[Pops]

Sometimes I hate the internet.

In effect, a large part of our political class is showing its priorities: given the choice between asking the richest 2 percent or so of Americans to go back to paying the tax rates they paid during the Clinton-era boom, or allowing the nation’s foundations to crumble — literally in the case of roads, figuratively in the case of education — they’re choosing the latter.

Librul Economist

In the same way that mining companies will descend on a region with heavy equipment and chemicals, brutalizing the land until nothing is left, corporations large and small are doing the same thing with the goal of extracting profits rather than minerals, to the long term cost of the U.S. economy itself.

More Socialist Propaganda

By producing goods, particularly essential goods, in distant locations, we create long and potentially precarious supply lines. While relative stability reigns, this vulnerability does not cause trouble and we enjoy cheap and plentiful goods. However, if these supply lines are disrupted, critical shortages could result. In a very complex just-in-time system, this may not take very long at all. Such as system is very brittle, as it has almost no redundancy, and therefore almost no resilience. When Jim Kunstler refers to efficiency as "the straightest path to hell", it is this brittleness he is referring to.

Some Guy

The numbers that go with the above chart are not good. Our 91-Day trailing 'quarter' 'Daily Growth Index' has dropped to a contraction rate of more than 4.5%, while the 183-Day trailing 'two quarters' is contracting at a more than 3% rate. To put these numbers in perspective, less than 3% of all quarters since 1947 have had GDP 'growth' that was worse. Additionally, fewer than 3% of any two consecutive quarters of GDP 'growth' have been worse than our trailing six months. Ignoring 2008 for the moment, the past quarter by itself would be something we might expect only once in every 7 or 8 years.

CMI