January 2009

EPI Caterpillar Call Out - The Real Reason Behind The Effort to Stop the U.S. from Buying American - Outsourcing!

The Economic Policy Institute has quite the informational reality check on precisely why Catepiller, GE and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are working so hard to strip from the Stimulus anything which remotely....creates jobs in America:

Harvard Had It Right on Obama's Economist Larry Summers

Ouch! TPMcafe has a little piece on some Democrats, including one of my personal favs, Peter DeFazio, discussing Obama's economic policy advisers, especially chief economist Larry Summers.

DeFazio deemed it "very unfortunate" that former Clinton economic adviser Larry Summers has claimed a similar hold on Obama's ear. "Harvard had it right," the progressive Democrat quipped -- referring to the Ivy League university's jettisoning of Summers from its presidency in the wake of a scandal over his remarks on women's intellectual abilities.

In case you missed it, Summers claimed chicks can't do math and science because they are chicks. Right o!

More evidence for the "Black September" consumer fear thesis

Here's how the NY Times described the "surprse" not-so-bad Fourth Quarter GDP yesterday:

The actual decline in the gross domestic product — at a 3.8 percent annual rate — fell short of the 5 to 6 percent that most economists had expected for the fourth quarter. But that was because consumption collapsed so quickly that goods piled up in inventory, unsold but counted as part of the nation’s output.

“The drop in spending was so fast, so rapid, that production could not be cut fast enough,” said Nigel Gault, chief domestic economist at IHS Global Insight. “That is happening now, and the contraction in the current quarter, as a result, will probably exceed 5 percent.”

(hat tip Ksho1)

Friday Movie Night - Trade and The WTO

 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!

 

Today we are hearing how Buy American is this awful thing, lobbyists screaming threats of boogie man trade war, retribution from the biggest bad ass on the global stage, The World Trade Organization, and other fear mongering things that go bump in the night when the United States tries to stimulate it's own domestic economy in any method that might actually....stimulate the economy.

So, with that, today's videos are a lassoed roundup describing the history of trade, some facts about the WTO and US trade policy.

First up in a more layman's documentary describing what the WTO really is:

Obama Stimulus Plan Funds Offshore Outsourcing! Technical Jobs for Americans Denied!

This is pure outrage! Here is our Congress, supposedly out to create jobs in the United States for Americans and this is what they do!

IT amendment for US workers, US companies stripped by Congressional Democrats from Stimulus:

Congressional Democrats stripped from President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan a local lawmaker's bid to assure that American high-tech companies would get jobs funded by that plan.

U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, said his amendment would have required that any health information technology system bought under a $20 billion grant program in the stimulus package be manufactured in the United States by American workers.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce is Anti-American - Tries to Stop Public Funds of Stimulus to Buy U.S. Goods

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce should be stripped, legally denied the ability to use United States in their title.

In a history of lobbying demands against the United States, including businesses, they are at it once again, trying to strip out provision from U.S. taxpayer money buying U.S. made materials, goods.

In Buy American or Bye America:

Best Rant of the Week! Senator Claire McCaskill - "These people are Idiots!" (video)

Now this is the Senator I remember, Claire McCaskill Speaks Truth!

CNN:

We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer. They don't get it. These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses.

 

More Davos: My dog ate the financial system

Slate's Daniel Gross reports from Davos:

By Daniel Gross

Posted Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009, at 12:23 PM ET

Ordinarily, Davos is a Great Men kind of place, as the motto of this year's gathering implies: "Shaping the post-crisis world." The people who show up here—political leaders, scientists, entrepreneurs, musicians, and, above all, businesspeople—have all shown an ability to impose themselves on history. Otherwise, they wouldn't be invited. And yet in the many discussions held here about the recent global financial debacle, the question of human agency is shunted to the side.

40% of the World's "Wealth" Wiped Out Now - Davos Super Rich, China, Russia Blame the United States

blogging stocks, covering Davos, has an amazing quote:

An almost incomprehensible destruction of wealth has taken place. Stephen Schwarzman, Chairman of The Blackstone Group said that "40% of the world's wealth was destroyed in the last five quarters". Let me repeat that: "40% of the world's wealth has been destroyed in the last five quarters."

At a meeting in Davos, Switzerland, world leaders met to discuss the condition of the world. Putin of Russia said: "the existing financial system has failed." Growth was based on greed. One partner printed money and consumed wealth while the other manufactured cheap goods and saved money. These comments were swipes at the United States and China.

Uh, I believe much of that was fictional money to begin with...let's talk derivatives, hedge funds, housing bubbles....

GDP drops 3.8%, Autos 2.04% of that

GDP statistics were released today and it ain't pretty.

From Bureau of Economic Analysis:

GDP -3.8% 4th Quarter 2008

U.S. exports are way down, imports are also.

Inventory build up reduced the decline of GDP from -5.1% to 3.8%.

Autos was 2.04% of the GDP drop. These means nobody is buying cars and trucks!

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 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to advance estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP decreased 0.5 percent.

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