Irresponsible, Foolish, and An Excuse For The Same Old Politics And Pork? Or Bold and Decisive Action? You make the call!

Leaving out the earmarks does mean Congress will have less control over how the money is spent. But, Obey says, “So what? This is an emergency. We’ve got to simply find a way to get this done as fast as possible and as well as possible, and that’s what we’re doing.”

via Earmark-Free Stimulus Bill Lacks Spending Direction : NPR.

WSJ Real Time Economics summarizes reponses to the latest unemployment data.

Here’s a good analysis of what to expect in the near future by Nigel Gault, IHS Global Insight, based on the layoffs already announced and “in the pipeline”:

There is no end in sight to the huge payroll declines, as high-profile lay-off announcements keep coming, and initial unemployment insurance claims have moved above 600,000 for the first time in this cycle. February might be even worse than January. We have now lost 3.6 million jobs since the cycle peak in December 2007, with 1.8 million lost in the last three months alone. We are heading for total job losses in the 6-7 million range and an unemployment rate well above 9%.

In my continuing attempt to look on the bright side, you’ve got to love an environment that drives over-the top quotes like “slow motion train wreck” and “massively intensified”!

Peter Schiff has a great interview with Yahoo’s techticker.

The fiscal stimulus bill being debated in Congress not only won’t help the economy, it will make the recession much worse, says Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital.

…the difference is that the economy is in a much worse state going into this depression than it was in the 1930s… and without the discipline of gold, we have a central bank that could create massive inflation. So we could have an inflationary depression.

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

– Ecclesiastes 7:24

But where is the top of the hockey stick?

WSJ’s Real Time Economics compiles a list of sobering analyses of the latest employment figures.

The good news: an optomist would point out that at least it can’t go over 100%!

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

Thomas Jefferson,  (Attributed)
3rd president of US (1743 – 1826)

Russia appears to be at it with the psychological warfare again.

This time, Russian “professor” Igor Panarin is spreading FUD about the future of the United States by predicting its dissolution by 2010.

He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

Gary Schilling saw it coming in 2007. What does he see coming now?

Keep an eye on Russia.

It’s been high times for the past several years with the coincident humbling of its former superpower rival and the rise of oil prices. The New Russia has been flexing its international muscle — economic, diplomatic, and military — and feeling pride about reasserting itself in a bid to regain lost glory.

Now, the fall of oil, combined with Russia’s historical instincts to stir trouble abroad when there’s trouble at home indicates a need for caution.

The precipitous decline of oil and linked weakness of the Ruble creates slippery path for Putin and Medvedev. As the WSJ points out today in “Oil’s Crash Stirs Unrest In Russia As Slump Hits Home”:

The prospect of further unrest poses what could be the biggest challenge yet to the authoritarian system built by Mr. Putin. It also foists a stark choice on the Kremlin: to stifle dissent, or to placate protesters to provide some kind of pressure outlet. For now, the Kremlin has decided on a mixture of both. But the government’s options may narrow as its financial reserves shrink.

New Russian drinking buddy Venezuela is facing similar pressures. Will they collude to cause trouble for a shaken and weakened US and a new, “untested” commander-in-chief in the coming months?

Beware. History is filled with examples of totalitarians demonizing rivals and launching foreign adventures when there’s trouble at home. It’s nice to change the subject when the path is slippery at home.