What A Recession Looks Like
Even the cheerleaders on CNBC are going to start having to use the “R” word. Yesterday, automakers announced their worst results since the depths of the 1993 recession. Not even Toyota was spared. This morning the Labor Department announced that last week’s new jobless claims soared to 497,000, the most since the weeks after 9/11. And finally the crucial ISM manufacturing index slipped 4% (as against the expected 2%) for the month of September.
We need to be really clear. We have two problems–a credit crisis and a cyclical recession. The two are connected, but solving the credit crisis will not stop the recession. It will just keep it from turning into a depression.
This is why we can’t spend the whole $700 billion on Wall Street. We need to keep some powder dry for the Rebuild America Plan.
Maybe we can elect McCain and he can revive
Detroit by ordering a kajillion tanks and armored personnel carriers. Or he could tear a page out of our agribusiness handbook and pay Detroit trillions *not* to build tanks.
Word on keeping an eye on the recession as well as the credit crunch. Maybe the wisdom of the herd is at work in balking at Paulson’s “Gimme 700 billion with none of your backtalk” plan. Congressmen have 2- or 6-year event horizons, and even that is clouded by their main task, fundraising (and for many, a secondary task, partying). I’m sure that most of them just want to do something to “fix” the problem and then get back to nearly fulltime fundraising. If their phones hadn’t rung off the hook, I suspect that a lot more of them would have fallen into line on the first vote. Hell, most of them don’t read bills and simply vote the way they’re told.
Therefore they cannot be trusted.
Witness the 25 billion that was eagerly pushed to Detroit when taxpayer anger was directed at Paulson. So much for ideology.
Maybe we can elect McCain and he can revive
Detroit by ordering a kajillion tanks and armored personnel carriers. Or he could tear a page out of our agribusiness handbook and pay Detroit trillions *not* to build tanks.
Word on keeping an eye on the recession as well as the credit crunch. Maybe the wisdom of the herd is at work in balking at Paulson’s “Gimme 700 billion with none of your backtalk” plan. Congressmen have 2- or 6-year event horizons, and even that is clouded by their main task, fundraising (and for many, a secondary task, partying). I’m sure that most of them just want to do something to “fix” the problem and then get back to nearly fulltime fundraising. If their phones hadn’t rung off the hook, I suspect that a lot more of them would have fallen into line on the first vote. Hell, most of them don’t read bills and simply vote the way they’re told.
Therefore they cannot be trusted.
Witness the 25 billion that was eagerly pushed to Detroit when taxpayer anger was directed at Paulson. So much for ideology.
Maybe we can elect McCain and he can revive
Detroit by ordering a kajillion tanks and armored personnel carriers. Or he could tear a page out of our agribusiness handbook and pay Detroit trillions *not* to build tanks.
Word on keeping an eye on the recession as well as the credit crunch. Maybe the wisdom of the herd is at work in balking at Paulson’s “Gimme 700 billion with none of your backtalk” plan. Congressmen have 2- or 6-year event horizons, and even that is clouded by their main task, fundraising (and for many, a secondary task, partying). I’m sure that most of them just want to do something to “fix” the problem and then get back to nearly fulltime fundraising. If their phones hadn’t rung off the hook, I suspect that a lot more of them would have fallen into line on the first vote. Hell, most of them don’t read bills and simply vote the way they’re told.
Therefore they cannot be trusted.
Witness the 25 billion that was eagerly pushed to Detroit when taxpayer anger was directed at Paulson. So much for ideology.
Dan,
My pet theory about the backlash has to do with the way party coalitions are assembled. Both parties have “grass roots” and “grass tops” (We don’t use vulgar terms like lower classes and upper classes in America, thank you very much).
The upper tier — to choose a different euphemism — of both parties “get it” that the financial crisis will hurt everybody in a hurry if it isn’t addressed. They c0nsult their usual “experts” about “What is to be done?” and we get this goofy camel (a horse designed by a committee) of a rescue package.
The lower tier of both parties are getting increasingly angry at being ignored and condescended to (d’oh!) and with all the crazy headlines and economic deterioration, they just blew a fuse over this particular ‘bailout’. It isn’t that any of us know exactly what’s wrong with it, or have a reasonable basis for confidence that we could do without it. It’s just that we’re sick of being ignored. “Trust us” won’t cut it anymore.
I wonder what would happen if more Americans were to learn how to navigate thomas.loc.gov and actually READ legislation? Talk about transparency in government! We already have quite a bit of that, we just haven’t figured out how to use the transparency we have.
Dan,
My pet theory about the backlash has to do with the way party coalitions are assembled. Both parties have “grass roots” and “grass tops” (We don’t use vulgar terms like lower classes and upper classes in America, thank you very much).
The upper tier — to choose a different euphemism — of both parties “get it” that the financial crisis will hurt everybody in a hurry if it isn’t addressed. They c0nsult their usual “experts” about “What is to be done?” and we get this goofy camel (a horse designed by a committee) of a rescue package.
The lower tier of both parties are getting increasingly angry at being ignored and condescended to (d’oh!) and with all the crazy headlines and economic deterioration, they just blew a fuse over this particular ‘bailout’. It isn’t that any of us know exactly what’s wrong with it, or have a reasonable basis for confidence that we could do without it. It’s just that we’re sick of being ignored. “Trust us” won’t cut it anymore.
I wonder what would happen if more Americans were to learn how to navigate thomas.loc.gov and actually READ legislation? Talk about transparency in government! We already have quite a bit of that, we just haven’t figured out how to use the transparency we have.
Dan,
My pet theory about the backlash has to do with the way party coalitions are assembled. Both parties have “grass roots” and “grass tops” (We don’t use vulgar terms like lower classes and upper classes in America, thank you very much).
The upper tier — to choose a different euphemism — of both parties “get it” that the financial crisis will hurt everybody in a hurry if it isn’t addressed. They c0nsult their usual “experts” about “What is to be done?” and we get this goofy camel (a horse designed by a committee) of a rescue package.
The lower tier of both parties are getting increasingly angry at being ignored and condescended to (d’oh!) and with all the crazy headlines and economic deterioration, they just blew a fuse over this particular ‘bailout’. It isn’t that any of us know exactly what’s wrong with it, or have a reasonable basis for confidence that we could do without it. It’s just that we’re sick of being ignored. “Trust us” won’t cut it anymore.
I wonder what would happen if more Americans were to learn how to navigate thomas.loc.gov and actually READ legislation? Talk about transparency in government! We already have quite a bit of that, we just haven’t figured out how to use the transparency we have.
Agreed, Seth. I visit opencongress.org and try to stay up on issues, I really do. The last few months, my job has put some pretty big challenges on me, which has been a good thing, but my last two issues of Foreign Affairs have gone mostly untouched, I stopped buying The Economist, and I barely have time to read the important parts of The Week.
Reading long, long, long Congressional bills is way out of the question at the moment. However, thanks for the link. I’d seen it before but forgotten about it. It’s now added into my links page.
Agreed, Seth. I visit opencongress.org and try to stay up on issues, I really do. The last few months, my job has put some pretty big challenges on me, which has been a good thing, but my last two issues of Foreign Affairs have gone mostly untouched, I stopped buying The Economist, and I barely have time to read the important parts of The Week.
Reading long, long, long Congressional bills is way out of the question at the moment. However, thanks for the link. I’d seen it before but forgotten about it. It’s now added into my links page.
Agreed, Seth. I visit opencongress.org and try to stay up on issues, I really do. The last few months, my job has put some pretty big challenges on me, which has been a good thing, but my last two issues of Foreign Affairs have gone mostly untouched, I stopped buying The Economist, and I barely have time to read the important parts of The Week.
Reading long, long, long Congressional bills is way out of the question at the moment. However, thanks for the link. I’d seen it before but forgotten about it. It’s now added into my links page.
Reading legislation raw is probably a bit like trying to parse medieval Law French. It has a language entirely its own, plus all the curious semantics of legislative procedure on top of that. It can be hard to net out whether a member’s vote means Yes, No, Maybe, Not on Your Life, Ask Me Tomorrow, or God knows what else. They learn to like it that way. So, no need to apologize for not being on intimate terms with “Thomas” — I’m not either.
Opencongress.org is an interesting development. I’m confident much more could be layered onto the raw data to make it more intelligible and navigable. Jon posted on the intersection of IT and ET. There’s also a world of IT and politics which holds great promise too, though that is perhaps more of a political ‘means’ to the economic ‘ends’ he’s looking for.
Reading legislation raw is probably a bit like trying to parse medieval Law French. It has a language entirely its own, plus all the curious semantics of legislative procedure on top of that. It can be hard to net out whether a member’s vote means Yes, No, Maybe, Not on Your Life, Ask Me Tomorrow, or God knows what else. They learn to like it that way. So, no need to apologize for not being on intimate terms with “Thomas” — I’m not either.
Opencongress.org is an interesting development. I’m confident much more could be layered onto the raw data to make it more intelligible and navigable. Jon posted on the intersection of IT and ET. There’s also a world of IT and politics which holds great promise too, though that is perhaps more of a political ‘means’ to the economic ‘ends’ he’s looking for.
Reading legislation raw is probably a bit like trying to parse medieval Law French. It has a language entirely its own, plus all the curious semantics of legislative procedure on top of that. It can be hard to net out whether a member’s vote means Yes, No, Maybe, Not on Your Life, Ask Me Tomorrow, or God knows what else. They learn to like it that way. So, no need to apologize for not being on intimate terms with “Thomas” — I’m not either.
Opencongress.org is an interesting development. I’m confident much more could be layered onto the raw data to make it more intelligible and navigable. Jon posted on the intersection of IT and ET. There’s also a world of IT and politics which holds great promise too, though that is perhaps more of a political ‘means’ to the economic ‘ends’ he’s looking for.