It was the worst of times... or was it?

Schäuble Warns Worst Is Yet to Come

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REUTERS

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said the worst isn't over.

Europe's debt crisis seems to have entered a calm phase, but that's only an illusion, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said on Tuesday. The worst is probably still to come, he warned.

Spain Reminds Us That The Worst Is Yet To Come In Europe

Kevin Mahn, Contributor

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 (Image credit: AFP via @daylife)

Spain, which has the 4^th largest economy in Europe, is currently struggling with high unemployment (the highest unemployment rate in Europe), increased borrowing costs, a stressed banking system and rising tensions amongst its citizens as it relates to austerity measures being considered by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
Does this sound all too familiar?  Take out the word “Spain” and insert the word “Greece” and the first sentence might have been the beginning of one of my market commentaries from several months ago.

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Economist Provides Blueprint for Financial Survival: The worst is yet to come.

Saturday, 27 Oct 2012 10:01 PM

By Newsmax Wires

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“The worst is yet to come.”

That’s the message coming from leading economists when asked about our country’s financial future.

Jim Rogers says we face “financial Armageddon.”

Peter Schiff said that 2008 “wasn’t the real crash. The real crash is coming.”

And Marc Faber simply says, “We are doomed.”

Here are the indisputable facts: In the last year, our nation’s credit was downgraded for the first time in history, and Moody’s recently warned of another possible downgrade in 2013.

Our national debt is nearly $16 trillion, or nearly $51,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. And, if you count those too discouraged to look for work, or working part-time because they cannot find full-time employment, the unemployment rate is 15%.

And here’s why a group of leading economists are worried: We have managed this abysmal “recovery” even with interest rates at historic lows.

David Brooks: ‘It has been the worst campaign I’ve ever covered’

4:55 PM 10/28/2012

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On this weekend’s broadcast of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” New York Times columnist David Brooks — who was once profoundly impressed with President Barack Obama — admitted he has soured on the president.
“Well, you know, I think — well, I first think it has been the worst campaign I’ve ever covered,” Brooks said. “And I think they’re both ending on the same note they started. Obama’s doing a negative campaign. He’s got an ad out which is called ‘Remember,’ which is about Obama — which is about Romney, the plutocrat. It’s about the flip-flop what we’ve just heard on the stump. So it’s almost pure negativity.”

Is This Really the Worst Economic Recovery Since the Depression?

By CATHERINE RAMPELL

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics, via Haver AnalyticsChart shows change in each indicator from trough of business cycle to following peak. Numbers for current recovery refer to the change from the business cycle trough in June 2009 to the most recent month or quarter for which data are available. Categories measured in dollars are adjusted for inflation. Corporate profits were adjusted using the gross domestic product implicit price deflator.

CATHERINE RAMPELL

Dollars to doughnuts.

Economists often assert that we are in the worst recovery since the Great Depression. Are we?

14 reasons why this is the worst Congress ever

Posted by Ezra Klein on July 13, 2012 at 8:00

Click to view gallery: The 112th Congress is a no good, very bad, terrible Congress. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

This week, the House of Representatives voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. On its own, such a vote would be unremarkable. Republicans control the House, they oppose President Obama’s health reform law, and so they voted to get rid of it.
But here’s the punchline: This was the 33^rd time they voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Holding that vote once makes sense. Republicans had promised that much during the 2010 campaign. But 33 times? If doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result makes you insane, what does doing the same thing 33 times and expecting a different result make you?
Well, it makes you the 112^th Congress.
Hating on Congress is a beloved American tradition. Hence Mark Twain’s old joke, “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” But the 112^th Congress is no ordinary congress. It’s a very bad, no good, terrible Congress. It is, in fact, one of the very worst congresses we have ever had. Here, I’ll prove it:
1. They’re not passing laws.
Let’s start with the simplest measure of congressional productivity: the number of public bills passed into law per Congress. The best data on this comes from the annual “resume of congressional activity,” which goes back to the 80th Congress — the same Congress President Harry Truman dubbed the “do-nothing Congress.” But they did a lot more than this Congress: