top 10... or 3... or whatever hidden tiger traps

The ECONOMY and YOU!!!!!!

1. Oil Dependency keeps us in the crosshairs. Fluctuations in the price of oil are a constant threat to a recovery path. Some say the past decade would have been better spent weaning ourselves off oil than spending those several trillion dollars in  waging war  nation building.

2. INSOLVENCY - in millions of mortgages and in various banks, except they are refusing to refi and hiding those mortgages from their official books to appear solvent as their Execs rape their institutions with record salaries and bonuses. SOUND FAMILIAR? Christopher Whalen harps on the subject non-stop, no one is listening.

3. GOP / Tea  Bagger  Party obstructionist Congress douchebags causing harm protecting Plutocrats while pretending to protect "real" Americans. What sane person would threaten sovereign default and then call the head of the Fed Treasonous when he uses his limited powers to mitigate the damage? An evil Texas Tea-Bagger Governor would, that's who.
That is like chopping some dudes arm off with a machete, throwing the arm in the river and then when a medic comes to wrap a bandage around the bloody stump, yelling at the medic, "hey, why are you hurting this dude?"
Ladie and Gentlemen, meet Rick Perry.
annnnnd RICK PERRY

Oil-pocalypse Now!

97 dollars a barrel

Gas will crest 4 bucks soon

bahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. That'll sink a potential recovery in nothing flat.

where in the f*ck are we all going?

size matters

I found some informative infographics on reuters.com of the gulf oil spill.

And through the magic of free clip art, made this new one:



That is the Empire State Building over there on the side... in the correct scale (height).

Sort of gives you an idea of why it might be so hard to cap. It is WAYYYY in the hell down there.

and by "change" what I meant was "no change"

Squelching uncomfortable fact in favor of political expediency is still business as usual under the Obama Administration.

Krugman: The 3rd Depression

Krugman:

"We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/opinion/28krugman.html

unemployment rising

I got nothing snarky to add. This is all pretty clear.

Below is a comment from a post at the James Pethokoukis blog at Reuters - 12 reasons unemployment is going to (at least) 12 percent

I’ve had businesses for 30 years.

This is all very simple. Businesspeople are not stupid. They aren’t hiring because:

1. They don’t know what tax increases are coming.

2. They don’t know what new burdensome regulations are coming.

3. They don’t know what changes to the health care system are coming, and if perhaps they will be responsible for everyone’s COBRA or similar for years.

4. They don’t know if it will be harder to fire people in the future.

5. They don’t know if every employee will be allowed to join a union, increasing costs and headaches.

6. They don’t know what new procedures will be invented to upend the bond markets completely, overturning centuries of settled law.

7. They don’t know if Washington will unilaterally cut their compensation.

8. They don’t know if cap-and-trade will double their energy costs.

And on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

I can’t imagine hiring anyone until all this nonsense shakes out. I wouldn’t be surprised to see unemployment above 13%.

I can hold off generating taxable activity a lot longer than Democrats can retain Congress, that’s for damn sure.
- Posted by Chester White

why are they shooting at these cans?

SOMEBODY HATES THESE CANS!!!

Wowzers!

The federal deficit is now $11.9 trillion.

What the Frack!

How close are we to "Game Over bitches" ?

National To Do List, 09/14/2009

1. Fix decades-long broken Health Care System

2. Bring back Glass-Steagall Act, appoint National Finance Cop and other Wall Street and Finance reforms

3. Start national debate on Social Security reform.

4. Enact further temporary tax cuts to help growth and prevent Double Dip Recession. Warn of needed tax hikes starting in 2-3 years.

5. End ill advised, artificially induced war in Iraq.

6. Get in big uproar over Kanye West's drunken MTV Video Music Awards behavior.