konane's Blog

"Man collapses with ruptured appendix... three weeks after NHS doctors 'took it out'

By Daniel Bates
Last updated at 12:15 AM on 26th August 2009

Source DailyMail.co.uk

"After weeks of excruciating pain, Mark Wattson was understandably relieved to have his appendix taken out.

Doctors told him the operation was a success and he was sent home.

But only a month later the 35-year-old collapsed in agony and had to be taken back to Great Western Hospital in Swindon by ambulance.

Mark Wattson, 35, from Swindon may have been the victim of botched surgery after he had to have his appendix removed twice

To his shock, surgeons from the same team told him that not only was his appendix still inside him, but it had ruptured  -  a potentially fatal complication.

In a second operation it was finally removed, leaving Mr Wattson fearing another organ might have been taken out during the first procedure.

The blunder has left Mr Wattson jobless, as bosses at the shop where he worked did not believe his story and sacked him.

Mr Wattson told of the moment he realised there had been a serious mistake.

'I was lying on a stretcher in terrible pain and a doctor came up to me and said that my appendix had burst,' he said.

'I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I told these people I had my appendix out just four weeks earlier but there it was on the scanner screen for all to see.

'I thought, "What the hell did they slice me open for in the first place?"

'I feel that if the surgery had been done correctly in the first place I wouldn't be in the mess I am today. I'm disgusted by the whole experience.'

Mr Wattson first went under the knife on July 7 after experiencing severe abdominal pain for several weeks. He was discharged but exactly a month later he had to dial 999 after collapsing in agony.

Mr Wattson was readmitted to the Great Western Hospital in Swindon after his appendix ruptured

Following the second operation his incision became infected and he was admitted to hospital for a third time for treatment.

He said: 'I had a temporary job at a sports shop but when I took in two medical certificates saying I had my appendix out twice they didn't believe me.

'Now I'm helpless. I can't go out and find a job, I can't go to interviews, I can barely walk and am in constant pain. Before the first operation they told me I had to have my appendix removed and when I woke up afterwards they said it had been a complete success.

'But then I keeled over in agony one month later and when they did some tests at the hospital we could see the appendix was still there on the scans.

'As far as I was aware they took my appendix out and no one told me any different.

'I have no idea what they did take out, but I want to find out what went wrong.'

A spokesman for Great Western Hospital confirmed that a representative had met Mr Wattson and that an investigation had been started.

He was unable to confirm what, if anything, was removed in the first operation.

Paul Gearing, deputy general manager for general surgery at Great Western Hospital NHS Trust, said: 'We are unable to comment on individual cases.

'However, we would like to apologise if Mr Wattson felt dissatisfied with the care he received at Great Western Hospital.'

    * Compensation payments to NHS patients have risen by 20 per cent in the past year to a record high of £769million. At this rate more than £2million a day is being paid over claims against the Health Service."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1208970/Man-collapses-ruptured-appendix--weeks-NHS-doctors-took-out.html

This is really well explained and worth your time reading the whole article.

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The Lie Of "High Frequency Trading" Liquidity

"..........Let's postulate two HFT computers passing 1,000 share orders for the mythical Frobozz (FBOZ) back and forth between each other.  There's a scadload of volume generated by these transactions, and an outside observer, who is unaware that the 1 million shares are in fact 1,000 transactions of the same 1,000 shares being passed back and forth between the same two guys, might assume that there's a lot of liquidity that has been added.

But this is in fact misleading, as the following example will demonstrate. .....

http://market-ticker.org/archives/1366-The-Lie-Of-High-Frequency-Trading-Liquidity.html

Great article, worth the read.

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"The Great American Sell-Out: How The AMA, AARP And PhRMA Have Sold Out To Obamacare

By HERB DENENBERG, The Bulletin
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Source The Bulletin

"This is a report on one of the great sell-outs in American history: How the insurance companies, the drug companies (PhRMA), the AARP, and the AMA have all sold-out their principles to get a piece of the profit of Obamacare for themselves. Instead of standing on their principles, and taking a position on whether Obamacare would be good for America, they are rushing in to make a deal to protect their own interests.

This is not just my interpretation of what is going on, but is being documented by national publications and pundits. For example, Business Week (August 17, 2009) has a cover story, “Health Reform: Why Insurers Are Winning.” The inside sub-headline is “The industry, deftly maneuvering behind the scenes in Washington, prepares to profit from health reform.”

Instead of fighting to defeat a bill that is being jammed down the throat of Americans and has not been properly considered and debated, the major insurance companies are simply, in effect, cutting a deal to assure their own profit, saying good bye to their principles and to the larger welfare of the country.

These major insurers may be like Winston Churchill’s definition of appeasers – those who feed the alligators in the hope they will be the last to be eaten. The insurers may be setting themselves up for short-term profits, but in the long-term the Washington-centered, big-government insurance system is likely to drive private insurers out of the market. This will mean a standard socialized medical system, a so-called single-payer system, o f the type originally advocated by President Obama and advocated by the extreme left-wing Democrats that now dominate their party.

The least surprising sell-out involves the AARP – least surprising as AARP almost from its beginning sold-out to profits rather than principles and protecting its own income20rather than that of its members. Obamacare is clearly not in the interests of the senior citizen members of AARP. The proposal is to cut $500 million out of Medicare to pay for an expansion of government insurance for others. Senior citizens belonging to AARP know that will come out of their own benefits. What’s worse, the rationing and waiting periods that will afflict Obamacare will most seriously impact senior citizens. With cost effectiveness in control, it is the seniors for whom treatment will be least cost effective. When they compete with 20-year olds for care, they will be in the position of care that is least cost-effective.

Since July, it is reported that 60,000 senior citizens have dropped their membership in AARP because of its stand on the healthcare bill. Some feel it is not only supporting legislation contrary to their interest, but also are not leveling with t heir own membership. AARP claims it is not supporting any bill, but at the same time is running ads that definitely support comprehensive reform and consequently, in effect, all of the bills on comprehensive reform now before Congress.

Investor’s Business Daily (August 10, 2009) reported on the AARP sell-out in an20editorial entitled “Geezers with Pitchforks Vs. The AARP.” IBD stated. “But they [senior citizen protestors at a town meeting] were mad as hell at the perception that AARP was selling them out in the name of government-run medical insurance. That perception was not helped when the AARP town hall on the subject was shut down…once the members dared to ask questions. The AARP did not want to hear from the members at all. Just send in your dues, granny, and be quiet.”

The AARP denies being in league with the administration in pushing Obamacare. But the publication Human Events reported on a memo from House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) described plans to partner with AARP in a PR blitz to promote the expansion of health insurance. The IBD asks, “How can the AARP claim to have not endorsed the administration’s health care ag enda as it works to get its members to embrace it.”

IBD also cataloged how top AARP officials, including the CEO, have made substantial campaign contributions to Obama. IBD concludes: Having paid into the system all their lives and now AARP dues, they are upset that illegal aliens will be covered by legislation that eliminates any proof-of-citizenship requirement. And they are furious that AARP would support ‘reform’ that includes ‘end-of-life counseling’ as if they’re being encouraged to get out of the way.

“They know that the administration’s plan is one big government ‘do not resuscitate’ order for seniors, and they don’t want some government bureaucrat looking at some spreadsheet pulling their plug.”

The “end-of-life counseling” provision was recently pulled out of the Senate bill, but it is still in the House bill.

Of course, no one should be surprised at the latest sell-out of the AARP. In f act, as indicated, the AARP sold out long ago, turning itself into a marketing machine (for insurance and other financial instruments), earning a return off the backs of its members. It’s advocacy is for its own income stream, not that of its senior citizen members.

The drug companies were one of the first groups to se ll-out to Obamacare. Working through their major trade association, The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association (PhRMA) they agreed to kick in $80 billion over ten years to reduce the cost of drugs for senior citizens. This, of course, was more in the nature of protection money to protect their interests in the crafting of the final version of Obamacare. As a Los Angeles Times (August 4, 2009) headline put it, “Obama gives powerful drug lobby a seat at the table: The pharmaceutical industry, once condemned by the president as a source of healthcare problems, has become a White House partner.”

In addition PhRMA is spending $150 million on an advertising campaign to sell Obamacare.

What did PhRMA get in return? The White House agreed not to resort to Medicare drug bargaining. The White House also agreed to break another one of the many campaign promises it routinely breaks: The new law will not authorize importing cheaper drugs from Canada or Europe. Of course, there are denials, but they are hard to believe.

On July 16, 2009, the American Medical Association (AMA) endorsed Obamacare and the radica l overhaul of the American healthcare system. This was a total about-face as the AMA and other doctors’ groups have long opposed socialized medicine out of fear of rationed care, long waiting lines for treatment, government interference in doctor-patient relations, and massive deficits and national debt to pay for the system.

It is not clear what, if anything the AMA got in return, but it is suspected that some sort of guarantee of doctors’ fees may have been the quid pro quo. It is also speculated that the AMA viewed the reform as inevitable, so wanted a seat at the table to determine the direction of health care legislation.

Of course, some groups didn’t have to ma ke a deal. The plaintiffs’ bar gives so much to Democratic politicians and is such a key part of the Democratic Party machinery that tort reform was never on the table as part of healthcare reform. Even Democrats like pollster Pat Cadell is appalled at Obama for proposing healthcare reform without doing something about tort reform, which drains the system of billions to pay for defensive medicine and malpractice premiums. Big labor, like the trial lawyers, didn’t have to bargain, as they are another key segment of the Democratic Party coalition.

It’s not reassuring to see groups of professionals, a group organized to protect senior citizens, and other groups with responsibility to the public selling out to a socialized scheme of medicine that we can’t afford, that will wreck the health delivery system, and that is contrary of to most important values of the U.S. But the lesson for the public is clear – if the public wants to be protected from socialized schemes that will destroy America it has to stand up and fight for its rights. It is clear that Congress and the various special interests of the healthcare industry sold out in a hurry.

The lobbyists are cutting all kinds of deals on behalf of their clients. The only group without lobbyists in Washington is the public. Congress is supposed to represent the public, but by now, everyone should not that’s not so."

http://www.thebulletin.us/articles/2009/08/25/commentary/op-eds/doc4a93919fa77ed821435100.txt

No wonder they don't want an accounting.

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"Feds: Stimulus money sent to 4,000 cons
Herald report spurs probe

By Laura Crimaldi
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - Updated 6h ago
Source BostonHerald.com

"One day after the Herald reported some surprised Bay State inmates - including murderers and rapists - were cashing in $250 stimulus checks, federal officials revealed the same behind-bars bonus was mailed to nearly 4,000 cons nationwide.

A federal watchdog is now probing how the cons were cut the checks. The same cash also may have been sent to fugitive felons, people kicked out of the country and even individuals now deceased.

It’s all part of the massive American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - and what is becoming an accounting nightmare for red-faced feds.

“President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill has done more to help convicted criminals than it has to actually boost our economy and create jobs,” said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Sara Sendek.

The Inspector General of Social Security is now tracing the checks that were mailed to 3,900 prisoners at a cost of nearly $1 million after yesterday’s report in the Herald.

Social Security Administration spokesman Stephen Richardson said yesterday none of the prisoner recipients receive monthly Social Security benefits, meaning they should not qualify for a stimulus check. Such benefits are generally cut off to the incarcerated.

The IG also is investigating whether any improper payments were made to dead beneficiaries, felons on the run from the law, individuals living overseas and recipients no longer legally authorized to live in the United States, said IG spokesman George Penn.

Among the 23 inmate recipients in Massachusetts mentioned in yesterday’s Herald are a prisoner convicted of first-degree murder, three prisoners jailed for second-degree murder and five convicted rapists, according to the state Department of Correction.

Richardson said five Bay State prisoners received the payments legitimately because they were legally on Social Security in a three-month period before they went to jail.

The remaining checks were sent to individuals who were not properly identified as prisoners in Social Security records or to people where inaccurate Social Security numbers have since been found.

Only five Massachusetts prisoners have enough cash left to pay the government back, the DOC said.

Nationally, about 2,200 inmates who were mailed checks are entitled to the payments because they were not in prison and lawfully collecting Social Security at some point between November 2008 and January, Richardson said.

The federal goverment is examining whether the payment was due to the remaining 1,700 inmates because they were not identified as prisoners in the Social Security system, Richardson said.

The U.S. Treasury Department began mailing the $250 checks to 54.4 million Social Security beneficiaries, veterans and federal railroad retirees in May as part of a $13 billion spending plan."

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20090826feds_stimulus_money_sent_to_4000_cons_herald_report_spurs_probe/srvc=home&position=also

"ACORN Director Pleads Guilty

Yessssssssssssssssss!!!!!

_________________

"Court Orders Federal Reserve to Disclose Emergency Loan Details

Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve must for the first time identify the companies in its emergency lending programs after losing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled against the central bank yesterday, rejecting the argument that loan records aren’t covered by the law because their disclosure would harm borrowers’ competitive positions.

The Fed has refused to name the financial firms it lent to or disclose the amounts or the assets put up as collateral under 11 programs, most put in place during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression, saying that doing so might set off a run by depositors and unsettle shareholders. Bloomberg LP, the New York-based company majority-owned by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, sued on Nov. 7 on behalf of its Bloomberg News unit.

“The Federal Reserve has to be accountable for the decisions that it makes,” said Representative Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, after Preska’s ruling. “It’s one thing to say that the Federal Reserve is an independent institution. It’s another thing to say that it can keep us all in the dark.”

The judge said the central bank “improperly withheld agency records” by “conducting an inadequate search” after Bloomberg News reporters filed a request under the information act. She gave the Fed five days to turn over documents it told the reporters it located, including 231 pages of reports, and said it must look for more at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which runs most of the loan programs.

‘Involuntary Investor’

The central bank “essentially speculates on how a borrower might enter a downward spiral of financial instability if its participation in the Federal Reserve lending programs were to be disclosed,” Preska wrote. “Conjecture, without evidence of imminent harm, simply fails to meet the Board’s burden” of proof.

David Skidmore, a Fed spokesman who said the board’s staff was reviewing the 47-page ruling, declined to comment on whether the central bank would appeal.

Bloomberg said in the suit that U.S. taxpayers need to know the terms of Fed lending because the public became an “involuntary investor” in the nation’s banks as the financial crisis deepened and the government began shoring up companies with capital injections and loans. Citigroup Inc. and American International Group Inc. are among those who have said they accepted Fed loans.

‘Public Interest’

“When an unprecedented amount of taxpayer dollars were lent to financial institutions in unprecedented ways and the Federal Reserve refused to make public any of the details of its extraordinary lending, Bloomberg News asked the court why U.S. citizens don’t have the right to know,” said Matthew Winkler, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News. “We’re gratified the court is defending the public’s right to know what is being done in the public interest.”

The Fed’s balance sheet about doubled after lending standards were relaxed in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. on Sept. 15, 2008. For the week ended Aug. 19, Fed assets rose 2.3 percent to $2.06 trillion as it continued to buy mortgage-backed securities under a program allowing the central bank to purchase non-government securities for the first time.

The U.S. House may vote as soon as next month on a bill to require the Fed to submit to audits by the Government Accountability Office, said Representative Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican on the Financial Services Committee.

‘Wake-Up Call’

The judge’s ruling “is strikingly good news,” Garrett said. “This is what the American people have been asking for.”

The Freedom of Information Act obliges federal agencies to make government documents available to the press and public. The Bloomberg suit, filed in New York, didn’t seek money damages.

“The public deserves to know what’s being done with the money,” said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Arlington, Virginia-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “This ought to be a wake-up call for the public that they need to be far more educated about this.”

The case is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). "

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a7CC61ZsieV4

Why is our military there other than to build infrastructure for drug runners or to control whatever oil pipeline that may be pumping through that area?

Wasn't this the president who vowed to bring out troops home?  These headlines certainly don't speak withdrawal. 

Silence of anti-war protestors is deafening........................

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Mullen worried over public support for Afghan war

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iqyaFh_efr-brDq0rMLF1hkop0tgD9A8KMEO0

U.S. military says force in Afghanistan isn't big enough

http://www.mercurynews.com/nationworld/ci_13190040

Afghan conflict serious, 'deteriorating'-Mullen

http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUSN23121238

From Investor's Busniness Daily Political Cartoons of Michael Ramirez.

Town Hall Meeting with U.S. Congressman Brian Baird

Just found this on Powerlineblog.com which seems to settle the argument about health care rationing of elderly due to death panel decisions.  Withhold care to cut costs ..... people die .... equates to bees pushing older workers out of the hive mid winter to freeze.

Live links for reference.

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Quote:

"Paul Rahe: Obama to elderly: Drop dead!

August 23, 2009Posted by Scott at 8:02 AM

Source Powerlineblog.com

"Hillsdale College history professor Paul Rahe writes to comment on the current political scene:

Why are the Democrats in such trouble? I think that the answer is three-fold.

First, as I argued in my last Powerline (post, the so-called "stimulus bill" was passed in both the House and the Senate in a manner suggestive of tyranny. It was written in camera with the help of a legion of lobbyists, and it was presented and shoved through before anyone in Congress even had a chance to read it, much less think about it, and the same argument could be made concerning the passage of the cap-and-trade bill in the House and the Obama administration's handling of the bailout and the bankruptcy proceedings of Chrysler and General Motors.

Second, the first of these bills was an obvious scam - a massive pay-off to Democratic party constituencies at the expense of the American taxpayer on a scale that guarantees much higher taxes before long and that almost certainly will drive up interest rates. In the long run, it is not a stimulus bill in any shape or form. It is the sort of spending certain to retard growth.

Third - as I argued in some detail in "Obama's tyrannical ambition," rationing was the point of the Obamacare proposal.

By now, of course, everyone - apart from those so partisan that they believe every lie foisted upon them by the party apparat and those who flack for it at CNN, ABC, MSNBC, and the like - understands as much. They recognize that all of the talk, dripping with compassion, about the supposed health care crisis and the need to cover the uninsured was a cover for an attempt to do away with Medicare and replace it with something less costly. And this prospect they do not like it one bit.

Consider Lee Siegel. He prefaces his recent piece in the Daily Beast with the announcement that he considers "the absence of universal healthcare . . . America's burning shame." Then, however, he acknowledges that "on one point the plan's critics are absolutely correct. One of the key ideas under consideration - which can be read as expressing sympathy for limitations on end-of-life care - is morally revolting."

Make no mistake about it. Determining which treatments are "cost effective" at the end of a person's life and which are not is one of Obama's priorities. It's one of the principal ways he counts on saving money and making universal healthcare affordable.

This reeks of the Big Brother nightmare of oppressive government that the shrewd propagandists on the right are always blathering on about. Except that this time, they could not be more right. . . .

Siegel is not an isolated figure. In Salon, Camille Paglia makes much the same point, praising Sarah Palin for her "shrewdly timed metaphor," which "spoke directly to the electorate's unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives. A death panel not only has the power of life and death but is itself a symptom of a Kafkaesque brave new world where authority has become remote, arbitrary and spectral."

Even The New York Times is coming around. On August 13, Jim Rutenberg and Jackie Calmes, writing in the news pages, played the conspiracy card, charging that the concerns evidenced at the town-hall meetings were the product of a systematic attempt on the part of conservatives to mislead the gullible. Precisely one week later, however, the same newspaper published another news article by Robert Pear, acknowledging that "Medicare beneficiaries and insurance counselors say the concerns are not entirely irrational," and adding that "the zeal for cutting health costs, combined with proposals to compare the effectiveness of various treatments and to counsel seniors on end-of-life care, may explain why some people think the legislation is about rationing, which could affect access to the most expensive services in the final months of life."

Even more to the point, at the end of his article, Pear notes,

If a bill becomes law, no one can say for sure how it may be applied or extended. The 1965 law that created Medicare prohibited "any federal interference" in "the practice of medicine or the manner in which medical services are provided," or in the operation of any institution providing health care. Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University, called this "a majestic message from Congress about how it expected the Medicare program to be run." But the meaning of that guarantee has shrunk as Medicare officials and Congress have set more detailed standards for doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, and others in Medicare.

If we are to understand fully what is going on when we see generally mild-mannered, older people showing up in coats and ties to shout at their Congressman, we must keep in mind that for 44 years working Americans in their generation have been paying in to Medicare. They expect, when they retire, to receive the level of medical care that they were promised, that they paid for, that was provided over the last 44 years to those who paid in for a shorter time or paid in not at all. Obama's attempt to renege on the commitment to them has them hopping mad, for they know a broken promise when they see one.

This is all a portent of trouble to come. Medicare is on the verge of bankruptcy, and the same is true of Social Security. Virtually every state in the Union has promised retired teachers and civil servants pensions that were never properly funded. The bill will soon come due; taxes will be raised - but it is not clear that they can be raised high enough, for tax rates that stifle growth reduce receipts. The welfare state we had before Barack Obama became President was insupportable. Ours will soon be a regime of broken promises, and there will be hell to pay. The first installment will come due on the first Tuesday in November, 2010.

Paul A. Rahe holds the Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College. He is the author, most recently, of < snip >"

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/08/024350.php

"No Recovery, Not Now… Not Ever

By Bill Bonner

Source The Daily Reckoning

08/21/09 Ouzilly, France

"That we live in an age of miracles has become common knowledge. A man may sit on a beach near Sydney, with nothing but the bucket bottom of the universe over his head, and still carry on a casual conversation with an Eskimo near the North Pole. Using an Internet-based phone service, he may do so at negligible cost. If this were not miracle enough, he may now grow himself a new nose, if he needs one, on his own arm.

In this age of miracles, people seem ready to believe that anything is possible. Recklessly crossing the street at the end of the Late Bubble Epoque, the world economy got hit by a cross-town bus. Now, the feds propose to reverse and run over the poor fellow again. It will be as if they had reversed the film; the economy will be as good as new, they say.

But we are suspicious. And we begin today’s rumination by examining the bus driver’s motives.

In its naked form, government is not evil; it is merely a self-interested parasite, like a bank lobbyist. Its main value comes from its ability to elbow out other parasites. Of course, the typical citizen is no saint either. Instead, he is merely a parasite in the larval stage. If he is lucky enough or cunning enough, he could grow into a parasite himself. The citizen, generally, doesn’t mind being lied to and robbed – just so long it is by someone he elected. Or at least by someone whom tradition or local connivance put in place. He does not usually resent his homegrown government, even though it routinely costs him a substantial part of his output. On the contrary, he grows so fond of it he even dons his helmet from time to time to protect it. Naturally, the feds return the favor.

The basic business model of government is to keep order, protect campaign contributors and lure supporters with the promise of other peoples’ money. The game plan of the typical citizen is even simpler: to be on the receiving end, not the paying end. Over time, more and more of them get into position. And the whole society becomes more costly, and more corrupt.

In the United States, entire industries now operate as wards of the state. They may have too little capital. Or, their operations may be too costly. Or, their products may be simply out-of-date and unattractive. Still, government keeps them going – even at the cost of at the expense of competitors. And the money doesn’t only go to business. Cities stay solvent only by the grace of federal government grants. Whole sections of the population depend on government – including 34 million who draw their rations directly from the federal food stamp program. The spectacle is breathtaking and alarming at the same time – like a Pakistani bus on a mountain road, freighted with passengers clinging to the roof. The old rust bucket could tip over at any time, but what politician would tell a voter to get off?

That preface on the state out of the way, we turn to the state of the economy. The key to understanding the great credit bubble of 1945-2007 is to capture the codependent relationship between China and the United States of America. It seemed to serve both parties well. Each enabled each other’s excess. China added mightily to the world’s supply – far more than was actually needed. America, meanwhile, did heroic work on the demand side. While the growth in the United States was led by consumer spending, the growth in China was led by capital investment; factories expanded, towns were built, and output was revved up. But there was a flaw. Americans ran out of money. After the ’70s, they could only increase their buying by going into debt. This they did with insouciance bordering on insanity. Total debt rose 370% of GDP and then blew up in 2007, with major lenders forced into bankruptcy and mergers, while GDP sank at its fastest pace since the end of WWII.

Now, the old formula no longer works – neither for Americans nor for the Chinese. Despite the urging of their government, Americans cannot be expected to take on more debt in order to consume more stuff from China. As savings rates grow toward 10%, demand from the United States will collapse by an estimated $1 trillion per year. With the China trade now accounting for 83% of America’s non-oil trade deficit, you’d think the Chinese would panic. They already have as much as two times the output capacity needed to meet real demand. They should trim their manufacturing sector, not expand it.

We draw out that relationship only to show how hopeless it would be to draw it out further. Borrowing to consume is merely tricking stuff from the future to enjoy in the present. By 2007, some $30 trillion worth of spending that would have occurred ‘in the future’ had already occurred in the past. Factories that would have produced consumer items for 2009 discovered that they had already produced more than enough of them in 2005 and 2006.

It would be better to invite the future in…let her collect her debts…and then get on with things. Yet government officials on both sides of the Pacific continue their numbskull efforts to revive the bubble economy. On the US side, the feds are trying to stimulate demand for more stuff. On the far side, Chinese stimulation is going into producing more stuff. As if the world didn’t have too much stuff already.

But the role of government is neither prosperity nor plausibility…but protection of the pests and parasites. They will keep paying them off and carrying them along…until the bus runs off the road.

But it’s not prosperity that government really cares about. The big bus keeps trundling along – picking up pests and parasites along the way. It will keep going until it runs off the road.

Enjoy your weekend,"

Bill Bonner
The Daily Reckoning"

http://dailyreckoning.com/no-recovery-not-now-not-ever/

Heard on the news many dealers in Georgia are also worried about the government paying them for up front cash monies they've rebated to customers.

________________

"NY dealers pull out of clunkers program
Aug 19 02:00 PM US/Eastern
By DAN STRUMPF
AP Auto Writer
Source Breitbart

"NEW YORK (AP) - Hundreds of auto dealers in the New York area have withdrawn from the government's Cash for Clunkers program, citing delays in getting reimbursed by the government, a dealership group said Wednesday.

The Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association, which represents dealerships in the New York metro area, said about half its 425 members have left the program because they cannot afford to offer more rebates. They're also worried about getting repaid......"

"(The government) needs to move the system forward and they need to start paying these dealers," said Mark Schienberg, the group's president. "This is a cash-dependent business." ....."

"..... Schienberg said the group's dealers have been repaid for only about 2 percent of the clunkers deals they've made so far. ......"

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9A63RC81&show_article=1