Kristol has exactly one talking point: He says that the Dow Jones has lost 15 percent, or 1,355 points, since Obama took office, and he then effectively claims that Wall Street speculators’ day-to-day gyrations mean the vast majority of Americans do not trust Obama, irrespective of polls showing exactly the opposite.
This is a great example of what I call "metric shopping," the process of ignoring the most plainly obvious measures or statistics in favor of tortured or irrelevant ones that purport to prove your point. Republicans and conservatives do it a lot.
My personal favorite example of conservative metric shopping was when they used the comparative frequency of swear words on progressive blogs vs. conservative ones to "prove" that progressives are more uncivil than conservatives. But that’s a piss-poor measure of civility. As I said at the time, "Have you calculated an eliminationism quotient? Or a racism/sexism/homophobia quotient? Or a dishonesty quotient? Or a harassing-12-year-old-kids quotient?"
Then there’s the "The GOP is king of surface area!" gambit, which uses all the sparsely populated rural counties to make America look red.
How about the "Bush Boom" of economic growth that just happened to start when the economy hit rock bottom in 2003, rather than when Dubya actually took office? Or Dubya bragging about the 52 consecutive months of job creation over that time, ignoring the fact that the 8.2 million jobs barely kept pace with the 150,000 a month needed to keep pace with population growth, and that the net job growth over his term was a pathetic 3 million?
And let’s not forget the Republicans’ favorite metric of all, "No terrorist attacks on American soil." Well, except for that one time, but none since Dubya started pretending to care! Well, none involving explosions, anyway. But even putting that minor quibble aside, it’s still a very limited metric for a "Global War On Terror." If you look at actual global terrorism, it’s skyrocketed since Dubya took office.
It’s the Republican way: If the reality doesn’t back you up, just create a new one that does.
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If Obama stays in office for 8 years this is one thing he could never be responsible for starting. Yet this meme which will be repeated forever by the likes of bloody PNAC war criminal Bill Kristol has already taken hold in the wingnutosphere.
Why oh why does American media keep people who were always wrong and always lying on the air?
I don’t even think they need Metric Shopping when the facts do not fit their version reality. They just make shit up. Not like any of the MSM whores will call them on it.
hey man, f*ck that sh*t. :~)
Eli!
someone somewhere (forgive me for spacing out where and who) suggested there should always be a bubble next to Bill Kristol’s head showing his record as being wrong on everything.
me trick once: shame on you.
metric twice: won’t get tooled again!
I like it. Do you suppose it would be unconstitutional to require some sort of tattoo on the forehead after someone reaches some kind of cumulative wrongness threshold?
DUMBASS
the DOW is 30 stocks
aha, always wrong krystol at it again
krystol’s incredible aptitude for being incorrect is sure tired but there is something exciting brewing which I mentioned downstairs;
krystol actually called rustly limballs out on faux newz
he had them set him up for it too, if you watch the tube you’ll see someone actually looking concerned that limpballs is hoping obama fails, you can hear in her voice she doesn’t like it
at this is on faux newz so you know she’s expecting the answer that comes
krystol then says limpballs shouldn’t be saying it
that’s a deliberate call out on rusty limp, krystol is going after the fat man
there it is…now krystol covers his butt by following with an attack on obama but inho he is definately setting up this showdown
watch the tube, watch how the interviewer is “concerned” and ready for the krystol smack down
it’s a setup
I am saying krystol does not want limpballs having any popwer in the party
this is a showdown
I sure am hoping limpballs takes the challenge
if that happens we will have no corn left for fuel, all will be going for popcorn sales
GOPcorn.
because it is Nazi propaganda…just keep repeating the lies,and it becomes the new history,those who control the present etc ,etc
rinse lather repeat………………..for evah
I was on Bloggingheads with Conn Carroll (Heritage Foundation) yesterday, he said the same thing. Since it’s completely irrational I can’t imagine people thought it up independently, so it must be some sort of concerted effort.
The Stock Market Is Not The Economy
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/b…..not_the_ec
They really have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.
from the masters of the univers at Bloomberg
Bloomberg’s Eric Martin today declared that Obama is to blame for the stock market collapsing. Read this, from an article entitled “‘Obama Bear Market’ Punishes Investors as Dow Slumps”:
President Barack Obama now has the distinction of presiding over his own bear market.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen 20 percent since Inauguration Day, the fastest drop under a newly elected president in at least 90 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
It’s a metric that doesn’t favor Obama, so they’re riding it.
As Sirota pointed out, they’re ignoring the 3200 points it dropped late in Dubya’s term.
hey it could be an iron-on
i hope all these numbnutz loose all their shekels………..teehee
sadly, yes.
*cough* … The Green Zone is American Soil as are all their Embassies worldwide.
there is a historic crisis of confidense,after all the damn corruption scandals….Madoff ring a bell
not only is the stockmarket not the economy, the price of a stock has nothing to do with the success of the company
when the prive goes up the company gets nothing of that, when it goes down the company loses none of that
the only thing that was lost is the amount of percieved value shareholder have
this affects how much the owners of the company are worth but it does nothing for the viability of that company
the whole market without regulation became a giant PONZI SCHEME and there it is
That’s only cuz folks was skeered ’bout Obama winning the PrezDency … a truth borne out over the past
4 months. /s
*note to self* … writing Gooper talkin’ points might bring more $$$ than these frikkin’ yoga books …
I don’t think there is anyone but a wing nut that will blame anybody but bush
never underestimate peoples desire to blame anybody but themselves
interesting diary over at Big Orange about how corrupt the media “market analysis” gig is, in particular the obnoxious Jim Cramer.
your wunnnnerful
Obama has chosen the wrong people for his top tier economic advisers. BK is saying it for the wrong reason, but on the bank issue, he’s right.
The stock market IS the economy to people who live off investments and don’t work for a living – a very republican way to live and pay no income taxes on their earnings from the market.
Aravosis’ headline:
he is imo,the worst of the worst,speaking of blame…if ya listened to that dumbass,you can really blame yourself…d’oh
Hey Pun, didja see Jon slam Cramer and CNBC on TDS ?
I wish I could disagree, but alas, it appears that his most important link is also his weakest.
it was sublime
yup…sadlyyes
I like (not) the way she cut off the interview when Sirota called Kristol out
that’s about the only issue I think he’s wrong;
we should not be nationalizing banks, that means we take over their toxic debt and they walk away with the money
we should be nationalizing banking, leave the banks with their own bad debt and any new loans have to go directly through the fed, all they can do is earn a point or two commission
we should NOT be buying their debt or keeping them in business
we should NOT allow them to buy cram downs, the person dwelling needs first refusal and then the house needs to be sold to a family at the cram down price
NO banks buying cramdowns until the market had a chance to buy it
that’s a good point sander0, but there are lots of struggling retirements in that boat too
Dear Eli:
Would you please stop bashing the republican party? They have now hit on the answer to the country’s economic problems.
Two words – Spending. Freeze.
Love,
Herbert Hoover
off to bed, g’night all
hmm
How is the book project coming along, Petro?
FAUX snooze
it was classic – one for the ages.
g’night
nite nite
I thought it was tax cuts.
Elliott !
Still lookin’ for an Agent … know anyone ?
Wonder if someone who has lost their home, their job, their family on the edge of abject poverty will finally snap and rid this world of the likes of Kristol. Few tears will be shed.
try to keep up please.
Tax cuts are so yesterday.
xoxoxo,
Herb
sadly, no.
Tax cuts *never* go out of style. Tax cuts are forever.
oh my
Battle Over Bonuses: Govt. Says Bank of America Threatens to Sue Employee Willing to Talk
Bank Wants Bonus Figures Kept Confidential, NY AG Fights for Public Disclosure
By RICHARD ESPOSITO
March 6, 2009
I tried to warn FDLers to keep liquids away from their Monitors while watching TDS that night.
Then Stephen came on, doing a great “Glenn Beck” impression and in the bargain, made Stephen Moore(WSJ) look even more stupid than usual.
That’s alright, perseverance = success and I’ll keep looking.
The WSJ numbers are all wrong. I updated item 298 of my scandals list to take into account today’s change in the January 2009 (last month of the Bush Administration) estimates.
The first bolding is the number of jobs Bush created during his whole Presidency. The second is to the high point in job creation in his Administration December 2007 just as the recession hit. My numbers are direct from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ own tables. I have no idea what fantasy land the WSJ got its numbers from.
rxbusa on Morning Swim today
Metric: “The Obama Administration is full of retreads from the Clinton years!”
Completely ignoring Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Gates, and all the other retreads from Bush 1, Nixon, and Reagan who populated W’s administration.
Thank you!
rxbusa
(in reply to SD @ 54)
***putting on mod hat and issuing gentle reminder***
comments with fantasy violence will result in your comment being moderated
thank you and we now return to the thread
At least the Clintonestas didn’t want to conquer the world by force. They just wanted to starve it into submission.
CNBCs new mantra is about Obamas budget raising taxes. Democrats need to push the fact that Bush and the Repugs wrote the expiration dates of the 2001 tax cuts and its actually Bush raising taxes.
There will be no congressional vote and Obama will not have to sign the tax hike on the over $250,000 crowd. So how can Obama and congress be raising taxes? All Obama has to do is include the extra revenues in his proposed budget.
This issue really needs pushed. Bush is raising taxes even while out of office.
That’s a link to Digg for John Amato’s post. *g*
This seems like a lie with a limited shelf life – at some point, 98% of Americans will realize that their taxes have not, in fact, gone up.
Damn, and here I was hidin’ and waitin’ for a troll.
toxic media propaganda
any possibility to do something online with it?
This morning I had Imus on and he was talking with this woman (her name escapes me at the moment). Imus said to her that he doesn’t think Obama knows what he’s doing. She said that it’s not so much that he doesn’t know what he’s doing or that the people around him don’t know what they’re doing, it’s just that….the banking industry, the housing industry, Wall Street, and the other players have tangled the financial sector so badly, NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO FIX IT QUICKLY. She told Imus that we have to be patient and trust Obama will be like FDR where he will change course when it’s the only option (instead of being like Bush and plugging forward no matter what anyone is saying).
Seems about right. President Obama is going the route of creating jobs. If that doesn’t work….say….within a year or so, then he’ll have to do something else. I don’t know enough about the financial sector to know what to do, but the parts I do understand, I can’t for the life of me figure out what would be the best plan! No one knows, honestly which is so freaking scary.
And who do we have to thank? The Bush Regime and their Enablers for allowing this to fester without any kind of intervention.
Going to bed. Nite all. ;-)
Add a chapter about how yoga can improve one’s sex life. Sex sells. Rethugs will snap it up like a rubber band. They can read it while they’re surfin’ porn sites.
aahahaaaa
me sleepy too
love yall
I agree that the Dow is not the economy. For one thing most of its volume represents hedge fund activity.
A few observations:
Nevertheless it is an indicator.
The Bush Administration bears primary responsibility for the financial meltdown and economic collapse.
Obama’s policies are too little.
Obama’s economics team represents the financial community not Americans or their interests.
The Dow has been reacting to their ineffective policies negatively.
The Republicans are batshit crazy.
Wall Street thinks Obama’s policies are not sufficiently pro-Wall Street.
The truth is they need to be far more anti-Wall Street.
I hadn’t thought of that … any ideas ?
I am looking to start offering private meditation classes in person and via the web.
You’ll laugh like heQQ if you see my title …
*mwaah* … sweet dreamz !
It’s a lot like Iraq, really. They have shit the bed so thoroughly that it cannot be unshit. But Geithner and Summers don’t appear to be armed with anything stronger than toothbrushes and warm water.
It’s not as though NO ONE knows how to fix it, and they are explicitly being excluded from the process so that Obama’s financiers can feed at the public trough. And patience is not a virtue while the economy is plummeting into depression.
Nite Kay.
Great analogy and also, great post !
night, sadly
I completely agree that Obama’s economic strategy is inadequate, but it’s still light years better than what Bush or McCain’s would have been. They probably all would have thrown way too much money at Wall Street, but a Republican stimulus bill would have been all corporate and capital gains and upper-bracket tax cuts, and achieved bupkus without making any significant upgrades to infrastructure or education.
Well, I was only bein’ a half-assed smart ass. One of the salient points of Kundalini is its sensuality and the serpent uncoiling…
Online publishing is the new rage. I haven’t checked it out so can’t offer any tips.
Need help coping with the recession? The answer is more boots on the ground.
Thanks, I hadn’t considered it.
I especially like the last three.
I agree. Summers and that sorry ass crew are more about ensuring their rich buddies lose as little as possible and screw the rest of us. To them the banking industry and stock exchanges are the economy. The paper economy. No intrinsic value whatsoever.
she cracks me up
see ya Kay
The tables need turned on the repubs. Their only argument is that including those revenues from expiring tax cuts are raising taxes.
Our (Obamas) argument is Bush wrote the tax cut bills with the congressional repugs and we are just including those revenues in the budget. They actually voted to let taxes rise in 2010-2011.
Your 98% will realize like you say, but for the other 2% to shut up their hero should be blamed.
This is not an economic circumstance that the U.S. can skate through with “better than Bush.”
It doesn’t matter. I used the analogy once that the Republicans want to drive the economy over the cliff at 100mph. Is it really that much better that Obama wants to drive it over the same cliff at 50mph?
BTW did you see my #53?
oops!
LOL
well I hope you dugg it *g*
The first of those three made me
mincewince.I noticed “poppin’ john” there. I’m getting ready to make Hoppin’ John this weekend. “Braised cow tongue.” My stepmother used to boil cow’s tongue. Made the greatest samiches.
But also a very retired person way to live, with very few alternatives now.
Should have read yours before I commented at 91.
I think that might be Phil Gramm in drag.
I’m a diggin’ fool and still haven’t got my shovel back from that prick Kristol.
Believe me, I’m not happy. The only solace that I’m getting out of this is that fact that some of the stimulus money will actually be spent on stuff that will contribute to the public good, rather than lining the pockets of the rich and corporate.
I’ll double-check and tweak that jobs number. I was having trouble finding a final post-Bush net jobs number, and the clock was ticking on the post. I figured at the very worst, no-one could claim that the WSJ had it in for Dubya.
“no terrist attacks on American soil”
well.. a couple of months since the restoration of constitutional government and no terrist outrages. Obama must be doing a phenomenal job protecting us from terristic acts of sabotage, by the rethugs’ metric. Oh… but wait! we endure acts of sabotage every day… by the rethug Taliban faction, out to make sure that the country fails. So maybe not such a good job afterall. Gosh.. they must be laughing their heads off in the hidden Saddamite WMD central command, in the Twilight zone dimension.
Dugg!
Oh, now that’s a very cool idea!
Waste not, want not. One of my earliest memories was around the age of three, peeling gum off the sidewalk and chewing it. I recall being enthused because it was grape.
The islamofascists are leaving Obama alone out of professional courtesy.
I have not won the Lottery since 1/20/09.
Clearly, Obama is wrecking the economy.
It grieves me to have to agree on this point, but I have to agree on this point.
I’ve been pounding Banks to get a start- up loan for marketing. Proper exposure is critical to success, esp. in times like this.
Okay, I’m having a hard time finding that 1.9 million number anywhere. Everything I’m seeing on the Google is right around that 3 million number.
SBA or micro-lending of some sort?
Yep, but even those guys are nervous about lending to start- ups.
either that or they’ve outsourced the incitement and bloodcurdling threats to their moles, some of whom are surprisingly well placed. has Party Chairman Al-Limpbark been asked for his birth certificate lately?
I calculated directly off the table.
Go here: http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm
Select Total nonfarm seasonally adjusted.
Go to the bottom and click retrieve data.
This will produce a table. Subtract January 2001 from January 2009.
January 2001 is a zero point so 96 months or 8 years later would be January 2009.
You should come up with 1.95 million jobs.
Did you see where Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney are teaming up to do a fundraiser for the David Lynch charity, which promotes meditation? None of the news stories I read mentioned their flirtation with TM back in the ’60s. Not suggesting this is similar but STILL, not like it’s so off-topic as to go unnoticed.
I keep forgetting that you’re in Canada. So U.S. resources (such as they are) not available to you?
Lots of people distance themselves from TM and those wild days when the Maharishi (reportedly) endorsed drug abuse as a means to higher spiritual awareness.
No but we have a similar program up here, like SBA.
Of course, I also have the option of setting up a Corp. in America.
But what about non-nonfarm?
about a third the population added during the same period one should add. when employment growth lags population growth over extended intervals, one has a problem… why China is said now to have a problem despite maintaining 6% or so growth. shrub’s was the toxic presidency. the islamofasciobogeymenites aren’t attacking cause they’ve won. shrub did their job for ‘em.
As the Beatles came to realize at the time, the Maharishi was merely a self-serving individual. Interesting that they either continued to practice, or became reacquainted with meditation, though.
Yeah, when 8.2 million is just barely enough to keep pace with population growth over 4 1/3 years, 3 (or 2) million sure as hell isn’t going to cut it over 8.
The 8.2 million over 52 weeks to me is kinda like if Joe DiMaggio went 1-4 and 1-5 in every game of his 56-game hitting streak. Yeah, it’s an impressive hitting streak, but his actual batting average would have been, like, .230 or .240.
(Actually, in reality Ted Williams actually did have a higher batting average than DiMaggio over the life of the streak. But that’s Ted frickin’ Williams.)
I just hit the wall (metaphorically speaking). Tell me more about all of this sometime? I think I’ve missed the back story. G’nite everyone.
what about the “levitation” thing?
I think that had a lot to do with meeting Ravi Shankar and understanding that there are good meditation teachers and techniques, though few and far between.
George Harrison got very close to ISKCON, the organization that teaches simple living and community service … and who are spending about $50 Million to build a Temple in one of the poorest cities on Earth – Calcutta.
Yeah, that’s nice for entertainment but what practical purpose does it serve ?
Same for Tony Robbins teaching people to walk on fire …
I will, thanks and good night !
Depends on what kind of acid yer doin’.
LOL … my Uncle is a staunch devotee of TM and takes those guys around to display the TM Bounce …
I guess what I’m wondering is (if you know)…what has it done to the credibility of TM?
Worked with a psychiatrist in Denver who was really into TM. As if he wasn’t loony enough.
Tony Bobbins helped me let go, so I could burn my ex-girlfriend with my noxious saliva.
in a manner of speaking, if one uses measures like real per capita productivity/wealth growth, broadly distributed across the population perhaps by being gini-coefficient rated, or a broad misery index, we’ve been in nonstop recession since 2001: most of the population has been losing ground, relative to inflation and demographic momentum, throughout the shrub dictatorship. real wages declining, real opportunities contracting, no hope for career advancement… which makes actual unemployment now all the more painful. for the record, we are not OK now.
Hah ! Most people who’ve done TM end up being more stressed. A smaller percentage experienced real benefit.
That’s why I took so much time to research my meditation technique … so I can know its’ limitations and teach them to my students.
ROFL … great video !
Holy shit, where’d he get those teeth?
I’m pretty sure the unemployment number is in the Fake Metric Hall Of Fame.
in 127, “rated” was supposed to be “weighted”
the edit feature has returned – its next to reply
I’ll match you one pre-recession mcDonalds short order cook for one Wal Mart greeter.
I think the debt-fueled asset bubbles hid the pain for awhile… now that those have burst, we just have naked fear.
cool!
LOL … that’s to distract you from the chin.
Well, it’s not just that it doesn’t count people who are underemployed with shite jobs, but it also doesn’t count longterm unemployed, who I would think would be exactly the people you’d *want* to count.
Man, that’s some choice.
“Would you like flies with that?”
or
“Welcome to Wal-Mart.
Get yer shit and get out.
Have a nice day.”
Eli, these are the numbers that the government uses when it announces job numbers. Subtract February 2009 from January 2009 and you will get the 651,000 number that is in all the numbers today.
As with all these numbers, it is important to understand what they mean and do not mean. This is from the glossary at the BLS on non-farm:
There are some kind of jobs that are difficult to quantify for various reasons. It is unclear what the exact contribution is to the economy. These are the categories in bold which are excluded and represent what you call the non non-farm.
In any case, all of my numbers in #53 are based on the Total Non-farm and Manufacturing tables. Remember you are were googling for data probably mostly from the MSM but it is really only people like me or eCahn who go back and look directly at the primary source data.
Those still sound like paying jobs to me. At least legitimate enough that I don’t feel comfortable dismissing them to score extra points. Dubya’s job creation is dismal enough even without lopping off an extra million, and still way below the 14.4 million needed to keep pace with the population.
It’d be like the opposite of gilding the lily. Puking on the turd, maybe.
I agree with you on frustrated jobs seekers.. but I’m also saying that the real problem for the last with eight yrs goes a lot deeper and gets a lot worse than that – not only has the economy not been producing enough jobs for the moment but the jobs it has been producing don’t build toward anythng in terms of lasting prosperity/foundations for future growth, AND, with the rate of job creation lagging demographic momentum, we’re compounding that same problem potentially for future workers, once they age-into the workforce: we’re creating something of an early 19th century type surplus population. Hello Uncle Dick Ebenezer!
I’m not trying to say it’s one or the other. I agree that it’s both. If you go from being an engineer or machinist to being a burger flipper, that’s a huge net loss even if employment/unemployment numbers consider it a wash.
julia 2 flights up
Well this was my point. The unemployment number U-3 has a very limited meaning. eCahn’s use of the U-6 together with it is much more informative. There were historic reasons why Total non-farm came to have the exclusions it has. There is about 25% of the adult population, i.e. the potential workforce which as I said are not quantified in the employment picture. They are doing something and that something can be described as work but it gets tricky how to incorporate them into a truly total picture of what the county’s adult population is doing so for these reasons they are left out.
Any of the numbers that you find in any of the articles that you use, those numbers come from this table or its subcomponents. That table is the standard and the base of all the discussions. If the WSJ is using some other metric, I can guarantee that it is less legitimate and that the WSJ should have identified it. My own take was that they made up the numbers because they simply are different from any accepted source I know of.
Except every single search result on the Googles had that 3 million number, or very close to it. Not just WSJ.
And as I said, it’s not like net job growth of 3 million makes Bush look *good*.
Although, I’m also wondering, maybe their numbers weren’t so much cooked as incomplete. The WSJ piece was from January, so the full picture wasn’t yet known.
Eli, once again applying logic to the Republican orientation?
Thank you. :)
Then no one has gone back and revisited the data because the most jobs Bush ever created was 5.6 million and most of those were lost in his last year so his net job creation is 1.95 million. I pointed you to the source and you can do the math for yourself.