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Latest Articles: Economy
Obamanomic Operation "Twist" to Launch This Week~Print Mo' Money, Mo' Money, Mo' Money
Post Date: 2011-09-18 20:06:33 by Happy Quanzaa
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Week Ahead: Fed Expected to LaunchNew Program While Europe DebtTroubles Bubble The Fed in the week ahead is widely expected to pull the trigger on a new easing program, as the European debt crisis continues to boil. The housing market will also be a focus when new and existing home sales data is released Tuesday and Wednesday. New data this past week showed a jump in foreclosure starts, signaling that a big wave of foreclosed properties will hit the struggling housing market early next year. The Dow and S&P 500 had their best week since July and second best week since July 2010, as European officials showed support for Greece. The Nasdaq did even better — jumping 6.3 percent, ...
Texas unemployment rises, hurting Perry's job creation argument
Post Date: 2011-09-16 19:20:42 by war
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The unemployment rate in Texas rose to 8.5 percent in August, putting the state in the middle of the pack nationally and undercutting GOP presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry's argument that he is the best job-creator of the governors nationwide. The numbers were released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday. Perry's campaign blamed the increase on the national recession and President Obama's policies. "Texas is not immune to the effects of the national recession. Yet Texas continues to outperform the rest of the country and is still home to roughly 40% of the net new jobs created nationwide since June 2009," Perry spokesman Mark Miner said in an ...
Capitalism is the problem
Post Date: 2011-09-15 12:15:11 by Godwinson
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Capitalism is the problem By Steve Lachman Posted: 12:01am on Sep 15, 2011; Modified: 8:39am on Sep 15, 2011 Republicans and Democrats, in their own ways, try to solve our economic doldrums by placing Band- Aids on the systemic problems of capitalism. Republicans think reducing the tax burden on the wealthy would free up money to invest in capital, thereby creating jobs. Democrats think government investment in infrastructure creates jobs and future opportunity. Unfortunately for the Republicans, the tax burden on the wealthy is already so minimal that reducing it further wouldn’t add significantly to available capital. To the extent that money is freed up, it is more likely to ...
New report cites 'regulatory tsunami' under Obama
Post Date: 2011-09-14 18:59:09 by Happy Quanzaa
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The number and scope of federal regulations, along with the costs of those regulations and the number of federal regulators, are all growing despite an executive order from President Obama that was touted as a measure to curb over-regulation, according to a new report by the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee. The report says the Obama administration has "imposed 75 new major regulations costing more than $380 billion over ten years." In addition, the report says there are 219 more "economically significant regulations" in the works which will cost businesses $100 million or more each year -- for a minimum cost of $21 billion over ten years. The number of ...
Obama to Tout Jobs Act at Company that Outsources
Post Date: 2011-09-14 16:17:22 by Happy Quanzaa
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President Obama today is visiting a small North Carolina manufacturing company that has outsourced half its workforce to Costa Rica and whose president is a Democratic politician who has contributed $2,000 to Obama. WestStar Precision, a machine manufacturing firm headquartered in the Raleigh-Durham area, has a second plant located in San Jose, Costa Rica. There are 24 employees at each site, according to an NBC affiliate in Raleigh. Ironically, Obama is traveling to the company’s headquarters to tout his new proposal to create jobs in the United States. While he’s there, he can thank WestStar President Ervin Portman for his financial assistance. According to the website ...
Super Committee Riven By Major Divide Over Basic Facts
Post Date: 2011-09-14 13:33:30 by nolu chan
38 Comments
Super Committee Riven By Major Divide Over Basic Facts Brian Beutler | September 14, 2011, 5:59AM Political debates over deficits and debt are always marked by obfuscation and technicality. The numbers are huge and frightening, the terms obscure and technical, and the simple, fundamental point of the argument gets buried underneath this avalanche of panic and esoterica. But for a brief moment Tuesday, under questioning from Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), Congress' top economic analyst made it perfectly clear to everybody who was listening. "I think really the fundamental question for you is not how we got here, but where you want the country to go, what role do you and your ...
Poverty Rate Highest Since 1993; Median Income Reveals Lost Decade and a Half
Post Date: 2011-09-14 11:08:06 by lucysmom
10 Comments
Both official data and numerous news stories confirm how badly average citizens have fared in the wake of the global financial crisis. Food stamp use has fallen only a tad from record high levels. WalMart has reinstituted layaway. The average home with a mortgage has no equity in it. Further confirmation comes via the Census Bureau release that showed the US poverty rate has risen a full percent in the last year to 15.1%, a level not seen since 1993, the end of a short but nasty downturn. And 1/4 of American children are living in poverty. Fewer young adults are able to start households. 14.2% of Americans between the ages of 22 and 34 are living with their parents, up from 11.8% before ...
Number of U.S. poor hit record 46 million in 2010 (another Obama milestone)
Post Date: 2011-09-13 12:44:09 by Hondo68
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Homeless and needy people line up to receive bottles of cold water from a Salvation Army disaster relief truck in Kansas City, Missouri August 1, 2011. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans living below the poverty line rose to a record 46 million last year, the government said on Tuesday, underscoring the challenges facing President Barack Obama and Congress as they try to tackle high unemployment and a moribund economy. The Census Bureau's annual report on income, poverty and health insurance coverage said the national poverty rate climbed for a third consecutive year to 15.1 percent in 2010 as the economy struggled to recover from the recession that began in December 200 ...
September 11: 10 Years Later
Post Date: 2011-09-11 22:14:06 by Hondo68
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From Mark McHugh of Across The Street No doubt September 11, 2001 changed everything. But the business of actually measuring those changes has been as overlooked by most as the nationalities of the hijackers. The following is presented in the interest of truth, justice and the American way. Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin
Comprehensive List of Obama Tax Hikes - Which one of these tax hikes will destroy the most jobs?
Post Date: 2011-09-08 20:53:55 by Hondo68
4 Comments
(Get your Obama Big Speech Bingo cards here) Since taking office, President Barack Obama has signed into law twenty-one new or higher taxes: 1. A 156 percent increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco: On February 4, 2009, just sixteen days into his Administration, Obama signed into law a 156 percent increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco, a hike of 61 cents per pack. The median income of smokers is just over $36,000 per year. 2. Obamacare Individual Mandate Excise Tax (takes effect in Jan 2014): Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance must pay an income surtax according to the higher of the following 1 Adult 2 ...
Debt Hobbles Older Americans .
Post Date: 2011-09-08 11:09:09 by war
5 Comments
More Americans are reaching their 60s with so much debt they can't afford to retire. Most people used to pay off their debts before retiring. But as wages have barely kept up with rising prices over the past 35 years Americans have pushed debt higher, living beyond their means. Now, people are postponing retirement, cutting living standards or both. All kinds of debt held by this age group have risen, but the big problem is mortgages. Thirty-nine percent of households with heads aged 60 through 64 had primary mortgages in 2010 and 20% had secondary mortgages, including home-equity lines, according to research group Strategic Business Insights' MacroMonitor. That was up from just ...
Randy Wray: Helicopter Ben – How Modern Money Theory Responds to Hyperinflation Hyperventilators
Post Date: 2011-09-08 00:24:07 by lucysmom
23 Comments
In the first part of this series on hyperinflation I addressed the critic’s view that if Modern Monetary Theory were adopted, this would inevitably lead to hyperinflation. I argued that this is obviously false—MMT describes how any sovereign government that issues its own currency spends. They’ve all done it for the past “4000 years at least” as Keynes put it. All modern sovereign governments spend by “keystrokes”—making electronic entries onto balance sheets—what most critics somewhat misleadingly call “printing money”. There is no other way to spend a sovereign currency into existence. Only the sovereign government can create it. If ...
Obamanomic News: Happy Hopey-Changey, Stores Trim Holiday Hiring
Post Date: 2011-09-07 14:25:04 by Happy Quanzaa
1 Comments
More Bad News on Jobs: Stores Trim Holiday Hiring Don’t expect a big boost in hiring from the retail sector during the holiday season, according to the results of a survey released Tuesday. Although the vast majority of retailers — some 68 percent — plan on keeping holiday hiring at roughly the same level as last year, a quarter expect to trim hiring plans for seasonal workers, according to an annual hiring survey conducted by the Hay Group, a global management consultancy. That’s a greater number than last year, when 17 percent of the retailers Hay surveyed said they would scale back hiring. “Three months ago… people were extremely optimistic about the ...
Obama to propose $300 billion jobs package (tax cuts for the rich, trickle down; Voodoo Economics)
Post Date: 2011-09-07 13:38:09 by Hondo68
6 Comments
Members of the audience listen to U.S. President Barack Obama speak at a Labor Day event in front of General Motors Headquarters in Detroit, September 5, 2011. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, facing waning confidence among Americans in his economic stewardship, plans some $300 billion in tax cuts and government spending as part of a job- creating package, U.S. media reported on Tuesday. The price tag of the proposed package, to be announced by Obama in a nationally televised speech to Congress on Thursday, would be offset by other cuts that the president would outline, CNN reported, citing Democratic sources. Bloomberg News said the plan would inject more than $300 billion ...
Obamanomics Report: Real Unemployment Rate Rose in August to 16.2% -- 26 Million People
Post Date: 2011-09-06 16:38:17 by Happy Quanzaa
1 Comments
Real Unemployment Rate Rose in August to 16.2% -- 26 Million People (CNSNews.com) – The real unemployment rate actually rose in August, according to the Department of Labor, belying the fact that the official unemployment rate, 9.1 percent, remained flat while the economy did not create any new jobs on net last month. According to the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, real unemployment rose to 16.2 percent in August, up from 16.1 percent in July and tying the 2011 record set in June. The real unemployment rate is comprised of three different measures of the labor force that more accurately reflect who is really unemployed, as opposed to the official unemployment rate, which ...
FTSE 100 sees £49bn wiped off shares on euro fears and bank lawsuit
Post Date: 2011-09-05 19:24:35 by Happy Quanzaa
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Forty-nine billion pounds was wiped off the value of the UK's leading shares on Monday following renewed fears over the health of the British economy and concerns over the fate of British banks being sued by US regulators. Traders said the market turmoil on Monday could mark the beginning of another volatile week forthe markets The FTSE 100 tumbled 3.6pc - 189.45 points - to close at 5,102.58 after investor confidence was knocked by an unexpectedly sharp fall in services sector growth in August. The Markit/CIPS services purchasing managers' index fell to 51.1 in August from 55.4 in July, the biggest drop since the foot and mouth crisis a decade ago. Economists were alarmed by the ...
The Decline of Manufacturing in America: A Case Study
Post Date: 2011-09-05 10:06:07 by lucysmom
27 Comments
One frequent and frustrating line that often crops up in the comments section of this blog is that American labor has no hope, it should just accept Chinese wages, since price is all that matters. That line of thinking is wrongheaded on multiple levels. It assumes direct factory labor is the most important cost driver, when for most manufactured goods, it is 11% to 15% of total product cost (and increased coordination costs of much more expensive managers are a significant offset to any cost savings achieved by using cheaper factory workers in faraway locations). It also assumes cost is the only way to compete, when that is naive on an input as well as a product level. How do these ...
Obamanomics Report: Asian stocks down on lousy US jobs report
Post Date: 2011-09-05 04:41:57 by Happy Quanzaa
8 Comments
Asian stocks down on lousy US jobs report From the Associated Press: Asian stock markets took a beating Monday after U.S. job creation ground to a halt in August, reviving fears of a recession in the world’s largest economy. Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average was down 1.7 percent at 8,797.89 with sentiment also undermined by the persistent strength of the yen against the dollar, which hurts exporters. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 2.2 percent to 4,148.50 and South Korea’s Kospi slid 3 percent to 1,811.44. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 2.2 percent to 19,768.09. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines and mainland China were also down. Companies that ...
Wikileaks Discloses The Reason(s) Behind China's Shadow Gold Buying Spree
Post Date: 2011-09-04 18:26:31 by Hondo68
1 Comments
Wondering why gold at $1850 is cheap, or why gold at double that price will also be cheap, or frankly at any price? Because, as the following leaked cable explains, gold is, to China at least, nothing but the opportunity cost of destroying the dollar's reserve status. Putting that into dollar terms is, therefore, impractical at best, and illogical at worst. We have a suspicion that the following cable from the US embassy in China is about to go not viral but very much global, and prompt all those mutual fund managers who are on the golden sidelines to dip a toe in the 24 karat pool. The only thing that matters from China's perspective is that "suppressing the price of gold is ...
CHART SHOCK: The REAL Unemployment Rate Is 22%
Post Date: 2011-09-02 21:43:48 by Hondo68
6 Comments
It's now above 23% with the August update. Details from John William's Shadow Stats. Shadow Stats The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers. The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as ...
Bill Gross on Kudlow tonite "Free market capitalism does not work for America" -- Is Gross a raincoat Marxist too?
Post Date: 2011-09-02 00:18:55 by Godwinson
1 Comments
Bill Gross on Kudlow tonite "Free market capitalism does not work for America" -- Is Gross a raincoat Marxist too? (Video)
$1.3T deficit projected as economy cools
Post Date: 2011-09-01 15:13:56 by Happy Quanzaa
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WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House on Thursday predicted that unemployment will remain at 9 percent next year, a gloomy scenario for President Barack Obama's re-election campaign. The bleak figures from the Office of Management and Budget, which also projected overall growth this year at just 1.7 percent, serve as further confirmation of a sputtering economy while dramatizing the challenge Obama will face in making his case for re-election. The 1.7 percent growth rate is a full percentage point less than the administration predicted at the beginning of the year. The economy promises to be the leading-edge issue of the 2012 White House sweepstakes, and Obama already is facing a host of ...
Recovery Bummer: Productivity Falls in Spring, Labor Costs Rise
Post Date: 2011-09-01 13:35:15 by Happy Quanzaa
12 Comments
From The Associated Press: Worker productivity fell this spring more quickly than previously estimated while labor costs were rising at a faster clip. Both developments could pose threats to a fragile economic recovery. The Labor Department reported Thursday that productivity declined at an annual rate of 0.7 percent in the April-June period, a bigger drop than the 0.3 percent decline reported a month ago. Labor costs rose at an annual rate of 3.3 percent, faster than the 2.4 percent increase originally reported. The changes reflected downward revisions made last week to overall economic growth which showed the economy’s output barely growing in the spring. Declining productivity, ...
When debt levels turn cancerous
Post Date: 2011-08-31 15:26:51 by Happy Quanzaa
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Now we know where the tipping point lies. Debt becomes poisonous once it reaches 80pc to 100pc of GDP for governments, 90pc of GDP for companies, and 85pc of GDP for households. From then on, extra debt chokes growth. Stephen Cecchetti and his team at the Bank for International Settlements have written the definitive paper rebutting the pied pipers of ever-escalating credit. “The debt problems facing advanced economies are even worse than we thought.” From the Chicago Tribune 1934, sent to me by a reader The basic facts are that combined debt in the rich club has risen from 165pc of GDP thirty years ago to 310pc today, led by Japan at 456pc and Portugal at 363pc. “Debt is ...
S&P Rates Subprime Mortgages Higher Than Obama Regime Bonds
Post Date: 2011-08-31 14:38:59 by Happy Quanzaa
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S&P Rates Subprime Mortgages Higher Than U.S. Standard & Poor’s is giving a higher rating to securities backed by subprime home loans, the same type of investments that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, than it assigns the U.S. government. S&P is poised to provide AAA grades to 59 percent of Springleaf Mortgage Loan Trust 2011-1, a set of bonds tied to $497 million lent to homeowners with below-average credit scores and almost no equity in their properties. New York-based S&P stripped the U.S. of its top rank on Aug. 5, saying Washington politics were making the country less creditworthy. Treasuries gained about 1.95 percent and U.S. ...
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