A pledge of coordinated action by the world's industrial powers wedded to hopes of aggressive bond buying from Europe's central bank helped limit the fallout from the historic downgrade of the United States' debt rating in Asia on Monday."HELPED LIMIT THE FALLOUT... IN ASIA"!?!?!?
Economic advisors told the news magazine Der Spiegel on Sunday that the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) is only capable of helping smaller countries, not economies the size of Italy's.TELEGRAPH:
Government experts say Italy's eurozone partners cannot cover the guarantee for Italy's state debt of over €1.8 trillion.
The report says Berlin is now insisting that Italy find its own way out of its crisis through budget cuts and reforms.
BAILOUTS MUST BE UNANIMOUS.A funding crisis may have been of Italian making, but it would not be isolated to Italy. The eurozone would have to come to its aid. But Italy is not Greece. Italy's funding requirement this year is larger than the entire stock of Greek debt. It is the third largest sovereign debt market in the world, with €1.8 trillion of outstanding bonds. Rescuing Italy could stretch the eurozone to breaking point. Getting ahead of the markets was therefore vital, to kill the thought before it spread.
But then, the ECB joined in the game of brinkmanship. Instead of buying Spanish and Italian debt it bought Portuguese and Irish as rumours circulated that the two bailed-out nations were being rewarded for implementing austerity. It was an almost aggressive challenge to Italy.
According to Luc Coene, a Belgian member of the ECB's governing council, the central bank had not vetoed buying Italian and Spanish bonds, but it wanted both countries to take further action to earn central bank support.
"I certainly think the central bank is ready to take significant measures to help the situation," he said. "But first countries need to take measures."
If the ECB could claim victory, then, by forcing Berlusconi's hand, it would come at a high cost. Markets have lost faith in the political will in Europe to prevent an escalation of the crisis. Particularly as the events of the past few days have exposed the deep divisions in policy.
Four out of the 23 ECB governing council members, including powerful German Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann, were reported to have voted against the bond purchases. ECB chief economist Juergen Stark and the Dutch and Luxembourg central bankers also apparently dissented.
If the economy falls back into , as many economists are now warning, the bloodletting could be a lot more painful than the last time around.I SAID THIS LAST WEEK.
Industry body Fedefruta says the snow has affected around 1,200 hectares of land and the loss of 1.5 million grape cartons.
“This harvest was scheduled for October and November and is the first part of the export season, which is why we are very concerned about this situation and we will keep you informed in the coming days with respect to the impacts these climatic phenomena have caused,” says Fedefruta president Antonio Walker.
He sums up the situation as a ‘fairly big disaster’ and the true damage results will probably be known next week.
... not only were there snows from 7am to 7pm in the area, but that was followed by temperatures below 0ºC (32ºF) afterwards, with temperatures between -7ºC (19.4ºF) and -8ºC (17.6ºF) in the Iglesia Colorada Manflas sector.
... “Typically these weather events are more local. I’ve talked to producers who have never seen anything like it.”
IOW: AGW = TFBS.
THE LATE HUGH CAREY, FORMER GOVERNOR OF NY (A DEMOCRAT AND A LIB) - WHO HELPED SAVE NYC IN THE 1970'S.
PERHAPS ALL GOVERNMENT UNIONS - LIKE THE SEIU AND AFSCME SHOULD BE REQUIRED TO BUY ONLY T-BILLS?The governor engineered more than $1 billion in state loans to the city and $200 million in new city taxes. He persuaded banks to refinance city debts and accept a moratorium on some debt payments, and he got municipal unions to invest their pension funds in Municipal Assistance Corporation bonds.
Despite those measures, New York City at one point came within hours having to file for bankruptcy.
On Oct. 29, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford vowed that he would veto “any bill that has as its purpose a federal bailout of New York City.” The next day, the front page of The Daily News famously proclaimed: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”
A fierce backlash ensued, and a chastened Mr. Ford was persuaded that the governor had the situation under control. The president agreed in early 1976 to $2.3 billion in federal loans to the city. The greatest peril had passed.
In all, Mr. Carey wrought profound changes, curtailing the entitlements that had been a defining element of New York government.
[CAREY]... fought with the 104th Division in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, helping to capture Cologne and liberate prisoners at a concentration camp at Nordhausen. At his discharge in 1946, he was a lieutenant colonel, wearing the Bronze Star, the Croix de Guerre with Silver Star and the Combat Infantryman’s Badge.RIP YOUR HONOR.
Fears are growing this weekend that two of Europe’s largest banks may require a bailout, having been hugely damaged by the worsening crisis across the eurozone.
In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy is having to confront the possibility that the country’s second-biggest bank, Societe Generale -commonly known as SocGen - is on the brink of disaster after huge losses over loans made to Greece.
The chilling possibility of the largest bank in Italy, UniCredit Banca, suffering a similar collapse if a bailout is not implemented comes as Silvio Berlusconi already faces an increasingly dangerous national economic situation.
In Britain, a senior Government source described the position of the two banks as ‘perilous’, although an official Treasury spokesman declined to comment. Should either bank collapse, British customers with deposits of up to about £85,000 would be protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
Dr Joel Hayward is dean of the college at Cranwell, the RAF’s equivalent of Sandhurst, and has taught many of the pilots spearheading the military operation against Colonel Gaddafi.
But, to the dismay of defence chiefs, he has cast doubt on the widely held belief that the Nato actions averted the mass killing of civilians in Benghazi. He also warned against the RAF becoming ‘the air corps of a rebel army’.
Dr Hayward has previously expressed remorse after appearing to claim that far fewer Jews were killed by the Nazis than generally thought and that the gas chambers of the Holocaust were British propaganda.
In another article recently he likened Churchill to Mohammed.
I like to joke that there’s nothing like a good financial crisis to turn you into a liberal. But it’s not really a joke.COUNTRYWIDE AND FANNIE MAE DID WHAT THEY DID OVER THE PROTESTS OF CONSERVATIVES.
The more I learned the back story that led to the crisis, the more horrified I became. [READ "MORE LIBERAL I BECAME." - RELIAPUNDIT]
The lack of regulation and oversight of Wall Street and the big subprime companies like Countrywide, driven by the ideology of deregulation, was thoughtless and irresponsible.
The refusal of bank regulators to stop subprime abuses bordered on the criminally negligent.
I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.THE PRIMARY FAULT LIES NOT WITH WALL STREET - WHICH BOUGHT THE DERIVATIVES IN GOOD FAITH, BUT WITH THE FOLKS WHO GENERATED THE SUBPRIME AND ALT-A MORTGAGES AND THEN REPACKAGED THEM - NAMELY COUNTRYWIDE AND FANNIE MAE.
In low-slung suburban strip malls, nestled among fast-food restaurants and auto supply stores, hair salons are sprouting like mushrooms.I THINK ON MONDAY EVERYONE IN THE WORLD IS GOING TO GET A HAIRCUT.The Census Bureau recently noted their jump in an otherwise glum report about mom-and-pop businesses, stating that the number of hairdressers and barbers and the shops they work in grew by about 8 percent from 2008 to 2009, one of the few industries to register growth in a tough economic climate.
It seems that getting a haircut is one expense that consumers are reluctant to give up. And people who run salons never have to fret that their work might be outsourced. “We don’t have to worry about someone flying to China to get their hair cut,” said Charles Kirkpatrick, director of the National Association of Barber Boards of America. “Barbering is not going away.”
Sudan has blocked an oil shipment from the new state of South Sudan, accusing it of failing to pay customs duties.
The oil was being held at the northern export hub of Port Sudan, a government spokesman in Khartoum said.
South Sudan has to export oil via the north because it has no port or refineries of its own.
Relations between the two countries have deteriorated since South Sudan became independent on 9 July, analysts say.
Khartoum's foreign ministry spokesman, Al-Obeid Meruh, said 600,000 barrels of oil was being held.
THE SUDANSESE ARE GENOCIDAL JIHADO-SCUM.
... practice mainly indigenous traditional beliefs, although some practice Christianity, as a result of Christian missionary effortsTHAT MEANS THE NON-MUSLIM SOUTH SUDANESE ARE BEING SCREWED BY THE MUSLIM SUDANESE.
AS LONG AS WE LET THE GENOCIDAL JIHADO-SCUM GET AWAY WITH CRAP LIKE THEY WILL KEEP DOING CRAP LIKE THIS (AND PIRACY ON THE SEAS).
IF WE WANT THIS TO STOP THEN WE HAVE TO WHACK THEM WITH DISPROPORTIONATE FORCE. THESE SUDANESE AND THE SOMALI PIRATES - EVERYWHERE JIHADO-TERROR POPS UP ITS UGLY LITTLE KEFFIYEH TOPPED HEAD.
AND THE SOONER, THE BETTER.
Ousted Fatah official Muhammad Dahlan over the weekend launched a scathing attack on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, accusing him of dictatorship and financial corruption.THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR APPEASING THIS ARAB SCUM BY PAYING THESE SO-CALLED PALESTINIANS PROTECTION MONEY.
He said that more than $1 billion have gone missing from a fund that was handed over to Abbas after he was elected president in 2005.
Dahlan’s attack on Abbas came after PA security forces raided the former Fatah commander’s home in Ramallah on Thursday, arresting his bodyguards and confiscating weapons and armored vehicles.
Dahlan was at home during the raid, which was carried out by dozens of security officers, but was not detained thanks to his parliamentary immunity.
Shortly thereafter, Dahlan left for Jordan through the Allenby Bridge, where he gave a series of interviews to Arab media outlets in which he strongly condemned Abbas, 76, and accused him of financial corruption and seeking to destroy Fatah.
“Abbas does not recognize any law, morals or values,” Dahlan said, referring to the raid on his home and last month’s decision to expel him from the Fatah Central Committee.
“Abbas feels that he’s above the law.”
Dahlan said that the dispute between Fatah and Hamas, and Israel’s presence in the West Bank, gave Abbas a “free hand to practice dictatorship against the Palestinian people, silence people and deny them their salaries.”
Dahlan said that the dispute with the PA president erupted after he demanded to know what had happened to $1.3b. that was in the account of the Palestinian Investment Fund.
Italy could tip euro into abyssHERE'S A GLOOMY SCENARIO:
The relentless plunge of financial markets will lurch into a more dangerous phase that could take the global economy over the brink of disaster, unless the European Central Bank starts to buy up Italian debt.
Skywatchers as far south as Pennsylvania should be on the lookout for auroras in the night sky sparked by a powerful geomagnetic storm, space weather experts say.
The auroras are triggered by charged solar particles that blew outward from the sun in an intense eruption on Thursday (Aug. 4).
The particles are typically funneled along Earth's magnetic field to the polar regions, where they can spark stunning displays of the northern lights in the Northern Hemisphere, and southern lights in the south.
"Sky watchers at all latitudes should be alert for auroras after nightfall.
Tip: the best hours for aurora sightings are usually around local midnight," advised Spaceweather.com, a website that monitors space weather and skywatching events.
Netanyahu planned to name a cabinet-level team Sunday to address demands by the demonstrators, who in under a month have swollen from a cluster of student tent-squatters to a diffuse, countrywide mobilisation of Israel's burdened middle class.
Israel projects growth of 4.8 percent this year at a time of economic stagnation in many Western countries, and has relatively low unemployment of 5.7 percent. But business cartels and wage disparities have kept many citizens from feeling the benefit.
"The People Demand Social Justice" read one of the march banners, which mostly eschewed partisan anti-government messages while confronting Netanyahu's free-market doctrines.
Police said 120,000 people took part in Saturday's march in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities, while organisers put the figure as high as 230,000.
4.8% GROWTH AND 5.7% UNEMPLOYMENT AND THEY ARE COMPLAINING!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
SHEESH.
Easy credit, high tuition, and poor job prospects have resulted in growing delinquency and default rates on nearly $1 trillion worth of private and federally subsidized loans.GLENN CONFLATES, "Easy credit, high tuition, and poor job prospects" WITH A BUBBLE.
(CLICK TO EMBIGGEN)
S&P said the downgrade "reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics.OBAMA AND HIS COMRADES ARE ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE USA RECEIVING ITS FIRST EVER DOWNGRADE.
S&P said the downgrade "reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics.OBAMA AND REID AND PELOSI.
S&P said the downgrade "reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics.NO SURPRISE HERE:
S&P said the downgrade "reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics.OBAMA AND HIS EFFIN' LEFT-WING BASTARDS NEVER EVEN PASSED A BUDGET DURING THE TWO YEARS THEY CONTROLLED THE ENTIRE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
S&P said the downgrade "reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics.WHAT ASSH*LES.
S&P said the downgrade "reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics.FOR DAMAGING OUR NATION'S CREDIT-RATING AND RAISING THE COST OF BORROWING FOR THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PEOPLE, EVERY DEMOCRAT WHO PREVENTED LARGER CUTS SHOULD BE TOSSED FROM OFFICE.
This Sunday will be the 50th Anniversary of the launch date of IBM's Selectric typewriter, a game-changing design that represented mid-century American manufacturing prowess brought to market with a one-two engineering-&-industrial-design punch. A team of engineers led by Horace "Bud" Beattie worked the guts while industrial designer Eliot Noyes is given sole credit for the overall form, his Olivetti influence notwithstanding.Whoodathunkit possible that the IBM Selectric would've ever been made obsolete?
Carbon dioxide is emitted by human activities as well as a host of natural processes. The satellite record, in concert with instrumental observations, is now long enough to have collected a population of climate perturbations, wherein the Earth-atmosphere system was disturbed from equilibrium. Introduced naturally, those perturbations reveal that net global emission of CO2 (combined from all sources, human and natural) is controlled by properties of the general circulation – properties internal to the climate system that regulate emission from natural sources. The strong dependence on internal properties indicates that emission of CO2 from natural sources, which accounts for 96 per cent of its overall emission, plays a major role in observed changes of CO2. Independent of human emission, this contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide is only marginally predictable and not controllable.
IOW: AGW = TFBS.
VIA INSTAPUNDIT, THE AMAZON SHILL.Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
Whatever weak recovery we might have hoped for is being hindered by global commodity prices, consumer deleveraging, fears of flagging demand in emerging markets, earthquakes in Asia, and much more. Globally, it’s been an almost uninterrupted run of crises and bad luck.
European and Asian Stocks Drop Ahead of Wall Street Open
By MATTHEW SALTMARSH AND BETTINA WASSENER
The rout extended in global markets, with Japan and South Korea’s exchanges closing 3.7 percent lower, and European markets down 2 percent in Friday morning trading.
Time to Say It: Double Dip Recession May Be Happening
By FLOYD NORRIS
It has been three decades since the United States suffered a recession that followed on the heels of the previous one. But it could be happening again.
What kind of a society consciously and purposely sacrifices its own youth for political gain and tactical advantage? Suicide bombers are an escalation of a small-arms war introduced during the first Intifada (1987-1993 Palestinian’s uprising) and championed by Palestinian leaders, even prior to Arafat’s arrival from Tunis in July 1994. Today the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs nurture a blind hatred of Israel. They created a cultural milieu of vengeance, violence and death - preparing their children to be sacrifices in a death cult. Proud parents dress up their toddlers not in clown costumes, but with suicide belts,1 and countless others celebrate their children’s deaths with traditional sweet holiday cakes and candies.No society that truly loves its children would want to turn them into sacrifices for the sake of jihadism. But to say that in Cairo it's different is flawed - if even there, children are raised upon Islamofascism and its brand of socialism, and refuse to recognize how its structure is the very reason they've got problems, then there's no true love there either.
Protecting our children is a universal trait that unites the Family of Man. But in Palestinian society, that standard has been turned on its head
Around the world, children are precious gifts to their parents and keys to the future. The loving care we invest in our own children is a human trait that unites different cultures: rich and poor, traditional and hi-tech. The toughest job parents have is to raise their children while making everyday sacrifices and decisions for them. We hug them, love them and watch them grow up, praying that they will come to no harm, and doing everything we can to ensure that.
From the poorest barrios in South America to the most wretched slums of Cairo, parents strive to make sure there is food for their children and money for their children’s education. Parents everywhere walk a fine line between the need for parental guidance and youthful independence, setting rules for what their children can and cannot do, trying to ensure that their children will not make mistakes that endanger them. Parents raise their children with the hope that they will grow into happy, responsible, caring, and contributing members of society. That is what unites the Family of Man from Caracas to the Caucuses, from Timbuktu to Katmandu.
It is clear that in Palestinian society something has gone dreadfully wrong. Children in Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza are turned into ‘self-destructing human bombs’ capable of carrying out casualty terrorist attacks in the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis - a phenomenon whose seeds can be traced to the first Intifada.
It happened because Arab communities within the civil jurisdiction of self-rule under the Palestinian Authority (which includes 97 percent of the Arab residents in the West Bank and 100 percent of those in Gaza) foster a culture that prepares children for armed conflict, consciously and purposely putting them in harm’s way for political gain and tactical advantage in their war against Israel. The PA buses children to violent flashpoints far from their neighborhoods and Arab snipers often hide among the young during battle, using children as human shields. Teenaged perpetrators of suicide attacks have become the norm.2
By the time her rabbi came to visit her, she was emaciated. He told her that she must attend a treatment program that met on Saturday, the Jewish day of rest, even if she had to violate religious rules by riding in a car to get there. She could even eat food that wasn’t kosher.Yes, that's correct. The customs in Judaism are to live by, NOT to die by. The same goes with Christianity. On the other hand, it seems that in Islam, religion is put above ALL else. But is that truly what God wants of Muslims? And how did Muhammed, a man who bore only daughters and never had a son to take up his barbaric reign, know that God would want him to lead the kind of dark stained life he did? In the case of that tyrant Muhammed, one could say he was merely a foul fantasist and know-it-all of the worst kind.
“That’s when I realized it was a matter of life and death,” Ms. Feigenbaum said in an interview. “My rabbi does not take Jewish law lightly. But he told me the Jewish laws are things God wanted us to live by, not die by, and that saving a life takes precedence over all of them.”
“By using classic antisemitic caricatures, by turning the mohel into a monster, the anti-circumcision group makes the ritual seem devilish,” says Arlen Schumer, a Westport-based comic-book historian, commercial illustrator, and creator of Jewish superhero Captain Israel, currently being published in a comic-book series by L.A.-based Israel advocacy group, StandWithUs.Truly the people behind that abominable comic in Frisco are repulsive deviants of the human race if they're going to resort to some of the darkest stereotypes in the cellar. I'm glad to learn that Schumer has decided to counter Hess' sick, prejudiced propaganda.
Schumer is also troubled by the issue’s closing image, of the “intactivists” burning a towering structure made of appropriated “circumstraints,” topped with the group’s symbol. “It resembles a burning cross, the trademark of the KKK, who sees the Jews as Enemy One,” he says. “So the illustrator is trading not only on the blood libel, European Christian Antisemitism through the ages, and Aryan and Jewish stereotypes, but also on the ultimate American Christian Antisemitism, as fostered by the KKK.”
3 YEARS. NOPE. IT WILL ONLY LAST UNTIL WE ELECT A NEW POTUS.I can’t tell you how many people tried to get me to buy today. The fact that I ignored them is the only reason I still have ten fingers, as catching a falling knife did not appeal.
If you believe that this is just a correction in a bull market, then this is a fantastic place to buy, and the rout will be over in a few days.
If, in fact, the next recession has already begun, then we have just seen the first 12% of a 50% move down that will last three years.
In the latest salvo in the debate over the value of a college education, a new study concludes that getting any form of post-high school education is "almost always worth it." The merit of the degree applies, according to the study, even if a student attends a very expensive university.Anthony Carnevale, who directs Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, says the case for graduating college rests on the "college wage premium"--that is, the wage gains that a college-educated person realizes over a lifetime compared with what a high-school graduate earns. That differential has increased from 75 percent in 2002 to 84 percent today.
And that gap isn't likely to close anytime soon. Even if 20 million more people were to get a college degree today, B.A.-holders would still earn 50 percent more than high-school graduates, Carnevale told reporters.
THERE HAS BEEN HIGHER EDUCATION TUITION INFLATION, BUT THERE IS NO BUBBLE.
IF HIGHER EDUCATION GRADS ARE HAVING A ROUGHER TIME NOW, IT'S ONLY BECAUSE THE ECONOMY SUCKS.
AND ONE OF THE ROOT CAUSES OF TUITION INFLATION IS THAT HIGHER EDUCATION HAS TOO MANY TENURED PROFS MAKING TOO MUCH MONEY.
BUT GLENN REYNOLDS DOESN'T EVER MENTION THIS FACT.
COULD IT BE BECAUSE HE IS A TENURED PROF?
I THINK SO.
GLENN REYNOLDS IS A GREAT BLOGGER AND HE;S RIGHT ON MOST THINGS.
BUT OT ALL.
AND BLOGGING TOO MUCH ABOUT THE IMAGINARY BUBBLE IS ONE THE THINGS HE IS MOST WRONG ABOUT.
HERE'S 3 MORE REASONS GLENN REYNOLDS IS WRONG:
SO GLENN: WAKE UP.
I THINK IT'S THE BILE FROM PALIN HATERS.Tests have been conducted on the substance on the surface of the water in Kivalina (KIV'-uh-LEE'-nuh). City Administrator Janet Mitchell told The Associated Press that the substance has also shown up in some residents' rain buckets.
Coast Guard Petty Officer David Mosely tells KTUU that it's not a petroleum substance and it's not man-made.
A German court has awarded more than 3,000 euros ($4,265) in damages to a child murderer.
Police threatened Magnus Gaefgen with "unimaginable pain" if he did not reveal his victim's whereabouts.
The court in the state of Hesse decided Gaefgen's "human dignity" was violated during questioning on the disappearance of a banker's 11-year-old son.
When Gaefgen was held in 2002, police thought the boy was still alive because his father had paid a 1m-euro ransom.
But the abductor was refusing to disclose the boy's whereabouts. The two questioning officers threatened the arrested man with "unimaginable pain" to try to persuade him to disclose more.
He was later convicted of murdering the boy whom he had bound and gagged to the point of suffocation.
But the killer filed a claim saying that he too had been subjected to inhumane treatment in the interrogation.
THE AWARD IS IMMORAL AND INSANE
THE POLICE SHOUOD BE GIVEN MEDALS AND THE AWARD.
Unnerved by policy makers’ apparent inability to get ahead of Europe’s festering debt crisis, European stock markets turned sharply negative across the board.MORE:
In Britain, stocks closed down 3.43 percent. In Germany, the DAX index dropped 3.4 percent. In France, the CAC 40 closed down 3.9 percent.
“This is the worst it has been in Europe,” said Jens Nordvig, currency economist at Nomura Securities in New York. “The current rescue package was not enough to cope with the size of the problems posed by Italy and Spain. We need a new framework that can cope with those two countries, and without it markets are on their own and are falling.”
Major indexes in Italy, Spain, France and Switzerland all closed Thursday more than 20 percent below their 2011 highs, while Germany was off nearly 15 percent and Britain’s decline was more than 11 percent.
The selling has extended to many other markets. Mexican stocks are off almost 14 percent from their highs earlier this year, and Brazil’s major index has lost more than a quarter of its value.
"It was the biggest percentage drop since February 2009."THAT IS TO SAY IT/S THE BIGGEST RUN ON STOCKS SINCE RIGHT AFTER OBAMA WAS INAUGURATED.
OTHERS ARE STILL MERELY ASKING THE QUESTION:in fact, I can't think of one good thing Obama has done - or of one area in which we've improved sine Obama has become president.
- unemployment is up;
- oil is up;
- foreclosures are up;
- the dollar is down;
- inflation is up;
- the deficit is up;
- the national debt is up;
- there have been more jihadist attacks within the USA than ever;
- air travel has grown more tedious;
- partisan attacks by the left against the right have become more vicious and ludicrous;
- Iran has gotten closer to getting a bomb;
- Lebanon's government has collapsed;
- Turkey has drifted completely into the Iranian camp;
- we've become more dependent on foreign oil;
- we've appeased Russia on arms and NATO expansion and Missile Defense;
- Mexico has become a failed state on our border - a border which is as porous as ever;
- and our healthcare is more regulated than ever and healthcare insurance is skyrocketing;
NOT A DANG THING.
If the USA federal government was corporation and us its shareholders, then we should have a revolt and force the Board of Directors to fire him.
Or - if he had a shred of dignity and decency - he would admit he is in WAY OVER HIS HEAD and that his leftist policies have made things worse - and resign to spend more time with his family.
I don't think new WH CoS Bill Daley - a member of the Chicago Machine - is gonna make things any better.
And with oil expected to reach $100/barrel and our foreign policy a shambles, I think things can get even worse - and sooner than anyone is predicting; YES: WE COULD GO BACK INTO RECESSION.
The only answer is for the White House to accept and adopt the policies about to be introduced by the GOP House.
Because Obama is no Clinton, the odds of this are small.
Sigh.
(BTW: ROGER DOESN'T WANT OBAMA TO RESIGN, BUT REAR THE WHOLE THING.)Posted at 4:42 pm by Glenn ReynoldsROGER SIMON: Dow Down 500 — Should Obama Resign? “Obama is ensuring his own failure. Should he resign? If you were a Democrat, you might want that, even with daffy Joe Biden waiting in the wings. Better yet, you would want Obama, in the grand tradition of LBJ, to decline a second term. No such luck. The man is evidently an (increasingly) bitter clinger.”
