the bottle awfully early today. Your response to correctnotright’s post lacks–let’s see, here–facts, coherence, and insight. I think you’re pouring the grape Kool-Aid straight into your glass of Monarch vodka, without any water to cut it.
All that and in just the 99th district!
Lost at Sea:
As usual on the left you’re wrong on all points, or where not wrong espousing unsupported guesses by the left on how economies work.
Um, sport, you still haven’t answered my request for your list of Reagan policies that were actually “good for business.” You might want to come up with that list before you talk about other people’s “unsupported guesses”.
I’m not trying to be rude but am dismayed by the disastrous policies pursued by your presidents’ insanity. Short term gains at the expense of the future of the country aren’t worth it.
I’m not trying to be rude, just bluntly factual: you, sir, are a complete idiot. Just in case you want a clue, go look up a few data points: the current prime interest rate, the Fed’s target interest rate under current circumstances and the current price of US Government bonds relative to prices over the previous decade.
If, as you claim, the current policies are coming “at the expense of the future,” then we would expect to see very different numbers for each of those figures than we are currently seeing.
@8 “NO government ever spent its’ way out of financial problems anymore than any family or business did.”
That’s total bullshit. Government spending on World War 2 is what ended the depression of the 1930s. The economy never would have recovered if it had to depend on the private sector.
@8 “‘I don’t like Bush so will blame normal cyclical economic activity on him despite having no policy or other reasons to believe he had anything to do with the recession.”
That’s total bullshit, too. You are demonstrating that your knowledge of current events and economics are both less than zero. It’s no accident that the crash of ’29, the S & L meltdown of the ’80s, and the financial meltdown of 2007-2008 happened when Republicans were in power — that’s what deregulation and laissez-faire policies get you.
@8 “Let businesses and indiduals who made bad decisions fail. Big banks failing? Too damn bad. Not my problem.”
This is total bullshit, too. Every reputable economist says so. If we left it up to idiots like you, we’d be back in the ’30s with 25% unemployment and millions of people living under bridges. You’re not merely an ass, you’re a STUPID ass.
@8 “Let businesses and indiduals who made bad decisions fail. Big banks failing? Too damn bad. Not my problem.”
This is total bullshit, too. Every reputable economist says so. If we left it up to idiots like you, we’d be back in the ’30s with 25% unemployment and millions of people living under bridges. You’re not merely an ass, you’re a STUPID ass.
Don’t get me wrong, nobody likes banks, myself included. But that’s a case for nationalizing the damn things, not for letting them take the whole economy down. However, because I’m a capitalist with skin in the stock market, I prefer to bail the bastards out in order to keep our economy going. It would be nice if we could put some of the bankers who did this to us against a wall and shoot ’em, though. We may have to settle for paying for their golden parachutes, instead, and leave it to God to strike ’em down.
@8
Market exuberance has gotten us into two depressions. Hopefully, we wont repeat that mistake again. Keynesian economics saved us last time and is what will pull us out again.
@8
Market exuberance has gotten us into two depressions. Hopefully, we wont repeat that mistake again. Keynesian economics saved us last time and is what will pull us out again.
@18 “Hopefully, we wont repeat that mistake again.”
Of course we will. As long as we have capitalism and free markets, Keynesian economics will have to keep pulling us out of the well that human greed and avarice throws us down every 15 to 30 years.
@8 “I’m not trying to be rude but am dismayed by the disastrous policies pursued by your presidents’ insanity.”
Well, i AM trying to be rude, and you can quote me on it: Anyone who, as you do, blames the smoking rubble of the GOP/Bush clusterfuck on Obama is a FUCKING IDIOT.
Brad DeLong has a pretty good summary of the current situation. Indeed, the outline is so simple and easy to understand, even Lost at Sea might actually get it.
@9 “By the way, where’s the outrage in HA about the hoax of global warming being proved by ’scientists’ emails?”
I’ll tell you the same thing I told your fellow traveler global warming denier puddysnot: Look at the melting ice. You two idiots stare at a candle flame while the barn burns down around you.
Those e-mails have nothing to do with whether the climate is getting warmer. It clearly is.
http://coast.webmaster.premier.....012905.jpg
The e-mails don’t disprove these photos. Only a twit would argue otherwise.
@10 First of all, your statement is false, because much of the $787 billion stimulus hasn’t been spent yet, so to correlate the current unemployment rate with that spending is just a lie. When that money works its way into the economy over the coming months, it will create jobs that’ll push down the unemployment rate, although by next spring unemployment should already be somewhat under the current 10% because private sector hiring will be picking up by then.
Bailing out the financial system saved the world from another great depression, and Bush and Obama deserve joint credit for that — starting the bank bailout was one of the very few things that Bush did right. Apparently the looming disaster looked so scary that it scared even him off his wingnut high horse.
The stimulus probably wasn’t necessary to prevent an economic calamity in the same way the bank bailout was. It does serve to provide a morale boost to our battered workforce — and public psychology is very important at this stage of an economic crisis. But even if we could get along without that, the stimulus is a no-brainer anyway, because it’s money that has to be spent anyway to fix our crumbling infrastructure. So, all the stimulus is, is a decision to do that work now — when it does the economy the most good — instead of in the future. Plus, the borrowing for it puts money back in circulation to help prevent a deflationary spiral.
That giant sucking sound you heard a year ago was cash being pulled out of circulation. When an economy is threatened with deflation, the government has to pump large amounts of cash back into circulation, or there will be an economic disaster because the contraction of the money supply will feed on itself. The stimulus borrowing performs the same function as giving a blood transfusion to a patient who has lost a massive amount of blood: Without the transfusion, the patient is going to die. The criticism of Obama’s stimulus by professional economists — i.e., the people who know what they’re talking about — is that it isn’t big enough.
When this cash transfusion has done its work and the trillions of dollars parked in no-interest Treasuries and under mattresses are put back in circulation, then the Fed will need to withdraw the cash infusion by raising interest rates. If they do that too soon, they’ll choke the recovery and put us in a double-dip recession. If they wait too long, the circulating money supply will expand too fast and we’ll get inflation.
That, my friend, is how the gears and axles of the economy work. Your comment got none of it right.
Go Rog!
My favorite economic indicators are the Personal Savings Rate-how much cash people have left at the end of the month and the Consumer Price Index- how much stuff costs-with a focus on food and energy- and on both of those we’re doing pretty well.
I’m not sure that we should be putting a whole lot of focus on the unemployment rate as the country has gone through some pretty fundamental changes over the last couple of years and I’m not sure we know how many and what kinds of jobs will be out there in the future.
Don Joe. I would argue that the reason bond rates are staying low is because the FED is buying a good chunk of them. (google “quantitative easing”). This is distorting confidence in the US .gov and economny.
We’ll see what happens in March when they said they’d stop doing this…
@26 My personal savings rate last month was 49.33% of after-tax income.
@27 The low interest rate policy is harming seniors who depend on savings interest for daily living expenses. A quarter million dollars in 1.5% CDs produces only $3,750 of income a year. That’s absurd!
With yields on savings virtually non-existent, there’s no incentive to save. It makes vastly more sense to pay off debt, and that’s what most people are doing. When banks pay savers only 1/2 of 1%, each $10,000 of savings produces only $50 of income a year. Why bother? In fact, because that’s less than inflation, you’re actually paying the bank to use your money. Why do that?
The Fed’s low interest rate policy is not only inflicting hardship on retirees and discouraging saving, it’s also breeding e more bubbles. When you can borrow for essentially nothing, using other people’s money to bet on commodities, real estates, and other assets is perfectly rational.
This policy is not sustainable. The dilemma is that raising interest rates will slow economic growth. But the Fed eventually will have no choice. The only question is when it’ll be forced to move. My guess is sometime before the end of 2010.
You absolutely do not want to buy bonds or lock into long-term CDs or Treasuries now — that’s the worst thing you can do.
Reading a right winger’s rantings about economics is as crazy as asking for Phil Graham’s advice on de-regulation.
http://motherjones.com/politic.....osure-phil
See, Bush’s tax cuts did exactly what Reagan’s tax cuts did. Create horrible budget and deficit and economic problems. Remember the balanced budget ‘ol Bushie inherited? We were actually paying down the national debt. Bush thought letting billionaires keep more of their money, so they could gamble us into ruin was a great idea. Not to mention telling the SEC to take 8 years off.
Tell a Republicon they will get a tax cut, but it will weaken America more, and they will still pee their pants in glee. They can buy more chewing tobacco and beer.
Reichert, and just about every other Party of No’er should be held accountable for the damage they have done to our nation. Good thing for them the corporations that own our msm let them spew their idiotic rantings about economic policies, like their idiotic policies made sense. Their policies only help the top 1% corrupt, and loot our system more for their own benefit, while more and more families are living in their cars in parking lots.
I would love to meet Phil Graham in a dark alley someday….
BTW didn’t you love watching Greenspan taking it all back. Now that was priceless….
@29 OMG, but, but, but, you’re a liberal! You can’t possibly act in a responsible manner and save your money!
I just wonder how many of the right wingers here think our nation would be in a better place right now if Plane Crash McCain, and Nailin’ Palin were elected.
Scary thought isn’t it.
At what point is delusion terminal Roger?
HEY ALL YOU FUCKIN IDIOTS ON HA TELL ME HOW YOU DOCUMENT A JOB SAVED NEVER HEARD THAT TERM UNTIL BIG EARS TOOK OFFICE WHAT A LOSER.
33
Once again, I am happy to offer you free education in the English language. Your training will even include such difficult subjects as punctuation. I will–get this–teach you about commas. Once you learn how to express yourself in the English language, we could move on to teaching you how to think. That lesson is, I believe, a tough one.
Nolaguy,
You could argue that Federal Reserve open market operations, which are not exclusively conducted on Treasury instruments, are responsible for high long-term bond prices, but you’d likely be wrong. See this Bloomberg piece for details, but FOMC purchases likely account for, at best, 50 basis points.
Overall US Treasury Bond prices have been very high as of late. Brad DeLong said it well:
There’s really no way you can explain that level of US government debt servicing going for such historically high prices based solely Federal Reserve open market operations.
@34 Well-punctuated bullshit is still bullshit.
What would have happened if instead of continuing the Paulson Bank Executive Lifestyle Protection Program, the new administration had simply allowed the banks to fail and adequately funded the FDIC to cover ordinary peoples’ deposits? It probably would have stabilized things for a few weeks, and then the bottom would have really fallen out. This is because everything in our economy is now driven by credit. Without their “floats”, most companies would have to close up shop and furlough their employees. Since almost everyone’s living paycheck-to-paycheck (and not quite making it at that) we’d have had millions and millions of the former middle class standing on street corners with cardboard signs and a “what-the-hell-happened?” stare in no time at all.
So now, we’re stuck, at least for the time being, with a system that’s unsustainable yet can’t be allowed to fail. Absent some dramatic structural changes and re-regulation of many industries and markets, the present institutions will continue to feed on themselves and each other and we’ll keep right on sliding into the abyss–maybe a little more slowly, but nonetheless inevitable.
@37: The new “normal”?
IRS Harasses Single Mom For Being Poor
Danny Westneat writes in today’s fishwrapper about a single mom who was audited assessed $16,000 in back taxes by the IRS. Why? Because she’s poor. The IRS decided she must be concealing income, because according to them, her family can’t afford to live in Seattle on $18k a year. Who the hell dreamed up this dingbat audit, anyway? I know who did — the operative paragraph of Danny’s column reads,
“Republicans have called the [earned income] credits ‘backdoor welfare’ and tried to cancel them. When they controlled Congress, they ordered the IRS to ramp up audits of people who claim the credit.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....nny06.html
Bastards! Why would anyone vote for those people?
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So Roger Dumb Bunny, you are disagreeing with HAs arschloch, ylb arschloch? yb arschloch told the HA world TARP is a miserable failure! Just ask him Roger. You and the arschloch have so much in common!
Marine Lance Corporal Kody Brittingham called it “Operation Patriot.” Its purpose was to “protect [America] against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.” He had collected maps and photographs of the objective. The mission? Assassinate President Obama.
Brittingham wasn’t kidding. He pleaded guilty in August to felony charges of threatening to kill the President. He’s awaiting sentencing.
Brittingham was under the radar. The government was lucky to catch him. He was discovered by a fluke: His arrest for breaking and entering prompted a search of his barracks that turned up a journal in which he laid out his intentions.
@41 I have no idea who or what you’re talking about because all you post is indecipherable gibberish. I stand by my previous statements regarding the economy.
@37 In 2007, a full 40% of all profits made by U.S. corporations went to the financial industry — vastly more than what was earned by any other sector of the economy.
How do bankers get their hands on so much of America’s money? It isn’t because they add value or do anything to earn it. It’s because they have their fingers wrapped around the flow of money and credit, which gives them a chokehold on the economy.
Maybe it’s time to make them all GS-15s, if you know what I mean. I don’t like this solution much, but I can’t think of any other way to break their monopoly and get them under control. When bankers take all the profits produced by the economy, what incentive is there for anyone else to invest, take risks, or produce anything?
@33 Data analysis, dummy!
and all the while as we borrow our asses into oblivion with the Chinese, we are unable to negotiate a decent trade deal with them – precisely because we keep borrowing from them.
our fate is sealed. Good job you govt fucks.
Bunny Man, I thought the banks owned the government too. The United States, a wholly owned subsidiary of Goldman Sachs….
I just want to see a few of these treasonous greedy bastards prosecuted. According to the Rolling Stone article, they pretty much caused every financial crisis since the great depression mostly by themselves.
Right Roger Dumb Bunny. Another of those diarrheal projections from your “mouth”.
Everyone knows who ylb arschloch is. Ooops… you are entering dumb bunny mode! My bad. Puddy forgets you enter Dumb Bunny more often lately. Too bad you have no memory Roger Dumb Bunny.
Then there’s you “friend” correctnotright who disagrees with you Roger Dumb Bunny.
Broadway Job alluded to the TARP as a Ponzi Scheme Roger Dumb Bunny.
Steve, Proprietor of Steve’s Stupid Solution disagrees with Roger Dumb Bunny…
Then the false equivalences of correctnotright Roger Dumb Bunny… He’s always good for those everyday…
Coming back to ylb arschloch again for the “chimps” TARP plan…
And the arschloch again…
Butt Puddy does agree when you wrote this:
You can tell that to some of the suckas Puddy just posted above.
You see Puddy Remembers. There are many more of your leftist buds who should take your advice. Butt Roger Dumb Bunny, hardly anyone listens to a dried up old bunny.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Factless@47
Goldman Sucks, defender of the Democrat Party… giving their political largess to Democratics… Don’t believe me? Ask ylb arschloch to pony up all the PuddyMissives on Goldman Sucks political contributions. Grow some mar-buls and ask him Factless@47…
I love it. Puddy thinks Bush was channeling Obama.
If not then why did he type “the “chimps” TARP plan…”
Hey ONE WHO IGNORES REALITY Puddy.
It was Bush’s tarp plan.
Facts are facts regardless how ignorant you choose to be Puddy.
And to think the Tea Baggers are mad at Goldman Sachs, but blaming Obama. They will believe anything now won’t they.
The greatest thing about being a liberal is the fact that I will always be on the right side of history.
oba-mao lied, poor people suffered with his bad decision.
Of course democrats support the troops…
The left-wingnut that gets trills up his leg listening to oba-mao speak says that oba-mao giving a speech at west point was like giving a speech at the “enemy camp.”
Another left-winger showing how democrats feel about the troops.
Enemy camp.
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Marvin, I guess you don’t know the difference between lying, and being wrong about what “may” happen.
I didn’t hear Obama “promise” either.
Maybe he under estimated how much damage 30 years of Reaganomics failed policies actually did to gut our once great nation.
Lying = Saying Saddam has WMD’s
See the difference?
Probably not. I assume you only see what you want to see. Watching too much Fox Propaganda and Lies Channel will do that to you…
50 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
Factless@all over..
Puddy didn’t call
ya stupid idiot… ylb arschloch wrote it… proves you are a competent reader.
And Factless… the rest of your post proves you can’t process facts… Roger Dumb Bunny told you
Thanks for playing the sophomoric idiot. You play the part with such “eloquence and excellence”.
Go back to Fox News, Sept 28, 2008… John Effin Kerry goes onto Fox News Sunday, tell Chris Wallace, Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm agrees with TARP, every bit of it.
Puddy Remembers, Factless Fools are sophomoric idiots!
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Factless@everywhere…
Did you get pay increases from 1982 onward? Then you should thank 30 years of Reaganomics fool.
So is Mark@55 still laughing?
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I’m using liberal logic.
Did you see the graph oba-mao used to show us how he was going to save the economy? Here it is, along with the actual unemployment data.
CHANGE? Nope, it sounds like oba-mao is just as clueless as bush, except under oba-mao left-wing groups are profiting.
Of course there is a difference.
When democrats lied about WMDs you don’t care.
Why do you have a much lower standard for democrats?
If they are the superior party, shouldn’t you hold them to a higher standard?
The democrat controlled congress had nothing to do with it?
All the facts you use support your position, the facts you intentionally overlook/ignore trash your position.
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[Deleted — see HA Comment Policy]
Re 37 and 44
Art ol buddy, you seem an intelligent person and your post here shows it.
Fundamentally a credit driven society will fail eventually, with a few false starts toward collapse on the way, like the recession (not Depression despite leftist media word games) we’re suffering through. Or rather, some people are suffering through. I’m not, because I owe money only on my vacation cabin and this is completely affordable despite any changes in my employment status. See, when I bought the place I ran the numbers over and over again to see if I could properly afford it. What if the place needs work? What if I need medical care, or I lose my job? I asked these questions because it is my job, not the banks’, to determine whether I can afford a mortgage. I did need to repair the well and replace the hot water tank. I did have a surgery costing significant out of pocket expenses, which I paid instead of asking someone else to do so on the flimsy ground of their relatively greater financial success. I lost my job, which was a contract one which doesn’t pay unemployment. Did I lose my house? No, because I took care of my responsibility for foresight.
If someone else, banker or insurance company or schumck who bought too much house on too little income, doesn’t want to do this it isn’t my damn problem! Don’t ask me to pay for it. Is this clear enough even for a liberal mind?
At 44
Bankers “get their hands on” so much of the capital because we give it to them. Don’t like it? Stop bouncing checks or paying your credit card bill late. Stop taking out loans you can’t afford to pay back. If you carry an interest bearing account the bank will make money on your money, but not outside of normal business practices.
I don’t blame Walmart, for instance, for bringing down average wages and standard of living in the communities they infest. I blame the shortsightedness of the shoppers who buy cheap Chinese garbage instead of locally made goods supporting their friends, family and community. Walmart is pursuing a logical business model which works. Change buyer habits and they’ll change their model. So will banks, insurance companies, hospitals or any others on the leftist list of enemies of the state.
@48 “Then there’s you ‘friend’ correctnotright who disagrees with you Roger Dumb Bunny.”
Yeah, we liberals sometimes disagree among ourselves, puddypuke. We’re not goosesteppers like you guys — we don’t drum people out of the party for not mouthing the Party Line.
@65 “Bankers ‘get their hands on’ so much of the capital because we give it to them. Don’t like it? Stop bouncing checks or paying your credit card bill late.”
You understand nothing. This isn’t what I was referring to. These things are chump change relative to the big picture. What’s happening is a dollar can’t move in the economy without passing through the bankers’ hands and they skim a fee off the top of every transaction every time a dollar moves anywhere.
“Stop taking out loans you can’t afford to pay back.”
How, exactly, do banks make money off bad loans?
“If you carry an interest bearing account the bank will make money on your money, but not outside of normal business practices.”
Normal business practices my ass! They pay you 1/2 of 1% for your savings and then lend it out to credit card customers at 28%. A 27 1/2 point spread is “normal business practice”? I-don’t-think-so! The amazing thing is even with this spread the banks are going bust. I think if bankers can’t extract a net profit from a gross spread of 27 1/2 points, then the banks’ boards of directors should fire those guys and get new bankres.
Republican logic:
The worst recession since 1939, that started in December 2007, is “just part of the business cycle” and is in no way traceable to anything of any kind done by the gang of incompetent war criminals who ran this country into the ground from 2001-2009, but the all of this counry’s unemployment is the fault of President of the United States Obama, whose first budget took effect in October.
@1 Mark:
Darcy went to Harvard on an academic scholarship and earned a degree in Computer Science with “special field” of Economics.
Dave Reichert spent two years at Concordia Lutheran College.
I don’t believe you fully grasp the meaning of the word “irony”.
And since you couldn’t possibly have any knowledge about the firmness of Goldy’s penis, I can only assume the comment must be a classic case of projection.*
*the tendency to ascribe to another person feelings, thoughts, or attitudes present in oneself.
@66…..huh? Joe Lieberman ring a bell?
@ 70
Huh? back at ya. Joe Lieberman did way more than simply disagree.
#61 Marvin, can’t you tell the truth? Many democrats believed Saddam had WMD’s. Bush didn’t say he believed, he said Saddam did have them. See the difference?
Reaganomics = Turning America from the largest creditor nation into the largest debtor nation. Just because of tax cuts for the very wealthy, and trillions pissed down a military industrial complex black hole, while destroying the middle class in the process.
Reichert is too stupid to understand. His only degree was in posing for cameras, and appealing to 8th district voters too stupid to do anything without Rush Limbaugh’s directions. They think Jesus hates gays, and was so against abortion that he mentioned it exactly zero times while alive, according to that bible fantasy book.
Anyone thinking Republicons are good at governing should be locked up somewhere in a straight jacket. They are definitely insane. Don’t believe me? Just look at what they did from 2000 on when they controlled the house, senate, white house, and supreme court. They hosed this country while spending their time with flag burning amendments, and protecting wet brains (literally a jello brain) like Terry S.
Remember All Facts Support My Positions
@8: Thanks for showing that you know absolutely nothing about economics.
Umm, where have you been? Outer space? The econmoy and the private sector have been in a free fall and the banks were not lending to anyone. If we left it up to the private sector – there would be no recovery at all and we would be in the deepest recession ever.
The federal governmetn had to step in. Of course it did not help the Bush spent our economy into record deficit territory and STILL caused the worst recession since the great depression – that is what you get when you WASTE over a trillion dollars in Iraq on an unecessary war (and you voted for Bush!).
Umm, do you mean it’s way? Guess you never looked at the history of the great depression. The only way we got out of it was by government spending. The key conservative economic chiefs all wanted the “gold standard” to checkmate any spending until roosevelt cvame in – and when congress went back on deficit spending, the depression nosedived again until the start of WW2.
Your simple minded thesis that private industry can pull us out of a depression on it’s own….well, show the proof of that. It has NEVER been done. Thanks for demonstrating zero knowledge of history AND economics.
And here are some more ignorant statements by a total fool:
.
Wow, this is just too stupid to pass up! If the banks don’t lend the econy shuts down. Where did you learn your economics, kindergarten?
The cure for lax oversight and the bank friendly but consumer and economically nonsense rules written by Phil Gramm is to correct them so that banks cannot gamble with our money.
Where do you keep your money – in a matress?
What a total fool! You can’t even present a cogent argument. Allowing banks to gamble on equity swaps was what triggered most of the banking defaults. Allowing mortgage companiews to trade their loans and not care if they were bad or not cuased much of the problem. Your solution…to allow them to fail would have bankrupted the entire world.
Instead, we need an intelligent solution – fix the broken rules, don’t allow banks to gamble with money, don’t reward banks and banking execs for short-term greed and fix the broken mortgage system.
Your “solutions” would make things worse and are third grade level thought that is a simplistic and knee jerk reaction to a complex problem. Typical, skin deep analysis by people with no clue who don’t even understand what went wrong.
Thanks “Lost” – now we know why you are lost – you have no capacity for intelligent thought to figure out where you are and what to do.
#58 Puddy, I am rich. Self made. “Regular” folks however saw their take home pay when adjusted for inflation flat line while the top 1% had their incomes sky rocket. That’s what happens when every part of government is serving the ruling class, and large corporations, and “the rabble” find it harder, and harder to succeed.
Don’t believe me? Wait till you get sick, and you don’t have any insurance, and your hospital bill are $100,000. Or if you have insurance and it only pays $20,000 of it.
Unless you are rich, you are getting screwed, and you are blaming the wrong crowd for screwing you. When you get hit by lightning a democrat would pay to change your diaper, and a republicon would rather you just died.
@65: Once again Lost shows simplistic thinking:
Lost – I think you made some wise personal financial decisions not to go out on a limb to buy a property. Personally, I operate the same way – even though I still have my job.
However, it IS your problem if the entire housing market falls down a hole and your house is suddenly worth next to nothing. The price of your place is only dependent on what someone else will pay for it. So despite your “wise” personal financial decisions, the market can break you too. So your simplistic thesis that it is not your problem is, quite simply, wrong.
And one more thing – what the heck is a shumnck? Did you mean schmuck? I did get a chuckle out of that one.
@71..oh bullshit. that is exactly what he did, and was summarily ostracized from the “party of inclusion”(what a crock of shit that line is). Neither party is inclusive.
@1 Darcy has a Harvard degree “in economics.” A Harvard dean said so. Repeating a wingnut lie 10,000 times doesn’t make it true.
@ 76
that is exactly what he did
So, are you claiming that Joe Lieberman did not deliver a speech at the Republican National Convention and campaign against the Democratic nominee, or are you claiming that these two things had nothing to do with Democrats ostracizing him?
@70 — Huh yourself — get your head out of your ass, pal. Lieberman ran as a third party candidate after losing the Democratic primary, but he caucuses with the Democrats and is, for all intents and purposes, a Democratic senator.
@72 Don’t forget that Reagan did not cut federal spending or reduce the size of government — he was a big-government guy who expanded government. Just like Nixon, the two Bushes, and all the other so-called Republican “conservatives.”
@74 It takes only a week to run up a $100K hospital bill. That’s why I carry $1 million of liability coverage on my homeowners and auto insurance. Even a million bucks is peanuts for a serious injury nowadays.
@75 The bigger problem with shmuck’s thinking is his belief that he can go it alone. That’s never been true of any human society, anywhere, at any time. We’re all interdependent, whether we like it or not. Fortunately we rabbits, although we depend on each other, don’t need you humans because, frankly, I don’t think your species is going to be around as long as mine.
@76 That’s your opinion, and opinions are like assholes … everybody’s got one.
@78 Even after all that, he wasn’t “ostracized.” He kept his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, and he can attend party caucuses if he wants to.
“Karl Hungus,” like all the other lying trolls posting here, can’t support his arguments except by fabricating facts.
lol….thats some funny shit, especially coming from Goebbels Rabbit.
@83…and in your case, yours smells like ass
@87 No, it smells like a cute cottontail! Would you like to kiss it?
[rabbit farting noises]
@86 I’m a Democratic party hack and liberal propagandist.
Deal with it.
@ 89…which is why you are nothing but a Joseph Goebbels wannabe….
@90 You can’t get anything right, can you? First of all, Goebbels was a Nazi shit who worked for a regime that started a world war and murdered millions of people. I’m saving America from punks like you. No comparison there. Second, I’m better at this game than he was. My side is going to win, but even if we don’t, I won’t have to kill myself and my entire family because I’m on the side of right.
@ 91
Obviously, this putz subscribes to the liberalism = socialism = National Socialist Party syllogism. Of course, if that syllogism works, then so does the Republicans = People’s Republic of China = communism syllogism.
All of which really means that liberals are too conservative.
@92 He’s clueless about how much neocons have in common with commies.
@92….hey don shmoe, the comparison of roger rabbit to goebbels has nothing to do with political affiliation you stupid fuck.
roger rabbit is a goebbels because he is a proud, self admitted, propagandist for a political party, just like Joseph was.
You two idiots cant even fathom the comparison, because your just a pair of tools. you’re little sycophant bitches just like the little sycophant bitches on the right.
@93…..another shill from Goebbels Rabbit…
@91…your not better than anybody – your a sickly old fool full of hatred and vitriol, who happens to have an internet connection.
you are nothing.
@96 I’m better than you, which makes you less than nothing.
Given the theoretical possibilities this opens up, I won’t be surprised if professional mathematicians preserve you in a glass jar for further study.
Karl Hungus,
Thank you so much for sharing your well-considered opinions on this blog. We have lacked the wingnut point of view for at least two or three hours here, so it’s so wonderful to have someone here to express the thoughts of those who can’t think. I agree with you that just because coherence is beyond your reach, doesn’t mean you can’t still spew. Go for it, guy. We need your point-of-view.
@96 (continued) Another illiterate wingfuck who can’t spell a simple word like “you’re” … (sigh) the trolls on this blog are uneducable.
@ 94
.hey don shmoe, the comparison of roger rabbit to goebbels has nothing to do with political affiliation you stupid fuck.
Well, the fact that you’re engaging in this idiotic ad-hominem song and dance means that you have no reasonable answer to the question I asked you back in comment 78, which means that you hold your opinions despite the facts, not because of the facts.
So, by all means, keep up with your ad hominem, but don’t pretend that your lack of substantive argument makes anyone here but you look like a “stupid fuck.”
@97…insult fail.
@99..did you say something, Goebbels Rabbit?
nah, didnt think so.
@100..it started long before the convention…have you been asleep for the last 5 years.
try again joe shmoe…….
@98….there are plenty of left and right wingnuts here, of which you are a member.
@ 103
@100..it started long before the convention
You mean right about the time when Lieberman praised George Bush and chided John Kerry about a month before the 2004 Presidential election?
have you been asleep for the last 5 years.
It would seem that I’ve been more awake than you have.
@105….thanks for proving my point – dumbass.
@101 – @104 Does anyone else hear a rattle?
http://media.bigoo.ws/content/.....ies_79.gif
@ 106
thanks for proving my point
Hm. I’ve pointed to a specific instance where Lieberman did something other than just disagree with the majority of Democrats on policy issues, and you claim that this proves your point.
Either you’ve completely forgotten what point you were trying to make, or you have no understanding of basic logic. Take your pick.