Archive for the 'Business' Category

Job Losses Of Recessions Past

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Business, Economy, Jobs

Compared to now… The situation is certainly getting worse and there are no indications I’ve seen that it’ll get better anytime soon… The United States lost nearly 600,000 jobs last month, sending the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent, the highest in 16 years, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday. News of the increase, up from [...]

February 8th, 2009 | Permalink| 3 Comments »

Republican Judd Gregg To Be Commerce Secretary

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Business, Money, Republicans, Senate

Looks like the Republican senator will be attempting to join the Obama administration since a press conference is set for tomorrow morning. And my guess is that he’ll get confirmed immediately. Now, there had been speculation that Obama’s team was picking Gregg to swing the senate to 60 Dem votes, but that was quickly put [...]

February 2nd, 2009 | Permalink| 5 Comments »

Where Did The Pajamas Media Money Go?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Blogging, Business, Conservatives

The PJM Ad Network is no more, and when you do the math it doesn’t really make sense. First, to understand why people are so upset right now you have to know that PJM forced their bloggers to accept NO other advertising dollars if they wanted to be part of their ad network. So BlogAds, [...]

January 31st, 2009 | Permalink| 18 Comments »

Bloomberg To Cut $1B From NYC Budget

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Bloomberg, Business, Money, Taxes

Some tough cuts and tax increases are coming to The Big Apple. From WCBSTV.com: “This is a very tough time for our city and nation,” Bloomberg said. “We have a $4 billion budget gap. It is serious, I think it is manageable.” [...] For now, Bloomberg is proposing $894 million in new sales taxes, including: [...]

January 31st, 2009 | Permalink| No Comments »

Obama’s First Year: Stimulus

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Business, Economy, Money, Video

I think it’s pretty clear by now that the economy will define Obama’s first year. But will it define his entire first term? Hardball discusses… A bit of good news? Credit seems to be unfreezing. More as it develops…

January 17th, 2009 | Permalink| No Comments »

What Can $825 Billion Buy You?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Business, Economy, Legislation

No doubt this will change, but just a quick snapshot of what’s proposed in the stimulus bill. Courtesy of the NY Times.

January 16th, 2009 | Permalink| 1 Comment »

Circuit City Closing All 567 U.S. Stores

By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Business, Economy

In a sign of the times, electronics retailer Circuit City has failed to find a buyer for its business and will close all 567 remaining U.S. stores. 30,000 people will lose their jobs. In a bid to remain viable, Circuit City filed for bankruptcy last year, but a dismal holiday shopping season sealed the chain’s [...]

January 16th, 2009 | Permalink| 1 Comment »

Investment Banks Hoarding Oil Offshore?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Business, Energy, Gas, Money, Oil

Following up on my earlier post about oil speculation, there’s news that 50 million barrels of oil are being hoarded on supertankers. The market calls it “contango.” I call it irresponsible. From Marketplace… “Contango” refers to a market condition in which the future price of a commodity is higher than the cost of buying it [...]

January 12th, 2009 | Permalink| 16 Comments »

Christina Romer Talks Stimulus

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Business, Economy, Video

The Chair-designate for the Council of Economic Advisers put the plan together so she’s the best person to explain it. It’s refreshing to hear somebody argue that both government spending and tax cuts can create jobs. Because, first and foremost, Romer cares about the ideas that works and that’s what we need right now. Also, [...]

January 11th, 2009 | Permalink| No Comments »

Women To Benefit More From Obama’s Stimulus?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Business, Economy, Gender

I found this interesting nugget in Obama’s economic proposal… Summing across industries suggests that the total number of created jobs likely to go to women is roughly 42% of the jobs created by the package. Given that so far in the recession women have accounted for roughly 20% of the decline in payroll employment, this [...]

January 11th, 2009 | Permalink| No Comments »

Obama Promises More Jobs, 90% In Private Sector

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Business, Economy, Legislation, Money, Video

Before we get into the details, one very important thing I want to point out is that the Obama team is starting to make this plan bullet proof. Because not only are 90% of the projected jobs going to be created in the private sector, but the 10% of government jobs are those that are [...]

January 10th, 2009 | Permalink| 7 Comments »

Video Of Obama’s Economic Recovery Speech

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Business, Economy, Video

Presented in full by MSNBC… You can also read the text here.

January 8th, 2009 | Permalink| No Comments »

Obama’s Economic Recovery Speech

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Business, Economy

I’ll have the video when it’s posted, but from what I’ve read below this is, once again, exactly in line with the type of pragmatic, common sense leadership Obama promised on the campaign trail. Here are a few key thoughts… Our problems are rooted in past mistakes, not our capacity for future greatness The true [...]

January 8th, 2009 | Permalink| 4 Comments »

Steel Industry’s ‘Buy American’ Not Good for Americans

By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Business, Economy, The World

The Wall Street Journal explains why we shouldn’t put a “buy American steel provision” into the upcoming stimulus plan. 1) The domestic steel industry cannot supply all our needs (20-25% of our steel is imported). 2) American steel companies have become highly consolidated and, without international competition, would be able to raise prices and bilk [...]

January 8th, 2009 | Permalink| 2 Comments »

Will Obama’s Stimulus Plan Work?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Business, Economy, Taxes, Video

Folks on the left and the right of this issue discuss on CNBC… Of course Kudlow and Toomey were going to argue for lower corporate tax rates, but we’ve seen how many taxes corporations pay (hint: not much). But individual people and smaller businesses need the tax cuts and ability to write off debt, not [...]

January 6th, 2009 | Permalink| 2 Comments »

Stimulus Bill May Be Later Rather Than Sooner

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Business, Democrats, Economy, Legislation, Republicans

Not necessarily the worst thing in the world, especially considering the noises Republicans have been making recently about accounting for every single dollar. From NY Times: Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader, expressed doubt on Sunday that the Jan. 20 goal set by some for getting a stimulus package before the new [...]

January 5th, 2009 | Permalink| No Comments »

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Business, Economy, Video

3 million new jobs. 80% of them in the private sector. Here’s more… By the way, Obama is now posting his videos on Vimeo too, which is much better quality.

January 3rd, 2009 | Permalink| No Comments »

The 5 Worst Days Of 2008

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Business, Economy, Video

For me, the meaning of “worst” is definitely in the eye of the beholder. Because while a lot of wealth was lost, the silver lining was that many economic ills were exposed before something truly cataclysmic happened. There’s no doubt that our economy is hurting right now, but just imagine what would have happened if [...]

January 2nd, 2009 | Permalink| No Comments »

The Realities Of Owning A Small Business Right Now

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Business, Economy, Video

The New York Times covers three small businesses in the NYC area and it’s pretty sobering stuff. Whatever stimulus plan we see after Obama gets in better help these folks directly otherwise the economy simply isn’t going to pick back up. Do you own a small business? How tough have things been recently?

January 1st, 2009 | Permalink| 5 Comments »

Oil Sinks On Recession Woes

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Business, Economy, Energy, Gas, Oil

Massive energy speculation mixed with much lower demand is driving the price down, down, down for the foreseeable future. From AP: A report by the Commerce Department showed that sales of new homes fell in November to the slowest pace in nearly 18 years, while new home prices dropped by the biggest amount in eight [...]

December 23rd, 2008 | Permalink| 6 Comments »