So, how close are we to deflation or stagflation?
Daily Archives: February 6, 2009
Deep FOIA Thought
Sitting in my car at a level crossing waiting for 100 car coal train headed for the Indian River Power Plant to pass by, I heard that Pete Schwartzkopf is getting some secret messages from his constituents that he wants to keep secret.
I wonder if they have to do with why he likes NRG’s BFF John Atkins so much. Hmmm…?
Insanity
What Atrios, Digby and John Cole said….
I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax.
598,000 Jobs Lost in January
While unemployment jumps to 7.6 percent.
Recession-battered employers eliminated 598,000 jobs in January, the most since the end of 1974, and catapulted the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent. The grim figures were further proof that the nation’s job climate is deteriorating at an alarming clip with no end in sight.
The Labor Department’s report, released Friday, showed the terrible toll the drawn-out recession is having on workers and companies. It also puts even more pressure on President Barack Obama to revive the economy.
The latest net total of job losses was far worse than the 524,000 that economists expected. Job reductions in November and December also were deeper than previously reported.
With no place to go, the number of unemployed workers climbed to 11.6 million.
Vanishing jobs and evaporating wealth from tanking home values, 401(k)s and other investments have forced consumers to retrench, which has required companies to pull back. It’s a vicious cycle where the economy’s problems feed on each other, perpetuating a downward spiral.
But… Obama doesn’t wear a jacket in the Oval Office.
The time for games is well and truly over. Congress had better get its act together for there are no winners in these numbers.
Talking Point Smackdown — Honeybees!
One of the resident wingnuts brought up a portion of the recovery package that is supposed to support honeybees — of course, you consider the source and presume that you are dealing with more manufactured outrage over something silly. Little did I know. Yesterday evening, I found out exactly what she was talking about (column by Michael Hiltzik in the LA Times):
What in heaven’s name does Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have against honeybees?
That question haunted my days after I saw the Kentucky Republican on TV fulminating about a provision he found in the proposed government stimulus package. The provision, he said, would provide $150 million for “honeybee insurance.”
“This is nonsense,” he said, as if he took it personally. You had to think he got stung as a kid or maybe caught a local swarm in the act of recruiting aphids for Al Qaeda.
So I resolved to get to the bottom of this scandalous expenditure.
Hiltzik provides some more background here, so make sure you go read it all, but here is the good part:
Continue reading
Jacket-less Bush
First a lesson in Irony, and now a lesson in Hyprocrisy.
Andrew Card, you can stick your condescension and your smug racist advice for Obama where the sun don’t shine. You too Mike Protack.
Confidence
The classic refrain from Wall Street and the Republicans, in opposition to President Obama’s $500,000 cap on the salaries of those bank executives who have so failed in their jobs that they required billions of taxpayer money, is that 1) the market should determine the salaries; and 2) the best get paid the best.
Those two excuses are, of course, wrong. Banks were failing all last year, but the market did nothing to prevent those failed CEOs and executives from receiving hundreds of millions, if not billions, in bonuses that they did not earn. Indeed, some of the bonuses paid out had the feel of a literal robbery. And if these miserable failures in life did earn that money, if they were the best, then why are banks failing everywhere? Why did they need a federal bailout?
Logic is the enemy of Wall Street now, I suppose. It has always been the enemy of Republicans. But I digress.
His rotundness, Ric Struthers, the head of Bank of America’s credit card operation, was in Wilmington yesterday to talk about irony.
Yes, irony.
Day 9: Mike Castle’s Betrayal of Delaware
Congressman Mike Castle is part of the American Taliban, also known as the Republican Party.
