We do not need agreements, we need solutions.
Ooops. Economists, the folks who didn't see the recession coming and have agreed that its all over, predicted that consumer credit would fall by $4 billion in July. It did. And then it fell another $17.6 billion, as banks tightened qualifications, unemployment increased, and folks tried to pay down their debts.
Dumb Fox? Keep in mind that the political smarts and political will that brought Obama to the White House did not evaporate overnight. Ask yourself if there could be some explanation for his apparent fumbles. Then ask yourself if you like the answer.
Half a Loaf: A federal appeals court has ruled that former AG Ashcroft can be sued. Okay, but the real question is can he and Gonzales be tried...
The "After" Part: For a glimpse of a future without oil, try the present in North Korea: “ In the countryside... farmers tend their crops with hoes, shovels and their bare hands while the occasional piece of rusting farm equipment - rendered useless by a fuel shortage - sits idle... With no machines and all the livestock eaten, quiet lingers in rural areas of a nation where 8.7 million face hunger.”
Clarification: There will not be a “jobless recovery.” No jobs, no recovery. Next question?
Word Study : If the minimum payment on your credit card doesn't cover the interest, you are in serious trouble. You get out by declaring bankruptcy. What makes you think Uncle Sam will be any different? Words to study: Inflation, Default, Repudiation.
Timing's Off : AP's headline read “Time running out for bipartisan health compromise.” Actually, time ran out for bipartisan compromise a long time ago. Before last November. After the first Clinton election, when the GOP took a contract out on America.
Half Full, Of Course: Happy campers take in more information from the environment than do the depressed and anxious. Those who set out to upset and anger you are not doing you a favor. They may, in fact, be trying to get you to take your eye off the ball. Happy skeptics are not what the bankers, insurance companies, drug manufacturers nor the GOP seem to want.
Not Making It : Not only did the US lose over 200,000 jobs in the last ten years, US manufacturing employment is lower than it was in 1941. Happiness varies.
Follow Up: Yesterday we suggested the UK couldn't really undertake to rescue collapsing Commonwealth tax havens floundering in the wake of the global downturn. Today the UK refused to help out the Caymans. So the fifth largest banking center and the world's main venue for hedge funds finds itself contemplating levying taxes for the first time. Kind of hard to be a tax haven if you have to start taxing folks.
Is It Winter Already? Russia claims Ukraine is seeking to change their fee agreement for transit of Russian gas to Europe. Cue the chorus.
Partial Truth Telling: China's going around saying things that are true, more or less. The US has big problems with the future of the dollar, based on its incredible debt levels. This is true. What China doesn't own up to is their role in encouraging the US to dig this hole. Now they're afraid the Fed's printing presses will devalue Chinese dollar holdings. Sniff.
Asked & Answered: “Is The SEC Completely Useless?” No, not completely. Both Madoff and Goldman Sachs found the SEC quite helpful.
War is Impolite: Members of the US 10th Mountain Division stormed through a hospital south of Kabul late at night, tying up the staff and forcing patients out of bed while they searched for wounded Taliban. As they left, empty handed, they ordered the Swedish charity hospital's staff to report wounded patients so the military could decide who got treated.
6 comments:
From Denninger-
'Unemployment is vastly worse than statistics show. Those who give up may not be added to government official reported numbers but the merchants who are trying to sell things and the banks who are trying to collect debts all count those who give up as "unemployed" when it comes to being able to buy or pay, and we lost five times the number of people from those getting a paycheck when actually counted compared to the official government claims.
the big D is here and now...
TT
TT - Yes, Denninger's Market Ticker is a daily must read. I sit in a slightly more reserved and decorous pew, but we're in the same church.
He's got three good posts up right now.
ckm
Half a Loaf: A federal appeals court has ruled that former AG Ashcroft can be sued. Okay, but the real question is can he and Gonzales be tried...
Yes, Justice works. Years spent chasing down AG Ashcroft if successful will result in a final decision by the Roberts Supreme Court letting all the Perps walk. NAZI Germany had a Justice System too.
(Ask EXXON about the Alaska Oil Spill!)
Anon 1:51 Beat me to it. Of course it will go to the Supremes and of course they'll find the lower courts were in grave error, thinking that justice should be served. Why start now?
ckm
I don't get the "Dumb Fox" thing. Apparently the implication is that O is a secret fascist? Should be? He is bent on exacting an eye for an eye? There should be "pressure and agitation" for - something? Sorry, I'm not with youse on this. Elsewise, I enjoy SAR a lot.
Bill
Bill - There were two (or more) themes in the Dumb Fox item. 1)the danger of a "friendly fascism" from the bottom rungs, as Navarro aludes. 2) The point that Obama and the handlers around him are separate entities and 3) Jesse points out the error in Navarro's "remarkably bad perscription.
From all this (Or to all this..) I added the observation than Obama is not a political neophyte nor idiot and that thre is some slight hope that the apparent mess he's made in his approach to health care reform (and Afghanistan - farther afield) may be knowingly and willfully mis-directive - political, even. And that he's smarter at the levers of governing than now seems apparent.
Or maybe not. - ckm
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