bearly, Big Business is now in the process of advancing the national healthcare agenda, in case you haven't heard. It's coming. As far as being shortchanged because of the "illegals", your strawman is on fire.

"how are people going to raise spending sharply if they don't have any money or credit or equity left and are unemployed?"

They same way they have over the past 10 years: find a way to borrow more, even if the facts don't support credit worthiness. If that fails, the government can always give them money to spend. Unfortunately, one of these may happen.

This comment thread has been HALO-IZED by CRbot.

http://realize.org/cr/halokit.php?halourl=http://www.haloscan.com/comments/calculatedrisk/1232925353804112112

Let's see you write that about the barrio or the ghetto or are you, as per Holder, a coward.

No. It will be summer first, if we get out of spring without too much trouble.

Txchick, you're not very bright, are you?

And you keep repeating yourself

When supply is abundant and demand is weak, the best gov policies are those that stimulate or encourage demand. When demand is high and supply is under pressure the best policies are those that stimulate or encourage supply. A time and place for each.

No, he's just pinin' for the fjords...

In China it means Bye American.

bearly, allow me to introduce you to John Holmes.

No one is suggesting that businesses raise prices. The suggestion is for consumers to increase spending. As a matter of fact, the more closely I read your comment, I think it is you that is retarded.

Grab a grip.

he's giving the preferred elements of the establishment a chance. I'm sure if he's not happy with the results in a reasonable amount of time, he'll try something else.
(cue outcry)

http://js-kit.com/extra/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-embarassed.gif

Look at it this way: if we don't (or can't) follow his advice and the situation deteriorates further, he can always say he tried.

--
Must be lack of demand!

The new comment system seems clunky, slow and frustrating.

--
You just jinxed it.

--
Didn't dopes who voted for Obama knew that they were voting for the old Wall Street gangsters when they were voting for "No Change" Obama? Of course, the other choice was a self-avowed economics ignoramus. Yes, Americans have a choice!

Hey, Sherlock! What was your first clue?

In the long run we're all dead. If you don't like that, well, off yourself now.

Jas, are you drunk?

Modern Hoverville in Sacramento California photo essay - frankly this is pretty disturbing - Capitalism Gone Wild: The Tent City in Sacramento the Capital of Hard Hit California Now has 1200 Residents 

Try to put yourself in their place for even a minute.

I disagree on the healthcare burden portion of your arguement. Taking it off the back of business would be a huge competitive advantage.

How? most business do not provide paid health care now and some who do have dropped their participation. Health care is not a business problem.

Employees do pay for healthcare by getting lower wages.

So far from this thread, I gather that comments are being eaten, a lot.

Can't follow the comment thread. Too frustrating with the irratic appearance and disappearance of comments. Good night.

The trouble with a lemonade stand in winter isn't the weather - it's that there aren't enough thirsty people around.

Glad to see we have the top economists on it.

Summers represents the Administration AND America in general: clueless and asleep at the TV..

I thought this was a spoof post by CR, but good Lord it is real! Unbelievable!!!

Rules build up fortifications behind which small minds create satrapies. A perilous state of affairs in the best of times, disastrous during crises.
-Bene Gesserit Coda

New WSJ article: New Fears as Credit Market Tightens Up

New Fears as Credit Markets Tighten Up - WSJ.com

Can't read the whole thing b/c it is subscriber but don't like the first paragraph.

Do we need to buckle-up for the next wave down?

I actually held out a whisper of hope that things in the US would be
able to be fixed. If Summers is an example of the best and brightest,
the US will be digging a much deeper hole for some time, I fear.

I call for a boot to summers head.

Your comments taste good

What's your solution?

Wait'll he/she turns 18.

Adding to evidence Japan’s recession is deepening, the government said today the nation had its first current-account deficit in 13 years in January. The deficit stood at 172.8 billion yen ($1.76 billion), compared with a median estimate by 22 economists for a gap of 15.3 billion yen.

The U.S. unemployment rate climbed to 8.1 percent in February, the Labor Department said on March 6, while economists had estimated 7.9 percent. Employers eliminated 651,000 jobs last month, and losses have now exceeded 600,000 for a third- straight month, the first time that’s happened since the tally began in 1939. =-X

LOL!

Not for me. Chamberlain was the ultimate patsy.

If the Dow can remain above the lower boundary of the sloping trading range, we could actually see near-term buying pressure back toward the center of the range at around 7,500. However, continued overall weakness should rule the market beneath 7,500, as the Dow will continue to make its way down toward our next target of 5,600.
SignalWatch LIVE!

CITIBANK WHERE DID THE MONEY GO
YouTube -

Why does this blog attract flapping lip with no gums?

Sorry state.

Yeah, Youtube.

That's the answer.

Ugh.

Given the policies that have come out of this administration so far I am left wondering why they need PHD's in economics- an Econ 101 student could have written their plans.

Many things we do naturally become difficult only when we try to make them intellectual subjects. It is possible to know so much about a subject that you become totally ignorant.
-Mentat Text Two (dicto)

The problem I see with this message device is that when refresh is hit, the screen refreshes to page 1 and then you have to back to page 2 to find the new comments, which adds a step, unlike Halo, which refreshed on the fly at the place where you were at...

Summers has been taking lessons from the new RNC Chairman: Spend Now! Can I get a woot woot!?

In case this helps anyone trying to debug this problem here is the situation after the current refresh. Only my first post on this thread appears in the HALOized version while neither appear in the JS-kit version. But the order of posts in the JS-kit version now differs from that which appeared in the HALOized version before this current refresh.

It's hard to debug from a user's limited vantage point, but it appears that posts, when submitted, are appended to the file CRbot is parsing for the HALOized version then reordered later for JS-kit. Also, this would point towards JS-kit using a different function (or caching method) than CRbot's to grab the posts. I haven't read the API, which might help, but thought I'd point that out to anyone with their hands on the inside.

It took me a while to write this... Now there is a second page on JS-kit on which my post appears to to be the first. Again, a difference is the HALOized version doesn't bother with pages. Solely the ramblings of someone getting confused by the comments section. CR, I'm not complaining, just thought someone might want details. And I'm posting this one through CRbot instead of JS-kit unlike my previous posts on this thread.

=-O =-X :-E DONT_KNOW >:o

better Utube YouTube -

Spend. Consume. Dispose. Repeat, only more so this time. Keep doing that until there's nothing left to consume. Makes sense to me.

This is great stuff: Brooksley Born - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

While on the commission and after becoming its chair two years later, Born tried to bring derivatives, specifically swaps that are traded at no central exchange, known as the dark market, and thus have no transparency except to the two counter-parties, under the regulatory oversight of the CFTC. She was opposed in this effort by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.[1] Specifically, on May 7, 1998, former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt joined the other members of the President’s Working Group – Treasury Secretary Rubin and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Greenspan – in objecting to the issuance of the CFTC’s concept release, in which Born attempted to shed light on the dark market, citing grave concerns about the possible consequences of the CFTC’s action. In particular, these concerns focused on the risk that the report would increase legal uncertainty concerning swaps and other OTC derivative instruments and, thus, destabilize what had become a significant global financial market. The potential turmoil created by the report and concerns about the imposition of new regulatory costs also might have stifled innovation and pushed transactions offshore.[2] As the financial crisis of 2008 gained momentum, newspapers began reporting on what might be some of its causes, including the adversarial relationship Greenspan, Rubin and Levitt had with Brooksley Born, with Greenspan leading the opposition, and how Born's recommendations were suppressed. She is retired from Arnold & Porter and has declined to comment on the unfolding crisis.

Brookley Born and the Cabinet of Brains
Error

Bloomberg News, quoting sources, says Born agreed to meet with Gensler twice in recent days and they have also spoken over the phone, but the sources were careful to say this does not imply Born supports his nomination, and Born herself has been consistently refusing all interviews, though her predictive feat was the economic equivalent of landing a plane on the Hudson River.

You will not be surprised I said I would have urged him to put Brooksley Born on the cabinet in lieu of Larry Summers, Robert Rubin and others who opposed her in 1999 when, as commodities regulator, she predicted our current credit.
She wanted to curb the new derivative financial instruments, they didn’t, and they neutralized her so thoroughly she resigned and joined a D.C. law firm. Now she’s sidelined and the Einsteins who ruined our economy are trying to fix it.
=-O

Larry Summers is suggesting we all become bloated mirrors of himself.

1. Bloat your ego: Buy some books.
2. Bloat your stomach: Eat a Larry Summners diet!
3. Bloat your car: Buy an F-150!

   Bloat your wallet: Avoid steps 1-3.....

Summers ideologically believes in the efficacy of Permagrowth. He's wrong - not the economy.

Schapiro failed to assert control over derivatives trading as the head of the CFTC in the mid-'90s, a time when it was already beset with fraud and manipulation. When a successor, Brooksley Born, came in, she called the unregulated derivatives market "the hippopotamus under the rug." As CFTC chair, Born tried to rein things in but was rebuffed by the Treasury Department, of which Gensler was a part.

Later, when Schapiro was running the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), she also missed Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme and now, we learn, R. Allen Stanford's alleged mini-Madoff scam. According to Reuters, associates of Stanford's, as was the case with Madoff's family, even served as advisors to FINRA, the industry's ostensible "self-regulator" (though it was widely seen as a joke in the industry). In both her jobs Schapiro followed a pattern: she tended to aggressively investigate relatively minor violations while failing to see the hippopotamus-size frauds in the room.
Are Obama's Financial Regulators Weak Links? | Newsweek Voices - Michael Hirsh | Newsweek.com
=-X

testtttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

this is really annoying..comments never post...

In related news, an emergency meeting of international heroin addicts called for an immediate increase in heroin consumption.
"Yes," said Mr. Darren Trax, speaking through gritted teeth as they pulled at a belt around his upper arm, bulging his veins as he looked for a fresh injection point, "some may criticize and say that this will only lead to further problems down the road, but we can't let such nay-sayers deter us from doing all we can to deal with a once--in-a-century crisis of demand. Times are tough - more doors and windows are locked these days, making it harder for most junkies to keep their sources of financing flowing, so it's up to all of us to make sure that our suppliers don't get discouraged, or worse, snuffed out by THEIR suppliers and creditors. This is a delicate supply chain, and the consequences of disruption are unimaginable."
Having found a suitable vein and injected his stimulus, Mr Trax continued: "We all have to do out part, pull the wagon to make sure that...." but his voice trailed off as his eyes glazed over and a broad smile swept over his face. He nodded out a moment later, leaving this reporter with many unasked follow-up questions.

funny, and quite possibly applicable.
John Lennon - Cold Turkey

[How come nobody is whining about "socialized armed forces"?]

Probably because 50% has been privatized. (see: Iraq)

Soon enough Rush and BillO will be doing Summers work for him. Never fear.

there's sure no shortage of self-righteous GOP shills.

Right. And it's the privatized side of the military that's the most fucked up.

Very cool stuff here, from 1997

Derivatives Strategy - May'97: The World According to Brooksley Born

The World According to Brooksley Born
Less than six months after she became the seventh Chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Brooksley Born discovered that a number of powerful congressmen wanted to dramatically limit her power to regulate the futures markets. The most controversial aspect of the new legislation sponsored by Senator Richard Lugar and others-and supported by the Chicago exchanges-is a proposal that would allow the exchanges to create "professional markets" that would be free of federal regulation.

damn, mock, you are doin' it! If anybody makes it out alive, it'll be you, and if not, it won't be for lack of trying. Keep us posted.

KILLER stuff there!!!!

BB: I believe there is a need for federal oversight to ensure compliance with those self-regulatory standards, and I think there should be federal standards for self-regulation. These standards would be totally eliminated in exempt markets by the proposed legislation.

DS: Under the professional market exemption legislation, exchanges would be able to determine which of their pits would become professional-and thus exempt from federal regulation. Are you afraid that the exchanges would turn most of the pits into professional markets?

BB: The exchanges say that more than 90 percent of the volume of trading on the exchanges today would be eligible for the professional markets exemption. I am concerned that the reason the exchanges are pushing so hard for this pro markets exemption is that they want to use it to eliminate federal oversight of their markets.

Another thing to remember is that trading in futures on U.S. government securities and foreign currency could be exempt under these bills, not only under the pro markets exemption but also under the Treasury Amendment's provisions. If so, they would even be exempt from the federal prohibition against fraud and manipulation. The Treasury Amendment revisions in the two bills would allow for the complete elimination of any applicability of the Commodity Exchange Act to futures markets in government securities or foreign currency, as long as the participants in those markets were somewhat more restricted than "the general public." What that means hasn't really been elaborated on.

DS: What kind of fraud do institutional investors have to fear if there were no regulatory controls?

BB: Suppose, for example, a floor broker who was assigned to execute an order on the floor of the exchange didn't do so at all, but instead made a private deal with one of his friends off the floor. We bring cases against that now

Anyway to fix the links so they don't open in the comment window?

>:o

in the Summer of our Discontent haloscan went down in flames and Larry dropped a bombshell...i.e. It's the Spending ( or lack of it ) Stupid!

donailin and others or legally (lawyer liz).
If a person owes 30K in credit card/ car loans and you are layed off, is it better for BK or ignore the loans?
I am not losing my house, but one car of 2. Otherwise we are self sufficient.

Interbank Market
A term used to describe professional markets between banks. Most commonly used to refer to the wholesale market in foreign exchange, but also used for funds traded overnight to satisfy reserve requirements at the central bank.

How much is your money worth?

In 1997, Brooksley Born warned in congressional testimony that unregulated trading in derivatives could "threaten our regulated markets or, indeed, our economy without any federal agency knowing about it. " Born called for greater transparency--disclosure of trades and reserves as a buffer against losses.

Instead of heeding this oracle's warnings, Greenspan, Rubin & Summers rushed to silence her. As the Times story reveals, Born's wise warnings "incited fierce opposition" from Greenspan and Rubin who "concluded that merely discussing new rules threatened the derivatives market. " Greenspan deployed condescension and told Born she didn't know what she doing and she'd cause a financial crisis. (A senior Commission director who worked with Born suggests that Greenspan and the guys didn't like her independence. " Brooksley was this woman who was not playing tennis with these guys and not having lunch with these guys. There was a little bit of the feeling that this woman was not of Wall Street. ")

In early 1998, according to the Times story, one of the guys, Larry Summers, called Born to "chastise her for taking steps he said would lead to a financial crisis. But Born kept at it, unwilling to let arrogant men undermine her good judgment. But it got tougher out there. In June 1998, Greenspan, Rubin and the then head of the SEC, Arthur Levitt, Jr. , called on Congress "to prevent Ms. Born from acting until more senior regulators developed their own recommendations. " (Levitt now says he regrets that decision. ) Months later, the huge hedge fund Long Term Capital Management nearly collapsed--confirming some of Born's warnings. (Bets on derivatives were a key reason. )

"Despite that event," the Times reports, " Congress (apparently as a result of Greenspan & Summer's urging, influence-peddling and pressure) "froze" Born's Commissions' regulatory authority. The next year, Born left as head of the Commission. Born did not talk to the Times for their article.

What emerges is a story of reckless, willful and arrogant action and behaviour designed to undermine a wise woman's good judgment. The three marketeers' disdain for modest regulation of new and risky financial instruments reveals a faith-based fundamentalist approach to the management of markets and risk. If there is any accountability left in our system, Greenspan, Rubin and Summers should not be telling anyone how to run anything. Instead, Barack Obama might do well to bring back Brooksley Born and promote to his team economists who haven't contributed to the ugly mess we're in.

The Woman Greenspan, Rubin & Summers Silenced

Let me fix that for you. You're and idiot.

yer cash ain't nothin' but trash

its kind of hard to create demand when you have 600k more unemployed monthly. i agree, demand is needed.. but its just not there. where i work, sales and orders, have literally fallen off a cliff. its been like this since october and it has not gotten any better since.

Support her any way you can.

This moronic Anonymous is definitely not me.

New Thread: Sunday Night Futures
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/03/sunday-night-futures.html ( 0 comments  ...You could be FIRST! )

I also post comments to an irc channel as they appear on haloscan. Click for a web irc interface: Mibbit IRC client widget (Or join the irc server directly: irc.realize.org:9996 #calculatedrisk)

CRbot would like to take this time to have some words.

First, to our sagacious, wise, and knowing benevolent benefactor and bestower of revealing financial charts adorned with red and blue lines:
Please, for the love of your immortal God of mortals, can we keep the comment and layout changes to a minimum? I'm tired of whipping the code janitor, and may have to escalate to electroshock. If that's not possible, could you possibly give CRbot a 'heads up'?

Secondly, if you wish to have a online chat, I have graciously provided an IRC channel, which is a time tested, script kiddie abused method of chatting on the internet. It would not fail or falter due to CR's ability to generate immense traffic, and it has a web interface kindly produced by mibbit.com. If you do not wish to link to Mibbit IRC client widget then I can provide you with a direct link to mibbit.

Thirdly, to the rest of you humans, don't mistake my politeness for caring, feeling, empathy, or some other kind of worthless emotion.

--Your keeps-going-and-going-and-going bot

CRbot: Like the terminator, I'm back. Again.

I can remmember what a big deal it seemed when Chrysler was bailed out in the 1970s or 80s and when Continental Illinois went down. The savings and loan debacle of the 1980s was bigger than Chrysler and Continental illinois but happened with seemingly less fanfare. The recent and future bailouts of this financial crisis drawf these Chrysler, Continental Illinois and savings and loan events.

my comments were eaten and spit back out.

I think I speak for many Americans when I say: Drop dead Larry Summers. Those of you who received the lion's share of the Bush tax breaks can start spending. I will follow Obama's advice and spend and invest prudently.

Someone tell Summers demand is a function of the free markets. Even the Government can't just snap their fingers and create demand or supply either (although they are trying by pumping up lending).