ebonlock | Entries tagged with economy

New poll: Zero percent of Americans think national economy is improving.

A new American Research Group poll shows that “[n]o Americans say that the national economy is getting better,” while 82 percent say it is getting much worse. Only 17 percent approve of President Bush’s handling of the economy, with 78 percent disapproving. Even among Republicans, more disapprove of his economic performance than approve:

Among Republicans, 46% approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 48% disapprove. Among Democrats, 97% disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy and 2% approve. Among independents, 8% approve and 87% disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy.

Somewhat heartening that people have, overall, bought themselves a clue. But how horrifying is it that 46% of Republicans approve of Bush's handling of the economy? Surely not all of them can be Wall Street fat cats or the parasitical lifeforms that attach themselves remora-like to said fat cats. Surely. So how does one explain this approval? Mental defects?

Current Mood: irritated

Todd Alcott is my hero:

My fellow Americans, today I would like to address the problem we face with America's hen-house.

Due to circumstances no one really understands, foxes have been put in charge of operating our hen-house. There will be plenty of time in the future to debate about whose decision it was to put foxes in charge of the hen-house, but the fact remains that the foxes have eaten all the hens and now we are out of hens. This is a crisis of far-reaching import -- American hens are the envy of the world and we cannot afford to be without them. I shall call this the Hen-House Crisis.free stats

I have spoken with the foxes who run our hen-house and they have assured me that this is a crisis. Our hen-house must be filled immediately or it will lead to a world-wide shortage of hens. That means no chicken dinners, no scrambled eggs, no Denver omelets, no feathered pillows. And that cannot be allowed to happen.

And so it is up to each and every American to supply our foxes with more hens, to dig deep and sacrifice their hard-earned hens, so that the foxes will have more hens to mind. This is the only way out of this crisis -- the foxes must be given more hens. If the foxes are not given more hens, they will go hungry and we cannot afford a nation with hungry foxes. Foxes are the backbone of our hen-fox structure -- foxes provide America with whatever hens they don't devour, and if we don't supply our foxes with an unending stream of hens we will have no hens at all.

My plan calls for Americans to supply our foxes with seven hundred billion hens -- give or take, on an ongoing basis, whenever the foxes ask for them, for whatever purposes the foxes see fit. This deal is non-negotiable and permanent. Obviously this means that a lot of Americans who have never raised hens will need to learn to do so, otherwise our foxes will have no hens to mind. Some Americans may need to work an extra job in order to buy the materials they will need to raise hens to give to our foxes, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to demand.

I have been assured by America's foxes that they will be very wise and cautious in the stewardship of these billions upon billions of hens, that the hens we provide the foxes will be bred into even more hens, which will then, the foxes assure me, returned to the Americans who provided them. We will then be, I am told, swimming in hens, thanks to the very wise foxes of the American hen-house industry.

El Cid at Sadly, No adds:

HAND OVER THE $700 BILLION IN UNMARKED BILLS, AMERICA, AND BETTER NONE OF YOU GET ANY IDEAS ABOUT TRYING TO FOLLOW US, OR THE ECONOMY GETS IT

Current Mood: cranky

Yikes:

As feared, foreign bond holders have begun to exercise a collective vote of no confidence in the devaluation policies of the US government. The Federal Reserve faces a potential veto of its rescue measures.

Asian, Mid East and European investors stood aside at last week’s auction of 10-year US Treasury notes. “It was a disaster,” said Ray Attrill from 4castweb. “We may be close to the point where the uglier consequences of benign neglect towards the currency are revealed.”

The share of foreign buyers (”indirect bidders”) plummeted to 5.8pc, from an average 25pc over the last eight weeks. On the Richter Scale of unfolding dramas, this matches the death of Bear Stearns.

To which Bush responds with his usual, "Nothing to see here, move along." I feel so much better already.

Chasm widens between rich and poor in U.S.

NEW YORK: The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a new report by the Congressional Budget Office show.

The poorest fifth of households had total income of $383.4 billion in 2005, while just the increase in income for the top 1 percent came to $524.8 billion, a figure 37 percent higher.

The total income of the top 1.1 million households was $1.8 trillion, or 18.1 percent of the total income of all Americans, up from 14.3 percent of all income in 2003. The total 2005 income of the 3 million individual Americans at the top was roughly equal to that of the bottom 166 million Americans, analysis of the report showed.

[…]

At every income level, Americans had more income, after adjusting for inflation in 2005, than in 2003, but the increases ranged from almost imperceptible for the poor to modest for the middle class and largest for those at the top.

On average, incomes for the top 1 percent of households rose by $465,700 each, or 42.6 percent after adjusting for inflation. The incomes of the poorest fifth rose by $200, or 1.3 percent, and the middle fifth increased by $2,400 or 4.3 percent.

Jennifer at Sadly, No! comments:

This is why we’re careening towards a depression. Not recession, but depression. You can’t take all the money and put it in a few hands and expect the economy to keep chugging along. It doesn’t work that way, no matter how long and hard conservatives have pretended that it does.

I'm really glad I wasn't the only one who had this reaction to the 60 Minutes piece on the economy last night:

Excuse me, but where were he and 60 Minutes during the past six years when the Republicans blew a record surplus and dug us into a hole so deep he now says the republic is in danger?

Damn these people. Every single time these crooked Republicans get in power they line their pockets with taxpayer funded boondoggles and tax cuts for their rich supporters then start rending their garments over the looming fiscal catastrophe they created and demand the government stop spending on all those parasitic old people and children (whose "failure of citizenship" apparently dwarfs that of the corrupt thieves who stole the nation blind and threw buckets of money down the toilet in expensive failures like Iraq.) Oh, and raising taxes is completely unacceptable.

Republicans have proven once again that they are out of control children who completely trash the country's fiscal integrity whenever they get a chance, requiring the Democrats to come in and do the painful things that are required to fix them. And every step of the way, they Republicans dog them with absurd "tax and spend" rhetoric.

It's a great racket for the GOP but it's long past time the nation put a stop to this insanity. It would be helpful if 60 Minutes at least put some of that in perspective when they get on the "responsibility" train and explain to the American people why this is. "Those days are gone" is not adequate.

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Fearless on my breath...

Thoughts of a fangirl, crazy cat lady and aspiring Buddhist

Entries tagged with economy

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