Suckers: Dow Loses 519, Easily Eclipsing Yesterday's Buy-Off-The-Bottom Sucker's Rally

From bad to worse.

The markets are considered a forward indicator of what the economy should look like down the road, right? Anyone know how far ahead they are conventionally believed to forecast? 3 months? 6?

A whopping 73% believe the country is on the wrong track.

21% say it's on the right track.

Who the hell are these people?

The survey found that 47 percent believe "the worst is yet to come" in the U.S. economy, an increase of 13 percentage points from a year ago when this question was last raised.

This is the highest measure since March 2009, when concern peaked at 57 percent, at the height of the recession.

But every time you think the public gets it...

Americans held mixed views on the best way to stimulate economic growth. Cutting spending, 49 percent, and taxing the wealthy, 46 percent, came highest, followed by investment in infrastructure, 34 percent.

This poll, by the way, is of adults, though they go on to say that over 80% of the adults are also registered voters.

Here's Obama's job approval state by state; he remains competitive in most swing states (at about 46% or so approval).

He has a meager 32% approval in three states and 27% in one state. (Guess which.) But those a GOP gimmes.

This poll might point the way forward for a GOP candidate.

Barely one in four Americans has confidence that the federal government has the ability to fix economic problems, and most share Standard & Poor’s indictment of the country’s policy-making process, according to a new Washington Post poll.

If only 26% have confidence in the government's ability to fix problems... well, never let a good crisis go to waste. Capitalize on that, and make the theme of 2012 a government that does much less, but much better, and much more cheaply.

Why pay Cadillac-level taxes for Yugo-level performance?

Of course, there's again some cluelessness from voters...

The spreading lack of confidence is matched by an upsurge in dissatisfaction with the country’s political system and a widespread sense that S&P’s characterization of U.S. policy-making as increasingly “less stable, less effective and less predictable” is a fair one.

Which is the public's fault. Politicians lie to the public in stupid, obvious ways, but it is the public's fault that such lies are credible to them, and it is their fault politicians can profit from stupid lies.

We have a political problem, yes, and that problem begins with the polity itself, which remains ignorant (as a whole) about the depth of our problems and, more importantly, the cause of these problems and ergo the actual solutions.

But the public will continue caterwauling about foreign aid, waste and abuse, and "taxing the rich."

posted by Ace at 04:47 PM

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