Mid terms

The conservative's are laying it on heavy, "this election is a repudiation of liberal values". But it seems its just another case of the country being fed up with the leadership. If you look at the Democratic losses in the House, most are blue dogs, conservative, corporate cheerleader types. The progressive wing of the party lost few seats.

Lesson-dont listen to anything Sean Hannity says.

Banks complain about Regs

After tanking the world economy and ruining the lives of many average joe's, and recieving trillions from the US government with barely any string attached, the Bankers of the US are complaining about the one regulation that will force them to make the tiniest change to the way they do business. Have more cash on hand.

The banks are still living in the pre crash mindset (see what I did their) that they can do whatever they want, like continue the policy where they can lend out so many times the amount of cash  (or assets) they have on hand. So now when the government tells them they have to keep more cash on hand they start crying about how bad its going to get, for the small business man.

But the logic is off. A goldman Sachs op ed states, if banks are forced to hold more capitol, the result will be larger rates on loans, resulting harder times for the small business. If they talk about the hardship on the average joe than everyone will support their perspective.

But come on. Its bullshit. No one is forcing banks to raise rates. Banks are punishing small businesses on their own. Its like a 12 year old saying to their parents, if you don't raise my allowance i will beat up my younger sister. Who's fault would it be when the younger sister gets beat up?

These banks deserve a lot more oversight, regulation, rules and supervision, for without us, the great American taxpayer they would have died in bankruptcy.

The government should hit back and say for every rate increase you place on small business, we the government will place that tax on you, than a tax deferment would be given to the small business, to the right the wrong,

Deficit Commission

I am fuming right now. The President created a deficit commission to address the deficit, they are stacked with congressman, and wall street insiders. Their preliminary recommendations, surprise surprise, is to attack the middle and low class. Increase the age you can get Social Security, decrease the benefits, decrease the benefits of medicare, and end middle class tax deductions. Awesome buddy. way to attack those who are hurting the most. The only people they left out are the soldiers. The fact that their is even talk of cutting the deficit at the same time we are hearing Obama has caved in and will support the bush tax cuts!! Are you joking? Almost a trillion dollars in new spending? Mostly for the Rich? If they pass that bush tax cut extension than there is no factual way they care at all about the deficit and so scrap the commission. And if they care about the deficit, than the first thing that should happen is to not spend a trillion dollars on tax cuts. This is one of the craziest things I have ever heard. Its like saying I am going to start saving for a house, but after I open and max out ten credit cards, and damn, why cant i ever save enough to buy the house.

Economy Stupid

Economist talking about the economy, busting some myths.
-most of the deficit is not from government spending or the bailouts, James says those account for 10% of the deficit, the rest is from a the huge decrease in tax revenue, this coming from an IMF report.
-The way you fix a deficit is by spending to spur business. Either, like WWII, with government spending, or like the 90' internet boom, with private bank spending. Both time periods saw credit driven economic growth, and there was no public sector cuts.
-"Entitlement cuts, no matter how sever can never result in deficit reduction"

http://www.newdeal20.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/deficitcommissionrv.pdf

Obama blew the Election

The commentators are saying the 2010 election was all about the economy and Obama blew it. Just create jobs is all he had to do. Stimulate the economy. And he had a great Democratic model to follow, FDR. Our infrastructure need renovations, and one idea Obama even ran on, we need a green revolution in this country. Wind power, solar power, wave power. We could create a whole new industry in this country which would bring a ridiculous number of jobs. We could be world leaders in something besides war again. We could rebuild the manufacturing base that once made this nation great, thus rebuilding the power of unions.Maybe we should get the unions to push for this, they have the power, and they need more power as theirs has been dwindling since the 80's.

Why we wow the world anymore. Why can't we build a train that goes from New York to California in one hour damnit.

Pension investments

The original purpose of the stock market, so i have read, was for companies to go public to raise money for  the future. Say i own a car company and i want to build a second manufacturing plant. I know the plant will mean more money but i can't afford to build it. So i sell stock, raise money, build the new plant, make more money, stock prices go up, investors make money. So the original intent was to fincance industry. Today its not the case, most money in the stock market goes into speculating, like gambling, investors care little about aiding industry. They just want that quick buck.

After that set up, my thought is about pension funds. When i think of a pension, i think of industry, electrical unions, autoworkers union, teachers unions. And i am sure these pensions are invested in wall street, not in the old way, to fund industry, but in the new way, to speculate and make a quick buck. I even read a story about the mortgage crisis of a school who used its pension funds to by mortgage securities, that  turned out to be worthless.

So I'm thinking, why not use pension funds to buy local stocks. Say I am in the NYC teachers union, I would want my money invested in NY companies, companies that will invest and build in NYC, to create a future crop of new yorkers that will join my union. But i bet this is not happening.

Hudson on the Economy

" The xenophobic idea is that China is taking away American jobs, not that America’s pro-financial policies are responsible for de-industrializing the economy and shrinking domestic markets and employment here.'

"So what will emerge is a new multi-lateral financial system after all. But there will be two financial systems: one centered on the BRIC countries with strong trade balances and currency values, another system centered on the U.S. dollar. Europe is likely to be left out, and may become an economic backwater, because so much of its politics are run by U.S. aficionados. So I see a dual world monetary system and a dual world trade system operating under a different set of trade and financial rules.

U.S. diplomats no doubt will call this socialism. Other countries can reply, “What we’re doing is just what the French Physiocrats, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and the other major classical free-marketers wanted: no free lunch. If we’re socialists, what are you guys? We’re too polite to use the word, but it was used in World War II