December 17, 2011

The Impact of the Recovery Act, In a Few Easy Charts, by Jared Bernstein

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Unemployment always lags growth by at least six months, but a few months after ARRA kicked in, it stopped growing.

But that’s only half of what these simple graphs show. The other piece of information they yield is even more important. As the stimulus fades, the positive trends begin to falter: both GDP and job growth slow significantly, and unemployment stagnates at a highly elevated level.

The message of these three simple graphs is itself disarmingly simple: the stimulus worked. It prevented recession from becoming depression. It just ended too soon.

And that’s why the President’s new jobs agenda is so damn important
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http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/the-recovery-act-worked-in-a-few-easy-charts/

December 17, 2011

My bumper sticker says: Obama is not a socialist, brown skinned, anti-war foreigner that gives away

free health care. You're thinking of Jesus."

When tea partiers see it, their heads implode.

http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/
Bureau County Democrats

December 17, 2011

The President's Policies are working -graphs-

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It is currently 21 straight monthes of private sector job growth. It took FDR 7 years to return emplyment to pre-depression levels. The deeper the hole the longer the climb back. The George W. Bush Great Recession/Depression had a -9% drop in GDP, 2nd only to Hoover's Great Depression.

If we want to avoid the long, painful climb back from economic FUBAR we must quit electing the assholes that are causing them in the 1st place, namely Republicans.
see: http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/history-of-recessions.html

"Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things, but their number is negligible and their number is negligible and they are stupid." -President Dwight Eisenhower-

December 17, 2011

This is consistant with what I believe are the floors of the 2 parties

In my laymans' opinion, based on years of observation, is that Democrats have a base of 47-49%, Republicans base is 44-46%. Republicans are better at keeping their base motivated, angry, and likely to vote. They are better at messaging and dedicated to restricting voter access to Democratic leaning voters. That is how with a 70 year record of utter economic non-accomplishment, FUBAR, failue and "F" up, they remain a player on the national scene.

Economic Record: http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/economic-record.html

History of Recession: http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/history-of-recessions.html

Job Creation: http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/job-growth.html

National Debt: http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/national-debt.html

December 12, 2011

As Republicans Cheer Child Labor, They Should Reflect On My Grand Father's Life

My grandfather, Mike Tanari, taught me many things, fishing with a cane pole and bobber, how to plant a garden, and how to make do. To say he was frugal was an understatement. One snowy day he showed me how to catch rabbits by hand to save the cost of shotgun shells. He took four rabbits that day and never fired a shot. But most all he taught me his life story. It is the most important lesson he ever shared with me.

Born in 1899, he went to work at Ladd’s Whitebreast Coal mine in 1909 at the age of 10 ½. He remembered the day the Cherry Mine burned. After finishing his 12 hour shift he could see the pall of smoke as it darkened the sky 3 miles to the north as he walked home. He said he was tired and all he could think about was the next day’s work.

Although he worked the mines for 36 years he never spoke much of those days. But one day I met a man that knew Grandpa from his work in the Marquette mine which was located on the bottom road between Depue and Spring Valley. I mentioned his name to Grandpa later that week at supper, and for the only time in his life did I see his face flush with anger. The man was the son of the mine boss at Marquette. Grandpa related that one spring day the waters of the Illinois River were nearing the top of the dike built around the shaft of the mine. Grandpa and the rest of the shift workers refused to enter the cage and descend for fear of being trapped and drowned below the surface. The mine boss addressed the milling miners and told them that any man that did not complete his shift would be fired and his name “blacklisted,” so that he could never work in another mine in Northern Illinois again. I asked Grandpa what he did. The anger left his face as he looked down at the dinner table and said in a soft voice, “Mike, I had a wife and two daughters to feed. Mining was the only thing I knew. We all went down. It was the longest day of my life.” Sixty years after the fact, he felt still the sting and the shame of that day. We never spoke of it again.

In later years Grandpa was the secretary of the Miner’s Local Labor Union. I still have the ledger books he kept. Every penny accounted for in careful pencil strokes. But those numbers tell little of the story of the men that pooled their resources to better the conditions in which they toiled. They reflect nothing of the sacrifice and loss that enriches our lives’ today. But they are invaluable to me. I would not part with them for any price.

Grandpa has been gone now for almost thirty years and yet there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him. He was not a wistful dreamer that talked of the “good ole days.” He always thought our best days were in front of us and he was careful to remind me that I lived in the best of times. As Labor Day approaches I hope and pray the things he and countless others endured are not forsaken, and never forgotten.

mike kohr 9/2011
cached at:
http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/2011/12/as-republicans-cheer-child-labor-they.html

December 12, 2011

The Republican Economic Model Has Never Worked

9 of the last 10 Recessions have occured on their watch, see: http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/history-of-recessions.html

National DEbt EXPLODES under Republican leadership, see: http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/national-debt.html

Democratic economic policy outperforms Republican's on EVERY measurable standard, see: http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/economic-record.html

Job creation craters under Republican leadership and soars when a Democrat is in the White House, see:
http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/job-growth.html

They have, like a dying cult, clung fast to a failed and disproven idealogy, surviving by resorting to fear, and lies. But like all cults often the end comes fast and sudden. Let us hope this is the moment they burn brightest before they flame out.

December 12, 2011

Reagan Advisor Bruce Bartlett's Take On Today's Republican Party

"Basically we're still stuck in the situation we were three years ago and we haven't made any progress at all except that our problems are much worse because of political reasons, because we now have a crazy party in charge of one of the Houses of our Congress and they won't allow anything to happen because it's in their vested interest to make things worse," Bartlett explained in his typically exasperated way. "Plus they have a theory that is completely nuts…. I'm very depressed. [...] The most we can hope for is that a complete crazy person like Newt Gingrich gets the Republican nomination, the Republicans lose so badly that they lose control of the House and don't get control of the Senate and then maybe in a year we can finally talk about doing something rational.


http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/2011/12/reagan-advisor-bruce-bartletts-take-on.html