here we go guys
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 18 October 2007 23:44 (2 years ago) Permalink
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2007/10/more-inflation.html
personally I'm applying for a civil servant position ASAP
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 18 October 2007 23:45 (2 years ago) Permalink
Just FYI, during the 1930s depression, many civil servants were paid with vouchers rather than cash, because local governments were unable to collect property taxes and their receipts fell into the shitbin.
― Aimless, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:12 (2 years ago) Permalink
Economy's doing poorly enough as it stands, why do we deliberately want to roll it into the shitbin?
― Abbott, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:14 (2 years ago) Permalink
Because that way Hillary can rescue us all.
― Dandy Don Weiner, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:17 (2 years ago) Permalink
lol property taxes
― El Tomboto, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:18 (2 years ago) Permalink
shitbin's a great word, BTW.
― Dandy Don Weiner, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:20 (2 years ago) Permalink
you been loving my thread titles lately
― El Tomboto, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:26 (2 years ago) Permalink
i came to this country some time ago with little more than a crippling debt burden in GB Pounds and the shirt on my back. i used to have to send back $1,200 each month to pay off my UK debt, and now I'm sending back over $1,400 to cover the same amount of debt repayment. that's two and a half thousand dollars disappearing from my tiny disposable income every year, for no explicable reason. i *heart* the decline of the US economy.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:27 (2 years ago) Permalink
anyway why start this thread now because the bit where ritholtz points out that domino's pizza can't print new menus fast enough to keep up with inflation was pretty fucking amazing
I wish rasheed wallace was still around to show us the latest and greatest exploding bubble blogs
― El Tomboto, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:28 (2 years ago) Permalink
wow Roberto that was some shitty timing, that sucks
― El Tomboto, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:29 (2 years ago) Permalink
This was in the paper today:
Mortgage defaults
Hit an annual rate of 1.5 million in September. That compares with 900,000 last year from fewer than 800,000 in 2005. At the current rate, more than one million Americans will lose their homes to foreclosure, making this the worst housing recession since the Second World War.
Housing starts
Sank to a 14-year low of 1.19 million in September. Starts are a vital economic engine, creating jobs and growth as people stuff their homes with sofas and TVs. Starts peaked at 2.3 million in early 2006, and the decline will be a drag on the rest of the economy until the slide stops.
Mortgages
A quarter of the roughly 50 million U.S. home mortgages are subprime. That's seven times the number of high-risk mortgages there were in 2001. That means that many more marginal homeowners have mortgages, making it far more likely they'll wind up in default.
House prices
Fell 3.2 per cent in the second quarter. Prices are falling faster and more broadly than they have in decades, according to the closely watched Case-Shiller index.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071018.IBUSECONOMY18/TPStory/Business
― everything, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:29 (2 years ago) Permalink
where the hell is rasheed anyway?
economic blogs I read (they're all fairly liberal):
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/ http://angrybear.blogspot.com/ http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/ http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/ http://bigpicture.typepad.com/ http://www.janegalt.net/
― Dandy Don Weiner, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:37 (2 years ago) Permalink
In regard to inflation, in the USA during the past three years inflation has been soaring - but almost entirely in the housing sector. The fact that people are encouraged to see their houses as investments rather than as expenses doesn't mean that skyrocketing housing costs weren't inflationary. They were.
As the bubble market bursts, I predict a recession with an extra added bonus of inflation running close to 10% - before the end of 2008. As it has for the past 30 years, the official CPI will understate the real inflation rate. It was rigged under Reagan so that government entitlement programs indexed to the CPI would not increase at the true pace of inflation.
If Bush continues to shovel shit on the dollar right up to the end of his term in January 2009, the inflation rate could hit 15%-20% by 2010.
― Aimless, Friday, 19 October 2007 00:55 (2 years ago) Permalink
There are some good economics articles put up here as well: http://www.VoxEU.org
― stet, Friday, 19 October 2007 01:02 (2 years ago) Permalink
Which shit on the dollar are you referring to?
― Dandy Don Weiner, Friday, 19 October 2007 01:02 (2 years ago) Permalink
As the bubble market bursts, I predict a recession with an extra added bonus of inflation running close to 10% - before the end of 2008.
lol
― aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Friday, 19 October 2007 06:11 (2 years ago) Permalink
this is why i live in canada!
― J0rdan S., Friday, 19 October 2007 06:13 (2 years ago) Permalink
oh wait.
Guys, this is a good time stay in academia right?
― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Friday, 19 October 2007 11:51 (2 years ago) Permalink
It's a good time to learn a European language.
― Nubbelverbrennung, Friday, 19 October 2007 13:33 (2 years ago) Permalink
Prime shit examples:
When Bush was elected in 2000, the federal budget was in surplus and the national debt was being paid down. Had this state of affairs continued, as projected, it would have led both to lower interest rates and a strong dollar, together. Instead, Bush submitted a series of enormous tax cuts to the Republican-controlled Congress and lobbied them through. Immediately, the CBO's projected budget surpluses turned to projected deficits for the next decade.
Bush also initiated a war of choice, not necessity, in Iraq. This war has already cost well over $700 billion. Yet, Bush insisted on making his tax cuts permanent. Overall, the national debt has increased under Bush by about $2 trillion in seven years. This represents a difference of about $3 trillion of debt from what was projected at the start of his first term.
Because, due to Bush's tax cuts and other policies, the Federal government was in a far weaker position to stimulate the economy when the recession started after 9/11, almost the entire stimulus was delivered via lower interest rates. Because these rate cuts were artificial, and not based on a stronger dollar, this stimulus not only inflated the current housing bubble, but it also undercut the dollar even more than the ballooning national debt did.
Now the dollar is at an all-time low against the euro and the canadian dollar. However, the incomes of the top 10% of American households have increased at a good clip, while the lower 50% of households have seen a decrease in income after inflation. This is largely thanks to Bush's shitty policies. I expect more of the same mismanagement until he is gone.
― Aimless, Saturday, 20 October 2007 18:36 (2 years ago) Permalink
I agree with everything you've just said. You're predictions still seem a tad extreme on the downside though, if I may so.
― aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Saturday, 20 October 2007 18:50 (2 years ago) Permalink
i wonder if income inequality will ever arrive as a political issue in this country. americans tend to not begrudge the rich - so it'll have to be more of a "for everyone's good" type of angle. no?
― jhøshea, Saturday, 20 October 2007 18:54 (2 years ago) Permalink
I remember the 1970s and early 80s quite well. Back then people couldn't belileve it, either. Bush has done a bangup job of recreating many of the same policy errors under Johnson and Nixon that led to raging stagflation back then, except the underlying economy is now weaker than it was in the 1970s and the oil shocks we are likely to get are not political, as when OPEC was formed, but structural.
Oil will exceed $100/barrel some time this winter. The ever-weakening dollar will lead to smaller profit margins and rising retail prices on all imported goods (which means almost everything we buy in the USA). Transport costs will rise with pil prices. Stock prices will erode along with profits. With so many savings tied up in stocks and home equity, consumer spending will be crunched, and personal debt and bancruptcies will rise like a tide. Businesses will retrench and unemployment will rise. No end in sight.
I hope I am wrong.
― Aimless, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:07 (2 years ago) Permalink
Anyone want to join my modern-day James Gang? We shall ride across the lower Midwest, robbing and pillaging.
― milo z, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:09 (2 years ago) Permalink
sounds fun
― jhøshea, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:13 (2 years ago) Permalink
Sorry, I don't want to relocate. But this scheme sounds ripe for franchising.
― Aimless, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:14 (2 years ago) Permalink
-- Aimless, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:07 (14 minutes ago) Link
The coming of $100/barrel oil is not Bush's fault. It's yours and mine and everyone else's for using too damned much energy. I agree Bush could and should have done a lot more with policy to encourage energy efficiency, but there's little he could have done to stop oil's eventual rise to that price level.
― Hurting 2, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:26 (2 years ago) Permalink
Part of the pricing of oil represents the weakness of the dollar. This hurts the USA more than it does other countries. US citizens are paid in dollars and the US government collects revenue in dollars, so they are stuck. EU countries can use euros to buy increasingly cheap dollars, so they don't see the same rise in prices as we do. The weakness of the dollar is mainly Bush's fault.
― Aimless, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:31 (2 years ago) Permalink
The US also uses way more oil than other countries.
― Hurting 2, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:33 (2 years ago) Permalink
he could have done to stop oil's eventual rise to that price level. Not starting a war in Iraq would definitely have helped here.
― stet, Saturday, 20 October 2007 19:57 (2 years ago) Permalink
― El Tomboto, Monday, 22 October 2007 17:47 (2 years ago) Permalink
arrgh, if that won't work then http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007/10/imf-mortgage-reset-chart.html
tombot u r freakin me out
― gff, Monday, 22 October 2007 17:50 (2 years ago) Permalink
i hope my small apartment + modest savings plan + job in "information services" is enough to weather the shitstorm, if it comes. i got myself out of credit card debt a few months ago, at least
― gff, Monday, 22 October 2007 17:53 (2 years ago) Permalink
well if you can hold down a job and don't have to worry about an ARM reset you should be okay, it's the homeowner with kids and a subprime loan and two cars who ought to be shitting themselves
― El Tomboto, Monday, 22 October 2007 17:58 (2 years ago) Permalink
apart from some student loans and binging on credit cards over a few years, i'm kind of debt phobic.
which has actually made me lose out over the past several years, i realize, since i pay for EVERYTHING with a debit/check card... i could have just paid that balance on a credit card with some rewards scheme and has some air miles or something
― gff, Monday, 22 October 2007 18:00 (2 years ago) Permalink
rolling gff personal finances into the shitbin thread, ha
― gff, Monday, 22 October 2007 18:01 (2 years ago) Permalink
This will give you a boner Tombot
http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39952/
― Dandy Don Weiner, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 11:30 (2 years ago) Permalink
the economy increased by 3.9% this quarter! bull market forever, baby. economy's better than ever. golden age.
yet me and so many people I know are getting laid off next month. granted we're all in the writing/design field, but urhhhhh. gggg.
― burt_stanton, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:58 (2 years ago) Permalink
^^^ lol
most of that guy's scenario is not really news to regular bigpicture/CR readers I don't think. But #5, the "we don't pay attention" thing, yeah, well, evidently the awareness campaign is underway, but hell if the big players are paying attention.
He also leaves out the approaching demographic catastrophe as millions of inexperienced thirtysomethings and even some late-twenties kids are forced to move into arguably tougher jobs that the boomers have been holding for two decades. Beyond the social security and healthcare costs associated with mass retirement, I don't really know if this generation has the work ethic and definitely not the rolodex to just start filling in and not fuck up royally. too busy updating their linkedin pages.
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 15:11 (2 years ago) Permalink
can someone explain what "being upside down on your mortgage" means, in plain English?
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:14 (2 years ago) Permalink
essentially, owing more than your home is worth.
― Dandy Don Weiner, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:10 (2 years ago) Permalink
also Tombot I'm not going to blame this generation as much as I blame their parents.
― Dandy Don Weiner, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:11 (2 years ago) Permalink
isn't that the way people buy homes? by paying for the privilege of a loan?
― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:12 (2 years ago) Permalink
When you enter into a contract with a bank for a mortgage, both you and the bank assume that the property value will not plummet. The bank doesn't want you to default any more than you want to default. But if for whatever reason you need to sell your home, and you can't get what you owe on it, then you will owe the difference to the bank. And the bank knows that when that happens, you probably will not have enough assets to cover the difference.
Predatory-type loans (which seems like a nebulous description to me) typically compound the problem because they have higher transaction rates (points, etc.)
― Dandy Don Weiner, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:17 (2 years ago) Permalink
oh certainly! well played baby boom letting healthcare slide for the 20 years you've owned the electorate
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:18 (2 years ago) Permalink
yeah Tracer it's also called "negative equity"
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:19 (2 years ago) Permalink
The question here isn't maybe whether or not to pass a bill, but what the hell did the bill actually do, what actually worked and what didn't
I don't recall an alternative stimulus proposal offered by the GOP (not trying to be snide; I only recall general opposition to the notion of further gov't spending to jump-start the economy).
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 6 November 2009 16:40 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
Obama was wrong, wrong, wrong on how his stimulus would increase employment.
Your own graph contradicts you: Obama said the stimulus package would make unemployment rise less than it would under other scenarios under consideration. Not that it would actually add net jobs. This graph doesn't speak to that at all.
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 6 November 2009 16:44 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
The important thing here is that the worldwide economy almost collapsed last year and we should be mad that the magical Hope president can't fix everything in 10 months.
― Adam Bruneau, Friday, 6 November 2009 17:19 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
No unicorns, either. I was promised magic unicorns.
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 6 November 2009 17:20 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
Tax cuts, people.
― Euler, Friday, 6 November 2009 17:22 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
I mean he said "Hope" and everything is not completely back to 'normal' so that's just outright lying to us.
― Adam Bruneau, Friday, 6 November 2009 17:24 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
I think a round of GOP style tax-cuts, minus a stimulus bill, would have us facing a depression.
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 6 November 2009 17:26 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
C'mon, you know you want to live Mexico City-style, with high thick walls around your house topped with broken bottles in cement to keep out the unsuccessful.
― Euler, Friday, 6 November 2009 17:28 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
i wonder what bush's graphs looked like in 2007
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 6 November 2009 17:29 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
or what senate republicans' graphs look like now; do they do graphs? maybe ron paul has a graph he could share
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 6 November 2009 17:30 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
y'all get a load of this?
It took just five weeks after the WorldCom accounting scandal erupted in 2002 for Congress to pass, and President George W. Bush to sign, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. That law required public companies to make sure their internal controls against fraud were not full of holes....
Sarbanes-Oxley was passed, almost unanimously, by a Republican-controlled House and a Democratic-controlled Senate. Now a Democratic Congress is gutting it with the apparent approval of the Obama administration.
The House Financial Services Committee this week approved an amendment to the Investor Protection Act of 2009 — a name George Orwell would appreciate — to allow most companies to never comply with the law, and mandating a study to see whether it would be a good idea to exempt additional ones as well.
Some veterans of past reform efforts were left sputtering with rage. “That the Democratic Party is the vehicle for overturning the most pro-investor legislation in the past 25 years is deeply disturbing,” said Arthur Levitt, a Democrat who was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission under President Bill Clinton. “Anyone who votes for this will bear the investors’ mark of Cain.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/business/06norris.html?_r=1&ref=business&pagewanted=print
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Friday, 6 November 2009 17:40 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
yeah i honestly don't understand that at all. what the fuck are they doing?
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 6 November 2009 17:42 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
serving their paymasters?
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Friday, 6 November 2009 17:45 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
is that what they tell their children?
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 6 November 2009 17:50 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
sounds like companies worth under 75 mil won't be audited anymore, but it's all up in the air, and it has to go through the senate first
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/committee-allows-a-break-on-certain-auditing-rules/
By a vote of 37 to 32, the House Financial Services Committee moved to permanently exempt companies worth less than $75 million from the auditing provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a change that was promoted by the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.
The amendment was criticized by senior Democrats, including Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the chairman of the committee. But at a news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Frank defended Mr. Emanuel’s involvement, saying he had helped to negotiate a substantial narrowing of the provision.
The companies that would be permanently relieved of auditing requirements under Sarbanes-Oxley have repeatedly won temporary exemptions from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The amendment approved by the committee was sponsored by two New Jersey congressmen, John Adler, a Democrat, and Scott Garrett, a Republican. Supporters said the more stringent auditing provisions were overly burdensome to small companies and that easing them would encourage job growth.
Consumer groups said the provision had no place in a bill that its sponsors say is supposed to help protect investors.
“The supporters of this amendment, including apparently the White House, have suggested that weakening protections against accounting fraud is justified in order to promote job growth,” said Barbara Roper, director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America. “That is precisely the sort of thinking that landed us in the current mess and precisely the sort of thinking Democrats criticized when they were blaming Republicans for the current financial crisis.”
The bill, part of a broader effort to overhaul the regulatory system in response to the crisis in the financial markets, would provide new powers and increased resources to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The legislation, approved 41 to 28, would give the commission the authority to end mandatory arbitration agreements that investors must sign with their brokers and financial advisers. And it would establish a whistle-blower bounty program for Wall Street employees.
― TGAAPQ (Mr. Que), Friday, 6 November 2009 17:52 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
I for one welcome our new wall street overlords
― mayor jingleberries, Friday, 6 November 2009 20:25 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
f you take an honest look at the stimulus package, you'll see that a huge chunk of it is a mind boggling political payoff
don last time you said this i asked for examples but i don't remember you giving any. what "huge chunk"? this was a republican talking point in february, when they were making a big deal about a couple little items (contraception is one i remember) that got removed from the bill. what "political payoff" are you talking about? as far as i know the package was mostly some extended or increased benefits (unemployment, food stamps), some aid to state and local governments, some tax cuts and some infrastructure spending. in other words the kinds of things governments usually spend stimulus money on.
and the white house wasn't wrong about the basic situation: that unemployment was going to get worse and the economy needed stimulus spending. it just used the least-apocalyptic of the forecasts available to it, partly in response to criticism from the right that it was "talking down" the economy. so unemployment is worse than their forecasts, as lots of people predicted. so what? how does that change anything, except to bolster the case that the stimulus bill should have been bigger?
anyway, here's what mark zandi (who argued for a bigger package to start with) said last week:
The fiscal stimulus is also working. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed early this year has reduced payroll tax withholding, sent checks to Social Security recipients, and provided financial help to unemployed workers whose normal benefits have run out. The cash for clunkers program revved up vehicle sales, and the housing tax credit has boosted home purchases. It is no coincidence that the Great Recession ended just as the stimulus began providing its maximum economic benefit (see Chart 1). The stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do: short-circuit the recession and spur recovery.
Criticism that only $175 billion of the $787 billion stimulus plan has been distributed through tax cuts and increased government spending is misplaced (see Table 2). What matters for economic growth is the pace of stimulus spending, which surged from nothing at the beginning of the year to about $80 billion in the third quarter. That is a big change in a short period and is why the economy is growing again after more than a year.
The part of the stimulus providing the biggest bang for the buck—the most economic activity per federal dollar spent—is the extension of unemployment insurance benefits (see Table 3). Workers who lose their jobs before the end of 2009 can temporarily receive more UI, food stamps, and help with health insurance payments. Without this extra help, laid-off workers and their families would be slashing their own spending, leading to the loss of even more jobs.
Federal aid to strapped state and local governments also is providing significant economic benefits, lessening their need to slash programs and jobs or to hike taxes and fees. State and local tax revenues have fallen by nearly $120 billion during the past year, but government expenditures have merely gone flat, because federal grants in aid have soared by almost $110 billion (see Chart 2). The decline in income, sales, property and capital gains taxes has been unprecedented and shows only marginal signs of abating.
...Criticism that infrastructure spending funded by the stimulus has been slow to get started is valid. But this is partly because safeguards against funding unproductive or politically driven projects have slowed things down. Infrastructure projects are now gearing up, however, and this will be particularly helpful next year, when the recovery will still be fragile.
Although the recession is over, the economy is struggling. Job losses have slowed significantly since the beginning of the year, but payrolls are still shrinking, and unemployment is still rising. The nation's jobless rate will top 10% in coming months—higher than the Obama administration forecast when it was trying to get the stimulus passed early in the year. That fact, however, says nothing about the program's efficacy. If anything, it suggests the $787 billion stimulus was too small. Administration economists, like most private forecasters—including Moody's Economy.com—underestimated how hard the financial shock would hit the U.S. job market.
― STRATE IN2 DAKRNESS (tipsy mothra), Friday, 6 November 2009 23:54 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
Suggest Ban Permalink
― Tracer Hand, Friday, November 6, 2009 12:42 PM (7 hours ago)
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Friday, November 6, 2009 12:45 PM (7 hours ago)
lol'd
― a full circle lol (J0hn D.), Saturday, 7 November 2009 01:47 (1 week ago) Permalink
if anyone should be saying "told ya so," it's krugman.
Done.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/opinion/06krugman.html
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 7 November 2009 03:48 (1 week ago) Permalink
don last time you said this i asked for examples but i don't remember you giving any.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjcyODIyZGM2MGU1ZDdkNDgxZDc3OTNjYjM4ZDY1ODI=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/12/AR2009021203502.htmlhttp://www.usnews.com/money/business-economy/articles/2009/02/19/finding-the-pork-in-the-obama-stimulus-bill.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/02/01/GR2009020100154.html
and the white house wasn't wrong about the basic situation: that unemployment was going to get worse and the economy needed stimulus spending.
nobody was wrong about that assessment. The argument all along was how to do it. "We're all Keynesians now", right?
Anyway, here's this too:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110601900.html
― Obama needs a John McCone (Dandy Don Weiner), Saturday, 7 November 2009 13:08 (1 week ago) Permalink
If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.
― max, Saturday, 7 November 2009 13:19 (1 week ago) Permalink
i mean: why does it matter where the money goes, as long as it goes somewhere besides a bank account?
― max, Saturday, 7 November 2009 13:21 (1 week ago) Permalink
because tax cuts.
― Euler, Saturday, 7 November 2009 13:22 (1 week ago) Permalink
A new alliance of battery companies won $2 billion in grants and loans in the stimulus package to jump-start the domestic lithium ion industry. Filipino veterans, most of whom do not live in the United States, will get $200 million in long-awaited compensation for service in World War II.
The nation's small shipyards also made out well, with $100 million in grant money -- a tenfold increase in funding from last year, when the federal Maritime Administration launched the program to benefit yards in places such as Ketchikan, Alaska, and Bayou La Batre, Ala.
oh no!!! if those battery companies and shipyards get more money, why, theyll... theyll... hire new workers
― max, Saturday, 7 November 2009 13:23 (1 week ago) Permalink
yeah, don, none of those articles come anywhere close to substantiating your "huge chunk" of "political payoffs." like, they're indicting the entire $8 billion in high-speed rail spending because some of it might go to an l.a./las vegas train. (which doesn't in itself sound like a bad thing, tho obviously harry reid probably likes it.) and what's wrong with an icebreaker for the coast guard? these are just the same old republican squawking points from february, which were designed to baffle and confuse people who don't understand what "stimulus spending" is. while you're at it, why not trot out bobby jindal's "omg volcano monitoring!"
as far as i can tell, the republican definition of "real stimulus" is anything the democrats aren't doing. but it's about what i'd expect from the least economically literate group of politicians i've ever seen. modern conservatives have basically proved george bush sr. right -- they really do treat economics like it's voodoo, like it's all about reciting the right words in the right order: government bad, markets good, privatize privatize privatize. "stimulus" must be bad (even if they don't understand it), because it's obama magic. and since the unemployment rate keeps going up, it just shows that OBAMA MAGIC BAD!
― STRATE IN2 DAKRNESS (tipsy mothra), Saturday, 7 November 2009 13:47 (1 week ago) Permalink
$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts$380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program$300 million for grants to combat violence against women$2 billion for federal child-care block grants$6 billion for university building projects$15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships$4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion for “youths” up to the age of 24$1 billion for community-development block grants$4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”$650 million for digital-TV coupons; $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”
― max, Saturday, 7 November 2009 13:52 (1 week ago) Permalink
MORE POLITICAL PAYOFFS
i mean the truth is the only thing i can find in any of those articles that wont in one way or another stimulate the economy is the payout to the filipino vets and... we kind of owe them
― max, Saturday, 7 November 2009 13:53 (1 week ago) Permalink
yeah what's a billion here or there among friends, right? I guess a billion isn't a huge number to anyone anymore. You know how those million or billion dollar line items get parceled out, right? You know how the oversight on those appropriations works, right?
I guess when it comes to Obama-driven spending, all of it is appropriate and can't be criticized, no matter the amount or the result and we'll just deny the political elements of the process. The only criticism can be that we have not spent enough, not that--god forbid--some of the stimulus could be directed towards different sources or--god forbid--delivered more efficiently. The time for discussion is over. The rich are still too rich. Businesses are still making too much off of the back of workers. Profit margins are still too high. We need to give Obama whatever he wants for round two because round one--with it's creation of "more than 600,000 jobs" was a raging success.
― Obama needs a John McCone (Dandy Don Weiner), Saturday, 7 November 2009 18:04 (1 week ago) Permalink
now youre not even making an argument, youre making a straw man
― max, Saturday, 7 November 2009 18:09 (1 week ago) Permalink
i mean--is your argument that the stimulus could have been given to more deserving sources or delivered more efficiently? because, like--"duh"
you know what else could have happened, is that people could have not invested heavily in mortgage-backed securities
― max, Saturday, 7 November 2009 18:10 (1 week ago) Permalink
I guess when it comes to Obama-driven spending, all of it is appropriate and can't be criticized, no matter the amount or the result and we'll just deny the political elements of the process.
i mean, i still dont have any clue what this means?? what is the "result" youre referring to so obliquely here? why does the fact that government spending is a political process bother you so much??? whats the alternative??
― max, Saturday, 7 November 2009 18:14 (1 week ago) Permalink
what is the "result" youre referring to so obliquely here?
The result is that not very many jobs were created from the stimulus program thus far. Given that Obama's goal was to put together a program that "not only creates jobs in the short-term but spurs economic growth and competitiveness in the long-term." Where are the jobs?http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jMNoef6xDenBbHWO0Im6rIjDmAgAD9BKKBIG0
maybe the jobs are coming down this slick pipelinehttp://www.usnews.com/money/business-economy/articles/2009/02/19/finding-the-pork-in-the-obama-stimulus-bill.html?PageNr=2&-C=
why does the fact that government spending is a political process bother you so much??? whats the alternative??
Wow. Just wow.
― Obama needs a John McCone (Dandy Don Weiner), Saturday, 7 November 2009 21:45 (1 week ago) Permalink
can u answer that question or no
― heart goin ham (deej), Saturday, 7 November 2009 21:51 (1 week ago) Permalink
the most "political" part of the stimulus process had nothing to do with a few small projects here or there and everything to do with making it smaller than it should have been so that blue-dog dems (and, what, 3 republicans) would vote for it.
and for all the incoherent bitching and whining from the right, i've heard very, very few ideas about what would have made the spending "more stimulative." it's all well and good to say "create jobs," but that's not just a rub-the-magic-lantern thing. infrastructure projects actually take a little time to get rolling. the idea of a payroll tax holiday has some support on the left and right and is maybe a potentially stimulative thing, but for the most part the right has no actual ideas, didn't want any stimulus spending in the first place, and at this point is just in a mode of rolling out that graph every month on unemployment-rate day so they can go NYAH NYAH, and fervently hoping things keep getting worse and stay bad enough that they'll be able to retake the house next november -- so they can get back to doing all that really important, productive stuff they did from 1994-2006.
― STRATE IN2 DAKRNESS (tipsy mothra), Saturday, 7 November 2009 22:15 (1 week ago) Permalink
Where are the jobs?dude this is the worst recession in 70 years. shit wasn't gonna turn around just cuz bush no longer "steered" the ship of state anymore. wake me up in a couple years when your eagerness to criticize obama makes more sense
― kamerad, Saturday, 7 November 2009 22:40 (1 week ago) Permalink
i'll agree that the white house presenting that chart was a mistake in all aspects.
― abanana, Sunday, 8 November 2009 00:23 (1 week ago) Permalink
im not so sure. doesnt it imply the need for further stimulus, because the problem was worse than we thought? if anything being conservative the first time thru lets them get away with more the 2nd time right?
― heart goin ham (deej), Sunday, 8 November 2009 00:27 (1 week ago) Permalink
votes are harder to get now though. which sure demonstrates more integrity than we're used to, but "skeptics" won't budge from their conviction the stimulus was completely political to begin with. anyways whatever krugman was right -- they should have gone big or gone home
― kamerad, Sunday, 8 November 2009 00:51 (1 week ago) Permalink
I don't know of one credible economist who thinks or thought that a stimulus was unnecessary. There was a wide variety of ideas of how not only how much to spend, but how to spend it.
But here's why (as abanana noted) the chart was a mistake. I think this is point I've been trying to make (and have been admitted retarded in my execution, which likely shocks no one.):
One interpretation is that the fiscal stimulus has failed to achieve what Team Obama thought it would. Another interpretation is that the baseline was worse than they believed at the time. I am confident the report authors would adopt the second interpretation. If so, that fact is consistent with what I said in a previous post: In light of the shifting baseline, it is impossible to hold the administration accountable for whether its policies are achieving their intended effects.
Pressers like these pretty much show that there's a lot of SWAGging going on when it comes to measuring the effects of the stimulus. We're not likely to have much concrete evidence for years, as far as causal relationships go. Inadvertently or not, a lack of compelling evidence makes these issues far more political.
It not only makes accountability impossible, it feeds people like me with skepticism for all the new charts that are bandied about with regards to $1.1T in healthcare reform.
― Obama needs a John McCone (Dandy Don Weiner), Monday, 9 November 2009 03:25 (1 week ago) Permalink
god, give me a break. i'm so tired of hearing this same stupid bullshit every month when the unemployment rate comes out. "ooo, lookit the chart! lookit the chart!" it's silly to treat their estimates of unemployment as a "baseline" -- that's just a willful and totally political-hack distortion of the situation. if you were somebody arguing for a bigger stimulus, like krugman et al, then you're totally justified in now saying "told ya so." if you were somebody arguing for a smaller or no stimulus -- like the republican party and right-wing media -- then it's total chicanery to now be complaining about the stimulus not "working" because things are even worse than the white house estimates. it's a level of intellectual dishonesty that doesn't even deserve the adjective "intellectual."
and i've spent too much time this past year having this same idiotic discussion with people who couldn't care less about any of this shit except insomuch as it's a chance to go NYAH NYAH OBAMA. so i'm stopping now. you can come back next month and do your same little chart-dance and i won't say a word.
― STRATE IN2 DAKRNESS (tipsy mothra), Monday, 9 November 2009 04:16 (1 week ago) Permalink
I don't think anyone in this thread is treating their estimates as a baseline. maybe the michaelscomments blog guy is.
― abanana, Monday, 9 November 2009 06:15 (1 week ago) Permalink
mankiw is in the link dandy don posted, and don is apparently too. both of them presumably know better.
― STRATE IN2 DAKRNESS (tipsy mothra), Monday, 9 November 2009 06:25 (1 week ago) Permalink
"Last month, Sunoco became the first oil company to say it will close a U.S. refinery, a ploy aimed at getting that segment to break even this year. All of the units at Eagle Point plant in Westville, N.J., ceased production this week..."
So demand for crude is down so much that we’re actually closing refineries in this country, but the price of crude is up 150% since the beginning of the year. Makes sense, right?
Thanks to my friends in the commodities business for pointing this out. We continue to see pricing in the commodities markets that is disconnected from reality, which makes it all the more distressing that the bill currently being shepherded though Barney Frank’s Financial Services Committee (and which still has to be reconciled with an AG committee bill) seemingly doesn’t do a whole lot to correct these problems.
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/11/08/commodities-casino-keeps-rolling/
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Monday, 9 November 2009 17:28 (1 week ago) Permalink
I guess it won't be taken seriously, since it's from the "Democratic Socialist" Senator from Vermont, but there's a beauty in the simplicity of this ''too-big-to-fail'' bill.
― Daniel, Esq., Wednesday, 11 November 2009 18:31 (1 week ago) Permalink
So while Congress is busy working on reform legislation, Wall Street’s lawyer-lobbyists in Washington are working hard to neutralize such efforts.
Who’s winning? Over lunch across town from Capitol Hill, I recently asked that question of a very smart attorney endowed with deep experience in keeping Washington safe for Wall Street. In answer, he pointed to this seven-line paragraph buried in a 26-page amendment to “HR 3795, Over-The-Counter Derivatives Markets Act of 2009,” passed in a voice vote by the House Agriculture Committee the night before. Following the vote, the committee had issued a press release hailing their vote for “strengthening” regulation.
On the contrary, said my friend, “I guarantee you that not a single member, and almost certainly no one else, apart from the traders on Wall Street and the lobbyist who inserted it on their behalf, understood the significance of this paragraph. It means that nothing will change.”
http://counterpunch.org/andrew11112009.html
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 12 November 2009 13:58 (1 week ago) Permalink
Bob Herbert:
Mr. Obama announced this week that he would convene a jobs summit at the White House next month to explore ways of putting Americans back to work. It remains to be seen whether the summit will yield anything substantial. But it’s fair to wonder why the president and his party have not been focused like fanatics on job creation from the first day he took office.
It was the financial elites who took the economy down, and it was ordinary working people, the longtime natural constituents of the Democratic Party, who were buried in the rubble. Mr. Obama and the Democrats have been unconscionably slow in riding to the rescue of those millions of Americans struggling with the curse of joblessness.
We’ve been hearing that there are six unemployed workers for every job opening in the U.S., but even that terrible figure is deceptive. There are 25 unemployed construction workers for every job opening in their field, and more than a dozen for every opening in the durable goods industries, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.
This was not a normal recession, and we are not on the cusp of anything like a normal recovery. The unemployment rate for black Americans is 15.7 percent. The underemployment rate for blacks in September (the latest month for which figures are available) was a gut-wrenching 23.8 percent and for Hispanics an even worse 25.1 percent. The poverty rate for black children is almost 35 percent.
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 14 November 2009 15:37 (6 days ago) Permalink
Elizabeth Warren on credit card interests rates, bailout money, and why plutocracy reigns supreme.
― Hell is other people. In an ILE film forum. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 14 November 2009 15:40 (6 days ago) Permalink
great great blog: http://fourteenpercent.typepad.com/
― goole, Thursday, 19 November 2009 14:59 (Yesterday) Permalink