It's epic. It's catastrophic. I just don't think people realize how bad its going to get. But some people do.
"We're facing a cliff in 2011 when stimulus dollars run out," said Mitchell Bean, director of the Michigan House Fiscal Agency. "There is not an end in sight, even in recovery."
As of July 2009, California's budget shortfall was 49.3% of its general funds. States have considered drastic options to fill such gaps.
"I looked as hard as I could at how states could declare bankruptcy," said Michael Genest, director of the California Department of Finance who is stepping down at the end of the year. "I literally looked at the federal constitution to see if there was a way for states to return to territory status."
All this happy talk about Green Shoots and Recovery has lulled people into believing that the worst is over. Maybe in some areas it is, but none of those areas involve state and local budgets.
Mr. Genest estimated that, eventually, 40% of the state's budget would go to the state Medicaid program, 40% to education, 10% to debt service and 6% to retiree medical services and pension—leaving little left for anything else, such as the state's corrections system.
...
"Citizens don't quite understand yet the implications of some of the cuts that we've made," Mr. Bean said. "A lot of it has fallen on local governments. I am very concerned that we're going to have a lot of insolvencies in local governments."
When regulators closed Pacific National Bank of San Clemente, TARP lost another $4.12 million.
Last week TARP lost nearly $300 million with the closing of United Commercial Bank.
I want this public sign up to Dorgan's initiative spread around for we are seriously losing any momentum to get real financial regulatory reform and that's really bad. What about the next financial Armageddon because nothing was done?
Dorgan is currently Democratic Policy Chair and the 3rd most powerful Senator. He has consistently been a great legislator and has put forth very sane legislation on trade, economic, labor and fiscal policy. I, for one, would like to see more public support for Dorgan so we might get some of his legislation and amendments passed. Just like this dire warning video, Dorgan has been often a lone voice, speaking statistic after statistic, fact after fact, on the Senate floor, only to be completely ignored by our corporate lobbyist puppets called his colleagues.
Dorgan has a MBA, which also helps explain how he has such good financial acumen.
If they had not rescued the financial banks with TARP....then there wouldn't have been any money to buy Congress. So, can one claim taxpayer money is being funneled via special favors to certain politicians and call it campaign finance law violations?
This is why I haven't written much on the House Bill. It's here but it's so full of lobbyists tricks I didn't write it up yet.
It's also so bad, that's another reason I haven't gone into the details. When I see a bill so full of crap all I can think of is to defeat it, vs. analyze it, that's unless no one else sees the lobbyist web of legislative trickery and shenanigans.
I pay no attention to labels such as "Blue dog", I want the names of how is getting the money from where.
Corruption in Congress seems to have no boundaries and the ones who are not corrupt I think I can count on 1 hand, maybe 2. I know who those are, the rest of the lot, well, I haven't bothered to categorize them as "blue" or "red" or whatever...
more like "GS boy", and "Bill Gate's bitch" and "U.S. Chamber of Commerce brat" or "NASSCOM representative" and so on.
drafted by "financial industry experts." Not surprising but very disgusting - courtesy of Blue Dogs and New Democrats:
A well-informed Congressional source confirmed that the original language in the draft legislation was written by financial-industry experts. It "was probably written by JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs," he told me, "and possibly the Chicago Mercantile Exchange." The Chicago exchange trades commodity futures--hog bellies, beef, grains--and more exotic derivatives. It is a rival to Wall Street but very close to agribusiness interests like Cargill, the giant grain trader, that make heavy use of derivatives.
Washington insiders may not be shocked to learn that private-interest groups provided the draft bill. This is what lobbyists often do for the legislative process, especially on complex subjects like taxation and regulatory law. But the legislation was delivered to the House Financial Services Committee by Blue Dog Democrats, not lobbyists. There are fifteen Blue Dogs and like-minded members on the committee. Together they make up more than one-third of the committee's Democratic majority (forty-two Democrats, twenty-nine Republicans).
She sure does nail it on the myth of cheap labor. Considering the entire EU is recovering with much stronger labor laws and supports for their middle class and also we have a weak dollar now...
this shows how screwed up the U.S. is on manufacturing, the real economy, trade.
Krugman does Germany an injustice by failing to contest US prejudices about European (particularly German) labor practices. If German labor practices are so terrible, then how was Germany an export powerhouse, able to punch above its weight versus Japan and China, while the US, with our supposedly great advantage of more flexible (and therefore cheaper) labor, has run chronic and large current account deficits? And why is Germany a hotbed of successful entrepreneurial companies, its famed Mittelstand? If Germany was such a terrible place to do business, wouldn’t they have hollowed out manufacturing just as the US has done? Might it be that there are unrecognized pluses of not being able to fire workers at will, that the company and the employees recognize that they are in the same boat, and the company has more reason to invest in its employees (ignore the US nonsense “employees are our asset,” another line from the corporate Ministry of Truth).
Krugman's piece was good too but the above paragraph nailed it.
While it would be great to have the "real" numbers, I think we don't need them to understand the problem as a whole, which is horrible policy. We suck from the teat of our giant economy, thinking we can have bad policies because our economy is so strong to be able to withstand. Now we are forced to see that our policies, both Republican and Democrat, continue to grow our government, increase corruption, and diminish freedom.
http://www.dol.gov/ilab/programs/ocft/PDF/2009TVPRA.pdf is a link to a Department of Labor report on the countries and products they provide using child and slave labor. Our manufacturing businesses should not have to compete with this.
no-bid contracts, all of the big money end of war (try to stay away from actual foreign policy) but all of the "follow the money" sorts of activities like Halliburton, corruptions, waste, all of the money end of this is appropriate for EP.
Anything involving finance, money is because it affects the U.S. budget, affects Domestic economy.
Just a FYI if you're following The Nation's expose on the latest with war profiteering, corruption.
is just a money and campaign fest. A lot of their bills are written by corporate lobbyists, literally handed to them, all "done for them".
There are real legislative staffers, etc. who write legislation but seemingly the crap that comes up for a vote...is written by corporate lobbyists.
I think we need a deep breath and public financing of campaigns and a ban on lobbyists.
It's just so corrupt, they simply refuse to act on behalf of their constituents or the national interest.
I hear ya on frustration, but even on the left the big money often goes to issues and campaigns that frankly aren't that effective. We need to get corporations out of D.C. and both sides need to join forces to get representative government back.
I'm working through a book I will review which touches upon war profiteering as an economic activity in the U.S.
Every the more reason EP is needed too. We "follow the money" and get into the details vs. just "grab" some partisan sound byte and say "yeah, me too".
I'm afraid, frankly that's what "both sides" do. At least that's what I see a lot of.
I get more angry. We have young man and woman making the ultimate sacrifice for us and these chick shit senators can't do one of the most important jobs they elected to do.
This is complete bullsh*t. They should hounded out of office for even proposing such a cowardly act.
They have a great series that once and for all puts this entire agenda to privatize SS to bed.
But, believe it or not, David Walker (Peterson Foundation) has admitted many times SS is not the real issue and is easily fixed by removing the regressivity of the tax.
I saw a blurb fly by on corporate tax code reform possibly by Congress.
Now you want to talk about major homework assignments for us...that's when it really gets intense to review legislation.
BTW! Is anyone here trying to read the Dodd Financial reform draft!
Seriously! If people want real reform, you gotta dig in, whip out that college cram session mentality and try it.
Among its chief responsibilities would be closing the gap between tax revenue coming in and the larger cost of paying for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. The Government Accountability Office recently reported the gap is on pace to reach an "unsustainable" $63 trillion in 2083.
Why are they targeting social security, medicare and medicaid? Why not corporate subsidies, tax loopholes and tax code preference for debt? Why because they want to privatize the shit out of social security?
Ignoring the constitutionality of this for a second, I have a suggestion get the fu*king big ass money out of Washington and hey elected officials in Washington - do your fu*king job!
a href="https://mail.economicpopulist.org/%3Ca%20href%3D"http://www.rebelcapitalist.com">http://www.rebelcapitalist.com">RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
It's epic. It's catastrophic. I just don't think people realize how bad its going to get. But some people do.
All this happy talk about Green Shoots and Recovery has lulled people into believing that the worst is over. Maybe in some areas it is, but none of those areas involve state and local budgets.
When regulators closed Pacific National Bank of San Clemente, TARP lost another $4.12 million.
Last week TARP lost nearly $300 million with the closing of United Commercial Bank.
I want this public sign up to Dorgan's initiative spread around for we are seriously losing any momentum to get real financial regulatory reform and that's really bad. What about the next financial Armageddon because nothing was done?
Dorgan is currently Democratic Policy Chair and the 3rd most powerful Senator. He has consistently been a great legislator and has put forth very sane legislation on trade, economic, labor and fiscal policy. I, for one, would like to see more public support for Dorgan so we might get some of his legislation and amendments passed. Just like this dire warning video, Dorgan has been often a lone voice, speaking statistic after statistic, fact after fact, on the Senate floor, only to be completely ignored by our corporate lobbyist puppets called his colleagues.
Dorgan has a MBA, which also helps explain how he has such good financial acumen.
If they had not rescued the financial banks with TARP....then there wouldn't have been any money to buy Congress. So, can one claim taxpayer money is being funneled via special favors to certain politicians and call it campaign finance law violations?
This is why I haven't written much on the House Bill. It's here but it's so full of lobbyists tricks I didn't write it up yet.
It's also so bad, that's another reason I haven't gone into the details. When I see a bill so full of crap all I can think of is to defeat it, vs. analyze it, that's unless no one else sees the lobbyist web of legislative trickery and shenanigans.
I pay no attention to labels such as "Blue dog", I want the names of how is getting the money from where.
Corruption in Congress seems to have no boundaries and the ones who are not corrupt I think I can count on 1 hand, maybe 2. I know who those are, the rest of the lot, well, I haven't bothered to categorize them as "blue" or "red" or whatever...
more like "GS boy", and "Bill Gate's bitch" and "U.S. Chamber of Commerce brat" or "NASSCOM representative" and so on.
drafted by "financial industry experts." Not surprising but very disgusting - courtesy of Blue Dogs and New Democrats:
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
She sure does nail it on the myth of cheap labor. Considering the entire EU is recovering with much stronger labor laws and supports for their middle class and also we have a weak dollar now...
this shows how screwed up the U.S. is on manufacturing, the real economy, trade.
was spot on: Krugman on the Need for Jobs Policies:
Krugman's piece was good too but the above paragraph nailed it.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
What complete bags of human garbage!?
Relax imports of products made with Child/Forced/Slave labor!?
Where do these jerks come from?!
While it would be great to have the "real" numbers, I think we don't need them to understand the problem as a whole, which is horrible policy. We suck from the teat of our giant economy, thinking we can have bad policies because our economy is so strong to be able to withstand. Now we are forced to see that our policies, both Republican and Democrat, continue to grow our government, increase corruption, and diminish freedom.
http://www.dol.gov/ilab/programs/ocft/PDF/2009TVPRA.pdf is a link to a Department of Labor report on the countries and products they provide using child and slave labor. Our manufacturing businesses should not have to compete with this.
I'll email you. (EP has an email system for all registered users).
I don't have any special way to get access to any legislation, in fact I doubt it's even in leg. format yet, but I can call around and ask.
If we can get it up here, I'd be happy to analyze it.
no-bid contracts, all of the big money end of war (try to stay away from actual foreign policy) but all of the "follow the money" sorts of activities like Halliburton, corruptions, waste, all of the money end of this is appropriate for EP.
Anything involving finance, money is because it affects the U.S. budget, affects Domestic economy.
Just a FYI if you're following The Nation's expose on the latest with war profiteering, corruption.
is just a money and campaign fest. A lot of their bills are written by corporate lobbyists, literally handed to them, all "done for them".
There are real legislative staffers, etc. who write legislation but seemingly the crap that comes up for a vote...is written by corporate lobbyists.
I think we need a deep breath and public financing of campaigns and a ban on lobbyists.
It's just so corrupt, they simply refuse to act on behalf of their constituents or the national interest.
I hear ya on frustration, but even on the left the big money often goes to issues and campaigns that frankly aren't that effective. We need to get corporations out of D.C. and both sides need to join forces to get representative government back.
I'm working through a book I will review which touches upon war profiteering as an economic activity in the U.S.
Every the more reason EP is needed too. We "follow the money" and get into the details vs. just "grab" some partisan sound byte and say "yeah, me too".
I'm afraid, frankly that's what "both sides" do. At least that's what I see a lot of.
I get more angry. We have young man and woman making the ultimate sacrifice for us and these chick shit senators can't do one of the most important jobs they elected to do.
This is complete bullsh*t. They should hounded out of office for even proposing such a cowardly act.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Why do we need them if they want to outsource one of their key responsibilities as a member of legislative branch?
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
They have a great series that once and for all puts this entire agenda to privatize SS to bed.
But, believe it or not, David Walker (Peterson Foundation) has admitted many times SS is not the real issue and is easily fixed by removing the regressivity of the tax.
I saw a blurb fly by on corporate tax code reform possibly by Congress.
Now you want to talk about major homework assignments for us...that's when it really gets intense to review legislation.
BTW! Is anyone here trying to read the Dodd Financial reform draft!
Seriously! If people want real reform, you gotta dig in, whip out that college cram session mentality and try it.
Some conservative democrats and a few repuglicans have decided that they can't do their jobs in terms of crafting a federal budget so they want to outsource that to an independent commission who would:
Why are they targeting social security, medicare and medicaid? Why not corporate subsidies, tax loopholes and tax code preference for debt? Why because they want to privatize the shit out of social security?
Ignoring the constitutionality of this for a second, I have a suggestion get the fu*king big ass money out of Washington and hey elected officials in Washington - do your fu*king job!
a href="https://mail.economicpopulist.org/%3Ca%20href%3D"http://www.rebelcapitalist.com">http://www.rebelcapitalist.com">RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
(h/t to math4barack)
Add to that the over $100 billion and climbing for war in Afghanistan.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
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