atomic_fungus (atomic_fungus) wrote,
atomic_fungus
atomic_fungus

#2845: Trying to put a positive face on economic DOOMsday

CNBC says the S&P 500 is up! We're saved! Meanwhile the Dow-Jones has had eight days of "down" and closed today about 37 points higher than yesterday. We're saved! (But it lost some 500 points in the past week and around 850 in the last two.)

So I look at this sentence and try to figure out WTF the writer is trying to say: "The S&P 500 entered into positive territory for the session and for the year after below its March low of 1,249.05 for most of the session." Presumably this guy has an editor; how did he miss that?

Especially since--if you look at the 6-month graph at this link--the S&P 500 closed lower than it's been since sometime in November.

* * *

Considering that last year's "summer of recovery" was the result of government bookkeeping tricks and not real economic growth, I have to say again that there can be no "double-dip" because the economy has been in the shitter all along.

* * *

Market Ticker has more excellent commentary on just how screwed we all are.
I understand the political issues. There are plenty of people, including some I really like in the political sphere, who believe we can work this through over time, and that we start in 2012.

They're wrong. We might get away with finishing in 2012, but we won't get away with starting in 2012. That implies the next round is in 2014, then 2016.

But I don't believe we have five years to get to a sustainable budget. I know we don't have ten, certainly not at the pace being discussed thus far.

We probably have two.

But that's not much time, and if we go "over-center" before then, and it's entirely possible we will this year, then the acceleration of the destruction of coverage ratios will effectively preclude making choices, as they'll be forced on us.

I wish there was a better way to look at this, but there's not. We made our choices with trillions in faux stimulus and money printing. That's over now.

The experiment was run and it failed.
And--as he says earlier in the piece--it's only a question of "when", not "if".

* * *

I am becoming increasingly convinced of Vox Day's point--one which I have resisted in all forms for years--that there really is little to no difference between the Democrats and the GOP.
...[T]he complete inability of the Republican Party to do anything of substance, to cut so much as a single dollar from the current amount of spending, means that the "realistic" forty-year strategy of "elect more conservative Republicans" has completely failed. ...it is clear that it is no longer even possible to prevent the bi-factional swan dive from the economic Tarpeian Rock, it is time to shift focus and to begin preparing for the post-mortem rebuilding.
The GOP has proven itself--particularly since 2000--to be "Democrat Lite" rather than the party of fiscal conservatism. I think Vox Day's assertion that the plan failed with Reagan and the 1994 Congress is overstated--both events did a lot for conservatism, but were utterly eradicated by the liberal counterstrokes that followed...many of which were aided by "moderate" Republicans.

* * *

I managed to get my errands run today, but I still have a couple more to do tomorrow. And I'm going to cut the grass after 6; it's cooling off rather nicely outside thanks to a strong breeze from the NE. (Wonder if Og's got anything to do with that.)

* * *

Ended up logging on to old Darkmaster to hit a couple instances with Sailor V. DM got level 45 and is now 64% of 46; also he got some nice new equipment and some rep gains from the effort.

...that kept me up far too late this morning, and I didn't get to sleep until after 9. I think it was 9; last night we had some pretty powerful thunderstorms come through and the power quit a couple times, and the alarm clock was flashing when I went to bed around 10-ish so I mashed buttons until it stopped. That left the thing set about an hour ahead of the actual time; and when I woke up at 2 AM with a cavernous, noisy space below my rib cage, I thought it was 3. So it might have been 9 or it might have been 10 that I got to bed, and either way that's too damn late in the morning for me to be going to bed. Then, of course, I couldn't sleep. Eventually I drifted off and managed to snag a few hours.

When I got up, I figured I'd check the weather, so I put on my shirt and sandals and headed for the front door. Then I heard a knocking there.

Turns out I had to sign for a registered letter from a certain bank that owed me money. Said letter had a check in it; that's my errand for tomorrow.

Then as soon as that was dealt with, suddenly the phone was ringing. "What the hell?" I demanded. "'Okay, he's up! Everyone pile on!'" But it was a robocall about something stupid so I let the machine get it.

Put myself together and hit the road; picked up license plates for the Fiero; went to Wal-Mart for my RXeses, mouthwash, and some cat food; then I hit Wendy's for brunner (breakfast/lunch/dinner all in one, since it was around 4 and I hadn't eaten anything since having a peanut butter sandwich around 9).

Of course I'm still sleepy. What do you think?
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