Florida – The Next Bloodbath?

48 responses so far

• 1 joemarier // Nov 16, 2009 at 8:09 am

  This morning, I have no opinion on the Florida race. This article by Reihan Salam, no conservative ideologue, sticks in my head…

  http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/25/governor-charlie-crist-florida-opinions-columnists-politics-reihan-salam.html

• 2 jwbeeno // Nov 16, 2009 at 8:42 am

  Figures, it always starts in Florida, why is that I wonder??

  Jerrell
  http://www.online-privacy.at.tc

• 3 mymy // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:07 am

  Maybe if Pres.Obama “stimulus”had been effective it wouldn’t be looked on as a bad thing to have backed.At the moment it appears to be exactly what opponent said it was .

• 4 Churl // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:22 am

  Thanks, Joe Marier, for the Forbes link. Reihan Salam’s article compares to Frum’s like, well, like CNN compares to Forbes.

  Not much more to be said.

• 5 Churl // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:23 am

  I should have said, “Reihan Salam’s article compares to Frum’s like, well, like Forbes compares to CNN.”

• 6 ottovbvs // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:32 am

  ……….This is a process that can’t be halted as the right have been emboldened by the NY 23 debacle……And unless you’d noticed Republicans made the stimulus the red line when they all voted against its passage apart from the three dissidents in the senate……and yep they are defining themselves as a party with no effective response to economic crises other than tax cuts (how this raises tax receipts when demand is collapsing they never explain)

  mymy // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:07 am

  “Maybe if Pres.Obama “stimulus”had been effective it wouldn’t be looked on as a bad thing to have backed.At the moment it appears to be exactly what opponent said it was .”

  ……….Moving from negative GDP in the first half of around 4% to positive growth of 3.5% in Q 3 doesn’t count I suppose……..you may not have noticed but until you get economic growth you don’t create jobs

• 7 sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:32 am

  Frum: “The column warns that if conservatives agree with Marco Rubio that the Obama stimulus is a red line, they’ll be defining themselves as a party without answers to the economic crisis”

  We conservatives had an answer for the recession–a sharp cut in payroll taxes–but nobody wanted to hear it. Not because it was a bad idea, but because after the disastrous Bush administration, the public had tuned us out. Our credibility was shot.

• 8 sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:35 am

  ottovbs:
  

  yep they are defining themselves as a party with no effective response to economic crises other than tax cuts (how this raises tax receipts when demand is collapsing they never explain)

  A payroll tax cut doesn’t raise tax receipts–and it shouldn’t. Raising more taxes in the middle of a recession is insane.

  Payroll tax cuts would have increased the deficit–but only for this one year, until the economy got back on its feet, after which the tax cuts could be eliminated.

• 9 sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:38 am

  ottovbs:
  

  Moving from negative GDP in the first half of around 4% to positive growth of 3.5% in Q 3 doesn’t count I suppose

  Of that 3.5%, 1.5% was entirely due to the Cash-for-Clunkers program temporarily boosting car sales–but that program has now expired.

• 10 ottovbvs // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:50 am

  sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:35 am

  “Raising more taxes in the middle of a recession is insane.”

  “We conservatives had an answer for the recession–a sharp cut in payroll taxes–but nobody wanted to hear it. Not because it was a bad idea,”

  ……..Er……they haven’t raised any taxes……about 200 billion of the stimulus program consisted of tax cuts!!………you seem oblivious of the fact that a large part of the deficit problem is arising from a collapse in tax receipts……tax cuts(and cutting payroll taxes would have been a tax cut but not a very well aimed one) are in fact the least effective part of the stimulus package in job creation terms because as numerous studies have shown people use them to pay down debt or increase savings……they don’t spend a large part of them and thereby add to aggregate demand which is what is most needed…….as for the notion that it was going to encourage companies to take on workers it’s infantile…….you don’t hire when demand for your product is collapsing

  …….And btw Sinz and all the other economic geniuses predicting the economy is not recovering and recovering relatively strongly at that……check the price of copper!

• 11 ottovbvs // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:57 am

  sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:38 am

  “Of that 3.5%, 1.5% was entirely due to the Cash-for-Clunkers program temporarily boosting car sales–but that program has now expired.”

  ……….I doubt it was 1.5% but what if it was…..cash for clunkers was a effective little stimulus program……that’s what stimulus programs DO……..and I’m going to bet growth in the current quarter will be over 3% even without cash for clunkers……as I mentioned above if you don’t think recovery is happening and don’t believe the Dow…..check the price of copper which has been one of my personal barometer for forty years because copper is an even more ubiquitous metal than steel

• 12 balconesfault // Nov 16, 2009 at 10:18 am

  At the moment (the stimulus) appears to be exactly what opponent said it was .

  This is ignoring that the stimulus was not front-end loaded … in order to more effectively manage the process for selecting projects to fund, things were set up for applications to go in to the government over the summer, and this fall selection of projects to receive stimulus grants is occurring. Once funded, a lot of these projects will begin ramping up – pumping money into the economy in 2010.

  In other words – running against the stimulus plan is very risky. If you base your campaign on it, 12 months from now it may look a lot like you were at best clueless, and at worst hoping for failure for partisan purposes.

• 13 mymy // Nov 16, 2009 at 10:27 am

  What was all the talk about shovel ready? What about unemployment not going above 8%?

• 14 sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 11:04 am

  ottovbs:
  

  check the price of copper which has been one of my personal barometer for forty years because copper is an even more ubiquitous metal than steel

  I’ve been an INVESTOR in natural resources, ever since 2002 when Bush started talking about invading Iraq. (When I bought gold, its price was $360 per ounce.)

  The price of copper rose, but has leveled off in the last month.
  And warehouse stocks of copper, which were falling as demand was increasing, are now rising again.

  My interpretation of these curves is that the economic recovery of the last 7 months is now stalling out again.

• 15 sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 11:05 am

  balconesfault:
  

  Once funded, a lot of these projects will begin ramping up – pumping money into the economy in 2010.

  Just in time for the congressional elections.

  What a coincidence, Nancy.

• 16 balconesfault // Nov 16, 2009 at 11:10 am

  I was dubious about the “shovel ready” term from the beginning. For example, a great article about it from last winter:

  http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4302578.html

  But even picking the correct shovel ready projects to throw money at was a process that took time. Had the Obama admin just been patronage-doling thugs, it would have been quick and easy – but instead the Federal Grant application process was very metriculous. But the money is starting to flow as these shovel ready projects are selected – eg
  http://www.valleywater.org/EkContent.aspx?id=776

  From inside the engineering business, I can tell you that the target of the stimulus funds most certainly slowed the bleeding – a lot of companies have kept on employees in order to stay competitive for those contracts, when without the stimulus funds they would have been laying off due to the bleak construction outlook in the winter of 2008-2009. As a result, there will also be a lag in hiring, as companies use new contracts to take up the slack in their billibility first before looking for new resources.

  As Krugman and others have pointed out – a much bigger stimulus would have given a bigger guarantee of rapid turnaround.

  What about unemployment not going above 8%?

  Yep – this recession is a bear – and there was a lot more job-destroying momentum than most were willing to admit last winter, out of fear of their pessimism accelerating the job losses. Without TARP, the auto industry bailout, and the stimulus, a 15% unemployment rate right now might look good.

• 17 sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 11:10 am

  ottovbs:
  

  you seem oblivious of the fact that a large part of the deficit problem is arising from a collapse in tax receipts

  Of course I’m “oblivious” to it. Because a bigger deficit is inevitable.

  Whether you stimulate the economy with tax cuts or government spending or a combination, the Federal deficit will increase. That’s unavoidable. But it should be temporary, once the economy recovers.

  What I’m worried about is the enormous weight of Obama’s new permanent Government programs, the ones that don’t sunset after the economic recovery is underway.

• 18 sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 11:17 am

  balconesfault:
  

  and there was a lot more job-destroying momentum than most were willing to admit last winter, out of fear of their pessimism accelerating the job losses.

  There’s no evidence that Obama kept the news of “job-destroying momentum” to himself. (How could he? None of the statistics from the BLS are top secret.)

  Biden could have said that unemployment would be over 10% without the stimulus package. By showing how bad things truly were, he could have gotten more clout to pass a bigger stimulus package. But claiming 8% with the package versus 9% (just one percentage point more) without the package, makes the recession look moderate, and the effect of the package minor.

  That was a mistake on Biden’s part.

  Unemployment is now liable to peak at 11% in the next six months. All Obama now has is a counterfactual claim that unemployment might have been 12% without the stimulus package. But that’s small consolation to those 11% of Americans.

• 19 mymy // Nov 16, 2009 at 11:17 am

  Then why all the shovel ready talk?If they knew it wasn’t true?Why all they talk about the need for speed if they knew nothing would happen for 2yrs?Why all the talk about 8% if they had no idea this was true?

• 20 balconesfault // Nov 16, 2009 at 11:32 am

  Then why all the shovel ready talk?

  First, because it’s politically popular. It was a great sound bite.

  Second, I think you and the Obama Administration have a different opinion of what “shovel ready” meant. The Popular Mechanics article I was referencing was thinking about shovel ready the same way I think you were – that the stimulus funds would be like money immediately pumped to a sprinkler, which would immediately fling money in all directions without regards for where it would land.

  Instead, the Obama Admin has been more like a gardener taking a hose and walking out to specific places where some watering looks like it would produce grass, rather than weeds. This takes time to evaluate the needs and select the most promising places.

  No, small consolation to those in the growing unemployment pool. But in the long run, this kind of targeted investment by the country, rather than scattershot, may well justify Obama’s decision to not ask for double the stimulus budget. And that will save us money, and perhaps get us a better set of projects.

  Well, I’m starting to sound like I’m quoting “Being There” at this stage, so it’s time to take the sidelines. I don’t know if the stimulus was enough – I do believe that had we just passed a massive tax cut that money would have disappeared down a million different holes with little or no benefit to the economy or our infrastructure. I am optimistic that we’ll see some reversal of the job losses in the next 12 months, although it’s going to be awhile before we see 4% unemployment again.

• 21 ottovbvs // Nov 16, 2009 at 11:56 am

  14 sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 11:04 am

  “The price of copper rose, but has leveled off in the last month.’

  ……..Copper hit a new high at the end of last week……it’s risen in price by about 50% over the last six months

• 22 ottovbvs // Nov 16, 2009 at 12:06 pm

  mymy // Nov 16, 2009 at 11:17 am

  “Then why all the shovel ready talk?”

  ………The stimulus program of around 780 billion was divided into three parts……tax cuts around 220 billion which were the least effective in job creation terms but pumped dollars into the economy most rapidly……..transfer payments to the states around 200 billion to prop up state budgets and minimize layoffs……….Infrastructure projects about 380 billion which obviously need time to get going (hence the emphasis on ones that were well advanced in planning terms or shovel ready) and then are probably going to take more than 18 months to complete. The language of the bill requires that 75% of expenditures will be made by the end of 2010 which in rough terms means that about 70% of infrastructure projects will be completed by end of next year and because the program has been back loaded in this way you’re going to see the most benefit in jobs terms in the spring and summer of 2010.

• 23 ottovbvs // Nov 16, 2009 at 12:10 pm

  “Unemployment is now liable to peak at 11% in the next six months. All Obama now has is a counterfactual claim that unemployment might have been 12% without the stimulus package. But that’s small consolation to those 11% of Americans.”

  ……..the counter factual number would probably have been at least 2% higher than your claimed max of 11% given the accelerative nature of fiscal stimulus programs………

• 24 ottovbvs // Nov 16, 2009 at 12:18 pm

  14 sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 11:04 am

  “My interpretation of these curves is that the economic recovery of the last 7 months is now stalling out again”

  …….You mean that’s what you want to happen…..but it isn’t going to……….without cash for clunkers which you claimed was responsible for much of the growth in Q3 the car market again did well in October…..it’s now annualizing at around 10.6 million units up from annualization of around 9 million at the start of the year……I know you’re desperately praying for the economy to slump again but it ain’t going to happen so god must not be listening to the prayers of all those conservative Republicans …….they just published Oct consumer spending numbers this morning which beat forecast and hence the market’s up about 100 points

• 25 sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 12:22 pm

  balconesfault:
  

  Instead, the Obama Admin has been more like a gardener taking a hose and walking out to specific places where some watering looks like it would produce grass, rather than weeds.

  Obama “watered” the public employee unions and the auto unions.

  States were going to lay off thousands of teachers and clerks (a.k.a bureaucrats), until the aid to states kicked in. That’s why even moderately conservative governors like Crist gladly took the money; they would have had to make draconian cuts in state budgets (laying off thousands of state workers) without it.

  And the biggest beneficiary by far has been the United Auto Workers. The only reason Obama bailed out GM was to keep the UAW employed.

  So we ended up with a whole lot of organized-labor “grass.” Gee, what a surprise.

  Most of the stimulus package was a reward to Obama’s supporters: the National Education Association and the UAW.

• 26 ottovbvs // Nov 16, 2009 at 12:43 pm

  sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 12:22 pm

  “States were going to lay off thousands of teachers and clerks (a.k.a bureaucrats), until the aid to states kicked in. That’s why even moderately conservative governors like Crist gladly took the money; they would have had to make draconian cuts in state budgets (laying off thousands of state workers) without it.”

  ……..Also known as cops, firefighters, healthcare workers, public works employees, etc etc……..and yep without federal help they’d have to make draconian cuts……you are obviously in favor of those cuts being made because just about every state in the country has huge budget problems mainly caused by the collapse in tax receipts……..your nihilism is bizarre but essentially it’s the standard GOP position these days and why they are completely unfitted for govt

• 27 balconesfault // Nov 16, 2009 at 12:49 pm

  And the biggest beneficiary by far has been the United Auto Workers.

  Not from the stimulus package. That’s a different discussion.

• 28 rbottoms // Nov 16, 2009 at 1:50 pm

  Also known as cops, firefighters, healthcare workers, public works employees

  Please, the only good deficit spending for Republicans is for more planes, bigger lasers, and larger contracts for Haliburton. Who the hell needs roads, bridges only fall down occasionally.

  And cops, teachers, firefighters, who needs em.

  A**hats the Musical, the modern GOP.

  Moose & Squirrely/2012

• 29 pauldpan // Nov 16, 2009 at 2:09 pm

  The solutions are quite simple: cutting spending and cutting tax. They’ve been proven worked every time.

• 30 DFL // Nov 16, 2009 at 2:39 pm

  Ultimately, printing money never has worked as successful long-term economics ever in human history. Witness Rome or Royal France. But most politicians care only about the short-term as do most voters. So Obama may be re-elected by Keynesian hyper-spending and his children will pay the price somewhere down the road.

• 31 sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 4:10 pm

  ottovbs:
  

  Copper hit a new high at the end of last week……it’s risen in price by about 50% over the last six months

  Much of the rise in the dollar price of metals like copper is really due to the decline of the dollar. In the last week, the price of gold rose sharply, which is another way of saying that the dollar declined sharply.

• 32 sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 4:14 pm

  ottovbs:
  

  cops, firefighters, healthcare workers, public works employees, etc etc……..and yep without federal help they’d have to make draconian cuts……your nihilism is bizarre

  “Nihilism”???
  How about fairness?

  At a time when 10.2% of the American workforce is unemployed, why should state workers be insulated from that economic distress? Why should state workers enjoy a much lower unemployment rate than the rest of us? Liberals always talk about “sacrifice” for a greater good–why aren’t state workers being asked to sacrifice just as much as the rest of us?

  The reason is politics. Because AFSCME worked hard to elect Obama, he gave them a special exemption from the pink slips their neighbors have been getting.

  That’s not stimulus. That’s pork.

• 33 rbottoms // Nov 16, 2009 at 4:19 pm

  At a time when 10.2% of the American workforce is unemployed, why should state workers be insulated from that economic distress?

  So you’ll be out patrolling the streets during the daytime dressed as a cop and fighting fires at night?

  Sort of like Spiderman.

• 34 teabag // Nov 16, 2009 at 4:31 pm

  “So you’ll be out patrolling the streets during the daytime dressed as a cop and fighting fires at night?

  Sort of like Spiderman.”

  Great comment, That is really funny.

• 35 DFL // Nov 16, 2009 at 5:18 pm

  I know this is anecdotal, but my wife was a biologist with the US EPA until she began to have my children. She claimed that there were plenty of worthless paper-pushers at the EPA and the secretaries did almost no work whatsoever.

  There is plenty of bureaucracy to purge before you get to police, fire and other safety personnel.

• 36 ottovbvs // Nov 16, 2009 at 5:36 pm

  DFL // Nov 16, 2009 at 5:18 pm

  ………there are plenty of useless bureaucrats in any large organization……I’ve worked in a few so I know…….Believe it or not there’s probably quite a few in Cisco……all this statement tells us is the sun rises in the east……actually reducing headcount is a far more complicated process and in the context of a collapse in employment opportunities even more so

• 37 ottovbvs // Nov 16, 2009 at 5:40 pm

  sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 4:14 pm

  ”
  Nihilism”???
  How about fairness?

  At a time when 10.2% of the American workforce is unemployed, why should state workers be insulated from that economic distress?”

  …….As ever you completely over simplify…….many states have laid of large numbers of people……..whether you like it or not private and public employment play by different rules……even if you accept the premise that we need to cut govt bureacracies and I do…….the depths of the most serious depression since the thirties is NOT the time to do it.

• 38 ottovbvs // Nov 16, 2009 at 5:56 pm

  sinz54 // Nov 16, 2009 at 4:10 pm

  “Much of the rise in the dollar price of metals like copper is really due to the decline of the dollar.”

  ……..Some of it is but only a small part…….the dollar has declined by about 15% since the start of the year copper is up by over 50%…….whenever it comes to identifying major or minor causal links we can always rely on you to pick the minor cause and assign it the major role……I’m trying to decide whether this is because you really don’t know the difference or because it provides a fig leaf for your generally iffy economic prognosticating

• 39 ottovbvs // Nov 16, 2009 at 6:09 pm

  pauldpan // Nov 16, 2009 at 2:09 pm

  “The solutions are quite simple: cutting spending and cutting tax. They’ve been proven worked every time.”

  ………The economic ignorance of the true believer has to be seen to be be believed…….and in this bit of unreality from pauldpan is summarised the GOP’s problem when it comes to economics…….As the honest conservative Bartlett keeps reminding us the GOP has invested all it’s economic intellectual capital in a series of policy prescriptions that are not only innapropriate in the present circumstances but would actually be hugely damaging if actually implemented……thus pauldpan and his ilk are reduced to parrotting nonsenses like this that totally ignore the fact that the problem in the first of this year and still, although to a lessening degree, is a shortage of demand from the private consumer and business sectors……..if you cut spending in this environment as Mr Hoover did when following pauldpan’s advice back in 1930 it exacerbates the problem…….73 years after Keynes published his general theory and you STILL have to explain this.

• 40 ProfNickD // Nov 16, 2009 at 6:59 pm

  David said,
  “they’ll be defining themselves as a party without answers to the economic crisis ”

  I had to do a double take at that. Surely, having the government plow hundreds of billions of dollars into non-productive enterprises cannot be considered an “answer” to the economic crisis.

  The soruce of the crisis is that the Federal Reserve kept interest rates were kept too low for entirely too long, enabling too much liquidity into the financial system, i.e., credit was made too cheap to too many people and firms who shouldn’t have had access to it. Another way of describing it: the federal government pursued inflationary policies. And, when that occurs — every time it occurs — the “boom” and “good times” (i.e., inflation) ends in financial recession.

  We’ve already tried the borrowing/spending/printing way out. Is David entirely oblivious to the massive increases of federal spending and borrowing under the Bush administration, far outstripping that of any President, Republican or Democratic, since LBJ? Is he oblivious to the first stimulus in Spring 2008? Is he oblivious to TARP? To the bailout of GM?

  All of this occurred under Bush and none of it stopped the recession because continued spending/borrowing/printing money cannot stop it. The recession will end, and not before, when all of the bad debt entered into over the past 10 years is restructured, written down, or the debtors (e.g. auto companies, banks, home builders, other companies that make crap, and the people who went into debt buying crap) go bankrupt.

  David’s goal, apparently, is to keep unproductive enterprises on life support in perpetuity, taxpayer be damned and inflation be damned.

  Is David heavily invested in Goldman-Sachs, Best Buy, Toll Brothers, and GM? Because the existence of those companies on the government dole is the problem that the recession is continuing. Bailing them out is hardly an “answer.”

• 41 Jim Sheire // Nov 16, 2009 at 9:01 pm

  Fine; your CNN piece corresponds to my worry and concern about the status of the GOP and this comes from an ardent Obama supporter. My concern is that your party in its now predominant “base”, that now includes former “moderate” elected officials and commentators, is in great danger of striking the “loyal” from the term “loyal opposition”. As I perceive it, and I have fought against this perception, the “base” is its fundamental opposition to very literally every Obama policy imitative and his every action, personal and otherwise, is determined to destroy his presidency. The adverse consequences are two. First, the two party system that has served us so well is in danger of being very adversely affected. Second, the unremitting attacks on Obama adversely effects not only a democratically person, but also the prestige of the office itself. In relation to our foreign and national security affairs no friend or foe can take a sitting US president seriously who does not enjoy domestic support and/or is unable to deliver abroad. Does your base realize that it is very adversely affecting the prestige of the USA? Or, I sometimes think, is its attitude simply “We don’t give a damm?”

  Jim Sheire
  Great Falls, MT

• 42 teabag // Nov 16, 2009 at 10:05 pm

  Jim,

  They don’t give a damn!

• 43 johnmarzan // Nov 17, 2009 at 1:21 am

  i really don’t care who wins. i have only one question: who’s more “electable”?

• 44 steelyblades // Nov 17, 2009 at 1:37 am

  Jim Sheire, I share your frustration. But I don’t see things as being so dire. Read any of the history of our country, and you’ll realize that the rhetoric of our political theater has always been sharp, divisive and denigrating. The noisy arguments of today, while amplified by cable news and the Internet, are really nothing new. Alexander Hamilton drew the blueprint for smear campaigns in American politics two and a half centuries ago, and he has many students in both parties today. It’s just the way the game is played.

  Unfortunately the GOP is peeling a scab which has been several decades in the making. The strategy of pandering to racial and religious prejudices to pull more people into the tent worked well until they had to confront the reality that all these morons were actually IN THE TENT. Whoops…hence the inability to form a coherent message, and the pathetic descent into Party-of-No status.

  The unfortunate consequence of this is that a lot of potentially good ideas get left on the table. Fiscal prudence, restraint in meddling about in foreign affairs, leadership in scientific innovation, and most glaringly the staunch defense of individual liberties are all “conservative” ideals that have been thrown in the trash over the last couple of decades. But I believe it will turn around eventually. Nature abhors a vacuum, as they say…

• 45 sinz54 // Nov 17, 2009 at 10:10 am

  Jim Sheire:
  

  As I perceive it, and I have fought against this perception, the “base” is its fundamental opposition to very literally every Obama policy imitative and his every action, personal and otherwise, is determined to destroy his presidency.

  What else can they do, when they’re diametrically opposed to Obama’s ideology, his culture, his vision?

  The problem is that we elected a truly doctrinaire tax-and-spend transnationalist liberal to the White House, McGovern version 2.0. There’s very little opportunity for compromise, when Obama’s vision of America and the GOP base’s vision of America are so far apart.

• 46 sinz54 // Nov 17, 2009 at 10:12 am

  ProfNickD:
  

  I had to do a double take at that. Surely, having the government plow hundreds of billions of dollars into non-productive enterprises cannot be considered an “answer” to the economic crisis.

  You just confirmed Frum’s point: You went on to criticize what was done, instead of saying what should have been done instead.

  I challenge you to tell us what YOU would have done about this economic crisis, if YOU were POTUS instead of Obama.

• 47 sinz54 // Nov 17, 2009 at 10:19 am

  DFL:
  

  There is plenty of bureaucracy to purge before you get to police, fire and other safety personnel.

  I agree.

  You could get a “twofer” by using stimulus money, NOT to keep bureaucrats employed, but to upgrade automated information systems, databases, etc., to reduce the need for so many paper-pushers. That would employ programmers, engineers, information system architects–people who do real work. And at the end of their endeavors, you could lay off all those clerks.

  How many times have you waited on a long line at some government office, only to be told by the bureaucrat you finally meet that you don’t have all your needed paperwork, or you were in the wrong line all the time–and you have to start all over again on another long queue for another bureaucrat? Automated kiosks in those offices could tell you precisely what information you need and how to go about getting it processed, before you actually get on any long lines. And then you wouldn’t need so many bureaucrats wasting your time and their time.

• 48 sinz54 // Nov 17, 2009 at 10:23 am

  ottovbs:
  

  the dollar has declined by about 15% since the start of the year copper is up by over 50%

  That’s true of gold as well.

  But it’s not because a recovering economy suddenly found a new industrial use for gold.

  It’s because investors and speculators, seeing the decline of the dollar, are betting on raw materials as a storehouse of value.

  BTW, Bernanke himself said that the economic recovery will be weak and largely jobless for the foreseeable future.

  http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/16/news/economy/bernanke_outlook/

  Your fellow liberals are panicking: Robert Reich, Krugman, HuffPo, etc. I’ve been listening to them. They’re all telling Obama we need a new WPA (!!!) or else the Dems will take a shellacking in November 2010.

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