Zero lower bound

The House has passed the stimulus bill with not a single Republican vote.

Aren’t you glad that Obama watered it down and added ineffective tax cuts, so as to win bipartisan support?

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/zero-lower-bound/

Bad

As the Obama administration apparently prepares to launch Hankie Pankie II — buying troubled assets from banks at prices higher than they will fetch on the open market — it occurred to me that an updated version of an old Communist-era joke may be appropriate: under Bush, financial policy consisted of Wall Street types cutting sweet deals, at taxpayer expense, for Wall Street types. Under Obama, it’s precisely the reverse.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/bad/

pedinska-good morning! I figured you were aware of all that...I just took the opportunity provided by your comment to do a little rant, [as well as to say "hi!"] especially because Obama's recent executive orders also do not cover the CIA.

This recent news of yet another person in a powerful [above the law] position without meaningful oversight behaving badly is just another sack of concrete tied to our feet...arrrgh!

heru-ur-don't you hate when that happens? I knew you could count! Was just joking, like I said...

I've been itching for a good knock-down, drag–out partisan brawl in DC since, oh...at least about 1998...

All the recent talk about post-partisanship sure was a sore disappointment, to me.

Omooex and Little Brother...I'm with you guys. I'm not saying it's not important...I just can't even keep up with the reading...

When Pelosi et al. said they wanted to give the president the tools he needs to get his agenda through, I knew we were in trouble. They didn't want to give him the tools he might need, they want to BE the tools he might need. arrrrgh!!

Please don't ever think I was complaining about your [or anyone's] comments. I was just noting that I just can't get my brain around some [...OK...most] of it. Doesn't mean I think it's not important...

and also doesn't mean [as someone implied] that I just didn't allocate my reading time well.

to all whom I may have offended. That was certainly not my intent. My thought wasn't clearly stated.

It is wonderful to read the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. There will be a whole lot more than “Vietnam” on that autopsy report at this point.

"So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land". . ..

I’m dating myself, but have that song in my head [slightly revised]:

“Anybody here seen [anybody like] my old friend Martin? Can you tell me where he’s gone?

It seems we are in the ”long dark and shameful corridors of time” , indeed.

“But what is strength without a double share of wisdom?”-John Milton

"I'm pretty well convinced it's not affluence per se that is the problem, it's perpetual growth."

One of the corporate catch phrases I heard a lot in the past decade or so is "continuous growth"- -a desirable thing to them.

It always makes me think of dinosaurs, for some reason.

casual_observer-wrt: how long our middle east policy has been detrimental to our health: I agree. The Iran-Contra mess is another example.

Jim White: “Justice behind a curtain” was indeed much more of an eye-opener than any “wardrobe malfunction”.

This suggestion, and the earlier comment by Jim White [?] about the push for Obama to find an "arch nemisis" made me think of the following:

May 5, 1981- “THE GREAT TERRORIST HUNT”, NYT [Editorial]: “…the Reagan Administration and the subcommittee [the new Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism] might yet manage to find some kind of a terrorist threat to American security, and a need to counter it with tough legislation. Secretary of State Haig has accused the Soviet Union of controlling international terrorism, and the Administration is reported to be working hard [ed note: I'm so tired of this phrase] to document his charges and develop an antiterrorism policy. Chairman Denton said that the C.I.A. had recently broadened its definition of terrorism to include ''threats.'' “The magic result, a State Department official told reporters, would be to double - from 3,336 to 7,000 - the previously reported ''incidents'' of world terrorism from 1968 through 1979. The number killed or wounded, of course, would remain the same -about 8,000 - since this bookkeeping slight-of-hand merely makes the same situation look twice as bad as it did before.”

Be afraid! Be very afraid!!

[side note-I actually mis-typed the word at first, and it became "a fraud"]

[I'm not sure if the link will actually get you the whole article]

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F60713FC3C5C0C768CDDAC0894D9484D81

when Tom Paine, Washington, Jefferson and the rest chose revolution after peaceful/passive resistance against their oppressors proved futile?