Comments on: Chicken Little Alert, or how to make good news sound like bad news

By: John the Baptist.

John the Baptist. — Wed, 07 May 2008 04:56:36 +0000

Indeed. One man’s housing problem is a third-world’s man golden opportunity to buy property in the US, open a business and immigrate.

Recessed Americans, here I come…

By: staghounds

staghounds — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:59:00 +0000

Of course it can go on forever- or at least for the rest of our lives. Our dollars have lost about 90% of their purchasing power over the last thirty years. The British pound has lost over 99% over the last century.

Every bit of it due to creation of more and more money to pay for social programs and wars that their people couldn’t or wouldn’t pay for in full.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Sun, 04 May 2008 12:38:38 +0000

PD Quiq, if the criteria for this period had changed from those of the last umpteen, I’d be more concerned. But they haven’t, AFAIK. My understanding is that energy and food prices are not included in the inflation rate because of their volatility, not because administrations on both sides of the aisle for years have agreed to a piece of sleight-of-hand to deceive the People…

By: Don Meaker

Don Meaker — Fri, 02 May 2008 23:33:32 +0000

Inflation, defined as the change in cost of a basket of goods and services, sets pay raises for government programs and union ‘cost of living’ increases. Still, productivity increases should result in a reduction in costs. Government creates money to make up for that increase in productivity, and before you marvel at their cleverness, the Government gets to spend that newly created money first. That creation of money is a tax on US productivity.

By: Robert H

Robert H — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:25:33 +0000

Several decades ago, when US unemployment was at the EU norm of 10 to 12 percent, economists were telling us that 5% would be “full employment”. That small percent accounting for people changing jobs, moms staying home with small infants, people taking time out to get a higher degree, etc. Now after a several decade long economic boom, with unemployment back up to that full employment target, things are terrible?

If you compare the whole range of economic factors, such as unemployment, intrest rates, home ownership, at the top of the “Clinton miracle”, it is virtually identical to this trough of the “Bush debacle”. And the Clinton economy didn’t have to deal with these Asian demand sky high oil prices.

Want to end the recession instantly? Just elect a Democrat President, and all of this MSM carping will disappear overnight. Despite things slowing down even more due to the higher taxes and draconian regulations a Dem administation will impose.

By: Steve Skubinna

Steve Skubinna — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:20:59 +0000

“Economy not failing. Women, minorities hardest hit.”

By: Denny, Alaska

Denny, Alaska — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:37:17 +0000

You betcha I’m worried about the current/looming/coming recession. You know, the one that happens, uh, over there, to those other people, in those other states, in that region of the country that’s not mine.

You know: *that* recession.

By: Seerak

Seerak — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:24:29 +0000

If you subtract out the government hiring spike, how does it look then? Expansion of the public sector is always on net an inflationary expansion, as it respresents an increase in net wealth destruction even as more paper dollars in the form of government expenditures and salaries enter the economy.

By: DrDean

DrDean — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:26:14 +0000

I’m the founder of a technology startup and we are very close to getting venture capital funding so we can start hiring people into good paying jobs with good benefits and a future. I certainly hope Obama or anybody else for that matter does not get a chance to raise the capital gains tax as that will make it far more difficult if not impossible for us and other startup and growth-phase companies to get future rounds of funding. That is our greatest concern right now. Otherwise the economy seems to be poised to get on track for reasonable and sustainable growth in the mid-term. The availability of capital for growth is the fuel that fires the engine of economic prosperity. Here’s hoping the government doesn’t tax it out of existence.

By: willis

willis — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:06:52 +0000

“The continued printing of money and borrowing of money cannot go on unabated.”

You are right sir. Most of that printed/borrowed money is going to import oil. Call the democrats in congress and tell them to stop blocking our drilling for oil in our own country. You might also point out that confiscating the profits from the oil company they made on the imported oil will not produce any more oil, it will only give our tax-and-spend government more incentive to keep the supplies short and the price high.