9 March 2008
Weekend Chat - 03/09/08
Posted by Roy Bischoff under: What's News .
11 Comments so far...
Jesse Says:
9 March 2008 at 12:08 am.
Isn’t this kind of funny how bad the Clintons want to get back to the White House? Here is Bill Clinton flapping his mouth, or you could say begging Barack.
(CNN) — Even as Hillary Clinton’s campaign attacked her rival, Barack Obama, for failing to “deliver on his promises,” her husband, former President Bill Clinton said Saturday that a joint ticket pairing the two would be “almost unstoppable.”
The former president referred to his wife’s own comments that indicated a willingness to consider the prospect. “She said yesterday and she said the day after her big wins in Texas and Ohio and Rhode Island that she was very open to that and I think she answered explicitly ‘Yes’ yesterday,” said Clinton during a Mississippi campaign appearance.
“I know that she has always been open to it, because she believes that if you can unite the energy and the new people that he’s brought in and the people in these vast swaths of small town and rural America that she’s carried overwhelmingly, if you had those two things together she thinks it’d be hard to beat.”
Matt Says:
9 March 2008 at 11:20 am.
I grabbed a few paragraphs from different parts of this article by the London Times. I guess it confirms what we have been talking about. Things are rocky.
Britain shivers as US hits recession
AMERICA’s economy is definitely in recession, economists say, amid growing fears that the credit crunch is entering its most dangerous phase.
Figures on Friday showing a second successive monthly fall in US employment sealed the question of whether America had entered its first recession since the 2001 downturn.
His comments came as another leading Wall Street forecaster joined economists from Global Insight, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS in saying that America had definitely entered a recession. Ethan Harris, chief economist at Lehman Brothers, said: “We now believe the tax-rebate cheques will arrive too late to prevent an outright recession. We look for modestly negative GDP growth in both the first and second quarters of 2008.
“The economy is likely to experience an extended period of very weak growth, a rising unemployment rate and significant further Fed rate cuts,” he added. “This is a bigger, but more gradual, shock to the economy than either the 1990 or 2001 recession.” “The debate is over,” said Paul Ashworth, senior US economist at Capital Economics. “The 63,000 decline in nonfarm pay-rolls in February is near-conclus-ive proof that the economy is now in recession.”
On Friday, Larry Summers, the former US Treasury secretary, said the economy is “currently in recession” and warned that it was likely to be severe in its length and depth.
“I believe we are facing the most serious combination of macroeconomic and financial stresses that the US has faced in a generation - and possibly, much longer than that,” he said, addressing an annual economics summit organised by Stanford University in California.
Summers said there was “a regrettable reluctance in Washington to recognise the ‘R’ word” and that the situation was likely to get worse. Official estimates of the cost of the housing and mortgage bust, put at $400 billion (£199 billion), were likely to be “substantially optimistic”.
The deepening gloom means that the Fed is likely to slash interest rates further from the current 3% level.
Analysts expect a cut of at least 0.75 points either at or before the Fed’s next scheduled policy meeting on March 18.
The expectation of aggressive rate cuts is likely to undermine the dollar further. Sterling climbed back above the $2 level last week after the Bank of England left UK interest rates unchanged at 5.25%. The dollar’s slide pushed the price of oil to a new record of $106 a barrel on Friday and helped the gold price to nearly $1,000 an ounce.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article3510563.ece
Matt Says:
9 March 2008 at 11:51 am.
This is way wrong. We are nine trillion in debt. What’s the deal?
Senators: Where is Iraq’s oil money going?
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Two senators are asking congressional investigators to look at Iraq’s oil revenues and see if the war-ravaged nation can pay for its own reconstruction, an effort that has been bankrolled to this point mostly by U.S. taxpayers.
Carl Levin, D-Michigan, and John Warner, R-Virginia, said in their Friday letter to the Government Accountability Office that Iraq has “tremendous resources” in banks worldwide but is doing little to improve security and reconstruction efforts.
Iraqi officials did not immediately respond to the senators’ allegations.
“We believe that it has been overwhelmingly U.S. taxpayer money that has funded Iraq reconstruction over the last five years, despite Iraq earning billions of dollars in oil revenue over that time period that have ended up in non-Iraqi banks,” wrote the senators, who are their party’s top members on the Armed Services Committee.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/08/iraq.main/index.html
CindyL. Says:
9 March 2008 at 12:56 pm.
What is the deal with that? I would love for once to hear a lawmaker try and explain why we are doing this. Is there any logic whatsoever?
SGS Says:
9 March 2008 at 1:28 pm.
Matt, I have been wondering about it, especially the past year when their oil production is above the average during Saddam’s period (with international sanctions and oil for food program, he’s severely restricted on how much oil he can export), and with price at $100 a barrel. In fact, this allows Iran to become more active with its nuclear development. So, Iraq should be seeing a lot more cash, but yet, we spent roughly same amount, year after year, rather than shrinking it down. It’s good someone high up are questioning this!
Matt Says:
9 March 2008 at 2:20 pm.
Maybe we will rethink who we give money to in the future. I think it’s good to help out some countries but nothing like what we are and especially with this. Yeah, I’m glad someone high up is finally questioning it too.
Cavetrollhead Says:
9 March 2008 at 2:24 pm.
Little dog Lacey:
I hold a piece of juicy bacon, cooked more rarely than humans like it. I am
holding it for little dog, Lacey. I am calling her name but she won’t pay
attention to me because she is struggling to reach a piece of popcorn from
under a bench. She saw someone drop it a moment ago, and the popcorn is just
out of her reach. She and my other dog are trying to get to it. I call her
sweetly and persistently trying to offer her the most sumptuous bacon, but
her mind is fixed on the popcorn. She is intractable. She is deaf to my
calls. She is only faintly aware that I am there. I offer the bacon to my
other dog, who has responded to my voice. She responds to the chomping
smacking noises coming from my other dog, Zacky and immediately darts to him
to sniff his mouth. She knows she has missed something special but still
only gets a whiff of it. As yummy as it smells she can’t appreciate what she
has missed. She looks briefly at me,her master, notes that I am empty
handed, and returns her attention to the popcorn under the bench.
So here is how I want to apply this little sermon to our wonderful IGWT
community:
As we watch our nation’s politics, lets be willing to let go of our
expectations as well in order to heed the Masters offerings. Lets let go and
meditate from time to time as we seek a leader. We might not see our
favorite man offered by God. But if we are open, we won’t miss the one God
is preparing for us. Lets not be like my poor little dog Lacey, who can’t tear her mind away from the popcorn long enough to see the bacon that her master was offering. So let’s keep an open mind and keep close to the spirit as we watch.
T. Fan Says:
9 March 2008 at 3:36 pm.
great parable and one that is hard for people to do. we sure do get our minds set sometimes don’t we? good advice.
E.E. Says:
9 March 2008 at 6:09 pm.
Cave, I think we are in a time now when the only thing that will get us through is to get close to the Spirit to guide us. Thanks.
Pickles Says:
9 March 2008 at 8:16 pm.
I would take the bacon from you Cave.
Stumpy Says:
9 March 2008 at 9:59 pm.
Okay Pickles - ya gotta pick. Its either bacon from Cave or creamed tuna over toast from me. Ya cant have it both ways girl.
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