Can't think of anywhere better to post this, and it's true enough of Rantburg also that it should be interesting.
Courtesy of "Wizbang".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/07/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Since when is anyone who disagrees a "troll"? WTF? A troll is someone who deliberately says stupid or controversial things, just to stir things up and delight in the carnage...small-minded people with nothing to better to do than argue with people on the internet, the whole lot of them.
If we ever had a liberal on rantburg who didn't froth at the mouth and think it was his God-given right to be hateful to people he disagrees with, he wouldn't be a troll. Sad people think that way.
#6
It certainly doesn't reflect well on Palestinians and/or their sympathizers that they never rise above level 3. Sigh. They make fun little chew toys for a while but all they ever give us is rabid drivel.
#7
Anyone who thinks the paleos identify with them is nuts. Those animals aren't seeking a homeland; they are expanding arab aggression
Disregard what your teachers told you. There were zero arabs in what was once the Roman province of Palestine, until 634 AD. The Baal worshippers were Assyrians and variants.
This week the Russian bear demonstrated it never really hibernated after the dissolution in 1991 of the Soviet Union, of which Russia was the biggest component. The Kremlin's military leaders on Sunday approved a plan to deploy ships permanently in friendly ports around the world. And yesterday, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Croatia and Turkey all reported a cutoff in gas shipments from Russia through Ukraine due to Russia having cut Ukraine off from natural gas shipments in a dispute over pricing and supposedly overdue payments.
Naval power projection has been a key component of foreign policy since the days of the Phoenician traders, Carthaginians and Romans and later the Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and British, to name a few. Revanchist Russia, greatly miffed and embarrassed by its fall from superpower status, sees a resurgent navy as a way to project itself in foreign affairs. Last month, four Russian warships visited Venezuela and comrade Hugo Chavez for joint maneuvers before cruising to Cuba, comrade Fidel Castro's abode. Russian deputy chief of staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn said, without providing details, that Russia was talking with foreign governments to station warships around the world permanently. In August, a Russian diplomat said the navy would make more use of a port in Syria, home of comrade Bashar al-Assad. The navy is already in negotiations with the Russia-backed breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia for a permanent Black Sea port there.
Meanwhile, back on land, Russia has made no secret of its fury over Ukraine's tilt to the West and away from being pulled into a Russian sphere of influence, if not hegemony.
Regardless of the legitimacy of any claims by Russia's Gazprom, the actions by the world's largest gas company in cutting off supplies to Ukraine were, as the European Union stated, "without prior warning and in clear contradiction with the assurances given by the highest Russian and Ukrainian authorities to the European Union." Russia had done the same thing before, both in 2006 and again in March (the latter being a cut of half the supply).
Despite this unacceptable Russian behavior, individual countries have continued to make deals that make them ever more reliant on Russia for many years to come.
Soon after the 2006 cutoff, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had proposed a common energy policy by the European Union over the next 15 years to guarantee supply security. That idea soon died in the yang and yin between the recognized need for a common market and nations acting in their own long-term energy security interests. Indeed, Germany itself, despite Mrs. Merkel's warnings, is among those countries that view Russia as a key strategic partner and are only too willing to rely on Gazprom. Germans note they have never faced a cutoff from Russia, even during the Cold War, but feeding a bear may only mean - as Winston Churchill said of appeasers and crocodiles - you are the last to be eaten.
On the other side are former Central European Soviet-bloc nations, like Ukraine, that have experience with Russia's small-carrot/big-stick policies and believe it will continue to use Gazprom as a blunt instrument of foreign policy. They note that Russia has become increasingly aggressive and is reclaiming its Cold War rhetoric and stance.
The United States in the months and years ahead needs to have policies that encourage Russian enlightenment, but which also are not blind if - figuratively or literally - the lights go out, or threaten to go out, in European democracies or elsewhere.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/07/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
The United States in the months and years ahead
Will be focused of combating global worming, capitalist unfairness, racism, and---of course---Zionist aggression.
what if The New York Times goes out of business -- like, this May?
It's certainly plausible. Earnings reports released by the New York Times Company in October indicate that drastic measures will have to be taken over the next five months or the paper will default on some $400 million in debt. With more than $1 billion in debt already on the books, only $46 million in cash reserves as of October, and no clear way to tap into the capital markets (the company's debt was recently reduced to junk status), the paper's future doesn't look good. The Slimes cannot be allowed to fail. Look for a big bail-out to be given. And it should be re-titled 'Pravda.'
#3
George Sorros will save it. The name alone is probably worth it and its value as a propoganda firehouse is pretty remarkable even years after their biases have become obvious.
#5
The "Old School" print media has been on the decline for years and will continue to do so. The "new generation" electronic media now rules. I believe there are computers in 80% of US households. Lefty articles/ opinions we beef about in the NYT are replaced with broadcasts on cable news outlets.
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
01/07/2009 11:29 Comments ||
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#6
George Soros will save it.
First, in addition to the debt any buyer would have to assume the unfunded pension liabilities. I don't see anyone putting money into this firm without an up front renegotiation of labor contracts. That will not win any friends in the liberal community.
Second, with respect to Mr. Soros, he has done quite well working through new media. No reason for dances with dinosaurs.
#7
The Saturday Evening Post is still online too, but it and its influence are a shadow of their former selves.
Once it starts hemmoraging the creditors dry up and the cash runs out. Then the employees go elsewhere. If American Media Inc. emerges from bankruptcy first, perhaps it can purchase the moniker from the estate.
#8
One, I don't want any media outlets to be out of business,. Yes, even the NY Times. Two, I don't want any media outlets to be bailout, either.
The MSM have been bathing in biased reporting for years. I believe free market capitalism is the solution to the "bias" problem. Enter, the concept of "weblogs." The blogs have taken root as a powerful media tool. But, the blogs cannot exist without print media. One cannot be an antithesis to something that doesn't exist. Again, that doesn't mean that taxpayer funds should be used for bailouts. Free market always win.
The NY Times will not go out of business because the TV media/reporters do not do their own reporting any more. A majority of the "top news stories" mentioned in the evening news is sourced from print media e.g. NY Times, WaPo, Boston Globe, etc. The NY Times will do what it takes to survive, e.g. they are advertising on the front page. They are taking free market measures to survive.
Should the NY Times be allowed to go bankrupt? Yes. Should the MSM be exposed of their biased reporting? Yes. Should we hate the MSM media? No.
#9
Someone is confusing process with product. Over a hundred years ago the then 'MSM' was dependent upon the telegraph and mail for its sources, which they in turn moved to the media for local transmittal. Where's the position of Western Union today in the pipeline of information. Technology is removing layers from the process. The net, blogs, and cheap wide spread available video technology are going to provide opportunities for those who are willing and able to spread the 'news'. Just look at the fight on what Youtube permits or doesn't permit to show now with their bias. That fight is because its already understood that the media war is now moving on to other fronts. That'll just generate a competitor or competitors to provide and distribute alternative sources. Those alternatives will not be the dead tree institutions.
#10
I suspect the Sulzbergers will drive it in to Chapter 11, then reorganize with them holding the bag, and the common stockholders saddled with the debt.
#17
The name has value. One of the several emerging web aggregators will be able to pick up the name, and maybe even carry on some version of a print paper while the profits will largely be online. There may be ongoing physical value in the non-daily publications business (books by staff/periodical-special editions like NGS).
The good news is the market is properly assessing the editorial and commentary content, which is clobbering the remaining value.
It will be interesting to see how much cash the family is willing to throw at it before selling - doubtful that it will get to creditors.
WOULD you ask your accountant to perform brain surgery on your child? That's the closest analogy I can find to the choice of Democratic Party hack Leon Panetta to head the CIA.
Earth to President-elect Obama: Intelligence is serious. And infernally complicated. When we politicize it - as we have for 16 years - we get 9/11. Or, yes, Iraq.
The extreme left, to which Panetta's nomination panders, howled that Bush and Cheney corrupted the intelligence system. Well, I worked in the intel world in the mid 1990s and saw how the Clinton team undermined the system's integrity.
Al Qaeda a serious threat? The Clinton White House didn't want to hear it. Clinton was the pioneer in corrupting intelligence. Bush was just a follow-on homesteader.
Now we've fallen so low that left-wing cadres can applaud the nomination of a CIA chief whose sole qualification is that he's a party loyalist, untainted by experience.
The director's job at the CIA isn't a party favor. This is potentially a matter of life and death for thousands of Americans. But the choice of Panetta tells us all that Barack Obama doesn't take intelligence seriously.
Mark my words: It'll bite him in the butt.
After the military, the intel community is the most complex arm of government. You can't do on-the-job training at the top. While a CIA boss needn't be a career intelligence professional, he or she does need a deep familiarity with the purposes, capabilities, limitations and intricacies of intelligence. The One is the beginning of knowledge. He needs no knowledge agency.
Oh, and you'd better understand the intelligence bureaucracy.
Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), who was blindsided - and appalled - by the Obama mafia's choice, has the essential knowledge of how the system works. She, or a similar expert, should have gotten this nod. But the president-elect wanted a clean-slate yes-man, not a person of knowledge and integrity.
We're witnessing the initial costs of Obama's career-long lack of interest in foreign policy, the military and intelligence. He doesn't think the top job at the CIA's important and just wants political cover on that flank. (Guess we got Panetta because Caroline Kennedy has another engagement.)
Forget a "team of rivals." Obama's creating a campaign staff for 2012.
Of course, he's reeling from the shrill rage of the Moveon.org crowd over his nomination of grown-ups to be his national-security adviser, director of national intelligence, administrator of veterans' affairs and, yes, secretary of state. (By the way, how could Hillary be dumb enough to accept a job where success is impossible?) Her concept of success is a bit different as it is defined by cash contributions to the Clinton Foundation.
Panetta's appointment is a sop to the hard left, a signal that intelligence will be emasculated for the next four - or eight -years.
Think morale's been bad at the CIA? Just wait.
Conservatives played into this scenario by insisting that any CIA analysis that didn't match the Bush administration's positions perfectly amounted to an attack on the White House. Well, sorry. The intelligence community's job isn't to make anybody feel good - its core mission is to provide nonpartisan analysis to our leaders.
To be a qualified D-CIA, a man or woman needs a sophisticated grasp of three things: The intel system, foreign-policy challenges and the Pentagon (which owns most of our intelligence personnel and hardware). Panetta has no background - none - in any of these areas. He was never interested.
If you handed Leon Panetta a blank map of Asia, I'd bet my life he couldn't plot Baghdad, Kabul or Beijing within 500 miles of their actual locations. (Maybe he can see China from his California think tank?) I doubt he could even name the 57 States.
This shameless hack appointment is the first action by the incoming administration that seriously worries me. Get intelligence wrong and you get dead Americans. I doubt dead infidels means much to a Kenyan man-dress wearer however.
#1
I wonder if all the NPR leftists would have their panties in such a knot about rugged interrogation methods if it was their children who would be killed in a terrorist attack that could have been prevented with knowledge gained from said interrogations.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
01/07/2009 6:55 Comments ||
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#2
"And if Democrats thought it was illegal or really found the CIA's activities so heinous, one of them could have made a whistle-blowing floor statement under the protection of the Constitution's speech and debate clause."
True. But why go through all the hassle when they could just have one of their staffers leak details to the NY Times?
#3
That the clowns in congress even bring up the "torture" meme is more sad proof of our downward slide. If an interrogation calls for "torture" based on the need for very quick actionable intel - do it. If an interrogation calls for a tuna sub from subway and a cup of coffee, do that to. I have the utmost confidence that the guys on the ground doing the interrogating are doing the best they can to protect our country. If that means breaking a few al queda fingers or water boarding some jihadi - I'm more than cool w/it. If the terrorists get the picture that we will fight "by any means necessary" to protect our country they will either play ball quickly or have a short career.
#4
Its all BS designed to embarrass the current president.
If this happens under BO, it will be called "aggressive interrogation" and left at that.
BTW, I read an article on waterboarding describing its effectiveness. The article says that waterboarding usually lasts less than a minute. Good old Khalid Shiek Mohammad (KSM for short) was waterboarded for TWENTY SECONDS, let me repeat that TWENTY FREAKING SECONDS ....and he was singing like Jose Carreras....Twenty seconds upside down in a bucket of water doesn't sound like torture to me....heck the underwater escape training they put most Navy pilots through is harsher than THAT!!!!
Posted by: James Carville ||
01/07/2009 10:57 Comments ||
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#5
How long before those paragons of international moral virtue, the Belgians, indict George Bush?
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/07/2009 13:36 Comments ||
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#6
They were talking about the possibility of a case before the International Criminal Court on NPR today, Steve. But I'm afraid I didn't listen.
#1
At the rate National + Geopol Crises are piling up on the OBAMA-MAN, the so-called NEW GIRL ORDER includ Caroline may not survive after 2010 or 2012.
D *** NG IT, MORIARITY, MOUD = IRAN AREN'T GETTING THEIR NUKES FROM JARED'S - HOW CAN NUKES BE A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND!
More than a few spooks, current and former, are shaking their heads over the appointment of Leon Panetta as the next CIA Director.
Mr. Panetta is the consummate Washington insider who is best know as Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff during the Monica Lewinsky episode. Before that, he was Clinton's first Director of the Office of Management and Budget and a Democratic Congressman from California for 16 years, serving primarily on the Budget and Agriculture Committees.
In the early days of his political life, Panetta was actually a Republican, working as an aide to California Senator Thomas Kuchel before joining the Nixon Administration. During his first stint in Washington, Panetta served as assistant to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and later ran the Office for Civil Rights. He left the administration--and the GOP--in 1971, accusing the White House of being "soft" on enforcement of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.
Continued on Page 49
For the last eight years the CIA has made war on George Bush. Not just the Plame affair but the various intelligence 'findings' on Iran, the failures in Iraq, etc., all can be explained by understanding that a certain part of CIA has hated Bush (and Republicans) and wanted him out of the White House.
Bambi understands that really, really well, because some of his and his party's fellow travellers are the ones in CIA doing it.
So now that the Lightworker is to be inaugurated, the one thing that can't be allowed is having a part of CIA wage war on him.
Panetta knows squat about intelligence and our enemies.
But about office politics and Bambi's enemies? Panetta has no peer.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/06/2009 18:36 Comments ||
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#2
So now that the Lightworker is to be inaugurated, the one thing that can't be allowed is having a part of CIA wage war on him.
#3
This lack of intel experience is just the thing BHO wants.
When the CIA screws up and misses something due to Panetta's lack of knowledge, BHO can fire Panetta as a sacrificial lamb and draw attention away from his own lack of ability. In an evil way, this is a brilliant appointment on BHO's part.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
01/07/2009 8:04 Comments ||
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#4
Rumsfeld saw the inadequacy of the CIA and gathered many activities that could have been assigned to CIA to DoD instead.
The CIA involved itself far too heavily in domestic political intrigues.
Obama retains former DCI Bob Gates as Secretary of Defence almost immediately.
Obama names political operator par excellence to be new DCI under no-name military DNI.
Sounds to me like the Operations Directorate is about to make its contribution to deficit reduction.
I would not be surprised in '12 to hear Obama trumpet that he has shut Ops down and restored America's reputation. And I'm not at all sure that's a bad thing. The CIA needs a house cleaning and could emerge as a collection, collation and analysis shop with operations under DoD. Everyone would be better off.
#5
I'm more interested in who is appointed to the head of DIA. IIRC during the 9/11 post-mortem the move to put all intel under the CIA was resisted because DoD demanded and got autonomy to support immediate tactical operations. I wonder who's intel people the out-going administration has been relying upon to 'deliver' the goods. Let's see if that's a 'light weight' or not [or a carry over like Gates].
#8
Feistein will be the new Senate intelligence head and has voiced reservations about Panetta's lack of experience. BO seems to be jacking up the bus agian prepatory to stuffing Leon under.
#9
Personally I would have crossed the aisle on this one and found some tough Republican, some total bastard who doesn't care (like Rumsfield) and have him do a full accounting of what the CIA has done to undermine the Presidency and put some folks on trial for treason.
Also hire someone in the second in command position with intelligence experience to run things and sort through intel and take over when the house-cleaning has been completed.
Although the CIA favored his party there is no room for that in a secret organization that the nation depends upon.
#10
The CIA is not a monolith. It's comprised of three or four 'sections' and a half-dozen separate operating entities. Operations and Analysis have clashed for several decades. NIMA/NISC/NPIC, one of the separate operating entities, feeds data to the Analysis Section, as do several other entities. Analysis has been flooded with Ivy-League graduates, with the mindset that implies. THERE is where a lot of the problems begin. Secondly, HUMINT - human intelligence (spies on the ground) - has lost favor among the Analysts, and that part of the CIA has atrophied to the point of looking like a Holocaust victim. Unfortunately, I don't see that changing, while that group is becoming more and more needed.
Panetta is going into CIA as a head-chopper. Expect to see LOTS of "retirements" of older workers in ALL sections of the CIA over the next four years. My faith in Obama's ability to keep the US safe over the next four years is highlighted by the fact that I'm looking for some property so far out in the sticks the Real Estate agent gets lost looking for it.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/07/2009 21:23 Comments ||
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India may be frustrated and even outwitted by Pakistan over the Mumbai attacks, after placing its faith in the support of the United States.
New Delhi has responded to the attacks on its soil with a diplomatic offensive, trusting Washington and ultimately US president-elect Barack Obama to pressure Pakistan, but with Obama and the West depending on Pakistani support for a planned troop surge in Afghanistan, there are limits to how far they can go.
"Pakistan has been able to obfuscate the issue," said Indian security analyst Uday Bhaskar. "India will have to lessen its own expectation of what the international community can deliver."
India has asked Pakistan to hand over the suspected organisers of the attack to the 'Indian justice system', saying it is a demand South Asian regional agreements back -- that terrorist acts should be prosecuted in the nation where they occur -- but not one many analysts or diplomats expect to be met.
"Handing over Pakistani nationals to Indian custody, I don't think the Pakistani government can survive that humiliating demand," said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
"I don't think that the United States is going to succeed to put pressure on Pakistan, because what India wants Pakistan to do is politically, and otherwise, not possible at all -- and India knows that very well."
Siddharth Varadarajan, strategic affairs editor of the Hindu newspaper, says Obama will not want to grapple with the issue of the alleged links between the Pakistani army and any militants so soon after taking office.
"The Pentagon is still in denial," he added. "It still looks at the Pakistani military as part of the solution, not as part of the problem."
The Indian government realises a military strike on Pakistan would be counterproductive, and only serve to strengthen the hawks and extremists. That leaves it with few alternatives, apart from formally suspending the peace process.
All bets are off, though, if there is another attack on Indian soil. "The Indian government would be forced to react in a symbolic way. It would not lead to strategic gains, but I don't think the restraint we are now talking about could be maintained," Varadarajan said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2009 00:00 ||
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#4
ION INDIA > WORLD MIL FORUM > MANY XIANJIANG MILITANTS [UIghurs = Muslims] TRAVEL TO AFGHANISTAN TO FIGHT AGZ THE US-NATO, AND WILL LIKELY LAUNCH TERROR OPERATIONS INSIDE CHINA AGZ HAN CHINESE ENEMY UPON THEIR RETURN.
* SAME > ISLAMIST SECTARIANISM THREATENS TWELVE REGIONS INSIDE CHINA.
* SAME > INDIAN OP-ED: US CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WILL ATTEMPT TO DISMEMBER CHINA STARTING IN 2009. MUMBAI ATTACKS WAS A CIA AND US PRO-IMPERIALIST FRAME-UP/CONSPIRACY TO INDUCE MULTI-NATION REGIONAL WAR [Pakistan, India, China] AND INSTABILITY IN ASIA, ESPEC AGZ CHINA.
The Danish website Snaphanen posted a photo the other day of a pamphlet being distributed in Copenhagen's City Hall Square. On one side it proclaimed: "Never Peace With Israel!" and "Kill Israel's People!" On the other side: "Kill Jewish people evry where in ther world!" The leaflet's spelling left something to be desired, but its message of genocidal anti-Semitism couldn't have been clearer.
Likewise the message in Amsterdam on Saturday, where the crowd at an anti-Israel rally repeatedly chanted, "Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas." And the message in Belgium, where pro-Hamas demonstrators torched Israeli flags, burned a public menorah, and painted swastikas on Jewish-owned shops....
The claim that anti-Zionism isn't bigotry would be preposterous in any other context. Imagine someone vehemently asserting that Ireland has no right to exist, that Irish nationalism is racism, and that those who murder Irishmen are actually victims deserving the world's sympathy. Who would take his fulminations for anything but anti-Irish bigotry? Or believe him if he said that he harbors no prejudice against the Irish?
By the same token, those who demonize and delegitimize Israel, who say the world would be better off without it, who hold it to standards of perfection no other country is held to, who extol or commiserate with its mortal enemies, who liken it to Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa, who make it the scapegoat not only for crimes it hasn't committed, but for those of which it is a victim -- yes, such people are anti-Semitic, whether they acknowledge it or not.
Criticize Israel? Certainly. But those who so loudly denounce Israel in its war against Hamas are siding with some of the most virulent Jew-haters on earth. They may tell themselves that that doesn't make them anti-Semites. But it does. "When people criticize Zionists," Martin Luther King said in 1968, "they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism."
#1
But still, after Hamas is decapitated, who will lead the Pals? No current leader in the PA has credibility, and the thing will fail without a leader.
Here is my wild ass prediction:
The Israelis release Marwan Barghouti in exchange for Jonathan Pollard. Bush will do this before he leaves office.
#4
He spied on the US for the Israelis. A lot of Israelis think he oughta get a pass on that. A lot of Americans think he's right where he belongs. I'm one of them.
Adm. Shapiro often expressed regret about his early handling of Pollard, a Navy civilian who pleaded guilty in 1985 to espionage charges and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
When Pollard, as a new analyst, went to him with a scheme to gain "back-channel" intelligence information from South Africa, Adm. Shapiro dismissed Pollard as a "kook" and reduced his clearance. Later Pollard's clearance was reinstated.
Adm. Shapiro, who was Jewish, said he was bothered that many Jewish organizations supported Pollard during the diplomatic controversy that followed his imprisonment.
"We work so hard to establish ourselves and to get where we are, and to have somebody screw it up . . . and then to have Jewish organizations line up behind this guy and try to make him out a hero of the Jewish people, it bothers the hell out of me," Adm. Shapiro told The Washington Post in 1998.
My question was more on the lines of the hatred as to the details of what he did. the guy seems to be much more than a lightning rod than say Aldrich Aimes who is just accepted as part and parcel of the way things work (did the crime, got caught, life goes on) without the vitriolic personal attacks that seem to be aimed at pollard.
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
01/07/2009 14:00 Comments ||
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#7
Abu, that's because no one is clamoring for Ames or any other traitorous spy to be released.
If anything, it could be said that he was mentally unstable, or lacked the maturity for a position of responsibility. He shouldn't have gotten the clearance in the first place.
#8
If somebody beside his wife and children were effectively lobbying to get Aldrich Ames out of jail, you'd hear the same reaction. That's the only difference I see.
1) Request that 50% of Israel's air-to-ground missiles be duds to ensure greater proportionality.
2) Allow Hamas another 1,000 free rocket launches to see if they can catch up with the body count.
3) Have Israeli soldiers congregate in border barracks so that Hamas's random rockets have a better chance of killing military personnel, to ensure it can claim at least a few military targets.
4) Redefine "holocaust" to refer to deaths of terrorists in numbers under 400 to give greater credence to Hamas's current claims.
5) In the interest of fairness, allow Hamas to establish both the date that war is supposed to begin and the date when it must end.
6) Send Israeli military advisers to Hamas to improve the accuracy of their missiles.
7) Take down the barriers to return to Hamas a fair chance of getting suicide bombers back inside Israel.
#1
We discussed this in a finance class a few weeks ago. Default risk isn't what you should be worried about with treasuries or AA/AAA bonds, its interest rate and inflation risk. Interest rate risk could discount the living daylights out of your bonds and you will be looking at >20% loss. That would suck.
It is useful, at this juncture, to stand back and survey the economic landscape—both as it is now, and as it has been in recent months. So here is a summary of many of the points that I have made for the last few months on the outlook for the U.S. and global economy, as well as for financial markets:
The U.S. will experience its most severe recession since World War II, much worse and longer and deeper than even the 1974-1975 and 1980-1982 recessions. The recession will continue until at least the end of 2009 for a cumulative gross domestic product drop of over 4%; the unemployment rate will likely reach 9%. The U.S. consumer is shopped-out, saving less and debt-burdened: This will be the worst consumer recession in decades.
The prospect of a short and shallow six- to eight-month V-shaped recession is out of the window; a U-shaped 18- to 24-month recession is now a certainty, and the probability of a worse, multi-year L-shaped recession (as in Japan in the 1990s) is still small but rising. Even if the economy were to exit a recession by the end of 2009, the recovery could be so weak because of the impairment of the financial system and the credit mechanism that it may feel like a recession even if the economy is technically out of the recession.
#4
The rest of the world, which was even more government regulated, socialist, and centrally planned than the U.S., will be even worse off.
Don't look for that to be reported in the MSM. Instead, in Orwellian fashion, they'll shill for more of that stuff here.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
01/07/2009 6:24 Comments ||
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#5
When reflecting on unemployment, I expect the predictors to take in account that a lot of what we had seen before in post-WWII recessions are jobs that have now been shipped overseas with the work. Instead of being 'domestic', it is now 'global'. On one hand that will hide the comparative statistics when looking back at previous experiences. On the other hand, the drag that happens in getting those back to work and the overall economy back to forward domestically is also going to be less.
#6
The Amazing Kreskin was on Fox this morning. Kres says we'll see some relief in 2010 but will not get out this mess for another 4.5 years. Recommends banking with Simmons Beauty Rest. The Donald followed him via phone. Trump says the market should fix the market and that no one can pry money out of the banks. He points to the bailout as essentially a give-away.
#7
Bear in mind that 9% unemployment now is roughly comparable to 18% back during the Depression, since now the 'official' workforce includes most of the women too. Also, the official unemployment rate only includes those who have lost jobs, but not those who are just entering the workforce and cannot find jobs in the first place.
#8
What makes this moron the expert on what is in store for us. The problem is that we've listened to too many experts ant look where it got us. End of 2009 my foot. Let me be the expert. I say it will be the end of 2010.
Posted by: Art ||
01/07/2009 9:46 Comments ||
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#9
Obama has just said that he expects to have trillion dollar deficits for years to come.
That's double the highest to date and he's going to keep it up. When does hyper-inflation kick in?
#10
I seem to call the Dhimmicrats complaining about the 'Bush deficits'. I guess I'll have a right to complain about the 'Obama deficits'. At least until I'm bound and gagged.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/07/2009 11:46 Comments ||
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#11
i predict that any unfavorable comparisons of Obama will be treated as racist an investigated by the FBI as a 'hate crime'
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
01/07/2009 13:34 Comments ||
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#12
Eh, we're all gonna be wiped out in 2012 anyway, right?
Fact is, no one really knows what's going to happen next, not Obama, not Roubini, not any so-called "expert".
The one thing I can say with confidence is that worst case gloom-and-doom scenarios sell books and magazines, so expect a bumper crop of them over the next year. Enjoy them for their twisted entertainment value, but if you follow them as gospel you are every bit as deluded as the people who thought the good times would never end and real estate would always double in five years.
#13
...It's always been my understanding that the ACTUAL unemployment rate is around 4% lower than what the government tells us, because there's that many "just-won't-work" in the population - is that true?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/07/2009 16:41 Comments ||
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#14
I'd say the other way, Mike. The just won't work are out of the numbers. There's lots of discouraged workers, want to work but haven't found something in so long they don't try, not in the numbers also. There's lots of folks without HS diploma and others educated more who don't have jobs but would like to. They don't for a lot of reasons, often related to their own behavior but also related to the fact that their standard of living would decline if they did the one thing that would get them a job, move.
Bottom line, unemployment, like inflation, is probably understated in the official figures.
#16
This article is from November 13th and the caption above the articles title is 'Doctor Doom'. Even the publisher of the article is making fun of it.
Couldn't someone dig up a story about president Jackson and banks?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/07/2009 19:28 Comments ||
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#17
Folks, let me tell you what the sagacity of the ages would tell you about what is coming....those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it!
Weimar Republic could replicated the entire printed money supply overnight and still fell victim to Zimbabwe style hyper-inflation.
Our mor odern approach, whisch isn't even to waste the paper to print it, is to create mythical value by pladging future debt to our children for eternity. As if someone actually believes that they will pay it or that it has any value. WAKE UP! People will soon feel the pinches of the massive amounts of notional money introduced into the banking system through enormous inflationary rates, and the realization will hit them that money actually has no value, and the US Government has no faith or credit worthy of comment.
We are about to destroy public confidence in basic institution of government, our de-based currency, and someof the people here think it will be a stimulus to employment? Its a suicide pact for the nation. We are making the exact same mistakes that prolonged the Great Depression, conflicting government policies, and unwillinginess to let the market process work the massive credit bubble out of the system. Maynard Keynes was discreditied a long time ago, and has returned-vampire like- with a vengence.
Stop government spending iinsanity, and keep Zero's hand off the throttle as much as you can.
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