For 400 environmental activists, business leaders and government officials, the Climate Express was the place to be this weekend.
Passengers arrived to take a special train called the “Climate Express,” which brought special envoys to the world climate summit in Copenhagen, at a station in Brussels.
...
During the train’s odyssey of more than 13 hours, a magician did tricks, Indian dancers performed, and a discothèque beat with energy.
There's something that shoots clean past irony in the idea of a train full of eco-twits discoing their way across Europe all night long to beg heads of state to reduce carbon emissions when the best thing they could have done for their own cause would be to have stayed home and held their breath.
Meanwhile, SurvivalBlog managed to scare me out of my pyjamas yet again, this time with this link: High jobless rates could be the new normal.
Even with an economic revival, many U.S. jobs lost during the recession may be gone forever and a weak employment market could linger for years.
That could add up to a "new normal" of higher joblessness and lower standards of living for many Americans, some economists are suggesting.
MSNBC, the official propaganda arm of the White House, has been spouting Hopey Changey Everything's-Gonna-Be-Alright Green Shoots nonsense non-stop since Barry strode across the reflecting pool to claim his crown. When the Stuart Smalley of business news departments solemnly informs you that your brother-in-law may be crashing on your sofa for another five years, it's time to panic.
18 comments:
"The best thing they could have done for us all was stay home and held their breath for an hour or two" There, i fixded it for you.
"Jobless recovery" is a bit like "born again virgin". It only exists in the minds of the delusional.
Oh well, we can spend our way out of this...
'Jobless recovery' isn't totally contradictory. You can have small increases in GDP without net hiring by increasing productivity. This translates to working harder and lots of overtime for everyone who does have a job.
What we have here is a long overdue correction. All through the Clinton and Bush years, every time the economy has shown the slightest sign of slowing down for a breather, the Fed juiced it with a huge infusion of low interest debt. This led to a lot of unsustainable spending and overvalued assets (esp. real estate).
The good news is that consumers seemed to have learned something from all this. The US household savings rate went positive this year for the first time since pleistocene epoch.
The bad news is that the government didn't learn a thing. Given all the expensive promises we've made to the 48.5 million baby boomers, all of whom are about to leave the taxpaying workforce and expect the .gov to keep all those promises, we are projected to have crippling levels of public debt more or less forever. By 'crippling' I don't just mean "would make any respectable accountant soil his pants," which is where we're already at. By 'crippling' I literally mean "will become an almost insurmountable obstacle to anything and everything we try to do."
Getting adjusted to a lower standard of living is inevitable. We have been living high on debt. That never continues to work in the long run.
The only questions remaining: Do we get rapidly and realistically adjusted to a lower standard of living, soon enough to make some much-needed structural changes that might help limit the damage? Or do we try to go on pretending we can go back to Fantasyland, and keep on riding the Fantasyland Debt Express all the way to the bottom?
Given voters' delight in electing a utopian con man who sells an upscale brand of Hope at the cost of mountains more debt, I'd say it's the latter.
So. Teh Won gets a six-percent handicap to make his unemployment rate equal to GWB's? Is that how it works?
"'Jobless recovery' isn't totally contradictory. You can have small increases in GDP without net hiring by increasing productivity. This translates to working harder and lots of overtime for everyone who does have a job."
Sure, in theory. In reality you have the government spending more to boost GDP (viva la healthcare!). That ain't good.
"What we have here is a long overdue correction."
What we have here is the result of Keynesian economics, and it's just the beginning. The earthquake swarm rather than the Big One, if you will.
"...the Fed juiced it with a huge infusion of low interest debt. This led to a lot of unsustainable spending and overvalued assets (esp. real estate)."
What you're looking to say is that a bubble economy was created. Hence why the Copenhagen Climate Conference even though the sham's been revealed. They're desperate for a new bubble and The Green Economy is about all they've got left. Plus, "Green" functions as the new state religion.
"Getting adjusted to a lower standard of living is inevitable. We have been living high on debt. That never continues to work in the long run."
What's this "we" shit?
"The only questions remaining: Do we get rapidly and realistically adjusted to a lower standard of living, soon enough to make some much-needed structural changes that might help limit the damage?"
Nope. Government dole. Food stamps, continuously extended unemployment, and the government keeps trying to balance inflation with deflation. People will bitch, like always, but as long as they have cable and internet (notice some politicians want to make the internet a "right") they won't do jack. Holder's Cowards, after all. I guess "apathetic" works like "adjusted"...
OA,
"People will bitch, like always, but as long as they have cable and internet (notice some politicians want to make the internet a "right") they won't do jack. Holder's Cowards, after all. I guess "apathetic" works like "adjusted"..."
Seriously, nothin' personal, but I don't see you out in front of the Bastille with a scaling ladder, either.
Goobermint deficts oughta be subtracted from GDP, not added. GDP oughta be indexed for inflation, as well--but not with this present phony-baloney system of omitting things people actually buy.
More taxes = less investment capital = fewer jobs. So why is anybody puzzled about joblessness problems?
Recover to what? Consumeritis? I don't think so. Happy motoring? Likely not, what with ever-higher fuel costs.
Maybe the ammunition manufacturers can carry the load. :-)
Art
Ah, the bastille.
a fortress holding high class prisoners comfortably guarded by 5 old guys and mangy dog.
Storming it was the military equivalent of teenagers 'storming' a mall at Christmas.
It has indeed assumed a metaphorical status all out of proportion to its actual historical significance...
"Seriously, nothin' personal, but I don't see you out in front of the Bastille with a scaling ladder, either."
I'm more than happy to see people take their medicine, whether they want it our not. Most have earned it. Not sure what reason I've given you to assume otherwise.
If the government wants more jobs, they should reduce regulation. I've thought about starting a business a couple times, but frankly, there are just too goddamn many hoops to jump through. Fuck it.
Shoot, I've *got* a job and I've started forgoing meat in favor of the much cheaper rice and beans. Pisses me off no end; I feel like a third worlder.
I can't imagine what it's going to be like if this keeps up. I really can't.
Sounds like a good time to learn to hunt, Joanna.
Og, maybe?
I had planned to go deer hunting with my uncle this year, but the license fee went toward moving expenses (yes, I'm that broke). Besides, I don't have anywhere to store the meat myself.
Maybe if I let my cat out, she could snag a squirrel or two. Mmm, tree rats.
You can look forward to a barter economy when the dollar collapses in a year or two.
"Greenspan-Guidotti: Not just a silly RULE, but a LAW like gravity!
Think about THIS for a minute. Within the next 12 months the US Treasury will HAVE to refinance (roll-over) $2 trillion in short-term debt. That does not include any additional deficit spending, which is already at $1.5 trillion.
- HOW in the world can the US Treasury borrow $3.5 trillion in only a year? [That's about 30% of our total GDP.]
On the Greenspan-Guidotti Scale (from a 1999 academic paper they authored) the US is a guaranteed "default."
- Without hard currency reserves equal to 100% of short-term debt (per G.-G.) the US is likely to have a currency crisis within the next two years.
Only a Kool-aid infused monkey can fail to see the implications."
http://www.theospark.net/2009/12/not-just-silly-rule-but-lawfrom-rico.html
I'll just go ahead and retype my low-speed economic recovery plan. Not that there's anything special about it, and it's not really all that hard to figure out. This is the happy-medium, nice-nice plan, updated to include a few firings:
* Freeze all pay increases, benefits changes or hours adjustments throughout the entire federal government for at least five years;
* freeze all position creation and new hiring for at least five years;
* when someone retires from a position, eliminate it;
* freeze all tax increases, bracket adjustments or any changes to the tax code for at least five years;
* freeze all non-labor spending increases--if it costs more, do with less of it;
* repeal all "bail-out" legislation immediately, and abandon government ownership in private companies;
* eliminate any new positions that have been created since last year--especially any position that has been described with the word "czar";
* no bonding as a spending loophole.
This is the bare minimum that Congress and the Executive office should do, and doesn't even address the waste. If their economic recovery plan does not at least include the above items (where hardly anyone gets fired) then they're actively working to hurt the economy.
Economies aren't planned--they happen. Get the hell out of the way!
Also from Theo :
"Ten states (AZ, CA, RI, MI, OR, NV, FL, NJ, IL, WI) face bankruptcy. Their taxes are going to explode.
This is roughly one-third of the US population.
Still believe the 'recovery' propaganda you're being fed on a daily basis?"
http://www.theospark.net/2009/12/jigg-is-almost-up.html
Og, I was gonna say 'all night', but I guess an hour or so should do. After all, they don't have that many brain cells left to do away with.
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