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Republicans: We’re So Awesome

January 8th, 2015

So, Republicans won more seats than before in the last midterm election, and now control both houses. One day after they started their new session, Mitch McConnell tried to take credit for the economic upturn that has been years in the making:

After so many years of sluggish growth, we’re finally starting to see some economic data that can provide a glimmer of hope; the uptick appears to coincide with the biggest political change of the Obama Administration’s long tenure in Washington: the expectation of a new Republican Congress. So this is precisely the right time to advance a positive, pro-growth agenda.

Yes. Sure. Because so many people were just so ecstatic and hopeful once Republicans gained their completely meaningless majority in the Senate. That’s what caused the economy to surge.

What asshats.

Look, I don’t even credit Obama with this, though the fact that more Americans are insured probably has a bigger effect than anything concerning Republicans. In the end, the economy will tend to swing around despite anything happening in the political sphere. However, if anyone in politics has the right to claim credit for what we’re seeing now, it sure as fracking hell is not the obstructionist, hostage-taking, shut-down-the-government pack of loonies that right now is strutting like a bunch of idiots who you know are going to self-destruct pretty soon.

For several charts and a general rundown proving what anyone could intuitively guess, The Washington Post has the goods.

Categories: Economics, Republican Stupidity Tags: by
  1. Troy
    January 8th, 2015 at 14:30 | #1

    GOP’s main success is bamboozling the electorate, and they’re pretty good at that.

    Of course, a) “you can fool some of the people all of the time” and b) “nobody went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people”.

    As for the 2010-2015 recovery, they’ve fought it every step of the way.

    http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/09/20/full-text-republicans-letter-to-bernanke-questioning-more-fed-action/

    “It is our understanding that the Board Members of the Federal Reserve will meet later this week to consider additional monetary stimulus proposals. We write to express our reservations about any such measures.”

    Sincerely,

    Sen. Mitch McConnell, Rep. John Boehner, Sen. Jon Kyl, Rep. Eric Cantor

    http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=Wqs

    shows Bernanke actually held off expanding the Fed’s balance sheet until after the 2012 election, then he gave us another goose that got us to where we are now.

  2. Troy
    January 9th, 2015 at 05:43 | #2

    Re: Ballmer on the iPad

    http://blogd.com/wp/index.php/archives/7010

    how ’bout that iPad! Apple’s sold 237M of ’em, and that’s not counting the christmas quarter.

    the Air 2 in November I got is pure sex, remove the Apple logo and it wouldn’t look out of place as a prop on a STNG episode.

    Still needs full-fledge integration with a KVM use case.

    It does what it does great, but adding that wouldn’t interfere with its core mission.

    So sad that something so powerful only gets used minutes a day. It could easily replace my Mac if it had the OS support for KVM.

  3. kensensei
    January 15th, 2015 at 12:57 | #3

    I wonder if McConnell is willing to take responsibility for the huge recent drop in the stock market as of the beginning of 2015. No? My, what a surprise.

  4. Luis
    January 15th, 2015 at 18:03 | #4

    Ken: Of course not! How could that ever be possible? </eyeroll>

  5. Troy
    January 16th, 2015 at 09:10 | #5

    The GOP reverts to form and as conservatives they defend the wealthy against their masses, the haves against the have-nots, the religious against the secular, and the insane vs. the rational.

    Yet their message does not alienate the population, rather it attracts 2/5 of us:

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/180452/liberals-record-trail-conservatives.aspx

    “The best propaganda is that which, as it were, works invisibly, penetrates the whole of life without the public having any knowledge of the propagandistic initiative.”

    and

    “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

    Conservatives are not my enemy, my enemy is the bullshit they tell themselves and us.

    Things have gotten weird here but nobody can put their finger on it.

    http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/intinv/intinvnewsrelease.htm

    shows $5T of global capital flowed into the US since 2008. The US economy is a hegemonic one, and in the current system is the safest place to put these trillions of surplus savings I guess.

    Now, Japan takes the ribbon for surplus savings:

    http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=Xhi

    compares government debt to GDP. In the post-bubble recession, the LDP gave out tax cuts and people just saved (i.e. bought gov’t bonds) this money, and more recently the BOJ has taken over the buyer’s role, as it now has printed two trillion dollars worth, or 40% of GDP. This is up $500B over the past year, or $10,000 per household of monetary expansion.

    (The Fed has printed a total of 10% of GDP of money for gov’t bond buying since 2009, plus another 10% that bought mortgage debt.)

    I’m not worried about Japan too much, since the end game with their monetary policy is the yen at 150+, and that’s an economic tailwind for you guys I guess (holy crap I had no idea it’s hit 120 already).

    “The System” really really wants to inflate everything, and that usually includes home values, so it’s still good that you’ve bought already I guess.

    Here in the US at best we’re going to have a shitshow between Obama and the GOP for the next two years. I’m rooting for Sanders, but I think 2016 is not a good year to take the wheel, as 2018 might be a repeat of 2008.

    Or not, I have no idea what’s coming down the pike this decade or next. Other than the yen at 150+, I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen.

  6. Troy
    January 22nd, 2015 at 17:43 | #6

    http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/21/7865539/microsoft-windows-10-event-what-you-need-to-know

    So Microsoft’s major roll-out boils down to they’ve put the Start Menu back in Windows 10 and it’s going to be a free upgrade.

    What a bizarre company. Windows 10 is what Vista should have been, a decade ago.

  7. Troy
    January 23rd, 2015 at 13:23 | #7

    ^ heh, the press at the Microsoft event:

    http://www.imore.com/press-windows-10-event-also-looks-apple-ad

  8. Troy
    January 26th, 2015 at 06:39 | #8

    Re your

    Senate Democrats Are Still Mostly Weak-Kneed Imbeciles
    January 25th, 2013

    Why? Because they caved in on filibuster reform. They allowed Republicans to continue the 60-vote supermajority rule without cost.

    Complete. Fracking. Idiots.

    Two years on, I see what they were thinking. Foremost, after the 2010 election the filibuster was no longer necessary for legislation since the GOP (generally…) had the votes to stop anything in the House.

    And as I said here a month or so ago, getting rid of this particular piece of machinery would be doing the GOP’s dirty work for them, since their legislative program is one of destruction not creation, and all that’s standing in their way now is the Veto and a Democratic filibuster.

    We might lose both in 2017, we’ll see! Be glad you’re Japanese now at least.

  9. Troy
    January 26th, 2015 at 07:53 | #9

    Funny how David Dzidzikas was utterly wrong in your comments five years ago.

    “Two-three months from now nobody will remember Bush’s policies and the Democrats have to be more careful on the long-term effects of massive spending”

    http://blogd.com/wp/index.php/archives/5249#comment-12742

    These people didn’t understand then and don’t understand now that it’s only government spending keeping this economy together.

    The 1% is pulling trillions out of the working class, and government is putting that money back. Government spending (hopefully) doesn’t disappear to some Swiss bank account, it is spent right back into the private economy by its recipients.

    http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/W068RCQ027SBEA

    is total government spending, showing the relative ‘austerity’ regime we’ve been after the initial surge of stimulus was spent.

    I just think the GOP is throttling the economy until 2016, should they take the WH then hold onto your hats, we’re going to get another leg up with that.

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