Good news, for once, for those of us against monopolies:

Justice Department Files Antitrust Lawsuit to Block AT&T’s Acquisition of T-Mobile

Oops:

Leaked AT&T Letter Demolishes Case For T-Mobile Merger - Lawyer Accidentally Decimates AT&T's #1 Talking Point | DSLReports.com, ISP Information

Yeah, it turns out when you circulate memos saying it'll cost only 1/10th as much to build a network just like T-Mobile's which makes it looks like you're just buying them to kill competition and you'll drastically reduce investment... oops.

SI

Good!

Yeah, $39B can get you a lot of wireless network coverage no matter where you are trying to cover.

I don't know what the real story is but it makes Obama look stupid.

Handling of jobs speech timing blurs White House message - CNN.com

Seriously. What a fucking wimpy wanker.

Great news on no hostile deaths. Lets not extend a training mission. I think we can pull out now.

BBC News - Iraq: US troops' first fatality-free month since 2003

Yeah- this sort of stuff really does make him look like
A) Nothing is ever fully thought out ("What? That date is bad for you guys?")
B) He'll never stick to his guns on anything ("Whatever you want, John"
C) He wanted to challenge them ("Yeah, we'll stick it to them and steal the thunder of their debate") and they just gave up ("We can't win. They're too powerful")

SI

I thought the Republican debate was scheduled that night a long time ago? At our middle school the teachers learn not to schedule events in conflict with other events (ie Band concert on the same night as Choir trip) I would think the White House and their trillion dollar budget would be capible of something similar. I personally could care less if Obama spoke the same night but I think it's probably choice A but I definitely wouldn't rule out choice C. The resident libs think Obama is always getting picked on, IMO I think it is part of their strategy. (He really can't do much about jobs and nobody really cares what he has to say so why not make this yet another partisan issue that overshadows the event)

I wish he would forgo running for reelection.

I saw last night that no sitting president has ever won reelection with an unemployment of 9% or higher.

Yesterday, the White House predicted that unemployment would stay above 9% through the end of next year.

I think your argument has some merit actually. I think the Dems would stand a better chance with a new candidate who doesn't have the economic baggage that Obama has, especially given the Republican field they're up against.

In the real world there's no Dem that stands a better shot at winning than Obama. A challenger would piss of the African-American community and would have to explain why they either didn't support or didn't challenge every decision Obama made.

I think Obama's in a lot of trouble, but there's no knight in shining armor out there to save Dems. They'll sink or swim with Obama.

The only think Obama has going for him right now is that the Republican field is horrible. I guess "Hope" and "Change" can be "Do you really want to vote for Michelle Bachmann?"

Hilary would be interesting. Obama I guess was smart to put her as SoS to avoid her running against him.

If Hillary challenged, and she won't, she'd have even more problems than someone outside of the admin.

This. "Oh woe is me, I'd save the world but the big bad Republicans are being mean to me"

I stay out of political discussions like the plague, but I just absolutely hate this guy. There are no leadership qualities with him, just politics 24/7. I wish both sides would have different people run in 2012, but unfortunately that isn't going to happen.

The Republican field is a disaster. It will be interesting to see who comes out of that mess. There are only a couple of people there who could make it interesting and the rest will send the majority back to the Dem side. Because they are too far gone to be electable by the masses. Obama won with strong independent support. I think that electorate is still within his grasp. It's how GWB won reelection.


Hilary saw first hand how things are running in the US politically. I don't think she has any intention of ever doing that again. I think it's part of the reason that she is stepping down as SoS. A job that was perfect for her personality.

I see it more of the Republicans playing every card they have in the deck to weaken him as much as possible before 2012. Simply politics, and you are right. He should have dictated what was going to happen instead of caving. This doesn't send a very good message at all. In fact, what a terrible waste of time. As far as the Republicans go, does he need an appointment for the end urinal too? How small of an issue does it really need to be to fuck with it and take time away from representing the needs of the people?

Well actually I am thinking the problem was that Bachman, Paul, and Santorum kind of have to be at his address don't they? Not sure what the official rule is for this sort of thing.

Not really, those jokers could care less what he has to say, other than a race to see who can run to the cameras to criticize it first. The reason is that it would be televised and take away from the debate to see who can find a different way to say the same thing to the tea party.

How does it end up being anyone but Mitt Romney or Rick Perry, tho? Vanilla GOP candidates, for the most part.

SI

I think Romney is really the only threat to him. He has the business chops and is an outsider. Perry will get destroyed once people learn more about him. He's anything but vanilla.

If I was a betting man I'd take Romney in the primary. But I still see a chance that the tea party faithful just batter him over the next year and either make him vulnerable in the general election or leave behind a lethargic base that didn't get what they wanted. The Tea Party's energy was what won them seats in 2010, do we really think they'll come out in force for Mitt Romney?

I think Romney is out. I think that he has already maximized his popularity and that he is known out there enough that people have already made up their minds about him. He has no upside left. And what upside he has isn't enough to win the whole thing, but his base is large enough that whoever he backs could win easily.

As for Perry, I don't know enough about him. So it seems that he has a lot to gain at this point in the race.

Personally, I'd like to see Huntsman do more, but I think that his message is far enough away from the base that they will just exclude him as much as possible.

If it is someone like Bachman or Palin, I don't see how Obama could lose. Paul is interesting, but I don't think that he is really a viable candidate. Kind of like Perot was in 92 and 96.

Palin seems like the wild-card here, too. For all of their "insurgency," Bachmann and Perry are ultimately career politicians who understand that they will fight like hell to get the nomination but, if they do not, then they will fall in behind Romney, and encourage their supporters to do likewise. That's how you live to fight another day in the party.

Palin? Who knows. If she enters the race (and, FWIW, I don't think that she will), I don't see her losing gracefully. She takes things very, very personally. And seems both desperate to be accepted by the GOP establishment, but also wants to remain an outsider for life. That's a dangerous and unstable combination. I think that the general "don't destroy members of your own party" rule for primary campaigns goes out of the window with her. I could really see her doing significant damage to Romney among the base in a sort of scorched-earth-take-my-ball-and-go-home tantrum once she starts to feel the pressure of the primary season.

Obama-hate will certainly get a lot of the base to the polls, no matter who the GOP candidate is. But in an election that, at this point, seems like it will be razors-edge close, a take-no-prisoners primary could cost the GOP the 1 or 2 percentage points that mean the difference between victory and defeat.

All of which is, I think, just an academic exercise (and a bit of wishful thinking) on my part b/c I think that she's not going to run and instead enjoy a role as King-maker-in-Chief for this primary.

Santorum lost his re-election bid in 2008. He has not been a member of congress in quite some time.

A crap sandwich of a day for Obama

Job growth grinds to halt, fuels recession fear - Yahoo! News
Horrible jobs report (again)

Obama halts controversial EPA regulation - Yahoo! News
He steps in and squashes a strong EPA regulation

Regulator to sue major banks over mortgages - Yahoo! News
This one I only note for the "media is all liberal and lefty" squad. While the statement: "These payouts would reduce earnings and weaken capital levels, perhaps harming the ability of banks to lend money and provide much-needed life to a stalled housing market and weakened economy" is true, it doesn't really follow with the rest of the article and just seems to be part of the general "piling on" about the economy. So, even in an article about the government suing fraudulent banks, it comes back to "Oh noes! We shouldn't do that because it might hurt the economy".

SI

I think this one is a chess move. He's trying to take away the Republicans "anti-business" tag they give him.

I just don't think it makes a difference. Are GOP voters going to suddenly think Obama is pro-business?

SI

They never will. Obama isn't going to ever lose any or gain any GOP voters. However, the undecided/independent voters...

I doubt there's a single business in America that isn't hiring that now will because this "uncertainty" has been removed. The whole uncertainty argument is largely bullshit IMO.

Hmmm, we may as well pass on the cost of this regulation onto the customers anyways, just in case it ever happens.

Time to figure out 5,000 more jobs we can eliminate.

I think Romney's in a lot of trouble. Perry has pulled out with a big lead and the early primary schedule favors a strong conservative. I still don't think a Mormon can win in the South and the GOP nominee is going to have to be strong in the South or the party will split.

Somewhere, a lobbyist is receiving a bonus check from his CEO.

It's kind of sad how much the "companies won't hire because of such and such" gets used these days in political discourse. This was the main article on CNBC right now.

Why Won't Companies Hire? Washington Is In the Way - CNBC

Can you imagine a business booming with demand and saying "well we'd like to hire people fulfill these orders, but we just don't know what's happening in Washington".

Businesses hire when there is demand. There is no demand so there is no hiring. You can argue that maybe the government is behind the lack of demand, but to say businesses base their hiring practices on some bullshit political discourse in Washington is laughable.

For me, Romney and Huntsman are the GOP candidates that I can support. Romney because he has been a successful business man and Huntsman primarily because he seems more moderate than any other GOP candidate.

Anyone remember the West Wing TV series ... does Perry remind you of the GOP candidate they had in the last couple years?

All looking bad. Anyone have any good economic news?

Job market stalls in August: Hello Recession? - The Curious Capitalist - TIME.com

Huntsman's tax plan is bat shit crazy. I liked a lot of what he had to say until that came out.

I couldn't find alot of details to his tax plan? Devil is in the details but below sounds good to me.

Wall Street Journal loves Huntsman jobs plan – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs

Huntsman offers tax, trade plan to create jobs - politics - Decision 2012 - msnbc.com

Here's a description form the National Review.

I'm all for reducing the gap between marginal and effective tax rates, but taking all the generated revenue and using it to lower rates instead of lower the deficit is crazy. His rates and the elimination of capital gains and dividends taxes would shift the taxation burden toward the middle class.

His plan is basically, rich pay a lot less, middle class pays more, and the debt is still on target to explode.

Yeah, I like how they keep trying to get rid of capital gains and dividend tax. Because making income with those methods is better than making income actually doing something. Income is income, it should all be taxed the same.

Part of the problem is companies have cost cut to the bone in many cases - which lowered demand across the entire economy, now the cost cutting maximised profit ... but the limitations built in are that less people are working and until more people are hired demand isn't there.

IF companies hired demand would go up as more people had money - but its a chicken and egg situation, no company will hire without demand because if they do so alone they could be less losing profitability .. it needs a surge across the board in hiring.

I fully expect what will happen is a tax break being given (to these hugely profitable corporations who already pay very little tax ;) ) which is centered around hiring workers .... this will encourage some hiring but be very cost inefficient for the government.

What I 'think' should be done is investment in infrastructure by the US government, if they improved the roads, rail network, bridges etc. - then it'd put a lot of people in the construction industry back to work and that would stimulate the economy and thus corporations into hiring. It'd also be more cost effective as something like 75% of money invested into infrastructure ('general average' - your milage can vary) tends to end up coming back to a government via. taxes, increased revenue etc. .... just my tuppence worth.

Infrastructure is good but it seems limited to a segment of the population. If something could be done to give relief to the homeowners/mortgage situation (I don't claim to know the right solution), it would be better imo.

The best help for house prices would be a stimulated economy which is truly thriving, that comes from infrastructure imho - artificially stimulating the economy (ie. tax breaks on housing, cars or whatever) only works until that artificial stimulus is removed ... improving infrastructure improves the competitiveness, efficiency and profitability of the country as a whole.

I don't see it as specifically home prices, its more the large segment of the population that is underwater/foreclosures and banks holding those mortgages/pending foreclosures ... so its more debt relief. Even if home prices were to rise modestly it won't rise fast enough, a large portion will still be weighed down.

A solution I've read (but don't know how good of an idea or the mechanics/logistics) is to grant some sort of debt forgiveness but the "delta" will be recaptured in any future home sales/profit.

In my case, I'd just love to see the ability to refinance my underwater loan. I'm running around 6.5% on my loan right now. Giving me a more current rate would free up about 15K a year by doing nothing but adjusting the rate. I still owe the same amount. You can be dang sure I'm going to be putting that 15K back into the economy much quicker than Bank of America will.

I heard a lot of nonsense like "you know if (pick a profitable company) wouldn't lay off so many people, there would be more people to buy. I heard examples like "if IBM wouldn't lay off people, then they would have more people to buy computers". Yeah, but so long as, say, JP Morgan Chase doesn't lay off all of their people, they are paying the cost to have customers to IBM.

The problem is that every company is saying the same thing "As long as there are some customers out there, I have to do what I can to maximize profit" so everyone is cutting off everyone else's base just to maximize their own short term cash and profit.

It will be sad and funny (in a gallows humor sort of way) when everyone looks back at the time period from 2000-2030 and wonders how everyone could be so short sighted. But if you set up a system which encourages purely maximizing profits, you have everyone right now running around saying "Well, what else should a company do?"


No kidding. Do you think a $5000 tax credit is going to make some company hire someone at more than $40K a year (arguably a "real job")?


I've always been a fan of this. The two big projects that really need to be done are modern electric grid and, yes, high speed rail. Those cost a lot of money but if you designate "buy American" provisions like a lot of the stimulus, they generate some of those "real jobs" in other sectors like engineering and railroad and electronic manufacturing and not just construction.

SI

There's an endless number of projects, but that doesn't matter if there's no will to put people to work. The government could repair roads/bridges, upgrade the power network, repair schools, paint tar roofs, clean parks, clean storm damage, research/build clean energy, tear down abandoned housing, etc.

Money can be borrowed at negative real rates. Projects need doing. People need work. This shouldn't be hard.

You willing to terminate unemployment benefits to recipients if they turn down jobs offered on these (hypothetical) projects? And that these jobs be proactively offered to them, not just made available in case they happen to decide to seek them?

(Sidebar, simply asking the question)

For as bad as unemployment is, when I turned half of my staff over this year I had ZERO citizens of the United States apply for the jobs.

Then again, I don't think unemployment is terrible in my area. Construction (not housing) has picked up some.

Assuming there were jobs available for everyone on unemployment and that tracking all of that would actually save money, sure. I'd prefer people being productive rather than non-productive.

The concern with massive infrastructure spending is that spending is kept in checked. No inflated costs.