March 2010

Iceland voters reject bank repayment

Submitted by on

It appears that Iceland's citizens have found the courage to say "No" that its politicians couldn't find.

Iceland’s voters expressed their outrage on Saturday against bankers, the government and what they saw as foreign bullying, overwhelmingly rejecting a plan to pay $5.3 billion to Britain and the Netherlands to reimburse customers of a failed Icelandic bank, Sarah Lyall reported in The New York Times.
With about 98 percent of the votes counted Sunday, roughly 93 percent of voters said no to the plan, in the first public referendum ever held on any subject in Iceland. Less than 2 percent voted yes, and the rest of the votes were invalid.
But the referendum was more symbolic than substantive, and the Icelandic government hastened to make clear that Iceland would still pay back the money, albeit on different terms from the ones rejected.

Creating State Level Jobs Programs: A Jobs Insurance Supplement

Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project.

Introduction:

Even under the relatively optimistic economic forecast included in the 2011 Federal Budget, unemployment will remain at the 9.8% rate through the end of this year, dropping to 8.9% in 2011 and 7.9% in 2012.  In other words, after four years since the first stimulus, unemployment will remain at recessionary levels. To be fair, the passage of a jobs bill – and the promised efforts to pass further stimulative elements (aid to states, highway money, public works, etc.) – lends some slight hope that this catastrophe might be averted.

However, as we’ve seen with the jobs bill, it’s incredibly hard and slow to get even the smallest elements of a jobs bill through Congress; this makes it highly unlikely that sufficient actions will be taken to bring down the unemployment. However, I do think that it is possible to push through more aggressive jobs measures at the state level in heavily Democratic states that aren’t hamstrung by the Senate’s rules and the Blue Dog Caucus. As I’ve discussed in my 50-State Keynesianism and Job Insurance series, I believe that it’s possible to reform state governments to be successful anti-recession institutions, complementing Congressional action.

Today, I’ll take California and New York as two heavily Democratic states that are also large enough to have a significant impact on the national economy.

One Thousand Names for Fraud

One sometimes hears a repeated exaggeration of the Inuit (inappropriately referred to as Eskimos) language, claiming that they have hundreds of words to describe snow. While the actual number is considerably less, this exurban legend does make its point.

I suspect that centuries from now, historians will remark similarly about 21st century America, stating that they had one thousand names for fraud.

The Blackstone Group: Tax Fraud Incorporated

A year or so ago, it was reported that the private equity firm, the Blackstone Group, was going public. Like many, I gave little thought beyond the fact that they had sought investment from China due to their brittle financial position at that time.

Recently, I came across an excellently written research paper by a law professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, Victor Fleischer, titled Taxing Blackstone.

Obama's solution to problem of offshoring

Submitted by on

Well, at least the Obama Administration is no longer completely ignoring the issue.

Like a scorekeeper for the world, a tiny unit within the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks globalization's winners and losers, and the results are not always pretty for the United States. Manufacturing jobs here, for example, have fallen faster since 1979 than in Canada, Germany or Japan. Compensation for those jobs dropped here in 2008 but jumped in South Korea and Australia.
Soon, however, Americans may be spared the demoralization in these numbers: The White House wants to shutter the unit that produces them.

Friday Movie Night - Eamonn Fingleton

Submitted by on

hot buttered popcorn 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!

 

Eamonn Fingleton is a writer and journalist who has focused heavily on manufacturing and economic development. Fingleton also called out what later would discovered to be hype bubbles,, crashes and crises. He called globalization Unsustainable and Dogma, and surprise, surprise, here we are. The real problem is why we cannot get all of these experts listened to, that said, you can listen to him!

Budget deficits are revised

Submitted by on

Remember how Obama was kinda-sorta going to get the budget deficits under control at some point in the future? Well, after trading ended today the government released new budget deficit numbers.

President Barack Obama’s budget proposal would generate bigger deficits than advertised every year of the next decade, with the shortfalls totaling $1.2 trillion more than the administration estimated, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The nonpartisan agency said today the deficit will remain above 4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product for the foreseeable future while the publicly held debt will zoom to $20.3 trillion, amounting to 90 percent of GDP by 2020. By then, interest payments on the debt will have quadrupled to more than $900 billion annually, the report said.

"Overwhelming Force"

So, we learned today that our economy lost 35,000 in February and the Unemployment Rate was 9.7%. Markets loved it and so did the Obama Administration - what the heck things are getting worse much less slowly - hurray.

Quite frankly this unacceptable. And what kind of response do we get from Washington: a token response of $18 billion "Jobs Bill". This "Jobs Bill" is a joke. We need "overwhelming force" to address this Jobs Crisis.

This is war, this is a major Jobs Crisis. Here are a few more numbers to chew on (ht Calculated Risk):

Long-term unemployed caught in a perfect storm

Submitted by on

It's interesting to read the news on today's unemployment numbers with a first line of WORST OVER?. It then goes on to explain how the numbers were "better than expected" even though the economy continues to bleed jobs.
Sure, not everything in the report was bad news...just most of it. The media was quick to report that temporary jobs were increasing, but failed to mention that the U-6 was also increasing, that the number of people on permanent layoff was increasing, and that people not in the labor force but still want a job was increasing.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Pages