Stimulus

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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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Eric Cantor Praises Stimulus Project!

February 18, 2010 in GOP, Hypocrisy, Stimulus | No comments

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WTF?!?!?!

But, but, spending! Tyranny! Founding Fathers!

He literally stood there and said that projects and job creation should have been the focus of the stimulus, but that’s exactly what the focus of the stimulus project was!

If I recall, Cantor, you wanted the stimulus to be mainly tax cuts, not spending money for jobs. Didn’t Micheal Steel say “Gov doesn’t create jobs, only work”.

Remember that Cantor, like every other GOP member of Congress, voted against the stimulus bill which included money for high speed rail.  The only train Cantor supports is the post-Bush crazy train that is the Republican Party.

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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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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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