It's only been since Sunday when Europe did a shock and awe dumping of almost a $1 trillion dollars to bail out their impending sovereign debt crisis.
Here is the Euro to the Dollar. The EURO is imploding:
Here is the Dow Jones:
France Threatened to Leave the Euro (via midtowng)
Share prices have dropped across Europe and the euro has slid to an 18-month low against the dollar on fears that the eurozone bailout of Greece will fail and reports that French president Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to pull his country out of the single currency altogether to force Germany to agree to the rescue plan...
Sarkozy demanded "a compromise from everyone to support Greece ... or France would reconsider its position in the euro," according to one source cited by El País.
"Sarkozy went as far as banging his fist on the table and threatening to leave the euro," said one unnamed Socialist leader who was at the meeting with Zapatero. "That obliged Angela Merkel to bend and reach an agreement."
A different source who was at the meeting with Zapatero told El País that "France, Italy and Spain formed a common front against Germany, and Sarkozy threatened Merkel with a break in the traditional Franco-German axis."
El País also quotes Sarkozy as having said, according to another of those who met Zapatero, that "if at time like this, with all that is happening, Europe is not capable of a united response, then the euro makes no sense".
Note to Bonddad
Obviously Gov. Schwarzenegger does not read Bonddad. He explained that the significant economic pain accruing to working class people resulting from his state budget was due to the “sour economy” and he went on to compare California to Greece.
If he were a regular reader of the “chicken in every pot” Bonddad blog he would know that the recession is over, the economy is growing and California’s budget problems are ‘lagging indicators’.
Don’t you just hate uninformed politicians?
LOL! Real pain to real people
oh yeah. It's not just "Bonddad" who ignores what's happening to real people, on the ground.
Bonddad's NDD & me go at it!
The above "note to Bonddad" was not posted on his blog. He only accepts compliments. But, today, it was responded to in a full length posting by NDD see:"Wrong again, Doomers: State tax receipts are going *UP*!" - by New Deal democrat
My response to NDD is below. I thought some EP readers may find it of some interest because I think it deals with the 'great divide' in today's 'political economy.'
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Response from the Schwarzenegger “Doomer”
Sorry I forgot to sign my name ‘Tom’. I’m a daily (sometimes twice) reader and periodic commenter. So I did read “Happy Days…” and commented that it, and other very rare postings on what you call the ‘bifurcated’ economy were excellent. I have complemented the Bonddad blog and criticized it, but never denigrated it (indeed, I recommend it) or can be accused of ad hominem insults.
The Schwarzenegger note was a tongue in cheek metaphoric expression to communicate the idea that this blog while, to my mind, pays ‘lip service’ to the suffering half of the bifurcated economy, the vast majority of its economic postings (not stock charts) is a chart game that seems to be driven by, frankly, ego. You regularly brag about being right and the so called ‘doomers’ are characterized pejoratively; indeed insultingly.
For example, your response to my ‘note’ ignores (a classic non sequitur) the point that there is ‘serious’ pain and suffering going on for what I and other ‘doomers’ judge to be ‘statistically significant’ numbers of people in California and the country as a whole. Their pain and suffering is not generally measured in the government economic statistics. You brag: look how smart I am compared to the ignorant ‘doomers’, the economy is creating jobs just like a I said.
But, you (and the government) do not analyze the characteristic of the jobs in terms of standard of living. The jobs ‘game’ is to you a ‘zero sum’ game. A person loses a $45, 000 /year full time full benefits job and takes a $15,000/year part time no benefits job; so one job lost and one gained. A job is job. So decreases in the number of full time full benefit jobs and greater increases in the number of part time no benefits jobs shows up as job creation in your statistical analysis – as I understand it. You compare job creation numbers today with recessions in the past. But, you do not compare the standard of living characteristics of the jobs created in the respective different periods. An autoworker job in 1980 is the same as a retail job in 2010: 1 job = 1 job. You are no doubt familiar with the expression “Lies, Damn lies and Statistics?
This blog is filled with statistics and I find them interesting. However, it is not obvious to me that that your charts capture the reality of the people in about the 75 percentile of family ‘standard of living’. I love the one about “increased unemployment is a good sign because discouraged workers are coming back into the job market” - talk about ‘Orwellian’ or ‘Alice in Wonderland” or Mad Magazine’s Alfred E, Newman – “what me worry?” Similarly, income tax statistics (which you imply that I commented on – again non sequitur): They are up, good news. But, how many more people have lost health insurance benefits, or had the retirement income fund slashed if not lost, or lost their homes or are in fear of losing their homes, or taking reductions in income to keep jobs, or have children who can’t afford college or can’t find a job after college, etc. etc.
Oh yes those are ‘lagging indicators’ – not to worry Alfred! Call me names if you will, but I and other ‘doomers’ do worry about all those real people (not numbers) who are experiencing real pain and do not interpret your arbitrarily drawn trend lines (not to be confused with regression lines or moving averages) as pointing to a ‘chicken in every pot’ future.
I’m sure you get my drift…
Respectfully
Tom
Oh my
I just read that post and shake head. What possesses someone to devote an entire blog piece to ridicule and insult one comment which isn't even off the mark?
Bonddad's NDD response
To my surprise, Bonddad not only posted my comment but both he and NDD responded. I, in turn responded to them. It is an interesting tete-a-tete that EP readers may find interesting. Their comments can be read under the above cited posting. I don't know if my second response will be posted so I place a copy below.
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NDD & Bonddad,
Thank you for your response.
NDD: Let me say, the phrase “Chicken in every pot” is not an ad hominem – i.e. an attack on an individual instead of the argument that the individual presents. It is a metaphor that attempts to capture the general theme that the blog generally projects (how can I say it without resorting to a metaphor) a ‘bright or positive future’; and I’m taking issue with that theme. Understandable in short comments there can be misunderstandings about metaphors. But, a metaphor about a theme is different from insults like “ignorance’ and ‘lack of comprehension.”
Bonddad: I understand what you say about commentators likes of Bill O’Reilly et al. But, there a many serious ‘bloggers’ who don’t take issue with the accuracy of your facts or the predictions that you and NDD have made. However, they and others such as myself are saying that the numbers are not accurately measuring (describing) the extent of the damage to the ‘standard of living’ and ‘quality of life’ (metaphors again) that a very large plurality of the people have incurred. And, they are not accurately projecting the future ‘standard of living’ and ‘quality of life’ of the America people.
It’s not that I take issue per se. You work with the measures that the government gives us. But, the measures are selective and subjectively defined. That’s being kind. I think the labor statistics are absurd. Or consider a recent conference of economist in Washington who agreed that they could not agree on a definition of GDP (sorry I can’t remember the source).
As to blaming people (e.g. Californians) who are suffering for causing their own suffering…well surely one can recognize the obvious ideological subject value judgmental dimensions of those types of arguments. I guess they (e.g. police, firepersons, teachers, factory workers, etc. should have reduced their own standard of living voluntarily before the reduction was (is) imposed on them? Interesting!
Tom
ah, so amusing
Well, look, they are and have been dead wrong and that isn't seeing through the numbers, that is the numbers. So, with that, what can I say, all credibility bets are off.
I mean this is kind of old news really. I've said many times I just don't know what happened to NDD but frankly whatever it is, it doesn't have much to do with the EIs, the stats and GDP.
Personally, I'd prefer to stay out of it. I jumped in only when Bonddad launched a major attack on this site itself. That's when I drew the line because we're trying to provide a space for people, who are sticking to the facts, the stats, the events, the data and want to discuss, write about it from the "bottom up" or "working stiff", real life in the trenches implications and viewpoints.
One would think statistics, charts, mathematics would be a black and white, no room for debate situation but I can tell you from geekville, politics trumps facts all of the time. Just look at the use of Copulas in CDSes and CDOs....now there is a no brainer yet there they are, being misused in a host of financial modeling for derivatives prices. Sigh.
So, look, on EP are a host of tools to write your own blog. If you notice I LOVE the St. Louis Fed FRED graphing online system. It just rocks! It's fast graph city and all you have to know is what the graphs really mean, what percent change, compounded annually, compounded continually mean and to watch out for the revision dates and the series being graphed itself.
I'm looking to add more graphing solutions to EP and one can write mathematics on EP, abet it's nasty, ya gotta know LaTex basically, which isn't for the faint of heart.
My suggestion therefore is....to consider writing up a short Instapopulist and consider looking at some of the data/graphs yourself and reach your own conclusions.
You can start by trying it out in a comment. You can post anything in a comment just watch formatting.