But…but…this goes against the Republican narrative! American Jobs Act — Final There really aren’t any controversial elements in here at all. Yes, Republicans are going to push back on any additional spending, but it’ll be hard for them to break this apart and only get the tax cuts through. So it’ll be up to them [...]

What is with you Texans and your Governors? Jeezus… Here’s the video… If the vid doesn’t play…here’s basically what he said… Texas Governor Rick Perry, who entered the presidential campaign on Saturday, appeared to suggest a violent response would be warranted should Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke “print more money” between now and the election. [...]

A very sobering piece to write, no doubt, but needed nonetheless. Especially when you consider the revised GDP numbers from 2008. From Frum Forum: Two years ago, Commerce estimated the decline of the US economy at -0.5% in the third quarter of 2008 and -3.8% in the fourth quarter. It now puts the damage at [...]

Looks like businesses are finally feeling some confidence. Maybe they read my post? Probably not. Regardless, if the above number holds up when the government reports on Friday it would represent triple what Wall Street was predicting. Daily Finance has more good news: Separately, private placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said planned layoff announcements [...]

When an economic bubble bursts, normalcy can only return if the price excesses created during the bubble are wrung out of the market. A recession is often a painful but necessary market mechanism that corrects the pricing distortion and consequent misallocation of capital that occurs in a bubble. When government intervention prevents the mispriced asset class from fully deflating, capital continues to be misallocated and economic malaise lingers on. This is the takeaway message from Peter Schiff’s Wall Street Journal editorial.

To those who claim that the stimulus has failed, well, many serious economists and the the CBO say that without it we’d be in much worse shape. And even those who opposed it are wishy washy about it effects…which basically means it helped. Regardless, a large chunk is still waiting to get into the economy [...]

Here ya go… Pretty straightforward. Dems aren’t going to win any economic ingenuity awards, but we’re out of the recession, private sector job growth is still holding on and we’ve got the shopping season coming up, which should drive even more. But what if the Republicans had their way? Well, let’s refer back to the [...]

The good news is that we added 90,000 jobs more than expected, and this job growth is the most in four years. Still, the unemployment rate went up and could stay there for a while. Because if our economy keeps growing and we continue to add more than a quarter million jobs per month, but [...]

Slightly below economists’ estimates of 3.3%, but 3.2% isn’t anything to sneeze at. And while this Q1′s growth was smaller than Q4′s 5.6%, CNN Money explains why these numbers might be more important to our long term economic outlook: In the fourth quarter, most of the growth was due to businesses no longer making the [...]

The gap has shrunk a bit, but the economy is turning around so in a year’s time it’s unlikely we’ll have the problems we’re having today. Basically, the question will then be… “Who is responsible for the economic growth in this country?” Gallup has more on that… Obama has stated that he “inherited the most [...]

More encouraging news about the TARP program… From Washington Post: Among the banks that rule Wall Street, Citigroup got a bailout that was bigger than the rest. Now the company is about to pay a king’s ransom for its federal rescue. The Obama administration is making final preparations to sell its stake in the New [...]

Given that this is the slowest recovery from the deepest recession in the modern era, any argument on what impact the stimulus package or the Obama administration did or did not have on the duration or depth of the recession or recovery can only be made on a counterfactual basis. Despite the massive expenditures, you can’t say this recovery is more robust than any that has gone before, so all that can be said in defense of administration policy is speculation that the recovery would have been even more tepid without the stimulus. Problem being, a case can also be made that the uncertainty created by this administration’s wild spending, insane deficits, threatened increases in health care taxes, likely increases in health care insurance premiums on employers, an energy tax (cap & trade), repeal of the Bush tax cuts, increases in the minimum wage, uncertainty created in the health care, financial, and energy industries with the imposition of radical government mandated top down changes in industrial policy – all contributed to increasing uncertainty in the private sector and made the recession worse.

Some welcome news for the White House, and the numbers could be even higher. First, from the Wall Street Journal: The Congressional Budget Office late Monday said it estimates that the federal stimulus package sustained between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs in the third quarter, and raised gross domestic product by 1.2 to 3.2 percentage [...]

As I’ve said numerous times before, voters aren’t stupid. They know who piloted our economic collapse last year and it’s going to be extremely hard for Republicans to convince them otherwise. Still, it is kind of telling that Republicans blame Obama more for the economy than Bush, even though it’s by a very small 6 [...]

True, it might go right back down tomorrow, but I have to say that this is a nice little psychological boost. But it’s not just psychological. Look at the 52 week spread in that picture…at this time last year we were down to 6,469. That’s a pretty significant jump in just one year’s time. Not [...]

Yep. That’s right. A group of economic forecasters are projecting that we’ll see growth in the next quarter, so the recession is technically over. And hey, we can all be thankful for that. However, the pain will linger for years to come. The problem is that all of the lagging indicators of true economic health [...]

The rise in unemployment is slowing down and we’re pulling out of this recession sooner than expected. Why? The reason is clear to me: we stepped in, took action and did something instead of just allowing the markets determine our fate. WSJ explains… The U.S. economy is beginning to show signs of improvement, with many [...]

Thanks to Justin and company for welcoming me on here as a regular contributor. I will be posting on a number of issues, but one area you can expect that I will regularly be tracking is technology related developments and how they interact with the political world and policy. I also live less than ten [...]

He’s repeating a lot of what he said earlier in the year, but I still think selling idea of passing health care reform as essential to our long term economic strength is a tough pill to swallow for Independents. What’s more, if this editorial would have dropped a few weeks ago it would have held [...]

Last night, at a major Republican fundraiser, GOP leaders had some of their harshest words yet for President Obama and his agenda. Newt Gingrich said the president’s stimulus plan has already failed. And: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Obama has a “radical agenda.” Republicans have “watched them take over banks, insurance companies, [...]