It Really IS The Economy, Stupid

[babylonsister]

It Really IS The Economy, Stupid
Saturday, 01 March 2008
by Stephen P. Pizzo


As I rummaged through my morning paper I eventually reached the business section. I say "eventually reached" because I have yet to see a daily paper that does not bury the business section. The sports section is usually right there near the top, even though sports news has absolutely no impact on our lives, beyond possibly under-pinning beer and nacho sales.

But I digress.

Once I unearthed the business section I was struck by the single theme of each headlined story:

- Safeway cutting jobs nationwide
- Jeweler Zale to close 23 stores now - 105 by end of this year
- Honda to shut U.S. motorcycle plant
- BMW to shed 5000 jobs
- Dollar hits new low against Euro
- Nationwide home sales hit 13-year low
- Nortel to cut 2,100 jobs, shift 1000 overseas
- Bernanke warns of weak economy


(Well, thank you, Ben. Where would we be without your timely reports on the already painfully obvious.)

There was not a stitch of good economic news in this morning's business section to be found.

While my heart tells me this election should be about the war in Iraq and the mindset that got us into it, my head tells me that the subject better quickly become the US economy. If it does the war will end anyway. Let me explain.

First, recognition that the economy is not just heading into a one of its normal cyclical downturns. This time is different. And no candidate for the Presidency is worthy of your vote unless he can explain in the clearest and starkest terms how and why it's different this time.

Eight years of spend-borrow, spend-borrow, spend-borrow by, not just government, but by business and consumers alike, has done to our financial infrastructure just what termites do to a home when left to their own devices. The underpinnings of this economy have been hollowed out by abuse of credit, the perversion of financial instruments and a reckless disregard for consequences of all the above.

Which is why when Fed Chief, Ben Bernanke, finally broke the glass on the red EMERGENCY box in his office he found it empty. Inflation is raging like a peat fire, just below the surface. The ground under his very feet is getting too hot to bear. But he can't put the inflationary fires out with the usual Fed extinguisher, higher interest rates. Because. even as inflation consumes the value of the US dollar, business indicators are weak and getting weaker.

To boost a weak economy the Fed's tool of choice is lower interest rates. Bernanke has already cut the Fed Rate down to 3% and it's done no good. That leaves him a paltry 3 percentage-point bullets left in his gun before he hits the penultimate shot — 0%. After that he'll have to pay people to borrow money.

more...

http://atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/3495/81/

[againes654]

1. K&R

[panader0]

2. While Pizzo may be correct that the economy is the most

important issue to the voter, I find that sad. The WAR is more important. How about the hurt, death and destruction we are causing in the name of democracy? What about the Iraqi economy that we destroyed? Get OUT of Iraq and then fix our domestic problems. Focusing on the fact that we have to pay more at the gas pump (a symptom of the war) or at the store, sounds whiney and selfish when you compare it to a leg blown off, dead family members, or a bombed house. Priorities.

[babylonsister]

4. I agree with you, but I'm not suffering like so many people are.

People are losing homes, jobs, living paycheck to paycheck if they have one, have to decide between food or prescriptions or gas, etc. I think the tendency for most people is to be concerned with their own welfare and a roof over their head before they consider the war, unless they have someone fighting over there, or have lost a loved one to this illegal occupation.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

5. IMHO that was the plan

all along. Screw up the economy via a "war" and resultant occupation so we're concerned about one or both.

[NC_Nurse]

3. Great article. It amazes me that Bush can say there's not a recession...

and people BUY IT! :wtf:

Haven't they noticed the bleeding of jobs? The falling dollar? The surge in bankrutcy and
foreclosure?

Bush is the master of denying reality, that's for sure.

[Captain Angry]

6. The business section is the one in the middle when the paper is rolled up.

That way, the inane local news and woefully underdone international news takes the hit when the paperboy throws it on your driveway. The important stuff stays protected in the middle.

[Digit]

7. If you listen to some of the right wing radio ghouls, they said the Dems caused it

Guess how?

By TALKING about it.
Yes folks, we were so damn powerful that we could cause a recession JUST by saying there was one.

Funny thing is, the MEDIA was not saying we were in a recession and they STILL aren't admitting it.

[OneBlueSky]

8. and the reason it's the economy, stupid, is corporate control of government . . .

beginning with "defense" contractors and arms dealers who are profiting mightily from our $3 trillion war, to oil companies, to health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, to agribusiness, to banks and credit card companies, to all of the other corporate interests who have inserted themselves so far into our government that they actually write the legislation "regulating" their own industries . . . or, more accurately, de-regulating their own industries . . .

if government really represented the people and not these special interests, the economy wouldn't be anywhere near as disastrous as it is today . . .

[Amonester]

9. And all that just to "increase" their CEO and board members

"retirement packages" and other "hidden scams" by a few TENS or HUNDRED millions MORE.

** base he calls "the Have's & Have More's" itself.

And for WHAT?