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What some economists now project — and policymakers are loath to admit — is that the U.S. unemployment rate, which stood at 9.6% in August, could remain elevated for years to come.
The nation's job deficit is so deep that even a powerful recovery would leave large numbers of Americans out of work for years, experts say. And with growth now weakening, analysts are doubtful that companies will boost payrolls significantly any time soon. Unemployment, long considered a temporary, transitional condition in the United States, appears to be settling in for a lengthy run.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • Personal Finance • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
No wonder American confidence in the future is evaporating. And when confidence crumbles, consumers won't spend, lenders won't lend, investors won't invest, and businesses won't hire.
Today we see businesses husbanding cash rather than hiring. Nonfinancial S&P 500 companies are sitting on a record $837 billion. Personal savings are increasing dramatically, to over 6% of income today compared to barely 1% in 2005. Those small businesses still willing to take on more debt to expand are having tremendous difficulty finding credit.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • Federal Reserve • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
Any of these steps would increase the budget deficit, obviously. But relative to the multitrillion-dollar, Medicare-driven, long-term deficit, a temporary tax cut costing a couple of hundred billion dollars isn’t significant. The more pressing problem today, by far, is the weak economy.
The great historical lesson of financial crises is that governments are usually not aggressive enough in responding. That was Japan’s mistake in 1990s, Herbert Hoover’s in the early 1930s and even Franklin Roosevelt’s in the mid-1930s.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • Personal Finance • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
This is where the Great Recession has taken the world’s largest economy, to a Great Ambiguity over what lies ahead, and what can be done now. Economists debate the benefits of previous policy prescriptions, but in the political realm a rare consensus has emerged: The future is now so colored in red ink that running up the debt seems politically risky in the months before the Congressional elections, even in the name of creating jobs and generating economic growth. The result is that Democrats and Republicans have foresworn virtually any course that involves spending serious money.
The growing impression of a weakening economy combined with a dearth of policy options has reinvigorated concerns that the United States risks sinking into the sort of economic stagnation that captured Japan during its so-called Lost Decade in the 1990s.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Credit Markets • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • Stock Market • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • Budget • Federal Reserve • The National Deficit • The United States Currency (Dollar etc) • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
Many temporary factors that boosted the economy earlier this year are fading. Companies built up their inventories after cutting them sharply in the recession to match slower sales. The increase provided a boost to manufacturers, but now many companies' stockpiles are in line with sales and don't need to grow as much. In addition, the impact of the government's $862 billion fiscal stimulus program is lessening. That leaves the private sector to pick up the slack. But businesses are cutting back on their spending on machines, computers and software, according to a government report earlier this week. And the housing sector is slumping again after a popular home buyer's tax credit expired in April.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Credit Markets • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • Personal Finance • Stock Market • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The Fiscal Stimulus Package of 2009 • The U.S. Government • Federal Reserve • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
Since an unusually sharp downturn accelerated in late 2008, the Obama administration and its allies in the U.S. Congress have enacted trillions in deficit spending they say will create an economic stimulus -- but have not extended the Bush tax cuts and have pushed to levy extensive new health care and carbon regulations on businesses.
"They're in a 'Do' loop right now trying to figure out what the answer is," Otellini said.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The U.S. Government • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
To figure out where people are, he asks three questions: Whose judgment do you trust more: that of the American people or America's political leaders? Has the federal government become its own special interest group? Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors? Those who identify with the government on two or more questions are defined as the political class.
Before the financial crisis of late 2008, about a tenth of Americans fell into the political class, while some 53% were classified as in the mainstream public. The rest fell somewhere in the middle. Now the percentage of people identifying with the political class has clearly declined into single digits, while those in the mainstream public have grown slightly. A majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents all agree with the mainstream view on Mr. Rasmussen's three questions. "The major division in this country is no longer between parties but between political elites and the people," Mr. Rasmussen says.
His recent polls show huge gaps between the two groups. While 67% of the political class believes the U.S. is moving in the right direction, a full 84% of mainstream voters believe the nation is moving in the wrong one.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Education • Media • Psychology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
But perhaps the public has reached a turning point.
A CNN poll this month found that a narrow majority of Americans supported same-sex marriage — the first poll to find majority support. Other poll results did not go that far, but still, on average, showed that support for gay marriage had risen to 45 percent or more (with the rest either opposed or undecided).
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Psychology • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate • State Government • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology
1. If it walks like a bank and quacks like a bank, it’s a bank. Bring all banks out of the shadows and into the glare of the regulatory sunlight.
2. Too often financial information is written with two pens. The small font sizes provide enough cover for a lawyer to sign off, but in larger type, they tell a story that is misleading enough to encourage a steady stream of suckers. That doesn’t seem fair. Here’s a different approach. If your firm’s marketing materials lead a random sample of 100 Americans to believe that the mortgage, or credit card, or other financial product is less onerous or risky than it actually is, then your marketing materials are misleading, and your firm is liable for damages.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Stock Market • The Banking System/Sector • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Senate
We have nothing to gain by continuing to wage war in Afghanistan. We are keeping that poor country in turmoil, killing innocent people and spending money that could be used to create jobs. We have had no success in nine years, and we can expect no success in nine more. We are wasting soldiers' lives. We should bring our troops home now.
Joel Welty
Blanchard, Mich.
Read them all.
Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate • War in Afghanistan • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Afghanistan • Pakistan
The mosque should be built precisely because we don't like the idea very much. We don't need constitutional protections to be agreeable, after all.
This point surpasses even all the obvious reasons for allowing the mosque, principally that there's no law against it.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • City Government • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam
In Pennsylvania's closely contested Senate race, the Democratic candidate, Rep. Joe Sestak, appeared with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and endorsed the rights of project organizers to construct the Islamic center at its proposed location. Mr. Sestak's position put him at odds with several other candidates in his own party, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who on Monday announced his opposition to the mosque's being built near the site of the destroyed towers in Manhattan.
The issue dominated a news conference Tuesday in which Mr. Bloomberg endorsed Mr. Sestak's Senate bid. Mr. Sestak, who had won the Democratic nomination over the opposition of Senate leaders and the White House, appeared pleased to once again highlight a difference between himself and Mr. Reid.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • City Government • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam
So let’s do just that. Imagine a nation in the midst of an economic crisis, circa September-December 2008. Only this time, there are key differences: 1) A President who understood Capitalism requires insolvent firms to suffer failure (as opposed to a lame duck running out the clock); 2) A Treasury Secretary who was not a former Goldman Sachs CEO, with a misguided sympathy for Wall Street firms at risk of failure (as opposed to overseeing the greatest wealth transfer in human history); 3) A Federal Reserve Chairman who understood the limits of the Federal Reserve (versus a massive expansion of its power and balance sheet).
In my counter factual, the bailouts did not occur. Instead of the Japanese model, the US government went the Swedish route of banking crises: They stepped in with temporary nationalizations, prepackaged bankruptcies, and financial reorganizations; banks write down all of their bad debt, they sell off the paper. Int he end, the goal is to spin out clean, well financed, toxic-asset-free banks into the public markets.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The 2009 Obama Administration Bank Bailout Plan • The 2009 Obama Administration Housing Amelioration Plan • The Banking System/Sector • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The Fiscal Stimulus Package of 2009 • The Possibility of a Bailout for the U.S. Auto Industry • The September 2008 Proposed Henry Paulson 700 Billion Bailout Package • The U.S. Government • Federal Reserve • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
Caught in the middle of the rancorous partisan fight are American Muslims, whose own voices have been drowned out by politicians on both the left and the right.
"In a fundamental sense, this is not a conversation about Muslims,"said Omid Safi, professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "This is a conversation in which the Muslims are being used as the football with which to play the game of competing visions of America."
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • City Government • House of Representatives • Office of the President • Senate • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam
No more. "I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there," Obama said in revising and extending and eviscerating his remarks of the previous night. He had merely been commenting on freedom of religion. Turns out he's for it.
The president muddled his message. Does he not grasp that questioning the "wisdom" of the mosque's placement is predicated on thinking that 9/11 was a Muslim crime? Does he not understand that the issue here is religious prejudice, not zoning? The answer, of course, is that he does. But unlike Henry Clay, he would rather be president than right.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • City Government • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam
Any immigration reform that will generate sufficient public support to pass Congress must begin with securing the border first, then deal in a constructive and compassionate way with the 12 million undocumented workers already in the United States.
The failure of the 2006 effort shows reform must be done sequentially, not simultaneously. The people do not trust the government to commit the resources necessary to secure the border. The government will have to demonstrate its commitment by securing the border first.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Immigration • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals
Democrats have been taking the offensive, apparently hoping to use the issue to their advantage as they fight to maintain control of Congress. They’re emphasizing the program’s popularity among Americans, their commitment to protecting it, and their contention that Republicans want to change Social Security to its detriment.
Social Security’s 75th anniversary is Saturday, and Democrats have tied some of their efforts to that milestone. President Obama, for one, talked about Social Security during his weekly address on Saturday.
“We have an obligation ... to safeguard Social Security for our seniors, people with disabilities, and all Americans – today, tomorrow, and forever,” he said. “But what we can’t afford to do is privatize Social Security.”
Read it all.
Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • The U.S. Government • Social Security • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.
This strongly suggests that congressional leaders of both parties should embrace a pro-growth fiscal reform that would help to create long-run fiscal stability and foster certainty about future tax rates. With the 2001-2003 tax cuts set to expire at the end of 2010, the time is now to move ahead with broad-based reform.
Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Credit Markets • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • Stock Market • Taxes • The Banking System/Sector • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • Budget • Federal Reserve • The National Deficit • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
The sour national mood appears all-encompassing and is dragging down ratings for the GOP too, suggesting voters above all are disenchanted with the political establishment in Washington. Just 24% express positive feelings about the Republican Party, a new low in the 21-year history of the Journal's survey. Democrats are only slightly more popular, but also near an all-time low.
The results likely foreshadow a poor showing in November's mid-term for Democrats, whose leaders had hoped the public would grow more optimistic about the economy and, as a result, more supportive of the party agenda. Now, despite the weak Republican numbers, the survey shows frustrated voters on the left are less interested than impassioned voters on the right to in the election.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Psychology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • Budget • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
Among the first to challenge Gates's decision to eliminate the Virginia-based military command was Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell, a Republican who has not hesitated to trim spending proposals by his Democratic predecessors.
He was joined by the state's two Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Jim Webb, who talk a good game of budgetary responsibility but squirm when it hits home.
Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • The U.S. Government • Budget • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
Neither Democrats nor Republicans appear eager to try to turn the California decision into a November rallying cry. Many Democrats who otherwise strongly support gay rights are still reluctant to advocate for same-sex marriages, President Obama being the most prominent example. Many Republicans believe their conservative base is already well motivated. For now, they prefer to stay away from the kind of wedge-issue politics that were once a hallmark of their campaigns.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Sexuality • Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
By 2030, the CBO projects that debt will more than double to 146 percent of GDP.[1] The only good news, if it can be called that, is that the U.S. is not alone. Two recent studies by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) highlight the significance of the global debt challenge and stress the need for governments to aim higher than short-term deficit reductions. For the U.S., one of the most poorly positioned countries, addressing the long-term debt challenge must include prompt reform of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Credit Markets • The Banking System/Sector • The U.S. Government • Budget • Social Security • The National Deficit • The United States Currency (Dollar etc) • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
I know what you're expecting: At that point, the politicians all had a good laugh and told her to get lost so they could get back to meddling in people's lives.
But no. Not only did they hear out the winner of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, they did exactly what she suggested. The committee voted to lift the federal ban on Internet poker and other online gambling, while approving a measure to tax and regulate it.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Gambling • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Senate
Ms. Jarrin, 49, wound up at a motel here, putting down $260 she had managed to scrape together from friends and from selling her living room set, enough for a weeklong stay. It was essentially all the money she had left after her unemployment benefits expired in March. Now she is facing a previously unimaginable situation for a woman who, not that long ago, had a corporate job near New York City and was enrolled in a graduate business school, whose sticker is still emblazoned on her back windshield.
“Barring a miracle, I’m going to be in my car,” she said.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
"The problem is it looks like the consumer was really weakening in June, so you're starting the third quarter in a position of weakness," said David Shulman, senior economist at the UCLA Anderson Forecast. "The components of this report are ugly."
Meanwhile, a number of factors that boosted economic growth starting last summer are about to run their course.
The second-quarter GDP number, soft though it was, received a one-time boost from businesses building up their inventories (contributing 1.05 percentage points of growth) and federal government spending (0.7 percentage points), both of which are likely to fade. Growth was also supported by a burst of residential investment (adding 0.6 percentage points) -- caused by home builders' rushing to finish projects to take advantage of a home-buyer tax credit -- that probably will turn negative in future quarters.
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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • Stock Market • The Banking System/Sector • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
The first of these started when the Nixon administration defaulted on American obligations under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the world. Now, since we have lived beyond our means as a nation for nearly 40 years, our cumulative current-account deficit — the combined shortfall on our trade in goods, services and income — has reached nearly $8 trillion. That’s borrowed prosperity on an epic scale....
The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.
Read the whole thing.
Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • The U.S. Government • Budget • The National Deficit • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • Senate
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel famously said never let a crisis go to waste. But the policy changes on health-care and financial services that have emerged from the current crisis, plus the largest tax increase in history that will hit Jan. 1 without Congressional action, are restraining companies, especially mid-to-small-sized ones.
Atlas didn't shrug; he's sitting on his hands—and his wallet.
That is the message heard repeatedly from entrepreneurs, their private-equity investors and their wealth managers. And it is becoming increasingly apparent, not so much in the parade of stronger-than-expected second-quarter earnings numbers from Standard & Poor's 500 companies, but in regional Federal Reserve Bank reports.
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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Credit Markets • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The Banking System/Sector • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission
no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.
The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from "surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities." Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot.
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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Stock Market • The U.S. Government • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Senate
Kerry's bill, announced in a news release during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on consumer online privacy, comes after two privacy bills were introduced in the House in recent months that would protect sensitive information such as health and financial data unless expressly volunteered to be collected by users. Kerry said he hopes his bill will be passed at the beginning of the next Congress.
The legislative proposals add momentum to a push by consumer groups to create stronger federal rules for how companies such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google can track user activity and place ads based on that information. Facebook faced criticism for creating complex changes to its privacy polices late last year that made some information more available to the public. Apple and AT&T were criticized for a data breach that revealed the network identities of its iPad users. Google said it accidentally snooped on residential Wi-Fi networks around the world as it collected technical information for location-based applications.
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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Law & Legal Issues • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
The arguments for a gas-tax increase are no less compelling for their familiarity. Higher taxes would produce substantial revenues — roughly $1 billion a year for every extra penny in tax — that could be used to fix roads and reduce the budget deficit. They would make fuel-efficient cars more attractive.
Ultimately, higher taxes could help drive alternative technologies that would slow the flow of money to finance some of the world's worst regimes and multinational oil companies, such as BP.
Whether increasing the gas tax would reduce the need for drilling in environmentally sensitive areas such as the Gulf depends on worldwide demand for oil, which is being driven upward by the rising economies of China and India. But those countries have their own efforts to curb gasoline use, and reducing consumption in the USA, the world's top oil consumer, is essential.
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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Taxes • Energy, Natural Resources • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • Senate
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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Energy, Natural Resources • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
But a great deal of recent economic evidence calls that conclusion into question. In an ironic twist, one key piece comes from Christina Romer, who is now chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. About six months before she took the job, Romer teamed up with her husband and fellow Berkeley economist David Romer to write a paper ("The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes") that sought to measure the influence of tax policy on GDP. Crucial to the Romers' method was their effort to identify changes in tax policy made during times of relative economic stability, and driven by a desire to influence economic behavior or activity (to encourage growth, say, or reduce a deficit), rather than those changes made in response to a recession or crisis. By studying such "exogenous" tax-policy changes, the Romers could be more confident that they were in fact measuring the effects of taxes and not those of extraneous conditions.
The Romers' conclusion, which is at odds with most traditional Keynesian analysis, was that the tax multiplier was 3 — in other words, that every dollar spent on tax cuts would boost GDP by $3. This would mean that the tax multiplier is roughly three times larger than Obama's advisors assumed it was during their policy simulations.
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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Credit Markets • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The 2009 Obama Administration Bank Bailout Plan • The 2009 Obama Administration Housing Amelioration Plan • The Banking System/Sector • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The Fiscal Stimulus Package of 2009 • The Possibility of a Bailout for the U.S. Auto Industry • The September 2008 Proposed Henry Paulson 700 Billion Bailout Package • The U.S. Government • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
The $1.47 trillion budget gap predicted for 2010 represents a slight improvement over the administration's February forecast. But the outlook for 2011 has darkened considerably, primarily due to a drop in expected tax receipts from capital gains.
White House budget director Peter Orszag noted in a conference call with reporters that the president's budget is still on track to cut the deficit in half, as a percent of annual economic output, by the end of his first term. As the economy improves, the White House forecasts that the deficit will be just over $700 billion in 2013.
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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • The U.S. Government • Budget • The National Deficit • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
But the damage doesn't stop there.
The marriage penalty also makes a comeback, and the capital gains tax will jump 33% — to 20% from 15%. The tax on dividends will go all the way from 15% to 39.6% — a 164% increase....
Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • --The 2009 American Health Care Reform Debate • Law & Legal Issues • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Personal Finance • Taxes • The U.S. Government • Budget • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • Politics in General • Senate
A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds that a majority of retirees say they expect their current benefits to be cut, a dramatic increase in the number who hold that view. And a record six of 10 non-retirees predict Social Security won't be able to pay them benefits when they stop working.
Skepticism is highest among the youngest workers: Three-fourths of those 18 to 34 don't expect to get a Social Security check when they retire.
The public's views are more dire than the calculations of Social Security's trustees. Last year, they projected the system would begin running in the red in 2016, as the Baby Boom generation retired, and the trust fund would be exhausted in 2037.
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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Psychology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Personal Finance • The U.S. Government • Social Security • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
“What the markets are ultimately going to want is far more specificity and credibility on deficit reduction and normalization of Fed policy,” Roach, 64, said during a radio interview with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Surveillance.
President Barack Obama said on July 15 his economic- stimulus program is gradually pulling the U.S. out of the economic slump. The nation’s budget deficit is forecast to swell 14 percent this year to a record $1.6 trillion. Obama has said he will offset spending by more than $1.2 trillion over 10 years, partly through a freeze on many domestic programs and more than $800 million in higher taxes and fees on households earning more than $250,000.
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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Credit Markets • The U.S. Government • Federal Reserve • The National Deficit • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
Another problem is that the administration’s rhetoric — which too often employs inflammatory words like “reckless” — has the effect of tarring all of business with the same brush. The White House might better distinguish between Wall Street, Big Oil and health insurers, which have all incurred public wrath, and the majority of businesses, which haven’t.
The tension between President Obama and the business community is hurting both sides and may hamper economic recovery. Closing that divide requires the business community to mute its criticism, and the administration to make personnel and policy adjustments. Neither should be hard.
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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The U.S. Government • Federal Reserve • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
The massive expansion of government under President Barack Obama has basically guaranteed a robust job market for policy professionals, regulators and contractors for years to come. The housing market, boosted by the large number of high-income earners in the area, many working in politics and government, is easily outpacing the markets in most of the country. And there are few signs of economic distress in hotels, restaurants or stores in the D.C. metro area.
As a result, there is a yawning gap between the American people and D.C.’s powerful when it comes to their economic reality — and their economic perceptions.
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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The U.S. Government • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate
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