If the Greeks vote "YES" in Sunday's referendum then I am done defending them. I have no sympathy left for them. They will have gotten what they deserve.

I barely have any sympathy left for the Greeks anyway. What a bunch of dumb shits the way they have been handling this disaster. And this from a nation with such an amazing history. They gave so much to the world: Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Archimedes, Hippocrates, Pythagoras.

Alexander the Great must be rolling over in his grave!

If they vote "YES" on Sunday that's it, I am done with them. They get what they fucking deserve.

I feel the same way about poor, dumb, Southerners here in America. I hope they stay poor and dumb because that's what they fucking deserve, too, for voting Republican.

Morons.

Greece back in recession, BOE cuts growth forecast

Great job, Syriza, Varoufakis, Tsipras!

And, way to go U.K. voters for giving austerity-pushing Conservatives a majority!

Almost a stupid as us Americans, who gave Republicans control of Congress.

I'm not sure, but has there ever been a time in history when more people voted against their own interests? Someone, please help me on this.

Republicans and the rich cry about the estate tax, yet the total paid to the government last year was a pittance

Republicans and wealthy people cry about the estate tax, yet the amount of estate and gift tax paid to the Federal Government in  FY 2014 was a paltry $685 MILLION. (Not even a billion.)

You can see the numbers here below, from the Daily Treasury Statement.

Once again I will repeat that the vast majority of tax revenues come from employment taxes, which are taken from working people. Both the president and Congress decided to raise those last year.

Republicans crying about the estate tax is ludicrous and seriously whiny.

Chris Christie is floating his big, "presidential," idea: Screwing seniors out of Social Security

Guess who's sorta running for president, but hasn't come out and said it, yet? New Jersey Governor, Christie Christie. And guess what appears to be the main idea for his platform? How he's gonna "fix" Social Security.

Never mind that it ain't broken and will never go broke because the Federal Government can never run out of dollars to pay. Alan Greenspan schooled Paul Ryan on this, remember? And the government "paid back" nearly $69 trillion to holders of public debt securities LAST YEAR. SIXTY NINE TRILLION.

So it's pretty clear we can't run out of money.

But don't let that phase Christie; he's just another clueless, callous debt fanatic. A guy who's pretty much run his state into the ground. Near last in job growth. Credit ratings cut by rating agencies. Led the last three years out of four in people leaving. Cuts to education, health care, social programs, but of course, tax cuts for the wealthy. He's right up there with guys like Sam Brownback of Kansas and Scott Walker of Wisconsin

Christie's plan to fix Social Security is to screw seniors out of benefits by cutting payments and raising the retirement age. Wonderful. More taxes on the most vulnerable and those who worked all their lives and contributed to the system and helped build the country. That's fair.

By the way, with Christie coming out with this plan, expect the other ignorant debt fanatics/hypocrites to do the same and, oh yeah, that means Hillary Clinton, too. Her husband is all about cutting Social Security. His "guy" was none other than Erskine Bowles of Simpleton/Bowels infamy.

All I have to say are two things: Are we still really having this discussion about what is causing income and wealth  inequality?

And...

Say goodbye to Social Security as we have come to know it. It's going away.

P.S. Guys ike Christie are truly disgusting.

$133 billion in tax refunds have been sent out so far!

So far $133 billion in tax refunds have been sent out according to the Treasury. (Individual and business.) That's more than last year's $130 billion at this time.

In addition, we'll probably get another $55 billion to  $60 billion in March and another $50 billion in April. That'll equate to a $240 billion stimulus over these three months alone. You don't want to sell into that, but you DO want to keep  an eye on what these idiots in Congress (read: Republicans) do with the debt ceiling, which will have to be raised sometime around mid-month.

We've got plenty of financial (money) firepower coming into the economy over the next two months and we've already gotten a huge injection in February, however, failure to raise the debt ceiling or, keep it suspended (as it is now) will be a HUGE red flag for stocks and the economy.

Stay tuned.

(BTW...this was all taught in my Daily Treasury Statement course...plus a lot more!)

There is no way in hell that the Republicans will not royally fuck up the economy and the dollar, too.

There is no way in hell that the Republicans will not royally fuck up the economy and the dollar, too. NO. WAY. IN. HELL.

With their hyper insane, fiscally conservative, spending cut, safety net demolishing, hard line ideology, this is a given.

I am calling it. You will witness the end of the stock market rally and the end of the economic expansion sometime between now and March of next year. I would use all stock market strength at this juncture to start selling out your stocks.

THE REPUBLICANS ARE GOING TO ROYALLY FUCK UP THE ECONOMY AND THE DOLLAR.

The best part, though, is that after they fuck it up to the max (and this ain't gonna be no short-term thing), they will SUCCEED in putting all the blame on the fucking ass lame Democrats. And the Dems will deserve it! Hahaahahaaa!!!

More austerity pusher GOP hypocrisy and deceit. Michael Grimm (R-NY) indicted.

I met Congressman Michael Grimm (R-NY) several times while I was still at Fox News. I never liked or trusted him. He was a cocky dude and a diehard austerity pusher. "Too much spending, we gotta cut, balance the budget,"  blah, blah, same talk as all the other sadistic Conservative cretins. He didn't care who got taxed (yes, spending cuts are tax increases): seniors, students, children, needy families, as long as it wasn't his rich NY friends. They got to keep whatever.

Well it looks like Grimm has now been indicted on charges of Federal tax evasion, lying to authorities. He kept two sets of books of course at his Manhattan restaurant so he could show one to the IRS and keep the real money for himself. (What? Tax me???)

Another classic hypocritical asshole. No problem taking money from the needy and regular working stiffs, but the millionaires...they get to keep it all.

I wrote about this dude along with other Conservative cretins like NJ Governor Chris Christie (here and here) in several posts last year.

Grimm may be finally getting his due, but he won't go quietly. The guy is running for re-election so shame is clearly a word that is not in his vocabulary.

Karma's a bitch, eh Mike?

Republicans show they are willing to inflict maximum pain and destruction on the United States and its citizens, for nothing.

I had a conversation with a Republican friend of mine who said this whole thing was due to redistricting and desires to avoid primaries back home and win local elections.

Bullshit. That is nothing but, utter, mind-blowing bullshit.

His comments highlight the sociopathic and single minded depravity of a party, which I used to belong.

The Republicans are anarchists. Their goal was never about getting rid of Obamacare as much as they would have loved that. In fact, anyone who thinks they would have stopped there is totally delusional.

What the Republicans want, pure and simple, is the end of goverment. The total, complete, elimination of any centralized authority perhaps only with the exception that it exist for the task of maintaining a gargantuan military.

They're not about freedom or liberty or family values or any of the jingoistic shit they talk about. They're about guns, enslavement and giving big business the free hand to do anything it wants.

They're the party of anarchy and fascism

To shut down the government, put 800,000 people out of work and bring us to the brink of default and economic collapse in return for NOTHING shows you how sick they are.

P.S. I'm not giving a pass to the Dems, either. They are a bunch of ball-less pussies who talk about great things, but do nothing. Put out fires that's about it, but only after everything in sight has been scorched.

House GOP members call sequester "unrealistic and ill conceived"

Oh, this is good news you may be thinking? The House Republicans finally realize that the sequester is hurting our economy and it should be done away, you believe? Right??

No, sorry, here's the real truth. The Republicans HATE sequester only because it's hurting defense spending and the military and war, which is America's most beloved industry.

"Cuts in the House transportation measure were made deeper by a Republican move to cut an additional $40 billion from domestic programs and transfer the money to the Pentagon."

Yep, that's right. These motherfuckers want to cut every domestic program--aid to seniors, food stamps, education, housing, you name it...to give the money to the military.

Let's face it, America is a warmonger nation. It's really all we care about.

Republicans attack food stamps, but dole out billions to wealthy farmers

Waiting for the Confidence Fairy

Republicans block infrastructure spending bill

Republicans blocked an infrastructure spending bill that was part of Obama's American Jobs Act. The reason for their opposition? A 0.7% surtax on people earning over $1 million per year.

The problem is not with the Republicans, who have clearly shown that they don't give a crap about people who are not millionaires.

The problem is with the Democrats, who are divided and continue to believe that taxes fund spending. Their "fairness" rationale for raising taxes is just not working. If they understood MMT, they would say that the spending needs to be deficit spending, not "paid for" by any new taxes and that the deficit is too small and show, with evidence, that the deficit has added to income, savings and wealth of the private sector all the while as interest rates have come down.

When it comes to economic policy the Democrats are their own worst enemy

I wish someone of influence within the Democratic Party would learn some MMT. Unless that happens, their economic ideas are doomed.

Here's an example of the proposed "stimulus" being put forth by Democratic members of the Supercommittee:

Supercommittee Dems push for stimulus to be part of deficit deal By Erik Wasson - 10/26/11 11:49 AM ET Democrats on the congressional supercommittee this week presented Republicans with a plan to cut the deficit that included billions of dollars in stimulus spending, aides told The Hill. In a private session of the deficit panel on Tuesday, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, proposed trillions of dollars in tax increases that would partially cover stimulus spending for the economy, aides said.

The tax hike thing is just not going to pass. They should stop, already.

Or, they should call it what it really is: income redistribution. They should just come right out and say, "We want to redistribute income. That is our plan."

But for heavens sake, stop calling it a stimulus.

The don't do this because they are ignorant about how our monetary system functions. So are the Republicans, by the way, but at least the Republicans don't lie about their intentions. They pretty much come right out and say they want to give everything to the rich because the rich are "the job creators." We know that's a bunch of BS, but it's a sound bite that they've managed to make work.

This thing will never work. You have one party that is openly and unabashedly creating a policy conduit by which all of the nation's wealth is funneled up to an elite class of plutocrats, and then you have the bumbling Democrats who talk of "fairness" and greater equality, but then act like we've but a few crumbs left and we must struggle and strive and sacrifice in order to find a better way to divy those crumbs up among the citizenry.

It's truly pathetic. Both parties are to blame, but mostly I blame the Democrats. The party's leadership and its "intellectuals" are a bunch of snobby elitists who went to places like Harvard, Yale and Princeton who'll fight you tooth and nail so that that their misguided dogma rules the way they think and act.

It's hopeless.

The "deal" and the numbers that go with it

All the media is decrying the wonderful "deal" over the weekend that had us avert default. Republicans are grinning ear to ear. Democrats are saying, it's the best we could do.

So here's the deal in a nutshell:

$1 trillion in spending cuts now. Then around Thanksgiving a bipartisan "panel" of six lawmakers decide on another $1.2 trillion in cuts that will go into effect in 2013. This decision of this panel, by the way, is final and not subject to amendment or filibuster. (More on that later.)

Let's go over the numbers:

$1 trillion in cuts equates to about 0.7% of GDP. That's a SUBTRACTION of 0.7%. Given that the economy grew at 0.4% in Q1 and 1.3% (preliminary) in Q2, we'll average that together and say that the economy is growing at around a 0.8% rate.

Now do this math: 0.8 - 0.7

You got that? (I know it's tough, but I believe most of you can do it.)

Okay, that means after these cuts the economy will be growing at 0.1% FOR THE NEXT 10 YEARS!

Right...no growth for the next 10 years. Nice!

But wait...we forgot about the additional $1.2 trillion of cuts that happen in 2013 and beyond.

We'll start with the very, VERY, optimistic asumption that the economy is still around $14 trillion at that time. (In all likelihood it will be far lower.) That means from 2013 on, the economy SHRINKS by 1.0% percent per year as far as the eye can see.

Somehow the Republicans equate this to growth. (Ah, yes, the "Confidence Fairy" at work.)

What this means is that AMERICA WILL NEVER AGAIN CATCH UP to other nations who's policies are fostering growth right now. It will be IMPOSSIBLE to catch up. Our standard of living is about to embark on an irreversible decline vis-a-vis other nations. We're done.

And what about the bipartisan spending cut panel who's powers make it exempt from normal, Constitutional procedure? Well folks, we've just experienced a coup d'etat. Aren't you happy you went to the voting booth and voted for your Congressional representatives and Senators? Your vote means nothing. Your future will be decided by six guys who just gave themselves unlimited power.

Nice to live in a democracy, isn't it?

Hi ho, hi ho, austerity we go!

Still waiting for the GOP economic surge

Most of the media, dozens of Wall Street analysts, pundits of all sorts and ALL Republicans everywhere were telling us back in November that if the GOP took control of Congress or the House in large enough numbers, then private investment would boom and the economy would take off because of their "business friendly" policies.

We're still waiting.

I guess it's just an incovenient fact for most Republicans, but since the their party's landslide in last year's midterm elections, net private invesment has gone nowhere but down. In fact, the only upturn in net private investment that we have seen in the past five years occured from 2009 through the third quarter of 2010, thanks to the Obama stimulus package. That stimulus resulted in nearly a $400 bln increase in private investment. So the stimulus DID NOT CROWD OUT PRIVATE INVESTMENT!



Oh, but perhaps we mustn't blame Republicans completely. After all, they still have yet to enact their "cut and grow" policies. I can't wait to see how investment and the economy boom after that.