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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (113938)	5/18/2012 9:39:29 PM
From: John Vosilla	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

Ten year anniversary of the "ownership society'. Too many have forgotten<ng> youtube.com

To: tejek who wrote (113938)	5/19/2012 12:35:43 AM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

OK--so you are likening the need for the European Union to bailout Greece to the redistribution politics that goes on in Washington with tax revenue.. This is not the same thing--at least not in degree. These US states are not failing fiscally (although their tax revenue is down due to the economy) and they are balancing their budgets--(something like 46 of the States have balanced budget requirements in their State Constitutions.) Plus they are collecting tax revenue. IN other words they are attempting to fulfill their financial obligations and are playing by a common set of cultural financial norms in this regard. That is the problem in the Greek case--two (or 3 or 4) different set of cultural financial norms are in opposition. I don't think political states can exist in such a condition for long. One set of financial norms will have to prevail or the political entity will fail. This is probably the problem in California. Although the rules are pretty much agreed upon the values underlying the rules are not. It's pretty much a given Greece will have to go because they give no indication of changing. Would you agree California is perilously close to bankruptcy if Brown doesn't get his tax increase?

To: tejek who wrote (113938)	5/19/2012 8:25:02 AM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

FYI...Good article from ECRI. ------------- Revoking Recession: 48th Time's the Charm? businesscycle.com For the last three months, year-over-year growth in real personal income has stayed lower than it was at the beginning of each of the last ten recessions. In other words, this is what personal income growth typically looks like early in a recession. Has personal income growth ever remained this low for three months without the economy going into recession? The answer is no. The chart depicts real personal income growth over the last 60 years, with vertical shaded bands representing recessions, and the horizontal black line marking its latest reading. Except for three one-month dips, income growth has not been nearly this weak in 60 years without a recession – and certainly never for three months in a row. So how can this be happening with such an accommodative Fed? After all, in spite of more “money printing” than anyone has ever seen, actual U.S. economic growth – including income and job growth – is slowing. In fact, in the last 60 years we have not seen a slowdown where year-over-year payroll job growth has dropped this low without a recession. The unfortunate reality is that Fed is “pushing on a string.” But, in any case, the larger point is that the business cycle cannot be repealed in a free-market economy. Yet most people think recessions amount to some sort of “failure” and, if policy makers just did the “right thing,” they could stave off recession indefinitely, meaning they could get rid of the business cycle. Ironically, one hears this from many proponents of the free market, even though the business cycle is part and parcel of how every free-market economy operates. In the past 222 years, the U.S. economy has experienced 47 recessions. So, are we to now believe that if the Fed prints enough money, it can postpone the 48th recession indefinitely? Is it plausible that, in an era of deleveraging and very weak income growth, more money printing and borrowing will increase consumption enough to keep the economy out of recession? As students of the business cycle, we admit to being hopelessly biased in our belief that it is simply not possible to repeal recessions in market economies. It is not whether there will be a recession, but when. And ECRI’s indicators are telling us that a recession is likely to begin by mid-year, if not sooner, though this may not become obvious until the end of the year. As the chart shows, there was a one-month spike down in income growth below its current reading in December 2005 due to the comparison with December 2004 data that included a one-time $32 billion dividend payout from Microsoft. Owing to concerns about tax law changes during the Clinton administration that induced people to move as much of their earnings as possible from early 1994 into December 1993, the resulting adverse comparison made December 1994 income growth show a one-month drop down almost to its current reading. Finally, President Clinton’s election also caused people concerned about tax hikes to shift as much of their earnings as possible to December 1992, causing earnings to then fall through March 1993, which therefore shows a one-month dip in earnings growth to just below the current threshold.