Republicans & Conservatives Archives

Christine,
I notice the conservative point of view comes up a little short when it is time to discuss the economy. It’s kind of thin, isn’t it? Hardly surprising. Conservative economic policy since 2000 advocated deregulation, privitization, tax cuts for the wealthy, and free trade (outsourcing). This economic policy saw the national debt go from @ $5 trillion to $10 trillion and annual deficits spiral out of control, especially if you include the cost of Iraq War, which conservatives hilariously pretend did not count. This conservative economic philosophy saw job creation go into the tank.

During the four years of the Carter administration, the US economy created @ 10 million non-farm payroll jobs. Under Reagan, @ 16 million were created in eight years, and under Clinton, @ 22 million. But under Bush only about 1 million were created in eight years. To put this EPIC FAIL into perspective, the economy should add about 100,000 - 150,000 jobs per month just to keep up with population growth.

The climactic failure of conservative economic policy came in September 2008. It was horrifying- in terms of the economy and our jobs and our houses, it was the scariest moment most of us have ever experienced. The catastrophic collapse of the financial sector could only be addressed by massive government intervention, and it was, despite conservatives. In fact, the largest single day point drop of the Dow Jones Industrial Average came on September 29th, 2008, when House Republicans almost unanimously rejected the stimulus package.

That was conservatism in action.

It failed.

Today, Obama has been successful in the first step of salvaging the economy. Thanks to massive government intervention, a slide into another Great Depression seems to have been averted, at great cost. The first step has been accomplished. We’re now transitioning to the second step: job creation.

This will be every bit as difficult as the first step. Conservatives will fight it every step of the way. The liberals saved the economy of the United States of America. Let’s see if liberals can accomlish the next step.

RE Reagan, Eighteen million new jobs were created, while inflation significantly decreased ,Not bad considering we’re in a bad recession for 2-3 years back then too, I probably am pushing my luck with my friend Phx8 :) If he had pulled the tax lever about 1986-1987 and increased taxes his debt would have been payed off and don’t you think it acts like a air brake and slows down a red hot economy a tad while reducing the debt and inflation, Clinton did it.

Phx8

And how many jobs were created in Obama’s first year?

We know that the deficit has gone into double digits as % GDP in President Obama’s first year.

Democrats have controlled Congress for almost three years now. Their idea of economics seems to be borrow and spend. The Republicans in congress made that mistake 2002-2006. The Democrats have managed to triple down on that mistake. Those are not really new ideas. More like back to the stagflation times.

In fact, the largest single day point drop of the Dow Jones Industrial Average came on September 29th, 2008, when House Republicans almost unanimously rejected the stimulus package.

Single point drop yes. Single PERCENTAGE of the DOW drop? No. There were nearly a dozen larger drops in the DOW between the Great Depression and the ‘day of evil’ you quote.

You also neglect to mention that the Congress was controlled by Democrats when all of this occurred, and they were in control mismanaging our country for almost 2 years, preventing any changes to Freddie and Fannie, complaining about Iraq but daring not end our participation, tried to pin the ‘failures’ on Glass-Steagall (even Geitner disagrees with this) but ignore that it was the Democratic Party that helped pass and signed it into law AND not one time during their control of congress TO THIS DAY have they attempted to re-implement it, etc.

Your simplistic view of what happened over the past few years is obviously either intended to convince less intelligent voters to vote liberal OR you actually believe it… Either case is unfortunate.

Rodney,
Check the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During the Reagan administration, 16.1 million non-farm payroll jobs were created.

Check both Christine’s and Rhinehold’s comments for one of the oldest tricks in the book. Whenever a conservative is on the losing side of an issue, they will take a horrendous number and cite it as a percentage of some other number, hoping to thereby make the failure seem less hideous.

Rhinehold,
If Libertarians can ever actually come up with actions to address recessions, let me know- you know, something other than what led to the recession in the first place, like tax cuts, deregulation, privatization, outsourcing, and so on- Everyone would love to hear it.

phx8

you have to use the numbers that appropriate for the context. Sometimes the % makes more sense.

For example, Obama’s deficit is much bigger than any deficit in the history of the world, but as a % of GDP it is only the biggest since the emergency of World War II.

I guess Obama’s numbers are hideous (in your words) not matter how we manipulate the numbers.

You didn’t answer re how many Jobs were created (or destroyed) in Obama’s first year. You may think it is unfair, but then you use those same tricks with Bush and Reagan, who inherited downturns and with Clinton who inherited an upswing.

We did talk about lag time in the original post. Our liberal friends seem to understand that concept only when it makes them look better.

Rhinhold’s comment is good re who controlled congress when the actual downturn came. In fact, if you just look at correlations, you find that when Dems controlled one or both houses of Congress (i.e. 2001-2 an 2007-9) were downturns.

phx8,

We have, several times. You have to take your fingers out of your ears and stop saying “lalalalala”. In fact, I made this clear last September. AND, I pointed this out to you ALREADY this past March.

http://www.watchblog.com/democrats/archives/006465.html#277264

And we get to have the same conversation again because you will, predictably, tell me that this is meaningless and it was Glass-Stegall, against the observation of Geitner who says that Glass-Stegall was inconsequential *AND* the evidence that proves that not only did the repeal of Glass-Stegall not cause the problems last year, it helped prevent it from being even worse.

BTW, your first ‘mistake’ is thinking that the recession was caused by tax cuts, deregulation, privatization or outsourcing.

It was a direct result of the gap between money it costs to loan money and what the market was willing to pay for those loans due to arbitrary percentage rates set by the FED to help the Republican administration prop up their economic numbers for political reasons. The reason the ‘collapse’ of that situation was so bad was because the banks that had those loans on their books went from full value to no value due to over-regulation by the government in response to Enron. Had those rules been relaxed in September 2008 instead of May 2009 the ‘recession’ would have been much milder, over sooner and Obama would now be able to govern better without worrying about the crushing debt we will be occurring from his and Bush’s short-sighted bailouts.

Well, provided he won, that required the congress to do NOTHING that would make the recession short lived so that people would vote him in, so now they have to clean up their political gambit with much more drastic measures while pointing their fingers and trying to deflect all blame.

It also assumes the flawed ideology that the ‘economy’ is supposed to be growing all of the time. That thinking led us to where we are now and both parties are guilty. The worst problem is the arrogance in thinking that you should be directing people’s money against their wishes to begin with for the betterment of ‘society’. But that’s a much larger (and different) topic…

Christine,
I don’t think it’s unfair to cite job losses during Obama’s first ten months in office. The economy started recording net job losses (non-farm payroll) in December 2007. The peak ocurred in January, as Obama assumed office. As of Friday, we’re nearly back to even on monthly non-farm payroll employment numbers.

Earlier this year, the concensus was that job losses would peak @ 12% on the unemployment rate. Now it appears the peak ocurred at ‘only’ 10.2% on the unemployment rate. According to the conventional wisdom, even if non-farm payroll numbers turn positive in January, to replace all the jobs lost since the beginning of this recession would take until 2017. It has been that bad.

That is why it is so important for Obama’s administration to implement policies which create jobs. Going green is a natural choice. Just as importantly, creating jobs at an accelerated rate will help reduce the deficit, which is the third step in regaining economic health.

There is plenty to criticize about Obama, but on balance, I admire him. He is taking a horrendous situation and succeeding in bringing us back.

Rhinehold,
One area I would criticize Obama is for his reliance upon Geithner and Summers in Treasury. Geitherner repped NY for the Federal Reserve, and Summers advocated the policies which led to the current situation. Obama made the cautious choice, and rode Geithner and Summers, opting to recreate the financial system as much as possible, rather than instituting truly radical changes. I think Obama missed a chance. I think he missed a bet. The system is the same as it was before the meltdown, and virtually everyone would agree that must change. The lack of transparency is terrible, and the Federal Reserve ran amok. Barnanke was partially responsible for the collapse, and the same applies for the economy’s resurrection. There is legislation brewing… stay tuned…

Phx8

There was no consensus about unemployment reaching 12% and the CBO projected employment to grow starting next year. President Obama promised unemployment wouldn’t top 8%. We he that much out of touch?

So, when all the job gains of the Obama Administration are tallied, do you think his four year term will be a time of significant job creation? Even with his tripling of the already high deficit.

I am starting to think that this recession is like the H1N1. There was a lot of hysteria. The Obama Administration’s response was sub-par. But the situation is turning out better than the hysteria worked up would indicate and Obama wants credit - like the rooster for the sunrise.

Christine,
The projectionthat unemployment wouldn’t top 8% was ridiculous. Anyone who knows anything at all about the economy knows that was ridiculous.

Will we look back at the end of Obama’s first four years and see it as a time of significant job creation? Great question. Obama is very cautious and careful. On the one hand, that is a good quality in a president. On the other hand, it prevents him from rolling the dice, and taking bold and risky action. The situation right now is very difficult. The deficit is big and it is scary, and it poses a threat of crippling any actions the Obama administration takes. At the same time, the moment the economy becomes healthy, oil prices will take off again along with other commodities. So it’s tough.

The only way I see significant job creation taking place is if we go green, and begin a crash transformation away from a fossil fuel economy; and the only way Obama will take that risky course is if a crisis makes it obviously necessary. That crisis would be a weather related one. A crisis caused by weather is not necessarily the same as a crisis caused by climate, although it can be; in any event, the public will certainly confuse the two. What I’m saying is, it will take a major shock for us to make the changes we need to make.

Anyone who knows anything at all about the economy knows that was ridiculous.

Which is why we knew that the stimulus was unnecessary. Obama sold the power to spend that much money on the fact that it would keep unemployment down and people believed him. It will come back to bite him, it either makes him look lost or a liar.

The congress could have resolved the issues of a lack of liquidity due to the accounting rules the government was forcing onto banks, but chose instead to win an election. And you want people to ‘just trust them and give them the benefit of the doubt’ when they have shown extreme gitishness to this point?

Rhinehold,

Most laughable line to date:

The congress could have resolved the issues of a lack of liquidity due to the accounting rules the government was forcing onto banks, but chose instead to win an election.

Wish 2009 was on their .. http://www.bls.gov/ “Manufacturing” is the real Big Loser wow.

On the Forefront, Corning Inc. is focusing its research into boosting the efficiency of thin-film solar panels, such as this one, which are less costly to make than silicon wafers, as it tries to tap the expansion of the solar-electricity industry, The riddle looks like it might be solved by the use of Optics how to make an affordable “Thin” solar panel with the same or better efficiencies of the much costlier thick solar panels.. Quote,
“The deposition temperatures of silicon tandem are low, but the problem with silica is that is doesn’t absorb light very well,” said Hall.

The solution? Developing ways to cause the light that hits the panel to get scattered sideways instead of passing straight through, so it has a longer path line to get absorbed.

“The market is real. It already exists and the demand for glass in that market is significant,” said Fadul.

gergle,

Yes, I know you find it funny. Most Americans aren’t really laughing much though…

Tell me, which thing did congress change in March 2009?

a) relaxed the mark-to-market rules to allow banks to show some value for derivatives there were no market for anymore

OR

b) re-institute Glass-Steagal?

And why did this not occur in September or October of 2008, when it would have done much more good?

Carter 8 million ,Reagan 16.78 million, 2.5-2.8 million lost jobs in the recession of 1981-1982 When tall Paul brought down Inflation, Damn good numbers by Both if you consider the population and the huge problems and challenges they both addressed..

Rhinehold,

You seem to be under the presumption that I think relaxing mark to market ( or more precisely, fine tuning it) was a bad thing. I don’t think that. I think it was smart and DID help liquidity.

To presume it caused the liquidity crisis is the joke.

gergle,

The crisis was a direct result of the decision by the FED to keep interest rates UNBELIEVABLY low, much lower than the market was willing to pay, which created the derivative market. The first time that the derivatives of home mortgages was looked into was in the 1980s, but there was no room between the interest rates and market to allow it to create wealth for people who just shuffle money around.

The fact that Bernanke still refuses to accept that this is the case is the main reason he should no longer be in his job.

It was inevitable that what happened last year was going to happen as long as it was extremely cheap to get a home loan. And the Republicans in the presidency and the Democrats running the congress did nothing to prevent it from occurring.

However, once the market did crash, had the congress relaxed those rules, as was called for by many of us at the time, we wouldn’t have needed the stimulus (perhaps TARP but I still say no) and fewer people would have lost money from their 401ks…

And we wouldn’t be looking at severe inflation thanks to an unprecedented flood of phony money into the economy that we have seen over the past year…

Why didn’t the Democrats take this action when it was being called for in the run up to the election? Why did they wait until March of the next year?

Was it because the worse the economy was, the better the chance for Obama to win the presidency? Remember, when it started to hit the fan, McCain was leading in the polls…

Rhinehold,
The development of the derivative market had nothing to do with whether interest rates were high or low. Derivatives would have developed the same regardless of the levels of interst rates. The failure came about when the markets moved against real estate. Everyone involved assumed real estate values would never decline enough to matter. Whoops. In addition, everyone assumed the credit agencies were correctly assessing risk. Re-whoops.

The numbers of foreclosures were bad, of course, but they were never extraordinary for an economic downturn. What turned the real estate downturn into a catastrophe was the failure of the derivatives markets. By their nature, derivatives provided leverage. They magnified losses so much that is was impossible for holders to sustain. Without the separation provided by Glass Steagall, (a repeal sponsored by Phil Gramm), and without the regulation that was specifically prevented by legislation by Phil Gramm, there was nothing to prevent that magnification through leveraging from generating multi-trillion dollar losses. There was nothing to prevent the losses from spreading beyond the investment banks, and into the commercial banks and insurance companies.

Phil Gramm, you may recall, was McCain’s economic advisor. When people started complaining about an economic downturn, Gramm called Americans ‘whiners.’ He insisted it was all in their head. McCain repeated again and again that the economy was ‘fundamentally sound.’

I agree, Barnanke needs to go.

I disagree about the resurgence of inflation. The opposite problem, deflation, remains the primary concern. When the econmy resumes its growth, inflation may very well be ignited, but it will be commodity fueled (like Oil), and not a result of monetary policy.

The development of the derivative market had nothing to do with whether interest rates were high or low. Derivatives would have developed the same regardless of the levels of interst rates.

No, the notion of derivatives on mortgages was looked into in the 1980s but there was no money in it, precisely because of the interest rates matching what the economy was doing, not artificially set in order to try to make the economy do something else.

Your attempt to lay all of this at the feet of Phil Gramm has been disputed, even by Geitner, already. You should really get on board. In fact, the ability for those institution who took advantage of the elimination of Glass Steagall helped those companies find liquidity in other areas of their country and stay in business. The businesses that DID fail were the ones that DIDN’T take advantage.

You’ve swallowed a bill of good, phx8, in order to defeat McCain. That is over, you should accept that you were mislead and move on. And in case you don’t believe it, answer these three questions:

1) Why was it that the institutions that failed were NOT ones who took advantage of the end of Glass Steagall, the ones who didn’t fail did.

2) Why hasn’t this congress reinstituted Glass Steagall at any point in the past year, if it is so destructive to our way of life.

3) Why did Timothy Geitner say, when asked about why Glass Steagall hasn’t been put back into place, that in his opinion, noting having Glass Steagall was not the cause of our current financial crisis and was inconsequential.

Rhinehold,
The derivatives markets DID exist prior to the repeal of Glass Steagall. However, it was not a large market, it was limited to investment banks, and it was an least nominally regulated. Repealing Glass Steagall opened the markets to many more buyers. And the Commodoties amendment inserted by Gramm ensured the unregulated markets could operate without government oversight.

You write: “Your attempt to lay all of this at the feet of Phil Gramm has been disputed, even by Geitner…”

1) Why do you think Lehman Brothes was allowed to fail? No one talks much about it, but Lehman was the investment bank most deeply into the derivatives market. More than any other bank, Lehman liked to take risks. MORE THAN ANY OTHER INSTITUTION, LEHMAN BENEFITED FROM THE REPEAL OF GLASS STEAGALL. Geithner, Paulsen, and others were more than happy to see Lehman go down.

2) I guess you didn’t know- there is legislation to re-introduce a version of Glass Steagall.

3) Rhinehold, who do you think Geithner IS? Read his wikipedia bio. Geithner may be Obama’s Secretary of the Treasury, but he is every bit as much of a conservative as Paulsen, Bernanke, and crew. He is competent enough to put Humpty Dumpty together again for the time being.

phx8, bringing up Lehman Brothers is interesting, I was unaware that they were a commercial bank… Let’s take a look at what Glass-Stegall did:

What Gramm-Leach-Bliley did was to allow commercial banks to get into investment banking. Commercial banks are the type that accept deposits and make loans such as mortgages; investment banks accept money for investment into stocks and commodities. In 1998, regulators had allowed Citicorp, a commercial bank, to acquire Traveler’s Group, an insurance company that was partly involved in investment banking, to form Citigroup. That was seen as a signal that Glass-Steagall was a dead letter as a practical matter, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley made its repeal formal. But it had little to do with mortgages.

Lehman Brothers was an investment bank, that was it. HOW did they benefit from Glass-Steagall’s repeal? You say it benefited the most, but I’m confused as they remained independent despite the repeal.

As far as legislation to re-introduce Glass-Steagall, let’s see it pass. There is legislation introduced to enact the Fair Tax as well, but that means little… If it was important, it would have been passed as one of the first things this administration did. It should have been one of the first things that the last congress did. But, reality isn’t measuring up to your assertions.

BTW: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html

every bit as much of a conservative as Paulsen, Bernanke, and crew

I wonder who you would consider left in your view of the world…

Greenspan, Bernanke, etc can all SAY they are conservative, but I don’t think that means much when they don’t follow their own views. The fact is that government intervention into our economy, attempting to obtain some specific result, has once again caused unintended consequences that has put people who had nothing to do with the mess in financial straights. We should stop messing around with people’s lives like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nppKMomMP-4 Lee said you will never go back to a V8 again..A 1984 commercial for Chrysler with legendary chairman Lee Iacocca.

I worked for Shearson Lehman Brothers. They were an investment bank, a very aggressive investment bank. They generated their revenues in the ’00s by making overly agressive deals in the derivatives markets.

Rhinehold,

You’re really beating that political link to death to try and make a phony economic argument. Can’t find any others to support that thin reed?

phx8,

I have no doubt that Lehman Brothers made aggressive investments. But that is besides the point, it did not benefit from the repeal of Glass-Steagall, so your suggestion that it benefited the MOST from that repeal when it had nothing to do with the operation of the company is obviously wrong.

Glass-Steagall is a RED HERRING only in place to attack McCain during the election to win the presidency. When it comes to actual fact around the economic issues we are seeing, it was and is inconsequential.

gergle,

I have many links that all say the same thing. Would it matter to you? You have made up your mind that the suggestion (shared by Bill Clinton, Phil Gramm, Timothy Geitner, Factcheck, etc…) that the repeal of Glass-Steagall was not a factor with the economic issues that we are seeing now, and will not discuss it as a possibility that you could be wrong, so I’m not sure what the benefit to me is to continuously try to give you fact after fact after fact when you reject them all out of hand.

To you, if it the end view is that you are wrong, the argument must be ‘false’.

I’ll gladly read any links you provide, I won’t pre agree with them, if that is your desire.

I’m curious if you’ve heard of Wachovia, or Bank of America?

Do you think their balance sheets were effected by repeal of Glass Steagel?

If they had not invested in derivatives, would Wachovia be history, or B of A have not needed a capital infusion from the Fed?

Why do agree with Geitner, yet accuse him of malfeasance? That sounds a bit confusing. Why don’t you agree with Paul Volcker on this issue. Wasn’t he a hero for raising interest rates in the 70’s per your dialogue that low interest is bad?

Rhinehold, having access to links saying this or that, is meaningless. I have a link which allows ALL misdeeds in the world to escape personal responsibility by arguing, and I quote: Satan and demons are real and just as active today.

My above link lacks any empirical, replicable, or verifiable evidence whatsoever, to make its argument. The question is, do your or other’s links contain valid, reliable, and empirically verifiable information, and are the conclusions that derive from their fact base, consistent with the rules of logic and rational deduction?

FactCheck, corrects its own errors. Doesn’t get better than that. FactCheck researches the record and reports differences between the actual (verifiable and replicable) and the false, distorted, and misrepresented.

I am aware of Clinton’s and Gramm’s defense of GLB Act, biased and self-interested as it is for them with Clinton signing it and Gramm sponsoring it, but, can you provide any evidence that Geithner has said he believes as you assert, that the GLB Act was not a factor in creating the economic meltdown of 2008? I have researched it, and can find no evidence to support your claim.

Thanks.

Very important meeting today with Bernanke concerning interest rates if you haven’t noticed the unemployment rate declined in November to 10 percent from 10.2 percent in October and some improvement in the manufacturing front with increased hiring, Quote ” Good news is going to become bad news for the market because one of the pillars that this rally has been built on — zero interest rates — is now under review and in all likelihood is going to change,” Personally i don’t think all the negativity toward Ben by a few in the Senate and Congress is warranted right now he admitted he made some mistakes in the beginning well who in the hell hasn’t ? Folks are always looking for a “Scapegoat” well if you need one look to the Congress (both sides) and Greenspan and Bush they were running the show, Bernanke and Geitner and our President have done a good job considering the challenges they faced, No easy task with the same bunch of Ideologues in the Congress many of them need to go.

The federal funds rate, which had averaged 11.2% in 1979, was raised by Volcker to a peak of 20% in June 1981. The prime rate rose to 21.5% in ‘81 as well.[7]

These changes in policy contributed to the significant recession the U.S. economy experienced in the early 1980s, which included the highest unemployment levels since the Great Depression.” Volcker’s Fed also elicited the strongest political attacks and most widespread protests in the history of the Federal Reserve”
But they came down Volcker did his job and took a lot of hell for it, Then close to 17 million jobs were created, Reagan hired him back for another term.

can you provide any evidence that Geithner has said he believes as you assert, that the GLB Act was not a factor in creating the economic meltdown of 2008? I have researched it, and can find no evidence to support your claim.

Geitner testifying before the Joint Economic Comittee

Burgess “Where is the signed legislation reinstating Glass-Steagall?”

Geitner “Actually, I would not support reinstating Glass-Steagall, and I don’t actually believe that the end of Glass-Steagall played a significant role in the cause of this crisis.”

Starts about 1:30 in.

http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=8387

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Administration-to-slash-apf-2885874493.html?x=0 A Treasury official said that the administration now believes the cost of the financial rescue program will be at least $200 billion below the $341 billion estimate it made in August.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the administration’s new projection has not been released, said the lower estimate “”reflected faster repayments by big banks and less spending on some of the rescue programs as the financial sector recovered from its free fall more …

Rhinehold, thank you for the source. I appreciate it.

Begs the question, is Geithner that stupid on this issue, or, is he publicly defending his party and former president for having gone along with GLB without reinstating some of the key protections of the Glass-Steagal Act?

Glass-Steagal helped enormously to prevent Too Big To Fail institutions that resulted from the mergers of insurance companies with consumer banking with investment banking, with brokerage houses, unleashed by the passage of the Gramm Leach Bliley Act. Had Glass-Steagal not been overturned, the need for taxpayer rescue of so many interdependent and leveraged banking institutions would have been significantly reduced, at the least. The FDIC could have performed as intended backing the depositors in consumer banks, and the others could have been allowed to fail, harming only investors who took that risk, and not consumer depositors. In addition, Consumer banks would never have been allowed to leverage their mortgage backed colateralized loans to the extent that the credit default swap markets permitted by the investment banks, insurance companies, and other merged lines of business financial institutions.

The GLB Act did not create the CountryWide’s business model, or hedge fund markets with credit default swaps, and therefore, is not solely responsible for the Great Recession of 2008. But, it did create Too Big To Fail institutions backed by consumer deposits, 401K’s, pension plans. Which exacerbated the Recession enormously by wiping out so much of consumer savings and investments and causing the halt to consumption and increased savings which deepened and protracted this Recession, and required deficit spending to prevent a financial sector domino effect of collapses.

Spend it on the “Infrastructure” that will create more jobs from white collar to blue collar, That’s where we get our biggest bang for the buck, Think FDR, JFK and IKE :) Stipulations yes all American made products and labor and companies .

Rodney,

Just a note, most cement(not concrete, the part that makes concrete gain strength) comes from abroad these days. It’s cheaper because the US has tight air pollution regulations that mexico, thailand, korea and china do not.

Yes i know Greg, That’s something they have to weigh out with many products from over their that will end up contributing vastly more pollution and co2 and encourage slave labor, Or make it here for a few more dollars, Look at all that bad drywall from China Yikes..

Come to think about it in the late 1970s and early 1980s china sent millions of sheets of sheet metal here because Kaiser and US steel were having trouble meeting EPA with the early pollution controls, A union shop i worked at bought several tons of it to meet the demand , It felt really thin I put a micrometer on it the 24 gauge was really 28 gauge they dipped it in the zinc a few extra times to try to make it thicker :) we couldn’t use that crap.

Did accounting help cause the financial crisis? http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/108358/confronting-high-risk-and-banks?sec=topStories&pos=4&asset=&ccode=