Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.
The Federal Reserve would have you believe that their policies are helping the U.S. economy and at worst, they are benign. The political elite would have you believe that all is well and getting better every month. The financial elites are telling you time to rotate out of those bond and money market accounts because the Fed saved us, and the Administrations policies are working. Get ready for the next boom.
The Decline of the "Blue Social Model"
Blogger and Bard College professor Walter Russell Meade has written for years about the decline of what he calls the Blue Social Model, the post-World War II economic structure built on unionized middle class jobs with generous wages in government at at oligopolistic private sector firms such as the old AT&T. Of course, those sorts of private sector middle class jobs have been disappearing for decades, so what Meade has focused on is the unsustainability of unionized public sector jobs, with the increasingly parlous finances of state and local governments. Professor Meade noted in a post last week that the New York Times now acknowledges the fragility of this model.
In that post, Meade quotes Thomas Edsall of the New York times:
Dozens of city and state public employee pension plans are on the verge of bankruptcy—or are actually bankrupt—from Rhode Island to California; in 2010, a survey of 126 state and local plans showed assets of $2.7 trillion and liabilities of $3.5 trillion, an $800 billion shortfall.
Meade concludes: "The reality of blue model decline is so obvious that nobody can ignore it any longer."
The opening segment of NFTRH 212 did what an unbiased financial
writer probably should not do and discussed politics. Then 24 pages of
straight analysis followed.
Financial writers far and wide are weighing in on the US Presidential
election result and its implications. So jumping into the ring, here
are mine.
For the third cycle in a row I cast a protest vote. After voting for George Bush in 2000 (actually it was more a vote against
Al Gore) I wrote in Ron Paul in 2004 and 2008. This year I voted for
Gary Johnson, although I do not consider myself a Libertarian. I
consider myself an independent who has long since been alienated from a
two party system that looks a lot like dangerously competitive cartoons
from opposite ends of a narrowly constructed ideological spectrum.
The U.S. National Debt has now surpassed
the 16 Trillion Dollar mark. That translates into $140,017 debt per
taxpayer…and increasing every minute.
This is the result of your
taxpayers dollars hard at work to support a Congress/Senate that does nothing
about it. What is being done about it?…Mr. Bernanke is thinking of
adding more debt in the way of stimulus to assist the markets.
Good for the economy?…how can it be, particularly with the rest of the world
economies slowing down?…he'd have to fund the rest of the world, too. Will it
solve the debt crisis?…how can it? This seems like a recipe for disaster, does
it not?
Get your checkbooks out and be ready to pay when asked…
