With the never ending pundit pontificating on the budget deficit and how we must cut spending, it seems always the bulls-eye is on the backs of the U.S. middle class, poor and national interest. Yet, even the Wall Street Journal notes health care costs are out of control. In their number of the week, they amplify the U.S. Spends 141% More on Health Care than other nations.
In November, the United States trade deficit was $38.3 billion and only shrunk during the global recession, where all trade slowed. Now Joseph E. Gagnon has new research, showing the trade deficit will come roaring back, wrecking havoc once again on the U.S. economy. Why? Currency manipulation in a nutshell.
Readers of this site are surely aware state budgets are in huge trouble. This evening, the news went prime time in a 60 minutes segment, A Day of Reckoning: State Budgets Crisis. Currently States, all 50 of them, have a $500 billion deficit hole combined.
President Barack Obama's top adviser suggested to The Huffington Post late Wednesday that the administration is ready to accept an across-the-board, temporary continuation of steep Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest taxpayers.
The infamous Bush tax cuts, what are they exactly? Below are the tax rates for 2010.
Contained within the World Bank Report on the East Asia Pacific region are two graphs. Both show how Asia countries are in great shape to reduce their deficits from stimulative spending during the Great Recession.
Let me take you back to Christmas Eve, 2009. It was a time to wrap gifts for loved-ones. That's how the Obama Administration felt about the financial industry when it lifted all caps in emergency bailout money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That means the taxpayer was on the hook for all losses at these two mortgage giants no matter how large the losses.
The move caused a slight stir, but never got the attention of the American public because the announcement was timed to coincide with the peak season of distraction. And so it was forgotten...but not by Fannie and Freddie.
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
Investors are so nervous they're willing to accept the same return from government debt that they'd get from burying money in a coffee can — zero.
Hmm, suddenly apparently the financial equivalent of a mattress doesn't seem so bad; in fact, in trading at times T-bills hit a slightly negative rate.
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