Change recession to depression and I'll agree with you.

• They all voted against us - hang on a minute
  • On this issue, maybe....but they are diametrically.... - sam
    • Change recession to depression and I'll agree with you. - gourdpainter
    • media brainwashing - hang on a minute
      • Can you support this with some facts or is this your take on it? - sam
        • Read Ben Bernanke's Papers - hang on a minute
          • Can you provide a link to what you are saying? Thanks. nm - sam
            • Public Library - hang on a minute
              • Thanks. Will look into it. nm - sam
      • hang on a minute? WE'LL get paid less or lose jobs. - nm

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has anything to do with it?  Hey, that's what republicans want, big business to grow fast--no regulation--me, me, me...

How about all those families that are going to suffer from this.  Did they ask for it too?

homes, natural disasters unattended to, collapsing bridges, earmark bridges. Address those first, save flag for later.

It just won't entail anything you're requesting!  Now that all 3 tiers of DC will be run by the Dems, and let me clarify the far-left wing of that party (Obama #1 most lib, Ted Kennedy #2, Joe Biden #3, clearly documented if you don't believe me). 

The election is over, and I'm not here to start a fight over anything.  But what I'm saying can be proven in a year from now, 2 years, etc., so I'll make a point to keep this as a reference.  Those who voted for this tax-loving group (x3:  House, Senate, WH) apparently doesn't mind doing the "American" thing, per Joe Biden.  That's what he said about paying taxes.  So make a side-by-side comparison for each pay check you get so you can see how much more you'll be taxed once the Dems are running what may turn into a filibuster-proof Senate (the only reason they took Joe Lieberman back).  Of course, they have John McCain as well, the man who is more comfortable dissing the conservatives than he is trying to pretend he's one (other than nat'l security & pro-life, basically).

The Republicans got exactly what they deserved, too.  Conservatism didn't and will never die, but the GOP took conservatism out of its party the past several years, and this is why they were punished in a big way.  That's the only way the GOP can rebuild itself from the gound up.

When I saw the less than 10-minute "movie" called HowObamaGotElected, it was more shocking than I had even realized.  Every voter should see this, then give whatever news station(s) you prefer should get a huge reprimand from all the voters who were spoon-fed all this stuff.

Maybe DC will bail this industry out, too.  After all, it's free money, right?  I've been down this road with Columbia.  I picked myself up and moved on down the road.  One of my closest friends worked for Enron and lost well over $100K, which was nothing compared to many more there.  She, like I, didn't waste her time saying things about the players.  She certainly didn't expect the gov't to bail her out, either. 

but not today....

First of all the statement she made about making better decisions than a white man has been taken way out of context.  The topic she was speaking about at the time was how she dealt with racial and sexist issues in her position.  Granted, it didn't come out very well, but what she was referring to was a quote from Sandra O'Connor -- "a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding case."  I don't think her statement is racist in the least.

As far as the firefighter suit, I think she went strictly by the law, and remarkably (and which goes against everything you are saying) she did not let race impact her decision.  Here's a little insight into her decision:

http://newmexicoindependent.com/28292/sotomayors-connecticut-firefighter-decision-upheld-civil-rights-law-stanford-prof-argues

This week, President Obama’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has been called a “racist” by both conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh and former Speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich.

But in a story on Slate, Stanford law professor Richard Thompson Ford argues Sotomayor rejected a discrimination suit brought by white and Hispanic fire fighters in New Hampshire because it “threatened to burn down civil rights law.”

The case is one of Judge Sotomayor’s decisions that has added fuel to conservatives’ fire concerned with a group of firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut, who say that the city discriminated against them when it said it would use the results of a written exam to help choose candidates for promotion, but then threw out the test when none of the black candidates, and very few of the Hispanic candidates, scored high enough on the test.

The firefighters sued and lost, and Sotomayor was part of the panel that heard their appeal. The same case is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Professor Ford’s explanation is pretty wonky, but for all of us non-lawyers, it is a fascinating explanation of the way civil rights law works. As he writes: 

New Haven’s decision may sound like blatant racial favoritism, but in fact the city rejected the firefighter exam because the test violated Title VII, the federal civil rights law that prevents discrimination in employment. Title VII requires employers to consider the racial impact of their hiring and promotion procedures in order to prevent discrimination that’s inadvertent as well as intentional.

…There are two ways an employer can discriminate according to Title VII. He can intentionally discriminate by making race a factor in employment decisions — choosing a black candidate over a white candidate because he is black. Frank Ricci claims the city intentionally discriminated when it threw out the exam results because most of the people who scored high were white. An employer can also discriminate by using a selection process that has a disparate impact — in other words, that screens out a particular group for no good reason. New Haven claims that the test it tossed out had a disparate impact. Eight black, 25 white, and eight Hispanic firefighters took New Haven’s test for promotion to captain; three black, 16 white, and three Hispanic candidates passed. Nineteen black, 43 white, and 15 Hispanic firefighters took the test to become lieutenant; six black, 25 white, and three Hispanic candidates passed. This result counts as discriminatory under the rules of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. New Haven was right to worry about the possibility of a lawsuit from black firefighters if it accepted the results of the tests.

___________

As for the other junk that's being thrown her way, check this out:  I know you hate MSNBC, but this one is worth noting.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/

Obama is change you can believe in until you have to take it to the bank.

Our jobs have been offshored until now because of greed.  Under Obama and his taxation of small businesses, they will be offshored not because of greed but because of survival.  

You could make a difference for our country by not voting for Obama, but instead, if you vote for him, you are selling out to deception.  You are embracing a socialist, a communist, a Marxist, a liar, a cheat, and someone who legally cannot run as President of the U.S., much less the Illinois senate.  But, you make your choice.  You believe the consumate liar and his lies who sat for 20 years under the teachings of a black racist preacher filled with hatred for the U.S., whose association with Bill Ayers is recent and documented down to the fact that Ayers himself wrote Obama's best-selling book (best-selling in the eyes of far left liberals that is), who is a documented member of the socialist party, whose friends and close allies are extremists who not only bomb innocent people and are unrepenetent but who intend to eliminate (kill) 25 million Americans who they cannot "re-educate" in communist ideaology (gosh dog it, those dreadful capitalists), who refuses to hand over a certified copy of his birth certificate and educational records (my goodness, don't you have to provide your birth certificate to any number of entities who want to know if you are legal, i.e., social security, DMVs, etc., and your educational records would show if you had received aid as a foreigner and in 1963 would have shown you were a negro instead of an African-American which Obama's falsified record shows, please speck up on history), and who thinks Joe the Plumber is so stupid not to realize that if he wants to achieve the American dream, he is going to achieve it only if he lets Obama take what he makes to give to those WHO WILL NOT WORK.  I'd like to see you, liberals, give a share of your 7.5 cpl to those who don't work as hard as you, but then with Obama, that's what you will have to do.  Don't be fooled by his rhetoric that only those making over $250,00 will be taxed.  We will all be taxed, and there will be no incentive to work for any of us because we will all have to give up a piece of our pie so those who do not work can have a piece of our pie.

Here is the dividing line, folks.  We are at a crossroads in our history.  The Lord Jesus puts it this way, "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction; and there are many who go in by it."

Choose which gate you enter, the wide or the narrow.  It not only determines your eternal destination, but it determines the destination of this country.  If anyone here calls themself a Christian and can vote for Osambo, I daresay you are a liar and cheat just as he.  One cannot be a Christian and vote for a party and a political candidate who is in total rebellion to God's Word.  That is a fact, and if you think any differently, then you, too, like the Obamanation, call God a liar.  May He have mercy upon your soul.  As He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust because He is no respector of persons, we will all suffer as this country is destroyed and our Constitution that guarantees our freedoms is trampled just as Bill Ayers is pictured standing upon our flag in total disrespect, and we will thank you liberals that we are all in bondage, reduced to third world status, just as the Israelites were in Egypt.  Only Obama ain't no Moses but a Muslim and has no favor with God, and there will be no one to lead us to the Promised Land coming from the Democratic party. 

With the "bubble bursting" in regards to the housing market and rising fuel prices, do you think a major recession is on the horizon in the US?

I definitely think so, but was wondering what others think?

    When the labor market weakens, workers have less bargaining power with their employers. As a result, wages are trailing more than 2 percentage points behind inflation over the last year.

    Wages are virtually the entire income for most workers. If the purchasing power of their wages falls by 2 percent, this is the equivalent of a 2 percentage point increase in their tax rate.

    This is worth thinking about. Most workers in the country have just seen the equivalent of a 2 percentage point increase in their tax rate, and it has gotten almost no attention. By contrast, Senator McCain is claiming that the economy will collapse if we increase the tax rate by 3.6 percentage points for people who can't remember how many homes they own.

    It is easy to understand how a typical family experiences real hardship when their wages don't keep up with the price of food, gas, and heating oil. It's a bit harder to understand how the folks who can't keep track of their homes will suffer by restoring tax rates to the Clinton-era levels.

    This brings us to the other important point about the Friday jobs numbers. The economy is in bad shape and getting worse. This disaster is happening while we are experimenting with the tax policies advocated by Senator McCain. We have an economy that is now shedding jobs at the rate of almost 100,000 a month. There is no prospect of turnaround in sight. We could have half a million fewer jobs by the time the next president is sworn into office than we do today.

    This is the Bush-McCain economy. Senator McCain may have forgotten, but President Bush already tried his economic policies and the results are not good. We have just been through a business cycle in which the wage of the typical worker and the typical working family fell. This is the first time that has ever happened.

    As bad as the situation is, it will surely get worse as the recession deepens. Wages and incomes will fall further behind inflation as the unemployment rate continues to rise. By contrast, the Clinton-era tax rates were associated with the most prosperous period since the early seventies.

    As I have written many times, Clinton's policies do not deserve all the credit for the prosperity of the late 90s, and President Bush's polices do not deserve all the blame for the economy's poor performance in the current decade.

    However, it strains credulity to argue that the Clinton-era tax rates are a recipe for stagnation, while the Bush-McCain tax cuts for the rich are the road to prosperity. When he pushes his tax cuts as a remedy for the economy's ills, Senator McCain is effectively imitating Groucho Marx's famous line: "what are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

    At this point, McCain should be embarrassed to even say that tax cuts for the rich help the economy. Tax cuts for the rich help the rich, they don't help the economy. It's that simple.

    This economic catastrophe was many years in the making. There is no painless way to recover from the collapse of the housing bubble and the correction from an over-valued dollar. We do know that Senator McCain's plan to keep giving the rich more money is not a road to prosperity because that is exactly what we have been doing.

    We can't know exactly how Senator Obama will address the economy's problems if he takes office in January in part because we don't know exactly where the economy will be. However, a plan that focuses on supporting ordinary workers and promoting clean technologies, is likely to produce much better results than policies that are focused on redistributing even more income to the wealthy.

http://www.truthout.org/article/the-whiners-recession

was coming long before the "experts" knew it.  All they had to do was to be Americans who were trying to fill up their gas tanks, feed their families and try to hang on to their jobs.  I just read an article the other day where someone in the government finally admitted that we've been in a recession that they believe will last another 14 months.  (Can't remember who said it; will try to find the link.)  This is after months and months of denials, although most everday folks felt like they were in a recession long before hearing it "officially."

If they are only now admitting to a recession, that tells me that we're in the beginnings of a full-fledged DEPRESSION. 

Add terror threats, a war between Iran and Israel and the USA, perhaps provoking a terror attack (real or "false flag"), people becoming so poor in this country that their fear is replaced with anger, and voila!!  The US soldiers that are lying in wait for us to "misbehave" as tensions arise so they can keep us in line, just might have their work cut out for them...especially if we suffer another attack on our soil.

We've got crooks running the Treasury Department, all chosen from the same failing companies for which they worked. 

The Wall Street "crisis" came on so quickly and so urgently that nobody knew what to do.

Well, Bush knew what to do.  First, he hired Henry Paulson of Goldman Sachs fame, the company that received a $3 billion payout, who then went on to appoint Michael Alix to "oversee things."  This is the same Michael Alix who was in control of "overseeing things" at Bear Stearns (we remember how well that whole Bear Stearns thing worked out.)  Paulson then went on to appoint Neel Kashkari (another Goldman Sachs graduate).

Bush has selected these men, either personally or through Paulson, because he knows that THEY know how to play the system and accentuate the greed.  He hired people who aren't on America's side at all.  They're part of Bush's "Haves," and the rest of average Americans -- the "have nots" -- aren't even in the picture, except as it pertains to how much money has been stolen from our accounts.  Bush has always has been about greed.  He still is.  When a government begins to buy banks, it's at the very least socialism (if not, more accurately, fascism).  For all intents and purposes, this money could easily be in Bush's pockets.  We don't and won't know this because this particular sweetheart deal came with NO oversight and NO transparency as conditions on the part of Bush.  By the way, Bush bought a ranch in Paraguay. 

Basically, Bush had a lot of knowledgeable, independent people who had NO conflict of interest from having been senior executives of the failed companies from which he could have chosen.

Instead, he chose those who were at the very top to the crooks (if not the crooks themselves.)

In short, Bush hired the foxes to watch the hen houses.  No doubt in my mind that Bush's pockets are going to be pretty full soon if they're not already.

The arrogance with which these auto executives presented their testimony is reminiscent of all the arrogant people who surround themselves with the Arrogant-In-Chief.

In the middle of all this, though, I do see somewhat of a silver lining.  The less money people have to spend, the lower prices will be forced to go -- all that supply and demand stuff. 

Enter Obama's "bottom-up" theory.  Once the lives of the least of us can improve a bit, that will hopefully trickle up to everyone else.

I also heard an excellent idea on TV recently:  That every single CEO of a company should NEVER earn more than the President of the United States.  I kind of liked that one. 

P.S.  I apologize if this post doesn't make any sense.  I'm very heavily medicated right now and probably shouldn't even be at the computer.  I've tried to write this as coherently as I could.  If I failed, I apologize. 

Hope you all have a great evening.

With Recession Looming, Bush Tells America To ‘Go Shopping More’

Today, President Bush held a news conference where he discussed the “way forward” for the economy in 2007. Renowned Morgan Stanley economist Steven Roach says the the “odds of the U.S. economy tipping into recession are about 40 to 45 per cent.” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman notes that “the odds are very good — maybe 2 to 1,” that the U.S. will teeter toward a recession in 2007. Bush’s solution? “Go shopping more.”

This isn't terribly reassuring!

Government website now offers 'suicide warning signs' for victims of recession

John Byrne
Published: Tuesday March 31, 2009

When the government starts warning you not to commit suicide, you know things have gotten bad.

The US Department of Health and Human Services now has a webpage for the current recession, "Getting Through Tough Economic Times." Headlined under the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (www.samhsa.gov/economy/), the guide offers tips on "how to deal with the effects financial difficulties can have on your physical and mental health." The site went public Tuesday.

The remainder of the story is at:  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Government_website_offers_suicide_warning_signs_0331.html

So, this "man of the people" who funds the loony left and wants all the rest of us to be communists rakes in $billions from the recession.  He's out there picking up stuff at bargain-basement prices just like JP Morgan and his kind did.

Disgusting.

Unemployment rate soars to 8.1 percent
Employers resort to even bigger layoffs as they scramble to survive
BREAKING NEWS
The Associated Press
updated 8:02 a.m. CT, Fri., March. 6, 2009

WASHINGTON - The nation's unemployment rate bolted to 8.1 percent in February, the highest since late 1983, as cost-cutting employers slashed 651,000 jobs.

Both figures were worse than analysts expected and the Labor Department's report shows America's workers being clobbered by a relentless wave of layoffs.

The net loss of jobs in February came after even deeper payroll reductions in the prior two months, according to revised figures. The economy lost 681,000 jobs in December and another 655,000 in January.

Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost 4.4 million jobs, more than half of which occurred in the past four months.

Employers are shrinking their work forces at alarming clip and are turning to other ways to slash costs — including trimming workers' hours, freezing wages or cutting pay — because the recession has eaten into their sales and profits. Customers at home and abroad are cutting back as other countries cope with their own economic problems.

With employers showing no appetite to hire, the unemployment jumped to 8.1 percent from 7.6 percent in January. That was the highest since December 1983, when the jobless rate was 8.3 percent.

All told, the number of unemployed people climbed to 12.5 million. In addition, the number of people forced to work part time for "economic reasons" rose by a sharp 787,000 to 8.6 million. That's people who would like to work full time but whose hours were cut back or were unable to find full-time work.

Meanwhile, the average work week in February stayed at 33.3 hours, matching the record low set in December.

Job losses were widespread in February.

Construction companies eliminated 104,000 jobs. Factories axed 168,000. Retailers cut nearly 40,000. Professional and business services got rid of 180,000, with 78,000 jobs lost at temporary-help agencies. Financial companies reduced payrolls by 44,000. Leisure and hospitality firms chopped 33,000 positions.

The few areas spared: education and health services, as well as government, which boosted employment last month.

A new wave of layoffs hit this week.

General Dynamics Corp. said Thursday it will lay off 1,200 workers due partly to plummeting sales of business and personal jets that forced it to cut production. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp., and Tyco Electronics Ltd., which makes electronic components, undersea telecommunications systems and wireless equipment, also are trimming payrolls.

"This is basically cleaning house for a lot of firms," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia. "They are using the first quarter to cut back employment and figure out what they want."

Disappearing jobs and evaporating wealth from tanking home values, 401(k)s and other investments have forced consumers to retrench, driving companies to lay off workers. It's a vicious cycle in which all the economy's negative problems feed on each other, worsening the downward spiral.

"The economy is in a tailspin. Businesses are jettisoning jobs at an unprecedented pace," said Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus Research.

The country is getting bloodied by fallout from the housing, credit and financial crises_ the worst since the 1930s. And there's no easy fix for a quick turnaround, economists said.

President Barack Obama is counting on a multipronged assault to lift the country out of recession: a $787 billion stimulus package of increased federal spending and tax cuts; a revamped, multibillion-dollar bailout program for the nation's troubled banks; and a $75 billion effort to stem home foreclosures.

Even in the best-case scenario that the relief efforts work and the recession ends later in 2009, the unemployment rate is expected to keep climbing, hitting 9 percent or higher this year. In fact, the Federal Reserve thinks the unemployment rate will stay elevated into 2011. Economists say the job market may not get back to normal — meaning a 5 percent unemployment rate — until 2013.

Businesses won't be inclined to ramp up hiring until they are sure any economic recovery has staying power.

The economy contracted at a staggering 6.2 percent in the final three months of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, and it will probably continue to shrink during the first six months of this year.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress earlier this week that recent economic barometers "show little sign of improvement" and suggest that "labor market conditions may have worsened further in recent weeks."

Consumers’ growing frugality has hammered automakers, among other industries. General Motors Corp.'s auditors on Thursday raised "substantial doubt" about the auto giant’s ability to continue operations, and the company said it might have to seek bankruptcy protection, sending its shares below $2.

Bill Hampel, chief economist for the Credit Union National Association, said his group’s members are reporting record increases in deposits. Government figures show the savings rate jumped to 5 percent in January from zero last spring. That’s the highest rate since 1995 and a much faster shift than he had expected, Hampel said.

Consumer spending makes up about 70 percent of the economy. It topped out at 71 percent in 2005, Hampel said, but will likely drop by 2 to 3 percentage points over the next few years.

Increased savings can actually lower economic growth. Economists call it the “paradox of thrift”: What’s good for each of us individually — being thrifty, limiting our spending — can worsen a recession when everyone does it all at once.

Hoffman said about half the 6.2 percent drop in economic output last quarter was attributable to lower consumer spending.

Obama is your man.

regardless of which idea they go with.  I really don't think there is anyway out of this. 

You know what really bugs me....and this is kind along the lines of the topic of equal pay........

If a caucasian male is making more money for doing the same job as an african american, by law the african american has the right to sue for legal pay.  I'm cool with that.  If you do the same job and think you deserve the same pay....more power to you.  If an african american is making more money for doing the same job as a caucasian, the caucasian has no legal rights to sue for equal pay.  I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound equal to me.

This sounds familiar:

http://eh.net/Clio/Publications/unemployment.html

I am paying off debt.  Made my garden bigger.  Planted some fruit trees.  Stocked my pantry.  But I don't want to take in any relatives......I would rather pass out free zuchini.

Gee, and when was the last time this country saw tent cities like this? The Great Depression.

The unemployment rate in California is over 10% and has risen to 15% in some of the hardest hit states in the country. To say that this has been fabricated and that there is no crisis is just more of the republican elitist socially darwinistic pile of horse @!$%# that has been pervading the GOP.

It's time for all of you hard right conservatives to pull your head out of the sand and take a really good look at what YOUR republican president did to this country in the course of 8 years. Obama inherited one of the biggest messes in this country's history, and you are pssed off that he hasn't "fixed" it yet?!! Are you kidding!? He's been in office for not even two months. It took the Great Depression over a decade to be resolved, and your screaming over 2 MONTHS!!!!!!????

There are a lot of people hurting. And guess what, the CEO @!$%#s that helped cause the mess are laughing all the way to their bank accounts in Grand Cayman and couldn't give a @!$%# about the rest of the country. And who helped them get their egregious bonuses and compensation? Hmmmm, couldn't be the republicans that were in power for HOW LONG!!?? I'll tell you: from 1994-2006. Hmmmm, just long enough to deregulate the banks and lower the taxes on the wealthy enough to create the largest income gap in this country since the Industrial revolution.

The republicans f'd up big time. That is why they lost control. And they are continuing on that same wretched path with NO IDEAS on how to fix the mess they are mostly responsible for creating. Except tax cuts for the wealthy. The GOP mantra. It's BS and you all need to stop buying into the rhetoric.

I am hoping with all my heart that Obama is a successful president and is doing what needs to be done to rectify this nation. Yes, he may fail. That is a risk you take with ANY president. But if any of you have even half a functioning brain you would wish for success as well. His failure will mean the failure of our country. And I don't know about you, but I certainly hope I never see that day.