The Economic Populist
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US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, SPR at a 39 year low; oil+products supplies at an 18½ year low
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The QE2 Binge - Inflation on the Horizon
- 82348 reads
Studies show, Congress Favors the Rich
- 83634 reads
State budget crisis about to become a "catastrophe"
- 169448 reads
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US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, SPR at a 39 year low; oil+products supplies at an 18½ year low
- 190294 reads
The QE2 Binge - Inflation on the Horizon
- 82348 reads
Studies show, Congress Favors the Rich
- 83634 reads
State budget crisis about to become a "catastrophe"
- 169448 reads
The Golden Rule
- 1826537 reads
Will the NY Attorney General Bring Doomsday Charges Against Wall Street? If So, How Long Will He Survive?
- 1216883 reads
New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
- 952910 reads
How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?
- 363054 reads
VAT or Value Added Tax is Getting a Look in D.C.
- 346611 reads
U3 and U6 Unemployment during the Great Depression
- 321837 reads
The war on the middle class
- 317161 reads
House discusses 401k/IRA confiscation
- 315605 reads
Tax Cuts for the Rich Do Not Generate Jobs
- 280166 reads
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people on this site want a conservative?
Independent voters that do not vote for McCain or Obama,
are casting a vote for Obama whether they like it or not.
If they are looking for the most conservative canditate, they should vote for McCain. If they want the most liberal candidate ever to get elected, they can either vote for Obama
or for a candidate that does not have a chance to win, but that
will take votes away from McCain.
Your vote can make a difference, why waste it on candidates that don't even have a chance?
I was thinking about this the last few days and it's similar to buying a new car at 0% financing. It depreciates quickly the first year or two and the loan is probably more than the value of the car, but people aren't dumping their cars. The car basically will never appreciate but an average person just keeps paying on the loan. At least a house will often appreciate (once this recession eases off in whatever number of years it may take.)
18% drop of UK pound against Japanese Yen:
I still shake my head with the U.S. printing money plus adding 2.6 (?) trillion to the deficit and it's quickly becoming the most stable reserve currency.
and the factory closures in the pearl River Delta suggest that this is the case, then a bitter wind is going to be blowing on in.
Economic growth has been the way in which the Chinese government legitimates itself to its public, and an economic contraction like this calls that into question.
The government has already initiated Keynesian measures like spending on infrastructure, but the question is whether this will be enough.
Westerners see what's going on in China as a matter of economic stability, but more importantly, it's a matter of political stability.
If the Chinese government can't legitimate itself with economic growth, then it's going to be forced to turned to nationalism.
And that nationalism is going to be aimed at the US.
Aren't you glad that we gave them the industrial base that will allow them to arm themselves to the teeth with weapons that are a near match for out own?
And don't forget about China's four secret aircraft carriers. The ones bought from Russia and the Ukraine during the 1990s to be "amusement parks" in Shanghai and Guangdong province.
....what do you think McSame's vote or The Precious costs when it's time to screw the taxpayer?
Of kiss the Chamber of Commerce's ass?
A hell of a lot more than a lousy $8.00.
There's a whole year's worth of posts in what those assholes the CC that is, have been up to with the SCOTUS we have...courtesy of The Precious.
I have no idea why you belittle yourself to these other bloggers for do you see manufacturing a hot topic on the blogs generally, even on the economics blogs?
uh, no and we need more focus on a production economy as well as the middle class.
Isn't globalization grand? Aren't you glad that Cisco wants to be a Chinese company and has offshore outsourced their R&D so experience, skills are not the important thing...but moving to China and India are?
So great their layout team cannot even fathom heat.
Just a few posts on phony, fake and bad computer parts:
U.S. Military Faces Phony Computer Chips
FBI probes counterfeit Chinese networking parts
more quality, safety issues
toxic computers
and I doubt this list is complete at all, there is almost no one looking at the toxic affects of using materials not approved in the US in electronics or leaking capacitors, the chemicals contained within.
We sure don't believe our statistics so could China be manipulating their numbers like everything else? Well, I'll place bets they are not purely objective.
Their stat has only been published since 2005 when by that time China had already captured, through offshore outsourcing so much manufacturing so what does this contraction really mean in this case?
If they had statistics from 1973 or even 1999, right before the China PNTR it might be more useful I think.
I won't bore you with my struggles with Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit....
Three routers...
Three PCI cards...
Four modems....
I gave up on modems, stone age crap anyway, and went VOIP!
Took a couple of days to build my new Quad core box and two months to get the peripherals working because the IT guys at Linksys, Trendnet, Faxtalk and Hiro are all liars.
Yep, America the stupid is now the order of the day.
But all is well now and my new box is so fast as to be dreamlike. My ASUS mobo POSTED first try and so....
Onward folks to the brave new world of Obamabi!
Unless McSame sneaks in there....heh...could happen...
Manufacturing purportedly accounts for over 40% of the Chinese GDP.
With manufacturing contracting for the third month in a row, how does China still grow at 9%.....
In the past, manufacturing has grown at 15-16% to result in such a high growth rate.
As it is, there are serious doubts over the veracity of Chinese claims regarding agricultural growth rates. Plus..
usually, a sustained decline in manufacturing also leads to a somewhat proportional decline in services since transportation, logistics, business travel and entertainment also decline somewhat.
So how does one justify the current growth claims of the Chinese govt?
Who can still believe such rosy projections for the Chinese economy?????
Baffled.....
and also shows the differences between FDR/Keynesian policies and how those helped vs. what is going on right now.
It would be awesome if you wrote up a blog post, fleshed out some of these comments, very insightful, glad you're here.
... there is the government budget deficit, and there is the current account deficit.
Suppose the current account was in balance. Then, except for official transactions, the capital accounts would also be in balance. So if the government was running a deficit, all the debt would end up as part of the savings accumulated within the US.
In that case, the ability to service the debt depends on its size versus the size of GDP. Government debt in infrastructure that supports improved productivity in the US ... that is certainly less of a worry, and if the infrastructure is sorely needed is likely to end up with a reduction in debt burden as a share of national income. On the other hand, government debt to engage in a military adventures overseas is unlikely to lead to sustained economic growth.
Now, flip it over. Suppose there is a massive current account deficit, with not government deficit. That means that there will be a massive accumulation of external obligations in the form of private US debt held overseas. That represents an accumulation of income flows out, tending to push the current account deficit further into the red, in a classic debt spiral.
Now, combine an external deficit with a government deficit. Again, the question is what the government is spending money on. If the money is spent on infrastructure that tends to reduce the current account deficit, than that can reverse the foreign debt spiral and help the economy pull out of the blown out current account deficit ... spending on overseas military adventures, of course, directly increase the current account deficit while doing nothing to reduce our structural import dependency.
Last night I read a few articles claiming to get even a car loan they wanted to see a FICO of 750, which is ?? < 40% might be even lower of all consumers as a credit score.
So, banks are assuredly tightening up who can go further into debt.
(of course considering making it illegal for these creditors to due universal default or magically raise interest rates to 20%-30% or have massive punitive fees can't cross anyone's mind!)
Then, on green jobs what isn't getting advertised is the reality that R&D, right now, is being offshore outsourced in droves and there is nothing to stop further R&D, say in alternative energies from also being offshore outsourced.
Believe this or not the Democrats have nothing, absolutely nothing tying R&D tax credits or funds to hiring US citizens for jobs in the United States. McCain believe this or not has a clause which says they get the money only for jobs created in the US (which doesn't imply US citizens but at least jobs here).
We recently had a mass exodus in Pharmaceutical research jobs being offshore outsourced and that never gets a mention that there are thousands and thousands of Chemistry, Materials Science, Biology type PhDs out of a job in America as a result.
Japan and Asia are already way ahead on battery research than the US as well, although deploying some of these technologies, especially building a power grid (we need a new power grid generally) to transport wind farm energy not only is a much needed investment, that would at least give blue collar jobs, assuming our government doesn't trade those jobs away through guest worker Visas, which believe me, they very well might do.
In terms of income decline, from what I can tell so far, the Obama administration looks like neo-liberal DLC ver. 2.0 and since 1.0 already gave that temporary bump through bubbles, but started the race to the bottom... plus the neo-liberals first up are going to give multinationals what they want, which is unlimited de facto migration, that means the U.S. is going to have massive wage repression, labor arbitrage through the immigration system, worse than what has been already happening...i.e. wages will decrease.
Supposedly this is first up on their agenda versus rebuilding US manufacturing, investing in infrastructure and most importantly modifying trade policy to represent workers.
It's so bad they want to turn our entire educational system into a green card machine. Go to school here, get a green card, which will also squeeze out US citizens further from opportunity. The rejection rates for college are already sky high, that's going to be a complete disaster forcing US citizens to compete on a global scale for opportunities in US schools and there already are simply not enough seats available.
So, until jobs, wages, careers start being stable and increasing, we might get some respite by the numbers but in terms of the real economy, the working class, this does not look good.
Then.....the deficit. I am not a deficit hawk and need to understand (if someone knows these interactions would be a great diary!) how this massive deficit plus the increase to foreign loan originators is going to do.
wasn't expected. durable goods up 0.8%
It was aircraft orders.
... if we are going to adhere to a reality-based view of the economy, the risk of hyperinflation is not in the domestic arena where the Fed dominates monetary policy, but in the international arena where the government cannot mandate the acceptance of US$.
The problem is the lack, whether because of a smaller percentage of credit-worth borrowers requesting loans, a smaller number of credit-worthy borrowers, or both. When there is a lack of credit-worth borrowers, then pure monetary policy will tend to be ineffective.
But if we are at the edge of deflation, we are at not risk of substantial demand-driven inflation, which is the kind of inflationary impulse that can spiral out of control.
With respect to imported inflation, the policies required to get a handle on the blown-out current account deficit are the same now as they were four years ago ... serious investment in improved fuel efficiency in transport, residences and agriculture and serious investment in harvesting of renewable domestic energy sources, to both reduce our structural import dependence and to establish a position in new manufacturing economies with strong export opportunities over the next two or three decades.
... a "normal recession" and a 1929 style start of a Great Depression.
For one thing, this is the first business cycle of more than a few years since WWII where there has not been any growth in median income. That in and of itself may result in a longer recession. And for another thing, recession duration is also affected by whether it is a US recession or a global downturn, since when it is largely limited to the US, exports can accelerate the recovery.
And consumer spending declined in Q3, before the financial crisis hit, so the Christmas season may well see many firms that normally use Christmas to push from break even into profit facing the need for a good Christmas to push from collapse toward break-even ... and not getting it.
Given the Panic of 2008, which will delay recovery in the housing and auto markets, the ongoing hollowing out of the middle class, and the lack of strong export markets, and the recent news of the decline in there's no reason to bank on a recovery in Q1 2009.
It is possible ... after all, this is an economy we are talking about, not a mechanism ... but it seems more likely that the recovery will be delayed until government stimulus has a chance to have an impact, which would mean more like Q3 2009.
new democratic congresspeople like Ashwin Madia (MN-03) who are owned lock, stock and barrel by the Indian business community will simply add to the impetus for global labor arbitrage and open commerce while most other nations pursue neo-mercantilist policies.
Look for Mr. Madia to also be on Fox news next March or so expaining why x public investment program is wrong and why President Obama needs to focus on deficit reduction. Mr. Madia will also be counted on to lead the charge for privitizaton or partial-privatization of social security.
National Century Financial Enterprises major fraud conviction worth $1.9 billion.
....having just finished 'John Adams' and now watching this makes me closer to judging the American people as....
Lacking.
Makes me glad I bought a Nader '08 Tee....
I can only say that after hundreds of hours of reading and watching Obamabi and MSM crapola Mr. Nader has, finally, inspired me.
Why can't our so called progressive leaders do this, eh?
Maybe because they are, in actual fact, soulless parasites who need to be purged from the polity?
Maybe because their mouths are stuffed with the excess and graft their conception of the 'American Way' to the extent that the only thing that emerges is the vomit of lies we have come to call our 'political discourse'? A vile spewing which increasingly makes no sense to anyone? Which hampers our ability to even communicate about the vital issues of the day. Which greases the slide towards the 'poverty trap'. Which makes a future as alluded to in Jared Diamond's 'Collapse' all the more probable.
Does either of the 'major party' candidates make any sense when you really listen to them?
I think not.
I will be posting at my blog in the near future on what I see and this was a great post to read as I had 'forgotten' about Nader. It's clear to me he has something vitally important to contribute.
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