Is the world economy sinking like a stone?

[mundame]

(Reuters) - China (http://www.debatepolicy.com/places/china), Europe and Britain loosened monetary policy in the space of less than an hour on Thursday, signaling a growing level of alarm about the world economy, although suggestions of coordinated action were played down.
Of the three, the surprise move was from Beijing which lowered its lending rate by 31 basis points to 6 percent following an interest rate cut just a month ago which also came out of the blue.

The European Central Bank cut rates to a record low 0.75 percent following a dire run of economic data. But it steered clear of bolder moves such as reviving its government bond-buying program or flooding banks with more long-term liquidity.

The Bank of England, whose rates are already at a record low 0.5 percent, said it would restart its printing presses and buy 50 billion pounds ($78 billion) of assets with newly created money to help the economy out of recession.

"It is a surprise that they are moving so quickly. It shows that policymakers' concerns about the global economy have only grown," Mark Williams, an economist at Capital Economics in London, said of the People's Bank of China's action.
************************************************** ***********************

This week the USA manufacturing index, export levels, and service economy all posted new lows, record lows for several years. The USA recovery, which was going well, stopped cold early April, as soon as the April 6 unemployment figures came out for March --- they were awful, and the two since were equally awful.

Friday new USA unemployment figures/job creation figures come out, and I've seen estimates from 90,000 to 110,000, economists' guesses. If they are lower than that, like the previous three months, I'll wonder if the figures got leaked and that's why this sudden big move by central banks worldwide trying to prop up the world economy with cheap money.

I think we're in for trouble.

[Kathianne]

Without a doubt, the economy is in trouble. Worldwide.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Have no fear friends. They will crash it when they are good and ready. -Tyr

[Toro]

No, the economy is not sinking like a stone. It is decelerating though.

[sundaydriver]

No, the economy is not sinking like a stone. It is decelerating though.

Don't say that! There are some on here that hope for the worst of news to make their day. :laugh:

[mundame]

Don't say that! There are some on here that hope for the worst of news to make their day. :laugh:

This thread is not about "some on here," it's about the sudden, dramatic turn downward that the USA economy is taking, after several months of a perfectly normal recovery. This is not about American politics; it's about the world economy and the world financial system.

The entire financial press is aghast at this unexpected "deceleration," as our friend Toro correctly says, and I am following the situation closely because it could mean trouble for this country and for all of us if this goes on.

[mundame]

So........the jobs figures are bad today. 80,000 jobs added in June, not so bad as the 69,000 in May, but not as good as the predicted 90,000--110,000 economists hoped for. The Dow is down 158 points. Interest rates on Spanish 10-year bonds are over 7%, an absurd figure meaning few people are willing to buy them because of the risk of default.

USA unemployment still stands at 8.2% --- it didn't go up from this month's bad figures, but presumably will if this goes on.

[Anton Chigurh]

it's about the sudden, dramatic turn downward that the USA economy is taking, after several months of a perfectly normal recovery.There was never a 'recovery' it was merely talked about, a fiction. IF in fact there was a 'recovery' there was nothing normal about it, historically. If it existed at all it was so unhealthy and anemic it merely created a illusion of recovery.

Joe Biden's "recovery summer' was what, two summers ago?

[Kathianne]

Don't say that! There are some on here that hope for the worst of news to make their day. :laugh:

Like 'deceleration' is good news for any of us? Nothing funny about it.

[mundame]

There was never a 'recovery' it was merely talked about, a fiction. IF in fact there was a 'recovery' there was nothing normal about it, historically. If it existed at all it was so unhealthy and anemic it merely created a illusion of recovery.

Joe Biden's "recovery summer' was what, two summers ago?


Great avatar, Anton Chigurh. Excuse me for contradicting you, but I have been following the financial press closely because this is quite a situation we're in since 2008 --- the Great Recession, the Second Great Contraction. I don't think much was going on two summers ago, but last winter we started into a definite recovery, unemployment started down, manufacturing and so on started up, the stock market soared. I don't think there is any disagreement among economists about our having started a recovery briefly. We were doing quite well until very suddenly in early April everything ran into a brick wall. It is certainly because of the bad downturn in Europe and China -- our exports are at a ten-year low. Manufacturing at a three-year low -- but three years takes us to 2008, during the Great Recession.

We have now had four months of awful jobs-added figures, and this does not bode well for unemployment figures looking forward.

This is only July. If the European collapse takes place soon and the serious European/Chinese recession spreads to here, it could have political consequences. Things are getting interesting now, IMO.

[Kathianne]

There is nothing 'regular' about this recession.

http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/another-month-of-data-re-confirms-obamas-horrible-record-on-jobs/

If you go to site, there are many more reasons to come to the conclusion there's nothing 'typical' or 'regular' about what has happened. When the 'easing' ends, the bottom is going to be worse.

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/minneapolis-fed-job-data-for-all-recessions.jpg

[Anton Chigurh]

Great avatar, Anton Chigurh. Excuse me for contradicting you, but I have been following the financial press closely because this is quite a situation we're in since 2008 --- the Great Recession, the Second Great Contraction. I don't think much was going on two summers ago, but last winter we started into a definite recovery, unemployment started down, manufacturing and so on started up, the stock market soared. I don't think there is any disagreement among economists about our having started a recovery briefly. We were doing quite well until very suddenly in early April everything ran into a brick wall. It is certainly because of the bad downturn in Europe and China -- our exports are at a ten-year low. Manufacturing at a three-year low -- but three years takes us to 2008, during the Great Recession.

We have now had four months of awful jobs-added figures, and this does not bode well for unemployment figures looking forward.

This is only July. If the European collapse takes place soon and the serious European/Chinese recession spreads to here, it could have political consequences. Things are getting interesting now, IMO.Growth never surpassed 2%, the unemployment rate never dipped below 8%, the only reason it went down at all was because of the "funemployed" giving up their job searches. We have over 20 million people in that boat, REAL unemployment rate is more in the neighborhood of 17%.

There's been NO recovery. Merely a false definition of it.

[mundame]

Growth never surpassed 2%, the unemployment rate never dipped below 8%, the only reason it went down at all was because of the "funemployed" giving up their job searches. We have over 20 million people in that boat, REAL unemployment rate is more in the neighborhood of 17%.

There's been NO recovery. Merely a false definition of it.


A recovery started. It came to a screeching halt about April 6. We are being pulled down into the swamp by Europe and China, and probably some other factors such as the fiscal cliff, but opinions vary about the other factors.

I see you are a fan of the issue of what constitutes unemployment, like some columnists in the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, 16--17% if you count the discouraged people who WERE employed, lost jobs, lost benefits, are now no longer seeking to work. They would work, they were working, but they've now given up. I think we should also consider under that column the underemployed: people who would like to work full time but Walmart and other stores are only giving them 25-30 hours a week.

I think the issue of the discouraged unemployed is a problem for different reasons than we think at first. They are not starving, after all: in this country, people don't starve, unless they are crazy people. The people who have given up working can AFFORD not to work for some reason: their husbands make enough, they cut back, they live in their mothers' basement, they decide to retire, etc.

The problem is not them so much as it is the loss of people paying into our huge, expensive safety nets. If fewer and fewer people are paying into Social Security and Medicare and taxes to pay for food stamps, etc., then we just borrow and borrow to make it up and end up like Spain, bankrupt and no one will lend to us.

Perhaps that is obvious to you, but I found it an interesting point when someone explained it recently.

[fj1200]

A recovery started. It came to a screeching halt about April 6. We are being pulled down into the swamp by Europe and China, and probably some other factors such as the fiscal cliff, but opinions vary about the other factors.

Screeching implies moving fast or quickly, that certainly wasn't/isn't happening.

[Kathianne]

Indeed:

http://news.investors.com/article/613025/201205300911/obama-recovery-much-worse-than-average.htm?p=full

[Kathianne]

don't like Investors? Here's The Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/07/welcome-to-the-recover-eh/259501/


Welcome to the Recover ... Eh By Matthew O'Brien
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Jul 6 2012, 11:27 AM ET 3 (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/07/welcome-to-the-recover-eh/259501/#disqus_thread) Do you like good news? If you do, this wasn't your month. Next month isn't looking good either.

After a disappointing past few months, June (http://bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm) wasn't any better with 80,000 new workers. To put that in perspective, the economy needs to add roughly 125,000 jobs a month just to keep pace with the growing population. We're sliding backwards off the economic treadmill, even though the headline unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent.


This isn't a blip. This is the way things are. And the more we zoom out, the worse things look. The second quarter of 2012 has been the worst quarter (https://twitter.com/chrisadamsmkts/status/221219646899093504) for job growth in two years. To quantify that (https://twitter.com/Kelly_Evans/status/221220053146804224), the economy added an average of 75,000 jobs a month in the second quarter -- compared with an average of 226,000 jobs a month in the first quarter.


At this rate, unemployment will come down to pre-recession levels approximately never. You can't even put numbers this bad into the Hamilton Project's jobs calculator -- which shows that we'd need to add 208,000 jobs a month to fully recover by 2020. Try it (http://www.hamiltonproject.org/jobs_gap/).



In other words, the economy needs more help. But with Congressional Republicans unwilling to negotiate on any kind of stimulus, that leaves the Fed as the only game in town. Ben Bernanke has hinted that the Fed might do more (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/the-fed-keeps-slouching-toward-oblivion/258757/) if more bad data came in. Well, this is bad data.


Here's some more bad data. The chart below from Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/USGGBE05:IND/chart) shows what markets think will happen to inflation in five years time.

...

[fj1200]

^They, however, manage to put the blame on the Republicans in Congress and pin their hopes on more stimulus.

[Anton Chigurh]

I see you are a fan of the issue of what constitutes unemployment, like some columnists in the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, 16--17% if you count the discouraged people who WERE employed, lost jobs, lost benefits, are now no longer seeking to work. They would work, they were working, but they've now given up. I think we should also consider under that column the underemployed: people who would like to work full time but Walmart and other stores are only giving them 25-30 hours a week. .These are what the Obama menstruation and the House Dems for a time called the "funemployed." They sure dropped that term like a hot rock.

They promised unemployment was gonna be be 5.6% today, since we passed the stimulus. They sold us that shit sammich saying it would take care of our "crumbling infrastructure" long term, (it didn't) it would create millions of "shovel ready jobs" (it didn't) and everything was gonna just be hearts and flowers. (It ain't.)

THE most anemic and weak "recovery" ever is nothing to call a recovery. You can put lipstick and a wig on this pig, but it's still a pig.

[fj1200]

Well, with "expert" analysis like this:

4 Reasons the Economy Can't Hit 'Escape Velocity'
1. Good News Isn't Good Enough
2. Too Many Unknown Unknowns
3. Central Banks
4. Wall Street May Be Self-Destructing Again
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/4-reasons-economy-cant-hit-183849538.html

Not even a hint at the mess that increasing regulations and taxes are making of it all.

[red states rule]

(Reuters) - China (http://www.debatepolicy.com/places/china), Europe and Britain loosened monetary policy in the space of less than an hour on Thursday, signaling a growing level of alarm about the world economy, although suggestions of coordinated action were played down.
Of the three, the surprise move was from Beijing which lowered its lending rate by 31 basis points to 6 percent following an interest rate cut just a month ago which also came out of the blue.

The European Central Bank cut rates to a record low 0.75 percent following a dire run of economic data. But it steered clear of bolder moves such as reviving its government bond-buying program or flooding banks with more long-term liquidity.

The Bank of England, whose rates are already at a record low 0.5 percent, said it would restart its printing presses and buy 50 billion pounds ($78 billion) of assets with newly created money to help the economy out of recession.

"It is a surprise that they are moving so quickly. It shows that policymakers' concerns about the global economy have only grown," Mark Williams, an economist at Capital Economics in London, said of the People's Bank of China's action.
************************************************** ***********************

This week the USA manufacturing index, export levels, and service economy all posted new lows, record lows for several years. The USA recovery, which was going well, stopped cold early April, as soon as the April 6 unemployment figures came out for March --- they were awful, and the two since were equally awful.

Friday new USA unemployment figures/job creation figures come out, and I've seen estimates from 90,000 to 110,000, economists' guesses. If they are lower than that, like the previous three months, I'll wonder if the figures got leaked and that's why this sudden big move by central banks worldwide trying to prop up the world economy with cheap money.

I think we're in for trouble.
"The private sector is doing fine"

Pres Obama

[red states rule]

Don't say that! There are some on here that hope for the worst of news to make their day. :laugh:

Yea, the nerve of anyone pointing out how Obama's economic policies have failed and made the so called worst economy since the Great Depression worse

Since Obama does not have a record to run on, it is considered in bad taste for anyone to mention the accomplishments of Obama's 3 1/2 years in office

If you want an example of people hoping for the worst look at the Dems during the 2000 and 2004 election

Dick Gephardt made the statement that for every 100 point drop in the Dow was another Dem seat in the House

During the Iraq war, the Dems, and liberal media gleefully reported every death of our troops and used those deaths to try and increase public support for a surreneder date

[red states rule]

A recovery started. It came to a screeching halt about April 6. We are being pulled down into the swamp by Europe and China, and probably some other factors such as the fiscal cliff, but opinions vary about the other factors.

I see you are a fan of the issue of what constitutes unemployment, like some columnists in the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, 16--17% if you count the discouraged people who WERE employed, lost jobs, lost benefits, are now no longer seeking to work. They would work, they were working, but they've now given up. I think we should also consider under that column the underemployed: people who would like to work full time but Walmart and other stores are only giving them 25-30 hours a week.

I think the issue of the discouraged unemployed is a problem for different reasons than we think at first. They are not starving, after all: in this country, people don't starve, unless they are crazy people. The people who have given up working can AFFORD not to work for some reason: their husbands make enough, they cut back, they live in their mothers' basement, they decide to retire, etc.

The problem is not them so much as it is the loss of people paying into our huge, expensive safety nets. If fewer and fewer people are paying into Social Security and Medicare and taxes to pay for food stamps, etc., then we just borrow and borrow to make it up and end up like Spain, bankrupt and no one will lend to us.

Perhaps that is obvious to you, but I found it an interesting point when someone explained it recently.

What recovery?

Gas prices are still near doubled

5 1/2 trillion added to the debt

Record number on food stamps

Record foreclosures

The overall US workforce has decreased by about 2 million

Unemployment has been abpve 8% for about 3 1/2 years

The cost of food has been soaring

Have I left anything out?

[red states rule]

These are what the Obama menstruation and the House Dems for a time called the "funemployed." They sure dropped that term like a hot rock.

They promised unemployment was gonna be be 5.6% today, since we passed the stimulus. They sold us that shit sammich saying it would take care of our "crumbling infrastructure" long term, (it didn't) it would create millions of "shovel ready jobs" (it didn't) and everything was gonna just be hearts and flowers. (It ain't.)

THE most anemic and weak "recovery" ever is nothing to call a recovery. You can put lipstick and a wig on this pig, but it's still a pig.

While the Obama re-election staff is desperatly tyrying to spin the numbers and tell their viewers things are not that bad - the former head of the OMB said there is NO recovery

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000101247&play=1

[Anton Chigurh]

Well, with "expert" analysis like this:

4 Reasons the Economy Can't Hit 'Escape Velocity'

[/FONT][/COLOR]
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/4-reasons-economy-cant-hit-183849538.html

Not even a hint at the mess that increasing regulations and taxes are making of it all.Naturally.

[mundame]

These are what ...the House Dems for a time called the "funemployed." They sure dropped that term like a hot rock.



That's quite a word. I paused and thought about it the first time you used it. :pokenest:

[mundame]

What recovery?

Gas prices are still near doubled

5 1/2 trillion added to the debt

Record number on food stamps

Record foreclosures

The overall US workforce has decreased by about 2 million

Unemployment has been abpve 8% for about 3 1/2 years

The cost of food has been soaring

Have I left anything out?



Yes, well, I agree that nobody could call any of this a robust recovery!! Everyone knows this has been the worst contraction since the Great Depression. It's just that last summer everyone was yelling "Double dip! Double dip!!" but it didn't dip, it stabilized and started to rise a little during the winter, till April 6, when a "kablooie" happened. A growing, if malnourished, recovery despite the ongoing horror story of Europe. but then in April and May Europe deteriorated drastically and our figures went bad.

The stock market is still near 13,000! Nobody has been able to figure out what craziness the stock market is into for MONTHS, it looks like total denial, but I like the recent analyses that say the market wants QE3 --- more creation of money out of thin air by the Federal Reserve -- and the worse the news is, like the bad employment figures, the more likely Bernanke will give them QE3. And that this is what the market cares about, free money creation. Could be, I guess. Or maybe the market doesn't believe Europe will really go under.

Thinking about definitions, I suppose we are still in a recovery, in a sense: a contraction is LESS gross domestic product, for two or three months, depending on who you ask (Democrat or Republican....). It feels like we just double-dipped, though, and I note that a lot of lying goes on about recessions ---- they didn't announce this last one until MONTHS after it had started. They kept revising the figures down, and they've been revising this year's first quarter figures down repeatedly; this makes me nervous.

[mundame]

For those interested in the political aspects of this new economic turndown, I love the "Three Numbers Obama Needs to Win" theory.

1) Gas below $4. That he'll get with a new recession, since bad economies use less gas and so gas is priced lower. Unless there is a war with Iran: that would boost gas price bigtime.

2) Stock market above 12,000 (Dow). He's got that now, but if Europe and China go belly-up, or if WE do, I would expect a big fall. During the worst of the 2008 thing, the market plunged into the 7,000s --- I was watching the day the Dow hit its low, very dramatic.

3) Unemployment must be near or below 8% and falling. Rising unemployment is oh, so very not politic. We've just had four months running with awful job creation figures. This cannot continue without unemployment going up, because it takes 125,000 new jobs a month just to keep up. Much less than that, and it's been much less than that, and we start falling behind and the employment numbers go bad.

[Anton Chigurh]

For those interested in the political aspects of this new economic turndown, I love the "Three Numbers Obama Needs to Win" theory.

1) Gas below $4. That he'll get with a new recession, since bad economies use less gas and so gas is priced lower. Unless there is a war with Iran: that would boost gas price bigtime.

2) Stock market above 12,000 (Dow). He's got that now, but if Europe and China go belly-up, or if WE do, I would expect a big fall. During the worst of the 2008 thing, the market plunged into the 7,000s --- I was watching the day the Dow hit its low, very dramatic.

3) Unemployment must be near or below 8% and falling. Rising unemployment is oh, so very not politic. We've just had four months running with awful job creation figures. This cannot continue without unemployment going up, because it takes 125,000 new jobs a month just to keep up. Much less than that, and it's been much less than that, and we start falling behind and the employment numbers go bad.Lucky for the Obama CREEP team though, the menstruation pretty much can control what is reported as #3 (and does.)

Ever notice the "revised" jobs numbers announced late on Fridays a couple of weeks after the first of month jobs report? That's because you're not supposed to. But they are typically somewhat worse than what is originally reported.:whistling2:

[Anton Chigurh]

That's quite a word. I paused and thought about it the first time you used it. I am of course quoting them, I didn't coin it.

[red states rule]

Yes, well, I agree that nobody could call any of this a robust recovery!! Everyone knows this has been the worst contraction since the Great Depression. It's just that last summer everyone was yelling "Double dip! Double dip!!" but it didn't dip, it stabilized and started to rise a little during the winter, till April 6, when a "kablooie" happened. A growing, if malnourished, recovery despite the ongoing horror story of Europe. but then in April and May Europe deteriorated drastically and our figures went bad.

The stock market is still near 13,000! Nobody has been able to figure out what craziness the stock market is into for MONTHS, it looks like total denial, but I like the recent analyses that say the market wants QE3 --- more creation of money out of thin air by the Federal Reserve -- and the worse the news is, like the bad employment figures, the more likely Bernanke will give them QE3. And that this is what the market cares about, free money creation. Could be, I guess. Or maybe the market doesn't believe Europe will really go under.

Thinking about definitions, I suppose we are still in a recovery, in a sense: a contraction is LESS gross domestic product, for two or three months, depending on who you ask (Democrat or Republican....). It feels like we just double-dipped, though, and I note that a lot of lying goes on about recessions ---- they didn't announce this last one until MONTHS after it had started. They kept revising the figures down, and they've been revising this year's first quarter figures down repeatedly; this makes me nervous.

I am in a recovery in the Obama economy. I wrok of default correspondence from h/o's who are in default on the mortgage. I work on foreclosures, bankruptcy cases, and request for mortgage assistance.

Currently we have MANDATORY 8 hours OT per week. I am logging about 13 to 15 per week

So if you work for a repo company, a bankruptcy lawyer, a collection agency, or anything default related - yes you are doing very well

You have to ask yourself if you are better off then you were 5 trillion dollars ago. Also, after Obama added $5 trillion to the national debt all we have to show for it is a credit rating downgrade

[mundame]

Ever notice the "revised" jobs numbers announced late on Fridays a couple of weeks after the first of month jobs report? That's because you're not supposed to. But they are typically somewhat worse than what is originally reported.:whistling2:

I notice that one and all the rest. They are typically revised down --- even the actual 2008 recession dates came as a surprise, months after it had come -------- and supposedly gone. Yeah, right.

I would believe this is not lying and corruption if sometimes the numbers were revised UP. But they are never revised up: always down. I had begun to think I was the only person noticing this, so I'm glad to see you have seen it too.

[red states rule]

Pres Obama calls yesterday's dredful job report "a step in the right direction". Wow, what inspiring words from the Messiah

Also, he keeps pulling numbers out of his ass trying to convince people the Obama economy is now in its third summer of recovery


http://youtu.be/SxVF7_G5Hb8

[mundame]

Pres Obama calls yesterday's dredful job report "a step in the right direction". Wow, what inspiring words from the Messiah

Also, he keeps pulling numbers out of his ass trying to convince people the Obama economy is now in its third summer of recovery


http://youtu.be/SxVF7_G5Hb8


I suppose technically we ARE in the third summer of "recovery" since there is SOME growth, if they aren't lying about the numbers entirely. Nobody tell me how lame this recovery is again, I know, I know. But technically. Think about it: we may well actually contract, go into minus territory. And that would be even worse.

And I guess he was right that to add SOME jobs is better than an actual net loss, which happened bigtime during the Great Recession's worst weeks. However, if we must add 125,000 jobs just to keep up with population increase, and we aren't for four months so far this year, then we keep slipping backward, right? It can't mathematically be a step in the right direction if we are sliding gradually backward.

That was too easy. No wonder they took that "step in the right direction" out of Obama's stump speech. That just isn't going to sell.

[red states rule]

I suppose technically we ARE in the third summer of "recovery" since there is SOME growth, if they aren't lying about the numbers entirely. Nobody tell me how lame this recovery is again, I know, I know. But technically. Think about it: we may well actually contract, go into minus territory. And that would be even worse.

And I guess he was right that to add SOME jobs is better than an actual net loss, which happened bigtime during the Great Recession's worst weeks. However, if we must add 125,000 jobs just to keep up with population increase, and we aren't for four months so far this year, then we keep slipping backward, right? It can't mathematically be a step in the right direction if we are sliding gradually backward.

That was too easy. No wonder they took that "step in the right direction" out of Obama's stump speech. That just isn't going to sell.

What gets me about Obama and his loyal staff in the liberal media is this

Under Pres Bush the average unemployment rate was about 5.5%. Gas prices were about $1.70/gal when he left offfice. The months when the economy added about 300,000 jobs per month we were told they were not "the right kind of jobs". All of this was considered to be close to another Great Depression

NOW, with Obama we have unemployment at 8.2%. Gas is about $3.50/gal. Damn near stillborn job growth and we are told we are on the road to recovery

There is no doubt in my mind that Bush's near Depression is much better then Obama's recovery

The only hope for America is a change in Presidnet's in November

[mundame]

Under Pres Bush the average unemployment rate was about 5.5%. Gas prices were about $1.70/gal when he left offfice. The months when the economy added about 300,000 jobs per month we were told they were not "the right kind of jobs". All of this was considered to be close to another Great Depression

NOW, with Obama we have unemployment at 8.2%. Gas is about $3.50/gal. Damn near stillborn job growth and we are told we are on the road to recovery

There is no doubt in my mind that Bush's near Depression is much better then Obama's recovery




Yes, well, Obama is definitely fighting headwinds now. :rolleyes:

What a surprise! During the winter it really looked like the economy was going to turn around and recover, maybe not enthusiastically, but up is up; then quite suddenly we hit this brick wall!

It's Europe, of course, a pretty big part of the world economy to be falling apart before our very eyes, but a lot of people will blame whatever prez is in office, I understand that.

[red states rule]

Yes, well, Obama is definitely fighting headwinds now. :rolleyes:

What a surprise! During the winter it really looked like the economy was going to turn around and recover, maybe not enthusiastically, but up is up; then quite suddenly we hit this brick wall!

It's Europe, of course, a pretty big part of the world economy to be falling apart before our very eyes, but a lot of people will blame whatever prez is in office, I understand that.


http://www.theabsurdreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/obama-economic-plan.jpg

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

What gets me about Obama and his loyal staff in the liberal media is this

Under Pres Bush the average unemployment rate was about 5.5%. Gas prices were about $1.70/gal when he left offfice. The months when the economy added about 300,000 jobs per month we were told they were not "the right kind of jobs". All of this was considered to be close to another Great Depression

NOW, with Obama we have unemployment at 8.2%. Gas is about $3.50/gal. Damn near stillborn job growth and we are told we are on the road to recovery

There is no doubt in my mind that Bush's near Depression is much better then Obama's recovery
The only hope for America is a change in Presidnet's in November

That is government propaganda that is amplified by it's third arm the socialist lamestream mainstream media.
People want to believe it is getting better so obama and crew lie saying that it is. If he gets another 4 years all the lying will conitnue and all the destroying will as well. Only then he will have no reason to hold back! Want to see the destroying monster going all out? Give him another 4 years when he has NO REASON to hold back!-Tyr

[Anton Chigurh]

Want to see the destroying monster going all out? Give him another 4 years when he has NO REASON to hold back!-TyrAnd the Cloward-Piven strategy can then continue unabated.

[mundame]

And the Cloward-Piven strategy can then continue unabated.


?? Would you like to describe that, or is it supposed to go in the conspiracy theory forum?

(I'm not prejudiced against conspiracy theories; I was thinking of starting a thread there.)

[Anton Chigurh]

?? Would you like to describe that, or is it supposed to go in the conspiracy theory forum?

(I'm not prejudiced against conspiracy theories; I was thinking of starting a thread there.)It's not a conspiracy theory. It is a actual strategy employed mostly by the democrat party since at least the early 1960s.

[mundame]

Like the Cold Mountain Report from the '60s?

I totally believe in that one.

[Anton Chigurh]

Like the Cold Mountain Report from the '60s?

I totally believe in that one.Not at all.

[red states rule]

That is government propaganda that is amplified by it's third arm the socialist lamestream mainstream media.
People want to believe it is getting better so obama and crew lie saying that it is. If he gets another 4 years all the lying will conitnue and all the destroying will as well. Only then he will have no reason to hold back! Want to see the destroying monster going all out? Give him another 4 years when he has NO REASON to hold back!-Tyr

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gxiKixTFyAI/TKoYMWeRuRI/AAAAAAAAABg/InRNCXOx6yg/s1600/Obama-Economic-Team.jpg

[Kathianne]

?? Would you like to describe that, or is it supposed to go in the conspiracy theory forum?

(I'm not prejudiced against conspiracy theories; I was thinking of starting a thread there.)

Related to Alinsky's, "Rules For Radicals" Cloward-Piven basically is the point of, "Never let a crisis go to waste". From 2008, an article obviously unfavorable to the strategy; warning that Obama would do. How does it hold up? You decide:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html

Hard to believe, but this is just an excerpt:


...The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis

In an earlier post (http://frontpage.americandaughter.com/?p=1878), I noted the liberal record of unmitigated legislative disasters, the latest of which is now being played out in the financial markets before our eyes. Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years (http://truthandcons.blogspot.com/2006/01/polar-washington-no-colder-than-before.html) of virtually unbroken power in Congress - with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?

Why?

One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit.

I submit to you they understand the consequences. For many it is simply a practical matter of eliciting votes from a targeted constituency at taxpayer expense; we lose a little, they gain a lot, and the politician keeps his job. But for others, the goal is more malevolent - the failure is deliberate. Don't laugh. This method not only has its proponents, it has a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967). It describes their agenda, tactics, and long-term strategy.

The Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as:


The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Cloward and Piven were inspired by radical organizer [and Hillary Clinton mentor] Saul Alinsky:


"Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one. (Courtesy Discover the Networks.org (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967))


Newsmax (http://www.newsmax.com/politics/obama_voter_fraud/2008/09/22/133091.html) rounds out the picture:


Their strategy to create political, financial, and social chaos that would result in revolution blended Alinsky concepts with their more aggressive efforts at bringing about a change in U.S. government. To achieve their revolutionary change, Cloward and Piven sought to use a cadre of aggressive organizers assisted by friendly news media to force a re-distribution of the nation's wealth.

In their Nation article, Cloward and Piven were specific about the kind of "crisis" they were trying to create:


By crisis, we mean a publicly visible disruption in some institutional sphere. Crisis can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention.

No matter where the strategy is implemented, it shares the following features:



The offensive organizes previously unorganized groups eligible for government benefits but not currently receiving all they can.
The offensive seeks to identify new beneficiaries and/or create new benefits.
The overarching aim is always to impose new stresses on target systems, with the ultimate goal of forcing their collapse.


Capitalizing on the racial unrest of the 1960s, Cloward and Piven saw the welfare system as their first target. They enlisted radical black activist George Wiley (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1769), who created the National Welfare Reform Organization (NWRO) to implement the strategy. Wiley hired militant foot soldiers to storm welfare offices around the country, violently demanding their "rights." According to a City Journal (http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_2_acorns_nutty_regime.html) article by Sol Stern (http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/stern__s.htm), welfare rolls increased from 4.3 million to 10.8 million by the mid-1970s as a result, and in New York City, where the strategy had been particularly successful, "one person was on the welfare rolls... for every two working in the city's private economy."

According to another City Journal article titled "Compassion Gone Mad (http://www.city-journal.org/html/6_1_a2.html)":


The movement's impact on New York City was jolting: welfare caseloads, already climbing 12 percent a year in the early sixties, rose by 50 percent during Lindsay's first two years; spending doubled... The city had 150,000 welfare cases in 1960; a decade later it had 1.5 million.

The vast expansion of welfare in New York City that came of the NWRO's Cloward-Piven tactics sent the city into bankruptcy in 1975. Rudy Giuliani cited (http://www.newsmax.com/politics/obama_voter_fraud/2008/09/22/133091.html) Cloward and Piven by name as being responsible for "an effort at economic sabotage." He also credited Cloward-Piven (http://mattersofmannerandtype.blogtownhall.com/2007/09/10/let_us_make_man,_pt_4.thtml) with changing the cultural attitude toward welfare from that of a temporary expedient to a lifetime entitlement, an attitude which in-and-of-itself has caused perhaps the greatest damage of all.

Cloward and Piven looked at this strategy as a gold mine of opportunity. Within the newly organized groups, each offensive would find an ample pool of foot soldier recruits willing to advance its radical agenda at little or no pay (http://wweek.com/editorial/2818/2532/), and expand its base of reliable voters, legal or otherwise. The radicals' threatening tactics also would accrue an intimidating reputation, providing a wealth of opportunities for extorting monetary (http://www.consumersrightsleague.org/uploadedfiles/ACORN_release.pdf) and other concessions from the target organizations. In the meantime, successful offensives would create an ever increasing drag on society. As they gleefully observed:


Moreover, this kind of mass influence is cumulative because benefits are continuous. Once eligibility for basic food and rent grants is established, the drain on local resources persists indefinitely.

The next time you drive through one of the many blighted neighborhoods in our cities, or read of the astronomical crime, drug addiction, and out-of-wedlock birth rates, or consider the failed schools, strapped police and fire resources of every major city, remember Cloward and Piven's thrill that "...the drain on local resources persists indefinitely."

ACORN, the new tip of the Cloward-Piven spear

In 1970, one of George Wiley's protégés, Wade Rathke (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1773) -- like Bill Ayers, a member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) -- was sent to found the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now. While NWRO had made a good start, it alone couldn't accomplish the Cloward-Piven goals. Rathke's group broadened the offensive to include a wide array of low income "rights." Shortly thereafter they changed "Arkansas" to "Association of" and ACORN (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6968) went nationwide.

Today ACORN is involved in a wide array of activities, including housing (http://www.acornhousing.org/index.php), voting rights, illegal immigration and other issues. According to ACORN's website: "ACORN is the nation's largest grassroots community organization of low-and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country," It is perhaps the largest radical group in the U.S. and has been cited for widespread criminal activity on many fronts (http://www.consumersrightsleague.org/uploadedfiles/Latest%20Million%20Dollar%20ACORN%20Scandal.pdf).

Voting

On voting rights, ACORN and its voter mobilization subsidiary, Project Vote (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/pvextprofile.html), have been involved nationwide in efforts to grant felons the vote and lobbied heavily for the Motor Voter Act of 1993 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Voter_Registration_Act_of_1993), a law allowing people to register at motor vehicle departments, schools, libraries and other public places. That law had been sought by Cloward and Piven since the early1980s and they were present, standing behind President Clinton at the signing ceremony.

ACORN's voter rights tactics follow the Cloward-Piven Strategy:



1. Register as many Democrat voters as possible, legal or otherwise and help them vote, multiple times if possible.
2. Overwhelm the system with fraudulent registrations using multiple entries of the same name, names of deceased, random names from the phone book, even contrived names.
3. Make the system difficult to police by lobbying for minimal identification standards.


In this effort, ACORN sets up registration sites all over the country and has been frequently cited (http://rottenacorn.com/activityMap.html) for turning in fraudulent registrations, as well as destroying republican applications. In the 2004-2006 election cycles alone, ACORN was accused of widespread voter fraud in 12 states. It may have swung the election for one state governor (http://www.biaw.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=66&tabid=166&navid=1).

ACORN's website brags: "Since 2004, ACORN has helped more than 1.7 million low- and moderate-income and minority citizens apply to register to vote." Project vote boasts 4 million. I wonder how many of them are dead? For the 2008 cycle, ACORN and Project Vote have pulled out all the stops. Given their furious nationwide effort, it is not inconceivable that this presidential race could be decided by fraudulent votes alone.

Barack Obama ran ACORN's Project Votein Chicago and his highly successful voter registration drive was credited (http://sweetness-light.com/archive/obama-and-acorn-its-a-power-thing) with getting the disgraced former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun (http://www.realchange.org/moseley.htm) elected. Newsmax reiterates (http://www.newsmax.com/politics/obama_voter_fraud/2008/09/22/133091.html) Cloward and Piven's aspirations for ACORN's voter registration efforts:


By advocating massive, no-holds-barred voter registration campaigns, they [Cloward & Piven] sought a Democratic administration in Washington, D.C. that would re-distribute the nation's wealth and lead to a totalitarian socialist state.

Illegal Immigration

As I have written elsewhere (http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/what_we_face.html), the Radical Left's offensive to promote illegal immigration is "Cloward-Piven on steroids." ACORN is at the forefront of this movement as well, and was a leading organization among a broad coalition of radical groups, including Soros' Open Society Institute (http://discoverthenetwork.org.winhost6.atlantic.net/viewSubCategory.asp?id=589), the Service Employees International Union (http://discoverthenetwork.org.winhost6.atlantic.net/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6535) (ACORN founder Wade Rathke also runs a SEIU chapter), and others, that became the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform (http://wiki.24ahead.com/wiki/Coalition-for-Comprehensive-Immigration-Reform). CCIR fortunately failed to gain passage for the 2007 illegal immigrant amnesty bill, but its goals have not changed.

The burden of illegal immigration on our already overstressed welfare system has been widely documented. Some towns in California have even been taken over by illegal immigrant drug cartels (http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50518). The disease, crime and overcrowding brought by illegal immigrants places a heavy burden on every segment of society and every level of government, threatening to split this country apart at the seams. In the meantime, radical leftist efforts to grant illegal immigrants citizenship guarantee a huge pool of new democrat voters. With little border control, terrorists can also filter in.

Obama aided ACORN as their lead attorney in a successful suit he brought (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/700499,CST-NWS-Obama-law17.article) against the Illinois state government to implement the Motor Voter law there. The law had been resisted by Republican Governor Jim Edgars, who feared the law was an opening to widespread vote fraud.

His fears were warranted as the Motor Voter law has since been cited as a major opportunity for vote fraud, especially for illegal immigrants, even terrorists. According to the Wall Street Journal (http://opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110010814): "After 9/11, the Justice Department found that eight of the 19 hijackers were registered to vote..."

ACORN's dual offensives on voting and illegal immigration are handy complements. Both swell the voter rolls with reliable democrats while assaulting the country ACORN seeks to destroy with overwhelming new problems.

Mortgage Crisis

And now we have the mortgage crisis, which has sent a shock wave through Wall Street and panicked world financial markets like no other since the stock market crash of 1929. But this is a problem created in Washington long ago. It originated with the Community Reinvestment Act (http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo125.html) (CRA), signed into law in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter. The CRA was Carter's answer to a grassroots activist movement started in Chicago (http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/90/homestead.html), and forced banks to make loans to low income, high risk customers. PhD economist and former Texas Senator Phil Gramm has called it (http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html): "a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks."

ACORN aggressively sought to expand loans to low income groups using the CRA as a whip. Economist Stan Leibowitz wrote in the New York Post (http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2114):


In the 1980s, groups such as the activists at ACORN began pushing charges of "redlining"-claims that banks discriminated against minorities in mortgage lending. In 1989, sympathetic members of Congress got the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act amended to force banks to collect racial data on mortgage applicants; this allowed various studies to be ginned up that seemed to validate the original accusation.

In fact, minority mortgage applications were rejected more frequently than other applications-but the overwhelming reason wasn't racial discrimination, but simply that minorities tend to have weaker finances.

ACORN showed its colors again in 1991, by taking over the House Banking Committee room for two days to protest efforts to scale back the CRA. Obama represented ACORN (http://clearinghouse.wustl.edu/detail.php?id=10112) in the Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank, 1994 suit against redlining. Most significant of all, ACORN was the driving force behind a 1995 regulatory revision pushed through by the Clinton Administration that greatly expanded the CRA and laid the groundwork for the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac borne financial crisis we now confront. Barack Obama was the attorney representing ACORN in this effort. With this new authority, ACORN used its subsidiary, ACORN Housing (http://www.acornhousing.org/index.php), to promote subprime loans more aggressively.

As a New York Post article (http://www.nypost.com/seven/02052008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_real_scandal_243911.htm?page=0) describes it:


A 1995 strengthening of the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to find ways to provide mortgages to their poorer communities. It also let community activists intervene at yearly bank reviews, shaking the banks down for large pots of money.


Banks that got poor reviews were punished; some saw their merger plans frustrated; others faced direct legal challenges by the Justice Department.

Flexible lending programs expanded even though they had higher default rates than loans with traditional standards. On the Web, you can still find CRA loans available via ACORN with "100 percent financing . . . no credit scores . . . undocumented income . . . even if you don't report it on your tax returns." Credit counseling is required, of course.

Ironically, an enthusiastic Fannie Mae Foundation report singled out one paragon of nondiscriminatory lending, which worked with community activists and followed "the most flexible underwriting criteria permitted." That lender's $1 billion commitment to low-income loans in 1992 had grown to $80 billion by 1999 and $600 billion by early 2003.

The lender they were speaking of was Countrywide, which specialized in subprime lending and had a working relationship (http://www.inman.com/news/2008/02/1/countrywide-acorn-partner-foreclosure-prevention) with ACORN.

Investor's Business Daily (http://investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=306544845091102) added:


The revisions also allowed for the first time the securitization of CRA-regulated loans containing subprime mortgages. The changes came as radical "housing rights" groups led by ACORN lobbied for such loans. ACORN at the time was represented by a young public-interest lawyer in Chicago by the name of Barack Obama. (Emphasis, mine.)

Since these loans were to be underwritten by the government sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the implicit government guarantee of those loans absolved lenders, mortgage bundlers and investors of any concern over the obvious risk. As Bloomberg reported (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0): "It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit."...

[Anton Chigurh]

Related to Alinsky's, "Rules For Radicals" Cloward-Piven basically is the point of, "Never let a crisis go to waste".The stated goal of the Cloward-Piven strategy was and is to "eliminate poverty" by overloading the welfare system to the point that economy totally crashes, then using the liberal arm of the Dem party to use this manufactured crisis to impose a guaranteed, national "living wage" for everyone regardless of whether they actually work or not. (NOT is preferred.)

This is embodied in everything the modern Dem party has done since the strategy was unveiled - increasing entitlements, increasing dependence on government, increasing the size and scope of government, indoctrinating children to not be self reliant... and so on. These sub-strategies continue today and have greatly accelerated in the last 20 years.

More recently, it's even blatant - recruiting people to go on food stamps, the government even spending millions on public service announcements to that end, and having an entire training session on how to get on food stamps, at the USDA's own website!

Cloward and Piven are hard core Marxists, they look only to destroy the US capitalist system. They knew it would be a generational battle, not a short term thing. Acolytes of it (most all of the far left Dem party leadership) have continued to carry the ball for this, for decades.

They were professors at Columbia University, no coincidence by the way.

[red states rule]

If you want to see a summary of Obama's economic accomplishments watch this short video. You will NOT see anything like this in the liberal media because the video is factual and shows what a total and complete failure Obama has been



http://youtu.be/5MoWJnvYFDg