Bonddad's been hanging around this site nearly as long as I have. Longtime Kossacks know and respect him, and following his advice has saved at least one Kossack a lot of financial pain.
You would think that someone like this wouldn't be treated like utter trash lately. Yet, in his diaries of the past few months, that's what's been happening. More after the jump. (And yes, I've told him that I was going to do a diary about him, so he's cool with me doing it.)
The funny thing is that nothing about Bonddad's methodology has changed, nothing at all. But because he sees positive signs in the economy, he's now being attacked by people who couldn't even begin to explain his charts.
They loved him when he accurately predicted the coming of the current bad times, but they hate him now -- even though his thinking is actually not too far off from what the beloved "Dr. Doom", Nouriel Roubini, is saying. Both see us in a U-shaped recession, rather than the L-shaped recession seen by Krugman -- or worse yet, the utter and total collapse -- that seems to be welcomed with something approaching glee by some.
This seems to be especially true for those who would use this crisis as a way to somehow get Americans, who have been conditioned by decades of Bernays-style propaganda to see Communism, Socialism and even liberalism as Satanic, to back a major repudiation of capitalism, as FDR's New Deal didn't go far enough towards that goal. Never mind that Roosevelt was very, very lucky: Just as is happening now, while things are bad in America, they are much worse overseas, and the worse things get, the more right-wing "law and order" circle-the-wagons movements appeal to people. Just look at the recent elections in the UK and Germany and Italy, where the far right has made tremendous gains -- just as they did during the worldwide depression of the 1930s. And of course, in more recent times, there was the big flight to perceived safety (aka the national moment of bed-wetting) following 9/11, which Bush/Cheney/Rove exploited to justify invading Iraq.
In any event, I just wanted to let Bonddad know that somebody here still has his back, and that I think this site would really suffer if he were to stay away from it.
-- UPDATE - 10:25 am ET: Wow! I take off for a few minutes and this diary's at the top of the Rec List. Guess I'm not the only one here who has Bonddad's back. Thanks, folks! I'll be gone most of the morning, so don't be offended if I don't reply right away to every comment.
-- UPDATE the Second- 10:45 am ET: Just a quick note to say that, as a reading of the comments in the diaries over the last few months shows, Bonddad was getting flaked on well before the "Banned" diary that has been cited by commenters to this diary as the apparent start of the dissing on Bonddad.
-- UPDATE the Third -- 2:49 pm ET: Bonddad just shot me an e-mail. He's asked me to add the following to this diary:
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This is from Bonddad. I have asked PW to post this in the diary.
First, many thanks to the many calls of support expressed both in the number of people recommending this diary and the wonderful comments. They are appreciated.
The last few months have been difficult for many reasons. For me, I have had to continually question my own analysis regarding the economy. However, I believe -- and I still believe -- that the facts indicate the rate of decline is moderating and we will see growth by the end of this year or early next year. If the facts change I will revise my opinion. I should add that it is for me extremely different being bullish considering how negative I have been over the last few years. But, the indicators are looking more and more like we are bottoming out. However -- I should add that I am not thrilled at the prospects of recovery.
Secondly, many people in the comments have suggested the on screen argument between me and MB is a contributing factor. I haven't responded to it yet, so here goes. Please read this as dispassionately as possible because it is meant to be an explanation and not an attack. My intention is not to start a flame war but to simply express my side of the story.
The employment report before last indicated the rate of job loss was decreasing. I thought (and still think) this was good news. MB didn't. That does not bother me. What did bother me were the following two paragraphs.
Is the intent of the happy-talkers to use fact that unemployment is getting worse at a better rate to chill the widespread rage over what has - during the past three decades - brought us to the economic precipice? You know: deregulation, deunionization, privatization, unfettered globalization, wage stagnation for the lower- and lower-middle-income groups, and an unprecedented transfer of wealth to the upper 20%, especially the top 1%? Is it to undermine any pressure for additional government action to improve matters? Beats me.
Only the foolish can put a smiley face on Friday’s jobless report.
Rightly or wrongly, both those lines really ticked me off because I wrote an opinion that was positive and therefore right in line with what was said in those paragraphs. That's why I wrote what I wrote. I'm not sure what else to say regarding the matter.