It looks like you weren't crazy after all. This Depression really is as bad as it seems.
(Bloomberg) -- The first 12 months of the U.S. recession saw the economy shrink more than twice as much as previously estimated, reflecting even bigger declines in consumer spending and housing, revised figures showed.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis actually went back and revised their economic figures all the way to 1929, although most of the revisions are since 1997. So as not to bore you with too many details, I'll keep this short and sweet and only touch on the highlights.
February 14th, 2008 – Paulson: (the economy) "is fundamentally strong, diverse and resilient."
Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- decreased at an annual rate of 1.0 percent in the second quarter of 2009,
(that is, from the first quarter to the second), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP decreased 6.4 percent.
Introduction: In this post, I'm returning to a theme I initially explored in June, back when California was grappling with its budget crisis. Now, after nearly two months of additional struggle, we finally passed a bill that cut $26 billion and raised no new revenue, and now we learn that the governor has possibly illegally cut a further $500 million, taking the axe to children's welfare ($80 million), health care ($400 million), Cal Grants (cut in half), HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment ($52 million), and domestic violence shelters (cut by 80%) . In addition to the moral insanity of attacking the most vulnerable of our citizens at a time when they are most in need of support one must add the economic insanity of believing that you can reduce government spending by $31 billion in the course of a single year (including both the February and July cuts) and not effect the state's economic recovery.
Lest this be seen as merely a California problem, a recent report by the National Governors Association notes that the collective budget shortfalls of the fifty states comes to a collective $200 billion shortfall. Given that the total Federal economic stimulus for this year only comes to about $400 billion, we are forced to recognize that our system of state government budgeting and finance is creating a massive economic undertow, weakening the impact of Keynesian stimulus by cutting spending and raising taxes (although they've been doing a lot more of the former than the latter).
The U.S. government will suspend the popular cash-for-clunkers program after less than four days in business, telling Congress that the plan would burn through its $950-million budget by midnight, several sources told the Free Press.
The Michigan delegation was holding an emergency meeting convened by Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, to discuss their next steps. The U.S. Department of Transportation did not immediately comment on its plans for the program, or what would happen to deals in progress.
The decision to suspend the plan came after auto dealers warned the government today that it was in danger of losing track of how many trades had actually been made.
Many mortgage companies are reluctant to give strapped homeowners a break because the companies collect lucrative fees on delinquent loans.
Even when borrowers stop paying, mortgage companies that service the loans collect fees out of the proceeds when homes are ultimately sold in foreclosure. So the longer borrowers remain delinquent, the greater the opportunities for these mortgage companies to extract revenue — fees for insurance, appraisals, title searches and legal services.
In case you were confused what the purpose of Wall Street banks was, you now know.
Several financial giants that received federal bailout money in the last year paid out bonuses to employees in 2008 that greatly exceeded the amount of profit generated by the banks, according to a study on executive compensation released by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo Thursday.
Despite claims by bank executives that bonuses are tied to the company's performance, the report states that "there is no clear rhyme or reason to how the banks compensate or reward their employees."
Cuomo's investigation "suggests a disconnect between compensation and bank performance that resulted in a 'heads I win, tails you lose' bonus system."
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
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