Where is the US economy headed?

Cyclo, et.al.,
This is exactly my original point. We can all spend endless cycles debating how we got into this mess we're in. And I'm confident both sides of the argument can pull out reams of data to support their particular position of why they're right and the other guy is wrong.

But what good does it to do so? So you convince me and I become a keynesian democrat. After all that bluster and debate, have we got even one inch closer to fixing our S&P credit rating?

It is now time to get serious about this whole debate. Repubs have got the Ryan plan (or the Cut & Balance bill)..... Now the Dems need to put their own plan on the table. It will probably be only an opening gambit with few (if any) cuts to entitlements, but that's OK. At least folks can begin to identify trade space and where they can agree or disagree.

This is what the public expects to see from Congress...not the spectacle of one side tossing out plans that the other simply ridicules or refuses to bring up for debate, while simultaneously failing to provide an alternative. If Dems (or Repubs) play such games they deserve to be unemployed next Nov.

Your defenses are getting noticably thin, with an ever highrer ratio of bombast to meaningful content,even compared to your usual norms. I also detect a whiff of fear in therm. That's a good sign - it indicates some remaining hold on readily observable reality on your part.

However, it is still a shame that you don't ask for equivalent levels of detail and objectivity from the various blogs that appear to substitute for independent thought on your part.

....the truth is that there has been no crazy spending spree since Obama took office - despite what you and others claim.

They don't give two shits how our economy performs, as long as taxes on the rich and corporations stay low. That's all they care about. It's not a valid way to run a country.

The Ryan 'plan' isn't a plan. The numbers literally don't add up. It's just another way of cutting taxes for the rich and corporations.

Truly - the thing axes Medicare specifically to fund tax cuts for the rich. Not a serious economic policy in any way; it's not even a starting point. However, us Dems are going to hang it right around your necks last cycle and hopefully choke the **** out of you with it, because the truth is that it's highly unpopular; the country does not support what your party says needs to be done. Polling is pretty clear on this issue.

So I've given up on them. My only consolation is that more and more Americans seem to agree with me. The 'tea party' has watched it's approval ratings tank over the last few months, along with Boehner and the Republicans in Congress.

The Ryan Plan is unpopular because it actually tries to solve the problem of entitlement reform. If and when the Dems ever put a realistic entitlement reform plan on the table, it will be likely be just as unpopular. I hope I'm wrong...I'd love to see a plan that keeps everyone happy, but I live in the real world.

And my consolation is that the approval ratings of Obama and Dems in Congress continue to fall as well.

The New York Times reports that today's plunge in the Dow is a market reaction to the credit downgrade. Does anyone understand how this theory makes sense? Investors are getting out of stocks and, if anything, into long-term bonds. (Bloomberg reports slightly higher prices and slightly lower yields for US Treasury bonds.) If Standard and Poors scared investors about an insolvent US government, why are investors buying rather than selling the US government's debt?

More bad news for 'America's Worst Decade
Next decade? Toxic politics promises to make economic matters much worse than even today.

"The U.S. economy appears to be coming apart at the seams," warned Columbia Professor Robert Lieberman earlier this year in "Foreign Affairs."

Now, over at "Foreign Policy" magazine, Josh Rogin warns: "This Fight Ain't Over: Think the debt ceiling gridlock was ugly? Congress is just getting warmed up. Here are eight more foreign-policy battles right around the corner" when they get back to sinking the economic recovery even deeper this fall.

All punctuated last week by S&P's downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, as well as the one-day 513-point market drop into a double-dip recession.

Another "Foreign Policy" expert, James Taub, warns of what the "debt-ceiling deal tells us about the Tea Party's grim vision of American power."

A disaster ahead, Taub writes: "All Guns, No Butter ... depleting the national treasury to pay for the military ... when many Americans want to reduce the role of government at home and especially abroad, the debt deal just concluded is likely to preserve the country's hypertrophied defense budget, at least if congressional Republicans get their way."

And Mitch McConnell, the GOP's Darth Vader, is doing just that, doubling down on his vow to make certain Obama is a one-term president, intentionally ignoring the collateral damage, killing economic recovery.

How? Ol' Mitch is already sabotaging the new Congressional "Debt Super-Committee," vowing to appoint only Republicans who have signed Grover Norquist's "no new taxes" pledge.

Expect more deadlocks as economists warn that recovery is impossible without new revenues.

But it's beyond toxic non-democratic pledges. America really is "coming apart at the seams." Both parties: Dems for lack of strong leadership. The GOP and the Tea Party with their bizarre Shumpeterian conviction that destroying the economy is the only way to save America and pave the way for a revival of their anarchistic free market Reaganomics.

Political Wars Sabotage Economy

Yes folks, our politicians really are out of control, utterly unable to manage the economy. They're irrational, and worse, clueless and myopic in economics. No surprise the market crashed 513 points one day last week.

Nor that pundits are pointing to high tech multiples, warning of a new dot-com crash and double-dip recession. Warning of a collapse in commodities, in emerging markets and endless debt problems for Europe.

Warning, in short, that we're headed into a perfect storm rivaling the disastrous political insanity of the 1930s that prolonged the depression, driving the economy into far reaching global problems that added fuel to an irrational zeitgeist and world war. And more

No, they really aren't. Obama's ratings are stable and he was rated higher than the GOP in every single economic category revolving around the financial crisis.

Cyclo wrote:

No, they really aren't. Obama's ratings are stable and he was rated higher than the GOP in every single economic category revolving around the financial crisis.

Too bad Obama isn't likely to face "the GOP" in 2012. As long as he's below 50% approval you should worry....

The dire state of the Republican party doesn't make the Democrats any better. It's the difference between a ton of **** and two tons.

I'm quite relieved.