Misery Economic Theater 2011

[xilman]

Originally Posted by fivemack

(and what better thing to do on Labor Day ...

So called because no labor is performed on that day.

In other news, the stock markets are on the slide again over Euro fears. The FTSE-100 is actually doing rather well at the moment (1403 UTC) being down only 3.0%, compared with the DAX and CAC 40 at 5.0% and 4.7% respectively.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/m...ew/default.stm for current figures.

Paul

[garo]

Another meltdown day in Europe with US markets closed. I wonder if the traders coming back from the Labor Day weekend would like to get in the way of this train.

A few interesting reads from the weekend:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/breakawaywealth

An big feature on how the top 0.1% has captured most of the gains in the past decade and the US is becoming more and more unequal. A lot of chartporn as well.

“Here’s one financial figure some big U.S. companies would rather keep secret: how much more their chief executive makes than the typical worker. Now a group backed by 81 major companies — including McDonald’s, Lowe’s, General Dynamics, American Airlines, IBM and General Mills — is lobbying against new rules that would force disclosure of that comparison.
The lobbying effort began more than a year ago. It involved some of the biggest names in corporate America and meetings with members of both parties on the House Financial Services Committee and Senate banking committee. The companies and their Republican allies in Congress call comparisons between the chief and everyone else in the company “useless.”
But some Democrats and investors say the information should be issued to highlight the growing income disparity in the United States. They add that opponents of disclosure merely want to hide the outrageous scale of executive pay packages.”

[garo]

The Limping Middle Class
ROBERT B. REICH

When so much income goes to the top, the middle class doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going without sinking ever more deeply into debt — which, as we’ve seen, ends badly. An economy so dependent on the spending of a few is also prone to great booms and busts. The rich splurge and speculate when their savings are doing well. But when the values of their assets tumble, they pull back. That can lead to wild gyrations. Sound familiar?
The economy won’t really bounce back until America’s surge toward inequality is reversed. Even if by some miracle President Obama gets support for a second big stimulus while Ben S. Bernanke’s Fed keeps interest rates near zero, neither will do the trick without a middle class capable of spending. Pump-priming works only when a well contains enough water.

Monster chartporn which is too big for the forum software:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/20...tml?ref=sunday

[imwithid]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

Re taxes and spin, the difference between a piece of half-raw castrated bull meat and a sizzling hot juicy rib-eye steak is just a matter of semantics.

When it comes to meat, there's more than meets the [rib] eye. In this case, when discussing taxes or regulation, it's the sizzle that is being sold (and chuck eye in place of rib eye).

It is easy to point out anecdotal evidence that reducing taxes or easing regulation leads to economic growth, however, one can see this as a form of inverted populism and hence becomes noise when debating a proper balance between taxes and spending (T and G) and the extent and stringency of regulation. In the above examples, the PR of some companies fits hand in glove with the populist shouting of some naive politicians and poisons the discourse that attract engaged citizens.

I don't doubt that reducing taxes and regulation leads to increased profitability but that is only in the short run (looking at it from a purely microeconomic viewpoint of a single firm). Taxes and regulation exist so that externalities be taken into account as part of sustained long run economic growth. When companies like KO, GE and others spin their financial data (if indeed true), it's worse than spitting in the face of the public. It's a money shot.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by imwithid

<snip>

.

In typical Republitard fashion Bachmann shows how Republicans maintain
power: Keep their constituents ignorant.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...iref=obnetwork


"Painting herself as a "constitutional conservative" Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told
Sen. Jim DeMint's forum Monday that if elected president she would look to get rid of
the Department of Education, among other things."


If one looks at the states where Republitards have control one sees a
pattern: They are the least educated states in the country.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

<snip>

.

What happened to our criminal statutes regarding fraud?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0...3_lnk1%7C92953

[rogue]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

"Painting herself as a "constitutional conservative" Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told
Sen. Jim DeMint's forum Monday that if elected president she would look to get rid of
the Department of Education, among other things."

If one looks at the states where Republitards have control one sees a
pattern: They are the least educated states in the country.

I think her point is that states should have more autonomy WRT education. The problem (as I see it), is that federal mandates can be a hindrance to good education. For example, did the No Child Left Behind Act improve the level of education or did it significantly impact the cost of education without improving it?

BTW, I'm not saying that is her point. Maybe her end goal is to eliminate public education.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by rogue

I think her point is that states should have more autonomy WRT education. The problem (as I see it), is that federal mandates can be a hindrance to good education. For example, did the No Child Left Behind Act improve the level of education or did it significantly impact the cost of education without improving it?

BTW, I'm not saying that is her point. Maybe her end goal is to eliminate public education.

In her case "state autonomy" means that states should be allowed to
put prayer and other religious instruction into their schools. As Perry
indicated, Texas is still teaching creationism despite the Supreme Court
ruling from Pennsylvania.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

In her case "state autonomy" means that states should be allowed to
put prayer and other religious instruction into their schools. As Perry
indicated, Texas is still teaching creationism despite the Supreme Court
ruling from Pennsylvania.

Add on:

She and the rest of the Republitards would be quite happy turning the
U.S. into a Christian version of Saudi Arabia: A Christian Theocracy in
which rights under the law were determined by religious views.

[ewmayer]

Meanwhile in Europe, Merkel`s governing coalition suffered another embarrassing loss last week in regional elections; markets are pricing in a hard default by Greece in the coming year; Italy has already abandoned most of its recent promises of austerity; and ECB crook-in-chief Trichet, after loading up on another gigantic wad in toxic PIIGS bonds over the past month, is once again warning the same PIIGS to "get their fiscal houses in order", or similar nonsense. Nonsense, because as long as Trichet keeps bailing `em out by gobbling up their crap sovereign debt issuance, PIIGS politicians have no incentive to risk riots in the streets by doing what Trichet asks.

(Aside: Belgium appears to need adding to the PIIGS, so the snarky-acronym squad at ZeroHedge has coined an updated one: BIG PIS, apparently in reference to the famous statue in Brussels...And while perusing the Wikipage on the Manneken Pis, I noted with interest that the common legend about the little Dutch boy plugging the leaking dike with his finger has a Belgian analog, with a "look ma - no hands!" twist.)

DAX Deep in Bear-Market Territory:

Germany`s DAX (which generally has been the strongest of the major European indices due to the strength of the export and manufacturing-led economic recovery Germany had in the past 2 years) is now down over 30% from its post-crisis highs, and has lost over half the rebound-rally increase it experienced since its early-2009 trough.


Currency Wars: SNB Invokes the Nuclear Option:

And after many failed (meaning: costly and producing only short-lived results) currency interventions over the past several years, the Swiss National Bank today pulled out the nuclear option and pegged (in effect committed to as much money-printing as needed to sustain the peg) the CHF to the Euro at a stated maximum ratio of 1.2 CHF/Euro. The result was a rather drastic move in the currency - the recent sharp upward stair-step moves illustrated in the same 5-day chart have been a result of markets fleeing the Euro to the (formerly) safe haven of the Swiss Franc. ZeroHedge`s Bruce Krasting has a nice review of the likely implications of the SNB`s unilateral move here. Note the following 5-day chart is the CHF priced in USD which does not show precisely where the SNB's peg is, but it captures the wild moves well enough:

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by garo

The Limping Middle Class
ROBERT B. REICH

Reich`s dubbing the 3 decades leading up to the present (beginning roughly with Reagan/Thatcher and trickle-down economics) as the "Great Regression" is very apt. Note that while I agree with Reich in associating the beginning of the dating scheme with Reagan, the failure to address the ever-growing wealth inequity since then has been thoroughly bipartisan. While in the U.S. the Republicans have been most shamelessly the Party of the Rich, the Dems are similarly TPOTR in deed and whence they obtain most of their campaign financing, merely less so in word. The Reps are bald-faced advocates of welfare for the rich, whereas the Dems are perhaps less cynical, but more clueless, insofar as they try to mitigate the effects of the ever-growing wealth disparity (which the policies of both major parties help to create and sustain) via increased social-welfare spending. But that requires ever-larger deficits to maintain because the broad middle-class wage base supporting the bulk of government revenues keeps shrinking, again due to the ever-larger gulf between have and have-not.

I view the ongoing financial crisis and hollowing-out of the U.S. productive economy as being very much "the ultimate triumph of Reaganomics".