Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

i had an argument with a theoretically well-educated, politically middle-of-the-road guy a few years ago about whether or not the u.s. was a "mixed economy." the argument was me saying yes and him saying "what is a mixed economy?" he'd never even heard the phrase. in his mind we were either "capitalist" or "socialist." and, you know, i remember being taught very matter of factly in 10th grade or something that the u.s. was a mixed economy, it wasn't a big point of controversy. but it's like the brainwashing of the post-reagan years has been so successful that a lot of people don't even understand what kind of country they live in. the fact that their mythological ideas about the united states are directly contradicted by their own everyday experiences just bounces off them.

(and, somewhat hilariously, this was a guy who was at the time seeking government contracts in a public-private development deal.)

The catch is that more government intrusion in the economy will almost surely limit growth (as it has in Europe, where a big welfare state has caused chronic high unemployment).

Unemployment rates:

US 7.6%
Austria 3.9%
Netherlands 3.9%
Denmark 2.1%
Norway 2.9%
Sweden 6.4%
Switzerland 2.9%

Well-researched article ...

I mean, it's half right, in that the US has had an extraordinarily dynamic economy, but the end of that sentence is just RONG.

(This is the Newsweek article above, btw)

I don't think it's crazy to say that in an average year an average large EU country has a higher unemployment rate - the numbers (doctored as they may be) usually do reflect this.

But yeah, "more government intrusion in the economy will almost surely limit growth" - that's a great line to put in an 2003 editorial by a Chicago economist but wtf, the fact that shit like this is still considered objective truth in FEBRUARY 2009 just goes to show how deeply rooted these beliefs were.

Meantime, roffles:

Hotel chains, jet makers and corporate travel managers say they are fearful that efforts to curb excesses by firms receiving government aid will only add more pain to an industry hit hard by the economic downturn.

"We've got to get away from the symbolism of corporate fat cats smoking a big cigar on a golf course and instead think about the symbolism of people meeting and thinking together and creating ideas and building their cultures," Marriott chief financial officer Arne Sorenson said yesterday in a conference call to discuss the company's weak earnings report.

Because that was always what was driving them beforehand.

7,591.87
–258.54
–3.29%

some months ago, an investor newsletter my dad subscribes to -- which he says has had a good track record these past few years in sizing things up -- set two parameters as signs of what's to come: if/when the dow goes back over 9,500, we'll probably be at a sustainable recovery; if/when it goes under 7,500, we're probably looking at a loooooooong trough. arbitrary numbers, obviously, but...

"what kind of trough provides less food as it gets bigger?"

If/when the dow goes back over 9,500, we'll probably be at a sustainable recovery; if/when it goes under 7,500, we're probably looking at a loooooooong trough. arbitrary numbers, obviously, but...

The Groundhog Industrial Average

The Oligarchs' Escape Plan

Treasury has not yet decided whether to write down the debt principal for the estimated 15 million families with negative equity (and perhaps 30 million by this time next year as property prices continue to plunge). No doubt a similar deal will be made: For every $100,000 of write-down in debt owed by over-mortgaged homeowners, the bank will receive $100,000 from the Treasury. Government debt will rise by $100,000, and the process will continue until the Treasury has transferred $50,000,000 to the banks that made the reckless loans.

There is enough for just 500,000 of these renegotiations of $100,000 each. It may seem like a big amount, but it’s only about 1/30th of the properties underwater. Hardly enough to make much of a dent, but the principle has been put in place for many further bailouts. It will take almost an infinity of them, as long as the Treasury tries to support the fiction that “the miracle of compound interest” can be sustained for long. The economy may be dead by the time saner economic understanding penetrates the public consciousness.

In the meantime, bad private-sector debt will be shifted onto the government’s balance sheet. Interest and amortization currently owed to the banks will be replaced by obligations to the U.S. Treasury. Taxes will be levied to make up the bad debts with which the government is stuck. The “real” economy will pay Wall Street – and will be paying for decades!

...Today it is easier to see that the Western economies cannot go on the way they have been. They have reached the point where the debts exceed the ability to pay. Instead of recognizing this fact and scaling debts back into line with the ability to pay, the Obama-Geithner plan is to bail out the big banks and hedge funds, keeping the volume of debt in place and indeed, growing once again through the “magic of compound interest.” The result can only be an increasingly extractive economy, until households, real estate and industrial companies, states and cities, and the national government itself is driven into debt peonage.

...Today’s neoliberalism paints a false picture of what the classical economists envisioned as free markets. They were markets free of economic rent and interest (and taxes to support an aristocracy or oligarchy). Socialism was to free economies from these overhead charges. Today’s Obama-Geithner rescue plan is just the reverse.

http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson02172009.html

It's funny to hear how far more vehemently opposed Republicans are to this package than the one that went through last fall. I understand the critiques about no-bid contracts and wasteful spending but didn't they just write a huge TARP check made out to 'Cash' with nearly this amount?

― Adam Bruneau, Friday, 13 February 2009 00:05 (5 days ago)

This. The only damn difference is who the fat check is going to. Investment banks? Great! Too big to fail! (Try to get a loan from a bank now, though.) GM or Chrysler/Cerberus? Of COURSE! Why didn't you ask sooner? States, municipalities, and the rest of the country? Well, um, no.

Well not exactly - remember that the car companies had been way too nice to the evil, decadent unions and so didn't deserve to get bailed out.

ayo tracer going way back to re: banks did you read steve lohr's analysis in the times??

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/business/economy/13insolvent.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper

lays out some of the +/- pretty well i think

i hear swedish models are involved

yes i think we should all look to the swedish models for guidance here

The Geithner bikini team.

they might have some things to say about soft landings

Lamp i just read that and didn't learn very much that i didn't know before - what struck you about it?

I think we need a screen capture of Kenan Thompson's wacked-out "fix it!" economist here.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/greenspan-said-to-support-some-bank-nationalizations/?hp

does anyone have a crying ayn rand jpg handy?

http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/photos/2009/02/019731.html

i still haven't quite digested the fact that circuit city is out of business

I know right? Stores like that don't GO out of business. They're eternal.

Lamp i just read that and didn't learn very much that i didn't know before - what struck you about it?

i just thought it laid out the situation in a clear, useful way. if you've been following the various avenues and cul-de-sacs this argument has taken then its not some omg moment obv but, yeah, idk i thought it was plainly-stated summation of the situation

i'm still not convinced btw that nationalization is anything other than messy red-herring

so what would you consider the best way to get banks to extend credit again?

or, put another way, the best way to get creditworthy borrowers the money they need in order to make the kinds of investments that are required to lift the economy out of recession?

google ad:

Obama Is Giving You Money - www.GovtEconomicStimulus.com - Read How I Got a $12K Check From The Economic Stimulus Package.

links to this idjit:

http://www.govteconomicstimulus.com/about-me/david-brown/

Feel free to wager how many of the comments are sockpuppets

Pretty sick, considering Obama's stimulus bill only got signed a day or two ago and he claims he's got his check already! Since when did the government ever move that fast?

http://www.masculinehygiene.com/d/m/moneyfail.jpg

TIME is such horse hockey...

Dow Jones Industrial falls more than 100 points to a 12 year low.

So I guess putting my inheritance into a mutual fund in the summer of 2007 was a bad idea?

nytimes.com i love but your bringing me down

btw tracer i keep putting off typing a response i think in large part because my opposition to nationalization is purely negative - i dont have an alternate strategy.

Yeah :/

lets take all the money from the banks and use it to fund the construction of a time machine that will allow us to go back in time and prevent deregulation

and also to warn tracer not to put his inheritance into a mutual fund

It was "low risk" and is now worth a bit more than half of what it started as

i had some leftover college money in a mutual fund that is also at around 55% of what it once was. also a 'low risk' fund btw.

i am a master of the market

yeah lol paying for med school with my savings at this point

google ad:

Obama Is Giving You Money - www.GovtEconomicStimulus.com - Read How I Got a $12K Check From The Economic Stimulus Package.

links to this idjit:

http://www.govteconomicstimulus.com/about-me/david-brown/

Feel free to wager how many of the comments are sockpuppets

― kingfish, Thursday, 19 February 2009 17:54 (Yesterday) Permalink

Pretty sick, considering Obama's stimulus bill only got signed a day or two ago and he claims he's got his check already! Since when did the government ever move that fast?

― Aimless, Thursday, 19 February 2009 18:00 (Yesterday)

Those ads were popping up on Facebook 2 weeks before the bill was signed!

for yr entertainment

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meltdown/

Christ, I haven't been able to watch frontline in like, what, 4 years plus now?

i didn't really learn anything from that frontline show that i didn't already know (nor would, i suspect, most of the posters on this thread) -- it was useful to show just what a massive, gaping asshole henry paulson is and squarely pins most of the blame for our current mess on him (esp. in its implication that he didn't bail out lehman bros. in no small part b/c he didn't heart dick lol fuld), but again most of us here already knew that.

it may be helpful for less-than-astute folks, though.

it's great storytelling at any rate.

so...6000's by close today or?

Dow Jones Industrial Average is down more than 200 points at 7,159, a total not seen since the close of October 27, 1997.

currently 7,128.48

7,114.22http://i.mktw.net/mw3/quotes/arrow-dn-lg.gif at close wow

Was down to 7,105.94 at one point.

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/images/2008/12/28/down_arrow_red.jpg

lowest close for s&p 500 since December 1996