Tuesday Afternoon News Roundup (Update)
- On Sunday, Texas Governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry had a big prayer rally in Houston, Texas. The governor’s prayer rally drew somewhere around 30,000 people. Interestingly, just blocks away at the convention center in Houston, they were giving away free school supplies. How may people turned up for free school supplies? Over 100,000! School supplies as a rule aren’t that expensive. Yet with one fifth of Houston residents living below the poverty level, many are desperate.
- Ongoing riots in London. On the good-bad scale this is bad. Very bad. Update: No significant violence so far tonight in London. Manchester has had an outbreak. London residents aren’t happy. It seems that they asked for police protection and got nothing over the last 48 hours. Today such force seems to be too little, too late for residents who have lost their businesses to the senseless looting.
- Stocks seem to be rebounding somewhat today but the analysis of S&P’s downgrade is still somewhat of a head scratcher. It appears that they downgraded U.S. Treasury bonds because of our political situation. Wall Street bought up U.S. Treasury bonds, in spite of the downgrade in huge numbers yesterday. It appeared to be the safest place to put your money. Also, if S&P’s downgrade was so “obvious” then why did Moody’s and Finch decide not to downgrade United States treasuries? Actually, Moody’s put out a long list of reasons why they did not downgrade the United States. I wonder if S&P has the ability to actually read these?
- Michele Bachmann seems that you cannot let slavery go. Currently on her “recommended” reading list is a book which relates all the “good things” about slavery. Seriously!
- We need jobs. The government’s sitting back and cutting everything will not create one job. It will not create an atmosphere that is indicative of getting jobs. Instead, the government needs to spend money. Spending money will put people back to work. If we can put hundreds of thousands of people back to work this will increase revenues and decrease the deficit. Everybody wins. Why is this so hard to understand?
New CNN Poll:
| Favorable | Unfavorable | Never heard of | No opinion | |
| John Boehner | 33% | 40% | 16% | 11% |
| Nancy Pelosi | 31% | 51% | 9% | 9% |
| Mitch McConnell | 21% | 39% | 27% | 13% |
| Harry Reid | 28% | 39% | 21% | 12% |
| Democratic Party | 47% | 47% | 6% | |
| Republican Party | 33% | 59% | 1% | 7% |
| The Tea Party Movement | 31% | 51% | 5% | 13% |
I still find it hard to believe that 31% of Americans really approve of the tea party.
- Update: Probably, the most important political development over the last 12 months has been Wisconsin. Today the voters go to the polls in recall elections of six Republicans. So far, there have been no significant reported problems. This is the way democracy is supposed to work. You thwart the will of the people, the people rise up, organize and boot you out of office. Go Wisconsin!
- Stocks have rebounded on Wall Street. Those who have called for President Obama to step down because there is no confidence in the market will have a hard time explaining today’s rebound, since Barack Obama still in office.
- The Fed has signaled that they’re going to keep the short-term interest rate near zero. This appears to be a move to help stimulate growth and job creation.
- Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty shows that he knows nothing about monetary policy or that he’s being deliberately deceptive to his listeners. Either scenario is equally dangerous. Republicans and conservatives like to use the analogy of the federal government being just like your household. The federal government is not like my household or yours. Currently, even with our questionable credit rating, the US government has the ability to borrow almost unlimited amounts of money. Which one of us has the ability to borrow unlimited amounts of money? Not me.