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"Aren't you glad your Social Security isn't in a private account?" (photo courtesy of Jim White)
Pouting Baby is back and talking to us again. — JW
Today was an ugly day. Lots of people lost a lot of money in what they call stocks. Remember when Little Georgie B wanted to get rid of Social Security and replace it with private stock investments? That would have been a really bad idea today.
Here is how Reuters described the stock market today:
Investors fled Wall Street in the worst stock-market selloff since the middle of the financial crisis in early 2009 in what has turned into a full-fledged correction.
The Dow and the S&P tumbled more than 4 percent on Thursday and the Nasdaq lost 5 percent on fear the United States is staring at another recession and that Europe’s sovereign debt crisis is swallowing two of its largest economies.
But it looks like the crash isn’t over:
Analysts predicted further losses even though stocks have fallen on nine of the last 10 days.
Now just imagine if your Social Security funds were invested in that same stock market that is crashing for the second time in less than three years.
Here’s what Little Georgie B said when he tried to tell us private Social Security accounts would be a good thing, way back in 2001:
. . . Social Security reform must offer personal savings accounts to younger workers who want them. Today, young workers who pay into Social Security might as well be saving their money in their mattresses. That’s how low the return is on their contributions. And the return will only decline further — maybe even below zero — if we do not proceed with reform.
Personal savings accounts will transform Social Security from a government IOU into personal property and real assets; property that workers will own in their own names and that they can pass along to their children. Ownership, independence, access to wealth should not be the privilege of a few. They’re the hope of every American, and we must make them the foundation of Social Security.
I wonder what Little Georgie B has in his mattress today. Because I think even someone as dumb as Little Georgie B knows that the stock market isn’t the place to put somebody’s Social Security money. But I don’t use a mattress for things I want to keep safe. I give them to my Mommy. Too bad lots of older mommies lost money today, too. Even if their Social Security wasn’t in stocks, some of them had other retirement money in stocks that lost a lot of money today.
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pouting baby! jim!
Suzanne! It’s great to be back.
Pouting Baby & Jim!
I am indeed glad that SS has not been privatized, yet. My retirement plan took big hit – again – I am sure (I do not have the will to go look at how bad it is).
POUTING BABY!
Maybe those Wall Street idiots should have, I don’t know, listened to what those candidates were saying before they bought the elections for them, instead of just funding everybody who had an R beside their names.
Hi Doc!
It was indeed a bloodbath today. And reports from Asia indicate it is continuing in the markets there.
Margaret!
Now, now, don’t go trying to talk sense to the MOTU’s. They buy their own sense.
It would seem that the idiots on Wall Street just woke up to the fact that the austerity programs they have been calling for are actually contractionary and bad for the economy.
Seems there’s not enough bailout money to go around. I only hope that Blanche Lincoln, Joe Lieberman, and every other Senator that insisted on trimming back the stimulus plan (successfully) has the family fortune invested in stocks. Perhaps someone should ask them if they hate it when the DFH are right.
We should be so lucky that those morons actually felt the impact of their craven decisions. Maybe they will at least be stuck in traffic when we peasants take to the streets with our pitchforks.
I’m sure they’ll feel consoled by their $350 wine with their $1500 dinners.
Oh, yes…welcome back, Pouting Baby!
I give 50-1 odds (with a $5 limit) that Fluffy on Press The Meat does NOT ask anyone on Sunday why they didn’t listen to the libruls for a more robust stimulus plan. “Weren’t they right?”
It was looking mighty grim today, tomorrow will be even more gruesome, I fear…! Everybody had dropped on average 3.4 percent on each of the Global Markets, and, the Asian/Pacific markets are sinking ever more on their Friday reports…! 8-(
Depends on how big a hit they took today.
Thanks. How’s things?
Teabaggers insist the stock market decline is due to insufficient circumcision of the gubmint
erectionintrusion.Hmmmmmmm! Can you say “double dip?”
Krugman is talking about a strong possibility of what he calls a “mini-Lehman” in Europe in the near term and possibly worse.
Aloha, Tut.
It’s tough to be going through this so soon after the last one. How many people will fall into poverty this time, with no safety nets left in cash-strapped states?
I’ll go 50-1 that Krugman throws it in Will’s face on This Weak but I’ll give even money that Krugman isn’t invited on This Weak this week. Probably replace him with The Moustache of Wisdom or someone equally…..cooperative.
Frankly, the Teabaggers would like to tank the global economy. They seem to subscribe the the Andrew Mellon School of Economics.
Unfortunately the cure is politically impossible.
Hong Kong is down approx. 1000 points, many others bleeding. The Big Money Guys make money, even when the markets crash. Then they get Bailout $$$ to cherry pick the best bargains, just like the Banks did with falling property prices.
One way or the other, they get 4 more years of the same. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Did you see him on Olbermann tonight?
Aloha, Jim…! We seriously need to start pushing some Baby Strollers or camping out somewhere, these days…! 8-(
That’s probably an overshoot. They just “want their Country back.” Whatever the black dude is for, they are agin.
A couple of days ago, Barry Eisler tweeted a link to an article that suggests the ultra-rich are the ones who want the economy tanked so that they can buy even more assets at bargain-basement prices.
Jim !
Gore again hit the Nail on the Head … an “American Spring” is badly needed !
Here’s one from “News of the Weird:”
Mysterious orange gooJohn Boehner’s tan washes up in Alaska villagehttp://www.bgladd.com/HooBamaVille.jpg
Good thin Eric The Cant(or) bet short. Will Greggers ask him why he hates Merka?
Petro!
Yup. We have seen this movie before.
Treachery. Mayhem. But on the bright side, my 17th wedding anniversary is Saturday.
Good thing Eric The Cant(or) bet short. Will Greggers ask him why he hates Merka?
Several of them basically said that was what they wanted during the deficit kabuki. I think they believe that a meltdown would destroy the Democrats and make dismantling the New Deal and Great Society absolutely necessary, thus scoring their twin wet dreams.
Lewis Lapham made that same observation decades ago. Nothing has changed.
Heh
Would not surprise me. We really need a Marie-Antoinette moment in this country.
That’s for sure.
Have a wonderful anniversary! Drink lots of champagne. Best to you both.
Congrats! Enjoy the day. We’ll be hauling our older daughter back to college that day.
Congrats! That is longer than all three of mine combined.
Yeah. I sorta noticed during the bonfire how they give a beatdown to anyone showing up with water.
Jim, my opinion is that W wanted very badly to get the SS money into play in order to save the economy…In other words, with SS money “in play” and investing in stocks and bonds and whatever else people could be fooled into, he would have ended his presidency on a very positive note. The matter of “churning money” was required to keep the economy going. Fortunately some cooler heads prevailed, and it crashed around his head.
I am very bitter that the powers-that-be are so silent on this fact… They are going to have guns leveled at their heads in the next election that they failed to “save” the economy…
Congratulations to you both !
I did!
they will gey the SS money…it is their due…and they WILL steal it
What’s the metal for so many years? Rust? Congrats EDP, and give the best from the rowdy firepups to the missus.
Yeah, the hostage-taking as a general strategy seems to gaining lots of momentum.
LMAO! Glad it’s a bright side!
I’m headed home, and I’m so happy.
And they will still ask for more.
PETROMISOMICOSPAGHETTI! where have you biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin?
We’ll leave a light on for you. Put your feet up and have a beer.
yes they must be stopped like Hitler was
Dubya bet on Iraq taking “six month at the outside” and paying for itself. Yeah, he wanted to let Wall St loot SS as well, but remember the antecedent thing.
*heh* PBS’ NBR is just starting here in the Isles…! It was Fugly today…! Seems to be the consensus…! The ‘breadth’ of the sell-offs was wide spread… Decliners vastly outnumbered the Gainers…1
Yay! Home is hard to beat.
Thanks, all. We don’t plan to make a big deal of it–dinner tomorrow night, stay home Saturday.
Well it certainly works and dog knows Obama will never stand up to them. Of course the Dems are working at a disadvantage here. The ethical party in these situations is always vulnerable to those who have no qualms about destroying the country.
i finally met him at a meeting,i used to send him candygrams telling him how brave he was…i thought booosh would off him
Congrats, EDP, and to the Better Half…! *g*
Yous still up here in Billings? If so, I can understand your desire to get the hell out. Things are much nicer over here on this side of the divide.
It’s hard for me to understand what they get out of destroying the country. To be king of nothing is still nothing.
all the very best wishes
SadlyyesMammaMiaDatsaSpicyMeataball !
Summer & BBQ Season keeping me busy … *g*
I’ve learned through the years that I probably never had an original thought. If I think something is a certain way, then clearly someone else does too. I have always thought that someone told Dubya that Wall Street needed a huge amount of money or the world economy would be nuked and Republican policies of cutting taxes and deregulation would be blamed. Others advised him to shuffle Aunt Millie’s Social Security fund, along with everyone else, and Wall Street tycoons could afford their million dollar bonuses through the midterm of a Democratic President.
Dawg hep us all hoss, great post.
We now have to do what we can n want.
It’s fugly.
Nobody ever said that they were very bright – or rational. I think they all have this Mad Max fantasy of themselves as coming out on top when things collapse. Most of them would likely end up as Soylent Green.
He is very friendly. A couple of years ago at Netroots Nation, I got him to sign a copy of his book as “The Shrill One” for a friend who is a big fan.
Larue! I finally stayed up late enough for a real-time hello.
“It is better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.”
Hi, Pal!
Does that ever make sense.
{{{{{LooHoo}}}}}
meanwhile
Some Americans buy luxury goods, others can’t afford to eat right
By Fiona Anderson 4 Aug 2011 COMMENTS(0) From the Desk of the Editor
Filed under: New York Times, USA Today, nutritional guidelines, luxury goods, Mercedes-Benz
While the United States struggles with debt, and the rest of the country struggles with unemployment and foreclosures, the demand for luxury goods is apparently enjoying a renaissance.
A story in the New York Times (read it here) says luxury goods are flying off the shelves. Mercedes-Benz for example sold more cars in the U.S. in July than it has in any July in five years.
And the higher the price the better, as luxury shoppers equate value with price, the story says.
“The rich do not spend quite as they did in the free-wheeling period before the recession, but they are closer to that level,” writes Stephanie Clifford.
The cause, apparently, is the stock market. Despite the recent rout, the Dow Jones is still up 80 per cent from its low in March 2009.
“With the overall economy nowhere near its recession lows, buying nice, expensive things is back in vogue for people who can afford it.”
On the other end of the spectrum — for those just trying to get by — more bad news. Apparently the new U.S. nutritional guidelines will raise a family’s food costs by hundreds of dollars a year, USA Today reports (read that here). For example the new guidelines call for more potassium in diets and even doing that cheaply could add $380 to the annual food bill, Donna Gordon Blankinship reports.
Recent estimates show 49 million Americans make food decisions based on cost, according to Hilary Seligman, assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco
I guess that makes as much sense as anything else. It’s just a puzzle to me why you wouldn’t want everyone doing well, factories going 24/7, and people happy. That’s when the public would buy the “stuff” that these elites make money from. (throws up hands)
No, loaded in Gillette, WY–north to Broadus, MT and on to Miles City. Forty miles of dirt road and North from Terry and out through Williston, ND. Delivered SE of Watford City, ND. Just over 600 miles and tomorrow will be two weeks since I left home. A nightmare of a load. Slept in my big truck last night, and I got no sleeper.
very nice man with HUGE CAJONES!!!
Yeah, Eisler said it was good material for a new thriller novel.
And good to “see” you again.
I read somewhere today, that over 1000 millionaires did not pay taxes in the U.S.
because you dont understand the mind of a sociopath,like Gordon Gekko etc…you cannot understand how they think
DEar Dawg! Miles City makes Billings look like paradise. Take care of yourself and keep your head down. That is deep Teabagger country.
i thought it was a thousand…let me go look…hold the phone
I didn’t say they were smart…I doubt many of them have any idea who Milton was, for example. But they do seem bound and determined to rule over the postapocalyptic waste of the U.S.
Could be.
*heh* As a commenter had remarked on one of Krugman’s threads… I vote Dem local only. Nationally, they can all eat shit. Damn Skippy…! ;-)
There is your problem. Our elites no longer make anything. They are rentiers who live by extracting rents (sucking the value out of) from the economy. They have become essentially parasites which are killing the host.
Love your work.
Here it is via huffpo – Over 1400 Millionaires paid zero taxes in 2009
Can relate.
It was 1,470 of the 235,413 taxpayers earning $1 million or more in 2009. Those are billionaires to make that much income.
*wow* All the Precious Metals, and, even Big Oil took hits today…!
Great description. I like the picture that it puts in my head. Right now they are something like kudzu.
you kwik draw McGraw
On planet Wal-Mart, well made products made from quality material by skilled craftsmen is just pissing money away–but cheap crap made from toxic waste by stoop labor and hawked by a rented star is the key to the corporate jet.
Twain, you are a fuzzy headed librul /s.
I plead guilty. :)
That one stuck with me.
Thanks for a great discussion, everyone. I’m going to head off to bed so I can get up early enough to get in some mowing tomorrow morning.
Watch your pockets, the thieves are feeling more and more bold.
think about it
the whole WW2 was Hitler marching across Europe,stealing everything of value that wasnt nailed down
they all STEAL,and steal BIG
G’nite Jim !
Then again, so was Adam Smith.
this one with me
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/business/sales-of-luxury-goods-are-recovering-strongly.html
Night! Sleep well,
Kinda like a steel spike through the temples…
nite…O
Okay, a quick pop quiz before I black out, what effect do the wages have of a manufactured item on its sales price?
That, too. Another manifestation of the effects of our bloated, parasitic rentier elites capturing ever more of the wealth and income in the system. They really will not rest until they have it all and the rest of us are out on the streets begging for crumbs from their tables.
Good night, Jim. Thanks again.
They need to remember King Midas.
sociopaths,as i said….they think differently
night *poof*
Depends on who you ask (and whether you are talking about wages for productive labor or executive compensation). They contribute significantly to the cost of making the item (generally the largest portion), but there are several ways to deal with that, including taking a smaller profit margin or raising prices and passing it on to the consumer.
they must be shamed and condemned in no uncertain terms,as it used to be a SHAME to be a war profiteer
poooof
Nobody said they were very bright or capable of long term thinking.
Night! Drive careful.
Time for me to toddle off as well. Take care all.
morpheus calls me too…watch your cookie jar/pockets
Pleasant Dreams to all the Sleepers…! *g*
as a mere aside:
did president obama state publicly and loudly that the republican party’s debt-ceiling-arm-wrestle triggered all this market sell-off?
did president obama properly scold the fickle and always self-preserving corporate media for missing the big story of the debt-ceiling fiasco – how federal (and state) debt retrenchment at this particular moment would increase unemployment and seriously further debilitate a very weak u.s. economy?
If King Chaos has his way we will lose our SS regardless of where it is located. He is probably already planning his speech to tell everyone how saddened he is that this must happen. May he rot in hell for selling out the american people.
CNBC’s Ron Insana has been denouncing austerity lately when they check in with him. Not saying he’s on our side, rather if a stock market fanatic is starting to rant in a desperate manner against austerity for the people and socialism for the corporations and banks, you know we’re f#cked.
Asia markets all down. About 4% so far. Tomorrow will get horrible I am sure.
I read somewhere that one broker said that fore every buy order he got – he got 100 sell orders.
As Kelly would shout, Halllooooo!
*G*
Bless you n yer musings Jim.
Hug em close n love em like the dickens Mr. White.
It’s gonna get fuglier n we want it to be, before it’s over.
LeSIGH.
Interesting . . . . Pups at each other, and I’m not involved.
*G*
Just wait til the Euro markets start to open…!
Best explanation or description of the current crisis: John Atcheson, “The Beast is Starved”
He feels we are headed for a depression.
Bush’s biggest regret as President was he did not Privatize SS its seems you can’t stop some men from running toward their own destruction. Karl Rove’s fix Bush’s legacy project must be shitting bricks along with worrying about their own ass any bets that crowd all bet on margin to get in on the bank bailout before anyone knew it was a sure thing?
Any bets they had hedgefunds invest their cash using leverage??
The finance sector took the biggest hit and Friday looks like it will be worse. Bwahahaha!
They say a problem won’t get fixed until it effects the rich and powerful and they can’t ignore it anymore.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050828/news_lz1b28sept.html
If investors fear a crash well they won’t invest again till October just to be safe they will short stocks but not buy them unless Obama does something huge.
The Fed is out of tricks but what can Obama do his worldview won’t let him see Lefty solutions?
Answer tax cuts for the rich huge ones:(
“Remember when Little Georgie B wanted to get rid of Social Security and replace it with private stock investments? ‘
yes I do! im feelling kind of warm and fuzzy about the memory of it after watching little Barry 0 try to get rid of it and replace it with nothing
That’s a very important point that I wish I had mentioned.
Obama is confident that Wall st is cure for our ills….he is buddies with these guys and he knows they are true leaders who want what is best for Americans! So stop worrying and join the Barrybus while it drives off the cliff! Hey Jamie will be there clean up the mess!
Pouting Baby! Jim White!
You’ve got to be kidding. Even with the rotten market performance over the last 3-4 years, and taking every other big correction into account over the decades, I’d still be miles better off if I’d invested my own FICA. And that’s before you consider that what I’m really going to get out of SS is zero. The market would have been better even if I were going to get the benefits I was promised from SS.