A Recession on the Way?

It's not about my credibility, it's about facts that don't lie. You can hate me, you can make fun of me, you can think I'm a childish piece of shit, you say whatever you want about me, but can you refute the facts? A GFY is not a response, it's an insult.

So? What’s your point?

We certainly have dug one hell of a hole that was undeniably short sided and put Americans last, but now's the time to dig us out of that hole and this is a step in the right direction. We as a society need to make some hard choices and some sacrifices if we truly want to bring back jobs to the US and grow the economy. I say that as someone who's been against subsidies for corporations for over twenty years. I'm also not a big "tax the rich!" guy either.

Yeah.

TPP had its flaws. Maybe it could have been tweaked, just like NAFTA was tweaked. But to throw it out wholesale, just to spite Obama -- this was Trump's greatest gift to China, and we (Trump critics, the media, the free world at large) don't talk about it nearly enough.

Stop blaming Poootin and the corporations for things that he's partially to blame for. Own up to it and come up with a plan. Be straight with the American people and stop denying it. If it were Trump, the media would be in non stop screeching mode and this board would be flipping out.

So "Brandon" having more humility is a solution to any of our problems?

A little more focus on substance, please.

We desperately need leadership in this country. Biden swore to unite us, now would be a good time. FDR making his fear speech didn't put food on anyone's table or money in anyone's pocket, but it set people's minds at ease and gave people confidence to move forward in dark times. We need that right now and if Biden can speak to the people and dissuade their fears a little bit and also lay out some sort of plan, maybe it will give people confidence to move forward. Also, you don't want to spook the markets. Staying silent or blaming others does nothing but hurt everyone.

FF's trolling is becoming less and less convincing. 3/10 for effort.

Biden got an infrastructure bill passed. He got a domestic semiconductor manufacturing and R&D bill passed. It’s looking like he’s going to get the Inflation Reduction Act passed. Putin is responsible for a great deal of the problem. This is obviously not your typical money-driven recession. Unemployment is flat. Money is not in unproductive places, as far as I can tell.

Do I want him to do more? Oh yes. This administration's COVID posture has become as neglectful as the last one's, maybe even more so. And that's going to have consequences which are going to make the goods supply issues worse.

But it's not like he's doing nothing at all to mitigate the supply problems caused by non-COVID factors. Do I want him to call it a recession? Sure, I guess, but no more than I generally want him to be honest. Calling it one doesn't change anything. The economy would have been in a money velocity-driven recession long before this without the stimuluses, so I don't think he's got anything to apologize for or own up to there.

You have to give credit to Rush, Fox and the other early proponents of the ‘Main Stream Media’ trope. They really knew how to lock in an audience.

It is comical to see folks trapped in that Right Wing Media bubble talking about how no one is talking about the Q2 GDP report when every single news podcast I’ve listened to today (including two from CNN and two from NPR) that was recorded after the report came out have had lengthy discussions on it.

But since the rubes have been convinced that factual media can’t be trusted they don’t even bother to go check. They just lap up the talking points fed them.

Fascinating. Sad, yet fascinating. It really is a perfect con.

Mouthbreathing browncoat...

We had a relatively secure border, ripping economy, energy independence, low gas prices, and no wars under Prez Trump. I wonder what we could do to have that again....

Manufacturing is not coming back to the US. At least, not in the immediate future. And if they did, the automation would preclude the need for employees - at least, on the scale it was in the early part of the last century.

If you want jobs in the US, politicians will need to think outside the box.

Question One: Was US refining capacity lower or higher when Trump left office than when he took office?

Followup: Is US energy production higher or lower today than when Biden took office?

Brandon is the depth of his critical thinking.

Minus the covid lockdown period, US oil production was 20% higher under Trump, pumping out a million more barrels per day than the Brandon administration. See how disingenuous you are?

Question One: Was US refining capacity lower or higher when Trump left office than when he took office?

Followup: Is US energy production higher or lower today than when Biden took office?

Is that the name of your racist metal band?

Racist mental band would fit you and the voices in your head fairly well.

Germany apparently has been able to keep manufacturing jobs going despite globalization. It doesn’t have to be manufacturing though, we can prop up and incentivize small businesses and family farms. I keep going back to that Nordic model for family farms which seems to work. I have other ideas, but that’s where I’d start.

There are a multitude of ways to go forward. Not just back to manufacturing. Family farms ... or at least, community gardens should be a must . Then we can dial back on factory farms and much of the preservatives and other contaminations in our food supply.

I agree 100%. This is a first.

Talking to your own reflection again?

It's definitely a case of textbook transference there.

I was just wondering the same thing about you since you didn’t address me at all.

Germany has been able to keep manufacturing jobs in a large part because their corporations are by law required to have union representation on their boards and in many cases the largest companies are partially owned by local and state governments.

For instance the largest stockholder in Volkswagen Group (Audi, Bentley, Cupra, Ducati, Jetta, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, Škoda, and Volkswagen) after the Porsche family is the government of Lower Saxony. They have 12.7% of the stock and 20% of the voting rights.

So between the unions and the local government there is a controlling interest in keeping jobs where they are.

I’m glad to see you recognize the benefits of workers and the people having control over the means of production. I wonder if there is a term for that.

Another thing they do that I would like to adopt is an education system that doesn’t believe everyone has to go to university. They have two types of what we would consider high school. The highest achieving kids go to Gymnasium which is college prep whereas most folks go to Hauptschule (Main School) which is a mixture of basic education and tech school. So they are pumping out already skilled workers every year.

When I was in high school, they promoted trade schools and two year colleges as an alternative to four year university. For some reason that changed over the past twenty years.

We had two streams like that in Alberta when I was in high school, but all in the same building. You could take the academic-difficulty courses and graduate with a diploma while meeting the prerequisites for university admission, or the more simplified courses that still granted you a diploma without setting you up for university, or a combination of basic courses that got you a GED and placement in an apprenticeship program.

With all the ups and downs in the economy over the last couple decades, maybe it's more of an insurance thing. Go into a trade if you want, but not at the cost of kneecapping your other academic opportunities in the future in case the job opportunities in your trade dry up.

I lowkey despise the attitude of many of the tradespeople in Canada. When the oilpatch was booming and all sorts of trade jobs were in high demand, they made wages much higher than doctors or nurses or teachers or public servants with more stable jobs, and they laughed it up. Then the economy patch slows down and takes the patch with it, and now they're screaming that doctors and nurses and teachers and public servants need to take pay cuts and face massive layoffs too because somehow it's only fair that the suffering be spread around equally.

Mostly agree. But a shift in corporate hiring practices is needed . Specifically, this "any degree is better than NO degree" mentality.