Underpants Gnomes

The austerity story always had as much of a logic to it as did the underpants gnomes, which is to say absolutely none. Who could have predicted that when people have no jobs and no money, nobody spends the money they don't have, businesses close, and tax revenue disappears? WHAT ABOUT THE CONFIDENCE FAIRY!!?!!!?

Salaries and pensions in the private and the public sectors have been cut by up to 50 percent, leaving Greece 495 million euros short of its revenue targets in the four months ended in April, according to the Greek Finance Ministry. With less cash, consumers have curbed spending, leading thousands of taxpaying businesses to fail.

Income expected from a higher, 23 percent value-added tax required by the bailout agreement has fallen short by around 800 million euros in the first four months of 2012. That is partly because cash-short businesses that were once law-abiding have started hiding money to stay afloat, tax officials said.

They're failing to collect back taxes because people can't afford to pay those either.

Everything's Fine

Not that I think it would help much, but the sociopaths who run the ECB decided not to cut rates again.

Overnight Thread

Late Night

Rock harder.




Ted Leo

More Thread

Be excellent to each other.

Wednesday Evening

Rock on.

The Wire: The Musical with Michael Kenneth Williams from Michael Kenneth Williams

FYT

Gotta fricassee Martin Wolf's turkey.

Before now, I had never really understood how the 1930s could happen. Now I do. All one needs are fragile economies, a rigid monetary regime, intense debate over what must be done, widespread belief that suffering of other people is good, myopic politicians, an inability to co-operate and failure to stay ahead of events. Perhaps the panic will vanish. But investors who are buying bonds at current rates are indicating a deep aversion to the downside risks. Policy makers must eliminate this panic, not stoke it.

Happy Hour Thread

enjoy

Wisconsin

Apparently there are some voting-related program activities going on there today.

Wave

At some level this isn't at all surprising, a sort of "duh" result, but I think people tend to miss the broader implications. Your success in life is, to a great degree, determined by factors completely out of your control. Graduating in a recession greatly hurts your expected life path, graduating in a boom time greatly increases.

I marvel at all of the raging on the young and unemployed one sees in newspaper comments sections and elsewhere. People who came up when state universities were cheap, when defined benefit pensions existed, when health care costs were not prohibitive even for people with "good" insurance, and, at least for many of them, who didn't start their careers in the midst of a horribly long recession, have nothing but derision for people who lack the basic opportunities they had. Be assholes, fine, but have some awareness.

Consider JimBob:

JimBob wrote :

Kids should learn about how macro events can have huge effects in their lives rather than each be told that they are a special snowflake that can do anything.

I'm not even entirely sure what the message is here. We have the oft-stated view that The Kids Today all think they're so fucking special and life is and should be so fucking easy. And then we get to: those stupid kids should understand that bad shit happens and just suck it up.


I don't even really understand what the point is.

Not Really Sure How It's Supposed To Work

The people who think it's really hard to get by on $250,000 per year think that things should work just fine if everybody else doesn't have any money at all.

I Wonder What It's Like To Be Maggot-Infested

Certainly sounds pretty gross.

Lunch Thread

Enjoy.

The Free Market

Right now all the money boys spend their days trying to figure out just when the big free money bazooka will come out, who will bring it out, and where it will be aimed.

Capitalism!

It Isn't Complicated

Dean Baker:

The world doesn't work that way. Firms create jobs when they have more demand, not because we are nice to their rich owners.

President Obama and the Democratic leadership have refused to put forward a serious alternative path. While they have been willing to argue that rich people should have to pay some taxes, they have not come to grips with the nature of this downturn, as if hoping that, somehow, the economy will just jump back to its pre-recession level of output through some magical process. There is no magic that will allow the economy to override basic arithmetic. In the short term, only the government can provide the boost necessary to support the economy. Over the longer term, we will need to get the trade deficit down through a more competitive dollar.

It's a simple story. But as long as people are obsessed with short-term, weather-induced fluctuations, we will not see a serious discussion of the underlying state of the economy.

"All But Obsolete"

It's long been a mystery to me why so many Very Serious People think an increase in the gas tax is a total impossibility due to Teh Politics but enacting an exciting new tax, potentially with privacy-invading technology, will be the best thing ever.

States are looking for new ways of taxing motorists as they seek to pay for highway and bridge repair and improvements without relying on the per-gallon gasoline tax widely viewed as all but obsolete.

Among the leading ideas: Taxing drivers for how many miles they travel rather than how much gasoline they buy. Minnesota and Oregon already are testing technology to keep track of mileage. Other states, including Washington and Nevada, are preparing similar projects.

The gas tax is great, with all of the incentives in the right place. Rewards lighter vehicles which hurt roads less and rewards more fuel efficient vehicles which destroy the world just a little more slowly.

There may come a day when the revenue generating potential of a gas tax is destroyed due to changes in vehicle technology, but right now politicians really seem to believe (or claim to believe) that expensive and invasive technology coupled with an explicit monthly or annual bill from The Government will be preferable to small increases in the largely invisible gas tax.

I do not understand.

Sure It Could Be A Good Idea But...

There is a tradeoff between number of stops and speed.

The Port Authority will eliminate 13 little-used stops on the Light Rail Transit system this month to speed up travel times.

but...

Authority spokesman Jim Ritchie said there are no current estimates of how much time will be saved on a typical trip.

I gather that isn't actually what this is about.

Injection

There's always free money for the banks.

The Portuguese government will inject €6.6bn into three of the country’s largest banks, using money from the country's €78bn EU-International Monetary Fund rescue programme. €12bn of the money had been earmarked for saving the nation's banks, and with the injection of capital in to Banco Commercial Portugues, Banco BPI and the state-owned Caixa Geral de Depósitos, that is what it is being used for. The hope is that the cash injection will help the banks meet the stringent capital requirements of the European Banking Authority.

Could give money to people for the purpose of paying down debt, and let them give it to the banks. But...no.

Jubilee

Awesome.

A group of long-term unemployed jobseekers were bussed into London to work as unpaid stewards during the diamond jubilee celebrations and told to sleep under London Bridge before working on the river pageant.

Up to 30 jobseekers and another 50 people on apprentice wages were taken to London by coach from Bristol, Bath and Plymouth as part of the government's Work Programme.

Two jobseekers, who did not want to be identified in case they lost their benefits, said they had to camp under London Bridge the night before the pageant. They told the Guardian they had to change into security gear in public, had no access to toilets for 24 hours, and were taken to a swampy campsite outside London after working a 14-hour shift in the pouring rain on the banks of the Thames on Sunday.

Aside from the obvious "slave labor" element of this, using people like this for security by a private security is a complete scam. It's just collecting a bunch of money from the government to pretend to provide security. Security people need to be trained, have authority, and actually give a shit to serve any legitimate purpose. The only purpose here is "take tax dollars and run."

It's Tuesday

Air Occupy will be on at 11:00 a.m., discussing the resistance by corporate interests to discuss climate change. Our very own V will be leading the discussion. You can comment on their blog here. Or you can call in at 386-523-1380.