Housing Starts and Building Permits was released and starts are down 5.9% from last month with permits down 1.6% from January 2010. Housing completions were down 5.4% from January.
While I hold Mr. Lewis in utmost respect as a thoroughly intelligent observer and author, as well as thoroughly honest, I disagree with his conclusions as well as one item in his book.
As Mr. Lewis was utilizing public sources, he can be forgiven if he was redirected, or misdirected on one item (which he honestly doesn't pinpoint as a ground zero event), where he identifies Michael Burry as the instigator of the naked swap, so to speak.
I resolutely believe this was in place long before Mr. Burry inquired into its creation, and there is much extraneous data lying around to validate this assertion.
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.
From a Bretton Woods Committee slide show titled Opportunities in Emerging Markets, by June E. Schoenfeld:
The Bretton Woods Committee, the American-based lobbyist group for the ultra-rich, sent a letter and fax, dated February 11, 2009, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,
Anyone reading this site knows we have talked in depth about China's currency manipulation. Now Paul Krugman takes it on, which is good news due to the devastating impact currency manipulation has on the U.S. economy, especially jobs and manufacturing.
Widespread complaints that China was manipulating its currency — selling renminbi and buying foreign currencies, so as to keep the renminbi weak and China’s exports artificially competitive — began around 2003. At that point China was adding about $10 billion a month to its reserves, and in 2003 it ran an overall surplus on its current account — a broad measure of the trade balance — of $46 billion.
The Financial Times is reporting Moody's will warn the United States of a credit ratings downgrade due to it's debt.
Moody’s Investor Service, the credit rating agency, will fire a warning shot at the US on Monday, saying that unless the country gets public finances into better shape than the Obama administration projects there would be “downward pressure” on its triple A credit rating.
Examining the administration’s outlook for the federal budget deficit, the agency said: “If such a trajectory were to materialise, there would at some point be downward pressure on the triple A rating of the federal government.”
It projects that the federal borrowing is so high that the interest payments on government debt will grow to more than 15 per cent of government revenues, about the same by the end of the decade as the previous 1980s peak.
Here it is. He sums up nicely what we and other economics and financial blogs have been saying for some time and also calls Wall Street Bonuses theft. Wikipedia on Michael Lewis.
Ya know how new, emerging technologies were supposed to rebuild the U.S. Economy? Instead we find the DOE has awarded billions to foreign companies and created jobs in foreign countries under the hype of green jobs? Remember those, the hyped out and touted jobs of the future, even promoted as something to boost U.S. domestic minorities job opportunities?
Well, we're at it again. This time it's High Speed Rail. Even worse, the Obama administration is claiming to cooperate with China. There are currently $8 billion dollars in grants up for bid.
Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have been finding out details before the Senate Financial Reform bill is released.
Some key points these reporters mention:
CFPA - the much fought for Consumer Financial Protection Agency, has been put under the Federal Reserve. Bear in mind advocates have been fighting for an independent agency as well as the Federal Reserve has always had consumer protection power. Banksters - score 1, Americans - 0.
Federal Reserve to oversee banks with $50 billion or more, and a vaguely defined "systemically risky institutions", in other words the same players who brought you the bail out are still running the show.
Recent comments