Oh and by the way… that graph:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DJIA_historical_graph.svg

Well, i think that graph is the reason we have these:

-war
-poverty
-unemployment
-underfunded public schools and over funded private schools
-less police and fire protection
-London riots
-French riots over pensions
-The Arab Spring
-Italy, Spain Greece etc protests against government cuts.
-Fukushima-Daiichi disaster
-Approx 50 million people without health insurance in the USA
-#34 on the list of countries by infant mortality
-continuing drug use epidemics worldwide
-the list goes on and on and on and on…. well you get the picture.

that single graph quanitifies one word: GREED

@johncp .... sorry this is no time to rest.

while we were busy creating jobs in the 1990s due in most part to the fruition of the computer chip’s invention, there were many other things going on behind the scenes. that mass stimulus called the computer revolution is over. no matter who was in office those jobs would have been created. and the taxes paid would have paid down the debt.

and now we are left with the after effects. repeal of glass-steagall, nafta, the silencing of brooksley born, the deregulation of commodities markets.

oh yes and the computer chip revolution came to fruition to give us another thing: the average length of time a stock is held is now about 22 seconds. and over 60% of the stock trades are computer generated. so much for personalized investors. so much for the invisible hand of the market. it is now the invisible algorithm of the market.

noting that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is not a very good indication of our total economy, still, the following graph should give you a sense of just how much we have given over to wall street. and why we should be very very afraid for our future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DJIA_historical_graph.svg

if you, or anyone else thinks that we (western society) can maintain this level of growth begun in the 1980s we are in serious trouble.

in this graph you will see the great depression as a blip on the radar compared to today.

People are drinking way too much Kool-Aid these days.

Facts are irrelevant. People now seem to have their own individual truths.

Oh, please, Johncp!

Bill Clinton’s “leaving us with a zero national debt,(sic) or with 23,000,000 new jobs, ‘in spite’ of his capitulations to big business…;” remember Bill Clinton also caved in to Dick Armey (or happily jumped onto his bandwagon - however you prefer to review it)and demolished the banking regulatory regime we had, weak and flabby though it was.  Thanks to that Reaganesque, anti-government move, we and the whole world now are in our third year, or fourth, depending upon how we measure it, of a still deepening depression.

I don’t always agree with Obama’s critics, though I often do.

Most of the time I find his critics let Obama off way too easily, ignoring all the ways he has failed to preside over a collapsing government, even at times jumping as if with glee, to join in the ranks of the government’s leading demolition party.

Contemplation, meditation, and prayerfulness increasingly suggests to me that the trend, including Obama following Clinton in leading the left rightward, is the Great Universe’s own divine work; but my native appreciation for Lincoln’s “almost chosen people” makes me hesitant to accept this verdict.

I find Clinton and Obama apologists, like Reagan and Bush (either/both) apologists, banal at best, careless with their thinking more often.

Obama, like Clinton, too easily fell for the relativistic politics of academic politics: “it’s all relative.”  Relativism is superficial in philosophy and in politics; but in politics it is also tends to be fataliztic.  Like Clinton, Obama cannot see the nation as it is because he has only two eyes, one on the Republican Congress and the other on Wall Street.

Finding “the center” between two devils never made one holy, and never will.  Nor will it redeem our historical decline, or our belligerent approach to international politics, or out disregard for our crumbling moral, civic, and personal character.

Where are our reporters?

America has faced up to Obama’s failed presidency.

The Democratic Party is in collective denial.  Right where
the Republican Party was three years ago.  Also, like the R party three years ago, the D Party has three wars on its hands, with a pro war, unpopular president losing popularity while the economy continues crashing with the government doing nothing for anyone outside Wall Street.

Same scenario; different party label; like the return of La Nina with a different year number.

Is Chris Hedges the only reporter in the US paying attention to the nation’s fate, even though most Americans are flabbergasted at the sleeping punditocracy and the drunk kleptocracy?

We re-elect this Trojan Horse at our peril.

Former chancellor of Germany, Helmut Schmidt, likens Obama with Hitler. Additionally,
this about the Zionist plans for the USA and the world is presented.

http://just-another-inside-job.blogspot.com/2010/02/rothschilds-plan-for-america.html

Give it a rest El Piguinno.  Equating Clinton to Obama on the basis that Clinton “also” made concessions to big money, is preposterous.  They all make these concessions.  It’s not even possible for a politician, especially these days, to reach any level of real power, unless he’s already shown a willingness to make concessions to power and wealth.  What distinguishes politicians, one from the other, is their ability to achieve somethinig notable, such as leaving us with a zero national debt, or with 23,000,000 new jobs, “in spite” of his capitulations to big business.

Give it a rest, El Pinquino, to equate Clinton to Obama, simply because Clinton made cocessions to the rich and powerful, is pure idiocy.  They all make concessions to the rich and powerful.  What does it take to make people with your views understand this?  Is it arcane?  Is it mysterious?  Clinton is a political genius, Obama is a political 1st grader.  What distinguishes one politician from another is not whether they make concessions to big business, since it’s not possible to rise to any significant level of power unless you’ve shown a clear readiness to make such concessions.  Politicians are distinguished by what they achieve “in spite” of their unavoidable concessions to the power elite.

“But as the president himself pointed out, many Americans don’t have time for the next campaign to play out. We shall see in the coming weeks and months how effective his speech was at moving Congress to act.”

I’m impressed as always, now on the trail in Virginia and Kentucky where work is needed…

Well, not to be TOO positive (god forbid with these posts…), extending decent existing programs and continuing unemployment benefits IS better than NOT doing either of these (which is what the Republicans want).

The other Day when the Dumber Party had a debate if you want to call that, it was held by the Dumb party which the fan moderators who were with a doubt bias to the nth degree for the Dumber Party. Are you following this?  Anyway one of the Candidates made which I thought he said the only useful information which I got from the not from the rest of the imbeciles was that he could lower the price of gasoline; and get this he, said he could purchase a gallon of gas for a DIME!  So he goes on to say that a 1965 Silver Dime could purchase a gallon of gas and he was right. Moreover I thought to myself that I could take my 5 Silver Dollars I had and could effectively purchase a whole months of Groceries. 
So the Dumb Party just stared with amazement, speechless because they could not understand the gravity of this statement.

Anyway Obama is a Fraud and he lied about everything except that he would screw the investors in GM. The wars are still ongoing with no end in sight.  Also the Change, boy did we get change! We got a lunatic for President who even I doubt was even born here. Especially since I downloaded the doc on the White House Website. I opened the doc in Adobe Illustrator and was shocked.  The Birth Certificate is a fraud.  So is Obama.

Words, words, words, words, words. Just words. Does ANYONE recall his boilerplate campaign speech about “shovel ready jobs” of four years ago? Or his speech in Detroit about how he was going to get all those jobs back as John McCain stood right there and said, “Ladies and gentleman these jobs are not coming back”? Does all of America suffer short term memory loss? Has dementia set in?

All this guy does is speechify and, at this point, he seems battery operated. Anyone who is so diffusional as to think that anything is going to change for the vast millions of unemployed over the next 14 months please contact me IMMEDIATELY for I have some underwater ocean front property outside Vegas I’d like to sell you.

I said to my wife this morning that this is just another example of how the dimmos are going to run their 2012 campaign. They (and especially prez Barry) know the economy is not going to “come back” anytime soon. So the plan is now damage control and to attempt to slowly shift the blame back to the repugs. Forget actually doing something of consequence for america (a 450 billion dollar plan in an economy worth over 16 trillion annually, give me a fucking break, that small breeze is not going to move one hair on our collective heads)

Why would anyody out there in tv land think for one second that the king of compromise, the man who already gave us half ass-ed wall street regulation and woefully inadequate medical reform would finally grow a pair and come out swinging with the 2 to 3 trillion dollar infrastructure project that was needed.

The sad part is that this dumb SOB is probably going to be re-elected.

@prisnersdilema

Your comment may be correct if you believe Obama is actually on the other side of the fence than say Wall Street.

I would venture to say Obama will be re-elected. Just like Bill Clinton was and for the same reasons. Both have done enormous things for Wall Street and business. And that is where the money is.

Geeez George Bush must be about as jealous as one can get. He tried to privatize Social Security and could not. And here Obama is giving it away.

Obama is not *caving in*. Obama is clearly on the side of banks and business.

American’s didn’t have 14 months, over 2 years ago…

Look, there is nothing in the world I would like more than to see President Obama Succeed….

But the problem with Obama, is that while he can talk the talk, he doesn’t walk the walk…

The Republican party, already knows they’ve beaten him, they stalled his agenda, prevented real reform, continued the wars, saved their buddies on Wall Street from prosecution,  and succeeded in turning America’s perception of Obama from The One, into a horse’s ass…...

And since all they have to do is keep on playing the game a little while longer to get one of their own in the White house, 14 months they have…

Obama, is going to have to rehabilitate his image to get anywhere, maybe it’s possible, but trusting him again is going to be very dificult.

Any of this is just a very small start to a much larger
issue. It’s just a band-aid. And it’s an overall attempt
at positioning things for the upcoming election.

If it all goes through, Democrats can point to it as a
victory. If it doesn’t, they’ll point the finger at the
Republicans who at the same time will be pointing their
finger at Obama for not doing anything about jobs. It’s
a lose-lose.

Of course, I’d rather see people back to work than worry
about someone’s political future being held in the
balance, but that’s just me. Congress, I assume, will
have a different opinion.

As economists L. Randall Wray and Stephanie Kelton wrote on Truthdig this week, “Time and again, Obama has shown that he will only tinker around the edges, relying on the same tired supply-side initiatives that will not work: more incentives to build business confidence, subsidies to reduce labor costs and to promote exports, and maybe even tax cuts to please Republicans.” That describes a good portion of the American Jobs Act.

Three years of a declining economy, a continuing war that saps our resources and our resolve and ever increasing profits for the select few at the expense of the many.

President Pangloss indeed, Robespierre

Obama kicks off his reelection campaign. Nothing to see
here. 2012: another meaningless Presidential election
with 2 choices = no choices for America.

“How will Obama’s “parents” respond to him this time?” Peter Z. Scheer

The pattern was established by the Dulles brothers and Operation Paper Clip, 1945-1952. The GHWBushSr entourage in the 1970s, firmed it up, which was accelerated by those who illegally placed a Kenyan-born Brit into the POTUS slot.

That Americans do NOT have 14 months is a fore-warning.
The only question is:
WHAT EVENT IS PLANNED by Obama´s string-pullers for Americans ?

In 2008, when Obama was elected, each of America’s Fortune 500 companies averaged hundreds of millions of dollars in profits - if we delete extreme losses as deviations, the average is nearly thousands of millions of dollars. Many of these companies are manufacturers; many are retailers, but many produce nothing and either provide only “services” for other peoples money or psychological comfort for otherwise healthy people.
  I don’t have knowledge of the numbers of US citizens these 500 companies employed in 2008 - I am assuming that the government doesn’t count ‘foreign nationals’ when computing numbers of “unemployed Americans.” In any case, given our current unemployment statistics, it seems fair to conclude that either these companies reduced their workforces after 2008 (to preserve stock value, perhaps, as Boeing did shortly after 9-11?), or they so reduced demands on their supply chains that smaller US supply companies were forced to reduce their workforces (we can ignore foreign outsourcing impacts on foreign nationals).
  These reductions seem puzzling, especially given these 500-tier companies’ average profits of thousands of millions of dollars - not to mention the billions of dollars in defense contracting for US soldiers abroad!
  Come 2008, had Americans suddenly weaned themselves of their voracious appetites or of their prodigal practice of “consumer binging” on what they want but don’t need, and so can’t purchase enough of? Was the plethora of hope with which Obama infected the country so overwhelming that trust in the market, and with it stock values, suddenly plunged - contrary to what economists would expect? Or were there “somebodies,” somewhere, doing something sinister?
  I am anathema to conspiratorial views - not least because of the questionable premises on which they must pivot concerning the intelligence of the conspirators. However, given the “hugely few” companies that “service” our consumption, it would not have taken a large number of CEOs to sabotage the seemingly enlightened policies that Obama seemed to have wanted to implement having assumed the presidency in 2008 - minus, of course, the foolish continued empire-building. For example, it would have been enough to cause “economic waves” with deadly magnification ratios like the Tacoma Bridge if either some small number of companies had implemented across-the-board hiring-freezes below a certain tier in company hierarchies or some small number had implemented similarly wide policies of “restructuring” targetting the workforce below a certain tier.
  Given their enormous sizes, such a small number of companies can do this - or can continue to do this - if the White House doesn’t capitulate to Republican and-or Tea Party laissez-faire demands: minimize or eliminate federal regulations concerning wages, work hours, child labor, safety in the workpalce, union activity, medical benefits and retirement plans - a rejuvenation of the Roaring Twenties.
  Lest they forget, the Roaring Twenties were followed by the Great Depression.
  Sadly enough, given his sickly weakened presidency - matted, bereft of shine - Obama’s “hubris” only echoes the kind of argument so many of us have had with our own teenage children. His strongly accented phrases and clauses only seem like the “insolence” so many of us have voiced ourselves as teenagers to our own parents. Thus, we await the answer to the as-yet open question:

How will Obama’s “parents” respond to him this time?

If someone…. anyone… in this government would give a speech as fired up as when FDR said *and I welcome their hatred* speech in 1936… then I might believe someone just might have my best interest at heart. But .............. No

Until then I see this as my 27 year old would say ... another epic fail.

Good time to consider being an ex-pat. Nobody is looking after me but other poor people. And the rich? They rich are too busy looking after themselves.

Scheer is just speaking like some delusional zombie of the state. There was nothing ambitious about Obama’s speech, just more appeals to the American people to trust the oligarchs and private enterprises and corporations to save us.

Mike Whitney had already predicted what the blowhard would say in today’s Counterpunch:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/08/why-obama-wont-go-big-tonight/

Excerpt:

Let’s get something straight before President Pangloss delivers his speech tonight. Two-thirds of the $300 billion “stimulus package” he’ll be asking for (to reduce unemployment) is just an extension of programs that are already in place, like the payroll tax cut and extension of unemployment benefits.

So, what Obama would characterize as a “bold attack on joblessness” is just a big nothingburger, just old wine in new bottles. The plan has no oomph at all; it won’t put a dent in unemployment nor will it revive the flagging economy which is presently skittering towards another recession.