Today in the economy

[Kirkland Laing]

I don't think Obama is stirring up controversy over his own policies, I just don't think anyone read the bill and they simply got caught HOWEVER they were able to spin it to where the Democrats can call AIG in for hearings (as is the typical Democrat fashion) and berate them on CSPAN for loads of "I care about the little guy" sound bytes which all the bobble head news anchors will just accept as fact.


killersheep, "omnibus" is just used to describe, in this case a bill, that contains multiple items. But yes I am right, thanks for noticing

So what did you mean when you said Obama was stirring up class envy?

And answer 2 and 3. Here they are again :

2. Explain what you mean about MSNBC.

and 3., the head guys at AIG are under investigation for fraud in two countries and eventually America too. Do you think it's the right and correct thing to give tens of millions of dollars of US taxpayer money in bonuses to individuals who made hundreds of billions of dollars of fraudulent deals which the US taxpayer has already assumed the liability for? Put more simply, do you agree that your taxes should go to pay tens of millions in yearly bonuses to a bunch of crooks who have already defrauded the US taxpayer of hundreds of billions (potentially trillions) of their future earnings? Should half a dozen guys get tens of millions each of US taxpayer money as a thank you for already costing them hundreds of bilions/potential trillions?

[El Kabong]

That's what Democrats do, they sick the "little guy" against people who have done well for themselves. How the hell else would they be able to impliment their policies if they didn't get the middle class and lower to want something for nothing?


What do you want to know about MSNBC? MSNBC is a bastion of liberal propaganda...check out their on air talent, bar Joe Scarborough and guest of Morning Joe Pat Buchannan they are all FAR LEFT LIBERALS, just call me out when I get to a name that doesn't belong...

Keith Olberman
Rachel Maddow
David Shuster
Mika Brzezinski
Andrea Mitchell
Contessa Brewer
Chris Matthews
David Gregory

MSNBC is the left's version of Fox News


3. The bonuses were in poor taste and given at a bad time and probably to people who don't deserve them HOWEVER, it isn't the government's place to pick and choose who gets what kind of pay in what is supposed to be a capitalist economy. I just think the precedent that COULD be set because of this issue is very dangerous. If the government just decides "We're taking your money" not because of taxes, not because of anything illegal (This isn't in reference to AIG specifically of course), but "just because" then our entire economic system is ruined even more than it seems is the case right now.

It just seems to be a very slippery slope if the government was to just take all of that bonus money away from AIG...it's not like those guys won't pay taxes on those bonuses.

[killersheep]

3/25/09

USA - Core Durable Goods Orders

Actual3.90%|Forecast-2.00%|Previous-3.00%

Derivative of Durable Goods Orders that omits the Transportation components.

-------------------------------------------------------------

USA - New Home Sales

Actual337.00K|Forecast302.00K|Previous309.00K

Determines the annualized amount of new residential buildings that were sold during the last month.

[Kirkland Laing]

3/25/09

USA - Core Durable Goods Orders

Actual3.90%|Forecast-2.00%|Previous-3.00%

Derivative of Durable Goods Orders that omits the Transportation components.

-------------------------------------------------------------

USA - New Home Sales

Actual337.00K|Forecast302.00K|Previous309.00K

Determines the annualized amount of new residential buildings that were sold during the last month.

Durable goods going up is good but it now depends whether those goods get shipped out to businesses to replace stuff they've sold.

Housing less relevant. That number is subject to change. From the report :

Sales of new one-family houses in February 2009 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 337,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This is 4.7 percent (±18.3%) above the revised January rate of 322,000, but is 41.1 percent (±7.9%) below the February 2008 estimate of 572,000.


So this report is accurate to plus or minus 18% by its own admission. Could be subject to a large alteration later. Also, year on year, sales down at least 30%. So not good.

Existing home sales numbers that we saw a few days ago were almost half foreclosed homes sold off by the banks. So the numbers of actual sales are just pathetic compared to a year previous.

Some housing predictions. There'll be two bottoms in the housing markets.

First single-family housing starts and new home sales will bottom.

Then existing homes will bottom. The first bottom may happen this year, the second could take another two years. Exactly when they happen depends on how many more trillions the government pumps into the economy and when, or various other events. But certainly prices will continue to fall, they're not at bottom yet.

We need to see residential investment and personal consumption expenditure start to turn around. These are the leading indicators that show us when we're coming out of recession. It could happen this year, probably next -- subject again to future events regarding government money-printing, international events etc. I can be more accurate as we get closer, it's hard even for my Infallibility to predict more than a week or three in advance at the minute with so much going on.

Unemployment is the biggest worry of this recesion right now (as of going to print with this post, subject to change due to future events etc.) The toxic assets that have bankrupted the banks are made up of individual mortgages (or are bets on those mortgages). If unemployment keeps going up then more and more people walk away from their mortgages and more and more assets become worthless, further bankrupting the financial system. The business classes don't care about unemploymnt normally, there's a few months recession then everything is back to normal apart from unemployed pepole and it's tough luck for them. Unemployment almost always persists and even goes up long after a recession technically ends. So we may see growth return late this year or next year and the recession end but unemployment continue to rise. this time that will affect everything as the solvency of the financial system and the abiltiy the government has to currently pretend it's solvent is governed by the value of those mortgage securities, the price of which is governed by people continuing to pay those mortgages and not walk away, etc. Even when the recession does end we're going to go sideways more than upward. Future growth will be very sluggish, subject to reverses, etc. etc.

[Kirkland Laing]

That's what Democrats do, they sick the "little guy" against people who have done well for themselves. How the hell else would they be able to impliment their policies if they didn't get the middle class and lower to want something for nothing?

1. Like I already pointed out, it's the GOP doing the populist anger thing, not the Democrats. The middle and lower class want not to have trillions of dollars of debt dropped on them by a few hundred dodgy bankers, but too late! The people getting something for nothing are the bankers getting tens of millions each in bonuses for having run their firms into the ground and the banks getting trillions of dollars of welfare to keep institutions that should be wound up in a capitalist society alive in a corporate socialist society.

Define "done well for themselves." Does making trillions of dollars of fraudulent deals, bankrupting the biggest insurance company in the world, being a big part of the biggest financial crisis in seventy years, exposing the US taxpayer to a guaranteed debt of 500 billion and a further $2.7 trillion of potential debt count as "doing well for yourself." ? Because that's what the guys at AIG did. I'd like you to explain exactly what it was that these guys did well.

I have no problem with people doing well for themselves. What I do have a problem with is people who crookedly caused a disaster it'll take decades and trillions in new taxes to recover from being rewarded for it and not thrown in jail. A capitalist system would lock them up, not pay them more millions. I don't understand why you're on the side of a bunch of corporate socialist criminals here. I thought you were a capitalist?

What do you want to know about MSNBC? MSNBC is a bastion of liberal propaganda...check out their on air talent, bar Joe Scarborough and guest of Morning Joe Pat Buchannan they are all FAR LEFT LIBERALS, just call me out when I get to a name that doesn't belong...

Keith Olberman
Rachel Maddow
David Shuster
Mika Brzezinski
Andrea Mitchell
Contessa Brewer
Chris Matthews
David Gregory

MSNBC is the left's version of Fox News

2. MSNBC hosts three hours of conservative programming and two hours of liberal programming every day. Because of this it's easily the most liberal TV news channel in America. But even with the bump in ratings it got by putting liberals on it's only watched by 0.5% of Americans, making it irrelevant except when conservatives want to use it to point out how liberal the media is. it's owned by General Electric, who make 2% of their revenues from NBC and its offshoots and over 40% from government contracting, or corporate socialism. And when a liberal guy who had MSNBC's highest ratings spoke out against the impending Iraq war, a view the majority of Americans shared, the only national journalist to speak against invading Iraq, he was immediately fired and has never worked again. That's how liberal the media is in America. Interestingly, ownership of media companies by bigger companies who do business with the governmant is banned by every democracy in the world other than America. To prevent corruption and maintain a free press, you know.

3. The bonuses were in poor taste and given at a bad time and probably to people who don't deserve them HOWEVER, it isn't the government's place to pick and choose who gets what kind of pay in what is supposed to be a capitalist economy. I just think the precedent that COULD be set because of this issue is very dangerous. If the government just decides "We're taking your money" not because of taxes, not because of anything illegal (This isn't in reference to AIG specifically of course), but "just because" then our entire economic system is ruined even more than it seems is the case right now.

It just seems to be a very slippery slope if the government was to just take all of that bonus money away from AIG...it's not like those guys won't pay taxes on those bonuses.

3. In a normal situation the government wouldn't try and reclaim those bonuses. But this wasn't a normal situation. This was a situation where the governemt had already taken the firm over, buying 80% of it to maintain confidence that its debts would be paid. Because if investors had lost confidence it would have melted down the entire global financial system. So these guys who made trillions of dollars of dodgy deals without a cent of capital to underwrite those deals (otherwise known as fraud) blew their company and almost the entire financial system up. If the governemt hadn't stepped in they'd be out of work altogether, never mind earning bonuses on top of their salary.

And the government had no problem setting a precedent by abrogating union contracts of auto workers as a condition of bailing out the automakers, why can't they do the same for bankers? Do you honestly believe that a bunch of crooks should be allowed to collect tens of millions in bonuses for bankrupting their company and costing the taxpayer hundreds of billions through fraudulent deals? And they will pay tax on the bonuses but with good tax lawyers they'll only pay a rate in the single digits, so the American taxpayer will get 5 or so percent back of the taxpayer money they originally gave these guys as bonuses for running up trillions of future debt to be paid by those taxpayers. Do you think that it's fair that a bunch of crooks can pay single digit tax rates on hundreds of millions in bonuses they got for bankrupting their firm with criminal deals while auto workers and similar-paid workers pay effectively half their salary in various taxes?

Can you reply to one two and three please?

[VictorCharlie]

I'm kind of getting into this late but let me take a shot here.

1. Democrat/Republican is interchangeable for blame here. There is plenty of blame to be spread around. We won't be able to get away from this until we can put a wedge between elected officials and lobbyists. What is your vote compared to hundreds of thousands of dollars for re-election?

2. I was against all of the bailouts from jump street. If you are too big to fail your to big to manage. Nationalize them and sell them off or let them fail. But since we did bail them out and the legislation protected the bonuses then I'm staunchly against the Gov't using a punitive tax. If they are guilty of fraud then prosecute them. But we set a dangerous precedent by canceling contracts and changing the tax code to be punitive. I really don't see what "fair" has to do with it.

[CFH]

I'm kind of getting into this late but let me take a shot here.

1. Democrat/Republican is interchangeable for blame here. There is plenty of blame to be spread around. We won't be able to get away from this until we can put a wedge between elected officials and lobbyists. What is your vote compared to hundreds of thousands of dollars for re-election?

2. I was against all of the bailouts from jump street. If you are too big to fail your to big to manage. Nationalize them and sell them off or let them fail. But since we did bail them out and the legislation protected the bonuses then I'm staunchly against the Gov't using a punitive tax. If they are guilty of fraud then prosecute them. But we set a dangerous precedent by canceling contracts and changing the tax code to be punitive. I really don't see what "fair" has to do with it.

I've been avoiding this thread like the plague, but I want to say that I agree with this 100%.

[VictorCharlie]

And we have a Saddo's first
CFH and I agree. I am a moderate conservative who is leaning more and more to the Libertarian party but I am sick of both parties.

[CFH]

And we have a Saddo's first
CFH and I agree. I am a moderate conservative who is leaning more and more to the Libertarian party but I am sick of both parties.

Both parties represent essentially the same interests, they support corporations while paying lip service to the interests of the indivual middle/working class person. If I was an American, I would loathe them both even more than I do now. Not like the political parties here are any different, but because of the power the American Government wields their influence is a lot farther reaching.

As for my political leaning, I have some that are to the right and many that are to the left. I sympathize with the Libertarian position, but I'm unconvinced that it can ever become a true reality. I would describe myself as a leftist social democrat, with views somewhat in line with some leftist European governments. University has really turned me into a pinko though, I used to be much more conservative that I am now.

[Kirkland Laing]

I'm kind of getting into this late but let me take a shot here.

1. Democrat/Republican is interchangeable for blame here. There is plenty of blame to be spread around. We won't be able to get away from this until we can put a wedge between elected officials and lobbyists. What is your vote compared to hundreds of thousands of dollars for re-election?

2. I was against all of the bailouts from jump street. If you are too big to fail your to big to manage. Nationalize them and sell them off or let them fail. But since we did bail them out and the legislation protected the bonuses then I'm staunchly against the Gov't using a punitive tax. If they are guilty of fraud then prosecute them. But we set a dangerous precedent by canceling contracts and changing the tax code to be punitive. I really don't see what "fair" has to do with it.

Nobody complained about precedent when the government abrogated union contracts for their bailout. Why not do the same for bankers?

And military force is no use against terrorism. Quite the opposite in fact.

[VictorCharlie]

I'm kind of getting into this late but let me take a shot here.

1. Democrat/Republican is interchangeable for blame here. There is plenty of blame to be spread around. We won't be able to get away from this until we can put a wedge between elected officials and lobbyists. What is your vote compared to hundreds of thousands of dollars for re-election?

2. I was against all of the bailouts from jump street. If you are too big to fail your to big to manage. Nationalize them and sell them off or let them fail. But since we did bail them out and the legislation protected the bonuses then I'm staunchly against the Gov't using a punitive tax. If they are guilty of fraud then prosecute them. But we set a dangerous precedent by canceling contracts and changing the tax code to be punitive. I really don't see what "fair" has to do with it.

Nobody complained about precedent when the government abrogated union contracts for their bailout. Why not do the same for bankers?

And military force is no use against terrorism. Quite the opposite in fact.

I assume you are referring to UAW and the bailout of the auto industry. Now just for the record I was against that one too. Considering that UAW pensions and inflated salaries are part of the problem was it too much to ask them to tighten their belt as well? Anyway the changing of UAW contracts was done in order to get the bailout not punitively changed after the fact. Do you not see the difference in changing a labor agreement in order to get a loan necessary not to go bankrupt and abrograting contracts in a punitive nature? I'm not defending the bonuses but shouldn't Geitner/Dobbs and every senator/congressman that voted for it w/o reading the bill all of said something a long time ago?

In regards to military force our leaders simply have not used it wisely. When given a well defined mission the United States Military can out perform most government agencies. Like I said no nation building and no regime change. Terrorist organizations need funding, training, equipment and safe harbor. Obama should put the world on notice. Any of the above mentioned will earn a punitive military strike. More importantly since most terror orgs originate from radical islam and the middle east lets get off foriegn oil. The more we can insulate ourselves from the region the better.

[Kirkland Laing]

I'm kind of getting into this late but let me take a shot here.

1. Democrat/Republican is interchangeable for blame here. There is plenty of blame to be spread around. We won't be able to get away from this until we can put a wedge between elected officials and lobbyists. What is your vote compared to hundreds of thousands of dollars for re-election?

2. I was against all of the bailouts from jump street. If you are too big to fail your to big to manage. Nationalize them and sell them off or let them fail. But since we did bail them out and the legislation protected the bonuses then I'm staunchly against the Gov't using a punitive tax. If they are guilty of fraud then prosecute them. But we set a dangerous precedent by canceling contracts and changing the tax code to be punitive. I really don't see what "fair" has to do with it.

Nobody complained about precedent when the government abrogated union contracts for their bailout. Why not do the same for bankers?

And military force is no use against terrorism. Quite the opposite in fact.

I assume you are referring to UAW and the bailout of the auto industry. Now just for the record I was against that one too. Considering that UAW pensions and inflated salaries are part of the problem was it too much to ask them to tighten their belt as well? Anyway the changing of UAW contracts was done in order to get the bailout not punitively changed after the fact. Do you not see the difference in changing a labor agreement in order to get a loan necessary not to go bankrupt and abrograting contracts in a punitive nature? I'm not defending the bonuses but shouldn't Geitner/Dobbs and every senator/congressman that voted for it w/o reading the bill all of said something a long time ago?

In regards to military force our leaders simply have not used it wisely. When given a well defined mission the United States Military can out perform most government agencies. Like I said no nation building and no regime change. Terrorist organizations need funding, training, equipment and safe harbor. Obama should put the world on notice. Any of the above mentioned will earn a punitive military strike. More importantly since most terror orgs originate from radical islam and the middle east lets get off foriegn oil. The more we can insulate ourselves from the region the better.

Detroit car worker wages only add a small amount to the cost of the car versus other car company labour rates, just a few percent, far less than the discount firms like GM have to give on their cars to get people to buy them versus better competition. The problem with Detroit for decades has been the management but they're still flying around in private jets. They can pass an amendment to the AIG bailout legislation or write new legislation -- either way people under investigation for fraudulent deals who've bankrupted their company should not be paid bonuses for doing so. It goes against everything America and capitalism is supposed to stand for. Politicians now claiming "it's in the legislation, there's nothing we can do about it" are full of it. It's not like AIG has any serious negotiating position, they're under investigation in two countries, bankrupt and 80% owned by the government. They can't make the claim that they need to pay those bonuses to keep valuable staff because the staff are the diametric opposite of valuable, qed.

Military force just creates terrorism. If you bomb any country that's helping terrorism you're just going to end up with a more radical government who'll give more support to terrorism. 9/11 was an attempt by Middle Eastern people to use force to change America's behaviour and make them less likely to interfere in their countries. How well did that work out? Bombing let's say Iran would just make the Iranian regime more radical than it currently is. US energy companies don't want us to get off foreign oil and they run US energy policy so no real attempt will ever be made to alter the status quo. America will continue to be involved in the Middle East for decades which will obviously spawn more terrorism.

[El Kabong]

MSNBC has no conservative shows Kirkland....and if you think they do then you sir are a commie

[Kirkland Laing]

MSNBC has no conservative shows Kirkland....and if you think they do then you sir are a commie

They have former GOP congressman Joe somebody on three hours a day. And you're dodging answering my questions. Why is that?

[El Kabong]

They have former GOP congressman Joe somebody on three hours a day. And you're dodging answering my questions. Why is that?

#1 I listed Scarborough as a "conservative" however he's on a show WITH: Mika Brzezinski, David Shuster, and many other pinko commie bastards.

#2 You didn't really have questions, you made statements and you took what I posted out of context.


So to answer your "questions"
#1 MSNBC is a breeding ground for people of YOUR political views which are: Obama is a God, rich people are evil, the government can fix any problem, and we're simply not being taxed enough.

#2 When I say "People who have done well for themselves" I am speaking of a social CLASS not of the specific AIG clowns who fucked things up. My arguments for the AIG people keeping their bonuses is that I don't want to government to infringe on what people get paid, Obama set a salary cap on people in the finance industry and right after he did that the people in NY and NJ who were all "In your face you rich bastards!" suddenly figured out that their tax revenue was going to plummet as well and right now with what the government is spending that's a bad thing correct? The deficit was bad before this and now we're going to raise taxes, inflate the dollar, and unemployment will rise, gas prices will go up, and life is going to suck until people wake up and realize that the "TAX AND SPEND LIBERALS" are not good for business

#3 It's a slippery slope and I don't want it to get out of control because as soon as the people who run the government figure out "Hey we can confiscate those people's money" then what is going to stop them? I don't care about "special situations"...it's never happened before and it shouldn't start now. Besides all it is, is some media driven promotion to make Obama look like Robin Hood.