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About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
3 or 4 million people have been displaced due to Hurricanes (Katrins & Rita). The stock markets are up today and have been running fairly smoothly irrespctive of recent events. Is this what’s right with America or what’s wrong with America?
Same comment on Eurotrib. Don’t mention it 🙂
About what % of the US population now constitute internally displaced people?
What % of the “minority” population?
The poor?
What will those %s be by Monday?
The point isn’t about numbers its about the disconnect between markets and what the average person is going through. Of course this is an extreme example but I don’t think that it is extreme to suggest that this trend will continue to the point that no one will be able to ignore it
Great Depression!
That’s what I’ve been thinking too. But “when” and “how” it will manifest itself eludes me. Calling Jerome and Bonddad…
I doubt that we will see a great depression. Most of the one in the 1930’s was caused by the refusal of the Federal Reserve to expand the money supply and create demand, together with the collapse of so many banks.
Since banks lend several dollars for each dollar of deposit, they create money. When they go bankrupt, that extra money disappears. That’s the main reason for deposit insurance and the manner in which the government sold the loans of failed banks and savings and loans during the S&L crisis.
If we were going to have a Depression, the S&L crisis should have put us into it. Similarly, the stock market collapse in 1987 was as bad as the one in 1929, but it was better managed.
Finally, the gold standard in the 1930’s spread the American Depression to all the countries that stayed on the gold standard. Today separate countries can simply isolate their economies from the similar shock in the U.S. or another country. The East Asian financial problems of 1997 were such a danger, and while it led to severe problems, it did not cause a Depression. Severe recession in a few countries, but they were isolated from the rest of the world economy.
I won’t say a Depression is impossible, but it is a lot less likely and can be better managed than the one in the 1930’s. Brad Delong has an excellent discussion of the Great Depression, but right now I can’t get his website to pull up. But look at his website and in the list of subjects on the left side one is “Great Depression.” He is a professional economist, so you are warned in advance.
I’d roughly estimate 1 1/2% of the U.S. population is displaced. It might be interesting to get a similar estimate for the 1927 Flood.
As for the stock markets, remember that those investors are looking forward way past the next week. There will be a lot of business done rebuilding, so some businesses are in a position to be quite profitable. Eliminating Davis-Bacon won’t hurt the profits, either.
I’m on a mission to rid the world of Jon Kyl. Jim Pederson announced his candidacy earlier this month for the Senate. An excerpt from his speech:
I played with my son all evening yesterday, made sweet love to Ms. Ubikkibu, and got a good night’s sleep. Woke up this morning resolved to see the beauty in the world wherever I could find it.
Immediately got a call from a friend who wants me to help her run a table Saturday for an “Out of Iraq” petition my DFA group is co-sponsoring. Then an email from someone I’d forgotten to duplicate all those Referenda C & D DVDs for–yes, I’ll do them tonight. And a polite email from a friend at ePluribus Media reminding me I still haven’t fixed things on the new server. Then a call from my co-precinct captain asking how many volunteers I have for canvassing and yard signs this weekend.
This is a typical day after I jettisoned many of my volunteer efforts. If you read my comments here closely–and why would you?–you’ll know I resolved to be a better dad and to reduce stress in my life, no matter what.
Then after a morning of coding for the pharma company that pays me, I visited BMT on my lunch break. Then Daily Kos. Then the NYT–farging “Select” pages.
All the news is bad. Unimaginably bad.
All the progressive work I’ve done over my lifetime, and especially the stepped-up efforts I’ve made over the last three years, and quite literally for naught.
What do you do when you’re ready, fully ready, in fact been ready for weeks now, to just throw in the towel? To let politics be someone else’s problem? To just show up at work, enjoy your family and your comfortable life, and let it end there?
I’m looking for reasons to stay in this, and frankly “it would be soooo much worse if we hadn’t managed to elect at least a few Democrats” is an argument that I cannot hear any longer. But you’re all very smart and probably more veteran at this than I am. Whatcha think?
Actually, you’re much more veteran than I am. But I can still recognize someone who needs a break when I see (read) one.
Take a step back. If you don’t miss it, step further. Repeat until you do eventually miss it. Then come back.
You’re not doing anyone any good if your heart’s not in it (and least of all yourself).
BTW, I picked up my first Avenged Sevenfold album (Waking the Fallen) and have been listening to it a ton. Probably wouldn’t have done it without your recommendation last month in the Mosh Pit 🙂
Thanks for the advice. That’s about all I can do anyway–keep coming up for air when necessary.
I’m about ready to get another Opeth CD…which others do you recommend?
Cool 🙂
They just came out with a new one about 2 weeks ago called Ghost Reveries. I don’t think it is quite as good as Blackwater Park, but it’s definitely a great album…they mess around with some new kinds of textures.
My Arms, Your Hearse and Morningrise are probably my next two favorites after those (actually I’d probably put these two tied with Ghost Reveries).
You really can’t go wrong. The only album that is completely different is Damnation, on which there is not a single distorted guitar nor any growled vocals. So if you’re looking for heavy, stay away from it (despite the fact that it is still a good album).
I refer you to former basketball coach Jim Valvano’s famous “Don’t ever give up” speech. He had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
I talked about my family, my family’s so important. People think I have courage. The courage in my family are my wife Pam, my three daughters, here, Nicole, Jamie, LeeAnn, my mom, who’s right here too. And…that screen is flashing up there thirty seconds like I care about that screen right now, huh? I got tumors all over my body. I’m worried about some guy in the back going thirty seconds, huh? You got a lot, hey va fa napoli, buddy. You got a lot.
I just got one last thing, I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get you’re emotions going. To be enthusiastic every day and [as] Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm” — to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality.
Now, I look at where I am now and I know what I wanna to do. What I would like to be able to do is to spend whatever time I have left and to give, and maybe some hope to others. Alright, Arthur Ashe Foundation is a wonderful thing, and AIDS, the amount of money pouring in for AIDS is not enough, but it is significant. But if I told you it’s ten times the amount that goes in for cancer research. I’ll also tell you that five hundred thousand people will die this year of cancer. And I’ll also tell you that one in every four will be afflicted with this disease, and yet, somehow, we seem to have put it in a little bit of the background. I want to bring it back on the front table. We need your help. I need your help. We need money for research. It may not save my life. It may save my children’s life. It may save someone you love. And it’s very important.
And ESPN has been so kind to support me in this endeavor and allow me to announce tonight, that with ESPN’s support, which means what? Their money and their dollars and they’re helping me — we are starting the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research. And its motto is “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.” And that’s what I’m going to try to do every minute that I have left. I will thank God for the day and the moment I have. And if you see me, smile and maybe give me a hug. That’s important to me too. But try if you can to support, whether it’s AIDS or the cancer foundation, so that someone else might survive, might prosper, and might actually be cured of this dreaded disease. I can’t thank ESPN enough for allowing this to happen. And I’m going to work as hard as I can…for cancer research and hopefully, maybe, we’ll have some cures and some breakthroughs. I’d like to think I’m going to fight my brains out to be back here again next year for the Arthur Ashe recipient. I want to give it next year!
I know, I gotta go, I gotta go, and I got one last thing and I said it before, and I’m gonna say it again: Cancer can take away all my physical ability. It cannot touch my mind; it cannot touch my heart; and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.
I thank you and God bless you all.
Thanks for that, BooMan. He was one of my favorite people to watch during a basketball game, and he wasn’t one of the players 🙂
That’s a great speech I’d never heard before. Thanks very much, I found parts of it very apropos.
I’m gone. Finishing packing. Finishing the laundry. Leaving at 4:00 am. Just got back from the grocery store stocking the house. Cabingirl phoned to tell me that the rest of the work I had planned to do is done and sitting in my email.
Did you get it? See you tomorrow!!!!
They have interviews with the Op Ed writers. The ones by Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert are the best. See nytimes.com. The bad news is that you are supposed to pay to see them–part of their new economic strategy, I guess. But on this VERY site I learned how to circumvent the rules. See this post here.
What Krugman says about how today if you just tell people that 2+2=4 you are going to get a lot of partisan flack is the best.
Katrina and Rita expenses:
It’s here.
Gee. You didn’t mention eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and delay of the Medicare Drug benefit for a year (probably prior to canceling it.)
This is a conservative wet dream. How can they be faulted for cutting government to pay to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida (with special focus on the Republican parts.)
Looks like they have decided on “Spend and Cut!” as a political strategy.
Yup ,they are gonna blackmail the whole country,pure and simple. Wet dream ,indeed. EXACTLY what they wanted,a way to ruin anything that has whiff of generosity.- I have very little hope for NO in the middle of this cat/dog fight.
And the next chance BushCo gets they will decimate the farm program.
I can assure you that at these fuel prices your average family farmer is already heading into a world of financial hurt.
The last email I received from my friend trapped in Houston was depressing. She is resigned to riding Rita out because she’s afraid (and rightly so) of getting stuck on the freeway, assuming she could actually get on. She has tried twice already and had to turn back. I hear there are many stalled, overheated vehicles and many out of gas. Some abandoned. What a nightmare. It’s a helpless feeling not to be able to help her. I just pray she makes it through the hurricane okay.
So, I don’t want to hear any bullshit rightwing commentator get on a righteous rant about how people could have and should have left Houston before the hurricane struck. Many tried and failed. Many are trapped there and fated to ride it out.
There is a diary over on dKos right now of a kossack who is in similar straits.
There’s a lot of good advice in the comments.
Oh, he just updated it too:
I copied the link and sent it to my friend. Maybe it will help.
I haven’t heard from the friends of my mom’s who were supposed to be on their way here all day either….left messages on their cell voice mail, but from what I hear, cell service is already breaking down.
I hope they are ok.
I’ll be thinking about your firend too.
I hope your mom’s friends arrive soon.
Sending all in Rita’s path good thoughts.
They got here at 11 last night — all is well for now!
The baby girl is sooooo cute! And the little boy too — I think the four kids will have lots of fun!
MSNBC is reporting that Hillary will vote ‘no’ on the Roberts’ nomination.
Just got that in my e-mail! Woohoo!