Sponsored Content




Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!



Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups

NoVaMoMe 2024: 06/08/2024
Arlington, VA
Details to follow


Texas MoMe 2024: 10/18/2024-10/19/2024 Corsicana,TX
Contact Ben Had for info





















« Top Headline Comments 7-21-11 | Main | Open Thread »
July 21, 2011

DOOM, a limited-liability corporation

DOOOOM

Apparently, Obama blew a big debt deal. What struck me about this piece was the passive-aggressive tone -- US News is completely in Bammer's corner, yet feels compelled to call him out on his lies. I'm seeing a lot of this kind of thing on the Left these days.

The end of the growth consensus. The relevant bit:

[P]olicy veered in a different direction. Public officials from both parties apparently found the limited government approach to be a disadvantage, some simply because they wanted to do more—whether to tame the business cycle, increase homeownership, or provide the elderly with better drug coverage.

And so policy swung back in a more interventionist direction, with the federal government assuming greater powers. The result was not the intended improvement, but rather an epidemic of unintended consequences—a financial crisis, a great recession, ballooning debt and today's nonexistent recovery.

Essentially, we decided to grow our government at the expense of the private-sector economy. Worse yet, we decided to debt-finance the growth with no plan to pay that debt off.

Wall Street is making Doomsday plans.

Dodd-Frank: Crony capitalism's triumph. Like ObamaCare, this is another law passed over GOP objections that just gets worse as more details come to light.

10% unemployment on the way. In reality, unemployment has been in the double-digits for a long time. The recent large-scale layoffs by Cicso, Borders Books, and now the United Space Alliance with the end of the Shuttle program (2,800 layoffs are expected) only exacerbate the situation. And most of these jobs are not blue-collar jobs; these are high-paying technical jobs that will be very difficult to replace in today's economy. Many of these laid-off workers are going to have a hell of a time finding work again at anything like the wages or benefits they were making before.

As Bill Gross notes at the Financial Times, economies cannot grow at "Stall Speed".

Annals of the boned: The good news? CalPERS got a whopping 21% return on their investments for the 12-month period ending in June 2011. The bad news? It doesn't come close to making up for the crappy performance for the five years prior to that. They still need a bailout. This is the grim truth of investment losses vs gains -- one bad year in the markets can take several up years to make up.

Greece (and maybe Europe as a whole) edges closer to the abyss. Fancisco Giavazzi and Anil Kashyap respond: Small enough to be allowed to fail under certain circumstances. A taste:

This plan would be unpopular in Germany and in the other stronger economies that would be the main contributors to the stability fund. A selling point would be that unlike the plans put forward so far, the taxpayers of contributor nations would be protected by collateral. If things go badly, the stability fund would effectively own the banking systems in the countries that don’t come up with a private solution. These assets would have value because they would be limited to those countries that are poised for growth.
Yeah, right up until the debtor countries nationalize the banks and leave the foreign collateral-holders hanging. The EU has done nothing but make this whole mess a huge moral-hazard sink-hole.

UPDATE 1: From the sidebar, "Layoffs Deepen Gloom". Obama has broken the mighty US jobs engine, and the results are going to be very bad indeed if we don't fix it pretty damned quick.

UPDATE 2: The bicycle overlords.

UPDATE 3: If this isn't a signpost on the way to DOOM, nothing is: Laura Ingraham's baggage robbed at NJ airport. (In Newark. I might have known. That joint is an utter pisshole.)

UPDATE 4: Via Andy: Not everything in the economy is in the dumper. Sex toy sales are doing just fine. Stay-cation, baby!

UPDATE 5: Paul Ryan brings the DOOM.

UPDATE 6: Keith Hennessey delivers the verdict on the "Gang of Six" plan -- it sucks.


The rest I'm getting is worth the crick in the neck I'm going to have when I wake up.

digg this
posted by Monty at 08:54 AM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
Erebus-ex-killer whale: "The GOP should also run ads pointing out that Amet ..."

Lizzy[/i]: "No country can absorb so many immigrants, legal or ..."

Doof: "CBD is a Jewish Christian Nationalist? Akin to a ..."

Big Pharma Says But Some Merch, Hoss: "270 I’m sure there are legit cases of people ..."

"Perfessor" Squirrel: "When the collapse happens, will the illegal immigr ..."

Skip: "Immigrants of old would have learned English, cha ..."

OrangeEnt: " No more drivers licenses for illegals!!! Posted ..."

Lizzy[/i]: "6. Remove the d@mn poem from the base of the Statu ..."

Albanian simps gonna simp, simp, simp: "250 200 I heard some pop strumpet on the radio. Sh ..."

Diogenes: "This is the existential problem of our lifetimes. ..."

thatcrazyjerseyguy now with twice the crazy: "Looks like Mike Lindell ("election denier", as des ..."

18-1: "I'd add - prosecute any government worker that app ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64