There will be a double dip simply because Obama and the democrats have not made one concrete move in almost two years to address our economic woes.

They have spent their time and political currency on a small minded political agenda that no one favored and what they have passed has been by political chicanery and double dealing at night when no one was looking.

They have energized the Right and disgraced the Left. They have managed to ressurect the republican party from the trash heap they had thrown themselves on, which in itself is the ONLY noteworthy accomplishment of this ill begotten administration.

If there is somone that still believes in this bunch of cowardly hypocrites you have my sympathy.

As a last note, those of you that think that economic problems can be solved by printing more money, that to provide protection for certain classes of workers taxes must be raised and money provided or that there is no penalty for spending what you do not have and the economy magically manufactures real, lasting jobs, you are bigger fools than Obama.

>>"The irony is that had there been no bank bailout in 2008 and 2009, ..."

Wrong. There was no need to make the principals whole. A resolution structure could have been employed where the banks were open under new management. The imperative was to save the current system, and players.

Last night I watched Charlie Rose from earlier this week when his guest was Paul Krugman. Krugman reminded me of Marty Short's SNL character, Nathan Thurm. The only things missing were the smokes, the round glasses and a slick-suit instead of Krugman's frumpy one. Other than that, the fear was the same.

Stock the pantry.

We need to re-frame the situation, peeps.

From now on, it's 'The Great Bush Recession.'

Our fellow Americans need to be reminded as much as possible who the f**k is directly responsible for tearing our country to shreds. The fact that Bush and his gang of lying, thieving SOBs have ALL gotten a free pass for their litany of crimes and horrors is bad enough - allowing We The People to pretend the Bush GOP 8 year reign of hell never happened is unforgivable.

In a few months, it'll be 'The Great Bush Depression.'

For now, though, it's 'The Great Bush Recession.'

Please make a note of it.

Reich and too many of you all fail to understand that our modern industrialized society is in the midst of a pell-mell stampede towards the edge of a cliff.

Regulations aren't going to save us. Democracy is not going to save us. Jesus, not going save us. There is no saving this massively bloated, destructive mess. We have a system that demands limitless exponential growth and we live on a finite f'n planet. Here in the USA we are 5% of the world's population and we use 25-30% of the world's energy and resources. Are we beginning to see the problem here? We are not the shining city on the hill, that's just us burning our furniture to stay warm.

Check out "Crash Course" on Youtube if you need to have the details filled in, in order to process this.

"We are not the shining city on the hill, that's just us burning our furniture to stay warm."

Damn! You're good. Gotta use this somewhere else.

The poster was correct when he said that the Democrat
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have gone out of their way to
rebuild the Republican Party. This was done on purpose.

The American Public trashed the Republican Party in just
two election cycles , the 2006 , and the 2008 elections.
The Republicans were just one election cycle away from
total collapse which is were the American Public was sending
them. You must keep in mind, the United States is not
run from Capitol Hill or the White House, they are just
managers for the overlords who tell them exactly what to do.
The Overlords bread and butter is Centrist politics, they
do not want the American political scene to go to far right
or to far left, the center is where their money is. They
became alarmed when they saw the American public waking up
and the first thing they told the new majority, don't sink
the Republican Party, thus the "impeachment is off the table"
first act by the new majority....and from there they kept
the Republican party afloat. In 2008 elections, with a
Democrat President, they went from just keeping the Pubs
afloat to all out rebuilding the Republican Party. With help
from the press they have been very successful, the tea bag
thing was created, it was not a ground swell of reation.
It gave the press contrasts and comparisons to once again
divide the public. Keeping the public divided and voting
between Dems and Pubs is Wall Streets bread and butter.
Journalists like Eugene Robinson, MSMs like MSNBC, AND FOX
help generate differences that weren't there.
America is not a racist country, it has small fringes that
hang on to this silly thought, however the media has played
to this to keep the parties and populace at odds. The
Arizona Immigration Law, was nothing more than the OVERLORDS
dictating to Arizona lawmakers in order to create another
divide amongst Americans.
WE ARE SCREWED, especially if anyone votes for either party.
The only way we can even think we might turn this fascism
around by voting, is to not vote for the two Parties that
are bought and paid for by Wall Street.
I believe just making PRESENT on a ballot would be more
alarming to them than voting an independent, however either
is better than voting for either Wall Street Party.

The time has come for us North American leftists to level with our constituency: it is no use trying to get the rich or corporations to pay taxes; they just won't. And they can't be forced to, with the balance of social forces in North America as it is today. For any US Representative, Senator or Canadian MP to propose raising income taxes on the rich or increasing capital gains or estate taxes would be political suicide. So we must be honest with the North American working class and tell them that if we want to have health care, unemployment insurance and other social programs we will have to pay for them ourselves. That means higher consumption taxes and property taxes. Sure, those taxes are regressive. But better to pay regressive taxes than to live in a society without health care, social security, unemployment insurance, public transportation, police, fire and ambulance services and potable water.

Some day we will have a government that restores the progressive taxation that existed in this country from 1945 to 1975, when the richest among us paid a marginal income tax of 90%. But in the meantime, we must accept that regressive taxation is the only kind we can have. We are fighting a rearguard action.

Varmit commies ! Get back to work on Tuesday !

If you want something different, try voting for something different.
Do not believe or vote for either of the big money parties.
The feed me, pay me, swanky media backed, elite war parties, always intend to only bend over backwards for their big money backers. Anything else is allowed to go to hell.

In order to continue to expand their own power and wealth, in this poorer world, everyone else is made even poorer.

Big capitalism is still on the path to use up all the worlds natural capital, although necessarily slower as the last bits get to be exploited. The Poor and Nature will be taxed heavier as the yield rate gets lower.

The economy, that virtual artifact dependent on Nature, is in a death spiral. More unemployment implies reduced tax base. Reduced tax base requires heavier taxes on the working, or reductions in spending. Soon it will be cheaper not to work, or to employ non-government currency.

The government is suicidal in not using deficit stimulus measures. Money spent on war, leading to no future outcomes, is not a stimulus measure. This government would rather stop social spending, and prevent green spending than stop war spending.

The corrupt elite of the US are a corporate war elite. They make war on people and war on Nature. Embrace real change. Vote for and make blessed the poor and Nature.

In their groundbreaking book published in 1982:

Deindustrialization of America: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment and the Dismantling of Basic Industry Barry Bluestone and Barry Bluestone predicted that over the next ten years the United States would lose 20 million manufacturing jobs. Bluestone zeroed in on the high paying union jobs in Steel, Rubber, Auto and Auto parts and the tool & die industry which depended on these giants to re-tool.

What these authors failed to see is that after the industrial heartland of the United States was ripped out that this process would take on a life of its own and continue for another twenty years destroy millions of non-union jobs. The sad truth is in reality the United States has lost 30 million good paying jobs.

If you want a gain of truth take this web site from North Carolina where the plight of manufacturing is lamented:

“ . . . These changes, both national and for North Carolina, reflect both sharp cyclical and secular downturns in manufacturing activity during the recent economic slump. The cyclical decline is shown by the fact that national factory jobs declined only 0.6 percent from 1999 to 2000 but recorded a sharp 10 percent decline from 2000 to 2001, with a loss of over two million factory jobs in that one year alone. However, the North Carolina slide goes back further, to the 1995 peak, reflecting the diversification noted above, a secular change. Total manufacturing employment has declined steadily since then and by 2004 the state’s loss totaled over 240,000 factory jobs, a drop of nearly 30 percent since 1990 (Figure 1). Thus, while the national losses reflect a short-term, cyclical loss that will rebound as the economy improves, a major part of North Carolina’s losses are longer-term and probably irreversible. . . “

http://ncatlasrevisited.org/Manufacturing/mfgTitle.html

If you read this paragraph carefully one learns that the sad story taking place in North Carolina was repeated nationally as two million jobs were lost during 2000-2001 in the nation as a whole, well before 9/11 economic meltdown and the meltdown of 2008.

The meltdown of financial markets in the United States in 2008 and our current depression is the result of 40 years of economic policy brought to you by a economic elites who preached free market, tax cuts and de-regulation lies to fatten their personal income at the expense of the larger society.

One has to laugh when these free marketers scream and stamp their feet for even further tax cuts when the foreclosure and abandonment - of 5 million homes has already destroyed the tax base of the top 20 most populous states.

The sad truth is there is next to little DEMAND left in the Unites States to drive any recovery when the only solution both parties still cling to is throwing away 4 billion a month on a pointless set of wars that only enriches those few industries left that can profit from war production and supply.

It should be no surprise then all we get from the Democratic Party is muddled unfocused stimulus with little understanding of the larger problems and lunatic screams for more tax cuts and more de-regulation from maggot neo-white nationalists Christian thugs who have taken over the Republican Party.

A place to start looking for answers might be

http://www.ourfuture.org/

Or

http://www.gp.org/index.php

We need to go outside the outside the box thinking such as, the shortest distance between two points is irrationality. If that is the case then we are on track.

Revolt?

At some point, this convergence of ugly realities will lead to a blowup in America. I keep thinking of the sixties riots, assassinations and near assassinations, bombings, and the creation of domestic armed freedom fighters (the Black Panthers and the Weathermen). I think about the tiny minority of extremely wealthy families in South America who must have armed bodyguards, and I noted for the first time ever in print a mention of a CEO whose company pays over $140,000 a year for security services for their head honcho.

What is in store for all those wealthy people when the Have Nots of America get fed up with poverty?

Maybe the pushing has been slow (the slow motion fascism idea) and therefore the recognition of what is happening is slow. But when you finally realize it, survival means running, fighting back--anything but letting the thugs take you without a fight.

Think Warsaw Ghetto.

What will you do when the America's corporate version of the Waffen SS comes knocking? They are already on your street, walking toward your house.

It's past time to wake up, but how do you rouse an entire nation?

Robert Reich.....I DO NOT LIKE YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!

great liberal Ivy economist......nor your conservative
economist friends either.........

Are you going to act like your the citizen's friend now???

What is it , your conscience talking, or trying to
scam some votes for your Democrat buddies this November.
They are in deep doggy doo doo , aren't they guru economist?

I will say this to you SCREW YOU !!! TEN TIMES REICH !!!!!

From wikipedia, entry: "dust bowl"oklahoma

"The unusually wet period, which encouraged increased settlement and cultivation in the Great Plains, ended in 1930. This was the year in which an extended and severe drought began which caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion. The fine soil of the Great Plains was easily eroded and carried east by strong continental winds.

"On November 11, 1933, a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil from desiccated South Dakota farmlands in just one of a series of bad dust storms that year. Then, beginning on May 9, 1934, a strong two-day dust storm removed massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst such storms of the Dust Bowl. The dust clouds blew all the way to Chicago where dirt fell like snow. Two days later, the same storm reached cities in the east, such as Buffalo, Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C.[10] That winter, red snow fell on New England."

(end citation)

From Reich's article:

"... The states are running an anti-stimulus program (raising taxes, cutting services, laying off teachers, firefighters, police and other employees) that's now bigger than the federal stimulus program. That federal stimulus is 75 percent gone anyway. And the House and Senate refuse to pass another one. (The Senate left Washington for the July 4th weekend without even extending unemployment benefits for millions of jobless Americans now running out.)"

Most Americans think of the Dust Bowl years as confined to Oakies migrating to California and DO NOT ASSOCIATE the Dust Bowl years with The Great Depression, when in fact the drought and Dust Bowl of 1930-35 was contiguous with the Great Depression and extended into Canada. If some other author out there has not written that The Great Depression came from the Great Drought of 1930-35 I will remain eternally astonished. And they'd have a good point. Note, also, that circa 1937 FDR relaxed his Keynesian stimulus, after the Great Clouds of Dirt had stopped falling on Washington, D.C.

[Then came WWII, which muddied the whole economic debate...]

When Dr. Robert Reich of Berkeley reports that "The states are running an anti-stimulus program (raising taxes, cutting services, laying off teachers, firefighters, police and other employees) that's now bigger than the federal stimulus program," he owes it to his readers to also report that with the exception of perhaps one state, ALL are required to balance their annual budgets, including by the way, California.

In other words, they cannot practice Keynesian economics. The various states cannot, at least "technically," go into debt. This was a sound idea, but people like Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a former Dubya finance administrator, got around this. Lease the Indiana Toll Road to a foreign corporation for 75 years!

Get the picture yet? The states were starting to get strapped years ago.

One final observation: When Keynes projected his idea of a government going into debt in order to stimulate the economy, the United States Government had virtually NO DEBT. Not so today. OTOH, if we relate U.S. debt to the debt of other nations (don't we like Greece as an example!), we are not that bad off, even if the Dollar is the fiat currency. ("Because the dollar is the fiat currency?!

Actually, if we accept Liu's position at Atimes.com, Is it not the fact that the Yuan is now the de facto international currency?

For the STATES in the United States, none of this matters. Again, they are constrained from debt. The federal stimulus should have benefitted the States. It was really meek.

Impose the same constraint on the FED and see what happens.

No debt. No Deficit. About time. Burn the Trojan Horse while the bastards can't use their swords!

-30-

I have no expertise whatsoever in economics so my inclination is to defer to those who have the most expertise and the best track records. Krugman and Reich are good examples. Both claimed from the beginning that the best approach was massive government spending to boost demand and jobs, while improving the infrastructure and social services. Both claimed that Obama's spending approach was too small (shrunk by the republicans), and both appear to have been right. Although neither Krugman nor Reich are perfect, it seems idiotic to view them as enemies.

The same goes for the democrats. We have to think in proportional terms rather than black and white, categorical terms. I have difficulty comprehending the "white" side which is left too vague. perhaps because most discussion is aimed at demonizing the black side. The black approach clumps republicans and democrats as equivalent because both are subject to corporate influence, etc. The problem with this approach involves the fact that democrats are not nearly as corrupt as the republicans. If 99% of the republicans are corrupt, and 70% of the democrats are corrupt, then the two groups are not equivalent. Treating them as equivalent obscures important differences that might, if recognized, provide a means of improving things.

A reasonable approach would be to find the 30% non-corrupt democrats, nurture and increase them, and gradually make the democrats a better party. A second alternative would be to create a third party that incorporated the non-corrupt democrats. Unfortunately, such attempts have failed miserably in the past because the corporate and media forces will not allow it. A last alternative, some type of revolution that overthrows the existing parties, is not going to work in the near future (if ever) because the military, corporate, and media structures are way too strong and entrenched. Imagining revolution might make people feel energized and heroic, but it's totally unrealistic in my view.

So when I read many of these comments, I'm bothered by the extent of categorical (black/white) thinking and the inability to analyze problems in terms of the source and degree of causation. It's also depressing to see that these threads very seldom give rise to realistic solutions, which is exactly what would be expected based on the poor quality of analysis. We need to be more intelligent and more patient.

The Economist takes a field trip to visit The Farmer. He sees the fields and takes a few notes. The Farmer stands by with pride as the Economist scribbles feverishly upon his pad.

The Economist closes his notebook and wipes his glasses as The Farmer looks out declaring, "Beautiful isn't it? These fields mean food through the winter for the entire valley."

The Economist sighs knowingly and says, "Possibly but scarce resources mean we must better manage resources to optimize production."

At first The farmer seemed confused and a little dejected that The Economist would not, could not, behold what lay before his eyes but then a gnawing doubt came over The Farmer, "the man of letters must know something", and he asked The Economist to explain how things could be better.

The Economist did just that.

The Farmer excited by the prospects of such amazing abundance practiced exactly what The Economist had preached. This went on for several years, despite decreasing results, as The Farmer thought that The Economist must have the wisdom that would bear fruit but only after years of implementation.

Finally one winter, by now The Economist hadn't been seen for years, The Farmer decided that he would go back to The Old Ways as the people in the valley had suffered since the advent of The Economists' wisdom.

The Farmer found that once again the abundance he produced was quite enough to feed the people of the valley and that this was enough.

After a few years of this The Farmer received an unexpected visit from The Economist. Upon arrival The Economist immediately took out his notebook and began scribbling. The Farmer looked over and said, "I took your advice and the people of the valley barely made it through the winter whereas before we lived in abundance. Now I've gone back to The Old Ways and once again the people are fed."

The Economist spoke, "Yes, I can see that. That explanation may be all well and good in reality, but it will never work in theory."

Another depression is what would be needed to discredit the laissez faire economic policies that this administration runs on. Soon it will put austerity measures in place and soon unemployment will soar. Angry at Democrats for creating this mess the public will elect Republicans who will make it even worse. This is exactly what is needed to validate real change. A depression with Republicans in charge and conservative Democrats like Obama equally discredited.

Seeing some comments about the deficit and war spending, I'm also reminded of Krugman's warning that health care costs (including Medicare) are at least as important to our future as the cost of defense and war.

If you liked this story, here's another one that was on NPR this on July 3rd. I actually sat in the parking lot of Trader Joe's to finish listening to it. Quite chilling. But instead of more frequent recessions I would say it sounded like more frequent depressions.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/04-3

This is the transcript, but I would click on the story and listen to it to get everything.

Other figures for June had the US *losing* over 100,000 jobs. There's no gain at all, population or no.

..

". . . that had there been no bank bailout in 2008 and 2009, no large stimulus, and no extraordinary efforts by the Fed to pump trillions of dollars into the economy, we'd have had another Great Depression."

A deeper irony is that anyone still writes of this as though no other option was available. Why could the government not have bailed out the homeowners whose loans were failing instead of the banks? The banks would have held. But 0bama held that homeowners had to suffer: being tricked by a bank was apparently a moral failing, and consumers had to be taught a lesson.

If money had to be given to the banks, the government could have and should have insisted on something of equal value in return. What kind of deal would the banks themselves have driven had the situation been reversed? Come on: they could have let the value approach zero, scooped up the derelict institutions for pennies on the dollar, restored them with minor effort, and directed the profits to something of value.

But the economy as a whole could also have been saved by simply spending in another area.

Gee, folks, is there anything, anything at all that we can imagine that needs to be done?

Does no one know of a hospital that needs staffing?

Is it possible that there are children, sick, or elderly somewhere inside national borders that might benefit from care?

In 2009-2010, one community college in California turned away over 1,000 nursing students.

Nurses unions are skirting with strikes. Apparently, nurses are asked to work inhuman hours - a factor which, among other things, produces human error.

The classrooms stand empty. The locals voted in a bond measure to build new classrooms a couple years ago. The teachers stand ready. They themselves and the society have invested in their education. But no one wants to pay them, so over 1,000 young, talented students are turned away from a single program at a single college in a single year.

Somewhere Americans got the idea that the sole beneficiary of an education is the student. Somewhere they got the idea that people who expect to receive services of educated people should not contribute to that education.

Have a good life, everyone. Stay well.

There's a general consensus among left-leaning economists (the one's that warned of the crisis) of what reforms need to be implemented. Surely it's possible to get a petition circulated and protests mobilised ( utilising the popular progressive sites and unions ) to present a list of demands on the same day in cities across the U.S.
With decent turnout and the the support of respected economists, there'd be some effect on the national debate. It'd fall short of the reforms I'd like to see ( tax burdon shifted to economic rents, nationalizations etc ) but we could see some serious gains.