Thus, the public has several hopes, and the State makes two promises: many benefits and no taxes. Hopes and promises, which, being contradictory, can never be realized.

Now, is not this the cause of all our revolutions? For, between the State, which lavishes promises which it is impossible to keep, and the public, which has conceived hopes which can never be realized, two classes of men interpose: the ambitious and the utopians. It is circumstances which give them their cue. It is enough if these vassals of popularity cry out to the people: “The authorities are deceiving you; if we were in their place, we would load you with benefits and exempt you from taxes.”

And the people believe, and the people hope, and the people make a revolution!

No sooner are their friends at the head of affairs, than they are called upon to redeem their pledge. “Give us work, bread, assistance, credit, instruction, more money,” say the people; “and withal deliver us, as you promised, from the demands of the tax-gatherers.”

The new State power is no less embarrassed than the former one, for it soon finds that it is much more easy to promise than to perform. It tries to gain time, for this is necessary for maturing its vast projects. At first, it makes a few timid attempts. On one hand it institutes a little elementary instruction; on the other, it makes a little reduction in some taxes. But the contradiction is forever starting up before it; if it wants to be philanthropic, it must attend to its exchequer; if it neglects its exchequer, it must abstain from being philanthropic.

These two promises are for ever clashing with each other; it cannot be otherwise. To live upon credit, which is the same as exhausting the future, is certainly a present means of reconciling them; an attempt is made to do a little good now, at the expense of a great deal of harm in future. But such proceedings call forth the spectre of bankruptcy, which puts an end to credit. What is to be done then? The new State power takes, then, a bold step; it unites all its forces in order to maintain itself; it smothers opinion, has recourse to arbitrary measures, ridicules its former maxims, declares that it is impossible to conduct the administration except at the risk of being unpopular; in short, it proclaims itself governmental. And it is here that other candidates for popularity are waiting for it.
They exhibit the same illusion, pass by the same way, obtain the same success, and are soon swallowed up in the same gulf.

Our current economic situation isn’t a double dip. The “improved” economic numbers put out by the government are also as fake as the global warming data.

We are in deep trouble. What’s especially frightening are the people who think things are actually getting better. They must be on some heavy meds.

No joke there, I just came back from a trip and found that my local grocer is now charging $6+ for a doz eggs. Discounting food from the COLA is insane, and only going to get worse as Bam-bam is still intent on pushing an energy bill(read: Crap & Tax). The price of food is inextricably tied to energy & fertilizer costs.

don’t forget about the down sizing of product, like there is no longer a gallon of ice cream, the price didn’t change but the amount of product you get did.

We’re falling into a double-dip recession.

Those former White House folks just don’t know when to shut up and let thme keep digging.

MobileVideoEngineer on June 4, 2010 at 3:57 PM

If it does, it’ll mostly be people covering their “short” plays.

Archimedes on June 4, 2010 at 4:21 PM

I know you all mean Monday not tommorrow

MobileVideoEngineer on June 4, 2010 at 3:57 PM

If it does, it’ll mostly be people covering their “short” plays.

Heh, thats sounds like Fibbsy’s job description.

Theophile on June 4, 2010 at 2:57 PM

Hey, thanx for the tip, I’ve enjoyed Vonnegut in the past, but not read much of him, wasn’t familiar with that and now have another for my “to read” list.

Cheers!

That fat, obnoxiously happy woman, Rohmer, is on now.

She’s an idiot. What a tool.

Cody1991 on June 4, 2010 at 9:41 AM

“We’re inherently in the world of the counterfactual, right? We know we’re still losing jobs; [the] unemployment rate has gone up steadily. In that world, if you ask people, ‘Are things working?’ they say, ‘God, no, things aren’t working,’ ” she said.

Asked why the public hasn’t supported Obama like they did with President Franklin Roosevelt after his New Deal efforts to combat the Great Depression, Romer noted that people had been “suffering like crazy” for the three years before Roosevelt took office.

“At some level, they had seen the counterfactual, they had to see what happens when you don’t do something,” Romer said. “I think this unbelievable sense of relief that someone was doing something did keep them with [Roosevelt] for a while.”

…

“We do see GDP growing again … and we did it quickly, we didn’t live through the horrible counterfactual, but it’s still the case conditions are lousy, so it’s completely reasonable the American people are frustrated and they want things to get better quickly,” she added.

We didn’t live through it YET, ding-dong.

I’m bad at math. Weren’t just 20,000 private jobs added, not 40,000?

JAW on June 4, 2010 at 1:44 PM

An increase of 41,000 private-sector jobs, 411,000 temporary Census jobs, and 431,000 jobs in total means there was a net decrease of 21,000 jobs apart from the private-sector and the temp Census work. The BLS report says that government employment increased by 390,000 including the 411,000 temporary Census jobs, which explains this discrepancy.

Straw and the Camel?

You have to come to grips with a simple fact, their intent is not to turn the economy around but to drive off a cliff. Obama’s goal is “social justice’ & “fairness”, if he has to bring everyone DOWN to make it “fair”, thats what he’ll do. He said so at the primary debate in answer to Charlie Gibson.

Go to 40 secs in…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__L5DOxghD4

Philosphically the reason is simple, imagine you have a race between Jesse Owens and Jackie Gleason. No regimen of diet, exercise or even steroids will get Jackie competitive with Jesse, so to acheive “social justice” the only thing you can do is impair Jesse. No way around it.

Harrison Bergeron anyone? :/

“Damage Joy” (schadenfreude)!

I have an idea to fix your confusion: Stop relying on WSJ articles and “relaese reprots” – and just use the monthly data , provided by the census department, a calculator and a pen and paper if needed.

I don’t believe the narrative which is why the raw numbers posted spell out the bs “new May numbers” from the previuos month.

Start there. Just look at month end April. Then May 22nd date. Then the so-called “411,000″ jobs.

The 440,000 is a result of 411,000 + the April loss 29,000, per the raw numbers.

It is a net cumulative number. Do you understand that?

Again, according to the WSJ, you are using the wrong TMCP numbers. The number at the end of the month is irrelevant. The monthly number is calculated by comparing the TMCP number for the second weekly period of the month, to the TMCP number for the second weekly period of the previous month. Do you understand that? If you are claiming the Wall Street Journal is wrong, then I’m sorry, but on such matters I’m going to consider the WSJ a more credible source than “Odie1941″.