In the fourth quarter U.S. sunk more than 5% annualized. (The headline number is smaller because it counts build up of inventory as positive) Unemployment is increasing rapidly and house prices are still in free fall.
But there is also good news. Exxon Mobile made $45 billion in profits last year and Obama may give another $2 to $4 trillion to insolvent bank owners and a tax cut to Exxon share owners.
The stimulus bill will include too little stimulus but lots of useless tax cuts and pork. Obama "compromised" with the Republicans over it so well that no Republican voted for it. The few liberals who understand that they got played hate it.
As Sterling Newberry points out
Obama isn't a Democrat giving things up to get Republican votes, he's a conservative mugging liberals for a conservative agenda that includes:
1. War in Afghanistan
2. Paulson's version of TARP where taxpayers buy all bad assets.
3. Slash social security and Medicare
4. Tax Cuts
5. No Comprehensive Health Care, but huge subsidies for Health Insurance companies instead.Taken as a whole, Obama is offering small concessions to the left, in return for trillions of dollars that are coming directly out of the pockets and veins, of ordinary people.
In France the people at least go on strike and take to the streets. What goes as the "left" in the U.S. seems to stay bent over just waiting to get screwed again.
It's amazing.
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