How effed up ARE we when we can't appreciate Obama? Well according to Canadians....

[MFrohike]

61. Ok

I'll make sure I take advice from a citizen of a country with one of the most unrepentant right-wing governments in the world.

As for his mention of corporate profits, perhaps he could note much of it is due to cost reduction (layoffs) and not actual economic expansion. When he mentions the stock market, he neglects to note the years of near-zero borrowing costs, which have funded a massive (massive isn't a big enough word) buyback of shares by the issuing companies. Those buybacks, in the hundreds of billions of dollars, have boosted earnings per share, which has in turn boosted their valuations and the markets at large. The lack of inflation, except of course in key measures like energy (until very recently) and food, when combined with wage growth less than the rate of that inflation means that the debt that people hold is getting more expensive every passing day. Unemployment? That one makes me laugh. All that's been done, on every level of government, is to move people out of the official designation as being part of the workforce. With that done, it's really hard for the overall ratio not to drop.

Oh yeah, the strong dollar. There's a real boon for an economy with a massive debt overhang. Yeesh, this guy is a moron who simply strung together a bunch of headlines with no damn clue whatsoever what any of it means.

I just noted the oil production bit. Putting aside the environmental costs, let's not bother to mention that it's all riding on a giant tide of junk debt and depends on break-even costs of over $90 a barrel. Given the Saudi's recent declaration that $80 a barrel is just fine with them, I wouldn't get too attached to the future of fracking.