Recent comments

  • pointed out today. The irony of the earlier financial bailout is that it was supposed to inject capital into the system so that GM and the others could get loans. But the banks aren't lending. And that's the reason why GM and the rest are circling the drain.

    Reply to: EPI: If Big 3 Fail 18% Unemployment in Michigan   15 years 11 months ago
  • I wrote a post earlier Give Them the Money and this is so important, I cross posted a few blogs on EP over on a few major blogs (which I suggest others do because this is so critical).

    Honestly it's better to just plain give them the money now and sort out conditions later then risk the above.

    Look at that red, it looks like a disaster of incredible proportions.

    Good post middle and in light of what AIG did today it's incredible, just incredible that the AIG story isn't on the cable blast 24/7 talking heads lips today and instead the auto industry is.

    Reply to: EPI: If Big 3 Fail 18% Unemployment in Michigan   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • The choice to exercise one's freedom to move money into the pockets of one's bosses in unethical ways will always be in demand. It's what the "free market" is based upon- the freedom to limit other people's freedom.

    Reply to: More Outrage - AIG Increasing Salaries by Double!   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Seebert, I've repeatedly warned to not include social positions that are anti-choice on this site. I mean it.

    Reply to: Record for Americans on Food Stamps   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Or at least, Asperger's, which is a rather mild form. Makes me think in a lot of black and white terms usually. But unless you're willing to include the root word, I'm no conservative....at least, not in the American sense. I am sort of in the European sense of the word- since I'm also a great believer in the Seamless Garment of Life, which has a tendency to oppose capitalism as unjust, which kicks me over into populism land.

    Silly me thinking human life, and the first level Maslow needs, should not be left to the chaos and injustice of the free market.....

     

     

    Reply to: Record for Americans on Food Stamps   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • I'm sure that's what you meant, classic conservative brain round about conclusion. Ya wanna know where I learned conservative brains plain think differently from the leftie heads? Sen. Jim Webb. He'd start with some really far out conservative thing, think it all the way through and end up over in Populism land. But he always starts his thought process in conservative land of thought.

    Reply to: Record for Americans on Food Stamps   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Which was that we need to give people MORE food stamps. As in, enough to actually let people eat right and healthy (nutritional food choices) AND eat for the entire month (break the feast/famine cycle).

    You do this with *MORE* food stamps, not less.

    Reply to: Record for Americans on Food Stamps   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • The AFL-CIO has put out an action alert, a request, all done for you, all you have to do is click and send, to try to get Congress to help the auto industry.

    Give the auto industry a bridge Loan

    If you click on the above link it will take you to an automated system to easily contact your Congressional representatives.

    The AFL-CIO is right in this case (they often are) and why I wrote the above so please be supportive of labor and take a couple of seconds and send this for the AFL-CIO.

    Reply to: Give Them The Money   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • the empty calorie food is the cheap food and these corporate retailers dump massive calories in empty food, like high fructose corn syrup into bread, into salad dressing, even into canned vegetables sometimes.

    Just as an example, McDonalds, Burger King do not accept food stamps but people eat there because it's cheap and they can afford it. Then some of the other corporate restraunts, take Outback, their onion bloom is something like 2100 calories. All of these places do not take food stamps.

    But your association is dead wrong because these people need to eat and sounds like you drank some cool-aid to not give people food stamps. In other words your title reads like a method to justify not giving hungry people food stamps so they will not starve and that's just not a good idea.

    What needs to happen is these empty calorie foods need to be stopped, curtailed and the money increased on food stamps as well as prices lowered on the nutritional food choices.

    Those damn corn subsidies, high fructose corn syrup is one of the things I blame the most. Who the hell needs this chemical sweetener dumped in bread, in salad dressing, in soda, in every stupid thing.

    Reply to: Record for Americans on Food Stamps   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Due to the fact that the best (in $/calorie) food you can get on them has very little nutritional value, large amounts of saturated fat, AND at an average of $20/week in food stamps, you don't have enough at the end of the month which shoves your body into a feast/famine cycle.  While the coorlation has diminished in recent years, it's mainly due to the fact that unskilled labor wages now also mimic this feast/famine cycle.

    Reply to: Record for Americans on Food Stamps   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • When you consider that almost *all* of the rural area of the state now uses such cheap labor for agricultural interests.

    Reply to: Knights of Columbus Microeconomic Data Tigard, OR   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Guys dressed in $1000 dollar suits were seen recently robbing the Treasury blind. This is a daily occurrence with guards handing over the keys, along with Starbucks coffee and pastries.

    The Bush administration Press secretary announced we must let them rob the United States blind, otherwise we will have an economic collapse.

    President-Elect Obama concurred. We must not let an economic collapse happen. It's important to support these thieves. We cannot let their business model go under and cause a global economic crisis.

    Reply to: UN Warns on US Economy, Dollar   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.

    People have known that the current economic system is broken for years. When is anyone going to do something about it?

    Reply to: UN Warns on US Economy, Dollar   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • CBS News is quoting this blog post.

    Thank you CBS reporter Declan McCullagh and glad CBS is finally covering the details and the politics behind TARP. It's a very good article.

    Reply to: We are Suckers. We are Chumps.   15 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • is pretty awful and I know this was happening in 2002-2003 time frame. The state was flooded with illegal labor, who were getting social services benefits, Oregon health plan, driver's licenses while the unemployment rate was over 8%. This is a pure cheap labor agenda in Oregon as well as special interests and yes they ignore the sad economic state of all immigrants, except the illegal ones. I'd like to see the estimate of the Oregon underground economy, I'll bet it's massive from their policies.

    Reply to: Knights of Columbus Microeconomic Data Tigard, OR   15 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • With both Spanish and Vietnamese masses every weekend. One thing we're seeing is suddenly more of an interest from the immigrant populations in the Knights, which fits our original charter (Fr. McGivney originally started it as a fraternal benefits society aiding new immigrants working in what today are positions held by illegal immigrants for exactly the same reasons of greed as he faced in 1876).  I failed to ask what the demographic breakdown was.

    They did report that somebody stole the food bank's computer- CPU, monitor & printer- from the office. Somebody's got to be awfully desperate to steal an outdated computer from the food bank.

    The true value, of course, of such data is confirmation. Macro economics predicts, micro economics confirms. 

    Reply to: Knights of Columbus Microeconomic Data Tigard, OR   15 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • overview of some of the positions in Congress on the auto bail out.

    A fundamental question is why are financial institutions too big to fail, yet the obvious ramifications for the entire U.S. economy if the auto industry is liquidated isn't?

    This is f**king insane and it's obviously only if you are pals with someone in government do you get the money.

    So, what? GM's big crime was they didn't buy off enough in our government? That they didn't get enough well placed government officials in their pocket or get a big enough revolving door into the administration and Congress?

    It's just sick!

    Reply to: Give Them The Money   15 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • Flash link.

    It's 5 hours long so I decided not to embed it, who has 5 hours to watch a hearing, but you can fast forward in this particular version.

    Reply to: Give Them The Money   15 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • I'm in close to your position- just enough equity in the house that if I had to go bankrupt tomorrow, all creditors would be paid, the house would be sold, and I'd have about $15k left over.

    Here's my thought- this deflation won't be allowed to last. The question is, how soon will we see an M1 money injection? Right now, as long as deflation is going on and all we're seeing is M3 stimulus, you're putting good money in that will be better money in a few months.

    My suggestion- figure out your Worst Case Scenario budget. Don't forget unemployment insurance in that. A true collapse of the dollar will mean hyperinflation, not deflation. Refi now if you need to fit your mortgage into your worst case scenario- say, 1/2 your potential unemployment insurance (mine is there now). Pay off whatever credit cards you can, and then hunker down, save cash, and watch the PMI. When the PMI reverses and starts going back up, use whatever cash you've been able to save to buy the type of durables that will last you the next 10 years or more, because this will be the bottom of the deflation. PMI went up for 70 years until September, and has nosedived since, so it's a pretty good indicator of what CPI will be soon. You'll never see durables priced this good again in your lifetime.

    After that, wait until you have a good paying job, and watch inflation. As the dollar crashes, inflation will skyrocket. Eventually your mortgage (mine's around $200k) will be worth less than a loaf of bread if the dollar really does totally crash- and that's the time to pay it off.

    Reply to: Econ-Fin News Nov 29 2008 - This is Worse Than Great Depression   15 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • I've got a treat planned for Friday Night Videos that really amplifies how human life is less valued that profits.

    Reply to: How could they have let this happen?   15 years 12 months ago
    EPer:

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