Man up, nation
So, McCain adviser Phil Gramm was talking economics. He forgot the rules about talking economics with your average American and actually told the truth and used small words to make sure we could understand him. He said it’s not that bad. And he’s right.
Then, he said that America is a nation of whiners. And we righteous Americans were angered by that. So, we showed our anger by, uh, whining about what he said.
July 16th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I let off a good rant about the whiners even before Phil.
http://therighttobeararms.info/?p=184#comment-245
People are behaving as if we’re a week away from soup kitchens and food lines.
July 16th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Link is actually here:
http://therighttobeararms.info/?p=184
July 16th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Hey, at least you have a government, unlike me … and no, not a good thing.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Wait, what? Not that bad compared to what? As hilzoy writes:
July 16th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
We’re not in a recession, as defined. It could get worse. Of course, it could get better.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
It’s a matter of recession in the colloquial sense vs. recession in the technical, economic sense. Even in the technical sense, it’s impossible to know for certain whether or not we’re currently in a recession. It’s the type of thing that can’t really be accurately measured until after the fact. That doesn’t mean we can’t make a pretty good guess, however.
Of course, it’s pretty easy for a rich guy to tell all the not-so-rich folks to quit their complaining…
July 16th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
OK, every fucking MSM maggot is quoting Phil Gramm but none of the bastards are linking. So all I’ve heard about is second hand quotes of what he said.
AFAIK, this is the original article that much hay is being made from.
As for his remarks, I’d have to opine that the economy sucks right now because at some point, the housing bubble had to – at the very least – deflate a bit.
Then it got worse when the people with mortgages they could not afford (sub-prime, ARMs, interest only, low document “liars” loans or “NINJA loans” ) had trouble refinancing their debt into their mortgages and fell behind on their payments. “Wow, you mean that real estate doesn’t always keep going up in value?”
This started a cascade because the note holders for those mortgages were lied to by the people who made the loans and repackaged those notes as low-risk investment devices
The fed tried to fix the problem by increasing the money supply. This had the effect of devaluating the dollar. Since we buy all of our energy on the world market, a dollar that’s worth less buys less oil.
It didn’t hurt that the gov decided to start turning corn into crappy gas supplements as a big heaping slab of pork to the corn belt farmers and people willing to invest in startup conversion plants. You will note that the tariffs on importing ethanol are still in place. So are the ones that keep overseas sugar out of our country, which is why we still sweeten with high fructose corn syrup. (Remember kiddies- free trade is good, but only when it’s good for corporations)
Meanwhile as icing for the cake, our newest flavor of low sulfur diesel meets european union standards for fuel. So now we are exporting manufactured diesel overseas, and a product that everyone uses to get their goods to market went from a few dimes cheaper to at least four bits over the price for gasoline.
So for consumers, the cost of gas is up, and the cost of food is up, so they react by cutting spending. Mac’n’Trash profits are up, while people cut back spending at Four-Bucks. Mall-Wart has record sales, while Needless Markups isn’t doing so hot. But hey, if we consumers were all mental, we’d still go out and spend, spend, spend, so maybe Phil is right.
The rest of the world did not “decouple” from the US, so the (not officially a) recession is now world-wide.
July 16th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
It’s true that the press has been poormouthing the economy since the runup to the 2004 elections, even while the economy has been pretty darned good. That changed in 2008. Inflation is up, unemployment is up, and home prices are down. However, it isn’t the Great Depression MkII that some people of a certain political persuasion are making it out to be.
If Gramm had said the economy isn’t as bad as the press is saying I’d have been OK with it. But that isn’t what he said. He called the entire country a bunch of whiners. Bad move.
July 16th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Lest anyone think I’m in lockstep with the guy tgirsch quotes…
smells like lying or exaggerating with statistics. Why not also tell us the total percentage of foreclosures?
This number is so high because the Fed under Alan Greenspan dumped fuel on the fire that was inflating the housing bubble. The market was full of speculators, yet congress did not gripe about those speculators because it was their constituent that were benefiting from those ever-rising prices, Democrats and Republicans alike. If all the voters had their nest egg in oil futures and they all biked to work congress would not now be having their dog and pony shows over the price of gas.
The banks and lenders are getting bailed out, remember? Bear Sterns? Countrywide? That was only a few months ago, have you forgotten already?
So what are the banks getting bailed out with? Where’s the money coming from? From newly “printed” cash. The fed is running it’s “printing press”, creating more dollars, and causing more inflation. So we, and our grandkids are paying for the lenders bad loans through inflation. Gee, facing the sliding dollar, speculating in the oil futures looks pretty good, eh?
I’ve left a comment a bit ago over in your blog tangently related to this. Fannie and Freddie have been fucked at least since back in ’01 when we almost had a recession. Again, they’re bad because they have been buying up bad loans, loans that they should not have been buying. They are supposed to be buying only AA loans. Congress could have stepped in and forced them to stop buying bad loans, but didn’t, because that might dampen the housing bubble inflation. When the credit crunch happened, people could not just keep refinancing all the credit-card debt they had back into the equity that they had in their ever increasing homes, forcing lenders to start with foreclosure.
Now might be a good time to buy a house, except that buyers that can get a loan during the credit crunch are seeing prices continue to fall month to month. If the cost keeps going down, why not wait until later when they will be even cheaper? Wait and your money goes farther.
July 16th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Don’t worry, republicans are in charge so nothing can be bad!
July 17th, 2008 at 5:41 am
In charge of what? The current Congress is Democrat-controlled, Einstein.
July 17th, 2008 at 7:46 am
I’m not so rich. Quit’cher bitchin’.
Grand sum total of the hits I’m taking in the current economic situation is I’m paying about $30 a month more for food and gas than I used to. Whoop-de-do. I spend far less than I make a month on essentials, and I engineered it that way by biting the bullet and dragging myself out of the credit debt hole I was in when I graduated college.
The only debts I have are a mortgage and a truck, the truck should be paid off by the middle of next year, and the mortgage is very, very healthy. And you know what? I have a big screen TV, I have two new computers, I have a “toy” car in the driveway to play with, I have lots of rifles and handguns… and no debt, which isn’t bad for someone making $50K a year. You just have to *wait* for some things. I really can’t understand the instant gratification mindset that drives all these folks into bankruptcy over credit cards.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Gee how’s that 401k doing? Down about 20%? How’s those ammo prices? Must not have bought any in the past 2 years… Maybe you work from home, but pump prices rising 100% in 4 years kinds hurts the foundation of our economy which is built upon cheap energy. And you’re right, we have definitely not felt the full effects of this inflationary theft.
Ohh, so since democrats control congress things can be bad?? The party politics are confusing!!