We're Stimulated!

The House and Senate conference has reached a deal on the stimulus package.  NY times coverage,and the WaPo.

The final deal is slimmed down to a mere $789 billion.

I RESPECTFULLY REQUEST MORE COGENT FEAR-MONGERING: 

"We do not have the luxury of time," said Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), another key negotiator. "We must expeditiously face the facts and pass this measure. To delay this any further would lead to consequences that could be horrendous."

Inouye said more delay "could lead to a crisis worse than the Great Depression." And, since the United States is now the world's only superpower, "if we go down, there'll be chaos on this globe," he said.

Hmm - so things would be better if this were happening during the Cold War and the Soviet Union remained standing after our collapse? 

The broader point exemplified by Inouye - this is a time to vote, not think - has been widely embraced.

[END OF THREAD]

Comments

[Pofarmer]

Maxine Waters is teh socialist.

Yikes.

We're screwed.

[Pagar]

And, since the United States is now the world's only superpower,

We, in Congress, must do our best to make sure that the United States is bought down so that there is no superpower.

[clarice]

I think time is of the essence--this should be delayed as long as possible cause it's counterproductive ..And I do think Inouye is otherwise a real American hero.

[Ranger]

Rush identified it correctly. This congress voting to authorize Obama's War on Prosperity.

[Fresh Air]

I thought Inouye died. Are you sure this isn't from the last crisis, circa 1978?

[narciso]

One recalls that Inouye, tried the Nuremberg analogy on Oliver North, twenty two years ago, or so. This plan is 'a travesty of two mockeries of a sham' points to which good
Woody Allen plan, it's from.

[Mark O]

Not thinking: safer than beer.

[Danube of Thought]

When Obama characterizes his opponents as wanting to "do nothing," he's simply lying. There is much that the GOP wanted to do, as he well knows, but it was very different from what was passed.

Perhaps some day someone will tell us why, starting back in September, Obama didn't have his crack team of actual economists, headed by Larry Summers, draft a recovery plan that could have been sent to the congress on January 20. I'll take it on faith that Summers is a brilliant economist, but on the two TV appearences I've seen this week he's talked nothing of economics and all political talking points--and he's a lousy politician.

[Paul Zrimsek]

As Robert Byrd might have said if he'd also been Jimmy Carter: This is the moral equivalent of a rush to war.

[mary]

A very sad time in our history of America. What is to come of all this? I have more than a vague idea, and it is not good.

[matt]

we should immediately institute mandatory Alzheimer's testing for all members of Congress over 65.

That may be the real answer. Some of these fogies are so whacked out that they're ventriloquist's dummies for their more radical staffers.

[MayBee]

All around the leftosphere, they are convinced this is a disgrace because Education and Healthcare have been CUT.

Yes.
The biggest spending bill in our history, and they are saying something was cut.

[daddy]

Heels up 6 over Duke at Cameron Auditorium in the 1st. Wooo hooo!

[kim]

Act in haste, repent in leisure. All those out of work people will have plenty of leisure.
=================================

[Pofarmer]

we should immediately institute mandatory Alzheimer's testing for all members of Congress over 65.

Maybe body snatchers are for real?

[Ranger]

Via Drudge:

It includes Obama's signature "Making Work Pay" tax credit for 95 percent of workers, though negotiators agreed to trim the credit to $400 a year instead of $500 — or $800 for married couples, cut from Obama's original proposal of $1,000. It would begin showing up in most workers' paychecks in June as an extra $13 a week in take-home pay, falling to about $8 a week next January.

Yeah, I exspect things to pick up righ away with all that loose cash floating around.

[Rick Ballard]

At 700 gallons per year per vehicle the average family has a saving of $2,800 per year from the drop in gas prices from $4 to $2. (Or, reversed, Goldman-Sachs commodity speculators cost the average American family that much as they cracked the economy over last spring and fall in an effort to elect a President known to be open to rental, if not outright purchase).

[Danube of Thought]

Blue Devils have mounted something of a comeback before halftime, and lead by eight.

Strikes me that the electoral gauntlet has never in my lifetime been more clearly laid down than it has been in the course of the past week. No matter what Obama says, if by November 2010 people don't have a gut sense that prosperity has returned, the dems could actually face a loss of the house, and a net loss of several seats in the senate.

If people do have a sense that things are on the mend, the Dems be the majority party well past my life expectancy.

I don't pay much attention to either sides predictions about what will actually occur, but I do hope that posterity will indelibly record the CBO prediction that recovery would begin in the second half of 2009 without any stimulus package. Some JOMer has to find that report and download it. I would, but as you all know I am too old.

[mel]

DoT-

I hope your birthday is a joyous one! Even this late, for me.

[Amused bystander]

Ranger: the local media was making a really bug deal about in the news tonight. "look for more in your paycheck." they did not say how much. Well you can bet they will pop the amount latter.

However, this if this is all he can do by 2010, no one will remember.

[PD]

as you all know I am too old.

Pshaw.

[narciso]

It does seem like a Michael Thomas, doesn't it, Rick, the electronic 'run on banks' reminds me of that comic conspiracy caper,
'Sneakers' where a former 60s radical turned mob IT specialists, used encription breaking software to topple local economies.
It's curious how so many of the major implementers of said players from Paulson, to Wilson, to Patterson, were all Goldman
Sachs players. Maybe IndyBank was the test case, with Lehman and AIG an applied case study. How many of these firms have been disciplined by their shareholders or the board.

[MayBee]

Will my teenager get this Making Work Pay tax credit?

[daddy]

Great Game DOT, Heels by 4 with 10 to get in the second quarter.

[mel]

Rick-

We've got to get our language on the same page. I think we're whipping past each other. Comparing tool boxes might be a good start. Here's one from mine.

Treasury Auctions are rated using three data points: current, last, and 12 month trailing average. These apply to the Bid to Cover Ratio, and the Non-Competitive bidding. The other metric is direct or indirect bidding, which defines the type of customer actively bidding the auction, specifically indirects include foreign central banks using the NY Fed. Directs are primary dealers bidding for the "house". (A thin commitment these days, as you can imagine)

Here's the "Today's Auction Results page (LUN).

Let's get back on the same page, we both want to get it right.

On that note, I've got a really big day tomorrow, so I'm ducking out to try and sleep through what I couldn't last night.

Night all.

[Pofarmer]

Holy Smoke.

Rep Capuano announces the show trials are about to begin.

We're gonna have the wrong heads on pikes if we ain't careful.

[Pofarmer]

I'm really starting to wonder about the IQ of congress.

[Rick Ballard]

"How many of these firms have been disciplined by their shareholders or the board."

Narciso,

The "stockholders" are generally mutual funds and the boards are composed of inbred credentialed morons with the instincts of lemmings.

I dunno if the Michael Thomas style would be the right model - why not a "hand from Lenin's tomb" with Soros picking up for Armand Hammer to complete a plot initiated in 1928? We might be able to save Alcoa with that one.

[Rick Ballard]

Narciso,

I forgot - if we drag in Armand Hammer then there's a great Goracle connection which can be used to tie the Warmer/Peaker/Watermelons together with the commies.

[Mark Turner]

Fresh Air:

No, Inouye is still alive -- you're thinking of Spark Matsunaga. Hawaiian politicians are all liberal Democrats anyway.

[mt]

what they need to do is take the money and stop giving it to the banks & other companies... and do what that man said. If you are born in the United States and are over the age of 18 then you will get $250,000 for single & $500,000 if married this way people will start spending and will create jobs... There are many people who live in America but were not born here so they would not get this money... or if you are over 75 yrs of age you would not get it either. If they keep lending to banks, etc they are just going to keep coming back for more and this will never end.

[Danube of Thought]

What is the reference to show trials all about?

[Pofarmer]

What is the reference to show trials all about?

LUN

[Pofarmer]

Ahhh, back to the greats.

"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." --- Mark Twain.

[narciso]

I used Michael Thomas, since he always had always had oblique conspiracies, Saudi oil barons, Soviet moles on Wall Street,one particularly twisted roman a clef, Hanover Place, based on his family's Wall Street history, which had a very antisemitic taint to in, and the subsequent Coughlinite backlash he predicted. Of course, the KHOLSTORMER multi decade plot in the Littell book and movie the Company, which the movie suggests was at the heart of the '87 crash, might be more in line with what we're predicting. Danube, Google
"Ferdinand Pecora" or alternately "Gerald
Nye" on the foreign policy front

[Stephanie]

$300 million for green golf carts? WTCrap

Am I being dense or aren't all golf carts already green? All the carts at the club plug into the wall for recharging. Any other mode would be too noisy on a golf course. D'oh.

Why the hell would anyone need $300 million for new green golf carts when the old ones are already green...

Except to pay off a donor?

Anyways, I thought only evil rich republicans played golf and drove those things. Not to mention that golf sure does required bunches of trees to be cut down and wastes land that could be used for section 8 housing...

[Stephanie]

Comments at Althouse:

The Four Horsemen of the Democratic Economic Apocalypse-

Taxation, Litigation, Unionization, and Regulation.

LUN

[DrNana]

Is it true that the stimulus has a Nazi-style health care system embedded in it that puts doctors under government control? Meaning that the treatment/medication doctors are able to give patients, especially the elderly or the chronically sick, mentally impaired, etc., is limited or dictated by some government agency?

[Stephanie]

Yes DrNana it is true.

The Kill Granny provision is in there...

Link Under My Name (just click it)

[Thomas Collins]

In a previous thread, there was a discussion about whether a filibuster is still possible. See the last two paragraphs of the LUNed article. Apparently, Mitch McConnell thinks a filibuster is still possible, although he wouldn't support one and one is not likely.

[Daddy]

Yippee, TarHeels won!

And as a further note of cheer, 2 weeks back I mentioned standing out in front of the local Safeway gathering signatures for a petition to reinstitute a property tax cap. Mayor and now Senator Begich got it overturned upon taking office 5 years back, and my property taxes since then went up about $4,000. Begich you may recall, slipped out of Anchorage on 4 Jan, saddling us with a hidden 17 million dollar City budget shortfall that was not discovered until 16 Jan. Anyhow, the petiton drive was completed today and we got 13,000 signatures, well over the 7,500 required by law to place it on the Ballot.

As for Senator Begich, he and his spokesperson were on local radio 2 nights back, saying this Stimulus pachage was a "Bipartisan Bill", that he was canvasing with all sorts of Republicans in a bipartisan effort to improve the Bill, and that the senior Democratic leadership was really listening to him so that any listeners who thought losing Steven's as a voice for Alaska in DC should be pleased at the influence he is now throwing around back there. Oh, and he also said this bill will be great for all Alaskans because there is so much good stuff in it.

[kim]

The Phog is with Roy.
=====================

[Thomas Collins]

Good morning. See LUN for Professor of Mathematics Iowahawk's report on the world's largest number (via Instapundit)

[TCO]

You all have no allowance to complain about more bailouts and stimuli. I warned you from the start, but you wanted to drink koolaid and follow Bush over the cliff. Have fun eating the crap sandwiches.

[kim]

Woo Hoo, scroll down and Burge quotes Tapper. Tapper/Burge '12.
====================

[syn]

Yet the stimulus will not do a thing to address the worthless derivatives piled on top of bad loans; the problem was not fixed and now it is too late.

Around the end of 2009 a whole lot of people in this country are going to discover that a good portion of their retire pensions were wrapped up in the toxic derivatives however that money is NEVER coming back.

I am all for optimism however the reality is the globe is about to enter 25-30 years of depression rather than recovering from a recession.

Simply put, there will not be a recovery if the doctor is spreading the disease.

In order to fix the America's problems, we'd have to reform and restructure government top to bottom instead the same problems are being infused deeper into the same government's structure.

Lastly, the economy is not the stock market; just because it goes up does not mean the economy is moving towards recovery.

[kim]

It was all a trick, TCO; we just wanted to shove it on down the road so Obama could own it.
========================================

[kim]

How about that Steig paper. What a joke, huh?
================================================

[Alan]

Fear and ignorance. What a combination!

[bad]

I find it unbelievable that congress sat there bitching about CEO's private planes when Mistress Pelosi, their own dear leader, flies around on one.

Good Grief

[Cecil Turner]

You all have no allowance to complain about more bailouts and stimuli.

Riiiiight, Ishmael. Now Bush is not only responsible for Democrat-written bailout appropriations bills, but all follow-on bills even if not a single Republican votes for it? Dream on.

Electing more Democrats is directly responsible for all but the first 350 billion of this turkey (and they bear the lion's share of the blame for the first tranche as well). And your disingenuous solutions (e.g., "shoot your own dog") that serve only to support the election of more Democrats is counterproductive on its own terms. Good luck selling that shinola (or the utterly ridiculous corollary that we need your permission to complain).

[kim]

I still think there will be some mileage with the press that Obama on Monday promised 'great detail' in Geithner's speech and it didn't happen. Granted, hoi polloi will never hear about it, but to some of the reporters it's got to stink a little, especially the one who got stiffed with the question on Monday. That one should be all over it, in CAPS.
==============================

[bad]

Kim, you are so delightfully optimistic.

[narciso]

From a previous thread, how does one embed a Youtube link, into the LUN box, I'm linking a segment from her press
availability, to show what real leadership is like, and what we might expect in four years time. not mediated by commentators like Fagan, who try to paraphrase what you just saw. She was a little hesitant in spots, showed some anger clearly at the Al AP reporter. I swear I may have to move to Alaska, before this is all over, Brr!

[Danube of Thought]

Clarice, now you've even got the NYTimes on fat Jack Murtha's tail--good work.

I'm headed outta town for a few days. See you all next Tuesday.

[bad]

Safe travel, DoT.

[kim]

bad, I'm rapid cycling between despair and hope. Why is our free press so asleep at the wheel?
===============================================

[bio mom]

About Henrietta Hughes, the poster woman for the stimulus package:

I find all of this hard to believe. It just fits too neatly into the Obama talking points. First we see the poor homeless woman who needs the help that the stimulus and Democrats want to give. Then we see the Republican woman so moved by the woman’s dilemma that she gives her a home. This then should convince the reluctant Republicans about the error of their ways and they should then support the Democrats in their give away programs just like the kind hearted Republican woman did. Give me a break!! This is just the most incredible coincidence ever or it is an orchestrated event.

[bad]

Love, Kim. They are blinded by love.

[Donald]

New term for Obamamania: "Optimistic Disappointment".

[kim]

Here's a bit of hope: Watts Up has an article about the UK Met Office denouncing those expressing apocolyptic views of global warming. What's interesting here is that that office has been among the leaders pushing the whole CO2=AGW paradigm. The author thinks it might be a 'tipping point' in the whole charade.

Here is a rough estimate from me. Gore exaggerated the effects of CO2 about ten times what the real climate scientists believe, and they think the CO2 effect is about ten times what many of the skeptics think. So Gore is off by about two orders of magnitude. Perhaps, just perhaps, we may see some real progress about this hoax.

Obama is sooner or later going to come to the realization that all the green initiatives are holding back economic rebound. If he has a choice between changing his mind about climate and losing the next election, the green stuff will pale. That's what's happening in the rest of the world, too.

And Palin, oh boy does she have an issue.
==========================

[Donald]

It was an orchestrated event. This is Clinton Redux to the max. Transparent bullshit, presented by a fawning, now penis engulfing press that reflects a slick shallow 5th rate hack into a stalinesque heroic figure. You better get on board people or Shauna Daly is gonna come gunning for you.

[kim]

You can link under my name for Watts Up. I can't read the comments over there at all, but I can still comment. It's bizarrely fun.
==================================

[kim]

Now Donald, don't exaggerate. I think Obama's clearly 4th rate.
===============================

[kim]

Heh, as opposed to being forthright.
===================================

[kim]

OK, that's my slogan and I'm bumpersticking to it:

Obama, Fourth Rate not Forthright.
=============================

[Pofarmer]

Why is our free press so asleep at the wheel?

Oh, they're steering all right.

[Pofarmer]

Obama is sooner or later going to come to the realization that all the green initiatives are holding back economic rebound.

Once again, you assume that Obama cares about economic rebound. The needier he keeps his core voter base, the better.

[Old Lurker]

"Love, Kim. They are blinded by love."

Nope. Most of them are simply too stupid and unread to appreciate the historical context for what they are facilitating. Their string pullers do, and are doing it on purpose, but most of the foot soldiers just don't know.

Goes back to the evil twins: Schools of Journalism and Schools of Education, bred in institutions swimming in radical leftism.

[Old Lurker]

Oh. And good morning all!

[bad]

Old Lurker, I'm SHOCKED that you characterize our beloved press as stupid and unread.

This is the era of Obama. The truth shall not be spoken.

Please find your inner unity and bipartisanship.

[Old Lurker]

:-) Bad

[Donald]

I don't Kim, under Clinton, when I was so much younger and prettier, yet strangley fatter, he would speak, and seeing as how I'm well versed in southern used car salesmanese, I'd look at him and wonder who's buying it. But he'd been a governer of a failed state, so he gets third rate. Obama, without the fawning minions and press is a 5th rate lesion on the city of Chicago looking for his cut.

[jimmyk]

Re Tapper, I wonder what reporters think is in their own self-interest. On the one hand you would think that taking down Obama would make someone's career, but look what happened to Roger Mudd. He singlehandedly ended Teddy's presidential ambitions, and his career went steadily downhill. Apparently it's ok to be obnoxious to a Republican president, but going after Obama could be a career ender.

[narciso]

As I was saying, stupid SixApart/TypePad, he lied in his interview with the AD News, pretending he was for more oil development; pulling off the apocryphal George Smathers trick of addressing different audiences and
most on those boards buy into it. One commenter suggested running the line into Valdez Alaska. That couldn't cause any problems could it? Did I do the embed right.

[bad]

NRO: LUN

Given that the states will receive $4 from the federal government for every $1 they add to their welfare budgets, even conservative governors will feel pressure to inflate their welfare rolls in order to wring every dollar they can out of Washington. And there are early rumblings about removing the already weak work requirements that rounded out the Clinton-era reforms.

More change we can believe in. Tapper needs to ask Obama whay he changed his mind so profoundly about welfare from August of last year.

[jean]

I can't believe it will look good for Obama in 12 if the welfare role has doubled during his 4yr. term

[hit and run]

Hey, too many theads...but anyone else notice or mention http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/69444/> JMH's Instalanche?

Awesome!

JMH...I think you need to follow up your radical planks and howdy partner posts from September with one making the public/private tie in with the Geithner not so detailed plans that include the same...wink, wink.

[bad]

WaPo: LUN

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Tex.), walking alongside Collins on their way to Tuesday's weekly GOP luncheon, summed up the negotiating approach Democratic leaders took with Collins and other moderates as: "Here's the bill. How can I buy your vote?" ........But Collins plans to continue her middle-of-the-road approach in the Senate...."I see it as an affirmation of the approach I take to governing," she said.

See!! Dems CAN be honest and Republicans CAN be dumbasses.

How's that for bipartisanship...

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

"We do not have the luxury of time," said Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii)

Should read;
"We do not have the luxury of time," said partialy fossilized, 167 year old Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii)

[Extraneus]

Once again, you assume that Obama cares about economic rebound. The needier he keeps his core voter base, the better.

It's a tough thing to wrap your mind around, but it has to be done. More victims = more Democrats. Simple as that.

[bad]

Thanks for the link, Hit. JMH is amazing, as usual.

[narciso]

That was great, JM, genuinely scared the carp right out of me. Why do I have the feeling that he means to do to the red state rural, what the Palestinians have accused Israel of doing with their settlement policy. Lord all mighty what have these fools brought into being.

[centralcal]

Hit: Clarice, yesterday, and now JMH - at least Insty is leading folks to our very wise commenters. Spreadin' the word is a good thing.

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

Excellent essay JMH, and beautifully written as usual.

[narciso]

This fellow, from a link off Vanderleun's page, may have part of the solution, or he may be totally nuts, take a gander.

[kim]

Dang, Reynolds won't load. Where did she write it originally? Was it on Jake's?
===========================

[bad]

Media Blog: LUN

President Obama has named Caterpillar's CEO to his economic recovery board.

That would be the same Caterpillar that Democratic Sen. Carl Levin has on his list of evil corporations with offshore tax havens.......

I guess 49 tax havens, like Tim Geithner's back taxes, now constitutes the baseline for what's acceptable.

Change you can believe in.

[bad]

Kim, LUN to JMH's Article.

[Extraneus]

Wasn't that the same Caterpillar that made a big splash yesterday by saying they'd hire "some" people back if the stimulus bill passed?

[kim]

The highway patrolman came upon the scene of a bad wreck with all four human victims unconscious, a father, a mother and two children. He sees a monkey jumping around in the wreckage and asks him 'What was the man doing?'. The monkey makes a gesture of drinking from a bottle. The cop asks him what the woman was doing and the monkey lays his head down sideways on one palm. Then he asks about the children and the monkey paws the air in thespian fisticuffs. Finally, the patrolman asks the monkey what he was doing and the monkey acts out holding and turning a steering wheel.

Oops, racist.
=============

[kim]

TNX, b.
=====

[bad]

More on Caterpillar: LUN

The Peoria, Ill.-based company would not say how many laid-off employees might return to work, or when. Nor would it say how many workers targeted for upcoming layoffs might keep their jobs.

Caterpillar also would not say whether the rehired employees would come from its U.S. workforce, which makes up about half of the firm's 112,000 employees.

Before pork passage, we hear thousands of jobs will be forthcoming if the pork is passed.

After the pork is passed, we learn the original claims are not true.

More change

[bad]

More change!!

Remember the "conservative Dem" taking over Hillary's Senate seat, the one who was an avid hunter and an NRA member?

She's changed her mind. Surprise, surprise...

LUN

[kim]

Heh, when they came for Quasiblogger.
===================================

[hit and run]

And the same Caterpillar whose CEO is on Obama's http://www.redstate.com/jeff_emanuel/2009/02/11/more-about-that-caterpillar-ceo-who-allegedly-and-conveniently-promised-bho-he-would-rehire-some-workers-if-stimulus-passes/> Economic Advisory/s> Scratch Each Others' Backs Team

[MaryD]

Yikes, Hit. Make the strikeouts stop!

[Ignatz Ratzkywatzky]

Hit strikes out the side. :)

[Jane]

Hit strikes out the side. :)

I think it was worth it for that comment.

[bad]

Hit, is doing lines.

Are lines the new beer?