The Short List — Thurs., May 29
May 29th, 2008 by Joe Bardi in Presidential Politics, The Morning Papers
Lost finale tonight. Predictions in the comments section.
- The general election begins next Tuesday.
- “Team McCain: Ready for Prime Time?”
- Did the press do anything without Bush’s permission between 2001-2004? Apparently not.
- Still not a recession (until we figure out how the government keeps cooking this number).
- “[Obama] is a rock star. I love what he is saying about education. I think he will win and I am anxious to meet him.” —Rupert Murdoch.
- “Good luck with your layoffs, all right? I hope your firings go really well.”
- A solar-powered iPhone?
- Ready for his/her close-up: E.T.
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May 29th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Lost prediction: Ben blows up the boat, but not before Michael and Desmond escape. Locke successfully moves the island, but no one can figure out “when” he moved it to. Final shot of the episode: A T-rex breaks through the tree line and lunges toward the helpless castaways, but before it can devour the Losties, the smoke monster shows up and does battle with the Rex.
Just a thought…
May 29th, 2008 at 9:47 am
1. The devalued dollar makes American goos more attractive to foreign investors.
2. Foreign investors buy up American goods, which drives up GDP.
3. Recession is a measurement of “2 consecutive quarters of negative growth” in GDP..so, if GDP is increasing we avoid recession.
PS - On an aside, the WSJ had an interesting piece on how GDP growth = revenue growth for government. i.e. restricting GDP growth (higher taxes) in turn causes the unintended consequence of stunting government revenue.
Food for thought ;)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121124460502305693.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
It’s not that difficult.
May 29th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Czech,
Oh, I get it. Here’s a GDP formula GDP that I picked up at http://www.mindtools.net/GlobCourse/formula.shtml
Y = C + I + E + G
where
Y = GDP
C = Consumer Spending
I = Investment made by industry
E = Excess of Exports over Imports
G = Government Spending
We know that consumer spending is dropping and investment by industry is dropping. Exports outnumbering imports? That’s just not the American way! That leaves Government spending.
The government borrows hundreds of billions of dollars (probably trillions by now) to finance the war, spending the borrowed cash as fast as it comes in. The Bush administration is doing this at such an exorbitant rate, that government spending along is keeping the GDP in the black. Never mind that this is a suicidal economic plan, one that is very quickly selling off every square inch of these United States of China/India/Russia/Saudi Arabia. It’s keeping the artificial GDP number up!
Yes, historically a recession is 2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. Isn’t it possible that the folks in government are aware of this, and have devised their economic policy to keep GDP growth positive (since it’s the accepted public metric for a recession) even while destroying the economy for whichever democratic president comes next?
Food for thought. ;)
May 29th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Lost Prediction: For a while I’ll think they are REALLY dead and in purgatory, then I’ll think they are just on some strange island in the Pacific ocean that no one can find, and that Ben is playing this ‘hide the island’ game with his rich buddies who keep changing the rules on him and the whole time I’ll be wishing the T rex shows up like Joe said except the T rex can talk and he’ll say ‘Hi, I’m Jacob’.
May 29th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Bravo!
May 29th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Joe,
The problem keeps exacerbating because in an effort to drive up “C”, the Fed goes and does dumb shit like lowering the interest rate. “I” went overseas years ago because investing in labor became cost prohibitive, and government placed too many restraints on innovation.
I would say the positive trend still exists because “E” has changed course due to the American dollar devaluing, and you’re correct about “G” which in turn has also helped to devalue the dollar. Deficit spending, “in theory” boosts an economy that will repay debt in the future. When the future is so awfully uncertain as it is now when it comes to major debts (Iraq), the burden grows heavier.
The SINGLE-MOST important economic fix the next Administration can provide is to put pressure on Bernanke to RAISE INTEREST RATES. It’s what got us out of the mess in the 1970’s (the last time gas was a record highs, and we were worried about things like food shortages and Iran).
My biggest concern about Obama is whether or not he’ll be Jimmy Carter all over again.
If he has the guts to deal with Bernanke (or if Bernanke had Greenspan’s balls), and raise rates, he has my vote.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Czech,
You make a very good point here. For the life of me I can’t figure out why we’ve kept interest rates so low. You would think that somewhere around the 100th day of “Euro hits record against the dollar” stories, someone with their hands on the interest rate controls might have pulled up. So far, no dice. You chalk it up to a desire to drive consumer spending, which seems reasonable enough. Ah, it makes me wonder …
I don’t believe that the Bush administration is a collective of stupid people. To the contrary, I count them as some of the smartest (and most evil) people in the USA. Keeping that in mind, it seems to me that the dollar has been devalued on purpose. To what end? Your guess (drive consumer spending) is as good as mine.
And here’s mine:
The dollar has to collapse before the citizens will accept the the new North American union and its currency, the Amero. I know, that’s a crazy conspiracy theory. I’m sure the European Union was a crazy conspiracy theory too at some point. However, doesn’t a North American Union make sense as a way to compete with the European Union and the developing Asian nations? To compete, we’re going to have to do something to bulk up. Why not combine the US, Mexico and Canada economically? Shit, we’re already half way there with NAFTA.
But you’re probably right and I’m just spinning fairy tales. Right?
May 29th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I think at the end of the day the idea of a single currency is a no-go. The UK rejects the Euro time and time again, not only b/c the pound sterling is always more valuable, but I would guess an equally xenophobic zeal to keep themselves separate from the Continentals…
Could you imagine Americans ever accept being on equal economic footing with Mexico?!
The Canadian dollar might be close to parity, but I don’t believe it will ever make it. There’s no way the Canadian economy could every truly match ours in size. As for the Mexican peso, well…
I always felt NAFTA made sense on practical terms. Why inhibit trade with your 2 closest partners? I don’t think a CanaMex union would make a difference in competing with Europe. Doesit help?, any boost helps but we will again compete with Europe on our own terms.
At some point, the US Dollar will come so cheap it will be too lucrative for foreign investors to NOT buy it.
Part of the problem was much of the rest of the world pegged their standards to our dollar. Once they abandon us for the Euro, it’ll be their cross to bear