Sam Pizzigati writes:

America’s most affluent 1 percent now pay, on average, just 6.4 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes. But they actually pay even less than that, since they can deduct their state and local taxes from their federal tax bill. The state and local tax burden on America’s rich, after taking this offset into account, drops to 5.2 percent.

Middle-income families — to be precise, those families who make up the middle fifth of America’s income distribution — pay, after the federal offset, 9.4 percent of their incomes in total state and local taxes.

America’s poorest families pay even more. Tax collectors take 10.9 percent of the incomes of households in the nation’s bottom 20 percent, more than double the share they take from the incomes of the nation’s top 1 percent.

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy paper, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, covers non-elderly households. Incredibly, the study details, some states "ask their poorest residents — those in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale — to pay up to six times as much of their income in taxes as they ask the wealthy to pay."

Now you could argue that none of this matters. The Tax Revolters, after all, didn’t claim that their tax cutting and capping would have low- and middle-income people paying taxes at a lower rate than the rich. They claimed, instead, that massive tax cuts, taken as an amorphous whole, would help just about everybody get considerably richer.

That hasn’t happened, as Brookings Institution researchers Barry Bosworth and Rosanna Smart document in a paper just published by the Boston College Center for Retirement Research, with funding support from Social Security.

Bosworth and Smart "explore the consequences of the housing price bubble and its collapse for the wealth of older households."

Along the way, the two investigators dive into the overall family wealth data the Federal Reserve has been collecting since the early 1980s. Tapping into another federal data set, they bring the family net worth picture up-to-date for 2009.

For low- and middle-income families, their numbers tell a depressing story.

All American households — poor, middle, and rich — have lost wealth since the subprime mortgage collapse and last fall’s financial meltdown. On average, since 2007, Americans have lost 26 percent of their total net worth.

But low- and middle-income households under age 50 haven’t just lost a big chunk of the wealth they held in 2007. These households have actually lost all the wealth they had gained since 1983, the first year with Federal Reserve family wealth data available.

subplugBack then in 1983, the bottom third — by income — of U.S. families under age 50 had an average $24,000 in net worth to their names, as measured in year 2000 dollars. The housing bubble helped boost this bottom-third average net worth to $27,000 in 2007.

Today, in the wake of that bubble’s collapse, researchers Bosworth and Smart put average bottom-third net worth at just $17,000, in those same year 2000 dollars.

Middle-income households under age 50, meanwhile, held an average net worth of $50,000 in 1983. The current net worth of this middle third, after adjusting for inflation: $45,000.

Older households in the bottom and middle income thirds — those over age 50 — have, to be sure, seen their after-inflation net worths increase between 1983 and 2009. But these households have lost at least 22 percent of the wealth they held in 2007. As older families, Bosworth and Smart note, they now "have less time to recover."

= = =

wader has posted the Overnight News Digest.

Tonight's Rescue brought to you by Got a Grip, YatPundit, HoosierDeb, vcmvo2, mem from somerville, and pico.

Diary Rescue is all about promoting good writers, so remember to subscribe to diarists whose work you enjoy reading.

• ProgressiveSouth takes a gander at the politics surrounding the healthcare debate in Louisiana and finds more than a dash of Hypocrisy: GOP pushed for Louisiana funds in Sen health bill. (Got a Grip)
• Change is local: rossl describes efforts to bring a community garden to his high school in Green Change Blog Action: Bringing sustainability to school. (pico)
• Valtin continues the quest for accountability and asks Who Will Investigate CIA/RAND/APA Torture "Workshop"? (mem from somerville)
• In Who are these people? Well, I'll tell you WereBear teases out the reasoning behind recent outrageous "teabagger" behavior. (vcmvo2)
• Liberalindependent28 pleads for an end to the unfair treatment of The Refugee. (mem from somerville)
• dem4evr takes on a region by region analysis of the politics of "backlash" in The Political Geography of "Palin Politics". (vcmvo2)
• washunate muses on the real meaning of a concept we take for granted in Rethinking Jobs. (mem from somerville)
• Tom Taaffe follows the trail of long term fallout in how A Bomb is a Debt Machine. (HoosierDeb)
• diverdonreed brings his own unique perspective to enlighten us as to What Paralyzed People Want. (Got a Grip)

jotter has High Impact Diaries: November 23, 2009.

BeninSC has Top Comments - Twelve Minutes Past Seven, RIP, Freddie...

Please suggest your own favorites from the last 24 hours, and use as an open thread.

It was just last week that Doug Hoffman, the failed teabagger candidate in New York's 23rd district, was whining that the election was stolen from him and that he needed donations now to fight ACORN, the unions, Obamacare and the socialist assault on mom and apple pie.

Never mind:

Doug Hoffman will not contest the results of New York's 23rd District special election, the state Conservative Party candidate announced in a release Tuesday afternoon.

After "un-conceding" the race last week and stirring talk of an election challenge, Hoffman acknowledged that the final count of absentee ballots, completed Monday, "re-affirm the fact that Bill Owens won."

Oops.

Remember how we've been told that it wasn't twisted incentives that caused Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers executives to take excessive risks? Those executives, the conventional narrative has it, were paid largely in stock that plunged in value when their companies collapsed. The crash, we're led to believe, took them with it.

In fact, the top five executives at each of the two companies did lose hundreds of millions when the stocks fell. But a new study by three Harvard professors - The Wages of Failure: Executive Compensation at Bear Stearns and Lehman 2000-2008 - puts the kibosh on the urban myth that they were devastated financially.

Professors Lucian A. Bebchuk, Alma Cohen and Holger Spamann pointed out in the report that the top five executives at Lehman collected cash bonuses and proceeds from stock sales of $1 billion between 2000 and 2008. The top five at Bear collected $1.4 billion.

We observe that these amounts substantially exceed the value of the top executives’ positions at the beginning of 2000, which we estimate to be in the order of $800 million and $600 million respectively. To be sure, the executives would have made much more had the firms not blown up. ...

Many of the decisions that ultimately led to the failure of the companies, such as the decisions to get heavily involved in the securitized assets markets, were made a substantial period of time before the final collapse. To assess the executives’ incentives when they made decisions that determined the future risks facing their banks, one needs to look at their compensation over a longer period of time. ...

The stories of Lehman and Bear Stearns will undoubtedly remain in the annals of financial disaster for many years to come. To understand what has happened, and what lessons should be drawn, it is important to get the facts right. In contrast to what has been commonly assumed thus far, the top executives of those two firms were not financially devastated by their management of the firms during 2000-2008. They were able to cash out rather large amounts of performance-based compensation, both from bonuses and from share sale, during the years preceding the firms’ collapse. This cashed-out performance-based compensation was large enough to make up the losses on the executives’ initial holdings in the beginning of the period. As a result, the executives’ net payoffs from their leadership of the firm during 2000-2008 were decidedly positive.

But Peter J. Solomon, an investment banker who used to work at Lehman, said the executives who presided over Wall Street’s collapse have suffered, despite the money they retained. ...

"There’s not one person involved in the demise of Lehman Brothers, Bear or even the troubles that have fallen on Citigroup who thinks they’re living happily ever after," Mr. Solomon said, "because their reputations have been tarnished, and what do you have at the end of the day but your reputation?"

Well, there's the matching Bentleys. And the five-bedroom beach house in La Jolla. And the little chateau in the south of France. And the villa in Tuscany. The Kandinskys. The vintage wine collection. The platinum golf clubs. The Google stock. Half ownership in that champion Brazilian soccer team. And the 60-foot yacht.

At the end of the day, it's true, you may find them lamenting their tarnished reputations over a well-aged single malt. Where you won't find them, unlike many of the victims of their risk-taking, is queued up for food stamps.

Rahm Emanuel apparently gave as homework to all White House Senior staffers Ron Brownstein's Saturday blog post in the Atlantic, in which Brownstein thumbs his nose a bit a "Democratic liberals" and touts how much of the Baucus plan got into Reid's bill.

Both the Senate bill's priority on controlling long-term health care costs, and its strategy for doing so, represents a validation for Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). When Baucus released his health reform proposal last September, after finally terminating months of fruitless negotiations with committee Republicans, Democratic liberals excoriated his plan as a dead end. And on several important fronts--such as subsidies for the uninsured, the role of a public competitor to private insurance companies, and the contribution required from employers who don't insure their workers--Reid moved his product away from Baucus toward approaches preferred by liberals.

But the Reid bill's fiscal strategy, and its vision of how to "bend the curve," almost completely follows Baucus' path from September. Baucus' bill was the first to establish the principle that Congress could expand coverage while reducing the federal deficit; now that's the standard not only for the Senate but also the House reform legislation. And, perhaps even more importantly, the Reid bill maintains virtually all of Baucus ideas' for shifting the medical payment system away from today's fee-for-service model toward an approach that more closely links compensation for providers to results for patients. In the Reid bill, there is some backtracking from Baucus' most aggressive reform proposals, but not much.

Moving the system away from a fee-for-service model is crucial to long-term cost control on the provider side and to reducing the vast inefficiencies that account for much of the out of control costs of our current "system," and is the focus of Brownstein's post. These things will lead to reduced costs overall, that will eventually trickle down to the consumer, provided that the reformed system also addresses insurance industry abuses. And that's where Brownstein misses a big part of the story.

This single-minded focus that we've seen on bending cost curves and payment adjustment and incentive reform and that somehow almost random $900 billion benchmark too often obscures what for the vast majority of Americans, regardless of party identification, is the key component to reform: "assuring the availability of affordable plans."

The affordability factor is a component that's been troubling a handful of people, including jim bow here at Daily Kos and Nick Beaudrot at Donkylicious.

There are a couple of basic problems here, the first being a watering down of the basic benefits package offered at the "bronze" level, where a lot of the currently uninsured are going to end up entering the system. They'll end up with essentially catastrophic plans, with high deductibles and co-pays and will be left where a lot of underinsured are now, really hoping they don't get really sick. Subsidies will be in place to help purchase this insurance, but why would the bar on these plans be set so low? Why put subsidy money into crappy plans, rather than set a higher standard for the lowest level of benefits?

Jon Walker at FDL has been writing extensively about the other key problem in insurance reform, inadequte risk adjustment, (risk adjustment is the levelling out process insurance plans use to balance the costs of carrying sicker, more expensive patients, with healthy ones, often resulting in cherrypicking to get the expensive people off their books). Jon explains the problem:

The Dutch government, who have a history of "managed competition" among for-profit health insurance companies, called the lack of well-designed risk adjustment mechanisms the Achilles Heel of a health care system. In their system, over half of all money spent on health insurance is redistributed as part of risk adjustment. Without it, insurance companies would compete primarily by trying to drive away unhealthy customers, instead of by trying to provide higher quality plans, better consumer service, or lower prices. Without robust risk adjustment and regulations, it is impossible for an insurer to provide high quality, low cost coverage. It would soon be overwhelmed with unprofitable, less healthy customers.

The CBO and CMS conclusions about what the lack of sufficient risk adjustment mechanisms in the House bill would do to the public option should be a wake up call. They concluded that the new public option would be forced to charge higher premiums because of the serious problem of adverse selection. But the public option can be a stand in for any insurer that tried to be socially responsible, be it a private company, public entity, non-profit, or new insurance co-op. Any "well behaved" insurance company would soon be flooded with less healthy individuals.

Unfortunately, neither the House nor Senate bills have strong enough risk adjusters in place. This is how insurers are still going to be able to cherrypick healthy customers by creating plans that are attractive to young, healthy, inexpensive people and finding ways to cut out their sick, expensive subscribers. Which is why the public option probably wouldn't have substantially lower premiums, despite having much lower administrative costs.

The focus on "bending the cost curve" by eventually breaking down the fee-for-service model of delivery is important and it's not a separate argument, necessarily, from the affordability argument for consumers, at least not in the long run. But it shouldn't be paramount to the problem of providing universal, affordable, high quality coverage to the American people. Coincidentally, taking care of the latter is also going to be popular, and good politics. Forcing people to buy crappy, expensive insurance will not be popular. Something for the White House and Congress to keep in mind over the next month.

Palin 2012, the trailer (SNL recut):

Also on Daily Kos TV.

(Trailer starts at 1:15 mark in video clip.)

No wonder the gun lobby is as powerful as they are. They can turn anything, and I mean anything, into an opportunity to get their members all wound up and sending them money. Today, via TPMDC, it's healthcare reform.

Here's their pitch to members:

Fox News is reporting today that the word "tax" appears 183 times in the health care bill.  Is Obama serious?  Is that what he and Reid want to do to us in the midst of a recession?

Of course, all this increased spending -- and taxes -- means that you will have less money to spend on pursuing your real passions:  like providing for your family and purchasing guns and ammunition! [emphasis in the original]
....

[A]s we have mentioned several times in the past, the mandates in the legislation will most likely dump your gun-related health data into a government database that was created in section 13001 of the stimulus bill.  This includes any firearms-related information your doctor has gleaned... or any determination of PTSD, or something similar, that can preclude you from owning firearms.

And, the special "wellness and prevention" programs (inserted by Section 1001 of the bill as part of a new Section 2717 in the Public Health Services Act) would allow the government to offer lower premiums to employers who bribe their employees to live healthier lifestyles -- and nothing within the bill would prohibit rabidly anti-gun HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius from decreeing that "no guns" is somehow healthier.

Who knew buying guns and ammunition ranked with food and shelter for one's family? And what's a little case of PTSD to keep you between you and buying even more guns? As for the rest, well, Dan Pfeiffer's debunking:

RHETORIC:  GUN OWNERS OF AMERICA CLAIMS THAT HEALTH REFORM LEGISLATION WILL "DUMP YOUR GUN-RELATED HEALTH DATA" INTO A GOVERNMENT DATABASE WHICH CAN BE USED TO "PRECLUDE YOU FROM OWNING FIREARMS."  The Gun Owners of America (GOA) claim that "the mandates in [the Senate's health reform] legislation will most likely dump your gun-related health data into a government database that was created in section 13001 of the stimulus bill.  This includes any firearms-related information your doctor has gleaned... or any determination of PTSD, or something similar, that can preclude you from owning firearms." [Gun Owners of America Alert, 11/20/09]

REALITY:  NOTHING IN THE SENATE BILL WOULD RESULT IN "GUN-RELATED HEALTH DATA" BEING SUBMITTED TO THE GOVERNMENT.  There is no mention of "gun-related health data" anywhere in the Senate’s health reform bill and there is nothing in the bill that would result in any such data being reported to the government.    The bill does provide guidelines for reporting of anonymous statistical information to help with research, but none of this would lead to gun ownership or "gun related health data" being included in reporting to the government.  [Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act]

RHETORIC:  GUN OWNERS OF AMERICA CLAIMS THAT SECTION 2717 OF THE SENATE HEALTH REFORM BILL WOULD ALLOW THE GOVERNMENT TO OFFER LOWER PREMIUMS TO EMPLOYERS IF THEIR EMPLOYEES DO NOT OWN GUNS.  Gun Owners of America (GOA) claims that "Special ‘wellness and prevention’ programs (inserted by Section 1001 of the bill as part of a new Section 2717 in the Public Health Services Act) would allow the government to offer lower premiums to employers who bribe their employees to live healthier lifestyles -- and nothing within the bill would prohibit rabidly anti-gun HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius from decreeing that 'no guns' is somehow healthier."  [Gun Owners of America Alert, 11/20/09]

REALITY:  NOTHING IN THE SENATE HEALTH REFORM BILL WOULD LEAD TO HIGHER PREMIUMS FOR GUN OWNERS OR A "DECREE" THAT GUN OWNERS ARE LESS HEALTHY THAN OTHERS.    Section 2717 section creates guidelines for insurers to report on initiatives that  improve quality of care and health outcomes, and it specifically lists what types of programs would be involved – such as smoking cessation, physical fitness, nutrition, heart disease prevention.  There is no mention of guns, and there is no language that could result in higher premiums for gun owners or lower premiums for people who do not own guns.  Section 2705 of the bill does permit employers to provide premium discounts for employee participation in health promotion and disease prevention programs, and it prohibits insurers from discriminating against individuals for specific reasons such as health status, medical history, and genetic information.  It allows the Secretary to add other "health status-related" factors to the list.   But again, there is no mention of guns,  or any possibility that owning or not owning guns would ever be considered a "health status-related" issue.   [Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act]

No, this isn't a gun bill, just like it's not an abortion bill.

A little over two weeks ago, basing their story on unnamed sources, McClatchy's Jonathan S. Landay, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef reported that the White House was nearing a decision to send 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan in response to General Stanley McChrystal's strategic assessment [pdf] of the situation there. Soon, CBS reported the administration had "settled" on a plan to send most if not all of the 40,000 McChrystal had sought as the maximum number of troops needed.

All hell broke loose. National Security Adviser James Jones said the reports were "absolutely false ...completely untrue and come from uninformed sources." Portions of the blogosphere exploded in rage over anonymous sourcing.

Now the same reporters at McClatchy have written:

President Barack Obama met Monday evening with his national security team to finalize a plan to dispatch some 34,000 additional U.S. troops over the next year to what he's called "a war of necessity" in Afghanistan, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

Obama is expected to announce his long-awaited decision on Dec. 1, followed by meetings on Capitol Hill aimed at winning congressional support amid opposition by some Democrats who are worried about the strain on the U.S. Treasury and whether Afghanistan has become a quagmire, the officials said.

The U.S. officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the issue publicly and because, one official said, the White House is incensed by leaks on its Afghanistan policy that didn't originate in the White House.

In its latest story, McClatchy is repeating what it reported Nov. 7 that the make-up of the escalation will be three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division and the 10th Mountain Division, and a Marine brigade, totaling around 23,000 combat and support troops. Another 7,000 troops will be sent to run the new Kandahar-based southern command in charge of U.S.-led NATO forces. In addition, 4000 trainers of the Afghan National Army and police will be deployed.

The Financial Times backs up the story with its own reporting that the President will:

...announce next week that he favours sending more than 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, in perhaps the most momentous decision of his presidency to date.

Such a decision would go most of the way to meeting the request for 40,000 troops by General Stanley McChrystal, the commander in the field, to add to the 68,000 US forces already in place. It would also deeply disappoint many Democrats who have warned against ramping up the eight-year-long war.

President Obama said today that he plans to finish the job in Afghanistan and will tell the American people about it probably next Tuesday. His announcement of new troop levels is expected to be accompanied with an explanation of a comprehensive strategy that includes diplomatic and civilian initiatives.

Several Democrats, including David Obey, Carl Levin, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, two other committee chairmen and the chair of the party caucus, John Larson, are seeking a war surtax. At least some of those members of Congress probably don't really want a surtax but hope that putting the concept forth will gum up the works as far as any escalation is concerned.

Meanwhile, Spence Ackerman at The Washington Independent has reported:

If President Obama orders an additional 30,000 to 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, he will be deploying practically every available U.S. Army brigade to war, leaving few units in reserve in case of an unforeseen emergency and further stressing a force that has seen repeated combat deployments since 2002.

According to information compiled by the U.S. Army for The Washington Independent about the deployment status of active-duty and National Guard Army brigades, as of December 2009, there will be about 50,600 active-duty soldiers, serving in 14 combat brigades, and as many as 24,000 National Guard soldiers available for deployment. All other soldiers and National Guardsmen will either be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan already or ineligible to deploy while they rest from a previous deployment.

No significant further troop reductions from Iraq are expected until April or May, according to the top U.S. commander there, General Ray Odierno.

• From blackwaterdog's diary, what President Obama thinks about  the massive head explosion from the rightwingnuttia at the President's bow in Japan:

  When the president heard that some people had complained, I'd characterize his reaction as: The notion that the United States is somehow humbling or humiliating itself by showing respect for a local custom, when it is transparently the most powerful country in the world, leaves me speechless."

• If you're traveling for Thanksgiving, here's a guide to which airlines offer wi-fi. (h/t Americablog)
• Do you have a vegan coming to dinner on Thursday (or any old time)? If so, here's a couple of recipies you can use.
• Apparently Bill O'Reilly bumped his pointy little head -- hard:

  On Friday, distinguished veteran PBS journalist Bill Moyers announced that he was retiring from weekly television. "I am 75 years old," he explained, noting that "Bill Moyers Journal" had been having a "good run of it," so he felt "it’s time."

  Last night on his Fox News show, Bill O’Reilly used the news to attack Moyers and his journalistic ethics. He also claimed that his producer, Jesse Watters, was solely responsible for Moyers resigning. "Now I think we — Jesse Watters drove him out of PBS," said O’Reilly. "I think Jesse Watters is responsible for Bill Moyers leaving."

• Well, there's one person who think Lou Dobbs could someday be presiden -- Bay Buchanan::

  I would assume he’s going independent, since he’s made a very strong case that that’s where he is. "There’s enormous movement out there, I think more so than when Pat ran. I think they’ve really given up on Republicans, they’ve given up on Democrats; so he would be stepping into something where a path had been laid.

  I think he can win.

• Palin plays the oh-so worn out "democrats hate the troops" card.
• South Carolina governor Mark Sanford now faces 37 ethics violations.

  I'll bet he wishes he was still on top of the Appalachian Trail.

• Another day, another rumor on how many additional troops will be sent to Afghanistan.

Given the unending stupidity of health care opponents, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that among them it has become an article of faith that voting against a filibuster is exactly the same thing as voting for a bill.

It's not. A vote against a filibuster (technically, a vote for cloture) is a vote to limit debate.

Take, for example, what happened in 2003 with the Bush prescription drug coverage bill. The bill passed the senate with 54 votes. (In case you're a Republican and you can't do the math, 54 is less than 60.) Meanwhile, 70 senators voted against a filibuster of that bill.

That means 16 senators who voted to end a filibuster also voted against Bush's prescription drug bill. Does that mean those 16 senators supported Bush's bill? No. There's plenty of reasons to oppose a filibuster, chief among them that you think there has already been enough debate on the issue.

At this point, the idea that we've already had enough debate really shouldn't be that controversial. Anybody who tells you that they need more time to debate health care is a liar or a Republican or both. (And really, what's the difference anyway?)

So why might you want to end debate on a bill you oppose? Let's say you wanted the Senate to be able to consider things other than health care reform this year. In that scenario, even though you might oppose reform, you'd still vote against a filibuster, simply because you don't want the clock to run out on other issues.

Now, Republicans obviously want nothing to happen, not just on health care, but across they board. They want this administration to fail. They don't care what happens to the American public or the American economy. If pain and suffering helps them politically, then that's what they will aim to inflict on America.

The whole reason they want to drag this out is not just that they want to stop health care. They want to stop everything, and if that means tearing this country down, then that's what they'll do because they just don't give a damn.

Any Democrat who votes for the filibuster ought to keep this in mind: they aren't voting against health care, they are for doing nothing at all. They are voting for the Republican political agenda, no matter the cost to this nation. They are casting a vote that reveals not just their absolute stupidity, but also their contempt for the American people.

In each of the three months following each quarter the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates how much the gross domestic product has grown. Last month's first estimate of a 3.5% annualized rate for the third quarter brought a tremendous round of applause since it indicated robust growth was under way after four quarters deep in the red. Today, as the experts' consensus expected, Commerce announced a weaker  second-round estimate, although it still reflects a sharp improvement over the second quarter. The third and final estimate will be announced in December. The calculations are revised from estimate to estimate because better data become available over time.

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the third quarter of 2009, (that is, from the second quarter to the third quarter), according to the "second" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP decreased 0.7 percent.

The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for the "advance" estimate issued last month. ...

The second estimate of the third-quarter increase in real GDP is 0.7 percentage point lower, or $23.7 billion, than the advance estimate issued last month, primarily reflecting an upward revision to imports and downward revisions to personal consumption expenditures and to nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by an upward revision to exports.

Don Marron noted:

The revision was driven by three main factors: consumer spending and business investment in structures were weaker than previously estimated, while imports were stronger.

In principle, the solid growth in consumer spending and housing investment should be promising signs, given their previous weakness. However, both were boosted by temporary stimulus efforts. Cash-for-clunkers lifted consumer auto sales in Q3, for example, but we should expect some payback in Q4. Meanwhile, the tax credit for new home buyers helped housing investment record its first increase since late 2005, but some of that may have come at the expense of future housing investment (because potential home owners accelerated purchases when they thought the credit was going to expire; it’s since been extended and broadened).

Consumer spending, which makes up 70% of the economy, is credited with 2.1% of the estimated rise in GDP.

Meanwhile, the Conference Board's consumer confidence index took an unexpected, though modest, upward turn. The consensus of experts surveyed by Bloomberg had been that confidence would move downward slightly.

The Conference Board’s confidence index increased to 49.5 from 48.7 the prior month. The New York-based Conference Board’s index, which focuses on the labor market and purchase plans, averaged 58 in 2008 and 103.4 in 2007.

The report showed Americans fretted over jobs, signaling the highest unemployment rate in 26 years may restrain spending and limit the recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s. ...

"Labor market perceptions are very weak," said David Sloan, chief U.S. economist at 4Cast Inc. in New York, who forecast an increase in confidence. "What did drive is up was expectations, optimism that things will get better, not that things have gotten better."

Labor markets are indeed weak, with 10.2% officially unemployed, and 17.5% unemployed or underemployed. Overall, some 30 million Americans fall into those latter categories, the worst situation since the 1930s. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will report its latest unemployment calculations a week from Friday.

Bloomberg noted that the Conference Board’s measure of present conditions decreased to 21, the lowest level in 26 years. "The decrease reflected growing concern over unemployment with a measure of job availability reaching the lowest level since 1983."

The proportion of people who expect their incomes to rise over the next six months decreased to 10 percent from 10.7 percent. The share expecting more jobs dropped to 15.2 percent from 16.8 percent.

Buying plans for automobiles and real estate dropped this month, the report showed. Home-buying expectations decreased to the lowest level since 1982.

The Conference Board obtains its confidence figures by surveying 5000 consumers each month.

Meteor Blades has already written a well-researched and authoritative article on the job summit. So consider this one the completely personal, off-the-cuff alternative cup o' free advice to our president and everyone else involved in trying to find ways to connect Americans with paychecks.

1. Drop the word "infrastructure"
I spent years as an enterprise architect. My father did decades more as a city manager. I can tell you that whether you're talking about database servers or sewer pipe, the word "infrastructure" is the first step in either putting your audience to sleep or making your project seem too abstract to be relevant. If you mean "let's build highways," then say "let's build highways."

2. Don't build highways
Sure, it's popular. No one likes to sit in traffic. No one wants to ride some twisting lane spotted with sad makeshift crosses. Politicians love new highways because they always come with ribbon-cuttings and signs that remind people who their governor is, plus if you build enough of them odds are they will name one after you. The trouble is, the cost of a highway isn't in the building. Why does America have one quintillion failing bridges and six light years of crumbling highways in need of repair? Why is it easier to build a new ring of ex-ex-exurbs than deal with the issues of cities? Because generations of politicians couldn't think of any better way to create jobs than to pave more earth while saddling future generations with the world's largest system of asphalt white elephants.

3. Do big things with small companies.
Conservatives are always going on about how some bill will hurt mom and pop by taxing billionaires. Sometimes mom and pop even start to believe them. But hey, they'll believe this a lot quicker -- deal directly with mom and pop. Make your deals with companies that have fewer than a dozen employees. Hire them even when its for something they've never done before. Hire them especially when it's something they've never done before. Hire solo acts. Hire start ups. Hire retirees who want to put their experience to work and teenagers with enthusiasm. For once, just once, let it be Halliburton and the Carlyle Group and all the rest of those guys that are left pressing their noses against the glass, whimpering that they're not in on the deal.

4. Don't be afraid to do it yourself.
If you can't find a small business to do something, don't sweat it. Do it yourself. Grab people off the streets and out of the 7/11 parking lot. Put them to work. Give them training. Give them encouragement to dream up their first company and take this mess off your hands as fast as possible. Be a school, be an incubator, be America. And hey, still don't hire the big guys. Because the one thing that kills small business like nothing else is big business. You want to come out of this with the next generation of American companies ready to take on the world, not with the last generation only fatter.

5. There's no such thing as "make work" jobs
Work has consequences that are bigger than the thing being worked on. It doesn't matter whether it's cleaning trash along the highway or building rockets for NASA, work itself is a net positive. Besides, what turns out to be important is hard to predict. All those jobs that people complained about as "make work" seventy years ago? Those jobs built things like the gorgeous Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood. The splendid stone bridge at Cumberland Mountain State Park in Tennessee. Beautiful paths, lodges, shelters, cabins, and camping areas at hundreds of state and federal parks -- along with more than 3,000 fire towers to watch over those parks. Many of the structures created by the WPA and the CCC have far outlasted contemporary structures built by people doing "real jobs" and have done so elegantly, wonderfully, in a way that's uniquely and perfectly American.  Which brings me to...

6. My Secret Plan to Put America Back on Top
Beauty. Whether you believe in God, "providence," or simple good fortune, there is no doubt that America is blessed with some of the most spectacular places to be found on Earth. We don't just have the Grand Canyon and the astounding landscapes of Yellowstone, we have the literally matchless diversity of the forests along the Appalachian Mountains. We have the tropics of the Everglades and the glacial valleys of Alaska. Deserts? We got deserts. And lakes, and rivers, and seas. All of them, all of them, would benefit from (here's that word again) infrastructure that doesn't turn them into blurs along the roadway, but delivers us to them (and them to us) in a way that helps us appreciate every inch of what we have. If there must be a bridge across a river, let it be a glorious bridge. Where there's a road, let it be one that complements the landscape, sets it off, like a ring to a jewel. Don't replace miles of ugly blacktop with uglier blacktop, replace it with something achingly excellent. Hire people to be artists and architects. Train them for it. Harness America's two greatest resources -- creativity and diversity. While you're at it, don't stop with restoring the beauty of the natural landscape. Let's preserve some perfect small towns, and some city blocks that have a beauty as dignified as mountains. You know that one neighborhood near you that used to be run down, but which came back to life when artists moved in and turned shabby to chic? Let's call that neighborhood America.

Nature. Hard work. Small business. Art and beauty. That ought to do it. If you want to hire some folks to cook a few hot dogs and serve up apple pie, that would be a nice bonus.

Oh, and I'm serious -- no more roads. Unless, of course, they're lovely.

Hey, Dick? STFU:

When the President of the United States bows to a foreign leader, our friends and allies don’t expect it and our adversaries perceive it as a sign of weakness. I think it’s fundamentally harmful and it shows in my mind that this is a guy, a president, who would bow, for example, who doesn’t fully understand or have the same perception of the U.S. role in the world that I think most Americans have...

What I see in President Obama is somebody who bows before foreign leaders and spends his trips aboard primarily apologizing for U.S. behavior. I find that very upsetting.

And leaving aside the point made by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line that Cheney served under two former presidents who bowed to foreign leaders, does Dick really think he should be the go-to guy on matters of protocol?

Dick Cheney representing the United States at the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Hot off the press of the future

Former TV Host Leads 'Hands Off My Public Option' Rally

November 24, 2041

 WASHINGTON -- Government-sponsored health care was on the minds of angry conservative "tea party" protestors in the nation's capital yesterday, as former TV host Glenn Beck led a "Hands Off My Public Option" rally on the mall.

 The 77 year-old Beck, who was banned from the airwaves in 2014 after pouring what he thought was water over an intern as part of an on-air gag, only to discover after lighting a match that it was, in fact, gasoline, said the new president "needs to keep her cockamamie paws off our universal coverage."

 "Thirty-two years ago, Republicans fought tooth and nail for healthcare reform with a public option," said Beck, choking back tears. "We fought for it and we bled for it. And we're here to tell the president that any cuts or rollbacks will be met with a fury like she's never seen. We surround you, Madame President!"

 Protestors held up signs with slogans like, "Only Hitler would take away my pubic [sic] option" and "Don’t tread on my cradle-to-grave gov't coverage" as they marched to the steps of the U.S. Capitol for a rally. D.C. officials estimated the crowd size at 5,000. Organizers disputed that, claiming that attendance "easily topped a couple million."

 Liberals responded to the rally by pointing out that, in fact, the Democratic Congress passed healthcare reform with a public option in late 2009 against unified Republican opposition, and the bill was signed by former President Barack Obama. It was subsequently strengthened in 2019 and 2024. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that improving efficiency and introducing competition to the healthcare industry has resulted in savings of over $4 trillion.

 "There's a reason Democrats have won every election since 2008," said Senator Al Franken (D-MN), who voted for the original bill and is now serving his sixth term. "It's great that Mr. Beck and his followers enjoy having access to affordable government healthcare, but let's not rewrite the history books. Oh, and by the way, it's worth noting that the president has every intention of strengthening the public option further, and hopes that the twenty Republicans in the Senate will climb on board. Frankly, I'm not sure why these protestors are out here marching except to vent their frustration over losing yet another election."

 Beck noted that health care is now the number-one issue with the Republican base, whose median age is 67 according to the latest U.S. Census figures.

 There was only one confirmed injury, which occurred when guest speaker Bill O'Reilly, 92, tripped over a fire hydrant while lunging at Senator Franken with his walking stick. He was treated and released at the scene. No charges were filed.

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Your one stop pundit shop.

Eugene Robinson, on guidelines for medical testing, says:

 The uproar over the on-again, off-again guidelines on when women should have mammograms is proof of the blindingly obvious: Health-care reform that actually controls costs -- rather than just pretending to do so -- would be virtually impossible to achieve.

Matthew Dowd really, really, really wants to see starbursts.

Richard Cohen originally hated the President's speech on race last year, but now wonders where that man of "moral clarity" is, whines that the Attorney General announced that the United States follows the rule of law, oh, and while in Japan, the President bowed. Gasp. Cohen is Karl Rove dressed up in pseudo-sadness.

Bob Herbert has hope:

You want new industry in the United States, with astonishing technological advances, new mass production techniques and jobs, jobs, jobs? Try energy.  [...]

The point is that these (and many more) brilliant, innovative technologies are here. They are real, tangible. They exist. What’s needed now is the will to develop policies that will vastly expand these advances and radically reduce their costs. The United States should be leading the world in the creation of whole new energy technologies and industries, instead of allowing the forces of the old carbon-based industries — coal, oil, gasoline-powered vehicles — to stand obstinately in the way of real progress.

Roger Cohen:

As an Obama admirer, I’m worried. He feels over-managed, over-scripted to me, to the point where he’s not showing the guts that prevailed at various difficult moments in the campaign. The ideas are good, but the warmth, cajoling and craft that make ideas more than that are lacking.

Elyssa East says that when you're stuffing yourself on Thanksgiving, you're missing an important part of the equation.

William McGurn calls Joe Lieberman the other white meat -- okay -- the other maverick.

Frank Gaffney, curled in the fetal position in his urine-soaked jammies, sobs, "we're all going to die."

Steve Almond on music and technology:

The younger generation has no romantic attachments to records as physical objects. To them, music exists as a kind of omnipresent atmospheric resource.

And it’s not that I begrudge them their online treasure troves or bite-size iPods. But I still miss the way it used to be, in the old days, when fans had to invest serious time and money to track down the album or song they wanted.

What I’m getting at here is a deeper irony: technology has made the pursuit of our pleasures much easier. But in so doing, I often wonder if it has made them less sacred. My children will grow up in a world that makes every song they might desire instantly available to them. And yet I sort of pity them that they will never know the kind of yearning I did.

I don't know who the youngest Kossack is, but I'm pretty sure that Charlotte Lucas is the oldest. On  Monday, she celebrated her 96th birthday, and posted her 27th diary at Daily Kos, which made the recommended list. Thanks to the tribute by Emmet, we learned how she picked her moniker, about some of her travels and that:

She's an accomplished tailor, knitter, cook and gardener (passersby take pictures of her gardens). She's worked for and/or contributed to every Democratic presidential candidate and countless statewide and local candidates for over 60 years. With her husband Patrick, who died in 1990, she raised six children and last week welcomed another great-granddaughter (the most remarkable child ever born) into the world.  She's sheltered homeless immigrants, tutored reading in Head Start, taken in abandoned pets, and been there for the friends of her children who had a tough time in their own homes.  She volunteered with the local library until she was 92.  She's a fierce feminist and a crusader for civil rights for all. She cried for joy when the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed.

By clicking on her moniker, you can read all her diaries and comments. But here's the first one she wrote at Daily Kos, on Christmas Day 2008.

I am 95 years old. In 1936, two years out of college and shortly before my twenty-third birthday, I exercised my franchise and cast my first vote—for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We were still in the midst of the Great Depression, and the migration from the Dust Bowl had begun. At the time, painfully immature and thoughtless, my vote was an act of independence that gave me a feeling of being an adult. I admired Roosevelt and, in the rebellious spirit of youth, liked his being known as "a traitor to his class".  When he won and his second inauguration was coming up, I was pleased but not excited, having more important things like dates and parties on my mind.

As time went on and things began to look a little brighter, I was, in my dim way, impressed by FDR’s fireside talks, by the jobs that were being created, and a feeling that there was still hope. As for social issues, I confess with shame that I rarely thought about the unfortunate Okies and Arkies who were invading California and thereby outraging many of its citizens. It wasn’t until years later when I read the magnificent GRAPES OF WRATH that I realized what had been going on in front of me. Looking back over the years, I see how FDR’s vision and his feeling for "the common man"  pulled us through those terrible years.  

Now times are bad again. After eight years of incompetence, an unprovoked war that has cost thousands of lives, a huge waste of money, and the loss of good relations with other nations, there is hope again. I look forward to Barack Obama’s inauguration with the greatest enthusiasm.

There is real light at the end of the tunnel. Getting through it won’t be easy but we have, I think, chosen a wise and thoughtful young leader.

I am reading Mr. Obama’s book DREAMS OF MY FATHER. This is a story that makes me look at myself and to see myself through the eyes of another person, a person who has reason to distrust my kind of people.  It shouldn’t be like that in this country, this "melting pot" whose citizens far too often judge their fellow men and women by the color of their skins, their religious beliefs or lack thereof, and sadly often, in the case of homosexuals, simply because they are "different". Barack Obama and his administration can’t right all these wrongs but, again, the hope is there. It isn’t the mere fact that an African American is moving into the White House. It’s trite but true that here is the realization of the American dream. In the dangerous and tumultuous world we live in now, here is a man who is capable of inspiring hope, who is willing to take on a stupendous job, and who is determined to do his very best.

Thanks for hanging around with all of us youngsters, Charlotte.