Monday, January 25, 2010

The Democrats' 5 Stages of Grief Over Health Care

"Therapists looking to study the five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, in that order—need look no further than Washington Democrats struggling to come to grips with the fact that the health care overhaul they spent nearly a year crafting is now dead. Every stage but the last is well represented. The only step left for Democrats is to accept that, after Republican Scott Brown's win in the Massachusetts special election, their signature reform effort is now lost."

~
Peter Suderman, Reason.com

5 Comments:

At 1/25/2010 8:10 PM, Blogger KO said...

I'll believe it's dead after the 2010 elections, and maybe not even then.

The Senate bill is still live for a year. That gives the House members a long time to realize that if they hate the current bill, they'll really hate whatever follows.

Plus Democrats are still walking the halls saying opinion will change after the bill is passed. Also that come election time, passing is better than not passing it.

The House Dems will put up a show, but when push comes to shove, I think somehow they'll pass the Senate bill.

 
At 1/25/2010 8:13 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

70 Percent of Americans Applaud Dems Losing Supermajority

Washington (CNN) - Americans are divided on whether Democratic control of Congress is good for the country, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday also indicates that 7 in 10 Americans believe that the Democrats' loss of their 60 seat supermajority in the Senate is a positive move for the country.

CNN Poll: Most Americans applaud Democrats' loss of supermajority

 
At 1/25/2010 8:40 PM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

There's still a lot of denial:

Revival in US GDP Growth Unlikely to Budge the Fed
25 Jan 2010

The initial look at fourth-quarter gross domestic product comes on Friday, and economists polled by Reuters are expecting it to show the economy advanced at a 4.5 percent clip.

Beneath the veneer, however, the recovery still looks fragile. A 4.5 percent annualized rate of growth would be the strongest since the first quarter of 2006, but the economic drivers look very different.

Back then, before the financial mess made borrowing costlier and scarcer, consumers and businesses were busy buying expensive items such as cars and office buildings. Final sales, a closely watched measure of the economy that strips out the impact of inventories, rose at a 5.9 percent rate.

In the latest quarter, the lion's share of growth likely came from changes in business inventories. Economists in the Reuters poll think final sales rose at a modest 1.6 percent pace.

David Rosenberg, chief economist with money manager Gluskin Sheff, said the Case-Shiller data in particular "looms very large." He thinks home prices may fall another 10-15 percent this year because of a huge supply of unsold homes.

"Few are braced for such a prospect," he said.

Rosenberg pointed out there were 2 million U.S. homes vacant and for sale, 3.4 million that were vacant but off the market, and 3.5 million occupied but listed for sale.

"So we have a supply, both potential and actual, of over 9 million homes nationwide," he said. "That is a huge overhang."

 
At 1/26/2010 11:00 AM, Blogger bix1951 said...

to Peak Trader
I am in the apartment business in West Los Angeles
things in my business continue to be fine in spite of what you hear about record high vacancies

We stay full
Sometimes we lower rents a little
no big deal
I don't understand why for most people lowering their price (or wage or salary) is such a catastrophe
business is always good
it is people
it is trade
everything else is just noise

 
At 1/26/2010 6:02 PM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

Bix1951, I agree people, if alive, will always need to live somewhere.

 

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