Obama’s modus operandi is to declare all reasonable solutions “off the table” before problem-solving discussions commence thereby exasperating the participants and rendering the discussions pointless. He already floated a trial balloon signaling his intent to focus on reducing the deficit, and despite quite a lot of criticism from progressive economists, I believe he will refuse to do anything that will add to the deficit. Thus, the Job Summit is not about creating jobs; it’s about creating the appearance of caring about creating jobs.

I agree that the jobs summit is a PR deal to give him some more time to see if the trend in unemployment turns around so he can advocate spending more time doing nothing about the economy. Also, his problem-solving modus operandi suggests that his vaunted pragmatism is nonsense. Pragmatism is about doing what works. He takes what works off the table and then does something that balances off powerful political interests.

The United States is an increasingly desperate situation, in being unable to turn around its march toward plutocracy. All our major institutions seem captured by this trend. And a closed elitism rules the day. Here at FDL we talk about “The villagers,” and there certainly does seems to be “village” out there in the MSM supporting this trend while laughing all the way to the bank. But even among the netroots, elites rise fast, and then quickly solidify their positions in part by commiserating with each other to create their own village and villager perspectives.

Because of FDR’s disastrous deficit reduction experience that plunged the recovering economy back into the void in 1936-7, we can reliably predict a worse outcome next year because, as far as Main Street is concerned, our economy is still in critical condition. Since he too must know this will be the inevitable outcome, we have to ask ourselves why he would deliberately push us, our families, and the economy off the cliff.

The only answer I can come up with is the Shock Doctrine. I believe he wants to destroy the middle class and labor unions so that we become a two-class society with a rich upper class that owns all of the nation’s wealth and an impoverished and expendable worker class of drones willing to work for peanuts without benefits, job security, or a safety net.

Put another way, Obama is a lying scumbag.

I hate to admit this, but a new book by Frank Luntz has a lot of good points worth learning (and seems less partisan than usual)—he addresses this point directly: Americans don’t really understand “infrastructure,” so it doesn’t resonate with them.

They do understand bridges and highways and potholes and dams, etc.
That’s the way we need to go.

The economy is improving mildly

I agree with fuckno. We have a couple of bubbles going on fueled by money sloshing around from the bailouts and we have some limited effects from the stimulus, cash for clunkers, and the like. Almost all the growth we have seen is from government orders. I have always been dubious of the inventory rebuild scenario. No one ever seems to have solid numbers on it which makes me suspicious. At a guess we need $1.3-$1.5 trillion in stimulus a year for the foreseeable future to reverse our unemployment situation. We are more likely to see peanuts from Team Obama.

That was ‘public investment’ and federal dollars.
And it pays dividends to this day.
At the time those dams were started, my grandparents were still using an outhouse, but they talked till their last days about the miracle of electric lights. The lights were a bigger deal than when the sewer came in.

The cousins who retired from public utilities still have decent pensions.
The cousins who retired from PGE (Portland Gen Electric), which was bought out by Enron had their savings and retirements vaporized.

So the AFL-CIO needs to tell some of those stories about how people’s pensions have completely vaporized — so much for the ‘efficiency’ of markets, eh?

And just today, I was checking on my elderly parents at the Assisted Living home.
Turns out, Mrs X had to move out and is now living with her daughter and son-in-law. Why? Because her savings and ‘portfolio’, which she had accumulated by frugal habits over many, many years, essentially vaporized in the past year.
And others at the Assisted Living home are worrying themselves sick over whether they can afford to remain there.

This is indeed a remarkable historical moment.
And I wish the AFL-CIO all the best in helping the American public understand how this mess translates into seniors who have saved for years, but are now having to give up their ‘independence’ to live like indigents with their children.

There is a ton of work that needs to be done in this nation, and a lot of it involves simply taking care of people so that we have a social net again.

GREAT video, BTW!

The “second depression” is on the way because the banks have already taken all of the money and run and are preparing to do it all over again, the country be damned. Republicans will fight it tooth and nail because it is labor-related (union)and the military establishment will lobby against it because it won’t pay for guns, bombs and airplanes.

The jobs summit will be a sham, Obama will make speeches, good ideas will be thrown out and then thrown out, the week will grind to an end with no health care and no meaningful opposition to the escalation of the war and we will all be told to drink egg nog flavored kool-aide and roast our chestnuts on the fire we made from burning our furniture.

Anyone who believes for even a second that this summit will portend anything other than hot air is delusional.

The equivalent of your idea would be to extend unemployment benefits for as long as they are needed and up the benefit level to $5000 a month until the unemployment rate drops below a certain threshold. Being unemployed is pretty much a random selection during a large recession.