Perhaps a more appropriate question would have been:

Will the Economy Grow…AT ALL?

They call it the “great recession”, but in fact this is a “new economy”.  Growth for the foreseeable future will be somewhere between agonizingly slow and slow.  The real estate and stock markets of 3 years ago will be recorded in history as something akin to the roaring twenties of the early part of that century. And I’m of the mind, that just as we will likely never see a great depression again because of lessons learned, so too we’ll never see the hey day markets of early 2000s ever again either.

Those of you sitting on your real estate hoping for those price points to resume and a “market recovery” are dillusional.  In fact, if you want to sell your real estate—-now would be a good time to accept that low-ball offer if you’re lucky enough to get an offer.  The real estate market is in the process of self-correcting.  In a year or two prices will be 20% or more below that lousy offer you rejected…and you still may wait months for an offer.

Let me guess, who voted yes.  KN,Native, Vud and Emerson and In the Middle.  Close?

hammer:  I haven’t voted yet.  But the real question is…

How many job have you created, or eliminated, in the past 12 months?  Allegedly, you’re a small business owner, how many of either.

Are you a part of the problem, or part of the solution?

Or, more likely, are you just a spit-baller in the back row spouting rightwing talking points and presumptions about people you know little, if anything, factual about.

A better set of questions would have asked what economic segments will grow and why? Which segments will continue to shrink and why?  AND, what are the state and local govts and business councils doing to identify the growth factors to get things headed in the right direction?

kingoth: some people want to be small business operators, others want to be teachers, doctors, firemen, etc.  Is a fireman just “a timecard punching security blanket kind of person”?  How about a mechanic at a car dealership?  How about the receptionist at your accountant’s office?

Is this really the superior high ground you want to stake out for yourself?

I have worked, usually quite happily, for a number of small and medium businesses.  When I offer a proactive value to a business, then we both win.  S/he has a successful business, I have a job.

You do recycle all that chinese cardboard your materials arrive in, don’t you?  It helps reduce the amount of fill going into the landfill.

If you think the economy is bad now….oh boy….just you wait until next year when a handful of tax cuts expire and a whole new slew of them kick in.

the new taxes that will be heaped on the economy next year will stretch the US economy to its limits. Hopefully the GOP can stave off some of this mess.

Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the US economy.  The number of Amerricans paying down debt incresed by 29 percent over last year.  These two facts should tell you something.

The banks have all kinds of money to lend…people are simply not borrowing it.

Why?

Because people are scared.

All the stimulus in the world is not going to change that.  Countries are already selling off US T-bills in favor of gold and other currencies.  Economic growth is nonexistent - despite what the alphabet media says.

The truth to our government is simply a lie undiscovered.

The NYT has an informative graphic:  http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/08/29/weekinreview/29goodmangrphic.html?ref=weekinreview

and a decent analysis:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/weekinreview/29goodman.html?_r=1&hp;===quote===

THE American economy is once again tilting toward danger. Despite an aggressive regimen of treatments from the conventional to the exotic — more than $800 billion in federal spending, and trillions of dollars worth of credit from the Federal Reserve — fears of a second recession are growing, along with worries that the country may face several more years of lean prospects…

Yet even as vital signs weaken — plunging home sales, a bleak job market and, on Friday, confirmation that the quarterly rate of economic growth had slowed, to 1.6 percent — a sense has taken hold that government policy makers cannot deliver meaningful intervention. That is because nearly any proposed curative could risk adding to the national debt — a political nonstarter. The situation has left American fortunes pinned to an uncertain remedy: hoping that things somehow get better.

It increasingly seems as if the policy makers attending like physicians to the American economy are peering into their medical kits and coming up empty, their arsenal of pharmaceuticals largely exhausted and the few that remain deemed too experimental or laden with risky side effects. The patient — who started in critical care — was showing signs of improvement in the convalescent ward earlier this year, but has since deteriorated. The doctors cannot agree on a diagnosis, let alone administer an antidote with confidence.

=== end quote===

It’s funny how Keynesians are clueless when their approach doesn’t work.  To solve the problem, work it backwards.  Go ASK business what their needs and challenges are to ramp up hiring and achieve success.  Take those pearls of wisdom, convert to policy, and implement.

Who wants to get a loan from a bank who requires you to have a credit score of 700 or better when their credit score is below 500.

Bailout Banking

Slogan: “Doing Biz with a Wiz.” 

- Not!

According to some economists, we are already iin the depression:

http://www.helium.com/items/1933168-us-in-economic-great-depression

From the article:

“Today’s corporate profits reflect an income shift into 2010. These profits will tumble next year, preceded most likely by the stock market,” writes (Arthur) Laffer in the Wall Street Journal article, Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse.

Laffer calls attention to the one thing that has kept the economy partially afloat, as poor as the economy has been: the Bush tax cuts. When they expire (on January 1, 2011), “federal, state and local tax rates are scheduled to rise quite sharply.” Dividend tax will skyrocket from 15 percent to a whopping 39.6 percent, the capital gains tax will increase 25% and the estate tax will jump from zero to 55 percent.

These taxes—a triple whammy to the economy—will serve to further depress business growth and hiring, depress real estate further and add an even greater burden on the ability of the consumer to spend discretionary income, which will sink like a rock. To all that must be added the re-introduction of the infamous “marriage penalty” that could lead to more home foreclosures.

If all that is not bad enough, tax rates will be raised further on income earned outside the US, payroll taxes will rise in 2013 squeezing the middle-class wage earner more, the alternative minimum tax will affect people at lower income levels and taxes are scheduled to be imposed on so-called “Cadillac health care plans.”

So tax cuts have saved and will save us ?

Then how do you explain the current state of the economy ?  After all, those tax cuts HAVE been in play for a good long while…and in fact pre-date the current crisis.  What happened ?

...an alternate view…

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion


” The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion.
When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. “

” This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts. “

=======================================

http://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/irs-tax-return/5519.html


Also, for those with the ability to plan ahead, the recovery off the earlier lows - even if temporary - in the economy and in the stock market in particular has allowed many to recoup much of their earlier losses.

Don’t allow yourself to get caught napping again.

JB is citing the laughable Laffer of the Laffer Curve school of economics?  I thought you were smarter than that, JB.

I haz a sad. :(

So KN, where did you get your Ph.D. in economics?  There are a lot of differing opinions from economist.  The only thing that appears to be certain is that we are headed into a double-dip recession that is mostly due to obama’s policies and spending.  The only real question, is if double-dip obama leads us into the obama depression.

KN only knows to attack people, not issues.  KN constantly violates Beacon policy, every time he touches a keyboard to comment.  KN is simply another victim of the liberal blogosphere.

What KN doesn’t realize is that even these economists (who I don’t really read up on anyway) who are now saying that we are already at that point - these are the same guys a year ago saying that the measures that Obama was taking in the form of the stimulus are the cause for the “upturn” in the economy.
How can there be an upturn when no significant number of jobs are created, when we have an anemic growth rate, and the death knell - the failing housing market?

Even Vud is playing the blame game now - and that is disappointing, because I usually read his opinions with great interest, usually because he comments from a point of sound reasoning.

In part, restoration of taxes are needed - but to additionally tax the middle class will only exacerbate the worsening state of the economy.  At this point (the point of no return) we should just let this economy fall - even though it will mean higher unemployment, failing businesses of all kinds, and the failure of other countries who depend on the US.

Saying that, I know what it means - chaos will ensue.

“When people lose everything, and they have nothing to lose, they lose it.” - Gerald Celente

JB:  “[KN] constantly violates Beacon policy”.  Constantly? really?  Then I must be violating policy right now, huh?  Exaggeration is lying.  Stop lying, JB.  Concurrent with that, is not your lie an attack as well?

I’m concerned about things are going with the economy as well.  But I’m not going to fall prey to the politics of distraction employed by Laffer, and the rightwing cabal, with his “Look at the shiny thing over here” tactic.

Remember Prop. 13 in California that made CA the mess it is now?  You can thank Laffer for that.  Bonus fun fact, he credits Keynes for inspiration in creating his Laffer Curve.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposition_13

Note how much longer the list of negative effects from Prop 13 than the list of positive effects is.

These tax rates he is howling about are probably not going to effect a single reader here.  I’ll guess none of us surpass investmests, let alone incomes, over $200,000.

I notice how quickly you disavowed what you so proudly trotted out.

To the Bush tax cuts expire on the upper 2% will be a huge boost in reducing the deficit.  To do otherwise will make things worse.

Lastly, I thought the stimulus should have been half again as big as it was.  It was not robust enough.

KN: I’m not exaggerating.  You have an attack for every person that comments opposite to your opinion.  Why don’t YOU stop lying and say something useful?

And thanks for disavowing Keynes.

BTW, if you even read the article I linked to, Krugman stated that he blames Obama for not spending the original stimulus fast enough.  What’s the point of making it even bigger if it even isn’t going to get spent at all?

And I quote from the article:

“Nobel Prize winning Paul Krugman, a liberal economist, concurs, but for different reasons. He believes the federal government has not spent enough fast enough. Much of the so-called “stimulus money” authorized by Congress is languishing, unspent. Some hundred billion went to dubious projects and grants designed to stimulate nothing.

Krugman is furious. Writing in a New York Times OpEd piece recently, he condemned the current administration’s economic policies and predicted a Second Great Depression. He also raised a rather bellicose alarm against Treasury and other responsible for US monetary policy—including the Fed. Krugman is convinced that tens of millions will never find work again and the economy will worsen in 2011 and 2012.”

Surprise, surprise.

“Alan Greenspan spiked the punch bowl. All Wall Street did was serve it up.” - Peter Schiff

If you consider confronting rightwing talking points to be an attack, you need to toughen up your little fee-fees.  I’m not here to hold your hand. I speak as bluntly as the site allows and sometimes a little more .

KN:  I don’t consider confronting an opposing opinion to be an attack - I consider insulting the person making the case as an attack.

There is a difference.  You obviously need to learn what that difference is.

Besides, no offense meant - but you are not my type.

I do welcome your opposing viewpoints on talking points, however.  That is the whole point. 

Start employing constructive criticism instead of turning a topic into a witch hunt.

Back to the topic at hand:

On CNBC today, a former Federal Reserve bank president stated that the “crazy policy” coming out of Washington is “attempting to re-implement what never worked under FDR.”

Bush and Greenspan are primarily at fault for causing this mess with stimulus measures - but Obama is only exacerbating it with more of the same.

Yet another Peter Schiff quote:

“This economy is never going to recover until we understand that the source of the problem is government, government stimulus, cheap money, excess regulation, and excess government spending.”

Until that happens - depression is certain.

JB -

” Bush and Greenspan are primarily at fault for causing this mess with stimulus measures ”  ??

Please.  Do explain.

@Vud:  Explain what?  I’m saying that the parties are but players on the stage - and that stage is crumbling out right from underneath their feet.

You can’t tell me you don’t understand this - not you, of all people.  Again, you disappoint me.

The same bad habits before the recession are now being applied in this economic recession except now they have stimulus funds with no transparency or accountability.

Mr./Ms. Kalispell Citizen Tear down these walls and closed doors in this community and tell them to quit farming out and lining pockets that leave our community. The local decision making process in our community is like coming home from work and seeing your partner in bed with another person.

As we travel into winter and un-employment rises yet again in this now called “epicenter of the recession” in Montana.

Here is a new economic slogan:

From the movie “The Outlaw Josey Wales”

“Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining!”

~

JB

I saw an ad this morning…little girl on the edge of a pit with Uncle Sam at the bottom digging frantically with a shovel…little girl looks down and says “Please stop digging.”

The thing is - what they didn’t show - was that the pit’s sides are caving in and if Sam doesn’t keep digging - looking for solid ground at the edges - not only is he going to be buried but the little girl will be pulled into the abyss as well.

You seem to suggest that the government throw down the shovel, yell “RUN” and pass the little girl out the stagedoor on the way to the exit.

I think that is irresponsible and the wrong thing to do.


BTW That’s not to say Uncle Sam WILL be able to stop the collapse…just that he has to try.

Oh, and why would you be dissappointed, JB ?

I’ve been espousing this point of view so long even I’m starting to belive it.  Heh-heh.

In other words,  Who the hell really knows what’s going to happen when large systems are in flux.

...case in point :

the stock market this morning.

Last year, pharmaseutical company Schering-Plough laid off 16,000 people.  They also paid their CEO $49,653,063 in the same year…. maybe we have bigger issues than slow growth.

Peter Schiff? Really?  The guy who came in 3rd to World of Fake Wresling CEO Linda McMahon in the CT Sen GOP primary? 49% - 23%  Second place got 28%

Keep enjoying your time the the lala land of gLibertarian theory.  CA since Prop. 13 has shown how it plays itself out into chaos.

Yep - the same Peter Schiff who owns Euro Pacific Capital.  Just because he’s not a popular politician in CT doesn’t mean he’s not right.

The CT GOP primary was yet another replay of the usual “bread and circuses” nonsense that is so prevalent in American politics.  I’m just sorry he tried to run on the GOP ticket.  It only proves he’s not a politician - thank goodness for that.

So, in that metaphor, it is so apropos that a “fake” wrestling CEO would win that primary.

Just because he has made money using a contrarian investment strategy doesn’t mean he is right, either.

Just because he shows up on CNBC (and F@X) with a former Fed. Bank Pres. who resigned in 1983, and seems to have dropped off the face of the earth since, doesn’t mean he is right, either.

If you use poor sources, you’re using poor information.

So using a “contrarian investment strategy” to make money is wrong…and therefore he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  Got it.

Just keep along that line of thinking, KN.  It’s obviously served you well.

I didn’t say it was a wrong way to make money.

The contrarian strategy has a very limited scope for possible success.  As broad-based plan, not so much.  There are circumstances where it can work, there a far, far more where it won’t.

The more you spread out risk, the less chance for success in the market.  Riskier strategies usually bring greater rewards - and a greater chance for failure, as you note.

Admittedly, you’re right - an investment strategist does not necessarily make a good politician (again, blessings counted).  But I would definetely put him up against any member of Obama’s economic team - a team that seems to be shrinking at the moment.

Looks like Obama is considering tax cuts:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/02/AR2010090204235.html?hpid=topnews

Nice to see you supporting our President, Craig.

Kal Nat, anything for the cause in the never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way.  Perhaps like Clinton, Obama will pivot and go right and leave the lefty dark side.

AND nice to see the President is considering GOP ideas.

Oliver:  It’s the ONLY idea the G No P has.

Keeping all of the Bush tax cuts in place will raise the deficit about 3.2 Trillion dollars, according to the CBO.

Before you dismiss the CBO, remember it is a non-partisan Office, used by both parties.

Regarding the CBO and Bush era tax cuts:  http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=38702

===quote===
A surprising report from the Congressional Budget Office gives new support to permanently extending the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush—dealing a major blow to President Obama’s plans to raise taxes at the end of this year.

In a significant story that receive scant attention from the national news media, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf says that keeping the Bush tax cuts that affect upper-income taxpayers, small businesses and investors will give the weakened economy a “considerable” economic boost over the next several years and create jobs that will drive down unemployment.

Elmendorf’s conclusions were part of a CBO analysis released recently on the government’s record-breaking trillion-dollar deficits.

“Under that ... scenario [keeping the tax cuts at their present levels], economic growth would be stronger next year; unemployment would be lower next year,” Elmendorf said.

===end quote===

KN, are you so absorbed in hatred that you have to turn everything into a negative?  Is there even one thread that you have not thrown out a G No P, or racist, or right-wing-nut or #########, or some equivalent insult? When are you going to grow up and learn to respect those with a different opinion or ideology?  Your opinions and prospective are appreciated, but your insults destroy your credibility.

Oliver: You are so absorbed in repeating your talking points that have no basis in reality.  Quit your whining, it’s so undignified.

As long as O’Lielly and the rest of the rightwing noise machine want to call people like me radical extremists, I have no qualms in lobbing those bombs right back at the acolytes of rightwingnuttia.

Here ya go Craig:

http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/the-gaggle/2010/08/26/on-jobs-and-deficits-republicans-are-worse-than-obama.html

“There’s only one problem with Boehner’s message: so far, the things that Republicans have said they want to do won’t actually boost employment or reduce deficits. In fact, much the opposite. By combing through a variety of studies and projections from nonpartisan economic sources, we here at Gaggle headquarters have found that if Republicans were in charge from January 2009 onward—and if they were now given carte blanche to enact the proposals they want to—the projected 2010–2020 deficits would be larger than they are under Obama, and fewer people would probably be employed.”

snip…

“The final piece of the puzzle is the Bush tax cuts. Obama wants to extend them for the 95 percent of taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year; Republicans want to extend them for everybody. How will these extensions affect the deficit? Glad you asked. According to data compiled by The Washington Post, “the Democratic proposal would add about $3 trillion to the deficit during the next decade, while the GOP plan would cost $3.7 trillion.” That brings the total Obama deficit to $3.784 trillion over 10 years, and its GOP counterpart to—drumroll, please—$4.155 trillion.”

Pick your poison.

Kal Nat, I thought you were enamored by the CBO?  Sorta bites when the facts cut against you.

The poison, as you call it, is to accept that the rate of spending growth can continue to exceed revenue growth.  Spending has to be addressed:  http://reason.com/blog/2010/09/02/can-the-us-afford-70-billion-i

===quote===
All the talk of tax cuts is nice, but it does tend to take people’s attention off what really matters, which is spending. Lest we forget, federal revenue has been highly stable since World War II, coming in around 18 percent of GDP despite heroic attempts to increase or decrease that share.

Here’s the bad news: Official estimates of spending relative to GDP for the years 2010-2015 average 23.7 percent.

The highest percentage of revenue as a percentage of GDP recorded since 1930? A mere (irony!) 20.9 percent, in 1944. And the same estimates of total federal revenue as a percentage of GDP during 2010-2015? A whopping 17.7 percent.

By all means, let’s have a debate over whether the government can afford to let taxpayers keep either $700 billion or $3.9 trillion of their own money over the next decade. But let’s NOT pretend that the economy can withstand the government spending 28 percent more than it’s taking in over the next six years. Or that looking for change in the back seats of the car is what’s going to bring to us fiscal salvation or ruin.
===end quote===

A correction on Craig’s “HumanEvents” link:

”  CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf says that **keeping the Bush tax cuts that affect upper-income taxpayers**, small businesses and investors will give the weakened economy a “considerable” economic boost over the next several years and create jobs that will drive down unemployment. “

Actually, that is probably incorrect.  I say ‘probably’ because that link only refers to ” A surprising report ” or ” were part of a CBO analysis released recently ”  That lack of reference is a red flag.

...and sure enough, Lambro’s analysis is quite incomplete…and in this single instance just plain wrong:

“For the alternative fiscal scenario, by contrast, CBO
assumed that current tax law would be changed over time
to continue certain policies to which people have grown
accustomed and to keep revenues as a percentage of GDP
more consistent with past patterns.”

” Specifically, CBO assumed that through 2020, most of the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 would continue **(except rate reductions applying to high-income taxpayers)**, relief from the AMT would continue, and the **estate tax would be extended
with the rates and exemption amounts (adjusted for inflation)
in effect in 2009.”**

I believe this to be that report:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11579/06-30-LTBO.pdf


Taken in it’s proper context - or maybe I should say Correct context -  it’s small wonder that it was a story ” that received scant attention from the national news media.”

( It IS a very readable, very comprehensive and very interesting CBO doc though. )

The facts aren’t doing you any favors either, Craig.  It demonstrates that your preferred path is even more fraught with peril and negative results.

KN
Are you a man or a woman?

VUD, the story is what would happen next year if the tax cuts were extended—it would kickstart the economy and employment.  Making assumptions about out years is a fools game.  Again I refer you to the Reason article:  revenue increasing at 18% of GDP while spending increasing at 23.7%.  That is the STORY.    Remember Reagan:  http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=42940

Kal Nat, that delta between historic revenue and spending doesn’t do any of us any favors as it makes the day of reckoning all that much more painful the more we put it off.

Craig -

Without (re-) looking.  I believe the current revenue intake is 15% of GDP; below the historical avg. of 18 or 19 %.

Yes, spending has to come down as well as taxes going up.  Both those choices have short and long term impacts.  If you haven’t already - look at that CBO report.

I agree making pedictions long term is foolish - but NOT making them is even more foolish.

Why do you ask, Bill?

kn,
I read these posts often on or I would probably know. A couple years back you talked about old school Kalispell and the things you remebered were things a girl would remember but JB called you he.  Just like to keep my mental pictures straight.

Actually, Bill, I have no idea what gender KN is - although I suspect KN is male.

But, suspicion is not proof - and I have no proof at present.  My use of “he” in referring to KN was purely Freudian in nature.

Stereotype much, Bill?  “things a girl would remember” huh?

KN
From your posts back a couple years I ascertained we grew up in the same neighborhood at the same time.  You posted something about loving to browse the yarn department at Woolworth’s.  I’m pretty sure most of my male friends do not have that memory.  Anyway, it is obvious the neighborhood does not determine ones political persuasion.  I grew up to be a fiscal conservative who wants a smaller government and to keep a little of what I make.  You may have grown up to be a liberal sour puss who wants to know why the people paying the taxes in this country can’t pay more?  I say “may have” because some of what you post is so angry and nonsensical I’m not sure it isn’t a put on.

Bill: you mis-remember.  Perhaps it was someone else with Kalispell in their name.

While I certainly visited the 88 cent store, Woolworths, Torberts, etc.  The only particularly focused browsing I did in my youth was in the comic books section upstairs at (I think it was) Torgersons on the floor and a half below the Mason’s Lodge.  Also, the models at Wheatons.