I’ve been wanting to post this July 2009 article, and provide more commentary. I do usually link to several related pieces that relate in my posts in general. But in light of the Obama and media mistruths being spread about the status of the economy, and using stock numbers and fuzzy interpretation of indicators, I’m posting this now for you to peruse in it’s entirety. It paints a less than pretty picture compared to the rosy views being fed to the American citizen by the O’admin and his puppet media. But surviving economic realities requires removing the rose colored glasses, and preparing ourselves for the best ways to weather thru economic corrections.
Eric Sprott is the Canadian business guru who predicted the banking collapse last year, and is #4 in Canada’s top successful investors. He’s one of the few who’s “…net worth went up over the past five months, thanks to the 30% increase of the value of his controlling stake in mutual fund firm Sprott Inc., parent of Sprott Asset Management.” You’ll find more of his insight with other articles here.
In our view, the only thing propping this market up is investor sentiment. Earnings have not improved. Keep it simple, stupid – investing is and has always been about the real economy, and this market is ignoring the hard data. You can invest in sentiment if you want to, but as we have said before, we prefer to invest in real things.
—–Eric Sprott, July 2009—–
So without further adieu, I present to you a more informed perspective, complete with charts, graphs and some real data “tough love” on what’s coming our way. Below is the embed TOCdoc format. However if you prefer, here’s a PDF version to download, save… or just for easier viewing.
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.
Nice thing about economic forecasts (as opposed to global warming forecasts) is that we’ll actually get to see what happens, in a reasonable time frame.
LW/HB
My guess is 3-5 years, Larry. Three being when it becomes obvious to the most blind, and five when we’re in the thick of it. But it’s just a guess.
Some can be avoided if we reverse ARRA, and pull back the 94% of funds that haven’t been spent, relieving some pressure on the national debt. Of course, I can’t see that happening.
I guess the minority party will always be Cheerleaders of Doom. It’s interesting to watch them morph into evertything they used to complain about.
Fit, what in tarnation are you speaking of? “cheeleader of doom”? There’s nothing “cheerful” in my post, and Sprott is a Canadian of considerable reputation. I’m sure he’ll be crushed to learn you think of him as a “cheerleader of doom” instead of an accurate analyst of economic events.
The path was set for hard times as an economic “reset”, to use the Big Zero’s words. He talks big about “skin in the game” and everyone (except his family) having to tighten the belt. But the reality of what we face, and the repercussions of Congressional spending, needs to be out there. This rosy BS they are spreading about makes Americans think it’s returning to the status quo.
We’ve just begun on the actual hard times… not coming out of it. And it will be much easier to weather if we just face the facts, and accommodate.
But your comments? Truly beneath some of your lowest of the low comments. You wear blinders. And I hope, for your family’s sake, you get them removed soon.
Sprott espouses several “facts” I doubt you’d be willing to accommodate Mata…
Such as, Fit?
Still waiting, Fit….. What “facts” does he put forth, and that I would not “accommodate” that magically changes his analysis that we are at the beginning of a depression?
waiting… waiting…. waiting….. tapping toe
Useful links to a wide range of economic forecasters, and their forecasts:
http://web.rollins.edu/~wseyfried/forecast.htm
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
Interesting links to go thru, Larry. Many just a snapshot of current and not indepth forecast. And little that supports a rebounding economy.
Latest 2nd quarter report from Phillies FRB lends yet more credibility to Sprott.
Just a generic comment about economic forecasters (not meant to be argumentative):
Past performance doesn’t really say squat about future performance. With any large group of forecasters, forecasting something as squishy as macroeconomics, some will be right and some will be wrong. Same thing with political pollsters. Zogby was the King in 2004 and the Goat in 2008. Warren Buffet could do no wrong, until he blew nearly half of his portfolio. Greenspan was a genius, until he was a fool.
One thing I noted about Sprott is that he’s been heavily into precious metals for quite some time. I think he may not be a neutral, honest broker, as combined pundit/investors can influence their markets with their punditry.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Great post Mata. Based on fundamentals, I’m convinced the best we can hope for is stagflation, for a looooong time. I also agree that IF THE GOAL WAS/IS TO GET OUT (which I personally don’t think is the case since I believe Obama and friends intended to crash the economy to fit their agenda); we could still possibly do so at this point.
After and if Cap and Trade and or healthcare (as is), passes, no chance in hell. The fact that nothing was done to promote small business is a dead giveaway that another agenda is at hand. The other big elephant is the Federal Reserve. Granted, that started long before Obama, (1913 to be exact) but to not understand that they created every bubble ever created with “credit expansion” is simply not to want to see it.
Why can’t we get rid of the Federal Reserve? It is nothing but a cover for grand theft and illusion! Did anyone really believe we got to 1 percent interest rates by our own wealth? All they do is print money to “create” the interest rate du jour.
I also agree with you on the time frame. Three to Five years sounds about right, and if Obama doesn’t get a second term, what will it matter; all will be in place.
Sorry to say this, but more than likely, I’ll see ya in the bread line.
@Mata: This doesn’t exactly seem compatible with Sprott’s forecast of a “depression.” What your quoted economists are saying is that, by the time of the 2010 mid-term elections, the economy will pretty much be expanding at traditional, historical, non-recession (and certainly non-depression) rates.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@mata: On the health care issue, you asked me about MDs who make all their money taking care of Medicare patients.
Here’s a table of physician compensation, which pretty much supports my position: doctors don’t lose money taking care of Medicare patients; it’s just that they don’t make as much money as they wish:
http://www.cejkasearch.com/compensation/amga_physician_compensation_survey.htm
Look at the geriatricians. These are the docs who take care of old people — by definition, their practice is pretty much limited to Medicare patients. They don’t make as much money as many other types of doctors, but they are hardly working for Walmart wages.
The problem is that health care expenses are currently 16% of GDP and climbing on a trajectory to exceed 30%. At some point, medical costs (including physician compensation) are going to have to start moderating — otherwise, we’ll all be broke.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Larry, I checked your links on blanket compension. First, my question is, no where does it identify these these compensation figures (which, if I compare the after national income for family income doctor, comes no where close to covering their costs of doing business) are related to MEDICARE CLIENTELE ONLY figures.
Please clarify where you believe these are Medicare *only* statistics before I comment further.
Larry, let’s make this simple and I’ll ask you a direct question, relevant to a specific area (Orange County, CA)
You mention geriatric, (which I *know* takes care of “old people”, thank you…). You say “by their definition”, they are limited to Medicare patients. However primary doctors are also a required element in the mix. ANd “geriatrics” is, by definition, a “specialist” who makes more than a family practicitioner.
So let me ask this. Do you know *any* physician that is either a primary care or specialist that confines his practice to ONLY Medicare patients? This all has to do with cost shifting, in case you haven’t figured that out.
I don’t understand the reports anymore, there must be some manipulation of data because the unemployment level is beyond 10% in Florida and at least 20% in Michigan. The market was down today due to the higher than expected unemployment. The Dollar is at 1,44 against the Euro. Mostly, Americans are just very tired that things aren’t getting better.
In Europe, there is no economic crisis like in the United States. Bars and Restaurants are packed, and the prices are very much the same as last year. Plus, a large number of people in Great Britain have decided to go sailing in the Mediterranean! I couldn’t even hire a sailboat for my family until September. Why is Europe doing so much better than America?.
Could Merkel and Sarkozy have more brains than the Harvard graduates…
Larry, since you seem to know so much about the subject, what do you think?.
Thanks for putting it up. I added it to my blog also.
Very sobering in my mind
@ Uri:
Recession is “uneven” — both globally and nationally:
http://www.recessionwire.com/2009/06/18/brookings-study-recession-recovery-in-different-cities-economy/
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach
Larry, that single statement doesn’t change the fact that the report Mata linked says the economy got weaker which is also what Eric Sprott is saying to support his belief that we might be heading into another depression. Go on and continue reading the article, it actually proceeds after the statement you pasted on to your comment that the job market isn’t going to start getting better until after 2010. Just look at the paragraph right below the statement you copied and pasted.
It says that; “Unemployment is expected to average 9.1 percent this year and rise to 9.6 percent in 2010. In answer to special questions, the forecasters predict that annual-average unemployment will fall to 8.7 percent in 2011 and 7.7 percent in 2012.” I am not trying to be a pessimist, however this doesn’t look good. The forecasters report seems to be correct about unemployment trends from now until 2010, because many economic reports are saying that unemployment will just continue to raise. But what if it doesn’t make a turn around after 2010 like the forecasters predict?
In about a year, I will have a Bachelors of Science degree in Kinesiology, and I hope that I can go to grad school to pursue a higher degree. However, these numbers make it hard to hold on to this ambition because University boards of trustees continue to raise the cost of tuition and since jobs will continue to become more and more scarce I wont be able to afford grad school.
I think Mata linked the forecasters report simply because there are many things on it that in fact support Eric Sprotts own predictions, not because every single piece of information in the forecasters report supports Sprott. Every report deviates from other reports in there own way. The forecasters report is no exception.
Some earlier reports predicted that the economy would get worse, and that by now the economy would be in the process of making a rebound. That has not happened, it got worse and it continues to get worse. What if over the next four quarters the economy doesn’t grow as stated in that one lone statement in the forecasters report? Then that tiny bit of information that you copied and pasted would be wrong and everything else in the forecasters report as well as Sprotts that says the economy is showing bad signs of getting weaker will be correct.
Like I had said earlier, I am not trying to be pessimistic. I hope that the economy is going to get better soon. I hope it does for the entire globe as well, and that this global economic crisis could come to an end so that way we could go pick up the pieces. But it doesn’t look that way to me and I know I am not alone.
Thanks for the thoughtful remarks, Ryan.
No one thinks the economy is home free, but Mata, who usually eshews sensationalism, ran a headline which stated that the economy is headed into a depression. Even the most pessimistic forecasters have not gone that far.
Unemployment is what is called a “lagging” indicator. We were already into a recession before the unemployment rates started to climb and we’ll be well out of the recession before the unemployment rates start to dip.
Recession is defined by a contraction in the GDP. Depression is a severe contraction. In the very article Mata posted to defend her “depression” headline, however, the economic consensus was for an annualized growth rate of 2.9% by second quarter of 2010. This is right in line with a growth rate for non-recessionary years.
Unemployment will be the last thing to recover, as it always is in recessions.
This particular recession was neither monumentally deep nor monumentally long lasting. Back in September, 2008, it was looking a whole lot worse.
If there is a 2.9% annualized growth by quarter 2 of 2010, then the worst fears of the Dems will not be realized, mid-term election wise, and the highest hopes of the GOP will also not be realized.
It should be noted that Quarter 1 of Fiscal Year 2010 begins October 1, 2009 and Quarter 2 ends March 31, 2010. This is 9 months before the mid-term election. If Mata’s consensus forecast is correct, the Dems will actually be able to brag about their economic stewardship and the GOP could well suffer yet more losses.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Best post of LW is #1 – we’ll all find out soon enough. As for me this is a great time for a huge sell off of the great manipulated market. Worse thing that could happen would be to miss a tiny boost. Wait till O is out of office and rebalance.
Larry, I “eschew sensationalism”??? I’m am probably the most conservative “sensationalist” headliner FA author. And I shall point out I am merely using Sprott’s words, as his first sentence says:
So you may knock off the “leading/lagging indicators” crap, which I understand perfectly. I might add that the author of the piece, about whom this post is centered, *also* understands leading/lagging indicators. Oddly enough, that doesn’t affect his opinion about us being at the beginning of a recession, all “indicators” taken into consideration.
I’d say my headline is quite realistic, and captures Obama’s media storm that the economic picture is getting better (ala the “good” news), and Sprott’s perspection that the hard facts belie the reality (bad news). I’m not much of a National Enquirer/yellow journalist type. But thanks for clarifying your opinion of my dissertations. I’ll keep that in mind as I see you respond to Mike’s posts, and not mine, in the future.
But of course. I have no argument there. Projections are always the best you can come up with based on historical performance. Yet you don’t mind those “future performance” media bits and O’speeches when it’s rosy, and instead accept and quote them as gospel. A little consistancy would be appreciated.
And on that note, and preparing you for my next post (if I can get this out tonight inbetween attempts to make a living)…. you diss “projections” and “squat about future performance” while you still tout the popularity of Medicare. And in this, you still ignore the fact the the opt outs are increasing, and that the Medicare cuts and access has been deteriorating steadily.
Let me prep you for my next post with the next statement to ponder.. .which relates to your “squat about performance” comment:
In fact, the Medicare of your father is not even the Medicare of today.
But thank you for the link to the happy doctors, willing to “not make as much” money as Medicare only providers. I shall read, absorb, and add to my post fodder.
Tell you what… I’ll keep a whole wheat sourdough on ice if you bring a marble rye… LOL
Having reviewed the salary survey info that Larry had to offer, I have some questions.
It appears that the figures that are provided are gross salary figures. Is that correct?
If so, then I can understand why docs who care primarily for older people are dissatisfied with their income levels.
While on the surface an average income of $179K may seem to be high, that all depends on where the doc lives and practices. From those figures one would, presumably, need to subtract all of the expenses arising from doing business such as malpractice insurance for example.
No, doctors specializing in geriatrics don’t make enough money if they are relying strictly on Medicare for their income.
As a side note, here is a very brief blog post from over at Maggie’s Farm from a few days ago. This lady says that she quit working with Medicare patients due to the regulations and red tape involved in it.
(Be sure to click on the link at the bottom so that you can read through the government manual for filing.)
One final note. Here’s a chart I ran across a couple of days ago.
It paints a bleak picture regarding the Medicare system.
Larry, I agree with you that recession is uneven. Now, could you show me which State/region (in this country)has had a positive economic growth and a decline in unemployment since the new administration got into power?. A recession may show certain areas of poor economic activity and growth but a depression is an overall lack of growth, specially when there is no income and innovation. (I don’t take Housing as an indicator because prices have dropped by 35% and even 50%).
I love that “recession uneven” bit. But of course, duh wuh. I might also add that a fly over country farm family with a garden for food has less problems with a recession that the urban dweller, depending upon Starbucks, restaurants and grocery stores to subsist.
Don’t even go there, Larry. I, personally, ignore that remark as obvious as “the sky is blue”.
MataHarley: Would you quit picking on fit fit. You went and scared him off again. Besides, it really isn’t a fair fight 😉
@PDill: I saw some person on youtube espousing a similar view as yours. He was saying that in order to push more people toward socialism that he thinks that Obama and the democrats are doing all they can to keep the economy as it is or to destroy it completely.
Mata, “eschew sensationalism” means that you (generally, though not in the current thread) avoid sensationalism.
I was paying you a compliment.
@aye: compensation figures for doctors were “profit”, after malpractice insurance and other expenses.
Also, Aye, your graph of Medicare deficit is not just misleading, it’s incredibly misleading.
The TOTAL cost of Medicare is much less than the total cost of purely “private” healthcare. Add up taxes and insurance premiums and out of pocket payments — it’s much less for Medicare.
Yes, Medicare costs are way more than what were projected. But this isn’t because of “bureaucratic inefficiency” or anything like that. It’s simply because health care costs (including the doctor’s compensation levels shown in my link) have risen much more than other sectors of the economy.
Thank goodness for Medicare. In the absence of Medicare, how do you propose that senior citizens would receive health care? If they could somehow afford to purchase private health insurance, the total costs to the economy would be much more, because it has been proven that private health care is much more expensive than Medicare and the consumer satisfaction with private health care is less than it is with Medicare.
So tell me, Aye, if you take away public health care (Medicare), how are elderly people supposed to get health care? Maybe increase 401Ks? And then there’s another stock market crash and, in addition to no retirement, there’s also no health care?
Or maybe we just take our parents out into the woods and leave them as food for predatory animals, the way the innuit used to do it?
What’s your alternative for senior health care?
What’s your alternative for keeping health care from bankrupting the economy? And don’t go tossing around “tort reform.” That’s a very, very small part of the problem.
@mata: I can’t answer your “simple” question. I don’t have certain knowledge of that. But I can tell you that Medicare patients probably make more than 50% of medical practices in fields such as oncology and cardiology and close to 100% in geriatrics. Once again, doctors do NOT have to participate in Medicare, if they don’t want to. Doctors DO make money on Medicare; they make a lot of money, in fact; they just don’t make as much as they want to make, and they don’t make as much as they did in the past.
Anecdotally, Medicare doesn’t work for some doctors and doesn’t work well enough for others. In New York City, Medicare doesn’t pay primary care doctors enough, and many have dropped out. If too many drop out, then Medicare will have to increase reimbursement rates. In point of fact, there’s a looming shortage of primary care physicians nationally. This will call for creative solutions; the most promising being turning over an increasing share of primary care medicine to nurse practitioners. Note that this will take place, however, in both public and purely private sectors.
One of the chief reasons for the looming doctor shortage was because of a fear of organized medicine in the 1970s that there would be a “doctor glut.” Nationally, medical schools cut back greatly on admissions/enrollments. For example, in my (1975) class at the University of Michigan, there were about 225 medical students in each class. Today, it is down to 170 students per class. So there has been an intentional effort to keep competition in medicine to levels which are favorable to doctors. This is yet another reason why the rules of capitalism do not apply to the economics of medicine.
Here’s some objective data:
http://www.mgma.com/about/default.aspx?id=278
Note, once again, that participation in Medicare is entirely voluntary. And Medicare is most certainly profitable for the vast majority of providers who voluntarily participate. There are also a great many doctors who decline to participate in many private health care plans, e.g. California Blue Cross. Overall, the choice of both physicians and hospitals is better in the case of Medicare than it is in the case of almost all private health plans, which require much more in the way of pre-authorization hassles and which typically restrict health care choices more than Medicare does.
Can you do me a favor, Mata? Send me an email (or make a public post), listing all the questions and arguments which you would wish me to address, and I’ll try and go through the list and address each and every issue. Or else direct me to a post you’ve already made, which lists what you consider to be the most important points.
P.S. I posted the following on another thread, but I’ll take this opportunity for shameless self-promotion:
I’ll be doing a one hour talk radio show this Sunday, beginning at 8
AM Pacific (11 AM Eastern) on WCBM (AM) in Baltimore. Typical talk
radio, with listener call ins. There will be a live stream (see link
below). Post-show, it will be available via podcast.
http://www.wcbm.com/
I’ll be talking about cancer in general and our lab tests in
particular. I’m fairly outspoken about “cancer in general,” and it
should generate a little bit of heat, which is the mother’s milk of
talk radio.
If you wish, call in and ask me a tough question or offer your own insightful commentary.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@ MataHarley,
“We’ve just begun on the actual hard times… not coming out of it. And it will be much easier to weather if we just face the facts, and accommodate.”
That is simply and accurately put. Regardless what political leanings anyone has, ignoring this reality is either an ideological blindness, or is a lack of knowledge. It’s not hard to get educated these days. Information is broadly available (other than from the MSM).
When the MSM present positive news (impact on economy, impact on car makers, etc.) around the “clunker-buy-back” idiocy, you know you cannot trust anything it presents. Taxpayers buying old wrecks for borrowed $4,500 for example, puts additional burden on the taxpayers, and simply take from future sales of cars that would have happened anyway.
… The examples of current policy idiocy are ample, and unfortunately, they are not ending.
Thank you for highlighting that phrase, James Raider. A phrase that evidently Fit Fit felt inclined to pass over as unimportant, and play the political game instead.
Sorry Mata, my busy time of the year.
LINK
I’ll find some of Sprott’s Peak Oil stuff for you tomorrow…
What does Sprott’s opinion (or that of his asset management firm) in 2006 on global warming (or peak oil, which I’ve already seen so don’t bother your busy self….) as it relates to investments have anything whatsoever to do with his analysis of the economic trends, Fit? The topic is analyzing the hard data of the economy…. not global warming and not peak oil. Try to stay on topic, if you please.
But INRE the point you see to be attempting to make, are you somehow under the assumption that I believe if someone is right on economic trends, they *must* be right on everything?
Sprott is all about making investments work, and that involves taking political conditions into consideration. ala when his market honchos were anticipating a boost in nuke energy and uranium back in 2006. Might have been true if we didn’t have a wacky Congress, bent on prohibiting cheap, clean energy.
Whether Sprott believes man is responsible for global warming is of no concern to me. The AGW proponents feed him data, then he makes his investment assessment based on that data for his business decisions. He is not a climatologist, nor a scientist. He is in no scholarly position to question what he considers those superior in a different field, and an international community that is determined to accept it as true. As a business man and economist, he floats with the dead fish on the tide, and adapts his money making expertise to the political times.
Fit, to get a handle on the man and his key to financial investments success, read this personal little ditty on him from The Globe and Mail last year. As they say, he’s a man who banks on the extremes, because that’s where things happen.
As he says about peak oil:
As I said… he’s a realist. And part of that real picture means absorbing the world’s political attitudes and trends… true, or not.
uhh, Aye.
Did you notice the legend on the X axis of the graph just above?
The last data point was for 1/31/2009.
Who presided over the rise in the debt from 1/31/2008 to 1/31/2009?
Your tax cut chickens coming home to roost.
The same tax cut dollars which contributed mightily to the capital glut which led to the speculation in sub-prime, mortgaged back securities and credit default swaps.
Thanks for illustrating so clearly just who is most responsible for the collapse of the Treasury Debt market.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
Ummmm… that would be your Dim Congress and then the Dim president that you voted for.
Thanks for asking.
Huh?
The GOP controlled congress 2001-2007. Dims controlled congress 2007-2009. Bush was President 2001-2009. Obama was President for precisely 10 days during this time. Jan 21 to Jan 31.
Why did the debt go up? Same reason it went up so dramatically with Reagan. Tax cuts financed with money stolen from future generations. Coupled with a financial collapse triggered by a capital glut created by those tax cuts in concert with low interest rates maintained to promote growth to generate capital to pay for said tax cuts.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Gosh Larry do I need to draw you a picture?
Your question:
(Emphasis added to remove your confusion.)
Then you said:
Sorry, different time frame than the one you originally asked about, thus my answer was completely accurate.
Then you said this:
Obama was President for precisely 10 days during this time. Jan 21 to Jan 31.
No, actually Obie took office on Jan. 20.
There you go again with the “tax cuts” routine….blah, blah, blah… while blatantly ignoring the truly fiscally irresponsible spending conducted by the Dim controlled Congress.
Do you truly not remember that inconvenient 800lb gorilla in the room or are you engaging in deliberate obfuscation?
Exit questions:
When were the tax cuts that you rail against (while still accepting) passed?
What happened to tax rates for the “rich” under George W. Bush?
@Aye: Angels/Head/Pin
– larry
P.S. You provide the answers to your own “exit questions” and then I’ll respond.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim: Windmills/Tilting
Like any good attorney, I knew the answers before posing the questions.
The question is, do you?
Aye, let’s do the following, O.K.?
You’ve introduced a very interesting topic for discussion. What caused the impending collapse of the market for US Treasury Debt?
If you are willing, we can discuss/debate this seriously. I’ll be glad to do that (although I’ve now got to go to work; so it will have to wait, for me, until tonight).
If this turns into some sort of personal pissing contest, festooned by personal vituperation, I won’t continue. But if you keep it on the level of an academic discussion, then I’ll be happy to take it to its conclusion, and I’m sure that we’ll both learn something worthwhile.
– Larry W/HB
The GOP had the House until January 07, but….
Due to Jeffords, Tom Daschle was Senate Majority leader from 6/6/01 to 1/3/03 and Harry Reid took over in the last year of the Bush presidency. Never had a veto proof majority during Senator Frist’s term either. Democrats had plenty of power to work their misery.
Oops, I meant filibuster proof majority in above post.
Mata,
When I refer to you as I Cheerleader of Doom, I’m only accusing you of being susceptible to human nature. Democrats did them same while Bush was in office. Searching for any scrap of evidence of the colossal failure of those in power is job #1 of those not in power. I only pointed out those details of Spott’s becuase I found him to be an odd coice for you.
On any given day you find the financial sites filled with articles predicting the coming collapse or indications of a boom in the markets. Most are filled with hard data and backed up with historical models supporting their claims. I’ve decided the only “fact” I believe is that economics is a social science should not be treated as applied science.
Fit, I am not “searching” for a “scrap of evidence of the colossal failure of those in power”. I have been against this expansion of government and debt from day one. I have been against the “remaking of America” into another Euro-socialist nation. I know, from history, this is not going to work. I also know, from history, that it will not be obvious to people like you until it is too late to correct. Once the feds have printed all the cash that isn’t borrowed, and Congress has doled out all those pork projects, you cannot “unspend” and undo the financial instability it will wreak.
I am not alone in seeing the folly of such expansion and spending, and that doesn’t make the forefront of the media often enough to stir debate. They merely promote harmonic voices – i.e. Congressional idiots with their talking points, and the O’faithful spreading economic misinformation. What you see on any given day are “cheerleaders of lies”…. such as parroting Romer’s assertation that Obama’s stimulus is “working” when only 6-7% of it has even hit the economy. Lies. This economy would have turned around without that bloated pork bill, the effects of which will be hitting us a couple of years down line.
However if you are to label me a “susceptible cheerleader of doom”, it will be equally appropriate to label you a “prozac-laden Stepford cheerleader of lies”.
Opinions you disagree with are lies now? How about “Pyrite Prospectors” instead…
Lies are that the stimulus is “turning the economy around”. That’s not an opinion I disagree with, Fit. That’s a fact because of so little of the stimulus money being spent. And the jobs it has preserved have been mostly government jobs temporarily.
Lies are that this spending will not affect the value of the dollar down the road. With the feds busy printing cash, and the national debt being incurred that makes the Bush admin look like Ebenezer Scrooge, those financial “chickens will come home to roost”.
Lies are that the health care proposals will save money, and do not lead to single payer healthcare…. and that Medicare, Medicare Advantage, and Medicare B and D will not experience cuts and severe rationing.
Lies are that O’proposals will create “good paying jobs” when the analysis of cap and trade indicates that most jobs are temporary (for the construction of a new grid and solar/wind farms), and those that are left pay between $12 (high school education, $14.50 (college, but not necessarily BA, and $24.50 (BA and above and “high credentialed”) per hour. This via John Kerry’s beloved Peri Report. And in case your math is deficient, a “high credentialed” jobs pays $50,960 annually… well below Obama’s “wealthy” Americans number.
Lies are that the 1st Amendment is alive and well, and not under siege by the WH itself, giving marching orders to it’s minions to clamp down on dissent.
Lies are that Obama’s policies have stemmed foreclosures when, in fact, it has led to higher foreclosures and done nothing to address toxic assets.
Opinions, my dear. In my opinion, poorly reasoned ones.