Stupid as Fuck

I haven't quoted Teh Loon in a while..

The other day my brother called me on the telphone to ask me an economic question. He asked, "Are we heading into a recession like all of the newpapers and news channels are saying?"

I answered with a quick, "No."
[...]
The Stock Market has remained strong, with a few bumps in the road, but for the most part remaining healthy and breaking numerous records for volume trading in 2007. All of this, of course, comes to the surprise to those that wish to attempt to blame a poor economy on George W. Bush. Problem is, aside from the housing slowdown, the enonomy is strong, and apparently the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 are a large part of the stable economy.

Doug is one of those people that think they are good at everything. He's an economist you know.. because trading volume = stock values.. right? right?

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve, confronted with a global stock sell-off fanned by increased fears of a recession, slashed a key interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point on Tuesday and indicated further rate cuts were likely.

But teh stocks!!!

NEW YORK - Wall Street plunged at the opening of trading Tuesday, propelling the Dow Jones industrials down about 300 points after an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve failed to assuage investors fearing a recession in the United States.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Hurt by the deepening credit crisis, Bank of America Corp. said Tuesday its fourth-quarter earnings fell 95 percent, and Wachovia Corp. reported its earnings tumbled 98 percent.

Net income at Bank of America, the nation's second-largest bank, dropped to $268 million, or 5 cents per share, in the three months ended Dec. 31 from $5.26 billion, or $1.16 per share, a year ago.

And as Atrios sez..

How's that plan for putting social security into the hands of Citibank, Merrill Lynch and the other financial ‘wizards’ as President Bush had so strongly urged looking now?

It's hard to fathom how it's possible for assholes like Doug to be wrong, over and over and over. It's really a talent I suppose.

But hey.. word is that Chimpy is going to send me 800 bucks.. That's going to fix everything!! Right?

And finally.. classic Doublass V. Gibbs...

As for those bad mortgages? Serves those consumers right. The bad mortgages were balloon-rate mortgages, which, after 5 years, blossom into a higher rate. Buyers receive these mortgages for the extremely low opening rate, hoping their income will rise enough to carry the balloon rate later when it arrives. Unfortunately, this type of budgeting is akin to gambling, and a lot of gamblers lost all at once this time around. So, now the greedy lending companies that gave these loans are going out of business, and a record number of people are losing their houses. The people out of a house, I am sure, have learned their lessons, and the houses being foreclosed upon are now being bought at a lower price by other consumers, allowing more people to qualify for a house, which in turn is beginning to stir the economy in a good direction.

Put asside that a lot of people have lost everything.. let's also remember that thousands and thousands of people have lost their jobs.. and investors have lost their investments.

Serves them right!!!11

The great thing about assholes like Doug is.. you can read them, and it's safe to do (or assume) the exact opposite, because they are constantly wrong about everything. That's the conservative way.

/update

Global stock markets extended their shakeout into a second day Tuesday, plunging amid worries that a possible U.S. recession will cause a worldwide economic slowdown.

The dramatic declines in Asia and Europe were expected to spread to Wall Street, where stock index futures were already down sharply hours before the trading day began.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index, the benchmark for Asia's biggest bourse, was down 5.1 percent in afternoon trading after dropping 3.9 percent Monday.

Trading was halted in India when the Sensex index plummeted 9.75 percent within minutes of opening. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index dropped 8 percent by midday after diving 5.5 percent the day before.

"Unless we get some positive 'shock effects,' such as drastic measures from the U.S. government, there is almost no hope for a recovery in stocks," said Koji Takeuchi, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute in Tokyo.

/update 2

A real economist explains why this sort of bullshit happens, what the real bullshit was in the past.. and you can expect that with more "conservative leadership" the bullshit will happen again.

Well, I’d say that the great failure of the Clinton administration — more important even than its failure to achieve health care reform, though the two failures were closely related — was the fact that it didn’t change the narrative, a fact demonstrated by the way Republicans are still claiming to be the next Ronald Reagan.

It makes me crazy when people continue to spew the same old tired bullshit narratives that they hear from the talking heads on the teevee.

The reason progressives were upset, when Obama appeared to compliment Reagan at the expense of Clinton, was that it was total horseshit. Ronald Reagan sucked.. spent the last few years slipping into dementia.. and even this narrative that he "won the coldwar" is totally bullshit. If not for Mikhail Gorbachev, Russia would still be Soviet.