If people bought only what they needed, the economy would collapse.
Foreign Policy, Very Foreign: While Afghanistan is “sliding towards collapse” and dissolving into a series of warlord led chiefdoms, Romney proposes “a more assertive use of American influence in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Latin America,” with promises or threats to maintain, restore, escalate or commence military involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Iran.
Once More Into The Breech: The headline seems encouraging (if you think a debt-driven recovery is a good idea) - “Consumer Credit Soars”. Yes, overall consumer credit was up $18.1 billion over August, but $14 billion of that was student loans and government backed car loans. Gee, the semester started, huh?
Magical Wind-up Toy: The European Stability Mechanism, a permanent(!) bailout fund, now officially exists and will begin magically suspending reality for significant periods of time. All 17 eurozone countries have to provide some capital for the fund – even those who are in line to receive the funding. Originally there were to be 5 equal annual contributions, but the situation has gotten so desperate that 80% of the funding is due by October 23rd. Feel the confidence.
More, is Less: The Republican candidate is being allowed to get away with saying that President Obama “has not signed one new free trade agreement in the past four years,” ignoring three important trade deals signed in 2011 with Republican support.
Unfair: Chavez solidified his support by tapping the world’s biggest oil reserves to subsidize food, provide low-cost housing and expand health care among the poor, as he has been doing for 14 years. How crude and insensitive to Wall Street. “The White House congratulated the ‘Venezuela people’ for the peaceful, democratic election that gave President Hugo Chavez . . . his third six-year term . . . while noting the U.S. has its differences with Chavez.” We need the oil.
Clip & Save: Social Security is solvent. It’s America’s most successful retirement plan to date. It’s extremely popular across party lines . Social Security adds not a penny to the deficit. The program is prudently managed, cost-effective, and carefully monitored. It does not need fixing. Obama said he's going to "tweak" it. Which is another way of saying that the politicians have agreed to screw you out of your retirement. Put this on on the fridge.
Keeps on Ticking: The USCG reports a 4 mile long 'oil sheen' in the Gulf near BP's Macando well (think Deepwater Horizon and then think about drilling in the Arctic).
Fish In A Barrel: Republican Charlie Fuqua, running for State Representative in Arkansas, endorses the killing disrespectful children as a way to strengthen family discipline. He also favors executing prisoners rather than feeding and housing them for more than two years, expelling all Muslims from America, and stopping all funding for public education.
Devil/Details: A Romney consultant says that the reason Mitt won't detail how he plans to offset his tax cuts is that “he would be criticized for doing so.”
Think! We do not currently have any generally accepted data which would permit definitive evaluation of the public-health dangers posed by fracking. So let's keep drilling until the results come in. Like with GMO seeds.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The US spends about 13% of its energy on water – to pump it, treat it, heat it and cool it. That's more than we spend in residential and commercial lighting combined. So why don't we have curly faucets?
The Parting Shot:
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Tiny bubbles...
7 comments:
energy water ?????
spends ITS energy ON water.
Thank you; First Reader has been chastised.
ckm
re: “Consumer Credit Soars”
there was more student loan credit in august than the headline $181B total... http://www.federalreserve.gov/Releases/g19/Current/
loans provided by the federal government rose $23.9 billion in August alone, as federal consumer loans went from $471.8 to $495.7 over the period (see the 2nd table, Consumer Credit Outstanding, Major types of credit, by holder) that could be written as an annualized growth rate of 80.8%, although, to fair, the breakdown isnt seasonally adjusted, whereas the summary totals are...but we are still talking dollars here, and in the 5 year period between 2007 and August of this year, outstanding consumer credit held by the federal government rose more than fivefold, from $93.01 billion in 2007, to $495.7 billion this month (see same line)...
RE "Foreign Policy": And while listening to the radio I sort-of caught a sound bite on the radio that either said Romney's foreign policy will HAVE an attitude or have the RIGHT attitude. Not sure what was actually said but in light of your link, either one is disturbing. But this sort of rattling sabres rhetoric is just what Republican wannabes always do . . . let's just hope that if this particular tool is anointed president his handlers will learn something about reality during the transition months. Now there's Hope for you . . . although I don't believe it.
re "clip and save" - in his last show, george carlin said, "they want your social security - they're going to get it, too"
Awesome photo today!
-Lobo
Lobo - Appreciation is appreciated. Thanks, ckm
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