Category Archives: Unemployment Catastrophe
Let Them Eat Credit
By most counts, the U.S. economy started growing in the middle of last year. For many Americans, though, it does not feel as if the Great Recession has ended—unemployment and underemployment are still alarmingly high, and job growth is weak. … Continue reading
Great-est Depression???
This forecaster is saying something that I thought was just common sense and I mentioned a year ago or more. That is to say, without a vibrant middle class to effect the necessary 70 % consumption that represented the bulk … Continue reading
Inexcusable Delay-Another reason for a change in Washington
Senate Leaves Credit-Starved Small Biz Hanging – Los Angeles Times Small businesses desperate for government help getting loans will have to wait at least until September before Congress moves on long-awaited legislation to pay for higher loan guarantees, lower fees … Continue reading
A Scourge
Is the Unemployment Problem Cyclical or Structural? – Mark Thoma, CBS Economists define three types of unemployment: frictional, structural, and cyclical: Frictional unemployment is defined as the unemployment that occurs because of people moving or changing occupations. Demographic change can … Continue reading
CBO Propaganda
I’ve seen some eye-poppin’, credulity-stretchin’ accounts in my time. The report “The Budgetary Impact and Subsidy Costs of the Federal Reserve’s Actions During the Financial Crisis,” just released by the Congressional Budget Office, ranks with the most extreme. It claims … Continue reading
Howdy, Neighbor!
When asked what advice he would give to residents of Ashtabula County Ohio because of cutbacks in official law enforcement budgets, Judge Alfred Mackey said they should: “arm themselves. Be very careful, be vigilant, get in touch with your neighbors, … Continue reading
Sic transit America?
Flagging: a US sailor stands on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington If a week is a long time in politics, a decade is starting to look like an age in geopolitics. Comparing the America that … Continue reading
Obama’s Big Sellout
Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for … Continue reading
Another Stimulus?
By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns. A reader at Naked Capitalism asked us to respond to a recent article from the Christian Science Monitor asking Does US need a second stimulus to create jobs? Marshall Auerback has already done some … Continue reading
The Apparatchiks
The Big Government Boss isn’t going away
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” said Timothy W. Long, the chief bank examiner for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. “At the height of the economic boom, to take an aggressive supervisory approach and tell people to stop … Continue reading
Stop the ‘jobless recovery’ madness!
It’s time to stop glorifying our economic doldrums with this “jobless recovery” nonsense. Yes, the economy did grow in the third quarter, for the first time in a year. Fewer Americans are filing new claims for unemployment insurance, and giant … Continue reading
Robbing Peter to pay Paul
As political pressure has reduced the price tag of expanding coverage to below $1 trillion over ten years, many observers assumed Democrats would react by trimming financial assistance for the middle class–that is, people making between twice and four times … Continue reading
Goldman’s Pre-emptive Influence
An Inside Look at How Goldman Sachs Lobbies the Senate, by Matt Taibbi: …Later on this week I have a story coming out in Rolling Stone that looks at the history of the Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapses. The … Continue reading
The Truth About Jobs That No One Wants To Tell You
Unemployment will almost certainly in double-digits next year — and may remain there for some time. And for every person who shows up as unemployed in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey, you can bet there’s another either too … Continue reading
Unemployment numbers still point to partial recovery
Conclusion: the labor market is till weak, weaker than it should be at this point in a cyclical recovery. Unless this changes in the fall and winter, a double dip recession is going to be more likely. While the preceding … Continue reading
It’s Unemployment, Stupid!
Pittsburgh protesters demand G20 do more for jobs Forbes “We’re not going to accept a jobless recovery,” said Larry Adams, a postal worker who came from Jersey City, New Jersey, for the protest. …
Operation Rollback: Wal-Mart’s World of Business
The expansion of international “supply chains” from Asian factories to American consumers has certainly created global trade imbalances and international currency flows that are not necessarily sustainable over the long run. A readjustment of the world economy, not a slackening … Continue reading
“the short period of American triumphalism, where we dominated the global scene. That period is over”.
Stiglitz Says U.S. Economic Recovery May Not Be ‘Sustainable’ By Michael McKee Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. economy faces a “significant chance” of contracting again after emerging from its worst recession since the 1930s, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz … Continue reading
Weak prospects for recovery
Arpitha Bykere and Christian Menegatti look at U.S. job market data and provide some perspective. After severe job losses in early 2009, the pace of job losses slowed starting in April and the July numbers have brought more respite. Non-farm … Continue reading
Spain: Bleak forecast puts unemployment at 22% in 2010
In Spain: Bleak forecast puts unemployment at 22% in 2010, Edward Harrison relates that the recovery in Spain will be later than elsewhere in Europe because of the extent of deleveraging, and unemployment will continue to rise.
“Increasingly, the determination of when to default is not guided by the moral question: Is this the right thing to do? It is guided by the pragmatic concern: Am I too far underwater on my mortgage?”
Walking Away When You Can Pay By Kelsey VanOverloop Homeowners are turning to the “strategic default” — walking away from a mortgage even when there are funds available to keep paying. “Increasingly, the determination of when to default is not … Continue reading
Obama’s Economic Box
Despite the administration’s aggressive and costly economic policy initiatives, there is trouble all around. Barely six months in office, President Obama already finds himself in an economic box. For despite his aggressive and costly economic policy initiatives, the jobs market … Continue reading
Barney Frank, Chris Dodd Do Banking Back Flip
July 15 (Bloomberg) — Congress can’t make up its mind. First, legislators pushed to let banks take a rosy view of the value of some hard-hit holdings. Now, two key committee chairmen claim banks aren’t being realistic enough about the … Continue reading
The Committee to Defraud the World
To say now that ‘No one knew’ or ‘I was mistaken’ or ‘I was just doing as I was told’ is another in a series of lies and deceptions that have supported one of the greatest frauds in the history … Continue reading →