The above "note to Bonddad" was not posted on his blog. He only accepts compliments. But, today, it was responded to in a full length posting by NDD see:"Wrong again, Doomers: State tax receipts are going *UP*!" - by New Deal democrat

My response to NDD is below. I thought some EP readers may find it of some interest because I think it deals with the 'great divide' in today's 'political economy.'

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Response from the Schwarzenegger “Doomer”

Sorry I forgot to sign my name ‘Tom’. I’m a daily (sometimes twice) reader and periodic commenter. So I did read “Happy Days…” and commented that it, and other very rare postings on what you call the ‘bifurcated’ economy were excellent. I have complemented the Bonddad blog and criticized it, but never denigrated it (indeed, I recommend it) or can be accused of ad hominem insults.

The Schwarzenegger note was a tongue in cheek metaphoric expression to communicate the idea that this blog while, to my mind, pays ‘lip service’ to the suffering half of the bifurcated economy, the vast majority of its economic postings (not stock charts) is a chart game that seems to be driven by, frankly, ego. You regularly brag about being right and the so called ‘doomers’ are characterized pejoratively; indeed insultingly.

For example, your response to my ‘note’ ignores (a classic non sequitur) the point that there is ‘serious’ pain and suffering going on for what I and other ‘doomers’ judge to be ‘statistically significant’ numbers of people in California and the country as a whole. Their pain and suffering is not generally measured in the government economic statistics. You brag: look how smart I am compared to the ignorant ‘doomers’, the economy is creating jobs just like a I said.

But, you (and the government) do not analyze the characteristic of the jobs in terms of standard of living. The jobs ‘game’ is to you a ‘zero sum’ game. A person loses a $45, 000 /year full time full benefits job and takes a $15,000/year part time no benefits job; so one job lost and one gained. A job is job. So decreases in the number of full time full benefit jobs and greater increases in the number of part time no benefits jobs shows up as job creation in your statistical analysis – as I understand it. You compare job creation numbers today with recessions in the past. But, you do not compare the standard of living characteristics of the jobs created in the respective different periods. An autoworker job in 1980 is the same as a retail job in 2010: 1 job = 1 job. You are no doubt familiar with the expression “Lies, Damn lies and Statistics?

This blog is filled with statistics and I find them interesting. However, it is not obvious to me that that your charts capture the reality of the people in about the 75 percentile of family ‘standard of living’. I love the one about “increased unemployment is a good sign because discouraged workers are coming back into the job market” - talk about ‘Orwellian’ or ‘Alice in Wonderland” or Mad Magazine’s Alfred E, Newman – “what me worry?” Similarly, income tax statistics (which you imply that I commented on – again non sequitur): They are up, good news. But, how many more people have lost health insurance benefits, or had the retirement income fund slashed if not lost, or lost their homes or are in fear of losing their homes, or taking reductions in income to keep jobs, or have children who can’t afford college or can’t find a job after college, etc. etc.

Oh yes those are ‘lagging indicators’ – not to worry Alfred! Call me names if you will, but I and other ‘doomers’ do worry about all those real people (not numbers) who are experiencing real pain and do not interpret your arbitrarily drawn trend lines (not to be confused with regression lines or moving averages) as pointing to a ‘chicken in every pot’ future.

I’m sure you get my drift…

Respectfully
Tom

This is an astroturf group set up by Andrew Breitbart.

You'll find no greater proponent of direct job creation than me, but these people are frauds.

Take a look at their website. Their petition is a meaningless gabble for "common sense," with no action suggested.

Their "about" page contains anti-stimulus ranting, pro-deregulation, and other right-wing canards.

Avoid at all costs.

Tells me they are going to see what gets passed and then remove it (probably) in the manager's amendment. From my understanding of the Senate rules, they do not need to do this.

Where is everyone on the site? I know I've been so bogged down in "web dev." and other such stuff, being a good author has suffered, but this is kind of a bummer.

Maybe it's primary fever?

Unreal. That seriously weakens consumer protection and gives the Banksters a major loophole.

Just from adding up the total "cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF)" figures from each of the FDIC press releases this year, I come up with about 15.79 billion so far.

Jan: 3.22 billion
Feb: 1.17 billion
Mar: 1.48 billion
Apr: 9.40 billion
May: 0.52 billion so far

It's here if anyone is interested.

Supposedly the state is cloture by the end of the week, A volcker rule amendment, which maybe watered down at the last minute.

A strengthening of consumer protection.

I'll try to update later because odds are some of these will be changed on the floor or won't come up for a vote.

I apologize. I don't know where my head was at.

That is not true at all.

The house bill was littered with loopholes to make over 75% of all derivatives exempt from any regulation.

It's ridiculous and it's because there are huge gambling profits to be made plus the overall derivatives market is $600 trillion dollars.

So, this is pure "money talks", people get royally screwed. Imagine if all of that money tied up in derivatives was actually used to make real investments in real people and the real economy, national interest?

($600 trillion is global of course)

I took your comment and put it in the latest rant on derivatives.

here.