Just heard on ABC news...

[Freeky]

"President Obama asks what ideas can people come up with to create new jobs. People WE talked to say they think the bailout is enough to get them through the recession."

Didn't have much choice hearing that, my parents put the news on every day. I paraphrased a bit in the first sentence.

What do you all think? Did the bailout help? Did I even hear that right, do you think? Or has this topic been beaten to death yet and i missed it?

[East Coast Hustle]

The bailout has been extremely helpful, provided you are a corporate officer at Goldman Sachs.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

[Freeky]

I asked my mom why she watches that crap on tv, and she's like "Because it's good to know what's going on in the world. Where do you get YOUR news?" I'm like, "The internets," and she's like "It's the same news, it's not like it's any different."

[Template]

[Jenne]

I can't figure out if these "job summits" and "health care summits" are what they're cracked up to be or not.  My husband and I have been part of Obama's "grassroots" thinktanks in the last year or so, and from what I can see, it's a buncha liberal elite^TM hanging out, drinking tea, and bitching about how fucked up everything is.  I didn't notice that that shit I contributed nor the thoughts my husband gave out were incoroporated in a meaningful way in the current administration--let alone what the rest of the grassroots sessions came up with.

Obama's peeps seem to like to make the grassroots feel they are "involved" and getting shit done.  I get email after email from Obama's camp asking me to hold dinner meetings and sessions in my home or attend those of others' to give two shits and pass them around like candy at Christmas.  My problem with that is the input is disproportionate to the output.  Health care has petered out, and what had been shaping up looked like a distant shadow of what the grassroots had called for.  Reform?  My ass.

So I don't know--I like the idea of the thinktanks settling on how to turn this jobless recovery into one that scales the unemployment rate back down to what it was 5 years ago.  But is it realistic that their suggestions will be taken, implemented and do some actual good?  I don't have blind faith in this shit so I don't really believe it's as cherry as it sounds.  Though I appreciate the gesture, sometimes it feels like a patronizing pat on the head.

[Freeky]

So what is a think tank, then? What do they do?

[Suu]

They obviously get tanked, then they try to think.

[Jenne]

So what is a think tank, then? What do they do?

Shoot the shit, sit around, talking about how to "make things better."   The one I was attending sat there and looked at data and papers on that data, discussing what the underlying problems are.  And ways they can possibly be fixed.

The Children's Initiative is a non-profit organization I now consult with on the Report Card Committee--they come out with a book of stats and recommendations for various issues like poverty, truancy, drugs and dui's, etc. for San Diego County.  I'd rather spend time with The Children's Initiative because they don't have a specific government entity or political party edge they are reporting to--they report to EVERYONE and ANYONE who wants their book.  It's pretty awesome, actually, and those of us on the panel are pretty diversified and bring a different set of expertise to the table.  Doctors, nurses, lawyers, businesspeople, CEO's, teachers, PTA, etc.

Anyway, the thinktanks usually have a few issues or goals they determine will be their focus and "think" about them--with data and suggestions, usually.  The Obamite ones, though...they were headed up by the Democrats and those who put Obama on the slate and kept him there.  The stakes they set, I don't know, I just don't like being agendized that way.

At least with The Children's Initiative, I feel like what I'm doing is non-partisan.

[Cain]

The bailout did exactly what it was meant to do - transfer vast amounts of wealth from the Treasury to private pockets.  Loans to small businesses and would be house-buyers are down, employment is down, hours are down, wages are down, but stock prices are BOOMING.

You probably did hear right - the media are pretty oblivious to anything that happens outside the D.C. Village, except when it comes to local outlets.  We have the same deal here with London, though to be fair, 25% of the country's population can be found in the greater city area.

Looting the proceeds of empire is what sent the Roman Republic into a political tailspin, too.  Only this time, it's the financial sector that is wrapped around the government like some kind of giant, vampiric squid, sucking that sweet green out as quickly as it can.  And it will probably keep doing so until the great financial centres of the world resemble the Baghdad Green Zone...while everywhere outside looks more like, well, the rest of Baghdad.  Financial recessions have a bad habit of creating a backlash in the guise of fundamentalism...and it just so happens to be a theory that Mr Hopey is the AntiChrist (and a Muslim). 

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I hear the US Military is "hiring".

[Freeky]

So what is a think tank, then? What do they do?

Shoot the shit, sit around, talking about how to "make things better."   The one I was attending sat there and looked at data and papers on that data, discussing what the underlying problems are.  And ways they can possibly be fixed.

The Children's Initiative is a non-profit organization I now consult with on the Report Card Committee--they come out with a book of stats and recommendations for various issues like poverty, truancy, drugs and dui's, etc. for San Diego County.  I'd rather spend time with The Children's Initiative because they don't have a specific government entity or political party edge they are reporting to--they report to EVERYONE and ANYONE who wants their book.  It's pretty awesome, actually, and those of us on the panel are pretty diversified and bring a different set of expertise to the table.  Doctors, nurses, lawyers, businesspeople, CEO's, teachers, PTA, etc.

Anyway, the thinktanks usually have a few issues or goals they determine will be their focus and "think" about them--with data and suggestions, usually.  The Obamite ones, though...they were headed up by the Democrats and those who put Obama on the slate and kept him there.  The stakes they set, I don't know, I just don't like being agendized that way.

At least with The Children's Initiative, I feel like what I'm doing is non-partisan.

Think tanks, at least with the Children's Initiative one, sounds like something good then.

The bailout did exactly what it was meant to do - transfer vast amounts of wealth from the Treasury to private pockets.  Loans to small businesses and would be house-buyers are down, employment is down, hours are down, wages are down, but stock prices are BOOMING.

You probably did hear right - the media are pretty oblivious to anything that happens outside the D.C. Village, except when it comes to local outlets.  We have the same deal here with London, though to be fair, 25% of the country's population can be found in the greater city area.

Looting the proceeds of empire is what sent the Roman Republic into a political tailspin, too.  Only this time, it's the financial sector that is wrapped around the government like some kind of giant, vampiric squid, sucking that sweet green out as quickly as it can.  And it will probably keep doing so until the great financial centres of the world resemble the Baghdad Green Zone...while everywhere outside looks more like, well, the rest of Baghdad.  Financial recessions have a bad habit of creating a backlash in the guise of fundamentalism...and it just so happens to be a theory that Mr Hopey is the AntiChrist (and a Muslim). 

:/ I don't think I'll ever understand politics for as long as I live. At least, why people keep letting politics happen.

[Reginald Ret]

why are there less jobs?
people are spending less.
is this a problem?
only for those that have no job.


Lets not call it less jobs but a reduced amount of work.
why make some people work hard and some work not at all?
why not make everybody work less?
PART TIME MOTHERFUCKERS.


or am i being stupid now.

[Jenne]

I wouldn't say stocks are booming.  Stocks are holding "steady"--they lose some, gain some.  I think the media's done a fair job of reporting on the jobless recovery part, too, as well as the fact that things on Wall Street don't seem to be matching up to things on Main Street.  The fact the DOW's gained anything in the face of a continuing downward spiral in this recession has been hammered quite a bit in the mass media (the usual circuits, not just the unusually less dense ones).

What's not figuring hard enough in this is the fact that AIG and G-S are going to get away with so much fucked up behavior, and the scapegoating of Geithner didn't work at all.  So Congress can boo-hoo away at him, but he's keeping his job, apparently.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

At least with The Children's Initiative, I feel like what I'm doing is non-partisan.

P.T. Barnum, we hardly knew ya.