Services firms expand at slowest pace in 17 months

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ECONOMY_SERVICES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-08-03-14-56-46

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Service businesses such as restaurants, hotels and financial companies experienced their weakest growth in 17 months in July.

The report Wednesday from the Institute for Supply Management confirms other data that show the economy is struggling two years after the recession officially ended.

The trade group of purchasing executives said its index for services companies fell to 52.7, from 53.3 in June. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion.

A slumping service sector put Wall Street on track for another losing day. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 40 points in afternoon trading, the ninth straight day of declines.

[LetTimmySmoke]

1. This is the Milton Friedman endgame.

A bunch of large corporations flush with cash and nowhere to invest it, while demand and the economy is frozen due to lack of cash.

[texanwitch]

2. You would think that all the people with MBA degress would have figured this out.

People without money do not buy things or services.

Rich people can only buy so much.

[Newest Reality]

3. It's alright!

While the playing field is leveled here, the multinationals can sit and wait it out because they can always make money exploiting people somewhere else. Profit won't quit, even if it means we lose everything.

Profit has no altruism, (is that word obsolete yet) connected to its business ideology, unless you count the generous compassion to investors -- the majority of which are those who own controlling interests or who play as insiders.

The outcome of the profit-only model seems to be coming into clear view and the picture is getting sharper, whereas, once upon a time, it was sequestered in boardrooms and machinated by think tanks and groups like ALEC that remained under the radar.

Now, it is impossible not to see just how the current system fails us, our future, and generations to come, across-the-board.

We can extricate ourselves mentally, philosophically and ideologically, and most importantly, physically, by finding experimental life-rafts that lead to new ethics and potentials for a better vision of our 21st-Century, or we can stay immersed in this miserable end-game where we become powerless Serfs to the Lordship of the Wealthuglicans.

Clinging to the "hope" of going back to anything resembling the growth-based, consumer system here is only forestalling the realization that so many perfect storms are in progress, from resources to abject political failure, and so much is at stake that we have no other option but to opt-out and recreate the future according to an ethic of well-being and benefits to humans and life, not corporate power games and profit as the means to controlling us all indefinitely.

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

4. "Nonsense," they say.

The current system fails us? They scoff. Scoff! If it fails, it only seems to fail, and if it seems to fail that's because it isn't fully pure. There are still restraints! The practitioners of the system are constrained, thus the theory still hasn't been tested yet, not really, and nothing has been proven one way or another, we insist. This is just evidence that we need more of the same! There's proof of that, all right. Look, we've got numbers, and, we assure you, this is serious math, scientifically sound and everything! When you fail, do you question your orders? No! You take your whacking and try again, harder! With a bit of luck, it will work, next time around, and we'll get the massive population reduction we so badly need. Oops. That bit was not meant to be said aloud. Disregard. Go on, then, fearing and hating your neighbors and definitely not banding together and storming the fortresses of those who formulate and promote these theories. Look, over there! A tea party!