I always say it, Barack Hussein Hoover, because it has a nice alliteration.

I don't feel bad that the US had to shoulder most of the responsibility for helping out banks including international ones because the sub-prime mortgages and their derivatives began in the US and the risk was transferred to other countries. The US deregulated so that these derivatives could engulf the entire world. Before the US tells the rest of the world what to do to prevent crises, they should first take care of the crises that begin at home.

Our money ...that stinks!

You all follow this stuff very closely. I just that Germany was more about savings.

From Spiegel

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel has chosen the path of austerity to push her country out of a debt crisis that threatens to weigh on generations to come. Two German economists debate the merits of the government's savings program on SPIEGEL ONLINE: Should Berlin cut back or spend to ensure economic health?"

"Government savings can even produce economic growth. But Berlin didn't go far enough."

"It's like a reflex: As soon as Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing coalition introduced its austerity program, critics complain that it is socially unbalanced and will hinder economic growth. The same thing has happened before. When former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt introduced a far-reaching package of spending cuts in the early 1980s in an effort to stabilize the federal budget, the so-called experts hastily calculated that the already troubled economy would lose one half of a percentage point of growth. They were wrong. Shortly thereafter, the long-lasting boom of the 1980s began."

Has the USA talked much of savings and cutting? If so I must have missed it.

We needed a direct jobs program two years ago, infrastructure being a top target. Right now, no one will say the obvious. Federal and State should cancel offshore outsourcing contracts, using public money, and bring those jobs back to the U.S. right now. We need those jobs and even more obvious, the contract amount is the same amount of money, so in other words, this will not increase spending to bring those jobs back.

We need direct jobs, we need a new CCC and a WPA. We need tax disincentives for moving anything offshore and a tax incentive to manufacture here.

We need right now, very obviously a tax on China (tariff) for currency manipulation. The trade deficit alone shows how our jobs have moved and currently are being created...in China, Asia Pacific and India, even Brazil. We need immediately direct confrontation on India obtaining U.S. offshore outsourcing contracts.

Come on, this is 2010 and no one is planning or promoting kicking people out based on race. But during the 1930's, we had even worse for blacks. They didn't just chase people out of town, they killed them, sometimes over economic reasons (jobs).

I'm not promoting the idea that somehow America should kick anyone out, based on ethnicity, and never would, but in terms of illegal workers, they are 1 in 20. In an unemployment report, I estimated illegal workers being 5% of the workforce, so I'm amazed I got it right on the money.

"Terror Babies", surely some wild youtubes are coming our way on this "theory" and if anyone sees them, I'd love to include them in the SMC! Babies crawling all over the U.S., terrorizing us, full diapers...

I mean come on, this is a parody deluxe, so email me off line for the funnies.

I've been researching this subject for days and don't like the idea of throwing money to the middle class taxpayer that hasn't been able to keep his house and bills paid for, but that's not what's really concerning me.
What's got me scared to death is WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO MY REAL ESTATE STOCK. I own alot of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I can't find any predictions on what's going to happen.

Wasn't Germany one of the countries that managed to stay out of the massive bail-out plans? Maybe we should have followed?

German economy sees 'record' growth of 2.2%

"Such quarter-on-quarter growth has never been recorded before in reunified Germany," the national statistics office, Destatis, said.

French economy - 0.6%
Spanish economy - 0.2%,
Italian economy - at 0.4%.

Greece - shrank by 1.5% during the quarter.

I know! Let's spend more money and go deeper in debt! Hm :(

Most of us who have 401k and IRA got a bad haircut and Washington suspended the RMD for 2009. They should suspend it again (but won't for obvious reasons). A tax credit to offset RMD would be stimulative, but that will not happen. Best strategy IMO is to take advantage of low income years (after age 59-1/2) and begin gradually transferring IRA balances to ROTH IRA.

I turned it into a Drupal based site, like this one and left it up to others if they want to use it or not.

While I care about Tech labor issues and still am very active, in terms of my own interests, I'm much more into econ as a whole, so EP is your basic economics blog, although if I see something pretty damn incredible, like this story, I'll write about it here.

noslaves.com is now devoted to all things U.S. tech labor exclusively, but I try to leave it up to others to use.

That's how these things work, the more people use them, the more people read them and then they get picked up on and grow.

Thanks, but I don't recognize these web sites. Also, I wasn't even thinking in terms of a union. Finally, one has a forum, with next to no participation.

I'm an out of work IT guy, who is out of work, an activist for fixing democracy, and full of ideas for using technology to help fix democracy. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to work on my ideas, so I thought others IT guys might be available.