Archive for the 'Economy' Category

Comparing post WWII recessions

By mw | Related entries in Bad Decisions, Economic crisis, Economic recovery, Economy, Fiscal stimulus, Obama, Spending

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.

March 14th, 2010 | Permalink| 12 Comments »

Meanwhile…The Economy Is Recovering Nicely

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

There’s been a lot of chatter about how Obama isn’t focusing on the economy, how his plans have failed, etc.
Want to know the real story? Well, read on my friends, read on…
Yes, unemployment hasn’t dropped as quickly as we had hoped, but if the economic growth that has happened in the past quarter is any [...]

March 10th, 2010 | Permalink| 27 Comments »

Republicans Target Unemployment Benefits?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy, Jobs, Money, Republicans

As Americans, we’re accustomed to a certain standard of living. Nothing lavish, mind you. Most of us don’t have big, fancy houses or expensive cars. Most of us don’t have investment portfolios bursting at the seams. But we do have families and we do have responsibilities, and given that we pay our fair share into [...]

March 9th, 2010 | Permalink| 29 Comments »

Economy Grew 5.7% Last Quarter

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy, Money

Jobs may not be coming back, but the GDP is.
From Reuters:
The first estimate put fourth-quarter gross domestic product growth at its fastest pace since the third quarter of 2003. The economy expanded at a 2.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter.
Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast GDP, which measures total goods and services [...]

January 29th, 2010 | Permalink| 10 Comments »

The Discretionary Spending Freeze And What It Means For You

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Economy, Fiscal Responsibility, Money, Obama

First, the relevant facts about the budget that’s set to be released on Feb 1…
About $447 billion will be devoted to funding the government — the parts that aren’t mandated by law (the entitlements) or aren’t related to defense, intelligence, veterans or national security issues. Obama will promise to veto any budget that [...]

January 27th, 2010 | Permalink| 16 Comments »

Administration: Don’t like our message? No worries. We have a different message just for you.

By mw | Related entries in Banks, Budget, Economy, Fiscal Responsibility, Fiscal stimulus, Media, Politics

Yesterday, in a background briefing, the administration announced a three year spending freeze on portions of the budget. Since departments with the fastest growing government expenditures like Defense, VA, the State Department, and entitlements are excluded from the “freeze”, it will have a negligible effect on the ballooning deficit. One cannot help but wonder if the administration is trying to be all things to all people, and risks representing nothing to no one.

January 26th, 2010 | Permalink| 4 Comments »

Our Lost Decade Compared To Decades Past

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

I wrote yesterday about the scant number of jobs created in the last 10 years, but when compared to the past six decades the news becomes that much bleaker.
Wash Post illustrates…

I’m not saying we should have guarantees our overall net worth should go up or that our economy has to add jobs, but when productivity [...]

January 2nd, 2010 | Permalink| 9 Comments »

Jobless Claims At 18 Month Low

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy, Jobs

A bit of good news to report today amid the preparations for New Year’s celebrations. Jobless claims fell more than expected last week.
From WSJ:
Initial claims for unemployment benefits fell by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 432,000 in the week ended Dec. 26, the lowest level since July 19, 2008. The four-week average of new claims, [...]

December 31st, 2009 | Permalink| 4 Comments »

Christmas greetings from Krugman and Schiff

By mw | Related entries in Budget, Business, Economy, Liberalism, Libertarian, Money, health care reform

While Krugman is brimming with good tidings and bubbling over with holiday cheer, from the other side of the political spectrum Peter Schiff is offering a dour double dose of “Bah Humbug.”

December 25th, 2009 | Permalink| 18 Comments »

CBO Gives Dems A $132B Christmas Present

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Democrats, Economy, Health Care, Legislation, Republicans, health care reform

Christmas is coming early this year for the Dems.
With the news that Ben Nelson is falling in line so Dems can avoid a filibuster, the passage of this health care bill has become much more likely (almost a certainty?).
Basically, Republicans can cry foul about socialism and fiscal irresponsibility all they want, but they really [...]

December 19th, 2009 | Permalink| 5 Comments »

Unemployment Drops To 10%, Job Losses Lowest Of Recession

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy, Jobs, Money, unemployment

Nobody’s signing “Happy Days Are Here Again,” but any significant downward movement in the unemployment rate is reason for some early holiday cheer. And there’s more good news beyond this. I’ll share a chart that shows this after the numbers.
From WSJ:
U.S. job losses in November posted the smallest drop since the start of the recession [...]

December 4th, 2009 | Permalink| 7 Comments »

Bank Of America Pays Back TARP Funds 2+ Years Ahead Of Schedule

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Banks, Economy, Money

In Feb 2009, the company reported this…
Bank of America Corp. expects to pay back U.S. Treasury relief funds within the next three years, and “categorically” does not need further government funding, Chief Executive Ken Lewis told CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo in a televised interview Friday. Bank of America has received up to $45 billion in funds [...]

December 3rd, 2009 | Permalink| 11 Comments »

Thanksgiving tradition – precedented and “un”

By mw | Related entries in 2008 Election, 2010 Election, 2012 Election, Bad Decisions, Barack, China, Economy, Fiscal Responsibility, Food

The administration that has initiated so much that is unprecedented in American politics, introduced an unprecedented new Thanksgiving tradition – carving up our currency for the holidays.

November 26th, 2009 | Permalink| No Comments »

Free the Yuan

By donar | Related entries in Barack, Cartoons, China, Economy, Obama, Political Graffiti
November 17th, 2009 | Permalink| 1 Comment »

Obama To Focus On The Deficit In 2010

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Economy, Money, Obama

We all know we’re on an unsustainable course with all of this spending. And this is why I voted for this guy: he’s a realist. We needed a short term shot in the arm when he first got in here, but now we have to worry about the long term consequences.
Politico has more:
On the practical [...]

November 13th, 2009 | Permalink| 7 Comments »

Is Our Economic Data Fatally Flawed?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy

The New York Times uncovers a rather disturbing oversight that economists are just now focusing on.
Actually, disturbing isn’t the right word. Terrifying is much more of an accurate descriptor.
In any event…
The fundamental shortcoming is in the way imports are accounted for. A carburetor bought for $50 in China as a component of an American-made car, [...]

November 9th, 2009 | Permalink| 6 Comments »

Unemployment Hits 10.2%

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy, Jobs, Money, unemployment

We’ve crossed the psychological barrier and this spells bad news for Dems unless they can turn it around in the next couple months. Because this is the highest rate since 1983 and you’ll be hearing that time and time again in the next month.
Here’s more about those numbers:
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates [...]

November 6th, 2009 | Permalink| 25 Comments »

Poll: Bush Still To Blame For Economic Woes

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Bush, Economic crisis, Economic recovery, Economy, Obama, Polls

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 point [...]

November 3rd, 2009 | Permalink| 4 Comments »

Dow Jones Closes Above 10,000

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economic recovery, Economy, Money

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 only that, [...]

October 14th, 2009 | Permalink| 11 Comments »

The “Great Recession” Is Now Technically Over

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Democrats, Economic recovery, Economy, Republicans

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 (rising employment, [...]

October 14th, 2009 | Permalink| 8 Comments »