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"Everything Is Awesome"
As Politico's Michael Grunwald writes below (we believe non-satirically), the midterm election’s discontent was illegitimate. The point is that Americans should cheer up! And whose fault is all the collective doom? Well, Bill De Blasio already explained that, as Grunwald confirms, the press has a problem reporting good news. So sit back, grab a drink (though swallow it first) and enjoy reading why "everything is awesome" in America (apart from a record 101.5 million Americans not working, record numbers on foodstamps, record numbers on disability, a record wealth divide, a record - and deadly - racial divide, record poverty, and record child homelessness).
Via Politico's Michael Grunwald,
Good news! The U.S. economy grew at a rollicking 5 percent rate in the third quarter. Oh, and it added 320,000 jobs in November, the best of its unprecedented 57 straight months of private-sector employment growth. Just in time for Christmas, the Dow just hit an all-time high and the uninsured rate is approaching an all-time low. Consumer confidence is soaring, inflation is low, gas prices are plunging, and the budget deficit is shrinking. You no longer hear much about the Ebola crisis that dominated the headlines in the fall, much less the border crisis that dominated the headlines over the summer. As Fox News host Andrea Tantaros proclaimed earlier this month: “The United States is awesome! We are awesome!”
OK, she was talking about the Senate torture report, not the state of the union, but things in the U.S. do look rather awesome. Mitt Romney promised to bring unemployment down to 6 percent in his first term; it’s already down to 5.8 percent, half the struggling eurozone’s rate. Newt Gingrich promised $2.50 gas; it’s down to $2.38. Crime, abortion, teen pregnancy and oil imports are also way down, while renewable power is way up and the American auto industry is booming again. You don’t have to give credit to President Barack Obama for “America’s resurgence,” as he has started calling it, but there’s overwhelming evidence the resurgence is real. The Chicken Littles who predicted a double-dip recession, runaway interest rates, Zimbabwe-style inflation, a Greece-style debt crisis, skyrocketing energy prices, health insurance “death spirals” and other horrors have been reliably wrong.
Come to think of it, the 62 percent of Americans who described the economy as “poor” in a CNN poll a week before the Republican landslide in the midterm elections were also wrong. I guess that sounds elitist. Second-guessing the wisdom of the public may be the last bastion of political correctness; if ordinary people don’t feel good about the economy, then the recovery isn’t supposed to be real. But aren’t the 11 million Americans who have landed new jobs since 2010 and the 10 million Americans who have gotten health insurance since 2013 ordinary Americans? It’s true that wage growth has remained slow, but the overall economic trends don’t jibe with the public’s lousy mood. And the public definitely does get stuff wrong. A Bloomberg poll this month found that 73 percent of Americans think the deficit is getting bigger, while 21 percent think it’s getting smaller and 6 percent aren’t sure. In fact, the deficit has dwindled from about $1.2 trillion in 2009 to less than $500 billion in 2014. My favorite part is the mere 6 percent who admitted ignorance; 73 percent are definitely sure the shrinking deficit is actually growing.
The point isn’t that the midterm election’s discontent was illegitimate. The point is that Americans should cheer up! Six years ago, the economy was contracting at an 8 percent annual rate and shedding 800,000 jobs a month. Those were Great Depression-type numbers. The government was pouring billions of dollars into busted banks, and experts like MIT’s Simon Johnson were predicting that the bailouts would cost taxpayers as much as $2 trillion. In reality, the bailouts not only quelled the worst financial panic since the Depression, they made money for taxpayers. Nevertheless, last week, after the government sold its stake in Ally Bank, its last major holding in a financial institution, Johnson complained to The New York Times about the “unfortunate and inappropriate message” being sent by people pointing out the bailouts were actually profitable. In this holiday season, can’t we be a little bit happy we didn’t have to waste the $2 trillion he thought we were going to waste?
This bah-humbug brand of moral superiority has flourished since the crisis: How dare you celebrate this or that piece of economic data when so many Americans are still hurting? It’s awkward to argue with that view, since many Americans are indeed still hurting. But the economic data keep showing that fewer Americans are hurting every month. No one is satisfied with 5.8 percent unemployment, but it’s way better than the 10 percent we had in 2010 or the 11 percent Europe has today. Declining child poverty and household debt and personal bankruptcies are also worth celebrating. Better is better than worse. Whether or not you think Obamacare had anything to do with the slowdown in medical cost growth, it’s a good thing that Medicare’s finances have improved dramatically, extending the solvency of its trust fund by an estimated 13 years. It’s a good thing that U.S. wind power has tripled and solar power has increased tenfold in five years. And while it’s true that the meteoric rise of the stock market since 2009 has produced windfalls for Wall Street, it has also replenished state pension funds and 401(k) retirement plans and labor union coffers. It definitely beats the alternative.
Let’s face it: The press has a problem reporting good news. Two Americans died of Ebola and cable TV flipped out; now we’re Ebola-free and no one seems to care. The same thing happened with the flood of migrant children across the Mexican border, which was a horrific crisis until it suddenly wasn’t. Nobody’s going to win a Pulitzer Prize for recognizing that we’re smoking less, driving less, wasting less electricity and committing less crime. Police are killing fewer civilians, and fewer police are getting killed, but understandably, after the tragedies in Ferguson and Brooklyn, nobody’s thinking about that these days. The media keep us in a perpetual state of panic about spectacular threats to our safety — Ebola, sharks, terrorism — but we’re much likelier to die in a car accident. Although, it ought to be said, much less likely than we used to be; highway fatalities are down 25 percent in a decade.
The other problem in acknowledging good news, not just for the press but for the public, is that it has come to feel partisan, like an endorsement of whoever occupies the White House. Republican leaders have exacerbated this problem by describing everything Obama has done — his 2009 stimulus package, his 2010 Wall Street reforms, his 2013 tax hikes on high earners, his various anti-pollution regulations aimed at coal-fired power plants, and most of all Obamacare — as “job-killing” catastrophes that would obliterate the economy. It’s hard to point out that the economy is humming along nicely without making those doom-and-gloom predictions sound ill-advised and over-the-top. Because they were. Liberals who predicted disaster when Obama refused to nationalize the banking system during the financial crisis and when Republicans insisted on the harsh budget cuts in the 2013 “sequester” were wrong, too. Disaster hasn’t happened.
As ideologically inconvenient as that may be for chronic complainers on the left and right — and for pundit types invested in their bad-year-for-Obama narrative — it’s wonderful for the country. You don’t have to endorse Obama’s economic philosophy to realize that it hasn’t wreaked short-term havoc, just as you don’t have to endorse the Obama or George W. Bush anti-terror philosophies to acknowledge that America hasn’t endured a rash of terror attacks since 2001. Last week, polls finally found a majority of Americans recognizing that the economy is improving, which is to say a majority of Americans are recognizing reality. It’s probably time for politicians to discover a new Ebola to scream about.
There is no shortage of candidates in this less-than-perfect union. The U.S. is still plagued by inadequate public schools, crumbling infrastructure, soaring college tuition costs, stark inequality. Many Americans want accountability for reckless bankers, torturers and fatal choke-holders. Washington is still almost as dysfunctional as everyone says it is. Congress this session really was the second least productive ever. And even though Obama is winding down the U.S. involvement in overseas wars, the world remains a scary place. There’s still plenty to worry about.
But for now be merry! And may the new year be as awesome as this year.
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United States, gross debt to GDP ratio. 2006: 63% 2008: 73% 2010: 95% 2012: 102% 2014: 106%
awesome!
We're Number 1!
Got that derivatives total shit locked down too!
"Everything is cool when you're part of a team!"
Good luck with that.
I read this (or tried to) earlier today on the Politico and had a tough time figuring out if it was a cynical sarcastic parody or not.
So I promptly dismissed it as that I'd simply ventured into the wrong space-time continuum and would find my way back home, eventually.
But alas.....
It's real and I'm not
As the nation descends into barbaric anarchy marked by brutal killings, widespread fraud, poverty and apathy, respect for the our fellow human beings has descended to lows never seen before in American history. The response by the media is either an eerie silence marked by distractions like Sony's latest movie debacle, or an all out propaganda campaign to convince the slaves that things have never been better, despite the forced rehydration of a few of its shitizens.
It would take days to sift through and point out the flaws in each ridiculous statement. But then again, we don't need to. We and others have exposed these faux headlines for what they are again and again -- that GDP growth in Q3 was pulled from Q1, that unemployment is not accurately measured except through population to employment ratios, that the DOW is oversold and completely detached from price discovery. etc. etc. etc.
On the other hand, at present, 46 million Americans are still on food stamps, or roughly 1 in 6.5 people. Roughly 1 in 4 children are on the program.
Stop complaining and be happy with your lot as a galley slave. Now row faster, you're holding back the economy.
History has shown it's always the underperforming 99% in serfdom or slavery that hold back the 1% who have everyone's best interest at heart. THAT is why empires collapse. The damn peons never carry their weight.
legalizemeth... Now THAT is a username LOL!
Map: 41 states have an active chapter of the KKK http://bit.ly/1oT7rs1
awesome !
Should I be investing in Bbb? 400 thread count?
Map: 51 states are infected by 'progressivist' who truly are far too deranged to vote.....And yet they do vote.
And perhaps most disturbing of all:
They will do so again!
You sure it isn't all 57 states?
And all 50 states have active Communist party chapters, so your point is????
And all 50 states have "persons of color" who are not only openly and arrogantly racist, at a level easily equal to the hugely overblown, yesteryear KKK, but likely thieving parasites as well.
Double plus more awesomer- all 57 states are under the control of the federal reserve.
Everybody Wang Chung tonite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoXu6QmxpJE
I Wang Chung'd last night. I'm still paying for it today.
This article made me retch harder than any fifth of JD ever did...
1986 was a much better year than any in the 21st century, so far.
I never would have guessed it at the time.
Don't forget Howard Jones and Level 42
Sons and Daughters! Don't fall in!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3lZnwqadPsA#t=89
i...am...so...happy. :-(
@sunny
If you are not a slave to econometric data, you could be happy. This Grunwald idiot would be the first to tell us how bad things are if we had a red state president. I guess he wants me to believe BO was born on US soil as well?
Rah Rah
Shish boom bah
Red and Blue
The banks own you
"United States, gross debt to GDP ratio. 2006: 63% 2008: 73% 2010: 95% 2012: 102% 2014: 106%"
Actually should be labeled: "United States, gross ownership by the Zionist banksters: 2006: 63% 2008: 73% 2010: 95% 2012: 102% 2014: 106%"
The banksters need to repay us.
Ratio of banksters due for the guillotine: 100%
"Congress this session really was the second least productive ever. And even though Obama is winding down the U.S. involvement in overseas wars, the world remains a scary place."
OK, define "Congressional production".
I would hand him the gun if he promised to shoot himself.
+100
My first thought after reading that nonsense.
What is congress supposed to produce anyways?
Da.. Produce more tax stealing from the working drones to grant the "GIVMEDATS" more stuff...
Death through policy
Their idea of a productive congress is more laws, taxes, and debt spending
And he forgot to mention that the chocolate ration has been increased to 25 grams. WHOOPEEE!!!!
OT: Did anyone else notice that CNBC turned long on gold today?
This is the sort of penerating analysis I expect from the MSM. Whether it's USSA Today (the first newspaper ever published for people who can't read) or from the web - Politico's resident ass bandits.
Nice, fluffy airy news from the Jews you can use to mentally abuse your friends and NSA listening crews.
I will say this is of a peice to the mood music of the country - a good 99% of sheep have no feckin' clue what is on the horizon - and honestly seem to not much care either.
Look down: "Copyright ©2009-2014 ZeroHedge.com/ABC Media, LTD;"
That is not the American Broadcasting Company.
abc media limited
registered office: 46 Eleanor Road, London N11 2QS
registered number: 0500 8782
vat number: 835 3591 15
© abc media, a RMI company.
Hmm...
That may explain why you MUST USE ADBLOCK if you want to frequent the site.
Never used it and I've been reading here a long time.
Only idiotic morons click the ads.
Agreed. Much faster page loads.
Wrong ABC Media. Think... Bulgaria. (hint: whois)
Yep...digital bread crumbs lead the trail out of the woods
Since Zero Hedge Ive become fonder of Bulgaria but may not move there. I think the word bugger originated there.
IGNORANCE is STRENGTH.
Freedom is slavery
Losing is winning
I wnat my two dollars!
BULLSHIT is America's #1 Industry... has been for quite a while...
And business is BOOMING!!!1!!!
You have to remember, bullshit is a renewable product....
But is it sustainable?
Not without producing noxious global warming gas as a by product.
If you're getting raped you might as well enjoy it, bitchez.......
Hey, its not so bad! At least youre getting laud, right?
LIES ARE TRUTH.
ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL. BUT - SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.
Want...to...PUNCH...
"This pizza is awesome" (when the pizza in question comes from a food court at the airport)
Everything positive the guy mentioned is true. But it's all half-truths. None of the underlying issues are recognized, much less addressed.
The Elites don't even understand why people are pessimistic right now. Yes, there are professional doomsayers, many of whom have partisan motivations. That's not what I'm talking about. I can tell partisan Republican negative bullshit from partisan Democratic positive bullshit by now, thanks very much for caring. Neither mainstream party can see what's getting worse and causing the problems people react to, because to do so would be to acknowledge the fundamental flaws at the very core of our system. Flaws which have become cracks, then fissures, then gaping yawning chasms.
Sure, if you don't recognize or acknowledge the fundamental contradictions of turning everything in your society over to a system that requires infinite money, resources, energy and markets; in a world that is in fact finite; and you pretend you don't understand what happens when you make money infinite; and you pretend everything would be hunky-dory if everyone just started thinking right; well, then you can write a piece like this.
Actually, here is a similar, but much more realistic and useful version of this outlook:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M
don't think many people waste time on politico.
Neither does politico.
Funny. You know; why are we letting MillionDollarBogus a spot to post his blog page? Unless this article is satire (which somewhere it was mentioned) I didn't see any Onion reference anywhere though. Certainly doesn't belong anywhere on the Hedge - unless it's for us to make fun about.
How about a record, reckless, revolution to boot? It's either that, or a good solid, long conventional war with a known entitiy? Too many young guys outta work. Might as well send them off to fight for our freedom.......
Fuck Politico.
Nothing changes until K Street burns.
Nothing changes till Main Street picks up the torches.
Things are SO good, average vacation property around a place I frequent is at the lowest prices they have been in this millenium. But, top end property IS going for more and actually selling, so maybe this Grunwald fuckwad is on to something - for the wealthy life is very very good. For everyone else, not so much. Overall sales down 5% YOY and avg. price down 10% YOY. Prperties > $500k are up slightly.
Same old shite different era.
This libtard is saying what? That the MSM is bound and determined to get Republitards elected they are running bogus bad news stories? Yeah......that's the ticket.
America is not Awesome, America is exceptional. If you are going to be a moron, get the right lingo!!
No, America is special. Window licking special.
I just left Chucky Cheese. Lead Paint licking special. Not the kids, the parents.
We naysayers are ridiculed while being right, this author will be nowhere to be found when he is proven idiotic.
Question: ZH and associated naysayers have been wrong for 5 years. At what point will they capitulate?
Answer: Never, they are true believers in the throes of acute cognitive dissonance. The more they are wrong, the stronger their conviction.
You have figured it out. Everything said here is a lie. William Bonzai posted a poster saying everything is true.
I regrettfully await your Star Trekian mental meltdown as you ponder this
John...,
You're right. ZH and ZH'ers are too fucking negative. This site is crying wolf far too much.
There is good news. Acknowledging it but contrasting the good news with the bad news would be a better gambit than the lockstep, incessant drumbeat of bad news only.
Paul Krugman, when did you start moonlighting for Politico?
The world's a scary place ... yep, we've been in a state of emergency for most of the last 35 years, but it looks like things can only get better, right?
Another Politico article and their author openly blowing smoke up our collective asses in homage to Obama. Never saw that coming did ya? I'm wondering at what point all of this nonsense ends. I for one suspect this will go on for a very long time before all hell breaks loose. The purge will include bankers, journalists, as well as politicians. Unfortunately elections can't change one damn thing any longer when it comes to journalism and banking.
The goal is to keep it going for a very long time. In reality an unintended consequence is going to blow it up. They almost lost it in Ferguson at the beginning when they started chatting about the racial makeup of the police force and government in Ferguson. The stated intention of MSM and .gov is supposedly diversity but they were actually preaching segregation where there should be black mayors, black city councilors, and a black police force for black folks and a hispanic set of public servants for the hispanic folks and so forth because people of different races can't possibly be fair to each other.
Bussing didn't work. Ask your buddies from Boston in the 70's
And it also led to global warming yet another unintended consequence of a progressive ideal.
Yes, they've come the full circle, haven't they? Now they want to be taught and policed by 'people who look like us'. Good luck with that. Once they realize they can't organize themselves or run anything successfully they'll come chasing after Whitey again, perpetuating the cycle.
fuck you michael g.
I think everyone shoul be asking why w are still in a recovery after 6 years?
Yeah, 6 year war against savers & fixed income & people with conservative ideas about investments.
"Awsome Sauce"
It's regional. Big AG is up. South Florida construction is up.
Zionewz
Shortly before Tzar Nicholas II's people rose up and killed him he was told he had to regain the people's confidence, he replied "No! They must regain MY confidence."
Just keep denying! What could possibly go wrong?
He & his family were killed by a Conspiracy for a Revolution... Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it was just malcontent.
Production starts in the ground, stocks up because money can't produce revenue in the traditional way through treasuries, GDP fucking manipulated with changes in the measuring method, consumer confidence soaring but public is grumpy??? Wtf!! I can't wait for this shit show to come crashing down. Only the arrogant fucks think the fed can print away its problems without mass economic destruction. How many have done this in the past and succeeded? I don't believe a single one. For every 1% in interest rates the fed will have to pay 175 billion in interest. The fed has lost its privilege and will no longer be able to avoid the inevitable. That's when it's game over, and who knows when that is.
Like psycho killer's blame their upbringing, Grunwald has been employed/schooled by Washington Post Time Mag and Boston Globe. What do you expect? How great it is that the deficit drops but national DEBT is following (or leading) stawks to the starz?
wow, everything is wonderful, that's great! here I was getting all worried for 2015, well, back to sleep now.
If things in Ukaine start getting "more interesting" in terms of lethal Aid" and the consequences thereof, us members of the "Southern Population" may be amongst the last people on Earth to get our "fair share" of fallout.
Not that it will make much difference in the longer term (i.e. months, not years).
Africa is the place to fight surrogote wars, not quasi- european countries.
Everything is awesome when the NWO is compacted into a large cube of refuse and lowered into the pits of hell.
Can't we have at least one holiday bankster to jump off of a high rise somewhere sometime in the next week please.
At issue is Obama’s support for the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would establish the world’s largest free-trade zone.
This is how Obama Avoids Impeachment from Boner.
The administration is moving aggressively in hopes of wrapping up negotiations by the middle of next year on a 12-nation free-trade pact in the Asia-Pacific region before the politics become even more daunting ahead of the 2016 presidential campaign.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-hopes-to-enlist-gop-in-push...
The dynamic, as the White House plots strategy for the new year when the GOP has full control of Congress, has scrambled traditional political alliances. In recent weeks, Obama has rallied the business community behind his trade agenda, while leading Capitol Hill progressives, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have raised objections and labor and environmental groups have mounted a public relations campaign against it.
"At issue is Obama’s support for the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)"
The TPP if it comes about will be a major step in cementing the NWO and breaking down what's left of national identity.
Another leftist propaganda piece, so much wrong with this.
Worse is BS about shrinking deficit - printing money to pay debt is not paying off the debt.
I was waiting for the description of how much he enjoys sucking off the left.
The left is ecstatic that their sheer advocacy for the Obama administration is recognized only by sites like ZH, or by dozens of sites on the right. As a result, as evidenced by this Politico article, the left's journalism has morphed into propaganda.
Ann Compton reported that she sat in one two of Obama's profanity-laced tirades against the MSM for not adopting the Obama administration's spin as absolute truth. That report is revealing. The left is trying to replace reality with its narrative (eg, this Politico article). Obama himself has stated multiple times that he vastly prefers his narrative over reality.
The left's narratives are winning. Let's hope the crash happens before our transformation into a utopian fantasyland is complete.
"The left is trying to replace reality with its narrative.."
And you realized this.....when exactly?
I only realized in the last few years how important the narrative is to the left, and only after commentators and pundits begin discussing the narrative meme.
I Goggled "left narrative". In the first 30 or so hits, almost all were dated 2014. Discussing narratives vis-a-vis the left is a relatively new phenomena.
This actuality hit home when some pundit said that Obama's 2 autobiographies should be considered narratives, in the sense that Obama was trying to create an image of himself via his narratives (aka, fables or stories). Perhaps even to Obama, the narrative Obama is the real Obama.
It still astounds me how far the left will go to live into their fantasy utopian world. I've realized that the left does so live for 30-40 years, but it still makes no sense that they specifically reject reality for utopias. But the narrative thing makes sense. If you choose to live in a fantasy world, you definitely prefer stories to reality.
I've also realized for a very long time that the left tries to morph reality via their fantasies. For example, their belief that sex/gender is societally determined. Sex/gender is determined by biochemicals, even if said biochemicals are not 1:1 equivalent between sex and gender; ie, a man born that way may have a surplus of female hormones over male hormones, and thus is a transexual candidate, but gender in this case is still not determined by society or choice, but by the reality of biochemicals.
Still, I am only beginning to understand the role of the left's narratives as this meme relates to the left's fantasy utopian world. The right-wing blogosphere has plenty of articles exploring this aspect of the non-reality of the left.
If you have any meaningful stuff to say re the left and their narrative meme, please do so. It's fascinating to know why the left is so fucked up.
Michael Grunwald, if the economy is so awesome why cant the Fed raise interest rates? Why is labor participation so low?
I’m sure it is pretty awesome in his elitist circle jerk. For the rest of us, who did not get the opportunity to go to Harvard, Princeton, or Yale etc. and had to settle for a mountain of debt to attend Proletarian U or no secondary education at all, it pretty much sucks. When the economy finally collapses I’m assuming he will claim it was due to the weight of our “Extreme Awesomeness” or some other similar sounding BS but in all likelihood before that ever happens he will have cashed in his Kool Aid stock and be long gone.
Maybe awesome is Keynesian Newspeak for a shit ton of debt?
If you read Saul ALinsky's Rules for Radicals, we are right on track to our Fundamental Transformation....This Obama handbook is being played out brilliantly.