No, you did not enter a time warp and read about President Bush and the Republicans passing a corrupt prescription drug bill written by lobbyists. Yes, it's 2009. You ready for this?
The deal struck between the pharmaceutical lobby, the White House and Senate Democrats has drastically improved Big Pharma's expected profits, a private industry report finds.
IMS Health, a company that supplies the pharmaceutical companies with sales data, predicts that new health reform legislation -- combined with a projected upswing in the economy and other changes in the pharmaceutical industry -- will result in a net gain of more than $137 billion in total market sales over the next four years.
Read the entire Huffington Post article for the response from PHrMA, the pharmaceutical lobbyist group.
The Obama administration, under pressure to show it is serious about tackling the budget deficit, is seizing on an unusual target to showcase fiscal responsibility: the $700 billion financial rescue.
The administration wants to keep some of the unspent funds available for emergencies, but is considering setting aside a chunk for debt reduction.
Ok, Wall Street Journal. Firstly, how much will they use to pay down the deficit?
Secondly the losses projected vary widely. Now the WSJ reports the total losses will be about $200 Billion, down from $341 Billion, but this is just the original $700 Billion in TARP funds.
We have another 8th straight month of foreclosures above 300,000 a month.
U.S. foreclosure filings surpassed 300,000 for an eighth straight month as unemployment made it tougher for homeowners to pay their bills, RealtyTrac Inc. said.
A total of 332,292 properties received a default or auction notice or were seized by banks in October, up 19 percent from a year earlier, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac said today. One in every 385 households received a filing. The tally fell 3 percent from September, the third consecutive monthly decline.
The worst is still Nevada, followed by California, then Florida. Illinois had an increase in filings, odds are caused by the high unemployment rate.
We are facing the possibility of not a "jobless" recovery but a "JOB LOSS" recovery. Possibly a new normal for low economic growth and high structural unemployment. But policy makers in Washington, particularly in the White House, are silent on what to do about this state of economic purgatory. And it could be that they decided that nothing needs to be done or nothing politically can be done. Both are big mistakes.
median home prices continued to decline, falling in 123 of 153 metro areas compared with the same period last year. The national median home price came in at $177,900–11% below the third quarter last year.
Moody's released a report that would be headlines in the financial news media of any country that wasn't in bed with Wall Street.
The average maturities of new debt issuance by Moody’s-rated banks around the world fell from 7.2 years to 4.7 years over the last five years — the shortest average maturity on record.
So how much is that in raw numbers? Banks will face $7 Trillion in maturing debt before the end of 2012, and $10 Trillion by the end of 2015.
Those are staggering numbers, but it doesn't end there.
It's been about 10 years since PBS first aired Ken Burns' wonderful documentary, "New York, A Documentary Film". In one of the middle episodes, the film focuses on the photojournalistic work of Jacob Riis, a Danish immigrant who investigated the realities of the tenements of the lower West Side. Riis first reported his work in a short magazine article in 1889. He then followed up with a book in 1890, "How The Other Half Lives". The book is replete with photographs and drawings chronicling the abject squalor of the tenements. Many later attributed the work of Jacob Riis as a source for the progressive movement in the early 20th Century, not only in New York City, but throughout the large cities of America.
Business groups are worried by the potential effects of provisions banning the import of all goods made with convict labor, forced labor, or forced or indentured child labor that were included in a customs bill sponsored by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA)...
These groups are examining the ramifications of the bill's provisions, especially in light of the bill's requirements that a newly created office in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) annually report to Congress on the volume and value of goods made with child labor, forced labor or convict labor that have been stopped at the border.
Senator Chris Dodd has introduced a massive bill on financial regulation reform. It is over 1100 pages and attached to this post. Below is a reprint from the summary of the major regulation bodies structure overhaul:
The Financial Institutions Regulatory Administration
Independent: Headed by an independent chairman appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, a Vice Chairman experienced in state banking regulation, and a board including the chairmen of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve and two other independent members. It will be funded primarily
by assessments on the industry.
On The Economic Populist you might have noticed the middle column. We try to list other sites and blogs who have exceptional insight and writing on what is happening in the U.S. economy.
Sometimes though, one cannot say it better but miss those who did.
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