This is a Demand Side Economy

The discussion is promoted by David Brooks column “A Little Economic Realism” in the July 5, 2010 New York Times.

The American economy is driven by consumer spending. That fact has been driven home by articles, commentaries, and TV talk shows. The United States is a consumer nation. Our biggest trading partner is China. That countries recent growth has been the result of America’s demand for low cost products. Wal-Mart and Costco are filled with products that consumers want. American credit card debt totals almost $1 Trillion. It has been a Demand Side economy.

Need more proof that this is Demand Side economy? I found this December 20, 2006 Think Progress report:

Today, President Bush held a news conference where he discussed the “way forward” for the economy in 2007. Renowned Morgan Stanley economist Steven Roach says the “odds of the U.S. economy tipping into recession are about 40 to 45 per cent.” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman notes that “the odds are very good — maybe 2 to 1,” that the U.S. will teeter toward a recession in 2007. Bush’s solution? “Go shopping more.” Watch it:

http://video.thinkprogress.org/2006/12/bushshopping.320.240.flv

Similarly, after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush simply asked Americans for their “continued participation and confidence in the American economy.” From the International Herald Tribune, 1/14/03:

Bush did nothing to mobilize public opinion to accept the sacrifices that war implies — the first thing a leader would do. Tax cuts could go ahead as planned, and energy saving was dismissed out of hand. “Go shopping” was the administration’s message.

Bush added today that 2007 will “require difficult choices and additional sacrifices” from the American people.

Bush Transcript (unerlined and bold by me):

As we work with Congress in the coming year to chart a new course in Iraq and strengthen our military to meet the challenges of the 21st century, we must also work together to achieve important goals for the American people here at home. This work begins with keeping our economy growing. … And I encourage you all to go shopping more.

Of course David Brooks is a Republican and supports their belief that lower taxes are the salvation to all our economic problems. Most American corporate interests are now multi-nationals and are more concerned with their net income than the welfare of the average American.

Anti-Semites want the Extermination of Israel

On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.

The State of Israel was formally created by the United Nations in 1948. No doubt it was a consequence of WWII. Go to any holocaust museum and you will understand that this one small piece of the world (no bigger than the state of New Jersey) is the one place that Jews can call home. Jews of all colors and backgrounds are welcome here. That is the reason that this country must continue to exist.

With that history in mind please read the following article by Cliff May.

David

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Radical anti-Semites of the 21st century have a goal: the extermination of the Middle East’s Jewish state.

Israel is at war, and if Israel were to be defeated, much of the world would not shed wet tears. What would happen after such a defeat? No one can seriously doubt that Hamas has genocidal intentions.

Abdallah Jarbu, Hamas’s deputy minister of religion, recently asserted that Jews “want to present themselves to the world as if they have rights, but, in fact, they are foreign bacteria — a microbe unparalleled in the world.” Jarbu thien offered this prayer: “May He annihilate this filthy people who have neither religion nor conscience.”

Jarbu is restating what Hamas’s Iranian sponsors have been saying for years. Kayhan, the newspaper that speaks for Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, recently called Israel a “cancerous tumor” that must be excised from “the Islamic Middle East.” The goal, Kayhan added, must be Israel’s “total annihilation from the political geography of the region.”

Let’s stipulate that not all those who support the Gaza “Freedom Flotilla” would welcome a second Holocaust. But let’s acknowledge, too, that those who do not endorse genocide feel it unnecessary to distance themselves from those who do.

The American journalist Helen Thomas was videotaped last week saying that Israelis should return to “Germany and Poland.” What was shocking here was not Thomas’s anti-Semitism (long well known) but that she was echoing, with just a tad more subtlety, the message purportedly radioed last week from the flotilla’s Turkish flagship to the Israelis: “Shut up, go back to Auschwitz.”

Despite such evidence, most media have been reporting that those aboard the flotilla were on a “humanitarian mission,” attempting to deliver needed aid. Few have mentioned that Palestinians already are the largest per capita recipients of foreign aid in the world. Israel itself delivers as much as 15,000 tons of aid to Gazans every week. More comes from the U.S. and Europe via the United Nations, which has a massive relief operation in Gaza — to which the Turks have contributed but a pittance, as my colleague Claudia Rosett has pointed out.

A Washington Post reporter in Gaza last week noted that “grocery stores are stocked wall-to-wall with everything from fresh Israeli yogurts and hummus to Cocoa Puffs. Pharmacies look as well-supplied as a typical Rite Aid in the United States.”

The reporter added, however, that Gaza has become “a mini-welfare state.” That indicates that what is needed is not relief but development — not shiploads of free food but paying jobs. And that, in turn, requires investment in factories, businesses, and agriculture. Gaza lacks such investment because it is ruled by Hamas, which, again, is at war with Israel. Hamas leaders reject any and all steps that might lead to peace. Abdallah Jarbu has laid out the Hamas position clearly: “I condemn whoever believes in normalizing relations with [Israelis], whoever supports sitting down with them, and whoever believes that they are human beings. They are not human beings. They are not people.”

One of the flotilla’s organizers, Greta Berlin, a 68-year-old American with a background in theater and communications, was candid enough to acknowledge that the flotilla’s primary purpose was not to deliver aid but to stop Israel from inspecting cargo heading for Gaza. Israel does that in order to reduce the number of missiles, explosives, and other weapons Hamas receives. In other words, Berlin wants to increase Hamas’s ability to wage war against Israel — knowing that more Israelis and more Palestinians will be killed as a result. “War is peace,” George Orwell wrote in 1984. In 2010, war activists are peace activists. Actually, it’s worse: Even arms smugglers are peace activists — so long as they are smuggling arms to be used to murder Israelis.

Ah, but the root cause of this conflict is Israeli “occupation,” isn’t it? Except that the conflict began long before Egypt, Jordan, and Israel’s other Arab neighbors launched a war intended to wipe Israel off the map in 1967. That led to Israel taking Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan. Never in history had these “Palestinian territories” been ruled by Palestinian Arabs.

Five years ago, Israel withdrew from Gaza — every soldier and farmer, leaving behind only productive greenhouses, which Gazans soon destroyed. Had they not done so, Gazans could now be exporting food rather than importing missiles.

Note, too, that on the West Bank, where Israel’s security forces work quietly with those of the Palestinian Authority, the economy is booming. At 7 percent, its annual economic growth rate is among the highest in the world.

Do such facts matter? The fever of anti-Israelism seems to be rising too fast to be reduced by the cold compress of truth. Jew-hatred is increasingly acceptable, even fashionable, not just in the Middle East but in Europe and in some of America’s finer salons — and journals and blogs. And now, apparently, interest in a “final solution” — to borrow Hitler’s apt phrase — is emerging as well. Helen Thomas’s sudden retirement is unlikely to significantly slow that trend.

The quaint idea that, having learned the lessons of the Holocaust, civilized people would “never again” tolerate genocide has become a cruel joke — one repeated in Cambodia, Kurdistan, Rwanda, the Balkans, Darfur, and beyond.

Radical anti-Semites of the 20th century had a goal: the extermination of Europe’s Jews. Radical anti-Semites of the 21st century also have a goal: the extermination of the Middle East’s Jewish state. Opposing the former is so much less demanding than opposing the latter.

This article originally appeared on nationreviewonline.com

This article can also be read at: “http://www.aish.com/jw/me/96036939.html”

Author Biography:

Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and Islamism.

Happy Independence Day!

Larissa Riquelme – לריסה ריקלמה

WOW!

This photo along with others of Larissa Riquelme, , a curvy Paraguayan lingerie model were found on Huffington Post. She is in the stands at the Soccer World Cup in South Africa. You , like I, thought that the Post was all politics. Wrong!

More Jobs is Job 1!

July 8, 2010

A Dow Jones news report issued today, July 8, started with the words “In a hopeful sign for the labor market, the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week by more than analysts expected.” That is a totally misleading statement. New claims dropped into the 400,000 to 500,000 range in the week of November 21, 2009. The number has never dropped below 433,000 claims in any week since then. So while the latest number is less than the previous week, what is hopeful about new claims of 454,000?

July 2, 2010

The unpleasant reality is that new job claims are continuing at a rate that will cause more people to vote for Republican representatives to the Congress and Senate. The following graph demonstrates the unending recession. Click the graph to see a better view. It’s not a pretty picture.

Both congressional Republicans and Democrats don’t seem to get it. The United States is in serious economic trouble. While the monthly unemployment report seems to be improving there really has not been an improvement in this economy.

Look at these quotes from Businessweek magazine.

The improvement in jobless claims in the U.S., however, has stalled above the 400,000 mark, including today’s surprisingly weak report.

Yet, claims since then are stuck in a range of 440,000 to 490,000 this year. Today, the government said claims rose to 472,000 in the week ended June 26.

“To get the unemployment rate going down you need 200,000 plus jb growth,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “If that doesn’t happen by the end of the year, then this will go down as another jobless recovery.”

This week’s employment report may move the U.S. further away from hitting Zandi’s job growth target.

If payrolls grow an average of 100,000 a month, Bloomberg calculations show, it would take six years for the U.S. to return to the peak in employment of 138 million people set in December 2007.

From Bloomberg.com Almost a year ago, economic strategist Dan Greenhaus of Miller Tabak & Co. in New York told his clients the U.S. economy would recover while job growth would be scarce.

His prediction for a so-called jobless recovery, derided by some clients when he made the forecast last July, may be coming true.

From the United States BLS: In June, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was unchanged at 6.8 million. These individuals made up 45.5 percent of unemployed persons.

The graph shown here really speaks louder than words. It is provided by the U.S. Department of Labor.

My question is what is congress doing? Unless I have missed something the answer is NOTHING!

The Tea Party is Wrong

Despite the Tea Party’s crusade for less government there is ample evidence that what is needed is improved government effectiveness. The lax enforcement of government regulation is the real issue. A very good example is our neighbor to the north. Canada is a nation known for far more stringent regulations than the United States. Their economy is the envy of the world. While our GDP was 2.7% in the first quarter of 2010, theirs was 6.1%. Canadians do not experience the failures of government that are so commonplace in the United States. As an example: the Minerals Management Agency did not do its job in the Gulf of Mexico. The Tea party is wrong. What we need is a dose of efficient government.

Faster Railroads are Possible

Logisticstoday posted this article on its website. It is an excellent example of American ingenuity at work. This is the way to improving America’s competitive advantage.

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New Technology Makes Faster Railroads Possible

Norfolk Southern Railway and GE Transportation, a developer of locomotives and technology for the rail industry, have developed technology for the rail industry that could lead to an increase in the average network speed of trains by 10-20%, or two-to-four miles-per-hour. One mile per hour in velocity improvement has the potential to save approximately $200 million in capital and expense annually.

GE’s RailEdge Movement Planner software integrates railroad logistics with traffic control systems to project expected track usage, based on train schedules. The solution then produces an optimized plan to get trains moving faster and more efficiently. By helping to maximize existing railroad resources, RailEdge can also help improve railroad crew management availability.

Having implemented the solution on a 200-mile section of its railroad in Georgia, Norfolk Southern is expanding the technology’s use to its entire 22-state rail network through 2012. In the Georgia application, the solution will help Norfolk Southern increase the average network speed train velocity of its trains by 10-20%, representing a significant opportunity for cost savings and train delay reductions.

Cutting the Deficit in Half, Is It a Fairy Tale?

President Barack Obama told a news conference at the end of the G20 conference in Toronto that all nations have agreed to cut their deficits in half by 2013. So I asked myself:

What is the difference between the public debt and the deficit?

According to treasurydirect.gov The deficit is the difference between the money Government takes in, called receipts, and what the Government spends, called outlays, each year. Receipts include the money the Government takes in from income, excise and social insurance taxes as well as fees and other income. Outlays include all Federal spending including social security and Medicare benefits along with all other spending ranging from medical research to interest payments on the debt. When there is a deficit, Treasury must borrow the money needed for the government to pay its bills.

We borrow the money by selling Treasury securities like T-bills, notes, Treasury Inflation-Protected securities and savings bonds to the public. Additionally, the Government Trust Funds are required by law to invest accumulated surpluses in Treasury securities. The Treasury securities issued to the public and to the Government Trust Funds (intragovernmental holdings) then become part of the total debt.

The current federal debt is $13 Trillion. The deficit for fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, 2009 came in at a record $1.42 trillion, more than triple the record set in 2008. The administration projects a shortfall of $1.6 trillion in the fiscal year that ends in September 2010. The president’s immediate solution is to reduce domestic discretionary spending. CNN reports that such spending amounts to 2% of the budget. The government is about to ask for another $33 Billion for the Afghan War. Republican lawmakers — joined by Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska — maintained a unified front to sustain a filibuster of the $110-billion bill for the extension of unemployment benefits. The vote was 57 to 41; the majority was three short of the 60 needed to cut off debate and bring the bill to a final vote. Enough Republicans will probably switch their votes next week to pass this bill.

Where will the spending cuts come from? Perhaps it will be a fairy godmother that solves this dilemma. Perhaps they won’t happen at all except in our dreams.