Americans Don't Want It. Analysis Shows It Hurts People. Yet Congress and This President Could Care Less. What's fascinating is how we've seen this dance before and no matter how many put up a fight, more disastrous trade treaties get passed and enacted into law anyway.
First quarter 2015 real GDP is a measly, pathetic 0.2%. That's quite disappointing, and just shavings and crumbs away from contraction. Consumer spending was less than half of the contribution Q4 brought and exports imploded. While some think this is a report to ignore, that economic growth will spring back, we think this is quite a foreboding of bad news.
I consider myself an across-the-board conservative but of the paleo sort, therefore I tend to disagree with mainstream conservatives on a few issues, most notably foreign policy. I say this to indicate that I am not a single issue voter. I have several issues that I prioritize in importance when evaluating a candidate. A discussion of which ones and why would take a separate article, but suffice it to say that foreign policy is currently the most important issue I consider, and unfortunately, given the current dynamic, it is usually a criteria I use to rule out supporting a candidate.
One hundred million dollars in $100 bills fits nicely on a standard-sized pallet. The image below shows what $1 trillion in cash would look like. This is almost what U.S. corporations have spent on stock buybacks — just in the last year.
Increased productivity no longer has an affect on raising wages, because all the gains go to the top — and the decline of labor unions plays a big part; as well as a tax code that Congress has skewed to mostly favor the very wealthy and large corporations.
Jared Bernstein, former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, recently writes:
The March state employment statistics shows the unemployment situation might be forming more dark clouds over workers. From February a whopping 31 states cut jobs. The national unemployment rate was 5.5% yet, only 23 states showed any unemployment decrease.
The Consumer Price Index increased 0.2% for March, the same rate as February, as overall energy costs continued to rise. Gasoline prices alone increased 3.9%. Inflation without food or energy prices considered increased 0.2% for the month. From a year ago overall inflation declined -0.1% and this is due to the previous plunge in gasoline prices.
When Hillary Clinton recently borrowed Elizabeth Warren's talking points and claimed "the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top" against regular working people, did she mention reforming the tax code — and then offer any solutions? The simple answer is "no"; and unless she is ever pressed by the mainstream "liberal" media, she will probably dodge this question the same way GE dodges taxes.
The Federal Reserve Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization report shows industrial production decreased -0.6% while January was revised downward to a -0.4% decline. February showed a measly 0.1% increase, so overall the first quarter looks bleak Annualized Q1 showed a -1.0% decline and such a contraction has not happened since Q2 2009.
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