November 2009

A Free Trade Challenge May Be Yielding Jobs

(Via Campaign for America's Future) Remember back in September when the Obama Administration imposed tariffs on Chinese tires. Well, its decision to challenge the old "free trade" religion may have resulted in AMERICAN JOBS:

Findlay's Cooper Tire will add 100 new jobs

“Last year at this time we were worried about losing Cooper,” said Sehnert.

Now the company has announced a $10 million dollar investment in the plant, mostly in automation.

With the company's expansion comes the real good news for Findlay residents, 9.1% of whom are unemployed.

The plant will need to fill 100 new jobs.

NACA Save the Dream Mortgage Help Tour

Mother Jones reporter Andy Kroll has gotten down and personal with desperate homeowners. In the illusion of recovery Kroll witnesses people showing up for free help from a group I've never heard of, the NACA.

Currently the NACA is touring the country with free help for distressed homeowners in the Save the Dream program. Current Pit stop is Charlotte, NC. Here is Kroll's account from the NACA mortgage help tour at San Francisco's Cow Palace:

HAMP is a scam

The Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program has been touted as a savor of distressed homeowners across America. The problem is that the numbers show an entirely different story.

More than 650,994 loan revisions had been started through the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program as of last month, from about 487,081 as of September, according to the Treasury. None of the trial modifications through October had been converted to permanent repayment plans, the Treasury data showed.

None? NONE! Not a single one! WTF!
Five months and 651,000 trial modifications and not one single borrower can get a permanent break? We throw hundreds of billions of dollars at these TARP banks and they can't cut a single distressed homeowner some slack?

Senator wants to use gambling laws on Wall Street

This is such a simple and obvious idea, I don't know why no one thought of it before.

Sen. Maria Cantwell wants to use state gambling laws to regulate parts of Wall Street, saying someone needs to police financial markets where "casino capitalism" involving highly speculative trades she likens to sophisticated betting continue unabated and threaten to create yet another financial crisis.
"She's going for their jugular," Michael Greenberger, a University of Maryland law professor, said of the effort by Cantwell, a Washington state Democrat. Greenberger was a top official at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Clinton administration who unsuccessfully fought to regulate such trading.
Cantwell wants to repeal parts of a 2000 law that barred states from using their gambling laws to help rein in the nearly $600 trillion derivatives market.

What do you want to see in a jobs program?

Manufacture This has a blog post, What do you think a jobs bill should say? Good question. While they leave an email address to send in ideas, I thought we might post our ideas into the public sphere.

Leave your policy and legislation wish list in a comment and I will update the post with suggestions.

Here is what I would like to see:

  • Cancel all State and Federal offshore outsourced contracts. Bring those jobs back.
  • Immediate freeze on all guest worker Visas.
  • Mandatory Expansion of Nursing Schools with above market value Professor Salaries. Students must be permanent residents, U.S. citizens.

Black Friday Sales Numbers - 0.5% increase from 2008, due to increase in total shoppers

More shoppers, less sales per shopper. Total sales were up 0.5% from 2008.

The totals, from BIGresearch polling, are $41.2 billion. Last year was $40 billion. This is because there were more shoppers.

The average haul per shopper was $343.31. Last year per shopper was $372.57. This includes online sales.

This statistic, 31.2% of all shoppers were in line at 5am to me is telling. Only people who really need to save that extra $100 will get up in the middle of the night to stand out in the cold.

Since many online only retailers seemed to run their specials during Black Friday, it's unclear how low they can go for CyberMonday tomorrow.

Those expecting the holiday season to kick start American consumerism will assuredly be disappointed. No job. No sales, that's the bottom line.

U.A.E. Central Bank to "Stand Behind" Lenders, Abu Dhabi - No Blank Check

Looks like we have another bail out, middle east style.

Bloomberg is reporting, the U.A.E. central bank is offering loans at 50 basis points in a special facility.

The United Arab Emirates’ central bank said it “stands behind” the country’s local and foreign banks, which face losses from Dubai World’s possible default, and offered them access to more money under a new facility.

Banks will be able to use a special facility tied to their current accounts that can be accessed at a cost of 50 basis points above the three-month local benchmark interest rate, the Abu Dhabi-based regulator said in an e-mailed statement today.

CDSes on Dubai went to 647 basis points since the state owned Dubai World said they wish to delay repayment.

Could Dubai be just the first?

By now most people are aware of how Dubai got itself in over its head. What exactly is the perfect metaphor for Dubai's excesses? The palm-tree shaped islands? The underwater hotel? The indoor ski resort? It all had the feel of Disneyland meeting the dot-com mania.
In the end it was all about borrowed money. Lots of it. In that context Dubai is not alone.

Dubai's default has the world's investors asking the question: Who's next?

Geithner to use "Shame" on Mortgage Companies

This is absolutely ridiculous. Once again the Treasury Secretary uses the press for a huge we're doing something really campaign and then says they will use shame to embarrass those lenders not really helping homeowners.

In August, we got the same claim. See The Politics of Shame for more details on how obviously, from bail outs to bonuses to loan shark credit card tactics, financial institutions have no shame.

The only ones who are being shamed are the Obama administration, in particular Tim Geithner.

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