Comments on: Zero. Nothing. Nilch.

By: Soiza

Soiza — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:58:37 +0000

Not everybody is in debt, remember, somebody’s debt is somebody else’s income. The problem is the paradox of thrift, everybody scared and saving at the same time, the mirror image of the “irrational exuberance” during the boom times. Typical of capitalist business cycles. Financial crises precipitated by uncontrolled speculative behavior by the private sector is as old as Adam Smith and without government intervention, will continue ad eternum. The question is how long are we willing to let the recession go on and how many lives will be sacrificed in the process. The commentaries regarding the inherent positive aspects of private sector intervention versus the
self-defeating public sector have been proven wrong over and over the past 100 plus years. Those ideologues always focus on the fallen brown leaf and forget the rest of the tree.

By: Soiza

Soiza — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:58:36 +0000

By: mrpr

mrpr — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 06:09:09 +0000

The reason for the lack of jobs is rather simple – there is no demand for goods and services and hence no demand for jobs. why is there no demand for goods or services – again the answer is simple – people are still trying to pay back the loans they have (credit cards, house, car, etc) which they took up in the earlier ‘good’ (if you want to call them that) years. the crisis has made people realise that high debt levels are no sustainable and now there is a rush towards paying that debt. this is the same debt that used to earlier fuel consumption. so now you have a double whammy – people are not using debt to fuel consumption anymore and people are also using their cash to pay back the earlier debt. there is little point in blaming the government in all of this. the responsibility directly rests with the people who took up unsustainable levels of debt to fund their lifestyle. we only have ourselves to blame and not the government.

By: kapie

kapie — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 06:04:02 +0000

Nothing will change on Earth until the plantation owners are cornered in their lairs. It’s going to be a bloody and brutal affair, which will begin to unfold in the coming years, as the ancient impulses of a primitive humankind come to full flower in a new age of fascist technocracy.

The sooner the American people take to the streets in acts of peaceful conscious civil disobedience, the sooner this bleak picture may be amended.

I’m not holding my breath.

By: Woltmann

Woltmann — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 03:40:06 +0000

Solution: Uneployment = u pu the trash bitch ..

By: TFF

TFF — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 15:59:31 +0000

“What are Felix Salmon’s solutions?”

I thought he was advocating massive government spending, earlier? Maybe am confusing him with others.

My solution? Patience. We’re at best half way through the deleveraging process. It is very hard to imagine a real recovery until that completes. We could speed it up, but am not sure the economy could withstand a blow like that.

By: jonereb

jonereb — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 12:06:34 +0000

What Felix got right: “…the government is utterly incapable of creating jobs…” BINGO! Been saying this all along. Oh, sure. The gov’t can create gov’t jobs, but that won’t keep up with the demand. Only the private sector can do that. But since Obama has never held a private sector job, he doesn’t understand.

What Felix got terribly wrong: “…there can’t be much doubt that a significant part of the jobs weakness is a function of the anger and uncertainty caused by the utter dysfunction of the legislative branch of government.” OH PLEASE! The jobs picture dried up when the legislative branch and the executive branch were in perfect harmony. Remember? Pelosi, Reid and Obama gave us ObamaCare. Private business is still choking on that bitter pill. We the people decided gridlock would be a better option – until 2012. For now it’s the best we can do.

By: brianinslc

brianinslc — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 11:48:26 +0000

Surel, this writer is in error. I’ll make the correction so it the column makes a little more sense.

“…there can’t be much doubt that a significant part of the jobs weakness is a function of the anger and uncertainty caused by the utter dysfunction of the executive branch of government.”

By: TheEnforcer

TheEnforcer — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 10:50:35 +0000

‘
“Zero. Nothing. Zilch.”

======================================== ========

Hate to disagree with you but after 3 years of being without a job, I finally found one.

So your headline should have been “One. One. Only One job.”

‘

By: redbourn

redbourn — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 05:54:27 +0000

Negative criticism is easy and we can all do it all day whilst standing on one leg.

Felix Salmon makes no attempt whatsoever to offer his solutions.

What are Felix Salmon’s solutions?

By: TheTexan

TheTexan — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 02:41:18 +0000

The Bamster can get no love. And that is as it should be.

By: mfw13

mfw13 — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 01:54:07 +0000

How about this idea…no member of Congress gets paid again until unemployment is under 6%.

By: ytwod3621

ytwod3621 — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 00:57:42 +0000

The private sector has been adding jobs slowly since early 2010 and federal government jobs have been holding steady. Of course state and local governments have been losing jobs because a) they have little freedom to run deficits; and b) crazy Republicans have been cutting even more than necessary. There is really nothing new here – things have been going this way for about a year and a half.

By: TFF

TFF — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 00:00:53 +0000

“It’s like GE’s earnings circa Jack Welch, but in reverse.”

Are you suggesting that the unemployment rate is illusory?

By: rgolds

rgolds — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 23:56:07 +0000

“there can’t be much doubt that a significant part of the jobs weakness is a function of the anger and uncertainty caused by the utter dysfunction of the legislative branch of government.”

Since the current failure of the country to create jobs is caused by the passage of ObamaCare and FrankDodd, I assume this is what you mean by the “dysfunction of the legislative branch of government.”

But, since the President promoted and signed the laws you have to give hime credit for the failed economy also.