Business is booming

In the news today, via MarketWatch::

The Federal Reserve’s governors and regional presidents have grown more sour on growth and unemployment, with some saying it could take more than six years for the jobless rate to return to normal levels, according to a summary of projections released Tuesday.

Also in the news today, via the NYT:

American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago

Tepid action from Washington has not stopped the wealth polarization process that a full-on Depression would bring, it’s merely slowed it from would have been incredibly fast to really really fast.

While some are wondering whether further trouble in Afghanistan could cause Obama to be primaried (hey, it happened to Jimmy Carter…), I still think if anything’s going to create that kind of dynamic, it’ll be the economy. Sure, it’s a pretty unlikely scenario at this point, but one wonders…

8 thoughts on “Business is booming

  1. This, coupled on the same page with the abysmal story of poor Vermonters trapped in the cold by a paralyzed bureaucracy;  with tasered protesters thrown in for good measure.  ‘Makes you wonder what Orwellian future we have in store for us.

  2. that it’s only true to say that corporate profits are at a record high if you don’t adjust for inflation.  And of course, for these sorts of numbers to mean anything, it’s important to adjust for inflation.

  3. By Hillary, maybe a Kennedy, and who knows who else (Jerry Brown?).

    As I recall 1980, it didn’t help that Ted Kennedy challenged Carter in the primaries–“well” (as the Great De-Regulator used to say), it helped Reagan.

    Then, in the Presidential election, I think 7% or 8% of the vote went to John Anderson and the Libertarian ‘Peace’ candidate Clark.

    And then, of course, remember Ross Perot in ’92.  He helped Clinton.  (Almost like a Corporate Conspiracy in play to put a ‘nice’ liberal Dem in to take orders from the Republicans.)

    Harry Truman, I think was the only 20th century Pres to overcome a schism in the Dem Party, with Henry Wallace running as a Prog and Strom Thurmond running as a Dixiecrat.

    I really think the fix is in.  Obama is just about ‘lame duck’ now, with a lame team that don’t seem to know what they’re doing–probably this is deliberate, to set the stage for a real zoo-fest in 2012.  Huckabee, Romney, God knows what else on the Repub side, with Sarah prevailing.

    Maybe it will be Clinton verses Palin in 2012.  I kind of wish we had Hillary in now.  I just can’t see her taking the kind of shit from the Republicans Obama has.

    I wish Sean Penn would run.  Let’s start a draft Penn in ’12 movement.  He’d certainly get more votes than Nader.

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