FLook how Obama's got both hands on the brakes ... just like the economy.

>>>That's odd, isn't it?

Okay, about the technical recession thing -- we only "technically" got out of a recession by lying on GDP numbers and inflation. (Which, by the way, was a trick Bush did, too.)

As messaging, it may be weak as a Republican talking point to point out that the recession started on Bush's watch, but, um, the recession did in fact start on his watch as a direct result of his insanely loose money policies. The goal shold be to reverse those policies. Lying, or "massaging," so that the message doesn't pin the blame on Our Guy is conterproductive because it obscures that the problem is. The problem is not Team D, so that Team R automagically fixes it. The problem is heinous Fed policies, immoral inflation, and spending. Team R has a lot of little fingers in that pie, and that needs to be acknowledged, not hidden. When it's hidden, it makes me distrust people.

Interesting that google is inputting "ScanF" when you type in "SCOAMF".

No google asshats..I would NOT prefer a search for "ScanF"

You might think they don't want a search for that...

Stuttering Clusterfuck of a Miserable Failure.

That's odd, isn't it?

What kind of SCOAMF does that?"

One that knows that the MFM would eat the corn out of his shit before telling the truth about him.

Obama has announced he will release his plan when he gets back from vacation.

Does anyone know with certainty if he's actually releasing a written plan, or is this going to be another vague speech plan?

He's in constant speech mode. It's all he knows. It's all he has. It's all he's capable of doing and the message is always the same god damn thing. He's living in a dream world that is reminescent of the movie Groundhog Day.

The estimated 3% growth makes total sense.  The Justice Department is making it perfectly clear what will happen to anyone who dares question The One's economic policies. 

Let Standard and Poor's serve as an example for all other raters and prognosticators.  If we thought the "week after" adjustments have been bad before, just wait, now that telling the truth will indeed be punished.

And I promise that ten days from now I'll tell you my plan.  Weeee! riding, riding, riding my blue bike!!!

*shows up fashionably late 14 days later and says BO the water dog ate his plan*

Posted by: Monty at August 18, 2011 01:43 PM (FC+dS)

Oh, no! DOOM is seeping into the afternoon. Get Mom into the van, load up the guns & food and let's head to the hide-out!

Posted by: discontinuity at August 18, 2011 01:42 PM (8X9tr)

Well, since you asked...

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3fjklfx

Posted by: Ella at August 18, 2011 01:37 PM (/H0Bb)

Well said...

We need a little candor and truth from our politicians, vice the typical political talking points trying to score on the other side...

If you factor in real inflation, and take out Deficit spending, we have never recovered from the recession... and are technicly in a Depression.

But hey.... if'n the Government does not like what the stats say? Just 'renorm' the way you count!

Posted by: John "the Hannibal" Smith at August 18, 2011 01:38 PM (8d0Gz)

Forget ten days.  He hasn't presented a plan of any sort since January.  And that wasn't even a plan; that was a stuttering clusterfuck of a miserable failure of a budget request.  He should have had a plan for months; YEARS.  But he's an inarticulate, petulant manchild with no experience in leadership, economics, or being a decent human being. 

He's a SCOMF.

(I use SCOMF, not SCOAMF, because the latter sounds like scone, and I like scones.  I don't like this President.)

Dammit.  This is serious shit.

I have a couple of job offers possibly coming in the next week.  If I don't get either of them, I think I am really screwed.  I think even those companies now hiring will pull back if they see another recession coming.  The markets are hammering what little I have left in savings and my kid starts college next week.  I took out loans for his first year thinking that by next year we will be back on our feet. 

We have to figure out how to grow our way out of this.  We HAVE to. 

Posted by: Joffen at August 18, 2011 01:44 PM (EPcuy)

This is the second thread, AFAIK, that you've posted this in... What's up?

Posted by: discontinuity at August 18, 2011 01:42 PM (8X9tr)

Posted by: soothie at August 18, 2011 01:41 PM (G/zuv)

Let's take up a collection for Soothie to get in the audience where the SCFOMF is speaking to see if he can create a "YOU LIE!!!!" moment. 

I hope the republicans come out with some legislation to turn this economy around. We know what Obama is going to have, more Keynes.

Republicans need to come out with more Reagan.

1. A 10% Investment tax credit on all durable goods.

2. A moratorium on Obamacare and DoddFrank for 2 years.

3. Expidited drilling permits.

4. Moratorium on all new EPA regulations.

5. Double interest tax credit on home purchases for 2 years.

6. Accelerated depriciation on business tools and equipment.

7. A 6 month one time tax waiver on corporations repatriating profits.

No more accross the board tax reductions or credits. Make people invest in something to get the tax cut.

I hope they do something like this, I don't have a lot of hope though but it would good for the country and slap down Obamas Keynesian proposal he is going to hit them with.

What I would love Rick Perry to do is, at each of his campaign stops, give a PowerPoint presentation that outlines his plans for the country should he be elected, and which also outlines his accomplishments in Texas.

But every few slides, he should slip in a picture of Obama looking like an idiot. 

...The mom jeans bicycle pic ... the "umbrella through a gate" pic ... any of the Mussolini chin pics... an animated gif of the rat in the Rose Garden...

"Whoops!  How'd that get in there?  Sorry, folks, hope you haven't lost your appetite."

Subtle, but effective.

(Really, any Repub candidate could try this.  But I think Perry's the only one with the cajones to do it.)

Posted by: Joffen at August 18, 2011 01:44 PM (EPcuy)

His answer was great, he said we teach both in Texas and he was sure the kid was smart enough to figure out which was right.

Posted by: Joffen at August 18, 2011 01:44 PM (EPcuy)

Irrelevant.

Posted by: Meiczyslaw at August 18, 2011 01:48 PM (bjRNS)

"Throw your hands in the ay-air, if you're a Stuttering Clusterfuck of a Miserable Fail-yair!"

Posted by: robtr at August 18, 2011 01:50 PM (MtwBb)

Absolutely the wrong direction to go.

The business community needs stability, not more short term gimmiks and changing rules.

We need LESS complexity, not more.  We need to be able to plan more than a year out, and know what our taxes will be WITHOUT having to go to a CPA so he can try to figure it out...

Short term fixes and just having a different group monkeying around with regulations and tax code, will hurt more than it will help IMO.

Well, since you asked...

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3fjklfx

Am I making too much out of this?

Yes. The lefties will use it because they use everything, even if it hasn't been said. Normal people will see that it's absolute bullshit to use your kid to ask gotcha questions.

That's normal for non-road riders who go fast and change direction a lot. Obama isn't one of those people, but it's fine. I didn't notice.

But then I actually looked, and there is something weird. He's left-handed (or isn't he? does he just pretend he is because it's another thing to add to his "ways I'm special" list?), and he has four fingers of his good hand covering the brake. Try squeezing your strong-side brake lever with all four fingers sometime. It doesn't work much, because...leverage and shit, and you can easily lose control of the bars if it does work, because you're not really holding them.

Who keeps letting this dangerous klutz get on a bike?

_{Posted by: Joffen at August 18, 2011 01:52 PM (EPcuy)}

Don't get too excited. You'll blow it. You have a long time to go yet.

Posted by: Jeff B. at August 18, 2011 01:56 PM (TADg9)

Irony  is sometimes not your friend, man

And I am tempted.

In a letter to the Martha's Vineyard Times, former Island resident Joanne Philbrick said she had hoped to come back to Martha's Vineyard this summer to introduce her grandson to the beauty of Island.

"I too had hopes of a trip back to the place I called home for almost 30 years," Ms. Philbrick, of Norwich, Connecticut, wrote. "Unfortunately I'm retired now, on a fixed income and have lost more money than I care to think about in investments that were for my golden years. Gone now, because of the inability or unwillingness of our elected officials to do the right thing. Federal, state, and local officials do not seem to understand the difficult times that many Americans are going through. So, have a good time Mr. President. Relax, enjoy, have a glass of wine and a nice dinner. Get a good night's sleep. I certainly won't."

_{Posted by: Jeff B. at August 18, 2011 01:56 PM (TADg9)}

Now you are almost begging for it.

Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) is tired beyond tired of the trolls at August 18, 2011 01:54 PM (8y9MW)

It'd be like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates.*  You'll never know what picture you're going to get.  He'd have groupies following him from stop to stop just to see which picture he'd use next.  "Ooh, will he use the fly-on-the-face picture?  Do you think?   OH!  I hope he uses the one with the faux Greek columns!"

^{*but more satisfying and not delivered by a lefty windbag has-been}

Posted by: Monty at August 18, 2011 01:54 PM (FC+dS)

Tbh, companies aren't willing to take a chance on a new grad these days, they got themselves to blame if they throw the baby out with the bathwater.

t-bird, We can't do anything about ScanF being older, but we can sure attempt to make SCOAMF more common!

and for those nasty web-crawling spiderbots:

SCOAMF = Stuttering Clusterfuck of a Miserable Failure

SCOAMF SCOAMF SCOAMF SCOAMF SCOAMF

SCOAMF SCOAMF SCOAMF SCOAMF SCOAMF

SCOAMF SCOAMF SCOAMF SCOAMF SCOAMF

oh, and SCOAMF!

The business community needs stability, not more short term gimmiks and changing rules.

We need LESS complexity, not more.  We need to be able to plan more than a year out, and know what our taxes will be WITHOUT having to go to a CPA so he can try to figure it out...

Short term fixes and just having a different group monkeying around with regulations and tax code, will hurt more than it will help IMO.

Posted by: Romeo13 at August 18, 2011 01:54 PM (NtXW4)

Well I had my own business when Reagan did a lot of the same things and it worked. It worked really well. It created urgency in investing in your company.

I agree with cleaning up the tax code and lowering corporate income taxes while you do it but that isn't going to stimulate the economy.

The average real corporate tax rate (the amount they actually pay) is around 20% right now. So you could lower it to 20% and cut the loopholes and it would be no change from right now. It would make no difference in the economy.

Unexpectedly!

(Except by all the knuckle-dragging Tea Party terrorists.)

Posted by: Jeff B. at August 18, 2011 02:00 PM (TADg9)

Dude, the lame 'joke' died a quick death, and I do not whiff

Posted by: Monty at August 18, 2011 01:54 PM (FC+dS)

Wheelbarrows.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at August 18, 2011 02:00 PM (0N5pL)

I think that's because he rides a Harley... (I know he occasionally rides w/ the Patriot Guard for funerals in Texas... but I'm not 100% sure what kind of bike he owns.)

Posted by: t-bird at August 18, 2011 01:56 PM (FcR7P)

Yeah I know, I am not playing politics I am looking for something that might have a chance of passing. We could go all purist and pretend Obama is going to sign a complete overturn of Obamacare, Dodd Frank and the new EPA regs or we could face reality and try and get them put off in the future and hope we win next fall so we can kill them altogether.

This is totally anecdotal, but I was in a Target store this morning and I was floored by how many employees were out on the floor.  I turned my back for a minute and one of them took my shopping cart!  Then when I freaked out another one spent 20 minutes looking for it and found it.  Another one picked up a small refrigerator and brought it to the checkout lane for me, and still another one took it outside and loaded it on the cart.  There must have been 20 employees just roaming the store helping "guests" as they called them, stocking shelves, tidying up, etc. 

These may be "McJobs," but at least all these people are working and learning to be helpful to customers.  They were energetic and enthusiastic.  Target lost me a couple of years ago but is winning me back with this kind of service.  I think other retailers could learn from them.  Target's stock is doing very well, they just reported strong earnings, and I can tell you that store was PACKED this morning with moms doing back-to-school shopping. 

We need retailers and other companies to understand that hiring a few more people at entry level to help customers and improve their experience is good for the workers, good for the business, and good for the country.  Americans are fed up with self-service and crappy service when they go shopping.  Maybe we need to drop the minimum wage to get more companies to hire more people. 

The dearth of jobs in this country isn't just a macroeconomic phenomenon, it is stupidity in corporate America that treats people as costs to be controlled and not assets to be managed.  Fewer employees does not always mean more profits.

To the Editor:

With his approval rating just hitting 39 percent, the lowest for any first-term president, maybe President Obama will consider going to Nantucket next year, seeing it will be his last year in office, and stay at John Kerry's home there.

Not all of us on the Vineyard have sipped that Kool Aid, and as I always say, keep the change.

Woodrow W. Williams

Vineyard Haven

The Markets both pretended to recover ("We've totally tackled all our bad debt! Volt Fa-eva bitches~!) and foolishly re-invested thinking the impossibily good times were back.

So we did and didn't finish the last Recession.

We need retailers and other companies to understand that hiring a few more people at entry level to help customers and improve their experience is good for the workers, good for the business, and good for the country.  Americans are fed up with self-service and crappy service when they go shopping.  Maybe we need to drop the minimum wage to get more companies to hire more people. 

The dearth of jobs in this country isn't just a macroeconomic phenomenon, it is stupidity in corporate America that treats people as costs to be controlled and not assets to be managed.  Fewer employees does not always mean more profits.

Posted by: rockmom at August 18, 2011 02:11 PM (lSyyU)

I don't know, I love self-service checkouts as it is much faster than going through regular checkouts.

I bet he also has a yacht. Damn rich marmots. We need to tax them more.

Posted by: Marcus at August 18, 2011 02:15 PM (CHrmZ)

Also, let's not forget - let's *not* forget, Dude - that keeping wildlife, an amphibious rodent, for uh, domestic, you know, within the city - that aint legal either.

Posted by: t-bird at August 18, 2011 02:14 PM (FcR7P)

You might want to read what I wrote again. I wasn't looking for a political victory. I was looking for something we could do that I know works. I saw it work.

When Reagan initiated the 10% investment tax credit I bought $500,000 in new equipment and hired 5 new employess to operate it. For letting me keep $50,000 of my own money the government gave me an incentive to put $500,000 into the economy.

Almost every business in the country took advantage of the 10% investment tax credit.

But anyways, that's just what Reagan did. What the fuck did he know.

Posted by: rockmom at August 18, 2011 02:11 PM (lSyyU)

But you can't make a rational decision to hire new people, when it is almost impossible to fire them, AND, you don't know what the cost of hiring said person will be (due to taxes, Obamacare crap, regulations, Unions...).

Me and my partners are working 50 hour weeks... and we'd LOVE to be able to hire someone... but we really can't predict what it will do to our bottom line... so we are all biting the bullet.

Rick Perry, what is best in life?

"Crush your enemies.  See them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women!"

It's really going to have to be this way.  It's the only way.  If we are going to change the 60 year path to destruction this country has been subjected to by the left, we are going to have to defeat them in such a way as to totally demoralize them and leave them SCOAMF.

Glenn Beck and Mark Steyn: wild-eyed optimists as it turns out. 

I just read the comments at the CNN Money link at Drudge on Bachmann and "2 dollar gasoline".  The edifice of progressive thought is built on a foundation of economic illiteracy and not reading the article.

"She has no actual ideas!"

(Less regulation, more drilling, allow shale exploitation -- in the article) 

When 'experts' claim that more supply will not reduce the price of something it's time to get new experts.      

Isn't that kind of how Rugby was invented?

Posted by: 'Nam Grunt at August 18, 2011 02:28 PM (gan7Z)

That may have been possible a few months back, but I think it is a little late in the game now. They don't even have anyone talking about running.

Beware of any "jobs" bill coming from this Chicago political hack.

Last I heard he was working off a Van Jones wish list that was also being pushed by Jan Shakowsky (sp?) the lefty congressperson from Chicago (her jailed/criminal husband is said to be the main "author" of Obamacare)

I am sure that is a photo from last year's Vineyard vacation. This year he has a pack of cards in his spokes and he yells "vroom, vroom" when he bounces over the rough trails. He also has a "Hello Kitty" fanny pack just like his iReggie.

When he is on Martha's Vineyard  Obama should heed this advice from the Islamic etiquette handbook:

Prophet Muhammad  said: "Do not drink from vessels of gold and silver, or eat from plates thereof."

"as a messaging matter, it's actually politically better for us if this is the Obama Recession, not a continuation of the Bush one."

Should'nt that be:

"as a messaging matter, it's actually politically better for us if this is the Obama Recession, not a continuation of the Reid/Pelosi one."

192 I still believe that princess barry is going to say that he will not seek another term after his vacay, just a feeling or maybe a wish I have.

You know, that is probably the ONLY speech he could give that would fix the economy!

"In 1978, one of Jimmy CarterÂ’s economic advisers Alfred Khan was referring to the US facing a depression. Jimmy Carter said he didnÂ’t like the term depression, because it created negative connotations. So Alfred Khan noted:

“We’re in danger of having the worst banana in 45 years.”'

@49: ""A Man With A Plan""

Man, did it ever occur to you that The Man With The Plan is just a head? We all bow and scrape and run scared from some head.  Well, fuck the head.  That's my new motto.  Fuck the head.

Maybe Obama should take economic advice from his daughter, because in the picture posted above Obama is leading with both hands on the brakes, while his daughter behind him has no hands on the brakes and is looking to pass.

I guarentee this new plan he comes out with will be about spending more, and not much else. 

For some reason, after seeing Obama I that bike, I felt compelled to post this.

 Obama is a stuttering clusterfuck of a miserable failure