January 2009

Obama wants the other $350 Billion of the TARP

Submitted by on

My, my. Now Congress is going to approve handing over yet another $350 Billion dollars, the second half of the original $700 Billion, to have it ready for when Obama is sworn into office.

There are promises of better accounting.

A vote is expected this week.

Is this insane when so many said there are much better and more importantly cheaper ways to assist financial institutions, many written about on this site?

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said Sunday that lawmakers were assured there would be fuller accounting of the money spent on the bailout. Banks and other financial institutions have received billions from the government with few rules, and most won't say where the money has gone.

Help EP, links cross posting, ratings

Submitted by on

Everyone, to get more participation, readers, people aware of EP's existence, please help out with a few things:

1. On other sites, if you are referencing a post, especially if you have posted it on many sites, link to the EP version in the comment.

2. If you have a blog roll and on dailykos everyone has a blog roll, add EP to it.

3. Join Technorati and "fav" EP. They rank blogs and we are really moving up but hardly any "favs" in user accounts.

4. please use the cross post link in the user guide to link back to EP. Also remember, please change your blog title and if you put this cross post link at the top of your blog, the news aggregators and blog aggregators will not punish you for cross linking.

Italy's failed experiment with privatizing the national pension

Submitted by on

It looks like this is the only bullet we dodged from the Bush Presidency.

Italy did for retirement financing what President George W. Bush couldn’t do in the U.S.: It privatized part of its social security system. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

The global market meltdown has created losses for those who agreed to shift their contributions from a government severance payment plan to private funds meant to yield higher returns. Anger is rising both at the state, which promoted the change, and money managers such as UniCredit SpA and Arca Previdenza, which stood to profit.

Obama's Economic Stimulus Plan - Opinions & Analysis

Submitted by on

Obama hasn't been sworn into office yet and he's basically laid an egg on his economic stimulus plan. That said, opinions are like censored and let's look at some analysis.

Firstly we have Christina Romer & Jared Bernstein analysis.

Frankly, I find this this report odious simply going off of the principle that a 1% increase in GDP equates to 1 million jobs. Well, that's all great if the U.S. were an isolated economy, but it's not and today's GDP does not equate directly to U.S. domestic job growth, as a 1:1 correlation. Rebate checks end up buying goods from other nations. Tax cuts not dealing with global labor arbitrage and offshore outsourcing won't create jobs.

Auto bailout requires union concessions

Submitted by on

Funny how concessions weren't required when we bailed out Wall Street. But then Wall Street isn't an evil, blue-collar union.

DETROIT -- The bailout agreement between General Motors Corp. and the federal government includes terms aimed at blocking the United Auto Workers from going on strike while the union negotiates wage and benefit cuts with the auto maker over the next few weeks.

The terms are part of the agreement GM and the U.S. Treasury Department hammered out in December. They surfaced late Wednesday in a regulatory filing by GM and surprised union leaders, including President Ron Gettelfinger, people familiar with the matter said.

The Very Bad Year is Just the Beginning

Submitted by on

Anyone in denial about the United States and the economy should now get over it.

The unemployment numbers for December came in and it ain't pretty.

The unemployment rate is now 7.2%. This is the largest unemployment jump since 1945, The massive job hemorrhage shows the economy is in free fall.

 

Also the Congressional Budget Office released it's Budget 2009 Outlook report and it ain't pretty either.

  • CBO projects that the deficit this year will total $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of GDP
  • CBO expects federal revenues to decline by $166 billion, or 6.6 percent, from the amount in 2008
  • An unemployment rate that will exceed 9 percent early in 2010
  • CBO anticipates that the current recession, which started in December 2007, will last until the second half of 2009, making it the longest recession since World War II

The unemployment number to watch: 525,000

Submitted by on

The unemployment numbers will be released today but analysts are expecting 525,000 jobs lost in December. Yes, you are reading this right, over half a million jobs in one month.

From Bloomberg:

Analysts said the economy is in danger of a reinforcing cycle of rising unemployment and declining household spending, what policy makers call a negative feedback loop, which is difficult to snap once it’s begun

Uh, I think that's the D word masked in some sort of cycle lingo. Same with Recession lasting for years. Economists and Analysts are saying some very serious things are happening without using the dreaded D. I feel like a child at the dinner table with the parents spelling out D-E-P-P-R-E-S-S-I-O-N.

Pages