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Cheap Drugs: The Bright Side Of Recession
Larry Kudlow must be back on the blow, because he’s over at Clown Hall and he’s singing the praises of recession, no doubt because he’s secretly hoping that it’ll mean he can get a dime bag for a nickel or less.
So what’s so great about a recession? It’s this:
And let’s also remember that recessions are therapeutic. They’re even necessary to create the foundations for the next recovery.
It’s like getting the flu. You can’t get well unless you get sick first. That sounds eerily like something Kudlow must have learned in rehab — the best thing about cocaine addiction is you can’t recover without first being an addict.
If anything, recessions make for clean starts.
Of course, so does killing your spouse or burning your house down. Thanks, Larry, I’m sure we all feel better now.
Jennifer said,
April 11, 2008 at 3:17
If anything, recessions make for clean starts.
Yeah, some of the people who did the most stealing in the last round lose it all, freeing it up for some other people to steal in the next round.
javafascist said,
April 11, 2008 at 3:24
Jennifer, that’s only in a Democratic recession. In a republican one the stealers keep it all and just the middle and lower class get screwed and have to start over. More efficient that way.
Smiling Mortician said,
April 11, 2008 at 3:24
Somebody must have told him about make-up sex.
UmYeah said,
April 11, 2008 at 3:27
Was he in a bunker these past few months?
He spent the last few years filling in for Rush every once in a while repeating “The economy is great and the lieberals won’t tell you about it!!!) ad nauseum and then when the house of cards fell he was nowhere to be seen.
gbear said,
April 11, 2008 at 3:32
Was this clown on NPR news earlier this week? Some well-insulated power-of-positive-thinking asswipe was talking up recession as being good for our health because we wouldn’t be able to overeat any more and we’d probably be walking more. We’d also have better mental health because we wouldn’t be overworking so much. We’d have so much more high quality personal time to better ourselves durring a recession. I could not believe it.
Well, given it was NPR news, I could believe it, but I couldn’t listen to it. I shut him off before it was over.
montag said,
April 11, 2008 at 3:32
It was, I think, Andrew Mellon (Treasury Secretary to Harding, Coolidge and Hoover–now there’s a resume builder, huh?) who said that assets return to their rightful owners during a depression.
So, Kudlow is just hoping that in recessions, some of the assets return to the elite, of which he is sure he is a part.
Republicans… inventors of the modern science of trickle-on economics.
mikey said,
April 11, 2008 at 3:37
I had to quit doing cocaine because it was the only drug that made me angry and violent. But y’know, if I could get it cheap enough…
mikey
Lord Gary Ruppert said,
April 11, 2008 at 3:48
The Fact is, that Larry Kudlow is a Traitor, and Back Stabber, and is probably being paid by B. O. Xerxes Hussein, because We in The Heartland know that Bushanomics has been a huge success. McCain, who is Serious and knows about such things, thinks we shouldn’t change a thing. The Fact is, that Mr. Kudlow is just another Ivory Tower Socialist Elitist, who doesn’t enjoy a good Working Class Sandwich, and wants us to fail The Mission in Iraq, and can’t wait for the Leftist Caliphate.
nightjar said,
April 11, 2008 at 3:51
He spent the last few years filling in for Rush every once in a while repeating “The economy is great and the lieberals won’t tell you about it!!!) ad nauseum and then when the house of cards fell he was nowhere to be seen.”
A match made in hell. Larry provides the up and Rush the down on the junky ferris wheel.
MileHi Hawkeye said,
April 11, 2008 at 3:59
You had me at “cheap drugs”.
Some Guy said,
April 11, 2008 at 4:04
So have we seen the Wingnuts emerge from their Talking Point Chrysalis, have completed their transformation from “there is no recession, it’s all gloom and doom LIEbrals trying to scare up new regulations”, and are now into “yes, we ARE in a recession, but that’s a GOOD THING!”
Ahhh, nature in all her resplendent beauty.
Patkin said,
April 11, 2008 at 4:14
Next up on Fox News:
“Recession: Best decision Bush ever made, or best decision Bush made this year?”
comsympinko said,
April 11, 2008 at 4:14
Yeah, I mean, who doesn’t like lying awake nights wondering how they’re going to pay for housing, food, and utilities?
It’s good for the soul.
So buck, little campers!
In another six months, that will be your only housing option.
christian h. said,
April 11, 2008 at 4:15
A recession only means that the economic troubles are in their last throes. Bring it on!
Cokehead Larry™³²®© said,
April 11, 2008 at 4:28
The fact is, I’ve always said that recession is good.
Candy said,
April 11, 2008 at 4:30
I guess every cloud does have a silver lining . . .
Hey! If a recession is good, wouldn’t a depression be even better?
Jennifer said,
April 11, 2008 at 4:31
The fact is, this may be the only country song ever written about science.
Soj said,
April 11, 2008 at 4:39
Jesus, I am in the wrong profession - being a wingnut columnist has to be literally the easiest job on the planet:
And think of this: Despite housing woes, credit problems and the sub-prime virus, banks are still lending to businesses. In other words, we don’t have a genuine, across-the-board credit crunch. This is very good news, and more evidence that an economic contraction will not be drawn out.
Uh, housing “woes” et al aside (”woe” honey, we’re homeless!) there’s no credit crunch because the Fed tipped over the outhouse and flooded the market with an increasingly worthless currency.
Case in point: oil was $20 a barrel in 2003 and is over $100 now but it still sells for approximately the same amount of gold per barrel.
Pollyanna said,
April 11, 2008 at 4:43
That’s the spirit, Mr. Kudlow. Any Gloomy Gus fretting about $4 gas should just turn his frown upside down. If your house is reposessed, that’s one less monthly bill to worry about!
After all, you can lose the shirt off your back, but you’re never fully dressed without a smile!
Arky The Islahomobamaist said,
April 11, 2008 at 4:50
No silly! He’s hoping people will get so desperate for cash they’ll touch his pulsating pocket pal.
Slightly OT: Has anyone else noticed ICE has stepped up its illegal immigrant sweeps of late? Now, I’m not saying anyone in bAdmin said:
“Whoops! Better get those poorly paid foreign laborers out of here so we can put some poorly paid domestic laborers in their place before they start to revolt. Can we take away their guns? No? Damn. Well, better get ‘em some jobs then, by now they should be grateful enough not to complain.”
But I’m just sayin’…
middlenamedave said,
April 11, 2008 at 4:55
Survival of the fittest; thinning out the herd; natural selection…
It’s all right there in the Bible.
jim said,
April 11, 2008 at 4:59
I think you’re right.
This is EXACTLY the sort of pseudo-logic engendered by a surplus of high-octane powder. But to be fair, it might not be coke - it might be a snootful of crank instead!
Give that man 2 more rails & he’ll be blaming the recession on Clinton.
If he hasn’t done so already.
middlenamedave said,
April 11, 2008 at 5:05
he’ll be blaming the recession on Clinton.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Recession’s gonna save us.
High-fives for Bush!
Anne Laurie said,
April 11, 2008 at 5:06
It was, I think, Andrew Mellon (Treasury Secretary to Harding, Coolidge and Hoover–now there’s a resume builder, huh?) who said that assets return to their rightful owners during a depression.
So, Kudlow is just hoping that in recessions, some of the assets return to the elite, of which he is sure he is a part.
Republicans… inventors of the modern science of trickle-on economics.
Montag nails it. Another version of this is “Depressions are God’s way of solving the servant problem”…
Andrew Mellon, incidentally, was Richard Mellon Scaife’s great-uncle. As the Doughy Pantload might say, “Ah, nepotism — is there anything it *can’t* do?”
Anne Laurie said,
April 11, 2008 at 5:14
Has anyone else noticed ICE has stepped up its illegal immigrant sweeps of late? Now, I’m not saying anyone in bAdmin said: “Whoops! Better get those poorly paid foreign laborers out of here so we can put some poorly paid domestic laborers in their place before they start to revolt. Can we take away their guns? No? Damn. Well, better get ‘em some jobs then, by now they should be grateful enough not to complain.”
Nah, Arky, I don’t think the ICE’s masters thought any further ahead than: “Your job was outsourced to China and your house is being foreclosed? No, no, don’t look at the CEOs whining about how their annual bonuses have dropped from the tens of millions to the mere millions — blame it on the Illegals! Darn those swarthy aliens for stealing America’s wealth!”
GSD said,
April 11, 2008 at 6:20
The recession will be great for me. I’m a robber who preys on the ostentatiously wealthy.
-GSD
Sophist, FCD said,
April 11, 2008 at 6:24
If you can make one heap of everyone else’s winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and tell them that it’s really all for the best
And they should just stop breathing words about their loss,
Yours is the Earth and probably a book deal from Regnery,
And - which is more - you’ll be able to afford a ton of blow, my son!
OneMan said,
April 11, 2008 at 7:35
It’s amazing the way the storyline has gone over the last few months: from “Recession? What recession?” to “Well it’s not going to be bad, just a little slow down” to “Recessions are just like a good enema. They clear out the system!”
It’s like every other fucking thing these people and their apologists have done. “We need tax cuts for the rich because the economy is overheating!” “We need tax cuts for the rich because the economy is so bad!”
“We need to invade Iraq because of WMD!” “We need to invade Iraq because Al-Qaeda!” “We need to invade Iraq to spread democracy like a delicate flower in the desert!”
These fuckers just pick an outcome and fit their arguments around it. And people like Kudlow are happy to be their mouthpiece. Blow? He doesn’t need blow, it would just get caught in the presidential jism on his upper lip.
Some Guy said,
April 11, 2008 at 8:23
OneMan, don’t forget all the neocons who root for another massive terrorist attacks (the more Americans dead and dying, the better for them) so that we “wake up” to the threat and stop questioning their wars. Egypt, Palestine, and the rest of those raghead nations won’t invade themselves. And we’ve got all those nukes just laying around. Sure would be a shame to have them go to waste….
Lesley said,
April 11, 2008 at 9:01
I hope his roof caves in, he gets caught in a hurricane while Bush is still in power, and he’s mugged on the next street corner. I also hope he’s in one of those FAA regulated planes due to crash at any moment. There’s nothing like a thousand near misses and plane crashes to make you realize how great self-regulation really is.
These assholes will defend and support every heinous consequence of the corrupt government they support. AAASSSSHOOOLES.
RandomObserver said,
April 11, 2008 at 9:50
This kind of positive talk about recessions is always some vague claptrap about tightening the belt and trimming excess and bringing balance to the force. It’s all so plainly crazy so they obscure it with terrible metaphors.
RandomObserver said,
April 11, 2008 at 9:53
I believe it was also Andrew Mellon who said something to the effect that recessions force people to work harder, and thus be more honest and of greater moral fiber.
Keyser Soze said,
April 11, 2008 at 13:57
Of course, so does killing your spouse or burning your house down. Thanks, Larry, I’m sure we all feel better now.
Hey… it worked for me!
mingo said,
April 11, 2008 at 14:05
These “recession is our friend!!!” statements also have a strong parallel to the meme morph of “global warming is junk science!!!” to “global warming is good, it will feed the hungry!!!”, once it became apparent that climate change was, well, not junk science. I feel that when the right-wing starts cooing their concern about the poor and hungry, you need to guard your butt, because it’s about to be screwed.
I have always felt the neocon economic policies had fixing the “servant problem” at their black little heart.
Doodle Bean said,
April 11, 2008 at 14:21
I’ve been listening to a complete .mp3 History of the United States to while away the long hours at work and recently got up to the 1920’s and the Great Depression.
The similarities to today are striking. The ‘experts’, politicians and pundits of that time were saying the exact same stuff about booming real estate values and the surging stock market — and then the crashing down of both — right down to Herbert Hoover declaring that the government need not do anything about the crashes since a recession cleared out the system.
Hoover believed that ‘bad’ companies would fail; ‘good’ companies would survive and the American people would work harder and cheaper, thus increasing their ‘moral fiber’. That’s why we remember him to one of the greatest Presidents of all time!
Well, and for his violent repression of the Bonus Marchers…
Anna Granfors said,
April 11, 2008 at 14:38
“make poverty history! cheaper drugs, NOW! make poverty history! cheaper drugs, NOW!”
-Frank Gallagher, Shameless (UK Channel 4)
pedestrian said,
April 11, 2008 at 14:43
I just finished Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen. It was nostalgialicious. It was written in 1931, so the author’s naivity about just how much things were changing and how bad they would get adds an extra layer of sadly cuteness. I think that a similar book could be written about the rip-roaring 90s and all the silly little things that used to seem so big and important back when peace and prosperity reigned. Might be bad luck though.
Doodle Bean said,
April 11, 2008 at 15:20
Pedestrian,
I’ll have to read that. Although it just might splode my brain. That’s what hearing all those stupid quotes from the 1920’s and 30’s have been doing.
Ka-BOOM!
(Lex) It's All In My Head (Azagthoth) said,
April 11, 2008 at 15:20
Hey, I can comment again. Darned Firefox….
I love this recession, I just wanted everyone to know this. The mere idea that I cannot sell my home keeps me satisfied and fulfilled. Especially having spent a little over $3,000 out of pocket over what my health insurance will cover to get my diagnosis, this has me just over the moon (which I expect to trickle down to within reach at any moment). I can’t wait to get more drugs for my condition and cheaper, too!
TownHall really covers my needs, and their new health insurance plan is what I can’t wait to sign up for. Ahh, the Mos Isley of the web, I’ve even heard rumors that they will soon add music from the tavern in Star Wars to their main page. Remember, the Empire is soooo good….can’t wait until they buy my house and pay for my next round of MRIs.
histrogeek said,
April 11, 2008 at 15:31
“If anything, recessions make for clean starts.”
The same thing can be said of revolutions (except of course that the latter has a chance of ridding us of privileged morons like Kudlow).
(Lex) It's All In My Head (Azagthoth) said,
April 11, 2008 at 15:32
Pollyanna–nonsense. When I just paid $50 to fill up my gas tank the other day I felt very patriotic. I even sang the National Anthem, hand over my heart and all, unlike that America hating Barack HUSSEIN Obama. Paying $1,400 out of pocket for MRIs finally made me explode with patriotic fervor and I ended up making a “Bush Girl” video as a response to the Obama Girl. Then I made a Rove Girl, then my piece de resistance, Cheney Girl. I write the White House every day hoping to be the next intern to visit the Oval Office. I mean, if those rotten evolutionary biologists claim that we are so related to chimps, then they should have no problem with me having “relations” with the Chimp in Chief, should they? I even have bought some of the finest cigars.
Anything to escape this erratic weather, really. I mean, all of this global warming that isn’t really happening has me quite confused about what to wear. Snow Friday night and 70 degrees a few days later? I’m just happy that God is continuing his creation science. Go God! Woohoo! Big waves from the Land of the Free, big guy!!
(Arky, as usual, I LOVE the new name;)
tigrismus said,
April 11, 2008 at 16:10
Some well-insulated power-of-positive-thinking asswipe was talking up recession as being good for our health because we wouldn’t be able to overeat any more and we’d probably be walking more. We’d also have better mental health because we wouldn’t be overworking so much. We’d have so much more high quality personal time to better ourselves durring a recession.
Jesus Christ, some people have no sense, no memory, and no compassion.
pedestrian said,
April 11, 2008 at 16:18
I’m just waiting for a special recession edition of The Secret that reveals how to keep your property values high, your job secure, and your prices low with the power of happy brain waves. You know, like all the fat cats do.
justbrent said,
April 11, 2008 at 17:13
I expect that, any day now, we will get the wingnut grand unification theory. It will go like this:
The recession is good because it “right-sizes” the economy and American businesses, keeping us competitive in the world market. Fortunately for you, we’ve been fighting initiatives on global warming, so the weather should be nice and toasty for all you recently homeless folks. In addition, with the Fed slashing interest rates during this time of real estate deflation, there will be lots of opportunities for the rich to grab up super-cheap foreclosures which they can rent or sell back to you in a few years at an obscene profit. Then, having sucked up an even bigger portion of the nation’s wealth, they will finally be able to lead us to the utopian ideal that has eluded America for so long. It’s a little thing that we like to call Neo-Feudalism.
jbofmo said,
April 11, 2008 at 18:02
Just last year a wingnut friend just couldn’t debate it any longer and says “Shut the hell up about Iraq. At least we’re still making money!” Wonder what he’ll say now?
thedarkbackward said,
April 11, 2008 at 19:23
I’ll be darned if I’m not getting flashbacks to THE SHOCK DOCTRINE.
A little chaos, a stern economic shakeout and VIOLA! Time to squeeze in those radical “free” market reforms!
Arky "I Just Get These Headaches" The Blasphemer said,
April 11, 2008 at 20:33
Ha ha ha … [sigh]
Duros Hussein 62 said,
April 11, 2008 at 23:34
A recession only means that the economic troubles are in their last throes. Bring it on!
This recession could last six days, maybe six weeks… I doubt six months.