I have written extensively on the fact that this is not a normal cyclical recession, and we're not in the type of "jobless recovery" which we've had a couple of times in the last 50 years. Unemployment will continue rising in America for some time, which will make a real, sustainable recovery very difficult.

The heads of two Federal Reserve banks are now saying something similar:

    Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, warned that rising unemployment could crimp consumers, restraining the recovery. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of economic activity.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/11/military-spending-is-increasing.html

To the many excellent reasons to abolish the death penalty — it’s immoral, does not deter murder and affects minorities disproportionately — we can add one more. It’s an economic drain on governments with already badly depleted budgets.

It is far from a national trend, but some legislators have begun to have second thoughts about the high cost of death row. Others would do well to consider evidence gathered by the Death Penalty Information Center, a research organization that opposes capital punishment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/opinion/28mon3.html?_r=1

"The upper class keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there… just to scare the shit out of the middle class. Keep 'em showing up at those jobs."

Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said.

The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1249465620080812

(2008 article, but hey, think a lot *changed*? mwuha)

George Carlin Archive Interview (1 of 7)

The president, his PR team and members of Congress want a health care bill on their resume and to be able to claim that they passed a health care bill, regardless of whether it provides any health care.

[....]

The telltale part of Obama's speech was the applause in response to his pledge that "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits." Yet, Obama and his fellow politicians have no hesitation to add trillions of dollars to the deficit in order to fund wars.

The profits of military-security companies are partly recycled into campaign contributions. To cut war spending in order to finance a public health care system would cost politicians campaign contributions from both the insurance industry and the military-security industry.

Politicians are not going to allow that to happen.

It was the war in Afghanistan, not health care, that President Obama declared to be a "necessity."

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090927/OPINION06/90918053/1006

Gap between top 1% and bottom 90% now worse than at any time since 1928.

Ottawa (10 Sept. 2009) – Two-thirds of all American income gains from 2002 to 2007 flowed to the top 1% of U.S. households, giving that privileged minority a larger share of income at the end of the period than at any time since 1928.

During the period, the average inflation-adjusted income of the top 1% of households soared by 62% compared to a gain of just 4% for the bottom 90% of households.

http://www.nupge.ca/node/2544

Company executives are forbidden from trading stocks using insider knowledge, but no such law exists to prevent members of Congress from doing so.

ALAN Ziobrowski: Senators make significant abnormal returns, some place around 1 percent above the market, 12 percent a year.

Alan Ziobrowski is a business professor at Georgia State University. Using hundreds of personal financial disclosures from the 1990s, Ziobrowski analyzed more than 6000 stock transactions by members of Congress going back up to 15 years.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/09/17/pm-inside-dope/

Is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 working? At the time of the act's passage last February, this question was hotly debated. Administration economists cited Keynesian models that predicted that the $787 billion stimulus package would increase GDP by enough to create 3.6 million jobs. Our own research showed that more modern macroeconomic models predicted only one-sixth of that GDP impact. Estimates by economist Robert Barro of Harvard predicted the impact would not be significantly different from zero.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204731804574385233867030644.html

Everybody knows that GWB made debts like no president before him – as you can see to the right.  War spending – to get what? To bring Osama Bin Laden to justice? A bullet would have been cheaper.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/us/14intel.html

I think Mr. Greenspan has given us the real answer to that already.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2461214.ece

But what spawned the early 80's hike in debt? Oil again, I think:

Quote: Saudis flood market with inexpensive oil in 1981, forcing unprecedented price cuts by OPEC members.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980-1989_world_oil_market_chronology

The American economy is addicted to oil, and until that changes, foreign policy will just follow meekly.

At the end of that 'rally' of debt, the Soviet Union was on its knees, and the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.

They couldn't keep up the Arms Race, obviously.