Let's reformulate the news about S&P downgrading Berkshire and say that since insurance is a long-term investment, then it's a lousy investment when there is no long-term anymore. (Of course, it's been a while since anyone anywhere projected anything out even to five years.)
Anyway, thanks to Numerian for the report, but maybe we could give the Wiz a break! It's tough when you hit your eighties and still have to work.
Shouldn't he be allowed his retirement years ... in Australia, or anywhere but Omaha?
All these S&P moves represent an agenda too.
It depends on what you think an S&P or a Moody's rating is supposed to mean. It's like when the average person is below the poverty line, what does that mean? So maybe there's no paper out there that should get a AAA anymore. Okay. But isn't that like an agenda respecting precious metals markets? Somebody's doing okay off the S&P announcements and some people probably knew in advance? Somebody has as much cash but more gold today than they had yesterday?
"I don't think it matters much to Berkshire and I don't think it makes much sense," says Steve Check.
Well, you know, the big insurers, the re-insurers, the law of averages ... yeah, it makes sense that they're going to be making more payouts more sooner as socio-economic stability declines globally, assuming that's what is happening ... and assuming it's markedly more so since Boehner walked out of the White House on a late Friday. So S&P downgrading the insurance business makes some sense. On the other hand, it also can make sense in terms of somebody's day-to-day trading profits, like over the last few days. Maybe even somebody other than the Wiz.
A few days back, I opined here at EP that the NYSE is almost like an adjunct to the precious metals and currency markets. So, for Buffet, the arch-fundamentalist, the question now is "How fundamental can it get?"
Naked Capitalism has a new story claiming S&P maybe in violation of rules by disclosing their downgrade to select parties before announcing.
This actually is quite serious because obviously beforehand knowledge would allow parties, if they have any vested interest in markets, to benefit by placing various trades and so on on the upcoming news.
He went heavy into the stock market two weeks ago before this crash hit. He's been buying on the way down. He has publicly said the US will not enter a recession and the stock market is a safe long run bet. He owns substantial positions in Wells Fargo and in Moody's, which means he took a big hit today because the banking sector was one of the worst performers, and he has to justify Moody's decision to maintain the Aaa rating at a time when all the publicity is on S&P, their arch rival. He was a prime beneficiary of the 2008 bailout, being given a private first look at all the assets for sale, so he is very closely identified with the authorities who are not looking too good at the moment. Despite calling derivatives time bombs ready to go off, he has a massive derivatives portfolio that just caused him to be downgraded today by S&P, so he has now lost his precious AAA rating.
I would rate him very unhappy with S&P and someone with an ax to grind. In fact, from what I read in Wall Street publications, people are realizing that he never speaks publicly without an agenda and an understanding that he can move markets. The interesting thing is, as people get to understand his motives better, his ability to move markets is waning considerably.
... the more descriptive term, depending on context, is 'global capital' -- NOT 'Wall Street'.
Of course, in some contexts, the term 'global markets' is appropriate, but that sounds 'rightist' or 'neo-liberal' or 'globalist'.
"President Obama tried to reassure global markets today." -- BBC's North America news broadcast, 8 August 2011.
NOT "President Obama tried to reassure Wall Street"!
The BBC spin was, on the face of it, ridiculous ... you can't reassure markets anymore than you can reassure the weather. President Obama's intent was to reassure global capital ... but to use the term 'global capital' would have been politically incorrect. Corporate media likes to maintain the fiction that the real important stuff is still being run from New York by 'our' guys, that is, 'Wall Street'.
I think 'Wall Street' is an antiquated myth, unless it refers to the financial part of the FIRE lobby in Washington, D.C., but then why not call it what it is?
We have not quite reached the point where there is no such thing as the 'U.S. economy,' but have we not reached the point where there is no such thing as 'Wall Street'?
Hmm. . . sounds scary. I wonder if the NFL season will be affected? Surely the Home Shopping Network will be OK too. . . right? I know the economy's tough. . . boy, I'm glad I bailed on getting that stupid engineering degree and now have a stable job as a free-lance therapeutic dog masseuse. I need some bracing-up after those worries so I think I'll drive my 2-ton, 7 passenger SUV 3 miles to get a $4 half-caff, caramel macchiato. I just wish I'd stop getting those calls about my late payments on the SUV and my college loans. Well, I know things are bad for SOME people but riots? What are those English and Greeks thinking about? But the TV experts tell us that it's only a few malcontents so not to worry. I'm in good shape and nothing like that could ever happen here. Everything will be fine.
Even the GAO, who to me has the best ability to do objective analysis, one of them, one needs to read everything from 1st principles and have a critical eye.
I was just listing various lobbyist, or agenda groups and did a counter to the "open borders" spin you get from these "unlimited migration" groups.
Center for Immigration Studies actually has a lot of credible research, but bottom line you need to watch out.
While AEI, as an example, is consistently full of shit, I believe it's Heritage or one of these groups who has a researcher on China, where the research is credible...
But some are worst than others, with these two being at the top of the spin lists and why I try to keep these lobbyist spin papers off of the site.
Is reference to CIS "Center for Internet Security" or maybe to CSIS "Center for Strategic and International Studies"?
CSIS has had some interesting stuff about Russia and Eastern Europe, and I understand that it's closely associated with the U.S. government (not that that would make it reliable).
BTW: do you consider CIA demographic webpages to be accurate? As long as you look at the source details and sometimes adjust accordingly, I have assumed them to be.
So much emotion and labeling. By the numbers it all points to a stagnant economy that due to potential events and I think putting our crazy Congress in that list, could throw the economy into another recession. By itself, I don't think it will happen, more just general economic malaise and the job crisis will continue to roar.
But we sure do have a lot of factions none too interested in the United States and that includes many of these crazy Congress critters with their concrete brains trying to rip asunder the United States social safety nets per their agendas.
Reminds me of those ants who eat entire towns in S. America.
Ya all need to get out more and we have a list, on the right, of some very good economics blog sites. Calculated Risk, especially, I've had discussions with him and it's pretty rare for him to make a data error. But you will be thrilled to know, we're checking! (this site too, we will correct immediately any mistake made).
He's banned due to very obvious reasons, but the #1 sacrilege on this site is posting bogus research or statistics to claim your agenda or belief is "true". That's AEI, Heritage, CIS, La Raza, Compete America or even NBER. Anyone who puts out bogus claims, manipulates data and especially mathematical equations is banned.
I focus heavily on these various spin lobbyists and agenda people because most people cannot do basic ratios, much less read a mathematical labor economics equation with 20 variables and calculus.
So, a white paper with fiction is given and then people who have no idea that it's full of lies wave it around in the air as if it's truth.
Sorry people, they can lie with statistics, graphs, numbers and maths and I see it all of the time.
Anybody who could read mathematics for example, would know the entire concept of a CDS is based on faulty mathematics. The Copula is not designed for "many to one" relationships, the math requires a 1 to 1 data input value to be valid.
Anyone at all in Government bother to say "hey, that's invalid mathematics, we cannot allow these to be used". Hell no.
This site was founded on the idea that we should plain look at the data, the facts, for ourselves and analyze. Corporate sponsored, or special agenda sponsored, so called "think tanks", along with some seriously corrupted Academics, who spin with data and mathematics to claim some agenda they have is "good", disgust me. It's completely opposed to the once America value that one should be objective in any research and let the conclusions write themselves. i.e. it used to be sacrilege to fudge your data and results.
Now that same behavior which would have gotten you shunned by any scientific community is not only entering the scientific community (see pharmaceutical clinical trials!), but is routine in the soft sciences, such as public policy and economics.
One can go on FAUX news, a complete concrete brain, never an objective fact will enter into it, and run 24/7 statistical lies and upside down economic theory.
It's a lie, it's misleading and it's one of the things I believe is destroying the U.S.
Since when is it ok to just make up stuff to say some conclusion you believe? Since when can one just claim I believe as a rational for economic agenda?
It's absolutely stone age.
In China, they have a super economics architecture team of 20 and almost all of them used to be engineers. They don't put I believe in anything. They have 5 year plans, executed with precision.
Over in the United States we have people making up charts, graphs and even fictional mathematical equations to claim up is down and left is right.
Just another example of what Bonddad calls "Gloom and Doom".
Just today NDD has given us seven reasons why we should be positive. The king of 'Green Shoots" still argues that you shouldn't feel bad about dying as long as your not dead there's hope.
Undergraduate history majors can see the correlation between Rome overextending its resources through war and subsequently falling into decline. Personally, I'm just waiting on the Grand Universal Crawfish (i.e. so many people default that the banks can no longer go after them), when I will promptly stop paying bills and engage in black market trade.
Robert has mentioned lately that traffic has been picking up here at the Economic Populist. More and more people are starting to pay attention to what is being published on this site. But who could have expected this? A visit from a card-carrying apologist for the Bush administration!
Liberals consider that we've earned a wing if someone bothers to come by and attempt a rebuttal using right-wing arguments. You get two wings if the attacker uses charts from either the American Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Foundation. Robert is better equipped than I am to explain the peculiar brand of specious reasoning and data manipulation that constitutes "research" at these two distinguished members of the right-wing propaganda program.
But then - to be told we have pathological Bush hatred, and that we must "get over it" when it comes to the 2000 election - why this is the Holy Grail of liberal abuse. I use to have a boss who specialized in buying up other companies and finding "synergies" that would travel straight to the bottom line. This was corporate speak for being able to fire lots of people, and naturally he was well-loved by Wall Street. He would travel to the newly conquered subsidiaries or divisions, bodies littered all over the place, and he would tell the remaining staff there - "Just get over it." It was, and I imagine still is, his favorite phrase. It was all of a piece with the right wing encouragement to "move along, nothing to see here", which is always to be found when there definitely is something to see there - something unpleasant and uncomfortable for those who love to extol the beauties of the free market, and the noble contributions corporations and wealthy people make to American society.
We have an example right here, when Paladin tells us that the top 10% of all wage earners paid 70% of all income taxes as of 2008. Well that certainly sounds noble, until you realize that the top 10% own more than 70% of the nation's wealth, and that they specialize not so much in "earning a wage", as they do in earning dividends and achieving capital gains. It is at this point that we are encouraged to look aside - there is really nothing to see there - especially the part where the top 10% have managed to exclude most capital gains from the greedy hands of the tax man.
I do hope Paladin stays around here - sans the Heritage Foundation tables. Paladin will find that the "far left", or whatever we are at the Economic Populist - have our fair share of "Obama hatred", or whatever you get when one feels betrayed by the person you actively supported for higher office. Our colleague Michael Collins has been writing lately about what happened to Obama and why, and I hope he will publish further insights. They will surprise Paladin, because one of the peculiar things about the far right / far left divide is that the two sides of the spectrum are beginning to meet up more and more on certain issues. I, for one, am as alarmed about the parlous state of federal government finances as any Tea Party patriot. As I put it in something I wrote recently - when you are borrowing $100 billion every month in fresh money, you are effectively creating another Department of Homeland Security each month, because that is its annual budget. Something is deeply wrong with that picture, and a day of reckoning is inevitable.
I just wish the Tea Party people wouldn't play around with the good faith and credit of the United States - which after all is (or was) a legacy bequeathed to us by our parents and grandparents, who expected we would have the common sense and discipline to maintain those standards. Alas, we do not, certainly not when one side of government takes the whole Congress and economy hostage, and refuses to offer up the slightest access to the wealth and income of the top 10% of wage earners.
I do hope Paladin is not one of those people who are erecting moats and castle walls around the wealthy and privileged so that they can continue to avoid contributing to this country in their quest for oligarchical heaven on earth. If Paladin were one of those people who would join us in insisting that everyone in this country contribute their fair share in consideration of the wealth and income they have enjoyed by virtue of the laws, the courts, the political system, and all the other infrastructure that allows wealth to beget further wealth - if Paladin were to join us in this effort, why that would be something that would definitely worry somebody. That is because it is in somebody's interest that the right and left not talk to each other, lest we discover common ground that would be very dangerous for the powerful and wealthy who benefit from Americans attacking Americans, throwing their Heritage Foundation charts out, only to be met with New York Times graphs. That fight between the far right and the far left is just as useful to some people as pathological Bush or Obama hatred, and that fight makes it a lot easier to manipulate people into "moving on" and "getting over" our grievances, which by and large are about the same things.
First, the Heritage foundation is no source, they are a conservative lobbyist organization who loves to write fiction. Secondly, by percentages is also spin on tax cuts. Thirdly, the budget surplus was not the result of "raiding social security"
and forth, no spin. Sorry, we don't allow some sort of lobbyist fiction spin that tries to lie, especially with bogus statistics.
Folks, this is a great example of statistical spin with graphs. You can find this on Fox news quite often and it's beyond obscene in how manipulative it is. Spin and lies with numbers.
This article has so many gratuitous assertions and outright lies that it's hard to know where to start. Maybe a few bullet points would help keep things short and to the point:
The Clinton Budget Surplus Myth - notice the figures in the matrix below (source- US Treasury website):
Fiscal
Year
End
Date
Claimed
Surplus
Public
Debt
Intra-gov
Holdings
Total National
Debt
FY1997
09/30/1997
$3.789667T
$1.623478T
$5.413146T
FY1998
09/30/1998
$69.2B
$3.733864T $55.8B
$1.792328T $168.9B
$5.526193T $113B
FY1999
09/30/1999
$122.7B
$3.636104T $97.8B
$2.020166T $227.8B
$5.656270T $130.1B
FY2000
09/29/2000
$230.0B
$3.405303T $230.8B
$2.268874T $248.7B
$5.674178T $17.9B
FY2001
09/28/2001
$3.339310T $66.0B
$2.468153T $199.3B
$5.807463T $133.3B
Although Clinton paid down the Public Debt, he did it by increasing Intra-govt holdings, mostly by using excess Social Security funds generated by the incomes generated by the dot-com bubble. A large percentage of the tax revenues during that period were from capital gains taxes, again from the dot-com bubble.
The claim that Bush's deficit spending amounted to more than all his predecessors combined is patently false - but it certainly applies to the current occupant of the white house. The effects of Obama's uncontrolled entitlement spending combined with his administration's complete economic incompetence are the reasons for our AA+ rating.
After the Bush Tax Cuts were enacted, the "rich" actually paid a greater percentage of all income taxes than before. The top 5% of wage earners (income over $159,619) paid 58.7% of all income taxes, and the top 10% ($113,800) paid 70% of all income taxes collected (based on 2008 figures). Source - IRS.gov
Three years into Obama's first term shows us the results of his policies - it's his economy and there's no way a reasonable thinking person can blame Bush for the current mess and still be in touch with reality. This pathological Bush hatred has really become old, especially the part about the 2000 election. Gore lost EVERY recount that was conducted - get over it.
Let's reformulate the news about S&P downgrading Berkshire and say that since insurance is a long-term investment, then it's a lousy investment when there is no long-term anymore. (Of course, it's been a while since anyone anywhere projected anything out even to five years.)
Anyway, thanks to Numerian for the report, but maybe we could give the Wiz a break! It's tough when you hit your eighties and still have to work.
Shouldn't he be allowed his retirement years ... in Australia, or anywhere but Omaha?
All these S&P moves represent an agenda too.
It depends on what you think an S&P or a Moody's rating is supposed to mean. It's like when the average person is below the poverty line, what does that mean? So maybe there's no paper out there that should get a AAA anymore. Okay. But isn't that like an agenda respecting precious metals markets? Somebody's doing okay off the S&P announcements and some people probably knew in advance? Somebody has as much cash but more gold today than they had yesterday?
"I don't think it matters much to Berkshire and I don't think it makes much sense," says Steve Check.
Well, you know, the big insurers, the re-insurers, the law of averages ... yeah, it makes sense that they're going to be making more payouts more sooner as socio-economic stability declines globally, assuming that's what is happening ... and assuming it's markedly more so since Boehner walked out of the White House on a late Friday. So S&P downgrading the insurance business makes some sense. On the other hand, it also can make sense in terms of somebody's day-to-day trading profits, like over the last few days. Maybe even somebody other than the Wiz.
A few days back, I opined here at EP that the NYSE is almost like an adjunct to the precious metals and currency markets. So, for Buffet, the arch-fundamentalist, the question now is "How fundamental can it get?"
Steady as she goes!
Naked Capitalism has a new story claiming S&P maybe in violation of rules by disclosing their downgrade to select parties before announcing.
This actually is quite serious because obviously beforehand knowledge would allow parties, if they have any vested interest in markets, to benefit by placing various trades and so on on the upcoming news.
He went heavy into the stock market two weeks ago before this crash hit. He's been buying on the way down. He has publicly said the US will not enter a recession and the stock market is a safe long run bet. He owns substantial positions in Wells Fargo and in Moody's, which means he took a big hit today because the banking sector was one of the worst performers, and he has to justify Moody's decision to maintain the Aaa rating at a time when all the publicity is on S&P, their arch rival. He was a prime beneficiary of the 2008 bailout, being given a private first look at all the assets for sale, so he is very closely identified with the authorities who are not looking too good at the moment. Despite calling derivatives time bombs ready to go off, he has a massive derivatives portfolio that just caused him to be downgraded today by S&P, so he has now lost his precious AAA rating.
I would rate him very unhappy with S&P and someone with an ax to grind. In fact, from what I read in Wall Street publications, people are realizing that he never speaks publicly without an agenda and an understanding that he can move markets. The interesting thing is, as people get to understand his motives better, his ability to move markets is waning considerably.
Calculated Risk has a chart of the top 1 day percentage changes in the markets and notes the infamous analogy on today's percentage.
That ain't no lie and after all, isn't 2012 supposed to be the end of the world?
;)
Such a great title, putting 666 plus S&P in the same headline.
Anyway, today's slaughter is one of the worst on record. Check out the link.
... the more descriptive term, depending on context, is 'global capital' -- NOT 'Wall Street'.
Of course, in some contexts, the term 'global markets' is appropriate, but that sounds 'rightist' or 'neo-liberal' or 'globalist'.
"President Obama tried to reassure global markets today." -- BBC's North America news broadcast, 8 August 2011.
NOT "President Obama tried to reassure Wall Street"!
The BBC spin was, on the face of it, ridiculous ... you can't reassure markets anymore than you can reassure the weather. President Obama's intent was to reassure global capital ... but to use the term 'global capital' would have been politically incorrect. Corporate media likes to maintain the fiction that the real important stuff is still being run from New York by 'our' guys, that is, 'Wall Street'.
I think 'Wall Street' is an antiquated myth, unless it refers to the financial part of the FIRE lobby in Washington, D.C., but then why not call it what it is?
We have not quite reached the point where there is no such thing as the 'U.S. economy,' but have we not reached the point where there is no such thing as 'Wall Street'?
Darned acronyms anyway! "Center for Internet Security" is what came up on my Google search.
Hmm. . . sounds scary. I wonder if the NFL season will be affected? Surely the Home Shopping Network will be OK too. . . right? I know the economy's tough. . . boy, I'm glad I bailed on getting that stupid engineering degree and now have a stable job as a free-lance therapeutic dog masseuse. I need some bracing-up after those worries so I think I'll drive my 2-ton, 7 passenger SUV 3 miles to get a $4 half-caff, caramel macchiato. I just wish I'd stop getting those calls about my late payments on the SUV and my college loans. Well, I know things are bad for SOME people but riots? What are those English and Greeks thinking about? But the TV experts tell us that it's only a few malcontents so not to worry. I'm in good shape and nothing like that could ever happen here. Everything will be fine.
Even the GAO, who to me has the best ability to do objective analysis, one of them, one needs to read everything from 1st principles and have a critical eye.
I was just listing various lobbyist, or agenda groups and did a counter to the "open borders" spin you get from these "unlimited migration" groups.
Center for Immigration Studies actually has a lot of credible research, but bottom line you need to watch out.
While AEI, as an example, is consistently full of shit, I believe it's Heritage or one of these groups who has a researcher on China, where the research is credible...
But some are worst than others, with these two being at the top of the spin lists and why I try to keep these lobbyist spin papers off of the site.
Is reference to CIS "Center for Internet Security" or maybe to CSIS "Center for Strategic and International Studies"?
CSIS has had some interesting stuff about Russia and Eastern Europe, and I understand that it's closely associated with the U.S. government (not that that would make it reliable).
BTW: do you consider CIA demographic webpages to be accurate? As long as you look at the source details and sometimes adjust accordingly, I have assumed them to be.
"You shouldn't feel bad about dying as long as you're not dead there's hope."
I think markets even if they couldn't be called 'bullish' overall, were driven by greed earlier this year. Now, fear is running the show.
"The wages of fear are death."
Here is an article that i wrote a while back that is similar to yours.
Hope you like it.
http://hotbedinfo.com/2011/06/top-10-similarities-between-the-fall-of-ro...
So much emotion and labeling. By the numbers it all points to a stagnant economy that due to potential events and I think putting our crazy Congress in that list, could throw the economy into another recession. By itself, I don't think it will happen, more just general economic malaise and the job crisis will continue to roar.
But we sure do have a lot of factions none too interested in the United States and that includes many of these crazy Congress critters with their concrete brains trying to rip asunder the United States social safety nets per their agendas.
Reminds me of those ants who eat entire towns in S. America.
Ya all need to get out more and we have a list, on the right, of some very good economics blog sites. Calculated Risk, especially, I've had discussions with him and it's pretty rare for him to make a data error. But you will be thrilled to know, we're checking! (this site too, we will correct immediately any mistake made).
He's banned due to very obvious reasons, but the #1 sacrilege on this site is posting bogus research or statistics to claim your agenda or belief is "true". That's AEI, Heritage, CIS, La Raza, Compete America or even NBER. Anyone who puts out bogus claims, manipulates data and especially mathematical equations is banned.
I focus heavily on these various spin lobbyists and agenda people because most people cannot do basic ratios, much less read a mathematical labor economics equation with 20 variables and calculus.
So, a white paper with fiction is given and then people who have no idea that it's full of lies wave it around in the air as if it's truth.
Sorry people, they can lie with statistics, graphs, numbers and maths and I see it all of the time.
Anybody who could read mathematics for example, would know the entire concept of a CDS is based on faulty mathematics. The Copula is not designed for "many to one" relationships, the math requires a 1 to 1 data input value to be valid.
Anyone at all in Government bother to say "hey, that's invalid mathematics, we cannot allow these to be used". Hell no.
This site was founded on the idea that we should plain look at the data, the facts, for ourselves and analyze. Corporate sponsored, or special agenda sponsored, so called "think tanks", along with some seriously corrupted Academics, who spin with data and mathematics to claim some agenda they have is "good", disgust me. It's completely opposed to the once America value that one should be objective in any research and let the conclusions write themselves. i.e. it used to be sacrilege to fudge your data and results.
Now that same behavior which would have gotten you shunned by any scientific community is not only entering the scientific community (see pharmaceutical clinical trials!), but is routine in the soft sciences, such as public policy and economics.
One can go on FAUX news, a complete concrete brain, never an objective fact will enter into it, and run 24/7 statistical lies and upside down economic theory.
It's a lie, it's misleading and it's one of the things I believe is destroying the U.S.
Since when is it ok to just make up stuff to say some conclusion you believe? Since when can one just claim I believe as a rational for economic agenda?
It's absolutely stone age.
In China, they have a super economics architecture team of 20 and almost all of them used to be engineers. They don't put I believe in anything. They have 5 year plans, executed with precision.
Over in the United States we have people making up charts, graphs and even fictional mathematical equations to claim up is down and left is right.
Just another example of what Bonddad calls "Gloom and Doom".
Just today NDD has given us seven reasons why we should be positive. The king of 'Green Shoots" still argues that you shouldn't feel bad about dying as long as your not dead there's hope.
Undergraduate history majors can see the correlation between Rome overextending its resources through war and subsequently falling into decline. Personally, I'm just waiting on the Grand Universal Crawfish (i.e. so many people default that the banks can no longer go after them), when I will promptly stop paying bills and engage in black market trade.
How will filing for a quiet title help me?
Robert has mentioned lately that traffic has been picking up here at the Economic Populist. More and more people are starting to pay attention to what is being published on this site. But who could have expected this? A visit from a card-carrying apologist for the Bush administration!
Liberals consider that we've earned a wing if someone bothers to come by and attempt a rebuttal using right-wing arguments. You get two wings if the attacker uses charts from either the American Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Foundation. Robert is better equipped than I am to explain the peculiar brand of specious reasoning and data manipulation that constitutes "research" at these two distinguished members of the right-wing propaganda program.
But then - to be told we have pathological Bush hatred, and that we must "get over it" when it comes to the 2000 election - why this is the Holy Grail of liberal abuse. I use to have a boss who specialized in buying up other companies and finding "synergies" that would travel straight to the bottom line. This was corporate speak for being able to fire lots of people, and naturally he was well-loved by Wall Street. He would travel to the newly conquered subsidiaries or divisions, bodies littered all over the place, and he would tell the remaining staff there - "Just get over it." It was, and I imagine still is, his favorite phrase. It was all of a piece with the right wing encouragement to "move along, nothing to see here", which is always to be found when there definitely is something to see there - something unpleasant and uncomfortable for those who love to extol the beauties of the free market, and the noble contributions corporations and wealthy people make to American society.
We have an example right here, when Paladin tells us that the top 10% of all wage earners paid 70% of all income taxes as of 2008. Well that certainly sounds noble, until you realize that the top 10% own more than 70% of the nation's wealth, and that they specialize not so much in "earning a wage", as they do in earning dividends and achieving capital gains. It is at this point that we are encouraged to look aside - there is really nothing to see there - especially the part where the top 10% have managed to exclude most capital gains from the greedy hands of the tax man.
I do hope Paladin stays around here - sans the Heritage Foundation tables. Paladin will find that the "far left", or whatever we are at the Economic Populist - have our fair share of "Obama hatred", or whatever you get when one feels betrayed by the person you actively supported for higher office. Our colleague Michael Collins has been writing lately about what happened to Obama and why, and I hope he will publish further insights. They will surprise Paladin, because one of the peculiar things about the far right / far left divide is that the two sides of the spectrum are beginning to meet up more and more on certain issues. I, for one, am as alarmed about the parlous state of federal government finances as any Tea Party patriot. As I put it in something I wrote recently - when you are borrowing $100 billion every month in fresh money, you are effectively creating another Department of Homeland Security each month, because that is its annual budget. Something is deeply wrong with that picture, and a day of reckoning is inevitable.
I just wish the Tea Party people wouldn't play around with the good faith and credit of the United States - which after all is (or was) a legacy bequeathed to us by our parents and grandparents, who expected we would have the common sense and discipline to maintain those standards. Alas, we do not, certainly not when one side of government takes the whole Congress and economy hostage, and refuses to offer up the slightest access to the wealth and income of the top 10% of wage earners.
I do hope Paladin is not one of those people who are erecting moats and castle walls around the wealthy and privileged so that they can continue to avoid contributing to this country in their quest for oligarchical heaven on earth. If Paladin were one of those people who would join us in insisting that everyone in this country contribute their fair share in consideration of the wealth and income they have enjoyed by virtue of the laws, the courts, the political system, and all the other infrastructure that allows wealth to beget further wealth - if Paladin were to join us in this effort, why that would be something that would definitely worry somebody. That is because it is in somebody's interest that the right and left not talk to each other, lest we discover common ground that would be very dangerous for the powerful and wealthy who benefit from Americans attacking Americans, throwing their Heritage Foundation charts out, only to be met with New York Times graphs. That fight between the far right and the far left is just as useful to some people as pathological Bush or Obama hatred, and that fight makes it a lot easier to manipulate people into "moving on" and "getting over" our grievances, which by and large are about the same things.
First, the Heritage foundation is no source, they are a conservative lobbyist organization who loves to write fiction. Secondly, by percentages is also spin on tax cuts. Thirdly, the budget surplus was not the result of "raiding social security"
and forth, no spin. Sorry, we don't allow some sort of lobbyist fiction spin that tries to lie, especially with bogus statistics.
Folks, this is a great example of statistical spin with graphs. You can find this on Fox news quite often and it's beyond obscene in how manipulative it is. Spin and lies with numbers.
This article has so many gratuitous assertions and outright lies that it's hard to know where to start. Maybe a few bullet points would help keep things short and to the point:
Year
Date
Surplus
Debt
Holdings
Debt
Although Clinton paid down the Public Debt, he did it by increasing Intra-govt holdings, mostly by using excess Social Security funds generated by the incomes generated by the dot-com bubble. A large percentage of the tax revenues during that period were from capital gains taxes, again from the dot-com bubble.
Three years into Obama's first term shows us the results of his policies - it's his economy and there's no way a reasonable thinking person can blame Bush for the current mess and still be in touch with reality. This pathological Bush hatred has really become old, especially the part about the 2000 election. Gore lost EVERY recount that was conducted - get over it.
It's looking bad. Dow futures are climbing back down.
Rice in Japan was just shut down, but this is due to reports radiation is destroying the Japanese food supply.
Gold futures soared 52.90 to break 1700 an ounce.
Commodities generally are soaring as safe havens and that's really, really bad for inflation and for food inflation.
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