At least I am sort of used to betrayal in politics - not quite at this scale which is what I think is really bothering me - but for someone who has no experience in watching this stuff and who "believed" enough for the first time in  their lives to participate - the goings on of late, I believe, have real potential to create a fairly epic backlash.

The really Machiavellian and darkest read on this situtation would be to say that on some level the politicians in power now captured this broad group of people's imagination with the ultimate intention of dumping them almost immediately after they won the power.  Because if you are a politician, why in the hell would you want a the unwashed masses giving you direction on what you're going to do while in office?  I think a lot of these people would be much, much happier if the American public were tuned out - so they could do whatever they want without scrutiny.  That's why so many of them hate the blogs.  All of a sudden they have to answer for their actions all the time rather than during the month before an election.

Why are we so concerned with job loss? (none / 0) (#25)
by Jlvngstn on Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 05:19:04 PM EST

when it is job creation we should be focusing on?  Job creation gets 5 minutes a night on the news and job loss gets 18 of the 24 hours.
I realize there are multiple facets of this recession but it seems to me that conceding job loss while simultaneously talking bank bailouts and nationalization is counter-intuitive. Lower employment devalues those assets more rapidly and demotivates people to pay their upside down mortgages and creates walk away scenarios no matter how well the foreclosure savior is structured.  
The majority of americans cannot sustain themselves longer than 6 months on unemployment without something breaking.
Lots of ink and air about job loss.  If this were an election year we would be seeing a hell of a lot more political capital expended in the interest of flowing capital.

7 million new jobs in ten years (5.00 / 3) (#4)
by Jlvngstn on Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 05:05:43 PM EST

with 10 million people unemployed.  It will take a year to get any of the programs rolling.  In the meantime, hundreds of thousands more will lose their jobs.  Hell, W created 4.6 million jobs in 8 years.  'Course he lost more than 2 million.
We are at the precipice of a very long and deep recession unless they start treating job creation like a national emergency.  The impending snowball effect of the job losses of this year alone over the next 9-12 months will be severe.
Great speech but not impressed.

by Jlvngstn on Tue Sep 23, 2008 at 01:30:46 PM EST

why you have a "diverse portfolio" of solutions.  It does more harm than good for the following reasons:

1.    Too much capital into the market with little or no return (short term definitely and long term most probable)
   
2.    It does not address the most historically consistent recession killer which is jobs creation.  If you have 700 billion to throw at bad paper, you can certainly split that into immediate distribution for infrastructure.
   
3.    The banks can shovel as much of their garbage to the fed, and still not resume lending at any sufficient level.
   
4.    The fed and int'l banks have pumped in 330 billion into the market to maintain liquidity and just a few days later they are asking for 700 billion.  700 billion is not going to fix anything.
   
5.    Small businesses, which employ nearly a third of all americans will suffer the greatest in the down turn of the economy pushing orders up the chain to bigger companies who will increase employee productivity without hiring those displaced at small businesses.  Small businesses notoriously are under-collateralized and  historically have much more difficulty securing credit in unstable economies.
   
6.    There is an inequitable distribution of loss at the expense of the taxpayer.  The taxpayer is now stuck with incredible debt, high unemployment and strict lending guidelines. which leads to foreclosure and bankruptcy and after this bailout they will receive no sympathy....  
   

..To get and keep the economy moving they MUST address the employment situation.  That money will be circulated quite quickly via job distribution and a smaller bailout tides the banks over while the american worker does what they have done for decades:  take another job and pay down their bills....

Obama and Congress are heading the same way.

They want to be liberal, then they don't, then they do, on and on, crap and more crap.

the democratic party for too long has had one motto when it comes to their base and progressives in general: no matter how much we screw over our supporters they have no choice but to vote for us, the democrats

The fiasco we've been witnessing is a scenario destined for defeat. Baucus in the employ of the healthcare industry along with his small red state others is making our president look like a fool. And to say the least the pack of dithering Democrats behind the Blue Dogs are in disarray.

With Obama, AWOL,MIA, and looking for political cover, the healthcare fiasco is like a good script with a bad director and a terrible cast.

In other words, it's a flop. The republicans controlled and framed the debate. The meme of Death Squad reverberated among the ill informed and no voice was forthcoming from our leader.  Where was the Rapid Response team of Obama's campaign team?

Silvertongued Obama was suddenly hard to understand on the few ocasions he deemed it necessary to directly address healthcare.  No one knows what he stands for. Is he 100% behind the public option? A little bit behind? What? His
speeches were vague and lacked focus.

Meanwhile the democrats looked and sounded like cowards or conservative repubs, out of control idiots looking for political cover, and oh yes, a large group of Dems said absolutely nothing.They are just waiting for the midterms, the cowards.

We [me too] voted for this circus of wimps. Corporate healthcare money has trumped the day. Pelosi would say one thing,Baucus another, Rockefeller another, Reid said nothing, Obama said nothing and just dithered and waited to see this play out. The Marx Brothers on steroids.

So a Democratic president with huge political capital, and a majority of Democrats in both Houses have shown us that they cannot govern. At least not without mayhem and making blithering fools of themselves.  And the president hasn't done much to clarify & move healthcare forward.

And the rottenest thing of all? The nail in the Dems coffin?  They have abandoned a great opportunity to create jobs programs where there is crippling need. Where is the vision, the change, the compassion we were promised by Obama?
Without a  bold comprehensive program that addresses unemployment meaningfully, this administration is an illusion.

People are hurting and there is ASAP need on unemployment, but no one has addressed this meaningfully, and pressident Obama has not forged a master plan to immediately address and focus on putting our people to work as FDR did.

Yep, a golden opportunity was lost.

We [me too] voted for this circus of wimps.

Well I didn't vote for Obama but I did vote downticket Dems. And I honestly thought--I should say "hoped"--that Obama would prove me wrong and be even half as good as everyone assured me he would be. He hasn't even reached the very low bar some of us set for him.