Last week this is what a gleeful John Boehner had to say about the GOP having their ransom demands met on the debt deal:
When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the White House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I’m pretty happy.
And tonight, for the first time in this country’s history, “S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus,” because:
The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy … It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.
Congratulations, Mr. Speaker.
Think S&P got it right?
#67, The stock market dropped from 11,700 to 10,500 during the last year of Clinton’s presidency. This was the start of the bust.
During 2001 (a Clinton era budget), it dropped from 10,500 to 8,200. At this low point, it was announced the first wave of the tax cuts were coming. Notice the rebound after that to 10,600.
It then dropped back down to 7,500 near the end of 2002. It was during this time, the second wave of cuts were announced.
The economy rebounded from a low of 7500 to 14,000 in 5 years after that.
It could be coincidence, but the tax cuts sure looked like they helped the stock market. All that extra money in the hands of the citizens produced a boom. And all the government spending on top of that didn’t hurt the GDP numbers.
Eventually, it all caught up with us because at the end of his second term, it dropped from 14,000 to 6,600.
I suppose it could be said that Bush era budget is what caused it . . . the same way the Clinton era budget caused the dot com bust.
Notice I am sticking with “era.” I don’t want to assume the President was wholly responsible for any good or bad.
#7
I buy my veggies at a local international market. Prices are half as much, with twice as good selection. You’ve got to be a little more careful about checking stuff.
Whole Foods, or similar, will tend to have slightly better veggies at double the price of a traditional chain on any item with foreign sounding names.
There is an international market near me took over an older full-size supermarket. About 1/3 is veggies and it is amazing. 10+ kinds of potatoes and more pepper, squash, bitter greens, citrus, herb, and onion varietals than most Americans have ever seen.
I’ve found these establishments to be more varied than a chain supermarket. You’ve got to look a little more, and be willing to drive a little more.
Also, are they selling huge volume of veggies and can offer a price break, or are they getting seconds from major suppliers and/or dealing with low quality suppliers.
If you are actually thinking about food, and not making a… John Kerry(?, can’t remember) reference go browse these markets.
I’ve also seen city markets and Amish markets serve this same function. City markets are going to be really specific. If you are in a top 10 US city there is a very good market near you. It might not sell what you like though.
Amish markets can be top quality, and it’s easier to spot the outside merchandise. My favorite local one is open about 20 hours a week spread over 3 days. It is mobbed from the moment it opens. Get there a few hours too late and it looks like a Soviet shop. All empty shelves.
Since you brought it up twice…
#69 LL Take a look at tax revenue for 2004, for example. Big spike. Shrub and the Congress were serious smucks.
pedro, no points for any easy kill. 😉
Tax cuts without spending cuts equal National Welfare.
Taxed shows how he is a Zombie by not addressing this fact. R. R. undertaxed and overspent. Bush 2.0 undertaxed and overspent.
Taxed, you are a party Zombie who only wishes to eat the brains of rational people. Get your clutter off this site God Damn It!
#71, Have you got a link? I’m being lazy this morning 🙂
I know exactly what the Tea Party is, it is a bunch of hot air that ammounts to nothing!!! And you, Taxed, are the same thing.
1. The Tea Party is not a Political Party.
2. The Tea Party has no representative ideas, it is completely amorphous. The self-identified members say it represents any idea that happens to exiting thier collective mouth. These ideas are often orthogonal, and broad but shallow.
3. The Tea Party is little more than a pandering advertisement campaign that seperates “campaign donations” from the comfortable and stupid. The Rock Stars of the Tea Party, Ron Paul excluded, use the sloganeering and faddish events to line thier pockets with money for doing nothing more than pimp braindead ideas.
In summary, the Tea Party is the equivelent of the Pet Rock. It is not a party, as the Pet Rock wasn’t a pet. It is designed to quickly raise cash for its inventors without providing and value, just as the Pet Rock was designed to do.
I hope you have fun with your pet rock there Mr. Mentally Taxed!
They should just have not increased the debt ceiling. Then the government cannot borrow any more money and must only spend money it has, forever. S&P would not downgrade under such a scenario. It would have been tricky, but we were told we needed tax cheat Tim Geithner as head of Treasury because of his special skills.
Monday should be a very interesting day!
But… I blame ‘everybody’ in congress for the mess.
I also blame myself for voting some of them into office.
Thankfully, that is one mistake I can rectify in the next election.
Bless what ever is left of the US.
I have to laugh at all those who think the “dot com” boom was responsible for any increased tax revenues and the bust was responsible for Bush’s recession. The “dot com” era was really fairly small. Most of the “wealth” was phantom. When a company said their stock was worth $X billion, the stock markets believed them.
When the “dot com” went under, it was only those who had invested heavily that lost. Which were few.
The balanced Clinton budgets were written before the boom. Low unemployment preceded those budgets. But I guess the Tea Baggers forget the good times we had under Clinton. Because he was a Democrat, he is automatically to blame for everything.
#69, LL
The “stock market” is just another con game designed to relieve people from their money. It was during the Clinton Administration that the “stock market” had quit being an investment and became a short term profit center. I blame that on the glut of “MBAs” that started running the show.
The value of any stock has less to do with the company’s actual value and more to what the last dividend was. This value is manipulated every day by traders with little interest in the company. Long gone are the days when a company offered stock to raise money.
#83/#84, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Sounds to me like you are justifying tomorrow’s drop —
“A stock market crash doesn’t mean the economy is bad!”
Puh-leaze.
When stocks were going up because of perceived value, venture capitalist invested money in dot com start ups (and vice versa). That is where all the money was going. When the venture capital dried up because the investors were realizing there was really nothing there, companies running their operations on venture capital laid a bunch of people off. Laid off people don’t buy big screen TVs or new cars or any of that. If people aren’t buying cars, the stock goes down. If too much of that happens, the whole stock market goes down.
This is what happens when you skip breakfast. Please do us all a favor don’t do that again.
Now . . . as to your broad interpretation of the stock market, I agree to a certain point. But it wasn’t the influx of MBAs. It was the technology that allowed just about anybody with an internet connection to work at day trading.
#86, I guess you could really blame the dot com bubble on Gore. He invented that devil box known as the modem so people could form the Information Superhighway.
Does that make you happy? Gore is responsible for the dot com bust and Cheney is responsible for the housing bust.
Some people say that the Stock Market is a leading indicator (predicts future financial state of a company, and the country as a whole), and others say it is a trailing indicator (that it is reactive to news).
I say it is both, it leads when going up and trails when going down.
Buy on the rumor, sell on the news.
However know this, it is a zero sum game!
The market doesn’t generate wealth, it is a wealth transfer function. Money goes in, and money comes out, though who’s hands, the market doesn’t care.
As is typical on this site almost everyone blames either the Democrats or Republicans and the Obomba administration.
It’s all of the above. When will you people learn that we need to do something other than just bitch at each other.
#86, LL
#86, I guess you could really blame the dot com bubble on Gore. He invented that devil box known as the modem so people could form the Information Superhighway.
This is the typical line from the Tea Baggers and LIEBERTARIANS. They have no real comments so they resort to inventing their own facts.
#85,
#83/#84, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Sounds to me like you are justifying tomorrow’s drop —
“A stock market crash doesn’t mean the economy is bad!”
Puh-leaze.
See my comment about #86 above this.
…
When the venture capital dried up because the investors were realizing there was really nothing there, companies running their operations on venture capital laid a bunch of people off.
There were very few employees there to be laid off. A Walmart Supercenter has almost as many employees as were involved in the “dot com” boom. That was the selling point of e-trade, fewer employees. The “money” was the widely speculated value of the stock offered, not the actual value. A very similar speculative boom occurred almost 400 years ago with tulips from Holland.
Not only did S&P get it right – this weekend’s blather makes it clear that Republikans and Kool Aid Party brown shirts are working as hard as they can to guarantee the next downgrade. More from S&P and Moody’s probably to follow.
Yu can whine about your ideology all day; but, the markets worldwide will continue to react to the uselessness of Congress and Hoover/Reagan economics.
#89, They have no real comments so they resort to inventing their own facts.
I guess you can’t see humor when you read it . . .
There were very few employees there to be laid off.
MF, you really need to do some research before you start spreading rumors:
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
BTW . . . Please tell us why you would let a bunch of kids burn to death so you could save your wife?
>The balanced Clinton budgets were written before the boom.
Yes and no. The balanced budget was passed before, but like now, they spent more than was budgeted, and the balance happened because of the boom.
Too bad the S&P did feel the need to apply its credit-worthy microscope to all those subprime mortgages and default swap bloated banks, back in 2008. Oh no! Every damn thing was peachy keen, AAA+, with them. Until the bottom fell out. Now the S&P is down grading every country with debt, accept China, I’ll bet. Oh and never Switzerland!
You can bet that Boehner won’t accept 98% of the blame for ruining the US economy. It’s all Obama’s fault, for caving in to his demands. Oh the irony.