But we do not have to go to Youtube to enjoy the Jackass genre. We have only to read the news. All over the world the authorities are strapping on their absurd parachutes…and climbing to very high places.
When job losses are severe enough, as they most definitely are now, the loss in purchasing power to the economy is so great that employment becomes a coincident and even a leading indicator. Simply put, people can't spend until...
The 0.5% GDP beat comes on top of a 0.9% downward revision. Hence, the net surprise was a compounded negative 0.4%. And that’s before the likely downward revisions to Q2 . . .
California's budget debacle holds a lesson for America, but one we will probably ignore. For years, state leaders papered over the contradiction with loans and modest changes. By overwhelming these expedients, the recession triggered an inevitable reckoning.
Here's the national lesson. There's a collision between high and rising demands for government services and the capacity of the economy How to produce the income and tax revenue to pay for those demands. That's true of California, where poor immigrants and their children have increased pressures for more government services. It's also true of the nation, where an aging population raises Social Security and Medicare spending. California is leading the transformation of politics into a form of collective torture: pay more (higher taxes), get less (lower services).
Promises made to be broken!
Two of President Barack Obama's economic heavyweights said middle-class taxes might have to go up to pare budget deficits or to pay for the proposed overhaul of the nation's health care system.
The tough talk from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers on Sunday capped a week that brought rare good news for the economy:
Guaranty has $13.4 billion in assets and operates 160 branches in Texas and California -- two of the three best banking markets in the nation, thanks to their size and population growth.
I believe the FDIC is broke and knows it; that under the law they should have seized these three banks (and many dozens more) some time ago, but doing so will force them to tap the Treasury "emergency" credit line.
Legendary global
investor and chairman of Singapore- based Rogers Holdings, Jim Rogers
reiterated that he sees prolonged economic problems and while he
did not see much worth buying, he is not shorting any assets either.
In an interview
with Bloomberg TV in Singapore, Rogers said he fails to see that
there is anything “in great excess.” "I have no shorts
for one of the first times in my life."
"On the
other hand I don't see much to buy," he added.
Nor is Rogers
a fan of shorting Treasury bonds because he believes that the Federal
Reserve can steer the market for them currently.
Rogers is mostly
to be seen being interviewed on business networks in Asia or Europe,
since his views are to put it mildly, somewhat negative on the US
Dollar and the prospec
Mr. Bud Burrell has extensive experience working with major brokerage
firms on the trading desk and arbitrage desk with almost 30 years
experience -- Industry authority, expert, Wall Street veteran. Love him
or hate him, you will always know where he stands - his no-holds-barred
style and frank honesty make his blogs a must read, from one of the
originals. View his landmark correspondences in The Bud Files.
(Publisher: Want to understand from the inside of The Greatest Depression?)
In the past ten years, Michigan has lost half its manufacturing jobs as the Detroit Three saw their share of US auto sales slide from 70 to 45 percent.
The US Treasury is so busy trying to find buyers for Treasuries they have little time to solve anything, as unemployment at 20.5% throttles the nation. The economy is not going to recover by saving the anointed few in banking and Wall Street.
President Barack Obama talks about restoring economic growth. But his science adviser, John Holdren, once called for zero economic growth while writing with Paul and Anne Ehrlich--who predicted mass starvation in the 1970s.
"Why should we not strive for zero economic growth (ZEG) as well as zero population growth?"
Heads Up... this is a RAISE YOUR TAXES ALERT!
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the U.S. must cut the annual federal budget deficit, now more than $1 trillion, for the economy to have a sustained recovery and he's not ruling out new taxe
BUT, BUT, BUT BO said things were all better now.
Over the coming months, as many as 1.5 million jobless Americans will exhaust their unemployment insurance benefits, ending what for some has been a last bulwark against foreclosures and destitution.
Because of emergency extensions already enacted by Congress, laid-off workers in nearly half the states can collect benefits for up to 79 weeks, the longest period since the unemployment insurance program was created in the 1930s. But unemployment in this recession has proved to be especially tenacious, and a wave of job-seekers is using up even this prolonged aid.
Numerous empirical studies, especially from communist block countries, demonstrate just how "effective" the government is, when it decides to get directly involved in running a substantial portion of the economy.
GDP is now 3.9% below the recent peak. In terms of declines in real GDP, the current recession is the worst since quarterly records have been kept (starting in 1947).
Over the coming months, as many as 1.5 million jobless Americans will exhaust their unemployment insurance benefits, ending what for some has been a last bulwark against foreclosures and destitution.
President Barack Obama said on Saturday that new economic data indicated a huge stimulus package approved in February had helped “put the brakes” on a deep recession and offers hope for the futur
Well, well, well. President Obama is asking his people to revise down the economic numbers from past years so his economic numbers today don't look quite as bad as they are in reality. Because Obama predicted that the economy would begin to come out of its recession by the end of this year, he's got to deliver, especially since so many private sector economists blasted his team's predictions as pie in the sky.
Economic data are expressed through comparisons, i.e. the economy grew or contracted by X% compared to the same period last year. If you want this year's economic numbers to look better than they actually are, then you manipulate the numbers from months and years past that you compare them to. This is what Obama's economic team is doing in order to save the president's butt. Obama now has pointed to those revised numbers and has announced in his Saturday morning video address, "Look our stimulus boondoggle is working! We said the economy would start
This week brought new indications that any economic “recovery” in the US will not be shared by the working class. Telecommunications giant Verizon announced that it would eliminate 8,000 jobs by the end of the year, new data showed that the foreclosure crisis is continuing to mount, and weekly initial jobless benefit claims rose.
Sounds like a threat to me.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the bank that makes the most money from commodities, fixed-income and currency trading, said attempts to curb speculation may be “disruptive” to energy markets.
“The role that is played by non-traditional participants such as index investors and other financial participants often has been mischaracterized,” Don Casturo, a Goldman Sachs managing director, said today at a Commodity Futures Trading Commission hearing in Washington.
The testimony was part of the second day of hearings on excessive market speculation and how to respond.
Money misdirected towards new cars, when the old ones are fine, is money that will not be available for investment in other sectors of the economy, where it would naturally flow. It is Obama solidifying the vote of the financially unsophiticated--while he props up the union infiltrated auto industry--all the while distorting the natural flow of the economy.
"Those soldiers will have to be brought back, and those bases will have to be shut down. So that means a lot of soldiers and no economy, no domestic economy to integrate them into." Dmitry Orlov
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