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The Golden Rule
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Will the NY Attorney General Bring Doomsday Charges Against Wall Street? If So, How Long Will He Survive?
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New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
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How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?
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VAT or Value Added Tax is Getting a Look in D.C.
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U3 and U6 Unemployment during the Great Depression
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The war on the middle class
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House discusses 401k/IRA confiscation
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Tax Cuts for the Rich Do Not Generate Jobs
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This is to all actually. Bernie Sanders is trying to get an amendment passed, along with Jon Tester, Harkin and Grassley, to stop corporations from laying off U.S. workers and then turning around and hiring guest workers.
Please Support this amendment (click this).
I think all are aware now that corporations hire guest workers which U.S. workers have had to train before being fired, as their replacements. Then they do it to offshore outsource the jobs too.
There's no shortage of American engineers, there's a shortage of American engineers who are willing to work for the same wages as an Indian or Chinese engineers. The panic about the shortage of technical workers is a lie made up to bring in more H1-B workers and drive down wages. I have nothing against the immigrant labor, I think that it is a good thing for the country to attract the best and brightest, but in many cases they are recruited simply because they are willing to work for less. That's just fucking wrong.
Like the U.S. hid the never ending Bankster bail out?
On a lighter note, the U.K. unemployment rate fell to 7.8%.
They too have problems with global labor arbitrage, outsourcing, guest workers, the never ending temporary worker, forced part-time.
So, how can they manage to create a greater percentage per population of jobs than the U.S. if they are in such a mess?
This is a fine article.
I would just point out that the Baltic Dry is a notoriously unstable index which varies dramatically with AND without general economic impetus.
IMO, the US rail traffic index is more stable and indicative of trends in this country.
http://www.railresource.com/content/?p=817
U.S. railroads originated 284,716 carloads for the week ending June 26, 2010, up 11.4% compared with the same week in 2009, but down 13.2% from 2008, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported on July 1. Intermodal traffic totaled 227,229 trailers and containers, up 20.5% from a year ago and down only 1.1% compared with 2008. Traffic levels were essentially flat in comparison with the week ending June 19, when the railroads originated 284,913 carloads and saw intermodal volume of 227,985 trailers and containers.
Compared with the same week in 2009, container volume increased 22.1% and trailer volume rose 12.3%. Compared with the same week in 2008, container volume increased 7.7% and trailer volume dropped 32.2%.
"@&*)$@&*)!!!! Why cannot we not get some real policy to turn this economy around and get some real jobs?"
Because it would hurt Wall St. and multi-national conglomerates. they donate more money to corrupt politicians than citizens
oops, I just saw on cable noise Sarah Palin is claiming to be the "common sense" party. Ha ha, so I guess creation of real common sense as a caucus for Congress is out.
There is the Populist caucus, which is nonpartisan. Peter DeFazio is one of the founders.
Should I do differently those "must read" posts? I could put each one up separately as an instapopulist and just skip the "links" type of post, in order to amplify them more plus give a scan for the surfer, but then I think we need more posts as blog pieces instead of instapopulists. else, the EI posts will fall off of the Instapopulist roll and get buried.
Directly link here.
I'll just link to CR since he put the new GDP, unemployment estimates in a handy table.
That said, I more than agree with CR to take GDP to be lower than what the the low 3.0% 2010 annual. Frankly a lot lower.
The Fed. also raised official unemployment rates for 2011, 2012. Now that's interesting since we know people will fall off of the count. I mean how may not counted people does not need here and that implies the official counted people must be going to increase, i.e. even more job losses.
@&*)$@&*)!!!! Why cannot we not get some real policy to turn this economy around and get some real jobs?
Zero Interest Rate Policy
No, I didn't see the Atlanta Fed report. Got a link?
The NBER, the official keeper of the business cycles, has not declared a recession end point.
The shaded areas in all St. Louis FRED graphs is where it is assumed they will declare an end point, but they have no yet and cited unemployment esp. as their reasons.
So, if the financial press wants to claim Americans just don't understand, they better tell that to the experts here.
I've read a lot of definitions from the NBER and some of the white papers and one thing is they do not need "two consecutive quarters of positive GDP growth" or two negative. Their modeling appears much more sophisticated than that. Watching the EIs, well, we'll see, I was going to try to crank out a Q2 2010 estimate but at the moment, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it comes in below 2%.
another amusing spin example is the focus on "exports" as if the keyword DEFICIT doesn't exist.
uh, I do believe it has a 14% error rate if I recall correctly. What's a ZIRP?
Aspiring to be Kudlow or what here? His "trade" analysis alone was enough for me to put my reading and education activities elsewhere.
We have voluminous insights from people who really know what they are talking about around who of course get ignored, including some working at the Fed at some level.
I find really unique analysis and it's almost always correct, at least in everything I dig around in, on the Atlanta fed blog. Did you see their occupational sector job loss bubble graphs? They are priceless, esp. for 2001. What it shows to me is these corrupt "policy" makers offshore outsourced the U.S. economy and economic future. Those same bubbles, sinking into the pit on the Alt. Fed U.S. bubble graph are bursting up in the India, China occupational bubble graphs.
I do not personally know Andy Grove but I'll bet dollars to donuts he's simply looking at the overall economic trends knowing sucking the life blood of an economy will cause it to collapse upon itself and that in turn will lead to a global depression.
It's kind of like T. Boone Pickens. I think he's an arch-conservative but he sees the writing on the wall and his numbers are right. In other words it really appears no one who has some very good ideas, common sense ideas that really are not some sort of social engineering but more make some great business sense not only for companies but also for the national economy....they are locked out of this administration. So, it's like the church of globalization, labor arbitrage, bad trade deals and corporate elitism/super rich are not going to let anything else into that circle, regardless of how much business sense, economic sense, it makes.
It appears to not be a so called Progressive, it's anyone, anyone at all that has great ideas and policies that are outside of this globalization/labor arbitrage religiosity, led by the Rubinites (Summers, Geithner et. al, I should mention the queen of outsourcing, Diana Farrell in that bunch).
As far as Obama goes I see the disappointment, and it's clearly hitting people like a drug binge crash.
When Obamamania was becoming popular is when EP started. I knew he was another corporate owned guy with an incredible hype machine going. But you could not get people to wake up and read the advisers and campaign cash or voting record to save your soul! Even people who knew better to me where in feverish denial. That's scary.
One of the reasons EP is non-partisan is to try to get the focus on real stats, real policy, theory, cause and effect.
I'd like to see the common sense caucus. With some sort of oath of alliance to the national interest, abiding by all macro econ/international theory that does indeed show we're losing big time on trade and other issues with the financial press wants to deny....as well as valid, credible Academic and other studies.
Thou shalt not quote or claim as truth lobbyists white papers, special interests' "research" that doth defy the laws of economics and all statistics. Thou shalt not allow a corporate lobbyist to enter thy door. Thou shalt not accept money from thy lobbyists surrounding the hill, thou shall use small contributions and online media to win elections. Thou shalt not endorse politically expedient yet nonsensical special interest agendas.....
I couldn't help but looking.
This worship of a single indicator doesn't work for one simple reason: we've never had a ZIRP by the Fed before.
Consider the 3-month Treasury. It's yielding 0.15% right now. The reason it is yielding so little is because of the Fed holding the short end of the curve down.
For the 10-year Treasury to yield less than the 3-month would require investors to be betting on severe deflation. We would have to be looking at Great Depression style collapse for that to happen, and even then I would be skeptical.
It seems that Bonddad has doubled-down on his recovery bet. I think he's going to lose the house.
...with Barack Obama on any subject - the seat that he promised when, as candidate Obama, he said he would listen to everyone - has proved to be most difficult. But we are at fault, too. We need to be demanding that seat in a fashion that will eventually get us one rather than talking (as too many do) about abandoning the Dems for some ephemeral third party or just not voting. Cynicism leads to apathy which leads to despair which kills activism. Good analysis, Robert.
I personally don't recall a container shortage. Did they mean for China? That's one of the reasons for this site to exist. The financial press headlines often do not match the actual statistics.
just a month earlier there was a hoopla in financial press about a SHORTAGE of shipping containers. how they (shippers) were struggling to buy whatever they could get their hands on! so i no capiche? whats going on here?
Good article.
Reminds me of Michael Hudson's work. My favorite economist.
Wow, I missed that completely and the Fed itself is saying these are just accounting rule changes, consumer credit in practice did not increase dramatically as a result.
Please consider getting an account for we could use some good forensics like that research paper.
What a classic!
Right. It's only the MNCs and the Banksters who have been saved here. Not small business, assuredly not the U.S. workforce. Yesterday Bernanke came out and "scolded" the Banksters for "not lending to small business".
Have you noticed a pattern here? Instead of taking any real action, this administration seems to believe in public scoldings as if that does anything, including a dog and pony show in some hearing on Capital Hill.
"Financial Accounting Statements (FAS) 166 and 167 have implications for how banks treat off-balance-sheet special purpose...Larger banks took advantage of secondary markets as destinations for their securitized products, but smaller banks, especially community and regional banks, did not engage actively in securitization vehicles (SPVs)...For instance, for commercial banks with more than $50 billion in total assets, consumer loan portfolios grew 42 percent from the fourth quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010."
http://research.stlouisfed.com/publications/es/10/ES1018.pdf
Most intersting: "A broader issue for the banking sector is how the consolidation of these assets on bank balance sheets will affect bank capital. The purpose of off-balance-sheet SPVs was to give banks smaller balance sheets and to remove assets, which allowed them to hold less capital to defend against the risk of losses. Thus, these banking institutions may need to increase risk-based capital levels in upcoming years to accommodate this increase in assets."
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