COLLECTIVE MADNESS
“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
My trash can is leading Obama by 52 - 43.
ReplyDeleteDoug's Junior High Jockstrap is within the margin of error.
ReplyDeleteI think if he'd wash it it could win.
If it wasn't so damned small, anyway.
ReplyDeleteRight now, people are sick of "Politicians." They are sick of the "Bushs, and the Obamas," and every living motherfucker that's ever been "In Charge."
ReplyDeleteThey want "Something Different." Remember, Minnesota elected Jesse "Batshit Crazy" Ventura, once.
By the time the 2012 election rolls around we'll be mired in a horrendous double-dip recession, and gas prices will be over $4.00 gain. Your local dog-catcher would be a Huge favorite over anybody that's ever held political office. Obama will get the 11% Black vote, and probably pick up another 10% from Hispanics. And, That will be it.
It would take a "Miracle" of Biblical proportions for Obama to get a second term.
Having said all that, Obama will, actually, look pretty good for a couple of months. Industry is gearing up to come out of the recession. We're going to continue (for awhile) seeing positive industrial production numbers, and, maybe, even a "little bit" of jobs growth.
ReplyDeleteBut, we're just inching up the first up-leg of a "W" shaped recession. The Real problem is that second "up-leg" might not come for many, many years.
The Canary in the Coal Mine is those weekly unemployment insurance claims. They've stalled out, and in fact have risen for two weeks in a row. That's not good. That's the most "Real-time" indicator we have.
This is the second year in a row that things have picked up in the late winter/early spring, only to have gas prices rise, and small-businesses pull back their horns. The problem this time is China's buying more oil, and the Traders have learned how to "manage" the downside, by buying, and storing oil on tankers. So, whereas, we got a little respite in late summer, and fall, last year, we're not going to get it this year.
We're looking more, and more, totally screwed. Now, it's just a matter of timing.
Bernanke is looking tired. He knows we're in a world of trouble. And, he is, absolutely, Not allowed to say it.
ReplyDeleteThere is Not enough oil "Coming Online" for us to come out of recession, and China to Grow.
ReplyDeleteWell, here's the thing: China is using the marginal barrel to "Produce" something, and we are using the marginal barrel to drive to Walmart, and "Consume" non-essential items.
Oil has a higher "Utility Value" in China (and, other emerging "producer" natins) than it does in the U.S.
They will outbid us for the marginal barrel. Ergo: They continue to grow, and we stay in recession.
Sorry 'bout that.
Quirk wrote:
ReplyDelete"What does concern the Tea Partiers?"
Given that there isn't a "Tea Party" with an organized leadership and a party platform they've become just about what any of us want them to be. I've tended to portray them as reactionary xenophobes railing against the wind typified by inanities such as "Keep government hands off of my Medicare" with Sarah Palin representing the intellectual wing of the party. A caricature to be sure but the phenomena seems to be gaining steam much like Obama was a blank slate representing what folks wanted him to be. Now that he's in power he can't help but disappoint many. If the tea baggers can learn to get along with the establishment republicans then they could make some political in-roads. If the tea baggers actually form a party and field candidates then they are likely to split the vote on the right.
and most here sit on the right of the political spectrum - the farrrrr right.
ReplyDeleteThe Tea Party is representative of the thinking of over 50% of the American people. ie. They despise the "Leadership" of Both Parties.
ReplyDeleteThis has been a tough recession, and most tea partiers recognize that The Republicans (Bushies) are just as much to blame as the Dems.
I think they feel it in their "bones" that we're not going to just "pop out" of this one, regardless of who's in power.
ash said...
ReplyDeleteIf the tea baggers can learn to get along with the establishment republicans then they could make some political in-roads. If the tea baggers actually form a party and field candidates then they are likely to split the vote on the right.
Fuck you ASH...
Tea Baggers?
Go suck someone's balls yourself...
As for the economy?
ReplyDeleteFactor in another middle east war...
Factor in another war in Asia....
Factor in another giant bankruptcy by either a nation, or retirement funds or even commericial property..
Ash, stop and think about who you are seeing "speak" at those tea parties. You're NOT seeing the Pat Buchanans, the Michael Savages, etc.
ReplyDeleteWhat you are seeing is, basically, "Fiscal Conservatives" with a bent toward Libertarianism.
These are, basically, small business people that have been taking it in the shorts. They're mad at Wall Street, and the politicians that enabled Wall Street.
They're mad about a government that is borrowing Trillions to bail out unionized auto workers, while their businesses are going down the tubes due to inability to expand, and improve.
It's a "Serious" Recession, and folks are pissed off.
"Fuck you ASH...
ReplyDeleteTea Baggers?"
Easy WiO. Give him a little slack. Just like a little kid first learns to swear from the kids he plays with, Ash picks up this stuff from the kids he plays with.
Keith and the Guys
The only other person I noticed using the word here has been T.
.
That Chart showing unemployment claims flat since the last of October that I linked to yesterday is getting spread around. It's on "Hot Air," today.
ReplyDeleteMan, this is some, "choppy" water.
ReplyDeleteThe "Data" is all over the map.
This is the type of water you get at the bottom of recessions, not during "recovery."
I'm betting that we are at another peak.
ReplyDeleteI Hate the Stock Market right here.
ReplyDeleteI Hate "Everything" right here.
By the end of the Great Depression an amazing amount of farmland had been bought up by local "postmasters." They were the only locals with a good government job, and that could "pay the taxes" on the land.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying like hell to get my daughter to look at "Guvmint" work. Specifically, the V.A.
Hydrogen Still Hanging Around
ReplyDelete.
And the Number One Reason to Get Right? Hot Babes!
ReplyDeleteSo I was sitting across from husband as he ate his lunch of smoked oysters and hot sauce on Triscuits (from the NYT bestselling cookbook Shit Your Wife Would Never Eat) and I suddenly noticed that, especially with the two-day growth on the normally smooth-shaven head and face, he looks uncannily like President Karzai.
ReplyDelete"Mmm. I've been told that lately," he says dryly.
One of the Fifty Things I adore about camping:
Nothing says I Love You like a thorough search for ticks.
Cows on Drugs
ReplyDeleteIt’s 30 years late, but Congress should now pass the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, which would ban industrial farms from using seven classes of antibiotics that are important to human health unless animals or herds are ill, or pharmaceutical companies can prove the drugs’ use in livestock does not harm human health.
The pharmaceutical industry and agribusiness face the difficult challenge of developing antimicrobials that work specifically against animal infections without undermining the fight against bacteria that cause disease in humans. But we don’t have the luxury of waiting any longer to protect those at risk of increasing antibiotic resistance.
---
Donald Kennedy, a former commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration, is a professor emeritus of environmental science at Stanford.
A Contact Karzai!
ReplyDelete"Anyone but Osama!"
ReplyDeleteOsama,
or
Obama,
that is is the question.
Now just make him some brownies and he can have a contact Karzai High.
ReplyDeleteNothin like Afghan Hash.