Replies to post #143476 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[PegnVA]

"I'd take the advice of an eighth grader" - Surprise, surprise.

[StephanieVanbryce]

really ..? Down the Memory Hole

.......to cut to the chase! you're WRONG AGAIN

June 14, 2011

Listening to the Republican debate last night, I was once again struck by the extent to which these folks are stuck in a tattered old box when it comes to economic policy. Deregulation, supply-side tax cuts, turn the entitlements over to the market, etc…the very agenda that got us into this mess.

That’s not a surprise, of course—it’s what anyone who’s been paying attention would have predicted. But you have to wonder why anyone whose income is, oh, I don’t know…like under $1 million, would hear those ideas and say, “Yeah…that’s the ticket!”

But, alas, people tend to have short memories about such things, and there’s a lot of noise to muddy the water. So, allow me, in one simple graph, to provide a reminder.

The figure compares average monthly job losses and gains in two periods: the first quarter of 2009, when the President took office, and the last three months (averaging over three months is a good way to smooth out random variation and get at the underlying trend).



source: BLS

Back in early 2009, we were losing jobs at a rate the likes of which I’d never seen—780,000 per month—2.3 million jobs lost in the first quarter. Over the past quarter, we’ve been adding jobs at a rate of 160,000 per month (and that includes last month’s disappointing 54K gain).

Readers of this blog know that I don’t think that’s good enough. I and others are actively agitating to do more to build on this progress. But let us not forget where we were.

Am I saying ideas like those the R’s were espousing last night are directly responsible for that first bar above? Only kind of. I am saying this: that policy agenda very much helped to create the conditions under which deregulated capital markets could inflate a housing bubble, generating sharp inequalities along the way and defunding and defanging government’s ability to do much about it.

There’s another graph to look at, however. This one shows two other important indicators—real GDP growth and unemployment—of then versus now. GDP growth has been growing for almost two years, though clearly not fast enough to bring down the unemployment rate, which is higher now. The damage done by the Great Recession is still with us and employers are simply not creating enough jobs to bring it down. In other words, we’re nowhere near out of the woods.



Sources: BLS, BEA

But it would be the height of economic self-destruction to take that same path back into those same woods that bush led us into and left us with

http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/down-the-memory-hole/

Obama and dems have improved the economy as much as they could considering the obstructionist republicans who have said NO to everything . .. YEP ! in spite of all that ... WE'RE BETTER OFF!

[DesertDrifter]

and anyone with a lick of common sense can understand the data that real income among the bottom 99% has been essentially flat for 30 years, while the top 1% income has exploded. The idea that you support this even though you are in the bottom 99% means that you think handing more of your money to the rich is a peachy idea.

Perish the thought that the ratio could be flatter with no negative effects on the uber wealthy. They now own the political system and you just bark on their behalf like a trained seal.

Next you will be signing up for wage reductions because you think the corporation that owns your hospital deserves a bigger cut of the pie.

[sortagreen]

"since Obama became president unemployment is up 25%"

Unemployment is at the same level it was in the first month after Obama took the oath of office.

"the debt is up 35%"

What's the interest on just Bush and Reagan's part of it? Maybe 35%.


"What initiative was filibustered that caused this?"

The stimulus plan was filibustered until it got cut down to nothing. And 1/3 of that was tax cuts.

The health care plan was filibustered, until it got watered down to nothing.

Windfall taxes on oil company stocks... non starter.

Expiration of Bush tax cuts? Non starter...

Never mind which initiative has been filibustered or threatened, which one hasn't?

As of March 1:

In the 110th Congress of 2007-2008, with Republicans in the minority, there were a record 112 cloture votes. In the current session of Congress – the 111th – for all of 2009 and the first two months of 2010 the number already exceeds 40. The most the filibuster has been used when Democrats were in the minority was 58 times in the 106th Congress of 1999-2000.

So whether you're capable of understanding it or not... and we all know you aren't, they've pretty much filibustered everything. They've made the country essentially ungovernable... and now they're trying to convince the electorate that it's Obama's doing.

"a gallon of gas is up 104%"

It's common knowledge that a refinery hasn't been built in 30 years. Of course neither have any of the hundred that are now shuttered been brought up to code and reopened.

Here are a few points to consider:

• Rather than compete with each other to provide cheaper gasoline, oil companies cheat together to withhold needed gasoline supply from the market. Consistently, the companies artificially pull back refinery production of gasoline in order to reduce supply coming in during periods of peak demand so they can increase prices.

• Oil companies failed to build ample refining capacity to meet demand. Over the last 20 years, America’s demand for gasoline increased 30 percent and refinery capacity at existing refineries increased only 10 percent. No new American refinery has come on line during the last 30 years. Internal memos and documents from the big oil companies show they deliberately shut down refining capacity in order to have a greater command over the market.

• The big oil companies have their own crude oil production operations and control substantial foreign production of crude oil. They profit wildly when the price of crude oil skyrockets, so they have an interest in driving up the price, despite the fact that they blame OPEC for those crude oil increases. The crude oil producers can even drive up the price of crude by restricting gasoline production and trading crude oil among their own subsidiaries to drive up the price paid for crude by others. Traders with connections to the oil companies can also make big bets on the opaque crude oil futures market to drive up the price and also drive up the value of their Exxon shares.

• The crude oil that big integrated oil companies use in their own refineries is mostly bought on long-term contracts or through their own production, so the oil companies don’t pay the world price for crude oil when it’s high. Their raw material costs are much lower than they would like us to believe. So when the companies raise the price of gasoline in tandem with the run-up in crude oil prices, they are making big profits because Exxon’s crude oil unit is charging its own refining unit a higher price for crude than is necessary. The accounting shenanigans result in an overall windfall profit but show the companies’ gasoline refineries making little profit, and “upstream” crude-oil production divisions making the lion’s share.

http://my.firedoglake.com/consumerwatchdog/2011/04/14/whats-causing-the-gas-hole-in-your-wallet-youve-got-to-see-this-movie/

They drop prices when they want and they raise them when they want. And you blame whomever you're told to. Like a good little toadie.