Another month’s numbers are out….
November inflation was .1%, proving October being 0% inflation wasn’t a fluke.
Yearly wage gains are still well over 4%.
Yes, prices are up slightly, wages are up more. Earning power is skyrocketing.
At the same time, stock markets hit record highs today and the fed stopped raising interest rates….edit: in fact they’re hinting that they plan 3 rate cuts in the next year.
Tell me again what’s bad about the economy bob?

Two words: Wraparound Services

Look it up.

It can be used for more than just youth. I facilitated that model for 6 years to great success. Unfortunately, John Oliver is right when it comes to funding - you can't keep great therapists on board doing good work when your budget is constantly getting cut due to Medicare reimbursement rate cuts.

The private sector (i.e. private group and individual practices) really are the ones picking up the slack from community mental health agencies funding and therapist attrition issues.

If reimbursement rates to the private sector from private insurance starts going down even more than it already is then we're all screwed.

>> ^Sarzy:

>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^Sarzy:
>> ^dannym3141:
Please don't be ruined by PG bullshit this time! Last one could have been so much better but for trying to get a good certificate.

Some f-bombs and squibs would have been nice, but their absence was the least of that movie's concerns. It was bad for reasons that ran far deeper than the lack of an R rating.

Respectfully disagree sir, though i accept your opinion. A desire to improve rating doesn't just mean they take away squibs and f-words.

The decision to make the movie PG-13 instead of R was made after production was well underway. There actually is an R rated cut on the DVD. It's the same movie, with CGI blood and more profanity. I don't have time to get into it right now, but that movie sucked because John McClane wasn't the same guy we knew from the first one (and the two sequels, to a lesser extent), the overblown action was generic and unexciting, and because of Len Wiseman's slick, uninspired direction, among other things. Again, the lack of an R rating sucked but it was the least of that movie's concerns.


Hindsight is a wonderful thing though, and it's very easy to watch a "cut" on a dvd (which is probably just money for old rope anyway) and think "hey this stinks too".

I say that the desire to hold back a bit can affect the flow and atmosphere which are quite hard things to quantify. I'll agree to disagree though.

>> ^dannym3141:

>> ^Sarzy:
>> ^dannym3141:
Please don't be ruined by PG bullshit this time! Last one could have been so much better but for trying to get a good certificate.

Some f-bombs and squibs would have been nice, but their absence was the least of that movie's concerns. It was bad for reasons that ran far deeper than the lack of an R rating.

Respectfully disagree sir, though i accept your opinion. A desire to improve rating doesn't just mean they take away squibs and f-words.


The decision to make the movie PG-13 instead of R was made after production was well underway. There actually is an R rated cut on the DVD. It's the same movie, with CGI blood and more profanity. I don't have time to get into it right now, but that movie sucked because John McClane wasn't the same guy we knew from the first one (and the two sequels, to a lesser extent), the overblown action was generic and unexciting, and because of Len Wiseman's slick, uninspired direction, among other things. Again, the lack of an R rating sucked but it was the least of that movie's concerns.

>> ^boblobblaw:
Kudlow reminds me of Phil Hartman.


I couldn't stop thinking that! Is this the guy that Phil Hartman modeled for his "anchorman" persona, or was it the other way around?

Someone needs to ask McCain if the fundamentals of the economy are still strong even after this↓

US government rescues insurer AIG (Sept 16, 2008)

The US Federal Reserve has announced an $85 billion (£48 billion) rescue package for AIG, the country's biggest insurance company, to save it from bankruptcy.

The plan involves a loan in return for an 80% public stake in the company.

The rescue follows Monday's collapse of US investment giant Lehman Brothers, which caused share prices to plummet across the world's financial markets.

Meanwhile, Barclays said it had reached a deal to buy Lehman's US investment banking and capital markets businesses.

The rescue of AIG - which has a trillion dollars in assets and insures bank loans around the world - prompted a shares rally in Asia, with Japan's market up 2% in early trading.

The board of the Federal Reserve made the decision "with the full support of the Treasury Department", it said in a statement, adding that the secured loan included conditions designed to protect "the interests of the US government and taxpayers".

Emergency meeting

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson refused to bail out Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest investment bank in the US.

Correspondents say AIG's demise would have a far greater impact on the world's financial markets than Lehman's.

Many banks and investment funds in the US and around the world would lose their insurance cover at a time when defaults on payments are likely to rise.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the central bank, the Federal Reserve, met senior members of Congress late on Tuesday to brief them on the bailout.

The plan calls for the government to seize up to 80% of AIG and remove its management, similar to the way it took control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

US President George W Bush welcomed the package, and the White House said the deal was made "in the interest of promoting stability in financial markets and limiting damage to the broader economy".

Market slump

Meanwhile, the Fed has left interest rates unchanged at 2%. The BBC's Matthew Price in New York said the bank had clearly decided an interest rate cut would not help to alleviate the short-term financial crisis.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones rallied on Tuesday, closing 141 points higher having on Monday suffered its worst day's trading since the September 2001 attacks on the US.

But leading indices across Europe and Asia ended lower, with banking shares being the worst hit. Shares in Britain's biggest savings group, HBOS, initially dropped 35% before closing 22% down.

Central banks around the world responded by carrying out emergency measures to keep markets liquid.

The Bank Of England and the Bank of Japan injected £20bn (25bn euros; $36bn) and 2.5 trillion yen ($24.1bn; £13bn) respectively into their money markets.

The extra funding came as the interest rates at which banks lend to each other rocketed - as they did at the start of the credit crunch.

>> ^flavioribeiro:
>> ^J-Rova:
He's questioning why the government gave up the ability to control the money supply. And if you want "checks and balances," The Federal Reserve consists of an entire board - not just Ben Bernanke.
Do you know who controls the Fed? The Fed is not a public institution. It's a cartel of private banks.


We shall consult the omnipotent Wikipedia:
"'The Federal Reserve System is not "owned" by anyone and is not a private, profit-making institution. Instead, it is an independent entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects."

Cartel? Like drugs? Oil? :-P And of course it's a bunch of banks! They have all the information! Would you rather it be a collection of... say, hospitals, making all the same decisions? I can picture that - "Well, Mr. Bernanke, there were an unusually high number of influenza cases this year, sooo ahh, let's see.... ahh, fuck it - we recommend contracting the money supply to prevent inflation." ???? HAH!

Since mid-2007, Bernanke has been hiking rates for people who were solvent, and lowering for the ones who were not.

Hiking and lowering rates at the same time, for specific people? I'm not sure where you got that.

Just recently Citibank had to borrow billions from Abu Dhabi at a 14% interest rate because they needed long term funds so desperately that borrowing from the Fed wasn't an option. Yesterday (Feb 14th) the Fed received a request of $268 BILLION dollars in TOMO/TAF (read: short-term) loans from depository institutions (source). That's more than 1/3 of the Fed's whole open market reserves, so only $66 billion were given out. Since the beginning of January, the big banks no longer have their own reserves. Their current reserves are composed of cash borrowed from the Fed.

People borrowed money they couldn't afford to borrow, and lenders allowed them to do it. They all miscalculated some of the risks involved, and it finally started biting some people in the ass. This is NOT the Fed's fault! The part about the reserves is one of the mechanisms the Fed has at its disposal to manage the problem.
I'm not denying that there is indeed a problem (housing market bubble, etc). I'm only denying that the Fed is to be held accountable for the problem; however, they have the means to fix it. Hence, the drastic interest rate cuts somewhat recently, etc.

Everything connected to the Fed is secretive, and not even members of Congress with the highest clearance can find out what's going on.
Is this bad?

I must admit, I wasn't prepared for the amount of scrutiny drawn from a rant on the absurdity of the ideas in this video.

I wonder how much Bernanke can actually do. The only instrument the Fed has to immediately act on the stock market is the interest rate. But back in December, Bernanke and everyone else knew that cutting interest rates would promote inflation and another credit bubble. So he decided against it, just like the European Central Bank decided this week.

But the market tanked, because traders don't give a damn about inflation. Actually, they can't even care about long term perspectives, because if they did the market would crash. They want to see stocks rising in the short term, and it's up to Bernanke to keep the music going.

Back in December, Bernanke made the responsible choice of controlling inflation and preventing further long-term damage to the economy. Bernanke was hoping Bush's tax rebate proposal would have some effect, but it didn't. On MLK day, world markets took a dive and the forecast for the next day was a historic plunge on the Dow. It was already being called the Black Tuesday.

So Bernanke and the board of the Fed convened and decided on a 0.75% emergency rate cut, because the way they saw it, they could either have a crash right then or worry about the dollar some other day. They decided to postpone the problem, and made the cut.

It worked for a day. The Dow closed lower, but it didn't crash. On Wednesday, it degenerated during trading hours and it was pretty obvious that traders were going short. In came the PPT, the Plunge Protection Team, also known as the Working Group on Financial Markets. Created by an executive order by Reagan, these guys give recommendations to the private sector for "enhancing the integrity, efficiency, orderliness, and competitiveness of [United States] financial markets and maintaining investor confidence". No one knows what the hell they talk about in their meetings, no one has access to the minutes and they respond to no one -- not even to Congress.

The rally on Wednesday afternoon had all the signs of concerted stock manipulation originating in the futures market. The rise started tentative at best, but the index was propped up by very well timed buying over an essentially perfect trendline. The first leg of the rise scared the folks who were short, but a lot held on. But they couldn't handle the second leg, closed their positions and made the stocks surge up with incredible volume.

The panic is over, at least for now. But the market's pricing in a 0.5% cut for the Fed's next meeting, which happens in a week. If they don't cut, the markets will fall AGAIN.

Ron Paul said many times that the credit problem is like an addiction, and I can't think of a better description.