Recently in Economic Depression Category

But not for being a sexist.

Alan Simpson's comment is not in the least bit sexist. But it is derogatory, insulting the majority of American's that have worked hard to support a family.

My father, who is probably one of the hardest working persons I have ever had the privilege know, worked a full-time job at an oil refinery (now Flint Hills Resources, but then simply known as Koch Refinery) while also working an 80 acre farm, mostly by himself. If you have ever known anyone that worked an oil refinery, they often are working 12 to 16 hour days during turn-a-rounds, which could last for weeks. He did this for 4 or 5 years back in the 1970s. All the money he earned was taxed, some of which was paid into Social Security. Meanwhile, my mother, who was taking care of me and my three siblings while dad was either in the fields or at the refinery, was also working part-time as a waitress. Some of her earnings likewise was paid into Social Security. At the end of the 70s, and through the 80s, my parents then ran a restaurant, which in and of itself is almost four full-time jobs. They once again paid into Social Security.

Today, they are enjoying the twilight of their years on the measly benefits that they more than earned. Over the last 30 years, working as a waitress nearly broke my mother's back. My father has had several heart attacks because of the physical demands his work put on his body. And what does Alan Simpson do? He implies they are ne'er-do-wells living off the government's teats.

While many on the right seem content to call Social Security recipients lazy, unproductive members of society, I have the belief that most of them are hard working fathers and mothers who struggled to put food on the table for their family and, having reached the twilight of their years, are simply reaping the benefit of having worked hard and paid Social Security taxes.

You see, not only did I witness my parents work hard, I also witnessed the parents of my friends, the neighbors in my town, and my co-workers struggle to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads, all the while paying Social Security taxes. So, it is unconscionable for Alan Simpson to claim that over 300 million American's are lazy, unproductive members of society. For that he deserves to be fired.

(Kevin Drum) Should we ban businesses from pulling your credit score as part of their hiring process?

If there is a company that wants to know my credit score as part of their hiring decision, then I do not want to work for them. It is obvious that the company is ethically challenged to start with.

Also, it suggests a rather arrogant view of themselves that they would not want to hire people who have been, you know, unemployed due to the decrepit economy for which we can thank 3 decades of conservative rule.

And, in the end, if they need to look at your credit score, then just how pathetic are they at judging people at face value? Also, asking for a credit score means they do not have the ability to appraise the situation as it occurs.

Of course, it could mean that they only want heartless bastards who lack compassion.

StarTribune.com

How much is a noble idea worth? A new state law prohibits cities, counties, the state and other "public employers" from buying uniforms or safety equipment made outside the United States. The idea, said the man behind the measure, Rep. Tom Rukavina, is to send a message about protecting American jobs and revenue. An admirable goal, say city officials and the League of Minnesota Cities, but the problem is that cash-strapped local governments have never been in a worse position to devote scarce resources to a philosophical ideal, even if they agree with it.

A law that should have been passed back when NAFTA was first implemented.

If this really happens, I suspect we will see a restoration of sanity on Wall Street, with an improving economic situation for Main Street. Not immediately, obviously. This is a long-term move that would keep our economy from experiencing the consequences that results from the rash impulsiveness of the investor class.

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- A one-page proposal gaining traction in Congress could turn back the clock on Wall Street 10 years, forcing the breakup of banks, including Citigroup Inc.

Lawmakers in both parties, seeking to prevent future financial crises while soothing public anger over bailouts and bonuses, are turning to an approach that's both simple and transformative: re-imposing sections of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act that separated commercial and investment banking.

Those walls came down with passage of the Gramm-Leach- Bliley Act of 1999. A proposal to reconstruct them, made by U.S. Senators John McCain and Maria Cantwell on Dec. 16, would prevent deposit-taking banks from underwriting securities, engaging in proprietary trading, selling insurance or owning retail brokerages. The bill could also force the unwinding of deals consummated during the financial crisis, including Bank of America Corp.'s acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co.

Hat Tip: Susie Madrak via C&L

Air America supplied this stunning graph of just how bad unemployment got over a two year period. Note, this increase in unemployment started in Bush's term.

(Star-Tribune) Last month, officials attributed the dropping rate partly to a large number of people who gave up looking for work. The state labor force has seen a net reduction recently.

I do not think that people have given up looking for work. I believe that there is just no work to look for. Anyone pull out the employment ads in the papers lately? If they fill half a page, I will eat my hat. Okay, actually, no. I will not eat my hat.

Still, I like the way this article subtly makes it appear as if it is the fault of the ne'er-do-well peasants for giving up; because -- as we all know -- the hapless, powerless, captains of industry and business are completely innocent of any fault in causing the collapse of our economy.

I suspect a more factual statement would be along the lines of people having exhausted their unemployment benefits because of the difficulty in finding work.

(NYT) With the release of the jobs report on Friday, the broadest measure of unemployment and underemployment tracked by the Labor Department has reached its highest level in decades. If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression.

And they start out by calling what we are experiencing the Great Recession. Since it was over a year ago that we really were in this recession, and things have not improved, more than likely we are already in a depression. Just because we are not seeing conditions as bleak as experienced during the Great Depression does not mean we are not in one now. It is just not "great." Anyway:

In all, more than one out of every six workers -- 17.5 percent -- were unemployed or underemployed in October. The previous recorded high was 17.1 percent, in December 1982.

This includes the officially unemployed, who have looked for work in the last four weeks. It also includes discouraged workers, who have looked in the past year, as well as millions of part-time workers who want to be working full time.

By the way, I am of the underemployed, while The GirlFriend™ is of the discouraged block.

Oh, and with the passing of the unemployment insurance extension, will those who resume receiving benefits move back into the official unemployed statistic? Or will they remain in the "discouraged" data set?

And, in a totally unrelated note: it is The GirlFriend™'s birthday.

Happy Birthday Love!

The Bush Legacy exports to England.

"We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all," Brian Griffiths, who was a special adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, said yesterday at a panel discussion at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. The panel's discussion topic was, "What is the place of morality in the marketplace?"

Honest to FSM! We have to tolerate inequality? At what point do we get to stand up and call these people idiots? No on is suggesting that everyone have the exact same pay. However, I also know that the current system is unbalanced, giving the rich the upper hand to the detriment to the financial system as a whole.

After filing for bankruptcy, I made a conscious decision not to apply for any new credit cards. Damn, am I glad now.

Paul Krugman, economic superguru, claims Big Government saved us from a depression. Since he knows much more about economics than me, on a quantum scale, I will not argue the point about Big Government's play in today's economic situation. Still, I think 'saved' might be a word used a bit too early. Not to mention that a lingering, protracted recession is not exactly a wonderful, Utopian existence for most of us little people. To me, recession simply implies less people today are suffering the fate of what many experienced during the Great Depression. In the end, today these people are still suffering.

Make no mistake, this $1 Trillion budget deficit is all because of one man; George W. Bush. He was given a surplus and ended up passing on a deficit. Thank you very much Fucknut.

Well, here it is, my first official day of unemployment. I never worked on Fridays, having worked 10 hour days and getting a three day weekend. So, that makes today the first day of unemployment. Drinks on the house...... oh, wait. This is a blog, not a bar. My bad.

While it appears the Legacy Media continues to beat the drum about signs of recovery (because the corporate masters believe it will make the masses believe and the economy will magically improve) I am listening to the bloggers and economists (in two cases, both) who called the housing bubble and the financial meltdown. You see, I tend to listen to people who actually have a track record of being right.

Interesting that in most cases, they turn out not to be Republicans...........

Due to Gov TPaw's bodacious, and possibly illegal, unallotment move, not to mention his unyielding stance to "No New Taxes," my employment has now become even more tenuous. Today's emergency staff meeting shall clear all the smoke and cries of fire. Or verify them. So, later today I will have news as to the fate of my income.

Bastard Republicans. May you all burn in the hell you believe in.

But Pink Sheeting?

What has become more and more frustrating over the years is the sudden appearance of terms that describe what previously (at least in my memory) was an illegal action. The latest term to come to my attention: off-the-book assets. Now, granted, I've never taken an accounting or economics class in my life. In fact, to take this moment of self-disclosure farther, I've learned all I know about accounting and economics from TV and movies. So, with that said, it seems off-the-book assets is just another way of describing two sets of books.

Now, maybe I am wrong, but I always thought having two sets of books was an indication of either hiding ill-gotten gain, or avoiding taxes, or both. Yet, it's sudden appearance here suggests a perfectly legitimate practice. At least, the manner of it's presentation in the story implies a perfectly acceptable, legal accounting practice.

If so, can I do the same with my past mortgage bills? I mean, had I been able to apply a little off-the-books asset, perhaps I could have avoided foreclosure completely. Spacious reasoning? Yeah, probably. But it seems to be the technique de jour of late.

I guess, when it comes right down to it, with off-the-books assets, I smell bovine excrement. Or possibly equine excrement. No, wait. suidae excrement.

Hummmmmmm. I have to think on this a bit. Which of the three best describes the stench that is emanating from Wall Street?

In the end, this article in The Atlantic details a global collapse of the economy that may well dwarf anything ever experienced in the modern era. Damn near each and every paragraph was worthy of quoting. So, instead of trying to select any one, I am just suggesting you go read the whole thing. Yes, it's four pages long, it's about the economy, and it's written by an economic wonk, but I found it engaging, informative, and - quite surprising- easy to understand.

Because I believe this is an important story, I am going to hat tip a blogging elite: TPM. Seriously, don't expect the likes of this anytime soon. Or ever.

To be fair, the folder is pretty.

Update: Just when I thought I'd only get one laugh for the day, I found myself chuckling over these balloons.

Update II: And now another hearty laugh.

Too big to exist.

Bottom line; AIG is a cancer that has successfully metastasized.

Amid the flap over bonuses at American International Group Inc. two of the company's top managers in Paris have resigned. Their moves have left the giant insurer and officials scrambling to replace them to avoid an unlikely but expensive situation in which billions in AIG trading contracts could default.

Representatives of the Federal Reserve, AIG's lead U.S. overseer, are talking with French regulators and AIG officials to deal with the consequences of a complicated legal scenario in which the departures of the managers in Banque AIG, a subsidiary of AIG's Financial Products unit, could trigger defaults in $234 billion of derivative transactions, according to people familiar with the situation and a document AIG provided to the U.S. Treasury.

Whether we'd like it to or not, I suspect in the end AIG will fall, and with it the global economy. What's worse, the executives set it up purposely to cause this kind of chaos. Well, actually, even worse yet; the governments of the world stood by and let it happen.

Welcome to globalization.

Helter Skelter.

Although, honestly, I'm not making a post about racial strife. Instead, it's about the topsy turvy run of the markets. Like many bloggers, I'm no expert on the economy. However, considering the last several years, I am hesitant to support an economic plan that meets investor approval.

The New York Times

Wall Street may have panned the broad outlines of the Obama administration's plan to fix the financial system when the proposal was sketched out six weeks ago, but on Monday, investors seemed like they were warming up to its finer points.

Stock markets in New York were heading for a higher opening, and most markets in Europe were higher as the Treasury Department began to release details of a public-private partnership to purchase troubled assets from banks. Shares in Asia also closed higher.

The government hopes that the plan will loosen credit markets and restore normal lending conditions by allowing banks to deleverage billions of dollars in mortgage-related debt sitting on their balance sheets.

You know, I'm just not there. Sorry. Wall Street, and the investors that have the most impact on the stock market, are the same cretins that helped cause the current economic mess we are in at the moment. So, yeah, I think I'll pass on this idea.

See, the biggest problems are the homes valued well below the mortgages the banks hold. And with foreclosure running rampant, I can pretty much speculate dead on that many of those empty houses are deteriorating, making there value even lower. It is, as Atrios has penned, a shit pile.

But then, remember, I am no expert. All those fancy terms, and high-falut'n derivative constructs, are above my pay grade.

This is a picture of a man who feels overwhelmed.

ASZ was on the scene at the horrendous demonstration outside the AIG HQ building.

With the news of the AIG bonuses going to the screw ups who put the economy in it's current mess (or at least own a majority of the cause) there has been a lot of talk of pitchforks, nooses, and all around lynchings. It really is starting to get ugly.

The thing is, all this anger, rage, and desire for revenge is directed towards white men. The faces of the people responsible for today's economic catastrophe are Jim Cramer, Rick Santelli, and Bernard Madoff.

So much for scary black folk. Turns out the real villains are neither brown skinned, nor poor. But then, neither were the French royalty back during the French Revolution. They were as white and rich as they come. Didn't keep them from losing their heads.

When the rich absorb most of the profits in society, and arrange for most of the benefits of society to be just for themselves, they eventually find themselves facing a very angry majority. It's happening now.

There really is a lot of rage out there. And it's seems to be reaching a catharsis. And not a healthy one, at that. When even Matt Yglesias (future conservative) starts noting this trend, it means there is something wrong.

So, here's a link to the post, though it's just below this post.

Now, here's the graph.

Any attempts at propping up the economy are misguided. Like a person suffering a seizure, the idea is to guide them down safely to the ground so they don't injure themselves. Obama would be wise in guiding the collapse of the banking and mortgage industries. Trying to keep them standing is worthless; AIG being the prime example.

The free market led itself to this situation, so allow it to fall to it's logical conclusion. Just don't let it hit so damn hard it causes even more severe damage.

Okay, I'm almost done with the seizure metaphor.

There was a reason for the FDIC's creation. Already it has caught collapsing banks and minimized the damage that could have otherwise occurred. Yes, some of the mega banks are quite large, and it will be difficult, maybe near impossible, to guide them down. But it will take much more effort to hold them up. Effort as in throwing good money after bad. If they are insolvent, than they are insolvent. No magical wand exists to reverse this fact. Again, AIG as the insurer of all that is insolvent proves this point.

There, now I'm done with the seizure metaphor. However, I'm not done with my point.

So, let the FDIC take over as designed, so it can clean out the toxic debt and toxic management, and then return the bank to the public. It's nothing more than pruning off the dead growth.

Timothy Geithner is unwilling to see the truth in this matter. He's doing nothing more than attempting to maintain the status quo. Possibly because many of his former colleagues are the toxic management that needs to be pruned.

Update: See, now the Washington Post has an article that does a much better job of explaining what I am thinking, as well as explaining the problem. But then, that's why they get the big bucks.....

However, I still stand by my statement that a collapse is inevitable, and that it would be best to simply guide it down safely.