Instead, Mr. Obama chose to let House Democrats write the bill, and they did what comes naturally: They cleaned out their intellectual cupboards and wrote a bill that is 90% social policy, and 10% economic policy. (See here for a case study.) It is designed to support incomes with transfer payments, rather than grow incomes through job creation.
(h/t Darleen)
Obama Bans Non-Union Contractors From Government Contracts
Described as an act that discriminates against 84% of the work force, Obama signed an executive order that“repeals Executive Order 13202, that prohibited federal agencies and recipients of federal funding from requiring contractors to sign union-only project labor agreements (PLAs) as a condition of performing work on federal and federally funded construction projects.”
Choice.
It’s just so banana republic and third worldy how Baracky is handling this. Tacky fearmongering with no dignity whatsoever. Panic! I don’t think Baracky understands that a president is opposed to instill confidence. I can’t imagine any person or company committing any significant amount of private moneys to a business venture with this flighty little dirty socialist who is supposed to be the President screaming Fire! in the crowded little theater that is our economy, Dan. It’s surreal.
I hope you read the link about the Milwaukee schools charter system, and how filthy socialist Baracky’s trying to make sure that no underserved youth go to private schools that might not be on board with his propagandizing as education agenda.
Because goodness knows, how you feel about polar bears is more important and rigorous than quadratic equations. Fucker.
I have not read that yet. I need a cigarette first I think.
The Wall Street Journal and New Corp. managed to lose $6,400,000,000 last quarter:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/earnings/2009-02-05-news-corp_N.htm
Why should we take financial advice from them again?
Oh, that’s right, cause they say things we agree with!
Wow.
Care to compare that on a percentage basis to the NYT? I mean, if you know how.
“Everyone agrees that some kind of fiscal stimulus might help the economy, and that running budget deficits is appropriate in a recession”
If the WSJ op-ed page says it, it must be true.
“It is designed to support incomes with transfer payments, rather than grow incomes through job creation.”
Transfer payments support job creation to the extent that they transfer from those with lower marginal propensities to consume to those with higher marginal propensities to consume. Which is why money spent on food stamps and unemployment insurance are good stimulus: they get spent right away.
“Because goodness knows, how you feel about polar bears is more important and rigorous than quadratic equations.”
If you’re Bill Ayers it does….
And what happened to that whole Outrage! and breathless, hand-wringing discussion of the “climate of fear” artifice that Booooooosh!, Rove!, and the eeeeeevil RethugliKKKans were allegedly using to scare us all into rubber-stamping their policies…
I mean, wouldn’t all except the most partisan recognize that, if that were indeed true, then isn’t Obama doing the same thing vis-a-vis the economy..?
meya
because those without food stamps would just, like, stop eatting or something.
Really, meya? Then why not a larger percentage of tax cuts?
“because those without food stamps would just, like, stop eatting or something.”
Or stop spending food stamps. Which is the point of stimulus: spending.
“Really, meya? Then why not a larger percentage of tax cuts?”
Really what? Tax cuts to who? people with higher or lower marginal propensities to consume?
“The Wall Street Journal and New Corp. managed to lose $6,400,000,000 last quarter:
Why should we take financial advice from them again?”
I don’t know parsnip…But along the same lines…
Obama appointed Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE, to his economic advisory board. Aside from the obvious propagandistic conflicts of interest, due to the fact that GE owns NBC and it’s cable subsidiaries; why should Obama, and by extension the nation, be relying on the advice of a man whose company has lost 2/3 of it’s value under his leadership-not to mention that they did business with Iran up until this year!
How about it?
Don’t be willfully stupid, meya. Food stamps don’t buy high-margin capital goods. They buy Blue Bunny ice cream sammiches and if you’re really lucky you can get the strawberry ones and if you did I would hope you would share. But upping Blue Bunny ice cream sammich production ain’t gonna grow the economy. Same with cabbages and those cheese singles things and that ground turkey stuff that comes in a tube and that pizza you used to put in the oven but mostly you stopped doing that shortly after you graduated college. Let’s try thinking outside the give money to the dirty socialists’ constituents box, ok class?
why the stalinist fetish for capital goods? You think consumer spending isn’t ‘stimulus’?
Your plan is, give money to the poor, indirectly. Goodness knows, you wouldn’t want to have them get it directly, because you don’t trust them to use it properly.
Cigarrette? I need a very stiff drink. Perhaps two.
I.e., by growing their dependency on the public sector, which knows what’s good for them.
GE made a profit last, Bob:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/market-overview/update–ge-profit–pct-meets-expectations/
Sounds like this guys’ a financial wizard if he pulled that off in this economy, right?
“Your plan is, give money to the poor, indirectly. Goodness knows, you wouldn’t want to have them get it directly, because you don’t trust them to use it properly. ”
Food stamps and unemployment payments are pretty direct.
I said food stamps aren’t stimulus. I said buying capital goods was stimulus. There’s not a dichotomy between capital goods and consumer spending. For example, I am buying a bed later this year which will be one of the capital goods ones not a cheap one but it’s a gift for a friend but it won’t have anything at all to do with Baracky’s gay dipshit “stimulus” plan. See? I am more stimulative than Baracky’s legions of stimulative food stamp monkeys cause … oh, what’s that? It’s the clue phone. It’s for you, meya. THEY WERE GONNA EAT ANYWAY. But, you’re being really quiet about the strawberry sammiches and that means you got some and you just don’t want me to know. Jeez. I would never do that to you.
Is that what’s in the stimulus plan, meya? Food stamps and unemployment checks?
That’s REALLY stimulative.
I am buying a bed later this year which will be one of the capital goods ones
“Capital Goods” are things that are used in the production of other things, happy.
Unless your friend is planning on using your gift to produce something other than rug rats and a good night of sleep, it is a “Durable” good.
That’ll get all those unemployed people spending again, and banks forwarding them credit, and manufacturers growing their facilities. WTF?
I’m sure one-fifth of Americans need a vacation, and I’m sure they’ll take it at Disney World, too.
I guess my bed what I am going to buy would be more like a durable good, but the point is the same. Consumer goods are a big portion of the economy but a lot of that is just background noise. oh. Crap. alphie got that before I could post this. I am going to go smoke a cigarette for real now.
My fool-proof Barky-style plan for fixing the economy:
1) Give a government check for $1 trillion to every citizen (or, alternatively, raise the minimum wage to $1 trillion per hour).
2) We all retire and live in luxury for the rest of our lives, along with all our heirs, assigns, successors, employees, dependents, agents, licensees, devisees, and legatees.
What could go wrong with that?
My economic stimulus plan: buy a sofa. Or maybe a day bed. I’ve been working on this plan since last summer, so I’m sure it will come to fruition soon.
“I said food stamps aren’t stimulus. ”
Oh. Data says otherwise.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/29/news/economy/stimulus_analysis/index.htm
“For example, I am buying a bed later this year which will be one of the capital goods ones not a cheap one but it’s a gift for a friend but it won’t have anything at all to do with Baracky’s gay dipshit “stimulus†plan.”
haha. “gay.” How are you defining ‘capital good’? are those “gay” too?
Maya said'”Which is why money spent on food stamps and unemployment insurance are good stimulus: they get spent right away.”
So taking money from productive people and giving it to unproductive people is ‘stimulus’? You don’t see a problem with that equation?
um, what data?
Do these things act anything like the “climate models”?
whatever. I screwed the pooch on that one but I still know economics more better than that dipshit in the White House. Let’s move on, you and me, together. Ok this I hadn’t heard yet…
I think even meya knows economics more better than this treasonous hoochie I think.
pinched-faced traitorous weasels is what they are. ack. Smug-looking little dirty socialist collaborators, aren’t they?
“That’ll get all those unemployed people spending again, and banks forwarding them credit, and manufacturers growing their facilities. WTF?”
People aren’t losing their jobs because manufacturers don’t have enough facilities.
Meya isn’t very good at that reading comprehension thing, I’ve noticed.
“So taking money from productive people and giving it to unproductive people is ’stimulus’? You don’t see a problem with that equation?”
Increasing spending is stimulus. Spending it directly, like on HIV tests or putting in grass at the national mall is stimulus. Giving money to people who are going to spend it is also stimulus. The morality or ideology of the situation is different for different people. But stimulus it is.
“Do these things act anything like the “climate modelsâ€Â?”
You mean like where research says one thing and ideologues say another? We shouldn’t discount that effect.
The problem with a massive ‘do this now’ bill on infrastructure is geeting the stuff together to do anything.
To repave an existing highway and rebuild its bridges means that the materials have to be brought together – stone, sand, concrete, asphalt, rebars, beams, etc. Then you have to have the equipment to do that. And the people – not just heavy equipment operators, but surveyors, civil engineers, managers – everyone. even if you plan to replace a bridge, and you have the old plans for the bridge available, you have to survey to make sure nothing has changed since the old bridge was built.
Ramping up for Normandy took a year and a half, and that was without any ecological status reports or any lawsuits, and with the bulk of the US Army’s focus on that – not counting the bulk of the British Empire and Commonwealth’s focus on that. This stuff takes time, a lot of time, to get going.
Repave Cedar Street? Easy. Repave a hundred miles of I-94 while replcing bridges and overpasses? That ain’t so easy.
You’re a moron, meya. Sorry.
oh. Here is some discussion of how food stamp stimulus works. Basically you give monies to poor people and they spend it and then they go back to being regular old poor people again. Regular old poor people with a renewed appreciation for how cool it is to get free shit from dirty socialists what squander a trillion dollars in their first two weeks in office. I’m not sure if that’s helpful in the long run really.
The morality or ideology of the situation is different for different people.
That’s my favorite thing you said all day.
Comment by meya on 2/7 @ 3:55 pm
No.
Really, you might like to step away from the crack pipe more often.
no, I mean how they can’t seem to actually predict anything accurately on a regular basis. a prediction is not data.
“Increasing spending is stimulus. Spending it directly, like on HIV tests or putting in grass at the national mall is stimulus. Giving money to people who are going to spend it is also stimulus. The morality or ideology of the situation is different for different people. But stimulus it is.”
False logic, meya. You are forgetting the part where the money “Given” also has to be taken. For example, if you take $100 from person A and give it to person B, you have done nothing but shift money around. Also, let’s be real generous and say that the overhead on that little proposition was 30%. You have then taken $100 away to give to person B, keeping $30 for yourself. The net effect is the removal of $30 from the economy.
The government does not have money to give, meya. They create nothing.
Bet alphie takes economic news from the NYTimes?
Hehehehehehehehehe
“Really, you might like to step away from the crack pipe more often.”
Me, happyfeet, and ‘baracky’s gay stimulus,’ sitting round the crackpipe.
“False logic, meya. You are forgetting the part where the money “Given†also has to be taken”
That’s assuming that the velocity of money is constant. It doesn’t have to be. But lets assume it is. One idea is that we take from the future, when the economic cycle is better, and give to the present, when it is worst. That way we are acting in a purely counter-cyclical fashion — spending in recessions and paying off in upturns. Another is to actually take from those who aren’t spending and give it to those who are. That’s the point about transfer payments being stimulus. Now, I think these latter two effects can happen, but an important one to think about is the first one. The velocity idea. We shouldn’t assume it is constant. Because it isn’t.
They better fucking not. I hate crowded days down there.
How about not taking money from people what worked to earn it?
And how about not borrowing money that those working people will have to pay off later?
take from those who aren’t spending and give it to those who are
because, heaven forfend, that people who earn wages be allowed to CHOOSE how to spend their earnings.
Pfffft… I mean, all they did was EARN it. Ability to earn is NOTHING next to need. Need is the blank check, eh, meya?
Where did the Republicans “take” the $4,700,000,000,000 federal debt they racked up over the past 8 years “from,” Big D?
And why can’t Obama get a measly $800 billion from the same place?
I’m sure if we seized half of meya’s assets and then distributed it as we saw fit, it’d console itself with that comforting thought of all that stimulus that’ll happen.
Weird.
My “not spending” is called “saving”. You know, so that when I retired, I can afford to feed myself.
What makes it so difficult for people to understand that taking money from people means confiscating the time they have on the planet? Why are they so urgent to force people to work for others?
Or anouther way to put it meya is to borrow against the future. Not a good idea regarless of the political party proposing it. My biggest problem with GWB and the Republican party 2001-2006 was profligate spending.
One other part of your post dealt with “taking from those who are not spending and giving it to those who will.” A charitable definition of that would be theft. But, hey, I would be more than happy to spend your money, meya. In fact, if you have any savings you should just fork it over now. Since you’re not spending it and all.
Drat! Rob beat me to it.
Never hurts to reinforce the idea, Big D.
Hell, I’d take it a step further: Meya, my house needs cleaned. In lieu of taking your money, I’ll just ask you to volunteer to come over and clean it.
Yes, for free. Why not? You’re demanding the results of my time be handed to someone else, isn’t turn about fair play?
Maybe because the Congressional Budget Office agrees that O!bama’s Stimuloid Combo Crapolooza and Lardburger is actually harmful, imbecile.
That would be the Congressional Budget Office, whelp. As in Congressional Budget Office. Or, The Congressional Budget Office.
Not to mention government having no right peeing on the peeples.
“Or anouther way to put it meya is to borrow against the future. Not a good idea regarless of the political party proposing it.”
Lots of times it is ok to borrow against the future. A counter-cyclical situation is a potential one of those.
“. In fact, if you have any savings you should just fork it over now. Since you’re not spending it and all.”
My savings/assets are actually negative. My spending would go up if you took that away from me.
I dunno actually. I think I might stick with my intuition on the food stamps. I think the food stamps grow the economy idea is kind of dumb, really. The food stamp cheerleader in that report CNN cited is Mark Zandi and he won’t release his model for the report [pdf] … he’s become a big dirty socialist water carrier apparently. The WaPo did a nothing to see here move along puff piece on him that raised eyebrows. He’s also AP propagandist Jeannine Aversa’s little bitch. This guy says that sort of multiplier modeling is a lot dubious.
Congress. Was it Republican? Did the borderline-feculent H. Rod Paulson take a knee to Newt Gingrich?
How about for like 75 years, meya? Words have meaning.
“As in Congressional Budget Office. Or, The Congressional Budget Office.”
Here’s what they have to say about stimulus in general:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/89xx/doc8916/MainText.4.1.shtml#1074482
“Increasing spending is stimulus.”
So true, meya. Just ask Mugabe. Oh, wait.
“My savings/assets are actually negative. My spending would go up if you took that away from me.”
And we should listen to you? You can’t handle your own personal finances, but feel comfortable teaching us about economics? Not good on the micro, but an expert on macro? Is that about it?
AS usual JHo, your version of what the CBO said is nothing like what the CBO really said.
I remember when you righties had morals.
CBO estimates that the Senate legislation would raise output by between 1.4 percent and 4.1 percent by the fourth quarter of 2009; by between 1.2 percent and 3.6 percent by the fourth quarter of 2010; and by between 0.4 percent and 1.2 percent by the fourth quarter of 2011. CBO estimates that the legislation would raise employment by 0.9 million to 2.5 million at the end of 2009; 1.3 million to 3.9 million at the end of 2010; and 0.6 million to 1.9 million at the end of 2011.
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=205
What I don’t understand is that nobody listens to you right wing extremists anymore, so you are just lying to yourselves, right?
So why bother?
Human nature?
“My savings/assets are actually negative. My spending would go up if you took that away from me.â€Â
Wait, you’re saying that if we took away your Debt, then your spending would …….increase………?
Wow…………. That density curve is fast approaching neutron-star grade.
Also the U.S both imports a great deal of food and also much of what’s sold in grocery stores is made here but accrues to the ledgers of Nestles and Unilevers and results in the expatriation of profits. That works against GDP growth. I think getting a burst of economic activity by taking money from the credit markets and from people what actually pay taxes and handing the monies to poor people at the grocery store is pretty intuitively not going to build wealth. I think Mark Zandi is full of shit is what I think and someone’s either paying him or he just has a mad dirty socialist infatuation with Baracky’s big gay dipshit “stimulus.” That is what I think after giving it much thought.
You seem to listen to us, alphie.
That’s so sweet.
My version, dimwitted one?
meya,
“Increasing spending is stimulus.â€Â
Let’s say I’m a hobo and you walk up and give me $100 out of the goodness of your heart and with the best of intentions. Would you consider the $100 a “stimulus?”
Here’s the short answer:
“Yes, the money would be a ‘stimulus’ in the sense that I would be stimulated to go out and immediately buy $100 worth of cigarettes and Mad Dog 20/20. I would also be stimulated to seek you out again to see if you’d give me another $100.”
“Yes, the money would be a ’stimulus’ in the sense that I would be stimulated to go out and immediately buy $100 worth of cigarettes and Mad Dog 20/20. I would also be stimulated to seek you out again to see if you’d give me another $100.â€Â
You should rewrite that to read “I would also be stimulated to seek you out again in 4 years and vote for you so you can give me another $100 dollars you stole off a taxpayer.”
“You can’t handle your own personal finances”
I don’t see why we need to personalize this. I don’t think the WSJ is wrong or right because they’re losing money, but because of their arguments. But personally, I don’t think taking out student loans means one ‘can’t handle their personal finances.’ I’d expect it be a rather wise transaction — to borrow against your future income, and invest in an education in order to increase this future income. And one would expect this to show up as a negative in someone’s assets — unlike say, borrowing to buy a house.
“I don’t see why we need to personalize this.”
I didn’t. You did. While we’re on the subject, however, you are proposing to take my money and give it to someone who will spend it. Those are not my words, meya, they are yours. Taking what is mine is pretty damn personal to me.
What da gubmint take, they keep as they like. The cruption wit regards to da stinky pork package?
Bigger than any Iraq financial shenanagins baby.
Bigger than Bernie’s paltry $50 billion.
Bigger than Oil for Food.
We’re all fucked.
The Eagle has landed. It’s night time in America, and it’s as dark as hell’s asshole.
Oh you are still a non tax paying student and dependant, that explains quite a lot. How about getting a job in construction and working a couple 40 hour weeks. Then get your paycheck and come home and set the equivalent of 18 hours of your pay on fire. Another 2 hours of your workweek should go to a cause you despise, such as CPAC or donated to Rush Limbaugh. Then come back and tell us how you feel. You can think of it as a social experiment.
oh. Well don’t pay your student loan off, meya, as long as it has a fixed rate. Just service it as little as you can and then later you can pay it off painlessly in like a month with 2010 Baracky dollars. I wish I’d known we were gonna elect a dirty socialist dipshit what would spend a trillion dollars in his first two weeks cause I wouldn’t have paid off my stupid student loans if I knew that. Those were for real dollars I paid it off with what could have bought many swiss cake rolls and also a kind of nice car. I’m bummed out.
The Eagle has landed. It’s night time in America…
I think this is apt. (I cut off the last part cause it sort of had overtones.)
Folks, what meya and snotty propose, strictly on partisan grounds, is that we spend roughly one trillion dollars to achieve what is merely advertised — by Washington DC, no less, authors of this bit of wasteful thievery — as less than 2% growth each over three years.
Less than two percent growth. Those are the averages of snotty’s numbers. (This projected growth does not include inflation, which is currently running close to ten percent when you stop cooking the govt’s books on the subject.)
In other words, to spend $1,000,000,000,000 to, if we’re lucky, get us 2% of a $14T GDP, or roughly $28B for each of three years. Meaning, spending a trillion bucks to get back less than eight and a half percent of it.
Perhaps, meya and snotty, this is a factor the CBO just may have, with a hefty “non-partisan” tailwind, considered. As in maybe. And you wonder why we call Congress — and you — Democrats.
Spend a trillion, earn $84 billion. Over a 91% loss. Not including inflation.
The Democrats.
Honestly if you are a dependant you shouldn’t be able to fuckin vote. You do not even pay taxes dipshit so you can take your economic “advice” and shove it up your ass. Taking lessons from you on economics would be like me asking a bum advice on how to refinance my house.
Let me guess you are majoring in Government or Conflict Analysis and Resolution?
Those people in Maine can shove their lobsters up their ass I think.
save one for arlen “Scottish Law” spector
So snotty, how about that 91% loss? Did I get the zeroes right?
“I didn’t. You did. While we’re on the subject, however, you are proposing to take my money and give it to someone who will spend it.”
Oh. I see. You think that’s personal.How’s the intentionalism around here
these days?
“Oh you are still a non tax paying student and dependant, that explains quite a lot”
One of the problems of personalizing things is you don’t know much about the other person. My guess is i’m like most people with student loans: i’m in repayment. That’s how it works.
“Just service it as little as you can”
A few years ago I made the decision to refi to get a lower rate. My interest payments are tax deductible so that helps too. Thanks for the advice but i’m actually not allowed to refi again.
My asshole is bleeding wildly now, and my dick might just as well fall off. I’m prepping for the reaming our collective ass will take Monday. I must think about change and hope for a solution.
The options are as follows: lose as much consciousness as possible via drugs or multiple personality disorder, say “ta hell wit it” and off myself with a shard of some sort, or fight.
Fight like the “Don’t tase me bro!” guy.
Fight like my 5 month old Aussie Shepard.
Fight like Bonesteel fights his didactic nature.
Yep, WE ARE FUCKED.
oh. You’re right on track then just for real don’t be paying anything extra right now.
Not sure about the intentionalism, meya, but I think DC intends to flush over nine-tenths of this trillion. You? Those zeroes lining up?
“So snotty, how about that 91% loss? Did I get the zeroes right?”
I think the CBO is talking about net effect. Check into that.
I watched a bit of the Senate “debate” on CSPAN last night.
I don’t care where your allegiances are…
Those people are douchebags.
“Net effect”, meya? snotty says about 2% growth a year for three years. snotty quotes the CBO. The GDP is under $14T a year.
Something amiss there you can help us out on? I’m just a voter, here…
BTW, voting calls for knowing the subject, meya. You vote?
My Page Name
I need to figure out how to profit from this stimulus.
Maybe get the health insurance contract for ACORN…
GE? Look at the numbers beneath the numbers. Look for GE Capital to make a profit next year off of bailout $$$.
Look for consumer spending to go up under the stimulus, so maybe some folks will buy a new toaster and get a voucher for some subsidized lightbulbs.
The WSJ says:
{Speaking to a House Democratic retreat on Thursday night, Mr. Obama took on those critics. “So then you get the argument, well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? (Laughter and applause.) That’s the whole point. No, seriously. (Laughter.) That’s the point. (Applause.)”
So there it is: Mr. Obama is now endorsing a sort of reductionist Keynesianism that argues that any government spending is an economic stimulus. This is so manifestly false that we doubt Mr. Obama really believes it. He has to know that it matters what the government spends the money on, as well as how it is financed}
Truth is Obama likely has no idea that any of the above matters. Obama has been on the public dime his entire adult life.
He earned a windfall selling ghost written books to dupes.
His experience with “job creation” consists of dispensing $10-20 bills for the purposes of organizing people.
Now that he is rich from the all the money that fell out of the sky from his foray into ‘literature’ he probably has some household staff, so I have to give him props for giving jobs to any servants he has recently employed/acquired.
#81 “Oh. I see. You think that’s personal.How’s the intentionalism around here these days?”
#55 “My savings/assets are actually negative. My spending would go up if you took that away from me”
So I guess your attention span is less than an hour?
I forgot to say that on GE, the whole NBC brand will stay in the shitter as long as they keep Olbermann
That’s true, SteveG. Baracky decided the best career path for himself was that organizey thing which basically meant he wanted to manipulate poor people into doing stuff he wanted them to do. You can easily see him being a lot more comfortable as president of a nation with a substantially lower median income. Right now he’s out of his element way bad. Give his policies time to work.
Meya,
Years ago I was up to my eyeballs in student loan debt. I know what that’s like. The difference here is that I didn’t try to pass myself off as some sort of macroeconomic expert and tell other people what to do with their own money.
“So I guess your attention span is less than an hour?”
51. “But, hey, I would be more than happy to spend your money, meya. In fact, if you have any savings you should just fork it over now. Since you’re not spending it and all.”
C’mmon guy.
““Net effectâ€Â, meya? snotty says about 2% growth a year for three years. snotty quotes the CBO. The GDP is under $14T a year. ”
So the CBO says we gain 2%, not that we lose 91, right?
“BTW, voting calls for knowing the subject, meya. You vote?”
I’ve been known to. yes.
“The difference here is that I didn’t try to pass myself off as some sort of macroeconomic expert and tell other people what to do with their own money.”
It’s really not expertise. You can achieve this level of knowledge by reading CBO reports, taking a few macro classes, keeping up with the stuff, etc…
Not too bright, are we meya? Outgo = $1,000,000,000,000. Income = $84,000,000,000. Loss = well over 90% of the $1,000,000,000,000. Class over.
Vote last time? Write your congresscriminal this Congress? WHen they taught you business, did it include a part about losing 90% of your investment in order to “make” two?
One non sequitur after another, meya. Upthread you were extolling the virtue of taking from non spending people and giving it to spenders. I’m simply offering you the chance to practice what you preach.
I don’t know why I’m engaging you. I was trying to be nice, but I think Mr Pink had the better response.
You could say that.
Or not. Good thing we’re not talking real money, huh? You know, like ten percent of the nation’s 235+ year debt spent in about a year.
When, exactly, are you going to wake up, meya?
Wow.
Just. Wow.
She votes, Rob. It’s all ok.
The part where you said about how we could actually take from those who aren’t spending and give it to those who are and that that’s the point about transfer payments being stimulus makes me uncomfortable, meya.
‘feets, where do you suppose meya got the notion government had that right anyway?
Wow.
Just. Wow.
(It disappeared from your wallet, Democrat. In real dollars leveraged against government-projected “stimulus”. Again: Did they teach you losing 91%+ of your money was profitable?)
And I use “leverage” most euphemistically.
meya, do you also believe in free energy? Free lunch? Does the Sun make money here on Earth?
Where did the Republicans “take†the $4,700,000,000,000 federal debt they racked up over the past 8 years “from,†Big D?
And why can’t Obama get a measly $800 billion from the same place?
If I recall your arguments from a few months ago correctly, tuberhead, weren’t we being sold to the Chinese? Wasn’t it a dire emergency?
Comment by meya on 2/7 @ 5:55 pm #
“I didn’t. You did. While we’re on the subject, however, you are proposing to take my money and give it to someone who will spend it.â€Â
Oh. I see. You think that’s personal.
Uh, meya, why don’t you think a taxpayer should take it, like, personally? Are you under some impression that there is a mythical “other” that will be taxed and NOT American workers/producers?
Just because food stamps offends someone’s morality doesn’t mean they don’t have the stimulus effect that the CBO describes.
Or maybe not. I just don’t think food stamps stimulate a whole heck of a lot really. Don’t you kind of have maybe a nagging sense that that’s just too perfect? That this might be a case where some discovered natural law of economics may be conforming a little too neatly with dirty socialist masturbatory fantasies? Cause I do.
Perhaps I have been too harsh. You are the first left-of-center person here that has tried to defend this bill with more than BOOOOOOOSH!!!! While I find your arguments somewhat less than persuasive, you have at least tried. So there’s that.
My Page Name
What’s the most bestest stimulatey thing we can do you think?
Oh. Duh. Food stamps!!
Oh. You’re right. Duh. I don’t know what I was thinking. Forget I even asked.
This projected growth does not include inflation, which is currently running close to ten percent when you stop cooking the govt’s books on the subject.)
JHo,
You have now reached John Birch Society level nuttiness with that line.
Congrats on your promotion, sir!
It disappeared from your wallet
Well, no.
It disappears from your wallet and goes into the wallets of people like meya.
Which is why she’s for it.
Yeah, I’ve had spendy student loans too. One paid back, a couple to go (but being paid on time and in full). I feel just about as foolish as hf for having done so.
Inflation would actually make me better off. Fixed rate mortgage + fixed student loan obligations + cheaper dollars + job with COLA adjustments = WOOHOO!
Or it would be, if I were the type to advocate stealing money from my fellow citizens in order to enrich myself.
Maybe I’ll give the difference to a real charity, assuming those are allowed to exist in Barky’s New Soviet Utopia.
Other ideas?
C’mon HF. It’s not food stamps, it’s STD prevention. Get with the program, man!
Transfers are very weak stimulus at best… As the US now has the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world (you know the big bad corporations, the ones who actually hire and pay people in terms of both cash and benefits) a corporate tax rate cut would spur INVESTMENT which includes both the purchasing of goods and hiring of domestic employees. (all of which costs the government and its taxpayers NADA, and history shows that tax revenues will actually be higher in around 18 months) If you want to do some social engineering think of a set of appropriate incentives which will ensure an expansion of domestic hiring by the corporations which have just received tax cuts…
Just because food stamps offends someone’s morality doesn’t mean they don’t have the stimulus effect
Offend morality? Where did you read that, meya?
Whether or not food stamps are issued, people will buy food. And the people who need foodstamps are not the people who own businesses who then put the “extra money” into hiring more people.
Bamie could have immediately put $$$ back into businesses and wage earners IMMEDIATELY without any detour through Washington DC by declaring a payroll tax holiday (9-12 months).
The pork bill has very little to do with “stimulus” or helping taxpayers.
“take from those who aren’t spending and give it to those who are”
Empty your own bank accounts then, and donate any that you won’t need to the poor. Every cent. You aren’t spending it, and they will. Lead by example.
Or, if living by this principle is too difficult, refuse any tax refund you might be getting, and donate a little bit extra.
“C’mmon guy.”
That was your great comeback? C’mon guy, what? Your cavalier attitude about taking other people’s money and giving it to those who haven’t earned it is fucking tiresome. You think this is so important? Again, lead by example–give up ANY money you aren’t spending on food(buying only enough to survive and not get sick), shelter(live in the smallest, cheapest apartment that won’t fall down around your ears), and necessities (buy your clothes from Goodwill, give up cable, if you have it, and you can get the internet at the library in your spare time), and give EVERY GODDAMN EXTRA CENT to the government so they have enough money for this piece of shit they are about to pass. If you can’t do this, then shut the fuck up and get your mitts off my wallet.
Alphie, weren’t we getting sold up the river to the ChiComms?
So, the obvious answer is to pass a bill instantly increasing the Federal Spending 50%………….
So, the obvious answer is to pass a bill instantly increasing the Federal Spending 50%
Now, now. None of those “tax breaks” are going to be spent on Chinese-made bling. We all know that, right?
Chris Buckley and that Peggy lady told me Obama is not really socialistic — that he’s likely to govern from the center.
So I’m not at all worried.
How about that 91.6% loss, snotty? Waltz right on past that, have we? Your numbers, your intellectual funeral.
And about inflation, learn. Bet you don’t even know what the CPI is, do you?
Maybe there’s a balloon fence in there that I’m missing…….
Where has Chris Buckley been lately? Anyone hear from him?
Haha, JHo,
Did you really just link to some freak called Jim Pup-lava to back up your insane claim that US inflation is currently 10%?
Kudos to you, sir…you are off the loon charts today.
Obama is practically Reaganesque. Haven’t you people been paying attention?
What’s a trillion dollars and likely 10% unemployment down the line if it means David Frum can keep Sarah Palin away from cocktail parties?
Oh, and Parnsip? I hear “right wing extremist” out of your maw one more time and you’re done here.
Oh, it’s going to exceed 10%, Jeff.
Thanks, Big D, for a modicum of civility. You guys get out your poleaxes whenever any of us show up. Meya’s entitled to his/her opinion, although I think food stamps are not a stimulus but a safety net. I also understand his/her point about having negative assets, if that’s even a legitimate phrase (for banks it is). I spend the majority of my income servicing my debt, and yes, I do pay it. If it didn’t exist, of course I would have more discretionary income and would probably spend it. I think that was meya’s point.
Where has Chris Buckley been lately? Anyone hear from him?
Hiding out and fervently hoping that people will forget what he did.
Meya, when government prints a trillion more dollars (or just wills it into existence via legislation — same thing) that makes each dollar in your possession less valuable. So, yes that money does disappear. The dollars in my savings account, in my retirement account, become less valuable — multiply that across the country and you’ll see that trillion dollars of wealth disappear from private hands.
Then toss in the effect of rising taxes and the demotivational effect of confiscating people’s earnings. Why should I work a little harder for another dollar when not only will that dollar purchase less, but much of it will be confiscated from me and handed to someone else?
And, really, meya, the money won’t end up being spent by the poor. It’ll go to government bureaucrats, public-sector union hacks, scammers, mau-mauers, and their ilk. Hell, it’s already been determined there’s less of this “stimulus” package budgeted for fraud prevention and accounting than is typical!
You want to help the poor? Offer a 2:1 deduction for charitable contributions, so that every $1 of giving reduces your taxable income by $2. Great googly moogly, you’d see charitable giving go through the freaking roof!
You want to help the poor escape poverty? Cut taxes, particularly corporate taxes. First, corporations don’t pay taxes — they build their tax liability into their prices — so reducing their taxes reduces prices. Second, since it would also reduce the costs of businesses buying from other businesses, you’d see more capital spending, as lots of projects that were just on the line of profitability become clearly profitable, or existing projects are expanded to accelerated.
What this bill does is help the politically well-connected. It makes it that much more important to stay on your Congresscritter’s good side. It makes it that much more profitable to be a Congresscritter or a government bureaucrat.
— And not only that, but I’ll use the leftwing method of ridding myself of you. Total erasure. Airbrushing out of existence all your posts, ever.
I can do that. I still own the site for now.
So.
OUTLAW!
snotty here tells me flushing nine hundred billion’s a good exchange for making under a hundred billion in three years, Jeff. And I’m a loon; there’s that part too.
I cannot see how anyone could believe that handing out more food stamps will provide a stimulus. People pretty much have to eat no matter what. Presumably they will not increase the amount of food they buy even if they have more food stamps. They might buy more stuff that you cannot use food stamps to buy, like liquor and cigarettes and lottery tickets, but again, I am not sure that would help things a whole lot as liquor and cigarettes are pretty much recession-proof items. What you want to do is to get people buying the stuff that isn’t recession-proof, like durable goods whose purchase can often be put off until some other time. More food stamps won’t do that.
Oh, and calling someone a “dependant” who shouldn’t vote is crass, really.
Yip yip yip Jeff!
Nah. The Chinese were financing the Iraq war, clearly placing us in danger. The larger debt from the “stimulus” package will be paid for out of pots of gold found at the ends of the rainbows that are emitted from Obama’s ass.
Wow, that is rough, cynn.
Obama should give that trillion to some of his Chicago buddies. Through the usual graft, they could turn it into a gazillion dollars for themselves — then he can then tax them at a 75% rate.
BUDGET BALANCED!
Yikes!
The full Jason Bourne treatment?
You may think it crass, Cynn, but the point is that we are fast approaching the point where the majority of citizens do not pay federal income taxes. That is if we are not already there. When the majority gets to spend the minority’s money, the party is over. The political class can then keep 51% of the country happy by giving them money from the other 48%. It’s the ultimate vote buying scheme.
Justify the “Stimulus Plan”, snotty.
Thank you for “Shite Dagwood”. Should the IRS figure out how to tax humor, you’re going to be in big trouble.
One more time maya. The government gets money two ways.1.) It taxes people who are paid in money. 2.) The government prints it. That’s it.
In order for the government to get stimulus dollars to give away to people that don’t have any they take it from taxpayeers such as you, or they print it.
“What’s wrong with that?” says maya.
Well for starters it was my money. What’s the difference if I spend it or some crackhead? taxation isn’t volantary. It’s a form of legal theft. Don’t believe me? Try not paying sometime. Printing money is a sneaky, underhanded, kind of taxation. Inflation results and we have to pay more in taxes on everything we buy. Government can’t create jobs either. because in order for the government to employ someone they have to take money in the form of taxation to pay them. Goverments do not create wealth. Governments consume wealth. I don’t make this shit up maya. It’s all very basic economics. The rules of which are as iron clad as the rules of physics.
49%.
I thought the penalty for that was not being allowed a White House job.
Well, aren’t we “extremists”?
Colonel Lucas: Your mission is to proceed up the Nung River in a Navy patrol boat. Pick up Colonel Kurtz’s path at Nu Mung Ba, follow it and learn what you can along the way. When you find the Colonel, infiltrate his team by whatever means available and terminate the Colonel’s command.
Willard: Terminate the Colonel?
General Corman: He’s out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. And he is still in the field commanding troops.
Civilian: Terminate with extreme prejudice.
Colonel Lucas: You understand Captain that this mission does not exist, nor will it ever exist.
JHo,
Paul Krugman tells me America needs this bill and that’s good enough for me!
Looks like we’re gonna get it, too, so why worry?
or putting you in charge of the IRS, take your pick.
“Try not paying sometime.”
You could end up as chairman of ways and means
They’re going to take your money, and photocopy it a bit, and give some of that back to you, and you’ll be ever so grateful.
How is it that the majority of citizens do not pay federal income taxes? Tax cuts? And are tax cuts figured as expenditures in this bloated stimulus package? I understand the I-got-mine mentality
Ya know, someone should make a list of the things that count as crimes for the ordinary Joe that don’t for Democrat politicians. Theft and destruction (or sale, or whatever) of classified documents, tax cheating, sexual harassment, out-and-out rape, running an escort service out of your home…
That’s not what I said, Cynn. What I said was that is where we are headed.
Oh boy, the hop-on-pop Democrat bashfest. However, if you owe any money whatsoever, you have no standing to opine about any economic topic, because you are a deadbeat. Your own mandate.
It’s not because you’re a threat, alphie. It’s because you’re the blog equivalent of a pile of shit that has stunk up the place for far too long.
Give it a rest, cynn. This may go down as the most partisan major bill in history. Own it.
Nice, OI.
Is anyone willing to back up JHo’s claim that inflation is currently running at 10% in America?
We should all agree on our facts before we talk about economic theory.
Justify the “Stimulus Plan”, snotty. Justify the ramifications of stealing one trillion dollars factored against decades — we haven’t even mentioned interest yet this evening — right over the voter’s majority wish and then spending 9/10 of it into the ground.
Lecture me on constitutionality, snotty.
Read the inflation link, snotty? No? It was pages.
Fine. Then proceed instead to telling me how wasting nine hundred billion dollars makes sense and passes the Constitution’s muster.
parsnip,
I thought Barky’s speech sucked. That would make me a _________?
C’mon, say it!
The American economy needs a boost right now, JHo.
The Stimulus Bill is going to supply it!
Problem->Solution.
If you don’t like how Obama is running the country maybe you should have been more enthusiastic in your support of John McCain, right?
Bamie looks to be Jimmy Carter’s 2nd term.
For those of you that weren’t of age during The Worthless One’s unlamented reign the average mortgage interest rate was about 12.5% and inflation was about 16%
I wasn’t very old during those years, but old enough that I’ve never ever ever considered an adjustable rate mortgage.
I won’t own it, JHoward, because I oppose it. The glorious Paulson bankathon was a bust. I say nationalize banks, or let them fail and wipe everyone out. I agree with you that inflation is on the rise, and I suspect unemployment is underreported as well. And no, I won’t give it a rest, just because daddy says so.
Rob
my (now ex) husband and I bought our first house … 1600 sq foot tract home… for $105,000 and the builder BOUGHT DOWN the interest rate… we were paying 10.8% interest and felt lucky to do so.
Good for you, opposing it, cynn.
I am not advocating doing nothing, JHoward. I just think the bill in its current form is an exercise in shadow-boxing that will essentially negate the productive years of my daughter and possibly the next generation.
Spot on, cynn. There are things that can be done, but this monstrosity is not it. I worry about my children as well.
Personally I would like to see Congress put up separate bills, one for tax cuts and one for spending. Debate them separately. Wishful thinking.
Agreed, Big D. As much as it chafes, I have come to the conclusion that comprehensive tax cuts would deliver the most immediate relief to the most important sectors. And it’s not giveaways that would have to be actualized, if that makes sense.
Calm down, people. Chris Buckley, remember?
Plus, that lady at NRO. Just be thankful we don’t have to hear stories of wolf trapping in the Georgetown party circuit. A trillion is a small price to pay.
Oh. And McCain was always near the bottom of my list of politicians I’d like to see put in charge of the country. Now, I’m glad this will be the Democrats’ debacle, and — though they’ll screech and lie about it down the line, they’ll have no choice but to own it — I will be no party to it.
Well, except that I now have to put on hold our plans to have a second child, given the tenuous state of the private sector economy.
More like China already! WOOT!
geez i thought cheryl crowe was joking about 1 square of tp.
Way to post-emptively blame the Dems, Jeff.
Mouths’ a’move or mouths’ a’brawl?
Twitter and byte, and bite of twit!
With brevity and the soul of wit,
And split of hair and whine so fine!
Where might be a place to dine,
With ‘few courageous men, so fit,
Whose words by deeds are thus acquit?
With such men, I stand ‘gainst all.
hi warren! here’s a baby skunk! Cute little guy I think.
Comment by cynn on 2/7 @ 7:09 pm #
Oh boy, the hop-on-pop Democrat bashfest. However, if you owe any money whatsoever, you have no standing to opine about any economic topic, because you are a deadbeat. Your own mandate.
My point was anyone that isn’t paying taxes thru work. Dependant as in still claimed on his parents taxes. I gained an entirely different point of view of taxation when I saw 18 hours of my work each week just magically disapear from my paycheck.
PS. I just got back from dinner and someone on here pointed out that at least you guys are “defending” this load of horseshit without mentioning Boooosh and Rethuglicans. I appreciate it too :)
Hello Happyfeet!
A bias of design
Can always be maligned.
 But then, again,
 by dint of pen,
 So can these five lines.
that’s clever. I had one the other night I bet you’d like.
words like conviction can turn into a sentence
That’s from an 80s song I like and I’m not sure how you punctuate it but I think it’s a neat line.
Hey Bonesteel did you finish your necklace of Birkenstocks and bongpieces looted from the bodies of dead hippies yet?
I’ll blame Roger L. Simon and the collapse of PJM if the economy fails to recover after the gummint bi-partisan stimuli are applied..
oh. nope. no irony here.
I think she meant *has* now that I look at that.
yea that and 500 million people losing their jobs every month
Well, Pink, hippies don’t bother me. They’ll get stoned, kick back and not really bother folks. Live and let live with a real hippy. I don’t have a problem with them. Generally speakin’, they’re good folks.
So, you know…you can stifle the logical fallacies and silly syllogisms.
can’t we clean the current mess government created before starting on the next one
I am messing with you man chill out. I am a Bonesteel fan. Please remember to erase my name off the list before you go to bed.
ha ha, yeah, nothing says “responsible” like demanding the government “do something! anything!” right away.
http://patterico.com/2009/02/07/feeling-unstimulated-watch-this/ It makes you want to cry.
Falling in line behind Comrade Obama…
It was old hat long ago on the conservative side of the blogosphere to call Barack Obama a communist but apparently the translation to the mainstream media takes a while. Glen Beck has picked up on the moniker, creating a publicity ploy for his new sho…
Joe
oh gawd… Phil Donahue…look at the pinched, authoritarian faux-concern troll face while Milton Friedman spanks him.
and all that hair…. 1979…and we may have to go through Barack Carter to rediscover liberty.
I sent money to those poor (but rich chocolaty) people in New Orleans after Katrina. I’m NEVER doing anything like that again. Instead I’ll spend it on Hot Pockets.
Does that count as stimulus.
Heh. I don’t keep a ‘list,’ Mr. Pink.
For that matter, I’m on other people’s “lists.” I have two Islamic fatwas against me that I know about (I don’t know if one really counts. He seems to travel only to the Middle-East, but he resides in Australia), and the PTB most definitely don’t like me these days. (Google: “Deloitte Bonesteel” for one example.) I pretty sure I’m on somebody’s list at the the Rayburn and the Hart buildings in D.C. (The capital police pretty much labeled me and a friend as threats to national security. Even tried to get my friend arrested for it. So, trips to D.C. are kinda out of the question fer me. refer: Article on Deloitte, referenced above.)
Those folks really don’t like any sunshine. At. All.
…if you ain’t pissin’ off the people who’re tryin’ ta kill ya or get ya killed, yer doin’ it wrong.
I’ve been takin’ a bit of a break over the last few weeks, which is why I’ve had time to bother you folks. As much as I enjoy Jeff’s work, I’m usually too busy to bother folks on internet forums these days. In a few weeks or months, you’ll all be too busy to wonder about that guy who almost Frisched himself…
Life as we’ve always known it is over…but most of you folks haven’t figgered that out, yet.
You still think life is about being clever and safe and witty and comfortable…
nothing says “responsible†like demanding the government “do something! anything!†right away.
Just like after 9/qq, right, maggie?
Stay uberclassy, Darleen. Could be closer to home than you know.
oh, happyfeet, the picture here made me think of you. We can spend our way out of a recession!
I like. I’m sending that to my Chicago pal. I liked this part … Those details are going to kill us. The problem with the long run is not that we’re all dead, but that what we do matters more than what we hope. That sounds very Warren, really. Maybe a little less … dark.
“Life as we’ve always known it is over…but most of you folks haven’t figgered that out, yet.”
It has been over for a while.
It’s life, Warren, but not as we know it…
Exactly right. Just like after 9/qq. Where the fuck is that tranq dart gun, anyway?
To be technical it was probably over about .5 seconds after a gunshot was heard on Ruby Ridge in the 90’s but that is a minor point. Hahahahahhahahhh
huh, the things I miss with Trollhammer…. My years only have 5 qq’s (quasi-quarters? that’s my guess)
Jeff, here is a Colorado writer you could aspire to!
Posting the same comment in more than one thread often looks kinda spammy.
“You still think life is about being clever and safe and witty and comfortable…
I sure do.
What the fuck is your problem?
Captains Log, 9/qq:
We witnessed the “parsnip” troll nebula implode today, at the far reaches of the galaxy, “Stupid.” We were trying to leave this shit-hole quadrant, but the planet Obama has demanded $1 Gazillion space bucks, and taxed our engines 3,000%. Instead of dilithium crystals, planet Obama has given us something called “food stamps.” Scotty fed them into the warp core and it immediately separated from the ship and went out and bought crack. The crew hasn’t seen it since. We are currently listless and drifting toward the event horizon of the black hole “Depression.” Spock figures we’re pretty much fucked. God I miss the Kobayashi Maru.
-James T. Kirk
Hahaha, you’re funny, Lamont.
Maybe not.
Fuck off.
Hicktard.
206
Clap…Clap…Clap…Brav-fuckin-O
that was beautiful
Thor: The short_____short story…
Sitting alone in his basement furiously typing away, thor glared at his computer screen. His enemies, the evil rethuglicans, were at it again. Pointing out the glaring idiocies in a stimulus bill neither he nor them had any input in was just too much. At his wits end, thor grabbed his RC colar and threw it againt the wall.
“You Rethuglicans!!!!!” He shrieked, as he jabbed his mouse with his index finger in anger.
“Thomas what is going on down there?” His mother asked plaintively from another room for the 5th time that day.
“Nothing mother I am busy.” Thor replied as he dropped Visene in his eyes.
Thor grabbed another Snackpack and eagerly rejoined the battle. Damn your eyes you evil evil evil Neocons, he thought to himself. I will get you, I will make sure you pay.
That should read RC cola. sorry.
Aaah Lamont, thanks for reading from your big box of rejected sit-com spec scripts like I asked you to.
thor, you might could just be grumpy cause Baracky is sort of making a big embarrassing squandery display of himself. It’s not particularly defensible I wouldn’t think. Personally I think he’s not evincing leadership or even good judgment. But I don’t think I buy the narrative that John McCain and his little dog Lindsey are being particularly stalwart. I’d bet they know those daft hoochies from Maine aren’t running for 4 and 6 years and poor diseased Arlen is gonna be a revolting treasonous dirty socialist corpse near long. They know the dirty socialists have a lock on things. So they figure they’ll play like they’re responsible. With those two though I just don’t buy it. McCain, he has no credibility with me.
Where’d you cut-and-paste that ditty from, Mr. Pinko?
BTW, convulsing little red-state sluts were rubbing themselves all over the brass poles in SoFlo tonight. One of ’em actually admitted to being a run-away from Tennessee. I tipped her enough for bus fare. Her hick daddy ain’t gonna like what I made her do with her drink straw.
Thanks fellas.
Hicktard?
Pay attention everybody, that’s high dollar trust fund Ivy League talk.
Look thor! A commemorative Obama frisbee!
Go get it boy! Fetch.
Thor I would put a hundred dollars that when someone shakes your hand their is not a callus to be found.
Quite a bit of spam from happy/lamont this evening.
Must be the patriotic Republican Senators who are gonna vote for the stimulus that have gotten your panties in a real bunch.
Hey boys, love ya.
Bubbles out my butt, woohoo, feelin’ it!
Hands in the air like I just don’t care, thor!
Ever wonder what happened to the pig on Green Acres?
Mmm, what’s up with the red pubes in my bong?
Fuckin’ thor, man, like he owns Red Coleman’s or something.
Please. If it weren’t those three pitiful losers there’s others what would step up. It’s no accident they hit 60 right on the dot. Republican Senators are cowards and frauds almost to a man. I piss on their heads.
I guess maybe if John McCain were to overcome his natural inclination for appeasement and cowardice and walk up to one of those Maine hoochies and pimp slap her zestily then maybe it might be time to reappraise. Maybe. I’ll go check C-SPAN. Maybe I missed it and they have a clip.
My problem? I tell the truth. People don’t like it much.
I am the whisper on the wend.
The fire in your soul,
I, the will that cannot bend.
Unquenchable coal,
I’m the blaze of freedom’s mend.
Yeah, you cut deep with that one snippy.
90% social policy & 10% economic policy.
That’s the Obama to a motherfuckin’ “T.”
If he’s FDR, you do know we’re actually gonna eat you when the dust bowl hits, right snippy?
But not thor. He’s all sinew, weak bone and trust fund.
No nutritional value.
His trust fund might burn for a bit on the camp fire, but that’s it.
What?
I think I do Lamontyoubigdummy better than he does.
It’s not hard, says his Mom!
Hey what!
don’t forget the alcohol, LYBD.
I like that Orrin Hatch though. Couldn’t even tell you why.
That should read RC cola
Ah.
I was imagining one of those radio-controlled shock collars that you can use to train dogs.
That works, too.
I see that thor has been out paying women to pretend to like him again.
Snicker.
“My problem? I tell the truth. People don’t like it much.”
Well look at you! You big ‘ol truth teller.
Nurse! Get Mr.Bonesteel a Gospel and a slot in the New Testament stat!
Uh oh. Sorry Warren, the Bible is full up.
We can work you into the last part of The Book of Mormon.
It’s newer you see. Editorial room and whatnot.*
*[no Mormons were personally offended in the creation of this comment]
Lamont I am still slow clapping 206.
“don’t forget the alcohol, LYBD.”
I floated that keg hours ago.
I’m thinking “human flame thrower”
Fair enough.
I’ll cut it out.
90% social policy & 10% economic policy.
That’s a cute slogan, lamont-happy.
There’s no truth to it of course, but that’s beside the point, isn’t it?
Just need something for the simpletons to chant.
A classic.
But this:
Republican Senators are cowards and frauds almost to a man. I piss on their heads.
Almost seems like an honest expression of emotion.
Interesting.
no, no, you’re just missing some potential usefulness.
I noticed that assclown disappeared this morning, before I’d even had a chance to read the trash it spilled into the blog, noticing only due to the responses to it without the least bit of actual antecedent asslownish blather. Guess is, of course, that it found some lame-old or new way of lying about Goldstein somewhere in some thread (or perhaps someone else), who, happening by and noticing, thought, I’ll not let this pass and dispatched the entirety of the assclown’s trashings with a keystroke. Which is as it should be. Keystroke disappearance that is.
Bonesteel, on the other hand, is an oddity to me. He appears, now and then, to vaunt his virtue, self proclaimed and unsubstantiated, as though there was something to be known about it, when in fact, there is precisely nothing, outside his meandering disposition to claim and claim again, what? What does he claim? Emptiness, I think. Well, then, welcome to it Bonesteel.
“There’s no truth to it of course, but that’s beside the point, isn’t it?”
“Have at thee, sir!”
Yeah, I saw that movie already.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno
Sorry maggie. Couldn’t be helped.
please continue, LYBD. I’m still working on a “Dammit Jim, I’m a doctor, not a…” something. prolly should just go to sleep.
I hear desperate Republicans (is there any other kind?) are turning back to Rudy Giuliani to save the party, Lamont-Happy.
Maybe there’s some hope for you guys.
I’m cut breakfast Tang with baby formula.
If my dick catches on fire at least I won’t have scurvy.
thor double voted for Obama!
Yesterday my boss says to me he wants to see my Mom naked!
I was crappin’ when I came out sideways.
She ain’t wore a bikini since.
“no, no, you’re just missing some potential usefulness.”
My high school guidance counselor said the same damn thing.
You two just wait. I’ll be an Astronaut yet.
NASA is just processing my (143rd) application.
So what if I’m not a “certified” engineer, and can’t even fly a plane. This time I listed Jeff G as a reference.*
*I ponied up $5 bucks on that last pledge drive doohickey, so he better say good things.
You have to wonder if that one guy at that other blog still thinks Baracky is a nice person.
Who, Pat you mean? I guess I do wonder. Though not much.
Yes. I’ve been commenting there this weekend so I don’t want to like talk behind his or anything but that’s why it’s bugging at me I guess.
Gee, Lamont-Happy,
Why wait on the gummint to go into space?
That British guy will take you there for a mere $200,000:
http://www.virgingalactic.com/flash.html?language=english
Have you got any sense of why his co-blogger DRJ had to quit hf? I read over there a lot (though not terribly closely) without writing much of anything, and yet was totally taken by surprise when she just up and left. I couldn’t tell whether it was other stuff or whether she’d just had enough of the folderall. Whichever the case, another Texan gone the way, and I thought, damn, that’s a shame.
that’s so random. Richard Branson always makes me think eurotrash. Yes. Let’s go there.
Parsnip, who are the mostest red staterist in your opinion?
My big three:
Techie.
Carin.
Lamont.
Runner up – Darleen.
oh. I asked. I didn’t know she was a she until a couple days ago. When I asked they told me she got tired of trolls. But their trolls what I have seen are largely housebroken. I’m not sure who got under her skin. I liked her. She was extremely nice.
She was. And a good enough writer too boot. I didn’t know about the trolls for sure, though guessed (as in “folderall”). Ah, well. *sigh* It rolls.
Parsnip, in your opinion who has the most angry monkeys living in their head?
My big three:
sPies.
P’brain.
Serr8d.
Runner up – Rob Crawford
oh. folderall is one of their trolls? SO far I have met a Hax and an emperor7 … not sure about the number… and someone named Peter and I talked a little today.
Hey I’m from Texas and I am very very red statey. I like … beef jerky. And I went to Dairy Queen not even a month ago and I had their fried jalapeno things but they weren’t very spicy I didn’t think. I should get Carin’s place cause she’s not from a red state really I don’t think.
I am very angry. Grrrr. You want to see that again? Grrrr. And it was the monkeys what made me say the thing about McCain pimp slapping the Maine hoochie. I should at least get runner runner up I think.
The Chinese have many Hells.
One of them is being thor.
In a world where parsnip is your only friend.
And you have to play World of Warcraft on dial-up.
HF, no more European sexually ambiguous chicks named Desireless with flat tops.
Granted I’m drunk, but that was frightening.
I can’t even remember how I ever learned that song.
Everyone knows you voted for Obama, happy. Those steroids aren’t yours, they’re Sean Hannity’s, give ’em back before Hannity counts the needle marks in his butt.
Haha, thor, I haven’t really thought about it.
I think all our comrades here are still discombobulated from the election so it’s unfair to judge them now.
happy-lamont, I hear Texas is about to turn Blue so you are disqualified.
Sorry.
Folderall is just a word I use for horseshit or useless blather, not a person.
I’m born of Texas though I’m not a bit sure I should claim to be of it. In some sense I guess, sure. Granddaddy on the father’s side made the (recorded) voice of Big Tex at the state fair for a year or two in the late fifties but I’m not certain that would suffice to bind me to the state. Granddday on the mother’s side ushered at the Cotton Bowl when the Cowboys were born. All the other old people who made me were from there, but they’ve all gone now, either dead or just moved away.
But I grew to knowing ages in D.C. watching my Dad work on first the Mercury, then the Gemini and then the Apollo projects. And watching the government grow. And grow. Adn grow. That’s more like where I’m from. It’s neither redstatey or bluestatey really, where I grew up. More like the land of the CIA than anything else.
“I hear Texas is about to turn Blue”
Honest to God, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard this week.
Thank you snippy, er, Folderall.
I think being born there is a big deal. I’m tired now because the pills are hitting me. The sleeping ones. Good night. And also I didn’t vote Baracky. Not voting for Baracky is an enduring symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom I think.
Christ, I love you Lamont. I’ll stop laughing sooner or later.
Branson’s tour of his private island is my favorite segment of MTV’s Cribs:
http://www.myvideo.de/watch/141433/MTV_Cribs_Richard_Branson_Necker_Island
Eurotrash?
Maybe.
Nice place though.
Were you born on a meth ranch in Oklahoma? Thought so.
…”my favorite segment of MTV’s Cribs”…
LMAO!
Your “favorite” huh?
ROFLMAO!
…can’t type…sides hurt…laughing…to much…shit…call a doctor…
Don’t they have MTV down there in Jesusland yet, Lamont-Happy?
My sympathies.
Maybe Obama will put rural cablification into his stimulus package to help y’all out.
‘nip, in your opinion, thor has how many angry monkeys living in his pants?
MTV is the most disgusting, depraved channel. Occasionally it’s on at the gym. Gawd it’s awful.
Is Barack going to do MTV Cribs?
I can see it now: Incense burning, dogs playing poker, lime-green vinyl.
Be sure and wear your disposable underwear parsnip.
Honest to God, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard this week.
That’s gloriously fuckheaded, even for nipply. Neutronium-level density.
McCain won Texas by 11 percent in a year when Obama won nationwide by 8 percent, but Texas is supposedly “turning blue”. Uh-huh.
Granted, there’s that big asterisk next to Obama’s name in the record books due to voter fraud, but still…
The only thing blue in Texas is the bonnets.
SPB, once O! has moved the Census into the White House, hired ACORN to conduct it, and gotten enough Democratic Congresscritters to pass amnesty, that problem will be solved… and that’s what the vegetable is counting on.
[…] Stolen from Dan Collins of Protein Wisdom: […]
Sdferr,
She didn’t have to quit. A banned troll that had been emailing vile shit to her had started coming back and posting similarly vile shit about her to the blog and that seems to be the straw that broke the camel’s back on that one. She’d smacked him around ever so sweetly here, in a little experiment Patterico conducted before he gave the troll the boot. DRJ is unfailingly gracious and I think she just decided that it wasn’t worth having this piece of shit in her life.
That’s my best guess anyway. Patterico infers that, but doesn’t flat out and say it.
See, that’s McCain. Just when you think you’ve got him pegged, he goes and does something to surprise you, like growing a set of balls.
MAVERICK!
“Comment by thor on 2/8 @ 1:04 am #
Parsnip, in your opinion who has the most angry monkeys living in their head?”
Angru, whore?
You flatter yourself.
I pity you.
oh. This is startling. A compelling>/a> post by Cap’n Ed. Here’s a bit of it…
ack. well it’s not that compelling
It was during the Carter years that we got us turned on to disco.
My theory is that cotton became too expensive, so polyester it is. Go long on spinning mirrored balls and platform shoes.
I want to visit all those “level-headed,” “fair-minded,” politically “sophisticated” bloggers on the “right” who, during the election cycle, were offended at descriptions of Obama as a socialist, and beat them about the face and neck with a pillowcase stuffed with cans of Billy Beer.
Is that so wrong?
Hmmmm. What’s Barack’s brother’s name, again?
It might have to be Chillbilly Beer.
WaPo’s propaganda today takes several different bites at the dirty socialist apple, but this stands out…
That’s a big dirty socialist yay! and I think it’s really a big part of what’s driving things. All the economy has to do is recover – ever, and socialism is the white knight. George Soros is sure as hell getting his money’s worth with his hopeychangey butt boy in the White House I think.
The Democrats appear to be going from buying votes to outright extortion. Just keep fucking the peconomy up even worse until they get what they want. Its the Chicago Way, I suppose.
on the “rightâ€Â
It really would be a good day I think to revisit the is him good, is him nice debate about our frantic little presidential dipshit.
The nice thing about “saving” jobs is that it’s completely unverifiable.
If 50 million people are out of work, they can always argue that it would’ve been 54 million without the “stimulus”.
Aw come on guys; what’s wrong with a ninety percent loss on investment anyway?
We must have more money: We still have electricity!
Thanks for the fill-in on the DRJ situation Pablo.
Nice illumination of the “non causa, pro causa” they’re setting us up for there hf, well done.
That can work in a very large city that can leach tax revenue from the surrounding suburbs based on it’s locational advantage. I always called it the “Daley tax” that had to be paid on everything bought anywhere near Chicago. Prices always higher.
If this is done on the National level where are to places that the whole of the US can suck tax revenue from? They don’t exist and so this type of operation will sink us and the whole of the world with us too.
An entire world consisting of the Hyde Park set and the South Side. Nothing in between.
the not to
If this is done on the National level where are to places that the whole of the US can suck tax revenue from?
I am thinking a New Age of Imperialism.
Wait. Did I say that out loud?
Seriously, look at a blue county/red county map.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/election/uscounties.html
The red areas are about to get fucked, just ask tuberhead. Its payback time.
So, blue, suckee, red, sucker.
How can spending a trillion to make less than a hundred billion be anything but a loss, meya? Whether it actually counts towards GDP?
Really? Seriously? Do you realize the implications of what you’re saying?
Using your logic Keynes would have us just printing the stuff and Marx would have us use government to run the entire economy, top down. After all, it counts toward…the…um…something. So how’s the track record of that going, meya?
If you had a press in the basement, meya, would you be producing wealth?
“How can spending a trillion to make less than a hundred billion be anything but a loss, meya? ”
#1, that trillion isn’t all spending. Some of it is tax cuts. Some of it is transfers. #2, The part that is spending goes into GDP. The part that is tax cuts goes into GDP when its spent, same with the part that is transfers. The result of all of this, thanks to multipliers, is that the net gain to GDP is greater than what we’re spending — so long as the bill is made up of stimulus-like things.
You seem to think that we’re losing minus a trillion from our GDP by doing this, and then gaining a few percent of GDP back. We’re not. You’re comparing apples to oranges by comparing those two numbers.
“Really? Seriously? Do you realize the implications of what you’re saying?”
How about you? have you realized the implications of what you’re saying? That you’re the only one to have figured out we’re losing 91% on this deal? Nobody else is pointing this out but you. Not the cato institute, not the GOP, nobody but you. You’re either the smartest guy around, or the dumbest. Take your pick.
That’s a real scattergun of wishful thinking, meya. Let’s see where it goes.
(First, I have no issue you, smartest guy around, laying out how, by your logic, helicopter spending leverages itself. “Thanks to multipliers” I assume means the equivalent of monetary free energy, monetary free lunches, monetary free exponents, or whatever you think runaway spending will do to, somehow, to actually create more than it costs. You just said the net gain is more than the cost — that the output amplifies the input but does so without any other apparent, evident, or stated contribution. That said, I also have no issue with you proving my simple arithmetic wrongheaded. I’ll remind you that so far, in this thread none have, you among them.)
So let’s look at some of the other scattered effects you ignore.
There’s the simple loss of filtering these monies through government, which we all know runs to tens of percents. In some cases not a single cent of federal make-work probably ever makes the jobsite. Then there are the enormous inflationary losses due to inevitable dollar devaluation, also significant. Did you think you can plow cash into the countryside and not have it influence costs and prices?
There are the inevitable losses of make-work programs that do make the street but by not being market-driven, incur great inefficiencies, enormous waste, and outright corruption there. There are the territorial price-changing influences of irresponsibly helicoptering cash here but not there and into projects that end up doing nothing more than making temporary jobs in one place and generating useless work-product — the vaunted bridges to nowhere — and poorly functioning jobs at that. What are the costs of relocating and rehabbing those workers when the programs end?
What happens when the Porkulus bubble ends? When housing, for example, finally comes back to earth, will the net be positive or negative, meya? Some home markets are now below their 2000 levels and still falling.
Do you really think bubble economics don’t cost in the long term? What about the big kicker: What about the interest on a trillion in new spending? Is one of your natural multipliers negative interest rates? If so (I’m willing to allow you that since everything else goes with you) where will that free cash come from? O!bama’s going to pay with your taxes today in order for you to get back less in three years. Because even assuming a flat return, inflation over these 36 months alone is going to cost a pile.
And so on and so on.
meya, tear down my construct, please. I’d love to be wrong. I just don’t think you can. In fact, I’d bet that the net cost of this boondoggle will exceed even my narrow estimate. I’m betting that this trillion dollars, aside from government having no business and no moral right taking it from all of us in the first place, will end up costing even more than what you think is my mistaken arithmetic.
I’m betting that when this is all over and done, about the time O!bama’s first term ends, the numbers will reveal a net loss of one and a half to two times the trillion it’s costing you and me today. We’re not going to lose nine hundred billion of it, we’re going to lose a couple times the amount.
How is it you’re entirely unafraid of meddling in natural systems prone to catastrophic results when artificially influenced, yet so terrified of natural market corrections and simple wealth creation by the only means known to man?
No, I’m not the dumbest guy around. Not as long as you and I are talking.
It should be obvious maya. Remember the little talk we had before? Where does gov’t get its money? Remember?
Little illustration. two drunks walking down the street with a bottle. The one who gets to drink has to give the other one a penny. This goes on until the bottle is empty. “No problem.”, says one drunk to the other. “Everytime we took a drink we paid a penny!” “We gotta have at leaast ten bucks!”,- See where this is going yet, maya?- So when the one reached into his pocket to get all that cash, all there was, was a penny.
There is nothing ‘stimulating’ about this mess unless you get a hardon for pork. They’re handing out shit, maya, and you’re standing there with a bucket.
It will stimulate savings though I think Rusty. I’m not making any spendy plans anyway and already Baracky has people so scared they won’t overnight coffee to us anymore and they canceled a bunch of travel. Baracky has to learn he can’t shriek the way he does and expect people to carry on like there wasn’t a shrieky neurotic dirty socialist in our White House.
meya has a point, Rusty. meya has introduced a special variable without a parameter. That variable describes the assumed heightened productivity all this is just bound to create. That must be the multiplier meya bases the entire argument on: If you stimulate, folks will produce 110% of the cost of the stimulus (not factoring in the numerous costs I listed plus others I’m unaware of, and not including the trickle-down implied necessary in giving most of this cash to non-producers — we’ll just have to wait for them to spend it.)
meya’s right, on point, and I’m wrong in assuming that the entire sum will invest itself into an economy that will remain absolutely flat as the result — a trillion dollars will cost a trillion dollars because it will dissipate into the sea leaving the sea right at sea level. I highly suspect it’ll fall in the long term, but if you want to take O!bama’s and meya’s assertions on pure face value, there are going to be miracles here. Plugging in a dollar not only doesn’t cost anything, it will surely produce an over-unity outcome. The sea will rise a couple trillion dollars worth if we throw a trillion into it.
Well, it’s not impossible. The hidden variable is, appropriately, hope.
Howard. I swear I heard the ‘International’ as I read that.
“Do you really think bubble economics don’t cost in the long term? ”
I do. Which is why i think fiscal policy should be counter-cyclical — borrowing to spend in downtimes and then paying back in uptimes.
“Some home markets are now below their 2000 levels and still falling.”
Overall think we can expect housing to fall. I don’t think this should be fixed.
“Remember the little talk we had before? Where does gov’t get its money? Remember?”
Rusty, I’d recommend you read up on the velocity of money and what happens to it during recessions. Then you’d see a bit how stimulus works. Here:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/01/time-to-bang-my-head-against-the-wall-some-more-pre-elementary-monetary-economics-department.html
Jhoward, if you want to know how multipliers work, read up on that CBO link I posted. Or other places. Its basically based on what further spending is caused by each dollar of stimulus. Some of the highest is from unemployment insurance, food stamps and government infrastructure spending. Lower than that is tax cuts.
Except, maya, it isn’t stimulus. It’s pork.
I am the whisper on the wend.
The fire in your soul,
I, the will that cannot bend.
Unquenchable coal,
I’m the blaze of freedom’s mend.
Burma Shave
“Except, maya, it isn’t stimulus. It’s pork.”
Rather than dance around this, can you tell me how you define the difference? I think stimulus will look like pork, but I don’t think all pork will have a stimulus effect. Not the same anyway.
meya, poor misled soul, that link does not say what you think it says. In fact, that link says what I gathered you thought theory said about the debacle we’re about to have jammed down our throats.
The velocity of money is a very, very simple construct, and as the author notes, was known to economists like Friedman (which may bode well for it.) I conceived of the velocity of money as a grade school kid, actually, about forty years ago, just talking with family over dinner.
Remember that part I said about O!bama and the Democrats assuming heightened productivity? The part siding with your theory? That was velocity of money stuff. Which is to say, your whim is predicated entirely on forcing the market to do something you have yet to prove it cannot do itself.
The missing ingredient is motive. The missing ingredient — mind you; think of government in the business of managing this, meya — is hopefulness. Which prompted me to ask you, how is it you’re entirely unafraid of meddling in natural systems prone to catastrophic results when artificially influenced, yet so terrified of natural market corrections and simple wealth creation by the only means known to man? Can you answer that or shall we ignore it, assume the best, and call the right myopic, ignorant, and the best one of all, unconstitutional some more?
The problem is that we are printing money at a ferocious rate. The problem is that we’re not a simple, interest-less, loss-less system. The problem is that government, as Friedman forcefully notes, is an inherently malevolent force, one so malevolent that it required a Constitution in our case to keep it from destroying things.
The problem is that vast, historical losses occur at the point of its gun. The problem, as Rusty notes, is that this isn’t stimulus — assuming such by way of the federal government were either right, permitted, or practical. It’s pork. It’s fraud. It’s waste. It’s Democrat Socialism.
That link doesn’t say what you think it says. Which is, more or less, the point of this very long thread. How is it you’re entirely unafraid of Democrats meddling in natural systems prone to catastrophic results when artificially influenced, yet so terrified of natural market corrections and simple wealth creation by the only means known to man?
Some links for meya:
Austrian School. Austrian Business Cycle Theory. From the latter:
How is it, meya, that doing more of what put us in this mess — only by different measures — will fix things? How, precisely, will partisan political pork repair with excess spending what a loose Greenspanian fiat-money policy produced?
At some point don’t you have to draw a distinction between bona fide growth — growth that tracks the physical capabilities and throughput and consumption of the population in the economy — and artificially inflated booms and bubbles?
“Why is there a general increase in the quantity of money in the economy during every boom, and why is there generally, though not universally, a fall in the money supply during the depression (or a sharp contraction in the growth of credit in a recession)?”
Um. Did you see the chart I linked to? There hasn’t been a fall in the last 3 months.
“At some point don’t you have to draw a distinction between bona fide growth  growth that tracks the physical capabilities and throughput and consumption of the population in the economy  and artificially inflated booms and bubbles?”
I think so. I thikn we’ve been in a credit boom for quite a while. Which is why I’m not worried about house prices falling.
Indeed. As hope differs from throughput, no? See #303.
I’m sorry you’re in over your head and have to fall back to grabbing familiar territory: First, I’m not pretending spending one trillion dollars artificially by the force of the federal government force won’t impact the GDP. I am asserting that doing so will fail so miserably we won’t lose just one trillion dollars.
But secondly, and for the third time, how is it that an intellect as keen as your own has you unafraid of meddling in the natural system (the system prone to catastrophic results when artificially influenced) yet so terrified of the system functioning naturally (with its natural corrections and simple, proven, historical wealth creation? It’s the finest and historically-proven best means known to man!)
Over two hundred years, did the US build itself by way of Porkulus Bills, meya?
Um. Did you see the chart I linked to, smartass? There was a fall in the last 3 months, to be replaced by even more printing. There was a fall after 2001. There was a fall leading into the recession of the early nineties.
But about the recent fluctuations, when the Fed chief says he’s literally lost control of the natural money cycle in 2008, does that concern you, meya? You with no fear of Orwellian government but every fear of the natural order.
Ah. So you do think bubble economies are a bad idea. Well, welcome to bubble economy. What do you think a stimulus does?!
Lastly:
Bingo. But O!bama, by dint of his sparkling white smile, will command higher velocity! The President and his Democrat Socialist cronies, by way of commanding it, will with one trillion dollars of partisan pork wastefulness and central economic management spread over a handful of months — a figure fully one tenth of the entire national 200+ year-old federal debt — create a higher ratio of output than ever before. Or else.
About a dozen posts back I observed, meya, that you resembled a Marxist. I’d say that might just clinch it.
“I’m sorry you’re in over your head”
A lot of what you write is incomprehensible. Whether its over my head or out of your ass, I’ve addressed upthread when I said you’re either the smartest guy around or the dumbest.
“I am asserting that doing so will fail so miserably we won’t lose just one trillion dollars. ”
Right. So MORE Than one trillion will disappear from GDP. Ok.
“Indeed. As hope differs from throughput, no?”
As in how productivity is the amount of output we get from one unit of input and velocity is the number of times the money supply turns over in a given period.
“But about the recent fluctuations, when the Fed chief says he’s literally lost control of the natural money cycle in 2008, does that concern you, meya? ”
Monetary policy concerns me a lot lately. We’re basically at 0 interest rates and its doing us no good. A liquidity trap.
“Well, welcome to bubble economy. What do you think a stimulus does?!”
I think the stimulus, if done right, takes from a future boom and redistributes that in time to the current recession. Thus it is counter-cyclical and anti-bubble.
Counter-cyclical or anti-bubble or whatever you better get buckled up cause Baracky’s rip-roaring FOOD STAMP economy is about to take off I think. This is gonna be so great.