The Federal Reserve has done all it can for now to get the U.S. economy back on track. Now it's time to simply wait for it to heal.This sounds damn familiar...
"It may take some time, but we can reasonably expect to see a return to growth rates and (better) employment levels," Bernanke said. "This economic healing will take a while, and there may be setbacks along the way."
Gross domestic product growth rose at annual rate of 1.0 percent the Commerce Department said, a downward revision of its prior estimate of 1.3 percent. It also said after-tax corporate profits rose at the fastest pace in a year.As if the 1.3% was a number to cheer!
CBO also has substantially weakened its outlook for the economy compared to its January report. It now expects 2.3 percent growth in 2011 and 2.7 percent growth in 2012, compared to a January forecast of 3.1 percent growth for the year.
CBO forecasts 8.5 percent unemployment at the end of 2012, when President Obama faces reelection.A change is needed fast, 2012 will not come soon enough.
Nearly 15% of the U.S. population relied on food stamps in May, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.He is still only half way there...
Growth in gross domestic product -- a measure of all goods and services produced within U.S. borders - rose at a 1.3 percent annual rate. First-quarter output was sharply revised down to a 0.4 percent pace from a 1.9 percent increase.No more love for Barry?
But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is devising a sham that will never pass muster in the House. A Capitol Hill source with knowledge of the plan tells me: “It includes $1.2 trillion in OCO [Overseas Contingency Operations] savings . . . which was assumed anyway, $1.2 trillion (over $1.1 trillion less than [Majority Leader Eric] Cantor identified in the Biden talks) and $300 billion in interest savings.” A Senate aide says dryly that Reid “has about a trillion in ‘savings’ from ending the war in Iraq that’s already going to end.” And a disgusted House adviser bluntly tells me that Reid’s plan “isn’t real.”Now is the time the House needs to put some teeth into their strength. If Boehner lets any debt cap deal go until after next years election it is a huge mistake, and it appears he knows that.
White House Is Making Political Argument “Wrapped In Economic Clothing.” “Look, to my eye this has all been political. The desire to get to 2013 can get wrapped in economic clothing but it’s fundamentally a political argument. The president doesn’t want to talk about his record of debt between now and the election and everyone knows that. They had a deal. And the deal was sitting there, waiting to be taken, and at the moment when they could get the deal they pushed for more taxes, which is a political argument at the expense of less entitlement reform, which is the substantive problem.”Obama, Reid and Pelosi own this debt. Screw em! Let him eat his own damn peas...
Putting pressure on an already lousy job market, the mass layoff is making a comeback. In the past week, Cisco, Lockheed Martin and Borders announced a combined 23,000 in job cuts. (See:Another Retailer Bites the Dust: Borders Doomed by Amazon Deal, Davidowitz Says)
Those announcements follow 41,432 in planned cuts in June, up 11.6% from May and 5.3% vs. a year earlier, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.Winning the future...
Speaking at a fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee in Massachusetts she told of his total dedication to the job and told how she worries about the increasing number of lines on his face.She needed to use a teleprompter for that?
“My job over these first two years has frankly been to clean up a big mess,” Mr. Obama said at a $10,000-per-ticket event at a gated mansion in Miami Beach. “We were able to make sure we yanked an economy out of what could have been a second Great Depression.”And a fine job he did to.
In February 2009, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that 141.7 million people were employed. By the end of May 2011 – the last month for which data are available – that number had fallen to 139.8 million, a difference of 1.9 million.The numbers tell a different story...
Politics virtually guarantee that the global economy won't go into crisis in 2011. Politics make it extremely unlikely that the global economy will slow down as much as the market seems to fear. Politics, in fact, put a safety net under the global economy this year.
And politics also virtually guarantee another, deeper crisis in 2012 or 2013. I'd bet 2013.We can't have a total meltdown until Barry leaves office now can we?
By 2013, no matter how the election goes, the Federal Reserve will be under almost unbearable pressure to reduce its balance sheet and raise interest rates. That's when global bond markets will really pressure the United States to come up with a plan -- at the least -- for reducing its budget deficit over the long term.My gut says it will be before 2013...
The U.S. is approaching a financial crisis worse than 2008, Jim Rogers, chief executive, Rogers Holdings, warned CNBC Wednesday.
"The debts that are in this country are skyrocketing," he said. "In the last three years the government has spent staggering amounts of money and the Federal Reserve is taking on staggering amounts of debt.
"When the problems arise next time…what are they going to do? They can’t quadruple the debt again. They cannot print that much more money. It’s gonna be worse the next time around.All on three now...Barack Hussein Obama mmm, mmm, mmm!
There are several reasons why I’m convinced Obama is bound to lose the 2012 election. To begin with, the curtain has been pulled back on the Wizard of Malarkey, and millions of suckers have seen with their own eyes that “Hope and Change” was just more of the same old political hokum. And in 2012, Obama’s campaign won’t have the historical significance that it did in 2008, when he was campaigning to be the first black president in U.S. history.
About 6.2 million Americans, 45.1 percent of all unemployed workers in this country, have been jobless for more than six months - a higher percentage than during the Great Depression.How can any fair minded person with an IQ over 9 not call this a failure?
Squeezed on both sides by stagnant wages and rising prices, consumers believe the chances of bringing home more money one year from now are at their lowest in 25 years, according to analysis of survey data by Goldman Sachs.The squeeze is far from over....
Real hourly wages have dropped 2.1 percent on an annualized basis over the past six months, a rate of decline not seen in 20 years, according to Goldman.Welcome back Carter....
“I am much more concerned that the second half resurgence we all expect never arrives and by early 2012 we are in a recession,” said Joe Terranova, chief market strategist for Virtus Investment Partners and a ‘Fast Money’ trader.And it only took a few trillion in new debt to accomplish this....
Stocks plunged, losing more than 1%, as disappointing manufacturing and jobs data triggered concerns about the health of the recovery.There is no recovery, there has been no recovery, there will be no recovery until Barry is replaced....
"Higher gasoline may be making potential home buyers a bit cautious. It is signaling further weakness in housing, but we do expect housing to turn around later this year. It just hasn't happened yet."Its always good to stay positive...I guess.
But there’s a catch. The quality of the jobs the U.S. is creating right now in terms of pay, benefits, hours, and skills leaves a lot to be desired. The problem is not only the depth of the recession and the sluggishness of the recovery. It also reflects the changing structure of the U.S. economy, as more manufacturing operations shift to overseas locations, while service businesses, which often pay much less, take a more dominant role in job creation.The tax code in this country encourages companies to manufacture overseas, couple that with overpaid union wages and we have a McDonald's economy. Not to disparage Mickey D's, I personally dine there on occasion, but those jobs are not meant to sustain a economy.
