United States Heading towards a Depression?

Unemployment regardless of what direction you believe they are headed are actually more than DOUBLE what they were just 3 short years ago.

You said that the economy was "disaster when Obama took office". If it was indeed a disaster, what do you call the present day economy?

The reality is both gas and unemployment have risen under Obama and have continued to rise as the result of his policies and inability to control both spending and exploration for oil.

If you are trying to tell me that Obama's accomplishments should be gauged by the reduction in the inflation of both gas and unemployment, or that things could some how be much worse, they you my friend are sorely mistaken.

What say ye about the 3 trillion dollar deficit that was nearly GONE when Bush left office?

 

^ This is the problem we're having right here.

The rate of unemployment and gas prices are moving in a downward direction. Saying this, doesn't mean I'm campaigning for Obama. I'm genuinely happy to see improvement. But, this has become less an economy thread, and more of a Republican campaign thread. So, I guess that's why posters seem to mind if I say anything positive about the economy.

 

No they are not. You're confusing some very short term shifts in the price of crude with direct action by a president to affect change in the price of oil. As the markets slide on uncertainty in Europe (again), so too does oil. The drops are only temporary and they are not large enough to constitute a positive or definitive downward trend.

If Obama say, lifted the moratorium on offshore drilling, allowed the pipeline and allowed drilling in ANWAR, you'd see double digit drops immediately and a continuing stable downward trend.

As for unemployment, again, you are simply wrong. The numbers just do not lie. If you look at jobs numbers, jobs creation and those who have both left the unemployment roles and have NOT entered the employment roles again, real unemployment is at the upper end of 16 to 20%. You're confusing lowered "jobless claims" with real "unemployment" numbers.

There is a clear difference in the two Rebecca.. Now matter how you try to phrase it, the economy is worse than it was 3 years ago and shows no signs of improving in the short term.

 

There is a difference between the "unemployment rate" and "real unemployment".

 

@Rebecca: You are doing an admirable job of presenting hard facts against an onslaught of incredible misrepresentation from the Far Right Extremists.

I'd like to address some issues.

Gas Prices

Screaming about "drilling leads to lower gas prices" is one of the incredible mistruths from the far right. Drilling doesn't do squat. production and demand have everything to do with demand and supply. You could start drilling all over right now in exploratory efforts. you might find SQUAT. that means nothing. You might find something. Then you have to build infrastructure to get oil. It takes years.

Take Brazil. In 2009, Brazil discovered new POTENTIAL source of oil. Huge Potential sources of oil They are now claimed to be the largest sources of oil reserves in the AMERICAS. by the way Extremists...the Americas means the US also.

Now Brazil has been producing oil for years. But these off shore findings are potentially huge. Around 2007 Brazil was producing about 1.6 million barrels a day. Its 6 years later. They have had one of the largest investments in drilling in the world now...especially over the last 2 years. Brazil is up to 2.3 million barrels/day. World production is currently about 88 million barrels/day. All that drilling...and frankly the growth in production is less than 1% of increase in total production (700,000 barrels day/increase/85-88 million barrels/day total world production over that time period.).

Lots of drilling and relatively little impact on demand and supply. Drilling does not equate to lower prices. Demand and supply is the issue.

Obama is leading a world wide effort to not buy Iranian oil. Oh...yeah....the right wing (we hate obama so much we'll say anything) crowd...never mentions that the most recent effort to keep Iran from building nuclear bombs is the reason for the potential hit on oil. Iran produces about 4 million barrels/day...or about 5% of world wide production. If almost everyone outside of Iran stops buying that stuff.....that will mean big changes in demand and supply...with a 5% reduction in production. It is the cause of recent speculation.....who can predict exactly how all this will play out. The saudis have said they'll increase oil production...by how much who knows. Various increasing numbers of nations are agreeing to boycott oil from Iran. The big questions and hold outs are China and India...who are huge consumers of oil.

What will occur??? not sure....but if there is any issue about oil and prices it is all about demand and supply and the possible impact of removing 5% of supply from world markets. Look you could have had every tom dick harry and george drilling for the past 5 years in every square inch of all of the US and off shore....and you wouldn't have 4 million barrels of oil being produced right now to offset the issue of Iran. You can take that to the bank.

By the way on oil demand and supply Iraq for the very first time is back to producing oil at levels before saddam hit the road. It has taken that long. Still Iraq is a producer in the 2-2.5 million barrel a day range. Not enough on its own to make up for Iran.

Also on the production side...Brazil produced slightly less oil in the past few months than Dec/Jan/feb. Why???? Oil spills. they don't like them either. I guess Brazilians have a problem with oil spills killing fish, fauna, poisoning people also. So while some of the extremists are blaming not drilling (drilling...something that has nothing to do with demand and supply) on Obama....stopping or slowing drilling because of oil spills is a natural reaction.

Unless you like killing everything in the neighborhood.

US Natural Gas Prices

Here is some other hard business news about drilling. US natural gas suppliers are cutting back drilling right now!!!!!! Why? US natural gas prices are incredibly low because production has been so HIGH. its about demand and supply. The US is approaching the max it can store for natural gas. You can't drill for it if you can't store it or use it...can you????

Right now US natural gas prices are about 20% of natural gas prices in Europe. you know what that means and how it impacts people??? US manufacturers are adding profitability and work because they can produce at lower prices. People with gas heated homes are saving money versus the last couple of years. People who switch from oil to gas heating basically saved money in the first year after the "not too expensive" switch in technology.

But its the end result of actually producing that impacts prices. Drilling is only the lead up. If the drilling is successful and there is a lot of production than it impacts demand and supply. But the production has to be so GYNORMOUS.....that all the drilling the US might do....has no realistic impact on total demand and supply NONE. Can someone produce honest facts otherwise???? Show them

I could go on about endless factual misinformation being spewed out by the new American...."WE ONLY LOVE RICH PEOPLE and HUGE BUSINESSES THAT UNDERWRITE OUR CAMPAIGN's party (formerly the REpublicans) but I believe this is enough to get a bunch of commentary. Bring it on.

@Rebecca: (your calm presentation of facts is far more civil than how I care to address these misrepresentations. More power to you!!!)

 

@Earlpearl: I was going to read it but it seemed too long. I'm sure it went something like "Obama isn't in charge of oil prices, supply, demand, and market forces are", as if Obama has absolutely no influence on supply. This thread has already covered, ad nauseum, the very direct impact Obama's oil embargo had on supply, though I suppose we can thank Obama for such a tepid recovery. If growth were any stronger than 2.5%, demand would be through the roof and gas would be 6$ a gallon. Yay!!!

 

thanks O_Nation: your response describes basic Right Wing Extremist operating policies which essentially work this way.

We are right wing extremists.
We don't care about reality, facts or all the basics that have defined society over thousands of years.
(We don't read facts)--> thanks for that O_Nation:

We make up our own stuff.
Then we scream about it.
Most of all we always blame the other side.

We want power.
We love uber rich folks because they pay for our elections.
We do what they want.

and frankly if the world explodes around us and everyone else takes a miserable hit...we don't care as long as we are in power and the rich folks get richer.

 

Thanks for the comedic relief Earl. At least this post was short enough to read, even for a guy like me . You should put it up on DemocraticUnderground as a template. It has all the necessary elements for a good liberal post.

1) Fail to address the facts of the previous post
2) Add a moronic attacking meme (Right Wing Extremists... oooo scary)
3) Make myriad of groundless assertions (The entire remainder of the post)
4) Make sure groundless assertions are actually more applicable to the Democrats than Republicans (Check the stats on who the "uber rich" are in congress. Hint:90% have a large (D) next to their name)

 

Hi EarlPearl! Wow. Thanks for taking the time to write this awesome post. I read it.

@Obamanation, why is this too long to read?

 

Ear's drinking the same koolaid Becky is drinking.

 

Rebecca is just trolling me, and now apparently you. Notice how she pasted in Earl's post in it's entirety? Its damn close to rickrolling.

@Rebecca: You've read his lengthy post. Did you read my guess at what it said? I'm betting I nailed it.


EDIT: BTW, Earl and Rebecca, did you happen to catch the news this morning? Facebook's co-founder is dropping his US Citizenship prior to IPO. How much tax revenue did that just cost the US government. Like Obama says, all we need to do is increase the tax rate on those few(25 earlpearl?) uber rich people. They can afford it.

 

Earl, I like your posts. It's just that I WORK during the day and I don't have the time to read a long post.

I've been in Marketing most of my life and I've learned that, online, to get it read you make it short. It is up to the writer to get their stuff read. If nobody reads my stuff, no matter how brilliant, it's MY fault.

Earl, when you sold real estate, how did you talk to your clients? How did you get their attention?

 

Rebecca thought she could nail me on "facts', by posting links to gasbuddy. She seems to forget that 3 years is not a very long time, and I not only remember, I have P&L's Balance Sheets, receipts and accounting data which tell a much different story.

Hell, I was talking to someone the other day that said Bush made gas 4 bucks a gallon. I reminded him that just 3 years ago Gas was only $1.69 a gallon. He was like, no it was not. You're full of shit. It's not been that low since I was in high school, he kept saying over and over again. Since he liked to google his retort, I suggested he do just that. Imagine his amazement when even his google results told the same story. Gas was well under 2 bucks a gallon when Bush left office.

But how could that be? He could have sworn it was higher. How is that????? Well, he'd been drinking that koolaid for 3 years and not only became brainwashed, his memory was erased.

Rebecca can post what she believes to be fact as much as she wants. And mindless trolls like Earpearl can eat it up all day long. The reality is, the rest of us don't need those links. We actually remember things as they happened. We lived it.

Just cause you say it, does not make it so.

 

Wow, really? Jeremy pops into this thread with a personal attack, because he's unhappy that I mentioned unemployment and gas prices are going down. I respond by posting facts from credible sources. In his next response, saying when Obama took office gas was $1.69 and unemployment under Bush was 4.1%. And, his source is obviously, because he said so. In your response, you pick out two sentences from his post > and speaking to Jeremy, "Another great point.." I mean, really?? In this entire discussion I've remained calm, and haven't resorted to being rude to anyone. I've presented credible sources. Now you're calling me a troll? If it helps I can just put you on ignore, I don't care. Not interested in having a discussion where you, Jeremy, and Corwin join in to attack me. Btw, I replied with the entire post because I felt it a shame that Earl spent the time to write such an incredible post, and all you could say is that it was too long for you to read. Anyway, whatever, I have better things to spend my time on today.

 

Breathe Rebecca, Breathe. I didn't mean to rumple your feathers. I didn't call you a troll, I said you were trolling me when you cut and pasted Earlpearl's entire post without adding anything new, and I had already said I wouldn't read it. I did something similar in another thread today when I claimed all Filipinos are terrorists, which is obviously a friendly little poke at one of our Filipino members. And for the record, I have nothing but respect for Earlpearl, even if he does spew out this leftist drivel on a regular basis. Nothing but friendly chats in IM(just like you), regardless of what banter you might see here.

Relax. Its just politics.

 

You are right, there is no shortage of oil. Does anyone remember before Bush crusade against Iraq and starting the war, the price of oil was $20-$25 /barrel? Bush pushed the price up $150 /barrel by continuous ward and uncertainty which generated incredible profits for oil companies since there was no increase in production cost. The change from Bush to Obama, made many people believe that USA government has become sane again and is not only serving the oil companies any more which resulted in drop of price to under $100 but this was not acceptable to oil companies which were used by now to extraordinary profits and it was not even acceptable to governments of oil producing companies like Iran that had their budget adjusted to higher income. This is the need for Iranian boogeyman which can keep the price up which serves both oil companies interests and Iranian government interests.
Do you want a change of government in Iran and stopping their nuclear program? No need to talk about war or military strike, just stop the aggression. Let the price to drop to about $30/barrel where it should be and Iran government falls, but this will not happen because the war or talk of it is too profitable for so many involved.

 

kudo's Rebecca: You keep posting in a civil way with facts and data. The response has been to attack you and for people to invent facts. So much for civility or facts.

As to facts and that these days often the right wing simply invents facts, disregards real data, and ignores facts to go on the attack.....there have been constant warnings over time by a slew of very intelligent and well respectd leaders about this tendency. people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts

I'd say, Rebecca: Keep an indepent mind.

 

And ignore those right wing extremists!! They have nothing to offer!!!

 

Finally some truth in your posts.

 

This sounds like positive economic news >