mendeleev

Taking your two points one at a time:
When will it be time to cut spending and increase taxes (primarily on the rich in order that the tax increase have the least possible contractionary effect)? It is a very good, impt question. If proper stimulus is in place, probably 1-2 years. Will Congress actually do it? Skepticism is warranted -- but which party was the last one to run a balanced budget? (Hint: Clinton was president then, and he put the budget on track toward surplus with his first budget in 1993.) Each GOP president we've had since Eisenhower (maybe Ford, but not really) has presided over an explosion in the deficit. Carter did a decent job holding the line -- a statement hard for many to swallow but go back and examine the facts. My grandfather was a hardcore republican for over 50 years -- until he got so disgusted with Reagan's blowing the budget deficit to unprecedented levels. Gotta hand it to him: he was a budget hawk with integrity, so he left the GOP and ended his life an independent who, at the end of his life, surprised both him and me with praise for Clinton's budget discipline.
Next, we still have a situation where, on average, there are 5 job seekers for each opening. The odds aren't good for job seekers and employers will tend to discriminate in favor of those whose unemployment is shorter rather than longer. (I would -- in fact in a previous recession, I did.) Studies by economics show that unemployment can encourage the unemployed to be pickier during good economic times, but your argument that the unemployed are discouraged from accepting new work is supported by the data, empirically, during severe recessions. Yours is a bias with a certain appeal -- but it simply isn't supported by the data. I have a strong bias (maybe my scientific/technical training kicks in) to act on fact when facts are available.

The Party Of No is able to do quite some damage with their refusenik politics.
Do I really think people should be entitled up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits? The question, to me, misses the point.
The economy is depressed largely because Investment Spending is on strike and because the Consumer is afraid to spend, because too many of us are afraid that we might lose our jobs, too. (One of the things we should have learned in school, is that GDP = I + C + G, right?)
Individually, it is a very good idea, in general but especially in this economy, to spend less and save more. I'm using all of my money from Obama's income tax cut, and quite a bit more, to save and invest.
I'm like a lot of people here. I'm saving and getting rid of debt. Soon, within a month or two, I'll be 100% debt free, and since the Great Recession began my debt has never been more than 4% of personal income. And as I save aggressively, I'm finding, like lots of people, that there are better investment opportunities outside the USA right now than in it That is, my personal share of Obama's tax cut is not helping to revive the economy, because I'm well-enough off to save and scared enough to save aggressively. Probably lots of folks here at like that, too.
The unemployed, as a cohort, are not in such a nice position. They aren't earning money and they aren't in any position to pay of debt or save. The unemployment money they get, essentially all of it, goes right back into the economy as consumer spending. It is just about the strongest countercyclical spending government could engage in -- because essentially none of it gets siphoned off into savings or debt service.
Especially while Capital (that is, investment spending) remains on strike and the Consumer remains nervous or worse, providing a safety net for the long-term unemployed is just good economic policy. Do all of them deserve it? Probably not. (Do all recipients of business tax cuts deserve it? Does BP deserve their generous tax credits?) To ask the "deserve" question is to have an inappropriate, perhaps prejudicial moral judgement cloud what should be a simple economic calculation. What is one of the most effective things government can do to support the economy in times of great economic stress? Support the unemployed -- because essentially all that money gets plowed right back into the economy.
But this is basic stuff some of us learned, and all of us should have learned, in school.

There was a job for which I qualified, or maybe overqualified, with a decent salary(6 figure) but inasmuch as it is Arizona, I'm not considering it. There are 49 other states where my (Russian immigrant) wife will feel less threatened.

It isn't Social Security itself, but the Medicare and Medicaid trust funds that are in the biggest trouble. We took a baby step toward healthcare reform in the face of the most unpatriotic, vitriolic, often outright untrue attacks and lies perpetrated by the GOP and their allies. We'll need to revisit this issue again in order to really control healthcare costs.
Boehner complains that "we're broke" but his ally in the Senate from MA just balked at a relatively small tax on banks to make them pay for the regulation and oversight that everyone who lived through 2007 knows they need. The GOP is very happy, though, to borrow money to pay for that oversight rather than tax the perps.
The Polluter Pays Principle is sound and should extend to banks and other fat cats who made out like bandits under Bush II.

An invisible bond vigilante is a figment of the immagination -- a bogeyman that doesn't exist.
There aren't any bond vigilante's taking aim at the US treasury.
The bond market is not demanding deficit reduction in this country.

It is best if govt maintains a money supply such that the supply, multiplied by the velocity of money, is constant per capita. In this recession or beginning of a depression or whatever is it, velocity is still way down because the banks aren't lending. Hence the fed's expansionary policy is reasonable at this moment. They will need a contractionary policy later as velocity returns to normal levels. It will be tricky. Other options are worse, though.

Maybe I'm starting to catch on, mawilson.
If you're a saver, and not in debt (like me) and you're independently wealthy so you don't have to worry about losing a job and no one you care about is ever at risk of losing a job, then deflation can be good for you if you are immensely self-centered (like most Americans).
If you are in that rare category of not needing to work and not needing to care about anybody else, more power to you!
I guess my problem is I look beyond my own personal checkbook and see deflation as a catastrophe for those who are at risk of job loss or loss of income because someone close to them loses a job. Since that describes everyone I know personally in the world, (although I think I'm at less risk of job loss than most, I am not arrogant enough to think it "cannot happen to me") I see deflation as a really very large risk, since I am not aware of an instance where deflation was not associated with very high long-term unemployment.
I don't know many people who can save money while being unemployed. But I imagine there are independently wealthy folk here who don't have to think about such things.

Let's see if I can parse that right. Financial institutions to whom the government has no legal arrangement other than perhaps an ancient corporate charter (and those are given by the States, not the federal government), that the government did not create, that the government did not and had never owned, are not to blame for their own reckless behavior and should not be expected to take responsibility of it because the government did sponsor some other organizations to rectify an unmet social need.
Let's see if I understand. The government owns and manages lots of land out west and offshore. So, are western landowners somehow in a privileged position, compared to say, people in Vermont, and can claim that because the government does reckless things with their land (like allowing oil companies to drill in deep water without a clue on what to do if something goes wrong) and the government steps in to try to make things right on their land, that those private landowners can act in a similar reckless fashion and expect a government bailout?
I thought conservatives were into responsibility for ones actions. In this case, though, it is convenient to blame government for outrageous recklessness of private companies. Doesn't look like a responsible conservative (or responsible progressive) standard to me!
I heard once that sometimes people in the government are dishonest. Do you think a moral hazard argument (excuse) should protect me if I'm dishonest, too?
The real moral hazard in the financial crisis is that some financial institutions realized that they were basically unregulated but since they were so big their failure would destroy the economy, they could do whatever they wanted. Since they were unregulated, they could do pretty much anything and that they did. Since they knew they couldn't be allowed to fail, they were emboldened to be absolutely outrageous in the risks they took. (Notice that Canadian banks, which are pretty tightly regulated, did just fine these past few years?) That moral hazard would be eliminated if the government had a more vigorous resolution authority so they could seize assets of companies (and perhaps of officers and executives, too, so they don't get the idea that they can win at the public's expense) and wind them down, destroying the careers of those who took reckless risk. That authority was simply not there in 2007, so Bush II had a bad choice: bailout people who didn't deserve it, or preside over the biggest economic catastrophe in the history of the nation.

Krugman's piece is interesting and, one hopes, wrong. But the analysis looks very sound. The tendency for inappropriate governmental retrenchment in Europe, especially in Germany and the UK, is very worrisome. The fact that the US Senate seems to be forcing similarly dangerous spending cuts on US state and local governments is also worrisome.
Consumer spending has been surprisingly resilient through this recession, but business investment remains on strike. This is the norm for post-War recessions but it could change if the expansion is sluggish, or if deflation indeed sets in, or if there is another (or especially several) recessionary episodes.
There are industries generating huge profits without corresponding investments that create jobs. Petrochemicals, especially the fuel side of the business, is a case in point. Just two days of probable fines BP (the company formerly known as Beyond Petroleum or British Petroleum, take your pick) will have to pay for their spill ($500-600 million) would provide the entire capital cost needed to build a world-scale, sustainable biorefinery. BP says it has the reserves to pay this and is appears they are correct.
Biorefineries will be relatively labor intensive compared, say, with deep-water drilling which is incredibly capital intensive. Were governments to show some spine and reorient their tax code, these huge, extremely profitable businesses could find it in their interest to make real investments, rather than mere greenwashing tokens, that could help the West move toward a truly sustainable energy economy -- and create many, many jobs along the way.
Could it happen? Sure. Will it happen? Given the nutty political trends in this country and in Europe, probably not.
Let's get ready for another Depression. Not quite a replay of the Great Depression of 1929. But perhaps something more similar to the long 20-year episode (it was called the Long Depression when I was in college, interesting to see Krugman use the same term) following 1873. It looks like its here unless we (1) find a way to stabilize government expenditure and (2) break the strike big business currently holds against investment in the economies on which they rely.

The Japanese made a lot of errors -- some of which some here strive to replicate. Zombie banks were not closed over there -- at least several of our worst banks were closed or forced out of business. We should have done more of that.
Japanese stimulus programs were timid or worse, and the Japanese government repeatedly tried to remove stimulus prematurely -- giving them the liabilities of stimulus without the benefits.
Interest rates in Japan remain close to zero and deflation there continues. They were hit harder by the current crisis than any other developed country. In these circumstances, there is little the central bank can do. Geithner struggles with the same sort of problem here today.
At this point, the best policy for the Japanese would appear to be liberalized immigration policies, in order to import workers to replace those leaving their workforce. They won't do that -- the prospects for Japan are poor at best.
But to argue, as Mawlinson did, that deflation is good is simply delusional. The Japanese know that. And the europeans are about to find it out.

The Japanese made a lot of errors -- some of which some here strive to replicate. Zombie banks were not closed over there -- at least several of our worst banks were closed or forced out of business. We should have done more of that.
Japanese stimulus programs were timid or worse, and the Japanese government repeatedly tried to remove stimulus prematurely -- giving them the liabilities of stimulus without the benefits.
Interest rates in Japan remain close to zero and deflation there continues. They were hit harder by the current crisis than any other developed country. In these circumstances, there is little the central bank can do. Geithner struggles with the same sort of problem here today.
At this point, the best policy for the Japanese would appear to be liberalized immigration policies, in order to import workers to replace those leaving their workforce. They won't do that -- the prospects for Japan are poor at best.
But to argue, as Mawlinson did, that deflation is good is simply delusional. The Japanese know that. And the europeans are about to find it out.

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
(In case you don't recognize the language, which most of us birthright citizens learned in high school, provided we were paying attention, it is the First Section of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.)
Those words are pretty clear. If a State were to decide to deny birth certificates to a class of individuals born in the United States who are by definition citizens, then it is pretty clear that State would be on shaky legal ground. (Now, if that State wants to make sure that attorney's make money off of their stupidity, that may be possible for them but that would be weird public policy. Attorney's have plenty of other opportunities to make a living.)
A person who is born here is born here -- that fact is simple and clear, and it is the 14th Amendment, not merely US law, that defines that person as a US citizen. Next, the language "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens ..." is also pretty clear language.
Looks like the loonies in Arizona have pretty basic reading comprehension difficulties! Makes sense, given the sorry nature of their educational system.

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
(In case you don't recognize the language, which most of us birthright citizens learned in high school, provided we were paying attention, it is the First Section of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.)
Those words are pretty clear. If a State were to decide to deny birth certificates to a class of individuals born in the United States who are by definition citizens, then it is pretty clear that State would be on shaky legal ground. (Now, if that State wants to make sure that attorney's make money off of their stupidity, that may be possible for them but that would be weird public policy. Attorney's have plenty of other opportunities to make a living.)
A person who is born here is born here -- that fact is simple and clear, and it is the 14th Amendment, not merely US law, that defines that person as a US citizen. Next, the language "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens ..." is also pretty clear language.
Looks like the loonies in Arizona have pretty basic reading comprehension difficulties! Makes sense, given the sorry nature of their educational system.

If one did an honest job comparing the healthcare reform that Obama signed and the reform that Nixon proposed, one would conclude that Nixon's proposal was a little to the left of Obama's accomplishment.
To those with any sense of historical perspective, that fact speaks volumes toward the hard right shift in American politics in the last 30 years. We all know that, for example, Kennedy and Johnson were to the left of Nixon. If Nixon is to the left of Obama regarding Obama's most important issue to date -- how can this make him the most liberal president in history?? Yet the wingnuts on this forum and elsewhere make precisely this preposterous claim.

If one did an honest job comparing the healthcare reform that Obama signed and the reform that Nixon proposed, one would conclude that Nixon's proposal was a little to the left of Obama's accomplishment.
To those with any sense of historical perspective, that fact speaks volumes toward the hard right shift in American politics in the last 30 years. We all know that, for example, Kennedy and Johnson were to the left of Nixon. If Nixon is to the left of Obama regarding Obama's most important issue to date -- how can this make him the most liberal president in history?? Yet the wingnuts on this forum and elsewhere make precisely this preposterous claim.

I'm speculating here -- but the Administration has put this guy on a list to be assassinated. This has drawn questions as to whether it is legal for the US government to kill a US citizen without due process of law. Something about having one's day in court, I imagine. Foreigners do not enjoy this benefit (witness all the drone attacks in Pakistan). I suppose that if this fellow had his citizenship stripped, the US government might be less likely to break laws if they succeed in killing him.
Would it be good to provide the government this immunity? I imagine there's a variety of opinions on that, too.

Back in the 1990s, BP argued (successfully) with the feds that they didn't need to replace a '50s-vintage reactor at their Texas City refinery. In 2005, the reactor exploded, killing 15.
Around that time, the Houston Chronicle reported that BP had the highest fatality rate, by a big margin, of any oil company operating in the USA.
Then in 2006 they spilled over 200,000 gallons of crude on the tundra in northern Alaska because they hadn't bothered to maintain their pipeline up there.
Everyone knows what BP has done lately in the Gulf of Mexico. It will be interesting to hear the rest of the story that a Transocean employee had to tell about the Company Man (that is, the boss from BP) deciding to change plans within a day of the explosion, overruling safety concerns.
BP has earned its reputation of not paying attention to safety issues the way other major oil companies do. They (and the rest of us) reap the consequences.
Now, please help me out, why is a company that perennially scoffs at safe work practices, and lies about its ability to handle the unexpected, somehow a problem caused by President Obama?

I don't know why anyone is surprised that this oil spill happened to any company other than BP. Those in the chemical or oil industry are well aware of the fact that BP has, by a very huge margin, the worst safety record of any major oil company. The repeated body counts at Texas City testify to that, as do lots of other accidents of theirs that did not kill workers.
The rubber will meet the road when BP starts, as they almost certainly will, to claim that certain damage claims brought against them are illegitimate.
BP has stonewalled the public on the size of this their spill and refuses to acknowledge the huge subsurface plumb that independent scientists have discovered. (That discovery is discussed nicely in a news article in the current issue of Nature.)
For years, companies like BP got to do as they liked without any effective regulation. The regulators were *literally* in bed with them. There's gotta be big changes -- and not along the lines Ron Paul seems to advocate.