:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Saturday, November 02, 2002 ::

So, this is what they call nothingness
Finally got up around noon or so but it took me a few hours to get going. Once I got going I didn't end up getting anywhere and mostly spent the day not doing anything but sifting through old emails I never got around to reading.

:: Jim Nichols 11/02/2002 06:23:00 PM [+] ::
...

How not to stimulate the economy
Bush proposal fails tests any successful stimulus package should pass

by Christian Weller and Laura Singleton


-------------

"Instead of a quick infusion of cash to energize the economy, the Bush Administration offers some proposals that would take years to become effective and some that would actually harm overall demand.

The President’s most costly “stimulus” proposal is to make last year’s tax cuts permanent after 2012. But in order to end the slowdown and prevent another recession, government stimulus is needed immediately, not 10 years from now.

Likewise, a major element of the Bush plan rests on the fast-track “trade promotion authority” that he recently obtained from Congress. But major trade agreements take years to negotiate. Such agreements as the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, even if eventually achieved, cannot possibly provide the near-term stimulus that the economy needs now.

Moreover, trade deals negotiated in the 1990s, such as the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, actually hurt the economy. The trade deficit has exploded since 1994 and shows no signs of abating. As a result, the United States has lost more than 3 million high-paying jobs, mostly in manufacturing industries like aircraft, electronics, steel, and textiles. And the deficit growth has required increasing amounts of capital inflows, turning the United States into the world’s largest debtor and putting its economic stability at risk.

As for the increase in contribution limits for 401(k) plans, proposed recently by President Bush at his economic forum in Waco, Texas: even if successful, this measure would not stimulate demand but rather would increase savings and drive down consumption. Consumer spending is the only part of the private economy that has contributed to growth over the past two years. A decline in consumption could push the United States back into recession."


-------------

"Any robust economic recovery to growth rates above 3% will require an additional economic stimulus in the form of more government spending. The only factor that kept the recession from deepening in the past year was the increase in federal government spending and tax rebates. Indeed, government spending is the most viable way to stimulate demand quickly.3 Without substantial short-run stimulus, the economy is likely to remain fundamentally weak well into 2003."

----------

"Another major source of future weakness is the growing share of consumption that has been financed out of debt. Consumer debt has remained at very high levels—more than 14% of disposable personal income—through the first quarter of 2002. Default rates reached record highs in the first quarter of 2002 as they jumped from 3.3% to 4.1% for all consumer loans and from 6.3% to 9.2% for credit cards. The growth in borrowing and default rates will make it harder for consumers to finance continued consumption with credit cards or other kinds of debt."

--------

"Finally, growth in spending by federal, state, and local governments so far has been the economy’s main salvation. However, state and local governments, which collectively spend almost twice as much as the federal government on consumption and investment (excluding transfer payments), are reeling from the budget impact of the recession. Fiscal crises at the state and local level are already exacerbating the recession by leading to spending cuts and raised taxes. These ongoing state and local fiscal crises will further dampen growth in 2003."

------------

Not only is the Bush plan too small, it targets the wrong people. None of the proposed policies would help those hardest hit by this recession, particularly low-wage workers, recently hired and fired welfare recipients, and the long-term unemployed. In fact, many of the president’s proposals, such as increasing the tax exempt contribution levels for 401(k) and IRA accounts, will only help the most affluent Americans, as currently less than 5% of individuals with 401(k)s—mainly high-income individuals—contribute the maximum amount allowed.

----------

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2002 09:35:00 PM [+] ::
...

Creon-- ....I wish I weren't alive.

Chorus-- Try to forget it. It is the only way.

Creon-- I invite Death. Do you only come uninvited?
Come and take me. I cannot bear to live.

Chorus-- No time for such thoughts now. You're still in charge.
You've got to see about these corpses, or
We'll all be polluted.

Creon-- I meant what I said.

Chorus-- No use in such prayers. You'll get what's destined.



---------

Chorus-- .... All old men have learned to be sensible;
But their juniors will not take the lesson as proved.

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2002 05:09:00 PM [+] ::
...

Ismene- I only hope you can, But its impossible.

Antigone-- Must I hang back
From trying, just because you say I can't?

Ismene-- If it's impossible, you shouldn't try at all.

Antigone-- If that's your line, you've earned my hatred
And that of our dead brother too, by rights.
Oh kindly let me go my foolish way,
And take the consequences. I will suffer
Nothing worse than death in a good cause.

*Antigone Sophocles

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2002 05:02:00 PM [+] ::
...

I got the new Tori Amos the other day. I haven't really had time to listen to it except in the shower. So I don't know what I think about it.
I don't know what I think about it. I think thats my quote of the day. But you know what... I don't know what I think about it.

wow... sorry... hehe... couldn't help myself on that one. Jesus its 4:50. The day is almost over. And I haven't gotten anything done.

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2002 04:52:00 PM [+] ::
...

this can be so vile
I'm not feelin it today. I have to finish my personal essay for transfering this weekend. I'm ready for this month to be over but then i'll just want march or may or whatever to be over so I can know where i'm gonna go spend the next two years of my life.

other things are far more important: but I didn't get a chance to read the paper today so I don't know what they are.

I have a new idea for a play. I need to sit down and write it out. WHo knows what'll happen. I'm really disappointed with the last one. But this guy at school is producing it at the end of the semester so what the fuck do I know. I don't have good taste... I make it up instead.

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2002 04:50:00 PM [+] ::
...

"One very important ingredient of success is a good, wide-awake, persistent, tireless
enemy." -- Frank Shutts

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2002 09:24:00 PM [+] ::
...

A future somewhere in there.... maybe?

My new facination of late has been--and I don't even know what exactly to call it--Sociobiology/neuropsychology/political pyschology. Anyhow for some reason i've become facinated by the whole brain, its genetic facts, the implication of those facts on a human beings reactions, views, beliefs; and the implication of those implications on human relations as a whole. This is, to be quite honest an area to which I have no background knowlage what-so-ever. I'm currently reading a book called How the mind works by Steven Pinker. I find it facinating, but then I read this artical The Origin of Specious And why reductionists are winning the Darwin wars. It just makes me realize how little I know about any of this stuff--maybe thats why i'm really enjoying it.
http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/17/blume-h.html

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2002 08:48:00 PM [+] ::
...

Hey look at that, the Anerican Prospect, has a blog.

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2002 08:33:00 PM [+] ::
...

I've really slacked on the blog. My idea was to learn to better communicate, but it started as a middle man shipping stuff I find intersting, off in neat packages. And since the begining of the semester a place to spit short catch phrases, quotes, and flames. I think I need to try to reattempt to throw up at least something worth wild every day. Consistency, got to work on that consistency--no matter how busy life gets.

Then again as I think of it, I shift quicker than the wind does. I think this is an interesting forum to at least expose those shits, to more honestly understand my inconsistency. Who knows?

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2002 08:30:00 PM [+] ::
...

At some point it becomes a game. One where you go 'and then... and then... and then...' and somewhere you finally find yourself lost. This is the punch-line. But you don't know it yet. This ends up being quite amusing but you won't notice it at first. The question becomes what you want to do with the random nothingness. Questions are useless. But tv advertisements are only posthumously reassessed--that guy that passes you will ask what/when/where/why. Thats where you insert the obvious, the needed, the answers. I guess this is whats called life, but I can't quite be certain. How do you reinvent when you don't know what can change? How do you stop caring, when its not even your brain? At some point it becomes a game, but i'm not sure if i'm there yet.

:: Jim Nichols 10/28/2002 08:57:00 PM [+] ::
...