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Thursday, February 5, 2009
‘teetering on an Obama implosion?’ Hah!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosion — and with no Dick Morris to bail him out — brought on by messianic delusions of grandeur, hubris, and a strange naivete that soaring rhetoric and a multiracial profile can add requisite cover to good old-fashioned Chicago politicking…. Obama is becoming laughable and laying the groundwork for the greatest conservative populist reaction since the Reagan Revolution.”
— Victor Davis Hanson, in “The Corner” at National Review Online
Ummm. I think he’s nuts. Laughably nuts. Desperately nuts. But time will tell….
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Does Christian Right believe in the Bible?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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“Republicans are supposed to be the party of family values. Where is the value in selling alcohol on the Lord’s Day?”
— Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, Republican candidate for governor, opposing attempts to legalize Sunday alcohol sales in Georgia.
“Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.”
— Proverbs 31: 6, 7
Maybe I’m missing it, but I don’t see language in Proverbs that says “except in Georgia, and except on Sundays.”
Do you suppose it could have been left out in the translation?
(culled from a post over at Peachpundit.com)
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New jobless claims top 600,000 a week
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government says new claims for unemployment benefits jumped to their highest level in more than 26 years.
The Labor Department says the number of laid-off workers seeking jobless benefits rose last week to a seasonally adjusted 626,000, from the previous week’s upwardly revised figure of 591,000. The latest total is far more than analysts’ expectations of 583,000.
The number of people that remained on the unemployment compensation rolls increased slightly to nearly 4.8 million, the most since records began in 1967, though the work force is now much larger.
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The recession and the logic of ‘found money’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Imagine that a pretty good chunk of change surprisingly landed in your lap — “found money,” as my wife likes to call it. Maybe you hit a few numbers in the lottery good for $5,000, or some old uncle remembered you in his will for a few thousand.
These days, what would you do with your windfall? Call up your travel agent and book that resort vacation to Vegas or Hawaii? Use it as a down payment on that hot new car you’ve been lusting after?
A year ago, maybe so. Today, the whole psychology is different. If it happened to me today, I know what I’d do — I might use a little to pay off some bills, but I’d put most it right in the bank under lock and key and keep it there. Millions of other Americans would no doubt do the same thing. In fact, that’s what the banks themselves are doing with their TARP billions. They’re intimidated by the economy, so for the most part they’re sitting on the cash as a cushion against bad times.
That also explains why tax cuts can’t be a more substantial part of the stimulus package. “Found money” in the form of tax cuts would be treated in the same manner as a lottery win or small inheritance; most people wouldn’t spend it, they’d use it to bolster their financial defenses. That’s true for individuals, and it’s true for businesses as well. In times like these, most companies wouldn’t use new cash to invest in a new factory or hire new workers; they’d sit on it, and nobody would blame them for doing so. What seems like the smart thing for each of us to do individually is a huge problem for the overall economy.
To stimulate the economy, you need large sums of money that will actually be spent on things, and the only entity willing to do that in these scary times is government. At a time when consumers would consume and investors won’t invest, government can buy cars and military equipment, build new buildings and roads and transit, and invest in new infrastructure, and by doing so create demand for labor and material that would not otherwise have existed.
And as that happens, confidence will slowly return and people and business will once again start to take their own money out from beneath the mattress, restoring the economy to some semblance of health.
I understand that some people have an ideological problem with government spending. I’ve argued for years that we needed to address our federal debt problems. But this is something different, and I hope Americans recognize that. President Obama warned yesterday that without quick passage of the stimulus bill, the recession could turn into a catastrophe, and whatever else you may think of him, he is not a man easily panicked.
Let’s think this through and act accordingly.
