Decades ago, when I worked for one of America’s richest men, Norton Simon, he told me, “I stay out of the stock market. You could spend every hour trying to figure out what they’re thinking and still be wrong half the time.” That advice comes to mind as stocks continue to dive in the days after a “conservative victory” in the debt-ceiling fight that should have cheered up markets by avoiding a default,...

Eight Facts About Spending That Republicans Forgot About by Business Loans Infographic courtesy of Business Loans

Just today I was talking by phone with some folks about how polarized, negative and toxic our political scene is — coupled by a bad barrage of economic news which included the big Dow plunge today. And then a TMV reader send me THIS LINK with a commentator suggesting that since the stock market is down Barack Obama might think about resigning. Did I miss something? Were people from the same quarters suggesting...

Are we witnessing a collapse in faith in paper currency – and hence, the very social contract society is based on? For Germany’s Die Welt, historian Michael Sturmer warns that unless a way is found to restore confidence in the currency, the days are numbered for democracy and the way of life we have all come to expect. For Germany’s Die Welt, Michael Sturmer writes in part: This is not just...

Now that the White House and Congressional lawmakers have agreed to raise the debt ceiling, there is considerable concern in other nations about the bipartisan “super committee” that will be charged with the next round of budget cuts. According to this editorial from the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japanese are not only concerned that the lawmakers will be unable to agree, but that continuing disagreement...

Does the acrimonious process of raising the U.S. debt ceiling demonstrate the genius of the American system in action? According to this editorial from Brazil’s O Globo, the deal arrived at by feuding Republicans and Democrats was a lesson for other nations – particularly Brazil – about getting ahead of debt and tax-related issues. The O Globo editorial says in part: There will always be...

In less than three years since his election was seen as the nation’s triumph over its own history, a combination of his own shortcomings, crushing economic challenges that destabilized the electorate and residual racism has put Barack Hussein Obama in danger of becoming a one-term president. At his birth 50 years ago, his parents’ marriage was illegal in 16 states of the Union. Now, at the low point of...

More bad news on the economic front. The Dow is going south: U.S. stocks plunged, with the Dow losing more than 350 points Thursday, as investors remain on edge about the global economy. [UPDATE: It's closing number was down 513: The only good thing to say about today's stock market is that it's finally over. The Dow fell a staggering 513 points, or 4.3%, to close at 11,384. It's the worst point drop since...

by WALTER BRASCH You have a credit card with a $25,000 limit. Because you have a good job, you only have $6,000 on the card, and routinely pay the monthly statement and a little extra on the principal. But then you decide you need a 52-inch high-def LCD TV screen to go into your “man cave,” and your family rightfully decides they need a vacation. So, you add a few thousand to the credit card. But, it’s...

Taking the GOP Back From the Radical Right by Michael Stafford With the debt ceiling crisis resolved, it is appropriate to pause and reflect on how America was brought to the precipice of a potential catastrophe. The answer can be found in two lines from William Butler Yeats’ famous poem “The Second Coming.” In the poem, Yeats’ wrote: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst...

it’s not like in the film Amadeus, wherein the dunderheaded Emperor pettishly snaps to Mozart about his newest composition, “Too many notes, too many notes.” The Emporerr didnt know what he was talking about. But, a sizeable group of people in the USA do know when there are Too many laws, Too many laws! I have been thinking for some time when our local congressman asked us to help find docs...

“May you live in interesting times,” reputedly an ancient Chinese curse, comes to mind in the aftermath of this week’s fiasco as all signs point to hostage-taking as the new political norm rather than an aberration. “The debt ceiling should not be…used as a gun against the heads of the American people,” the President says, but Mitch McConnell sees it differently. “Never again,” the Senate...

The recently passed and signed legislation – increasing the debt limit and outlining various complex procedures for future spending reductions – severely limits the federal government’s ability to initiate new spending programs, raise taxes, or take any active role in the economy. The Federal Reserve is also constrained in its ability to address high unemployment because all of its prior monetary expansion...

Trying to both caution and reassure his Department’s personnel, and beyond, that Pentagon spending cuts won’t be done in a hasty, irresponsible way at a “time of considerable fiscal challenge in our country”—i.e. at a time when defense hawks are suffering from angst and uncertainty— “Defense Secretary Leon Panetta penned a letter to them today. The letter, titled “Meeting our Fiscal...

Following up on the prior post about the stock market is this sobering article from Atlantic magazine.

Depending on what happens in the next couple days we could be seeing a very undesirable record set. Yesterday the stock market DJIA was down for the eighth day in a row which matched a record from 2008. If it is down again today (at this point it is down about 90 points) then it will match a record from 1978. If it is down again on Thursday then we will be at a ten day slump, that last happened in November...

Politics, Reality Show Style by Tina Dupuy The difference between a documentary and a reality show is staging. A documentary tells a story about real life. The subjects are normally not paid, aren’t actors and the story is non-fiction. It’s a quiet, illuminating and thoughtful genre (read: boring). Reality shows are like life, in that people on these programs do things people do in real life, (i.e....

The politicians of both parties, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department keep telling us that at some point economic growth will return to rates we have seen in the past.  They are: In denial Idiots Lying This is what makes debt, both government an non government, a serious problem.  The economic growth much of the world has experienced for several decades was unsustainable and has come to and end. ...

Now that it’s done, the President is calling the debt-ceiling deal “an important first step to ensuring that as a nation we live within our means,” but it looks more like falling off a political precipice. Even as he reiterates that “we can’t balance the budget on the backs of the very people who have borne the brunt of the recession,” Barack Obama says ruefully, “Voters may have chosen divided...

I am what many on the interwebs call an Obamabot. I am a huge fan of the American President. My BA degree dissertation was on how hip-hop culture enabled the political rise of Obama and my Masters dissertation was on how Obama was portrayed during the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell debate. Yes, I am an Obamabot. With that said, I also consider myself to be a political realist and right now, at this minute Obama’s...

Will the U.S. Supreme Court rule according to its tendency to favor corporate America, or will it strike down recent state law that cracks down on undocumented immigrants in the United States – which would undercut the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? Columnist Arturo Balderas Rodríguez of Mexico’s La Jornada warns that the undocumented can’t count on the Court to protect their ‘fundamental...

Our political Quote of the Day comes from Paul Tullis, writing on the Huffington Post, about what President Barack Obama seemingly forgot about change: This battle over the debt deal was not a matter of who believes in Keynes. It was a matter of Republicans caring more about power than about governing, and Democrats being unable to wrest that power from Republicans so that they can govern. The reason Democrats...

No matter what consequences stem from the controversial debt limit ceiling deal, one thing is clear: we are now watching The Incredible Shrinking Barack Obama. And here are four other facts. First, Barack Obama will go down in history along with Ronald Reagan as presiding over the New Deal’s and Great Society’s gradual dismantling. Second, Obama’s mystique is evaporating almost as fast as his political...

Depending on which side of the military spending issue one is in, thrills or chills are running up and down the respective spines in light of the debt ceiling deal that now looks quite certain to become law. While to sighs of relief from those for a strong military, it looks like the cuts in next year’s defense budget will probably be small, for the years beyond there is at best uncertainty, at worst some...

On Sunday CNN’s Don Lemon brought back his independent analyst panel to get their reactions to the debt ceiling limit crisis. He has had this panel composed of TMV’s Joe Gandelman, Dr. Omar Ali, and Nicole Kurokawa on approximately seven times since November 2009 — often tracking members down when they were traveling. Here is the video: