Of LBJ, legislation had some imagination, even if he was using the template of FDR. The War on Poverty had promise (Job Corps, VISTA, and Community Action Programs), but was never adequately funded thanks to the other war in Southeast Asia. The Vietnam war had scale, while the war on poverty became just another agency with political jobs (remember Rumsfeld under Nixon?). Yes, there were scandals (Blackstone Rangers in Chicago) in the War on Poverty but it did have some political genius in its origins. It just lacked vision, plus the unemployment rate wasn't high enough for Nixon, so it became just another extension of the White House. Nixon was a deficit hawk, except in election year (1972). Bush II made him look like a piker with the amounts he dumped into Iraq -- instead of Blackstone Rangers, Blackwater and KBR got the largesse. The leaders of Blackstone Rangers went to the slammer because they couldn't account for a few million dollars of anti-poverty money, but they would have made out like bandits in Iraq, where huge shrink-wrapped packages of $100 bills became non-accountable. I have gotten away from my original point, which was to suggest that LBJ (minus the Vietnam war) could have found a way to spend enough to put people to work rebuilding America in a smart way. Yes, there would also be inflation -- which is what the Fed dearly hopes for today -- but people like Boone Pickens would find in LBJ a man ready to listen to their ideas and put America back to work.
Frank T.
"Flow information suggests central banks buying T-bills and short-term Treasury cash even at very low yield as cash is abundant," said BNP Paribas rate strategist Alessandro Tentori.
So a big part of the reason that short-term interest rates are being crushed is enormous demand by foreign central bankers who don't want our long-dated bonds. It's a matter of central bankers reducing dollar risk.
Take a stroll through the malls and shopping centers. Small stores closed and big chains flanked by empty shops. Mom and pop operations staying afloat because family labor supplements cash flow. The most successful restaurant in my town is a Greek place where two people can have a great meal for $40, and employees (mostly Greek, no doubt many family) work at such a quick pace and seem to love it. A block away, things are very slow. Wal-Mart? Sam's Club? These places are thriving, thanks in part to people on Social Security who can afford to work for minimum wage. On the other hand, the lines at the supermarket we frequent are not so long these days. I look for local indicators and to me, it's how many small businesses are still able to stay open.
If banks aren't lending, maybe we should ask the Federal Reserve to extend their "Lender of Last Resort" function to America's small businesses. With their cost of capital, they could certainly come up with better rates than the commercial banks, whose cost of capital is also low.
Frank T.
Yup! DeFazio is THE REAL DEAL...no doubt about that.
His record speaks for itself -- not one who claims one thing but votes completely differently!
I do disagree somewhat that the Fed was bailing out the world. What appears more likely is that they were working to continue the USD as the reserve currency of the planet.
Let's see how much longer that works out. And foreign currency swaps are normally for currency arbitrage -- same reasoning.
You've written one but there are a host of economists, economics blogs, etc. pushing for some sort of direct jobs program, along the lines of the CCC, New Deal.
Maybe I should round up all of the proposals I've been reading and present them in one blog post.
Or you could, but to me the mantra should be jobs, jobs, jobs.
and dig into it as much as I could. At the time I implied it was ineffective and that's because they had no conditions on employing U.S. citizens/perm residents and making sure funds went to U.S. companies, stayed in the U.S.
I also questioned giving funds to the same type of contractors who already wasted billions.
So, they can claim they had to "compromise" but the original bill was just "throwing money at it" and they were going by a very vague rule of thumb that 1% GDP equals 1 million jobs.
Well, I knew that was nuts. Not in today's offshore outsourcing, race to the bottom world would such a "stick your thumb in the air, throw money at it and expect jobs to be created" ratio.
They quoted that ratio over and over and I am pretty sure I wrote at the time, that is not going to hold, not without a very directed, managed, with conditions the money stays in the domestic economy and goes to income, stimulus...
what do we have today? Money going offshore, money going to no-bid contracts.....
I agree, on TV, including C-SPAN, we have way too much economic fiction being spewn around as fact or theory...
but what is a Progressive Economist?
To me, their are serious, unbiased economists who really know their theory, it's correct and they know their math, and there are political pundits and lobbyists throwing some "economics" around, but the math/science isn't so hot.
So, is a Progressive Economist just another version of bad math and bad econ or is a Progressive Economist one who faces economic reality and knows their facts?
Frankly, I'm not sure because I've seen agendas coming from the left too that don't make a lot of sense by the theory and numbers.
How about some sane and competent economists who know how to ply their craft?
Oops, they are all working for the Fed and when some topic popped us that isn't politically correct, they stay away.
A lot was given up in favor of "tax incentives". The other issue is how well was the original proposal drafted - the Obama Administration had three months to craft a proposal. New Yorker article said that Christine Romer's economic model was saying the stimulus needed to be much bigger closer to trillion but that was rejected.
I think some graphs, analysis, data is in order on this one because relying on opinion in Bloomberg probably isn't too wise to try to figure out what's happening.
While it's clear the big banks are being outrageous and not lending, esp. to small business, which exposes another TARP purpose lie, they do need these loans and possibly tax breaks...
but I think your overall point that we need to increase demand is probably the overriding factor in small business failure.
No orders, no sales, no workers, no money. But small business does really need temporary loans for cash flow purposes.
What came to my mind was how we cannot get investment in America. That's frightening to me in what is says about the views of the future of America.
On 11/17/09 CNN Money.com carried an article by Catherine Clifford: “Small business loans: $10 billion evaporates. Reports to the Treasury confirm what small business owners have known all year: Banks are cutting back on Main Street lending” - describing and discussing the credit plight of small business.
The following day, economist blogger David Goldman posted an article “It’s Still the worst Deflation in US History” wherein he notes that “35% of Americans work (worked) for enterprises with fewer than 100 employees and 20% work (worked) for firms with fewer that 20 employees.”
For years, talk radio host have characterized ‘small business as the backbone of our economy’ and increasingly many others seem to think the panacea for the current ‘slump’ is calling for relief to small business in terms of tax breaks and other forms of ‘stimulus’.
However, it seems to me, that this concept of small business as an independent component of the economy separate from ‘big business’ is not only mistaken but raises to the level (at least on talk radio) to mythology. It fails to take into consideration the FACT that in our economy small businesses are totally dependent on big business.
For example, if one see a large construction project such as a factory or high rise office building being built, there may well be 100’s of workers. However, the sub-contracting system of the construction industry results in all the workers working for small business enterprises. The general contractor will only employ a few managers and clerks. The work is done by tradespersons working for less than a 100 employee trade specialty companies (mason, electricians, etc).
However, none of these small construction businesses would be working if it were not for a large business (e.g. Kodak, GM, etc) that is having the structure built.
Another example, in my home town there was an industrial park that consisted of dozens of small (less than 100 workers) machining shops and suppliers of materials to those shops. But, virtually all the work done in those shops were contracts from Kodak, GM, Xerox, etc. When those large companies stopped growing most of the small companies went out of business.
In sum, I think, the small business meme is just another media event and has little to do with the reality of were we are and were we are going. What good are loans and tax breaks going to do for small businesses if there are no large businesses buying their goods and services?
Also, why would banks loan money to a small business unless they can show cash flow. And, cash flow to small businesses on a maco national basis comes from big business. Like we use to say: 'What's good for General Motors is good for the country.' General Motors being a metaphor for big business.
I believe it to be the obligation of true progressives everywhere to pressure media to book more progressive economists in the mainstream, CORPORATE media, which tends only to consider the points of view of Washington insiders heavily promoted by the usual politically connected, well - funded think tanks.
Please, to everyone frequenting this site, I urge you to do the same. Contact C-Span at : viewer@c-span.org
I operate employment and training programs in a county just north of Detroit. Here is my take on what is going on.
The state is broke. It is slashing money to schools. They are privatizing, laying off, taking pay cuts, and destroying more "good" jobs as we speak. Schools don't need repair and maintenance money, they need money for staff and books.
The local county welfare office is swamped, and they are getting cut 40%. Before the cut, people can't get case loads opened (money, medicaid or food stamps) for months. They have a data base that should be blown up, and whoever built it ought to be fired. It takes eight hours to open ONE case file. Meanwhile, the stupid TANF program is still operating and demanding a participation rate of 30 hours a week, which must be "documented" in 15 minute increments. Referrals to the program are skyrocketing while the funding for it just got a 30% cut.
Obama and others don't seem to have a clue "who" the displaced worker is, let alone in Michigan. He thinks Reagan is still laying off plant workers from 30 years ago when in reality the majority are white collar with two Master degrees in a technical field, perhaps a PhD. Public works wants to give everybody a shovel. Green jobs wants to give everybody a hair drier and a piece of plastic, while it ships the high skill jobs to India. Building bridges and roads is fine, but a jobs program needs to be broader so that talent that is being casted aside from the last bastion of US manufacturing to be offshored, US autos, can be used in the schools and local governments. CETA PSE under Jimmy Carter did just that. They got a wage and the standardized benefits of the institution where they were placed. Yea, yea, Reagan and the Republicans said it had problems, but what else would "they" say. This is how DC kills a jobs program. First you demonize it, so when you kill it, "they had it coming".
Michigan is training, training, training for jobs that don't exist. The only saving grace in all of that training is that we are completing degrees, including grad degrees, which no one will be able to take away from the people. However, it still doesn't create a job, and the rules, paperwork, and red tape are beyond frickin believe. Obama's USDOL is the worst. We spend more time proving what we are doing than doing it. Even applicant demographics (age, birth date, selective service registration, public assistance, veteran status, citizenship/legal other to name a few), must be proved and requires applicants to provide us with "specified" documents so their file can "pass" an audit, IF pulled. Heaven help the person who can't find their birth certificate. Eligibility for services is another farce. I mean after all, we wouldn't want to train the "wrong American". I keep asking why job training can't have some of that Haliburton/bank bailout money. You know. The kind you can throw off the back of a pick up truck in duffle bags in the middle of the night, or the kind that gets spent so fast you simply don't have time to write down where it got spent.
What we need is an industrial policy that creates high wage, high skilled jobs and KEEPS them here. The biggest stimulus and economic boost would have been passing tax funded single payer health care. Assuming the cost of health care would have made companies, states, schools, and local governments immediately solvent. Entrepreneurs would start falling out of trees.
Another stimulus is just jury rig and more money down the drain. If this administration can't do anything of value, who needs it. They are just driving up the deficit and making us even more vulnerable to the Chinese. Even John Stewart make fun of Obama's "submission" to China.
a) a massive wall of liquidity just finding a safe home.
To which I reply: 1) that doesn't explain why it is purchasing a money-losing investment if the economy is good, 2) if there is that much extra money out there then shouldn't they be worried about inflation, instead of buying an investment that only makes sense in deflation?
b) it's window dressing for year-end.
To which I reply, how is a money-losing investment helping that? If there was a bunch of great investments out there in the stock market, or building factories, or whatever, wouldn't that be where the money would be going?
None of that bullsh*t makes any sense. Something is seriously wrong, and they are trying to sell you a line of crap. You don't have to be very smart to realize that.
I watched the hearings and it passed in committee. But I thought in terms of the full house it has to now go to the floor, more debate, amendments.
I don't know what is completely in it...I watched the hearings and saw both of Ron Paul/Alan Grayson's amendments passed....quickly! by voice vote but in terms of giving the Fed more super regulatory power, what's going on with the fact all of these regulatory agencies as are, failed, the huge, drive a truck through it derivatives loophole and so on, I don't know the status at the moment.
This is pretty cool on the audit the Fed...finally something both sides can agree on! I'm also shocked they decided to do it.
Of LBJ, legislation had some imagination, even if he was using the template of FDR. The War on Poverty had promise (Job Corps, VISTA, and Community Action Programs), but was never adequately funded thanks to the other war in Southeast Asia. The Vietnam war had scale, while the war on poverty became just another agency with political jobs (remember Rumsfeld under Nixon?). Yes, there were scandals (Blackstone Rangers in Chicago) in the War on Poverty but it did have some political genius in its origins. It just lacked vision, plus the unemployment rate wasn't high enough for Nixon, so it became just another extension of the White House. Nixon was a deficit hawk, except in election year (1972). Bush II made him look like a piker with the amounts he dumped into Iraq -- instead of Blackstone Rangers, Blackwater and KBR got the largesse. The leaders of Blackstone Rangers went to the slammer because they couldn't account for a few million dollars of anti-poverty money, but they would have made out like bandits in Iraq, where huge shrink-wrapped packages of $100 bills became non-accountable. I have gotten away from my original point, which was to suggest that LBJ (minus the Vietnam war) could have found a way to spend enough to put people to work rebuilding America in a smart way. Yes, there would also be inflation -- which is what the Fed dearly hopes for today -- but people like Boone Pickens would find in LBJ a man ready to listen to their ideas and put America back to work.
Frank T.
There's a good quote in this article.
So a big part of the reason that short-term interest rates are being crushed is enormous demand by foreign central bankers who don't want our long-dated bonds. It's a matter of central bankers reducing dollar risk.
Take a stroll through the malls and shopping centers. Small stores closed and big chains flanked by empty shops. Mom and pop operations staying afloat because family labor supplements cash flow. The most successful restaurant in my town is a Greek place where two people can have a great meal for $40, and employees (mostly Greek, no doubt many family) work at such a quick pace and seem to love it. A block away, things are very slow. Wal-Mart? Sam's Club? These places are thriving, thanks in part to people on Social Security who can afford to work for minimum wage. On the other hand, the lines at the supermarket we frequent are not so long these days. I look for local indicators and to me, it's how many small businesses are still able to stay open.
If banks aren't lending, maybe we should ask the Federal Reserve to extend their "Lender of Last Resort" function to America's small businesses. With their cost of capital, they could certainly come up with better rates than the commercial banks, whose cost of capital is also low.
Frank T.
Yup! DeFazio is THE REAL DEAL...no doubt about that.
His record speaks for itself -- not one who claims one thing but votes completely differently!
I do disagree somewhat that the Fed was bailing out the world. What appears more likely is that they were working to continue the USD as the reserve currency of the planet.
Let's see how much longer that works out. And foreign currency swaps are normally for currency arbitrage -- same reasoning.
You've written one but there are a host of economists, economics blogs, etc. pushing for some sort of direct jobs program, along the lines of the CCC, New Deal.
Maybe I should round up all of the proposals I've been reading and present them in one blog post.
Or you could, but to me the mantra should be jobs, jobs, jobs.
Yes, it's probably already committed. Now, keep in mind the bulk of the stimulus money hasn't been spent yet.
The second stimulus is totally a political matter - whether Democrats want to do something before elections which again may make for bad policy.
Bottomline: Obama should consider cleaning house with his economic team.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
and dig into it as much as I could. At the time I implied it was ineffective and that's because they had no conditions on employing U.S. citizens/perm residents and making sure funds went to U.S. companies, stayed in the U.S.
I also questioned giving funds to the same type of contractors who already wasted billions.
So, they can claim they had to "compromise" but the original bill was just "throwing money at it" and they were going by a very vague rule of thumb that 1% GDP equals 1 million jobs.
Well, I knew that was nuts. Not in today's offshore outsourcing, race to the bottom world would such a "stick your thumb in the air, throw money at it and expect jobs to be created" ratio.
They quoted that ratio over and over and I am pretty sure I wrote at the time, that is not going to hold, not without a very directed, managed, with conditions the money stays in the domestic economy and goes to income, stimulus...
what do we have today? Money going offshore, money going to no-bid contracts.....
What is a Progressive Economist?
I agree, on TV, including C-SPAN, we have way too much economic fiction being spewn around as fact or theory...
but what is a Progressive Economist?
To me, their are serious, unbiased economists who really know their theory, it's correct and they know their math, and there are political pundits and lobbyists throwing some "economics" around, but the math/science isn't so hot.
So, is a Progressive Economist just another version of bad math and bad econ or is a Progressive Economist one who faces economic reality and knows their facts?
Frankly, I'm not sure because I've seen agendas coming from the left too that don't make a lot of sense by the theory and numbers.
How about some sane and competent economists who know how to ply their craft?
Oops, they are all working for the Fed and when some topic popped us that isn't politically correct, they stay away.
A lot was given up in favor of "tax incentives". The other issue is how well was the original proposal drafted - the Obama Administration had three months to craft a proposal. New Yorker article said that Christine Romer's economic model was saying the stimulus needed to be much bigger closer to trillion but that was rejected.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
I think some graphs, analysis, data is in order on this one because relying on opinion in Bloomberg probably isn't too wise to try to figure out what's happening.
While it's clear the big banks are being outrageous and not lending, esp. to small business, which exposes another TARP purpose lie, they do need these loans and possibly tax breaks...
but I think your overall point that we need to increase demand is probably the overriding factor in small business failure.
No orders, no sales, no workers, no money. But small business does really need temporary loans for cash flow purposes.
What came to my mind was how we cannot get investment in America. That's frightening to me in what is says about the views of the future of America.
spending like a drunken sailor and they did not craft a Stimulus correctly either for job creation.
I think what they have done is stimulate the deficit hawks, the people screaming for smaller government and so on instead of stimulating job creation.
I'm really wondering if they can pass Stimulus II with some real job creation with the rest of the money. I imagine it's already committed though.
Small Business - Mythology?
On 11/17/09 CNN Money.com carried an article by Catherine Clifford: “Small business loans: $10 billion evaporates. Reports to the Treasury confirm what small business owners have known all year: Banks are cutting back on Main Street lending” - describing and discussing the credit plight of small business.
The following day, economist blogger David Goldman posted an article “It’s Still the worst Deflation in US History” wherein he notes that “35% of Americans work (worked) for enterprises with fewer than 100 employees and 20% work (worked) for firms with fewer that 20 employees.”
For years, talk radio host have characterized ‘small business as the backbone of our economy’ and increasingly many others seem to think the panacea for the current ‘slump’ is calling for relief to small business in terms of tax breaks and other forms of ‘stimulus’.
However, it seems to me, that this concept of small business as an independent component of the economy separate from ‘big business’ is not only mistaken but raises to the level (at least on talk radio) to mythology. It fails to take into consideration the FACT that in our economy small businesses are totally dependent on big business.
For example, if one see a large construction project such as a factory or high rise office building being built, there may well be 100’s of workers. However, the sub-contracting system of the construction industry results in all the workers working for small business enterprises. The general contractor will only employ a few managers and clerks. The work is done by tradespersons working for less than a 100 employee trade specialty companies (mason, electricians, etc).
However, none of these small construction businesses would be working if it were not for a large business (e.g. Kodak, GM, etc) that is having the structure built.
Another example, in my home town there was an industrial park that consisted of dozens of small (less than 100 workers) machining shops and suppliers of materials to those shops. But, virtually all the work done in those shops were contracts from Kodak, GM, Xerox, etc. When those large companies stopped growing most of the small companies went out of business.
In sum, I think, the small business meme is just another media event and has little to do with the reality of were we are and were we are going. What good are loans and tax breaks going to do for small businesses if there are no large businesses buying their goods and services?
Also, why would banks loan money to a small business unless they can show cash flow. And, cash flow to small businesses on a maco national basis comes from big business. Like we use to say: 'What's good for General Motors is good for the country.' General Motors being a metaphor for big business.
I believe it to be the obligation of true progressives everywhere to pressure media to book more progressive economists in the mainstream, CORPORATE media, which tends only to consider the points of view of Washington insiders heavily promoted by the usual politically connected, well - funded think tanks.
Please, to everyone frequenting this site, I urge you to do the same. Contact C-Span at : viewer@c-span.org
that x amount of jobs were created or saved. They should have stuck to a standard line.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
I operate employment and training programs in a county just north of Detroit. Here is my take on what is going on.
The state is broke. It is slashing money to schools. They are privatizing, laying off, taking pay cuts, and destroying more "good" jobs as we speak. Schools don't need repair and maintenance money, they need money for staff and books.
The local county welfare office is swamped, and they are getting cut 40%. Before the cut, people can't get case loads opened (money, medicaid or food stamps) for months. They have a data base that should be blown up, and whoever built it ought to be fired. It takes eight hours to open ONE case file. Meanwhile, the stupid TANF program is still operating and demanding a participation rate of 30 hours a week, which must be "documented" in 15 minute increments. Referrals to the program are skyrocketing while the funding for it just got a 30% cut.
Obama and others don't seem to have a clue "who" the displaced worker is, let alone in Michigan. He thinks Reagan is still laying off plant workers from 30 years ago when in reality the majority are white collar with two Master degrees in a technical field, perhaps a PhD. Public works wants to give everybody a shovel. Green jobs wants to give everybody a hair drier and a piece of plastic, while it ships the high skill jobs to India. Building bridges and roads is fine, but a jobs program needs to be broader so that talent that is being casted aside from the last bastion of US manufacturing to be offshored, US autos, can be used in the schools and local governments. CETA PSE under Jimmy Carter did just that. They got a wage and the standardized benefits of the institution where they were placed. Yea, yea, Reagan and the Republicans said it had problems, but what else would "they" say. This is how DC kills a jobs program. First you demonize it, so when you kill it, "they had it coming".
Michigan is training, training, training for jobs that don't exist. The only saving grace in all of that training is that we are completing degrees, including grad degrees, which no one will be able to take away from the people. However, it still doesn't create a job, and the rules, paperwork, and red tape are beyond frickin believe. Obama's USDOL is the worst. We spend more time proving what we are doing than doing it. Even applicant demographics (age, birth date, selective service registration, public assistance, veteran status, citizenship/legal other to name a few), must be proved and requires applicants to provide us with "specified" documents so their file can "pass" an audit, IF pulled. Heaven help the person who can't find their birth certificate. Eligibility for services is another farce. I mean after all, we wouldn't want to train the "wrong American". I keep asking why job training can't have some of that Haliburton/bank bailout money. You know. The kind you can throw off the back of a pick up truck in duffle bags in the middle of the night, or the kind that gets spent so fast you simply don't have time to write down where it got spent.
What we need is an industrial policy that creates high wage, high skilled jobs and KEEPS them here. The biggest stimulus and economic boost would have been passing tax funded single payer health care. Assuming the cost of health care would have made companies, states, schools, and local governments immediately solvent. Entrepreneurs would start falling out of trees.
Another stimulus is just jury rig and more money down the drain. If this administration can't do anything of value, who needs it. They are just driving up the deficit and making us even more vulnerable to the Chinese. Even John Stewart make fun of Obama's "submission" to China.
The reasons listed are:
a) a massive wall of liquidity just finding a safe home.
To which I reply: 1) that doesn't explain why it is purchasing a money-losing investment if the economy is good, 2) if there is that much extra money out there then shouldn't they be worried about inflation, instead of buying an investment that only makes sense in deflation?
b) it's window dressing for year-end.
To which I reply, how is a money-losing investment helping that? If there was a bunch of great investments out there in the stock market, or building factories, or whatever, wouldn't that be where the money would be going?
None of that bullsh*t makes any sense. Something is seriously wrong, and they are trying to sell you a line of crap. You don't have to be very smart to realize that.
Chin, on Econbrowser, has a quantitative post running the math.
here. This contradicts the earlier EPI study that said pretty much the entire trade deficit could be leveled if China floated their currency.
in a post that says....no worries....
more on negative T-bills.
I'm not sure if that means I should worry more or worry less?
I watched the hearings and it passed in committee. But I thought in terms of the full house it has to now go to the floor, more debate, amendments.
I don't know what is completely in it...I watched the hearings and saw both of Ron Paul/Alan Grayson's amendments passed....quickly! by voice vote but in terms of giving the Fed more super regulatory power, what's going on with the fact all of these regulatory agencies as are, failed, the huge, drive a truck through it derivatives loophole and so on, I don't know the status at the moment.
This is pretty cool on the audit the Fed...finally something both sides can agree on! I'm also shocked they decided to do it.
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