The U.S. has become a "Dickensian economy," former Fed vice chairman Alan Blinder writes - "the greatest place on earth to be rich but an awful place to be poor." Since 1978, nonfarm business productivity is up 86% while real compensation per hour is up just 37%. It isn't fair, and it isn't good for America, he says. [View news story]
I think I would rather be poor in America than anywhere else.
PowerShares will launch four KBW financial index ETFs Thursday including two funds that focus on yield (KBWY, KBWD), an international financial ETF (KBWX) and a Property & Casualty Insurance fund (KBWP). [View news story]
PowerShares will launch four KBW financial index ETFs Thursday including two funds that focus on yield (KBWY, KBWD), an international financial ETF (KBWX) and a Property & Casualty Insurance fund (KBWP). [View news story]
Larry Summers and the rest of Obama’s economic team have been criticized as socialists who set out to destroy the Constitution and the free enterprise system. That's pretty much what critics said about Franklin Roosevelt, NYT's Floyd Norris writes. [View news story]
The CBO says the stimulus boosted Q2 GDP by 1.7%-4.5%, lowered the unemployment rate by 0.7%-1.8% and increased the number of people employed by 1.4M-3.3M. If correct, it means the stimulus could have been the driver of all growth in the economy during the quarter. [View news story]
Ok, that's all good and dandy but that was only one shot. A shot that we had to borrow money for. In the long run was it worth the investment, did it actually jump start anything? Was it an investment or a payout?
The Fed should consider raising rates as much as 200 basis points, Raghuram Rajan says, because near-zero rates risk fanning asset bubbles or propping up inefficient companies. “Low rates are not a free lunch, but people are acting as though they are," the former IMF chief economist says. Krugman says it would be "an utter disaster." [View news story]
Mach,
The demand is non-existent and will not come back, the demand businesses once knew was funded by fraudulent and unsustainable borrowing.
Paul, I don't know what figures you are looking at but California's pension shortfall alone is over $500B, that's equal to $36,000 per household and is 29% of the state's gross state product.
Shares of for-profit schools post a second day of big declines as scrutiny of the sector's business practices grows, along with threats of new regulation. Washington Post Co. (WPO -8.8%) says proposed new regs may harm its Kaplan division; Career Education (CECO -6.6%) and Capella (CPLA -6.8%) confirm information requests from the Senate. EDMC -9.2%, DV -5.8%, ESI -5.5%, APOL -0.4%. [View news story]
Do you think they would really skip on the opportunity to pass another 2,000 pages of legislation and create tons of new bureaucratic jobs?
The Obama stimulus was “a big gamble and it doesn’t look like it’s paying off,” Joseph Stiglitz says, calling for another round of “better designed” stimulus which “needs to be focused more on returns on investment, education, infrastructure, technology." This kind of stimulus, he says, would lower the long-term debt and boost growth in the future. [View news story]
The Senate breaks an impasse on emergency Medicaid and education funding with a 61-38 cloture vote. The net effect: Sending $26B (revenue neutral, mostly paid for by cuts to food stamps) to troubled states whose governors warned of layoffs and program cuts without the funds. [View news story]
Who would be so cruel to vote against feeding the hungry come the vote in 2014.
Richard Koo explains why U.S. 2010 is a replay of Japan's lost decade: Business and consumer decisions to pay down debt rather than spend make sense on a micro level, but it traps the macro economy in a deflationary spiral. And with all the talk of budget cuts, we're making the same mistakes. [View news story]
We only have an expanding population due to immigrants, if they stop coming, the population stops expanding. Stronger domestic demand in the US is driven by debt and is not beneficial to the economy in the long run.
Paul Krugman argues that the political side of the Obama administration overruled the policy side in enacting a stimulus that was way too small to do much good. "If and when the midterms go badly," he says, "the usual suspects will say that it was because Mr. Obama was too liberal - when his real mistake was doing too little to create jobs." [View news story]
Paul Krugman argues that the political side of the Obama administration overruled the policy side in enacting a stimulus that was way too small to do much good. "If and when the midterms go badly," he says, "the usual suspects will say that it was because Mr. Obama was too liberal - when his real mistake was doing too little to create jobs." [View news story]
Redirecting money from the expiring Bush tax cuts to unemployment benefits would be a net job creator and give the economy a boost, former Fed vice chairman Alan Blinder writes. "Paying more in unemployment benefits offers the most spending bang for the budgetary buck. Extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy offers the least." [View news story]
"While the benefits may cushion the effect of job loss in groups that have the greatest difficulty in finding new employment, they also have a side effect of decreasing the incentives to search for new jobs."
Labour Economics Volume 17, Issue 4, August 2010, Pages 643-654
The U.S. has become a "Dickensian economy," former Fed vice chairman Alan Blinder writes - "the greatest place on earth to be rich but an awful place to be poor." Since 1978, nonfarm business productivity is up 86% while real compensation per hour is up just 37%. It isn't fair, and it isn't good for America, he says. [View news story]
jewishworldreview.com/...
PowerShares will launch four KBW financial index ETFs Thursday including two funds that focus on yield (KBWY, KBWD), an international financial ETF (KBWX) and a Property & Casualty Insurance fund (KBWP). [View news story]
PowerShares will launch four KBW financial index ETFs Thursday including two funds that focus on yield (KBWY, KBWD), an international financial ETF (KBWX) and a Property & Casualty Insurance fund (KBWP). [View news story]
Larry Summers and the rest of Obama’s economic team have been criticized as socialists who set out to destroy the Constitution and the free enterprise system. That's pretty much what critics said about Franklin Roosevelt, NYT's Floyd Norris writes. [View news story]
The CBO says the stimulus boosted Q2 GDP by 1.7%-4.5%, lowered the unemployment rate by 0.7%-1.8% and increased the number of people employed by 1.4M-3.3M. If correct, it means the stimulus could have been the driver of all growth in the economy during the quarter. [View news story]
The Fed should consider raising rates as much as 200 basis points, Raghuram Rajan says, because near-zero rates risk fanning asset bubbles or propping up inefficient companies. “Low rates are not a free lunch, but people are acting as though they are," the former IMF chief economist says. Krugman says it would be "an utter disaster." [View news story]
The demand is non-existent and will not come back, the demand businesses once knew was funded by fraudulent and unsustainable borrowing.
Talk is growing about a federal bailout of budget-strapped states and cities, especially their overly generous and underfunded pension plans. Eden Martin says the mere speculation of a bailout undermines local efforts at reform, suggesting the feds help municipalities fix their own affairs through loans with stringent conditions attached. [View news story]
Banco De Chile: Time for South of the Border Banking Action [View article]
Shares of for-profit schools post a second day of big declines as scrutiny of the sector's business practices grows, along with threats of new regulation. Washington Post Co. (WPO -8.8%) says proposed new regs may harm its Kaplan division; Career Education (CECO -6.6%) and Capella (CPLA -6.8%) confirm information requests from the Senate. EDMC -9.2%, DV -5.8%, ESI -5.5%, APOL -0.4%. [View news story]
The Obama stimulus was “a big gamble and it doesn’t look like it’s paying off,” Joseph Stiglitz says, calling for another round of “better designed” stimulus which “needs to be focused more on returns on investment, education, infrastructure, technology." This kind of stimulus, he says, would lower the long-term debt and boost growth in the future. [View news story]
The Senate breaks an impasse on emergency Medicaid and education funding with a 61-38 cloture vote. The net effect: Sending $26B (revenue neutral, mostly paid for by cuts to food stamps) to troubled states whose governors warned of layoffs and program cuts without the funds. [View news story]
Richard Koo explains why U.S. 2010 is a replay of Japan's lost decade: Business and consumer decisions to pay down debt rather than spend make sense on a micro level, but it traps the macro economy in a deflationary spiral. And with all the talk of budget cuts, we're making the same mistakes. [View news story]
Paul Krugman argues that the political side of the Obama administration overruled the policy side in enacting a stimulus that was way too small to do much good. "If and when the midterms go badly," he says, "the usual suspects will say that it was because Mr. Obama was too liberal - when his real mistake was doing too little to create jobs." [View news story]
Paul Krugman argues that the political side of the Obama administration overruled the policy side in enacting a stimulus that was way too small to do much good. "If and when the midterms go badly," he says, "the usual suspects will say that it was because Mr. Obama was too liberal - when his real mistake was doing too little to create jobs." [View news story]
Redirecting money from the expiring Bush tax cuts to unemployment benefits would be a net job creator and give the economy a boost, former Fed vice chairman Alan Blinder writes. "Paying more in unemployment benefits offers the most spending bang for the budgetary buck. Extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy offers the least." [View news story]
Labour Economics
Volume 17, Issue 4, August 2010, Pages 643-654