Fair warning – Don’t click through if you don’t want to read something political in nature.
I’m sensitive to those that don’t want to read that sort of thing, hence the fair warning. Nothing bad here, just a curiosity and I’m wondering if other people in the USA are doing the same thing, so testing it on WUWT’s wide readership will likely help answer it.
I have seen upside down US flags twice now in my town. The first time I just thought it was self commentary, now seeing it a second time in a different part of town, I stopped along E. 5th Avenue to get this shot. I wonder, how many people across the United States are doing the same thing after November 6th? In case you don’t know, flying the flag upside down is a sign of distress or emergency. Flying at half staff is respect for the fallen in service of our country. Combined it makes quite a commentary on the Benghazi incident, the fallen soldiers and ambassador, and the election. Checking the Internet I find there are others doing the same thing now, such as this fellow in South Bend, Indiana. Then there’s the story about an upside down half-staff flag at McDonald’s which has angered a lot of veterans even though it was claimed to be a mistake.
The U.S. Flag code says in section 8:
The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.
Some people consider it flag desecration such as is on par with burning it as political commentary.
I wonder though, if this sort of visual political commentary I’ve seen in my town is being quietly repeated elsewhere since many people now see the USA as being in distress?
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daveburton says:
That’s with some serious cherrypicking…both by not counting the last two years and by choosing which survey to believe! And, even so, the numbers are about in line with those that Obama has had for job growth after the first year or so. (And, considering that when Obama came in, the economy was losing 800,000 jobs / month, there is much more reasonable argument to exclude those numbers than for you to exclude the entire economic meltdown from Bush’s numbers!)
Your cherrypick is also giving Bush credit for growth due to the housing bubble but then writing off the entire bursting of the bubble, so his numbers don’t get harmed by it.
This is a re-writing of economic history. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were not primarily responsible for the crisis…They were along for the ride. They actually got into the game of riskier mortgages later than the private firms did and because of the “need” to compete with them.
And, while there is enough blame to go around for who was responsible for the crisis, what can be said definitively is this: The crisis showed that a philosophy embraced by Republicans, and unfortunately some Democrats, that the market was infallible and financial markets didn’t need regulation was sheer stupidity.
Might be true…but I would like to see some citation for the latter part of your claim.
@ur momisugly joeldshore says: November 14, 2012 at 8:05 am
I could have linked to the PDFs. I just thought it would be easier at the time for a google impaired person to actually read it. And yes, they were from 2 different times. Guess what? December 2000, and December 2008 ARE different times. Indeed, they have not been adjusted in 4-12 years! (check out the Obama adjustment last summer – It is now IN THERE). So my numbers are the most accurate. Not yours. These are the actual figures. Not yours. Yours are not even real. They are imaginary – as is everything else you claim (like Obama creating any jobs – his total is zero, and only then after he fudged the summer numbers by 1/2 million – watch for a big adjustment soon).
So perhaps you need to take up your case with the BLS. After all, you are calling them a liar. I am merely pointing out that opinion is not fact, and so far, you have shown NO FACTS.
If you think about it, you would know that your statement is a lie because the figures are not going to be off that much,. Nor was the 00s a terrible time. Economic growth over the 8 years of Bush (counting 2 years of recession thanks to the democrats) AVERAGED 25% more than Obama’s last 2 years (after the recession was over). Thems the facts jack. You bought the lemon, now you get to eat it.
@ur momisugly joeldshore says: November 14, 2012 at 8:51 am
No, the difference is you have no numbers. You linked to a page with no data, just put in your own values. I linked to the hard numbers. You claimed no Jobs under Bush and 5.5m under Obama. The truth is just the opposite as any thinking person can see. More people have left the labor force in the last 4 years than in the previous 8. No one disputes that, not even Obama. And there has been no job growth under obama by any objective measure. To have growth, you have to grow the economy, which has not happened. You are trying to buttress a talking point with imaginary numbers. It matters not if you use Jan or Dec, that would make only a minor difference as millions were not added or subtracted from month to month. Not even Obama is claiming that.
Go argue with the BLS. They have real numbers, you have talking points.
@Joeldshore:
I see you are well schooled in the Democratic Talking Points as to who / what caused the housing bubble. Sadly, it is woefully deficient. I don’t really have the space to go into it here (having done it too many times already, it’s several pages) but there is plenty of ‘blame’ for both Democrats and Republicans.
The problem, in a nutshell, was that while the Republicans were demanding that the firewalls and fire extinguishers be removed, the Democrats were busy breaking up the furniture and pouring gasoline on it. The “match” was an invention of the Finance Industry. ALL are to blame.
First, the CRA, and it’s modification signed by Pres. Clinton Mandated bad loans. (“anti-redlining” and other terms). In exchange for that corrupt idea (homes for everyone, no credit, no job no problem! demanded by the Democrats) the Republicans demanded the removal of Glass-Steagall that had kept a nice firebreak between insurance, regular banks, and investment banks ever since the Great Depression (and worked well). This was a marriage made in hell…
Now the banks, not being suckers, figured out that making bad loans to folks who could not pay was a bad idea, but The Law demanded it. So they made them. But created the SIV (and several other ‘creative’ packages) to move those mortgages off their books. These flowed world wide as “AAA Products” since the rating agencies bought into the idea that a little rotten meat in the sausage was just fine.
We then had a great time for all (and Clinton had his bubble economy). Until it reach the end game and imploded. THEN the Democrats realized that they had failed to ‘stick the banks’ with the crap loans and got pissed… So have been on a warpath against banks ever since.
Oh, and honorable mention goes to the SEC for removing the “uptick rule” and letting ‘fattest wallet wins” and classical bear raids return to the stock markets. Oh, and you could take out ‘life insurance’ of a sort (Credit Default Swaps) on a bank just before the bear raid to ‘lever up’ the gain.
Now “the game” is you start a rumor about a ‘bad bank’, like, say, Lehman. And short the hell out of their capital. That drives the price down. (In another bout of incredible stupid, the “regulatory agencies” had demanded ‘mark to market’ accounting, so the bank MUST immediately recognize this “loss of reserves” and “need for more capital”. Prior to that regulatory change it was ‘mark to model’ and they could just laugh at the guy shorting their capital holdings).
At this point the spiral decent into hell begins. The bank is now “short of capital” making a self fulfilling prophecy. You buy more CDSs so their “life insurance rate” is seen to be spiking (at the same time your profits soar) and short more of their capital holdings AND their stock. (No uptick rule to stop you – fattest wallet wins that game). You’ve started a nice run on the bank and as deposits flee, and their capital plunges, wash and repeat. Eventually they go bankrupt and you collect big time on the CDS and shorts.
That is NOT a hypothetical. That is how the game played out.
Root Causes:
CRA (democrats)
Removal of Glass-Steagall (republicans)
CDSs and SIVS ( finance ‘wizards’)
Removal of ‘uptick rule’ and forced “mark to market” (Federal Regulator Agencies)
BTW, you conveniently ignore that there are often multi-year lags in economic cycles. What is happening at any one time often depends on what was done anywhere from one to 5 years before. But I’m not going to tease out all of that one.
Basically, the net of it, is that Bush did pretty darned good given that he was handed the collapse phase of the processes started (and enjoyed) by the Democrats and Bill Clinton.
A necessary corollary to this is that the present Democrat Talking Point of how much we added in jobs and how good things were under Clinton, so just go ahead and raise tax rates is, well, incredibly dumb. ONLY if we have a new “bubble” to exploit can you even hope to get close to those numbers again. As we’re in the collapse phase, and The Fed is blowing into the bubble as hard as they can already ( “stimulus” going full bore and interest rates 0% to 0.25% ) you are just NOT going to get another bubble (nor even prevent the further collapse of this one).
Sidebar: Clinton also benefited from the ROTH IRA conversion tax flood. That’s not going to happen again. You’ve already collected and spent that money. Gave a great lift to his budget numbers at the expense of future revenues and wealth. I.e. “now”… Time to pay the piper…
I could go on ( I am an Economist, after all, and this is my specialty. International Finance was one of my favorite subjects along with international money flows and such. Oh, and I grew up in a real estate family. I knew how to fill out a ‘quit claim deed’ and property listing at 7 years old..) but I won’t. It’s not appropriate to this thread.
As I’m sure you are impervious to actual information that is in conflict with your talking point library, I’m also not going to ‘engage’ on this topic with you here. If anyone wants more on this, hit my blog and I’ll open a topic.
Bottom Line:
We’re in a bubble collapse. It is NOT proceeding to resolution. We have too much debt, and too much ‘pent up inflation pressure’ (and a Fed leveraged to the teeth too much) to start another bubble now, so those Obama Tax Hike fantasies are just that. More taxes (rates OR revenues) will just drive us into worse condition, not a return to the Clinton Years.
The “Housing Bubble” grew from the CRA, and was allowed to become massive via the repeal of Glass-Steagall (and the regulatory agency changes including the TIGHTENING of rules in Mark To Market – just incredibly stupid. Why has to do with ‘borrowing short to lend long’).
All the financial industry did that was “bad” was to lobby for the repeal of Glass-Steagall and then to find a way to ‘third party’ the crap loans off their books. Crap loans REQUIRED by law in the CRA. Under penalty of loss of licenses if you didn’t do it…)
So ALL are responsible. But the financial industry response was just that, a RESPONSE to the Democrat demand for the CRA, so the initial and fundamental broken idea was the Democrat championed “Homes for everyone don’t care if they can’t pay” legal mandate.
We can NOT return to the Clinton Years as the bubble is broken and the ROTH conversions are a done deal. Tax more now, it’s a depression.
As per Bush vs Obama and job creation: Bush did a better job until hobbled by Democrats. Obama’s record is dismal and going to get much worse. Adding a lot more government workers and crushing small business is ‘exactly wrong’ for real economic growth and real wealth creation. It is just wealth consumption. That ends in more poverty, and fewer working doing valuable things.
No, I don’t LIKE any of that. It’s my job to get the RIGHT answer, not the one I LIKE. I’d LIKE to think we could have home ownership for everyone and that government jobs were as good as any other at net wealth creation for the nation. They just aren’t. So if you want to argue about it, argue with reality, not me.
E.M. Smith,
Excellent analysis. I agree. Raising taxes now would be like throwing a drowning man an anchor. But based on his astonishingly destructive actions, 0bama is intent on hobbling the economy even further. Engaging in pure class warfare, he is intent on punishing the most productive members of society — those who create the jobs. In fact, 0bama does not want job creation. That fact is clearly evident in his policies. He wants a society on the dole, as a means of controlling them. And it appears to be working. The number of food stamp recipients has skyrocketed.
When he campaigned in 2007, 0bama repeatedly promised to end divisiveness and class warfare. As usual, he was lying through his teeth. He has been by far the most divisive president in the past century; probably ever. No one else comes close. The rest of his campaign promises were just more lies, which spew out of his mouth like water from a high pressure fire hose.
joelshore is simply 0bama’s lickspittle apologist on this site, and the rest of us know it. joelshore constantly engages in projection, labeling everyone he disagrees as an “ideologue”. But the fact is that joelshore is a complete and total leftist ideologue; no one else even comes close.
Obama, Bernanke and their ilk Know how to solve this economic downturn because they studied the Roosevelt success of the 1930s as described in the college texts they studied. You know the books written by their Progressive professors that wished to credit the 1950s up turn on FDR progressive ideals. The real cause was the lifting of the economic strait jacket that had been created in the great progressive experiment of the FDR years. Actual contemporary writings of the late 1930s stated that nothing that the progressives did worked but in fact made things worse. Even members of FDRs administration stated that their progressive ideas did not work in the real world. Time is up, the fiscal cliff is not in front of us, IT is behind us. The GREAT DEPRESSION is in front of us.If you have a nice, safe, government job or pension guess what! You are next in the barrel. Read up on the collapse of the Soviet Union and its’ effect on pensioners and government employes. pg
philjourdan says:
No…I am not calling them a liar. In fact, I used their numbers and I linked to the sources. Here is the source for the establishment survey http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm and here is the link for the household survey http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/ces_cps_trends.pdf (see table in appendix). Everyone here can go to those links and see that you are the one telling falsehoods here about what I have done.
You have used inconsistent numbers. I have used consistent ones from single unified BLS data sets, which is the only consistent way to do things.
That’s a ridiculous statement. I linked to a page that allows you to pull up all of the BLS numbers from the establishment survey. And, I clearly explained which numbers I looked at. Is that so difficult to understand?
I’m not the one arguing with them. You are. I am the one doing a careful analysis and discussion of the BLS data…in fact, linking to their own discussions of the different surveys and methodologies. You are the one who is cherry-picking the numbers that you like best, ignoring the fact that they are from two different revisions of the data and hence are not directly comparable (and only using the household survey because, again, it gives you the answer that you like best).
You are just demonstrating that many conservatives seem incapable of honest analysis and discussions of data. They prefer to dredge up any data that agrees with their ideology and ignore any problems with it or any other sets of data, even ones that have the advantage of actually being consistent (because they are from the same revision of the data).
Sorry Joel, you played with the numbers. I linked to the numbers themselves. So you are just flat out wrong. You want to create a history that does not exist. And now you are equivocating and trying to weasel out of saying you are wrong.
You should try it. It matters not in the long run, but it will allow you to gain some measure of self esteem by demonstrating you can admit when you are wrong.
D Boehm says:
Oh…The irony! It burns! The most vicious and vile attacks on the poor are not considered class warfare but the polite suggestion that perhaps the very rich, who have seen their after-tax incomes skyrocket over the past 30 years (while the middle class has seen anemic rises) could contribute a little more is seen as being divisive class warfare!
That is ridiculous. In this very thread, you have (mis)labeled 47% of the population as “takers”. Your candidate for President has expounded on the notion that these are people who just want the government to give them things and who will never take personal responsibility for themselves.
On the other hand, Obama has always been extremely polite in talking about how well-off folks like himself should perhaps be asked to give a little bit more and THAT’s class warfare?!?!
Are you really that out of touch with reality?
philjourdan: Show me specifically one thing that I am wrong about in my analysis of those numbers.
And, you didn’t link to the numbers themselves. You linked to the equivalent of the UAH temperature anomaly from 2001 as stated in 2001 and the UAH temperature anomaly from 2009 as stated in 2009 without bothering to notice that the 2001 number is from a different revision of the data than the 2009 number and hence they are not directly comparable.
Joel – do your own editing. I proved you wrong from post 1. I sourced it. you merely alleged facts not in evidence. You have never produced a single source for your hysteria. For a very good reason. You cannot.
get a life.
Establishment survey numbers from BLS.gov: http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm
Household survey numbers from BLS.gov (see appendix) + discussion of recent differences between the two surveys: http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/ces_cps_trends.pdf
Discussion by Greg Mankiw, former head of G.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors discussing establishment vs household survey numbers: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-two-labor-market-surveys.html
Post where I discuss the numbers: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/09/a-post-election-oddity-im-noticing/#comment-1147269
Now, anyone can see who is telling the truth about what I have done and who isn’t.
E.M. Smith says:
Thanks for your contribution. You clearly know a lot about the topic, probably more than anyone else of us here. However, that doesn’t mean that we have to automatically conclude that your interpretation of things is the correct interpretation…and I find myself rather skeptical on this point. As near as I can tell (and maybe you can present evidence to the contrary), the notion that CRA was at the center of the crisis seems to have little support outside of certain ideological circles. For example, here is a discussion of this issue in Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act ):
It also discusses the fact that a number of people have said “that the CRA did not contribute to the financial crisis, notably, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair,[112] Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan,[113] Tim Westrich of the Center for American Progress,[114] Robert Gordon of the American Prospect,[115] Ellen Seidman of the New America Foundation,[116] Daniel Gross of Slate,[117] and Aaron Pressman from BusinessWeek.[118]” Now, admittedly a few of these sources like the American Prospect and Center for American Progress have a left-of-center ideological point-of-view, but Sheila Bair it seems was appointed by Bush…and BusinessWeek is not generally a publication I think of as left-of-center (although I really don’t know its ideological leanings).
So, do you have empirical evidence to counter these arguments and explain why you think CRA played such a pivotal role in the crisis?
@JoeldShore:
Didn’t notice the “it is off topic so not going to engage here” eh?
If you can’t figure out that asking the folks who ADVOCATED for the CRA mandated loans to unqualified borrowers might have a bias, or that the gang that wants to ‘blame the banks’ might want to blame the banks, there’s not much I can do to help you.
Oh, and if it isn’t a bit obvious that the “legal mandate to make loans to unqualified borrowers” is the root cause (not ‘pivotal’ but an essential root cause) and an essential step to HAVING bad loans made, again, I doubt I can help you.
Just remember that who can make loans to whom, and who MUST make loans to whom, was under direct command of the Federal Government. That prior to the CRA lending standards tended toward the 20% and lots of income (with some movement to 10% and even 5% with spectacular credit rating and location / property). That after the CRA was when BY LAW banks had to lend into bad areas and to folks with poor credit and poor collateral AND the regulatory bodies allowed / required it (not enough ‘liar loans’ and 0 money down loans, then you lose your license). IMHO, that’s a ‘root cause’.
But no, I’m not going to debate it here. It serves no purpose and is off topic to the thread. I would suggest, though, that actually READING the CRA and looking at the legal mandates it put on banks, finding old newspaper copies of them balking at making bad loans, finding the pronouncements of Barney Frank, The Clintons, and The Federal Government under Clinton about what bad things would happen to the banks if they didn’t make enough loans into ‘disadvantaged areas’ and to ‘disadvantaged borrowers’ would be a good place to start.
So do your homework (NOT reading other folks opinions, but the law itself and the historical record) and then on an appropriate thread I’d be willing to discuss it more.
One sidebar: The Democrat POV is that if it were not for those nasty banks, the Ponzi would have kept on going with ever more folks ‘owning their home’ and ever rising home prices. The reality was that as soon as the bubble slowed, it was guaranteed to collapse (as ALL bubbles do) and then the weak borrowers would be cleaned out. That by then the banks had sold those loans (in many cases) to others is what causes the moral outrage, but doesn’t change the problem. The world would not have been better if J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo were both bankrupted too. (Some banks didn’t, so Bank Of America is still suffering from their Shotgun Marriage to Countrywide – under Federal ‘encouragement’ / blackmail… who had not sold their portfolio) It’s not who owns the bad loans that makes a difference, only that they were made. The bankers didn’t want to make them. See the history. (As I lived through the history and was watching it in real time and aware of the ‘problems’, I have a vivid memory of the events. Remarkably similar to the S&L Crisis in many ways too. Lived through that one ‘eyes wide open’ at the time.)
So like I said, you want to discuss it in depth, hit my blog with a comment and I’ll open a thread.
Not coming back to this one.
@ur momisugly joeldshore says: November 15, 2012 at 4:39 pm
LOL! Apparently Joel has never heard of WIlliam Connelly, or he would NEVER have used Wiki as a source. Especially since even dogmatic leftist teachers tell their students it is not a valid source!
EM gave you a chance to learn. But like always, you are merely doubling down on stupid. I would suggest you go back to school. EM gave a very non-biased account of what happened. The dogma belongs to those who seek to discredit his analysis. And his is not unique. Most economists (that excludes Krugman and his ilk) acknowledge what EM says as being the truth. For the dogmatic, the same mistake will be repeated because they are too stupid to learn from past mistakes.
Courtesy of 0bama and the Party of ‘Rats.
philjourdan says:
Perhaps you might then tell us what you think a better source on this subject is? Or, you could provide evidence that specific claims that Wikipedia made are incorrect. No source is perfect but Wikipedia is better than many.
Really? Would you care to provide evidence that most economists believe that CRA played a dominant role in the financial meltdown?
Do you notice the lack of any empirical evidence that has been presented (e.g., to rebut the claims in the Wikipedia article such as “subprime excesses came mainly from institutions not regulated by the CRA”?)
Re: Sandy.
Many more examples of the continuing incompetence of 0bama and his ‘I couldn’t care less’ administration.
@ur momisugly joeldshore says: November 16, 2012 at 11:39 am
Yes the lack of empirical evidence is yours. I do not have to prove to you that the moon is NOT made of green cheese. You can believe that as long as you want. But I also cannot force education on you. If you cannot read and then take the initiative to learn, then there is no hope for you.
Try doing your own leg work. You have been spoon fed a smorgasbord of facts. But no one can make you learn.
Did 0bama cheat to win? Of course. Anything else would be contrary to his nature.
D Boehm: As usual, you are projecting your own morality onto others. That article that you link to contains the long-debunked claim about the turnout in a county in Florida that was based on the fact that they counted not the number of ballots but the number of PAGES when the ballots were two pages: http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/11/13/the-myth-of-141-turnout-in-st-lucie-county-florida/ It also makes some claim based on the notion that correlation is causation, i.e., that Obama didn’t win any of the states that require voter photo id…but the question is whether he was expected to. The answer is no because those were all conservative states. He won exactly those he was expected to (by the reality-based community) and lost exactly those that he expected to (by the reality-based community) and by approximately the margins that he was expected to (by the reality-based community).
Other than that, there is nothing of substance in the article. It is the perfect sort of article to fool fake skeptics.