The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

... The U.S. economy continues to defy the experts. Even as policymakers hiked interest rates, cooling down many sectors and triggering layoffs across housing, finance and tech, a resilient job market and healthy spending by households and businesses have worked to lift growth beyond what economists had expected at the start of the year.

Americans are far more optimistic, after more than a year of feeling particularly downbeat about inflation and giving the Biden administration low marks for its handling of the economy. Consumer sentiment spiked in July to its highest level in more than a year and a half, according to a closely-watched metric from the University of Michigan.

“Consumers have absolutely noticed that inflation has slowed down,” said Joanne Hsu, director and chief economist of University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. “The labor market is still strong, incomes are high, and that’s helped support robust consumer spending.”

For many Americans, that means bank accounts are more flush than usual. Tony Oxx, a manager at a transportation company in Louisville, has nearly tripled his savings since the pandemic took hold. He’s gotten two raises in that period and his overall pay, including commission and bonuses, has jumped more than 50 percent...

It may be getting harder for nihilist Republicans to use the economy as an issue in 2024, but they'll lie endlessly and try to put sand in the gears to the extent they're able.  Of course, they'll continue to have a hold on their misinformed, aggrieved base, who've been primed to believe their way of life is threatened, regardless of how good the economy's going,

The bad:

The Kremlin says Russia has halted its participation in a deal that allowed war-torn Ukraine to ship grain through the Black Sea to parts of the world struggling with hunger, dealing a blow to global food security after Moscow’s invasion last year sent prices soaring.

The United Nations and Turkey brokered the landmark accord with Ukraine and Russia in July last year, which came with a separate agreement to facilitate shipments of Russian food and fertiliser that Moscow insists has not been applied.

The Black Sea deal has been extended several times and was due to expire on Monday evening as Russia refused any further extension citing its reasons. [snip]

Nana Ndeda, humanitarian policy and advocacy Lead at Save the Children, told Al Jazeera the deal had enabled the stabilisation of global markets and the lowering of food prices in many parts of the world.

“What is likely to happen now is that those food prices will go up again,” she told Al Jazeera from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

“With that, countries will no longer be able to supply food to children and their families will no longer be able to access food and we’ll see an increase in malnutrition and food insecurity.”

Using global food security as a weapon.  More state terrorism from desperate war criminal Putin.

The ugly: 

Tucker Carlson’s interview with controversial social media influencer Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist who faces charges of human trafficking and rape in Romania, is highlighting an effort on the far-right to redefine traditional values.

Tate sat with Carlson for a two-and-a-half-hour interview published Tuesday on Twitter, where the pair opined on a wide range of topics, including society’s purported push to put “the woman in charge, and the man below with no backbone.”

Tate has garnered millions of followers and sizable influence online for championing what he calls “traditional” masculinity. Those views include that women should “bear responsibility”  for being sexually assaulted and that “high-value” men have “unlimited options” of women — “a new model every weekend. A string of broken hearts.”  

Pasha Dashtgard, director of research at American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL), told The Hill that Tate’s “alpha male” way of life is not conventionally traditional.

“This is not a husband, father, head-of-household and ‘Leave It to Beaver’ vision of masculinity,” Dashtgard said. “This is a new thing.”  [snip]

Conservative media have latched onto the trend. At the pro-Trump youth group Turning Point USA’s annual Young Women’s Leadership Summit, influencers in the online conservative political sphere urged the young women in attendance to go back to their “biblical roots” and be “feminine, not feminist,” the Washington Post reported.  

“There ain’t nothing wrong with being a tradwife,” right-wing influencer Benny Johnson told the crowd...

Let's call it what it is: Handmaiden fascism.

Job Creation Soared In October

 

The U.S. economy surged by 531,000 new jobs in October, substantially beating the estimated 450,000 jobs forecast, as the unemployment rate fell to 4.6%.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that the hospitality and leisure sector -- battered by the pandemic -- showed strength in adding 164,000 new jobs, while the professional and business services, and manufacturing sectors added 100,000 and 60,000 new jobs respectively.

Analysts are pointing to the numbers as indicators that inflation and labor shortages would hamper job growth:

“This is the kind of recovery we can get when we are not sidelined by a surge in Covid cases,” said Nick Bunker, economic research director at job placement site Indeed. “If this is the sort of job growth we will see in the next several months, we are on a solid path.”

The stock market reacted favorably to the October jobs report, posting a gain of nearly 350 points in early trading. 

With the House's imminent passage of infrastructure legislation (already passed by the Senate), that job-creating boost should bring higher wages and more job growth. Add to that the social infrastructure Build Back Better legislation, which needs to pass, and we could see a booming economy in 2022 and beyond, something Republicans will resist for partisan advantage.

 

You Blocks, You Stones, You Worse Than Senseless Things

The Campaign for America's Future has a look at some pretty counter-intuitive results from a recent Washington Post- ABC News poll, in which 71% believe the economy is rigged.  OK so far.  But based on other polling, it seems the public is inclined to trust the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid party to fix it!  [Ten minutes of stunned silence.]  As far as the "why?!" we can only subscribe to what Charles P. Pierce said:

...[T]he country doesn't have the analytical skills god gave a stone, that's why. And they have been badly led. And they have been heavily -- and effectively -- propagandized.

Of course, if we had a Democratic Party that could sustain a message for more than 2 minutes, when it's not in a defensive crouch, that would be helpful.

BONUS:  Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog has a good read on how dumbing down political reporting leads to a dumbed down electorate.

(Headline courtesy of W. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene I.)

Fruitcakes and Political Fantasy

Worth reading today is Steven Pearlstein's article in the Kaplan Daily, wherein he cautions deluded Rethuglicans not to imagine that because their prospects look good in November it follows that the Rethuglican party "can claim vindication for every nutty notion spouted by its leaders," like how Keynesian economics was proven wrong in the recent/ continuing unpleasantness. He also asks how the

"...beleaguered private sector has responded to this unwarranted and unconstitutional government takeover of the economy? Profits are booming, and publicly traded share prices are up 70 percent!"

Since many of these folks are cut from the same sociopathic cloth, Perlstein is right in saying there's no pleasing them, whether its Sen. Jim "Demented" DeMint (Crackpot-SC) or Wall Street hedge fund manager Anthony "Scaramouche" Scaramucci, who whined at the recent CNBC town hall with Obama that he and his hedge fund masters of the universe were tired of being Obama's whipping boy (the Obama response, which generated the town hall's biggest applause: large portions of the public think I haven't been tough enough!).

"Cash For Trash"?

The NYTimes' Paul Krugman takes on the crowd that wants to give the Bushit Assministration $700 billion with no-strings-attached to bail out the financial system. Krugman's proposal would be to use taxpayer funds to provide capital to the financial institutions, rather than simply giving the financial institutions money to cover bad business deals and reward the wheeler-dealers who fouled up. In return, the taxpayers would have ownership of the business and reap whatever downstream rewards would come, similar to the process used for the savings and loans in the '80s.

Trusting the crowd that has said over the past year that the financial crisis was "contained" with a no-strings-attached handout would be crazier than trusting them in the first place.

So Mavericky!

As the Washington Post reports today, Sen. St. John McMaverick has long opposed regulation of the banking and insurance industries, which are now going through the throes of bankruptcy - - AIG being the latest to get a Federal bailout of $85 billion. A decade ago, McMaverick supported legislation to gut regulations for these industries, and is now trying to recast himself as a "reformer" and proponent of stronger regulation. Sort of like, "Yes I committed a serious crime, but if you let me go, I won't do it again." Because Mavericks don't believe in accountability.

The Unraveling of the Right Wing Economic Myth

As an "amen" to our previous post on the Wall Street meltdown, Time's Joe Klein has a great piece on the Rethugs' and McMaverick's role in the deregulation of the financial institutions that are collapsing, along with taxpayer investments. The whole "hands off" policies of the conservative Rethug orthodoxy - - one which McMaverick embraces - - toward financial markets are resulting in the current crisis in the financial and housing markets. In fact McMaverick said again today, "the fundamentals of the economy are strong." What planet is 7-house McSame on?

The Rethugs "sold" deregulation over the past 20 years as a benefit to small businesses, when in fact their intended beneficiaries were the major corporations who felt they were chafing under strong environmental and worker safety regulations. The chickens have truly come home to roost, but will the American public know who the perpetrators were?

UPDATE: Dow was down 500 points, biggest single loss since 9/11. Go Rethugs!

Hard Luck or No Sense?

Today's WaPo has a piece by snarkmeister Dana Milbank, "In This Forgotten Town, Obama Can Forget About It", in which the views of several presumably representative Clinton Democrats in McKeesport, PA, are noted. This is a town that was in the heart of steel mill country until the mills closed in the 1980's, and the town and region have never really recovered (Milbank: downtown McKeesport is "a place for repo lots and pawnshops"). What does Milbank find in talking with some of the blue-collar voters of McKeesport? Well, they're racist, although some cloak their racism in whatever convenient rationale they can "cling" to (Rev. Wright, "bittergate", etc.). But, as one honestly points out,

"It's a racial component, too...A lot of black people are voting for him [and her older, white neighbors] won't vote for a woman or a black man."

Another says,

"I think he just wants to be president because he's black." (No. You're not thinking.)

And,

"His father's from Nigeria, right?" (Wrong. Kenya. But it's still black Africa to a numbnut.)

Milbank quotes most of these voters as implying or outright saying they'll vote for McBush in November if Obama is the Democratic nominee. He says "The discontent is common among the valley's hard-luck residents."

Well, we'd like to say sometimes people make their own "luck" by their decisions. A decision by a blue-collar voter to vote Rethuglican based on racial, cultural, or any other "wedge" issues is not going to change his economic circumstance for the better (see: "What's the Matter With Kansas"). Period. John McBush is not going to bring jobs or universal health insurance to McKeesport or anywhere else. "Hard luck?" These people have only begun to experience "hard luck" if they keep the Rethuglican economic trickle-down royalists in power.

This whole thing is starting to make even the Hackwhackers... bitter.

Out Of Touch Much?

Rethug presidential nominee-to-be John McSame is claiming that there's been "great progress economically" under the Bush Assministration. He also plans to extend Bushit's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans if elected. Think Progress notes that McSame's net worth has risen by $18 million since 1999, so maybe he's confusing his own good fortune with the significant number of Americans who have lost their jobs, their homes, their pensions, and their health care. Those hanging on to the middle class by their fingers, working two or more jobs just to stay even, have seen their real incomes fall under Dumbya's mismanaged economy. Funny how we haven't heard much from the mainstream media about this gaffe.

(image: Parker Brothers)

McSame Old McSame Old

Rethug Presidential nominee-to-be Sen. McSame is indicating that he's "not going to play election year politics with the housing crisis." In other words, he's going to ignore one of the most worrisome middle class issues, along with the Bushit Assministration's mismanagement of the economy and the ballooning Federal budget deficit. His essential philosophy is "let the markets sort it out, and to hell with the public. Oh, and please vote for me."

From the economy to the war, McSame truly is the candidate for a third term of Preznit Chimpy.

My Pet Bull

Well, it seems Wall Street hasn't reacted with confidence to Dumbya's floated stimulus package, even after the Fed dropped the prime rate by 3/4 percent this morning. The Fed was hoping to stave off a precipitous NYSE market drop today, following 5 to 7 1/2 percent drops in Asian and European markets on Monday. Apparently, early indications are the boys on Wall Street aren't so sure about Dumbya's months- late- billions- short "flexible" (read: "desperate") $150 billion proposal. Even now, Dumbya's press suckertary, Dana Perino, is denying that we're headed into a recession, saying it's more of a "slowdown." In other words, Dumbya's over in the corner reading "My Pet Bull" to anyone who's still listening.

Photo: Dumbya's 9/11 "My Pet Goat" moment.

Recommended Reading

Two op/ed articles in today's WaPo deserve to be read, one by Andrew Bacevich ("Surge to Nowhere") the other by Paul Starr ("Watch it, Democrats. You Could Still Slip Up"). The Bacevich article is a healthy antidote to op/ed vomit from Fred "Surge" Kagan and Michael O'Hanlon also in today's WaPo, counseling "patience" in Iraq. Bacevich's essential point is that, "surge or no surge, the Iraq war remains an egregious strategic blunder that persistence will only compound."

Starr's piece cautions Democrats to back off the racial/ gender politics which will only divide the party and give the Rethugs wedges to use in November, and rather focus on the deteriorating economy and "the manifest failures of conservative Republican leadership."