What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Oh so independent economic analysis is a fraud now? And "conjecture"? But the NRO, Thinker, and Heritage are not ? Moody's is just making things up? When did that happen?

And it's a Republican chief economist at Moody's making this stuff up? Because he wants to make democrats look good? You didn't think this through at all, did you?

Yes, it's like looking back at the civil war and saying, if Lee had won at Appomattox, then he would have gone on to win the Civil War. You cannot prove it. Similarly, you cannot prove that without Nancy and George's TARP that the banking system would have collapsed and we would have ended up in a deep Recession, possibly even a Depression...

You are the one not thinking things through via your "religiosity" (and I wish you would pick one alt, either this one or Merc and stick with it) of viewing the economy through a political lens for I am a Libertarian more of the Rothbardian wing and I think the interventions of Bush and Obama are what have made this into an unusually long and deep recession; when bubbles burst, no matter where they occur, they must be allowed to burst and people must be hurt, otherwise, they will keep engaging in stupid and economically hurtful behaviors like the congress-critters that have been calling to return to the failed policies of the past by forcing banks to write home loans for people who cannot possibly afford to pay them off.

__________________
How can you measure the value of knowing that company books are sounder than they were before? Of no more overnight bankruptcies with the employees and retirees left holding the bag? No more disruption to entire sectors of the economy?
Michael Oxley 2002
Co-Author of Sarbanes-Oxley Law

It will take the next economic crisis, as certainly it will come, to determine whether or not the provisions of this bill will actually provide this generation or the next generation of regulators with the tools necessary to minimize the effects of that crisis.
Chris Dodd
Co-Author Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act
Friend of Angelo

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

The report agrees with you accounts for that. And it STILL concludes that we were +2.7 million jobs over where we'd be without the stimulus.

Try reading the report dumbass. It's clear you have not, otherwise you wouldn't say shit like this.

Maybe without the stimulus we would be +3.2 million jobs.

You cannot know.

If these guys were so spot on with analysis, they would have spotted the housing bubble-burst.

Now, some in the Bush administration did think they had it spotted, but when they went to Congress to argue for an end to the free ride, they were called everything from alarmists to racists...

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

For example: What are they saying about the current tech bubble?




Remember the dotcom bust?

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/06...eed:+rss/magazines_fortune+(Fortune+Magazine)

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

What I don't get, especially with Merc/Celbarai is the worry that manufacturing is leaving, the middle-class is getting poorer but the economy IS recovering...

WHAT's recovering?

Manufacturing?

The Middle Class?

__________________
A_J's corollary #3, “The New Age Liberal maintains contradictory positions comfortably compartmentalized. (This is because the New Age Liberal is a creature that believes in consensus as a short-cut to an examination of the facts and a reasoned judgment about said facts. Corollary #2.)”

 

[NeverEndingMe]

don't worry Merc/Celbarai are busy working with publisher to create a shinny glossy pdf talking about how big and great the recovery is. think they hired some of the unemployed marketing people from Enron.

anyway, that new report should be ready soon.

p.s. government is always out of touch, they are only "in-touch" when they reach into our pockets to steal our money

What I don't get, especially with Merc/Celbarai is the worry that manufacturing is leaving, the middle-class is getting poorer but the economy IS recovering...

WHAT's recovering?

Manufacturing?

The Middle Class?

__________________
A_J's corollary #3, “The New Age Liberal maintains contradictory positions comfortably compartmentalized. (This is because the New Age Liberal is a creature that believes in consensus as a short-cut to an examination of the facts and a reasoned judgment about said facts. Corollary #2.)”

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Maybe they were talking abut housing...

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Maybe it's the Union recovery that shows such economic promise...

Obama’s NLRB is contemplating new union-election rules that would give employers less time to organize a countercampaign. There is absolutely no reason for doing so other than to weaken the employers’ position. Most union elections are conducted within a month or six weeks after union organizers file their petition for a vote; during the interim, employers have the chance to make their case against unionization, if they so choose. Under the fast-track votes contemplated by the new NLRB guidelines, that time would be reduced to less than three weeks, possibly as little as ten days. You’ll notice that it is only the employers who face a time limitation: The unions may spend as much time as they choose organizing their campaign before filing the petition for a vote. In some cases, employers have no idea that their workforces are being organized for unionization until that petition is filed, placing them at a distinct disadvantage. And even if they know that union organizers are approaching their workers, employers already face significant restrictions on how they respond.

As usual, employers’ property would be commandeered, and businesses would be required to share records, electronic files, contact databases, etc., with their antagonists. (Of course there is no reciprocal obligation on the unions.) In addition, employers’ right to use legal and procedural channels to resist unionization of their workforces would be reduced.

This is every bit as crucial to the unions as was the “card check” proposal, which would have abolished secret-ballot voting in union elections, allowing union organizers to intimidate dissenters. It may prove even more effective a tool for amplifying the unions’ power. On top of this, the Specialty Healthcare case, currently under review by the NLRB, could change the union-election rules by rewriting the definition of a “collective-bargaining unit.” Current rules define those bargaining units as enterprises or major divisions of enterprises; the changes being contemplated would allow any two workers who hold the same job to conduct a union-organizing vote on their own, empowering the unions to cherry-pick sympathetic workers and take over a workplace piecemeal.

Editors
NRO

No wonder business is staying in its economic fox hole.

 

[mercury14]

Conjecture. You cannot prove it because it did not happen the same way you cannot prove that if we had done nothing, the world would have come to a standstill.

Okay so now you're changing your argument? Again? At first you falsely claimed that there is no independent economic analysis that says the stimulus helped. Then you admit there's plenty. But it's all invalid.

The NRO knows best though and is perfectly valid.


Am I following you?

 

[NeverEndingMe]

Maybe it's the Union recovery that shows such economic promise...


Editors
NRO

No wonder business is staying in its economic fox hole.

well if a company like Goggle, Facebook, or Oracle become a union shop that is when America has gone down the toilet. I under stand why Sean/Merc/Celb/NJJoeBagFullofNuts are union supporters as the middle class and manufacturing worker wages have been squeezed (and moving backwards), to jobs being moved over seas.

but this fantasy of making the same amount of money as the person to the left of you is crazy! I'm not sure if that is something I could ever live with.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Okay so now you're changing your argument? Again? At first you falsely claimed that there is no independent economic analysis that says the stimulus helped. Then you admit there's plenty. But it's all invalid.

The NRO knows best though and is perfectly valid.


Am I following you?

I've been pretty consistent in pointing out that you're only looking to prove that Obama "saved" the economy like he "saved" jobs. It's a subjective, not an objective outlook.

You are certainly not following me, or even understanding me and I don't think you ever will when you say things like demand creates an economy and taxes are not considered into the business calculus of pricing.

The flip side to the analysis you present in your favor is, again, patiently, that you cannot prove that these numbers reflect an actual suppression of a recovery that might have been more robust because business would have sensed that the game was being played to set and established rule of law instead of having turned into a political payoff game where "rescue" was aimed at those who practiced the right business orthodoxy such as unionization and government. Instead they see GM (bailed out, bondholders extorted), BP (extorted), Wall Street (bailed out), the ignoring of Federal Judges, poorly vetted and understood legislation in health care and banking and they are, even you must admit, sitting on their collective pool of capital because they cannot make rational business decisions under Alice-in-Wonderland rules.

So when these analyses are trotted out as the silver lining, I still continue to point at the clouds because the clouds are still there and that the silver lining existed with, or without the stimulus and the unsustainable debt which leads to my conclusion that in the short term, you crow about the silver, but in the long term you ignore the anvil heads on the clouds.
__________________
In strategy, it is important to keep a near view of distanced things and a distanced view of near things.
Miyamoto Musashi

 

[busybody..]

So much uncertainly that the Dow climbed a staggering 4,000 points.

which means what?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

which means what?

That the government (Fed) is pouring money into the market and that people are still monthly vesting in their 401Ks even with the knowledge that privatizing Social Security and putting some of it into something as risky as the stock market would be the end of Social Security, retirement, and the nation.

 

[NeverEndingMe]

what does the stock market going up have to do with the economy? there is still a disconnect there. a company stock can jump up when they announce layoffs.

which means what?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

what does the stock market going up have to do with the economy? there is still a disconnect there. a company stock can jump up when they announce layoffs.

When it goes up and crosses magic thresholds like 12K it proves the economy has turned the corner which proves the stimulus and QEII worked and therefore Obama wins in a landslide...

 

[busybody..]

That the government (Fed) is pouring money into the market and that people are still monthly vesting in their 401Ks even with the knowledge that privatizing Social Security and putting some of it into something as risky as the stock market would be the end of Social Security, retirement, and the nation.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

 

[koalabear]

which means what?

Merc's alt is still posting.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

busybody, to your sigline...





That's not a door, it's a White House window!

Now, to most people, it's like I'm in the 57th State speaking to a corpse man in Austrian...

 

[busybody..]

Niggeromicks

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press – 55 mins ago
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.

The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid, said officials who make long-range cost estimates for the Health and Human Services department.

Up to 3 million more people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of the anomaly. That's because, in a major change from today, most of their Social Security benefits would no longer be counted as income for determining eligibility. It might be compared to allowing middle-class people to qualify for food stamps.

Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster says the situation keeps him up at night.

"I don't generally comment on the pros or cons of policy, but that just doesn't make sense," Foster said during a question-and-answer session at a recent professional society meeting.

[ For complete coverage of politics and policy, go to Yahoo! Politics ]


"This is a situation that got no attention at all," added Foster. "And even now, as I raise the issue with various policymakers, people are not rushing to say ... we need to do something about this."

Indeed, administration officials and senior Democratic lawmakers say it's not a loophole but the result of a well-meaning effort to simplify rules for deciding who will get help with insurance costs under the new health care law. Instead of a hodgepodge of rules, there will be one national policy.

"This simplification will stop people from falling into coverage gaps and may cause some to be newly eligible for Medicaid and others to no longer qualify," said Brian Cook, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

But states have been clamoring for relief from Medicaid costs, complaining that just these sorts of federal rules drive up spending and limit state options. The program is now one of the top issues in budget negotiations between the White House and Congress. Republicans are pushing for a rollback of federal requirements that block states from limiting eligibility.

Medicaid is a safety net program that serves more than 50 million vulnerable Americans, from low-income children and pregnant women to Alzheimer's patients in nursing homes. It's designed as a federal-state partnership, with Washington paying close to 60 percent of the total cost.

Early retirees would be a new group for Medicaid. While retirees can now start collecting Social Security at age 62, they must wait another three years to get Medicare, unless they're disabled.

Some early retirees who worked all their lives may not want to be associated with a health care program for the poor, but others might see it as a relatively painless way to satisfy the new law's requirement that all Americans carry medical insurance starting in 2014. It would help tide them over until they turn 65 and qualify for Medicare.

The actuary's office said the 3 million early retirees who would become eligible for Medicaid are on top of an estimated 16 million to 20 million people that Obama's law would already bring into the program, by opening it to childless adults with incomes near the poverty level. Federal taxpayers will cover all of the initial cost of the expansion.

A spokeswoman for the Senate Finance Committee, which wrote much of the health care law, said if the situation does become a problem there's plenty of time to fix it later.

"These changes don't take effect until 2014, so we have time to review all possible cases to ensure Medicaid meets its mission of serving only the neediest Americans," said Erin Shields.

But Republicans already see a problem.

Former Utah governor Mike Leavitt said adding early retirees will "just add fuel to the fire," bolstering the argument from Republican governors that some of Washington's rules don't make sense.

"The fact that this is being discovered now tells you, what else is baked into this law?" said Leavitt, who served as Health and Human Services secretary under President George H.W. Bush. "It clearly begins to reveal that the nature of the law was to put more and more people under eligibility for government insurance."

The Medicare actuary's office roughed out some examples to illustrate how the provision would work. A married couple retiring at 62 in 2014 and receiving the maximum Social Security benefit of $23,500 apiece could get $17,000 from other sources and still qualify for Medicaid with a total income of $64,000.

That $64,000 would put them at about four times the federal poverty level, which for a two-person household is $14,710 this year. The Medicaid expansion in the health care law was supposed to benefit childless adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty level. A fudge factor built into the law bumps that up to 138 percent.

The actuary's office acknowledged its $64,000 example would represent an unusual case, but nonetheless the hypothetical couple would still qualify for Medicaid.

 

[NeverEndingMe]

When it goes up and crosses magic thresholds like 12K it proves the economy has turned the corner which proves the stimulus and QEII worked and therefore Obama wins in a landslide...

and what does your magic crystal ball say, will the market stay above 12k (crap, I have not look at the market in some time.

well, the dow has been above 12 for a couple of months, and my gut is saying it will stay above 12k for the year. if the xmass consumer season is abysmal then it will come crashing down again

jobs are tight. housing has yet to stabilized. are consumers spending?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

and what does your magic crystal ball say, will the market stay above 12k (crap, I have not look at the market in some time.

It's fiddy-fiddy...

As I posted about a week or so ago (30 pages by now) my financial advisor (a very smart woman) thinks the market is due for a 10% correction, and I think her reasoning for that is sound being based on historical evidence and the actions of the Fed.

12,000/10 is 1200 points.

If they go into QEIII it will be put off for some time and the correction will be near devastating and Washington will, with wetted appetite, once again wade in to "save" us with a governmental baptism...

 

[mercury14]

AJ, you're a vacuous fool. Yes there is such a thing as economic policy evaluation. You're sitting here denying that such a thing even exists? People get Ph.Ds in it. Are they all wasting their time? Is the entire field of economics one big falsehood?

You've become wholly dismissable. And your goal post shifting is HILARIOUS. Every time I check this thread you're bailing out and going off-topic. It's impossible to even tell what your current baseless argument is right now because you keep changing it. You've been through so many of them:

1) Only the NRO and American Thinker are qualified to perform economic analysis.

2) There is no non-partisan economic analysis that says the stimulus worked

3) Okay so maybe there is. But it's suddently impossible to analyze policy.

4) If non-partisan independent analysis says the stimulus worked, it's obviously partisan.


You're essentially reduced to accusing things like "knowledge" as being liberal.

 

[koalabear]

AJ, you're a vacuous fool. Yes there is such a thing as economic policy evaluation. You're sitting here denying that such a thing even exists? People get Ph.Ds in it. Are they all wasting their time? Is the entire field of economics one big falsehood?

You've become wholly dismissable. And your goal post shifting is HILARIOUS. Every time I check this thread you're bailing out and going off-topic. It's impossible to even tell what your current baseless argument is right now because you keep changing it. You've been through so many of them:

1) Only the NRO and American Thinker are qualified to perform economic analysis.

2) There is no non-partisan economic analysis that says the stimulus worked

3) Okay so maybe there is. But it's suddently impossible to analyze policy.

4) If non-partisan independent analysis says the stimulus worked, it's obviously partisan.


You're essentially reduced to accusing things like "knowledge" as being liberal.

Find an old link to prove that! Moron.

 

[NeverEndingMe]

sounds like an arm chair QB

or

a army general 100 miles away from the fight


disconnect, from reality

AJ, you're a vacuous fool. Yes there is such a thing as economic policy evaluation. You're sitting here denying that such a thing even exists? People get Ph.Ds in it. Are they all wasting their time? Is the entire field of economics one big falsehood?

You've become wholly dismissable. And your goal post shifting is HILARIOUS. Every time I check this thread you're bailing out and going off-topic. It's impossible to even tell what your current baseless argument is right now because you keep changing it. You've been through so many of them:

1) Only the NRO and American Thinker are qualified to perform economic analysis.

2) There is no non-partisan economic analysis that says the stimulus worked

3) Okay so maybe there is. But it's suddently impossible to analyze policy.

4) If non-partisan independent analysis says the stimulus worked, it's obviously partisan.


You're essentially reduced to accusing things like "knowledge" as being liberal.

 

[mercury14]

I've been pretty consistent in pointing out that you're only looking to prove that Obama "saved" the economy like he "saved" jobs. It's a subjective, not an objective outlook.

Here's the difference between me and you. If you can show me that the bulk of independendent professional analysis says that the stimulus did not work I will change my mind. I will spin on a fucking dime. I'll start a new thread in all caps that says THE STIMULUS DID JACK SHIT and link all the evidence you give me. I'll post on this thread in full contrition and say I was flat wrong. I'll change my av to whatever you want and I'll tattoo "Suck this, stimulus!!!" on the side of my cock!

I therefore do not have a religion. I value professional, respected analysis. You value your faith so much however that you deny objective observation in favor of right wing blogs, so that your beliefs may be preserved.

But no, here you and I are together. And you've yet to show one single respectable source that assesses the stimulus as a failure. You have nothing. You're utterly empty-handed. When will you point me to your first objective source? It's been days and the interweb is at your fingertips. Why can't you show me just one objective source that backs your claim?

So do you admit defeat? NO! You grunt and pull a giant stinking turd out of your ass that says "policy evaluation doesn't even exist!". It was fake all along - even though you just spent YEARS adamantly claiming that the NRO has been doing it successfully! That turd is your substitute for your failure to find just one professional analysis that even vaguely backs your assertions.

You're done.