There is a limited window of opportunity, when an economic crisis evolves from a manageable event to an out-of-control monster. The current economic crisis is getting rather long in the tooth, and yet the global political and economic leaders still show no ability to fully grasp the depth and complexity of the situation.
As of this moment there are two evolving problems that are only a few months away from being out of anyone's control. One of the problems is domestic, the other lies on the other side of the Atlantic. Both of them have the potential for catastrophic consequences.
by Zach Carter, Media Consortium MediaWire Blogger
President Barack Obama unveiled his administration's plan to fight foreclosures on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the most important element of the program will require Congressional action—and the banking and business lobbies are already on the attack. The Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan has three chief components:
So says Tim Iacono of "The Mess that Greenspan Made", and who am I to disagree? After all, I've been writing about the dangers of deflation for awhile now.
Actually, Tim makes the comment in a mocking sense, noting that
In the U.S., the latest consumer price data will be reported on Friday and we may be in for a veritable "Deflation Tsunami" from the mainstream media since we were teetering on the brink of a negative consumer price index last month.
Tim's essential point, if I read him correctly, is that the deflation we have experienced is really just the popping of the Oil price bubble.
So, am I going to get into a mud-pie flinging contest with Tim? Hardly. Actually our two views aren't that far apart.
General Motors Corp. said it needs as much as $16.6 billion in new U.S. loans, more than doubling the aid to date, and must get some of the cash next month to survive. GM plans 47,000 more job cuts worldwide this year.
Chrysler LLC, propped up like GM with federal assistance, said it’s seeking $5 billion more from the government and will shed 3,000 more positions.
GM says 47,000 jobs will be lost world wide. GM is selling Hummer, shutting down Saturn, bankrupting Saab (which Sweden is going to salvage and return to it's nation), and shutting down 5 additional U.S. plants. It is completely not stated which countries and plants will lose which jobs. It looks bad that most of the losses will be against U.S. workers and other nations where they pay living wages.
by Zach Carter, Media Consortium MediaWire Blogger
In this week's Audit, we're examining Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's thoroughly uninspiring bank bailout plan, which fails on almost every level. What's more, some of the most insightful (and stinging) critiques of the proposal are coming from progressive media.
(This was originally posted on DailyKos, where it was suggested that I post this here. It has been slightly edited.)
Unless you've been living under a rock you know that we are in an economic death spiral and that things will get worse before they get better. All things will pass, however, and unless things crater for good, we will eventually pull out and begin economic recovery, in one year or three or ten, and we will be ... well, where will we be? What are our economic goals? What do we want from an economy?
I want to bring to your attention a list of Projected Jobs by Congressional District. Then, Kaiser has a web page of total unemployment rates, the total residents per state, the poverty rate of each state and even the breakdown of citizenship status by state.
Center for American Progress interactive map on which states would get how much of the Stimulus money per Gross State Product (GSP).
Does this distribution make sense? Let's take the case of Michigan. According to the Projected Stimulus jobs per Congressional District, the break down is as follows:
Although retail sales data reported last week surprised by not being as awful as expected, nevertheless the plunge in consumer spending since "Black September" has been dramatic.
Just how dramatic? Let's compare the cliff-diving plunge in retail sales at the end of 2008 with past retrenchments.
Below is a graph of real retail sales (i.e., adjusted for inflation) since the original, now-discontinued series was started in 1947 (in red) with the more modern version since its inception in 1990 (in blue):
Following Enron's [and Worldcom's] demise Congress enacted Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) to ensure the transparency of management practices for public companies. Enron's financial engineers had created off-book derivatives that worked just like an off-shore toilet: they would dump all their "phantom" debt there, but unfortunate for Enron's executives, the flusher didn't work. The debt was actually real. Enron was able to hide its debt so long as its energy revenues were growing. Once that stopped the house fell down.
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