The Economy Is Still at the Brink

[keep_it_real]

If Mr. Obama thinks that the way to revive the economy is to restore confidence in it. If the mood is right, the capital will flow. But this belief is dangerously misguided.

It is time to stop rescuing the banks that got us into this mess. If that means more bank failures on a grander scale or the dismemberment of Citigroup, so be it.

In our view, one of the ways out of this economic conundrum is to have experienced traders — not hothouse flowers — design incentives that will encourage the market to have buyers and sellers meet anew around the proper valuations of assets, not some artificial construct of a market propped up by a pliant Financial Accounting Standards Board or government-sponsored programs that appear to be virtually giving money away to hedge funds and private-equity firms so that they will buy assets they would not ordinarily buy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/opinion/07cohanWEB.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

[PBS Poll-435]

1. No it isn't

Talking the economy down helps the gold-traders. And nobody else.




The economy is alright. (And getting better)

[Greyhound]

7. Are you completely insane?

None of the fundamental deficiencies has been addressed, not one. The billions poured into the black hole of the financial industry and the mega banks has only gone to shore up the bad debt they acquired and generated and they are still bad and still backed by insanely overvalued assets and air.

We can't spend our way out of this, the borrow and spend economy is over. Raygun was an idiot and his handler's scheme was doomed to fail from the beginning and now we've reached the end of the fantasy. The house has three mortgages and the credit cards are all maxed out, we either have to bring in some real money to start paying this off or declare bankruptcy and start over.

It's pretty disturbing to hear people for whom reality has apparently not yet set in repeating this insanity on a Democratic board. It's expected from the reich-wing nut-jobs who profit so handsomely from it, but we're usually the people that have at least a passing familiarity with reality.

[PBS Poll-435]

8. No. I am an unemotional realist

nt

[Greyhound]

10. Employed and comfortable, I assume.

Well get ready, cause quarters 3 and 4 are on the way and nobody that matters is buying the Con anymore.

[TheWatcher]

12. No just drunk on "Hopes", "Assurances", "Optimism", Propaganda from the White House, The Media

Shadow, Mark-To-Make-Believe Accounting from the Corrupt, Criminal banks that continue to rob, loot, and steal the country into Third World Status, and an Artificially Inflated Stock Bubble.

I just cannot understand the deranged and desperate devotion to the false paradigm of Ponzi Economics, Perception Management, and Militant Denial people cling to.

This country is turning into an Open Asylum.

[TheWatcher]

11. Who has nothing but one line statements that are completely ridiculous and insane and no other facts

so far.

You're more like an uninformed denialist.

[PBS Poll-435]

21. Bookmark this thread and PM me in 3 - 6 - 9 months

See how we are doing.... :-)

[TheWatcher]

24. Oh BELIEVE me I will.

I will be FASCINATED to hear your assessment then.

[TheWatcher]

9. And I would like to here your detailed, specific, fundamental assessment of how this is so.

Please give SPECIFIC, detailed examples of how things are fundamentally and technically improving in the Real Economy.

You seem so confident in your statement, you should have no problem providing a nice essay for us.

But I tend to agree with the Poster above me.

You're either willfully ignorant, completely insane, dangerously deluded, or complicit in the game.

The first line of your statement already shows you know less than what you are talking about.

Let's see how stupid you're willing to expose yourself to be.

[TheWatcher]

13. As I figured.

[PBS Poll-435]

19. I went to bed

Don't be an A-hole.


The jobless claims data, non-real estate credit defaults, and housing starts. All much better than last month.

[TheWatcher]

25. With a response like that it sounds to me like you are still asleep.

:rofl:

But continue to believe the Governments massaged, cooked Propaganda all you wish.

If that's all you have, then you don't even begin to understand what's really going on.

Don't Be A Sheep.

There has been NO FUNDAMENTAL Change in the REAL ECONOMY that warrants your ridiculous notions that things are "fine and getting better."

If this is all you have, then go educate yourself.

The banking system is all but insolvent, and those "Record Profits" we keep hearing about don't exist. But if you want to believe "Mark-To-Make-Believe" Accounting, please knock yourself out.

Commercial Real Estate will be one of the next shoes to fall, and as for Unemployment, I'm sure things will be back to 1999 levels of partying and prosperity once GM and Chrysler bankruptcy fallout start to filter through the system. :eyes:

The only thing in this country that is seeing a "Recovery" is Wall Street and their ability to continue the Ponzi mechanics that CAUSED this Crisis, and I'm sure we'll see more "Solutions" so they can continue to do so, and We The People will continue to pay for it.

Off to the ignore list with you.

But don't worry, I'll let you out of the Dog House in six months so you can continue to tell us how rosy things are.

People like you are a COMPLETE waste of time, and I'm sick of listening to your pap, when you have NO ABILITY to refute or respond to what's really going on. You just ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist, and come up with some bullshit you heard on CNBC, and act like you know something.

When the REAL Hard Rain Falls, you won't even notice you are getting wet.

This hasn't even STARTED yet.

[JDPriestly]

14. The economy is worsening. The Dow is up because GM and

other major companies have been in decline so long that they are no longer included in the Dow average.

The problem is our horrible trade policy. We no longer make much of anything other than weapons and planes that we have to bribe other nations to buy from us. We are bankrupt, and it won't get better until Obama comes really clean with Americans and renegotiates the trade agreements that got us into this mess. Obama has to tell wealthy Americans and wealthy American corporations to put Americans back to work and share or else. In other words, Obama has to morph like FDR did.

As in the Great Depression, the only way Obama can get the money to fund a recovery is to increase the taxes on the rich -- and that is a politically and personally difficult task for Obama who is now reveling in touching elbows with the rich and famous and especially with the very, very rich.

Obama is very different from FDR. FDR grew up in wealth and luxury and was not overly impressed by it. What impressed FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt, what touched them was the suffering of the growing number of poor people.

Obama, raised in more modest circumstances, unfamiliar with the extreme wealth that he had not experienced or even seen until the past maybe 15 years, is quite impressed by wealth, quite drawn to it. So far I don't see him focusing on the needs of the poor on the misery that is increasing in our society. It is not the shock to Obama that it was to FDR. I'm not expecting any real improvement for many years. Has Obama even addressed those who are really suffering right now? Maybe he has, but his words of comfort to the poor have been few compared to his words of comfort to Wall Street. The amount of money invested in putting people back to work is less than the amount of money invested in keeping bankers rolling in dough.

I don't think Obama has the courage or the self-confidence to tell the super-rich to either pay up or get out. And that is what he will have to do to bring recovery to this troubled economy.

[Ghost Dog]

16. Nice analysis. Rubbing shoulders with the "very, very rich" (and powerful)

can be a salutary experience, no doubt. Intimations of Earthly Paradise and all that, servants permitting.

And there will be the very clear and as it were completely given/taken for granted 'zeitgeist' at such rarefied levels that, of course, a mere POTUS is quite simply their representative, their placeman in power.

[SammyWinstonJack]

22. Obama isn't going to tell wealthy Americans and wealthy corporations anything of the kind.

He's one of them, now. He's morphed alright. And not in a good way.

[truedelphi]

26. What an absolutely wonderful post, hitting all the main points.

Can you put it in your journal so it can be referred to?

[Hannah Bell]

15. 15% unemployment in my county. not alright.

[PBS Poll-435]

20. The economy is not homogeneous

You might have high unemployment in your county, but that could be the result of some other factor.

[Hannah Bell]

23. no one said it was. up from 7% last year.

the us rate = 9.4, so cali's enclave of 7.4 also = the exception.

[snot]

17. hey, just to say, i think you're insane, too. solely in the spirit of helping you and us all out.

[leftstreet]

2. LOL at this statement:

re: bank executives

Instead of getting guaranteed salaries or huge bonuses, they should have the bulk of their net worth completely at risk for a long stretch of time — 10 years come to mind — for the decisions they make while in charge.

[truedelphi]

3. Obama was allowed the WH precisely because he agreed to help keeping

On about keeping on letting the banks have Main Street's future, to make up for their gambles and risky business.

At least, that is how it looks to me.

[napoleon_in_rags]

4. delete dupe nt

[leftstreet]

6. "Increasing confidence is what con-men do"

Excellent point!

[napoleon_in_rags]

5. Good points:

Why is so much effort being put into propping up those at the top of the economic pyramid — the money-center banks, the insurance companies, the hedge funds and so forth — when during a period of deflation like the one we are in, any recovery will come only by restoring the confidence of the people down at the bottom of the pyramid?

Confidence will return only when jobs can be found and mortgage payments are made. Even if Mr. Obama’s claim is true that his $780 billion stimulus package “saved or created” some 150,000 jobs, we seem a long way away from the point where those struggling to get by will feel like spending again. What happens when people buy a car once every 10 years instead of once every two or three, especially now that we taxpayers own such a big percentage of the American auto industry?

I also agree that the "increase confidence in the market" approach is foolish, though I hear it more from others than Obama. Increasing confidence is what con-men do, (thus the name) but market realities are created by fundamental realities: resources, energy and people doing jobs. And the status quo we are propping up is based not on these things, it divorced them long ago in favor of fictional faith based concepts of value, a con that could only be supported in a time of explosive growth of energy resources which is now behind us. I think the kind of fundamental restructuring the OP calls for is just what the doctor ordered.

[snot]

18. I'm horrified that in a place like DU, we waste time disputing this.