Quote:...
But the Dow Jones isn’t diving because spending has risen, deficits have grown or stimulus policy has changed. It’s diving because of forces Washington can’t control, and in many cases, doesn’t understand very well. How many members of Congress do you think could give a coherent account of what has happened to oil or steel prices over the last three years? Or what’s happening in the Eurozone? Or to the yuan?
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The right question is simple enough to pose: Where will the recovery come from? The problem is that no one has an answer. And as one hopeful hypothesis after another is dashed, the markets are beginning to panic.

It won’t come from the United States. Our recovery has slowed, and updates to the Commerce Department’s growth figures have shown that the hole we’re in is significantly deeper than we realized. Thursday’s news only underscored that conclusion, as the early signs suggest that Friday’s job numbers report will be disappointing.

It won’t come from Europe or Japan. The debt crises in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy have quieted any conversation about recovery and raised the question of whether the Eurozone can survive. And Japan is still trying to rebuild after the horrific earthquake and tsunami that ripped across its coastline back in March.
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(08-04-2011 03:38 PM)jaxx Wrote:  Ezra gives a rather hopeless scenario there. Time to print the money and spend it on infrastructure and get people to work. I know that will cause inflation, but we're dying on the vine.

(08-04-2011 03:44 PM)Drunken Irishman Wrote:  Yeah. That might be the most depressing story I've read in a long, long time. He's basically saying, "we're fucked and there ain't a damn thing we can do about it..."

(08-04-2011 06:33 PM)azmouse Wrote:  I'm getting drunk tonight.

(08-04-2011 05:09 PM)Velleity Wrote:  The markets are going down because we had a lost decade, thanks to idiotic and irresponsible "conservative" policies. Capitalist economies do not necessarily foster a strong middle class. Just look at Mexico with it's more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the world and it's average daily wage of $5 a day for everyone else. That is the natural capitalist way? Why? Because the people at the top, who know how to create barriers to entry (the ones conservatives have told us can't possibly exist), will make it that way.

Have you ever played poker with someone who has more money than they know what to do with? If you have then you have some idea what I mean.

Our grandfathers and greatgrandfathers knew something. They knew that to create a strong middle class, after WWII, they would need highly progressive taxation, strong unions, and good government regulation. And what have "conservatives" done? They have systematically dismantled that and they have achieved the highest concentration of wealth since the Gilded Age, right before the Republican Great Depression I.

Gee, what a coincidence. Isn't it?

(08-04-2011 05:52 PM)RoyGBiv Wrote:  

(08-04-2011 03:44 PM)Drunken Irishman Wrote:  Yeah. That might be the most depressing story I've read in a long, long time. He's basically saying, "we're fucked and there ain't a damn thing we can do about it..."

Oh, we *could* do something about it, but then there are Republicans and conservative Democrats to account for.

Our current economic problems have been amplified beyond all rational sense by abject stupidity in governance and in the population that relishes these inadequacies.

(08-04-2011 05:52 PM)RoyGBiv Wrote:  

(08-04-2011 03:44 PM)Drunken Irishman Wrote:  Yeah. That might be the most depressing story I've read in a long, long time. He's basically saying, "we're fucked and there ain't a damn thing we can do about it..."

Oh, we *could* do something about it, but then there are Republicans and conservative Democrats to account for.

Our current economic problems have been amplified beyond all rational sense by abject stupidity in governance and in the population that relishes these inadequacies.

(08-05-2011 05:00 AM)Velleity Wrote:  On second thought abject stupidity is probably too generous.