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Corporate Citizen - An Oxymoron

There is a fundamental problem these days with economic policy - US corporations have run amok. No longer do they act in the national interest or even give a pretense of being good national corporate citizens. It's all about profits, maximizing profits. In fact, we are told that is a corporation's only responsibility. But is that really the case or have we been spun a lie so long and often we believe it to be true without question? How does the United States align it's Corporations to the interests of the nation?

In a recent House Science Subcommittee hearing, American Decline or Renewal? – Globalizing Jobs and Technology, some these fundamental questions of corporate governance were addressed.

Is the housing market bottoming?

I couldn't help but notice the screaming, above-the-fold headline this week in the SF Chronicle, Homes sales get lift, but lid still on prices. It sounded like nearly two years of a contracting real estate market was coming to an end.

The long slide in home sales may be nearing an end, but that doesn't mean prices are going to rise anytime soon.
...some people saw last month's unusually big surge as a sign the market may be bottoming out.

Any time the news media uses the term "some people" is a clue.
As it turns out, the article was not just misleading, it skirted the shaky edge of being an outright lie.

Has Inflation Peaked?

In several prior diaries, including Why Inflation isn't the Problem and Is the Inflation Rate Peaking I have laid out a scenario in which a deepening recession causes consumers to cut back, and this decline in demand in return causes inflation to ease. I have pointed out that this has been the scenario in every modern recession going back to and including the stagflationary "oil shock" recessions of the 1970s.
With another month's CPI and PPI data, there are signs -- albeit with substantial qualifications -- that the scenario is coming to pass. What is most interesting is that the year-over -year (NOT seasonally adjusted, AND including both food and energy) inflation rate continued to back off from its recent high water mark. Here's why....

Measuring the Decline of America

So, here I was, working on a contrarian (you ought to know me by now!) diary about inflation being near or past its peak for this cycle (which I'll post tomorrow anyway), when I realized that nobody should give a damn! After all, if there is ZERO percent inflation in the price of unleaded gasoline in the next year, what does that mean? It means that gasoline will sell for $4 a gallon for the entire next year! That's why it's worthwhile to post this graph all over again and highlight it:

because this is a graph of the decline of middle America over the last decade. The average American family hasn't had a raise since 1999, and in fact for most of this decade has brought home less income (inflation adjusted) than it did at the peak of the Clinton boom:

Hard Numbers vs. Phony Numbers

The official deficit for 2007 was $248.2 billion. However, our national debt increased by $501 Billion in 2007.
Meanwhile debt obligations for America increased by $2.5 Trillion last year.

So what's the real number? They are all real numbers. The differences between them is what you are looking at.
For instance, the deficit number accounts for how much money the government spent versus how much it took in, but not counting things like the Wars in Iraq and Afghansitan, or borrowing from Social Security. (OK, maybe this isn't a real number then.)

The national debt numbers account for all that, but doesn't account for promises of future payments.

Another squeeze by the Boa Constrictor economy

(hat tip to taonow: I've stolen your analogy)

A while ago, in a diary entitled Are Hard Times near? The Great Decline in interest rates is ending I pointed out that the great decline in interest rates that began in 1981 looked like it was coming to an end, and with it American consumers' ability to refinance debt at lower rates. I noted that if consumers could no longer refinance at better terms, and if their wages weren't growing, the engine of the American economy would stall, not just for a short time, but for a very long period -- What I have called "The Slow Motion Bust."

With oil prices at $126 a barrel, and $4 a gallon gasoline, the boa constrictor of higher prices has tightened around the average American's budgetary breathing space some more. A look at how much and how consumers are coping, below.

It's the Policy Stupid

I have been watching the Democratic as well as the Republican primary and I must say at this point, the entire country seems to be stuck on stupid. From the media blackout on Clinton to the DNC rules and disproportionate distribution of pledged delegates, not counting two entire states, and then the superdelegates, well, I think it's fair to say the process is one rigged game where the actual voters don't seem to count for much.

To make matters worse, it appears policy has gone by the wayside. An intelligent, well researched and analyzed policy positions and debate on the effectiveness of those positions is long gone from the political blogs.

Updated Job Data Analysis - January 2001 to April 2008

Updated jobs analysis: from January 2001 to April 2008, only 3.8 million private-sector jobs -- all accounted for by private health care bureaucracies, bars and restaurants.

Manufacturing lost -3.5 million jobs; more than 1-in-5 Manufacturing jobs were lost in the last 7 ¼ yrs.

Over the period:

Textile Mills lost -57.2% of their jobs;

Apparel manufacturers lost -56.8% of their jobs;

Communications Equipment manufacturers lost -46.9% of their jobs;

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