Bernanke: The Economy Is Recovering -- Except For The Parts That Aren't!
You know what drives me nuts? When bureaucrats talk about "the economy" as if one portion is separate from (and more important than) what affects ordinary people. It's as if a doctor told a patient, "Well, you still have malignant cancer cells spreading in all your major organs -- but look how nicely your sprained ankle is healing!"
If people don't have jobs, are losing their homes and can't afford to feed their families, and the numbers of people in those straits continue to grow, the economy is not recovering. Can we please cut the crap? If you shove a pile of dirt under the rug, you didn't "clean" -- you simply moved the problem to a different location. When are we going to stop pretending that the banking system isn't still a house of cards?
Saying the economic outlook was "unusually uncertain," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke predicted that unemployment was likely to remain stubbornly high for several years, straining families and endangering the nation's economic stability and competitiveness.
"Long-term unemployment not only imposes exceptional near-term hardships on workers and their families; it also erodes skills and may have long-lasting effects on workers' employment and earnings prospects," he said Wednesday in his semiannual testimony to Congress.
"This is the worst labor market, the worst episode, since the Great Depression," Bernanke said of long-term unemployment. "Not only for the sake of the unemployed and for the short-term strength of the economy but also for a long-term viability in international competitiveness, I think we need to be very seriously concerned."
Though Bernanke painted a bleak picture for the millions of jobless workers, he said the U.S. economy was continuing to recover at a moderate pace. And for now, he said, the central bank was holding off on taking further actions to stimulate the economy.
A series of economic data in recent weeks have pointed to slowing economic growth, fanning fears of a return to recession and prompting speculation that the central bank may be gearing up to buy more securities or initiate other moves in an effort to spur lending by pushing already low long-term interest rates even lower.
In terms of the recovery, the markets always lead the real world and I'm seeing a definite W in my portfolio.
Speaking as an investor and a gentleman, Krugman was right on the money regarding the size of the stimulus and how it was directed. It pisses me off no end to see my equities eating dirt when I fully expected a newly elected democratic president to bite the bullet and invest heavily in infrastructure spending.
Especially the way he was talking, I was very optimistic about getting an interstate-size investment into light rail and interstate high speed rail and energy efficient solutions.
Then he turns around and lays this huge turd on the American people.
Let the shit banks fail, I ditched them a long time ago. Invest in new technologies and new infrastructure ah who cares I'm preaching to the choir here.
high speed rail? better build it in a tunnel, keep the rabble from throwing bricks at it. besides the fact that our current roadbed is in drastic need of attention.
Your roads are crumbling and need of repair. In addition, there are areas of your country where high speed rail would pay off; cut auto traffic and airline flights as well.
our country may not be civilized enough for high speed rail, for the reasons stated above. speed is much overrated, for instance, the jet turbine is far more reliable and efficient than the internal combustion engine, combine the straight wing of a prop job with the turbine engine of a jet, you have a safer, more efficient, and more reliable aircraft, it just won't go as fast. i may be wrong, i am not an aeronautical engineer. back to the future.
I think you're thinking of localized rail like the DC metro or NY subway. I highly doubt people will spend 3 days on a train to get from coast to coast instead of an 8 hour plane ride.
A Maglev can has a speed of about 600 km/h. Not that less speed of a normal plane. Also a lot more comfortable.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
High speed trains make sense for short and medium distances, which are now served in the US mainly by road and air traffic.
It would actually make more sense, as an example in California, to build a proper high speed rail infrastructure to travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Between security checks, all the boarding and luggage handling. It would take right about the same amount of time to fly than it would do riding a "traditional" high speed train.
The added benefit is that high speed rail can be powered by electricity, and it would reduce tremendously the pressure on the airspace which is already saturated as it is.
But things in the US are never about "common sense" but "profit proposition" and unless some people can figure out how to make globs of money with such infrastructure, the US government ain't going to invest in it.
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
I guess so. Beside that Americans hate the train.
What did the train ever did to you, ya basterds? QQ
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
and limited stops, our current system could do better than expected. speaking of travel, time for "globetrekker".
The current model of Interstate Highways and Air Travel was implemented in 1956 under Eisenhower. Up until then - and for a few years after - the US had an excellent network of passenger train travel. But it was intentionally destroyed and replaced by air and interstate travel.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
12, 13 trillion in debt? people will have to adjust their expectations. i assume this train will be mag lev, there are 2,000 different power cos. in this country, our grid is crap. when we transition to the electric economy what will this do to the price of copper? how many billions, trillions, will be made on the futures market? how much of this money will the native miners in south america see?
talking about change is easy, implementation not so much.
where is the cash to come from?
"where is the cash to come from?"
From magic, it's how the economics works. Rome did fall, but they did not have wallstreet magicians like America have. Hocus pocus.....poof. Hey, everything is just A-OK just stick your head in the sand and it'll all be fine.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
... Rome did have a few credit crises through its history.
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
Remove American troops and bases from Europe, Japan, South Korea, etc.
End the War in Iraq.
End the War in Afghanistan.
Tax the wealthy and the corporations and the banks.
Start State Banks run by each state as a central bank for that state, modelled after Bank of North Dakota.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
this country exists in order to take care of its citizens and allow them to prosper.
A cursory examination of our history, at least at a personal level, leads me to believe there is little evidence to back up that impression.
This country exists and has existed for the creation and enhancement of capital, and capital tends to favor concentration (and that is not an ill side effect since it is so by design).
This is why there will always be money for war, but there was no money for health care.
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
I'm aware there's been a conflict between We The People and corporate power since before the inception of the US. Internationally I believe We The People are on the rise again. It's not just here in the US that the corporations ruin the lives of the people.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
I'd like to see humanity evolve at some point during my lifetime. This whole suicide by placebo which are economic "crises" under capitalism is starting to get real old.
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
If you remove troops from European soil can you take the nukes with you as well? We do not need them anymore. The cold war is over. Maybe you can sell them as scrap?
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
What about the bank of North Dakota?
The last time we had regional banks we had the same problem as we now found today,
The wealthy fixing the system to advantage themselves.
But you said state, not regional, so that got my attemtion...
Maybe I'm just drunk, but it's interesting that the knob-gobbers want government closer to the people but not the banks.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Bank On It: How Cash-Starved States Can Create Their Own Credit
Every state should do it!
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
he used the word "workers", must be trying to identify with the masses, either that or he's going soft. if i was wealthy i would be buying security, not securities; or talking to my rich buddies about how screwing the american people for 200 years is quite long enough, maybe time to lay off.
Don't you think the people at all levels of the economy "work"?
i think our country has lost touch with both the scientific and real world definition of work, and that this is exactly why we are running hundreds of billions a year in trade deficits. i think any economic system assigns its own values and that ours are out of kilter.
The operation was a success (the Banksters were all saved and laughing all around the bank).
But the patient died.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
BINGO.
How predictable. Bernanke, yet again, paints a picture of moderate economic recovery, in hopes that the hoi polloi will not panic at the true state of the global economy.
What these learned men obfuscate when they pontificate: economic behavior continues, despite the monkey wrench falling down through the inner workings of the economy. Modest positive fluctuations in the indices used as measures of our economic 'health' are gussied up, and presented as proof that our economy is 'recovering.'
It is not, nor will it.
We do not cease being economic creatures in a failing economy, and we must not conflate this reality with Bernanke's disingenuous assertion that the economy is experiencing a modest recovery. We are facing a major overhaul of our economic system, and the monied minority is squirming like a bait worm impaled on a hook in their pathetic attempts to keep their filthy lucre, and maintain their control over public perception of 'the way things are.'
"the monied minority is squirming like a bait worm impaled on a hook in their pathetic attempts to keep their filthy lucre, and maintain their control over public perception of 'the way things are."
and I meant to observe that economic behavior continues unabated because We the People work, despite the rabid right's denial of that fact--with their smug assertions that we're sitting around eating the bonbons we've purchased with the massive amounts of unemployment we're greedily collecting whilst sitting around on our fat, lazy asses.
(btw, tyty)
as a rip off at least it is rather clever.
At some point the people who came up with the system, figured out how to convince people that an abstract concept such as capital/credit is "worth" more than actual real assets and labor.
It is a singularity in human evolution. Capital makes sense as a tool to agilize the exchange of labor and assets. Alas, when things like "credit" and "interest" enter the fray, capital becomes the end not the means.
Imagine for example, that every time you talk to someone you are forced to transfer some of your wealth to those who have a monopoly in language for some reason. It sounds silly, but at a basic level that is exactly what financial systems and banks work just like.
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
Money, which originally was a medium of exchange, has become a commodity.
For us ordinary folks money remains primarily a medium of exchange. For us it is important that money circulates. I get money, I spend it.
But for the banks and the wealthy, money is a commodity to be piled up, hoarded. Their only interest in circulation is the "squeeze" - what they can squeeze out of every transaction and add to their pile of wealth, but at the same time sucking the lifeblood from the economy.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
doesn't it?
That's the magic part i guess. Or something.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
;-)
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
Even if crap is cheap the crapless can't afford it...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
WTF is he talking about? The only things we "manufacture" and export from this country are weapons, soybeans and corn. Even when we had a strong economy and lower unemployment, we weren't internationally competitive, and we lost more and more manufacturing jobs.
If we manufactured a little more here, and consumed those goods here, we would probably be much better off. Even if we increase consumption and consumer spending, it doesn't reduce unemployment much because those jobs are mostly overseas.
Well, I guess this explains the need to extend the tax cuts for the rich. We wouldn’t want to see them run out of money before this
depressionextended recession ends.Susie is exactly right. This is all Kabuki theater, hiding the fact that the Fed is engaged in backdoor bailouts to the big banks. Neither the Dems or Repubs are doing anything about it either. This is not horizontal- left v. right or white v. black (as the Sherrod incident points out so well), it's rich oligarchs vs the rest of America...the middle class and the poor. The derivatives market still gambles away people's futures with a Ponzi scheme destined to collapse. ALT-A and Option ARMs are are going to reset in the next year and I guarantee you the banks will do little to help those people. It's all about grab what you can at this point. They know their house of cards is collapsing.
There IS a solution but people just don't want to accept the fact that their government, in it's present form, doesn't work for the people. It will all have to get much worse before people with power accept the change that must come if we are to survive what could be a very ugly future.
Well, robertm, I suggest that you rethink your verb tense in that last sentence.
Although I am well aware that we humans often fail to see the forest for the trees, many of us are clear that we are already seeing the ugliness this relentless economic downturn is causing. But, overall, I think you're right.
We certainly must survive a 'very ugly future' and we face it with the stage set by the Corporate Megalomaniacs who've usurped our media and our government. Those among us who are prone to narrow-minded bigotry, fear mongering, hate mongering, and resentment (and all the other forms of 'react mode' you can imagine) have been worked into a furry by the corporatist puppetmasters who are determined to keep us divided and divisive.
Ultimately, it's not about money. It's about our ubiquitous need to feel important or special within a self-imposed framework of linear hierarchy. Have you never wondered who is the man behind the curtain? The single human being who has the MOST power, the MOST of everything?
Ironic, isn't it? I also wonder if Mr. Most Wealthy finds his self-imposed anonymity stultifying. Most likely, his narcissism prevents such self-reflection...
These ignorant, uncaring bastards are asking for crime here in the US from unemployed people or street people who are forced to steal to feed their children or pay their mortgages because there are no jobs that aren't being sent to Mexico or overseas.
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