Henry Blodget published a 13-word headline late Friday that spoke volumes: "Corporate Profits Just Hit An All-Time High, Wages Just Hit An All-Time Low." There it is -- the American economy in a nutshell.
Blodget included this chart, compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, showing that American companies "are making more per dollar of sales than they ever have before."
Business Insider/St. Louis Fed
The report added, of course, that while corporate profits have reached a height unseen since officials started keeping track, "wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low." Blodget concluded, "In short, our current system and philosophy is creating a country of a few million overlords and 300+ million serfs."
This is of extraordinary importance in its own right, but I'd be curious to hear how Mitt Romney and the congressional Republican leadership perceive facts like these. After all, the foundation of the GOP's economic argument in 2012 is that the Obama administration's brand of "socialism" has made it impossible for corporations to thrive. All of those pesky regulations and taxes serve as a weight around the corporate world's shoulders, and once Republicans run the White House and Congress again, we'll finally free corporations of these onerous burdens.
And yet, as of right now, corporate profits have hit an all-time high -- even with that rascally Democrat in the Oval Office, imposing his anti-private-sector agenda on those poor, unsuspected captains of industry.
For all of the political world's differences, can we at least have bipartisan agreement that President Obama is the least effective socialist in history?
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So President Obama's statement that the private sector is doing fine wasn't a gaffe after all.
It wasn't a gaffe. But he could have phrased it more artfully. What he should have said was, "Things are getting better in the private sector, though they can certainly improve. However, the private sector is doing better than the public sector, which has seen net job losses."
And here the average worker is standing in the shadows, being quiet, not making a sound or a peep, afraid that if he asks for a raise they will surely fire him. He has held up his end of the bargain for a very long time. He is waiting patiently for the rain that The Republicans have promised. Even one trickle might help, But, no, no trickling just more lip service. There are people outside your pretty offices carrying signs and saying Hurray, for these times. You can fool some people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. When do you suppose the GOP will make an attempt to fix the mess they've created? Oh, that's right they are just too good to clean toilets.
If you consider that the "profits" made by the "private sector" - then PBO has indeed provided "socialism" (aka WELFARE) for the rich and corporate, just like his predecessor.
Steve I can tell you how Romney and the congressional leadership percieve it.They percieve it as the "job creator's"should have all the wealth and we the middle and poor working classes should be happy to give them more.After all, are'nt we just a bunch of beggar's and leeches trying to take their money.
Actually, according to Louis Menand recently in the New Yorker the whole calculus of a company's worth was reframed in the early 70s to consider employees no longer as an asset but as a pure drain; cut them to the bone, raise your company's value. Even if it meant you no longer had enough employees to do your company's business properly,
Perhaps that is why manufacturing became the most denigrated kind of company--it actually needs human bodies to create its products, while financial services just need computers.
I can see it's time to tell you how money and employment works. You can see in front of our Home Depot every day.
The unemployed stand around doing nothing until someone else arrives with an idea and the money to pursue it. And he needs help. No idea, and especially no money, means no job. That goes for day labor all the way to rocket scientists
jjm, that's exactly why profits are up and wages are down. Humans outside the US are cheaper, and therefore get the work.
Based on your reasoning, Shooter, electing Romney won't have any effect on the unemployment numbers, unless Americans are willing to work for a couple of dollars a day.
It also wouldn't generate any new employment through development of new industries or firms. That's the essence of Henry Blodget's story. (We'll ignore Blodget's ignominious history for a moment.)
Corporate America already has plenty of money with which to develop new ideas. What we are apparently short of is new ideas. The seed corn for those is basic research, much of which is done in the public sector--exactly the kind of thing we've been cutting as we strive to "cut government."
Ah, just ignore Shooter - he's just vomiting up what he's just swallowed on Fox. He's clueless! Here Shooter try reading this again!
http://www.businessinsider.com/corporate-profits-just-hit-an-all-time-high-wages-just-hit-an-all-time-low-2012-6
mpguy, there's a very good reason all that corporate money is on the sideline, fear of Govt. My favorite example of that is Boeing in SC. After investing billions and hiring workers the NLRB decides to make all that illegal. Jobs lost, billions wasted.
Fortunately it got resolved after major pressure on Obama, but it remains a classic example of Govt sabotage. Killing Keystone is of course the next poster child for anti-business behavior. Romney wont do that, and that alone will improve the economy.
Nope, not a supply problem. It's a demand problem. Way too much evidence. Here's some, and there's much, much more to show it's not regulation, it's not taxes, it's not uncertainty:
http://mediamatters.org/research/201206080017
Global Out sourcing caused Boeing's 787 - $18 billion losses. ... "We spent a lot more money in trying to recover than we never would have spent ...
The airliner is billions of dollars over budget and about three years late. Much of the blame belongs to the company's farming out work to suppliers around the nation and in foreign countries.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/15/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20110215
Alls shooter has is gop talking point blanks , but mindless people like shooter continue to dictate policy in DC , by making the dems roll over on command , it really sucks there is no one fighting for the working class in DC , the dems feel addressing the food stamp problem takes priority over facts like Steve is presenting here , so they rolled over for the gop and cut food stamps once again , you see because the real problem America is facing is giving out food stamps while the economy struggles , it is nice to know our dem reps have their priorities in order , by allowing the gop minority like shooter , dictate how we move forward economically
Nice find, Patango. Shooter's really tearing it up again, huh? Hahahahahaha... Even when he tries to make a case with a trivial specific anecdote which requires his audience to make the necessary silly and false induction argument, it turns out badly for him.
He's too dumb to know he's been embarrassed, and too unprincipled to have any shame. So, never fear, he has more where that came from!!
This is interesting. So your position is that business isn't the problem, people not spending is the problem, yes?
OK, so where do people get money to spend? Jobs, yes? And where do jobs come from? Business. It's also true that stimulus to consumers is a ploy to improve business, yes? Seems to me that until business decides to do some hiring, demand will continue to suffer.
The truth is that everything comes from business. It is the only institution that creates wealth. (goods and services) It makes things that are greater than the sum of their parts. It also makes profit, without which there are no jobs or taxes.
So maybe you could tell me how demand is supposed to be the problem divorced from business.
So Pantango, what's all that got to do with South Carolina?
What'd I tell ya? The Mitt4Brains is back with more stupidery.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/25/12398066-corporate-profits-soaring-under-oppressive-socialism?threadId=3450330&commentId=67384914#c67378148
Understand this: the Great Recession ITSELF has rebuked supply-side economics. The Boehner economy of 2012 ITSELF has rebuked supply-side economics. Demand is met by supply. Figure out why.
Now you've got your homework.
Sorry bud, the equation is simple, if business suffers, unemployment is high, and people don't have money to spend. Or if they do have money they save it. Business is the beginning of everything. North Dakota is your test case, business is good, lots of employment, tons of demand.
And it all started with drilling, not demand.
Unfu king believable.
But, Shooter, according to this article businesses are NOT suffering - in fact, just the opposite - and yet unemployment is still high.
That's implied with my last "remark," damskippy. It was the ENTIRE point of that article and this post by Steve.
It is not possible to get a wingnut to understand something outside the wingnut repertoire. It's like talking to a brick, or maybe a dumb animal that just sits and stares at you or follows your hand when you move it about.
That's what happens when other countries offer a better deal. Those that can move out of the US, do so.
Look folks, don't get side-tracked. Here's what the confused basketball fan can't answer: the supply-side got what it wanted. And it's got the profits to show for it.
Where are the jobs?
Back to your broken record, huh, Shooter? You REALLY ought to vary your tune - repeating the same old thing and bringing every conversation back to the exact same words makes you sound like stupidita!!!
Why don't you go LEARN WHY business is doing so well and WHY there are no jobs and HOW that hurts our economy??? Too hard? Easier just to regurgitate?
No matter what, do not let the discussion steer away from this:
The supply-side got what it wanted. And it's got the profits to show for it.
Where are the jobs? (And where is the economic growth that supply-side theory predicts?)
Which part of doing business overseas for cheaper labor and better markets, (more profit!) are you guys not understanding? There are better places to do business in the world than the US. Add an anti-business President and ...
Supply side is working great for emerging markets.
The supply-side got what it wanted. And it's got the profits to show for it.
Where are the jobs? (And where is the economic growth that supply-side theory predicts?)
Shooter, your SC example just points out what's wrong with the Republican approach. Boeing spends lots of money trying to take union jobs paying better wages and move them to a "right to work (for lower pay)" state. The NLRB blocks it, at least temporarily, by the NLRB. That causes it to lose money and the "new jobs," which aren't really new jobs at all, go away.
The only thing wrong here is that the Labor Department didn't permanently put the kibosh on the exchange of jobs paying more for ones paying less. What we need MORE of is the jobs that Boeing was trying to eliminate.
Their whole move wasn't about building more planes (they can't build them fast enough now) or building better planes (there's no new technology involved here). It's simply a financial manipulation designed to increase corporate profits and take part of the workers' share and transfer it to the shareholders.
This isn't a "job creation" strategy--it's a middle class destruction strategy.
The supply-side got what it wanted. And it's got the profits to show for it.
Where are the jobs? (And where is the economic growth that supply-side theory predicts?)
Hmmm. Let me try it this way.
Just because US corporations have record profits, that doesn't mean they made them in the US. Perhaps you noticed the emerging market phenomenon recently, where some countries have been growing like topsy? Business manufactured, and economies grew. That's where the growth is, not here. That's why no new jobs.
Any questions?
mpguy, if you dig a little more you'll find out that no Washington jobs were being moved or lost. SC was a whole new operation.
The supply-side got what it wanted. And it's got the profits to show for it.
Where are the jobs? (And where is the economic growth that supply-side theory predicts?)
OK, let's try a pretty picture for you
http://ablog.typepad.com/.a/6a00e554717cc98833015390d8d7d3970b-pi
This one is nice too.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2012/2/22/594441-13299279752642121-Mikhail-Aristakesyan_origin.png
So you are one of those "Americans" who doesn't give a rats a## about this country? Supply side economics was supposed to "trickle down" and provide jobs and economic growth for the UNITED STATES? So where are the jobs? Where is the economic growth?
The supply-side got what it wanted. And it's got the profits to show for it.
Where are the jobs? (And where is the economic growth that supply-side theory predicts?)
Do you two really have a comprehension problem. Or it's the denial stage of grief? Supply side did what it was supposed to do, just not here. The US is not a great place to do business, ergo no new jobs. Any actual questions? If not, onward.
No, Shooter, YOU have the comprehension (and empathy) and patriotism problem! Now run away back to FOX!!
I thought I'd let it go through a few iterations and let our village idiot get to an embarrassing fist-pumping celebration of victory before I pointed out how irrelevant and idiotic this moron's assertion is. (He didn't disappoint. Unfortunately, he's too stupid to understand and too unprincipled to feel shame.)
You see, he hasn't even begun to explain why the result of all those corporate profits, the main topic of the article Steve referenced -- are still sitting on balance sheets doing nothing instead of being invested in opportunities in those unfettered markets handed down from heaven, i.e, the "emerging markets."
(This would also go to the fact that the entire world is suffering from a glut of "savings" or "loanable funds" over investment, but that would get a bit too deep into the weeds, so...)
So what we've seen is yet another pathetic display of a wingnut desperately trying not to lose by throwing shhit up against the wall and hoping it sticks. Sorry, I had to clean that smelly mess up.
So, again, here is the situation:
The supply-side got what it wanted. And it's got the profits to show for it.
Where are the jobs? (And where is the economic growth that supply-side theory predicts?)
And the answer is there is a demand deficiency: http://mediamatters.org/research/201206080017
Even a supply-side economist knows it: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/its-the-aggregate-demand-stupid/
Let's try something different here. Business stinks and people hoard, because they don't think the future is good. What do you have to offer that would change that attitude and induce people to take risks here in the US?
And remind me again... where do people get money to spend?
So, I guess he'll give up on one particular form of shhit against the wall since that got cleaned up. And now, like some chipmanzee, he's reaching down between his legs to get another piece to fling.
Hey everybody! You remember that idiot that used to sit in class and, no matter how many times he asked stupid questions, didn't understand that he had asked a stupid question? Well, he's here in the form of a confused basketball fan. And he can't understand how he's embarrassed himself.
So, again, here is the situation:
The supply-side got what it wanted. And it's got the profits to show for it.
Where are the jobs? (And where is the economic growth that supply-side theory predicts?)
And the answer is there is a demand deficiency: http://mediamatters.org/research/201206080017
Even a supply-side economist knows it: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/its-the-aggregate-demand-stupid/
Well, I tried.
Shooter,
When talking to intelligent, informed individuals, it helps if you at least know A LITTLE BIT about the subject to which you are referring! Regurgitating FOX News just won't cut it here!!
And I hoped you succeeded in understanding.
Because you were given information where you were made to understand demand was the problem and what to do about it by:
- economists in the Wall Street Journal,
- the National Bureau of Economic Research,
- the Federal Reserve chairman in statements to business conferences,
- businesses via surveys, and
- a supply-side economist himself
I could have pulled out more; there's no shortage of evidence. And there's much more research to show it isn't uncertainty, it isn't regulation, it isn't taxes.
To refuse to accept it is to retreat to the land of faith-based, ideological thought where you can believe anything you want and anything can be true. That's where most of your kind live. But that isn't the world we live in.
Remember this: without hunger there is no need for food.
I notice that the academics aren't helping matters much these days. I suspect it's their lack of real world experience. In all that did anyone mention why people aren't spending? I mean other than unemployment?
No, that's not it. There are many academics who know the problem is a demand problem. These are the people who accept the Keynesian model but under the restricted conditions of a severe downturn in the economy where low interest rates are not sufficient to get things going again like in milder recessions such as the Reagan years (where all that was needed was the Fed to take interest rates from 12% to lower ones). (Note that I'm not saying there are no problems with the Keynesian model; but in our current situation, the lack of dynamic change in things like interest rates let it explain things very well.) We don't have that option now. Interest rates are already close to zero. And still the housing sector is overstocked. In Reagan's housing took off when interest rates were lowered, and also the Keynesian stimulus to the defense industry helped grow the economy. Reagan's lowering tax rates had very little to do with it.
The problem with academics in economics is that some of them have been corrupted by the political process. It's a unique situation in academics. And some of them believe completely wrong-headed stuff. This came about due to the desire to have macroeconomics founded on microeconomics. To do that, basic assumptions were made -- axioms -- that simply aren't true. Then a house of cards were built on top of those wrong axioms. And some economists -- fresh-water they're called by some -- were fooled into believing something like the Great Recession couldn't happen. They were wrong. And their life's work has been shown to be a fraud. Problem is, they can't come down off their high horse and admit their folly. And so some economists have done more damage with continuing to insist they know what they're talking about. You're seeing it in Europe. And you're seeing it here by insisting on deficit reduction rather than spending to increase demand and priming the pump to where it's self-sustaining. After it's self-sustaining, then -- and only then -- is it time to worry about deficits and debt.
There's lack of sufficient spending in the economy because of deleveraging (paying down debts), because of unemployment much higher than potential output says it should be, because businesses aren't investing their profits (due to demand worries for the future) and because the government has, per capita, had the lowest spending in a very, very long time.
Good heavens! A cogent reply without gratuitous insults. What happened?
Meanwhile, Govt spending isn't going to help a debt driven recession. Giving banks money isn't going to help a debt driven recession. It hasn't worked for Japan and it isn't working for us. At rock bottom an economy is determined by expectations for the future, and for all those people paying down debt, there is no future.
OK, we agree that debt is the largest problem. Debt can only be forgiven, paid, or repudiated. Govt spending isn't going to fix that.
"mpguy, if you dig a little more you'll find out that no Washington jobs were being moved or lost. SC was a whole new operation."
I live in the Northwest and remember the debate about this. Boeing planned to produce these components in Washington, but didn't want additional union jobs and the higher wages they would have been forced to pay. So they searched for a right-to-work-for-lower-pay state and settled on SC, which guaranteed that there wouldn't be any union involvement. The effect is that the move to SC didn't produce any additional jobs; it just meant that the work didn't pay as well.
"The US is not a great place to do business, ergo no new jobs."
That's strange, because your side has been in control of the presideny for 20 of 28 years before Obama took office, and controlled at least one house of Congress for most of that time. That means that Republicans weren't very good at producing jobs.
It's much easier to tear things down, than build them up. It's amazing how much can happen in less than four years.
Unfu king believable. He gets a lesson on demand and then constructs his burning straw man of giving money to banks. Then he can't even burn his strawman because it's so irrelevant. Just fu king amazing stupidity.
Remember folks: they let this dumbest idiot in the course because they felt sorry for him, and he can't understand why people laugh every time he asks a question. But I had thought that finally this fu king idiot might have learned something and was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. What a silly starry-eyed optimist I am.
He doesn't understand Japan, he doesn't understand freshman economics, he doesn't understand debt, he doesn't understand money, he doesn't know what supply-side economics even is, he doesn't know what the Keynesian model is, he can only desperately fling irrelevant shhitt against the wall and hope somebody doesn't clean it up so he can conclude in his own mind he's found the silver bullet the liberals can't respond to. And when he loses in monumental fashion, he claims victory, as in "Well, we agree debt is the problem." It's like his team scored 2 points and the other team scored 147, and he says "I win, 2 is bigger than 147!" What a fu king shame.What a fu king joke. What a waste of biology. What a waste of time.
But most of all, he just can't/won't learn. Demand is the problem. End of discussion.
Maybe you can understand this, fu kstick: Drop dead.
For those who are interested in the micro/macro economics thing, Krugman talks a bit about it today. Not a great deal of detail, but gives a flavor. This is only for those who are actually interested in learning, though.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/economics-good-and-bad/
Serfs up! Middle class wipe out?
(I couldn't resist)
Caution, beware of those spineless jellyfish in congress.
That is my favorite Hendrix song, I'll have to listen to that again. Maybe they'll play it on the radio TV channels.Jellyfish.
Gee it looks to me like the big lie works.
Oh woe is us down to our last half a billion . What will we do ?
Remember in November...vote the Teapublican neoFascistii out of office!
And now those profits can be re-invested in further regulatory destruction thanks to SCOTUS today. Unlimited corporate funding of PAC's to roll back labor laws and any other inconvenience.
Now, we know what The Gop have really been working on, destroying jobs and families not creating them or helping the people who are their actual Employers.We should just stop paying them, we should fire them, better yet, let Romney fire the GOP he's good at that kind of stuff.
I think another good comparative measure is the difference between productivity and wages where productivity is what American workers put into the equation and wages represent the compensation Americans get for that work. Up until about 1973, wages tracked upward with productivity and since then wages have literally flattened while American's productivity continued climbing at the same rate. Why I think this is so important is the emphasis many have on individual responsibility, that if you want more you have to work for it and not depend on government handouts. The people have been putting in, but not getting out. Large corporations and the wealthy have had favorable regulation (1999 Citicorp Relief Act) and tax breaks (Bush2) and accumulating that benefit whereas the most needy and middle class have had unfavorable legislation (1996 Welfare Reform Act and the aforementioned regulatory changes and tax breaks that gives more of the economic pie to those with the most), resulting in less pie for the rest. All this has been obvious for years, and for all these years those representatives that pretend the be for "the people" have been silent. It is only now that the silence is being slightly broken by voices still in weak defensive against proposals to further increase tax breaks and legislation that favors large corporations and the wealthy while cutting entitlements to the people, like Medicare and Medicaid, that we have all been personally investing in for many years, like our productivity having been an investment with no commensurate return. The middle and lower economic levels have little if any real excess income, unlike corps and wealthy, to give for redistribution to those corps and wealthy. The only thing the people have left to give are our entitlements that are ours by law and we have been paying into for many years. Why have our "representatives of the people" been so silent for so long and what is the solution to my perceived problem of non-representation?
Off with their heads!!! Just kidding. That's one for the Queen to decide, not the Princess.
Here is a rather cogent comment on the above situation.
People who dismiss the unemployed and dependent as "parasites" fail to understand economics and parasitism. A successful parasite is one that is not recognized by its host, one that can make its host work for it without appearing as a burden. Such is the ruling class in a capitalist society. - Jason Read
OK, petty complaint. The graph shows Corporate Profit/GDP. That is a ratio, and as such has no "units." Yes you can label the y-axis as "Bil. of $ / Bil of $" but you could also label it $/$ or anything else that equals "one." I think CP/GDP would be clearest.
That's not a petty complaint. Either the graph is wrong, or the label is wrong, or the description is wrong. Could we have a correction please?
Shooter,
Take up your "issue" with Business Insider - didn't you see the link??? Click on it!!
Shooter, like all the other conservative dipshhits think that it is the job of somebody else to help them refute the things they don't want to accept. I've ran into this over and over in detailing with this mentally defective morons.
Sorry, Shooter, if you think something is wrong with the graph, then the burden is on you to show it. You don't get to insist somebody do the work for you.
Or maybe, since you are so inept in explaining yourself, you meant "clarification" instead of "correction." In that case, you need to go to Business Insider and read what they say. Then if you have further questions, pose them there.
God, you are dumb.
By the way, Shooter, if you had any clue about what you were talking about, you could produce the graph for yourself at the fred website. Would you like lessons? It's really quite easy.
And yes, it was a petty complaint for anyone with the slightest understanding of arithmetic in the way that you took the complaint.
Sometimes I can't believe the level of ignorance what I read from wingnut dipshhits.
Disgusted,
You and me both!! I too am totally disgusted with "ideologues" trying to tell me how the economy "works" when they don't even have a clue about economic issues!!
I think I am going to bookmark this Blodget article and feed it back to the idiots when they start their typical vomits because Blodget does an excellent job of explaining the situation with pictures - and he does it apolitically!!
"Ideologue" is probably giving them too much credit. But that is the best we can ascribe to them, so we're being generous in that respect.
The only problem in giving a wingnut evidence like the Blodgt article is, usually -- actually, almost always, -- they can't understand it or its relevance. And then what follows is them reverting to brain fart reflex actions and their mouths start saying some words they don't know the meaning of, like:
- Socialist
- personal responsibility
- stupid liberal
- tax cut
- you don't understand capitalism
- ...
And they might know some irrelevant statistics like, JFK's tax cut, stagnation in the 70's, (the myth of the) Reagan boom, Welfare reform in the 90's (to produce the economic boom when it didn't have anything to do with it), etc.,
and then use those to draw up an infinity of non sequiturs to "prove" their supply-side economics works.
They're just beyond clueless.
Gosh, I sure am lucky you two smart guys are so willing to help out!
Heh.
Take advantage of it, and show you learned something from it, instead of snorting back some lame sarcasm. Lame sarcasm is just too pedestrian in this time and age of advanced snark. You've got work to do.
So as mitt went in Massachusetts,, move the tax burden from state level to the municipal.. And good luck with that. Shutter up the schools, use that money for vouchers so people can pay their property taxes/walmart subsidies. One way or the other you'll "owe your soul to the company store"..
Are profits the same as a "tax" we are charged for a service/product? That tax is used for?? rich folk redecorating their many bathrooms? Who owns the economy?
All those supply-side profits and those supply-side tax cuts sure have ballooned all that supply-side investment and resulted in a supply-side-motivated demand boom, huh?
Of course, the evidence of the complete failure of supply-side theory along with the complete refutation of supply-side theory by empirical data isn't enough to convince the faith-based and ideological. No, only thing that will change their granite-based minds is when Team Republicans tells them to change their mind. Fox educations destroying this country and taking the world for a ride.
Good job, Republicans.
So we are told by the gop that if millionairs make more money , then that is good for the economy , and THEY will create more jobs , now we are being told they decided the black man in the white house is to frightening , so they will not be growing the economy , do we just call it GOP FICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS now?
The sad thing is these people get away with selling that flaming bag
Well, ...
- they told us if we had big tax cuts the economy would boom. We had them in 2001, 03. The economy did not boom.
- they told us if government would stop taking from the supply-side, e.g. capital gains, taxes on profits, etc., that investment capital freed up from business would BOOM and the economy would BOOM. It would cause a great decrease in unemployment and increases in wages. It did not happen.
- they told us if the government would stop taking from the supply-side that the tax cuts would pay for themselves. It did not happen.
- they told us that deregulation would make the economy BOOM. It did not happen. It caused a bubble that is simply only a FAKE boom and not a real BOOM, and the particulars of the deregulation lead to a financial crisis the largest which has been seen since the Great Depression.
- they told us if the government would stop spending -- austerity -- during an economic downturn, that confidence would be restored and the economy would BOOM. It did not happen. The too-small stimulus started the recovery and the Boehner lead public sector disinvestment austerity has stalled the recovery.
- ..., I am tired of this,...
They -- the Republicans/conservatives -- have been wrong for 30+ years. Their ideas -- 1) tax cuts, 2) deregulation, 3) society is a bunch of individuals only -- have resulted in the worldwide Great Recession.
They -- the Republicans -- think the solution to the problems they caused are the same things that caused the problems.
They -- the Republicans -- are stupid.
so exactly what Republican "deregulation" lead to what ever financial crisis you are referencing- this is a talking point- if you are talking about the housing bubble- again what Republican deregulation lead to the bubble- would be helpful to cite specific statues or regs that were eliminated or changed
Well, deregulation is a term I've used to mean unfettered markets (as opposed to the optimistic-sounding but euphemistic "free" market), which is really the bigger failed idea. But I can go with simply "deregulation" here including de facto deregulation which takes the form of simply refusing to enforce regulations that are already on the books. Make note, though, that deregulation and unfettered markets to a pronounced degree are in the ideological idea province of conservatives. That is not to say liberals are only about regulation but nobody would argue that liberals are even close to thinking regulations are the scourge of mankind that conservatives do. In fact, liberals believe there MUST be significant regulation to deter the selfish beast.
Now, rather than bust a gut in a post to answer a question that would really take a book chapter to answer, here's a link to some well-known, easily accessible examples.
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/14/AR2008101403343_pf.html
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-caused-the-financial-crisis-the-big-lie-goes-viral/2011/10/31/gIQAXlSOqM_print.html
- http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/08/nonfeasance-in-financial-oversight/
There is another factor contributing to the severe unemployment and wage stagnation, at least in manufacturing, and that is automation. Much of the increased "productivity" can be traced to automation.
There will come a time when most everything humans need to make or to be done will be done by machines and that includes health care and other services. There will no way that the manner in which society manages itself when that time comes will even remotely look like what it does today. This is yet another way in which the conservative worldview shows itself to be a completely ridiculously proposition.
Let's not forget Wall Street:
How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform
[Best of luck, Elizabeth Warren!!]
by Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone
Great read - ergo, they're all effin' donkeys!