Home sales plunge 27 pct. to lowest in 15 years

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of previously occupied homes plunged last month to the lowest level in 15 years, despite the lowest mortgage rates in decades and bargain prices in many areas.

July jobs report renews concerns over a stalled recovery

The nation's economic recovery continued to sputter in July as employers kept shedding jobs and 181,000 discouraged workers dropped out of the labor force, according to a government report released Friday.

The nation's unemployment rate remained at 9.5 percent for the month, the Labor Department said, as private employers added a modest 71,000 jobs. But that increase was overwhelmed by the loss of 202,000 government jobs, including 143,000 temporary census positions.

The failure of HAMP | Analysis & Opinion

"Being in a trial modification if you don't get a permanent modification is worse than having not been in a trial modification. Period," said Diane Thompson, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center. Worse yet, people "may have a hard time finding alternative housing because some renters check credit scores," she said.

Bills are only a means to an ends and bills that don't do enough (stimulus), don't start till 2014 (HCR), or don't solve the problem (Wall Street) may look like wins on Rahm's scorecard, but they aren't.

Keeping score by (counting) bills instead of whether those bills help people's lives is like keeping score in a football game by (counting) first downs. That world view of scoring would suggest both teams earning 17 first downs meant it was a fairly balanced game, while everyone in the stands viewed it as the most one sided game in NFL history. First downs are great, but they are only a means to an ends, much like bills.

I don't care how many first downs my team gets if my team doesn't score. And I don't much cheer if my team lines up to kick field goals when the game is so far out of hand that what we need are touchdowns to win.

Yes, Rahmbama has gotten some bills through. But those bills were watered down to the point of being nearly useless. As I said elsewhere:

A stimulus that isn't big enough to do the job only serves to discredit Democrats and liberalism.

The health care reform bill isn't reform. It cements our busted system of private for profit insurance with the rule of law and makes the federal government the insurance company's bill collector.

Finance reform is a joke. They didn't pass reform that has the capacity to do anything at all to stop another meltdown...which is why Russ Feingold voted against it. (Feingold did not want people to be lulled into a false sense of security on the basis of a bill that provides none.)

Bu...I will grant you that the level of chutzpah is stratospheric.

Yesterday, I was talking with my brother about the MD gubernatorial election; he asked me, "who's going to put more money in my pockets - Democrats or Republicans?"

I opened my mouth, and promptly closed it.  I think I said, "Uh...well..." before saying what I realized is how I feel now: "both parties are more interested in taking money out of your pockets one way or another - neither of them care about you - it's all about them."

A lot of people simply don't know any other dynamic than "Republicans bad - Democrats good," and they are going to defend Democrats even if they have to sound delusional to do so.  

I can't feel sorry for them, because they are enabling and justifying or denying the real pain and real suffering that is being experienced out here in the real world by real people as a consequence of egregiously bad policy.  And for what?  What would be worth that?  Ambition, ego, immaturity, unwillingness to admit error, access?  

This strikes me as one of the most ridiculous opinions I have seen.

surely the opinion "the bush economic agenda will lead to great national prosperity" must rank higher than this one, in terms of ridiculous? right? anyone? beuller, beuller?

to be fair, obama is not now, nor ever has been, an FDR. FDR was a democrat, made no bones about it, saw what needed to be done, and had no compunction about riding roughshod over republicans, to get his agenda accomplished.

What's ailing the left and many others who'd had high hopes for this admin is the Expectation Gap -- the major difference between not only what O seemed to promise in the campaign but what was available for the taking early on, and what he meekly settled for.