The Economic Populist
Speak Your Mind 2 Cents at a Time
Most Popular
US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, SPR at a 39 year low; oil+products supplies at an 18½ year low
- 186132 reads
Ripped Off MF Global Investors Will Never See That Money
- 42962 reads
Much Ado About Oil
- 105994 reads
Saturday Reads Around The Internets - Why Are Taxpayer Funded Infrastructure Projects Going to China?
- 29493 reads
New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
- 951299 reads
Related Content
User login
Recent comments
Poll
US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, SPR at a 39 year low; oil+products supplies at an 18½ year low
- 186132 reads
Ripped Off MF Global Investors Will Never See That Money
- 42962 reads
Much Ado About Oil
- 105994 reads
Saturday Reads Around The Internets - Why Are Taxpayer Funded Infrastructure Projects Going to China?
- 29493 reads
New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
- 951299 reads
The Golden Rule
- 1826260 reads
Will the NY Attorney General Bring Doomsday Charges Against Wall Street? If So, How Long Will He Survive?
- 1216320 reads
New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
- 950796 reads
How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?
- 362033 reads
VAT or Value Added Tax is Getting a Look in D.C.
- 345708 reads
U3 and U6 Unemployment during the Great Depression
- 321186 reads
The war on the middle class
- 315723 reads
House discusses 401k/IRA confiscation
- 314599 reads
Tax Cuts for the Rich Do Not Generate Jobs
- 279751 reads
.
Come now, comrade, dictatorship of the proletariat? You play loosely with the legacy of comrade Stalin. And if you know what's good for you, take my advice, don't play loosely with comrade Stalin.
[As an aside, and more seriously, the real Lavrenti Beria, Stalin's head of the Soviet secret police, actually said something along these lines to the head of a delegation of Poles inquiring into the disappearance of thousands of Polish officers that had been in Soviet custody in 1940. Stalin had authorized their liquidation which was subsequently carried out by Beria's operatives.]
Actually, the present model is far closer to that produced during the Great Depression by Schacht and Hitler in Germany. The model of massive public support for private capital we're now experiencing is far more akin to that typical of National Socialism than to communism. After all, that's what state capitalism is, fascism.
... current conditions and the New Deal that ToqueDeville recounted on Docudharma in Thunder From the Left - How Progressive Dissent Shaped the New Deal ...
If we were looking back on the Great Depression and the New Deal based only on the first two years of the Roosevelt Administration, we would be looking back at a flop.
It was the Second New Deal, after the 1934 mid-terms allows the New Dealers to push for reform and the progressive dissent from the left generated the political pressure to get it through that gave us:
* Emergency Relief Appropriation Act
* Public Works Administration (PWA)
* Works Progress Administration (WPA)
* Formation of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
* The Wagner Act
* Public Utility Holding Company Act
* Social Security Act
We are in a quite similar situation today.
I haven't been tracking on the latest, but what is the percentage of these option ARMS that can refinance and
1. can they now refinance at a lower home evaluation?
2. can they afford to refinance, qualify?
The new Helping Families Save Their Homes Act , I'm not sure what are the projections (if any) with this new tsunami coming at us.
This is a great post midtowng. Me likey pictures, me likey charts and graphs. Really spells out the case.
I think the guy in the Saturn commercial said it best, as the other car dealers tried to beat the Hyundai Assurance Plan (I think Ford is winning right now offering 12 months car payments- though you could have easily gotten an unemployment loan insurance rider for 36 even before all of this):
I still find the whole thing funny- why not just advertise the same insurance that most credit cards offer at a rate of 89 cents per hundred dollars borrowed?
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
And, was the liquidity dump a waste of money? Very little new lending, toxic assets and liabilities are still on the books. Nothing has changed for the financial conglomerates except accounting rules.
But if the objective is the complete destruction of the American economy, which will yield the greatest profit to those holding various credit derivative schemes, and allowing for a humongous fire sale afterwards, then everything is going according to "schedule."
Truly, we Americans deserve this situation - from the unions supporting Reagan over Carter back in '80, to the 2000 election (even though it was obviously stolen) going to Bush, when Nader ran, to the recent election going to the status quo candidates, rather than Dennis Kucinich or Cynthia McKinney.
Our economy here in Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and Alaska is more tied to the Pacific Rim than to our distant governments in Washington DC and Ontario- as economically and physically distant as the colonies were from England in 1776.
We need a federal government that reflects that.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Is this the other side of the coin? Consumption down and personal savings up.
We are still "deleveraging" and this will have a big impact on whether we have a recovery or the type of recovery.
One way to avoid this painful deleveraging would be to truly increase household incomes - not just through artificial means of tax cuts and stimulus checks.
back to the status quo. I believed in the idea and message of change and I still do but until we get rid of the same ideas that got us into this mess we are just going to maintain status quo. We will kick the ball down to the next generation to deal with the massive problems that we created.
Why don't we hear any more talk about minimizing the influence of big money and lobbyists in Washington?
Oh, yeah, the people who talked about that are in power now enjoying the fruits of power.
President Obama was right about one thing any change in this country will have to come from the bottom.
Despite this good news and "green shoot", according to Robert Reich and many others, manufacturing is a gone game, all jobs require a college degree and we should get over it.
downgrade of 90% of tranches is not the same as 90% writedown of the tranche, especially when done by the count. apples and oranges.
Given that most of these will by now be probably lvl3 accounting (mark-to-myth), the imminent downgrade is probably a non-event too.
Your article at "Yellow Brick Road" concludes with "The case for a W shaped recession":
While I agree with you that this (part of the) recession will end in 2009, and a W shaped recession with an Act 2 is very likely, it seems to me the penultimate changes you describe will be much longer in coming, perhaps over a period of 10 years. And part of that will be a realized lower standard of living for most Americans.
In any event, Welcome to EP. I think your participation here is beneficial to both blogs.
Many have lent this country a ton of money. They look at economic history and see it repeating. Everyone from pension funds to George Soros has done this "deficit hawk" thing. When Soros "attacked" the British Pound, he figured given the situatation with interest rates relative to other European nations and that of the UK, that something had to give. The BOE wanted to keep rates firm, but knew that in the long run they would have to raise them; Soros' action on the currency market merely forced their hand. Regarding bond yields, well once more in their eyes they see that spending is going up exponentially regardless what it is for. Also, they see the Fed pumping out money, plus you see new sales on government securities. For them, going by the book, rates must go up.
Now if you're an institutional investor that has purchased debentures, be it government securities or corporates, any rise in rates will hurt. Remember, rates go up, bond prices go down. If you've already purchased paper, you really don't want to see your investment go down. So what do you do? You hedge, like any smart investor would do, be it some foreign bank or Joe Schmoe. If rates go up, they're hedged against the losses on their position. Keep in mind, there are no, for example, futures contracts on corporate debt. So it gets kinda tricky.
--------------------------------------------
www.venomopolis.com
You might or might not be aware of legislation (towards end of post), to stop China currency manipulation. I noted you claimed this doesn't matter in the big scheme of things.
Care to elaborate on why you think that is? You can see the various groups pushing for this bill and they have a host of economists behind them, focused in on China, manufacturing, China PNTR and the case is compelling on why this needs to be confronted to stop China having an unfair advantage in terms of overall production costs.
Also, it's perfectly cool to cross post, promote your own main blog/newspaper, etc. the only request is that what is posted on EP can be read on EP for the most part to get the "meat" of a particular post.
I'm think about K-wave for years already and my strong individual opinion is that there is no fixed length of the K-wave.
Each season has a length of maybe 10 to 25 years, so the sum of the 4 seasons may fluctuate.
There is one argument though is that the cycle is somehow related to the human life duration, which is extending.
I've been avoiding Daily Kos, but I've found that I most often get my diaries rescued.
The idea was to build a "brand" with the EconPop series.
I'm going to put an economy tag in it.
I ran a basic OLS (Ordinary least squares) regression with stim cash as the DV and employment shrinkage as the IV.
I'm wondering how you would run a regression model for to account for the Southern/GOP factor.
I guess you could create a measure of % support (what % of reps by each state supported it.)
Don't know.
I really am digging this database that I made, because I can go through and look at the state level at changes in the labor force and employment from 12/07 to 03/09.
Which, ironically, I don't think that anyone has.
The diary I did earlier this week tried to flesh out a two recessions argument with manufacturing and construction being the falling sectors that need to be boosted before they "infect" the rest of the economy.
Later this week I want to do a diary looking at the "Creative Class" cities, and linking this up to the idea that in these areas unemployment is rising because the labor force has expanded, not because there has been employment shrinkage.
So for example Portland drags down Oregon because people are moving there without jobs, and not finding them when they show up.
So for years, the idea was make your town hip and when.
But now, these cities are continuing to see people move there. But there are no jobs to be had.
So they've really screwed themselves.
This is different from Detroit and the auto towns where the labor force is flat or falling and employment shrinkage is driving unemployment up.
Your work will be found and read here. With Big Orange, unless you are among the lucky few, your work scrolls of within the hour.
And if you don't use the tag "economy"over there, it probably won't be found anyway, even by someone looking!
Nice job, that finding really does seem perverse. Have you tried regressing by party representation, i.e., did poor Southern states get less help because their GOP members of Congress didn't ask?
Though you make a valid point regarding the timeliness of the stimulus deployment.
Due to the fact that the charts I create leave a lot to be desired and I was a very average Stats student (somehow I got lost around
),
I appreciate the time and effort in stating your premise.
I'd link to a google doc account specifically for the purpose.
so my username at gmail.
Pages