The Bush Administration has been caught lying repeatedly and shamelessly. It's their trademark. They have derided the "reality-based community". They've been outed for skewing scientific data for political purposes. Hell, they friggin' STOLE the White House, for God's sake! And in most of these efforts, they've been aided and abetted by the Democratic Party and the corporate mainstream media.

So why, exactly, should we put any stock in the economic numbers they spew?

"The economic statistics put out by the US Government are propaganda, pure and simple...Issued by government agencies, interpreted by spokespersons for the Government and the financial community ... the information we get has been manipulated to mould a public understanding favourable to the agenda of the powers that be."

-economist Peter D. Schiff

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,22234638-462,00.html

Homeowners Feel the Pinch of Lost Equity

“Everybody was basically using their house as an A.T.M. machine,” said Dave Simonsen, a senior vice president for NAI Alliance, an industrial real estate firm in Reno. “Now they are upside down on their house without that piggy bank to go back to.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/business/08borrow.html?ex=1352178000&en=66843b4629573708&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Sorry Folks, the Housing ATM is Closed

If you look at the numbers, the closing of the housing ATM is the equivalent (so far) of removing 4% of the money available to fund personal consumption or $340 billion dollars. In other words, a pool of money nearly the size of the GDP of Switzerland has been removed from the consumer spending part of the economy.

If you review the Fed’s monthly report on revolving credit balances, you’ll notice a sharp YoY uptick beginning in 2006, which falls right in line with the decline of the housing market. Obviously consumers are using their credit cards to fill in the financial gap that used to be filled by HELOCs, and are effectively exchanging one form of credit abuse for another. This practice of “credit abuse arbitrage” is beginning to fall apart, as nearly all of the major banks reported increased defaults within their credit card businesses.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/53560-sorry-folks-the-housing-atm-is-closed?source=feed

There is absolutely NOTHING that will replace the housing ATM. Consumer spending is already tightening and will continue to do so.

The bottom line:

A prominent figure in the hedge fund industry, Julian H. Robertson Jr., said yesterday that the economy was heading for a “doozy of a recession.”

“I think the credit situation is worse than anybody realizes,” he said on CNBC. “I don’t think any of the normal indicators you would look at in the economy are really very strong. As a matter of fact, they are weak, and not really getting any better.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/20/business/20markets.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

"Americans are insensitive to philosophical ideas. They need something tangible, something concrete, something that has been acted on the stage. Acted, that is, seen and felt. What is said is not important. We are not impressed by explanations, and verbal play leaves us indifferent. What we want is action."

-Arthur Miller

re: "...you can't deny the basic truth: HUMANS created religion..."

Last time I checked, HUMANS created science.

And logic.

"Dialectic, which is the parent of logic, came itself from rhetoric. Rhetoric is in turn the child of the myths and poetry of ancient Greece. That is so historically, and that is so by any application of common sense."

-Robert M. Pirsig

"The proof for me, the miraculous thing, is the perfect beauty of the words of the Passion, joined with a few stunning words from Isaiah and Saint Paul: that is what forces me to believe".

-Simone Weil

"Simone Weil, I still know this now, is the only great mind of our times and I hope that those who realize this have enough modesty to not try to appropriate her overwhelming witnessing."

-Albert Camus

Neither I nor any believer can say anything that will make a bit of difference to atheists. Faith is, by definition, belief in that which is not seen. It is not subject to scientific inquiry. Pascal put forth rational arguments for belief, so it would seem that belief in God is not as irrational as many here think. But it is, apparently, a highly divisive issue.

I would like to try to alter the focus of this discussion by dispensing with the idea that "belief" in God(s), per se, is even the point. As St. James wrote:

James 2 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder... 24 You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.

Actions -- this is the common ground atheists and believers share. It is what really matters in the here and now and, for the (Catholic) believer, it is one's actions that determine one's eternity. God gets plenty of lip service.

That horrible things have been done in the name of God throughout history is undeniable. But God cannot be blamed for what men may do of their own free will. Certainly, there have been notorious atheists -- Stalin, for one, comes to mind. Likewise, there have been good people of all religious and non-religious stripes. There are also highly intelligent people on both sides of the discussion. To dismiss great minds like Simone Weil, Pascal, et al, simply based on their own personal religious beliefs is not really very smart.

That there is something in the universe that is eternal is undeniable. The nature of that something is what believers and non-believers seek to understand.

Yes, religion comes from man. But so does logic and science. We owe it to ourselves to learn as much as possible from all spheres of knowledge and to apply it to our common problems. Endless, pointless debate and division over belief v. non-belief is precisely what the corrupt powers-that-be want.