Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[Arthur Dent]

Meanwhile, the downgrade has increased federal borrowing costs not a whit. 10 year Treasuries are now trading at even smaller yields, 2.34%. It would be nice if this was noticed for future debt crisis mongering. Investors are in fact clamoring to buy more federal debt.

I agree that there is no liquidity crisis here. We have ample sources of funding in terms of investors demanding treasury bills and bonds at relatively low rates. But our long-term spending and borrowing trajectory is not sustainable, and significant changes are needed.

The recent deal does nothing to address the core of the issue. The Tea Party needs to forget the fantasy of resolving the debt issue without more taxation, and the Democrats that any new revenues are not tickets to more spending. But above all, enough leaders in Congress need to summon the huevos to actually do something about a bad situation that has been 30 years in the making.

Leaving aside the out of date and inaccurate characterization of the national Democratic Party as tax and spend, the main point is that this is the wrong time to be focusing on the federal debt issue. It has exactly no relevance to our current economic woes, except to the extent that it is being used as weapon to beat down anyone wants to take real action. Running deficits or surpluses now (even in the trillion dollar range) has almost no impact on the long term problem, and if deficits are used as a tool to restore full employment, they would almost certainly be helpful even in the long term. Having millions of careers permanently damaged or destroyed by a stagnant economy will reduce our ability to generate future tax revenue.

[planet planet]

Is there any way to quantify the underemployed or those who've dropped out of the workforce? Don't they say that number's closer to 16%? I also can't imagine the long term wage depression in many fields for those who were lucky enough to not lose their job or worse, those who lose their job and were able to find another one relatively quickly. Tons of companies whether merited or not instituted a pay freeze or flat out cut over the last three years.

[cpebbles]

I think that rate is over 20%.

[Arthur Dent]

Is there any way to quantify the underemployed or those who've dropped out of the workforce? Don't they say that number's closer to 16%?

The broadest measure of unemployment computed by the BLS is the so called U-6 rate, which currently stands at 16.1%. The U-6 rate is based on the usually quoted number (U-3) but also includes people who say they want a job and have actively looked in the last 12 months (rather than the usual 4 weeks), and people who want full time employment, but can only get part time. It doesn't say anything about those who have given up on the job search long term or who are stuck in jobs way below their skill level.

[Freed Roger]

These stats make me think of my old sociology professor friend - he dreamt of the day when an expansive quality of life index, would be a measuring stick. Understandably, now the stats that matter relate mainly to keeping your head above water (foreclosure, UE, national GDP).

[SHOW]

He aimed for more expansive list than this, entailing things such as commute time/free time, prison population, crime, poverty, and capital punishment rates - but the below seem to be the current QOL measures:
1.Health: Life expectancy at birth (in years). Source: US Census Bureau
2.Family life: Divorce rate (per 1,000 population), converted into index of 1 (lowest divorce rates) to 5 (highest). Sources: UN; Euromonitor
3.Community life: Variable taking value 1 if country has either high rate of church attendance or trade-union membership; zero otherwise. Source: World Values Survey
4.Material well being: GDP per person, at PPP in $. Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
5.Political stability and security: Political stability and security ratings. Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
6.Climate and geography: Latitude, to distinguish between warmer and colder climates. Source: CIA World Factbook
7.Job security: Unemployment rate (%.) Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
8.Political freedom: Average of indexes of political and civil liberties. Scale of 1 (completely free) to 7 (unfree). Source: Freedom House
9.Gender equality: Measured using ratio of average male and female earnings. Source: UNDP Human Development Report

[Mary1966]

From a Facebook friend of mine:

If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago,you would have $49.00 today! If you purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG, you would have $33.00. If you purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers, you would have $0.00 today. But, if you purchased $1,000 worth of beer, drank all the beer and turned the aluminum cans in for recycling, you would have $214.Therefore the best current investment plan is to drink heavily and recycle.It's called the 401-Keg plan.
Jes say'n!

[slide_into_first]

To follow up my post last week about solar distributor-installer stocks, Real Goods Solar RSOL got slaughtered (they announced a bank financing agreement that apparently dilutes the stock since it met with heavy selling) as well as all the panel manufacturers (First Solar, JA Solar, Canadian Solar, etc) but Westinghouse WEST held up pretty well (it's testing along a several month bottom) and another installer, Solar Power (SOPW) is trying to hang on- I usually like to buy as they start to go up but these seem like low risk entry points. Another one that is intriguing is Clear Skies Solar CSKH. Not giving advice just pointing out small signs of hope in a horrible economy.

[MrCrowesGarden]

Oh boy

johnsberman John Berman
From her FB page, @SarahPalinUSA on downgrade, "One doesn’t need a Harvard Law degree to figure this out!"

[G. Keenan]

A preview of things to come?

Austerity, as the govt. spends $15 billion on the Olympics. Meanwhile, the [expletive] is really about to hit the fan in Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Is this what's coming to the US?

[sighyoung]

If it can be turned into a video game.