Encounter with a Bernie Bro

On 3/19, I posted on FaceBook an excerpt from Adam Parkemenko's daily BIG STUFF.  This led to an encounter with a Bernie Bro.

Adam Parkhomenko --

Remember when House Republicans were the worst people in Washington? Well, they’re still pretty awful, the title for worst has been claimed by Mitch and his cronies. Where to begin. Let’s start with Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intel Committee and someone who was busted in a recording obtained by NPR telling rich donors how bad the coronavirus would get even as Trump was telling Americans it was no big deal and it would just go away. Then we have Sen. John Cornyn, who used a racist diatribe to explain why calling it the Chinese Virus isn’t racist. Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the biggest scumbags of the Biden stuff, told his local paper that you just gotta keep it in perspective that a few million Americans might die. And then there’s Rand Paul. And really, ‘nuff said. Under Mitch’s leadership, or lack thereof, the U.S. Senate dragged its feet for days on the action the House took and now Mitch wants to cut Pelosi out of the negotiations. And for reasons we will never understand, there are many Democrats who want to take politics out of this current environment. These people must be new here and have never met a Republican. Like David Axelrod complaining because Democrats are running ads against Trump’s response? Seriously, Axe? Some of those first term capitulations are suddenly making a lot more sense. Trump fucked this up, and he and his party are going to be responsible for the deaths of many Americans. We sure as shit should be talking about that.

The Bernie Bro --

Just more bipartisan fuckfoolery. I'm immured to it, now. What will fall will fall.

JzB --

Both sides are not the same.

BB

They're not?

Could'a fooled me...

JzB

Sure, you can always find an example to validate a point of view. It's cherry picking, and it's not valid. You have to look at patterns of behavior, not isolated incidents. You have to look at policies and their effects.

Seriously, there are differences in any economic or social metric you can think of between when Rs and Ds are in control. And with the Ds it's always better.

Always.

Yes it's true that both parties have too much corporate interest. But that does not mean that they are equal. Frex: BHO had the backing of Wall St in '08, but they largely abandoned him in'12, because they didn't like what he was doing.

BB

Sorry [JzB}...I no longer believe this. I see them as two rival gangs in a kind of "Three families" criminal setup. The third family is the nonpartisan/bipartisan Deep State, which is actually more powerful than either gang. It allies itself with whichever gang seems most likely to continue to succeed in doing its bidding.

We've recently had a little shakeup of that system, because Trump surprised all THREE gangs and essentially took over the Ratpublicans. He is a rogue gang leader, and so far the other two gangs (and whatever parts of his own gang secretly wish him gone as well) have not been very successful in unseating him.

They DO keep trying, though.

We'll see in November...if of course there even IS an election in November. But never fear...we'll someday see who wins and who loses.

But...nothing substantive will change.

It's just the way things work.

Been that way since history began...

BEFORE it began, I'm sure.

It just didn't get written down.

JzB 

Well, you're entitled to your opinion. I've studied these things. Policies have consequences for people's lives, and R vs D policies are drastically different.

My dad told me something ca. 1962, and I never forgot it. Every once in a while, if a crumb falls off the plate, the Democrats might let you keep it. The Republicans won't even do that.

Also, ponder these things -- Would President Gore have ignored the screaming warnings from the intelligence communities like Shrub did - that allowed 9/11 to happen?

Would he have launched an illegal and pointless war against an uninvolved third-party country based on invalid, cooked intelligence?

Would he have cut taxes on the rich while launching this war - something no ruler in the history of the world has ever done?

Would President HRC have ignored the impending Covid-19 situation for months, while denying the reality of it to the American people in the hopes of personal gain?

Would she have signed into law yet another tax cut that benefited only the super rich and did squat for anyone else? And that, by the way, was completely unjustifiable on any economic terms and needlessly blew up the national debt?

Look at the history of criminal indictments in R vs D administration - dozens, maybe hundreds of Rs and a small hand full of Dems.

Look at the Rethug Senators who dumped millions in stocks just before the crash, while publicly saying Covid-19 was no big deal and we'd all be fine. The one from GA even made a huge investment in a tech company that might profit from people working from home. And her husband is Chairman of he New York Stock Exchange.

These are off the top of my head. Policies matter - to you and to me and to the rest of the world. 

Many of the things I listed were earth shaking.

Imagine how different it all would be without 9/11, ISIS, the disaster in Syria . . . Needless wars and ghastly foreign policy blunders have drained us of blood and treasure, and thoroughly destabilized an already fragile middle east.

And Trump and his cronies have gotten richer by many, many millions. To our detriment.

Ignoring these things for the sake of believing in a fictional both-sides-do-it duality might be satisfying in some way that I can't wrap my head around, but it is not an accurate depiction of the world we live in.

Think it over.

BB

You write: "Every once in a while, if a crumb falls off the plate, the Democrats might let you keep it. The Republicans won't even do that."

This in the biggest bakery of all time!!!

And you claim that they are "different?"

Not much more to say. I think that your father's statement pretty well sums up the difference between the two parties.

Minuscule.

Crumbs.

I could argue against every point that you make here.

You are as convinced as are the Trumpsters.

I will say this, though.

Don't worry. You have a lot of company.

JzB

It's pretty damned lame to dismissively hand wave away a long list of actual facts. In case you didn't notice, I put a lot of thought and careful planning into my response. Did you even read past the anecdote? I do commentary like this all the time, because I value the truth. You're welcome.

You could argue - but you don't. That says a lot, right there.

And, btw, comparing me to Trumpers is a blatant insult, because I actually fucking think things through; and I deeply resent it. You haven't done anything to earn the right to an attitude quite that superior.

If I'm convinced of something, it's because I've done the leg work to uncover actual facts and data. Years of technical training, along with my natural inclinations, lead me to make data-driven decisions. I have 463 posts on my blog with the tag "economics" and have actually put a bit of serious thought into some of them, with real graphs and detailed analysis.

What IS similar to Trumpers - and right wingers more generally - is a casual disregard for facts and data, with no attempt at rational discourse. I've experienced this hundreds of times. It's depressing as hell.

My posts are public on purpose. I welcome disagreement.

Note that it moves the discussion along in a more constructive way when the disagreement actually makes some sort of sense.

Prove to me that I'm wrong, and you will have done me a favor. The operative word here is PROVE.

But do it tomorrow. You've kept me up unit midnight, and I'm gong to bed

Think it over. Seriously.

BB

I am not going to even TRY to "prove" what I am saying to you.

The proof will be in the pudding.

We'll see what happens if Biden is elected with a majority in both houses. Or without.

Or if Trump remains.

Or...if some other outcome happens.

Gore?

HRC?

Bill Clinton?

Bush II?

Obama?

ALL willing supporters of the Permanent War state that has decimated this country on all levels and has simultaneously been the single most polluting environmental set of events of the last 30+ years. And all complicit in the selling of the country's industrial strength to the highest bidders, a sale that has totally wrecked the economies of the working class/middle class.

Biden?

Just another tool of the globalist corporate system for his entire career.

And yes, I did read your posts.

All of them.

I will read them no more.

Save your energy.

And at that point, he blocked me.  There was no attempt to engage any of my points, just spouting an extended sequence of naked assertions.

I'll concede that the Dems are far too close to big business and especially big finance.  And, to be sure, the history of humanity in a nutshell - always and everywhere - is the exploitation of the many by a small wealthy, privileged elite. But the mere fact that there are disturbing similarities between the two parties does not mean that there aren't also deeply significant differences. Our own history over that last hundred years, and especially the most recent decades, demonstrates that dramatically.

The 14th Ammendment Argument Remedy

Paragraph 4 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states in full (emphasis added):

4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Any questions?

Update:  Bernie Sanders explains in detail for those who don't get it.  (H/T to the LW )



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Thinlips McChinless Rides Again

Mitch McConnell will save win the day.  Thus sayeth Robert Reich, who might actually know what the hell he's talking about (emphasis added.)

McConnell, like most other Republican leaders, has all along seen the battle over raising the debt ceiling as part of a master plan to unseat Obama. Remember, it was McConnell who openly admitted the GOP’s “top goal is to defeat President Obama in 2012” – a brazen and bizarre statement in the face of the worst economic crisis in seventy years.

H/T to Thoma.

The thing that's clear is that the lizard-people will stop at nothing to defeat Obama in 2012.  Whether this ploy will succeed or not is anybody's guess.   A check of possible outcomes does NOT favor the incumbent.  If we get a Rethug lizard in the White House in 2012, "We, the People" are literally finished.  The America that once was will dwindle to a faded memory, as the American people devolve into corporate serfdom.

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Still Going . . .

Well, I'm still here - how about you?

My neighbor's are still here, too.  Which souldn't be too surprising, since they're Jewish.

So, here we are, all stuck in this veil of tears, for the rest of our natural days.

Let us then make the most of it.  And here is a bit of - admitedly rather pedestrian - knowledge that could put you a step ahead of the competition.  Live long and prosper, with my blessing.

What the Hell?!? Friday -- Where's My Prosperity? Edition

Over at AB, spencer presents the employment data.  Read it and weep.

Notable quote:

This is the third consecutive jobless recovery and the payroll gains have been very weak in all three.

To Jerry's point in comments to my previous post, this is a partial explanation of stagnating real disposable income per capita.  The growth rate of the pie is anemic, while the slices for you and me grow even more slowly.

Update:  More from CR.  The graphs tell a very dismal story

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Thinking Like an Economist Means That . . .

Zombie ideas eat your brain!

I love Calculated Risk, and have great respect for whoever it is that puts it together.  But that doesn't mean that they are always right.  A post today titled Older Workers and the Lump of Labor Fallacy resurrects the "Lump of Labor Fallacy" fallacy, and illustrates one of my really big problems with economics and economists.

The idea in the CR post is that older workers staying in the work force - a phenomenon happening with continuously greater frequency over the last 20 or so years - does not take jobs away from younger workers.  LoLF believers will tell you that additional workers - whether they are ought-to-be-retired codgers, immigrants, fresh graduates, or zombies risen from the grave - expand the economy by going to work, buying lunch, new clothes, new cars, and renting apartments.

OK - maybe not the zombies, who have rather a different concept of utility.

Now, the LoLF is a truly great idea, and like most great ideas, it's true some of the time.  But other parts of the time, for example when U6 unemployment has been stuck at over 16% for over a year, businesses are sitting on piles of cash like brooding hens instead of investing in either capital improvements or labor, and even the illegal immigrants can't find jobs, it's high time to start thinking outside of the tidy little economic coffin.

This, come to think of it, is actually the same disagreement I had with Karl Smith recently, though we didn't use the LoLF vocabulary.

What Karl, the good folks at CR, and economists in general refuse to factor into their thinking is the current unpleasant reality, which gives me an opportunity to quote myself.

And what makes this case different is the liquidity trap at the 0-interest bound, and the aggregate demand shortfall due in part to private deleveraging that causes the unwillingness of corporations to invest in either equipment or employees, compounded by the unwillingness of banks to lend at any level of risk when then can get an absolutely risk-free 0.25% on excess reserves from the Fed. Whether the collapse of the M1 multiplier is cause or effect remains a mystery to me.

We are hovering at the edge of a deflationary spiral, similar to the situation in 1929; but austerity rules the day, almost world wide. I am deeply pessimistic about this turning around any time soon – or even over the next several years. The incoming Repug majority in the House will only make it worse.

Since then, I've learned a couple of things that illustrate that the situation is already worse than I thought.  Here's an example.

Pedro Pablo slowly folds up his American flag blanket and stuffs it in his duffel bag. With it goes his American dream.

"I left my family and lost four years with them. I will ask them to forgive me," he said.  Pablo is an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who came to the United States to support his wife and five sons back home. When he arrived, construction jobs were plentiful. Over the last year, he says, he's worked three days.

He recently boarded a bus with a one-way ticket home, paid for by the Guatemalan consulate in Los Angeles. "I thought I could get ahead here. I regret coming."

Across the United States, tens of thousands of immigrants -- those here legally and illegally -- are facing a similar dilemma: Do they continue to search for jobs in a struggling U.S. economy or return home to an even bleaker economic situation?

"Things are very dire, and I think it's impacting those at the very bottom even more so," said Abel Valenzuela, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles who has spent years studying day laborers.  "Day laborers are being really, really impacted."

On the TV news last night I saw a young couple with $250,000 in student loan debt who are unable to find relevant employment, have no idea how to service this debt, and will likely lose their modest home.  They aren't alone.  Thousands of recent college graduates clutching their freshly-minted degrees proudly set out to enter the job market only to find that there isn't any.   If nothing else, this has opened up a whole new set of opportunities for vultures.

New public, private and college-based programs are targeting a grim and growing market: unemployed college graduates who can't afford to repay their student loans. 

This week, BridgeSpan Financial, a start-up based in Washington, D.C., introduced SafeStart, a product designed to protect borrowers from the risk of defaulting on their loans. For an upfront payment of $40 to $60 per $1,000 of student debt, SafeStart will provide an interest-free line of credit that borrowers can use to repay federal student loans for up to five years after graduation.

Lovely.  For a mere $12,500, give or take 20%, that young couple might be able to buy a five year reprieve from interest on their student loan debt.  I wonder where they'll borrow the $12,500?

Young, educated people can't pay off their student loans.  Immigrants are returning to their impoverished native lands in despair.   All because there aren't any jobs to be had.  But economists simply can't get beyond that old "Lump of Labor Fallacy" fallacy.

As Krugman said in his Monday op-ed piece, on a different aspect of stubbornly wrong headed thinking (emphasis added):

  Yes, politics is the art of the possible. We all understand the need to deal with one’s political enemies. But it’s one thing to make deals to advance your goals; it’s another to open the door to zombie ideas. When you do that, the zombies end up eating your brain — and quite possibly your economy too.

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John the Boner Has a Hyperactive Sense of Irony . . .

Or, alternatively, a total and absolute tone-deafness to irony.

There are times when, looking at a situation in a vacuum, you just can't tell.

But, conservatism being what it is, and the Boner being what HE is, I vote for the later.

Holy flaming brass icon of Moloch!

Rep. Michele Bachmann, one of the most outspoken conservatives in the House, has won an appointment to the secretive House Intelligence Committee. 

The move by incoming Speaker John Boehner to put Bachmann on the panel surprised Republican insiders . . .

Yeah.  It surprised me, too - dumber than a god-damned stump Michelle Bachmann on the for-God's-sake INTELLIGENCE Committe. 

OK - one can easily find loony characters in congress (in-coming senator bat-shit crazy Dr. Paul the lesser, and his belfry-soiling patriarch, long time Texas representative Dr. Paul the greater spring readily to mind.)  But for an outre blend of insanity and stupidity - and I'm talking mega-dumb, at the Sarah Palin level - I don't think Michelle Bachmann has a peer.

Upon further reflection, though, it shouldn't surprise me at all.  On the one hand, the big lesson of the Cheney-Rumsfeld administration was that it is literally not possible, when thinking about the Repugnicants, to be cynical enough.  On the other, look at the Rethugs history of showing utter contempt for this country, it's citizens, government and institutions by putting simpletons, ciphers, fools, and cardboard cutouts into positions of grave or potentially grave responsibility:  Ronald Reagan, J. Danforth Quayle, George W. Bush, Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin. 

Members of the Intelligence panel receive classified briefings in a secure conference room in the Capitol, and are sworn to secrecy about most of the committee's activities.

"If you're looking for media and controversy, that's not the committee to be on," said a Republican familiar with the discussions about Bachmann's appointment.

There is not enough schadenfeude in the entire expanding universe for me to extract even a single microscopic grain of amusement from this horribly sad event.

I have uttered this despairing phrase so much that I was going to drop it from my lexicon, due to overuse.

But - one more time:  WASF!

Now, I must go hug TWO squids.

H/T to the LW, whom I will love forever, no matter how much bad news she brings.
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Quote of the Day - Krugman on the Tax Deal

Krugman usually editorializes in the NY Times on Monday and Friday.  Here is an excerpt from today's entry. 

The root of our current troubles lies in the debt American families ran up during the Bush-era housing bubble. Twenty years ago, the average American household’s debt was 83 percent of its income; by a decade ago, that had crept up to 92 percent; but by late 2007, debts were 130 percent of income. 

All this borrowing took place both because banks had abandoned any notion of sound lending and because everyone assumed that house prices would never fall. And then the bubble burst.

What we’ve been dealing with ever since is a painful process of “deleveraging”: highly indebted Americans not only can’t spend the way they used to, they’re having to pay down the debts they ran up in the bubble years. This would be fine if someone else were taking up the slack. But what’s actually happening is that some people are spending much less while nobody is spending more — and this translates into a depressed economy and high unemployment.

What the government should be doing in this situation is spending more while the private sector is spending less, supporting employment while those debts are paid down. And this government spending needs to be sustained: we’re not talking about a brief burst of aid; we’re talking about spending that lasts long enough for households to get their debts back under control. The original Obama stimulus wasn’t just too small; it was also much too short-lived, with much of the positive effect already gone. 

 He goes on to note that deleveraging is working - household debt is down to 118% of income. 

H/T to Thoma, who has an overlapping, but more extensive quote, which includes PK's final paragraph, and that is the really crux of this bad deal - it will all have to be played out again in 2012, with the backdrop of an election year.

I continue to become more pessimistic.
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Who Killed the M1 Money Multiplier --- and HOW and WHY!

I've been wondering about this for a while.

In comments here, reader nanute points me to the villain.

It is The Fed.

They do it by paying interest on excess reserves.

The reason is to prevent inflation.

Holy shit!   We are stumbling at the edge of deflation, and the Fed is fighting inflation.

I'm no economist (so somebody help me out here if I'm all wrong) but it seems to me that if the $1 Trillion, or so, being held in excess reserves were released into the economy, we would have no need for QE II.  And the $600 billion that the Fed is going to magically create via QE II will probably just  result in there being about $1.6 Trillion in excess reserves by next Summer.

Now, I must go hug a squid.

Update:  In comments, nanute fine-tunes the thinking.

I think the larger problem that is concerning the Fed and driving this policy is the fact that the major financial institutions are being permitted to carry high risk assets (think mbs, derivatives, etc.) at face value. I've argued for quite some time that allowing this change in policy to continue only prolongs the inevitable, and is the primary reason why the economy remains anemic. Until policy makers and financial institutions come clean, and flush all the bad debt from the system, no meaningful recovery can occur.

I do realize that such a severe shock to the system may in fact make things worse in the near term, but unless and until the individuals responsible for creating the mess are required to pay for the damage without taxpayer assistance, we will continue down the road of high unemployment and lack of demand for goods and services.

Robert Prechter pointed out years ago that debts must be repaid - If not by the borrower, then by the lender.  The third possibility is pass it off to the general population.  This is a drag on the system whose effects are difficult to calculate.  Talk about your dead-weight losses.

It's easy to believe that this is part of why the American economy has come undone.  Another thing Prechter has pointed out is that we get less bang for the debt buck now than in the past, and this mill stone could be part of the reason why.

Where I disagree with nanute is that I don't specifically relate this to the M1 collapse.  I think the case for the Fed's responsibility made at Washington's Blog is pretty compelling.
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Write Your Congressperson - You should

The entire meme about the insolvency of Social Security, as put out by the Cat Food Commission, is bull shit, and anybody who understands the system, its funding, demographics, and  life expectancy knows it.

Here's Krugman.

. . .  since 1977, the life expectancy of male workers retiring at age 65 has risen 6 years in the top half of the income distribution, but only 1.3 years in the bottom half.

And Krugman again.

. . . that men in the bottom half of the earnings distribution saw their life expectancy at age 65 rise only 1.1 years from 1982 to 2006. Over the same period, by the way, the retirement age — under current law — rose 8 months.

 In simple terms, life expectancy is increasing for Lawyers and CEO's, but not for janitors and postal clerks.  The short stint in retirement that the latter might have some day is being eaten up by increases in the retirement age.

So - write your congressperson today.   Here is a model letter from commentor Jack at AB.

Needs some paragraph separation but the content is right on.

Also, sending this one to Alan (aka Homer) Simpson and Erskin Bowles is highly recommended.

Now - off to the Post office with you . . . .
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"PAYPAL IS THE WORST COMPANY IN THE WORLD"

Or so I have been told.

This might be my only googlebomb participation ever.

But then again, one can't really be too sure about such things.

Anyway, John is over-reacting at least a little bit.


Many, many other companies are at least as bad, though not necessarily in the same way.

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So, How Bad Is It?

Krugman provides the answers, with graphs.

It's bad.  Really, really bad.

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Oil and Water Do Mix . . .

. . .  at the parts per million level.

To put this in perspective, New York city has a population of a bit over 8 million.   So, if 8 illegal immigrants from, say Iceland, scattered in New York City, their concentration would be about 1 ppm.

Not a lot, unless each of them is toxic.  Then who knows what might happen?

Maybe they'd all go to the beach.


WKRG.com News

Via HuffPo.

H/T to the Lovely Wife.
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Quote of the Day

I do feel a sense of despair here. Ever since the crisis began, some of us have been trying to get across the point that you have to be very careful with your historical precedents, that things work very differently when you have a synchronized severe financial crisis, with interest rates near zero everywhere. And here we are, two years in, and it’s as if we’ve been talking to a wall.

From Krugman, here with proper historical precedent, rational context, and even a graph.

Who doesn't love graphs?

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Quote of the day

So wise policy, as defined by the G20 and like-minded others, consists of destroying economic recovery in order to satisfy hypothetical irrational demands from the markets — demands that economies suffer pointless pain to show their determination, demands that markets aren’t actually making, but which serious people, in their wisdom, believe that the markets will make one of these days.

Awesome.

From the always wise and mostly right Paul Krugman.

Everyone thinks the right approach to solve a demand crisis is to emulate Herbert Hoover.

Wow.  We are SO screwed.

First Base Umpire Makes History

Not in a good way.   This is worse than Phil Luckett blowing a coin toss.

Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga just pitched a no-hitter against the Cleveland Indians, for which he will not get credit because of a horrendous blunder by Jim Joyce, the first base umpire.  This would have been the 21st perfect game in MLB history.

Several replays clearly indicated that the 27th batter was thrown out by a half-step or more.  This play always goes to the defense - as it should.  Much closer plays are called out a dozen times in every game.  The view angle that pointed into the Cleveland Indian's dugout showed that they couldn't believe it, either.

How many chances in his career does a pitcher get to throw a no hitter?

Earlier in the inning, Austin Jackson made a spectacular, running, Willie Mays style, back-to-the-plate, over-the-shoulder catch in deep right-center to maintain Galarraga's no-hitter to that point.

Then, with two ninth inning outs in the books, and the third out clear at first base, the idiot umpire took it away from him.

Galarraga got the next batter on a ground out to end the inning, the game, and - I hope - that hapless umpire's career.

Update:  Upon further review, I over reacted in the heat of the moment in calling Joyce an idiot an demanding his firing.  I have since learned that he has always been an outstanding umpire and a stand-up guy.  As soon as he saw the replays, he owned up to his mistake and apologized. Unfortunately, he will not be remembered for any of that.  He will go down in history for his massive, inexplicable blunder.

So it's sad for everyone involved.  But I have no sympathy for Joyce.  He should have realized the context and the importance of getting that call right.  Clearly, his head was not in the game.  Wie Shade.

A Terrible Moment of High Irony

Check this out.

Read it and weep.

Global Warming Hoax Continues - Pt 3

Used to was, 1998 had been the warmest year EVAH, so George Will and other AGW denialists could cheerily cherry-pick that year and say, "It was so much warmer then, it's cooler than that now.   Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

But them flip-floppers at NASA say it's not 1998 any more - It's 2005, by a slight fraction of a degree over 2009.   Well - what do you expect; they're part of the Gummint, and therefore pinko socialistical Librullz who can't be trusted.  And never mind they've been saying it since January, 2006.  Repeating a hoax doesn't make it true.  At least not for Librullz

Now here comes that infamous Keynsian, Paul Krugman, saying that 2010 is even hotter, as if he's a freaquin' expert.  Well, hell - when has HE ever been right about anything?  He posts this absolutely silly graph, when we all know that it snowed during the Winter, so global warming is either a Librull plot to kill the economy and steal our freedoms, or just so much hot air; and Al Gore (as a letter-writer to my local paper so lucidly pointed out when it snowed LAST Winter) "can go suck eggs."

Here is the aforementioned silly graph.  Krugman says the yellow line is 2005.

Yeah.  Like that's supposed to prove anything.  We all know how liars can figger!

And 2009, that 2nd hottest year - why, it was scarcely any hotter than 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007!  That's what them NASA people said.

So -- are we screwed, or what?

For Pt. 2, see here.
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$hriveling

That's the best word I can think of for something that has been shrinking since the Reagan Administration Regime, even without the recent collapse.

And what would this $hriveling thing be?

The M1 Money Supply multiplier, which has been below 1 for over a year, and, after a dead cat bounce, is now at .79, with every indication of falling further.

What this means is

for every $1 increase in the monetary base – the money supply only increases by 79 cents.

And it's not just here.

"Money multipliers have collapsed everywhere. What M3 is telling us is that confidence is missing.  I don't see any way to stabilise M3 in such circumstances," he said.

Professor Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research called on the ECB to buy state bonds in a blitz of QE to insure against a double-dip recession.  He said: "2010 is going to be very difficult."

Could this long range drop be the behind-the-scenes actor that has been responsible for lagging GDP growth over the period?

At any rate, this is NOT a good thing.  (Emphasis added)

The chain of causes of the Great Depression thus leads back to the restrictive monetary policies of the Federal Reserve System. Those policies led to fear of bank collapses which caused the money multiplier to decline thus leading to a decrease in the money supply. This decrease in the money supply led to deflation which raised the real interest rate to extraordinary levels. This drastically discouraged investment purchases causing the level to decline by about 90 percent. Businesses found they were not selling as much as they had been producing. This led to cutbacks in production and layoffs of the labor force. The decline in employment then resulted in reduced incomes and consequently reduced consumer purchases leading to further cutbacks in employment and reductions of income.

One of the differences between the Depressions of 1921 and 1929 was that in '21, deflation, though deep, was a specifically U.S phenomenon.  In the 30's, it was world wide.  Like it is now.

Every new thing I learn just increases my pessimism.
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Deep Stupid #16 - Republican in Everything BUT Name

That's right folks, today's honored guest is none other than President Barack Hoover Obama.

I'm kinda busy today, doing meanial tasks around the house, so I'll turn it over to Krugman.

There’s good reason to feel outraged at the growing appearance that we’re running a system of lemon socialism, in which losses are public but gains are private. And at the very least, you would think that Obama would understand the importance of acknowledging public anger over what’s happening.

But no. If the Bloomberg story is to be believed, Obama thinks his key to electoral success is to trumpet “the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies.”

We’re doomed.

I like Krugman, but sometimes he is just too polite, and has a tendency for understatement.

Here is Simon Johnson.

This is the antithesis of a free-market system.  Not only were their banks saved by government action in 2008-09 but the overly generous nature of this bailout (details here) means that the playing field is now massively tilted in favor of these banks.  (I put this to Gerry Corrigan of Goldman and Barry Zubrow of JP Morgan when we appeared before the Senate Banking Committee last week; there was no effective rejoinder.)

Not only that, but the incentives for the people running these megabanks is now to take on reckless amounts of risk.  They get the upside (for example, in these compensation packages) and – when the downside materializes – this is belongs to taxpayers and everyone who loses a job.  (See my testimony to the Senate Budget Committee yesterday; there was no disagreement among the witnesses or even across the aisle between Senators on this point.)
.   .   .   
What we have now is not a free market.  It is rather one of the most complete (and awful) instances ever of savvy businessmen capturing a state and the minds of the people who run it.  Is this really what the president seeks to endorse?

Et, tu, Simon.
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Source:  The Dim Post