Presently relocated to:
http://bookofdoomed.tumblr.com/
I am, for the moment, jazzed. Tumblr is a little easy for us unfocused sufferers of ADD.
Join me there!
The American middle-class: pretty much dead, dead, dead.
So I was wrong. I thought as the hardships trickled up from the poor into the middle class, so would the will to address them. I figured that if altruism weren’t enough, self-interest would spark a spirit of shared sacrifice motivating Americans to focus their government’s power to fill gaps in the private economy. Instead, the only people who gained from the trickle-up theory were the recipients of government bailouts at the very top of the financial hierarchy, which housed those who got us into the mess in the first place. — David K. Shipler
Doomed. For real. An inexcuseable, shameful failure of thge Whores who Rule Us.
See what a superior job in the economy Republican leadership performs.
If this doesn’t say it all, it says close enough to it all….
Anyone surprised that Nikki Haley’s a complete dishonest, thieveing of garbage wasn’t paying attention — and not much was needed to realize it.
I wonder what Eisenhower would make of today’s US, with a military grown from 3.5 million people to 5 million. The western nations face less of a threat to their integrity and security than ever in history, yet their defence industries cry for ever more money and ever more things to do. The cold war strategist, George Kennan, wrote prophetically: “Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial complex would have to remain, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented.” — Simon Jenkins/The Guardian (the best paper you don’t reader and a sterling example of a still-great newspaper — over Keller’s and Pinch’s minds, of course).
Doomed:
The result – that one theory has been proved wrong, another proved right, yet the world continues to believe in Theory #1 – is frustrating. It’s also tragic, because that intellectual obstinacy is contributing to the “new normal” of permanently high unemployment. — Krugman.
Doomed:
In the United States, we learn that Barney Frank was responsible for the housing bubble and the financial crisis. Who knew that a member of the minority party in the House, at a time when Republicans not only ruled the House with an iron fist but also controlled the White House, had such power? — Krugman.
Doomed:
[I]f powerful political forces block any effective response to a crisis, there is no effective response to that crisis. — Krugman
Doomed!
Medicare must be destroyed because private insurance — vouchers — is a superior solution because Medicare costs are rising slower than private insurance premiums.
Doomed! The Big Banks want another crash because if they lose enough, they get the government to cover their bad speculative losses — and the Supreme Court is making it easier for them.
Doomed! Because Our Leaders are unprincipled, opportunistic, dishonest assholes.
Doomed! Things just aren’t getting better.
Good news for Bristol Palin: I still won’t think of the publicity whore daughter of a deranged, dangerous, greedy publicity whore as a slut.
Here’s your fair and balanced: Thomas Jefferson, hero of the modern conservatives:
Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.
If once they [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, Judges, and Governors, shall all become wolves.
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
That was then, this is now.
Doomed:
It seems the Gang of 500 has decided that it’s ok to notice that people are unemployed again, although since the solutions from politicians seem to be “cut taxes and spending” and “cut spending but not quite as much” we’re probably not going to get any kind of real discussion of what might actually help those weird foreign creatures known as the unemployed. — Atrios
Doomed! Contra Atrios, the Republicans would be happy fiscally if they just destroy Social Security and Medicare and cut the wealthy’s taxes. All they care about is getting money away from government and into the hands of the speculators (not investors, because the Republicans’ policies hurt investors and small businesses).
Doomed! because none of our leaders care about anyone but the .1%.
Doomed! by retarded partisan assholes whoring for the .1% instead of leading.
Doomed! because this is the level of leadership we accept and empower.
Doomed! — the proof. Only hope that the professor’s prediction is correct, but the electorate are dumb, ignorant and fickle, unable to see the truth in front of their eyes….
Doomed! Just another example of lies setting policy.
Doomed! By historically inept leadership –posturing instead of policy.
Marc Faber in the 13 June 2011 Barron’s: “The world has a dual economy. In the economy of the super-rich, Bentleys and Rolls Royces and Ferraris and Porsches sit in front of fancy hotels. Quantitative easing has had a huge impact on this economy, as the people who own equities and commodities have done very well. Singapore and Hong Kong are boom towns because of quantitative easing. China has been helped dramatically by artificially low interest rates and a recovery in consumption in the U.S. and elsewhere. At the same time, the economy of the workers and lower middle class is doing very badly. Wage increases don’t match cost-of-living increases.”
Fred Hickey in Barron’s: “I also own government bonds in New Zealand and Canada. They are a play on natural resources, but mostly on better-run governments.”
The success of Republican fiscal policies.
My new obsession: Sovereign debt. Who holds it and should really care when the creditors’ speculative “investments” tank? Iceland proves the answer is No. In a normal world, investments aren’t guaranteed.
I’ll take this as proof of corruption. In any case, it’s bad.
Doomed! The War on Competent Leadership’s victories.
Doomed! A recap.
Obomba’s New Fail. And here’s at least a partial reason.
Destoyers of America.
I know pols by and by are, let’s say, pathological and dysfunctional but Joe Lieberman just gets worse and worse and won’t stop with the sick crap….
The Afghan Fail: General Betrayus: Just another bullshitter, another failure.
Our next president: Another one who’s Pawlenty bad.
I don’t agree with Prof. Krugman at all. Our Leaders are not failing because of fear of acting or “fatalism” but because the 1% doesn’t want a cent spent on what they don’t need done and pols have learned that more than enough voters are willing accept the right talk instead of action — abetted by the relative silence of the Big Media.
And I disagree with Prof. K., and all the others, who don’t understand that at the end of the day we suffer from bipartisan corruption. That’s the way it is in an oligarchy, which is what the Repubplicans have worked for since Reagan.
A thought: No Republican is as tough an opponent for Obomba as the Dems failure on the economy. Or was that 2010? And will the electorate react to their imbecilic reaction in 2010? And then there’s this.
Correction: Anyone with a bat, say, can beat Paul Ryan — and for America’s good, maybe should.
Doomed! The Really Short Version.
For those who have trouble with the concept that the Bush administration engaged in fiscal irresponsibility. Well, actually, it was a disaster, deliberately so. (Click on the image for details.)
I love Barry Ritholtz, nearly as much as I do Krugman. But saying the Chicago School of Economic Horseshit has collapsed is wrong, awfully so. They’re still setting globally disasterous policy, ensuring we’re going have years of depression — at least as bad as Japan.
It is 1937 again, but this time probably worse because a) WWII ain’t gonna save the economy and b) our political system is so much more corrupt.
America: Hollowed out by the Bushies, and after getting hollowed out, we now have the inevitable implosion — and maybe another reason why it’s worse than 1937.
Idea! Bachmann and Palin as co-presidents! Now, more than ever!
I can't choose!
I really can't choose!
Idea! If the Republicans Our Leaders can reduce spending and increase unemployment, we’ll have years free of inflation.
Or maybe Our Leaders don’t care about this.
A lie that sets policy, a lie the Big Media professional journos can’t manage to expose.
Doomed! A classic lie used to justify problems that exacerbate the problem.
Doomed! Spelled out nice and simple.
Doomed! The housing market is still in the crapper, in the crapper.
Big Media pundits: Pretty much all retarded? Again, how can you relentlessly spew shit like this? Is the money enough to be a destructive liar? Is it just greed? Society-destroying lying is okay with them all?
Joe Nocera worships a past we’ll never see again.
Corruption. Since I’m sure you don’t believe me. This crap is way more common than you think. Enough of this shit.
MAestro Greenspan said there wasn't a housing bubble nor was one possible. Greenspan would spend hours a day poring other data to come up with insights like these, and look where it got us. (Actually, Greenspan never thought any bubble was his concern....)
Hail to the Chief!
Decency:
Reality:
As I’ve often written, we’re in a strange state now where people who actually take textbook economics and simple arithmetic seriously are seen as dangerously radical and irresponsible, while people who believe in invisible bond vigilantes and confidence fairies, who claim to know what the market will want even though there’s no sign of that desire in current asset prices, are viewed as Very Serious. — Prof. Krugman
So. The vile, unnecessary PATRIOT Act is even worse than we thought. IS this a great nation or what?
The disaster of Objectivism. Me, I can’t figure out which is the sicker joke: An Objectivist head of the Fed or the kind of retard leader oblivious to that or simply, knowing, didn’t see any problem….
Fluke or hint of the 2012 backlash-backlash?
Destroy, destroy! Remind me: What have modern Americans actually made?
Looks like maybe the Republicans might actually be losing the heartland because they’re actually bothering to put the pieces together:
Here’s the big picture: If the United States is to the point at which helping disaster victims means cutting other needed programs, it’s time to rethink the way we’re running this country. Today, Americans have the lightest total tax burden they’ve had since 1958. One result of that low tax burden, and the resulting inadequate federal and state revenue, is that the Federal Emergency Management Agency faces a $3 billion shortfall. And that’s before the Joplin bills arrive.
Overly optimistic projections during good times brought us to this point. Pandering politicians agreed to tax cuts that this country could not afford. — Kansas City Star editorial
Doomed:
Neither the Long Depression of the 19th century nor the Great Depression of the 20th was an era of nonstop decline — on the contrary, both included periods when the economy grew. But these episodes of improvement were never enough to undo the damage from the initial slump, and were followed by relapses.
We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense. — Prof. Krugman
Our next America-hating president.
America-hating/destroying traitor.
America-hating traitor and inciter of imbeciles.
Just another bigoted hater.
What turns weak-minded men on.
America-destroying traitor.
