It's official: US slips back into recession

[Dick Gozinya]

Yup, and the stock market continues to boom but u never hear about that either ...

14K by the end of next week... watch.

[Kamie]

I'm no fan of Obama. However, to say for a second that going on a couple unfunded adventures half a world away, unfunded tax cuts, deferred maintenance, and the bottom 75% (this 1% stuff is bullshit) getting squeeze for the last 40 years MAY have a little bit to do with the precarious state of the US economy.

We can't substitute anymore. We can't rely upon women entering the workplace. We haven't got another internet-like revolution in the works. The biggest parts of the budget are things that will not get cut. SS, military, medicare, etc, are things that make up most of the budget but no one wants to cut them AND we have the boomers about to retire en masse and live longer and be a greater burden on our govt services than ever seen before.

We have fewer workers per retiree than EVER before and it will only get worse. We have far more people on "disability" than EVER before and it will only get worse. My mother in law is on "disability" for some strange reason. She can get around just fine but doesn't work because of. . . . hell if I know. Sidebar: She voted Romney. So much for bootstraps, eh?

This fucking train ain't gonna get righted anytime soon unless the pols in DC realize that the economy is based upon a foundation and that foundation isn't Bill Gates or any of the other rich guys. It's based upon a strong middle class. Stronger middle class, fewer poor people, and maybe not so many ultra rich, means greater demand in general. Kind of like we saw post WWII before the insane Randians took over policy on fiscal stuff.

If we don't cut "entitlements" we are fucked. It's an unpopular decision and nobody - no Democrat or Republican - wants to touch it. As you say, the boomers are starting to retire and it's going to get bad. I don't have documentary evidence, but my understanding of social security was that when it was implemented it was intended to be a fund. So, you pay in $1,000 over your career and your get $1,000 in your retirement. It has morphed into something other than that, obviously, into something unsustainable. I'm glad I don't have kids.

[Dick Gozinya]

If we don't cut "entitlements" we are fucked.

Right answer smiley right here.

[KillVampires]

i'm sympathetic to anyone who truly can't get a job.

The problem is that there are lots of people who are college educated or who have over three decades of work experience who are looking for work. And the only work that they can get are entry level jobs or retail jobs that pay barely above the line. You have people with high levels of education and work experience literally watching their entire industries rapidly erode with no chance of ever being able to land a comparable job again.

When you were working for a manufacturing company and that company, plus the next ten competitors, have all been bankrupted, then you'll never get that same job again. You are stuck for the rest of your life earning far less pay despite having an outstanding education or years of workforce experience. This is what we've done to our country. We don't produce or manufacture anything. Everything is outsourced.

Government also destroys the middle class with taxes. So even if you become a success you are now paying over 50% of your money to the government between property, state, federal, local, and sales taxes. And we have record amounts of people on welfare. So now more people are sliding into welfare, taxes go up on the middle class to pay for that, causing more middle class people to go on welfare....

The amount of overqualified workers right now is staggering. People who are working jobs that they'd never work in a healthy economy. They don't count towards unemployment when really they are almost worse off than people who are unemployed. Because the people who have settled for low end jobs despite having high end educations have given up on America.

I'd say we are another decade away from having a stable economy. Pretty pathetic what the politicians have done.

[Dick Gozinya]

I'd say we are another decade away from having a stable economy. Pretty pathetic what the politicians have done.

Nah. Few more years. If these idiots can stop pointing fingers long enough and actually make some logical decisions, life will be good. Hell, man... things are much better today than they were five short years ago. But I won't point out who's watch that started under.

[itpdude]

Dude, great post. But forget the gun laws and immigration reform. We need UNEMPLOYMENT REFORM. No one wants to work in this country anymore. Why bother? You get as much on unemployment as you do for a decent job. I've run into a ton of motherfuckers that are capable of working, but decide not to because they're milking the system, and they're laughing about that.

Like Kamie said... Cut em off and you'll watch the unemployment rate dive. You can't blame either side for that horseshit. The ones responsible are the ones that fail to see it.

You know those people calls "99'rs?" Those who have been unemployed for 99 weeks? I have a solution right the fuck now: Start up a new WPA and/or CCC and get those unemployed people working on public works. Deferred maintenance on roads and bridges and levies? Put the long-term unemployed on it. "Wah, I had a nice office job and now I'm spreading tar on this hot new road." Wah! It's a fuckin' job.

The big problem with the long-term unemployed is the longer they remain unemployed, the lesser chance they'll ever be employed again. And that means ANY job. A new WPA or CCC would give SOMETHING for these long-term unemployed people to put on the resume and get them back into the private sector. A new WPA or CCC would stimulate sectors of the private sector. There is a PILE of heavy equipment in mothballs because the work ain't out there. A public works push, a real for fuckin' real push, would help those private operators. Big time.

We'd get some stuff built, repaired, maintained, put long-term unemployed people to work, and stimulate the economy in a REAL way rather than padding the pockets of the shyster banks that played a huge role in putting the world economy in the shitter in the first damn place.

But the GOP doesn't want a "big gov jobs program" even though those very same assholes wanted the bullshit Iraq war which caused billions to be spent on PMCs (which sounds like a big gov jobs program that kills people). The Dems wouldn't want it because it would somehow be insensitive to unemployed people.

We're fucked, in other words. We have two major parties that are bought and paid for by their own set of special interest groups and, basically, the rest of us get boned.

[itpdude]

14K by the end of next week... watch.

Hah, wonder when that "trickle-down" is gonna kick in?

Probably at the same time Hillary Clinton admits that Ross Perot was right about NAFTA.

[NotMyBro]

we never left the recession.... obama and his minions in the press were full of shit and more idiots believed him than believed romney.
we're never going to come out of it. obama owns it now.

That's correct. We never left the recession. It was masked by Quantitative Easing 2 & 3.... aka "pumping".



Bernanke just keeps on pumping....

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...90T0TF20130130

Just wait when this balloon pops... it will be bigger than Great Depression. You can't pump forever. We've seen what hyperinflation does and it's not pretty.

[ohmicah]

You guys are all assuming the people in charge want a recovery.

I see this all as an elaborate game to crash the dollar. Completely wipe it off the map.

Then we'll have no choice but to join the global co-op known as the New World Order.

I hear it's for our own good.

[hollywoodrose]

Dude, great post. But forget the gun laws and immigration reform. We need UNEMPLOYMENT REFORM. No one wants to work in this country anymore. Why bother? You get as much on unemployment as you do for a decent job. I've run into a ton of motherfuckers that are capable of working, but decide not to because they're milking the system, and they're laughing about that.

Like Kamie said... Cut em off and you'll watch the unemployment rate dive. You can't blame either side for that horseshit. The ones responsible are the ones that fail to see it.

It's also the fact that our currency has dropped so much and prices have gone up to the point that most jobs don't get you very far. It's not that unemployment benefits are good, it's that most jobs don't pay very much at all, and you have to work a lot harder now just to buy the basic necessities. Our country is reverting back to the "old system". We're going to end up with an ocean of peasants and handful of wealthy pricks who dictate the future. Except on a global scale.


The rich are the ones who are responsible, like always. Our entire economic system (and as a result, the rest of it) is owned by the Central Bank of the United States (i.e. the "federal reserve") which is a privately owned company. They lower interest rates and the economy gets going, inflation goes up. Then they drop the rates, the bubble bursts and they buy up the foreclosed assets at bargain basement prices. Up until fairly recently, it wasn't even legal for our own government to free itself of "the fed's" control. Our country, and the world as a whole, is owned by high level organized crime.


If you want to blame someone start by researchin the history of the central banking system and who owns it. They own everything and if we want a free country we need to break free of this corrupt situation and ratify the loophole put in the constitution by the bankers allowing for private ownership to sidestep democracy. That's how the powers that be are able to get around all the laws that were meant to preserve freedom and liberty. The founding fathers knew we'd end up this way back in 1776, but they couldn't stop outside influence from having their way. Both parties are just puppets held by the same master. And they've officially made it legal to classify someone who opposes the federal reserve as a terrorist. They've made it illegal to oppose them if you happen to find out what they're up to.

[PelicanBeak]

You know those people calls "99'rs?" Those who have been unemployed for 99 weeks? I have a solution right the fuck now: Start up a new WPA and/or CCC and get those unemployed people working on public works. Deferred maintenance on roads and bridges and levies? Put the long-term unemployed on it. "Wah, I had a nice office job and now I'm spreading tar on this hot new road." Wah! It's a fuckin' job.

The big problem with the long-term unemployed is the longer they remain unemployed, the lesser chance they'll ever be employed again. And that means ANY job. A new WPA or CCC would give SOMETHING for these long-term unemployed people to put on the resume and get them back into the private sector. A new WPA or CCC would stimulate sectors of the private sector. There is a PILE of heavy equipment in mothballs because the work ain't out there. A public works push, a real for fuckin' real push, would help those private operators. Big time.

We'd get some stuff built, repaired, maintained, put long-term unemployed people to work, and stimulate the economy in a REAL way rather than padding the pockets of the shyster banks that played a huge role in putting the world economy in the shitter in the first damn place.

But the GOP doesn't want a "big gov jobs program" even though those very same assholes wanted the bullshit Iraq war which caused billions to be spent on PMCs (which sounds like a big gov jobs program that kills people). The Dems wouldn't want it because it would somehow be insensitive to unemployed people.

We're fucked, in other words. We have two major parties that are bought and paid for by their own set of special interest groups and, basically, the rest of us get boned.

I think it was 1996 when I worked in NYC and we had one of the snowiest winters ever. Guliani wanted to get all able-bodied welfare recipients out to shovel show a few days a week. The able-bodied welfare bums wanted high wages, a union, etc, etc, program went nowhere, the welfarians would not do squat. Guliani was surely GOP, so I would not blame that party (excuse for a party). WPA and CCC programs were done when Americans still had a work ethic and people were embarassed to recieve charity/gubmint cheese; the past 50 years of social engineering has produced nothing but a decline in our once great culture and no we have a couple of generations of the lazy, whiny, immature entitlement class.

[1Vegasgirl]

If we don't cut "entitlements" we are fucked. It's an unpopular decision and nobody - no Democrat or Republican - wants to touch it. As you say, the boomers are starting to retire and it's going to get bad. I don't have documentary evidence, but my understanding of social security was that when it was implemented it was intended to be a fund. So, you pay in $1,000 over your career and your get $1,000 in your retirement. It has morphed into something other than that, obviously, into something unsustainable. I'm glad I don't have kids.

Your thinking is right, but a couple of things. Welfare, food stamps, social programs for illegals and the irresponsible, section 8 housing, free obamaphones, etc. should be cut before social security. Older people have paid into Social Security all their lives and now they cannot go back and re-do their finances.

[crazypreacher]

Rest in peace, my lovely buzz.

[itpdude]

I think it was 1996 when I worked in NYC and we had one of the snowiest winters ever. Guliani wanted to get all able-bodied welfare recipients out to shovel show a few days a week. The able-bodied welfare bums wanted high wages, a union, etc, etc, program went nowhere, the welfarians would not do squat. Guliani was surely GOP, so I would not blame that party (excuse for a party). WPA and CCC programs were done when Americans still had a work ethic and people were embarassed to recieve charity/gubmint cheese; the past 50 years of social engineering has produced nothing but a decline in our once great culture and no we have a couple of generations of the lazy, whiny, immature entitlement class.

I'm not talking about some fly-by-night, turd-nugget idea from that greasy wop to pander to a certain constituency (which was what Guiliani was doing). I'm talking about a real program that fixes and builds real things, not some "come out and shovel when it snows" bullshit.

Shoveling when it snows is not a consistent job that can be put on a resume. It's day-labor. Rudy knew it was a cynical ploy.

[isabella]

I'm no fan of Obama. However, to say for a second that going on a couple unfunded adventures half a world away, unfunded tax cuts, deferred maintenance, and the bottom 75% (this 1% stuff is bullshit) getting squeeze for the last 40 years MAY have a little bit to do with the precarious state of the US economy.

We can't substitute anymore. We can't rely upon women entering the workplace. We haven't got another internet-like revolution in the works. The biggest parts of the budget are things that will not get cut. SS, military, medicare, etc, are things that make up most of the budget but no one wants to cut them AND we have the boomers about to retire en masse and live longer and be a greater burden on our govt services than ever seen before.

We have fewer workers per retiree than EVER before and it will only get worse. We have far more people on "disability" than EVER before and it will only get worse. My mother in law is on "disability" for some strange reason. She can get around just fine but doesn't work because of. . . . hell if I know. Sidebar: She voted Romney. So much for bootstraps, eh?

This fucking train ain't gonna get righted anytime soon unless the pols in DC realize that the economy is based upon a foundation and that foundation isn't Bill Gates or any of the other rich guys. It's based upon a strong middle class. Stronger middle class, fewer poor people, and maybe not so many ultra rich, means greater demand in general. Kind of like we saw post WWII before the insane Randians took over policy on fiscal stuff.

the pols in DC don't give a damn....in fact, DC is the one place in america where housing prices have either stayed the same or increased. the average income in DC is higher than anywhere else (or is it the median).
bottom line.... the feds are doing great, they're the new aristocracy.

[itpdude]

Your thinking is right, but a couple of things. Welfare, food stamps, social programs for illegals and the irresponsible, section 8 housing, free obamaphones, etc. should be cut before social security. Older people have paid into Social Security all their lives and now they cannot go back and re-do their finances.

So, you want to protect some entitlements?

Because many oldsters on SS are collecting FAR more than they ever put in. Payroll taxes were raised in 1990. My grandfather NEVER paid ONE DIME into that higher rate but benefits from it. Medicare? Same thing. There were old people who benefited from that without having EVER put a penny into it.

I say fuck 'em. The boomers have seen this coming down the pipe for 20 years and they chose to do squat about it. Fuck them. Let them eat cat food. Get them bootstraps out!!!

Sorry, but you can add up all the W Bush phones (W instituted them), section 8 (which benefits landlords), food stamps, and whatever else and it will never come close to Medicare and SS. Never.

It was laughable how Romney talked of cutting PBS and increasing military spending (a huge welfare program, btw). You could cut PBS tomorrow and it would not make a DENT in the budget. Not a dent.

In other words, the GOP is not a serious party.

[922Wine]

The situation isn't great, but we can't act like the rest of the world's economy is doing so incredibly well. The global economy is in the shitter. You've got first world countries needing loans.

[damuthafnprez]

first of all i think u guys are confusing unemployment benefits and welfare. most working people pay into unemployment benefits and therefore should be entitled to

collect those funds when companies decide to "downsize" (or just outsource and avoid having to pay fair wages and health care)

whereas welfare, is when mtv's teen mom 2 decides to have another fat headed baby and we all have to chip in to buy more beefaroni

and as far as "making a dent" how bout not shopping at Wal-Mart and IKEA. you people bitch about jobs but drive nissans and hydundas

/end rant

[KillVampires]

the pols in DC don't give a damn....in fact, DC is the one place in america where housing prices have either stayed the same or increased. the average income in DC is higher than anywhere else (or is it the median).
bottom line.... the feds are doing great, they're the new aristocracy.

Studies have shown that the average Senator and House Rep earn almost twice as much off of the stock market as the average investor who has at least $750,000 in the market. Our representatives use their insider knowledge to earn major money from stocks. The studies found that the average investor made something like 3% across the last decade. But politicians were making almost 10% at the same time. It's hilarious.

[CAPTAIN KIRK]

Studies have shown that the average Senator and House Rep earn almost twice as much off of the stock market as the average investor who has at least $750,000 in the market. Our representatives use their insider knowledge to earn major money from stocks. The studies found that the average investor made something like 3% across the last decade. But politicians were making almost 10% at the same time. It's hilarious.

Yep 60 Minutes did a whole show on this, how hypocritical Washington is for making insider trading illegal for everyone but themselves in DC..