The recession

[NJS 3989]

Stopping foreclosures would be a good thing in my view - the rabid pace with which the banks pursued so many was the root cause of their downfall. Translating the mortgages to rent until the market picked up again would have been a lot better as the toxic assets would only have been temporarily smelly.

[donaldstott 0]

I think there are definitely a few 'green shoots' around. Media jobs in the Guardian on Monday has always been a good indicator for me.

 

It's up to about 8-10 pages now, having been down to 2-3 pages at one stage...

[Happy Face 29]

HF, you should be a journalist.

 

You think I could get away with reporting what bloggers write?

 

I guess most reporters these days just type up what they're told from either side and call it a balanced view. I couldn't do worse.

[ChezGiven 0]

HF, you should be a journalist.

 

You think I could get away with reporting what bloggers write?

 

I guess most reporters these days just type up what they're told from either side and call it a balanced view. I couldn't do worse.

 

You understand the angles, think thats the basic skill you need. Well, apart from the writing bit obviously.

 

Think you'd be good at it.

[Guest Stevie]

HF, you should be a journalist.

 

You think I could get away with reporting what bloggers write?

 

I guess most reporters these days just type up what they're told from either side and call it a balanced view. I couldn't do worse.

I think you'd be a cracking journalist. If ever a militant muslim publication becomes available in the English language, I think you'd do well.

[Happy Face 29]

HF, you should be a journalist.

 

You think I could get away with reporting what bloggers write?

 

I guess most reporters these days just type up what they're told from either side and call it a balanced view. I couldn't do worse.

I think you'd be a cracking journalist. If ever a militant muslim publication becomes available in the English language, I think you'd do well.

 

You think it's only militant muslims interested in the truth?

[Happy Face 29]

Mortgage lending has risen for the 3rd month in a row, banks are forecasting a return to profit here and in the US and markets around the world have surged on details of Obamas rescue plan

 

Try doing a google search on "record profits" today.

 

On page 1 you'll get these results just from the last few days....

 

JB Hi-Fi posts record profit‎

 

Aviva Life profits increase by 26%‎

 

Stanchart makes record US$3.12b profit‎

 

Sky TV reveals record profits‎

 

Samsung Electronics profit jumps to record‎

 

Rio Tinto posts record profit‎

 

Pearson announces record profits‎, impressive 79% jump

 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q...sa=N&tab=wn

 

The recovery is complete and everyone knows it. When it suits business to drive confidence it is reported as what it is.

 

However, the benefits of a recession are great for business. When it suits we're still reported to be in trouble. Employers are cutting staff left right and centre while recording these record profits and the government are taking an axe to the budget, removing the social safety net for those being laid off and keeping wages down.

 

The US (and the UK by proxy) has become an oligarchy that values the personal wealth of a select number of individuals over the well-being of the entire population....

 

Reports are emerging of the Deficit Commission hard at work planning how to cut Social Security, Medicare, and now even to freeze military pay. But a new New York Times article today illustrates as vividly as anything else what a collapsing empire looks like, as it profiles just a few of the budget cuts which cities around the country are being forced to make. This is a sampling of what one finds:

 

Plenty of businesses and governments furloughed workers this year, but Hawaii went further -- it furloughed its schoolchildren. Public schools across the state closed on 17 Fridays during the past school year to save money, giving students the shortest academic year in the nation.

 

Many transit systems have cut service to make ends meet, but Clayton County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, decided to cut all the way, and shut down its entire public bus system. Its last buses ran on March 31, stranding 8,400 daily riders.

 

Even public safety has not been immune to the budget ax. In Colorado Springs, the downturn will be remembered, quite literally, as a dark age: the city switched off a third of its 24,512 streetlights to save money on electricity, while trimming its police force and auctioning off its police helicopters.

 

There are some lovely photos accompanying the article, including one showing what a darkened street in Colorado looks like as a result of not being able to afford street lights. Read the article to revel in the details of this widespread misery. Meanwhile, the tiniest sliver of the wealthiest -- the ones who caused these problems in the first place -- continues to thrive. Let's recall what former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson said last year in The Atlantic about what happens in under-developed and developing countries when an elite-caused financial crises ensues:

 

Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or -- here's a classic Kremlin bailout technique -- the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk -- at least until the riots grow too large.

 

The real question is whether the American public is too apathetic and trained into submission for that to ever happen.

 

It's probably also worth noting this Wall St. Journal article from last month -- with a subheadline warning: "Back to Stone Age" -- which describes how "paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue." Utah is seriously considering eliminating the 12th grade, or making it optional. And it was announced this week that "Camden [New Jersey] is preparing to permanently shut its library system by the end of the year, potentially leaving residents of the impoverished city among the few in the United States unable to borrow a library book free."

 

Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford schools, public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights -- or once it chooses not to be able to afford those things in pursuit of imperial priorities and the maintenance of a vast Surveillance and National Security State -- that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an imminent inevitability?

 

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_gr...apse/index.html

Edited August 9, 2010 by Happy Face

[SloopJohn 0]

srsly Happy Face you have to watch that documentary I sent you a link to

[Happy Face 29]

srsly Happy Face you have to watch that documentary I sent you a link to

 

I've got a night off tonight so might get to it.

 

[ChezGiven 0]

srsly Happy Face you have to watch that documentary I sent you a link to

 

I've got a night off tonight so might get to it.

 

 

Send it on to me too.

[Happy Face 29]

srsly Happy Face you have to watch that documentary I sent you a link to

 

Just watched the first one. Really fascinating stuff. Cheers for the heads up.

 

If anyone else wants to watch, it's a 4 part documentary called The Century of Self that originally aired in 2002 on BBC4....

 

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, changed the perception of the human mind and its workings. His influence on the twentieth century is generally considered profound. The series describes the ways public relations and politicians have utilized Freud's theories during the last 100 years for the "engineering of consent".

 

Along these general themes, The Century of the Self asks deeper questions about the roots and methods of modern consumerism, representative democracy, commodification and its implications. It also questions the modern way we see ourselves, the attitudes to fashion and superficiality.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self

 

video....

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6718420906413643126#

 

Been googling the writer/director too. He's done some of the excellent stuff we've all enjoyed on Screenwipe....

 

 

 

Go to 1 minute 10 seconds in on the second one.

[SloopJohn 0]

watch it here:

 

http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtis_...enturyOfTheSelf

 

much better quality

Edited August 9, 2010 by SloopJohn

[kockhead 0]

The recession not over till we pay China the debts we owe. Hurry up UK pay China LFC want some players.