We could create a lot of jobs doing productive work right now, but we're too obsessed with the potential crisis to notice the current and very real crisis millions of unemployed are facing right now. We've half-assed this recovery for years now, delaying the time when growth allows us to deal with the structural deficit. How many more years of high deficit and high unemployment should we go through? WOuldn't it be better to put people to work and jumpstart growth?

I agree - ironically one of the biggest causes of the deficit increase is unemployment and spending money and increasing employment could actually help the deficit long term (if done right and for the right reasons - ie. rebuilt the infrastructure, which in itself will create more jobs).

Its ironic that when borrowing cost money the 'deficit hawks' were silent and happy to spend money, since its become cheap (even 'free') they're reluctant to do so ... its almost like they don't really have the countries best interests at heart and are looking out for themselves and their wallets ;)

What would you propose to do? I agree with you on the half-assing part of the recovery (both parties are to blame).

What do you think about the disability article that Edwards posted?

Reinstate long term unemployment extension/benefits for people if either they're disabled or over 60 (ie. nearing retirement) or willing to train for specific jobs.

Create jobs based around the areas being trained for by starting a government program to repair the countries infrastructure - thus the money being invested will partially be returned because you're generating more jobs and paying less in unemployment benefits.

The improved infrastructure itself once completed should make the country more productive and competitive and in turn create yet more revenue.

I'm kind of a fan of anything that will reduce the amount of people looking for work, as long as its gradual. I don't know if that's the intention of this or if it will really happen. But you hear so much about automation and how there will never be as many jobs. If that's really true THIS time (as opposed to all the other times this was predicted back to the Industrial Revolution), then it doesn't have to be a bad thing at all. Computers doing our work so we don't have to do as much? That is not at all an inherently bad thing. Actually, it's kind of awesome. Our government and economy will have to adjust some, but, not really that much. And it's not the end of capitalism either, as long as the decreased number of jobs still offer more cash and benefits than the government does for doing nothing. It will cause a lot of cultural crises that we'll have to get through (or just wait for people to die out), like people who don't like the government giving so many benefits to people without jobs, and people who regard the "rich" with suspicion (in a shrinking workforce, those on top ARE more valuable to society, because they will fund more and more of the government, we should value them, and also tax them.)

The big problem is unemployment amongst the lesser skilled. The government could fund all sorts of projects that need doing to get these people back to work. Just off the top of my head jobs could be created by fixing roads and bridges, replacing water lines, running higher capacity internet lines, repairing school buildings, painting urban roofs white, lead abatement, and brush removal in high fire areas. I'm sure there are lots of other possibilities, too. All of this needs doing, will have long term benefits and will employ lots of low skilled workers.

But we've chosen to do none of that.

So... the Republicans, as expected, cannot get 218 votes behind any hostage plan.. er.. plan to attach anything to the debt limit. So, like responsible adults, they will send out the only thing that can pass. A clean debt limit increase.

This has enraged the Teahadists so much that they won't get to wreck the economy and shut down the government (AGAIN), that they're going after Speaker Boehner.

Tea party group: Replace Boehner as speaker

The tide must be turning some if my representative, Raul Labrador, was one of the Republicans that encouraged Boehner to pass a clean debt ceiling bill. He wants more power, and he seems to think moving from the tea party side to the middle of Republicans is the way to get it.

Yeah, and put some higher-paying people out of jobs. I'm not saying that what you mentioned is a bad idea, but you have to anticipate the ripple impact. For example, every person who is repairing a bridge puts a higher-paid construction worker out of a job.

Then again, some of the most useful and long-lasting projects were done by the CCC, so maybe there's a way.

More like some of the more.. able to learn Republicans had their "burn the hand on the stove" moment in the government shut down and don't want to repeat the thing. They'll let the OTHER side do all that governing stuff, because that keeps them free for raging about the EVULS of government.

I forget who it was says "The Tea Party is like a member of the Anarchy Party.. their platform is Government doesn't work, and then when elected they actively try to make government not work"

If the government would have invested in a modern CCC back in 2009 I believe the economy would be much better off today. The Dems have few ideas and no spine and the GOP has bad ideas, so we're in year six of unemployment rates that should be considered a crisis.

Interesting story (warning, biased site)... GOP really putting the hammer down on tea party groups, telling donors that if they fund groups like FreedomWorks, they'll lose access to Republican leadership.

How The GOP Plans To Crush The Tea Party Revolt

IF (and again, I will be the first to say TPM has a vested interest in portraying Republicans in a negative light) this is the situation, then the GOP has slipped deeper into a near-Civil War.. could they be imploding at a time where they could most take advantage?

Setting all of the prerequisite groundwork for Jeb 2016. Jeb isnt a TP Repub, but the likely best chance the GOP has to win a general election. If they don't start doing something, Jeb gets killed in the primaries & never makes the GE. Yeah his last name is something, but that only goes so far when you get down to an actual campaign.

He's by all standards (not related to his last name) the most capable Republican to win a general election.

I don't think America is ready for another Bush, we're still recovering the recession the last one got us into.

I don't think anything is going to happen for the betterment of humanity as a whole until the status quo is violently uprooted. Then we'll go another couple hundred years before that group of people develops the same problems. Eventually our new god technology will save us from ourselves and turn us into willing slaves at our bidding, even though we won't ever know that we were asking for it at all. Then we'll have our utopia.

What needs to happen is that the "leadership" needs to be gone completely. At this point they're virtually as much as the enemy of a nation worth having as the f'n D's.

I'm not sure if you meant to put this here, in the anarchy thread, or in the apocalypse thread, but I like how it kind of works for all three.

On the surface that makes sense but Jeb is no GWB, and voters will see that. Plus by election time Americans will blame Obama equally for the economy by not doing enough to pull the economy out of the ditch (whether fair or unfair).

He is a seriously smart political figure and the savviest person in that family (a family of 2 Presidents is saying something no matter the meme on how dumb one of them is). And whether you agree with his politics or not, he has a way of putting aside partisanship (or the appearance of it) in ways that will appear refreshing to a lot of people who have seen this country devolve into this hyper-partisan and hyper-pessimistic society.

Whether you blame that on the Tea Party, Repubs (if you make a distinction), Dems, Obama, Bush, Clinton, the tooth fairy, or some combination of those elements....this country will go for (and has historically) the candidate that displays genuine optimism while not appearing to be a lunatic. And that is what Jeb is good at regardless of his last name.

Can't wait for Clinton vs. Bush in 2016.

And by "can't wait" I actually mean "OMG NO".

Yeah kinda looks like the odds on matchup right now. I doubt Hillary runs though if the Dem field looks weak (and by weak I mean any star power candidate), hard to rule it out.

I actually don't remember it that way. GWB came in after the post-Y2K boom, the dot-com bubble/crash was well underway, and after 9/11 the economy was going to tank regardless of who was in the WH.

Er, I believe there were two recessions during GWB's administration. Most people are probably going to remember the second one.

I will never vote for a Bush, never, ever, never, ever...

Much as I love to kick Mr Bush around, blaming a President for recessions because they occur on 'their' watch is foolish - often they take a lot of time to occur and are a cumulative effect over several terms; often the initial effect which causes the recession is seen as a 'positive' in society.

For instance in England Maggie Thatcher privatized all profit making government owned industry, this gave the country a huge windfall which made society initially prosperous for a short period - however once that windfall was spent (years later and at least a couple of elections) many things had to be cut back because there was no longer sufficient government income to support it (ironic that one of Mrs Thatchers most popular quotes is about 'socialism spending other peoples money' when she spent future generations income by privatizing industry).

Care to elaborate and why you don't think 9/11 is the major factor in the recession?

What's worse....articles that tell women to bring back the bush, or the thought that the US could elect another Bush. Both are potentially tragic to this nation.

Hard to imagine a much more tragic presidency than the one we've been enduring lately. For only the second time in my lifetime I've reached the point of being embarrassed by what we've become.

That said, the next Bush certainly offers no guarantee of much improvement. I suspect he'd be much more the mediocre disappointment that the last Bush term was than the much more solid first term by the same.

It's precisely because of 9/11 that of the two recessions in Bush's administration, people are more likely to remember the second one as an actual recession, if that makes sense. I would imagine to most people there's a more clear economic causal line between the financial system collapse and subsequent recession than 9/11 and its subsequent recession.

And having said that, as I recall things, the economy was already well on its way to bubble-bursting recession when 9/11 came along.


You are me 8 years ago.

I hope that makes you feel dirty. :p

Yep. A huge segment of America was just plain embarrassed by what went on under W.

Disgusted is a better word...

I think people are going to generally blame/credit presidents for economic stuff based on their party inclination going in. Obama's approval rating ain't that great (even with the middle) and those who are inclined to, are blaming him for the stagnant economy. Bush maybe has somewhat more dislike in the middle, but the Obama disappointment they have is more recent, so I think it's just about a wash when it comes to 2018. Either party can blow it by nominating a dud.

I don't disagree with you. My original comment was below. I contend you cannot blame GWB for the either the post 9/11 or the financial crash.

Did the recession last longer than it should have? Who knows.

Eh, we're both used to that happening by now ;)

More seriously though, it kinda illustrates why I really don't see much future for the country (at least not one I want any part of) & I'd really rather hit a sizable lottery & find me an island somewhere. (Nothing personal, you're just a handy jumping off point for a much larger thought, which I believe you'll understand)

The fairly short-term post-911 portion of the Bush admin is, in many respects, what I consider America at her best. That's the country I want to see, the one I want to be a part of. What's left today, honestly, is more misery inducing for me than much else.

Cruz is good at this political stuff. Win, lose, draw, whatever ... this is quality work from a political standpoint afaic.

My Way News - Cruz's demand ensnares GOP leaders on debt vote

I tend to agree with those who say you can't really give a President a lot of credit, good or bad, for the way the economy goes, especially when it goes fast in either direction.

But that's not to say you can't give them any credit at all.

When I read Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail about the crash, the thing that stood out to me was the complete and utter lack of meaningful oversight for the financial industry. And bear in mind Sorkin has been accused (probably rightly) of being in bed with the Wall Street folks, so many think the book soft-pedals the negative parts (for the full negative, read Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone, for instance).

So, it's somewhat damning.

Where's Bush in this?

A financial system circa 2008 without any meaningful oversight is the product of a very laissez-faire approach to regulation, which, obviously, has its drawbacks. Was that Bush's direct fault? Well no, because he's not the regulator. But Bush wanted to cut regulations in every industry, and the crash of 2008 is one of those consequences. Inasmuch as anything caused the resulting recession, the financial crash did. So the causal line is drawn, IMO.


But anyway, back to your original reply. While I don't know which recession NobodyHere was referencing, I'm going to assume it was the 2008+ one. That's the one people will put on Bush and, as I've explained, somewhat rightly so. Just as rightly to not put the post-9/11 recession (which was well underway before 9/11) on him. He could have done more to try and arrest the slide of the dot-com bust but yes, after 9/11 the economy was going down regardless.

Agreed.

And, from my point of view, it's also awesome in that it prolongs, and possibly even escalates, the GOP Civil War. :D

I'm actually okay with that too.

One way or another, it's time for the brand to figure out what it is.

I do.

Or Taibbi's Griftopia. It's just depressing but a good read.

SI

Plenty of blame to go around.
Financial Crisis Was Avoidable, Inquiry Concludes - NYTimes.com

Everyone effed up with Gramm-Leach-Bliley:


SI

Idle rant I guess ...

A tiny hospital in rural south Georgia shut down last week. Today I've seen that story make the rounds with one side blaming "reduced payments due to Obamacare" and the other side blaming the state legislature "for failing to expand Medicare"

Reality check: it's a county of less than 10,000 people, with double-digit unemployment & more than a quarter of the population below the poverty line ... of COURSE it can't fucking support a hospital, I'd be surprised if it could support a small Hardee's.

I know a tea partier here in LA who's posting that story as his proof that Obama is a disaster in every way. Not shocked he's not up on the local information.

I've seen this one slowly but surely going viral this evening. It's mindblowingly stupid to read the shit from both sides on this one, a complete disconnect with some fairly simple reality.

We have too many f'n counties in this state (159, second most in the U.S. IIRC), this particular place would have to grow to become a wide place in the road. Yes, it's ~30 miles to the nearest hospital ... but it's probably 30 miles to the nearest f'n Waffle House too.

I thought I saw Georgia had the most counties in the U.S...?

I wanna see a reality show where you try to eat at this Hardee's once a week.

Nope, it should only take one guess which state has the most, nearly 100 more. :)

Yeah, but 12 of those are actually smaller than our smallest ... so they kinda don't count afaic

:D

I remember back in the third grade, my teacher told me that if I made up a list of all 72 Wisconsin counties and the county seats, she would give me a 1/2 point extra credit for every county. I asked if she would extend that to other states and she agreed. I pulled out the encyclopedia and got to work on Texas. It took a while, but when I was done I turned in the several sheets of paper (think large, 3rd grader handwriting) with every Texas county and county seat and announced that I would not be doing any homework for the rest of the quarter.

Then you might need a hospital nearby (Hey-o!)

SI