Fact or Fiction?
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By Gegner
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July 3rd, 2009
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Greetings good citizen,
I was of the impression that the unemployment numbers wouldn’t be released until Friday…but apparently even BLS employees wanted their long weekend.
We all remember last month’s amazing report of 345,000 (which was after the ‘birth/death’ model added in 230,000 ‘imaginary’ jobs.) Apparently all of the bean counters (that have been consistently wrong so far) ‘projected’ that this months figures would be even lower.
Surprise, surprise…they were wrong again.
Worse, the equally as ‘imaginatively’ price stock markets dropped 200 plus points.
Is anyone else getting tired of this ‘Kabuki Dance’ yet? Perhaps more importantly, we still don’t have an answer to the BLS’s ‘math problem’ of how weekly job losses come in at over 600,000 and yet the monthly total is magically in the 400,000 range? read more »
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The Big Picture 7-2-09
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July 2nd, 2009
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"Nukes And Kooks" Some joker named Michael Sheuer was on Glenn Beck saying America needed a "major attack" by Osama Bin Ladin. It's the only way we can survive, he said. This prompted my usual rightwing callers to call in and talk about . . . everything except Michael Sheuer.
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41:01 minutes (18.78 MB)
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The Dirty secret
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By Gegner
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July 2nd, 2009
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Greetings good citizen,
I’m a big fan of ‘perspective’ because how we view our circumstances dictates how we feel about them. I’m sure many of you are just as perplexed as I am regarding the general ‘apathy’ expressed by the public over the outrageous behavior of both the government as well as that of the elite.
The source of that ‘apathy’ is easy to comprehend, If the people elected to rein in excess don’t do their job…and nobody jumps on them, what the hell can you do about it?
Okay, supposing you have more backbone than most, you can jump on the people who are supposed to be keeping an eye on things…except you can’t reach them. You can only access the ‘temp’ answering the phone that day (if by some miracle you get past the automated attendant) who has been told in no uncertain terms not to let anyone other than the President disturb them. read more »
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The Big Picture 7-1-09
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July 1st, 2009
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"It's Not News It's Fark" It's wonderful Wednesday in the middle of the summer, and there ain't a damn thing going on but the light bill. In other words, it's the perfect for conservative manufactured issues. Today's tempest in a teapot is Judge Sotomayor and the New Haven firefighters. Also, we get into the coup in Honduras.
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41:00 minutes (18.77 MB)
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Your piece of the pie
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By Gegner
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July 1st, 2009
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Greetings good citizen,
Well, today is the last day of the second quarter of FY 2009 and, like so many times before, there is nothing remotely resembling economic recovery evident anywhere in the US economy.
Which means what good citizen?
It means the lying fucks were WRONG AGAIN!
Talk about double standards, if you fucked up this often you’d have had a can tied to your ass two yeas ago!
What’s that? You mean none of these college-educated fuckwits has had their degree in economics revoked…not even one of them?
Oh, I keep forgetting…it’s all SOOoooooooo complicated!
What kind of world would it be if all of our jobs were so ‘complicated’ that we had no clue what the fuck we were doing ninety percent of the time?
Which is to say, if economics were ‘really’ as complicated as these morons make it out to be, we’d all be dead!
Boil away the BULLSHIT, good citizen and economics is about one thing and only one thing.
SURVIVAL. read more »
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The Big Picture 6-30-09
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June 30th, 2009
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"Ugly Babies" A Times-Union letter writer offers a compromise on abortion. Outlaw abortion except where the life of the mother is in danger, and maintain the social spending to provide for those babies. I say, "fair enough." What do the wingers say? Lots of action, today.
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41:00 minutes (18.77 MB)
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Fish or cut bait?
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By Gegner
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June 30th, 2009
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Greetings good citizen,
What should we do tonight, good citizen, fish or cut bait? Not only does the MSM cut bait for us but they feed it to us as well.
If this scenario conjures a mental image of tank of pirahanna devouring schools of minnows, I’d say that was a pretty apt description.
Our culture has become used to a steady diet of ‘cannibalism’ where we are fed a steady diet of the foibles of public figures to keep our minds occupied to ensure we don’t make other, um, ‘less interesting’ connections that aren’t easily explained.
One of these disturbing issues is ‘opposition’. If we’re all in this together, then who is the ‘opposition’ and why do they prevail so often?
Is this a ‘flaw’ in our collective decision making process or are our decision-makers just too corrupt? read more »
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The Big Picture 6-29-09
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June 29th, 2009
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"Waiting For Recovery" Bonddad from Daily Kos reports that leading economic indicators have risen dramatically. You need to hope he's right.
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41:00 minutes (18.77 MB)
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Prosperity
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By Gegner
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June 28th, 2009
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Greetings good citizen,
The mind is a funny thing as it is often only truly ‘aware’ of what’s going on in its immediate vicinity. Reports of other events elsewhere are usually accepted at ‘face value’. If the media reports things are going gangbusters, who are you to disagree?
And for a very long time now, the ‘news’ such as it is has seemed like it was being beamed in from another planet. I was consistently unable to independently verify the ‘robust’ economy boasted of by either Bush or Clinton.
The ‘Dot.gone’ era was particularly spooky because the markets were (like today) loaded with sky high share prices that had no basis in reality. read more »
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Is the recession ending?
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By Gegner
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June 28th, 2009
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Greetings good citizen,
As promised, Mr. Mauldin has penned another missive on the topic of the ‘New Normal’ Although tonight’s offering isn’t nearly as ‘to the point’ as last weeks.
Last week he painted a fairly grim (but still optimistic by my standards) picture of what the future would hold…but what becomes more obvious is the ‘audience’ Mr. Mauldin is trying to reach is very different from regular working people I consider my audience to be.
Mr. Maudlin’s ‘thing’ is writing a subscription-based newsletter for investors. So these little ‘doodles’ posted on Barry Ritholtz’s site are ‘samples’ intended to get you to buy the newsletter. (I have a dozen short stories you can read on the net for free intended to encourage you to buy my novels.) read more »
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Snap!
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By Gegner
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June 27th, 2009
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Greetings good citizen,
It seems as though I have been encountering more and more ‘sympathetic voices’ as our once great society sinks beneath the waves of corruption perpetrated upon us by ‘entrenched wealth’ that seeks to ‘cement’ their perpetual ‘lordship’ over this land.
Understand that our situation is ‘unique’ good citizen, the crimes being perpetrated now would not have been possible even fifty years ago.
I have often eluded to the fact that we are at ‘war’ good citizen but this is not your ‘ordinary’ or conventional kind of war because the people that are under attack have nothing with which to defend themselves or their families with.
This new brand of ‘economic warfare’ could be countered with legislation…but the wealthy got to the government first.
It has become apparent that we no longer have the ability to, er, pass legislation that would stop the relentless attack on our paychecks. read more »
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Credibility
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By Gegner
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June 26th, 2009
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Greetings good citizen,
I’m thinking tonight’s offering falls under the category of things you see when you don’t have a gun…
As hard as it is to believe, there is a larger crisis, one much more serious than the financial problems the world is suffering at this time.
That crisis is more likely to than any other to throw our entire species into it’s own cesspool…
That crisis is the one where we can no longer trust ANY branch of the government (or the justice system) to protect the interests of the nation ahead of the interests of those who have suborned them.
You are no longer ‘voters’…you are no longer people…worse, you have never been ‘citizens’ because there is nothing in our laws that promise you the protection of society. read more »
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The Big Picture 6-25-09
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June 25th, 2009
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"Superficial Morality" The "family values" party strikes again as South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford admits to ducking out of the country for a jaunt with his mistress -- IN ARGENTINA! Also, "Doctor Mike" calls back to discuss healthcare.
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The 'Purpose' of civilization...
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By Gegner
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June 25th, 2009
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Greetings good citizen,
The markets were, at last glance, treading water…although some would say they’re ‘levitating’ or floating at a valuation that has no basis in reality.
I just had one of those ‘duh’ moments where the obvious hit me right between the goggles. I’m watching a Bloomberg video where Nouriel Roubini was being grilled on the global economy by a female anchor and some guy in a bright pink shirt.
They were dancing around the topic of Eastern Europe and the ‘banking crisis’ over there that is threatening to wreak major havoc on Western European banks.
Um, in case you haven’t noticed, there is a common denominator here that raises some serious issues about what our 'priorities' are...
The common denominator is that every one of these crises are centered on ‘banks’ and the epiphany I had was when the hell did civilization turn into a ‘life support system’ for the friggin’ banks (and by extension, bankers?) read more »
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The Big Picture 6-24-09
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June 24th, 2009
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"There's Nothing Like Data" Amity Schlaes -- I couldn't remember her name on the air -- wrote some revisionist history about Roosevelt and the alleged failure of the New Deal. These revisionists always seem to leave out the GDP numbers. I furnish them to a caller who was sure he had me.
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40:45 minutes (18.66 MB)
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Limbaugh Turns Against Small Business
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June 24th, 2009
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He always touts the virtues of starting your own business. He always supports cheap labor. So who's side does he take when small business wants to escape the cost of private health insurance?
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About Face
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By Gegner
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June 24th, 2009
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Greetings good citizen,
Do you smell at rat? After months of insisting that everything economic was ‘on the mend’, all of sudden they (the punditry) have done an abrupt about face…
It seems all of those ‘less bad’ bits of economic data that were heralded as ‘green shoots’ were actually pretty horrific after all.
As you are already well aware, the reason behind the sudden reversal has less to do with saving ‘credibility’ than with the potential to spark widespread civil unrest for not occasionally making a passing acknowledgement of reality.
That and our boy Ben Bernanke is up for ‘re-appointment’ in January.
Understand that Uncle Ben is the one who started the ‘green shoot’ nonsense as a defense of his (so far) reckless financial policies that obviously aren’t working.
Let’s phrase this question differently: How many of you would be willing to ‘take it to the streets’ if Obama re-appoints ‘Helicopter Ben’? read more »
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The Big Picture 6-23-09
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June 23rd, 2009
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"The Booboisie" Way back in 1980, and transplanted Brit named Henry Fairlie described the Republican Party using HL Mencken's reference to the "booboisie." In a classic rant, Fairlie nails them -- then and now.
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The Slide
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By Gegner
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June 23rd, 2009
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Greetings good citizen,
Apparently ‘Fear’ drove ‘Greed’ out of the markets again today as the Dow slid 171 points by roughly 2:00 PM EST.
Sadly, there has been no sign of ‘Sanity’ for the past three months and it’s presumed she’s ‘missing in action.’
‘Speculation’ has it that today’s release by the IMF of a rather gloomy economic outlook is responsible for the sudden ‘reversal’ of the market rally that is going into its third month.
Worse, what was initially seen as ‘green shoots’ has turned out to be ‘Poison Ivy and Hemlock’.
Nobody is doing anything about the deteriorating job market although, ironically, the US stimulus plan may be responsible for boosting China’s GDP from a projected positive one percent to a positive seven percent for the year. read more »
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The Big Picture 6-22-09
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June 22nd, 2009
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"Power And Legitimacy" Unrest in Iran raises that all important political question. "Is force what holds society together?"
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41:00 minutes (18.77 MB)
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