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 [...]

Modeled Behavior points out something I’ve talked about recently. That companies are holding trillions of dollars in profits close to their chest and losing trillions more in opportunities because they’re scared and won’t put people back to work…even those there’s plenty of work to be done because the demand is there. First, the capacity utilization… [...]

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 stimulus did nothing for our economy? It didn’t prevent a second Great Depression? It didn’t help create demand when we literally had deflation? It didn’t prop up a system that relied on consumer spending when consumers weren’t spending? The CBO shines the light: In its latest quarterly assessment of the act, the CBO said [...]

The title says it all, but here’s a bit more detail… From NY Times: Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $550 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission, one of the largest penalties ever paid by a Wall Street firm, to settle charges of securities fraud linked to mortgage investments. The S.E.C. filed a lawsuit [...]

The doomsayers are out in full force today…which I find puzzling. After all, the jobs report today, while not overtly positive, was still nearly 200,000 better than the previous month and one would think it could be seen as either neutral or slightly positive. Yes, many of the jobs added were seasonal and created by [...]

A couple of fun videos outlining what happened in Southern Europe. Part One Part Two I’ll share Part Three when it’s available…but we all know that the EU opened up the cash drawer and created a TARP fund of their very own to make sure that these countries remain solvent…at least for now. More as [...]

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 [...]

Human error? Computer error? Greece? Spain? China? WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!?! Wall Street Journal tries to sort out the mess… A bad day in the financial markets was made worse by an apparent trading glitch, leaving traders and investors nervous and scratching their heads over how a mistake could send the Dow [...]

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 [...]

All week I’ve watched GM CEO Ed Whitacre walking down a factory floor in a GM advertisement, crowing about repaying government loans while saying he could respect the opinion of those who did not want to give GM a “second chance”. It is good to know that Ed can respect my opinion of the bailout. He might be interested to know that my current opinion is that his claim that GM repaid the loan from the US Government in full and ahead of schedule is more than a little disingenuous. I hope Ed still respects me.

Alex Gibney, the filmmaker behind Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room, is back with his take on the Abramoff scandal and it seems like it’ll be illuminating…and scary. Check out this featurette… Basically…Money + Power = Problems. Especially when it comes to the upcoming financial reform legislation. Which is why I’m heartened that 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 [...]

Yep. We’ll never see that money again. And certainly not 5 years ahead of schedule. Just like we’ll never see the TARP money again. From the AP: GM got a total of $52 billion from the U.S. government and $9.5 billion from the Canadian and Ontario governments as it went through bankruptcy protection last year. [...]

Looks like some Republicans are beginning to line up behind the Dodd legislation. So, lo and behold, compromises can be reached! From Wash Post: Key Senate Republicans on Tuesday began to back away from their sharp criticism of proposed new financial regulations and expressed optimism that a bipartisan deal on a bill that would drastically [...]

When I hear about “class warfare” and how it’s unfair to have a progressive taxation system that relies more on the wealthiest citizens, well, it’s hard to take those opinions seriously. The rich are indeed getting richer. Much, much richer. And the middle class and lower income folks continue to see their percentage of the [...]

The Affordable Health Care for America Act is a bad piece of legislation that will have negative consequences for our economy and country and should never have become law. On that one point many liberals, conservatives and libertarians agree. Perhaps President Obama has simply fulfilled the campaign promise of a post-partisan political environment in Washington D.C. Due to his efforts, many Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Liberals and Conservatives are now united – in opposition to the BFD that is the Obama Health Care Reform hairball.

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.

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 [...]