Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

Dems' perfidy knows no end, and Krugman says why:

the Democrats appear to have buckled in the face of the Bush administration’s ideological rigidity, dropping demands for provisions that would have helped those most in need. And those happen to be the same provisions that might actually have made the stimulus plan effective.

...the plan gives each worker making less than $75,000 a $300 check, plus additional amounts to people who make enough to pay substantial sums in income tax. This ensures that the bulk of the money would go to people who are doing O.K. financially — which misses the whole point.
...If the money the government lays out doesn’t get spent — if it just gets added to people’s bank accounts or used to pay off debts — the plan will have failed.

...The words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt come to mind: “We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.”

And the worst of it is that the Democrats, who should have been in a strong position — does this administration have any credibility left on economic policy? — appear to have caved in almost completely.

Yes, they extracted some concessions, increasing rebates for people with low income while reducing giveaways to the affluent. But basically they allowed themselves to be bullied into doing things the Bush administration’s way.

i'm 100% in agreement with you on this one, morbius. that the dems signed off on this "stimulus" bill is disgraceful on a number of levels.

http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/ca0123cd.jpg

i imagine the republicans said "fine, if you won't budge we won't pass the bill - how will your constituents like that?" to which the democrats said "yeah well what about YOUR constituents??" to which the republicans said "we've convinced them they can't count on the govt for anything so why should we even care"

re that cartoon i cannot wait until these bizarre antigovernment zealots are exposed for the toadying, complacent elites that they are

Chuck Asay makes me want to throw up my hands and say fuck it.

"Hail, holy Ass!" the quiring angels sing;

"Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!" Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine: God made all else, the Mule, the Mule is thine!"

--Ambrose Bierce

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/images/2008/01/23/wheres_the_bottom.png

they should issue the rebates as visa gift cards, in which case people would have to spend them.

not actually kidding.

Where's the bottom? As in my aunt Fanny?

Haha, I can clearly hear the six different variations on meaningless bullshit coming out of that CNBC screen

today bernanke injected more crack into the system ...

http://mechapixel.com/slags/329/2285EyAN.jpg

is that would just happened up there at the 2pm mark? I was getting actual work done

ritholtz called it at 10 am

don't see why you don't stay a little longer

so we get our stimulus checks by what, August? I NEED NOW

Instead of taking a stand and recognizing the serious errors made in this little economic situation, once again it's ... easy solutions that'll lead to the same problems again.

Who are these people running our country? Man alive.

And down it goes....

So money is basically free now.

This intraday and day-to-day volatility in stocks is just INSANE. Makes 1999 look stable.

My totally inexpert guess is that you're seeing push/pull between fear of recession and people thinking "gee, this is a great buy-in point" (who are presumably also ignoring/downplaying the fear). I'd also bet you'd see a similar pattern right before past recessions.

Hello everyone when is the next cut?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/28b464a2-cf50-11dc-854a-0000779fd2ac.html

The US should face its need for adjustment with courage and reason, not fear. It should stop behaving as the whiner of first resort, ready to waste all its dry powder on a short-sighted attempt to prevent a 2008 recession. Many poorer countries with weaker markets and institutions have survived and benefited from an adjustment that involves a year of negative growth. Faster bank recapitalisation, fiscal investment stimulus and international co-ordination should be first on the ­policy agenda.

OTM--the U.S. seems to've got itself locked into a boom-bust cycle again through short sighted monetary policy.

My totally inexpert guess is that you're seeing push/pull between fear of recession and people thinking "gee, this is a great buy-in point" (who are presumably also ignoring/downplaying the fear). I'd also bet you'd see a similar pattern right before past recessions in the history of capitalism, cause that's what capitalism is.

boom-bust cycles as we know them today are around 300 years old

the graph at the top of this thread was a brilliant move

I'd also bet you'd see a similar pattern right before past recessions in the history of capitalism, cause that's what capitalism is.

I mean the unusual volatility of the market right now. I mean I'd guess that before recessions you tend to see big ups and downs with an overall downward trend, the greater downward force being fear of recession and the lesser upward force being denial

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h3/Current/

can anyone explain why the 'reserves of non-borrowed reserves' rapidly went into negative territory in January? Am i misreading this? How can reserves be negative??

So I couldn't find any other thread to put this in but surely this is the kind of thing to make Tombot point and laugh. Favorite part:

After a month of heartbreak and frustration, I finally decided to suck it up and ask my contacts for assistance. They tried, but to no avail. I then asked my White House intern friends for help, but since I had changed political sides after my internship, they were not willing to help me.

From a Dartmouth grad, ladies and gentlemen.

"Euros Accepted" signs in NYC

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0655798320080206

Talking about retail on CNN: "...worst January in forty years."

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0655798320080206

I scored a temporary job long enough to pay my phone bill.

articles like that always leave a lot to the imagination.

It's a little hard for me to believe that int'l relations-related entry level jobs would suffer that significantly from the current economic downturn, at least so soon. More likely it's just a highly competitive field - low demand, lots of highly educated people wanting to do it.

"If I can't even find a job the economy must be really bad"

actually I would say underemployment around here is hitting pretty much every stripe and maybe even my crowd (the cleared people) - I'm on a program that's going nowhere but up, but I keep hearing from everybody else that they're worried/looking around

When you wet, it's slippery (yeah)
When it damp, it crampin
If you slidin', you're tumblin' down
Don't want you on the ground!

I am kind of amazed I still have a job, especially since I work for a real estate company. At least once a day I take a minute to count my blessings. Then I count again to make sure that my blessings will still cover my rent.

I do my best not to take my job for granted, that's for sure.

xxpost - even if that's true, I don't think that article is representative. Although she was a fulbright scholar and all that, underneath it just sounds like the same "I just got out of college and life isn't as easy as I thought," article I've been reading every year for as long as I can remember.

that said, of course, I'm REALLY lucky to have my job (I'm no Fulbright scholar), and really glad to be going back to school next year.

laxalt, somebody pointed me toward this link today, about "non-borrowed reserves".. i can't say i understand it though -

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/02/borrowed-reserves-and-tin-foil-hats.html

Well, I guess we are going to find out sooner or later whether negative non-borrowed reserves are as bad a thing as they would appear to be!

It would be interesting to see what the equivalent figures in the UK and Euro would be (and is that Iceland sailing into the same murky waters?)

that chick must be doing something wrong--my school has a big I.R. program and isnt anywhere near as good as dartmouth and large portions of its graduates get jobs pretty easily w/ the govt and NGOs

After a month of heartbreak and frustration, I finally decided to suck it up and ask my contacts for assistance.

ok someone who doesnt use any connections theyre lucky enough to have as an opening strategy is prob just a retard or rich enough that they have the luxury to prove it to themselves and the world that they can make it on their own

i mean do they not teach you this shit in college?

my friend went to Dartmouth--she just has to breath and she has jobs thrown at her in NYC. I went to a shitty state college ... took about 7 months to find anything, with 90% of the interviews starting with, "so, where did you go to school?... really?" and ending with, "you really don't like Perec?"

aka, people who don't use their school connections are dinguses.

weren't you not going to post here anymore or something?

I don't think you "get it"

(tips a wink at burt, who covertly signals thumbs up)

Aw, you're in love.

In love with life, Ned. With life!