The dow has shot past 10,000

Remember, it was only ten years ago when the dow first hit 10,000

then the dreaded, dire Bush years dropped it perilously low

Now, with President Obama at the helm, it has risen thousands

THANK GOD FOR BARACK OBAMA, our economy is coming back, and soon jobs will return

You ought to read the financial columns a little closer, graham ....

There is a ton of excess liquidity out there now thanks to Obama ....

Gamblers have been given nearly free money by Obama to gamble with, with guarantees in case they lose it ....

So they are big spenders in the stock market now ...

But that is not what real recoveries are made out of, graham ....

This is an illusion ....

Obama is trying to re-inflate the bubble .....

And he is going to destroy our future trying .....

That is nothing to cheer about ....

Happy days are here again for the gamblers and usurers .....

But outside of them, graham ....

And so ...

if people think the times are good, love flows all around

Wall $treet gives Casino gambling a bad name

however, same analogy
someone wins big, then it attracts attention, and everyone in the casino gets out another quarter and spends

spending helps the economy
the circle of life

And living large and in charge on borrowed money you could never hope to pay back while spending like a high roller is what has destroyed our economy ...

And so ...

Spend it forward and avoid the vicious circle...

Obama is on the side of the fast talkers, con men and scam artists ....

And WALL STREET loves him for it .....

And so ...

I think you are fast talking with the facts here.

And I in my turn simply think that the facts are speaking for themselves ....

And the only fast talking is being done by Barack Hussein Obama, the PEACE PRIZE WAR PRESIDENT of America ....

And so ...

Bart Narter, a senior vice president at consulting firm Celent, said JPMorgan's results showed a clear trend that "Wall Street is picking up quite smartly, while Main Street continues to suffer."

- "JPMorgan earns $3.6B, but loan losses remain high - JPMorgan earns $3.6 billion in 3rd quarter, but warns loan losses to remain elevated" By STEPHEN BERNARD, Associated Press, Last updated: 6:25 p.m., Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Actually he doesn't talk all that fast and he has a reputation of being an extrordinary good listener...He does, however, talk quite a lot...since he became a Presidential candidate and later the President...

Traditional residential mortgages and home equity loans as well as credit cards continue to default at a rapid pace and that has eaten into JPMorgan's profits.

JPMorgan's loss provision to cover current and future home loan defaults jumped to $3.99 billion, while its provision for credit card losses surged to $4.97 billion.

- "JPMorgan earns $3.6B, but loan losses remain high - JPMorgan earns $3.6 billion in 3rd quarter, but warns loan losses to remain elevated" By STEPHEN BERNARD, Associated Press, Last updated: 6:25 p.m., Wednesday, October 14, 2009

A fast talker up here is a BULL$******, rla ....

It don't have to do with the speed of the jaws moving ...

It has to do with LACK OF SUBSTANCE ...

And

Thanks for straightening that out...

At least, when the casinos lose, THEY PAY OFF.

When Wall $treet loses, WE PAY.

What does the Dow Jones measure? What is REAL about what it measures? How does that connect to me, my children, my income, my debt, my neighbors and neighborhood, my standard of living and my health (physically and spiritually)? Be specific. Be specific enough that I can understand how and why I should support that activity, invest in it, and be at all concerned about whether the Dow hit 10,000, or 15,000, or 5,000, or exists at all. Don't give my gibberish about how it is good for the country, creates jobs, or leads to generalized celebration; I don't live with the Madoffs, or have Gordon Gecko over for dinner, and I won't be leveraging much of anything for anyone.

I don't play the market.
I have one share of Disney stock that is more a joke gift than anything else.

but when people are sad they invest their money in a bar sitting on a stool
when people are happy they go to the mall and shop

same twenty five dollars, one set of people drink it away, one set of people come back with something tangible

both instances money changed hands and the person at the other end received $25.00 which might be enough for that person to survive another day or week and then take some of that money and spend it themselves on something
One man's drink is another mans payment of his water bill

as the old song goes
"money makes the world go round, the world go round, the world go round"

and again, those dreaded big corporations, they hire millions of people, and those millions of people probably go home to 2.5 more people a piece

And, just because one person themselves might not benefit from this (the figarative you in the story), does not mean every single person will benefit any time there is anything, one can drink up the 1/2 filled glass and complain there is none left, or one can bask in the glory that they still have
1/2 filled glass left, better than having nothing

A very nice and heart-warming story, Graham, particularly the part about owning one share of Disney, and the comparison between buying a drink at a bar, and shopping. Life is indeed a cabaret, old chum. I've seen people get inebriated just from spending their money while shopping to buy "things", and then they get fall-down drunk when the bill arrives. I was especially thrilled with your reference to a song about money from a play/movie "set in 1931 Berlin as the Nazis are rising to power, it focuses on nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub... overseeing the action is the Emcee, who presides as master of ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub and serves as a constant metaphor for the current state of society in Weimar Germany".

Perhaps the music video of that tune will provide the background for our readers while they consume this little cocktail:

The Crime of Our Time: Was the Economic Collapse "Indeed, Criminal"?
A Review of Danny Schechter's Book, by Stephen Lendman


###

"If you haven't any coal in the stove
And you freeze in the winter
And you curse on the wind
At your fate
When you haven't any shoes
On your feet
And your coat's thin as paper
And you look thirty pounds
Underweight.
When you go to get a word of advice
From the fat little pastor
He will tell you to love evermore.
But when hunger comes a rap,
Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat at the window...

At the window...

Who's there?

Hunger!

Ooh, hunger!

See how love flies out the door... "

but money, money, money makes the world go 'round

####



Barkeep, I'll have a sidecar (cognac and cointreau).

so I went to Duncan Donuts the other day and I ordered a 8 munchkins from them (chocolate glazed, not that I need to eat that)

and I am driving and reaching haphazardly into the bag one at a time and I thought there was still one left as time went by

I randomly started feeling around and then started singing to no one in particular, "Come out, come out whereever you are"

subliminal I know. (munchkins, wizard of oz, the good witch singing that song).

So shoot me, I am a big Joel Grey fan.

but anyhow, it's not actual money that makes the world go round

It's happiness.(or love). One can have little money, but the thought in their head that the times are okay, that they will survive, makes them happy.

You keep seeming to forget that many people with nothing were indeed very happy and loving during the great depression. (While the stereotype is people jumping out windows, the vast majority did not jump out of windows, nor lose all that much to begin with). Be careful of stereotypes.

I'm concerned about you, Graham. You ought to stay away from Dunkin' Donuts. 8 Munchkins is 540 calories. I've read that, to the extent people tend toward obesity, they are more vulnerable to the flu. Recently, I saw some material that suggested that the CDC has been deflating the numbers they present to the public about how fast H1N1 is spreading. Furthermore, Dunkin' Donuts is owned at least in part by some of your very favorite folks.







Indeed, America runs on war.

Betting on Our Deaths

by Gary Lapon / October 14th, 2009

With the home mortgage crisis dragging along, consumer borrowing still lagging, and crises looming in other sectors like commercial real estate, Wall Street is desperate for a new product to kick-start securities markets.

It appears as though the savior may be riding in on a pale horse.

According to a September 5 New York Times article, banks like Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs are exploring new investment schemes that involve buying up life insurance policies from sick and elderly people, bundling them into huge securities, and selling shares in the securities to investors.

Buying shares is essentially a bet–that the people whose insurance policies on which the securities are based will die “on time” or earlier than expected. According to the Times, “The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return–though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.”

Just when it seemed impossible for Wall Street–still counting the trillions in taxpayer dollars it received in a government bailout to save it from collapse–to sink any lower, greed came to the rescue with the development of a grim new market....


[And think of all those organs and empty houses and
all that Social Security and Medicare money to be harvested...]

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

no wonder they are so successful
see, the fix is still in

Some dude from down south with a drawl could still be a "fast-talker" up here, rla ....

And to my ears, Obama does talk fast ...

He has a harsh and grating voice that reminds me of a dog barking ...

His "Bobby Seale" voice, perhaps ....

It is unpleasant on the ears ...

And he does talk a lot, rla ....

Always fixing to get with doing something ....

But then, he can't, because he gets distracted by something else ....

And besides, he is too busy congratulating for the good job that he says that he is doing ....

Did you know, for example, that Obama has single-handedly ended the recession and the GOOD TIMES are now here, thanks to him?

Yes, it is true, rla ....

Take that to the bank with you next time you go ....

They will confirm it for you ....

Especially if they have a bunch of federal money stuffed down their pockets to tide them over through the hard times .......

And so ...

that is an outright lie

Obama talks softly, and has a most pleasant voice

and never a nasty word comes out of him, he is always soothing

You're from NYC, graham ....

Maybe his rants sound pleasant to you by those standards ...

Compared to some Russian or Pakistani cab driver down there on a rant about something or other in barking, guttural tones, I suppose Obama might be construed as sounding pleasant to you by comparison ...

But up here, where people talk much more softly, Obama comes across in his rants as a dog barking ....

The ear of the beholder, graham ....

Makes all the difference in the world ....

And so ...

I suppose you would rather here the chalk on the board whines of Bush41

God no, graham ....

Nor the peckerwood accent of his son George ....

And so ...

The three choices we were given to pick from were McCain, Clinton or Obama. I still prefer Obama...

But it needn't.

We have the MIC which can make planes, rockets, bombs, satellites, but which could be retrained to make high-tech products of peace.

It takes the will.

and there will be the 3 choices in 2012 and 2016
Jeb, Hillary or Obama.

no third party will win or be able to come close any time soon.
(and if money is such a bad word, a Perot couldn't even attempt it either).

The rumor is that Tim Geithner beat Barack Obama at 12 consecutive games of Scrable. Which one of them is best positioned to influence the Jewish Financial Olligarchy?

Have you seen HILLARY lately, rla?

I mean, like on TV?

Does she look lie she is bulking up to you?

Like she is pumping iron and doing steroids?

I wonder what is up with that ....

Wouldn't it be something if HILLARY was on some cocktail of steroids that were turning her into a female version of the HULK?

Now, that is something that would be pretty exciting to watch on TV ....

That Persian dude Ahmadinajoo would get HILLARY all upset and excited and right there on international TV, HILLARY has a Bill Bixbie moment, with the muscles bulging and the shirt ripping apart in shreads .....

And so ...

Either?

Both?

And so ...

ALL IN ALL, PEOPLE SEEM PRETTY BLASE AND ACCEPTING OF THE ROLE OBAMA'S TIMMY PLAYED HERE ....

PEOPLE HAVE COME TO EXPECT DEAD WOOD LIKE OBAMA'S TIMMY RISING TO THE TOP RANKS OF THE WASHINGTON, D.C. GOVERNMENT ....

AND SO IT IS ....

And so ...

"Watchdog: Treasury and Fed failed in AIG oversight - Geithner 'ultimately responsible' for failed AIG oversight, bailout watchdog says"

By DANIEL WAGNER, Associated Press

Last updated: 7:15 p.m., Wednesday, October 14, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is "ultimately responsible" for regulators' failure to rein in massive bonus payments at American International Group because he led the agencies that provided AIG's lifelines, according to a bailout watchdog.

Geithner was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before taking over at Treasury in January.

He has said he did not learn until March about the $1.75 billion in bonuses and other compensation promised to AIG employees.

But Geithner's subordinates at the New York Fed learned of the payments in November, according to Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the $700 billion financial bailout.

Even if no one told Geithner about the payments, "this is a failure of communication and a failure of management," Barofsky told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Wednesday.

Geithner has been "the head of an organization that was involved in the bailout of AIG" since last September, he added.

A Treasury Spokeswoman would not address the comments about Geithner's leadership.

She said in a statement that the Obama administration's pay czar continues to develop compensation plans for AIG and the other companies that received the costliest bailouts.

Geithner helped lead Fed efforts starting last fall to prop up AIG with billions in emergency financing.

After becoming Treasury secretary, his department and the Fed continued unveiling new aid packages for AIG.

The government has committed a total of more than $180 billion to wind down the New York-based insurance and financial services conglomerate, and Treasury now owns about 80 percent of the company.

In a report released Tuesday, Barofsky wrote that Treasury did not understand AIG's pay structures when it gave the firm billions in aid last fall.

He said Wednesday that officials at the New York Fed "still did not have their arms wrapped around" AIG's compensation structure when he finished his audit last month.

Officials discovered 620 bonus programs totaling $455 million, and 13 retention plans allocating $1 billion, according to the report.

AIG has asked employees to return some of the money voluntarily.

Barofsky criticized Treasury, under then-Secretary Henry Paulson, for "outsourcing" its oversight duties to the Fed, which he said had different priorities from Treasury.

As a financial institution, the Fed "didn't really view these (bonuses) as being much of a big deal," he said, because they were a tiny part of the aid AIG received.

Treasury was charged with recovering taxpayer money, and would have been "more sensitive" to the appearance that AIG used taxpayer money to grant large bonuses, Barofsky said.

Lawmakers questioned Geithner's leadership on AIG and whether he was truthful in saying he learned about the bonuses in March.

Several said Geithner should have known, and that Treasury should have done more after the March news to recover the bonus money.

Geithner "failed to know what he should have known, failed to do what he should have done, and failed to give us transparency" by cooperating fully with Barofsky, said Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the committee's top Republican.

Barofsky's report said the Obama administration's pay czar recently has asked AIG not to pay some bonuses that have been promised to employees.

Geithner said in March that the employees' contracts prevented Treasury from stopping the payouts.

Barofsky agreed that Treasury might have done more to recapture the money, millions of which went to employees in the unit whose bets helped sink the company.

The report said that Kenneth Feinberg, the special master for executive compensation, "has informally advised AIG not to pay the full $198 million" employees expect to receive.

Feinberg is locked in negotiations with the seven companies that received the most expensive taxpayer bailouts.

AIG's was by far the largest.

To secure its bailouts, AIG argued to Treasury that its failure would doom the broader financial system.

The company is talking to Feinberg about matters "including future payments to employees of AIG Financial Products," the division whose bets helped sink the company, spokeswoman Christina Pretto said in a statement Tuesday.

Employees have until the end of the year to return voluntarily some of the bonus pay they received in March, she added.

Barofsky's report recommends that Treasury work closely with officials from the New York Fed, which is funding parts of the AIG bailout.

It also suggests Treasury improve oversight of companies that it owns, including reviewing compensation programs before buying major ownership stakes in companies.

In a written response, Herbert M. Allison Jr., Treasury's assistant secretary in charge of the government bailout, said the department is implementing the guidelines and "has no present intention" of buying another financial company.

"We welcome your comments and suggestions as Treasury continues to strengthen oversight of financial institutions" receiving government assistance, Allison wrote.

--------

AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger contributed to this report.

To keep inflation expectations "well anchored," Fed policymakers agreed they must clearly communicate that they have the tools and the political will to reel in the unprecedented amount of money the central bank has pumped into the economy.

That will be a high-wire act for the Fed.

- "Fed officials were conflicted over revival program - Fed officials were conflicted over program to drive down mortgage rates, aid housing" By JEANNINE AVERSA, Associated Press, Last updated: 5:25 p.m., Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Some market watchers see 10,000 as an illusion because there are still lingering threats to an economic recovery -- rising unemployment, weak consumer spending and a battered housing market.

The investors who have driven stocks higher since March are the pros: hedge funds and institutions whose furious selling hastened the collapse of the market in the first place.

And red flags are showing up in the technical charts that professional investors use as they make their trading decisions.

The Dow sits about 18 percent above its average of the past 200 days.

"The market by all technical indicators is completely overbought, just like back in March it was completely oversold," said Rich Hughes, co-president of Portfolio Management Consultants in Los Angeles.

- "Dow closes above 10,000 for 1st time in a year - DJ comeback: Stock market's best-known barometer closes above 10,000 for 1st time in a year" By TIM PARADIS, Associated Press, Last updated: 7:15 p.m., Wednesday, October 14, 2009

There is no profit in peace. The banksters starting with the Rothschilds and coming down through the ages to the Bushes make money by setting one nation against another and then selling them guns, but you can't create a demand marketplace for much more than marshmallows by having them sit around the fire together singing "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" and telling stories. And the Jewish Financial Oligarchy would not be swayed by anyone who won at a word game. Monopoly, poker, human organs, life insurance futures... ah, here it is: Lunar Domination, a financial strategy game that combines traditional war strategy elements with business and finances. They'd better hurry and learn, though; I hear the Chinese have cornered the world's supply of strategic metals.

if people didn't think there is a recover, why is Fox and Neil Cavuto going around saying it is George W. Bush's recovery
(instead of the past non-winner they used blaming Obama?)

obviously happy days are coming

and I just read that 79 areas in America now are in recovery and no longer considered in recession

so as the Patridge Family sang "Come on, Get Happy!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY26Jk8kpRU


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY26Jk8kpRU


###

"Here may lie the most important effect of mass communication, its ability to mentally order and organize our world for us.

In short, the mass media may not be successful in telling us what to think, but they are stunningly successful in telling us what to think about."

—Shaw & McCombs, The Emergence of American Political Issues, 1977


###

The Biochemical Manipulation of Humanity
David Rothscum
David Rothscum Reports
22 July, 2009

Many prominent scientists and authors have on various occasions stated that in the future, the common people would be manipulated through chemicals in their food, water and injections, to suit the needs of the people that govern them.

In his 1931 book, the Scientific Outlook, Bertrand Russell wrote:

“Perhaps by means of injections and drugs and chemicals the population could be induced to bear whatever its scientific masters may decide to be for its good.”

One of the most famous examples of the idea of biochemical manipulation of the underclass was raised in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley in 1932. In Brave New World, the lower classes are exposed to a variety of chemicals before they are “born” that reduce their intelligence and adult height, and prepare them for the role they will fullfil when they grow up. Alcohol is used, lower castes receive less oxygen, and they are exposed to x-rays. The lower castes are also exposed to certain hormones to make them infertile. 70% of women are exposed in the womb to male hormones, and turned into so called “freemartins”, sterilized women who exhibit masculine behavior.

Bertrand Russell wrote in 1952 in “the impact of science on Society”, that:

Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible.

Charles Galton Darwin, grandson of Charles Darwin, wrote in his 1952 book,
‘The Next Million Years’ that:

Looking a little deeper there is the possibility of substantially altering the intellectual and moral natures of individuals by some sort of hormonal injections; already great effects have been produced on animals.

John Holdren, who currently works for the Obama administration as his adviser on science, wrote in 1977:

Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.


All of these ideas may sound terrible, but Bertrand Russell himself explained that: “Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people’s.”

This article will discuss the various artificially induced disease states that are becoming more common every day, the methods by which they are induced, and the reasons behind this.

Masculinization and sterilization of women.

Many products used today contain Bisphenol A, a chemical first synthesized in 1891. It was discovered to have hormonal effects on the human body in 1938. Because of this, in the 1930’s it was used as a synthetic estrogen. Later, after it’s effects were known, in the 1950s it began to be used in the production of Polycarbonate, a plastic now used in many food products. There are hundreds of types of plastic, many of them having no effect on the endocrine system, but the industry insists on using Bisphenol A.

The effects on women are well known. Scientists have discovered that women who have had three or more consecutive miscarriages had 3 times higher levels of Bisphenol A in their blood than women who had successfully given birth. Studies in rats have also shown that at levels that humans are exposed to Bisphenol A masculinizes the brain of females, which resulted in the female mice exhibiting behavior typical of male mice.

A growing epidemic in predominantly the Western world is Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. Polycystic ovary syndrome is a syndrome that is characterized by women receiving an abundance of male hormones, and symptoms include infertility, excessive body hair, loss of hair on the head, obesity, and deepening of the voice. Estimates of how common this problem is vary from anywhere between 2 and 20 percent of women worldwide, but what is clear is that the problem is caused by Bisphenol A. Studies have shown that levels of Bisphenol A are significantly higher in women with PCOS. The masculinization and sterilization of women in the womb as described in Brave New World could thus effectively be carried out using Bisphenol A.

Polycarbonate, the plastic that leaches Bisphenol A, was developed in Germany and the United States at the same time, in 1955, by Bayer in Germany and General Electric in the United States respectively.

The history of Bayer is interesting. Bayer was the result of the break up of IG Farben in 1951. IG Farben was the company that manufactured the Zyklon B that Nazi Germany used in the gas chambers during the Holocaust.

Of course, many people who had worked for IG Farben while it produced Zyklon B continued to work for Bayer after the break up of IG Farben. Fritz Ter Meer for example, was a board member of IG Farben since 1925. During the Second World War he was responsible for the construction of the IG Farben factory in Auschwitz, in which around 30 000 slave labourers went to their deaths. In July 1948 at the Nuremberg IG Farben trial ter Meer was sentenced to seven years in prison for enslavement and looting. After his release in 1952 he immediatly began working for Bayer again, and in 1955 he became a boardmember of Bayer, and a year later he became chairman of the board.

The question how anyone could thus knowingly sell products that contain dangerous synthetic estrogen that can sterilize people and have various other negative health effects is thus easily answered: The same people who started producing this product produced the Zyklon B that Nazi Germany used in the Holocaust.

The question of how Bayer and General Electric could come up with this product at the same time and make a deal to sell it can be explained using Anthony Sutton’s book, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler. Like I. G Farben, General Electric was instrumental in funding Nazi Germany.

International General Electric was the largest shareholder (30%) of German General Electric (A. E. G.), the company that funded Hitler in the early days of his rise to power. Several of A. E. G.’s Directors were also on the board of I. G. Farben. I.G. Farben and International General Electric also had the same shareholders. The Warburg Manhattan bank, and the Rockefeller Chase Bank had a large interest in General Electric. The Rockefeller Family also had a controlling interest (25%) In Standard Oil, which worked together with I G Farben as well according to Sutton.

I. G. Farben was owned and controlled by Warburg family members as well. Max Warburg was a member of the board from it’s inception in 1925 until 1938. His brother, Paul Warburg, was a board member of the American I. G. Farben, which was controlled by the German I. G. Farben. Sutton proves that the Electric Industry was turning into a trust, and specifically mentions that the companies were no longer competing for patents. It should be no surprise that a decade later Bayer and General Electric together brought this toxic plastic on the market that is now used to package our food and drinks.

It’s important to note that Bayer later ran into trouble when the company knowingly sold and continued producing blood products contaminated with HIV, while it had a safe alternative available.

Because a ban on Bisphenol A is now becoming likely, the Coca Cola company panicked, and leaked internal memo’s that show the company planned a propaganda campaign that would include using a “pregnant young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA” as their ‘holy grail’ spokesperson. According to the Environmental Working Group, this campaign would be specifically targetted at the poor and ethnic minorities. The leaked memo can be found here.

I have covered forced sterilization campaigns carried out primarily against women through the use of vaccinations before. For more information on this subject, click here.

The Sterilization and Feminization of Men.

The global decline in fertility in men has been well documented. John Holdren mentioned that chemicals added to the water supply could be used to sterilize people, and indeed, chemicals are added to the water that reduce fertility. One of these chemicals is Fluoride. As I pointed out before, Sodium Fluoride reduces men’s sperm count, and communities with higher levels of Fluoride in the water have a lower birth rate than communities with lower levels of Fluoride.
Sperm counts worldwide have fallen by about 50% per ml (for sources, see here) in 50 years.

Various chemicals are found in the water that act as endocrine disruptors, widely held responsible for the increasing number of problems found in men. However, these chemicals could be easily filtered out of the water, but this is not done, due to the false threat of global warming.

As I mentioned before, Soy also sterilizes men, and changes their brain:

A study done with rats showed that even moderate amounts of soy caused these animals to spend less time in social interaction with other rats. Another study down in adult male monkeys fed phyto-estrogens showed changes in their behavior as well. Time spend together with other monkeys was halved. Furthermore, the monkeys showed a threefold increase in submissive behavior.

Reduction of IQ, and inducement of learning disabilities in children.

As should be known by most people by now, Fluoride in the water has been shown in multiple studies to reduce the IQ of children. Other methods are used to bring about the same effect.

A study showed, for example, that boys who received all three hepatitis B vaccines have a 9 times higher risk of developmental disability than boys who receives no hepatitis B vaccine. Another study found that receiving a single vaccine containing Thimerosal increased the risk of autism and ADHD. Another study by Verstraeten found that the risk of autism and ADHD increased significantly in children that received vaccines. Unfortunately, his supervisors wanted to see a different result, and thus he changed the outcome by excluding a large number of children. The initial outcome of the study can be found here. A larger amount of evidence showing how vaccines cause autism can be found here.

Russell’s prediction that injections would be used to manipulate the behavior of people was correct.

Cancer.

Multiple viruses that cause cancer are found in our vaccines. The first of these viruses was created with funding of the Rockefeller family. Many people ask themselves how such a thing can happen. The answer is that we should be surprised if these vaccines were not a method to harm people. The same people in charge of the pharmaceutical companies headed America’s biological warfare program. On a government website we find the following:

From the moment of its birth in the highest levels of government, the fledgling biological warfare effort was kept to an inner circle of knowledgeable persons. George W. Merck was a key member of the panel advising President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was charged with putting such an effort together. Merck owned the pharmaceutical firm that still bears his name.

Depression.

Depression is becoming more common throughout the Western world. Depression is caused by brain inflammation, because brain inflammation depletes the body of serotonin. This brain inflammation is the result of vaccines. A good explanation can be found here. It goes without saying that the same companies that produce the vaccines are the ones that sell the anti-depressants. Anti-Depressants are now the most sold drugs in the United States, and adult use of antidepressants almost tripled between the periods 1988-1994 and 1999-2000. The most popular anti-depressant is Prozac, an SSRI patented by Eli Lilly. Eli Lilly also has the patent on Thimerosal, the mercury compound that is added to vaccines and involved in causing autism. In the United States, 37% of autistic children are given SSRI’s like Prozac.

It’s easy to make a profit when you sell products that treat the symptoms caused by the products you sell.

http://www.corbettreport.com/articles/2009...anipulation.htm

I wonder if that is why liberal men are so small as compared to liberal women ....

Up to now, it has been thought that they were Y-chromosome deficient ....

And so ...

Don’t celebrate Dow 10,000. It is really only Dow 3,333.

The number 10,000, of course, refers to 10,000 U.S. Dollars, a currency whose entire value depends on the credibility of Treasury Secretaries. IN the last few years are Treasury Secretaries have been men like Henry Paulson (who made millions from his friends on Wall Street) on Tim Geithner (whose unaccountable aides, or “czars,” made millions on Wall Street).

Another way of thinking about the past ten years, not as a recovery but as a collapse, is to count in terms of ounces of gold, instead of U.S. dollars. Unlike U.S. Dollars. the value of an ounce can be silently inflated by men like Paulson and Geithner, who are more concerned with Wall Street profits than American power.

In 1999, Dow $10,000 = Dow 30 ounces of gold.
In 2009, Dow $10,000 = Dow 10 ounces of gold.

In other words, in constant points, our “Dow 10,000″ is just “Dow 3,333.”

No foreign country did this to us.

Only men like Henry Paulson, and Tim Geithner.

And their friends on Wall Street.

http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2009/10/15/our-suez-crisis.html


####

Friday, October 16, 2009
MSM Reporting as Propaganda (No One Minds Our New Financial Masters Edition)

I’m of two minds about taking up this theme, since stating what ought to be obvious but is nevertheless unpleasant and inconvenient is apt to get one branded as lunatic fringe.

Access journalism has created what is in many respects a controlled press. And that matters because people are far more suggestible than most of us wants to admit to ourselves.

Let us start with the cheerleading in the media over Wall Street, and in particular, Goldman earnings. Matt Taibbi, in “Good News on Wall Street Means… What Exactly?,” tells us why this is so distorted:

It’s literally amazing to me that our press corps hasn’t yet managed to draw a distinction between good news on Wall Street for companies like Goldman, and good news in reality.

I watched carefully the reporting of the Dow breaking 10,000 the other day and not anywhere did I see a major news organization include a paragraph of the “On the other hand, so "expletive deleted"ing what?” sort, one that might point out that unemployment is still at a staggering high, foreclosures are racing along at a terrifying clip, and real people are struggling more than ever. In fact the dichotomy between the economic health of ordinary people and the traditional “market indicators” is not merely a non-story, it is a sort of taboo — unmentionable in major news coverage.

The press has been on a downslope for at least a decade, as a result of strained budgets and vastly more effective government and business spin control (and it was already pretty good at that, see the BBC series, The Century of the Self, via Google video, for a real eye-opener). I met a reporter who had been overseas for six years, opening an important foreign office for the Wall Street Journal. He was stunned when he came back in 1999 to see how much reporting had changed in his absence. He said it was impossible to get to the bottom of most stories in a normal news cycle because companies had become very sophisticated in controlling their message and access.

I couldn’t tell immediately, but one of my friends remarked in 2000 that the reporting was increasingly reminiscent of what she had grown up with in communist Poland. The state of the US media became evident to me when I lived in Australia during the run-up and the first two years of the Gulf War. I would regularly e-mail people in the States about stories I thought were important and I suspected might not be getting much play in the US. My correspondents were media junkies. 85% of the time, a story that had gotten widespread coverage in Australia appeared not to have been released in the US. And the other 15%, it didn’t get much attention (for instance, buried in the middle of the first section of the New York Times). And remember, Australia was an ally and sent troops to the Iraq.

Why does this matter? Because influence via the adept packaging of information and images is very effective. The creator of the public relations industry, Edward Bernays, was the nephew of Freud and set about to use the subconscious to shape public opinion. His books included This Business of Propaganda and Manipulating Public Opinion. But it doesn’t fit our self image of being masters of our own view to recognize that we might be swayed.

In his classic, Influence: The Art of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini describes how salesmen can adeptly use social conditioning and norms to elicit favorable responses. Cialdini, a social psychologist, notes that even though he is aware of these techniques, he is unable to resist them.

One experiment from cognitive bias research assembles a number of people in a room together, but all save one are actors. Everyone in the room is shown a series of lines and asked to say out loud which is the shortest (the background design makes it a bit difficult to discern without concentrating a bit). For the first five or six rounds, the actors (and the lone experiment subject) pick the shortest one. Then, the actors start calling the LONGEST line the shortest one. After a few round s of this (and inevitably, the one not in on the game looks puzzled) about one-third of the experiment subjects start agreeing with the crowd, even though that answer is clearly incorrect. And there is boatloads of other evidence of suggestibility. For instance, numerous studies have found that if a number of people tell an individual he looks tired or sick, he will start feeling tired or sick, as the case may be.

Back to the main theme: the media dares not say anything too negative about financial services firms or their government operatives lest they lose access. The private sector has learned the lesson of the Bush Administration, that the threat of freezing a reporter out is a powerful weapon. I have had some well connected readers tell of story ideas that they served up in some detail that the media would not touch out of fear of alienating their sources. This is the sort of thing that one associates with banana republics, but we have been operating on that level for quite some time.

Not surprisingly, the government and large corporations were firmly in charge of the message during the crisis (remember the gap between the MSM reporting and the anger in the populace over the TARP, which was finally noted ONLY when Congress responded to a barrage of calls and e-mails and voted down TARP v. 1.0?) and perhaps more important, in pushing the, “move past that car wreck, things are really better” message. From the Pew Research Center:

Three storylines have dominated: efforts to help revive the banking sector, the battle over the stimulus package and the struggles of the U.S. auto industry. Together they accounted for nearly 40% of the economic coverage from February 1 through August 31. Other topics related to the crisis have been covered much less. As an example, all the reporting of retail sales, food prices, the impact of the crisis on Social Security and Medicare, its effect on education and the implications for health care combined accounted for just over 2% of all the economic coverage.

Actions by government officials and business leaders drove much of the coverage. The White House and federal agencies alone initiated nearly a third (32%) of economic stories studied through July 3. Business triggered another 21%. About a quarter of the stories (23%) was initiated by the press itself and did not rely on an external news trigger. Ordinary citizens and union workers combined to act as the catalyst for only 2% of the stories about the economy.

Fully 76% of the datelines on economic stories studied during the first five months of the Obama presidency were New York (44%) or metro Washington D.C. (32%). Only about one-fifth (21%) of the stories originated in any other city in the U.S., and about a quarter of those emanated from two other major media centers: Atlanta and Los Angeles…

Once the economic situation showed some signs of improvement—and the political fights over legislative action subsided—media coverage began to diminish. After accounting for 46% of the overall news coverage in February and March, for instance, coverage of the economic crisis dropped by more than half (to 21% of the newshole studied) from April through June. And in July and August, it fell even further (to 16%). The clearest example came in cable news. Once the political battles subsided, coverage fell by about two-thirds from March to April.

Notice even Pew has fallen for the party line a bit. The stock market rally started in March. That is not a sign of economic improvement (Krugman has said something along the lines of “The stock market has predicted 20 of the past 9 recoveries.”).

So what do we have? A media that predominantly bases its stories on what it is fed because it has to. Ever-leaner staffing, compressed news cycles, and access journalism all conspire to drive reporters to focus on the “must cover” news, which is to a large degree influenced by the parties that initiate the story. And that means they are increasingly in an echo chamber, spending so much time with the influential sources they feel they must cover that they start to be swayed by them. It is less intense, but not dissimilar to the effect achieved when reporters are embedded in military units. The journalists often wind up adopting the views of the people they associate with frequently (I am sure readers will add more nefarious theories in comments, but the point here is a simple: an up the center description of what has happened to the media shows it has fallen under the sway of powerful interests).

Now how do we get to the propaganda part? Not only, per Taibbi, are we getting the view of the economy from the vantage of the bankers, as opposed to a broad swathe of the population, but we now we have the media (well, this example is that odd hybrid, an MSM blog) telling us there is no outrage. From the Los Angeles Times (hat tip JohnD):

Except for Michael Moore, whose new movie posits that capitalism is one big Ponzi scheme, the news Wednesday that banks are thriving and that Wall Street analysts are in line for big bonuses this year seemed to land with all the political weight of a dull thud.

Oh sure, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said he’ll soon hold hearings on executive pay at firms that got taxpayer bailout money, like AIG and Bank of America….

But with the Dow Jones hitting 10,000 and the economy stepping back from the precipice of last fall’s collapse, there was little of that tea-party outrage that might have been expected.

Have we moved on? Arguing that the country is now more concerned with Afghanistan and healthcare, the Wall Street Journal said of bonus outrage: “That’s so last March.”

Maybe taxpayers have simply given up on Washington’s efforts to corral Wall Street.

Now why is this sort of thing (and the media was full of more subtle versions, of happy talk re Dow 10,000 and Goldman earnings) more pernicious than it might appear?

The message, quite overly, is: if you are pissed, you are in a minority. The country has moved on. Things are getting better, get with the program. Now I saw the polar opposite today. There is a group of varying sizes, depending on the topic, that e-mails among itself, mainly professional investors, analysts, economists (I’m usually on the periphery but sometimes chime in). I never saw such an angry, active, and large thread about the Goldman BS fest today. Now if people who have not suffered much, and are presumably benefitting from the market recovery are furious, it isn’t hard to imagine that what looks like complacency in the heartlands may simply be contained rage looking for an outlet.

But per the social psychology research, this “you are in a minority, you are wrong” message DOES dissuade a lot of people. It is remarkably poisonous. And it discourages people from taking concrete action. I was surprised that some people bothered to comment on a post I put up yesterday, calling on people in the Chicago area to attend some peaceful demonstrations against the banking industry during the American Bankers Association national meeting, October 25 through 27. Some people weighed in, saying (basically) “don’t bother”.

I suppose it makes a difference whether one is old enough to remember the 1960s. Because people in large numbers got out and protested, two sets of changes that seemed impossible came about: civil rights for blacks and an end to the US involvement in Vietnam (if you read the histories, the military and intelligence experts were on the whole persuaded it was an unwinnable war, but it was seen as too costly to US prestige for America to withdraw).

And even if the effort you make narrowly is not successful (does any one person’s effort have much impact?) it breeds apathy and cynicism to suggest that doing nothing is the best course of action. If nothing else, it is better for one’s psyche to do what one can, however small, to make a difference.

Now America does not have a tradition of taking to the streets; demonstrations and rallies historically are working class affairs. But the middle class is on a path of downward mobility while the elites continue to take the cream. The widening gap might waken some impulses that have been dormant in the American psyche.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/10/msm...rs-edition.html

if people the last 8 years reported as bad, the market dropping from 14,000 to 7000

then of course the market rising from 6500 to 10000 has to be good

you can't just arbitraily say the numbers are meaningless now, unless you also said the numbers were meaningless then

The numbers may have had some meaning at some point in the past before the use of software to manage trading. Some of the software gives certain inside investors an early notification advantage that the small guy doesn't get, or get the benefit of. I'll be in favor of Wall Streets and its "numbers" when they rapidly pay back the trillions borrowed from the American people (at the same APR rates charged the American consumer) and use their market-based knowledge to pay off the massive debts we owe to, among others, the Chinese, and then replenish all the funds raided from the Treasury and many agencies for the war and the Pentagon's black budget games, and beef up Social Security, and then pay for health-care-for-all. Until then, Wall Street is filled with con-men, crooks, criminals, creeps and greedy buzzards.

90% of the people who work on Wall Street (and 99% of the people who died 9/11) were just middle class average nobodies, men and woman, married with kids, trying to bring home a modest paycheck, who got a modest bonus at Christmas time.

Maybe a total of 1000 people on top make the big money if that many
(one could say the same people that did 9/11 are the ones that made the money, same people who for some reason were late to work that day or took that day off)

Maligning "Wall street" maligns the average Joe's.
Most people who work on "Wall Street" make less than say a postman.

And surprisingly enough, most of the people who work on Wall Street are NOT Jewish.

And if you only use today's numbers, they indeed are meaningless.

The person your anger should be raged at is not Obama, but say Bill Clinton who dereg'd and the Bush's.

A new report [in October 2006] from the New York Comptroller's Office says the average Wall Street worker earned nearly $300,000 last year. That's five times what an average New York City worker made.


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6288947

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One Third of Wall Street Expects Bigger Bonus in ’09

More than a third of Wall Street finance professionals surveyed expect their bonuses to increase for 2009, a year after the credit-market collapse that some regulators say was fueled by outsized pay packages, eFinancialCareers.com found.

About 36 percent of the 1,074 people who responded to the e-mailed poll said they are anticipating a bigger annual payout from their companies and 11 percent said it will jump by at least half, the job-search Web site said in a statement.

The Group of 20 leaders last month agreed to adopt compensation guidelines for banks and other financial companies that are designed to rein in risks by aligning bonuses and other compensation with long-term performance. U.S. lawmakers are also studying Wall Street pay after spending almost $400 billion bailing out finance companies.

“This finding may rile regulators who have concluded that compensation arrangements often created incentives for risk- taking with insufficient regard to longer-term risks,” the company said in the statement.

About 83 percent of those polled expect to receive some kind of bonus this year, according to eFinancialCareers, a unit of Dice Holdings Inc. The company conducted the survey from Sept. 15 to Sept. 29.

About 52 percent of financial-services workers said their firms have changed bonus policies, with 60 percent saying current payouts have no impact on their risk-taking decisions. About 28 percent said new policies constrained risk and 12 percent said they are “emboldened” to take additional risk.

Claw Back

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein last month said multiyear contracts for bankers should be banned, and the “claw back” of pay should be permitted to discourage excessive risk-taking, should the firm’s performance deteriorate in later years.

In the first six months of the year, Goldman Sachs set aside a record $11.4 billion for total compensation, an average of $386,429 per employee. Of those respondents to the poll who expect an increase, 33 percent said the expectation was fueled by last year’s “abnormally” low bonuses amid the credit crisis.

“Banks have reverted to what they do best, take risks and make money,” said Jason Kennedy, chief executive officer of London-based recruiting firm Kennedy Associates. “There’s a feel-good factor out there at this point. It’s not what it used to be, but it’s definitely better than 2008.”

Firm’s Performance
Of the quarter of respondents who anticipate a smaller bonus this year, 54 percent attribute it to their firm’s performance and 20 percent say it’s related to a change in pay structure.

Banks including Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley and UBS AG increased salaries for some employees this year as they adjusted bonus policies.

About 63 percent of U.S. companies in a separate survey released today said they don’t plan to reverse or restore changes made to executive salaries in the next six months. Ninety-two percent aren’t planning to reduce bonus opportunities or eligibility requirements, according to the survey by consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide Inc.

Three in 10 companies are raising performance goals relative to this year’s performance and 31 percent are changing metrics in their annual incentive plans, according to the Watson Wyatt poll.

“Companies have moved beyond the short-term frenetic activity that we saw at the beginning of the year,” Andrew Goldstein, North American co-leader of executive compensation consulting at Watson Wyatt, said in a statement. “Now, companies are looking at how they can best address more long- term concerns with structural changes to pay programs.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=ajYal_FW0XWk

###

Why were Wall Street workers not asked for concessions?

Autoworkers stepped up to the plate to save the car industry. White-collar workers, on the other hand, weren't expected to do the same when financial firms went to Congress with hat in hand.

By DAVID LAZARUS|December 07, 2008

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/07/business/fi-lazarus7

###




###

Workers at Top Wall Street Firms Give Millions More to Dems

Media echo liberal claim they represent Main Street not Wall Street, but Democratic candidates receive more cash from firms boosted by bailout.
By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
10/31/2008 11:51:12 AM

Based on media coverage, conventional wisdom suggests Wall Street would favor Republican Party candidates when donating to campaigns. But that’s not the case.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics Web site OpenSecrets.org, out the top 25 political contributors for the 2008 election cycle, nine were Wall Street banking or investment firms, including the now defunct firm Lehman Brothers. Employees at eight of those nine firms gave more money to Democratic candidates – nearly $17 million to Democratic candidates versus only $11 million to their Republican counterparts. That’s 60 percent for Democrats to only 40 percent for Republicans.

Four of the top six overall donors are Wall Street financial firms participating in part of the recently passed $850 billion bailout – Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), Citigroup (NYSE:C), JP Morgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS). Employees of those firms gave $10.4 million to Democrats and $6 million to Republicans or 63 percent Democrat. Employees of bank Goldman Sachs alone gave $3.6 million to Democrats and $1.3 million to Republicans, a nearly 3-to-1 ratio.

Still, the Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama criticized Republican President George W. Bush for putting Wall Street before Main Street with the blame for the crisis. “Now, this didn’t happen by accident. Our falling GDP is a direct result of eight years of the trickle down, Wall Street first/Main Street last policies that have driven our economy into a ditch,” Obama said at a speech in Sarasota, Fla., on Oct. 30. [And that's why he sent the bailout directly to Main Street...]



And, Obama has had his blame game message conveyed by the media in many cases – that “Republican policies” are behind the financial crisis.

“Barack Obama and Joe Biden – they deliver a tag team attack on John McCain,” CNN “The Situation Room” host Wolf Blitzer said on Sept. 15. “They say Republican policies are to blame for this latest financial blow and they’re accusing the McCain camp of smears and deception.”

Although Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has had harsh words for “Wall Street greed,” the media in many instances have linked the GOP to the Wall Street crisis, despite donations from Wall Street being a huge part of funding for the Obama campaign.

“I was just in Ohio this past week and I can tell you in small towns in Ohio, the economic debate is dominating and it’s not so much that they are in love with Obama plan but they are tired of Republican policy and saying they are though the hearing much different from John McCain,” CNN’s John King said on the Oct. 7 “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” “So that is his challenge to prove he has an economic plan and prove it is different from the current administration.”

And that echo of the Democratic candidates by the media has had an effect on public opinion. According to a Sept. 22 CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, 47 percent of registered voters polled blamed Republicans for the problems facing financial institutions and the stock market versus only 24 percent that have blame Democratic candidates.

Even when companies outside the top 25 are counted, Democratic support is strong. Out of the top 100 political contributors for the 2008 election cycle, 16 were Wall Street banking or investment firms, including Bear Stearns. Employees of those 16 firms gave more to Democratic candidates – $22 million versus $16 million to GOP candidates. That’s 58 percent for Democrats.

The data from the Center for Responsive Politics are based on contributions from PACs and individuals giving $200 or more to federal candidates and parties as reported to the Federal Election Commission, released on Oct. 19.

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2...1031114947.aspx

http://www.businessandmedia.org/about/advisors.aspx

###

Martha Rosenberg: Why We Need Wall Street Workers


http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/1582

###

CIA Seeking Laid-Off Wall Street Workers in Recruitment Drive Starting salaries range from around $60,000 for a new graduate to $100,000 for somebody with more experience, and top out at $160,000. Generous benefits are included.

Apply to: https://www.cia.gov/careers/jobs/view-all-jobs/index.html

http://www.vosizneias.com/33662/2009/06/18...ruitment-drive/

THE ROCK AND THE HARD PLACE ....

And so ...

"Higher jobless rates could be new normal - Outlook is grim for replacing jobs lost in recession despite other signs of economic recovery"

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press

Last updated: 2:35 p.m., Monday, October 19, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Even with an economic revival, many U.S. jobs lost during the recession may be gone forever and a weak employment market could linger for years.

That could add up to a "new normal" of higher joblessness and lower standards of living for many Americans, some economists are suggesting.

The words "it's different this time" are always suspect.

But economists and policy makers say the job-creating dynamics of previous recoveries can't be counted on now.

Here's why:

-- The auto and construction industries helped lead the nation out of past recessions.

But the carnage among Detroit's automakers and the surplus of new and foreclosed homes and empty commercial properties make it unlikely these two industries will be engines of growth anytime soon.

-- The job market is caught in a vicious circle: Without more jobs, U.S. consumers will have a hard time increasing their spending; but without that spending, businesses might see little reason to start hiring.

-- Many small and midsize businesses are still struggling to obtain bank loans, impeding their expansion plans and constraining overall economic growth.

-- Higher-income households are spending less because of big losses on their homes, retirement plans and other investments.

Lower-income households are cutting back because they can't borrow like they once did.

That the recovery in jobs will be long and drawn out is something on which economists and policy makers can basically agree, even as their proposals for remedies vary widely.

Retrenching businesses will be slow in hiring back or replacing workers they laid off.

Many of the 7.2 million jobs the economy has shed since the recession began in December 2007 may never come back.

"This Great Recession is an inflection point for the economy in many respects."

"I think the unemployment rate will be permanently higher, or at least higher for the foreseeable future," said Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody's Economy.com.

"The collective psyche has changed as a result of what we've been through."

"And we're going to be different as a result," said Zandi, who formerly advised Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and now is consulted by Democrats in the administration and in Congress,

Even before the recession, many jobs had vanished or been shipped overseas amid a general decline of U.S. manufacturing.

The severest downturn since the Great Depression has accelerated the process.

Many economists believe the recession reversed course in the recently ended third quarter and they predict modest growth in the nation's gross domestic product over the next few years.

Yet the unemployment rate is currently at a 26-year high of 9.8 percent -- and likely to top 10 percent soon and stay there a while.

"Many factors are pushing against a quick recovery," said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute.

"Things will come back."

"But it's going to take a long time."

"I think we will likely see elevated unemployment at least until 2014."

At best, many economists see an economic recovery without a return to moderate unemployment.

At worst, they suggest the fragile recovery could lose steam and drag the economy back under for a double-dip recession.

"We will need to grind out this recovery step by step," President Barack Obama said earlier this month.

Obama and congressional Democrats are having a hard time agreeing on how to keep the recovery going and help millions of unemployed workers -- short of another round of stimulus spending amid rising voter alarm over soaring federal deficits.

So far, they've been unable to win even a simple three-month extension of unemployment insurance for people in states with jobless rates above 8.5 percent.

The extension easily passed the House earlier this month but is bogged down in the Senate over disputes over which states would get the funds.

Hundreds of thousands of people have already lost their benefits or are about to lose them.

The White House credits the president's $787 billion stimulus plan passed in February for keeping job losses from becoming even worse.

Since Obama took office in January, the economy has lost 3.4 million jobs.

Republicans argue that the stimulus program has not worked as a job producer and is a waste of tax money.

And last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a multimillion advertising campaign to celebrate small business entrepreneurs -- and to argue that further government intervention will not spur permanent job growth.

Chamber leaders called for creation of more than 20 million new private-sector jobs over the next decade, saying it's needed to replace jobs lost in the recession and to keep pace with population growth.

"The government can support a few jobs in the short-run" while free enterprise is the only system that can create 20 million of them, said Thomas Donohue, the chamber president.

To many economists, such a goal seems unreachable given today's altered economic landscape.

"It's a new normal that U.S. growth is going to be anemic on average for years."

"Right now, the prospect is bleak for anything other than a particularly high unemployment rate and a weak jobs-creating machine," said Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics Inc.

He says he doubts that unemployment will dip below 7 percent anytime soon.

Many economists consider a jobless rate of 4 to 5 percent as reflecting a "full employment" economy, one in which nearly everyone who wants a job has one.

After the 2001 recession the rate climbed to 5.8 percent in 2002 and peaked at 6.3 percent in 2003 before easing back to 4.6 percent for 2006 and 2007.

Will unemployment ever get back to such levels?

"I wouldn't say never."

"But I do think it's going to be a long time," said Bruce Bartlett, a former Treasury Department economist and the author of the book "The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward."

"The linkage between growth in the economy and growth in jobs is not what it was."

"I don't know if it's permanently broken or temporarily broken."

"But clearly we are not seeing the sort of increase in employment that one would normally expect," said Bartlett.

In other news I saw a jar of Hellman's Mayonnaise for $6. Hyperinflation anyone?

Greater Depression for US Rebuts 'Recovery' Talk
Seeking Alpha (blog)
It has gone from irritating to nauseating listening to media market-pumpers talking about an “US economic recovery” which has supposedly already begun. ...

http://seekingalpha.com/article/167538-gre...s-recovery-talk


The Greatest Depression Is Coming

http://seekingalpha.com/article/167060-the...icle_sb_popular