Well there goes the economy
 

Wall Street closed below 10,000 guess chicken little is alive and well.:rolleyes:

I think there is more to the Chicken Little effect than they would care to admit, but, I believe there are valid reasons for the lack of confidence today.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/04/mark...dex.htm?hpt=T1

Also, Janurary Jobs Report come out tomorrow and it sounds like there were a tad more losses than they had hoped for.

RC

Yeah, it's all over now.

"Brother can you spare a dime?"

I have a friend who works in the steel industy in Ohio. He's scheduled to return to work a week from Monday, after a sixteen month layoff. The reason? A rise in demand for "structural steel products". Might this have something to do with "infrastructure" investment from the "National Reinvestment Act"? Actually, it does. And over the next three weeks about 1,100 steelworkers in Warren, Ohio will be returning to work.

Now, granted, this is just a small thing, contrasted against the immensity of the problem, which is truly global in nature. But, I'll take it.

Or maybe we should have just let the economy collapse? And let Lassez Faire economics ruin more communities and let more of Americas industrial base fall fallow?

Naw, fuck that.

Regards,
Dave

I would like to think so but even in a sour economy things get built. A lot of the state and federal projects going on right now have had monies allocated for them 2-4 years ago. Same with private sector.

National Reinvestment Act? not sure, I guess it would be helpful to know what projects they are working on and if it applies. Is he a mill guy, bridge guy or building guy. If he's a mill guy, I would imagine that an exhausted surplus because of little production would force bringing people back regardless.

Congratulations to your friend though. I'm sure he could care less why, just happy that he is working again.

RC

He's a mill guy. He works at the same mill his father, uncle and grandfather did. It has changed hands several times over the decades, but is currently operated by Severstal, a Russian company.

Anyhow, I don't know all of the particulars, just what he told me. And he told me that it had something to do with "infrastructure projects".

Regards,
Dave

"In th' Mornin', in th' Evenin', Ain't We Got Fun ? Not much money, oh, but Honey, Ain't We Got Fun ?".....

Well the jobs report was bad but expected. Since most of the business owners are Republicans they will only be hiring temps until after the elections in hopes more voters will vote their way.

Well, whatever it is, I'm glad to hear he is back to work. Work'in beats not work'in any day.

RC

Actually, I just heard on the radio (if I heard it correctly) that the national unemployment rate had dropped slightly last month but I have to read for the details.

You don't honestly believe that do you. Rob :confused: I'm curious, when you say "most business owners are Republicans", are you meaning large businesses or just business in general?

RC

I used to sell temps help and I tells ya, Dems use temps too :p

If the porkulus bill saved or created 600,000 as claimed that's $750,000,000,000.00 divided by 600,000 = One Million Two Hundred Fifty Thousand a job.

In government-speak, a bargain.

Pete

I hear ya. I guess the real question should be whether or not these actions are planting the seeds for further hiring or just one trick ponies. Thats the problem with some of it. Once the project is completed will there be more. If not, where did that get us. If it's a subsidized program thats funding will disappear at some point, what happens when the individual state is now fiscally responsible for maintaining it? I am hopeful that Obama really has some meat in this latest one that will promote private sector growth. If we don't have that soon, we are going to be in heap big trouble.

RC

I don't think anyone can correctly attribute any number to jobs created or saved even though the administration feels compelled to do so. Regarding the $750 billion, only a relatively small portion has been spent thus far (for better or worse).


Actually stimulus spending of this nature is intended to be a one-time "shot in the arm" taking the form of capital improvement projects in most cases. You want to create "projects" instead of "programs." Projects can be completed, government programs cannot (and spending will continue forever).

True, but here in lies the problem. I'm not always sure that a good thing.

RC

About a third, I think. Also some of what has been given out has been repaid.

John

Thought bubble;

(God.............no matter what happens............if in two years unemployment is down to five percent, they'll be tellin' us it coulda been down to two percent a year ago...........if the Dow goes up 100 points, it the precurser to a crash...............if you authorize one dollar to be spent, they'll tell you it's not enough and then bitch atcha about spending the first thirteen cents................if you propose a fix for healthcare, they propose damn little, fight you every step of the way, then when damn little gets done, they blame you for it........I think, maybe, they should be glad most Liberals abhorr violence.)

Regards,
Dave

Gosh Dave, that sounds like the Dems a couple years ago ;)

Pete

We weren't saying that successes were failures. We were saying that failures were failures.

John

Aren't a lot of the Stimulus projects spending money on infrastructure? Personally, I believe we need to do a good deal of work. That bridge collapse in Minneapolis should have been a wake up call. A few decades of "why should I have to pay" finally brough about a frightening answer.

I still have visions of a vast American waste land where taxes are quite low. Militias roam what is left of the highway system, well armed as is their right by the second ammendment. Most government buildings in ruins. Churches, however are thriving between the skirmishes- most have snipers in the bell towers to defend from opposing religious believers. Anarchy rules the day, and somewhere (the White House long ago abandoned as an expense we don't want to pay for) Sarah Palin is President.

Its the Tea Party paradise. I'll be elsewhere.

You don't recall the right wing pundits blaming the Minneapolis collapse on lazy union workers and advocating cutting infrastructure funding to pro-labor blue states? I do. They went on about it for days, until something else distracted them.

Regards,
Dave

You forgot the cattlecars that had come for all of the illegals. and then when that happened unabated, they started looking around for whomever else they've been dying to get rid of for so long.

"Eine Volk, eine Reich, eine Fuhrer!":eek:

Regards,
Dave

I do recall Bush being blamed for the bridge.

Very little of the stimulus is being used for infrastructure iirc.

Pete

Hope you don't mind me steeling that and adding it to my rhetorical arsonal. Quite on ponit.

This article, which bashes the stimulus, says $100 Billion is going to infrastructure.

http://www.propublica.org/special/st...-chart-and-map

The I35 bridge collapse was a tragedy but I don't recall any conversation about blaming it on union workers. The bridge had passed inspections but rated a 4 on a scale of 1-9 I believe with 9 being a perfect score and 0 being a complete shut down. It came down due to gusset plate failure caused by all the added stress of the work that was being done on the bridge at that time.

I hope it has changed the way in which we evaluate inspection data nationally. I don't consider maintaining infrastructure a "program", just work that needs to be done. Putting aside where we are at today, this is the kind of thing that our government dollars should be spent on. I guess other programs have been deemed more important.


RC

Assuming the stimulus was 750 bil (I think it's 850) that's 13%. Should've been 99% imo, at least spend it on something permanent!

Gosh, you Dems love the doomsday GOP scenarios :)

Pete

Have at it, Ed.

I think we should embrace all illegals and encourage more. In fact why don't we just drop the whole US citizen/Illegal Alien thing and have a dang Hootenanny! I mean after all, how dare us lay claim to any chunk of land when we are actually a global citizens of the one united planet. Line starts on the left.

Your actually comparing peoples concerns about the amount of illegals in this country and the inherent ecomomic affects to Hitlers Germany???

RC

Thank you.

Wow, it works really well!

Reagan did.

Joe Arpaio
Tom Tancredo
Shawna Forde

John

Regards,
Dave

Our unemployment rate is a hell of a success.

Pete

And, of course, the economic collapse Bush engineered has nothing to do with that. If Obama were any good at all he'd have fixed everything already. Fifty-five weeks in office is more than enough time.

I really, really, really hate it when Republicans try to blame others for their own failures while insisting that the way to fix those problems is to double down on the very things that got us into this mess.

John

Unemployment fell to 9.7%. Report out today.

And, as was reported earlier, the economy grew by 5.7% in the last quarter of 2009.

John

But see that's bad. If a Republican had been in office it would have been 5.8%.

Yes, but one has to remember that we had what, 2-3 million illegals in country at that time. He also called for legislation to counter the incentives by applying huge fines to employers that employ illegals. Today the numbers are estimated at somewhere between 10-and 20 million. I guess it didn't work too well.

I have no problem with legal immigration to this country.


A tough Sheriff
An over reaching state house member
An unfortunate incident that should not have happened.

RC

Ok by me! I just wasn't sure where exactly you were coming from.

RC

So, you don't think Reagan's amnesty actually encouraged illegal immigration? And you don't think his giving only lip service to employer sanctions was a cop-out (for which I blame both parties)?

A racist with open ties to white supremacist groups whose department systematically harrasses brown people in his county.

Is overreaching the way they describe racism now?

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/tea-party-f...ory?id=9751718

Tancredo was a Republican US Congressman and candidate for the 2008 nomination for president.

Not just one incident and not just one person. Forde was connected intimately with the Minuteman Movement.

John

Let me put it this way, I have worked small, non-profit medium and large since arriving here in '84. I met damn few owners that I would describe as liberals.

The Great Alibi (aka Bush). George Will

If the economy is growing then why don't we rein in the porkulus bill?

Pete