Economy

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American Recovery and Reinvestment Act added up to 2.1 million jobs in Q4 of 2009, so says the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

February 24, 2010 in Economy, Recession, Right Wing, Stimulus, Tea Baggers | 17 comments

WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (Reuters)

The package boosted the economy by up to 3.5 percent and lowered the unemployment rate by up to 2.1 percent during that period, CBO said. The package is likely to have the greatest impact this year, according to CBO. It is expected to boost GDP by between 1.4 percent and 4 percent and bring down the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percent and 1.8 percent in 2010, higher figures than last year when many of its programs were being set up. The impact is expected to trail off over the next two years.
Direct purchasing of goods and services by the federal government and states have been the most effective provision of the act, CBO said. Among the least effective: a tax credit for first-time homebuyers and a tax cut for the wealthy.

but… but… TYRANNY, SOCIALISM!!!!

LOL. I’m quite sure that all these jobs went to black people, ACORN, and illegal Mexican abortion doctors, so Tea Baggers will still oppose the stimulus.

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Will Geithner’s critics be silenced?

December 18, 2009 in Deficit, Economy, Federal debt, TARP, Tim Geithner, Wingnuts | No comments

The New York Times released new estimates from the Treasury Department about the extent of the government’s exposure from the TARP programs.

  • Treasury Department loans under the TARP program now total $370 billion.
  • Of that amount, a net $328 billion is projected to be recovered. That includes profits on TARP investments. The losses are centered on the TARP bailouts to GM, Chrysler and AIG. Bailouts to banks are expected to be net positive (more gains than losses).
  • The improved picture lowers the estimated deficit for the fiscal year by $200 billion.
  • Most of the exposure comes from the TARP I program from October 2008. Of the additional $500 billion in authority granted in February (TARP II), only $7 billion has had to be expended.

The economy is growing. That’s evidence enough for me that the government’s interventions, TARP included, worked. Even those who reject this notion that the TARP program seems to be succeeding must agree that TARP didn’t destroy our economy, as was predicted by some Republicans. If we’re talking about silencing the critics of TARP or the stimulus plan, or Geithner, then perhaps a $4 Trillion rebound in the S&P 500 is enough to prove success, but for me it’s still too early to be popping the champagne or doing victory laps just yet. That’s not to take anything away from the fact that markets are heading in the exact opposite direction of what many hardline GOP wingnuts had predicted (or in some ways, even hoped for). For the most part I am dismissive of those who see the TARP and the stimulus as socialistic economic disasters. In fact, I think it is remarkable that our government has managed to resolve the credit crisis and turn the tide on job losses and recessionary contraction — all without increasing the rate of federal deficit accumulation.

That being said, our great economic liability is federal debt. People say that lower taxation is the fuel the economic engine needs. I say, if the government weren’t sucking $12 trillion of capital out of the economy in the first place, we wouldn’t need more fuel.
This also is why this isn’t an Obama problem. Deficits have not increased under Obama. Deficits have increased because politicians of both parties — including Republicans beknighted Reagan — have an addiction to government expansion, and occupation of foreign countries, and because Republicans and Democrats can’t put away the Bank of China Credit Card and continue to pay for our government spending through debt rather than real time taxation. The culture of debt means that we borrow the funds needed to add the Americans with Disabilities Act, and No Child Left Behind, and Medicare Part D, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and so on and on.

Simple answer: Demand taxation. Demand an end to deficits and debt accumulation.

You think this is nuts? Fine. Just remember this when federal debt hits $15 trillion… $20 trillion… $30 trillion……….

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John Boehner the tap dancing fool.

December 11, 2009 in Economy, GOP, John Boehner, Republican Party | No comments

A better plan for jobs
By John Boehner
Friday, December 11, 2009

During a meeting at the White House this week, House Republican leaders presented President Obama with a plan to create jobs and get our economy moving again. It is a responsible blueprint for action based on common-sense solutions that recognize that small business, not government, is the engine of job creation in America.

I had to follow a link from the link but I finally found the wonderful proposal of the GOP:
(1) deregulate.
(2) cut taxes.

Sigh. How intellectually bankrupt can they be? The GOP is demanding more of the same myopic ideological fact-resistant idiocy that got us in this mess.

Plus, someone needs to tell Mr. Boehner that
(a) the unemployment rate is falling,
(b) jobs growth always lags in recoveries;
(c) small business is not, in fact, the engine of job growth in America; although that’s a myth the GOP loves to spout at any opportunity, it is refuted by the statistics.

One does not need to be a supporter of the Democrats in general or Obama in particular to see that the GOP is incapable of expressing an original thought, and still clings desperately to its outdated, failed dogmas despite all rational evidence to the contrary.

Mr Boehner needs to quit espousing the GOP Plan…and devise a NATIONAL plan that will work!!

Trickle down just means PI$$ED ON!!

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Obama’s Economic Policies So Far

November 24, 2009 in Economy, Obama Administration, Stimulus | 1 comment

A pretty rough first 10 months overall, but let’s break down the important economic issues.

1. Monthly federal budget deficits have been decreased by one-fourth. For October 2008, the CBO reported a federal budget deficit of $232 billion. The CBO reports the October 2009 deficit at $175 billion, a reduction of 24.6%.

2. Equity markets have soared by about 59%. After hitting a low in early March just below 6500, the DJIA has risen past 10,300.

3.  The job losses started in January 2008.  All through 2008, the net number of jobs shed by the economy grew each month, reaching its worst point in January 2009, when the economy lost more than 700,000 jobs. From that moment forward, the picture has been improving, with net losses shrinking each month to 190,000 in October. Of course, losses are losses, and so this means that total unemployment has continued to rise. But how can we look at this chart

Picture 14

and not conclude that the jobs market has been heading in the right direction since early 2009?

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Small Business Employer Tax Credits

November 23, 2009 in Economy | No comments

Wasn’t the GOP all over this just months ago? Wasn’t tax breaks to small businesses the “economic engine” that would drive recovery? The New York Times reports that one plan the Obama administration is considering would grant a $3,000 tax credit to employers for each new hire in 2010. Under another, two-year plan, employers would receive a credit in the first year equal to 15.3% of the cost of adding a new worker, an amount that would be reduced to 10.2% in the second year and then phased out entirely.

Yet now Republicans are unlikely to endorse a tax credit for businesses that create jobs. House GOP Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) said he was fairly certain a GOP working group on the economy would not include such a tax break in its recommendations.

I happen to oppose tax breaks for new hires, but is there ANYTHING the Republicans DO support in a Democrat administration??

I just don’t think this tax credit will work. Will the government pay his wages too, while he stands around reading comic books because businesses don’t have any work for him to do? The economy is crap, business is down and shows little sign of being better, yet the government wants businesses to hire new people not because they have anything for them to do but because the payroll tax on them will cost less. Why would any business take on the long term cost of employing additional people because of a short term subsidy? Either you need the people, or you really don’t.

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GOP sides with predatory credit card companies.

November 18, 2009 in Economy, Republican Party, Right Wing | No comments

Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic effort Wednesday to immediately freeze increases in credit card interest rates, fees and finance charges.

YouTube Preview Image

Since Ronald Reagan, the Republican party has been by the rich, for the rich. They rail about “big government”, yet they want to protect the rights of these predatory credit card companies to borrow money from the government (i.e., the taxpayers) at 0-4 percent and charge the same tax payers 28 percent interest. Because Thad Cochran wants the world to know he’s been bought and paid for. And he probably realizes his Republican base in Mississippi will vote him in no matter how much he sells them out. Just as long as he’s against gay marriage.

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Is this just capitalism, or is it a predatory practices?

October 26, 2009 in Economy, Stimulus | No comments

Credit card companies are raising rates ahead of new federal laws set to ban the practice of raising the interest rate on an existing balance.   Citibank just issued notices, as far as anyone can determine it was to all of its card holders, that its interest rate is being raised to 29.99% on existing balances. That’s on all balances, not just ones that are delinquent.

In a hearing this week, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., warned the industry that its rate hikes were not going unnoticed. This new law will restrict banks’ ability to raise interest rates on existing card debt and require them to apply payments in a way that helps consumers get out of debt faster. But Congress gave banks until February to make the changes, but part of it becomes effective in the next few weeks.

Did we expect anything different from a profit driven enterprise to protect their bottom line?  You can side with those who merely say that it is their decision to beat the new law; to get the higher rate imposed before the law prevents them from doing so, but how does this square with the fact that Citibank wants to screw the same consumer who gave them $45 billion of TARP money from the U.S. Treasury when things were not so rosy.

I can only assume that this has been sort of a nerve racking game for Citibank shareholders. After sustaining major losses at the end of last year in the equities market, this run up of Citibank from less than $1 to where it currently sits today at $4.50 a share, makes up for a nice “equities bailout” that some of them were counting on the U.S. Taxpayers, to provide.
I can also only assume that shareholders of Citibank (a TARP recipient), thanks each and everyone of the U.S. Taxpayers who made this better-than-expected result possible.  Because without TARP, without our generous support (as forced down our throat as it was) Citibank would have never received the liquidity it needed to achieve this better than expected result.
Some of us might possibly be perplexed why we were forced to make an interest free loan to Citibank for the purpose of explicitly propping it’s equity, solvency, and it’s shareholders…..buy now we can begin to see the fruits of our generous, interest free contributions.

We are rewarded with interest rate hikes up to 29.99%  I guess sucking another $1.5 billion per month out of the consumer economy into the financial economy is par for the course for these credit card companies.  Another $1.5 billion per month out of Main Street into Wall Street.

1. Taxpayers fund TARP
2. Citibank receives TARP
3. Citibank posts “better than expected” earnings because of TARP
4. Citibank equities “appreciate”.
5. Federal Government imposes new consumer protection laws
6. Citibank raises rates ahead of law to lock in profits.
7. Taxpayer loses 1.5 billion to higher interest rates.
8. Wall Street is happy.

BRILLIANT!!
Anyway…I guess Citibank thanks the U.S. Taxpayer.

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My most recent “Whisky Tango Foxtrot” moment.

October 19, 2009 in Economy, Foreign Policy, Oil | 2 comments

Saudis Seek Payments for Any Drop in Oil Revenues

Published: October 13, 2009

Saudi Arabia is trying to enlist other oil-producing countries to support a provocative idea: if wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, they should pay compensation to oil producers.

Saudi Arabia is highly dependent on oil exports, which account for most of the government’s budget. Last year, when prices peaked, the kingdom’s oil revenue swelled by 37 percent, to $281 billion, according to Jadwa Investment, a Saudi bank. That was more than four times the 2002 level. At one point in 2008, the average gasoline price in the United States surpassed $4 a gallon.

Saudi exports are expected to drop to $115 billion this year, after oil prices fell. American gasoline prices are hovering around $2.50 a gallon.

“Assisting us as oil-exporting countries in achieving economic diversification is very crucial for us through foreign direct investments, technology transfer, insurance and funding,” Mr. Sabban said in an e-mail message.

WTF!?!?!?!?

Saudi Arabia has been able to manipulate the world oil market to maximize their cash flow for decades. They’ve been sucking the money pipe so long they think they’re fucking entitled. They have done very little to build a national economy that is based on anything other than pumping oil. Screw them. Maybe they should have been educating their population in things other than Islamic Studies. Maybe if more of them became educated they would not be so despondent with their lot in life, and be able to function in the global economy outside of petroleum.

“Assist you” in helping you ween off oil? While it may be true that the U.S. has given very little help to make that adjustment, the Saudi’s must do it themselves. Helping the Saudi’s transition away from an oil economy sounds a little like offering Pat Robertson bible lessons. Good luck with that.

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