It’s an election year, after all, so you won’t be surprised to discover that our President and Federal Reserve Chief, see no R word, hear no R word and only speak the R word to insist there is no R word:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The economy is in turmoil, yet President Bush and Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke say the country will weather the storm. Neither sees a recession on the horizon.
Both Bush and Bernanke are on the front lines of the government’s efforts to right an economy that increasing numbers of economists fear is on the verge of its first recession since 2001, if it hasn’t already fallen into one. […]
. . . Bush, at a White House news conference, and Bernanke, in congressional testimony, seemed to strike the same hopeful note that the economy should be able to survive the fallout.
“I don’t think we’re headed to a recession, but no question we’re in a slowdown,” Bush said.
The Federal Reserve is not forecasting a recession. It does predict slow growth for this year as well as higher unemployment.
“I realize that my testimony wasn’t the most cheerful thing you’ll hear today … but I do very much believe that the U.S. economy will return to a strong growth path with price stability,” Bernanke told the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
Merely a S-L-O-W-D-O-W-N. A return to strong growth is just around the corner. Right. And I’m John McCain’s first choice for a running mate, too.
Nonetheless, the Fed will go on lowering interest rates in the hopes that the whole ponzi scheme of cheap (and ever more worthless) money will somehow forestall the economic crash that is bound to come (and which by any objective assessment is already occurring in the manner of a semi-trailer falling off a cliff). Or at least keep “talk” of that ugly R word off the radar of our elite media punditocracy so Senator Straight Shooter still has an outside chance of retaining the Presidency for Corporate America’s wholly owned subsidiary, the GOP, come November.
Besides who wants to discuss the boring old economy when we have Louis Farrakhan to tie around Barack Obama’s neck like a half dead stinking albatross. Now that’s a legitimate (and far “sexier”) topic for the national media’s obsession attention!
Bush can’t spell. Maybe he thinks that’s a dance he saw in Africa. how should he know?
OTH, Ben does not see a recession but warns on bank failures because the word got out.
(req.required)
Well in the world of higher economic truthiness a few bank failures (or a few more) does not equal a recession. A recession only occurs if Bush’s donors lose money in the stock market.
Bush’s donors: these are the very people who stand to lose…as they’ve likely invested in OTC derivatives. This is not merely a sub-prime collapse. Commercial real estate, auto loans, credit cards are next.
We’ll wait to mid April. Several towns and cities are poised to declare bankruptcy. No way they can pay the new rates – 20% instead of the budgeted 4%. They’ll prefix the “s” word: severe recession with rising prices
Bloomberg News interview: “the banks do not know what their losses are. It will take 5 years for them to figure this out.”
I know Bush wishes he could avoid this meltdown starting on his watch. But it’s begun. Can’t wish it away. Can’t build a wall around this debacle. No practical solution to this monster
While he served up 2 wars, he neglected the economic front.
As I write this, oil just hit a record high in Asia: $103.05/barrel
Pity the next president. He’ll be doing fireside chats.
Yes, Obama could turn out to be one of the most beloved presidents in history because of his fireside chats that people will tune in to watch or listen to. We need a real inspirational figure to get us through the economic collapse that is obviously coming. Thankfully, it appears that the bottom will fall out before he ever takes office, so he won’t be blamed for it. That’s Bush’s legacy.
Look, I don’t like saying Republican either, but we’re going to have to face the reality that we’re stuck in a Republican administration which has had devastating effects on the economy. Republicans are…
OH….
You meant the OTHER R word…
sorry.
worst than recession it is Stagflation..
Worse than stagflation is Depression, and there’s more than a small positive probability that we will get into one.
Because Bush is not done with us yet, we most certainly will be looking back on today in fond rememberance when America had a healthy economy.
Mr. 19% has the knack to shock & awe us even further.
It will be interesting to see how McCain handles the economic realities as we go through this recession. I’m sure he will take a more “compassionate conservative” style approach than Bush’s head-in-the-sand-everything-is-fine-in-the-greatest-economy -the-world-has-ever-seen TM approach. I’m sure he will be forced to stick to the GOP game plan of tax cuts and “free markets” fix everything and then try to change the subject.
The Democrats need to get out ahead of McCain on this and not let him triangulate. They need to thrust the knife in. Maybe Obama can say, “Now McCain is going to try to pull the wool over our eyes and pretend that he cares about middle class Americans. Just like George Bush did, he’s going to pretend he’s a compassionate conservative. But we know better folks. Right? Let’s not get fooled again. I will give Bush and McCain partial credit though. They are indeed compassionate cons all right. Con Artists that is. Con men. They are trying to con you into thinking they will help average Americans. That’s why they go around talking about compassionate conservatism while they rob working families. But we we’re ready for the big con this time. We know that Bush and McCain only want to help their fat cat friends like Halliburton and Blackwater get government contracts. We know they want to make sure Wall Street keeps their Billion dollar bonuses while working families lose their pensions and health care. We know they would rather big business has cheap labor in Mexico or China while Americans go without good jobs. And we surely know that Bush and McCain want to make sure that the richest 1% continue to get special treatment so they don’t have to pay their fair share of taxes.
It’s time for the country to put an end to this big con. Let’s stand up for ourselves and put working families ahead of these Wall Street con men and their compassionate conservative politicians. Let’s not let John McCain pull the wool over our eyes with his compassionate conservative talk like George Bush did. John McCain is a George Bush Republican is only compassionate toward the richest Americans. Let’s not be fooled here.”
Remember the Beatles’ song, “Slow Down.” You know, “baby, now you’re movin’ way too fast. You gotta gimme little lovin’, gimme little lovin’, brrrrrrh, if you want our love to last.”
You know, when I saw “slow down” it reminded me.
Remember the Electric Light Orchestra’s “Showdown.” I was reminded of that too.
I was also reminded of the Weimar Republic.
On ABC News (yes, Charlie Gibson), they first did a story in which W was as surprised by a prediction of $4.00 a gallon gasoline as Poppy Bush was of the existence of grocery store scanners. Label it “completely out of touch”.
Then they followed it with the Bush statement in the diary.
Even the corporate media knows that the chances of a recession instead of a slowdown is high.
Well, George the First gave us one war and one recession… what is surprising about George the Second giving us two wars and two recessions?!?
And when he declares martial law, he can just spiral us all down into his demented hall of mirrors since he thinks that wars are great for the economy and great leaders are war-time leaders and he is nothing if not greeeaaaaaaat!
Wasn’t the word “recession” coined because the Republicans decided that they could never use the word “depression” again, with reference to the economic cycle? Of course, in their case, it had morphed from “depression” to “Depression” but they worked hard at changing it. Will the history books write about “The Great Recession” in the latter half of the 21st century? In Mandarin, of course.