Hullabaloo

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

 
Happy Days Are Here Again

by digby


One of the things I find most annoying about the Obama team is its need to take premature victory laps and clumsily try to create a phony Rovian bandwagon effect. I've been writing about it since the campaign and it's only gotten worse since they took office. It's cheap and it simply doesn't work. No matter how much apologists demand that we all sit up and start clapping like trained seals, you simply cannot tell people not to believe their own lying bank accounts.

But all the earlier examples (most of which blew up in their faces, especially the idiotic Mission Accomplished on the stimulus) pale in comparison to the slap in reality's face from Tim Geithner today:

THE devastation wrought by the great recession is still all too real for millions of Americans who lost their jobs, businesses and homes. The scars of the crisis are fresh, and every new economic report brings another wave of anxiety. That uncertainty is understandable, but a review of recent data on the American economy shows that we are on a path back to growth.

[...]

While the economy has a long way to go before reaching its full potential, last week’s data on economic growth show that large parts of the private sector continue to strengthen. Business investment and consumption — the two keys to private demand — are getting stronger, better than last year and better than last quarter. Uncertainty is still inhibiting investment, but business capital spending increased at a solid annual rate of about 17 percent.

Together, private consumption and fixed investment contributed about 3.25 percent to growth. Even the surge in imports, which lowered the rate of increase of G.D.P., actually reflects healthy and growing American demand.

That is the best news, evuh! Let's party like it's 1999.

Well, ok, there may be just a few teensy little speed bumps:

We have a long way to go to address the fiscal trauma and damage across the country, and we will need to monitor the ups and downs in the economy month by month. The share of workers who have been unemployed for six months or more is at its highest level since 1948, when the data was first recorded, and we must do more to ensure that they have the skills they need to re-enter the 21st-century economy. Small businesses are still battling a tough climate. State and local governments are still hurting.

Talk about Mr Bringdown. But I'm sure glad to know that they are looking for ways to retrain 45 year olds to become Indian customer service reps before they move to Mumbai where they can live on 20 bucks a day. Very generous.

Luckily, he has big plans to fix some niggling little remnants like making the congress "move now to help small business, to assist states in keeping teachers in the classroom, to increase investments in public infrastructure, to promote clean energy and to increase exports." Other than that, we're good and we can move on now to the next big challenge:

And while making smart, targeted investments in our future, we must also cut the deficit over the next few years and make sure that America once again lives within its means.

That makes sense. Everyone agreed that when happy days were here again it would be the time to start dealing with the deficits. That time is now.

I just don't know what to say. It's clear that the administration is convinced that what's good for the wealthy is good for the USA and there's not much we are going to be able to do to convince them otherwise. If they can toss off 10% unemployment as a minor cloud in an otherwise sunny forecast then they have lost the thread completely.

This is an embarrassing piece of work from an embarrassing Piece Of Work. It's getting hard not to feel despair.


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digby 8/03/2010 02:00:00 PM